#even fictional cops will always choose their buddies

[bitch-liquorice]

I love law and order svu but DAMN some of these episodes are crazy copaganda

[aion-rsa]

Squid Game’s Scathing Critique of Capitalism

https://ift.tt/3kOEMpF

This Squid Game article contains MAJOR spoilers.

From the very first game of ddakji out in the real world with Train to Busan actor Gong Yoo, Squid Game poses the question: how far would you go for money? How much of your body, your life, would you trade to keep the wolves at bay and to get to live the life you’ve always dreamed? Once you start, could you stop, even if you wanted to? And in the end, would it even be worth it? While Squid Game depicts an attempt to answer these questions taken to the extreme, they are the same essential questions posed to everyone living under capitalism: What kind of job, what terrible hours, what back-breaking labor, what level of abuse, what work/life imbalance will we tolerate in exchange for what we need or want to live? Unlike many examples of this genre, Squid Game is set in our contemporary reality, which makes its scathing critique of capitalism less of a metaphor for the world we live in and more of a literal depiction of life under capitalism.

Squid Game’s Workers

At the most basic level, the entire competition within Squid Game would not exist without extreme financial distress creating a ready pool of players. It’s no coincidence that Gi-hun’s hard times started when he lost his job, followed by violence against the workers who went on strike. Strike-breakers and physical violence against striking workers may feel like an antiquated idea to an American audience. South Korea, however, has something of an anti-labor reputation, with only 10% of its workers in unions and laws limiting unions to negotiating pay, among other restrictions. In the US, the anti-labor fight is alive and well, though transformed, where it takes the shape of the deceptively named “Right to Work” laws, which benefit corporations and make it harder for unions to operate.

As noted in our review, (most of) the players choose to leave and then willingly return to the arena, which separates Squid Game from other entries in the genre like the Hunger Games series and Escape Room. This element of volition contributes to the series’ primary critical goal. As Mi-nyeo and others brought up early on, they’re getting killed in the real world too, but at least inside they might actually get something for their troubles. 

As an anti-capitalist parable, the only ways to fight back or upend the game in some small way are through acts of solidarity or by turning down the allure of the cash. The final clause in the game’s consent form states that the game can end if a majority of players agree to do so. After the brutal Red Light, Green Light massacre in the first, they do exactly that. The election might as well be a union vote. It’s shocking that the contract for the game included an escape clause at all, but it seems the host and his ilk enjoy at least allowing the illusion of free will if nothing else. The players who didn’t return after the first vote to leave the game, though unseen in this narrative, are perhaps the wisest of all. 

Read more

TV

Squid Game’s Most Heartbreaking Hour is Also Its Best

By Kayti Burt

TV

Squid Game Ending Explained

By Kayti Burt

During tug of war, Gi-hun’s team surprises everyone by winning. Their teamwork, unity of purpose, and superior strategy help them defeat a stronger adversary, which is a basic principle of labor organizing, albeit usually not at the expense of the lives of other workers. Player 1 (Il-nam) and Player 240 (Ji-yeong) each find their own way to beat the game by essentially backing out of the competition during marbles. In exchange for friendship and choosing the circumstances of their own deaths, Ji-yeong and Il-nam each make their own, ethically sound choice under this miserable system. Il-nam gets an asterisk since he was never going to die, but he still found a choice beyond merely “kill” or “be killed” by teaching his Gganbu one “last” lesson and helping him continue on in the game. 

In the end, Gi-hun confounds the VIPs and the Front Man by coming to the precipice of victory and simply walking away. Under capitalism, this group of incredibly rich men simply could not understand how someone could come so close to claiming their prize, and choose not to. But for Gi-hun, human life always had greater value. Gi-hun followed (Player 67) Sae-byeok’s advice and stayed true to himself, refusing to actively take anyone’s life, especially not the life of his friend. 

Squid Game’s Ruling Class

Since the competition only exists because of the worst aspects of capitalism, it’s not surprising that in the end, it is itself a capitalist endeavor. Ultra-wealthy VIPs, who mostly seem to be white, Western men, spectate for a price and bet on the game. In their luxury accommodations, they lounge on silent human “furniture” and mistreat service staff. In one notable example, a VIP threatens to kill a server (who the audience knows to be undercover cop Hwang Jun-ho) if he doesn’t remove his mask, even though the VIP knows it would cost the server his life. 

Perhaps most enraging of all is what Player 1, who turns out to actually be the Host, has to say to Gi-hun a year after the game ends. It all circles back to the game’s existential connection to economics; on the one hand, there is the unshakeable link to a population in which a significant portion of people suffer from dire financial woes. On the other hand, there is the Host and his cronies, the ultra-rich who are so bored from their megarich lives that they decided to bet on deadly human bloodsport for fun just so they could feel something again, as though they were betting on horses. 

In spite of the enormous gulf between the two, the Host attempts to draw comparisons between the ultra-wealthy and the extreme poor, saying both are miserable. His little joke denies the reality of hunger, early death, trauma, and many other ways that being poor is actively harmful, both physically and mentally. It’s the kind of slow death that makes risking a quick one in the arena seem reasonable. He and his buddies were just kind of bored. Moreover, the Host denies the role of economic coercion in players taking part in the game, insisting that everyone was there of their own free will. But what free will can there be for people who owe millions, with families at home to care for and creditors at their back, when someone comes along and offers a solution, even a dangerous one? Anyone who has taken a dodgy job offer to get away from a worse one, or because they’re unemployed and the rent and college loans are due, knows that there is a limit to how truly free our choices can be when we need money, especially if there’s little to no safety net. 

Read more

TV

Why Are Squid Game’s English-Language Actors So Bad?

By Kayti Burt

TV

Best Squid Game Doll Sightings

By Kayti Burt

Throughout the series, it is clear that someone had to be funding Squid Game at a high level. Unlike science fiction or fantasy takes, the show is grounded in our current reality, so the large-scale, high-tech obstacles and the island locale must have cost a pretty penny. Of course for any who see it as unrealistic, consider the example of Jeffrey Epstein, a man who bought an island from the US government and ran a sexual abuse and human trafficking ring not entirely disimilar (though far more pedestrian in its purpose) from this one. 

The Host is able to pay for everything because he works in – you guessed it – banking. It’s a profession where he gained wealth by moving capital around. Given the Korean debt crisis – South Korea has the highest household debt in the world, both in size and growth – his profession makes him a worthy villain, in the same way the Lehman Brothers were after the 2008 crash. The bank executive calls in Gi-hun to offer him investment products and services, because of course someone with 45 billion won can accrue significantly more money passively, and who wouldn’t want that? Gi-hun’s decision to walk away is a callback to his earlier attempt to walk away from Squid Game when millions of dollars was within his grasp.

Throughout the series, the people running the game actively pit the players against one another in much the same way capitalism pits workers against one another. Whether they’re giving the players less food to encourage a fight overnight, the daily influx of cash every time another player dies, or giving them knives for the evening, the mysterious people pulling the strings want the players to fight each other like crabs in a barrel so they can’t work together to figure out what’s going on or take on the guys in red jumpsuits. Though there are notable examples of the players working together to succeed, it is always within the rules of the system. It is never treated as a viable or likely option for the players to team up and take the blood money literally hanging over their heads or to prevent death, merely to redirect it or choose how they will die. No, to win that, they must play the Squid Game’s rules. 

In our society, this kind of worker-vs-worker rhetoric takes the form of employers telling workers their workload is harder or they can’t go on vacation or get a raise because of fellow employees who leave or go on maternity leave.. In reality, these are all normal aspects of managing a business that employers should plan for, and their failure to do so is not the fault of their workers. Much like in Squid Game, it benefits managers and owners if workers are too busy being mad at each other to have time or energy to fight the system and those who make unjust rules in the first place. 

Squid Game’s Managers

The Front Man insists the game is fair, gruesomely hanging the dead bodies of those involved in the organ harvesting scheme because they traded medical knowledge for advanced intel on the game. However, like capitalism, there are many ways that the system is clearly rigged, no matter what the people at the top insist. There’s the obvious corruption in the organ harvesting ring, but even at its “purest” form, the game is not equitable. Sometimes the managers and soldiers in red jumpsuits stand by when unfair things happen, like Deok-su and his cronies stealing food. At other times, the people in charge intervene in player squabbles, like enforcing nonviolence during marbles and elections but encouraging violence at other times. They especially set things up to their own advantage, such as cutting the lights so the players couldn’t see the glass in the penultimate game, or the way they set up the election. Everyone knew how everyone else voted, they shared the total amount of money immediately beforehand, in an attempt to sway votes, calling to mind Amazon’s scare tactics before the recent unionization vote.

Read more

Culture

Squid Game Competitions, As Played By BTS

By Kayti Burt

Movies

Squid Game: Best Deadly Competition TV Shows & Movies to Watch Next

By Kayti Burt and 3 others

Ultimately, much like any manager/employer, the Front Man’s insistence on fairness has nothing to do with the actual value of equality, but rather the capitalist need to ensure betters are happy with the stakes and their chance at a favorable outcome. 

Even the workers, soldiers and managers in red jumpsuits, who seem to be in charge, are ultimately only in power (and alive) so long as they serve the needs of the system. Like so many low-level managers, many wield their tiny amount of power ruthlessly, shooting players with impunity or running their organ harvesting side gig. It soon becomes clear that they’re as expendable as players, if not moreso, and the Front Man shoots them without hesitating. A player asks (and it’s too bad we never learned) what “they” did to the people in red jumpsuits to get them to run this game, but it’s not too hard to guess. They seem to be very young men, who likely needed money and wouldn’t be missed if they never returned. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The biggest trick capitalism ever pulled was convincing workers it’s a zero-sum game, that anything we want but don’t have is the fault of someone else who “took it” from us. Within the game, that means every player was a living obstacle to the money, and that Gi-hun should kill his childhood friend to succeed and celebrate when he’s done. But as we see after he “wins,” even without taking Sang-woo’s life himself, the money isn’t worth it. The greater success would have been both men walking out of the arena alive.

The post Squid Game’s Scathing Critique of Capitalism appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3CUfVXz

[santiagogarcia]

Pedro Pascal Tag Game

I was tagged by @ewan-mcgregor, thank you Constance I had a lot of fun with this 💞

Favourite Pedro character: You’re really gonna make me choose between Din and Javi?? Rude, but OK. Din Djarin it is.

Favourite Pedro movie/show: Prospect, as far as movies go. I’m a sucker for indie science fiction films and this one has everything going for it (cinematography, soundtrack, story...Ezra’s blond streak and folksy dialogue). For TV, it’s The Mandalorian. Do I even have to explain this one??

What got you into Pedro and his characters? First noticed him as Oberyn in GoT, but his role in Narcos made me start taking notes. Like, I went out and tried to watch everything he was in.

Favourite thing about Pedro or one of his characters? Pedro is a good egg. Literally the nicest, most wholesome (and chaotic) famous person I can think of ❤️ Just check out his IG or Twitter or any interview he’s ever done. Din is a good egg, too. Always does the right thing even if it comes at great expense to himself, and is dad to an adorable baby space gremlin 💚

Do you write for Pedro characters? Nope.

And what fanfic(s) have you not been able to stop thinking about by another author? The last one I read: the sweetest taboo by @softpedropascal

And finally, this one is a bit odd, but what do you hope Pedro does in the future (like a role he takes or a project he works on or something that happens to one of his characters)? A buddy cop/private investigator action-comedy with Oscar Isaac. Or a roadtrip movie set in the US southwest. But what I really really want is for him to be cast in a serious Oscar-bait™ drama that gets him award nominations. He’s a good actor, it should be recognised by the industry.

Tagging: @softpedropascal, @javier-pena, @transitorywhim, @isvvc-pvscvl, @pumpkin-stars, @pedrocentric, @trashcora, @pena--javier, @javierpcna, @fyeahpedropascal, and anyone else who wants to play (do or do not, there is no pressure)

[inagetawaycarxo]

𝓥𝓪𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓮𝓼

Whats love without some fluff, smut & angst… Requests are open for valentines *READER INSERT ONLY* Requesting for Valentine’s Day ends at the end of February. Send in the fictional character/celeb, as well as the prompt. If you have a selected  valentine idea of your own send it in. NOTE: LI= celeb or fictional character of your choosing. Don’t be vague when requesting.

