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24-guy · 5 months

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3070 words later. I present to you...

What was the deal with the grill brush?

An amateur essay on “Just for Once” from Nerdy Prudes Must Die by J

When listening to the soundtrack for Nerdy Prudes Must Die (NPMD), I realized that the song that was hitting me most was, unexpectedly, Just for Once. This was odd to me because one could argue that, of all the songs in the musical, Just for Once isn’t that emotional of a song. Especially since it was sung by a side character like Ruth. But since this instance, every time I listened to it, I was struck with the desire to sit and properly delve into the lyrics and try to understand what exactly it was about it that made it so emotional to me. My aim in writing this is to understand how this song develops Ruth’s character further than her initial portrayal.

To do this, we need to take what we already know about Ruth and put it into context. Before this song happens, we have seen Ruth, as a character, in five of the nine songs, with Just for Once being the tenth song in the musical. This feels important to note as this is a significant amount of time to get to know Ruth and her character as well as her motivations and story through the musical.

Ruth is one of the two characters that open the musical. The first is a fellow nerd, Richie, who sings that he is dead. The stage is set in red lighting. When Ruth joins as a second voice to follow up his line, the context stays the same. We know from the first song of the musical that Ruth is going to die. As the performance continues, we go into a bigger piece with the students of Hatchetfield High School singing about how much school sucks. This doesn’t tell us much about her character, so let’s move on.

Literal monster is a song where the nerds of Hatchetfield High sing about their bully, Max Jägerman. Ruth’s part in this is telling us that she is a nerd and that she gets bullied. She has both solo and group lines that tell the audience and the listener that they aren’t enthusiastic about the bullying stopping. However, one of the lines in the part after the first chorus gives us our first hint into Ruth’s main character trait, she is extremely sexual.

The musical continues after this to see our main trio of nerds at a library. Peter, Richie and Ruth are working together on a thermodynamics paper. Here, we get another line that cements Ruth’s main trait being that she is extremely lonely, and that comes across in often uncomfortable moments. This scene we also get told that Ruth craves contact enough that she will talk telemarketers into hanging up the phone, and that she sees Peter getting a call from one as “lucky”. As the scene continues, we see that Ruth doesn’t seem to understand personal space and is nosey as she asks Peter about what Stephanie Lauter – a popular girl from school – is talking to him about. There is some minor things to note from this scene too, like how she references Star Wars and how she initially agrees that Peter shouldn’t get his hopes up about Stephanie because they’re too different in the social hierarchy in school.

Our next proper character moment happens when Ruth, Richie and Stephanie go to the boy’s bathroom to find Peter after he didn’t show up to study at a restaurant with Stephanie. Here, she remarks how the boys are lucky because they can all watch each other go to the toilet thanks to the urinals not having walls between them.

Our last major scene with Ruth and new traits to note, is during the set-up and consequence of a prank that the nerds, Stephanie and a girl called Grace play on their bully, Max. During the set-up we see that Ruth’s history of bullying leads her to lash out at Stephanie for calling them nerds, going into too much detail about her allergy to deodorant. It helps to solidify Ruth as someone who tends to make people uncomfortable with her lack of a vocal filter. In a later moment during the same setting, Ruth is talking to a telemarketer and gets hung up on. When Ruth talks about her nervousness about pulling off the prank, Stephanie comforts her. This leads to Ruth saying that Stephanie is nice, and that she might be in love with her. This helps us understand that Ruth probably doesn’t understand a lot of what she’s feeling, considering that earlier on she seemed almost negatively inclined towards Stephanie. In a moment between Richie and Peter, we get further confirmation that Ruth is “thirsty” all the time, and that it would be easy to sleep with her and then leave her because of it. When the prank goes wrong, with Max fighting against the perceived ghost and skeleton, we see that Ruth – in the skeleton costume – seems flattered and happy with the praise from Max.

So, to recap. In the lead up to Just for Once, we can understand that Ruth is an anxious character. She doesn’t think too highly of herself or her fellow nerds and will only really push for them to try to get ahead if someone else seems to be reaching out with them to support them. We know that she is touch starved enough that someone being kind and touching her shoulder is enough to make her think that she is in love with someone and that, because of this, she will take any human contact that she can – even if its salespeople on the phone.

With this foundation, we can now talk about how Just for Once expands our view of Ruth as a character.

In the opening before the song, we find that Ruth thinks she can perform on stage better than one of her classmates. This leads into our “musical in a musical” song that is a staple of StarKid shows. This song is supposed to be sung within the context of the musical “The Barbecue Monologues” that exists within the Hatchetfield universe, but I think it can do well at telling us a lot about Ruth’s character as she did decide to sing this song over any of the others that possibly exist within the rest of the production.

The first hint that the song means more to Ruth than immediately apparent is during the end of the second verse, where Ruth sings “And life is fine, if only it were mine.” While it may be because the character that she’s singing for is discontent with life, we have also seen that Ruth doesn’t really fit in outside of the nerd friend group she’s found herself in. We can speculate that she also feels like life isn’t hers to hold. She may feel like she would enjoy life, if only it was something that she could enjoy, seeing as for so long before this point in her story, she was being bullied.

Before this, she sings about how the character has “installed a new bay window” and that they were shopping “for shutters to obstruct the view”. I think that this implies that Ruth understands that having improvements to her life is something that she should want (after Max’s death, the bullying stops entirely), and that she can see the appeal of, but she still wants something to conceal the view of the outside, or even stop the outside from seeing who she is on the inside.

The chorus is the main tell that this song goes deeper than surface level to me. Ruth sings that “just for once I’d be the centre of attention, just for once, remember what a life could be, just for once I feel the light inside the burning of a candle, living just for once…” I’m going to take apart this chorus piece by piece to explain what I think each part means.

The opening line states, “just for once I’d be the centre of attention,” and this lines up with what we know already about Ruth’s character. She has demonstrated already that she craves attention and affection. We have seen her reaction to being praised for her performance as the skeleton in the prank to Max. Ruth wants to be loved, and to have her performance praised. She wants to be the lead of a play.

The next is “just for once, remember what a life could be” this feels like it’s reiterating my point where Ruth wants to remember what her life could mean if there was never any bullying that happened as it has warped her view of what life is. She now has a downplayed life where there’s no point in standing up to people because what’s the point if they all have more worth in your school than you do?

The second to last part is “just for once I’d feel the light inside the burning of a candle” and I think that this means that she wants to feel the light of the spotlight on her, that she wants to be in the spotlight. The way candles are always described is as calm, dancing flames. She wants to be like the flames on candles, to be seen as a delicate but bright focal point of the entire picture.

The final line of the chorus is “living just for once” and it is repeated halfway after the initial singing of it. This, again, just gives the impression that Ruth doesn’t think she was ever really living. She wants to live a good, happy life. But she can’t.

There is a line in the third verse that states “and I was not unhappy about the attention I ensnared, judge me”. This is referring to the character she’s singing for losing their hair after chemotherapy. It can also be read as Ruth not being unhappy about the attention she possibly got after the news of Richie’s death got around. After all, they were both nerds, and in a superficial school like Hatchetfield High even if they weren’t friends, she’d probably get some attention thanks to the apologies gained. This isn’t to say that she was happy, or even neutral, about Richie’s death. This is me pointing out that she would have gotten some of that attention she craved from the loss of her friend.

The following lines don’t stand out to me as anything personal as they start to feel more like the story that she’s singing about is getting across comes in. But the chorus changes again, so I’ll cover those lines too.

The first of these lines is “just for once my life could be just what I wanted”. Here it feels, again, like Ruth wants her life to be something specific, that she could just be better, and be more confident, popular, whatever.

The following is “just for once I’d feel the spark that I once knew”. This introduces another piece of information when it comes to Ruth’s character; she used to know what it felt like to be like this, to perform. She has felt that spark of being on stage, like she is while singing this, and she wants to feel that spark again.

The next is a similar line to one in the first, with a single word changed. “Just for once I’d feel the fight inside the burning of a candle”. This doesn’t change a lot about the implications of the line, but it does give the feeling that she feels like she could be ready to fight for wanting this. She wants this bad enough that, just for once, she’s ready to fight for it.

“Something more than I can handle” is the last line before we have a “just for once” and I feel like this calls again to her wanting to be in that spotlight. She wants to be in the spotlight, even if she knows that she can’t handle the pressure it puts her under for doing so. This marks a turning point in the song where the tone shifts, paralleling what Ruth may be going through with realizing she might not be ready to handle the pressure that being on stage could cause.

The first line of this section is “Should I flip the burgers now? Should I double check its well done on the outside not within?” This is filled with confusion about what she is doing. Ruth’s character has been placed to supervise something they don’t know what they’re looking for when it comes to checking it’s fine to flip the burgers. I believe this parallels Ruth’s hesitance and uncertainty when it comes to navigating a space like theatre, or high school, where she does know what to look for in theory. But in practice she falters, consumed by insecurity and self-doubt, potentially ruining her reputation/ ”burgers” if she does one thing wrong.

Breaking up the lines in this portion of the song are painful sounding “oh”s that sound like pleading to whoever is listening.

“Should I let the coals burn out? Should I let the years cook my body down in front of him?” Is the following line. And, again, this feels like a parallel between the character’s doubt about themselves and their health struggles with getting cancer at a reasonably early age, and Ruth’s doubts about her popularity and lack of connection, feeling like her life is over even though she’s only eighteen years old and her life is barely properly begun. She feels undesirable now, how is she going to feel when she’s older?

This next part of the song, while just repeating the line “Just for once”, has a portion of the music playing that is a leitmotif that has shown up in a lot of the songs before this point. Most noticeably, it takes centre stage first during the song “Cooler Than I Think I Am”. It plays over the top of a part of the chorus where Peter – the lead singer – sings the line “I’m not a loser”. This is brought up again during the titular song “Nerdy Prudes Must Die”, where Max is about to kill Richie, and Richie sings the line as a last-ditch effort to prove he’s no longer a loser, Max shouldn’t kill him. This musical idea is used as a point where the nerds are breaking out of their set place in Hatchetfield High’s social hierarchy. Richie uses it as a beg to be spared. The music behind Ruth’s vocals use it to foreshadow her demise at the end of this song thanks to the use of it in Richie’s number. It sets hope up and dread in the audience when they remember that Ruth was alongside Richie in the opening number singing about how they were dead.

The final part of the song doesn’t seem like it’s a part of the song from the in-universe musical at all. Ruth sings about how a family is borrowing her tap shoes. It’s melancholy in tone, and she continues, singing how it’s “no bother, I never ever use them”. And in a heart-wrenching moment, she says “I used to dance”, before repeating “I used to dance” like she’s about to cry.

I think that moment of the song is the most plain about Ruth’s feelings. I think she did used to dance, and that she did lend her tap shoes to someone because her anxiety stops her from performing anymore. This is a sad moment that lingers slightly before we return to spoken dialogue for the end.

“I found your grill brush, Maurie. It was right here, all along.” Right. The grill brush. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to write this in depth look at Just for Once, because I feel like the grill brush holds more meaning than it first appears. When it is first mentioned, the character of Maurie is looking for the grill brush and Ruth’s character gives a sarcastic comment about how they used it to brush their hair that morning. We know this is even more of a joke thanks to the later lines describing the chemotherapy. However, this ending says that the brush was there the whole time.

I think that the grill brush is symbolizing Ruth and her ability to perform. Given the initial response, it would make sense for the parallel to be how Ruth wants to perform but can’t because, well, she’s herself. She’s nerdy little Ruth who makes sexual remarks and Star Wars references and has anxiety so bad she quit dancing even in her free time. But, after this performance she does while the rest of the cast for The Barbeque Monologues are taking a break, she has more than enough ability to act on stage if the pressure isn’t there. She can do it. So why does she sound so sad when she says, “It was right here, all along…”? Because she knows that even if she can perform, she can’t do it with an audience thanks to her anxiety and self-doubt.

So where does this leave us with Ruth’s character after watching this performance? We now know that Ruth, despite initial appearances, is an aspiring actor with the ability to act but her anxiety is holding her back. She’s performed willingly on stage, but when she knows there is no audience to watch her perform. Even though she wants attention and to have the comfort of people seeing her, she still wants to have the ability of shutting everything out, letting herself be a secret because that’s what she’s used to.

Just for Once feels so sad because it’s an “I want” song that ends with the lead dying. The audience listens to her story, her wants and desires, and knows that she is going to die before the end of the musical because that is what we were told with the opening number. Just for Once is a song that Ruth sings to herself because she can let herself be selfish, and she can let herself want to be the centre of attention when she’s stood on stage alone with nobody to judge her.

Maybe if she survived, she would be able to gain the courage to handle the pressure she feels when she’s stood up on that stage.

#npmd #nerdy prudes must die #ruth fleming #just for once #npmd ruth #listen i used to love creating analasis like this in some old fandoms #and to have it be for just for once for this one?#it seems oddly fitting for me #also this is just for fun and all my opinion #i dont know if anyone else has done this so im sorry if it is repeating some stuff #i dont really do much other than ship art here

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shakibone · 5 months

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okay so writing all that made me realize some of my musical tastes are really weird lol. would you have any recs?

Weird? I guess, but they slap

Bill Wurtz is always fantastic, and Snail House is so vibes~!

Never heard of Heaven Pierce Her before but dagnabbit this slaps. Order is on my Starred playlist now. War Without Reason also slaps, shocking no one.

Ooooh, Tooboe is an interesting introduction to me. I'm jamming to this alright, it's good stuff! Not sure what this genre's called, but I like it a lot.

NOW TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION!

My music tastes are a wild mix. People used to ask me what music I like and I'd just be like "...all? Depends on my mood I guess...?" Se here in no particular order are some faves or recs:

Louie Zong is a big fave of mine. He covers many genres, but my favourites are "I Sing Your Song" feat. Hatsune Miku, and his Mario disco-funk remix album "Let's-a Go!", his soundtrack to a videogame that doesn't exist "Levels", and most favouritest his album "Cozy" which will put me to restful sleep when the anxieties are biting my brain.

Following on from there, I enjoy Hatsune Miku a bunch! My favourite musicians to work with her are Wowaka (who among other songs did "Rollin' Girl", a mood piece about the pressures felt by creatives), and Mitchie M (whose songs include "News-39" a cheerful bop about propaganda, "Ohedo Julia-Night" a pop-disco ballad to the prosperous Ohedo era in Japanese history, "Cutie Angels" an homage to pro wrestling).

Speaking of pro-wrestling! The Mountain Goats album "Beat the Champ" hits hard for me, particularly "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero", which is both a tribute to legendary luchador Chavo Guerrero and insight into singer/songwriter John Darnielle's childhood and his relationship with his abusive stepfather. The Mountain Goats also made the song to get me through 2020! That being "This Year", a ballad of defiance in the face of a cruel world.

