#pretty girls love @nal

[forcedbreeding]

my lil clitty is so sore from rubbing and humping so much last night 🥺

need someone to come torture it even more and make me cry

[1138bdady]

My balls are full. Is your mouth available?

[an4lkitt3n]

[1138bdady]

Cameltoe pics make me hard

[karaspal]

a super x a journalist ships, you will always be famous!

[moistvonlipwig]

🔥Supergirl. The show or the character within the show, it's up to you

re: the show --

s1 wasn't that good.

yes, there were aspects of s1 that were better than later seasons; i liked that kara had much more complicated feelings about her parents, for instance (and that alex, in turn, had much more complicated feelings about hers), and that james got more focus and things to do. but a lot of the flaws with the later seasons started in s1 -- the transplanting of superman's allies, enemies, personality traits, & storylines onto supergirl; kara being a reporter/reporter-adjacent and her general complete lack of professional direction; the show's refusal to hold kara to account and force her to grow (her non-reaction to the death of poor catco kelly and 30-second remorse over her actions on redk, neither of which were portrayed as the flaws they should've been, were ill omens for her future sun-eating), the show's shallow and incoherent politics especially re: feminism and immigration, etc.

and look, for all that supergirl never got particularly good at its handling of diversity, at least in later seasons some attempts were made. in s1 there is one (1) character of import played by a woman of color and it's lucy lane and we're pretty clearly meant to read her as white. there are no lgbt+ characters, and in fact the pilot episode goes out of its way to stress that don't worry, guys, just because kara is a strong woman doesn't mean she's a lesbian, haha! we have to sit through a million bajillion cringy speeches by the world's worst girlboss about how hard she has it as a rich white straight women with not even a word of lip service paid to the struggles of racialized, queer, or trans women.

it's also terminally, insufferably rom-commy -- which, hey, if you like that stuff, good for you, i shan't tell you not to, but i do not like rom-coms and i have no desire to watch superheroes be stuck in one. (to be fair supergirl is terminally rom-commy for the first several seasons and only really fully loses the rom-com vibes in s4. which also is the first seasons whose vibes i like. so.) cat grant is just miranda priestly if she wasn't cool or funny; kara's otherwise sweet relationship with james is bogged down by the show's insistence on sticking them in the world's most tedious and cliche love triangle ever; winn is the hideous misogynist sidekick we're supposed to feel sad for because kara doesn't like him back :( aww what a little birthday boy, won't someone feel bad for the birthday boy; kara in general is written to be Quirky and Relatable and Awkward and Clumsy in what feels like a blend of every rom-com white girl ever with just a sprinkle of clark kent mixed in. except those traits read as charming in a man with kal's backstory and infantilizing in a woman with kara's.

i didn't watch sg and so wasn't in the fandom in the early years -- largely because s1 was so off-putting to me and then they immediately made things worse with the introduction of mon-el in s2 -- but if i'm permitted to speculate, i imagine that a lot of fondness and nostalgia for s1 is rooted in legitimate frustrations with s2 onwards that make people think the show would've been better off staying on cbs. ignoring for a moment that cbs canceled the show because its ratings sucked so bad only the cw (king of not making money) would take it, i invite you to consider that nia nal's introduction was maybe the most purely good thing the show ever did, and i would bet you hundreds of dollars that would never have happened on cbs. and again, s1, while it lacked mon-el, had plenty of racism, misogyny, and bad politics to go around. i personally see mon-el's storyline as an outgrowth of the worldview the show had established in s1, not a contradiction of it; yes, going from james to mon-el as main love interest was jarring narratively, but was it really so shocking that a Feminist Show™ that portrayed winn's Nice Guy shtick sympathetically and had zero women of color in its main cast would do such a thing?

also, just on a personal taste level, lena luthor is my favorite character on the show for reasons i outlined in my earlier post, and she's not in it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's not the biggest reason i struggle with the season, but it doesn't help that the show lacks a character to really bring the intrigue and subtext like she does. (and when i say subtext i am not even specifically referring to the homoerotic kind, i mean more broadly having layered interactions with other characters.) the character most similar to her in terms of narrative purpose in s1 is, um, maxwell lord? who fucking sucks. so. yeah.

do i think s1 is the show's worst season? no. but overall, while s2 and s5 make me angrier, i find s1 and s6 to have the least rewatch value for me personally. and i think people's frustrations with the later seasons have fogged up their glasses with rose-colored nostalgia for the first season that it frankly, imo, doesn't deserve.

[gingerale-enjoyer]

Never done OC’s before but here there are!

I want Bad Batch in Book of Boba Fett/The Mandalorian so here’s the new batch in 9 ABY.

“Nal” (he/him, 26 years old)

-child of Phee and Tech

-named after Skara Nal, the planet his parents went on their first mission together

-Tech and Phee managed to conceive him in the weeks/months on Pabu where they were rebuilding after the tsunami

-unfortunately Tech did not know about Nal at the time of his death

-Phee is still around but was not super involved in his upbringing (she has always had trouble forming deep personal bonds and Tech immediately falling off a mountain and dying right after she fell for him didn’t really help) she is typically out doing treasure hunting on her own

-he’s basically just Tech but if Tech had better fashion sense and more support/acceptance growing up (Tech but with higher EQ and more swag)

“Omega” (she/her, 41 years old)

-it’s her turn to parent lol

-a single mom who works two jobs who loves her kids and never stops 🎶

-Hunter gave her his crusty bandana when he retired and she became the new squad leader

-Technically Nal and Lula’s aunt but basically functions as their mother at this point

“Lula” (she/they, 19 years old)

-named after her father’s one true love (aside from explosives) 🥲

-basically just got dumped on Pabu by their mom, DNA test confirmed they were wreckers

-their dad passed away when they were pretty young due to the strain of his rapid aging/enhanced metabolism on his heart

-but in the time he was alive he was super involved he absolutely loved his little girl

Hunter is still alive btw he’s just super old. He is retired on Pabu (spends all day fishing and taking naps) but Omega still coms him when she has no idea what to do with her squad (Lula bit Nal).

