#learning old fandom stuff is interesting and thinking about the contrast between then and today will ALWAYS get me roarin

[rabble-dabble]

i have recently gotten into johnkat and johndave (yes i do hate myself). i know there is a ton of hs backstory and fandom drama i will never know about, but can you maybe explain why there seems to be so much disdain for my ships? i'm sure the short answer is d*vekat, but it also seems like people don't like my son john. 😢

hmmm, i dunno if i can explain past anything a few years ago seeing as i wasn't there before, like, 2016, but i can explain my best from interpretation and i can tell you about currently!! it seems like historically, johnkat and johndave started kinda sitting on the fandom backburner around the time the Vriskagram animation came out and "confirmed" canon interpretation of davekat (although we should never let canon get in the way of anything fun!!) and, of course common in every fandom, there were pledges of shippers against other ships that weren't theres (i would say the john/karkat/dave triangle is certainly so...temmie would say we should just let em all kiss lmao) so years of rising tension and already established ships, along with the fact nothing was ever "confirmed" but always hinted at is at least a quick summary of the history (to my brief understanding).

More recently, if we include the epilogues and the drama surrounding literally everything about hs, there are two key reasons these ships currently may be subjected to hate: 1, homestuck suggested and the epilogues dubiously confirmed davekat and hs^2 continues to be a drama-esque unsubstaining 2015 4k sadstuck fic around any lgbt+ topic, so theres that, and 2, with the rise of June Egbert and her more vocal image in the fandom today, there are a lot of people who believe "John" is now a character that invalidates and is transphobic to June's image (which, my followers have most likely seen why this is incorrect! We should support everyone <3) so shipping "John"dave or "John"kat is seen as trans misogynistic (prejudice against trans women) by those who may divulge into content about the egbertian charmer; including ships! And, perhaps there's a little more or less to it that I'm unaware of and/or forgot to mention, but I believe this is more or less the reasonings about why john/dave or kat is now disliked or less common within our fandom (nowadays).

I guess a few other surface reasons to have contributed would be things such as the changing culture of the internet from 2009-to current times, how the fandom has changed during that time too, old fans leaving and new fans taking place (adding into the mix of people who have grown bolder at attempting to create conflict) and mayyyybe how Homestuck is interpreted as the whole story (including beyond canon) vs how one would have felt during the "era" of homestuck? I personally believe hs^2 has definetly influenced (a little too much) the experience of some first time readers, so it comes down to "Seeing the puzzle coming together slowly and gaining experience n culture" versus the "the puzzle comes together quickly and understandably but unaware of the depth of how people felt in the moment" as to what seems to form in everybody individually.

At least, this is from what I've gathered about reading old posts, tidbits of history left behind on abandoned blogs and snippits represented by artists back then (like orangelemonart? have you ever seen their one comic about shipping the fused homestuck ships together??) that leaves us new fandom folk with the quest on piecing together the "back then". What I'm saying is, the ending of Homestuck most likely had a lot of fans "moving on" and leaving behind those who wanted to stay and a lotta wholes for new readers to fill. The whole story influencing new readers preferring davekat isn't a surprising development, and I could only imagine how it's preffered if reading everything we have today all at once (although the scarcity of johnkat and johndave(?) is odd, there are still people around!! and it's likely there will always be). Don't fret if you feel as if your ships are sunk a lil, because there's always a little something or someone around the corner who feels the same way you do. It's practically why I draw johnkat now! I've been able to reach those people in the distance even when I didn't know they were there, and I'm sure there's more who we don't yet see.

Hope this answers your question!

[jochmus]

Method of Loci and Reality Shifting

There was a video from a source that I will not name that brought this community to my attention. Thus, if you will allow me to do so, I am going to give my two-cents on the matter. Let us see how this goes. 

In terms of reality shifting itself, I do not think that it is a real phenomena, at least in the way that it is presented in terms of literally going to another universe. However, I know that this would not go over well, so instead of contesting the whole of reality shifting and getting chewed-out by everyone, I am going to instead compare it to something that I think is more realistic: Memory Palaces. Reality shifting, really, may be understood as a form of creating spontaneous memory palaces, like in dreams with space (not outer space but more along the lines of “distance”) in them. 

Assuming that most of you reading this are children or young adults, I do not necessarily want to be responsible for getting you into memory palaces, or more properly the Method of Loci. To be honest I only know about such a method from the title of Frances Yates’ book on the subject, which I learned about from studying Giordano Bruno. Indeed there is another post on my account about him that may be of interest. 

Without attempting to invalidate anyone aside from the second paragraph, as that is not my intention at all, okay, I would like to delve into a brief summary of memory palaces, and how they contrast with reality shifting. Then I will seek an integration of the two. 