What else...

Carly Rae Jepsen! Her album Emotion has a bunch of bangers, but my favourites are "Boy Problems" about a friend who realises she's a bad friend for always venting to her friend about her boy problems without ever listening to said friend, or her album Dedicated which has my favourite of hers "Want You In My Room" which is a blatantly horny and cheerful song.

I have

more. But I'll stop here for now.

#Shakibone rambles #music #MUSIC!#i like so many of it

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ban-joey · 1 year

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ok im posting this. uh this is like, a pretty unhinged barely organized essay/stream of consciousness. I compiled a lot of this during a trip to my grandparent’s with a glass of good whiskey and brand new headphones, just after the release of the andor finale. I finished it when the rest of the soundtrack was released. I have a google doc of my notes, where I basically just gave every single track my undivided attention and made various connections here and there. this is specifically about cellos in the soundtrack.

(If you like music theory and loved the Andor soundtrack, I really recommend listening to Kirk Hamilton’s episode about it on his podcast Strong Songs. He also guested in an episode of A More Civilized Age which is a podcast that’s totally taken over my listening time and utterly Star Wars pilled me as soon as it started. Kirk does a really wonderful job taking you through music step-by-step and pulling out specific things you might not notice on your own, and really enjoys doing it. It’s a lot of fun and I’ve learned a lot listening to him.)

anyway.

STAR WARS: ANDOR and The Cello as a Character Device (and just a good instrument)

I just put my earbuds in. My phone is still on the track “My Name is Kino Loy,” just at the very end, when I turned my car off after getting home and sitting in it for a bit to finish out the song. It’s one of my favorites on the soundtrack, utterly spellbinding from beginning to end. It’s killer. The sheer amount of emotion in it even without the context of the scene it’s in is just phenomenal.

The entirety of the released Andor score is about 2 hours and 40 minutes of some of the most engaging and interesting soundtrack I’ve had the pleasure of listening to way too often.

Andor (Main Title Theme) - Episode 1. The engine guns, the cellos are flying this ship. Everyone’s talked about how good this theme is. The fact that Britell composed so many versions of it, resulting in a core identifier of the show. A changing introduction every episode, setting the tone of what’s to come.

When I started watching this show, I was pretty instantly blown away by everything, but music is always the thing that reels me in for the long haul. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard cellos as the main focus in a score. I can’t think of a TV show or movie that uses them so prominently. In things that I’ve listened to and watched, cellos are used for solos in moments that are meant to invoke some strong emotion. They’re an instrument you feel in your chest, not meant to be the main feature throughout.

As I watched, I just couldn’t get this out of my head, that Cassian Andor and the cello are entwined in some way. I started to think about how he moves, how he speaks, the pitch of his voice, and then started really paying attention to when the cello shows up. As soon as I started listening to the soundtrack on the regular as it was released, I figured out what was going on.

“Rix Road” is firmly on my list of top tracks. It starts up right after the Time Grappler in the show, blending with the final few blows on that gigantic metal slab. The camera follows Cassian through Ferrix. We get a shot of his back as the cello comes in, and he seamlessly merges into the crowd while the cello is nearly entirely absorbed into the layers of this beautiful piece of music. The cello plays what we will soon recognize as a theme central to the community of Ferrix.

(if you are my friend and you haven’t watched past the Aldhani arc don’t read the rest of this kthx)

The musical identity of this place is delivered to us along with these extraordinary sets, costumes, details of a bustling community united in its work and each other. The music ties it all together in such a profound way—this specific melody, a funeral dirge, is played while Cassian walks down Rix Road. Where the Empire hung his father. God damn.

I unpacked my viola after having it stored away for months and learned how to play that solo shortly after hearing it, because how could I not? It’s gorgeous. At the time, I had no idea what it would grow into.

After I watched that scene, I decided the cello is Cassian. Diego Luna’s voice makes it work, frequently hitting that same register. More specifically, though, I noticed cellos really bring out moments of quiet for Cassian, bringing pieces of his internal identity to the fore in really interesting ways. Cellos only get a feature when Cassian is present in a scene.

Like, “The Night Before.” We get this gorgeous cello (I’m so biased, it’s always gorgeous, I love this instrument beyond words), this tremulous, high-pitched back-and-forth across the strings. Cassian sits alone in Maarva and Clem’s old ship, holding his father’s gun and spending the night awake. Waiting it out. Again, we only get the cello when he’s on screen.

The cellos in the soundtrack are never confined to just one melody, they’re dynamic as all hell. They play counter to each other frequently, as in the theme for the second episode—which, to me, sounds like three or four different melodies struggling to unite in some larger identity, and almost reaching it, but they’re cut off too soon to resolve. Knowing what we do about Cassian, there’s definitely something there. How well does he know himself? How much is he afraid to confront about what makes him who he is, his past, his emotions, his pain, everything unresolved about Kenari? Is having so many separate pieces of self-identity part of what makes him so good at playing a role? It’s just the song having a few different cellos doing different stuff, it’s probably not intentional on the part of the composer, but the point is that it made me think and it’s just the intro music. It’s about 50 seconds long, but it made me think about the character in a new way, and I just think that’s really cool.

My number one track is the one that’s better as it is unmixed in the show. Pilgrim. I have pointed out a bazillion times that this track comes in after the line “If you can’t find it here, it’s not worth finding” because I am insane about this. Instantly, the cello, attacking the strings in a steady, hacking beat, absolutely sawing, taking us into the full orchestra, absorbed as we go. The camera pans down to Ferrix and the drums start in, to find Cassian walking through the scrap yard, fitting in to the world around him as the cello merges into the strings and we get that absolute banger of a drum solo. He walks in time with the beat. The cellos reemerge, soaring high in the theme and shifting even higher in a wail as the screen goes to black. It’s insane. It makes me foam at the mouth. Garage drums in Star Wars. It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.

And again—that idea of Cassian blending into his environment, enhanced by the cello doing the same thing. Love it.

“Past/Present Suite” is another on the list of all-timers. The ticking clock of the beginning, this slow build. The cellos begin as a quiet drone beneath violins and violas, and then the solos shine through with the main theme and counter-melody. The other strings are there, pushing everything forward, the percussion is there, there’s this driving bass that’s really good, the synth blends everything together in such a fantastic way, but the cellos are the stars of the show in the end. At first, they’re just repeating the same phrase. The brass comes in, taking over for the cellos, and the cellos take back command of the melody, driving forward in what I view as Ferrix’s theme. That funeral dirge.

And then, by the end, this culmination of astonishing emotion. The cello keens above everything else as the strings and brass and percussion fall away, Ferrix dropping away beneath the Fondor, taking an unwilling Cassian away from home. The interplay of his kidnapping from Kenari is striking, and that high tone of the cello is just heartbreaking. How painful must it be, to watch your life repeat itself in this way? The cellos pull that out, giving you an insight into Cassian’s emotional state that is driven and pinpointed by Diego Luna’s performance.

After the first three episodes, we get way less cello. They’re still present in the intros, but not so much in the rest. Makes sense—the following arcs are less about Cassian as a person and more specifically about the world we’re in and how our cast responds to it, the roles they play, the institutions they serve. Cellos are of course still there, at least whenever the soundtrack falls back into a traditional orchestra. You can’t cut cellos out of that, they’re the best instrument. But, they’re not the main feature for a while.

So, like, obviously as soon as the cellos hit at the end of “My Name is Kino Loy” hand-in-hand with the brass I was knocked off my ass. That one’s on my top whatever list. An incredible blend to finish out (I THOUGHT) an episode that ripped my fucking guts out. And then we descend into the depths of Coruscant. Bye bye cello. Hello oh my god where are we and WHAT is Luthen wearing and oh holy shit

Anyway then the cellos show up again in “Heroes” because, duh, Cassian is back. The cellos are up front here, plus these absolutely bonkers horns and CRAZY triumphant drum hits, and finally it’s the end of the episode and it was a WILD fucking ride and this song does not dim the adrenaline rush that was that entire 40 minutes of top-tier television as we close out episode 10.

Also, worth mentioning, the cellos are barely in the intro for episode 11. It’s very sexy considering the musical end of the episode. When I say sexy I mean it makes me cry a lot.

And, yeah, that musical end is “Your Mother Is Dead,” which is the entire reason I started typing this out. Nine cellos. NINE CELLOS. The barest hint of other strings behind them, but it’s all cellos. And it’s just Cassian, by the end. All alone. At the water’s edge. White-knuckled grip on his bag. It’s just grief. That’s the entirety of this song. It’s unending, profound, overlapping, waves of grief that just keep crashing down. It’s so painful. You get one look at his face in this scene and it’s so clear what he’s feeling, he can just barely lie, say that everything’s fine, but he chokes on it. (Diego Luna I am shaking your hand)

Episode 12 is all brass. I don’t need to say more about that. Y’all already know. Funnily enough, it’s actually violas that show up when we see Cassian on Ferrix again, which I love. It’s almost like the cellos were fully spent after the last episode, all of that emotion so overwhelming. But “Clem’s Stone” is just as cutting a piece as “Your Mother Is Dead”. On top of the grief, it’s achingly hopeful. It’s on my list as well. It’s only 2 minutes long, and remarkably effective.

The last place we hear the cello is in “Cassian Will Find Us”, for obvious reasons. It feels like a goodbye. I hope we see these characters again, but I don’t know. It’s blending in, not the focus at all, with all these other instruments and melodies that have been featured throughout the show—some of them not for a while! The percussion unique to the Aldhani arc comes back, tying a neat little bow on everything that’s happened to this character this season. Combining it all in droves, in a relatively unassuming piece of music, completing Cassian’s arc in this season, uniting him with everything he’s gone through and learned and lost.

It makes sense that the cello would be the main instrument to follow Cassian through a scene, considering it’s the lead in the main theme, and he’s, y’know, that’s his name. But, I’m so used to Star Wars soundtrack maintaining character themes only, to the point of overuse post-og trilogy. Having a specific instrument for a specific character, an instrument that is in itself so versatile and malleable, just like the character? Fucking rules. Having that instrument specifically single out his identity within and outside of groups of people and planets as well as his deeply internalized struggles and barely outwardly expressed emotion that’s boiling over? I go crazy for Nicholas Britell.

Anyway. I love this show dearly. It’s been really fun to watch and listen to, and I can’t wait to see what kind of musical lines they draw in the second season. I’ve feasted and I’m satisfied with this, but I am so eager for more.

#andor #music stuff #this just devolves rapidly as you read but yknow! whatever. i like things

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corruptedforce · 3 months

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respond to the prompts out of character!

what made you pick up the current muse(s) you have? I wanted to write Anakin for years, but I don't half ass pick up any character. It's one of the reason why I keep my multi under 15, at all times. I have to have them fleshed out. I've been fascinated by Vader since I was a child. All my friends had Leia Halloween costumes. I just wanted to be Vader. Anakin intrigued me, as well, as I got older. I ALWAYS loved Hayden as Anakin. But, I spent years before ultimately choosing to write him. I had to learn mannerisms, ways he fights, his quirks, his emotional responses, and Vader, because Vader is Anakin.

is there anything you don’t like to write? Look when you play one of the biggest villains in pop culture, there is not much that is off limits. I refuse to ever write or AU him, as a Rebel. He would never be a rebel and I would never write him as such. I also only very rarely and only really for I think one or two people, will write him not falling. His fall is extremely important to what the chosen one prophecy needs, to fufill. I'm not huge on fix-it. I mean, sometimes I enjoy them and I will never change Hayden as Anakin's FC. I don't ship him with other males, with the exception of one and it's writer specific. I don't write smut on him to just write smut, but if it fits, I'm okay. I also don't auto ship.

is there anything you really enjoy writing? Angst, pain, drama, things that make you cry and hate life. I love happiness if we have like something dramatic too. The prequels are a tragedy. They just are. Anakin's life even before his fall, he may have been married, but he was at war. He has brief times with Padme for instance, when he does have happy moments, but war is something that was a lot of his life. I lean towards his destiny more towards trying to create a healthy family dynamic, that didn't exist.

how do you come up with headcanons? I have things knocking around my head and sometimes I get asks. I'm currrently working on one, for three days now based off someone asking me what I thought of one quote.

do you write in silence or do you play music? usually, the TV is on.

do you plan your replies or wing them? I wing them mostly or for the most part, I don't pre-read the previous reply always. I mean, I will sometimes, but with certain partners, I know how I'll react. Sometimess, I have to calm Anakin or Vader down if it's angst before I reply because he's a mess, who will say things, if I don't. But, my best rp partners understand his reactionary responses.

do you enjoy shipping? I love shipping. Just not having it forced on me. I'm open to a lot, if it it makes sense. I also love many types of connections.

what’s your alias/name? Tanya

age? Older than 30. I'm at the age where it says years young on Tumblr.

birthday? April 21st

favorite color? Cubbie Blue

favorite song? Anything off the Sons of Anarchy Soundtracks by lately Day is Gone by Noah Gundersen and Come Join the Murder; Also, Lightning Crashes by Live is a song I listen to a lot, Anything by Bob Seger when I need to feel close to my mom

last movie you watched? Red Dawn (not my idea)

last show you watched? One Tree Hill

last song you listened to? Ainsi Bas La Vida by Indila.

favorite food? Tough Guys by REO Speedwagon

favorite season? sprinter. it's that time in February - March, when it's like 70 but not miserable yet.

do you have a tumblr best friend?

For the last year and half and some change, 100% it has to be Mica (mayxthexforce) and Tori (bchemianrhapscody). With Mica, I have talked to her more than I have talked to anyone, in a time when things were really hard for me, after I lost my mom. But, there are others in the Star Wars fandom, and those are people who have been my friend, even when lies were told and I lost long-term friends. Some people aren't like bestie status but I adore them so much. More recently, I have been talking a ton to @story1ines of late and she is quickly becoming a close friend who I bombard with messages. I also adore @xx--ofmanythoughts--xx, who listens to my baseball ramblings.

I have been on tumblr rp for 13 years and there are people who have come and gone. I will always still communicate with the ones I was the closest to in the world offline, but I forever love my first rp friendship, the Rachel to my Puck, my main Tara to my Jax who I wrie with on Discord only now, the only Wendy I will ever accept to my Jax, my one and only Athelstan and Philippe @mcnsieur, who even though I don't talk to everyday by any means because life is busy, I literally can message her anytime. So many other people I am not remembering.

TAGGED BY: @mayxthexforce

TAGGING: @galaccias, @bchemianrhapscdy, @cagedpotential, @writtenxbeginnings, @story1ines, @mcnsieur, @xx--ofmanythoughts--xx

#(ooc)

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samaspic31 · 2 years

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Theory : anti-spoiler culture ruined the soundtrack of the kenobi series

I relistened to the series' soundtrack last week and the thing most noticeable about it is.... how unremarkable it is. Aside from the main theme john Williams composed, can you remember or sing anything from it? Aside from few good parts here and there, the impression I have is very generic, bland, and definitely void of the trademarks that make a good, memorable star wars soundtrack in my opinion.

