#music is so important to these series

[thebroccolination]

[key cut] winteam - "this time will be different" request by @usodeshou

The original scene used two instrumentals with wildly different tones, and I think the requester was 100% right that they don't really help the scene. They actually detract a lot of emotion from BounPrem's performance, which is the opposite of what music in visual media is supposed to do.

Of course there are a lot of different moods and music choices you could go with here. I went with "Keep an Eye" by Ziv Moran to keep the tone consistent throughout the scene. I placed the music so that the first "note" lands when Win touches Team, which I meant to be a kind of "things have changed for them and they both feel it" cue. Then the music gets warmer as they remove their clothes, and it has these contemplative strings while they talk. Finally, I love that last crescendo when Team flips them and they get more obviously immersed in each other.

The fun of making these cuts is that I get to find ways to emphasize or highlight certain parts of the scene. It's like using italics in a story. Or a literal spotlight. Most of my favorite scenes across all media are my favorites because the music (or lack thereof) was integral – if you changed it, it wouldn't feel as impactful. Those are the music choices I admire most. Not just a thing to slap on the background so it isn't quiet, but almost an additional actor in the scene, invisible but crucial to the story.

[iphigeniacomplex]

it’s very easy to tell the good satires and pastiches from the bad ones because the bad ones are too afraid to live within the form. like if you are doing work with fairy tales and you are refusing to look closer at the underlying logic and unspoken rules of what can seem at first to be a senseless form, you are not going to create meaningful work. to borrow a turn of phrase originally used by maria tatar, if you refuse to enter “the house of fairy tale” as anything more than a gawking tourist, you will miss the particular order to the way the table is set, the rooms that are locked vs the rooms that are simply difficult to enter, the set of the floorboards and the position of the furniture. whatever you build will then be a gilded imitation of how you believe the house of fairy tale ought to look, the table set according to your educated specifications and every door open. there can be no interrogation of themes from a writer who views the form as beneath them!

[wren-kitchens]

there’s not enough lizzie ldshadowlady appreciation in this fandom and frankly I think we need to rectify this

she acts terrified of absolutely everyone except her husband, whom she is increasingly exasperated by. she and ren were rivalling dogwarts with their interactions. she was boogeyman twice in two different seasons and essentially did the exact same trap, that failed in essentially the exact same way, and somehow she still managed to get the kill because the person was too confused to process the fact they were being stabbed. she’s a fairy. she’s the shadow queen. she’s totally definitely pearl, she just has an amnesia cold. she spends half her time complaining about her husband, and the other half flirting with him in front of people. her dogs were named dragon, ogre and taxes so they’d be intimidating. ‘and so I left this world how I entered it: confused.’ she griefed the server. jimmy killed her.

[dandelionjack]

something about this quote + missy's piano + his guitar. playing clara's theme as a remnant of a lost memory... when nothing is remembered, when nothing is left, still the song continues on. the long song – passed on through generations to every new queen of years, down along the eons. your song is ending but the story never ends

[bittasol]

clarazz are so strong if i was (vaguely in love with and) slightly possessive of my best friend and the whole world was obsessed with him (like i was) id crash out 😭

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

no yeah i really love how every core 4 member got a real happy ending....except for ej

nini is happily pursuing music in la with her moms' full support

ricky is dating gina, a girl he calls "home". he's finally becoming more at peace with love and how to show it. he's learned how to not run from his problems. his parents are getting back together (???) and his drama teacher wrote such a good letter of recommendation that he was accepted into a community college

gina becomes a literal movie star and was able to change the filming location of her second movie, without any consequences, to salt lake so she can physically be with ricky, the boy she finally got to date after crushing on him since the day they met. she has a permanent home to call her own now. her mom finally showed up to an opening night and she was finally able to portray gabriella

and then ej...is alone (in a wildcat sense) at college, financially cut off from his family, working multiple jobs to afford it. he spends most of his season 4 screentime guiding and helping others (ricky, gina, miss jenn, madlyn) instead of an actual storyline and a lot of his lines were about how he's made mistakes and has to live with them