If I am to be frank, my intention with this post is to help to transform Dark Academia into the next Renaissance, in accordance with the theory of a certain YouTuber. I have come to the conclusion that in order to make this work, the “aesthetic” element of Dark Academia will need to be replaced with actually finding and reading great texts from around the world. Here’s to hoping that can happen with this discussion of the Method of Loci or Memory Palaces augmenting the practice of Reality Shifting. Food for thought; cheers, and lets get down to the meat of this essay.

* * *

Memory palaces function with two essential elements: The space of the building or location where the perception takes place, and then the mnemonic devices intended to enable memorizing things. You could potentially build a memory palace in Minecraft if visualization is difficult for you, but that is a bit off topic. Cicero the Roman Senator and rhetorician came up with the method in the first place, and Giordano Bruno wrote many books on the subject. The specific division of the elements of a memory palace in my own take, admittedly I do not know too much about any of this, but I was hoping to make this post anyway and see what someone could make of it. 

Spatial memory is obviously going to be important with regards to designing and using a memory palace. An author that I will not mention... Well actually he was the guy who wrote Maps of Meaning, but I am not in agreement with absolutely everything that he says. For instance, his protest of the use of gender pronouns in the name of freedom of speech was quite silly, and in fact invalidating for the transgender community, and I do not condone that. At the same time, I do not buy into the other idea that all of his work is utter gibberish, a stance that some people stand by. His work is a mixed bag. I contrasted the titular maps of meaning with memory palaces, and it seems that they both fundamentally rely on differences between values, and spatial memory respectively. Hypothetically both latter terms generally feel to me like they are the same. 

As for the design of the memory palace itself, why, it can be any location that you wish; fictional, natural or real. The problem is knowing the architecture of the fictional place, as I know that people on here are really into fandoms and that is inevitable. A historical-mythical anecdote is the Temple of Solomon and the fascination that Europeans such as Isaac Newton had with its layout as described in the Old Testament of the Bible. Idk, but at least we have those cross section books now, so it should be much easier. Either that or you can design it yourself in your mind, on paper, in Minecraft or using Lego Digital Designer. Yes, that software is still my favorite Lego CAD (computer aided design) despite having not used it in years. 

In terms of icons that populate the memory palace, they could be construed as NPCs or something that you could potentially generate by listing out human emotions, and more importantly how people express them. There is a field called Kinesics (not kinesthetics as I almost typed) and this deals with body motion and expression, but keep in mind that this is advanced college-level stuff. It could be used to image various body movements for these NPCs and enable a very vivid experience. Again, although I want to spur interest in the transformation of the Dark Academia community into a Lay Renaissance; the method of accomplishing this is to “ditch the aesthetic,” a tag I have appended to this post, and start reading classic texts, at the same time I do not want to be responsible for a bunch of teenagers and children getting into subjects that are either occult related, or too dense for them to understand properly. (I think I’ll make another post about the “ditch the aesthetic” movement eventually.) This distinction is of great importance to me, and I hope that whoever is reading this can appreciate that. 

I do not know the intricacies of reality shifting, so I will not talk about that today. You probably know much more that I do about it, and although I do not entirely agree, I can respect what you believe. 

The last thing that I have to say, or, two things, is that if you accentuate your the things you want to remember with strong emotion, then those things will be more conducive to be remembered. The same thing applies to memory palaces and reality shifting. This advice was stated by Giordano Bruno himself in one of his books, which name I unfortunately can’t recall. 

Lastly, if the whole reality shifting thing gets too intense for you, I’d recommend just leaving the community, or more realistically just sitting on the sidelines and taking in some of the positivity emitted from the community, as I have seen some of the posts on here and they look like they do that. I don’t want to stir up any controversy, but if you have constructive criticism I would love to hear it in the comments. I don’t personally think that disagreement needs to be angry, as that just isn’t really feasible in terms of the proper functioning of society. Conversation and the exchange of ideas is better than being angry, and I hope that I have been civil enough in writing this. Sorry that this whole essay was so long in the first place; if you read all of this, I commend you. 

[imagitory]

could you talk aout violetshipping for the fandom ask,since you said you like it?

Totally!

When I started shipping them: Oh gosh, Jounouchi/Kaiba goes back a long way with me – I shipped them while the show was still on the air, which was from 2001-2002, so yeah, I would’ve been 11-12 years old.

