#a Fundamental Level. and on TOP of that half the time the art is so CUTE and im like 'motherfucker that should be ME' or i guess my lad but

[smol-tired-binch-blog]

hate how im now at a point where im legit like kicking my legs and grinning like an idiot over fictional characters SEND HELP

[stewblog]

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4

In the lead up to its release, I’d heard no small amount of seemingly-hyperbolic praise heaped up on John Wick: Chapter 4 by friends lucky enough to see advanced screenings. Surely, I reasoned, this is merely pre-release hype fed by the thrill that comes with seeing something highly anticipated before everyone else.

I was wrong.

Believe the hype. This really is an incredible feat of moviemaking. John Wick: Chapter 4 is the rarest of sequels. Most film franchises are barely running on fumes by their third film, much less a fourth. Director Chad Stahelski and star Keanu Reeves, however, have delivered a movie with such ferocious style and breathtaking intensity that I walked away wondering if I’d hallucinated half of it.

The John Wick series has been one of consistent escalation. The first film feels almost quaint now with its eponymous protagonist leaving a miles-long trail of bodies through New York City on his sympathetic quest for vengeance. Now fully drawn back into the neon-drenched underworld he so desperately fought to leave, Mr. Wick brings his unparalleled expertise across multiple continents as we are immersed even further into this alternate reality of assassins and shadowy rulers. Chapter 3 never found the right balance of world building and characters, resulting in more than a bit of cinematic wheel-spinning, a problem Chapter 4 solves by shifting the focus from John as a loner against all odds to him navigating a web of relationships old and new in an all-out battle royale for his ultimate emancipation

He’ll just have to go through the toughest, most ruthless opponents he’s ever faced, including a former best friend, to get there. What unfolds is something exhilarating.

Chapter 4 is as much a love letter to every twin-fisted action flick Chad Stahelski has ever loved as it is a modern classic of the form. This may be the fourth time in a row that Keanu Reeves has pumped boxes of bullets into endless waves of underworld goons and assassins, but it’s an experience that he and Stahelski have honed to a mirror sheen. Throw in the likes of Hiroyuki Sanada, Scott Adkins, Rina Samayawa, Shamier Anderson and the godlike Donnie Yen and the result is the most relentless action movie since Mad Max: Fury Road. Every time you think the movie has topped itself with inventive ways to beat, slice, stab, bludgeon, whip and otherwise maim both heroes and villains, Stahelski says, “Nah, hang on.” Save for the aforementioned Fury Road, this may well be the ultimate form of an action movie, delivering a perfect blend of Asian-influenced mayhem and Stahelski’s own decades of experience as a Hollywood stuntman.

It’s a visual knock-out, too. The complexity of Wick’s action successfully escalates with each film and Chapter 4 delivers a symphony of destruction to the point where it’s nigh impossible to pick a favorite. The siege of the Osaka Continental featuring what may be the single best use of nunchucks ever in a movie? John’s rampage through a dilapidated apartment building viewed largely from a top-down perspective? A fight in and around traffic at Paris’ Arc de Triomphe that has to be seen to be believed? Any one of these would be considered the high watermark of any action director’s career.

These scenes are electric thanks to the outstanding choreography and a level of visual panache that puts every other recent film of this kind to shame. Any given environment is stunning to look at thanks to phenomenal production design and art direction (as well as Dan Laustsen’s gorgeous cinematography). But what makes these scenes as impactful as they are is something far more fundamental than fancy moves and good photography: Stahelski lets you see what’s going on. You’d think something this basic would be a principle more widely embraced, but getting a Hollywood action movie where the lighting is intentional, the edits are minimal and the camera movement precise and steady is maddeningly rare. The John Wick films at large have embraced this fundamental approach, but Chapter 4 takes it to an echelon above where even its predecessors unquestionably succeeded.

What really makes this one sing is the cast, though. Stahelski has made a habit of putting fantastic character actors throughout this series, but the additions in Chapter 4 are, as with most everything else, a cut above. Even ignoring the fact that I could listen to Clancy Brown read the phone book, the gravitas he brings to a role like The Harbinger cannot be understated. It’s abundantly clear that Bill Skarsgaard was put on this Earth exclusively to play movie villains. And Hiroyuki Sanada reminds us why he’s been a mainstay of Asian cinema since the 1960s. But it’s Donnie Yen who completely steals the show as John Wick’s friend-turned-nemesis Caine. Yen has been a mega-star of Hong Kong cinema for years, but he’s either been woefully underutilized (a la Blade II) or been cast to play second-fiddle (XXX: The Return of Xander Cage) and never given a true chance to fully shine for audiences in the West. Stahelski lets Yen cut loose in a way that is sure to blow the minds of at least a few moviegoers, and that’s on top of him playing a character that feels every bit as sympathetic as Keanu’s.

And speaking of Keanu, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about his work in these films. Say what you will about the quality of his acting, I dare say no award-winning actor could bring the level of commitment to authenticity and the bottled fury Reeves lets loose across these four films. Keanu Reeves could play Forrest Gump, but Tom Hanks probably couldn’t go toe-to-toe with some of cinema’s greatest martial artists. The amount of pain and abuse John Wick endures is basically superhuman at this point, but Reeves manages to make the impact land and be felt because he believes in this character and the exaggerated world he inhabits.

It feels almost miraculous that this series exists, much less that it has flourished in such a way. In a landscape filled with movies based on pre-existing intellectual property and remakes, we now have four movies bursting with creativity and originality that also serve as love letters to the inspiring source material. If this is the last we see of John Wick, there’s no better way to send him off.

[sevensided]

Really? You don't see religious imagery in the show? That's interesting. I was raised totally without faith and I feel like some of it is obvious, even just from the stuff I've picked up by osmosis. Like the Last Supper imagery or the idea of El going into a cave to die and be reborn with her powers again. All set around Easter. I think I recognize concepts from Jewish and Eastern faiths too, through the seasons. I'm no expert but I've always felt this stuff was there, for sure

Thanks for having a good faith (no pun intended) discussion with me!

No, not really. I mean, the show is fundamentally a scientific show. Sure, it distorts accepted scientific conventions, but it's never done through the lens of magic/miracles, rather, it's entirely within the realm of scientific possibility - parallel universes/dimensions theoretically exist, as do mutant animals, etc., so everything that happens in ST is constrained by the scientific laws and theories of our world.

I think a lot of what you've brought up is easily explained by other means. For example, Suzie's family is Mormon; naturally, they would have religious imagery in their home. Not to be a pedant, but El doesn't go into a cave; she goes into a machine, which I suppose you could argue because it's dark and underground, is like a cave? But that is a stretch. Also, Easter in 1985 was on April 7, a week and half or so after the events of the season.

What Jewish or Eastern influences are you seeing? I'd be interested to know this, because for a long time I was thinking about converting to Judaism, so I have researched/read quite a lot. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything, but if you want to let me know, then please do.

My issue here is that there is a contempory urge to ascibe religious meaning to media that does not have religious undertones simply to elevate it to a higher level of meaning. I don't think this is necessary in the context of ST. It already has so many important and poignant themes, that to layer a religious interpretation actually runs in contradiction to the entire show.

I would also say that just because certain screen compositions align with religious iconography or art does not make those parallels intentional. Religious framing in art is fundamental to its history; there is a good argument to be made that changes in Western art in particular can be ascribed to religion, given it was the most popular topic until the 18th century. So, naturally, you can put a religious painting alongside a screenshot from ST because such religious art directly informed principles of design and composition. That doesn't make it religious by nature; it makes it a product of the artistic canon.

Another thing - last one, I promise - I'm not religious, but I find the idea of 'Jesus having superpowers' mildly troubling. Moreover, El's powers are implicitly explained within the show as being a naturally occuring (read: scientific) phenomena that requires laboratory conditions to thrive and grow. That ST was influenced by MKUltra - and Brenner's activity is described as a branch of MKUltra - is important, as that was, indeed, a scientific enterprise bent on pushing the limits of human psychology and biology for the purpose of military gain. I would not describe El in any sense, as she appears in the show, to be akin to an angel or a religious deity... she's described as an alien, which further reinforces how ST is fundamentally scientific in nature.

I really enjoyed writing this all up. I'm totally down to discuss this further, if you'd like to keep going!

[milli-moi]

Want something to read?

I’m never sure about posting fanfic directly here since I never feel it gets a big response but I might add an art to this, not sure yet, and since it’s one bit of a bigger bit then I thought I might as well. So here’s story 1 of Sections of Significance. It is on AO3 also and the rest will be too.

Edited: not one but two bits of fanart have been added in here, I’ve (hopefully) hidden them at the end so they aren’t able to spoil the story.

Hope you like it and pleeeeeeeaaaaase leave me some thoughts if you do…..?

- Sections of Significance #1-

There are few things which beat the sound of genuine laughter. Laughter is contagious, it can even help to cure depression. It's also a thing that Children do much more than grown adults. Bucky had read something about it in the New York Times, the newspaper he still recognised from his youth, albeit smaller than it once was. The article said that studies showed young kids laughed about as much as 300 times in one day whereas adults only laughed 20. He hadn’t been surprised by the figures until he remembered most adults weren’t him - many didn’t even have the basic level of war traumas to contend with.

Usually, kids had the purest forms of laughter, they could fall into fits of giggles which made them forget to breathe and fall about. Those laughing fits could fill a person's heart with so much love, and make them forget everything that happened in the cruel and treacherous world. It was less often adults laughed in that way. When they did, there became something even more pure about the experience.

When he heard Natasha giggling like that, struggling to stop laughing enough to speak it was the purest sound he had ever heard. Like a naturalist seeing a near-extinct animal out in the Rainforests Bucky felt he had experienced something so rare and so fundamental that he doubted anyone ever had before.

Natasha laughed, of course she did, sometimes at genuinely funny things, other times out of sarcasm. She was also very convincing at fake laughter when trying to flirt with a mark. She laughed with joy too, a rare sound which he doubted many others had heard. Sometimes those joyous laughs felt like a blurring in the time continuum, a quick glimpse back to the innocent child she had once been. It showed the child who had never danced in the rain and ran home soaked to the skin. It showed the marvels of the planet through the eyes of a first-time viewer.

This, however, was the first time he had seen her so overcome with laughter that all her emotional walls fell away.

She sat on the kitchen floor, knees up towards her chin with feet spread wider apart. Her hair was bundled into a ponytail, shorter strands of hair around her ears escaping from the tie. She wore a pair of baseball sneakers on her feet, old jeans which he was sure were supposed to have those holes at the knees and a tank top. On top of the simple outfit, she was wearing a rain poncho. A rain poncho that was now also covered in paint. Natasha sat on top of the plastic tarps laid on the floor, not caring that she was likely sitting in one of the main pools of paint spattered across the entire floor.

She looked up at him, wiping tears of laughter from her eye while smearing the green paint across her cheek from the back of her hand. Shaking her head she spoke, the two-syllable word broken in half by laughter.

‘Li-, ho.’

Bucky looked over to the cat who had started it all, sitting atop the covered kitchen counter licking her paws. She was spotlessly clean, feigning innocence while she bathed.

Liho had started it all, deciding to behave in a typical cat manner. She tapped at the lid of a Greek Green Olive paint can until it fell to the floor, bounced and sprayed paint across the newly painted wall. Natasha had sworn at the cat for messing up her half-dried work and then tried to chase her from the room.

He wasn’t exactly sure what had followed, only that Liho had decided that she was not leaving the room. At one point Bucky had slipped on the paint-covered tarp, throwing an arm out in reflex and pulling Natasha down with him. Liho had chosen that precise moment to try and leap onto the edge of the second open paint can. To shouts of ‘No!’ Liho had landed on the edge of the can, pushed it off balance and sent it flying from the countertop onto the floor, pouring a waterfall of emulsion as she did so. Bucky had worn most of it, grabbing a handful of Natasha’s top to wipe the green from his face.

She had playfully batted his hand away and turned, only to slip again in the puddles on the plastic-covered floor and splash down onto it. Alpine had picked the wrong moment to wake up from a nap and come to investigate the commotion as she was knocked over by Liho finally escaping the scene of the crime.

While Liho sat on the countertop without a speck of the green paint on her black fur Alpine lay under the heavily covered kitchen table, tail twitching and growling at her feline friend. Alpine was more green than white and proceeded to try and lick the paint from her fur only to mix it further in.

As if to add insult to injury Liho decided to make a neat jump onto Bucky’s shoulder. His t-shirt was now so caked in half-dried paint that it was beginning to harden but Liho decided to purr loudly in his ear, rubbing her jaw against his stubbly cheek.

‘Oh, so we’re friends now? Thanks.’

Natasha laughed again, shaking her head as her whole body seemed to vibrate. Bucky couldn’t help but smile, as much as part of him wanted to put the cat in time out or whatever it was parents did now he also secretly wanted to thank the little devil. If it weren’t for the cat then he would never have witnessed the inner child laughing on the kitchen floor.