(It is taking 110% of his willpower rn to hold back his laughter because having to babysit feral kids is Omegas problem now instead of his)

I will maybe add more to this later on :)

[zahri-melitor]

DC Pride #1 (2021)

Right, I'm reviewing this, largely because 'how many decent stories are in this' is always a consideration for the various themed anthologies.

The ratio of interesting stories to formulaic 'did you notice we are queer?' stories is about right in this. It's one of the hazards of these type of titles: I want queer stories, and stories about queer people, but personally think DC should start keeping house a bit more strongly about how tokenistic some of the stories end up feeling. But this was the first up, and I wanted to see how it started before it evolved.

The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass is a Kate Kane piece that is as much about her identity as a twin as her identity as a lesbian, and how one affected the other. Enjoyable! Gorgeous art! It got a little bit 'there are so many of us who are queer' at the end but I could overlook that in favour of the extremely solid themes.

To the Victors is Midnighter and Extraño fighting a neo-Nazi vampire, and then Constantine picking up Extraño. It's very much a Midnighter story but the violence level could have been higher.

Try the Girl is Renee Montoya as the Question (so not set in exact 2021 canon then hey) where Renee has the hots for a Defence Attorney who's now running for Gotham City Council. Renee thinks she's been kidnapped, Valeria gets herself out of trouble, and Renee gets kissed on the mask (the lipstick stain is pretty funny tbh).

Another Word For a Truck To Move Your Furniture it's the annual unnecessary Harley/Ivy story. Was admittedly probably necessary for the first ever DC Pride to help sell it, but even the team of Mariko Tamaki and Amy Reeder doesn't get it past an 'eh' for me. (DC I am begging you give me some creativity in these stories; we don't need a ship that literally appears regularly in ongoings)

He's The Light Of My Life! is a very necessary attempt to try and fix how glurgy and formulaic Alan Scott's coming out story was in Infinite Frontier #0. This time we actually get Alan and Todd having more of a conversation about things and things being somewhat awkward with the friction between Alan and the way he'd navigated hidden years compared to Todd's far more Millennial attitude to being out, framed around the history of the bar/restaurant they were meeting at. A major improvement.

Clothes Makeup Gift I knew literally nothing about Jess Chambers before reading this, but what I will say is the story's got the same cute incidental feel to it that I've seen in several Wally/Linda short stories in various anthologies, which is a very good association to have when you're also a Flash character. It was lightweight filler but it was charming lightweight filler.

Be Gay, Do Crime honestly if the Kate Kane story hadn't been so great this story would have won best of for me entirely off the back of Hartley's very tired sounding moment when he says "It's...not as simple as that. When you get older, the necessity for systems becomes a bit clearer. Mind-controlling people for quick fixes is not the solution--" because oh wow do I want to say things just like that to a whole lot of people who sound and have attitudes very much like Drummer Boy in this. Amazing characterisation beat, I loved it.

Date Night it's fine, of all the Nia Nal stories I've read in various Pride anthologies so far this was one of the most slight, but I guess it was the very first go around and so that's why it's just another 'running late for a date' story.

Love Life this could have been an email. I am shocked not shocked to discover my least favourite aspect of Pride anthologies, the Justice League Queer, first appeared in my least favourite type of story in that anthology, 'look we're at a Pride Parade!'. It's like a collision of the worst aspects of dull 'hey we exist!' representation without actually bothering to provide a compelling story. It's just so tokenistic and boring.

[eriexplosion]

Entombed, PHEE MY BELOVED.

Omega is having so much fun in the junkyard she finds extreme enrichment in being able to Steal and Scavenge. I love that Omega craves Treasure this season, it's for a sad reason (SHE HAS TO EARN HER RIGHT TO EXIST WITH HER FAMILY RIGHT?) but it's also delightful to watch. LET SMALL GIRLS STEAL ALL THEY WANT, IT'S IMPORTANT TO THEIR PSYCHE.

Bolo and Ketch at Phee's storytime is so cute

Tech you would only know the story changes every time if you were listening every time she told it (and remembering the details) you know you like storytime.

God Hunter has reached maximum tired dad in this episode like legitimately the most exhausted I have ever seen him. His completely tired voice on 'Those two will believe anything.' Tired glances exchanged with Echo. This face.

We have a bit to go before he gets to that face but I am fucking entranced by it. Haunted by it. God give him a nap.

Tech and Phee sorting through the garbage haul together. Date Night Ideas for nerds.

MEL-221 is SO cute I love the paint job

Tech absolutely wants to pick Phee's brain for more unknown systems he wants to put them on his map, he MUST put more systems on his map.

Hunter turning around while they're talking though like he senses a disturbance in the force and it's going to make his life more difficult isn't it?

God him doing grouchy knife tricks in the background watching Omega copy Phee like she used to do with him, Hunter is so mad that is HIS little sister and Phee is STEALING HER.

"Who'd wanna hide treasure here?" Echo let's be real, the best place to hide treasure is where no one in their right mind would ever want to go. It just makes sense. Their distaste for how much this place sucks is great though, Echo has two sides: One wants to be doing more to fight the Empire, the other wants to find a nice sunny spot and drink a margarita already. Notably NEITHER of those sides wants to be on Suck Planet looking for Supposed Treasure.

