#i get more obnoxious in vol.13

[madraleen]

Bungo Stray Dogs - Kafka Asagiri/Sango Harukawa Vol. 11-12: Dazai and The Nurse - A Commentary (*anime spoilers and manga spoilers up to ch.114)

-i do like lucy

-oi oi oi, "there's a way to transfer skills between bodies" and a "skill user who manipulates shadows" knows how to do it? oi, wait.

-oh right, what's grape of wrath doing these days i wonder. in manga real-time these things take place in a short time span, but irl time it feels like ages

-oh yes, poe isn't with the guild anymore.

-atsushi is so sweet and kind and empathetic, but he has NO CHILL, i love that about him

-i want to grab your little hand and squeeze it, dazai-chan

-ah yes. this is where dazai gets shot and this is where i started fuming in the anime season. I AM SO ANGRY AT THIS EVENT! which is a good thing for the narrative, but I AM SO ANGRY! WE DO NOT INJURE DAZAI! HE'S THE *ONE* MAN THAT WE CAN'T FIX, WE DO NOT INJURE DAZAI, WE DO NOT-

-something i've noticed btw, and i think it might be due to the nature of the anime vs the manga timeline and arguably can't be helped, is that the suicidal-maniac part of dazai is much more sparse in the manga. in the anime, it feels like he mentions it way more often.

-you know what kind of antagonist dazai needs -and ranpo, and mori for that matter- after we're done with fyodor? someone genuinely layperson and chaotic. someone who doesn't think 500 steps ahead, someone who acts completely on a whim and has no attachments or lofty goals, someone so random that they simply cannot read them because the possibilities are endless. i'm talking csm denji times one thousand.

-and we still don't know fyodor's actual goal after eliminating the skill users and getting the book. we know fukuchi's plan, but that's not all, surely. we're so not done with this bitch yet.

-i miss hearing their voices. the anime made me more excited to read the manga, the manga's making me more excited to rewatch the anime, and both are making me more excited to get to the spin-offs and such, this is great.

-fukuzawa, i need you to remember that your black sheep son willingly got himself shot to glean information for your agency's sake. alright? I NEED YOU TO REMEMBER THAT, FUKUZAWA! *shakes fist*

-what does "a world free of sin" even mean, fyodor, what do you want! free of skill users is obvious, but sin? are we talking brainwashing, kira cult, what are we talking about?

-atsushi destroyed his clothes before we've even gotten into the story of v12, he had a head start beginning from the cover smh

-ranpo is devastated with fukuzawa in the hospital, my heart. no offense, but fucking fyodor traumatized me in this arc, what with dazai being shot and the whole fukuzawa-mori thing and how it destroyed everyone. you can't blame me that it took a long long while for me to go from "i hate this guy" to "i hate this guy but in a good way."

-SAY IT ALOUD, KUNIKIDA-SAN, REMIND EVERYONE HOW DAZAI IS PART OF THE AGENCY, DAMN!

-this is so clearly a "we really can't have dazai around for this or else the conflict will be over in two minutes" injury.

-dude, atsushi doesn't open doors, he slams doors open, habitually

-CHUUYA IS SO PRETTY

-the way that women aren't sexualized.

-chuuya i want to pinch your little chiwawa cheeks you're so pretty

-on the one hand, the manga story is 100% streamlined compared to the anime, where sometimes i had Thoughts on the plot/focus of the story. on the other hand, i wonder, if i DIDN'T know what backstory i know because of the anime, if i were manga-only, would i feel the lack of something that i couldn't pinpoint, or would i get the same enjoyment even without it?

-okay but WHO are "the rats in the house of the dead," HAVE WE MET THEM

-seriously, no one jumps to "i'll kill" as fast as tanizaki, just lend him to the port mafia and let him have his semi-dark arc. he's so cool when he's being lethal. give him his questionable era, his moment to shine.

-wth is that grin when you're fighting kyouka, aku-kun, put that back where it came from

-IT IS SUCH A BIG MOMENT when aku-kun tells kyouka that he's glad for her that she doesn't yearn death anymore :')

-is it just me or is mori prettier in the manga than in the anime? fukuzawa too, for that matter.

-oh, dazai's clenching his fist when he says "if it weren't for my nullifying skill, i could've had yosano-sensei heal me and join in, but..." oh my heart, he truly wants to be with them. there’s no other reason to express this thought in this kind of visual than to show genuine emotion

-i love dazai so much though :')

-THE FUCK DID YOU DO WITH THAT NURSE, DAZAI?! not fucked her surely, you're injured, but THE FUCK DID YOU DO WITH THE NURSE THAT MADE YOU A '-SAMA'?! tbf, knowing dazai, it's just as likely if not more than likely that he played therapist for her or something. 'cause this is the third time a "woman misunderstanding" is happening in the manga. first you think he's flirting with higuchi, but no actually, he's bugging her. then you think he had sex with kouyou, but no actually, he just talked to her. so it's quite possible that it's a case of "you think he fucked the nurse, but actually he just lent her a shoulder to cry on." and off-manga timeline, at least in the anime, the same thing happened with sasaki, it was all "dazai did WHAT with sasaki?" and the answer was "in fact, he did absolutely nothing." i find it funny that THIS, of all things, is one of bsd's great unanswered questions though, and that there is canonical events that could very well support the "actually no, it wasn't sexual" to what looks like a sexual gag. you could argue that the manga makes a point of pointing out that even though sexual advances for personal gain would be expected from someone like dazai, it is in fact not something that dazai does (and no, chuuya’s “womanizer” comment from when he knew dazai four years ago doesn’t count). although. if we were ever given an answer, i believe it would be far sillier than anything we could imagine. like, they sing karaoke, or he shares his medicine with her and she gets high, he shows her how to beat that really hard mobile game, something utterly, completely stupid.

-fukuzawa/mori vs dazai/chuuya vs atsushi/akutagawa battle, who wins, go! i say dazai/chuuya.

-chonky natsume cat is chonky

-fukuzawa's "child of my own to take care of" is ranpo, isn’t it? IT IS, THAT’S SO CUTE

-okay, but now having read a bit more about the real oogai mori and vita sexualis i want to know more about mori-san’s skill. is elise the general concept of a cute and spoiled childhood that he himself didn’t have, is he projecting sexual desires that he won’t act on through elise, is this the childhood he wanted as in he wanted to be elise, what is it, let’s talk.

[anosci]

(241-255 albums etc that I’ve listened to this year, copied from twitter) (now with art. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18])

names and thoughts below cut

241/ Wavfire - One Day (2023) this music glistens! it's super soft but has a sharp transient texture sprinkled in i love love the contrast between the intimate piano and the electric bursts. the breakdown in "With You At Dusk" could've been BT. beautiful.

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242/ SDEM - Vortices (2023) god i love these textures. ive been obsessing over ae's 2016 soundscapes and this carries that vibe. doubly in love when the tune has a hip hop tempo to it. foh "bladelores" im into "NSEM Rev" now

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243/ SPACELECTRO - For you (2023) i was worried this would be too "UKHC" for me but it deviates from that timbre just enough for me to have a good time by the end! fun color bass in the title track + some fun lower tempo stuff ie "Cassis"

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244/ Datsik - Darkstar (2016) this is, for the most part, "just ok", to my taste. the title track is kinda nice. if very… hmm… stereotype club wub. mostly it's "No Mind" that hits right for me. i dig those flangy flavors.

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245/ VA - The Umbra (2023) a nice variety of hits and misses for me. overall quite good! standouts: "Mandragora" ah, the rare dnb song i like. "Emerald Green" !! MAN. i love this sort of sound. feels like glass. beautiful. "solarblade" holy shit 100% my fav. all around standout

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246/ litmus* - ルミちゃんかわいい (2023) mixed feelings on this one. lots of "eh" trax. but i really enjoy the sound design. and it's fun! personal fav is "Despair" i think. funky harmony feeling. still fun overall also: final track is actually super funny and i love it for that

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247/ VA - CYBERNETiX Vol.1 (2023) "Deity Mode" holy shit this is heavy with INTENT. kick ass. 1000% the highlight. i ADORE it the rest of the tunes range from nice to banger as well. "Farewell To Reality(From Atoms to Code)" is surprisingly sexy. sounds legit like demoscene work

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248/ VA - IRREGULAR NATION 9 (2023) true to the title, this is a mixed bag of flavors. two standouts imo: "ダラク・デ・ナイト" is a delightful low tempo high synth groove that hits good. "Ideology" is just all around cool and prolly my fav. sound design. vibes. a delight.

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249/ Rickyxsan - Them Vibes EP (2016) 3 tracks is kinda skirting the line of inclusion for my list but Every Single Track here bangs hard. absolutely beautiful obnoxious screeching. "Trippy" lives up to its name (well… dizzy?) and is my fav. esp the sub-less wobs 2m in. love

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250/ VA - PARA OUT 3 (2023) mostly (but not entirely) dnb. not my flavor. However!!!! "Junction Cave"! god that's a cool texture. like a pure percussion performance in a metal can. how did something this wild get into a dnb comp?

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251/ VA - PSYALUME (2023) more psy than color. still a neat exploration. i love the chordscape in "bass of a lifetime". mixed strangely with the bass. truly the best of color and psy! "Antimatter" stands out too but it's its own clubby thing.

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252/ VA - Virtual Odyssey: Emotion 3 (2023) bright and clubby music. not bad but i dont feel too strongly about it overall. the vocals in "Deep Down" are kinda funny. im into it lol i also appreciate the absolutely ham filtering in "Identical"

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253/ muyu - Dream of _ (2023) "Hello My Friend" som quote???? man this is pure bubblegum good vibe energy. lovely it's not representative but I'd like to highlight "Lucid Dream" for the way it treats its piano. wow and flutter, growing beyond limitations

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254/ VA - Spirit Chords 3 (2023) good clubby fun with a few standouts: primarily "FLARE", which BANGS. "Capricorn" also!! actually, same for "Emergency Call", the track in the middle. that's just a REALLY good 3-track run in there.

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255/ Cryptovolans - Passenger (2022) special selection for #0xFF :) id describe this as "a really cool 90s rompler sound" but it is, somehow just midi. the vastness of the SC astounds me. "Board Room" and "Birdhouse" appeal to me in particular. Bass. twisted into a proggy sponge

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[teyuuka]

Hi! Do you know any CDs where the LI uses ridiculous/obnoxiously romantic petnames? (like the type of character who says "ダーリン♡" or "ハニー♡"  unironically lmfao) If that's too specific: you know those couples that are so ridiculously sappy/in love, they make everyone else want to throw up whenever they talk to each other in public? I want this in a LI lmaoo. Thanks!!!

ALFKLSHS this is so funny. HISAYUKI would my first recc because literally he EMBARRASSED THE MC HERSELF by how sappy he is.

i don’t think pet names are too often done though because in Japanese, social proximity/intimacy is typically expressed by the use of honorifics or the lackthereof. these are coupled by the first name/surname calling, (hence the usual “call me by my first name instead of my surname” tropes) + in drama CDs, the MC are kept nameless. So, displays of affection through pet names are pretty rare (although now that you mentioned it, i will be looking out for this LOL) the common one would be oku-san (dear/wifey) used in some Danna-sama series or husband-type CDs?

i suppose this ‘love noobs’ ask would help, but here are some that I remember/found of LI who are super sweet:

Sweet Life with Your Loving Boyfriend (this is so sweet that he’d give u toothache)

PeroPet ~Mating With Your Amazing Puppy Boyfriend~

Nene’s Lullaby ~Dog-like Boyfriend~

Daijobu, zenbu daisuki (he has a pet name for MC)

Namidame vol. 2 probably lol

My Husband’s Fetish

Newlywed Life ~Case of Haruka Kashii~

Futari no himitsu vol 3

MitsumeNight vol. 2

xx-Soaked Newlywed Life

All Shikorebo volumes sjkdhfks

Useless Boyfriend vol.1 (he’s super clingy ig)

Getting drunk and tangled up with a Kouhai

Oyasumi Kareshi vol. 13 (they banter over who likes each other more lol) + vol. 2 (wanko type)

Nochikare vol. 2 & 3

I like cooky-tan’s voice...

F Girl – Narihira Shizu

Meromero ism vol. 3

Mechakucha Shitai

++ i know this CD prob ain’t what you asked for but he’s kinda tsun and there’s a line where he’s like “n-no i was just thinking you must love me so much to be acting like this” lol

[headcanonrepository]

Part theory, part question for people with sharper ears than me: are there any notable big character songs (as in, ones with vocals) in RWBY that don’t contain leitmotifs connected with that character? Because as far as I can tell, most of them do, and some of those leitmotifs make surprising early appearances in the show compared to the vocal songs.

For example, Ironwood’s leitmotif can be heard through his appearances in S2/3 (sometimes really hard to catch, but they are there) and obviously it gets expanded into Hero for S7 and heard throughout S7/8 as a leitmotif.

Easier to catch is Qrow’s leitmotif. The Qrow/Winter fight in S3 is almost entirely comprised of a very easily heard version of Bad Luck Charm.