𝓣𝔂𝓹𝓮

Smut

Headcanon

Preferences

Imagine

Oneshot

Drabble

Blurb

Gif Imagine

Gif Drabble { for Gif imagine/drabble Please submit your request/as well as the gif}

Song fic

Moodboard

Aesthetic

𝓟𝓻𝓸𝓶𝓹𝓽𝓼

𝓕𝓵𝓾𝓯𝓯

❛It’s you. It’s always been you.❜

❛Are you gonna kiss me?❜

❛You were always worth it. You were always enough.❜

❛I want everything, and I want it with you.❜

❛I wanna spend the rest of my sunsets with you.❜

❛She likes you, but she’s too shy to tell you.❜

❛Your smile is literally the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life.❜

❛You have me. Until every last star in the galaxy dies. You have me.❜

❛You’re interesting, and different, and I like that.❜

❛And all I want is to be hugged, kissed, wanted, and loved, preferably by you.❜

❛I like you more than I planned.❜

❛You smell like love.❜

❛You’re the reason why I’m smiling again.❜

❛You make me feel things I didn’t believe in anymore.❜

❛You’re it, you’re my person.❜

❛Kiss me again.❜

❛That’s my girl.❜

❛As long as I have you, nothing else matters.❜

❛Grab my waist, pull me closer, kiss me.❜

❛You’re just like a dream.❜

𝓐𝓷𝓰𝓼𝓽

❛It was always you.❜

❛Stop checking your phone he’s not going to text you.❜

❛‘Don’t leave me’ he said, and walked away.❜

❛All the memories come back, but he never does.❜

❛All the memories come back, but she never does.❜

❛I wish you were here to tell me that everything is gonna be okay.❜

❛You let him go. It’s better that way. For you or him?❜

❛But you’re back now-❜ -  ❛I didn’t come back for you.❜

❛I wonder if he lies awake at night missing me the way I miss him.❜

❛Why do we always want what we can’t have?❜

❛You and I will always be unfinished business.❜

❛It was all a dream.❜

❛Its not that serious.❜

❛You’re not a bad boy, you’re just a bad person.❜

❛But ‘just friends’ don’t look at each other like that.❜

❛Missing you comes in waves, and tonight I’m drowning.❜

❛I cant do this anymore.❜

❛He doesn’t even know I exist.❜

❛I can’t fall for anyone else because of you.❜

❛I miss the way things used to be.❜

❛Tell me I’ll see you again.❜

❛No reason to stay is a good reason to go.❜

❛You ruined me and I called it love.❜

❛You were the hardest lesson I ever had to learn.❜

❛Don’t give up on something that matters.❜

❛You never people as much as you miss them.❜

❛I got a mind full of unsaid things.❜

❛The bigger the love, the harder the fall.❜

❛You probably don’t think about me at all, and that hurts.❜

𝓢𝓶𝓾𝓽

❛Your sexiness is distracting me.❜

❛I want you in my bed, and between my legs.❜

❛I love the way you fuck me.❜

❛So wet and waiting.❜

❛I may look calm but in my head I’ve fucked you ten times.❜

❛I want you to run your tongue up my inner thighs.❜

❛If I was naked in front of you right now, what would you do to me?❜

❛If you can still walk, then we’re not finished.❜

❛You have no idea how much I crave you.❜

❛Let’s misbehave.❜

𝓘𝓷𝓫𝓮𝓽𝔀𝓮𝓮𝓷

❛It began as a mistake.❜

❛How can I be upset over something I never had?❜

❛Are you crying?❜ - ❛Nope, I got something in my eye.❜

❛I wouldn’t have sex with you if you were the last person on earth.❜

❛I’ve been thinking about you.❜ -  ❛Try a cold shower.❜

❛Can you two just date already.❜

❛Dick is everywhere. Chemistry isn’t.❜

❛A million times over, I will always choose you.❜

❛Its always you.❜

❛Don’t worry, the right ones won’t leave.❜

❛Little does she know, he thinks about her too.❜

❛It’s driving me insane how I can’t have you.❜

❛I’m madly in love with you.❜ – ❛Well, good luck with that.❜

❛The bad days don’t stay bad forever.❜

❛ Nothing changes if nothing changes.❜

❛I feel nothing for you. - Nothing, uh? - Nothing.❜

❛I’m not jealous, I’m territorial. Jealous is when you want something that’s not yours. Territorial is protecting what’s already yours.❜

❛I will always care for you, even if we’re not together, and even if we are far, far away from each other.❜

❛You’re all that matters to me.❜

❛I’ve never trusted someone as much as I’ve trusted you.❜

❛We could be so much more.❜

❛I kinda wanna be more than friends.❜

𝓢𝓬𝓮𝓷𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓼

Forehead kiss

Making out

Neck kisses

Thigh kisess

Hand kiss

Cheek kiss

Nose kiss

Eskimo kiss

French kiss

Bite kisses

Body kisses

Earlobe kisses

Kisses

Hugging

Bear hug

side hug

Back hug

Hugging from behind

Tight hug

Straddle hug

Eye to eye hug

Hug with resting heads on each other

Twirling around hug

Hug around waist

Slow dance hug

Catcher hug

Wedding

Love Triangle

First “I Love You’s.”

House Hunting

Reunited

PDA

Interruptions

___ Asking You Out Would Include

Breakup

Makeup

You Run Into Them After the Breakup

Dating Headcanon

They Get Jealous

Jealousy Headcanon

The Makeup Tag

Cuddling

You Get A Pet Together

Insecurities

Amusement Park

Time Of The Month

Meeting For the First Time

First Kiss

Being Married To ___ Would Include

Post Breakup, Run In’s

Speak Now Or Forever Hold your Peace

Sex Headcanon

Sleeping Headcanon

Losing Your Virginity {The Lead Up & The Aftermath}

Meeting Yours/Their Child From A Previous Relationship

Taking A Bath Together

Sleepless Nights

Spending Valentines Day With ___

Long Distance Relationship

Coffee dates

Midnight car rides

Candy hearts

Roses

Chocolates

Flowers

Teddy bear

Kinky accessories

Valentine cards

Lingerie

Love coupons

Stay at home date

Breakfast in bed

Movie theatre

Candlelight dinner

Blind date/ set up by friends

Movie night

Ate for a date

Wrong restaurant

Strangers alone on Valentine’s Day

Rained out picnic

Surprise date while working late

Forgot to get anything

Forgot

Babysitter canceled

Family date night

Secret admirer

Pick up lines

Asking to be valentines

Confessing feelings

Surprise date

Love letters

Proposal

Fancy dinner

First meeting

Double date

Wingman

Serenade

Cuddling gets handys

Flirting

Secrecy admirer/secret crush

Date gone wrong

Stood up

Vibrating panties

They broke the readers heart in the past and wants the reader back

Reader believes no one can ever love her

Breakfast in bed

Romantic movies

A quiet night t home

Kiss at midnight

Speed Dating

Breakup to makeup

Accidental kiss

Almost kiss

Blind Date

Camping

Carnival

Family don’t approve

Handcuffed together

Height difference

Love confession

Meddling family/friends

Post Breakup

Protective

Possessive

Recreate your first date

Restaurant

Road trip

Stranded

Strangers who end up on kiss cam

Kiss cam

Volunteer together

Vacation

One of them is promised to someone else

One of them is married to someone else

LI/Reader is interested in someone else in addition to Reader/LI

LI/Reader is infatuated with someone else instead of Reader/LI

Their together is limited

IntImacy issues

Their love is forbidden by others (family etc, media, people)

LI/Reader into something Reader/LI doesn’t like

Different classes

LI/Reader believes no one truly loves them

It was supposed to be sex only

Their love was supposed to be fake

Faking it at first

Reader is a suspect {probably best of Chicago P.D.}

LI/reader family is the worst

LI/Reader got a reputation

Terrible first impressions

LI broke Readers heart in the past

Trust issues

LI/Reader doesn’t see LI/Reader in a romantic way

Anti-Valentines

𝓐𝓤’𝓢

One Night Stand AU

On the Run AU

Fake Engagement AU

Agent AU

Scandal-Induced Marriage AU

Tortured Hero AU

Agents Dating AU

Awkward First Meeting AU

Firefighter AU

Love Turns Them Evil AU

Accidental Pregnancy AU

Best Friends Sibling AU

Millionaire AU

Teacher/Parent AU

Unholy Matrimony {Villainous married couple} AU

Weakness Turns On Lover AU

Bodyguard Betrayal AU

Arranged  Marriage AU

Angel AU

Age Gap/Difference AU

Adopt A Pet AU

Affair AU

Amnesia AU

Actor AU

Actress AU

Angel/Demon AU

Animal Shelter AU

Alpha/Beta/Omega AU

Babysitter AU

Babysitting AU

Boss AU

Betrayal AU

Best Friends Wedding AU

Blackmail AU

Bodyguard AU

Bakery AU

Bartender AU

Beach AU

Bed Sharing AU

Costars AU

Coffee Shop AU

Cozy Cabin In The Woods AU

Crush AU

Childhood Friends AU

CEO AU

Coworkers AU

Detective AU

Dog Walker AU

Domestic AU

Demon AU

Double Agent AU

Dom/Sub AU

Doctor/Doctor AU

Doctor/Nurse AU

Damsel In Distress AU

Doctor AU

Doctor/Patient AU

Dimension Hoping AU

Enemies To Lovers AU

Ex AU

Fuck Buddies AU

Friends To Lovers AU

Friends With Benefits AU

Fake Relationship AU

Fake Dating AU

Fake Marriage AU

Fake Ex’s AU

Fling AU

Forbidden Love AU

First Love AU

Flower Shop AU

Florist AU

Gangster AU

House Sitter AU

Hanahaki Disease AU

Heat AU

Hospital AU

Hero AU

Internet Friends AU

Jilted Bride AU

Kidnapped AU

Love Affair AU

Love/Hate Relationship AU

Love Triangle AU

Lured Into A Trap AU

Love Spell AU

Lost In The Woods AU

Mob!Boss AU

Mafia AU

Mechanic AU

Mistaken Identity AU

Marriage AU

Movie Night/Date AU

Merman AU

Mermaid AU

Neighbour AU

New Neighbour AU

Nurse AU

One Sided Love AU

Office Romance AU

Personal Assistant AU

Private Detective AU

Pen Pals AU

Paramedic AU

Parent AU

Police Officer AU

Rivals To Lovers AU

Retreat Weekend AU

Roommates AU

Runaway Bride AU

Runaway Groom AU

Reunion/Reunited Lovers AU

Resurrection AU

Rivalry To Romance AU

Rockstar AU

Runaway AU

Sugar Daddy AU

Sleeping With The Ex AU

Sleeping With Te Boss AU

Secret Relationship AU

Secret Baby AU

Single Parent AU

Secret Angel AU

Surfer AU

Time Travel AU

Teacher/Single Parent AU

Time Travelers AU

Unrequited Love AU

Undercover Cop AU

Vampire/Werewolf AU

Vampire AU

Veterinarian AU

Waitress AU

Wedding Planner AU

Werewolf AU

Witch AU

Writer AU

𝓝𝓢𝓕𝓦

Nipple kisses

Genital kisses

Phone sex

Skype sex

Trailer sex

Plane sex

Against the wall

Double penetration

Triple penetration

Threesome

Comfort sex

Dominance/ Sub sex

69’ing

Locker room sex

Hotel room sex

Quickie

Masturbating.

Getting caught.

Handcuff sex.

Sex in a hot tub {or jucuzzi}

Car sex

Beach sex

Elevator sex

Public sex

Celebration sex

Honeymoon sex

Sex in a candle lit room

Sex under the stars

Sex marathon {everyday}

Mirror sex

Office sex

Rough sex

Jealous sex

Angry sex

Kinky sex

Breakup sex

Makeup sex

On a table sex

Shower sex

Bath sex

Making love

Slow sex

Drunk sex

Sex on the dining table

Riding him

Sex tape

Strip tease

Teasing

Blindfold

Role play

Bondage

Tied up

Daddy kink

Sex games

Dry humping

Spanking

Squirting

Dirty talk

Sexting

Lap dance

First time

Booty call

Doggy style

First time orgasm

Orgasm denial

Orgasm control

Voyeurism

Oral

Fingering

Eating out

Blowjob

Sex toys

Ice play sexually

Sex with food.

𝓛𝓲𝓼𝓽

Chicago Fire;

Kelly Severide

Matt Casey

Sylvie Brett

Gabby Dawson

Chicago Med;

Connor Rhodes

Will Halstead

Ethan Choi

Chicago P.D.;

Jay Halstead

Adam Ruzek

Antonio Dawson

Kevin Atwater

Kim Burgess

Erin Lindsay

Hank Voight

Hailey Upton

Dceu;

Bruce Wayne

Diana Prince

Lena Luthor

Kara Danvers

Clark Kent

Marvel;

Bucky Barnes

Steve Rogers

Tony Stark

Thor

Peter Parker

Bruce Banner

Clint Barton

T’Challa

Loki

Wanda

Carol Danvers

Sam Wilson

Mj

Supernatural;

Dean Winchester

Demon!Dean

Sam Winchester

Castiel

Jack Kline

Crowley

Criminal Minds;

Derek Morgan

Spencer Reid

Luke Alvez

-

Chris Evans

Sebastian Stan

Jensen Ackles

Richard Madden

Zendaya

Jake Gyllenhaal

[olderthannetfic]

It’s International Fanworks Day and also the 30th and final post in this series. If you follow my tumblr, you know that my true fandom isn’t buddy cops or Highlander or any of those things. No, my true fandom is...

WANK

No matter which bitchy piece of fujo-course nonsense you’re looking at on tumblr, no matter which debate about WNGWJLEO or women in slash or fanfiction vs. media you're reblogging, your grandma was having that fight in a zine somewhere in 1985 and at Escapade in the 90s.