CUTLASS CUTLASS CUTLASS

"If I'm right, which is always~" I love her so much.

Also her dramatically like THIS IS THE ENTRANCE TO SKARA NAL! And Echo is just. The WHAT? Genuinely one of my favorite things is when someone says something and Echo's entire reaction is "What the FUCK are you TALKING ABOUT?"

Phee you need to be aware when discussing 'the ancients' that everyone besides you in this room is less than 12 years old and their entire culture began that long ago too, they have very little reference for ancient anything.

Omega <3 BABY GIRL IS SO SMART also I love laying the compass on Phee's lantern to make it a projector that is so good

Hunter sensing the creature coming before it growls, I always love to see some of his enhanced senses at play. AND WHY IS IT ALWAYS WRECKER ABOUT TO GET EATEN, WHAT ABOUT HIM IS SO IMMENSELY SNACKABLE?

"You're just making this up as you go" hush Hunter that is your entire MO and you know it.

"So we have to navigate this death trap without it?" "Good thing you have me :D" *HUNTER GIVES THE LONGEST SIGH AND DRAWS HIS GUN FOR NO REASON JUST TO EMPHASIZE HOW UNCOMFORTABLE HE IS*

I love the door opening with the SPINNING as it slides

Heart of the Mountain is so pretty I want it as a rock candy

I've noticed when they need someone to fall while they're dangling precariously it's always Echo that goes first, life is hard when you have one hand capable of gripping.

The interior when the... it looks like a tomb guardian from Jedi Fallen Order iirc... activates looks so good.

Phee protectively clinging to the Heart of the Mountain, she doesn't WANNA give it up! Fair, Phee.

Hunter saving her last minute is such a good moment too, honestly this is a fun episode and yet another one I can't understand why people hated it sooooo much. This fandom lacks joy sometimes.

Let me tell you this thing approaching the Marauder is still stressful despite knowing nothing happens to it because of my intense belief that the marauder is NOT making it out of this show in one piece.

Them all being in this thing as it randomly self destructs is a lot, WHY DOES IT DO THAT WHEN YOU PUT THE THING BACK IN

"This puts as at 0 for 2 in treasure hunting"

MEL being blown up so much that Phee keeps a backup of her on the ship is a great detail.

[spocks-kaathyra]

Cardassian hairstyles, Nal and Eyal's mommy issues, and Pythas is here too

In my mind, Cardassians don't have the same "long hair = feminine, short hair = masculine" convention as we do. Because that would be lame. I think the distinction for them is that women wear their hair up, and men wear their hair down. Of course, this means that women have to have hair long enough to put up, but I think in general it's unusual for any Cardassian to have hair shorter than, like, chin-length. It's considered improper for a woman to be seen in public with loose hair, as if it's a state of undress. This, of course, also leads to a woman's loose hair being seen as sensual, since it's only seen in intimate settings. With the popularity of the gelled-back military hairstyle, it's somewhat uncommon to see men with loose, unstyled hair either. Anyway, with this established, the fun part is the Implications for my characters.

Nal never got to be a little girl. She'd watch from the doorway as her mother carefully braided her baby sister Eyal's hair, wishing it were her instead. In a way, the desire to be loved and the desire to be feminine are inextricably linked for Nal. The love that their mother gives to Eyal is something Nal will never get to experience, precisely because Eyal is a daughter and Nal is a son.

Decades later, her husband Pythas gets into the habit of doing her hair for her, initially with the excuse of using it as practice to regain dexterity and sensation in his hands after his burn injury. But it becomes a routine for them, a quiet ritual that makes Nal feel so, so loved. His first attempts are clumsy, but Nal wears them with pride anyway. He gets good at it eventually, braiding her hair into elaborate styles every morning and gently brushing it out every night before putting it in a simple braid so it won't tangle while she sleeps.

Meanwhile, Eyal, lightyears away, has long since buzzed her hair short. What Nal saw as love and care felt like suffocation to little Eyal. She'd squirm in her seat as her mother tugged her hair into styles she had no choice in, waiting for it to be over. Her mother had had 20 years to hope for a daughter, 20 years to form a fantasy of who her perfect little girl would be. And Eyal was broken and bent into the shape of that fantasy, with no regard for who she was. An adult now, on a different planet orbiting a different sun, she chooses to shear off her hair, destroying the means of her mother's control.

Pythas grew up a little girl, but his mother never braided his hair for him. In this, as in so many other things, he was on his own. The summer before he's sent to Bamarren, he hacks at his hair with a pair of dull scissors until it resembles the typical military hairstyle. He wants to blend in as much as possible. When he becomes an agent of the Order, though, he's given a specific role to play---he's always been a particularly pretty young man, and a good spy will use that to his advantage. He grows out his hair to look the part, lets it flow loose past his shoulders, looking youthful and charming and irresistible. When he becomes head of the Order, he chops it off again. Now that he has the power to say no, he won't let anyone jerk him around by his hair anymore. Over the years, he gets into the habit of gelling it back like a good Cardassian soldier, paralleling how he becomes deeper and deeper entrenched in the ideology of the Order. He loses most of his hair in the Fire, and half of it won't grow back. As he heals, he chooses to keep it in a buzz cut. He's not a soldier dutifully playing his part in the machine, he's not a pretty boy obeying orders to let himself be used, he's a person with autonomy.

