#(it feels like a weird mix between Unity and Origins)

[thatcrazycrowgirl]

Gotta love the time-honored tradition of shirtless protagonists in AC games

[somechubbynerd]

So M&L: Brothership!

It's solid enough, especially with AlphaDream no longer being, you know, alive to have the same devs and studio on the project.

It's a fun, goofy adventure, and the solid combat base of the original Superstar Saga is nice and intact, and even has some interesting iterations! Every attack is technically a Bros. Attack, now! And that's pretty cool, since it's like the 6th game in this series?

This has been a staple of the series since PiT, but I always had mixed feelings about the "actual Bros. Attacks", so to speak being weird gadgets. That was a point of unity that Superstar Saga had that never really came back - Your overworld traversal moves ALSO functioned as your battle attacks. And considering the three overworld moves we get, that could still easily have been done for Brothership, I think. There's only 5 moves per Bro, there could've been a mix-up on them working together on moves.

Mechanically fine, so how's the visual design? It's pretty good. The character designs off the new NPC type are cute and functional, bosses are creative with the theme of the new world, and I can tell that the design methods from AlphaDream are still alive and well. But stop making new little critters for M&L to be spoken for by? Starlow is in the game she should just be part of the team by now. But Superstar Saga got by without one, at all, sooooo... Anyway my main aesthetic complaint is minor, but something pretty visible: The main texture shading technique is to fade to blue on certain parts of a character, and it isn't like a reactive shadow, so the back of Luigi's hat is just blue, to give one example. It doesn't look awful, but it's a weird choice.

Story and themes! After all, RPG. Uhhhh, also fine. The story and gameplay goals are pretty well integrated on the themes of interpersonal connection and community. We're literally linking the disparate islands of a destroyed world back together so they can rebuild the destroyed community of the world! The main thing is that... Uh, for not any particularly solid reason, there's a twist villain of the "original villain is being controlled/manipulated" variety.

Lord Zokket? Honestly, works without any additions. Good thematic villain (doesn't give a shit about anyone's name, trying to break the world even more, directly opposed to the whole Unity and Togetherness theme, connection to a major ally that can potentially be tugged on to cause more chaos) and a threatening presence felt through the entire game... Until she gets cured and turns back into Connie's mentor and the plot gets hijacked by an egg she was hatching?

Reclusa kinda sucks? Like, he's in the game and relevant for such a short time that it almost feels like they had that mentor situation and a fight between Connie and Zokket/Cosette taken out? He hatches, plunges the world into very slightly more chaos, and then he's just like "Wah, leave me alone. My evil plan is that everyone leaves everyone alone, magically enforced. Being alone in the world is the only peace! Go away, DAD!"

That design deserves way better than "grumpy 8 year old" as a motivation.

And Reclusa is kinda where my major complaints stop tbh. Everything else about Brothership is at least solidly constructed and decently thought out. And M&L is an anime now. It has Za Warudo, Orbital Lasers, and Kamehameha.

"Roll-a credits." [Ding]

7/10

[loadofoldjuk]

#9 - Freedoms and Limits - June 24th

It feels as though it's been far longer than it has been since I last posted, but so is the way of things. I've recently been accepted as a mentee for Limit Break, a scheme dedicated to connecting underrepresented groups interested in game development with mentors! I've had the pleasure to speak with a senior programmer in the industry and we've discussed what steps I can take over the next several months to push my abilities.

My first goal - which I've been focusing on this month - has been to push myself out of my comfort zone of 2D development and into creating 3D projects. I've been working through the tutorial "2.2 Basics" from Catlike Coding, these guides are made by Jasper Flick and they're utterly incredible at pushing your Unity knowledge!

(I highly suggest checking them out here)

So what have I learned? Well, the first part of the tutorial sees the creation of a 3D clock, this was all pretty straightforward and helped give my some practice with 3D meshes and the like.

From here on though, my mind would be pushed to its limit. The Catlike Coding tutorials are more than just tutorials, they are fountains of knowledge that delve deep into the heart of Unity. I would learn much about not just game creation in 3D, but optimization, shaders, GPU control, jobs and storing complex objects.

The next part of the guide saw the creation of a 3D graph, first along two axes and then into three, however, the bulk of this part was spent refining the program's running speed. I learned much about the difference between the Built-in Render Pipeline and the Universal Render Pipeline, creating shaders in both frameworks. This was pushed further by limiting communications between the CPU and GPU, allowing the GPU to do most of the work. In the end, you get a very cool looking visual which runs really well on my crappy little laptop.

The fps counter shows, from top to bottom, best FPS, average FPS and worst FPS

Finally, the tutorial takes a lot at creating a fractal, again emphasising efficiency. Originally, each part of the complete fractal was made up of a single object, but this was changed to everything being stored as one. This is further streamlined using Unity's job system, splitting tasks so that they may be run simultaneously. It finishes with some bits on randomness, colouring and calculating 3D rotations to create a final product that looks organic.

If you'll indulge me a second, I wanted to talk about the cool aesthetics that these tutorials have. Tinkering with cubes and spheres in big empty spaces makes me think of early CGI or the kind of work you'd find for Orion's Arm. There's a lot of beauty here, be proud of anything you create.

SCS - Steve Bowers

Anyway, this blog post was mostly to remind the world that I'm not dead, I'll be continuing to update this as I continue to work though the Catlike Coding tutorials and make further progress through Limit Break! See ya!

--Jacob

Mix of the Day: I've been enjoying this weird, funky video game music mix, it's got lots of music from fan games so it makes for a novel listen, the second to last track was a significant standout.

[butterfly-winx]

Things about each other’s cultures that the girls find most difficult to understand/cope with (pt2)

Zenith

Musa and Stella: National gene bank

Being mixed children, Musa and Stella find it very difficult to reconcile the existence of one unified central library of genes that all babies are born from on Zenith. For one there are people in both of their cultures who would have objected to either of them being born (the Rai/Selenite conflict on Solaria and Musa being human/elf mixed) they find the gene bank to be a huge risk for cultural feud and eugenics driven bad intentions. Zenith claims not to filter for disabilities aside from congenitally lethal ones, but with little independent control of their proceedings, the purity of their actions is often hard to control

Layla: Religion

Everyone believes Zenith to be such a proponent of science over everything else, it is often forgotten that the majority of the planet’s countries are religious monotheists. But monotheists of different singular gods! Layla coming from a culture based on natural religion finds the concept of a “one man show” strange to begin with, but when you tell her they all have a different one true guy whose precepts they follow she is out.

Bloom and Flora: Public information channels

In theory, whole dedicated channels or airtime slots filled with facts and scientific information rather than mindless ads is an excellent idea. It aids the education of the population and reduces the amount of populist or fearmongering misinformation taking root. Flora and Bloom are just a bit apprehensive about how easy it is to slip half-truths into a stream of factual truth, seeing as the information stream is ever so slightly different between the Zenithian countries, each finding some other aspect of a scientific discovery important, or advocating the involvement of their countrymen in a project over everyone else’s.

---

Andros

Bloom and Tecna: High mortality

It is not that mortality rates are very high, it’s just that the proportion of /water/ related deaths among them is high. Technically this is not that unusual, seeing as 90% of the planet is water, but maybe exactly because of this, Bloom and Tecna would expect people to be more careful around the elements. Androsians, like any regular god fearing nation, respect the Sea over everything else. Their hubris mainly comes from an overall acceptance that the Sea can claim about anybody if it wants. People don’t tend to struggle against it when they think their times has come. (See King Teredor and Niobe just huddling in the flooding castle instead of escaping) What adds to it is also that the royal family are of course not the only ones with mer cousins, and especially young people will overestimate the capacity of their lungs while playing in the waters. 

Stella: Animism

In Androsian cultures objects made from natural resources retain their soul stemming from having been living things once, even after they are shaped into an object for human use. To Stella this is difficult to comprehend. Like sure wood is wood, it has been a plant once and its origin should be respected, but for her once wood becomes a bowl it becomes a thing, with no spirituality attached.

Musa and Flora: Blood feuds

No one is a stranger to historical conflicts, sure. Androsian blood feuds however have morphed into conflicts that are still “honoured” in modern days. Local kingdoms can claim feud rights to claim land and people from neighbouring regions, functionally enslaving residents. On a personal level people still get ostracised from communities for marrying wrong, upsetting elders or for the ever effusive reason of doing gender wrong. (Neither of them really understands this part of Androsian culture.) Musa is solidly in camp “you owe your parents piety” while Flora is a general opponent of the sentiment, they both feel that this goes a little bit too far. People need a community that won’t self-destruct over to their eyes minor infractions.

---

Domino

Layla and Tecna: Horse culture

Dominians love their horses and elks they keep for riding, select animals are kept as revered pets even. Coming from an island world, Layla never really saw a purpose in those animals. What does weird her out about this is that a good 40% of Domino’s population are centauri, who are - no matter how you look at it- half horse essentially. So how can Dominians be that enamoured with their equines while their neighbour could be equally hooved?

Musa and Stella: Cultural homogeneity

It goes without saying that all girls, including Bloom, stagger at the thought that the Dominian Empire enforces unity through extreme measures, not having shied away from extermination wars in their past. Once one dares to descend planetside despite that, the most staggering thing is that Domino truly... is like that. You get the same language, same customs and same products from one coast to another. It is staggering for Musa and Stella, whose homes have also at some point been empires encompassing several planets even, but the former members 

Flora and Bloom: Military culture

Domino operates on a dual leadership structure in which has legal head of the state and the leader of the military reigning beside each other with equal power. Complicating the situation, the Vazul, head of the armies is also the spiritual leader of the Church of the Dragonspirit, melding religion and military culture into a dangerous mix. Flora has never encountered anything like this before, while to Bloom this reeks like the worst parts of her adoptive home. It doesn’t feel like a good combination, less so seeing as in the current generation both positions are filled by Bloom’s parents, which isn’t really supposed to happen and is a rightfully criticised controversy.

Special mention: Earth

So many countries! 

That is probably what all the visiting girls were hung up about. Earth is unique even within the wide breadth of the Magic Universe, having an enormous habitable zone that spans almost the whole planet. The only other place that comes even near that title is Lynphea, but Lynphea is several times the size of Earth and houses slightly fewer inhabitants. The girls loved spending time visiting different parts of the planet and learning about the different cultures and languages spoken, (tho if you asked them, neither could name more than 5 countries from the top of their head. This also made assimilation and staying under cover in Gardenia difficult, bc Bloom, conscious of the girl’s home cultures and habits has given them different fake home countries. The other five of course got immediately confused, which resulted in situations like Tecna proudly claiming they were Chinese and Stella inexplicably saying she was Roman)

[steve0discusses]

The Live Action Fullmetal Alchemist Movie Part 6: Let’s Kill Hughes

Hey guys, I’ve been having some issues with the blog not...updating my drafts. So in case you’re wondering, that’s where I disappeared to. Give a round of applause to the support team for finding a solution until it gets fixed but as of right now I’m on like a private window with my extensions turned off and writing this from both tumblr and a LibreOffice document. Hello ads, nice to see you back.

Last we left off, we were a hop and skip away to lab 5. In the anime, this was a sequence where there was a bunch of fighting with suits of armor, and they kept that in this movie, but...not the people you think would be fighting are going to be fighting.

Listen I’m not like super knowledgeable about the world of Matte painting, but I like that they’ve unintentionally made this world building where whoever is in charge of making these red bricks basically owns everyone’s nuts. Everything is made out of the same red bricks. Like I know this is a show about homunculi ruling the world but I feel like the red brick guy is hellllllla more egregious. Freakin Monsanto over here.

I assume they had a 3d model and was like “we can just keep using it” and damn, they sure did. And inside of this brick building is, unsurprisingly a lot more red brick (although I think this is partially, if not entirely, an actual real life set.)

This next part is...such a lesson in pacing. Not necessarily a lesson to follow, but definitely a lesson to learn from maybe their non-example.

(watch Hughes die under the cut)

And what’s interesting is that there were a lot of good lines in this upcoming segment. There were a lot of good moments—bu there’s just so many. Maybe too many. You gotta prune your script occasionally, it’s like a tomato plant.

Like I’ve been doing a stress garden to cope with quarantine and Covid and 3+ months of life endangering wildfires, and I learned that you gotta prune the sucker vines off your tomatoes, although sucker vines can also make tomatoes. It sucks to do because I love tomatoes, and I want as many tomatoes as possible, but when you prune the plant, you get bigger better tomatoes that are more worthwhile than the suckers that can infect your plant and make it really sick.

Sorry that made me sound like 5000 years old with that gardening analogy. If you need me to solve your small town murder mysteries, I’m ready.

So it’s like...kind of tragic that it came together as kind of nonsensical when you can tell that it’s so close to being something better.

Like we have some reason up to this point to believe that Ed would have a freak out here...but like...a sobbing on the floor screaming at the walls type of freak out? Was there enough time devoted to this blow up, or did he walk into this room and immediately start screaming? Because he sure did walk immediately into this room and start screeching like a broken bird.

Like last recap, which was about 2 minutes ago in screentime, was this fun and quirky montage with Hughes. Now we’re sobbing into this rusty factory.

And I know what’s going on because I’ve seen the anime, but if you haven’t seen it—would this emotional break down make any sense? We were told by Dr Marcoh, “check out lab 5,” but we were only going to this factory on kind of a wish and a prayer. I really wonder if people who don’t know this show could follow past this point.

And then while we’re still adjusting to “yo, Ed just took it from a 2 to a 10 like immediately” Al is like “Hey I noticed no one is paying attention to me, and I have to lay a wicked fart:”

and then both brother’s just have a freak out. Gotta all be freaking out in this random ass Unity asset that was probably also used for some college grad’s first battle royale.

Pacing is just everything. And what’s SO HARD about Full Metal Alchemist is that there really is a lot of content to cover, there’s a lot of emotions to go through, and when you only have about 7 minutes to cover what was about 3-4 episodes, if I remember correctly, it’s kind of a zany mess.

And if you were going into this movie hoping they wouldn’t illustrate Al as a large idiot baby, then you share the sentiments of most people who saw this movie. Al is like...kind of reduced to a whiny big baby and is...not cute. Like Al is low key kind of menacing throughout this movie, not just because he has this CGI armor thing going on, but also because Al is...so impressionable and unhinged.

Something that I didn’t appreciate enough when I watched the anime was just how important Barry the Chopper was for Al’s logical character development.

Yo...These bangs…

...I’ve realized that every show I recap here just has the worst hair styles. I honestly never thought much about hair at all until I watched like 200 hours of Yugioh and all of this movie and also 6 seasons of Once Upon a Time which featured some LOOKS (but only recapped like 3 episodes, sorry if I got some of y’all excited. That was when we had no reason to cap everything because the capping community for Once was very alive and very exciting.)

By hitting him with a wrench (Al does not feel pain, ps, so he doesn’t need to be hunched over like this) Winry reminds Al that Ed would not risk his life for a fake brother (which may be a line from the anime or the manga but I don’t remember) and crying just...a lot.

Like it felt as if she had to shoot all of this out of order. Same with Ed’s freak out here. Movie’s aren’t really shot in succession and it’s up to the director to make it feel coherent and logical...this felt scattered, like the actors really didn’t know what was happening in the scenes leading up to it so they just cranked it to 11.

And then I guess Ed was either so insulted that Al punched him or was so upset that Al made Winry cry (again, this movie really tries to sell the EdxWinry ship and from me that’s a really big compliment), that Ed just started laying punches to extend a fight scene that was kind over before it started.

But symbolically there is a lot nice things going on here, Ed only uses his fleshy hand so he bleeds all over Al, hurting himself as much he’s hurting his brother. Implying more than just this fight, but suggesting that their whole journey of trying to find this sorcerer’s stone is just going to hurt both of them in their quest to save the other.

And then Al says something along the line of “it hurts!” to infer that he’s got this broken heart which is when they both finally just freakin stop.

Such a shame the pacing, which was a mix of too quick, and too many tomatoes, kind of made it hella blindsiding.