Now I'm not one to hang on established themes if new, equally good ones are introduced; the mandalorian is my favourite star wars music, it proved it was possible. That wasn't the case here. And the kenobi series is, let's be real, mainly an appeal to nostalgia of the prequel movies. The mandalorian made new themes for new characters; and used the force theme for Luke's appearance, because it would feel like it's missing if it didn't. kenobi was almost exclusively legacy characters, some of them with firmly established musical themes. Leia has a theme since A new hope. The series also repeated instances from the prequels that had distinct musical associations: order 66 had the march on the jedi temple, anakin's betrayal, and the obiwan - anakin duel was characterized by battle of the heroes and duel of the fates (whose absence is made more frustrating by its use for the trailer. I don't think it was unreasonable for us to expect in to be used in the series when the promo was done with it).

Leia's theme is not used at all, despite the fact it had come to represent even alderaan itself in tcw's soundtrack. It makes no sense not to use it. They used it for baby leia meeting breha, it was created for her 19yo self, why wouldn't it be relevant to her 10yo self ? Besides, the emperor's theme is also left unused despite being long established in both trilogies. The imperial march is used once, and while I don't mean to swing back and argue they should have used it as much as rebels did, I do think it was too little and felt missing in the village scene on mapuzo

Again I would not be complaining if the music we got was so great that it made me forget what it didn't include. I don't want star wars to become a repetitive loop of rehashing and never any new theme, only callbacks. I do feel those themes should be used, sparsely, when relevant, when telling the story of the characters they represent. And especially in flashbacks. And the "replacement" we were given instead is, frankly, mediocre. I can't help but feel a void listening to it, because if you are reusing so much of the prequels both narratively and emotionally... why leave out such a huge part of what made us feel this way? Why cut the wings off your most emotional scenes by not reminding us musically what it's connected to ?

If you have to make me watch order 66 one hundred times, make it good. I have qualms with tcw s7, but I can't say Victory and death wasn't efficient, fitting, and as good a track as revenge of the sith's order 66 music. And it's just my opinion, but kenobi's take didn't live up to the challenge.

Ok, rant over. Why did this happen tho ? Why wouldn't they use the established themes? This is just my theory, obviously I don't work at Lucasfilm, but my guess is : the composer didn't know who she was writing for, she couldn't know what to use when. They wanted to keep the importance of leia's role a secret at all costs and make it a big reveal, as was when the vader - obiwan confrontations would take place, and the emperor cameo. I wouldn't be surprised if it was kept from even the composer. Favloni kept Luke's cameo secret from as many people as possible, telling basically anyone but mark that it'd be plo koon, and the only reason we did get the force theme in my opinion was that it did not give away it was specifically luke but any jedi. That specific brand of bland soundtrack mediocrity reminds me of what happens with the mcu when composers don't know neither what characters nor the details of the scenes they're writing for, in opposition with the Black Panther soundtrack where ludwig Goransson was informed.

It betrays such a disdain for composers that Disney is fully choosing to sacrifice quality, retaining relevant and vital information, to exclude artists from key aspects of the projects they hired them to be a part of, stifling their abilities to give us good music, and all out of fear of leaks that they cannot stop from happening anyways. Word got out of Luke's cameo, word got out of leia's involvement. Total lack of spoilers is impossible to achieve, and striving for it is hindering the very art it claims to protect the enjoyment of. Besides, a good plot should be able to withstand spoilers, and the whole spoiler circus seems very much a way to manufacture hype by signaling to people that they should want to find out before anyone else. But I digress. My point is that the lack of involvement of the composers make for some very forgettable scores and it's a damn shame

#sam speaks #long post #ngl im angry. the music of the mandalorian and the book of boba fett seemed to paint a great future for star wars music #and the mediocrity of the kenobi soundtrack is very frustrating #especially when the inclusion of a few themes would have gone a long way to make it better #star wars #kenobi #kenobi series #obi wan kenobi #obi-wan #obi wan #obi wan spoilers #kenobi spoilers #idk if there's still a point tagging that but just in case #darth vader #leia organa #princess leia #star wars prequels #sw prequels #i hope i make sense. anyways. this is mostly me screaming in the void cause ive been mad about it for 3 days and i need to formulate it #fucking hope it doesn't become a trend. I'll be listening to the andor series carefully #sam has opinions on stuff that doesn't matter episode 2992727199 #i think too much about star wars music #anyways gonna go listen to best modern star wars movie soundtrack aka rogue one

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wouldyoudoanythingforme · 1 year

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Okay I'm ready to talk about it a little but the fact that she chose to write eyes open for the hunger games when it is so very clearly about her own experience with fame makes me think a lot of thoughts but mostly how she's painted 2016 as a war, a battle, a fight, etc etc in her work in particular with long story short. I fully believe long story short is a sequel to eyes open because it's honestly kind of scary how perfectly the themes of everlark as a relationship line up with the themes of swiftwyn as a relationship.

Okay, if you consider fame as a type of hunger games (a capitalistic system meant to exploit the labor and lives of literal children, taylor a literal child star need I say more) then it honestly makes perfect sense why she would decide to place special attention on these two songs because she could have easily switched babe/better man with eyes open/safe & sound (or any of the red vault tracks) but she chose these two hunger games songs to highlight and place in an obvious Easter Egg. She wants us to draw parallels between the hunger games and her life because she wants us to talk about how exploitative the entertainment industry is to children, but I think it's very interesting the order in which she released them (eyes open, safe and sound, then if this was a movie, then all of the girls you loved before) and I think that's a statement on how much better it got for her once she left the industry, because she loved reputation era so much and it's very evident.

She learned how to put up boundaries but most importantly, she learned how to believe in her own reality again. The most important theme in mockingjay is awareness, being aware of your own reality, being aware of what is real or not real, and being able to live in peace with someone you trust wholeheartedly to be able to help you make that very important distinction because it is the very fundamental basis of our sanity, the ability to prove to ourselves that we exist and not only do we exist, but our happiness and our emotions matter. They deserve to take up actual space in reality, and we deserve to make a space in our reality where we can live in peace and solitude- no matter what we've done or who we had to become in order to survive. No matter what lies we told or who we hurt in our quest for peace, we deserve to get that peace at the end of the day because we exist and we are real and we matter.

Children matter, our lives, our trauma, the things we experience matter and Taylor probably really enjoyed the hunger games because it made her feelings of depersonalization feel validated, because she probably really relates to katniss, the girl on fire, and how she's seen as the crown jewel but she doesn't feel like a jewel. She feels like a pawn, she feels used and dirty all the time and she doesn't know why (you don't feel pretty, you just feel used... fuck) and so that's probably why she decided to write those songs for the soundtrack to begin with, and the fact that they're so haunting and heartbreaking to listen to really showcases how not okay she was during red era but how good she was at hiding it.

And then the best part of the hunger games was always everlark, peeta was a man who loved katniss beyond all else and who spent his entire life making sure she stayed grounded to reality, making sure she had someone besides her to work through her trauma of being in the hunger games and who tried every day to make her existence as peaceful as possible. They were different in just the right amounts, the way joe comes off quiet, private and reserved and taylor is the social butterfly fits perfectly with how she probably feels like Joe is her peeta, like he's the only person in the world who is able to truly see the real taylor- who knows who she really is, even when the trauma of the fame/the lies of the industry are telling her otherwise, he's there to make her feel safe and loved and protected from the fire outside her window.

And long story short is literally the mockingjay epilogue, where Taylor says hey look bad shit happened, I was traumatized but I was able to find a rare comet in the sky while I was being exploited by the media so it worked out in the end but the trauma is real and it will never go away, I have to live with this forever so do you think it was worth putting me through all of that which is exactly what Suzanne Collins wants us to ask about the capitalistic society we live in today... okay, we have our phones and our electricity and our clothes but is it worth the lifelong trauma we inflict on real children every fucking day?

#eyes open #long story short #taylor swift #the hunger games #gaylor #lyric parallels #evermore #red

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laterinthenight · 10 months

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tag 9 people you want to get to know better. I was tagged by the wonderful @moonlitramblings 🥰

currently reading: I’m on a reread of Watership Down by Richard Adams, one of my favorite books of all time. I usually make sure to reread it once a year at least. Also Renegade Love by Ann Aguirre - love me an alien romance 😩👌

last song: La Devoción Se Hizo Carne by Carlos Viola, from the Blasphemous 2 soundtrack. Truly every song is an absolute banger; my favorite is Cante Desde Lo Profundo, because that fight is so fucking good. On a lighter note (😏) I’ve also been listening to Forklift Simulator by Sbassbear, which is unreasonably catchy

currently watching: Just finished watching Predator (1987) for the first time in years... it came up in discussion with some friends a couple days ago, and I’d forgotten how nuts the movie is amongst all the memes. Besides that, I’m in the middle of Season 2 of The Golden Girls (whiplash 😂) and a rewatch of Outlaw Star

current fic - reading: Nothing’s Wrong with Dale by @moonshine-nightlight (👀👀👀👀👀👀) (Original Work) I cannot overstate how absolutely feral I am for this fic, holy shit Sundays are marked on my calendar; An Unexpected Muse by WickedScribbles (AO3) (Red Dead Redemption 2) a truly lovely modern!AU of Arthur attending the Reader’s Intro to Drawing class in college and them hitting it off; The ThirtySix Stratagems of Wáng Jìngzé by Mussimm (AO3) (Mass Effect 2) Right after the release of Mass Effect 2, long before ME3 was on the horizon, this author conceptualized an Epic that to this day remains one of my all-time favorites, about how the Reaper War could manifest and be won

current fic - writing: I don’t write much these days (not much energy at the moment) but I’ve got a couple ideas circulating, with my OCs in a low-fantasy historical post-war thing. Very comfort, very slice-of-life, very smutty just a little something to make me happy when I need it

next on my watchlist: Tombstone (1993); The Shape of Water (been putting it off because my vibes have been off)

current obsession: Nothing’s Wrong with Dale (cough 👀👀👀), Red Dead Redemption 2 (Arthur Morgan), Our Life: Beginnings and Always (Cove Holden our beloved), Shepherds of Haven by @shepherds-of-haven , The Golden Rose by @anathemafiction

I’m not great at direct tagging because I mostly just sit to the side an quietly reblog things lol, but anybody who wants to can consider yourself tagged, if you’re interested! It’s always fun to see what people are into 💞

And thanks again for the tag @moonlitramblings ! I’m so excited for when Don’t Shoot the Messenger publishes - you craft such wonderful stories that speak to me as a demi, with actual time taken to make the emotional connection between characters plus the way you write the 🔥 scenes is god-tier 😩👌 Please take care of yourself, and I look forward to everything you create!

#it me #tag game

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crymeariverontheradio · 2 years

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River's Radio 7/17/2022: Spaghetti Western

Soooo idk if you all know the bizarre history of Spaghetti Westerns.

Westerns(for anyone who doesn't know) are movies centered around the setting of the American West, usually around the 1860-ish area, revolving around such characters as Cowboys, native Americans, bounty hunters, outlaws, soldiers, and Mexican-American settlers.

However, Spaghetti Westerns are Western movies that are written and directed by Italians, primarily, filmed and produced in Europe, particularly Spain, because of the climate and geography, which also had a lot of room to experiment with storytelling and plot and film, trying new and interesting things.

Anyways, one of the most famous is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, directed by Sergio Leone, and starring Clint Eastwood.

One of the things I love about this movie, beyond the sheer experimentation that it takes with scene movement and the creativity with the filmmaking, is the soundtrack. It's really incentive, and extremely fun to listen to!

Here are my favorite numbers from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly soundtrack, by Ennio Morricone!

Main Theme

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This one is just riding a horse through the badlands, a gun at your hip, chewing on a cigar, thinking about where you're going, forgetting where you're coming from. And the "ayayayayaaaa waa waaa waaa" is based on the sound wild coyotes make. It's just... A good vibe, especially if you like atmospheric tunes!

The Ecstasy Of Gold

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You've heard this one before. It is featured all of the time. It is featured in a lot of Dolce and Gabbana ads, and then I think Taco Bell? Idk. Lots of ads sample this, and it's just an iconic piece of music. Repetitive, determined, and rushing, almost, searching. Just like the scene where it's from. The character(Mr. Ugly), runs, breathless, aimless, through an endless, neverending, cemetery of civil war soldiers, searching for where the gold is buried. I won't spoil the story, but this is him, dehydrated and desperate, looking for the treasure that's kept him going for the entire movie.

The Trio

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FACE OFF!!! FACE OFF FACE OFF FACE OFF!!! One of the most iconic scenes in this movie is the duel, one of the final moments of the 2 hour plus movie where three men stand in a circle and the cameras slowly move in closer and closer on them, until the finale of them when the guns go off. This is a dramatic, important, loud piece of music. It's really good, and it sticks in your chest and makes you sit on the edge of your seat, waiting for the moment when everything grinds to a halt and goes out with a bang, much like how 10 Duel Commandments from Hamilton works, the moments leading up to a showdown highlighted and sharpened down into a song that makes you feel emotions. Good vibes, no?

BONUS LANA DEL REY THE TRIO REMIX

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It's worth it. If you liked the last song, try vibing with this one. It's a really short, really fun remix of a piece from The Trio. And the beat drop gets me every SINGLE. TIME.

#the good the bad and the ugly #music #youtube #songs #river's radio #song lyrics #music recommendation #music recs #song reccomendations #music lovers #song recs #soundtrack #lana del rey #ennio morricone #sergio leone #tgtbtu

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amoveablejake · 1 year

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Album of The Week: ‘The Mandalorian’ Soundtrack by Ludwig Goransson

Stand out song: ‘The Mandalorian’.

We can go through phases of liking certain different types of music, specific albums or certain songs. These phases can be down to your age, something that may be going on in your life at that time or just what your taste at that moment happens to me. For a piece of music to stay with you through all of your life is quite an achievement. And I am not talking about a song where when you hear it you think ‘Oh yes I remember when I used to really like this’, I am talking about when a song or an album continues to be a part of you and everytime that you listen to it, it enforces that aspect of yourself that it has carved out in its image and your relationship with that piece of music only grows stronger for it. Some of the songs that do have this power are scores to films and television shows that we adore. These pieces are given the leg up that ofcourse it is most likely the case that we fell for them alongside falling for the title that they are attached to and so the feelings for both are entwined and it can be hard to see where the love for the project ends and the love for the song that comes with it begins. Either way, those scores can stand the test of time as they do continue to be our side and to keep us tethered to the feelings for the project and those emotions that we have whilst we engage with it. Then, on some occassions, the song that is associated with the title can exist within its own right, it can stand solely by itself both in the zeitgeist and in our heads and hearts. To find a song like that though, it is special and should be revered as such.