[daphnebowen]

okay just rewatched the last episode of season four of hsmtmts and noticed something I hadn't noticed before that's making me scream and kick my feet in the air...

so you know at the end of the musical when they're taking their bows and singing "high school musical" iconic yes? and Ricky and Gina take their bow and they look at each other as they are holding hands as they're singing "memories that last forever." you can particularly hear Ricky's voice over everyone else's as well as Gina's. now whether this was on purpose I don't know, but remember at this point Ricky and Gina never really got to talk about Gina going to New Zealand. The bomb was sort of dropped on Ricky and then he dropped the bomb on Gina that he knew and they didn't have time to talk about it or resolve anything. because yes, while Ricky wanted his beautiful amazing Uber talented girlfriend to follow her dreams and be the big star he knows she is, he also wants her for himself. he doesn't want to let her go yet. It's not selfish, it's high school. but anyways, I just think it's so special that even though, at this point, rina is going to have to go their separate ways and leave so many people heartbroken forever, they're thinking about forever. Ricky and Gina are singing to the memories that they made this past year and a half, basically, with each other (as well as with everyone else, but for the sake of this post I'm sticking with Gina and Ricky) and also, in my mind, to the memories that they'll make in the future. at this point they don't know when, they have no idea when they will reunite, but I can imagine they feel like one day they will. they're certain. because the stars won't keep them separated for long. and so I just think that's so special and so meaningful and deep and amazing. that little detail about forever - when the song Ricky's about to go sing to her is basically about forever - melts my heart. The details put into this series - whether on purpose or on accident, I don't really know - are incredible. so yeah, just thought I would point that out.

[normal-about-charcters]

i have a fanfic/universe rewrite in my head of a transformers series and if I ever hunker down and work on it these two will be irrevocably linked together in my head for it

[r0semultiverse]

I hope Jorge keeps the streams up until the next live stream like he did with the last Saga.

I had trouble getting into Epic: The Musical without the visual aid of the animatics as visuals help me absorb the material. I kinda wish he would upload each song with the lyrics and animatics in them instead of just the animatics by themselves without the full song, but maybe that’s just me. I’m an audio and visual gal otherwise I have trouble absorbing information. Besides the streams there’s no current way to watch the musical seamlessly with actual visuals and yet it is called a musical. A medium I’ve kinda expected to have visuals by this point, that was my one big criticism going into this series was “so it’s just songs? And I have to watch the script as I listen to know what’s happening? That’s hard to keep up with.”

Though if this is a consistent change going forward of having the full musical with visuals until the next iteration premiers, then great & honestly my only criticisms are a lack of trans voice actors (seemingly but I could be wrong) and a lack of fat characters in the animatics because Aphrodite was fat in her depictions throughout history in the very least. Which I’m not even sure if this counts as a criticism so much as an observation and something that gives me a bit of pause? Again, not series ruining, but just more an observation I guess?

That being said, I’m super excited for the Vengeance Saga tonight! Probably gonna stay up just to watch it! Sleep be damned I wanna see it as it comes out! 💜

Edit: Okay actually not risking tummy issues by napping and can’t stay awake any longer. If I have tummy issues I couldn’t even watch it as it premieres anyway because I’d be fighting for my life in the bathroom. ANYWAY DON’T GO ATTACKING ANYONE INVOLVED WITH THE PROJECT, I WAS JUST MAKING AN OBSERVATION.

[powermove102]

Dark Schmerz-o-meter analysis

AKA the comprehensive tier list of pain and suffering (fun!)

Characters are all ranked on a scale of S-E and are all relative to one another (yes, you can be sad and still go in E tier). To reiterate, they are NOT ranked based on how much I like them, how good their character is written, or suchlike (although there may be some correlation), this list ONLY takes into account how hard their life was, how much suffering they have had to endure, etc. Points are indeed taken away if you are the one actively causing the sadness (how much depends on e.g. whose idea it was/ how much enthusiasm you did it with).