The little Natasha who had never been able to make a mess like this, who could never have wasted the paint in such a way. The little girl who had never had a pet and who had never seen the joy that came from animals behaving as they will. The small child in her mind who was able to have fun in the disastrous paint job, knowing it would never be an issue that they couldn’t fix.

His heart swelled in his chest as he walked the few steps over to where Natasha sat against the back door and crouched to her height. Alpine hissed from under the table, pushing herself further back against the wall. Her tongue was now turning green from licking the paint.

‘Poor Kotenyok, I hope she forgives us,’ Natasha spoke through giggles. Bucky quickly grabbed hold of her hand as she went to push the hair from her face. She looked at him, then her hand before laughing again.

He looked into her eyes, bright and almost glowing with the basic joy she felt. The green of her eyes contained elements of the green paint on her cheek, nose, chin and across a part of her neck where it had evaded the rain poncho.

Bucky smiled to himself, gently taking her chin in his hand and kissing the tip of her nose. He accidentally left a smudge of dried green under her chin as he did but presumed that could be fixed at another time.

He stood, heading from the room and fumbling in his pocket for the cell phone he was always losing.

‘Where are you going?’ Natasha called after him.

Bucky stopped at the door, holding the now ringing phone to his ear,

‘Calling Sam. Think it's time we abort this mission. He’ll know a guy.”

Read More (pictures)

[vrankup]

Skyrocketing Conversions: A Real Talk Guide to Turbocharge Your Website's Game |vrankup|

Yo, what's up, folks? It's your best digital marketing agency in dwarka, vrankup! Today, we're diving deep into the art of getting those conversions soaring like a SpaceX rocket. Yeah, you heard me right – we're about to break down some fundamental, gritty strategies that'll have your website turning visitors into die-hard fans. No fancy-pants jargon here, just good ol' human-style advice.

1. Get Inside Their Noggins

Alright, imagine you're at a party. You wouldn't just walk up to someone and start blabbering, right? Nah, you'd suss out what they're into, what makes 'em tick. Same goes for your website visitors. You gotta know 'em inside out.

Dig deep, peeps. Do some serious Sherlock Holmes work – research, surveys, whatever it takes. Figure out their pain points, their dreams, and their quirks. Once you got that intel, you can craft content that speaks to 'em on a personal level.

2. Slap 'Em with Killer CTAs

Let's talk CTAs – those little bad boys are like the hype guys at a concert, getting the crowd all pumped up. But they gotta be killer. None of that "click here" nonsense. Nah, you gotta hit 'em with a "Grab Yours Now" or a "Score the Deal" – something that makes 'em feel like they're missing out if they don't click.

And, seriously, make those CTAs as visible as a neon sign in Times Square. Don't hide 'em in some dusty corner. Put 'em where the action is, so people can't miss 'em even if they tried.

https://www.vrankup.com/

3. Need for Speed

Alright, who's got time to wait around these days? Not a single soul. So, don't be that sluggish website that takes forever to load. Ain't nobody got patience for that.

Trim the fat – compress those images, clean up that code, and get yourself some top-notch hosting. When your site loads faster than The Flash on caffeine, people are gonna stick around, and that's half the battle.

4. Show Off Your Fan Club

You want folks to see that others are lovin' what you're dishing out.

Get those testimonials, reviews, and success stories front and center. Show 'em off like they're the crown jewels. People trust people, not robots, so let your fans do the talking.

5. K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Smarty

Let's be real, nobody wants to navigate a maze to buy something. If your checkout process is more complicated than deciphering ancient hieroglyphics, you're in trouble.

Simplify, folks. Offer a guest checkout option, cut down on the form fields, and make sure paying is as easy as a high-five. The less hoops people gotta jump through, the more likely they'll stick around to the finish line.

6. Words that Woo

Last but not least, let's talk words. Your copy ain't just there to fill space – it's gotta work its magic.

Tell stories that hit home, tug at those heartstrings, and make 'em feel like you're talkin' directly to 'em. Address their problems, offer solutions, and paint a picture of how awesome life's gonna be after they've grabbed what you're offering.

Now, go work that website magic and watch those conversions do the happy dance! You got this, rockstar! 🚀

[dubaidronevideographer]

Aerial Photography: Why Is It So Popular Now?

We as a whole snap pictures to catch recollections in our lives. Blemishes of our photography expertise welcome grins on our countenances and that of our darlings. Assuming the circumstance and reason for photography become business or limited time, the defects can cost one abundantly.Dronevideographer.ae is the best Drone Video Company in UAE. We do Drone Videography and drone filming. We deliver high-quality aerial photography and videography, be it for film production or personal projects. 

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A remarkable showcase of the property can get the notice and hold it longer. Property shown through airborne photography can finish the work genuinely and smoothly.

What Makes Elevated Photography so Unique?

Flying photography is a one-of-a-kind vertical photography procedure of catching the perspective on a design or a surface from the air. A top-quality camera is mounted on an airplane or any flying item like an ethereal photography drone.

The upward picture clicked, or recordings recorded from up above overhead permits remarkably exhibiting the property.

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360 3d flying photography offers more noteworthy opportunities for the watchers in checking the presentation from any point they wish.

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[bubblesthemonsterartist]

2021 Creator Self-Love Extravaganza!

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2021. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

This year I experimented with gifmaking for the first time, so on top of a word count, I have a media!

Years total: 91014 words, 10 fics, and literally hundreds of gifs

1. "At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time, and nobody knew it" - Hakuouki, ensemble, rating: G - It's not every day that I get to bring my own brand of emotional terrorism to a new fandom, but when I do, I make sure to attack the entire fandom as a whole. Bonus points for using a brand-new-to-me medium to do it! :D [gifset]

2. Initiate - Gokushufudou, Tatsu/Friendship, rating: G - My first foray into writing for a fandom outside of AnS! And of course what would inspire me was a brief excursion into the AO3 tag only to discover the tragedy of a mere 9 fics for that wonderful series 😢 There's more now, but this was me pushing the tag into the double digits and I had a lot of fun writing early Tatsu adjusting to his new role as a homemaker (and the friends he made along the way)! [4818 words]

3. A Place at the Table - Akagami no Shirayukihime, Happy Family, rating: G - This is a fic that I drafted back in 2016 when I first joined the fandom and quickly became overwhelmed since I hadn't the practice nor the skill at the time to execute what I wanted. Five years later, I tried again and not only got to write food feels, but also a snap shot of the early Happy Family formation between Ryuu, Shirayuki and Obi! [12231 words]

4. the abyss gazes unto thee - Hakuouki, No Pairing, rating: M for body horror and raising the dead - I raged - RAGED - at Yamazaki's death scene during Sannan's route and clearly there was nothing to be done but right a terrible, terrible wrong. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to write Sannan's voice, too. He is precisely the degree of morally gray that I'm down for apparently. [2198 words]

5. Seraglio, Chapter 3 - Akagami no Shirayukihime, Obiyuki, rating: M - Everything about this AU is like pulling teeth to write because Shirayuki has undergone such a fundamental change to her canon story. Whenever I sit down to type out a new chapter for it, it undergoes multiple fully rewritten drafts and also has to be discussed in depth with @sabraeal on each draft because this is a joint venture and we need to be on the same page when the other half is writing a new chapter. For as much as I complain about, though, I really love the final product. There's something about these two upping their messiness to previously unknown levels that just appeals, ya know? [7702 words]

I'm going to add a new component to this, too, people can choose to skip this part if they want. Future plans! In 2022, I plan on wrapping up Seven Nights (Yamachi) and I Should've Met You Yesterday (Obiyuki); if I am successful there, then I want to get to work posting the tumblr-only follow up. I also want to write a "short" PWP for Spy x Family (Loid/Yor). But my BIG project, I think, is going to be centered on My Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom! (Maria/Catarina). Of course this is an ambitious line up, but I am excited about each of these pieces and I'm really hoping to share what's in my head with you all! :D

Alright! I'm tagging... @sabraeal, @claudeng80, @onedivinemisfit, @ruleofexception, @infinitelystrangemachinex and anybody else who wants to join in on the fun!

[red-talisman]

Some random, unbetaed snippets set during the Siji Manor arc in which I'm trying to process my Feelings about these two and about Wen Kexing's backstory. Spoilers for eps...mid-20s onward, I think, show canon only. CW for loudly implied, past, severe child abuse.

.

Even though Zhou Zishu has never slept so deeply beside another person since his master was still alive, he's too well-trained to forget just how dangerous the person at his side, ironically, actually is.

Every so often (when Chengling says something especially innocent, when sunlight glances a particular way off a kitchen knife, when Zhou Zishu smiles unprompted) he'll see Wen Kexing's eyes widen and his face go strangely blank, like a performer caught in the middle of switching out masks behind the curtain. It's the blankness that Zhou Zishu recognizes from the moments when Wen Kexing casually sets aside his gentlemanly front and leaves corpses in his wake.

The second most horrifying thing about it is the fact that Zhou Zishu can't sense any change in his qi - no focused heaviness of killing intent, no ozone tang of impending violence like a lightning strike. It's not because of the Nails slowly destroying his senses, either, but rather that this means Wen Kexing is either constantly on the edge of violence or the violence has simply settled so deeply that it's indistinguishable from his resting qi state.

The most horrifying thing about it, though, is what that implies about the years in which his shidi had been taken from him.

.

"In a faraway land," Wen Kexing whispers to him one night across the landscape of blankets between them, "there was a little dog who was taken by a demon king. One day, the demon king put him a cage with the other dogs, some little and some less so, with no food. When all the dogs cried for something to fill their bellies, the demon king laughed and told them that they had all the food they needed right there in the cage with them. The next morning, only the little dog was still alive, and he wasn't hungry any more. When the little dog begged to be let out, the demon king laughed again and said there was no need for that when there was still plenty of food left."

Earlier that day, Chengling had asked Wen Kexing where he learned to cook so well when not even the aunties in his sect knew how to use spices to cover the taste of meat that was still edible but on the edge of turning sour.

Wen Kexing stares at Zhou Zishu in the dim light of a lantern left by the window, eyes wide but his face not blank at all. Zhou Zishu smiles like a cracked window and reaches over to push the hair out of his face, letting his palm rest kindly on a sharp cheekbone.

.

The first time that the casual intimacy between them turns heated and hands slide inside of clothing, Zhou Zishu has to take a moment to chase down and silence the ghosts in his own head. When he finally lets out a breath and meets Wen Kexing's gaze, he realizes that the distance between them has suddenly widened into an abyss that he can't see the bottom of.

Without knowing where the traps are hidden, Zhou Zishu casually lets his body tilt against Wen Kexing's in a way that puts Wen Kexing at a higher eye level and doesn't block the range of either of his hands. There's a tension in Wen Kexing's body that makes Zhou Zishu's instincts want to reach for a weapon rather than a belt.

"Don't think this will get you out of making breakfast in the morning," Zhou Zishu scolds into Wen Kexing's shoulder, his teeth a relatively safe handspan away from Wen Kexing's throat, as though nothing fundamental between them has changed. Nothing has, really.

It takes a few breaths, but eventually Wen Kexing's body relaxes with the same careful mindfulness. "Wah, A-Xu," he whines, sounding almost normal, "my A-Xu, so cruel!"

Zhou Zishu scoffs. "Only when you want me to be, you spoiled brat."

Instead of the dramatic wailing that he expects, there's a pause, and then Zhou Zishu feels Wen Kexing silently shove his face into the thick hair piled loosely on top on Zhou Zishu's head and his arms under the shamelessly disheveled top layer of his robe.

It should feel weird or even invasive; Zhou Zishu has never been in the habit of so much touch unless it was for a mission or getting an excess of yang energy taken care of as efficiently as business allowed. But it doesn't, and to his own surprise and mixed emotions, he finds himself relaxing - naturally, this time- into the curl of Wen Kexing's body.

("It was never about pleasure, before," Wen Kexing whispers to him when there's no moon or lantern to soften the darkness.

(Zhou Zishu...could respond in a lot of different ways to everything that isn't being said. But it's late, and the Nails are aching, and neither of them can change the past.

("I don't know much about that either, but we have time to figure it out," he sighs drowsily.)

.

A small bird startles Zhou Zishu after lunch in the west courtyard. His senses of smell and taste are the worst by far, but sometimes his hearing will dip unexpectedly and the only way he can hide it is through lip-reading and suppressing any outward reaction. But when he doesn't hear the rustle of tiny wings, the sudden dart of the bird across his slowly narrowing peripheral vision makes him twitch and drop his wine cup.

Without missing a beat, Wen Kexing picks up a shelled piece of walnut from his stash and flicks it at the bird. The bird drops to the ground, dead.

"Well," says Zhou Zishu, reaching for the wine pot, "I suppose we have part of our dinner decided, then."

Wen Kexing blinks at him, then at the bird. Zhou Zishu wonders if he had even intended to act.

