#something about their songs feels so thematically relevant

[summermonths]

linkin park is forever warrior cats core to me /pos

[coquelicoq]

justice of toren collecting songs and one esk/breq constantly humming/singing them is such a good detail and ann leckie does so much with it. an incomplete list:

justice of toren's eager collection of songs is part and parcel of its violent destruction of cultures: these songs are cultural artifacts that it only learns because of its presence on those worlds during their conquest, and in many cases breq is the only one to remember them because their people have died out due to that violence. JoT preserves cultural artifacts for its own use at the same time it directly contributes to the need for that preservation in the first place.

the matter-of-fact way in which this is narrated to us gives us information about JoT's stance on respect and imperialism - that is, contrasted with other characters who look down on the conquered cultures, JoT does actually seem to appreciate their value. and yet it communicates to us no sense of remorse over its role in their genocide.

singing can be a communal activity. this allows us to feel the difference between one esk's multiple bodies singing together in harmony/in a round vs. breq singing alone. this has emotional weight, is an evocative image, and illustrates quite nicely some of the logistic considerations of having one vs. multiple bodies.

the constant humming/singing is extremely notable and idiosyncratic according to other characters, which is a dangerous combination for someone who's supposed to be undercover, so it adds a lil bit of fun suspense for us.

the fact that no one ever figures out breq's identity despite this giveaway tells us something about the other characters' attitudes towards artificial intelligences (though see below about seivarden).

the fact that it's so idiosyncratic also tells us something about the ability of individual AIs to have personalities that distinguish them from other AIs, and the fact that one esk sings constantly but two esk doesn't tells us something about the ability of different ancillary decades that are all part of the same AI to have distinguishing characteristics. this is very relevant to, and illustrative of, the series' thematic throughlines around identity, personality, continuity, etc.

the fact that breq personally has a bad voice also serves multiple purposes. because breq and seivarden both believe that the medic could have chosen a body with a good voice if she had wanted to, we can infer something about how ancillary bodies work, how much the AI (and, by extension, its medics) knows about the individual capabilities of those bodies while they're in suspension, and what kinds of things the AI can and can't control once it has unfrozen and taken over a body.

we can also draw conclusions about the medic that chose that body and about intracrew relations on that ship.

breq's bad voice creates moments of humor and irony in the narrative, such as when breq's constant singing - aka the most obvious clue that she is one esk - is precisely what makes seivarden so sure that breq can't be one esk, because no esk medic would use a body with a bad voice for an ancillary.

constant singing/humming imposes itself on the shared soundscape, meaning other people can't easily avoid it and it has the potential to annoy them, especially if the voice itself has annoying qualities. the reactions of other characters to the frequency and/or quality of this verbal tic tells us something about the level of affection those characters have for one esk or breq.

because singing involves words, the meaning of the lyrics being sung can be used to advance the plot, communicate things about specific characters, create irony in juxtaposition with what's happening on the page, etc.

i especially like what's done with the lyric "it all goes around". it's woven throughout the story in such a way as to manifest its own meaning (the repetition of "it all goes around" is, itself, an example of something going around). by repeating the lyric, breq is the one making it true, and i would argue that her repetition of this particular lyric about things orbiting other things contributes to, and/or is a sign of, her growing understanding of the necessity/reality of interdependence and her place in that framework/her role in constructing it, or in other words, the extent of her own agency and the rights and obligations it confers upon her.

because the singing/humming is a constant, background, automatic action, it only ceases when breq is experiencing a strong emotion. from this we are able to infer things about the emotional state of our famously-omits-details-about-her-emotional-state narrator based on other characters' comments about whether or not she is currently doing this thing.

we also aren't even aware that breq is doing it constantly until another character says so. on a narrative level, this serves the dual purpose of making sure we know about how much she hums AND of reminding us that she's not telling us everything.

the humming is not mentioned constantly even though it is happening constantly - this helps us forget in between mentions that it's going on while also simultaneously reinforcing just how constant it must be, so constant that to mention it every time it happens would be like narrating every time she breathes in or out. whenever someone brings it up, we are reminded anew that something has been happening all along that we forgot about. this means that ann leckie is able, by leaving information out, to hammer home to us how much we are not being told.

through this one character trait, ann leckie efficiently and elegantly communicates not just aspects of character but also of setting, plot, tone, theme, and narrative. there's no extraneous exposition just to tell us about the song collection or singing; everything that tells us about it is serving other functions in the narrative as well. the ways in which she manifests this one character trait in the universe and in the narrative contribute to and exemplify both the story itself and the method of its telling.

[that-ari-blogger]

Sweet Victory (Clouds On The Horizon)

Ok how am I supposed to discuss this episode?

Clouds on the Horizon is fascinating from a thematic and analytical perspective. I.e. I could discuss how it implies tone or how it uses that to discuss the ideological conflict between change and stagnation. I could discuss how this episode both proves and disproves my point about genre being nonsense.

Or, I could talk about a single, twenty second moment and what it means on a scale so much wider than the show itself.

The question is, what do I do?

Both. I’m going to attempt to talk about both.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (The Owl House)

“I'm gonna spend more time with my kids, get to know them. Things are gonna change after the Day of Unity.”

When I recommend this show to people, I recommend Clouds on the Horizon, and not actually for the scene you are thinking about. I recommend it for the conversation that King has with Alador.

Because Alador has been neglectful. He’s had a reason to be, sure, but that doesn’t change his actions. The man has missed all of his children growing up, not out of malice, but because he was going to do it later.

A dad sitting on a swing set he made years and years ago. He's reminiscing about times gone by, but those times never happened. He is alone with an empty part of his life.

Recently, the Nebula creator 12tone released a video about Henry Chaplan’s Cat’s In the Cradle. I believe it is also on Youtube so here’s a link to that.

The song is about a father never having time for his song and is relevant to Alador for obvious reasons.

It’s detached, and as 12tone explains, cognitively dissonant. The miracle of giving birth is not only described absent mindedly, but underscored by music that doesn’t convey much emotion. However, that “much” is doing some heavy lifting, because the song is nostalgic, and the moment the father realises he’s missed his ch

ance, all that emotion comes crashing through in the form of regret.

There’s also the chorus which reads like a nursery rhyme or a parable to make it clear that this song is something to be learned from.

“Let’s just say there’s not going to be an ‘after’ to the day of unity.”

Do you see the point I am making?

Alador messed up. He was always distant because he completely misunderstood how relationships work. Time is finite, people are like plants. They need sustenance, you need to take care of them. Give them sunlight, leave them alone when they need it, protect them from pests, maybe sing to them once in a while.

There isn’t going to be a later, Alador has just lost a large section of his life and that is time that he can’t get back. He has to start again, and the conversation with Amity at the Brawl was a start, but this man needs to realise what is holding him back.

I feel like Odalia gets a lot of attention for being the worst, and Alador gets praised for getting out of that relationship, and I think that is warranted. But it is incredibly difficult not only to realise that you messed up, but to stop and regroup and try something new.

At the start of 12tone’s video, he discusses the vibe of the song, and he does it in a very specific way.

“That feeling, not of loss exactly, but of having failed to build anything worth losing in the first place.”

Emptiness. That’s Alador’s emotion here. Emptiness. He did everything for his family, but they didn’t need everything, they needed him.

I really like the contrast in this scene. Alador and King discussing fatherhood from different perspectives, and neither of them knowing much about it at all. King just had the piece of information that could kick Alador out of his stupor.

Contrast that with the parental relationship of Eda and Luz demonstrated on the balcony.

There is a thematic parallel between the two scenes, that being the idea of change and future events. This season is about what happens next, and while that is a constant throughout this episode with the overt planning and scheming for what will be a chaotic 24 hours, it is made most obvious by Luz with her Palisman.

“I got to decide what my future looked like when I chose to be a witch, and I want them to have that option too.”

Luz is a paragon hero. I have discussed this before in relation to Monkey D Luffy, but I feel the need to restate it. Luz giving her Palisman a choice isn’t an active decision on her part. It’s not a conflict whether to pursue freedom. She just does it because why would she do anything else.

We see a lot of stories with moral quandaries and it’s a nice contrast to have a character for whom there is a correct answer and who is not going to budge on this matter.

Although, wind back the clock a bit. I said that Eda and Luz have a parental relationship, and there is something important here.

Eda views Luz as a child, Luz views Eda as a peer.

They really like this shot, don't they? They keep coming back to it, as if they are making a point. But what?

The Bildungsroman isn’t quite a genre. It’s a literary structure that blurs the line. It’s essentially a coming-of-age story with extra steps that aren’t important right now.

The point is that up until this episode, this series was nominally a Bildungsroman. It wasn’t, but it made attempts to look like one.

Luz has been growing up and maturing throughout the series. She has been learning that the world is more nuanced. But a key idea in The Owl House is that the stories don’t just stop. Characters keep going.

A key thing when you are a parent is that eventually your kids will grow up. And I can’t speak for any parents who read this, but as someone who was once a child, I find it is nice when I am treated with the dignity befitting someone who isn’t about to do something incredibly stupid.

