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channeleven · 2 years ago

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Let’s Talk About Coconut Fred

I wouldn't say its been a while since I did a review, but there is a considerable gap between this and my last. A lot is happening in my life, I'm set to finish my last term in grad school this Sunday, I'm waiting for an update on a part time job and I'm gonna celebrate by binging some movies on Tubi and YouTube, and since I'm facing some writers block on my last assignment, I figured I'd vent about something.

Remember Coconut Fred: Fruit Salad Island? Me neither. It was that year I moved into a new house, at that point I was just watching Cartoon Network and never really had a reason to watch KidsWB. First I ever heard of it was by chance when I was googling KidsWB's program list, long before this show became a whipping boy of some degree.

I'll get into a contributing factor to me making this review later, but for now, back then I saw at least two episodes in full, Bad Apple, and something about a tropical resort. I had some experience with the show, and I still feel like there's little to show for it. But let's get right into it.

What is?

The mid-2000s saw a small rise in shows with overly optimistic main characters in summery or tropical settings, ballpark to around 2004 when the SpongeBob movie was released, or perhaps when the show was at its peak, before it killed everyone's brains. It's not definite, but imagine if other creators assumed the show was gonna end after the movie, and they wanted to create the next big thing to fill the hole set to be left, a lot of faces would go red over the hindsight.

The show is credited to two creators, Don Oriolo and Sammy Oriti, with development credited to Ray DeLaurentis. Oriti has a very thin filmography, to say the least. He is tied to two obscure films, and this is the only cartoon he ever worked on. Oriolo has a more interesting past, having worked on Campfire Stories, a cheap horror anthology which is notable for being where Charlie Day met Rob McElhenney, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

However, Oriolo does have some experience with animation, primairly working on The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat and other stuff relating to the property. Oriti and Oriolo do have a big connection, where Oriti was given a special thanks on Felix the Cat Saves Christmas. Oriolo was also behind I Am a Gummy Bear, the music video and the movie. So, quite an oddball pair and one has dirtier hands than the other.

They conjured up a concept and pitched it to someone in the business, in this case, Ray DeLaurentis, and what has he done? Well aside from some work on the 80s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Providence, he created and wrote the Bubsy pilot, was a common writer on the later seasons of Fairly Odd Parents, wrote at least one episode for Bunsen is a Beast, also wrote for Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get a Clue, whatever was wrong with it, oh yeah, and he wrote Bah Humduck!, the worst Christmas Carol adaptation of all time.

On the upside he has also worked on Xaolin Showdown and Ozzy and Drix, among other stuff that may be considered decent. It seems beforehand he had worked at Warner Bros. Animation hence how this landed in KidsWB's crosshairs.

What makes this show interesting is that it features both American and Canadian voice actors. Our lead is played by Rob Paulsen, keep that in mind, and I believe one character was played by Danny Cooksey. For the rest, we have Michael Donovan, who has gone between American and Canadian productions, Brian Drummond, the first voice of Knuckles the Echidna, Tracey Moore, one point Princess Peach as well as The Geek from Sam and Max: Freelance Police, Kelly Sheridan, who played Diana in Martin Mystery, Britt McKillip, who played Hannah in the Scary Godmother movies, and lastly Eric Bauza, who just two years prior played Stimpy in Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon, and would later lent his voice to Slab in Cans Without Labels, the final nail in the coffin for John Kricaflusi. He's also in far too much stuff to mention. He was once based in Canada, only appearing on Adult Party Cartoon because one of the studios behind the animation was based in that country, and the rest is somehow history.

What About?

This is a comedy involving an overly optimistic and naive coconut attempting to spice up life on a tropical island full of living fruits, and of course one guy will have none of it. It seems every episode operates in a bubble, nothing occurring being of any consequence in another.

The first episode I saw, I forgot the title of, and... it wasn't anything to write home about. It helped introduce me to most key characters, for however basic they are. Not even something made for kids in mind, but are you telling me three dimensions is too mature for children? I'm just saying.

However, it was when I saw another episode that things went south, and I became better acquainted to Fred's brand of annoyance, either that or I saw how weak the writing of the show could be. Latter first, they incorporated a running gag where a bully calls Fred a mean name, but it turns out there is an existing character with that name and Fred assumes that's who he's referring to. The former, it's how Fred goes about carrying out the jokes, naivety can only get you so far, and the only way its constant use can work is if the character happens to be aware of it and is just using it to get a rise out of people. I'm just saying, regardless of it being a TV show sometimes you go through something so many times you attempt to rationalize it so you can justify the time you wasted.

But cards on the table, that was the last episode I saw in full, I gave up on a third one and years later, someone did a review of the show.

That's really all I can say about the show, it's annoying and there's no nuance to it, the plots are too weak to hold over flat personalities, likely dumbed down for a lack of true thought, owed to pedigrees of mediocre productions, or in two instances, having little connection to the medium at all. However, that isn't to say a cartoon is automatically going to suck if someone involved has no experience, but that really only applies to writers.

For instance, there's an episode of CatDog, Sneezie Dog, whose writer only had credits to live-action productions, and that episode was decent. There's a Hey Arnold! episode, Magic Show, written by a novelist who had no other experience with cartoons. It can be done, but it depends on what you're bringing to the table.

This is basically the opposite of Mike, Lu and Og, as in compared to another show set on an island that is considered mediocre at best, this is worse than that. Mike, Lu and Og at the very least had more experienced animators and artists, or maybe I'm trying to say something nice about it before the influx of negative reviews bury it, and because I did a review of it that's now lost to time.

But to give a proper summary, this show is like a beehive on a tree well out of walking range. It isn't doing anything, and interacting with it is always gonna be consequential.

But that's not why we're here

There's a bigger reason why I decided to make this, and why it's classified as a "Let's Talk About" rather than a review. There has been an ongoing stigma against this show, which to this day I still don't understand. This is apparently a rip-off of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Now, look, I'm probably the last person who would ever consider something a rip-off. Hell, I unironically watch Irate Gamer and consider AVGN to be overrated and overprotected, why else do people suddenly not have the time to watch a documentary detailing a decline in quality? My point is, I've stopped taking the rip-off label seriously long ago, so when something is accused of being one, I'm always going to see it with some level of skepticism.

Which is good, because considering this show a rip-off is a stretch so big that it'd be easier to call MrEnter a rip-off of Spax3. It's enough to vindicate the sheer volume of stupid that hit Johnny Test, and many asses are still stinging from that era, at least people are becoming kinder to earlier seasons of it though.

Now, I didn't take it seriously at first, I just thought this was general idiocy on the Reception Wiki's part, which is where I first heard of it, but no, people are dead set on framing it as a rip-off.

But let's look into the accusations, or the bigger ones. They went out of their way to claim characters are rip-offs of others.

Coconut Fred is considered a rip-off of SpongeBob, the character I mean. Coconut Fred is not a frycook, let alone employed in a consistent job. He does not have any hobbies that consist of catching things with nets. He does not have a pet that is the equivalent of a cat. He does not have proper buck teeth. He does not have blue irises. He is not square nor is he a sponge. Also, you're basically implying SpongeBob is insufferably annoying if you think Fred is a copy of him.

Slip and Slide are considered rip-offs of Patrick on the grounds of both being idiots. They're two characters, they have a clear Southern drawl, and few strokes of genius. Otherwise by their logic, every dumb character is a rip-off of Patrick.

Mr. Greenrind, you would think would be considered a rip-off of Squidward, but no, people call him a Mr. Krabs rip-off. I've seen only one episode with Mr. Greenrind, he's not greedy, he doesn't own a restaurant, and basically you've never seen a grumpy man in your life.

This last one is absolutely hilarious, Bingo Cherry, a sentient cherry who can speak proper English and works as an assistant to the lead grump... is apparently a rip-off of a house pet. When I first heard the claim of this being a rip-off, seeing the reasons, I thought it was just an elaborate joke poking fun at the Johnny Test hate crowd, but no, this is considered serious enough.

Next, the setting, Coconut Fred takes place on an island, above water. SpongeBob takes place in a city, under water. Coconut Fred and other characters are fruits, SpongeBob characters are fish or some variation of existing sea creatures.

I'll give the Johnny Test crowd some credit, it's quite a coincidence that the smartest characters in that show happen to be red-heads with glasses, maybe that's why Slip and Slide were considered rip-offs based on that technicality?

But fine, I'll play your game, I'll go one ahead and say this isn't a rip-off of SpongeBob, this is more like a rip-off of Camp Lazlo, but let me explain.

Lazlo and Fred are insufferably annoying naive optimists, Chip and Skip and Slip and Slide are dumb as dirt twins, Mr. Greenrind and Lumpus are grumpy leaders of their base of operations and are at odds with the insufferably annoying naive optimists, and both have impish sidekicks who often side with the insufferably annoying naive optimists.

It's honestly hilarious how people are quick to suddenly make comparisons where they don't usually fit, but are just as quick to ignore more blatant similarities for other characters. For instance, Bessie Higgenbottom and Penny Leftowitz give off some clear SpongeBob and Patrick vibes, and I saw at least one person immediately deny it. Either people are blind or they want to protect those quirky girls Twitter users like to wax over.

Sorry about that tangent, I wanted to get that off my chest for a long while.

Now, you may be thinking that I'm ignoring an elephant in the room, that MrEnter probably got these claims going. But let me say this, he didn't originate many of the attitudes animation fans had at the time, he just helped them to spread. People have already hated Breadwinners and the new SpongeBob episodes long before Enter gave their thoughts, now yes, I hold him up for not helping quell those claims sooner, but there is one person who is consistently credited to getting the rip-off claims going, and what Enter probably referred to in his review.

Not a reviewer, not someone on the internet, but an industry professional.

Rob Paulsen.

At one point, Rob Paulsen claimed that the show was a rip-off of SpongeBob SquarePants, for some reason. Best case, he is unaware of how little braincells the animation community has, I mean why else does AniMat have a following? But look, if you think about either show, it is easy to see where either contrasts.

You compare this show to one where there're more differences than similarities if you think hard enough (which is apparently a sin in the animation community these days), and again, more obvious examples fly right over your head.

It has gotten to a point where people claim this is a rip-off based on Rob Paulsen's word alone. And with that, I'd just like to place myself on the hill I'm ready to die on. Rob Paulsen's an idiot. Either he didn't look deeper into where the claims come from, or he just wants to look cool for animation fans. Either he's stupid, or does not have any grasp on grander implications. He was the same guy who agreed to have any part in Doug Walker's career... I can't think of anything else.

Or maybe most SpongeBob fans aren't very bright. I mean, they can't even detect sarcasm, and they have idiots like MoBros and LambHoot assing it up without remorse. A lot of shit has happened with the SpongeBob fandom over the past few years, and Rob Paulsen gave them more ammunition with the most baseless idea yet.

I'm harping on this because it's dangerous to hold something against the show based on one man's word alone. It's one guy's word, we don't know his philosophy or reason for saying these things, and if it's a joke it would be spread so much that people would forget the meaning it originally had. I mean, for instance, Brian Posehn only dunked on Nickelback because they were overplayed on the radio, and you can fill in the blanks.

