#there's not enough pressure to make something the creators actually fucking LIKE in this era of the cursed term 'content'

[shackleton2]

it's true and I say this as an avid binge-watcher who in the stone age had to look up transcripts of episodes because I couldn't wait THREE ENTIRE DAYS OF MY LIFE FOR NETFLIX TO MAIL ME THE NEXT DVD

Seasons of TV released as one fat drop of 8-12 1-1.5hr episodes, literally being told THIS IS FOR YOU TO BINGE IN ONE INSANE SITTING is the exact definition of my dreams and desires.

......why are they no good??

I can definitely think of exceptions, but "both of them have too much time and not enough time for the characters to struggle and grow and change," as it's well-put above, does seem to be the rule more and more. But what does that phrase really mean??

I saw something recently weighing in on this and saying series in particular seem to think every single thing depicted on screen has to move the story forward, possibly because everything is angled to encourage "binging". It's funny because that sounds like it should do the opposite of making the story feel ponderous and pointless!! So what's going on?

Maybe it's because Real Life™ isn't constantly moving towards one plot resolution, so the more you write a story where that's true, the more impossible true immersion for the viewer becomes?

But also I think actively designing a series to be compulsively watched in one or two massive sittings is hurting them as stories. Maybe it's because bingeing, especially as it's understood in other contexts, is not about enjoying something massively good, at least not after the initial part.

We all know this, right? You don't binge on something because it's just sooooo good. Are there people out there who have never done any kind of binge? Maybe so, so I'll tell you because I surely have: it's inertia. A really scary kind, to be honest, that feels, after a while of getting acclimated to nonstop-consuming the thing, like an absolute involuntary need. Because the second I stop eating the family sized bag of chips, stop taking another drink, stop lighting another smoke, reality will come rushing back in place of the comfort-stimulus. And in reality I am not experiencing joy or even pleasure, I am experiencing the kind of existential horror you get when you try to convince yourself you don't actually have to deal with your own mind. This 100% applies to letting the next episode autoplay after 5 hours of watching one story unfold.

Sorry I got kinda dark there, but the point I'm trying to illustrate is that I don't think you NEED a GOOD PRODUCT in order to get people to binge. And, well, that shows more and more with this "content" streaming services are releasing.

True Blood was a hot mess in so many ways and my mental health sure as shit was too but holy shit watching that obsessively years back was so FUN. That show and other story-loves of mine feel different from stuff getting released in full-season streaming dumps right now, and I don't think it's quality of writing or acting or effects or anything else making the difference as much as whether a show seems to genuinely LIKE itself, or whether it's counting on you finding it preferable enough to reality to let the next episode play and thus get good stats.

we need 15-20 episode seasons again these limited series have the worst pacing in the world and none of the character decisions hold any weight

[sssrha]

WangXian wouldn’t have been very functional pre-Wei Wuxian’s resurrection

So I was talking to @litescheme on Twitter and I decided to pour my heart out about how I hated the general fandom consensus that Wei Wuxian going to Gusu when Lan Wangji asked him to would have solved all of his problems, primarily because the idea of just straight up going to Gusu is incredibly flawed. Lo and behold, they agreed wholeheartedly. We had a great discussion and now I’m here to relay the discussion onto Tumblr in essay form uwu.

(By the way, this is based mostly on CQL with a good bit of novel added in, as well as a few hints of the donghua.)

Part One: “Come back to Gusu!” is a great romantic notion but a terrible plan of action.

First of all, one must ask the question: what on Earth was Lan Wangji’s game plan with the whole “Come back to Gusu!” thing? I think we can all agree that most of the Lan Sect hated Wei Wuxian - by the end, at least. Lan Xichen certainly had less than charitable feelings toward him. With such a hostile environment, the only way I can see Wei Wuxian surviving within the Sect is while being forced into a Madam Lan-type situation. I find that prospect more reminiscent of a horror movie than a heartwarming fic about healing.

Luckily for us, we can safely say that canon Lan Wangji would not have done that! Due to certain childhood trauma, Lan Wangji definitely would not have forced Wei Wuxian to do anything, go anywhere, or stay anywhere that he didn’t want to. That isn’t even touching on how much Lan Wangji genuinely wanted Wei Wuxian to be happy, and forcing Wei Wuxian to do anything had generally been proven to not make him happy. Good on him!

The next point: why would Wei Wuxian have gone to Gusu in the first place? Even while ignoring WangXian’s rampant misunderstandings, Wei Wuxian always actively had a reason to not go to Gusu. During the Sunshot Campaign, he was a major player and commanded a huge amount of power that probably aided the Sects greatly. During his stay in the Burial Mounds, he had a community of war prisoners to protect. How could he go to Gusu?

I’ve seen fics where Lan Wangji ensured the safety of the Wen Remnants, and while I absolutely adore the trope, I really don’t see that happening with canon Lan Wangji. First, I don’t think he’d grown as a person enough to fully rebel against his Sect until Wei Wuxian was in immediate danger, and second, I straight up don’t think that he had the sway to. Pulling that kind of stunt implies a good deal of political power within the Sect...and also implies that Lan Wangji would have had enough power to escape a punishment which he clearly never thought he deserved. However, I could be wrong on this point! Politics has never been my forte. 

Also, I don’t think anyone can bank on the Lan Sect accepting the Wen Remnants. After all, the Lan Sect participated in the First Siege of the Burial Mounds and thus, presumably, also the slaughter of the Wen Remnants.

Upon further reflection, I figured that the only time Wei Wuxian might have actually gone to Gusu was that brief period of time after the Sunshot Campaign and before he met Wen Qing. However, for him to agree, I figured that three things had to happen:

Wei Wuxian had to understand that Lan Wangji wanted to help him, not hurt him.

Wei Wuxian had to come to the (false!) conclusion that Jiang Cheng no longer needed his help or support at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian had to accept that he was worth saving in the first place.

(The concept came pre-set with some delicious Yunmeng Bros angst because Jiang Cheng would almost certainly take Wei Wuxian (permanently) going to Gusu the same way he took Wei Wuxian taking the Wen Remnants to the Burial Mounds: a betrayal, a promise broken. Emotionally, of course. There definitely wouldn’t have been political pressure closing in from all sides the way there was in canon.)

I was going to expand on that concept, but then I hit a bit of a hurdle: I genuinely did not, and still do not, see any reason for Wei Wuxian to actually go to Gusu. At that point, Wei Wuxian was doing everything he felt he needed to: he protected Jiang Cheng because Madam Yu told him to (and because he genuinely cared for him, but Madam Yu’s command was his driving force) and he only left Jiang Cheng when Wen Qing - someone he perceived himself owing a greater debt to due to the golden core removal - came along. When looking at it from that regard, I don’t think Wei Wuxian would ever see a reason to go to Gusu.

So, even after clearing up the miscommunication, Lan Wangji would have to present a good reason for Wei Wuxian to listen to him. 

I don’t think Lan Wangji going up to Wei Wuxian and saying, “Please come back to Gusu, I want to protect you,” would have worked. Considering how prideful Wei Wuxian was back then - with a good bit of it justified when you consider the fact that he killed a large amount of people in a single night during the Pledge Conference (though the exact number is never actually confirmed as far as I remember) - I don’t see Wei Wuxian taking the implication that he needs protection very well. No matter how many good intentions Lan Wangji had, he would have ended up offending Wei Wuxian at that point.

Another route Lan Wangji could have taken: “Please come back to Gusu, I want to play Cleansing for you.” Again, I don’t think this would have worked. (At least, that was definitely his stance in CQL and Wei Wuxian still didn’t do anything.) In Chapter 78, Wei Wuxian mentioned that the Sound of Lucidity had no effect on him. The Sound of Lucidity is, presumably, one of the Song(s) of Clarity, of which Cleansing is the most powerful. Lan Wangji used the Sound of Lucidity at the Pledge Conference after the battle had started. I don’t exactly know why he didn’t use Cleansing when it was more powerful... Either way, after he played the Sound of Lucidity, Wei Wuxian said, “You should’ve known since long ago—Sound of Lucidity is useless to me!” Thus, Lan Wangji asking him to go to Gusu so he could play Cleansing probably wouldn’t have seemed like an especially compelling reason to Wei Wuxian.

After some thought, I figured that post-resurrection, Wei Wuxian agreed to stay with Lan Wangji in the Cloud Recesses after the mystery was solved because:

He was not as prideful as pre-death Wei Wuxian.

He saw no reason to go back to Lotus Pier since Jiang Cheng made it very clear that he was unhappy with him.

He managed to process and confess his feeling to Lan Wangji, who did the same.

Pre-death Wei Wuxian has none of this. Basically, Wei Wuxian at that point had no reason to go to Gusu for anything other than a short visit.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but this entire time I’ve been ignoring not only the reality that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship pre-death was...very bad, but also something else very important: the Stygian Tiger Seal. 

The Stygian Tiger Seal was, of course, stupidly powerful, and Wei Wuxian only kept it because it would take too much time and energy to destroy, and it was meant to deter anyone from attacking him since he already knew that so many people were against him. One of his main fears was someone else - someone with impure motives - getting their hands on it, so of course he was paranoid wondering who would try to steal it from him. Lan Wangji asking him to go to a place where Wei Wuxian would be surrounded by people who hated his form of cultivation? Yeah, that didn’t sound that great. 

(Also, can we please take a moment to appreciate this excerpt from the novel: “The Stygian Tiger Seal’s powers were considerably greater than what he had imagined. He originally wanted to use it to assist him, but its powers were almost exceeding him, its creator” (Chapter 30). Almost. He said the Seal was not as powerful as him! The Stygian Tiger Seal was, indeed, strong, but he was more so! I see a lot of fanfics paint the Stygian Tiger Seal as what made him so terrifying and...it was certainly a part of it, but he did most of it on his own! Ah, we love terrifying main characters~)

Now, I’ve acknowledged the existence of WangXian’s miscommunication, but I’ve never actually addressed it. So, here it is: I do not think Lan Wangji confessing to Wei Wuxian (even before his stint in the Burial Mounds after the Bloodbath at Nevernight) would have gone well. In Chapter 2, there is this excerpt: “Wei WuXian’s eyebrows twitched. Not only a lunatic, a homosexual lunatic as well.” This requires a bit of interpretation because it’s not exactly clear what Wei Wuxian’s eyebrow twitch means, but I’ve always interpreted it as annoyance - or even disgust - at the addition of “homosexual” to Mo Xuanyu’s profile. I’m not saying that Wei Wuxian was necessarily homophobic before the entire events of the novel, but I sincerely don’t think Wei Wuxian would have appreciated Lan Wangji - or any other man, for that matter - confessing to him. If even (immediate) post-resurrection Wei Wuxian had that attitude, I can imagine what would have gone through pre-death Wei Wuxian’s head. 