My thoughts: When I was younger, violetshipping (or, as it was more commonly called then, “puppyshipping”) was incredibly popular in the fanfiction circles I frequented, largely because of the supposed “intense sexual tension” between Kaiba and Jounouchi (or Joey) in the show. A lot of the fandom for this ship resulted in very OOC characterization for both Jounouchi and especially Kaiba in order to make it work, but even with that, I enjoyed fanon!puppyshipping for what it was, largely because it reminded me of other “opposite ships” I liked at the time like Ron/Hermione. Fanon!puppyshipping from that time often took a lot of cues from Pride and Prejudice or Beauty and the Beast-type stories, making Jounouchi a little more forgiving, patient, and/or victimized by his abusive father and Kaiba a little more romantic, lonely, and/or damaged in order to more smoothly fit them together, and although I look back now and think that a lot of those stories kind of glossed over the interesting character development Jounouchi and Kaiba could respectively go through in order to get to the good stuff, I can’t be too cynical about it. A lot of that sort of fanfiction – including the stuff I wrote – were written by young authors who were still exploring plot, characterization, and sometimes even their own sexuality through their work, and as much as an author should learn to examine and critique their own writing so as to improve, there is nothing wrong with stepping stones. The same can likewise be said for the people who read and enjoyed those OOC stories too.

But okay, so that’s my past with Jounouchi/Kaiba, what about the present? Now I look at these two and think, “Wow – the original series dropped so much potential development for these two and their relationship, didn’t they?” We were so focused on playing card games and saving the world that a lot of characters and relationships didn’t grow as much as they could or even should have. We had so much time for Atem and Kaiba to duel alongside each other more than once, and for Jounouchi and Atem to duel alongside each other more than once, but when we had the chance for Jounouchi and Kaiba to team up (with Atem too, as luck would have it) in season 4, they got no substantive time to tag-team and work out how to win even with their opposing styles. Even though Jounouchi and Kaiba were both such strong characters and talented duelists, and even though Jounouchi grew so much both as a person and as a competitor, Kaiba’s opinion of him barely budges an inch even after five seasons of interactions. And instead of acknowledging Kaiba’s stubbornness – instead of showing how much Jounouchi has improved and lampshading how truly foolish Kaiba is for underestimating him at every turn – we have all of this build-up with these two antagonizing each other and not seeing eye-to-eye that leads up to nothing by the time the series finale rolls around, because everyone is so busy focusing on Atem getting his memory back and going to the after-life. Even if in the Atlantis arc, we’d gotten some pay-off where Kaiba acknowledges Jounouchi as a competitor and finally awards him begrudging respect or, contrariwise, Jounouchi singlehandedly saves the day, Kaiba is left on the sidelines stubbornly refusing to award him the respect due, and Jounouchi just basically decides “f*** you, then – I know my worth and that’s all that matters,” that would’ve been a great pay-off for what was set up.

But yeah, basically, I see Jounouchi/Kaiba as the culmination of two character arcs that the show didn’t deliver on. Both of them could learn something from each other, if they both learned to surmount their own pride. They have a lot in common – both having traumatic pasts with less-than-stellar father figures, both having a younger sibling that they would do anything for, both loving games and competition, both being determined, stubborn, proud, and passionate – but they also have contrasts that could encourage growth in both parties. So, in essence, Jounouchi/Kaiba as a love story would be about the beauty of potential.

What makes me happy about them: Their different types of intelligence – Kaiba being much more conventionally “smart” with his academic, logical-mathematical intelligence, and Jounouchi having a lot more interpersonal and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Also, the way they constantly butt heads – yes, I know, I just emphasized that the “sexual tension” isn’t exactly what makes me ship these two, and it’s not, but it doesn’t mean that their arguing doesn’t still make me laugh! I love good old-fashioned bantering. *eyes Han/Leia and Dimitri/Anya out the side of her eye*

What makes me sad about them: Again, how much more growth they could have gone through! I am glad that some post-series fics do actually take those roads not taken, though.

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Although most of the OOC fandom depictions of Jounouchi and Kaiba don’t bother me that much overall, there are a few characterization choices I don’t like as much, and the big one is turning Jounouchi into a victim that needs to be “saved” by Kaiba. Yes, Jounouchi’s father is an alcoholic and a pretty awful parent, but Jounouchi has never been the sort to just sit around and passively wait for someone else to save him, even when he was in over his head. He’s a proud, resilient character, and making him a poor, helpless damsel in need of a rescue romance I just feel does him a bad service.

Things I look for in fanfic: ORGANIC CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! I love Kaiba and Jounouchi learning from each other and evolving into better people. I love them clashing on things, awkwardly trying to patch things up, coming to grips with who they are as individuals and how they relate to each other – I love them facing their inner demons both on their own and together.

My wishlist: …Can Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters get one of those shiny reboots like Sailor Moon and Fruits Basket got, one that follows the manga a little closer, but still gives us the chance to maybe give these characters more dimension and development that they didn’t get in the original series or even in the manga? I love the new animation style they used for Dark Side of Dimensions!