I was about to write then that it perhaps feels a bit funny that one of the key songs on my roster, a track that I keep on coming back to year after year is the title song for one of my favourite television shows but actually, it isn’t funny at all. It makes perfect sense for ‘The Mandalorian’ from ofcourse, Jon Favreau’s seminal Star Wars title of the same name, to be one of my favourite songs. ‘The Mandalorian’, the song (oh boy this is going to be fun) is, in my ears, the definition of what a score should be. It is easily identifiable in that it is a clear vision in an aural sense of the programme itself in its slow building before it erupts into a fanfare that I mean, lets face it, the show more than deserves. I have lost track at this point as to how many times I have heard this song. Yes, in the episodes where it is used in its original glorious form but also how it has been masterfully worked and reworked in the episodes to almost act as part of the narrative itself. It is as much as a joy to listen to as it is a tool to help remind the audience of the journey that they are on with the titular Mandalorian because yes, there are a few. It could be that with the amount of times that I have heard the song in the series that it could become grating, but it never has. It always serves as a welcome song to listen to and one that never fails to put a smile on my face. Although you wouldn’t be able to see it because of the helmet.

We are hopefully quite some time away from the end of Ludwig Goransson’s career but when we do reach that point, I already feel that he deserves to be one of those composers whose careers, well, they never really end for a great composers work is never really done. Cinematic composers like John Williams and Ennio Morricone’s work will continue to be heard throughout the world for years and years and years as they have managed to create stirring scores that truly resonate with their audiences and I do think Goransson has done the same thing. Ofcourse, he is not on their level as of yet, they do have quite an advantage as to the years of work that they have out, but I truly think Goransson will get there. What Goransson has been able to create in his career so far is a body of work that invites the listener in to experience the music within its own right and to form a connection to it and not only to the project that it is attached to. Yes, I do come back to ‘The Mandalorian’ every week because it is a Star Wars story and one of the absolute best one at that but also a huge part of it is the music. Goransson’s work throughout the series has been second to none and whilst I could very well see this as being the defining piece of his career not because he won’t go on to do better things but because this is such a wonderful piece of work, I think that the best is probably still yet to come and I look forward to seeing that. Although, I think I’ll always have a certain place in my heart for the fanfare for this son of Mandalore.

-Jake, a man still working through Easter chocolate, 17/04/2023

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ordinaryschmuck · 3 years

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Starkid Musicals Ranked from Worst to Best

Salutations to you, random people on the internet who most certainly won’t read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Welp. I finally did it. I've watched the entire Starkid musical library, and I must say, most of these plays fit my writing style perfectly:

Humor that is cynical yet random

Leaning in with comedy while sprinkling in some well-executed drama

An understanding that any type of story works as long as the cast of varying personalities of characters is dynamic enough to result in some phenomenal chemistry.

This is in almost all of their plays, excelled through fantastic writing and stellar performances driving the overall quality. And it inspired me not only to review each musical, but also ranking them all from worst to best. Or, more accurately, least good to most good. Because even at their "worst," Starkid still provides a funny, enjoyable experience that will keep you laughing with its comedy and your toes tapping with its catchy music. So strap in as I go in-depth into how Starkid proves how they are the masters of humor and melody.

(I'll also provide links to each musical, which is all for free on YouTube, so you can check them out yourselves. Just know that their early work is impossible to enjoy without subtitles, so you might want to have Closed Captions on when watching.)

#12-Holy Musical B@man-Everything about this play makes it seem like it's the weakest to me. The jokes, songs, and characters in Holy Musical B@tman just don't hit as hard as Starkid's other plays. It's still good, but compared to their best, the cracks show a lot more. That is, except for the ending. Not only is there a great speech that shows what makes superheroes so beloved, but "Super Friends" might just be my favorite finale song Starkid has ever put out. Holy Musical B@tman may not be the best, but it's at least worth the time.

#11-Firebringer-This was stupid. Really stupid. Funny as f**k, but still pretty stupid. Although I will give credit to one of the central pairings being LGBTQA+...Even though it makes little to no sense based on the characters' previous interactions. But in fairness, Starkid really sucks at writing good romantic relationships, so at least Firebringer has the benefit of being gay. And as we all know: The gayer, the better. The play is still stupid, though.

#10-Me and My Dick-The world in this musical makes little to no sense. Penises and vaginas are sentient and can communicate with their humans. And yet the penises and vaginas can also talk with each other, form relationships, leave their humans, and reinsert themselves into others--Yeah, it makes no sense...But, DAMN, is it funny! Every joke and innuendo Me and My Dick has about human anatomy works, and I could not stop laughing at each of them. Especially the names that were given to the vaginas, which are just...I mean, I'm laughing just by thinking about them. That should tell you how funny they are. This play might be illogical in every way, but if you turn your brain off and watch it for the humor, you'll definitely be in for something fun.

#9-ANI: A Parody-What's weird about ANI is that its best qualities are also weaknesses. A good chunk of the jokes are hilarious and expertly delivered. The issue is that most of them are about taking potshots at the Star Wars prequels, which might be the laziest jokes to make in a Star Wars parody. Then there's the soundtrack, having several songs that are a bop to listen to. The problem is that ANI suffers from the same issues as Tarzan and Brother Bear: Yes, technically, it is a musical, but it's one where none of the characters sing, and some people in the background do all the singing instead. It's all an odd balancing act of quality content made through questionable choices. ANI is still an entertaining play, but the force isn't as strong with this one.

#8-Black Friday-This might be the least funny play that Starkid has ever put out. Not just because it leans extra hard into drama, which was pretty effective during certain scenes. It's just when there are jokes in Black Friday, they tend to fall flatter more here than they did in other plays. Also, the plot of Black Friday might not be the best one to play straight. The serious moments work best when focusing on the characters and their personal struggles, but through the big bad that's supposed to be threatening? Not so much. Even if it was meant to be funny, well, I wasn't laughing. And believe it or not, I consider that to be the best judge of whether or not something is funny. That being said, while Black Friday isn't the most humorous Starkid musical, it's still pretty good. The characters are excellent, the songs are awesome, and the story is somewhat easy to follow. I would have appreciated a few more laughs, but I can respect these talented people wanting to challenge their strengths.

#7-Starship-This play feels very...Disney. It follows a familiar formula we've seen several times: The main character wants more than what he has in his crappy life, miraculously gets the exact thing he wants, falls in love with a girl in a short amount of time, faces off against a campy/over the top villain, realizes the hand he's been dealt isn't so bad, and in the end, gets what he wants anyway. Starship is still pretty entertaining through its jokes, characters, and songs, but it also feels weird that Starkid leans into these tropes when they would eventually make a much better play by making fun of them. The end result is not bad in the slightest, but it's also nowhere near their best.

#6-A Very Potter Musical-Starkid's first production, and boy, what a start to something wonderful. Every one of their gimmicks and motifs is present in A Very Potter Musical. The use of parody to playfully mock characters and stories they love, making songs that are as funny as they are emotional, and creating characters that work because of their lines and the actors' performances. Oh, and also, it's funny. And it’s not just through a parody angle, like making Cedric be a perfect boy who's always smiling. It's also funny through its jokes that work, even if you ignore the fact that it’s a parody altogether. Case in point, there are these two bits, one involving Voldemort and Beatrix with the other involving Ron and Hermoine, that are written and delivered so well that I was in tears much more than with any other Starkid play. When watching A Very Potter Musical, you'll not only understand how parody works, but you'll also gain an understanding of why Starkid turned out as successful as they did.

#5-The Trail to Oregon-What can I say? I'm a sucker for comedic dysfunctional families. And seeing a family of idiots make their way to Oregon via The Oregon Trail parody? Yeah, that's a win for me. The play may be another family road trip narrative, which some people might get sick of at this point. But because the dynamics and comedic chemistry everyone has with each other are on point, the end result proves that you don't need an original story to tell an entertaining one. Although I will say that out of all of Starkid's productions, The Trail to Oregon has by far the worst ending. Without giving anything away, the play spends way too much time on this one stupid joke that any of the characters could make. Comedy is defined by personalities, as are most things, so making the joke work for anyone is a bad move when this one, in particular, doesn't fit as well for some characters as it would for others. Plus, the finale song "Naked in a Lake" is a really poor choice to cap off this musical. It's catchy, but to me, a finale song should encapsulate everything about the story, characters, and themes. Not paying off a joke that I honestly wouldn't want the payoff for. So while the ending could have used a lot more polish, that doesn't change how The Trail to Oregon is a pretty funny play that I won't mind revisiting when I have the chance.

#4-A Very Potter Sequel-Hey, sometimes a sequel is better than the original. Sure some jokes don't land, and some story beats aren't as impactful as they thought they were (Serious Black's introduction, for example), but there are far more improvements to this play than the last one. The performances are stronger, the jokes are funnier, the music is catchier, and the characters are much more entertaining in this play than in A Very Potter Musical. Especially new additions like Lupin and Lucious Malfoy, who provide great comedy and sublime drama at times. And Umbridge. Sweet Mother of all that is holy, Umbridge. While A Very Potter Sequel never made me laugh to tears as the first play did, twice, Professor Umbridge carries the comedy so well that she surpasses all of that. Plus, on top of it all, this play nails its ending through a bittersweet note that really captures what makes Hogwarts so special to these characters. I always feel like Starkid's plays tend to lose steam during the last few minutes, but A Very Potter Sequel is one of the few instances that it just builds and builds to a perfect ending. A Very Potter Sequel might not always hit the right marks, but the results are just magical when it does get it right.

#3-The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals-This one is pretty clever. The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is one of those stories that manages to be explicitly hilarious yet implicitly disturbing. For instance, people suddenly bursting into perfectly choreographed musical numbers in a world where songs are exclusively diegetic is pretty funny (especially through the characters' reactions to it). However, knowing what happens to these people and why they sing and dance so expertly helps make the whole situation pretty dire. It's an excellent balancing act that not many stories can accomplish. And while The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals leans one way or the other at times, it's still all handled really well. Oh, and also, you know how most people say the villain song is the best one in any musical? Well, technically speaking, nearly every song in The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is the villain song. Including the finale, which is just too brilliant for me not to give a round of applause. If you're a person who unfortunately doesn't like musicals either, I'd say be more than willing to give this one a chance. It's funny, catchy, and if you think of the implications, pretty damn disturbing.

#2-A Very Potter Senior Year-...You know how Avengers: Endgame is a bit of a mess, yet people still love it for how much of a perfect (sort of) finale it is? It's the same regard with A Very Potter Senior Year in my eyes. It's far from a masterpiece, but the many, many solid scenes that cap off this series help make me willing to overlook the mistakes. The characters, callbacks, and overall message about how things end was done so expertly well that I physically can’t hate this one. I can understand how it's more of an ok play when compared to the rest of Starkid's productions, but sometimes, ok is wonderful.

#1-Twisted: An Untold Story of a Royal Vizier-...It's Twisted. Everyone loves Twisted! And how could they not? Everything about this play just screams Starkid at their best. The comedy is uproarious, added with the fantastic delivery of the actors and the characters' personalities. Everyone feels as though they have one step in reality and the other in insanity. This, to me, seems like the best type of character work when going for the parody angle. Parody is about giving slight yet snide remarks toward the work you're mocking, which I feel works best when characters drop the suspension of disbelief audiences have when enjoying such a story. And Twisted definitely nails its satire in not only poking fun at Aladdin but also making jokes towards Disney as a brand. From their movies to their inside jokes to their formulas to even their corporate dealings with Pixar, nothing about Disney is sacred in Twisted. But on top of being funny, Twisted might just be the most successful Starkid has been with telling some really compelling drama. The jokes allow themselves to take a back seat to let serious moments play out, and even comedy is added, it provides more for the experience rather than taking anything away. You see this not only through the actors giving it their all but even through some really gorgeous and heart wrenching musical numbers. Oh, and also, Twisted has the best Starkid soundtrack, featuring songs that are epic, funny, and, as I said, heartbreaking. You cannot get better than this and, if you want to get a friend interested in Starkid as a whole, this might be the play for them. Scheherazade may have a thousand tales, but his one is a tale I wouldn't mind hearing for a thousand nights.

And that's about how I feel about Starkid and each and every one of their plays. Odds are your ranking would be much different from mine, and I'm all for that differing opinions. Feel free to make your own ranking if you want because I'm honestly curious where fans would place these plays above or below others. I'm relatively new to enjoying their work, so I have no idea what the consensus is. I do know one thing, though: If Starkid can still be incredibly entertaining through over ten years of content, then I am excited to see what they can accomplish next in another ten years.

#starkid #holy musical b@man #firebringer #me and my dick #ani: a parody #black friday #a very potter trilogy #the trail to oregon #the guy who didn't like musicals #twisted: the untold story of a royal vizier

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alchemabotana · 3 years

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Horoscopes for the Full Moon in Capricorn June 24th 2021

Antonina “Little Thunder” Whaples

@whaplesantonina

If you enjoy these horoscopes, please consider supporting by voting for me as Ms. Health and Fitness 2021 for Muscle & Fitness Hers Magazine. You can vote once every 24 hours for free. If I win, I am donating the proceeds to herbal medicine school scholarships. To vote: https://mshealthandfitness.com/2021/antonina

Strawberry Moon - Pen & Ink Sketch by Antonina Whaples

Horoscopes for the Full Moon in Capricorn June 24th 2021

Strawberry Moon

This lunar Opening in Capricorn June 24th 2021 is a cry of righteousness on the hilly planes of our spiritual landscapes. With this meregoat’s lunation, we will experience the inherent benefits of the systematic work we’ve done since 2018, with a special emphasis on decisions made to change personal system errors. The Gods of karma are smiling at our intentions and efforts, and rewards will be reaped by those who invest in self discovery. Our ritual work has been seen and blessed in the Summer Solstice shifts by the spirits of the Land. If you listen closely on this strawberry moon, you may just hear the call of the Cosmic tricksters as they work their mojo on the psychopomp of Earthly frustrations. When you’re feeling the pull of your natal oppositions this moon, tune into the tendons of your actions and see where the motion stems from. You may be relieved to find that the strings that once pulled your puppet are made of finer ancestral threads and your permission to be free was always there. When you check into the Cosmic Chess Board you may find something of a rubix cube has emerged in your new dimensional awarenesses. Instead of throwing yourself into the equations necessary to unlock this next level, revel in the achievements that brought you to this very moment. In a cosmic landscape where the processes of life and death have been hyper focused in our collective consciousness it feels rebellious to change the font and type settings of the ancestral notepads in our minds. Representing the waters that run deeply within the Earth, Capricorn’s fullness in the night sky will illuminate various Spirits whose presence have been well established, but not necessarily recognized. A sign of the power of mental affirmation, your thoughts and words will hold a special magic in this moment. Remember that your Guides, Spirit Animals, Power Totems, Good Medicine Ancestors, and the Spirits of the Land are excellent translators, and with Mercury about to pop out of retrograde (watch out for its shadow til June 30th), its final lesson is one of the personal spiritual variety. When what we seek is Truth & Justice, we allow our souls to attune to protective forces that help us autocorrect, fold into origami, and transcend with temperance.

