#like do I have criticisms for how clunky and awkward the writing around them is?

[rawrsatthetree]

As a non-binary I’m honor bound to love and defend Taash with my life because I am so fucking starved for representation that isn’t a robot, shape shifter, or some other inhuman character.

[al-the-remix]

BuckTommy Positivity Week Day 2: nicknames and terms of endearment

thank you to the @bucktommypositivityweek mods for putting this together so quickly! please overlook any spelling/grammar errors...it normally takes me 5-7 business days to catch them all (if even) and I really wanted to write something for this event. Rated: E • 2K • Fluff, Romance, Humour, And some smut at the end.

Of all the things Buck thinks may prove to be a speed bump in his first relationship with a dude, (phrasing he’s still getting ragged for), like who gets to be the big spoon, if he was going to have to start buying his own shampoo (the bottle Natalie left in his shower had entered a critical state of near empty), the whole dick situation, none of them actually turn out to be much of an issue. 

As it happens Tommy is pretty indifferent when it comes to their sleeping arrangements (together, preferably); he offers to drop by the CVS and pick up more shampoo for Buck when he realizes he’s out (are you sure Herbal Essence is really what you want?); and let's just say Buck finds he takes to cock like a duck to water. 

In the end, he’s so busy worrying about whether Tommy would want to be the little spoon on occasion, or if his boyfriend now thinks he doesn’t know how to wash his hair, he completely overlooks one of the most obvious hurdles of them all: pet names. 

And the worst part is that it’s totally a one sided issue. “Sweetheart” slips out of Tommy’s mouth so easy and so smooth, his tone warm like butter sliding around a hot pan, just a little gravelly, especially first thing in the morning and late at night. The word rolls down Buck’s spine like condensation, gaining speed, to pool warm and liquid in the cradle of his hips. Tommy makes it sound so natural: a little cocky, a little, flirty, a little tongue and cheek, like the word was created to be formed by his lips and not the other way around.

Buck tries it out in the mirror one time, it’s clunky and awkward and he embarasses himself too much to keep going. He’d been surprised, maybe even a little underwhelmed (in a good way), by how few differences there really were when it came to dating men vs. women. Sure, he didn’t think any of his previous girlfriends would have been charmed if he tried one of his new grappling moves on them pre-fuck (but he bet he could proabally find a woman who did if he tried hard enough), and the stubble burn on his ass was new but not all that different from eating a girl out one week post bikini wax–the important part was the kisses felt the same, Tommy’s skin didn’t taste any different against Buck’s tongue, and his heartbeat still fluttered high in his throat when Tommy looked at him and smiled or reached out to interlace their fingers. 

The point was, the things that do stand out to him about Tommy: his strength, the way he carries himself, how he’s in equal measures serious and goofy and sarcastic in a way that has Buck bubbling fondness and unable to hold back his grin, makes it difficult for Buck to come up with an enderment he feels encompassess all of that. He’s probably overthinking it (he definitely is), but it wasn’t the first time Tommy had left him reeling and feeling slightly unmoored, and it likely wouldn’t be the last, so he better pull himself up by his bootstraps and get to work.

Buck decides the best way to feel Tommy out was to work it into casual conversation. An experiment of sorts. He’s already got a list of potential options on his phone; he leaves sweetheart off it because it just doesn’t sound right coming out of anyone’s mouth but Tommy’s. 

Tommy’s working in the garage when Buck decides to give his first option a go. The heat spiked around noon, and Tommy’s got a box fan blasting in the corner of the room. He’s still got a massive gray splotch on the center of his back where his shirt is stuck to his skin and Buck’s a little surprised (and disappointed) that hasn’t ditched it yet. 

“Hey honey, it’s smokin’ in here, do you want some water?”

Tommy jerks, bumping his head on the hood of the Charger. Buck winces. The look Tommy shoots over his shoulder is an incredulous one, rubbing at the back of his head. “I’m sorry, what did you just call me?”

Buck crosses his arms over his chest. He’s not backing down now. “Honey.”

Tommy raises a brow. “What, are you going to make me a sandwich too? Get me a beer?”

Buck throws his hands in the air because he can, he knows Tommy finds his dramatics charming, the poor sucker. He turns on his heel, a smile eating away at the corner of his mouth. “I was just trying to be nice, but if you’re fine–”

Tommy lunges out and hooks his fingers in the waistband of Buck’s shorts, reeling him back. “Whoa, wait a second. I didn’t go that far…”

Buck is very happy to let himself be dragged into the circle of Tommy’s arms, broad hands slipping into his back pockets. Tommy smells a little funky, like sweat and grease and the spearmint gum he likes to chew when he’s working with his hands, an old habit from quitting nicotine post-military. 

He slips his fingers under the damp cotton at Tommy’s waist, rolling the hem of his shirt up inch by inch. “Well, what do you want then?”

Tommy gives him a quick peck on the lips. “I can think of a few things, but water does sound pretty good right now.”

Buck leans in for another kiss, letting this one linger. “Mmm, alright.”

“What,” Tommy drawls, “No, ‘alright, honey’?”

Buck slaps him hard on the ass, Tommy letting out a full body “oof” a Buck steps out of the circle of his arms. 

“Maybe later if you ask nicely.” Buck wags a finger at him as he walks slowly backwards towards the door to the house. Pretty proud of himself when he doesn’t trip over the first step.

Well, he can scratch that one off the list. 

The next up is babe, which Buck regrets almost immediately. 

“Babe, do you know where my running shoes ended up?” he calls down from the loft, and gets in return: “Where you left them babe, right on top of mine!”

Tommy spends the rest of the day parroting him, “pass the remote, babe–do you need me to pick anything up on my way home, babe--don’t drop the soap, babe–” and Buck thinks it’s best to lay that one to rest before he goes insane. 

It becomes clear that the rest aren’t going to make the cut either and Buck decides to take the opportunity to have some fun with it instead. “Honeybun” makes Tommy snort coffee out his nose; “Gumdrop”, specifically employed in front of Eddie, makes Tommy glow, pleased and a little flustered at being razzed about it by his new friend; “Lover” makes the corners of Tommy’s mouth writhe and his eyes roll and his nose scrunch up like he’s sort of embarrassed by how much he likes that one, (Buck slips that information into his back pocket for later).

They all live within the sliding scale of reactions Buck expects from him: fondness and humor and affection. It’s not until he reaches the end, the one Buck had almost not bothered putting on the list it was so commonplace, that he elicits a reaction that makes him pause. 

Tommy’s in the kitchen, kneading pasta dough into a soft ball, they’re making handmade ravioli to take to a housewarming potluck at Bobby and Athena’s new place, when Buck asks: “Baby, what time are we supposed to be leaving again?” and watches the back of Tommy’s neck flush a vibrant red. Interesting. 

Buck doesn’t draw attention to it. He doesn’t push or tease. He just drops it into their conversations, here and there, not frequently enough to really give Tommy a reason to call him out on it, though Buck finds it telling that he never does. It’s obviously having some effect on him, albeit a silent one: high color rising in Tommy’s cheeks, his eyes casting quickly down and away. 

Buck waits for the right moment to really set the hook and see what he can draw out; it’s just chance that that perfect moment happens to be when they’re naked in bed. 

Tommy’s legs are hooked around his waist and his fingertips are digging white crescents into Buck’s biceps where he’s gripping him like he’s holding on for dear life. His eyes keep circling down to where Buck is spreading him open then back up to catch Buck’s gaze like a closed circuit.

The cling of Tommy’s body is slick and sweet, and he looks up at Buck like Buck's giving him everything he wants and he can’t quite believe how good it is. His eyelids droop like he’s struggling to keep them open and Buck swoops down to capture Tommy’s mouth in a kiss. Tommy moans into it and Buck can feel where his cock is kicking insistently against his stomach, wet and hot to the touch. Buck curls a fist around it, stroking him from base to tip and watches the way his eyelashes flutter and his mouth drops open in silent pleasure. 

Tommy’s other hand slips from Buck’s biceps to his back when Buck dislodges it so he can brace himself on one arm, get a little closer, suck wet kisses into the razor edge of Tommy’s jawline. He slows their rhythm down a little, grinding in with deep swivels of his hips. Tommy’s knees pinch tight at Buck’s sides and he manages to pry his eyes open just enough to sweep his gaze down to where Buck’s stroking him and his rim is stretched nice and slick and pink around Buck’s cock, and back up again. His pupils are blown wide and his hands twitch on Buck’s lower back, slipping down to the meat of his ass, pawing at him, pulling him in–

“You're going to come aren’t you? I can feel it,” he says right in Tommy’s ear. 

“Evan–” Tommy cuts himself off on a moan, his nails dig a little deeper into Buck’s skin, and Buck barely feels it; all of his attention narrowed down to jacking Tommy off and fucking into him at the angle that makes get all tight and twitchy, his muscle tensing up, panting all hot and heavy against Buck’s temple. 

“Common, I want you to,” Buck says, flicking his wrist tight and fast at the head in the way he knows will finish Tommy off quick. “Tommy–Baby–Let me feel it.”

Tommy’s brow crumples and Buck gets to feel the pulse of his heartbeat in his hand and around his cock as Tommy comes undone, slicking his chest with thick, white streaks. 

Buck presses his face into the damp crescent of Tommy’s neck and rabbits his final few strokes into the hot clutch of Tommy’s ass. He can taste the salt on Tommy’s skin as he groans against it, rolling his hips indulgently as his cock softens. 

Tommy strokes his back as he pulls away, arm falling to the side as Buck gets up to ditch the condom. He’s staring up at the pebbly stucco of the bedroom ceiling when Buck returns to bed. “No one’s ever called me that,” he says quietly, contemplatively. 

Buck shuffles closer till he’s pressed up along his side, draping an arm over Tommy’s midsection to anchor himself. Buck finds that hard to believe. He can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t want Tommy to be their baby, but he’s glad he’s Buck’s.

“Well, it’s only fair that I’m your first for something too.”

Tommy rolls his head to the side, a dopey smile on his face. He looks fucked stupid and Buck feels unbearably fond about it. 

“Sweet talker,” Tommy accuses softly, hooking two fingers under Buck’s chin and pulling him into a kiss. 

Yeah, Buck thinks, I like the sound of that.

[retvenkos]

let me just write an essay real quick....

@musicallisto i said i would do if for you, clara, and i am a woman of my word. here is my headcanon set for how/why you and matthias are a good™ match... (this probably won’t be very coherent, but you love me anyway)

First, let me cover some basic ideas about your dynamic, because I have thoughts...

Much like (our queen) Nina, you would challenge Matthias. You’re not a damsel in distress nor are you some soft spoken lamb. You are the sun - larger than life and outgoing, warm and impulsive, and quite emotional. All of this challenges the stiff regulations and detached behavior Matthias has lived with for so long - both in Fjerda and in Hellgate. You encourage his playful, soft side while also being very perceptive - enough to know when it’s not the time.

You both also carry such pride for who you are, and I think it’s very important for both of you that the other respect that but also challenge what exactly that means.

Furthermore, you have a romanticism to you that I think would actually really compliment Matthias? Like, we don’t acknowledge enough the fact that Matthias actually has romantic notions and yeah, they’re traditional, but they’re very sweet, and I think you would find them endearing. That’s good for him. I also think that if it’s a big deal to Matthias, then of course you will go on walks with him - of course you will let him bring you flowers and making it a “proper” date. I think you love romance, and that’s just neat.

I also want to say that whenever i read your writing, I feel so much reverence for whatever material you are writing about, and I think that would wonderfully compliment Matthias. His religion is important to him and the life he once lived weighs heavily on his heart. You would never make light of either of them, and I think that is very important for Matthias - especially because he still struggles. I’m also a sucker for the hardened one finding someone that challenges him, but holds him in their arms so carefully, and those are the precise vibes I get from the two of you.

You would joke with Matthias. You would make him feel like he belonged.

Also! I have this idea that Matthias is a really good storyteller - he just doesn’t know it. No one has ever really... asked him to tell them a story, but you would (maybe while dozing by a fire). And when he starts telling you stories of Fjerda, or stories of his life, at first it’s a little awkward or clunky, but you just listen and the longer he speaks, the more natural it becomes, and Matthias is actually very eloquent and emotional, and can you imagine listening to him talk - hearing the deep timbre of his voice as he softly puzzles over who he was, and pities those he once knew? An experience™, I tell you. He has the “I see everything, and I watch it corrupt us slowly” vibes. The oral storyteller vibes.  And I promise I’m going somewhere with this! It would fit perfectly with your storytelling abilities. I get the feeling that your more apt on paper, because it causes your thoughts to slow down, and so you’ll write him stories or letters and sneak them into his pockets for him to read. And! If anyone were to ever write his stories down, it would be you.

I also think that Matthias is the structure to your free will. You have such aspirations and so many dreams, and Matthias would be the steady hand that would remind you to see your dreams to fruition. 

Finally, I want to say that Matthias is the type to take responsibility. If anything were to ever happen - like the two of you argue or have a big disagreement - Matthias would not place all of the blame on you. I feel like this would be really good for you since you don’t like defeat, and you probably internalize a lot of criticism (girl, me too). Don’t get me wrong - Matthias is strong willed, too, but he knows when he’s done wrong, and as long as he doesn’t have to apologize to Kaz Brekker, he’ll admit it and sincerely ask for forgiveness. What a man.

Also! Final thing, I swear, then I’ll get into some details - the two of you are both hands-on in your relationships! You’re both a little doting when it comes to the other person - you just care *clenches fist* so much and want to make sure that this life is all that both of you dreamed of, and more, and I just think that’s neat. It makes me very happy.

Okay, but for how you fit into this world, you are definitely apart of the Dregs.

If you want to be Grisha, then I have decided you would do best a squaller. You would definitely make friends with Nina when she first comes to Ketterdam, if this is the route you want to go (Grisha’s gotta stick together, y’know?) and you first learn about Matthias by prying at her past. Lovingly. You’re definitely apart of the Dregs, and idk what your speciality would be, but you’d be iconic. Maybe you would be really good at throwing knives? Or maybe you’d be a spy! Both are viable options for you.

If you don’t want to be a Grisha, then you are introduced to the crows by the one and only Jesper Fahey. Clearly you are going to university with a special area of study in poisons, and you meet Jesper in like... one (1) class on the first two of three days. The two of you can bond over joking about how to get out of doing the homework. Jesper was like... we could put a bullet in him, and instead of being scandalized, you make some wry comment about how arsenic would be the best poisoning tactic since it doesn’t have a smell or taste. He’d never see it coming. At some point, Jesper would come to you wanting to know more about poisons (Kaz made him) and idk why, but I think it’s very important that I detail this moment:

Jesper sidles up to you in class after MONTHS of being gone and you’re like.... bro, where did you go? and why are you wearing those clothes?

But Jesper is just trying to get a feel for if you actually know your way around poisons or not (I mean, everything you’ve said has been true, but how much do you know?). He’s being really cryptic and awkward, though, and I love the idea that at some point, you think that Jesper thinks you are a drug dealer and you’re like ??? I do chemistry, but not that kind. And he’s like.... NO. POISONS.

And, ofc, that’s your area of special study. So of course you know.

And Jesper says, “Sweet. You could help me choose the right ones, then? The right amount?”

And you go: “Haha... you’re not trying to kill anyone, are you?”

And Jesper winks and says, “Not yet.”

And you’re mind is going.... I really shouldn’t negotiate with possible hit men, right?

But have you seen student loans? Ketterdam would be the last place to forgive student debt. Plus, this is one of the greatest (read: most expensive) universities of all time! And Jesper is nice...

(ooh! Maybe I flip the script and you guys are actually childhood friends? That would make a little more sense. Pick your poison.)

Anyway, somehow you end up helping him, and it sticks. Jesper comes and goes randomly to pick up poisons or get advice on them, He pays you well. He makes you laughs. You get to tease him about actually going to class.

Oh! This is important:

One time, Jesper kindly asked you to bring him something to the Crow Club, You definitely think this side of town is sketchy as hell, but Jesper is a friend and he’s offering more money (I feel like you would take the calculated risk. I’d go with you. Queens travel in packs).  Your plan is in and out.

You meet up with Jesper and you go.... oop— that is definitely a gunshot wound, and that is definitely an unconscious man in the corner.  What the hell is going on?

And Jesper is like.... “haha.... yeah, we just had a shootout. I nearly died. Pretty amazing, am I right?”

“You’re a criminal?”

“You mean you didn’t conjecture that?”

Okay... maybe you did. That’s on you, huh?

(Lol, idk why, but that chaos was just very important for me to include)

BUT OHYMYGOD, MATTIAS. Idk how you guys would meet - maybe after they sneak him out of Hellgate? You could be a kind of nurse for the Dregs, if you wanted to. Actually, the idea of a nurse or a healer who knows her way around poisons is actually a concept. My mind.

[goron-king-darunia]

Annon-Guy: Thank you Darunia. Glad you like the fanfic. What did you like? Any advise on how I can improve?