From memory and a lockdown-driven rewatch: -all of team RWBY’s themes are used as leitmotifs at appropriate character moments throughout the show -Forever Fall is used liberally whenever anyone so much as thinks about Pyrrha -Boop is a constant presence with Nora -Cinder is kinda obnoxious about getting All Things Must Die into a scene. Like, other characters’ leitmotifs will be cut off by her, give it a listen sometime, endless entertainment if you’re a sound buff

Anyway, the theory part of this is the observation that One Thing, despite being seemingly Neo’s big revenge song...isn’t Neo’s leitmotif. Not even close. And I’ve found two reoccurring leitmotifs with Neo - one is easily heard in fight scenes (so on train vs Yang or verses ORNJ. If you want to hear it clean, get No Brakes from V2 soundtrack up on your music listening provider of choice and skip to 4:16 or in V7, The Timeline Has Changed, particularly 1:07-1:15 and 1:54-2:09) the other is more subtle at calmer moments (try Vol 7, The Timeline Has Changed, 0:13-0:20...after that, Cinder interrupts for a few seconds...told you!) But neither sound remotely close to any part of One Thing. And One Thing doesn’t, as far as I can remember, get a call back in any other scene (which makes sense, as by then, Neo has either actually joined Cinder or is presenting a good act of joining Cinder...and referencing back to a song so clearly about revenge would be either out of place or make it obvious that Neo isn’t being honest about it). 

My point, if I finally get to it: I believe One Thing is a misdirection aimed at the viewers. I’ve always thought (hoped, desperately) that Neo is definitely plotting something other than ‘blindly follow Cinder for a shot at revenge against Ruby’. Like, guys, she’s mute. That’s no evidence that she’s an idiot. (and honestly, if that were her actual goal, she could have split from Cinder the second they hit Atlas to hunt down Ruby) 

One Thing is not Neo’s big character song. And I’m not saying that just because I want another Neo song (but I also do want another Neo song...) It’s Neo trying very hard to convince us that what we see in the fight scene vs Cinder is all that’s going on, even through the fourth wall, and to not question the motives underneath the facade.

[oldtumblhurgoyf]

Lauren Orsini wants to kiss a cat man and that’s wrong*

Here’s a ranking of All 36 'Magic: The Gathering' War of the Spark Planeswalkers Ranked By Dateability in Forbes no less. But it’s so terribly wrong. Here’s my Empirically Correct List of Planeswalkers Ranked By Dateability.

*this is all very silly and Orsini’s list is fine, I’m sure... for her.

36-28 Undateable

36 and 35. Tie between Gideon Jura and Domri Rade (with an honorable mention to Dack Fayden).

Dudes are all literally dead. Sorry, but I’m not dating a corpse. Also, before Gideon’s death, he was running himself ragged hopping from plane to plane to save the world. He didn’t have the time for a relationship. Domri is an obnoxious child (emphasis on child too). Of the three, Dack had the most potential but even alive he’d be lucky to break the top 20 of my list. Good for a few fun weekends and that’s probably it. Tempting to hope your love could reform him but that’s just a good way to have your heart stolen.

34. Nicol Bolas

He’s downright evil and self-centered to an unfathomable degree. Hard pass, no thank you. Literally no redeeming qualities.

33. Ob Nixilis

The obvious date for him is someone into BDSM, right? Wrong. He’s not going to respect your boundaries or practice good after care. He’ll use and abuse you for what he wants and then probably murder you. That’s not a date.

32. Dovin Baan

This dude’s whole deal is that he sees the flaws in everything. He’d probably outright refuse to date and if not, he’d constantly be nitpicking your relationship and you. There’s probably a decent amount of built up angst and stuff and if he ever cut loose there could be some fun, but it would be very fleeting and comes at too great a cost (months later thinking “what did he mean by ‘your forehead is adequate, but your nose is not the ideal shape’?”).

31. Tibalt

See Ob Nixilis. Kind of crazy how similar these two are.

30. Ashiok

We don’t know a whole lot about them, but I’m envisioning they’re like Ob Nixilis/Tibalt except it’s all mental/psychological harm. It’s Dovin Baan but instead of an ostensible pursuit of perfection, the mental anguish is its own reward.

29. Ugin

Like dating a dad, but a really boring dad. And like any other dragon, he’s still very full of himself, he’s just a little more subtle about it. Besides, apparently you’d do all your dating in the Prison Realm and Bolas would be there trying to ruin your (already pretty miserable) date as some small payback for being trapped.

28. Sorin Markov

Things will be okay, but he gives me weird unwanted daddy vibes and he’s just going to ghost you anyway.

27-19 Redeeming Qualities, Not Long-Term Material

27.  The Wanderer

Not much to go on here but we do know she’s gonna ghost you though probably not voluntarily.

26.  Teyo Verada

He seems nice enough but he’s pretty young and super naive. He’s got some things to figure out and some growing to do before you’d want to date him.

25. Jiang Yanggu

What I said for Teyo goes for Yanggu as well. Plus side, every date with him there is a really cute pupper coming along.

24. Kaya

She’s giving me Gideon vibes. I think she’d be more fun than Gids, but she’s too devoted to her career to have time for a relationship.

23. Teferi

It’s a common refrain I’m running into here, but Teferi is also too dedicated to his job to make for a good relationship. Additionally he’s got lifetimes of experiences that make him “The Most Interesting Man in the Multiverse” and you’re always going to feel like a second fiddle to him, not an equal. This is a case where he’s almost too perfect.

22. Jaya

Jaya’s got distinct mother vibes for me. There’s just no way I could see a date with her that isn’t weird. It wouldn’t even be a bad date per se, but it’s not gonna happen.

21. Samut

I’m intimidated by Samut. I mean, who wouldn’t be? She’s been through Amonkhet’s trials and stood ready in front of Hazoret’s spear. That’s such a singular dedication that few others can match. I think I’d shrivel in front of her love.

20. Kiora

She’s a playful trickster and kind of flighty. You’ve got one good date with her and then maybe a follow up fling at some point, but there’s no building a relationship here. I mean, unless you’re really lucky, but I wouldn’t count on it.

19. Karn

Karn’s got plenty going for him. He’s done some really interesting stuff, he’s motivated, and deeply invested even if he doesn’t always show it. He can certainly show you a lot of cool things. But long term the lack of humanity creates distance and problems.

18-10 A Good Time, Let’s See How it Works Out

19. Liliana Vess

She’s a toss up to me at this point. She’s been through a whole helluva lot and this is the point where she could go completely good, or take her get out of demon-contract-death jail free card and double down on all her worst attributes. She’ll be a fun date, you just can’t be sure it should be more than that.

17. Angrath

Dude’s super dedicated to his family but he gets incredibly frustrated and pretty damn easily. His name’s literally angry wrath so you kind of have to expect that. If you think going to a dive bar and getting into a fight with a biker is a good date then Angrath is going to be a fun time.

16. Vivien Reid

Maybe I just haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention, but I know less about Vivien Reid than any other planeswalker on this list I think (which is wild when you consider exactly how little we know about the Wanderer or Kasmina). But as the Steve Irwin of the multiverse, there’s no way this date isn’t fun. You’ve just perhaps bitten off more than you can chew.

15. Ajani Goldmane

Ajani is a total sweetheart who will care for you like no other. The flip side of that is he is always pushing you to be your better self and, hon, that’s just a little much for me. Like can’t we just stay in and cuddle for once? I do NOT want to go to the gym again this week.

14. Arlinn Kord

Unlike Jaya, I don’t have mom vibes here. She’s a good looking lady who definitely seems to be here for a good time. 

13. Huatli

This one is totally an “it’s not you, it’s me situation.” She’s so big on community and sharing stories--I’m more of a homebody. There’s nothing wrong exactly, we just won’t be compatible, I don’t think. But somebody out there is, and the two of you will get along famously. Another list would totally rank her as marriage material.

12. Narset

This is another case of such dedication and perfectionism that I just don’t think I could measure up in a relationship with her. She’ll come home from exploring the multiverse and meditation and combat training and reading ancient scrolls to find all I’ve done is take out the trash and do some dishes before playing some games and... not be disappointed exactly, but it won’t inspire respect and desire in her. Another one where there’s incredible potential there... for the right person.

11. Kasmina

Mysterious as she is, I’m getting young Jaya vibes from Kasmina. Not as in, when Jaya was actually young and all fiery temper and stuff. But rather, current Jaya without the creepy (to me) mom vibes. There’s potential here but so much mystery it’s impossible to say for sure without taking a chance.

10. Nahiri

I can’t imagine anyone I’d have a better single date with. Like a real good time. She’s planned it out perfectly and she’s ready to go. It might not last, but you’ll enjoy it while it does. Keep the lines of communication clear, respect boundaries, and be aware she can hold a grudge, and I think this actually has a chance.

9-1 Marriage Material

9. Jace Beleren

He’s sort of what I see Yanggu or Teyo needing. He’s done that growing and learning and he’s a pretty solid guy. He’s learned a lot of lessons the hard way but he’s definitely better for it.

8. Tamiyo

She’s literally married and raising kids in a happy home. The potential is there (if we ignore her canon marriage and assume she is available to date), not to mention her chosen career of essentially multiverse astronomer is pretty damn cool and relatively safe compared to what these other planeswalkers have devoted themselves to. (Sure, there’s Innistrad and Emrakul, but I imagine most planes’ moons are much safer to observe than that.)

7. Sarkhan Vol

Like Jace, he’s worked through a lot and is a pretty awesome person because of it. Unlike Jace, he’s been attractive the whole time. He’s tender and vibrant and aware and just cool as all hell. Bringing him home would be like dating Brendan Frasier in his prime.

6. Vraska

Downside to Vraska is that she’s pretty clique-ish and suspect of anyone from outside her group. Her views have expanded recently, but I think she’s still going to put up a rock hard exterior. If you can chisel your way through that then you’ve got a heart of gold.

5. Davriel Cane

Forget the demon contracts and all that nonsense. What this guy wants deep down is to just be left alone. Let’s retire to a nice estate on the countryside and enjoy our time together.

4. Saheeli Rai

Creative and inspiring, Saheeli is an absolute sweetheart. And she’s dedicated to a craft that she can do at home. She doesn’t have go trooping about the multiverse on dangerous missions without you. She can work on amazing marvels in her workshop then come next door to take you out for ice cream.

3. Nissa Revane

Nissa is a bit aloof and distant, but don’t let that fool you. She’s nurturing in every way you could want and then some. She’s great if you can get past that stoic exterior.

2. Ral Zarek

Ral’s more romantic than I ever woulda thought. He’s dedicated and thoughtful, but not so stuffy that things get boring. Actually the biggest detractor here is that things will never be boring with Ral, but he’ll make it worth your while to stick beside him through it all.

1. Chandra Nalaar

Full of warmth and passion, Chandra’s got what it takes to make the strongest connection. And she’s another character who has made some incredible personal growth recently. She’s ready to take the next step with someone special and if that were you, the two of you are in for a long-burning love.

[amoebo-id]

a o t d !!!

no more than 1 release per artist to keep it interesting. selection and ranking is arbitrary and would prob be wildly different if i did this tomorrow. also i only went down to #42 cause everything after that didn’t feel like real aotd status - at least as far as the specific relationships i built over the past 10 yrs with the music i was listening to

#1 laurel halo quarantine

nobody did machine-body dialectic like laurel halo in 2012. i loved everything else from her this decade too but every time i listened to Carcass it made me leave my body physically. absolutely unreal album art too

https://laurelhalo.bandcamp.com/track/carcass-2

#2 e+e the light that you gave me to see you

2012 was a good year. pop/ambient/noise/radio-dj-tag sound collage ascended to spiritual intensity. makes you feel like a child experiencing awe. also fire-gut used to have probably my favorite music video ever but i think it’s gone now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p-SSuwW9cw

#3 ilovemakonnen 5

not to be confused with Drink More Water 5, this one’s from 2010 during his mostly-forgotten diy outsider-pop phase. off-key singing and amateur beats and the sheer absolute joy of making cool songs. all 5 are perfect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORKpg_-z0Mk

#4 macintosh plus floral shoppe

would’ve made top 10 on album art alone. music, aesthetics, and cultural impact are inseparable here but going back to the album reminded me just how engaging its 2010s-updated chopped-and-screwed sound is, musically not just conceptually

https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/track/420

#5 jason lescalleet this is what i do 17

hard to pick a favorite from jason lescalleet’s semi-monthly document of his electroacoustic / field recording / tape loop practice but i’ve cried to multiple tracks on tiwid 17 so it gets the nod. couldn’t find any of them online so here’s something else of his

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t33x8OOm68E

#6 barrio sur बड़ा शोक (heart break)

dedekind cut guy’s weird one-off side project ended up being my favorite thing to come out of the last few years’ obsession w cowboy/western/country music/aesthetics. pure mystery

https://soundcloud.com/user-366783613/redemption-7inch

#7 cities aviv come to life

i think maybe people thought cities aviv was just another no-flow pseudo-”conscious rap” type rapper in 2014 but actually this album is nuts. hyper-energetic vaporwave rap? what if death grips were happy? idk

https://citiesaviv.bandcamp.com/track/url-irl-2

#8 beach boys the smile sessions

this cool fresh 1960s rock myth arrived fully formed and way more fun than the other ones. brian wilson’s concepts and songwriting got so unwieldy we had to wait 50 years to hear the sessions. i don’t care about conversations about his genius or whatever these songs kick ass

https://oldmasterpainter.bandcamp.com/track/surfs-up

#9 mindspring memories & intl. debris international memories

did this really only come out in 2017? i feel like i’ve been listening to it since i was born. tangential lateral kind of wormhole out of vaporwave into two meditative spiritual infinite-feeling loops that perfectly complement each other

https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/sad-horizons

#10 nyege nyege tapes sounds of sisso

absolutely obnoxiously insanely high energy high pitch high bpm dance music. i can’t believe this isn’t what people mean when they say future bass. set me down the path of historical and contemporary non-”global north” ideas about dance/rhythm/bass which i’m still on

https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/track/mshamba-video-mster

