#or rather not the soundtrack itself but the way they use it

[conspiring-limabean]

jurassic world chaos theory is very good. its kind of insanely good for something that's a sequel to goddamn Camp Cretaceous. and im losing my mind because no one i know gives a single damn about it but it's like. actually so fucking good

[catiuskaa]

EACH OTHER’S SOUNDTRACK.

summary: the need to know more and to keep listening to the music: attention, the begining of devotion —you have had each other’s from the start.

series masterlist (☆) collab with @dalamjisung !

wc: 3.7k

cw: fluff! using my (10!) years of music lessons, so technical lingo [use of italian], i’m making jisung a pianist, he’s playing lalaland’s piano theme and other piano studios, another soundtrack too (i won’t spoil it!), they are so whipped it’s hilarious, shoutout to debussy, sibelius and rimsky-korsakov, they’re a bit dead but yk contribution is always appreciated

[🔷 ☆🎼☆ 🔷]

His presence made itself noticeable in slow beats of tempo.

Da capo. From the start.

It was a quiet night. Or rather it had been, until the tranquil sound of a piano came from above you. The melody sang to you, unspoken words below it’s charming notes, D natural, F sharp, A flat, A natural, A flat, F sharp, C sharp, the rich tone of the instrument reaching your ears, cheekily waking you up from your short-lived slumber, as if you were the one who was meant to be listening.

Your sleepy brain recognized the melody, and you almost brushed it off to your new neighbour watching that soul-crashing movie, until the tempo started to speed up.

Crescendo. Accelerando.

A new octave joined in, and the melody changed, fluctuated, its sweet sweet tone almost like a stroke, tender, kind, and loving. Like a summary to the first half of the movie, the melody was cheerful, and almost cheesy when it doubled, now being accompanied by a lower version of itself. Until it started turning lower, deeper, faster, faster, and then, it exploded.

You couldn’t listen to the music anymore. It wasn’t a matter of notes or melody when all that was there was an artist screaming to be heard, and for a second, it almost felt like he was right in front of you, a scale, large and strained, yet beautiful, being tortured out of the piano as the instrument seemed to yell what the artist couldn’t.

And alas, it stopped.

Lonely nights you spent waiting for his piano, as his music, calm and tranquil, charmed you in the arms of Morpheus. And when soon after, summer weather arrived, it only worsened. Summer nights were always hot, so it was understandable that he kept his window open, and because the both of you lived in the same crappy studio-room departments, only a staircase away from each other, same thing went for you.

But today —tonight— you were sweaty and awake, yearning for that mysterious pianist to lull you back to sleep. You couldn’t help but need more. Maybe not sleep, solely a peek. A bit over a week had passed, so maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late for introductions.

Well. There was only one way to know.

Surreal. It’s how it feels when you stand up and halphazardly grab a jacket and a hair clip, to at least pretend you had the energy to do your hair propperly before heading upstairs.

Your steps don’t echo when you head outside, warm in your squirrel-themed loafers, completely different to the door, whose loud bang when it closed caught you by surprise, fully waking you up.

Making your way upstairs seems harder than you had though way back when you were half asleep, but you push through until you’re in front of his door. Your fist is barely an inch away from the wooden surface, and there’s nothing stoping you now until there is.

The piano comes back.

If it’s a popular tune, much like the one he had just played, you didn’t recognize it. Being this close was different. Closer. Closer. The music reverberated underneath you, sneaking under the wooden door, as if calling you in, an invite.

Your arm falls limp by your side, your body frozen, held hostage by the sound some unknown hands produced just a few metres in front of you as the realisation hits.

You don’t dare. What if opening the door ends the music? And running back down the stairs, a small part of you wonders if you ever will. But, worry not. In between you and me, dear reader, no one can run away from the power of a meet cute.

It’s late morning already when you get out of the shower and dry your hair. You’re early for work, you always are, so you relish the small fragment of time remaining between the moment you are ready and the moment when the rest of the world is. Turning on your record player, settling the vinyl in place, gently and ever-so-slowly placing down the needle to free the music from its plain and rounded cage, letting it flow through your whole apartment and out the windows.

Scheherazade dominates every space of your studio apartment, filling up each and every corner with its sound. The now familiar melody of the violin claims its throne and rules over the kingdom that it has conquered, as you move along the space it has claimed, far from being solely yours when the bassoon slowly creeps up.

Largo e maestoso. Fortíssimo.

What you never expected —let alone imagined—, was being interrupted by a knock on the door.

The orchestra doesn’t mind it. How could it, when its sound thoroughly overpowers that of the door. Whoever had knocked had been hesitant, at least the first time, because then its intensity heightens.

“Coming!” You claim, because what else could you say? So you quickly put on your shirt and messily tuck it under your long skirt that reaches just below you knees, wondering whether it could be your landlord or not, rushing to the record player to lower its volume until you finally rush and open the door.

A mix of vanilla and cinnamon. The scent of his cologne hits you and you can’t help but blink hesitantly.

What welcomes you behind the door isn’t the middle-aged man with hearing problems that smelled of the warmth homemade lemon pie left behind, having tasted it yourself already hundreds of times before whenever his daughter made it. No, it was far from whatever you could’ve guessed.

And a small part of you wonders if it could be him, which is almost revealed by the first thing he utters, that threatens to give him away, if the suit he’s dressed in hadn’t already.

The pianist.

“The tale of the Kalendar Prince?”

It’s almost a mumble, one that could almost end up hidden by the music that still sounds, a combination of notes that turns the melody melancholic, a slow-paced yet not quite ritardando, F sharp, G sharp, A natural, and a scale that follows, a soundtrack to your first encounter.

“Rimsky-Korsakov.” You nod with a hesitant smile, confused as to which could be the reason for him to stand before you.

He smiles, and you find it impossible for any chord or melody to describe what it does to your heart. It’s heart-shaped brightness softens you, and your hand gingerly lowers from the door, your grasp weakened by the force of the feeling that overcomes you.

“I’m much more of a Debussy kind of guy.”

He says it almost as if the sentence had unwillingly escaped from his lips, wondering if such a statement should’ve been left in the back of his mind, not wanting to upset you.

You could kiss him.

Instead, you sheepishly chuckle. “Is there something I could do for you?” It’s a faint attempt to ground yourself. He’s a stranger, the closest stranger you’ve ever met. Like a language you’re no longer fluent in but still remember how to read. The language, a combination of sounds.

The sounds of music.

“Right.” His snicker comes out bashfully, and you wonder how could he had escaped from your pocket. “I, uh, my name is Han Jisung. I moved upstairs a week ago.” He propells his hand forward, his eyes gente and kind, a shy dust on the colour of his irises.

You smile, and the shy dust weakens when you grab his hand, overpowered by a glow you don’t dare to try and decipher.

“Pleasure to meet you.” It so was. You followed suit, introducing yourself.

His grin doesn’t falter for a second, and you wonder how fast one could be charmed by someone else. Pretty fast, judging by how reluctantly you let go of his soft grasp, his hands in pristine condition, and funnily enough, his nails painted black with pink stars, a shade of pink similar to your own.

It’s almost as if, for a second, he forgets why he’s there, until he lets out a low chuckle.

“I hadn’t presented myself, but meeting you, I’m not sure if you could help…”

You blushed, a shy bit confused. “Try me.” Your tone is playful, and surely enough, —maybe it wasn’t just for your tone, but that, you didn’t know— he matches, his cheeks dusted with pink.

“Okay, then.” He giggles, killing you slowly. “This is the only white shirt I have, and I need one today, but I didn’t know it needed cufflinks.” Jisung shows you, the cuff of his sleeves open, no buttons on sight. “I doubt you have men cufflinks.”

You nibble with your lower lip, and while pondering, staring at the wooden floor of the hallway, staring to something that Han couldn’t see, you miss the way his eyes soften and his pupils dilate, as if wanting to observe you, much like the way a musician hears a piece for the first time, the familiar notes mixing to create something new.

“Maybe I don’t, but…” you mumble with a cheeky smile, and it disarms him.

Confidently, you too miss the way his eyes never leave your silhouette as you walk to the door on the other way of the hallway.

You knock, and with a flick of your hand, usher him to your side.

“Hey, Artie?”

There’s a shy beat of silence, your music not travelling far away from your apartment.

“If it’s the IRS, Artie isn’t here!”

You can’t help but laugh at the way Jisung shows his surprise at the low and chirping tone that replies to your sweet call.

“A kind neighbour?” He questions teasingly, looking down at you slightly, barely noticing the sudden closeness in between you.

“The landlord’s wife.”

He doesn’t have time to react before the door opens, and a short, old woman appears, the strength on her unexpected, but her grin softens at the sight of you.

“Remember me? Gina’s friend?” You smile sheepishly, proving yourself by mentioning her granddaughter’s name.

“Of course I remember you, silly,” she grins, chuckling. “These bones of mine may be old, but I couldn’t forget such a pretty face like yours. And your flower shop is still my favourite.”

Jisung’s eyes soften when he looks at you. Her wrickled yet soft hands craddle your face, and you giggle. But then, she squints her eyes at Han, pursing her lips.

“Who is this young man? Your boyfriend?”

You know you’re a cheeky bastard when you speak before him, stopping him from correcting her.

“He needs cufflinks. You think Richie will mind if we borrow a pair?”

Artie doesn’t miss the blush that settles on both Jisung and you.

“Kids flirt so weirdly nowadays.” She mumbles, a little confused, but she enjoys the way it flusters you two.

“Wait here. I’ll see if I can find ones that aren’t covered in batter or flour.” Her grin feels teasing when she heads back inside.

You looked at Han and answered the question he had written on his expression. “They own the bakery that’s under this building.”

It was almost as if you couldn’t stop looking at him. The way his cheeks rounded when he smiled at Artie. How his laugh reverberated between the walls of your apartment when you told him the woman’s name was Artemisa and he hadn’t expected it. How his pianist fingers trail on the edges of your vinyls, swiftly looking at your collection, making appreciating comments and initiating banter.

He already had his cufflinks, but Jisung just couldn’t seem to leave.

“Oh, shit.” Sadly, even if he hadn’t left, you had to go. “This was fun.” You chuckle, and he smiles too, nodding. “I uh, I’m kinda late for work.”

“Did I keep you from leaving?”

His eyes are tender, and the softness of his voice weakens you. For the first time in what feels like forever, you hesitate, wondering if you should really go to work.

“No! No, gosh, you’re fine.” Yes, he was. That was part of the issue, honestly. “I lost track of time. But… it was very nice meeting you.”

“You too,” he grins, taking your hand in his again. “It’s refreshing to talk to someone who likes music almost as much as me.”

And reluctantly letting go of his hand again, you rush downstairs, heading to work.

[🔷 ☆🎼☆ 🔷]

You can still smell the mix of flowers and different types of green on you. Its scent lingers on you and you cherish it, walking back home slowly on a warm summer night.

Lost deep in thought, as always. Gingerly skipping as you make your way through the street, relishing the way the moon beams, stepping on the little traces of water that the summer showers had left while you were still in the flowershop. It’s by no means cold, but your hands never leave your pockets.

That’s how you notice that you hadn’t picked your keys before you left home.

You curse, your mood a bit pissed off, but you shrug and accept it, still a bit lost in the depths of your mind when you get close to your apartment complex.

It may seem like leaving without your keys happens a lot —and sometimes it did, to be honest— by how organic it feels when you jump and lower down the fire escape stairs and grunting lightly you climb them, not allowing them to fall to the floor completely so its easier for you to put them back in place. It’s dull and boring. It’s the end of the day and the start of the night.

But then, as you go up the stairs, you start hearing the piano.