I liked that there was closure to Alice’s and Decus’s stories beyond what the game gave us. It never really addressed what happened to their bodies and that’s definitely something that bothered me about Aster, too, so that’s something nice to do for the people who like Alice and Decus and want that closure. The rhythm of speech (it’s hard to explain) was a bit stilted. Your writing style has a little bit of an amateurish feel to it. It’s not really something I can tell you how to fix other than by saying you should reflect on what kinds of things you like to read and go over them critically to see what they do and why they do it and if it’s something you want to add to your writing skillset. If it’s just for fun or for a hobby, you’re fine as you are. But to speak metaphorically for a moment, your fic does read the same way “beginner” art looks. You played around with your basic toolbox, but you have no real style yet. Practice makes perfect, so if you’re looking for tips on improvement in this department, all I can say is write more! :D Try free verse poetry (that is, non-rhyming poetry) to play with your vocabulary a bit. Short snippets that have an impact.  You can also work on “setting the scene.” Part of the reason your work feels a little amateurish is that you’re telling the story flat-out. And it reads that way. I feel like I’m having something told to me by a stranger on a train trying to pass the time. Setting the scene can help you immerse readers. Try practicing this by sitting in your room or at your workstation and describing it in writing. What can you see? What do you hear? Are there any smells? Are there any physical sensations? Is there anything you taste? Example: I’m in my bed right now. The room is pitch dark except for the dim light of my faux fireplace, giving off a warm ambient glow. The breeze from my window is pleasantly crisp and refreshingly cool for a warm spring evening, and the breeze from my ceiling fan makes my hair tickle my cheeks. I still smell the soap wafting off my hands, a floral fragrance, and my lips still taste like grapefruit soda. My computer screen is the brightest thing, and the contrast with my surroundings makes everything else melt away. The keys clack under my fingers and the crickets outside are drowned out by the whir of my computer fan. This sets the scene much more than me saying “I’m in my room and typing to you.” Now obviously you don’t want to front-load all this information at once. But when you let it trickle in, especially when you first establish a location, this can help. Focus on what’s important to know about the scene. If your characters are in a cave, is it a nice cave? Show is by describing how pretty the light is, streaming through cracks in the stone overhead. Is the cave scary? Describe how scary it is by telling us that the darkness is oppressive and the damp, musty smell within is threatening to suffocate us. Focus on what characters are doing too and relate their physical sensations to us. Setting the scene works best when you break it up with dialogue. Example: Marta walked after Emil into the Camberto Caves. The plinking drip of water was welcoming, and the water reflected the sunlight that streamed in through gaps in the stone overhead. “Do you really think we’ll find rosemary here?” she asked Emil. “I hope so,” Emil replied meekly. The mud in flooded sections of the cave squelched beneath their boots, and the bitter herbaceous and earthy scents of the cave changed every time they turned a corner.  This reads a lot more eloquently than just saying “Emil and Marta went to the Camberto Caves and looked around, trying to find rosemary.” Now this is general advice, but if anyone reading this is thinking “But I don’t know a lot of big words!” or “I can’t write like that! I can never think of nice words to use!” Don’t worry. It just takes practice and patience and a little bit of reading. Follow a word blog here on Tumblr and learn some new words, or have someone beta read your fiction to give you advice on word choices. Or read some of your favorite books and learn new words from that. The only thing I can say is DON’T JUST LOOK UP A SYNONYM FOR A WORD AND USE IT INSTEAD OF A SIMPLER WORD. If you want to improve your vocabulary, you can’t always trust what a thesaurus will tell you. Big and large both mean pretty similar things but muttered and whispered don’t mean the same thing. Muttered implies it was said in a low register, but still with a speaking voice. Whispered implies a shrill, breathy exchange of words. Not to mention that there are connotations for things. “Retort” for example, does mean “response” but it’s a loaded word. Response just means you said something and someone else said something back. But a “retort?” Usually, that means someone is being sarcastic. “You’re really something,” Richter responded. versus “You’re really something,” Richter retorted. In the first one, Richter is neutral. He may even be praising someone. In the second one, “You’re really something” is implied to be derisive or insulting. You will learn more by reading but just know there’s a big difference between an aroma, a scent, and a stench. The first is pleasant, the second is neutral, and the third is negative implying disgust. The aroma of a rose, the scent of salt air, the stench of dead fish. The connotation is just as important if not more important than actual definitions so look for words in context and try to master that. Finally, my main issue with your fanfic. Dialogue is hard to process when it’s all stacked together in a paragraph. It makes it easier to lose track of who’s saying what and requires clunky and repetitive taglines to even begin to understand it. The rule of thumb is that when you write dialogue and a new person speaks, you give them their own paragraph. “Is the food good?” Emil asked, fishing for a compliment. “It’s delicious!” Marta responded with a smile. When the dialogue is only two people, it can continue like this. “Pass the salt please.” He said. “Of course.” She slid the salt shaker closer to him. “Thanks. “No problem at all!” Because we established an order in the first section (Emil first, then Marta) we know that the “he” refers to Emil in the third line, and the “she” in the fourth line refers to Marta. When Emil speaks next, there is no tagline at all, but we know it’s Emil because it’s on a separate line just how we know the last line must be Marta again. If you diversify their speaking styles enough, you’ll always be able to tell who’s speaking, even when there are three or more people. However, it’s always best to introduce someone when they join the conversation, either by name or by a description of appearance, and once three or more people are conversing, it’s much easier to digest if every line of dialogue gets a tagline to remind us who’s speaking. Example. Richter took the salt shaker when Emil was done with it. “It’s weird. All of us eating together.” “Maybe.” Emil simpered. “But it’s also kind of nice.” “It would be less awkward if you weren’t always trying to kill me,” Marta said coldly. “M-Marta!” “It’s alright, Emil.” Richter patted the blond's shoulder. “It’s not like I don’t deserve it.” This is a complex bit of dialogue, but it tells us enough to understand. I start the first line with Richter taking the salt shaker. This indicates that he’s the one speaking. The second line is noticeably Emil because of the tagline. We know he says both “Maybe.” and “But it’s also kind of nice.” because that dialogue is linked to his tagline in the same paragraph. The third line is attributed to Marta in the same way. The fourth line has no tagline, but because Emil is known to stutter and because the next line is Richter, we know that it can’t be Marta and it can’t be Richter so we have both context and knowledge of Emil’s speaking habits to tell us who’s talking. And finally, we have Richter speaking again.  This isn’t the only way to write dialogue, but this is one of the easiest ways to write it in a way that is understandable for most audiences. You can get away with other ways of writing dialogue, but it’s almost never a good choice to write a long string of dialogue among several speakers in a single paragraph.  That’s all I really have to say! Sorry if it’s a bit long! For a first or very early fic, though, I liked your fanfic well enough! But I’ve been writing for years and this is the sort of advice that helped me improve beyond just being a hobbyist. I’ve won contests in my time and I didn’t get where I am by accident, so if you’re looking to go the distance and be the real deal? Consider my advice. If you’re just looking to have fun? Then fuck everything I just said. Forget every word. If writing for you is just for fun? Then do whatever makes YOU happy. 

[douxreviews]

Legends of Tomorrow - ‘The Getaway’ Review

"My friends and I here are time travelers, we’ve kidnapped Nixon and we’re headed to Disneyworld."

The Legends serve up a giant sugary treat to help us get down a couple of awkward bitter pills. They don't need to get to Disneyworld, we're on an emotional rollercoaster already.

See what I did there?

There is a philosophy of screen-writing that, if at all possible, having the protagonist confront their emotional problem should be the solution to solving whatever their plot-related problem might be. See, for example, Craig Owens defusing a spaceship by declaring his unspoken love, or more subtly, Willow's lies finally being brought to light curing the Scooby Gang's amnesia.

It's easy to see this as being formulaic, but really it's just a matter of solid storytelling and remembering to give your narrative an emotional core. With the caveat that if it's done too awkwardly it's a one way ticket to schmaltz-town. See, for example, Craig Owen blowing up Cybermen with the power of father-love.

So, when I observe that this episode of Legends of Tomorrow is a textbook example of solid comedy overlaid onto a situation wherein one character is avoiding dealing with the emotional consequences of recent events, only to pivot to heartbreaking pain and reconciliations as the characters learn to honestly deal with their emotions, that's not a criticism. Doing that kind of thing well is a real skill, and they pull it off here quite well. Again, "Tabula Rasa" is a great example of the all-comedy to suddenly-way-too-real-drama pivot. It's done badly much more often than it's done well, so what we have here is well worth praising.

It helps enormously that the jokes in the jokey parts are pretty much all laugh-out-loud funny. The swallowable bug that makes you tell only the truth is 100% uncut phlebotinum, but it's grade-A phlebotinum, and it leads to Mick Rory confessing his desire to grow out his hair like Fabio, so let's all agree to cherish it forever. The phlebotinum-iness of it is made even more easy to take due to the fact that it's only used to cause Sara to blurt out those hurtful truths to Mona, which drives Mona away from the team. The painful truths that Sara has to confront to fix the situation, in which she both confesses how much she's hurt by the loss of Ava and how much she's failed Mona by not being there for her are all completely coming from herself and her own heart, which gives them genuine emotion and validity far beyond 'magic made me say it' plot contrivances.

The takeaway here, future screenwriters, is that you can only use the phlebotinum for the jokes. The genuine emotional responses have to be just that – genuine. I promise that that's the last time I will use the term phlebotinum in this review.

But we have to also acknowledge something about this episode. All the jokes and the post-breakup heartache and teambuilding are at least partially on display here to help us to get past the one, big, awkward, clunky plot correction that this episode needed to make happen.

This was the episode that needed to make Hank Heywood not the villain of the season anymore.

It will be interesting, later on, to find out exactly when and to what extent the plans for the season changed, but it seems abundantly clear that change they did. The Hank of the first half of the season was an unmitigated bastard, with the occasional moment of charm. He was being built up to be the face of the 'government turns monsters into evil monster soldiers' plotline. At least, it seems reasonably clear that that was what was happening to the monsters. That wasn't a spoiler, just my assumption about what Hank was doing with the monsters when he had them tortured. However, at some point they appear to have decided that Hank needed to be redeemed, and so we do a lot of back-paddling here in a short space of time to justify Hank suddenly deciding to let the Legends go when he finally had them dead to rights in order to make things right with his son.

Now, that's a fair story to tell, and I think they would have pulled it off easily if that's where they'd been intending to go all along. But here, in this episode, it feels very much like a retcon/course correction, and I just didn't buy it. Having the demon Neron in Dez' body kill Hank immediately after his redemption, and setting up things so that Nate thinks Nora killed him, thereby setting up a Nate/Hank rift, just felt contrived to me. I'm sorry about that, because the rest of this episode was fantastic, but there it is.

Still, we shouldn't complain too much over one awkward bit of plot housekeeping. It was great to see all the Legends together, more or less, and a road trip in an RV was just what they needed.

Aim for the horsies!  Wait... .wrong show...

So what have we learned today?

We've learned to stop asking questions, since nobody seems to care about causality anymore. The Legends can watch Nixon's 'incorrect' version of the 'Not A Crook' speech from a future vantage point, then go back to change it so it doesn't happen. But then Mona becoming a were-kaupe in the middle of a restaurant goes totally unnoticed by history, not to mention the theft of an RV and a patrol car.

I don't know, I think maybe I should just enjoy having a show with time travel in it that doesn't get too concerned about temporal physics. As the MST3K them song so eloquently stated, 'If you're wondering where he eats or sleeps, or other science facts/ Then repeat to yourself, "it's just a show, I should really just relax."'

Sound advice.

Everybody remember where we parked.

Nixon's famous 'I am not a crook' quote was from a televised Q & A that was, in fact, at Disneyworld on November 17, 1973. The Legends pick Nixon up pre-emptively in Washington D.C. a few days before that, but apparently Nixon's truth telling was already an observed problem by the White House staff. We hope that after the events shown they got around to going back for Charlie. The running joke of realizing that they'd forgotten her was very, very funny. I'd forgotten her too, the first time it came up.

The Time Bureau still appears to be in 2018, although they didn't directly say so. Zari once again appears to be a conduit between the 2018 Bureau and wherever in time the Legends are at the time. It's just a show. I should really just relax.

Abrupt redemption arcs can be quite painful.

Quotes:

Mick: "What? No Redford? No Sundance. No indie film. No artful nudity. We gotta fix this!"

Gary: "I’ve always wanted to untangle a conspiracy. I’ll need a bulletin board… index cards… I already have yarn, I’ve been getting into crochet." Zari: "Yeah? Me too." Gary: "We should start a club." Zari: "We’ll talk."

Mona: "Grrr."

Agent: "Here that? The truth. Something is very wrong with the President."

Hank: "Siri… Alexa… Gideon! Fire up the ship!"

John: "A bit on the nose, no?" Sara: "We left subtle back in Mexico."

Mona: "You know, I’ve never been in a car that’s a room before."

John: "Not to bother you, but we’ve lost the ship, drugged the President, and I’m stuck in the back with her."

Sara: "Maybe it’s best if we all just don’t talk."

Sara: "Maybe that’s what family is – the family you don’t mind being annoyed by."

Bits and pieces:

-- The group truth telling scene was comedy gold.

-- It looks like they're definitely setting up Zari and Nate as a couple. Sigh. Oh well, I'll learn to live with it.

-- We finally get a Ray and Mick pairing on their own mission, and we barely get to see any of it. That was disappointing.

-- No Ava this week. I wonder if that was for the plot convenience of Hank being in charge, or if Jes Macallan had another commitment. It was probably the right choice to take her completely off the board while we process things with Sara.

-- Several clever plot details this week. Zari's solution to communicating with the RV and Nate's plan for getting Hank's password were both nicely done.

-- This was the first time they've found a way to use Charlie's powers that didn't make her feel too powerful to be part of the team.

-- Whoever's idea it was for all of them to have changed into t-shirts that read,  'Barnes family vacation – Our family is a trip!' should be given anything they ask for, immediately.

-- John's little 'not really a speech' to Sara was a nice bit of dialogue writing.

-- Having a were-kaupe on the team who retains their personality and reason and who can transform on command kind of works.

-- Despite the way she was set up for being blamed for Hank's death being a little contrived, I like the way they got Nora back onto the board here. I hope they don't go the obvious route with Nate wanting revenge.

-- Did they ever give even a handwave explanation for why Zari is working at the Bureau and not on the Waverider now? I mean, from the Bureau's perspective. I get from Zari's point of view why she's there.

So much funny. So much emotional honestly. Just a little bit of clunky plot mechanics.

Three out of four forbidden red toilet buttons.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[fatedcipher]

     It’s over.  I beat Kingdom Hearts 3, a game I’ve waited thirteen years for.  And now that it’s all said and done?

     I’m just disappointed.

     What follows is mostly my stream of consciousness impressions of the game, put to text more to organize and vent than anything else.  Be warned of strong opinions and acerbic criticism.

The Good

Roxas

It was one scene, but it was one hell of a scene.  McCartney fucking killed it.

The Sea Salt Trio finally gets justice.  Xion and Axel finally wear something besides the coat.

I had Sora walk around and take selfies while Roxas and Xion effortlessly demolished Saix.  So much catharsis.

Demyx

Yeah, I know, last thing I was expecting too.

Had exactly zero patience for series melodrama.  Every other word out of his mouth had me laughing.

Dude stabbed evil mcdarkness in the back to do the good guys a huge solid and got away with it scot-free.

Lingering Will

He was on screen for all of five seconds, but I cheered for all five of them.

Namine was the one who called him in.

Should have been him to finish off Terranort, but close enough.

Half the Disney Characters

Telling the obnoxious villains to fuck off.

Actually making them fuck off in a couple instances.

Put that Edgelord back where he came from or so help me!

Hayner!  Pence!  Olette!

Twilight Gang actually contributing to the main plot again.

Them giving a shit about Roxas when they didn’t need to.

Fucking bamboozled SoD, he just didn’t know how to react to their Scooby Doo shenanigans.

Mixed Bag

Some of the Disney worlds were pretty charming and had good cast interactions.

Frozen’s world was not.

Sora using the fallen keys was visually breathtaking and played in well to his power to connect to other people.

It was a reference to the stupid mobile game that has only polluted the plot further.

TWEWY world effectively confirmed in whatever is next.

I may not actually want to play whatever is next.

Music

It practically goes without saying at this point but, JESUS CHRIST THERE’S SOME GOOD MUSIC IN THIS VIDEO GAME

OTHER PROMISE/VECTOR TO THE HEAVENS ARRANGEMENT SLAYED ME

I LOVE YOU YOKO SHIMOMURA

The Bad

Gameplay

Plays like a janky version of 2 with a botox injection of DDD flowmotion that only makes the game feel more awkward.

Clunky melee combos have too much start-up, most have no invincibility or even armor to prevent being hit out of them.

Only a handful of the keyblade transformations are actually useful, all of which are a massive step down from drive forms.

Shotlocks still feel like extraneous instant damage and add nothing to gamplay flow.

Oversaturation of minigames leaves several worlds light on actual combat.

Attraction flow is too easy to get, not fun to use, lasts too long, and leaves you vulnerable to damage.

Worlds are simultaneously expansive by individual area and depressingly small on an overall scale.  Most of Twilight Town is inaccessible, Destiny Islands and Radiant Garden can’t be visited.

General Plot and Storytelling

Generally poor writing that fails to resolve several plot threads and introduces ridiculous retcons that only create more questions.

There’s a scene where all of the good guys are in the same room having a discussion about how convoluted the plot is and Jiminy chimes in that they should read the in-game summaries on the in-game phone.  This was when the game crossed over into self-parody for me, and not in a good way.

The total absence of Final Fantasy characters save for the mention of Cloud and Auron at the start of Olympus eliminates half the appeal of what is ostensibly a crossover series.

Awful pacing, having the Disney worlds as unimportant filler with the majority of the plot happening in the last few hours of the game, following what has depressingly become the norm.

General cutscene incompetence, from characters being effortlessly overpowered by enemies to standing around unarmed and slackjawed waiting for said enemies to cut them down.

Bad dialogue and direction clearly mandated by someone who doesn’t speak English mars a number of moments that could have been good.  The script shines primarily when it escapes that ignorant control, which is not as often as it should be.

Mass death and revival scene was entirely pointless, as were the multiple Heartless swarms everyone was suddenly incapable of even putting up a fight against.

Death is still largely non-existent save for a few characters.

It made me more bitter and fed up with this series than DDD did and that is a fucking accomplishment.

Sora

How fucking dare you treat my precious boy like this, Nomura.

Half the cast spends half the game demeaning him and refuses to listen to him for no discernible reason, despite the fact he immediately solves every problem he is introduced to.

It’s not as bad as DDD, but he’s still written to be way less intelligent than he was in 1-2.

He’s the only one who doesn’t get a perfect happy ending and the only who actually seems to suffer any consequence to his actions, despite those consequences being utterly nonsensical.

It’s not even clear what the fucking “Power of Waking” is and he never needs it save for the artificial death scenes.

Riku

Every other line in the script is shilling him and how he’s somehow better than Sora.

This Yozora clown is literally just a palette swap of him.

Three Rikus in one scene.  It is laughable in how stupid it is.

He gets two playable sections and fights the same shitty boss in both.

He’s the one who goes to pick up Namine, not Roxas, Sora, or Kairi.

You can feel how much Nomura loves him and it repulses me.

Kairi

Her lively personality is completely absent along with any agency she might have once had.

Despite getting a keyblade and training the whole game, she gets halfway through a single fight before she’s easily kidnapped, held hostage, and callously executed.

None of her statements about protecting Sora are followed through on and are empty allusions to the first game.

SoKai is finally all but canon, yet the characters themselves hardly interact in the game and the Oathkeeper charm is never even brought up.

Namine

Her in-engine model is only ever used in the character files.

The only thing she does in the entire game is have a single conversation with Sora in the afterlife, in which he still fails to properly thank her.  

Riku is the one to pick her up after she gets a body because Nomura felt like awkwardly shifting Versus XIII’s unused dynamic onto two characters totally unrelated to it.

She’s still wearing the same white dress she has been since her introduction in CoM.

Aqua

Loses every fight she’s in to cutscene incompetence.

Seriously, you kick Vanitas’ ass in her only playable segment for her to throw herself spread eagle in front of some fireballs he throws out, it’s embarrassing.

Likewise jobs to Terranort and has to be saved by the COME GUARDIAN who is apparently Terra’s heartless?

Her single contribution to the plot is finding Ventus.

The refusal to let her age is just bizarre, the same extending to Ventus and Terra.

Antagonists

Xehanort remains nonsensically overpowered and omniscient, using time travel, clone bodies, and other contrivances to achieve his goals and have the heroes play straight into his hands until his actual last scene.

Multiple members of team dark don’t even have a good reason to work for the old man.  The former traitors are the ones to remain unfailingly loyal.

They show up to vaguely talk down to the heroes and/or wipe the floor with them before smugly disappearing without a scratch.  The only instances where this is even slightly averted are a couple scenes with the Disney characters and the defeat scenes in the final boss rush.