Again this was so many episodes of FMA and they stuffed it into so few minutes, it’s wild.

Especially since Ed is like...he’s cast as an adult! He’s an adult! At no point in the movie so far have they called him a kid, and they’re not pretending that he is one. But like...he acts like such a child because in the original, he was one. And, while this movie steps so far away from the source material, if should have committed and either stepped completely away or committed completely. Of course “should” is one of those things where we’ll just never know. A wish into the ether of hindsight being 20/20.

But lets get to the thing that you all came here for. This is where this movie gets BONKERS:

So Hughes actually draws out a pentagram between the different places in Armestrias, including Ishvaal, leading us to think that he’s figured out the whole dealio of turning the country into an alchemy circle. But, for some reason only helps him find the real lab 5.

It didn’t...that’s a different thing.

And it has been a long time since I’ve seen the ending of this movie—and maybe it was so offhand that I forgot if they actually do bring up turning the country into an alchemy circle--watch me eat my words, it could happen—but yo, we are finally killing Hughes—but we’re over halfway through this movie. And you may wonder...so uh...what...then what could possibly happen? There’s too much anime left!

Now I’m glad they kept this scene really close to the anime, although I haven’t watched the anime in a hot minute. It’s kind of an iconic scene so you don’t forget.

Like I do genuinely enjoy the campy parts where they were bringing up some of my favorite nostalgia of the original.

and then when you are like “ah, this is exactly the same as the anime. I can relax and watch as all my expectations are fully realized.” This twist happens.

YAH.

It’s a change!

So in the anime we had a really fun arc where we were trying to save Lieutenant Ross for being framed for killing Hughes. It’s probably my favorite part of Full Metal Alchemist, actually, it was so clever and a really thrilling chase. It was also like...half of season one.

Anyway, they cut it. They reduced half a season into 7 minutes. I know that, because each of these recaps is about 15 minutes of the movie.

You may look at this recap and be like “wait...this all happened in 15 minutes??” because yeah, this all happened in 15 minutes.

The same squad of people we see in every single scene of soldiers comes up to arrest Ed, which is weird, because I thought this band of soldiers was the military under Cl. Mustang’s command so like…shouldn’t they be arresting themselves? Mustang was over the command of more than 2 people. If we are suspicious of Mustang’s buddies then everyone in this movie would be in trouble.

And that’s when I realized that these guys were just unnamed soldiers and not a part of Mustang’s band. They only had like this many extras and just hoped we wouldn’t keep track of who is who, but I KNOW I’ve seen these guys this whole time. There are only like 6 people in this army. I see you movie magic—I see what you’re trying to do.

Anyway, Ed gets thrown into an old timey opera house that occasionally gets to be used for Middle School graduations. Or maybe also a mortuary where they charge you for funerals.

Like I know it’s supposed to be the capital building but like...this looks so weird when it’s live action. I remember the anime had this kinda feel to it but in live action it’s like…

...this is a weird ass capital building…Why do they have curtains like a Granny Holiday Inn in Reno, Nevada?

Thankfully, Hawkeye is here to explain to Ed what just happened because we, the movie viewers, were kind of surprised by that plot twist.

Like there were many ways you can condense half a season into 15 minutes, and I dunno if I would have just changed the murderer. It is a solution you can do. You can just point blame on Mustang and skip that whole Ross segment but like….

…then why write the movie?

Obviously, they had to make the movie, it had already been funded, people were really excited about the idea, and I do not envy the people that had to hack and slash with the Full Metal Alchemist script, but it is interesting what they decided was important to the original content, and what was unimportant. All that stuff that showed how Mustang was brilliant and two steps ahead of everyone else? Unimportant. All that stuff we had that showed how Mustang cares a lot about protecting other people and also cares about Ed and Al? Unimportant.

It really changes the dynamic, and it’s kind of fascinating to go into this cold because it’s been like...a year for me since I’ve watched it...and just see how different everything is without all those supporting characters that when I watched the anime I just assumed were mostly useless (Though fun). Turns out they all had a pretty significant part of making me care about Ed, about Mustang, about Al, about all my main characters.

FMA is very character driven, and this movie is mostly just...plot driven.  There’s kind of a great debate in literature about plot driven vs character driven. Movies and TV tend to be very plot driven, because they are very expensive to make, so they follow pre-formatted plot beats like “Save the Cat” or “The Heroes Journey” and other ones (there’s several to choose from).

They’ve made a fine science out of at what point a TV show should introduce the main, at what point they should suffer doubt, at what point they should shun their hero’s journey, etc etc. They know it down to the page number of the scripts they are writing. I know this, because it’s readily available on the internet and people fight about it all the time. This is why a show may suffer developing a character—because they just don’t have time and they just don’t have the resources to do something out of the box. Movies doubly so, because every minute of film can cost thousands of dollars.

What’s interesting about this is that FMA, the original FMA, does follow these beats. It was a manga sold by a huge publisher so it had to follow those beats. But, it has managed to do it while still being character driven. Yo, that’s so hard to do. This story was already written to be hyper condensed and structured when it was made into a Manga, and then it was condensed again for an anime, and then it was condensed yet again for this movie. It’s like a game of telephone, and at one end you have a very character driven story, and then at the other, it’s just totally plot.

Like it’s just a really huge risk to take. This was really, really risky.

PS did you miss Shou? Did you think we’d be done with Shou Tucker? No. Because this movie is gonna end at some point and rather than introduce other people...we’re just gonna stick with Shou and only have one miniboss.

(It has a freakin radiator in it?)

So then this next part happens and it’s low key hilarious.

The whole time.

Mustang and Hawkeye knew what lab 5 was this entire time but Ed just never asked for some reason despite working with those two for what is inferred to be YEARS since his childhood.

Hey PS, did you miss that brick building? Because it’s back.

Anyway, Mustang decides to take this underground where we can recycle the tech crew posing as extras that we used in the shot above us. Would not be surprised if a few of these are someone’s husband or wife on set.

Usually when I watch a movie I don’t get this feeling so much. But this movie...the latter half is like...EMPTY.

...this is going to be all movies made during Covid, I just realized…

Mustang is stopped by an angry Lieutenant Ross, and then we get this series of events.

And when you’re like “...Sorry?” Mustang’s like “I can make it weirder.”

And he just, without any warning or anything, lights Lieutenant Ross on fire. Multiple times, and it’s pretty intense and everyone who’s holding a gun just watches it happen is like…

...well I guess it’s too late to just shoot the guy...

…and like do you seriously not carry around a fire extinguisher when you are trying to manhunt Mustang? This is the one guy you want to wear fireproof clothes around. You have the technology. You at least have the technology for buckets of water. Like no one want to throw a blanket on her?

Just want to...watch? I guess?

Mustang just looks like a nut from this series of events instead of a genius--which is what I think they were originally going for. The pacing does that, youknow? Pacing.

And, out of the corpse pile stands Envy.

Envy has a pretty good look, I appreciated his whole look and that unlike the anime where you only find out Envy is a guy because someone told you on a forum somewhere and you were like “wait WHAT?” the movie is live action so you won’t make that mistake and embarrass yourself online.

Ed has only ever seen Lust once, and she walked in from off screen, stabbed a guy, and walked off. He’s just like...having a time because he’s done zero research into homunculi, and really, at no point in this movie are we going to give him time to figure it out.

Also, there’s this shot where Lust and Gluttony just walk in from behind them in the tunnel and it’s like…

….so no one noticed these two just hanging out back there?

It’s so freakin funny. This movie is gold. I love it.

Now If you just got here, this is a link to read all these recaps in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

Have a good one, and stay safe! 2021 has been...weird nuts...and it’s still January somehow??? Weird times. Overall, please stay safe, it’s weird out there.

Also, if you’re like “I don’t remember this scene actually” here’s the original Hughes dies scene that inspired the movie (since the movie definitely was like “we’re only going inspired for this one nerds, get mad”)--some shots were inspired cut for cut.

And obvi this is on Youtube so it’ll probably get taken down eventually, but that’s why it’s flipped.

[grokebaby]

Clarome

(this is an info post I published on one of my aminos some time ago. Only small grammarly adjustments have been made lol)

Real life backstory: Clarome was created around 2014 or so if I'm not mistaken, so a while ago. When I was still a child. I had gotten into warrior cats around those years and was very inspired. I however did not start it based purely on warrior cats, but a dream I had about it and a few characters from that. Based on this dream I made four different clans. I also decided leaders for them and deputies and so on, and introduced my friends to it and boy, it really became a huge part of our childhoods

In-story backstory: so Clarome was essentially a whole other dimension about an alternate earth where humans died of extinction in the stone age. This is not a realistic theory of what our world would've become if humans died out like that however. In fact, be ready to suspend your disbelief alot.

In this world, animals evolved into two different categories. Sapient and primitive. The sapient ones have two forms, anthro and feral (imagine furries) which they can change between at will. Some prefer to live their lives in the feral form completely, but this only means they'll walk on four legs and be non anthropomorphic like animals in our world. It doesn't affect their psychology at all. They are on the same intelligence level as humans and can be afflicted with the same neurological or mental disorders as humans. They're able to speak and feel and so on. These can be any animals you can ever imagine. Birds, reptiles, mammals, even giant bugs sometimes, but we'll get into that later.

The primitives however are mainly prey animals like rabbits, squirrels, some small bird species and so on. These are just like the ones in our world. And they can't become anything else. They're not given any agency of their own and are essentially prey. However where things get weird, is that a rabbit can be a sapient or a primitive. Just by looking at them you can't always tell. Sapient and primitive animals can't be in the same family and they pretty much will not breed with each other. It's treated as the same kind of taboo as sleeping with animals is in our world. It'd be like human going with a chimp.

Geography: Clarome is a large island roughly shaped like a mitten, with much tinier islands speckled around it. It's mostly varying levels of densely growing forest terrain, though it does change what kind of forests. There's also some areas with alot of cliff and hills, surrounded by forests. Most notable places being the Lightcliff and Earthquake Valley (which is a large canyon area). Both have historical significance. There are a few nice sandy/gravely beaches around but mostly it's just oops - water.

There's a few lakes in Clarome, none very large in the grand scheme of things. And multiple rivers.

-The clans-

🖤🐍Rattleclan🐍🖤

Originally founded by rattlesnakes, unsurprisingly, who gathered in a pine/spruce forest and made camp for themselves among the rocks. Snakes are one of the only species in Clarome who's anthro forms differ, they do not gain limbs of any kind. They can however stand taller and grow larger in their anthro form to better interact with the world around them. As time went on, Rattleclan gained alot of feline members who got along with the snakes due to the hissing ability and the versatile nature of cats in general. Due to this there's a Rattleclan originated species of snakecats, felines that have varying amounts of scales on their bodies, bigger fangs and snaketails. Later on various birds also joined Rattleclan, mostly predatory birds due to the fact that the non predatory ones have trouble getting along with any other species for obvious reasons.

In present day, Rattleclan population is more mixed but primarily consists of felines, reptiles, snakes and a few canines. Foxes are also very common.

•Rattleclan has a cave system at their disposal which they use as either a dungeon for intruders and codebreakers, or as a stock for various items.

•Unlike the other clans, Rattleclan has nighttime patrols

•Due to what their population consists of, during some especially cold winters part of, or the entirety of Rattleclan may go into hibernation. It usually lasts for as long as they feel it's too cold.

•Daughters/sons of the leader(s) are always referred to as Princes/Princesses of Rattleclan

•The Rattleclan emblem/symbol that represents them to the others, and in prophetic visions from Starclan, is a grinning black rattlesnake

🌧️🦎Rainclan🦎🌧️

Originally founded by waterlizards, which is a species originating from Clarome. It was founded just by a river, and so alot of it's population also consists of riverside/waterborne birds such as ducks, geese, and other Fisher birds. It too hosts alot of felines, with the few canines here and there. As well as any other reptiles and amphibians that can swim. It's mostly dominated by Waterlizards. It's part of their code that any and all members of Rainclan must be able to swim, and it's seen as a disgrace to be afraid of water or to not be able to swim. Fishing is an essential skill in this clan, even favored over dryland hunting sometimes. Sometimes. Portals are sometimes found underwater in the river.

•Rainclan has at least the second best stock of herbs due to their location.

•They're considered to own most of the territory along the river, all the way up to a small waterfall. The river eventually leads out of Clarome and into the ocean

🌳🐺Valleyclan🐺🌳

It was originally founded by canines, mostly wolves. The clan resides in a sheltered lowering in the landscape, defined as a valley. It's deep in the forest, where mostly leafed trees and bushes grow, and densely. As the wolves settled in, the area was originally populated by rabbits and hares. There were battles and discourse about the ownership of this plot of land, until the rabbits and wolves could finally peacefully unite into valleyclan. It did take a while to get used to living with your natural predator/prey though. Valleyclan is and usually has been one of the biggest clans of them all, also holding a large area of the forest for themselves. They've ran into border disputes with the others often, and have a bloody history with Rattleclan, which was fortunately settled by a needed change of leaders. Due to Valleyclans terrible line of leaders being all parent-child, it caused the other clans to make it so the leader decides their successor, and it isn't automatically signed to a blood heir or a deputy. They too, made it this way, but were the last ones to do so.

Valleyclan contains the most canines of any kind, foxes, forestborne birds, sapient prey animals like rabbits and hares, a little reptilians and even bears, deer, moose and wild horses at some point, but those have been so rare that they aren't seen much these days.

•Valleyclan has often suffered from overpopulation.

•They like to think of themselves as the center of the forest and often try to help or otherwise get involved into the goings of other clans. They tend to initiate the meetings between all the clans/their leaders

🌈💐Colorclan💐🌈

Second newest of all the clans at the moment. Originally founded by a (sparkle)cat and his wife and they just built it up from there, taking in anyone with a good spirit and unique self expression. They came in a little later into the area where the rest of the clans live in, which caused some discourse. Colorclan has the most diverse selection of animals and mixed creatures out of all the rest. It's also in their genetic code to be extremely bright and colorful and straight up wacky. They don't follow some of the same conventions as the rest and are often seen as the "Childish" and "Pathetic" clan of the bunch. They're very creative in their culture and a prominent part is the ability to make paint and fur dye. Not everyone is taught this but it's highly valued, and they use this paint to often mark territories and do general customization. Singing and songs is also a part of their culture

🥀💚Toxic-clan💚🥀

Newest of all the clans, Toxic clan was founded by a rather infamous exile, Morsoclaw and his best friend (named Knife-eye at the time). Followed thereafter by Morsoclaws wife(at the time) Skullrose who was a medic in Rattleclan, + an abandoned kitten they found and nursed back to health, + Knife-eye's girlfriend Fairytail. They later gained more numbers from various other exiles and clan members who didn't find their place elsewhere, as well as rogues. It's still the smallest of the clans, but has a very strong sense of unity, freedom and loyalty. Members can take more fluid roles than in the other clans, such as camp janitor, gatherer, full-time Queen and so on. Members are allowed to change their names themselves at any point in their lives if they so choose, without the involvement of the leader (Referred to as boss in this clan). It's also considered a horrendous act and punishable if someone names their child or warrior a name that purposely demeans or mocks them.

Toxic-clan aims to go against the rest of the clans in traditions and roles and thusly be better

[birdsandspades]

I Was Never Good at Waiting (Sugawara X Reader) Chapter 3

- It was your last year in highschool, everything had been going smoothly until you got assigned the new teacher. Sugawara Koushi was handsome, maybe too handsome for his own good. Be he wasn't flirting with you right, teachers shouldn't do that....I guess we will see where this year goes.

Word Count - 3,163

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Sunlight peeked through your blinds as the soft vibrations from your phone woke you from your dreams. Opening one eye you turned to look at the digital clock on your desk next to your bed. It was 6:00 a.m, time for you to get ready for the day. Lifting your legs into the air you rotated side to side, gathering enough momentum for you to roll yourself off the bed. 

Soft padded footsteps echoed through the silent house as you meandered to the bathroom. You ran your hand over the wall a few times, finally hitting the light switch. The lights flickered on, your eyes burning at the sudden shift in brightness. You rubbed circles on them with your palms, fuzzy white dots filling your vision. 