So, Sunshot Campaign, post-Sunshot Campaign, and Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian would all definitely not go back to Gusu, nor would they appreciate a confession from Lan Wangji. That leaves the question: what about pre-Sunshot Campaign Wei Wuxian?

Part Two: Why I really don’t think WangXian would have worked out pre-Sunshot Campaign.

From here on out, “Wei Ying, come back to Gusu!” is no longer relevant because, well, Lan Wangji never said it before the meeting in the supervisory office. (And I think I’ve made my point regarding that as well as I could.)

Starting with Cloud Recesses-era Wei Wuxian...I think that, out of all the different versions of Wei Wuxian, he would have been the one of the two most-likely to get together with Lan Wangji (pre-resurrection, of course). Even then, I don’t see that high a likelihood of that actually happening. Why? Repression! Fuck both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were so deeply repressed at that point! Lan Wangji was obviously more aware of his feelings, and Wei Wuxian...I don’t know, I haven’t read the novel far enough to actually have this be a legitimate interpretation, but looking at CQL, I don’t really think Wei Wuxian was in love with Lan Wangji at that point (but I don’t have much evidence to back that up other than my a-spec radar...).

And even if they did somehow manage to overcome their repression - and actually both had feelings for each other in the first place - they were still teenagers! Fifteen at the beginning, I’m pretty sure, and fifteen-year-olds are decidedly bad at maintaining any sort of relationship. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that WangXian was probably legitimately incompatible at that point. Lan Wangji still lived and breathed the rules and Wei Wuxian didn’t give a fuck about them. To maintain any sort of long-term relationship, they’d have to simultaneously undergo a whole novel of character development...which is doable! But! I don’t exactly see it as plausible.

Then, of course, Wei Wuxian got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses and WangXian didn’t see each other until two years later, at the Discussion Conference in Qishan. I don’t really see long-distance relationships working out very well in ancient China, so I can’t imagine them properly maintaining their relationship throughout that. And, of course, Lan Wangji’s rage after Wei Wuxian pulls his forehead ribbon was also due to his repression. Considering how short the Discussion Conference seemed to be, I don’t think there was much room for a relationship to develop. 

At the Indoctrination Camp, Lan Wangji had a whole swarm of things to worry about other than his (frankly painful) pining for Wei Wuxian so, again, I don’t see a romantic relationship developing at that point in time. 

A time-frame that I think can be uniquely isolated as a very possible place to develop their relationship would be while they were trapped in the cave with the Tortoise of Slaughter. Mostly before they killed the beast, though, since afterward, Wei Wuxian had too much of a fever for any romantic shenaniganry. My reasoning is that the cave was the first time since Wei Wuxian’s punishment in the Cloud Recesses that the two of them were forced to spend a long stretch of time together, and thus could potentially open up to each other. I remember in the anime that Lan Wangji sheds a few tears as he mentions that the Cloud Recesses had burned, that his brother was missing, and that his father was...dead? Severely injured? One of those two. He was back in business-mode pretty soon afterward, but if Lan Wangji could have been persuaded to open up a bit more by an persistent and concerned Wei Wuxian, I can see a slow confession being teased out of him - there was certainly enough time!

Then again, them getting together would only happen if Wei Wuxian were both comfortable with the idea of gay men and willing to accept that he was, in fact, attracted to Lan Wangji, and if Lan Wangji were willing to let go of the rules enough to be comfortable with Wei Wuxian’s naturally rebellious nature.

After that, WangXian doesn’t meet again until the supervisory office, and I’ve already talked about all of that.

In conclusion, “Come back to Gusu!” was sweet but misguided and WangXian wouldn’t have effectively happened pre-resurrection.

Now, what does that mean for you? ...Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. This doesn’t mean I’m forsaking all fics where WangXian gets together pre-resurrection (in fact, I absolutely love them!) and I’m definitely not trying to say that my interpretation is the only right one. I’m not trying to police what everyone thinks and decree that all fics where Wei Wuxian is open about liking men are wrong or any crap like that. Those fics are great and I love them! These are my (and @litescheme’s) thoughts on the matter that I (we) wanted to spill out into the greater world! You can agree, you can disagree, you can ignore me (us) entirely! But if you read through this meta, then I’m assuming that you found the concept interesting. That is all I was going for!

(Well, that and trying to thoroughly debunk the notion that Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian getting shoved into seclusion in the Jingshi by an apologetic Lan Wangji would be in any way “healing” or even “good” for Wei Wuxian, because honestly? Fuck that.)

Ahh, thanks for reading!

[shadowdianne]

Ok people. Time has come. Let’s be ominous and extra on main

So the order for me posting all my WIPS at once will probably be.... the order in where I finish doing all the editing. I’m currently in my last prompts. I’ll still answer the ones I recieve by the end of the week if there is anyone feeling like sending me some.

Aside from that ...

A few months ago I posted a really rambling text about me leaving the SQ fandom writer wise after the SuperNova was over. In the way it’s over once we all put the fics where they will, later on, be revealed. The full explanation of why I’m doing this is even more rambly than the one I gave and is full of nuances that I’ve talked about a little bit with a few of you.

However, I want to say something about it either way. Because words are the way I communicate the most with. And that’s something that I guess is obvious about myself in a myriad of different ways; not only with my fics.

As I’ve said a few times before, SwanQueen was not my first fandom. If I need to pin it to the moment when I actively began to search for fandom-related things, of how I first stumbled into fics and what that entailed…

Going really back in time my first fandom experience was with Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura. Yup, that. I was really into anime back in the day and, don’t ask me how, I stumbled into a website that no longer exists that had these pages upon pages on something people called “fics”.

It was around the same time I was building my own sexual identity so you can imagine the mess; I devoured those fics. Most of them were not even good. Most of them had some questionable themes thrown around. Most of them had language on them that I needed a few years until I realized that was hurtful. But some others taught me what “angst” meant, what “hurt/comfort” was, why “fluff” was about or why “smut” at my tender age of 12/13 was something I wasn’t entirely grasping.

Again, I devoured those fics, I searched for more, I found livejournal and ffnet. By the time I started fully diving into fanfiction livejournal was slightly abandoned so at the end I focused entirely on ffnet and from there… Pretty Cure (another anime) Strawberry Panic and the even more dubious Kannazuki no Miko followed. I found some amazing writers I still follow today and whose stuff I will forever adore on MaiHime/MaiOtome and, eventually, Kim Possible. I still didn’t write though. Probably because my English at the time wasn’t the best, my writing voice in Spanish was barely a murmur and while I had always been the “weird kid who likes to write poetry and if you ask her nicely she will write you a story on the spot” I had never truly considered… writing and posting on the internet.

Funny thing is that this kind of things are like that and those who are content creators will probably understand that: You NEED to create. So, eventually, slightly older, and full on the whole Twilight era, I wrote a very… cringey fic. And then another. And another. And another.

At first I didn’t know shit about editing. My actual first review told me I was horrible at writing, that I was a mess, that I should stop. But my second review told me: “Hey, if you do this and that on the editing process it will help you and this will be more readable.” And I followed that comment. I eventually became friends with that second reviewer but, as life tends to be, I lost contact with her years ago. I still hope she is doing ok though.

Eventually, I started working, if working is something that one can say about writing a chapter in 20 minutes and throw it every Wednesday while your mother is at work, not monitoring what you are doing and you have the internet for yourself back when the internet went through the phone, in a multichaptered story. It is in Spanish, it is awful, characterization is horrible… but it also made me meet the person that became a very important person. And still will be for that younger version of me. 

From twilight and the occasional writing on the HP fandom with the Hermione/Ginny pairing [Yeah, I wonder what younger me would think of my current main pairing on that fandom] I “graduated” to Glee. Lots and lots of Glee.

And then I stopped. Completely. Not a peep from me. Not a word, not a line. For over a year.

I was a fan and a shipper, however, of this little show called Once Upon a Time. I started watching in the pilot, in a very shoddy link a friend sent me over gmail. I fell in love with the characters but while I loved them I couldn’t… or wouldn’t really, put myself into writing. At the time my English was slightly better but my confidence levels were even lower than currently are. And the ones who have talked to me can safely say how horrible I am at taking compliments.

Yet, I had a very meaningful conversation, one I don’t know if she remembers still, in where I was told: Writing is you. If you want to write… like you did when we first met, why don’t you do it? I tried with a wip that is still there, buried beneath other stories now, that I never fully took off. And then I said fuck it and wrote several others, badly written, even worse characterized, but ones that helped me say… why not.

Disney World Family Business (in case there’s even someone here who read that mess) comes from there. Interview with the (Evil) Queen does too. Dancing Ring (who I’ve seen people roasting me over it and it’s fine because it was awful) was too. Texts on the cloud was there too, Coffee Black News… Eventually, I wrote a fic I’ve erased since then called The Holiday. Over 2k per chapter every day. I did it under a month.

It was… interesting. It was exhilarating. It was magical in many ways. And I had my favorite writers of course. Those who I followed religiously. Who I absolutely admired. And who I, to this day, still admire. And I even get to call them friends now which my younger self would probably be having a meltdown about now xD

I had opened my tumblr account way before that but I had never truly used it. I didn’t know how. Eventually, though, I dusted it off. I put some cringey theme there and I posted, after being sent a couple of random prompts here and there over ffnet pm’s the first “prompts anyone?” post I ever did.

It’s funny because now I’m a tease but the first time I asked for prompts I did it asking for words that I promised I’d make a smut ficlet out of them.