Final Thoughts

On any other day, this would just be an incredibly obnoxious show that is rightly ragged on, for better or worse. However, when people decide to base their views of it on what another said, it ruins the prospect, because half the time the grander context is sorely missed. I don't care what Rob Paulsen says, his word is meaningless because it was done for validation rather than seeing what he has done.

This is just a case of favoritism and ignorance. If this was considered a Camp Lazlo rip-off then that would be fine as that and this have too many similarities to ignore. To whoever got those crazy allegations going, I hope their career is as troubled as Cam Clarke's.

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lilydalexf · 4 years ago

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Rachel Nobel / Rae Lynn

Rachel Nobel, aka Rae Lynn, has 2 fics at Gossamer, but she’s written many more X-Files stories than that. You can also find fics by her at AO3 and various other archives. She’s one of the rare, special authors who’s posted numerous fic during the show’s original run and again in recent years. Big thanks to Rachel for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? Absolutely. I joined a Facebook group for fanfic writers where someone recognized my name and asked about some of my stories that have disappeared from the Internet, and I almost fell off my chair. On the other hand, I go back and read original-run fanfic all the time - the Wayback Machine is my best friend for all the late great fanfic archives. Like fine wines, they get better with age! What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? I was fairly young during the peak of the fandom - I was only 12 when I started watching the show and discovered the fandom online. A few years ago, right around the time we learned the revival was coming, I wrote an essay I called "How 'The X-Files' defined my adolescence," in which I wrote: "If you think about it, 'The X-Files' is a lot like adolescence: You start out thinking it's going to be a little hokey, NBD, and then you end up in its thrall, captivated and occasionally hugely let down. A lot of people behave strangely, and no one gets out unscathed. Mulder, in his own weird way, is the perfect mirror for an adolescent: He doesn't fit in; his life careens between being utterly consequential to the fate of the known universe and being completely pointless; he's socially awkward and can't quite nail it down with the girl of his dreams."

So for me, the fandom is inextricably bound up with adolescence, that feeling of vacillating between desperate loneliness and being on the verge of something enormously significant. Take romance: I was a bit of a late bloomer, and when all my friends were exploring their first relationships I was watching Mulder and Scully navigate this beautiful, complicated, soulful relationship without ever even kissing. That was deeply affecting for me as a teen.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? I started out on mailing lists - there was an EMXC mailing list and one that I think was called X-Angst. [Lilydale note: There was a mailing list called XAngst Anonymous.] This was back at the dawn of the Internet when I only had 10 hours of AOL access a month, and I remember using what AOL called a "FlashSession" to log on, download all the fanfic from the mailing list and log off to read it. I vividly remember the excitement of watching all that new fanfic flood my inbox! Later on I was on atxc. During the long summer between "Gethsemane" and "Redux," it felt like fanfic was at its peak. There was a group of about a dozen women who got together (virtually) to discuss a work in progress by Lydia Bower called "Primal Sympathy." We called ourselves the "Primal Screamers," and we had our own website with fanfic recommendations and other discussions (it cracked me up to locate us as an entry on Fanlore.org). I was still in high school at the time and I was the youngest member; I felt like I had been accepted into a cool underground club. I worshipped these women, who were fanfic writers themselves. They taught me everything I knew about how to be a decent, respectful, enthusiastic consumer and writer of fanfic and fandom. [Lilydale note: I’ve talked enthusiastically about the Primal Screamers here before, including their fanfic primer.] What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? In the '90s, I would have been embarrassed to tell anyone I read fanfic, let alone that I was writing it. Now, I look back on it and realize how talented and smart and passionate we all were. It's something to be proud of. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? The first episode I ever saw was "Shadows," which was on in reruns between the second and third seasons. I don't think "Shadows" is an episode that anyone today would consider thematically significant, but something about seeing those office supplies float spookily through the air - it wasn't like anything I had seen on television, and I wanted in. What got you involved with X-Files fanfic? I've always been a person who, when I am interested in something, seeks to learn more about it. So I guess I got online as a 12-year-old with this new interest and discovered fanfic. It was thrilling to find out that so many talented people were taking characters I loved and bringing them to life for me. When the screen faded to black each week and I wondered, "That's it? What next?", fanfic was always there to fill in the blanks and take Mulder and Scully to the next level. As a teenager, I was self-indulgent enough to think I had something to contribute, too. Most of what I wrote in the '90s would today make me cringe. I remember literally paging through the dictionary in search of erudite words I thought Mulder and Scully would say! But occasionally I'll feel brave enough to read an old story and I feel encouraged to see a spark: a turn of phrase or a fragment of dialogue that I still feel proud of. I write professionally now, but I've never written fiction that isn't X-Files fiction, so it's something that has really allowed me to hone my creative juices in a different way. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Sometimes I feel like the Statler and Waldorf of the fandom, like I'm sitting up in the balcony grousing "Back in my day...!" Because the fandom is remarkably robust, and I've gotten involved with it to an extent on Twitter and AO3, and now all these young whippersnappers idolize Mulder and Scully just as much if not more as I ever did! Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? Not really, no. I've of course consumed a lot of media since The X-Files that I wanted to discuss with others - I'm a huge "Harry Potter" nerd, and I was outraged when Netflix canceled "The OA" - but strangely I've never had the urge to read or write fanfic about anything other than "The X-Files." Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Every Thursday night! I watch a chosen episode with a group of fans on Twitter and tweet about it - #tbtXFiles. That's great fun. There are episodes I've seen dozens of times over the years and episodes I think I only ever watched once, and it's always enlightening to watch them again with a certain critical eye. When I was a fan during the original run, I really idolized Mulder; I loved episodes where we saw him in all his cracked genius glory. Scully was a trailblazer of a character, of course, but I think the fandom has evolved over the years to give Scully her due. Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom? I was fairly stunned when the revival came around and I realized that people were still writing X-Files fic, and that a lot of it was so good. So yes, I do read fic on Archive of Our Own. But my heart is always with the early days of fanfic. In the revival when Mulder says "I've always wondered how this was going to end" - that felt to me almost like a love letter to fanfic authors who had been trying to answer that question for 25 years. Surprisingly, I've never had the urge to read fic in another fandom. Every time I try, it just feels like I'm cheating on Mulder and Scully. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors? My favorite author back in the day was Kipler. Her stories were just like real episodes of the show I could vividly imagine in my mind. I adore syntax6, particularly "20" and "The Birthday Stories," because of the way she perfectly and poignantly captures vignettes that span the entire series. Another favorite is Dawn and her "Blood Ties" series - I started out as a "NoRomo," and Dawn was one of the authors who made me believe Mulder and Scully could have a romantic relationship that really worked. And I always had a soft spot for Profiler!Mulder stories, so to this day I mourn the unfinished state of the great Kronos fic "Ascent to Hell." One fic I always come back to that captures profiling Mulder really well is "Domination of Lies," by cslatton. And then there are stories that I consider classics: "Corpse" by Livengoo, "Oklahoma" by Amperage and Livengoo, the "Revelations" and "All Hallow's Eve" series by Windsinger. What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise? I have a soft spot for a story I wrote called "Human Credential." I was attempting, a quarter-century after the first season of the show, to set a story in the very early days of the partnership (which these days is one of my favorite kinds of fanfic to read), and I felt like I nailed it. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? I have been doing both of these, as a matter of fact! Or in my case, they are oldies that made it online but vanished when Geocities went belly-up, for example, that I sometimes go back to and reshape. Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work? As the swallows return to Capistrano, I seem to always return to writing fic at periods of transition in my life. The first time I "retired" from fanfic, I wasn't even in college yet! If one can be nostalgic at 21 years old for something one gave up at 17, I was nostalgic for fanfic, and I picked it back up again in grad school. Then I became a teacher and a wife and a mom and years passed, and the revival seduced me back into it again. But the vast majority of fanfic I've written is firmly planted in the first seven seasons of the show - poor Mulder and Scully never seem to get to grow up in my stories. What's the story behind your pen name? I wrote under a lot of pen names over the years! When I first started writing fanfic, no one knew anything about Internet safety and it didn't occur to me that it wasn't wise to use my real name. There was a period when I would have been mortified if anyone discovered my stories under my real name - now, at least I can write it off as a youthful indulgence! When I finally grew into a more mature writer, I started using the name Rae Lynn, which is almost-but-not-quite my real first and middle names. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? As far as I know, unless my friends and acquaintances have done some sleuthing, only my husband knows I still write fanfic. And he's never read it, though he's kind enough to give me a glazed-eyes indulgent smile if I ever talk about it. Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? I am xraelynn on AO3! I have about a dozen stories there - some of them I wrote 15 years ago and some of them are brand spanking new. Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Fanfic is a true labor of love. Fanfic authors don't write fanfic for money or fame; they do it because they love it. Sites like AO3 and Tumblr have made it so much easier to show your appreciation to writers (::gruff reminiscing voice:: back in my day, you had to send them an email, and now you can just click the "kudos" button!). I can only speak for myself, but I really thrive on that feedback - otherwise I'm just Mulder in his cramped hovel of a home office waiting for Scully to nag me to shave my beard. Every so often I think about the fact that there is so much high-quality writing about these characters I've loved for decades just available on the Internet for free and it feels like a true gift.

(Posted by Lilydale on May 4, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #rachel nobel #rae lynn

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lovejustforaday · 4 years ago

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Album Review - Citrus by Asobi Seksu

Citrus - Asobi Seksu

Main Genres: Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Indie Pop

A decent sampling of: Twee Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, Noise Pop

In the conversation of greatest shoegaze and dream pop bands of all time, you usually hear a lot of the same names: My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Ride, Slowdive, Beach House, or maybe even Mazzy Star. But one name that doesn’t get mentioned nearly as often as it should is Asobi Seksu.

Asobi Seksu were an American indie rock band consisting of songwriting duo Yuki Chikudate on vocals and keyboards, and James Hanna as lead guitarist, with a rotating rhythm section that changed from LP to LP. Critics never really gave them a fair chance, but to me they are the finest band to lead the wave of “nu-gaze” that took place over the mid-to-late 2000s.

While a lot of new shoegaze bands today are made up of younger millennials and zoomers who are very traditionalist in recreating the sounds of the original scene, the 2000s “nu-gaze” “““revival””” saw a lot of bands who wanted to expand the genre’s scope. “Nu-Gaze” bands usually fell into one of two cluster groups:

Cluster A was made up of bands incorporating prominent electronic elements to expand on the soundscapes of the original scene. Cluster B bands were making riff-heavy alternative rock that blended shoegaze guitar tones and walls of sound with clearer vocals and more distinct melodic structures, building more on the foundations of bands like Ride or Lush than the likes of MBV.

Asobi Seksu’s self-titled debut falls into the latter category, with a college-radio-esque record of mostly no-nonsense shoegaze and indie pop. It’s a pretty great record itself, but it wasn’t exactly career defining, and if it had ended there, I would say they were another above-average shoegaze band that I listen to mostly just cause they happen to make my favourite subgenre of music.