"A-Xu," he says, something evaluative in his tone, "how could you be so reckless? What if it'd been an assassin's bird? Or a messenger between two of our many enemies?"

"Then living here on a remote mountain surrounded by trees and wildlife is suddenly going to get a lot more interesting," he replies dryly.

"Perhaps I'll make you a feather bed, sewn with the finest silks and stuffed with only the softest feathers of our enemies' spies." Wen Kexing leans forward on an elbow over the table. "Perhaps I'll make lanterns from our enemies' skullcaps and the fat of their flesh to light your way at night so that you'll never stumble again. I'll set their heads on spears around the walls to scare away the evil spirits from your dreams."

"Aiya, what kind of man do you think I am that you would offer such ridiculous things?" This isn't about 'things' at all, Zhou Zishu knows, and doesn't look away from the bloody claws being held out in challenge. "I have my first shidi and my first disciple in the home of our master. What need do I have for anything else? If you want such things, you can take them somewhere else and come back when you're ready to be sensible about what I need."

Wen Kexing watches Zhou Zishu reach out to pick up one of his hands, turning it over to bare the wrist. They both know that, like this, even with half his martial arts gone, Zhou Zishu could slice through tendon and bone, open up a primary vein, block several key acupoints that would damage his internal energy before Wen Kexing could stop him.

Instead, Wen Kexing smiles and presses his bare wrist more firmly against Zhou Zishu's fingers. "I suppose A-Xu is right," he says softly.

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me

I’m gonna miss writing about Amethyst.

As the most sisterly Crystal Gem, a firebrand in the new role of middle child after spending millennia as the baby of the group, Amethyst’s story is about growing from a wild teen to a responsible adult. Like Steven, she feels the need to prove that she’s a Crystal Gem too, but unlike Steven, she already is a Crystal Gem, so she carries a different kind of resentment as she continues to be treated like a child. It’s made even worse by her warrior instincts clashing with her small frame: she lives with the constant anxiety that she’s a mistake, a Gem who came out wrong and doesn’t belong in her family, so she comforts and distracts herself with hedonism and shapeshifting. Her problem goes beyond not feeling respected: deep down, she fears that she doesn’t deserve respect.

But she changes her mind.

“This isn’t normal.”

The Return and Jailbreak culminated the first act of Steven Universe, giving our characters subtle achievements (Amethyst and Pearl casually fuse into Opal, Greg reveals a deeper understanding of the Gems than we once thought, Beach City comes together as a community when Steven is in danger) and huge changes (Steven summons a massive shield, Garnet’s status as a fusion is confirmed, Lapis goes from prisoner to imprisoner). While not an official finale, Beta and Earthlings culminated the second act, narrowing the focus to five characters as they each reach one milestone or another: Lapis and Amethyst find a level of peace, Peridot defends her new home, Jasper succumbs to corruption, and Steven helps his friends but fails to help his enemy.

In a way, Change Your Mind culminates the third act with an even narrower focus. Sure, it gives big moments to a ton of characters (there’s fanservice galore, and we see the three Diamonds in particular take enormous steps), but we zero in on Steven in the same way the entire act has zeroed in on Steven, because this is a story about identity. It isn’t only about who he is, but who he wants to be moving forward, and fusing all the insights he’s learned from his human family, his Crystal Gem family, and his Diamond family into a song that encapsulates his growth over the course of the series.

We start in the most lifelike of the Diamond dreams, so real that Steven still sees himself as Steven rather than embodying Pink. Once again, this connection emerges from sleeping in a location where Pink once dwelled, but while he wasn’t feeling her impatience and rage in Jungle Moon, nor her hardening resolve in Can’t Go Back, nor her whimsy in Familiar, this time they share the same headspace when they’re both locked in a tower.

Considering how bombastic things get in this episode, I love how low-key this final dream remains until White Diamond interferes. We’re as lost as Steven at first, worrying about Connie and baffled at Blue’s recognizable mood but incongruous accusations, but as the truth becomes clear, he transforms into Pink off-screen without any fanfare, both in body and in mind: Steven isn’t questioning Blue’s warning about Pink Pearl, Pink Diamond is apologizing for her own behavior in Zach Callison’s voice. Still, looking down jolts him out of it, and after seeing the Crystal Gems poofed at the ball for a more definitive Steven memory, we cycle in Rose’s horror at her family launching a final attack on Earth. The rapid-fire identity shifts that follow inspired the most haunting piece of promo art for the episode, drawn by Rebecca Sugar herself, but I didn’t wanna display it without a seizure warning.

It’s excellent exposition, hitting the highlights of the Diamonds’ many wrongs and establishing Steven’s fraying sense of self in a way that’s both artful and brief; it’s important to remind younger viewers about the stakes, but Change Your Mind doesn’t pretend that anyone should be watching this episode without context, so it doesn’t prioritize thorough explanation. And despite how frightening the nightmare becomes, Steven gains a new sense of clarity after seeing the pattern laid out in front of him. The Diamonds are hurting him in the same way they hurt his mother, and if he’s going to help everyone, he needs to help himself.

When Blue Diamond returns to the tower in modern day, Steven isn’t afraid, and he isn’t alone. The first of many puns riddling the finale emerges (“Déjà Blue!”) before Connie proves why she’s the perfect partner for our hero, platonic or otherwise. He’s terrible at confronting the people that hurt him—this would require him to acknowledge he’s hurt in the first place, which he’s also terrible at—but if she was comfortable enough with confrontation to call out her best friend when he wrongs her, Blue Diamond doesn’t stand a chance. Connie comes out swinging, loading the bases with candor and sass despite Blue’s confusion over why a human even gets an opinion about this stuff, which makes Steven’s refusal to apologize hit the Diamond like a grand slam.

I love that Steven’s flat “no” takes Connie by surprise as well as Blue, because yeah, it’s uncharacteristically blunt for someone who’s spent his entire trip to Homeworld bending over backwards like he usually does to accommodate others. When he doubles down by explaining that he isn’t sorry about creating a show that celebrates queer characters whoops sorry I mean fusion, Callison makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, and this is what upsets Blue enough to inflict her tears on him. We’ll learn even more about Pink’s temper in Steven Universe Future, but the simple act of not bowing to authority makes Steven “worse than ever” in Blue’s mind: violence is more acceptable than insubordination. (Also, violence in cartoons is more acceptable than queer folks just sorta existing in cartoons, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Change Your Mind is about combating bigotry and cycles of abuse, and Blue is the obvious first test. She’s a bigot who doesn’t think she’s a bigot (compared to Yellow, who doesn’t care that she’s a bigot, and White, who’s quite proud of being a bigot). She passively perpetuates a toxic status quo (compared to Yellow, who actively perpetuates it, and White, who established it in the first place). It makes sense that she’s the first of the remaining Diamonds to change her mind, because all it takes for her to realize that something is wrong is thinking about it a little harder.

This doesn’t let her off the hook, of course: Blue’s sloth—the sin, not the animal—might not look flashy next to Yellow’s wrath or White’s pride or Pink’s envy, but she still chose to do nothing for thousands of years rather than contemplate how her actions and her society might have wronged Pink. If it was this easy for Blue to realize she was hurting Pink, it makes it that much more of an issue that it took her this long to figure it out. Unintentional bigots might be the “best” option by default, but they can be just as harmful as intentional bigots, and there’s a special sort of damage that can come from an oppressor who truly believes themselves an ally.

That said, while it’s important to acknowledge her blame (emphasized here when she only stops attacking Steven when he calls her out rather than the Diamonds in general), Blue is also a victim. She’s one of the most powerful beings on Homeworld, but she’s still trapped by White Diamond, and resorts to putting others down as a means of reclaiming a sense of that power. In the same way oppressed people often turn to sexism and racism and homophobia to make themselves feel bigger, Blue (and Yellow) reinforce White’s sweeping bigotry in the same way they echo her family-specific abuse. It’s not a good coping mechanism, in this show or in the real world, but understanding the problem is key to fixing it.

So it still feels like a victory when Blue turns, even though it should’ve happened ages ago, and even though she’s a tyrant. She isn’t just deciding to help Steven, she’s breaking out of that cycle in a way that allows for growth beyond our hero’s immediate concerns. Lisa Hannigan captures this transformation beautifully, shifting from manipulative whining about Pink’s behavior to a crushing realization that she’s the one who’s wrong. And even as she joins Steven’s side, she remains weighed down by her longstanding prejudice: Hannigan stutters as she refers to the Crystal Gems as his family, and her triumphant defense of Steven’s name to Yellow comes with the caveat that she’s still misgendering him.

But before we get to Yellow, we take a pit stop that grounds us back to Steven and Connie’s hunger. It may seem small, but this is a critical moment in establishing Steven’s humanity in a way the show has quietly done from day one: with food.

The very first scene of Steven Universe establishes our hero’s human half in a donut shop, upset about dessert. From there, the next five episodes drill in that Steven will take a unique approach to his magical Gem heritage, and they all involve food in a major way: Cookie Cats, then his father’s saying about pork chops and hot dogs, then the Cheeseburger Backpack (important enough to be the episode’s name), then the Together Breakfast (ditto), then creating a monster based on fries.

It’s not just Steven, either. The first few Connie episodes involve eating and drinking in ways that show hints of growth (worrying about trans fats, then sneaking food into movie theaters) and mark key moments in her life (sharing a juicebox, taking her parents to dinner). Lars’s development is tied with his love of baking, and on top of him and Sadie working at the Big Donut, the Frymans and the Pizzas are so tied to their food service jobs that it’s in their names. And speaking of names, we’ve got Vidalia calling her sons Sour Cream and Onion. It even extends to the Gems: Amethyst’s connection with Earth means she loves food, and Pearl’s greater distance from humanity means she can’t stomach it.

Food is fundamentally something that humans require and Gems don’t, and just like we saw in Lars’s Head, Steven’s physical body forces him to think about his own needs despite his usual focus on others. Both his humanity and his ability to stand up for himself are key to his eventual victory, and what could’ve been a generic transition between Blue and Yellow’s big scenes instead becomes a quiet Steven scene. Steven changing into his usual clothes (including his mom’s star) and Connie changing into her own outfit (including her dad’s jacket) is the perfect finishing touch before we dive back into the drama.

True to their natures, Yellow Diamond gets a starker introduction than Blue’s dream sequence: as the lights burst on, we get two shots focusing on a horrifying number of mutated Gem Shards floating around in the room, then the Crystal Gems’ thankfully intact gems in one big bubble, before panning down to the villain who caused all this pain. The menace is palpable before she even opens her mouth, but Patti LuPone’s low tone keeps the mood from boiling over just long enough that when she loses her cool, it hits like a freight train.

Blue’s passive bigotry endured because she lacked introspection, but Yellow’s active bigotry requires constantly justifying actions she knows are cruel by presenting it as a matter of superior reasoning. We’ve known from her first appearance that Yellow’s seething fury undermines her reputation for cold logic, and now more than ever the connection between her behavior and that of “sophisticated” bigots is clear. You know the type: openly, smugly hateful, but couching their hate as something derived from some deep knowledge about the subject, whether in religious convictions or whatever “science” they can scrape together to confirm their worldview.

Sure enough, even in her rage, Yellow lays down what she sees as a rational explanation for why it was okay to mistreat Pink, and why it’s okay that they themselves are mistreated: if they make exceptions for anyone, even other Diamonds, they must make exceptions for everyone, and chaos reigns. Besides the slippery slope being a fallacy, her argument is punctured by Connie’s second big retort of the night, pointing out that this extreme conclusion of Homeworld Gems living free actually sounds pretty nice. But you can’t force this type of bigot to change their mind through reason; if such a person was actually interested in logical worldviews, they wouldn’t have become a bigot in the first place. You need to change their heart.

Fortunately, emotions are Blue’s domain, so she’s just the person to help. Unfortunately, in the same way she still can’t get Steven’s pronouns right, Blue lacks experience with healthy communication, and strikes a first blow against Yellow on instinct. The ensuing brawl is brutal, switching between the massive scale of two warring titans and the smaller scale of Steven and Connie scrambling to save the Crystal Gems as Blue and Yellow unload millennia of baggage on each other. It’s so important that Blue is the physical instigator here, as it fuels Yellow’s white-hot self-righteous streak like nothing else, and it keeps the fight from being one-sided all the way through: Yellow pretty much needs to be the one dealing the final blow for the scene to stick, so it gets balanced out by Blue’s opening punch.

Blue uses her powers on Yellow, and Yellow uses her powers on Blue, but Steven’s power is talking. So just like with Blue’s conversion, Connie gets the opening words while Steven gets the finisher. When he finally gets her attention after being ignored throughout the scene, he makes Yellow listen to him by using the same food-based expression I mentioned from all the way back in Laser Light Cannon. It’d pack a bigger punch if Greg said “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs” at literally any other point in the show, but it still does the trick.