The majority of the villains are given cloying and contrived attempts at casting them in a sympathetic light when they have only ever been shown to be selfish, merciless, and cruel prior to their final defeats.  Xehanort himself is the absolute worst offender, being cast as a well-intentioned extremist at the last possible moment, despite this directly contradicting the entirety of his character prior.

     So yeah, Kindgom Hearts 3 isn’t that good of a game and has a story that’s legitimately quite poorly written and told overall.  Are my expectations inflated by the amount of time I’ve had to wait for this game?  Absolutely, but the series has been on a downward slope in quality since BBS and this was their big chance to correct course.  Even with the promise of TWEWY involvement in whatever is in the future, I can’t honestly say I’m interested in playing another Kingdom Hearts game after this disappointment and that’s depressing for someone who’s loved this series for so long.  There’s still a lot I want to write for Roxas and the rest of the cast, but when most of that stuff is attempting to revise the canon, it can be pretty discouraging.  All the same, I don’t want to give up on this blond haired kid and his friends just yet.  Their story’s too important to me to let it end like this.

[the-desolated-quill]

Heavy Rain - Video Game blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t played this game yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Do you remember the amount of hype that was building around this game at the time? Heavy Rain had caught the attention of multiple mainstream news sites with the promise that this was going to be the next big thing in games. A totally immersive, grown up drama that would bridge the gap between video games and films. Was it? Well... no. Eight years later, David Cage’s ‘interactive drama’ has been largely forgotten and while narratives in games did start to become more sophisticated in the 2010s, I’d argue that Heavy Rain didn’t really play that big a part as David Cage would like to think.

Heavy Rain is a murder mystery/psychological thriller. The Origami Killer kidnaps kids, drowns them in rainwater and leaves an origami figure in their hands and an orchid on their chests. The latest kid to get kidnapped is Shaun Mars and it’s a race against time to for the four main protagonists to save him before he dies. Like with David Cage’s previous game Fahrenheit, there is a good solid premise behind Heavy Rain. And to Quantic Dream’s credit, they have taken great strides to improve the gameplay. Instead of the stupid Simon Says system we got in Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain uses traditional QTEs and it works a lot better. It doesn’t distract you from what’s happening on screen and there are times where the game threatens to live up to its promise of being ‘immersive.’ For example when Ethan is having a panic attack in the train station and you have to physically move the wireless controller up and down to get him to walk or when Madison is picking a lock and you hold the L1 and R1 buttons down and tilt the controller to open the door. That’s good game design and it marries up quite nicely with what’s happening on screen. One thing I’m less keen on however is holding R2 to move the character. It feels so clunky and awkward, like you’re driving a car rather than moving a person. Nope. Don’t like that at all. Totally immersion breaking.

One gameplay mechanic I think had potential and wish was better handled is the ability to listen to a character’s thoughts by pressing the L2 button. That I thought was a legitimately clever concept and could have helped give the player an insight into the characters during pivotal moments. Like someone showing bravado only to listen to their thoughts and realise they’re actually terrified and just putting on an act. That could have been great. Instead the thoughts are either utterly mundane or are just there to give you tips when you’re stuck on how to progress. It feels like such a waste of potential.

I suppose I should quickly talk about the graphics considering they were a huge selling point at the time. The most realistic human faces ever, motion capture, blah blah blah. Except Heavy Rain wasn’t really the first game to use motion capture. The Uncharted games had used it for cutscenes and stuff. And honestly, I didn’t think the graphics were all that impressive even at the time. It’s the uncanny valley effect. There’s a reason why Pixar and Dreamworks make their human characters cartoony looking. It’s because rendering realistic looking humans on a computer is incredibly fucking difficult and people can instantly tell when it’s off. The characters in Heavy Rain look more like plastic action figures to me rather than actual people. Their movements and facial expressions just felt incredibly stilted and wooden to me, particularly during kissing and sex scenes where everything becomes really awkward and uncomfortable.

But never mind all of that. What about the writing? How does it compare to the insane laugh-a-thon that was Fahrenheit? Well if you’re after Tommy Wiseau-esque unintentional hilarity, you’re going to be slightly disappointed. Yes the writing is bad, but it’s not so bad it’s good like Fahrenheit was. It’s cliched, lacklustre and extremely limiting. The game boasts branching storylines and that all your choices matter, but in reality the story changes very little regardless of what you do. Yes there are loads of different endings, but what ending you get depends more on what happens in the final level than the rest of the game. As for characters dying at any time, that’s partially true. It’s impossible for Ethan and Scott to die before the end and when a character does die, all the game does is fence off certain levels.

In order to properly criticise and analyse the writing, let’s explore this character by character.

Ethan Mars

Out of all the characters, Ethan’s story is probably the most consistent and most satisfying to play. He’s the father of Shaun, the Origami Killer’s latest victim, and has to go through several Saw style trials in order to find him. I have to say, while the opening is extremely slow and tedious, forcing you to do all these mundane tasks like cooking and brushing your teeth and all this shit, as the game goes on, Ethan’s story comes the closest to delivering on the emotional and immersive experience David Cage promised. Pascal Langdale gives a pretty good performance for the most part and there were times where I did feel genuinely sorry for Ethan and his predicament. I’m not talking about the big set piece moments like when Jason dies at the beginning of the game. It’s the smaller scenes like Shaun doing his homework and Ethan looking on sadly at him or him sitting alone in his dusty office and reminiscing over his previous life before things went so wrong. That’s where the game really comes into its own. The trials too I thought were well written and designed for the most part. There’s some genuine tension in driving down the wrong side of the motorway or having to hack one of your own fingers off and it’s one of the rare occasions where the writing, acting and direction really come together and work as a cohesive whole.

That being said, there are still a litany of problems with Ethan’s story. The most glaring of which is the execution. While there are some legitimately powerful moments in Ethan’s story, they’re often ruined by David Cage’s overegging of the pudding. For example when Ethan has his panic attack in the train station, the motion controls and Langdale’s performance would have been enough to convey the pain and anxiety of the character. But then Cage takes it one step further with a stupid hallucination sequence with his dead kid Jason running round the station and people flopping over like ragdolls. Like... we get it. Ethan is depressed about his kid and that’s what has caused his fear of crowds. Even some of the mundane activities at the beginning of the game like making sure Shaun eats his dinner and does his homework on time could have been impactful if Cage didn’t drag it on for fucking hours and bore us into a coma as a result. In visual media, less is more. But the problem is David Cage seems so insecure about his own writing ability that he ends up overcompensating and bludgeoning the player over the head with these gaudy and over the top moments instead of just letting the performances of the actors convey the emotions and allowing the scene to speak for itself.

And then there are the moments and plot points that are just plain weird. So after his first son Jason dies in a car accident, Ethan starts experiencing blackouts. Not a bad idea, but the way they’re implemented is beyond incompetent. For starters Ethan has only two blackouts in the whole game and then it’s never mentioned or brought up again. Not even at the end when Shaun is all safe and sound (assuming you made all the right choices). Are we meant to assume that Ethan is magically cured after all this? And what exactly does Ethan get up to during the blackouts? When he regains consciousness, he’s always near Carnaby Square holding an origami figure. The significance of Carnaby Square is explained later on, but not how or why Ethan goes there during his blackouts. The only reason this is here is to plant the red herring that Ethan is the killer, except that’s utter bollocks. If Ethan was the killer, why would he kidnap a bunch of kids before his own? Were they just practice? What would be his motive? How did he learn to do origami? Where would he get the resources to create all these trials? What about the trials that involve him doing something in front of the camera or taking a photo as proof? If he’s responsible for these trials, who the hell is verifying this stuff? It’s utterly nonsensical and thus a complete waste of time. Apparently Ethan was supposed to share a psychic connection with the killer in the original script, but this was cut for time. The blackouts and stuff should have been cut too because it just doesn’t make sense with the current plot.

While there are a lot of flaws, I honestly would have been okay with Heavy Rain if the focus was just on Ethan. It wouldn’t have been a great game by any means, but it would have been decent enough. Unfortunately we’ve got three other characters to contend with, starting with...

Madison Paige

Let us turn our attention from the best character to the worst. I was amazed by the number of critics and gamers praising Madison for her strong characterisation because she has got to be one of the worst examples of video game sexism I’ve ever seen. The way David Cage writes and presents her is frankly despicable. She exists solely to be exploited. Cage’s obsession with her body is utterly disturbing. All characters, male and female, get shower scenes, but Madison is the only one that appears fully nude and the cameras pans across her entire body so you can see every inch of it. It’s really pervy and uncomfortable to watch. Worse still, every threat against her life is always sexual in nature. It’s not enough to have a cliched mad doctor who butchers people. We’ve got to have a scene where he tries to stick a drill up her vagina. There’s even a scene where a nightclub owner forces her to perform a striptease at gunpoint. You have the option to knock him out with a lamp before you get too naked, but the game seems to actively encourage you to strip off. And no, the intention clearly wasn’t to disturb the audience. The way it’s shot and choreographed is similar to the shower scene, clearly intended for a male gaze. And even if the scene was intended to be disturbing, there are ways of creeping out the player without sexually objectifying or demeaning women. It’s absolutely revolting. If you want further proof that Madison is intended solely to be exploited, please note that she’s only character in the game who has a separate person doing the voice while another person, glamour model Jacqui Ainsley, provides the body and face because presumably Judi Beecher isn’t sexy enough for David Cage. I rest my case.

But it’s not just that. It’s the way she’s implemented into the story too. All the other characters have their plots and vices set up immediately. Madison never does. We find out she has insomnia, but it’s never followed up on. We don’t know what caused it or whether she recovers. In fact we never learn a single solitary thing about her character. Her main role (apart from being sexually exploited) is to prop up the male hero Ethan. Even when it doesn’t make sense to do so. She treats his injuries and even helps him escape from the police, becoming a fugitive, despite not knowing a single thing about Ethan’s predicament. Also I couldn’t help but get the strongest sense of deja vu when Madison suddenly started to try and snog Ethan’s face off. It’s exactly like the bullshit romance from Fahrenheit. It comes right the fuck out of nowhere and is handled with all the grace and subtlety of a glow in the dark rhino. At least Heavy Rain gives you the option to decline. I tell you I couldn’t slam the ‘Don’t Kiss’ button fast enough.

Madison really does feel like a pointless inclusion to the game. She brings nothing new to the story and is basically used as a get out of jail free card. If Ethan or Norman fail to find the location of Shaun, Madison can just phone either of them up and tell them, even though she never meets or interacts with Norman at any point in the game, thus rendering the progress in their stories completely pointless. They could have sat in the corner dribbling for the entire game and it would have led to the same conclusion providing Madison survives the fire. (and speaking of plot holes and bad writing, why did she act shocked when Ann Sheppard told her the killer’s name. She never interacts with Scott at any point in the game. How does she know who he is? Did nobody proof read this shit?).

Norman Jayden

Here’s an idea to make playing this game more fun. When you get to the levels where you play as Norman Jayden, pretend he’s an alien from outer space. It would explain the daft VR sunglasses and Leon Ockenden’s terrible performance. I swear I’ve heard some bad American accents in my time, but this takes the fucking cake. I’m particularly amused by how camp Norman suddenly turns whenever he says the word ‘bastard.’

So. Norman. An FBI agent with a crippling drug problem... I think. He carries a tube of blue powder called triptocaine and sniffs it occasionally whenever he gets the shakes, but there’s a chance that this is actually caused by the VR sunglasses. There are several moments where a butler warns you not to overindulge in ‘you know what’ due to how dangerous it is. At first you think he’s referring to the triptocaine, but later it becomes clear he means the VR. So... what’s the point of the triptocaine then? Is he addicted to it or not? What’s he suffering withdrawal from? It’s all very unclear and poorly defined. And what exactly is the problem with the VR sunglasses? Why are they dangerous? How are they affecting him? We later see blood come out of his eyes, but how does that work? Not that any of this matters because it never actually links into the plot in any meaningful way. You can choose to either take the triptocaine or abstain and, aside from one level, the story carries on as normal regardless of your choice.

The thing is Norman Jayden’s story could have benefitted the most from the ‘your choice matters’ model. Imagine if the game actually gave you the freedom to investigate at your own pace. Allowed you to choose which suspects you question, which lead you follow, and have whether you find the killer or not all rely on the player’s own investigative abilities. Let the player find the clues and put together the solution themselves. Instead the game just yanks you from one false lead to the next and hands you solutions on a plate. This is a recurring problem throughout this game. Your choices simply don’t matter for the most part. David Cage merely wants to give the illusion of choice whilst forcing you down the path he wants you to take. There’s no real freedom or player choice. Actions very rarely have consequences and it all feels incredibly disappointing.

But the most excruciating thing about Norman Jayden isn’t even Norman Jayden. It’s the psychotic twat he has to hang around with. Lieutenant Carter Blake, police detective and arsehole. Throughout the game, Blake constantly butts heads with Norman and there never seems to be a good reason for it other than he’s a prick. Not just that, he often misuses his power, violently beating suspects for confessions and not only does Norman never report this, there’s also never a strong narrative reason for it. At first I thought Blake was just desperate to find the killer, but as it goes on you realise that’s not the case at all. He just enjoys being a violent dick. Why? I don’t know. And then there’s this whole witch hunt against Ethan. Ex wife Grace comes into the precinct to tell Blake about how Ethan dreams of drowning bodies and from then on Blake goes on a personal vendetta against Ethan, convinced he’s the Origami Killer. Except it doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. For one thing, Ethan has an alibi. He was in a coma when the killings first started. Plus Grace says this happened in the spring and it’s been established that the Origami Killer only drowns his victims in the fall. There’s no concrete evidence tying Ethan to the crime. Just a vague, contradictory story from his ex wife. And yet Blake blindly goes along with it. Worse still, Norman never calls him out on it. It’s monumentally stupid writing. Did you know David Cage won a BAFTA for this game? How? Fucking how?!

Scott Shelby

Finally we come to Scott Shelby, a private detective who has been hired by the families of the victims of the Origami Killer to investigate. I have mixed feelings about this story. The Scott levels are often very dull and repetitive with each level mostly playing out the same. Scott questions someone about the Origami Killer, they refuse to talk, Scott leaves, someone threatens the witness, Scott saves them, witness gives information. Wash, rinse, repeat. It gets very boring after a while, especially considering the information you learn is basically the same as what Norman learns. The whole thing just feels like a massive waste of time. 

Scott suspects someone called Gordi Kramer to be the killer and has to contend with Gordi’s father Charles, but from the moment you meet Gordi, you know he can’t possibly be the killer and yet the game constantly focuses on the Kramers. Another issue I have is his relationship with Lauren Winter, the mother of one of the killer’s victims who tags along. Not only does she contribute nothing to the narrative other than making sad eyes every five minutes, the two also randomly kiss each other near the end despite sharing no hint of romantic chemistry. (seriously has David Cage ever been on a date with a human being before?).

But despite all of this, I found myself quite liking Scott. Sam Douglas gives the strongest performance of the four leads and the character comes off as warm and affectionate. Despite the tedium of the levels he’s in, it’s often his charm and likability that gets you through. Which is what makes the reveal that he’s in fact the Origami Killer all the more shocking.

Now when I first played this in 2010, I honestly thought it was a good twist. Scott pretended to be a private detective in order to find and dispose of evidence connecting to him. His obsession with Gordi Kramer was because he was insulted that there was another person killing children without a ‘good’ reason. I even liked the little detail that it was seeing Ethan throw himself in front of a car in an attempt to save Jason that sparked off the idea of the Origami Killer. It falls into that classic trope of heroes creating their own villains and it’s fairly well executed. However there is a little bit of cheating going on here. The timing of certain scenes doesn’t quite add up and some of the thoughts Scott has just doesn’t make sense when you know he’s the killer. Also this revelation opens up a ton of plot holes. Where did he get the money to buy all this stuff? The cars. The abandoned factory. The warehouse. The phones. The secret room in his apartment where he grows the orchids. He used to be a cop. There’s no way he could have had that much money in his retirement fund for all of this. Why did he subscribe to an origami magazine? Isn’t that a bit of a giveaway? Why did he buy the warehouse where he drowns his victims using his own name when he used his dead brother’s name for all of his other transactions? And what happened to his asthma? David Cage puts a lot of emphasis on his asthma in the early levels, but there’s never any payoff in the later levels. In fact it’s largely forgotten about. Scott gets into fist fights and even an over the top gunfight through a mansion and yet never gets an asthma attack when before he seemed to get them at the drop of a hat.

But the biggest question I have is this. Why Ethan? The Origami Killer kidnaps kids in order to test the fathers. To see how far they’d go to save their sons. As I said before, it was Ethan’s selflessness that inspired Scott to start the killings, to find a father that could do what his couldn’t. So why does he pick Ethan? He already knows that Ethan is prepared to sacrifice himself for his son. Why put him through all these tests? It just seems pointless. It gets even weirder at the end when Scott tries to kill Ethan. Again, the whole point of these murders is to test the fathers. Ethan succeeded. Why does he need to die? It completely goes against his modus operandi. And why use a gun to kill him? The final trial involves Ethan drinking poison, but then it’s revealed that the poison isn’t real. If Scott intended to kill Ethan, why not just use real poison? David Cage clearly hasn’t thought this through very thoroughly and this is a problem that extends throughout the entire game.

I applaud David Cage for wanting to tell different kinds of stories using the video game medium, but the fact of the matter is he’s simply not good at it. Yes video games are going through something of a renaissance right now, but I’d argue that it’s in spite of Heavy Rain rather than because of it. We have seen some truly incredible games over the past decade. Games that have redefined what you can do with the medium and told really engaging stories. Telltale’s The Walking Dead, The Last Of Us, The Stanley Parable, BioShock, the Mass Effect trilogy, Horizon Zero Dawn, Life Is Strange and many more. These games have truly innovated and expanded the medium. Heavy Rain however does the opposite. David Cage talks about innovating games, but if you look at what inspires him as a writer and how Heavy Rain is designed and structured, you’d think that Cage was embarrassed by video games. He’s trying so hard to make Heavy Rain more cinematic, but it doesn’t work because it’s not a film. It’s a video game. In fact if this was a film, it would be laughed out of every film festival. It’s cliched, boring, insulting and just plain stupid. Yes it’s unique, but unique doesn’t necessarily equate to good.

Five years later, Supermassive Games would adopt this style of storytelling for the truly brilliant Until Dawn and it works so much better because there is effort to actually tell a compelling story with relatable characters and to give your choices actual meaning and impact. Heavy Rain however just gets bogged down in its own pretentiousness, pouring scorn over the medium being used to tell the story without offering anything of substance to replace it. There’s a reason why people don’t talk about Heavy Rain anymore and it’s not because it’s a BAFTA award winning ‘game changer’.

