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newmusickarl · 27 days ago

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Top 50 Albums of 2024: #30-21

30. A Dream Is All We Know by The Lemon Twigs

Last year, Everything Harmony from The Lemon Twigs finished at 35 on my year-end countdown. However, since revisiting the D��Addario brothers’ instant classic several times in the last year and it just getting better with every spin - as well as seeing them live for the first time in October - it’s an album that would definitely place higher if I were to redo that list again now. This year though, The Lemon Twigs go five places better with A Dream Is All We Know and this time around, the placing feels right.

While Everything Harmony just edges it still for me, The Lemon Twigs have to be commended for returning a year after that superb album with another excellent, timeless-sounding opus. Named as our Album of the Month once again back in May, it continues everything that was great about its predecessor, with big nods once again to the music of The Beatles and The Beach Boys. From infectious lead single My Golden Years to the charming How Can I Love Her More? and Status Quo-emulating Rock On (Over and Over), it’s a fun and joyous collection of songs that you can’t help but love.

The big question is now – can The Lemon Twigs keep their winning streak going with another album in 2025? I guess we will wait and see!

Best tracks: How Can I Love Her More?, Peppermint Roses, Church Bells

Listen here

29. Clouds In The Sky, They'll Always Be There For Me - Porridge Radio

Although an album I haven’t officially reviewed this year for either the podcast or the blog, I have been absolutely infatuated with this the latest offering from Porridge Radio, the Brighton rock band led by Dana Margolin, ever since its release back in October.

A band I discovered through their great Mercury Prize nominated sophomore effort Every Bad, Porridge Radio just seem to get better with every new release. Their previous effort – the exceptional Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky – may have finished slightly higher, landing in my Top 20 of 2022, but believe me - this latest record edges even its predecessor.

Born out of burnout, lost love and intense bouts of self-loathing, Clouds In The Sky… is understandably a dark and melancholic experience at times, but it is also lifted by some cathartic choruses and soaring instrumentation. From hard break-up number and one of the songs of the year, God of Everything Else, to the soft, spellbinding sounds of Pieces of Heaven and everything else in-between, this is an album that will make you feel something deep in your core at every single turn.

Best tracks: God of Everything Else, Pieces of Heaven, A Hole In The Ground

Listen here

28. Girl With No Face by Allie X

One of the biggest surprises of 2024 - an album I picked for our February podcast simply based on enjoying Allie X’s previous album Cape God back in 2021, Girl With No Face has turned out to be one of the best art-pop records of the whole year.

If you have been enjoying the music of Chappell Roan and Charli XCX in 2024 but have yet to get round to this one, you need to correct that immediately. Billed superbly by Apple Music as New Order and Kraftwerk meets Madonna and Lady Gaga, its pop music built in the electronic music world. This is evident on incredible lead single Black Eye, which is how I imagine Kate Bush would sound if she was performing New Order’s Blue Monday.

It's one standout on an album of many, which also includes the medieval stylings of Off With Her Tits, a genius track focussing on self-acceptance and gender identity, and the Eurovision-esque Galina, which is an ode to a revolutionary eczema cream manufacturer. No, you didn’t misread that – it is indeed what the song is about!

This type of quirkiness runs deep within Girl With No Face and it is what has made this album such a joy to revisit over and over again since it dropped back in early February. The sound of an artist hitting their creative stride!

Best tracks: Black Eye, Off With Her Tits, Girl With No Face

Listen here

27. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands

One of my most anticipated records of the year and one that did not disappoint. Baltimore synth-pop outfit Future Islands served up their incredible seventh studio album all the way back in January - People Who Aren’t There Anymore - a record that I’m pleased to say delivered on its early promise. Playing out almost like greatest hits record at times, the more I spun it throughout the year the more it quickly became my favourite record of theirs – which given their discography is saying something!

Capped off by seeing them live for the first time at Live at Leeds back in May, here’s what I had to say in my review for Clash back at the start of the year:

“Whilst ‘People Who Aren’t There Anymore’ ultimately isn’t an album that breaks the Future Islands mould, it’s hard to hold that against them. This is their sound, and they prove here they can still do it better than any of their peers. And whilst the sonic evolution from their previous work may only be subtle shifts, the biggest change comes with the band leaning on personal stories this time around rather than more observational lyricism. Most importantly though Future Islands’ fans will find plenty to love with this album, with some of the songs here already instant favourites and others feeling like some of the best, most fully realised of their career thus far.”

Best tracks: King of Sweden, Deep In The Night, Say Goodbye

Listen here

Read my full review for Clash Magazine here

26. In Lieu of Flowers by Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties

The final part of a trilogy that had been a decade in-the-making and the brainchild of The Wonder Years’ frontman Dan Campbell, there were few better alt-rock records in 2024 than In Lieu of Flowers.

Blending all my favourite genres of music into one unique, heartfelt sound, Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties served up an incredible collection of songs that are as sonically satisfying as they are lyrically moving. On this record, you’ll find elements of indie, folk, Midwest-emo and even a dash of pop-punk too, while Campbell spins beautifully written stories of heartbreak, touring life and battles with the American Healthcare system.

Full of passionate vocals, delicate orchestration and anthemic choruses made to be sung full lung, every single song on here can be considered highlight. From the acoustic-angst of Roman Candles, the bluesy waltz of Whiplash and the triumphant burst of horns on the album’s title track, this is another highly acclaimed 2024 record that rightfully deserved all the praise in the world.

A truly captivating third act in what has been a sublime trilogy of albums – here’s hoping there is still more to come!

Best tracks: Paying Bills At the End of the World, In Lieu of Flowers, Alone At St. Luke’s

Listen here

25. Cartoon Darkness by Amyl and the Sniffers

Back in 2021, Aussie punk outfit Amyl and the Sniffers would finish in my Top 10 Albums of the Year thanks to their blistering sophomore record, Comfort To Me. While their new album places a bit further back this time around, the chances are if you loved Comfort To Me like I did, you’ll certainly love Cartoon Darkness as well.

Their latest album is mostly more of the same but in the best way possible, with the band doubling down on their straight-talking, in-your-face lyrics and face-melting guitar solos. Not a single moment is spared as the band shred their way through highlights such as stomping lead single U Should Not Be Doing That, the X-rated Jerkin’ and the impressive full-throttle riffs from Declan Mehrtens on Motorbike Song.

There is also at least one moment that suggests progression too with Big Dreams. It’s a more mellow moment with a terrific vocal performance from enigmatic frontwoman Amy Taylor, where she invites the listener into her apathetic internal monologue about being fed up and wanting more out of life.

Overall though, just another fantastic record from the Aussie quartet, one that looks at the state of the modern world and then violently spits it back out in these thirteen brutally honest, no frills punk tracks. A deserving winner of our October Album of the Month title!

Best tracks: U Should Not Be Doing That, Big Dreams, Motorbike Song

Listen here

24. Where’s My Utopia? By Yard Act

While I enjoyed The Overload upon release, the Mercury Prize-nominated debut album from Leeds post-punk outfit Yard Act, it was an album I went off quite quickly. So much so, it didn’t even make my year-end list in 2022.

Wrongfully writing them off as a flash in the pan, soon to be lost in the rapid oversaturation of the post-punk genre, I didn’t really have high expectations going into their second album, Where’s My Utopia, back in March. Thankfully, the record marked a noticeable sonic shift for the band and is an improvement on its predecessor in every single way.

With this record maintaining Yard Act’s witty, observational lyrics but musically seeing them be much more explorative and adventurous, Where’s My Utopia has been a delight to experience all year round. Blending elements of pop, soul, disco and funk into their classic post-punk palette, this one is an ambitious and enjoyable rollercoaster ride. From the super catchy We Make Hits, the Pulp-esque The Undertow through to the Katy J Pearson and David Thewlis featuring bop When The Laughter Stops, it is just an absolute blast from start to finish.

Successfully breaking free of their post-punk mould, this album was a big sonic evolution from Yard Act that impressed all of us on the podcast back in March, and has personally left me incredibly intrigued to see where they go next.

In short, it’s Ace! Top! Mint! Boss! Class! Sweet! Deece! Not bad!

Best tracks: Dream Job, When the Laughter Stops, The Undertow

Listen here

23. Foxing by Foxing

With Foxing’s last record Draw Down The Moon finishing well within my Top 20 for the year back in 2021, I certainly expected good things from this self-titled record. But even then, I don’t think I was prepared for this colossus of an album from the American post-rock/emo outfit.

Back in September, Foxing delivered easily one of my favourite first spins all year, knocking me for a loop straight away with their much heavier sound and ambitious scope. The record is a natural step forward from Draw Down The Moon, with Foxing finessing the experimentation from that record for an album that feels fully realised and more assured.

From the aggressive stomps, whirring synths and violent screams of Hell 99, through to the dreamy, synth-soaked 8-minute odyssey that is Greyhound, Foxing try their hand at everything here and the result is never anything less than scintillating. This is captured perfectly in album highlight Gratitude, which sees Conor Murphy deliver an outstanding vocal performance amidst a glorious barrage of static instrumentation.

Without a doubt one of my favourite heavy records of the year, Foxing delivered a masterfully crafted and eclectic sonic thrill-ride with this self-titled, which also ranks right up there with their very best work.

Best tracks: Gratitude, Hell 99, Greyhound

Listen here

22. Filthy Underneath by Nadine Shah

Whilst everyone was going through their own personal turmoil during the last few years, much revered musician Nadine Shah was going through a particularly tumultuous time. Not long after releasing her 2020 album Kitchen Sink, Nadine would tragically lose her cancer-stricken mother during the height of the COVID-pandemic. Locked in isolation with her grief, Nadine entered a downward spiral that would play out over the next two years, with heavy substance abuse leading to depression, divorce and even an attempt to take her own life in 2022. Thankfully Nadine survived, agreeing to enter rehab where she would get the help and support she desperately needed.

Now out of rehab, substance-free and most importantly finding her happiness again, Nadine thankfully returned with new album Filthy Underneath earlier this year - and it is just an absolute tour de force from beginning to end. Playing out almost like a cathartic exorcism of all the demons that have plagued her the last few years, Filthy Underneath is the sound of Nadine laying everything bare for the listener. Brutally raw, deeply personal and gracefully honest, the heavy lyrical inspiration for each track is carefully balanced with liberating, synth-drenched and rhythmic instrumentation, with the live-sounding production adding a theatrical touch to proceedings too.

While it’s an album best experienced as a complete work from start to finish, there are a few standout moments here too. None more so than Greatest Dancer, a song where Nadine recalls getting high on her mum’s prescription medicine in front of an episode of Strictly Come Dancing, with pulsating synths reverberating and tribal drums pounding away as she recounts her feelings in that moment. Sad Lads Anonymous is another high point, a poetic spoken word confessional that sees Nadine describe her woes to a work experience kid in an awards show bathroom. Both these tracks present the whole album as a microcosm, filled with sounds that draw you in and make you want to dance, whilst the stories at the core are quite dark and harrowing. It all eventually culminates in the album’s hardest moment, French Exit, an ominously tense track on which Nadine openly confronts her suicide attempt. It’s a truly devastating end to an utterly enthralling record.

It’s no secret that often the darkest times can produce the greatest art. Filthy Underneath is a testament to that, with Nadine bravely and openly sharing her story as both a lesson to others but also, no doubt, her own personal catharsis. Shocking and upsetting at points yet always refreshingly honest and completely captivating, this is without a doubt one of the most powerful albums released all year.

Best tracks: Greatest Dancer, Sad Lads Anonymous, See My Girl

Listen here

21. The New Sound by Geordie Greep

Momentarily going back to my Honourable Mentions blog where I shared the basic criteria I look at when choosing my Albums of the Year, you’ll notice point three: showed ambition or had something unique to offer. Now, if I judged these 2024 albums on that basis alone, there would arguably be one clear winner - this spellbinding solo debut from Black Midi’s Geordie Greep.

