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stargatelov3r · 2 years ago

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I think we may be having one of those Rodney/Radek one mind moments. Because we did this together. <3

It starts off as energy bars and eventually rolls into Chuck picking up baking again. (Yes, Chuck bakes,) he figures out how to make Trdelnik using Athosian ingredients and surprises Radek.

Meanwhile, Radek latches onto Chuck’s stray comment about missing his telescope back home and builds him one.

Sharing coffee rations is canon of this headcanon and If anyone else thinks otherwise I don’t even want to hear of it. It is just too beautiful and lovely, just like them.

YES! I want them too. Hmm…It would be really cool to have an Atlantis Lower Deck fanfic challenge.

Hmm... I think 100 sounds right, let's call it 150!

Oh man, I could rant about this… I really wish they had not gotten in contact with Earth so soon. Such a waste, such a bailout, then they had to deal with all the political bullshit. No, they should have had at least two seasons of them all on their own. Then replaced every episode where they butt heads with Earth with ones that delve into characters' backgrounds.

Faux-Season 3: *At this point, the Atlantis expedition has become quite self-sufficient, in fact, they have all accepted they won’t be going back to Earth. Earth does eventually contact them and of course, they start to resume control. But, surprise! Atlantis personnel hold a vote to become a city-state and the motion passes unanimously. Then you have a bunch of episodes with Elizabeth being a fucking boss dealing with all that.

I love that headcanon, I feel like they would need that sort of thing there, especially during the early days. I think Rodney would keep trying to hack it, but all the other scientists would combine to lock him out again and again. I'd bet money that Chuck is making most of those memes. Ronon would so be allowed in! I feel like they would let Carson in on it as well, I can just see him giggling behind his hand as he scrolled through memes.

I truly believe that too! <3

CHUCK PICKS UP BAKING AGAIN!

just imagine him running around with a little apron that Radek got him for his last birthday, flour all over his face, panicking because he doesn't want Radek to find out the surprise!

how DARE your bringing up such adorable points ;-;

Chuck has the ATA gene (canon), so he can fly them on dates to the mainland. On his birthday they take a jumper, he keeps asking why Radek is bringing this huge suitcase with him since they will go back to Atlantis the same night and they have a picnic basket that holds all the food so... what is it?

he's completely dumbfounded when Radek presents him with the telescope, which HE BUILT, and probably engraved something in it in Ancient. Oh.

He engraved something in the ancient writing but the language is Czech. Because Chuck is learning Czech. Mostly because he wants to understand what Radek is always muttering under his breath but also because it's the native language of his boyfriend and it makes him feel closer to him <3

Atlantis Lower Decks fanfic challenge??? Who's in??

(we need to come up with a new name though...)

You are so right to rant about this! You are so right in saying that they brought Daedalus in too early!

@sassycordy came up with the idea of still bringing in the Daedalus at the end of season 1 but instead of her being an instant connection to Earth they are like "nah, not happening, this ship is broken, we're not leaving anytime soon", so season 2 could be about the Atlantis expedition dealing with that, dealing with the new crew, with Caldwell, but still being cut off from Earth.

And yes. Please. PLEASE give me more character episodes. Episodes that deal with one character and their development (like "Before I sleep" does with Elizabeth). They can be SO GOOD and <3<3<3 i could talk about that forever. I'm a sucker for background story, both seeing it in the show and making it up. It adds so much to the story, to the depth of the characters.

gimme gimme gimme solooo episo-odes, help me understand what fucked up my blorbooos

ahem. sorry about that.

Uuh, remember in early SGA (might have been 38 Minutes) where Elizabeth tells fucking Kavanagh that they are basically a colony and she's the govenor? Well, they took it one step further and are now fully independent and running their shit on their own. Elizabeth doesn't even have to campaign to stay in charge, everyone knows she's the best and hypercompetent in that position.

Who needs Earth when you can have Athosians, kids that don't know yet what it means to be adults (do they even have more allies than them? o.0) and a city the size of Manhatten with tons of labs, and unknown rooms to explore? exactly.

I adore all your input ship anon <3

#ship anon #headcanons #radek x chuck #<<<really getting emotional about these two now #sga #elizabeth weir #answered

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themadmanandhisbox · 4 years ago

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Top ten fave characters

I was tagged by @namesonboats, thank you!

Rules: List your favorite character from 10 different fandoms then tag ten people.

Oof this will be tough. Most fandoms I have multiple favorite characters but I’ll give this a shot.

Star Wars: This is an incredibly tough one. If you’ve played Jedi Fallen Order you know how amazing Cal Kestis & Nightsister Merrin and they quickly became one of my favorite ships. But if I had to choose only one character from the universe it would be Din Djarin/The Mandalorian. His character is just so badass and awesome and goes on forever. Watching his character development over the 16 episodes as he becomes a father to Grogu. I could be here for a month with all the reasons Din is amazing so I’ll just leave it short here.

Naruto: This is another tough one but Minato Namikaze has always been my favorite character. Dude was such a gentle badass. In the Ninja World where leaving your friends to die instead of saving them to complete the mission was what you were suppose to do, and The White Fang was dishonored after choosing his comrades over the mission, Minato was so badass during the Third Great Ninja War that all the other nations had flee on sight orders if you saw him. He killed a thousand ninja in the blink of an eye and then was back home in an apron cleaning dishes for Kushina. Absolute badass. Getting to see him with Naruto during the 4th Great Ninja War was so great.