It’s different from what you have heard from him before. You recognize the piece, the trickiness of Sibelius, the speed of the music, the pacing and how it gets faster and faster, in an accelerando that almost makes you walk faster up the stairs, and you can’t help but smile, basking in the glowth of the moon and what now seems to be your soundtrack as you go up the fire escape stairs and plan to head through your open window.

But when you turn to face the window and groan slightly when trying to open it, the music stops.

You must have focused on the music too much, because you got into the wrong fucking house.

“Shit, Jisung.” You mumble, even if your leg is stepping into his living room already.

“Oh. You are here.” He giggles. “Thought I had fallen asleep on the piano again for a minute.”

“I was just… and then I heard you play, and I, uh…”

Staring at the floor, looking for something that could justify the sudden break in, you miss how Jisung gets close to you and helps you lift the old window higher, smiling.

“It’s okay. I could use the company.”

The sincerity on his voice stops your scheming, leaving you with no excuse, and you take your shoes off and leave them by the window, feeling like some cartoon character who had followed the scent trail of a homemade pie, floating behind it.

It’s silly. And if you were in the right state of mind, and not sleep deprived like usually, you’d probably feel a bit self-concious. Yet when you retell it to Jisung, the whole story just seems funny. Stupidly funny. So funny that he almost spills the cups of decaf coffee he makes for the both of you.

Taking your jacket off, you sip from the coffee mug he hands you, your heart cheekily spinning inside you when your fingers brush against each other.

He scratches his eyes, thoroughly amused, as he sits back on the piano stool. Even to you, the motion seems organic from the outside, and you wonder how many times could he have done the same action, how many scratches had the wood below it taken from settling the stool just right, in the space enough to be in front of the correct note and scale, close enough for his arms to rest on the black and white keys comfortably, and far enough so that it forces his back to stand in a position that won’t make him end up with crippling backpain.

“What were you playing before?” You smile as he too sips, warming his hands by holding the coffee with both.

“Before you entered a private property?” He snickers, and you snort, rolling your eyes.

“I haven’t heard you play like that before.” You are avoiding his eyes, because the moonlight does nothing but make him even more handsome, and you’re flustered enough already.

“I knew that the piano could be heard.” He mumbles. “The couple upstairs already told me off the first day, but when I told them I was a musician, they turned full-on proud parents mode.” He chuckles, and you snicker too, crossing your legs and sitting comfortably on the armrest of his sofa, so to face him. “I was wondering if you’d come tell me off too.”

You just blink at him, blushing. “I liked it.”

He blushes, and changes the topic, sheepish.

“It was Sibelius. What I was playing before you dared tresspass my property.”

“Very funny, pianist.” He snickers, and your heart screams at you to hurry up and start looking for an engagement ring. “Weren’t you a Debussy guy?”

“Absolutely. Nothing beats Debussy.” He nods proudly, as if the dead musician had been a close friend. “Like this one.”

You can’t distinguish the melody, but the light melancholy of it gives away Debussy in a second.

“Debussy is a trickster,” he says lowly, still playing. B flat, C natural, D natural, G natural, and then back down. “He always makes one think he’ll be going easy. Until he keeps going.” You enjoy the way he lets the music flow, the feeling that gives you uncomparable to that of your vinyls, because nothing could beat a real-life interpretation. You smile at the difference in tones, in the way the cadences complete each other.

The music continues, and his hand follows the other. Easily, the long piano fills his apartment with its music. It’s efervescent, how it turns dramatic, how he plays with the intensity, talent flowing over how his fingers move along and over the keys, the skill of a musician showing, playing by memory.

Jisung’s enthralled on his play, and you know it by how he takes a second to look up at you after you move closer. The mug he gave you is settled next to his, on the piano, and you both giggle shyly when he moves and gives you a bit of space to sit on the piano stool next to him.

He keeps playing, and for a second, it takes you back to your own apartment, threatening to lull you to sleep.

You don’t, though. Gently, you clap when he finishes playing, and you chuckle when he bows, overly exaggerated.

“Teach me,” you say, smiling, in your eyes a glow that matched that one he had hours ago, below your doorframe. “Something easy.”

He ponders for a second, and gingerly takes his mug and finishes his coffee, brushing your shoulders together when he takes the mug and when he settles it back next to yours.

His hand comes and he lays it over yours. Han doesn’t speak, and you don’t either, not daring to interrupt. You hold back a shiver when you notice his breathing hitting your neck, instead focusing on how his hand moves yours.

“D natural, G natural… B… no, B flat, D natural.” He announces in a low mumble, pressing each key with your fingers, smiling when he sees you nod, so concentrated. “Try that a bit faster, apprentice.”

You snicker, and even if he tells you to try it on your own, his hand barely leaves yours when you try it yourself.

“Good.” He grins. “Now,” he starts, his tone still low, speaking gently a bit over your shoulder, and his hand back to where it belongs. Back on yours as he keeps playing. “D natural, C natural, B flat, A natural, B flat.”

“Wait,” you giggle, finally recognizing the piece. “That’s Howl’s Moving Castle!”

He smiles, unable to do anything else as he stares at you giddy self while you play the simple melody back again and again. You giggle, and smile at him a wide, toothy grin that kills him.

But as your eyes meet each other’s, your smile gently fades away.

His skin seems to glow under the moonlight that enters through the open window, it’s almost impossible to look away. You lean backwards slightly, impressed, and he moves to you, your arm hugging your waist, not letting you fall from the piano stool.

Han swallows dry, the force he uses to save you pushing you further against him.

You’re a mess when he looks away, and both of you miss each other when his arm falls back to his side. Standing up, you head back to the window, sitting on the windowsill to put your shoes back on.

He’s going to kill himself if his hopeless romantic heart doesn’t do him the favour, drowning him for ruining the moment. The mugs you two used, the rim on yours slightly stained by a faint pinkish shimmer, tug at his heart strings.

“I uh, thanks for letting me in. Sorry to have barged in, too…” you cringe at your tone, staring at the floor again, your hand on the window, still sat on the windowsill, a moment from stepping outside.

And once more, he approaches you. But this time, his hands don’t reach to the window to help you open it further.

With the shy music you two just played still lingering in the air, Jisung bends down and reaches to your cheek, and presses a bashfull kiss on your lips.

“My window will be open for you.” He grins, blushing like crazy.

He doesn’t tell you the title of the Debussy piece he played a moment ago. He knows, though, as much as he knows what inspired him to play it.

You.

Reverie. A dream.

A dream come true, on a warm summer night.

[🔷 ☆🎼☆ 🔷]

kats, a flutist —very much piano enthusiast, as little as I can play it—, who can figure out notes as they sound (it’s called perfect pitch!)

catiuskaa, august 2024 ©

SERIES TAGLIST! @cosmic-recs @dirtyweenerking @ughyeka @mysticpenguinwinner @meloncremesoda @idcxxsstuff @lovejohnnvsuh @lilacsecret23 @vidkqb @aquarideas @madiblox8989 @orbeez-nuts @authentic-65 @stascence-original @starlixs @confuchan @ljinhk @mynsung @madiilolz @p3acel1lly @quokkalighthanji @jupire @herefortheff @dreamerwasfound @dae-bakk-pop @skz-supernovaa @mimikyuu0305 @yerrrmomgoestocollege

bold and blue means i couldn’t tag you! </3

PERMANENT TAGLIST! @lyramundana @stayconnecteed

[beenbaanbuun]

hi bunny! nice to meet you! ive started to follow you recently and im in love w all your works, but specially w the opposites attract universe! ive been an addams family enthusiast since childhood and mixing it with ateez has made it even better for me :)

ive grown curious about how san would get used to the household daily life and to darling's antics. and how much time would it take for him to grow fond of her, ofc lol :D

san tries his hardest to let everything that happens in that household wash over him like water off a duck’s back, but every single day he’s faced with a new challenge.

first of all there’s the sex. san thanks the stars that he isn’t a prude, because he wouldn’t last a day in that house if he was. his first 5 minutes in that god-forsaken house were soundtracked by the sound of a bed squeaking, and then when he finally met his boss, all he could smell was the scent of sex which clung to him like cologne. he finds pretty quickly that it’s not just hongjoong that smells that way, but it’s actually just imbedded in the walls of the house. he’s walked in on enough sex to know the reason why the scent of pleasure hangs over the house like a thick fog, and he tries his hardest to not be surprised each time he steps through a door to see someone’s dick stretching out the resident ball of energy. it’s still a little difficult…

and then there’s the ball of energy itself. there’s something about her that’s rather endearing, even from the very first moment he meets her. when she stumbled down the stairs looking every bit the princess that he’s come to realise she is, he was immediately intrigued. even more so when seonghwa and hongjoong began to dote on her slender fingers immediately moving to straighten her outfit—after all, san was still a stranger at that point and it’s only proper to look your best when greeting a new acquaintance. then the grumpy werewolf descended on her, tail wrapping around her thigh as if to claim her as his own and san found himself so curious it almost hurt.

but getting to know darling was a lot easier said than done. despite her following him everywhere for the first couple of days, a certain werewolf also decided to tag along everywhere. whilst she was rambling in one ear, the mutt would be growling in the other. san got the message pretty easily; don’t get too close unless he wants to lose his life. he tried to counter it by shooing her away so he can ‘do his job’, but the hurt look that would settle over her face only made the werewolf even more upset. san was lost for what to do, and the two of them seemed hellbent on making his life infinitesimally more difficult than it needed to be.

it was around three days in when yeosang got bored of following san around, and so the mutt kidnapped her and held her hostage in the living room with him. he didn’t trust the stranger with his pup just yet, and if he had to keep her pinned to the floor with his own body to keep her safe, then that’s what he’d do! he was a guard dog after all… it had absolutely nothing to do with jealousy and hongjoong was a liar for ever claiming it did!

after that, it was harder to get to know darling, but san didn’t mind. he still got to hear her ramble about anything and everything every time he stepped foot into the living room, and he still got to see her every time she snuck away when yeosang’s attention was on something else for two seconds. for those brief couple of minutes, san found himself enjoying her presence immensely!

and then yeosang would storm in and snatch her away for himself again…

[whoseholtz]

if i could tell her | will smith

pairing : will smith x fem!reader

warnings : the BRIEFEST mention of being drunk underage, cursing, situationships (ick), reader is a theater kid, use of y/n, dear evan hansen, kissing, but just sickening fluffiness mainly <3

summary : will finally plucks up the courage to tell y/n he wants their relationship be more than just casual, and when he tries confessing he unintentionally quotes dear evan hansen

word count : 2.5k

Y/N and Will had been casually ‘going out’ for around a month now, but due to their conflicting schedules, they rarely got time alone together. Whenever either party had ever felt like they had the right moment to attempt at confessing, something always seemed to come up, or in many cases, ruin the moment.

The previous Monday, Will was quite literally seconds away from finally, officially, asking Y/N out. But do you know what happened? Gabe interrupted; the moment was perfect, and his teammate had ruined it.

Will attempted not to seem phased by it and tried to move on, but he still felt a hint of bitterness in his stomach when he thought back to that day.

However, the failed attempts aside, Will was determined that today was the day; in a few hours, Y/N would be his girlfriend and he would be her boyfriend. At least that was the hope.

Everything was planned out; that very night was Y/N’s first performance in front of a sold-out audience as Evan Hansen in BC’s production of DEH. He was so proud of her to be able to land the main role in the musical, nevermind that it was a usually male-dominated part to have.

Will has spent hours with her rehearsing, reading lines back and forth to help her learn them perfectly and not mess up. The girl had already known the entire musical by heart, but conditioning yourself to then only play one role was actually quite difficult, something she found out rather quickly.

While the boy wouldn't admit it, he actually enjoyed the soundtrack and found himself listening to the songs in his day-to-day life, even on the way to training.

On one particular occasion, he’d been walking to the rink on his own before Gabe and Ryan had joined him, and due to the noise canceling on his headphones, he hadn't realized until Ryan had nudged him in the side lightly, he'd jumped and paused his music.