After the blurry vision dissipated you took a look at your groggy state. Most of the hair that had been inside of your bun had found it's way out, standing up in various directions. The underneath of your eyes were sunken and dark, but this was normal. Tired was just another word to describe your features at this point. Taking out your hair tie you combed through your nest like hair while turning on the shower, attempting to guide the temperature to a desirable position.

Stripping yourself of your nightly bedwear, you stepped inside and pulled the door closed. You recoiled as the cold water hit your back, cursing as you adjusted the temperature once again. Your morning showers were quick, only for the purpose of taming your bedhead, you showered at night for cleanliness. You ran through your morning shower cycle quickly before shutting off the water. You felt around for your towel, grabbing at nothing. You pulled open the shower door, glaring at the empty towel rod. You look in a deep breath, sprinting out of the warm bathroom and into the cold hallway. You b-lined for the linen closet, practically ripping it off it's hinges as you pulled something warm and fuzzy out of the dark hole in the wall. 

After your refreshing, brisk morning run you towel dried you and your wet feet prints.You peaked out of the bathroom again, looking at the bright red numbers on your clock, 6:15. 

Next you brushed your hair, teeth, and dressed yourself for class. Today’s dress was for the most part what you wore every day. A short sleeved light blue button up, a faded red tie (the same one you had received on your first day of first year), your tan plaid pleated shirt, black knee high socks, and to top it off the one thing you could change as you pleased. Most days you opted for the light cream colored sweater vest under your white school jacket, but today felt like a cream cardigan kind of day instead. Most likely because the news reports called for a rainy day today, but also because you wanted to mix it up. 

Your makeup was easy to put on, your hair was just as simple. You had always liked leaving it down but always brought a ponytail just in case. The watch ticking away on your wrist read 6:45, your morning was passing by fast. You gathered your bag and coat before walking downstairs and laying them on the couch. 

Pulling open the fridge doors you pulled out everything you had prepped the night before, all you really had to do was assemble it in your lunch box and you could leave for school. Once you finished that you put it all away and placed your lunch in your bag before pulling on your coat and situating your bag on your shoulder. Walking out the door you locked it behind you and started your walk to school.

Your trip was always the longest part of your day, you had chosen Sejoh because of the impact it had on your moms adolescent life, sure it was out of the way. But that's what legs and trains were for right? 

It took you approximately an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the school from your house. In that time you would walk fifteen minutes to the train station, take two different trains to the station by the school, and walk another ten minutes to the actual school. As long as you were on time, the distance didn’t matter. 

You liked to use the time for writing, mostly songs. It was a hobby only your friends knew about, they also were the only two who knew about the band you had joined last year. It was never an end game option for you, no career would ever come out of the group of ragtag college students who had formed the group years ago. But they were nice enough to let you sing for them when the original member had graduated and moved on from the dream. As long as you could come up with songs, and of course make the time for practice, well they liked having you around. 

You would love to tell the volleyball club about what you did during your weekends away from the club and schoolwork. You probably would have if it wasn’t for the looming threat of every single shitty dive bar you performed at finding out that you indeed were seventeen (going on eighteen, that was important), and in fact not twenty one. But whatever, you were having fun. 

You walked past the front gates and into the lockers at around 8:10, twenty minutes before classes would start. Siding on your slippers you placed your practice gear and outside shoes inside your locker. Today would be your first practice back, it was exciting to say the least.

“Hey, we haven't talked in awhile.” A sweet voice turned your attention away from your thoughts. 

“Yoshiki, hi.” You looked the boy over in surprise, the morning fog still leaving your brain.

“So your homeroom teacher this year is Sugawara-sensei huh? He comes to my class after lunch for science. He seems nice, he made some really bad science jokes yesterday when he introduced himself.” Yoshiki laughed as he remembered the not so funny pun. It reminded you both of simpler, less uncomfortable times you both shared so long ago. 

“I wish I could have heard them.” You giggled, mostly with Yoshiki and less at the statement. I felt nice to take in the easy feeling of being together again, even if it was fleeting. “He was pretty straightforward with the homeroom class. Probably because Yua wouldn’t shut up.”You walked with him down the hallway, his pace matching with yours as you talked.

“I could tell you some of them over lunch.” He paused as you reached your classroom door, his foot digging into the tile. “Unless things are still weird between us?” He couldn’t meet your eyes, his heart pounding in his chest. You had rejected him once, could twice be just as bad?

“Sure, that would be great. Since we ruled out the potentially dating option, all that's left is to go back to being friends again.” You let out an out of place laugh, your enthusiasm forced. You felt awkward, your attempt at mending the relationship uncomfortable to your own ears. 

He on the other hand smiled, it seemed to be just the words he was hoping for. He gave you a brief wave before leaving for his own classroom.

He was right, things were still weird between you. But that's what happens when you fall in love for the first time, try to go on a date, and run away from said date leaving him alone, and then proceed to ignore his calls all winter break. The least you could be was give him a lunch period to feel things out.

You made your way into the classroom, greeting a few students before setting your things down at your desk. Yua and Hiroto were already sitting at their desks when you slid into your seat next to them. 

“Good morning F/N-chan.” They greeted, the unity of their tone made you giggle. 

“No coffee this morning?” Hiroto questioned as he looked at your usually occupied hand. 

“I’m gonna try and quit drinking it so much, save some extra money...” You frowned already painfully aware of the lack of caffeination.

“You're like an addict!” Yua laughed, “I give you a week tops before you crash.”

“Thanks for the support!” You chirped, pinching her exposed arm. You shook your head as she hissed at the pain, the morning bell drowning out her cursing.

Sugawara walked in on cue holding a mug of coffee and a black binder. “Good Morning class.” He smiled as he set down the items on his desk.

“You look nice today Sugawara-sensei!”A voice spoke from somewhere behind you. You needn't look behind you, the high pitched tone was easy to pick out. 

“Thank you.” He smoothed out his suit jacket, nodding in appreciation. His eyes scanned the room before landing on you. “L/N-san, will you come up and take roll for me please?” He gave you a sweet smile, wiggling the board your way. 

“Yes sensei.” You moved your chair back and made your way up to the front of the room. He stood on the other side of his desk, reaching across to take the clipboard and pen from his hands.

“This one is you.” He pointed to your name and smiled sweetly,“Don’t forget this time ok?”

 The class laughed at his teasing remark as you slid the pen out of his hand.

“Yes, sensei.” You mocked him in your head as you walked to the middle of the room looking around the class as you checked off the names. “Maybe if you didn’t walk into class trying to fluster me I wouldn’t have such a hard time functioning.” You finished and handed the board back to him, giving him a forced smile.

“Thank you, you can go sit down now.” He glanced up from his syllabus before sliding it out of your hand. 

Taking your seat again he began the homeroom meeting for the day. It was the same information, just saying what events the school had going on, what the menu was for the day, and if any school deadlines were coming up. Then he broke the class up for independent study as he pulled students to the front for their daily college discussion. Next week this would become a weekly discussion as homeroom would turn into a study hall period for students to get help on school work. 

You were waiting for your turn as the bell rang signaling for the classroom switches. You were a bit sad that you had been the only one left out for the day's discussions, maybe more so that you couldn’t talk to Sugawara. 

Everyone waved a goodbye to Sugawara as he exited the classroom and your next teacher settled into the next subject. Class passed by as usual, your attention fading in and out as you watched out the window. The grey storm clouds had started to roll in as the sky darkened. The sun had permanently tucked behind the clouds around noon, the chill of threatening rain permeating the window next to you.

Before long the bell rang and students made for the cafeteria. As the crowd dispersed, Yoshiki peaked his head in at you and your group of friends. 

“Hey, are you eating in here today?” He made his way over to your desk holding his own bento box. 

“Yeah, you can stay with us if you want.” You beamed as he pulled a chair over to your desk and set his lunch down. It was cutely wrapped, the cloth around it was bordered with brightly colored dinosaurs, as he opened it so were most of the food wrappers. 

“It’s my little brother's box I promise, he took my lunch this morning when he left.His cheeks tinted pink as he shook his head back and forth. He placed both hands over the box, covering it from view.

Giggling you placed a hand over his “It’s ok, dinosaurs are pretty cool.” He relaxed into his seat as you opened your own box. 

“Oh Sugawara-sensei, do you need the classroom?” Hiroto asked as Sugawara walked over to his office door.

“No.You're fine to stay here, I have a few papers to grade in my office.’’ He paused on you, looking between you and Yoshiki.”L/N-san i’m sorry I missed you for our council time.’’ He rested his hand on the doorknob, squeezing it slightly. 

“It’s ok Sugawara- sensei! The class is so big, I don’t know how you could make enough time for all of us in one day.” You waved your hand at the notion and laughed, he had no reason to feel bad. You had all year to college prep, one day wouldn’t set you back.

“I’m free after school if you want to wait in my office? We can run down your requirements before volleyball practice.” He shifted on his feet slightly, Yoshiki’s gaze heavy on him.

You agreed to the offer, thanking him as he disappeared into his office.

“Two days in a row, look at you!” Yua laughed as she slapped your back causing you to choke on your food. 

“Yua-chan he’s our teacher!” Hiroto whispered aggressively as he handed you his water bottle.

“I know, it's just funny seeing how flustered she gets.” Yua winked at you, as if her flirtatious actions would justify the burning in your throat. 

You passed the lunch period chatting amongst your friends, Yoshiki easing into the conversation as if nothing had ever happened. You were grateful for the new start, happy to have your friend back. As everyone finished their lunches, Yua and Hiroto waved a goodbye. They were on a mission to find the raccoon that lived by the track dumpsters, leftover food in tow. You and Yoshiki were left in the classroom, silence settling around you both.

“So, are you still doing soccer with Hiroto-kun?” You tried to fill the conversational gap, hoping it would disperse the awkward feeling around you two.

 “Yeah, but they pretty much benched me. The new first years are really good.” He laughed, sounding sadder than he had planned.

 You opened your mouth when the office door clicked  open and Sugawara peaked his head out.

“L/N-san come here please.” He waved a hand at you, disappearing back into his office.

You looked between the open door and Yoshiki before standing up. You turned to speak, Yoshiki already packing up his belongings.

He said a hasty goodbye, leaving before you could get a word in.

You watched as he walked out the door, turning back to the open office.

“Yes Sugawara-senpai?” You pushed the door open a little more before stepping into his office. 

It was nicer inside then you had anticipated. He had one large window facing the courtyard, while the other 2 walls adjacent to the door were lined with rows and rows of books. A large dark oak desk sat in the middle of the room, free of clutter and debris. He had pushed a small black sofa under the window, it looked comfy and worn in. Like it held more stories then the actual shelves. But the most notable feature of the room was the abundance of small and large plants placed around the room. Some sat on the windowsill, others were placed between the sections of books on the shelves. The larger plants were tucked into the corners of the room, leaves fanning out over everything nearby. But one particularly pretty pink succulent sat on his desk, perfectly positioned to sit in the ray of sun that shined through the window. It looked like it was basking in the warmth, soaking up all the sun had to offer. 

“Can you do me a favor L/N-san?” Sugawara questioned as your eyes stopped roaming. You landed on his hand, reaching out towards you, grasping something out of sight. 

You reached out and opened your hands,“Of course Sugawara-senpai.” 

He opened his hands to drop a few yen into yours. “I didn’t have time for lunch today, can you go grab me a hot drink from the vending machines by the south gym? You can get yourself something as well if you want. There should be enough money for two.” 

“I may be late for class sensei…” You cupped the warm metal, how long had he been holding the coins? They heated the palm of your hand slightly, melding with your own warmth.

”It’s ok, just come in quiet when you come back.” He sat back down, picking up a red pen.

You nodded and smiled before running off towards the south gym doors. You would hurry, maybe if you ran you would make it back before the bell rang.

“Um, what should I get him?” You scanned over the drink options presented to you.“It is flu season, maybe something that will keep him healthy? But he did say he didn’t eat lunch, what's thick. What if he fails me because I got him something gross.” You were shaking your head back and forth, this was becoming much more tasking then it should have ever been. You pushed the green tea button twice, grateful he was kind enough to give you enough money for something as well. 

The rain was starting to come down, getting heavier by the minute. You took the two hot drinks and ran for the main entrance, hoping the rain wouldn’t soak your cardigan too much before you made it inside. 

It was a short walk back to the classroom, you could hear Sugawara on the other side, he had already started the lesson. Deciding to finish your own green tea in the hallway you emptied the container before heading inside. 

You slid the door open just enough to fit inside, attempting to be quiet enough to not distract the classroom. Eyes were all on you as you closed the door and turned around to face your peers. Breathing stopped as they waited for their sensei to reprimand you for being late.

You walked over to Sugawara and handed him the tea before fishing his remaining change out of your cardigan pocket and rushing back to your desk, eyes on the floor as you sat down.

“Thank you L/N-san.”His smile was sweet and gentle as he turned back to the class. “So this diagram differs from the previous in what way?” He continued on with the lesson as everyone's gaze slowly started to leave you. 

After a few minutes it seemed as if everyone had lost interest in your tardiness, almost everyone. Two pairs of eyes from the back of the room bore holes into the back of your head for the remainder of class, you didn’t have to turn around to know who they belonged to.

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Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

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[eddycurrents]

For the week of 15 May 2019

Quick Bits:

Age of X-Man: Next Gen #4 hurtles towards the end as Glob, Armor, and Rockslide attempt to track down Anole before he does something stupid. Everything’s really starting to fall together in these minis as the lie of the world starts to unravel. It’s also interesting how Ed Brisson portrays the cultists fighting back against the “no love” edict as just as deluded and indoctrinated by X-Man’s change of reality.

| Published by Marvel

Aquaman #48 begins Arthur’s quest to recover his past in the first part of “Mother Shark”, with one hell of a twist for an ending cliffhanger. The high level of the quality of art on this series continues as Viktor Bogdanovic and his Greg Capullo-inspired style (with Jonathan Glapion and Daniel Henriques providing additional inks) join Kelly Sue DeConnick, Sunny Gho, and Clayton Cowles.

| Published by DC Comics

Batman #71 is part two of “The Fall and the Fallen” from Tom King, Mikel Janín, Jorge Fornés, Jordie Bellaire, and Clayton Cowles. With the heavy reliance on dream sequences and simulations lately, it certainly makes me wonder who’s gaslighting who, whether anything in the story is real or if King is just playing us. Great art, though.

| Published by DC Comics

Bloodborne #12 concludes “A Song of Crows” from Aleš Kot, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson, and Aditya Bidikar. This arc has been even more surreal than the first, embracing that odd mix of depression and existentialism that seems to permeate the franchise. This is going to take a few more readings to really sink in.

| Published by Titan

Calamity Kate #3 gives us a look into the disastrous relationship between Kate and Sandra. Though the accuracy of events might be a bit nebulous, given some missing time and an appearance that not everything is happening as we see it, this paints Sandra as a particularly resentful, hateful person. Also, another clue in Kate’s rival. Great action art from Corin Howell and Valentina Pinto, with an interestingly designed tentacle monster.

| Published by Dark Horse

Daredevil #5 is the gut punch. As great as everything that Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Sunny Gho, and Clayton Cowles have delivered in the first four issues (and seriously it’s some of the best Daredevil since Miller and Mazzucchelli), this one tops it. A reckless, dangerous Daredevil, a hazard to himself and everyone around him, having it dawn on him what he’s been doing. And all of the Catholic guilt, shame, and judgement, not just on himself, but on the revelation that he’s seemingly oblivious that all of his friends have also been in his situation.

| Published by Marvel

Fairlady #2 is another great issue from Brian Schirmer, Claudia Balboni, Marissa Louise, and David Bowman. The blend of fantasy and police procedural is seamless, presenting a completely believable world, building up bits of supporting characters and elaborating on the setting as the story unfolds. Also a great shift into a kind of storybook art style from Balboni and Louise during one of the flashback sequences.