ATLA: Ugh so tough. It really comes down to Sokka and Azula for me which isn’t surprising since Sokkla is my OTP. But I think if I had to choose just one it’d be Sokka. So much of who he is as a goofy, smart, kind hearted, intelligent dumbass, is who I’ve been/tried to be in my life. I relate to both Sokka and Azula which is why I love them both so much and this answer could vary from day to day tbh.

Mass Effect: Liara T’soni. Such a badass awesome character. Every playthrough I tell myself I’m finally going to romance Tali and yet I end up romancing Liara again >.>

Star Trek: Captain Sisko. Sisko was just such a badass powerful character. Picard was the federation poster boy. He was the one Starfleet held up and said “look! Look how well he represents our utopian ideals!!!” which is great and all. But Sisko. Sisko was the man who had to make the hard calls, who had to get his hands dirty and do things that don’t fall into that morally perfect little garden the Federation liked to believe itself to be. He had to make harsh calls, do hard things, to protect utopia. In The Pale Moonlight will forever remain one of the best episodes of Trek and nothing will ever be able to change that.

So… I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover up the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning of all… I think I can live with it… And if I had to do it all over again… I would. Garak was right about one thing – a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it…Because I can live with it…I can live with it.

Sisko was a good man making hard choice in a brutal war the likes of which the Federation had never imagined. He had to make the hard calls to protect not only the Federation but the Alpha Quadrant as a whole. As soon as the Dominion had pacified the Federation and Klingons, they would have turned on the Romulans for sure.

Stargate: This is a tough one. Growing up I always admired Samantha Carter. Smart, clever, charming, badass, every bit a warrior as the men. It was inspiring to see a well written female character who was one of the smartest people on Earth, who was compassionate yet firm in her believes, capable of defending herself and her team mates. The Stargate franchise spawned so many great characters but I think if I had to choose one it’d be John Sheppard. A lot of considered him an O’neill lite, and he definitely had a little bit of O’neill to him, but he was different enough and his own character that I really enjoyed watching over the 5 years of Atlantis. His willingness to put his own health and safety aside to rescue his friends and team mates(See S5E01 “Search & Rescue” where despite the fact he’s got internal bleeding and probably a whole litany of other problems, he goes on the rescue mission for Teyla, disobeying a direct order from Sam while also telling her he had more respect for her than any other CO he’d ever served under). It’s that sort of selflessness coupled with his humor, charm, wit, and his ability to come up with clever ideas that leave Rodney frustrated he didn’t think of that, that makes Col. Sheppard my favorite.

SPOP: Catra. Thank you for coming to my TED talk xD

Battlestar Galactica: Lee “Apollo” Adama. This is another tough one like most of my choices, as RDM’s nuBSG had so many amazingly developed, flawed, characters that made them seem like actual, real human beings. But Apollo was my favorite I think. Smart, skilled, compassionate. Strong moral compass... for the most part(we’ll gloss over his affair with Starbuck while married to Dee). I will never not feel bad for him. I think part of him truly did love Dee, just not as much as he loved Kara, and as soon as it looked like he was rekindling the spark with Dee she killed herself. And then they finally find Earth the Second, and it looks like he’s finally going to get to settle down with Kara like he’s always wanted, poof, she’s an Angel and has completed her purpose. Bill is off burying Laura, and he’ll probably never see his dad again. Dude went through so much character growth, so much pain and hurt and ended up alone.

Dragonball: I grew up watching DBZ so it’s always had a soft spot in my heart. And my favorite character has always been a tie between Future Trunks & Vegeta. But I think I’m going to give it to Future Trunks. He was such a badass. His entry was sooooo badass, the way he dismantled Frezia and his father with his sword. When he got back to the future after the Cell Games he wasted no time killing 17 & 18 and then Cell. He was a take no bullshit, don’t fuck around like Vegeta, Goku, and SSJ2 Kid Gohan(All I can think of anymore is Dragonball Z Abridged where Gohan gets so mad at himself for letting his Vegeta show xD) Not to mention kid me for whatever reason was super enamored with his seatbelt buckle style belts he used. Idk why but like 10 year old me thought that was the coolest shit ever.

Teen Titans(the good one not GO): Raven. I always loved Raven and she’s been my favorite TT since I watched the OG show. Her character development throughout the show was amazing. Going from thinking she was too dangerous/weird to love to having friends and a family. Will always be my favorite and it’s not even a contest.

I’m not going to tag anyone in this because but if you see this and want to play, feel free to tag me as having tagged you! Thanks so much again for tagging me!

#fav character meme #my taste in shows is just as eclectic as my taste in music

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grimelords · 5 years ago

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I’ve finished my September playlist, only almost a month later. It’s got everything, The Weeknd, desert psychedelica from Niger, and Australian yodelling from 1941. What more could you want!

listen here

and if you’re interested, sign up for my tinyletter to get these playlists delivered to your inbox here

XO / The Host / Initiation - The Weeknd: First of all Trilogy is a masterpiece. The Weeknd is a legend forever for this alone. Back when he was an anonymous character and before he tried to pivot to being a proper pop star and started beliving his own bullshit. This trio of songs for me is one of the highlights of the whole thing because this is where things really take a turn and it serves as a nice flipside to earlier songs like Glass Table Girls (even quoting some of the lyrics from it in a very cool reprise). Where most of the songs from House Of Balloons are about his own descent into this hedonistic life, by the time you get to Echoes Of Silence he lives there comfortably, and he's turned from cool, dark and tormented to coldly evil and calculating. He's the master of the dark palace and he's drawing this woman in. The chorus of XO is straight up cult language 'all we ever do is love, open up your mind you can find the love'. She's broke and addicted trying to escape her life and he offers her this community. Which is where Initation comes in and things get really dark. This song feels like the real truth of those stories you hear of Drake flying instagram models around and it's a masterpiece of the dark underside of the drugs money and models bragging you're used to.