Words of Desire was born. Is, to this day, the one I feel cheekier about. Even if the writing is awful xd I even got my ffnet account in the line of “am I going to get deleted?” after I posted a story called “Lips”

Why I’m writing all of this you guys probably don’t care about? Because that post led to another. And another. And another.

Point is. I felt drunk on the sudden realization I could still tell stories. And so I kept doing it. At some point I opened my a03 account. Don’t remember exactly when in this story but I was crossposting some of my stuff at some point bother in ffnet and a03 so… who knows really. And then I kept asking for prompts. Or I got them asked. And so I did.

And I met other writers, and other content creators. And I loved it. I absolutely loved watching OUAT and then shit on the show and then create fix it fics at 3am on a Sunday. And I learnt about the narrative process outside class. How fanfiction truly is its own genre. I started developing my own ideas. I started looking at books, at people, at places around me with a critical eye I later on developed further to be able to specialize myself in literature. Because, at the end, that’s what I minored in.

I had roleplayed, I had written conjoined narratives. But fic writing at the scale SwanQueen was during the OUAT was still airing was something else. It still is in a way, but different now. And I think those who were around during the fucking show that basically did us a lot of bad in many ways was a different approach that currently is.

During those years not everything was good of course. I hit several walls, I didn’t have the ability to create the stories I wanted. It is not the reason why I’m leaving, I’ve spoken about the reasons -plural- with some of you. So I won’t bother you all more than I’m already doing.

 I still love these ladies. I still don’t know how I will open a doc and not write their names. Maybe I relapse from time to time, who knows. Yet, the constant feeling of not being enough, of not being good enough, has devoured pretty much all my creative juices.

I was talking a few months ago with a writer I absolutely adore and I can’t tell her this enough and we were talking about writer’s block. And she said something that is devastatingly true. “You don’t have a creative block now. You’ve had it for a long time now.”

And I didn’t even hesitate when I answered “Yes. I know.”

How do you have a block when you keep posting? Well. By choosing safer options, options you know you will do on autopilot, without emotion even if you know you should be feeling it. And while writing is part of who I am and a huge part of my own emotional stability the fact that I simply cried when I saw the numbers and the stats while being bombarded with anons that I deleted most of them the second I got them… well. It’s far too much I guess.

I love SwanQueen. And to those of you who I’ve created a friendship over the years with I’m not leaving tumblr and I’m not walking out on you. I’m remaining here. You guys are going to need to do more than this to get rid of me Xd

But I do need that. Otherwise I will keep picking safer options, options that I know will take me shorter and shorter time for me to write. And that’s not quality. And not what I want to write. Because while I love writing about them the pressure and the fear and the rejection and the many other little details have outweighed the good. 

Regina is a stubborn woman. No matter what fic you guys are reading or writing. I’m a little bit like her in that department Xd

I’ve finished my wips and I gave myself a few months after that first post so I could create closure and, you know, give you all the best I could do. I felt more relaxed at having a date set. I still feel dread at losing my ability to write now that, probably, the number of prompts will be smaller. But I hope I will still get news from you all. And don’t be mistaken. Me not writing doesn’t mean me not reading. I’ll be actually able to read more so expect lots and lots of fic recs on my side and comments on those fics. So hey, everyone wins.

To those anons, those gatekeepers.

I hope you all wake up one day and realize you are alone in the pit you’ve created for yourselves.

To fellow content creators: There’s always this game I play, on trying to find those headcanons that are truly yours, the ones that repeat themselves on every fic. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a headcanon per se. It can be a word, a special mannerism. I treasure those. I often link you to those in my mind when I’m thinking about you all. Thanks for creating. And thanks for being you.

To everyone really: It has been a few amazing years. Thank you all.

VIVA LA SWAN QUEEN

-Dianne out.

[madcapmoon]

Guy Picciotto - 2003 interview

by Mark Prindle

Guy Picciotto is one of the central songwriters/guitarists/singers in what might be the most consistently great rock group in the world.

Phish.

No, come on now! I'm simply telling a funny joke to you! Guy is actually in Fugazi. He previously served as vice-president of vocals and guitar for Happy Go Licky, where he helped increase gross revenue by 20% over two quarters. Before joining Happy Go Licky, Guy worked with musical startup One Last Wish, where his accomplishments included the establishment of a North American headquarters and significant exposure building in the channel. Guy also spent three years with Rites of Spring (NYSE: ROS), where he was credited with the invention of the now-ubiquitous "emo" subgenre. Guy's duties with Fugazi include writing songs, singing them and playing guitar while singing them.

Guy agreed to a telephone interview because he's a supernice guy who doesn't let the fact that his band IS THE BEST FUCKIN BAND IN THE WORLD(!!!!!!) go to his head. He's "down-to-earth"! He also speaks incredibly quickly, which made real-time typing a real pain in the ass, especially when three-quarters of the way through, two fingers on my left hand came loose and flew across the room, leaving "W," "E," "S," "D," "X" and "C" in dire straits. Luckily, Guy didn't use a single one of those letters in the last ten minutes of the interview. Except "sex," which he said 179 times. Unfortunately, I was unable to type those parts, but I assure you - things were getting pretty hot and heavy there for a while! Ooo la la!

My questions are in bold - Guy's answers are in plain text.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello?

Guy?

Yes?

Hi! This is Mark Prindle, the interviewer guy.

Hey! How's it going?

Fine! Do you have time now?

Sure!

Okay so, whether you like it or not, you're basically considered to be the creator of "emo." And I was just wondering - why have you always thrown yourself so emotionally into your music?

Well, first of all, I don't recognize that attribution. I've never recognized "emo" as a genre of music. I always thought it was the most retarded term ever. I know there is this generic commonplace that every band that gets labeled with that term hates it. They feel scandalized by it. But honestly, I just thought that all the bands I played in were punk rock bands. The reason I think it's so stupid is that - what, like the Bad Brains weren't emotional? What - they were robots or something? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

But anyway, when I was young, I was always over the top because I was so fucked up. Not "fucked up" as in "wasted" but more mentally "fucked up". And I was really jacked up. So it came out of that. I mean, before I was in Rites of Spring, I was in a band called Insurrection with Brendan, the Fugazi drummer who I've played with in every band I've been in.. And our music was like Motorhead and Discharge and Venom - shit like that. That was what the band sounded like. And we weren't very good! But nobody was calling THAT "emo." Then when we started Rites of Spring, I guess we got more serious about what we were trying to do. But I didn't actually sing in Insurrection. In Rites of Spring, I decided to sing and that's what came out. Because when I was young, I was nuts.

Like that scene in the "Instrument" movie where you push your legs up through a basketball hoop and sing upside down while dangling from the rim by your legs!

Yeah, that era of Fugazi was weird because I joined the band in a staggered way. I joined after the band had already been playing together and writing songs for a few months. I'd always been a guitar player - I was in five bands before Fugazi and I played guitar in all of them - but I didn't see room for another guitar in Fugazi with the way the songs were. So my concept was I'd be like Flavor Flav or something; a guy who sang occasionally and played a different role, offsetting things. When we started playing shows, I was so used to having a guitar, I had to struggle to find a way to occupy myself. It's funny - that show with the basketball hoop was NOT a big show. The way it's filmed makes it look pretty crazy, but there were probably 20 people at that gig. It was in Philadelphia in a gymnasium or something. It was one of our first ten shows, and we were playing really fuckin hard. In the movie, we cut off the film before you see that I fell.

You FELL?

Yeah, I fell into the drumset. Fucked myself up pretty bad.

Good lord! So. do the songs you - when you're playing a live show and you get to one of the early songs that only had one guitar, do you put your guitar down? Or have you written parts?

We don't use a set list, but basically before we go on tour we learn every song we've ever written except a few things we can't stand. So we call stuff out to each other, and it can be any of like a hundred songs, so when someone wants to play the old stuff, I'll put my guitar down. On a few of `em we've added a second guitar. Like for "Merchandise," we added a guitar idea for me. "KYEO" is another one; we reworked that for two guitars. "Furniture" is one of the oldest songs the band ever wrote, but when we decided to redo it, we put it together with a second guitar. But for most of the other early ones, when we do them, I put the guitar down and get the chance to stretch my legs.

You said there are some songs that you're sick of?

Only two or three. And there's one we can't figure out how to play. We just never added it to our live show. That's "Polish" from Steady Diet of Nothing. And there are a few others here and there that have drifted away.

Every Fugazi fan I know feels the same way I do - that every album you put out is even smarter and more interesting than the previous one, which was already really smart and interesting. Does this sort of audience expectation ever scare you at all? Like, are you ever afraid that you won't be able to live up to your own expectations of yourself, or that you might get writers' block or anything like that?

We've certainly had that. That's why it takes us so long between albums. We are really slow. That's one of the weird things about the band; all four of us have really extreme filters. Nothing will get past us if it stinks. It's happened a few times, but we're really hard on ourselves and on each other. For each song that ends up on a record, there are so many permutations and arrangements that have been discarded. But we have a high standard. And if it ever got to the point where it just wasn't working anymore, I think we'd have to put it to bed. But what's helped is that with every stage of the band, it's gotten MORE democratic instead of less. In the beginning, Ian had written a bunch of songs so that's what was on the first record. After that, more people became involved in the writing process. First I started writing some, and then Joe sang a few of his, and now we all write and we've even added a second drummer. One thing that nobody realizes is that our drummer writes tons of the guitar parts and bass lines. He's as involved in the songwriting as everyone else. Outside of the lyrics, I mean.

I noticed that there's only a few bands on Dischord right now. Is there still any kind of hardcore or punk scene in DC?

Yeah, but I mean it's very different from what it was in 1980, when it really was contained enough to where you knew everybody and all the bands. In terms of music, the city has grown so much stylistically over the years. There are so many types of music going on. Even on Dischord, the bands have aesthetically splintered off in so many directions. So the scene isn't unified in a sonic sense, but there are still people who've lived here for fucking ever who still hang out and go to shows.

I know that Fugazi is very much into DIY and avoid the major labels, but do you - are you against other bands that do that? Like Nirvana - would you say they "sold out"? Or do you not really care too much what other bands do?