[forcedbreeding]

i say i have a birth kink but really i have a “let’s make this as long as possible and as painful as possible without you being able to finally birth” kink

[spocks-kaathyra]

45. Which alien culture would you most want to live in/would feel most comfortable?

48. Name a song or music genre you think _____ would like.

(for this ask game)

45. mmm well. for all I love Cardassians I don't think I would make a very good one. same for Vulcans, I'm far too undisciplined. maybe Betazoids? I think I'd do pretty well in a telepathic/empathic society. I have the kind of autism that not only makes me brutally honest but also makes me wish everyone else was that honest too

48. oh that's a hard one. I could see Nal listening to whatever the Cardassian equivalent of like Appalachian folk music is. she's sooo country girl I love her. and Pythas could be the kind of loser (affectionate) who listens to classical music. jammin to Four Seasons or smth. I don't think Garak is self aware enough to like any of the songs I associate him with but I want to share Garak songs anyway so have u considered Neptune by Sleeping At Last

[1138bdady]

You are just holes for my pleasure.

[stillness-in-green]

Songs I'm Vibing To Right Now

Got tagged by both @codenamesazanka and @robotlesbianjavert for "ten songs you're vibing to right now," so there're ten vocal songs and a bonus three instrumental pieces. I tried to use things that are fairly current to my playlists, or at least recently back in circulation there, so they're not all-time favorites, but they are songs for my "right now." They're in no particular order beyond trying not to have too many of the same tempo and/or language in a row. Find Youtube links, write-ups of varying lengths, and small lyrics excerpts (translations in italics for Japanese) under the cut, because, what, I was expected to be concise about this? Please.

(Sparing anybody who doesn't want to have to scroll all the way through this to find out why they're tagged at the bottom, I think Nal and Kota have mostly tagged most of the people in my immediate chat circle, so let's round it out with, oh, @leftofrevolution, @scumtrout, @evilasiangenius, @megkips, @shockersalvage, and @wheredidmydadgo. Share some song recs if you like! With, my verbose ass's example notwithstanding, as much or as little detail as you feel like providing re: Why Vibing. Pardon any double-notifications; drafts and I don't always get along.)

1: Rome, by Dessa: I discovered Dessa via The Hamilton Mixtape and have been following her ever since.  This isn’t my absolute favorite of hers (that’d be the haunting urban fantasy Mineshaft 2), but it’s the one of her recent ones that I’ve had most constantly on playlists.  A brilliant, blistering tirade on wealth disparity, beauty standards, police brutality, and more.

Chekhov says, you got a gun, you gotta use it Guess they’re reading Chekhov downtown in their cruisers Bang, catch the case, we all lose Make Dixie look like Khartoum That Lady Justice ain’t blind yet Lens cap on the body cam, missed again, damn

2: Deep Down, from Chainsaw Man: The closers for this series were, of course, an embarrassment of riches, but while I loved the final lines of this one, I didn’t immediately fall for the main body of the song.  After about the fifth time I’d been so haunted by it I needed to purge by pulling it up on Youtube, though, I finally gave into the inevitable.  I think of this as the, “What comes of tangling with Makima,” song: poisoned, yearning, and drowning.

Negatta mono wo te ni shita kanbi to soushitsu ni nomare (I got what I wanted, but in return I was consumed by sweetness and loss) Dore hodo nagai toki wo tadotteta (I wonder how long it took me?) I call you deep, deep, deep, deep Deep, deep, deep, deep down

3: Butterfly Wing, from Love Live: Almost exactly halfway through the newest show in the franchise—which, I should stress, I do not watch, so take my summary here with a grain of salt—Wien Margarete disrupted Love Live's safe, sheltered, inoffensive status quo like a boulder crashing through the ceiling of a greenhouse.  A solo artist dressing for the role of Swan Lake’s Odile and singing prideful, imperious songs evoking barren landscapes and metaphors for death and transcendence, her debut functioned as an overt declaration of war against groups of girls in rainbow costume dresses singing generically peppy, shallow songs about love and encouragement and sparkling.

While the show wasn’t courageous enough to do anything truly transgressive with her in the end—her second song in this mode (Edelstein, also great) ultimately lost to a song that even fans of the show think is pretty darn generic; from what I’ve read, Wien is one of those characters who exist to be proven wrong and who can only hope to not come off as too much of a strawman in the process—her introduction made a big enough impression to be noticeable well outside the show’s normal circles, with comparisons being made to Macross, Princess Tutu, and Disney villain songs.  All three things I’m very fond of, so, you know, definitely enough to make me take notice!

I gave a link up top to the full version, but here’s a link to the episode clip. Please watch, reflect on the miracle solution to not being able to write vocal harmonies for your massive idol groups being to introduce a middle school edgelord whose whole shtick is that she’s a soloist, and enjoy the hysterically funny expressions of terrified dismay on the faces of the main characters at the fifty second mark.

Tsubasa nado nakutemo toberu no (Even without wings, I can fly) Tamashii ni chou wo yadoshi (I will summon a butterfly into my soul) Sora wo kakeru ano tori yori mo (And even higher than the bird far above) Mabushii iro wo hakidashi nagara Fly, Sky (I will cast blinding colors as I take to the sky.) Erabareru no wa tsuyoku negau mono dake (Only those with strong wishes will be the chosen.)

4: Misty Mountains, by The Wellermen: An incredible cover of the Jackson Hobbit trilogy version of the song by a “bass supergroup” that got their start during the sea shanty craze that Covid brought us.  It’s three verses longer than the Jackson version, plus a bridge of sorts, with each immaculately layered passage developing new variations and body across the full length.  There’s truly nothing like a rich choral performance, and I’m maybe a bit smitten with the contrabasses in this one.