Having raised eyebrows with the out-of-the-blue announcement of Black Midi’s demise, the concern quickly turned to rapturous applause as The New Sound instantly became one of the most critically acclaimed records of 2024 – and for good reason too.

Fusing prog-rock with jazz and plenty of theatrical flair, The New Sound makes for a dazzling and dramatic hour-long listen. From the vintage swing of Terra to the Steely Dan-inspired lead single Holy Holy, through to album highlights such as the punky Motorbike, 12-minute epic The Magician and the waltzing finale of If You Are But A Dream, The New Sound is a breathtaking masterclass in inventive genre-fusion.

Weird, wonderful and completely unique, The New Sound is no doubt far too out-there for some listeners to stomach. But for those with the patience to fully process the wild musical arrangements they are hearing, Geordie Greep’s music will no doubt leave you astounded.

Best tracks: Holy Holy, As if Waltz, Motorbike

Listen here

The Albums of the Year countdown is nearing its conclusion - up next is the penultimate part, highlighting albums #20-11!

#new music #best new music #albums of the year #album recommendation #album of the year #aoty #albums of 2024 #best of 2024 #geordie greep #the lemon twigs #foxing #nadine shah #amyl and the sniffers #yard act #allie x #future islands #porridge radio

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schiff0rd · 2 years ago

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I’ve been OBSESSED with the idea of trent having a football podcast post canon so here’s what I came up with:

trent’s a guest at a friend’s podcast to promote his book and he has fun and gets him thinking about the future

he writes pieces for some online websites and writes his own stuff for the podcast. It's something he really enjoys and allows him to have more time with his daughter

Ted never leaves for Kansas obvs (I mean, he does for the summer as he always did, but then comes back with Henry and Michelle -who broke up with the doctor guy)

Tedependent have started secretly seeing each other and don’t feel ready to go public yet. While dealing with the press for his book, Trent is working on the idea of the podcast and whenever he has some free time he writes down ideas on topics and starts writing the script for the first episode.

Ted offers to be his first guest but Trent declines and says he wants to do this on his own and that maybe in the future he will have Ted on.

the podcast is a big hit and they start doing merch (Keeley’s idea), live recorded events (interviews mostly) and what not

trent is mostly interested in telling stories rather than analysing tactics (although he does sometime do a deep dive in more technical topics)

I also came up with a mock fake website because I was bored (putting it under the cut cause it’s long)

#trent crimm #ted lasso #james lance #I am slowly going insane #I can feel my sanity slipping away

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galwednesday · 10 months ago

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This week's deep dive rec is an episode of the Lingthusiasm podcast, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics, on Connecting with oral culture:

For tens of thousands of years, humans have transmitted long and intricate stories to each other, which we learned directly from witnessing other people telling them. Many of these collaboratively composed stories were among the earliest things written down when a culture encountered writing, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Mwindo Epic, and Beowulf. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about how writing things down changes how we feel about them. We talk about a Ted Chiang short story comparing the spread of literacy to the spread of video recording, how oral cultures around the world have preserved astronomical information about the Seven Sisters constellation for over 10,000 years, and how the field of nuclear semiotics looks to the past to try and communicate with the far future. We also talk about how “oral” vs “ written” culture should perhaps be referred to as “embodied” vs “recorded” culture because signed languages are very much part of this conversation, where areas of residual orality have remained in our own lives, from proverbs to gossip to guided tours, and why memes are an extreme example of literate culture rather than extreme oral culture.

I'm about the same age as the hosts and remember the same shift in gossip from an oral culture ("did you hear what so-and-so said to so-and-so at that party") to a written culture ("let me show you this screenshot of what so-and-so posted"), which I had never thought about in that way before and haven't stopped thinking about since. If you're interested in linguistics, I recommend the whole podcast archives, but this episode in particular is great for anyone with an interest in storytelling.

#wednesday deep dives #linguistics #storytelling

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the-conversation-pod · 1 year ago

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Comfort Food

Japan is leaning into its cozy heartwarming bona fides and we’re liking what it’s giving. We'll discuss an amnesia show and two different food shows. Please eat before you watch any of these shows or you'll be so hungry.

Ben and NiNi discuss the Japanese BLs Jack o' Frost, Our Dining Table (Bokura no Shokutaku), and Naked Dining (Zenra Meshi).

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Google Podcasts

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond to chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

0:00 - Welcome 1:15 - Intro 2:01 - Jack o' Frost 23:40 - Our Dining Table (Bokura no Shokutaku) 48:00 - Naked Dining (Zenra Meshi) 1:02:50 - The J-BL Victory Lap and the Food BL Flop

The Conversation: Now With Transcripts!

We received an accessibility request to include transcripts for the podcast. We are working with @ginnymoonbeam on providing the transcripts and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes. When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

0:00 - Welcome

Nini

Hello, hello! Your QL fandom aunty and uncle are here with giant sunglasses, brown liquor in a flask, a folded five-dollar bill to slip into your hand when no one is looking, lukewarm takes, occasional rides on the discourse, deep dives into artistry and the industry.

Ben

Lots of simping! I’m Ben.

Nini

I’m Nini.

Ben

And this is The Conversation. About once a season, we plan to swan in and shoot the shit on faves, flops, and trends that we’ve been noticing in the BL, GL, or QL Industry. Between seasons, you can find us typing way too many words on Tumblr.

1:15 - Intro

Ben

This spring Japan continued to lean into its cozy, heartwarming bona fides, and we're liking what it’s giving! This particular week, we'll be talking about Jack o’ Frost, Our Dining Table, and Naked Dining. As with everything in this season, Nini and I recorded our initial reactions to these shows either a week ago or months ago, and we're going to append our final thoughts to the end of this. So, sit back, listen to us talk about how Japan continues to demolish all of our hearts, and we'll see you on the other side.

Nini

Demolish indeed. Catch y'all on the flip.

2:01 - Jack o’ Frost

Nini

So, Jack o' Frost. Ben, what is Jack o’ Frost about?

Ben

Jack o' Frost is about a couple in about their mid-twenties that is falling apart but gets a second chance because one of them has an amnesia incident, and cannot remember anything related to their partner. The show unpacks the amnesia trope itself as a sort of perverted version of second chance romance, as a way to force the characters to examine some of the rigidity with which they've viewed their lines when it comes to other people.

We begin at a birthday party. Ikegami Fumiya—he's a salary man and he's been living with his boyfriend, Okusawa Ritsu, who is an artist or illustrator. For whatever reason he suggests they break up during this birthday party. Ritsu gets upset and leaves. Fumiya doesn't hear from him, and then the little brother calls him the next morning because he was hit in the head and seemed dazed. Over the course of the first episode we come to understand that Ritsu doesn’t remember Fumiya and anything related to him, but seems to remember everything else.

And so we spend the next couple of episodes with Fumiya sort of hiding their original romance from Ritsu because he was maybe embarrassed about the fact that they had just broken up and thought he had a chance to get things right this time. Eventually this blows up in his face as things come out, but the two of them have to unpack what being apart means. And we end up seeing them come back together as Ritsu realizes that maybe he was also slightly at fault for some of these things.

This show ended up being incredibly satisfying to watch. I am deeply opposed to the amnesia romance trope. It is one of the few things in BL that is almost a hard line for me because I don't like one person knowing that much more about the other one. It always makes me uncomfortable. Nini, what did you think about Jack o' Frost?

Nini

I loved it unreservedly.

On the technical side, it hit everything that I'm looking for in a show—all four of the filmmaking markers. Like, the direction was good. The writing was good. The acting was good. The production was good. So, like, from a filmmaking standpoint it hit the mark 10 out of 10. Love the story.

I, too, I'm generally not a fan of the amnesia romance. Let me actually take that back. It's not that I am not a fan of the amnesia romance. It's usually handled badly, and here it's handled really well. First of all, it's not soapy at all. It feels at first like Ritsu’s just foggy, like he got conked on the head. He's a little disoriented. But then as the story plays out, they're teasing out, “Oh no, he really doesn't remember Fumiya,” and, like, he thought that he would remember, and then he doesn't remember, and then it comes out that he doesn't remember.

And then the way that they deal with that is surprisingly realistic. They go from realizing that he doesn't remember Fumiya, and then that's at the end of one episode, and then the beginning of the next episode they're at the doctor! I'm like, “Okay, yes! I think I can rock with this show!” That's just such a simple thing that so many shows that are doing the amnesia storyline do not do.

As much as I don't agree, of course, with Fumiya's decision to withhold information from Ritsu. And the reason that he withholds that information…I understand why he felt desperate enough to make that move—the fact that it's a deliberate move, and it's clearly elucidated to the audience that it was deliberate. And why he was doing it—I think that that was important. I think normally that wouldn't have been laid out in the way that it was laid out to the audience.

I like that you see the impetus for the breakup throughout. The first thing that you see in the show is the breakup, and you're just like, “Why is this happening like this?” And then as you go through the show, and you see Fumiya trying to re-engage with Ritsu in this idea of having a new relationship—a fresh start—but you're seeing the same things crop up in their relationship that Fumiya said were a problem when they were breaking up in the beginning. And then at the end, you come right back to seeing the entire fight and break up, then and you understand everything that happened. You understand fully why Fumiya made the decision to do what he did. You understand fully what was going on with him and Ritsu.

The way the show is constructed…I generally don't like when shows are constructed like that—when it's kind of this mystery and you have to put together the pieces, but here it really works. I really enjoyed the acting. Honda Kyoya, who plays Ritsu is incredibly good in this. The couple play that the two actors are using is good. The intimacy between them is good. The way that the intimacy develops is good.

You get the sense of things being new and old at the same time between the two of them, which I really like. It feels correct for the story. I really like the show. I gave it a 9.5. I dinged it half a point for reasons that we're going to get into as we discuss the show. But this is an excellent show—almost gave it a 10.

Ben

I ended up giving this show a 10, because most of the time, for me, the question is what's the premise, what are the conceits, and then do you deliver? And the show does. It’s an amnesia romance about a couple that broke up, and all of the reasons why they broke up, why they're still being drawn back to each other—how does the amnesia fit into this? Where do other people—all this is executed really well.

Ritsu doesn't know what's going on, but Ritsu's little brother does know and he is not okay with this at all. He makes that abundantly clear to Fumiya right away, and Fumiya says, “I'm going to tell him. Just let me sort things first.” And he reluctantly agrees because the last that Shuji knew his brother was in a long-term committed relationship with a guy who seemed pretty good. And Fumiya is a pretty good dude!

What we eventually learn is that this is likely Fumiya's first real romance in a way? Like, I get the sense that he maybe knew who he was as a queer person, but hadn't had any real meaningful connections with another person until he was with Ritsu. What happens in their relationship is they settle into a domestic life—it's going pretty well. But they're in their mid-twenties, and they're trying to pursue their professional objectives. Ritsu relies on his clientele to provide opportunities for him and this means that in a lot of ways he's always on.

Like, some of us have had that partner who is entrepreneurial in nature, and so they have to talk to clients during personal hours all the time. And that can be really frustrating because it feels like your couple time is being given up for everyone else, and it makes you feel like maybe your partner doesn't want to be with you—they'd rather be doing this other stuff. Maybe they're bored with you? And that's often the wrong way to think about it! They're working hard because they're trying to create opportunities for both of you. They want to work so that you two can do other cool things together. And, like, the show underscores that beautifully because we learned that part of what Ritsu was doing with all this money he was getting was he had…booked a vacation for them to go back to the place where they first were intimate with each other—that they had hoped they could see during a winter season instead, so that they could do other things like use the hot tub and make a bonfire, and do some other cute stuff. That's what Ritsu had done.