#11 blithe field face always toward the sun

the most gorgeous implementation of the sorta-ambient guitar-looping vignette aesthetic. is this a real trope or did i listen to this album so much i convinced myself it was a thing? for me this is the sound of what its like to feel completely content with life and at ease in the moment

https://blithefield.bandcamp.com/track/zen-den

#12 anohni hopelessness

listening to this album and singing along while driving my car made me feel absolutely disgusting. unbelievable hooks, grossly hi fi sound design, and overblown drama add up to imo a scary effective type of explicitly political or ‘protest’ music

https://anohni.bandcamp.com/track/drone-bomb-me

#13 21 savage, offset, & metro boomin without warning

why is these 3 pop stars’ vaguely halloween-themed one-off collab my favorite trap album? 21 savage, offset, and metro boomin were all wildly corny in different ways but everything was perfectly balanced. i hope metro boomin makes like one seriously ambient album next decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWv-bR_X-VM&list=PLC1uUM4twa8i6zsD_Sn1LRUq4vhl_PLCx&index=11&t=0s

#14 laura les big summer jams 2018

‘crying in the club’ type bangers with no fear of ugliness and no fear of beauty and no fear of wildly unfashionable tropes like skrillex-y dubstep and guitar solos. so much input from other trans/queer artists it felt like a big t4t party

https://osno1.bandcamp.com/track/the-river-feat-scum-yung-skrrt-and-99jakes

#15 triad god nxb

the other triad god tape from 7 years later is just as good. what was this man doing in the intervening time? i just imagine him riding london public transit while it rains or something. i love knowing that most of his cantonese spoken-word/rap parts are insults and jokes rather than like, melancholy observations

https://soundcloud.com/hipposintanks/triad-god-remand

#16 dj koze knock knock

what if pop music sounded like this? somehow every song on here is wildly danceable, wildly sing-alongable, and also wildly detail-oriented. feels like a transmission from an alternate present where things are okay

https://djkoze.bandcamp.com/track/club-der-ewigkeiten

#17  ocora world of traditional music

box set of “world music” recordings from the label that french electronic composer pierre schaeffer started in the 1950s as a project to teach people in rural west africa how to dj. ethnography can be a fucked up idea but afaik ocora is one of the good ones and if you can sorta try to disengage from the tropes/cliches that get imposed on it, the music is phenomenal. hard to find a track specific to this box set but here’s another from the label

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJm8rn6gW5I

#18 oneohtrix point never replica

opn feels like an artist i’ve ‘grown out of’ i guess but samples never felt more alive or more dead than they did on replica. set a template for the kind of melancholy ‘soundscape’-y vibe that i spent years trying to find more of after

https://oneohtrixpointnever1.bandcamp.com/track/power-of-persuasion

#19 rihanna anti

the most perfect imaginable pop album. i keep trying to move it higher up. i almost put club chai vol 1 on this list purely cause of the Woo remix but then i remembered the original is better

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

#20 colleen a flame my love a frequency

colleen’s ultra deadpan singing and wriggly rhythmic synth put me in a trance. everything sounded dry as hell even though it was covered in reverb. i think maybe some people were put off by the corny song names and lyrics

https://colleencolleen.bandcamp.com/track/separating

#21 dj paypal drake edits

back when drake seemed like a sorta-shitty dude rather than seriously creepy, dj paypal used the power of footwork to expose both the melancholy-ambient modality and the serious-bass-music modality latent in his voice and beats

https://mallmusicinc.com/track/brand-new

#22 huerco s. for those of you who have never (and also those who have)

not really as ambient as it first seems imo, but rather like a really intense focus on what we mean when we describe things as ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’. i know it’s corny but i wanna say these tracks are fully both and fully neither

https://brianleeds.bandcamp.com/track/promises-of-fertility

#23 girls rituals reddishness

for a track so deliberately shitty-sounding I Know had no right to be so fucking danceable. persona and production synthesized into the only ‘singer-songwriter’ music i could really get into

https://temporaryenjoyment.bandcamp.com/track/i-know

#24 chromatics kill for love

fakeass 80s retro melancholia digitized and pushed so far past pastiche it turned into pure slime. the phone call in There’s A Light Out On The Horizon came straight from the void

https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

#25 actress ghettoville

the only genuinely post-apocalyptic music. specifically the postapocalypse in wall-e but if there was no wall-e to clean it up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcCPdfUFq6k

#26 playboi carti die lit

every beat on this album was reducible to a 4-second loop that perpetually demanded its own repetition and playboi carti somehow knew exactly what to do with them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2pjiKmhlAI

#27 charli xcx vroom vroom

the charli xcx that came after this was fun, but there was black hole levels of power compacted into when she said vroom vroom on Vroom Vroom

https://soundcloud.com/vroomvroomrecordings/charli-xcx-vroom-vroom

#28 pacific breeze: japanese city pop, aor & boogie 1976-1986

it’s kind of amazing to think that this compilation only exists because vaporwave aesthetics made ‘japanese grocery-store kitsch from the 80s’ a marketable thing in the us. anyway every single one of these is an absolute bop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl91bvEKj20

#29 young thug barter 6

i can’t get enough of listening to young thug’s voice. i’ve seen his rhythmic-melodic-textural sensibility described as virtuosic and i don’t know really if that term means anything but it feels right to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg9ZxQKSDuw

#30 magic eye babylon

smeared dreamy lo-fi guitar music w wistful buried melodies pushed to an extreme. every song sounded the same and i wish there was more than the one cassette

https://magiceye.bandcamp.com/track/flame

#31 tirzah devotion

you could say this was ‘stripped down’ r&b but i think more accurately what separated it was that every sound stood exactly and only for itself

https://tirzah.bandcamp.com/track/basic-need

#32 mount eerie clear moon

it’s amazing how well mount eerie navigated the move from a lo-fi sound/mode/affect to a hi-fi sound/mode/affect. clear moon wasn’t his first attempt but it was the one that most embodied the feeling of the new possilibities that had been opened up

https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-trees-pt-2

#33 kelela aquaphoria

this mix was such a good idea it immediately seemed shocking nobody else had tried afaik. and kelela executed it so well you forgot the tracks already existed in other contexts

https://soundcloud.com/kelelam/aquaphoria

#34 james ferraro skid row

not sure what it means that the only james ferraro i really love is also the one i think of as the least abstract/conceptual. his recited lyrics had a rare spoken-word-poetic power

https://breakworldrecords.bandcamp.com/track/to-live-and-die-in-la

#35 salyu x salyu s(o)un(d)beams

absolutely unbounded sense of joy and creativity and possibility hovering between bangers-lite and ‘soundscape’-y electronic manipulation

https://soundcloud.com/snouu/salyu-x-salyu-s-o-un-d-beams

#36 dj rashad just a taste vol 1

double cup got all the press but it was so smoothed-over it could never have done something as absurdly beautiful as Ghost or even Go Crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHPAbte9U

#37 yves tumor serpent music

i’m sorta put off by the high-gloss sheen of music like this but serpent music somehow had the right combination of total cohesion and a ridiculous density of impactful moments

https://soundcloud.com/pan_hq/yves-tumor-the-feeling-when-you-walk-away-pan-73?in=pan_hq/sets/yves-tumor-serpent-music-pan

#38 maral mahur club

lo-fi beat collage elevated to something that could actually genuinely be called world music

https://astralplanerecordings.bandcamp.com/track/avesta-khani-reggaeton

#39 lucki ecks watch my back

did not expect this super low-stakes sadboy trap to end up on this list but i love his min-effort flow and somehow every beat is exactly the vibe even when the tracks aren’t volume balanced

https://soundcloud.com/boob7/leave-wit-you-prod-plu2o-nash-clams-casino?in=boob7/sets/watch-my-back

#40 arca stretch 2

not sure why i get more out of arca’s nonsense broken-beat non-rap than any of her later projects

https://unonyc.bandcamp.com/track/tapped-in

#41 klein only

a new way to do fucked up noise w pop leanings. ‘audacitycore’

https://klein1997.bandcamp.com/track/pretty-black-2

#42 city arcadia

another mysterious transmission, this time w lots of harp

https://soundcloud.com/halcyon-veil/city-arcadia

[redsparrowfeather]

Prediction theories on Rwby volume 6 episode 13

Okay now I'm going to make a few predictions that I hope are not true and if they are true I'm really going to hate myself for this but I'm just going to go ahead and get off my mind.

Cinder and Neo will show up: now before anyone jumps on me and says that this Theory may not be true I really do feel like Cinder and Neo will actually show up. I don't really have any proof on why I think this but like I said it's just a prediction it may not be right.

Yang and Blake won't meet up with the rest of the team until the very end: I feel like Blake and yang will have an extra special moment for the next episode before they go to help the other team without knowing that there are Grimm in the city

Ruby will use her sliver eyes on the grimm: things aren't looking good for team RWBY and team JNR ,it doesn't look like they have any other choice than to use Ruby to defeat the Grimm causing her to become exhausted after all she used up all her semblance power

Qrow might die: Now this hurts my soul just even thinking about it and talking about it. I hate the idea that Qrow might actually die at the end of this volume but I feel like it might actually happen. There has been debate between who would die this volume weather would be Maria or would be Qrow but I feel like killing Maria off just as she started at the beginning of this volume would be a little too much from Rooster Teeth so it only leads to one other option Qrow. God is just hurts so much I want to cry just typing this out.

Cinder and Crow will kill each other: I feel like the only way that Qrow might die is by Cinders hand, it will either be from Crow trying to defend Ruby while she's exhausted or it'll be a last-minute decision where Qrow jumps in to take a hit for Ruby and in the process he ends up dying but before he does he ends up taking cinder out too.

Ozpin will come back: I feel like in the midst of all this happening with the Grimm coming and Grimmzilla near the shoreline I feel like this would be a perfect time for ozpin to show up since it's so close to the end of the volume ,this would be a chance for him to get out of mourning for himself and get back in the game.

No Atlas ball: As much as I'd love to see Blake and yang dancing in uniforms similar to Beauty and the Beast I feel like that Rooster Teeth jumping from the monsters attack on Argus to an atlas ball seems a little bit too much and as short as they've been making the episodes I feel like that would be kind of confusing for some people.

Blake and yang will tell Weiss what they saw on Adams face: If Blake and yang do meet up with Weiss by the end of this episode I want a little part where they actually tell Weiss what they saw on Adams face before they killed him and makes her realize that bad things have happened in her family. I may have talked about this before but I truly do want a character art for a Weiss I want to see that girl grow more then stay as a person that she is right now I feel like that Weiss will become better and stronger in the future I just hope Vol 7 provides that.

Rooster Teeth will end volume 6 in a cliffhanger: Now this is probably an obnoxious theory but I do feel like the end of this volume will actually give us a cliffhanger and make us wonder what's going to happen next for Team RWBY and everyone else.

And those are the theories that I have been thinking about a lot today. Most of them I hate thinking about others I hope Rooster Teeth will actually add at the end of this episode and/or next volume. I just really want to cry right now with the qrow Theory cuz it's kind of sad but I really don't want to think about it too much and I had to get it off my chest.

Now if youll excuse me im just gonna go cry in a corner now.

[ink-logging]

Hawking Vol. 1, Takao Saito & Saito Production, translator unknown: Long, long ago, LEED Publishing — the publishing affiliate of Golgo 13 creator Takao Saito’s studio; I believe it’s run by his nephew — produced a small grip of English translations for a tiny portion of their backstock, and they keep putting these same books up on every digital distribution platform that ever deals with manga. Now comiXology has them, so I gambled five bucks on a 400-page collection of mid-‘70s action comics. The lead character looks exactly like Golgo 13, but with slightly messier hair; he’s on death row in France for murdering 21 people on a quest for revenge, which, obviously, demonstrates the “determination and efficiency” that are hallmarks of the Japanese kamikaze spirit, so a shadow group of European defense experts buys him out of jail and makes him a special agent along the Trans-Europe Express. Then, immediately, the series turns into “Golgo 13” with a slightly more personable/obnoxious (and therefore 1,000% less fun) lead character and really perfunctory suspense plots. At one point he plants a bug on some IRA guys and tracks down their smuggled arms... and blows them up! The end! Or: he needs to stop some Germans from blowing up an airplane, so he asks the girlfriend of one of them where they are, and then they get captured, but then he kills the Germans with their own rocket, FIN. After a while, I started to wonder if this wasn’t all some kind of training program for young studio hands - it’s so similar to “Golgo 13”, but so stiff and off, like a recipe missing small, crucial ingredients. Or, did they think having scenes onboard trains in most storylines was a hook? Maybe the answers are in the other two volumes of this series, which aren’t translated, and probably won’t be.