Here’s a vid review from 2002:

"History Repeating," [...] was an Amanda vid. In-fucking-credible. Who knew? Who knew I could like Amanda? Who knew there were fresh HL clips I hadn't seen a thousand times before in HL vids? (Of course, as someone pointed out, she had her own spin-off.) This rocked--sharp, fast cutting and pretty, pretty shots, with a hot bisexy vibe running through it. And, you know, people like to say that there's all this self-hating misogyny in fans--you know, that women hate shows about women, hate women characters breaking up the OTP, etc. But when you see a femme-centric vid like this bring down the house, you really have to wonder. Is it misogyny, really, or is just that we usually see a bunch of crap representations of women in media and resist them?

So on the theme of There Is Nothing New Under The Sun, here is a selection of past Escapade panels on gender, representation, and problematicness:

1993 - Anti-Feminism in Slash Fandom (Or, how 'it was never this good with a woman' syndrome... where are the women, and why do we care?)

1995 - Why Lesbians Read Slash - (What's the attraction? Why do they care? Why do they write it?)

1996 - Character Bisexuality: Convenient fiction or character trait? (Is this a good compromise between "We're not gay, we just love each other" and "I was gay all along and just faking it with women"? Or is this too easy? Special mention for the stereotypical bisexual villian who's evil, sexy, and can come on to everyone.)

1996 - Female Heroes: Female Empowerment, or male power in women's bodies? (Give a woman a gun and make her really tough. Wow, cool! yes, or no? Are we celebrating women, or are we merely putting breasts on male action heroes? Heroines under discussion may include (but not be limited to) Sara Connor, Ripley, Vasquez, Thelma & Louise.)

1997 - Gender Astigmatism (The Gender Continuum: in what we read, in what we write, and what we are, there is always a connection with a point on the gender continuum. How do our definitions of "feminine" and "masculine" influence our creativity? Where do bisexual characters fit in? (besides there, you dirty-minded person!)

1998 - Xena: Does Girl-Slash Get Us Going? (Xena is the first show with a feminine couple to be really popular. What kind of slash fans are interested? Does gender orientation matter? Or do slash fans love slashy couples regardless of their gender? Can m/m fans be 'converted' to f/f fans?)

1998 - Bastards & the Women Who Love Them (When Methos says, "you live to serve me," any normal '90s woman says, "I don't think so!... or does she? A happy contemplation on the virtues of handsome thugs.)

1998 - Slash: a Continuation of Women's Writing, led by Constance Penley (In case you didn't know, in her recent book NASA/TREK (yes, the slash is intentional), she addressed slash as a continuum of women's writing, combining women's romance, and the male quest romance. Join her for a discussion of slash -- where it was, where it is, where it might be going.)

1998 - The Trauma of Slash Fans in Het Fandoms (Or, what to do when find women doing all that cool, tough-guy stuff you love.)

1999 - Male Slash Fans - Welcome Voice, or Infringement? (Slash is written by women for women — or is it? The Internet has attracted new fans, including the "male slash fan". Who is he? What does he think of what "we" do? Do we care?)

2002 - Femslash (General discussion on female/female slash fiction. If Buffy wanted something cold and hard between her legs, why didn't she just choose silicon?)

2003 - Slash: Feminist political act or really good porn?

2005 - Where have all the lesbians gone? (When some slash lists explicitly state m/m only, where do you go for femslash? Are there any hot femslash couples? Pimp your femslash fandom here, or bemoan the lack of strung female characters in the current conservative social climate.)

2007 - Femslash: The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Femslash. It's a work that makes some of our hearts leap for joy and inspires complete and total disinterset—or even dislike and disdain—in others. Where can we find the good stuff? What makes it good? And what's up with the haters?)

2007 - SGA: The Women of Atlantis (What do we like about how the women of SGA are written and portrayed, and what makes us wince? What do we think about how their issues are being woven into the show's narrative?)

2008 - Gay is Not Slash (...even though slash is sometimes gay. The current argument about m/m romances by women as taking recognition *away* from male gay writers, depends on m/m writing being intended as gay lit. And slash, for one, isn't, even if there can be overlap. What overlaps? What doesn't? What examples do fans like?

2009 - Female Character Stories: Halfamoon, Full Moon or Just Moony (F/f slash, and other stories centered on female characters, are gaining visibility in fandom. Are there things fens will write about women that we won't about men? (Given MPreg, *are* there?) Should f/f be like m/m, or is it unavoidably different?)

2011 - My ***** is Not Ideologically Driven, But is it Homophobic (Slash fandom often sees itself as a mostly liberal community. IDIC, right? But recently there's been a slash backlash: it's anti-feminist, a 'symptom' of internalized misogyny. We're 'erasing' the women characters after all. Is slash homophobic? Does slash fandom appropriate gay culture? Is it awesome and ennobling as it makes us happy in our panties, or is all that self-hatred bubbling just beneath the surface of our porn?)

2012 - Natural Woman (We've lamented the lack of strong, believable female characters (who dress appropriately). But now we have them: Gemma Teller and Audrey Parker; Salt and Haywire; we've got Bechdel-passing women who look like they can throw a punch. Still, most of them are in the sci-fi or action genre, so are we really seeing progress? And what are we doing with them, as fans?)

2012 - Don't Call It a Bromance (It's Just Canon) (TPTB are increasingly aware of slash, and bromance is regular fare on TV canon these days. Does overt bromance make the fic and art hotter or just vanilla? Is there an anti-slash backlash in our shows? Is the emphasis on men's relationships making women disappear? Inquiring minds want to know. If you have answers, theories, or just want to squee, join in the fun!)

2014 - (The End of?) Ladybashing in Slashfic (Slashfic used to regularly feature bashing of female characters. Now, blatant bashing seems less fashionable. If you recognize this trend, let's talk! Were most ladybashing fics ones for juggernaut pairings in megafandoms, or were they everywhere? What's causing the change: more women in leading roles/ensemble casts, fic writers being more conscious to avoid bashing ladies even if they're not their favorites, more willingness to blame show writers' bad writing (instead of the character being just bad/evil/stupid) for bad female characters, or something else entirely?)

2015 - Fifty Shades of Fandom (Fifty Shades of Grey has become the representation of fan fiction in mainstream culture. It’s bad fan fiction, and it’s being used to ridicule women while making millions off women readers and viewers. Can we connect with these women: proto-fans who would love to read, and maybe write, great fan fiction if they found it? Can we use the FSoG phenomenon to expand our community? Does keeping our doors closed and our mouths shut perpetuate both monetization of our fan culture and misogynist scorn?)

2016 - Who Are We? (How do we define ourselves in this age of so many OT3s and team orgy pairings? Does m/m/f count as "slash"? Is slash-only space slipping away? (And would that be bad?) Do m/m and f/f belong together more than they do with m/f? Is "Media Fandom" a valid term any longer? Who are we if we start shipping het?)

2016 - Ladies Loving Ladies. (There would seem to be enough queer women in fandom to write/want more f/f. Do lesbians write f/f, m/m? Both? Do straight women? Or are we still missing the iconic female characters and relationships that create a great slash fandom? Did they figure out the answer to this question at TGIF/F and if so, what is it?)

2016 - By Us For Us (Fic, even kinky slash, is practically mainstream these days. The ebook revolution puts publishing within reach of almost anyone. Sundance hits have been filmed on iPhones. So why aren't fangirls making more media? Or is it happening right under our noses? Is this a place where our women's gift economy does our community a disservice? Discuss what's out there, what we'd like to see, and what's holding us back.)

2017 - LGBTQIA+ in Slash Fandom (Queer fans have always been here. In a subculture often defined as "for" straight women, what do we as fans have to say about non-straight, non-cis, and non-conventional sexuality and gender in fanfiction, in fandom, and in the larger culture?)

2018 - Confronting the Tensions Between Slash and Queer Representation (Slash fandom thrives on homoerotic subtext. Many queer fans are unwilling to settle for this quasi-representation. Part of every slash fandom seems loudly invested in their ship becoming canon. Some are queer fans who want actual textual representation in their favorite shows, and some are fans using queer politics to fight ship wars. Then the “slash is not activism” posts make the rounds. Is slash activism? Is advocating for slash ships in canon the same thing as advocating for queer representation?)

2018 - Representing Slashers (What does "representation" in the media mean to us? We know what more gay or POC representation means, but what about slash fandom, which is largely female and focused on bodies that don't resemble our own? Would better female characters in media better represent us? Or male characters written for a female audience? Come talk about the intersection of slash, personal identity, and media representation.)

2018 - Anonymity in Slash Fandom: Choosing to Hide (Why do the majority of slash fans hide their hobby? Is it fear of blackmail? Embarrassment? Fear of losing employment? How does this affect your happiness? How does this affect your security? What would an ideal world look like? Who would/have you told about your interest in slash? Who would you never, ever, tell?)

2019 - Fandom Post-Slash? (In an era of "ships" and #pairing #tags on Tumblr and AO3, has the "slash" label lost its meaning? Same-gender pairings are as popular as ever and fans still ID pairings with a virgule between the names, but how many fans still call m/m and f/f slash or femslash? How many fans identify as "slashers?" Het and slash were opposing binaries which few fans crossed. Are these barriers breaking down? What purpose has the term "slash" served? Has fandom moved

past it and, if so, what does that mean?)

[pilferingapples]

@lizamezzo asked for Javert sooo here we go, I guess!!

How I feel about this character:

Incredibly depressed that he continues to be relevant! 

Also he’s one of the best fictional creations ever! His actual role in the police may be deeply confusing, but his psychology is amazingly well realized and he is a spot-on critique of the mindset and behavior that a society powered by hierarchical inequality demands of its supporters!  Which is why his continued relevance is so depressing! 

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character:

Eeesh it’s hard to imagine Javert with anyone we see-- he’s just so completely Not About That?

...Crackship Javert and Victurnien, maybe? They have the same view of the social order and who Deserves respect and basic humanity.  

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character:

It’s almost purely Potential, but: Javert and Simplice. I would be interested in seeing more of Javert interacting with someone who he respects without complication, and who shares some of his binary absolutism, but is coming at it from a place of love instead of fear and anger. 

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I am often horrified by how eager some people are to minimize  or even completely excuse Javert’s awfulness, his bigotry and cruelty and its long-tail fallout, just because he’s... not doing it for funsies , I guess?? or sometimes explicitly because they think blind obedience to authority is admirable  ?  I am always going to be adamant that Javert’s genuine awfulness-his bigotry and prejudice, his cruelty--  needs to be recognized and accepted as part of his character and part of the story and faced without trying to soften it. 

He’s spent decades proudly upholding violent , unjust laws, and specifically looking to hit the lowest-ranking people with the harshest possible punishment.  He’s gotten his criminal IDs wrong at least once that we know of, and it apparently never made him pause for a moment to consider if maybe ,  even with his “ if they broke the law they deserve what they get,also Criminal is an Inherent Trait and not just a description of a thing someone may  have done once”  attitude ,  some of the people in prison  might be genuinely innocent  of the crime they got convicted for.  We know he arrests Fantine for self- defense because the man who attacked her was wealthier; how many worse  assaults has he waved off or punished the victim for because after all, that one’s  a Respectable Sort and that one is not ?   All of the little cruelties and irregularities in that letter at the end? He watched those happen without protest for a good decade just in Paris.He  doesn’t commit actual police brutality , but would he interfere in any way with another police officer who did, provided it was against the Wrong Sort of people?  He has done and condoned horrible things for decades. 

And he’s a Good Cop! That’s important! He doesn’t physically assault people who have been arrested (even when they assault him!) , he doesn’t take bribes, he doesn’t sexually exploit prostitutes.  But this is what a “ good cop”  in a bad system looks like!   If the system is abusive and cruel then the people who choose to enforce it, or are chosen to enforce it, are also  going to be abusive and cruel!  Javert is the face of The System Working As Designed and he is horrible  and softening him into a Stern But Fair type or trying to pretend he didn’t really  know what he was doing takes away from this !! And it’s important! 

None of this means Javert isn’t capable or deserving of a chance to change his ways and find his own redemption!  It’s why I wish he actually did get that arc, this is a hard life mode to move away from and we need more examples of it in fiction!  But pretending he’s not thaaaat bad REALLY is pretending that the entire damn setup is Not That Bad Really and that’s not okay.   But people keep doing it! From 1862 to now!! I want!! To Yell!! 

....also more people should remember: he canonically has Emo Bangs. Give Javert Fringe.  

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

It would have been interesting to see him actually do a Redemption Arc, of course (without involving Valjean beyond the initial Epiphany Stage, if I could choose); there are so many directions that could go.  And I really think that might have been in the cards for him if he’d just. Gone home and Had A Nap and a Snack. Always Have a Nap When Possible. 

Favorite friendship for this character:

Marius. I want my Buddy Cop comedy where Everyone Learns a Valuable Lesson About Friendship and Firing Two Guns Simultaneously Whilst Leaning Sideways Out of An Omnibus.

My crossover ship:

...i have a REAL hard time thinking of Javert in any shippy context whatsoever, and absolutely no incentive to do so,so no. 

BUT Crossover Interaction:  Sam Vimes, absolutely.  Let’s stick Javert in the A-M watch under Vimes from the Jingo era on and let him have a few books of Character Development in Pratchett’s moral cosmos, I think it’d do everyone some good. 