We take care of our own business. I know a lot of bands that have made completely different decisions, friends of mine too. But I'm not into other peoples' business like that, and the way they decide to run things doesn't impact my enjoyment of what they create. But for us, we're serious control freaks. I think part of the reason we've been together so long is that we work in isolation and we have the freedom to do what we want. A lot of bands I respect decide to do it a different way and the pressures put on them by the music business just fuck them up. It's an object lesson. I'm into people being inspired by the way we work, because it works. But it's not a template I think everyone absolutely has to follow. But that's me - I personally don't feel judgmental about what other people do.

Wait, you're not typing all of this, are you?

I'm a fast typer! Don't worry about me!

Oh, I'm sorry!

I tried to record through the phone a couple of times but my phone is too quiet, so. I type fast though. Of course, you talk fast too.

Yeah, I need to slow down.

Nah don't worry about it. I know I'm taking it out of context here, but what did you mean by that old lyric, "I realize that I hate the sound of guitars"?

That's funny you mention that on the heels of your last question. That song was written at that moment when all the shit was exploding for underground music. This gushing of guitar bands, marketing of guitar bands, was so obnoxious to me, that at a certain point, I just realized, "Man, I'm fuckin tired of hearing about this! It's just so pat." In a way, it's kinda perverse. I mean, you can't get much more guitar-oriented a band than Fugazi, but there I was saying I hated the sound of guitars. But it was a realization that sound has no politics - guitars have no politics and just because the guitar is distorted doesn't really mean anything. It was just an industry selling point for a little while till the next oddity strolled down the runway.

Do you still get kids coming up to you thinking that you're all straight edge and purist and everything?

There's a lot of misconception about the band. And that's what happens when you don't do a lot of press; not that I have a single regret about our avoidance of the traditional PR machine, quite the opposite, but mythologies do develop in the vacuum and spin out of control. Sometimes it's really strange - you'll meet people and you realize that they're intimidated. Like they think you're gonna knock the cigarette out of their hand. And it's such a complete distortion of reality. But it's hard to explain what we're all about and give people a full history lesson of what's gone on with us. The film helped. I think that made people feel like, "Alright, they're human beings." It gave the world some perspective, which we needed to do, because we're not on TV every day or in a million magazines.

Like in the movie where one of the band members says his sister started dating some guy who thought Fugazi all lived in a cabin with no heat?

Yeah, like that! There's still this thing where people think we live this monastic existence, and it's not true at all.

Are there any new bands you're into?

Yeah, I hear new shit I like all the time. There are some great new bands from around here like Et At It, Antelope and Measles Mumps Rubella - who all have records coming out soon. And there are bands that have been around for a long time that we have an affinity with. Like Shellac from Chicago, and The Ex from Holland who I think have been around since like `78 and they're still playing music that's as radical as they've ever been. And I like Blonde Redhead from New York. Locally, there's this kid named Mick Barr, a guitar player who's played with a lot of different projects called things like Orthrelm, Octis, Crom Tech. He's this incredible, psychotic guitar player. It almost doesn't sound like a human being could make those sounds with a guitar.

Do those bands have records out?

Orthrelm and Crom Tech do. Actually, our bass player put one of their records out on his Tolotta label and I put one out on my Peterbilt label.

What else have you put out on Peterbilt?

It's kind of a weird label. I was doing it even before Fugazi started, when I was in a band called Happy Go Licky. I put out a live EP by that band. (NOTE: AT THIS POINT, MY APARTMENT BUZZER BUZZED AND MY DOG BEGAN BARKING VERY LOUDLY, HOPING IT WAS MOMMY COMING HOME FROM HUNTING. AS SUCH, I MISSED A SENTENCE OR TWO HERE)Sometimes I put out some old archival tapes like this great band Brendan was in called Deadline.

Oh, they were on, uh.

Flex Your Head, yeah. This stuff beats any of their stuff on Flex Your Head. That was the floor I came in on - Deadline was the band I was really down with.

Can you hold on a second? Someone keeps buzzing my buzzer.

Sure.

(pause)

Sorry about that. It was a delivery guy delivering food I didn't order. (NOTE: TURNS OUT IT WAS MY WIFE'S DINNER - SHE ORDERED IT WHILE ON THE BUS COMING HOME, AND HAD TRIED TO CALL ME TO LET ME KNOW, BUT OF COURSE I WAS TYING UP THE PHONE LINE WITH GUY PICCIOTTO OF FUGAZI FAME, SO HER DINNER GOT RETURNED TO SENDER, ADDRESS UNKNOWN).

So have you put the Deadline record out yet?

Huh? Oh yeah! It came out a long time ago. It's actually out of print now. I'm thinking about reissuing it though. I can send you a list of stuff I've put out. I usually do 1000 copies of each pressing, and they come in these manila envelopes that I handcut. It's actually a fuckin pain in the ass, but they look cool!

I know you play a lot of benefits for various causes. Is there ever a situation where one member of the band doesn't want to do a particular show because of his ethical or political beliefs being different than the other members, or anything like that?

The stuff we do benefits for isn't terribly controversial. It's usually local grassroots organizations that we've been in contact with for a while. Like the DC Free Clinic, I mean we're all down with stuff like that. There have never been any arguments.

Since you're a resident of Washington DC, I'd love to hear your thoughts about George W. Bush and his War on Terror.

It's crazy, man. I wake up every day thinking it's a nightmare that has to end. It's an incredibly bizarre time. I'm very perplexed. I've always felt like there's been a disconnect between the voters and the people who run the country, but lately the gulf is getting so extreme, it's like they have complete contempt for ordinary people. What we're witnessing is explicitly true class warfare from the top down. This war is absolutely insane. So are all the weird civil rights cutbacks that have been going on. You look at our government and all the way down, on every single level, something's wrong. But hopefully something good will come out of it; maybe, it'll re-energize people so they'll get involved and active in political protest.

Yeah, but what good does that do? Millions of people protested the war and he announced - ANNOUNCED - that it would have no influence on his decision.

Yeah, he had some incredible quote. Like "I don't rule by focus groups." It's seriously like he's saying, "Protesting is fine, but it's not going to have any impact. Go over there and blow off some steam if you want to, while we just run the whole world."

So what can we do about it?

If I had the fucking answer, he'd be out of there. I mean I don't have any blueprint of ,like we need to do this and this and this and it's all going to change. But feeling hopeless is easy to fall into, particularly, obviously now and I think that is a luxury we really can't afford ..... There can't be this sense that there is only one conversation going on in the world and that it is subsidized by money and power - there has to be some counter to that or otherwise we are just confirming their hustle that there is this uniformity of consensus in this country which is complete bullshit. Also, I think there are always more cracks in the system then even it recognizes. You just have to really lean on them a bit to start exposing them. Back in the 80's we would be out in front of the South African Embassy pouring red paint on the street and beating on pots and pans. Sometimes, I would have this feeling like it was just this stupid, idealistic pissing in the ocean but the thing is apartheid and white rule actually ended and Nelson Mandela, who no doubt spent major time on some State Department terrorist list, got out of prison and became president of the country! I'm not saying our midget protests in DC brought it about in any specific way, but globally speaking a lot of human weight was brought to bear and a lot of people in South Africa sacrificed themselves to make it happen and it did happen. So I mean no one knows what will come down as history unfolds so in the meantime you just have to keep adding human weight on the side of things that you think are right. And obviously, there is plenty that is not right right now.

Back to the very beginning - when Fugazi first started, was there a lot of resistance from hardcore fans who just wanted to hear fast punk rock?

The first few years of the band were confrontational on every level. It was a really weird era because you had a lot of people who - there was this weird kind of fallout where hardcore had gotten so twisted by the time it disseminated around the country, it had become just stupid and violent and it was kind of a drag. It was like going into combat, all the craziness we had to deal with back then. Like nights where you would have all these insane "Nazi" skinheads trying to smash in the front of the club. You know, all this violence over a show. It was a lot of work to go out every night to make the case for something new. In the end, it paid off, but at the time sometimes it felt like missionary work.

What is the band doing now?

We're actually kind of shutting things down for a while, because our drummer has a third child coming in April and he needs to deal with family stuff. So we're putting the band to sleep for a while. We got back from a tour of England and that was kinda the last thing we had on our roster so we did that. We had actually worked on a bunch of new music too, and made a bunch of tapes, but I'm not sure when we'll get back to that stuff. We were working pretty hard up through December, and then we had a band meeting and he let us know that he needed some time off.

What are you doing while the band is on hold?

I'm producing the next Blonde Redhead album.

Oh, you're producing?

Yeah, I worked with them on their last two records too. That'll take me through next month. Plus, the thing about our band is that even without a tour or new record, the bureaucracy of running the group always exists. And we're self-managed so most of the work kinda falls on Ian and myself. So I'll be busy just running day to day stuff and waiting on the next turn in the road.

How have you managed to stay together for fifteen years, seeing each other every day, riding in the same vans, having to deal with each other for that long without starting to hate each other? Like The Ramones absolutely despised each other by the end there!

Well, we really go back, the four of us. I've known Brendan since I was 14 or 15. I'm 38 now, so we've been playing together for 23 years. And I've known Ian the same amount of time and Joe just a little less. So we have a lot of shared history and similar frustrations. We'd all been in a lot of groups before Fugazi that had broken up. I was in five bands that I felt never reached their potential. So, I was only 22 when I joined Fugazi but still I was frustrated to an insane degree. We were all looking for a complete outlet of what a band could be.

Plus we went through all the weird bullshit right at the beginning. The first couple years, we did endless touring, like six or seven months of touring a year, and having made it through that.. It was ridiculous, it was like joining the army to go out there and do that much work in that span of time. I had been in five bands that had never toured at all. Then to join Fugazi and immediately go on a three-month tour of Europe..

Is that why Fugazi got so popular so quickly? Because you were always touring?