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: LOL, ironically it’s the same person, as I also ship both Yugi/Jounouchi and Yugi/Kaiba! XD

My happily ever after for them: Jounouchi and Kaiba dueling each other with confident smiles on their faces, as romantic partners and true equals – Red Eyes and Blue Eyes – both not knowing who is going to win today, but being thrilled to find out.

Fandom Ask!

[paulisweeabootrash]

First Impression: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Get in your robots, audience, it's time for Paul is Weeaboo Trash!  And today, I'm finally watching a show it seems like everyone just... assumes I must've seen:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

Episodes watched: 8

Platform: Netflix

The idea of something being a "classic" may be in decline in the anime fandom, or at least be getting very specialized, since "anime" no longer implies a narrow interest in specific sci-fi and fantasy subgenres like it used to, but certain shows still manage to pervade the pop culture indirectly.  Neon Genesis Evangelion is one such show, enduring in the modern fandom and general internet culture because of its status as one of those old sci-fi anime classics.  It has contributed memes — not just as in image macros or running jokes, but as in units of culture in the form of iconic quotes or character designs or elements of the plot — to the point that you have certainly been in some way exposed to them without any knowledge of the source material.  But despite its reputation as a must-see cultural touchstone, it has been out of print in America for years.  Used copies of the DVDs sell for absurd prices, and I don't think I knew anyone who owned it when I was a young weeb in the mid-2000s.  I'm fairly sure my family did not have cable during the one specific season it was on Adult Swim, and there's no chance I would have been up at 12:30AM on Thursdays to watch it anyway.  I am not much of a fan of media piracy and wasn't even aware of that option when it was apparently everyone else's favorite pastime to ruin their computers with sketchy torrents.  So there was never a reasonable way for me to watch it, only for me to be dimly aware that this was An Important Show I Need To See.  Until now.  Because it's on Netflix.  As if I hadn't already been awaiting it, I was aggressively reminded of it, because social media and geeky news outlets were soon blowing up with retrospectives and Very Serious Analyses — and fans of the old ADV translation were offering hot takes on how Netflix's release compares.  So let me finally check this out for myself.

We start out in the distant future of... 2015, where UN forces are defending Tokyo-3 ("Old Tokyo" is mentioned and depicted later; no mention yet of Tokyo-2 unless I somehow already forgot it) against an attacking "angel", an immensely powerful alien with barely-comprehensible powers.  Meanwhile, an officer of a UN agency called NERV, Misato Katsuragi, brings our main character, 14-year-old Shinji Ikari, to an underground NERV base under Tokyo-3 on the instructions of Shinji's father Gendo, who runs a secret research project.  Shinji has been brought there to pilot an Evangelion, or Eva for short, a giant robot operated by some sort of neural interface.  In combat.  With no training.  He is, understandably, not happy about this.  After seeing how badly injured the other available pilot, Rei Ayanami, is, however, he agrees to do it — and it works far better than he or anyone else expected.  He apparently has an innately great ability to "sync" with however exactly the Eva's interface works.  But this only gets him as far as starting the thing up.  When he actually engages the angel, he has trouble just getting the Eva to walk, and he feels the pain of the Eva taking damage once attacked, a frankly horrifying feature of the interface.  We cut to him waking up in a hospital, but having surprisingly won because his Eva "went berserk", operating on its own.  A flashback later shows what happened when he lost control of the Eva: it fought the angel by itself, but also took heavy damage, and we see its visor? faceplate? sōmen? of the Eva's armor come off to reveal a fleshy-looking face and a very biological-looking eye.  At this point Shinji blacked out, which is really the only reasonable response to this situation.

Over the next several weeks (the time scale is vague, but since Rei apparently fully recovers from the injuries she had when we first saw her before the time she and Shinji are both deployed, it must be at least 3 weeks between eps. 1 and 5), more angels appear, to the surprise of civilians and UN forces alike.  The Evas continue to be excellent weapons against them (though Shinji himself is still, uh, not great at using them), but despite having now killed several angels, the Evas are considered a ridiculous boondoggle by personnel of other UN branches, and Gendo's sinister superiors seem to be losing patience with his project.  In the words of... uh... that UN navy guy in ep. 8, "Shit!  A bunch of kids are supposed to save the world?"  The alternatives are wildly ineffective conventional weapons and a remote-controlled nuclear-powered giant robot that almost had a literal Chernobyl-style meltdown, which was averted by Misato and Shinji.  Although repairs are expensive, injuries common, and pilots in short supply, Evas indeed seem to be the only effective weapon against the invading cosmic horror, the barely-comprehensible aliens that are impervious to ordinary human technology and also don't fit our concepts of life or... uh... possibly physics.  So, instead, in the words of Misato later in the same episode, "This plan may be insane, but I don't think it's impossible."