Something truly brilliant came after though. The band decided to embrace the more immersive dream pop + heavy shoegaze hybrid sound that defined most of the greatest bands of the original movement. But beyond that, the band retained their indie pop melodies and developed a vivacious, sanguine, high-energy formula that set them apart from a scene that had always mostly been defined by subtlety, introspection, and bittersweetness. The resulting album was Citrus.

True to its name, Citrus is a viscous smoothie concoction of saccharine and tangy flavours, expressed in the form of Yuki Chikudate’s frolicking vocal melodies and bright keyboard notes mixed with James Hanna’s roaring walls of sound. True to its cover art, the sonic colours of this record consist of vibrant shades of vermilion, tangerine, and daffodil. This LP is the sonic equivalent of the feeling you get from that first refreshing taste of ice cream on a hot summer’s day. A magnificently vivid experience all around.

A lot of shoegaze bands stick to very strict conventional rock instrumentation - drumkit, bass, and lots of guitars. Maybe an added string section on a song here or there for dramatic effect. But on Citrus, I hear not only the addition of Yuki’s keyboard leads, but also organs, xylophones, sleigh bells, and even toy pianos.

Citrus fades into view with “Everything Is On”, a 17 second ambient intro that sounds something like an arcade submerged in a swimming pool. Normally, I’m not particularly drawn to the trend of albums opening with these odd micro-tracks. This one instance really works however, because it contrasts ever so nicely with the bright, jangly opening guitars of “Strawberries“, the album’s proper introduction.

Speaking of, “Strawberries” is the sound of summer in full bloom, with a splendid pseudo-call-and-response riff that bounces like a yo-yo in between several intermissions of crushed shoegaze drone that feel not unlike dunking your head in a bucket of ice water. I love hearing what sounds like a rotary organ buried deep into the mix of those intermissions. The track ends brilliantly with a major tempo and rhythm shift into a rampant breakdown of manic rock instruments and festive celebration.

“Thursday” is the single greatest song of the 2000s “nu-gaze” revival, and indeed one of the very greatest indie rock songs of all time. A brief ghostly prelude foreshadows a blurry four minute burst of love and ecstasy, with one of the most pleasing choruses I’ve ever heard where Yuki offers the kindest words of concern “it seems you’ve lost your way, you’ve let it all fall apart”. This is the feeling of waking up at the end of a depressive episode and crying tears of joy as you gaze up at the sunny sky and realize that you're happy just to be alive. By the end of "Thursday”, I am completely smitten with the very notion of life itself.

The gentle strums of “Strings” open up into a sun-soaked daydream. Like on several other tracks here, Yuki uses English and Japanese interchangeably, allowing the sounds of her syllables to convey the necessary emotional imagery to non-bilingual listeners as she practically skips and hops her way through the song in an impressive display of vocal gymnastics. The wall of sound orchestrated at the end of this track is one of my all time favourites in the history of shoegaze and noise pop, like an enormous heatwave that hits you all at once.

The glorious midpoint and climax of Citrus is the seven and a half minute wonder “Red Sea”, a vision of a world that lies beyond the horizon while surfing the waves of a vast and foamy ocean. This track reaches monumental heights that I find particularly hard to put into words. What I will say is that this is second place to “Thursday” only by a small fraction, and it contains around the three minute mark one of the most captivatingly nostalgic melodies I’ve ever heard.

“Goodbye” is the sole occasion of a mostly straightforward indie pop song on this record, and its one of the sweetest breakup songs you’ll probably ever hear. “Lions and Tigers” is a distant meadow of dream pop that makes me feel like I’m a kid and I’m hugging my friend one last time before they move to another city. “Nefi + Girly” is like a follow-up to “Strawberries”, with another playful lead guitar riff and a dreamy keyboard lead that sounds like its splattering an empty canvas of indie rock with lively paint colours.

“Exotic Animal Parade” slows the record down for a brief melancholy ballad before exploding in a dream like it never even existed. “Mizu Asobi” emerges from the aftermath to finish off the record with one last beam of radiant joy before the festivities end with a bang.

As a footnote, I would like to add that, although they never count towards my final rating of a record, the bonus tracks/b-sides/etc. from the Citrus era are some of the best deep cuts ever released. Likewise, here’s some quick thoughts on those:

The band recorded two covers of two mid-20th century classics during this album cycle, including a twinkling, wistful haze rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “All Through The Day” as well as a giddy, fleeting noise pop cover of The Crystal’s “Then He Kissed Me”. Both are excellent examples of how to expand on their respective originals, reviving vintage pop classics with gorgeous soundscapes. There’s also the stand alone single “Stay Awake”, a sweeping end-of-chapter moment with some of the most excellent indie rock dynamics I’ve ever heard.

Like most people these days, Loveless was my first shoegaze record and my formal introduction to one of indie rock’s most elusive subgenres. It was good enough at the time to make me listen to a few more shoegaze bands, but Citrus was the record that made me fall in love with the genre medium. It was Citrus that allowed me to go back and fully appreciate Loveless as the masterpiece that it is, and later fall in love with other brilliant shoegaze records like Souvlaki and Ceres & Calypso In The Deep Time.

This album was also the unofficial soundtrack to most of my time as an undergrad. It played on my bus rides into the city and during walks around campus downtown on those last few days of exams before the summer. It helped me more than any other record to get through the worst year of mental health in my life. I am endlessly fond of this beautiful work of art, and I am truly grateful for how Asobi Seksu managed to expand my horizons. This will forever be one of my favourite records. Happy 15th anniversary Citrus.

10/10

highlights: “Thursday”, “Red Sea”, “Strawberries”, “Lions and Tigers”, “Strings”, “Goodbye”, “Nefi + Girly”, “Mizu Asobi”, “New Years”, “Everything Is On”, “Exotic Animal Parade”

#Asobi Seksu #Citrus #Shoegaze #Dream Pop #Indie Pop #Indie Rock #best music #best albums #favourite albums #favourite music #2006 #Yuki Chikudate #James Hanna #album review #music review #anniversary #summer

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mysticonsheadcanons · 3 years ago

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Thoughts About Dreadbane

Dreadbane was a decent villain for the first bit of the series. It makes sense that we didn’t get the most powerful antagonist at the start, as the Mysticons were still learning about their powers. He still had enough power to feel like a danger to the Mysticons, especially early on in their role as heroes.

I also like how he wasn’t completely forgotten about once Necrafa was revived. We got to see him struggle with his love for Necrafa, despite Necrafa’s not loving him back. And then we saw him redeem himself after hitting rock bottom.

There was also a hint that he wasn’t such a bad person after all in the episode “Skies of Fire”, which I like. Unlike Tazma, who was completely fine with letting Drake City get destroyed, Dreadbane wanted to give the Mysticons a little more time.

He is a little more comedic than I normally like in characters, especially villains. And while he can be strong, it is hard to take what he says seriously given how animated he is.

In short, Dreadbane wasn’t the strongest villain, and I wouldn’t have liked it if he stayed as a major antagonist. However, given the role he has, he is a pretty good character.

#mysticons #Dreadbane #General Bane #thoughts #opinion

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Legend of the Three Cablleros: Nazca Racing and Mexico A-Go-Go

Saludos Amgios and welcome back to The Ride of the Three Caballeros! And we’re almost at the finish line! After this reviews only 4 episodes, 2 reviews and a top 12 list/celebration of this long and fun as hell journey, this one for free to thank kev for paying for all these reviews and because without him this probably woudlnt’ of happened for some time and I thank him for that. Point is we’re so close I can taste it to being finished here so with nothing else to cover, after the cut we’re diving right into adventure.. literally.

Nazca Racing:

So we open at the outside of Sheldgoose Manor as while we’re not at the scene of the action YET, the show has kept it’s tendency to have intresting intros as it goes on. Point is Xandra is incredulous about the guys claims of a magic barrier.. for some reason. Seriously Sheldrake is a powerful sorecerer, has a lair, even if they don’t know about that part, why WOULDN’T his place be shielded from you guys? Still she has to test it punchiing it , arrowing it and throwing a rock at it.. and the rock does take out a window prove it even if i’ts vandalism but that wasn’t a crime thousands of years ago and no one saw them so we good.

Our heroes brainstorm back at the Cabana what to do, ignoring the girls suggestion that since the cabs can’t get through the barrier they can but are ignored because ... I dunno. I seriously dont’ know, they haven’t treated the kids like this before or since. Also if you were wondering why not humphrey, spark of life. Too risky. But this discourse is interupted as there’s a signal in peru. The trap has been sprung and the girls warn it might be since they KNOW the cabs will show up where they are and have time to plan but are brushed off. We also get the start of a thread with Jose as he gives all his money to some kittens who are actually con artists. Turns out that’s WHY he’s poor: he gets money easily but donates it all to bogus charities. You know like Louie’s kids or PETA. It’s a nice character trait, showing despite being a lady’s man and having a bit of an ego.. he’s still a very good guy if very, VERY gullible. Hopefully it comes up againa s this smacks of a flaw brought up and solved in one episode, and while ti’s adressed her it really dosen’t get resolved, but with 5 episodes left after this I HIGHLY doubt it.

So our heroes are off to the Nasca lines of having gotten there with the help of a shady pilot... instead of you know.. porting there.. but given the Nazca Lines are best seen from air according to wikipedia and best shown off that way, as well as the fact it’s revealed you can enter the realm the creatures represented in the lines inhabit via plunging into it, it does make sense. She could’ve TOLD them all this before going but this is one of her off days. The Nazca Lines are a real life set of geoglypys that look really damn cool, and show up in all sorts of works, the two off the top of my head are Mega Man Starforce 2 where their used as the basis for the villians, and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5ds, where there used for the basis for the earthbound immortals.. also villians, a series of powerful and evil gods, and naturally represented by cards, that bring people back from the dead to serve as their avatars, known as the dark signers.

As you can see they also look really fucking awesome. Sadly I have not had a deck with them as I haven’t really thought about it and you need a field spell to keep them alive, but still good stuff. Really need to watch that arc in full some day.

Point is the plane starts to fall apart because the pilot swindled them, or rather Jose, and they have to jump without a parachute as there’s only one. Xandra of course leaps first forgetting her friends don’t have god strength or durability and will just go squish if her logic doesn’t pan out. Panchito naturally leaps without thinking and Jose decides why not and sky captain and the crappy plane he bought for 5 bucks decides to snatch the parachute so Donald’s forced to leap. It does work though and we do get one of the best parts of the series thus far: our heroes are drawn in chalk which is beautiuflly animated and a really creative idea. Granted the magic chalk thing dosen’t make a LOT of sense given the lines are carved in.. but at the same time we’re talking about three talking birds and a goddess chasing after an overweight one percenter, his talking staff and said talking staff’s son/lover/donkeybatmonkeyrat. Exact accuracy to real life can be waved just a smidge. Point is they find Mono, a monkey and one of the guardians of the lines, who Feldrake apparently trapped, though Xandra is suspcious. NOW, after their already in the trap basically.

But yeah Mono tells them Feldrake is going after the Nazca Gyroscope, a device at the center of the earth that keeps the earth orbiting the sun.

