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fivegoldpieces · 5 years ago

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Talks Machina at Gen-Con Q&A Highlights

Note: This only has the audience q&a portion. Cast answers are transcribed, side-comments and banter are only included if they are relevant to/answer the question posed. Apologies in advance to mobile-users if the read-more doesn't work - this is tagged as #long post if you want to blacklist it.

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Q: For Matt; might we expect any possible homebrew releases coming out in the next year or so, like dunamancy?

Matt: I have plans. I can't say anything because I want things to be cool and surprising. But I have plans don't worry. It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't have time, but I'm working on it.

Q: For Taliesin; what would make Caduceus really angry?

Taliesin: I will say that he can get angry. It does happen. Juvenile disrespect does eventually get to him. Not a fan of pranking. I mean, you know, everybody's got some layer - there's some stuff. No one's that serene all the time. No one.

Q: For Taliesin; at the end of the Call of Cthulhu oneshot, you mentioned that you had a lot of mouse traps set up. I was just wondering, were the shadow people the most dangerous thing they could've released, or was there a more dangerous horror waiting that they managed to avoid?

Taliesin: I mean, if the cats had been released first, that would have definitely been an interesting thing. The cats would have been a problem. Also, if somebody had died really early, I was setting up a series of rules for dead players to continue to interact, which would have been really really unhappy and bad. And terrible rules for the things that were living behind the glass, and if you were stuck behind the glass, you were right there with them and they could really mess with you. Thankfully none of that happened.

Q: For Matt; you have the Tal'dorei Campaign Setting - I was wondering if you were going to do one for The Mighty Nein campaign?

Matt: I don't have a lot of time. Campaign settings are extensive. I'd like to eventually do something like that. I have materials, it's just assembling them in a way that can be legible by a non-crazy human being that I am. Hopefully! We'll see as time goes on. At the moment, we're consumed with this animated series that you guys helped make happen. Super excited about that. Keep an eye out as time goes on, because hopefully I'd like to get around to that. That'd be awesome.

Q: For Matt; what the hell was up with the undead vibe on Jamedi Cosko?

Matt: Yeah, that's crazy huh? That's a pretty weird thing. Yeah, there was something about him that gives off an undead vibe. Wonder what that means? I appreciate the question, but I don't know if that'll come back into play in some time. Let's see if it gets explored at some point, and if not at least I could tell you at the campaign wrap-up.

Q: For Travis; for the animated series, a lot of the characters have iconic catchphrases so I was wondering how you're going to translate "I would like to rage"?

Travis: Are we going to "translate" that? I think he's just going to say "I would like to rage". Yeah, we are definitely keeping iconic lines, moments, interactions, all those things will be there just as they were.

Taliesin: I'll also add to that - if you want to see somebody doing that and taking things that shouldn't actually work in-game and making them work in-game, Jody Houser is doing a great job in the comic book series of making you feel like somehow Matt is intertwined in everything that happens, it's kind of cool. Check it out!

Q: For Taliesin; a lot of comparisons have been thrown around between Fjord and Percy, and something that I noticed was Uk'otoa is being much more insistent than Orthax was - do you think if Orthax was as insistent and as keen on punishment, Percy might've gone a similar direction as Fjord?

Taliesin: Honest to God, and this is just from watching, I don't think Percy had nearly as strong a will as Fjord does. Watching Travis play Fjord was definitely like, "I did not have the balls to pull that off, oh my God." Percy was never about the hard choice, it was always about "what's the option C that I haven't figured out yet, there's a way to game my way out of this, if I just keep talking I can get everything to work" until the very end. Like chicken? Percy doesn't play chicken.

Laura (using Vex's voice): From firsthand knowledge, Percy does curtail very easily.

Matt: If you actually recall, Percy didn't even make the choice. Scanlan did for him.

Q: For Laura; when can we get a Caduceus tea set?

Laura: Oh, I heard a lot of "ooh's". Who would buy a Caduceus tea set? [audience applause] Well, shit, maybe I should look into it.

Sam: That's so many more people than who voted for me.

Brian: Not to be That Guy, lets just see how long his character lives, before we start making merchandise around him.

Q: For Sam; you are kind of the king of over-the-top and ostentatious whether it be with your character design, or your flasks, or things like that, and especially your outfits at the live events - how do you come up with these over-the-top creations and also how on earth do you plan on topping last night?

Sam: That last part will be hard. I think next year, I'll either come out totally naked or I'll just be so basic - pleated khakis, a polo shirt, I don't know. That outfit last night, it was pieced together from several different stores, I'm sure CritRoleCloset will figure it out at some point. But it was a challenge putting that together. And then, my fellow cast members, like two weeks after I bought all that weird stuff I wore, they were like, "hey let's go goth". So. Fuck you guys.

Q: For Travis; with Fjord's recent decision, do you see him changing outfits to fit his new or old persona?

Travis: I don't think so. Most of Fjord's armor was very piece-mail stuff that he got either from working on the docks, or stuff that he got from Vandren, or items that he was given just as he sort of accrued time and responsibility where he worked. I think that stuff's very dear to him, especially coming from an orphanage where he didn't have any possessions, so all those things that are actually his are very dear to him. He might add to those things, but I think underneath they'll stay there. He might augment them or change them a little bit, in the same way you would draw on your jeans in school or whatever, but that stuff's his so it means a lot to him.

Q: For Travis; after Fjord severed his pact with Uk'otoa, was there a larger fear in telling Beau and Jester what had happened, since he had been traveling with them the longest out of the Nein, or did his journeys with the Nein make that fear equal across all of the party?

Travis: I think actually he was worried about telling Beau and Jester the least, and maybe Caduceus in there as well. He knew he would hear about it from Nott, and Caleb had already sort of started to call him on his shit and saw through a lot of that stuff. He also regards the group as very powerful, so I think a lot of it is turning to his very powerful and talented friends and saying, "I don't have any of that anymore, I hope I can still play with you guys." Legit though, the response was amazing. It was absolutely incredible. Jester is so gregarious and loving and joyful and exuberant that I don't think he was worried about that, I think he was actually looking forward to telling her as one of the first people to know. And Beau is second-mate, so like ride-or-die or right?

Q: For Taliesin; I can totally be wrong for this, but just reading body language and facial features, there do seem to be moments where you're kind of just like, "I'm done with this" - I just kind of want advice, like how do you keep playing when your energy level might be low or you don't like where the story is going?

Taliesin: Oh, that is never "I'm done with this", what you're seeing is the "I'm trying to make sure no one notices that I'm reading my backstory notes". That's me reading, frantically. I'm a big believer in terror, terror is a great way to keep me up. "Oh God, I don't remember anybody's name, oh God how many siblings do I have oh God."

Marisha: Well, also you write your backstories like the Silmarillion, it's like, so intense. I'm like "my dad was mean to me" like that's my backstory.

Q: For Sam; based on the amazing reaction we've had to your DnDBeyond theme and the Critical Role theme, when can we expect a parody version of the 2010 hit "Like a G6" by Far East Movement as "Like a d6"?

Sam: Oh wow, that's good.

Marisha: Not to be that person, it already exists. The Library Bards did it. So, you should check it out. I mean, do a cover, Sam, I don't know.

Sam: There are more songs incoming, just so you know.

Q: For Matt; you say dunamancy can alter the reality and the fate of the person that wields it - is this an affront to the Raven Queen?

Matt: I would say, given the fact that elements of dunamancy deal with the manipulation of probability, destiny, things like that, the Raven Queen is probably not that cool with dunamancy. Just throwing that out there. One of the few things she's probably like, "Really, guys?" So yeah, I'd say you're on the right track.

Q: For Laura and Travis; do you talk to Ronin about your campaign?

Laura: So, Ronin, every Thursday night he stays with a babysitter at home, but he watches the opening of the show. Like, he loves the theme song so much. I sing it every time I change his diaper.

Travis: Same, like I know there's songs that parents sing to their kids - he's heard the damn theme song every day of his life.

Brian: But do you guys change the lyrics though, like "You shit your pants, I'm cleaning it up now", you know what I mean?

Liam: My kids bust into that song constantly. We cannot play a board game or anything. Someone goes "it's your turn" "TO ROLL" every time.

Q: For Marisha; I'm a huge fan of Jocks Machina and hopefully we'll get to see them on the channel one day - will Beau ever join Jocks Machina?

Marisha: What are the requirements, are there prerequisites for joining Jocks Machina? You're kind of the authority on this.

Travis: Guns. Abs. Likes to lift heavy things. Likes to break a sweat. Likes to whoop that ass.

Marisha: Check. Check. ...Check? Check. Hell yeah.

Q: For Matt; this is a rather involved conspiracy theory question, so excuse me - last year when the party was in Shady Creek Run at the Landlocked Lady Inn, they first arrived and there was a doorman named Champ who Keg knew. The next morning, they went down and there was a new doorman who said he'd been working for the Marduns for a few months and had bright red curly hair and vibrant green eyes and acted rather enigmatic and shady and shifty and was saying they should listen more and that he hoped that whatever they were after, they were on the right path. Later, once they recover everyone, Jester is asking the Traveler where he was, and he says he was always there. So my question is this: was that character the Traveler in disguise?

Matt: [several moments of silence]

Matt: That'd be pretty interesting, huh? That's a unique observation. I will confirm nor deny.

Q: For Matt; now that Fjord has effectively broken up with Uk'otoa, what do you think would be a more compelling storyline, or what are you most interested to see: him continue to take levels in warlock, possibly with an Archfey patron, or paladin...?

Matt: Part of what I really enjoy about this game is how the players continuously surprise me. I'm down to see what journey Travis wants to take. I'm curious to see how he takes this next path in his journey and which elements he wants to maintain, what direction he wants to go - he seems to be really finding interest in the Wildmother and talking to Caduceus about that, and that's kind of been an element of breaking that pact at the time, so I'm curious if he's going to continue down that path or see this as a blank slate to continue to grow. I'm interested to see the different decisions that Fjord takes, and Travis does through Fjord, and kind of adjust and build the narrative for that character around that. I can't say I have a specific path that I'm hoping for, because I have no idea what Travis's direct interest is, beyond just the actions he's taken in the game. Yeah, I'm just excited to see where it goes. I really love the idea of not knowing that as the Dungeon Master. As much as it's me building and world-planning, many of you out there who run games as GM know the most exciting part of the game is after all that prep, coming to the table and the players completely surprise you, and you kind of have to think on your feet and go with it. That's the best part of the game for me.

Q: For Marisha; what inspired you to play Beau a bit more shaken about her near-death than some of the other characters?

Marisha: Well, I was at 2 hit points the whole time - Liam can attest to that. So you know, I was kind of role-playing that. Shit's crazy man.

Q: For Liam; so you play your characters, both Vax and Caleb, very emotionally without any hesitation, and you're an experienced actor. What I wanted to ask was, something that people who try to emulate Critical Role don't realize that can happen when you try to put yourself into the character and get emotionally invested is character bleed. I was wondering how you deal with that, if you do at all. Like, if something really emotionally devastating happens to Vax or to Caleb, how does it affect you and how do you deal with it?

Liam: These feel like synthetic memories, so any time the superimposed fantasy friend gets killed or has to leave or whatever happens - that shit we carry around and get upset about. Every time we leave on a cliffhanger and someone's gonna die, we think about it constantly. Vax helped me sort through things, but made me more loyal and determined and willing to take chances - which in life I generally try to avoid conflict. Caleb, I still kind of drive around and think about him and still go, like "why did you do that?" He's really messed up, if I just think like, fireballs and cats like it's fun, and we can make dick jokes and it's fun. But if I really take a minute, I just go "Oh". I feel bad for him, I feel really bad for him. I have fun playing the game, and I love these guys, and I feel bad for my character.

Follow-up Q: Do you have ways that you learned to process that, like if you're at home feeling bummed about something that happened on a Thursday night, and you're like "man I need to get out of this funk"?

Liam: Yeah, I pull my head out of the game. I'll play a game with my kid, or watch a movie with my wife, or go running. Running is great. Not for your knees, but everything else. Or spend time with these guys out of the game. There's lots of ways. We're really invested in their stories, so it sort of drags along like coattails wherever we go.

Matt: To give you examples too, when he says "hanging out with friends", the group that's there, your friends that are in this game that you trust enough? You should all also support each other when those dark moments happen outside of the game. Whenever we lose a character in the game, we have like a wake. We go to an Irish pub that we go to often in Burbank, and we all get drinks and we have a wake for that character. And it's part of that process too. Even though it's imaginary, there's a part of that experience and journey that's come to an end and that deserves its respect as well, and we're all there to support the player. As a playing group, be there for your friends who may be going through that experience, because even though it is make-believe and it's a game, that is still a loss. And that's not a bad thing either. Loss is an important thing to process, because life comes with loss. Part of the wonderful experiences of role-playing games is that it allows us a safe space to explore very positive and very negative emotions in a healthy way and make us better people for it. So just be there for them, be supportive, and be the best friends and co-players you can be.

Liam: Part of the reason, I think, that we get upset when these fictional characters are killed is because we're playing this game of imagination together, and we form a chemistry together where we're like "we get to do this together, and it's always like this, and you're always funny like that, and you're always intense like this" and we really love that chemistry. Then somebody gets killed and they're gone, and that chemistry, which is something that we're like addicted to and love, that chemistry is gone. Like, when Molly was gone. Beau and Molly had this great "fuck you" "fuck you" butting heads thing - that's gone. We're actors, but anyone who plays this game extensively, you love the sort-of second life that you create for yourself and then when the character is gone, you don't have that unique mix anymore.

Q: For Laura; I really love how you play Vex and Jester, even though as two characters, they're pretty different from each other. But sometimes, you have an instance where like, your Laura shows. So I actually just wanted to ask, what was the biggest disconnect you've ever experienced between player versus character? If you've ever felt like, you as a person, as a player, would never ever make a choice in a situation versus what your character would do in that same situation.

Laura: I feel like everything my characters do, I wouldn't do in real life. Like, especially Jester. Travis and I have had these conversations: the joy of playing a character like Jester or like Grog, where you don't have to filter yourself - everybody, I assume, has these random really stupid things that pop up in your brain and you don't say them because everyone would judge you, and they're weird - and as these characters, you just embrace it, and it is so much fun. Talk about character bleed - it is an issue that I deal with now, because Jester has had that effect on me, and so I tend to say stupider things in real life now. No, but I would never deface anything in public, I would never steal anything.

Travis: You're not gonna attach any dicks on the walls.

Laura: I would not attach a dick to a wall in public. Or anywhere. I do eat a lot of donuts though, that's on me.

Q: For Matt; we've explored several places in the multiverse in your games, like the City of Brass, the Feywild, places like that - are there any places in the multiverse like the Astral Sea or somewhere that you, either as a player or as a GM, would have liked to have gone but have never had the time or resources to do?

Matt: Interesting. I do have some places that I really would like to explore, whether in this campaign or campaigns down the road. Astral Sea is interesting, it's a really weird amorphous plane, and I just love the prospect of one day throwing an Astral Dreadnought at these poor guys. He's my second to the Tarrasque. Oh they're fun, they're a good time. I've always loved Planescape. The City of Sigil would be great for obvious reasons of course. So I can be like, "no guys, this is where I learned my wrong pronunciation". But the City of Doors is awesome. Lady of Pain is a great element. Those who watched the Search for Bob oneshot, there was a Lady of Pain reference dropped in there. If you missed it, you can go back and look. Maybe there's a few doors in Sigil that lead to Exandria, who knows. Think about that for your home campaigns, huh? I want to go into some deep Abyssal planes too. We've been to the City of Dis, we've seen a little bit of the Nine Hells of Baator, though maybe not the harsher places. There's so many to explore!

Q: For Sam; Matt has said on Twitter that one of the ways you guys handle the pressures of the Kickstarter and the intense dramatic moments in the campaign is by checking in with each other and checking in on each other's mental health. I know you take on a lot of responsibilities with doing the DnDBeyond ads and the songs that you write and also your characters are often joking around with other characters and giving them a hard time so I was wondering, from your perspective, if you could give some details, without giving away anything too personal, on how to properly mentally check-in with your fellow players and just help everybody and check that everybody is doing okay.

Sam: Well, I'm learning from these guys, as we go, how best to do that. I'm weird in that, as weird as I am on-screen, I don't really talk very much when we're off-screen, or I keep my stuff to myself, more than some of these guys do. But they have, in the last few years, helped me sort of connect more with my best friends here. You know, we do check in a lot with each other, thanks to Matt and thanks to all of us. For instance, yesterday morning we all had breakfast together. It was really nice - we just talked about stuff, and it was just great to just sort of reconnect with everybody. I'm not an expert at this in any way, and in fact, on this stage, I am the least good at it, but I have endeavoured to become better at it. Opening yourself up to your friends and feeling comfortable enough to share your past or your worries for the future with your friends and not getting any judgement back is like, the greatest gift. If you have that with one person, it's amazing. If you have that with all of these people? Holy moly, it's the greatest thing in the world. I've tried to be better at sharing my stuff with them and being there for them. That's all I can do.

Q: For Marisha; in campaign one with Vox Machina, there's a lot of powerful badass lady NPCs, so if by chance, it all worked out timewise, who do you think Beau would be most likely to have a crush on?

Marisha: Kima. Yeah. Keyleth very much emulated Allura, and really looked up to her and kind of looked at her as a powerful female figurehead and took notes for leadership through her. Beau would just wanna fuck.

Q: For Liam; what do characters do in the campaign that you find funny no matter how old it gets?

Liam: Everybody throw in on this one. I'll never get over Laura waggling her eyebrow every third word in the game.

Taliesin: Slow snicker every time there's even vaguely a possibility of a dick joke.

Travis: I'd say every time there's a pain reaction out of Nott. It is hysterical to me.

Liam: I like any time, just the concept of death comes up or Molly - anywhere, in the game, out of the game - one of these people would be like, "Like you, you're dead!"

Laura: Uk'otoa.

Q: For Laura; do you think the volcano would be a good spot for Traveler on?

Laura (using Jester's voice): Okay here's the thing. Like, I totally did at first and I need to talk to him, because I think that now it's probably not, because it wasn't very expansive really, as big as I thought it would be, and there wasn't like a lot of beds, and like, no real good food. So, I don't know how many people are coming, but like, even just getting to the nearest hotel was really difficult, you know?

Matt: I love the idea that half of your sketchbook is Jester's tiny Yelp reviews of locations in Wildemount.

Q: For Laura; with all of the throwback to Vox Machina and Whitestone in the week before, how are you feeling with all of it?

Laura: I'm feeling very nostalgic.

Laura (using Vex's voice): Also, I would love for everyone to come visit.

Marisha (using Keyleth's voice): Me as well.

Laura (using Jester's voice): And also, if we did, I think we would cause a lot of problems.

Marisha: New pitch - Travelercon at Whitestone. We know the food is good, lots of lodging and room and board, no dead people in trees anymore.

Laura: All of the residuum that you could ever hope for.

Brian: And endless booze.

[Panel end]

#critical role #talks machina #long post #my hand is now broke #transcript

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dotzines · 5 years ago

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Artist Spotlights!

🎤 _creativert_ 🥁 AbelDraws 🎷 Amaari

🎺 andiavang 🎸 Antonia

Interview below the cut!

Introduce yourself

🎤 HI! I'm a geeky, introverted artist who likes to explore many artistic mediums, but really only posts digital art. I kinda like to draw anything and everything, but recently I've been trying to focus more on my OC's! Besides art, I love reading, playing video games (despite the fact that I haven't played many recently) and I like writing stories too. In the future, I plan to create a webcomic story with my OC's. I hope you enjoy my work! Here's where you can find my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_creativert_/

🥁 Hi! I'm Abel. I'm a Design and Mech engineering student, but my passion is art. I love drawing and currently I'm working on my dream project, a comic named FIVE. This takes most of my free time, but besides that I'll be either rping, watching a movie with my friends, reading (usually webcomics) or listening to some tunes while charging my energy up. I preffer digital art over traditional, you can fix mistakes so very easily... I also get more freedom with a program than with the limited tools I own (and it looks way cleaner and nicer when I upload a digital pic than a traditional, but my photography skills are to blame there lmao)If you want to read my comic, it's up on tapas! https://tapas.io/series/FlVE But if you'd rather see some illustrations and doodles you should check my tumblr: https://abel-draws.tumblr.com/ 🎷 Hi! I'm an avid 3-d and 2-d idol fan as well as a bee fanatic!! Drawing/painting is mostly a hobby for me, but in the future, if time ever allows it, I'd like to sell every so often. My default medium is digital using program SAI but sometimes I'll pick up a pencil/watercolors for traditional pieces. If you'd like to take a look at some of my other works/doodles, my art twitter is here @ https://twitter.com/hiwamaari . 🎺 I’m predominantly a digital artist! But I also crochet, sew, and embroider! I’m Andiavang across all platforms! 🎸 Hi, my name is Antonia, I'm an artist who does traditional hand drawn art. I love to draw and listen to music, often in tandem with each other. You can find me on tumblr @chibiranmaruchan

Do you do commissions post? Where can we find the info?

🎤

🥁 https://abel-draws.tumblr.com/post/184015135166/commissions-are-open-i-renewed-my-commissions 🎺 https://andiavang.tumblr.com/post/186764888718/commissions-are-open-all-payment-through-paypal

Do you listen to music (or tv shows/films/anything else) when drawing?

🎤 Yes! I actually create a new playlist every month filled with songs that have recently come out, or new songs I found that I really like! Generally, I'll listen to music when sketching but once I get to the lineart and colors, I'll listen to podcasts. For podcasts, I really like story podcasts and true crime podcasts. A couple of my favorites are Crime Junkies, Myths and Legends, The Bright Sessions and The Edge of Sleep.