While this is going on, Shinji has been adjusting to this new life poorly and slowly.  Despite being a pilot, he is still after all a 14-year-old, so he is enrolled into the same class as Rei at a local school whose student body has dwindled as more people evacuate over the initial angel attack.  He also needs somewhere to live, so Misato arranges for him to move into her apartment.  Some of Shinji's classmates think he's incredibly lucky to live with her, and spend a good deal of their screen time drooling over her, but Shinji is highly uncomfortable around her not just because Captain Katsuragi is his commanding officer, but also because she has a tendency to not wear much clothing around the house and is, er, a bit of a drunk and a slob.  Oh, and she has an inexplicable, clawed, beer-drinking penguin.  You know, all stuff that would make a nervous, lonely, scared 14-year-old completely at home.

Neither NERV training nor school guarantee a community, though, and Shinji, isolated and confused, could sure use one right about now.  He seems quite likely traumatized from the first battle.  He keeps ending up in situations that make him wildly uncomfortable while other characters take them in stride.  He repeatedly attempts to quit NERV or at least defy orders before backing out (or... backing back in?) at the last moment.  It would frankly be bizarre that they accept him doing this, except that (1) nobody really seems to take Shinji that seriously anyway, (2) he's the boss's kid, and (3) most importantly, it seems that only a small number of pilots, all the same age as Shinji and Rei, are even capable of using Evas.  (Wife and I are starting to suspect reasons why this might be, especially given the whole cyborgs with neural interfaces thing, but... uh... let's not embarrass ourselves with public speculations about the plot of a ridiculously famous show almost as old as we are.)  He only slowly gains any support or comfort from his new classmates and colleagues.  They don't reach out to him, and he certainly doesn't reach out to them, because who is he supposed to talk to?  His roommate/commanding officer who is twice his age?  His classmates who treat him as a celebrity, not a person, once they find out he's an Eva pilot?  Even if his default state since the very first episode hadn't been basically imploding into despair with no idea how to communicate that anything's wrong, there's nobody that really makes sense for him to try to communicate it to.  Except one person: Rei.  He notices that she's also isolated at school, and especially after seeing her dark, miserable, unmaintained apartment, he attempts to be friendly towards her.  I thought this might be a hint of growth indicating that he understands she is possibly the only person more isolated than him and the only one who might be able to relate to him, but then the next time he threatens to quit NERV after that conversation, he explicitly claims she doesn't know what he's going though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe he just has bad social skills.

Sigh.

Shinji does start to make friends with Aida and Suzuhara, two of his classmates, though.  And it's interesting because they contrast against him in their reactions to the conflict outside.  Aida roleplays being in the military and finds Shinji's role as an Eva pilot glorious and enviable.  Suzuhara is initially furious at Shinji because his sister was collateral damage — she was injured when Shinji fought the angel — and his mind is changed only after Shinji rescues him (and Aida) from an angel.  Shinji, though, having been thrust into a role he doesn't even understand and about which he is ambivalent and unstable, lacks Aida's optimistic admiration of his role and a full appreciation of either Suzuhara's resentment or gratitude.  He not only rejects their praise, he calls himself a coward during (sigh) one of his attempts to quit NERV.  It occurs to me that this could be seen as indicating different perspectives about the military (ask any American vet who's sick of being "thanked for their service"), or even different perspectives about adulthood itself — I'll bet any millennial who did not achieve their dreams can recognize Aida's "wow this is amazing I can't wait to be a grownup too" roleplaying vs. Shinji's "I am doomed and isolated by the responsibility that has been thrown at me" actual experience in NERV.

Also thanks to the school scenes, we start to learn some backstory, including the famous "Second Impact".  A catastrophic asteroid impact in 2000 melted Antarctica's glaciers, which led to unprecedentedly rapid sea level rise, leading to mass extinction, including that of half of humanity through not only direct climate change impacts like displaced populations and crop failures but also conflict stemming from it.  Or so the official story goes.  It is later revealed that the Second Impact actually involved somehow the previous arrival of angels on Earth, although this has yet to be explained in detail.  (Actually, I accidentally saw spoilers about more detail about this while revising this review, because I went to sanity-check myself about some other detail on one of the fan wikis, so I know part of where this is going, but only part.)