Let me rephrase. I am about to do something incredibly stupid, but I know what I’m doing.

That specific wording is key here. I know what I am doing. I may not know what will come in the future, but I am cognisant of at least my own actions.

I don’t think either Luz or Eda understand that in the same way I do, and while I only pretend to be omniscient, I do think I am right about this. I think Eda believes Luz is still a child and therefore still needs to be taken care of as such, rather than taken care of as an adult. She’s partially right, but Luz is more mature than Eda is giving her credit for.

Meanwhile, Luz can’t tell the difference between knowing her own actions and knowing everyone else’s. She thinks she has to be the hero, and she doesn’t.

I started this series by discussing Luz and Belos as parallels, and this is what I mean. Bellos believes the world is simple, and will do everything to keep it that way. Luz believes the world is simple, and will do anything to fit within it. They are both wrong, but they both think that they need to do what they are doing. The difference is that a) one of them is trying to do a genocide and the other is trying to stop that, and b) one is capable of seeing the world differently and is only falling back temporarily in her darkest hour.

That’s going to come back next episode, but for the moment, Eda.

“Isn't it cool we get one last adventure together?”

Eda has consigned herself to death once again. This episode has been going out of its way to show these two are not in the best place mentally to imply a question in the next episode, which was going to be, I remind you, the final episode of the series.

This is the third time they use this shot. Did they only set up one camera or sommat? What is this?

I think the title of the episode and the imagery of this scene are important here. If you are walking in a straight line, eventually you’ll stop being able to see clearly because things are too far away, but there is also a point where things disappear.

That’s the horizon. You don’t know what will happen that far in the future, but here is something crucial.

Just because you can’t see yourself over that point, doesn’t mean you won’t get there eventually. It quite literally just means you can’t see, and not knowing about something doesn’t make it cease to exist.

I have memory issues. That doesn’t mean my phone ceases to exist every five minutes, it means I don’t know where I put it and just need to find it.

And with that, I think my discussion of this episode is complete. There’s nothing else that happens here. The episode is complete. You can stop reading now. That’s it. We’re done.

Gordon Bennet, that kiss scene.

This moment became a bit of a meme online because of how noticeable the increase of animation quality is. It’s jarring, and if the whole series was made with this quality, The Owl House would have been cancelled early in season one for financial reasons. This scene is really well animated.

In a piece of static artwork, such as a painting or a photograph, there are ways to draw attention to something. You can reduce the saturation of background details, you can put something blank behind your subject to draw it out, you can make something enormous in the frame. Or, you can make it more detailed.

The episode is going out of its way to draw the audience’s attention to a queer kiss, and I think that is important.

Activism is fun, isn’t it? You get a bunch of people together with homemade signs and you shout slogans at passers-by and the people who actually matter will change their minds overnight. Right?

No, actually. That’s not all there is to the world.

Morality is a tool of convenience for the rich and powerful. In truth, all that matters when you have everything is keeping it. Often, it’s a power built on either ignorance or complacency of the public. After all, the best way to get away with something is just to not tell people you are doing it. That’s what the shouting and sign waving is for, it’s to raise awareness, or to force a reaction. That works sometimes, but there is a problem.

In my experience, if you are confronted, your immediate response is to fight back. It doesn’t matter how right I am, if I’m an asshole, you will disagree with me on principle. Which is why, in my opinion, the best way to achieve social change is through storytelling.

It is important to me that The Owl House is a queer story, but it is just as important for that motive that it is also really good. I think The Owl House is really well written, and so did enough people that Disney brought the series back after cancellation.

The series is popular, and right in the heart of that is a queer couple and a queer kiss. The queer love story is made inseperable from the rest of the show, and that means that, as far as analytics are concerned, the show’s success and its queerness are the same thing. Disney had to bring the show back, and it had to bring back a queer story. The show proved that queer stories are just as marketable as any other, and that any argument for the contrary was based fundamentally in homophobia.

We all knew this, in the same way that we all know how Diana really died, but The Owl House looked capitalism in the face, got knocked down, and got back up. The Owl House won, if only partially, and a twenty second scene with a kiss and an intentionally ridiculous line became the centre of that.

Cycling back to the theme of moving forwards then, The Owl House cleared a way for the next generation to keep moving. It only got a three-episode final season. That was the price it paid for progress and the compression shows. Besides that, Disney is still heavily limiting queer shows.

But if a silly little show about a girl who wanted to be a witch can make such a massive stride forwards, what could the next generation do?

I have stories that I am working on that are fundamentally queer in theme, and if those can make half as much progress as The Owl House did and is doing, I will credit that to Dana Terrace for showing me it could be done.

On a different level, this was a show that looked at its audience and showed queer people just being. It showed bigotry as inherently villainous but also inherently based on stupidity, and it showed that it is possible to not just be queer but be queer and happy.

Some kids needed that, and judging by the state of Tumblr, some adults needed it as well.

Final Thoughts

One more episode of season two to go. King’s Tide. That’s an episode with a reputation.

Stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 01/05/2024

super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont

Ripper Unknown

So. It's been a month now. Has it all settled yet? Have we had the time to let SiIvaGunner's April Fools 2024 event sink in, 30 days later? Speaking personally, I don't believe I have yet. Visions of Gegagedigedagedago, Pomny (digital circus), Boykisser, Brainless Kitty and all of my other favorite memes continue to haunt me to this very day - I see one of the events' rips in my recommended, and in the blink of an eye five hours will have passed. I cannot be anything but amazed at the surgical precision that the SiIva team captured the phenomena of online internet brainrot with during this event, spanning the whole range of severity levels from bad to worse. super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont was certainly not the worst it got - yet it embodies everything the event sought to achieve through it's title alone.

But, right, the event - you'll have noticed right away that everything about the above-linked video's metadata is completely awry from typical SiIvaGunner videos. No attempt at a bait-and-switch, completely different video description, not even a thumbnail of the game used...and what the fuck is the "Buddy Holly Soundfont"???? What's going on here? Well, a lot of these traits may seem familiar to you if you've been on other corners of YouTube in the last few years - like I mentioned briefly back in we are number one but with outdated memes over it, there's been a trend in how non-SiIva audio edits are presented on YouTube as of late. There's an algorithm to appease now, after all - surprises and ambiguity only serve to ward off potential new listeners! After the explosive popularity of some of these, particularly during 2023 with videos like Nirvana's Nevermind but with the SM64 soundfont, they began feeling inescapable - often times sounding pretty low-effort to boot. I don't intend to shame anyone who's made these videos or anyone who enjoys them, of course, but...through how hard they aim to appease the algorithm that be, its difficult not to see these videos as attention-seeking first, and as creative endeavors second.

Which then brings us back to SiIvaGunner. Eight years in, and the channel's way of presenting its videos has remained thoroughly consistent, rain or shine - content in charting its own course. Narratively, this is actually playing to the channel's thematic core, something enforced all the way back in The Reboot story of Season 1, and that continues to be relevant over the years through rips like NIGHTMARESCAPE 〜Unrestrained HyperCam 2〜 (Final Boss Phase 2), and indeed through this very April Fools event. That core is simple: To never conform, to never restrict, to let the channel's team of artist continue doing what they love purely for love's sake, rather than to appease a crowd or a system. Throughout this April Fools day event, then, it was as if we were shown the twisted view on that core, the channel's rippers following the opposite creed - clickbaity titles and thumbnails, no core theme, often even lacking any regard for the tracks being remixed - several times the Wii Shop Channel theme was simply called "The Wii Theme", and of course the very notion of games having "soundfonts" is something that's woefully misinformed to begin with. Opening the entire event with Buddy Holly by Weezer but in the Mario 64 Soundfont set the stage perfectly - after all, what game more overused in "soundfont" edits than Super Mario 64, what album more trendy to playfully make fun of in 2024 than Weezer's Blue album, and what song from said album is more memed than its hit single, Buddy Holly?

Except, of course, this whole thing went one layer deeper. Throughout the four months that the season has been running for thus far, Season 8's running theme above all else has been pure silliness - everything from a Justin Bieber takeover, to an MLG day, to the currently-ongoing SpongeBob day embodies that theme perfectly. And at the helm of it all sits the Joke-Explainer 7000, the current in-universe manager of the channel. Her name doesn't lie: as we saw back in Magolor's Shoppe Fusion Collab she do be Explaining the Jokes, and that was initially assumed to be the bit of this very April Fools bit, the titles like super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont explaining the jokes of the event immediately. But forget not the point of April Fools as a holiday - to deceive. Indeed, though the titles suggest that the team are spending the day just explaining the joke of every rip uploaded, they're in reality just spoiling the supposed "premise". Listen to any one of them yourself, and you'll be given a bait-and-switch surprise which completely transforms the rip of choice. And as the day went on, these surprises only grew stranger and stranger...