This led to him being asked what he was listening to, and without really thinking, he’d replied, “Oh, just Dear Evan Hansen, you know.” Needless to say, he’d been teased for being a theater kid multiple times since then.

This musical had somewhat become a shared passion between Will and Y/N, and even though the hockey player wasn't directly involved in the production, he still felt as though he had become a part of the family that was the cast and crew. Most of his time was taken up by hockey, but that didn't stop him from popping in and helping wherever he could.

Ironically, the group had always referred to Will as “Y/N’s boyfriend," and every time either of them tried to remind anybody that they weren't official yet, eyes would be rolled and unconvinced looks would be pointedly given. So, maybe it was about time they could make the nickname accurate.

Special. That’s what he wanted this to be: special. It was all planned out to be just that, and with the night that it was going to be, Will thought it was no better timing than the present.

Smiling to himself, he thought about the fact that, if all went to plan, he could be cheering from the audience for his girlfriend, not just whatever he was supposed to call her right now.

Presently, Will stood at the entry to the block of dorms Y/N stayed in. He had asked his teammates to help pick an outfit for him and hoped it would impress the girl he was hoping to sweep off her feet.

He wore his favorite suit, a maroon-red color similar to the colors of Boston College itself, with a matching tie and white shirt. Perhaps it was cliche; the more he thought about it, the worse those concerns made him worry, but he brushed the thoughts out of his mind, watching the doorway with anticipation.

In his hands, he held a sweet bouquet of flowers—pink tulips, to be exact. No, he couldn't confirm they were her favorite flower, but he always associated her with the flowers. The first time he looked on her Instagram, the emoji in her bio stood out to him immediately.

He had accidentally admitted this fact to the old lady who owned the local florist, but instead of laughing at him, the lady smiled with a twinkle in her eye, muttering something affectionately along the lines of “young love.”

A creak from the door in front of him swiftly took him back to his current situation, and he looked up, his voice catching in his throat for a moment. In front of him was a flustered Y/N, and Will truly felt like the luckiest person in the world.

“Hi!” the girl squeaked out enthusiastically. "Sorry, I took a little longer than you probably expected; I couldn't find my key,” she explained, looking slightly guilty.

“It’s no problem; genuinely, I would’ve waited hours if you needed me to.” Will spoke sweetly. Y/N took it as a dramatic use of hyperbole, but in the boy’s mind, he was speaking nothing but the truth. “These are for you,” he added, handing the bouquet of tulips to the girl. “I didn't know which flowers you liked, but, uh, these reminded me of you.”

“They're gorgeous! And... pink tulips are actually my favorite; you must be psychic.” or maybe he just looked at her Instagram too many times—the same difference, really. Y/N was sure that her heart rate was about 1000 beats per minute, but she calmed herself down with some deep breaths.

“Could I?” She gestured her head between the flowers and the hallway she had just appeared from, asking if she could go and put the flowers back in her dorm, and Will nodded, silently sighing in relief at a moment to get himself together.

After a few minutes, Y/N got back, and Will offered his arm for her to take. She did as prompted, and he led her onward. The first part of his plan was in motion; phew, now all he had to do was not mess up the date or the whole part where he was going to ask Y/N to be his girlfriend.

Unfortunately, part of the plan had Will relying on his friends. Yes, he trusted them, but he still anxiously awaited what he was going to be presented with when they arrived at the park.

He had spent all morning preparing a picnic basket of foods for their date; he’d even taken a trip to a store to buy a wicker basket and a red check blanket to fully complete the aesthetic.

Yet, he was (thankfully) pleasantly surprised when, as he brought the girl through the park, his picnic was perfectly set out for their date. He’d need to remember to thank the boys later. Will looked at Y/N, nervous for her reaction, to see what could only be described as pure joy painted across her expression.

“Will! This is so cute,” she let out a squeal of awe. “You didn't have to; oh my gosh, this is so cute.” She promptly wrapped her arms around the boy, kissing him on the cheek in excitement. His cheeks lit up at this, because while she’d kissed him on the cheek before, it never stopped feeling like the first.

They sat together in the afternoon sun, engaged in conversations about many topics ranging from hockey to Taylor Swift, but somehow, the topic of Dear Evan Hansen had not come up yet, which Will sort of wanted it to, so he could approach what he’d been waiting to say for a long while now.

“And then the show's tonight, and like Ms. Laynor said, we could have a few hours to ourselves before we had to get ready for the opening, right? But she never specified what time we needed to be at the theater, so I just thought four hours before was good, you know. Arrive at 4 p.m. in time for the show at 8, perfect!” Y/N ranted on slightly, but Will listened intently, nodding in agreement with her decision.

“Yeah, I think four hours is good, and if she needs you before then she can always message you.” Will reassured the girl, his eyes twinkling affectionately at the passion she held for the theater. Just seeing the smile that graced her face made the boy know this was it—this was the time he was going to do it. He wasn't sure why he knew, but the moment felt right. He took a deep breath before speaking.

“There's really nothing like your smile; have I ever told you that? It's sort of subtle, but real, and it's perfect." Will started; he had a habit of talking with his hands, and as he spoke, it was highlighted. “And I don't think you know how amazing seeing your smile can make someone feel—can make me feel!”

Y/N watched him talk, stunned and speechless as Will confessed what he had never had the guts to speak out loud before. “And I know that when you're bored in class, you start doodling in the margin of your books, and I noticed that you annotate your books with a pen when you see something you like.”

Admitting this took bravery, but honestly speaking, the boy still hadn't come to terms with the fact that this was actually real.

“But I’ve kept it all inside; I haven't said it to you. I’ve wanted to, seriously, but I couldn't seem to talk to you about it; I couldn't find a way, and I didn't know if we were on the same page because sometimes it feels like we're a million worlds apart, so it was like, where am I meant to start? And how do I say it?"

He took a long breath before he said the most important part, “I love you.”

That was it; he’d done it; he’d said it. There was no taking it back now. He felt close to exploding as he looked directly into her eyes for the first time since he’d started talking. Y/N looked close to crying. Will could only hope that was positive, but the demons in his head only told him of the rejection that was coming.

“Will. I don't know what to say. He braced himself for the harsh reality check he feared was building. “That's the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. Wow. I love you too, seriously.”

He deflated, “I get it,” before his mind fully comprehended what he’d just heard. “Wait, what?” His previously crestfallen body language perked up instantly. Did she seriously say what he thought she had? Surely he had to be dreaming, and resisting the urge to pinch himself to check was becoming increasingly difficult.

“I love you too,” she smiled. “And I think if I hadn't already been, the fact you just quoted Dear Evan Hansen to tell me how you felt would've made me fall in love on the spot.” She said it meaningfully; his words had been quotes from a song, yet somehow, everything he said felt raw and honest, like he had written the song about her.

With the realization of what he’d done, Will groaned inwardly, “Fuck, there's no way I plagiarized my confession of love from Dear Evan Hansen. I’m so embarrassing.” He knew the words had been too smooth to be completely his own, but of all the things he had to quote from, It was the musical his girlfriend was going to perform in a few hours.

“What? No, you aren't! You genuinely don't know how much it means. You spent so much time helping me rehearse for the performance when you didn't have to, when we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but you did anyway. And you memorized the lyrics, and now you're quoting the songs when you tell me you love me.”

Y/N looked at him with an expression of pure adoration and said, “You're not embarrassing at all; you're just possibly the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”

“I never meant it in a bad way that it was quotes from there. I mean, you changed it so it would fit me; that's just about the most thoughtful thing in the history of things. It was personal, to me and to us; that's what matters.” and she was extremely serious when she said that.

The idea that someone she'd fallen in love with cared at all about her passions meant everything, and then for the love to be requited felt like a million years of joy all at once. The boy felt the same, along with a major sense of relief and, well, a hint of lingering embarrassment.

“I’m glad, wow. I’ve been waiting so long to finally tell you this. I can't even believe it's just happened and that you actually like me back, and all the rejection scenarios I imagined were stupid.” He was cut off by the pressing of a kiss on his lips.

“Shut up,” she mumbled affectionately against his lips, smiling slightly into the kiss. Any of their previous fluttering, drunk kisses were forgotten at this moment; the passion after months of mutual pining solidified this as the first kiss, not just for them as a couple but for them as people too.

They continued for a few seconds before both of them lay down on the blanket, somewhat starstruck, letting the situation completely settle in their minds. It was a comfortable silence as they replayed the moment in their heads like a film reel.

It had gotten to 4 p.m. and Y/N had left for the theater. Will spent the time he had between then and the show in a few hours processing everything that had gone down. It honestly shocked him that he’d ever followed through with the plan to begin with.

Fast forward to the performance. Will sat in one of the closest rows to the stage, excited to watch Y/N perform a project she’d been working on for so long. Personally, he was extremely impressed; the entire cast had worked their asses off, and it was definitely worth it.

While Will had listened to the soundtrack, he’d never seen the full musical performed, and seeing it there was something special, especially knowing how much it meant to the people on stage. As the production came to an end and the cast performed their curtain call, the audience gave them a standing ovation.

Y/N, as the title character, got her own turn to bow and take in the true feeling of the audience clapping for you and cheering for you. The feeling was indescribable, but at that time she felt on top of the world, lost in the moment, at a peak in her life.

She was grinning ear to ear as she met the eyes of Will in the crowd, and this somehow prompted the hockey player to shout, “That’s my girlfriend!” at the top of his lungs.

Needless to say, he was extremely embarrassed that he'd said that out loud, but it got his point across in a pretty public way, no doubt about that. Y/N laughed slightly before the rest of the cast joined back into a line with her, taking their final bows as the curtain closed, the show ending.

a/n :: thank you for reading!! the formatting ended up a bit weird and i had to reupload this bc tumblr decided to bully me and not submit this to tags... but hopefully it works now and i hope you enjoyed :3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Austin Grossman’s ‘Fight Me’

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

In Fight Me, the novelist and game developer Austin Grossman uses aging ex-teen superheroes to weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark:

http://www.austingrossman.com/fight-me

It is, in other words, a very Gen X kinda novel. Prodigy (AKA Alex Beekman) is a washed-up superhero. As a nerdy high-schooler, he was given super powers by a mysterious wizard (posing as a mediocre teacher), who gave him an amulet and a duty. Whenever Alex touches the amulet and speaks the word of power, reaclun (which he insists is not "nuclear" backwards) he transforms into Prodigy, a nigh-invulnerable, outrageously handsome living god who is impervious to bullets, runs a one-minute mile, and fights like a champ. Prodigy, he is told, has a destiny: to fight the ultimate evil when it emerges and save the world.

Now, Alex is 40, and it's been a decade since he retired both Prodigy and his Alex identity, moving into a kind of witness protection program the federal government set up for him. He poses as a mediocre university professor, living a lonely and unexceptional life.

But then, Alex is summoned back to the superhero lair he shared with his old squad, "The Newcomers," a long-vacant building that is one quarter Eero Saarinen, three quarters Mussolini. There, he is reunited with his estranged fellow ex-Newcomers, and sent on a new quest: to solve the riddle of the murder of the mysterious wizard who gave him his powers, so long ago.

The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than Alex/Prodigy, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime"). With flashbacks, flashforwards, and often hilarious asides, Prodigy brings us up to speed on how supers fail, and what it's like to live as a failed super.

