#so it makes creating anything compelling difficult. full stories or songs.

[red-dyed-sarumane]

i wonder how many people who follow me have the aru sekai tags i use filtered or if everyones just like there they go again

[skamamoroma]

I am attempting to put my finger on why ATOTS is grabbing people’s hearts like it is and why it’s so charming to use the word you used because same! Lol. What are your thoughts? [PS: I watched Skam Italia along with you And watched ITSAY on your rec and you’ve never let me down!]

Ahhh dude, that made me smile so much. Yey for you still being here ❤️

In answer to your question, I think it’s a lot of things. For me, I watched an interview with the director P’Oaf and I was really heartened that because he’s a gay man himself and felt a disconnect with the idea of creating LGBT+ content under a title other than LGBT+ content that he wanted to create a more adult love story that was for the LGBT+ community and didn’t cater for anything other than that. It was a really lovely interview and I think the finished product shows. The sexuality of Phupha or Tian is really not a thing, it’s not made a big deal of and their story isn’t centred around it at all. They’re just in love. End of. If you know me, you know I am wary of watching shows with LGBT+ themes unless I know they are handled respectfully and made for the right reasons so this is a huge one for me.

Another reason, for me, is the fact that we’re all so disconnected and lacking warmth and closeness and emotional connection because of this shit show of a year and a bit. The show is so kind and gentle and warm and lovely. The music even makes me feel cheered up. It’s full of the things we’re missing and the messages of self discovery, emotional development, community, love, friendship and connection... not to mention meaning in life are just so welcome right now.

The chemistry. This is a huge one for me. It’s not just between Phupha and Tian but the cast as a whole. Tian and the kids, Phu and the other rangers, Phu and Nam, Nam and Tian, Tian and Tul, Torfun and Phu etc. Every dynamic is so full of warmth and playfulness and this lovely sense of familiarity. But the biggie is always going to be between the love interests and JESUS their chemistry is a major selling point. I know Mix and Earth have known one another for many years and are v close friends (which shows) but that doesn’t always = good romantic chemistry. But these two have something that’s often very difficult to achieve and to think this is Mix’s first acting gig is genuinely ridiculous. It’s difficult for any romantic pairing to be SO COMPELLING at Episode 6 with barely touching. If you think about it, they’ve barely touched at all. Their chemistry is in their eyes, their words (“I just want to talk to you” being the most god damn beautiful), their actions, their dynamic, the way they challenge one another, the things they do when the other isn’t around and the way they improve the other. It means that when they DO share moments, the foundation in how you consider their feelings is so strong that the smallest thing is hugely meaningful and emotional. It’s very very well done and often hugely lacking in most dramas and love stories. Most love stories jump from 0-50 relatively quickly or the build up isn’t given time and space. The amount of time given to Tian and Phupha’s connection and gradual development is a huge part of why I think the show works so well. There are NO distractions other than the drama of their existence which all plays into their love story too. The entire show is focused on just these two with the other characters around them still forwarding both of their stories. It’s so refreshing. The fact their chemistry is electric and genuinely sometimes a little overwhelming means that they don’t even need to try too hard and include too much to achieve what they intend but they still do and you feel treated to such a genuine and carefully handled love story. Who doesn’t love that?!

Plus you have the stuff that isn’t directly related to the love story (but still all connects) like the tea seller arc, the truth about Tian’s heart and Torfun’s death and the knowledge that something about his dad will come out later on. All of it is compelling and all of it impacts the love story too... it gives a sense of there being stakes and challenge to overcome but the show is kind so I don’t feel too concerned about a happy ending. I’m so sure it’ll be wrapped up beautifully.

Also, the dynamic between Phupha and Tian is not necessarily new aka they have this push and pull relationship. Phu is technically an authority figure tasked with protection of the village, which includes Tian. But I like that there’s a real passing of the power dynamic between them. They tend to be my FAVOURITE types of relationship. I love characters who challenge each other and there have been real moments of strength and authority by Phupha but also such softness and vulnerability (so much actually) that I smile whenever people say he’s stern because DUDE IS A SOFTIE (and Tian knows it). It’s the same with Tian. He is adorable and endearing but also kinda bratty at times and really doesn’t let Phupha get away with anything. He’s a little more emotionally mature than the Chief in some ways but he still learns a lot from him. He also delights in knocking Phupha off kilter at times in the way he’ll push and push and test him... and insist on sharing or equality in their dynamic. It’s really really lovely. Also, they just like to tease the other ALL OF THE TIME and both of them just enjoy it too much... and then you’re like HOW ARE YOU BOTH SO STUPIDLY SHY TOO?!

But Tian alone is a really really loveable character and seeing as he’s the main, you root for him despite all of his misgivings and his past. You love him and cheer him on. Those moments the show beautifully includes where his old life is contrasted with his new and he recognises it himself are just so moving.

Then you have the setting and the scenery. The show was created in one constant struggle 😂 seeing the BTS is mental. They really really were against it and yet the finished product is so lovely. Some of the shots are just so ridiculously beautiful... some of the moments framed by the mountains or the trees or the way the sun shines, it’s just gorgeous.

And the music. Is it just me or does the score keep getting more beautiful? Some of the swelling music moments make me cry because of the music. I’m a HUGE fan and focused on music in movies and TV and I’ve been obsessed with scores since I was a teenager (it’s why I lost my shit at ITSAY last year). The title song is so beautiful and sweet that I remember when I first watched the trailer all those weeks back, it made me instantly feel something for the show.

All in all, it’s a real gift of a show. It’s just lovely. It’s very very very sweet and just such a comforting thing to watch. I genuinely have been cheered up by it for the past few weeks and I hear the theme song and see the adorable credit sequence and I’m smiling so easily. So I guess there are lots of reasons why it has resonated for people but I’m just glad it’s a show that exists. It’s just sweet and we need more of that!

[baconpal]

Bravely Default and BD2

Here it is, the partially prompted bravely default rant/retrospective/whatever the fuck!

With the announcement and demo of bravely default 2 out now for a bigger market than the original game ever had, I feel that as a massive fan of the original I should put some amount of effort into explaining what the appeal of the original is, why bravely second missed a lot of the appeal, and why bravely default 2 has been very, very worrying so far.

If you care about any of that, come on in and I'll try to actually avoid spoilers this time and make this a more legitimate recommendation of a game than usual.

THE APPEAL OF BRAVELY DEFAULT The games obviously have a beautiful art style, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. Every city is like a painting, a beautifully composed shot that you see from just one direction to give you one very strong impression. While the overworld and dungeons are fully 3d and do not have as strong of an artistic impact, they are still very competent and have good colors and cohesive elements. The character design, including the job outfits, the monsters, and all the villains are just top notch. Simple, evocative designs that make the most of the 3DS' limited hardware and build upon the teams skill in making handheld games look good. (its the same team that did the ff3 remake and 4 heroes of light, which looks absolutely kino on original DS) The music is also consistently excellent, with great use of motifing, a full and varied orchestra, and many good slow paced tracks for most of the non-combat segments. Shit like "Conflict's Chime" being the main battle theme, "Infiltrating Hostile Territory" being a common dungeon theme, and "That person's name is" as the rival boss themes makes even the seemingly repetitive songs a constant joy to listen to.

The story is pretty decent, it's not the best part of the game, and there are definitely some aspects of the story some people loathe, but the characters (specifically ringabel fuckin love him) are pretty good and the make for an enjoyable experience. The side material like D's journal are really well done and integrate into the main narrative well for how tucked away and ignored it is.

The gameplay and systems are also some of the best of any RPG I've played, and I've played far too many. The job system from ff3 and 5 is brought to an even greater depth with the addition of universal job abilities, allowing any character of any job make use of another jobs features to create an endless depth to strategy. The way various jobs can mingle together, and how no job is completely perfect on its own makes for very compelling team composition and unit design. The extensive amount of jobs helps as well for replay value and for assuring that no easy winning strategy is found by all players.

The BP system makes battles take on a very unique pacing as the player and enemies can choose to save up turns or blow them all at once to make more complicated strategies possible, or to make the most of an enemies vulnerabilities. This powerful option gives the player a meaningful way to capitalize on their knowledge of the game, while also allowing them to make truly detrimental mistakes. That may sound not good if you're a fucking baby, but nobody wants an RPG you cant lose, but losing because you fucked up is much better than losing because the enemies are just stronger than you or anything to that effect.

But the single greatest part of bravely defaults, which creates the games wonderful balance and unique design philosophy, is that the player is expected to hit the level cap long before finishing the game. Reaching level 99 should occur somewhere just after the middle of the game, at the point where the player has access to almost every job and has encountered almost every type of threat. Reaching level 99 brings with it a certain security, the implication that from then on, all enemies will also be level 99, and that any failure to defeat an enemy will be a result of a bad strategy or the players own mistakes. The game is not easy, and is certainly intended for veteran final fantasy players used to the games with job systems and changing up your entire party to combat a single encounter. Leveling up is not a slow grind part of the game, as you have a lot of control over the speed and frequency of battles, and it is not difficult to keep up with the games level curve.

The other layer to this unique design is that the game expects you to "cheat", or use strategies that would be overpowered and frowned upon in most other games. Bravely default easily expects you to know or discover strategies such as: applying a status to all enemies and killing every enemy with that status using another spell, cycling a counter move over and over to have a nearly invincible party member, applying a healing attribute to a self-damaging character to get huge damage at little cost, casting reflect and dangerous spells on your own party to bounce them at the enemy, or duplicating a move that does maximum damage 15 times in a row. The game builds all of its encounters with the knowledge that your team will be the maximum level and that you will be using the most vile tactics you can come up with, and the game will do the same. Bosses and even common enemies will employ equally vile tactics using the exact same moves that you have access to, meaning you can learn from your enemies or quickly grasp the enemies strategy through your own experiences. One of the late game dungeons is entirely optional, but involves several fights against parties of 4 just like your, using the same jobs and skills you have gained during the game as a perfect test of your ability to develop counter-strategies, instead of relying on your own overpowered tactics. This type of design is really not something you find in many games due to the prominence of grinding or the lack testing strategies, and it is the most true appeal of bravely default to me.

BRAVELY SECOND EXISTS I GUESS So bravely second, a direct sequel to bravely default, definitely is a video game. It uses the original game as a base to generate more content, but completely misses the appeal of the original, and the new content added makes the experience even less focused. Overall, it's still a fairly alright RPG, but it fails to follow up on bravely default in a meaningful way or to provide as compelling of a gameplay experience. Here's some of the things it fucked up.

The game reuses almost everything the original game had, including the same music, world map, and most of the original's towns and dungeons, while adding a few of it's own. Going through areas you've been before never feels good, and the new areas lack the quality or brevity of the original game, leading to uninteresting areas that overstay their welcome, despite being the only break from repetitively reused content.

This extends to the classes but in an even worse sense. One important trait of the original jobs is that they were not perfect by themselves. While every job provided some useful abilities to be shared with other classes, or provided a good base with which to make a character, no class was without flaws. The new classes in bravely second are a lot of the opposite, they are closed loops that think of everything they could have to make a good standalone character. The 4 starter classes you get in bravely second are all brand new, and there's almost no reason to use any class besides those 4 as they are just insanely good. The priest and magician specifically augment magic in a way that makes spells infinity scalable into the end game, completely trampling on any other magic classes territory without needing the extra effort of grinding a new class out. Many of the new job concepts are actually really interesting, like going back in time to return to a healthier state, or a class that changes the stats and attributes of all units in a battle, allowing for all new kinds of strategies; but these classes lack any opportunity to be used to their full potential since they don't mesh well with other jobs and are limited by their self-centered design.

Another completely missed aspect of the original is the level curve discussed before. Bravely second only really requires you get somewhere in the ballpark of level 60-70 to comfortably beat the final boss, and getting too leveled up is really hard to avoid if you are plan to try out various jobs.

Second also fails to account for how many incredibly strong strategies the player can come up with, and even introduces some of its own strategies that it has no way to counteract, such as halfsies (the first skill the first class gets) pretty much splitting the game in two by tripling the value of items like phoenix downs, and allowing for fool-proof strategies by making 1 character focus entirely on defense, effectively making the party unkillable. Essentially, if you play second after having played the original (like any sane person would) then you will absolutely destroy the game with no sense of satisfaction.

The story is also a large step down, enough to become an annoyance, as the writing style changes to a strange romantic comedy situation with, for lack of a better term please forgive my sin, anime writing, but like bad anime writing, ya know the kind of shit that makes people write off all anime cus a lot of it is awkward and unpleasant to listen to. The story tries to mess with some big concepts like "what if new game + was a real thing???" and time travel and shit like that but it doesn't mesh with the tone the rest of the game has and that tone doesn't mesh with the world or art style and it's just a mess.

BRAVELY DEFAULT 2 SEEMS KINDA POOPIE SO FAR So unfortunately, the big appeal of bravely default being part of it's end game makes it hard to judge how 2 is gonna go given we only have a demo of the beginning, but given that the original team behind bravely default has slowly been stripped out of the series as it goes on, the outlook is bleek.

Most immediately obvious is that the artstyle has made a horrible transition from handheld to console, somehow even worse than pokemon. The areas are all fully 3d and lack the style or compositional excellence of bravely default, and the outside environment look like asset store products. The small proportioned characters with simple features to be readable on a small screen have been replaced with identically proportioned characters with excessive detail and ugly features, and look horrible up close on a big screen. Only the negatives of the art style have made it over, and everything good has been made unsavory. The character and enemy design overall is much worse as a result, everything is messy, unclear, and clashes with everything else. It's an absolutely shocking downgrade.

The characters themselves are overly hammy and feel like shallow attempts to have a similar party dynamic to the original without having identical character types, and the writing as a whole doesn't seem to have improved from second, which was already quite a step down from the original.

The gameplay also has not done anything different or interesting yet, and seems to be selling itself to people haven't heard of or gotten enough of the BP system. Enemies being on the overworld as opposed to random encounters shows they have dropped the player agency over encounter frequency, which is dumb. The battles lack any of the flow the original had, especially when using the battle speed option, as the camera does not present everything very well and changes position often as a result. Overall, I have not enjoyed the bravely default 2 demo and feel it shows nothing but a continued decline in the series that likely should have just been a single game. With the release date being set for sometime this year, I feel there is no chance any amount of player feedback could save the game or even begin to pull it in the right direction, as it seems to be fundamentally flawed with an inescapable feeling of shovelware.

SO WHAT? Basically, all I wanted to say here is that the original bravely default is a very unique experience I think every RPG fan should give a good chance (and just do all the optional stuff during the "repetitive" part of the game, it's where all the best content is you bozo) and that the sequels are NOT the same experience. I guess it's kind of mean to just say "hey don't buy or like this new thing cus its not like the old thing" but people should know why there's a bravely default 2 in the first place, and should fight for what made the original great. I worry that BD goes down the same sad path that FF did, becoming a completely hollow, middling series that strayed so far from it's home that a whole new series had to be made to give the fans of the old style a place to go.

Thanks for reading, and hope you got something out of it.

[curserp]

below the cut you can find the accepted characters from this round of applications !  all of these were INCREDIBLY difficult decisions for me to make, and every single app i read clearly had so much love and care put into it, and  even though the choices were hard, i feel lucky that i got to make them at all !

to those listed below, please complete everything on the checklist page--- you have 24 hours to contact the main, but if you need more time, please let me know !

congratulations, JAMES “JJ” PALMER !  your curse has been successfully registered as #0272463 / ARACHNE !

when you feed a person’s ego so constantly of course they’ll become engorged and drunk on their own greatness. she’s only parroting what she’s been told, how can she be wrong for it ?

jj is exactly everything i was looking for with arachne. her struggle between power and pride is so evident, and it’s that fatal flaw that drew me to her--- she’s brilliant, dangerously so, and it makes sense as to why the gods feared her as they did. jj is smart, and she’s strong, and i can’t wait to see how she weathers everything that’s coming for her.

congratulations, LOURDES CLEMONTE !   your curse has been successfully registered as #0276372 / CASSANDRA !

the problem is, she will never be full so long as she continues to slice herself straight down the middle and allow everyone else to feast.

cassandra was one of the hardest decisions i had to make, but i just kept coming back to lourdes. your app was straight up art, and i’m in awe of how you’ve created her. she’s exactly the right sort i wanted for cassandra ; part tragedy, part unjust fates, part inevitability, and i got so caught up on her backstory that i forgot i was only reading an application.

congratulations, FRANCES “FRANKIE” RAMONA MARTINEZ !  your curse has been successfully registered as #0323357 / DAEDALUS !

you didn’t need them anyways. you were fine on your own. you had your own puzzles to solve, your own discoveries to make. you didn’t need anything else.

frankie took daedalus in a direction i wasn’t expecting, and for that i am honestly thankful. her story of loss makes perfect sense for this skeleton, and i loved your incorporation of the database into her life ; even here, now, she’s being used for her abilities in the way she’s grown used to. she incapsulates her curse and its classification so well, the echoes of loss all through her app, and i’m interested to see how she handles it all as she is brought in with the others.

congratulations, ISABELLA “ELLA” ABRUZZO ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0043536 / HELEN !

it was as if you’d been born amidst a storm, and ever since then, you were housing an unparalleled hunger for something you couldn’t have.

helen was one of the skeletons i was worried about, because even i wasn’t sure how they could be properly adapted into the right character, but you showed me right up. ella’s app is perfect, and as i was reading it i suddenly found myself wondering how i could have thought of helen in any other way. she’s got a multifaceted way about her that just works, and i can understand each choice she made, even as she ran--- she got stuck in my head, and i’m so excited to see more from her.

congratulations, CASPIAN BARDOT ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0052766 / JASON ! 

those who call you a traitor, cold, ruthless, are left behind in the wake of your victories, returning triumphant with your golden fleece in hand every single time. this may be the story of your victories, but make no mistake: it is also the mourning song of those left in your wake.

jason was a tricky one, for me. there’s this balance of heroism and ruthlessness, valiance and brutality, and caspian stuck that divide well. he’s lost plenty, and will likely lose more--- as is often the fate of a hero ---but still he’s fighting, keeping his head above water despite it all. i was worried i would find myself unsympathetic towards the jason skeleton, but caspian showed me otherwise. now i’m just curious to see how he’ll carry it all going forward !