Point is our heroes have to stop him though Xandra is again suspcious as Feldrake wants to conquer the world not destroy it.... forgetting the whole lava lizard scheme... just.. seriously what was his plan there. rule over a pile of ashes.. actually given Feldrake’s competence and intellegence so far. that’s probably exactly it. Why is Sheldgoose the one getting called fool a lot again?

So we get another really stellar Musical Number, draw the line as our heroes progress through the Nazca world. Also I forgot to mention but earlier, in a nice bit of setup, we set up both that jose is a talented artist, which comes in handy here, while donald struggles and doubts himself. Can.. .can relate. Say that a lot but REALLY can relate. They end this wonderful song easing on down the road while our villians watcht hem.. instead of you know going ahead up and erasing them as is their plan.

Meanwhile, the trips sneak into Sheldgooses mansion trying to find some sort of evil scheme or lair or some clue they can use. But instead june, looking for some secret in the money vault, instead is caught by security so a chase insues and our heroines spend the episode barely outrunning the security dogs.. who SHeldgoose apparently raised.

Don’t.. DON’T want to think about THAT any longer than I have to. Point is they find Feldrake’s hidden lair we saw in the second episode where Sheldgoose found the staff. Not bad stuff, just really not something I need to spend an hour recapping.

So our heroes continue along encountering Hanzy, another guardian with giant hands who they free from a finger trap.. and her reasoning is both adorable and chucklesome, as Sheldgoose, having a piece of the chalk, drew a finger trap and never having had one in her size she just had to try it. So the party gains another member as they tread carefully past the spider, the final guardian and one who will eat them without a second thought. With that they reach the gyroscope.. and Mono turns on the cabs revealing Sheldgoose tricked him into thinking they were the bad guys and this is naturally a trap. And that is part of the episodes problem: the tension from “well their walking straight into a trap” is kinda.. nonexistant. OUr heroes ran in blind, and even when suspicious in the liens being on their guard amounts to nothing and we know from last episode this is a trap. It’s one thing to have a plan turn out to be a trap for the heroes or for the villians, as we’ll see later this week, that’s fine.. but either the audience isn't aware or there’s general tension from our heroes not knowing. Here there’s none of that.

So our heroes are trapped in a cage while Sheldgoose and Feldrake head up top to erase them, as if their drawings on hte line, the way they came in are erased so are they. It’s a good plan.. and the tension is dissipated again as hanzy just casually tosses the cage off, mono apologizes and our heroes use the chalk to draw themselves flying machines, with Donald only having a balloon and a basket. Comedic gold. Despite once again any dramatic tension this episode evaporating like ..t ears in the rain? I dunno I don’t have a metaphor that works here. Despite this the race is genuinely thrilling with sheldgoose busting out a shark rocket launcher since neither Feldrake nor Xandra’s magic work in the lines. Nice touch by the way. But he runs out of chalk (”You should’ve learned how to conserve space!”) though our villians reach the exit first by unleashing the spider, who Jose tries to smooth talk into not eating them.. and Donald, like me afriad of spiders, iconically shouting “KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!”

The heels erase Hansy, which is genuinely sad. Our heroes do escape in time though before he can get them and while Feldrake makes a speech in an awesome moment, Xandra just.. ignores it and fills him full of arrows.. well the g rated equilvent about that, I don’t think any of us want to see Wayne Knight bleed buckets. I”m still not over that scene from Jurassic Park where we saw nothing but I imagined it all right.. I.. imagined it *shudders*

So i’m scared for life but our heroes are free and revive hanzy with the chalk and we get a really sweet payoff to Donald’s trouble drawing as his new finger for her is a bit crooked but she loves it. It shows even if your art isn’t as good as other people’s it’s still worth something. A nice message. Feldrake once again berates Sheldgoose who points out the cabs can escape death again and again... giving Feldrake the idea to go talk to death personally. And yeah these teases... while I get this series was made for streaming.. they keep hurting the story slightly like they did here. Though I will give them credit this one.. ends up ratcheting up the tension next time so props.

Final thoughts on Nazca Racing: This one was decent. The animation was gorgeous and always the jokes were top notch, and the subplot was a nice opportunity for the triplets to take the stage and have an adventure.. but the plot banks a lot on our heroes walking into a very obvious trap and that just sours things for me. Still it’s not a bad episode like “World Tree Caballeros” or “No Man is an Easter Island” for the reasons stated above. And there was no daisy for an episode so while I badly wanted to find out how she’d react to the events last episode, we also got a break from her being bitchzilla, queen of monsters for an episode.. for an episode. “Sigh”

Mexico-A-Go-Go:

Okay back on form. Our heroes return home to find.. a conspiracy board all around the house.

Sadly it’s not that but it turns out the girls haven’t slept since the mansion and while Donald objects to their breaking and entering, they soon reveal what htey found: The Sheldgooses have all been linked to eveyr major disaster over the centuries... ever since Feldrake, who we see as a mortal for the first time, holding his OWN book as a counterpart to the heroes. They also uncovered a connection to Clinton coot and the sheldgooses but don’t have time to elaborate before Donald waves them off to check his messages. Unsurprisingly it’s Daisy who says “In light of recent events” i.e. you know seeing Donald’s friend save her life, dapper abandon her and seeing donald fight an evil sorcerer and wrangle a bear, to give him one more second chance.

Yeah i’ve spent a good chunk of this series complaining about Daisy.. and given she appears in the final two episodes i’m probably not finished. But this is just.. wow. So now she KNOWS, if not all the details that Donald and his friends are entangled in something big and scary, that involves a lives bear and actual fucking magic, so that his ducking out on her last time was NOT him being irresponsible or going to hang with his pals or something stupid, but probably something pretty important, she’s not fully aware of everything but she’s aware ENOUGH to know Donald really is making something of himself or at least is trying and really didn’t mean to mistreat her.. and she STILL is giving him fucking ultimatums!

I just.. i’m so done with this whole fucking subplot. All of it. Not just Daisy, Donald constnatly having a moan about loosing her and whining about going on missions to save the world instead of keeping this ungrateful, bossy, self esteem shattering, shrill, selfish, gold digging, impossibly high stand’s keeping big gulp full of bitch.

Donald.. buddy YOU CAN DO BETTER. Xandra’s right there and even if she’s not interested there’s a WHOLE TOWN of rich, eligible ladies. Go woo one of them! it’s hard getting out there, believe me I know, it’s VERY hard and i’ll probably die alone.. but your a good man, you have good friends. Friends who’ve screwed up yes but good friends to wingman and wingwoman for you. Just... leave Daisy behind. It’s not good for your mental health to keep bending over backwards for someone who wants you to be something you’ll NEVER be. Who wants someone sophisticated and with a steady job.. and the latter part’s never going to happen now your a Caballero, and given that’s more important.. good! If she can’t see what you do or won’t take the time to fucking listen... MOVE. ON. I know moving on’s hard but you have to. For your own health. Staying stuck in place over a person just hurts you and them.

And as for Daisy.. this is easily the worst version of the character. And I went into this FULLY KNOWING this version was bad, FULLY KNOWING she was going to be grating and some of the things she’d pull like Dapper thanks to spoilers. It’s why I held off watching this for so long.. and turns out while it was worth it, the series is quite good, my fears were JUSTIFIED and no amount of reading it could prepare me for how terribly written and horribly damaging this all is. And I do mean damaging: Kids pick things up from media. And while I should’ve caught on sooner, can’t fully blame a cartoon, I did as a kid and teen get my idea of romance from cartoons and tv and thus got the idea that pining after someone in secret was okay and they’ll come around eventually and starring at them and what not is entirely fine and not creepy. Of course it isn’t, of coure you have to say something, and of course you have to let it go if there with someone else. I know that NOW, and there have been much better geek gets the girl plots. .but it still seriously fucked with my autistic brain’s view on friendships with women, something I still struggle with at times. And that’s why I take this shit seriously: Because while thankfully I never bought into THAT , shit where “it’s okay if it’s a WOMAN, abusing a MAN”. Men can be abused to. It’s why we had SO SO MANY unfunny stalker characters in the 2000′s, and so many plots like this where the guy is wrong.. because h’es male and his partner being domineering and expecting him to change everything without doing anything for them or treating them as an equal.. is just not okay. And it speaks to a bigger problem.. out of touch writers who assume because THEIR wives are only with them out of obligation that’s how ALL relatoinships work, when no it’s not get a divorced please god. The Duckverse REALLY doesn’t need this According to Jim, My Wife and Kids, George Lopez, Home Improvement, Cleveland Show, King of Queens, Dinosaurs, Rick and Morty, Glen Martin DDS, etc all bullshit. People break up and Donald deserves better. And I genuinely blame both EP Matt Daner and Tony Anselmo for this. And I have a LOT of respect for both guys, i’ve made that very clear.. but Matt as EP and thus the one in charge fo the overall storyline is clearly the one who thought of this and Tony, who helped write for Donald this series, didn’t either get Tress, whose been doing daisy for two decades and is as knolwedgle for her as he is for donald the same courtsey or chime in given he should know daisy better. Both of these men should know better. Danner wrote for Xiaolin Showdown, that had great female characters for the most part and Tony is a grown ass man whose worked with women and is married as far as I know. Figure it out. This Daisy thing has EASILY been the worst part of this retrospective as a whole, the worst part of this series and probably the worst thing i’ve seen in a duck property.. and again I saw daisy ACTUALLY HIT DONALD.

And this is worse. Because instead of one moment of terrible writing and misplaced slapstick that comes off as abuse, it’s just a constnat barage of emotoinal abuse treated as if i’ts DONALD’S fault. Donald did nothing wrong to her and his only crime is obessing of this hellspawned hardian. Fuck this entire plot with a garden rake lined with acid.

Also just a quick note before we speed through Daisy’s screentime to get to the good part of the episode, there’s, at least no yet NO proper reaction to Donald’s new life and it bothers me it bothers me a lot. She learns he has this whole secret life and has no fucking questions just more of the same old bullshit. “SIGH”

So yeah this b-plot: Donald wants to stay for Daisy

And the others drag him along though this time.. Donald comes off as the asshole because he KNOWS they need him, knows he’s useful and knows this is more important but drags his feet anyway for someone who again, has done NOTHING good for him. And even with the girls saying the’ll help and telling him to keep the mirror handy, he still keeps complaning up until the plans reveaeld.

The plan, which.. May I think, the orange one. I know June is purple, but while May isn’t on board for this, the plan is to have April and June do the totoem pole trench and have donald be the face. So the entire plan is basically this

They have an actually nice date till the ruse is revealed, and while he says “I can explain” which he can.. she PUNCHES the mirrror saying explain this.

So our heroes need to go to Mexico, Panchito’s homeland and somehow, in a series based on and starring primarily south american characters... one of the two times we visit the region and the only time we visit one of the cabs two home countries. Now the latter part i’m fair on since they were likely saving Brazil for the season 2 that never happened and didn’t want to blow their load just yet. The other part.. not so much. I’m not saying set the entire series there, there’s a lot of world, but most of the locations aside from the world tree are pretty common for globetrotting adventure: Easter Island, Stonehenge, Mt. Rushmore, The Pyramids, the Moon, and coming up Camelot and Shangri La. These aren’t BAD settings mind and are used creatively and probably will be in the two I haven’t seen, and the setups involving king arthur and a yeti spa do sound like they wont’ dispoint, but you had a real opportunity to teach kids, and my grown man self, about South America and ya blew it.

