#Sole Sisters

[shakibone]

I hate AI voice replicators

See, I like musical genre remixes. Things where a popular song is done in the style of another artist, or another era. The Baseballs understood this, with their cover of Rihanna’s Umbrella:

I’m about to go off, so more under the cut!

Neil Gaiman once said (here on Tumblr, which I'll have to paraphrase due to an unfortunate inability to find the source):

“I enjoy songs. Sometimes I enjoy them too much and they grow tired. A good cover allows me to enjoy them again for the first time.” -Neil Gaiman, heavily paraphrased

Scott Bradlee understands the power of these covers, stylistic remixes, enough to launch multiple careers off of it. Such as with his own remix (featuring Casey Abrams & The Sole Sisters) of the afore-featured Umbrella by Rihanna:

Or one of my own personal favourites, Sugar, We’re Going Down originally by Fall Out Boy:

But!

These era-adjacent (or era-divorced) covers need not be wholly original performances to have value. Let’s return to Sugar, We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy. While Scott Bradlee and singer Joey Cook reworked it in their own way, YouTube user Johann Olsson made his own era-divorced remix, this time transplanting them Boys what Fall Out to the 80′s using the original singer’s (Patrick Stump) vocal recording re-interpreted to an entirely different genre, rythm, and style:

Listen to both covers listed here and then the original and tell me they don’t each reveal something different about the subject, that they don’t highlight new facets of the same material. This is why I love covers that work on the premise of transplanting a song to a completely different style/genre. And it’s not just divided by era! Here’s what you get when you take John Denver’s classic anthem to pastoral paradise and nature’s magnificence and run it through it’s philosophical antithesis. This is Melodicka Bros rendition, which (to my reading) seeks to find that same beauty in an industrial world stripped of it:

You can hear the singers (identified only as Joe and Dave) yearning for that beauty which John Denver knew but they will never be afforded. Or at least...

That’s my interpretation.

These stylistically remixed covers afford such great exploration of the original work alongside what the covering artist bring to the material, that it inspires awe in me. I adore this genre of remixes and covers.

And now

AND NOW.

YouTube reccomends me garbage AI covers. I’m served up the digital ghost of Frank Sinatra singing Poker Face, Spongebob (which is to say Tom Kenny, the actor who gosh darn voices him) singing Gangsta’s Paradise or some nonsense, and the entire Team Fortress 2 cast (Nathan Vetterlein, Rick May, Dennis Bateman, Gary Schwartz, Grant Goodeve, Robin Atkin Downes, John Patrick Lowrie, and Ellen McLain) singing Bohemian Rhapsody or whatever. Stolen voices twisted to shallow purposes, with no regard to the artists whose voices are taken and their wishes regarding such uses:

https://catnippackets.tumblr.com/post/722596290851176448/catnippackets-listen-i-say-this-with-patience-bc

The use of these human beings voices to speak words they did not utter is horrifying, but on a personaly level it fill my algorythmically generated feed with utter tripe.

I don’t want to end on a downer, so here’s a final example of the types of stylistic remixes I adore. Presenting Brady Love with a beutiful rendition in the style of Luciano Pavarotti of Apple Bottom Jeans (Originally by Flo Rida):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIZz2PMnEDM

This one is without preview due to Tumblr’s limitations. Perhaps we can find a metaphor in that.

[sentient-stove]

“I grew up without parental supervision in a mansion filled with stolen magical artifacts right next to the mundane not magic ones. Of course I was gonna develop my own magical signature.” He popped the lock, and Elle watched as Tim spit into his hand, using it to smudge the charcoal wards on the window frame. “I want a Mr. Whippy.”

She’s starting to see why Mr. Constantine is supposed to be watching them. Tim was clearly hyper independent, and didn’t seem to be worried about falling to his death, clambering out of the window to perch delicately on the fire escape. Elle also considered herself to be decently hyper independent but Danny had said to ‘trust Constantine and lay low’. Heading out to find whatever a Mr. Whippy was seemed like the opposite of laying low.

“What’s a Mr. Whippy?”

“Cheap ice cream with a Cadbury Flake. Best London’s got to offer. Want to help me find a place that sells them?”

“Did you really use necromancy? More than once? And try to clone someone?”

“I’ll tell you about the first guy I brought back if you help me annoy Constantine by breaking out. Never cloned anyone though. Like, I mean,” Tim trailed off and pulled his hoodie sleeves over his fingers, nervously fidgeting. “I looked into the schematics of possibly doing so. But cloning him wouldn’t have brought my friend back. So I never followed through.”