| Published by Image

Guardians of the Galaxy #5 sees the other shoe drop. Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, David Curiel, and Cory Petit deliver an excellent set-up for the finale of the “Final Gauntlet” here as Hela makes her move and we find out what the game actually was. Also, more hints about Rocket that don’t seem pleasant.

| Published by Marvel

Immortal Hulk #17 goes hard for thriller first before leaning back into horror as Bushwacker stalks Banner through the “abandoned” lab. Very interesting new “rules” that Al Ewing is laying out as what makes up a Hulk keeps consistently changing.

| Published by Marvel

Joe Golem: Occult Detective - The Conjurors #1 picks up with our dead hero being nibbled by fish, and it’s just downhill from there for Molly, Simon Church, and all of existence due to Dr. Cocteau’s meddling. Great art from Peter Bergting and Michelle Madsen.

| Published by Dark Horse

Justice League #24 is the penultimate chapter of “The Sixth Dimension” and amidst the dire situations, heroic sacrifices, and stunning betrayals, there’s a great opening sequence about the little disappointments that Superman feels when he lets someone down. It’s like Catholic guilt amplified immensely, but it raises some interesting questions about how superheroes deal with depression. Or not deal with it, as it were. Great work from Scott Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sánchez, and Tom Napolitano.

| Published by DC Comics

Little Bird #3 is another incredible instalment in this story, with some interesting revelations about Little Bird and Gabriel, from Darcy Van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, and Aditya Bidikar. The artwork from Bertram and Hollingsworth is mind-bendingly awesome.

| Published by Image

Livewire #6 continues the PSEP arc from Vita Ayala, Kano, and Saida Temofonte as Amanda discovers more about the organization and gets introduced firsthand to the academy bully enforcer. The art from Kano, from the characters through the layouts, is next level.

| Published by Valiant

Naomi #5 explains everything. Mostly. Sure, there are still questions, and there’s likely a huge battle coming for the final issue, but we get a full-fledged explanation as Naomi tells her newly-learned origin story to Annabelle. And it’s brilliant. Wonderful parallels to other tales and a hint at implications for the DC Universe as a whole. Also, drop dead gorgeous artwork. Seriously some of the best ever to grace the comics page. Brian Michael Bendis, David F. Walker, Jamal Campbell, and Wes Abbott provide another excellent issue here. Highly, highly recommended.

| Published by DC Comics / Wonder Comics

Oblivion Song #15 is one hell of a page turner. Robert Kirkman, Lorenzo De Felici, Annalisa Leoni, and Rus Wooton barely give us a chance to breathe in this one as the Faceless Men attack, both those who’ve chosen to stay in Oblivion and the exploration teams jaunting back and forth from Earth. Great tension.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Pearl #9 is another visually stunning issue from Michael Gaydos. Seriously just look at this beauty.

| Published by DC Comics / Jinxworld

Sabrina the Teenage Witch #2 throws even more chaos Sabrina’s way as it seems like everything in Greendale is something supernatural or paranormal or straight out of weird science. Kelly Thompson is delivering some great humour, while the art from Veronica and Andy Fish remains perfect for anything and everything in Archie’s world.

| Published by Archie

Superman #11 swings back around to Zod after Superman unceremoniously left him being beaten by Rogol Zaar as this arm of “The Unity Saga” continues, delving further into the battle consuming Jor-El at the moment, but not really explaining anything. This is chaos, but it looks pretty.

| Published by DC Comics

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder in Hell #3 is worth it just for the glorious artwork from Mateus Santolouco and Marcelo Costa. The monster designs are incredible and the red, surreal glow of the colours just give life to the strange and deadly nature of this hellscape. 

| Published by IDW

Transformers #5 suggests that there’s a whole lot more going on under the surface of Cybertron and the mystery of the death of Brainstorm that we thought. More interesting things going on with Rubble too, as he gets kind of lost while Bumblebee’s off doing other stuff.

| Published by IDW

Uncanny X-Men #18 adds again to the body count as things continue to fall apart. The nihilism, darkness, and depression in this series has really been getting to me these past few issues. With announcements for House of X and Powers of X, this is starting to feel like a “throw the X-Men down a hole before rebooting” type of story. I’m still not sure if I like it, since it’s putting me in a sour mood.

| Published by Marvel

War of the Realms #4 drills down on Freyja’s defence of the Black Bifrost, intent on taking away its use from Malekith. All of the art on this series has been phenomenal, but Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson somehow take it up another notch. This is epic.

| Published by Marvel

War of the Realms: Giant-Man #1 kicks off another front in the War as Freyja tasks Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, and Atlas to infiltrate the Frost Giants’ bastion on Earth and get revenge, from Leah Williams, Marco Castiello, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Joe Sabino. Very nice bits of humour and wonderful artwork.

| Published by Marvel

War of the Realms: Spider-Man & The League of Realms #1 opens up another front as Spider-Man leads the members of the League of Realms into New Heven territory, from Sean Ryan, Nico Leon, Carlos Lopez, and Joe Caramagna. It’s great to see more Ryan-penned Spider-Man, even if he only ever seems to get to write the event tie-ins. He’s got a great handle on Spidey, effortlessly displaying that humour and humanity of the character every time.

| Published by Marvel

War of the Realms: Strikeforce - The War Avengers #1 is the second Strikeforce one-shot elaborating on encounters spinning out of War of the Realms #3. This one focuses on Captain Marvel’s motley crew of Avengers as they try to strike at the heart of Malekith in Britain from Dennis Hallum, Kim Jacinto, Ario Anindito, Java Tartaglia, Felipe Sobreiro, and Joe Sabino. Some nice Deadpool humour and art in what is one of the more bonkers tie-ins.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Age of X-Man: Marvelous X-Men #4, Amazing Spider-Man #21, American Carnage #7, Battlestar Galactica Classic #4, Bettie Page #5, Black Badge #10, Black Widow #5, Cinema Purgatorio #18, Farmhand #8, Firefly #6, Gideon Falls #13, Go Go Power Rangers #20, High Level #4, Infinity 8 #12, Ironheart #6, James Bond 007 #7, Kaijumax - Season 4 #6, Kick-Ass #14, KISS: The End #2, Last Stop on the Red Line #1, Life & Death of Toyo Harada #3, Low #22, Lucifer #8, Lumberjanes #62, Marvel Action: Spider-Man #4, Morning in America #3, Old Man Quill #5, Orphan Age #2, Planet of the Nerds #2, Port of Earth #10, Princeless - Book 8: Princesses #2, Spider-Man: Life Story #3, Star Wars #66, Star Wars: Age of Rebellion - Lando Calrissian #1, Star Wars: Tie Fighter #2, Teen Titans #30, Xena: Warrior Princess #2

Recommended Collections: Batgirl - Volume 5: Art of the Crime, Bitter Root - Volume 1: Family Business, GI Joe: A Real American Hero - Volume 22, The Horror of Collier County, Immortal Hulk - Volume 3: Hulk in Hell, Jeepers Creepers - Volume 1: Trail of the Beast, Justice League Odyssey - Volume 1: The Ghost Sector, MCMLXXV, Mister Miracle, Outer Darkness - Volume 1, Outpost Zero - Volume 2, RuinWorld: Eye for an Eye, Star Wars: Age of Republic - Heroes, Star Wars: Han Solo - Imperial Cadet, The Whispering Dark

d. emerson eddy wishes there were more hours in the day in order to write about everything.

[princess-hours]

Descendants 3 (2019) Review

what i liked:

- the vk squad with like all of the vks including harry uma gil? so valid i really liked their development especially mal x uma and jay x gil

- speaking of mal and uma i loved their whole relationship this movie, it progressed at a good speed and i feel like even in the end this really was the dove cameron and china mcclain movie like it felt like both of them against the bad guy which i liked

- my favorite song was definitely night falls, but i also liked the audrey song and good to be bad and the kiss song

- i liked the new baby vks! they were cute i liked how celia’s relationship with her dad and the rest of the vks had like (mostly) loving relationships with their family like it was definitely a shift away from the original vks and their parents that made the idea of closing the border more upsetting

- i loved audrey as the villain oh my god it was a little over dramatic but like for some reason it was infinitely more entertaining to see her act overdramatic and the whole ‘happy birthday jane’ thing was so badass

- production value was definitely better this time around, costume and hair design on the core 4 plus audrey (the make it pink make it blue sleeping beauty reference that was her hair) and most of the other characters was definitely improved, they used less clunky cgi

- i really liked the message of the movie and the overall way they tried to accomplish it like the ideas in it about unity, and good coming from everywhere just like evil, it was fleshed out and it was presented well, especially in the ending of the film

- small moments that i really liked---- ben singing did i mention to propose, janes cake getting slowly eaten over the course of the movie, harry and gil stealing their bikes at the beginning of the movie and crashing them lol, it was really a girl power movie which i appreciated, jane x carlos and the necklace uwu, evie being so lighthearted

things i didnt like as much:

- im not like the biggest hades stan his hair was too large and i feel like there shouldve been a little bit more development between him and mal besides the song, he felt a little plot devicey, giving a new powerful magic object liek the ember, healing audrey, and giving mal a way to show her growth by forgiving him, etc??

- there was no punishment for audrey or chad like i know it was to talk about remorse but there shouldve been at least some more acknowledgement of the wrongs they did like them apologizing to everyone esp chad he literally just avoided that by being comic relief

- uma reigniting the ember was a bit iffy, it felt like a cop out that only happened for the sake of the plot and the character development,,, that really wouldve been the best time to reintroduce hades and have him reignite it but i guess not

- where is lonnie?!?!

- the cinematography on the night falls scene didnt do the choreography any favors like i feel like it was cut really weird they shouldve put longer shots instead of all the cuts

- if i have to see that dog talk one more time im going to lose it

- this is nitpicky but who is harry’s love interest supposed to be i feel like they made it be uma and then he was like janes hot and then he was like uma and then he was like audrey like um im confusion

- i understand like the importance of them opening the bridge to the isle right but like thats not 100 percent realistic right like it originally was built as jail im not some mass incarceration supporter but like i dont want every single villain/criminal out? but like i do think that people should have the quality of life in auradon so yeah i was mixed on that

Overall:

I liked the movie but the songs were super hit or miss for me. The choreography was good but it was being restricted by the editing of the movie smh. The plot was great, message was great, even if the ending was a little rushed and not fully covered. Production quality really was amazing. I’ll probably make a shorter, less detailed version of this highlighting the small moments I liked the most.

Another note: The tribute to Cameron Boyce was really sweet and I felt my heart break while watching it. I felt like crying when I saw that clip of him and Sophie Reynolds on the set of Gamer’s Guide. He died too young, and may he rest in peace.

[secretradiobrooklyn]

SECRET RADIO | 11.14.20

Secret Radio | 11.14.20 | Hear it here.

Artwork by Paige, liner notes by Evan except * for Paige

1. The Wizard of Oz - “Ding Dong” Suite

We were looking for a proper song to get this party started, and damned if it didn’t involve a bunch of delighted munchkins! As much as our hopes for the coming years are muted, the relief at not having to contend with a headlong dictator enjoying full-on democratic support just cannot be overstated. DING DONG Y’ALL!

2. David Bowie - “Look Back in Anger”

I’ve been practicing drums a ton during the pandemic, and I just realized that I’m going to have to spend some time trying to get at this pattern. It’s some of my favorite drumming ever, from one of my top 20 albums ever. In fact, this comes from a very special edition of Lodger, via Brian McClelland, wherein Tony Visconti took the original tapes and completely remixed the album as he always felt it should have been mixed if they weren’t be rushed. To someone who has listened to that record many many times, it sounds like I’ve been next door the album all this time, and I’m finally allowed into the room where it’s playing. So clear and focused and modern!

3. Frank Alamo - “Ma Biche”

A “biche” is a doe, we believe. “It’s something about ‘pretty eyes,’” Paige says, “which would make sense.” Further research, though, reveals that the song is about how much he likes her pretty dark eyeliner. I know the feeling!

4. (Not) Rom JongVak - “Monkey”

Well, this has been a learning process. There’s this great song that I thought was called “Twist (Dance Twist)” by Rom Jong Vak, that we played like a month ago — and then tonight I thought I was playing “Monkey,” by Rom JongVak. Buuut, as I look further, I’m learning that the first song was “Rom Jong Vak Twist,” by Pan Ron… And the song here is I guess called “Rom Jong Vak Monkey,” and I have no idea who it’s by! All of the text on the page is in just boxes where Cambodian text would go, so it’s bound to remain lost. Whoever it is, I sure do enjoy that first aggressive drum fill and the whole weird texture of this recording.

5. Luiz Visconde - “Chofer de Praça”

Paige: “The first times that I listened to this Angolan collection, I really just listened to Os Kiezos, because they did “Muxima.” But then I eventually spread out and found this song. It’s from Angola, between ’65 and ’75.”

6. The Velvet Underground - “European Son”

P: We would go to the Beechwood a little bar around the corner from us in Wicker Park, down the street off Milwaukee Avenue. They had a real jukebox, not a TuneBlast or whatever. It was just a great little dive. They had this record in the jukebox, and we would always put on this song. I suppose that could have been read as an aggressive thing to do, but we’d put on other songs too! It was a good way to stretch your quarters, and it loosens the bar up. And I figured, if they didn’t like this song they wouldn’t put it in the jukebox.

     Once when we were there on a busy weekend night, something was wrong with the jukebox. It was broken. And the bartender opened it up and put like a hundred bucks on it and said, “Everybody play whatever you want, three songs each. It was awesome. Everybody did take turns too, three songs each, all around the bar. It was a really cool night.

7. Fred Astaire - “No Strings (I’m Fancy Free)”

What a lovely piano intro! This song is from the 1935 film “Top Hat.” It’s one of those movies where the clever protagonist pursues a girl he has a crush on — or terrorizes a stranger until she submits to his will, depending on whose perspective you take. There are a lot of those — “An American in Paris” is another — and they’re fascinating to watch just by flipping that switch back and forth in your own head. Meanwhile, both movies are chock full of beautiful shots, fabulous scenes, gorgeous songs, and glowing stars. 

     Something about the quality of this recording — a new master or something? — makes it sound like it was JUST recorded. It feels so alive and contemporary, with a lovely little vibrophone solo in the middle. I just 

Martial Solal, “Breathless” soundtrack - “L’amour, la mort”

Note: I remember this story in the reverse, where the truckers announced this gleefully to each other as they marched merrily OUT the door and into the late afternoon, headed towards… what? Whatever it is, I hope they found it and everyone had a great time.

8. Johnny Hallyday - “Nous quand on s’embrasse”

Have you seen “The Wild One”? Can’t you see how much trouble could have been avoided if those leathered-up motorcycle dudes were able to rock out to songs like this one instead of trying to jazz their way forward? They should have been twisting the night away! Alas, instead they had to tear up bars and beat people up to get their kicks. Tough break, kid.

9. Lokassa Ya M’bongo - “Bonne année”

I found this while searching for something else, but it was labeled “l’Instant Vinyl” in the same format as our Assa-Cica record, so had to check it out. M’bongo is a Congolese guitarist — a rhythm guitarist specifically, which doesn’t normally get the love that lead guitar gets in this soukous form. Lokassa Ya M’bongo means “Lokassa the money man,” and he became a session man in demand. He was a big part of the “Congolo-Paris sound,” a phrase I just read that I’m going to have to look more into.

    Bonne année indeed! Still feeling that relief about hopefully getting out from under the thumb of that giant dummy.

10. Velly Joonas - “Stopp, Seisku Aeg!”

The image of Velly Joonas is pretty heart-stopping: she’s absolutely beautiful, in giant glasses and a striped shirt. The song is so confident and strange in its instrumentation, with keys, organ, fiddle, and a super-tight bass/drum combo. I feel like this could have been a big US underground hit in the ‘90s.

