#or the doomed to die creature from the black lagoon

[bylightofdawn]

I finished ME3 and whelp that end game was a fucking SLOG. OH MY GOD. It never ended. I ended up going with Control because I am a weak-willed paragon player at the end of the day. I will probably reload my save if I can and experiment with Destroy tomorrow though. Even though I did a shit ton of side-missions I guess my military assets still weren’t enough. I blame the fact I didn’t know the Reapors would breed like fucking lice and I prolly should have spent the first day just scanning for as much materials as I could because I did 95% of the side-missions that didn’t require scanning and I was only like 6000+

Fuck. My. Life.

Okay so my hot takes are as follows: I still love Shepard/Garrus. I was very heartbroken to break Kaidan’s heart by picking the sexy velociraptor over him.

Also, Garrus never gave me shit for picking up with Cerberus and I get why people dislike Kaidan. I still think his pluses outweigh the minuses and I am thinking of doing a m!Shep only trilogy playthrough where I romance him cause fuck I love war buddies falling in love and watching a friendship shift into something more trope. -cough cough- I’m looking at you Cortez and Vega. -cough cough-

Garrus also kinda reads as ver young and emotionally immature in a lot of ways. Like Shepard was definitely the first serious relationship he ever had. Fucks sake, this man’s idea of a date was to go and shoot things on top of the Citadel. And he cannot be smooth to save his poor Turian life. 

But that’s part of his charm, if I’m being honest. However compare that to the heartbreaking and emotionally vulnerable moments Shepard and Kaidan have, you can definitely tell the developers were more invested in that romance.

I ABJECTLY REFUSE to acknowledge they did my bae Kal’Reegar like they did and fucking offed him in a fucking email. N O P E. Sorry, rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated and he will drag his wounded ass home and surprise Tali by being alive. I will accept no other canon.

I fucking ship the hell out of Liara and Javik even though Javik is a super not-cool colonizer/ at times outright misogynist and I don’t know how I feel about this. It makes me uncomfortable but I guess that’s why you have problematic faves. So long as you are willing to acknowledge and accept that the shit they pull isn’t kosher and don’t try and defend it then it’s up for you to find that balance of on your morality scale.

But yeah even Citadel DLC hinted at that being a thing and yeah I ship it.

I don’t mind Garrus/Tali as much as I thought I was when going into ME3 and I know I kinda rudely labeled it as pair the spares but the more I think about it, the more I can see it. I mean, they have been with Shepard for years and I can totally see them building a bond. I would also be completely down for a Garrus/Tali slow-burn where Shepard/Garrus was a thing and now Garrus needs to find a way to conduct his life in a world without her being the pendulum on which his orbit revolves.

And I feel like Tali and Kaidan/Liara to a lesser extent are the people who would understand what it’s like trying to live in a world without her larger-than-life presence. I am also 1000% open to the idea of Garrus/Kaidan finding second chance love with one another with them grieving together over the loss of Shepard and HAVE in fact read some really awesome fanfics with that theme.

I’ve been reading SO MANY FANFICS during this playthrough and I have a shit ton of pairings, both crack and otherwise. I’m compiling a list of ME fanfic recs right now that I will gush about in ad nauseam later.

I got boned because I didn’t import from ME1 onwards so it felt like a personal attack and failing that Eve and Miranda died. I also didn’t have access to Kasumi or Zaheed which made me sad.

I just don’t think I’m up for sinking another 100+ hours into this series right this moment. I am debating buying Andromedea but the amount of bitching and whinging I’ve heard about it, I don’t know if it’s just fandom being a whiny titty baby because they ‘broke it’ or if it’s legitimate criticism.

I’m darkly amused that I am 2/2 in the talking at people long enough they would rather shoot themselves than listen to me pontificate any longer. First Saren and now the Illusive Man, Shepard really do be talking people quite literally to death with her care bear stares Paragon energy. 🤣 And yes I am dating myself horrifically with that reference.

I’m also debating picking up Dragon Age. I bought it on disk for PS3 I think but I’m not breaking that shit out to play a horrifically grainy near 20 year old title. Hopefully it has a remastered edition.