Over the first eight episodes, which must be several weeks at least after the start of the show given that Rei has recovered from her initial injuries (although the time scale is very vague), Shinji fights four angels total and gradually improves, but the biggest improvement comes not from him being an individual hero but from finally working well with others.  For example, the octahedral angel that drills into NERV's base has incredible abilities to detect and counter incoming attacks.  It kicks Shinji's ass on the first attempt, because duh.  But Misato devises a plan to test its abilities and concentrate the power of... uh... Japan's entire electrical grid(?!) at it from a safe distance, and the plan succeeds only because of Rei giving Shinji cover.  An angel attacks a UN ship convoy transporting the third pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu, and her Eva, and she and Shinji fight the angel together in a ludicrous fight that involves both cramming in to pilot the same Eva together (which, interestingly, requires them to give it the same, or maybe just compatible, instructions together in the same language for it to work... yay neural interfaces).  So maybe/hopefully the direction this is going is "the chosen one is a stupid idea and even talented people need both training and cooperation to not suck at things"?

Episode 8 leaves off with Asuka joining Shinji and Rei's school class, and with the dramatic and creepy reveal of an embryo encased in bakelite which is described by Gendo as "Adam, the first human"...  Well.  That comes off as the kind of thing that would drive the future plot, and hopefully all the Biblical imagery will finally start to converge into something coherent instead of just sort of serving to draw extra attention to the fact that the humans refer to the aliens as "angels".  I've been wondering about that since the beginning.  There's the title, of course, but also the sefirot in the opening and on Gendo's office ceiling, the first angel's attacks using what appears to be a directed energy weapon which invariably forms glowing crosses, and the fact that most of the angels themselves are wildly non-humanoid (a choice which echoes the rather... eldritch... classical depictions of angels — see also the seraph in the opening).  NERV's motto is even explicitly, well, monotheistic at least, if not sectarian: "God's in his heaven.  All's right with the world!", which is counterintuitive at best with the idea of calling the alien invaders "angels".

Well.  I'll find out, and I plan to write a followup like I did with Re:ZERO, going into the broad swaths of the rest of the plot and my overall impressions of how they handled things.  Especially given that this show has a famously-controversial ending.  I jumped into this determined to watch the whole series, so I'm not backing out.

I'll just threaten to quit repeatedly then almost immediately come back.

-----

W/A/S: 4 / 3 / I feel kinda bad about this but 4?

Weeb: I mean, anything with giant robots fighting giant monsters deserves a few points just for that, right?  I don't think this requires much by way of Japanese cultural references or assumptions to watch, though.

Ass: Nudity so far has been brief, partial, censored by convenient angles and object placement, and not remotely sexy.  Thanks to another contextless spoiler I happen to have picked up, I expect an infamous later scene that is clearly supposed to be sad and disturbing in context, which is, again, not the kind of thing this scale was originally designed to describe.

Shit (writing): Even though I tend to overall like their plots, I always sort of sigh and eyeroll at the "let's put children/teens in combat and/or experiment on and/or just plain torture them to force them to become powerful" storyline formula that’s been semi-popular for the last few decades, and Evangelion is definitely in that category.  Friends have said the story is confusing or poorly-paced, and I kind of agree but also think some of the confusion is warranted by the choice to enter the story in media res in order to reveal what's going on to the audience at about the same time it's revealed to Shinji.  As for the tendency to have some long shots where literally nothing happens, that does get annoying, and I suspect its primary motivation was to save money, but I think it also usually emphasizes how lonely the whole situation is, at least before Shinji starts to warm up to Misato and Rei to Shinji in the last couple of episodes I've watched so far (which have, appropriately, had much more action and interaction).  Mainly, my writing complaints are actually about translation, because there are some noticeable and consequential differences between translations for the sub and dub.  Yeah, yeah, I've heard of the love vs. like thing everyone on the internet is already upset about, but I haven't gotten to that episode yet.  I'm talking about things like Misato saying "it will work!" in the sub vs. just "okay!" in the dub when Shinji is first able to control his Eva, a choice which suggests very different things about both her level of knowledge of the project and why Shinji has been called on for it at all.  The new dub also feels... uh... too at home as a dub of a '90s anime, as it prioritizes matching lip flaps over flowing like believable speech.  Having not seen the old dub, of course, I can't make any kind of judgement about whether this is a step up, down, or sideways from how ADV did it.  And the sub has many on-screen captions in Japanese are left untranslated — not things like signs in the background, but actual captions the audience is meant to get information from.