And, again, Fumiya has to come to terms with this because he was like, “We should be over!” And then he realized that Ritsu was doing all this romantic stuff for him. He and the audience is left to wonder, “What if he hadn't gotten hurt? Would Ritsu have come back and they would have maybe talked about what was going on and worked it out? Or did they need this…unusual opportunity to see each other properly?”

Fumiya has this fight with Ritsu. After he had done a little surprise party for him, got him a really cute cake, and the two of them have a really satisfying couch bed scene. Honda Kyoya and Suzuki Kouske did a really good job there. We get this really satisfying oner from bringing the cake over, to eating the cake, to flirting with each other, to making out on the couch. That is so impressive to watch the actors, have pre-built those emotions before we started the shot, to execute that in the single take. It is so satisfying on so many different levels.

I don't really like when intimate scenes have a lot of cuts and edits in them because there's a visceral quality to just being in the moment with the characters. I don't mind the editing when we're remembering something that happened because we edit our own memories. But when we the audience are experiencing a first time with someone I like for those to be handheld shots and long takes so that we can stay with the characters in the moment.

What eventually happens when all of this lying comes out is they break up for very valid reasons. Like, “You lied to me,” but Ritsu's memories come back. Another reason why I forgive this show for doing amnesia: the other guy gets his memories back. And now that he's been able to reconcile what was going on, he realizes that, prior to this, he was also maybe withholding something from Fumiya. Like, he doesn't tell Fumiya that he had already known who he was for far longer, and had been holding a weird little crush on him. I don't think the two things are equal, but it forces Ritsu to have an understanding about what people are doing and why.

Like, Fumiya did lie to him, but it was a lie because he was insecure, and no one could have predicted this would go down. He still cared about Ritsu the whole time. He just panicked because he was feeling like he was losing his boyfriend.

Nini

This is why I dinged the show that half point, because…I didn't like that the show felt like it equated Ritsu's withholding of the fact that he had met Fumiya once before. He just ran into him on the beach and he developed this little crush. He held onto that, and then he randomly saw this dude in a cafe and he recognized him. That's the quote-unquote “secret” that Ritsu is holding from Fumiya. It's not that I feel like the show equated the two, because I don't feel like the show equated the two. But they considered them too similarly for my comfort, which is why I dinged the show a half a point. But only a half a point because, in the end, does it really matter why Ritsu decides to forgive Fumiya? It doesn't to me. I am one of those people who believes in people having all the information and then deciding what they're going to do with it.

People make decisions about love all the time that don't make any sense. I am a person who really believes in love itself being a decision, and a decision that one should take with their eyes open. So, the fact that Ritsu now knows everything and he decides to forgive Fumiya and go back to him is all that I need personally. Like, you know all the information? You're good with this? You love this person, and this person loves you, and that's the way you feel? Good. Go with it. That's where I ended up, so I felt in a way—for me anyway—in the way that I conceive of love. The show didn't need that, which is why I only dinged it a half point.

Ben

So the reason why it works for me is the implication of the withheld knowledge about Ritsu having a crush on him before is that it implies that Ritsu had been holding back emotionally in their relationship. So Fumiya's uncertainty about where they stood was a little bit valid in that Ritsu hadn't put all of his cards on the table, and it left Fumiya feeling unsteady in their relationship.

Nini

If I squint I can see that, but I would have to squint.

Ben

That's okay, but like you said, like, it doesn't necessarily matter, but that's the way I ended up reconciling that.

I liked the way everyone knew what was going on and was encouraging them even down to Ritsu's ex encouraging Ritsu to show a little more patience with Fumiya than he showed him when they were together. Now that's growth.

Nini

I loved the relationship between Ritsu and his ex. It felt very real.

Ben

[laughs]

Nini

I have exes like that! When we broke up I hated them and I never wanted to see them again and then like years later we're friends and they're just like, “Oh, please don't do this shit with this person that you did with me. Figure it out.”

I like that his ex is like, “Yeah, I noticed that this is your boyfriend because he was glaring at me. Why did you invite me over to your house?” And then he realizes that Ritsu doesn't know that Fumiya is his boyfriend [Ben laughs] and he then he's like, “Okay I'm—I'm removing myself from this situation, but how would you go talk to this dude? I think you need to talk to this dude.”

He sees everything that's happening, and he doesn't insert himself, but he does try to gently shove Ritsu towards figuring it out for himself.

Ben

I really really appreciate how effectively the chemistry works between Suzuki and Honda here, that I genuinely believed their characters were into each other. Every single time these two characters have to do on-screen intimacy—in any way—it hits really well between, like, the flashback to the first time they, they had sex at the cabin they stayed in, to the pre-breakup makeout they had on the couch, to the gentle ways they touch each other—consider each other when they're existing in the same space together. They feel…very familiar with each other…in a way that was so satisfying for me as well.

Nini

You know I have to say it. The kissing is bad!

Ben

I think it's fine!

Nini

The intimacy is fantastic. Like I said, the couple play, the actual skinship work that they're doing—that's all incredibly good—like, you feel the heat. But the kissing is bad.

Ben

I'm [gonna] let you have it.

Nini

Okay. I need them to at least do more than, like, gently graze their lips against each other’s. [laughs]

It feels silly to kvetch about that when the intimacy is so good. I felt all the things that you're supposed to feel when you're looking at the intimacy onscreen. It feels hot. It feels close. You get all the feelings you're supposed to get…It's just that the kissing is bad, from a technical standpoint.

I'm letting it slide, and it's not my intention to…bitch about this…That's just me nitpicking. The important part of the heat and the kissing and all of that is the understanding of where these two people are in their physical relationship, and I get all of that. It doesn't make me question whether they're into each other or not. It is very clear that the two characters are extremely into each other, and that they want to touch each other, and that they want to be intimate with each other, and that they want to be around each other. It's just really me nitpicking.

Ben

I really just admired this show so much because I'm always complaining that we only ever see shows about boys getting together, and I want more shows about boys staying together. And this is a show about boys staying together! Like, in a roundabout way, ‘cause they're technically cheating by doing an amnesia plot, so they're getting together again…but fundamentally, it's a show about a couple in crisis saying, “We're probably going to still be in crisis, but I'd rather be in crisis with you than lonely without you.” I just think that's really beautiful because that's the work of a long-term relationship.

It's making the choice to choose each other constantly. Infatuation falls off. It's about trust in the long term, and that's what these two were able to finally get to with each other. Like, you have to work towards each other and decide who you want to be to each other long term, and what kind of life you want to build with each other, and that's the biggest thing that I think Ritsu hadn't really properly communicated to Fumiya, because Fumiya is like a salaryman-type.

Like, he's reliable. He does a lot of their cooking. Like, it's clearly his apartment. He's the one making the long-term choices for them in terms of keeping them physically whole. And Ritsu as the artist, you expect him to bring a lot of more of the the life and the other aspects of this to their thing—and he does!—like that's the whole thing with uh the secret gift of the, the second trip thing is he was trying to do that, but he doesn't say these things to Fumiya. He does these things quietly.

He does it through maybe his art sometimes, which he doesn't always show Fumiya, and he has to say these things directly because Fumiya can't just understand his way through that—which is actually kind of radical from a like, from an Eastern storytelling perspective. Like, they're very big on the whole “You should just know” thing and like it's kind of nice that this show is like, “Yeah, but he didn't. So, you should tell him.”

Nini

I take your point. I feel like a lot of the time, there's this idea that you're doing all these things—people should just know. And no, people don't know. You have to say the thing, and I like that more romance is leaning towards saying the things.

Ben

The show is good! Like let let's let's let's be clear! This show is very good! [laughs] And it surprised us! Like I was not expecting this show to be good.

Nini

I’m very, very glad that I watched this. LIke I said, Jack o’ Frost was a 9.5 out of 10 for me, and my ding was really a me thing. But this is a 10 show. I can acknowledge that this is a 10 show.

We're in the business of recommending, which I sometimes am—I would recommend Jack o’ Frost. I think it handles a subject that I usually do not enjoy in a way that I did enjoy. The filmmaking is excellent. I had a note in my notes about how much fun the set designer and set dressers must have had on the show.

Ben

They definitely did, because they must have had fun dressing up that apartment.

Nini

That apartment looks like they had so much fun designing and dressing that.

Ben

We're not necessarily the best set design analysis people. So, if some of you are very good at picking out these things in the set design, I would love to read your posts about that! Please send them to us because there's a lot to pick apart in the background of this whole show.

Nini

Ritsu’s desk alone. There's a shot in particular over Ritsu's desk that I just want to pause and look at it. The show is gorgeous. It's really well done. Go have a look-see if you haven't looked at it already.

Ben

It's a good show! I can't recommend this show enough! Y'all should really go out and watch it.

23:40 - Our Dining Table (Bokura no Shokutaku)

Nini

Our Dining Table. Ben, what is Our Dining Table about?

Ben

Our Dining Table is about two 23 year-old men meeting each other at a very turbulent time in their lives, bonding over their shared affection for one of the guy's little brother, and then learning to better take care of themselves and each other by learning to cook more together.

We meet our protagonist, Hozumi Yutaka, played by Inukai Atsuhiro, as he's working for an architecture firm, and he eats sort of the same lunch every day on a park bench outside, and about a seven-ish year old boy walks up to him who's very precocious. Asks him about his rice ball, and asks if he can have it. Yutaka doesn't really know what to do with this but the young boy, whose name is Tane, his brother Minoru runs up, apologizes for the brazenness of his brother. And the next day when they come to apologize, the little boy asks if he can come over to teach them how to make the rice balls because his brother does a terrible job with it.

What starts as a simple hangout with these two brothers, one who's 23 and out of school, the other who's 7 and very precocious, becomes this incredibly lovely friendship that starts to boil very slowly into a romance, and very much becomes a story about what it means to choose your family, whether you were born into them or not.

It's a truly lovely little production and is probably one of the most wholesome things we've watched this year.

Nini

I…loved it. It’s so layered. It is about all the things that Ben is saying it's about. Finding family, choosing family. It's about learning to let go in some ways of things that happened to you in your past, but it's also a retrospective on grief. Because the reason that Minoru is taking care of Tane is that his mom died. And when his mom died, his life just kind of stopped for a bit, and he is now taking care of his little brother so that his dad can work and support them.

Yutaka is…stunted from things that have happened in his childhood that we later discover are things that he held onto—some things that he misinterpreted, some things that he interpreted correctly, but also didn't let go of. And over the course of the story, he learns to let go of some of these things. There are things about meeting Minoru and Tane and their dad—the Ueda family—that give Yutaka the strength to face certain things about his past. And that leads to him reconciling in a way with his adoptive family. It leads to him finding this new family in the Uedas.

It's something else, and it's so well made. Production, direction, acting, writing. Top tier. Top tier stuff. I had an ache in my chest watching this show, and that ache was simultaneously happy and sad.

Ben

I know what you're talking about. Both Yutaka…and Minoru…are carrying around a great deal of grief and there's a lot on them. We learn that Yutaka is adopted in the family he's part of because his original parents passed away, and he had a very difficult time when he first moved into the Hozumi household. They recontextualized some of this later to show that maybe Yutaka took certain things a little too hard, but Yutaka's very emotionally stunted by these sort of things. He doesn't really develop a whole lot of friends and he's kind of a loner.

One of the things that's interesting is he can make rice balls, but he doesn't actually cook a lot of complex and diverse foods that often. It's his desire to…befriend this family that actually brings out a lot of his cooking skills, because he has a natural knack for some of it because he's read some stuff. But it's fun watching him learn how to do things along the way, and it's fun seeing a budding friendship/relationship make someone more sociable with other people in their lives.

Like, this is classic romance. I eat this shit up every time.