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

When I realized this, I got briefly mad, because I've only had two good movie high concept pitches in my life and one of them was "Gen X Big Chill." Rather than veterans of the Summer of 68 confronting the Reagan years, you could have veterans of the Battle of Seattle living through the Trump years. One would be on PeEP, one would be an insufferable Andrew Tate-quoting bitcoiner, one would be a redpilled reactionary with a genderqueer teen, one would be a squishy lib, one a firebreathing leftist, etc. The soundtrack would just be top 40 tracks from artists who have songs on "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock!_Rocks

Every generation has some way in which they seek to overthrow the status quo and build a new, allegedly better one, after all. "Big Chill"'s impact comes from its postmortem on a generation where it was easy to feel like you were riding destiny's rails to greatness thanks to the sheer size of the Boomer cohort and the postwar prosperity they lived through. A Gen X Big Chill would be a stocktaking of a generation that defined itself as a lost generation reared in the Boomers' shadows, armored against the looming corpo-climate apocalypse with the sword of irony and the shield of sincerity.

Which is basically what Grossman is doing here. What's more, doing this as a superhero story is a genius move – what could be a better metaphor for a teen's unrealistic certainty of destined greatness than a superhero? Superhero fantasies are irreducibly grandiose and unrealistic, but all the more beautiful and brave and compelling for it.

You know, like teens.

At 52, I'm a middle-aged Gen Xer. I've got two artificial hips and I just scheduled a double cataract surgery. My hairline is receding. I'm an alta kaker. But I wasn't always: I was a bright and promising kid, usually the youngest person in the room where we were planning big protests, ambitious digital art projects, or the future of science fiction. I had amazing friends: creative and funny and sweet, loyal and talented and just fun.

We're mostly doing okay (the ones that lived; fuck cancer and fuck heroin and fuck fentanyl). Some of us are doing pretty good. On a good day, I think I'm doing pretty good. I had a night in 2018 where I got to hang out, as a peer, with my favorite musician and my favorite novelist, both in the same evening. These were artists I'd all but worshipped as a teen. I remember looking at the two selfies I took than night and thinking, Man, if 15 year old me could see these, he'd say that it all worked out.

But you don't get to be 52 without having a long list of regrets and failures that your stupid brain is only too eager to show you a highlight reel from. No one gets to middle age without a haunting loss that is always trying to push its way to the fore in order to incinerate every triumph great and small and leave ashes behind.

That's why there's a "Big Chill" for every generation. Each one has its own specific character and meaning situated in history, but each one has to grapple with the double-edged sword of nostalgia. Not for nothing, John Hodgman (a bona fide Gen X icon) calls nostalgia "a toxic impulse."

Grossman really makes Fight Me work as a Gen X Big Chill. He's a great Gen X writer; his first novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible, was a knockout debut about superheroes and supervillains that had a very "The Boys" vibe, you know, that neat little move where you contend with the banal parts of a super's life and show how super powers don't make you a good person, or even a competent one.

His followup to Invincible came six years later. YOU is a coming-of-age story about the games industry with a second-person narrator (think "Zork"). Grossman is an accomplished game dev (Tomb Raider Legend, Deus X, Dishonored, etc), and he uses YOU to really plumb the depths of what games mean, what fun is, and how working on games isn't just work, it's often really shitty work, the opposite of fun:

https://memex.craphound.com/2013/04/16/austin-grossmans-you-brilliant-novel-plumbs-the-heroic-and-mystical-depths-of-gaming-and-simulation/

Grossman's last novel was Crooked, a very daffy alternate history in which Richard Nixon is a Cthulhoid sorcerer locked in a Lovecraftian battle of good and evil. This is a purely hilarious romp, wildly imaginative and deliciously certain to offend reactionary jerks:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/26/austin-grossmans-crooked-the-awful-cthulhoid-truth-about-richard-nixon/

All those chops are on display in Fight Me: a book that covers its brooding with wisecracks, that spits out ten great gags per page even as it drives a knife into your heart. It's a great novel.

Fight Me doesn't come out in the US and Canada until tomorrow (it's been out in the UK, Australia, NZ, etc for more than a month). Normally, I would hold off on reviewing this until the on-sale date, but this is my last day on the blog for two weeks – I'm leaving on a family vacation early tomorrow morning. I'll see you on July 14!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

[shippyo]

Question for life: What’s your relationship with Morpho?

[this ask will have my own lore related to Morpho hope ya all enjoy💖]

also,i think [this] soundtrack might fit🩷

Morpho...Yes, she is very special to me, she is my daughter, the first of all, I reborn her myself with my own hands,lemme tell you the story...

Before long,long ago in immemorial times, far from when it all began but close to the dawn of it, Morpho was another and a completely different being, a young girl from a world that feels lost even in my memory,that, somehow in a way that I have never known,fell to my dimension, wounded, confused, with living tears.

I remember that being when asked who I was and after I explained myself she told me

"Why have you been so cruel to me?"

That paralyzed me,i..i been cruel,it was the first i realized such thing that my whole existence is contradiction,i bring wonders yet suffering to all living beings,even if im not able to control what happens.

That poor being cried for every terrible misfortune that occurred in her life, abuse, wars, the fall of her world, she was still alive, of course, but she begged me not to return, not even to go to the afterlife and rest in peace, no, the pain that her tears brought was so breaking that she wanted to disappear from existence itself.

Obviously it's not something I wasn't going to do, I COULDN'T even if I can do it, it was unfair, it wasn't her fault that her life went so miserable to such disgrace thought in her mind came into it with no return to change it,she was lost, in exchange, I asked her permission to not go to such path, but rather be something new and somehow,she accepted, thinking that would end all.

In all honesty, at that moment I was not clear about the extent of my power, I knew that I had it and that I could do something outside of normal understanding for others but that pulse in me screamed for act different and so, I grabbed her face and my hands shone with intense light.

Without realizing it, the body disappeared when my palms closed, I felt fear for the first time thinking i destroyed her being, but I suddenly felt the flutter of a butterfly.

When I opened my hand, that butterfly that you all know so much came out and it didn't take long to complete its own metamorphosis as a new being.

The being before Morpho had disappeared, my power had a price to pay, in a way.

I don't know the reason but all those who are reborn from my hands forget in a certain way their old being, not as if it had never existed, they are not unconscious of what they experienced, but their souls feel pure,different and determined in wanting to defend life in being a new them, I feel them as an extension of me and they are condemned to a strange line where they cannot die for being so tied to me and yet even if she knew this she...

Looked at me happy, with a passion for living on her face that was not there before and thanked me for what I had done, although she felt sadness for her former self and her past,she now understood how beautiful it was to be there.

From there she named herself, "Morpho" and she felt indebted to me, although I did not want to,she insisted that to fight for me, defend, be the judge of beings of all those infinite dimensions, save others like who she was before, I do not like to feel that Im using her because I accepted her like some short of puppet, but even so, she has always seemed happy since then to serve me as a knight of life.

From then on, I was her mother and hundreds, billions like Morpho today are part of this family and I love them all equally.

Although...sometimes I wonder if I could use my power to reverse that strange "immortality" that ties them to me, I wish they could continue happy as they are now, but return to the mortality of life so that they finish their true cycle and not be attached to such tasks..I know I can and maybe one day I will have the courage to do it for the first time.

@kirbyoctournament

learn more of life lore [here!]

[scifigeneration]

Blade Runner soundtrack at 30: how Vangelis used electronic music to explore what it means to be human

by Alison Cole, Composer and Lecturer in Screen Composition, Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney

In June 1994 the late composer Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou – better known as Vangelis – released his soundtrack for the 1982 film Blade Runner. It would go on to become emblematic of his skills, with only a handful of soundtracks reaching a similar level of cult status.

Prior to this, sci-fi film scores tended to be characterised by orchestral sound palettes. For instance, John Williams’ 1991 Star Wars soundtrack leaned on the London Symphony Orchestra to communicate the vastness of a galaxy far, far away.

Vangelis, on the other hand, used an electronic approach to bring a subtlety and complexity that shifted the focus inwards. His ability to communicate deep emotion, alongside expansive philosophical concepts, was perhaps his greatest achievement with Blade Runner.

Missing pieces

Director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was adapted from Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – which itself was a thoughtful examination of empathy and what it means to be human. The emotional gravitas of the original story, along with Vangelis’ accompanying timbral exploration, created an aural experience that was new to sci-fi films at the time.

Vangelis began work on the score in 1981. He received edited footage scene-by-scene on VHS tapes and created live takes in his studio with his synthesiser collection.

However, the first official soundtrack was delayed some 12 years after the film’s release, due to what was reportedly an ongoing disagreement with producers.

When it finally was released, purists viewed it as more of an album than a soundtrack. They criticised it for not having much of the music used in the original film, and for including pieces that never appeared in the film, such as Main Titles and Blush Response.

While the 2007 version (a 25th anniversary edition) included some unreleased material, parts of the original soundtrack remain unreleased even today.

A symmetry between newness and nostalgia

By emphasising longer drawn out notes, rather than thick instrumental combinations, Vangelis thoughtfully taps into the atmosphere of Scott’s visual world to create something truly unique.

Early sci-fi movies such as Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) often used electronic instruments developed in the early to mid-1900s, such as the theremin and the modular synthesiser. While these instruments helped augment concepts such as aliens, spaceships and robots, they did this somewhat simplistically.

A more sophisticated perspective pervades through Blade Runner, which combines film-noir instrumentation with classical, electronic, jazz and Middle Eastern music genres.

Specifically, Vangelis leverages the different sound qualities of synthesisers – such as bright and airy, thin and cold, or dark and thick – to at once capture emotion and highlight the complex ideas in the film’s narrative. In the final act, expansive synths dominate as the film reaches an intellectual and emotional climax.

While the synthesisers lend an artificial timbre to the score, the musicality simultaneously communicates life and feeling. In this way the foreign and familiar became enmeshed.

The film’s retro costuming and brutalist architecture also set up an expectation for the soundtrack. At times, the score will meaningfully go against this expectation by delving into a more nostalgic sound. The track Love Theme is a perfect example.

Innovative takes

Vangelis’ innovative use of dialogue in the soundtrack also helped to translate the complexities of the human condition. The tracks Main Titles, Blush Response, Wait for Me and Tears in Rain all feature dialogue in a way that makes them feel like a part of the film’s DNA.

The soundtrack’s arrangement was also uncommon for its time, as it mirrored the action narrative sequence. Tracks 1 through 4 are mixed as a single ongoing track. Tracks 5 through 7 are separated by silence, while tracks 8 through to 12 are also combined into a single piece. While this technique is common in electronic composition now, it was unique at the time.

The films dark, fraught and sad dystopian themes are further highlighted through collaborations with Welsh singer Mary Hopkins in Rachel’s Song, and Greek singer Demis Roussos in Tales of the Future.

Today, the Blade Runner soundtrack remains the most beloved of Vangelis’ works by his ardent fans – and it continues to commands its place in the 20th-century electronic music canon.

[calliemity]

The Album That Inspired Little Shop of Horrors

Written by Calliope Avery

In June, while out of town to see my third production of Little Shop of Horrors, I found a sealed copy of an album I've had my eye on for awhile. It's notable to me not just because it's a great album, but because it holds the foundations for most of the music written for the musical Little Shop of Horrors. This album is none other than...

He's a Rebel by The Crystals!

Released in 1963, with songs recorded between 1961 and 1963, this album was both a smash hit and very influential to music going forward, much like how many other girlgroups were! But even more importantly, this was the album that Alan Menken and Howard Ashman used as the basis for the musical identity of Little Shop of Horrors as we know it!

Well, that fact is all but confirmed. I do have extremely strong evidence to support this claim, so let's go through everything together!

According to "Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors" by Adam Abraham, Ashman was greatly inspired by the gritty sounds and detached vocals of music produced by Phil Spector in the early 60's. Here's a direct quote from the book:

Indeed, Ashman grew up listening to the girl groups of the period: the Crystals, the Ronettes, the Chiffons, the Shangri-Las. For research, he began to revisit records by Phil Spector, the Bronx-born music producer who was, according to Tom Wolfe, “The First Tycoon of Teen." Spector pioneered the "wall of sound": a dense musical tapestry that doubled, tripled, and quadrupled the guitars and rhythm and included backing vocals, handclaps, brass, and strings. In the recording studio, Spector would demand take after take from his musicians. Rather than use the first take or two, when the musicians were still fresh, he wanted the twentieth, the thirtieth. After hours in the studio, their playing lost much of its personality; the musicians merged into a single unit, machine-like.