🥁 *Yes*. All the time. I don't usually watch shows while drawing because my atention is all focused on the piece at hand, so... I miss most of it x'D so I preffer listening to music by a mile. It also helps me get myself in a nice mood for drawing <3 🎷 I mostly listen to music, generally one song or album of whatever artist I'm vibing to at the time. Constant repeat lately has been Blackbear's Anonymous album and Mesemoas. 6th single, Crossing Threads. Solid 12/10 🎺 I mostly listen to music! Sometimes I listen to a Podcast instead 🎸 I do listen to music while I draw, if I'm on a tight deadline where I need to focus, I listen to the Pokémon mystery dungeon red and blue recuse team OST. If I have plenty of time to draw, then what I listen to depends on what I'm drawing. it may be where I am getting inspiration from or connected to the aesthetic of the drawing or directly connected to it.

What’s your favorite music artist/band? If you could ask your favorite band/music artist one question, what would it be?

🎤 Oohhh, this is pretty hard honestly. I don't really think I can choose a favorite, but no matter who I'd choose, I'd probably ask them who or what encouraged them to keep going along the path they chose.

🥁 Currently it's panic! At the disco, I'm listening to all their songs on loop constantly lmao. They have such great songs, they inspire me a *lot*. I even created a character based on one of their songs, he's the one I'll be drawing for this zine!:DI'd ask them about the meaning behing lots of their songs <3 The interviews at hand do not satisfy my curiosity enough lmao.I also love Halsey (her first album is my fave), Set it off, Maldita Nerea (a Spanish group) and plenty of musicals (Hamilton, Be more chill...) 🎷 I've so many favorite music artists its so hard to choose, but if I had to pick one, the male J-idol group ARASHI. And if I had to ask them a question, I'd ask them if they're happy and enjoying life well. 🎺 My fave band is Placebo! If hav to ask them what their inspiration would be for their early songs 🎸 My favourite artist is Hikaru Utada and I would ask her if she likes her pre-existing songs, some being based on her life, being used for kingdom hearts or if she would prefer to make songs specifically for the game, about the game itself?

Do you play an instrument? If not would you like to play one? Which one?

🎤 I have a guitar, but I'm still learning how to play that, and definitely want to dedicate more time to that in the future. I'm also kind of interested in learning the piano or violin!

🥁 Nope, but I *wish*, I have such admiration for people who do, seriously. Live music is the best. I'd love to learn how to play the piano, the guitar or maybe the ukelele... But I doubt I will, at least for now, my hands are pretty full with college and comic making. 🎷 I wish I could play the piano and any string instrument. Maybe violin or the harp. 🎺 I used to play the drums 🎸 I can play basic piano. I used to play a recorder when I was much younger.

Which song(s) are you going to draw?

🎤 Magic Island by TXT and Audio by Sia, Diplo and Labrinth

🥁 King of the clouds, by panic! At the disco. 🎷 To the Me of Those Days - KOKIA 🎺 Special K by Placebo 🎸 Sanctuary by Hikaru Utada & Slow dancing in the dark by Joji

What do you expect from this zine?

🎤 To see everyone create a work they're proud of based off of a song they like!

🥁 I just really liked the theme, I have all kinds of imagery and videos in my head about several songs I'm obsessed with. It's a nice excuse to draw a pretty, fleshed out illustration and to learn some new songs in the way from the others' pieces<3 🎷 To be introduced to many different genre's of music and to hopefully find a song/genre I didn't expect to like! 🎺 Mostly just to interact with different people and artists! Make same new friends! 🎸 I expect to see a wide range of music presented, of different genres and both lyrical and instrumental. I hope the music resonates with the individual, something they're proud to share with the other participants and the eventual readers. I would like to have a journey through the zine, experiencing different emotions from everyone's art pieces.

Anything else you want to add?

🎤 Everyone has been super nice so far, and I really look forward to seeing everyone's pieces!

🥁 Best of lucks to everyone participating! I can't wait to see everyone's pieces together :D 🎷 Thank you for taking interest in this zine! All the artists have put in so much love into each of their pieces. It's been a pleasure to see so many different styles, their works-in-progress and I'm equally excited to see everyone's final product. I hope everyone is able to enjoy all the wonderful artworks being created and produced for all the songs being represented here when the zine releases. ^^

#AbelDraws #Amaari #andiavang #Antonia #artist spotlight #loop #loop artists #creativert

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littleogreboii · 6 years ago

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MIRACULOUS DAZE: 2

BRIDGETTE’S THEORY OF HAPPINESS

Summary: Felix Agreste has been a shut in since the death of his best friend Bridgette Cheng and the disappearance of his brother Adrien Agreste. His only company is the AI, Ladybug, that downloaded itself onto his computer a year ago. However, there might be more to it than meets the eye, and his foster siblings, Nathaniel, Lila and Rose, might know more than him about the events that are happening. And what the ‘Heat Haze’ is. (Kagerou Project AU)

Chapter Summary: “Hey guys look over here!” She called them over. They all quickly swarmed. She stood proud with her hair tied in two pigtails. The red ribbon she had used shone. “Now, where like a secret brigade or something!” The trio stared in awe. “Like the Miraculous Team or something?”

The three of them laughed at that with Lila speaking up. “That’s so cringey.”

Bridgette flushed. “What? I thought it was cool!” She defended. “Like we were superheroes or something.”

Warning: Suicide, Bullying and Major Character Death

Particular Cover I like for this

English Lyrics: Jubyphonic

AO3

1 2

Again those years run on by

My mind filling up with only family

"Ayano now’s your big sister everyone"

"so try to get along with her for me please"

Bridgette thought back to the time where everything went wrong and it seemed every sign pointed towards Felix’s family. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to regret being so mesmerised by them. They were so different to her own family and she was intrigued.

There was Felix. He was so quiet and withdrawn, but she couldn’t mistake the serenity on his face when he found a good book or created a good design. He tried to push her away constantly, yet she could see the walls he made desperate to crumble. He didn’t know how to let someone in and she wanted to be the first. She wanted to see all the expressions he was capable of. She could almost picture them, but to see the real deal was a dream. There was a glimpse she’d seen once. He’d been trying to get a book down in the library and managed to bring the whole row of books down. His flustered expression as he’d glanced about to see if anyone had seen his blunder was frankly adorable. She knew she loved him. She never thought she’d like such a sarcastic, introverted person, but now, she couldn’t imagine life not sitting beside him in class. Then, there were the supposed study sessions they did after school at his house, which mainly consisted of him reading and her interacting with his family. Although, initially it consisted of her watching him while pretending to study.

Adrien was usually around, but due to his health, he tended to retreat to his room in the evening. She suspected he spent most of his energy during his tutoring, especially trying to impress Marinette. She found it funny watching Adrien and Marinette interact. Adrien would throw out joke after joke, which she personally found hilarious, and Marinette would pretend not to like them. However, she knew Marinette was into him. She once hoped they’d be able to go on double dates together.

She still remembered when she was first introduced to Adrien and Felix’s younger siblings. Mr Agreste had recently adopted them, which confused her but she wasn’t going to complain. As even if Mr Agreste rarely ever spent time with them, she knew they’d be loved. Adrien had an endless supply of love and Felix would grow protective of them like he did with Adrien.

However, she also wanted to do her bit for the trio and she nearly cried when Felix introduced her to them. “This is Bridgette. I guess she’ll be like a big sister for you so do try and get along with her for me please.”

Little house of crimson brick, we all had fit inside of that place

To and fro they whispered back, making plans of their own so it seemed

Looking deep into their eyes, so red in all three and then I see

Hidden just beneath are memories grown ups never see

She didn’t quite understand when the treehouse appeared, but she suspected it had something to do with Adrien. He had a way with words when he wanted to and Gabriel, although distant, appeared to have some sort of soft spot for the boy. However, as she climbed up it, she began to realise Felix may have also had an influence on the design of the treehouse. It’s design was far too elegant for Adrien to have designed it alone because the boy had a habit of drawing a little black cat on anything he made.

When she reached the top though, she was alarmed to find the three of them sat close together and whispering. They were already far away from the house yet they huddled together like they would be caught doing something they shouldn’t. It was only her second time meeting them and the first had been so rushed, she hadn’t got a chance to take a proper look at them. So, while standing at the top of the ladder, she took a moment to just watch.

And it hit her. Red. Their eyes were a deep red. Something had happened. Something the grownups can’t see. There was more to these three kids than met the eyes, and she wanted to find out what.

Terror in his face he said "I'm a monster deep inside" filled with fear

But they're wrong and so I said "That's not true at all, just look here"

"That red you hate so much, a hero wears it proud! No really"

"It's okay, no need to be afraid anymore"

When she first tried to get close to them, Nathaniel glared at me and stated. “I’m a monster deep inside.” It was meant to be threatening, a warning, but all she saw was the pain and fear which was consuming him. And she thought to herself ‘how could children think this way?’

She thought for a moment, before grinning. “That’s not true.” She grabbed a comic book which sat in the corner of the treehouse. “Just look here you see!” She pointed at Ironman who stood proudly on the front cover. “That red you hate, well he wears it proudly and he’s a superhero. So there’s no need to be so afraid, ok?”

Thinking of what'd be fun, or might be dumb,

I was a big sister and tried my best to

"Hey guys, look over here!" A crimson muffler I wrapped around me

"A secret brigade -er something"

Her days she spent staring at Felix were quickly changed into days of planning what to do with the three of them. She wanted to bring laughter back into their lives and the way to do that was with fun activities, or even dumb activities. She was determined to be the best big sister out there.

Lila was the easiest, or at least she thought she was. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure. Lila wasn’t exactly forthcoming on her opinions, but she looked happy and that was enough for Bridgette. She was sure if Lila truly hated it all, she would have said something already. Besides, she couldn’t let insecurities overtake her now, not when the children needed her.

Rose was easily overwhelmed and didn’t particularly like being out in public. Bridgette had heard from Nathaniel that Rose was bullied in school, but Lila would often stand up for her. However, Bridgette knew that there was more to it than that. Lila could stop the verbal and the physical bullying, but she couldn’t stop the thoughts the bullies had and that was all the bullies needed to hurt Rose. It was terrifying. Any thought Bridgette held could potentially be heard by Rose and she dreaded the day Rose heard someone she love think something negative about her.

Nathaniel was a challenge. He was similar to Felix in a way, yet he hadn’t been able to put up all his walls at this point. Bridgette would stop him before it happened. She wouldn’t let him close himself off from her. He was shy and sometimes, it was hard to notice him. He snuck up on her constantly, usually causing her to drop something or trip over. She hoped with time he’d open up to her because he was such a kind boy.

“Hey guys look over here!” She called them over. They all quickly swarmed. She stood proud with her hair tied in two pigtails. The red ribbon she had used shone. “Now, where like a secret brigade or something!” The trio stared in awe. “Like the Miraculous Team or something?”

The three of them laughed at that with Lila speaking up. “That’s so cringey.”

Bridgette flushed. “What? I thought it was cool!” She defended. “Like we were superheroes or something.”

“But who would be the supervillain?” Rose questioned.

“Felix.” Bridgette stated with zero hesitation.

“Really?” Nathaniel looked up with large eyes.

“Yes.” She nodded, crossing her arms. “We must go defeat him with love and affection.” And they all set off.

Dye it in madder of roses, so we can begin

Just because we play heroes, it doesn't mean nothing

"So maybe just a little we'll smile again"

And always be one big happy family

It became a regular occurrence. Bridgette would come round and they would play heroes. Although, Felix argued they were more villains than anything with all their pranks. He did nothing to stop them though, even going as far as to let them put fake cat ears on him. The cat ears of course being a courtesy of Adrien, who also enjoyed watching them, even going as far as to join in on days he felt well enough.

It was surprising, but Nathaniel’s leadership skills slowly began to come out. He was timid about it, but the elaborate plans he sometimes came up with were insane. Bridgette was impressed and every time he would carefully slide a plan other to her, she couldn’t help the praise that endlessly slipped from her lips. Sometimes the plans even had illustrations and it brought a smile to her face knowing Adrien was teaching him how to draw. She just hoped Nathaniel didn’t pick up Adrien’s habit of putting cat ears on everything.

Lila seemed to reveal herself as quite a wicked character. The worst pranks always came from her and ended up being the ones which would cause Felix to chase them around the garden. However, she was also the best at feigning innocence, easily passing the blame onto one of the others. Rose had reported to Bridgette that Lila virtually had the whole of the school in the palm of her hand. It made Bridgette proud to say the least.

Rose plans were the most innocent. They were usually something as simple as prank Adrien by filling his room with paper cranes or ambush Felix with hugs. That kindness was something Bridgette hoped Rose would keep with her for the rest of her life.

Bridgette never voiced it because she knew they wouldn’t take it seriously, but there was reason behind her actions. She longed to see them all turn to her with beaming grins for they were her family through and through. Even Gabriel seemed to be accepting of her role in the house and by that she meant he hadn’t said anything about it.

I hope they're happy and laughing at every new day

And if they just couldn't take it, they won’t run away

"Now listen close, hear this secret for you"

And so the sun sets on a day fun and new

Occasionally, Bridgette would sit and simply watch the others. It was blissful to see them all running around and playing together. She wanted this happiness to last forever and she prayed that she had helped even just a little. She wanted the happiness to swallow them to the point they can’t contain it yet she hoped it wouldn’t scare them away. It had already been scary enough when Rose ran away at one point. She’d been missing for two days before returning with no explanation. However, after the incident, Rose had seemed to relax and even though she would be gone some evenings, she seemed happier than ever. Bridgette had her suspicions of what had bloomed within Rose but she didn’t voice it. Rose would learn in due time.

Bridgette would lean over and pull all of them into a hug. “Now listen close, hear this secret for you.” And she would lower her voice before continuing. “I love you.” Felix would sometimes ask what had been said and they would simply grin. Each day would be brought to a close, brimming with happiness.

Blowing spring into the air, the adult world we knew was changing too

Something wrong I couldn't see, like a plan of their own so it seemed

Billow tears and fade away, the people that I love keep crying out

No one seems to notice but it's all dying into black

At one point, Bridgette found herself in Gabriel’s office. She’d been called into see him, much to her confusion. Yet when she’d entered, he was nowhere in sight. All that was left was several documents on his desk. On first inspection, it had appeared to be nothing more than papers about his students, Marinette and Adrien, but it wasn’t. The word ‘subject’ was littered throughout the document, and she took a moment to skim through it. The ‘Heat Haze’ was repeated a few times and the trio were even mentioned. Something had occurred to give the trio those red eyes and there was no way she was going to risk letting anymore suffering happen. She took a glance out the door, checking both ways, before beginning her search. What she found shocked her. There were papers detailing what happened to Lila, Nathaniel and Rose, and reading further, there was even a plan to achieve similar results with Adrien and Marinette. She had to stop it.

At a similar time, Marinette began being plagued by a nightmare. She never got the full details, but apparently, it was the same dream each time. Rose’s bullying had also gotten worse to the point that she was coming home each day in tears. Nathaniel became even more distant and Bridgette found herself constantly having to call out to him. Lila seemed to smile even more than before, seemingly oblivious to everything that was happening, but Bridgette had come to realise by this point that it was simply a mask Lila wore. Adrien’s health seemed to be getting worse and it was increasingly rare for him to play with them. Felix was rarely ever heard from, appearing to be constantly busy, yet to Bridgette it just appeared as though there was something on his mind.

All the adults seemed to be blissfully unaware of what was happening. They didn’t see their struggles and if the noticed, they passed it off as nothing more than the worries of a child. They refused to acknowledge their problems.

It's all gone wrong, but now I knew deep down

I couldn't tell a single soul how I felt

"God no, oh please don't destroy what I had found"

In came a world where our happiness died and flew out

She kept her thoughts to herself. She didn’t even tell Felix what she’d discovered. Shockingly, she even managed to keep it a secret from Rose. Everytime she went round their house now, she would have to force herself to focus on other things. She locked them up and hid the key out of reach.

Every night, she would beg the haze. “God no, oh please don’t destroy what I had found. Don’t take their smiles away. They still have so much left to live. They deserve so much. Please, you can’t take it away from them. I’m begging you.” Yet, the happiness continued to stay hidden.

Oh madder red no, I beg you, can take no more

Why can't you stop breaking futures so there'll be tomorrow?

The tears never stop falling the answer is clear

Hiding behind smiles from ear to ear

So, she made a plan while she maintained her play pretend. She continued to play with the trio, putting her heart and soul into it. She pretended that nothing was wrong and made her smile as large as possible. If the others wouldn’t smile, she would smile enough for them. In the meantime, she continued begging the red that plagued them. Each day, she would hope tomorrow would finally come and their happiness would return. Each day though, she found herself continuing to fake that smile.

If they were my eyes, such red eyes, I wonder could I

be their one and only hero who saves their future?

I'm clumsy awkward and shameful no less

But on this mission, I must go alone...

Finally, her plan was complete and all that was left was to put it in motion. This time she would be the hero. She was probably the worst fit for the mission. She wasn’t smart like Felix. She wasn’t elegant like Adrien. She wasn’t confident like Lila. And, she certainly wasn’t the right fit to go up against someone as powerful as Gabriel. Yet, she was the only one who could. She couldn’t push this mission onto anyone else, she wouldn’t forgive herself for doing so.

She left no note and told no one. She simply went into school in the evening after visiting the Agreste’s. They wouldn’t notice at the moment. They were all too stressed about Adrien, who had collapsed earlier. She snuck up to the roof and looked across the city.

And she lept.

Now I'm gone and wonder what the brigade is doing now and hope again

They're smiling all the time and they're getting along with each other

They probably hate me now or maybe just hurt

I wonder, have I become for them their big sister by now?

She lingers in the haze, unable to leave. Her thoughts linger on the Agreste’s. She tries to picture them with smiling faces. She hopes Lila isn’t teasing Nathaniel and Rose too much, and Nathaniel isn’t retreating too much into his shell, and Rose has been able to stand up to her bullies. She doesn’t want to think about how they feel about her now, yet it nags at her. They probably hate her. She hurt them, even if she did it to save them. She wonders if she’s finally of the title of big sister. She wishes she could ask them.

Will you remember the word I loved with every bit inside me?

That "happiness" ah how strange it is, the feeling

And as tomorrow breaks, I hope you love it too

Their safety fills her will all the happiness she needs and she hopes that with each passing day they will also grow to love happiness.

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narwhallove · 6 years ago

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Behind the Curtain: Interview with Romy Writer Ludi-Ling

House of Cards actually started out as a random smut scene that burgeoned into something far, far more.

@ludi-ling goes meta in our final interview about her writing process; how the Romy fandom’s changed over the years; alternate universes (AU); and the role of smut for Romy fans. (Spoiler alert, our heroes are hot.)

No surprise that it’s a pleasure interviewing Ludi. I kept sending her more questions (25 total!) because her responses fascinated me and inspired me to ask more. It’s a rare person who writes visceral, startling prose and can also talk about her work with clarity, intelligence, and an affection for her characters that doesn’t occlude good writerly judgment.

The superlatives don’t end there. Anyone who knows the community knows that Ludi is a friend to her readers and to her fellow writers. As we all enter a heady 2019, reading Mr. and Mrs. X together, Ludi is someone to cherish.

If you haven’t read our other interviews, please check out: Part 1 of interviews: X-men Origins Part 2 of interviews: Going Dark

As a scholar of fan studies, do you believe Romy fanfiction fulfills needs that Marvel never can? What needs might those be, for Romy fans?

Certainly I think that fanfic is built on the premise of filling in the gaps, scribbling in the margins (to quote the seminal fan studies scholar, Henry Jenkins!) and fixing perceived wrongs. Comics are unique in that regard because the characters and stories within them continue for years and even decades. Comics continuities are convoluted and complicated, and there is a constant churn of writers working on them. Many fans have followed characters for far longer than the writers, and may know the characters more intimately than the professionals. Comics are full of retcons and contradictory takes on the characters. And I think fanfic is an important medium for allowing fans to “fix” that, to negotiate it. Because of the ongoing nature of comics, and because the futures of the characters are always going to be nebulous and subject to the whims of Marvel and the writers indefinitely, I think it’s going to continue to be important. Romy may be married in the comics, but there will still be plenty to write about—kids, divorce, a reconciliation . . . who knows? ;)

What do you think Romy readers seek out when they read fanfiction? If it’s wish fulfillment, what kinds of wishes are being fulfilled? If it’s looking for “gaps” that the comics skip over, what have you found to be the most common sorts of gaps?

I think Romy is a very interesting example of the “wish fulfillment” function of fanfiction. Because part of the mystique of that ship (no pun intended) is that they can’t touch, they can’t consummate their relationship . . . And fanfic is a way that fans can get them to touch, to work out that angst. I think that one of the staples of Romy fic is the sexual tension between the two, and how they resolve that; the push and pull between them. Sometimes these take place in epic, superheroic backdrops, sometimes in AUs, where they have no mutant powers and where the tension between them is born from other factors (such as already having significant others, or being enemies, or in illicit lines of work).

What draws you to AUs? Your stories aren’t a case of fanfiction filling what’s “between panels”; you tend to shift characters and relationships to entirely different settings, whether it’s a Strange Days–like world or another genre, like a Southern gothic procedural. Can you talk about AUs and how they play out in your imagination?

What I’ve always liked is world-building. One of my first large-scale writing projects was a fantasy trilogy called The Legend of Elu. Most of the fun I got from that was actually building the world, the kingdoms, the mythology, the theology, the languages, the history of that story. That definitely bled into my fanfic.

Now I tend to write canon stuff as one-shots, and novel-length stuff as AUs, because they give me more space to play with world-building. That was something I realised I enjoyed more when I wrote Threads. Writing all those little worlds in a series of one-shots felt too “small.” HoC was originally an expansion of the Threads tale Touch and Go, but it grew into something else, and since then, I’ve preferred to go the AU route for the longer-form stories. :)

We’re living in peak Romy times—I think we’re still reeling from the wedding! Let’s say you had the power to go back in time and drop a pin into an earlier moment in the Romy timeline that you felt truly represents what Romy means to you (which isn’t the same as when they’re happiest!). When and in what universe? Why this choice?