Blue was emotionally ready to accept that Pink was suffering, but hadn’t considered the Diamonds’ role in that suffering. Yellow knew that Pink suffered thanks to the Diamonds, but suppressed her emotions to the point where she couldn’t empathize with her sister’s plight. Blue needed to be more thoughtful to change, and Yellow needed to be more in touch with her emotions to change, and thus the stage is set for the Battle of Heart and Mind against White Diamond.

Except that this isn’t the lesson of Change Your Mind. Blue and Yellow show that some bigots can be reached, which is great! But despite their differences, Steven uses the same basic strategy in both: he doesn’t let them belittle his identity, he confidently dispels their wrongheaded assumptions, and he gets help from allies instead of shouldering the burden himself. We spend the beginning of the episode seeing that in the right circumstances this approach can work, but from here we’ll see that with some bigots, it’s a non-starter.

So long as you can engage with bigots while maintaining your self-respect, it can be good work to try and help them see the light. It’s not an obligation, but if you want to change hearts and minds, Steven provides a good template for how to do it. Now the rest of the episode can focus on the bigger lesson: if someone refuses to respect your humanity when you’re steadfast and forthright, it isn’t your job to breathe in their poison, or to hold your breath until you asphyxiate waiting for change.

But more on that after the break!

I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far

As we reach the end of the original series, it would be criminal not to acknowledge three long-time storyboarders who are on their way out. This isn’t their final contribution to the series, as only one of Change Your Mind’s twelve credited writer/boarders didn’t go on to work on The Movie in some way (Christine Liu, whose tenure was brief but great), and Hilary Florido stayed on as a supervisor for Future. But I wanted to write the big sendoffs here, as this is the last proper “episode” that these three worked on as regular boarders. So it’s time to say goodbye to Katie Mitroff, Hilary Florido, and Jeff Liu.

First up is Katie Mitroff, who clocked two early knockouts with Alone Together and The Test alongside Florido. Mitroff’n’Florido went on to make other classics like Maximum Capacity and Joy Ride before the former teamed up with Lamar Abrams and the latter teamed up with Jesse Zuke for their next batch of episodes.

With Abrams, Mitroff deepened the lore of the show with We Need to Talk, Steven’s Birthday, Bismuth, Buddy’s Book, Three Gems and a Baby, and especially The Answer. She gave us the harrowing revelation of Back to the Moon, and the most ridiculous episode of the series, Restaurant Wars. Her final partner was Paul Villeco, finishing strong with The Trial, Back to the Kindergarten, Your Mother and Mine, Pool Hopping, What’s Your Problem?, Reunited, and Change Your Mind, 100% of which are either in my Love ‘em ranking or my Top Episodes. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert I love Change Your Mind.)

It’s strange, because she didn’t work on any of the major episodes of Amethyst’s big arc at the end of Season 3, but Mitroff is one of my favorite Amethyst boarders: she’s the consistent thread between Maximum Capacity, Back to the Moon, and What’s Your Problem?, three cornerstones of the character. She excelled at going outside the show’s usual style, as seen in The Answer and Your Mother and Mine, and it’s no coincidence she helped animate Isn’t It Love? to bring Cotton Candy Garnet back for one last ride.

Katie Mitroff is an absolute rock star, I wish her well and you should too.

[fightscenefilmschool]

If you're learning how to be a successful stuntman or stuntwoman, you need to learn more than how to merely take a punch, you need to learn how to THROW a screen punch with ballbusting intensity. How come you can watch a fight scene between two untrained actors and the MAN looks like he learned how to throw a punch in movies and the woman looks like even a high school catfight involves too much skill for her to handle? There are a lot of things that can give away the fact that you're not the real woman MMA fighter your character is, but once a closer look is taken there's ONE stage combat mistake that I see again and again. Lucky for you it's also the easiest mistake to remedy. Time to take a look at a piece of the action and give some fight scene autopsy classes. #fightscenebreakdown Fight scenes in movies & TV shows require a sense of realism, right? It's not enough to have girls pulling each others hair like a movie catfight when it's supposed to be an epic battle scene movie. Any top stunt coordinator or ballbusting stuntwoman will tell you that the fight choreography doesn't bring itSELF to life. It takes dedicated actors who are willing to learn martial arts and train the fundamentals of how to make a fight scene look real. Let's look at Rosa Salazar training for Robert Rodriguez's Alita Battle Angel. In the end she was throwing the perfect movie punches, but when she first started her training for the role she had what I call kitten paws. Not to be overly ballbusting, but kitten paws are these awkwardly bent wrists that take you from looking like a film rioting, epic fighter to looking like a lucky cat pawing at the air. These bent wrists are like giant glowing beacons to the audience. Your actors atrocious technique guides the viewers attention away from the fight choreography, detracting from the stage combat. But someone filming a Thai stunt girl test fight knows that they only need their knuckles pointing at the target at the moment of impact. With their wrists straight their knuckles are going to be in the right spot at the end of their punches - when they "hit" the stuntman or stuntwoman. So WHY does Rosa Salazar from Alita Battle Angel have her wrists bent like she's trying to touch her own elbow? She's not at the point where she can do fights or film riot scenes yet - her brain is still too focused on getting her fists in the right spots. But by the end of her martial arts training Rosa Salazar was able to play Alita Battle Angel with the high level of screen fighting / stage combat technique needed to bring the panzer kunst style to life. But what if you've already learned how to be a stuntman or stuntwoman in Hollywood and you CAN punch? How do you look like you DON'T know how to throw a fake punch for film and TV shows? Girl fights are a unique beast. If you're wondering why most of my examples involve women performing the fight choreography, it's because the kitten paws issue is far more prevalent in female fight scenes. Not because it takes women longer to learn how to punch, but because women tend to have more flexibility in their legs and hips, so they're expected to learning punches AND kicks, whereas men are typically only expected to learn punches for stage combat and screen fights. If a studio needs to film riot scenes they schedule the actors to have rehearsal time with the stunt team. If two actors spend the same number of hours training to fake fight in movies, but one has twice as much to learn, naturally their techniques are going to be around half as good. Now that you can watch stunt choreography like a movie insider, keep an eye out for those times when actors guide your attention to their bent wrists. That's not a perfect movie punch, and now you know why. Ever think you're about to watch one of the best female fight scenes in movie history, only to break out in laughter when the first punch is thrown? I don't mean some high school catfight, I mean a multimillion dollar Hollywood movie with professional fight choreography, directing, and editing. Not to be a ball busting negative Nancy, but how the hell does that even happen? Why do women suck at fight scenes in movies?

[magiaordinaria]

In Defense of Frida Kahlo

◊please see my note on these images at the end of the post, because yes, this is a form of imitation for the sake of expressing desire to belong.

Frida Kahlo has become a difficult subject, some would argue an easy target- which to me is tragic because she was a person with a life and with struggles and today she can no longer defend herself.  I personally think she doesn’t have to. I understand her as a historical figure that shaped Mexican history and the Mexican image. Lately I found myself understanding her on a different, more personal level when in October 2020 I came across an episode of the Nerdy Latinas Podcast, who were responding to a Tweet by an Indigenous Mexican woman accusing Frida of cultural appropriation.  My interest was piqued.  

“Frida was Mexican. How is it appropriation?” I thought.  

In the episode, Chismeando About Frida Kahlo, the hosts explore Frida’s background and a bit of her social context. I listened and I recommend you do too.  I gave a few comments to one of the hosts and was later invited to share my thoughts on the episode.*  Below is bit of background and my response to the episode follows after that.     

Prologue

When I initially listened to the episode my gut reaction was to become defensive, protective of Frida, despite not having had a single artifact of hers (my stance on purchasing her work or her image is a different story).  I began to explore those feelings, and once I talked myself through this gut reaction, I realized this is actually very much worth exploring.  It’s important to take into account the complexity of the social, personal, and historical context that Frida was experiencing and a part of.  

One of the things the Nerdy Latinas brought up was the fact that Mexican schools during Frida’s childhood emphasized that the indigenous cultures of Mexico were the true cultures of Mexico.  Frida, it is well-known, is half german and half Mexican. This conflict in identity was something that I deeply related to as a Mexican woman born in the US.  

They pointed out that there were indigenous women who spoke out about Frida’s use of their clothing at the time, but were ignored. In the same episode, they talk about how indigenous women who make these clothes live off the sale of their indigenous clothing- Which makes me think,  who is allowed to buy or not buy these clothes?  It reassured me that there is more to cultural appropriation than simply wearing or using things “not intended for you”.  Does intent matter? How are we verifying a person’s, in this case Frida Kahlo’s, intent? Short answer is, we can’t really.

 Later in the episode, they ask the question, why aren’t other dark-skinned Mexican women artists spoken about?  There are many indigenous artists that were overshadowed by Frida.  An important example they bring up is Maria Izquierdo (ees-kee-ehr-doh). She was a contemporary of Frida’s and a student of Diego Rivera.  She was doing well in her time and “showing promise” according to Diego himself. But when she spoke out against Frida’s feminist group Izquierdo lost a prestigious art commission to Diego Rivera and his male artist friends.  I consider this claim of overshadowing pretty unfair, because it’s not entirely up to Frida who gets seen or not. And if we’re being perfectly honest, Diego and his friends probably jumped at the opportunity to take it for themselves.

She is still, after the paint dries, a woman in a white man’s world.  

In my response, I come from a personal perspective with a lifetime of identity crises to fuel it.  I focus in on the question of whether Frida can be accused of appropriation as well the concept of appropriation itself.  

Is it fair to say that Frida had all the cards in her hands?

Is it productive to be upset over her perceived appropriation when there is so much today that is so blatantly grossly appropriated and mocked from my culture? 

My Response:

“I definitely think it’s worth exploring Frida’s Use of clothing. I think, understandably, it brought up a lot of personal feelings because it’s something that I personally grapple with; this idea that my appearance could constitute  grounds for appropriation.

...I think when Hispanic*** Americans learn about negative criticisms of Frida Kahlo they take the criticisms personally because that’s what they and myself included..., understood it looked like to be Mexican. 

And if she’s wrong about her use fo clothing, it can’t easily be understood as an homage or as uplifting or as an act of rebellion against the whitewashing of the Mexican culture, which i think is something that is important when you live outside of Mexico.  I think hispanic people--we just want to take care that our culture and our identity doesn’t get erased. so without the clothing that Frida wore the rest of us have only what we are calling the colonizer’s version of how to present ourselves as Mexicans. 

Additionally, I didn’t really find her mixed ethnicity all that significant because since Mexico’s inception as a hispanic country most if not all non indigenous Mexicans are mixed.  

our DNA is a map of people having been invaded, transcontinental travel in Europe, and slavery, 

so i never really understood Frida as a white woman, even though her father was german. I’m 48% indigenous, the rest is North African, European--and on top of that I’m born in the US. That’s all to say that Mexican is a complex ethnicity but it’s Mexican all the same.  I do see Frida as separate from indigenous and I’m also understanding that the way a person lives the culture is important.  Personally, I feel sometimes I can’t consider myself Mexican if I’m not living the cultural practices. I find it hard to justify, for example, celebrating Day of the Dead. In contrast, I feel a responsibility to connect with those aspects of my culture in order to feel like I belong somewhere, or I know who I am, what my point of view is, and what I could do in order to impart a positive view of my culture to the Americans watching me now.  

My thoughts are maybe Frida [thought so] too.  In a way, maybe that was her intention. This episode brings up the idea of a crisis of identity for Frida and I think because she was born in a time when Europeanism** was being criticized heavily her schooling was perhaps in reaction to that.  To give you a very popular example, the poem La Calavera Garbancera° most commonly known as La Calavera Catrina was written by Jose Guadalupe Posada around when Frida was born.  That icon we have today (La Catrina) was actually a symbol of derision for Mexicans adopting European values.  And I think when you’re taught certain ideals in the wider space in which you’re meant to integrate, it’s going to create a conflict between the way you’re raised and how you would like to see yourself in order to fell like you belong.  So a personal example would be me growing up in the US.  Saying the word Mexican was like saying a dirty word. For a very long time I was convinced that I should be ashamed of saying that.  I tried more and more to become what was considered American- which was synonymous with being “correct” and for that I have been called a coconut or whitewashed by the same people who would deride me for being so Hispanic. 

Today I want to undo all of that, 

and i find myself [thinking] if I buy from indigenous craftswomen a handwoven dress to wear and to show to my wider audience that “this is Mexico, this is what indigenous women can do and it’s beautiful,” I fear I’ll face the same criticisms as Frida when I genuinely find [the dresses/clothing] lovely to wear and I only want to support the craftswomen of Mexico.  So I don’t think appropriation happens when you buy indigenous crafts directly from indigenous men and women.  As an artist myself, I would think they’d want to sell as much as they could, sharing their pride in their work.  I think appropriation is buying from American corporations that are making money off of a diluted form of culture from oppressed people, stealing those complex designs expertly executed by thousands of years of knowledge and skill.  To buy these goods from white companies, from huge manufacturers is to really whitewash culture.  And on the flip side, I think it would be way worse for me to say, 

oh no I’m not buying from indigenous people because I’m not indigenous.  