-Jog

[freshberries]

lmao could you answer all the questions for that comfort character meme for david alleyne? pls

Of course! I love my baby a whole lot

1. how long have i known about them

I first read YA towards the end of 2016/beginning of 2017 so uhhh I’ll say 2 years? Since YA was the first comic I’ve ever read and he was in vol 2 obviously.

2. whether or not they’ve ever made me cry

out of joy. because he’s beautiful. and has a great heart. and i love him.

3. whether or not i have any merchandise/objects with them

I own comics from the new mutants series he originated from, and I have one of the arcs he’s a main character in

4. what about their personality i like

oh my GOD where do I start. So he’s like dorky but in an adorable way and genuinely SMART like despite his power he works really hard to learn things and he LOVES HIS FAMILY SO MUCH IM GONNA CRY. He’s over 6 foot and he acts like someone who is 6 foot would act except its not obnoxious. Like he CARES SO MUCH AND IS SO SELFLESS AND HAS THIS BEAUTIFULLY WARM ENERGY TO HIM LIKE HE SMILES AND WEARS SHORT SLEEVES AND MY HEART IS MELTING ugh god I’m embarrassing myself I’m gonna stop.

5. what about their backstory makes me emotional

He loves his family so much and he had a whole life planned out ahead of him and he like. Didn’t go to his dream college. And because of his power he felt constantly set back in his education and worked hard and studied until his power didn’t make a difference because he genuinely cares so deeply IM GONNA CRY AGAIN

6. the moment of theirs that made me the saddest

I think that moment he’s talking to patrinot and he just kinda realizes that he’s going to become patrinot and be a pawn to fate in order to ensure that Billy becomes a god and he just. Accepts it. Because Patrinot truly is the opposite of everything David really is and stands for, and to just take in stride this information is just so. David. And to know what will become of his goodness is just inherently heartbreaking.

7. the moment of theirs that made me the happiest

I think that moment in original sins where David admits he outsmarted everyone in a way that wasn’t harmful to anyone really so he could learn more on how to save people. It just was really great to see how smart David is and how instead of being a mad scientist stereotype, all of his deeds that require his brain just show his inherent goodness and desire to help others.

8. something about them that made me laugh

Sometimes he’s so cutely dorky about things he’s curious about it makes me laugh. Like in original sins when he was upset he couldn’t hang out on Noh Varr’s ship because he thought it was cool, my heart felt like it was gonna burst out of love.

9. my favorite canon outfit of theirs

HE LOOKS SO COMFORTABLE AND SOFT!!!! I LOVE HIM!!!

10. my favorite moment with them in canon

In all honestly? The panel where he says he’s bi. Everything around that scene is mostly garbage but like, the fact that he said the words “I’m bi” always gets me excited whenever i do a reread of ya. It also makes me think of all the moments since he realized he was bi before he said it out loud, where he was coming to terms with his sexuality and how he’s come to accept himself. It makes me really proud of him and how far he’s come.

11. my favorite relationship they have with another character

Okay we all know I’m the biggest thinkfast loser on the planet, like I don’t even think there are words to properly describe how much I love their dynamic, but his friendships with America and his fellow x kids.....are so valuable and basically they have rights.

12. what i like about the way the fandom portrays them

I like it when he’s snarky, or when he’s described as like, the only person with his shit together, cause like he doesn’t have his shit together but I’m sure he’d like people to think he’s not a lowkey mess.

13. what i dont like about the way the fandom portrays them

People that think David is some sort of predator for kissing Teddy.....I won’t even get into it it’s just obviously wrong and it gets me so angry

14. what i liked about the way canon portrayed them

I like that he has this good relationship with his little sister. Kim and David are such good siblings and we never get to see them interact anymore.

15. what i dont like about the way canon portrayed them

Okay listen: I’ll stand by the fact that David realistically would’ve never kissed Teddy because the only times David has ever gotten involved in relationship drama was when others started it and dragged him into it, but regardless of that, I genuinely do not think Teddy is David’s type, like Teddy is basically the opposite of Nori and you know what I have a problem with it. You gonna make David make a bad decision because you can’t write realistic drama then AT LEAST have it be with a character that he would typically LIKE. This isn’t the most important part of the whole David Teddy drama but you know what I’ve said everything else before I might as well say something new

comfort character ask meme

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 13/08/2022 (KSI/Tom Grennan, Joel Corry/Becky Hill, DJ Khaled/Drake/Lil Baby)

It’s the sixth week at #1 for “Afraid to Feel” by LF SYSTEM, but we have a semi-busy week elsewhere on the chart so welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start with the notable dropouts – songs exiting the UK Top 75 – which is what I cover – after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, that includes “The 30th” by Billie Eilish, “Master of Puppets” by Metallica, “Mixed Emotions” by Chase & Status, “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” by Harry Styles, “Something to Someone” by Dermot Kennedy, “First Class” by Jack Harlow and finally, “Baby” by Aitch and Ashanti. There are some notable losses here, which is a given considering the debuts, but I can’t say I have strong opinions on most of them so I welcome the new wave of hits that should come over the Autumn.

In terms of notable gains and returns, we have “KU LO SA – A COLORS SHOW” by Oxlade returning to a new peak of #72 as well as a really minimal tray of gains for “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran of all songs at #50, “Under the Influence” by Chris Brown at #38 – yikes, “Ferrari” by James Hype and Miggy Dela Rosa at #17, “Stay with Me” by Calvin Harris, Justin Timberlake, Halsey and Pharrell Williams at #13 thanks to the album, and two new entries within the top 10, at least those that were already on the chart. Sure, “Late Night Talking” by Harry Styles returning to the top 10 at #8 could have been expected, but it did surprise me to see that “B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)” by Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal is seeing a lot of streaming success at #10, especially for two practically unknown artists and a five-minute song. The radio edit might be helping, but it’s impressive regardless.

There won’t be an Off the Charts section this week because, well, nothing released in the past week that I cared about besides YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Calvin Harris (who impacted the chart this week), so Youthful Male Unlikely to Return to Poverty will be covered next week in what will probably be a really rap-focal set of projects now that I think about it. This week’s UK Singles Chart top five consists of “Doja” by Central Cee at #5, “Not Over Yet” by KSI featuring Tom Grennan debuting at #4 (we’ll get to it), “Green Green Grass” by George Ezra at #3, “BREAK MY SOUL” by Beyoncé at #2 and of course, “Afraid to Feel” at the very top. Now to get straight into the new arrivals, I suppose...

NEW ARRIVALS

#71 – “Obsessed” – Calvin Harris, Charlie Puth and Shenseea

Produced by Calvin Harris

I think it’s pretty telling that on the week of album release, “Potion” with Dua Lipa and Young Thug fell to #68. Sure, you can blame ACR but I don’t think it can be defined that Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 hit with so much lesser of an impact than the first instalment and sadly, I think I can partially chalk it up to the album being a lot worse. Sure, it has its moments like the relaxing “Day One” with Pharrell Williams and Pusha T, and my favourite track, the string-inflected bop that is “New to You” with Normani, Tinashe and Offset but they are few and far between. In an attempt to make music that was languid and calming, Harris made some of the stodgiest, mishandled attempts at the funk or disco pop sound in recent years, with mixing that functions as a distraction to whatever “chill vibe” it’s trying to convey. Since the charts love me and my opinions, we see what is my personal least favourite track on the entire album charting, with a thin disco groove that feels copy-and-pasted from any one of the other tracks on the album, punctuated by flat percussion and sound effects that desperately cling onto any interest I could have in what really is a rote, generic track. Charlie Puth here is demanding his love interest is clingy, and since Puth often plays the douchebag, it would work for him if he either had more input onto the production to at least make this sound a bit less stiff, or he didn’t have to sing the obnoxious chorus melody which a really odd, unflattering vocal tone and a lethargic delivery. Shenseea is here to mostly brag and distract from the actual narrative or topic of the song and it’s not a terrible verse but definitely feels tacked-on, especially being the first verse so not much is developed in terms of an actual song structure from the get-go. Puth spends most of his time on the track in this awkward, pitch-shifted lower register that sounds really out of his comfort zone, and doesn’t exactly make his absurdly desperate lyrics any more charming. I don’t mind either Puth or Shenseea in general, and it’s not like they’re doing much to help their case, but they did deserve better than this, and really, we deserved better from Calvin Harris as a whole on this album, because it’s a mess.

#63 – “Matilda” – Harry Styles

Produced by Tyler Johnson and Kid Harpoon

We have a decently-sized amount of new arrivals but it is really a bit of a random assortment of tracks. Sometimes these episodes will inadvertently have genres or themes attached because of what ends up charting but there’s not really a recurring theme for whatever we have on our plates this week. This is the Harry Styles track that kicked out “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” as the third best-performing and I’m pretty glad because this is pretty much the only song I liked off of that album. In comparison to the rest of the album, Harry’s songwriting is less condescending as he respects the boundaries of this woman who has had a rough upbringing at home and would indeed find it a release to “throw a party” with people that she actually cares about rather than her family. I understand the appeal, because, well, teenage girls want to hear their scrunkly say that their family who they hate doesn’t actually matter in the long run, but it does hit on a broader note with Styles’ mostly acoustic accompaniment as he reassures that “home is where the heart is” mentality that actually does ring true and kind of resonates for me, so, yeah, it works. It’s simple, kind of basic and definitely doesn’t have the gripping moments that I’d usually like a ballad to have but for what it is, I can see it lasting.

#53 – “Bad Decisions” – benny blanco, BTS and Snoop Dogg

Produced by benny blanco, Blake Slatkin and Cashmere Cat

...Huh? Well, it’s slightly less surprising if you know some more of what these artists have been doing the past decade. The producer benny blanco has been spending the 2010s writing and producing pop smashes for everyone under the Sun, especially with his right-hand Norwegian Cashmere Cat, BTS have never shied away from either Western producers or hip hop, as they have rappers in the group and have opened their arms to guests like Nicki Minaj, Desiigner and Juice WRLD in the past. The most surprising here would be Snoop and, besides the fact that he’d do a feature for anybody, he’s also no stranger to K-pop, collaborating with PSY on 2014’s “Hangover” and appearing with MONSTA X on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run soundtrack. Expectedly, the song is entirely in English, which has never been BTS’ comfort zone, and it goes for the typically inoffensive stodgy disco-funk we got from “Dynamite” and “Butter”. The BTS members get to trade vocals, especially on the verses, and some of the harmonies are nice, but it’s clearly not written for four vocalists, especially with those awkward post-chorus flourishes. Snoop doesn’t rap at all really here, going instead for a staccato, manipulated singing flow alongside borderline comical ad-libs. I don’t think BTS are convincingly sexy – and really neither is Snoop nowadays – and I think it doesn’t play nearly into the goofiness that this song could have easily lent into to work. As is, it’s just a bore, and another example of the BTS mismanagement when it comes to the songwriters and producers who are trying to help their chances in English-speaking territories. This sound just isn’t really a natural fit for them.

#46 – “Happiness” – The 1975

Produced by Matthew Healy, George Daniel and Jack Antonoff

Okay, so unlike the lead single, Matthew Healy plays it safe in the lyrical department here. He probably included all the buzz words as a “satirical social experiment” or something else false and pretentious, just so you could buy into the idea that they’re a really deep band and therefore care about this single, which is pretty generic and accessible with very little attempt at Healy’s sarcastic, unlikeable social messaging. If you think I’m complaining, that’s just because it’s The 1975 and I will complain about this band for as long as possible when really, it’s for the better. Generic love songs are this band’s only way to make me care for them, so when they put out a song where Healy is just head over heels for some girl, I can kind of respect it more than the rest of the garbage they put out. It’s also a pretty good song, albeit kind of a weird one as the disco groove finds itself plastered in chopped-up vocal fragments during the intro that create a really sampledelia-esque atmosphere against the saxophone that sounds really unique to hear on the pop charts at least. The song is essentially Healy being desperate for the attention and love of this woman, who’s so “insatiable” that it gives him a false sense of confidence. The angle of framing is a tad icky when he starts to tell her to “grow up” on the chorus but I can write that off as an ad-lib considering how improvisational the song feels, with Healy’s meandering melodies and repetitious platitudes, the lack of focus on the “chorus” and the awkward drum fills before the first of its maddening refrains. With that said, it’s an incredibly layered song but doesn’t lose the freer element of its improvisation, with loops that probably shouldn’t work, random interview chatter and the several abrupt sax solos that just kind of get cut off or trail into nowhere after coming in so explosively. It’s far from perfect, but also far from conventional, and I can respect that. Good song.

#31 – “Hold This” – HStikkytokky and J Fado

Produced by DMC Beats

Now what in the fresh Hell is this? As far as I can tell, these guys are TikTok personalities and this song kind of went viral using the unfittingly tense strings and blocky house beat, as well as these two guys trying to rap. Now, I can’t say this beat is awful or anything, but I feel like someone with actual personality would make it sound much better, since both HStikkytokky and J Fado embarrass themselves trying to sound either collected or menacing by being absolute robots, devoid of any charisma as they flex about getting girls or whatever, and really, who is this for? Tom Zanetti fans? Do they exist? This is just a waste of time and given this is charting thanks to virality, I doubt it lasts but knowing how again, the charts loves me and my opinions, this’ll get a Bad Boy Chiller Crew remix and be #1 by September.

