#lol I guess this particular audience doesn’t vibe with the music stuff

[starrattlerofprydain]

Seems like my kh amvs/data greeting music videos don’t do so well on my new channel compared to my old channel 😔

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam France S2.2 reaction

they managed to make one of my most disliked parts somewhat less bad

slow clap for Skam France?

some very heated opinions below, be aware!

Episode 2

For real, some very negative opinions are coming, and it’s not my intention to make anyone feel like garbage about something they like. If you’re a fan of Noorhelm/Marles, maybe don’t read.

Clip 1 - Manon and Emma in class

I like Emma a lot more this season. I didn’t feel like the actress quite carried the really vulnerable moments, but she’s exhibiting more personality with her take on S2 Party Eva.

They cut the scene with the two girls asking Noora if Jonas had a girlfriend and if he were dating Eva, so the vibe is kind of different. With that context it seems like Noora wants to gently nudge him Eva into moving on because she suspects Jonas is moving on. This has some of that but it also feels less urgent, because Manon doesn’t have quite the same reason to be concerned for Emma’s feelings in that moment.

I do like Emma’s bit about being kidnapped by that prostitution ring in Taken, that’s funny.

Clip 2 - Yann the Man

Charles’ text about seeing Manon even though she was trying to hide - WHY. Why would they add this shit? Do they not get how uncomfortable this makes girls feel? Manon goes to school with this guy so there is nothing she can do to completely avoid him. He is not only just checking her out, but he’s making sure she’s aware of it. Let’s be clear: she wanted to hide from him, and he made sure she knew that he noticed she was trying to hide, and he made sure she knew that it didn’t work.

Look, I know that many Noorhelm fans also hate William’s behavior at the beginning of S2 and only warmed up to him as the season progressed. For me it’s that this opening behavior is so bad, such a textbook example of male entitlement in action, that it’s hard for me to ever get past it. I just have very few fucks to give about men who prioritize their boner feels over women’s boundaries.

Lucas, Sarah, and Ingrid here are like when Ron Weasley and Lavender Brown started sucking face and Harry and Parvati Patil had that shared moment of “God, our friends are getting on our nerves.”

I super love French Ingrid. I love her being bored and annoyed by Lucas and Sarah, and then her flustered reaction to Yann was great.

So what I’m taking away from Daphne’s reaction is that Manon and Emma probably told the whole girl squad about what they saw on Lucas’ phone. Not cool.

AND NOW a breakdown of Yann’s power walk. This scene annoyed me, because they did not put in the work of setting it up. This is Skam France’s worst quality; it copies the events at surface level without understanding why they are there or how they got there in the first place. At least this is a smaller humorous moment and not something dramatically important, even though it is relevant in terms of Emma’s character this season.

Let’s go over how the two shows set up this scene. Skam plants the setup during last Friday’s scene at Noora’s. The girls get to talking about sex, it’s a frank conversation. Vilde wants to know if the others have ever experienced a guy going down on them, because she thinks (hopes) William may do it to her. Eva jokes that no Norwegian guys will go down on girls, telling us in an indirect way about this aspect of her relationship with Jonas. This part of the scene is so comedic and light-hearted that on first viewing, you might not assume that it’s not anything except banter, a fun conversation that Noora has no part in and serves as a contrast to her anxiety over William’s attempts to contact her and Vilde’s continued interest in William. At the start of the next episode, we have a clip with Noora at her locker and being approached by two unknown girls who clearly catch her off guard, too, and want to know whether Jonas has a girlfriend. This random encounter leads her to prod about Jonas from Eva and subtly push her in the direction of moving on, as she suspects that Jonas may no longer be single. Then we get The Clip. As Vilde makes conversation with Ingrid, Eva notices girls’ heads turning in one direction, whispering and giggling. She follows their gaze. They’re looking at Jonas. She wants to know why, and she gets the answer about Jonas going down on a third year. Vilde looks confused, then starts to ask Eva about what she said on Friday, but Noora shakes her head as we get Eva’s stunned reaction. Jonas comes up to them and we get an iconic quote.