There are so many iconic moments from Romy’s past, but, for me personally, I always go back to their time in Valle Soleada (in X-Treme X-Men). That’s not because they’re happy per se, but because I think that that period was the perfect example of how great they worked together on every level, and was proof positive that they were a good match. I often say it, but I will say it again here, because it’s the truth, and y’all can fight me to the death over it—if there was a time they would’ve got married and I would’ve bought it 100%, it would’ve been in Valle Soleada.

On Tumblr, it seems a large contingent of Romy fans are women in their 30s who discovered Romy at a tender age, thanks to the animated series. This includes you and me! There are exceptions, of course. What’s it like for you to have been in the fandom from the early aughts? What changes in the fandom have you noticed between 2003 and 2018?

I really joined the fandom at an exciting time for Romy—they’d just got back together properly after all the turmoil of the Trial of Gambit. X-Treme X-Men was a treat for Romy fans, and Claremont wrote such a great dynamic between them. As fans we were all excited and happy and well-fed on all that Romy goodness.

So it was weird (not to mention disappointing) when the 2004 reboot happened, and Marvel did everything they could to tank Romy. Which is one thing, and I can stomach it if [it were] logically and well written, but it was just so terribly done that I think many of us just tapped out of the fandom completely. I’d say 2005–2018 were fallow years for the Romy fandom. Most (if not all) of the fan friends I made at that time completely left the fandom. For myself, as someone who enjoys writing AUs, it was the perfect time to branch out from writing in canon and fitting Romy into my own world.

Who are your influences? What writers do you feel a particular affinity for? Are there writers whom we might be surprised to discover informed your work, but you feel have, despite appearances?

I was heavily influenced by the dark, modern fairytales of Angela Carter about the time that I was writing Queen of Diamonds and Threads. She had a really magical way with words—her prose was lyrical, sensual, and unbelievably rich. She was a huge inspiration, but later I moved away from her tone, firstly because I felt I was doing a poor imitation of her, secondly because it wasn’t really appropriate for the direction I wanted to move my fics in, and lastly because I was becoming self-conscious of my insane verbosity and wanted to pare down my prose. That’s something I’m still working on!

At some point during the writing of House of Cards, I finally got round to reading Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I think it was Douglas Adams who convinced me to move away from Carter’s beautiful but too-flowery prose. I loved the way his narrative just sizzled. I’m bad at capturing that energy—but I do think that from HoC onwards, I’ve tried to learn to be more economical with my words—which is hard for a florid soul like mine.

Threads—structurally at least—was influenced by Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller, and later, by David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

Let’s say you can pair your fiction with other works of art��of all forms, films, paintings, music, etc.—as if you were pairing wines to foods. What other pieces of art might you say go along with yours?

Wow! OK—that’s hard. Threads I’d probably pair with Cloud Atlas (the book, not the film, which I haven’t yet watched). HoC—I don’t know that there’s any one thing I would pair it with, but you can bet a load of post-apocalyptic stuff was thrown into that stew, along with a bit of The Matrix and probably some Inception.

52 Pickup was influenced a lot by Asmus’s Gambit run, cos I really wanted to write a heist fic with Remy and Rogue rather than Remy and Joelle (who I freely admit kicked ass). But if I had to pair it with a piece of media, it’d be with the video game Remember Me, which dealt a lot with themes of how memories inform our identities, and the ethical concerns of having memories essentially become “documents” that are uploaded and shared digitally through the cloud.

This is a good segue to talk about high-low culture. We may not want to believe in a hierarchy of culture, but we can certainly talk about the differences between fanfiction and “regular fiction.” When you read fanfiction, do you approach it differently than you would regular fiction? Are your expectations for form, reading pleasure, or anything else different? If so, how so?

Interesting question! I don’t know whether I approach it differently per se, but I think that readers have different expectations of fanfic. Hopefully we all read “regular fiction” for the same reason we read fanfic—for pleasure. But I don’t think there’s really a binary between regular and fanfiction. I think both exist on a continuum. There is a lot of “regular fiction” (I prefer to call it “profic” or “professional fiction,” because I think that’s where the binary between the two exists) that is actually very close to fanfic, and vice versa. By that I mean that there is plenty of fanfic that is epic in scope, deals with serious themes, and might be considered “classics” if they weren’t fanfiction.

And there is also profic, like romance, that is more similar to fanfic in terms of the kind of functions that it serves. There is an illicit pleasure to reading romance—for example, it’s not the kind of thing you’d openly read in public! There’s a similarity between that and fanfic, and I think, as readers of fanfic, we anticipate some level of illicitness when we approach it—even if the illicitness is only in the format (i.e., it’s fanfiction!), not in the content.

Fun question: What role do you think explicit smut functions in a fic? How do you deal with smut in your work? There’s an interesting moment that’s not in HoC, in which you write about Gambit and Rogue’s first time having sex in his point of view. It’s a separate chapter that exists as its own entity on your fanfiction.net page. Notably, it is much more explicit than the scene in Rogue’s perspective. Can you talk a little bit about this decision?

Well, I do think that fanfic is a safe space for writers to explore their sexuality (and I think that’s a huge part of the reason why fic is looked down upon), and smut plays a significant role in that. And smut certainly plays a part in my own fics. HoC actually started out as a random smut scene that burgeoned into something far, far more. Generally, I do try to make the sex scenes have a purpose in the plot (’cos I’m kind of anal about plot structure!), but in the particular case of Slow Burn and the other HoC vignettes, those are more self-contained one-shots where I could explore things that I couldn’t explore in the main story. So I could indulge in the smut a bit more! And let’s be honest—Gambit’s dark sexuality makes it thrilling to write smut from his perspective—of course his “thoughts” are going to be more explicit! ;)

But I also think that it’s interesting to write their individual perspectives on their sexual encounters, because of that tension between their characters. Rogue is the quintessential virginal Southern Baptist gal who’s inexperienced; whereas Gambit is the sexually aggressive alpha male who’s probably never had a woman turn him down in his life. That makes for a very combustive love affair between the two, and makes it fun to write that love affair (and all the smut in-between) from both their points of view.

#ludi-ling #fanfic #fanfiction #romy #rogue and gambit #house of cards #interview with author #interview with fanfic writer #fanfiction studies

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breakyrlegs · 6 years ago

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The 80 Best Albums of 2018

80. Beware the Book of Eli- Ski Mask the Slump God

For someone who has spent so much time living in the shadow of everyone’s (least) favorite Soundcloud rap quasi-martyr, Ski Mask the Slump God is one of the more audacious technical virtuosos out there. There’s no time to lose on Beware, so every second is a product of Ski anxiously shredding through ways to get your attention. There is no flow he’s afraid to try, no sound he won’t make.

79. 7- Beach House

Beach House have monopolized a space in the indie-rock sphere for about a decade now. Their dominance is no fluke, but after a few hard-hitters, I was worried that they might make the same album over and over again. However, just a week after the almost too obvious Depression Cherry, they dropped Thank Your Lucky Stars, a more lucid affair. It marked a new chapter. 7 sees them continue to be done with making dream pop for sweet, peaceful dreams...they’re now making music for all dreams, especially the ones that linger into the morning, the ones you have to ask around about to make sure they weren’t real. Corny? Maybe, but it’s nice to see a stubborn band add even more dimension to their seasoned sound.

78. El Hombre- El Alfa

What does it mean to be “el hombre”? There’s no straight answer but if I had to take a crack at it, I’d say it‘s when you spearhead an entire genre so hard that when you venture out of said genre, people complain about it, even though the song features Cardi B. It also could be when you make yourself sound like the most obnoxious cartoon mouse imaginable, yet still manage to spit out a slapper. He may be the king of dembow, but El Alfa can’t be pigeonholed. Whether his voice is a sputtering tour-de-force or a comically nasal squelch, this album is a celebration of the ridiculous. In the end, the best songs are peak dembow, where a cloying sample of El Alfa’s voice works itself into a tornado and thumps for what could be forever.

77. 777- KEY! & Kenny Beats

Kenny was a prodigal son who left hip hop with dollar signs in his eyes and his tongue sticking out, tempted by the call of #REAL #TRAP #SHIT. Key! was an artist who had existed on the periphery of the scene, paying his dues while earning the most visibility when tacked onto the end of a Father song. They are the type of match that would slip under the radar until you realize that not only do they bring out the best in each other, but they also tap into something quite glamorous. The beats bump, the melodies stick, the energy is so high, and Key! treats this like his magnum opus. He’s expressive, dynamic, and Kenny lets him do it without any gimmicks.

76. Soma 0,5 Mg- Taconafide

Maybe I’m a little biased, but I can’t understate how much this means to me. A Polish rap album that doesn’t draw on trends that fell out of favor eight years ago? One that is building its own lane and not just tangentially existing on the sidelines of the American scene? One that has not only one moderately funny song but a whole pack of well-thought out, extremely catchy bangers? No way. It’s too good to be true. Taco and Quebonafide carry themselves like they know that this is the album of a generation, that millions of Polish kids living their lives peering across the pond finally have something that is distinctly their own, and, more importantly, distinctly Polish. Dawaj dawaj!

75. Shadow On Everything- BAMBARA

It’s hard to talk dirt on an album that has all its instrumentation down to a tee. Sure, you can’t get by on technical efficiency alone, but when bellowing drums translate into something so menacing and a flurry of guitars create such a haunting ambient presence, you take no detours when you’re propelled into the darkness. These songs are packed with enough action to tell stories but really, they just set scenes. That’s for the better. BAMBARA circumvent all the pitfalls of making post-punk in 2018 by putting passion into everything, ramping up the chaos as much as they can.

74. Doomsday Clarion- Airport

The world of fragile, noisy Soundcloud electronic collages is a pretty funny one, but rarely does the humor feel as sharp as it does on Doomsday Clarion. Miranda Pharis compiles sounds that never cease to keep me amused, intrigued, and, most importantly, spooked. They also find a way to tie them together so that it feels like non-stop commentary. Halfway through this thing, when we are exposed to a tangent about how one of the songs excels at putting an unnamed Youtube commenter’s rabbit to sleep, at first it’s like “LOL random”, but then it starts to feel like a snarky dissection of underground culture performativity...and it makes me wanna keep reaching as hard as I did there. It’s the type of record that wants to make you sound like a fool, yet Pharis doesn’t scoff as much as they embrace and pay homage. These turbulent compositions are all the more essential for it.

73. Nasty- Rico Nasty

There’s a few things you learn on Rico Nasty’s thunderous entrance. Apart from her sixth sense for broke boys and fake bitches, the observation that hits the hardest is that she’s pretty...well...nasty. She’s also not even close to being interested in apologizing for her fame, and anyone who thinks she should because she’s done it by making extremely aggressive (and borderline mean) bangers is full of shit. If Nasty proves anything, it’s that nobody is going quite as hard as this, and even though that would be enough merit to rest on, she’s not going to stop there. The more tender and spacious tracks here are shockingly the ones that bite the hardest. For an album that builds so much tension from brash exclamations, that’s quite a flex.

72. Negro Swan- Blood Orange

For Dev Hynes, the transition from indie’s best networker to its most multifaceted social commentator has been a successful one. However, I feel like that label minimizes him, because his albums are not trying to tell you anything, instead acting as abstractly pointed containers for ideas and chunks of culture that mold together into something triumphant. His albums have always been celebrations that cut deep into the complexity of blackness, queerness, and history. Negro Swan is his most on-the-nose and also his most unapologetically happy. However, it’s not the concise statements that make the album but the gorgeous, subdued melodies that take charge before you can even touch them. It might lack the explosiveness of Freetown Sound, but there’s hardly a moment on this record that isn’t radiant or holds back on any of its charm.

71. In Another Life- Sandro Perri

It doesn’t take long until the title track on this album finds the groove that it will spend the next 24-minutes delicately unraveling. It is a dainty, sweeping groove based on a simple keyboard arpeggio that invites every other sound in the vicinity to flourish with it, like it’s hosting an open picnic. It paces around, disintegrating and advancing with time, but by the end, it’s exactly where it started. That’s the beauty of Perri’s work; to say he can milk an idea is an understatement. He can milk an idea to the point where you can’t even tell an idea’s being milked, silently highlighting the beauty that emerges with prolonged exposure.

70. Aura- Ozuna

It should come as no surprise that the most stacked summer album came courtesy of reggaeton’s most profitable powerhouse. It’s not even the extent to which these tracks go, but the sheer force with which Ozuna can continuously spin out them out, over and over again, like it’s absolutely nothing to him. For over an hour, it sounds like he’s doing no more than acting on his impulses, tapping into non-stop melodies and rhythms with confidence that it will all stick. Of course all these songs exist in the same vein, but there’s no comparing the twinkling romance of ‘Ibiza’ with the glitzy flexing on ‘Única’ or even the thumping pulse of ‘Sigueme los Pasos’, where he gloriously joins forces with reggaeton’s other king. There are 20 bangers on here, and the album only kinda drags. It can’t be this easy.

69. Famous Cryp- Blueface

It’s actually hilarious watching people get worked up about Blueface. “He can’t even rap on beat! How hard can it be to rap on beat?” Lmao, if you think rapping on beat is a prerequisite to making hip-hop, you’re as bad as the people trying to keep the impressionists out of art galleries just because they weren’t making hyper-realistic Jesus art. Yeah, I said it. Blueface is rap game Renoir. For real, it’s so much easier to rely on conventional technical ability than to tap into something that actually expands on a style of rap that should’ve been out of ideas a long time ago. Most importantly, if Blueface is such a hack, then how come he makes it sound so fucking good? How does he manage to rap like he’s racing the beat to the end of each bar, with his voice cracking every chance it gets, and still churn out songs with so much momentum? Why the fuck would he rap on beat? So he can sound like every wholesale G Perico/YG out there? Smh.

68. ASTROWORLD- Travis Scott

It would almost be irresponsible to leave the most quintessentially 2018 album of 2018 off this list. If you didn’t hear ASTROWORLD within a week of it dropping, you might as well have been watching telemarketing that whole week while 60,000 feet under the ground with no phone service. For all its lyrical gaffes, lack of personality, and unreasonably quiet NAV features, this album is pretty sick. We always knew Travis Scott was something of a curational master, with a taste for crafting rap albums that aren’t about him as much as they are apexes of the mainstream scene. However, when he came off as hollow before, ASTROWORLD has such an abundance of quality that you can’t even deny it. His ambition is easy to poke fun at until you find yourself returning to these songs again and again, marveling at each extravagant beat change or “STRAIGHT UP!” like it was your first time hearing it.

67. SR3MM- Rae Sremmurd

Just a note, I’m not referring to two solo albums that came with this (sorry Swaecation) because for all their charm, those were a bit harder to vouch for. Instead, I’m talking about the nine-track banger platter that got overshadowed by all the noise surrounding the “triple album.” Somehow, SR3MM was stealthily the well-rounded, adventurous album the boys had been promising us this whole time. Perhaps it’s because it is filler-free or because both of them (Swae Lee especially) have become absolute masters of their craft, having made so many seductive, irresistible tracks that at this point they could do it in their sleep. Or maybe it’s because there are so many imitators and it’s nice to have a burst of authenticity. There is hardly a moment on this album that isn’t an integral part of a refined rap song. They have so much more fun together. Sure, Swae is eclipsing, but I really hope they don’t break up.

66. Loma- Loma

When Cross Record established themselves as sublime folk masters on Wabi-Sabi, I didn’t think they needed the not-so-trendy and very, very normal input of Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg. I guess I was wrong. Turns out where they were once comfortable soaking in the hushed splendor, they are now compelled to be a bit more ambitious, to venture into louder places with more confidence. Thankfully, the newfound grandiosity does not come at the expense of any beauty; the vocal acrobatics sink into the spectral sheets of instrumentation just as smoothly as they did before.

65. Pastoral- Gazelle Twin

Gazelle Twin is a hard sell. There’s really no reason this uber-spooky electronic project where a woman in a mask chants and roars over industrial beats should be good. The look is cool and all, but this shit can be really off-putting if you’re not willing to have a little fun. Thankfully, the vibe is backed up by the production, which seems custom built to fill these songs with the bloodcurdling energy they project. If she’s not pounding her shrillness into you, she’s catching a sample at its most disorienting and looping it into further oblivion. It’s overwhelming yet so effective.

64. QUARTERTHING- Joey Purp

Now, I'm no purist who lives their life cowering under "DEATH TO MUMBLE RAP" bullshit, but if the status quo of hip-hop today can be critiqued for one thing, it's monotony. In a time where Drake can drop a 25-song album with, like, only ten songs where he actually sounds interested in what he's saying, it's refreshing to hear Joey Purp attack each verse like it's his last, with each hook falling into its groove like he was told at gunpoint to think of something catchy. If Joey Purp makes a song about something, he's going to approach the topic with purpose, almost likes he's aiming to make the definitive song about that thing. Here, he uses this essentiality to flex his versatility. QUARTERTHING is a record of confident experiments, songs that wander into unknown territory with purpose, capturing lightning in a bottle most of the time.

63. Le Kov- Gwenno

Gwenno is the type of vocalist who gets swept up by her songs rather than situating herself at the eye of storm. Her voice is a soft whisper most of the time, but the reverb on the drums accentuates each snare with a room filling quality while every dash of organ lingers and sustains. It’s baroque, it’s timeless, and, most importantly, it’s in Cornish, which I definitely thought was an extinct language. She could rest on that monopoly and still be fine, but she indulges instead. It’s an ideal combination of originality and refinement of an age-old style.

62. Drip Harder- Lil Baby & Gunna

When they’re not together, Lil Baby and Gunna aren’t that good. All of their solo albums at this point have been coated in filler, and when there’s a standout track, they usually both show up. That’s why it’s not surprising that the Young Thug proteges find their niche on Drip Harder, but it’s still shocking just how sharp, cohesive, and vital this sounds. The duo are moulding expressive, abstract melody-driven hip-hop in a way that hasn’t been as notable and of-the-time since Thugger and Rich Homie Quan did it in 2014. That pairing was more unlikely and exciting, but this one is more natural. Every moan, confession, and groove on here is impossible to resist, and the beats are some of the most intoxicating of the year. RHQ and Thugger crashed hard as a duo after they peaked, but I hope these two either stick together or use this as a launchpad for artistic growth. There’s so much room for it to grow, but for now, it’s more than enough to watch them carry each other’s weight.

61. Another Life- Amnesia Scanner

The hyper-saturated industrial dance music of Amnesia Scanner has now turned into hyper-saturated industrial pop music. As bizarre as that is to say about songs that are almost all led by grating synthetic vocals on the brink of becoming a deafening screech, there’s something conventionally attractive about the way these hooks form. Whether it comes in the form of a stuttering refrain or a massive #drop designed to elevate any scrapyard rave into the impending cyber-apocalypse, the pleasures here are simple.

60. Magus- Thou

It’s getting harder and harder for fans across the metal spectrum to agree on a canon. So much metal is being churned out at such a high rate, it’s becoming more of a task to pick out the gold from the clutter. Thou make a name for themselves with unmistakable grandiosity. Their sound isn’t the most challenging; the snarls have a soothing, ASMR-esque texture to them and the riffs are clean-cut, progressing with grace. For a band this prolific, it’s notable when they come out with something this refined. You can hear the effort in every idea, the precision in every new path they take. Magus might be the best entry point for metal’s most consistent stalwarts, a band who are much more interested in perfecting their distinct ambiance than embarking on well-meaning but slightly muddled genre-fusion.

59. abysskiss- Adrianne Lenker

As if Big Thief weren’t intimate enough. Adrianne Lenker takes her band’s prime descriptor (either “intimate” or “delicate,” depends on the day) and sees just how far she can push it before it gets uncomfortable. The staring contest that ensues on abysskiss is what you’d expect from one of the most hushed, intricate vocalists breathing into your ear with no more than a guitar backing her up. She definitely has the talent to get away with a mood piece, but no, abysskiss is home to some of the most devastating songs in her arsenal. At her best Lenker is lulling you into woozy trance, with songs that pack the visceral explosion of secrets. Such a sparse record has no right to be this intoxicating.

58. FM!- Vince Staples

You wouldn’t trust an elegant craftsman like Vince Staples to actually make an album that’s “no concepts, no elaborate schemes, just music.” He’s rap’s smuggest pundit, as well as the brains behind some of its most captivating music. So even though FM! is brief and blunt at its core, it still can’t resist being super clever. For starts, although Vince’s albums are often personal, they are seldom embedded with this much unshakable geography and West Coast inside humor. FM! is designed to sound like it’s playing on FM (get it) radio, and every time he cashes in on the gimmick with a new Tyga or Earl Sweatshirt snippet, his grin becomes more radiant. FM! thrives as a reminder that Vince can hop on any slender beat and ride it with ease, his listenability being the spectacle with the observations fattening it up.

57. Cellar Belly- Wished Bone

Those who know me might be shocked that a lo-fi twee album of any kind made it on this list, but Wished Bone are onto something. Sure, I’m a sucker for those staticy, soothing vocals and the delicate clicks and hisses that adorn them. If you’re going to celebrate the whimsical, you better make a full send. However, the beauty of Cellar Belly is not just the alluring sound but the amount Wished Bone are willing to do with it. There’s a sex jam called ‘Pollinate Me’ where they literally go “I am a flower, you are a bee.” Elsewhere, when ‘Seed’ abruptly turns into an itchy swing jam, I’m floored. Shouts out to delicate phantasmagoria; this is haunting in the cutest way.

56. mouth mouse maus- emamouse x yeongrak

This album is a colossal headache. Of course, anything that picks from the most lo-fi strains of nightcore and 8-bit is likely to make you feel a bit queasy, but mouth mouse maus is actually mesmerizing with the extent to which it sounds like a malfunctioning carousel in clown hell. Sure, this album is difficult to listen to and if you’re tuning in casually it’ll probably sound like erratic sludge. Yet there’s something heinous about just how fun it is. It’s not just fun in the random, unpredictable way but more so because it has you on the edge of your seat. This album tests you but you’re going to want to keep going, just to catch a glimpse at whatever tomfuckery comes next.