[riverdames-blog]

Disappointed But Not Disheartened: Reflections on A Wrinkle In Time

In early 2016, when it was announced that Ava DuVernay was attached to A Wrinkle In Time, I tweeted about how excited I was for it and she favorited my tweet so I screenshotted the notification and showed it to everyone on the planet and have been anxiously awaiting this movie ever since.  Jennifer Lee, one of the two screenwriters for the project, is who I aspire to be, and Ava DuVernay is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the best filmmakers of all time, and, although I honestly don’t remember much about the plot, I read at least 3 books in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet as a child and definitely really enjoyed them.  (I may have read Many Waters and completely forgotten it, but I think I was just not that interested in transitioning to the next generation and so peaced out after A Swiftly Tilting Planet.)  In the months before its release, I declared multiple times that A Wrinkle In Time would probably be the movie of the year for me.

Now that I’ve seen it, I can say more confidently: it’s not my movie of the year.  Just to be sure, I saw it twice this weekend (and I also watched the 2003 TV Movie in between to compare – it’s not great but it’s also not, like… resoundingly worse).  The second time around, I enjoyed it way more than the first, and I think it’ll only continue to grow on me with time.  Visually, it’s just spectacular: Ava DuVernay and Naomi Shohan have built a gorgeous and imaginative world.  Production design is maybe the only element of cinema that L’Engle’s original novel lends itself to easily, and they tapped that to its fullest potential.  But something about the storytelling just didn’t quite click for me.

And before I go on, I want to be clear: no one working on this movie had anything to prove.  People will frame it that way – can a black woman direct a $100 million movie? or can a little brown girl carry an action-adventure blockbuster? – but none of that is really up in the air.  Black creatives have proven time and time again that they can and will carry franchises, so we can stop pretending that was ever even a question.  And we all saw The Dark Knight Rises and were like, “hm, very middle of the road”, and yet no one raised an eyebrow when Christopher Nolan got a Best Director nod this year.  Ava is still one of the best working visual storytellers in Hollywood (and has increasingly excellent brand recognition – any studio would be lucky to have her helm another blockbuster).  Storm Reid is charming and will continue to get work.  Jennifer Lee is still my hero.  It is dumb that I’m nervous to admit that I was disappointed by A Wrinkle In Time, like if it wasn’t the perfect movie no one will ever try to make movies like it again.  Creatives do not have to break new ground with every movie they make for their work to be considered valuable.  And in a lot of ways, A Wrinkle In Time was groundbreaking.

So, bearing in mind that this movie doesn’t in anyway reflect on anyone’s capacity for great filmmaking, what made A Wrinkle In Time feel disjointed to me?

My first thought was maybe it was just a failure of casting.  They apparently searched for 7 months for someone to play Charles Wallace, and as cute as he is, Deric McCabe felt awkward and stilted to me the entire movie on first watching.  Levi Miller was the cutest stalk of celery I’ve ever seen but that’s kinda the most I can say for him.  Everyone was charming, but no one – Storm Reid included – really had the chops to carry the weight of all the bonkers exposition this movie demanded of them.

That said, the performances felt less stilted to me when I watched it a second time – Storm Reid and Deric McCabe did have some really keen and nuanced moments, and Levi Miler, despite speaking like he’s never met another human being before, gives truly excellent face.  And the adult casting was superb; Chris Pine as the affirming father of a biracial daughter seems like an obvious and sincere choice, and also ZACH GALIFIANAKIS.  Clearly Aisha Coley knew what she was doing because it takes some serious insight to look at Zach Galifinakis and think, “this schlubby comedian will play the kindest, gentlest father figure in cinematic history.”  No actor is actively wrong for their part, and no one is phoning it in – the younger folks are maybe just still figuring some things out.

So if the performances felt awkward but it wasn’t a failure of casting, I hate to even suggest it, but maybe then it’s a failure of direction.  If these actors had the potential to perform this script well, maybe Ava just didn’t direct them appropriately.  There are some moments where I think this is actually true: if you’re working with young talent struggling to create a genuine sense of chemistry, maybe don’t block things so they’re standing several yards apart as they exchange intimate dialogue.  There were multiple weirdly slow, far apart exchanges between Meg and Calvin that probably would’ve felt loaded with meaning with more competent actors but just felt bizarre and confusing with these kids.

That said, I am reluctant to criticize Ava’s work here, largely because these children have spoken quite sincerely multiple times about how kind Ava was and how safe they felt working with her.  When working with young actors, I think that’s the most important thing.  And so if these kids felt most comfortable shouting at each other from across a football field, then fine.  I’m okay with that.  And also, let’s not forget: Zach. Gala-friggin-akis.  Ava knows how to get what she needs.

So then perhaps there was something weird about the camera.  The cinematography of this movie felt deliberate, like it was meant to create a real mood around this story.  It felt like the idea was to shoot this thing in a way that was disorienting to reflect the magic and uncertainty of the world these characters occupy.  But that didn’t really click for me: I mostly just felt like the camera placement was in the way.  Maybe because the performances weren’t strong enough to come through, but maybe because cutting from a traditional over-the-shoulder shot to a strikingly tight 90 degree profile is always going to take you a little bit out of the moment.  (There were two particularly striking moments that made me chuckle they were so disorienting: one when Ms. Whatsit and Meg’s mother talk in such a tight, shallow-focus profile shot, I could’ve sworn they were about to kiss; the other when, in the middle of a conversation between Meg and Principal Jenkins, there was a cut to a close, shallow-focus shot of his name placard, and then a very artistic but completely unnecessary tilt up as the focus racks a very tight shot of Mr. Jenkin’s face.)

Weird cinematography can interrupt the flow of even the best scenes.  But maybe – and I hate to say this even more than I hate to suggest Ava’s work wasn’t as good as it could be – but maybe, I am just making excuses here for Jennifer Lee.  Maybe this was a failure of script.  And I do think that Jennifer Lee and her writing partner, Jeff Stockwell, made some really positive changes.  I think they captured and amplified the essential relationships and motivations in this story.  I think getting rid of the twins and playing around with the Murry family structure, as well as adding a lot of scenes with the dad and giving him a central character flaw, gave this story a clearer and cleaner direction than the Weinstein-produced adaptation in 2003.  And I think that the whimsy of the book was captured in a way that felt visual and cinematic in this screenplay.

But it’s hard to deny that this screenplay felt a little clunky.  There was a lot of exposition and no clear moment when a goal or central question was obviously stated, which probably would’ve helped me enjoy the film a bit more on my first watching.  It was somewhat unclear when the acts were changing, which made it hard to be totally swept up in the beautiful and immersive imagery.  The sequencing at the end is awkward – why does Calvin just watch a deeply intimate conversation between Meg and her dad?  (He’s just smiling in the corner of one shot when they hug at the end and I truly burst out laughing in the theater.)  What did Calvin and Mr. Murry do in the backyard for all that time when they tessered away without Meg and Charles Wallace?  Why did Charles Wallace get so easily distracted by the family dog (for a seemingly very long stretch of time) when he ran into the house to get his mom?  Why did Meg not laugh out loud at Calvin when he said, “Funny how it took a trip around the universe for me to have the strength to confront my crazy dad!”?  And speaking of Calvin, while I think the decision to trim a lot of the fat around the Meg-Charles Wallace sibling dynamic was a good one, it sort of begged the question: why is Calvin even here?  (It’s actually sort of nice bit of commentary – to help save the universe, men simply need to trust women and affirm that their ideas and instincts are correct – but it felt undeniably odd that Calvin came along when all he did was fall off Reese Witherspoon’s lettuce leaf body and then eat a bunch of sand.)

Having said that, it does seem like there were some fairly substantial reshoots or at least major cuts made after principle production, because based on the trailer, what seems like a big expositional scene got left on the chopping block.  I’ve also heard in interviews that they shot and were starting to animate an Aunt Beast scene between Mr. Murry’s tesser and Meg’s final confrontation with The It.  Perhaps the original script did a better job of integrating Calvin and establishing clearer act breaks and character voices.  Maybe, for reasons beyond their control, this script needed to be torn up a bit and it was too late for the writers to polish the rough edges that were left behind.   Or hey, maybe Jeff Stockwell took hostage of the whole thing and made a bunch of bad changes at the last minute that Jennifer Lee couldn’t talk him down from and her hands are clean!  (I don’t know enough about WGA rules to totally tease out what that cowriting process looked like based on the billing – that is maybe very possible – but it’s not very kind to Jeff to just assume that about the script so I won’t.)

At the end of the day, A Wrinkle In Time did not come together for me like I hoped it would.  It’s not easy to tell why major sequences got cut pretty late in the game or why the cinematography decisions and acting decisions came together as awkwardly as they did.  Whatever the reason, this movie just didn’t do it for me.  But even as I left the theater feeling a little disappointed, I was not disheartened.  This movie wasn’t anything like, say, Suicide Squad, which feels like a project that was fought over, a project where everyone involved seemingly knew the movie was a train-wreck but also “knew” it wasn’t their fault.  It’s hard to point the finger at anyone here; everyone has something to be proud of (and something to be less proud of).  No sequence feels pulled because the studio didn’t trust its creatives or because the director didn’t trust her actors.  It feels like a product that was made by a whole, a whole who struggled with this beast together.  A Wrinkle In Time feels delightfully collaborative, a movie made by committee in the best possible way.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway, then, is that adapting L’Engle’s bonkers novel is a hard thing to do.  To no one’s fault, the stakes of her story are simultaneously impossibly large and surprisingly small.  Her characters speak with a rhythm that is odd even when done well, and the world she built evokes more the concept of beauty than actual images of it.  (And let’s not even begin to unpack cinema’s troubled troubled relationship with Christian-influenced fantasy storytelling.)

But here is a group of people who all earnestly rose to the challenge.  They made the thing.  And it is flawed in a lot of ways.  But as Meg Murry knows better than most, its faults are not undeserving of love.

[not-just-any-fangirl]

Gift Of The Sea

A/N:  This is heavily overdue fic for @rivendell101! I lost a bet and had to write her a fic, and finally got a firm idea, so yay! 

Looking back this might honestly be a little inspired from H2O in an aspect, but other than that I just thought it would be fun to write! Love me some mermaid Natsu!

Mermaid!AU

Pairing: Nalu, Fairy tail

Words: 5993

Rating: T

Part: Oneshot

Natsu wasn’t stupid.

He knew he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. He was very much aware of the danger he was not only putting himself in but also his pod. But goddamn if Natsu wasn’t a curious fucker.

His cousin’s words.

Natsu peeked above the rock outcrop he hid behind, watching the pier as he had found himself doing everyday for the past month. He rose himself higher, craning his neck to try and see the where the wood left the white sand beach. Natsu sunk back down into the water quickly when he noticed the light reflect off his scales, his tail rising with him in his eagerness. Like he said, Natsu wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t ready to make contact yet, and didn’t need his tail’s scales reflecting light and giving him away.

Excitement made his pulse pound in his ears when he finally saw her walk along the pier and towards the water. Natsu couldn’t help his grin as he caught her gentle hum over the sound of the water lapping at the rock in front of him, her voice light and airy and little off to his sensitive ears but not unpleasant. Her blonde hair was left loose this time, tumbling low on her back. Natsu liked how it glinted in the sun, like the treasure he hoarded beneath the water’s surface, but he really wanted to know how it looked flowing in the current so much more.

And this was the problem Natsu was facing. To approach or not to. She seemed weird, coming to the pier everyday but only standing at the edge of the dock until the sun set, not even dipping the tip of her leg into the water. But Natsu liked weird. Trusted it. Not to mention that she would feed the birds around her, bringing some sort of food to throw to the scavengers before leaving again.

Natsu partially wanted to thank her on behalf of them, if only to make them stop screaming at him to do so. Sometimes Natsu hated his Gift.

Ducking beneath the water Natsu swam forward, body deciding for him that today was the day he would speak to her. Natsu blinked in relief as the water washed over his eyes and skin, eyesight sharpening as he swam. Natsu stopped when he could touch the barnacle crusted pole of one of the pier’s supports. Seaweed grew around the base, Natsu wiggling his finger at a small guppy. The fish chased his digit, Natsu laughing soundlessly as he teased the smaller fish. He cupped it in his hand, barring his teeth when a larger fish the size of his body passed by, circles predatory as it eyed the small pod of guppies hiding in the weeds. Natsu nodded to himself when his threat display made the silver fish scurry away, deciding to look for a meal in a less hostile place.

Natsu laughed when the small fish headbutted his cheek in thanks before swimming back to his pod. Deciding the girl had had enough time to near the edge of the dock Natsu swam upwards, body close to the pole and tail curling along the soaked wood so that there was less chance of being seen.

Words his pod leader had said stopped him from breaking through the surface, Natsu just inches from the dry air and revealing himself and his kind to a human. If all we do is worry about following rules then our souls will never progress.

With a grin, Natsu breached the divide between air and sea.

The girl stood at the edge of the dock, looking far away towards the sun, so lost in her own mind that she didn’t notice Natsu’s eyes watching her from her left. Natsu lifted himself higher, grip firm on the dock so her could rest his chin on his forearms, continuing to watch her. Now that he was this close he could see her face better, large eyes a deep brown, a little more sad and a little more wistful than he decided they ought to her. Her full lips were those that were born to smile.

Natsu continued to watch her in silence, growing bored the longer time dragged on and she didn’t notice him. What kind of weirdo didn’t even say hi when someone popped out of the water?

His mood brightened when an idea came to him. Natsu lifted the tip of his tail, dropping it back into the water with a loud splash. He snickered when the girl jumped, thin sleeve-strap of the cloth covering her upper body slipping down over her shoulder. Natsu thought the white colour made her skin look pretty. Natsu grinned up at the girl, eyes closing. He opened them when he heard a shrill squeak, giving a yelp of his own as he was startled off the edge of the pier and retreated into the safety of the water. His ears still rang and he glared at where he had been leaning, blowing angry bubbles with his nose.

Natsu raised his eyebrows when the girl’s concerned face came into view, eyes wide with worry as she looked at him. Her mouth was open like she wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Were all humans like this?

Slowly Natsu lifted his head back into the air, eyeing her warily incase she tried to deafen him again. He hid another snigger as he watched her eyes grow large like a pufferfish’s as she looked over him. Natsu cocked his head, taking the chance to study her more closely and head-on.

She didn’t have the gills along her neck like he did, and her skin seemed to stay relatively soft and smooth looking despite being in the air for hours on end. Aside from her paler colour, Natsu marvelled at how alike they were. A flash of white caught his eye and Natsu was lifting himself from the water in a smooth motion. The girl fell backwards with a softer squeak. Natsu hooked his thumb in her cheek, pulling her lip up so he could see her teeth clearer. He ran his tongue along his own sharp canine, confusion making his head tilt as he inspected the girl once again. How could she tear into her food if her teeth were so dull? Is that why she had looked so sad before? Because she was hungry? Natsu could understand that, he always got sad and angry when he went hungry for too long too.

Natsu grunted when the girl shoved her hand in his face, pushing him off her. He felt himself slip so the edge of the pier was against his armpits again. He pouted at her, the girl sending him a glare of her own.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked hotly. Natsu took a second, absorbing her words and voice.

“Yo,” he said, words clunky and awkward on his tongue. Human language was harsher and full of sudden breaks that weren’t in his own tongue, but Natsu was happy to add another language to his Gift.

The girl blinked at him, eyes lighting with a firey passion that made Natsu grin and cheeks puffing out. Now she really looked like a pufferfish.

“You shove your hand in my mouth and say ‘yo’?” She said between her teeth. “As if you weren’t rude enough, scaring me with your dyed hair and prosthetic gills. What are you, a mermaid performer for the Aquatic Zoo?”

None of that made sense to Natsu.

“What is ‘dye’ and ‘prosthetic’?” Natsu asked. The girl blinked at him. He blinked back. She blinked again. Natsu blinked again.

“You can drop the mermaid shtick,” she sighed, settling into a weird sitting position where she crossed her legs. At least, that’s what Natsu was told they were called. They didn’t look very helpful in swimming, so he didn’t see what was so great about them. The girl gave him one last critical look over before extending her hand to him. “My name’s Lucy.”

“I’m Natsu,” he said, deciding to ignore the mermaid comment. He didn’t really know what it meant, but he just chalked it up to how weird Lucy was.

“So Natsu, why were you putting your fist in my mouth?” she asked dryly, giving Natsu a sharp look. He shrugged, tail swirling through the water under him in pleasant waves.

“Never met someone with such dull teeth,” he said. Natsu grinned at her, satisfaction curling neatly in his chest when her eyes darted to his own sharp teeth. Natsu was proud of them, and how good he was at catching his prey with his mouth alone.

“Well I’ve never met anyone with such sharp teeth,” she bristled. Natsu noticed a light red dusting her cheeks.

“Really?” Natsu asked excitedly. “Then how do you guys tear your food off the bone?”

Lucy looked at him blankly. “Uh, cutlery? Like normal people?”

Natsu nodded. Cutlery. He’d have to ask Makarov what that was. “Wait,” Natsu said, eyes narrowing as he looked at Lucy. He pushed himself high with his arms so he was eye level with her. “Why are you sad if you can eat?”

“What?” Lucy asked, shifting uncomfortably and looking as confused as Natsu felt.

“Your eyes were sad, and I thought it was ‘cus you might’ve been weird, but then I saw your dull bad-at-tearing teeth and thought it was ‘cus you couldn’t eat, but if you can eat then why did you look sad?”

“Were you watching me?” Lucy asked, dodging the question. Natsu snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Well yeah, I was waiting for you to notice me but you kept looking at the sun like it was the last time you’d ever see it set over the water.”

Lucy blinked, turning her head back towards the setting sun again. The same forlorn look entered her eyes as she looked at the horizon before tearing her gaze back to Natsu. He felt concern bubble in his chest, an odd protectiveness coming over him for the strange human in front of him. Like when he saw a baby fish trapped. Lucy had the aura of someone who longed for freedom but was caught in a net. Natsu’s neck ached as he felt sympathy for the feeling flare in him.  

“You’re a strange boy,” she said, smile fond as she looked at Natsu again. “How come you dye your hair pink?”

“It’s natural,” Natsu said, grinning at her slightly irritated look. She still hadn’t answered his ‘what is dye’ question but he thought it was more fun making her do those funny faces.

“People don’t have pink hair,” Lucy said accusingly. Natsu raised an eyebrow, pushing himself so he sat on the edge of the pier, his scales scraping against the dry wood.

“I ain’t people.” Natsu said simply. Lucy gaped at him, gaze focused solely on his tail.

“W-well that looks r-real,” Lucy said, skin having lost it’s pretty red tint and turning paler. Natsu lifted the tip of his tail out of the water, winding around Lucy’s ankle and giving her a comforting squeeze. He didn’t like it when she looked like that, he decided.

“‘Cus it is, ya weirdo,” Natsu said trying to get her to smile and pout at him. Instead Lucy screamed, panic making the whites of her eyes visible. Natsu flinched both from the high pitch and her clawing at his tail, retreating away from her and slipping his tail back into the water. Lucy had stood up, her back pressed tight against the wooden pole at the right corner of the dock. Natsu couldn’t help his hurt that his new friend was trying to flee from him. He didn’t think he was that scary, at least not to anything her size. Natsu looked over her, mentally calculating his own length. He would say that he was probably two, two and a half lengths of her.