Sociopath (feat. Kash Doll) - Pusha T: Get a load of this new Pusha song where he's got Rodney Dangerfield ghostwriting for him. I got a bitch that'll master your card.. my wife ova hea!! Also the funny gritted teeth way he says it cracks me up. He also says boop bop be boop bop. There's so many good moments in this very silly song from a man that is normally terrifyingly serious.

Ice Cream - Muscles: I suddenly remembered this song the other day and I'm so glad I did. A good example of how you can get so much feeling out of music that has no relation at all to the lyrics. In the right mood this song makes me so emotional and I can't even pin down why. The way he sings 'ice cream is going to save the day' somehow just makes the urban alienation of the verse even more pointed. It's such a silly little dance song and that's what's so strong about it. It's dancing at night and unsuccessfully trying to forget what happened today.

Running - Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx: It’s extremely strange that this remix album ever happened, thinking back on it. Stranger still that a Gil Scott Heron song got remixed by Jamie xx and then remixed again by 40 and turned into a Drake song in I’ll Take Care Of U and all three versions rock. Anyway, this song and this whole album remain fantastic - it still sounds futuristic in a way where nobody else really followed Jamie’s sound, everything else went a different direction so this an In Colour feel more and more unique to me as time goes on.

Boyfriend (Repeat) - Confidence Man: I’m in love with this album. It’s the closest I’ve found so far to the level of absolute fun in dance music since Duck Sauce’s album. I love the the attitude of her lyrics, which carries through the whole album. I love when her Australian accent peeks out for a second on a few words. I love his rebuttals that almost but not quite put it over the edge into a comedy song. I love the big fading out leadup to the drop near the end where a huge throat singing drone just swallows the whole song for a second.

Ever Again (Soulwax Remix) - Robyn: Extremely hot remix alert!! Thankyou to Zan Rowe's Monthly Mixtape playlist for putting my onto this.Sometimes all you need is one ferociously hot bassline to make a life complete.

$50 Million - !!!: !!!’s new album has one of the best covers I’ve seen recently, I advise you to check it out. It’s interesting to be so far into your career (this is their 8th album since 2001) and still be writing songs about selling out, a concept which has largely disappeared from music discourse since musicians started making no money post napster. I vaguely remember the turning point being when Kimya Dawson, after blowing up via the Juno soundtrack, turned down a coke ad for a ludicrous amount and the blogosphere at the time turned on her and said she should have taken the money because she was living in a van at the time. Nobody gives a fuck about selling out anymore because bands make more from tshirts than streams so you’ve got to act like a brand just to make a living. Anyway I’ve gotten off track. This song rocks, especially for the breakdown near the end.

Tipped Hat - The Paper Scissors: A song I haven’t heard in over ten years that suddenly popped into my head the other day. I love the way this guy’s voice sounds, just completely committing to sounding like a hand puppet. I’ve been playing bass a lot more recently and so have developed the worst man habit of becoming more sensitive to and pointing out extremely hot basslines to people, so I’d be derelict in my duty to not share this one.

Heimsdalgate Like A Promethian Curse - of Montreal: I love this song about literally pleading with your brain to come good. Here’s a good quote about this album “I went through this chemical depression, and that's when I was writing a lot of the songs for Hissing Fauna. They're all songs about that experience. And I was experiencing it in the moment that I was writing the songs, and sort of asking myself: What the hell is going on? Why are you all of a sudden totally paranoid and plagued by these anxieties? And why is everything so distorted and confusing and fucked up? My lifestyle hadn't changed that much. And then I realized, well, there's something going on inside of me that I don't have control over, and then you realize how vulnerable you are to these things, these elements that you can't understand, or unless you go on medication and get it under control. It's like you're being betrayed by your body.” Something I really admire about this album is that the lyrics reflect black metal levels of mental anguish, he was absolutely going through it the worst anyone can go through it “I'd gotten to that point where nothing was working. I was borderline suicidal, and my relationship with my girlfriend had totally eroded and she'd gone back to Norway with our daughter and everything was totally fucked, and I was just like, What can I do? "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" is about that.” But the music is one hundred percent committedly twee and I really admire the effect that that split mood gives. “The lyrics tell the story of what was really going on and the music sort of represents this other emotion that I wish existed. The music was really happy because I wanted to make something that would lift my spirits.”

Jesus Rabbit - Guerilla Toss: I love the wobbly weird bass sound in this weirdo UFO cult song. I love the bleepy bloop melody that runs through it and I love how fundamentally unstable the whole song sounds, like it’s made out of paperclips and foil and papier mache.

Suburbia - Press Club: I can’t believe I didn’t know about Press Club for so long. I only found out about them this performance https://youtu.be/bCmtc-T5Unk which I’m shocked to learn has less than 5k views considering it’s one of the very best TV performances I’ve ever seen.

Come For Me - Sunflower Bean: I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this song before and I’m probably going to say the exact same thing but who cares! This song fuckin rocks. I love how assured it is, like “if you’re gonna fuck me then stop fucking around and fuck me already.” It also feels so musically similar to I Can Hardly Make You Mine by Cults to me, which is a great excuse for me to listen to that song every single time I listen to this song.