[ginnyzero]

Main Character or Group of Characters

Single protagonist vs. ensemble writing

When trying to sell a story or summarize a book, a question I get asked a lot is “who is the main character?” For me, when trying to sell the Lone Prospect this is more difficult to answer than you think. The titular main character would be Gideon, the Lone Prospect. But, he’s not really the main character, he’s an important character. He's one character in the pack that is hiding in plain sight as a motorcycle club. There are other important characters too. Brand, the President, is an important character. Savannah, the Vice President, is an important character. So, they could be classified as main characters too. Because there is more than one way to write as story. There are single person stories and then there are ensemble stories.

Single person stories are the stories that most book readers are familiar with. Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, The Dresden Files, The Hollows, Harry Potter. Those stories are stories about one particular person. In movies, spy movies tend to be single person narratives, James Bond, Jason Bourne, the Taken films. The story is focused on their life and their adventure. The pitfall of single person narratives is that the main character has to become everything. They are the hero, the savior, the pinnacle, they are the driving force behind either saving the world or destroying it. Unless you’re writing say a romance series where your main character changes every book, in speculative fiction the main character of the story often becomes larger than life with a very drama filled life. They have to be special in some way in the minds of most authors in order to keep the reader interested. (There is a point to this, if the character wasn’t special in some way why would we read them but so many authors go over the top with this. The female is chased by four different men, her blood is special, she has special powers, she’s descended from some deity and so on and so forth ad nauseam.)

Ensemble stories in some cases are just as well-known but not really praised for what they are. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, X-Wing Novels, Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewels. Ensembles are stories about groups of people. A lot of ensemble writing has gone to television where having a large group of people can be shown better. Seinfeld, Buffy, Firefly, Sons of Anarchy, almost all forensic style crime shows, Blue Bloods, Gilligan’s Island, MASH, Star Trek. Movies also get into ensemble writing, The Avengers, X-Men, Lord of the Rings again. (Which revived the ever popular argument about who is the main character of Lord of the Rings. I argue having a main character is not the point.) Heist movies tend to be ensemble movies, The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven, St. Trinian’s, Sugar & Spice. In ensemble writing, there are important characters and at different times during different parts of the story, some characters are more important than others. The pitfall of ensemble writing is that there can be too many characters and the reader/watcher can’t focus on any of them or can’t tell them apart. (Always bad.)

There are also buddy stories, Rizzoli and Isles, Rush Hour and any other buddy cop movie, Thelma and Louise, These stories are focused on a pair of characters and their interactions.

Writing an ensemble story and writing a single protagonist story are extremely different. They require different modes of thought at times. When I write a story and it doesn’t feel to be working as a single protagonist story, I have to ask myself some questions. What story am I really trying to tell? What am I trying to convey to the reader? Who are the important people to this story? What is my theme? Can that story, can that theme be told with a single character? Or do I need to broaden my scope and embrace the stories of the other characters? At some point, I sit there and go “Well, I can’t be everything. So, let’s focus on this story for now and work on adding more to it later.” Or else I’m going to be overwhelmed and the reader is going to be overwhelmed. But by answering these questions, I can get a feel for if I need to stick with one character or if I need to make a group. Or even write the group I have without worry about trying to stick to third person limited omniscient point of view.

It can and does start with the point of view. A lot of single protagonist stories in modern speculative fiction (urban fantasy) are in first person. Thus narrowing the viewpoint of the reader even further with unreliable narrators. Writing an ensemble story in first person requires having character chapters or even character scenes. Sometimes this happens even if the story is written in third person. George R. R. Martin and Anne Bishop do this. Ensemble stories tend to be written more in third person especially if they are not using individual character chapters. Ensemble stories will have different character arcs against an overall plot arc and the scenes of these character arcs are put juxtaposition to each other to further the overall story. So, while there are two characters doing one thing, another set of characters are doing another thing possibly at the same time and all of it pushes forward the overall plot. The Star Wars Classic EU X-Wing novels are really good at this. I recommend the Wraith Squadron arc over the "this is actually a story about Corran Horn" Rogue Squadron arc.

In an ensemble story, if the author wants to show another part or facet of their universe, they can spread it across to a different character, create another character arc that may or may not effect one of the other important characters. And in an ensemble story, that’s okay, you can get away with it. But in a single person story, if it doesn’t affect the main character, then it probably won’t be shown unless the author ties the story into knots to show it. Anne Bishop's Stories of The Others is this way, it started out as a single protagonist story about Meg, and by the fourth book had to twist itself into knots as an 'ensemble' story to show what was going on in the war of humans versus the others. It didn't work well because these characters hadn't been set up back in book one and so, as a reader, I didn't care about them enough.

A lot of times it comes down to a preference or even what the author is trying to convey. What is the story? What is the theme? Look no further than the Hobbit versus Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was a tale focused on Bilbo and an adventure he took to the Lonely Mountain and how he found the ring. Sure, there were dwarves and a wizard with him, but the story didn’t focus on them very much. It was Bilbo’s journey. But in the Lord of the Rings, it wasn’t just Frodo’s journey. It was Aragorn’s journey. It was Gimli’s journey. It was Legolas’ journey. It was even Gollum’s journey. The journey, the story, was bigger than just one person. The fate of the world rested with a group and Frodo could never do it alone. The tones of the two stories were different. The themes were different. The purposes were different. The audiences were different.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. They are both very valid methods of storytelling. They are tools in a writer’s tool kit. And the choice of to use a single main character or a group comes down to what serves your story better. Choose wisely.

Enjoy my blog posts, please think about chipping in and buy me a Ko-Fi.

[jack-katz]

Advent Calendar: Day 1

TRADITIONS:

Are you a Grinch, or do you enjoy the holidays?: Jack definitely enjoys the holidays. Considering he’s lived away from his family for a handful of years now, it’s a time when he knows he’ll definitely get to see them. Sometimes he takes a trip up to Ireland to visit his uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents in his mother’s hometown and then flies over with a few to the states. It’s happened sometimes that he has work over the holidays, but he always tries to make it to his mother’s Christmas dinner - even if it means no sleep for 24 hours, sprinting though airports on short layovers, and losing luggage (because of course Jack has lost luggage).

On which day do you celebrate Christmas?: Christmas Day.

Is it a religious celebration or non-denominational?: Non-denominational. Jack’s father is Jewish, and though not a very faithful practitioner, he and the boys always took part in their extended family’s celebrations and then invited those family members to a Christmas dinner his mother put out. His mother was raised Catholic, but identifies in her adulthood as the classic “lapsed Catholic.” Occasionally she’d bring the boys to a Christmas mass if she heard the decorations were beautiful and the choir was wonderful.

Who do you usually spend the holidays with?: His family. As mentioned before, even when working, he always made it home at least for the dinner. 

What does your typical Christmas dinner include?: It’s traditional as can be. Roast turkey with stuffing, baked ham, potatoes (roasted with goose fat if his mother can get it), steamed brussels sprouts, glazed carrots, roasted parsnips (and occasionally other root vegetables), cranberry sauce, and bread sauce. Usually his mother finished it with a sherry trifle. 

Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?: Christmas Day!

Do you still have a stocking?: Jack’s mother still hangs his stocking in their New York apartment and sends him a picture whenever she puts it up.

Do you still get an Advent Calendar?: No.

Do you leave all of your Christmas shopping until last minute, or are you organized?: Ha. Haha. Last minute, likely all bought on Amazon with overnight shipping. 

Do you take charge of the day, or are you the one in the corner sipping Baileys?: Bailey’s baby.

Any traditions passed down through the family?: Not really. 

Any weird things your family does that others don’t?: No, they get as drunk as every other family on the holiday.

Do you go all-out with decorations, or keep it basic?: Jack doesn’t decorate at all really in his own home, but his parents have a lot of basic yet classic decorations in their apartment.

Post a picture of what your Christmas tree looks like: Jack doesn’t have one. 

Do you ever spend the holidays away from home?: Yes, unfortunately.

Do you like to get a bit tipsy, or is it an alcohol-free zone?: Tipsy? Cute.

FAVOURITES/FUN BITS:

Favourite Christmas song: Dominick the Donkey

Least favourite Christmas song: Christmas Shoes. Outta here with that sad shit.

Favourite Christmas food: All of it.

Least favourite Christmas food: Brussels sprouts, if he had to choose.

Favourite Christmas movie: A Christmas Story

Least favourite Christmas movie: Fred Claus

Favourite Christmas tradition: Probably, in the last few years, meeting his family at JFK where they’re usually waiting with a bottle of Bailey’s already.

Ever re-gifted?: No. He’s bad about gifts but not that bad.

If you had an unlimited budget, what would you buy for the three most important people in your life?: For his mother - a significant donation for her non-profit. For his father - a relaxation room to attach to his office, so the door can remind him to take a break from work occasionally and just breathe. For his brother - the finest fountain pen and leather-bound notebook that money can buy.

If you could have any gift in the world, unlimited budget, what would it be?: A private jet.

Weirdest Secret Santa gift ever received: A dildo.

If you could kiss any fictional character under the mistletoe, who would it be?: Wonder Woman

If you were forced to wear an ugly sweater to an ugly sweater party, what would it look like?: This one.

What’s your go-to outfit for festive fancy dress?: Navy suit pants, brown loafers, and a light blue button-up. A navy patterned tie if he can remember it.

Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve?: Christmas Day. By a longshot. 

White Christmas or snow-free?: Snow-free. He usually celebrates in cities and it’s not the same as some rural or suburban town being coated in snow. 

MEMORIES: (feel free to write any of these as separate drabbles, and link them in later)

Earliest Christmas memory: His father trying to stick their menorah on the top of the Christmas tree.

Best Christmas memory: His father trying to stick their menorah on the top of the Christmas tree.

Worst Christmas memory: Having to tell his parents that TwoTwo was cancelled

Best Christmas present ever received, and who was it from: An unlimited MetroCard his parents gave him during his senior year so he could get from audition to audition

Best Christmas present ever sent, and who was it for: A plane ticket to Thailand for his brother

Someone you wish you could bring back for one last Christmas: Natasha

Have you ever been stuck somewhere else for Christmas?: Yes, he had to stay in London before filming Buddy Cop because of table reads the day after Christmas

[madscientistjournal]

Fiction: Tempo Rubato

An essay by an unnamed musician, as provided by Jonathan Danz Art by Errow Collens

Tonight, backstage is too hot, too dark, too much like some high-ceilinged mausoleum straight out of one of those old Friday night TV horror shows. The strap of my dinged-up Telecaster bites into my shoulder. Tonight, like most nights in recent memory, this guitar is like my very own stone of Sisyphus. Truth be told, I don’t know if I can roll it up the mountain one more fucking time. I don’t know if I can go out on stage yet again and pretend I’m me.

Vegas–swarm cams, drinkbots, holo-betting, omni-feeds, every last bit of it–can go to hell. The guy on stage now, the Buddy Holly impersonator, even with his bitglam in effect, comes off more like an impersonator of a Buddy Holly impersonator. He’s opening with “Peggy Sue.” Poor bastard. There’s nowhere to go from there but downhill.

Everyone’s an entertainer these days, what with voice plugins, appearance modifiers, movement enhancer neuro-mods, and every other trick. There’s no work at the art anymore, just show up and let the tech do the work.

Me and my new band, we’re the only completely analog performers in Vegas. Re-Invaded And It Feels So Good, that’s our act. Real clever stuff. The crowds eat it up. It’s fresh, in a manner of speaking, especially after seeing a hundred enhanced shows in a hundred casinos. After a while, it all blurs together.

I know, I know, that’s what they said when we were all flooding into the U.S. during the British Invasion. I’m a connoisseur of irony. But when something stands out from the pop-star one-offs and Rat Pack 3.0 crooners, people take notice. People don’t know they’re craving something different until they get it.

These Vegas performers could stand a lesson in “less is more,” but instead they’re all in on everything. All that tech must seem like magic to these fools, but tech ain’t magic. Believe me, I know from magic. Not like this Buddy Holly guy.

Look, I liked Buddy Holly back in the day–we all did–but that sound aged about as well as a bottle of piss. When you hear it, you know exactly when it came out. It never evolved. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if his plane hadn’t crashed.

Sometimes I wonder if Buddy wasn’t the lucky one.

~

It was the 1960s, and the Beatles exploded out of Liverpool with us right on their heels, and the British Invasion was on. The money began rolling in free and easy like juice through a Marshall stack. In a move that would become the hallmark of making it in rock and roll, I bought a posh estate in the English countryside.

That’s where we were between tours in ’70. One night, December 11–Christ, you’d think I’d forget after so long, but the memory is like tough old scar tissue that’ll never go away–anyway, we were in the studio, turning a three minute song into something epic. I dove into my solo, weaving amplified heat through drums and base and rhythm guitar, stitching it all together at first. Then I began teasing strands out into the dark corners of sound. My fingers slipped and slid high on the fretboard. My guitar wailed and moaned with an urgency I could feel. I raced out ahead of the rhythm, then eased back into the mix by turns. I scooped time from some measures and poured it into others. The world around me wobbled and shimmered.