11. Eko Roosevelt - “Kilimandjaro”

Such a sincere song! Eko Roosevelt is kind of hit and miss with me, but when they hit, they get completely stuck in my head! The horn parts on “Me To a De Try My Own” do that to me, and so does the eternal chorus of this song. I love the notes in the bridge as they drop further and further down the scale like they’re descending from the mountaintop. And when he gets to the declarations of love at the end — “I love you, my home! I really do, I really do!” — that’s it, that’s the best.

12. Tonetta - “Yummy Yummy Pizza”

I warn you: look up this video (after you listen to the “broadcast” of course) at your own peril. Not because it’s terrible, but because it is fascinating, and it is just one of SO many. They tease you with tiny shreds of information about this Tonetta person, but never enough that you can get a sense of what the hell is going on with… him? Them? Maybe ask Matt and Brian from Tok about it — they got obsessed enough to record an EP of Tonetta songs, which is how I heard about this all in the first place.

13. Prewar Yardsale - “AU Base”

Paige: I was loading a five-disc changer at Jeffrey’s and something about the cover, the name sounded interesting. I put it on and it’s pretty freakin rad. It stood up to my blind listen expectations. I think this is produced by our friend Matt Mason. 

14. Eugenius - “Mary Queen of Scots”

Matt Mason and Jeffrey Lewis make me think of Schwervon!, which makes me think of the Vaselines who they toured with several times, and that brings me to Eugenius, headed by Eugene Kelly. This was a mainstay in Sean’s room when we all lived together, singing the harmonies and air-drumming along. It remains as satisfying as ever, I’m happy to say.

15. Wednesday Campanella - “Aladdin”

This song is sung in Japanese, not that you’d know from context clues. Tim Gebauer introduced us to this strange Japanese shapeshifter. It was hard to tell if I liked her music or was just amazed by her videos (which you should totally check out). Now I believe it’s safe to say we dig this song. I like how many elements of ‘70s international disco it has, while still sounding super modern. What is weirder to me is that I cannot tell if I would like this song if it was sung in English.

Breathless soundtrack

16. Letti Mbulu - “Mahlalela”

Originally South African, Mbulu managed to escape to the US in 1965 and had a hell of a career. She worked with Cannonball Adderley, Hugh Masakela, Harry Belafonte and Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones said this amazing thing about her: “Mbulu is the roots lady, projecting a sophistication and warmth which stirs hope for attaining pure love, beauty, and unity in the world.” Um, that’s really impressive.

17. Christophe - “Aline”

*Really dig this song, partially I think because it’s in a decent range for me to sing along. I love his desperate delivery and tone of voice. We just learned tonight that Christophe passed away this year at 74 after complications with COVID-19. 

18. Zap Mama - “Brrlak!”

Credit to my dad, Larry Sult, for bringing Zap Mama to our attention. He’s been heavily into marimba music, and played in a marimba band in Bellingham for many years; in fact, he spent many years making the instruments for the band in his woodshop in the basement of their home. Zap Mama is adjacent to that music, though certainly very different. This band comes from all over the world. The main gal was born in &&&&& but found herself in a Pygmy society for awhile, which seems to be where she developed some of those low-high yodels. We saw some footage of her playing, and she did this awesome thing where she held empty airplane bottles just below her lips as she sang, creating a resonance that you can hear here. I love that this whole composition is a cappella.

19. The Buzzards - “High Society”

Years ago, I was whiling away my time in Seattle and stopped into Orpheum Records, right there at the corner where Broadway turns into 10th Ave E. After a half hour of flipping through records I had to know what all the killer albums were that had been playing overhead. Turns out they were all from “The Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit,” a collection of Detroit bands put out by Sympathy for the Record Industry. It was recorded by Jack White and Jim Diamond and it’s full of topshelf tracks, but after all the years, this is the one that we turn out to actually enjoy, and quote, the most. 

    As far as I could tell, there isn’t a version of this song anywhere online, which I personally find disGRACEful!

20. Sleepy Kitty - “Buzzards & Dreadful Crows”

My favorite part of this recording is that I got to sing a couple of guitar parts that I reflexively sing along to on the original.

*This was from a 20th anniversary of “Bee Thousand” tribute show, and we made this recording with Jason Hutto at this studio off Cherokee Street and we recorded a couple others that we did that night. A small run of screenprinted downloads were made. 

Teddy Afro, “Mar Eske Tuwa” credit music

21. Ata Kak - “Moma Yendodo”

Some corrections to what I said in the broadcast: Ata Kak is indeed Ghanian, but I think he might have recorded this in Germany. His is a fascinating little story of determination. This recording comes from a tape that he made about 50 copies of total. It was found by Brian from Awesome Tapes From Africa at a roadside stand in Ghana. He loved it so much that he spent years trying to track Ata Kak down. When he finally did, they found that the original master tapes were all ruined, and Brian’s copy was the only one that they could make a new version from! So that’s what you’re hearing here. 

22. Spoon - “30 Gallon Tank”

Early Spoon is some of my favorite music ever. This is from “A Series of Sneaks,” an album that changed my life pretty much as soon as I heard it. Harvey Danger stopped at a lot of record stores on tour, and at one of them I managed to stumble upon both “A Series of Sneaks” and (I think) Guv’ner’s “Spectral Worship” — what a day! I put this album on in headphones in the van and just listened over and over and over again. Eventually, when our manager announced that we should spend a few weeks between radio festivals headlining a tour with a couple of support acts and asked if we had any ideas, I had a list with Spoon on top and Creeper Lagoon right below that. The tour that resulted was rough for Spoon — they’d just been dropped by their label and were having an understandably rough time — but a fucking thrill for me, because I got to see one of my favorite bands each night. That still stands as one of the absolute highlights of my time in Harvey Danger. Jim Eno is one of the top drummers in my pantheon because he’s such a great composer for the song, and Britt Daniels plays guitar the way I truly wish I did — which he did at the time all on distorted acoustic guitar! 

23. Patrick Coutin - “Fais-moi jouir”

*I meant to put on a different Patrick Coutin song but put this one on by accident and I was like, this is cool, and then I was like “I think he’s saying. . .I think this is pretty. . . explicit. Like Serge and Jane cranked.” As far as I can tell, it definitely is. They don’t teach you these words on Duolingo though. Ha! 

24. Dur Dur Band - “Yabaal”

I mean no disrespect to Dur Dur Band when I say that we didn’t dig the first several songs we heard by them, but this song is undeniable. The groove just digs in and doesn’t stop for anything.

25. Mel Brooks - “High Anxiety”

We’re stepping out on a mixed emotional note, but: we’re not out of the woods yet. I hope we can get through the next couple of months as a nation peacefully and productively, but Paige and I are both in a state of high anxiety about what still seems to be happening daily. Stay safe!

*yet staying optimistic! ’Cause we gotta. À plus tard!

[guillemelgat]

Catalan Folk Music

As per request​, your favorite old person is here to give you some Catalan folk recommendations! (Actually I am neither old nor do I listen to large amounts of Catalan folk, but whatever, I’ll take any opportunity I get to talk about Catalan music.)

To begin with, the idea of “folk music” is kind of hard to define, since “folk” basically just means people and people are behind music most of the time. I’m not sure what Catalan folk Spotify thinks I’m listening to, but I’ll break down what I consider to be folk music from Catalunya and y’all can decide which one you think most accurately describes the style you like. 

(this is officially Too Long so will continue under the cut)

Real Folk (aka Weird Songs Your Avis Would Sing About Jesus and Other Such Topics)

Beldà + Sanjosex - This is probably why Spotify thinks I enjoy Catalan folk, but this album is really cool for me because as the child of an ethnomusicologist one of my favorite things in the world are the original songs that people used to sing in different places aka Real Folk Music™, and this album is the epitome of that. Neither Carles Beldà nor Sanjosex are explicitly folk artists, so don’t listen to any of their other albums expecting them to be the same, but this one is basically them reviving traditional Catalan folk songs (including samples from original recordings) and I think it’s super cool. If you speak Catalan, there’s a website (called Càntut like the album) dedicated to preserving these sorts of songs, with a wealth of songs, lyrics, and recordings.

“El divino vull cantar” - Token Jesus song with one of the people who taught them the song featured at the beginning and end (and at the end he sings a verse that Sanjosex comments is one he had never heard before). 

“El pomeró” - A cute song about a little apple tree of the sort that you would sing as a child except in a pretty polished version.

“Serrallonga” - A song about everyone’s favorite Catalan folk hero, this one has a bit more of an edge to it because Serrallonga was an edgy man.

Pep Gimeno “Botifarra” - I don’t know if Pep Botifarra should be here because he kind of transcends categories, but this was the best I could do. Basically, he’s a traditional singer in the Valencian cantaor style, and he makes a lot of traditional but also fun and modern music! In other words, the style he sings in is always traditional, and generally he’s accompanied by a traditional ensemble, but he also appears in collaboration with a range of groups from the País Valencià and the Països Catalans in general, especially groups like Obrint Pas. Also, a lot of his songs have more modern lyrics, and he’s generally just amazing.

“Malaguenya de Barxeta” - A rousing hymn to “el meu País Valencià” and honestly just The Best. Obrint Pas also have a version of this, which is also great, but less traditional.

“Jota de Xàtiva” - Feliu Ventura wrote at least some of the lyrics to this, but the music is old, which makes for a fun mix between modern and traditional.  

“Cant de batre” - Just because it’s absolutely gorgeous, not because it’s famous or important.

Nova Cançó (aka The Kind of Folk That Came From the 60s and Was Mostly For Hippies but in Catalunya It Was a Bit More Rooted In Actual Tradition)

Lluís Llach - I actually don’t listen to much Llach, but how can I not include him on this list? I don’t know if I would consider him 100% folk, but he’s definitely a leader of the Nova Cançó movement and a Catalan musician who you just can’t not know.

“L’estaca” - THE song by Lluís Llach, also probably a good example of him singing in a more folk-y style.

Maria del Mar Bonet - I've only listened to a bit of Maria del Mar Bonet, but she was another leader of Nova Cançó and her songs are really pretty and a lot more folksy. She’s also from Mallorca, which is always fun.

“Merhaba” - A song about the unity of Mediterranean cultures and their shared history as seafarers. This version sounds like it came from a movie soundtrack but it’s great.

“Què volen aquesta gent?” - A song about political repression and persecution during the dictatorship. It’s pretty famous and very moving.

“Carta a l’exili” - A song about writing to people from exile, making a definite reference to all the Catalans exiled after the Spanish Civil War and during the dictatorship.

Al Tall - Al Tall are THE folk band from the País Valencià, even though they kind of don’t count as Nova Cançó. They sing a lot of really traditional Valencian songs, but as with a lot of these groups, some of them have a definitively anti-Spain and anti-Bourbon flavor (I’m looking at you, “Cant dels Maulets”). Also they use a lot of dolçaina, so if that annoys you then you’re probably not going to like them. Still, if you want folk from a certain era from Valencia, they are your go-to people.

“El cant dels Maulets” - I can’t not mention this song, sorry if you like the Bourbons but this is a legend and it deserves to be here.

“Cançó de la llum” - A good song about a town where the mayor is supposed to switch to electricity but siphons the funds away for other purpose and proceeds to get absolutely destroyed.

“Tio Canya” - I’m sorry but it’s kind of impossible to find a non-political song by Al Tall, this one is about the loss of the Valencian language and is probably one of their most famous.

Ovidi Montllor- Ovidi is also Nova Cançó and arguably does not count as folk but I don’t care because he’s amazing and y’all should listen to him. He’s very left-leaning and pro-Valencian/Països Catalans, so he’s basically eternally relevant to young Catalans and honestly to young people everywhere, which is why groups like Aspencat, La Gossa, El Diluvi, and even Txarango (see the opening line of “Agafant l’horitzó”) make constant references to him. 

“Perquè vull” - A classic. The ultimate petty song but honestly such a mood. This version featuring Ovidi speaking in French at the beginning.

“Homenatge a Teresa” - Not personally my favorite Ovidi song, but it’s legendary so I can’t not put it. It’s a lot more quiet and gentle than his other songs.

“Tot explota pel cap o per la pota” - This is not the most Communist song by Ovidi, but it’s probably up there. Basically just about how the proletariat is done with the bourgeoisie, is empowered, and is going to rise up. What more could you ask for?

Raimon - Another super important artist from the País Valencià who is a bit more rooted in folk than Ovidi but still a part of Nova Cançó. I haven’t listened to a lot of Raimon but songs like “Al Vent” are classics that you can’t not like.

“Al vent” - A song about fighting despite the darkness of the world we were born into. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

“Jo vinc d’un silenci” - A haunting song about remembering where you come from and not losing sight of your roots.

“D’un temps, d’un país” - A solemnly beautiful song about pushing on and slowly winning the world that we have fought so much to see. Interpret what that world is as you will.

Esquirols - If you have an image of folk from the 1960s, Esquirols are probably what you’re imagining. Basically just a bunch of hippies singing songs about joining together (and also fighting for Catalunya but I mean what else would you expect at this point). In my opinion the best group from the Principat during this era, but that’s entirely personal and I am usually a bad judge of these things.

“Torna, torna, Serrallonga” - It’s ya boy he’s back and also this is literally The Most Legendary Song Ever it’s so epic (and as a heads up it’s also exceedingly political).

“Fent camí” - This is basically the Catalan version of all the songs I grew up with from Rise Up Singing (aka just a book with all the pro-union/grassroots protest songs ever sung in the United States), which is not a thing anyone is going to know but I don’t know how else to describe it.

“Arrels” - I just posted this a week or so ago (albeit a different version) but it’s so pretty and just a really nice positive song about life in general except not in a cheesy way, it’s just gorgeous and you have to listen to it for yourself.

“Folk Calentó” (aka Catalans Are Great and Have Modern Cool Hip Bands Who Play Folk in a Fun Way That Is Enjoyable to Listen to)

Roba Estesa - This band is literally the most undervalued Catalan group in modern music. They are six women who basically sing either feminist adaptations of traditional songs or else original songs with lots of influences from cúmbia or rumba catalana, but still with a definitive folk feel. They are amazing and deserve much more love than they get.

“Una altra ronda” - A lively song about getting really drunk with your friends because screw the rules women don’t care about being well-behaved.

“A la muntanya” - An older song about how girls just wanna have fun screw their husbands.

“Les noies d’Olot” - More girls just being generally badass and too good for the men who are interested in them.

El Diluvi - Of a similar left-leaning, feminist vein to Roba Estesa, this group is also very Catalanist and big fans of Ovidi (see above). They have a lively folk sound, with influences from all around the world, but are definitely rooted in acoustic, with a violin and a bandúrria making up part of their ensemble. They are quite possibly one of my favorite Catalan groups of all time.

“I tu, sols tu” - A feminist hymn but also just a great song, based on a poem by Maria Mercè Marçal.

“Vell record” - More of a folk song, with a somewhat Celtic sound and vivid lyrics.

“Alegria” - A simple, happy song about being happy. (What would expect, given the title?)

Germà Negre - A group which claims they were formed when La Moreneta (patron saint of Catalunya) visited them in a dream and told them to revive traditional Catalan music, which regardless whether it’s true or not, is a good origin story. They mostly sing covers of other artists (including songs by several of the artists listed above), but they have lots of interesting instruments and I really like them.

“L’Hereu Riera” - I am personally a fan of this version of this song, even though I’m pretty sure no one else knows it exists. The video shows the traditional dance that goes along with it as well as the cobla, the traditional Catalan musical ensemble.

“Les noies maques” - A great cover of a Catalan kids’ song that is about 200 times better than the original (even though the video does not match with the music being played, which is annoying).

“Guarda la lluna” -  A more traditional song, but it’s really lively and energetic.

La Troba Kung-fú - Probably a stretch, but rumba catalana is definitely folk music, and La Troba are masters of it. They definitely have a lot of modern influences from reggae and other things, but they do some really fun versions of traditional songs, which is what I’ll put here.

"La cançó del lladre” - The definitive version of this traditional song, very rumbero and very good, albeit perhaps not the most folk-like song.

“El preso de Lleida” (with Sílvia Pérez-Cruz) - A beautiful rumba version of this traditional Catalan song, with Sílvia Pérez-Cruz, who is another amazing folk-ish singer. It’s kind of quiet in the beginning, so turn up the volume.