55. Elysia Crampton- Elysia Crampton

Although she likes to keep it short, nobody has epitomized the vanguard of electronic music in the past few years as confidently as Elysia Crampton. It’s like her sound is caught in this furious web where everything collides, with snippets of trap tripping over sturdy breakbeats that are embellished with a whiff of punk. It’s like an information overload themed fever dream that creates a world so dense it hurts your brain to think about. But it sounds so good with no frills. It’s a language so tempting to imitate, but even her peers can’t come close to this breathtaking chaos. This time, the grooves are as adventurous and subtle as they have ever been. It’s just as easy to be drawn in and just as hard to look away.

54. Freedom- Amen Dunes

Freedom is one of those rare sonic wonders that seems removed from any modern trends yet pushes the envelope far too much to be shrugged off as revivalism. Sure, Amen Dunes have influences and many of them come from a clearly defined school of rugged, classic Americana. However, Freedom is too musically nuanced and personal to function as any sort of nostalgia trip. It’s the album where a mastermind songwriter fully finds his voice after nearly a decade. Damon McMahon has made great albums before, but none of them have the urgency of Freedom. In that sense, it feels like it came out of nowhere, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. The loudness with which he projects, this unmistakable need to be heard is what’s new; Freedom is an album that screams self-acceptance, magnifying the affirmative catharsis that comes after years of internalized trauma. You can’t deny the power of that, but even if you do, you have more than enough splendid melodies to gawk at.

53. Chris- Christine and the Queens

I get too close to putting Chris in a box. Impulse has me wanting to write about how this a masterclass in “queer pop,” because it’s so easy to oversimplify queer artists and bunch them together under the same umbrella. Although identity is at the core of her art, Chris is not an embrace of an identity as much as it is a rejection of the need to clearly articulate your identity or to have an identity that pertains to a set of rules. Chris finds eroticism in confusion, and in that sense, it is a stellar non-statement, with each sentiment drilled into your heart via Chris’s enveloping voice and the record’s colorful, addictive production. Vulnerability is rarely this convincing.

52. Now Only- Mount Eerie

On the surface, Now Only feels like six leftovers from the most gut-wrenching musical diary entry about death ever made. That would be fine, but this is so much more. Now Only exhibits a new lens with which Phil Elverum views his devastation. He knows he will never accept it, but allowing himself to grieve helps him approach a semblance of peace. The confessional approach is just as tear-jerking as it was before, but instead of lingering in Genevieve’s ghost, we are hearing someone who has found deeper meaning in this therapy. Musically, Now Only is more vast and ambitious, but the sentiment is just as awe-inspiring. It takes a lot of genuine pain to pull off songwriting like this, and after the mass catharsis that touring A Crow Looked at Me must have been, it’s fascinating to witness the depth and growth of some of the most intense emotions one can ever feel.

51. Only Love- The Armed

Maximalism and enigma is a tricky cocktail to pull off, but if there’s a place for it, it’s definitely in the hyper-saturated world of metalcore. There’s only a few ways in which these types of outbursts can go down, but when you’re doing as much as The Armed, it ends up being pretty spicy. This album is a non-stop catharsis where everyone is putting all the effort they possibly can into whatever noise they’re making. It seems spontaneous and turbulent, but there’s no way something this constantly earth-shattering isn’t carefully orchestrated. I would call this all-over-the-place, but all the action is streamlined and compressed so that, for all its shrieking and pounding, Only Love ends up being a pretty nice listen. That’s only from a sonic perspective though, because as an emotional experience, this is gut-wrenching, borderline hard to sit through. If you give it the attention it demands, Only Love’s childlike expression defies trends and subverts expectations.

50. Rich As In Spirit- Rich Homie Quan

What do you do when you fall off? It happens to pretty much everyone eventually. I don’t judge those who decide to cash in or rely on publicity stunts to get back into the public eye or even those who just stop trying. But Rich Homie Quan made one promise to us, didn’t he? He goes in on every song. He’s still goin in. He will never stop going in. Rich Homie Quan has been eclipsed by most of his former peers, but on Rich As In Spirit, he does exactly what he needed to do; stop worrying and hone his craft. You can hear the effort and emotion on just about every song. Rich Homie knows he’s gifted and doesn’t need to prove it. He’s always had a vastly underappreciated melodic grip and a penchant for churning out the most energy-fueled, heartfelt bangers. Rich As In Spirit magnifies that. Putting in effort doesn’t mean overdoing it. It’s refreshing to hear someone sound so much less jaded than his contemporaries, quietly outshining them in the process.

49. X 100PRE- Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny’s bellowing baritone used to be a couple things, but now it’s everything. As one of the most potent voices in pop music, his debut album was liable to slap, but X 100PRE concisely shows off the versatility that his singles hinted at. To say he stays in his comfort zone would be irrelevant because his comfort zone is so wide. He came up off the Latin trap wave, but now his prowess shines strongest on his ballads; the inspired optimism of ‘Estamos Bien’ or the sensual nocturne on ‘Otra Noche en Miami’. When he links with Diplo on ‘200 MPH’, it is just as mammoth as you’d expect, not because of Diplo but because the refrain is so fucking sticky. Even the songs where he does the most are far from tacky; the seamless switch on ‘Solo de Mi’ and the hilarious entrance of El Alfa on ‘La Romana’ show his curational eye. It’s one thing to have great ideas but it’s another to execute them so tastefully. Bad Bunny is Puerto Rico’s improvement of Travis Scott; his albums have the same sights and sounds, but twice the personality.

48. A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This- American Pleasure Club

You never know what you’re going to get from a Sam Ray project. One of the great gifts to have comes with the passing of time is the bleeding of Ricky Eat Acid’s mesmerizing ambient music into Ray’s lo-fi emo outlet Teen Suicide, which has now rightfully rebranded as American Pleasure Club. The cynicism has shed off with the name; A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This is still despondent and stressed out (I mean what do you expect with that title), but it’s a lot more genuine and the thrills it holds are a lot more heartfelt. It’s hard to think of a way to channel your emotions that Ray won’t try. This album mostly consists of illustrious sad ballads made from ingredients so delicate that it seems like the foundation could collapse at any time. That’s not to imply that it is unsturdy but rather that these sounds are strong enough to break free from the glue holding them together. Elegance has become Ray’s forte, but he makes sure every goosebump is earned.

47. KTSE- Teyana Taylor

The last and least anticipated of Kanye’s Wyoming albums ended up being the easiest one to love. Teyana Taylor had been sitting on a bed of potential for years before this dropped, but her most visible moments came in the form of uncredited features, reality TV, and Kanye music videos. Kanye’s gold mine of minimalist, sample-based production feels most at ease when it’s elevating R&B, and Teyana has the ideal disposition to lead the charge. She’s confident, unashamed, and empowered. These songs articulate pleasure in a way that is proudly hyper-sexual, but even though its lyrics read like erotic literature sometimes, the result is tasteful. Taylor composes herself on this album like a star waiting to burst, her raspy yelp stealing the show every chance it gets. But this album will forever be associated with Kanye, and in fairness, that’s fine. He saved the most sultry, glimmering beats in his arsenal for this, and it pays off on an album that unravels with masterful pace.

46. Kwaidan- Meitei

I haven’t heard anything else like this and I promise I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it. Kwaidan is an anomaly, an album that orchestrates the most befuddling atmosphere without getting lost in its abstraction. Rhythms emerge from dust and the spoken-word croak (you’ll know it when you hear it) rides them with the grip of an MC. The juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic emerged when Meitei moved to Kyoto, a city where he knew nobody, and wandered around until the mood overwhelmed him. The bite of Kwaidan is rooted in this immersion; there’s no way you can make music this precise, creative, and original without fully buying into your surroundings. Many artist have tried (and failed) to capture the oh so fetishizable “Lost Japanese” aesthetic. Kwaidan epitomizes exactly what they were chasing. It’s hard thing to do right, but holy shit, it is rewarding.

45. Nothing 2 Loose- DJ Healer

There are three types of tracks on here. First, there are the more standard ambient ones, where lonely synths tread through densely layered pops and crackles. Then there are the ones which are led by a melting vocal sample (often a vocoder) channeling something disorienting and alien. However, the big guns come out when the record takes an absurd sample, whether it be a melodramatic melody or some ridiculous rambling about how “this is God’s creation...isn’t it beautiful,” and loops it over some equally theatrical breakbeats. This shit can be so funny, and it’s hard to tell if the hyper-spiritual aesthetic is tongue-in-cheek or completely earnest. Either way, it drills itself into the record enough to justify whatever it is trying to be, regardless of whether it’s a punchline or naked sincerity. This is one of the more haunting, incisive ambient techno albums in recent memory, built on ideas that are not only clever but extremely immersive.

44. Grid of Points- Grouper

Nobody has spent this decade cultivating a more distinct, mesmerizing aesthetic than Liz Harris. Grouper has become one of the most reliable operations in modern music. You know that you’re going to get little more than reverb-soaked piano and breathy vocals, but you also know that the wave of emotions will be overwhelming. Harris records these songs in a room alone, and I don’t think it could be done any other way. It’s astonishing how she is able to consistently do so much with so little, and I know that’s a cliché but fuck it. The warmth and comfort that radiates from these songs is priceless. Grid of Points is not as haunting as past Grouper, but it’s more ethereal and, as a result, more conventionally pretty. This type of allure is a undeniable fit. It shows a new angle of a simple formula that will suck you in with every last breath and smother you with its seclusion.

43. Daytona- Pusha T

Who is the 2018 Clipse? Rae Sremmurd? (lol I like this analogy already) Let’s ride with it. Daytona is like if Swae Lee, 12 years down the line, actually found a more compelling way to sing about going to the Bahamas and dunking a girl in a pool. Obviously, in this case, the Bahamas and pools are replaced by selling coke, but you know what I’m saying. Basically, Pusha T has every right to have peaked already, but instead his coke aficionado character has only grown stronger with age. Like, I can’t believe it took him this long to come up with the line “fuck it, brick for brick, let’s have a blow off.” However, it’s not really Pusha T’s words that form this album’s backbone; as the entry point to Kanye’s prolific (and pretty great) Wyoming Sessions, the real catch is how Pusha T is able to merge with these stuttering, soulful backdrops to turn coke-rap into razor sharp poetry. Pusha’s dedication to developing one thing over the course of his career has made his imagery as potent as ever; but the brevity and minimalism here will not waste a single moment. In a year where he temporarily took down pop rap’s radio Jesus, his true legacy builder was far more modest but much more premeditated.

42. Golden Hour- Kacey Musgraves

You ever think about, like, how there’s northern lights in our skies, plants that grow and open our minds. It’s kinda crazy that in Tennessee the sun’s going down and in Beijing they’re heading out to work. This is a real thing. Kacey Musgraves writes lyrics like she is a child realizing everything for the first time and marvelling, jaw agape, at how it makes her feel. All cynicism aside, it’s refreshing to hear someone so enthralled with it. Golden Hour is a collection of earnest meditations on the most simple phenomena, shit we take for granted. And while it’s easy to poke fun at the parts of this album that sound like earnest marijuana-fueled banter, it’s a lot harder to escape when the music is so beautiful and the sentiment is so genuine. There are moments on here where Musgraves underlines things like temporality of our most cherished relationships or how euphoria is always dissolved by the shock that it’s all going to end. This is some of the purest lyricism that exists, an album that frees itself from the alienating shackles of its country aesthetic to become one of 2018’s hardest things to argue with.

41. Slide- George Clanton

If you openly exploit the “vaporwave” tag for Soundcloud plays while lightly disowning the genre, you must be quite a cunning fucker. You better make sure that the music you’re making is not only post-vaporwave but a capitalization on the aesthetic that resonates with millions but earns the scorn of the critical masses. Slide is just that. It feels grand and important, like it’s the apex of the more cyber-persuaded strain of electro-pop lurking around the memescape. George Clanton is a meme god, an artist whose ambition justifies the more eye-roll inducing, needlessly fetishistic aspects of the subculture. The motifs in this album are not just extremely well thought out but all the more effective when they emerge in the form of blustering, explosive melodies. It’s very hard for them to fall into the background not just because they are beautiful but because you can tell he’s having fun. Slide ensures that there’s a wholesome time hiding behind every cloud of reverb.

40. Momentary Glance- Lisa/Liza

During a phase of grief, any creation is worthy of praise. The lore of Momentary Glance is clear-cut; overwhelmed by tragedy, Liza Victoria persevered through a biting winter to record these six songs. The despondent trance she falls into as she strums and chants is hypnotic, not just because of the prolonged intimacy but because the compositions are presented with all their raw imperfections, embellishments that suck you in instead of taking you out. Victoria’s vocals on this album act as a well of hope in the face of despair. There’s no right way to cope and no glory in suffering, so praising this album’s open wounds seems counterproductive. But when an aspect of your livelihood is snatched from you forever and you can’t bear how much you miss someone, an album that gets it like this is a warm blanket in a freezer, a beacon of empathy in the face of debilitating turmoil.

39. KIDS SEE GHOSTS- KIDS SEE GHOSTS

I’m not sure who needed this most. Was it Kanye, eager to balance out his ugly, legacy-ruining 2018 by making people finally talk about his music again? Or was it Kid Cudi, the tortured autotune godfather whose albums over the past decade had ranged from forgettable to holy shit i don’t even wanna think about it? Either way, KIDS SEE GHOSTS was the apex of the Wyoming sessions. It’s as if all the urgency spun into one concise project, where every segment showcases two genuine masterminds trying to bring out the best in one another. Kid Cudi especially treats this like the album he was destined to make, exhibiting warbles so seductive that you forget they were ever grating. He lends this album its emotional cruciality, with skyrocketing hooks that ache so hard and a tone so spot on it’s like he was saving it all for this.

Kanye takes this as an opportunity to showcase his curational genius. For a seven song album, many of these tracks feel like interludes not because they shrug off responsibility but because they take a form so unconventional that it’s almost distracting. Even the boldest ideas on here leave a great taste in your mouth, but in the end the dearest pleasure is Kanye’s rapping. Every time he opens his mouth he does so with vitality, something we haven’t seen to this degree since Yeezus.

38. 2012-2017- Against All Logic

Nicolas Jaar is a sonic virtuoso. While he’s proven many times that he can twist and fiddle through his most complex compositions, simplicity bears the most genuine rewards. As you may have guessed from the title, this is a compilation of sorts. It suggests that Jaar has been taking a crack at more conventional house music on the side for most of this decade, and needed an outlet to release it without disrupting the much darker, denser expectations of the Nicolas Jaar brand. It’s no surprise that he pulls it off. It’s hard to think of another producer who has a more nuanced grip on how grooves work and how to find glory in texture. That being said, I did not expect something this casual and accessible to reveal itself as Jaar’s forte. Jaar really is one for the intersection of soul and house. These songs all follow a similar formula where an old-school sample gets worked into a modest yet riveting pulse. However, what he taps into suggests that some of these sounds are much more compelling with the context flipped around. For the scribblings of a mastermind, this is unreasonably presentable.

37. Stadium- Eli Keszler

The moment on Stadium that has me sold iss not one of the ingenious blends of shuffling percussion and jittering plucks that come to define its sound. It’s at the end of a song called ‘We Live in a Pathetic Temporal Urgency’ (lol), where the thuds dissipate and we are left with a natural sound recording of what sounds like pop music playing on the speakers of the mall. It’s like it is beaming from a different planet, simultaneously grounding the album and inverting it into a much stranger endeavor. Keszler has orchestrated a platter of ear candy, sound porn disguised as psycho-jazz. Sure, the odd time-signatures and abundance of texture might grab the headlines, but the real kicker here is the lull that actively rests behind the music. I wish all glitzy technical showcases doubled as ambient mood pieces.

36. The Recurrence of Infections- bod [包家巷]

There’s an ennui that not enough people make art about. Nicholas Zhu (aka bod) would call it “the quiet hours of laborious coping that fall into the areas between work and sleep,” but I’d probably call it “chill time”. The Recurrence of Infections is a lot of high-strung aesthetically driven gobbledygook, but it’s fucking awesome. I actually buy into it pretty hard. Forget the fact that it’s a masterclass in sound design and think about what “laborious coping” would sound like. You probably can’t think of much, but that’s because you can’t realize your vision as well as Zhu can. Pianos that turn into crashes that turn into distorted growling that turn into robotic warbling...these are not the type of things you remember, but can easily relax with, if you tune out the real pressure. It’s a joy to watch this album unravel. It’s the type of thing you’ll want to tell people about without being able to explain why. But that’s ok. Come hang sometime.

35. The Invisible Comes To Us- Anna & Elizabeth

Anna & Elizabeth make musical period pieces. It doesn’t take long until you realize that this isn’t just a folk throwback; these are actually old folk songs, shit that was popping off in, like, the 40s. While the whole “old songs for new audiences” thing is wholesome, the magic is in where they go with it. The Invisible Comes To Us is exhilaratingly strange to listen to. Adorned by a seemingly ancient aesthetic, you’d think a modernization could get away with slapping some synths and beats on there and calling it a day. However, Anna & Elizabeth are interested in how this music would sound if its spirit was still alive today, if people still had good reason to write lyrics like “tell me jovial sailors, tell me true/does my sweet William sail among your crew?” but had the technology to throw some electronic embellishments on there. Every song sees a comically traditional tune come to a screeching synthetic halt, and even though that combination should wear thin, the execution is passionate enough to be chilling.

34. Whack World- Tierra Whack

The strongest gimmicks are usually the most frustrating. Whack World is a harsh epitome of this; it’s a project that suffocates itself with originality, but would it really ruin the illusion if some of these songs were a couple minutes longer? It doesn’t matter, because this album and the visual spectacle that came with it was enough to fit right into our zeitgeist and run laps around anything less casually ambitious. Of course, part of the appeal was seeing Tierra Whack trimming a poodle, prancing around a cemetary with muppets, and snipping the strings of balloons while snarling in a Southern accent. However, an album’s stellar presentation doesn’t always translate into such addicting songs. Whack World is fifteen great ideas taken at face value so that they never lose momentum. These tracks seem designed to get stuck on repeat, always finding a groove and savagely leaving cravings unfulfilled.

33. Twin Fantasy- Car Seat Headrest

It’s weird to throw this on here because these songs have existed for such a long time. However, newer resources sparked an overhaul we didn’t even know we needed, and boy, did it work out. Twin Fantasy is one of those records that is so painfully personal you feel almost uncomfortable. Immersing yourself in its tales of infatuation and self-awareness to the point where you’re basically watching Will Toledo gut himself and everyone around him shouldn’t be this fun. It doesn’t gain a new audience by straying away from the lo-fi, but rather by accentuating the musical and conceptual turbulence. The best songs on here are eager shapeshifters, growing bigger and bigger until they pop, or in the some cases, they reach the ten minute mark and start gyrating. Eventually, he’ll start doing things like convincing himself that he can’t be evil, not because he’s good, but because “evil” is a phony construct. It’s a drastic leap from fondly recalling Skype calls to declaring that he is incapable of being both human and inhuman. Or is it? Car Seat Headrest has mastered the smug grin that does bad job of holding back the tears, hitting you with enough unhinged emotion to justify its performativity.

32. Sorpresa Familia- Mourn

Mourn have had a lot of burdens to shake in the wake of Sorpresa Familia, and it almost feels like they could only have made this album with something to prove. It makes sense as the product of a fight for financial justice, as it also sees Mourn viciously slithering away from the buzzwords people use to define them and the marquee names writers like me automatically liken them to. However, they don't do this by changing their sound, but by upping the ferocity in their energy, the complexity of their arrangements, and the stickiness of their melodies.

The commitment to quality makes it easy to forget the label drama that birthed this record. However, Sorpresa Familia would not exist in this form without the rage and hunger for justice that marked its creative process. "At 19 years old we're signing our divorce," they growl at one point. Anyone who has gone through it knows divorce often becomes a blissful catharsis for the victim. Sorpresa Familia doesn't merely mark this catharsis; it proves that Mourn needed to loosen the shackles to make the most fully-formed record of their career.

31. Lush- Snail Mail

It’s odd to hear someone younger than me (I’m 20) rock a style that shouldn’t have too many ideas left in the tank. That being said, it’s especially wild when they do so with such grace, sounding like a seasoned vet in their prime. Lush isn’t brimming with new sounds, but somehow it manages to be the most refreshing indie rock record in recent memory. Maybe it’s because the songwriting is simple at heart but captures something so universal and captivating. Lush dissects the ambiguities of young love, both the frustrating rush of being swept away and the strength it takes to realize that the exasperation may not be worth it. It resonates with me, and I can’t imagine these sentiments falling short on anyone, at least when they are delivered by Lindsay Jordan’s absolute powerhouse vocals. The more emotional bits come in like a sustained avalanche, knowing exactly what to emphasize and what not to overdo.

30. Devotion- Tirzah

We’ll talk about Tirzah in a second, but let’s take a minute to gawk at Mica Levi. It takes a seldom-seen skill set to create some the most weirdly accessible pop records of the early decade and then go on to get an Oscar nod for a movie about Jackie Kennedy. Yet now, having produced Devotion, she’s ready to give her tasteful, haunting minimalism the charismatic voice it has always deserved. Mica Levi was never the best frontwoman, so enter Tirzah, with a sultry, conversational voice that can mutter and howl in the same breath. This is a partnership that has been bubbling since early childhood, and you can tell just how well these two understand each other’s creative boundaries. Mica will take a sparse loop and spread it wide enough for Tirzah to spit out vulnerable bars like nobody’s watching, like she’s catching herself in a scary moment of candor and embracing it.