“Oh my fucking God,” Lucy gasped, body shaking as she pushed herself away from her pole. Her steps were unsteady as she walked back to Natsu, and he flinched when his tail fell into a strong current, salt water stinging where Lucy had ripped at his scales. “You’re really a mermaid.”

“What’s a mermaid?” Natsu asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. He winced again when he felt a fish brush at his injury. Little bastards loved blood.

“You,” Lucy said in exasperation, gesturing at all of Natsu. He thinned his lips at her, still not understanding. Humans were weird. Or maybe just Lucy was. He lifted his tail from the water, bringing it to his lap to see how much damage her talons had done to him. “Oh, oh Natsu, I’m sorry, you’re bleeding!” Lucy said. Natsu startled when she dropped to her knees beside, the closest she had come to him yet. She was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, skin around her eyes pinched as she examined his tail. She reached her hands, pausing uncertainly just before her fingertips brushed him.

He didn’t know why, but he trusted Lucy, so he shifted his tail to finish making contact. Lucy flinched a little, and Natsu watched as awe grew on her face and her breath caught in her throat. She stroked his tail, Natsu fighting to keep a low rumble from sounding in his chest. He had always been a sucker for tail pets. He looked at his tail while Lucy inspected it, his blood a deep gold against his dark red scales. Pink and grey undertones scattered through his scales, and Natsu was proud of how shiny they could be when he remembered to take care of them. Much better looking than that Icy Northern’s blue skin or his cousin’s dark black scales.

“Natsu, why is your blood gold?” Lucy asked, fingers still running gently along the ridge of spines along the back of his tail, fins that ran along the sides of his tail laying on her bare skin revealed by the short fabric she wore beneath the fabric that covered her chest. He liked the feeling of her soft skin against him, pressing into her touches.

“I dunno. Always has been. What colour is yours?” he asked, leaning his hands back to brace him as he continued to stay above water. Natsu didn’t think he’d been above for this long in a while. Not since Igneel.

“Humans would call your tail ‘blood red’,” Lucy said with a small grin. Her thumb brushed his golden blood away from his injury, Natsu flinching when she touched a few tender scales. Lucy apologized quickly, touches gentler and lip once more between her teeth. Natsu hummed, thinking over the human phrase.

“Then I would call you hair ‘blood gold’,” he decided. Natsu grinned when she gave a thankful smile. “So Lucy, why were you looking at the sea so sadly?”

“I was thinking of my mother,” Lucy said after thinking for several minutes. Natsu nodded. He could tell from her tone and expression she had lost her mom. Natsu still got sad and angry when he thought too long about the night Igneel had disappeared. ���She drowned in a boating accident when I was young,” Lucy continued to explain, not meeting his eyes. Natsu thought she might be talking to herself mostly. He hated to interrupt, but he couldn’t stop his mouth from speaking his questions around her.

“What’s drowning?”

Lucy looked away from his tail, giving Natsu a sad smile as she helf his gaze.

“Humans can’t breath underwater, and if we get water in our lungs we suffocate.” Natsu froze, horror stilling his thoughts. Lucy looked back at the sea, empty smile still on her lips. “The sea killed my mom.”

“I’m sorry,” Natsu rasped. He still couldn’t fully understand how the sea itself could kill something, but he understood suffocation. It was the worst physical feeling he had ever lived through. They lapsed into silence, watching the sun, still an hour or two away from fully disappearing.

“You know,” Lucy said softly, giving Natsu a shy smile, “I’ve never swam in the sea. My father forbade me to go anywhere near it after Mom died. We moved further in land, but I always thought it was so pretty. Snuck stories into my room after he went to bed and would read about pirates and mermaids and romances along the coast line.” Lucy looked wistful again, smile faraway.

“So go swimming,” Natsu said simply.

Lucy shrugged, shaking her head slightly before refocusing on Natsu’s face. “I wish I could. But all I can think of is sinking under the waves, watching my breath leave my body.” She shuddered, and Natsu rested his hand on her arm without thought. He smiled at her when he gave her a gentle squeeze, touches growing more familiar when she gave him an appreciative smile. Natsu wrapped his tail around her ankle again, slow and cautious just in case she tried to descale him again. Natsu wondered if all humans were as violent as Lucy. He think he’d like them if they were. He liked Lucy at least. His worries were washed away like a tail scrap in the sand when the tide rose when she smiled at him, leaving his tail where it gave her a gentle squeeze.

“So tell me about you,” Lucy said, shifting so her hands were tucked under her, no longer playing with his scales now that he was wound around her ankle. Natsu dragged the tip of his tail along her skin, the softness of something he wasn’t used to. It felt nice, and Natsu saw no reason to stop. Lucy wasn’t freaking out, even if she kept shivering every few minutes. Natsu wondered if it was because of being dry all the time. At night Natsu cooled off so quickly he couldn’t stand to be above the water for more than half an hour. He tightened his hold on her ankle, trying to let her leech some of his heat for herself.

“Like what?” Natsu asked. He cocked his head, waiting for her reply. It was such a vague question he could almost here Gajeel snapping at him to stop being a sarcastic shit. Not that Natsu was being sarcastic with Lucy. Now his cousin... Gajeel he loved to play dumb around and drive mad.

Lucy gave him a bright smile, the awe he saw before creeping back into her gaze as she looked at him. “Everything.” she giggled. Natsu blushed under her light look, scratching the side of his head. There was a lot to tell in ‘everything’ but he had no idea where to start. Lucy caught onto his dilemma as she gave him a softer smile, reaching out and running her hand along the part of his tail that would be the top of her legs. She held his fin between two fingers, rubbing it gently. “Do all mermaids have tails like yours?”

“Nah!” Natsu said brightly, happy to have a clear topic. He liked talking to Lucy. “Most mermaids don’t have scales, ‘cus they have tails like fish do, but I’m a sea serpent so I have scales. Well,” Natsu trailed off, rubbing his gills on his right, “I’m part sea serpent. My old man is a full one though! He was as long as a blue whale and could outswim any shark he came across. We lived in the Coral Forest, so our red wasn’t as bad as it is in the open sea.”

Natsu blinked when he noticed Lucy had leaned closer into him, face open as she was enraptured with his story. Natsu blushed again, no one was ever this interested in what he had to say. He looked at where her palm rested fully on his tail, her body just as warm as his where they touched.

“Are sea serpents rare? What about mermaids, how many are there? How have you guys managed to stay away from humans for so long? Smart idea by the way, most people who would look for mermaids aren’t very good ones,” Lucy rambled, scooting along the pier and closer to Natsu, her knees brushed his tail and she was so close Natsu could see light freckles over the bridge of her nose and cheeks and the flecks of rich brown in her honey gaze. He gulped heavily, mouth suddenly dry. Maybe he needed to go back for a dip in the water, but he didn’t really want to move from his spot. He grinned at her, emboldened by her curiosity and innocence.

“Didn’t you look for mermaids? How do I know you’re a good person?” Natsu teased. Lucy rolled her eyes, shoving his shoulder playfully.

“I never said I looked for them. I just read about them. They were a fairy tale to me growing up, and I have to admit my seven year-old self would be jumping for joy that you actually exist.”

Natsu snorted, poking her side with the tip of his tail before resuming his gentle rubbing. She yelped and Natsu smirked. Her eyes held a silent warning that was dampened by her puffed cheeks, but Natsu relented. There would be time for tickle fights later. “My pod says that sea serpents have been extinct for hundreds of years but they’re dumb. I mean, look at my tail!” Natsu said, pushing more of it on Lucy’s lap. She squeaked at the weight of it but left him there, Natsu silently cheering when she resumed playing with his scales. “No one in my pod has my kinda tail, except for my two cousins. And they were raised by sea serpents too, alongside me and Igneel. Wendy’s mom was blue so she was the best open water hunter, and Gajeel’s dad could withstand the pressure after the drop off where there wasn’t any sun so he was as black as smoke. The three of us found the pod we’re with now when our parents disappeared one day.”

Lucy paused her playing and looked at him, a deep understanding in her eyes. Natsu thought it was kinda funny that they could bond over the hole a parent had left in their lives. Natsu gave her hand a soft squeeze when she reached for his, intertwining their fingers. Natsu was enjoying the touches, and was struggling to stop himself from wrapping around her, cool in the places that he was hot and warm in places where the sun’s heat couldn’t be sucked up anymore.

“But our new pod’s great!” Natsu said, dampened mood dispelled easily when he thought of his family. “There’s probably about a hundred of us, I think?” Natsu said, scratching the side of his face as he concentrated. “And I know about two or so dozen more. They range from twenty to over five hundred in their pods though, so I don’t know an exact number.” Natsu shrugged, no longer caring about the other ‘mermaids’ as Lucy called them. “What about you? What’s your pod like?”

Lucy’s smile became strained and Natsu wondered if he had said the wrong thing. “I uh, don’t really have a pod.” Lucy said, running a hand through her hair. “After Mom died, my dad became distant. Neither had siblings and I’m an only child, and I think my dad got a little crazy on me not dying so he didn’t let me out of the house much. But my tutors were nice and the staff was friendly. They’d play my dumb little games with me until my dad would yell at them to go back to work.” Lucy shrugged, seemingly unaffected by her story. “And now that my dad’s gone and all my inheritance had to go to paying his loans it’s just me.”

Natsu had only followed half of her story, but he understood it enough to know it wasn’t right. Lucy shouldn’t be lonely. She should get to experience all the adventures she read about as a guppy.

“Nobody should be podless,” Natsu murmured, squeezing her with his tail. Lucy gave him a grateful smile but the light didn’t reach her eyes. When she said nothing Natsu frowned deeper before he smiled, getting an idea. “You can join my pod!”

“Natsu, I hate to break it to you but I can’t breath underwater,” Lucy reminded gently. Natsu rolled his eyes, obviously she couldn’t if water is what had taken her mother, but that wasn’t what he meant.

“We’d come up here, obviously!” Natsu said, eyeing her. She had seemed smart when they talked so he wasn’t understanding how she didn't pick up on that. “The shore is always deserted, in fact you’re one of the only humans I’ve ever seen on this part of the coast.”

“That’s because my dad used to own this section. I’ve lived at the beach house for the last month getting everything ready for it’s sale.” Lucy looked at the place where the sun was beginning to touch the water. “Today’s my last day here.”

“What?” Natsu asked, gripping her arms to face him. He had just become friends with her! Natsu wasn’t ready to let her go yet, not when there was so much to learn about one another and things to do. He had to show her all the best places to fish, and where the prettiest shells were. He had to teach her to swim!

Lucy smiled at him gently, not pulling away from where he clutched at her. “I’ll be fine Natsu. I don’t have much of a choice either way. The house’s already sold and I have to go back to work to afford my rent. It’s just life.”

Natsu pouted, tail curling tighter around her unhappily. “Come swim with me then, before you go.” Natsu said, serious as he held her gaze. Lucy looked uncertain, eyes cast towards the water like it was a dangerous eel waiting to attack her. Natsu untangled from her, slipping back into the sea wordlessly. He swam to the top of the pier, holding out his hand to Lucy. “Don’t you trust me?”

Lucy swallowed heavily, focus flicking from his hand to his face and to the water. Natsu grinned when she set her jaw nodding firmly. “I do.”

He waited in confusion when Lucy stood, removing the cloth from her top and bottom only to reveal smaller pieces of cloth that were tight against her skin. So weird.

“Okay, okay, I can do this,” Lucy said under her breath, fisting her hands beside her before shaking them out. “Promise you won’t let go?” Lucy asked him, worrying her lip. Natsu nodded, gesturing for her to take his hand again. Lucy sat herself at the end of the dock, legs bent in half and pulled tight to her body. She tentatively placed her hand in his, skin soft against Natsu's where he curled his fingers around hers.

“Promise,” Natsu said, grinning up at her as an idea came to him. He personally believed it was either ‘do all or do nothing’ and he wasn’t about to give up that philosophy now. Plus, he couldn’t wait to see what kind of face Lucy would make at him. With all his strength he yanked her hand, pulling her into the water ungracefully. Lucy yelped, scrambling as she hit the sea. Natsu cackled as he wound an arm around her waist, unable to see her through the cloud of bubbles she was making. Natsu lifted them the few inches so her head was above the water, and he grinned brightly at her sputter and glare.

“Natsu, that was mean!” she whined, clinging to him tightly. Natsu rolled his eyes at her pout.

“But you’re in the water, ain’t ya?” he purred, holding her tightly when he noticed her shaking. He supposed the water could be a little chilly, and an uncomfortable feeling lodged itself in the back of his throat when he considered if she was shaking with fear. He was able to ignore it with the dry glare she shot at him, unimpressed even as she relaxed against his chest.

Whatever she was about to say was stopped when she was suddenly yanked from his hold, disappearing under the waves. Natsu swore, diving after her quickly. He knew his cousin hated people, but if that bastard had followed him and was trying to hurt Lucy he swore he-

Natsu’s mind went blank as he froze, watching the sea swirl around Lucy in a violent ball. She was grasping at her throat, clawing it as she tried to breath. Natsu could only see parts of her where the bubbles caused by the turbulent and harsh currents parted briefly, patches of eyeline lost as quickly as they came. Natsu was pushed back into movement when one such break let his and Lucy’s gazes meet, her brown eyes desperate with fear and pain. Natsu had no idea what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t good if it made Lucy look like that. He propelled himself the several feet down in a second, but when his hand touched the edge of the ball of current is broke apart in an explosion of bubbles.

Natsu reoriented himself quickly, launching himself towards Lucy once again. She floated in the water, eyes closed and face peaceful in the unnatural stillness around her. Natsu gripped her hip firmly, pulling her tight against his chest. He stopped swimming towards the orange sky when he looked down, the feeling of only one object brushing his tail making him pause in concern. He shouted in shock when he didn’t see her legs trailing from her lower body.

Instead, Natsu saw a tail like his pod’s, skin tougher than the rest of her body but smoother, and a beautiful golden colour like her hair. Natsu inspected her more closely, gills fluttering along her neck as she breathed underwater, like him. Raising a shaking hand Natsu touched her cheek, relief flooding him when she opened her eyes, the brown clear and sharp under the water. Lucy squaked, air bubbles leaving her mouth. She clasped her hands over her mouth in panic, eyes returning to their previous wide size, like a trapped animal. Natsu shook his head, tapping her gills gently with his finger. Lucy lowered a hand, trembling as she touched her gills for herself.

She pushed away from Natsu harshly, darting towards the surface without thought. Natsu followed, impressed at how quickly and naturally she swam, her tailfin large and with an almost translucent membrane connecting the three spines, middle one shorter than the other two.  

Natsu held her arms as she gasped for breath, keeping her steady. Natsu couldn’t help but notice how her hair glistened, wet and seeming to soak in the golden rays of the half-set sun.  

“W-what happened?” Lucy asked, voice higher and shrieking. Natsu caught a split-second view of her teeth, sharp like his now. “What did you do to me?”

“Oi!” Natsu defended, “I didn’t do anything!”

“You had to!” Lucy said, desperate. Natsu blinked when he watched water leak out of her eyes, trailing along cheeks. Cheeks that had a bluish tinge despite her new body’s ability to withstand the temperature of the ocean. Natsu pulled her back to him, pressing his forehead to hers gently in hopes of calming her down. Lucy hiccuped, sinking against him.

Natsu brightened when an idea came to him, stories passed down by Makarov and the pod leaders before him. “Maybe it was your Gift.” Natsu murmured soothingly.

“What?” Lucy asked, pulling back to look at him.

“Your Gift. The magic the sea gave you when you were born. My Gift is that I can understand and speak with any living thing. Maybe your Gift is that you’re a Land Walker.” Lucy still looked at him like he was speaking a different language, and Natsu sighed. “You’re obviously not human, Luce,” Natsu said softly. Lucy nodded numbly, nails biting into Natsu’s arms where she clung to him.

“But then how did my mom drown if she was a mermaid?” Lucy asked, eyes leaking again. Natsu didn’t like it, and he reached out to brush the water from her face. “I’ve taken showers and baths and put my feet in a pool, Natsu! Why now? Why here?”

“The sea,” Natsu explained. “You came back to the sea. You came home.”

Lucy looked like she wanted to scream. But a thought had stolen Natsu’s attention, and he couldn’t help the giddiness that made him want to do back circles in the water or chase the fish around him. “Lucy! You’re home! You can join my pod, and never be lonely again!” Natsu said excitedly. Lucy blinked at him, long and slow as she processed what he was saying. Natsu continued to ramble on, ideas for the future bubbling out of him. “-ll love you, you’re so weird you’ll fit right in! I’ll have to translate until you learn Trenche, but you seem smart so I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time. Happy will freak that he didn’t get to see you transform, but he’ll love you too. And-”

“Natsu,” Lucy interrupted, “I have a life on land! I-I can’t just leave it all behind.”

“What would you really be leaving, Lucy?” Natsu asked. He held her gaze, knowing he was winning by the uncertainty her expression showed easily. She looked at where the sun was almost fully hidden in the water, longing plain in her light sigh. Lucy bite her lip, yelping and lifting a hand to where her sharper teeth had pierced her flesh. Lucy startled when she pulled her hand away to see a bright teal colour, not the red she had been expecting. Lucy lifted her gaze to him, blue liquid welling on her lip. Natsu fought the instinct to taste it, not wanting to push Lucy further away. He couldn’t help but be drawn to it again, the teal the prettiest shade of the colour he had ever seen and making something possessive curl in his gut. Natsu flicked his gaze back to Lucy, who was watching him intently, her cheeks tinged a dark blue as she fluttered her lashes at him shyly. Natsu decided he liked the blue flush more than the red one she had worn earlier

Natsu held her, slow as he led her back under the water. Lucy went with him, tensing as her face slipped under the sea. Natsu watched as she took in a deep breath, eyes closing. Her hair floated around her like he imagined it would, creating her own halo of sunlight even as the sun disappeared to the stars. She was beautiful.

Natsu coughed slightly as the thought came to him unbidden. He pulled back, swimming backwards in the direction of where his pod would be, slow as he waited for Lucy to follow. Their fingertips stayed connected when Lucy slowly opened her eyes. She worried her lip again, gentler than before and drawing Natsu’s eye. He licked his own lower lip, grip on her hand tightening. Lucy looked over her shoulder, towards the shore and the life she had known. Natsu grinned when her fingers interlaced with his firmly and Lucy turned back to him with a small smile of her own.

Together, they swam to their next adventure. Natsu couldn’t wait to show her his world, a place the strange girl had already seemed to carve a permanent niche in already. Lucy looked at him, noticing his staring at her profile. She gave him a bright grin, sharpened fangs visible with the large smile. Natsu grinned back, pushing forward and releasing her hand. Lucy caught up, easily understanding his desire to race. Natsu smirked at her smug look as she passed him, tail moving through the water like she had been born to.

Yes, Lucy definitely belonged in his pod, and by his side.

[thesinglesjukebox]

TAYLOR SWIFT - THE MAN

[5.67]

«What man?» “The man,” Marco explained, explaining nothing.