Skam France sets it up like this: Sarah tells us that Yann is the big man of campus, we see him walking and girls reacting, we get the explanation about Yann going down on the third-year, Emma seems a bit upset, he goes up to the girl squad and drops his line.

We don’t get the setup of “French guys not going down on girls” so there’s no impact of Yann being THE man, THE one true cunnilingus hero (and I have no idea what’s the general attitude of French men toward going down on women but I mean, you could spin this as “teenage boys are all about their own pleasure and don’t eat out girls” no matter what country you’re in) (except lol it ain’t gonna work in Skam Italia, thanks Giovanni!) - like I can understand in-universe why the girls might be impressed but from an audience POV, we’re not given any means of comparison to understand just why this is such a big deal

We don’t get that earlier line from Emma in particular so there’s no impact of understanding how upset she might be about this - not just that Yann is hooking up with other girls, but that he’s doing something with them that he apparently never did with her

There’s no additional moment of realization, “oh, so THAT’S why those random girls suddenly wanted to know if Yann is single,” a Brick Joke to use a TVTropes phrase, because they cut that scene

Even within the scene itself, it’s not built up? Like in OG we see girls reacting to Jonas and Eva picking up on it before we land the punchline. This one just tells you off the bat that Yann did a Thing, look at him (this bothers me less than the omission of the other stuff but in combination with it, it’s another symptom)

Is any of this a crime? No. Could people still find the Yann scene funny? Sure. But if this were my show, and I had to cut some things that didn’t fit into the episodes? I would question whether this scene was as effective without the buildup. I would question whether it was necessary. If I had to get across Emma’s moment of hurt, that likely inspires her to start hooking up with dudes from social media, I would consider whether it could be written in another way.

TBH I know I’m sounding nitpicky, but honestly this is why I enjoy overanalyzing the remakes. I felt like I learned something about setup and punchlines from observing the two scenes, and I appreciate how deftly Julie managed to make an extended oral sex joke pack some emotional punch.

I did like the music break from when he was walking to the exposition, and that was an admittedly great line from Yann about being hungry.

Clip 3 - Daphne loves lesbians

Daphne was sitting apart from the other girls at the beginning of the scene seeming very disconnected, hmmm.

Also Emma is not using Tinder in this version, she’s using Instagram  and seems a bit firm that she isn’t using Tinder, so I wonder what the significance of that was. Maybe because Tinder is an app used for dating, and she doesn’t want to seem like she’s trying too much to move on, whereas Instagram is a more generic app with other purposes and hey, if a guy happens to message you, why not just roll with it, right?

And Emma immediately says no fake plans, like she just immediately calls it, though Manon fakes them anyway.

Does anyone else think that Alex’s sexuality is being handled really strangely, and by strangely I mean not at all? Because from what I recall, in canon we really just that comment about her hooking up with the girl named Clara and wanting to see Daphne’s topless pics. Her bisexuality was confirmed by the actress, outside of the show. This scene would’ve been a perfect time to address Alex’s sexuality directly, especially because Daphne is the kind of clueless character who would say something boneheaded that would require some education. When Daphne asks Manon whether she’s a lesbian, why not have her mention something like, “It’s OK if you like girls, so does Alex,” or even make a misguided comment about how Alex and Manon could pair off? Or have Alex make some kind of joke related to the discussion? Like this is genuinely weird to me not to acknowledge it at all in this context, when Daphne is even saying that their laughter makes it an unsafe environment for Manon to come out, but there’s also a bi girl sitting right there, participating in the laughter? It feels like another example of them just not thinking through the script that much.

This is why I’m skeptical about how they’ll handle the bit with Daphne and Emma making out, as seen in the trailer. Because again, they have a girl in the group who actually is supposed to be bisexual and who has apparently hooked up with girls, and yet we don’t hear much about it except in passing, but if we get these two supposedly straight girls making out because they’re drunk … that’s not a great look? What I’m worried is that they’ll play it completely like the original show because they’re just following the script and not thinking about it, while ignoring that they’ve changed a character’s sexuality and it might be relevant.