By the time the cops barged in, I was fully lost in the solo. It was as if someone had accidentally stuck a needle in my artery and my life was spraying out everywhere. It wasn’t blood, though, dig? I swear it was life itself flowing from me, streaming into my mates. Everyone was higher than an old vicar’s waistband. The cops’ shouting tore it all down and the music collapsed. I was wasted, could barely stand.

The cops’ arrival probably saved me, but all they saw was some weed, some pills, and whatever, and that’s all they needed to know. They grabbed their headlines for busting some punk kids who’ve risen far too high, and I grabbed some jail time. Prison was no great shakes, but there was something about the monotony of the routine. It freed up time to think. And I had a lot to think about.

~

Vegas Buddy Holly slides smoothly into “Rollercoaster.” It’s a checklist for him: hit this note, do that hiccup thing, take three steps. Technically, it’s perfect, but there’s no love for the music, no heat. Choosing to impersonate Buddy Holly is purely mercenary. He’s found a niche and it pays. It’s calculated. And I’ve got to tell you, hearing exactly the same thing done exactly the same way night after night gets tiresome.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the music itself; I feel like I could play forever. It’s everything else. Some might say the world has passed me by, but I’d argue it’s the people who flock to this place on the regular who are being passed by. Was a time when people would spend hours parsing song lyrics or album cover art. Now everything wheels by like startled birds, gone in an instant, replaced by the latest streaming shows or VR episode or vending machine stimdrugs. We’re so fixated on what’s coming next, we can’t enjoy whatever it is we’re consuming right then and there.

The marketers’ll tell you their latest con expands the mind and taps into unexplored landscapes of the imagination. Rubbish. It’s about making money. It’s always about making money. Just ask ol’ Buddy Holly on stage there.

The guys in my band are no different. Sure, they tolerate the analog sets, occasionally even enjoy themselves when they’re not thinking about it. But they’re just gigging with me to pay the bills while they seek online stardom. That’s where the real money is, even if the odds are so long they stretch well beyond the horizon. They just need one video to virus out, and they’ll have it made.

I hear you, telling me to fuck right the hell off. I made my money, so why shouldn’t they make theirs, right? I say, have at it. There’s no magic there. You want magic? Strip it all down, get rid of the enhancements. Focus on the music, the guitar strings beneath your fingers, the vibrations of your vocal cords, the buzz of a packed venue. If you let yourself fall deep enough, you’ll find the space between it all.

You’d think songs almost a hundred years old would lose their luster, but that ain’t so. There’s that quote about not being the same person who crossed the river the first time or some shit. There’s truth there. Songs are like rivers, always changing, waiting to show you something new, if you’re willing to look. That’s why I hang around, every single day and twice on Saturdays.

~

After the bust, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened at that rehearsal. I needed to know what that was. As a band, we were looking forward, working on new songs, planning new tours, finding new ways to spend our windfall. But as an individual, I’d decided to look backwards as well.

I searched for answers in the deep, slippery roots of music, looking for the faintest whiff of anything even remotely like what happened the night of the bust. Whenever we hit a new city, I scoured libraries and bookstores and pored over rare tomes, letters, and sheet music for something like magic.

Then I found tempo rubato.

Now, I know you’re thinking of that Styx song about the robot. That was Japanese. Tempo rubato is Italian, mate.

The definition of tempo rubato in music texts refers to, and I quote, “the slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor to be more expressive.”

But here’s the thing, Tempo rubato isn’t just an Italian term on some sheet music like sotto voce or fortissimo or any of that lot. Now I had no idea if the concept originated in Italy or not, but the Italians nailed the naming of whatever this phenomenon is.

In Italian, tempo rubato means stolen time.

As a musical cue, that was all fine and well, but I was positive there was more to it than that. Slowing down, speeding up, everything I’d been doing that night, it was all there.

I began playing around on stage, messing around in subtle ways with what almost killed me the night of the bust, learning, refining. I did it carefully until I unpacked tempo rubato and put it to work for me. I pilfered small bits of time so as not to cause harm and, as much as we played, the stolen time accumulated like the juice on a mob loan.

~

We’re a long way from Vegas, now, aren’t we? What does this have fuckall to do with tech enhancements and swarm bots and flash androgynous technicians? Well, hang tight, bruv, I’m getting to that. Besides, Buddy Holly’s got one more song yet.

He launches into “That’ll Be the Day.” When he hits the chorus, like he does every night, I can’t help but think that maybe in some alternate universe I’m dead, and he’s here in Vegas in real life, the original watching some mercenary performer imitate me.

“That’ll be the day that I die,” Buddy sings. Well, the real Buddy Holly boarded a plane that flew him right into his grave at the tender age of 22. And, despite the booze, the drugs, and other depredations of the body, here I am still going strong well beyond my expiration date. Is it fair? That’s not for me to say, but I’m fully aware of the irony.

The ubiquitous “they” insist everything that’s old is new again and I’m inclined to agree. Maybe that’s true, but it’s a cycle, ain’t it, which bloody well means everything that’s new becomes old again as well.

I think about all those musicians who hung around too long. I’d need more fingers than I’ve got to count everyone who couldn’t let it go, guys who wished they headed out at the top of their game, leaving the fans wanting more.

But damn if every time I hit that first chord on stage, I’m not transported back to our first live gig in Coogan’s Pub in Dartford. Now there’s a magic all its own, you know? Throw in the fans and the applause, and small wonder musicians can’t let it go.

What I miss, though, what has me in this funk, is that I’ve got no one to share any of this with. Everyone’s gone. What’s the use of hanging around as long as I have if you can’t share the honest-to-god artistry?

There are days I’m aware the only person I’m really playing for is myself, searching the music for ghosts of the long-gone boys who crossed the Atlantic and got rich with me. There are days I wonder if stealing time during all those tours with them might have hastened their respective ends. Shit, we were all getting older. People just age differently, right?

I search through the music. Maybe some combination of sound will bring them back, but inevitably the ghosts are always just out of reach. I’ve seen musicians wind up searching elsewhere, the needle or the booze or something just as deadly even though we know whatever it is we need isn’t there at all. And sometimes you don’t even know you need anything at all until you’re shown otherwise.

~

Inside some nondescript sound studio in Memphis in the late ’20s, I was waiting to record an interview for some classic rock retrospective podcast. At least I think they were still calling what we did way back when “classic.” The host was explaining to an angsty lad on the sound crew what vibe he needed and who I was.

But damn if every time I hit that first chord on stage, I’m not transported back to our first live gig in Coogan’s Pub in Dartford.

“Seriously?” the angsty lad asked. “I thought that guy died years ago.” No embarrassment. No apology. Just a statement of fact with perhaps the smallest hint of a question or accusation in his tone. That’s when I realized I couldn’t keep on as myself forever. No matter how good I felt, no matter how I looked, someone would do the math and start asking questions I had no intention of answering.

And so I did the only thing that made sense: I disappeared to sort things out. For a few decades, I traveled to places where people had no idea who I was. For a while, it wasn’t so bad, the newness of it, you know. I tried out things I couldn’t do when we were touring, things like gardening and painting and woodworking, whatever struck my fancy.

Even as I did these things, in the need was always there, waiting. I told myself it was just the music I needed, just the feel of the guitar in my hands, the heat of the stage lights, the cheering crowds. I mean, the music was definitely part of it, but I missed what I was able to do with the music even more. I needed tempo rubato.

What better place to resurface than Vegas, the impersonator capital of the world? If I couldn’t be me, at least I could pretend to be me. I mean, I had me down pretty good.

~

Buddy Holly wraps up with a deep cut, one of his b-sides that has surprising layers. Something about this song appeals to Buddy. I can tell, because he loses himself in it. He’s so close to touching the music and doesn’t even know. The crowd applauds just enough to encourage Buddy Holly to do an encore.

Buddy Holly launches into a respectable version of “Not Fade Away.” Huh. Normally he trots out a tired medley of songs that roll into that other song that’s not by Buddy Holly but about Buddy Holly, when his plane crashed, and the music died, and all that. Tonight, Buddy Holly’s veering off script.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

One more song to figure out how I’m going to break it to the band. Since I returned to Vegas–what has it been, 30, 40 years?–I’ve asked myself why I keep going so many times it feels like a vocation unto itself. If there’s an answer to that question, I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Now’s as good a time as any to call it quits.

“Hey, Billy,” I say to my bassist.

He turns to me and raises his eyebrows in question.

Time to tell the crew tonight is the night I stop, but the words die in my throat just as Buddy Holly strums the last chord of his encore.

The applause for Buddy Holly packs more punch this time around, there’s real enthusiasm behind it. Buddy comes off stage. His bitglam distorts and winks off. Bruv looks tired, but he’s smiling.

We nod at each other.

That simple gesture is like a smack upside my head. It’s straight out of those days right before the British Invasion, back when we were just one of a hundred bands were trying to make it. Yeah, we hated each other, but there was some measure of respect for the fact we were all chasing the same thing. There’s a camaraderie that comes from mutual suffering.

Maybe I’ve been too hard on ol’ Buddy.

Then the host is announcing us to the crowd. Cheers and stomping feet shake the building. The crowd is as amped as I’ve ever heard it. That sound … that sweet, goddamned sound washes over us. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stands at attention, expectant. My heart thrills and prances inside my chest. A smile spreads of its own accord across my face.

Billy smiles the same me. He’s feeling it too. “What were you going to say?”

My guitar feels lighter, and the only thing on my mind is strumming that first chord. “Forget it,” I say.

Billy’s no longer the fresh-faced kid I brought in to hold down the beat a few months ago, but that’s what the business does to a musician, isn’t it? The pull of the stage and the lights are like an old friend’s arm around my shoulder, warm and comforting.

A British Invasion musician learns the secret to rock on for evermore, but after outliving his mates and winding up as an impersonator of himself in Vegas, he wonders if it’s time to hang it up.

Jonathan Danz is a speculative fiction writer living in West Virginia with his wife, daughter, and cat, all of whom are artists in their own right. He attended Viable Paradise 21 and narrates for various science fiction, fantasy, and horror podcasts. He likes books, bikes, and beer.

Errow is a comic artist and illustrator with a predilection towards mashing the surreal with the familiar. They pay their time to developing worlds not quite like our own with their fiancee and pushing the queer agenda. They probably left a candle burning somewhere. More of their work can be found at errowcollins.wix.com/portfolio.

“Tempo Rubato” is © 2019 Jonathan Danz Art accompanying story is © 2019 Errow Collins

Fiction: Tempo Rubato was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[douxreviews]

Quantum Leap - Season Five Review

It had been awhile since I watched season five, and some of it was better than I remembered. Unfortunately, some of it was worse.

Celebrity leaps

The Kennedy assassination? What were they thinking? ("Lee Harvey Oswald," 5.1 and 5.2.)

Quantum Leap always played with celebrity encounters as cute little supplemental by-the-ways and isn't-this-fun, like Buddy Holly and Michael Jackson, and honestly, I totally understand their desire to try something new, to do a high concept two-part episode. But "Lee Harvey Oswald" was terrible, uncharacteristically grim and unforgivably dull. Quantum Leap is a science fiction adventure show with a great deal of humor and charm. It is not a documentary.

Not to mention that Quantum Leap's raison d'etre is to fix "what once went wrong." How on earth could they possibly fix the Kennedy assassination without changing a massive event in American history? Having Sam save Jackie Kennedy, who died in the original history, was an interesting twist, but it was also a cop-out. Especially when you consider what Jackie did with her life after Jack Kennedy's untimely death. (No judgment there, honestly. I'm just saying.)

It also felt wrong to see Sam so affected and influenced by the person he leaped into that he couldn't change anything, and it's telling that this was the only way they could make the script work. We all know that if Sam had been himself, he would have found some way to stop the assassination. I understand from the internet that Donald Bellisario believed that Oswald acted alone and that it was the point he was trying to get across. And I will respond by saying that a show like Quantum Leap was not the place to do it.

"Goodbye, Norma Jean" (5.18) didn't work either, despite a good performance by Susan Griffiths as Marilyn and some enjoyable faux cameos by actors playing Clark Gable, John Huston and Peter Lawford. The big question for me again was, why? What did Sam put right that once went wrong? Supposedly, Marilyn needed to live a little bit longer and do one last film, and if The Misfits had been one of the greats, I would get it, but honestly, it's not a great film. If they had to do Marilyn, wouldn't it have been great if Sam had kept her from committing suicide earlier in her life?

The other two celebrity leaps this season were outright fun, though, and those did work.

I loved Scott Bakula doing an actual impression of "Dr. Ruth" (5.14) in an episode that featured the real Dr. Ruth Westheimer. While the double entendres were uncomfortably thick on the ground, it was pretty much the perfect celebrity leap to illustrate the differences between the reserved and prudish Sam, who had a terrible time doing a radio show about sex, and Al, who didn't hesitate to avail himself of free sex therapy in the Waiting Room with Dr. Ruth herself. We also got a timely reminder that Al has been married five times, and that he still loves his first wife, Beth.