Yutaka’s really not that engaged with other colleagues at work. When he impulsively agrees to make bentos for the boys before they go out to the zoo one day, he ends up asking his co-worker—who's been wanting to befriend him for a while—to teach him how to make a bento. One of the lovely parts of that is he messes up quite a few times—he ends up practicing making the bento every day almost for weeks and getting feedback from his coworker until he can do it right. And that, for me, is just such a lovely moment. Yutaka is new to trying to cook consistently for other people, and I like that Minoru also picks up more food skills along the way. There's a lot of “food is love” stuff that's done very well in this.

Minoru tries to make sure that he can make the dishes that he remembers his mom making for him because he doesn't want his little brother to not also have a fond memory of those dishes as well, and that's really, really beautiful.

There's just a really…almost understated way that this show allows its characters to express affection. Very early in the show, Minoru is clearly-taken with Yutaka. Iijima is giving just absolutely enamored smiles at Inukai the entire time, and it is so convincing.

We get to this really interesting misunderstanding that felt super queer in about the late middle of the show, where in a very sort of…intimate moment, Minoru…kisses Yutaka on the cheek, but then feels like he overstepped, and Yutaka's not very good at expressing his feelings so he's just kind of silent about it. Then they meet up to talk about it, and Minoru misreads Yutaka's…silence for…anxiety or embarrassment, and essentially breaks up with Yutaka?

That felt super queer to me. You don't know if people are going to be receptive to what might be a huge change in their lives, and so you prepare yourself for the disappointment. I talked about this once before—or multiple times on this podcast—about the way internalized homophobia really demolishes your brain and blinds you to maybe what's happening in front of you, and I was not expecting this very heartfelt little cooking show to delve very directly into that.

Nini

I don't have anything in my show notes for this show, because I literally watched it just sighing at the screen. Everything was so well observed, everything felt so real. Everything was very gentle. The show is extremely gentle. Nothing feels harsh–not the grief, not when there's any kind of anger, when there's confusion or sadness—none of it feels harsh. It's all very gently done. The show treats the characters incredibly gently. The show brings the characters together incredibly gently. The show has a lot of heart. It feels kind of like eating warm soup on a cold day.

[Nini laughs]

I'm not always able to be verbose or coherent about the shows like those, because they just bypass the brain and they go straight into my heart. It's not always easy to talk about them when they do that.

Ben

I have a question for you, then.

Nini

Okay.

Ben

We learned from some of our friends…that the conversation that happens in the Hozumi household, revealing that Yutaka’s adoptive brother was trying to take care of him, was added for the show. How do you feel about that inclusion, and do you think it's better to have given us those insights into the Hozumi family?

Nini

It doesn't seem like this is a reversal of anything, just a deepening. I like…that Yutaka is—not wrong—because he's not wrong about the things that he experienced when he first joined the Hozumi household. His brother Yuki was quite mean to him, but that is reframed a little bit as him being maybe a little jealous.

It's that thing when a new kid comes into the family. Usually this happens when kids are younger but he was a little bit of a shit about Yutaka joining their family, and the parents weren't very proactive in ensuring that that was shut down. So, it's the first impression that Yutaka has of Yuki, and it has stuck through everything. It stuck to the point where it made him mentally erase the ways in which Yuki was good to him subsequent to that, which I found super realistic in terms of how memory works.

Yutaka sort of went into his shell after that initial hostility. That changed him. It altered him, and he didn't really come back out of that shell until he met the Uedas. They kind of gave him the courage to go back to his family—because he's been avoiding his family. The impression is that he's been avoiding his family since he left the nest. Probably since he went to college. Probably still while he was living in the house.

He held onto his hurts. He misunderstood attempts to pull him back out and nobody really knew what to do, so they just kind of let it sit and it festered a little bit. Because he's now gained the courage to go back into the house and see his family again, he is rewarded for that courage by having these things reframed for him to understand that: yes, his family does actually love him. Yes, they want him to be an integral and active part of them. I like it.

A lot of people I know didn't like it because they think that it's a redemption for the family, or it undercuts Yutaka's pain. I don't think that it undercuts Yutaka’s pain. I actually think that it makes it more tragic in certain ways. That over the years they couldn't resolve this, but also makes it more satisfying that he finally was able to resolve this. There is a sense of relief that you get watching Yutaka make peace with, and in some ways, return to his adoptive family. That was really lovely. I quite enjoyed that.

Ben

I really liked it because I don't think Yutaka can be a good member of the Ueda family without…gaining some sort of closure with how he felt about how he joined the Hozumi family.

I don't think it's about redemption for anyone or forgiving anyone. It's about Yutaka appreciating that love itself is not straightforward. It was about him recognizing that, yeah, his adoptive older brother is a little stiff, and maybe they'll never really be close, but they're also not enemies. And it allowed him to see that the Hozumis may not necessarily give him the affection that maybe he wanted directly, but they do genuinely care about him and his well-being and sincerely consider him a member of their family.

And that's something that Yutaka has to process and accept, and it's that realization that people have been trying to pour love on him his whole life that finally kicks him out of his freeze response to Minoru expressing affection for him directly. That allows the two of them to finally cross a threshold and start to be something more to each other.

Speaking of which! I really love the way Iijima played Minoru as somebody who was clearly aware of his own queerness. That was kind of understated in his performance, but he was clearly familiar with the fact that he was bisexual.

Nini

That sort of comes to light when his ex-girlfriend comes to see him. The way that he is with her—and it's on multiple levels. It's the level of: He left school when his mother died to help take care of Tane, and here's this person who he clearly has some kind of history with coming to find him and being like, “Look, how long are you going to do this?” But it's like she doesn't understand him at all, and it feels like she doesn't understand him on multiple levels.

She doesn't understand him on the familial level of why he would put his life on hold to take care of Tane, and she doesn't understand him probably on the queer level as well. Because she's here aggressively trying to make her play, and he’s having a whole other relationship basically. The way that he shrinks with her I found very effective.

Ben

IijIma is very, very good, and he does so much with his physicality in this show.

Nini

You can see the affection towards Tane and the kind of joking relationship he has with his dad. You can see when Minoru starts to fall for Yutaka, and you can see how he gradually is falling deeper and deeper and it's really all through the body language. There is work in the facial expressions and all of that, yes—both the micro expressions and the bigger ones—but the body language really. He starts turning his entire body more towards Yutaka when he talks to him. He sits closer to him when they're eating. There's a lot of, like, little things, some of which are probably in the direction, but also some which are just in Iijima’s physicality in playing the role. I really enjoyed watching him do that.

Speaking of the physicality of the role, the actor I, think his name is Kuuga who plays Tane?

Ben

His name is Maeyama Kuuga.

Nini

Such a delight! Such a delight. So lovely. That kid is going places. He's perfect!

[Ben laughs]

He works perfectly. No notes.

Ben

I saw an interview with Inukai and Iijima, where they talked about how, because they had to do a lot of long takes because Japanese cinema has a very strong stage tradition. There was a lot of necessary improvisation.

Maeyama Kuuga does a great job, but he's still a kid and he's going to stumble over his bits a little and they're going to have to work around him to make sure that the goal of the scene is accomplished, and there's a lot of giving Maeyama an understanding of what they're trying to do and why they're trying to do it so that he's invested in trying to do it, and playing around what he's going to give them. And it was very clear that he had a good time while working on this.

You mentioned the direction. As Tane gets closer to Yutaka, he starts to sit closer to him when they're having their meals together. Like, you mentioned the lunch with the ex-girlfriend. She was super rude to Tane when he spilled some juice on her or whatever, but later in the same episode he spills some juice on Yutaka, and Minoru starts to worry that Yutaka will also get mad, but Yutaka was only concerned that Tane might have hurt himself and immediately gets up and it's like, “It's okay, we can just change clothes.”

Yutaka is treating Tane in a gentle way that he wishes that he had been treated when he was younger and that extends to the way he also treats Minoru, because Minoru's relationship with his little brother is important. You can't just…start a romance with someone who's filling a parental responsibility if you're not also prepared to participate in some parental responsibilities. Whether Yutaka understood that consciously or not he adapted very quickly to it.

It's funny because Tane is the reason that they know each other, so this isn't something that he, like, met Minoru. They thought each other were cute, and then he's like, “I guess I'll deal with the kid.” Like, he's here because the kid asked him to be here originally, not the brother.

Nini

Tane brought him into things. Tane was so insistent that Yutaka be part of this that Minoru actually started looking at him. We got, of course, backstory later in the show that…Minoru had run into Yutaka once before even though he didn't remember it. Tane has, I guess, kept bringing Yutaka back to Minoru at different points in time, I guess?

Ben

Beautiful. I love it.

Nini

It's really super sweet. The the first time it happened, which was around the time that their mom died. The whole interaction between Yutaka and Tane then, which Minoru didn't remember until later, actually helped start pull Minoru out of the immediate grief of his mother's death to the point where now he's at a place where it's more manageable. And then he meets Yutaka again. He’s still got Tane, he’s really stressed out. And he calms down almost when Yutaka comes into their lives, because he is incredibly frazzled and flustered when Tane first interacts with Yutaka.

And then over the course of all these dinners and weekends and whatever that they're spending together, you see him calm right down even when Tane is throwing tantrums, even when there's a lot of stressy stuff going on—Tane’s not well, Tane’s this, Tane’s that. He's more calm even when more stressful things are happening because Yutaka’s there.

And then in comes Ueda-san just to seal the deal! He is one of the best dads that we've seen in all of BL.

Ben

I love Ueda Koji so much, oh my God. He literally picked his son up by the scruff and threw him out of the house and was like, “Go find Yutaka and fix it! [Nini laughs] Right now!” I loved it.

Nini

It was so funny, and you're the one who pointed out—because I hadn't even realized—that every time they cook, they never leave any food for Ueda-san.

Ben

They never do! [laughs]

Nini

[laughs] It's so terrible! And he's always so nice about it! He's always like, “Aw, shucks!”

Ben

I really like that one of the core themes of this show is: “Love is hard, and love does not come without the risk of loss. You will experience loss by loving some people, but you still have to love them regardless because it's what makes life worth living.”

Nini

I do like that they didn't end the show on Minoru and Yutaka getting together. They went a step beyond that because Minoru and Yutaka… This is not going to be some kind of happily ever after from them. They're both unlearning so much, and there are going to be stumbles, which is why I like the show going past the “we're together now” moment into Yutaka directly tackling his fear of loss, and beyond that into the special about some of the misunderstandings because these boys are not the best communicators—even though they're learning and trying. I really like that we sort of got a step into how their relationship is going to function and the things that they're going to learn being in a relationship with each other because you know you and I are the “tell us how these boys stay together” people and [laughs] I feel like we got a little bit of an insight into that by the end of the show.

Ben

I really liked that Minoru is going back to school, and I like that a big part of it is…he wants to stand beside Yutaka because Yutaka is a working adult. I like that in so many ways, like, leaving school when his mom died was a part of his grief. And, like, going back to school in so many ways communicates that he's finally come to terms with it and can focus on his own goals again. Which is interesting because, like, the ex-girlfriend—it's what she wanted for him, but she was kind of selfish about it.

I also like that we're still seeing them developing at the end. Like, this show isn't “and then they lived happily ever after.” I like that we're leaving them at the beginning of what feels like something that can really work that they're still figuring out.

Nini

Overall, this is a 10 show. Ben, is this a 10 show for you?

Ben

Oh, absolutely! Like, no questions about it. Go watch it. I'll be watching it again.

48:00 - Naked Dining (Zenra Meshi)

Nini

And now Naked Dining—Zenra Meshi. Ben, what is Naked Dining about?