Aries:

It’s no surprise that an old tune holds the secret code from that earlier recording of the master tape your memory has been searching for in the old filing system. In these moments you realize just how deep and densely tracked the highways and byways of your mental system are. You’re the original wayfinder of your own uncharted territory of the mind. This state of curiosity opens you up to spiritual healing that aligns your personal ideals and values with the actions a person desires to embody. When your actions meet your words, you tend to feel the most at home in the grander machinations of Spaceship Earth.

I’m not sure if I’m feeling funky or groovy, jazzy or bluesy? Does it jive with you? Is it feeling all right? What songs have got you buzzed on this full moon night? I’m enjoying the humour of the human experience, and I find ways to incorporate positive sources of enjoyment into my daily routine. I recognize that I can be sensitive to the frequencies I consume mentally, and I’m manifesting sources of comedic gold into my awareness. I can be my own clown, and enjoy an inside-inside joke anytime my mind decides that laughter is the best medicine. I love to laugh, and allow myself this simple pleasure in life.

Taurus:

Saturn in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus has been creating a nuanced ping-pong table in your mind. This influence has been upon your daily life for sometime, and shall continue on through the rest of the year, with another exact square in December 2021. Accept the exactness of this T-squared engineer level measurement on the corners of your ascension blueprints. It’s ok to look at the world from your own angles, and you may be happily surprised by the moments that unfold joyously when you use your sharpness to hone the hedges of your self doubt. There’s a special magic in this moon for you, as the meregoat lights a part of the puzzle we wanted to get done anyway. This refocused energy gives you the internal resources to wait to make your next move, even though the ones you’ve planned are quite clever already, when mercury rx clears you’ll have fine tuned your intel.

I give in to the epic bonestructure of my cosmic face in the universe. I know that on these edges are where the hedgerows grow. In these sanctuaries of my boundaries, I give spaces for things I truly want to cultivate to be engendered. I find which spaceships are allowed to dock at my intergalactic port of plenty, and make sure that my shields are up when psychic frequencies intend to disrupt my qi. When I breathe, I give space to the energy around myself, and I feel permission to let go. When I let go, I allow myself to accept instructions in the forms of feelings and intuitions. I do not allow the opinions or voices of others to upset my internal compass. I feel centered and grounded and know I will continue to make positive choices and believe in myself. I choose to honor myself, and that makes me feel good.

Gemini:

You’ve been carefully funneling resources into a variety of investments. Financial and interpersonal projects and alliances deepen, although it is not a time to throw caution to the wind. Caution and planning is what has allowed you to learn to trust the ebb and flow of the cosmic money winds, and you’re trying to siphon your own renewable sources, not steal from the Gods. When you place yourself in alignment with your internal resources, you can learn to embody compassion to provide yourself when feelings of self worth or insecurities prod you to feel guilty about the ways you regenerate. Let your conscience be your guide, and allow others to do the same. The path of self acceptance is most rich for you at this juncture, and it would be wise to use the Full moon to clear the psychic debris of your aura through ritual bathing, sound healing, and aromatics.

I can sometimes turn my mirrors askance to the equations I cannot seem to readily solve. But, in doing so I lose reflections that empower me. I accept that it's time to look at some of those patterns again and see if they even deserve a place on the chalkboard of my mind. When I make space to use my memory card to run programs that make me have feelings I actually enjoy, I look into my secret box of fantasies and realize I may have already realized many of those experiences. In these moments of clarity, I hold a space for myself to enjoy what I may not have allowed myself to in the past. In this way, I take back my energy and transform myself in the present.

Cancer:

In this moon you are finally able to feel that rebound-snap! Ka-bow! sh-zing! of Mars’ exit from your cozy airbnb. You’re reminded that you should be charging premiums for your ability to stay level-headed when the Gods and Goddesses war in the Heavens, and on Earth. You enjoy a good ritual bath, but to stay out of hot waters, this crab needs a cool-down. This Capricorn Moon is just what the doctor ordered, and something about the good medicine flowing through you can’t help but seep into certain streams where the mojo is most needed. This is an excellent time for you to pause in your personal space and take a moment to feel the beauty of your domain.

My soundtrack of life is a high luxury five star bathhouse of the Spirits. I’ve been Spirited Away to lands of emotional remembrance. The roots of my ancestors have spoken to me, and I have heard their instructions. I need not fear the judgments of others, because I am a sacred part of creation. I will not allow negative voices to infiltrate my consciousness, but instead, I will choose to believe that my work has been blessed by the Cosmic Super Computer and shall continue to have its content prioritized. In this space of trust, I allow myself to turn my consciousness to what I’ve relegated as “frivolous artistic pursuits”. I find the time and space to make something just because. When I experience this energy releasing through the act of creation, I realize why it mattered in the first place.

Leo:

The grass is pretty green in your patch. Both career aspirations and spiritual wealth appear to be presenting itself to you in all new fashions. You may literally be feeling called to new ways to express yourself externally, and this exploration of your presentation to the world helps you heal. You’ve been feeling called to healing in general, feeling like it may be a good time to start a new way of moving, or to add a healing ritual to your daily experience. If you happen to use stone medicine, Turquoise will be especially healing in nature during the transit of Mars through Leo, and can be just the cooling mechanism you need to keep your Roar without the bite.

Sometimes I’m just feeling high octane. When I find the right stomping grounds to release my charge I am able to do so safely through friendly communication strategies, good topics of conversation, interesting objects within my spacial periphery, and calming colors. It’s ok to turn the volume all the way up, but when the outside world adjusts its tone to match, I can switch to a different groove. I’m in awe of my co-creative power to engage my environment and use my influence therein to bring forth collective healing experiences.

Virgo:

Something about this moon in Capricorn feels familiar to you, and perhaps it's the quiet watch you’ve held & the prayers of your heart being answered. Your physical being is finding ways to heal through your insights to your movements in daily life. As your mind/body/spirit awareness grows, you find new ways of expressing yourself. This ability to shift and transform might seem like deja vu, but it's your memories finding their way to the surface. When our minds give us abstract feelings and visions, we can move mountainous emotions safely within our systems, without harming ourselves or others. Breathe deeply and find a place to scream loudly if you need that release.

I have crossed some barren deserts, but I have not died of thirst. I am blessed with the life I have co-created in the spiritual planes of my intelligent manifestations. My awareness of the barren corners of life have given me compassionate reflective capacity and a recognition of my gifts by those whose opinions matter to me. I am enjoying the small moments of joy and call them precious to me. I forgive myself for any moments where I’ve expected too much of myself while I was grieving a loss. My heart is tender, and my spirit gentle. I wish to live in harmony with myself and others.

Libra:

This Capricorn moon you are more annoyed than usual at laundry, other people’s messes, and scapegoating. Your sensitivity to physical objects is heightened under this Full Moon and it may feel overwhelming to be in the midst of the messes others leave for you to clean up. It’s more than frustrating when you acknowledge how your time/energy has been appropriated. Instead of letting loose the fire brigade when the bridge seems to be burning, walk away from the moments today that feel like a temptation. Make sure to find objects that reflect healthy energy back to you, and sit amidst a tiny oasis of your creation, and pay no attention to chaos of the Gods. You deserve a Full Battery, and the spirits are conspiring to recharge your battery banks this lunation.

I gather strength from my service to my community. When I have been unbalanced in the past, I allow my weight to ground in all directions through the sacred communions of my own secret tabernacles of the human experience. I make new covenants with myself and the way I speak and treat myself, so that I no longer need to suffer under the weight of the past. I don’t need to feel any guilt in laying down my load, and don’t need any permission to do so. When I feel safe, I will allow those who I trust to provide the respite necessary for me to heal my visions of my life and expand into an abundant awareness of how truly loved I am for being myself, and how needed my cosmic ray of intellect is to this world.

Scorpio:

Known for your secrets and depth, you’ve been hiding like the Cosmic Sphinx between the pillars of the temple gates. You’ve been allowed to watch the clashes of the Giants unscathed, and your insight will outlast this passing phase of planetary tensions. You’ve been sending alien text messages to Neptune’s work phone, and the intel has been legit. Your attraction to Art, Color, Shape, Form, Music, and Theatre are encouraging you to make insightful investments in your own dreams. This Full Moon beckons you to create with abandon and let the waves of inspiration quench your desire for pleasure.

I feel like the whole choir singing in one unison. I weave through the soundwaves, key changes, and rhythm switch-ups as I keep time with the sacred union of celestial sounds. I am aware that the tunes of the planet herself offer me a sacred respite from the cacophony of the cosmic movements. When I ground myself into the soothing waters of my spiritual essence I define for myself how my energy is used for the goodness of my own healing.

Sagittarius:

It feels like you’ve been getting along pretty well with the planetary forces, and everyone secretly enjoys the protection that your bow provides for the tribe. You may be feeling a bit cramped in the yellow submarine of the pandemic, dare we say you could have cabin fever? The Trines, Sextiles, and satellite signals of the skies indicate that you can find a special type of relief from the feelings of squished with mandalas, botanical drawings, and spirographs. When you take the time to let your mind journey in these ways, it lets your hunter’s mind relax for the next best chance. And no worries, you’ve got plenty of chances ahead, Sagittarius.

Life is good. I do my hair toss, check my nails - baby how you doing? Hey, life is good. He’s got his eye on the sparrow and I guess that’s me? I’m playing with the chemistry... cause that’s how I be? When I look into the mirror I see a babe, a real dude of the neighborhood - my sister, mothers, daddy, and the community. I guess when I see you, I see me. And when I’m in that light in me, and you are in that light in you. There is only one of us: namaste my bissssssch

Capricorn:

This Full Moon in Capricorn you endeavour to ask outloud: “What Giant’s Bones Have We Built Ourselves Upon?” Your Full Lunation is opposing the Sun in Cancer, shining a shadow on our collective exoskeleton. This Full Moon feels like an archeological discovery when proverbial bones rattle out of the closet to give us a hoodoo prayer’s chance for self liberation. You’ve been waiting for a moment like this, and it's OK if you’re not ready to take that leap of faith. But should you choose, the moon lights up an emotional healing around the concept of “home”. You really want to know if you’re believing the right thing from one moment to the next, but keeping your head out of the secret sauce is key to giving your subconscious the space it needs right now to send out signals to the future. Soon enough you’ll be receiving confirmations of cosmic flavors right into your spiritual inbox.

I called Stephen Hawking and he called me back. My voicemail said: “Hey friend. I know this is a hard time on planet earth. I think people are doing better than they believe they are. It’s hard to be a human. I remember the constraints of the body, and I understand when you want to just fly away somewhere. I believe in you. Capricorns get a bad rap sometimes. I can see your progress, and I hope you take the time to see it too. By the way, we always have the time to say how much we matter to each other. Thanks for being, and enjoy this life, you deserve it”.

Aquarius:

There have been a lot of light bulbs going off in your spiritual laboratory. This Full Moon when the light shifts, your awareness of the dimensionality of the objects and purpose of your life is heightened. You may be experiencing some grief and loss around feelings of closeness with others. Recently you’ve been asked to hold a deep stability for the collective’s growth. Your actions haven’t gone unnoticed, and you’ve been receiving opportunities for advancement in your career. However, you are feeling uncomfortable with commitment while under a deep pressure to perform. These archetypal struggles are up for healing on the altar of the Full Moon. Your magic fairy dust works the best when you sprinkle it on yourself. You are learning the ways of Illuminated Prosperity.

My voice is a symphony of grace within a cacophony of sound. I breathe in the knowledge that my very existence is a miracle of my own embracing. I find myself at home in my surroundings and know I belong. Whoever “They” are, I know I can be myself around “Them”. I trust that my instincts are perfected beyond doubt. I’ve taken all the tests and quizzes and my insights are showing precision on whichever experiments have survived my tests of time and spirit. When I tune into my highest self it's because I’m recognizing my ability to be in that place no matter what surrounds me. Even when my circumstances deny me, I do not deny myself. I believe that I am worthy of the life I am living, and anticipate my surroundings shifting to match the unique vibrational fingerprint that I offer planet Earth.

Pisces:

You’ve been holding down some major spiritual territory during the recent seasonal shifts. The light of the meregoat acts as a lighthouse beacon for the whales and whistleblowers of your waters. You’re not particularly interested in that island, and prefer to spend this Lunation in Capricorn Gardening, Cleaning Out the Car, Writing about your art, Feeding the fairies, Calling in positivity, Releasing the Past, Testing New Grounds, and let’s just say it: looking pretty guuuuuuud while doing it. So good. You might want to tune into some whale call noises, or turn on a beachy video. The seas are definitely calling your name, and your inner explorer could watch Moana a few times through the eyes of the grandmother, the eyes of Moana, and the eyes of Te Fiti.

I am a sound rising on the waves of creation. I turn my eyes to the heavens and I’m in the medicine nation. I forgive myself for all my wavering, I know my power lies in my cravings. I can wish upon the starry skies, and watch the birds where e’er they fly. I’m curious to know the names of all the fairies, and their games. I want to know what games I’ll win when I’m laughing with a cheshire grin. I know what gods have sent me here, I know which path I’m meant to clear. And when the waters run to quickly, or the bushes get too prickly - I can lay my spirit down. My minds’a palace, my head a crown. You could call me king or queen, but my magics’still unseen. I’m so much bigger than my titles, or whichever ones I didn’t get. I’ve given all at my recitals, and I’m my own best bet.

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shihalyfie · 4 years

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A meta and analysis on Hurricane Touchdown

Hurricane Touchdown sure is one of the Digimon entries that’s really difficult to describe. Often said to be “confusing” and “like an acid trip” (for pretty good reason, honestly), it somehow also manages to have a lot of hold in public memory, partially due to being one of the three movies that got widespread international distribution via Digimon: The Movie. Moreover, its relevance has started to re-emerge thanks to Kizuna, the director of which has stated Hurricane Touchdown to be his favorite movie (multiple times). Rather recently, there was even an editorial written by a journalist who had been covering Kizuna, professing that he had watched Hurricane Touchdown as a kid and hated it, only to rewatch it as an adult and appreciate it much better.

With all that, plus the fact that the movie recently got a new translation, it’s probably a good time to go back over the movie and analyze it! Despite what popular sentiment may have you believe, the plot of the movie isn’t that fundamentally incomprehensible, just buried under some rather unusual production and execution decisions. But there’s a lot to be said about the themes and story of the movie, so let’s dig in!