The wind was on the withered heath But in the forest stirred no leaf There shadows lay be night or day And dark things silent crept beneath

5: The Over, for Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans ~ Urdr Hunt: I always admire when there’s a sense of continuity with songs for a series, be it a shared composer or just having new ones who can emulate the original’s sensibility, and I knew the instant I listened to it that The Over was an Iron-Blooded Orphans song, but tweaked just enough to reflect Urdr Hunt’s lighter story hook and its younger, more idealistic (and, it must be said, at least slightly more privileged) protagonist.

It’s got plenty in common, lyrically, with IBO TV’s opening songs, which all talk about the world as being impersonal and grinding and cruel, but those songs take a defiant stance, calling to reach for everything no one will ever give you, to go down fighting rather than roll over and be collared.  The Over lacks that righteous underclass fury—its singer has been hurt by the world, but not hardened by it, and still wants to pursue something that inspired him.  Accordingly, it soars in the chorus in ways none of IBO TV’s songs do.

Dakara doko made mo (That’s why, no matter where) Motto tooku e (Keep going) Tatoe kore ga akeru koto no nai yoru datta to shitemo (Even if this is a night that never ends) Ano ni negatta mono ga fusouou demo (Even if what I wished for that day is unsuited to me) Dou shiyou mo nai hodo boku wo ugokashite (It still desperately moves me)

6: Never Say Goodbye, from Golden Kamuy: GOD THIS SONG IS JUST A BANGER, OKAY.  The English portion of the lyrics is a bit stilted (“This is my doorway to kiss the end”?), but as far as I’m concerned, four seasons in, they’ve finally found a perfect aural match for Golden Kamuy’s revisionist-Western-by-way-of-Hokkaido vibe.  The yowling rap trading off with the earnest sweetness, the rotations between pounding, throaty, brass-heavy urgency and soaring, string-carried wistfulness—it’s a perfect pastiche of a song for a perfect pastiche of a show.

Taiko kara tsunagaru kono taiko ga towa wo shinjiru kimi e no kaitou sa (This drum, connected from ancient times is the answer to you who believe in eternity) Mada da ze, madamada da ze tabi wa tsuzuku haruka kanata made (Not yet, it’s not over yet, the journey continues far away) Ima wa ‘Never say goodbye’ de mata aimashou (Let’s meet again at ‘Never say goodbye’) So, hasta la vista, baby!

7: Toki no Meikyuu, from Macross Frontier Short Animation ~ Labyrinth of Time: Hi, yes, would you like to hear about the strings of alphanumeric that bring me to tears every damn time I hear them?  That are making me tear up just in the process of writing about them?  They’re in this song from the Macross Frontier animation short attached to the Delta movie, and they make me So Emotional.

So like, the whole thing with the Frontier movies is that they ended in a decidedly downbeat fashion, with the male lead Alto lost in space, the older and more established idol Sheryl in a coma, and the younger newbie idol Ranka telling herself she’ll get them back—eventually.  Labyrinth of Time is where that starts to happen.

Outside of categorical exceptions like musical theatre and story songs, most songs don’t tend to be very specific in terms of who they’re directed to. That’s certainly true of the songs in Macross as well, especially from the singers consciously modeled off of idols. They’re songs aimed at “You”—an imagined listener, who at best might fit a few broad traits: the You the singer has a crush on, the You the singer looks up to, the You the singer wants to comfort.  Those songs will get plugged into dramatically appropriate moments, scenes that make it obvious who the You in a given song is aimed at, but they still don’t name names, because the songs are still notionally something that could be found on the singer’s album, now on sale at whatever music sales-front is available in-universe.

Toki no Meikyuu is about Ranka calling for Alto and Sheryl—not You, not the general listener, but specifically Alto and Sheryl.  And you can tell that not only because of the personalized nature of the lyrics in the verses, but also because, in the choruses, she identifies her Yous by callsign: 0258-S04 and 0215-F09.  During the songwriting process, legendary composer Yoko Kanno asked the producer for a list of numbers and letters that would be relevant/meaningful for the characters, selections from which she mixed around and set to the song’s meter.  The resulting callsigns reference aspects of the characters’ history, both in-universe and in the broader franchise, so there is no one else in the universe Ranka could possibly mean when she sings out those callsigns in desperation to be reunited with her dearest ones.

And then Sheryl comes in after the bridge with a distant, faint version of one of her own iconic numbers, and gathers strength, and then they both start calling Alto’s callsign????????  JUST DROWN ME IN MY OWN WEEPING, WHY DON’T YOU.

(I’m physically incapable of picking any one stretch of lyrics for this one, sorry.  It’s sung to two people—how could I pick a portion aimed only at one? I wish I could provide you all with a really good lyric video, or even a good color-coded text rendering, but I'm afraid the best I've got is this one, which at least puts Sheryl's parts in parentheses.)

8: The Turn of a Friendly Card, Pts. 1 and 2, by The Alan Parsons Project: The Alan Parsons Project, a long-since disbanded British art rock/project album band, is really more my BF’s lane than mine, but I’m a sucker for this kind of late 70s-style synth, especially combined with gorgeous beds of strings and anguished lyrics.  This song in full is a sixteen-minute suite in five parts about gambling addiction; the title parts bookend the rest, with the opening being very delicate and meticulous, and the closing resuming in that mode but winding itself up into tightly controlled keening and orchestration that just keeps going harder through the outro.  Great stuff, and it has one of those melodic lines that lingers in my mind for days after every listen.