They cut the bit with Jamilla and her crew, so maybe they won’t play a role this season. I guess if they ever get to season four, they’re really going to have to rewrite the story because the bus plot will not make sense. But it’s kind of a bummer, I hope they find another way to include those girls. I think Skam France could improve on the original in how much they used the hijab squad in the show.

Manon, what was your objective in coming on to Daphne like that? You just have to get in her personal space. MMMMkay girl.

OK I laughed my ass off at Daphne posting a “love is love” image immediately after this clip. 

God, I really wish we had Daphne for season three.

Clip 4 - The date

It only took me two whole episodes to figure out who Mika reminds me of: Ben Whishaw. Which is super obvious now that I recognize it.

Mickael’s DRAMAAAAAA is up there with P-Chris’ iconic version. Manon’s imitation is also good.

Mickael is smart negotiating for a birthday gift even if it didn’t quite work. I like his style.

Manon doesn’t wipe off her lipstick (like Noora did) which maybe is supposed to signify that she’s attracted to Charles, or maybe that she’s less concerned with how she presents to him. She does seem to be more confident when she squares off with him verbally.

I know the part in the car with The Weeknd is Iconique but I thought this version was fine and worked about as well   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

This is one of my most hated parts of the original show, so let’s see how they did.

Disregarding the context of how he got her on this date, that’s a nice setup with the chairs on the rooftop (which I’m guessing he dragged up there himself).

Actually ... you know what, there’s a lot of uncomfortable stuff about this part that I didn’t even realize previously because it’s presented so cinematically. (Assume that when I refer to Charles here, I also mean William because it’s more or less the same writing.) One thing I’ve never really considered until now is that if Charles (or any guy) pressured me into this date, didn’t accept my rejection, said that saying no will just make him want me more ... I would be fucking afraid if I finally went with him on a date and he took me to an isolated area. Now I didn’t think about that at first because this is a very beautiful scene from an aesthetic point of view! There is some gorgeous cinematography in both this scene and the original version. And he gives her something to drink and it’s cute because he remembered she doesn’t drink alcohol, so he made cocoa, cocoa is a drink that brings to mind warm, cozy feelings! Awww!

But take this out of the pretty TV context: in real life, a guy who has made it clear he doesn’t take no for an answer and who takes me to a nice secluded area and gives me a drink he made himself? Would raise serious alarms. I would have this feeling of dread in my stomach. And I don’t think you can disregard this train of thought or call it unfair or over-the-top, because guess what, Noora (Manon too by the looks of it) is potentially drugged later in the season when someone gives her a drink (I don’t remember if they ever confirmed if she was drugged or if she just got very drunk and blacked out, but we’re definitely supposed to think it’s a possibility). We do have a sexual assault storyline later on, with this very same character. It is completely reasonable to consider these dynamics especially in light of the season’s larger themes and topics.

I am being 100% serious ... what reason does Manon have to think that Charles is not capable of date rape at this point? Think about it, consider it from her POV where she doesn’t know what’s going to happen later in this season, just analyze what she knows in this moment. So far he’s had sex with her friend and then ignored her and cruelly put her down, and he’s pursued her despite her rejecting him, he’s openly said that he doesn’t take her “no” seriously, he’s sent her messages that make clear he’s noticed she’s tried to hide from him and he doesn’t care, he’s cornered her into this date. Other than the fact that Charles is our designated male lead, why should Manon trust him? Why should we? The only reason is because we know we’re watching a TV show, we know that this is the scene where we start to build up to our characters getting together later. Charles is handsome, Charles will be The Love Interest, therefore Charles is going to be a good guy. If Charles was some gross, unattractive, obnoxious dude who would clearly not end up with our heroine, how would this scene feel? 

The jab at Twilight is hilarious and accurate. They are Bella and Edward.

“Why did you get into my car?” You fucking know why, dude.

This shit about him not pressuring her to go out with her is wrong. Yes. He did. Him just saying he didn’t doesn’t make it true. If just saying stuff made it true I’m going to go around calling myself Julie Andem and telling people I’m working on Skam Season 5: The Adventures of Dr. Skrulle and Her Wife, The Danish Receptionist.