But then turn around and buy something cheap from a huge manufacturer instead.  

I think there’s room in this conversation to believe that Frida felt some kind of genuine desire and made a genuine attempt to connect to the Mexican identity she was taught in school. 

 I think she made a choice to embody what she felt was fundamentally Mexican but to what end, I honestly can’t say.  Was it to bring awareness? was it to feel like she belonged? was it a statement? And that’s the thing we just can’t be sure.  

All of this is not to say she didn’t offend people, and in the process took the light away from indigenous women.  Or that this topic isn’t worth confronting.  I was confronted with the question, though, of how much of that is or was  her fault or her intention and how much of that is the time she lived in and her society’s discrimination.  I’m glad you guys brought up her social milieu because 

it matters a lot who were and are the voices speaking of her and approving her for public consumption. 

 I think Frida’s international travels and being on the cover of Paris’s vogue at the time, and the mystique she built around herself coupled with the fact that her skin color was internationally acceptable made her the icon that she is today around the world.  That much is true, but can it also be true she made an honest attempt to honor Mexican heritage in defiance of those popular racist attitudes? I think there’s room for that. 

 I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say Frida is guilty of appropriation not really today, especially because we have much more blatant and grossly offensive forms of appropriation happening in our time.  I’m sure I don’t need to go into that if you do a simple google search of “Mexican Costume” you can actually find white people dressing up as caricatured versions of Mexicans.  

So I think a more productive conversation regarding appropriation in our world and in our culture today would be how to teach our diaspora across the globe to value handmade crafts. sure it can be more expensive, but you’re not buying a single object, you’re buying hundreds of years of knowledge and tradition.  I would even argue that homemade is preferable to buying cheap, ready made stuff from corporations that have no regard for tradition or quality and who are actually drawing attention away from indigenous communities and diluting our cultures.”

Further Musings/Conclusion

I think that we are learning a valuable lesson in what is done is done, but what do we do now?  My main concern is that there is outrage over the women that Frida Kahlo “overshadowed”,

 but the simplest solution is to stop talking about these indigenous artists within the context–in the shadow– of Frida Kahlo.  

They should be spoken about in their own right.  If the dialogue about these women doesn’t revolve around or rely on Frida and her history, it would do these women justice.  They are out there and they can exist.  The problem is, how to talk about them without drawing comparisons to Frida? Should we avoid placing them in the same context? Questions for which I personally lack the answers right now.  

What I do know is that I think we should avoid turning this into a situation where we tear down one woman- 

who in the grand scheme of things accomplished a lot- in order to raise another.  No, no mijita, as my mom would say.  Eso no se hace, that’s not something we should do.  

This feels too much like a situation in which someone like Frida becomes the target of appropriation because it’s easier than confronting really tough situations like white companies selling “ceremonial grade” chocolate.  

Let’s tackle that sometime.

Personally, as you may have been able to tell,  I understand Frida from the perspective of a person caught in the middle of two worlds.  I don’t exactly feel like I belong in my American homeland nor in my familial, ancestral home of Mexico.  I am part of a community that feels a sense of disconnection from our roots and therefore, lack meaning; we lack a true sense of self.  But the more I interact with others like me, the more I create a community for myself, the more I understand that my place is where I want to be seen.  I think it’s possible that that’s what Frida chose.  

notes

◊This set of pictures is a type of homage centered around a very conscious  imitation.  I created these images back in September 2020 about a month before I learned of the Frida Kahlo tweet or the podcast episode.  They were created in an attempt to portray a desire to belong to the culture I come from.  Everything worn is a symbolic imitation in search of identity.  In contrast to the last set of images where I wear the braid headband again.  Here it is inspired by, rather than imitation; a carrying forward of traditions (like those seen here) into a more understandable form for myself.  The evolution of the outfit is taking me one step closer to figuring out what my place is and what my voice is within the greater scope of my Mexican heritage. 

*I recorded a few thoughts in audio format, sent it off to Short Latina and that was that.  To what extent my comments were included, I’m not sure, I haven’t had the chance to listen to their follow up episode.  Perhaps I was proven completely wrong! 

**Europeanism- I know it’s not a real word, but It felt right :P

***I imagine Frida is important to a lot of Latinx, but for the purposes of this argument, I specifically mean Mexicans and Mexican-Americans because of the specific ties to cultural attire.

°It’s actually called: Remate De Calaveras Alegres y Sandungueras; Las que hoy son empolvadas Garbanceras pararan en deforme calaveras

[historybetweenthepages]

Blocked to comment this on Anthony Fantano’s video (so I posted it here).

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I couldn’t comment a response to this video on YouTube due to censorship so I decided to do it here:

The problem with Paul Joseph Watson is mostly the rational that is used to justify the 'breakdown' of morality through art and culture. The viewpoint that popular culture, within the twenty-first century,' is more "vulgar," "vapid," "self absorbed," "hedonistic," and "dehumanizing" "than any other time in living memory" is a view that is extremely one sided and biased. Any generation of the past could have made this argument about the popular cultural of their day and how it is "farther apart" from the traditional, fundamental values that define a culture or society.

If Watson is going to use the example of Miley Cyrus twerking in front of Robin Thicke as a reason this is no different than the view that parents, or most adults, had during the sixties about rock n' roll. For example, when the Beatles broke up my grandparents (on my fathers side) disparaged the groups period as a band commenting that 'The Mills Brothers' (a barbershop quartet that had a career run of fifty-four years and scored hits with 'You Always Hurt the One You Love,' Paper Doll,' 'Glow Worm,' and 'Up a Lazy River' in the forties and fifties that branded them "The Beatles of the 1940's") had a longer run and that the music, aside from Earl Hines, Marva Josie, and Dinah Washington etc. (musicians who need no introduction), had more 'quality' than the entirety of rock n' roll due to the immoral substance that my grandparents (on my fathers side) believed existed. Although this is not meant to disparage this generational period, as they were not always wrong on what popular culture contained whether it was moral or immoral, it highlights the gap between an older and younger group of people who, in some cases, failed to keep an open mind on what was new and presently modern.

If I was going to provide an example that related to the "classical traditionalism" that is 'mostly' found within Watson's channel, I would counteract this with examples of artists (composers, painters, sculptors, etc.), such as Frédéric Chopin, Alexander Scriabin, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst, or Samuel Beckett. Although these names would invoke a more increased sense of realism to counteract against Watson's belief it would STILL, no matter how logical or understanding, would not be enough to disprove the argument that most, or all, of modern culture is immoral and responsible for the breakdown of "beauty" and "truth" (although these terms are subjective to how they are used within the given context to what people believe is beautiful and true).

Although there are a fair number of examples that have proved how modern society has provided the shift for the decrease of morality, this is still not comprable enough to assert the belief that modern society is the reduction of "everything that is 'moral' or 'positive' " (given the context of a certain subject or topic). If Watson had existed in the different eras of the artists listed above, he would have most likely disparaged what was not explicitly beautiful (hence, if he had existed in the era of Chopin, or Scriabin, he would have denigrated the use of dissonance found within a fair amount of their oeuvre as composers) believing that although these more modern artists are not entirely negative they STILL take away from the reality of "what beauty is."

Although I am four years late (regrettably), and I do not happen to agree with everything Fantano is expressing, he includes some important and relevant points, saying that although the classic, artistic styles of portraits are still relevant, it is essential to have variety and new ideas so these artistic, subject areas do not become static (3:00 - 3:08). With new ideas this allows for newer perspectives on how these traditional concepts can be considered, or 'digested,' from a newer perspective. Fantano also reminds us of the point that not everything in the modern era, especially television, is awash of programs that are unproductive, crude or narcissistic. For anything that can be defined, or misconstrued, as negative, or unproductive, it can be followed up with television programs, art, music, literature, or online articles that are supported with the intent of positively informing or entertaining their readers, listeners, or audience members.

Due to this, it disproves the view that modernism has produced the "diminishment of beauty" to such a high degree that it is a rare, almost nonexistent characteristic within our society. Although I believe that beauty has been subject to various levels of diminishment throughout the different eras of modern history, it STILL is an aspect of life that many people are fighting, protecting, and exemplifying through their work with some examples that include modern artists who are still living or working within the twenty-first century (with videos to prove my point):

Anthony Braxton (American "free jazz" saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and improvisor) 

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Barry Harris (jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and teacher) 

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(although he is more of traditional modernist, espousing those who came after bebop such as Bill Evans)

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Cormac McCarthy (author, novelist, poet, and playwright) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-egB5SzFY

David Dubal (classical pianist, writer, and disc jockey)

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David Hockney (painter)

Frederick Buechner (writer, novelist, poet, autobiographer, essayist, preacher, and theologian) (this will only maintain relevance if you are religious)

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George Winston (pianist, organist, guitarist, composer, and improvisor)

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Keith Jarrett (jazz and classical pianist, composer, bandleader, improvisor, and multi-instrumentalist)

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(with five other video examples as well that will be posted in the reblog of this response)

Even if these examples provide a strong,  moderate, or weak validation for my argument they prove my point (I hope) that beauty is STILL a valued characteristic of daily life and defined as essential for the overall growth, of not only those who are subject to the work, but of the society and environment in which they live. Although the examples above are mostly based around music (due to this being a music channel), I have tried to include other aspects of the arts as well to prove that the modern world, whether it is centered around the second half of the twentieth century or the majority of the twenty first century, is capable of deriving beauty from non-traditionalism and that traditionalism is the foundation that supports the ideas that are acted upon in a modern context. Understanding this, it is safe to assume that not everything has to be 'traditional' or 'conservative' to be considered legitimate. Instead, it is more proficient to believe that as long as the various mediums within the arts, or other aspects of our societal culture, exude a pronounced sense of positivity, this will create a more likely heightened sense of awareness for what is considered 'valuable,' or 'essential' for a given society.

In summary, if Miley Cyrus and Marilyn Manson have profited off an existence that is viewed by a majority as being immoral this does not define the entirety of the modern world. Overt sexualization, the diminishment of beauty, and the "pretentious works of art" found at TATE Modern (using Marcel Duchamp's readymade sculpture, 'Fountain' (1917) as an example) is not the "top defining example" of modernism. Instead, they represent examples of variance that Fantano views as "shit posting before shit posting," even though I disagree with this viewing it as the development of a new artistic style and philosophy (what was known during Duchamp's life as 'DADA'). These newer styles separate art from aspects that are "static," "boring," or "plain" (depending on how these works are viewed) with Fantano using Lou Reed's 'Metal Music' as a relevant example for musical, modern ideas.

The "take down" (depending on how you define this in the context of how it is used) of traditional, conservative values do not define the majority of what is observed throughout the lens of modernism. Instead, it is artists, writers, composers, etc. taking risks on how they can combine traditional aspect of their medium, or style, and subject them to new ideas that are experimental, or improvisational, in their nature. even if an artist’s ideas had no connection to any aspect of traditionalism would this make it bad? In my opinion, not really.

Even if Watson makes a fair number of points that, hypothetically, could be agreed upon (with most that I do not agree with) this does not account for how flawed this view is. It is not healthy, or viable, for someone to look at the modern world with blinders on and continue to move forward. This does not assert change. This does not introduce newer ideas. This does not move traditional aspect of art, or culture, past their classical, conservative stages of infancy. If you want to move forward in the truest sense of a philosophy (give or take what that may consist of) you have to be open to incorporating newer ideas, even if it exists outside of your own personal worldview. You do not have to agree with it but to close yourself off entirely from a new experience that could benefit you personally is wrong.

The logic of "I disagree with certain characteristics of this so I am going to reject it entirely" is WRONG and should NOT be exemplified by anyone at any time. If you happen to disagree entirely with something that is your prerogative and should be respected (as long as it logically based off of facts that can be proven and sourced). Regardless of how right or wrong Watson is (although it may be apparent which view people have taken), it does not set aside the hatred that is transparent when choosing to believe in this philosophy. There are certain facts that define life and although it may be obvious that general "players" within the current culture are immoral and act in contrary ways, (opposed to the moral and values that once, in greater ways, defined our culture), this does not mean that those aspects of modernism that you personally disagree with, aside from what can be factually proven, are wrong, nor are they "the problem" (as Watson would say).

Yes, society has become more contradictory.

Yes, society has become more immoral.

Yes, society has become less centered around a factual or moral truth.

That is just the reality. But is it appropriate to hate what does not measure up with "moral" examples of the past? No.

Of course Mark Rothko is going to be different from Michael Angelo or Jackson Pollock from Claude Monet. That is just the way it is.

But to throw away what you cannot see personal value with may be realistic, and understandable, but in the end is ignorant.

So overall, anything that can be viewed as negative in the modern era can ALWAYS be paired alongside that which is positive. This has been true for the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, while still remaining currently true.