Ben

A Japanese salary man who secretly overperforms at work who, about six months after his grandmother dies, receives some time-delayed mail from her encouraging him to head back to his hometown and take care of some things at her house. While there he runs into a young man who was a friend of his grandmother's who has been taking care of the house. After going through some of her things, he decides he wants to complete the culinary journey she had taken herself on. As she had gotten older and sick, she decided to do a last form of maybe, like, international travel by preparing foods from other cultures using the appropriate ingredients, and this young man—who works at a grocery store—was helping acquire these ingredients for her.

The two of them start hanging out on Saturdays to follow through on her path, and it becomes a really interesting examination of some ideas about different parts of the wider LGBT acronym…? Gets a little muddled towards the end unfortunately, but I guess we'll get into that here in a second.

But basically it's a Japanese food BL we had a mostly decent time with until the end.

Nini

I feel like it had a lot of ideas…and it cycled through them just one after the other—just idea after idea after idea—but none of the ideas are really taken through to a conclusion. None is really a through line through the whole show. It's not that none of them emotionally land because they absolutely emotionally land, but they also feel like you don't get to sit with any of the feelings that you have about anything that happens because the show was then sort of onto the next idea and onto the next idea

I was just kind of left with a, “Oh, well that was interesting and you know, helpful…But what happened to this? It just went away?”

Ben

I feel like two or three different show pitches were being merged in this.

They have this whole conceit with the naked dining. So Souta has this thing where every day when he goes home after secretly overworking he makes himself a bowl of ramen, and then he strips off his clothes to enjoy his food without anything in the way. At first this was kind of a cool idea for me that your clothes are a costume, and you're wearing the salary man persona when you leave the house. Food is one of the few tangible joys he has in his life, and so he's stripping off this costume so he can be closer to the food, but I feel like the show never interrogates the emotional core of why he does this?

And then it ends with he and Mahiro doing it together…and it just feels unearned as a shortcut to say “well they fucked.”

Nini

I understand the, the concept of Mahiro accepting that part of Souta, but the thing I didn't get that maybe I wanted to understand is why Mahiro might find that idea appealing. When it comes to the two characters, I feel like I have a really good handle on Souta. I feel like I understand his thought processes and his motivations, and I feel like I am emotionally connected to Souta. Mahiro is a little more, like, slippery for me.

Mahiro just feels…sad…and, like, he's been nursing this crush forever…but I don't have a sense of who Mahiro is outside of the way that he feels about Souta.

Ben

Souta was really kind to him when he was a teenager, and he fell for Souta, but Souta didn't even see him that way at all. And it seemed like it twisted around whatever sort of other personal struggles he was having at that time and, like, get fucked with his own sense of worthiness and he just really never recovers from it.

I got frustrated because around episode like 7 or 8. Mahiro kisses Souta when he's sleeping. Souta is confused because he's feeling things from Mahiro and asks him—kind of innocently—if they can kiss again because he's trying to understand how he's feeling. Like, “You kissed me, can I kiss you back to see what's going on?" and Mahiro gets upset because he doesn't want Souta to kiss him if Souta can't kiss him like he likes him. Which, fine. I get that. I tell boys all the time, “Don't flirt with me unless you mean it.” But I didn't think that was fair because he had initiated things with Souta, and that was one of the big struggles on the back end—like, even down to the final episode.

So they've gone on this huge arc.They’ve been cooking these foods together. Souta’s finally figuring himself out. Souta’s female coworker…showed up to Mahiro and was like, “Of course, you know this means war,” and she puts on her eye black—

[both laugh]

—and they're going at it trying to fight for Souta's affections or whatever. Great. Amazing stuff.

And, like, she accepts her defeat as gracefully as she can. I did not hate this character—she got on my nerves a little bit—but she treated Mahiro like a true romantic rival, and I got mad respect for that.

Souta is called away for work. And this show does some New Siwaj bullshit to us by, like, giving us a flashback to high school to be like, “Once! In high school! He said to his homies that he wants to connect Japan to the rest of the world! Which means that now that he's gotten a job in Singapore! He's never coming back!”

And it's, like, you guys are in, like, a real relationship here. You guys have gone through all of the things! And then Souta comes back and is like, “I've made a decision without you! I'm going to stay in Japan!” Like okay, whatever.

And Mahiro's, like, mad about this! And Souta has to grab him to keep him from running away again, and I was like, “God damn, bro, we have eight minutes left in this show!”

Nini

I don't know whether they felt like they needed to fill time or—I don't know what it was—but the plot really got tortured, like… You're right that it feels a little New Siwaj-y, because the show is going along pretty well—slow start! Yeah, it gets to the middle, and there are these really good ideas that are building up here. And then…somewhere around the time that Souta asks Mahiro if he can kiss him things just kind of, like, fizzle?

It felt like they wrote eight episodes worth of stuff and had to stretch it to fit 12.

Ben

It feels like there were 12 recipes, and they really, really wanted to make sure that each recipe had its own episode. This was also a little bit frustrating for me because I don't always feel like the food of the episode matched with the tone that was going on.

Nini

I feel like the food didn't fit at all! I also wasn't sure what the theme of each episode was because it wasn't always clear.

Ben

There's a little bit of an idea with the food, like, the dishes get more complex over time, and Souta, who doesn't have a whole lot of kitchen skills, is picking some up along the way. This was actually really good and I really enjoyed this. I liked that by the end Souta was able to cook along with Mahiro even if there were still new techniques for him to pick up. That was incredibly satisfying. The way that the cooking itself feels is used well in the show but, like, the specific dishes don't always feel like they resonate for the episode—and that's the problem! I can't remember any of the specific dishes they made, which is kind of frustrating for me in a show that was so much about the food.

Nini

I think I'm not accustomed to Japanese drama being this slack. That's the best word I can use to describe it. It feels slack. It feels like there's way too much room in it somehow…and they're just kind of ambling around within the drama.

I haven't seen a Japanese drama that feels this purposeless.

Ben

And that's, I think, the heart of it. With most Japanese dramas I know if I care about it almost instantly like they usually set up a really solid premise, and part of what ended up really frustrating me with this show is I feel like the “naked dining” as part of the core premise is deeply undercooked and doesn't develop into something really interesting. Like they were so close!

As a result it ends up kind of feeling weirdly flat by the time we get to the end.

Nini

You know what I feel? This is gonna sound real weird but follow me on this. I think that this kind of story, that the story—these stories that they wanted to tell—would have worked better as an anthology or something where they were following multiple couples.

Ben

I agree…and I feel like they could have focused on the role of the dish a lot more.

Nini

This feels like it was originally like a Midnight Diner or a Three Star Bar in Nishi Ogikubo, and I feel like the if it was gonna be 12 episodes, and it was gonna be focused around what it's focused around, because they really seemed to want to focus it around these recipes, they needed to use up the room. And one of the ways that they could have used up the room, with even some of the same writing and some of the same stories they wanted to tell, would be to separate those stories up over multiple individuals or multiple couples.

And I feel like the show kind of had the right elements for it as well because one of the best episodes of the show is the episode where they have to have the anniversary party for the boss at work. It just feels like the strongest episodes are when they actually pulled somebody else in, like when they did the Taiwanese hot pot with Ryu.

Ben

Great episode.

Nini

I think what happened at the back end of the show is that it spent way too much time with just Souta and Mahiro.

Ben

You're correct. Like, the two episodes you highlighted: the episode where they cook for the boss, and the episode where they hang out with Ryu, are interesting because when they're around other people, they naturally start to turn into a little bit of a team. It's why the Ryu hotpot episode works so well because they're being super awkward with each other. We can feel that their dynamic is struggling and Ryu is like, “I'm going to fix these gays, and then I'm going to go to sleep.” The perfect elder gay.

[Nini laughs]

Nini

And I love that and he really did try! And then Mahiro’s bullshit got in the way.

Ben

Like that—that's the whole show! Like things were going well and then Mahiro's bullshit got in the way and we don't even know why.

Nini

Mahiro, I understand why you're afraid of this, right? But you kissed the man, and he's literally standing there like, “Can we try this again?”

Ben

Take responsibility for what you did!

Nini

And you're just like… “Naw.”

There were times honestly, when I just wanted to yell at Mahiro “Shit or get off the motherfucking pot already. I'm so tired of you.” [laughs] I got tired of Mahiro! And then I started feeling bad for my man Souta, because he was trying!

He was trying so hard. He was trying hard to be honest, he was trying hard to be open. He was trying really hard to understand himself because he didn't want to dick Mahiro around because he cared about him. So he is literally trying to work so much of the shit out by himself and only coming to Mahiro when he couldn't work shit out on his own anymore and he needed to work it out with the person that he's feeling all these things about—which is normal! And understandable!

And Mahiro treated him like he had kicked his dog. I got so frustrated with Mahiro. I just really did. And the thing is I understand! Okay, yes, you're scared. Okay, fine. Get it. But I'm still frustrated with you, man.

[sighs] Anyway, all that to say: Ben gave it an 8. I gave it a 7.

I had a very visceral and personal reaction to certain parts of this show and then the rest of the show let me down, so I feel more disappointed by it than Ben does I think. Which is why, for me, it's a 7.

Ben

I think, like, having sat here for the last 40 minutes unpacking it, I'm probably going to lower to 7, and it becomes a 7 because it has “failure to execute the core premise stuff,” and I feel like that's a big thing for me. Like, if you at least complete the core premise, but just stumble around it, you can get an 8. And I don't think this show really completes the core premise. So I think this is gonna be a 7 for us. So that's a chop unfortunately.

1:02:50 - The J-BL Victory Lap and the Food BL Flop

Ben

All right! We're back for the outro! We watched Jack o’ Frost, Our Dining Table, and Naked Dining. All right, panel! Tens or chops? Jack o’ Frost, Nini!

Nini

[laughs] 10.

Ben

10 for me!

Our Dining Table!

Nini

10.

Ben

10 for me!

Naked Dining?

Nini

Chop.

Ben

Two chops! [Slaps desk and laughs]

Nini

So, where does that leave you feeling about Japan and Japanese BL drama, and where does that leave you feeling about food drama?

Ben

Oh, interesting. For Japanese dramas…I feel…good. I have a lot to feel good about, though.

So, Jack o’ Frost completed the MBS Drama Shower Year One set of outings, which I mostly really enjoyed. Drama Shower 2 has started. We get a whole ‘nother the year of MBS content. I feel great!

Our Dining Table—I do not know what that particular network is going to do next.

And even though Naked Dining wasn't great per se there were good elements in it. So, like, it's not saying “This is horrible. Goodbye. Boo.” Like, even though: two chops.

I'm feeling good about Japanese BL in general.

For food drama, I gotta be honest. I'm a little concerned because as much as I loved Our Dining Table I feel like they lost touch with the food thing in the last, like, third of the show as we got really caught up in the romantic stuff—and it's fine. That took precedence at that portion. But I don't really feel like we finished strong on a food portion of the show the way we open strong with food. Only real minor knock I gave that show—not enough for me to take a point from it.

Nini

I mean Ben's the big J-BL person. Like, Ben's had to sort of shivvy me into a lot of J-BL, and I have not regretted it to be fair to him. I'm feeling pretty good about J-BL. I feel like J-BL gives me what K-BL would like to give me, which is contained stories like with high production value and low runtime. But somehow they managed to grab my emotions in a way that K-BL has very seldom managed to do at this point.

Ben

There's a specificity to what the Japanese story wants to unpack that I don't think that any of the Korean projects has properly honed in on. Thing for me with Japan is…up until Naked Dining, I had never once felt like my time was being wasted, and that's not something I can say about any of the other countries.

Nini

They're just the granddaddy, man, aren't they? Like, they built this shit. And what they're doing now feels a little bit like…coming into the room and putting your dick on the table.

[laughs]

Because what we do know is coming out of Japan the rest of this year right now is sequels. Like, they have done so much good shit. They can just come back to us and say, “Yeah, more of that!”