(All screenshots and quotations from the movie are based off the Hudie translation.)

Hurricane Touchdown in meta franchise terms

The full title of the movie isn’t technically Hurricane Touchdown by itself, but rather “Digimon Hurricane Touchdown!!/Transcendent Evolution!! The Golden Digimentals”. (The Japanese fanbase tends to shorten it to “Digimon Hurricane”, or, for even more shortening, “dejihari”.) The double-titling there is because of how it was originally screened; it was the 02 “summer movie”, screening in July (between the airings of 02 episodes 14 and 15). Functionally, the franchise has thereafter treated it like a single movie, but at the time, the fact it was technically “two” movies gave it the longest running time of any Digimon theatrical movie, clocking in at a little over an hour. (The tri. movies are officially considered OVAs and not theatrical movies due to their limited-screening nature, so as of this writing Kizuna, at 95 minutes, is the only theatrical movie to break this record.)

The movie itself has a pretty fascinating development history – for one, Akiyama Ryou was originally planned to be the starring character instead of Wallace. It’s also the first Digimon movie to be in “questionable canonicity” territory – this is very normal for Toei tie-in movies, since development for these kinds of movies usually starts at the same time or even before the TV series itself, making it hard to reconcile canon, but unusual at the time for Adventure, which had both its first and second movies be plot-relevant to Adventure and 02 respectively. It is generally understood that the movie takes place in “summer” – possibly between episodes 14 and 15, at the same position it screened in real-life – but, interestingly, the Western and Japanese fanbases’ opinions on why it’s questionably canon tend to differ: in the West it’s usually based on the appearance of Tailmon and Patamon’s higher-level evolutionary forms (which shouldn’t be possible as per 02 episode 27), but in the Japanese fanbase it’s based on Wallace’s existence posing a timeline contradiction (according to Adventure episode 45, there shouldn’t be any Chosen Children before 1995, but the movie states that Wallace had been one before then). Add to that The Door to Summer, which seemingly contradicts the ending of the movie (in which Wallace and Gumimon find what’s implied to be Chocomon’s egg, whereas The Door to Summer has the line “Chocomon isn’t here anymore”), and everything is just a tangled mess.

Despite that, it’s pretty remarkable how lasting the movie has been in public memory. Even with all of the factors working against it – the fact it’s often accused of being confusing (or, by many a Japanese kid, boring and slow) or an acid trip – Wallace is a very popular character, more so than you’d expect for a “guest” character in a one-off movie, especially one so controversial. 02 fans often even consider him an honorary seventh member of the 02 group. His article on the Pixiv dictionary wiki is pretty surprisingly thorough, at that. Questionable canonicity aside, the fact The Door to Summer even exists is pretty significant – how many one-off questionably canon movies have you seen getting an actual sequel?

As an aside, Hurricane Touchdown has a bit of an interesting relationship with Ojamajo Doremi, which is in some sense classic Digimon’s sister series (it aired at around the same time as Adventure through Frontier, and was also headed by their producer, Seki Hiromi). Wallace was voiced by Miyahara Nami, a voice actress who grew up in an international school in Austria and thus speaks fluent German and English, thus often putting her in roles that require speaking one of those. (If you listen to Wallace’s Japanese speech through the movie, it has a very heavy accent, which is deliberately affected on Miyahara’s part.) A year later, Miyahara would be cast as major character Momoko in Motto! Ojamajo Doremi, and The Door to Summer would prominently feature Nat-chan, a girl voiced by Shishido Rumi, who voiced Ojamajo’s Onpu (who is generally agreed to be Doremi’s most popular character, and Shishido’s most famous role). Coincidence? Opportunistic casting? Who knows.

The movie itself

But that’s enough beating around the bush. Let’s get to the movie itself!

I’m not going to dwell on this too much because I’m going to be going more in detail about it below, but our story starts off in Wallace’s hometown of Summer Memory, a fictional rural village in Colorado, in 1995. (As mentioned earlier, this is a bit of a timeline contradiction; Adventure episode 45 establishes that “the one who wishes for stability” and the Agents didn’t get the idea of human Chosen Children until 1995, whereas the events of Hurricane Touchdown imply he’d been one before then.) Chocomon suddenly vanishes, and a gust of wind is left behind, implying that he must have been kidnapped. It’s not exactly said by what he was taken by (Digimon: The Movie ties it into Our War Game! by having both be traced to a “virus”, but no mention of such is made in the original Japanese version).

The mystery of what it is that took Chocomon away is never fully elaborated in the course of the movie, but as it goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that it doesn’t actually matter. Why? Well, stay tuned.

So, timeskip to 2002!

As Takeru and Hikari are visiting Mimi in New York, Hikari, who is known to have a bit of an empathic connection to Digimon, senses that there’s a “crying Digimon” (this will be important later), and Mimi suddenly vanishes – as do the other Chosen Children.

I think part of the reason this movie is often pinned as feeling like an acid trip is that the demeanor and attitude the 02 kids express in this movie feels a little too laid-back for the very urgent situation of their seniors having suddenly up and vanished (which is also not helped by the movie’s overall soundtrack being a lot more laid-back than the events on screen should suggest). This is especially odd because it’s absolutely not like the kids aren’t worried about their seniors at all! Rather to the contrary; “getting Taichi and the others back” is the major motive driving the whole group for the rest of it, and it’s constantly brought up as their goal in dialogue, shaping their actions throughout the rest of the movie. The execution of the dialogue and the overall direction create a bit of a tonal mismatch, but on its face, the actual storytelling checks.

Shortly after, Chocomon – now evolved and corrupted into something – appears, and Wallace and Gumimon confront him.

The fact that Wallace refers to his partners by their Baby-level names (Chocomon and Gumimon) even after they’ve clearly evolved brings up a lot of interesting implications. One is that, not having been privy to any great adventure in the Digital World before, Wallace doesn’t have a lot of awareness of names changing after evolution the same way his Japanese peers do. But another important thing that comes out here is that, through the course of this movie, Wallace primarily sees his partners the same way he did as a young child. A lot of this movie’s story centers around Wallace’s difficulty in moving on from the past and accepting that things aren’t the same way that they are anymore – and so, just like how he has a hard time swallowing that the circumstances have changed, he has difficulty seeing his own partners as having changed, and calls them by the same names despite everything.

Takeru and Hikari catch on, and Hikari’s psychic sense catches on that something’s happened to her brother, too.

Oh, and incidentally, said seniors aren’t in a pleasant place to be in at all.

The fact that the older kids are clearly Not Having a Good Time in the realm they’ve been kidnapped to – it’s depicted as cold, lonely, full of negative emotions, and eating away at their ability to even bodily function – is very heavily connected to what we later learn about what’s been going on with Chocomon through the last seven years. Moreover, the one truly coherent thing Taichi and Yamato can spit out at this stage is concern for their siblings – i.e., love. Keep that in mind for later!

Wallace drops a line to his family (”Amy” presumably being his sister) saying that he’s going to head to Summer Memory, and skips town. Repeat: Summer Memory is in Colorado – he’s doing something as drastic as going out of state to follow Chocomon, which naturally does not amuse his mom very much (as we find out later in the movie). Patamon eavesdrops on the conversation and relays the information to Takeru and Hikari, who contact Daisuke in turn.

So the remaining three kids nyoom all the way to the US using frequent flyer miles (which makes you really wonder whose those are, or what on earth they told their parents to allow three elementary school kids go around unassisted in another country) to go save their seniors, which apparently doesn’t fund their trip all the way to Colorado, forcing them to hitchhike from New York.

(We also get a quick scene implying that Daisuke has better proficiency in English than Iori and Miyako, as he translates some of the statements for the guy they take a ride from. This is pretty surprising, given that Daisuke hasn’t really been portrayed as particularly book smart…but then again, language skills sometimes just happen to come naturally to some people regardless of skill in books, and hey, it might just come in useful for his future ramen chef career in New York…)

We get our first major scene of dialogue between Gumimon and Wallace, and we learn quite a bit about their characters in the process. Gumimon has a similar laid-back attitude to the more prominent Terriermon in Tamers, but beyond that (and a shared voice actress), it’s important to note that they have very different personalities otherwise. In this scene, Wallace and Gumimon get in an argument over how to handle Chocomon, with Wallace insisting that they shouldn’t have attacked him and that they should have just “talked” about it – even though, as Gumimon correctly points out, he was pretty obviously trying to physically attack Wallace.

In fact, at this part of the story, Wallace is being extremely irrational and in denial. You don’t even have to watch the rest of the movie to see that Gumimon’s very practical stance on the matter is reasonable – Chocomon was very much trying to attack Wallace, and getting caught in the fight was pretty much all he could do for Wallace’s safety. But Wallace, still stuck in the past, can’t accept that at this point in the movie, and, honestly, is being a bit of a brat about it too – he’s engaging in progressively more self-destructive behavior over the course of the movie (ditching his family to set off by himself in order to hitchhike to Colorado, for one). We later find out that Wallace is specifically obsessed with going back to the flower field where he lost Chocomon, having independently come up with the idea that this would somehow let everything go back to what it was before – even though there was really no sign this would actually fix anything.

The Adventure universe generally runs on a concept that a Digimon partner is representative of part of the self, and so, tying that into Wallace and his two partners, it can be taken that Gumimon and Chocomon reflect the duality of Wallace as a character – Chocomon representing his desire to latch onto the past and hope that everything can be the same that it was before, and Gumimon as Wallace’s sense of reason, advising him about the reality of the situation and how to practically get through it (and, thus, to move on). In fact, Gumimon is the one constantly advising him about said self-destructive behavior (reminding him that his mom is probably worried about him, but also berating him for just ditching the train as a result instead of thinking about how that’d leave them without reliable transportation for the rest of it).

The symbolism is driven in even further when the only thing Gumimon has to say, in response to Wallace clinging further onto the idea that going to the flower field will fix things…is a cryptic statement that Chocomon didn’t like the heat, then suddenly offering to be a hat to provide Wallace shade. Because right now, Wallace and Chocomon are the same: clinging hopelessly to shards of the past.

The other 02 kids make their way to meet up in Colorado, but run into some snags when Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori end up missing the exit to Denver (Takeru is not amused), and Hikari and Takeru’s train ends up stranded thanks to Chocomon’s interference…

…and, making things worse, Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori try to take a plane back to Denver, only to overshoot it again. (Sorry, Taichi…your juniors are idiots.)

Fortunately, they get lucky by running into the very same boy they’re indirectly looking for on their way to hitchhiking. We learn that Wallace has never had exposure to other Chosen Children before to the extent of knowing there were any Digimon in Japan, nor has he ever been to the Digital World, so for all intents and purposes, his experiences with Chocomon and Gumimon are all he knows (i.e. he has no awareness of large-scale Digital World affairs). He also apparently speaks Japanese, which is convenient for this movie so that they don’t have to have a language barrier, but, amusingly, Wallace claims that it’s because he “had a Japanese girlfriend once”. (Gumimon, who is much more reliable of a source, says that he’d apparently put an honest effort into studying, so an interpretation that Wallace really likes anime or something is not out of the question.)

It’s also interesting to see how the others react to him, especially considering that it’s becoming increasingly apparent that he’s involved with the disappearance of their seniors. Miyako is as openly friendly as she generally always is, Iori presses him very calmly about questions relevant to the disappearances and Chocomon without even batting an eyelid (future lawyer in training here), and Daisuke is suspicious from the get-go…which is exacerbated when Wallace starts flirting with Miyako. The running gag of Daisuke getting angry about Wallace flirting with Miyako has a lot to unpack here – the most obvious standby is the shipping interpretation (or, at least, that Daisuke may be as protective of Miyako as he is Hikari), but there are other points to observe as well. Firstly, Daisuke is a rather abruptly straightforward and overly honest person, and it makes sense that he’d play badly with people who seem dishonest – after all, his suspicions of Wallace started even before he started flirting, and he also shows similar hostility around Takeru (also not a very straightforward person) when he suspects he’s being made fun of. But also, the Pixiv dictionary entry takes the interpretation that Wallace’s personality had gotten a bit “warped” by his experiences – or, in other words, he’d developed this penchant for acting like a flirt, wandering off on his own, and altogether being incredibly wishy-washy because of the trauma of losing Chocomon and his inability to get over it.

And as much as Daisuke’s being a prick about it (to the point that mocking Wallace for it gets him left there stranded with him), he’s absolutely right about the contradiction Wallace’s posing – he’s acting all high and mighty about trying to become an “adult” (meaning that going off on his own and flirting with girls presumably are part of his perception of what Mature Guys do), yet he’s being a total mama’s boy by constantly dropping everything to call her repeatedly through his trip. (It’s even worse than the subs here suggest; he calls her “mama”, the kind of super-affectionate language used by Mimi and Ken.) As Gumimon says, Wallace thinks he’s actually right, but he doesn’t actually have it together at all.

Another interesting thing to note here is that at this point of the movie, Wallace calls Daisuke “Daisuke-kun” (with honorific attached, slight distance). Remember this for later.

Chocomon appears to confront them again, but he seems to not properly recognize Wallace – because, as we later find out, he doesn’t see the current Wallace as “Wallace”, and will accept nothing less than a younger Wallace from exactly the way he was when they were separated. (It is later stated in the movie that this is why he kidnapped the seniors and turned them younger; since he can’t recognize “Wallace” the way he is now, he’s taking anyone he can find with a Digivice and de-aging them in the hopes that he’ll find “Wallace” among them.) Gumimon recognizes that Chocomon is beyond recognition, and tells Wallace to not see him as Chocomon, but Wallace refuses to accept this and continues to intervene in the fight, telling Chocomon that they’ll meet again in the flower field. Again, Wallace’s mentality isn’t that different from Chocomon’s at this point – he may not be delusional to the point he wants to literally turn back time, but he still thinks that reproducing the conditions of seven years prior will fix everything and make it all better again.

During this whole time, the older(?) kids are getting progressively younger, and it’s turning out to impact not only their physical bodies but also their mentalities. At this point, they’re starting to lose awareness of what’s happening to them, as they become more and more connected to Chocomon’s emotions.

Daisuke is smart enough to catch on that Wallace definitely knows what’s going on, and starts to interrogate him. Recall that Daisuke is completely within his rights to do so at this point – Wallace is not only acting incredibly shady, he’s also being dismissive and refusing to give Daisuke any concrete answers about something that most certainly involves him at this point. As the 02 kids keep reiterating, their seniors have been kidnapped, and it’s pretty clear to anyone that Wallace knows something about this, but he continues to blow them off.

Wallace also doesn’t seem to be very happy about the fact Gumimon had evolved during the battle – remember, Wallace is very resistant to changes in his status quo, and especially when it involves Gumimon evolving in a similar way to Chocomon.