“Flor de primavera” - Not a traditional song, but a gentle, beautiful rumba that is so dreamy and light you will immediately fall in love with it.

Indie Folk (aka The Acoustic Airy Sound That You Probably Associate With Folk More Than Anything Else on This List)

Mazoni - I haven’t listened to everything by him, but a lot of his music is what I would consider folk in the current sense of the word, especially his latest album. He is very much defined by that acoustic guitar sound, but can also be wildly different, so it’s hard to say with him.

“La collita” - A fun song about the apocalypse that takes a dig at Goldman Sachs, which is always appreciated.

“Pedres” - I personally really enjoy this song, it’s a bit grittier and more intense than the simple melody would seem.

Cesk Freixas - While I would consider Cesk Freixas more singer-songwriter than explicitly folk, he definitely has that specific sound. I haven’t really listened to much by him, but here are a few songs that aren’t “La petita rambla del poble sec” even though I love that song, plus him doing a cover of some of the songs earlier on this list.

“Et dono casa meva” - A mix of singer-songwriter and folk, a love song to Catalunya and the Països Catalans. 

“Que no et falli mai la sort” - A good example of his unique brand of utopianism and hope for the future, which sounds silly but it’s honestly not.

“Al vent / L’estaca / Què volen aquesta gent?” - Cesk’s version of these three classics which you might recognize now :))))

Well, this ended up being more of a list of traditional Catalan music than Catalan folk music, but that’s more of what I listened to. This also turned out way too long, but am I even capable of writing short posts? Anyhow, enjoy!

[gocchisama]

Normal is the new beautiful : Story of Nagahama Neru (長濱ねる）

Have you ever fell in love with one of your classmates? Peeking at her desk, hoping she doesn’t notice you, so you can keep looking at her. Someone you want to start a conversation with, but you’re too shy to do so. Japanese high schooler are often on the romantic side, thanks to this huge culture carried through manga and anime. Neru has this perfect image of lovely girl next door that you often see in shoujo or shonen. But it isn’t fiction. Sometime life doesn’t go the way you wanted, and you have to force your way through, building this such needed resilience to go forward. Behind this sweet smile, stand a girl who search for answers. Is Keyakizaka one of them?

“A girl in search of her honest feelings”

Let’s talk about the girl herself for a bit. Someone who’s into Keyaki most surely knows her unusual introduction to the group. Like Shinoda Mariko before her, Neru joined as 1.5 gen member because she didn’t went to Keyakizaka final audition. Her parents forbid it, even taking her back to Nagasaki. But seeing Neru’s potential, Keyakizaka staff invited Neru’s parent to attend a Nogizaka concert, and it eventually changed their mind. She then joined as Hiragana Keyaki (under-like members of Keyakizaka) and Kanji Keyaki kennin for the second single, Sekai ni wa ai shikanai. It was though for her; she couldn’t mix as well as the other kanji keyaki because she started late (she wasn’t in Silent majority senbatsu), but she didn’t took part in hiragana lessons either because she was busy in kanji keyaki promotion. Question rised: where did she belong to? Up to this day, we still don’t know. But don’t let her choose between kanji and hiragana, it’s impossible.

Most of pessimistic fans would say it’s a staged scenario to push her. Because she’s having an hard time, fans start feeling sympathy toward her. Well yes, she is popular (because of this romance affinity japanese have) but struggling to know her place in Keyakizaka was real. Yonetani nanami confessed in a Keya Room episode that she didn’t accepted Neru right away. It’s only natural, right? When someone is a newcomer in your close circle of friend, you can’t immediately be comfortable like you are with the others. However Neru won member’s hearts with her natural joy, easy going character, and light sense of humor. Members were fast to realize she just wanted to get along with everyone, and not taking someone’s else place. Being Hiragana instead of Keyaki didn’t matter anymore.

“Neru, like Yurina, was given a Solo in Keyaki second single”

With that issue resolved, Neru started to work on her individual skills. Fans started to notice her thanks to her weird and lovely individual PV, where she sang all names of the periodic element board, and thereafter all irregular english verbs. To see Neru doing a moonwalk while chanting uranium, or spelling sleep slept slept while headbanging, you have to admit it marks people mind. In her third attempt, it was a regular short film about “rules”, where she displays great acting skills, feeling very genuine and natural. Furthermore, she took part in Japanese variety show, answering quizz in order to earn 1 million yen for her team, something that only a few idol of the 48group could. Before being in Keyakizaka, she won a special prize in a cooking contest, with innovative kebab style sugar crepe.

Neru is smart, cute, funny and talented. She gets closer and closer to this “shoujo” ideal fans yearn for. It didn’t take long before she claims top position in member’s popularity chart, even being number one in Twitter most mentions in the group. Neru profile has high standard, but as a matter of fact, it isn’t something original. We have seen many other idols who are good at everything, like Yamamoto Sayaka. So why is she exceeding observers expectation in term of popularity? Because it is Keyakizaka. By contrast, something cool will always shine in a pool of cute, and vice versa. Because Keyaki is about rebellion and willpower, Neru orthodox image comes out amplified. Management is fully aware and try to develop it, by giving her a slow paced, cute song as solo. Neru presence and importance in Keyakizaka increased as her personality balance well with the style of the group.

“high socks, pink cardigan and silver ribbon; Japanese uniform aesthetics bring out the best of japanese girls feminity and youth”

Neru’s situation can be seen as very propitious to a success in Keyakizaka. But it isn’t the case, and she had to deal with a lot of pressure in a short period of time. People are often worried of Yurina hectic schedule, but Neru’s has nothing to blush from it : Not only she participates in all Kanji A and B side, but she also has to learn Hiragana B-side songs. Not counting her 2 solo and duo/quatuor with Yurina and Yuichanzu. Despite her hard work, she had to compromise. It’s quite cruel to put her in Yurina’s place in hiragana first showcase for their silent majority performance. You could obviously feel the lack of training, and beyond that, the gap of character between Neru and Yurina. It was management mistake to think Neru could manage to do a decent performance with such little time. And it affected her image. That her dancing is subpar of other members, or keyakizaka standard.

Can you imagine it? She was 17 when joining Keyakizaka (like Akanen) and was at the end of crossroads, where you choose to continue college. She’s a diligent student, but chose to be an idol. This same world that sometimes shows a cruel side, like asking for a perfect performance with minimum of preparation. An unfairness that could waver anyone’s determination to reach their goal, because they are not capable. Japan is still a society that hugely rely on academic background, and to choose the idol path instead of college is understandably contested by her parents. This is something that contrast with her overall sweet side. She went as far as confronting her parent to do what she wants to do. She’s not hesitant like those shounen female character who are often painted as weak and dependable to the male hero.

It’s not about being all sweet, or all cool of a character. Even though Keyakizaka staff built Neru character to be sweet, it doesn’t exclude the fact that each person hold a complex personality, that you need to cover as a whole to understand someone. Neru didn’t dislike studying. She likes subject like Philosophy, or science. But she wanted to try something new, something she decided for herself, and not what her parents told her to do. Despite her sweet character, she was actually the first to do an act of rebellion.

“Nagahama Neru is in fact a very entertaining girl, very connected to her fans”

It would be pretentious of me to know what kind of girl is Nagahama Neru. But there’s few hints scattered on all the data available. First, her blogs. She talks a lot about her relationship with the members. Probably because she was in a delicate situation of not belonging to kanji nor hiragana, becoming an important member on both side is now her biggest strength. She entrusted herself the mission to help the members get closer, like W-Keyakizaka no uta song. To break the distance between generation, is a harder task than we think. For example, Yukirin confessed she never was close to Kojima Haruna, despite many concerts, senbatsu promotions they did over the years. It’s hard, but it is also essential to build the group unity. The girls need to learn to open their heart.

In variety, she shows that her intelligence isn’t all about having good grades. There’s also how she use her screentime to get noticed. When to make cute face, react to host pun or joke, give sassy anecdote of other members. She’s also aware it’s good to show her emotions, when being overjoyed by other members reaction when joining the 2nd single senbatsu, or when Watanabe Risa read Yonetani nanami’s letter apologizing to her. How she juggles with those opportunities helps her not being a one-dimensional idol. Watanabe Mayu was much more of the orthodox style, but her image of cyborg idol was too strong and she had a hard time to graduate from it. 

“In Keyakizaka 4th single, she was next to Techi. Will she be center in the 5th?”

With all the opportunities brought by management, her good image as an individual (the others are more known as pairing, like Za cool, Yuichanzu), and the necessary change of Keyakizaka type of song makes me think she will lead the A-side of the next single. Neru never showed the ambition to take the 0 position, but if it’s the need of the group, she will gladly take it on. Because Neru has a great sense of responsability. When we think of reliable, mother figure-like character, we tend to think of Fuuchan or Oda nana. Neru is more like of a “i will do my best” responsible type. She doesn’t want to let people down.

In the future, we can expect her to break through in variety. This little sister character is loved by japanese audience, like Hirose Suzu or Arimura Kasumi before her. Her presence in variety is Key for Keyakizaka to get national recognition. But as said above, she’s also the key to tie kanji and hiragana keyaki together, and ensure the group unity. Without noticing, Neru became an irreplaceable existence for Keyakizaka outside and inside. You don’t need to read manga to follow exciting stories. You just have to follow neru’s normal life. I wish i could live such an exciting life, but unfortunately, pink cardigan and cute skirt doesn’t suit me as much as they suits her. 

[riting]

Samara Kaplan on congrats and condolences by Barnett Cohen

Samara Kaplan writes about the development of congrats and condolences, a piece by Barnett Cohen that she curated to be performed at the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences. Performances are April 27 and 28, at 6:15 PM. More information and tickets can be found here. 

INTRODUCTION

I am writing from somewhere in the middle of the process. The initial ideas have materialized into a script, the actors have become a cast, the costume design is nearing complete. We are now in the thick of the collaborative and unpredictable work of performance.

I have compiled this piece from conversations with Barnett and text and images from his collaborators to shed light on what this piece is about and why it’s being made.

As Curator, I have woven in my own perspective of the work as I’ve observed and contributed to its development.

Richard Neutra’s iconic VDL Studio and Residence sits on a lush and winding street across from a meadow overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir. I drove past it for years without noticing it - a testament to its harmony within the surrounding landscape and the persisting style it has bred into the neighborhood.

Neutra VDL Studio and Residence, Silver Lake

I first went to the house a couple years ago to work on a homeLA performance. What I learned while being inside rehearsing for many hours over many days are the particular ways in which the home opens and closes to its inhabitants. With its iconic glass walls and moveable interior dividers, there is a sense of porosity between each space, inside and out. For better or worse, you can see into the bathroom from the balcony, you can hear a conversation in the courtyard from upstairs, you might happen to look up when standing at the bottom of the stairwell and catch your reflection in a discreet, built-in mirror. You find a retractable curtain, instead of a wall, dividing the living room from the dining room. You are both the onlooker and the displayed, even from within.

Images of living room to dining room (above) and kitchen to dining room (below), by Samara Kaplan

The endless possibilities for surprising and multiple perspectives make this site appealing for performance. In my experience, the house can even be a catalyst for audience members who may not have an entry into experimental performance because it so effectively encourages a sense of curiosity.

congrats and condolences is a site-specific work, meaning Barnett created the piece specifically for the Neutra House. In discussing his previous work developed in response to architecture, Barnett explains:

Earlier this year, I organized a series of performances at the House of the Book in Simi Valley in/around my friend Dan Levenson's installation of paintings. There was something magical about presenting work within a very particular architectural space; the House of the Book is this weird Brutalist building that has been featured in many music videos and sci-fi films. I wanted to attempt again and so I began working on a piece for the VDL House.

So, why VDL? Barnett began his process by exploring the relationship between himself and the house. From the very inception of this piece, Barnett situated his own artistic inquiries in relation to Neutra’s architecture:

Coherence is a strange demand. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves to ensure we remain who we tell ourselves to be. For example, like Richard Neutra, I am Jewish and an immigrant, and the platitudinous narratives embedded within and about these identities affect my thinking and behavior. Perhaps, as a Jew, I am neurotic and anxious. Perhaps, as an immigrant, I work hard at achieving the mythic American dream. Stories about the Self keep us whole, keep us coherent, prevent us from fracturing. Yet they are entirely fantastical. They are fictions. The intersection between our collective performance of the Self and our interiority is where these tropes often collide and rupture. The topography of the mind is without narrative or structure as raw thought forms are fundamentally chaotic in their arrival, pacing, and departure. How we present or perform publicly, however, often falsely communicates, even if temporarily, a unity of Self. Neutra’s use of theatrical curtains and floor-to-ceiling windows simultaneously nod to separation and presentation, that we at once live hidden from and directly in front of others. 

The site is not just a stage for his performance but a framework for excavating ideas of public and private space, both physically and philosophically. For Barnett, the challenge is to draw out the private, interior, unmasked self that only he experiences. Practicing non-judgement, he attempts to see his thoughts through the daily practice of stream-of-consciousness writing.

Excerpts from Barnett’s daily writing practice

Interview Question #1: TECHNIQUE

SAMARA: We’ve discussed stream-of-consciousness writing as your process for generating material. Despite being unedited, your writing sounds remarkably articulate and poignant. You showed me notebooks full of texts that read nothing like a diary or what one might associate with stream-of-consciousness.

For someone like myself, whose first drafts of writing often sound jumbled or overly simplistic, your ability to translate thought and feeling so immediately to the paper is a unique talent in and of itself.

Can you give a glimpse into what you feel is the relationship between spontaneity and technique (and perhaps even the cultivation of personal style) as it is exists for you as an artist across mediums?

BARNETT: Technique, as I understand it, is about repetition; it's about achieving an unconscious competence for something, an informed intuition. The relationship to being informed is a difficult one I suppose. Knowing too much or letting that knowledge infiltrate the work is dangerous. I decidedly and defiantly turn off history when I am writing, in the studio, or making performances. By virtue of being curious and trusting my body, I have confidence that my work will lead me to who or what I need to know. I am careful about when I ingest new ideas or information because the mixing of work and pleasure can create blocks. I therefore attempt to be spontaneous in my writing (and even in my paintings), to not plan too much and to get out of the way of the work. At some point, whether I am making a performance or amassing stickers to create a piece–I am currently making a series of paintings or pieces composed entirely of found stickers–I cease to be in control of the work. Instead it begins to carry me along and I have to submit to it.

My performances originate out of a daily-practice of free writing wherein I compose stream of consciousness verse in non-sequential volumes. What this looks like is me sitting down at my desk and writing whatever comes to mind: lists, ideas, unfinished phrases, images. And not only am I trying to get out of the way, I am trying to reserve judgement. My aim is to see my thoughts, not as connected to a false identity (i.e. me) but as objects, as forms, as content, that the machine in my head generates 24/7/365. And I want to experience the felt sense that accompanies these thought forms. Their auras, as it were. I read a book called Mating in Captivity by the famed sex therapist Esther Perel, wherein she attempts to reconcile the domestic and the erotic (anybody in a relationship over a year surely has experienced that disconnect) and she laughs off the idea of sex being spontaneous, that couples who live together should just spontaneously fuck. She suggests that sex needs to be planned, needs to be on a calendar somewhere. In other words, we have to create the conditions for spontaneity, which I suppose devalues spontaneity as a valid concept. I attempt to do that in my work. I have built my life around achieving spontaneity in my work, creating the conditions for le petit mort or a loss of self. Perhaps there is some technique in that.

Interview Question #2: CASTING

SAMARA: 'Creating conditions for spontaneity'... certainly relates to your process with actors as well. You plan to collaborate with them in the studio and on site to flesh out the performance, but you even played with spontaneity or improvisation in your casting sessions by giving actors one read-through as they had rehearsed it themselves and an additional one with completely different directions, forcing them to take a leap and not knowing where they'd land.