Jonathan Bradley: For a feminist song by an artist whose music is rarely explicitly political, "The Man" focuses its attentions on one woman in particular. That is a good thing; Taylor Swift writes best from personal experience, and this is a more immediate and sharply felt song than the blandly participatory, elections-inspired "Only the Young." "I'm so sick of running as fast as I can," says Swift, but she doesn't sound weary; she sounds resentful. And she should be, too: the public and critical response to Swift has been explicitly gendered for her entire career. One of the sharpest songwriters of her generation, she has been abjured as frivolous and feminine; petty and jealous; a scold and a snake; too nice, too nasty, too promiscuous, too prudish. ("The negative traits ascribed to Taylor always sound like a greatest-hits list of every bad characteristic associated with womanhood," Molly Lambert wrote in 2014.) "The Man" is, as Swift tunes often are, broadly applicable. But it's also specific in its indignance. These are wounds felt personally. [8]

Vikram Joseph: Taylor's lyrics are normally best when she's writing about heartache, but they are so strong here -- incisive, funny and bitingly on point about the ways in which women in the public eye are castigated for things that men are celebrated for. "What I was wearing / if I was rude / could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves" is particularly good, and the bridge contains probably the only acceptable instance of a mad/bad rhyme in pop history. Musically, "The Man" is deceptively amiable, almost to a fault -- it's fun synth-pop but feels like 1989-lite, "Out Of The Woods" with too much of the fizz dissipated. [7]

Katie Gill: Swift's superpower is the ability to release all the worst songs off of her album as singles. (Calling it now, her next single will be "London Boy.") "The Man" is far too happy and peppy for a song about institutional sexism, with a chorus that heavily relies on the line "I'm so sick." The mixing choices are bizarre: those "yeah"s hiding in the background are so awkwardly placed that it makes me wish goat remixes were still in vogue. And for an artist who still struggles to get past that iconic moment of being compared to Beyoncé, it's a weird choice to make a song that will inevitably be compared to Beyoncé. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: For all the Discourse that smogs up everything Taylor Swift does, especially (but not only) when it involves politics or feminism, "The Man" is not really of that world. It's Taylor Swift finally getting around to releasing her own "If I Were a Boy" or "If I Was a Guy" or "Do It Like a Dude": a standard topic for pop songs, alongside "fame sucks" and "I rule." These songs are rarely great, tending lyrically to The Wing ad copy (lowlight here: "my good ideas and power moves") and musically to midtempo resignation: sure, if I were a man then I'd be the man, but I'm not and won't be, so why get angry or excited? (To Swift's credit, she works with the resignation; there's genuine wistfulness to the "running as fast as I can" line, if not wistfulness that's explored far.) These songs also subsume personality: The artist is no longer herself, just a woman among the class of women -- and actually not even that defined, just not a man. Taylor Swift, being Taylor Swift, doesn't make herself totally anonymous -- the multiple lines about getting to chase models, specifically in the way Leonardo DiCaprio does, seems like a deliberate reference to the tabloid world of the Squad, Kaylor, etc. But for every spot where her vocal inflections sound indelibly like herself, there's one where she sounds exactly like Katy Perry, one where she sounds exactly like Sia, one where she sounds exactly like early Britney, and many where she sounds like late Britney, who by then sounded like everybody else. (And since Swift and Joel Little are the only writers, for once it isn't a demo vocal's fault. Which means neither are the scanSION isSUES.) Will it shift the narrative? That's the main reason this exists. Will it be anyone's feminist awakening? Given that her stans recently exhumed and endorsed a slimy blog post by one of the most notorious pustular men of publishing because it let them harass a woman for reviewing her PR documentary -- another standard form of pop-star content -- the snooze button's been hit on that. Will it take up man-sized space on the radio? Clearly; it is a song by Taylor Swift. You're the man now, dawg. [5]

Brad Shoup: For someone who's gotten so adept at threading personal storytelling in and out of celebrity narrative, Swift suddenly, inexplicably, writes like someone who hasn't browsed a magazine in years. She must know that Leo's romantic excursions are a punchline at best, and that anyone else dropping a couplet like "What's it like to brag about raking in dollars/And getting bitches and models" would be in for a straight week of surgical editorialization. As usual, her verses are intricate machines of melodic development and rhythmic gymnastics. But the chorus makes me wish she'd pulled a reverse Porter and gone full pitch-down. I know she can afford it; she's the man. [3]

Kylo Nocom: Taylor's precise satire ends up a greater priority on "The Man" than the melodies, leaving a more impressive statement than a tune. Neither Blue Neighbourhood squeals nor choral presets are intriguing by 2020, making me wonder whether Joel Little realizes, almost seven years after Pure Heroine, that its influence is getting boring now. (Yeah!) [3]

Alfred Soto: Those staccato synth chords and Taylor Swift's stentorian delivery distracted on a rather effective album sequence last August. Radio play, however, has revealed the mild gender subversion explicit in the chorus, especially the way the electronic space fails to distinguish it from the competition. Exposure, alas, spolights "If I were a man/Then I'd be the man." [7]

Tobi Tella: For an album billed as her "most political yet", Lover mostly sidesteps real discourse. "The Man" is gloriously unsubtle, but I'm not sure how true Swift's conceit rings. There are some great confrontations of double standards here, mostly of her dating history; but would Taylor Swift, a woman who writes gooey emotional pop songs about love, be "the man" in any circumstance, regardless of gender? [6]

Michael Hong: Does anyone remember that interview around the release of Lover, where she explained why she wrote that dreadful second verse of "You Need to Calm Down?" It's hilarious: a statement by a woman whose allyship stretched as far as a throwaway "boys and boys and girls and girls," now expressing public indignation at the mere idea that one might perceive her as a homophobe. As a result, we had to suffer through "why are you mad, when you could be GLAAD," which somehow earned her GLAAD's Vanguard Award, further proof for cynics that Taylor Swift had become an expert at gaming the system. "The Man" is more of the same, Taylor Swift honing in one way she's a minority and filtering out all her other privilege. It's punctuated by a weak statement: "if I was a man, then I'd be the man," ignoring the fact that "the man" is more commonly used as a symbol of oppression. Nothing about the track challenges any piece of existing culture; even the call-out of Leonardo DiCaprio is more of a playful little ribbing, something Taylor might joke about to him during one of her extravagant yacht parties. "The Man" is a brilliant piece of marketing, a demonstration of Swift's ability to flip social issues into sounding personal and branding herself as a feminist. It helps her sell her own records while elevating her own standing. But as a song, it's another awkward and clunky moment that she seems to perceive as her own little mic drop. Hopefully next time she'll a) hire some women personnel in the studio and b) learn about the concept of intersectionality. [1]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I've criticized Taylor Swift before for her political silence, so I feel hypocritical now -- especially as a cisgender man, especially in the context of her recent Netflix documentary -- saying this sounds heavy-handed and awkward. Taylor explores the political less clumsily than Katy Perry circa 2017, but that's hardly a compliment. "The Man" is a message song, and it achieves its goals confidently, without mincing words. But Swift is a talented songwriter with many more interesting things to say, and has even talked about similar themes in more interesting ways (see "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince"). Lover is full of intimate, gorgeous pop songs like "False God" or "Daylight," so to push this as a single is disappointing. #JUSTICEFORCRUELSUMMER [5]

Lauren Gilbert: "The Man" is a theme song for every woman who has had a man explain to her that if she just smiled a little more and tried a little harder, of course it'll all work out. It feels like walking out of a horrible job for the last time, looking at the sky and knowing -- absolutely, with a certainty you never have about yourself -- that you're better than that place, and you'll make more than they will, anyway. And I'm completely here for these MUNA-esque synths and Taylor's half-rapped "bitches and models." OK, so I docked a point for rhyming "man" and "man" in the chorus. But Taylor's still got it; this bitch still knows how to write a damn song. [9]

Ashley Bardhan: The production is deceptively honeyed -- gumdrop bass and candy button high hats. It does its job in distracting from how frustratedly deadpan Taylor sounds, probably proving her point that "it's all good if you're bad/and it's okay if you're mad," as long as you're a man. She uses the word "bitch" twice in the bridge, a testament of anger from the pop star who doesn't publicly curse very much at all. She spits it out, "I'd be a bitch, not a baller," as if singing the word will get rid of it. Of course, a famous white woman like Taylor Swift wields the kind of power that most women won't even allow themselves to dream about, but still, I feel sorry for her. [7]

Edward Okulicz: In a sea of competing takes, cut-through is achieved by blending the incisive thoughtfulness of Taylor Swift with the head-scratching vacuousness of.... Taylor Swift. I wonder which man wrote the hook that made it so catchy. If you'd once written an entire multi-platinum record by yourself and still people assumed you were ghostwritten, you'd throw your hands up too. [8]

Alex Clifton: "The Man" is a bit basic and one-note, but then again, I never expected a detailed intersectional rundown of systemic oppression in a four-minute pop song on an album titled Lover. The message of the song--"if I was a man, then I'd be the man"--is one of Swift's weaker chorus lines, because it's so redundant and clunky. Still, other lines like "when everyone believes you, what's that like?" hit like a dart. I've had my share of those experiences myself, some which I still struggle to talk about, and unfortunately I know way too many other women do. To hear someone as big as Swift sing about it in a song, knowing she's had her own experiences with sexual assault and harassment, is really powerful to me. "The Man" is not the best song on Lover, but it does make me feel more hopeful about the state of the world, if only because there are going to be teen girls listening to this and deciding that they're going to make a change in the world for themselves. There were no songs like this on mainstream radio for me when I was thirteen, and I wish there had been. So if this song makes young girls feel like they can and should fight for their rights, Swift has done her job. [6]

Isabel Cole: I mean, it could have been SO much worse. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Enough Said (13, B-)

It is so rare, I think, to watch a movie and be able to pinpoint the single thing that could be removed to the benefit of the entire project. Usually there’s a handful of flaws that are symptomatic of a misconstrued blueprint, like the inherent emptiness in everything The Wolf of Wall Street is about and depicts, or the shearing of so much of the risky edges that made August: Osage County such a rich prospect for a film adaptation. There’s a lot in Enough Said that’s special in how it textures its romance, not just in how Nicole Holofcener directs and scripts everything but in how Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and James Gandolfini play their characters. There’s a lot that’s also special in how both characters relate to their daughters, their daughter’s friends, and their exes. But the real snag is that Dreyfuss’s Eva also has a pretty odd relationship with Gandolfini’s wife, who she learns is one of her massage clients after the two already spent plenty of time talking about their shit ex-husbands, which radically changes how Dreyfuss interacts with Gandolfini’s Albert in spite of the fantastic time they’d been having together until then. The heaviness of this contrivance, that Dreyfuss had been conspiratorial in degrading the worst possible version of her boyfriend instead of a guy who sounds remarkably like the man she’s dating, and continues to mine Marianne for stories so that she can get “a better idea” about him, is a real burden on the film that can’t quite quash everything else that’s rich about the project, though that may ultimately be a bigger testament to Gandolfini’s performance than any recuperations in the script, especially in its most awkward phases. But even that isn’t enough to quash what’s unique and exciting in Enough Said, in its central relationship and in how its performers realize those part. It’s still a lovely rom-com realized with a light touch and mature sensibilities, even if it’s increasingly bogged by an unnecessary story conceit.

For about the first half hour, at least, the film is a complete delight as we see the relationship between Eva and Albert start to develop, moving from its awkward early stages into real bonding over their divorces, their daughters about to be sent off to college, and their middle-agedness in relation to their own lives and their disconnect with the current youth culture. Even before that we get a glimpse of Eva’s daily life as a masseuse, of her friendship with couple Ben Falcone and Toni Colette, finally allowed to use her native Australian accent. We also see her relationship with her college-bound daughter Ellen and Ellen’s best friend Chloe, a year younger than her and seemingly closer with Eva than Ellen is, as practically every one of her scenes in meant to remind us. I don’t mean this as an inherent dig on those scenes, which build into an interesting relationship between the three as Ellen’s college-bound reclusiveness sees her mom seemingly start replacing her with her best friend. Albert and Eva’s newest client Marianne enter Eva’s life within minutes of each other at the same party, Marianne in a very pleasant conversation and Albert in a somewhat awkward one, as Ben Falcone’s Will tells Albert and another friend how Eva doesn’t believe there’s anyone attractive at the party, which Albert agrees with. He later asks Eva out on a date, which is as about as surprising to Eva as it is when Marianne actually makes an appointment for a massage. Eva bonds with Marianne while discussing their ex-husbands, their daughters, Eva’s other clients, and how nice Marianne’s house and lifestyle is. 

Meanwhile, Eva and Albert bond over their daughters and their divorces, but also about being middle-aged, how they do and don’t understand their children, the loudness of the restaurant they’re eating at, and their own personal affinities, anxieties, and peccadilloes. It’s occasionally awkward, but also incredibly charming and hilarious, and their conversations are genuinely revealing of character and form a real bond between them. As Eva relates to Marianne later, they never stopped talking the entire date, and they don’t stop talking, flirting, or joking in most of their subsequent dates. These aren’t the interactions of two fundamentally lonely people, just two adults who haven’t been romantically close in a long time who are trying to feel their way around semi-familiar territory, even as they get more comfortable with each other. Chloe stopping by and ending up having breakfast with the couple is just as strengthening a moment for the two as the terrible lunch they have with Albert’s daughter Tess. The absolute best moment in the film, a horrified line reading of “oh my god” from Gandolfini, comes after said terrible dinner. And in these scenes of courtship Dreyfuss and Gandolfini shine, filling out their characters with warmth and wit while wearing them as comfortably as the blanket Eva is trying to finish knitting. Line readings, physical gestures, and darting eyes all speak volumes as the two navigate their relation while it blossoms with every new step they take together. Their time together is sweet, and you root for them as they become even more entwined in each other’s lives.

And then we learn that Albert is, in fact, the fabled ex-husband Marianne had been talking about this whole time. Eva’s face turns into a quietly terrified grimace, as did mine, before she hides behind a tree from Tess, which I could not do. What she does not do, unfortunately, is come clean and terminate her working relationship with Marianne for the sake of her relationship, instead choosing to mine her for information she can get on Albert and find out what, exactly, is wrong with him. What’s worse, frankly, is that the film almost completely corroborates the specific grievances Marianne has against him, judging him for his peculiarities in a way it does not her. I don’t mind that Albert is put to task for the ways he may not be appealing to Eva, or even the way she finds this out, necessarily. But in scene after scene, as Eva seems to lose all perspective on Albert beyond what his ex-wife says, the film doesn’t at all do anything to contradict Marianne after all these years of divorce or show that Albert has grown in any way past the deficits she’s ascribed to him. Eva’s decision to spy on him this way is scrutinized, sure, but the film just can’t respond to the scale of her betrayal the way it can to individual instances of her acting sketchy, like trotting out Albert to a couple’s dinner with Falcone and Colette’s characters only to drunkenly try and get them to agree with all the dislikes she’s inherited from Marianne. The actual confrontation with Albert and Tess at Marianne’s house where everyone learns what Eva has been doing is not just awkward and embarrassing for the characters, but for Holofcener’s writing to boot. Aside from the clunky insults she gives Eva as she feels her way around Albert, she just cannot address Eva’s decision with the gaze that Eva scrutinizes Albert. Dreyfuss herself plays Eva perfectly fine in the last hour, rooting the character in small gestures and glances without overplaying it. She survives the least plausible of Eva’s actions better than the character does, giving her decisions emotional logic without even the film’s rom-com logic. It would have been a better film, I think, had it stayed about a woman becoming unsure about her relationship based on the horror stories of another woman who’d dealt with a somewhat similar man, rather than one about two women dealing with the same man, and one using the other for information in ways that cannot help but hurt him and herself.

Thank God for Gandolfini, though, who manages to play Albert so delicately that he survives the seeming onslaught against his character. It’s not that he plays against anything we’re told about Albert so much as he underplays those tendencies without shoving any one aspect of the character, positive or negative, under our nose or as a “central” trait of him. More than that, he is as unembarrassed of his character as Albert is of himself, and fuses all of his traits into the lived-in habits of a middle-aged man. Though I’ve criticized Holofcener’s writing of how Eva addresses Albert and how the film address *that*, she is adept at giving him ground to stand on when it comes time to defend himself, and is particularly generous to him in the film’s first half hour, gifting him the kind of traits male writers don’t usually give male characters. His first meeting with Eva at the party, where he responds to being told she thinks no man at this party is attractive by saying he doesn’t think any women are that attractive here either, is not written or played as a bruised insult, but as a deflation to the awkward tone that the original statement had set for the conversation. His own handling of his daughter dissing Ellen’s choice of college is not a reprimand to Tess but a rescue line to get this child to stop insulting his new girlfriend’s daughter. The remarkable openness of Albert’s conversations with Eva is matched by how equally nervous they both are about it, and his stunned, wounded goodbye to her once he learns what she’s done is all the more heartbreaking for how earnest, warm, and bravely on the line he’d put himself out of her. The horrific idea of casting John C. Reily in the part, someone who’s made a career on stooging out against simpleton characters, also shows that Holofcener makes Albert so simply decent that his actor would have to really work to sell him out. Neither the part nor the film would work if the actor also invited us to judge Albert, either positively or negatively, and there’s a real possibility we could’ve spent the last hour wondering what on Earth would make Eva even bother with him, or him put up with her. But Gandolfini takes everything on the page for that character and burnishes him with real feeling, gruff sincerity, and a delicate sweetness that fills every inch of his plus-sized frame. The test of any rom-com character, I think, is if you’d fall in love with them too, and on this ground Gandolfini hits a remarkable bullseye without working to hard to sell or defend his character. He lets the man be himself, and it’s lovely 

There are other pleasures on the sidelines of Enough Said in how older couples relate to past and present marriages: A woman celebrating a two year anniversary talks about how perfect her first husband was without the second getting jealous, remarking plainly why she isn’t still married; Eva asking her husband what he tells people when they ask why he got divorced; his perfect response; the way Toni Colette cannot stop wondering what her second husband would be like until the first suddenly says what he finds lacking in their relationship. There’s a little too much hanging around that doesn’t need to be there, mostly an arc about Colette failing to fire a maid who may not be as inept as she seems, though we probably don’t need as many scenes of Eva doing something with Chloe and Ellen walking in halfway and feeling betrayed about it. Her goodbye, as Eva and her husband leave her at the airport as she flies off to college, is surprisingly poignant, and here I give credit to all three of the young actresses Holofcener is working with here. The film’s final scene, as Eva shows up to Albert’s house on Thanksgiving and makes a last, small plea to give it another shot, ends on a delightful note as the two sit on his porch together, having made a step towards reconciliation. I admire both characters for being willing to go forward in spite, or perhaps because, of all the messiness that had led them to breaking up in the first place, and theirs is a reunion that I earnestly hope would last once the credits finish rolling 

I wonder how much more I would’ve liked Enough Said had it not gone with the conceit it sold itself on, and let Eva’s fears be premised on the anxieties of someone whose situation is similar to hers without being hers specifically, the way Gena Rowlands relates to the depression of Mia Farrow’s character in Another Woman despite only ever hearing her grievances through an air duct. Furthermore, I wonder if I could’ve even liked it with a better-executed version of its actual premise. The Lady Eve, which features a conwoman convincing the same man to fall in love with her twice, is certainly ripe for an excavation of its problematic elements, yet the trickery there never bothered me anywhere near as much as it did here. For sure, Preston Sturgess is a better director than Nicole Holofcener, shaping his scenes more carefully, and he handles the conceit of his film more carefully than she does. Even if the joke is always on Henry Fonda’s astoundingly silly mark, he is not treated with the same scrutiny that Albert is, and the ways Albert is scrutinized aren’t too fair to him. Barbara Stanwyck’s witty, lovestruck crook is given as much love and attention by her writer/director as Julia Louis-Dreyfuss’s witty, lovestruck masseuse, and The Lady Eve’s tone and style certainly build itself around the reprehensible things she does, but it’s a film that’s designed to handle her foibles much better than Enough Said does Eva’s.