If Watson has to be given examples of positive aspects of modernism within the arts and culture, I suggest that he do more research. But then again, he is probably incapable of finding real, hard data, or credible sources, when he only exists on a surface level (and I know this from personal experience, I used to be a subscriber)

P.S.

And NO, I would not say that this is a realistic portrayal of conservatism because what exists on the surface is usually not a summary for the entirety of people who exist within a political or social group/philosophy. Regardless, Fantano makes a great logical point while still remaining relevant while providing examples are spot on in making his point. Overall, this is a good video that deflates most of what Watson is saying as flawed and illogical while disproving him in a factual way.

Rating: B+

 NOTE:

I may edit this comment so expect changes. If I do not than it is here to stay. I hope that you have enjoyed what I have written and find it to be a good contribution to Fantano's response.

[sunsetcurve]

so...the last year has been rough. for everyone. but i’ve been lucky in a lot of ways, especially with the people in my life, and i wanted to take a second to thank some people on here. because genuinely, you guys mean so freaking much to me. i’ve had a lot of online friends in my life but none that feel so much like family. these are the people who have carried me through the last year, who’ve made me feel seen and heard and supported me in all my endeavors and just been wonderful to me all around. i love you guys, and happy new year <3

i’m about to get into it now. and i’ll try not to cry too much along the way.

@neshatriumphs​ nesha, when i say that you’re our fandom mom i mean that you’re my family, i mean that you’re my biggest supporter, my inspiration, my rock, the person who makes me want to be my best self, all the time. i can’t explain to you what your support has meant to me over the years. whether it’s leaving me incredibly kind notes on my fics that make me want to write more just for you, or sending me asks when you know i’m feeling down, or just making me laugh with your hilarious takes, you have always, always been there for me. you’re the toughest person i know and you make me want to keep pushing every day. you’re so incredibly talented; your ideas are just always stunning and inspired and despite being humble about it you’re amazing at everything you do. your art, your writing, your aesthetics, all of it. loeg and share-a-lair were just spectacular and such a show of how complex and original and smart your writing is. barring just your talent you’re also an inspiration in how passionate and kind and dedicated you are. you care for others everywhere you go. you come on here and constantly make me want to be a better person. it’s not just me, either—you’ve taken on the role of helping all of us in any way you can, and you just make us feel loved and supported and give us someone to always look up to. i love you. plain and simple, you’re my family, and i’m so, so grateful to have you in my life.

@juliesdahlias​ you know when you meet someone younger than you and you’re like how do they have this much talent in their body? and you can’t even be mad about it because you just want to root for them and you want good things for them and you think of them like a little sibling? that’s me around you all. the freaking. time. pearl, i’m constantly blown away by how smart and driven and passionate you are. you have so much talent to offer the world and i love seeing you thrive more than anything. you inspire me every freaking day; i mean, your tiara thief drabbles literally made me pull my fic out of my drafts for the first time in months. every time you post it’s something iconic and beautiful, whether its your fics or your edits or your headcanons. and not just that, but you’re so incredibly supportive of everything i put out there. like with ths, the way you latched on to it and are one of our biggest fans and made content for it literally as soon as we started!! that was amazing!! you’re just such an incredible person in every sense of the word; you’re talented and hilarious and kind and passionate and i love you so so much. i cannot wait to watch you do amazing things because i know you’re gonna be one of the greats. ily. 

@ciara-knightly i can’t even put this into words. i’m sitting here trying to say it right and every time i start i just turn into “!!!!!!!!” cause i love you so much. i know i’ve said this before, but shona, you’re honestly like my older sister. this whole year of just, really getting to talk to you beyond tumblr has shown me how honestly kind, passionate, smart, and supportive you are. talking to you is one of my favorite things in the world, whether it’s rambling about tiara thief, or discussing feminism in media, or just getting life advice. you always know what to say to lead me in the right direction and reassure me that things are gonna be okay. i look up to you more than i can tell you; i’m constantly inspired by your talent and your drive. you’re endlessly supportive and you make me laugh all the time, and i hold literally every convo we have close to my chest because it means so much to me to just be able to have them with you. i’ll never be over the fact that you basically discovered jatp, or us talking and making predictions for weeks before it aired, or us plotting out the whole dystopia novel together—which, even though it didn’t really pan out, was such an amazing experience because i got to do it with you. and i absolutely scroll back through our convos on a regular basis to scream over our tiara thief headcanons. everything i’ve done with you has been incredibly fun and meaningful, so what i’m trying to say in this very long winded way is that i’m so, so glad i know you, and i can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. 

@bitchmilsky lizzie, i literally think of you like you’re my little sibling. my weird, crazy, hilarious, incredibly kind and supportive and creative and amazing little sibling. ever since i met you you’ve been nothing but fun and friendly and wonderful to me. your posts never fail to make me laugh and i love seeing whatever you’re up to, even if it’s video games that i understand nothing about. you have so many fun ideas and you’re so freely yourself, it’s honestly inspiring. the things you make are always adorable and every time we go live together and chat i always have so much fun, and talking and i just want to meet you in person so badly because i know we’d be an amazing, unstoppable duo and that you’d make me laugh until my sides hurt. i’m still waiting on that cross-country road trip. we could roll the windows down and belt our way through the entire hd musical soundtrack, and it would be epic. for real, though, you’re one of my favorite people ever, and i hope this year brings you nothing but fun and good things because that’s what you deserve. i’m sending you a million virtual hugs and also booty shorts that say poggers on the ass. i love you <3

@zackmartn i know i’m gonna start crying right now because i love you so much and i’m trying not to because i just did my makeup but dammit, nikki, i just love you so much. i remember when i first came on here and was afraid to talk to you because i was like “ohmygod she’s so cool she’s the king of this fandom she’s amazing” but i thank god that you reached out to me every day. i honestly can’t imagine my life without you; you’ve been such a presence in it for so long that you’re inseparable from it. even the times i’ve gone on hiatus i’ve been stalking your blog from a distance like “i just wanna know what she’s up to...”. you’re honestly like an older sister to me and you’re one of the people i admire the most; you’ve been through and continue to go through so much and yet every day you come on here and decide to be a freaking light to all of us, to make me smile, to support me literally endlessly. like, the amount of times you’ve driven me to near tears from your reviews of my writing is ridiculous. the freaking umana fan club?? the way ths is one of your top tags??? it’s just...insane and such a show of how boundless your support is. and that’s not even getting into how freaking talented you are!!! i stare at your gifsets all the time!! and your fics like....holy shit you literally created this whole universe that i’m so freaking invested in and is better than literally anything that canon could ever do, and i know i’m honestly terrible at responding to messages but i hope you know you never have to start holding back with me. most of the time when i get stuff you send i have to sit there and get my thoughts together and that takes forever, but i love love love reading it anyway. the way you get excited about the things you love is everything, it’s something that i really really love about you, and i hope you continue to keep that passion and love for everything. and i hope that this year brings you nothing but good things, because you deserve that more than anyone. i love you. 

@willexs eliza, babe, i know we joke all the time that we were put on opposite sides of the ocean because we’d be too powerful if we were together but i really think it’s true. imagine us meeting. the universe just wouldn’t be able to handle it; it would implode. listen, you’re literally like my twin, my other half. we have so much in common that it’s honestly ridiculous. we operate on the same brainwave, and every time we talk i’m blown away by how easy it is and i honestly love it so much because i could not have picked a more talented and creative and fun person to work with. writing ths with you has literally been like...one of my favorite writing experiences ever. i can’t believe that it started on such a whim because it’s such an important part of my life now and getting to have you next to me while we figure this whole thing out is honestly the best part. it’s not just all the characters and dynamics we’ve created, it’s the fact that i can send you incoherent ramblings at ungodly hours and you’ll pick them apart, it’s the 3-hour phone calls to make playlists, it’s you always making me feel heard and inspiring me. it’s this like...excitement of building towards something amazing with someone i love. you understand me on this crazy and fundamental level, and sometimes it blows my mind how similar we are and how well you know me without us having even met. i feel like we’re the embodiment of “nobody gets me like you”. and i know i’ve said this before, but i really do think you make me a better writer. i love how you make me laugh, i love that you always have the best takes and i love how talented you are with your incredible adorable art and your fics and your gorgeous edits and i love that we egg each other on and hype each other up. i love that, despite being on opposite sides of the ocean, we’re still best friends. and i love you <3

​@cactus-con lou!!!!!! i literally just...ahh i love you so much!! i know i’ve said this before but you were the first person i talked to in this fandom, and you made me feel so freaking welcome. and that has never changed. talking to you is so easy and natural, and you make me feel loved and heard all the time. i love getting to share stuff with you because you always always always hype me up. not just that but like...your talent?? literally unmatched!!! you’re amazing at everything you do it’s ridiculous. i love love love all your artwork, i could stare at it literally all day. you have so much talent and i literally cannot wait to watch you do such great things with it. i just...you’re such a wonderful person to everyone around you. you spread all this love and support and kindness and i think you’re one of the most genuine people i know and i’m so so glad i know you. i hope this year treats you so well because you deserve nothing but good things. i love you. <3

@owenjoyners where do i even start?? brooke, you’re like my other twin. i know i’ve said this before but it’s literally insane to me that we’ve known each other for less than a year because it feels like i’ve known you my whole life. you are such an incredible freaking person. you’re funny and you’re kind and you’re talented and you make me smile every damn day. i love getting post notifs from you because i swear to god i light up every time. your gifsets are always gorgeous, and i’ve watched you learn and improve and you’ve gotten so good, it makes me so happy every time. your art??? you say you’re just starting out but i can’t even tell you how much i love it. your fics!!! you’re good at everything and it’s honestly ridiculous. and it’s not even about your consistently amazing posts, i also just...i love talking to you more than anything, even if we’re just simping over owen together. you make me laugh all the time and you always hype me up; you’ve let me ramble about my fics and helped me get my ideas together, you’ve talked stupid life stuff like school and college with me, and you’ve given me someone to go to whenever i need it. i think of you as one of my best friends and i can’t get over how fast we clicked or how easy it is to talk to you. i need you to come visit me so i can give you so many hugs and we can have a sleepover and talk for literally hours on end. in the meantime, we need to call again sometime because that was honestly so much fun. i love you with all my heart. 

and some people i want to say thank you to, because even though we don’t talk as often as i’d like you’re still amazing, and you make me smile all the time, and i love seeing you on my dash or in my notes: @taylorswiftrulestheworld @onplanetmars @dr-rigatoni @swellviews-finest @symphonic-concert @molinasmercer

[lakemojave]

Supergiant Games: Same Bones, Different Skeletons

I just finished a retrospective of all 4 games by Supergiant on my twitch channel, and I have a few thoughts I wanna connect and questions I wanna explore. My love for these games is real strong and i could write a whole essay just gushing about them, but I wanna give some thought to what makes them so compelling: not just to me, but to damn near everyone I’ve talked to on their discord who feels the same. I myself rank Bastion among my favorite games ever, and Hades is climbing that list at a clip. And even though I could take or leave Transistor or Pyre, they keep pulling me back.

But I could talk a whole lot about each game’s appeal and waste a lot of time. I’ve gushed enough to my friends about how Bastion and Pyre’s rugged, apocalyptic atmospheres draw me in with their incredible vibrance to contrast. I could talk about how Ashley Barrett’s vocal tracks carry Transistor on their shoulders, or what makes Hades so much goddamn fun that the game doesn’t really need to be much else. But I realize that if the Supergiant library is so universally appealing to me, there must be some sort of connective tissue between them--some sort of fundamental similarity that makes them work. After thinking about it for more than five minutes, it turns out there are many; some are pretty obvious, and some less so. This brings me to the conclusion that the Supergiant library, with its four wildly distinct and different games, still follow a noticeable formula--one that is flexible enough to allow such completely different games.

Game Design

The Supergiant library are all essentially top down action rpgs, Transistor having the most elements of the genre. This is still a pretty weak connection, given how different they all play from each other. The only two that have much overlap in the most basic sense are Bastion and Hades, with the same general fast paced, real time combat. On closer examination, the two games have enough differences in the variety of mechanics at play, (Bastion with its multiple weapon slots and a shield, Hades with its sheer number of commands) that even they are hard to compare.

There are, however, several mechanics that the library loves to use. The first that comes to mind are the difficulty conditions: idols in Bastion, limiters in Transistor, titan stars in Pyre, and the pact of punishment--and arguably Chaos boons as well--in Hades. Their function is simple: increase your challenge for a little extra reward. Bastion and Pyre go the extra mile by fixing in world building elements to this mechanic; Bastion’s idols inform about the game’s pantheon, while Pyre informs about its, well, evil pantheon. The use of these conditions is indicative of Supergiant’s game design philosophy as a whole--you, the player, can make the game as hard or easy as it takes for you to have fun. The inclusion of infinite lives in Bastion or god mode or hell mode in Hades further builds on this point. This library is designed for all sorts of audiences, whether they want to be challenged by their games or simply immersed in the story.