In original Skam Noora did tell Vilde that there was nothing going on with her and William before this point, I don’t think Manon did. So I guess Manon could have done that. But Charles has put her in a complicated place. Manon asked him to apologize to Daphne. He did so on the condition that Manon go on a date with him. At this point Manon can’t tell Daphne she’s going out with Charles without having to explain why, which means nullifying the apology in the first place. And Manon is trying to avoid him but he won’t let it happen, and he’s shown that he’s willing to use Daphne to get to her. 

All right, here’s why I fucking hate this scene: this is a prime opportunity for William/Charles to show some humility and character growth about what happened with Vilde/Daphne, and he doesn’t. Not once during this conversation does he express regret for how he handled the Vilde/Daphne situation. Not once does he express remorse or consideration for her feelings. Instead he offers several excuses about why what he did was justified, which happen to be about benefiting himself. So basically his apology was hollow and only about getting this date with Noora/Manon. Yes, it is early in the season and his character should be able to grow in future episodes, but I don’t recall William ever changing his tune on this topic, specifically. 

And tbh what's irritating is that this is framed like William/Charles has some reasonable points, and no, he doesn’t, literally every excuse he offers can be easily torn down. Noora/Manon can be judgmental, for sure, they can assess people incorrectly, but in this scene, they are completely right in their criticisms of what happened.

“Being nice to someone you want to get rid of doesn’t work ... I’ve been clear with her.” So did he ever try ... telling her outright ... you know, BEFORE they have sex, “hey, I’m not looking for a relationship.” Oh wait, the girl might not want to have sex with him then. Or even explaining it in direct but not malicious words afterwards? From what I remember, he basically just ghosted her until she confronted him and he tore her down. He doesn’t have to promise her anything, but he also owes her some basic respect. And he knew he was doing something cruel. Remember when he walked by Daphne and the girls in the schoolyard and he made a point of establishing eye contact, then looking away? 

“I’m not responsible” for harming Daphne’s self-image - oh shut up. If I went up to a random person on the street and told them they were ugly, I probably wouldn’t break their spirits forever and ever. But I probably would play on any insecurities they had. I would possibly create new insecurities that weren’t there. And I would possibly make them feel like garbage. So yes, I have to take some responsibility for the fallout.

And lmao, what bothers me is that yeah, actually we do see how cruel comments can affect one’s self-image over and over throughout the show. We see it with Vilde and Daphne, how this made them feel like they weren’t pretty enough and influenced their disordered eating. We saw it with Noora, how her shitty previous boyfriend also messed up her self-image and caused her to get sick. We saw it with Isak, how casual homophobia and comments about gay people around him influenced how he saw himself and made it difficult to call himself gay. We saw it with Sana, how she was bullied at her old school for being Muslim, how Islamophobia affected her and shaped her, how desperate she was to prove herself because people were judging her on all sides. It’s fine if William/Charles is meant to be wrong. What bugs me is that the way this is presented, makes it seem like he’s supposed to be right.

“I’m not letting her think there are chances when there aren’t” - aren’t you texting Daphne and inviting her to things? He absolutely knows how Daphne is going to respond to this. If he was so desperate to use one of the girls as a go-between for him and Manon, he could easily get Emma’s number from his pal Alex. But no, he is going through Daphne deliberately, because he knows she’ll be an enthusiastic messenger. And he knows she’s going to get hopeful. He literally says that she’s into him again! 

Characters can be flawed, characters don’t need to always say the right words. But William never had a turnaround where he acknowledged that his courtship of Noora or his treatment of Vilde was wrong, outside of that apology that he apparently didn’t mean, when these were things that he really, really needed to address in terms of his development. I fear that they’ll do the same with Charles since this remake is so close.

That being said, there are a few things in this scene that I preferred to the original:

One of the dumb things William says is that “if you see if from his side” Vilde is the one who pursued him, she approached him and wanted to sleep with him,. This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. William is not obligated to sleep with every girl who comes on to him. He and Vilde had a consensual sexual encounter, Vilde did not trip and fall on his dick, and he was participating in her flirtations and contacting her. Take some responsibility for your role in this, dude. This bit of blame-deflecting is thankfully missing from this scene, sparing me that particular headache.