Shit (other): Maybe we're spoiled in this age of computer-aided art, but i's surprising to see a show with such limited animation — speech conveyed only with lip flaps, obviously reused shots within the same episode, foreground objects gracelessly sliding against a background to indicate movement — and so I'm willing to give the show a pass on most of that, especially since the characters are distinctive and the setting and aliens and robots so interesting.  Much of the limited animation actually serves to show the vast scale of NERV's facilities and the Evas vs. the humans and/or to emphasize loneliness like the pacing.  But there really are some painful mistakes from time to time in the art: objects and faces that look utterly wrong, like the artists just did not successfully figure out how to draw that particular character or vehicle from that particular angle.  The legendary opening theme is certainly catchy — it’s been stuck in my head almost continuously for the past week — but I just don’t think I enjoy it as much as other people do.  Some of the immediate complaints that were apparently worthy of news media attention were about the replacement of Fly Me to the Moon with a piece from the show's soundtrack as the ending theme.  I understand why people would be upset by that kind of change, but I am willing to take the controversial stand that it's not a bad change.  The piece they chose as a replacement is haunting and tense, which fits in with the mood of most of the episodes so far, while Fly Me to the Moon feels to me like an inappropriate mood change from that.

Content: Actually among the least graphic of the various shows I've covered involving violent or horrifying elements.

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Stray observations:

- God it was weird to write this by constantly abbreviating “Evangelion” as “Eva”, considering that Wife's name is Eva.

- A lot of people seem to hate Shinji as a character, but I find him understandable in a way that probably implies uncomfortable things about my own sanity.  I just... I understand that sheer degree of doom and misery and indecision and inability to articulate any of those.  Man.  Ugh.

- I don't know if you've ever seen an undisguised angel, but trust me: they're horrifying.  (link NSFW)

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

The Beatles/Beach Boys/Led Zeppelin: Random Quarantine Thoughts

The Beatles

1. The Beatles Vs. The Rolling Stones... In another article, I spoke about the fact that we’re comparing these two bands as far as legacy is like apples and oranges. The Beatles were together for nine years, while the Rolling Stones have been together for 50 years. The Rolling Stones have released many more albums than the Beatles, which means they had many more opportunities to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. The other part of it is the fact that the Rolling Stones in the 1960’s were always chasing the Beatles creatively. I am reminded of when the Stones had a party to celebrate the release of Beggars Banquet, which was the appearance of the Jagger-Richards Collaboration. The Beatles were there and they played the White Album, which had not been released yet. Everyone was blown away by that album, instead of Beggars Banquet.

2. John Lennon Vs. Paul McCartney... An analogy I always make when discussing the dynamic between Paul McCartney and John Lennon is the former was VH1, while the latter was MTV. Now, please note I’m talking about MTV in its early days when the channel actually played music. McCartney symbolized moving towards the mainstream. His music, and for the most part his life, illustrated that fact. In contrast, Lennon was much more rock ‘n’ roll, where he liked to take chances, stir things up, and gradually began to move away from that middle road of popularity.

3. No Deep Cuts... I was thinking that bands are always referring to concerts, where they played deep cuts, but with the Beatles that might be a bit difficult. Their entire catalog has been lionized, analyzed, and covered via pop culture in every way with everything. They are one of the few bands that simply does not have hardly any deep cuts at all. Now, granted there are songs that people do not know, mostly from the early days, but those songs are few and far between.

4. Brian Epstein Was Actually The Fifth Beatle... People are always talking about who was the fifth Beatle. My answer would be the late manager, Brian Epstein, who passed away in 1967. The reason being was that he literally handled everything on the business side, up to that point. The band had absolutely no idea about much of anything on that side of things. After his death, the Beatles decided to start Apple and handle those things themselves, which created a division within the band. Paul started to take the lead on many things causing a rift with the other members. The other aspect to this, which contributed to the failure of Apple was that as time passed their decisions sometimes did not make a lot of sense or they failed to follow through.

5. Yoko Ono Did Not Break Up The Beatles But She Did Not Help... I know you have heard the age old argument that Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles. I do not buy that argument. Yet, her presence in Lennon’s life merely sped up the breakup. The growing rift between Lennon and McCartney over music, celebrity, politics, drugs, and everything else under the sun was happening before she came along. Now, my issue with Ono was that Lennon put her on the same level creatively as McCartney and the others. This is ridiculous to even think about actually. How did an abstract, experimental artist like her earn the ability to influence one of the greatest songwriters ever so much, but she did. Perhaps, he was simply looking for an outlet to reinforce his leanings towards the fringes of culture at that time.

The Beach Boys

1. One Beach Boy You Love to Hate... I am not going to mince words when talking about Mike Love. The dude is a straight up asshole when you get right down to it. As time has passed, his ego has taken over in many fruitless attempts to change the narrative. I do sympathize with him struggling as the lead singer, while Brian Wilson received all the credit as the band’s resident genius. He simply is going about it the wrong way. Now, in interviews and that sorry excuse for an autobiography he wrote, all of it sounds like very sour grapes. One must not forget as well that he was always this way. The reason Smile was never finished among other things was because he fought hard to continue doing surf songs. He argued that Wilson’s album was silly and would never sell.