29. Sweetener- Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande’s music had always one-upped her public person. She had been in marquee relationships before, but none as inescapable as this. It’s weird to look back on Sweetener, which was dropped during peak Grandsonmania, as this happy, beam of light sticking out after she witnessed a bonafide tragedy unfurl at her now-infamous Manchester concert. It was the sound of an icon in full control of her narrative, choosing to show resilience and overdose on bliss. Instead of being distracted by her newfound spot at the top of the A-list, she was inspired by the spotlight. That being said, context doesn’t make Sweetener. Ariana Grande has always had a penchant for the most irresistible, immaculate pop masterstrokes, and Sweetner is home to so many of them. Her vocal capacity has become practically superhuman at this point. Whether she is howling on ‘breathin’ or unleashing a phantasmagoric coo on ‘R.E.M.’ it’s hard to imagine a delivery that would suit these songs better. She has perfected the ballad, but she has also perfected the bop, and Sweetener shows that she can effortlessly blend the two.

Of course, tragedy struck again in the death of her ex-boyfriend/best friend Mac Miller. She broke up with Pete and unpacked everything with her biggest song yet. However, Sweetener will always stand out as one of the most crucial and enjoyable bubblegum pop records of our time, one that, for all its lore, continues Ariana’s tradition of putting the music first.

28. New Bodies- Tangents

I’m never one to judge an album primarily by its capacity to make me go “whoa!”, but if I was, New Bodies would probably top this list. Simply put, this is a technical masterstroke. The type of music Tangents make is pretty hard to classify; its sprawling instrumental flexing suggests jazz but the ingredients are electronic. It’s impressive enough to pull off something so unorthodox but to do so in a way that manages to summon emotion while simultaneously dropping jaws...that’s a whole new level. New Bodies rejects the need to find a groove, fidgeting and sputtering to a point where it can either unravel or chase a massive crescendo. More often than not, it chooses both. This album flaunts its pace, but the real calling card is the texture, which is product of rattling percussion that manages to stay so varied and complex while providing a sturdy backbone. It shouldn’t be possible to scatter strings, cymbals, beats, and samples so haphazardly onto each track and come out with seven genuine odysseys.

27. Galapagos- Wednesday Campanella

Wednesday Campanella aren’t quite subverting stylistic norms. Galapagos is chock full of drops, albeit interesting ones, and the songs rely on tried-and-tested formulas to drill the melodies in. However, skipping experimentation lets Wednesday Campanella to get straight to the point: unadulterated sonic bliss. Also, please don’t get me wrong. Wednesday Campanella don’t really sound like anyone else, even in the far-reaching, dense world of J-Pop. It’s hard to find any band that is so adamant on cramming this many glistening sounds into their music yet so capable of dodging busyness or being busy in the right way. Yet, for a group that does so much, it’s wild that they manage to have each element crafted with precision, whether it be a glittery synth sound shooting out of a vibe that would have never have called for it, or the vocals, which are always so high up in the mix that each breath is magnified. Sure, it’s not the most uncanny, but Wednesday Campanella stay surprising you with their audacious choices.

26. Room 25- Noname

Room 25 is birthed out of an entirely new set of circumstances. While Telefone was a Chicago album through-and-through, Room 25's namesake comes from the geographic ambiguity of two years spent living on the road. She sums it up nicely on "With You" where she raps "shared my life on Telefone, room 25 and 306, and 809 became my home.” Being thrown into the cutthroat touring process for two whole years is a unique and inherently transformative experience, and Room 25 captures this transformation in all its push-pull nuance, without sacrificing Noname's sharp eye for her surroundings. In this sense, Room 25 is excitingly personal. In the past, Noname the character has taken a passenger seat to Noname the narrator. Now she opens things up and focuses on her journey, and there's a lot of growth to be exhibited. It's an album with purpose, a moving snapshot of a coming-of-age worthy of all this great music.

Yet, for all the personality and reflection that comes out on Room 25, Noname's eloquent observations make for some of the stickiest moments on this album. When she ponders the hypocrisy of eating Chick-Fil-A "in the shadows" on ‘Blaxploitation’, she doesn't do so with a stern finger-wag but an onomatopoeic overcoming of sensation -- "mmm, yummy, tasty" -- kickstarting a flow that unwinds with her confronting the "thinkpiece" nature of her music head-on. However, these songs aren't thinkpieces. These are acute contemplations from someone with a lot to chew on. Room 25 sees a brilliant writer finding her outlet, taking in the world around her, and spinning it into her own extraordinary web.

25. Safe in the Hands of Love- Yves Tumor

Yves Tumor never seemed interested in stepping out of his mystery bag approach to making albums, mixing 8-minute long exercises in ambient noise with simple, concise soul jams. However, nothing he ever tries is derivative. Safe in the Hands of Love has too much distorted screaming to be labelled his crossover lunge, but now he seems ready to take his sonic ingenuity and apply it to something less abstract. Maybe that’s what happens when you get picked up by Warp, or maybe that’s just what Yves Tumor was planning this whole time. Either way, it doesn’t sound like any compromises are being made. Even the more anthemic songs like ‘Noid’ or ‘Lifetime’ reek of despair and restlessness, and the orchestral overtones that give the tracks their oomph aren’t exactly inviting either. More electronic tracks like ‘All the Love We Have Now’ and ‘Economy of Freedom’ are nods to past successes, but for all their electrifying grooviness, they embrace the same menacing grandiosity. The notion that nothing is off the table is all these songs abide to. Either way, these are some of his best.

24. OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES- Sophie

Sophie never seemed that interested in feeding into the consumerism celebration/critique/caricature her PC Music contemporaries so loudly owned. For every robotic bubblegum pop hook she crafted there was an avalanche of emotion bubbling underneath. OIL takes that emotion and puts it front and center, revealing the dynamic human behind the once elusive machine. Sophie is no longer milking the hyper-synth + squeaky balloon + pots & pans combo into oblivion, but when it shows up here, it’s stronger than ever. ‘Ponyboy’ and ‘Faceshopping’ make previous career highs feel staticy, and there is now a lot more space and fluidity in Sophie’s barrage of beats. While these tracks will pounce on you, the real glory emerges in the most fully-formed moments of Sophie’s career. ‘It’s Okay to Cry’ will wind you with its earnest sensitivity, ‘Is It Cold in the Water?’ is built off a synthline that is borderline heavenly, and ‘Immaterial’ illustrates her identity with elegance that can only be described as career-defining. Music can be a lot of things, but at its very best it is an outlet to channel your truest self. OIL epitomizes this phenomenon, amping up the excitement as Sophie continues to explore.

23. The Smoke- Lolina

When you first hear the tuneless, off-kilter wobble of The Smoke, it becomes clear pretty fast that this album isn’t that interested in sounding “good.” Inga Copeland sounds detached from the music, her voice approaching a mumbling groan while the plodding keyboards and beats don’t sound especially happy to be there. It’s about nothing, it feels nothing, and it doesn’t want you to feel anything either. But, *surprise*surprise*, it’s fascinating. Unlike her close collaborator Dean Blunt, Copeland doesn’t rely on confusion to make the gag work but uses it to carve out a world for her tracks to awkwardly flourish. The first two songs are basically weed out tracks, testing even those most committed to adventure. Once you’re sucked in, the real drama goes down. The husting, solemn ‘The River’ has such a firm grasp on its momentum it practically feels like a set up. The next two songs are particularly stunning, stepping outside of the pervasive flatness to embrace something far more delicate. It’s hard to find an album that rejects aesthetics so much but transcends being just kinda interesting. In that respect, The Smoke is a rare success.

22. Veteran- JPEGMAFIA

Peggy comes close to wearing out his welcome a few times on Veteran. Instead, he just exasperates you, like a jester who bites and claws before he scampers away. It’s hard to even know where to begin with his music, but the elevator pitch is in the instrumentals. They frequently tease you with stomach-churning samples that seem borderline impossible to turn into a beat until they hit their stride and become obvious. On ‘Real Nega’, it’s a guttural sample of Ol’ Dirty Bastard croaking and on ‘Baby I’m Bleeding’ it’s a echoey computer crash of a stutter that paces around for a whole minute before turning into the banger it is.

JPEGMAFIA ensures that listening to him is like tripping down an Internet rabbit hole, issuing somewhat agreeable hot takes about how Morrissey/Tom Araya/Varg deserve to die, how Pitchfork supports abusers (until it wasn’t cool), and...well...how he wants a bitch with long hair like Myke C-Town. He toes the line between sheer abrasion and accessibility, and the songs that do this best (‘Thug Tears’, ‘Macaulay Culkin’) seem destined for crossover success, because when he’s not hollering, he can sing about as well as anyone in Brockhampton. However, the most exciting thing is the notion that Peggy is a rapper who reflects music meme culture as much as he is a product of it, erasing the wall between the lurkers on 4chan and the artists they stan. #Edgy? Definitely, but I dare you to turn it off.

21. Joonya Spirit- Jaala

The most notable quotable I have read from Jaala is that the 4/4 time signature can go “fuck a dead donkey.” You’d think such a blatant contrarian might try a bit too hard to hit you with compositional gymnastics, and while there’s definitely some of that on Joonya Spirit, there’s a lot more passion. It’s rare to see something this proggy get caught up in such visceral vulnerability, with songs that confront anguish as the snide beast it is. One song has Cosmia Pay drained, wound up after being pet “like a dog.” Another takes the bare facts of a break-up and transforms them into a swaying hook. But between these outbursts, Jaala try to find the most convoluted way from A to B, constructing a self-imposed obstacle course. The journey bears gifts, to say the very least. While this can be a hard album to track, it’s elevated by an understanding of how to make the most out of its detours, with the complexity becoming a tool rather than a distraction.

20. Cocoon Crush- Objekt

Electronic music is progressing so that the machine engages in a tug-of-war with the human. Some artists even use their platform to pitch a manifesto where there’s no reason humans should make better music than artificial intelligence. It’s a valid point, but it undervalues a virtuosic understanding of sound as a sensory experience, as if an algorithm can spew out music that is meticulously crafted to make you feel. Texture isn’t all it takes, but when Objekt’s music spreads itself out like the satisfying percussive ASMR it is, I nut. It’s not like his music is milking its benevolence, but it brims with life. The callbacks, the vividness, the rattling fiber...it’s designed to evoke. As an album that fully appreciates the artistic potential of technology, Cocoon Crush rejects techno’s anatomy and builds its own habitat.

19. The Wolf of Grape Street/God Level- 03 Greedo

It’s much easier to think of 03 Greedo’s output as this flurry of spontaneity, surfacing in eagerly explored ideas and a landslide of hard work and charm. Nobody has earned his spot on this list more than 03, an eager poet who packs all the turmoil he’s ever experienced into each nasally, autotuned whine. He’s also shockingly talented. Amidst the nearly 50 songs on these two projects, which are admittedly super bloated, there are really only a few duds, all of which suffer on the basis of being undercooked, not misguided. What makes up for it even more is the notion that the excess is probably the point. Greedo makes bangers that range from the devastated (‘Prayer From My Lost’) to the needy (‘Bacc to Jail’) to the combative (‘Basehead’) to the absolutely savage (‘Run For Your Life’).

It’s all infectious enough to shock you with its productivity, and that’s probably for good reason. Shortly before God Level was released, Greedo was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in jail. It was technically on gun and drug charges, but it felt like he fell victim of a system that always put him last. Seeing him pour his heart out so urgently can only tug at the heartstrings.

18. Double Negative- Low

Not gonna lie, I would have never put my money on Low to craft an album that sounds so ahead of its time. Maybe I was ignorant...when you spend your whole career being the face of your own niche, especially one as fragile and poignant as slowcore, you can only waltz towards perfection. Double Negative may be just that. It’s ambitious, creating most of its backbones from waves of static. But how the fuck do you sound so relevant after years of sounding so worn down? Where did this need to deeply innovate and challenge come from? Whatever they did, Double Negative discovers a whole new language within its glitches.

Low have completely overhauled their sound, but only emphasized their essence. The vocals cast themselves like heavenly beams of light onto these suffocating drones, the type of clash that is built to overwhelm. Double Negative takes strokes of such vehement abrasion and tweaks them until they sound exquisite. It’s hard to find an album so unique yet so logical, obscurely branching off from an exhausted genre towards a practically euphoric display of textural understanding.

17. Compro- Skee Mask

It’s not easy to penetrate the traditional IDM canon these days, especially now that Aphex Twin is still active, but fuck me if Compro doesn’t try. This doesn’t position itself as one for the purists; instead it’s a confident progression of an age-old form, an album that knows what ingredients make this experimental techno shit work, but has no interest in indulging. A Skee Mask song will set itself up with a gravity-shaking rhythm that bulges with enough texture so that when a groove comes to nest, it is punctured and complex, even if its beauty comes in conventional forms. The twinkle of the melody on ‘Rev8617’ or the icy, distant synth on ‘Soundboy Ext.’ are cast over ripples and breakbeats. It doesn’t feel like he’s creating a juxtaposition as much as he is balancing these sounds out, as if their splendor is highlighted with containment.

16. Cold Devil- Drakeo the Ruler

It shouldn’t surprise you that someone who has been taken to task by law enforcement based on the perceived authenticity of his lyrics prides himself on his intensity. It’s hard to keep up a shtick for this long, rambling about apparently miscellaneous characters like Mr. Mosley and Pippi Longstocking, while never forgetting to underline how you have your dick out like a “pedophile” or how you’ve been strangling snakes and you bathe with the apes. All the while, you end pretty much each track with a minute-long tirade where you take in your surroundings. It’s a lot, but for an album of seemingly low-stakes shit-talking, Cold Devil packs a ton of depth.

Crafted during an 11-month jail stint, Cold Devil projects the charisma, isolation, and precision that can only arise from such introspective circumstances. Yet, while tapped into ultra-realism, the most captivating part of sees Drakeo’s imagination running wild. It’s like he used the time to construct his own emotional lexicon, and while it’s the type of bogged-up conceptualism that you can’t really articulate, he’ll be fucked if he doesn’t try. What comes out is a whirlwind of ideas, each flourishing, albeit concisely, through a swamp of imagery and excellent rapping. Anyone who views this as a confession must be kidding themselves; it’s a vivacious expression that even the most observant couldn’t untangle.

15. You Won’t Get What You Want- Daughters

Anger, despair, dejection...these are all emotions that might sound contrived, especially in a context where they’re almost taken as given (*cough*cough*noise rock*cough). Fortunately, nothing feels fake about Daughters. Spreading their wings after eight years of silence, You Won’t Get What You Want sounds like the pinnacle of a decade of anguish rolled up into a ball and fattened up to sound as big as possible. You’ll notice a few things right off the bat: the drums sounds massive, the vocals are almost always approaching a scream, and every instrument seems to have the color tuned out of it. Daughters play like they are making themselves dizzy, launching into climaxes with brute force. Yet for all its density, it’s a wonder how music this outwardly menacing can transcend the bluntness of its elements to become somewhat inviting. That being said, there is nothing wholesome about the darkness that dominates this record, but Daughters make sure to tweak their pain into the most suffocating beast they can so that it’s almost conventionally beautiful. It’s hard to find a record that executes its niche so perfectly, an ambience that can only be approached after years of marinating in your ache.

14. Some Rap Songs- Earl Sweatshirt

It makes perfect sense to make music that sounds like what your friends’ make, but when the long-awaited Earl Sweatshirt album came out sounding like a logical follow-up to MIKE’s recently released Renaissance Man more than the sequel to I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside, it was a little confusing. However much Earl may drown in his modesty and aggressively try to understate the potency of his music, his brand of cooped-up gloom comes with a midas touch. It’s hard to say whether Earl was hard at work for these past three years, or whether he spun out these 15 vignettes in a stroke of manic genius, but it doesn’t really matter either way. They’re here and it’s captivating as fuck.

Earl the operation is an outlet for Thebe the person, who is still easing himself into stability after an adolescence where he became something of a martyr to millions of kids (#FREE EARL). Of course, this is punctuated by the death of his estranged poet father, a disconnect that Earl has always struggled to grapple with. However, Some Rap Songs is wary of romanticising anything for the sake of a narrative. Instead, it jumps from dusty beat to dusty beat, a flurry of understatements that rarely stay around for longer than two minutes. Earl has always been eager to find his niche after a couple of regrettable teenage choices that risked contaminating his artistry. Even if the inspiration he takes is obvious, his energy can’t be channelled by anyone else.

13. The Whole Thing Is Just There- Young Jesus

For a band who could easily be described as a “philosophy bro jam band,” Young Jesus make it pretty easy for you to like them. This is a controlled exercise in pensive, intellectual emo, an album hellbent on making sure each groove throbs like it’s had its young recently ripped from its arms. The riffs don’t emerge as hooks but rather weave themselves through tunnels, fueling each crescendo. At the apex of it all is a shuddering plea for attention. Young Jesus channel the same catharsis as the emo revivalist except they don’t take the easy way out; their forte is their creativity and their pulse is their sensitivity.

All six songs here manage to fit in both moments of anthemic infection and utter disarray (the glorious kind). The segments that accentuate this album are defined by their space and tenderness, taking poignant philosophical observations and highlighting their consequence with emotional outbursts. It takes a style bent on nostalgia and pushes into an entirely new place, a feat that very few artists can pull off, especially with such volume and precision.

12. Have fun- Smerz

Smerz are like if an artist with talent, charisma, and pop smarts was approaching a fork in the road where they could pursue Top 40 glory or use their resources to lead the vanguard and make challenging, deconstructive electronic music. Guess which one they choose? The melodies that soar over the gritty, distorted beats could have been lifted from the bridge of a #1 R&B hit. Instead, they are spread over a tattered landscape, like a safari where you’re not gawking at animals but taking in an exhibit of quirky synth sounds and samples of speech that sound like they are lifted from a 3 AM drunk voicemail.

Have fun bounces between ethereal dizziness and stark percussive minimalism, but when the two combine, it’s a goosebump-inducing juxtaposition. Floating above the instrumentals-- which honestly could have been released on their own and still have made the lower-end of this list-- is either a deadpan cheerleader chant or a fluttering vocal harmony. Whatever Smerz do, they can’t stop creating music that the words “haunting” and “hypnotic” must’ve been invented to describe. They construct such an exclusive bubble where experimental techno and pop intersect, a fusion that needed to happen, that other artists have tried to do and came-out contrived. It pulsates with mystery, which is funny because most of these songs are about getting fucked up or, as Smerz would put it themselves, “basic bitch problems.” Their ominous gaze turns this charm into a manifesto. And why shouldn’t it? Music this serious yet unpretentious is a rare delight.

11. Honey- Robyn

Everything Robyn does, she does with conviction. She’ll look back on the empty spaces her lover has left behind without fearing her resentment. She’ll invite you to a beach party with casual assurance (“come thru, it’ll be cool”), but boldly winks to suggest that it might be the most transcendental night ever. She’ll demand forgiveness without begging for it, embracing submissiveness while knowing the absurdity of her demands. Is forgiveness even real? Is nostalgia hollow? Is it OK to be heartbroken? These are the types of issues Robyn deals with on Honey, an album that packs eight years of growth into 40 minutes, as if Robyn has been contemplating the scope of her influence and brainstorming the next best step.

Of course, Honey isn’t that calculated. It’s a record of audacious sensitivity, dissecting the simplest phenomena and matching them up with the perfect backdrops. The sex song (‘Between The Lines’) skips with a seductive sway, like a lab-constructed aphrodisiac. The club song (‘Beach 2k10’) is an anomaly, but walks with the confidence of a nightlife staple. However, the best tracks are the most fully-formed, tracks like ‘Honey’ and ‘Human Being’ feel like quintessential Robyn on steroids. It’s astonishing how good she is at this, and even when the record treads new water with suave, captivating disco cuts, Robyn owns whatever space she’s in.

10. Vibras- J Balvin

J Balvin is not the most emotive, distinctive, eccentric reggaeton artist, nor does he have the best voice or the most dominating presence. But he might be the most ambitious, and the most adept at making effortless smash hits, a thing he does on Vibras pretty much every time he tries. In a world where the top tier of Urbano Latino can get billions of views on YouTube and compete internationally with the biggest American superstars, J Balvin is the artist most excited to lead the movement, the most well-versed in its potential.

As the title suggests, Vibras is a record of concrete vibes. J Balvin is aware that a lot of his listeners will not go through the trouble of translating his lyrics, so he makes sure that even people who didn’t take Spanish in high school will grasp what he’s trying to do. All you need to know about ‘Mi Gente’ is found in the now-iconic stuttering vocal sample that starts the song, and the crux of ‘Cuando Tú Quieras’ is a similar sample being flipped into something sultry and seductive, functioning at just as high a level. Vibras seems masterfully curated, even if lots of the songs are anomalies. However, these anomalies don’t just stand out but elevate the power of the straighter, simpler reggaeton songs. ‘En Mí’ is a lovelorn ballad, ‘Brillo’ finds an unlikely pairing with ROSALÍA, who is at the peak of her melodic prowess, and ‘Machika’ ends the album with an almost overly lit EDM crossover. Everything works and it’s wonderful.

9. Bark Your Head Off, Dog- Hop Along

When Frances Quinlan unleashes her raspy, crackling yelp, you know important shit is about to go down. Hop Along have always specialized in a very particular type of drama. They have a penchant for telling stories with a candor that makes it feel like you’re eavesdropping, like you’ve stumbled upon a goldmine of gossip that you shouldn’t be hearing but are far too morbidly curious to plug your ears. The juiciness can come in the form of bureaucratic academia scandals, sexual overtones in the Bible, or the ever-so-relatable struggle of watching Watership Down expecting a kid’s movie, but observing a bloody festival of rabbit slaughter instead. The twists and turns are spot-on and frequently hilarious. If Bark Your Head Off, Dog’s ideas were expanded into prose, it would be a top-tier collection of short stories.