#27 – “Can’t Be Us” – Headie One, Abra Cadabra and Bandokay

Produced by M1OnTheBeat, Ari Beats, Jakik and CD.mp3

Headie One’s probably one of my favourites from the UK drill scene, but he has been inconsistent so I’m glad that this (mostly) works. The childish sample is nothing new and may be a bit too tense and horror-sounding for a song that’s mostly just flexing, but it’s pretty watered-down by the time the tighter drill percussion and booming 808s hit, which end up sounding muddy since it and the kick don’t really mesh... it works for me, though, it adds a good amount of grit to a song that’s otherwise a tad more chill in comparison to other drill tracks. Headie sounds really effortless in a great way with his rambling flow, with some pretty decent rhyme schemes and tight couplets in his verse, as well as a catchy hook. Where I’d prefer this to go is that the percussion drops out and the intensity rises as Headie delivers a vicious second verse: that’s where these more on-edge instead of overtly violent drill – or even trap – tracks should pretty much always go in my opinion... but instead we get lacklustre features from Abra Cadabra and Bandokay. I like Cadabra’s smokier vocal tone, but his flow just isn’t nearly as smooth as Headie and his awkward, half-mumbled attempt at Auto-Tuned crooning sounds terribly awkward in the middle of his verse. Bandokay starts his verse by saying that he feels like Kodak Black, so I basically automatically lose interest and think about what could have been with either no features or rappers that could have really killed this. It’s begging for a remix, but as is, it’s still okay.

#21 – “STAYING ALIVE” – DJ Khaled featuring Drake and Lil Baby

Produced by Nyan and Tim Suby

The video for this song is needlessly extravagant, almost 10 minutes long and plays out as this cringeworthy medical drama parody that looks like it costs a hell of a lot more than this song did to make. DJ Khaled blew the budget on three things: the video, Drake and the Bee Gees interpolation of all things because, yes, for whatever reason, Drake sings “Stayin’ Alive” on the second half of the chorus for no reason, tangentially relating it to how he overcomes haters. The vocal mixing for both Drake and Baby is inconsistent and just sharply bad most of the time, and it sounds really damn cheap over this screechy lead melody and terribly mastered bass. I don’t know how much money DJ Khaled, Drake and Lil Baby have access to but it sounds like they paid someone to make this sound as terribly as possible. Drake says nothing as usual, Lil Baby flexes and tries to make “pushing P” a thing as if that worked out well for Gunna, and DJ Khaled quite literally does nothing but yell a couple sentences at the start. This is just a pathetic song, why it exists and can be called “finished” let alone why it was released as a single baffles me. Was splurging out for the Bee Gees sample worth it, Khaled?

#20 – “HISTORY” – Joel Corry and Becky Hill

Produced by Joel Corry and New Levels

Now it’s easy to say that we’ve been here before, and that this will be yet another vaguely 90s house song that sticks around for way too long and is complete radio filler with little to no unique flavour in the sound design and a vocal performance devoid of personality, manufactured to just pop out a single that vaguely goes in a club or in the car. All of that is true, but I actually kind of like this song. Lyrically, it’s nothing special and I’m not sure if I like the sentiment of sticking with someone despite an obviously toxic relationship, but I can get why someone would feel this way and it’s sold with a striking conviction that actually kind of works for me. Hill has a bit more rasp here, with a kind of unexpected F-bomb, and whilst the build-up is pretty rote, I really like the drop which feels a bit more staccato in its stabs of synth. The rising intensity of the strings in the pre-chorus is pretty well done, feeling like a really grandiose swoop, and the drop for once isn’t some bassy anti-climactic garbage, so I can appreciate this a lot more than Corry’s other productions. Maybe with the pitch-shifted vocals on the post-chorus and stabbing, obnoxious synthwork, it’s just that little bit closer to being future bass, which is basically how I end up registering if I like EDM-pop or not. That’s awfully shallow, sure, but as is the song itself so I don’t really have many complaints here.

#4 – “Not Over Yet” – KSI featuring Tom Grennan

Produced by Billen Ted and Digital Farm Animals

So I’m pretty sure this song exists primarily to promote a boxing match, which is pretty inseparable from the song considering that it’s in the cover art. Regardless, the song sounds just like a promotional bonus anyway, and whilst KSI is getting to be a better singer, his vocal production that showers him in Auto-Tune and awkwardly-placed vocal layers and harmonies with Grennan on the chorus whilst leaving him unnecessarily dry on the verses is really not doing him any wonders. Sure, there’s a drum and bass beat but it’s not like it hits with any real intensity and the warping, fuzzy bass that comes with this kind of breakbeat track just feels completely misused, considering that there aren’t any stakes to this song to begin with. I really wish this was a rock song, to be completely honest, because it would at least add some raucous grit to this painless melodrama and maybe up the stakes enough, but in a breakup anthem with no second side of the story that isn’t just vague platitudes from either singer and a “Wonderwall”-ass outro, what stakes are there to be made? It’s just a flaccid, trend-hopping pop tune that’s this high because of sales, and I can only hope it doesn’t last, even if really it’s basically inoffensive.

Conclusion

This was a pretty odd few songs but I’m going to be incredibly out of character and give my two least favourite white boys the throne here. Best of the Week goes to “Happiness” by The 1975 and “Matilda” by Harry Styles gets the Honourable Mention. Worst of the Week is absolutely going to Calvin Harris, Charlie Puth and Shenseea for “Obsessed” though HStikkytokky and J Fado in whatever the Hell “Hold This” is aren’t trailing far behind with the Dishonourable Mention. I don’t know how much of this will last, given that I can expect some quieter weeks still, but for now, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week!

[uwmadarchives]

Black Activism, White Historian

As I enter the beginnings of my research, I’ve been trying to orient myself to the student climate of the 1960s and 1970s. I’ve started reading Cronon and Jenkins’ “The University of Wisconsin, A History: 1945 - 1971″ which gives a clear and student-oriented overview of many protests and movements occurring at UW-Madison, with an eye towards the administration’s end of things. I found myself looking up the footnoted articles in the Daily Cardinal and Badger Herald newspaper collections and paging through the days in 1969, slowly getting my feet grounded in a decade fifty years back. 

It’s easy to get caught up in the advertisements (“The Community Co-Op: Free Kool-Aid! Friendly cheerful atmosphere // a living room, even”) and exciting to see the kinds of events on a daily basis. It seems that almost every day there’s another protest or action or organized meeting being publicized through the increasingly-leftist Daily Cardinal, which seemed to play a major role in organizing and supporting events like a Wisconsin Student Association “disorientation” symposium for Freshman (with 1400 first-years attending) and providing information about the Unionization of the student body through op-eds and investigative reporting.

Alongside Anti-Vietnam activism, vehement protests of campus ROTC, and actions for greater student control over academic departments arose the Black Student Strike, one of the largest actions of the era in which an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 students participated in marches and walkouts. The Black Strike was enormous, with the goals of creating a Black Studies Department with co-equal student voice, moving UW-Madison to admit three black students kicked out of UW-Oshkosh for “disorderly conduct”, among the “13 Demands”. The Wisconsin State Legislature even got involved in the backlash and passed a resolution calling for the expulsion of any student blocking access to a University Building (Sound familiar? Flashback to the police presence at the Gordon’s Dining Hall protest, ready to arrest students for blocking entrance into the facility, not to mention the related Regents’ new “[Anti-] Free Speech Policy”).

The activism of the Black Strike was extremely effective and wide-scale, and demonstrates scores of lessons for today’s young organizers. Which brings me to a personal question: What does it mean for me as a young, white historian to be studying this black and brown history? And for what end?

In high school, I was blessed with incredible, compassionate, and radical black educators who did the labor of teaching me about American racism, the pervasive force of whiteness, institutions of oppression, and collective liberation. These educators instilled in me the understanding that it is my obligation as a white American to leverage my privileges in order to dismantle white supremacy -- by uplifting voices of marginalized communities, by actively denying complicity in perpetuation of harm, and recognizing when I should speak and when I should listen. This has created in me a reverence for the brilliance of Black organizing and philosophy of struggle, especially as a young trans and Jewish person who often looks to those narratives for guidance in my own organizing. Black trans women throwing bricks at cops are the reason I can exist today. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy once told me that in trans memory, we are all “like champagne glasses,” cascading from one generation to the next. So how do I honor their work and legacy?

Now, in this privileged position of Historian in Residence, with remarkable access to all sorts of stories told/heard and told/unheard, I feel that I’m in a dilemma. I’ve entered into a too-long tradition of white historians curating what should be collective history. I feel that my project in the archives must embody an effort to use the archives for the purpose of reparations.* But as a white person, I cannot do this alone. Engaging with this material without questioning my place in it creates many risks: the artifacts I find may mean one thing to me but something else entirely to the communities who created them. I risk engagement purely for selfish purposes of learning, not for the purpose of restorative justice. I risk excluding the same voices I want to learn from -- and if that’s not exploitation, I don’t know what is. Even with vigilance, my whiteness will harm the work in ways I may not be conscious of.

So this leads me to questions of action. Should I just avoid the risk of doing more racist history and focus on activism regarding less “explicitly racial” issues? That would be lazy and ridiculous. Intersectionally speaking, there’s no such thing -- Vietnam-era activism was so bound up in racial politics there is no separation of the two. 

While I want to do race-critical research, I think I need to be hyper-aware of my own limitations. I resolve to bring others into this research, especially my peers and co-organizers of color. There must be Black, Latinx, APIDA, Native student perspectives in this work. But since they’re not being compensated for that labor, it’s important I take on a research topic that doesn’t require their constant presence or tokenization -- rather, demands me to reach out and act as a bridge (share power), while examining materials within my own realm of knowledge and identities in a meaningful way. Hopefully I can work with the archives’ staff to find some way to make sure my peers’ efforts are mutually beneficial. My process of research must also include a constant personal reflection on my own identities, especially my whiteness here in the historically-white space of the archives. 

This might mean a project about collaboration between student activist communities in the late 1960s & early 1970s. There’s plenty to share in those materials, especially since there’s (literally) something for everyone. I’d love to give my peers a chance to see themselves in campus history -- or open myself up to rebuke about how they don’t see themselves in campus history, and that it’s obnoxious to assume they should.

Memory is a collaborative process. I hope this project can be something that actively brings present day students together to discuss and understand the history of this place, what it means for us, and how it can help liberate us going forward. That means I have to get over my white fragility, leverage my power in the archives, and bring more voices to table. Maybe we’ll even have a potluck.

-- Rena Yehuda Newman (They/Them)

#UWStudentHistory

*Anna Robinson-Sweet, “Truth and Reconciliation: Archivists as Reparations Activists” The American Archivist Vol. 81 (Spring/Summer 2018). 23-37.

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 8/26/21

Captivated, By You | By Yama Wayama | Yen Press – A collection of short stories that originally ran in the magazine Comic Beam, they all take place around the same school and feature some of the same cast intermingling with each other, but each can also be read as a standalone. This is not a BL title, but I’d say it’s BL-adjacent, and there are several relationships that you could see going that way. My favorites included a social media relationship done via cut-out “kidnapper” letters, a man trying to reinvent himself in high school… as the creepy dude everyone avoids, and a bullied kid trying to get petty revenge on his bully but being unable to because he’s too decent a person at heart. The stories vary in quality, but the collection overall is very nice. – Sean Gaffney

Days on Fes, Vol. 2 | By Kanato Oka | Yen Press This continues to hit at what it does best, showing off how awesome it can be to go to a music festival. You can hear things you’d never even knew existed, and you might even run into the singer of your favorite band incognito inside the crowd. Will romantic sparks fly?? Well, probably not, because honestly our two girls seem to be really into each other—as with Captivated, By You, this is not yuri or BL but it is yuri and BL-adjacent, as each pair of leads makes an awesome couple but isn’t actually one. If there’s one complaint it’s that so far this is almost entirely on the fan side of things. There’s a suggestion that might change, as we do get a few pages of one band, but I’d like to see more actual music—and more struggles. -Sean Gaffney

Happy Kanako’s Killer Life, Vol. 1 | By Toshiya Wakabayashi | Seven Seas – This is a black, black comedy, and if you find the idea of a happy-go-lucky girl killing people appalling, best to skip it. That said, if you do like black comedy, it’s wonderful. Kanako is an OL who just quit her job and finds that the new one she answered the ad for… is a hit man. Her first target… is her old boss. And she’s really good at killing people. Plus, it’s got great pay, and you get to go out and have meat and alcohol afterwards. Oh yes, and the book is filled with weird animal puns—and the animals appear behind Kanako as she says them, so the translation must have been FUN. This isn’t for everyone, but it’s gleefully silly and dark as hell, as you watch Kanako sink further and further to the dark side. – Sean Gaffney

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 20 | By Aka Akasaka | Viz Media – It’s Valentine’s Day, and as you can imagine that means different things to different people in this book. We also find out that Maki is actually one of the most respected students on campus… it’s just we’ve only ever seen her reflected through her hilarious unrequited love, so we don’t get it (and neither do the main cast). Also, exam results are out, which means that Ishigami gets to show off the results of Kaguya’s tutoring… and Shirogane, who’s dropped to twelfth because he’s narrowing his focus to studying English for Stanford. Believe me, there’s still plenty of silliness, mostly from Fujiwara, but the characters are beginning to grow up and throw off the shackles of the past… or have it done for them. – Sean Gaffney