Charles’ actor has more emotional range than William’s and I felt like he maybe did feel a bit less assured in his position, whereas William felt pretty smug about it the whole way through.

Manon seems less stumped by Charles’ comments than Noora did. Not that Noora needed to have all the answers all the time, but it always  saddened me that William’s BS excuses were what had her tongue-tied. Also her turning his sad anecdote into sarcasm about the homeless was good.

When Manon says she’ll walk home, Charles doesn’t push her and says it’s fine. That seems counter to chivalry, but it’s at least him respecting something she wanted, even if it might just be because he was busy with his fight drama.

The music throughout the clip was good, but the music at the end got too DRAMAAAAAAAAA for my liking.

General Comments:

I’m going to be honest, I think the actor playing Charles has more charisma than William, so on a superficial level I’m engaged more during the Manon/Charles scenes, and like I said above, I think it benefited his character in the date scene. But there are some ways I think this might make his character seem worse, for instance when telling Daphne she wasn’t good enough, it felt a lot more deliberately mean whereas William seemed so checked out of the whole thing that it was less like he wanted to twist the knife. So we’ll see how he fares at some later parts of the season. 

Tangent but I love the girls texting about Jane the Virgin. Also that Manon references Pedro Almodóvar and Emma’s like “we don’t have the same reference pool,” that legit made me laugh.

This had a lot of negative remarks, lol. Probably this will be as negative as it gets, tbh. That one scene just makes me angry.

I’m not French so I apologize if I misinterpret, and feel free to correct me. 

If you made it this far, thank you for reading!

[handmade-haven]

Some reflections on Year of the Tiger

(Brace yourselves cause it’s a long post)

When I guessed what theme the record was going to have I was very surprised. In a good way. From those few times Myles spoke about his Dad passing away I understood it was a sore subject for him. And I thought he would never touch that theme in his music.  I’m glad he’s done it, I’m glad mainly for him – as art can be a good way of dealing with emotional burden and as Myles confirmed himself making this record was cathartic to him.  And I’m grateful to Myles for opening up his soul and sharing such a personal thing with us. It takes a lot and I admire and appreciate that.

The record will definitely resonate with me not least because I lost my Dad too (in fact, the album will be out just a few days before my own Dad’s anniversary so I guess listening to it will be an emotional experience for me). Though my story is different from Myles’ there are certain things I can relate to and I feel I can understand his feelings (at least partly). Although my father passed away when I was already adult, still it was rather soon. Also as he was a very hardworking man for the bigger part of my life I saw little of him and so I always missed him and had to deal with the void.  

It’s hard to overestimate the role of parents in our lives, especially during such crucial period as childhood.  And for boys  father-son relationship is of particular importance. I’m so very sorry that Myles lost his Dad so soon. And I’m so sorry that it happened cause his father became a victim of a sect [CS uses the name of Christ but what it preaches directly contradicts the Bible; and I’m sorry that it led Myles to struggle with religion]. Myles said: “By all accounts, my father was a good, honest man, but I still struggle with the choices he made which ultimately led to his death”. I can relate to that. I love my father but I wish some of his choices/decisions had been different. There is sadness and regret because things could have been so much better for everyone.

All that said, I can imagine how tough it was for Myles and his family. I admire his Mum, she is clearly a strong woman. And I’m glad that God granted Myles a second dad. My respect goes to Mr. Kennedy for raising Myles and his brother as his own kids and being a loving and caring father to them.

Now, I guess it’s time to talk about the single.

The song

I knew this record would be different from what Myles had ever done. And yet, especially after discovering the concept behind this solo project, I expected something that had Mayfield Four and Cradle to the Grave feel to it. But when the title song was released, it caught me off guard. The song had a totally different vibe. The pace, that strumming had energetic, vigorous feel to them (I can’t find the right words but hope you get what I mean). The thing is: I forgot that lyrics-wise this song was supposed to be from his Mum’s point of view. Of course, after the first listen it became clear to me and everything fell into place. It all makes sense. Grief is on a periphery here, the song is more about not letting oneself drown in a sorrow, having to pull yourself together and keep going, more so when you have two little kids. So the music suits the lyrics. 