SiIvaGunner's April Fools events have an incredible track record, as I've hopefully made clear in Our Sweet Parsley and Your Best Nightmario - but I think I can safely say this year's bit was at least the FUNNIEST one of them all. Every minute of the day felt like slipping deeper into insanity, made all the more clear the moment super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont was uploaded - in a matter of hours, the event had gone from making fun of low-effort soundfont edits that very much DO exist on YouTube, to completely making up an entirely new tier of slop through the very idea of a "Buddy Holly Soundfont". In case it needs to be explained, "soundfonts" are used to refer to video games using sequenced music, wherein individual instruments are played note-by-note through data sent by the game, rather than being streamed from a recording - it is IMPOSSIBLE to derive a "soundfont" from songs like Buddy Holly, played on live instruments and saved as masters back in the 90s. That is the gag that super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont is built on - the "instruments" used to recreate Bob-Omb Battlefield from Super Mario 64 are intentionally low-quality snippets taken from Buddy Holly, used just the same as Super Mario 64's sequenced instruments are used within soundfont edits.

The end result feels like getting splashed with cold water at every part of listening. Rivers' repeating "Whut" voiceline being used as the main melody for the first 40 seconds, for instance, is the kind of obviously "wrong" thing one would never seriously do in this sort of arrangement, yet it only serves to add to the joke here, of just how far we've fallen so deep into the event. The tinny guitar shredding, the low-effort thumbnail edit, the vocals suddenly being added onto the track, the bass being far deeper in the mix than it reasonably should be...it's an experience to behold, and just as you're letting it all sink in, the vocals are suddenly pitch-shifted to the quintessential SiIva meme, Grand Dad himself The Flintstones - its like the rip is poking fun at your misery, as to remind you that this IS indeed still SiIvaGunner, the bit is still going, you are merely along for SiIva's wild ride.

The entire event was RELENTLESSLY funny to see unfold from every angle. Be it experiencing every rip as it was uploaded, or seeing the comments' reactions to the gradual spiral of rot we were being taken on, or most importantly - realizing just how much fun the team must've still had finding ways to subvert expectations at every turn. Season 8 has been an absolute blast so far, and I cannot wait to see where its patented silliness takes us next - even if it'll be hard to surpass the shit we saw on this day, and the absolute state of things that super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont represents. Truly one of the SiIvaGunner rips of all time.

[dangerously-human]

In the latest way I am perhaps slightly Not Normal about my current special interest (but like, I think in a quite healthy way): realized today I'll be celebrating 13 years clean from cutting in five weeks, which is, dude, wild. This happens to coincide with Lockwood & Co Appreciation Week, and as a treat for me, I'm thinking of ways to perhaps weave the two celebrations together. After all, this is the story I wish I'd heard then, although I'm glad it found its way to me now, too: I can't think of themes that I needed more as a desperately depressed teenager than the triumph of hope over despair, light over darkness, meaning over emptiness, life over death. A story where the siren song of the grave is loud, yet love (of many kinds) is ultimately louder. A story where the grief is made tangible and the hauntings are real, where evil has a face, where it all matters, where it's heavy and still, you don't have to do it alone. The theme that day may or may not work well for self-reflective intent, but maybe - it's "favorite underrated moment," and though a lot of my favorite ones relevant to this topic are common favorites, I do love picking at the thematic threads that are easy to overlook, too.

Maybe I won't write anything specific for it, just spend the time pondering, idk. Some years it doesn't feel like much of an occasion to mark, but I hold to it anyway because it's an opportunity to thank God and give him the glory for carrying me through another year safe, like the way the Israelites were instructed to set up a monument of stones after crossing the Jordan River to remind them and future generations of what God did for them. Some years it feels bigger; this is one of them. I've found myself drifting into old temptations, and sticking to my commitment - while still easier than it was when I first quit - feels a little more like a victory this time around. So it might be nice to mark that somehow, and pouring gratitude and reflection into something I love, something that means a lot to me for similar reasons, just seems fitting.

Or maybe. Maybe. I'll finally get a poem out of this; it's been so long. That would be fitting, too; I used to pour out so much of the self-harm experience into poetry, and it would be rather full-circle to address the healing in that format too. Food for thought.

Anyway! 13 years! Wild.

[utilitycaster]

Hi I’m a new critter and I love your account and both your meta and your takes on “drama” I genuinely want to know (if you don’t mind saying of course) what you consider to be the most egregious, bad faith cr take that you’ve ever seen. I just like reading your criticism because it’s both incredibly articulate and smart but also very satisfying

Hi anon,

Thank you! I do have to say this is a difficult question with a boring answer but I'll give you a tangential one as well to make up for it.

Obviously, the misogyny and death threats in C1 are the worst! Anything that rises to the combination of structural oppression and literal death threats is going to be the worst, even before you factor in how utterly tiny the stakes were here (and, frankly, you shouldn't factor that in; doesn't matter what the cause is, big or small! Do not send death threats!)

The reason I tend not to talk about that is because there's very little to say. It's misogynistic death threats. That's awful, inexcusable, and dangerous in any context. But if someone doesn't understand how terrible this is, I don't think I can say anything to add to that.

Anyway because that was true, but obvious and not terribly revealing, I have been thinking a lot about mean-spiritedness in the fandom and I'll talk about that here. It's something I try to be cognizant of, because here's the thing: I talk a lot of shit. I'm aware I talk a lot of shit. There's many reasons why I talk a lot of shit. But I do try very hard not to be mean-spirited. I think there is a very clear distinction between criticism, even harsh criticism, of things you don't like, whether it's in execution, concept, or they just aren't to your taste; and mean-spiritedness, which is much more based in a desire to do harm to others.

I think again the example I've mentioned recently of people harassing Liam until he took a song off a Caleb character playlist is the pinnacle. This doesn't have any real goal re: criticism - it doesn't address an issue with the character nor the narrative and the only personal preference it reveals is "I, a random fan, don't like that this song was used in this context" which is not really relevant and you can skip it. Harassment is never justified, and even behavior that skirted harassment really served only to be a dick to Liam. It didn't have a single result other than "Liam takes the song off and feels kind of bad for a while," which I suspect was in fact the goal for most people, and that's pretty abhorrent.

Harsh criticism is not necessarily constructive, but it is with the intent to reveal - either a personal preference, or what you believe to be a flaw (structural, thematic, etc) within the story. It might not have a goal - personal preference really is just "I don't like this guy" and that's fine. Mean-spiritedness, however, exists just to spew bile and do harm.

So the following (most of which are paraphrased, but all are things I've personally seen on Tumblr alone, and nearly all are from the last year or so) aren't per se the most egregious or bad-faith takes, but they are absolutely mean-spirited. They have all destroyed my estimation of the people saying them for the most part beyond repair, and in many cases, if they have not hurt my estimation of the ship or character they were intending to support, they have certainly increased my estimation of the things they were intending to oppose. (And it goes without saying: any harassment - any - is automatically mean-spirited).

"I hope Fjord and Jester have divorced [author's note: they were not married] and I hope it hurt."

"I hope Caleb and that floaty fuck have broken up by the solstice."

"I hate Ashton, and Campaign 3 wouldn't be any different if they weren't there."

"My wishlist for this episode is that Chetney hits on Fearne and Ashton cockblocks him"

"I hope Fearne makes that robot eat his stupid coin"

"I'm not surprised that Yasha missed, because Yasha is bad at everything."

"Funny how Vex goes against her husband but does everything that Keyleth says" [Author's note: later proved to be hilariously untrue]

"No one cares about Travis's characters."

"Oh, Liam meant that Essek's own guilt would still exist by 'It won't help the inside?' I thought he was just being a fucking twat."

I think some people go into fandom not because they want to talk about characters, but because they see it as an opportunity to hit someone. I think some people believe they are entitled to a "win" (not normal to want nor possible to achieve and often less about the story and more about the fandom agreeing with them) and will engage in any tactic no matter how underhanded if they don't think they're getting it. That's what mean-spiritedness is in the end. It's not a single opinion, and often it goes under the radar compared to more stupid but less clearly unpleasant takes - a lot of the above didn't result in a ton of discourse because most people see these and rightfully go "oh that person is a tar pit" and block them - but it's certainly, outside of bigotry (which is also frequently also mean-spirited) - the most bad-faith approach to fandom on the whole.

[thesiltverses]

Hello! Just wanted to say, and hopefully this isn't an odd compliment to receive, how much I adore the episode titles of the silt verses. One of my favorite things to do after I get someone to listen to tsv is point out that the episode titles make a poem when you read them back to back. It always tends to blow their minds and I get great satisfaction from seeing their reactions. What I especially love about them is how they can stand on their own and reflect events of the episodes while still connect with one another to make a bigger picture so to speak. (For example, how Faulkner and Carpenter's reunion episode in s2 is titled "But We'll Never Be Rid of Each Other" to reflect their relationship as two people that can't seem to untangle themselves from each other, for better or for worse ((and how this title hangs over the episode ominously when contrasted with how happy their reunion makes listeners, as if just waiting for events to come)), but then connect it to the next title "My Song, My Sorrow and I" and it slightly changes the context where it feels more like it examines the characters' various complicated relationships with their gods)

(Though, on a tangent, speaking of episode titles and how they match each episode, I think constantly about "One Final Fall From Grace" with Faulkner and how it's the episode where he loses all but one of his acolytes, idk there's something about it that gets me so bad/pos)

I was wondering how you go about deciding on episode titles? Has the poem already been written out since the very beginning of the show? Is episode order dictated and determined by said finished poem? Or am I overthinking how each line fits each episode? What made you decide on this format compared to I am in Eskew's episode naming convention? Sorry for such a long winded question! I just cannot overstate how much I adore the episode titles, sometimes I'll go back and read everything all over just to hear the words.