I don't know. Maybe that had the most to do with it. But it was an ethic that had existed since the early 80s - not just to play the big towns, but to play EVERY town. We really worked hard and took it really seriously. Our records - I've always felt like we could make a better record, but from the beginning the shows were about playing as hard as we could and making the audience FEEL something. It's weird though because the popularity thing probably peaked in '91 but we've had a really steady kind of audience for a long time. We've been around for sixteen years, and I guess there are a lot of people who are just really down with the band.

Speaking for myself, I became a fan when Repeater came out. At that point, I was in high school and I'm not sure I really would have been into something like Red Medicine or End Hits at that time. So for me, it was like I grew up and learned more and wanted to hear more challenging music, and it's almost like my interests were parallel to your own because, like I said, every album is even smarter and more interesting than the one before it. So maybe it was like that for a lot of people, they just grew up with the band.

I don't know though. Like there's that scene in the movie where the kids are ragging on Red Medicine; they were totally bummed out by it. I think of it kind of the way I think about the Beatles. In 1964, they looked a certain way and sounded a certain way, but within two years, EVERYTHING about them was different. Sonically, their clothes, they way they looked - And I imagine that a lot of people at the time didn't know what the fuck was going on. But they were just responding to the changes of being alive. That's how bands work. If you're not genre-defined, and you're reacting to reality, then the music is going to change as your life changes.

Plus, I imagine that after playing the same songs over and over on tour, if somebody comes up with a new song that sounds like the stuff you've already done, you're probably like, "Uggh! No! Do something different!"

Yeah, we always want to do something new. But certain things are built into the sound. We can push against it, but - the craziest thing about our band is that we're all pretty limited as to our actual skills. Except our drummer, who can play any instrument. We're working as hard as we can, but we're not virtuosos. We just have a discipline to push ourselves as hard as we can.

It's like what a friend of mine said - "Every Fugazi album sounds different, but they all sound like Fugazi." It's like you're not afraid to completely change your sound and make it jazzier or slower or weirder, but somehow it always has this Fugazi feel to it.

Well, we've been kinda learning how to make records. We tried to produce ourselves the whole time but for a long time we didn't know what were doing. It wasn't until around Red Medicine that we finally felt comfortable with what we were doing. We were so used to playing together as a live band but in the studio nobody took the reins. But we eventually figured it out. The idea was to - our first few records had a stiffness about them that bothered us. Over time, it became easier to feel spontaneous. The weird thing with records is that you only get to make a few. Playing live, you fuck up one night and its bad but so what? It evaporates. But if you make a bad record, it haunts you for the rest of your life.

Are you happy with all of your records?

(NOTE: AT THIS POINT, MY DOG HEARD A NOISE OUT IN THE HALL AND BEGAN BARKING REALLY LOUDLY, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. SO I MISSED MOST OF HIS ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION). I don't know, I never really listen to them. I actually went back and listened to our first CD recently and it was like JESUS! I couldn't believe it was recorded in a basement!

Have I taken up enough of your time?

Dude, is that your dog?

Yeah.

Wow!

He's upset because my wife isn't home, and he keeps hearing noises out in the hall that he thinks are her. It's okay though - we live on the fifth floor which is the top floor, so we don't hear noises all that often.

What kind of dog is it?

A German Shepherd mixed with a Greyhound.

Oh cool!

Do you have a dog?

Nah, I have a cat.

What kind of cat?

A fat as hell cat!

Nice! Okay, here's my last question. The whole thing about breaking up. I know a lot of people thought you were going to break up when you called your album End Hits. But for me, it was a lot earlier, when I bought Steady Diet Of Nothing on vinyl and saw where you'd scratched "Don't worry; this is the last one" in the inner groove. What was that all about?

It's almost like a joke. Like that was just some - I forgot the exact reason - we were so toasted and feeling so fatalistic by the time we finished that album. It was just like dark humor - "This piece of shit's the last one." But we didn't mean for End Hits to sound like we were breaking up. There's other stuff too. People always come up to us and say, "Hey, I hear this is gonna be your last tour!"

Why?

I don't know! I guess people expect DC bands to break up really quickly so they keep waiting for us to have some kind of fall out. It's been tough - the last few years especially as people have gotten older and had kids. But we kinda work in the moment and set up parameters to work around. It's not gonna last forever, and at some point we know it will fold. But I'll tell you, there have been so many times when I've thought, "Okay, this is probably gonna be it," then another ten years go by. So we just keep on rolling and see what happens.

Cool! Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

No problem! Thank you!

Okay, have a good evening.

You too!

Reader Comments

shoushou22@madrid.com (Karla)

Thanks for the awesome interview. Fugazi's my favorite band, and I'm always interested in what the members have to say. I was especially glad to hear Guy's opinion on Bush's reactions to war protests. Otherwise, it's a little saddening to see that Fugazi will be pretty inactive for awhile, but c'est la vie. In the meantime, I've got to remember to check out some of those Peterbilt releases!

By the way, you've got to be one hell of a fast typer.

jputh@wf82.com (Jonathan C. Puth)

Hey, that's a great interview with Guy Picciotto. Thanks for doing it and putting it up. I enjoyed it.

drazy@gatecity.com

Good interview! I was blown away at the Rites Of Spring album, Guy's work with Fugazi, and even liked the last Blonde Redhead album he twiddled the knobs on. That makes me a longtime fan, I guess... One thing that I wouldn't want to discuss with Guy is his take on politics. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember Guy contributing a lot of his efforts to the Nadar campaign in 2000, under the pretence that the Corvair hating "outsider" would really make a difference. And what a difference he did make! Thanks to Guy's efforts, and thousands of other political "progressives," they directly contributed in G.W.B.'s election victory. "I'm very perplexed." states Picciotto about our current political climate, but I'm perplexed at why he is. This is exactly what real progressives feared would happen if Bush 2.0 got elected: aggression, environmental dismantling, right-wing judicial nominations, chipping away at a woman's right to choose, cutting funding for our country's public schools and numerous examples of giving hand-jobs to extremist Christian lobbyist. I'm perplexed why an intelligent person such as Guy would swoon under the rhetoric of an "outsider" like Nadar who viewed himself as a spoiler, even when he clearly understood that his campaign would give a free boarding pass for a candidate that stood polar opposite of Nadar's supposed convictions. Ralph Nadar clearly demonstrated that his campaign was not about the issues that he "believed," but instead it was all about his own ego and the fact that he, with less that 5% of the public vote, was the spoiler of the 2000 election. Disagree? Take a look at Nadar's comments to his supporters during his "concession" speech.

"This war is absolutely insane. So are all the weird civil rights cutbacks that have been going on." No shit?! For someone who lives in D.C., Guy acts like he was the last one in town to ever figure out that Ashcroft would get the nod as Attorney General when anyone with an iota of common sense understood that Bush had a special position for Ashcroft if he failed to beat a dead man from Missouri.

Guy adds: "hopefully something good will come out of it; maybe, it'll re-energize people so they'll get involved and active in political protest." Sounds like something strait out of the Green Party campaign book: let's let the worst candidate get elected and that will somehow light a fire under the idea that a third party candidate can actually get elected tomorrow. Here's a better idea: if you're not digging what the Democratic Party (or Republican for that matter) is doing, then galvanize a group of people at the local level to push your beliefs upward and change the ideology of the party itself? For fucks sake, the Democrats are so disorganized now I think Dischord's roster could easily manage a complete overhaul of their local political party headquarters. The Christian Coalition didn't just suddenly find their voice in the Republican party; instead they got their twisted members to form a grassroots network and pushed their values up and got their ideology elected. Ronald Reagan, who rarely attended church, noticed their political clout and then started to position his rhetoric accordingly.

And while it would be easy to suggest that Jeb handed his Bro Florida, the reality is that if 5,000 Floridian Green Party voters actually used their head instead of their hearts when casting their ballots, we wouldn't even be living in an environment of "complete contempt." I know this because I voted with my heart too: In '96 I voted for Nadar under the notion that my protest vote would signal that I didn't like the shades of grey our two party system was demonstrating. With that in mind, I understood that 1.) Clinton would landslide anyway and 2.) there wasn't a slight chance of some right-wind retard nominating a Supreme Court justice (which, Ralph, has more power than any corporate contribution). "I wake up every day thinking it's a nightmare that has to end." The problem is, Guy helped create the bad dreams of our current political state. He said it best in that old Rites of Spring song: "And if decisions cause divisions tell me who's to blame?"

Other than that, Guy, you fucking rock...

bfixico@vaecorp.com (Neb Fixico)

Bravo. I found your site by accident. I'm glad I did. Wonderful interview. I am now a new fan of this site. Gotta go...more to read.

jsimon@san.rr.com (John Simon)

Thanks for the interview. Fugazi has been my favorite band since 1989 and I sure hope that the songs they have been working on make it onto an album. Funny thing about "Polish"... I love that song, but I guess I'll stop hoping that they will play it when I see them.

Also, I am a conservative (as in Republican) Fugazi fan. A contradiction in terms?... It shouldn't be. One thing that I don't understand is why all of Fugazi's fans (as well as music fans in general) think that just because Guy or whatever star may be a flaming liberal, that it is cool for them to be one too. Wouldn't they all be more rebellious and independant anyway if you guys went against the grain of your crowd? Can't you all see that Bush has waged a war on terror to enable us to live in and raise our children (including Brendan's unborn child) in a safer, more peaceful world? Don't you think that human and civil rights should apply to all of the families in Iraq that, under the evil rule of Sadam for decades, have been denied such rights and the freedoms that we enjoy?

Of course it is a shame that people have to die for peace and freedom, but these things are worth fighting for! This does not mean that I am pro-war. Only an idiot would be pro-war, but only an idiot would fail to recognize that war is sometimes necessary to rid the world of greater evils (nazis, fascists, communists, terrorists) that threaten the existence of innocent people. I am so thankful that we have a leader who is strong enough to do what is right, rather than swaying with the breeze. We just have to look beyond today and take in the big picture.

Guy's political comments make me sick, but their music isn't about the political issues of the day... at least not to me. I think that anyone who looks to uneducated musicians or actors to be their political voice is looking in the wrong place. What is really important is that Fugazi is truly a great band.

FYI - While waiting for new music from them, I have been listening to At the Drive-In a lot lately. They were independent for several albums and then put out there last one on a major label. All of their stuff is really good and you will hear Fugazi's influence.