There’s a sign in the desert that lies to the west Where you can’t tell the night from the sunrise And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men Have prevented the fall of the unwise

9: Do You Hate Windy Days? (White Ryu version), from Zombieland Saga: One of the joys of Zombieland Saga is the stylistic diversity of its music.  The conceit of the show—girls from different decades reanimated as zombie idols—means that, while the bulk of the girls’ default songs are pop rock idol numbers, the “character” songs and more oddball moments have the benefit of being able to lean on styles from different eras of music. In the case of this song, it’s more direct than usual: Do You Hate Windy Days? is not, itself, even an idol song, but rather the “original” song, of which Franchouchou’s version (centered by motorcycle punk Saki, because ZLS is outstanding) is merely a “cover.”

While their version is a lot of fun, sped up and joyous, I have to give the edge to the White Ryu "original."  It was written to be the kind of one hit wonder that would be all over the Japanese radio in the 90s, a soulful, synth-heavy ballad about drive-in theaters (a fad in Japan at the time) and adolescent disillusionment and growing up.  Performed by a local celebrity in irl Saga named Hakuryu, it’s an unironic throwback of a song, earnest, wistful and nostalgic, and chock-full of encouraging vibes.

Ore to nita omae to tsurun deta doraibuin (Us two alike hanging out at the drive-in) Akete iku sora no hikari ni sae mo iradatte niramitsuketa (Even glaring at that irritating morning light) Ahh, dakedo itsuka wa kitto wakaru-sa (Oh, but someday you'll definitely get it) Ahh, sou sa, omae wa kitto kawaru sa (Oh, for sure, you're gonna change) Ano hi no jibun o dakishimete yareru sonna jibun ni nareru sa (You'll be a you who can embrace the you that you were)

10: Binary Star, from Legends of the Galactic Heroes ~ Die Neue These: The central metaphor of the two sides of an unending conflict being as a binary star system hit like a train the first time I heard this song and I'm still not over it.  Good god, what a great conceit.  Musically speaking, it’s very Sawano Hiroyuki doing what Sawano Hiroyuki always does, which can get a bit samey, but if the groove he’s in is yours, it’s great stuff—incredibly dramatic, rich, electric and layered.  But mainly I’m here for that metaphor.  Locked together but irreconcilably torn.  Binary heart.  My god. Wow.

Binary A centrifugal force pushing us far away That’s our eternity Binary We can’t escape the force crushing us, gravity Is our eternity

BONUS INSTRUMENTAL PIECES: Since I got tagged twice, here’re some instrumental pieces that can’t properly be called “songs” but that I’m vibing to right now all the same.

1: Tenkyuu, from Kono Oto Tomare!: With a title that translates to Rain From a Cloudless Sky, this is an eight-minute koto chamber piece for seven players, but don’t let yourself be put off by it if you think it sounds a little too classical and stodgy.  The changes in tempo and volume, the incredible beauty and intensity, the breathtaking precision and control with which it takes you through its different movements, up that final mounting climb, and to the perfect catharsis of its final plucked note—this piece is, as is even commented on within the series, the kind of performance that could win over even people from outside the hobby.  Kono Oto's anime is not exactly a marvel of adaptation, but it did see the CD containing this and several other tracks played by various different clubs in the series becoming more widely available, and I’m incredibly thankful for that.

2: Otome no Policy, from the Sailor Moon Classic Concert 2018 Album: The concert albums Sailor Moon gets for its anniversaries or possibly just because some conductor at the Tokyo Philharmonic is a huge fan make me sad for other fandoms that don't get spoiled that this. (Which is to say, almost every other Japanese fandom that isn't a long-running video game franchise with a massively famous composer).  As to why, look no further than this comprehensive overhaul of Otome no Policy.

The original version, for comparison, is a cute and deeply "90s girls' anime" piece of bubblegum pop fluff about doing your best and being determined and energetic even in the face of periodic fleeting sorrows.  This arrangement starts with slow, sweet-tempered strings and woodwinds, but it swells with drums and brass as it goes along, modulating the tempo quicker and slower and quicker again, going through passages that could easily be from some film’s transcendent, triumphal march or a rousing theme from some lightly comic opera.It’s certainly the melody of Otome no Policy, but the overall impression is something much closer to “climactic segment from a version of Fantasia we never got.”

3: Reminiscence ~ Salamander and Loup-Garou and Father and Son, from the Heartcatch Precure movie: The latter of this pair is the one that really gets me, but it's a reprise of the former, and reprises always work best if you have the context of the first one, so have a listen to them both. (Also, I'm going to make some guesses about instruments in the descriptions below. Sorry if I get any wrong; I was in choir in school, not band.)

So, Reminiscence ~ Salamander and Loup-Garou plays over a flashback of the history of those two characters—the convivial but spite-filled Baron Salamander and his very young adoptive son/ward Loup-Garou (or Olivier, as the Cures will call him).  It uses a creepy harpsichord and vocal part for the darker scenes at the beginning, then transitions to a melancholy recorder as the flashback moves to more ambiguous scenes.

While I don't know if it was the composer's intention, the order of the title and the way the song has two distinct melodies makes me think of the harpsichord bit as "Salamander's part" and the recorder bit as "Olivier's part." That clear transition between the two melodies/moods echoes Salamander and Olivier's relationship problems—they're linked together, but on different pages, one following the other, out of sync with each others' wishes.

Father and Son, then, plays just as the climax is about to ramp up, as the two come to blows.  Olivier is desperate to stop the man he sees as his father from pursuing his world-ending goals; he loves the days they spent journeying together and doesn’t understand why they can’t just keep living that way.  Salamander, however, refuses to cede the vengeful bitterness he’s been nursing for centuries against the worlds and peoples who cast him out.

Accordingly, then, the piece reprises both halves of the Reminiscence theme, but this time, they're not played sequentially; instead, after a brief lead-in of the recorder part's melody (now on piano), the two melodies play together, both souped way, way up in orchestration and intensity for maximum heartbreak.  This is, after all, a scene that can’t possibly be resolved happily—if Salamander and Olivier could work things through on their own, there'd be no need for the Pretty Cure!—and the mournful brass and merciless march of the drumbeat emphasize that.