I also enjoyed "Memphis Melody" (5.21) where Sam leaped into a young Elvis Presley. It was so much better than Lee Harvey Oswald and Marilyn Monroe because it wasn't depressing, and Scott Bakula got to sing as Elvis. Very nice. Especially his version of "Amazing Grace." (Which is not what they're singing in the photo below.)

Movie tributes

One of Quantum Leap's constant go-tos was movie tributes and/or ripoffs. In "Leaping of the Shrew" (5.3), Quantum Leap did The Blue Lagoon, and they even got Brooke Shields to guest star. You'd think that wouldn't work, but it was actually pretty darned cute. They also did Coming Home in "Nowhere to Run" (5.4), and it even guest starred an adorable pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston. But honestly, the way they got around Sam walking around while he was supposed to missing his legs was pretty darned weird.

Points for trying

I liked the idea behind "Trilogy" (5.8, 5.9 and 5.10), an interesting twist in the formula where Sam leaped into three different people while trying to save the same person, Abagail Fuller. It was almost like they finally addressed the "what happened to the person Sam saved later on" question. But the story acquired a mildly incestuous feel when Sam went from being Abagail's father figure in part one to her fiance in part two. And the idea of Sam fathering a child while not in his own body was interesting, but also weird. Although I did like the idea of Sam's brilliant daughter Sammy Jo helping out at the Quantum Leap project. Were they thinking about casting her as a permanent character? That could have been fun.

I also liked "Killin' Time" (5.5), where Sam leaped into a serial killer and had to explain the truth about the Quantum Leap project to his hostages. The best part about it was that there was actually action at the project in alternate universe 1999 as the killer escaped and Al took off after him, while Gooshie had to replace Al in the imaging chamber. I'll admit that the face paint, neon decoration and strange computer stuff didn't work, mostly because we all know now that 1999 didn't look like that. Maybe I should have taken that to mean that all of Quantum Leap happened in an alternate universe?

I wasn't as crazy about "The Leap Between the States" (5.20), the first and only time that Sam leaped out of his own lifetime, inhabiting his great-grandfather and romancing his great-grandmother back in 1862. It might have been a little better if they'd managed to resist white savior syndrome.

"Promised Land" (5.11) was a nice idea in theory, popping Sam back to his own home town with people he grew up with. Maybe a little hokey, but at least he got to see his late father one last time. But couldn't we have spent time with Sam's family again instead of getting stuck in a bank for the entire episode?

No points for trying

And then we had the evil leaper. (5.7 "Deliver Us From Evil," 5.16 "Return of the Evil Leaper," 5.17 "Revenge of the Evil Leaper")

Okay. I can see where the writers would have hit on the idea of an evil counterpart to Sam, but I thought it made absolutely no sense and was in fact never explained. Was Satan carrying on a Quantum Leap project of his own to put wrong what once went right? Although it was nice to see the characters from season two's "Jimmy" again and the carrying on in the women's prison was sort of fun, it just didn't work for me. Plus Alia's existence made Sam non-unique, which is something you don't want to do with your lead. The evil leaper concept didn't deserve to take up three full episodes of their final season.

The series finale

I hadn't seen "Mirror Image" (5.22), the final episode of Quantum Leap, since it aired, and was really looking forward to it because I remembered how choked up I was by that last scene with Beth and that final card about what ultimately happened to Sam. Unfortunately, I am sad to report that I found the rest of "Mirror Image" to be sub-par.

Sam arrived in a barroom at the moment he was born, and for the first time, when he looked into a mirror, he saw himself. That was actually a powerful scene, and it was touching that his hair had started to become gray. There were many scenes in the barroom in the coal mining town of Cokesburg that included actors from previous episodes playing other characters. I'm sure they were going for some sort of huge metaphorical what's-is with the mine collapse, but I just didn't get it.

I also thought it was sad that, even though the resolution of the series was all about Al Calavicci, we saw too little of him in the finale. Instead, we got Bruce McGill as the enigmatic Al the bartender, who kept giving Sam clues about what's going on. Was this new Al supposed to represent the God who had sent Sam on this strange journey? I suppose so.

We also learned that it was always Sam's unconscious choice to keep leaping, that his leaps would become more difficult, and at this point, Sam could choose to go home. The fact that Sam chose instead to leap back to the end of "M.I.A." and change Al's life forever was by far the best part of this mishmosh of an episode. Sam's ultimate choice was a selfless expression of love for his closest friend. It was also a radical, series-changing choice, breaking all of the rules we've come to accept as governing Sam's leaps. It was emotionally satisfying, though. So like Sam to give such a huge gift to someone else instead of taking advantage of his one last opportunity to go home. Tragic.

That last title card, "Dr. Sam Becket never returned home," really got to me way back when it first aired in May of 1993. This time, when I saw it, the one big thing that struck me was that in their rush to close down their series, they spelled their lead character's name wrong. (It's "Beckett," with two T's.) Maybe they made that mistake because "Mirror Image" wasn't supposed to be the series finale and they were forced to tack on an ending.

While that last scene with Beth, and its implications, were a worthy end to the series, and I loved the idea of Al happily married to the love of his life, the thought of a sad and exhausted Sam choosing to continue leaping forever was emotionally wrenching. In a way, it also negated everything that happened in the entire series. The Al Calavicci that helped Sam on every step of his journey is no longer the same Al Calavicci. I guess I need to remind myself that I must never try to apply logic to time travel stories.

Bits and pieces:

-- The credits for season five featured a new arrangement of the original theme song. It was terrible. Awful. Blech.

-- Notable actors: Neil Patrick Harris, age twenty, in "Return of the Evil Leaper," Stephen Root in "Goodbye Norma Jean," Hinton Battle from the Buffy musical in "Revenge of the Evil Leaper," and Meg Foster of the amazing eyes in "Trilogy."

-- Bruce McGill, who played Al in the series finale "Mirror Image," was also in "Genesis," the pilot episode. That was a nice touch, since I assume it was deliberate.

-- I hadn't known this until I looked it up, but Susan Griffiths ("Goodbye, Norma Jean") has made a career out of playing Marilyn Monroe. And Michael St. Gerard, "Memphis Melody," played Elvis several other times as well.

-- Just a general observation: when I was finished my rewatch, I figured out what years Sam leaped into the most, and which months of the year. There were very few winter leaps, which makes sense since they filmed in Los Angeles. It also makes sense that the writers would mostly choose the 1950s and 1960s because they could do more interesting period stuff. The year Sam leaped into the most was 1957 (seven times).

And in the end:

Despite this mostly negative closing review, I enjoyed rewatching Quantum Leap more than I thought I would. It was a creative series that aired at a time when there was very little quality science fiction on television, and the two lead characters and the actors who played them were exceptional. There's also no question that Quantum Leap is showing its age a bit sooner than it probably should.

There are a lot of series revivals going on right now. What would a reboot of Quantum Leap be like? I bet that in today's "it's all about the arc" environment, they could go in some truly interesting directions.

What do you guys think?

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

[mrsmess]

Meta season 4 - part 1

This season ranks second on my list (number one just has to be season 2), partly because of Rory’s in between-ness, which highlights the reasonable flaws in the character, and Lorelai’s bold innkeeper journey, and basically every other character having really interesting and plausible arcs.

Ballrooms and Biscotti - Such a great episode, I’m laughing constantly AND finding out that Stars Hollow does celebrate Groundhog Day! (obviously)

The Lorelais’ first day at Yale - Copper boom. Need that on a t-shirt. Such an iconic episode. I remember watching it when it first broadcasted thinking, this is me and mý mother, me and my family. It could have, should have, been a defining moment for Rory; it’s going to be very difficult being Christine Amanpour broadcasting from Tehran with her mommy. You only get one life, and there are so many interesting paths for you to choose, just, you can’t possibly do them all, and sometimes, loving and needing your family is a gift, not something to overcome, but something to build your life around. To invest in the fact that you are a better, richer, person with them around. That’s what I realized at that same point in my life, anyhow. And poor Luke. His pain is so entertaining though.

The Hobbit, the sofa and Digger Stiles - An interesting episode.

Rory Gilmore subscribes to the Stars Hollow Gazette! Having her become Chief Editor in AYITL might have been one of the brightest decisions for the revival, at least if they had bothered exploring it for a bit. (They could’ve cut the inexplicable With a Little Help From My Friends-scene - copied right out of Across the Universe, if anyone has missed that - and given me more Rory Gilmore gets The Gazette up and running instead.)

And Emily and Paris being two peas in a pot! “Don’t you want people to owe you?” Until Paris decides she hates the party persona she’s trying on anyway.

Rory has to defend her staying in her room with a book; she’s not hiding, she’s actually enjoying it. I’m torn on this. Lorelai is great for reminding our girl to stay in the moment, but I also think that Rory has a point, and that she should be allowed to take on the world in her own pace and her own way, me and my mother have a similar dynamic. But sometimes I think Lorelai is a bit stuck on Rory experiencing all these big absurd things (biker parties, barn burnings) while she is real uptight about her experiencing more plausible things for her age; love, sex, more realistic and ultimately necessary adventures. And then it struck me that Lorelai herself didn’t really get to have those adventures, since she got pregnant so early.

Tana is adorable.

Jason is really interesting and actually my second favorite love interest for Lorelai, but more on that later. He’s like a combination of Logan and Christopher with some actual guts, not that it works out for him but it doesn’t for the other boys playing it passive either. And Emily recognizes the danger entering into business with him.

Rory puts off telling Emily what she really thinks about her buying stuff for the dorm room, adopting Lorelai’s way of dealing with her.

Chicken or beef - Rory has cut her hair. Like everything monumental on this show it doesn’t happen on screen.

Dean is getting married, which I do not need to mock, right? Repetitive and redundant.

I love the Zack and Brian dynamic. Also, them referring to Dave going off to California - Hilarious! And Rory schooling them on schooled rock ’n rollers - priceless!

Gosh darnit I have a weak spot for Dean, or more specifically: I’m really into the character arc. It’s so elegant and sh*tty. How he starts out a pretty decent guy and could’ve gotten to think that about himself that way his whole life if he just hadn’t fallen for our girl. He’s the perfect example of how love can wreck a person, and not even in an epic- but totally mundane and kind of icky way. I dig that (his happy ending in the revival was sort of a cop out). Jess actually has the opposite arc, which of course I dig even more.

Oh goodness! It’s Dean with crappy friends. Now, see, that’s plausible, him having stupid friends, quantity over quality, kind of like Logan (yes, I have issues with Finn and whatever the other guy’s name is, can’t believe they made it to the revival! With a little help from someone else’s friends... *smh*). One of the things that gets to me the most from Swan Song is how Jess can get away with his lie about the football with a buddy. He does not have friends outside of fictional characters and it always makes me sad that Rory buys into his bogus explanation when her obvious reaction should be: “What buddy?”

Oh, and that’s Leo, and Schmidt!

And Luke is the best. I’m getting teary thinking about how he’s a real mensch to just everyone and so rarely get credit for it. Love Luke.

“Why didn’t she love me?” I feel so bad for him, but then he marries Lindsey without dealing with anything.

And Rory just takes Luke’s word and doesn’t go to the wedding. A level of trust, or maybe she was looking for an excuse.

[shesellssanctuaries]

Ideal PS4 Gamings 2019: Essential PlayStation 4 Launches

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But no matter the amount of years go by, Lara still manages to find a place in our hearts. Identification will certainly take place in a fictional land in the eastern United States, heavily influenced the Carolinas and Georgia. The game story is about a boy named Wander that enters a forbidden land. The video game has actually soo several cheat codes as well as soo several mission's which brings way too much enjoyable. We Support takes an enjoyable personalized approach to this new category, the video game appears like it will certainly use a great deal of various choices so each person having fun can have a distinct experience. Broken servers pestered the multiplayer experience for months, and also Sony kept delaying a PlayStation And also version that most people thought it would never see the light of day. We're doing playthroughs and evaluations of a few of one of the most popular video games plus on-line members-only contests where you can fight for magnificence having fun today's most significant multiplayer titles. I recognize that there are already ps3 as well as ps4 making fantastic change and also it is late to upload Best PS2 Games. That said, Driveclub ultimately turned into a great auto racing game, with a few of the best graphics available on the PS4. As well as, supplying to do something with your child out in public is not always gotten with terrific passion. This tool would most definitely create a mass quantity of demolition as well as damages, by calling out a light beam that would certainly bring fatality from the skies. Educators must develop scenarios to guarantee that their women students are spending an equal amount of time in hands-on activities. It began with the household, the members, after that the parts of your home and after that the rooms, so the children are slowly learning what is all about a family members. Carl locates his old friends and family in chaos, as well as over the course of the video game he attempts to re-establish his old gang, encounter corrupt police officers, and also slowly deciphers the reality behind his mother's murder. Controls lean a lot more towards an arcade-style racer, however it makes for an available and electrifying racing video game. You'll be spending a lot of time with your engineer and representative, the previous will certainly investigate and also develop brand-new upgrades for your auto racing team, while the latter handles your team's contracts. For now, Forza Motorsport 7 remains the benchmark for console auto racing as well as it will be seventh paradise for all Forza fans almost everywhere. F1 2016 is likewise chock-full of trendy little details, like the addition of the parade lap-- the workout ride prior to a motorsport race where vehicle drivers inspect the safety of the track as well as autos by cruising around at slow speeds. Compete some of one of the most enjoyed autos of our time in marvelous high definition. Initially it appears like a ridiculous element to the game, but it swiftly ends up being a nice regimen that allowed's you flex the wheels as well as brakes prior to easing right into a long race session. I do not suggest it as a very first task, however you can constantly give it a go. For 2-4 players. Doom had not been the first FPS ever however possibly it was the one that make the genre well-known. Probably hailed as one of the best auto racing video games there is, Required for Rate is a classic favorite amongst the car lovers. Okay, Demand For Speed Underground 2 shook. The most "arcade-y" of the bunch, Required for Speed: Opponents is the least likely auto racing game to damage your simulator impulse, however it's a total blast to play.