Amidst all the motifs surface nine expertly crafted rock songs that worm around with the utmost purpose, with each chorus/bridge/coda packing enough zest to fuel the whole track. Quinlan’s grip on these melodies is first-rate, as if she’s being swept up by something bigger yet going to painstaking lengths to ensure every tonal phase is spot-on. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is consistent to the point of near-perfection. It doesn’t take long for it to sink in that every song is a highlight, a beacon of emotion that capitalizes on every glimmer of melodic brilliance. Yet somehow, it’s impossible to predict where these songs will go. Often, strings or screams will emerge from out of nowhere, other times are doused in pure, saccharine pop music. Hop Along have mastered spontaneity to the point where nothing feels tacked on. There are so many dimensions to their sounds/stories that you’ll unpack something new with each listen.

8. Nothing Is Still- Leon Vynehall

Leon Vynehall is a practical musician. His last album was, literally, “designed to dance”; a myriad of songs at a streamlined, club-ready BPM that progressed with the pace of a night out. His fascination with multi-dimensionality in house music is abundantly clear. He’s always going to find a new way to be inventive, always ready with a brand new purpose.

Nothing Is Still tests house music’s limits with biography, each song representing a “chapter” or “footnote” in the life of Vynehall’s grandparents, particularly their emigration from England to New York City in the 1960s. Of course, this music is instrumental, so the introspection is all atmospheric, a hard thing to pull off. Thankfully, Vynehall comes up with some sky-scraping, impassioned music, channelling something very vivid. The ambient pieces on this album are textured and passionate. They must be immediate illustrations of the flood of emotion Vynehall experienced in the wake of his grandfather’s death, when he was fully gripped by the narrative, and decided to go down the rabbit hole. It’s oddly tangible, and even without the backstory, the distant grooves on this album could overwhelm you. It’s a bold feat to try and soundtrack something you didn’t directly experience, but the emotional depth packed in this electronic period piece can only be the result of extensive research and nights of curious catharsis. Taking your craft seriously is one thing; creating a record that brims with such sensitivity and personal importance without saying a single word is something else.

7. Harutosyura- Harunemuri

Whatever is being fused on Harutosyura, whether it be pop-punk and rap or hardcore and electronica, yields intense results. It’s not your standard foray into J-pop; Harunemuri are sure to make compact bubbles that writhe and spin before they burst, leaving behind a barrage of glitzy choruses and whines that sound like they’re at the end of an exhausting a potentially lethal chase. It’s chaos, but it’s also rich and entirely unique. Some songs will wear out a stunning riff before collapsing in a fit of aggression; others prefer to reach a screeching halt out of nowhere, only to come back stronger than ever to provide a new angle on their beauty. They will confuse you with the effortless strides they hit, especially because they sound like they are trying to cram every emotion they’ve ever experienced into one note. It’s too dramatic not to be entertaining and too action-packed not to constantly revisit. Even the most animated could only dream of channelling the flux of Harutosyura.

6. A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships- The 1975

It’s been steady growth for The 1975. In their early days, they were a subtly good indie-rock boy band who mostly sang songs designed to get teenage girls a bit too excited. I probably hated them without having heard any of their stuff. Then, they became this overly ambitious 80s glam-rock monster, packing many standard pop bops on their sophomore album, but filling the space between them with tracks that sounded like shoegaze/post-rock/gospel parody (to be clear, I thought it was brilliant). Now, they are one of the most outspoken, monumental bands of our generation, still silly, but absolutely drowning in good ideas. Without hyperbole, I think they are the most exciting thing to happen to the band format in a long time.

Their main thing is that they do the most. Even when the pleasures are simple, Matt Healy is yelling a bit too close to your ear, throwing out commentary that masquerades as ill-fitting until you realize it’s actually super clever and eloquent. The main draw, however, is how every time they turn the page, they land on a song that immediately traps you. Additionally, all these ideas are fresh and essential. The centerpoint is ‘Love It If We Made It’, a tabloid-esque collage of cultural commentary that woos you with its timeliness as Healy throws his entire voice towards a scream of “modernity has failed us!” The rest of the singles range from the best 80s-movie pool party throwback of the year, a rainbow of soothing horns and romantic ennui, a finger-wagging burst of 29-year old wisdom, and a smugly confused radio song. Deeper in the album lie cautionary tales on Internet death told by a robot, Bon Iver-ian swaths of autotuned warbling transformed into high-tier experimental techno, a nocturnal barroom jazz track...I could go on like this for paragraphs lol. The point is, everything they try works and everything that works sticks with you. For an album where a bunch of millenials spend an hour obsessing over the “digital age,” A Brief Inquiry has too much charm.

5. Knock Knock- DJ Koze

If I have to hear someone call DJ Koze some variation of “house music’s biggest prankster” again, I swear to god (haha). I know he can be pretty goofy, and there are many moments on Knock Knock that project this goofiness. Some of the vocal samples (“I need a little light here!”, “I know the future better than you know the past”) are kitsch for sure, but there is no understating this man’s profound talent. He will find a sample, find another sample, and mix the two into something hypnotic. I don’t know if he stumbles upon these grooves or if they are vastly premeditated through some process where he hears an old record, his ears perk up and, poof, a full-fledged house banger surfaces in his mind. He’s always been willing to push the envelope, but on Knock Knock he fully embraces his versatility and distinctiveness. Even the most random sounds he throws into the blender make absolute sense in the sugary, hyper-charged context they’re presented.

Not all of this will sink in quickly, but there are some clear hard-hitters. ‘Pick Up’ floods into the mix like a warm embrace from a long-lost friend, creating a vibe that could and should continue forever. Yet all it does is chop up two 70s soul songs and loop them into oblivion, carrying such a heavy emotional load while staying relatively stagnant. The fat, throbbing bassline on ‘Bonfire’ makes Justin Vernon sound dreamier than he ever has before. ‘Illumination’ is a steady build to an ultimately glorious release, a masterclass in the sly emergence of its drop. It’s all so glistening and nostalgic. There’s sniffs of rap, folk, R&B, techno but none of the paths diverge from the cohesive sonic wonderland. Some prank lol.

4. Aviary- Julia Holter

When do you decide to make your magnum opus? How do you figure out that, after your most accessible album and a whole decade of building your own distinctive take on baroque, your next project would be 90 minutes of the densest, most sonically ambitious music you’ve ever released? Aviary is the type of album you wouldn’t want to put out until you are totally ready. Thankfully, Holter has every reason to be confident in her abilities. She knows when to sustain a wall of noise and when to interject with a mutter or an instrumental collapse. She knows how to pile reverb-drenched choirs onto light orchestration and how to let her voice soar while maintaining the necessary space. To pull off a sprawling, abstract project like this, you need to be some kind of genius. I don’t use that word lightly.

Aviary is meditative. Crammed with songs that linger for as long as they do without hitting a conventional stride, the dynamism is contagious. You genuinely have no idea where each song will go and there is such an abundance of feeling that it’s practically impossible to take it all in. It’s a world that you can untangle, plowing deeper and deeper into it and getting lost in the spectacle. At one moment it’s stressful, and in the next, it’s meditative. The declarations are profound. It’s a rejection of cynicism, and a full-fledged embrace of the simplest, most overpowering emotions, taking pride in the capacity to be swept away. Have you ever fallen in love? Sometimes love can be bitter and toxic, but other times, it is something worthy of a welcome parade, something that will make you loudly weep while you’re clutching onto it. That’s the scope of Aviary, a record that has no qualms about melting into gibberish, as long as it is fully evocative.

3. Be the Cowboy- Mitski

Mitski writes songs with such a penetrating, inhospitable gaze that she practically begs you to feel uncomfortable, even if she radiates warmth and empathy. She’ll come thru with a track about how much she loves her non-existent husband, how for all of eternity it will just be the two of them together, how they are doing better...it goes on until you’re pressed to think it’s a joke, but if it is, then why are you on the verge of tears? Then you sit, ponder, and start considering what it means to “be the cowboy.” Is cowboy swagger one that swoops in on a literal horse, becomes an all-or-nothing imposition of hyper-dominance, and carries itself like it’s the only thing that matters? Or is the one that takes you to a diner after years of silence, Blue Diner to be precise, and suffocates you with a lull while quietly reminding you that it will always keep a part of you? Vulnerability is Mitski’s forte. Whether it’s cloaked in sarcasm, painfully earnest, or deeply internalized, hers is a narrative so potent that you can’t help but unload all your emotional burdens alongside it.

Be the Cowboy is the moment when you’ve revealed so much about yourself to someone that for a second, it’s actually terrifying how quickly and easily they could undermine your whole existence. It’s naked but unconcerned, taking pride in its ability to crumble. Somehow, there’s nothing forced about the painstaking introspection; Mitski is fully committed to baring her soul without simplifying it or suffocating in self-righteousness. It’s equal parts defensive and dejected. You can only be reminded about the impossibility of idealization so much before you start to get confused. But when it’s as outrageous and tortured as this, it stops being a statement and becomes a full-fledged celebration. It painful to to watch, but it hurts even more to turn away.

2. El Mal Querer- Rosalía

Sometimes an album comes along feeling like such a pinnacle of a movement while deifying any categorization. It’s like Rosalía as a concept has been around forever, taking in influence from so many times and places and feelings...but nothing has ever really sounded like this. “Flamenco-pop” is a feeble label for something that so frequently whirls into a trance, belting out unhinged cries of fervor and then, on the next song, lifting a melody from Justin Timberlake. It’s like everything is being re-contextualized on here, and the result is a record that exists in its own time and space, refusing to branch out in favor of planting its own garden.

Rosalía lives for melodrama, which could be cloying if she didn’t justify it so well. It’s like her voice is always on the cusp of breaking out into a 30-second howl, which holds even when she coos a top nothing but a faint drum or a car engine noise. It takes a deep appreciation of your culture and history to be able to sound so universal without simply pining for an older vibe. Rosalía is constantly finding a way to go beyond that, subtly slipping autotune into a crevice that traditionalists would leave uncontaminated, developing sticky hooks without basing the whole song around them. When your core is a developed movement like flamenco but your crowd is the Spanish mainstream, you need more than a pinch of experimentation. El Mal Querer goes beyond that, not leaving any strand of its influences unexplored. Rosalía examines the age-old beauty of the form from every angle she can, shaking it up and seeing how it explodes.

1. Die Lit- Playboi Carti

What does it take to be the album of the year? Well...clearly not lyrical substance, or curt editing, or biting social commentary. The prerequisites for quality are getting harder and harder to pin down. All I know is that Die Lit feels like the album that all the over-saturated glut was building up to/the culmination of the ideas set forth by boundary pushers like Future or Young Thug/the logical conclusion to the intersection between lean-soaked hedonism and fine art. Don’t quote me, but we might not do any better than this. At the end of the bloated tunnel, there’s Playboi Carti squawking into oblivion, deconstructing the style that birthed him over beats that could’ve been produced by, like, Oneohtrix Point Never or Ricky Eat Acid or something.

Playboi Carti is a trailblazer. The most common critique of him is that “all he does is ad-libs, he honestly can’t even rap, and what’s good with all that autotune?” Back to my point about this being the logical conclusion of trap; removing the filler between the ad-libs is a fucking genius idea, an assured embrace of what you do best. I mean, imagine if Migos just went “uhh!” and “mama!” and didn’t have Quavo’s uninspired autotune weighing them down...it happens sometimes, and it’s beautiful. Carti’s ad-libs can be as simple as “what?” or “bih!”, and they are usually presented like a highly calculated flick of emotion, like the mechanics for a precise accentuism. Plenty of guests show up on Die Lit, and none of them have any trouble carving a space in Carti’s world. This makes sense when it’s Thugger or Travis Scott, but it is especially potent when it’s Nicki Minaj and Bryson Tiller, people who rarely delve into this type of experimentation on their own. Carti is so infectious that everyone is eager to step in his space and explore how they can dismantle their own form.

All of it is a daring experiment, especially in the moments where Carti tests the limits of his style, seeing how long he can hold the silence before getting swept into a verse, measuring how layered his voice can get before it crumbles and melts. Give Carti credit where credit is due, but Die Lit would be nothing without its producers, especially Pierre Bourne, who constructs a hazy, awe-inspiring fever dream whenever he hops behind the boards. Not only does this steer hip-hop into the direction it needed to go; it takes notes from the masters of ambient techno, blending snippets of overwhelming synths or vocals into beats that any lesser rapper would have no idea how to ride. When you’re on the forefront of the most widely consumed genre, it’s a lot of responsibility. Die Lit is one of the most forward-thinking statements in the hip-hop yet. At this point, Carti and his team are incapable of producing a song that doesn’t test boundaries or warp seasoned assumptions about what works.

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argentdandelion · 6 years ago

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Review of "Judgement" | Minecraft Undertale Music Video [GENOCIDE] (Song by TryHardNinja)

(To read about the video's good parts, see "Scene Composition, Shots, and Artistic Choices")

Introduction 1. Bad Expressions 2. Death Animation 3. Route Inconsistency 4. "So I've Got a Question For You." 5. Scene Composition, Shots, and Artistic Choices

Introduction

EnchantedMob(TM) are skilled at animation, as their previous Undertale video, "Hard Drive" illustrates. I was expecting "Judgement" to be of similar quality...and it was not.

While "Hard Drive" wasn't absolutely perfect (I have a few nitpicks about seemingly easy-to-fix parts of Mettaton's face) "Judgement" had a lot more flaws. Or, more precisely, it had only a few flaws, but two of those were so severe it severely affected the quality of the video.

Bad Expressions

The greatest flaw in the video is how badly Sans’ mouth was handled. Rather than having a Glalie-like perma-grin, his mouth is structured and operates like the genocidal human’s. As he is apparently singing the song in-universe, his mouth opens and closes almost constantly, covering his two rows of small, inconspicuous teeth as if he had lips. In fact, at several points in the video his teeth aren’t visible at all with an open mouth, making him look toothless.

The second-biggest flaw is Sans's massive and very unfitting eyebrows. If one looks closely at his sprites, not once is Sans shown with eyebrows, not even minimal eyebrows that show up only for specific expressions.

Between the mouth and eyebrows, Sans is too expressive, and in the wrong ways: his mouth and eyebrows seem to “bounce” everywhere. It is clear from the game’s sprites that Sans emotes primarily through his big eyes, with his mouth largely frozen in place. Here, Sans is excessively expressive, at times looking overly friendly. His out-of-character expressiveness also alters the overall feel of the moment he dies. Rather than giving a brief grimace with a shocked/startled look when the fatal blow is dealt, he looks sad/betrayed/panicked.

Between the behavior of the eyebrows and mouth, he’s so “off-model” (even by the standards of Minecraft’s limitations) and out-of-character that he doesn’t look like Sans at all, but someone poorly cosplaying him. Apparently, though EnchantedMob (TM) does very well with highly expressive characters (e.g., Mettaton from “Hard Drive”) they have yet to learn how to handle inexpressive ones. (Sans here, and Five Nights at Freddy’s robots)

I could go on and on about this (previously this section was 622 words) but, in short, it wasn’t actually necessary to give Sans eyebrows and a humanlike mouth if EnchantedMob(TM) wanted him to convey a variety of emotions. There are other methods---methods EnchantedMob(TM) knows---that could have been used by themselves, such as eyelid-based expressions and shrinking Sans’ pupils in shock.1

Death Animation

How EnchantedMob(TM) handles monsters dying in a serious flaw. Lesser Dog, Undyne, and Toriel are shown collapsing to the ground, but not turning to dust. As some monsters (Toriel, Papyrus) speak a few sentences before dying, one could argue monsters don’t have to turn to dust immediately upon the final blow being dealt. Yet the way their bodies linger on screen, with the screen’s shaking drawing attention to it, just emphasizes how they aren’t turning to dust like they should.

It’s not that EnchantedMob(TM) has to show an impressive turning-to-dust animation: TechnicalAntonym depicted monster death correctly by showing it indirectly: for example, Frisk travels through the Ruins with a pile of dust (probably Toriel’s) in the foreground. Context (an Undertale fan’s familiarity, the lyrics, and characters’ facial expressions) convey how bad dust and being covered in dust is.

At one point, the human fatally slashes Sans, and dusty-looking light pours out from him. When first watching it, I had the feeling they were going to use dusty-looking light beams as an easier-to-animate, aesthetically-pleasing workaround to a turning-to-dust animation. Yet, soon after, Sans’ body breaks apart into some kind of explosion of block-atoms, which is a closer approximation of turning to dust. (I didn’t even think they could do something that complex) The explosion of block-atoms could have worked, and would have been a creative and logical way to depict turning to dust. Yet, the block-atoms don’t turn grey/white, on- or off-screen, as expected2 during the extended death sequence.

Though technically impressive, the way the death sequence was handled made it look more like a nuclear cloud or an “exploded” skull than turning to dust. It has the inexplicable details of Sans’ face being perfectly intact, him having a red human SOUL, and some kind of purple energy circling in his disassembling body.

Now, I have heard of speculation (and read fanfics/fan comics) in which Sans and Papyrus are the reanimated skeletons of dead humans, and I have heard of the idea Sans (somehow) has Determination, but outright showing him with a human SOUL here makes no sense to me. A better choice would be to show a white, upside-down monster SOUL. (While only Boss Monster SOULs persist after death, Sans is not technically dead: the sequence is just an expanded-upon “dying” sequence)

Frisk also tries to covers their eyes at 3:32, suggesting Sans is emitting a strong light as he dies, like a bomb. This behavior might have made sense for Mettaton's death (as he is a magic robot), but with Sans, him emitting a strong, explosion-light light as he dies does not make sense.

Route Inconsistency

I'm not against Neutral routes being referenced in a Genocide Route-based video; TechnicalAntonym's video does so, after all. The trouble here is that there are no cues for which timeline is happening on-screen. (TechnicalAntonym's video, in contrast, has cues, most obviously showing Frisk's LV) Featuring Neutral/Pacifist moments and versions of characters in what seems to be a Genocide timeline makes it seem more like the Leaderless/Queen Alphys Neutral path, or a Genocide Route with Neutral route moments patched on. Route inconsistencies include the fact Undyne is apparently dealt a fatal blow with the first hit, but neither melts (Neutral Route) nor reforms into Undyne the Undying (Genocide Route).

"So I've Got A Question For You"

The video takes an interesting direction with the “so I have a question for you”3 part of the song. In TechnicalAntonym's video, Sans asks this as he sneaks up on Frisk in Snowdin Forest. Frisk, who has gone through the Neutral, Pacifist, and Genocide Routes in that order, turns around with tears in their eyes and hugs Sans in response. In that video, it seems Frisk's answer was “yes”, and Frisk has gone Pacifist because of Sans. (either because Frisk realized the error of their ways or just believed Sans was unbeatable)

In EnchantedMob(TM)'s video, Sans asks the question in a really (i.e., excessively) friendly way in the Judgment Hall while walking up to Frisk. His “so I have a question for you” dialogue seems to be replacing his “there's a glimmer of a good person inside you” dialogue as a friendly ploy to make Frisk stop fighting and make "his job a lot easier". (Who knows, Sans might have been genuinely offering to forgive Frisk...port-mortem) While the dialogue switch isn't perfectly accurate to the game, it counts as a Adaptation Distillation matched to the lyrics.

Frisk's response to Sans' question is to slash Sans, and as he dies, seemingly happy music plays. In this take, Frisk's answer to Sans' question seems to be “no”, or at least “I'm not willing to listen”. Frisk then proceeds to the throne room, and as any Undertale fan well-versed in the Genocide Route would know, from that point mercy is (literally) no longer an option and the world will be destroyed.

Frisk's different answer here re-contextualizes the seemingly happy background music at this point, emphasizing the hints of despair or desperation that chiptune conveys so well.

Scene Composition/Shots/Misc. Artistic Choices

The video’s flaws are so severe, it compares poorly to both EnchantedMob(TM)’s “Hard Drive” and TechnicalAntonym’s version of the song. (Which EnchantedMob(TM) hadn’t seen while making the video) Though predominantly bad, like a curate’s egg parts of it are excellent.

While EnchantedMob(TM) poorly depicted Sans' skeleton-ness in his eyebrows and mouth, there are some aspects they pulled off well. The way they designed Sans' hand (seen most obviously at 0:18) looks good, and could very well be the best way to depict a skeletal hand in this style. At 0:39-0:40, Sans' head swings a little faster than his body, but of course a cartoony skeleton could spin his skull around. It's such a minor detail I think most people wouldn't notice it, and it might even be a tiny animators' gaffe with a handy in-universe explanation.

The “fighting Lesser Dog” sequence (1:03 to 1:08) was animated well. It was an unexpected (but fitting) take to make it from the first-person perspective. 1:57-2:10 was also particularly well-animated and shot sequence.

The sequence where the screen is filled with 9999s and slashing curves is a good, abstract way to indicate the human’s rampage, though toothless-Sans bobbing about and over-expressing himself on the right is a big distraction.

The Judgment Hall is literally pixel-perfect: it looks great in CGI like this, and the zoom through the area at 1:55-1:57 was a tiny moment of perfection.

The left-to-right panning at 2:08 where Sans suddenly appears as the camera moves was an excellent portrayal of Sans' off-screen teleportation, though it is ruined by Sans' bad model and gorilla-like hunching.

The animation of Sans' bone bullets (2:26-2:36) looks a little off. I think it's the way they seem to "wiggle" midair; bones don't wiggle. They may have looked better if they manifested in the air, by Sans' shoulders, and then immediately shot after Frisk.

Sans spreading his arms out as he brings up some Gaster Blasters (2:38-2:40) was a bad choice. Sans never raises both hands while expressing magic; he's not a Mewtwo-like (Super Smash Bros depiction) Full Contact Magic user. If Sans' hands were in his pockets as the Gaster Blasters rose up, it would have looked both more menacing and more in-character.

As impressive as the Sans battle sequence is (though the Sans model and its expressions are a massive flaw) I do have a nitpick: Sans’ eye only flashes blue (and yellow; people often forget that) during his “strongest attack” (the first of his attacks) and his second-to-last attack. It's common for people to show Sans' eye as glowing all the time in the Genocide battle, or even just when angry or vengeful. I understand why it's overused: it's cool, and people might be too busy trying to survive his volley of attacks to pay attention to his expressions while he's attacking.