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 14 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – Sometimes this series has a long-running arc, and sometimes it just coasts along on pure cute. This volume is one of the latter, and it is very, very cute indeed, which is the main reason people are reading the title, but does make things a bit difficult to pick out to review. Komi and Tadano remain the best couple who aren’t one, and everyone can see it. Manbagi is also clearly very much in denial about her own crush on Tadano, and I anticipate the next arc will be dealing with that. Najimi remains obnoxious but fun, Yamai remains obnoxious and not fun. If you’ve enjoyed other volumes, this is an obvious one to get. And it sure is cute, isn’t it? – Sean Gaffney

Medalist, Vols. 1-2 | By Tsurumaikada | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Even if the story in this series weren’t great, I’d likely still be recommending it solely based on the art, which is frequently stunning, and has beautifully characterized expressions. Fortunately, the story is also excellent. A former ice dancer who was never quite able to go pro discovers a young girl who is trying desperately, despite her mother’s misgivings, to be an Olympic figure skater. Like a lot of lead girls in this sort of series, she’s not got a lot of knowledge but has a great deal of raw talent and iron will. Together, the two of them try to pull each other out of the depression they were in. The girl being eight years old means there’s a lack of mentor-mentee romance you might get if she were a teen. This is just sweet. – Sean Gaffney

Night Bus | By Zuo Ma | Drawn & Quarterly – Finding independent Chinese comics translated into English is something of a rarity, so I was very excited to see that Zuo Ma’s Night Bus was being released. I had previously encountered Zuo Ma’s work in the underground Chinese comic anthology Naked Body published by Paradise Systems. Drawn & Quarterly’s edition of Night Bus, translated and with ending notes by Orion Martin (founder of Paradise Systems), actually gathers stories from two of Zuo Ma’s books: Walk, a collection of ten short works, and an updated and expanded version of the long-form comic Night Bus. In these stories, Zuo Ma frequently incorporates semi-autobiography, fantastical dreamscapes, and the supernatural, working and reworking themes and ideas throughout the volume. Elements of reality and unreality are interwoven and fused in powerful, visceral ways, capturing intense emotions of anxiety and dread, but also evoking a sense of nostalgia. Night Bus is an unsettling, riveting, and compelling collection. – Ash Brown

Queen’s Quality, Vol. 12 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Viz Media – The series works best when it’s equating the stresses and paranoia of the inner mind with outer monsters to match. Sometimes, though, it’s just a bunch of fighting, and the monsters seem to be there just to be antagonists. Fortunately, there’s still our two leads, who remain the best thing about this series. Kyutaro is trying his best to retain his sense of self, and fortunately he has Fumi to help, who is happy to go all the way with him, although perhaps not with the snake inside him. They don’t, however, and Fumi ends up getting her best moments when she shows off what a vicious badass she’s become. That said, the danger of this series is it doesn’t come out often enough, so I forget the plot a lot. – Sean Gaffney

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, Vol. 13 | By Yu Tomofuji | Yen Press – The start of this volume is a lot of fun, as Sariphi ends up dealing with a tsundere female version of his highness, a woman who is said to have beast ancestry in her past and thus is accused of being evil. Given that this series tends to run on pure Fruits Basket, it’s no surprise that Sariphi is able to help with the pure power of shininess. All is not well back home, though, and it’s becoming pretty clear that endgame is going to be revealing the King’s other form as an excuse for executing him… and I would not be surprised if they blame Sariphi for it. This is still very good, and remains a wonderful reminder of the days when we always got piles of Hana to Yume manga like it. – Sean Gaffney

Sazan & Comet Girl | By Yuriko Akase | Seven Seas – Perhaps the most striking aspect of Sazan & Comet Girl is that the all of the artwork is in full color. Akase’s watercolor illustrations of planetary and interstellar backgrounds in particular are simply gorgeous. Story-wise, however, Sazan & Comet Girl isn’t particularly innovative, primarily revisiting and combining familiar tropes and character types of its genre. Even so, the volume is still great fun, coming across as a nostalgic, loving homage to older science fiction media. The entire series has been released as a single omnibus volume in English and doesn’t have obvious chapter breaks, so once the story gets going it just goes and keeps going, shifting from romantic comedy into action adventure before returning fully to its underlying love story. Sazan is goofball of a lead and Mina, the titular comet girl, is an endearing heroine—apart from the artwork, the manga is at its best when focusing on them. – Ash Brown

This Wonderful Season with You | By Atsuko Yusen | TOKYOPOP – Junpei Enoki is a bespectacled nerd who belongs to the electronic engineering club. Ryousuke Shirataki, a “normie” with a reputation for being cool and manly, is searching for something after an injury ruined his baseball prospects. After Shirataki joins the club, they get to know each other and, ultimately, fall in love. The tone is mostly comedic, with an art style that reminds me a bit of vintage shounen, and I really liked that some characters who seem like comic relief end up being important. I also loved how each boy has an unexpected side to him that the other sees immediately while others fail to notice. Shirataki appeared aloof, but he was actually suffering, and it’s so nice at the end to see him goofy and happy. I could’ve done without the final sex chapter, but aside from that, this was great. – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown

[auburnfamilynews]

Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

Hey, we finally got a huge weekend of impact games!

Whoa! Week three’s in the rearview mirror, and Auburn is 3-0 with a huge showdown at Texas A&M Saturday afternoon. HOWEVER, there’s a ton of other good college football including a top ten showdown in Athens. How do we think these games are going to turn out? Let’s see...

Michigan @ Wisconsin (-3) (O/U 43.5)

I can’t quite figure out Wisconsin. Consecutive shutouts are good, but that offense? Ugh. Then again, Michigan has had their own struggles this season. I really thought Army would pull off the upset. Wisconsin 24, Michigan 17 - Josh Dub

I saw Wisconsin buzzsaw through USF in the opener while the only Michigan game I’ve seen was them nearly losing at home to Army. In addition to the game being in Madison, I’m gonna take the Badgers to win and cover. Wisconsin 27 Michigan 14 - Will McLaughlin

This is a fascinating matchup. I know we all got a kick out of laughing at Michigan going into OT to beat Army but you have to remember Oklahoma did the same thing last season and went on to win the Big 12 & land a bid to the College Football Playoff. Granted, Oklahoma absolutely shredded Army’s defense when they got the ball but could not for the life of them get a stop and were forced into having only 8 possession all game scoring touchdowns on half of them. A little different than Michigan’s performance.

Wisconsin, on the other hand, has been dominant out the gate. All the fancy maths LOVE them some angry Badgers right now with Wisconsin ranked 7th by SP+, 10th by FPI and 10th by Sagarin. The Badgers, unsurprisingly, feature another dominant rushing attack lead by Heisman hopeful Jonathan Taylor. With this game also in Madison, you REALLY have to like the Badgers chances.

But this might be the most important game in the Jim Harbaugh era. While Michigan has not been bad under their former QB, they haven’t been championship calibre which was the expectation when hiring Harbaugh. They still can’t beat Ohio State and are something like 1-14 vs top 10 opponents. If the switch is to flip, it feels like maybe this is the weekend for it to happen.... Nah... Go Badgers. Wisconsin 31 Michigan 20 - AU Nerd

Talk about a one sided rivalry. Blue leads this series 51-15-1. This time should be one of the ones that goes to the Badger-Badger-Badger-Badgers. Shea Patterson really hasn’t panned out like the fans and Jim Harbaugh would like and I don’t see any reason how he figures things out in Camp Randall. Take the Badger and go with the over. Sconny 31-17 - Drew Mac

Man, can you imagine thinking Wisconsin was going to be favored in this game in the preseason? Wisconsin has been downright dominating through three games, winning their two games 110-0 so far. Michigan has been one of the best defenses in the country so far, but their offense behind Shea Patterson has been real bad. Like 74th in SP+ bad. My head says Michigan will pull this one out, but my heart says go with the Badgers to make Michigan an early favorite to finish #3 in the Big 10 East. Badgers it is, 20-7. - Ryan Sterritt

Wisconsin can run the ball and Michigan has identity issues with their offense and a madman for a head coach. These are the kinds of games we forget when we see Wisconsin in the B1G Championship game at the end of the season. Wisconsin 35 Michigan 17 - Josh Black

Oh yay, an early morning B1G snoozefest. I’m not going to dwell here too long. Cheese 27 - Khakis 17 - AU Chief

Something something real men something leadership something prestige. Sconny 30 Michigan 10 - Son of Crow

Wisconsin is about one standard deviation ahead of Standard Wisconsin so far, but that hasn’t been against anyone with a pulse. Michigan really hasn’t cut loose yet, but they’ve had a week to plan. I think this one stays close, and both teams lean on their defenses. I’ll take Wisconsin to cover, but not by much. Wisconsin 19, Michigan 14. (Wisconsin wins and covers, UNDER) - James Jones

‘Scuse me while I go spend a few hours in the library reorganizing the card catalog. Michigan’s the miserly old librarian shushing people, and Wisconsin’s the high school sophomore who thinks he’s cool because he brought McDonald’s with him to work on his school paper. Badgers cover easily, 31-10 - Jack Condon

Tennessee @ Florida (-14) (O/U 49)

Tennessee isn’t dead yet. I think they’re just good enough to test Florida and put some things on film for Auburn to use. Dan Mullen will survive…this week. Florida 28, Tennessee 20 - Josh Dub

This game always produces some weird games even though most end up in Florida wins. Florida moves on without Feleipe Franks at QB and we’ll see who emerges at that position for the Gators. I would love for Tennessee to make this a game but I just don’t see it. Florida 27 Tennessee 10 - Will McLaughlin

Florida won in the most predictable of fashion vs Kentucky last weekend after being predictably outplayed for a good portion of that game. That series is just the same tragedy played out over and over made even more harmful by UK winning last year. Now Kat fans truly believe those games will go their way. You poor, said, obnoxious Elite 8 losers....

Anyway... I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s what I ate last night or my nerves for Auburn’s game this Saturday but there’s just this feeling that maybe Tennessee pulls the stunner. I mean it would be a very Dan Mullen thing to lose this game. But given the Gators disruptive OL, an offense that honestly looked better with Trask at QB and the general suckiness of the Vols, I don’t have the stones to pull the trigger. I do think Tennessee covers which they can kinda take as a win I guess? Florida 38 Tennessee 27 - AU Nerd

NOON KICK! Ugh! I love the people that say ‘Remember when this was a real matchup?’ No...I remember Spurrier beating Phil and Peyton around like rented mules but no...I don’t remember this being a matchup. Which brings us to this year! Florida has their backup QB who is better than Felipe Franks (sad that he got injured, but Trask is a better QB for this offense) and that doesn’t bode well for Tennessee. However, the Vols are better than their first week showing that 14 is a big number so I will take the Gators to win but will take the Vols and 14. Also, go under. Gatas 23-14 - Drew Mac

The trap has been set perfectly for this upset. Tennessee is in shambles, but maybe has a ray of hope after beating down an average FCS team. Florida, after stealing a come from behind win with their backup quarterback, is on the highest of highs right now. If only the Vols didn’t have Jeremy Pruitt, I might pick them in an upset here, but I can’t trust him to pull this one off. Florida is going to probably be down or tied at half time, but Gators win this with a few late scores 31-14. - Ryan Sterritt

Y’all are going to think I’m crazy but Tennessee didn’t just win last weekend, but showed that they’re still willing to get after it. Pruitt still has this team engaged and this is a game that could completely change the current narrative in Knoxville and I am so tempted to pick Tennessee. Florida’s front 7 on defense is why I’m not. Florida 27 Tennessee 13 - Josh Black

Hey, Tennessee finally go them one against he Mighty Moc’s of Chattanooga. Florida nearly blew it against Big Blue. They are apparently planning on running out both back-up QBs this week. That smells like a disaster, but who knows. Both these coaches can take a long walk off a short pier as far as I’m concerned but I guess I’ll go with the Hunchback of formerly of Starkville. Jorts 33 - People That Only Know One Song 17 - AU Chief

Hey I think Florida is gonna lose you guys. I mean, I don’t really, but I need to start picking against the grain because otherwise I’m not going to win. Tenn 21 Florida 20 - Son of Crow

SP+ does not know Franks is out and likes the Gators by 19. Do we really think Franks to Trask/Jones is a 5 point drop? I don’t. I also don’t think Tennessee figured anything out enough to go on the road and keep this one within two scores. Florida 34, Tennessee 17. (Florida wins and covers, OVER) - James Jones

Here’s Cam Newton clowning Tennessee while in a different shade of orange and blue. Glad we got him in the end. Vols are about to be 1-6. A new losing streak starts here. Gators 34-13 - Jack Condon

Notre Dame @ Georgia (-13.5) (O/U 56.5)

I am looking forward to this. Georgia is my least favorite team, by a very wide margin, but Notre Dame is my third or fourth least favorite team. I think Notre Dame will get exposed. This one will be over before halftime. Unfortunately, CBS threw all their eggs in one basket. Now we get to listen to Gary and Brad filibuster. Georgia 42, Notre Dame 14 - Josh Dub

Okay, this is where I know for darn sure I’m going out on an island. Look, Georgia is great but they have played Vanderbilt, Murray State and Arkansas State. No offense to those teams, Notre Dame is a much better football team than those 3 teams. While Georgia’s run game seems to be a huge advantage in this one, I just have a gut feeling that Notre Dame is going to rise to the occasion. Give me the Irish in a huge upset! Notre Dame 37 Georgia 34 - Will McLaughlin

Preseason I had this down as a loss. I just thought with the pieces needed to be replaced at WR, some question marks surrounding the Dawgs pass rush and UGA’s general ability to piss away golden opportunities that maybe the Fighting Irish would roll into town and pull the stunner.