Another repeating mechanic in these games are the use of challenge rooms, which started in Bastion as the training grounds and, to a lesser extent, Who Knows Where. In Transistor they are the sandbox test rooms, and in Pyre they are the beyonder crystal’s scribe trials. They appear in Hades a little more ambiguously; the infernal troves or Erebus rooms are not quite the same, but they serve a similar function. This function is a momentary break from the gameplay loop for a little extra reward, much like the previously discussed conditions. Transistor and Hades’ challenge rooms offer relatively negligible rewards; the sandbox rooms simply offer xp and unlock tracks for the jukebox, while the Erebus tiles offer double the reward for any normal tile. Bastion and Pyre go the extra mile by giving specific, long term rewards for their challenges. In Bastion’s training grounds, the Kid earns weapon specific abilities that are among the game’s most powerful; in Pyre’s scribe trials, exiles can earn character specific talismans that feed their specialization. For the most part, these rooms give the player a low stakes opportunity to practice, hone their preferred playstyle, and reward the effort, all while being completely optional.

Akin to these breaks in the game loop are designated resting areas/hub worlds. The Bastion, the Sandbox, the Blackwagon, and the House of Hades each offer a moment to interact with characters and lore, goof around with the environment, buy permanent upgrades, or just take a break. Transistor utilizes this function the least of the library, since it never once requires the player to enter the space. Pyre utilizes it the most since it has the most breaks in both frequency and number. In a way, this decision is both a game design and storytelling choice. Between all four games, perhaps excluding Transistor, this is where the majority of story beats take place. It is where the player can read up on some fresh lore or meet the ever growing cast of characters, and eventually grow to cherish them (as I often do playing this library). Without little breaks like these, the climactic or world/story shaking events that take place out in the actual playable space have no impact or narrative weight. The fact that all these sort of interactions are completely voluntary also rewards the player in the storytelling sense; by choosing to engage with the figures of the story rather than having that choice decided for them, the player feels as though they themselves have agency in the story unfolding.

Style

Perhaps the most distinct part of the Supergiant library, (and perhaps what I personally love most about it) is its aesthetics. There are few games that look, feel, and sound the way these games do. Yet, the four of them hardly resemble each other. Bastion is a rugged, frontier-esque sci fi apocalypse, Transistor is a sleek, cyberpunk apocalypse, Pyre is a high fantasy purgatory space, and Hades is simply stylized Greek mythology. It is a shock to remember, then, that these four games are all designed by the same artistic team.

I confess I don’t know much about art, so I don’t have anything too profound to say about Jen Zee’s art style, besides that I like it a lot. It is also worth noting that despite her spearheading art and character design for the whole library, each game still looks visually distinct, and not just in their overall aesthetics. Take the character design of the library, for instance. Bastion’s human figures tend to be short, stocky, with exaggerated facial features. Their colors are highly saturated, with a soft, almost blurry quality that gives a level of warmth to the fatalistic atmosphere. Transistor’s characters, barring Red, tend to be based around palettes centered around a single color, such as the Camerata red and the spectrum of the function character profiles. Pyre is the first of the library to use talking portraits, which contrast robed figures with stark color palettes and simple designs with unrobed figures with much noisier details. Hades is easily the most distinct of all four, using simple colors and thick outlines on all its characters. The most consistent feature of all their designs, as usual, is how wildly different they are. For Hades, Zee makes sure that characters only look alike in any way if they have some relation to each other, such as the Furies, Achilles and Patroclus, or Zagreus and his parents. On the whole, the versatility and variety in the character design is impeccable.

What I most enjoy about these games is Darren Korb’s soundtracks, which continue to vary wildly. From the closet-recorded Bastion soundtrack to the whole two and a half Hades score, Korb’s scoring keeps improving and changing in the 10 years Supergiant has operated. His music, which adds and changes motifs as each game progresses, contributes to the atmosphere just as much as the visuals do. Whenever he teams up with Ashley Barret to add vocal tracks to certain parts of the game, they always manage to place them at critical narrative or emotional beats, turning them into the games’ most memorable moments. The team goes one step further every game by incorporating a musician or source of music into each game, giving the music just as much character as the one performing it. It also sneaks its way into the aforementioned hub worlds by providing the player a means to play their favorite tracks whenever they want (except in Hades, where they have to pay in game for that privilege). In essence, Korb makes sure to give each game a distinct feel through its music, but familiar enough to connect the library in the player’s mind.

Just as Supergiant gets so much mileage from Korb and Zee alike, they also manage time and time again to make use of Logan Cunningham’s top notch voice over work. Originally the sole voice actor at Supergiant Games, Cunningham continued on from famously narrating Bastion as Rucks to remaining a ubiquitous voice throughout the library. His role as the Transistor in the game proper drives the emotional core of that game, and his role as the Voice/Archjustice proves to be a solidly effective, yet distant antagonist. In Hades, his roles are somewhat overshadowed by Korb’s performance as Zagreus, (which I’m still blown away he still had time to do) but his performance as Lord Hades is still excellent. Supergiant also uses Cunningham in Hades to sort of satirize how often he narrates for them by casting him as the narrating Old Man, then allowing Zagreus to break the fourth wall and acknowledge him. It is as if the team at Supergiant knows how much they use the same stylistic team, then mocking that same choice.

To other studios: learn from Supergiant

I’m running out of things to say and my ball of yarn that connects all these newspapers and polaroids on my wall is running thin. I would talk more about Supergiant really knows how to end a game and frequently does so in similar ways, or that their library is a masterclass in character-driven stories, but this little essay is long enough.

Instead, I wanna talk about how Supergiant does something right which so many AAA developers and publishers don’t seem to understand. To contrast with the Supergiant library, consider Assassin’s Creed, another franchise I have spent an embarrassing amount of time playing. This franchise releases a game almost every year, and in my experience, when a company does this, you tend to get the same pig with a different paint. From the original Assassin’s Creed to their most recent release, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the differences seem to be night and day. Combat and free running are far more complex than they once were, rpg elements to story and gameplay have been introduced, composers, writers, voice actors, and cast members have changed with each release, and the sheer size of the game has become staggering. Yet, in the 13 years and 11 main releases in the game’s history, (plus spinoffs) any change has not only felt incremental over time, but fundamentally insignificant to the skeleton of the game. Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2 play and feel differently, but the differences are subtle. The bones are different, but every year they assemble to form a vaguely Assassin’s Creed shaped thing. People who play games tend to hate this and frequently berate companies for this practice; Bethesda and GameFreak receive the same criticism that their games are so formulaic that their new releases might as well be carbon copies of the ones before it.

Yet, Supergiant Games, with its four games over ten years, has used essentially the same team and building blocks to make games that can hardly be considered interchangeable. Whether its the passion of this humble little indie studio or the sheer talent of this team, Supergiant takes the same pile of bones and assembles them in a different shape each time with care and attention. They are proof that a formula doesn’t need to be tweaked or altered or given a different coat of paint in order to be accepted; instead the formula needs versatility, the means to produce a fresh result each time. It also works best when we adore the result every time.

[radramblog]

Album Discussion: The Suburbs

Last week I felt like I didn’t have much time to pump an album review out. Was going to be in the lab all day, had work in the night, wanted to cover something quick. Then I finished really early, and had plenty of time in the afternoon to finish things off. This week I am in the same situation as far as scheduling, but someone’s bloody using equipment I need, so I’ve got a bit of extra time now. Time to talk about a >1hr 16 track record!

Also last week, I covered an album that I felt was more interesting from a meta level than it is musically. This week I’m talking about an album that I know nothing of the meta for.

The Suburbs I was reminded of recently. Mostly because I ran into the person who bought me the CD for the first time in like a year. I understand Arcade Fire have A Reputation as far as bands go, but the thing is: I have no idea what it is. I haven’t followed them at all, I don’t know whether they’re considered good or not, I haven’t even seen any of the music videos. I have never deliberately listened to an Arcade Fire song outside of this album.

But I do like this album. So.

Okay the one thing I do know is what the album is about. It’s about growing up in the suburbs of…I think Texas somewhere. I could look this up, but I refuse. The result of this is that the whole thing is intensely nostalgic, full of reminiscence and wistfulness, childhood innocence and what growing up is like. It’s one of those, you know? That does, however, make it fairly easy to like, because I think a lot of people are nostalgic for their childhoods.

(yeah so the only music videos for this one are at the very start and very end. this is going to be a bit of a wall of words.)

This is characterised by the opening track, which is also the album’s title track: The Suburbs. It’s opening with a very folksy acoustic guitar and piano, and longing for that childhood is its modus operandi. It is, however, tinged by the anxieties of that era- growing up in the shadow of the cold war is going to leave an impact on anyone, and that cultural climate is also going to be running through the album. I think the most poignant section of the song lyrically is the start of the third verse- wishing to become a parent, so they can live vicariously through their child, show them their childhood world before the reality and the memory are completely lost. Okay that’s kinda heavy moving on- the track is pretty much built around that piano/acoustic bit, sounding relatively upbeat but coloured by these lonesome strings running through the background. It’s very effective of conveying the feeling- which is something that comes up quite a bit over the course of the album. The Suburbs is one of my favourite tracks on this album, and having it come right at the front makes it a very solid stage-setter.

Track two is Ready to Start, a faster, rockier track with this grimy bassline running through the verses contrasting the relatively bright instrumentation of the chorus. Considering the themes of the song, about working for the man, dude, and trying to escape that sort of life, it’s fairly fitting, though it’s a very different sort of nostalgia than the previous track. The instrumentation gives the whole thing this sense urgency, which is enhanced by some of the lyrics- I mean the track is called Ready to Start, isn’t it. I feel like this song would be great to try and hype yourself up for something you don’t really want to do, and I’m not sure how many songs we have specifically for that feeling.

Our next song is called Modern Man, and it feels like tumbling through a confusing life. God, I’m really getting pensive today. I feel like this is a lot because this album resonates a lot more emotionally for me than musically. I’m someone with a very weird sense of nostalgia, seeing as my childhood is pretty effectively defined into three segments, and I tend to fixate on one of them because it’s The Weird One. I’m nostalgic for high school which is when I was nostalgic for living abroad which is when I was nostalgic for when I still lived in Perth, which I do now, but I don’t know anyone from back then, so there’s a whole sense of longing, and it’s something I’ve always had, and that’s funky. And I’m still young, this isn’t going to change, it’s going to get worse, and eghhhh I’m supposed to be talking about music. I don’t really have much to say about Modern Man, I guess. It’s aight, the previous two were better, but here I am 800 words into an album discussion, and I’ve gone through all of 3 songs on a 16 track album, so maybe expect this to be a slog.

Rococo at least makes an impact real quick, with fuckin psychotic strings right at the start that’s kind of a shock to the system, especially compared to the relatively mild instrumentation the rest of the song provides. I think that’s a fairly appropriate tone for a song about looking at #thecoolkids, bemusement tinged with utter stark bewilderment. I think I’m too young to really get this, I guess. The song’s title regards an art movement that sounds extremely pretentious and fake deep, frankly, but considering the point of the song is that you don’t bloody know what Rococo means, that’s probably also fitting. I kinda wish the strings were more present throughout the song than they were, they add this existential dread to the track that I do think the later sections are missing somewhat.

Speaking of strings, Empty Room is up next, and it’s one of my favourite tracks as well. It opens with the strings but they’re fast and energetic and they’re going to blow right past you. I thought this track was in like the second half of the album, but nope, here it is. This is also where the album’s second vocalist takes the lead for a bit (she only does for like 3 scattered tracks) and she’s genuinely great here. The songs chugs like an old train, in a way that reminds me a lot of other songs; in particular, the bit between the chorus and second verse (and chorus/outro) reminds me a lot of Teach me About Dying by Holy Holy- I can’t unhear “teach me about dying, teach me about dying-dying” over that instrumental. Despite its desolate lyricism, this song’s energy is genuinely excellent, and it carries really well through the whole thing. I can’t think of a lot of songs that start on this sort of tempo and have it run the whole way through- not to keep referencing other songs, but it’s very Go with the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age. And that’s like in the top 3 QotSA songs for me, so.

It’s only just struck me how much track 6, City With no Children, reminds me of There There by Radiohead. Its mostly the percussion, I think. That’s fucking high praise, but it’s also about as far as the comparison goes. The song is pretty okay outside of that, this theme of a town left lifeless by the commercialism and capitalism of the ultra-rich and what that does to people. Maybe that’s just my reading of it, I do have a bias for this sort of thing, but I challenge you to find another one. Looking on Genius is cheating. I do like the riff the track is built around, but it gets old eventually, since it doesn’t develop at all as the track progresses- lost potential, I suppose.