Thank you very much!

So the plan was always roughly along the lines of:

Season 1 titles begin by trying to outline a kind of epic poem, then get distracted by describing its hold over the poet

Season 2 titles are about the poet's yearning to be free from the poem, but ultimate acceptance that their fates are entwined

Season 3 is about the realisation that the poem will outlive the poet.

Beyond that, there's generally plenty of flex and it remains a semi-spontaneous act of play - like you say, I might think I have something in mind and then realise at the last minute that another line works better for the themes of the ep (and sometimes there's no thematic relevance at all and it's just filling in a necessary rhyme to keep the whole thing going).

This leads to imperfections and a bit of a shaggy-dog story feel - if I could go back without confusing everyone, I'd correct the very first ep title to 'First I'll Sing Of Revelations' so the terminology is consistent - but I like imperfections, and I like shaggy dogs.

As to why? It just felt like a different way of being playful; the Eskew titles were fun for me because of their simplicity (I have vivid memories as a very young kid, not being old enough to be allowed to watch the video-tapes of Blackadder II, all of which had really evocative, teasing single-word episode titles - 'Head', 'Money', 'Potato'. So I'd just sit back on the floor and imagine what those meant.)

But for TSV, it felt appropriate and fun to begin with these trappings of epic storytelling and religious verse in the episode titles, and then gradually pan outwards to show that it's more of a story about being entrapped by stories and the impossibility of escape.

[chloeangelic]

Why does it seem like everything you've put out lately is just trying to rip off netherfeildren? Like the art, the plots, the aesthetics... Especially weird since you used to seem to always hype them up

I went back and forth on responding to this but I’ve decided to because I don’t appreciate having my integrity questioned. I kind of expected that I'd get something like this because there are some thematic similarities between Seeking and SWITBOSH. However, I won’t respond publicly to anything else like this cause I think we’re all very over The Discourse, and tbh it’s a massive fucking insult to accuse me of ripping someone off when I’ve spent seven months writing ca 200k words of fic and developing my own unique style of writing. If you can’t see the difference between two writers, just because they write emotional depth and full sentences, then please read an actual book and not just brainrot fic. I’m gonna properly address everything under the cut - anon domming is back on the menu today. 

That being said, because this feels weird and uncomfortable for me and likely for Vic, I’m turning off anons for the time being and I’m taking a posting break to decide whether I want to continue posting here at all or continue posting purely on AO3. I post there anyways under the same name. If you still have a bone to pick with me or my writing, please message me directly. Please do NOT pester Vic about this, I know very well that she does not enjoy The Discourse or any sort of drama. Everyone is sick of the copying discourse - please have some trust in writers’ self awareness. 

Firstly, the words “recently” and “plots” should be defined here - I personally don’t see how stepdaddy Joel, pornstar Tim, sex addict Dieter, baby daddy Javi or any of Love Me back is similar to her works at all. The Seeking teaser I posted yesterday was similar to her Pink teasers purely because it had text on a photo - my text wasn’t even from the fic, it was a quote that represented the series as a whole and the quote that finally made the series crystallize in my head. It’s the quote I want people to have in the back of their mind when they go into reading it - it’s from the song that I consider the series theme. Our formatting is not the same. Yes, I have quotes at the beginning of the chapters - my friend sent me a bunch of poems and a couple, I felt were relevant to the story so I wanted to add them somehow. Several writers do this. I stopped putting in previews above the cut cause it was making it difficult for me to write the beginning of the chapters. My masterlist art is the same as, like.. Everyone’s else’s masterlist post - the norm on here is to have an artwork from Pinterest, the title slapped on top and the writer’s name. I literally just loved Pascalisbaby’s masterlist art so much I decided to do it too. 

When you say plots, I’m assuming you’re drawing parallels between Seeking what is desirable and Someone’s Wife in the Boat of Someone’s Husband because cheater!Joel (or maybe even Pink cause DDLG, but I’m literally in a DDLG-type dynamic irl and I decided to incorporate it into a fic for once - there were CLEAR ddlg undertones in Love Me Back, it just wasn’t explicit. I also wrote several chapters of Seeking before Pink even came out, and I wrote a cheating + father in law oneshot this summer). 

The MC in Seeking is based on myself and my own life, moving away from my parents in order to live with my boyfriend at the time very far away, who ended up being extremely absent and shitty. MC+Jeremiah relationship is based on Adam and Hermine from EXIT, Jeremiah is based on Tony Soprano, Gwen is based on Janice Soprano + a story I heard from my cousin about how his wife let him do all the childcare while she went on a women’s retreat. They are not in a marriage of convenience, the MC doesn’t feel bad about the affair at all, she never pushes him away, and Gwen has no plans on leaving. Sarah and Ellie are both 16 and living with Joel in Seeking. The MC does not have similarities to Sarah like she does in Love Me Back (which was also literally based on my own life) or Someone’s.

MC is a teacher who cheats with Joel - so is the MC in my post outbreak series I wrote many months ago. They're drawn to each other immediately cause I hate slow burn fics and I didn't feel like writing two chapters of him fucking someone else this time around. She goes out intending to cheat, and he thinks it'll sustain him for the next several years. The first thing I thought up in this entire series was Jeremiah - I had his character crystallized in my head for weeks before I planned anything else.

Of course Joel is unhappy in his marriage - neither Vic or myself would write a Joel who cheats for fun, that’s just not something either of us finds interesting. It actually started as a Sopranos AU, but I decided against going that route cause I don’t know enough about white collar crime. Also, if you are familiar with my writing you’ll know I love writing infidelity - it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m writing a series with this as the central theme. The central question for Seeking is when is it okay to cheat? That’s what the entire fic is about. It’s not about him finding the love of his life after marrying someone else (like the summary of Someone’s), it’s about two instances of cheating and how we justify those two scenarios. Of course it has a happy ending - I’ve used up my non-happy ending quota for the year. 

I’m not sure what you mean by aesthetics - Vic actually edits really nice graphics for all of her Mando chapters. She spends a bunch of time on those, and you’re doing a disservice to her by overlooking how unique her artwork is and how much effort it takes. She also made really cool teasers for Pink. I’m way too lazy for any of that, I just slam a moodboard together. I started doing 3 slot moodboards cause the 6-7 slot ones were a hassle. The fact that only art pieces are used in this series is half coincidence, half me being sick of trying to fit Pedro pics into the moodboards when the colors are often wrong. 

I literally texted with her when I planned this series, saying I was afraid people would accuse it of being a ripoff of Someone’s, purely due to the Joel infidelity + uninterested wife factor, and she did not think the overall plot was similar enough to be of concern. I still hype her up, she just doesn’t post as often now so I don’t reblog as often, that’s pretty simple. I’ve also asked Iris, my editor, SEVERAL TIMES if it reads too similar to Someone’s or anything Vic has written - she is extremely familiar with both of our works and she did not think so. What exactly am I supposed to do when I’ve gotten the green light from everyone? 

This specific anon didn’t mention the actual writing, though, which is funny and it makes sense because I don’t write like Vic and I don’t try to. Her vocabulary is way larger than mine, the diction and syntax are not similar at all. She actually uses metaphors, I use them very rarely and only when it’s super dramatic. My writing isn’t poetic, it’s not flowery, it’s not formal - it’s literally just how I think inside my own head. When I read my own writing, I imagine Charles Gross doing a dramatic reading. I learn like one new word every month and eventually I’ll add it to my writing when it’s something I’m confident using irl. She has a lot of depth to her fics, I also try to write with emotional depth - I’m sorry if that’s unfamiliar in a landscape of dbf porn with no plot and 5 word sentences (I’m shading my own first series here). Seeking reads more similar to the first series I ever wrote, which I never posted, than anything else I’ve written. Half of Seeking is also straight up daydreaming sequences cause that’s literally how I think - the MC lives a boring life and daydreams, so do I. 

I’ve learned a ton from reading Vic’s stuff - I don’t read that much irl cause I rarely find English novels captivating, but her writing has really made an impression on me. I talk constantly about how much her writing makes me cry, and it really does. Reading her stuff has absolutely influenced me to be more confident about weaving in actions and little plot points that are more vulnerable and personal to myself, and that adds a lot of depth it otherwise wouldn’t. I’m very inspired by her, of course I am - but I know the difference between being inspired and trying to leech. 

I’m sorry my writing style has developed. I’m sorry I no longer write like I did in April, with matter-of-factly short sentences and little emotional depth. I have short series and long series because some plots deserve more emotional depth and some don’t need it. I wouldn’t bother writing anymore if all I did was shady lawyer Joel or Father Joel and I never improved. 