-Adam Abraham, Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors

The book also includes a direct quite from Howard Ashman:

I heard something I hear to this day-something very dark and horrifying and scary as hell in the Phil Spector sound. There's a BUNK-BUNK- BUNK-TSCH, BUNK-BUNK-BUNK-TSCH. There are chains and whips in the background. There's real dark, nasty stuff going on under some of these very innocent lyrics. And if that doesn't sound like a horror movie, I don't know what does.

-Howard Ashman

This Phil Spector sound influences both the lyrics of the songs in Little Shop of Horrors, but also the way the music itself sounds and how it's written. The entire soundtrack is deeply rooted in these 60's grilgroup pop ideas, which has rooted itself in many aspects of music today. This adds a timeless quality to LSoH's soundtrack, but by leaning even further into the unsettling aspects of Spector sound, it elevates this musical's specific type of horror. It's brilliant and very effective!

There's one more quote I'd like to share with you, one that clues us into which album specifically had the most impact on their vision and songwriting:

Ashman brought a record by the Crystals to Menken's place, in Manhattan Plaza, where they usually worked by the piano. Ashman announced that this would be the sound of their show; he called it “the dark side of Grease." "We started over again," Menken conceded.

-Adam Abraham, Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors

An album by The Crystals, you say? Hmm, I wonder which one it could be. Surely it couldn't be the one with a song that sounds nearly identical to "Skid Row (Downtown)" from LSoH's soundtrack...

The second number in the show, "Skid Row (Downtown)," is "a direct inversion of the Crystals' 'Uptown,"

-Adam Abraham, Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors

This was my first clue into "He's a Rebel" being the album in question. The aforementioned song, "Uptown", seems to be where Menken and Ashman took heavy inspiration from (if not outright stolen it) in both melody and lyrics. Take a listen for yourself!

Another notable song that they definitely pulled from has the same name as the album- "He's a Rebel." You might recognize this lyric, "He's a dentist, and he'll never ever be any good", from the song "Dentist!", but that lyric is directly pulled from the former song! It's the exact same line, they just replaced "rebel" with "dentist."

(Skip to 41 seconds in if you wanna hear the line!)

There's also a smaller reference that I discovered on one of my many relistens to the album. During the song "He's Sure the Boy I Love", our singer remarks that her boyfriend "doesn't drive a Cadillac car." In LSoH however, Audrey II tries to bribe Seymour into murder by offering to get him a Cadillac. So we can even see smaller references to the album within the musical, reinforcing just how influential it was!

It's also outright confirmed that the cut LSoH song, "The Worse He Treats Me", was directly inspired by the tone and subject matter of another song on this album. "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" is... an uncomfortable song, but you can definitely hear the lyrical inspiration. "The Worse He Treats Me" seems to be a satirical response to this song, playing up the objective absurdity of excusing physical abuse in the way it does.

Ashman and Menken wrote a song that focuses on Audrey's relationship with her abusive boyfriend, and the wellspring was yet another track by the Crystals, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)," from 1962.

-Adam Abraham, Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors

Musically, the song takes plagiarism-level inspiration from a completely different song sung by a different girlgroup- "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las. The main melody of the song is taken directly from the guitar riff that carries the verses. Funnily enough, the music that serves as Orin's introduction theme in the stage show is the exact same riff, making it both a reference to "Leader of the Pack" and the cut song all about his horrible abuse. Pretty thematically relevant, I'd say.

There's actually a lot in LSoH that's inspired by the Shangri-Las! Their song "Leader of the Pack" proved rich in ideas to pull from and reference. Some of it ended up cut out, as described in this upcoming quote, but a good amount was kept in!

Besides the pop nightmares of Phil Spector, another influence was the New York-based girl group the Shangri-Las. "I already knew the Shangri-Las were funny in 1964," Ashman boasted. On the very first page of the first draft of Little Shop of Horrors, there is a stage direction that reads, “Shouted, a la the Shangri-La's." The line that follows, in the show's opening number, is drawn from one of the girl group's signature hits, "Leader of the Pack." Audrey, terrified by something, cries, "Lookout, lookout, lookout, lookout!" (This remained in the show, although in subsequent drafts it is assigned to someone else.) Other sly references follow. Later in the first draft, Audrey defends her dentist boyfriend: "Folks are always putting him down"; the other women on stage echo, à la the Shangri-Las, "Down, down, down." These latter two lines from "Leader of the Pack" were eventually dropped. However, when audiences finally meet Orin Scrivello, DDS, he is introduced thus: "Here he is, girls, the Leader of The Plaque." So Little Shop of Horrors recreates the popular music of the late 1950s and early 1960s and sees the world through the prism of doo-wop records and girl-group patter.

-Adam Abraham, Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors

Have you noticed that Orin keeps getting brought up? Ignoring how much it drives me insane that he manages to worm his way into everything I've ever done, there seems to be a reason for this. In the transition between Roger Corman's 1960 movie and Menken & Ashman's 1982 stage musical, the dentist character got the most substantial makeover. Orin Scrivello is almost unrecognizable from his roots as Dr. Phoebus Farb; more specifically, he seemed to have gotten a brand new coat of early 60's rebel paint. Let's take another look at the cover of the album we've been discussing.

For variety, here's a picture of my own personal LP!

Now, what do you notice about this cover? Does the man pictured look familiar at all? Does he remind you of anything perhaps? Like, oh, I don't know... a certain dentist?

So I have absolutely no way to prove this, and I don't believe that this was the only inspiration taken for Orin's reimagining, but I do firmly believe that the cover of this album played a large part in the aesthetic that Orin would adopt. I mean, look at it. And with the added context of this album having so many influential songs, it wouldn't surprise me if seeing that album cover for extended periods of time would've made some creative gears turn.

I would argue further that this album's non-music related influence even extends to LSoH's themes and ideas. While not the entire focus of the album, reoccurring themes of class and wealth can be heard in songs like "Uptown" and "He's Sure The Boy I Love." Mentions of abuse and a difficult life are found in "He Hit Me" and "No One Ever Tells You." These themes, while prevalent, take on more positive and optimistic perspectives within these songs. Little Shop of Horrors takes these themes and responds with a much more pessimistic outlook. The exception to this are the album's themes of finding love regardless of what society might expect or want for you. I'd say it's the most prevalent theme found in the album; songs such as "He's a Rebel", "He's Sure the Boy I Love", "Another Country-Anothor World", and "Uptown" all demonstrate this idea. And LSoH seems to respect this one while even elaborating further with Seymour and Audrey's relationship.

My personal favorite is only found in one song: "On Broadway." The song sings idealistically about Broadway, and the singer states that she will someday make her way out of her small town to go have a life there. Both ideas, dreaming about a idealistic place and wanting to escape your current living situation, have been split between two songs in LSoH's soundtrack: "Somewhere That's Green" and "Skid Row: Downtown" respectively. LSoH's twist is that Audrey doesn't dream of a glamorous life on Broadway, she dreams of a cozy and domestic suburban life.

To keep myself from talking for the rest of time, I will cut myself off here. I hope you found this interesting, and I highly reccomend giving the album "He's a Rebel" a listen for yourself! It's definitely become one of my top favorite albums. In the future I would also like to do research and make a post about the impact that The Ronnettes and The Shangri-Las had on LSoH, but work has me pretty busy lately, so I'm not sure when I can get that out.

Anyway, thank you for reading all of this I very much appreciate it! :]

[transamus]

Also here's my thoughts on the various aspects of Mario Eclipse, major spoilers though- I recommend going in blind if you plan on playing it at all.

Il Piantissimo feels phenomenal to play as. Not having FLUDD is compensated with a double jump, and the increased speed & jump height is insane. Luckily, you cannot choose to play as him in any episode where you would not be able to accomplish your goal. Additionally, the presence of water bombs for all characters when not using FLUDD works really well to make him still viable.

Luigi feels like the perfect middle-ground between Il Piantissimo's faster movement / higher jumps and still being able to use FLUDD. I choose to play as Luigi more often than not.

Warship Isle was full of tedium, my least favourite new level: however, where all the new levels do have some tedium, the tedium itself fit perfectly into the game. Nothing was more tedious than what Nintendo themselves asked of the player, and so it kinda ended up balancing out pretty nicely.

Lighthouse Isle had some camera issues, but overall starting the level stormy was a great choice, the custom boss battle was really well-done, and I enjoyed it a lot. My only other criticism is that the soundtrack was more "Grant Kirkhope" than "Koji Kondo", but none of the other levels' soundtracks had this issue.

Erto Rock was a beautiful level and a great way to interpret the concept from the cut content. I'm not a huge fan of how often, though, in new levels, you start with a mission that has a timer; I'd prefer personally to be able to take my time exploring the new levels first rather than kinda have to take it all in as quickly as possible. It's also nice having a more vertical level that feels simultaneously like it takes advantage of the Rocket Nozzle where the base game did not, as well as not making it entirely mandatory either.

Hotel Lacrima is a hilarious way to interpret the cut content; they chose to make it mafia based, because... hotel la-crime-a. That's really funny. The organized crime didn't feel out of place for a Nintendo game of this era, either, weirdly enough. The level itself is designed in such a way that the camera feels accommodated for really nicely, despite the inherent issues with the game's camera.

All of the new transition levels / areas feel really cute, and the vibes are immaculate.

Needing to beat shadow Mario in all of the new levels as well was unexpected, but I felt like it fit really nicely. This is usually one of the biggest criticisms of Mario Sunshine itself, but I think the amount of post-game content makes up for this.

Starting the game at Peach's Castle was also a really great choice; in the base game, you have all of 3 seconds to familiarize yourself with Mario's moveset before you obtain FLUDD. Having even this small change I think fixed that issue really well.

The ability to enter Corona Mountain pre-flood was a really nice touch; I do wish that it had been expanded into a full level, though. The attention to the cut detail of it being a Shrine was very appreciated.

I'm only just moving into the post-game content, but having it based around Daisy's Cruiser is a really adorable touch. The post-game content genuinely feels like Official DLC for the game, expanding the map outwards off of Isle Delfino rather than continuing to pile onto the island.

As a Blue Coins enjoyer, I'm really glad that they didn't remove the Blue Coins from the game, and in fact added some to every single new level. I've always stood by the fact that I'd rather have Blue Coins as a "portion of a major collectable" than distort the value of major collectables by throwing them literally everywhere (looking at you, Mario Odyssey).

While the original plan for Eclipse was to restore the beta Delfino Plaza, the beta plaza is nowhere to be found. On one hand, I wish they would have, and put it maybe on the north side of the island or something? but on the other hand, not restoring it does feel like it honors the choices the developers made more, making the mod feel, again, like an Official Product. I think the beta plaza would have stood out design-wise, and- like in the base game- was probably not included for good reason.

As someone who is super autistic about Super Mario Sunshine, this really feels like it hit every single thing I would've wanted in a theoretical remake- it feels like this is the game Nintendo's team would have made if they had been given unlimited time and budget to do so.

[rise-my-angel]

I've come to the conclusion that I really like the music in the final montage of the House of the Dragon finale, but that it very much is not in any way in the essence of Game of Thrones.

The only two parts that feel like it belongs in that universe is the remix of the Stark theme and the Lannister theme, because the music from Game of Thrones perfectly captured the spirit of that world and story. But, the show doesn't get credit for those two parts being as good as they are, because they wouldn't exist without Game of Thrones doing them first.