congratulations, JANUARY ST. JAMES ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0063332 / MEDEA !

he promised you so much, the sun, the moon and the stars, if you would be his willing knife, and once he had no more need of knives and spells and war, he turned his back on the lowly desolate thing that had held onto him.

january blew me away, honestly. medea could have so easily been one-note, and yet you brought out a dynamic to her that had me rereading her story more than once. she feels very real to me, especially in all the care and additions to her app that really made her stand out--- even your take on a few of her connections had me excited to see where she’d go. january could take her curse, her future, in so many different directions, and i’m so interested to watch her do so.

congratulations, MERCY JONES ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0064327 / MIDAS !

tears in your mouth, you’d come to realize that besides ugly, the doll that had followed you from the shoebox to each and every monster house, you hadn’t a thing in the world that was yours. except your ambition. and you kept your ambition in a stash behind the pillows. 

i adore mercy, and isn’t that just exactly fitting. your golden girl jumped out at me, from her origin to her prayers for a curse to her current handling of it all. her curse came to her not out of sheer greed, but desperation and some thoughtlessness, and the gods played a trick on her for it. she’s not selfish, in the expected way of the word--- just hungry, and wanting more. she’s so different than any other character i saw, and that’s perfect for midas.

congratulations, ADELAIDE WU ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0067466 / ORION !

maybe one day you’ll feel like a nebula once more, but for now you are a meteor, aimlessly floating in space, with nothing to do but sit and watch the way the moon is forced to surrender to the sun.

as you mentioned in your app, people have always loved the story of orion and it’s earned something of a cult following, and i can understand why, now. adelaide’s love story is inherently tragic, as any involving the gods will be, yet i never found myself thinking of her as foolish--- her whole story leads into her eventual affection for artemis, and i couldn’t help but root for them even though i know they’re both doomed--- and i’m curious to see how she manages this eventuality with artemis.

congratulations, THADDEUS BAILEY ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0072747 / PARIS !

thaddeus couldn’t control himself at all ; it just kept pouring out of him, and all he could do was let it. he left the building alive, covered in soot, knowing that he was responsible for his family’s destruction. alone, again. a killer.

paris was a tough call to make. thaddeus was unexpected to me, and at first i was hesitant, but the further i got into his app the more i fell in love with him. him being something of a plaything to hera, her using both him and his father, fit paris perfectly, and it makes thaddeus understandable to me--- he’s not a bad person, just dangerous, and confused, and used. i can’t wait to see his story unfold even further into this new chapter !

congratulations, SAINT GRAVES ! your curse has been successfully registered as #0777387 / PERSEUS !

in legends, heroes are often killers, and you are not exempt. not many people understand the toll that so much blood on your hands takes  on you, even if it is the blood of monsters. it takes a monster to kill a monster : it’s what you see in the mirror, and no matter how many  beg to differ, your curse is fact.

aside from cassandra, perseus was my most difficult decision, but i just couldn’t shake saint. his app was clean, well thought out, and i felt like i was reading a myth of his own. he suits perseus perfectly, which is honestly bad news for him, but made for such a compelling read, tragic as it was--- and i’m excited to see how he carries his fate into his future.

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Silver Snow:

When I finished Golden Deer, I said that it had felt like a more traditional Fire Emblem story than Blue Lions. Silver Snow is that but even more so (though GD is still the most trad-FE cast, IMO)

Having already played those two routes, it felt very much like a whirlwind tour of them both, plus another battle thrown in at the end - a battle that probably should have been harder, but I (completely accidentally) built the bulkiest Byleth imaginable, especially resistance wise, plus high magic - and so, by pairing high defensive stats with Nosferatu, I tanked every attack that came my way 

Gaming, for me, is just doing whatever the hell I feel like, stumbling into good results, and then pretending that I did it on purpose

I spent the whole battle with the Dragon Tales theme song stuck in my head. Kind of killed the mood

I really enjoyed that after wrapping up both the Edelgard and TWSITD plots, they basically Persona 4 you by trying to convince you that the whole game’s done now and all that’s left is to chat with everyone - though unlike in P4, there’s very obviously something left to do because they give you a whole month of prep time, rather than just one day

I felt the same way about this on Golden Deer - none of the characters are appropriately shocked by Rhea’s highly questionable actions 

Also - she says she’s going to explain the whole truth! And she doesn’t! Only the Byleth creation stuff! The other revelations from Golden Deer are missing! Rhea! Why! Are! You! Like! This!

This is actually a problem I have with this game as a whole - they want to keep certain lore and secrets exclusive to certain routes, but it results in every story feeling in some way incomplete. Like, Fates gets a lot of crap, but at least you did get a full story from your half (third? never played Revelation) a game for the price of a whole one. Blue Lions gets the worst of it, I think 

Plus, when you know some of said secrets, it makes characters who refuse to share them in other routes seem weirdly (and sometimes, contrivedly) cagey about things they really do not need to be cagey about. See: Claude refusing to tell Dimitri and Byleth in Azure Moon that he wants to End Racism, and instead vagueing about ‘achieving his dream’. This is not Edelgard wanting to conquer Fodlan and dismantle the entire social structure, Claude, your ideals really are not so controversial that you need to be this coy. Dimitri and I are cool, we getcha 

My one sentence review of the whole game is basically: Great characters, great world building, great gameplay - but really, really frustrating plot structure

I’m also really upset that Seteth does not have a dragon form

Speaking of Seteth, I married him this time around. I mostly decided to do it for laughs, but while Byleth/Dedue is still my number one Byleth pairing, I came to really, genuinely like them together. Seteth is one of my favs, now more than ever

It helps that romancing Seteth feels a lot less... creepy than romancing most of the students. I like Linhardt, but romancing him felt very weird to me because I couldn’t get over Byleth having first known him as a 16 year old under their care. Dedue, for the record, doesn’t elicit this response  because he doesn’t really feel as much like a student to me? Role-wise he feels a lot closer to the knights, and it’s just that he's been enrolled as a student for convenience’s sake, which makes him and Byleth feel more equal than they do with most of the other kids. Helps that he’s also on the older end

Anyway, Seteth and Byleth would be the nerdiest couple ever, is the impression I got from their ending. The confession scene made me laugh in how ‘oh we’ve got a lot of work to do - btw wanna get married? - sweet, now let’s get back to work’ it was. Mark Whitten is a gem

It’s also the the first time I felt like the game was actually shipping me with a main lord (Seteth taking that role in the absence of the box lords on this route). Haven’t done Crimson Flower yet, so no opinion on the Edelgard/Byleth relationship yet, but regarding Claude and Dimitri my (pretty damn controversial, possibly a bad idea to put out there) opinions on them with Byleth are that

Claude and Byleth are platonic bros, regardless of Byleth’s gender. I just don’t get any feeling of romance from their relationship at all, and so pairing them off feels weird (to me, personally - I don’t hate the ship or anything, though)

Meanwhile Dimitri 100% had a crush on his teacher at school, but after more than five years of enduring trauma after trauma, and then half a year of beginning to heal (whilst fighting a war culminating in the execution of his step-sister), Dimitri is nowhere near ready for a romantic relationship. And when he is, I wouldn’t want him with any of the main cast, Dimitri x Village Girl OTP. I guess if it has to be anyone, I’d be okay with Mercedes, maybe Marianne - hell, maybe even Claude - but really, I just want him to get a fresh start. I think that’s the healthiest option for him, in the end

I do think it’s a pairing that could work in an AU where Dimitri doesn’t have any of the experiences he has in canon, though 

And again, this is just my personal reading

I’ll also admit that I may be influenced by the fact that his two most popular pairings are with Byleth and Dedue, who I greatly prefer with each other. Mostly because I love Dedue with all my soul and his ending with Byleth is by far his happiest, in my eyes at least. It’s the only one where he puts some distance between himself and Dimitri and evens out the power balance in their relationship, which makes me happy because oh boy, the Dimitri/Dedue relationship is super interesting and compelling, but also (again, by my reading) all kinds of unhealthy as it’s presented for most of the game - power balance issues like I say, the fact that they tend to indulge, even encourage, each other’s worst instincts and behaviours, mutual guilt complexes - like I say, it’s fascinating, but damn screwed up. IMO, they’re one of the best examples I’ve seen of how unhealthy relationships aren’t always the result of one bad person, and how two good people can end up being very bad for each other

Though it is, again, a pairing I can see working (and actually being incredibly cute) in an AU where they’ve lived less horrible lives

And it’s not like I don’t want them to be friends, I just want them to also develop healthier boundaries and equal levels of respect

oh my god none of this has anything to do with silver snow what am I doing

But hey, speaking of Dimitri - I flip flopped on whether I thought his death was handled better or worse here than Golden Deer. It was given, I felt, more appropriate gravitas, but again suffered from ‘Dimitri’s dead! No, Dimitri’s alive! Oh wait, now he’s dead again’ in like, three successive scenes. And then you see his... ghost? I guess?

Dimitri really seems to get the short end of the stick on routes outside his own. Claude’s non-Deer roles were, in both cases I’ve played, much stronger and more fitting, and Edelgard is Edelgard

Maybe he’ll be good in Crimson Flower. Please. I miss Dimitri mattering. He’s probably my favourite of the three

There’s a point - obviously I don’t fully know Edelgard yet, but from what I got from the White Clouds section, above anything else she strikes me as an incredibly realistic depiction of a slightly edgy, extremely idealistic, but also highly naive and short-sighted teenager

Her whole goal, it seems, is meritocracy. She hates the crest system and the nobility, and she wants to create a system of equal opportunity. I can get behind that, but I really hope she’s prepared to accept the fact that true equal opportunity is basically impossible without recreating The Giver, as inequality is always more complex than one single factor being to blame for everything. Has Edelgard considered other limitations that make true meritocracy difficult to achieve? Has she been working on, say, a comprehensive benefits system? Or is she more of a libertarian type, and so primarily all about negative freedom and removing direct oppression? I hope Crimson Flower goes into detail on this, I’d be genuinely interested to know

I also find it interesting that she gets very angry about the fact that people hurt her and her family as a means to their own ends, so she decides that her own ends are to eliminate the system that lead to that happening - and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt in the process

This isn’t a CinemaSins *ding* plot hole observation, I genuinely think it’s interesting, and not actually that unrealistic

I also suppose her goal is no less naive than End All Racism By Being Nice To People, but Claude isn’t killing and persecuting people in attempt to achieve that, so it invites less scrutiny

I do wonder if I would have felt more strongly positively about her if she’d been my first playthrough. I do believe she’s a person that sincerely means well, and she’s certainly sympathetic, but - hmm. I’ll make my mind up when I finish CF

Anyway, paired endings. A few that I got include Raphael and Bernadetta (by far my favourite Bernie ending so far, seriously, what is that Caspar ending), Shamir and Leonie, which was cute and goofy (as Leonie’s endings tend to be, I notice, I do like that girl), Felix and Dorothea (not my favourite for either, but cute), Sylvain and Mercedes (the same but even cuter), Cyril and Petra (which felt wrong, partly because I love Cysithea a hell of a lot, and also because despite knowing there’s only about a year between them, Petra looks so much older pre-time skip), Ferdie and Marianne (super wholesome and sweet), and Linhardt and Caspar (my boyyyyssss that I refuse to ever separate again)

Not sure what I’m going to aim for on CF aside from keeping those boys together and also Ferdie/Hubert, as I’ve Heard Things

Flayn and Manuela have an A support so I figured they had a paired ending and it turns out they do not, which means Manuela was alone forever and Flayn ran away because apparently she hated having Byleth for a step mother I guess, rude

My Byleth (Myleth?) was prepared to be the best step mother in the history of the world, so offended

I realised ‘Javelins of Light’ is one of my absolute favourite tracks in the whole game. Mostly because it sounds like something out of Danganronpa, which made me nostalgic

I also like ‘Guardian of Starlight’ for somehow managing to sound like a Danganronpa/PMD: Explorers crossover track

I love how out of nowhere the Immaculate One fight is. It really does just feel like they needed something to distinguish the route from Verdant Wind outside of Claude not being around, so they just had a map that was less cool in every way except for the dragon

Is there an explanation for why Nemesis doesn’t show up on this route?

Also - I didn’t mention this in Golden Deer thoughts but I also found that final battle way, way easier than it was probably meant to be because I’d made everyone into a flier and so the floor damage hazard was meaningless

Which I totally did on purpose and not so I could make a stupid joke post about my all-wyvern team 

Anyway, in conclusion, Silver Snow was a good route, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I’d kind of thought it was just going to be GD without Claude, which isn’t... totally wrong, but it’s got some other stuff going on too), I liked Seteth getting to have a bigger role, I thought it had the best final boss (if not the best final boss map), and I liked that I got some more Dragon Lore (never a bad thing)

please don’t yell at me for my controversial shipping opinions 

[alpha-incipiens]

Favourite music of the decade!

This is some of what I’d consider the most innovative, artistic and just great to listen to music from 2010-2019.

First a Lot of very good songs:

Crying - Premonitory dream

Arcade Fire - Normal person

Sufjan Stevens - I want to be well

Deerhunter - Sailing

Foster the People - Pumped up kicks

Carly Rae Jepsen - Boy problems

Grimes - Butterfly

Travis Scott - Butterfly effect

Future - March madness

Kanye West ft. Nicki Minaj et al - Monster

Juice Wrld - Won’t let go

Danny Brown - Downward spiral

Kendrick Lamar - Sing about me, I’m dying of thirst

Kate Tempest - Marshall Law

The Avalanches - Stepkids

Iglooghost - Bug thief

Vektroid - Yr heart

Ariel Pink - Little wig

Mac Demarco - Sherrill

Vektor - Charging the void

Jyocho - 太陽と暮らしてきた [family]

Panic! at the disco - Ready to go

The Wonder Years - An American religion

Oso oso - Wake up next to god

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - I can be afraid of anything

And my top 20(+2) albums:

Calling Rich gang’s style influential on trap would be like saying Nirvana may have had some impact on early-90s grunge. In 2019 with trap so omnipresent in popular music, hip hop or otherwise, through the impact of artists like Drake and Travis Scott it’s almost hard to remember when this was a niche genre - it was Rich gang that popularised its modern sound here. Birdman’s beats with their rattling hi-hats and deep bass could have been made 5 years later without arousing suspicion, while Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug deliver consistently entertaining flows and numerous bangers between them. Thugger, this being his first major project, steals the show with his yelpy and hilarious rapping style. This may have once been the defining sound of house parties in the Atlanta projects; now it can be heard blasting in the night from white people’s sound systems around the world.

Early 21p may have never aimed to be cool, to avoid a certain appearance of lameness, but they did have a knack for writing some really catchy pop with an optimistic message. To the devoted, the critics of Pilots’ apparent mishmash of nerdy rap, sentimental piano balladry and EDM production were just stuffy, wanting music to stay how it was back-in-the-day forever and unwilling to get with the times. This viewpoint is understandable when you approach this album openly and actually listen to Tyler Joseph’s lyrics about youthful anxiety and insecurity, delivered with real conviction and sincerity, actually recognise that disparate musical elements are all there for emotional punch. A few songs do underwhelm. But this is emo for post-emo Gen Z’s and it’s easy to see why to some it can be deeply affecting.

The musical ancestor to the ongoing and endless stream of ‘lo-fi hip hop beats’ youtube mixes, chillwave filled the same low-stress niche, and Dive released at the peak of the genre’s relevance. Tycho’s woozy, mellow sound prominently features rich acoustic and bass guitar melodies over warm synths, enhancing the music’s organic feel compared to that of purely digital producers in the genre. The experience of starting this album is like waking up in a soft bed, the cover’s gorgeous sunrise reddening the room’s walls, while a guitarist improvises somewhere on the Mediterranean streets outside. And it is indeed great to study or relax to!

Simple, minimal acoustic guitar and vocals. If you’ve got talent this type of music shows it, or else it doesn’t: perfect then for Ichiko Aoba. Her touch is light, her songs calm, meditative, in no rush to get anywhere. As if serenely watching a natural landscape, one can best understand and enjoy Aoba’s music in quiet and peaceful appreciation.

Through the incorporation of genres like shoegaze and alternative rock, Deafheaven managed to create a rare thing: a metal album that’s both heavy and accessible, needing no sacrifice of one for the other’s sake. Over these four main songs, there’s a sensation of being taken on an intense, atmospheric and even emotional journey, with the band stepping away from the negativity and misanthropy that dominates most metal. The vocals, closer to the confessionalism of screamo than classic black metal shrieks, express more sadness than they do aggression, and in respites between solid blaring walls of guitar and drums, calm pianos and gently strummed guitar passages set a pensive tone. This totally enveloping, flawlessly produced sound can take you away, like My Bloody Valentine’s best work, into a dream or trance.

By the late 2000s MCR had taken their thrones as the kings of a subculture formed from the coalition of goth, emo, scene and other assorted Hot Topic-donned kids, and earned a lifelong place in the hearts of many a depressed teenager. But after the generation-defining The Black Parade Gerard Way took off the white facepaint and skeleton costume, ditched the lyrics about corpse brides and vampires, and embraced an anthemic, purely pop punk sound. The silly story of Danger Days, set in a dystopian California where villainous corporations rule and only the Punks can stop them, serves as a kind of idealised setting for the all-out rebellion against authority and normality that so many fantasised about taking part in. The band’s electrifying performances are the most uplifting of their decade making music. For many diehards the upbeat sound here was a celebration that they’d made it through the most difficult years of their lives, and a spit in the face of those who’d done them wrong.

The teller of rural American tales, the indie legend, the teen-whisperer himself. John Darnielle, long past his early lo-fidelity home recordings and now backed by a full band, loses none of the heart his songs are famous for. The theme of the album, taken straight from John’s childhood when the pro wrestling on TV offered an escape from his abusive stepfather, is complemented by the country and Tex-Mex flavouring to the instrumentation. Some of the best lyrics in his long career infuse the stories of wrestlers with universal meaning - his characters try, fail, lose hope, reckon with their mediocrity, and when they step into the ring they’re up against all the adversity life can throw at them. John Darnielle’s saying that when that happens, you stand up and sock back.