If you don’t enjoy my writing, please just unfollow. I’ve seen other fics on this platform that read similar to mine, some that have exactly the same plot points/origin stories, and at no point have I thought they were ripping me off. At some point, this specific fandom needs to realize that it’s possible for two writers to have similar ideas without it being one person copying the other. My personal opinion is that if you copy someone’s plot, you won’t be able to execute it well because you don’t have the ideas necessary to actually flesh it out. If you’re familiar with my writing, you know damn well I’m capable of coming up with my own ideas and plots. I feel zero need to rip other people's in order to gain traction - I have enough followers and idgaf how many notes anything gets. Please don’t overestimate my ability to give a fuck about my popularity in this fandom. 

Anyways, thanks for making me want to vomit, anon, you truly made me feel like shit today and I hope you have a great night! I’m not sure how much I’ll be checking tumblr for a while so feel free to message me on discord under the same name.

[aphfanficwriters]

Every month we will pose a question and collate responses as a fun and informal little exercise in getting to know each other and spark discussion. This month's question is:

“How do you come up with your fic titles?”

Sicily: Tbh, I pick words or sentences that are commonly known in the fandoms I write for (this is boring I know, but its what I do :D)

Prush / @proosh: they mostly appear to me via divine manifestation. otherwise I select a thematically resonant word or concept :D

Tama / @delgumofics: Either the idea comes into my head pre-named or I struggle to come up with something [...] I should start naming all my fics like Light Novels

kalashlobo / @kalashnikovlobotomy: It's either a joke about the fic content or song titles/lyrics🤸‍♂️ you can pry them out my cold dead hands

Netherzon / @netherzon: Something thematically relevant, found during my research if it’s one of those fics, or song lyrics (also thematically relevant). It really depends on the type of fic for me

WhiteWings / @smuttyandabsurd: I'm a thief of lyrics and song titles myself, but sometimes my own genius is almost frightening

@folightening: Either the title comes with the idea or hits me while I'm writing. If it doesn't I have no idea what to title it. Trying to come up with something for most of my fics feels like I'm trying too hard so I'm trying to let myself be lazy about it.

Didi / @teaedon: mostly thematic, other times from lyrics, song titles. hetalia fics enable me to make titles in other languages and feel no remorse

ciel / @torontofetish: for most of my fics, i try to identify a central theme around which the fic is built, and then i either use a word or phrase that invokes imagery of that theme or a word or phrase from the fic itself that encapsulates that theme. with my hetalia fics specifically, i'm having a little fun by doing mostly this same thing, but in the native/official language of my pov character (or one of them, if there are multiple—it's vibes-based in that case).

Yukihitomi / @arthurhonda: I usually try to make it sound like a 2000s anime episode name

Mossman / @one-more-mossman: I pinpoint a main theme in my fic and search for cool songs about it. Then I steal the coolest sounding line

Lacy: usually writing fics and putting titles for me comes in three forms: 1) i finished the fic and i can randomly comes up with a name i am satisfied with, 2) i finished the fic and i cant come up with a name so i dig thru the songs i am currently obsessed with and use their lyrics, 3) i write the fic because of a few songs/quotes/poems so i try to find a title from there. Usually i dun directly name a fic after the song titles (cause i think it shows up when searched? ) either way its a chore to come up with titles 🙂

@billowingangel: Usually I do it based on the tone or feeling that I want to portray with the writing or how I felt writing it. If that makes any sense

[carma-tjol]

Miscellaneous OPM Characters as Lady Gaga Songs

please read this oh my god I spent so much time... there's some meta scattered in there I promise.

Fubuki

Telephone

Bloody Mary

Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)

Telephone - because I watched an Instagram edit that used it and now I have it permanently associated with her. Fubuki has a fun and glamourous aesthetic and I feel like the song reflects that too Bloody Mary - because of the "I wont crucify the things you do" line. it reminds me of all the people she knows that are like. highly problematic but she's irremovably tied into their lives and ultimately accepts them. Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) - there are relationships she's had that fell tragically because of, while among other things, her own personal flaws and ego. It's tragic, but she really wasn't equipped to handle everything thrown at her at the time. there really is "nothing else [she] can say" anymore. Imagining her with this song puts a lighthearted twist on the woe of it.

Psykos

Summerboy

So Happy I Could Die

Teeth

MANiCURE

Summerboy - I like to imagine it as Psykos having the summerboy's POV. Feeling disposable and like she got played by Fubuki, she is left to sort of sourly reminisce on what could've been. So Happy I Could Die - for that INTENSE SAPPHIC ANGST. Also I like the concept of like. attempting to use sexuality to cope with severe internal turmoil. I love this song sooo much. Teeth - vibes I guess MANiCURE - "SHE WANNA BE MAN CURED!" so basically more sapphic stuff but campier and less gut wrenching this time lol.

Genos

(... god I initially struggled finding stuff for him HARD but ended up with 4 things. what.)

Replay

I Like It Rough

Shallow

Paparazzi (bonus)

Replay - Lady Gaga is talking about trauma and PTSD taking over and effecting every part of her life, which I feel like is relevant. "Every single day, yeah I dig a grave Then I sit inside it wondering if I'll behave" I Like It Rough - I've always interpreted this song as only ever experiencing harshness from people, not knowing how process kindness, and struggling to decipher sincerity. Which I feel like, removed from all the sex stuff, fits Genos pretty well thematically. Shallow - I don't really mean this in a ship way here (to be honest, one sided genos pining is my ideal! But that's not relevant here) but I can think of this song with Genos and Saitama's relationship and how at its core, One Punch Man revolves around them. They represent the central themes of companionship and how humanity is based on relationships with others. They try to "fill that void" with each other and Genos looks at Saitama worried, when will it be enough? (When will HE be enough?) Also I enjoy listening to songs where there is some form of disappearance or death and imagining the MA arc. I did that a tonnn with Sweet Talking Woman by ELO a while back, something about mixing the love song about chasing someone with the tragedy of the MA arc and how Genos became unattainable really clicked for me. (Fun fact, I had 182 listens for that song on my Spotify wrapped... pretty much all thinking of Genos) I'm supposed to be talking about Lady Gaga though oops. "Crash through the surface, where they cant hurt us We're far from the shallow now." They've experienced the same alienation, whether inflicted or self imposed and were able to drag each other out of it. Perhaps there's comfort in the similarity. Paparazzi (bonus lol) - If you enjoy leaning into Genos's weird obsession, this is the song for you! He's a little neurotic...

Flashy Flash and Sonic

I'm giving them the same song

Speechless

Speechless "In your tight jeans With your long hair and your cigarette stained lies Could we fix you if you broke? And is your punch line just a joke?" I connect it by thinking about how much weight their relationship held in their lives. Each of their dreams had the other in it. And I think that losing that was a bit worldshattering. "Would you give it all up If I promise, boy, to you?" Eyyyy we were left on a bit of a cliffhanger right? Flash was trying to ask sonic something but got cut off by the other ninjas. "We could-" we could what, Flash? we. could. what. (Team up again? Please I'm literally on my hands and knees begging, yet I know it's never that easy with OPM)

Amai Mask

Beautiful, Dirty Rich

The Fame

Beautiful, Dirty Rich - It's about fame! Living the high life! He's like a major celebrity and a diva so I think it works. Just ignore the bit where it says "but we've got no money" because he definitely has money. The Fame - similar thought process

Webigaza

Applause

Applause - She "lives for the applause!" The fame itself is empty without her fans.

Do-S (aka BONUS! other songs I like but had zero use for)

Love Game

Money Honey

Bad Romance

Poker Face

Government Hooker

Judas

not sexual enough for Do-S but I really like Americano too.

okay I'm done with these now I'm literally going insane

[trainsinanime]

The Movie - The Bad Parts

Based on discussions with @emsylcatac earlier today, let's talk about Miraculous Ladybug & Chat Noir - The Movie (also known as Miraculous Awakening), and specifically what sucks about it. I want to clarify that this post is meant to be unfair on purpose. It's all about complaining because complaining is fun! Overall I think the movie was perfectly fine, I had fun and I recommend watching it on a big screen because it is really pretty. This post is full of spoilers, and I'll put it in the queue for the 29th so people who watch on Netflix can see it then.

Let's get to it. There are a number of different directions from which you can criticise the movie. Too many fart jokes. Too many Volkswagen cars. Not enough metro trains. Uninspired songs. I'd like to pull it back a step, though, and ask fundamentally: What was the movie trying to do, you know, as a story? Because I don't think it knows.

About something

The movie has set itself a fairly difficult task, trying to fit a monster-of-the-week show into a single cohesive narrative. This isn't impossible, other superhero movies from Marvel and sometimes Sony and even the odd DC one do that all the time. They do that by finding a core story to tell about the people involved. Tony Stark goes from war profiteer to taking responsibility. Shang-Chi fled his father and must now face him. Jessica Jones faces her trauma. Kamala Khan must figure out who she wants to become and what it means to be a hero. Hawkeye must shoot an arrow out of a bow. Stuff like that.