The rest of it is very beautiful and epic in scale, but it feels nothing like music that belongs in the same world that the music from Game of Thrones did. It feels like it belongs in a completely different fantasy world.

The show has some great music, like the build up score to the battle of Rook's Rest. But the problem is that the music does a lot of heavy lifting for the lack of the show's writing ability. It feels like the music is telling me how I should feel, rather then enhancing how the story already makes me feel.

This show's music perfectly encapsulates it's identity problem. The music is either great but ill fitting of the story and world it's set within, or it is completely bland and forgettable. Whereas the music for Game of Thrones is as memorable as the show itself.

Both in the season 2 opener and the finale, they tugged at my heartstrings by playing scores from the Stark theme's. And it stands out at how little the rest of the soundtrack fits into that style, because the show itself doesn't understand how to fit itself into the world of Game of Thrones despite trying very hard to remind us that it's set in that universe.

I get it's a different show with a different story, but the music really just does not suit the world it exists within. A lot of the scores with mild singing in it, do not feel like it suits a world where in universe, The Rains of Castamere is a song that actually exists and both suits the world and the narrative the music is playing alongside.

Like the music, some of this show is really good, but none of it actually fits the world it's set itself within. The music at all times feels like it's grasping for straws to find a place to fit in, but never does.

And as good as the finale music is, it is a standout in an otherwise very bland and forgettable soundtrack that do not feel as if they suit the same story that opened this season with something as memorable, and emotional and iconic as "The North Remembers."

Part of what made Game of Thrones identity, was that the music matched the scale of each story being told, and it used it expertly to enhance a scene without overpowering the emotions on screen.

House of the Dragon is a mixture of forgettable music, and overpowering ill fitting music that it's using as a crutch to do the hard work the writing is failing to accomplish. And using a style that does not match the world it even is claimed to exist within.

I'm not saying the music had to all be the same, but it certainly is not anywhere near as powerful as they think it is, this time around.

[major-comet]

The Music in RvB: Restoration Kinda Sucks. Here's how I'd fix it.

I gave this as a presentation the other night after my first re-watch of the finale, and it was a major hit so I thought I would share it with other people who think too hard about Halo fanfiction.

Red VS Blue has some truly fantastic music in it's 21 year history, and I think that the music here was pretty weak. Obviously this post has major spoilers for RvB19 / Restoration, so be warned.

So, under the Read More is a typed up and fleshed out version of my powerpoint presentation where I will dive in and not just bitch about the musical choices, but explain how I would fix things. This is...really long, but I hope you all enjoy my thoughts :)

This will be best enjoyed if you listen to the songs I'm talking about as a refresher. For your convenience, I have input links to the songs on Youtube when necessary

So what's the problem?

Since the development of the finale overlapped with Rooster Teeth getting shut down, it's very likely that they had minimal funds. (EDIT: Yes, the finale itself was done by the time the announcement rolled around. However, the decision was almost certainly already in the works at WB. RT was shut down in part for financial reasons. It’s all connected.) I personally think this was part of why Burnie/RT was/were [reportedly] so insistent on using stock music for part of the season rather than a whole soundtrack done by Trocadero - I'm not sure they had the money to properly compensate for a full soundtrack. And maybe it was just a stupid / dick move, and had nothing to do with money at all, but that's what I choose to believe if only because it makes me feel slightly better about it.

This means that besides the stock music, the new score by Carl Thiel, the Zero song for that cameo, and Waning Moon (the Barenaked Ladies song), all we have are four re-used songs from earlier RvB - these songs being the Trocadero Grifball theme, I Say Ooh and Round One by Jeff Williams, and Vale Deah by Trocadero. There's also a David Levy composition in there somewhere according to the credits, R U Ready, but I have no idea what it is or where it plays. It's bothering the hell out of me because it does not appear to be a reused piece as far as I can tell - at least not reused from RvB. If anyone has any leads on this please reach out, because it seems crazy that there's one random possibly original David composition mixed in there. I've checked Apple Music and Soundcloud, nothing by that name.

In this very Meta focused film, neither of The Meta's themes play in any shape or form - [When] Your Middle Name is Danger by Trocadero or Plagam Extremam Infligere by Jeff Williams.

Nor do any of the character themes, really. Most of the series' iconic recurring tracks are completely absent. Tex's various themes, Carolina's theme - hell not even Blood Gulch Blues or the iconic intro music.

Were there any highlights?

Of course there were!

Considering I was going into the finale having only been spoiled on Vale Deah, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the Jeff tracks! That was totally unexpected, and really lovely.

Speaking of, I thought the use of Vale Deah was a really lovely touch. Fun fact: that song was used for the end credits of the Season 1 DVD, so it really felt like a sweet full circle moment.

I think that using a Barenaked Ladies song for that very sweet scene of Caboose, Grif, and Simmons reminiscing about Blood Gulch by the fire was a very lovely choice, and quite honestly it was my favorite scene in the whole thing. The BNL have been close to RvB and RT since damn near the beginning, and it was very nice to hear them attached to the finale in that small way.

I should also point out that the composer for the season is Carl Thiel - known for his work on Hot Fuzz and the second and third Spy Kids movies. I think he did a totally fine job. I liked the bugles that were under Sarge's death, but the rest doesn't really stand out much. Perfectly serviceable.

So, now that that's out of the way, let's break down those four returning songs a bit more - shall we?

Grifball Official Theme - Trocadero

This was a really funny choice. It's such a quick bit, but I respect Burnie's dedication to get in one last Grifball joke. Obviously, I would have preferred to hear a different song for something else, but this was totally harmless.

Vale Deah - Trocadero

Lo-fi Hip-hop beats to get divorced to.

God that scene was heartbreaking. I love this song a lot - I think a lot of Trocadero's strongest stuff is the stuff that just feels kind of melancholy. It's something Nico does really well, and I think Vale Deah is one of my favorite examples of that. Like I said above, I think this song was used really well - if I had to pick a different track for that same scene I would probably choose Half Life. While it was written during the Blood Gulch era, it wasn't really used in the show until Seasons 12 and 13 - notably, a version of it plays under Kimball's rally speech to the troops after Doyle's death. I just really like it, tbh. There's absolutely other songs that could work, but I think having it be a BGC-era track served the scene really well.

I Say Ooh - Jeff Williams

My feelings about this are pretty similar to Grifball. It was cute, it was nice to hear, but I wish they had used a different Jeff track somewhere else. Ultimately, it's pretty harmless. It is kind of an odd choice though - I'm pretty sure Jeff didn't write it for RvB. This was a song that he composed that was used in two RT Shorts (live action sketches that RT used to do). I think it would have been nicer to use one of his RvB tracks for the introduction of Niner - could have been a cute spot to use a track like I Am The Best or Forge World or hell, Come on Carolina would have been cute.

Round One - Jeff Williams

...Actually, I have a lot to say about Round One, so let's get everything else out of the way first.

Other Scenes that *should* have had returning tracks before I talk about Round One for a billion years

Sarge's death should have been scored with a version of Rally (Sarge's Speech). My vision is a version of it that's just the string section - familiar, but not enough to be distracting, and absolutely soul crushing if you do recognize it.

The scene with Wash and Dr. Grey in the hospital needed a hint of what Nico so lovingly calls the "Wash Trauma Theme" - which is closely related to the Trocadero Meta theme, fun fact. I think Limited Duty from the scene in Season 16 where Carolina tells Wash about the brain damage could have worked pretty well there.

The scene at the end with Wash and Carolina talking about Doc and the Freelancers really needed something. I think one of the variations of the Shisno trilogy Carwash theme could have worked very well.

Obviously the big scene with Tucker and Sigma on the ship would have really benefited from [When] Your Middle Name is Danger or one of the many themes that incorporates it, but I'd also throw Soul Clef XI into the ring! I think it's so interesting that the work around they came up with for not being able to get Elijah Wood back was to have epsilon!Sigma take on a more Felix-y type of voice. Partly because Felix was an incredibly ambitious villain so he fits it pretty well, but more importantly that was a very smart voice to pick to fuck with Tucker in particular! I think that was really smart, and I think having some version of Felix's theme playing during that scene would have been really cool.

Bolt by Trocadero was never used in the series proper. However it was used in this ten year retrospective that they released alongside Season 10. I highly recommend giving it a watch, because watching it now that it's Over - RvB, RT, all of it - it's honestly kind of heart breaking. They're all filled with this deep optimism about the future of the company, and hindsight is a bitch on this one. They use it in a really sweet sequence at the end where they're showing a bunch of old photos. Anyways I think this should have played in the credits after Vale Deah finished. "We only want to have a good time."

Miscellaneous Trocadero Songs I would have liked to see them find a place for that I haven't already / will not mention elsewhere

Steady Ride (Gunmetal Green) - this is THE Grimmons song ever to me. I love it so much. Also fun fact: as of the interview Burnie did with Nico on the season 10 (I think?) dvd/bluray, this was Burnie's favorite Trocadero track. And you can tell when you watch the DVD cuts of the first 6-ish seasons - it plays all the time.

I like Good Fight a lot, not sure there was a great spot for it? but still would have been nice - It's used a few times as a Wash theme, I believe.

No One is my favorite Trocadero song and I wish it could've been there Somewhere. It was the elevator-music type song that played behind Vic in BG once or twice, I think was in the season 4 credits, and also played during the weapons demonstrations in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle. I just like it a lot, lol.

Okay let's get back to Round One.

Why they shouldn't have used Round One for the big fight in RvB Restoration

AKA: The actual bulk of the presentation

Okay so we've got some pros and cons to this track. Starting with the Pros;

It's a song from an iconic scene - the 3v1 training room fight from Season 9

Tex and Maine are both in the fight

Was a great "Oh FUCK yeah" moment for the fans

Great track

Cons;

Not really a song for Carolina or the Meta (or y'know. Tucker. He's there too), and only kind of a song for Tex

Honestly the fight makes me think about York more than anyone else, since that's the fight where he gets hurt

Not a cool thematic moment besides just Tex being a badass

Started too late into the fight - it's sad that Carolina got a cool track when she (finally!) showed up, but Tex just got generic music. Show my girl some respect :(

So what would be better?

It has to be something that makes you think of at least one of the fighters. A track that's good for multiple would be better, but not required.

I think it should start when Tex first shows up, not when her armor changes. that’s a cool moment, but it still means most of the fight is working with Thiel’s score.

It should be something with a note of thematic relevance - for example, the big moment right at the end of the fight is Tex reminding epsilon!Sigma that she's not based on the Director's memories of her failure this time; she's based on the memories of Grif, Caboose, and Simmons. And she Always kicked their asses.

Still needs to be a big "Oh FUCK yeah" moment.

While incorporating Carolina's theme would be nice, I think it's more important to get at least one of the others - but we'll do our best here. I think this is moreso a Tex v meta!Tucker fight in my heart than it is a Carolina fight.

So let's look over a few options, shall we? These are in no particular order.

Spiral - Jeff Williams

This is the song that plays during the Season 9 car chase when Maine gets shot. It incorporates Carolina's theme, because in PFL her theme is never too far behind whenever a Maine/Meta song is playing, which has always been interesting to me. It has all that freaky choral stuff that Jeff loved to use, and generally is just a great track.

Fragments - Jeff Williams

This plays during the Freelancer break-in in Season 10, and it just rocks so hard. Anything from the break-in would be cool because that was the last time Tex, Carolina, and Maine/The Meta were all in the same place, and of course was when The Meta was properly created. I think it was so sad that they used the instrumental of Round One, because the vocals are part of what makes the Jeff era of RvB soundtracks so iconic, and god this song delivers! Also this song has a kickass trumpet solo at the end.