Daisuke continues to pry into what’s going on with Wallace and Chocomon, and Gumimon, who understands that there’s no use in denying that this is a problem, tries to be straightforward about it – but Wallace, still stubbornly refusing to open up about it, won’t even let Gumimon tell Daisuke about the truth.

Daisuke realizes that they’re not going to make any territory as it is, so he decides to have Lighdramon take them to Summer Memory for the time being, bonding a bit more with Wallace in the process.

Once they reach Summer Memory, the kids learn about Takeru and Hikari getting stalled by Chocomon on the train, and the fact everyone else on it had disappeared – meaning that the responsibility that Wallace is carrying for not taking care of this problem begins to weigh further on him. Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori continue to interrogate him about what he knows.

But Wallace, still stubbornly, refuses to talk, and being in Summer Memory only drowns him in further memories of his past with Chocomon and Gumimon. We learn a bit more about Gumimon’s past, too – apparently, he was quite the crybaby…

And when Gumimon finally begins to spill the details of what’s going on – that Chocomon wants to see the younger Wallace and is kidnapping kids with his Digivice and turning them younger as a result – Wallace still continues to double down on his denial. Notice his wording – his specific insistence that things will go back to “how they used to be,” because it’s not just about getting Chocomon back, but also a fixation on recreating that happy childhood he had with him.

(There’s also a bit of a cute moment around here where Daisuke asks Wallace if he needs to call his mom – after having teased him for being a mama’s boy earlier, Daisuke really is starting to care about his welfare. It’s also amusingly mentioned that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori are broke out of money until they meet up with Takeru and Hikari again…)

That night, Wallace tries to go off by himself to the flower field, not even bringing Gumimon with him – as he implies later, he doesn’t even want to get Gumimon involved with this because he was the closest to Chocomon – but Daisuke, having finally caught on to his suspicion that Chocomon is not only relevant to Wallace but also Wallace’s partner, confronts him about it. Wallace thus finally spills the details – that Gumimon and Chocomon were born from the same egg, that Wallace kept them from his mother and stuck with them during childhood, and that, seven years prior, Chocomon suddenly vanished while they were playing at the flower field.

Wallace: I’ve never been able to forget about Chocomon since then. Not even after moving to New York, not even once. We were such good friends…So why did Chocomon have to end up like that? Does he hate me for not being able to save him? Daisuke: So the enemy we’re fighting is actually your Digimon? Your most important friend?! Daisuke: Of course you’d never be okay with that…

Daisuke is in shock, even though he’d already started to suspect this.

I said, earlier, that Wallace is being extremely irrational and in denial. I did not say that his feelings aren’t valid. Wallace’s situation sucks, and Daisuke recognizes why this hurts for him so much, especially after putting himself in Wallace’s shoes (and in fact it’s even worse for Wallace; Daisuke’s only known V-mon for less than half a year, whereas Wallace is talking about his formative childhood friend).

Daisuke: I’d never be able to do it. If V-mon were to turn into something completely different…Even if he went on a horrible rampage…There’s no way I’d ever be able to bring V-mon down. Wallace: Daisuke… Daisuke: So then, what are we supposed to do? Wallace: It’s not something you need to be crying over. Daisuke: But…

This entire scene is an interesting one for many reasons, especially because of the position in which it aired – this was in the middle of the arc in 02 when everyone was getting their second Digimentals. Daisuke had, only a few episodes prior, expressed trepidation over “friendly fire” – fighting any friend who had become controlled by the Digimon Kaiser. This is consistent with that (and the 02 kids’ general bleeding hearts and difficulty with fighting friends), and it’s even worse – unlike before, when we were talking about evil mind control, Chocomon is pretty obviously a victim of his own madness. And although Wallace continues to insist that this isn’t Daisuke’s problem, Daisuke, for all he’s rough around the edges, is a genuinely kind person who thinks of others to the point he breaks down in genuine tears over the problem, and it’s consistent with not only his prior characterization of thinking about others’ feelings in 02 episode 8, but also how this eventually ties into his indignation over seeing others being hurt (episode 20) or their feelings being trampled on (episode 49).

Another interesting thing here is that at no point in the movie is “killing” ever brought up, but rather the word used is taosu, which literally means “defeat”. In 02 proper, its use is somewhat euphemistic – most famously, it was used in episode 44, when Miyako and Hawkmon have a crisis over killing LadyDevimon (so in short, there’s no illusions about the fact killing is in play here). But in this context, it’s not even really about killing. Wallace doesn’t even want to fight in the first place. The sheer action of physically beating up a beloved friend is painful, with killing as the ultimate unwanted outcome. Everything about this sucks. But Daisuke correctly points out that Taichi and the others’ welfare is on the line here, and everything feels like the wrong thing to do. “What are we supposed to do?”, indeed.

So that’s why Daisuke momentarily indulges in Wallace’s denial-induced pattern of thought, because it really does seem like the only out here. (Especially because, from Daisuke’s perspective, Wallace seems to understands this situation better than he does – even if he doesn’t actually.) If they go to the flower field, they won’t have to fight and everyone will be saved and it’ll be fine! Wallace is irrational and in denial, but you can’t blame him and Daisuke for really, really wanting to believe this.

And Daisuke drops this zinger of a line, too:

Daisuke: So don’t say you’re gonna go alone.

Daisuke’s characterization really is important here, because, again, this movie came out during the first arc of the series, before episode 21 and the second half that centered around Ichijouji Ken’s redemption. At this point in the series, Daisuke was still being extremely deferential to others, especially his seniors, in almost all cases, and although episode 8 was a momentary glimpse into the kind of resolve Daisuke could have when it involved something he really cared about, this movie is really the first major sneak peek into how supportive of a person Daisuke is going to develop into, especially when it comes to Ken.

And Gumimon reaffirms that he’s going to stick by Wallace no matter what – filling the traditional role of a partner that Chocomon won’t anymore.

So they go to the flower field, and everything…fails spectacularly.

Well, before that, we get a glimpse of how the older kids are doing (they’re barely even conscious now), and we finally get to see Chocomon “in his element” and not as a rampaging monster. Things really, really aren’t going great for Chocomon either. He desperately and sadly jumps among the kids, trying to find Wallace among them, and what he really, really wants is just to be with his partner again. But they’re all “wrong”…

At first it seems like Wallace is making headway – for a second, Chocomon even recognizes him as Wallace! – but he continues to insist that he wants Wallace to come “with him”, to where it’s “cold and lonely and no one is there”. The way he starts chanting that he wants to go back is represented by the young Chocomon’s voice getting progressively lost in the monster’s voice, and Wallace, starting to grasp how futile Chocomon’s clinging to the past is, makes his first statement of the movie’s core theme: you can’t go back to the past, the only thing you can do is look forward and think about what you can do from there.

So after witnessing very clearly, in front of his eyes, how Chocomon is not going to listen to reason and will accept nothing less than something he can’t have, to the point of evolving and distorting everything around him, Wallace’s denial finally hits its limits, and he accepts that fighting him will be the only option out. (Again, note the use of “defeat” here – it’s not really about beelining straight to euthanizing him as much as Wallace has finally gotten over his refusal to fight Chocomon at all.) And considering that the situation is clearly rapidly escalating, and that Chocomon himself is clearly not in sound mind and having a terrible time himself, it doesn’t take much to see why the bleeding-heart Daisuke would also end up conceding so quickly. There’s a limit to how much you can hold out with pacifism when that just happened right in front of you!

(Also, Wallace no longer uses the honorific on Daisuke. Friendship level up!)

Chocomon evolves further and further, and his personality starts to actually take a turn for the cruel as he starts toying with the Digimon. In fact, it’s made pretty apparent that they’re no match for him from the get-go – he keeps toying with reality and forcing the Digimon back and forth between forms. He ends up “altering the world” into something reflective of his own heart, and it’s repeatedly pointed out that it’s “cold and lonely” – in short, Chocomon is subjecting the world to feel the same pain and loneliness that he felt, the pain that was enough to drive him mad.

And Wallace finally has this to say:

Wallace: Like Daisuke said, I’m a big baby. But you’re not Chocomon anymore. No, you’re the one who did this to Chocomon…Chocomon was all by himself and lonely, and in that loneliness, he tried so hard…But you took his heart and locked it away somewhere! I’m going to fight. If I defeat you…If that means I can free Chocomon from you…Then I want to fight, too! I need strength…

Firstly, Wallace acknowledges that he’s been a brat – that he’s been philandering around and acting spoiled and stringing everyone around (character development!!). And secondly, Wallace finally acknowledges the truth of Chocomon no longer being recognizable anymore. The ending quarter of this movie focuses heavily on the idea that Chocomon has now become so distorted that he can no longer even be considered the same thing anymore – it’s ambiguous as to whether that “you” that Wallace refers to having taken Chocomon away is actually a separate supernatural entity, or whether Chocomon was drowning in his own loneliness to the point those negative feelings became their own entity and consumed him.

In actuality, though – it doesn’t really matter! 02 as a series would also go on to blur the boundaries between external interference and internal forces – Ken having the Dark Seed as an influence but also being personally responsible for his own emotions driving him over the edge, and having to take responsibility regardless, and Oikawa technically being possessed by Vamdemon but still being goaded on by his own fixation with the past (in fact, notice how all three of these cases have to do with a fixation on things that can’t be brought back). Right now, the only thing that matters is that Chocomon is no longer recognizable, the thing in front of Wallace is no longer the same friend he knew, and even being able to bring back Chocomon’s sense of self is something Wallace wants.

(Daisuke also throws in a more charitable interpretation of Wallace’s actions even when he’s being hard on himself, pointing out that he can’t really be called a “baby” when he also did have genuine determination to come all the way there to find Chocomon despite his age.)

Hikari and Takeru arrive on the scene, and after Daisuke loses his marbles a bit over his happiness at seeing Hikari-chan there, Hikari points out the same thing: “You’re not the Digimon that was crying.”

Chocomon starts turning the 02 kids younger too – and remember, it was established earlier that he was using the Digivice as a guide. That meant it made sense for him to target the older kids, since they had the same model of Digivice Wallace did. But Daisuke and the others have D-3s, and there’s no way to really mistake them for Wallace – so in other words, Chocomon has devolved to inflicting cruelty for no good reason, with the original motive having completely vanished.

In increasing desperation, Angewomon and Angemon decide to evolve, and…look, I don’t have an explanation either, but I have to admit I’m somewhat amused by the fact that even they don’t really seem to have an explanation beyond “well, we’re desperate and hopefully it’ll do something!”

So they evolve, and Chocomon oneshots them. But that’s okay, because they released some golden Digimentals for Daisuke and Wallace to use! So V-mon and Gumimon get shiny new golden forms –

– and Chocomon pretty much oneshots them, too. More specifically, he eats them…and within his body, Magnamon and Gumimon’s consciousness gets eaten apart to the point they start forgetting their partners. Wow, this situation just got worse.

Yeah, so, despite the movie being named after the golden Digimentals, the actual point being here is that power means absolutely nothing in this situation. Remember, I pointed out that even from the beginning Chocomon was straight-out warping reality – they really didn’t have a chance.

So basically, everything devolves into complete chaos. Everyone’s being turned into little kids, with the mentality to match. All the Digimon are being oneshotted and being tossed around like tissues. But the one constant through all of this is that the kids are constantly running after their partners.

Remember how, back when the older kids were first getting sucked into Chocomon’s world, the one thing that seemed to remain intact at first was “love”? That “love” is what reaches out to Magnamon and Gumimon inside Chocomon, and makes them remember their partners again.

And, more importantly, that “love” is what awakens Chocomon – the real Chocomon – inside his consciousness, and he wordlessly makes a gesture begging Magnamon and Gumimon to kill him. And so they do – with understanding and consent from all three involved.

So in the end, the most extreme conclusion was reached. Chocomon died, at the hands of Daisuke and Wallace’s partners. But in that moment before he died, Chocomon’s pain was relieved, and he was himself again – Gumimon says that “Chocomon was smiling”, even in spite of his usual personality being that of a crybaby. They may have failed in their struggle to prevent the inevitable conclusion of having to kill Chocomon, but they did, to some degree, “save” him – so all of it did mean something in the end. And Daisuke promises that this still doesn’t mean the end of everything – they may have not been able to bring back Chocomon, and especially not in the exact way that would make things “the way they were before”, but the future is still there for him to return someday.

So, we clean up loose ends. Taichi and the others are returned safely, and in the end, Wallace decides to still be a vagrant for a bit longer – and to flirt with Hikari and Miyako a bit before he leaves. In the end, Wallace still has a long way to go if he wants to really grow as a person. But as Miyako points out, he’s gotten a bit bolder than he was before – and he’s greeted with an egg in the end, as if opening up new possibilities.

The Door to Summer contradicts the finding of this egg, or at least opens up the possibility that this wasn’t actually Chocomon’s, so it’s ambiguous as to whether the frame of Terriermon and Lopmon at the end of the credits is meant to be taken literally, or if it’s just symbolic. But even in the case of the latter, Chocomon is seen as Lopmon, a form he never got to have in Wallace’s childhood – so, in the end, it’s about different possibilities opening up in the future, rather than replicating that of the past.

All right, let’s recap this movie for those doing a tl;dr! Or, more specifically, let’s recap the events in chronological order:

Sometime before 1995, an egg emerges from Wallace’s mother’s computer, and hatches into twin Digimon, Chocomon and Gumimon.

In 1995, while playing in a flower field in Summer Memory with Wallace and Gumimon, Chocomon disappears for unknown reasons.

For the next seven years, Chocomon is trapped in delirium, full of loneliness and pain from being unable to see Wallace, and starts to become obsessed with the idea of reuniting with him, but, in his madness, accepts only a version of that reunion that involves him being the same young child he was when they parted, as if nothing had changed since.

Wallace, likewise, develops a fixation with getting Chocomon back so that things can be like “the way they were before”, even after moving to New York.

In 2002, Chocomon begins to kidnap kids with the same model of Digivice that Wallace has, and starts to forcibly turn them younger and send them into delirium like his own, hoping that this will bring the “Wallace” he wants back. Wallace starts to chase after him and decides that returning to the flower field in Summer Memory will allow him to communicate with Chocomon and make him go back to the way he was before.

Takeru and Hikari, hoping to find a lead on their seniors’ disappearance, drop a line to Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori, who head to the United States, also hoping to find a lead in Summer Memory. On the way, they run into Wallace, who is evasive about his connection to Chocomon and the kidnapping incidents.

At Summer Memory, Daisuke confronts Wallace and learns about his story, emphasizing deeply with the difficulty in killing an important friend, and agreeing that they should reach out to Chocomon at the flower field.

Chocomon continues to fall deeper into madness at the flower field, and Wallace and the others realize that they have no choice but to fight him. As Chocomon becomes so distorted he’s no longer recognizable, Wallace declares an intent to at least save his consciousness.