As a show, Miraculous Ladybug doesn't really have that. Marinette isn't standing on the wrong side of a central dramatic argument and must learn to find and believe the correct answer. Her only real problem is that she isn't kissing Adrien right now. Similar things go for Adrien, who has plot attached to him, but not really any arc beyond going from not kissing Marinette to kissing Marinette. And that's perfectly fine for a show like that, there are plenty of arcs for each individual episode. And sometimes you don't even need that and can just save yourself with twenty minutes of being fun.

The movie is exactly like the show in this regard, and in my opinion, that's a mistake. Marinette is clumsy and afraid of being awesome, but that is just basic hero's journey stuff, that isn't a real character arc. Adrien doesn't have an arc at all. So really, there is nothing here, no theme, no arc. Stuff just happens. The stuff that happens is very adorable in my opinion, but most of it doesn't mean anything.

And really, that seems to be the main point of the movie: Have adorable stuff happen. There are a lot of great trailer moments, but then if you see how they fit together in the movie, well, they mostly don't. There are some cute Adrinette scenes, but they are just here to be cute, they don't actually matter. There's some excellent Ladynoir banter, but it doesn't actually change anything or tell us anything about the characters, it's just here.

The movie certainly pretends that there's an arc here. Marinette gets an "I want" song that tells us she's unhappy about being clumsy, and she'd like to design clothes. We have a bit of a hero's journey. We have a tiny bit of a conflict when Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug, but she can't be in love with him because she's in love with Adrien, and he reacts poorly to that (oh god, are we going to get Adrien discourse again? Please, anything but that!). We defeat the villain, and Marinette learns the "Miraculous Ladybug" healing power. It feels like an arc, but the things don't connect to each other in any thematic way.

And sure, the movie pretends there is a theme here, which is "we're stronger together". Except being together is not really that relevant for the conclusion, and besides, nobody ever said they weren't stronger together.

Weirdly enough, there is one character who gets an arc, which is Gabriel, who realises his mistakes when he sees that Chat Noir is his son. That's nice but comes a bit out of nowhere. And the way Adrien forgives him that easily also feels unearned to me. If you go strictly by which character learned the most and changed the most, you could technically argue that this is Gabriel's story more than anyone, which is just silly.

So it all feels a bit lifeless. Many subplots start and stop at random, and many scenes in between the trailer moments feel too short and lifeless.

The Changes

The other thing that feels weird is all the ways that the lore was changed. I'm totally okay with changing the lore to fit into the movie, but so many of the choices just feel less interesting.

Most crucially, when Marinette falls in love with Adrien in the show, it's the culmination of a mini-arc in which she was wrong about him, and he was bad at social interaction, which they resolve with a ritual umbrella exchange. That is really meaningful. In the movie, Marinette falls in love with Adrien because he's handsome and he asks her if she's alright after she drops some books. That's less interesting.

A smaller detail, but in my opinion even more important, are the Akuma villains. There's no doubt that the gargoyle looks great… but it's a random person who we don't know. We certainly didn't know Ivan that well at the end of season 1 either, but we had at least some connection to him. Most importantly, Marinette had a connection to him, and so her fear for this guy she knows felt real and important. That's gone here. Same for the other villains. They're all just some guys Hawkmoth found somewhere. They don't matter to us or to the heroes, they're just around. In their fight for great visuals, they made the story less interesting.

There are plenty of other examples where the show weirdly forgoes personal moments. The Adrinette montage, for example, is sweet, but it passes by way too quickly. And it's not like the movie didn't have the time, I mean, have you seen these fart jokes?

When it comes to the superhero fights, I am mostly stumped. The movie invented completely new rules, but these rules are for the most part not better or worse, just different. It feels like they feared they'd infringe someone's copyright, but doesn't Zag own the copyright? I think the lack of insane plans prompted by a lucky charm was a bit sad, but I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker.

The Music

I think the songs were alright, I'm just mentioning them here because I know others hated them. My main issue with them is that they felt so unmotivated. It felt like someone had said, "this is where a Disney movie would have a song, so we'll put one here as well".

The Ending

Cutting there? Come on. Not gonna lie, that part got a big groan at my cinema.

The Nachos

Mine didn't taste that great.

In Conclusion

I really should have written this Sunday or Saturday when my memory was still fresh. But I think you get the gist of it. It was a fun experience, but I think it squandered most of its opportunities. There were fun moments, but the connection between them wasn't really there. Most importantly, the movie just didn't really have any story to tell other than "that Ladybug one". But while that is a fine story to have as the premise of a show, it doesn't really work well for a single movie.

[evilwizardcrab]

Assinging popular UK rollercoasters TMA fear entities.

Because sometimes your roller coaster autism and magnus archives autism combine into a secret, third thing.

Also, obviously most roller coasters are kind of inherently tied to vast/spiral, but for the sake of variety I'll only be assigning those entities when it happens to be really thematically relevant.

All clear? Good. Then in no particular order, let's begin.

1 .The Smiler (Alton Towers)

Figured I should start this out on what is quite possibly the UKs most iconic rollercoaster. At a whopping 14 inversions this Gerstlauer infinity coaster holds the world recor-

The spiral. It's the spiral. Yes, I know I literally just said I would be reserving spiral judgements for certain rollercoasters but just. Just look at this fucking thing:

This is quite possibly *the* most spiral aligned rollercoaster you could possibly make. In fact it might literally be the most spiral aligned rollercoaster ever, because with 14 inversions it literally is the most amount of spiraling you can physically do on a rollercoaster.

I mean, watch the goddamn TV Advert for this ride and tell me Fuckhands McMike didn't have a (yaoi) hand in the creation of this thing. Fuck Sanakov land I'm pretty sure the smiler singlehandedly counts as a failed spiral ritual.

It literally sends you insane! That's it, that's the theming! It's logo is a literal fucking spiral! Words themselves cannot get across how quintessentially Spiral this coaster is!!!! Even the FUCKING MUSIC is spirally!

It's even yellow.

So yeah, 10/10 spiral aligned coaster would ride again.

2. The Swarm (Thorpe Park)

From one heavily themed rollercoaster to another, let's take a trip down south to The Swarm, Thorpe Park. I'm going to be biased off the bat and say that the swarm is absolutely one of my faves (just look at that inverted drop!) not to mention the being only wing coaster in the UK.

That being said, despite my fanboying The Swarm was initially a hard one to place. My gut feeling was the Vast (mainly due to how it emulates the feeling of flying) or the corruption (literally called the swarm).

But then I took a step back,actually looked into the theming and lore itself, and it became clear. The Swarm is the Extinction through and through.

For those of you FREAKS no well aquiantted with Rollercoaster Lore, the story of swarm is as follows - an evil Swarm has destroyed humanity).

Thorpe Park even went as far as to put up fake posters around the park and release ARG Style adverts about it (and this song, because Merlin is nothing if not excessive when it comes to it's parks)

So with that in mind, swarm absolutely embodies the two main aspects of the extinction; both the active destruction of the apocolypse and the fear of something new replacing us (in this case presumeably sentiant rolercoasters)

3. Oblivion (Thorpe Park)

I'll keep this entry to roughly the same length as the ride itself.

You go in a Big Hole In The Ground

It's The Buried.

4. The Roller Coaster Formerly Known As The Pepsi Max Big One (Blackpool Pleasure Beach)

Finally, a coaster entry that isn't from a Merlin park. And being both the tallest and steepest rollercoaster in the world, let us introduce the pepsi max big one.

(off screeen whispers)

Wait what do you mean it's no longer the tallest rollercoaster in the world

(more whispers)

What do you mean, "or the steepest"

(even more whispers)

Wait, what do you mean it's not even the Pepsi Max Big One anymore? The Big One? really?

The Big One is an interesting case to me, in that despite technically being the tallest rollercoaster in the UK, there appears to be somewhat of a relative lack of discussion surrounding it. It's just ... there. Hell, while making this list I actually forgot it was the tallest rollercoaster in the UK. Not to mention the whole deal with its changing, corporate name. It just feels so Bizzare. Strange, even ...

That's right motherfuckers we got ourselves a Stranger rollercoaster! It perhaps isn't the most obvious choice, but I'll be damned if I hand over the tallest rollercoaster in the Uk to the Vast, that’s just boring. Plus, I personally find it quite thematically pertinent. Something about the idea of an object getting so subsumed by it’s corporate identity that when that is removed, it’s left with nothing. Something about staking a permanent identity on inherently shifting factors leading to a [redacted] Big One shaped void. 

If you want to, if you can imagine it was initially Vast before Fairchild enterprises took a hit and Nikola Orsinov swooped in to claim it. 

5) Stealth (Thorpe Park)

We've got ourselves our first pure Vast rollercoaster here folks! Coming in at a hot 5th place we have the 1st most fastest rollercoaster in the UK, that launches you 0-80 mph up 62 meters of pure steel baybe!!

And um.

It doesn't do much else.

But that simplicity is exactly what makes it so vast! The Vast wouldn't fuck around with complex things like "inversions" or "ride experience". It goes up. it goes down. If Simon Fairchild made a rollercoaster it would look like this. Take one look at this thing and tell me it doesn't embody the spirit of Mike "sought out the tallest ride at the carnival" Crew.