But there’s one hitch in that plan. Notre Dame can’t stop the run...

Per Cole Cubelic the Irish have allowed 19 run plays of 10+ yards or more. They are one of 13 teams to do so. Those other 12 have played 3 games. ND has played 2...

You can beat the Dawgs if you can stop the rushing attack and pressure the QB. Not sure ND has those pieces. I think this turns into a romp with Kirby having circled this as his showcase game all summer. The Dawgs are bringing an enormous amount of elite prospects to campus, college gameday is in town and it’s UGA’s first opponent with a heartbeat. I expect a bludgeoning leading to more UGA hype and more 5* commits. Life is pain. UGA 42 ND 20 - AU Nerd

FINALLY! Georgia gets someone with a shot at actually scoring double digit points. The Irish have looked dominant in their 3 wins just as Georgia has, however the bookies don’t think this one will be close...and I agree sadly. Nothing would make me happier than seeing Georgia get run at home (especially if they put on those blood clot black jerseys) but it wont happen here. I think of ND as the Not Ready for Primetime Players of the college football world. Georgia proves me right because they hate me. Georgia and the Over. DAAAAWGS 45-20 - Drew Mac

I’ve never rooted harder for the Irish, including last year when UGA went to South Bend. After all of the shit they’ve talked in the last calendar year, Georgia deserves to get it handed to them at home, with Gameday in tow. They won’t, though. UGA is going to gash these poor Catholics on the ground, and even if the score is close, the game won’t be in doubt. 31-21 Georgia. Ugh. - Ryan Sterritt

Look y’all no one likes Notre Dame. But would I be willing to break out my old football jersey and helmet from playing days for the Briarwood Lions (look just like Notre Dame) for the sake of celebrating a Georgia loss at home? YOU BET I WOULD! Sadly this Georgia team is going to run through Notre Dame the same way Clemson did last season. Georgia 41 Notre Dame 17 - Josh Black

It’s hilarious to me that people are playing up this game like Notre Dame has a chance to win. Give me a break. Grown Men Barking 37 - Team That Won Their Last Title Less Than Thirty-nine Years Ago 24 - AU Chief

Guys I think Georgia might destroy this Notre dame team. I am shocked this line is so low. Maybe Vegas knows more than me, but maybe also Georgia just blows them out and you win money. Dwags 55 irish 4 - Son of Crow

Lol we get this at 13.5? It’s currently shooting up near 16 or 17. Fuck Georgia, but they’ll blast the Irish. Georgia 38, Notre Dame 16. (Georgia wins and covers, UNDER) - James Jones

Sadly, leprechauns aren’t real, and I think Georgia’s got their magic flute and armor to ward off spells. Bulldogs 45-23 - Jack Condon

Oklahoma State @ Texas (-5) (O/U 74)

Texas ain’t back, still. They’ll win, but they ain’t back. Texas 41, Oklahoma State 35 - Josh Dub

Well we learned 2 weeks ago that Texas wasn’t quite back yet. The Cowboys have won 4 straight in this series. Make it 5! Oklahoma State 41 Texas 35 - Will McLaughlin

In terms of most fun to watch, it’s hard to pick against this matchup. OKST features one of the best players in the country no one is talking about (or weren’t talking about) in Chubba Hubbard who I think was briefly an AU target. He’s been insane to start the season averaging 7.9 yards a carry and scoring 7 TDs. On the other side, Sam Ehlinger did all he could to go blow for blow with Joe Burrow but fell just a bit short. However, I think this time he gets it done in a wild but entertaining affair. Gotta go with the over. Texas 42 Oklahoma State 38 - AU Nerd

Sam Ehlinger has been an absolute beast this season, physically taking this Texas squad on his back and trying to drag them to victory. If it weren’t for getting Burrowed, they would have done it against LSU. Mean while Okie State has quietly been very efficient at gutting opponents offensively while having a not so terrible defense. This one will be fun, but Okie State has won the last 6 in the series and while the Horns have looked good, I still need them to win one of these game before I truly believe the hype. Okie State straight up and under. Cowboys 42-31 - Drew Mac

Time to hop back on the “Tom Herman can’t win as a favorite” train. SP+ even has this game as a pick’em, so yeah, give me the Cowboys to come in and pick off Texas for, let me check, THE EIGHTH TIME THIS DECADE. Pokes 40-34 in Overtime. - Ryan Sterritt

I think Texas is a legitimate top 10 level team this year and may end up splitting the OU games again because I believe they’ll play twice. Texas 48 OSU 38 - Josh Black

I like the Cowboys. Always have. I would love to see their superior color of orange roll into Austin and and show the world that, Texas is indeed not back. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Men of a Certain Age 35 - Town Full of Weirdos (And Keep It That Way) 34 - AU Chief

Okie State is a fun team to watch yet again. I genuinely believe in this Texas team, though. They torched a really good LSU secondary and won’t see ANYTHING like that again the rest of the season. Look at that O/U man, the big 12 is W I L D. I think Ehlinger is a good QB, and the Horns have weapons all over that offense. We are beginning to see Tom Herman’s stamp on this team, and I think Texas runs away with this win. UT 42 OKState 31 - Son of Crow

There’s an SEC angle to this one: is LSU really that good throwing the ball now, or is Texas just a standard Big 12 defense? Oklahoma State has looked good under new OC Sean Gleeson. I think they keep things close in an absolute barn burner. Texas 45, OK State 42. (Texas wins, OK St covers, OVER) - James Jones

Texas is strutting into DKR with the Ted Nugent t-shirt and the cigs rolled up tight in the sleeve. They got a job, workin’ for the city (workin’ men, huh?). Keep a little money in their pocket. Still thinkin’ about getting back in JC or somethin’ though. Horns in a fun one, 40-37 - Jack Condon

Cal @ Ole Miss (-2) (O/U 44)

Cal is sneaky good, folks. Maybe? Hard to say. All I know is Ole Miss is sneaky bad. Maybe not even sneaky bad, maybe just plain bad. Cal 27, Ole Miss 14 - Josh Dub

I was trying to figure out how in the world Cal became ranked in the Top 25? Well a win at Washington would certainly help matters but have been fairly unimpressive in wins over North Texas and UC Davis. This will be a 9AM kick Berkeley time but keeping with my theme of picking games this week, I’m picking the underdog straight up. Cal 24 Ole Miss 21 - Will McLaughlin

This will be a bizarre game. Cal seems to be trying to copy the Michigan State philosophy of playing smother defense but frustratingly bad offense only to beat you in the most hair pulling of ways. Of course, it also makes them VERY susceptible to being upset.

Ole Miss’s brief flirtation with great defense is over having surrendered 29 points to Southeastern Louisiana. But this game is basically a toss up per the math folks I trust. Given it’s at home and Cal’s penchant to not be consistent at all, I actually do think Matt Luke gets it done. It won’t be pretty and will have you questioning your sanity by the end of the game but the Rebels defense the SEC’s honor. Ole Miss 28 Cal 21 - AU Nerd

Wow....um....so Cal beat Washington and Ole Miss lost to Memphis and squeaked by Piggy....alright. Bears (the west coast ones) straight up and over. Cal 34-24 - Drew Mac

Ew, gross. Two top 20 defenses and two bottom 40 offenses. Exactly what everyone thought when this series was scheduled! I would say I expect Cal to win this one, but I’m not sure I can really trust them to 4-0 to start the season. Then again... the Pac 12 has to beat someone, right? Golden Bears over Black Bears, 20-18. - Ryan Sterritt

Ole Miss is catching 2 points because they’re at home. Ole Miss is a very bad football team. Cal 27 Ole Miss 21 - Josh Black

Both these teams may stink, but this is a matchup I might actually tune in to watch, just because it’s not one you see every day. Berkley and Ole Miss might be the two most contrasting places in this great nation of ours. It’s one of those things that reminds me what makes college football so fun. Unfortunately, the fun stops on the field. By virtue of it being a road game for Cal, and Ole Miss still being a school that recruits SEC talent to a a degree, I’m going with the that school up north. Admiral Akbars 24 - The Other California Bears 13 - AU Chief

This game seems super gross. Cal is good on one side of the ball: Defense. Ole Miss is good on 0 sides of the ball and is categorically terrible on defense. This game is the football equivalent of potty training. It’s going to go terribly, and even the successes won’t feel worth it at the time because of all the hours you’ve spent washing poop off your hands. Cal 15 Ole Miss 10 - Son of Crow

SP+ likes Ole Miss because the recruiting rankings aren’t totally fazed out. That, the weather (hot as all get out), and Cal’s body clock really has me leaning Ole Miss. HOWEVAH, I just can’t get past how terrible Ole Miss looked against Memphis, and Cal’s defensive line is legit. I think that unit carries them through in a low-scoring game. California 17, Ole Miss 10. (Cal wins and covers, UNDER) - James Jones

Ole Miss ain’t gonna be able to lie their way through this affair. Cal’s fairly salty, and I don’t think the Rebels have the guns. Yella Bears 28-9 - Jack Condon

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/9/19/20874938/staff-picks-college-football-week-4

[thelabyrinthoftime]

Six or seven weird “facts” about The Labyrinth of Time

I’ve had this subject kicking around in my head for a while. I thought about making a YouTube video out of it, but it seems sort of...

Brilliant! But pointless.

So I’ll dump it here, and yes, there will be spoilers:

1.) You don’t need your quarter(s) to win the game

The Labyrinth of Time is sometimes cruel to the player, or maybe the game itself wasn’t well thought out, but there are several things you can do in the game that will prohibit you from completing the game, but you won’t get a “GAME OVER” screen, or any other indication that you have to start over- you’ll be stuck, much like I was when I first played the game when I was 9 or 10, and I have to do a write up about that, later.

All your walk-throughs will tell you that you can fuck up the game by doing the following:

Head to the lower level of the Labyrinth without a lantern.

Get thrown in jail and not have a key to escape the cell

Use your quarters improperly

Number 3 is wrong. Technically.

In the original version of the game, released by Electronic Arts, you are given just one quarter. The “proper” way to use it is to first place the quarter into the pay phone across from the pay toilet. When you do this, 13 more quarters pop out. This allows you to use one quarter to open the door to the pay toilet and eventually find the solution to a tile puzzle that can be found earlier in the game. Another quarter is supposedly needed to use on the jukebox across the hall from the pay phone. Putting the quarter in causes a silver key to come out of the coin return, and this key is required to beat the game.

What makes the game “cruel” is that you encounter this jukebox right before the pay phone, and it can be tempting to put the quarter into the jukebox first. For the Wyrmkeep re-release, you start the game with two quarters, which I thought was kind of lame, but I kind of understand it.

HOWEVER, there is a glitch in the game that will allow you to take the key even though it’s not supposed to be “there” for the taking, and I’m surprised no one ever encountered it. NOT ONCE have I seen it discusses anywhere, and if you see something that talks about the quarters and the glitch, it’s probably something I made or wrote up.

In fact, you’ll probably also read that I was always under the impression that getting an unseen key from the jukebox was how the game was supposed to go. It certainly makes more sense that a key would be under or on top of the jukebox than inside the coin slot.

So that’s one quarter down.

Now for the tile puzzle. It never changes. Let’s see if I can recite it by memory:

7 2 9 10 1 11 5 13 8 15 14 12 3 4 6 [ ]

Once you have this written down or committed to memory, you never need to waste a quarter on the pay toilet ever again.

2.) You don’t need a helmet, either!

About a quarter (pun?) of the way into the game, you encounter a mountain road, which kind of reminds me of the windy mountain road at the beginning of The Shining, and there are bowling ball sized rocks tumbling from heaven. You can move forward to the next area, but it’s a one way trip. If you attempt to go back, the game will tell you that you decide your head is no match for those rocks.

Deeper into the Labyrinth, you can find a medieval helmet to wear, and the game will let you pass, saying “Good thing you wore head gear.”, which is sort of obnoxious because that helmet looks about as thick as tin foil, but this game is obnoxious, so it’s okay.

Alternatively, if you go through the game out of sequence- meaning you solved the tile puzzle before “you” had the solution, you can get access to a bunch of other things, including a pith helmet. That works as well.

Occasionally, I’d play this game and I’d get the “Good thing you wore head gear” message going through the mountain road the first time without having picked up, let alone used a helmet. The first time I got this glitch was the first time I played the Wyrmkeep version, and I thought there might have been a problem with the re-release, but it didn’t always happen, and then I worried that I scratched my game disc in such a way that this glitch appeared, but this happens in both versions, I later found out.

The glitch was being caused by what ALL the walk-throughs claimed was a useless item: The whiskey bottle, and I’m not entirely sure it was unintentional. Attempting to use the bottle will cause the game to tell you that you feel more cheerful, but less intelligent. It also allows you to pass through the mountain road as much as you’d like without a helmet, and the rocks never hit you.