Thousands - Club Night: This Club Night album is really really good. It's like a really nice middleground between midwest emo and Cymbals Eat Guitars. The way this song blows up halfway through with 'what if we want it!!' is so good. This whole band feels like they're from 2009 but in a good way, the tail end of indie and twee with these prog or postrock structures where the songs just go and go, and you can just get completely lost in it.

Cemetary - Brutus: The first thing you've got to know about Brutus is the drummer is also the singer. Normally who plays what is not really important but in this case I think it's very important because it makes the drums a lead instrument more than they normally would be. When she's not singing my focus is still on the drums because they're linked and I absolutely love it. This song is great and every song I've heard of theirs is just as good, I love Brutus and they're one of the best new bands I've found recently. Someone in the youtube comments said 'there's something really special about hearing a song for the first time and just knowing you're going to listen to it hundreds of times in your life.'

Enter By The Narrow Gates / Spirit Narrative - Circle Takes The Square: I think that I think of Circle Takes The Square as a household name just because they have such an outsized importance in my own life when they're definitely not at all. They're legendary for making The screamo (good kind) album in As The Roots Undo and then taking 8 years to make a followup, which is this album Decompositions, but I don't really know if they're well known outside of like, people who have opinions about what were the hottest music blogspots in 2010. I chose both of these because you can't really have one without the other, the whole album basically runs as one long piece of music and so this just kind of jarringly ends at the end of Spirit Narrative, sorry about that please listen to the entire album. Because of the status As The Roots Undo enjoys I feel like this album was kind of ignored, or overshadowed by the reputation it was trying to live up to, almost exactly like The Avalanches with Since I Left You and Wildflower, when just like Wildflower it's a more expansive, developed take on the original sound that trades some of the rawness for a more polished and considered approach and comes out arguably better than the orginal. I feel like I have so much to say about this album but I don't really know where to begin, just listen to it.

Vitrification Of Blood (Pt. 1) - Blood Incantation: I am by no means a metal scholar, but I know that when the word 'blood' is in both the song title AND the band name that means it's good metal. I love this song, and this whole album is great. It's very 'classic' death metal but there's touches (beyond the extreme length) of psychedelica as well that puts it on another level you can just get lost in. The way the guitar goes to space at 3:40, and again properly into orbit at 6:50 is just magical. The more I listen to this band the more I understand those guys who only listen to metal, there's a whole ecosystem in here and it's really got everything you need.

Out Of Line - Gesaffelstein: This whole song is basically intended as an intro for Pursuit on the album but it’s so powerful just on its own. I love imbuing weirdo lyrics like ‘a bitter sunken love in a bleach blonde submarine’ with such ominous power through the commanding delivery. I love the way the big grunting vocals on the offbeat build to sound like a summoning ritual. I love making a big processed bell the centrepiece of your extremely evil sounding song. It’s sort of a shame that Gessaffelstein has never really gone back to the vision of his first album and has spent his time since diluting it down for guest production on Weeknd songs and the like because it feels like there’s still so much more to get out of this sound. That he hasn’t gone back and dug deeper makes Aleph stand out more and more as a singular masterpiece as time goes on.

Kamane Tarhanin - Mdou Moctar: Turning to Mdou Moctar after the new Tinariwen album kind of disappointed me, with all it’s big name guests nothing really hit me. I love this song though and I think a big part of it is the sort of loping, 6/4 rhythm that combined with the drone gives it this feeling of endlessly tumbling over itself in place, especially as the guitar heats up.

Achabiba - Fatou Seidi Ghali: I know very little about Fatou Seidi Ghali except that I saw she was supporting Sarah Louise at a show. From some googling it turns out that she’s the leader of a Nigerois band called Les Filles de Illeghadad who you can probably look forward to seeing on next month’s playlist. I also learned that the demonym for someone from Niger is Nigerien or to minimise confusion with Nigeria, Nigerois (said in a french way). They play a sort of desert psych in the realm of Mdou Mocter or Tinariwen, but this song (also the only solo song she has on spotify) shows her acoustic side. I love the swirling melody over the drone as the hand percussion keeps it in place and I love the very delicate vocals, but a probably unintentional thing I love a lot about this recording is the unmistakable iphone locking sound near the very start that instantly removes so much of the mystic exoticism that these sorts of artists are often written about with and places it firmly in the same sprawling modern world we all live in.

Floating Rhododendron - Sarah Louise: I love Sarah Louise. She’s a phenomenal guitarist and has such a big love for traditional folk music with her side project House And Land, but unlike everyone else in the genre is also very interested in pushing guitar forward to new and strange places. Her latest album was super experimental layered electric guitars and voice that still managed to maintain the deep connection to nature that runs through all her work. I would also highly recommend following her on instagram because her passion runs over. She’s regularly just out in the woods somewhere explaining how wonderful a particular mushroom is. This song one of the first ones I ever heard from her, and it’s back when she was just doing very beautiful 12 string acoustic work, but she recently added it to spotify and it’s a very nice reminder of where she came from and how far she’s gone in such a short time.