Folk music was always a major part of the Scandinavian black metal scene during its peak years, so when American musicians began exploring the genre naturally they incorporated American styles of folk. The complex, oppressive and sometimes hellish compositions here, starkly contrasted with bluegrass that sounds straight from the campfire circle, give the impression of life in the uncharted woods of the American frontier, in the middle of a brutally cold winter. Almost unbelievably, one-man-band Austin Lunn plays every instrument on the album: multiple guitar parts, bass and drums as well as banjo, fiddle, and woodwinds.

Andy Stott seems to delight in making his music as unnerving, haunting, perhaps even scary, as possible. The female vocals these songs are built around become ghostly, echoing and overlapping themselves disorientingly. The percussion, audibly resembling metal clanging, rustling or rattling in the distance, is often left to stand for its own, creating a tense space it feels like something should be filling. UK-based club and dub music can be felt influencing the grimy almost-but-not-quite danceable rhythms here, but the lo-fi recording and menacing vibe makes this feel like a rave at some sort of dimly lit abandoned factory.

There’s so much Mad Max in this album you can just picture it being set to images of freights burning across the desert. True to its title, the nine songs on Nonagon Infinity roll into each other as if part of one big perpetual composition, with the end looping back seamlessly to the start and musical motifs cropping up both before and after the song they form the base of. With its fuzzy, raw sound, bluesy harmonica and wild whooping, the Gizz create a truly rollicking rock’n’roll experience. The band would go on to release 5 albums within twelve months a year later, but Nonagon shows these seven Australian madmen at the height of their powers.

Sometimes you just want to listen to fun, hyperactive pop. The spirit of 8-bit video game soundtracks and snappy pop punk come together to create a vividly digital world of sound that seems to celebrate the worldliness, connectivity and shiny neon colours of early 2010s internet culture and social media. The up-pitched vocals and general auditory mania recall firmly Online musical trends like nightcore and vocaloid, while the beats pulse away, compelling you to dance like this is a house party and the best playlist ever assembled is on. It demands to be listened to at night with headphones, in a room lit only by your laptop screen.

“You hate everyone. To you everyone’s either a moron, or a creep or a poser. Why do you suddenly care about their opinion of you?” “Because I’m shallow, okay?! … I want them to like me.”

The fact that that Malcolm In The Middle quote is sampled at the emotional climax of this record should give some idea to the absurdity that defines Brave Little Abacus. It’s not even the only sample from the show on here. And yet the passion and urgency so evident in Adam Demirjian’s lispy singing and the band’s nostalgia-inducing, even cozy, melodies are made to stir feelings. The tearjerker chords and guitar progressions are so distinctive of emo bands with that special US-midwest melancholia, and they are interspersed with warm ambiance and playful sound effects ripped from TV and video games, seemingly vintage throwbacks to a sunny childhood. Demirjian’s lyrics, yelled out as if through tears or in the middle of a panic attack, verge on word salad in their abstraction, but that’s not the point: you can feel his small town loneliness and sense the trips he’s spent lost on memory lane. The combined effect all adds to Just Got Back’s themes of adolescence and the trauma of leaving it. While legendary in certain internet communities for this album and their 2009 masterpiece Masked Dancers, the band remains obscure to wider audiences.

These Danish punks know how to convey emotion through their raw and dramatic songs. Elias Rønnenfelt’s vocal presence and charisma cannot be ignored: his husky voice drawls, at times breaks, gasps for breath, builds up the deeply impassioned, intense force behind his words. The band sounds free and wild, unrestrained by a tight adherence to tempo, often speeding up, slowing down or straying from the vocals within the same song, as if playing live. Instrumentally the command over loud and quiet, tension and release, accentuates the vocals in crafting the album’s pace. Horns and saloon pianos throughout give the feel of a performance in a smoky, underground blues bar, with Rønnenfelt swaying onstage as he howls the romantic, distraught, heartbroken lyrics he truly believes in.

At some point on first listening to Death Grips, a thought along the lines of “He really yells like this the whole way through, huh?” probably crosses the mind. When Exmilitary first appeared, quietly uploaded to the internet, the rapper’s name and identity unknown, another likely reaction among listeners might have been “What am I even listening to?” But perhaps more revolutionary than Death Grips’ incredibly aggressive sound and style might have been its foreshadowing of how over the next decade underground rap acts would explode into the mainstream through viral songs, online word of mouth and memes. It showed all you needed to come from nowhere to the top of the game was to seize attention, and it did that and far more. MC Ride’s intoxicatingly crass, intense rapping captures the energy of a mosh pit where injuries happen, the barrage of sensations of a coke high, while the eclectic mix of rock and glitchy electronics on the instrumentals is disorienting in the best way. If rap were rock and this was 1977, Death Grips would have just invented punk. Ride’s lyrics paint a confrontational, hyper-macho persona; unlike much hip hop braggadocio, the overwhelming impression given is that Ride truly does not care what anyone thinks. He just goes hard and does not stop. It’s music to punch the wall to.

Inspired by classic rock operas, this concept album represents some major ambition and innovation in musical storytelling. Delivered in frontman Damian Abraham’s gravelly shouted vocals, the complex lyrical narrative of the album follows a factory worker, an activist and their struggle against the omnipotent author (Abraham himself) who controls their fates. Featuring devices like unreliable narrators and fourth-wall breaking, it takes some serious reading into to untangle. But it’s the bright guitarwork, combining upbeat punk rock and indie to create some killer riffs, that gives the album its furious energy and cinematic proportions.

Joanna Newsom is enchanted by the past. Like 2006’s ambitious Ys, the music on Divers makes this evident with its invocation of Western classical and medieval music, throwing antiquated instruments like clavichords together with lush string orchestration, woodwinds, organs, folk guitar and Newsom’s signature harp. With her soulful, moving vocals leading the way, it’s hard not to imagine her as some kind of Renaissance-era country woman contemplating nature, love and mortality in the fields and the woods. As always Newsom proves herself a stunningly original and creative arranger with the sheer compositional intricacy and flow of these songs, and most of all the harmonious intertwining of singing and instrumental backing.

Burial’s music is born from the London night: the bustle of the streets, the faint sounds from distant raves, the buskers, the rain on bus windows. This EP’s dreamlike quality makes listening to it feel like taking a trip across the city well after midnight, watching the lights go by, with no idea where you hope to get to. Every single sound and effect on these two songs is so precisely chosen, from the shifting and shuffling beats, the swelling synths and wordless vocals that sound like a club from a different dimension, the ambient hiss and pop of a vinyl record. Musically this sound is drawn from UK-based scenes like 2-step and drum ‘n bass, but twisted into such a moody and abstracted form as to be nearly unrecognisable as dubstep. Just when this urban, dismal sound is at its most oppressive, heavenly soul singers or organs cut through like a ray of light in the dark.

There’s an imaginary rulebook of how construct music, how to properly make tempos and combinations of notes sound harmonious, and Gorguts have spent their career ripping it up and throwing it in the bin. On 1998’s seminal Obscura, their atonal experimentation sounded at times like random noises in random order. But listen closely to Obscura or Colored Sands, their return after a long hiatus, and the method behind the madness emerges. One mark of great death metal is that it’s impossible to predict what direction it will go even a few seconds in advance, and the band achieves this while presenting a heavy, slow, momentous sound. The density of inspired riffs, and the intricate balancing of loud and quiet, fast and slow paced throughout these songs are exceptional. In instrumental sections the guitars will echo out as if across a barren plane, then the song will build up to the momentum of a freight train. Behind the crashing and twisting walls of guitar the patterns of blast beat drumming are almost mathematical in nature. Luc Lemay’s harsh bellows sound like a warlord’s cry or a pure expression of rage to the void. It’s threatening, menacing, unapproachable, but it all makes sense in the end.

Futuristic yet deeply retro, Blank Banshee’s music takes vaporwave beyond its roots in the pure consumerist parody of artists like Vektroid and James Ferraro and makes it actually sound amazing. Songs are built out of a single vocal snippet processed beyond recognition, new agey synthesisers, Windows XP-era computer noises, hilariously out of place instruments, all set to the 808 bass and hi-hats of hip-hop style beats. The genre’s pioneers intentionally sucked the soul from their music using samples pulled from 70s and 80s elevators, infomercials and corporate lounges - here the throwback seems to be to the early 2000s childhood of the internet, and the influence of a time when email and forums were revolutionary can be felt. The effect of this insanity is an album that whirls by like a techno-psychedelic haze: the atmosphere of dark trap beats places you squarely in a 2013 studio one moment, the next you’re surrounded by relaxing midi pianos and humming that a temple of new age practitioners would meditate to. Still, at some point when listening to this album, perhaps when the ridiculous steel drums kick in near the end, you realise that this is all to some degree a joke, and a funny one. It’s hard to overstate what an entertaining half-hour this thing is.

While 2012’s Good Kid, m.a.a.d City presented a movie in album form of Kendrick’s childhood and early adult years, TPAB’s journey is one of personal growth, introspection, and nuanced examination of the state of race in post-Ferguson America. It’s simultaneously the Zeitgeist for the US in 2015 and a soul-search in the therapist’s office. Sounding deeply vulnerable, he openly discusses depression, alcoholism, religion and feelings of helplessness. The White House and associated gangstas on the cover give some idea to the album’s political themes, with Lamar contrasting Obama’s presidency to the political powerlessness and lifelong ghetto entrapment of millions of black Americans. Everything I’ve written about the lyrics here really only scratches the surface because the words here are substantive, complex and dense with meaning. Near enough every bar can be analysed for multiple meanings and interpretations, essays can and have been written on the overall work, anything less does not do justice. The musical versatility on display is astounding: the album acts as an extravaganza of African-American music, from smooth west coast G-funk to east coast grit, neo-soul and rock to beat poetry, and most of all jazz. Like an expertly laid character arc the record progresses through its ideas in such a way that they’re all impactful, with the slurred rapping imitating a depressed drunken stupor followed later by exuberant, defiant cries of “I love myself!”, the white-hot rage against police brutality balanced by the hopeful mantra: “do you hear me, do you feel me, we gon be alright”. Perhaps the most culturally significant album of the 2010s and an essential piece of the hip-hop canon.

This harrowing hour chronicles the struggles and everyday tragedy of a series of characters and their relationship with the city they live in, narratively driven by some outstandingly poetic lyrics. Jordan Dreyer’s wordy tales despair at the poverty, gang violence and urban decay in the band’s native Grand Rapids, Michigan, an almost childlike open-hearted naivete in his words as he empathises with the broken and alienated people in these songs. There’s no jaded sneer or sly lesson to be learned as he sings about the child killed by a stray bullet or the homebird left alone after all their friends move away, just genuine second-hand sadness and a dream that compassion and community will eventually heal the pain. Taking elements from bands like At the Drive-In’s fusion of punk and progressive, and mewithoutyou’s shout-sung vocals, La Dispute hones its sound to a razor edge to put fierce instrumental power behind the lyrics. Not an easy listen, but a sharply written songbook and a perfect execution on its concept.

Around 2008, Joanna Newsom met comedian Andy Samberg. Within a year, their relationship was becoming the basis upon which the poetry of Have One on Me was spun. Newsom’s lyrics, exploring her relationship with her future-husband, nature, death, spirituality, are above all else loving. Through her warm and vibrant voice, at times an operatic trill and in others deeply soulful, she expresses the joy of love for another, the peace and earthly connection of her beloved pastoral lifestyle, deeply affecting melancholy and grief. Contemplative, artful, genuine or expressive: every lyric in every sweet melody is used to offer her ruminations on life or overflowings of passion.

More so than her previous and next albums, the feel of the album is of not just a folkloric past but also the present day, with drums, substantial brass and string arrangements, and even electric guitar anchoring the sound to Newsom’s real, not imaginary, life in the 21st century. Yet songs here with moods or settings evoking simpler lifestyles and the women living them in 1800s California or the Brontës’ English moors still have a universal relevance. Whether rooted in past of present, the instrumental variety of these compositions, from classical solo piano, grand orchestral arrangements led by harp, to the twang of country guitars or intricate vocal harmonising, makes it apparent that this is the work of a master songwriter in full command of well over a dozen talented musicians. Ultimately, what makes this my favourite album of the decade is that, very simply, it is one stunningly beautiful song after another, all collated into a cohesive 2-hour portrait of Newsom’s soul.

[aion-rsa]

Ready Player Two Review: Ernest Cline’s Soulless Sequel Beats a Dead Horse

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

It doesn’t take long for Ernest Cline’s Ready Player Two to reunite gunter-turned-billionaire Wade Owen Watts with a vintage video game that holds a clue to a virtual scavenger hunt that will forever change the future of the digital, escapist OASIS. But after winning this particular game, Parzival (Wade’s OASIS alter ego) finds that he automatically starts over. Because of an extra life, he is given the option of playing through the game again, even though there are no surprises, simply to rack up extra points and because he can.

Reading Ready Player Two feels a lot like that. Ready Player One, Cline’s 2011 debut novel, delighted readers with its futuristic generation of gunters who had taken on all things 1980s with religious fervor in search of the Easter egg that would bequeath the OASIS, Willy Wonka-style, to one lucky player. The book also made some incisive commentary on retreating into digital worlds instead of trying to fix the climate change-ravaged Earth. But neither of these is reason enough to warrant a sequel, especially one that effectively tries to play through the same plot of a posthumous quest with double the pop culture name-dropping and world-ending stakes.

This time around, Wade is rich beyond his wildest dreams but basically a friendless recluse, and now the OASIS can give you a full-senses experience but can also potentially kill you. Turns out that in addition to winning James Halliday’s fortune, Wade inherited one more thing: the OASIS Neural Interface, or ONI, which allows users to experience every touch, taste, and smell of their digital world. Pop culture aficionado that he is, Wade ponders how easily the ONI could be used for evil—and then decides to release it to his fellow OASIS users anyway, justifying it with the reasoning that he could never withhold wholly immersive escapism from the miserable masses.

Wade relates all this in a bevy of early chapters that jump ahead three years, smoothing out key emotional moments and massive changes to the book’s universe into an unemotional narrative blur—ironic, considering that the whole point of the ONI is that it allows people to feel like never before. I’ve read Wikipedia summaries with more feeling than the beginning of this book. By the time the main plot begins to unfold, readers will feel so distant from Wade that it will be difficult to care when his actions resurrect a ghost in the machine, sending Parzival and the rest of the “High Five”—his strained besties and business partners including Aech, Shoto, and ex-girlfriend Samantha a.k.a. Art3mis—on a muddled fantasy quest with a ticking clock. This time, when you die in the game, you actually die IRL (or, as the kiddos call it in 2048, the Earl—sigh).

Instead of three keys to three gates, it’s Seven Shards to the Siren’s Soul, which gives the book more of a fantasy quest feel than Ready Player One’s video game tournament vibe. Of course, that doesn’t preclude Wade from the aforementioned arcade visit, nor another batch of Halliday-approved ’80s references. The gunters’ single-minded ’80s obsession felt like clever commentary in Ready Player One; in the sequel, it verges on self-parody. It did not seem possible that Cline could find new pop culture trivia to shoehorn into these pages, and yet he does—sometimes a dozen to a single page, if we have the misfortune of encountering a character rattling off lists of movies or songs. The book’s first riddle combines Max Headroom, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Tommy Tutone’s earworm “867-5309/Jenny,” so that should give you an idea of what you’re in for.

To be fair, Cline leans more into mashups this time around, likely following the conventional wisdom that the best way to make two familiar pieces new is to combine them. One notable excursion is the OASIS planet created in the image of John Hughes’ favorite fictional town of Shermer, Illinois. On this medley world, five different Molly Ringwalds all attend the same high school, and obscure knowledge of actors almost cast in iconic roles saves the day. The sequel also utilizes needle drops, with Parzival and his friends’ actions triggering music cues in Shermer as well as on a certain purple-themed musical world. The faithful listing of every song title and/or key lyrics reads a bit ponderous on the page, but no doubt the effect will be more fun in the inevitable Ready Player Two movie.

These interludes also have Parzival getting schooled by Art3mis and Aech for the gaps in his knowledge, for following Halliday’s broad-yet-narrow tastes and inheriting the man’s blind spots for pop culture that might have been more significant for women and people of color. It’s a different kind of self-awareness than existed in Ready Player One, but it feels more performative than anything else because it still comes from the perspective of a white man.

Ready Player One was published in 2011, and our world has changed a lot in the intervening decade, from the rise of social media influencers to gender fluidity (and its vocabulary and presentation) becoming more mainstream. One gets the sense that Cline took these cultural shifts into account when returning to the 2040s, retconning them into his speculative future. The ONI-net, in which OASIS users can experience the lives of celebrities and thrill-seekers through immersive viral clips, brings to mind Instagram and TikTok. Though there are some references to global pandemics, COVID-19 seems not to have made the cut (likely due to Ready Player Two’s publishing schedule). Nonbinary people exist in the OASIS and IRL, and one of the new supporting characters is trans, though the reader mostly experiences this through Wade’s own journey of acknowledging his own sexual confusion. Wade has become more woke, but he mostly proclaims such wokeness instead of actually acting on it.

The Wade of Ready Player One has a clear rags-to-riches story, as his obsession with a bygone decade literally pays off and transforms his life. Ready Player Two’s reverse narrative is not nearly as compelling, and falls into the trap of altering its characters’ circumstances without actually depicting character growth. Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto go through major life changes yet somehow get even less plot development than the first time around. That trans character gets shuffled off to a side quest that will no doubt become its own tie-in novella, when it would have been more affirming for her to be front-and-center—the new Parzival, eager to crack the puzzle. None of these characters are elevated from supporting cast to Wade’s crisis of conscience. Unlike the OASIS, the world of these books remains static and unchanging.

Rather than extend that extra life through another run-through of the same game, Wade wisely lets it expire and takes his win. If only Cline had done the same.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Ready Player Two is available now from Ballantine Books.