I’m glad I finally finished this series. I’ve legit been picking it up and putting it down for like 10 years at this point. Do I think it’s worth the hype everyone has given it? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh no? It’s serviceable and definitely a fun ride. I am super both confused and impressed with BioWare rehauling the gaming mechanics THREE DIFFERENT TIMES. Like, I respect the grind but why? I know everyone hated the Mako and none of use were sad to see it go but jeeze. I’m assuming there was a gaming engine difference between the three of them but still it’s not usual to have the gaming mechanics changed three different times and it gives it a bit of a haphazard vibe because of it.

I actually REALLY MISSED the hacking games in ME3. I suspect I’m prolly in the minority there but I would much rather have that fun code matching/icon matching memory style game over mashing buttons in ME1 or just having to sit there watching Shepard wave her hand around for 10 seconds while bypassing doors in ME3.

I hated only having access to three/eventually four weapons in ME2 but I liked it’s leveling up system the most. Class restricted weapons just didn’t do it for me. Being able to build your paragon/renegade level in ME1 is just weird and I’m glad they got away from that. I do feel like ME1 and ME3 were more similar in how they did their level scaling and I really liked being able to earn a special ability from one of your teammates if you invested enough time and effort into building a rapport with them. Whereas you could just buy it in ME2.

NGL I got Flare and didn’t look back at all. LMAO. What a stupidly OP ability. Banshee and Brutes? Eh toss some grenades and Flare at them and it ain’t a problem anymore.

There are other things but I think I’ve spazzed out long enough over this stupid video game trilogy.

[physalian]

What No one Tells You about Writing Fantasy, #2!

I did this list about 7 annoyances about fantasy, but I write in this genre for a reason! Fantasy knows no bounds, it can encompass all other genres within it. You can write a fantastical murder mystery, fantasy horror, fantasy romance, political drama, slice-of-life, comedy, whatever you’d like!

Whether it’s urban or high fantasy, supernatural or scientific, here’s seven great benefits of writing in this genre:

1. No modern means of communication

Unless you’re writing a world with phones or phone-adjacent devices. Phones and instant communication seriously inhibits the plausibility of dramatic irony and tension when you have to keep coming up with reasons to keep your characters from calling or texting each other everything they know. It’s exhausting, I tell you, and such a relief when phones aren’t a factor.

With that said, without phones, you have complete freedom to design your own magical channels of supernatural FaceTime, as weird and zany as you want. But without instant connections? Your character who knew too much can’t pass on the intel before they die. Your hero team can’t call for backup in their darkest hour. Otherwise easily preventable tragedies and deadly miscommunications are now very real.

2. The Monster Allegory

Fantasy and sci-fi tend to overlap more than they’re set apart, and in that overlap sits the monster allegory. Everything from werewolves to vampires to witches, reapers, demons, angels, goblins, trolls, wraiths, fairies, mermaids, ghosts, to Eldritch horrors and your classic Hollywood cast of mummies, creatures from the black lagoon, and Frankenstein.

Most of the time, the monsters aren’t just monsters, they represent a monstrous aspect of society the author wants to challenge and caricaturize in a fun and entertaining way. Or, the monsters are the good guys and the humans are the real terrors. Or, you’ve got two kinds of monsters to allegory two human sides. Sometimes they represent metaphorical demons, like vampires often representing addiction and werewolves repressed identities.

What all of this boils down to is the hyperbolic nature of science fantasy that allows you to go over-the-top with your metaphor and allegory in a way that a book grounded in reality just can’t.

3. Magic Systems!

Do you love world building? Do you love filling pages upon pages with your cool and unique set of superpowers you want your characters to have? Do you dream about your fight scenes and dramatic slow-mo shots?

Then Fantasy is for you!

There are zero limits to how you want to define your magic system. You can go classic with the familiar archetypes of elemental magic, wizards, sorcerers, and witches. Or you can step off the beaten path and design a whole new funky system of power sets. Best part? Your readers will have an awesome time imagining themselves with those powers, and debating endlessly about how it works.