Lark - Angel Olsen: The new Angel Olsen is absolutely great. I love how much she is just completely going for it on this album, absolutely unleashing. Taken against earlier songs of hers I’ve loved like White Fire, where the majesty was in her quiet power and the ability to absolutely command silence with a whisper quiet song, this song feels like the direct inverse, an about-turn into all the gigantic majesty of swirling strings and top of your lungs vocals - going all out and leaving nothing on the table. The way this song blows up about three different times until by the end you’re caught in this gigantic swirling maelstrom of screaming sound is just out of this world.

Door - Caroline Polachek: Caroline Polachek’s brain is huge. When I first heard the chorus of this song I couldn't believe it. Are you allowed to have a chant that runs in a spiral like this be the chorus of your pop song? Is that allowed?

North, South, East And West - The Church: The Church feel like they don't get enough respect. They don't seem to be in the same league as Cold Chisel and The Angels and all the other dad rock Australian bands from that era for some reason. They're very good though and I've been really getting into this whole album and this song specifically lately. Maybe what's working against them is just how much his voice sounds like Bono's in this song but surely that was a boon at the time!

Western Questions - Timber Timbre: This has become one of my new favourite songs to sing. The way the words fit together is my favourite kind of poetics where they just sound incredible, phonetically, and can mean anything you like for large chunks. Like “the gelatinous walls of the seeds that seldom remain / while the bulls are browsing needles through computer casinos / honour the name”. Especially “bulls are browsing needles through computer casinos” is just extremely nice to say. I love the character of this song and am yet to completely understand what it’s saying other than personifying some worldwide blackpilled spirit of nihilist evil. What I love is the experience of all encompassing evil in this song, like a worldwide conspiracy connecting everything together that makes it all make sense. It doesn’t make you happier but it makes it make sense. I also love the finality of the big fill near the end that ushers in the outro riff that ties everything up.

Cold Cold World - Blaze Foley: I got heavily into a country music thing this month and spent a bit of time trying to find ‘real’ country, which of course turns out not to exist at all. The entirety of country music is built on a false nostalgia for an imagined time long past when things were real, some unspecified time in the collective consciousness between cowboy times and coal mine times. I don’t say this to say ‘country music is a fraud’ but that it’s built on a foundation of myth and that’s what’s so good about it. It’s constantly reframing the past as it relates to the present and is energised by the friction between them. Blaze Foley is a good example of this in the modern era because he seems to exist more as a myth than a man. He had three studio albums, the master tapes of which all disappeared through various means (lost, stolen, seized by the DEA) and so the majority of his surviving material is live recordings or long-lost studio recordings that resurfaced decades after his death when his fame and mythology already preceded him. He also thankfully lives up to the myth, he was truly a great artist and it’s a shame more of him hasn’t survived.

Where The Golden Wattle Blooms / Why Did The Blue Skies Turn Grey - Shirley Thoms: Further to what I was saying about country music before, Australian country is a whole other thing. Transferring the myth and the mythmaking to a new location adds another layer of abstraction. Shirley Thoms was the first female solo act to record country music in Australia in 1941 and was most notable for her yodelling of which she is damn fine. This is a great song and a good a starting point as any in trying to trace the origin of country music in Australia. That it's so english in its identity, so evidently imitating an american style (which is in turn imitating a german yodel) is just more good evidence that nothing is 'real' and traditions of the past and future are malleable at all times.

Talkin’ Karate Blues - Townes Van Zandt: Townes Van Zandt is widely regarded as a songwriter’s songwriter and one of the best country songwriters to ever live, but like a lot of great country songwriters also has one or two songs like this - strange comedy songs about learning karate and getting your arm ripped off.

Strange Tourist - Gareth Liddiard: This album is a masterpiece on the level of Ys and it feels criminally underlistened in my opinion. Luckily in the last week or so some renegade has done up the wiki article on it to a couple of thousand words so that's a start. Because this is a song I've listened to one million times and love a lot, it's hard for me to write about it in a general way so instead I'm going to talk about something very specific and new that I've only begun to appreciate recently. The way he uses the vowels of the japanese words to create these assonant runs in lines like "Koda Kumi sang a coda pink as sarin gas / I took a trip to Nagasaki in a rented Mitsubishi / Then went camping in the Jukai under Mount Fuji" and "They found him frozen in a hollow in Aokigahara forest where them harakiri weirdos go" is really something, and a nice illustration of the two sides of Liddiard's songwriting: densely technical poetics in a song about living with a housemate who was a real freak.

I Dream A Highway - GIllian Welch: I’m not even going to go into the lyrics of this because it’s such an out of this world perfect song but I’m going to say this: it’s really something that this song goes for nearly 15 minutes, sits on the same three chords the whole time and never ever feels long. This song is longer than Emily by Joanna Newsom but doesn’t feel like an epic of the same scale at all. It’s just a mournful slow ode to change and decay that goes on forever and could keeping going on for twice as long if it wanted to.

Deep Water - The Middle East: The way the vocals in the verses are delivered, trailing off and mumbling bits and pieces is somehow magical, like it’s more interested in communicating the gist and the feeling than the actual words. You can just pick whatever part of it you like. Petrol stations and a copper mine, the kind of place I think I could die. This song also has two minutes of silence at the end for album reasons so enjoy that.

listen here

#playlists

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alexanderwrites · 7 years ago

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Thoughts Roundup - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 16

“No knock, No doorbell”

There are moments in pop culture history that I always feel envious about - envious because I wish i’d been there to experience it them as they happened. I wish I could’ve seen Talking Heads perform live, I wish I could have seen The Shining in cinemas when it was first released, and I wish I could have watched the original run of Twin Peaks when it first aired. The thing about the desire to have experienced these things as they happened is directly tied to the environment they’re released into, and the effect they had on the public at the time. You can get the blu ray of Stop Making Sense, you can find The Shining screenings in independent cinemas, and you can buy the Twin Peaks boxset. But what I really want is to know what it felt like to see Twin Peaks every week, at a time when Dynasty and L.A Law were as exciting as TV got. I want to have been a part of those conversations that people had about the show. I want to know how people like my Mum felt when she watched it back in 1990 (for the record, she hated it. She’s got great taste, but Twin Peaks was decidedly too weird, according to her).