The post Ready Player Two Review: Ernest Cline’s Soulless Sequel Beats a Dead Horse appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2J9vqV2

[stupendousbananatiger]

EP 12 | You Knock on My Door (Sen Çal Kapımı) 12.Bölüm/Episode 12 [ENGSUB] FOX Türkiye

Watch You Knock on My Door (Sen Çal Kapımı) Season 1 Episode 12 1–2–3–4–5–1–7–8–9–10 Full Episode You Knock on My Door (Sen Çal Kapımı) Temporada 1 Capítulo 12 Sub English / Español 2020 ➤ http://watchepisode.online-tvs.com/series/383383/1/12 VISIT HERE ➤➤ http://watchepisode.online-tvs.com/series/383383/1/12

Finally in the end Serkan made his declaration of love. Now it is Eda's turn. But it is not going to be easy to obtain Eda's declaration. Serkan waits patiently in order to hear that Eda is in love with him. Now we also have to deal with keeping this a secret from the families. Since Eda's aunt learned about the engagement agreement, she cannot tell her that she and Serkan and now a real couple in love. With Eda's insistence, Serkan agrees to keep this a secret. But they and their relationship is going to go through many adventures while they keep this secret.

🎬 You Knock on My Door (Sen Çal Kapımı) Episode 12 Online Free 🎬

Title : You Knock on My Door Episode Title : Episode 12 Release Date : 30 Sep 2020 Runtime : 120 minutes Genres : Comedy , Drama , Romance Networks : FOX Türkiye

You Knock on My Door (Sen Çal Kapımı)

Eda, who ties all her hopes to her education, confronts Serkan Bolat, who cuts off her international education scholarship and leaves her with high school diploma. Serkan Bolat offers Eda to give her scholarship back if she pretends to be his fiance for two months. Although Eda rejects the offer of this man as she hates him, she has to accept it when the conditions change. While pretending to be engaged, Serkan and Eda begin to experience a passionate, challenging relationship that will make them forget all they know right. Because love is difficult. And that's why it's amazing.

Show Info

Network: Turkey FOX Türkiye (2020 - now) Schedule: Wednesdays at 20:00 (120 min) Status: Running Language: Turkish Show Type: Scripted Genres: Drama Comedy Romance

With dozens of films genre being released each year, a typical one that gets overlooked by the more popular ones (action, drama, comedy, animation, etc.) is the subgenre category of religious movie. These films (sometimes called “faith-based” features) usually center around the struggles and ideas of a person (or groups) identity of a religious faith, which is, more or less, has a profound event or obstacle to overcome. While not entirely, the most commonplace religious type movies focus on the religion of Christianity, sometimes venturing back into the past in cinematic retelling classic biblical tales, including famed epic films like Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur (the original 1959 version) to some more modern endeavors from Hollywood like Risen, The Young Messiah, and Paul, Apostle of Christ. Other Christian “faith” films finds a more contemporary setting to tell its story, with some being “based on a true-life account” like the movies Unconditional, Heaven is Real, Unbroken, I Can Only Imagine, Indivisible, and Miracles from Heaven, while others might find inspiration from literary novels / fictionalized narratives like The Shack, Overcomer, War Room, and Same Kind of Different as Me. Regardless, whether finding inspiration from true life, references from the bible, or originality, these movies usually speaks on a person’s faith and the inner struggle he or she has within or one society’s views, spreading a message of belief and the understand of one’s belief. Now, after the success of 2018’s I Can Only Imagine, directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) and Lionsgate studios release the 2020 faith-based film / music biopic feature I Still Believe. Does the film walk a fine line between its religious aspects and cinematic entertainment or does the movie get entangled in its own faith-based preaching?

THE STORY

Its 1999 and Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) is a young and aspiring musician who would like nothing more than to honor his God through the power of music. Leaving his Indiana home for the warmer climate of California and a college education, Jeremy soon comes across one Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson), a fellow college student that he takes notices in the audience at a local concert. Falling for cupid’s arrow immediately, he introduces himself to her and quickly discovers that she is attracted to him too. However, Melissa holds back from forming a budding relationship as she fears it will create an awkward situation between Jeremy and their mutual friend, Jean-Luc (Nathan Parson), a fellow musician and who also has feeling for Melissa. Still, Jeremy is relentless in his pursuit of her until they eventually find themselves in a loving dating relationship. However, their youthful courtship with each other comes to a halt when life-threating news of Melissa having cancer takes center stage. The diagnosis does nothing to deter Jeremey’s love for her and the couple eventually marries shortly thereafter. Howsoever, they soon find themselves walking a fine line between a life together and suffering by her illness; with Jeremy questioning his faith in music, himself, and with God himself.

THE GOOD / THE BAD

Sorry if this sounds a bit familiar pieces from my review of I Can Only Imagine, but it definitely says what I feel about these films. While I am a devout Christian (not a crazy zealot or anything like that) for my bases of religion and my outlook beliefs in life, I’m not a huge fan of the “faith-based” feature films. That’s not to say that they’re bad or that I find them deplorable to the other more popular movie genres out there, but sometimes they can a bit preachy and corny / honky in their religious overtones and overall dramatic direction. Personally, I like the more biblical tales that Hollywood as put over, with Cecil B. Demile’s The Ten Commandments and William Wyler’s Ben-Hur; both of have proven to stand the test of time within filmmaking. Of course, Hollywood’s recent trend of put out more “remakes” movies puts an overcast on those biblical epics with 2014’s Exodus: Gods and Kings and 2016’s Ben-Hur; both of which failed to capture a sense of cinematic integrity and had a messy religious outlook in its zeal aspect. Of late, however, Hollywood as retreated more into contemporary pieces, finding narratives that are, more or less, set in a more “modern” day and age to their Christian-faithful based features. As I mentioned above, some have found success in their literary forms (being based on a book and adapted to the big screen), but most derive their inspiration from true life accounts, translating into something that’s meant to strike a chord (with moviegoers) due to its “based on a true story” aspect and nuances. Again, some are good (as I liked Unbroken and The Shack), while others kind of become a bit too preachy and let the religious overtures hamper the film, making them less-than desirable to mainstream audiences or even members of their own faiths. Thus, these religious-esque films can sometimes be problematic in their final presentation for both its viewers and in the film itself; sometimes making the movie feel like a TV channel movie rather than a theatrical feature film. This brings me around to talking about I Still Believe, a 2020 motion picture release of the Christian religious faith-based genre. As almost customary, Hollywood usually puts out two (maybe three) films of this variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring time and / or fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was first announced (probably got buried underneath all the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer was released, which looked somewhat interesting to me. Yes, it looked the movie was gonna be the typical “faith-based” vibe, but it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I Can Only Imagine (a film that I did like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for quite some time, so I kept on seeing it a lot of time when I went to my local movie theater. You can kind of say that it was a bit “engrained in my brain”. Thus, I was a bit keen on seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before the COVID-19 outbreak closed the movie theaters down (saw it during its opening night), but, due to work scheduling, I haven’t had the time to do my review for it…. until now. And what did I think of it? Well, it was pretty “meh”. While its heart is definitely in the right place and quite sincere, I Still Believe is a bit too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is clearly there, but takes too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation. As mentioned, I Still Believe is directed by the Erwin Brothers (Andrew and Jon), whose previous directorial works include such films like Moms’ Night Out, Woodlawn, and I Can Only Imagine. Given their affinity attraction religious based Christian movies, the Erwin Brothers seem like a suitable choice in bringing Jeremy Camp’s story to a cinematic representation; approaching the material with a certain type of gentleness and sincerity to the proceedings. Much like I Can Only Imagine, the Erwin Brothers shape the feature around the life of a popular Christian singer; presenting his humble beginnings and all the trials and tribulations that he must face along the way, while musical songs / performance taking importance into account of the film’s narrative story progression. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t without its heavier moments, with the Erwin, who (again) are familiar with religious overtones themes in their endeavors, frame I Still Believe compelling messages of love, loss, and redemption, which (as always) are quite fundamental to watch and experience through tragedy. This even speaks to the film’s script, which was penned by Erwin brothers playing double duty on the project, that has plenty of heartfelt dramatic moments that will certainly tug on the heartstrings of some viewers out there as well as provide to be quite an engaging tale of going through tragedy and hardship and finding a redemption arc to get out of it. This is especially made abundantly clear when dealing with a fatal illness that’s similar to what Melissa undergoes in the film, which is quite universal and reflective in everyone’s world, with the Erwin Brothers painting the painful journey that Melissa takes along with Jeremy by her side, who must learn to cope with pain of a loved one. There is a “double edge” sword to the film’s script, but I’ll mention that below. Suffice to say, the movie settles quickly into the familiar pattern of a religious faith-based feature that, while not exactly polished or original, can be quite the “comfort food” to some; projecting a wholesome message of faith, hope, and love. Personally, I didn’t know of Jeremy Camp and the story of he and Melissa Henning, so it was quite a poignant journey that was invested unfolding throughout the film’s proceedings. As a side-note, the movie is a bit a “tear jerker”, so for those who prone to crying during these dramatic heartfelt movies….get your tissues out. In terms of presentation, I Still Believe meets the industry standard of a religious faith-based motion pictures. Of course, theatrical endeavors like these don’t really have big budged production money to invest in the film’s creation. Thus, filmmakers have to spend their money wisely in bringing their cinematic tales to life on the silver screen. To that effect, the Erwin Brothers smartly utilized this knowledge in the movie’s creation; budgeting the various aspects of the background and genetic theatrical make-up that feel appropriate and genuine in the film’s narrative. So, all the various “behind the scenes” team / areas that I usually mention (i.e. production designs, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography, etc.) are all relatively good as I really don’t have much to complain (whether good or bad) about them. Again, they meet the industry standard for a faith-based movie. Additionally, the musical song parts are pretty good as well. As mentioned, I really didn’t know anything about Jeremy Camp, so I couldn’t say what songs of his were good, but the songs that are presented in the film were pretty decent enough to certain highlight points throughout the movie. Though they are somewhat short (assuming not the whole song is being played), but still effectively good and nice to listen to. Might have to check out a few of the real songs one day. Lastly, the film’s score, which was done by John Debney, fits perfect with this movie; projecting the right amount of heartfelt tenderness in some scenes and inspirational melodies of enlightenment in others. Unfortunately, not all is found to be pure and religiously cinematic in the movie as I Still Believe gets weighed down with several major points of criticism and execution in the feature. How so? For starters, the movie feels a bit incomplete in Jeremy Camp’s journey. What’s presented works (somewhat), but it doesn’t hold up, especially because the Erwin Brothers have a difficult time in nailing down the right narrative path for the film to take. Of course, the thread of Jeremy and Melissa are the main central focus (and justly so), but pretty much everything else gets completely pushed aside, including Jeremy’s musical career rise to stardom and many of the various characters and their importance (more on that below). This also causes the film to have a certain pacing issues throughout the movie, with I Still Believe runtime of 116 minutes (one hour and fifty-six minutes) feeling longer than it should be, especially with how much narrative that the Erwin Brothers skip out on (i.e. several plot chunks / fragments are left unanswered or missing). Additionally, even if a viewer doesn’t know of Jeremy Camp’s story, I Still Believe does, for better or worse, follow a fairly predictable path that’s quite customary for faith-based movie. Without even reading anything about the real lives of Jeremy and Melissa prior to seeing the feature, it’s quite clearly as to where the story is heading and what will ultimately play out (i.e. plot beats and theatrical narrative act progression). Basically, if you’ve seeing one or two Christian faith-based film, you’ll know what to expect from I Still Believe. Thus, the Erwin Brothers don’t really try to creatively do something different with the film…. instead they reinforce the idealisms of Christian and of faith in a formulaic narrative way that becomes quite conventional and almost a bit lazy. There is also the movie’s dialogue and script handling, which does become problematic in the movie’s execution, which is hampered by some wooden / forced dialogue at certain scenes (becoming very preachy and cheesy at times) as well as the feeling of the movie’s story being rather incomplete. There’s a stopping point where the Erwin Brothers settle on, but I felt that there could’ve more added, including more expansion on his music career and several other characters. Then there is the notion of the film being quite secular in its appeal, which is quite understandable, but relies too heavy on its religious thematic messages that can be a bit “off-putting” for some. It didn’t bother me as much, but after seeing several other faith-based movies prior to this (i.e. I Can Only Imagine, Overcomer, Indivisible, etc.), this particular movie doesn’t really rise to Cursed in Love and falls prey to being rather generic and flat for most of its runtime. As you can imagine, I Still Believe, while certainly sincere and meaningful in its storytelling, struggles to find a happy balance in its narrative and execution presentation; proving to be difficult in conveying the whole “big picture” of its message and Jeremey Camp’s journey. The cast in I Still Believe is a mixed bag. To me, none of the acting talents are relatively bad (some are better than others…. I admit), but their characterizations and / or involvement in the film’s story is problematic to say the least. Leading the film’s narrative are two protagonist characters of Jeremy Camp and Melissa Henning, who are played by the young talents of K.J. Apa and Britt Robertson respectfully. Of the two, Apa, known for his roles in Riverdale, The Last Summer, and The Hate U Give, is the better equipped in character development and performance as the young and aspiring musical talent of Jeremy Camp. From the get-go, Apa has a likeable charm / swagger to him, which make his portrayal of Jeremy immediately endearing from onset to conclusion. All the scenes he does are well-represented (be it character-based or dramatic) and certainly sells the journey that Jeremy undergoes in the movie. Plus, Apa can also sing, which does lend credence to many of the scene’s musical performance. For Robertson, known for her roles in Tomorrowland, Ask Me Anything, and The Space Between Us, she gets hampered by some of the film’s wooden / cheesy dialogue. True, Robertson’s performance is well-placed and well-mannered in projecting a sense of youthful and dewy-eyed admiration in Mellissa, especially since the hardships here character undergoes in the feature, but it’s hard to get passed the cringeworthy dialogue written for her. Thus, Robertson’s Melissa ends up being the weaker of the two. That being said, both Apa and Robertson do have good on-screen chemistry with each other, which certainly does sell the likeable / loving young relationship of Jeremy and Melissa. In more supporting roles, seasoned talents like actor Gary Sinise (Forest Gump and Apollo 13) and musician singer Shania Twain play Jeremey’s parents, Tom and Terry Camp. While both Sinise and Twain are suitable for their roles as a sort of small town / Midwest couple vibe, their characters are little more than window dressing for the feature’s story. Their screen presence / star power lends weigh to the project, but that’s pretty much it; offering up a few nuggets to bolster a few particular scenes here and there, which is disappointing. Everyone else, including actor Nathan Parsons (General Hospital and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water) as musical talent and mutual friend to both Jeremy and Melissa, Jean-Luc Lajoie, young actor Reuben Dodd (The Bridge and Teachers) as Jeremy’s handicapped younger brother, Joshua Camp, and his other younger brother, Jared Camp (though I can’t find out who played him the movie), are relatively made up in smaller minor roles that, while acted fine, are reduced to little more than just underdeveloped caricatures in the film, which is a shame and disappointing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The power of faith, love, and affinity for music take center stage in Jeremy Camp’s life story in the movie I Still Believe. Directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) examine the life and times of Jeremy Camp’s life story; pin-pointing his early life with his relationship Melissa Henning as they battle hardships and their enduring love for one another through difficult times. While the movie’s intent and thematic message of a person’s faith through trouble times is indeed palpable as well as the likeable musical performances, the film certainly struggles to find a cinematic footing in its execution, including a sluggish pace, fragmented pieces, predicable plot beats, too preachy / cheesy dialogue moments, over utilized religious overtones, and mismanagement of many of its secondary /supporting characters. To me, this movie was somewhere between okay and “meh”. It was definitely a Christian faith-based movie endeavor (from start to finish) and definitely had its moments, but it just failed to resonate with me; struggling to find a proper balance in its undertaking. Personally, despite the story, it could’ve been better. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is an “iffy choice” at best as some will like (nothing wrong with that), while others will not and dismiss it altogether. Whatever your stance on religious faith-based flicks, I Still Believe stands as more of a cautionary tale of sorts; demonstrating how a poignant and heartfelt story of real-life drama can be problematic when translating it to a cinematic endeavor. For me, I believe in Jeremy Camp’s story / message, but not so much the feature.

[entergamingxp]

A Blessing in Disguise Review — Always Trust the Pizza, Zach

July 8, 2020 9:00 AM EST

Deadly Premonition 2 marks the return of Francis York Morgan and his brand of weirdness. He can also skateboard now. It’s rad.

To call the first Deadly Premonition a cult classic feels like a bit of an understatement. Swery65 and the team at Access Games created one of the most intriguing, yet technically terrible games in recent memory. In 2010, the game felt like a modern-era version of Shenmue’s “gameplay” mixed with an oddball murder mystery like Twin Peaks.

Fans of the original release will be happy to know that the trademark weirdness is still alive and well in 2020. In fact, this prequel/sequel, Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise, feels like it was entirely designed back in 2010, and then Swery just held onto it for 10 years.

As such, this makes it a very difficult game to give you a clean-cut review score. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if several people just read the score and skip my text in their haste to take to the comments section to complain. Your enjoyment of Deadly Premonition 2 mostly comes down to what you value most in your video games.

In short, if you like wacky casts and a harebrained plot that barely makes sense, Deadly Premonition is probably worth a try. However, if you need your games to play at a consistent framerate or want precise control over your actions, maybe look elsewhere.

That dichotomy between two thoughts of game design is represented in nearly every aspect of Deadly Premonition 2. It might be tough to fully explain all of my thoughts on my favorite game outside of NieR: Automata or the Yakuza series over the last half-decade while also feeling hard-pressed to call it good. That said, I’ll do my best while going into some spoilers, so fair warning.

“York is, perhaps, my favorite protagonist in gaming history.”

Let’s start with the most important aspect of Deadly Premonition 2, which is the characters. This cast of misfits is often hilarious, always compelling, and sometimes full of more emotion than you previously thought possible. Obviously, the star of the show is Francis York Morgan and his alter ego, Zach. York is, perhaps, my favorite protagonist in gaming history. His encyclopedic knowledge of B-movies and his willingness to explore anything in the search of truth make him the kind of guy you’d love to have on your side.