As the fight carries on, the kids are de-aged by Chocomon in his madness, and Magnamon (V-mon) and Gumimon are swallowed by Chocomon. However, the kids’ love for their partners awakens Chocomon’s consciousness again, and he asks Magnamon and Gumimon to end his pain.

With everything settled, Wallace and Gumimon are able to face forward into the future in the hopes of meeting Chocomon again and starting anew from scratch.

The Door to Summer

Actually, there’s not much to really be said about Hurricane Touchdown’s spiritual sequel The Door to Summer, except that it revisits similar territory to the movie, observing it more in Daisuke’s context than it does Wallace’s. (The story is very much more Daisuke’s than it is Wallace or Mimi’s.) The short synopsis is that Daisuke, having had a pretty bad time recently, finds himself in contact with a mysterious “winter” (in the middle of summer!) that seems to reflect his own heart…and a mysterious amnesiac girl whom Mimi names Onpu “Nat-chan”, who immediately latches onto Daisuke. In the end, “Nat-chan” turns out to be “a Digimon who’s taken in a lot of evil data,” who goes on a rampage and forces the others to fight and eventually kill her.

Although the reason for Nat-chan going on a rampage is more concrete than what was given in Hurricane Touchdown (it’s portrayed as “data chips” that seem like fireflies), The Door to Summer also makes it very clear that it wasn’t just supernatural influence, but also Nat-chan’s loneliness, desire for a human partner, and jealousy of Daisuke and V-mon’s relationship. Daisuke, while showing immense hesitation about fighting her when she had befriended them, still manages to “save” her in some way, to the point she actually verbally thanks him as she dies. And in the end, Daisuke and the others decide to take her egg and find a partner for her – even if she can’t be Daisuke’s partner like she wanted, she can still start anew with someone else.

Wallace in Kizuna

Warning: The rest of this post contains spoilers for Kizuna.

As said before, Hurricane Touchdown has been said to be the favorite Digimon movie of the director of Kizuna – and certainly, while Kizuna references all four Adventure-series theatrical movies, Hurricane Touchdown’s references are the least subtle, with the plot point of de-aging kids lifted directly from it. (Except, in this case, it’s in the context of trapping oneself in blissful memories rather than being portrayed as the upfront listless torture it is in Hurricane Touchdown.) Moreover, the theme of warning against being fixated on the past is just as present in Kizuna as it was in Hurricane Touchdown, especially when Kizuna’s main antagonist (Menoa) also falls victim to something that’s part supernatural influence and part getting swallowed by her own negative feelings…so it’s only fitting that Wallace himself makes a cameo in the movie. Two cameos, in fact.

The fact that Wallace is established as canonically existing within the Adventure main timeline has thrown a lot of people for a loop, especially since recent franchise events have made it questionable as to how it’s possible for canon to even make sense anymore because consistency has just gone out the window, but the Pixiv dictionary’s chosen rationalization for this is that, at the very least, “(some version of) Wallace exists in the timeline of the main story”. I’m inclined to agree with this evaluation; the fact that people around the globe can agree that the movie is questionably canonical but can’t even agree on how, and the fact that certain franchise entries considered canon (Tag Tamers) have their own contradictions, plus the fact that it’s not like Hurricane Touchdown takes a complete knife to timeline and lore common sense and more that it has some contradictory minutiae that are really easy to sidestep, it’s not actually that hard to say that some timeline of events that reasonably resembled Hurricane Touchdown (with maybe only some minor timeline or evolution differences) happened during the summer of 2002, and thus that Wallace exists.

Assuming that the story of our canonical Wallace is mostly the same or similar to that of the story presented in Hurricane Touchdown, Kizuna provides us with quite a bit of interesting information. We’re treated to two shots relevant to him: one in the form of his name at the top of Koushirou’s list of kidnapping victims, and one where he appears in person at the very end. It’s hard to miss him; he’s wearing similar colors to the clothes he wore in Hurricane Touchdown so you can identify him even at a distance, and he’s also the only loser around here with two partners. That’s right, two! Two!! Chocomon is back – and as Lopmon, exactly like the end credits card of Hurricane Touchdown depicted him!

So it looks like that, one way or another (after Hurricane Touchdown, after The Door to Summer, whatever, make up your own story), Wallace did manage to reunite with Chocomon and start a new life with him. It looks like not all of his habits have died – he’s depicted in a place with palm trees, meaning he’s definitely not in New York or Colorado, so either he’s moved again, is still maintaining the vagrant lifestyle, or just happens to be on vacation.

The other interesting thing here is that Wallace is depicted as one of the Eosmon kidnapping victims. According to Menoa, kidnapping victims were ones who were entertaining thoughts of wanting to go back to the past and remain a child forever – something that should intuitively be against everything Wallace learned in Hurricane Touchdown. But it’s important to point out that Eosmon’s lure is depicted as working on a subconscious level – certainly, if the kidnapping victims in Kizuna were to be outright asked if they wanted to be kidnapped and de-aged and trapped in their childhoods forever, most of them would probably say “no!”, and Wallace is likely no exception! But even if he’s starting his life anew with Chocomon now, it’s not hard to believe that there would still be lingering subconscious regrets about everything he’d lost with Chocomon and the childhood they could never spend together, ones that Eosmon’s allure would end up connecting with, even if the events of Hurricane Touchdown had consciously taught him better. Alas, being a human is hard.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #hurricane touchdown #shihameta #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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Cupcake!! Do you listen to music while writing? If yes what kind?

Yes! I absolutely do! I really love music, I’d say it’s secondary to literature as far as my choice of creative input so this is also just my personal recommendations regarding music as a whole with explanations and unwanted commentary because I’m dumb and this is one of my favorite things to talk about.

Firstly, my ongoing(ish) story Beastie and the Bard is musically driven so here are some songs I have on my playlist for that. I tend towards pieces that are melancholy but melodic. Entrancing, perhaps.

Lolita by Ennio Morricone - Contextually, I realize this is a bizarre (even tone deaf) pick given the source material, but... Whatever. This song, in general, just reminds me of Dimitri. Although a heavy, militaristic march might suit him better, the heart rending sound of this song just works for me when I think of him. The piano sets the tone immediately, lingering on some notes in a wistful, sad way. And it is sad, the cello and flute join in to make that clear. But, at a certain point, the instruments begin to dance around together, opening up and almost seeming like they want to resolve the song and create something happier, or at least something bittersweet, only to be drawn back into the uneasy tragedy of the main motif. I dunno, for me, it just absolutely aches like betrayal.

Shallan’s Lullaby by treefin / Black Piper - This music box rendition of Shallan’s Lullaby from Stormlight was the melodic inspiration for my bootleg lullaby that reader writes for Dimitri (perhaps not the first part as much as the way it shifts around 1:07). It’s haunting.

Isabella’s Lullaby from The Promised Neverland - Pretty self explanatory, I think. This one hits the sweet spot of beautiful and sad, from the harp to the vocals it just fits.

Howl’s Moving Castle Merry Go Round of Life original and the cover by the Grissini Project - Both versions are incredibly special pieces of music and I’d be surprised if you hadn’t heard this theme before, very good for the more whimsical parts of the story (not that there’s gonna be any more of that).

Shadows of the Lowlands from Xenoblade 2 - While I’m about to recommend this entire soundtrack, this vocal piece is stunning. This guy’s vocals, no joke, sound like a Tolkien Elf. We Are the Chosen Ones is done by the same vocal group and soloist so it’s also making this list although the tone is def a bit different.

Okay now I’m just gonna point out my favorite soundtracks. For all of these, I have COMPLETELY LEGALLY downloaded most of these from other sites, I’m linking youtube just based on superficial searches to hopefully give you a taste and maybe encourage you to NOT BREAK THE LAW and acquire these soundtracks on your own

Fire Emblem Three Houses - This is obvious and I’m sure you’ve all heard it, but go have a listen if you haven’t. but first, is anyone else disappointed about the Three Houses official release soundtrack? Considering the delay I guess I kinda expected more. Granted, the soundtrack IS phenomenal. Not so much in its entirety, which is emblematic of the game as a whole in some ways, but the set pieces? Unforgettable. This soundtrack is a case study in how powerful a small pool of musical motifs and set-up/pay-offs can be. The little promise of God Shattering Star at the very beginning of the game, Those Who Sow Darkness giving a taste of Shambhala, and then the use of the main melodies of Season of Warfare (Main Theme) and Song of the Nabateans. For the most part, both melodies are used in dramatic songs, creating this unbreakable musical connection between Edelgard and Byleth. Or, if you think about it, Edelgard and the Rhea. For example: the thunder version of Funeral of Flowers doesn’t have the game’s theme, but the rain version does (those two songs were WRITTEN to be layered I stg). And then there’s that somewhat bastardized version of the main theme in At What Cost, highlighting the intended twisting of the usual heroic take on that melody. I do have a potentially unpopular opinion, however. The Apex of the World is boring and tonally dissonant with the final battle in Azure Moon. A lot of people really like Edelgard-Dimitri likes Edelgard! There’s very little heroism in that mission, at least to me, and a song like At What Cost would have fit SO MUCH BETTER. I mean, that is also Edelgard’s theme so hearing that being twisted up into this decidedly more dark song would be thematically appropriate to her ultimate choice. The title also just seems like it suits her and Dimitri. Edelgard claims that she has weighed the cost of war, she believes she is capable of taking on the cost of victory without really knowing what it would be. Dimitri's whole story was him trying to find revenge no mater what the cost and now that he has it, he’s fully understanding what it will cost him. I understand why they would use the traditional hero song to cap the route, but it seems weird that they’d be willing to subvert so many other aspects of tradition while holding to that for a song that, in my opinion, is the least interesting of all the final battle songs. As you can probably tell, At What Cost is a song that is very tonally inspiring to me. I also love Funeral of Flowers (Thunder and Rain separately and layered together), The Long Road, and Roar of Dominion for getting hyped to write.

Final Fantasy VII Remake - Ever since I got this soundtrack, I’ve been addicted. I really don’t have much to say on this one other than just to recommend you give it a listen if you’re even passingly interested in orchestral video game music. There’s some misses for me (specifically the Wall Market stuff and anything that gets into the weird electric guitar/techno stuff) but it’s overwhelmingly fantastic and can work for active listening music and for background music while you write. I’d follow up recommend you get ahold of the Acoustic Arrangements soundtrack. I can’t link you on this one but it’s worth the extra legwork to procure it COMPLETELY LEGALLY.

Final Fantasy Distant Worlds - I was actually able to see the Distant World’s tour when it swept through Houston and at that point I had no idea what the fuck a Final Fantasy was. At all. However, seeing One Winged Angel live is not something I will ever forget. Ever. This soundtrack is great for some background listening and although it is often too upbeat for my usual tastes, it’s good when I need something easier. Okay. Real talk. I was about to recommend to you a bunch of FFXIV music (the MMO), choice selections from FFXV, and try and dig up some songs that are only available in live recordings. If you like Final Fantasy music, I recommend all of these things. The games are a clusterfuck but the music is even moreso and it’s worth your time if you like this kind of thing.

Xenoblade 2 - See? Told you I was gonna recommend this. Actually, ranking wise, I would say that I like it more than Final Fantasy. This soundtrack is magical. I cannot stress that enough, there is a level of whimsy and beauty that went into this soundtrack that all at once draws upon the genre and being it’s own thing. Like, I get it, there’s a lot of misses. The electric guitar is jarring and annoying. Listen to Sea of Clouds, like, actually listen to it. Listen to Desolation. Pay attention to the motif used in connection with Elysium and then the other songs that its used in. The Power of Jin. This is a sometimes sad but mostly beautiful and whimsical soundtrack that is good for listening and for using as background music.

Xenoblade 1 - I don’t have as much to say about this one, I don’t feel as if it’s as emotionally resonant as my other recommendations. BUT it is gorgeous. The area themes are wonderful and perfect for setting tone.

Hollow Knight - Hollow Knight’s soundtrack takes one step back from the drama of the others and revels in its depressive simplicity. There are songs with a more cheerful tone, and the magical whimsy of Xenoblade 2 is very much brought to life in many of the pieces, but for the most part the soundtrack is as gorgeously melancholy as the game itself. One of my favorite things in music is when songs are given new life through new context and the White Palace --> Pale Court transition is haunting.

Diabolik Lovers - OKAY I KNOW I KNOW hear me out. This soundtrack has no right to be as gorgeous, emotional, or quality as it is. This song, Lovers, is the younger sibling of Lolita’s theme, okay? Thematically, that’s kinda hilarious, but I mean it. If you like that song, give a few of the songs from this OST a chance.

BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite - BioShock 1&2 are different from Infinite. A lot more grungy, a lot more angry and discordant, the strings buzz and there’s a lot more horror to it all. Infinite, on the other hand, is very pretty. Infinite’s soundtrack is about the characters and their journey and feelings. The first two game’s soundtracks are about the ruined city of Rapture. It depends on what you’re in the mood for. I write using Infinite’s music more often, but there’s pieces in the first two that capture this empty, yearning feeling that is good for setting mood.

Pathologic - “Half Life’s soundtrack directed by Genghis Khan.” It’s bizarre. It’s grungy.

Void (Typrop) - Basically the same deal. I dunno man, I like being inspired by horror.

Outlast - It’s an orchestral horror game soundtrack. Like the game itself, there’s a lot of horror movie inspiration.

Dishonored 1 and Dishonored 2 - This is mostly background music. It’s a stealth game so it’s kinda uneasy, but I think there’s something really unique. Maybe the instruments? There’s a lot of weird sounds used.

Higurashi - This is a compilation of horror themed songs from the anime soundtrack, but the VN soundtrack and the non-horror stuff is pretty good, too. Michishirube is my favorite.

Madoka Magica Rebellion - The main anime soundtrack is gorgeous. The bells, the strings, the drama... I’m recommending Rebellion specifically because it’s the more cohesive and story-driven soundtrack. This one is not as horror-ish and weird than the others, it is very beautiful and nice to listen to. Sad, in some parts, too.

Code Geass and Resurrection - Brass? Got it. Dramatic strings? Got it. Bombastic set piece songs? Triple got it. This soundtrack oozes style. In some ways, that makes it not good for writing, but in others it can. Depends on what you’re writing. I think the melodrama can be incredibly useful for getting my mind in that frenzy state.

Okay I’m done. Thank you for bearing with me.

If we’re talking what songs inspire specific things, the Ferdinand piece was accompanied by a lot of the Diabolik Lovers soundtrack and Final Fantasy. When I wrote my sad Felix piece, it was all about Hollow Knight with a spot of Bloodborne and Dark Souls.

#personal #wow it's four pm and i have done nothing with my day #what a distraction #i love music

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