Thanks again.

PS - Drazy, does the gatecity address for your e-mail indicate that you are from SF? If so, no reply is needed. That explains everything.

tapiad@seattleu.edu (Daniel Tapia)

Great interview, Mark! I like Fugazi but I'm not sure if I'd call myself a fan, but why I'm writing mostly is to address the previous comment, by one John Simon, relative to the matter concerning Guy's political views, as well as political comments in general. First off, I can't tell if this guy is kidding or not with his admiration for the Bush administration; supporters of Bush are kind of like myths I hear about sometimes but very rarely ever hear words from. Whatever the case, I can't let certain words go without a response, so here's my two cents, even though most people that read this will probably agree anyway, being that Mark's writing style isn't *ahem* very conservative--which is great though!

Being conversative I guess isn't bad in and of itself, and I don't like to classify myself as a liberal or whatever, I'm just a guy that feels awful a good deal of the time to know the world is going to shit and we have people like John Simon backing a mad, war-monger cowboy. And you might say, "well, that's just your opinion too", but come on, we all know it's the truth.

Like honestly, why do you back Bush? Why back any politician? Do you realize that like a very small percentage of people run this country--the most powerful nation in the world--and without even commenting on how a great deal of them are not very bright (and they aren't) do you realize, anthropologically and sociologically speaking, centralizing a wealth of power to a main core and trying to diffuse it out DOESN'T FUCKING WORK? There's a reason every city-state civilization has never lasted a substantial amount of time--cause the dynamics of power don't work that way, and they sure don't work well by focusing power and influence among a bunch of ignorant rednecks. I'm so sick of all this fucking bullshit.

Freedom? We're doing this for freedom? What does that word even mean anymore? We live in such a postmodern age and no one wants to admit it! Think about how bizarre life and all the world is right now! It's cheesy to say, but we've come so far with technology and so many advances but look at how ludicrous things are--we go bomb the shit out of another country to find weapons that aren't there--we do it against the law basically all in the name of "freedom"? Bullshit. I hate these people that still have an idealized version of that word and of America; I could maybe see it back in the 1940s and 50s but the dream is dead--after this war; after 9/11 there's no going back and anyone to deny that is a moron. It's like, fuck, how do you think we're such a rich country? Could you say: exploitation of other countries? This is all simple logic. We've basically become an imperial monster and nobody is doing anything about it! Well, certainly many are, but the core media is too busy giving blowjobs all day to the government to address the truth. This is an age where you HAVE to go to the alternative media to find the real truth because everything else is made nice and friendly and turned into a good guy/bad guy scenario (kind of like how St. Paul fucked up the story of Jesus and made it, as well as the bible, nice and user friendly). Fuck, there NEVER were any GOOD guys and BAD guys--and ESPECIALLY in this day and age we just can't think about it anymore. Everything is so postmodern! Look at the shitty media, our shitty television shows with "reality tv"--at least a decade ago we at least TRIED to have shows with plots--now it's all about voyeurism and things are so filled with irony and postmodern elements but no--we still have jackasses actually thinking the word "freedom" still means something; that there IS still meaning when there's NONE.

Going off and killing innocent people and a few "terrorists" while we're at it won't stop ANYTHING and if you watch the mainstream news and all that stuff, yeah, I'm sure you'd love Bush because all those networks are busy sucking his cock. None of those tools during all of this "war" had the balls to say how fucking ludicrous this all was. We use these words of "peace" and "freedom" but no one knows that they even mean anymore. How free are we? How free are we when like 5 I think major corporations dictate the dynamics of power; how free when a small percentage of people are making decisions for all of us; how free when we have a sanitized media making everything seem okay and nice and fun and going on watching stupid fucking shows and stupid fucking hollywood movies that still idealize conceptions that have been dead for YEARS--the dream is dead and has been dead and I'm so fucking sick of all this bullshit. The world is going to shit and no one is doing anything about it. In my lifetime I'm going to see serious shit go down in our country with the way things have been going and it's scary. We can't go on like this; it just won't work and hasn't been working and I don't know how the collapse is gonna happen, but I know historically, sociologically, anthropologically speaking, IT WILL HAPPEN (that really scares me!)--and Rome wasn't built in a day and it wasn't destroyed in a day either, but we will be destroyed eventually because of our own petty ignorance and I can't stand anyone fucking dumb enough to talk about "fighting terrorism" or the "bad guys" or "freedom"--we live in a postmodern age and it's stupid to deny that anymore, so anyone believing the dream--that has been dead for years--and being really content getting fed spoonfuls of bullshit from the media and our moronic "leaders" can go fuck themself.

And by the way, it's not protection of the innocent, but protection of the ignorant that's the truth of the matter. Innocent--us? Try more like corrupted fat ignorant pigs. Before commenting on musicians who you call uneducated to be discussing political matters I suggest listening to something other than NBC news and backing a supposed leader who is dreadfully dumb, not to mention probably sociopathic given the hard-on he seems to have when he talks about war. And by the way, like I said, I ain't no liberal; I like to think of myself as having common sense. Anyway, great interview and thanks for letting me have these words.

l.shabazz@comcast.net (lillie shabazz)

I'm just learning about Fugazi, loving them though. Mark, that was an awesome interview, I was excited to learn a little more Fugazi history.

I also want to add that when 9/11 hit, this country had a golden opportunity to make a leap in consciousness---instead it decided to go to war.

Also, from what I can see (and I hope it's true) this government is totally out of sync with its people. But hey, that's nothing new.

I also wanted to tell Tapiad right on. Thank's again Mark for hipping me to a little more Fugazi.

Peace :)

indsever@gmail.com

I just wanna kill your dog, and thank you and Guy for the interview!

fishpaste35@hotmail.com (Berny M.)

Great interview there with Guy P, Mark. The world truly needs a new Fugazi record. It'll not make the world safer to live in, but our ears and brains will thank us for getting a new Fugazi CD. Daniel, I'm with you. Lillie, the world indeed needed that leap in consciousness - seems that humans have stopped evolving. We're now going back to the reptiles. I will never be made to understand how ANY nation can bomb their way to peace.

[emeraldnebula]

Thoughts on the comic book industry, Part 4

Having talked about how the comic book industry is still clinging to creative and marketing tactics that are at least 2½ decades out of date, there's really only one other place to go with this line of rambling. And in the age of social media, it's the most self-evident of all.

Not only is the comics industry stuck decades in the past, but it's hopelessly out of touch with reality, both creatively and politically.

It goes beyond being unwilling to look outside the box from a business standpoint. That's bad enough on its own, but it's a by-product of the creative side of the equation. Creatively, the major publishers are not only stubbornly devoted to outdated and stagnant methods from decades past, but they're stubbornly devoted to their own pet ideas at the exclusion of all else. It doesn't matter how unpopular their ideas are even from the beginning, it doesn't matter how poorly their pet directions sell, it doesn't matter how much the vast majority of fans object to those bad ideas. It's what the company wants, therefore it's inherently good and to hell with anything else. If the audience makes it clear they don't like the company's pet ideas, that's just all the more reason for the major publishers to cram it down the readers' throats. If the readers don't like where the major publishers are going with their products, the publishers aren't above bullying, insulting, and pressuring readers into caving in and supporting them regardless.

Now keep in mind, I'm not talking about the kind of fans who scream bloody murder over an old costume design being updated sans trunks, or who throw screaming hissy fits over creatively stale and burned out creative teams being replaced with fresh blood. I'm not talking about the kind of fans who cry havoc and protest when a franchise needs to be rebooted, or just needs some freshening up. Those are the kind of fans DC and Marvel actually WANTS, and largely caters to. I'm talking about DC and Marvel actively alienating, insulting, and belittling the vast majority of what once was/should be their readership – the fans who truly love the characters and object when the major publishers actively crap all over their characters, betray everything the characters stand for, pull event-gimmicks and stunts that are just purely hateful and serve no real creative purpose, and actively reject and disregard legitimate criticism. Little by little, DC and Marvel have whittled their readerships down to the tiny, selfish minority whose tastes mirror that of the companies. And in no small part has it contributed to the downfall of the industry.

This isn't a new thing by any means. Even as far back as the Iron Age, DC and Marvel were dismissive of anybody who objected to their pet directions. Batman fans for years had objected in the letter columns to Catwoman being retconned by Frank Miller as a hooker, as well as to Batman's increasing devolution from a heroic man of honor to a paranoid, hostile asshole. DC repeatedly disregarded those concerns, insisting that Miller's conception of the characters was canon and would not be changed. (And once Miller's go-to editor Bob Schreck took over as Bat-editor and brought Miller back to DC, everything Batman fans had been objecting to got ramped up a thousandfold.) The Superman books were levied with complaints about Lois Lane's abusive behavior toward Superman before and during their Iron Age marriage, as well as nonstop objections to Lois' '90s-era loverboy Jeb Friedman. DC blew off those complaints as sexist backlash to a "strong woman," even though comic book creators had similar complaints about the direction of the books. Even before "One More Day/Brand New Day" used a satanic pact to end Spider-Man's marriage to Mary Jane Watson, the '90s-era Clone Saga was conceived primarily to force Spider-Man back into bachelorhood, even if it meant claiming the Spidey people knew for years was a clone and the real deal was AWOL. The Green Lantern books respoded to fan concerns about the Parallax-possessed Hal Jordan being reduced to a one-note crazy bad guy...by doing just that and asking fans if they were pleased with the results. And so on.