At times, he might seem to not really understand normal humans, but then you realize that he’s just on another plane from the rest of us. Sure, he refuses to call Arnold Schwarzenegger anything but Arnold S. And, I’ll grant you that mentally hopping out of conversations to talk to what some would call an imaginary friend is probably not the best way to handle an investigation, but York is always there to surprise you with his deep understanding of how people work. He’s able to assess situations in ways that other characters can’t because his worldview is so different from the norm.

York isn’t the only character worth talking about. There’s David, whose four separate personalities fulfill the roles of your hotel’s chef, concierge, bellboy, and owner. There’s also Mrs. Carpenter, the bowling granny. Or maybe, like me, you love the always-cursing crawdaddy farmer Chuck. The man might have a short temper, but when he goes off on you in his heavy Louisanna accent, it’s a thing of beauty. You haven’t seen a better putdown wordsmith in video games.

And, it would be a mistake to not also talk about York’s young assistant, Patti. As a foil to York’s oddball behavior, Patti is sublime. She refuses to put up with his crap and even takes a few Jim from The Office-like moments to look at the camera, asking “is this guy for real?” with her blue eyes.

Unfortunately, while all the characters in the game are memorable (yes, even you, The Mirror), when you actually start playing the game, it all starts to fall apart.

I’m no frame rate expert. Frankly, as long as it’s consistent, I don’t really care for most games. That said, calling Deadly Premonition 2’s framerate smooth is like calling games with randomized loot boxes a fun form of “surprise mechanics.” It’s just an outright lie.

In the main overworld, the game chugs like a stay-at-home mom whose son just dropped out of college and has taken up binge-drinking boxed wine. I can make that joke because I dropped out for a year before going back to finish. Except, I was the one drinking, not my mom.

“As a foil to York’s oddball behavior, Patti is sublime.”

Anyways, don’t expect technical brilliance. Even expecting technical competency is a big ask. But, does any of that matter when you can skate around the beautiful town of Le Carre in 15fps or less?

The answer is absolutely not. See, Deadly Premonition 2 might not understand what framerate is, but it does understand fun. And, to that end, Swery and his team have replaced the boring driving from the original game with skateboarding.

That’s right, friends. York’s rented hybrid card was stolen during his trip to Le Carre and, in its place, he’s become a true “Sk8er Boi.” At first, all he can do is ride around, but, once you meet your very own Mr. Miyagi in Emma, you’ll quickly learn the “FORBIDDEN ARTS” of skateboarding. Basically, you’re going to become an impossible-landing machine. It’s super rad.

At least, it (and the rest of the game with it) is as long as it’s working. We talked about Deadly Premonition 2’s frame rate, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Expect to run into several bugs. The game only hard crashed on me once, but, like a jealous former lover, it teased me all the time. Load times in Deadly Premonition 2 are apparently something the game thinks you should savor.

They’re incredibly long and sometimes you’re just looking at a black screen for 10 minutes wondering if you Switch exploded on the inside from running this Xbox 360-looking game. Additionally, I also ran into several soft locks during my playthrough. Basically, what happens is randomly your buttons stop working. You can’t shoot bad guys. You can’t run. Heck, you can’t even skate. Truly, it’s the worst timeline.

That first problem will really hurt you, though. If you can’t shoot, you can’t fight off bad guys in the game’s dungeons. This means you have no choice except to load back to a checkpoint.

Speaking of the dungeon, imagine you’re playing a Persona game. The only difference is that, in place of deep rock-paper-scissors RPG combat, you’re shooting enemies in the face. The best you can say about it is that it’s so easy, you barely have to think about it.

Seriously, I don’t think I used a health pack until the last boss. At the end of the game, I had well over 100 healing items, and it wasn’t because I was being stingy. Personally, I didn’t really mind. The story and characters were the reason to play. However, if you’re looking for good gameplay, this ain’t it.

“Like a good book, the story is a page-turner.”

Deadly Premonition 2’s often bonkers story is full of heart. If you asked me to tell you exactly what happens, I’d be hard-pressed to tell you. However, what I will say is that I was glued to the TV throughout the game.  Like a good book, the story is a page-turner. I’m just not completely sure if the total tale makes sense or not.

To me, it’s an exploration of a man who lost everything and is trying to get it back. It’s also about a man who is willing to follow any possibility in his search for the truth. And lastly, it’s about RED TREES. I’m sure that last line means something to a small number of you.

But, while the main story is a bit of a wild one, I can say one thing with absolute certainty; In his time in Le Carre, York has developed an obsession with bridges. I know this because he’s told me that somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 times.

See, while the cutscenes are mostly great, York only has 15-20 stories that he tells while you’re exploring the town. And he’s going to tell them to you over and over again. If you wanted to hear York wax poetically about Charles Bronson’s name, you’re in luck. He’ll be doing that a lot.

Deadly Premonition 2 is a test of how much crap you can put up with for one of my favorite experiences in this generation of video games. It’s like if a chef brought you the finest crab in the world, but to eat it you have to crack open the shells with your toes while getting mud thrown at your face and being forced to listen to your least favorite song play over-and-over again. At some point, you have to ask yourself, is the crab really worth it?

For me, the answer is a resounding yes. I don’t know if Deadly Premonition 2 will end the year ranked as the best game of 2020 in the annals of DualShockers’ history, but it will probably be my favorite one.

“Deadly Premonition 2 just wants to tell its story, tell it well, and be its own weird, little self.”

The game actually provides one of the best analogies I think of to describe itself. York is a student of cinema. He can tell you the director and year of release for almost any film in existence. However, he’s never heard of E.T., a seminal movie in film history.

Only crazy people and children haven’t heard of E.T. You might not like it, but you’ve heard of it. You probably know the story. You’ve certainly heard about him phoning home. But York hasn’t. He’s too focused on Scatman Crothers’ performance in The Shining to pay attention to that popcorn movie. He doesn’t have time for your summer blockbusters.

Imagine a man who not only hasn’t seen a Marvel movie in 2020, but hasn’t even heard of them. That’s York. He’d see a poster for The Avengers and be like, “This masked man in red, white, and blue tights reminds me of Simon Wincer’s 1996 film The Phantom starring Billy Zane and Kristy Swanson.” And then you’d have to hear him talk about it lovingly for five minutes, while some great smooth jazz plays in the background. Did I mention the music rules? But, like every other aspect of Deadly Premonition 2, that has to come with a caveat. Because, just like the first game, the audio mixing is all over the place.

Anyways, Deadly Premonition 2 is exactly the same. It’s a game that feels like it has never played any games released after the original. It doesn’t care about frame rate or good controls. It’s made a few changes to the overall formula but mostly casts aside the advances game design has made in the last ten years. Deadly Premonition 2 just wants to tell its story, tell it well, and be its own weird, little self. Your ability to either live with that or not will determine how deeply you fall in love with the citizens of Le Carre.

July 8, 2020 9:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/a-blessing-in-disguise-review-always-trust-the-pizza-zach/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-blessing-in-disguise-review-always-trust-the-pizza-zach

[dailyaudiobible]

11/28/2017 DAB Transcript

Daniel 6:1-28, 2 Peter 3:1-18, Psalms 119:129-152, Proverbs 28:21-22

Today is the 29th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today, squarely in the middle of the week here in the waning days of the month of November. And today we will finish second Peter. But before we do that, we need to read from the book of Daniel, chapter 6 verses 1 through 28. And we’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we conclude second Peter, its conclusion brings up sentiments that we have seen before, many, many, times and the ways in which the early believers were trying to work out how to make sense of what was going on versus what they were expecting to be going on. And if we’ll notice this, then we’ll notice that this wrestling has profoundly impacted the last 2000 years. So, first century Hebrew culture in the Roman province of Syria, which encompassed the territory of ancient Israel, was heavily influenced by an apocalyptic worldview. And that basically means that they had a sense that the destiny of the world was ultimately changing. And that, ultimately, decisive things were going to happen that were going to change the shape of the world as we know it. And although difficult and destructive times would come that would be really disastrous, in the midst of that there would be rescue, and something new would be born. And this is the culture that Jesus came into and he spoke this kind of language, as did the writers of the New Testament. And in the decades that followed Jesus earthly life, this idea spread and merged into Gentile culture in one form or another as the gospel began to spread all over the known world. And we can see that this is been passed down all the way until today. As believers, we generally think the same thing. But as we read the New Testament we don't see this idea being something that's going to happen somewhere in the far distant future. We see it as being something imminent. They thought the revelation of Jesus and his return was imminent. And this has actually fueled revival down through the ages. So, take, for example, the Jesus movement that happened in the late 60s in through the 70s. I’ve studied that movement a lot because from it came the Christian music industry as we know it and I come from that as the second-generation after it. So, I spent a lot of time with a lot of those early artists, talking to them about what was it, what was it that fueled that time where the spirit flowed the way that it did. And almost to a person, the thought was that the return of Christ was imminent. There was so much going on in the world, so much cultural shift with the backdrop of the Vietnam War, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. Times were changing. A new era was spilling out and the younger generation, which would've been my parent’s generation, we’re looking for a better world. And, so, they turned to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. And the idea that love would conquer all and bring unity, and the age of Aquarius, and all of this stuff. And, in the midst of this, people began to find Jesus. And the way and teachings of Jesus made sense. And the idea that Jesus return was imminent and would usher in a new era was deeply compelling. I talked to artists from that time and felt like they didn't even have time to go into the recording studio to make a record. They just needed to be out on the beach, on a park bench, playing songs that would draw crowds so that the story, the message of Jesus, could be shared because the arrival of Christ was imminent. And, so, we can see how this worldview leads just about every generation to believe that they are the last. Because we can all look at the struggles of the world at the time that we live and say, this is pretty bad, the end is near, something new is about to happen.

Okay, so what does that have to do with the New Testament and what does that have to do with second Peter? Well, in the decades that followed Jesus life, this was the message. Christ was about to return and reveal himself. The kingdom of God would come and there will be a whole new world. But decades had passed. What was supposed to happen imminently, didn't, which left them with a bit of a problem. What they thought they knew, they apparently didn't. So, they had to seek revelation and clarity. And that is what we see in the final chapter of second Peter. And why it's important for us is that we’re basically still in the same boat, largely thinking the same thing. So, now that we have some context and we have located ourselves in the story, allow me to reread from second Peter, chapter 3, as we watch this explode into vivid color. ‘You must realize that in the last days some people won't think about anything except their own selfish desires, they will make fun of you and say, didn’t your Lord promise to come back. Yet, the first leaders have already died and the world hasn't changed a bit. They will say this because they want to forget that long ago the heavens and the earth were made at God's command. The earth came out of the water and was made from water. Later it was destroyed by the waters of the mighty flood. But God has commanded the present heavens and earth to remain until the day of judgment, then they will be set on fire, and ungodly people will be destroyed. Dear friends, don't forget that, for the Lord, one day is the same as a thousand years and a thousand years is the same as one day. The Lord isn't slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is patient because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost’. And there is the revelation or explanation. All of this is eminently going to happen according to God and not according to our sense of time. So, according to that explanation, a thousand years is like one day to the Lord, and vice a versa. And, so, here we are 2000 years later, but it's only been like two days for the Lord, is what's being said here. And Peter is saying, this has nothing to do with God not fulfilling his promises, and that Christ is not going to be revealed. What we are experiencing is, in fact, God's patience because our Father doesn't want to lose anyone. Or, to quote Peter, ‘God is patient because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost’. So, for starters we can see that all of our attempts to create a formula that will identify the exact moment when Jesus will return to this earth and then predict it, well, that's been going on for a long time and is a bit futile. He will come and when he does it will be at the moment of his choosing and it will be the right moment. If there's anything we can learn from the arc of the narrative of the Bible is that God is patient. And if there's anything we can learn in our own life experience it is that God is patient. So, what is it that we are supposed to be doing in the meantime? We are supposed to be patient too. And we’re supposed to be sharing the good news of light and life as people who have been commissioned by God to announce the good news because we don't want anyone to be lost either. Or, as Peter tells it, ‘my friends, while you are waiting you should make certain that the Lord finds the you pure, spotless, and living at peace. Don't forget that the Lord is patient because he wants people to be saved. This is also what our dear friend Paul said when he wrote you with the wisdom that God had given him’. And then he goes on to talk about how people are twisting what Paul said. And then he concludes. ‘My dear friends, you have been warned ahead of time. So, don't let the errors of evil people lead you down the wrong path and make you lose your balance. Let the wonderful kindness and the understanding that come from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, help you to keep on growing.

Prayer:

Father, that's it, that's what we want, to keep on growing and to see our longing and anticipation through patient eyes, understanding that we’re a part of this whole story. You have invited us to participate by being Your hands and feet in this world so that none will be lost. And may we see the world through those eyes, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what's going on around here.

And, obviously, we find ourselves in the thick of it in the holiday season now. So, I remind you that the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box is available. And it's chock-full of things for yourself and things for you to give away. And you can check all of that out dailyaudiobible.com in the shop. And one important thing about that. Today is the international shipping cut off day. So, if you are outside the United States, we think today is the last safe day that we can ship internationally for these Boxes to arrive in time for Christmas. So, heads up on that. Obviously, you can order after this, but we think, you know, after this… it's…we don't know…we know it’ll arrive…but if you're wanting it to arrive for Christmas then, jump on it right away. If you're inside the United States then we still have plenty of time but we do always sell out of these.

And another thing from the shop that I like to point out, because we think it's a great gift idea, is all of the writing and journaling things that we have in the shop. We have the new Daily Audio Bible journals that we custom-made and paired along with Black Wing pencils, which are widely praised as the best pencils in the world. And, in this day of high technology, the act of sharpening cedarwood and graphite to a fine tip and then using your own hand to write your story in your own words offers an opportunity and a practice to slow things down and write your story as it happens. And we have some new items related to that in the shop, a brand-new pencil pouch to go along with the pencil role that we've had for a while. And point guards to protect your sharpened tip so that's ready to go whenever you're ready to go. And we've incorporated some of those things together in bundles that are just everything that you need, everything that you need to get going. I’ve been doing this all year. I've been journaling all year like this. I journaled all of the days…all of my mom's final days…and all of the emotions and feelings of grief afterward, as well as the rest of the year. And we've always encouraged journaling around here, since, basically, the beginning of the Daily Audio Bible because it's so easy to forget what stands out to us in the Scriptures or what is going on in our lives that God is working in, it all becomes a blur after a while. But when you can go back a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, ten years ago today, your story begins to have context. And having context for our own life story is just as important as having context for what's going on in the Bible. So, this is a great time to get set up for next year. It’s also great gift idea for anyone in your life that loves words, that likes to write, or even that needs to slow down a little bit to a life that flows like water under a bridge. So, all of that is available in the shop as well. Check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here at the end of the year, then, obviously, humble thanks for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage of dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Hello. This is Claire. My love to you and from Jesus. I have tinnitus. It is screaming tinnitus. I found that there is no answer for it but the Lord knows what that answer is. I just pray…I ask for your prayers please. And I have a poem that I just wrote. It’s for you.

God pulled us from the deepest pit Jesus’ blood washed away the grit He gave His love and at the root We’re His masterpiece and He’s our pursuit God be with all of you, in your thoughts, in your prayers, and your entire life. He’s in your heart and you’re in His hands. Praise the Lord. This is Claire from Wyoming.

Hey Daily Audio Bible Family. It’s Sheila in Massachusetts. It’s been a long time since I called but I’m listening every day, praying for you all. I was prompted to call today by Cheryl from Arizona who called. She was praying…asking for praters…about the anxiety…and saying how much she hates anxiety…and I am just so frustrated and tired and fed up with this mental illness that’s bugging so many of us and our families. Cheryl, I am praying for you. I don’t know if I’ve every shared with you all, but I’m also a psychologist, and I work with adolescents and you all know my daughter Annie suffers from bi-polar and I have generalized anxiety myself. It runs in the family. Just…today I’m going to pray. I pray to our Lord, pray in Jesus’ name, that all the mental illness…just ___ us with worry and despair and doubt…all of these things that come into our mind and take hold of us…that I just…so many of us are suffering…I pray in Jesus’ name to remove the mental illness from us, to show us that we can be sad…we can be down… we can have things that go wrong, but Lord let us always know that there’s hope in You. There’s a light, there’s a light in all of us, the light of the Holy Spirit. I was just saying the other day that the Holy Spirit has never been referred to in the Bible as and ‘it’. The Holy Spirit isn’t an ‘it’. It’s alive, it’s indwelling within us. It’s a gift that we have from Jesus. Let us all find that light and praise it. Let the light shine and just root out all evil, this awful mental illness in us. Lord, I’m just going to continue to pray for our wellbeing and our health. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. Cheryl, you are in my prayers.