The technical aspects (animation, cinematography, color composition) of the ending shot from 3:43-3:52 was very good, even if Frisk's sashay-like walk was a little silly and more feminine than I'd like. (Though, who knows, perhaps all attempts to animate humans’ walk as realistically as possible in Minecraft style end up looking like a sashay)

Sans never manifests eyebrows, and his pupils do shrink in shock when finally hit in the Genocide Route battle. [Source] ↩︎

Battle scenes are always in black-and-white, except for rare color accents. Thus, monster dust seemingly being white may just be a product of the black-and-white style. No piles of monster dust are shown in the overworld, and its color isn’t mentioned. It’s just fan convention to depict it as grey/white, and it could easily be the same color as the monster it came from. That being said, I’d prefer depictions of grey/white monster dust to colorful monster dust. ↩︎

The in-game dialogue is actually "so, i've got a question for ya." Most of the time Sans uses "you", not "ya", so it's possible the songwriter mis-remembered it based on Sans' typical word choice. This is not a flaw: I just wanted to point it out for thoroughness's sake. ↩︎

#Undertale #sans #Frisk #EnchantedMob(TM)#EnchantedMob #TryHardNinja

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maiji · 6 years ago

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Tag game

Wooops I totally missed this in my notifications! I've definitely answered a few variations of this meme before, so BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME BY ME I have taken the liberty of adjusting most some of the questions if I’ve answered them before.

Tagged by: @taki-flower ^^ (thank you!)

(Nick)Name: Maiji

Most frequent typo I make of my own nickname: Nauhu, thanks to wrong home keys

My Zodiac sign, and a Zodiac sign I think is super cool for whatever reason: Gemini. I think Aquarius a super cool sign because it’s eccentric and idealist and humanitarian and COOL TO DRAW

Height I think I am VS height I actually am: I always think I’m like 5′6″ or something but I’m actually more like 5′4ish. (I never remember how tall I am so I keep a note with this information on my phone in case people ask lol)

Languages and levels:

English - fluent

Mandarin - fluent speaking, reading meh, writing lol omg what is that abomination you write like you’re in grade 3

Spanish - muy muy basic everything

Japanese - super basic everything (can read some kanji thanks to Chinese but not know the pronunciation in Japanese, can read katakana and hiragana but not necessarily know the meaning lmao)

French - super basic everything

3 fruits I like:

Bananas (but not necessarily banana-flavoured things)

Longan

Dragonfruit

3 smells I like:

Fresh air

Fresh laundry

Fresh books

3 colours I like:

Green - but not green green, I like greens that are more yellowy-green or sometime more bluey-green

Neutrals (greys, browns etc.) that defy easy classification

Black

3 fictional characters I would marry:

Hokushin (Yu Yu Hakusho). Also we’re already married

Kaoru Chujo (Tale of Genji)

Arikoto (Ooku)

A story involving me and candy I like: I used to love White Rabbit candy. When I was in high school (I think) I had a whole bag of it next to my bed. My bedroom was in the basement, and at some point the whole thing hardened into something inedible and/or I got so sick of it that I haven’t eaten any since. Although, I did have a white rabbit candy-flavoured ice cream from Wong’s Ice Cream much more recently. It was really good!! And they have vegan and gluten-free flavours too!!

If I could make a national or worldwide whatever day to celebrate something (e.g., Cat Day, Pancake Day etc.), what would it be? Comic Arts Day!

3 songs on repeat and why:

The Echo Game (House of Flying Daggers soundtrack) - it sounds badass and I like it when I’m working on/imagining fight sequences

To Die For (The Birthday Massacre) - it’s cool but not in your face, great music when I’m drawing or writing. And the lyrics are very evocative, so if I happen to pause and actually pay attention to them, it’s fantastic mood and inspiration.

Ai Shuuressha (Kosugi Juurouta & Horiuchi Kenyuu) - HOKUSHIN lmao

What’s a memorable dream you’ve had? The memory of this one still puts a smile on my face.

3 things on my bed (this question originally was “blankets I use to sleep” and my answer is always one. I KNOW IT’S MINDBLOWINGGGG RIGHT):

A ditto

A giant IKEA carrot

A neck pillow

A memory from a trip I really enjoyed: Going to Tamsui/Danshui with my mom the first time I returned to Taiwan as an adult. It was just a really lovely day trip that started off with one of the best meals ever, and strolling down the Old Street and drawing the views of the river and people-watching and listening to the security guard telling stories and watching the sun set.

Dream job: I didn’t change (I MEAN, ADJUST) this question because it actually made me reflect quite a bit. I used to say something ridiculous here, like travelling Taiwan eating food while drawing Yu Yu Hakusho doujinshi, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure I would want that to be my job even jf it were possible. In all honesty I’d say my dream job is one where I...

Work with people I like.

Have positive engagement - interest, enjoyment, achievement - the majority of the time. (Because even things I love can still frustrate me to the extreme, like art.)

Have, and am encouraged to have, the energy, passion, flexibility and time to work on my personal projects - art, comics, fandom, etc.

In short, I'm incredibly fortunate and privileged to be able to say I have my dream job right now. Everyone is different, but I personally don't relish the idea of having my own creative projects tied to the pressure of making money or being judged by other people's values of what is worthwhile. And I don't know if I'd love doing it all the time. Burnout is very real, and working in an industry where I do work with other creatives, plus my own hobby, I know so many professionals who almost never have the time or energy for their own projects.

My thoughts and feelings on this matter may change, but as I’ve written on this topic before, I've felt this way since I first realized what it was that I actually love about the things I love when I was in high school. And for me, that answer wasn’t “do it on demand" nor “have my livelihood rely on it”.

Go to the nearest book, pg 23 line 17: It’s actually page 711 because Grasses of Remembrance doesn’t start at page 1 lol. It’s right in the middle of a poem quotation and translation, so I’ll post the complete thing or it makes no sense.

Asa madaki / Okite zo mitsuru / Ume no hana / Yo no ma no kaze no / Ushirometasa ni (”Early in the morning / I arose and went to look / At the blossoming plum, / Uneasy over the weather / And what the night wind had done”)

- Prince Motoyoshi (SIS I:29), translation by Edwin Cranston

Have you ever had a song or poem written about you?: Yes, I have written many dumb ones and a long time ago I even recorded some with a sped-up chipmunk voice as silly jokes. They’re like 10 seconds or something like that. And every so often, because I never bothered deleting the files, they come up on my music library shuffle while I am working and I’m like WTF WAS THAT???????

My friends have probably written about me too, usually in our random chat conversations lol.

3 sounds I have a hard time with (I removed “hate” because it’s so strong to me lol):

Balloons squeaking against each other

Most high pitched scraping/squealing of objects against each other

Beijing opera vocals when I’m stuck in traffic and it’s hot so the window is down and the highest falsetto is blasting nonstop from a TV on the street right next to the car (I realize this this is very specific)

3 sounds I love:

Wind chimes

Ordinary background hum/presence of people going about life in a familiar space (at home, in the city, on a subway train, in a cafe, etc.)

Benign rustling sounds (e.g., grass and leaves in the wind, paper, soft breaths/whispers)

Do you believe in aliens?: TBH I don’t know. I find the idea interesting but I don’t spend enough time thinking about whether or not I believe in it.

Do you drive?: No.

What is the last book you read?: 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know by Ben Dupré

3 things I’m obsessed with:

Hokushin

Tale of Genji

Rocks

Do you hold grudges: Yeah!! I just don’t really do anything because I’m too busy/lazy. And then I forget. BUT SOMETIMES I REMEMBER

Tumblr URL generator - go to http://www.spinxo.com/tumblr-names and share your results.

SpyderHokushin? ???????

MaijiMaihem and HokkuHokushin are pretty good though. (Also HokushinMine made me laugh.)

If you didn’t like that one, try this one. https://www.mookychick.co.uk/games/tumblr-name-generator.php

Not bad. And is this why Hokushin has no hair

Tagging (Up to Ten People): Only if you want to do this, otherwise IGNORE @taki-flower if you wanna do this again with any of the questions I modified lol, @om-nom-berries, @llljjj, @sunhawk, @naomiknight-17 @iwroteyoualoveletter @logicheartsoul @totidem-verbis @syntheticsolitude @cjjoughin and YOU if your username or real name is up to 10 letters long! :D

#meme #hokushin #hokushin hokushin hokushin #lol #my life as a maiji #taki-flower #me

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joemuggs · 6 years ago

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Occupy the Dancefloor 2012

Been talking about politics in dance music a lot lately. Obviously the Bassiani protests in Tbilisi and Berlin have thrown it into relief, but there’s a lot of other vigorous discourse going on, both to do with the current age and in looking back 30 years to the “Summer of Love”. In thinking about it, I dug out this piece I wrote for Mixmag at the end of 2011, published in Jan 2012. I present it now without comment, except to say it’s pretty fascinating how much has changed in some ways and how little in others.

“The atmosphere was electric! I'd never felt such a concentrated positive energy before. People from every walk of life and background were united...”

It's the sort of quote you've probably seen in interviews with DJs a hundred times before, but this time we're not talking about the summer of '89 or any other hoary acid house reminiscence. This is Optimo's JD Twitch recounting his visit to the Occupy Wall Street encampment last summer.

2011 was a hell of a year by any standards, with conspiracies, scandals and crises at every turn. The Arab Spring and war in Libya, riots across the UK, Greece and Spain, Europe edging ever closer to economic collapse, the hackgate scandals, public services being cut to ribbons by a government of comically posh pantomime villains... it seemed sometimes we've had a decade's worth of news all in one go, and it shows no sign that things are going to calm down any time soon. Quite the opposite, in fact – by the time this issue hits the shops, we're fully ready for a couple of small nuclear wars to have broken out and the Euro to have been replaced as currency by peanut M&Ms.

But what's all this got to do with Mixmag? Ravers generally go their own merry way, right? Switch the news off, pull the curtains tighter to blank out the dawn, turn up the music and crack on – leave the politics to Bono? Well, yes and no. The Occupy movement, which sprung up in cities across the western world to demand accountability from institutions in response to the banking crisis that underpins much of the chaos in the world today, has not had much vocal support from the clubbing world – until more recently.

In December Massive Attack's 3D curated a show with Thom Yorke and Tim Goldsworthy (ex LCD Soundsystem), and has been putting up online a series of mix sets by the likes of Horsemeat disco, all in support of the Occupy movement. And a glance at occupymusicians.com shows a small but steadily increasing number of dance DJs and producers among the indie bands and experimentalists standing up and being counted. So is clubland developing a social conscience?

Maybe it's just that we're remembering that dance is not a bubble separated off from the world after all. Professor John Street, author of the new book Music and Politics, points out that “from the 1920s when US sheriffs would issue decrees about how couples could dance together, to rock'n'roll and the scandal of how teenagers reacted tot he music, and on through rave, the powers that be have been as exercised by the performance of dance in crowds as they ever have by the lyrics of songs.” That is to say, the simple self expression of dancing can be as much of a political act as any protest song, and indeed can have more effect.

Trance deity Paul Van Dyk, himself no stranger to political activity, is clear too that losing it on the dancefloor doesn't mean losing touch with wider realities; perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who grew up in oppressive Communist East Germany, he believes the freedoms we enjoy should be trumpeted from the rooftops. “People, artists, movements can be hedonistic and free spirited,” he says, “but also speak out and make a statement of the fact that this is a more tolerant and respectful group than many others in society.”

The author Tim Lawrence, who has closely studied the roots of modern dance culture going back to the start of the disco era, concurs. “I just don't accept that going out clubbing is self-absorbed,” he insists. “Sitting at home and looking in the mirror is self-absorbed. Going out with friends and engagement in a physical activity that only works if everyone participates and contributes is an act of socialising and community. If we stay at home and watch TV all the time we're saying one thing about the kind of society we want to be part of. If we go out dancing, we're saying another thing. Dancing is political.”

Matt Black of Ninja Tune founders Coldcut goes further, but sounds a note of caution. “Yes, people commune and collaborate through dance events,” he agrees, “and often they share an interest in making the world better, in social justice – but as with everything that gives people pleasure that culture is very easily hijacked by those who want to make a quick buck. Cocaine becomes involved, egos become involved, and very quickly you lose touch with the constructive spirit that was so inspiring in the first place.”

“But,” he continues, “that's maybe part of the natural cycle of things. The punk of today becomes the suit of tomorrow, the spirit of rebellion wears off somewhat. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though: I think there are probably a lot of people in ordinary jobs now who still carry the inspiration of acid house and rave with them, and when they see something like the Occupy movement, they think 'yes, that's something I understand and can get behind' because they know that feeling of being part of something bigger.”

It's not just old ravers carrying the inspiration of the past forward though. Many in the dubstep generation are aware of the power of dance music's communality, its deep roots, and the potential this has for social action. Loefah, as co-founder of Brixton's DMZ night is one of the most important figures in the growth of dubstep and all that's followed. His diverse Swamp 81 label is named after the police operation that sparked the original Brixton riots 30 years ago – but he stops short of making direct political statements, instead preferring to use the networks of art and music to deliver coded messages, not preaching but drawing people in and allowing them to make their own conclusions.

“When I was a teenager,” says Loefah, “pirate radio and white labels were everything, and as you got more and more into it, you began to understand the culture. Then when I went to the jungle raves, you'd become a part of this community, meeting the people you'd heard shout outs to on the radio, and you get something from it that's impossible to explain unless you're there but it's powerful and it's not controlled by any authorities. It might sound elitist, but it's not: anyone could be a part of it, but you have to make the effort to find out and understand it.”

Ben UFO, DJ and founder of the Hessle Audio label, is emphatic that the communities created in this way post jungle, garage, dubstep and grime are politically important. “Dance music in London especially,” he says, “has always provided a space for people from all sorts of different class backgrounds, different races, genders and identities to come together for a common purpose and communicate with each other - this is quite radical in itself, and I think it's easy to forget that. A good example of this is the multitude of conversations facilitated by music in the aftermath of the riots this summer, with my whole Twitter timeline dominated by the riots as they were happening and afterwards. Likewise a radio station like Rinse FM preserving and archiving a record of music made, presented and distributed by young, predominantly working class kids is a hugely significant thing in its own right.”

So club music IS political, even when it's not trying to be. But are we on the verge of it becoming more so, of ravers voicing resistance to entrenched power alongside the Occupy protesters? Don't count on it – after all, the instinct to close the curtains and chop out another line is still strong. US journalist, music business expert and Occupy LA campaigner Giovanna Trimble sadly points out that dance acts who may pay lip-service to anti-establishment views are slower when it comes to turning out for protests or organising benefits. “I have not seen any support from electronic dance music acts,” she says, “especially the ones who identify themselves as political beings.”

The opportunities are there, though. Trimble still holds out hope: “I feel that of all genres, EDM has the most space for activism as the demographic is far more open-minded and less 'corrupted' by corporations.” And veteran German house singer Billie Ray Martin sums up exactly why getting bodies out on the street is powerful just as “the mass feeling of possibility and power that the height of house in '88 and onwards” had produced for her. “We've lived in a time of virtual socialising,” she says, “and it's all very fake. it's easy to click 'like' on a post that says 'do you want to personally go out and change the world?' and then move on the latest video on there and not even ever think about why you clicked 'like'. I wish we would go out on the streets and shout it out – and that's where Occupy comes in. I hope it gains the kind of power it deserves. I'm there all the way. 'Like'!”

#politics #rave #acid house #techno #protest #lgbtq #georgia #bassiani #occupy

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 7: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision episode 7 spoilers and potential spoilers for future episodes and the wider MCU.

WandaVision episode 7 is probably the final episode that is going to adhere to the sitcom format. As we’ve seen in recent episodes, the show is spending more and more time in the confines of the “real” MCU, and with its TV homages now brought up to modern day, it can spend its final two episodes bringing more surprises and wrapping up its incredibly ambitious story.

But WandaVision episode 7 is ambitious enough in itself, and like previous episodes, it’s positively full of Marvel Comics Easter eggs and pieces that will likely expand the scope of the MCU as we know it.

Let’s see what we found…

Sitcom Influences

This episode takes WandaVision up to the mockumentary era of television, which featured shows like The Office (U.K. and U.S.), Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family. Characters routinely talk to producers offscreen in confessional-style interviews. The Vision’s microphone is even visible in one instance, clipped to the chest.

The episode draws most of its inspiration and look from Modern Family, probably merely because the premise of Wanda’s “modern family” fits more closely to Westview than an office environment would. The Office does get a major shoutout in the twee opening credits though.

We wrote more about the sitcom influences of this episode here.

Wanda

Wanda wakes up still wearing most of her “Sokovian fortune teller” costume from Halloween, so this episode takes place on Nov. 1st, the morning after the previous episode. Elsewhere in the episode, we learn that just about the entire scope of what we’ve seen (other than flashbacks to Monica’s return from “The Blip”) has taken place over one week.

“Don’t let him make you the villain,” Monica pleads with Wanda. There is some legit commentary here. Assorted “hims” have been making Wanda the villain of her own story since John Byrne did it with a run on West Coast Avengers in the late 1980s. We remain unconvinced that Wanda is actually a malevolent force.

Of course Wanda’s weakness is someone asking her to kill them. That’s where a big chunk of her recent trauma comes from!

The cereal Wanda is fetching in the kitchen at the start of the episode is called Sugar Snaps, though you’d think Wanda would have had quite enough of Snaps. It also had a clown on the box! In the previous episode, Wanda turned a bunch of SWORD agents into clowns. The cereal’s name is also a subtle anachronism, lots of cereals used to prominently have “Sugar” in their names before they were replaced with more innocuous words like “honey” or “corn.”

The Commercial: Nexus

As usual, the fake commercials have a lot going on, and this one for an antidepressant known as Nexus is no different.

The Nexus of All Realities is a magical area in Marvel that acts as a gateway to various other dimensions. In the comics, it’s located in a swamp in New Orleans and is guarded by the mute creature Man-Thing.

Wanda herself is also a Nexus Being. It is incredibly convoluted, but the shortest explanation possible that doesn’t involve telling you about the time John Byrne quit Avengers West Coast mid-storyline for being edited is: Wanda’s probability altering powers make her capable of altering the future, even once it’s set. That allows Wanda to change the paths that would lead to the creation of, for example, the Time Keepers we saw statues of in the Loki trailer.

At Agnes’ house, Billy and Tommy are watching Yo Gabba Gabba on and they’re singing “Jumpy Jump” though “Puppet Master” would have been more on the nose. “Jumpy Jump” might just be a hint that The Hex is a Nexus multiversal jump point.

There’s another potential Nexus connection, too. NEXUS is where Tony found JARVIS in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

We wrote more about the Marvel significance of “Nexus” here.

Billy and Tommy

Billy and Tommy, like most kids their age, seem to love video games. Since this episode is modeled after Modern Family (2009), it makes sense that they’re playing games on the Nintendo Wii console, the Japanese publisher’s main platform from 2006 to 2012.

But the sudden shifts in reality mean that the Wii doesn’t stay a Wii for long. We watch as Billy and Tommy’s Wiimotes transform into GameCube controllers (2001) and then Atari 2600 joystick controllers (1977), both of which seem to fit the eras in which previous episodes of WandaVision are set.

Both of the boys continue to wear their comic book colors. Tommy’s not just wearing green like his “Speed” alter ego, but he’s straight up wearing a tracksuit.

The Darkhold?

It appears that Agatha is keeping the Darkhold in her basement. Well, it WOULD if it weren’t for the fact that this book looks very different from the way that it was represented on Marvel TV shows like Agents of SHIELD or Runaways.

But if it WERE the Darkhold, this incredibly powerful book would have been written by Chthon, a demon/elder god who has figured prominently in various Wanda and Agatha Harkness stories over the years. It’s said that this book is what created the first vampire (hmmmm…the MCU does have a Blade movie in the works), created werewolves (surely it’s only a matter of time before Werewolf by Night shows up…on the upcoming Moon Knight series, perhaps), and more. If the MCU is going down a more supernatural route for some of its future installments, then the Darkhold would be a key piece of that.

But again, this looks very different than the Darkhold we’ve seen on these other shows.

Reed Richards…you coming or what?

Still no sign of the mysterious “aerospace engineer,” but does the mockumentary/sitcom tone this episode shares with The Office tease John Krasinski’s arrival as Reed Richards?

Monica Rambeau

The official uniform Monica is wearing under her space suit looks very much like some of the outfits she has worn in various superheroic identities in the comics, including when she was Captain Marvel. It’s appropriate since this episode is another big step in her superheroic origin story, and now there’s no more question that she’s gaining powers from her repeated trips through the Hex.

It’s almost certainly Monica’s new powers that allow her to make it through the Hex this time, and when she comes out she can see energy patterns and signatures.

Monica sticks the trademark “Superhero Landing” when she’s confronting Wanda. As Deadpool will attest, it’s really hard on your knees. Totally impractical, but they all do it.

When Agnes is dragging Wanda into her house, Wanda points at Monica and the whole thing is framed like the “two ladies yelling at the white cat” meme. Impossible to unsee. Fun fact: the white cat’s real name is Smudge.

Contact

Monica’s journey through The Hex pays homage to the special effects technique Robert Zemeckis used in the wormhole sequence for 1997’s Contact. During the scene in question, versions of Jodie Foster’s face appear to ghost out from her body, voicing her internal thoughts and memories. By the time Monica emerges from the Hex barrier, she is “ok to go” as a superpowered being.

Contact’s central character, Ellie Arroway, is a woman who has lost her whole family but suppresses her grief and feels all alone in the universe. Can’t see a WandaVision connection here, no sir!

Is this just a tribute to the cult Zemeckis sci-fi movie or is there more to it? Maybe those wondering if the mysterious aerospace engineer will turn out to be Blue Marvel/Mister Fantastic/Doctor Doom have never considered Contact star Matthew McConaughey as a possibility for one of the latter two roles? We might remind you he’s been desperate for a part in the MCU for years.