[aion-rsa]

Psych: The Essential Episode Guide

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As a TV series, Psych is like one of those frozen yogurt chains where the wall is ringed with different flavors and you can keep pulling levers for whatever combination you want. There are the Shawn/Gus episodes, the “Shawn’s psychic lie is threatened” episodes, the increasingly genius and lovingly rendered (often ‘80s-tastic) tributes, and the ensemble classics where the whole cast is just a well-oiled machine after years of riffing off one another. You can have whatever flavor you want. And don’t even get me started on toppings (there’s gotta be pineapple, at the very least).

Over its eight-year run, Psych interrogated its own premise, built out its supporting cast, let its characters play their favorite movie characters, and adapted its own internal mythology into trilogies that would make any movie-buff weep with appreciation. Here is a baker’s dozen of the most giggle-worthy, self-referential, surprisingly dramatic episodes of Psych. (And with so many to choose from, your favorite flavor combinations might be different from mine—share your own best episodes in the comments!)

Season 2 Episode 1: “American Duos”

Once the show had had a season under its belt of the fake-psychic shtick, the writers and actors got to really start playing in the sandbox they’d created. The second-season premiere has it all: a pop culture riff on a certain popular reality show competition; Tim Curry and Gina Gershon going above and beyond in their parodies of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul; and Shawn and Gus giving a truly spectacular mashup performance as Curt Smith and Michael Jackson.

Season 2 Episode 3: “Psy vs. Psy”

I’m a sucker for the episodes where Shawn might have to come clean about his big fat lie. Season 2 poked at that possibility early on, with a counterfeit case that brings in government agent Lars Ewing (Lou Diamond Phillips) and female psychic Lindsay Leiken (Bianca Kajlich). Not only does Lars ruffle Lassiter’s feathers and get Jules hot and bothered, but Lindsay seems to be a lot more intuitive than Shawn—to the point where the SBPD may be looking to replace their consultant. Shawn has a knack for making things harder for himself, but the situations in which he has to actually fight his way out are always rewarding.

Season 2 Episode 13: “Lights, Camera… Homicidio”

The second season really cemented the series’ delight in its own ridiculousness—not just in the bizarre cases, but in how Shawn and Gus (and the rest of the SBPD) react to them. This week, it was an accidental murder via botched prop knife on the set of Explosión Gigantesca de Romance, Gus’ (and Henry’s) favorite telenovela, that really highlighted Psych’s embrace of the absurd. While doing his psychic thing, Shawn gets “discovered” enough to play the sexy delivery guy, who becomes a beloved character in his own right… only to learn for himself how badly the show’s fans blur the lines between characters and actors. Though not as outright meta as the tribute episodes, it still was wonderfully self-aware about the pitfalls of emotionally investing in fictional characters.

Season 4 Episode 5: “Shawn Gets the Yips”

This episode is a bit of a bait-and-switch in that Shawn having the yips (about baseball, not being a psychic) doesn’t really impact the plot, which starts with a shooting at a known cop bar and culminates in a commentary on the police force not properly punishing drug lords who sell opioids. The subplot about the drug lord supposedly targeting SBPD members is a bit of a red herring for the more nuanced twist about the cost of the opioid epidemic, but it contains one of my favorite moments, in which Shawn unintentionally gets a great workout because he believes that the message on his water bottle (your heart rate drops below 150, you die) is a threat. Just a solid mid-series episode.

Season 4 Episode 16: “Mr. Yin Presents…”

Just like with Bones, Psych really came into its own when it mixed the laughs with actual life-or-death stakes—and in both cases, that was thanks to a serial killer obsessed with our protagonist. Season 3 ended on “An Evening with Mr. Yang,” which introduced Ally Sheedy (one of many, many famous cameos) as the eponymous serial killer who kidnapped Shawn’s mother to get closer to him. But with her locked away and more artfully arranged kills discovered, the SBPD have to confront that Yang might have a Yin—which of course spawns a trilogy. 

Read more

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The Empire Strikes Back of the Yin/Yang saga is my personal favorite, though I highly recommend watching all three. The team’s introduction to Yang’s twisted mentor is through his love of Alfred Hitchcock movies: He casts each of them in an iconic role while leading them on a wild goose chase through Santa Barbara, ending at a movie set mashup and presenting Shawn with an impossible choice between saving girlfriend Abigail or Juliet. The latter has one of her most powerful moments, stoically accepting her death while suspended from a clock and later breaking down in Lassiter’s arms. Her PTSD remains through the Yin/Yang saga, another sign of the series’ maturity as it explores the ripple effect of its more dramatic plots.

Season 6 Episode 2: “Last Night Gus”

While Shawn and Gus are the series OTP, part of the show’s beauty has been in building up its other bromances. This spoof of The Hangover has Shawn, Gus, Lassiter, and Woody waking up in the Psych offices with no memory of their antics the night before, but plenty of incriminating clues tying them to a dead body. Their attempt to solve the mystery of how they got so memory-obliteratingly drunk has them encountering a sweet gay bartender couple, a murdered donut mascot, and a hot girl who’s very into Last Night Gus… if only he knew what he did. In addition to riffing superbly on the movie, the episode is a fun commentary on our present selves solving the mysteries of our past personas.

Season 7 Episode 5: “100 Clues”

I managed to watch this without realizing what the Psych crew was going for, so the moment that Shawn and Gus pulled up in the Blueberry to a mansion in a rainy homage to Clue, I was squealing harder than Gus at the notion of a secret chocolate room. For the series’ 100th episode, they lovingly parodied the perfect locked-mansion murder mystery, with killer cameos from Lesley Warren, Christopher Lloyd, and Martin Mull (plus little nods to the Clue alums who couldn’t be there, like Eileen Brennan). From the Singing Telegram Girl to the secret passageways, only true fans could achieve this level of detail—a perfect landmark celebration.

Season 7 Episode 7: “Deez Nups”

The sign of a great ensemble series is that they can make the standard, super-tropey wedding episode feel fresh again. It helps that it’s Lassiter’s nuptials, and everyone wants to see the guy happy, which is what leads to Shawn, Gus, and Woody kidnapping the detective for a bachelor party, while Juliet and the Chief get roped into being Marlowe’s bachelorette buddies. The threat of a mob boss taking revenge on Lassie takes a backseat to such wedding fare as Vick getting weepy-drunk on shots and McNab popping up as a police stripper (I cackled at the payoff of his Chekhov’s tearaway pants). Just like with a real-life wedding, when you know the people involved, it feels special and unique. (There is also a gross, transphobic joke about a stripper, one of the aspects of Psych that did not age well.)

Season 7 Episode 8: “Right Turn or Left for Dead”

Tribute episodes are Psych’s bread and butter, but rarely do they advance the plot as effectively and emotionally as this riff on Sliding Doors. After Juliet finds out that Shawn has been lying about being a psychic, which makes her believe that everything about their relationship has been a lie, Shawn indulges in a fantasy in which he’s 1990s Gwyneth Paltrow (naturally) pondering the diverging paths of whether Jules does or doesn’t discover the truth. 

The story immediately splits into two takes on the same case, but in one she’s a Jane Doe and in the other Shawn actually has a chance to save her… only to discover that her life path was already set in stone after an abusive childhood. Even with subtle moments of humor that highlight the parallel universes’ differences in solving cases, overall the episode is a study in how one choice has ramifications far beyond the initial action—a lesson Shawn needed to learn, in the penultimate season.

Season 7 Episode 11: “Office Space”

If the boys trying to cover their tracks in “Last Night Gus” was worth a few giggles, Gus and Shawn tampering with a murder scene and then trying to clean their hands of it in this episode is the kind of laughter that hurts. When Gus publicly confronts his abusive boss, only for the man to wind up offed and poor Guster very incriminated. The sequence in which they hysterically stumble their way through the crime scene is worth watching alone; but as evidence mounts and it looks like they could actually be caught in the crosshairs, the levels of ingenuity to which they’re pushed shows why this is the show’s best partnership.

Season 8 Episode 1: “Lock, Stock, Some Smoking Barrels and Burton Guster’s Goblet of Fire”

This is the episode that got me back into the show after years of casual viewing: a mashup of Guy Ritchie and Harry Potter that manages to add a whole new layer to one of Psych’s best recurring characters, refined art thief Pierre Desperaux (Cary Elwes) while giving him a proper send-off.

Like the Yin/Yang trilogy, the entire Desperaux quartet is worth watching for the heists, the Indiana Jones lampooning, and especially for his continued double-crossing of his greatest fan Shawn. But this one takes the cake because it adds a new layer to the Desperaux mythology: He’s actually Royston Staley, an Interpol agent who went undercover as a gentleman thief. Or is he?? Plus, add in the runner about poor Gus in his Hogwarts robes just trying to make it to PotterCon, and you have a near-perfect episode.

Season 8 Episode 3: “Remake, A.K.A. Cloudy… WIth a Chance of Murder”

What better way to mark your final season than by remaking one of your season 1 episodes? What’s incredible about Psych is how many different ways it goes meta, but there was something especially entertaining about its remake of season 1, episode 12 “Cloudy… With a Chance of Murder.” With periodic reminders that this episode is set in 2006, it recasts almost all of the characters—a teacher accused of killing a local weatherman, the lawyer for the prosecution (Ralph Macchio)—and makes space for new jokes (about remakes and My Cousin Vinny) and new twists. All long-running series should get a chance to try and redo their early episodes after they’ve gelled their characters and dynamics.

Season 8 Episode 10: “The Break-Up”

After trying to make their long-distance relationship work, Shawn decides to move to San Francisco to be with Juliet, a far easier choice than actually breaking the news to Gus. Of course the Psych series finale would be about these two facing the end of their partnership. Specifically, Shawn’s inability to say goodbye, so instead he and Gus wind up investigating a case involving special guest star Billy Zane, careening around in their high-school drivers ed car, and competing with SBPD’s peppy new detective Betsy Brannigan (Mira Sorvino). When none of this helps Shawn come out with the truth, he does so through DVD—a whole batch of DVDs, tailored to each of his colleagues and dear friends. Because Shawn loves telling a story.

There’s no better end for Shawn and Gus than a bromantic one, complete with driving cross-state (albeit turning back 12 times), dramatic declaration of love (at a crime scene), and pledging their lives together before Shawn actually proposes to Juliet (as a formality). And it’s not just about them: The finale has sweet moments of closure for new junior detective McNab (aww) and especially Lassiter, who finally gets Shawn’s confession—then breaks the DVD. If the Psych movies had never happened, it would have been enough; but instead, it’s the sugary-sweet end of one chapter and the opening of another.