(also I'm only referring to Adam's-World versions of the characters, unless otherwise specified, because we just have way more information about them)

Feel free to disagree/ counter-argue, this is just my list and my analysis (all for fun).

(OK I'll stop stalling) So why don't we get started with the best of the worst:

E Tier - You don't know what pain is

Hannah Kahnwald

She starts having the affair whilst she is STILL MARRIED (she was unawares that Michael was literally penning his suicide note whilst she was having a smooch with Ulrich) - she also has the inability to love imo, she just has the ability to love attention

She’s not even that good a mother either, she kinda leaves Jonas alone and is only really sad because she no longer has a mans to give her all that attention (PLUS her fling left her too, and then she has the AUDACITY to ask (not ask - FORCE) Alexander to DESTROY HIM for choosing to focus on his MISSING SON instead of HER!!!!!!

And then when Jonas leaves she’s just more attention-deprived so she thought about offing herself but then thought well if I’m dead no-one can pay attention to meeeeeee so decided against it 

Then Jonas returns (33 years older but it is still her SON who displays AFFECTION towards her) and as soon as she finds out about time travel she’s like you know what this means? An opportunity to find more MEN, and she commits THEFT even though Jonas reeeeally needed that machine (she only cares about herself), and proceeds to go to Ulrich ONLY TO TELL HIM SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE HE TRIED TO SAVE HIS SON I MEAN WHO DOES THAT

yes I am well aware that he was unable to say he loves her when she did but I will get more in depth with that later and I mean, come on, man has other priorities, could you really not get him out of prison???? so he can save his son???????

And then obviously she promptly moves on to the first man she sees (married, but she doesn’t care of course) (it’s the guy she reported Ulrich to way back when in the future/past, but she doesn’t care of course) AND HAS THE AUDACITY TO SAY SHE LOST EVERYTHING like MADAM you did not care about your husband, your boyfriend only mattered because he gave you attention, and your SON has RETURNED with all the LOVE he has LEFT from this CAR CRASH of a reality and you RUN AWAY FROM HIM WHILST HE IS ASLEEP AND YOU SAY YOU LOST EVERYTHING MA’AM YOU ARE TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING I ACTUALLY CAN’T WITH THIS WOMAN-

I’m convinced she has a soft spot for kids because i can’t imagine what other reason she really has for having Silja (she obviously never loved Egon) so she has her and then she gets taken to Jonas and PRETENDS like NOTHING ever happened, like she didn't abandon him when he returned to her to go have a kid with someone else and she didn't steal his most important possession

And then YES she is tragically killed by her own son (which is usually a trait of someone very high up on the list (RIP in pepperonis Bartosz you are loved) but I don't care, she deserved it, otherwise the family tree would be 100 times more kaput if she was allowed to populate it even more, especially if she still has access to the machine) and that’s it, she gets a shut up/die

Ines Kahnwald

So people seem to be opinionated both ways with this one but here we go

I guess she WAS doing everything for Michael’s own good - he rocks up with no family or anything to speak of, he’s real scared and sad and she does in fact take him in when otherwise he would have been homeless jobless lifeless so yay Ines

And yeah I guess you could say it’s hard on her when he’s distant from her and everything but like? What did you expect? That’s not your real son bro???

And then she has to deal with his suicide (but again, he was kinda distant anyway it seems) and you get alienated by Hannah (honestly a good thing) but all in all it is nothing in comparison so you get a meh/maybe I don't actually care all that much, Hannah has taken all my energy

Doris Tiedemann

You did cheat on your husband. Idc who, why, with who, whatever, if you cheat then you a bitch for that and i have nothing more to say on the matter

Yeah then Agnes goes missing, then they potentially reunite, it’s all tame in comparison let’s be honest, idk/idc

Anyone else who I do not mention in any tier is either not a particularly significant character or they do not compare :) stay tuned for D Tier if you want

[aarontveitisonfire]

Actor Aaron Tveit chats about his role in the new dystopian sci fi series “Earth Abides” streaming on MGM+

*Aaron appears in Episode 4 and 5.