Wundagore

Did we see a flash of a Wundagore Everbloom when the plants in Wanda’s house were changing? In Marvel Comics, the Everbloom was a wedding present from Agatha Harkness to Wanda and Vision, and only grows on Wundagore Mountain (where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were raised). It lets you see the future if you put a dab leaf on your tongue.

The fact that whatever this is seems to have taken over the basement makes us think of the Yo Magic commercial from last week, which implied that someone (or something) is perhaps feeding off Wanda’s powers.

Agatha Harkness

Agnes is finally revealed as Agatha Harkness in this episode, complete with an absolutely perfect theme song. The brilliant “Agatha All Along” tune is absolutely a pastiche of the Munsters theme, only with lyrics.

At the end of the song, “And I killed Sparky too!” is a good take on the infamous Wizard of Oz Wicked Witch line, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!”

This show has been about Wanda finding her own agency through pain and about counterpointing all the misogyny in her history. For it to be Agnes manipulating her would be a betrayal of the point of the show so far. Not only that, in the comics, Agatha Harkness is generally depicted as an ally of Wanda’s. So we’re betting that “It was Agatha all along” is a red herring, and either Agatha is also being manipulated by an outside force, or Wanda is just putting that villainy on her without knowing the whole story.

Read all our speculation about who the REAL WandaVision villain is here.

In the comics, Agatha’s familiar is a cat named Ebony. Her rabbit being named “Senor Scratchy” is enough of a nod to that while also referencing Agatha’s evil son Nicholas Scratch.

While Agnes was able to trick Vision by pretending to be another victim driven insane by being in the Hex, Billy is unknowingly able to see past that by noticing that there isn’t any psychic pain underneath her performance.

Agnes’ brooch is clearly visible in all of the shots of her. That brooch has three sisters on it, but we still don’t know what it means. It feels so prominent that it has to mean something, though.

The Post Credits Scene

Wanda is pretty certain that the “Uncle Peter” we met in the previous episodes is most certainly not her brother. The Agatha reveal would seem to back this up, as does his kind of menacing presence (“snoopers gonna snoop”) in the post-credits scene. But if he isn’t Pietro Maximoff, then who the heck is he?

We have some theories here.

Random Stuff and Unanswered Questions

When we saw the first flashback to the borders of the Hex expanding, the drums sound a little bit like The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” We can’t be sure, though…so we’re not putting this down as a Mephisto clue. THIS TIME.

In the middle of the intro, one of the screens says in cut-up letters, “I know what u are doing Wanda.” Creepy.

As Darcy chats Vision through his past, she tells him she’s been watching WandaVision for the past week. We’ve been watching it a lot longer than that, Miss Lewis, and we’re still not sure what’s really going on.

The calendar in the intro has a heart over the 10th, but the first episode had it over the 23rd. Probably means nothing, but worth thinking about.

Right after Agnes leads Wanda away from the conversation with Monica, we see Dennis the mailman wearing a logo that says “Presto.” Perfect exclamation considering who Agnes is and what she was trying to do in that scene. Also, with Presto being an Amazon knockoff, the logo appears to be a rabbit running.

We’re looking, but so far we’ve been unable to find a Marvel Comics parallel for Major Goodner.

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

At the circus, the butterfly lady on the unicycle looks a little bit like the X-Men‘s Dark Phoenix.

Spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 7: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

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

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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urscottsdale · 7 years ago

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1-100 😌

1:when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? i rarely eat cereal but i think i usually balance them pretty equally or try to lol

2:do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? i love it as long as im all bundled up

3:what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? usually the closest piece of paper i can find

4:how do you take your coffee/tea? with lots of sugar 😏

5:are you self-conscious of your smile? very

6:do you keep plants? nope

7:do you name your plants? nada

8:what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? writing and music

9:do you like singing/humming to yourself? sometimes

10:do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? all of the above

11:what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? no friends, no jokes other than maybe im the quiet one

12:what’s your favorite planet? pluto

13:what’s something that made you smile today? my dog

14:if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? my room: messy, theirs: clean

15:go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! uranus is tilted on its side 😉

16:what’s your favorite pasta dish? spaghetti

17:what color do you really want to dye your hair? blue

18:tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. idk tbh

19:do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? i dont

20:what’s your favorite eye color? brown eyes 😍

21:talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. who comes up with these questions? bc i dont have a favorite bag

22:are you a morning person? no i hate mornings

23:what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? listen to music

24:is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? theres a couple, one doesnt know it tho

25:what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? never broken into anywhere lol

26:what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? vanz

27:what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? mint

28:sunrise or sunset? sunset

29:what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? randomly checking up on me and actually meaning it when they say they care

30:think of it: have you ever been truly scared? a handful of times yes

31:what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. love socks and wearing them, dont sleep in them and i have an assortment of colors bc white is boring

32:tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. there was this time i went out drinking with my friend after graduation, these two guys were hitting on her after she called them gay (even bought us drinks), my friend is gay so that was interesting lol

33:what’s your fave pastry? doughnuts

34:tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? winnie the pooh and hell yes i still have it

35:do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? love them but never use them

36:which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? backstreet boys

37:do you like keeping your room messy or clean? i like keeping it clean but it tends to stay messy lol

38:tell us about your pet peeves! i have too many pet peeves tbh

39:what color do you wear the most? blue and maroon (not together tho)

40:think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? cross necklace is self-explanatory, dog tag necklace i got from my parents so it holds a special meaning to me

41:what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? to kill a mockingbird

42:do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! starbucks…

43:who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? lol one of my friends back in like 5th grade

44:when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? summer and winter breaks in high school

45:do you trust your instincts a lot? yup

46:tell us the worst pun you can think of. sex while camping is fucking in tents ;)

47:what food do you think should be banned from the universe? most kinds of fish

48:what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? being alone, and yes actually

49:do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? yes but i cant remember tbh. most i have were gifted to me.

50:what’s an odd thing you collect? keys

51:think of a person. what song do you associate with them? @thisvanessa - count on me by bruno mars

52:what are your favorite memes of the year so far? im pretty sure ive never seen a meme i didnt love so. the spongebob one is pretty good tho.

53:have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? i wish i could tell u

54:who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? my dog lol

55:what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? idk im pretty passive aggressive so i do a lot lol

56:what are some things you find endearing in people? same as earlier, randomly checking up on me and also saying they miss me

57:go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? nope

58:who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? my ex friend is the wine mom and idk maybe im the vodka aunt lol

59:what’s your favorite myth? the earth is flat

60:do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? yess langston hughes and edgar allan poe

61:what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? cant think of any tbh, maybe the dancing chicken that used to be passed around for years in my family

62:do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? orange juice and cran-grape juice

63:are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? i just leave them be

64:what color is the sky where you are right now? gray

65:is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? yes

66:what would your ideal flower crown look like? idk not big on flower crowns

67:how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? i love them so much

68:what’s winter like where you live? hot with a random cold day here and there

69:what are your favorite board games? wahoo/marbles, sorry, candyland, pretty much all of them lol

70:have you ever used a ouija board? nope

71:what’s your favorite kind of tea? sweet tea

72:are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? yes but im also too lazy to note things so i end up forgetting a lot

73:what are some of your worst habits? procrastination

74:describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. beautiful, bubbly, cute, always smiling even tho i know they r sad deep down

75:tell us about your pets! small, black fur ball full of energy

76:is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? so many things

77:pink or yellow lemonade? pink

78:are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? neither im a minion dc club

79:what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? idk told me i give them butterflies or get nervous when talking to me

80:what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? i think they r an off white an bc my apartment landlord wont let me change them lol

81:describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. dark pools of chocolate

82:are/were you good in school? i was alright could of been better if i wasnt so lazy

83:what’s some of your favorite album art? never thought about that maybe something justin bieber has done

84:are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? i want to but im not sure tbh

85:do you read comics? what are your faves? nope

86:do you like concept albums? which ones? yes theres a lot

87:what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? high school musical

88:are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? yes

89:are you close to your parents? yes

90:talk about your one of you favorite cities. im pretty sure i could never get tired of nyc

91:where do you plan on traveling this year? i successfully did not travel anywhere this year, thank you bank account ur the best

92:are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? drown it in cheese

93:what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? short hair, short on the sides and longer on top

94:who was the last person you know to have a birthday? me

95:what are your plans for this weekend? lazy days

96:do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? procrastination is my middle name

97:myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? INFP, scorpio and hufflepuff

98:when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? i dont think ive ever been hiking but i want to

99:list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. over and over again by tim mcgraw, make you miss me by sam hunt, remember when by alan jackson, unhinged by nick jonas, chainsaw by nick jonas, untitled by simple plan and welcome to my life by simple plan

100:if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? damn thats a really hard one. probably the future tbh.

#thisvanessa #answered

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manmanloi · 5 years ago

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Reflection on Comics Production

As a MLitt student, taking the Comics Production module was a challenging yet meaningful experience. For starters, I have never learned how to draw nor how to use visual editing tools. I did not take the Creating Comics module in the previous semester nor any course on scriptwriting. In other words, I am just a beginner to the comic scene. Therefore, I was thrilled when the module started.

On the first day of the semester, we were given the task to write our own script entry for a 2000AD competition. I did not expect the first thing I do for this class was to produce a story independently, with no prior sessions on how comic scripts work or how to write a comic story. Upon learning about the project, my classmates started to discuss on their ideas right away while I was still worrying about how to make a story. Taking the direction of science fiction, I began to look for inspiration…

Back in December, I went to Denmark and visited a science fiction exhibition in the Brandts, an art museum in Odense. The exhibition content was richer than I thought, ranging from the themes of dinosaur, earth’s core, under the sea, space, Egypt myth, alien, cyborg, superhero, utopia/dystopia, etc. It showcased re-imagined props, models, landscape designs, books, and movie clips. I found them intriguing and useful for brainstorming and visualizing some early ideas for the comic. The exhibition showed how much potential the science fiction genre can offer to widen the scope of storytelling. I really like the idea of robots are evolving and blending in our lives. It makes me question the difference between humans and machines. I decided to include robotic characters that disguise as humans in the story.

Picture from The Painted Skin (2008).

Picture of K/DA Ahri from League of Legends by Riot Games.

I had the idea of modernizing a Chinese folktale, The Painted Skin, as a monster disguises herself as a beautiful woman to lure men and rip their hearts out as her meals to maintain her façade. Similarly, Ahri, a character from my favourite game League of Legends, is a nine-tailed fox from the Asian folklore who also has to absorb human essence in order to stay in her mortal form. In the game’s alternate universe, Ahri is part of a virtual music group “K/DA” made by Riot Games to promote a set of in-game skins. I was hoping to create an intergalactic band like the “K/DA” that travels across the planets to perform, but they are actually robots that have been sucking out the happiness from their audience to become more like humans.

Whenever they perform live, their music would absorb the enthusiasm from the crowd, leaving them depressed and lifeless. However, their music is not strong enough to manipulate strong and deep emotions. As a literature student, I believe that only humans are capable of writing literary pieces that can truly move the others. Therefore, I introduced a poet as the main protagonist who goes around with his poems. One day, a band member took the poet’s collection and decided to turn his poem into a song. In the end, when the band performed it, the song was so genuine and powerful that it drove the audience crazy and killing themselves. This would grant the robots so much “human energy”.

In mid-February, Monty dropped by the studio to give the class some advice on the project. I showed him the synopsis and he pointed out that the protagonist does not really have a motive. He suggested me to write more about the poet and his active investigation into the band. He explained this would allow the readers to attach and follow the poet around to participate in the discovery of the truth together. By the time the secret is revealed, it will have a bigger impact.

However, I could not think of any legitimate reason for a poet to wander around the band to do investigation. And I do not have any poetic verse on my mind to put into the lyrics to show how “powerful” these poems are. Therefore, I realized this character is not suitable for my comic anymore. I changed his character to a detective which I believe it has a more reasonable motive to get suspicious over the band and can carry out some form of investigation.

I amended the synopsis to the following:

“Following a detective who connects the mystery of increasing depression rate to the intergalactic music band Soulstealers, he investigates before the band is going to perform on his planet. During his talk with the band members, he leaves his poetry collection to them as they are interested in it. After a surreal experience at the concert, he is diagnosed with depression as well.

“At the clinic, he is told an ancient folktale of the Painted Skin, where a monstrous creature had to consume human hearts to maintain its disguise as a beautiful woman. He becomes determined that the band is going to threaten the galaxy with their music, but no one believes in him.

“The band releases a new song in the final planet of their tour which results in a mass suicide of the audience. The members are impressed with the effect of the new song as they acknowledged the poetry collection as their inspiration to produce music that can suck out the most human emotions possible. Unzipping their skins in the backstage, they reveal themselves as robots, who are trying to become humans.”

As my plot was becoming a sound story, I began to work on the scriptwriting and drawing thumbnails. I honestly had no idea on how to start writing a script and what a thumbnail is. All I knew about script is the Courier font. I felt helpless – there was no workshops or lessons on planning out a story or putting pen to paper. In a desperate move, I decided I would try to learn them by myself. I went to the library to look for books on writing comic scripts. I found a book by Peter David called Writing for Comics & Graphic Novels which I thought would be perfect to helping me out!

In the book, I have learned about the Marvel style and the full script style. I have learnt that the speech balloons are mostly kept “anchored” (148). When naming the characters, the book suggests linking up words associated to the characters, to find some cultural references related to these traits and to create some social scenarios to build up their personalities (on how they would react). I named the two of the band members Maria and HALi, which are references to Maria the robot from Metropolis (1927) and the HAL the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Following the guidelines, I wrote the first page for my comic and doodled some thumbnails alongside with dialogues, so I could pair them with the right amount of words in each panel:

In mid-March, the class had a meeting at the studio where we got the chance to let our instructor, Phil, to check on our works. Besides approving my story, Phil commented that the formatting of my script was not very common as I named each panel by alphabetical order like the book did. Therefore, I updated the script in the correct format and started to draw the thumbnails properly. With the rundown of the story in mind, I drew the thumbnails, then updated my script on top of that. In this way, I could make sure each panel can include the right amount of information.

When visualizing the idea, I took inspiration from a newly-released Netflix sci-fi anthology – Love, Death + Robots. In one of the episodes, Good Hunting, it involves a nine-tailed fox/ “huli jing” (wicked fox lady in Chinese). The setting is in a steampunk colonial Hong Kong, which is my hometown. In the end, the fox lady infused her ancient magic with modern technology and became a robotic nine-tailed fox to hunt men. This is a perfect source for my story as it also references to the fox folktale and having charming performers revealing themselves as robots. I just thought the episode is stunning and amazing and see so much potential in my story as well.

Picture from Good Hunting in Love, Death + Robots (2019).

My classmate, Thanos, told me he would scan his hand-drawn thumbnails and edit them on Photoshop. I do not know how to edit drawn images on Photoshop. Therefore, I used the Comic Life 3 software that my professor has recommended me, to make my own framing for the panels. I printed the frames out, and drew on top of it by hand, then scanned them in again to become my final thumbnails. I have also shown my thumbnails to the MDes students, to see if they could understand my instruction through an artist’s perspective. Tony gave me some suggestions on the speech balloon placements and reading orders.

After updating the script, I have sent my work to my fellow MLitt students in the course, so we could cross-check each other’s work and exchange feedback. One of the advices from Thanos was to add a defining font for the band in the comic so to act as a branding and leaving visual hints of their robotic natures. Story-wise, they told me to add more clues, foreshadowing and explanation that the band has to consume human emotions gathered from their live performances. In terms of writing, Holly suggested me to proofread on my grammar as I sometimes describe the scene with present tense but sometimes with past tense.

After receiving feedback from my classmates, I moved on to finalizing my script. I ran through my work to Cam Kennedy when he dropped by the studio. I was so glad and relieved when he said that my story was well-presented. Encouraged by his words, I referenced the formats of my classmates and did one last amendment to the script and added the synopsis in the cover.

Looking back on the project, I am quite satisfied with what I wrote, given that this is my first time writing a comic script. When writing for each panel, I just knew how much contents to include. I realized that this could be a difficult step as my fellow classmate Holly had to cut down some exposition. I think this might be something that I am good at and should focus on improving this skill as my strength. On the other hand, character design, formatting and grammar are something that I should pay more attention to. I am grateful for Monty’s advice about the character’s motive and Holly’s help on proofreading the grammar of my writing. I wish I could have spent more time researching for comic scripts in the archive so to catch up with the script formats.

The second project in the module began as we were invited to the V&A Dundee during the second week of the semester. The class visited the V&A exhibition together and I felt like we were on a field trip which was very fun. Until we were told to make our own webcomic for the V&A website, in which they did not provide any “MLitt exception” like the scriptwriting option for the 2000AD project. I was devastated and felt helpless once again. I suggested to write an article by interviewing my class when they are producing their webcomics. Chris then suggested: “how about you make a comic on making the comics!” Phil also suggested that I can incorporate real life photos with the comics by visual editing tools. I began to ask my MDes classmates if they would be willing to help me to do some extra drawings and interviews.

A week later, the V&A Dundee staff came to listen to our ideas. My idea was to interview my classmates on making their webcomics at different stages of the project. When I told them my plan, it sounded very vague because I did not have any visual support to visualize the comic. Phil told me about a software called Comic Life which provides templates and visual aids for making a comic. The V&A staff reminded me to make the contents accessible to everyone – by explaining the context of the project and using easier phrases instead of comic jargons. After that, I tried out the programme and made the decision of making four issues of comics consisting of four panels each.

In order to give a sense of what it would look like, I mocked up two issues for the presentation. I edited my personal photos and placed them on some photos I have taken at the V&A and the DJCAD studio as the background. I wanted the photos to look like they were “drawn” so I processed them with different filters. Here are some slides I have presented:

After getting the approval and some advice for the presentation, I began to have small talks with my classmates and checking on them in the studio. I tried to take notes of who has material that is suitable for each of the issues, hence allocating them in different issues and reaching out to ask them for one piece of cartoon-style portrait of themselves. I was a bit worried if they would reject me since this means taking some of their extra time to draw and interview for me. Luckily, they were all on board and excited to see the idea comes to life.

I dropped by the studio for a week after the class is done with the 2000AD project so I could interview my classmates and took photos of their working areas. One of the difficulties for me was paraphrasing my classmates’ answers as I did not want to fill the whole panel with words without stripping away the gist of their words. I was worried about not following the unspoken rule of keeping each bubble under 25 words. However, I realized that the nature of this comic is more like a comic essay, so it makes sense to have more words.

The rest of my work was rather simple: I just had to wait for my classmates to submit their drawings to me, process their works and edited them to match the composition of each panel. I decided to unify the colour format of the comic to orange and blue which was inspired by the V&A Dundee website’s colour scheme.

When the V&A staff came by the studio for a final checking, they told me to amend the branding by using the full title of “V&A Dundee.” Phil asked me to adjust the speech bubbles so the words would not get so close to the edges. I tried to change the shape of the bubbles from circles to squares and changed the font from “Antihero Intl BB” to “Digital Strip.” By doing so, the gaps in the bubbles were widen while not covering up too much space of the overall panels. However, during the final presentation, Phil reminded me that this issue was still very visible and told me to use Photoshop to edit the lettering properly. Rayne kindly took me to the library and showed me how to do the work as I worried that it would “squeeze” the words as I resize them. Apparently, if I hold “shift,” I could adjust the size of the words in proportion which was a very helpful tip!

While working on this project, I really tried to capture all the important bits of the process and show the readers what it is like to make a comic. I wanted to do justice for all my classmates who helped me – to let them show their efforts and brilliant ideas behind each panel and to keep my webcomic as a record for the class to remember. Collaborating with the V&A Dundee was a really big deal and would look great on my resume so I wanted to give all I can offer to this project. There were many first-times in this project and seeing my comic coming together as a whole really surprised me for how far I have come. I have learned the spirit of “never say no” and be brave to give everything a try – luckily, my classmates were kind and patient to teach me through my mistakes and instructors gave me some helpful advice along the way.

The third project is the logo design which marks my first time of using Illustrator. I did not plan to make my own brand, so I did not have anything on my mind for a logo. The only thing I had been working on for this module was the blog so I decided to make a logo for the blog – Man Man Loi. It is a Romanized English for the Cantonese words 漫慢來 with the literal meaning for each word being “comic,” “slow,” and “come” respectively. I named my blog this way to symbolize my journey through this module – taking small steps in learning new skills and progress as a comic student. The phrase can mean “take it slow” in English. I believe in the attitude of “patient work makes a fine product” which comes from a Chinese idiom. If I ever take this brand to my work in the future, I would like it to represent my attitude in working as an editor with this belief.

Since the phrase is related to “taking steps,” I wanted to use stairs as the shape of the logo which symbolizes stepping upwards to the goal. Since reading English text is from top left towards the right hand side, the original line up of the words would read in a descending manner which did not match the concept of stepping up. Therefore, I changed the starting point of the words from the bottom left. There were also scrapped designs of a stick figure walking up the stairs or the dot of the “i” bouncing upwards. However, they looked ridiculous with my ammeter Illustrator skills and did not really help to signal the motion of going upwards. Therefore, I decided to keep it simple and only showed the English and Chinese words on a pink staircase. For the Chinese words, I struggled between placing the words on the stairs or on one side vertically so I asked my friends and they all prefer the latter one.

All in all, I cannot believe that I have made it through this module. Every task was a new challenge that sounded so impossible for me in the first place. Everything was very over-whelming for me and I had a tough time adapting to them. I remember something Phil told the MLitt students in the beginning: “Don’t let your limitation limits you.” These words pushed me forward to accept these challenges and I have come to realize that my limitations opened new ideas for me as well. For example, if it was not for the “no MLitt exception” in the V&A Dundee project, I would not have thought of making a comic about making comics! These experiences encouraged me to try new things and not be afraid to ask for help. I kept asking my classmates along the way and they were all very nice: doing an extra drawing for me, spending time to do an interview, teaching me on how to use different programs, reviewing my works etc. I have realized that my classmates are my biggest assets and I am forever grateful for that.

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