…

Previous miscellaneous section here

[zeldasadork]

to me mounders are found family but not in a standard siblings-esque dynamic or anything. particularly early on it’s like they have the unshakable camaraderie of like, college dormmates bonded through their mutual befuddlement of what shared teachers they have, or acquaintances stuck in a elevator together, or shipwreck survivors caught in the same stretch of land.

and it’s happenstantial up until they’re maybe a little too loyal a little too giving for what should ultimately amount to amicable neighbors. it’s happenstantial until they start to notice that they choose eachother over and over again, in their own ways. it’s that they care for eachother and they fight for eachother and they mourn for eachother as a whole and individually. and it’s fascinating.

[this-box-is-empty]

It's not your fault

[my-beloved-lakes]

Ok, question for the leverage fandom

If you voted yes put in the tags at what point you caught on

[grizzgotmilk]

kafka must be releasing some kaiju pheromones bc he legit be winning the hearts of everyone around him to some extent or the other

[fromtheseventhhell]

Do you ever think about how Arya being left-handed most likely had an impact on her needlework and other tasks? And how she needed special attention not only because she wasn't as naturally gifted as her sister but because the way she was being taught fundamentally didn't work for her? And how instead of being given the attention she needed she was instead held to an unfair standard by her teacher and used as a measure for bad behavior? And how this all impacted her self-esteem and her views on being a Lady?

[kiitkattie]

Dan Heng: Name a more iconic duo than my crippling fear of abandonment and my anxiety. I'll wait. March 7th: You and Me! Dan Heng, tearing up: Ok.

[rosesncarnations]

What if I told you I’m doing another portrait style?

[antiquepearlss]

Together Kiera, Catalina, and Varian have a body count.

[quirkle2]

the angst in your zombie au bREAKS MY HEART INTO PIECES (I LOVE IT VERY MUCH)

okay, okay, so!! if the kagebros got separated from reigen and teru when mob is still fine, i imagine that their reunion would be hEARTWRENCHING also, i'm a bit curious, would mob still be able to recognize teru and reigen? or would he thought about them as strangers?

(tbh, following your lore, i imagine mob would act a similarly like nezuko from demon slayer? but instead of little hums, his zombie sounds would more like babbling and incoherent mumbles :"D)

the reunion is fuckin AWFUL man it's SO gut-wrenching. both reigen and teru feared this for Months while looking for the brothers; pretty much the worst case scenario was that mob or ritsu or Both turned—a lot of humans prefer death over being a zombie any day, so the idea of ritsu or mob having to go through that and wander around aimlessly until starvation or smth else gets them,,,

it hurts them so much to think about. teru forces himself not to dwell on it and he's pretty good at that but reigen thinks abt it a lot and he's honestly not sure what scenario is worse. best case is that they're both alive and unturned, obviously, but what's the worst case? you'd think it's both of them getting killed, or turning, but reigen also knows that if One of them got killed/turned, the other would probably lose their mind, especially if they had to watch. the fact that they're kids makes this all three times worse and reigen has to act like he's Not worrying himself sick over the brothers while he tries to keep teru in high spirits

the reunion itself is rly fuckin gut-wrenching for them. they see mob from afar, wandered off just a bit from ritsu and tome who are just around the bend looting a place, and they book it bc ofc they do, it's mob!! but then they see how pale he is, and when he turns around they don't see that light in his eyes that's usually there and the red is dulled and dead looking,, teru almost moves in for a hug before he realizes mob looks vastly different when he Rly takes him in, and mob doesn't rly react too much besides staring at them blankly. the obvious answer is almost too horrifying to even consider, so it takes them a minute to rly,,realize what's going on

tome comes around the bend and shouts, cuz when humans and zombies mix it's usually guns pointed at zombie heads. ritsu comes running out after her and when he sees reigen and teru his thoughts go, in order: holy shit is that reigen and tero ohmygod oh my god they're alive they're alive ohmy god i could fucking cry, and ohmy god they see shige ohno oh no oh no

ritsu sounds like a lunatic when he pulls mob away from them on instinct and says that he's safe to be around and that he's "still him" and he's "not gone" and he's very aware of that. he's very, intimately aware that he sounds fuckin crazy, bc ofc he does, this is what all the crazy people in zombie movies sound like. but he doesn't care, he doesn't care if reigen or teru dismiss him as nuts—he has to make them understand that his brother is still in there somewhere

and yeah, they both kinda think that ritsu's lost his marbles a little bit, but while teru is focused on that and the fact that mob doesn't look like he's rly tuned into Anything that's happening rn, reigen is a bit more focused on the fact that both ritsu and mob look awful? they're both very skinny and very dirty, obviously barely scraping by. they're cut up and ritsu's jacket is basically blood and dirt with a little bit of green fabric mixed in. and just by the look in ritsu's eyes, reigen can tell, man ... reigen can tell ritsu is like.not okay at this point he's kinda lost it.