If the Spiral gets The Smiler as its quintessential rollercoaster, The Vast gets this.

6) Wickerman (Alton Towers)

Now, the Wickerman is another personal fave of mine, and (in my personal opinion) a key example of how amazing theming can elevate practically any rollercoaster. (To go on a tangent, I'd absolutely recommend riding this during the evening at fright night, if you can. The night serves an already great ride experience into something amazing)

Not only that, but the central theming of said rollercoaster centers around both a) Cults and B) Copious amounts of fire. So, in a manner clearly befitting its assigned entity, it doesn't exactly take an expert to put two and two together and get Ouch. That’s right, it's desolation. 

RIP Agnes Montague you would have loved this ride.

Scratch that maybe not considering how she seemingly felt about her cult. Let me change track.

RIP Gertrude Robinson you would have FUCKING LOVED this.

8) Nemesis (Alton Towers)

What, you thought I could make a UK coaster list without bringing up Nemesis? Surely not,I wouldn’t dare shaft  everyone's favorite (and currently unavailable!) B&M invert. Wait, what do you mean you don't want to hear about how it "holds up amazingly well over 30 years" and it's "Intensity rivals even that of modern coasters"?

Jokes aside, Nemesis was another hard one to place. Like Swarm, I had a very strong initial preference - this time for the slaughter, mainly due to the whole "trapped alien" deal it has going on.

But, once again like The Swarm, another look into the deeper RollerCoaster Lore (TM) revealed another core aspect of nemesis - this time, that of the Buried.

Specifically, the Lore of Nemesis centers around a mysterious alien entity (aptly named nemesis) found Buried deep underground, and having to promptly be pinned down with tons of steel (which also coincidentally, happend to be the exact shape of a rollercoaster). Hell, the lore even had a comic book made of it. 

Not only that, but the actual construction of Nemesis actively involved digging up the earth in order to create the space for it. And if that doesn't scream "buried" it's probably because you can’t hear it under all the layers of dirt. 

Honerable Mentions - Kiddy Coaster Edition

9. Flying Fish (Thorpe Park)

It's everones favourite Thorpe Park Kiddy coaster, Flying fish - a coaster with a title that is only 50% inaccurate.

In all seriousness I only chose this coaster because for some inexplicable reason I associate it with the Lonely. Specifically, Peter Lucas. No, I cannot justify this choice other than the fact that look at it and tell me you can't picture Lucas sitting on this, alone, going around and around. He doesn't move or make a sound. Just sits there. Silently .Having the time of his life.

 I like to imagine he buys out the entirety of the park for a day with the Lucas family fortune just so he can enjoy this one ride without having to see another human being (you wouldn't catch him dead in a theme park otherwise)

And this is probably as good a point as any to finish the list. Obviously there are way more UK rollercoasters you could assign fears to but these felt like some of the more interesting ones to explore. Anyway if you made it this far then damn. Well done, but also thanks for sharing in this incredibly niche magnus brainrot with me :)

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I have thoughts about the TTPD speculation/two years/loneliness/sharing feelings through songs train but I'm putting them under a cut because. Yeah.

OK, so I'm giving a warning:

I'm talking about BTTWS, but NOT about the speculation/inspiration behind it. Just about the feelings in it and the Midnights of it all/the idea that sharing the difficult things brings comfort/companionship. So getting that out of the way so we can remove that part of the discourse out of it.

Regardless of whatever the inspiration/event behind BTTWS may be, whether it's about a loved one or personal, I've long felt that its inclusion on Midnights, an album about things that have kept her up at night, is significant in the feelings it portrays.

For instance, we can be fairly certain that Taylor wasn't actually turning in Scooter B. to the FBI and conspiring with his ex-wife to bring him down (or was she?) in Vigilante Shit, just as we can safely guess that she probably did actually pick up that pebble in Wicklow that reminded her of a peaceful time in Sweet Nothing. The line between fiction/reality, personal vs. narrative matters less on Midnights in this case than the feelings she was expressing in the songs, which are very personal and truthful. The revenge fantasy in Vigilante Shit is her working through her anger over having her masters sold and how she's fought hard to have the last laugh over someone who is a sworn enemy. Sweet Nothing is her reflecting on the dichotomy of her (presumed) quiet home life she felt was safe and the noise of the outside world. (Now, we might speculate on why she was ruminating on this, but that's another story.)

So with that preamble out of the way, BTTWS's inclusion in the tracklist I feel is just as important, again regardless of the inspiration behind it or her personal connection to it. Even if it is a song about someone other than herself, including it as the only "not personal/not diaristic" song on an album as ostensibly self-reflective as Midnights would stick out if that were thecase, though obviously it's her album so she can do whatever she wants and could have her own reasons. (Just like she included Ronan on Red and Soon You'll Get Better on Lover about similar themes, it could just be a tribute to a loved one.) But given all the thematic arcs and parallels on Midnights, I do feel like it's there to include a specific set of feelings being processed, even if the origin on the feelings may or may not be her own. (I'm trying to be really sensitive in my word choices here, hope they make sense.)

BTTWS is a song about loss and grief, and specifically the fallout of an event outside of her/the narrator's control. The person in the song has nothing to turn to to deal with their pain: no faith to guide them, no wisdom to tell them everything will be alright. Throughout the song there is a pervasive sense of isolation: everything is over, they're living without something that was once theirs but suddenly was not. It captures the fog and confusion of living through a painful event without having any way to process. She even says from the start that, "no words appear before me in the aftermath," which for someone like Taylor who has stated over and over how writing is literally how she processes her life would be the ultimate reflection of the depths of her hurt.

(To be clear I do not think this is a song about a breakup whatsoever: IMO it clearly is not about a relationship dissolution of any kind. I just think that the feelings of grief and loneliness in the song may have felt relevant to whatever she was going through during the time the album was coalescing in 2021-22.)

Knowing what we know now about at the very least the period between 2021-2023, Taylor was going through a time of significant difficulty in her life behind the scenes, which is how The Tortured Poets Department came to be, right on the heels of her completing Midnights sometime in early 2022. She has said herself that making TTPD was a lifeline, that she had to keep writing to deal with whatever it was that she was experiencing and going through. And as I posted about earlier today, she's also said repeatedly on tour that not only is writing about her feelings how she processes her pain and loneliness, but that then sharing that music with fans brings her great comfort because it makes her feel less lonely to know people understand and relate to what she's going through.

And we know that she has self-edited her albums over the years (including Midnights) to protect herself and perhaps even the subjects of her songs, which we have seen with the inclusion of the vault/bonus tracks in the re-records and on Midnights. Obviously some of these reasons are logistical -- album was too long, cut songs sounded too much like others, maybe she or her producers felt the ones that were originally chosen were stronger, narrative or sonic cohesion, etc. -- but with what we've seen over the last few years, these songs also filled in the lines of the stories being told and reframed the narrative being told.

Nowhere is that clearer than with You're Losing Me, for example. It's pretty obvious why it was held back: presumably she wouldn't want to release a song about a relationship at its breaking point when she was still actively in the relationship. Yet as soon as the relationship ended, she released it, we can only assume because of her realization that sharing the music and having people respond to it validates her feelings and makes her feel embraced, as it were. Then with the announcement of TTPD and how it's been brewing for essentially the intervening period between when YLM was written and now, we can also surmise that these songs will be dealing with feelings she also felt the need to hold back for whatever reason at the time, but has now decided should be out there so she can feel more whole.

So coming back to BTTWS, it being included on Midnights the way that it was strikes me as a form of sharing feelings that may have been too difficult to process. Again, not implying I have any insight into what the origin of the song is about, or imposing my own beliefs onto her, or that she was sending some sort of secret message with its inclusion! But thematically, BTTWS deals with an intense loss and feeling completely unmoored and alone as a result, which is present in her other work. And that the dreams the narrator once held have gone up in smoke, leaving her reeling about what's to come next. She's cut off from the world because of the event, unable to speak about or grasp what has happened. Similar feelings are also explored in You're Losing Me for instance, and even Dear Reader (not to mention on past albums like evermore, this is me trying, arguably hoax, etc.). Just reading context clues from TTPD and her surprise song choices of late, I don't think it's outrageous to presume some of those emotions are going to be present on the new album as well.

So this is just a long-winded way of saying, I feel like the sense of loss, confusion and uncertainty about the future likely resonated with both what she had gone through in the past, and the story as a whole she was trying to tell on Midnights. And while the origin may or may not be personal or relevant to the new story she's going to tell, I also feel like these same kinds of themes are going to be present on TTPD because they're so important for her to share. (I could even mention that the response to BTTWS may even provide evidence that people sharing their experiences in general brings comfort to those going through it, but that may be veering too far into parasocial "why did Taylor do X" speculative territory.) She sings about these kinds of all-consuming losses so eloquently and mindfully that I know the new album is going to be an absolute gut punch.

(not being self-promotional but I delved a little deeper into the Midnights 3am tracks including this one a few months ago so it's why it's top of mind and why the connections and thematic parallels are so resonant to me lately.)