Slingshot (from the Death Battle) - Trocadero

Man this song rules. This of course plays in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle from Season 14. It's a very different energy from the Jeff picks, but it rocks so fucking much. This is a fight between Carolina and The Meta, and would of course be a callback to a (marginally) more recent - and extremely popular - episode of the show. If you haven't watched the Death Battle in a while you really should, it still kicks just as much ass now as it did back when I was in high school.

Literally any other song from the 3v1 Training Room Fight - Jeff Williams

This includes;

Round One (feat Lamar Hall)

Just the Bullfight part

On Your Knees

I just think the instrumental to Round One is the weakest choice from this fight tbh! Bullfight is my favorite out of the three, because it sounds the most Tex-y. The guitars are very her, and it incorporates part of her Agent Tex motif. And On Your Knees would have had the biggest "Oh FUCK yeah" factor. But honestly even just using the version of Round One with the vocals would have been way better.

EDIT TO ADD: a quick note - while it’s listed in the credits as Round One/Bullfight, that’s just how the instrumental is packaged on the OST. As far as I could tell in my two watches of it, they never actually make it to the Bullfight part of the track.

A Girl Named Tex - Trocadero

hold on, walk with me on this one.

I had a vision of Tex fighting meta!Tucker set to the "Yellow rose of Texas clad in black, lonely star tattooed upon her back. Double Tex she'll hit you like a truck. Double Tex and she'll mess you up." bit right after I watched 19 the first time and it's been haunting me ever since. (That bit starts at about 02:19)

This is her theme for the first chunk of the show - which just so happens to be the time period Grif, Simmons, and Caboose were primarily reminiscing about. It would have been cool as hell, and I can See the beginning of the fight in my head - the opening strums (what my brother so lovingly calls the Out of Mind music) when caboose is saying his line about how he brought back someone even worse than church, and then the fight starts! I can see it in my mind, it would have been so cool!

I just think there should have been more Blood Gulch era music in here.

100 Tex Battle - Jeff Williams

This doesn't get you any Meta points, but obviously it incorporates little bits of Tex's, and a lot of Carolina's theme. Twisting a Tex vs Carolina fight - obviously, Carolina vs all the Tex bots in Season 10 - into one where they're fighting alongside each other would have been really lovely and a cool full circle moment.

This song is really cool, it's such a good fight. I do think it maybe sounds a bit goofy at points for this fight, but still a cool option.

Okay so now let's go over my top three-ish picks

Ice Fight (or maybe the revelations suite?) - Jeff Williams

Jumping to the end of Season 8, we have a fight that involves Tex vs The Meta! And Wash, Doc, and all the Reds and Blues (barring Donut and Lopez. Hmm. Doesn't that sound familiar.) are there! Ice Fight rules so hard, it's so good.

And it has some of that narrative theming I was looking for! While yes, Tex does technically lose this fight - so does The Meta. And how does she lose it?

By going into the recovery unit.

The main reason I suggest the Suite instead of just Ice Fight is because I think having a touch of Red Vs Blue would have been really nice.

Mental Meta Metal - Jeff Williams

Genuinely my favorite track from season 10. If you let the song play the whole way through, it has Jeff's themes for The Meta, Carolina, and Tex in it. This plays the first time we see Maine in a fight in Season 10, and is also Sigma's first time in the field after we see him pondering Meta-stability in the classroom.

It incorporates elements from both Spiral and Plagam Extremam Infligere, which is kind of Jeff's theme for the Meta that he established back in Season 8. It also plays during the Freelancer Break-in when he's tossing Carolina off the cliff. The Latin on that translates to “to inflict an extreme blow”.

It also has a very strong statement of Carolina's theme, which could have been a great opportunity to bring her in with her theme!

Now, before I go over my final pick, let's go over what we need again;

We need a song with thematic relevance to the fight, that’s from an iconic scene, has a good energy to it, and would give fans a big “OH FUCK YEAH” moment.

Well, isn’t it obvious?

Agent Tex (/ Tex vs Tank / Hell's Angel) - Jeff Williams

The first instance of Jeff Williams’ Tex motif, later used in Hell’s Angel and Tex vs Tank, etc. I would add the opening strum commonly heard in the later iterations, but keep it generally the Agent Tex version which was used in the S8 Warehouse fight, as seen above.

This is like. The RvB scene ever. So many people saw this before they watched the show, and many more never even watched RvB - just this fight, since RT uploaded it separately from the episode because they knew it kicked so much ass. It also helped draw in folks who may have been fans of Monty Oum's other work. Fun fact: This was RT’s outro music for a really long time, too. So it really has history with the company.

Part of why I think this pick would work so well, beyond it just being Tex's theme for the Jeff Williams era, is that it would be so interesting in terms of narrative theming. The Season 8 warehouse fight was Tucker, Grif, Simmons, Sarge, and Caboose against Tex.

This whole sequence was Grif, Simmons, Caboose, Carolina, and Tex against Tucker.

This was one of the other scenes being reminisced about around the fire - you can see it as one of the clips shown during the scene. I think it would have been a really powerful moment, and a fantastic "FUCK YEAH" moment for everyone whose stuck around this long. This track is so good, and I really do think it would have been the perfect choice for this fight.

It's not even my favorite, if I was just choosing favorites I'd have picked Mental Meta Metal or A Girl Named Tex.

What have we learned? Why Were We Here?

Red vs Blue is a show with a lot of really fantastic music in it's book, and a really strong history of musical callbacks - particularly with the Meta's theme and how it's so closely tied to the motif Trocadero liked to use as "Wash Trauma" music. Making a clever callback to a song you've used before can help strengthen the thing you're trying to get across to your audience. I think it's somehing that Restoration really struggles with, which is pretty sad. But I hope you found my deep dive / analysis of what could have been interesting.

I'd really like to dive in and do a long reflection about the series as a whole, but as it stands this is around 3,000 words and if I get started on that, this post will never end. I'll probably work on that once i've actually Finished this rewatch.

Thank you for reading all of that!

[thewisecheerio]

Elden Ring's Soundtrack, Part 2

I'm in love with the Elden Ring soundtrack, DLC and base game alike. I think every track does a great job of evoking imagery and feelings of the boss or environment it was designed for.

The post will cover the following soundtracks with more to come in other posts: Shaman Village and Elden Ring Title Theme The Putrescent Knight Messmer, the Impaler

Part 1 contains Divine Beast Dancing Lion, The Twin Moon Knight, and The Lord of Frenzied Flame: https://www.tumblr.com/thewisecheerio/757695935032754176/elden-rings-soundtrack

Shaman Village and Elden Ring Title Theme

As many have noticed, Shaman Village is simply the harp section of Elden Ring, the title theme. It lacks the percussion and brass that begin to enter the title theme at 0:13. Instead, this piece graces us with the quiet and contemplative solitude of Marika's home. A single instrument for a single remaining Shaman. "Only the kindness of gold, without Order", as the Minor Erdtree incantation reads.

Contrasted to the solitude of the harp in Shaman Village, the percussion and brass almost sound intrusive. This mirrors the circumstances of Marika's godhood. This was something she sought not for her own ambitions, but in a desperate plea for an end to the violence that slaughtered her people—even an end to Destined Death itself.

But what she finds in that godhood isn't the "kindness of gold, without Order". Rather, just as the confident intrusion of brass brings cacophony that overwhelms Shaman Village's harp, so too does Marika's quest for peace turn into a genocidal quest for revenge. The desire for law and Order overwhelms her desire to heal, and her crusades begin bringing terror to the Lands Between.

Yet the Shaman Village sountrack is suffused with melancholy, almost a dirge for her people. It invites us to "have mercy, for the spirited away Shamans", as the description of the statue that blocks the way to the village reads. It invites us to remember the Marika-that-was, a woman who left a healing incantation to blanket her home, though there was no one left to receive it.

And it invites us to sit before the minor erdtree, or perhaps before the statue of the Grandmother at which Marika left an offering, and simply reflect on the cycles of violence contained in the rest of the game.

The Putrescent Knight

The harp throughout this soundtrack reminds me of a fairytale, or perhaps a dream. Considering that the Knight guards St. Trina, Chosen of the God of Sleep, this feels appropriate. We hear it at the very opening and then again at 1:55.

The dominance of bass instruments creates a deep, or perhaps dark, feeling to this soundtrack. It evokes images of night and the slumber that comes with it, but also the shadow of death that comes from too deep a sleep as St. Trina's nectar might induce. It brings images of the Deep-Purple Lilies and dusky Nectarblood Burgeons that grow in Trina's wake. This is all contrasted with a single soprano, perhaps symbolizing Trina herself.

With the Phase 2 transition at 2:07, the soundtrack has a kind of dream logic of its own. Just as a dream scene seamlessly fades into another without explanation, so too do we have harp-dominated phrases that fade into brass-dominated phrases that fade into string-dominated phrases.

The harp finale of the soundtrack bring us the soft kiss of dusk, lulling us into a quiet and peaceful sleep.

Messmer, the Impaler

The first 2 measures of this piece shout grandeur, power, and intimidation. Here lives Messmer, son of Marika. Here lives the Impaler. Here lives the bringer of war.

And yet at 0:44, I can't help but hear a sad thread underpinning this section's melancholic cellos. It is a reminder that war is a thing of fear and loss. It is also a reflection on Messmer himself, filled with self-hatred and tired to the bone from killing on his mother's behalf. For failing to do aught but follow she who abandoned him, he is left neglected and alone. But in the cellos' sadness is also power—a reminder to learn from the violent mistakes that came before and to use your power to break these cycles of violence, as Messmer failed to do.

Phase 2 of the soundtrack opens much as Phase 1, with a grand chorus. But compared to the first, the second opening is slightly higher pitched, raise just a note (or it might be just a half-step?) above where we started. The stakes have increased. No longer are you a pitiful Tarnished to be vanquished quickly on his spear; now you are a true threat to be met with the power of the Base Serpent.

Quickly, the soundtrack morphs into a frantic hail of descending strings. Having resisted the call of the Base Serpent for so long, Messmer entreats us, "O lightless creature, embrace thine oblivion, as have I." The song evokes the sudden crumbling of an entire world, inviting us to become dust with it.

A profound and now desperate sadness continues to haunt this section in the powerful brass that accompanies the strings around 3:00 until the end of the track. It mirrors Messmer's descent as he finally breaks under the weight of his duty and lets go of everything he tried to hold together, all aimed at stopping you.

This may not be the final boss of the game, but the orchestral grandeur of the finale certainly signals the conclusion of an era. With a final strike of the Tarnished's chosen weapon, the age of Marika's genocide is over. The age of Messmer's war is at an end. And so too ends the abandoned prince, embracing his oblivion. The final stringed section of the piece echoes Messmer's death, the music ending on a relative whisper compared to the grand ensemble that came just before it. It evokes his final cries: a quiet curse at the mother-god who abandoned him.

Access the Soundtracks

You can listen to the entire DLC soundtrack here:

You can listen to the entire base game soundtrack here:

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #39: 1988

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: George Michael, INXS, George Harrison, Rick Astley, Guns N' Roses, Whitney Houston, Belinda Carlisle, Tiffany, Breathe, Steve Winwood. End description]

More information about this blog here

The sound of the 80's continues to cement itself in a variety of ways. But this also marks the year Billboard began publishing its Modern Rock Tracks chart (later renamed to Alternative Songs), which will become even more notable in a few years.

But when examining the sound of 80's pop, I need to shine the spotlight on Stock Aitken Waterman, the songwriting trio known for their loud drum machines, booming synth lines, and their "assembly line" method of song production. You may recognize them from their work on tracks such as Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), Bananarama's Venus, and of course, Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. Even if most of the songs attributed to them aren't as widely remembered (and they produced a lot so that's not a knock against them), any song of theirs could be used in a soundtrack as a shorthand way to let audiences know "this scene takes place in the 80's."