Jump forward to the 2000s, and what do we have? Stephanie Brown/Spoiler seemingly tortured to death in the Batman books for no real reason, and the writer responsible, Bill Willingham, bragging about how much he alienated the fandom and how "golden" it is to turn your fandom against you. Marvel editor Tom Brevoort claiming on message forums that angering and alienating your readership translates to better sales, because a happy fandom makes your sales too "soft." (Never mind how blatantly untrue that is, especially since the '90s comic boom ended.) The aforementioned "One More Day/Brand New Day," where Joe Quesada and Dan Slott not only went out of their way to insult, bully, and disregard anyone who dared disagree with their vision, but also opened one of the "Brand New Day" issues with a character ordering the readers to "just shut the fuck up and give me your money!" Cry for Justice/Rise of Arsenal, where backlash to the ruination of Green Arrow and Black Canary's relationship was met with a sales pitch for a new Gail Simone Birds of Prey book and where complaints over the needless deaths in the story were dismissed with excuses that DC could have killed off even more Green Arrow characters. The current situation with Marvel's SJW-leaning comics, where anyone who voices objections to bad far-left propaganda and blatant mouthpiece characters is hit with every politically charged insult in the book. Or DC's "Rebirth," where anyone who voices disagreement with DC's current direction dismissed for being "fake fans" or being mocked for calling out how nonsensical and malicious the company's pet ideas are.

Do you see where this is going? Where it's been going for the last couple decades? Over and over again, the major publishers have made a point of ignoring legitimate criticism and feedback, disrespecting a readership they badly need, and insisting on pursuing what they personally want no matter how much it fails ansd how much it drives readers away. The idea that what they're doing is wrong, or at the very least misguided, is utterly foreign to them. If sales are plunging, they don't take it as a sign that they're screwing up or that what they're doing no longer works. They take it as a sign that they're shedding undesirables and that what's remaining are the true believers. They'd rather have total control and a shrinking minority of ass-kissers whose tastes mirror their own than to make the effort to appeal to a broad audience. And for what? Deservedly bad reputations. A dying industry for which history will ultimately blame them. Franchises that have been rendered toxic, or at the very least laughable.

And what's worse, the Big 2 absolutely refuse to learn from their mistakes, instead doubling and tripling down on them. If an idea is conceived and executed in bad faith and it deservedly fails, DC and Marvel don't recognize it as such. They view it as the readers being too stupid to know what's good for them and dial it up to 11. If they lose readers with their bad decisions, they view that lost readership and that lost money as being fair weather phonies. And if readers speak up as to why they're giving up on the books, if they're lucky and don't get insulted or mocked, they'll get a sales pitch for DC and Marvel's other wares. Again, this isn't a new thing. During "Knightfall," when a fan wrote in expressing how he felt Superman's death and Batman's impending spinal injury (a leaked plot point early on) felt like cheap gimmicks, what was the response he got? A sales pitch for The Flash, Legion of Super-Heroes, and DC's Vertigo line. No reassurance that Batman's temporary paralysis would be purely a test of character, no explantion that "Knightfall" was intended to be an examination of what it truly meant to be Batman, just a cheap attempt to cajole an unhappy fan into buying books he may not want.

The prevailing mindset of the last 26 years – if not longer – is twofold. On the one hand, there's the idea that if the characters' lives are made to be endlessly tragic and miserable, the readers can feel better about their own lives. In fact, a DC editor (Kevin Dooley, if I recall) said just that in response to a fan who wrote in about his dislike of the abritrary tragedy that had piled onto Aquaman leading into the Peter David revamp. On the other hand – and this one's arguably the more pervasive – there's the idea that if you make certain characters outright selfish assholes who always get their way no matter how unrealistic it is or how many people they have to stomp along the way, the reader will be inspired and empowered by them. Again, this shows just how out of touch the Big 2 are. Nobody saw anything inspiring about Spider-Man's deal with Mephisto. They saw it for the selfish, short-sighted, cowardly act it was. Lois Lane has been regarded as a hostile and unlikable character for decades, and her reputation only worsened when DC made her a "strong" (re: abusive) woman. Batman's degeneration into a insufferable, arrogant Marty Stu figure was harshly criticized even as far back as the late '80s, with people writing in begging for his heroism and humanity to be restored. And the meanspirited treatment of Superman, Green Arrow, Arsenal, the Green Lanterns, Aquaman, and others hasn't made the vast majority of fans feel better about themselves. It's angered them. It's made them feel betrayed. People go to art forms like comics, movies, TV, theatre, and radio drama for escape. They want to take a break from the bad stuff in their lives. They don't want to go from their regular troubles and see something even worse play out before them. Again, out of touch. The publishers are only playing to a tiny minority that's more or less in total agreement with them.

Now, you could argue that during the '90s, the big comic book boom more or less gave DC and Marvel the freedom they needed to pull off this kind of crap. Event-gimmicks and shock value being big sellers at the time and all. But 26 or more years later, what's the excuse? The industry is bleeding readers not just by locking itself decades in the past, but also by actively driving away anyone who isn't of the exact same tastes as the Big 2 or isn't a social media ass-kisser. Bad press doesn't equal big sales anymore. Aside from the odd milestone issue and maybe #1 issues of certain titles, people aren't buying anymore. And even at comic book conventions, talking to comic book creators past and present...they're fully aware of how far the industry has fallen, and they have their own horror stories to share about some of the bad decisions that have led to this point. But those who are still in the industry have to go along with those bad decisions simply because they've got to pay the bills. And those who aren't so active in the industry know full well that it's unwilling to change for the better.

What makes it even worse is that beyond the creative stagnation and selfishness, there's also a political bent to the way the industry carries itself. In the age of bad feminist/SJW/PC politics, comics have swung very hard in that direction, with Marvel going whole-hog into it. Many of the more prominent creators are very openly far-left, and very active in the social media mob mentality. Some, like Mark Waid, have been very open about running anybody – creator or fan – out of comics if their political leanings aren't far-left. Again, this is an industry that's wildly out of touch with reality. Not everybody shares the same political beliefs. Not everyone who's right-leaning or a centrist (my own stance) is a monster. Not every far-left talking point or goal is a good or even practical thing. Art – a even commercial form like comics – as with all things, NEEDS differing viewpoints, needs differences of opinion, needs all walks of life to be full-bodied and valid. Nope, the current comics industry wants a hive mind in all respects, politically aligned in one direction and mindlessly cheerleading whatever it is the Big 2 decide they want.

None of this is remotely viable. Aside from the major publishers going out of their way to do stuff they know the vast majority of people do not want at all, how do they expect to sustain themselves on an audience that's purely of their preferred political stance? Especially when, as social media and even the behavior of some comic book pros has shown, the far-left is just as extremist and reprehensible as the far-right? (Aside from admitting to leading purges against creators who aren't far-left, Waid also recently violated anti-trust laws to shut down an indie comic called Jawbreakers simply because its creator disagrees with Waid's/the comics industry's politics.) Speaking from personal experience, it gets really tiresome listening to comics creators you like endlessly bitching and moaning about anything even slightly center-of-left, or mindlessly spouting anti-Trump propaganda regardless of whether or not it's true. I as a fan don't like being talked down to, and I as a person don't like anyone trying to bully me into converting to their personal politics. Most people, when they read a comic, listen to music, or watch movies, TV, or plays, just want to be entertained for a little while. If you keep hammering away with bad far-left bullshit and getting mad when people don't just fall in line at your say-so? You're out of touch. You're ignoring the reality of your audience, and of day-to-day life in general. And you're alienating fans and/or potential fans in that way as well.

"But," you say, "if the Big 2 are this far gone, why not just support other publishers? Surely there's other stuff out there to devote your time to!" And that is true to a degree...but with the decline of the comics industry has also come a major atrophy of what's available out there, and how the distribution monopoly has limited the playing field in favor of the Big 2. And this will be where we go next.

[nullset2]

Why New 3D Mario Games Suck

Before I go to bed I want to write a quick article about my opinions of Mario games. Ah, Mario games... I will never tire of you. Crisp and clean, to the point and joyfully so. Just jump, mofocka. Games that revel in the concept of moving around, making it inherently fun. Is there more noble of a proposition in gaming? Has there ever been more lucid game design?

Yet, I think that modern Mario games suck.

Like everyone and their grandmother (and if your grandmother plays Mario send her my regards, she's cool as hell, dude) I've been playing Mario 3D All Stars to have me a nice time. However it does reinforce this idea that I've always had, that Mario games, even though they may share the same broad aesthetic values and mechanics, are different from each other by nature. In this article, I propose that this change over time has actually been for the worse, leading to a loss of complexity in platforming game design with each successive iteration which is being traded away in favor of more cinematics and bombastics.

First things first, we have the beautiful Mario 64. A timeless classic and most of us' first foray into 3D games (yes, this was the very first game I ever played where the notion of the third dimension actually mattered. I had already played Star Fox but in Star Fox you don't really move in three dimensions, you're just in a plane going on rails and you cannot move completely freely). I played this before I even touched Doom or other first person games of the sort.

Minor parentheses by the way: did you know that Star Fox was inspired on the Inari Taisha temple? The beautiful, big long mountain shrine in Kyoto full of orange gates?

Fox translates to Inari and its creator, Dylan Cuthberth, who loved Japan a lot, got inspiration from it which he applied to his new bizarre fucking mind bending 3D tech which he then pitched and sold to nintendo and then became the basis for the Ultra 64, which was to come, and thus one of the main pillars of all modern 3D gaming as a whole? Holy shit, right? In Star Fox you cross gates to gain powerups and to make it fun to maneuver around with your Airwing... How come that I had never seen the connection?

But anyway. Back to Mario 64.

It is commonly told that Mario 64 was created by Miyamoto parting from the concept of a "secret garden". Most of the development time initially, it is said, was spent on Miyamoto and Tezuka, Mario creators, fine tuning the movement system in an isolated garden map without any enemies or hazards.

The purpose of the secret garden was threefold: first, the team was used to designing Mario games as 2d platformers and they were uncertain about how to take Mario games into the 3D era (a literal, flat-out equivalent conversion of classic mario, think Super Mario World, powerups and all, was considered at a certain point in development, creating linear, obstacle course stages with a beginning and a goal, the remnants of which still linger in the final game as the bowser stages, an idea which was finally fleshed out with the Mario 3D series on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, 20 years later (!)), so they needed a way to hash out ideas about how to design this new installment.

Second, Miyamoto took as one of the goals of the project to design Mario's movement with a supreme level of fidelity, so he'd use this area to test and test and test all of Mario's acrobatics, to make them feel smooth, convincing and entertaining to play. He'd say that as long as a move didn't feel right in the garden, it couldn't be used in the final game, creating in the end as something that feels a little bit like ninja acrobatics on rollerskates or ice skating.