The post Psych: The Essential Episode Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[l0ulabell]

Ideal PS4 Games 2019: Essential PlayStation 4 Launches

Are you enjoying the listing of finest ps2 video games as well as likewise excellent old video games. If you like playing Grand Burglary Auto games, then additionally have a look at the best games like GTA. If your desire is to endure hours-long Grand Prix races in timeless F1 style, after that this is the ready you. The races can in fact be incredibly tough and are never on a shut track. They are additionally related to the interests that girls have so that the games themselves have actually ended up being very popular. The GTA game collection has become one of the preferred games. HARRY POTTER and the Order of Phoenix az is a game which is based upon the 5th variation of HARRY POTTER film collection. The video game is embeded in the fictional town, called Paradise City. Embed in a post-apocalyptic globe where a worldwide virus has actually transformed the majority of people into meaningless zombie animals known as "Freakers," Days Gone guarantees an exhilarating survival horror story chock loaded with blood as well as digestive tracts. Embed in the fictional Redview Region, Competitors allow's you pick up and play a variety of challenges as either a racer or a cop. There's even one video game that is pretty popular to play online where you and your buddies race with no type of transport. How to Choose Video Games for Kids Devices maintain the video game enjoyable and also intriguing, type of like a the real world Mario Kart, as well as there are a lot of opportunities to race and also wreck online opponents. It might coincide game as it remains in reality, yet it includes a degree of ease of access that can turn a dull afternoon into an all around fun day. Established by Codemasters (the exact same developer as Dirt Rally), F1 2016 is considered as among the very best Solution One auto racing games about-- otherwise the most effective F1 game. Probably, however that doesn't quit you getting several of the older video games over for a price cut price in the meanwhile. When you have grasped the three languages above after that you have a great chance to be able to program a video game. It likewise uses good photo top quality, which makes it a terrific all-around selection for the individual who desires superior gaming performance. For all video gaming fanatic, below we bring you out with several of the most effective PS2 Gamings 2019 with its bountiful history of tradition. PS2 was considered the most effective video gaming console of its time and it still acquires a foot into the market. Exactly how the moment flies when you're updating from a 32-bit resolution to upwards of 4K. However regardless of the amount of years pass, Lara still takes care of to locate a place in our hearts. Identity will certainly occur in a fictional land in the eastern United States, greatly inspired the Carolinas as well as Georgia. The video game story is about a boy called Wander that enters a prohibited land. The video game has soo several cheat codes as well as soo lots of objective's which brings way too much fun. We Applaud takes a fun customizable approach to this brand-new style, the game looks like it will supply a great deal of various alternatives so everyone playing can have an unique experience. Broken web servers plagued the multiplayer experience for months, and Sony maintained delaying a PlayStation And also version that many people believed it would never ever see the light of day. We're doing playthroughs and testimonials of some of one of the most prominent video games plus on the internet members-only competitions where you can fight for magnificence playing today's most significant multiplayer titles. I understand that there are currently ps3 as well as ps4 making great adjustment and also it is late to upload Best PS2 Gamings. That stated, Driveclub at some point turned into a great racing video game, with several of the best graphics readily available on the PS4. And also, offering to do something with your kid out in public is not constantly obtained with terrific enthusiasm. This weapon would most definitely create a mass amount of demolition and damages, by calling out a light beam that would certainly bring death from the sky. Teachers must develop circumstances to make sure that their women trainees are investing an equivalent quantity of time in hands-on activities. It began with the family, the participants, after that the components of your house and then the spaces, so the youngsters are gradually learning what is everything about a household. Carl discovers his old friends and family in disarray, and also throughout the game he tries to re-establish his old gang, encounter corrupt police officers, and slowly deciphers the truth behind his mommy's murder. Controls lean more toward an arcade-style racer, however it makes for an obtainable and exhilarating auto racing game. You'll be investing a lot of time with your engineer as well as representative, the former will certainly investigate as well as create new upgrades for your racing group, while the latter manages your team's contracts. For now, Forza Motorsport 7 remains the benchmark for console racing as well as it will certainly be seventh paradise for all Forza followers anywhere. F1 2016 is additionally chock-full of trendy little details, like the enhancement of the ceremony lap-- the workout jaunt prior to a motorsport race where vehicle drivers inspect the safety and security of the track and also cars and trucks by travelling around at slow speeds. Race some of one of the most loved autos of our time in glorious high definition. At first it looks like a silly aspect to the video game, but it promptly ends up being a nice regimen that allowed's you flex the wheels and also brakes prior to relieving into a long race session. I do not suggest it as a very first project, yet you can always try. For 2-4 players. Doom wasn't the very first FPS ever before but most likely it was the one that make the category famous. Most likely hailed as one of the best racing games there is, Need for Rate is a timeless fave among the auto enthusiasts. Okay, Need For Rate Underground 2 rocked. The most "arcade-y" of the lot, Required for Speed: Opponents is the least most likely auto racing game to damage your simulator impulse, but it's a total blast to play.

[melonico]

Best PS4 Games 2019: Necessary PlayStation 4 Releases

Are you delighting in the checklist of best ps2 video games as well as additionally excellent old games. If you like playing Grand Theft Car games, then also have a look at the most effective games like GTA. If your desire is to live out hours-long Grand Prix races in traditional F1 style, then this is the game for you. The races can in fact be incredibly challenging and also are never ever on a shut track. They are likewise related to the rate of interests that girls have to ensure that the video games themselves have come to be popular. The GTA game collection has actually become one of the prominent games. HARRY POTTER and also the Order of Phoenix az is a video game which is based on the 5th variation of HARRY POTTER movie collection. The game is embeded in the imaginary town, called Heaven City. Embed in a post-apocalyptic globe where a global infection has actually transformed most of people into brainless zombie animals referred to as "Freakers," Days Gone assures a thrilling survival horror tale chock packed with blood and also intestines. Embed in the fictional Redview Region, Opponents allow's you pick up as well as play a selection of obstacles as either a racer or a cop. There's even one video game that is pretty prominent to play online where you and also your buddies race without any kind of transportation. How to Choose Video Games for Kids Gizmos keep the video game fun and also interesting, sort of like a real life Mario Kart, as well as there are plenty of possibilities to race and wreckage online opponents. It might coincide video game as it remains in reality, however it adds a degree of ease of access that can turn a dull mid-day right into an all over fun day. Developed by Codemasters (the exact same developer as Dirt Rally), F1 2016 is regarded as among the best Formula One auto racing games about-- if not the most effective F1 game. Possibly, yet that doesn't quit you getting several of the older games over for a price cut rate in the meantime. As soon as you have realized the 3 languages above after that you have a terrific opportunity to be able to configure a computer game. It additionally uses excellent image high quality, which makes it an excellent well-rounded selection for the person that wishes superior gaming performance. For all video gaming freak, right here we bring you out with a few of the Best PS2 Games 2019 with its bountiful history of tradition. PS2 was taken into consideration the best gaming console of its time as well as it still gets a foot right into the marketplace. Just how the time flies when you're upgrading from a 32-bit resolution to upwards of 4K. But despite the number of years pass, Lara still takes care of to find a location in our hearts. Identification will certainly take place in an imaginary land in the eastern USA, greatly influenced the Carolinas as well as Georgia. The game tale has to do with a boy called Wander that gets in a forbidden land. The game has actually soo several cheat codes and soo numerous goal's which brings way too much fun. We Applaud takes an enjoyable customizable method to this brand-new genre, the video game looks like it will certainly offer a great deal of different alternatives so everyone having fun can have a distinct experience. Broken web servers tormented the multiplayer experience for months, and also Sony maintained postponing a PlayStation And also edition that most people thought it would never see the light of day. We're doing playthroughs and evaluations of several of one of the most popular video games plus online members-only contests where you can battle for glory having fun today's most significant multiplayer titles. I know that there are currently ps3 as well as ps4 making fantastic change and it is late to post Best PS2 Gamings. That said, Driveclub ultimately developed into a wonderful auto racing game, with a few of the very best graphics available on the PS4. And also, providing to do something with your boy out in public is not constantly gotten with terrific passion. This tool would certainly develop a mass amount of demolition as well as damages, by calling out a beam of light that would certainly bring death from the skies. Educators should produce scenarios to ensure that their female pupils are spending an equivalent amount of time in hands-on tasks. It began with the household, the participants, after that the parts of the house and then the rooms, so the youngsters are slowly learning what is everything about a household. Carl discovers his old family and friends in chaos, as well as over the course of the video game he attempts to re-establish his old gang, clashes with corrupt polices, and also slowly deciphers the fact behind his mom's murder. Controls lean much more towards an arcade-style racer, but it produces an obtainable and exhilarating racing game. You'll be spending a lot of time with your engineer and agent, the previous will certainly research as well as develop brand-new upgrades for your auto racing group, while the latter handles your team's agreements. In the meantime, Forza Motorsport 7 stays the standard for console auto racing as well as it will be 7th heaven for all Forza followers anywhere. F1 2016 is additionally chock-full of cool little details, like the addition of the ceremony lap-- the workout jaunt before a motorsport race where vehicle drivers check the safety of the track and autos by travelling about at slow-moving rates. Compete a few of the most loved cars of our time in glorious hd. In the beginning it appears like a ridiculous element to the game, however it rapidly comes to be a nice regimen that allowed's you bend the wheels and brakes prior to relieving right into a lengthy race session. I do not advise it as a very first project, however you can always give it a go. For 2-4 gamers. Ruin wasn't the initial FPS ever before but most likely it was the one that make the category popular. Possibly hailed as one of the best racing video games there is, Need for Speed is a classic fave amongst the car enthusiasts. Okay, Need For Rate Underground 2 rocked. The most "arcade-y" of the number, Need for Speed: Competitors is the least most likely racing game to scratch your simulator itch, yet it's a complete blast to play.

[tune-collective]

Radiohead's Moody, Paranoid Masterpiece 'OK Computer' Turns 20

Radiohead's Moody, Paranoid Masterpiece 'OK Computer' Turns 20

Every generation since at least the Industrial Revolution has figured it was witnessing the beginning of the end of the world. It’s why we never lose our appetite for stories about totalitarian regimes, global warfare, sentient machines, and the ways in which governments might use technology to rob us of our humanity.

By reputation, Radiohead’s OK Computer is rock’s grand entry in the tradition of dystopian fiction. As the album celebrates its 20th anniversary today (it was released June 16, 1997, in the U.K.), there are no shortage of articles about how Britain’s brainiest band anticipated the rise of Trump, our addiction to smartphones, and other horrors still to come.

Radiohead’s 1997 masterpiece is certainly an album about feeling isolated and dehumanized. Singer and bandleader Thom Yorke paints a picture of a pretty gruesome world, and yet it’s one that listeners in the days of dial-up Internet might’ve recognized as their own. Take away the sci-fi title, and OK Computer plays like a collection of songs about everyday people muddling through the ‘90s. If someone were to adapt the album for the big screen, it would be a talky psychological drama, not a summer blockbuster.

Yorke said as much in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. “The paranoia I felt at the time was much more related to how people related to each other,” he said. “But I was using the terminology of technology to express it.”

On OK Computer, when Yorke sings about machines, he’s generally talking about planes, trains, and automobiles — nothing remotely futuristic. Radiohead recorded the album after four years of touring had left Yorke feeling detached from reality. That might explain “Let Down,” an incongruously twinkling OK Computer highlight wherein Yorke describes “motorways and tramlines” as tools for shutting travelers from one bad experience to the next. He details one such experience on closer “The Tourist,” about an anxious vacationer who’s so keyed up that even dogs bark at him.

And sometimes vehicles don’t get you to where you’re going. The bass-heavy, drum-loop-driven opener “Airbag” celebrates the exhilaration of surviving a car crash. The delusional narrator in the gloomy ballad “Lucky” sings, “Pull me out of the aircrash / Pull me out of the lake.”

Despite its title, “Subterranean Homesick Alien” isn’t an outer-space adventure. Yorke’s protagonist is an “uptight, uptight” guy on a country lane with some rather quaint ideas about UFO abductions. He dreams of being taken up and shown “the world as I’d love to see it,” though he knows his buddies will just call BS and label him crazy. The echo-y psych-pop backing nods to the narrator’s cosmic longing yet grounds the song in the realm of daydreams.

“Paranoid Android,” the album’s first single, is another example of title dictating interpretation. The song name — like the phrase “OK computer” — comes from the comedy sci-fi series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, though Yorke has said he picked it mainly because the image of a pouting robot played into people’s perceptions of him. It was Radiohead’s version of a joke — no wonder no one got it.

Yorke based “Paranoid Android” in part on a scary encounter with coked-up scenesters at an L.A. bar. Even without many details from that night, the song is clearly about humans being inhumane to one another. Yorke sings from the perspective of a little man (“Why don’t you remember my name?”) who’s disgusted by yuppies yet susceptible to power fantasies of his own (“When I am king you will be first against the wall”).

A similar ugliness characterizes “Karma Police,” where Yorke’s narrator wants the cops to enforce a form of spiritual justice that, by definition, is supposed to take care of itself. Whether these “Karma Police” are meant to be forces of good or evil, there’s real menace in the way Yorke’s character sings, “This is what you get when you mess with us.” He even takes it back later in the song: “For a minute there, I lost myself.”

For all its dread, “Karma Police” is a placid pop-rock song featuring piano, acoustic guitar, and a gorgeous melody. That brings up another key point about OK Computer: It’s a relatively conventional rock album that always feels like it’s being performed by guys holding instruments. It wasn’t until Radiohead’s next album, 2000’s Kid A, that the band would begin weaving in the chilly electronic blippery that’s since become a key facet of its sound.

OK Computer even features a killer air-guitar track in the form of “Electioneering,” a cynical look at politics that Yorke has said was inspired by England’s poll-tax riots of 1990. If that song “predicted” anything, it was simply more of the oppressive governing that’s been commonplace since man came up with the idea of choosing leaders.

The one exception to all of this is “Fitter, Happier,” which actually would’ve been a great starting point for a technophobic concept album. Radiohead considered opening OK Computer with the track but ultimately thought better of it. Positioned instead at roughly the midpoint, “Fitter, Happier” is two minutes of a stiff computerized voice spouting self-help slogans. At the end, the machine lets slip that man is little more than a “pig in a cage on antibiotics.”

If that last bit is true, humans don’t have robots to blame. According to Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, Yorke imagined “Fitter Happier” as a kind of “nineties checklist.” Indeed, nearly everything the song preaches — drinking, pragmatism, kindness to animals, sensible driving, proper show of emotions — sounds like a tip you might get from some glossy magazine or inspirational radio host. (The bit about not pouring boiling water on ants should probably go without saying.)

OK Computer isn’t frightening for what it foretells. The terror lies in human fears and weaknesses that hardly need technology to become dangerous.

This article originally appeared on Billboard.

http://tunecollective.com/2017/06/19/radioheads-moody-paranoid-masterpiece-ok-computer-turns-20/