I came along to Twin Peaks ten years ago, when the show had vanished from the conversation and was yet to have a second life thanks to the likes of Netflix and Hulu. David Lynch’s work was alien and exciting to me - I remember seeing a Fire Walk With Me VHS in HMV years before and asking my Mum just what it was. I remember seeing clips of Blue Velvet late at night and being terrified of it. And finally, I remember seeing clips from Twin Peaks’ last episode being featured on a countdown of the 100 Scariest Moments on Channel 4. That’s when I knew I had to find out just what the fuck it was all about. And I have such fond memories from 2007 & 2008, of obsessing over the show, watching episodes on summer evenings in my room, excited about waking up the next day so I could tell my Mum and Brother about it. The thing that the experience missed is a feeling of communality. The moments in the show that rocked my world and made me feel a way i’d never felt before were experienced solely by me, in a tiny bedroom, on a portable DVD player. The moments that, when they first aired had people all over the world talking now felt like they were being seen in 2007 only by me. But now, ten years on, as Twin Peaks: The Return heads towards the finish line and its biggest moments reverberate from it with electric power, I finally get to have what I never had before: the experience of watching it with the world. The only other show I experienced that with was Lost, a show I watched religiously and passionately. But The Return feels different - it feels bigger.

You can feel that there are fans who’ve waited 10, 20, 25, years for it, and it carries the extra weight of knowing that this really might be David Lynch’s last filmic or televisual outing. Think about that for a second. This week might be the last time we can say that we have David Lynch’s work to look forward to. He’s spoken about how he’s moving away from films and towards visual arts, and at 71, going back to the world that forever cemented his name in the Pop Culture canon could be the most perfect swan song of his career. As a result, every episode feels loaded and essential, and with the events of tonight’s episode, it feels like we’re seeing something iconic take place. We are reacting together. We are experiencing it together. I’ve had conversations about it with my girlfriend, a bunch of friends, family members, and some randomers online for good measure. These are those shared experiences i’d longed for. 14 year old me, watching monumental television unfold and wishing he had someone to share it with is being rewarded every week, and I’ve never felt more rewarded than I felt with part 16 and its own monumental developments.

Dale Cooper is awake. Finally. Whether you’ve waited a season, or 27 years, nobody can deny the immense satisfaction that this development delivers. It feels huge. It feels iconic. It feels like something truly good and pure occurring in a bleak world. I got tearful, I laughed, I smiled so wide my face hurt. I didn’t realise how badly I needed Dale back. How badly the world needs Dale back. “People are under a lot of stress” notes Rodney Mitchum tonight. They certainly are. Whether they’re residents of Twin Peaks or Las Vegas, the characters throughout this return have resided in a world of hurt. It feels sharply current, and a reflection of an America that feels broken. Out of the pain, through the pain - through a violent electric shock that is - returns to us Dale Cooper, the hero we both need and deserve. He is Lynch and Frost’s testament to goodness, their monument to the power of kindness. The electrical power that has given him new life like some kind of benevolent Frankenstein’s monster is finally used for goodness, a reminder that a thing which can contain evil is not entirely comprised of that evil. There is room for goodness - the Mitchum brothers have hearts of gold, as Dale (it feels SO FUCKING GOOD to finally be able to write “Dale”) tells them. Janey-E and Sonny Jim are good people caught up in someone else’s awful web. Dale is a good man who promises that he will one day walk through that red door and come home for good. For now, he’s walked through that red curtain and is back home with us. Whether he himself comes back to Janey-E and Sonny Jim, or whether a copy of him (he tells Mike to make another) takes his place, I adore the humanity and warmth his family is written with. They are dearly cared about by Lynch and Frost.

Dale remembers every moment with the Joneses. It meant something. It filled his heart up, and kept him going, and Dale’s poignant sincerity - god, i’ve missed it - tells her this honest truth. The miraculous and thrilling thing about his awakening is there is no need to stop and explain everything to Dale. There is no catchup. He is awake, dressed in his sharp black suit within moments, and is on the way to Twin Peaks while the main theme chimes in cathartically, and here he proclaims: “I am the FBI”. I cannot think of a greater, more exciting and meaningful moment in TV. I have goosebumps just thinking of it. If The Return has all been about trying to return to something that once was and the difficulties surrounding that, then this episode seems to posit the optimistic and moving idea that some things will always be. Like Laura Palmer and the Log Lady, Dale Cooper always will be, and it is hard not to take great comfort in that fact. Like the river running through the town, or the moon overhead each night, the forces of good will always exist, even if they are reborn. It needed to take 16 episodes. It needed to feel earned. And it needed to make its point, which it has with powerful brilliance.