But we’re in Mexico where after meeting a spooky cloaked guy who says they might not leave alive

So our heroes enter the temple and the other side and find a bunch of chickens who see Panchito, who insisted on the trip due to his luchadores code of always helping the incident, as a god and their chosen champion for the goddess of light as the preistess explains. So we get a montage of Panchito getting pampred while the other cabs get pushed around, ending at a restraunt. Xandra is naturally suspcious as the locals are being AWFUL vauge about what’s going on here, and this is getting pretty midsomar. Donald is distracted by daisy and Jose is distracted by a beautiful senorita, leaving Xandra to TRY and get panchito to think.. before being distracted herself by a mysterious handsome latino gentleman in black. Though during the dance with thier respective partners, Xandra and Jose both remark that it’s weird.. but are distracted by the sexy long enough for it to be revealed what Panchito’s duty is: as the champion of life.. he has to fight the champion of death. No Prize for guessing who. Though unlike with “Nazca Racing” where the teaser removed all tension since we knew it was a trap, here the teaser last episode helps, as we don’t see Team Feldrake till this moment, and we know something involving death itself.. and finding out panchtio’s representing life just ratchets up tension: we know the bad guys are involved.. but we don’t know how or what they’ll do.

And the how is simple: A one on one wrasslin match!

Or lucha match since we Panchito’s a luchador and we’re in mexico. He’s wearing his usual outfit while Sheldgoose is wearing standard wrestling tights.. so a superstar babyface versus a heel comentator... but actually entertaining this time. As you can tell I love wrestling. While i’m more of a casual fan, I watch OSW and some other wrestling youtubes and don’t really watch the product at the moment, I do love and respect the sport and love a good wrestling episode or series of television as a result, so this hits the spot.

So the match goes on and Panchito has the clear lead as Sheldgoose is playing by college wrestling rules and Panchito is playing by pro wrestling rules. And while you can use standard holds well you gotta mix the two together kurt angle style. Eventually Xandra decides to confront the sexy bird and sexy boy, and finds out, in a twist I didn’t see coming they ARE the god of life and god of death, respectively. While I knew this was a fight to the death, as death explains, a symbolic battle between the two with real stakes to keep ballance, I thought these two were just illusions brought up to keep Xandra and Jose from leaving or digging deeper. Instead they were just doing it on their own and as the god of death shows, they were genuinely intrested. I mean... why not get some while preparing to have your champions do battle. God for you death god, multitasking like that. Same for you goddess of life. Get it girl, you get after it. Jose is a fine man. I’d tap that if I could. Get after it. So Xandra warns Panchito who finds taking life against his code and Jose again shows his awesomeness by pointing out the obvious: the match is timed, so if they run out the clock it’s a draw. Might lead to something but it’s better than nothing. So Panchito TRIES this, but Sheldgoose has leopold “Throw mommy to daddy” (One of my faviorite gags of the episode), and wacks him with feldrake before the whole thing becomes a brawl. And the god of Death does not take DQ’s or outside intefernce well and instead kills them all for breaking the rules.

Not kidding. The main cast is DEAD minus Xandra, as Death still wanted to bone her, but she refuses. So now Xandra is left while al lher friends are dead while the god and goddess head off in his caddy to go knock over mailboxes I guess.

Final Thoughts on Mexico-A-Go-Go: Outside of .. certain parties, this was a REALLY fun one, with a great wrestling theme, a great mystery and the awesomeness that was the god of death, who was smooth, cool and thoroughly interesting and I wish there was a second season and his and xandra’s dynamic was really interesting. One of the series best, helped by the fact the Daisy bit while thoroughly irritating, was religated to a pretty funny subplot, with May being understandably skeptical of the plan, it somehow working and the sheer redicuonsess. It dosen’t make daisy tolerable, but it makes the episode better.

#the legend of the three caballeros #donald duck #jose caricoca #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #panchito pistoles #xandra goddess of adventure #april duck #may duck #june duck #humphrey the bear #the arcuan bird #ari #baron von sheldgoose #lord sheldrake #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros #ducktales #donsy

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unusual-river-ghost · 5 years ago

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Day 2: (obligatory) AU prompt

aye it's my 2nd day @zadr-revival week and I decided to make an au I dont think many people have thought about or given much attention to: Vortian Dib !

Note: Sorry if I wrote something incorrectly or weirdly, I'm very tired and English isn't my first language oof. Also sorry if my thoughts and ideas are all over the place/post bhgdlsjlxvdh. More random stuff in the tags

In this AU, Dib is a Vortian engineer and his biggest dream is to explore space and its mysterious mysteries but there's one big problem: he is one of the most important engineers there are in Vort (but not enough to be of the elite, it could be an interesting au tho). However, he has been building a ship in secret with some help of his sister Gaz, an experienced technician and pilot, who only agreed to help him so he wouldn't accidentally die and to mock him when he commits an error when building his own design (poor boy he isn't as good with tools as Gaz).

Dib´s plan is to escape with Gaz when the other Vortians are occupied with (Irken) guests that wanted to try The Couch. It turns out it was that day that Zim decided to create and unleash the blob monster, creating chaos all over Vort and later killing both Tallest Miyuki and Spork. Just before that happens, Dib, while heading with Gaz to his ship sees Zim for about half a second yet enough to know something was not right, so he rushes to get out of Vort and gets out there in time. Dib and Gaz, already in the ship and many kilometers into the space, watch their planet turn into chaos because of an eldritch-looking blob.

Some months pass by and Dib keeps wondering when are they gonna find a planet. Gaz, annoyed because of hearing his annoying brother over and over again, keeps piloting the ship really hoping to find a planet not because she is tired but wants Dib to just. shut. up. A beeping signal catches her attention. It was from a planet called ´Urth´, a decent place to land on and had at least some type of basic civilization going on. The only bad thing was the noise when they got there. The horrible, horrible noise. But eh, they could get used to it.

Dib activates the ship's cloaking mechanism. Well, a prototype he had been working on previously. There, he tries to understand Urth's fashion choices and other types of trends. He then configures a hologram to match the creature's appearance:

The only parts he couldn't modify were his hands and legs. The hands were the easy part: he could just put on gloves with extra fingers on it. The legs were a rather...complicated and painful process (even more than Zim's in the first episode).The ears serve no other function other than partly blocking the noise the planet is always producing and his glasses have a special type of glass that makes his eyes look human without needing to use contact lenses all day.

Dib decided to use a trench coat because he saw one on a documentary a ´hyooman´ family was watching and thought it was cool. He lives a relatively normal human life until one day a new kid arrives to school: Zim. Dib quickly recognizes Zim as an Irken but for some reason he seems oddly familiar.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Anyways, this AU was created because I was questioning myself as to what is better than an alien discovering what is love? Two aliens falling in love! (+ one thinking the other one is a human, only to realize love can be everywhere {how cheezy lmao} and also having the possibility for this to be pure angst)

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thedum1 · 4 years ago

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Death Note ask meme answers because I want to talk about my favorite anime.

My favorite character is hands down, Mail 'Matt' Jeevas. I saw rad art of him and it was instant love.

My least favorite douchebag is Higuchi. He's such a pervy creep and ugh. Bad vibes from him.

Please give me a Death Note character to ramble about. 🥺

I like Sidoh and Namikawa honestly. Sidoh is nice for comedy relief and Namikawa is pretty.

Answered this one. ❤️

I'd describe L as lawful evil or something like that. He has decent morals but some of the shit he does is really wrong. He's not as bad as Light/Kira but it's not by much IMO. 🤷

Misa.....is guilty but not as much as Light. A tiktok opened my eyes and Misa WAS supposed to die. Gelus saving her kinda screwed her over. She had no purpose till Light killed the burglar who murdered her family. I wish she wasn't so devoted but I understand why she is.

Please give me a Death Note character so I can think about them with the DN. 🥺

I think I'd have a break down of I got the DN. I'm a tender soul and I'm all bark and no bite.

Yeah. I have ships. Some contradict my own headcanons. My favorite is Mello x Matt and oddly enough L x Matsuda.

Please give me a Death Note ship to ramble about. 🥺

I like the anime for background noise but the manga for some rad Matt and Mello content.

Answered this one. ❤️

Rem. No questions. I was sad when she died because of Light.

Mello. My first angry blonde anime boy.

I hate to admit it but Light is smart. The only reason he lost was because of Mikami fucking up.

I personally love season two. Take a wild guess why. 😳

I'm torn on Whammy's House. Like it's nice it's a place for children without families but....training kids to be geniuses? Two kids broke down because of the high standards. Just give them a semi-normal childhood please.

Near alone isn't worthy in my eyes. And though Mello hated him the two of them together probably could go have gone beyond L.

Answered this one. ❤️

I'd revive Mello. I think because Matt was one of the ONLY characters he apologized to he'd "snap" and hunt Kira down to avenge his (probably) only friend. And I believe he could have done it too. He's got determination, skills, and the different smarts needed.

Watching L, Watari, and Rem die hurt and made me cry....but watching Matt and Mello die within moments of each other and Mello apologizing to Matt? Man I had to stop watching the anime for a few days after when I was a kid.

"I'll solve equations with my right hand and write the names of criminals with my left. Then I'll take a potato chip and EAT IT!" So much dramatic music and lighting for a fucking chip.

Oop. I started a whole Instagram account just for headcanons and art, you should check it out in the pinned post and maybe give it a follow. 🥺

I really wish we got more anime episodes for Mello's character development and Matt moments and development in general. My loves deserved better and I will fight anyone who shits on them to my face and by fight I mean cry, it'll be uncomfortable for everyone. They are my favorite comfort characters please don't let me know you hate them. 🥺

#ask meme answers #Death Note #a dumb bitch is talking #rambling about anime #seriously please give me ships and characters to talk about

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu

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You thought movies were the only place to get your daily dose of horror? Oh you fool! You absolute FOOL! There are plenty of bingeworthy and scary horror TV shows out there and Hulu just happens to be a great place to find them.

Hulu is home to recent hits like The Terror and Castle Rock but there are still more scares to be found for the horror enthusiast willing to dig deep. Gathered here are some of the best and scariest horror TV shows that Hulu has to offer.

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the additions to the best horror TV shows on Hulu.

Updated for October 2020

The Terror

Based on a 2007 book of the same name by Dan Simmons, The Terror season 1 tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to the arctic in 1845. In real life, the doomed men likely got lost and succumbed to the cold but the show asks “what if there was something more sinister than low temperatures lurking about?”

The Terror features a cast impressively full of “hey it’s that guy” guys like Jared Harris, Ciarán Hindis, and Tobias Menzes. It deftly turned itself into an anthology with the second season The Terror: Infamy that tells a ghost story within the setting of a Japanese interment camp in World War II.

American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the first successful network television horror show since The X-Files.