[Ben laughs]

—and everybody's like yes, please! You know what I mean? It feels a little bit like Japan is taking a victory lap right now and I gotta say it's well deserved.

Ben

That's a really interesting observation I hadn't considered: that the presence of sequels is a statement about how strong their work is.

Nini

I mean look at what's coming up. Minato’s Laundromat 2. I didn't watch Minato’s Laundromat, but everybody seems to be excited about it. We got Utsukushii Kare 2 already this year and the movie Utsukushii Kare: Eternal. We got the Cherry Magic Movie. This is gonna be the fourth like return to What Did You Eat Yesterday? because you had the original, you had the special, you had the movie. This is the fourth return to What Did You Eat Yesterday? They're coming back to She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat like.

Ben

MBS liked BL enough that they decided to renew the slot for another year and the first offering’s pretty strong. Like, real shit, y'all, if you—you're gonna be hearing this a little late, I think, so Tokyo in April is… may have finished by the time you hear this.

Nini

We're gonna be talking about that in the fall. Japan really does feel like it's taking a victory lap right now. Like even with its original content. It's all like light work.

In terms of what J-BL is doing, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling the J-BL, Ben.

Ben

Is it hittin’ for you?

Nini

It’s hittin’. It’s hittin’. It’s hittin’.

And then in terms of what food BL is doing. Look, I don't know, I feel like food BL is kind of all over the map—that very few people are really clear about what they want to say using food. I feel in general, the food BLs are kinda “hmmm,” and this is not just Japan, because they've been trying them in Korea, they've been trying them in Thailand, and none of those have really hit. I don't know how I feel about these food stories because I don't know that the people who are making them know what they want to say.

So, J-BL: 10. Food BL right now: mostly chop.

Ben

HA! Two chops!

[both laugh]

Nini

Anyway, that is going to wrap us up on Comfort Food. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #jack o' frost #our dining table #naked dining #bokura no shokutaku #zenra meshi #japanese bl #bl series #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #on art #season 3 #summer 2023 #summer series

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eatclean-bewhole · 4 months ago

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We figure we’re already having these conversations. Why not hit record and make it a podcast!

The Real Nutrition Talk podcast is where a functional nutritionist (myself) and holistic chef (Andrea) come together to share our expertise and advice on health, nutrition, and wellness. We dive deep into the latest trends, new science, culinary medicine, timeless practices, and practical tips that can help you nourish your body, mind, and soul.

Whether you’re looking to improve your diet, explore holistic health practices, or simply live a more balanced life, our conversations offer insights and actionable steps to help you thrive!

Let us know what topics you want to hear!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOy3oLQqnwUymXP3HhRKaZ4ixMGk4OhvW&si=CsGrPbCV1h3qAr3M

#podcast #Health #healthy #healthyeating #healthy living #healthy food #mental health #Nutrition #food #anticancer #guthealth #hormone balance #womenshealth #antiinflammatory #weightloss #nutritionist #healthcoach #chef

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trapangeles · 2 months ago

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O'Shae Speaks His Truth: From "8am in Family Court" to "Ladies Love O'Shae / Ni99as Hate S.O.A.P."

In the world of rap, authenticity is currency, and O'Shae (UCanCallMeSoap) has plenty of it. With raw, unfiltered honesty, the L.A.-based rapper is captivating audiences with his latest project, Ladies Love O'Shae / Ni99as Hate S.O.A.P. and the poignant single "8am in Family Court." This interview dives deep into O'Shae’s journey, creative process, and his unwavering commitment to staying true to himself amidst the chaos of the music industry.

A Father’s Fight: The Story Behind "8am in Family Court"

For O'Shae, "8am in Family Court" is more than music—it’s his lived experience. “My inspiration for the record came from personal experiences. I’ve been battling in court for custody of my daughter for years now,” he explains. The track is a powerful outlet for his frustrations, a way to release emotions without succumbing to destructive behaviors. “A lot of fathers never get the opportunity to feel heard or understood when it comes to their children, and I want to let it be known that that’s not true.”

The song’s title carries weight, symbolizing the countless mornings he and his family have spent in courtrooms. “Some days were better than others, but we show up and continue to fight,” he shares. His hope is to inspire other fathers to persevere. “I pray that my message touches the hearts of men who feel discouraged when their bitter baby mommas try to use their child as a pawn. You’re not alone. There’s a way to have your children—you just have to trust the process.”

Bringing the Vision to Life

O'Shae’s dedication to authenticity shines in the music video for "8am in Family Court." Collaborating with videographer Skinny Kenny, he integrated personal elements like a viral video of his daughter, family photos, and even court documents served to him. “I wanted to make it as authentic as possible and show that I am a real father who has been present in my child’s life since birth,” he says. The visuals encapsulate his raw emotions and determination to keep fighting.

Duality and Growth: "Ladies Love O'Shae / Ni99as Hate S.O.A.P."

With Ladies Love O'Shae / Ni99as Hate S.O.A.P., O'Shae explores a dual narrative. The first half celebrates women, offering tracks designed to uplift and empower. “I wanted to create a project my female audience could listen to and feel respected—something to boost their confidence,” he explains.

The second half confronts envy and resentment. “No matter how much love and respect I show, some people will always hate,” O'Shae says. “It used to bother me, but now I embrace it. People don’t like others being better than them, and I’ve never had to be anyone but me.” This unapologetic self-awareness fuels the project’s raw honesty.

Lessons from The Liq Podcast Open Mic

Despite winning his round on The Liq Podcast Open Mic, O'Shae’s experience wasn’t without challenges. Reflecting on his tension with the host, he says, “I feel like he was looking for viral moments to boost his audience. As soon as I felt the energy turn negative, I knew it was best to remove myself.” While critical of the platform’s professionalism, he acknowledges a takeaway: “There are weirdos in the industry, and I could have handled it differently by not giving him the satisfaction.”

Evolving as an Artist

O'Shae’s growth is evident in his willingness to take creative risks. “I’m singing on a few records now, something I wasn’t comfortable with before,” he reveals. His track “15 More Mins” pays homage to the late Drakeo The Ruler, showcasing his evolving wordplay and versatility. “Although I’m not against criticism, I know who I am and what I’m capable of. I’m claiming the whole road as my own.”

Advice for Aspiring Artists

For those navigating the industry, O'Shae offers wisdom forged through experience: “Keep God first. Surround yourself with solid, loving people. Stay true to yourself and know that everyone isn’t your friend. Plenty of people are waiting for you to crash out, but you’ve got to believe you’re better than that.”

What’s Next for O'Shae?

Fans can expect visuals from Ladies Love O'Shae / Ni99as Hate S.O.A.P., along with a new EP titled Son of a Pimp on the horizon. He’ll also be performing at Pookie F’n Rude’s Fire & Water Sign Birthday Bash with DJ Carisma on November 22 and at Ivery Da Goddess & Friends next month. “I’m always in motion,” he says confidently.

Connecting with O'Shae

O'Shae’s journey is deeply personal, and he invites fans to join him every step of the way. “Follow me on all social media platforms @UCanCallMeSoap and find my music on any streaming platform under ‘O’Shae,’” he says.

With each track, video, and performance, O'Shae is proving that his story—and his voice—are here to stay.

Have you been spending all your money and time on making music and shooting videos, but still not getting any exposure? Tired of just spinning your wheels? You know to get exposure you need to get featured on blogs, radio stations, playlist, and get your music e-mail blasted out to the masses. Need help getting all that done? Then check out the Package we’ve made available for you below!

Like & Listen To Our Spotify Playlist

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The Latest Music, Videos, News, Entertainment……

#trapLA #O'Shae #UCanCallMeSoap #8am in Family Court #Ladies Love O'Shae #Ni99as Hate S.O.A.P.#The Liq Podcast #Open Mic winner #Los Angeles rap #fatherhood in music #authentic rap #Drakeo the Ruler tribute #new music #independent artist #raw storytelling

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xplrvibes · 1 year ago

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Any good recommendation for podcast with Sam and Colby? Need fuel to survive third semester of med school hehe

Sadly, snc haven't appeared on that many podcasts over the years, so the well isn't very deep. But I'll give you a short list of a few of the appearances that stuck out to me - if you've already listened to them, feel free to stop by and ask for more!

1. Morbid Podcast Episode 398- True Crime & True Hauntings with Sam and Colby: This one is good if you are into learning about the history of something. If you aren't familiar with Morbid, they do a true crime podcast that also occasionally dives into hauntings and urban legends. They covered a Sam and Colby video in one of their episodes, which led to snc reaching out to them and appearing on an episode dedicated to a military ship with a haunted background.

2. The Checkup with Doctor Mike- Colby Brock has Cancer and Doctors Let Him Down (video available on youtube): obviously, this one deals with very sensitive and serious topics and themes and was recorded shortly before Colby began chemo. I'd only listen to this one if you are comfortable with listening to some of the things he went through during the first half of his cancer battle (it can get intense), but this one is also a good listen if you really want to get a peak inside the relationship between snc and just how much of a united front they are in all aspects of their lives. It's also probably a lot easier to listen to now that we know he's cancer free, as well.

3. Kong Pham- Sam and Colby (available on youtube): Kong is a long time friend and business associate of snc's, so this podcast has a really comfortable and casual feel compared to some other times where they may be in full "snc llc" mode. They really go behind the scenes and in depth on a lot of the highs and lows in their lives - fascinating listen!

4. You've Got Company with Kris Collins, Episode 1 (available on youtube): another familiar and comfortable one with a trusted friend, they really let their guard down in this one. They're also hungover, which helps set the tone. 🤣

A few honorable mentions: the Joe Rogan Podcast (very long, not a lot of new info), the podcast with Heath and Zane (too many people talking over one another, but some good laughs), Share Ur Scare with Brennen Taylor (Brennen is Brennen but it had some fun moments).

#asks #sam and colby #colby brock #sam golbach

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talenlee · 8 months ago

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CoX: Polysynthesis

This is an explanatory writeup of one of my Original Characters (OCs). Nothing here is necessarily related to a meaningful fiction you should recognise and is shared because I think my OCs are cool and it’s cool to talk about OCs you make.

“I know what it takes to be a top hero.”

When your powers involve the ability to synthesise together chemicals into other objects, there are a lot of routes you can take them. You could invest heavily in engineering and mechanisation and make guns or bombs. Or you could dive deep into studying pharmaceuticals and synthetic chemistry and make a whole bunch of chemical compounds, like riot foam, tailored vision-warping drugs, and degrading crystal blades.

Polly to her fans, Syn to her friends, she’s a firm believer in study, theory, and then practical applications. You might know her because of fan pages, interviews or podcasts she’s done, her discussion of Identity Management or Chemical Innovation.

Polysynthesis has a very clear, crisp, public hero persona when she’s interacting with other heroes in most work settings. This is a woman who knows that she could be on the record and on camera and she is clear about communicating that whenever she can. Science talk, hero talk, the persona that many heroes consider On, that’s what most people encounter when they deal with her; Polly in action is very On. This means very rarely is she critical of others, and likes to highlight the ways she’s using complex chemistry or the like to defeat her opponents.

Which is a little at odds with the ways she does that, which can be flooding small spaces with toxic gases or riot foam and stabbing into things with knives that she routinely discards as she moves through a scene. There’s a lot of very tangible, physical violence, brutish almost, as she espouses specific chemical agents that she’s using to break through armour or immobilise enemies harmlessly.

Stepping back from public events, she’s much more relaxed, but still has a public persona; That persona is a science communicator, someone who lives in the overlap of nerd and jock, who goes to talk about ways that scientific devices and problem solving applications work together, but she’s very tangible, very material; not dimensional science or big power manufacturers but rather a fascination with chemistry in people’s everyday lives. Things you can do and make with stuff around your home.