The comfort of Dale’s return is contrasted by Doppelcoop’s pretty un-fatherly sacrificing of Richard Horne, who it’s revealed through a casually mumbled line, is (or was) Doppelcoop’s son. Doppelcoop’s headlights are still probing the road in front of him, still pushing onwards into that darkest of night, and there is a feeling of dread every time we see these headlights, waiting for them to illuminate the iconic “Welcome to Twin Peaks” sign. It is just a matter of time. Richard is destroyed by an electric light that engulfs him, and possibly whisks him away to the black lodge. The question is open of who sent Doppelcoop here, exactly? It seems to have been a trap designed to wipe him out, and it seemingly came from either Jeffries or Diane. His coldness and his manipulative ease is frightening here - he has known all along that Richard is his son, and feels nothing upon seeing his son killed. And Richard follows his father’s orders in a perverse mirror image of the people who follow Dale’s orders. He marches happily into the darkness where he is killed because that is Doppelcoop’s power: if he tells you to do something, you do it. With Dale, you listen to him similarly, but not from fear - instead from respect and love. Dale has always been a delightfully bossy person, but because Doppelcoop has twisted Dale’s goodness into evil, he has taken that friendly bossiness and turned it into a dictatorship of demands. If you don’t listen to Doppelcoop, you die. If you do listen to him, you’ll probably die anyway.

Diane, we hardly knew ye. Well, maybe that should be DoppelDiane. We knew something was wrong - every moment she was on screen, Laura Dern masterfully sold Diane’s trembling dread with a wild intensity that was both all-knowing and untouchably distant. She was full of secrets, and Doppelcoop’s text to her (nice to see that lodge spirits use emoticons!) seems to have triggered something inside Diane which sent those secrets pouring out of her. The revelation that she is not the real Diane but instead a manufactured Diane sounds crazy, but suddenly everything about her makes sense. A real tortured Diane is in there somewhere, or at least her memories are, and perhaps if she is in the same place as Laura there is a distant hope that she is safe, or can be brought back. Doppelcoop has throughout the years been playing god. He has manufactured people, he has manipulated people, he has bent everything to his will, and Diane is an example of what that does to a person. She disappears after being shot in a wildly intense sequence, and her body is viciously flung, disappears, and then winds up in the red room. Here, She is destroyed. So, where is the real Diane? Where is her soul? What happens to people like her and Laura? It is heartbreaking to find out that all along, she was just a pawn, and her story of what Doppelcoop did is even more heartbreaking. It’s a sad end - but is it the end? I’m certain I heard her say “i’m in the sheriff’s station” in this scene, which seems to be where all the story threads are heading towards. I can’t help but think of Judy. Whoever she is, she’s got a LOT of explaining to do.

Gary and Chantal, we hardly knew ye, either. Their end is hilariously overblown. A fender bender turns into the most ludicrously violent uzi-led shootout, and it really is down to their own stupidity. They were vocal supporters of violence, and they died fittingly violent deaths - deaths which echo Bonne & Clyde, except Gary and Chantal aren’t really so romantic. They’re just two dumdums who eat a lot of crisps and mess up simple tasks.

Audrey’s scenes tonight gave us the double rug pull. The first was “Surprise! She is in the real world”, and the second was a bigger “Surprise! Of course she’s fucking not!”. There was something so uncanny and strange happening with her throughout the last episodes, and Diane’s claim that she’s not herself tonight called back to Audrey’s similar claim in a previous episode. Her appearance at the Roadhouse feels realistic enough, until the MC announces Audrey’s Dance, the song she danced to all those years ago, and the crowd moves off the stage so that she can dance dreamily once again. The moment is inexplicable and as hypnotic now as it was then. However, where it once felt otherworldly in a wonderful sense, it now feels laced with menace and literal dreaminess - a violent altercation in the Roadhouse wakes Audrey up, and suddenly she is in a bright white room staring at herself in a mirror in confusion. The beautiful dream, the gorgeous music, the perfect concoction that sent nostalgic goosebumps up our arms is coldly revealed to be quite literally unreal. She is somewhere else now, where the lush purple lighting of the Roadhouse has been replaced with a blinding clinical whiteness. Her dance - so joyous and soulful - is snatched away from us and replaced with uncertainty once again. Is she somewhere with Laura and Diane, or someplace else entirely? I think we will find out, but what matters is that she is not here, she is not herself, and the dream has ended.

It is incredible the range of emotions that an episode of Twin Peaks can stir. The questions I want answered most are clinging to me tightly - who is Judy and what does Doppelcoop want? - but the overall feeling I get from The Return and from this episode is not of confusion, but overwhelmed emotion. An episode where Dale speaks would in itself be enough to knock you out, but with everything else that happens, the episode is a behemoth - yet it is carefully written and plotted. Despite the questions, I didn’t get lost in the weeds, and the return of Dale feels like a moment of shining clarity to help you through. There is a feeling of togetherness and unity now that Dale is awake again, and a sense of safety that wasn’t present before. And so, we head into the final week of Twin Peaks maybe ever. And like the millions that we are sharing this experience with, tonight’s episode is about sharing our experiences with others - be it Diane sharing her experiences with the FBI, Dale sharing his life with Janey-E and Sonny Jim, or the Mitchum Brothers sharing their generosity with the Jones family. It’s about the power of sharing, of not living alone. And while it may be painful (Diane), or beautiful (Dale and Janey-E), it is essential that we share the experience. It’s the source of goodness, and the goodness is now wide awake in Twin Peaks.

#twin peaks spoilers #twin peaks #david lynch #kyle maclachlan #dale cooper #tv review

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callunavulgari · 8 years ago

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SGA Meme~

Tagged by @randommindtime, and boy, let me tell you that I am so glad that you tagged me because I was probably going to do it anyway if you didn’t.