Like all anthologies, American Horror Story has its better seasons (season 1 a.k.a. Murder House, season 2 a.k.a. Asylum, season 6 a.k.a. Roanoke) and its worse (season 3 a.k.a. Coven and season 8 a.k.a. Apocalypse). Still, for nine years and counting, American Horror Story has been one of the go-to options for TV horror fans.

Castle Rock

Stephen King properties have made their way to television before. There have been miniseries for classic King texts like The Stand and ‘Salem’s Lot and even full series for works like Rose Red and Under the Dome. Still, none of those series has had the audacity to adapt multiple aspects of the Stephen King universe itself…until Castle Rock.

Castle Rock takes multiple characters, storylines, and concepts from the vast works of Stephen King and puts them all in King’s own Castle Rock, Maine. The first season featured inmates from Shawshank prison, extended family of Jack Torrance, and maybe even a touch of the shine. The show opened itself up for more storytelling possibilities in season 2, adopting an anthology format and bringing Annie Wilkes into the fold.

The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe.

Culture

The Words of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Are More Relevant Than Ever

By Chris Longo

The Twilight Zone Marathon: A History of a Holiday Tradition

By Arlen Schumer

Whatever you do, however, do NOT drop your glasses.

The Strain

The most novel thing about FX’s vampire horror thriller The Strain is how it equates the ancient fear of vampirism with the more modern, global fear of pandemic. The Strain, produced by Guillermo del Toro Chuck Hogan and based on their novel series opens with a flight landing with all of its passengers mysteriously dead.

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

Movies

Lake Mungo: the Lingering Mystery Behind One of Australia’s Scariest Horror Films

By Rosie Fletcher

As CDC director Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) steps in to investigate, he discovers that there might be something more sinister…and ancient afoot than a simple virus. The Strain lasted for four mostly decent seasons on FX and if nothing else helped re-embrace the vampire as a monster and not some sort of noble antihero.

Stan Against Evil

To parody horror, one needs to love horror. And Stan Against Evil creator Dana Gould really, really, really loves horror. The longtime standup comedian and comedy writer brings his unique humor sensibilities and lifelong appreciation of horror to tell the story of a quaint New Hampshire town that just happens to be built on the cursed site of a massive witch burning.

Movies

Dana Gould Picks His 5 Favorite Monster Movies

By Dana Gould

Talalay’s Terrors! The Director Breaks Down Her 5 Scariest Scenes

By Kayti Burt

John C. McGinley stars as the titular Stan, a disgraced former sheriff who opts to pick up the battle against evil after a close call. He teams up with new sheriff Evie Barret (Janet Varney) to defend the town (and sometimes world) from supernatural threats.

The X-Files

The X-Files is quite simply the gold standard for horror on television. Chris Carter’s conspiracy-tinged supernatural masterpiece not only inspired every horror TV show that came after it, but just about every other TV show in general.

I Still Want to Believe: Revisiting The X-Files Pilot

By Chris Longo

The X-Files Revealed: The Paranormal Roots of the Pentagon’s UFO Program

By Alejandro Rojas

The X-Files follows FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigate the unusual cases that traditional law enforcement won’t touch. For 11 seasons (and a handful of movies), the show expertly balanced a massive series-long story along with what came to be called “monster of the week” self-contained tales.

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural

When it first premiered on YouTube back in 2016, Buzzfeed Unsolved became a huge hit by appealing to one of the Internet’s favorite subjects: true crime. Still Buzzfeed saw all of that success and realzied there was still another audience to serve. Thus Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural was born.

Games

20 Scariest Horror Games Ever Made

By Matthew Byrd

Helstrom Review (Spoiler-Free)

By Rosie Knight

In this spinoff hosts Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej examine some of the supernatural world’s biggest mysteries. With the right balance of skepticism and belief, Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural is a welcome entry into the paranormal investigation TV canon.

The Outer Limits

When The Twilight Zone premiered in 1959, it set off a brief little renaissance of anthology horror storytelling on television. The best of these contenders to the Zone‘s throne was probably the sci-fi centric The Outer Limits.

Movies

How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy

By Jack Beresford

Movies

Disney+ Halloween Movies for Kids: The Best Family Films to Watch This Spooky Season

By Alana Joli Abbott

Outer Limits aired from 1963 to 1965 on ABC. In that span it generated 49 spooky episodes, several of which made an impact on pop culture. Alan Moore infamously borrowed the plot of the episode “The Architects of Fear” for the ending of Watchmen. The Outer Limits received a Sci-Fi Channel revival in the ’90s and is currently poised for another bite at the apple.

Freakish

Freakish stars several high profile (at the time at least) social media stars as students at Kent High School. The kids are gathered together at school on Saturday for detention, Breakfast Club-style, when a nearby chemical plant explodes, turning the local population into mutated zombies. The group must band together to survive.

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Netflix: Scariest Films to Stream

By David Crow and 2 others

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Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad and 3 others

Debuting in 2016, Freakish ran for two seasons on Hulu. The show embraces its teenage soapiness and isn’t necessarily the most heavyweight horror option. But it’s a quick, fun watch for any zombie horror fan nonetheless.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Fox series that bears its name and premise isn’t quite as good (few things could ever be) but it’s still an excellent horror story in its own right.

Movies

A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

By David Crow and 3 others

How Helstrom Became One of Marvel Television’s Last Shows Standing

By Alec Bojalad

The Exorcist is a two-season long anthology series that follows two different cases of demonic possession. In the first installment, two Catholic priests assist a woman with a possession in her home. In the second, two new priests help a young girl battle evil.

Ghost Adventures

Since the turn of the millennium, television has not been lacking for shows involving paranormal investigations. But even within the crowded spooky market, Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures stands out.

Ghost Adventures: Horror at Joe Exotic Zoo Two-Hour Special Premieres Oct. 29

By Tony Sokol

Culture

How Ghost Adventures: Quarantine Came Together

By Aaron Sagers

First premiering in 2008, Ghost Adventures follows paranormal researchers Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley as they travel the world looking for ghoulish occurrences to investigate. Over its 200-some episodes (not including specials), Ghost Adventures has proven itself to be the gold standard for people who just want to watch some dudes stumble around old properties in night vision.

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Monsterland

Since Netflix acquired the rights to Black Mirror back in 2015, the streaming world has been a veritable arms race of sci-fi and horror anthology series. Hulu has already tried its hand at horror anthology with the Blumhouse-produced Into the Dark, and Monsterland represents the latest effort.

Movies

The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

By Gavin Jasper

Games

How Scorn Turned the Art of H.R. Giger into a Nightmarish Horror Game World

By John Saavedra

Monsterland is based on the short story collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud. It consists of eight spooky, unconnected tales and features the acting talents of Kaitlyn Dever, Bill Camp, Kelly Marie Tran, and more. The twist here is that each episode focuses on an urban legend from a different city within the United States. And given how weird this country is, the series won’t be running out of of stories anytime soon.

The post Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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utilitycaster · 5 years ago

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i saw a bunch of people reference keyfish when that episode of fh first aired but I'm not sure what it is? Best I can tell it's a critical role thing

Yes it is. Not sure how much you know about Critical Role so I may over-explain things if you have some background, and this is going to contain some campaign 1 spoilers, but you asked so I assume that’s cool.

Anyway in campaign 1, Keyleth, who is a druid (and who was quite high level at that point), decided in one episode to do a cliff dive to retrieve something. When the DM pointed out that she was cliff diving from a huge height into a rocky area she decided to Wild Shape not into, you know, a bird, or something with a trillion hitpoints, but rather a goldfish (hence Keyfish).

She hit a rock and was instantly killed because a gold fish has like 2 HP and the carry-over damage was over twice her base HP. Fortunately, another character, Vex, had an emergency item infused with Revivify given to her by a third character, Tary, because they’d just been in a fight, and was able to successfully resurrect Keyleth.

It became a meme for a couple reasons:

1. This was an entirely unnecessary death.

2. This is the only time Keyleth died during the campaign - as a Circle of the Moon druid with a decent constitution she was extremely difficult to even knock unconscious. Only Keyleth could kill Keyleth.

3. This happened like 15 minutes into the episode, after a fight that turned out to be against a fake monster, in a comparatively light arc of the campaign, and she was revived almost immediately (and the party had a high-level cleric on the cliff, even if they hadn’t had revivify they probably would have been fine). Like, the pointlessness of this whole death was so extreme that the response to the character death by both the players and the audience was that this was absolutely hilarious.

Critical Role even made an official shirt to commemorate the moment.

and so: whenever someone takes a huge fall in D&D, especially for reasons that are mostly due to their own questionable decisions, it’s reminiscent of the legendary Keyfish.

#the legend of the keyfish #critical role #vox machina #to head off any complaints this is not a spoiler-free blog and i only tag a small handful of vm spoilers that i think are worth hiding #keyleth #Anonymous

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jgroffdaily · 5 years ago

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Jonathan Groff decides we should take advantage of what might be New York’s last suitable night for al fresco dining in 2019. He sits down at one of a dozen empty tables outside the otherwise packed Hell’s Kitchen bistro and announces, in a tone suggesting more mischief than regret, that he must first make a call.

"Hello," he says, iPhone now at his ear. "Joel Grey?"

Groff is starring in a limited revival of Little Shop of Horrors, and it is a very hot ticket. The Broadway legend on the other end of the line has apparently thrown a Hail Mary in hopes of scoring seats to the night’s sold-out performance. Hamming up this exchange for my amusement, Groff is game to play broker for the Tony and Oscar winner who originated the role of Cabaret’s tuxedoed emcee — and, maybe, anybody else who has his number.

"This is basically my part-time job," says Groff of fielding requests, jotting down credit card information and negotiating pickup times and locations for friends both famous and civilian. "It was the same thing when I was doing Hamilton," he adds of his year playing King George III in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop history lesson. "But I was really only onstage for nine minutes during that show, so the tickets were probably full-time."

The 34-year-old actor seems eager to please, not unlike current alter ego Seymour. Little Shop’s nebbish, sweet and ultimately doomed florist nurtures a manipulative plant even as the pet’s homicidal tendencies grow more and more apparent. Those familiar with the campy musical comedy know that it suffers no shortage of blood, but it’s a nursery rhyme compared with Groff’s recent work on truecrime thriller Mindhunter. Playing a curious FBI agent in David Fincher’s Netflix series has perhaps done more for his ascendant profile than anything yet. But two seasons on the drama have meant two nine-month stints in Pittsburgh, filming interrogation scenes with character actors who bear uncanny resemblances to famous serial killers.

So even on a two-show day like this late- October Saturday, the rigors of theater are easy work for Groff. Over a couple of hot toddies, in between humoring three smitten waiters at the restaurant at which he’s been a regular since Little Shop went into previews down the block, the actor appears to be in his element. "Theater is such a communal, familial medium and interactive experience," notes Groff, who says he recognizes faces in the crowd during most performances. "Mindhunter, for me at least, is a very private experience."