Ultimately, what we’re left with is a pretty decent movie with some pretty obvious potential to make itself a much better film with not that much effort, and perhaps even less than it even exerts. So attuned it is to its central character that her joys are our joys, her anxieties are our anxieties, and when she’s making an ass of herself, I felt she was too. It’s very best scenes feel like unicorns in romantic comedies, so candid and finely-attuned to the wants and concerns of adults on the very real precipice of being alone, and hitting it off remarkably with someone they didn’t expect to get along with in the slightest. Dreyfuss and Gandolfini do remarkable work, though she is as hampered by Holofcener’s plot contrivances as he is bolstered by it, and his is a much harder task that he pulls off with such grace. I’d happily sit through more films in this age bracket, rather than 30-somethings that typically inhabit the genre, or the 60 and 70 somethings who are usually seen as a refresher from all the 30-somethings. They are, but still. 50-somethings are a rare subject for any film nowadays, though I imagine the maturity and sensibilities on display here are trademarks of Holofcener’s work. I’m excited to trawl through the rest of her filmography soon, and even if it’s a flawed object, Enough Said is a welcome introduction to Holofcener’s works and a fine, if improvable, piece of filmmaking all on its own.

[mistresstrevelyan]

There is something I want to say but it’s very difficult....

Now that I’m feeling somewhat better (Rage is one hell of a....shut up Zaeed!) and despite still staying on my planned hiatus, I feel the need to explain my feelings on the ME:A reception/issues in depth.

First let me be clear on one thing: Criticism is important. Without it, shit will stagnate and game development is no different. This isn’t about valid issues with the rather clunky UI, regressed Chargen or animation glitches/oddities. Even some awkward writing here & there, though that too has been part of ME’s charm since 2007.

What I have noticed while both sentiment gathering and perusing the situation overall are several alarming trends I wish to address:

1) The conspiracy theory that ME:A or BioWare was “destroyed” by SJWs. Yes, this is a legit thing not just touted by a bunch of dudebros on YT and Twitter, it’s gaining momentum fast and people are being singled out (The most prominent example being the former employee, a lady BioWare themselves jumped into the fray to protect), harassed, stalked, threatened and bullied. I have experienced it myself over the last week. I was told to kill myself, to watch my mouth unless I wanted to get taught a lesson, to get raped, to get some d*ck to cleanse the “feminazi” and “SJW” out of me.......etc. (Along with the old accusation of being a shill, a “Biodrone”, a fake gamer etc.) These people used comments by a former BioWare Dev “against whites” as a rallying beacon: https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/609lh1/the_curse_of_kek_strikes_again_manveer_heir/ (CAREFUL, extreme racism, Islamophobia etc. within) to excuse their vile behaviour and vendetta. And this is just ONE of hundreds of examples.

Now we all know why these people are behaving like this. These are the ppl. demanding a patch so they can “make fair/white people” etc. This is a PROBLEM and it’s not being solved, thus allowing it to fester and bleed into the BioWare community in general. A huge part of the funny gifs you saw? Made and circulated by them, it was just the thing they could use to blow out of proportion and they succeeded. (Now again, ME:A’s animations can be wonky, true. But ask yourself if the shitstorm you saw was actually on par with the issues presented. Hint: It was not)

2) The ME3 Ending consequences. It is my firm belief that a substantial amount of the venom thrown at ME:A was dormant rage and long awaited revenge for how the last 10-15 minutes of ME3 turned out in vanilla and, to a lesser extent, the Extended Cut. 

3) The Witcher 3/CD Project Red Invasion. Perusing a lot of this I didn’t just notice the standard stanning for these things but wilful spreading of misinformation (IE EA the big studio vs. Indie CDPR, lol, CDPR is a HUGE studio owned by the company running GOG AND funded by the government.), fallacies, false equivalencies and manipulative fanning of flames that are really insidious and tiring. All this has done for me, someone who has played AND loved the Witcher franchise since the first game’s buggy, awkward original release (There’s a reason it got that overhaul, folks) is to make me sick of those games to the point of probably not replaying them for a long time. (I also have zero interest in their Cyberpunk 2077 game) It feels like you can’t mention a single BioWare game, but esp. not DAI OR ME:A without this brigade storming in, unasked, to spew their fanatical venom. Not cool at all.

With these bullet points out of the way, all I want to say is: Do not trust anything but your own gut feeling and/or reviewers/friends you know well on this. Valid criticism aside, Mass Effect Andromeda did not deserve this. BioWare did not deserve this either. But what’s done is done.

In conclusion I want to state that I think that while ME:A is performing solidly, there are a couple of thoughts I have on how to turn the ship around:

1) BioWare pulls a CDPR (See I know they’re good) and releases an Enhanced Edition with UI/Animation/Chargen fixes via ongoing patches starting now or as a major release in a few months. All the while tempering sentiment by making clear announcements and providing transparent communication.

2) We, the Mass Effect community, do our part by examining our ranks to see if we shouldn’t address cases of extremes ourselves by calling them out and not letting them be the loudest voices, thus representing us in a harmful, toxic and downright deplorable way.

And with that, I return to the Andromeda Galaxy. Thank you for reading!

Be well everyone, be safe!

/Persephone Out

[myfriendpokey]

puf puf

previously tried to write however incoherently about videogames and a certain "futuristic" quality - the idea that they stand less as things in themselves than as pointers toward a future, or rather THE future, a kind of generic archetypical notion of futurity which it is an implicit promise of videogames to try to delineate, and the argument that this futuristic quality is less something arising organically from their constituent factors than an emerging external sensibility that they were put together like dreamcatchers to snare. and that this "external sensibility" had something to do with the idea of the virtual, with essentially the notion of experience disconnected from material causation. types of experience both enthralled and threatened by their own vertiginous, ungrounded quality - or grounded at most by purely voluntary gamelike conventions (scenes from science fiction films come to mind where the protagonist finds their feet in an initially disorientating, hallucinogenic dream world at the moment that they finally internalise that world's arbitrary game-like systems of logic). the causes of this virtualist outlook would require more nuanced investigation than i could offer but i'd like to return again to a suggestive comment of jameson's tying it into an emerging awareness of a "finance capital" which seemed to grow more and more powerful the less defined it was by any particular territory. and i return to it specifically because a related notion of seems to me a useful one in this context: that of speculation. the focus on the 'youth' of the medium, and on its potential rather than any actual qualities; the early amenability of videogames to something like kickstarter, where payment is less for a particular good than a donation in the service of some future change; the furious entitlement of xhardxcorex videogame players around a format they could be said to have 'invested' some significant amount of money, time, space or identity into, out of who knows what hope; the weirdly split rhetoric of the early indie scene as it mixed the demand to make it new with an eminently cynical historical fatalism (of course we all know there'll be a citizen kane, a godfather, a whatever else, since we  saw it happen with movies and comics and pop music all within comparatively recent history: the only question is just how the cultural and material goods resulting will get divvyed up this time, and to whom); the heavily monetised and in some cases preemptive nostalgia of the format, as it persistently offers the prospect of being there, at the right time, or of having been there, at the right time (consider an analogous case in comic books when a boom in speculation came with a sudden burst of rebranded "issue one"s); the strange admixture in the format of relentless, in many ways astonishing, accumulation of technological potential with a strangely listless and ambivalent provisional application of it. this is a loose list and certainly many of these issues are not specific to videogames. but if we treat that format as both a vehicle of speculation (in the same way as all capitalist ventures) and as one with speculation at its formal core (as being in part a way to conceptualise and engage with emerging computer technologies) it might help us to consider just why it is that videogames frequently seem to enact an accelerated form of more general tendencies, up to and including the kind of aggreived consumer fascism of those terrified at the prospect of being cut off from the future profits on their investments. in acting as a kind of aestheticised cultural form of the speculative impulse - allowing people to purchase or create something that just might be a piece of the future, a key to the new world - in a form comparatively unencumbered by much history or much respect, we can see a purer example than most of that impulse's results.

i don't know whether this speculative aspect is still present, or that it will be for much longer. the internet has long effaced any claim videogames might once have held of a priviliged position re. the enroachment of the virtual into the everyday: that change already happened, and the networks of cause and consequence that games once claimed as their own now seem as clunky and antiquated as punch cards in comparison to the sinuousness of the web. it could be as well that part of their old role as a site for, less the implementation of than the hysterical imagination of technology, has also been superseded - for example by VR, which seems to have absorbed a lot of the old holodeck fantasies that videogames to their own embarrassment (if nobody elses's) were never able to maintain. i hope it's not presumptuous to say i get the impression of a gradually mounting weariness among my colleagues in the form, a gradual sense that yes, this might be all there is to it, and wonder if after all those years of harassment and unspeakable labour practices and general awfulness beyond imagination the final tipping point for it all is the idea that this is after all the plateau, the very summit of all that "the medium" is willing to do. bereft of that notion of imminent potential they suddenly seem quite paltry: the same old ideas, the same people, a withering away into "classicism" (surely the saddest point for any popular format, particularly if the golden age just means 20 years ago), the fate worse than death which is the return to game design and "interesting decisions", a fate probably no more than the medium deserves. i'm sympathetic to something like robert yang's idea of taking the lessons learned from indie games and applying them to VR, which has not become quite as ossified yet as a format. but i'm also truthfully a little skeptical of it, as many of the most awful qualities of videogames there seem if anything intensified: the exclusive technology, the heavy capital investments and speculation driving it from the start, a form already bought and sold. and it's horrifying to imagine a deathless tech speculation striding terminator-like from the flaming debris of videogames to colonise yet more imaginary space, and more horrible still to think about thoughtful and committed people getting to work on clearing the rubble from its way. a handful of nervous nerds get to star in "oculus: the movie" as the loveable, creative, human faces for a new industry as their colleagues and associates are ground into the dust. so i guess without wanting to dissuade anyone, or persuade, what's been on my mind lately is: what can you do with a dead format? or specifically, what can you do that being "alive" in ways suggested above (paradigmatic, future-oriented, ripe for speculation) has tended to prevent? to use a truly hackneyed analogy i think of something like "punk" music, or post-punk, which was arguably just a necrotized rock music: a rock music no longer able to be used for anything, to appeal to anyone, where all the old claims for it (youth! novelty! excitement!) had long since curdled but where the shambling husk of the format continued lurching doggedly along, a kind of nightmare parody and reversal of itself, something that died AS WELL AS got old.. but which was newly able to speak to a public, to imagine new forms of public, by dint of this very negativity. and i think of the numerous attempts at establishing something similar in videogames, and how they never seemed quite right, a bit too dutiful, too healthy, as if once again claim staking for the future: you be the lydia lunch of puzzle bobble and i'll be the slaughter and the dogs of chex quest. and all those other games, hating videogames, truly critical of videogames, nevertheless being timidly espoused as videogames: see the diversity of our medium! just the kind of fire that we need! if speculation was an artificial injection of life to a format which, on its own qualities and merits alone, would surely long ago have been buried, it was nevertheless not a neutral one, rather something that continuously distorted and redirected in favour of the capital which stood most to benefit from the notion, exacerbating the worst qualities in the process: what were all those expressions of gamer outrage but the hysterical entitlement of people who'd sunk hundreds of hours and dollars into a format that now looked like it was never going to achieve whatever mysterious transcendence they thought that they'd bought? and the constant anxious minnowing, the insistence on some shared focus and inner consistency, a terror of diffusion expressed both as anxious universalism (w-we gotta keep the band together!) and as cobbled-together "formalist" constructions aimed at gathering some spearhead of the elite (while you were making twine games, i studied the blade....). what would happen if they did diffuse, if they could peel away from that central core and disintegrate, scattered across the web, across life? fragments of outmoded futures, of the gristle of modernity, lurking in and moving through the bland "flow" of life online, existing in this new context as something like found art, a kind of devolution into commentary: contextual, discursive, evasive. and finally able to utilise in these new contexts those peculiar awkwardnesses of effect, too flat or too busy, those emotional alienations and sexless intensities which always haunted the form. in a weird irony, speculation could be said to end at exactly the point where it builds productive capability to as far as it can go - videogames are burning out at the same time as the conditions for something like a feasible and interesting culture of them have arguably never been better, as more people are on computers, more types of people, more habituated for their purposeful usage, with readier access to all kinds of tools, and mostly not giving a shit about the 50-year sewer that is the history of the medium, except to pick up and toy with whatever discarded remnants of it hold their interest for a while. again i don't mean this as any particular call to action, whatever that action might be... more the consideration that when / if videogames finally do "die" they could be in better and more interesting shape than they ever were when they were alive, and that it might also finally put them in position to enact a future that would truly be more appealling for everyone: one where videogames are no longer made out of love, but out of spite.

[thelowercasegimmick]

YA Review, 8/8/16: Hungry by H.A. Swain

...is this even a real book?

If you’re familiar with this book, it’s probably because you’ve seen someone making fun of its premise.  In short: this is a dystopia novel, and the element that makes the world dystopic is that there’s no food, and instead of eating, people take pills to get nutrients.  It’s an easy premise to riff.  If you go through this book’s GoodReads page, a fair number of the reviews are from people who have never read the book making fun of the premise.  But I have read this book, and... holy shit, guys.  The premise is just scratching the surface in terms of the sheer incompetency of this book.  This is probably the worst YA book I have ever read from cover to cover.  There are worse books that I’ve started without finishing, and I’ve read worse books of other genres, but in terms of YA novels I’ve read all the way through, the only one that could compete with this one in terms of sheer awfulness is Very LeFreak (2009).  I legitimately feel at a loss to describe how unbelievably incompetent this book was, on every level imaginable.  This is YA’s answer to an M. Night Shyamalan movie - I can’t even point to what went wrong, because there are so many deeply incompetent elements that it all just runs together into a big blob of terrible.  I have a lot to get to, and I have no idea if I’m even going to remember to mention everything that made this book so bad.  But this is my best attempt to sum up the unfathomable levels of awful that make up this book.  Join me, as I embark in what will probably go down as the most negative review I’ll ever write for this blog, as I try to come to terms with the fact that a professional editor and publishing company actually allowed something this horrible to be released.

The only way I know to organize this review is to just give you my experience reading this book, as I had it.  There’s no way to come up with a more intelligent and cohesive structure than that - you’ll experience each element as I did.  Going in, I figured this book would probably be bad just based on the premise, but it was the opening lines that let me know I was truly in for a clusterfuck.

In the ghostly branches of a hologram tree, light winks off the shiny side of something red and round.  I hesitate to reach for it.  It’s just a projection of the past onto the present after all, but it looks so real that I can’t help myself.  I raise my arm.  My body feels hollow and slow.

“Hey, who are you?  That’s not for you!” someone calls.

I try to tell this stranger my name, Thalia Apple, but the words burble up from my throat and pop like bubbles in my mouth with a taste that’s faint and far away.  My jaws work, unable to grasp the last word sitting smugly on the tip of my tongue.  So I pluck that red and shiny thing from the tree and shove it in my mouth, feel it slide down my throat then watch as it falls out of a perfect empty circle carved from my hips to my ribs.  I try to snatch it before it hits the ground but it changes shape and flitters away on delicate wings, too fleeting to catch.

I recently wrote a whole essay on opening lines, and in my research for that essay, I read dozens of opening lines from YA books.  And yet, this might be the worst one I’ve ever come across, simply because of how criminally incompetent the prose is.  This looks like a parody of bad purple prose - the images that Swain is describing are just plain silly, even for a dream sequence, and she does so with some truly baffling word choices.  Why does the light ‘wink’ off the apple?  How can your entire body feel ‘slow’?  Why does Swain seem to be comparing the experience of being unable to speak to throwing up in your mouth?  Why is the word Thalia can’t think of sitting ‘smugly’ on the tip of her tongue?  Why does Swain, in a passage trying to be as detailed as possible, skip the action of Thalia chewing the apple, leading me to picture her swallowing it whole like a giant aspirin?  Why does the apple literally sprout wings and fly away?  The entire passage feels like Swain knew she was trying to be fancy and descriptive, but she didn’t actually care about what she was saying.  So the result is that the image feels like it was dreamt up by a ten year-old, and her word choice just exasperates the awkwardness.

What I’m saying here is, the writing is awful, from start to finish.  Thankfully, Swain doesn’t spend much time waxing poetic, so most of the prose isn’t quite this unbearable.  But even when the tone is neutral, Swain’s prose is still painfully awkward.  And the dialogue isn’t any better - it’s stilted, unnatural, and full of cliches.  Everyone talks in a somewhat didactic voice, always explaining, and Swain’s overly-wordy style makes for a lot of clunky exchanges.  It’s so consistently terrible that I almost have trouble believing that a professional editor looked at it.  If things like this were allowed to slip through the line editing, what kind of awful stuff was corrected?  This is the kind of thing I would expect from an inept self-published book, and it’s legitimately distressing that there are publishing houses that allow this kind of content to be released.  (Spoiler: That’s going to be a common theme throughout this review.)

The next thing that struck me about this book was how bad Swain is at writing characters and their arcs.  Our protagonist is Thalia, and her character arc is so incoherent that I can’t help but wonder if Swain was just making it up as she went along, and never went back to change the early chapters.  The bad characterization and bad worldbuilding are intrinsically tied together, so it’s kind of hard for me to talk about one without discussing the other, but I’ll try to stay on topic.  At the beginning of the novel, Swain attempts to paint Thalia as a noble, righteous character, the only one who sees through the society’s bullshit.  I say ‘attempts to’ because while I can tell that’s what Swain was trying to do, she does a terrible job of showing us what Thalia was fighting against and why she felt strongly about it.  We’re told, for example, that she doesn’t participate in interactions in the internet-equivalent because they’re shallow and illegitimate, but we never actually see any of these interactions in detail, so we never end up feeling the same way about them that Thalia does.  She just comes off as smugly anti-social.*  Likewise, we’re told that her work as a hacker is noble and revolutionary, even though we only see her doing harmless pranks.  My problem with this isn’t so much that she’s flawed, because characters should be flawed.  But Swain never gives us any indication that we’re supposed to be critical of her actions.  People go into dystopias with certain expectations, and one of those expectations is that we’re supposed to dislike the world and agree with the people who rebel against it.  Without any indication telling us not to do that, that’s what the audience is going to do based on instinct.  So when Thalia’s rebellious actions are underwhelming, it reads as a failure on Swain’s part - I could tell how I was supposed to feel about Thalia, but I never actually felt that way about her.