The next song is the first part of the album’s first of two two-parters, Half Light I, because apparently this one is trying to be a long-running drama show now. With that said, this ballad is kinda gorgeous, and yet also kinda extremely boring? Which is a frustrating place to be, frankly. I get the feeling this is an opinion that would get me crucified, but aside from those strings what fuck, the song just isn’t doing anything for me. Maybe it’s because it’s kinda almost the halfway point and I’m just getting tired, maybe it’s just a generational and cultural divide between America/Australia and 90s-00s/00s-10s and I don’t Get It. But I’m afraid to say this one doesn’t land.

Half Light II (No Celebration), for the record, is one I enjoy much more. The instrumentation is a lot more fun, the tone is a lot more pained (and y’all know I love me some angst), as the rose-tinted lenses of the previous half are replaced by the jade of someone growing up through the GFC (and just, in general). Despite being a two-part song, the halves are very different, a deliberate dichotomy representing two facets of that same look backwards. I feel like this isn’t like other two-part songs I’ve heard before, in that you can kinda appreciate the halves separately- or, in my case, one and not the other.

Track 9, and welcome more officially to the Second Half, with Suburban War. It’s very much about reminiscing about old friends, and I think I’m going to wax personal for a bit, because I have very little to say about the song musically. I mentioned earlier that I basically don’t know anyone from back when I was a kid, and that’s kind of a product of what my childhood looked like. It’s hard to have a “childhood friend” that you still keep up with when you spend 5 extremely crucial, defining years somewhere away from where all of them are. When you leave at 7 years old and don’t come back until you’re almost a teenager. People change so quickly at that age, and I’m no exception, and so I just didn’t have the ability to relate to those same people that long afterwards, even if I could find them. I don’t resent the experience of growing up in such a fractured manner, but it means I have a fundamentally different experience to that discussed in this album. At the same time, as I listen to the closing moments of this song, with the line repeated, “All my old friends, they don’t know me now”, I can’t help but notice the similarity. The writer’s friends don’t know them because they’ve grown up, changed fundamentally as people, whereas I don’t know my old friends in a much more literal sense.

Our next song is a bit more fun. Month of May is unequivocally a rock song, as opposed to the..indie? folk? of most of its surrounds. Much like Empty Room, it’s driven by its tempo and instrumentation, but it’s a bit less dour than that one, almost a bit oldie in its rock and roll swagger. The song isn’t so utterly different that it wouldn’t fit on the album, the traces of The Suburbs still roll through the whole thing, the same guitar and percussion tones driven up a couple notches on the ol’ Mohs scale. Quite solid, ultimately, in my opinion.

Track 11 is Wasted Hours. I think it’s a kind of appropriate title, not because it’s a waste of time, but because it just kinda feels like a nothing song as part of the album. Like, it is unquestionably Part Of The Album, sonically and thematically, but I deadass would not notice if it was missing from the record. Sorry if this one is your favourite, but this one isn’t for me.

Deep Blue, on the other hand, is the song that got me into the album. There’s really something about this track, this sense of discomfort with the passage of time, that really wormed its way into me. It’s a shockingly cold song for this acoustic instrumentation that’s usually associated with quite the opposite. The piano feels desperate, the guitars grim, and there’s actual synths hiding in here- the song relates to technology, after all. It’s concern for the future of humanity, of the youth, and for, well, the Suburbs, through the lens of watching that match between chess Grandmaster Kasparov and the A.I. Deep Blue in 1996. Go watch the Down the Rabbit Hole on that if you haven’t already (and have a few hours), by the way, it’s utterly excellent.

I can’t really describe how Deep Blue makes me feel. There’s just something about it. I feel like if I hear this song again in 10 years, it would genuinely bring me to tears- it feels like loss in a way, and not the meme.

We Used to Wait has a fun instrumentation, glittery piano and that funky guitar noodling in the background, but unfortunately the chorus kinda lets it down for me. I just do not care for it, it’s really built on a vocal line that really doesn’t track for me personally. Like, I’m just young enough that a lot of the theme of the track is utterly unrelatable to me- I hail from an era that is post- the change the track is referring to. I’m focussing a lot this time around about how the songs make me feel personally, but I think that’s kind of the appropriate tack for this album in particular- like the idea of nostalgic reminiscence is so inexorably tied to your own personal experiences that there’s no way around those experiences clouding your perception of this album, and with that, how well you end up liking it. I bet this whole thing hits way harder for someone born in the same couple years as this band.

We’re up to the second two-parter, Sprawl I (Flatland), kind of the finale for the whole thing. I mean, in I’s case, it’s certainly that emotionally. The song is so utterly down, it’s lost in the urban sprawl the title and lyrics describe, and with that comes a very quiet track. Moody strings and guitar, that eventually build during the fourth verse (there is no chorus and they’re short). It does eventually resolve on a more positive note, at least, one that’s hopefully relatable to many of us- eventually, we find our emotional home is, and it’s often not where we grew up.

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) is quite the different perspective. It’s got that other lead vocalist (I could look up her name but I won’t), it’s got a pulsing beat, and it has much more energy to work with. There are synths on this track that are absent from almost the entire rest of the album, but their introduction here, right at the end, is extremely cool. They’re cool, they’re clear, and they’re thematically relevant! I just really like the vibe of this track, and the way it trails off is similarly very good. Would recommend.

But of course there is one final track. Kind of. The Suburbs (continued) is basically a dark reprise of the album’s opener, shaded with more regret than that track is, more strings-y and whispered. It’s very short, but it acts as an appropriate closer for the whole thing.

And of course, that’s The Suburbs. In retrospect, I have a bit more mixed thoughts about this than I thought. There’s some really high highs, and some things that are just kind of bleh, but any album of this length is bound to have some misses. While I was browsing Genius to make sure I had the lyrics right for some tracks, I saw this record described as a Masterpiece, but I’m not sure that shoe fits- at least, not for me. The personal nature of this album, and anyone’s theoretical relationship with it, are such that I don’t think it can be given such a broad, universal title. I like the album as a whole quite a bit, but I personally wouldn’t call it a masterpiece.

It also doesn’t inspire me to go after more Arcade Fire. I’m actually perfectly content having them in my mind as this solitary piece, complete in its own way. Oh, they have like four other albums, but to me, Arcade Fire is The Suburbs. I don’t know why I’ve decided this, but it just works for me. So I’m sorry to any massive AF fans, but I did just dedicated 2.7k words to this album, so I’m sure you’re all satisfied.

God, next time I am going to have to cover something shorter, for my own sanity if nothing else.

[thekillerssluts]

WILL BUTLER: GENERATIONAL, DIVIDED

With Generations, Will Butler presents an album with dark themes but eclectic and engaging music.

With Generations, released a few days ago, Will Butler is the third member of Arcade Fire to put out an album this year. Recorded in his Brooklyn studio, Generations is an eclectic work, with varied colours, sometimes closer to the vitaminized punk or the exhilarating flights of Arcade Fire, and other times not very far from cabaret song, a kind of antimony or emotional paradox between the engaging side of the music and the darker themes that are evoked.

In the five years since the release of his debut album, Policy, which served as a sort of tentative premise for the more assertive Generations, Butler hasn’t been idle. He travelled the world as a solo artist, then released the live album Friday Night, went on to design and record Arcade Fire’s Everything Now, travelled the world again, earned a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard, and organised a series of town-hall discussions to debate issues such as police contracts, prison reform, paid sick leave, voting rights, and so on. He also spent a lot of time playing father to his three children.

Sitting on a couch at home in Brooklyn with a mug in his hand, Will Butler is there to talk. Smiling, very comfortable and above all affable, it seems to give him pleasure to talk once again about his album, and to invariably answer the same questions about Arcade Fire that all the journalists ask him…

PAN M 360: During the last five years, you’ve done film, recorded, studied, you are the father of three children… With such a busy schedule, how did you find the time to conceive and produce Generations?

Will Butler: I’ve been building up songs over the last two years, and mostly playing them live when I can, at shows, and figuring them out. I hadn’t had time to sit down and figure out if I was doing another record or not, and last year I knew that I would have time in the summer to sit down with my touring band and record some demos, to see what these songs feel like. So I have a studio in a basement in South Brooklyn, and we recorded for a week, and at the end of those sessions, I was listening back to the takes and said, “this is the record, It sounds great! We have six songs here, we have a couple more, so let’s keep moving!”. So after the band sessions, I would take everything and put that on my laptop and work drafts of lyrics, cross some words, write other drafts… And I did that for about nine months, and the record was done. My last bit of recording was March 9, and then New York shut down on March 14… (laughs). So yes, it was a bit long between the two albums, but so much has happened in the last four or five years. (laughs) Not just in my life, but in the whole fucking world.

I knew I needed a stretch of peaceful time to process all that. And my wife and I, we have an older kid and we had twins two years ago, so you know, all this takes up a lot of brain space! But it was also trying to synthesize what was happening in the world since my last record. 2015 was a year of protest, there was Ferguson and Baltimore and then the election and the shit show since 2016, and now it’s the same thing again, with the pandemic on top… So I was basically trying to figure out how to respond to that with art.

PAN M 360: Who worked on the album with you?

WB: There was Miles Francis (Antibalas) on drums, who has been playing with me for the last five years, Julie Shore and her sister Jenny, who is also my wife, and Sara Dobbs. Everybody sings on this record, and the rest of it is a lot of synthesizers. Miles also took care of the guitars, and I played a little bit of guitars too, as well as some piano and keyboards, and I took care of the recording and producing. I did a bit of everything!  

PAN M 360: What are the main themes on the album? It feels like you touch on fatality, despair, but also hope…

WB: Yes, there is a lot of despair on this record, especially in the lyrics. I don’t think there is much despair in the music. The music is always pretty forward-moving. But the songs are the words and the music, so there is always a tension between what your mind is thinking and what your body is doing. (laughs). I’ve always absorbed the lyrics last, so I always process music through my body, and then it ultimately reaches my brain. Besides despair, it’s being overwhelmed, like not even knowing what to do or where to turn or how to begin to formulate an answer to the questions that have been posed, particularly in political life, but it’s the same on the personal side. You know, some of the songs, like “Promised” or “Surrender”, are about friendships that have broken over the years, or have faded or twisted, and not knowing what to do with someone that you love but that has fundamentally lost you. So what do you do with that besides feel bad about the past, or wish that things were different? So both on the political level and the personal level, I was overwhelmed by giant forces, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

PAN M 360: There are several shades of sound on this record. It starts out a little punk, and then slides into the indie rock and pop that we know from Arcade Fire, it flirts with Bowie, LCD Soundsystem, to finish with something more reflective, cabaret even, à la Destroyer… It’s a very interesting pacing on this album.

WB: Yes, there is a strong A-side, B-side feel. It doesn’t mean you have to listen to the record on vinyl, I listen to everything on Spotify anyway, but it has a first act and a second act. The first act is a little more urgent, a little more punk, whereas the second act is a little more electronic, and then “Fine” is like the afterword or something, it’s like an author’s note.

PAN M 360: Seems like you’ve worked on your voice since your first album. You seem to have a lot more confidence and emotion.

WB: I think that comes from very deliberately working out most of these songs on stage, learning what the core of the song is. Policy was more something that was created in the studio… I don’t know… I was experimenting. The bulk of Generations is something like, “we’re here, we know what we’re doing and we’re doing it.” As nebulous as the lyrics can be, there is still a musical mission. And I’m a better singer, I guess. From having to sing as a frontman, you just become a better singer (laughs).

PAN M 360: Looking back, how do you perceive Policy, how would you compare the two albums?

WB: Policy, to me, is like a bunch of different characters. Like every song is like in a different suit or skin. This record sonically changes a lot, but it’s still one perspective, whereas Generations has a bit more of a coherent vision. The record as a whole has a bit more of a sonic arc. It’s not a concept record but it’s tied together both sonically and lyrically.

PAN M 360: Would you say that your solo work allows you to express yourself in a way that you couldn’t with Arcade Fire?

WB: Yeah, I think that’s true! But also, Arcade Fire lets me express myself in ways that I can’t on a solo record. Update one is that I don’t write any words for Arcade Fire (laughs). That’s like a very big difference. And there is a slight difference in ethos, and in approaching recording… Generations is a collaborative effort but I’m more the director, and Arcade Fire is more fighting with co-workers, in a creative way. But to me, it’s also like the same project. You know, it’s like Marcel Dzama, who sometimes does movies with Amy Sedaris and sometimes does paintings, but they’re all from the same body of work, a little bit.

PAN M 360: And what does your brother think of your music?

WB: I think he likes it. In the band, we all think we’re all talented. We like each other and we trust each other. So if they wouldn’t like it, they’d tell me.

PAN M 360: How’s it going with the new Arcade Fire. Should we expect a record soon?

WB: We can’t really work separately. We can do a little bit online, but we’re not good at it… So if the virus stays calm, we’ll get back together and be basically on track… It takes us so long to make a record anyway, it takes us a year or a year and a half. The timing has been different, the process has been different, but the process is always different…

https://panm360.com/en/interviews-panm360/will-butler-regeneration/