Groff plays against type on Mindhunter. Wide-eyed with an almost perpetual grin, his is a mug you wouldn’t be surprised to find in an illustrated Merriam-Webster — cozied up to the entry for "baby face." Much of his previous acting career leaned into this, starting with his breakout. The Pennsylvania native came to New York at 19 and landed the lead in the musical Spring Awakening by the time he was 21. "I was just auditioning for the ensemble of Broadway shows," says Groff. "I hadn’t really developed the taste to appreciate something like Spring Awakening until I was in it."

New York’s "It" Broadway show of the aughts, the rock opera about sexual discovery among 19th century German teenagers earned Groff his first Tony nomination. He spent two years in the production before leaving in 2008, at the same time as friend and co-star Lea Michele, to pursue film and television. The work that immediately followed — Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, a recurring spin on Michele’s Fox hit Glee, a supporting role in the second season of Kelsey Grammer’s cult drama Boss, voicework in Disney $1.3 billion smash Frozen (he’ll reprise his role as Kristoff in Frozen 2, out Nov. 22) — got him on the radar for vehicles of his own. When HBO began casting Looking, its 2014 dramedy about a group of gay friends navigating an evolving San Francisco, Groff was soon tapped to front the series.

"He will search for the best version of every scene and will work until everyone drops," says Looking executive producer Andrew Haigh, who cast him as Patrick — boy-nextdoor- ish, like the actor, but privileged and problematically fickle. "He is also wholly unafraid to be vulnerable onscreen."

Looking lasted for only two seasons and a wrap-up movie, and its premature demise allowed Groff to do Hamilton, which he joined while the show was off-Broadway in early 2015, and then made the jump to Broadway. His supporting part as the aforementioned royal — with interstitial lamentations for the seceding Colonies, sung like a lovelorn (and supremely pissed) Davy Jones — earned Groff his second Tony nomination. But Groff wasn’t long for Hamilton, either. He was circling his next TV project, a moody prestige procedural about the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, based on the 1995 memoir Mindhunter by criminal profiler John E. Douglas.

"I’m not naturally a true-crime person. So reading the book, I was like … 'oh, fuck,' "says Groff of John E. Douglas’ memoir 'Mindhunter.'

Mindhunter, the book and the series, delves into the morbid minutiae of notorious murder cases with an emphasis on interviews between law enforcement and criminals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Groff was in contention for the role of FBI agent Holden Ford, based loosely on Douglas. First, he had to prove to director and executive producer Fincher — a filmmaker long admired by Groff, who says he has "a boner for his brain" — that a jovial Broadway star most widely known for singing with a reindeer in a Disney cartoon could have the upper hand with serial killers.

It was not Groff��s first audition for Fincher. Seven years earlier, he was in the running to play Napster co-founder Sean Parker in The Social Network. "My agents said, 'You have an audition in L.A. with David and Aaron Sorkin,' " Groff recalls. "If you get it, you start rehearsal the next day, so pack your suitcase for two months. They really like your tape, but they’re also considering Justin Timberlake." The part went to Timberlake.

"I did not feel then — and still don’t — that he had the inherent venality for that role," Fincher says of Groff. "He is as decent and sensitive as anyone I’ve ever met."

If venality is off the table for Groff, darkness is not. And though casting the song-anddance man was a source of curiosity for some in Hollywood before Mindhunter’s 2017 debut, the finished product didn’t elicit any skepticism from critics. Over the first season, Groff’s character goes from eager, milkdrinking company boy to a shell of the man introduced in the first episode. He alarms colleagues with the way he mirrors serial killers, until he has a panic attack after getting a bear hug from a necrophile. The second run, equally well reviewed after its August debut, saw a somewhat recovered Holden sit down with Charles Manson and, for the dramatic fulcrum of the season, investigate the Atlanta child murders of 1979-81.

"It is so impossibly bleak that I don’t think about it while I’m doing it," says Groff, who confesses he finds watching the show more affecting than making it. "All due respect to people who feel like the character is inside of them or whatever, but I don’t have that. I would leave set, listen to Beyoncé, and that was it."

After an hour and a half in his company, Groff reveals himself as a Lucille Ball historian, an avid bike rider, a devout New Yorker and someone who doesn’t seem easily bummed out — except when the conversation turns to success. His excitement over landing Mindhunter, he says, was immediately diluted by a pang of sadness. "Whenever something really great happens, it makes me feel a little bit depressed," he says. "It’s like, this is never going to get better than this moment right now. I’m sitting in David Fincher’s office and he’s giving me this role."

Talk of a third season of Mindhunter is on hold while Fincher focuses on his next feature. But the director did take a recent break from Mank, a biopic on Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, to attend Groff’s first Little Shop matinee with wife and fellow Mindhunter executive producer Céan Chaffin. It was a surprise appearance, but only because Groff hadn’t been checking his text messages. "I’m not good at my phone," he admits.

Groff has not looked at his phone since that one call — which, while polite, now has him in danger of running late for curtain. He breaks the bad news of his immediate departure to one particularly adoring waiter, and we walk to the stand where his bike is locked. There, he pulls from his bag a cobalt helmet that could double as Tron cosplay. Bars of blinding LED lights on both its front and back, his headgear tells cabs to get the hell out of the way and signals to everybody else that this is a man who values safety over subtlety.

"Yeah, I do really love riding my bike in the city … I’m just not that hard-core," Groff says of the helmet before encasing his tousle of sandy chestnut hair for the one-block ride to the theater and an expectant Joel Grey. "My mom bought this for me."

#jonathan groff #interview

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zen3to5 · 5 years ago

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So I’ve finished Season 7 of That 70s Show.

...It’s better than Season 6.

I mean that sincerely. Like with Season 5, I find myself out of step with a fair amount of commentary that I’ve read about T7S when it comes to the penultimate season. For how bad Season 6 was - and it’s still shocking to me how steep a fall the back half of that season was from a consistent five-year high, and how demoralizing it was for my interest in finishing the rewatch and this rewrite project - I really do think Season 7 was something of a recovery. The damage done couldn’t be wholly ignored, and this year more than any before it was sloppy and airheaded about the show’s (admittedly always somewhat loose) continuity. But I do think this season’s writing was - for the most - part improved. And whether they intended it this way or not, I find that it tries to make lemonade out of a few of the lemons left by Season 6.

The best example of that is Eric. Season 7 continues its predecessor’s trend of treating Eric as the group loser, with “Angie” probably being the absolute worst example of this. His interest in roller disco in the first place, and his dabbling in such left-field hobbies as butterfly hunting, aren’t a great fit for his character either. And his going off to Africa by the end smacks of desperation on the part of writers looking to give their main character a big and permanent exit from the series in the face of Fox’s last-minute, ill-conceived renewal. But this season also attempts to work with what’s happened to Eric up to this point. It acknowledges the fact that he used to be a more driven and ambitious character, tries to retroactively create a story wherein Eric’s changes come from a fear and uncertainty over his future, and gets him to a career path that - if not the first (or second) thing that comes to mind for him - isn’t unfeasible either. The execution of all of this is hit and miss, and there are arguably more misses (though none as bad as his decision on his wedding last season) - but I applaud the staff for trying.

I also applaud them landing on a better less bad way of writing Red and Kitty. They’re a long way from the healthy couple and responsible parents we saw in the show’s early years, or the motivated conflict of Season 5. But - and this may be a case of perception more than raw facts - things seem less negative here than in Season 6. At least there isn’t a mini-arc of Red lusting after another woman. And the bickering and resigned attitude towards marriage seem lessened, if not lost. There’s even a new (if grossly neglected) angle for Red this season as he goes into business for himself, something I enjoyed. On the other hand, having Red blow Eric’s college money on that business is ridiculous... but stinkers like that litter the last few episodes of this season, and we’ll get into another shortly.

Sticking to the positives for now - after having almost no growth whatsoever (but little derailment) in Season 6, Hyde now has an arc. His having a secret, rich real dad is a soap-opera contrivance that I go back and forth on - it’s either dumb but effective, or effective but dumb. It’s also rather redundant; for an orphan, Hyde never lacked for father figures in the show, Red more than anyone else, and I don’t think WB brings a lot new out of Hyde as a father. But as a charismatic businessman who brings Hyde into the corporate world (and then running a record store), he does a lot for Hyde, and makes for a charming character in his own right (something I can’t say for Angie; I find her to be Brooke 2.0, and without any chemistry with either her half-brother or her boyfriend.) Hyde’s whole arc in the front half of the season - entering into a professional world he’s never wanted anything to do with, finding a more suitable job at the record store, but ending up unnerved by impending adulthood and regressing in his personal relationships - not only puts him into new situations and draws out fresh but believable reactions from him, it nicely parallels Eric’s arc. Hyde being a more reserved character, it’s only ever directly stated by Donna, and one could argue the transition needed to be stretched out and in more direct focus. But one can at least see an arc here, and I think it’s reasonably well-executed - on a back-half T7S scale, but even without that caveat, it’s decently done.

Of course, Hyde’s arc runs him into conflict with Jackie, and it’s depressing to think that she has more development this season than the previous one - y’know, the one where the mother who abandoned her rolled back into town. Jackie’s arc is a variation on a theme we’ve seen from her before - rushing to maturity. But while in earlier seasons that manifested as Jackie childishly playing at “adult” things like fancy dinner parties, here she really is more mature, and more honestly longing for commitment from Hyde and a future beyond the Formans’ basement. But with Jackie, I think the lack of build-up is a serious problem. While she gets excited by Hyde’s new job, there really isn’t any clear sign of how ready she is for life after high school until “Winter.” There’s certainly not enough build-up to her wanting a promise for (eventual) marriage, though I can believe Jackie would want that. And while Jackie’s interest in working in local news television was mentioned here and there throughout the show, her actually getting her own program comes out of nowhere and gets hardly any development - a shame, because I think that’s a believable career for her.

As for her and Hyde’s relationship... I don’t hate what’s done here. For all the negative commentary I’ve read about it, I don’t find “Winter” that bad an episode. It’s not great, and one could argue Hyde should be past the stage where he pulls something that childish with his significant other, but that’s part of Hyde’s whole arc. And I think their break-up this season comes from a convincing conflict. The episodes they spend apart - “Street Fighting Man” in particular - have some of the most heartfelt expressions of feeling from either character, even without the other seeing it. But the way they get back together is just awful. It’s sloppier than their first make-up at the beginning of Season 6, and even by this season’s standards, it makes a mess of continuity. And, after getting them back together, the show takes a few episodes to present them as a strong couple, a few to tread water, and then goes into the ultimatum, a mini-arc just as contrived as Eric’s going to Africa, and almost certainly a victim of hasty rewrites after the renewal. The contrivance of Jackie not having a car so that Kelso can get involved and revive the love triangle is all sorts of nonsense from these characters at this point, and it’s such a lousy way to effectively end - even without Season 8 - what was the emotional highlight of the show from Season 5 onward.