Because that’s what she can do. Polly can synthesise anything she wants, from chemicals in her body, and then create them and hold them in her hand. She’ll tell you how hard it is to make something like an iphone because there’s a lot of literally microscopic action in the process and then she’ll do it anyway because she wants you to know she’s really good. But the problem is that’s a party trick – the phone is one design she knows how to make, and they’re not just easily transferred; making an iphone with a slightly different case? Easy enough. Changing the architecture inside it? The software? Absolutely not. That’s why she relies on making things that are fungible and simple most of the time – drugs, poisons, chemical agents and knives. It’s also part of her training regimen: she generates synthetic compounds for her own body, that let her create and maintain optimal states. It’s why she’s tall, strong and jacked.

This has also a related oddness regarding her and food, which is you’ll never see her eating food in public. She drinks – usually water – but in public spaces she’s very deliberate to never be seen eating anything in public. This is because when she revealed on a podcast to an interviewer that she synthesises food products in her body to make her created objects, and that means she consumes a lot of food, she found out there was a large body people on the internet who were suddenly Very Interested in her in ways she found a little uncomfortable, and wanted to discourage.

Polly believes firmly in not devaluing others’ work with her own powers. When she gets a new outfit, she pays the designer a user’s fee and then replicates her own copy of the outfit with her powers. This vision of not devaluing work disappears when she’s making things like a smartphone or a tracking device, and when pressed as to why she mostly shrugs about it. There’s a conversation about depriving value from artists versus depriving value from corporations, but she’s not likely to get into it.

Build

Polly’s a tank! A bio armour/claws tank. That means she’s got a build that focuses on being tough and being able to spam her area affect attacks in order to grab and hold aggro, and then it doesn’t matter if she does lots of single target damage as long as she can do it indefinitely. Her build has:

45+% defense to Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold and Melee damage

41% defence to Energy and Negative

90% resistance to smashing and lethal damage

80% global recharge

the ability to double-stack Follow Up for a 60% global damage buff

The ludicrous survivability and auras of Bio Armour.

I like this build a lot, no link at the moment because exports still don’t work. I like how her build can use Musculature to improve its damage output, and run Assault as well, because Bio Armour has so much recovery.

History

Okay, so there’s this twist in Polysynthesis’ story. That is, part of what helps her maintain her secret identities, is that Polysynthesis isn’t a hero from Primal Earth. She started her life on Praetoria, as a completely different person, who looked different and had a different gender. That old identity doesn’t have a lot to build a story out of, because and this is very important, I don’t ever want to do anything with that old identity. It’s a deadname, and a dead identity. The important thing about it is to explain how Polly looks at the world around her now.

She was used to partying and enjoying herself and indulging and making the coolest drugs for rich and elite people, far away from the real problems real people dealt with in their real lives. The realisation after the fall of Praetoria of how much that old life of casual joy and pleasure was built on neglecting good she could do in a community of people who could suffer was part of what shocked her into making herself into a heroine – and she’s very much trying to jump to the top step here, which is why there’s this drive to succeed to excess.

And also why she uses an alternate identity to go out and party and get high and vent the anxiety of someone who struggles with the trauma of having her whole world ended. And that’s just part of the history of this character. Because, that’s all stuff that flowed from conversations with friends, while the start for her story, well, the start was something I think of as very important to almost all forms of OC creation, and that is, blatant and unapologetic theft.

I watched too much of My Hero Academia which I would say now is ‘more than just the first Gentle story arc.’ It’s not a good show. It’s a show about superheroes that doesn’t understand what superheroes are or what superheroes are for and largely thinks that Japan’s school system is good for educational outcomes and also good for students. The show nonetheless has a bunch of popular and well-known characters that mean there’s a ton of fanart of these characters that look cool. In the context of roleplay, being able to grab art and use it to highlight or emphasise moments in storytelling, that’s great fun and valuable, so having a character who looks like someone where there’s a ton of existing fanart in different contexts is really useful!

In My Hero Academia there’s a character named Momo Yaoyorozu. She’s the superhero Creati, and if you’ve been having your nose twitch while I described Momo and her powers, yeah, this is why. I made Polly as a whole-character reference to Momo. Momo’s powers are interesting and cool but also not central to the story so it doesn’t matter how many times a problem could be solved by having Momo come up with a solution for it but instead the story needs Momo to be very limited and kinda stupid. Momo at one point uses her powers to create a chain gun that she then uses to not shoot at things and just as a dead weight, and that’s… so silly.

Also, she’s a woman in My Hero Academia so her life is going to suck anyway, because that anime sucks at writing women, period.

There’s also stuff about Momo that doesn’t make sense? Like her body and her attitude and the way she models is all very strange when it’s meant to be a what fifteen years old? That seems wildly ridiculous given just how she looks. And she’s meant to be smart, a highly skilled student, but her ability to conceive of solutions to problems in the series is preposterously basic, because the story doesn’t ever want her solutions to be good ones.

Polly was originally going to go by ‘Syn’ socially, because I like when a character’s appellation is a little more challenging than just the most obvious one. It shows when a player has done a little extra and remembers a detail like that dealing with a character, right? But then a friend’s character, a very sweet Starfire like, pointed out that ‘Polly’ is cute. And well, damnit, it is, and fine. She’s Polly now.

There’s also the way that I didn’t want Polly to be too omnidisciplinary. If she’s doing a ton of research into engineering and chemistry regularly, and then praciticing using those powers and working out, there’s going to be stuff she’s not an expert in, especially when she’s trying to project an entire upbringing in a world where she’s an interloper. To that she recruited a ‘social media manager’ whose job it is to present her pictures and manage her appointments on podcasts and stuff like that, and that’s Mac.

Mac has to deal with all sorts of things, because Polly as a hero is great, Polly as a public science communicator is amazing, and Polly as a social media management client is a nightmare. She doesn’t get the memes, she doesn’t know what she should set up, and she doesn’t look at the product either. Which means that Mac wakes up to a phone upload of thousands of photos and a calendar and then has to try and wrangle Polly to make her appointments (with the always very understandable interruption of hero work), while also dealing with Polly’s own difficulty being, well, normal. Mac is constantly frustrated by Polly missing opportunities and being unavailable when she needs to be (because there’s a nonzero chance she was sleeping in because she’s still going out and partying).

And all this is because a friend, hearing about Polly, who doesn’t even play City of Heroes, went ‘I bet her social media manager’s job sucks’ and we talked about it!

Polly’s background, of a terrible self-centered drug dealer to the privileged elite who shifts into a heroic chemistry teacher was literally a reference to a Breaking Bad meme another friend shared when she heard about the concept of Polysynthesis. This same friend also had the same opinion of Creati, and helped kick off the idea of how to use the same powerset without being focused on technically challenging creations that aren’t meaningfully useful.

I like hanging on to these details about how a character was shaped by my friends, because my friends are cool, and OCs are like dolls that we can play with together. It’s nice to have creative play narratives with people you care about! It’s cool and I recommend it!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#City of Heroes #My OCs #Making #Media

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leelee120000 · 1 year ago

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Generation Loss Part Two: The Interview

June 14, 2023

Introduction:

In this exclusive interview with Nathan Hanover, I took a deep dive into the world of music design and life as a composer. Hanover is a composer who specializes in creating music for video games, podcasts, and interactive media. His music is everywhere, highlights include The Joy of Creation, a Five Nights at Freddy’s fan game; Dialtown, a phone dating simulation game; Just Roll with It, a Dungeons and Dragons podcast; and most recently the soundtrack of Generation Loss. Hanover has an Undergraduate Degree from the University Centre of Colchester in Film Music and Soundtrack Production.

Photo of Generation Loss logo

Generation Loss:

Generation Loss is an episodic horror semi-scripted live-stream show. The show has had a remarkable impact on the lives of many in such a short time, it’s been a week since the finale.

McPherson: How would you describe the start of your involvement in Generation Loss? What was the choice to work on it like? Did you know much about it beforehand?

Hanover: I knew about the project very late compared to the rest of the Generation Loss community who have followed the project for around two plus years. After working with one of the members of the Just Roll With It team to compose the soundtrack for their horror Dungeons and Dragons podcast, Blood in the Bayou, I became aware of Generation Loss and planned to reach out to the creator for possible employment in the show.

Surprisingly however weeks later I got a private message in my Twitter inbox from said creator of Generation Loss who had streamed a video game earlier that year which I also was involved in called Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim. He had enjoyed the music in this game a lot, and once my work finished on Blood in the Bayou, its creator suggested me to the Generation Loss creator, complimenting my music, my turnaround time, etc. So, while I planned to contact them, they contacted me. {Ranboo, the Generation Loss creator, uses he/they pronouns.}

McPherson: G.L. has such an already iconic story and aesthetic. What was composing music for it like? Did you find it limiting?

Hanover: As you noted above, I have a Bachelors’s with an honors degree in Film Music & Soundtrack Production however mostly specialize in Video Game music, this project was exciting for me as this was technically the first time I had put my degree to the test, this wasn’t a game. This project was a mix of live theatrical performances and pre-recorded scenes, there weren’t any concept art, cutscenes, or shots I could look upon to brainstorm my ideas as 90% of the show was live, other than looking at the set of the Cabin, the already released marketing, and the script, I had to conjure ideas I thought would fit into the scenes I had built in my imagination.

With the marketing already released and trailers of the show on the internet, stock music had been used of an 80s FM (Frequency Modulation Synthesis) Synthesizer repeating a dissonant stabbing chord pattern, the creator of Generation Loss enjoyed this sound, and I used this as the basis of my soundtrack, taking this idea and creating my own. Generation Loss’s theme includes two main motifs, the stabbing chord pattern, and an arpeggiated sequence of this same chord. The chord I decided to use was an A Minor with a sharp 7th (the G# note in this context) creating an AmMaj7 (A Minor Major 7 chord), in the correct context this dissonant chord can become bittersweet, tugging at the heart, however putting the 7th at the bottom of the chord creates a Minor 2nd clash between the G# and the A, always giving that sense of unease and raw dissonance. This chord progression and the arpeggio outlining the chord show up all over the soundtrack, even hidden in other character themes.

I played around with modulation effects, granular synthesis, and stuttering glitch effects to make the soundtrack sound as unique as it does, this was quite fun for me as most of my other work has been long-drawn-out ambient pieces, Jazz or Swing, or even Orchestral. So to work in this retro 80s aesthetic, but to corrupt it in such a way where it was listenable, but unusual as if the act of Generation Loss had taken effect on the soundtrack was enjoyable to me and opened the door to truly unique ideas.

McPherson: G.L. has some of the hardest-hitting emotions in horror. Your music is a significant part of that impact. How do you do it – how do you create such emotional music?

Hanover: For me, to make emotional music work I have to determine what notes I’m going to use, what scale to write in, and what directions I want to take the piece, but the key factor people may not think of is not what’s written in the music, but what’s written around the music or what the music is actually being paired to. For example, in episode 1 of Generation Loss, there is a mixture of unease, ambiance, and comedic music, when the main character goes into the basement the music is a long drawn-out ambiance, unsettling effects, and detuned piano, but the scene had been juxtaposed by a comedic cooking segment only moments ago. The tonal whiplash in the music makes the scene hit hard, one moment they are cooking slime for a slime demon, and the next they are exploring a dusty basement with literal skeletons. Episodes 2 and 3 were similar but the style had changed, the ambiance had been removed in favor of SAW-esque pieces, driving drums, electronic stings, etc. but still included elements of comedy, “The Lasor Room” for example inspired by old 70s spy films, juxtaposed by the driving rhythm that scored the scene moments before where the characters begged for their lives on a carousel.

McPherson: What, if any, were some of your stresses or worries while making the soundtrack? In contrast, what was the most enjoyable part of the process?