Hi this call is…the first part is for Cheryl in Arizona. I just heard your call about having like mad anxiety, especially at night. I just want you to know sister that I am there with you. That same thing happened to me. I would look at your caffeine intake and your sugar intake. That really, really affected me, especially at night when I laid down…and...you know…settling down…may brain would just go haywire. Once I cut that out…for a while I cut that out altogether and it was great. And it helped…it helps a ton and especially being able to like…lay down…and go to bed…and not like…hang out awake…and…you know…it really helps. So, I would look at that. If you’re not a big caffeine drinker, maybe look at your sugar intake. And just maybe look at the food and the nutrients and everything that you are putting in your body. That has a whole lot to do with anxiety…at least it did for me…it really helps…when I figured out what I was putting into my body. The second one is…the second part is for a coworker of mine. She has been fighting cancer and she’s having a really rough time financially. She’s having to work multiple jobs and can’t pay her bills and is really sick. She just needs prayer. Lord, I just want to pray for my sister Cheryl with anxiety and my other sister with the cancer and I pray that…I pray healing and release and just wisdom to take the right steps and  know where You lead Lord, and I pray for all of us, and I pray for all of the sick people, especially kids. Please help them and be with them. I pray for a cure Lord for cancer and for everything else. If anyone can do it You can Lord. I pray…

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is Rob from Chatham, Ontario. Today I’m calling to ask your help to lift my son Max in prayer. He is living in North Dakota. He’s living in a…he’s in a situation…in a relationship outside of God's will and there’s a child involved. He has a daughter and he’s about to be separated from his daughter. And it’s going to rip him…it’s going to his heart right out and I’m just asking for you to lift him up in prayer so that God can intervene and prevent that from happening. And I don’t know how it could happen but only God can make it happen. And I’m asking you to ask that maybe that relationship be salvaged or just…I don’t know…I don’t know…I’m just. Yeah, this is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, well that’s where I’m from, that’s where he is right now, and I can’t imagine what his Holiday is like right now, but he’s soon to experience a severe amount of pain and I hope that that doesn’t happen. Please pray for him family. Thank you.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. It is the 23rd of November, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day in the United States of America. And a great day to give thanks no matter where we are. And any day is a good day to give thanks. And I wanted to call in to specifically say thank you to Cheryl in Arizona. Cheryl, you called in and left a prayer request. And at the time you’d mentioned that it was the 17th at 10:04 in the evening, your time, in Arizona. And I wanted to call to encourage you to stay strong, to keep your faith, and to continue to be still, and trust God.  Heavenly Father, You know Cheryl. You created her. You wove her in her mother's womb and stitched together perfectly, uniquely, and blessed her with amazing gifts and talents, that she is using here now and needs to sharpen to continue to continue to use to be the light for other people in the world. You created her with purpose. She is part of Your royal bloodline. You know her heart Lord. You created her before you created the universe and You didn't waste time on her. You don’t waste time on any of us. Heavenly Father, we ask You to be able to dwell deep within Cheryl, to relieve her from all off her anxiety and all of her fear. Let her know that with Your son Jesus, who walks with her in every step of the way and by the power of Your Holy Spirit, that she’s free from all of that. Help her to breathe deeply, Heavenly Father, and we ask this in Your mighty and precious name. Amen. God bless you.

[mitchellkuga]

Ocean Vuong Explores the Coming-of-Age of Queerness

Published by GQ 

In his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, the author turns queer desire into the weather. He opens up about capturing the messier moments during gay sex, Crazy Rich Asians, and being ultra-basic.

By his own admission, at least on Instagram, Ocean Vuong can be summed up in four words: “very libra. ultra basic.” Three years ago, when he started teaching poetry at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, his students often rationalized his opinions by pointing out that he was a Libra, leaving Vuong, who was more familiar with Chinese astrology, feeling “so exposed.” He did some homework on the traits of Libras. “One of the factors is there is a lot of pent-up emotions that have very few releases,” he says, laughing, a week before the release of his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

The ultra-basic? “That's just growing up poor,” says Vuong, 30, who was born in Ho Chi Minh City before immigrating to Hartford, Connecticut, when he was two. “That's just growing up and eating mayonnaise and Wonder Bread sandwiches. But it's ultra-basic. We can take basic to a celebratory extreme.”

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous takes place against this backdrop of ultra-basicness, a Connecticut of mobile homes, bathrooms with “pea-soup walls,” and corner stores littered with food-stamp receipts. Framed as a letter from a 28-year-old son, Little Dog, to his illiterate mother, the novel doesn’t advance so much as unravel, freeing threads that examine queerness, class, race, and the inheritance of trauma. Throughout, Little Dog attempts to make sense of his identity through the fractured history of his mother, who works grueling hours at a nail salon, and his schizophrenic grandmother, a former sex worker in Vietnam. He begins a relationship with a boy named Trevor, who’s addicted to oxycodone, while working on a tobacco farm. In writing about America, Vuong has ultimately written a novel about American failure. “The one good thing about national anthems,” Little Dog writes, “is that we’re already on our feet, and therefore ready to run.”

GQ spoke to the writer, who won the T. S. Eliot Prize for his 2016 collection of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, about astrology, Pride, and writing about gay sex.

GQ: As someone who identifies as “very Libra,” why do you think astrology has become so popular within the queer community?

Ocean Vuong: You know, I love astrology because it gives you a framework to demystify and un-shame certain parts of yourself, even things you think are flaws, even things that the world might pathologize you for. Astrology deems it as part of your makeup, and then you can deal with it with a language that isn't shameful, which is why it has been so important for queer folks. Instead of saying you're emotional, you're terrible, you're deceitful, you're wrong, you say, Well, you're a Libra. [laughs] And now there's a home for it. We create these homes for ourselves.

Sex is a notoriously difficult thing to write about, and something you do quite vividly throughout this book, capturing the whiplash between desire and shame. I'm wondering if you had any guides through the process, particularly as it pertains to writing about gay sex?

There are a few guides, to be surprisingly honest, but David Wojnarowicz is the one. A lot of times it was just his diaries, particularly his tape journals [Weight of the Earth] that were just released, and the essay “Closer to the Knives.” He's the only writer that really just said it, unabashed, uninformed by the literary etiquette that we are often asked to perform. I read a queer book recently where the writer describes walking into a room, and it just said, "Love was made there." I thought, Okay, sure. Why have we been so whitewashed?

For so many queer folks, this is where we have the most agency. Sometimes we don't have a say in what we do for a job, how our families see us, but we do have a say about where we find pleasure, who goes inside us and who we go inside of. That's when we have a choice, and I wanted to stay there, in a place fraught with fear, terror, shame, but also power. So the sex scenes are repeated. They're elongated.

Desire is a force that coils and brews a storm in us, even when we're just looking at somebody. I wanted to turn desire into the weather, to stay in a moment of potency.

I found it quite radical, especially when Little Dog loses his virginity, and you address the messier moments that can occur doing anal sex. It's so familiar to gay intimacy and yet rarely acknowledged, particularly in literature. What compelled you to write about the underbelly of gay sex?

I specifically wrote that for queer folks. There are rare moments when I know who my audience is. I'm not a writer who likes to write for specific people—I don't like to be a representative of any group—but in that moment I felt like there has to be a moment of recognizability and, further, that that quote-unquote messiness or failure is not wrong. It's part of the coming-of-age of queerness. It's also a moment of mercy. A moment of bodily failure is actually a moment where the queer bodies are their most real. Where they are absolutely standing alone on their own two feet and they start to rescue each other in that moment. Not because they are marginalized or ostracized, but because they are so outside of the frame they find their own power.

Do you recall the first time you ever saw your queer Asianness reflected in a piece of art?

Alexander Chee would be in literature, which sounds absurd because he's contemporary, but that would be the first. But the most emblematic was Happy Together by Wong Kar-Wai, because they were untouched by whiteness, and that's so rare. It's so rare. Not to mention it's just a beautiful story. The energy was always violent and toxic, but they were on their own terms.

I wonder if that specificity can exist in America.

I went to see Crazy Rich Asians here—I didn't love the movie, I thought it was boring—but I walked into this theater in western Massachusetts, and it was packed full of mostly white people at 11:30 in the morning. I sat there, and the first song that came on was traditional Chinese opera. The movie didn't even begin—it was just the song and early credits—and I just sobbed. Because I never thought I would live to see anything like that.

Do you have a thing in your closet, an item that makes you feel the most queer?

I purposefully like to wear asymmetric earrings, one dangly, one stud. It's the one moment when I say I'm purposefully off-kilter. I want people to be disoriented by my face. Even just conceptually, I find joy in having one side be different. Even my eyes, one of my eyes is different than the other. It took me a long time to find joy in that.

I’m curious about your relationship to events like Pride, particularly as a Buddhist?

Well, as a Buddhist, it's almost at times contradictory to notions of pride, because pride is related to ego. Hardcore Buddhism would say there is no such thing as the self, that the body is merely a hotel room we try to care for and then we leave. And in some sense I think that's true. In another sense I think now is one of the most important moments to rethink Pride’s relationship to queerness. A lot of the Pride parades have been hijacked by late capitalism, the commodification of the queer body to sell Chase bank accounts. We've had fucking rainbow Doritos, for God's sake. Now let's talk about safety, health-care rights, laws to protect each other. To me Pride has to quickly translate to care. And if we don't have that trajectory, that bridge from one to another, I'm not that interested.

You write from the perspective of Little Dog, a successful writer: “They will want you to succeed, but never more than them. They will write their names on your leash and call you necessary, call you urgent.” Who is “they,” and what is the leash you’re referring to?

In general, "they" are people in power, the gatekeepers, and ultimately that framework surrounds whiteness. I didn't want to write a story that folks could just get lost in on vacation and move on. I wanted the mirror of a breathing queer writer of color in the world to be reflected back onto the reader. That's a moment when the writer himself really contemplates what it means to be successful, and how success is not necessarily a clear destination. It doesn't mean you've arrived. I mean, you got somewhere, but it's not necessarily—it's not freedom. You're not free of whiteness. People start to project their project and their sense of history onto you. You're still on a leash, no matter where you go.

The moment you're quoting there is actually a moment when the book collapses, and that was important to me; to write a queer narrative is to write purposeful collapse into that narrative. In a lot of the Western canon we ask for cohesion, particularly of queer bodies, and what I want to ask is how can we write cohesive stories when our lives do not get the privilege of cohesion? In order for a queer writer of color to write a cohesive story is to ultimately write a lie.

Speaking to this collapse, your book joins a lineage of queer narratives with a tragic narrative arch. Do you feel like you are in conversation with that lineage?

It was propelled and informed by that lineage, but I don't consider it a tragic story. As a writer, I knew I didn't want to write a tragedy. I wanted to write about American failure. Because when we think of the tragedy, we think of it in relation to the queer body: The queer body fails, and therefore it's tragic. But what I want to reframe, perhaps, is that American masculinity is a failure in itself in which no one thrives, including the characters in this book. People are lost to opioids, which is an American failure. It's not necessarily looking at queerness as tragedy, but that America as we know it is in a tragic trajectory. That's why it was important for me for the book to not end on death; it literally ends on the laughter of an Asian-American woman. That's the last line.

〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️

Published by GQ. Photo by Doug Levy. 

[theseventhhex]

Rosie Lowe Interview

Rosie Lowe

Photo by Nathan Barnes

A songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ, Rosie Lowe’s work digs into a richly complex mix of musical and emotional experiences. On her latest release, ‘YU’, Lowe takes a broader scope to interrogate life as a twentysomething in London and as an artist empowered and in control. Despite its richly classic feel, what’s emerged on ‘YU’ is an album on thoroughly modern, twenty-first-century love: its childhood myths and more pragmatic realities, its utopias and difficult weathers. Those moments when you find out how you are, who you are, and if you’re brave enough, you let it all bleed through… We talk to Rosie Lowe about collaboration, recording vocals in one take and burning sage…

TSH: Can you give us an insight into some of the primary topics and narratives that you felt compelled to express with ‘YU’…

Rosie: ‘YU’ is my modern love story. It’s about me sharing myself with another as a partner, friend and lover. I started going to relationship therapy with my partner five years ago and it shifted a lot for me, particularly my relationship to resistance and accepting the ups and downs of love; not seeing hardships as the beginning of the ending.

TSH: You’ve touched previously on ‘creative recharging’ – did you feel particularly rejuvenated and focused heading into the studio for this record?

Rosie: I felt sure of what I wanted this record to be before starting it. I knew I wanted it to be more collaborative; to use the incredible network of musicians I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by. I knew I wanted it to feel warmer and to represent where I am in my life (which is a much happier place), and I wanted it to feel more sonically live; to take the songs out of the computer and for them to be played by my favourite musicians. The record wasn’t made over an intense few months. It was created in little bursts over a two year period and this gave me space; allowing me to creatively recharge and get perspective of what it was I was wanting to say and how I wanted the songs to feel.

TSH: What led you to exploring the beliefs of your partner more so on this body of work?

Rosie: Myself and my partner started going to relationship therapy five years ago so exploring his beliefs and my own beliefs is something I was very much living. I have also been training in psychotherapy on the side and a huge part of the training is self-development; becoming aware of myself and my relationships, both past and present. I naturally process a lot of my emotions through music so it very much represents the inner dialogue I have been having.

TSH: How beneficial has the collaboration factor been for you with this batch of songs and putting so much more faith in the people around you?

Rosie: I love collaborating and working with others so it’s been such a joy to make ‘YU’. I think you can only really put faith in people when you trust them and they inspire you and I’ve worked hard over the last 10 years to find those people who I want to work with. It was amazing to see and feel that coming into fruition on ‘YU’.

TSH: Is the genesis and basis for your songs still done mainly on the piano?

Rosie: Not at all, no. For the songs I wrote with Dave, a lot of them started from the guitar or from a bass line. Others started on piano and others from samples. ‘Birdsong’, for instance, started with a drum sample I found and then a bass line I wrote. That’s what I wrote most of the song to and it was only once the song was formed that we started adding in other sonic elements.

TSH: The songwriting process has always been like therapy for you. How did you feel in the wake of applying the finishing touches for this record?

Rosie: The finishing part of this record was tracking with my favourite players in London so it was an incredible part of the process and I felt so lucky to have such amazing people contributing. When I write it’s a very personal process so to share that with others is a really special feeling.

TSH: What sort of motivations do you draw on to pen a track like ‘Mango’?

Rosie: I’m influenced by lots subconsciously. ‘Mango’ started from a feeling; I had a vision of being in a garden, it felt woozy, hot and sticky and I wanted to create this feeling in the lyrics. I’ve always loved religious stories and I started imagining Adam & Eve; I wanted to sing from Eve’s perspective as I don’t feel like it’s one we hear very often.

TSH: Moreover, did you identify ‘Apologise’ as the album closer for certain reasons?

Rosie: I knew from early on that I wanted ‘Lifeline’ to be the opening of the album and ‘Apologise’ to be at the end, it just felt right. ‘Apologise’ is about the cyclical nature of roles we play out (victim/rescuer), and it’s about me taking responsibility for my role in a relationship. Without one, you can’t have the other. It felt only right, thematically, that my record about relationships should finish with my responsibility for my own part in those relationships.

TSH: How encouraging and useful was it to record your vocals in one take?

Rosie: It was a powerful shift for me. I have a complex relationship with recording vocals and I am very aware of my tendencies for perfectionism. I had recorded a lot of the vocals on the album already, but they were too clean and lacked a rawness and freedom I was wanting for the record, so I went back and re-recorded the vocals in full takes and handed them over to Dave. It totally shifted my relationship with my voice and it’s had a really positive effect for my live performance too.

TSH: What sort of effect did it have to have had such hugely encouraging parents that led you towards the arts and music?

Rosie: I wouldn’t be making music in the way I am without this. It’s had a huge effect. They were so encouraging of my music and never pushed me to be anything that didn’t feel true to me. I know who I am, musically, and this has come from a lot of exploration which I don’t think I would have had the courage to do without my parents’ support from a young age. They’re wonderful.

TSH: How much sage have you burnt in recent times?

Rosie: Many, many, many bunches.

TSH: How rewarding has your time been since you started training as a psychotherapist?

Rosie: It’s been incredibly rewarding and very challenging too. The speed of self-development is fast when training and that takes a lot of self-work and reflection.

TSH: Does resetting in nature help you to gain clarity from the constant hustle and bustle and technological information overload?

Rosie: Absolutely, I feel like it’s such an important part of my life, to find space and to switch my phone off and breathe. I love the different pace of London to where I grew up and I wouldn’t want one without the other.

TSH: Also, did you end up selling your dad’s marmalade and kimchi on your merch stand?

Rosie: I sold my dad’s marmalade and sage on the merch stand. The taste of ‘YU’ and the smell of ‘YU’! I wanted to give my audience the opportunity to experience what this album smells/tastes like to me, ideally whilst listening to the music!

TSH: What are your main hobbies and passions when you’re not immersed in music?

Rosie: I love reading, seeing friends, drinking wine (!), running, eating, going to galleries and gigs and theatre, and listening to podcasts whilst going on long walks.

TSH: Finally, looking ahead with your future musical goals, what is your biggest drive?

Rosie: I want to keep developing, keep challenging myself musically. If something scares me, I want to try and do it.

Rosie Lowe - “Pharoah”

YU

[allineednow]

<p>'Flight Season' Is A Touching Story Of Grief & Survival Written By An Immigration Rights Activist -- EXCERPT </p>

Acclaimed young adult writer Marie Marquardt is notorious for creating works of emotional fiction that truly resonate with her readers, whether they are teens or adults. In her upcoming , out from Wednesday Books/St. Martin's Press in February, Marquardt has crafted her most personal and relatable story yet, and Bustle has an exclusive excerpt of the highly anticipated publication below.

Vivi Flannigan is barely holding it together. She is still mourning the loss of her beloved father, she's in danger of failing college, and to top it all off, she has developed an uncontrollable obsession for birds that seems to follow her wherever she goes. Determined to turn things around and live out her father's dreams for her achievement, Vivi secures a hospital internship that could very well save her from losing her spot at Yale -- that is, if she can survive the whole summer stuck with a hostile nursing student and a pain-in-the-butt patient. As she struggles to put the pieces of her life back together, Vivi's connection with TJ, a nursing student desperate to get out from under the responsibilities of his family's Brazilian restaurant business, and Ángel, an undocumented orphan and the fussy heart patient they are both assigned to care for, begins to change her life in ways she could never have envisioned.

A riveting story about love, compassion, and belonging, Flight Season is a timely publication that tackles one of the largest issues in America today: immigration and the status of undocumented young adults. Illustrated by Emily Arthur, a studio artist and professor of printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the beautiful book is peppered with sixteen simple but stunning sketches and handwritten notes concerning various bird breeds and their behaviours.

Emily Arthur

The author of two previously acclaimed young adult books, Fantasy Matters and The Radius of Us, Marie Marquardt is a professor at Emory University and an immigration rights advocate. In Flight Season, she pulls draws from her own professional experiences working with immigrant teens and her personal experience with mourning the loss of her father while a young student to make an emotionally compelling story about survival, loss, and finding the way home.

Author Marie Marquardt, picture courtesy of Kenzi Tainow

"Flight Season is a tribute to the strength and fortitude many teenagers I have come to know and love, who confront all sorts of adversity with a maturity and inner strength that adults often don't comprehend," says Marquardt of her book. "It is also an act of resistance to the societal norms that tell us certain things (like an Ivy League degree) matter most, when -- actually -- they are not quite as critical as those intangibles of friendship and love and human flourishing."