Third, the team eventually realized that, since 3D content was incredibly expensive to create back in 1995, when commonplace computer 3D animation and design was still quite in its infancy, they needed to develop the skill to design little sandboxes which were good enough to run around in over and over without getting tired of them (think of it as if constructing a highly detailed, complex diorama, an idea fleshed out finally in Captain Toad from Super Mario 3D world, again, 20 years later (!)). This was to create more content for the game while reusing the same architecture and geometry for the levels, since resource usage had to be maximized. The remnants of the garden are still present in the final game, as the Castle Grounds.

So, do you see the level of SOUL invested here? The level of care, the amount of love placed into each and everyone of Mario's moves in Super Mario 64? And the results show it: the game allows the player to tackle all objectives at their own pace, in their own terms, however way they can. The game forces nothing down your throat: blast to the island in the sky? Well, maybe just long jump to it if you're gutsy enough, no need to wait until you unlock cannons. Or get the 8 red coins first if you want. Or just fuck it, and go and release the chain chomp first because he looks very cool and this is probably the first power star that all people who play the game get first. Or just, fuck it, you can skip that objective all together if you want, just collect enough stars for the next door unlock.

Jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, dive from jump, punch, breakdance kick, backflip, turn and backflip, long jump, wall jump, grab objects and throw, jump-shortkick, slide down, ground pound, fly from triple jump, swim, crouch... and even crawl. I count a total of 20 possible interactions with the environment, maybe even more I'm missing. All movements completely available to you from the start to mix and match the way you best see fit (except for flying, which is unlocked like 15 minutes into the game). The world is yours and you're free, go nuts son. The only variable is your skill at the movement system.

So you can probably see why this is delicious design. There's never a single way to clear most power stars in the game, instead the decision is left to the player, which the game trusts is smart enough to figure out solutions to problems on their own. Wanna jump for it? Sure, if you can. Want to wait unil you got the powerup? That's cool too. Want to go play another level? Sure thing! OR FUCK IT! JUST RACE THE KOOPA IF YOU WANT!

So you can probably see why I loathe the fact that the sequel was based exclusively on giving people a dumbed down version of the same shit, with a fucking dumb water pack.

Come 2002 and under pressure to perform, the team releases Super Mario Sunshine and it's the most bland, dumbed down sequel ever (though, could anyone really live up to such a predecessor's prowess?). In an attempt to make the game accessible to more players (tm), the game is stripped out of its complexity. Mario no longer moves as a gracious, roller skating gazelle that can navigate the world in the most agile and beautiful way ever. Instead you screech down to a halt the second you stop pushing the direction stick instead of providing people with that most delicious sense of momentum and friction SM64 had. Boo Hoo! Baby think 3D platforming is too hard? BABY CANNOT HANDLE PING PING WAHOO ON THE N64? Then we give babby a water nozzle which will allow them to correct any miscalculated jump ever (it's insulting that this is the best solution they managed to come up with) HOORAY!

But hey! Sunshine has good things about it! Uh... the water is pretty! (that's probably where all the development time and resources probably went anyway).

SAY WHAT? WE GOT TO RELEASE THIS YEAR? AND THEY WANT US TO INCLUDE 120 STARS AGAIN? FUCK! WE RAN OUT OF TIME; JUST ADD BLUE COINS, DUDE! YEAH WHATEVER! SHIP IT! THIS IS THE GAME! I'M GONNA GO LIE DOWN AND HAVE A BEER! FUCK IT!

Mario Sunshine is not a bad game, but it's not a bold, groundbreaking game like its predecessor was. It detests and rejects the fact that you are a competent platforming game player. It nerfs everything down. It makes it almost impossible to lose. It plays things too safe and too easy, replacing action game design with flashing lights, prettier graphics, and an easier experience; it has its moments but it's an inferior game mechanically: jump, double jump, triple jump, hover, rocket jump, turbo run (why), walk on tightropes (why), spin in air (why), spin from ground into high jump, turn and backflip, swim, spray water, spray water and dive, wall jump, ground pound. It's only 16 moves -- less than its predecessor --, and they have less complexity and are easier to execute.

Not only that but you're no longer free to tackle objectives the way you see fit. The world is now a container for several course-clears, and no longer allowing for the freedom of open world games. If you pick Shine 1, you WILL clear shine 1 in that run of the level. If the game wants you to watch a cutscene (of which there were none in SM64), you WILL watch the fucking cutscene. Wash rinse repeat until you get enough shines to clear the lamest end boss in video game history.

Again, it's not a bad game but it reeks of suits getting involved in the process and demanding shit to be made easier because otherwise it wouldn't sell. It reeks of misplaced priorities. It's a pretty game and it's nice for an afternoon, but after that you just have blue coins left and hooooooooooooo weeeeeee I'm not touching that shit. The most asinine side quest I've ever seen in a video game: to find blue coins hidden in random spots, usually by cleaning a spot of graffitti, and exchange 10 of them for a single shine, the collection of which cannot be stacked and forces you to watch a cutscene every time. Reeks of laziness.

Then Mario Galaxy comes out and Jesus Christ. It's like they don't give a shit at this point. Open-world, acrobatics-centric 3D Mario is just fucking gone. This is probably the point where it became cheap enough to make 3D content en-masse that they just started copying the classic Mario formula in 3D to churn out content.

The bad thing, is that at a certain point it feels as if the games play themselves and I've always been against it and will always be against it because I'm into games due to the fact that they're something which engages my brain. I don't like games which just keep me there, passively looking at the screen, reacting to quick time events. I want to be immersed, engrossed and I want to feel that nice sense of exploration and fun experimentation that you only get with open world games.

The games are back to linear now: even though, in Sunshine, they made an effort to at least make things seem open world, they don't care anymore in this one. It's all just linear levels happening in planetoids which you visit in a sequence, to, yet again, remove all hazards and all notion of challenge and complexity, even more than before. And you have to shake the wii remote to spin to top it off, and this gives you a free save if you miscalculate a jump. The galaxy games were extrapolated through the 3D series: Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World (strong candidates for most bizarre title to a video game ever), to form which is called the "course clear" vein of 3D mario games, starting from the Galaxy games.

See, nintendo themselves differentiate between "Course-clear" 3D Mario and "Open World" 3D Mario. Once Super Mario Oddysey got announced, they came out with this interesting infographic about their classification for 3D Mario games:

Don't get me wrong again, there's nothing inherently bad about these types of Mario game, and Galaxy 2 and Mario 3D World are both some of the best video games ever created, but I think that something got lost in transition when compared to the sublime finesse of the movement system in Mario 64. The way it respects your intelligence, the way it drops you in an open world and gives you freedom, the way that its worlds are built, I think that all of this has never been paralleled, not even by nintendo themselves for some reason, and I think the reason why this happened is that, maybe the excellence of Mario 64, quirks and all, was a product of its time and the limitations in production ability for 3d content and graphics that surrounded its creation at the time.

Yet, Lo and Behold! 2017 is here and Super Mario Oddyssey is in the horizon and it promises to be the Next Big Thing (tm) since sliced bread. A TRUE and HONEST return to form, to the Glory Days of Mario 64! And the game is way too enthsiastic with its embracing of Super Mario 64 nostalgia: there's literally a whole level inspired after the Mario 64 castle grounds in Mario Oddysey and the whole notion of absolute freedom from Mario 64 (somewhat) returns (but not completely because you still are subject to doing a main big event per level, after which the rest of the level unlocks; once you clear the game, the second half of the game unlocks even). And the emphasis is back into acrobatics again, which is a good thing: playing with your hat can get you places if you're handy with it.

But my biggest gripe with Super Mario Oddysey is that it's not completely honest as it claims to be. It's a course-clear game hidden under a coat of paint of an open world-game. It's literally Zelda Breath of the Wild's half-assed design all over again: big empty world full of collectibles, with tiny "levels" to be found. Once you find a game, it's time to do a thing --wash rinse repeat. In Mario Oddysey you explore around until you find a pipe or a door or a character and you get plunked into a Super Mario 3D World style course-clear game with additional collectibles. So it's not really the game which it was told to be. The levels don't feel like beautiful dioramas, and the acrobatics, even if nice, are nowhere near as rich as the SM64 acrobatics. There's infinite lives this time around, so there's no real feeling of risk. The game rehashes its own content, you make a tower of goombas, cool. Then you make it again, twice as long. Then you make it again, in the water. Then you make it again, in the beach level. Then you make it again, in the ice level. Then you make it again. Then you make it again, then you make it again...

You could argue that they were onto something with the capture system, because it's an attempt to enhance the movement system while at the same time it's trying to keep things interesting, but the bad thing is that this is really not the case. Captures are contextual, and you're expected to capture an enemy, do something with it, then leave it behind, so it's not a skillset that you build up on, it's yet another course-clear level in a disguise.

So even though it's a good game, it's not the game that it set out to be, I'm sad to say. The Brilliance of Super Mario 64 is yet to be rivaled, and Nintendo should feel ashamed of it. It's been 20 years, man. Where has your mind been all along?

Alright Nintendo, to conclude, here's a freebie for you. This is how you design your next Mario game so it fucking kicks ass: you bring back the SM64 movement system and ADD ONTO IT. Do NOT take away from it, just ADD. Complexity is good in games. All of your fans are fucking 30 year olds, they can handle a complex game.

Next, you develop a vast, broad, massive open world. Think GTA-size. You set up 1200 stars and you place them all over the world in ways where it is EXCITING by itself to explore the world. Make it so people can collect stars at their own pace, ANY WAY THEY WANT, and expand the world accordingly. Keep the Super Mario Oddyssey persistence, where once you capture a moon you don't have to go back to a menu screen, that was a good addition. Embrace the diorama mentality and go nuts with the world. Fill it with waterfalls, caves, chasms, canyons, and provide the player nothing but their acrobatics to clear everything in the world. Avoid pre-scripted sequences (they can still be good for some things like bosses). And make the world seamless, none of this island in the sky thing anymore. Moving around and getting stars should be their own reward, not "getting to find a course clear level".