Hanover: My biggest worry was the deadline, while I started the project in January 2023, I had only created the main theme and a random draft of an idea that eventually became the opening to “Live or Die”, my work truly began at the end of March and had around 2 months to create the soundtrack, due to how tight the deadline was I was writing music days before the first episodes premier and is why the soundtrack has a delayed release as online stores request music to be submitted 3-4 weeks before release. I found feedback quite hard as usually I work 1-to-1 with the employer to show off drafts and brainstorm ideas, track titles, etc. but this project was different due to how busy everyone was, I’d essentially write several pieces a week, get feedback, and then create edits to be greenlit the following week and repeat. No one had time to sit down and brainstorm so a lot of the feedback was in bursts but due to a timezone difference, this meant I’d get feedback very late into the day for me to act upon the following morning.

In contrast, I feel my favorite part of the process was to see how excited the creators and actors got about my music which encouraged me to create better and better pieces. One of the actors even now talks about my music and how passionate he is about my soundtrack which is nice to see. Another thing I enjoyed was hiding stuff IN the soundtrack itself, secret codes, visual art IN the music, and hiding motifs in other pieces to show the connection between tracks/themes, the Snowfall Jingle motif crops up in a few pieces, but the Generation Loss motif shows up even more.

McPherson: Did the soundtrack go through any major changes before it was finalized? What song was made first? Which was last? How long does a song normally take you to make?

Hanover: I don’t believe the soundtrack went through any major changes as once I had the style of the project down, I could work within those boundaries however tracks had little changes along the way, even a few cut tracks of failed ideas. The first track I wrote was in January 2023 which was the Generation Loss theme which went through 2 iterations before landing on the one used in the show. The last track was the Button cutscene which was also the longest to create due to severe technical difficulties with the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) I use which doesn’t score to video well. Most tracks can take anywhere from a day to create to a week, the “Achievement Unlocked!” Jingle naturally only took me a few hours to create and finish as it was only 3 seconds long and is an altered version of the Generation Loss motif, however, “The Button” took me around a week to create and finish to the point I was working on it the day before episode 1’s premier.

McPherson: Do you have any behind-the-scenes stories about Generation Loss?

Hanover: I sadly don’t other than the coincidence of myself wanting to reach out to the Generation Loss creator only for him to actually reach out to me weeks later following his previous encounter with Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim and the suggestions from his friend who hired me for Blood in the Bayou.

Photo of Just Roll With It logo.

Previous Work:

Prior to Generation Loss Hanover has made music for many video games and series. One, my favorite Dungeon and Dragons podcast, Just Roll With It. Just Roll With It features many online personalities as they play custom D&D campaigns together. Another is Dialtown, a phone dating videogame.

McPherson: What has working on JRWI’s sound been like? How have the different campaigns influenced your process? Do you have a favorite?

Hanover: Working with Just Roll With It was by pure luck if I’m honest, the creator of Blood in the Bayou made a Tweet searching for a composer to work on his project, and one of my friends suggested the link to me, I’m quite pessimistic so I replied to the tweet not expecting any response, but my track “Blood Sugar” had sealed the deal for him and I was hired! Blood in the Bayou was exciting to work on and my first foray into Podcast music. Its deadline was harsher than Generation Loss which made me pivot the soundtrack halfway through, instead of writing music to the episodes themselves to creating looping music like I would a Video Game for the editor to add in and swap on their choosing. Once Blood in the Bayou was complete, the main JRWI member approached me to work on their main campaign, Riptide, a sea shanty pirate podcast with over 100 episodes! Riptide took me a while to get into the swing of the style I and the JRWI team wanted, having just came from BitB my brain had to readjust the musical style to fit this pirate aesthetic, initially there was a lot of trial and error when creating its theme and the mood but luckily since the team uses Video Game music as their background music, I had a plethora of examples to build upon. I feel I enjoy Riptide the most out of the 2 as while it’s pirate music, it has its own universe where genres exist together so for one track I can include fully orchestral, and then write a Punk Rock piece next which despite being so different, the variety of the world and it’s sound allows it to gel well.

McPherson: Dialtown is such a unique game, and your music plays a great part in that. How did you make such a massive soundtrack?

Hanover: I work quite quickly when I create music, I know FL Studio like the back of my hand which allows me to be extremely efficient, Dialtown was also in development for almost 3 years which gave me more than enough time to research, plan and write its music. Dialtown’s soundtrack was fun to work on as like Riptide, was quite diverse in its sonic style, mixing Jazz and Swing, Orchestral, and some ambiance together throughout, Dialtown is also a visually unique game which allowed the music I created to be unorthodox in its creation. Unusual chord progressions to uncommon tonal modulations and creative ways to use the most unusual instruments in its setting, from Camera clicks, snaps, and hits as the percussive basis of “Oliver, aspiring filmmaker, qualified goblin” imitating drums, to the vibrato of the Stylophone’s in “Karen, so, so dunn”.

McPherson: How has the experience of working on so many different projects been for you? Do you have a favorite? Which was the most challenging?

Hanover: A lot of my work has been building experience for my future work, despite starting in 2015, I feel the last 5 years or so have been building up to the start of my career, and the initial 5 years were portfolio-building, I keep my early music up as an example to show off my blunders, from weird mixing, terrible melodies to ideas that worked in theory but failed in practice, but I also keep these early blunders public to show off how my style as grown. I get complimented on my leitmotif skills and how to tie a motif together to be recognizable and fun to listen to, but if you look back at my early 2015-2017 work, you can see that those skills were in their infancy.

I don’t feel I have a favorite project as I see my work from the creators’ point of view, not the listeners so I can hear all the imperfections or things I feel I could have done better on, but every so often I’ll go back to a track of mine to listen to, to re-experience it, but there’s always a threshold that is hit once I stop listening or thinking of my previous pieces in favor of my newer upcoming music.

McPherson: Is there anything you’d change about your work?

Hanover: I like this question as the simple answer would be “No”, but for the long answer, I feel anyone who creates art is a bit of a perfectionist who won’t let go of a particular piece until it’s perfect and I feel like that’s the same for me, I don’t release a piece until I feel it’s perfect At that time. The catch musically is my knowledge is ever expanding, I don’t think you ever stop learning as it’s such a massive topic to the point even individual genres have their own information and knowledge on what makes that individual genre work. There’s also equipment, I have far better equipment, knowledge, and technology than I had 5 years ago, a track I believed was perfect 5 years ago won’t be perfect now and as such, every so often when the mood strikes me, I’ll revisit a track to rearrange and update. I was going to do this with Dialtown’s soundtrack but knew it would be far too costly and time-consuming, but I have done it with my standalone tracks such as “The Castle (2016)” and “Return to the Castle (2018)”, “Autumn (2016) and “From Summer to Winter (2021)”.

Photos of Nathan’s cats Milly and Myrtle.

Personal Life and Thoughts:

Wanting to know more about Nathan outside of his work? In this section we talked advice and his personal life!

McPherson: Do you have advice for other musicians? Do you have any advice for college students?

Hanover: It’ll sound pessimistic, but I feel the best advice I could give is the saying “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket” I’m unsure if this is a cultural saying but essentially don’t funnel all your time, effort and money into one thing. When I first started, I was embarrassed at the thought of music NOT being my primary job and put all my time, effort, and money into it and then realized how BIG the music industry is and how saturated it is more so from the recent Pandemic. Due to this it hindered my developments greatly, couldn’t pay rent, couldn’t fund myself further, etc. because no one was hiring and there were literally thousands of composers out there all wanting a piece of the pie. Naturally feeling deflated by this I’d look on the internet for interviews of bigger composers and what their advice was which always boiled down to “If you continue and do your best you’ll make it” but I feel this is survivors bias, having seen just how BIG the industry is, I feel I’m not even scratching the surface yet.

But I soon learned a lot of their advice came down to one (or more) of three things, Luck, connections, and being in the right place at the right time, one great composer I’ve always been inspired by recounts how he would submit his portfolio to X company for months with radio silence, until he knew a friend who worked at the company who was willing to show his portfolio to executives, eventually getting hired (Connections). Another worked in a music store testing music software, and one day a pair of company executives entered and were surprised to see the music coming from the music software was from the store clerk and offered him the job at the company eventually getting hired (Luck + Right place at the right time). I’m nowhere as big as the previous examples but to use my own example of how I came to work on Generation Loss really starts in 2016 when I worked on two Video Games, Porkchop’s Adventure and Porkchop’s Horror Show, that creator knew the creator of Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim, which got streamed by the creator of Generation Loss which allowed me to be hired thanks to the luck of my hiring for Blood in the Bayou, and thanks to the right connections, allowing me to work on Generation Loss.

I started my portfolio in college, and I feel from my experience building your portfolio as early as possible and getting as many connections as you can from networking as possible is the way to go, My career started by sending a Direct Message to someone on DeviantArt, the creator for a Five Nights at Freddy’s fangame called The Joy of Creation when I was 15, having no idea it would get as popular as it has become to be picked up by the creator of Five Nights at Freddy’s himself soon allowing me to move away from fangames to original IPs. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid to work a second job, and do not make your music career the primary career unless you happen to be born with a lot of money and open opportunities already, it’s oversaturated and pays poorly, work a primary job to help fund your music career, and eventually with luck it may tip the scales where your music career becomes your primary career. This also applies to session musicians, I used to start by playing gigs in bars before jumping to music composition, and even now work Part Time as a composer, naturally, I won’t disclose my primary job but it helps pay the bills, keeping the lights on, while my music income pays for its own bills, and I hope over time I can buy a separate place to have as my own studio but I hindered myself from the start by putting all my eggs into one basket believing if I just funneled as much of my time, effort and money into it, it would simply work. I would class myself as an indie composer and I hope my work can inspire people, but I’m not at the stage where it’s 100% sustainable and it may not be for another 5 years, there still may be a point where I simply stop creating, I’d like to hope not, but it’s never a 0% chance.

McPherson: Are you enjoying your career?

Hanover: I’d say so, but I can be pessimistic so I don’t have the brightest of outlooks, but that is mainly to do with my Anxiety and Depression which I suffer from, music can sometimes be an escape for me, and something I deeply enjoy thanks to my Autism.

McPherson: Generation Loss has recently caused a lot of new people to become fans of your work. How has that affected you?

Hanover: It’s been exciting if I’m honest, I’ve always had a small following over the last 5-7 years or so, but this has been the biggest reaction I’ve had and I hope it continues after the release of the Generation Loss soundtrack. People joke about me simply appearing in comments and scaring them with my presence (which I find extremely funny it’s now become a little internet meme) I am just incredibly grateful for the support and attention, as you can probably tell from the previous 2 questions, under the online presence I’m not the brightest nor happiest of the bunch so it’s nice to see people genuinely enjoying the music enough to pay and help fund me as a creator. I hope it doesn’t sound greedy but it all helps go towards my progress and sustainability, I know money can be a taboo topic in the industry, everyone has to have some heartfelt reason as to why they do what they do, and I guess I do to…but money is also nice. It’s not talked about but it’s fundamental, if all my music income suddenly stopped, other than the passion, nothing else would fuel my creations and I don’t think the taxman or landlord would allow “passion” as a payment option, a lot of passion was used in those first 5 years building my portfolio and earning little to nothing in order to try and get myself off the ground.

McPherson: What would you like the readers to know about you?

Hanover: One of my favorite colors is pink, and I have two cats, Milly (10), Myrtle (4) which you can see me post on my Twitter every so often, I firmly believe Trans rights are human rights! Happy Pride Month!

You can support Nathan Hanover’s music at:

Bandcamp: https://nhsynthonicorchestra.bandcamp.com/

Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/nhsynthonicorchestra

Website: https://nathanhanover.com/

LeAnne McPherson

#my writing #nathan hanover #gl #gen loss #generation loss #music #interview #cats

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