If you're tearing up at the sight Marquardt's remarks, just wait till you read her heartwarming book. It is not out until February from Wednesday Books/St. Martin's Press, but you can begin studying Flight Season at the moment with an exclusive excerpt for Bustle readers. See the first chapter of Marquardt's emotional YA novel below:

Chapter 1: Vivi

BIRD JOURNAL May 29, 12:37 p.m.

Grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum)

What is this little guy doing at a South Carolina rest stop? Is one of nature's greatest navigators lost?

Social Behavior: typically not in flocks, can be very

Secretive, but frequently perch atop shrubs to sing.

Telephone: double or triple ticking note, followed by long insect- like buzz.

Habitat: migrating bird, found during breeding season in much of the northern and midwestern United States. Winters in Mexico and the coastal southeastern US.

It is a migratory bird, and it should be LONG GONE!

Lately, I have developed a fascination with birds. It started in December, when a lovely small songbird perched above me in the branch of an enormous pine tree and refused to close up. At the time, all I knew was that it was loud and small and incredibly persistent.

Now I know it was an American robin.

Birders give every bird's tune a phrase, which is supposed to mirror the rhythm and tone of their sound. One of my favorite common birds, the barred owl, sings out in a low tenor, Who cooks for you? But the American robin does not ask questions. Instead it incessantly controls: Cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up! That's a particularly frustrating thing to hear when you're sitting at an outdoor funeral in the blinding light of a Florida winter, trying to look closely at the eulogy.

I don't remember much from that day, except for the way bright blue the sky was, set against all of those dark suits, and the number of people had crammed into my backyard--hundreds of mourners pressed against the edge of the still lake. And I remember hearing fragments of a traditional hymn, because everyone around me was singing about "awesome wonder" and "the greatness of God," while I was entertaining such not-so-awesome thoughts as: I wonder where the ashes are and When will all of these folks leave us alone?

I stayed outside and sat in the shadow of the sprawling pine tree. I stared up at the Spanish moss, gray and dripping from each branch, waiting to feel something. Anything.

And that robin? He stuck around and kept me company. He sang to me, high and clear, until all of the guests had gone back to their not- torn-through-with-grief lives (probably feeling quite anxious to cheerily cheer up!) .

After that, I started to listen to birds, which was not terribly difficult. As it happens, they were paying a whole lot of attention to me.

Take this tiny sparrow: I'm on my way home after having (barely) survived my first year of college, and I'm not even remotely surprised when I pull into the parking lot of a run-down gas station, only to encounter him watching me with beady black eyes. He is perched on a rusted-out handicapped parking sign, staring right at me.

I believe he's a grasshopper sparrow, or maybe a Savannah sparrow. In any event, this little guy should already be at his summer home in Maine, or maybe hopping around the grasslands of the Great Plains, plucking up insects. He does not belong into the swamplands of rural South Carolina--not with summer fast approaching.

This poor bird has lost its bearings.

His stout neck flicks from side to side and he lets out a loud call: a triple ticking note followed by a long humming buzz.

Tick-tick-tick-buzzzzzzzzzzzz.

His insect-like call gives it away. He definitely is a grasshopper sparrow, so he definitely is missing.

Unless, of course, he stuck around to await me.

These birds may have pea-sized brains, but they're not dumb. They're incredible. They can make their way across continents with nothing but their own good sense. 1 time, a group of scientists packaged up a few dozen sparrows in Washington State, took them on a plane to Princeton, New Jersey, and set them free. Within a couple of hours, they all were going straight for their wintering grounds in Mexico.

What sort of sparrows were those? White-crowned?

I pull out my phone to perform a quick search, but I'm distracted by a series of incoming texts.

The first few are from my roommate, Gillian. From the fragments I can see, it seems that she's reached Chicago, the first stop on our epic summer music road trip. We planned it together, and then I abandoned her before it even started.

Since I'm now at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, on my way home to repair last semester's epic mistakes, I can't muster the energy to consider her texts.

I scroll down to the next one, from my mom:

I'm thinking maybe just a small change of plans... . Call me!

I watch the screen, forcing myself to take slow breaths, wondering if she will tell me more. Nothing. When I look up, the sparrow has hopped over to perch on a metal pole with a convenience store's entrance, like he's urging me to go in.

Maybe that bird is right. Perhaps I need to head in and get something to eat before I make this call--Twizzlers to gnaw on. They always calm my nerves.

I close my bird journal and place it in the passenger seat. I rest the binoculars on top and get out of the car. The door jangles as I go indoors.

"Want somethin'?" A man behind the counter asks. "Twizzlers?"

"Last aisle, on the right."

I walk along the grey linoleum floor, following the almost-white path made by hundreds of feet shuffling toward the candy.

"Look up," the guy says. "See 'em there?"

I look up, but I don't see them. I'm unashamedly, scanning the brightly colored candies crammed onto metal shelves. I'm having difficulty pay- ing attention, because even through the thick plate glass, I hear that little sparrow's song.

Tick-tick-tick-buzzzzzzzzzzzz. Tick-tick-tick-buzzzzzzzzzzzz. Tick-tick- tick-buzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The convenience store clerk comes out from behind the counter with, of all things, a baby strapped to his back--and a handgun attached to his belt.

He reaches beyond me and then hands me a king-sized bag of Twizzlers.

"Here you are, miss." He glances out the window at my car. "I guess you will not be needing gasoline."

My car's electric. Additionally, it is beautiful and sleek and near flawless. I know that teenagers should not drive a vehicle like this. I get it. So the amused tone in his voice and how he looks back at me and gives me a quick once-over--they don't bother me. I understand where he's coming from.

And I can't exactly explain to this guy, this kind stranger with a baby on his back and a gun in his belt loop, how much this car means to me--how much more it is for me than a status symbol for the environmentally aware. Because, here's the thing about my car: no matter how bad things get, I can still climb in and press the start button. I can gently bring the engine to life, and I can remember the moment I got it--a moment full of the bright possibility of a beautiful future. I'm clinging to this future, grasping for it, but I feel it slipping out of my reach, darting off with nervous, erratic, unpredictable jolts. It's like I'm trying to hold on to a hummingbird.

"Never seen one of these in person," the clerk says. "How far can you go without charging it?"

"Three hundred and fifty miles or so. It's remarkable." I know I'm gushing, but I really like that car with all my heart.

"And what do you do out here on the road if you need to charge it?"

"I have an app. It tells me where I can stop to bill. ''``A program?" he asks, his eyebrows arching.

"Well, you know what they say." I shrug. "There is an app for everything these days."

He nods and pinches his lower lip, like he's thinking, but he does not ask anything more.

I'm tempted to tell him about the amazing birding programs I have on my phone--among them can really recognize any North American bird from a photograph and a GPS locator. But he will probably think I'm a basket case.

Down here on the ground, we barely ever provide these feathered wonders a moment's notice, even though they've been on Earth for eons more than we have. Most people don't know that birds are dinosaurs' closest descendants. They will, no doubt, outlast us all, and that is probably for the best.

Most people find my bird obsession weird. I get it. Six months ago, if someone had suggested to me that I'd be pulling over to the side of the road on a regular basis to strap a pair of binoculars around my neck and grab a journal from the glove compartment, or if someone had explained to me that I'd sketch furiously while struggling to discover the subtle differences between two sparrows, or I would know to focus my attention on the trill of their tune and the hue of their underbellies, I'd have said they were insane.

But the truth is this: I only started paying close attention to birds because they started paying attention to me.

I could offer any number of examples from the past six months. The horned owl that followed me home as I ran away from a dorm party where a junior I'd never met before cornered me and started to grope. The common raven that dive-bombed me a few times as I tried to enter the lecture hall where I was supposed to take an English exam covering a wide assortment of Canadian books on the subject of refuge--most of which I had not managed to read.

And this one, from a couple of weeks ago: I was studying for exams, utterly sleep-deprived and subsisting on Twizzlers and Monster Energy drinks. During exams, distance in the library is incredibly tough to find, and I was feeling proud that I had managed to find a personal desk by the window in the Southeast Asia Reading Room.

Yale's library is an astounding construction--it seems more like a cathedral than a place to store books. In fact, when I first got to campus last fall, the distance felt somewhat overwhelming. It seemed almost too quintessentially Ivy League to be actual. But any library with the motto a library is a summons to scholarship carved on the walkway was exactly the place I had to be that week. Up until that point, my next semester at Yale had been significantly lacking in scholarship, and I had three short reading days to make up for lost time.

I was camped out at a desk by the window, cramming the stabil- ity patterns of reactive intermediates into my exhausted brain. A small yellow bird came tapping on one of the windowpanes with its beak--so hard I was sure it would violate the leaded glass. And then the bird perched on a branch and started to call out.

That bird was an American goldfinch. Its call? Po-ta-to-chip, po- ta-to-chip. After enduring a few minutes of unrelenting tune, I eventually gave up, slammed my textbook shut, and took the stairs down to the library's exit. Dazed, I emerged onto Rose Walk and into the sunlight. I followed the scent of buttered toast to the Cheese Truck and ordered the daily special, a grilled Caseus cheese with farm-fresh spinach, with potato chips on the side. I let my eyes fall shut and slowly breathed in the most comforting aromas of all time. I then carried those chips and grilled cheese on sourdough to my favorite bench in a shady corner of Calhoun courtyard and devoured them.

It was among the best sandwiches I have ever eaten. The chips were fantastic, too, with the perfect amount of salt and a satisfying crunch. I'm almost sure I tanked the exam. Remembering all those stability patterns was probably a lost cause from the start, but I'll never forget that perfect grilled cheese--and the goldfinch that made me stop to eat it.

I hang around in the candy aisle for another moment or two, pretending to examine the shelves. I peer over a tower of chewing gum. The clerk is altering his gun holster to transfer the sleeping baby into a Package 'n Play. It is set up under the counter, behind the smoke display. I really don't want to interrupt him, so I wait till after the baby is settled to pay.

Standing there, desperate to kill time so that I won't have to make that call to my mom, I believe asking if he brings his baby to work every day. But then I fear that there is some tragic story behind it all--like maybe his wife left him for his brother, or she died in a horrible interstate accident between an eighteen-wheeler. Maybe he had been in the car too. Perhaps it was his fault, and the agony of having murdered his wife is almost too much for him to bear.

God, what's wrong with me? Not everybody's life has to be in shambles.

I decide that's enough death and destruction for now. His wife

Probably went to see her mom in Beaufort or something. Or maybe she's at home, right around the corner, making tuna sandwiches for lunch. Perhaps he just likes hanging out with his little girl in the office-- a way to pass the time.

I say a quick thanks and head toward the door. "Hi, Mom. I was just going to call."

I swing the door of the convenience store open, and a blast of sweltering hot air hits me at precisely the same time as her voice.

For as long as I can remember, my mom's voice has functioned as a precise barometer of her mood. With only a few words, I can tell how she's faring. It's tough to admit, but I have come to dread our telephone calls. Because, when she's sounding bereft, and I'm several states away, doing everything I can to hold it together enough to keep from failing out of school, I don't have any idea how to speak to her.

But today she seems good. Great, actually.

"My friend Anita is going to North Carolina for the summer. She is giving pottery workshops at an artist colony near Celo--"

I'm not sure how any of this is related to Mom and me. But I believe I know what she wants me to say, so I say it. I interject with a passionate "And?"

"She's decided to focus the workshop around trees, roots, leaves, and branches..."

"Oh, well, I just thought you should know..."

It is a game we used to play when Dad came home from a day in court with another wild idea. He would burst into the kitchen, announcing a series of facts that seemed in no way related to our lives.

Did you two know that Bhutan has extraordinary biodiversity? And an incredibly diverse selection of climates... .

The takin is Bhutan's national animal, but most folks travel there to get a sighting of the Bengal tiger or the clouded leopard... .

Oh, and there are some fabulous Buddhist monasteries there. I mean, if you're into that sort of thing... .

I was just driving home from work and thinking about how you two may not know a whole lot about Bhutan, and perhaps you should... .

And I have booked a trip. Vivi's spring break. How does that seem to y’all?

So, even though it hurts, physically, to play this game with my mother, and a hole is opening up in my chest, I squeeze my eyes shut and allow me to do it.

"And she's offered us her beach cottage."

I lean against the wall and rip open the bag of Twizzlers.

"It is so adorable. Just a few houses from the ocean. You are going to love it."

I begin gnawing on a Twizzler, watching the sparrow hop to the pavement and begin a little jig.

"Uh, that sounds like a great adventure, Mom."

I say it because that is the way the game always ended. But what I really want to say is: Can I please just come home?

[mageinabarrel]

We muddle through like children, making our way through paths of war and peace.

In the first episode of Gundam Reconguista in G, Aida Surugan, a space pirate (a space pirate!) at the time, utters what may very well be the show’s most memorable line.

“The world… is not square!“

Regardless of whether this exclamation is literally true or not within G-Reco‘s universe, one senses that its meaning dwells somewhere beyond the world of fact in the land of metaphor and subtext. The world is unfair. The world is not balanced. It could be either, both, or neither. And, considering the the lack of context surrounding the line (in the scene, it’s unclear if Aida is responding to something her opponent at the time, protagonist Bellri Zenam, has said or just howling a war cry), it’s unlikely we’ll ever know what Aida was trying to communicate in that moment. Despite that—or perhaps because of it—the line remains solidly ingrained in my memory of the show, much like the triumphant chorus of the ED song.

I highlight this moment because it is, in many ways, representative of G-Reco as a whole—joyfully energetic, challenging to understand for lack of explanation, and unavoidably memorable for its weirdness. Like the show itself, it possesses an abstract sense of denseness ill-fit to the abruptness of its occurrence, leaving a feeling like you’ve grasped only a part of the meaning before the moment is torn away from you and replaced with the next instance of now-baffling randomness. Even the show’s ending, in theory a home for conclusiveness, flits so quickly between its final scenes that it feels as if it has been cut off before the true ending [1].

I say this all with a purely descriptive intent; to evaluate whether or not the strange nature of Gundam Reconguista in G makes it good or bad (although I certainly have my opinion) is a lot less interesting than trying to capture an articulable way of expressing the show’s fundamental character.

G-Reco has been accused of being a lot of things, and to some degree nearly all of these descriptors are true. The anime has characters, themes, robot fights, and great music. It’s got fantastic character designs by Kenichi Yoshida and a gorgeous and inventive setting. It even have a plot, even if said plot is often obscured by the way G-Reco hops and skips between all these different aspects of its whole self. G-Reco is, simply, full of all of the piece of itself. It’s a mecha-of-the-week battler, a war story, a reflection on the relationships between generations, a slice-of-life show set in space, an 80’s comedy, and many other things as well.

What’s most fascinating about G-Reco is that it never spends enough time with any of these aspects for them to assert themselves above the overall medley of elements. Themes that appear in one scene are brushed away in the next for the sake of a mecha battle, not returning again until episodes later. Character arcs flicker in and out of existence, grabbing the spotlight for a short time only to vanish minutes later as their replaced with status-quo camaraderie. Odd bits of humor slip into tense plot-relevant political faceoffs, weaving into a strange counterpoint rhythm that, whatever else it may be, is undeniably marching to its own beat.

One metaphor for understanding G-Reco that I find particularly apt is to think of each of these different shows that exist within it as a different language. G-Reco is a veritable polyglot, careening from one method on communication to another at what seems like random from the outside, yet contains an odd sort of internal logic beneath the external chaos. While one might argue that G-Reco‘s fluency some of these language is less refined than in others, it’s difficult to get away from the impression that G-Reco makes sense to itself—and that whether or not we can keep up with it is a concern it leaves up to us.

Thus, due to the variable nature of G-Reco‘s communication, not only is applying the simple good-bad binary an uninteresting question, but it’s also a rather fruitless one. G-Reco is so offbeat, so idiosyncratic, and so flexible that trying to describe it holistically winds up being a frustrating, if not outright impossible, task. Attempts to package an assessment of the show often end up relying on prior reference points, but most such exercises seem to me to wind up mischaracterizing the show.

As a case study, I’ve seen a few reviews of the show that call the main quartet of the show (Bell, Aida, Raraiya, and Noredo) a “harem.” And while, yes, the structure is there, to assess this construction as a harem strikes me as an absurd attempt to pigeonhole this part  of G-Reco into a space it only superficially resembles. Noredo may harbor romantic interest toward Bell, but Raraiya spends half the show mentally ill and the other half as a competent pilot and friend. And while Bell’s relationship with Aida begins with his crush on her, it evolves into something entirely different at the show unfolds. This harem might look like a duck, but it certainly doesn’t sound, act, or feel like one.

These misses exist in more comprehensive attempts to define the show as well. While the series’ detractors are by far the most numerous and vocal camp, generally their responses seem to be predicated on unmet expectations. They came for a serious war drama (or maybe just for a comprehensible story); they got G-Reco. Are they wrong for desiring either of those things or for being disappointed by what they found instead? Maybe, maybe not. On the other hand, we find some proponents of G-Reco talking about it as if it were a misunderstood masterpiece, from Gen Urobuchi’s breathless praise of the show as a “story that renounces stories” (a position expanded on in this video) to Wave Motion Cannon’s convincing yet likely overgenerous argument that the show’s challenging execution harmonizes with its thematic concerns.

Although some strike me as nearer to the mark than others, none of these interpretations seem to fully account for the full range of G-Reco‘s identity. However, it’s within these descriptive struggles that I think the answer to defining G-Reco lies. The fact that it consistently defies attempts to wrap it up with a neat little bow and call it ‘X’ is what makes it what it is.

Gundam Reconguista in G is a show of novelties. Its defining feature is its ability to create an unbroken sequence of unique experiential pockets (like this one).

The name of the main Gundam in G-Reco is the G-Self, a name that invokes the idea of personal identity. However, this Gundam frame’s primary gimmick is the collection of backpacks that modify its abilities—a brilliant ploy for increased the number of Gunpla that can be sold for the suit and a perfect microcosm of the show itself. Like the G-Self, Reconguista in G is a chameleon, and the way it’s constantly code-switching means that the experience after each particular shift feels unique because of the resultant disconnect. It treats all of its component aspects—trivial details, dialogue, characters, thematic concerns, etc.—like novelties to be held before the audience’s eyes in a never-ending parade of glittering toys.