[chosetherose]

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus immediately hit me as being strongly sonically reminiscent of a song by The Smiths. which might just be a case of, well there are only so many chords in the world and patterns end up repeating. but I’d like to ponder what I think the connection could mean, in case it is in fact an intentional reference.

It sounds like the song ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ which is as the title sounds, a straightforward heartfelt plea that the narrator’s luck will change for once in his life: ‘See the life I’ve had, can make a good man turn bad’. In Taylor’s song as soon as I heard the notes of the piano motif, and particularly the strumming pattern of the guitar, my mind kept itching for it to lead into the instrumental from the end of the Smiths song, as if they have a similar chord progression or something. maybe someone more musically minded can explain what I’m hearing? I looked up the chords and both songs are a lot of Fmaj, C and G, but many songs share chords and sound totally different so it feels like there’s more that I can’t articulate.

Some context for those not familiar: the songwriter and lead singer of British 80s band The Smiths was Morrissey. he’s since done some imo bad solo stuff and veered alarmingly right wing as he’s aged, much to the distress of Smiths fans who initially admired him for using his cutting wit to be outspokenly left wing, pro-animal rights, anti-Margaret Thatcher etc.

For decades he didn’t explicitly come out, but was vaguely assumed to be gay because of his lyrics (e.g. songs like This Charming Man and Hand in Glove). since he wasn’t out or labelled a ’gay singer’ he was able to become this very popular symbol amongst straight men for championing an alternative, soft, intellectual masculinity for them to identify with. known for his depressing (but also clever and humorous) poetic lyrics, and performing holding bouquets of flowers. I’ve seen a video where blokes from the audience surge up out of the crowd one by one to kiss his cheek while he sings, as if he’s their deity of allowing men to get in touch with their feelings.

Around 2013 he came out as bi / ‘attracted to a small number of humans’ in a memoir. the tone of the press around it is like ‘Morrissey finally kind of admits he’s gay, eye-roll no surprise’. The thing is, he’s no one’s bi hero because by the time he came out he’d gained his current reputation as a rude dickhead whose politics have devolved into anti-immigrant bigotry among other heartless bad takes. the press like to use his song title ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ as a headline when he chimes off, he has the total opposite of Taylor’s cautious approach to voicing opinions publicly.

Again, I don’t know if Taylor’s making this musical reference intentionally, or if hearing the connection is just a me thing. but it’s interesting that Morrissey’s career is defined by being a beloved sexually ambiguous poet who became so different from his early persona and politics that many fans who worshipped him now talk about separating art from artist in order to keep enjoying the songs they love. both his similarities and differences to Taylor strike me as thematically relevant to our TTPD discussions.

Or perhaps just hearing the lyrics to Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want can help add a dimension of understanding to Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus. Taylor’s wistful tone of voice and longing ‘what if’ lyrics certainly fit the sentiment, and thinking about the two songs together adds to the depth of her weariness and desperation. I hope someone talented also picks up on the similarities because I’d love to hear a mashup some day.

Anon, I’m really impressed by all the thought you put into this. What an interesting back story for Taylor to potentially connect to.

It’s all way over my head though - I didn’t know of this song before your ask - so I’m hoping others will chime in.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Hello, i wanted to ask you why people haven't been liking taylor's newer album. I don't really follow her but i've seen a lot of videos that criticize it. But i still don't understand what's so bad about it, they don't really even talk about the music.

Lmaooooooo. Classic! (as in, that they'll complain about an album without elaborating on what they think it lacks).

I mean, I don't think you can separate the critique TTPD has received from the widespread general Taylor fatigue which has been building up for years, due to her being kind of constantly in the news for almost 2 years now (and also a fair amount the 2 years before that on top of that). So one part is definitely just "she's annoying because I see her everywhere".

However, here's a rundown of the musical critiques of the album I've seen and my thoughts on them:

1) It's not sonically adventurous, within the context of her discography.

I think this is a fair criticism, overall, though it's not true that she broke zero sonic ground with it, and I'd say there's a lot of new stuff in terms of theme, which makes up for this at least a little. TTPD isn't exactly like any of her previous work (or merely a worse version of it), but I understand finding the production lacking in a lot of places.

2) It's too long.

I mean, it's 31 songs. I think all albums of this length will catch criticism like this, and it's valid IMO. Albums being of digestible length has advantages, but I also love having as many songs as possible. There aren't many songs I personally would cut.

3) It's too self-referential.

Honestly, this one kind of annoys me, but I also can't fully blame people who make it, because there's a type of swiftie who will insist on a lyric being important because it references some deep piece of Taylor lore only fans know – I get finding it eyeroll-inducing to be told you have to do "homework" to understand a song. But here's the thing: those swifties are wrong lol. It's not that I'm against their way of interacting with the music but it's just not true that you need to know Taylor's life to appreciate it. Case in point. people routinely relate her songs to their own life or to their blorbos. And, honestly, TTPD is IMO mostly thematically consistent and thus works well as an isolated work of art if you're actually willing to just engage with what it has to say.

4) It's cringe.

There are songs on TTPD (especially the first few) that are highly stylized and include lyrics which feel clunky. I think these lyrics are either a) literally fine, you just need to hear them in context (thinking of beloved "Aristotle/Grand Theft Auto" in particular), or b) they're blunt or strangely worded in a way I think is kind of intentionally off-putting, but I also get it if it just doesn't work for someone and they have trouble taking the line seriously.

I feel like that sums up most issues people have that are specific to the album. There's other critiques which are applicable to all of Taylor's music, which obviously some people don't like, but it wouldn't be relevant to people who like her previous work.

Also, btw, I kind of admire you for asking me about this. As in, being genuinely interested in people's opinion on something you're not that invested in :)

[ursafootprints]

happy to distract 💙 23, 27 Perp Motion & 18/19 in general!

Perpetual Motion:

23. How did you come up with the title?

If I'm not just using song lyrics or whatever, I often start my fic-title brainstorms with trying to think of something science-adjacent that feels thematically relevant for my Starker fics! 'Perpetual Motion' seemed like a good fit for kind of communicating Peter's feelings of inevitability/resignation to his abuse, as well as another narrative theme that has not quite played itself out yet. 🤐

27. Share a piece of lore you made up for the story

I'm taking "lore" to mean "detail/headcanon that did not make it into the fic" hereeee? I will potentially have other answers to this question once the fic is done but in the meantime it's just more misery lskjdf

Anyway: Peter had to go buy himself lube because (to his knowledge) Toomes wasn't going to bother, and after he researched it he recognized that there weren't really any good household products to use as a substitute that wouldn't risk staining their clothes. Having the bottle tucked away at the bottom of his backpack was a constant background stressor because he didn't know how he'd explain it if May found it or someone saw it at school.

In general:

18. Talk about your editing and revision process

As I write, I highlight placeholders (["Blahblahblah," he said,] [cover that XYZ has happened in the meantime,] [conversation about XYZ goes here,] [put something funny here]-type stuff) and sections that I know I'm not satisfied with so I can come back to them later to fill in/spruce up!

But "later" does not actually tend to mean "once the chapter is done"-- most of the time I do my edits during the course of re-reading what I already have down to get ready to do more writing, so I'm not usually a "do a complete first draft, then edit" type.

(I do do final edits to look for typos/tiny wording adjustments, ofc, and there are sometimes a couple of highlights to circle back to at that point as well, but for the most part I edit over the course of writing in the first place and I'm essentially done with the chapter by the point I put the final words down!)

However, sometimes I'm writing a chapter that turns out to be more placeholder than not (cough cough PerpMotion) and the editing process is more. Intense. I've rewritten the opening scene from the ground up five times. Whoops!

19. While editing, did you kill any darlings? What were they?

With fanfic I usually try NOT to kill my darlings because self-indulgence is the name of the game, but sometimes there's genuinely something that doesn't fit! YNYD was the biggest offender here just because it's so long— there was a scene of Peter and Tony roleplaying a pretend press-conference about their relationship when discussing coming clean to the rest of the team, a scene where Tony joked about a hypothetical enemies-to-lovers scenario between them, and I legit posted their full shibari sex scene as a bonus fic because it wouldn't fit into the actual chapter as-is haha!

But a lot of my darlings end up on the chopping block just at the chapter-outlining stage! In YNYD again I was planning on maybe doing a scene where they get silly/goofy dancing together in the lab while they were still in the growing domesticity/sexual tension stage of things, but I never actually ended up writing any of it because there was never a place where it needed to/could go.

Outside of YNYD… I'm sure there's little things here and there but I usually have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do with my oneshots/shorter multichaps, so there's not as much opportunity to get invested in writing/imagining something that doesn't end up working! It's usually more the case that I just end up briefly touching on something that's a more fleshed-out idea in my head, but it's not a whole concept that gets dumped. (Example: there is an implication in double-blind that SIM!Tony jerked off over the security footage of the part where he was "comforting" Peter in bed after the assault. I COULDA written a scene about that, but the story didn't need it, and just putting that implication there kept it from feeling like a killed darling haha.)

Thank you for playing! 💖💖💖