Do I feel a little awkward about having a piece of music used solely for a pair of male character movie OCs as my favorite piece of music in the entirety of the longest running magical girl franchise in history? Well, I, erm, um—look, how about you go listen to the immaculate thirteen-team theme music medley from the Hugtto All Stars movie and leave me here with my feels about this space dragon and his preteen artificial werewolf son. Thanks.

[oetravia]

Every Brainia Scene Ever: 4x21 [3/8]

[theparanormalperiodical]

The Wicker Man (2006): Why It Should’ve Been A Video Game // Detailed Plot Recap, In-depth Review And Film Facts You Didn’t Know

This week, I wanted to try something *new*. Inspired by Jaime French who does these hilarious recap/bitch-fest videos ‘bout classic 90s ‘n’ 00s films, I thought I could do my own hilarious reviews of films. You know how hilarious I am.

But, I don’t know, I kinda felt like I was nicking her idea and not being ori-gi-nal. Then I remembered that a blog like this could solve a problem I face a lot with the horror genre: I don’t always like to watch horror films.

They’re a commitment. They scawy. 

I don’t always want to force myself to watch a movie full of jump-scares and freak myself out, and other days I’m just not in the headspace to be immersed in some of the gory issues they cover. As you can imagine that makes being a horror blogger, uhhhh, well, impossible.

So here’s the plan, Stan - I’m gonna take one for the team. I’m going to write a fully-fledged recap, review and analysis of classic horror films so you don’t have to sit through the crap ones or hide behind the sofa for the traumatising ones, and we can just soak in our favourite genre together.

Now, when I first considered doing this blog series, I thought I’d review the last horror film I saw: The Wicker Man (1973). But I quickly realised it’s hard to really review something you last saw months ago - you need to connect with the vibe, pick up on mistakes and give a detailed view of it backed up by facts. So, obviously, I thought I’d catch it on Prime, right? While the ‘73 flick wasn’t available for free, the ‘06 one was.

Yes, one of the most infamous horror films ever produced featuring Nicolas Cage and a whole lotta bees, the poster child of so-bad-it’s-good movies.

In today’s review, I’m going to recap the plot, deep-dive the good and the bad of The Wicker Man (2006), and finish up with whether it’s worth a watch.

But first, let’s start with a spoiler-free review, so you can consider whether you want to watch it and then come back to this post.

While I don’t hate this film and think it had buckets of potential, I’m not sure it’s worth a film night with dimmed lights, surround sound and microwave popcorn. It’s a pretty un-engaging, gentle watch, even if you love Nicolas Cage and memes.

1.8/5 stars

Let’s start with a recap of the plot

Policeman Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) is taking time off duty after he witnesses a mother and her daughter die in a traumatic car accident. He receives a letter from his ex-fiancée which says her daughter has gone missing where they live, on the remote island of Summersisle. He goes to investigate and has to hitch a ride for the final leg of the journey with a bloke that pilots a seaplane and delivers goods to the island. 

Immediately Malus discovers this is a rural, Amish-like community full of locals not willing to help him find Rowan. No matter how much he flashes his badge or raises his voice to tell everyone he’s a police officer, they just tell him they’ve never-ever seen her before. Even the students at the school claim to not recognise her, but Malus finds her name crossed out on the school register. The teacher eventually lets slip that Rowan died and is buried in a churchyard. Or is she? She says “she’ll burn to death” before correcting the tense she used (“she burned to death”).

Malus stumbles across other clues outlining the causes and circumstances of Rowan’s disappearance, from a missing picture on the pub wall which shows a different local girl standing in front of the yearly harvest to a freshly dug grave. Convinced she’s been killed, he goes to the seaplane to radio the mainland for extra police support, but someone has murdered the pilot and sunk the plane. 

He then asks the local doctor/photographer about the missing photo. He finds it, and there’s Rowan standing in front of a failed harvest. But he also stumbles across a book titled “Rituals for the Ancients�� which suggests they’re about to sacrifice Rowan to the Mother Goddess for the promise of a better harvest (they produce honey) next year. 

After accidentally getting stung by a shit-tonne of bees by the beehives which prompts an allergic reaction, he is saved by the local doctor and finally meets Sister Summersisle - the Earthly representative for the Mother Goddess. She denies him permission to exhume Rowan’s body and explains more about their beliefs and matriarchal society. 

Frustrated by the lack of answers, Malus digs up the grave to find a burnt doll and finds her jumper in the flooded crypt. He then conducts a house-to-house search of the entire island as it’s the day of the festival and, therefore, the sacrifice. 

After not finding Rowan, Malus sneaks into the festival disguised in the innkeeper’s bear costume where he rescues Rowan who is tied to a tree, ready to be burnt alive. Their attempt to escape to safety is cut short, however, when Rowan leads them back to the locals, revealing that all along this was a trap. 

His ex-fiancée sought him out to impregnate her so they’d have a sacrifice, a stranger connected to them by blood. After some torture, including lots of bees, Malus is carted off to the huge Wicker Man where he will be burnt alive inside. Rowan sets the Wicker Man alight. 