Speaking of Kelso - there’s not much to say about him in this season. Continuing on from a trend in Season 6 I didn’t fully realize until now, he’s less broad and wild than in earlier seasons. He’s still cartoonishly dim, but a more mellow dim. The birth of his daughter, and his earning the right to have her on weekends, gives him a bit of development at the beginning and end of the season (until it’s derailed in the final episode.) That leaves a long stretch in the middle where there’s nothing but Kelso’s Greatest Hits - a retread of his womanizing with Angie, a retread of the “dumb guy, brainy gal” dynamic with Angie, some funny bromance with Fez, some generic stupidity - nothing we haven’t seen before, and none of it carried off with the same gusto and energy as before.

Donna doesn’t have much going on either. She has less going on than Kelso, really. After dying her hair and rededicating herself to feminism, that’s pretty much it. Almost nothing of note happens for her as an individual, and she and Eric tread water in their relationship until he announces his trip to Africa. One could argue that her static status as an individual makes some sense; she had declared in Season 6 that she didn’t see the need to go to college since she had the sort of job she was going to college for; if you buy that (and I don’t, but it happened) then you could reasonably say she’s settled into life, for now anyway. And there is an attempt to have her and Eric sort out what happened at the end of Season 6 that is somewhat convincing. But not wholly. And after Season 6 - and with how rote and, frankly, in the background their relationship is for most of this season - it’s hard to root for Eric and Donna at this point. The only reason their relationship still holds up is the goodwill built up over the first five seasons, and it’s a miracle Season 6 left any of that for Season 7 to tread with.

And then there’s Fez, who I’ve really come to hate in these later seasons. I can appreciate that the shy, naive, and malleable foreign kid from the beginning of the season couldn’t (and shouldn’t) have lasted forever, and Seasons 3 through 5 did a decent job expanding on his character. But Season 6 took an element that had, frankly, always been there to some degree - perverted voyeurism - injected a lot of selfish bratiness, and made a mess of the character. Season 7, where Fez is concerned, makes things even worse by adding a really disturbing confidence and comfortability to Fez with just how much of a pervert he is. His attempts to coerce some action from both Donna and Jackie go well past what I can buy those girls putting up with from him, and his “dark room switch” proposal is absolutely terrible. A good portion of this show’s humor about sex hasn’t aged well, but Fez more than any other character has been cast in a bad light because of that, and I’m happy to cut my rewatch off at Season 7 just so I don’t need to see more of him.

To continue on the negatives, the whole show at this point has a listlessness to it that wasn’t present even in Season 6. I’m not surprised this was once intended as the last season, because it’s hard not to get the feeling that everyone was done. This may be another case of perception outweighing the facts, but the impression I have of Season 7 is that, compared to earlier seasons, there are a greater number of scenes, scenes are more fast-paced, and consequently, very few things can build the way they used to. That takes away from earnest and dramatic moments the most, but it hurts the comedy as well. And it also means that, for the first time, the season finale doesn’t even feel like a finale. It feels like just another episode that happens to end on a stupid cliffhanger. And that’s just lame.

The most frustrating thing is that the pieces in the last few episodes - Eric deciding to be a teacher, Jackie’s job offer and her ultimatum to Hyde, Kelso and Fez getting an apartment - could have added up to an effective series finale if the show had more energy left in it, and if Fox hadn’t renewed them. And I’ll certainly try to prove that with this rewrite....

#z's crits #that 70s show #critique #commentary

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humboldtfog · 5 years ago

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Years of depression has prepared me very well for the current state of affairs which is weird but whatever here’s a list of my faves on netflix, if I’m missing something let me know cause now’s the time, right?

I'm kinda embarrassed by how long this list is but also kinda like fuck that, there have been very long periods of time where it was either sit and watch shows all day or lie down and stare at the wall in silence all day so I chose the former and it adds up and there's nothing wrong with that.

Glow (Badass ladies learn to wrestle, great 80s aesthetics and grrrrl power.)

Our Planet (Netflix version of Planet Earth, beautiful, cute, terrifying that we aren’t doing more to save us all.)

Bojack Horseman (Hilarious and “deep” critique of LA and celebrity culture for people who don’t care about LA or celebrity culture. Also very funny visual jokes about how if animals were also kinda humans, and lots of great jokes about cliches and tropes, puns, and weirdly rhyming and alliteration? I don’t know how to explain it just watch it.)

Father Brown (BBC, based on mystery novels about a priest who always meddles in police business and solves murders in his small English countryside town.)

Pose (The Ball scene in NY in the 80s, poc queer and trans writers and actors bringing their people’s stories to life. So much joy, so much beauty, but also NYC in the 80s so you will cry.)

Paris is Burning (Documentary made during the Ball scene Pose is based on.)

Sex Education (Such empowering representations of all walks of gender and sexuality, and actually very educational, like I would straight up show this in schools because everyone would be very entertained and would learn a lot more than they teach in a lot of schools.)

What Happened Miss Simone (Documentary about Nina Simone’s life, music and the activism the establishment/ government worked to suppress and used to blacklist her.)

Night on Earth (Low light camera technology has gotten hella good and they’re starting to learn stuff about animals’ behaviors at night that they’ve never been able to study before.)

Call the Midwife (Follows stories from the midwives that worked in the East End of London after the war, based on memoirs. Interesting look at the kind of life of poverty people led before there were many large hospitals or birth control, right as the British were implementing their universal healthcare program.)

The Great British Baking Show (Everyone’s so nice and everything looks so good!)

Atypical (Dramady about a high schooler with autism and his family, very funny and great representations of autism and how to be a good dude.)

Parks and Recreation (Just very funny and everyone knows it. Amazing ensemble cast, and they still keeps in touch through a group chat awww doesn’t that say something!)

Kim’s Convenience (Canadian comedy about family of first and second gen Korean immigrants that’s just a really solid funny modern day sitcom.)

Queer Eye (I feel like if everyone in this world could get a life makeover from these guys we just wouldn’t be here right now.)

Obvious Child (Jenny Slate accidentally gets pregnant and gets an abortion. It’s funny and it’s realistic, we’re not all Juno.)

Maria Bamford: the Special Special Special (Rad lady comedian not afraid to talk about her mental health and lack thereof and very vocal about the stigma surrounding mental health problems and I very much relate to. My favorite standup probably ever. I could make a list just for standup so message me if you’d like more suggestions.)

Monty Python (Flying Circus, movies, doc, ect. “The Beatles of comedy” is the cliche but it's true.)

Easy (Very unconventional non-narrative structure and editing, following random people in Chicago in a very real life feeling way. Different story each episode, but sometimes characters show up briefly in each other’s lives or return for a second episode.)

Everything Sucks! (High school nerds and lesbians and theater geeks in the 90s! I’m so sad this only got one season I rewatched it recently and it’s just so solid.)

She’s Gotta Have It (Revival of Spike Lee’s first movie, black girl magic, art world, gentrified New York, lots of sex.)

The Office (Classic, holds up very well, totally solid throughout, worth a rewatch. Also if you're a fan Jenna Ficher and Angela Davis are doing a rewatch podcast jsyk.)

Billy on the Street (Mindless game show for laughs, amazing gay comedian runs around New York yelling questions at them. I watch this with my dad and he can’t help but snort even when it’s “inappropriate” or “juvenile” so you know it’s good.)

Good Girls (Some lower middle class family ladies that are all about to be broke decide to rob the grocery store one of them works at, but they accidentally cross a gang that stored their cash there, so they gotta pay it back, and of course can’t help but get deeper and deeper into it. Very suspenseful like your heart rate will go up and stay up. )

Arrested Development (It’s just funny, as you've probably heard, but I'm telling you it just really is.)

The Laundromat (Tells the stories of a few of the people involved in the panama papers in different ways, explains in an entertaining way how money laundering works in a way that made it mostly make sense even to me. The rich get richer, and Meryl Streep is here to tell them to fuck off and pay their taxes.)

Russian Doll (She keeps dying and coming back to the same moment over and over and can’t figure out how to stop the cycle or why so kinda sci fi, very suspenseful, big cliff hanger ending, or rather no ending, and just found out season two filming is delayed because virus which is very annoying!!)

Dear White People (Show picking up where the movie left off, after a frat hosts a black face party and the ivy league college is forced to deal with racism.)

Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings (Stories based on Dolly songs. Very Hallmark channel, you will cry.)

Episodes (Show about two British writers making a version of their BBC show for American tv. Kind of meta, very funny, Matt LaBlanc plays himself and it's great.)

Dumplin’ (Fat girl grows up with a beauty pageant winning mom and enters one herself with the help of her late aunt’s Dolly Parton drag queen friends.)

Lunatics (Chris Lilley is the best character actor ever, all his shows are just him playing different parts and you seriously forget it’s all one actor, even when he’s playing teenage girls.)

Jane the Virgin (Prime time soap opera about a girl who is engaged and waiting until marrige and is accidentally inseminated with the only sperm sample of a man who’s had cancer so decides to keep the baby, very heavy on the soap opera cliches in a meta way but also that’s what it is. So good at first but after the first three or so seasons it gets too much tbh though.)

Zumbo’s Just Desserts (Australian Bake show but with just sweet stuff and pressure to be avant garde.)

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Jerry Sienfeld goes out with funny people to coffee and lunch in fancy cars and they have funny conversations.)

One Day at a Time (Very very cheesy laugh track sitcom, like the kind of thing my grandma would watch, but it makes me so happy it’s doing a great job eplaining really woke concepts like queer pronouns and ptsd and addiction and white privilege to people like my grandma!)

Orange is the New Black (Good stories about very diverse characters, I’d say by starting it off about a upper middle class white girl it tricks privileged white people into watching and then encountering the more realistic stories of women who go to prison and how the system treats prisoners. Ending of season two is super solid and you can stop it there, season three is a really great critique of the privatization of prisons. I admit it goes on and on to the point that it’s stressful and after watching it spread out over years I can’t remember/ keep up with all the different story lines, though they’re all good stories to tell.)

Space Jam (Just saw while scrolling for more ideas this was added! One of the greatest sports movies of all time obviously.)

Bonus amazon prime shows, I try to avoid Amazon in general but these are just too good if you know a prime member who you can't convince not to give their money to amazon so they might as well give you their login (like yer dad).

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (A 1950s New York upper class Jewish house wife gets dumped and starts doing stand up, so funny, great actors, and they seriously transform NY back into another era.)

Good Omens (Mini series based off Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s satirical novel about the biblical apocalypse, very funny, very smart, very British, does the book pretty solid justice.)

There are other decent things that aren’t included, I’d say these are solid recs for a general list of genres all over the map without letting it get to a ridiculously unhelpful length. I feel like I’d be good at the “if you like this then you’ll also like…” so let me know if some of these are your favorites too and want personal recs for what to watch next based on a brain instead of an algorithm.

If you want to have a remote date and watch things together on video chat or one of those watch party sites or just tell me what to watch next here’s some stuff on my list I’ve been curious about or not sure about or don’t want to watch alone or have been putting off, and now’s the time right?: Strangers Things, I Am Not Okay With This, Black Panther, The Betty White doc, John Mulaney Snack Lunch Bunch, Dead to Me, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, A Wrinkle in Time, The Little Prince, Maniac, Wet Hot American Summer reboots, and a bunch of different standup specials from comedians I like.

#netflix #list #best #favorites #self #coronavirus #covid19 #2020

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