I’ve seen some comments saying that the music is simple and the song doesn’t have much variation. It may be so but to me it doesn’t matter. There are songs that can be described in that way and yet I love and adore them. If a song works for me - it’s all that matters. Also let’s not forget that Myles meant to keep it simple so he could tour this album with his acoustic guitar alone. I support his choice. I love acoustic concerts – just a man, his voice and his guitar. It creates an intimate atmosphere, a special chemistry between the musician and his audience. To me such a format suits this concept album perfectly.

Anyway, I love YOTT; all instruments sound great, I enjoy the eerie elements  and those “stops” towards the end are a nice touch. I’d like to return to the vibe of the song. I’ve recently discovered there is more to it than I initially noticed.  As I said, at first the music felt energetic, “boisterous”. But the other day I was doing some stuff and I put on this song to accompany it and as my mind zoomed out the lyrics it dawned on me that the music had some anxious quality to it. I sensed those feelings one has at the face of the unknown, uncertainty, knowing your life is gonna change massively but not knowing how things will play out in the future. I love that duality.

I think the song works best with the video (I suspect it may do so too when played live). For me watching the story unfold and seeing Myles’ expressions adds a lot to the tract. That video is so great that I’m going to dedicate to the rest of my post to it.

The video

I love meaningful music videos, story-videos, so I’m very happy Myles decided to shoot such a one. [AB’s  videos for singles may not be their strongest point. In no way do I criticise them – I know guys don’t like shooting them, also there is always budget issue and other reasons. Their live-footage-compilation type of videos are great though; the animation in Cry of Achilles reminds me of The Secret of Kells that I like].

This video is a true piece of ART! It became immediately one of my all-time favorites. [I suspect I’ll be responsible for its half a million views on youtube by the time the record comes out lol].

It was a love at the first sight! Before its release I sensed it was going to be great just by looking at that b&w pic Myles posted on his instagram. It just had the right feel. And the video turned out to be perfect! I love everything about it: the story, the setting, the colour palette - everything!

The story hits right in the feels. Loss of father is portrayed in a poignant artistic way. There are several details that I love in particular.

For example, we see father telling his son of what’s going to happen soon. Later, at 1:57, they show the boy pulling his dad’s hand close to him/his heart. At 2:16 the boy with deep sadness casts a glance at their clasped hands: he knows it won’t last but doesn’t know how much time is left.  And  this shot is synchronised with the following words of the song: “We didn’t know just when the pale horse would arrive”. Beautifully done!

Many years pass, the boy is a man now but the heartache from the loss still lies deep inside. Note that his outfit resembles that of his father’s –  not without a reason. He is also dragging his dad’s guitar just like he did as a child. I’ve seen comments on that guitar dragging like: “That poor guitar! It’s hard to look at what’s being done to it” and so on. I know they may have been written half-jokingly but while I’m an advocate for respectful attitude towards musical instruments, in this case I can’t focus on possible scratches on that guitar cause it would mean missing the point. For me that guitar dragging symbolises the heartache and emotional burden, it’s like shackles that  always constrain our hero. At the end of the video we see his silhouette in the distance and the guitar is abandoned on the side of the road. It’s a beautiful shot but it’s not done for the sake of beauty. I see it as coming to terms with what happened, finally releasing oneself from that pain. It doesn’t mean it’s gone away completely, it never does. It means getting rid of its acutest, heaviest part, that part that has a tight hold on him.

I showed the video to my Mum and she said an interesting thing. To her the guitar represents being a professional musician and dealing with all the difficulties and struggles that come with that. But as a truly creative person, an artist the man won’t leave it no matter how hard it is or gets cause he simply can’t live otherwise. If we abstract from the video and  take this shot alone, I think, it’s a good interpretation.

*** All in all YOTT is a really good start and I’m looking forward to this album. I suspect Myles may have cards up his sleeve, meaning that the title song may not fully reveal what the record is like. Anyway, I hope it will bring Myles new fans. More people should know what an amazing musician this man is.

P.S. I thank everyone who managed to read this post to the end.