i think the most painful thing about this whole reunion in general is that later that night, when reigen and teru r finally like ok we get it he's,, he's still mob. we believe you (they want to believe him... [they Do believe him, later, wholeheartedly]) and they settle down someplace safe, teru asks how long mob's been like this. and ritsu has to answer "since we got separated" and they both have that to stew over while everybody else sleeps

they realize that ritsu likely watched mob turn, watched the entire process, and that process takes a long time. it's at least a week of deteriorating motor functions and cognitive skill, and the fact that ritsu stayed for that to keep mob company is .ough. and it doesn't end there bc ritsu obviously stayed after that too

given how these things usually go, ritsu probably did think about killing mob. it probably did cross his mind, bc that's basically what everybody's been told to do. kill them before they have a chance to do any more damage. and it's obvious that ritsu did not have it in him

ritsu not only did not have it in him to kill him, he didn't even have it in him to leave him there. the kid fucking took him with him. a zombie. and he's somehow made it work, for months. and the next few days are filled with watching him still treat mob like a brother and take care of him and gently steer him away from a bird he tries to follow down the wrong street.ritsu is as gentle and kind as he's ever been with his brother. and even tho they're both hungry and tired and barely making it, ritsu is doing a rly good job taking care of mob with what he's been given

the kid obviously wholeheartedly believes in a cure and that mob is still There. he's gone through the trouble to take care of him, and the grief of continuously seeing a loved one that many would consider effectively dead, to get him that cure. to get him his brother back. and mob doesn't seem to be in any pain or distress, so reigen and teru think that this path ritsu has followed is probably infinitely kinder than the mercy kill method they've been taught to do

i think they have a new respect for ritsu, after that reunion

[stargirlfeyre]

Feyre is not wholly responsible for the downfall of the Spring Court. All she did was set up situations where Tamlin had to choose to do the right thing and be a good leader (example: the whole guard situation) but he didn’t. She never directly did anything that damaged the court. The downfall of the SC was due to Tamlin allowing himself to be manipulated and pressured by Ianthe. It was also due to him thinking he could outsmart Hybern which led him to invite them into his home. They were in the woods poisoning his fiancé and bestfriend while he was thinking he was doing such a good job as double agent.

It all boils down to him being a failure for a ruler with a weak mindset.

[vicontheinternet]

No offense to ppl who actually like fourth wing but it sound like a rough draft or bullet point for a book strung together. I don’t get why ppl were frothing at the mouth over this book

[beatcroc]

Would love to hear your thoughts on/interpretation of Brick :)

my actual most pressing thought about brick is im distraught more people don't realize he [and gustavo] are every bit as much a kirby reference as they are a mario reference

look at him!!! look!!! his name is RICK.

you dont know him??? youve forgotten him??? my beloved son??? rick the hamster?? rick was quite literally what got me into the kirby series so i have very strong convictions about him.

aside from that i mean. well. he is a rat. i'm not sure how much there is to "interpret" here fgjjgffgh. i do at least have a minor hc that the Giant Fuckin Rats like that only come from the tower. tower rats just built different. built six feet tall. everywhere else just got regular little rats like in don't make a sound & tower rats are generally not well-known outside of areas immediately around the tower+places it affects/connects to.

gus probably has him registered as a service/therapy animal so he can take him places but brick is definitely not actually Trained for it. i don't think he really Needs training though since he's, like, intelligent enough to smoke and play poker apparently; and he's also generally pretty tolerant, relaxed, and well-behaved otherwise. he does still perform the occasional service duty in the form of "laying down on top of peppino when he is having an Episode" this is usually at gustavo's behest and fake pep will do it too

[yardsards]

griffin was so iconic for the suffering game soundtrack like yea i'm gonna create the torment nexus but at least the tunes will slap your ass clean off

[saeiken]

:P