In your casting call, you (wonderfully!) required that the actors be "weirdos." Of course, I can imagine this correlating to someone's exterior look - but can you elaborate further on what kind of personality/skillset is needed to participate in a performance like this? One that originates from your own stream of consciousness but also one that asks actors to contribute collaboratively? ... Basically, why did you choose the actors you chose?

BARNETT: Referring back to your question about technique, I was not interested in finding good actors with good technique who could execute an action on a particular line. I was looking for an open energy and a willingness to play. Auditions are the worst (I know because I worked as an actor for a number of years.) It's difficult to not be nervous and that nervous energy can misrepresent itself as the energy, what the actor brings to the script. That's why I gave everyone a second chance to play, the space to try something different, to venture a bit into the unknown. In congrats and condolences, there are no roles or characters. It's just people performing words. And whatever energy they have, you know, life energy, what life has given them is what they bring. And it's also what they ate the night before. So much of our world is contrived. Not in an adolescent moaning sort of way. Not like, "you guys, everything is literally contrived." But in every way...I spend most days performing for people, performing a role. And the only time I stop performing is when I am lying on the floor on my apartment every morning by myself. What I am trying to do with my performance work, or at least with this performance, is to remove hindrances to remove it all away away. So when the performance happens, it will not be narrative or other such contrivances. It will be real in the epic sense. In the way that Brecht saw theater. I know I am setting up a false dichotomy between narrative and non-narrative but narrative is a gigantic block to self-understanding and the more we do away with it, the better. Basically, I cast people who have the ability to be honest with themselves.

Once the actors are cast, Barnett refers back to his stream-of-consciousness texts to craft a script specifically with the actors and house in mind. For the first read-through, Barnett hands out a 35 page script complete with stage directions and assigned lines.

An excerpt from the original script by Barnett Cohen

When reciting their fragmented, non-linear lines, the actors seem to exist together but are not necessarily communicating with each other. Maybe they share the same space but not the same time, sometimes seeing each other and other times looking past. Like the imagined inhabitants of a domestic space over time, the actors portray fragmented realities converging, overlapping, and butting up against each other.

At our next rehearsal at the Neutra House I start to see how important it was that Barnett cast actors who would bring a certain “weirdness” to the table – abstract lines are given lightness, drama or humor based on the range of expressions the actors can draw from. When I sat in on the casting process, Barnett encouraged each performer to switch characters and accents wherever they saw fit and what resulted was so vulnerable and funny. Celina, one of the actors, told me how Barnett first and foremost wanted everyone to be human. No dead eyes staring blankly, no Postmodern robots.

Rehearsal at the Neutra VDL Studio and Residence, taken by Samara Kaplan

Interview Question #3: DESIGN

SAMARA: Do you have any thoughts on how the costumes play into the discussion about bringing honesty and personal life experience into the work?

In the initial fittings, I saw draped fabrics (somewhat gender neutral although leaning toward the feminine) and neutral tones. I saw a timeless and cultural-less human who could be from the 1600s or the 3000s. Does this neutral outfitting better allow for the actors to express personality without visual distraction?

BARNETT: When I approached Eric (House of 950), I told him he could do pretty much do whatever he wanted with moderate input from me about the particularities of each outfit. You know, if there was something I could not handle or an outfit that simply did not work. My thinking about the outfits for the performers is that I wanted to prevent from them being misread. I did not want the audience distracted by more symbols than necessary. And I am only slightly-interested in the theatrics of performance. The outfits achieve multiple aims simultaneously. Firstly, they ritualize the performance. They remind the audience that the performance is a performance. They enhance the aura of its originality or rather its temporal quality. The people in front of you have put on these outfits to remind you that this a performance. If the actors performed in their everyday wear, I think that would diminish the aura. Maybe not for every performance but for this one for sure. Secondly, by aiming for gender-neutral clothing, my hope is to circumvent a gendered reading of the work or the actors. I am not interested in the actors, who are already performing gender publicly in their own lives, having to double down and perform a gendered role in a performance and in clothing that is not their own. That seems particularly onerous.

Lea in a fitting with Eric, taken by Barnett Cohen

I have been writing/rewriting the script and I absolutely love writing after casting and after having a sense of the outfits and with the space in mind. In other words, I am creating a unique piece for the performers as people as individuals and not necessarily as actors. Maybe my process is backward, traditionally speaking, but my aim is to create this piece that is strange yet approachable while remaining slightly confrontational but fundamentally honest. Not a play. Not a piece of theater. Not a performance. But something between all those three concepts. I do not have a word for it but I know what it is. Eric and his designs, his sense of color and form, both enhance and cement what I am trying to do.

ERIC (HOUSE OF 950):

In making the clothing I was focusing on the two main ideas, the physical space, of the house: the look, the detailing, the architecture, and Neutra’s theory of therapeutic space. I felt there was a connection through time between my ethos as a designer. I focus largely on how clothing affects the wearer, and the reaction between the two. Clothing can make you feel comfortable, chic, doughty. Neutra’s exploration of therapeutic spaces resonated with me and it was a natural jumping off point. I created layers of transparency to speak to the endless glass, comforting details in unexpected places, and natural color detailing in small doses to create a natural movement of the eye. In collaboration with Barnett, we created the clothing to be unknowable, something that is not instantly understandable, almost to conceal the personality of the wearer to differentiate them from the familiar of the mind.

Andres in a fitting with Eric, taken by Barnett Cohen

Barnett, Eric and each of the performers work with a tension between the real and the heightened, the familiar and the unknown to accomplish that special aura of performance while pushing the audience into a state of awareness. We are guided through the home with an opportunity to discover the details of the setting and their subtle influence on the actors, designers, writer. Intermediated by the artists’ study of and absorption in the unique spaces, we ultimately have a deeper experience of Neutra’s architectural masterpiece.

Barnett enhances Neutra’s physiological sensitivity to design through his staging and consideration of the audience. The actors are placed in surprising areas of the home such that the audience is asked to search in odd directions and absorb strange sounds. Daphne gives a monologue on a balcony overhead, Nikki and Celina moan from an inaccessible room, everyone has mysterious entrances and exits obscured by curtains or trees or reflections on the glass. These constant directional and textual shifts encourage the audience to remain alert.

Andres and Lea in rehearsal, taken by Samara Kaplan

Celina and Daphne in rehearsal, taken by Samara Kaplan

Early on in the process, Barnett sent me an email with subject line “congrats and condolences.” I didn’t yet know this was the title of the piece so I had assumed he was directing the congrats and condolences at me. The opposition of feeling at once excited and worried made me question my own situation and I opened the email immediately. I laughed once I realized it wasn’t just about me, it applied to everyone.

When I asked Barnett about the title, he responded:

congrats and condolences stems from a Jungian understanding of wakefulness or consciousness. When a person begins to see, truly see, then the world appears at once awful (because it is) and amazing (because it is as well).

congrats and condolences is a new performance work by Barnett Cohen in collaboration with Celina Bernstein, Nikki Bohm, Dan Bruinooge, Daphne Gabriel, Lea Madda, Andres Paul Ramacho, and Cary Thompson. Looks by Eric Holbreich of House of 950. Program Design by Tanya Rubbak (Summer Office).

Samara Kaplan is an LA based performance curator with a PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism from UC San Diego. While pursuing her studies, she was Curatorial Assistant at LAXART (2010-11), Curatorial Fellow at The Kitchen (2013), NYU Tisch Research Fellow (2013) and Curator of Performance at The Mistake Room (2015-16). She currently works at Phillips in Los Angeles, where she is expanding her breadth in contemporary art. Most recently, Samara co-curated multiple site-specific performances for homeLA, include One House Twice at Neutra VDL, and completed her dissertation on the choreographer's embodied approach to spreading utopian ideals. Both her curatorial work and academic research focus in on artists who - through the intimacy of site-specific performance or the connectivity of ritual - attempt to make the world a better place.

Barnett Cohen originally received formal theatrical training, with an emphasis on breath and vocal work, at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He then embarked upon a career as a visual artist with an interest in multiple disciplines, employing a wide-range of media—sculpture, painting, video, installation, and performance–-that collectively serve as meditations on the space between thought and the self and between the self and the body. His work has been exhibited at such venues as Pieter (Los Angeles), House of the Book (Los Angeles), 356 Mission (Los Angeles), Human Resources (Los Angeles), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), City Limits (Oakland), The International Center for Photography (New York), and La Galerie SEE Studio (Paris.) In 2019, he will present new work at Mast on Fig in Los Ángeles and JDJ in Garrison, New York. He received a BA in English literature from Vassar College, an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and has been in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the MacDowell Colony.

[clioandthelosturchin]

Explaining Right Wing Populism

I’ve decided – inspired by the upcoming end of the long Twentieth Century – to revive this blog and give some thoughts on recent events so I can add to the Amazon-destroying pile of works attempting to explain the events of the last year or so. You have been warned.

There has long been, in the hallowed halls where these things are discussed, a debate over what exactly is the relationship between politics and popular culture. There are those, now dwindling few, who believe that those two domains are separate or at least should be. That the affairs of state are too serious, too important, to endowed with dignity by themselves to mix well with the consumption habits of mere plebians. Needless to say, most who have held onto a view like this tend to be journalists and intellectuals who write about politics and power, and thus desire to endow their topic with the importance they think it deserves.

Needless to say, 2016 was a very bad year for such arguments.

Meanwhile, there are those – more perceptive  – who have always seen that not only do the two merge and are essentially part of the whole but they are not understandable except in reference to each other. Much can be written about this, but here I just stay on to my original topic, and essentially endorse this view. Many can doubt me on this, thinking the affairs of statesmen at too high a plane for such a thing to be contemplated. If you are such a doubter, consider the following facts, mostly from America, yes but not solely, and come back to me:

1)    We know that American military policy in Afghanistan was influenced by the movies of Quentin Tarantino

2)    In Ireland in 2011 our runner-up Presidential Candidate – who came from nowhere before the election -  was a businessman who played a businessman on the television (Does this remind you of anyone?) 

3)    The Existence of Silvio Berlusconi. And Beppe Grillo. Just, in general

4)    Richard Nixon was largely brought down by an internal mole who took his code name from a well-known porn film . (Nixon, btw, was a big fan of classical American cinema going as far as writing when he was President to the Academy of Motion Pictures recommending who he thought should win the Oscar in a given year. Unfortunately for him this was the late 60s and early 70s, so his more wholesome choices were beaten by the likes of Midnight Cowboy. True Nixonologists debate to what extent movies actually impacted on his policy choices, and I wonder whether they had an impact on his view of history 

5)    Oh yeah, the next US President is a game show host who was, before 2015, mostly known for being famous for being really rich and a blaggart. The person he beat had worked in politics practically her whole adult life.

In the 1980s it was a regular trope that American and, indeed, international politics could be best explained through the prism of Westerns, with President Ronald Reagan imagining himself as a kind of Universal John Wayne (when, at least, he wasn’t talking about building ‘Star Wars’). In the 2000s, this was revived as part of the War on Terror under Bush the Lesser who wanted Osama Bin Laden ‘Dead or Alive’. He failed on both counts.

But western analogies seem to fail us when talking about cultural conflict. So let me suggest that a creature of the 80s can help us illuminate the present, namely the High School movie, and possibly the experience of High School itself, if idealized by such gritty documentaries on adolescent life like The Breakfast Club and Saved by the Bell. After all, a lot of the contemporary political scene is less – or, rather, less obviously – about economic hierarchies as is imagined (usually crudely and wrongly) was the basis of most 20th Century politics in the ‘West’, but rather struggles over status and symbols, and there is nowhere like a school for Darwinian and Machiavellian struggles over friendship, status, and symbols whether of actual significance or just ephemera.

In almost every class of every school there are a couple of bullies, Bullying is usually aimed at those who don't conform to the social norms expected of the group, so it is mostly gender policing, body shaming, and aspie and mental health bashing. Those are the bully's bete noires and especially so when those collide. Bullies hate the weird kids, but especially hate the smart weird kids. Smartness is ok, but it must have conform to the norms of the group, otherwise it is threatening. Intelligence is intimidating, but possibly subversive intelligence is frightening, it goes against some intuitive notion of justice. The normal weird kids, on the other hand, are easy targets and unlikely to be organized in any way, so are no threat. Why is this? I offer a couple of explanations, all interlapping, as follows: a) The bully thinks what the smart weird kids are into is a waste of time and effort. Whether it is, for example, Maths or Poetry, it is obvious to the bully that such activities are unworthy of attention and those who are interested in them are suspicious (often this is tied-in to gender policing, only fags like Poetry after all, only weak men read, etc). Such people with their niche interests subvert the unity of the class as a group and thus exist not fully in it, this is compounded by the bullies – as well as the SWKs themselves – rejecting them as part of the ‘normal class’ (and thus targets to be bullied). 

b) Yet because the smart weird kids are smart, despite their weirdness (whatever that may be), they are treated favourably by the School and by Teachers, who are just happy to have students who are interested in the topic of their class. This makes them, in the eyes of the bully, sort of class traitors, in that they are willing to engage with the school and its managers (the Principal) and its police (the Teachers) rather than treating as hostile or suspicious or against one's interest, as the bully does. The smart weird kids are scabs, in short, or are a scab-threat, breaking the picket line between student and teacher

c) More obviously, despite all this, the smart weird kids are weak (and again, possibly effeminate... or insufficiently feminine if they are female) and thus soft targets and because of their class status in the school hierarchy, are unlikely to have much allies among the student body.

d) Yet the bully has a strong anxiety over the power the smart weird kids have over him or her, because the latter are superior intellectually. The bully will therefore not try to argue with the smart weird kid because (s)he will lose. Note again that this is not about being 'correct' either empirically or morally, it's about power and status. Yet this anxiety is compounded by the recognition that the smart weird kid, despite his/her transgressions, is likely to do better in life outside of the safe space of the School playground due to his/her personality attributes. This is, to the bully, a raging injustice and thus allows him or her to justify whatever it is (s)he does the smart weird kids.

e) What’s important to recognize here is that the Smart Weird Kids, despite their relative closeness to the school administration, feel themselves to be powerless vis-à-vis the Bully, who is after all their tormentor. The school is likely – for its own purposes – to do so much to protect them and fighting the Bullies head on is likely to lead to defeat. For this reason, they need allies, and their own sub-hegemonic status is likely to make them more sympathetic to those being tyrannized. What’s fundamental here is that both sides – the Bullies and the SWKs – think the other one has power, but their power is limited by circumstances and law, leading to a misunderstanding of each one’s position, often to exaggeration. The Bully too, after all, needs allies but (s)he is usually of the sort who fits in well with the regular social ambience of the school.

There are, of course, limits to this analogy. But, I think, we can see, without much prompting, where this fits in the world today – and let us not be so naïve that such impulses don’t exist in the ‘Adult World’. All that time watch bad movies and bad TV based on bad movies was actually a much better guide to political science then nearly all political science seminars. Who would have known?

[kennysgameplayprototyping]

Video voiceover notes

Below are quite rough notes I kept as I voiced over the video.

• The initial design of the gameplay and the aspects the prototype aims to explore.

Hi i'm Kenny I'm going to be discussing my prototype Recoil

While coming up with an idea I looked back through previous game ideas in one of my notebooks. I found an idea for a sort-of twin-stick shooter that seemed promising and achievable within the given time frame. The premise is simple, with the player only able to move in directional bursts of force – either from movement input or from recoil by shooting its gun.  Imagine flicking a coin across a table then waiting and flicking it in another direction, but the coin is a tank. Looking at both turn-based strategy games and real-time games I thought about mixing the two. The idea of having to plan out movements quickly and being temporarily locked into your choices seemed like it could present an interesting gameplay loop.

In most games dashing is usually used in conjunction with traditional movement as a way out.