2. One Beach Boy That Actually Surfed... One of the things I find funny about the Beach Boys, who did all these songs about surfing emerged in that drummer Dennis Wilson was the only one who actually knew how to surf. The other band members were pretty much borderline dorks when they started the band in high school. All of those songs about catching waves, chasing girls, and having fun were all about how Dennis Wilson lived his life.

3. One Beach Boy You Didn’t Know... Carl Wilson has always struck me as the one member of the band that people really do not know that much about at all. Fans know him as the deep voice of “Barbara Ann” and other songs, but not much else. This is why I was fascinated about his death when I learned that he was the glue that held the band together for a long time. Mike Love did not dare declare any sort of war against Brian Wilson until Carl passed away.

4. One Beach Boy Who Was Not Made For Rock and Roll... No single person in rock ‘n’ roll history has had as many triumphs and as much sadness in the course of one career. He is probably the greatest songwriter in the history of modern pop music, but he suffered endlessly for his art. From a childhood filled with abuse from his father to drug addiction and mental issues. On top of all that was the monumental pressure to use his musical gift for others again and again. Wilson was and still is a fragile soul, who seemed in no way prepared for the cruelty of the music business. The worst part of it, as a fan, was the power struggle within the Beach Boys. You had Mike Love, who contributed very little creatively, but always stifling his artistic vision again and again. I just wonder how much great music we missed out on because of him.

5. And Then There’s Murray... Finally, you had his father, Murray. This is always a catch 22 as you discuss his influence on the legacy of the Beach Boys. For one, he was a horrible person. He abused his sons physically, verbally, financially, and emotionally. Yet, the man was a musician, who encouraged his sons in that way. This is the one connection to his father that Brian Wilson can never step away from. Would Brian Wilson have been any different if his father had not been a musician?

Led Zeppelin

1. A Dressed Up Blues Band... Led Zeppelin was essentially a hard blues band for most of their early albums. They took old blues songs that were well known, then rearranged them into psychedelic rock songs. The band took these traditional blues classics and pretty much remixed it into late 60s hard rock blues on steroids. This would have been fine, if they had not tried to take credit for the songs as being completely original. Critics saw right through it, which emerged as probably why the band was immediately looked down upon from music writers. One of the interesting things about their decision to use blues songs was Jimmy Page did not think he had the time to write new original songs before a tour.

2. Robert Plant What If’s... One of the biggest what if’s of Zepplin has always been will Robert Plant ever agree to a tour. What if he had not offered so much resistance since the 1980s for any kind of reunion? For years, Plant never wanted to reunite, with the only exception being a duet with Jimmy Page, but not John Paul Jones. They did eventually reunite for one show in celebration of the founder of Atlantic records. If there was to be any hope of reunion, it should have happened then. Plant finally relented eventually, but by that time, John Paul Jones was working on an opera at the time. I believe it is time to face the blues music that this is never going to happen.

3. The Songwriting and Musicianship of John Paul Jones Saved the Band... One of the things that a lot of fans may not realize how important John Paul Jones was to the overall success of the band. He played multiple instruments including bass guitar keyboards, mellotron, and many others. For this reason, the band never needed to hire any musicians to play on stage with them because Jones would switch to whatever instrument was needed at the time. He was also a top-notch composer and arranger of music. His signature is all over songs like “All My Love,” “Trampled Underfoot,” “Kashmir,” “In the Light,” “Fool in the Rain,” and many more. Beginning with Physical Graffiti in the albums that followed, Jones was able to substantially layer the band’s sound, which resonates with music lovers still today.

4. I Told You Black Magic... Jimmy Page in the 1970’s was a big fan of the occultist Alastair Crowley. This fandom even led him to buy Crowley‘s former house in 1972. Page thought it would be a cool place to possibly write some music and give him inspiration as well. He never really spent any time there. Page hired a gentleman to manage the house for him, which he did and eventually raised his family there. Although, the manager did report some very strange occurrences at the house, which was always rumored to be cursed by Crowley. The guitarist’s decision to even purchase the house is probably a really good illustration on why you should not use heroin.

5. Led Zeppelin Was Not Heavy Metal...An ongoing argument for a long time has always been whether or not Led Zeppelin invented heavy metal. I am here to tell you that they did not do so, but they heavily influenced it. Black Sabbath was the first heavy metal band, but for a long time they distanced themselves from that label. Led Zeppelin was more of a hard rock band or a hard rock blues band, who dabbled in other genres including folk and reggae. Not only was their music a bit softer in places, but the themes were much more positive when compared with heavy metal. Sabbath ushered in themes of darkness, evil, the devil, and for the most part riffs that were fast and loud always. Yet, in later years, the distinction between heavy metal, metal, and hard rock was blurred again and again making it difficult to understand the differences.