I could go on with examples that reinforce this point, both in terms of execution and recurrences of it within the show. For example, the heart of G-Reco‘s cast is the crew of the Megafauna, a collection of characters that recalls the Gekko State from Eureka 7 in more than just their character designs. Although the Megafauna (as well as the Klim Nick’s Salamandra) are ostensibly affiliated with the Amerian State, both ships—notably serving, although not captained by, young aristocrats—consistently pursue their own agendas, even if they sometimes are following orders. There’s an anti-establishment flavor to these units, something that’s reinforced by the mercenary way the Megafauna picks up and loses cast members (Lieutenant Kerbes, the Towasangan Ringo, Manny). In the wider plot, too, alliances and priorities are always shifting, often without clear explanation. Solidity and consistency are not part of G-Reco‘s vocabulary. All is novelty.

Is this a gimmick? Is an emphasis on novelty merely a stylistic distraction that belies true substance? In the case of G-Reco, the novelty is the substance of the show. These are the terms of engagement.

And now, with this definition in hand, we can finally turn our attention to the real evaluative question. The question is not whether Reconguista in G is good; rather, it is whether novelty is an aesthetic of value. Different priorities are of course valid—if you need a show to have a clear plot to consider it worth your time, G-Reco will ultimately disappoint—but my feeling is that such rigidity is inherently opposed to creation as flexible as G-Reco. Again, to gauge the show against certain established standards isn’t wrong per se, but it certainly feels like a mismatch weighted entirely against G-Reco.

To conclude—I think, given the right approach, Gundam Reconguista in G speaks well for itself as a show worth watching. Early on it’s entertaining simply because how nonsensical it is, and then as the story rights itself a bit you realize you’ve already been trapped by how charming the characters are. There are also these little arcs where the show builds up some legitimate narrative momentum within and across episodes, although it’s equally punctuated by weird stalemates when no one is really doing anything. But, no matter what else is happening, the perpetual rotation of show languages is on—and that approach, for its novelty if nothing else, make G-Reco something worthwhile to me.

This, of course, shouldn’t be assumed to mean that G-Reco has nothing else to offer besides being a novelty. Despite its inconsistent presence, the show’s commentary on heritage between generations (even as rehashes of ideas from previous shows) is compelling, the characters are a lot of fun to watch on their own terms, there are tons of great mecha battles throughout the rich world of the Regild Century, and pondering the show as a medium by which Yoshiyuki Tomino is engaging with the current realities of the anime industry and the world around him is fascinating. The defining feature of this show may be its novelty, but the quality of the distinct parts perhaps speaks for themselves, even if they don’t work together in a conventional way.

[1] Tomino said in an interview with the French TV channel Nolife that he didn’t think 26 episodes was enough for the story, but that he knew from the start how much time he would have.

We muddle through like children, making our way through paths of war and peace. We muddle through like children, making our way through paths of war and peace.

[newstechreviews]

So far, the music of 2020 has been defined by its absences. Tours have been postponed; festivals have been canceled. Many high-profile artists, including The Dixie Chicks, Sam Smith and Alanis Morissette, have scrapped their albums for the time being, leaving immense holes in the year’s release calendar.

But plenty of excellent music has been released anyway; some of it seems to address the fragile state of the world directly, while other albums act as welcome reprieves. From Fiona Apple’s return to Lil Uzi Vert’s ascendance, here are the best albums of the year up to this point.

Dua Lipa, Future Nostalgia

It’s bold for a young pop star to title her album Future Nostalgia; it suggests a claim to timelessness, the kind of music that will represent an era and bring fans rushing back to that moment in their lives whenever it plays. Lucky for Britain’s Dua Lipa, that boldness paid off on her sleek, disco-leaning sophomore project. Lipa has a knack for earworms; her breakthrough came on 2017’s inescapable “New Rules.” Future Nostalgia, on which she has songwriting contributions on every track, has several: the kiss-off anthem “Don’t Start Now,” the passionate dance track “Break My Heart,” the winking, lusty “Physical.” It takes a masterful artist to sing lyrics like “My sugar boo, I’m levitating” and sell them. But Lipa is on top of her game, flavoring her rich soprano voice with a warm sense of humor in songs that rely on juicy, sticky beats. By the end of the album, a term of endearment like “honey boo” sounds timeless, too.—Raisa Bruner

Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is what happened when Fiona Apple, now decades into a career during which she’s been both a critical darling and subject of controversy, let go of any last shred of her need for approval. Apple recorded this album entirely in her home in Venice Beach with trusted friends and collaborators; you can hear her and her friends’ dogs barking in “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” and the percussion is often crafted from found items around the house. But in its 13 wry, witheringly honest tracks, Apple’s newfound musical freedom has also drawn up some of her most powerful indictments of both other people and the shackles that accompany celebrity and womanhood. The album feels potent, like something Apple had to get off her chest. There’s the unmodulated yodeling at the end of “I Want You to Love Me,” the rush of “Shameika,” the comic delivery of “Ladies, ladies, ladies.” “Kick me under the table all that you want, I won’t shut up,” she intones on “Under the Table,” and it’s both both a statement of resilience and a reminder that music can offer us much more than love stories. Fetch the Bolt Cutters is about friends, acquaintances, bosses, lovers, exes, societal forces: every kind of relationship, put under Apple’s microscope and unleashed as an anthem of individuality.—Raisa Bruner

Grimes, Miss Anthropocene

The recent headlines about Grimes have covered everything but the music—her baby’s name, her Twitter feuds, the labor politics of her boyfriend Elon Musk. It’s a shame, because her latest album Miss Anthropocene rivals anything she’s released over her decade-long career. At first glance, its muddled electro-pop aesthetic and lyrics might seem to obscure Grimes’ lofty stated goal of creating a “death god” representing climate change. But each melody is an earworm, and terrifying themes gradually unfold in mantras: “Cross my heart and hope to fly”; “I wanna play a beautiful game even though we’re gonna lose”; “I hear they’re calling my name/ I’m not gonna sleep anymore.” Grimes might be a controversy magnet, but she’s also still one of the most compelling and ambitious pop artists of the ‘00s.—Andrew R. Chow

Jeremy Cunningham, The Weather Up There

The Weather Up There grapples with one of the most painful topics imaginable: the murder of a loved one. Twelve years ago, the Cincinnati jazz drummer Jeremy Cunningham’s younger brother Andrew was shot to death at home by two men who mistook him for someone else. On this album, Andrew’s death is confronted in direct ways—voice message tributes from family members and friends, spoken word poems—as well as in musical form. And while the subject matter is anguished, the album is far from a difficult listen: Cunningham recruits some of the world’s best jazz musicians—like the guitarist Ben Parker and the cellist Tomeka Reid—to create gorgeous textures and probing melodies.—Andrew R. Chow

Lil Uzi Vert, Eternal Atake

In March, while much the world’s population was cocooning in their homes, an impish 25-year-old iconoclast from Philadelphia erupted back into the cultural stratosphere riding a UFO and three alter egos. Eternal Atake, Lil Uzi Vert’s second studio album, is not just a streaming juggernaut—it racked up 400 million streams in its first week—but a classic of the streaming era, filled with incandescent melodies and an elastic sonic palette. Over 18 songs, Uzi shows off his array of approaches: he flips an overexposed Backstreet Boys song (“I Want It That Way”) into something genuinely new (“That Way”); stretches his voice to its highest and lowest registers (“You Better Move”); turns the word fragment “Balenci” into some kind of inexorable incantation (“Pop”); and proves he can rap with the best with them (on the turbo-charged “Homecoming”). A few years ago, Uzi was a distracted challenger to hip-hop’s royalty; now, he’s the center of the world, or possibly the universe.—Andrew R. Chow

Makaya McCraven, We’re New Again: A Reimagining

Since Gil Scott-Heron’s death in 2011, the poet and musician’s legacy has only grown in stature, as more and more people become aware of his impact on modern protest rhetoric and the origins of hip-hop. In February, the jazz drummer Makaya McCraven released We’re New Again: A Reimagining, which is not just a tribute to Scott-Heron but a reinvigoration. The album is the third major conceptualization of vocal fragments delivered by Heron in the years before his death: The first, Richard Russell’s I’m New Here, was sparse and industrial, while the second, Jamie xx’s We’re New Here, recast Scott-Heron as a dance-floor prophet.

This version by McCraven—one of the leaders of jazz’s new global vanguard—perhaps comes closest to Scott-Heron’s own aesthetic and avant-garde approach. McCraven brings together an all-star band to create a diasporic collage of experimental black music: J Dilla breakbeats, free jazz brambles, Afro Latin grooves, neo soul. And while Scott-Heron’s lyrics address addiction, insomnia and alienation, McCraven finds a communal warmth in them—and perhaps a blueprint to overcoming isolation and oppression.—Andrew R. Chow

The 1975, Notes on a Conditional Form

At 22 tracks, Notes on a Conditional Form can feel more like a long, meandering stroll through the eclectic mind of lead singer Matty Healy than a concentrated artistic statement. That, perhaps, is the point. What does the duet ballad “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America,” utterly tender and minimal, have in common with a Greta Thunberg spoken-word track on climate change, or the angsty punk rock of “People,” or the slow country swing of “Roadkill,” or the purely atmospheric glow of “Having No Head”? Just the source. The 1975 have never boxed themselves in; this mix of jazz production, experimental instrumentation and unusual song structures is par for the course over the British band’s nearly-two-decade career together. But Notes on a Conditional Form feels even more like a grab-bag of ideas than usual. They say Millennials are easily distracted, but here’s an argument in favor of being comfortable with constant tonal switching, because there’s beauty in the unexpected. It sounds like the group is trying new things in real-time, unfettered by the need to over-edit. Is it all performance, or is it authentic playfulness? Does it matter, when it sounds good?—Raisa Bruner

Perfume Genius, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Set My Heart on Fire Immediately starts with a ragged intake of breath. It’s a good idea to inhale along with Mike Hadreas, who performs as the alt-pop creator Perfume Genius, because the uncompromising album about to begin holds a lengthy, emotionally vibrant journey in store. Now on his fourth album, Perfume Genius proves he’s equally comfortable with off-kilter indie rock, shimmering synth-pop and any shade of genre in between. His songs work a bit like paintings, in which he transforms sweetly-textured melodies into sheets of echoing, punk-inflected sound (“Whole Life”), or spackles flecks of glitter over a grimy base (“Leave”). Or, as on “Without You,” he can make a rock tune that twinkles, full of color. Perfume Genius has regularly plumbed his experiences of identity, relationships and pain for lyrical content. Here, he’s more opaque than ever. But pay close attention, and he’s also found new points of relating. “Take this wildness away,” he pleads over the bright swing of “On the Floor.” Listeners might beg to disagree.—Raisa Bruner

Yaeji, What We Drew

Over last few years, the bilingual Korean-American artist Yaeji has been throwing low-burning dance parties across the globe, linking up with local artists to create music that transgresses genres and cultures. Her mixtape What We Drew is an extension of this expansive vision: it includes producers from London and Tokyo and rappers from Oakland and North Carolina and pulls from trap, footwork, industrial music and even ASMR. The result is a simmering 40-minute recreation of a sweaty Brooklyn warehouse dance party. Throughout the project, Yaeji’s exploration of contrasting opposites—local and global, mythical and mundane, euphoric and depressive—keeps the project fresh listen after listen.—Andrew R. Chow

[operationrainfall]

On paper, Just Shapes & Beats shouldn’t be anything more than another average rhythm game. It features a simple color palette, catchy music, a story mode, multiplayer and not much else. And yet, when taken together in aggregate, all these factors tell a much more impressive tale. I’ve been interested in Just Shapes & Beats since I first demoed it years ago at PAX West, and now that I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a copy, I felt compelled to give it some more coverage. Because frankly, I don’t feel our previous coverage of the game really did it justice. So take a seat, get comfortable and let me tell you why Just Shapes & Beats has quickly cemented itself as my favorite rhythm game of the past decade.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

While there’s no written plot nor character names in the game, there is a lot of visual storytelling. If I were to describe the beginning of the game, it would go a little something like this –

In the beginning, there was darkness. From that darkness emerged the azure icon of Peace, on a quest to create rhythm. He was quickly confronted by the coral icon of Discord, who only sought to sow chaos in the land. Just when the creature appeared defeated, and Peace journeyed forth for their reward of drinking from the triple woven Font of Power, madness suddenly ensued. Discord returned, beaten but not slain, and wrested the Font from our hero’s grasp. With Font in hand, Discord grew mightily, and spread his mad contagion throughout the realm. With all the odds suddenly against him, Peace would need to set forth to defeat Discord and reclaim the Font of Power.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You can probably tell I’m fanboying out a little bit here, but I also feel it’s well deserved. Almost none of the other rhythm games I’ve previously played had a substantive story, and while it’s true there’s no written narrative here, Just Shapes & Beats conveys one thing incredibly well – emotion. It’s immediately apparent if the game wants you to feel sad, happy or even jubilant, just from the artistry on display. You journey with the blue square I call Peace as he tries his damndest to survive the intense battles ahead, making friends and restoring the land incrementally. Sure, it’s all geometric shapes, but I wager you’ve never met a group of geometric shapes you’ve loved so much. And much like the game is more than the sum of its parts, so too does the simple grouping of shapes meld into more complex and relevant forms. There’s trees made of triangles, giant round suns, wiggling worm like creatures, twisted angular fish and so much more. An especially relevant example is the recurring boss I call Discord, who is composed of several large circles and lots of pointy triangles. He’s nothing more than a head and two giant mitts, but he can cause a lot of trouble, and that’s before he starts mutating.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I frankly couldn’t get enough of the story mode in Just Shapes & Beats, and pretty much my only real complaint was that it didn’t last a little longer. It was a lot of fun, and I loved the constant challenge and increasing difficulty each new song presented. And while it’s true the difficulty may not be for everyone, I personally felt it was very finely tuned. It’s challenging, but not so challenging you’re going to rage quit. The story is set at the default difficulty, but there’s also Party (the easiest) and Hardcore (the hardest) once you have beaten it. Suffice to say, of the dozens of songs in Just Shapes & Beats, I’ve only been able to beat a couple on Hardcore so far. Those really live up to their moniker, though I will say my goal is to beat every single song on Hardcore eventually, just maybe not with a rank of S. I can only suffer so much pain at once.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As for how the game plays, it’s beautiful in its simplicity. You weave your icon around the screen with the joystick, and use A or B to dash. Dashing makes you temporarily invincible, and it’s the only way you’re gonna survive. Some songs give you lots of empty space to cruise around safely, others are minefields full of dangerous traps and intermittent laser blasts and explosions. You might think this is easy, given the game only has a primary color palette of black, white, blue and pink, but you’d be very wrong. Essentially everything pink hurts you, and if your health bar gets fully depleted, you’ll die. Thankfully every song has plenty of checkpoints, so if you die after reaching one, you won’t have to restart the whole song from scratch. Which is great, cause some songs are much longer than others. I’m a little amazed how much variety is in Just Shapes & Beats, and how no song is the same as another. I’m sure that’s in part due to the amazing and talented group of musicians who lent their skills to the game, including names like Danimal Cannon, Nitro Fun, Chipzel, Noisestorm, Sabrepulse and so much more. I may not have known all these names prior to playing Just Shapes & Beats, but you can bet they made a new fan afterwards.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of Just Shapes & Beats are the intense boss fights. These are especially challenging, since they have no checkpoints, so you have to survive the entire time. To make that a bit more fair, the good folks at Berzerk give you more health during boss fights, but that doesn’t mean they’re a cakewalk either. Each boss follows a set pattern of attacks, and will often rapidly and dangerously transform as the song progresses. A couple of my favorites were the boss song Barracuda and Close to Me. The former cause you are essentially fighting an evil pyramid shooting fish at you, and the latter cause it’s an incredibly emotional song that plays as your former friend is turned into dangerous foe. But much like the rest of the music, none of the songs for the boss fights are boring in the slightest. Though if you find them a bit much, you can always play with a friend, which brings us to the multiplayer feature of the game.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Though you’re more than welcome to just play the game solo via the Playlist mode after you beat the story, there’s also Challenge mode. This has you team up with random folks online to take a crack at songs. The incentive is that while playing with someone else, if you die, they can revive you, and vice versa. I grew to really enjoy playing cooperatively, and generally found the others online to be good sorts. It’s a lot of fun helping people out and kicking a song’s ass at the same time. I also learned about the feats that can unlock more songs while playing Challenge mode, and went out of my way to satisfy them. This includes trials such as beating a song without dashing, or getting a perfect S rank, amongst more diabolical ones. Playing this mode rewards you with Beat Points, though I admit I’m not sure what their purpose is, other than bragging rights. I thought you might be able to unlock songs using them, but it seems that you only unlock songs by fulfilling specific requirements, including accumulating enough points. I just kind of wished the game had a shop to spend the points on silly things, but that does little to diminish my appreciation for the game.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The one part of Challenge mode I don’t like is Hardcore songs. For whatever reason, the people I find online which were willing to tackle Hardcore songs are the worst kind of people. Specifically, they only care about winning the song for themself, and do little to nothing to help their team, generally leaving mid-song and never returning. Typically when I play on any difficulty, I go out of my way to save my buddies, and they reciprocate. But in Hardcore songs, which are already super difficult, everything is exacerbated by this ethos of “me first.” While I don’t hold that against Berzerk, since they obviously can’t control gamers, I do wish there was a way to keep people off the Hardcore server if they refuse to try and help out, much like what happens with poor sports in Smash Bros. Which is about as close as I’ll come to complaining about any aspect of this game.

FATALITY

As of this writing, I’ve easily spent some 10+ hours playing Just Shapes & Beats, and have loved every minute. I haven’t quite unlocked all the songs yet, but probably have 95% of them. I applaud Berzerk Studio for creating such a wonderfully creative and exuberant game, and am very excited about the upcoming update. If you love indie devs and rhythm games, you owe it to yourself to check this game out. You can thank me after you get to hear all the wonderful music.

IMPRESSIONS: Just Shapes & Beats on Switch On paper, Just Shapes & Beats shouldn't be anything more than another average rhythm game. It features a simple color palette, catchy music, a story mode, multiplayer and not much else.