Six months later we see a new trap being set: in a bar in some US city, Malus’ ex-fiancee and another local start flirting with random men…

Some fun facts about the film

It’s a remake of the 1973 British film and was directly inspired by the 1967 novel Ritual (see gif below)

It just lost out on breaking even - it grossed $39m on a $40m budget

The original director of the 1973 film, Robin Hardy, made Warner Bros remove his name from all promotional material for the remake

It has just a 15% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Universal had been trying to remake The Wicker Man since the 90s, but it was finally announced in 2002

Now, let’s get to talkin’ bout it

Of course, I have to start with Nicolas Cage’s acting. Speaking honestly, I don’t want to sit here and criticise his craft - I’d be shite at acting, and it’s not like he’s an unsuccessful bloke. But the problem isn’t the over-acting. It’s the plain weird acting.

Throughout the film, Malus witnesses a seriously traumatic event - a car accident where the two passengers are burnt alive - and suffers from PTSD-symptoms as a result. Like in one dream he sees Rowan drowned just by the dock and then he’s holding the bloated corpse of a young girl. Waking with a start, he doesn’t, ya know, have a panic attack, or exhibit a normal amount of terror of anxiety.

He yells “God dammit!” like he just missed a bus.

And then, throughout he film, the way he speaks to people is plain odd. The rest of the cast are fine actors, and speak with those nuances and the tone of a cinematic film. He acts like a normal person would where everyone else is poetic and dramatic. It’s like me wandering into a Shakespeare play and asking Macbeth where the local pub is in modern British-English.

A great example of this is when he meets with Sister Summersisle for the first time after getting stung by the local bees. She speaks in that cinematic way, saying “you nearly got killed by the bees, what a pity”. There’s the suggestion that it’s either a pity the bees died or he nearly did. And then Cage straight up retorts with “what do you mean by that?” with no dramatic furrow of the brow or threatening tone in his voice. He might as well be asking her what the word “pity” means.

Cage is a sore thumb in the film, sticking out against the picture-perfect aesthetic, his complex ex-fiancee and powerful Sister Summersisle.

This is made worse by the fact that the beginning of the film feels cheap. Of course, with Summersisle being full of lush greenery, cute houses and fantastic costuming, it’s likely they just splurged on the majority of the film. But the opening, where we meet Malus, relies on that ASOS leather jacket, a does-this-look-like-Mexico orange filter you can get with iMovie and a flimsy set. When Malus shuts his front door behind his concerned colleague, for example, he has to like shut it again, probably because it’s made out of paper-mache.

It unfortunately sets the tone for the rest of the film, confirming it’s crappily written, crappily produced and crappily executed. Problem is, it’s not. This film is chockful of great stuff.

Take the ending:

Watching Malus be lead back to the locals by Rowan. Hearing Sister Summersisle reveal the extent of the trap. His ex telling him he’s “done so well” to fall into it. Him realising has no ammo in his gun and nowhere left to run (hey, that rhymes!). It’s so frustrating, and really conveys exactly what Malus must’ve been feeling the entire film and as he realises he is doomed to die - it’s perfect!

And when I saw the policewoman remove her mask and reveal she was a local all along I died. This fresh take of the original plot had so much potential.

Potential that was let down also by some very obvious plot lines. It’s revealed halfway through the film that Rowan is Malus’ daughter, but as this is what everyone assumes when he reads the letter it’s not exactly a shock. I know the entire plot is obvious considering the twist is so well known, so perhaps I should give them the benefit of the doubt. But then there’s the plot holes.

Remember the car accident that opens the film? Where he sees a girl and her mother die? On reflection, it’s probably just supposed to be some foreshadowing to get us thinking about him trying to save a mother and daughter from danger. But when the police recover the bodies, it’s revealed there’s no trace of them in the system, which suggests they’re somehow linked to the rest of the film, like they’re residents of Summersisle or something? I don’t know, it just opens up an area of interest you expect to be resolved in the film. I’d have preferred it there was no uncertainty, and they were just an average suburban family off on vacay to really show the distinction between the mainland US and Summersisle.

It becomes clear the locals of Summersisle are dangerous and are misandrists (hate men) when the seaplane pilot that delivers good to the island is killed. Supposedly the locals do this because they’re angry he brought Malus to the island to investigate Rowan’s disappearance. But wasn’t that the plan all along? Wasn’t the pilot integral to the trap? And then later, when it’s revealed the locals routinely seek out men to as future potential sacrifices if harvests go tits up (I assume that’s how it works), wouldn’t they need him to bring ‘em to the island?

There’s also the issue of the quality gap between the opening and close of the film. Okay, fine, most films have different phases and vibes as the plot progresses. But the three distinct sections of this film aren’t to do with the plot. The beginning is cheap. The middle is slow. The ending is mental.

Despite my lengthy criticism and positive reflections on the film, I drew one final conclusion: it should’ve been a video game.

It just had that vibe and structure of a story-driven video game, like a prettier version of Silent Hill with fewer jumpscares and a thicker plot.

There’s the unique locations to explore, like the school and doctor’s house. There’s missing items to find, like the photograph of Rowan and the failed harvest. There’s fresh clues to stumble upon like the jumper and the grave. There’s a whole roster of potential NPC dialogue, like the ex-fiancee perhaps telling you “you should go check the crypt” over and over until he does it. There’s even the subtle throwbacks to the original film, like the seaplane (which the policeman of the ‘73 film flew). All tied together with cut scenes where you meets your ex-fiancee and ask her about what you’ve discovered to further the story.

Will you make the right decisions and get the good ending, where you prevent the murder of the seaplane pilot, carry Rowan to the harbour and fly off to safety? Will you find all the easter eggs, including the joker costume and the dead rabbit from the ‘73 film?

The final verdict *drum roll pls*

I don’t hate it, but it’s just not worth the watch. Even for fans of so-bad-its-good movies, there’s not enough funny bad stuff for it to be enjoyable. Just a bit boring. Save 100 minutes and watch the best bits on YouTube, instead.

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