But using it as the only method of movement but with the same limits to its use could make it exactly the opposite. This could lock players temporarily into their decisions. The ability for the player to then use their shot either offensively or defensively as a form of movement would hopefully lead to an interesting gameplay loop. Keeping both these methods of movement on timers forces the player to plan their moves in the heat of the moment and try to outmanoeuvre their opponent before they can react. I’ve decided to go in the direction of local, same device multiplayer as opposed to adding hazards or simple enemies. The hint of tactics and the possibility of planning seems as though it would work well in a competitive environment with quick rounds and hopefully high replay-ability. The quick, but limited movement lends itself well to short battles between players

These two base mechanics work together to provide quick, but meaningful second to second gameplay with players having to decide how they want to use their shots and movement.

In my decision to go with this idea, I wanted to take a simple set of base mechanics and tinker with them in the hopes of creating a small, fun prototype.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<2 MINUTES>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

• How balancing the gameplay was achieved.

balance the gameplay   was achieved primarily through testing the prototype with other people .

Having testers with varying degrees of familiarity with videogame allowed me to notice how easy the gameplay could be picked up along with how it was played.

For example, in the first testing phase I noticed that the dominant strategy appeared to be long-range shooting along the top of the map

Changing the bottom wall height to half its previous height along with shortening the spawn cover seemed to remove the desire for players to stray from the bottom of the map and allowed for more gameplay possibilities.

Testing allowed me to tinker with all kinds of different varioations of times and distances for the movement shooting and recoil

While testing some players came up with gameplay strategies or requests that I hadn't even begun to think of. some had further requests for accesibility. For example while playing a few matches with my parents, they picked up the gameplay far easier than I thought but made pointed out problems with the camera angle, at the time the game was angled slightly - it looked nice but it was making it hard to judge angles and distances.

Testing also showed how small changes to polish and the game feel could make substantial changes to player enjoyment - adding physics based casings to bounce around the arena,  smoke effects both on dashes and shooting and sound effects increased the enjoyment of gameplay and seemed to make players more excited - perhaps as it seemed more like a game rather than a simple and silent prototype

Testing also revelaled numerous bugs and problems. Like a suicide bug that stemmed from players spinning on the spot and firing quickly - a strategy I had never thought to try. Turns out that recent changes to the  player hitboxes meant that freshly spwaned bullets could be hit by the hitbox edge if spinning quickly, resulting in a series of confusing suicides

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<4 mins 45>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Testing helped show me how the UI would need to change over time

The initial timer based UI was handy for initial testing though neither looked appealing nor presented the information as simply as it could be.

Opting instead to display available actions improved the readability of the UI to  a great degree though it could be further added to by replacing the words with Icons

,<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<5 mins>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

• The development process, drawing conclusions upon the strengths and weaknesses of your methods, ability and the final product.  

Over the semester the prototype and design progressed from a slower paced, almost turn-based playstyle to a faster, more chaotic one.

This change in pace definitely helped the overall enjoyment of the gameplay. The game felt sluggish, to begin with, and the speeding up of gameplay helped usher in more chaotic, confrontational gameplay tactics.

The change away from the original concept was a necessary one - I realised heading into the project the idea would likely need to be changed and refined to create fun gameplay.

I tried not to stick roo rigidly to the initial idea and open it up for exploration and change

Due to personal issues I've not been able to put as much time as I would have liked into the development of theis prototype

I didn't write as much code as I would have liked - I got a lot of help and guidance  in the tutorials which was helpful though I should have put more time into learning on my own

Take more notes throughout the design and iteration process

Keep a more detailed blog and keep track of research in posts rather than in the background which I kept forgetting to do

Start testing and iterating earlier - though I did start as soon as the necessary mechanics were in place

Start getting to know Unity better earlier in the semester - There's likely many shortcuts or simpler methods of using Unity I just don't know that could have sped up and made development easier.

Though I am happy overall with the how the prototype turned out to be more successful than I initially anticipated.

<<<<<<<<<<<<7min 30sec>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I’m relieved the gameplay has turned out to be enjoyable - I was fairly worried going into the project that this could be a hard idea to develop but I’m more than pleased with how it has turned out.

The gameplay has turned out to provide the ability to utilise different playstyles and use the mechanics in multiple ways.

I took input from players onboard though much input was only able to be theorised about rather than acted upon within the timeframe. The testing itself was both fun and helpful - with the resulting gameplay scenarios providing ideas for further iteration and polish.

Has definitely helped my understanding of programming a great deal.

The module has helped me better understand the process of implementing mechanics and steps to creating gameplay from nothing

Though overall I’m happy with the final outcome and will likely keep iterating on it in my own time.

• Recommendations for improvements which could be made to the prototype.

I would have liked to test out different arena layouts - to improve replayability.

I would have liked to try out designing an asymmetrical  map or testing gameplay with asymmetrical player abilities that perhaps gave players different strengths and weaknesses

I would like to have played with time dilation in some way, whether as an effect on player deaths or perhaps even a joint action with both players having to hold down a slow-mo button at the same time for the effect to be active - allowing players to cooperate in some weird way

I would have definitely liked to have visually polished the prototype by making models and better visual effects but sadly I did not have the time. Though what does exist work alright to get across the intended less serious theme of the game

[terryblount]

Mortal Kombat 11 – Review

Mortal Kombat is more than a game: it is the closest thing we as gamers have to a counter-culture. It is an I.P. that has consistently laughed in the face of censorship boards by never compromising on giving fans the unfiltered carnage of close combat. This was literally (part of) the reason why there exists an ESRB rating system today.

What’s more, this violence is not just for looks – it is also about skill. The genius of Mortal Kombat’s formula has always lain in demonstrating the player’s fighting ability through how sadistically they can crush their opponent. You don’t just K.O. an opponent in this game; you FINISH THEM!!!

Is it weird to admire the way blood is animated in a game?

I am quite pleased to say that this 27-year-old spirit of Mortal Kombat is alive and well within the eleventh arrival. Let’s not beat around the bush here. This is essentially the perfect fighting game, and players and pros alike will surely regard it as one of the best this series has ever produced. This is because Mortal Kombat 11 manages to include every modern convention that works, while being mindful of the old-school novelties that cemented the I.P. in gaming culture.

Time and time again

In the single-player ‘kampaign’, Earthrealm yet again comes face to face with an apocalyptic threat. The story opens with a now corrupted Raiden (see MK XL) decapitating the elder god Shinnok as a message to anyone who dares to threaten his domain. This was was a most serious error in judgement as Shinnok turns out to be the son of a new character, Kronika – the guardian of time itself.

“But know this–the arc of the universe bends to my will.” – Kronika

Needless to say, Kronika is rather unhappy not just about her son being reduced to the usefulness of a bowling ball, but also due to the balance of good and evil now being uneven. She vows to restore equilibrium in the timeline up to the events of her son’s beheading, but is also aware that Raiden and the Earthrealm gang could present a troublesome thorn in her side in any dimension.

Kronika therefore merges the past and present together, and teleports an army of Netherrealm’s most formidable villains, like Baraka and Shao Kahn, from the past into the present as her insurance policy. As per usual, the player will represent the fight for Earthrealm’s fate from the perspective of Johnny Cage, Kotal Kahn, Kung Lao, and other classic and contemporary characters.

I get that the whole time travel motif has been done to death, but the team at NetherRealm have once again shown their practiced hand for storytelling. They have wisely used the motif of temporal distortion as a McGuffin to re-imagine and bring back some of the franchise’s most beloved figures for the modern gaming climate.

Johnny squared!

This makes for a deeply interesting plot with some exciting and unexpected alliances forming or breaking between characters from different time periods (because their major clashes haven’t happened yet). More than that, Netherrealm sets up the opportunity to introduce characters like Cetrion and Geras who have fighting abilities centred on the manipulation of time.

Overall the story really oozes the kind of cinematic quality that would make Marvel Studios sweat bullets. The combination of excellent graphics, captivating voice acting, and the return of favourite characters will most definitely have new fans engrossed, and old fans spiralling into nostalgia.

In with the old, out with the new

Objectively speaking, Mortal Kombat 11 plays it extremely safe. This game demonstrates the old adage that players are bound to enjoy what lies in their comfort zone, and it is not necessary for sequels to reinvent the wheel. Instead, MK 11 goes for the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but make it a whole lot prettier’ approach.

Indeed,  MK 11 plays just as slick and precise as every game Netherrealm has developed thus far. What can be perfected has been tweaked, but a whole slew of small changes collectively add up to an experience that will still feel fresh and engaging to long-time players. Not much is new here, and I am very happy about that.

You get to see quite a lot of Sub Zero’s face in this game.

So aside from the single player campaign, the ‘Klassic Towers’ mode also makes a return in which the player must defeat a sequence of opponents to ascend up the tower. Except for infinite modes, these always end with Kronika as the final boss. Defeating her also gets you a brief cut scene that fills in some story details specific to the character you happen to be playing much like Tekken or Street Fighter.

You will not find the ‘Living Towers’ of the previous installment as Netherrealm has ditched this mode in favour of the ‘Towers of Time’. These differ from Klassic Towers in that opponents get more challenging as you approach the top, and players are also permitted to activate certain modifiers (they unlocked as loot) either for one match, or for the duration of the entire tower.

As an example, you can assign Jade one or two of Cyrax’s cyber webs to fire at her opponent stunning them momentarily. Alternatively, the match might have a vampire modifier in which the player’s health bar drains constantly to the opponent’s, so it is best to finish the match sooner rather than later. These towers can certainly get infamously punishing, but the game drowns you in rewards for completing them.

Lemme smash! This is who you will be playing in the Krypt. Note the three currencies in the bottom of the screen.

The Krypt is back again, of course. This time the event plays out on Shang Tsung’s island (see MK 2011) during which you open chests, smash vases and crush meteorites for some sweet loot and unlockable goodies. The Krypt also adopts a third person perspective now which only makes the act of swinging around Shao Kahn’s colossal hammer at vases and statues all the more gratifying.

Light puzzle solving is also a way of collecting some treasures, and it is clear that the developers really want the player to enjoy exploring for goodies to make your game more interesting. I have always been intrigued and, a little creeped out by this subsection of Mortal Kombat games, so it’s nice to see it return here. It’s really beginning to feel like a crucial component of the experience.

Kompletely Unreal

I have never been shy to express my admiration for the Unreal Engine, but what Netherrealm has achieved on a visual level in this game is outright astounding. Here we have a super modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 no less, throwing around particles and rendering high definition textures like it is trying to put Frostbite and Unity out of business.

Even though certain sections of the game have been mysteriously capped at 30fps (most of which can now be fixed by a mod), this game flows on the PC like butter down a centrefold’s butt cheek. In contrast to Mortal Kombat XL, the vibrant graphical tone of MK11 really throws the bountiful details of the visuals into sharp relief. I feel like the unique cast of characters that has always defined this series finally get the representation they deserve.

Damn this game is beautiful. This allows for particularly dramatic cut scenes.

The environments and fighting arenas have also been given the deluxe visual treatment through dramatic lighting and environmental effects. I found the arenas to have an enigmatic and refreshing feeling to them, and a particular favourite of mine became the decaying Shaolin temple where the corpses of dead monks observe your match. I clearly have issues.

They are noticeably the tightest fighting planes that Netherrealm has implemented within one of their games, but this has the pleasing outcome of somehow making the action feel closer… more immediate. The close-quarter combat also places more importance on finding openings in the opponent’s technique rather than just  flying from one combo to the next.

Combos are still just as important, but it is clear that MK 11 wants shorter, more potent moves to play a bigger role too. This means that the one guy with supersonic thumbs you always get paired with online is less safe than he thinks this time round. You know who you are!

The fatalities and other post-match tomfoolery have, naturally, also been given an obvious graphical upgrade. Seriously, seeing brains being splattered and bones being shattered in this level of realism is not at all for the faint of heart. Be that as it may, I nevertheless have a hard time imagining a more beautiful, albeit visceral fighting game.

The very definition of fighting chance

As I mentioned, the roster of fighters is a mixed bag of old and new characters including the original 7, but like all the other yobs on the internet, I feel like some characters leave a conspicuous absence. Where the hell is Goro!? I also miss, Takashi who had a snappy and responsive feel in his fighting that appealed to my playing style in the previous game.

Perhaps old Goro will get his chance with DLCs, but the roster is still a bit smaller than I would have liked. It is once again too obvious that most of us will be expected to fork out more of our hard earned cash as extra content later down the line. Netherrealm has chosen quality of quantity, but this rather anemic roster just smacks too much of leaving room for microtransactions.

At least Geras more than makes up for my four-armed favourite being conspicuously M.I.A. His time-travelling abilities allow him to execute a punch, blink back in time, and execute another attack before my opponent could even find a moment to move. I also liked the beefy, warlock look he had going on which looks particularly slick during fights. Definitely my favourite new character in this game.

Geras warping back in time behind his opponent. Cannot remember who the other is… uhm was…

It also helps that the developers have really gone the extra mile to give MK 11 a truly comprehensive and helpful tutorial segment. They even included a lesson on frame times and hit advantages – something I usually ignored and left to subconscious strategy until I actually paid attention to it in this game.

Best of all, for the really nasty combos and chained assaults the game will actually demo the move on screen with button prompts. I am embarrassed to admit that some combos in previous games took me upwards of an hour to get right. With this new system, it was ten tries tops. As such, newcomers to Mortal Kombat, and fighting games in general, will undoubtedly feel more welcome than ever before.

On the subject of techniques, MK 11 has swapped out X-ray moves for a new system called ‘Fatal Blows’. Like X-ray attacks, they are once-off, deadly attacks taking you microscopically close to your, or your opponent’s, cracking jaw and rupturing internal organs. Except there is one crucial difference: Fatal Blows can only be activated in the last third of your health.

In other words, if the player has only been maintaining a slight lead with their opponent throughout the fight, the last section becomes indescribably tense. You can no longer rely on short-distance techniques or longer combos to win because if you allow even one opportunity to have a Fatal Blow performed on you, you’re toast.

Let us have the talk

So what exactly is the deal with this grind getting everyone all upset? Well, the manner in which MK 11 deals with in-game currency makes us all want to gather our raincoats for the inevitable microtransaction storm that is surely going to hit soon. At the time of writing, MK 11 has very little to offer in the way of DLC on Steam.

Still, something tells me that this will change soon not just because this is the nature of our industry, but because fighting games are also particularly lucrative opportunities for monetisation. They always have been because it is so satisfying seeing no grey blocks on your roster, or adding some cosmetic personality to your favourite fighter.

This is my only major issue with MK 11 because it feels like there is simply too much being gated off from the player when you start the game. Every time I completed a fight, the game goes through a huge pomp and circumstance to inform me of all the different currencies I just earned. Not that the handouts are even that generous mind you.

You read that correctly. This time there is not just the Koins  used to unlock outfits, fatalities and modifiers for tower modes. Even in the Krypt, you now have to juggle multiple kinds of currency units like hearts and soul fragments if you want all off the riches the hidden content has to offer. Oh, and the Krypt chests are randomised so your friend may find a liquid metal suit for Sonya Blade in the same place you get concept art…

Playing around with some of the unlockable skins and finishing moves.

Even though I have never really cared much about cosmetic items in the games I play, I don’t like the sense of gaminess MK 11 creates with the endless pop-ups eagerly informing me how much I have earned. I am playing because I am having fun, and this just feels like Netherrealm is trying to force me into some scheme inevitably leading to microtransactions.

FINISH IT!!

In case that last section threw you off a bit, I want to state again that Mortal Kombat 11 is essentially fighting game perfection. This game is completely saturated with the kind of creative vision that has been the worked into the design of my favourite fighting games. This game looks great, sounds great and feels great.

If Netherrealm vow never to turn the superfluous currencies online into an evil plot of monetisation, I will not need another fighting game for the next ten years at least. Combined with an excellent story, this will become an essential classic in your Mortal Kombat collection.

Remember to check out our Mortal Kombat 11 performance analysis!

Tight and refined combat

Tutorial section

Story

Excellent visuals and sound

Design of new fighters

Temporal fighting abilities

Somewhat limited roster

Too focused on currencies

          Playtime: About 28 hours total. 10 hours on the single player campaign with much of the remaining time spent online.

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox Controller (Thanks to my friend Niel for lending me his!!)

Mortal Kombat 11 – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/