1. What drew you to Stargate Atlantis? I watched SG-1 with my mom when I was a kid and had the biggest crush on Sam Carter. It was ridiculous. I vaguely remember her urging me to watch Atlantis when I was in high school, but I was living with my dad at the time, 600 miles away from her, and I still don’t know if I didn’t because I forgot or if it was because the idea of watching Stargate without her was just... weird. But I didn’t.

Fast forward ten years and it’s late July of 2016, I’m coming down off of the ridiculous fandom high that is Sterek and basically desperately shopping for a new fandom. I haven’t written in months, haven’t gotten truly invested in anything I’ve read or watched, and I think an author that I liked started publishing SGA fic. And okay, I don’t actually live under a rock. I was peripherally aware of the SGA fandom existing in 2006, but I was much too caught up in Kingdom Hearts and various animes. Couldn’t be bothered. So what the hell, I think, and download the first season, just to see what all the fuss was about. By September I was reading fic.

2. Favourite SGA episode? Season 3 in it’s entirety? Hmm, okay, this is actually tough. It’s probably a tie between Tao of Rodney and Doppelganger. I’m pretty weak for Rodney episodes in general, and Dopperganger had a lot of really good Sheppard and Rodney content, which was awesome. Also, y’know, John kicking the shit out of himself. Oh, oh, and Vegas was also pretty great, in an AU of canon kind of way. I had way too much fun with that Rodney.

3. Favourite McShep moment in the series? Ahhhhhh, okay, yeah. Really hard! I mean, the pier scene in the Shrine was pretty great, but like @randommindtime said, it’s the little things. The little moments. The smirks and the jabs and the bickering and the loyalty. The Game was... okay, well, mostly the connotations made me cringe a lot, but the bits where they play games together? Watching each other over the monitors? Just. All of it. The whole series is my favorite Mcshep moment, leave me alone.

4. Non McShep moment that broke your heart? Lifeline destroyed me. I was never a huge Elizabeth Weir fan at first, but over the course of the first three seasons, she grew on me. That bit where she tells John and Ronon to leave tore me apart. Also - as far as episodes go in general, The Shrine fucked me up. I know, I know, it’s cheating because it’s about Rodney, but the premise of that episode is literally my worst nightmare. The entire thing was painful to watch.

5. A moment that made you laugh out loud? Probably when Sheppard literally jumped out of a window to avoid talking about something. Every single moment that John and Rodney bicker.

6. A moment that puts hearts in your eyes? I can only say all of them so many times, so I’m gonna go with when Rodney first comes to John in the Shrine. Not the pier scene, though that part is great too, but when Rodney first shows up in John’s quarters. There’s so much raw emotion in that scene that it slays me more than the pier scene ever could.

7. Favourite line? “You’re saying I tortured myself? / You torture yourself everyday, John.” I started this journey as a Rodney girl. And while I am most certainly still a Rodney girl, there’s just something about John Sheppard. He is such a flawed, gorgeous piece of work and I cannot get over it. He’s so fucked up and wonderful and I just. I cannot. Deal. With this man.

8. Favourite character that isn’t John or Rodney? Ronon? Yeah, Ronon. For sure.

9. Favourite Leader of the Expedition? Okay, so as much as I love Elizabeth I’m gonna have to go on Sam. I just. I had such a crush on her, and it was really great to see her again in Atlantis. I only wish she could have stayed on longer.

10. Favourite John moment? I’ve got a bunch of them, but I’m really partial to the one where he’s trapped with Todd. I’d been waiting for one of them to make an ally out of a wraith since season one, and they did it beautifully. The entirety of The Storm and The Eye because that’s when he first came on my radar as a little more nuanced than I originally thought he’d be. And of course, Miller’s Crossing and Doppelganger were great. I... think I just like seeing the scary, hopelessly loyal John come out to play since he’s just so John the rest of the time.

11. Favourite Rodney moment? Okay, but the thing about Rodney is that he is the character with the most character development in the entire show. Watch an episode with him from season 5 and then watch an episode from season one. It is ridiculous how far he came, and what I like most about him is that journey. The little changes you can see in him along the way as he grows and learns to rely on and care about other people. It’s fucking great. But I guess if I had to pick one, it would have to be when he took that enzyme. That, I feel, was one of his first biggest steps - that spark of bravery that just kept growing and growing. God damn, I love Rodney.

12. A song that reminds you of McShep? Can’t Pretend. I can’t not say that first, because that video will probably forever be associated with McShep just because of how early on I found it. I’ve made two fanmixes for McShep so far with another two on the way but the two that I like for them the most (so far) are I Found by Amber Run ( and i’ll use you as a focal point / so i don’t lose sight of what i want / and i found love where it wasn’t supposed to be right in front of me) and Saturn by Sleeping At Last ( you taught me the courage of stars before you left. / how light carries on endlessly, even after death. / with shortness of breath, you explained the infinite. / how rare and beautiful it is to even exist.)

I just really love music. And them. I was working on a video to Saturn but lost the whole damn thing when my computer crashed in December. Maybe I’ll start working on it again.

I’m only tagging @buckywithegoodhair, because you’re the only one that I know of who likes this show and hasn’t been tagged already. If SGA or Mcshep tickles your fancy, feel free to do this.

#look at me #my name is heather and i talk too much #sga #mcshep #memes

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