Either because of or in spite of SAW's production sound being so tied to the pop music of its decade, the group has been rather controversial. That "assembly line" comment I made was not an offhand comment, but one of the terms used at the time to both describe and criticize the group's style. I know that nowadays, people don't trust any links that are in close proximity to the mention of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. Anyway, here's an article that goes into how Stock Aitken Waterman produced the track. Trust me.

[mari-writes]

My thoughts on Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle

⚠️ Warning: Spoilers for the film (and portions of the manga) ahead!

Two days ago, I went to see Haikyuu: The Dumpster Battle. I've been a fan of this series since 2015, and I started the manga within a month of the anime. So going to this film was a huge deal for me. (The only other time I've experienced a HQ screening was at the 2018 Crunchyroll convention!) It was awesome being at the theater with fellow fans wearing jerseys of our favorite teams, all excited to see our boys on the big screen. 🥰❤️

I absolutely LOVED how the film began, showing us Kenma and Hinata's first meeting but in a different way than in season 1, with the cat and crow staring each other down, and Kuroo overhearing their conversation from nearby. It really set the mood, especially with the incredible score (honestly the soundtrack is one of my favorite aspects of the movie).

However, I was upset that they left out the backstory of Nekomata and Ukai Sr. These flashbacks are so important to give the rivalry context and depth. The fact that these two characters met in middle school, and then had this battle decades later as elders, was so impactful. Not showing the history of their relationship affected the film's emotional impact. In my opinion, THIS was the biggest flaw in the script.

While we're on the negatives: I do think the film relied a lot on prior knowledge of the story. Which is to be expected, it's basically the 5th season of a show, but I don't think even casual fans would be able to keep up with how many characters and plot points quickly came and went. I recall being perplexed at certain things they chose to keep in, some of which were fun, but not necessary and just muddled the viewing experience.

Also: the subtitles. I've always had a beef with how Crunchyroll does subs. Not the translators themselves (I LOVE YOU GUYS YOU'RE AMAZING) but how they place the text. It was hard to distinguish between the primary and secondary dialogue. They were often stacked onto each other, with the barest hint of italics to differentiate. Honestly, while some background dialogue was great, I would've rather gone without to avoid confusion.

There were some other weakness, like the pacing and important character moments they cut. Obviously, as a MASSIVE fan, I would want everything to be adapted fully and perfectly. But that was never going to happen with a 1.5 hour film. 🤷‍♀️ The screenwriters did a really impressive job considering what they were tasked with accomplishing. Major kudos to them!

Now, on to the things I loved about the movie:

The animation. Gods, the animation was fantastic, such a breath of fresh air after season 4. I could tell how much care the artists put into this project. Some scenes literally had me speechless, sitting there frozen with my mouth hanging open. The final rally was animated ENTIRELY in Kenma's POV. The music faded out; you could here his heavy breathing and the team calling to each other. It made you feel like you were on the court. I've never seen anything like it before.

I mentioned the score earlier, but special shout out to the musicians, composers, and everyone involved in the soundtrack. 👏 I literally had goosebumps multiple times. And having a track by SPYAIR playing during the end credits gave me so much fuzzy nostalgia!

The voice acting was amazing. Kenma's actor, Yuki Kaji, absolutely hit it out of the park. He's always been one of my faves from the cast, but he went above and beyond in this film. But everyone did, really. It was so important for me to see the Japanese version FIRST to hear this wonderful cast who I've been following for the past 9 years.

Kuroo Testsuro. Good lord, did I come out of the theater having fallen completely in love with Kuroo. 😍❤️ His character is just SO GOOD, full of passion and love for his friends and the sport itself. I think the movie really highlighted this. (And it made me so emotional, knowing where he ended up in the future!)

BOKUTO AND AKAASHI. Thank you, movie team for letting them have their cute little moments. Especially the one with Yachi. I love these two so much. I'm very scared that their biggest arc, aka the Mujinazaka match, won't be animated. But I'm so grateful we got them in this film.

The after credits scene. REMEMBER TO STAY AFTER THE FIRST CREDITS YOU GUYS! They included the hilarious exchange between Kuroo and Daishou after the match, which was a really fun way to end things. 😆 Mika's little "You ready?" to her silly snake boyfriend was perfect. It made me giggle.

Okay, those are my initial thoughts! If I see the film again I might update this. For now, let me just say I really enjoyed it overall and it was such a special experience seeing these beloved characters on the silver screen. I still mourn the loss of a 5th season, and I'm nervous about what will be cut from the final movie... but that's future Mari's problem... 😅

Thanks for reading! 💕

[disneyparksattractionstournament]

Favorite Disney Parks Attraction Showdown: Round 7/FINALS

Videos and propaganda under the cut!

Haunted Mansion: Disneyland, WDW Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland

Propaganda:

"The ride system was perfected by Bob Gurr, gay icon. Seriously, any Disney gays and Haunted Mansion gays, thank gay icon, Bob Gurr for giving us an iconic ride vehicle and system. The whole ride is iconic. It inspired modern day horror tropes, gives goth kids a cool ride to enjoy as they pretend not to enjoy their trip with family when they actually do, has that really interesting spider story in the ballroom scene, X Atencio giving us an iconic song, story, script, and voice acting in the Lemme Outta Here ghost and the break down spiel, THE FREAKING STRETCHING ROOM, THE WALLPAPER!!!!!! Hatbox Ghost being an urban legend, with his existence being argued and questioned for years until we finally got a blurry picture confirmation and him coming back years later, ICONIC! Madame Leota and Little Leota! The hitchhiking ghosts!!! GHOST HOST!!!! The freaking conveyor belt at the end of the attraction that you step off to and if your not careful, it's easy to almost fall, accidentally giving one last scare before you leave the ride and makes you realize how clumsy you are? Iconic. "

"This is a ride that I was absolutely terrified of when I was a little kid. I actually have photographic evidence of this (ask for it if you'd like). But, my goodness, this rough start only made me love it all the more as I grew up. This is such a fun and goofy ride despite the morbid theme and occasional eerie bits! It's a duality. The ghosts have such a personality and the Ghost Host is such a charming guide (and I find the fact that he abandons you to go join the swinging wake hilarious, especially because you wander into the attic with Constance when unguided). It's just such a well-crafted ride! There's so much to see and I never get tired of it. The Doombuggy itself is an ingenious way to move people through the ride with such a distinctive design. The Ghost Host raising and lowering the lap bar for you is neat (fun fact, The Phantom in Phantom Manor is a terrible host and doesn't do this for you, probably because he's too busy planning your death. Asshole.). The effects in the ride are so cool and hold up, especially the Pepper's Ghosts effect. The rooms are distinct and eccentric. The Grim Grinning Ghosts song is absolutely delightful, and it's such a nice touch that you can distinguish the vocals of different ghosts you see in the graveyard. I should also just give a shout-out to the soundtrack for the ride as a whole, which wonderfully warps the Grim Grinning Ghosts theme to match the scene you're in. The ride also does such a good job of plunging you straight into the experience with facade of the mansion (I adore the look of the conservatory) and the queue. The tombstones are so funny and I really appreciate the interactive elements they added in the exterior section. And then you get inside the mansion, hear the Ghost Host's narration, and get into the Stretching Room. How can I describe that room other than frightfully fun? So, why Walt Disney World instead of Disneyland? I prefer experiencing the changing portraits on the ride rather than in the queue. I love the library as the setting for the busts that watch you. The music room with the ghost you can only see in shadow playing a version of Grim Grinning Ghosts is captivating. And, my goodness, the staircase room takes my breath away and I love watching the ghostly footsteps on the stairs. It's even going to have the Hatbox Ghost soon (I am not weighing in on the discourse over the potential location for him).

"I love it. I love ghosties. I love the effects. I love women who murder their husbands. I love the jaunty tunes. I love having to stop for 4 minutes not even partway into the ride and having to watch the same things going on for ages. I love a good ghoul ride, man "

"Epic conveyer belt keeps the line moving (though that won't always stop the line from being long)."

Tower of Terror: WDW Hollywood Studios, Paris Walt Disney Studios Park, California Adventure (2004-2017), Tokyo DisneySea

Propaganda:

"you forget how scary it is until you watch the preshow. and then you forget how fun it is until you ride the ride. 10/10 would recommend went on it with my friends twice last time we went."

"WE LOVE HORROR MEDIA REPRESENTATION!!! ONLY PUSSIES TAKE THE STAIRS"

"This ride made me absolutely terrified of elevators for a bit. xD Anyway, the bellhop cast members are hilarious. The hotel that is covered in cobwebs and was clearly abandoned in a rush after a terrible event is so cool. The Rod Sterling Twilight Zone intro is iconic. The basement is an interesting setting for the final part of the queue. The generators, lights, and floor indicator malfunctioning helps build your anticipation. The friggin elevator moving into the hallway and into a new shaft when the electrical ghosts make their appearance and you enter the Twilight Zone is so impressive. The dropping and rising of the elevator is such fun and I love the randomized events they added. I have to say, though, that ventriloquist dummy in the unloading room still makes me uncomfortable."

"Who doesn't love a creepy dark drop narrated by the man, the myth, the legend Rod Serling himself?"

[solarwynd]

https://www.tumblr.com/solarwynd/765358565733072896/i-feel-a-bit-burnt-out-on-big-pop-songs-nowadays?source=share

Sorry this isn't really Jimin related but I was thinking about this today. Caveat I know there's a lot of great music and talented musicians who are doing cool stuff around but my gripe is that we're getting less and less mainstream exposure to it and all my points are specifically about how exposed the gp is to it, not people who are deep in a particular genre or the indie scene

For one thing the alt pop, rock, edm, britpop and punk genre has totally shrunk in on itself in the mainstream compared to about a decade or two ago. Hip hop and rap have generally expanded to sort of replace that void but this year has been disappointing I think? Is it just me? Apart from the KL - Drake beef in the summer ofc. I'm glad Latin music, afrobeats and kpop is getting bigger but it's also centered on a few big names imo, rather than being full fledged established genres. I'm no expert but that's my layman assessment. Countrys getting bigger but I dislike country so this is bad news for me 😭

But also do you remember when tv series used to try to promote artists? Sure they'd play some current radio hits or oldies and it still happens once in a while like running up that hill with stranger things but we used to get 22 episodes with at least a few indie songs playing in the past. Now that series are getting shorter and shorter, it's had this unexpected side effect of limiting that kind of exposure. Also does anyone feel mainstream movie soundtracks are getting worse too? I think it's cause most of them are marvel Disney movies and they're pretty barren from a soundscape pov. Using Justin Timberlake's bye bye bye during the Deadpool opening scene? Some of the most uninspired shit I've seen in a while.

Even the films that released as musicals this year - all of them are recycling songs from their original theatrical productions like wicked or mean girls or they don't have any new songs at all like joker folie a deux. I don't know if it's because I aged out of watching them, but it also feels like Disney channel used to have more music in general for their teen audience - high school musical movies, camp rock, victorious, Hannah Montana, descendants - need to ask some kids if they still have shows or movies like these still. Again I don't know if I aged out of this either but Disney also used to just release more animated movies with original music right? Not just releasing lion king and Mulan or whatever again with the same songs slightly tweaked with new singers. Also this is apropos of nothing but remember when glee was a thing 😭

But even as TV and movies were getting less musically diverse, I feel like in the late 2010s and around the pandemic, Tiktok, Snapchat, social media in general was taking its place and exposing people to new music. The problem is that music labels quickly caught on and nowadays tiktok is also the same roster of top 40 hits as radio with influencers being paid to dance to a song or tiktok being paid so-called heating deals to promote certain songs. Same thing with Spotify. Spotify has always had paid playlists but the way they push the same songs over and over again now is crazy.

Anyway I sound like old man yells at clouds so I'm going to stop griping and start actively seeking out new music outside what's trending. I was just curious if other people also feel this narrowing or if it's just me

This is such a good assessment and I agree with you.