It’s a little too on the nose for me to think it was purely an accident. It’s perfectly logical, at least as far as this game’s logic goes. Booze lowers your inhibitions, and it was those same inhibitions that prohibit you from backtracking without protection.

3.) There are (unused) museum entries for the alien belt and device with the three levers

I’m certain it’s the webmaster of the Obscuritory that dug around in the disc data and discovered some unused text for the museum. All the other exhibits have a little computer terminal next to them that will give you information about the artifact in question, but there are no terminals for those other objects. Still, text was created for these objects:

ALIEN BELT This unusual object was discovered floating in Earth orbit during construction of the Space Station.  Research into its past has proved inconclusive. New Worlds Development (a division of Terra Nova Development) acquired this exhibit after keeping it in the company's Lost and Found department for twelve years.

&

ALIEN CONSOLE The origins and purpose of this machine are completely unknown.  It was discovered during the early stages of terraforming at the NWD Mars project.  PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THIS DISPLAY.  We have no idea what it does when activated.

Source: The Cutting Room Floor

4.) Is there a significance to this teapot?

It would have been obscure enough of a fact to say “the paintings hanging up in Room 14 are pieces of computer art that the game’s artist did in the 1980s”, since this is an extremely obscure game, but I want to take it further, and this is where it stops being strictly about trivia facts, all the more reason I didn’t make a video out of this stuff.

The images in TLOT are made up of ray traced three dimensional objects. At one point, it’s very likely all the objects in the game were saved as 3D files which could be pulled up and looked at from any angle.

The teapot is another one of those objects that have no in-game purpose, but I’ve wondered if this could be one of the earliest 3D objects designed for the game. I’ve learned that when artists learn how to make 3D objects, one of the first objects they make is a teapot, largely because of all the shapes and contours and that these unusual surfaces have a way of throwing light around- that sort of stuff. A teapot can be seen in the first 3D fractal animation, “Vol Libre”, an animation that was so warmly received, the artist, Loren Carpenter, was immediately invited to work at what would eventually become Pixar. 

His groundbreaking animation technique was refined and used to create the still to this day mind blowing “Genesis Effect Demo Video” from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Some of the mountains in the background of some of the Labyrinth’s various scenes look a lot like the mountains in this video. I wonder if BWS used a similar technique to render them.

Edit: I’ve since learned these special teapots have a name: Utah Teapot

5.) There is (...was) an actual Doyle’s Bar and Grill

It’s a generic enough name that it had to be around somewhere. A google search says there’s such a place in Easton, MA, although it appears to have changed it’s name to “Tommy Doyle’s Pub and Grill”... yes, I just confirmed it now. Tommy Doyle bought the place from his brother Kenny and changed up the name about six years ago.

Source: https://patch.com/massachusetts/easton-ma/tommy-doyle-s-expands-restaurant

It’s almost certainly not the inspiration for the bar in the game, but I really have no way to know that. I wish I could grill the creators of the game about where some of this stuff came from, but I doubt they’d want to spend the time going over the obscure minutiae of this game. I’d love to hear a long yarn about how it was based on a real place and there was something special about it that inspired them to not only mention it in the ads on the subway, but actually feature the bar exterior elsewhere in the game...

But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just made up, or the origins forever lost to time.

If for some reason, I find myself on the East coast, I’d love to check out Tommy Doyle’s Pub and Grill- it had good reviews... and I can pretend to dodge lightning bolts in the parking lot, but honestly, I haven’t been more than 20 or 30 miles east of the I-5 corridor in almost 30 years, and I’m likely to keep it that way. I’m more likely to search for ghost towns in California.

6.) The dumbest way to lose the game:

There’s a fourth way to ruin your quest through the Labyrinth. I’ve never seen it written up, probably because it’s a pretty stupid thing to do, and if you’ve made it this far in the game, you’re unlikely to make this “mistake”.

Near the end of the game, you are confronted by a threatening bust of the Minotaur! Ooooh! If you try to approach it, it will try to gore you with his horns. Across the room from the bust are two large oval mirrors that are reflecting light over to the bust; the Minotaur is a kind of projection, then, and you use the two cans of paint to cover up the mirrors to eliminate the illusion and do two more actions that will win the game.

HOWEVER, if you paint one mirror... and then decide that maybe it needs a different paint job, the game will happily help you out with that, but then you’re minus one paint can for the other mirror, and you’re forever blocked from the end of the game by a semi transparent Minotaur bust.

7.) The punishment for theft is meant to be death:

Near the end of the game, history is altered, and a special artifact appears in the museum where previously, there was just an empty broken tube. The tube is still broken after history is altered, allowing you to take it and use it to win the game. Attempting a five fingered discount triggers an alarm and attempting to use the futuristic museum’s teleporter throws you inside the jail cell in the old town of Revolver Springs, California.

But what’s chilling about it is that your arrival date. Entering the Daily Bullet, a local newspaper company, establishes the date as April 30th:

History records, as these notes suggest, that the town was destroyed the next day. The final Daily Bullet paper confirms that the time period you are in when you visit the old town is the day before the town’s destruction:

I guess this last one isn’t so obscure if you play through the game. Yeah, it’s the town’s final day of existence, but how much thought is given to the fact that if you don’t have that key, you’ll eventually burn or be crushed by falling timber and bricks.

Cruel game, indeed.

[free-mormons-blog]

From the Earth upon Which Thou Standest -- Temple and Cosmos Beyond this Ignorant Present -- HUGH NIBLEY 1992

From the Earth upon Which Thou Standest

A vital preliminary to Joseph Smith’s First Vision was another vision that prepared the way:

For I looked upon the sun the glorious luminary of the earth and also the moon rolling in their magesty through the heavens and also the Stars Shining in their courses and the earth also upon which I stood and the beast of the field and the fowls of heaven and the fish of the waters and also man walking forth upon the face of the earth in magesty and in the Strength of beauty . . . and . . . my heart exclaimed all these bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotent and omnipreasant . . . being. . . .  [I also] pondered . . . the sittuation of the world of mankind the contentions and divi[si]ons the wicke[d]ness and abominations and the darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind [sic].1

Here we have two worlds: the world of the artist and that of the businessman. The Lord himself drew the clear distinction. Telling of “a certain man,” i.e., the Lord, who had prepared a feast of delights but the invited guests excused themselves because they had really important business to attend to: “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. . . . Another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, . . . I pray thee have me excused” (Luke 14:18-19). Admittedly important business deals; yet the rejected host was angry and did not excuse them—”None of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper” (Luke 14:24).

From the first, God prepared the earth with an eye to making it “most glorious and beautiful” for us, with special care to giving “variety and beauty to the scene.” To this the artist calls our attention; and if we reject God’s proffered bounty, we offend him—”Deny not the gifts of God”! is the impassioned plea of Moroni to our generation at the end of the Book of Mormon (Moroni 10:8).2 For “in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things” (D&C 59:21). Specifically, “all things which come of the earth . . . are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart; yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul” (D&C 59:18-19). The pleasing of the eye comes first, the gladdening of the heart next; only then come the food and clothing, and that for the benefit of the fine senses of taste and smell, with not a word about efficiency and convenience but with special attention to the enlivening of the soul. In his great Bicentennial Message, President Kimball deplored the sad ascendancy in our society of the business mentality over the contemplation of the beauty around us. “This is a marvelous earth on which we find ourselves,” he wrote, for heaven is a state of the environment as well as a state of mind, and the one begets the other.3 As heaven takes form around the Saints, so steadily and inevitably the acquisitive society becomes enwrapped in an obnoxious, brutalizing, poisonous ambience of mind and body. The command is that “Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness . . . and put on her beautiful garments” (D&C 82:14), placed in direct contrast to “the mammon of unrighteousness,” which seeks for gain (D&C 82:22).

In the Old Testament, the piqqeah (seer) is one whose eyes God has opened, so that he can see what others do not see—it is really there, but uninspired minds do not perceive it. When the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, they beheld what they could not see before (Genesis 3:7). Abraham tells how God “put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many” (Abraham 3:12). It was so with his wife Hagar, when “God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water”—which had been there all the time (Genesis 21:19). There is no such vision for those not in tune with the Spirit: “They have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear!” (cf. Isaiah 6:9-10; Matthew 13:13-14).

In Wulf Barsch’s paintings there is a sense of deep concern, an ominous and brooding feeling of admonition and warning.4 This I find disquieting until I remember that that is exactly the effect the reading of the scriptures has on me. The pictures do not tell a story—there is nothing trivial, contrived, clever, or cute about them; they seem more like a solemn summing-up, with something for both suspense and finality about them. For Plato true art must have spoudaiotes, usually rendered “high seriousness.”5 Its opposite is blasphemy; which does not mean thundering denunciation, solemn deprecation, or consuming wrath, but the very opposite—it means not taking holy things seriously, being too stupid or insensitive (blax means both) to value anything beyond the business of business.

Was there ever an artist less inclined to show off than Wulf Barsch? He does not hesitate to try again and again to get through to us, not seeking novelty, but fighting for expression and perfectly willing to stay with a problem. It is that, I suppose, that gives his work the sense of deep sincerity that demands to be taken seriously. Strangely enough, with all his moving solemnity, I find some of his things intensely romantic. The constant dialogue of the poplar and the palm is right out of the most ancient traditions of romantic poetry, whether Barsch is aware of it or not, with echoes from the Patriarchal romances of Genesis. The poplar is the tree of the pioneers, marking their farms on all the benches and valleys from the red sands of Moencopi to the plains of Alberta. It is becoming rare as business supplants the noble windbreaks with billboards. And the palm evokes the wandering tribes of Israel (the palms of California are never convincing), for it is their hope and succor in the desert.

Notes

1.

 The 1832 recital of the First Vision as dictated by Joseph Smith to Frederick G. Williams. See Dean C. Jessee,

The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith

(Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1984), 5; appendix A in Milton V. Backman,

Joseph Smith’s First Vision

(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971); cf. Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,”

BYU Studies

9 (1969): 280.

2.  Cf. Hugh W. Nibley, “Deny Not the Gifts of God,” in Approaching Zion, CWHN 9 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S., 1989), 118-48.

3.  Spencer W. Kimball, “The False Gods We Worship,” Ensign 6 (June 1976): 3.

4.  For a further example of Wulf Barsch’s paintings, see the frontispiece in the first volume of John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S., 1990).

5.  Plato, Definitiones 412E. See Ioannes Burnet, Platonis Opera (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 534.

[recentanimenews]

My Hero Academia: School Briefs, Vol. 4

By Kouhei Horikoshi and Anri Yoshi. Released in Japan by Shueisha. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Caleb Cook.

These books have gotten stronger as they go on, which is a good thing, and also expected of a tie-in series – they’ve gotten better at character development as there’s been more in the main series, and the novel author has more to draw on. The book takes place, with one exception (the first chapter takes place during Vol. 15) around the school festival arc, which conveniently makes it tie into the current anime as well. We get chapters showing the preparations, we get to actually read about Class 1-B’s play instead of just having it be a gag, we get a prequel for the beauty pageant, and we see cooldown post-festival for both students and teachers. I’ve talked before about how the series narrates events Horikoshi didn’t have time to write into the main series, and that feels especially true with this book, as a lot of these feel very in character. (That said, the art is more minimal and reused than usual – I think he was very busy at this time.)

The first chapter is not a school festival chapter, but does have Fatgum, Kirishima and Amajiki patrolling an Osakan float festival, where Kirishima meets a cartwright who is having seconds thoughts because of a past accident, something which makes Kirishima recall his own past with Ashido. We then see Shinso walking around campus during festival prep, seeing how the other classes are doing while trying to figure out how to tell his friends in the General Studies class he’s putting in for a transfer. We then get the 1-B play in all its glory, followed by a story just before the beauty pageant, which is from Kendo’s POV. We end with a few scenes showing Izuku’s candy apple prep and some other 1-A antics, and finally see the teachers having an alcohol-fueled after party.

The character work is the main reason this is so good. Shinso and Kendo get some excellent development here, getting inside their heads. Shinso still feels a little guilty and shamed about his own quirk, though this has improved post-Sports Festival, and eavesdrops on some folks who make him feel better. Kendo was even more fascinating, as we see her struggling with being the beauty contest competitor even as she’s uncomfortable with her own gender dynamics, feeling out-of-place in a dress and preferring activities most would say were for men. While she does say that she’s definitely a girl, it would not be a very broad leap to see her as a bit agender. I also really enjoyed the 1-B play, both for its copyringht-dodging elements and also for making Monoma look less obnoxious (always a hard task). Even the beauty pageant girl Bibimi Kenranzaki, written entirely as a one-panel gag by Horikoshi, gets to drive a tank and bond with Mei Hatsume (whose not bathing is the running gag of the chapter).

Flaws? Mineta is still in this, though less so than previous books, and Shinso wonders (as do we all) why he hasn’t been expelled yet. The teacher’s chapter at the end is also a bit weaker than the others, and Midnight’s whipping talents jar a bit given the rest of the book is easily accessible to 10-13 year olds. Still, overall this is the strongest entry in the series to date. We’re also caught up with Japan, so a new volume will be a bit.

By: Sean Gaffney