[neurotypical-sonic]

the whole "its just one paragraph you cant judge it too harshly yet" makes sense in the context of judging the series' actual plot and story. because yeah with only one paragraph there's barely anything to go on, we dont have any context. you can and are entitled to make any judgement of course, but theres not a lot of information to base your opinions on

for everything else though, the discussions about ableism or copaganda or misogyny or racism, that "just one paragraph" argument irks me. because in this context its not just one paragraph of information, youre also working with everything the movies have already given you. like, for example, with the movies history of ableism specifically with wade, I can look at the one paragraph synopsis and go "oohhh I hate that I can see that being handled really poorly" based off the information given to me. same with the other issues

like obviously I don't know what other drama or discourse is happening around the series, I'm not touching that but. idk judging things based off what studios actively present to us and being critical isnt inherently a bad thing. some people do take it too far but that doesnt mean all of it is unwarrented

[zeb-z]

Still going crazy over the blend of musical themes at the end of the episode where Echo leaves the batch btw. The light melody of Omega, especially prevalent when she hugs Echo goodbye, a background scale of notes in the Bad Batch, transitioning into The Clones when it pans to just Echo and Rex, and Senator Chuchi who’s in it for the rest of the clones? It’s light and melancholy, a proper goodbye, and shows Echo’s decision so well - he’ll always have a home, a family with the bad batchers, but now his other brothers need his help.

And don’t get me started on Crosshairs theme - on Kamino, the way it goes between the melody and the electro beats of Empire Crosshair, yknow what I mean? The way the chorus sings it on The Outpost, how those electro beats are played by brass once he betrays the Empire? How it never blends with Hemlock’s theme on Tantiss, but always clashes enough to be noticeable, to interrupt - a musical representation of his rebellion and refusal to cooperate.

[melchinafan]

That conversation between Devinder and Jacob about Dev being inspired by Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumb trail for his Translocate device (plus his planned heart-freezing gadget) has really pinged something in my brain in the best way. It's so simple to take it as a sorta silly thing, with a dismissive "oh ha ha it's just a kid's story" and the like.

But for me, it feels like a way to show that he really Gets It.

Stories have power. It's typically more metaphorical, in that they help us internally process and understand ourselves and the world around us. They can be a way to pass on so many types of information via oral traditions. They can change how someone looks at the world. They can save lives. Long or short, silly or serious, they're transformative. They're a social connective tissue.

But Dev harnessed that power in a more literal manner. One way to approach how he did it is also fairly straightforward—that he simply used these stories as the inspiration for incredible invention(s). Which is fantastic, and good on him for using such a creative springboard for his gadgets! (In contrast, some of the alpha-vampires used local Redfall legends as their names, trying to leverage that power for themselves. They were able to use it against the locals for fear-based manipulation, but the powers they have were stolen from the Gateway, not from borrowing those names. The fae these fools are not.)

But then—and this is swinging around to Secret-World-Legends-flavored shenanigans—you can also approach how Dev used the power of stories in a deeper, more bizarre and magical way. Certain stories, certain tropes, might sum up certain "rules of the universe" that we haven't been able to scientifically quantify yet. (Sort of like how stuff such as "toast always lands butter-side down," or "you're always going to forget to pack something you need on a trip" can feel like they're unwritten "rules" of How Things Work.) It's taking the phrase to mean that stories sometimes literally explain the world around us—we just need to figure out how. And Dev's been able to pluck out some of those "rules" that have been stitched within longstanding stories, and figured out how to harness their implied power via gadgets.

It strikes that sweet chord in me of "art as magic"—or art as magitech/gadgets, in this case.

Stories have power, sweetlings.

Tell yours.

[whattadroid]

watched After Yang and feeling absolutely destroyed by the implications of it all !!!!

[do-rey-me]

finally claiming my birthright by reading the silmarillion, and heres the thing. i was expecting to become obsessed with it, that not a surprise. however. i wasnt expecting to actually like it.