But then the second act comes around, and to my surprise, Swain decided that she felt the same way about Thalia that I did.  Without getting too much into an overly-complex plot summary, Thalia is forced to run away from her family and go into hiding with Basil, a poor boy whose goal is to bring real food back to society.  If there’s anywhere in the novel that I saw the slightest glimmer of potential, it was in Basil’s interactions with Thalia in the second act.  Basil is a lot poorer than Thalia, and to my surprise, there is some attempt at an exploration of how this affects their dynamic.  Basil calls out a lot of the same behavior that annoyed me in Thalia, and with a better author, this could’ve worked as an exploration of how privileged people’s activism is often useless to the people who actually need it.

But it fails for two reasons.  First, this clearly wasn’t planned from the beginning - or if it was, Swain has such a poor understanding of her audience’s expectations that she can’t communicate basic concepts.  Thalia’s actions in the first act are framed as legitimately rebellious, and the revelation that this wasn’t the case was a gradual realization rather than a twist.  That just doesn’t work - the payoff doesn’t match the buildup.  Second, when I talk about all this, you have to remember that Swain is a godawful writer and nothing ever really works the way she intends it to.  Thalia doesn’t actually undergo any character change; this isn’t an arc that takes up a significant portion of the novel.  It’s set up as an arc in her initial discussions with Basil, but after only a couple of scenes where it’s addressed, this thread is completely dropped.  The last time we see it is toward the end of the second act when Basil gets mad at Thalia about the issue… and then apologizes to her and says he was overreacting.  This character flaw doesn’t really inform any of Thalia’s actions after the first act, and by the third, it’s completely forgotten.  This is what I mean when I say that Thalia’s arc was incoherent - there’s nothing that makes it fit together.  In any given scene, Thalia’s characterization doesn’t have much to do with anything from previous scenes.  Same goes with Basil, who starts out with a little development (it’s established that he’s angry about the world and passionate), but this doesn’t really inform his actions that much, apart from basic plot motivations.

And speaking of incoherent things, let’s discuss the worldbuilding.  My first problems with the worldbuilding were twofold - first, as I discussed above, we were simply told a lot of elements instead of being shown.  We never really saw what social interactions were like, and almost all vital information in the first act was infodumped in Swain’s awkward style.  My second problem with the worldbuilding was how derivative it is.  The other problem with it is how derivative it all is.  You might think, based on the title, that this book would borrow a lot from The Hunger Games (2008), and while Swain might’ve been hoping to capture the same suspense and themes of revolution, it’s clear those weren’t her main influences.  No, Swain’s main influence was obvious: Jennifer Government (2002).  For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Jennifer Government is a near-future dystopia about the evils of unbridled capitalism.  It’s really not a very good book, mostly because it seems to care more about action than putting any substance into its allegory.  So you can imagine my dismay when I realized that Hungry’s worldbuilding uses a lot of elements from Jennifer Government.  Like that book, Hungry has corporations as the villain (unusual for dystopias, where the villain is usually the government), and said corporation runs schools where people are indoctrinated in how evil corporations are.  Also like Jennifer Government, Hungry puts a big emphasis on how manipulative advertising is, and both novels involve a revolution that turns out to be fairly corrupt.  It’s not so bad that I’d call it a total rip-off, but there were definitely lifted elements.  Swain’s major innovation is that in her novel, the major corporations issue pills to regulate people’s hunger, emotions, and hormones.  You might recognize these as the pills that Jonas takes in The Giver (1992), except that there, they didn’t regulate hunger.  So basically, Swain’s only real innovation is that there’s no food - everything else is either cliched or clearly lifted from better dystopias.  In other words, the only thing Swain adds is the gimmick.  I’m not even going to bother harping on how awful this particular gimmick is - there are lots of people who have already done that.  The horse is dead, no need to keep beating it.  What I do want to impart, however, is that this gimmick is the only thing original about the novel.

At least, that’s what I thought in the first act.  Like the characterization, things sort of break down as the novel goes on, and by the time you reach the end of the book, it’s hard to see any connection between where you started and where you ended up.  It’s hard to talk about this without spoiling, but in brief, in the third act, the allegory completely falls apart.  I mentioned earlier that this novel had some potential in the character interactions.  Part of that potential also came from the context that those interactions were in.  Basically, there is more to why this world is so bad than ‘there’s no food’ - the evil corporation is selling the nutritional pills for profit, and often, poor people have trouble getting access to them without back-breaking work and being exploited.  That could’ve been a legitimate exploration of a real problem.  The privatization of basic necessities is a huge problem with capitalism, and the fact that poor people are exploited just to be given their basic rights is one of the biggest injustices in the modern world.  But once Swain sets up this allegory, she doesn’t take it anywhere.  In fact, the third act sees a change in setting that makes every single bit of thematic setup Swain did in the first two acts completely irrelevant.  I can’t really elaborate without spoiling, but in short: the worldbuilding was sloppy, incoherent, derivative, and ultimately built to no thematic end.

And, finally, the plot.  Well, in this book where the character arcs are incoherent, and the worldbuilding is incoherent, you can guess what my main criticism of the storyline is going to be.  Swain seems to be flying entirely by the seat of her pants - in any given scene, it’s not clear what we’re building up to, and I usually didn’t even have the slightest idea of what the next scene might contain.  Not only that, but the pacing was just flat bizarre.  One memorably bad scene was when Thalia was arrested and put into a facility for correcting rebellious people.  When this happened, it seemed like the next section of the novel would be interesting - it’s a great opportunity for an exploration of the world, and perhaps to meet some interesting characters.  But no, it took less than ten pages before Basil had broken Thalia out of the facility, and the novel moves on as if it never happened.  This is just one example of the various pacing problems throughout the novel.  It tends toward a generally slow-ish pace, punctuated by a few incredibly rushed scenes that needed to be slower.  Pacing should be used to build up the tension, and to emphasize certain scenes as more important than others.  Swain doesn’t use the pacing for either of these purposes.  She rushes through scenes that should be important, and drags on sections of the book that don’t feel important at all.  And there’s no tension to speak of, even though the stakes were fairly high, because the plotting style doesn’t make it clear what the novel is building up to.

And then we get to the final act of the novel, and everything falls apart completely.  I know I already mentioned this section when I was talking about the worldbuilding, but I have to bring it up again, because the last 100 pages of this novel was perhaps the most baffling reading experience I have ever had.  The entire plot is essentially thrown away, and Swain starts a new conflict from scratch, for no apparent reason.  This doesn’t contribute anything to the thematics, tension, or characterization.  I wish I could talk about this in more detail without spoiling, but suffice to say, it’s some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen.

I know this review was way longer than my reviews normally are.  But goddamn, there’s just no way to adequately sum up all the ways this book fails.  It’s an overwhelming nightmare, and at some points, I even got angry at this book for being so bad.  There were points where I legitimately wondered how a professional publishing company could have the audacity to release a book this bad and ask me to like it.  This is one of the worst YA books I have ever read, and I recommend it to no one, unless you want a great example of how not to write a book.

*That, by the way, is the correct use of the word ‘smugly’.  It should describe pretentious assholes, not words you can’t think of.

[the-desolated-quill]

A Town Called Mercy - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Toby Whithouse writing a Western episode? Now this should be exciting!

...

Pity it isn’t.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. It’s not a bad premise and the first half of A Town Called Mercy is actually pretty good for the most part. A cyborg gunslinger is threatening the nearby town of Mercy, refusing to let anyone out unless they hand over an alien doctor called Kahler-Jex. It’s a great setup and there’s a lot to love. Mercy itself looks incredible. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Westerns, and this captures the best of the genre. The mysterious stranger that walks into town, the dark antihero out for revenge, but has a kind heart underneath, the morbid undertaker, the noble sheriff trying to keep the peace, it’s all there. Not even Matt Smith’s childish goofiness could ruin it for me. I also love the Gunslinger. He’s a sympathetic character and the makeup design is brilliant. One of the best ‘monster’ designs I’ve ever seen in this show. Ben Browder was good as the sheriff Isaac and I did initially like the character of Jex, played by Adrian Scarborough (Look @furrychimp, it’s Mr. Jolly from Psychoville! XD).

Then comes the moral dilemma, which starts off so promisingly. Turns out Jex, the nice, cuddly alien doctor who gave Mercy electricity and heating and a cure for cholera, is actually a war criminal. The man responsible for performing brutal experiments on his own people in order to win a war, and the Gunslinger is in fact one of his victims out for revenge. Awkward.

There’s a lot of potential there, isn’t there? Much more interesting and complex than the Daleks wanting to take over the Earth for the ten billionth time. Unfortunately this is all undermined by Whithouse apparently not trusting the audience to understand this dilemma for themselves. A lot of this episode seems to consist of Jex blatantly spelling out for us in black and white either things we already know or things we could have worked out for ourselves.

“It would be so much simpler if I was just one thing, wouldn't it? The mad scientist who made that killing machine, or the physician who's dedicated his life to serving this town. The fact that I'm both bewilders you."

Yeah. Thanks for that. Perhaps you should go on Mastermind. Name: Kahler-Jex. Specialist Subject: The Fucking Obvious.

Sitting the audience down like we’re fucking idiots and explaining all the moral quandaries to us just lessens the impact of it. It’s annoying. For instance, it’s possible to draw comparisons between Jex’s actions and the Doctor’s in the Time War. It’s a nice subtle thing that makes the Doctor’s behaviour that much more impactful and the conflict much more interesting. Or at least it could have been if Jex didn’t draw attention to it with his clunky and cliched ‘looking at you is like looking into a mirror’ line. How about crediting the audience with some intelligence?

So the Doctor gets pissed off and chucks Jex over the line before pointing a gun at him. And like with Solomon’s death in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, people for some reason have a problem with this. Okay, time out for a minute. Have any of you lot ever actually watched Doctor Who before? I don’t know where you’ve got this idea that the Doctor is a gun fearing pacifist from, but it’s grade A bollocks. The Doctor has done violent things before. The Doctor has even used a gun before. Okay, he only resorts to those actions if there’s no other choice and will always try to find a peaceful solution if he can, but he’s never been above getting his hands dirty. For some strange reason, over time people have taken this from a man who only resorts to violence when he has no other choice to a man who NEVER resorts to violence EVER.

The thing is it’s one thing for the fans to hold this blatantly incorrect opinion that the Doctor is a pacifist, but it’s another thing entirely when the writers start buying into that bullshit too. First there’s Amy who asks “since when did killing someone become an option?”, which is just a profoundly odd thing to ask. What, did the millions of Cybermen that the Doctor killed in A Good Man Goes To War in order to find her not count? What about all the Silence who died in Day Of The Moon? What about Solomon in the previous episode? That’s quite a selective memory you’ve got there Amy. And then later on during the mandatory lynch mob scene, we get the Doctor dropping the clunker that ‘violence doesn’t end violence’, which is just beyond moronic. Look, no sane minded person wants to resort to violence. Nobody wants to go to war or fight people deep down. Of course we should always try to find a peaceful solution and diplomacy is great when it works, but sometimes that’s just not an option. We sometimes have to resort to violence in order to defend ourselves or for the greater good. It’s not ideal, but that’s the reality of life. I’m not saying the Doctor needs to be a violent antihero or anything. What I am saying is that both the writers and the fans need to stop over simplifying the Doctor’s character and the conflicts he encounters to such an idiotic degree.

So back to what I was saying, the Doctor points a gun at Jex, which I have no problem with by the way and neither should you (besides the Doctor reels it back in when he says he genuinely doesn’t know if he could pull the trigger, so it’s still very much in character thank you very much), and Amy starts to scold him for his behaviour. On the surface this seems to be a powerful character moment for Amy, but if you look closely it actually doesn’t work at all. See the Doctor raises a very good point, saying he wants to honour the victims first and that he agonises over the people who have died because of his mercy. This is something the show rarely touches on. The Doctor often moralises over whether it’s right to kill villains like the Daleks or the Master and usually shows mercy, which is all very well, but he never takes into account the number of people who die as a result of his merciful actions. I think this is the first time in the show’s history that the Doctor has ever acknowledged this. That his mercy toward enemies like the Daleks have led to some truly horrific consequences. At a glance it looks like Amy’s talk about how they need to be better than Jex addresses this, but it actually doesn’t because that’s not an answer to the point the Doctor has raised. She basically just reiterates the Doctor’s usual position. That doing good now lets you off of any negative consequences later on. This isn’t an answer to the dilemma, but the problem is the Doctor treats it as though it is. What’s the point of raising big questions if you’re just going to gloss over them?

It’s at this point the entire episode starts to fall apart. The minute Jex is revealed to be a war criminal, he suddenly morphs into this pantomime villain constantly trying to goad the Doctor only to then revert back to his nice, cuddly self at the end when it’s time for him to make his honourable sacrifice. This isn’t a morally grey character. This is more like dissociative identity disorder. Even the Gunslinger’s character starts to become a shambles. The rules surrounding his morality don’t make the slightest bit of sense. He creates a line around the town and orders them to hand Jex over to him so no innocent lives will be lost, but there’s a moment where Jex is is standing right in front of the Gunslinger inside the line. Why doesn’t the Gunslinger just shoot him? The only thing stopping him is a line of his own making. Then later he makes a mockery of the whole ‘no innocent lives’ rule by marching right into town and threatening to kill everyone unless they hand Jex over, which begs the question why he didn’t just do that in the first place.

And what’s the Doctor’s plan? Get everyone to put on face paint and run around to distract the Gunslinger while Jex escapes. Fuck me, it’s just as well the Gunslinger did show mercy in the end with the townsfolk, otherwise the Doctor would have been responsible for more deaths thanks to his own mercy (oh the irony). Also, face paint? I thought the Gunslinger was tracking Jex via his clothes. Now it’s facial markings? In fact, doesn’t the Gunslinger already know what Jex looks like? Why not just search for him specifically? He had no problem picking the Doctor out using his advanced targeting, facial recognition software thing. Why not do the same with Jex? It’s all just daft.

I’m really annoyed by this. Everything started off so well. All the ingredients were there for an intelligent, morally complex episode as well as a great tribute to the Western genre, but it’s all ultimately ruined by some truly sloppy writing on Whithouse’s part. Damn it!

[thesinglesjukebox]

SHAMIR - 90'S KIDS [5.12] Your editor is in his thirties, which might be why he's really mad at the apostrophe placement in this title...

Tim de Reuse: It's all true, every bit of it: my anxiety is a daily slog, the prospect of self-love fills me with abject terror, and I can never get enough vocal fry! Despite the laser-targeted relatability, I don't feel that listening to this was any kind of emotional release. It would be petty and pointless of me to criticize it for not showing up with a thorough, thoughtful examination of the issues that we the modern twenty-somethings of Western civilization face; surely, a middle finger directed to the powers that be doesn't need deep insight to be thrilling, right? Well, it doesn't, but this is such a limp effort that the message of defiance barely registers at all. We're given a scant four rhyming couplets of evidence for Shamir's thesis statement, and three nearly-identical repetitions of an unreasonably long chorus that each serve as a running start for a "fuck you" that's delivered in an anticlimactic croon. Other than a few brief lines (the part about going to hell does hit home), the lyrics contain no topical sucker-punches or surprises and their presentation is too smooth and straightforward to communicate any kind of genuine frustration or anger. The only truly memorable part of it is the baffling ultra-lo-fi production, which places the vocals right next to your ears to make sure you can't ignore their every dry, agonizing pop, crack, and sibilance, as if they were somehow run through a de-esser in reverse. If I'm being harsh, it's because I'm squarely in the center of this song's target audience, but it only made me feel irritated, tired, and disappointed. I get enough of that stuff worrying about my future employability. [2]

Julian Axelrod: Shamir flips the starry-eyed refrain of a thousand BuzzFeed listicles into a lament for a generation without a future. By eschewing nostalgia, he aligns himself with decades of disenfranchised youths realizing their parents have fucked them over. But when artists back up their Major Statement with a Serious New Sound, they often drain their sound of any bite or bounce. After all, Shamir had already recorded a slew of millennial anthems -- "Demon," "Darker," "Make a Scene" -- before he set out to write one. [6]

Scott Mildenhall: So intent on being on-the-nose that it misses the nose and ends up hitting itself in the face. The use of arbitrary generational cohorts as a framework not for making money through clicks or data, but instead for rallying self-identification is always intriguing. If Shamir feels it, and if listeners feel it, then great. But multiply the certainty of synchronic and diachronic differences between people between the ages 17 to 27 by the reality of trying to speak to (if not on behalf of) a far larger audience than those inside the idea of America you've implicitly constructed, and you really will be struggling. Perhaps every decade has such a song foist upon it, but better not one so sickly. [3]

Rebecca A. Gowns: I think it's supposed to be a reprimand to an older generation, or a reassurance for a younger generation, but in both form and content, it's just a snooze. The young vs. old culture war is boring, really. Why do we always circle around the same old generational battles when there are far more interesting (and pressing) divisions? [3]

Jonathan Bradley: Shamir's talking about his generation, and as millennial manifesto... well, at least "90's Kids" does not rhyme "New Americana" with "Biggie and Nirvana." A writer who has disarmed with his fey willingness to sound unstudied, he could never be earnest enough to make this trend-piece double-whammy opening couplet of "We talk with vocal fry/we watch our futures die" large enough to capture the Zeitgeist. But better than his words are how he delivers them, in a wandering and fragile falsetto that tiptoes along a Motown melody cobwebbed with lo-fi K-Recs fuzz -- the kind we used to listen to during the 1990s. In its faltering misery, it's more powerful a refrain than "We out her strugglin'" or "put a drink in the air for the college girls and boys" could ever be. [9]

Alfred Soto: The rinkydink production hearkens back to '90s Magnetic Fields, albeit with awkward cadences. Shamir is subject and object, mocker and bullied, and, as usual, not as compelling as I want him to be. [6]

Anthony Easton: The piano reminds me of Tori, and the falsetto floats against and across gender. The best lyrics are axiomatic, and when other production is played through the piano it centers the possible strangeness of the whole exercise. Nothing says millennial to me than pop hits filtered through explicitly cooked formalism, a formalism that cannot think of the future and barely knows the past.  [7]

Ashley John: I thought my playlist got taken over by a musical's soundtrack when this first came through. Shamir's voice centers the song in way so pressing it feels like he's at the center of the stage with a spotlight cast on. If it were a musical I'd picture the stage empty of props or backdrops, just him speaking to the audience and us all watching without comment. "90's Kids" is passionate, a little scared, and a bit clunky, but it's a thesis statement for this moment in time, so maybe that makes perfect sense.  [5]

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