4. Real-World Politics, who?

Amazon’s Rings of Power was twice-doomed when they only got the rights to adapt the appendices of The Silmarillion and when they decided to inject current political problems into a timeless story written purposefully to be divorced from those politics. You *can* write about human politics, but in fantasy, you don’t have to. You *can* interpret Lord of the Rings to be an allegory about the World Wars, but no matter how hard you argue, it wasn’t written with that intent.

Which means: Even if your story is set in the reality-adjacent fantasy version of 1543, you are free from the following: Racism, homophobia, sexism, religious bigotry, mental health bigotry, gender norms, anti-feminism, toxic masculinity, and more. “But that’s how it was-”

Nope. This is fantasy. You built this world, you decided to keep in the discrimination. Or… You can fill your fantasy world with a rainbow of gays, POCs in power, women in power, men unafraid to be compassionate and caring, a religion that doesn’t foster hate and division, the list goes on. You. Are. Free.

5. Nothing is too “unrealistic”

Both that you will always have people whining about how X would never happen so write the book you want to read, but also because fantasy is fake. Fairies aren’t real. Mermaids aren’t real. There are no rules for how they must be written and that’s how we have so much variety with so much room for interpretation by so many creators. Twilight made how much money writing about vampires that sparkle like diamonds in sunlight and crack like marble?

This is fantasy, it’s supposed to be unrealistic. Yes, your plot should make sense, but don’t be afraid to get weird. Write at least some of your story dependant on those fantasy elements. Write a story that can’t just be told in the real world minus the spectacle. Don’t be afraid to be sincerely fantastical and weird. People love weird. People love loving weird.

6. You are in complete control

But you do still need to research, unfortunately. Unless this is urban fantasy that depends at least a little on the human world, yours is completely your own to govern like a god tweezing weeds from their garden. You get to design your own geography and weather patterns and seasons. Your own countries and kingdoms and politicians. Your epic pre-canon fantasy war and the stakes that it was fought over. Your species, races, and ethnicities.

It’s a shame that a movie like Avatar (2009) set out to be this wholly unique take on aliens with music completely divorced from earthly bonds, new languages and a visually and culturally distinct alien species… and ended up a largely generic blue Pocahontas in space. It forgot that it was fantasy and didn’t go weird enough. They have horses, monkeys, wolves, rhinos, and deer just re-skinned with some extra limbs and colors. It’s pretty but it’s so, so shallow.

It could have become a cult classic like many a positively *weird* 80s off-beat fantasies, and now it just… exists. It makes a whole lot of money but its impact on the cultural zeitgeist is negligible. I’m the only person I know that can name every major character in the movie, and I’m no Avatar obsessor. They had complete creative control, and this is what they did with it. Don’t be Avatar. Take your creative freedom and run.

7. Even if it has been done before, do it again

You can say this about any genre, particularly romance, but fantasy and sci-fi, by the gatekeep-y nature of their fans, can be a lot less forgiving when it comes to claims of “unoriginality”. No one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans. Fans of these genres can get… concerningly attached to their favorite stories (mostly because the people who like them had only their fictional heroes to protect them from very real bullies).

But Game of Thrones exists because the author likes Lord of the Rings and went “yes, but what if it was an R-rated parade of misery?” Dungeons and Dragons exists because people wanted to roleplay in an LotR-esque world. Legolas and Gimli single-handedly defined what a badass elf and dwarf looks like in high fantasy. And people still gobble up media ripping shamelessly, or even good-naturedly, from this one story.

So on my other list, I argued that the sum of your parts is still original, even if the components aren’t. On this list, I implore you this: It’s not stealing or appropriating to write another Legolas if you love Legolas. Everyone loves Legolas. How many generic buff action heroes do we have and love? How many Hallmark romances tread the same predictable path? Who gives a damn if it’s unoriginal? Just make it entertaining and have something fresh to say in the end (or don’t, that’s fine too), and people will read it.

And when people say “Oh, you mean like Legolas”, take it as a compliment, not an insult. Yes, exactly like Legolas. Here’s my new elf because I adore this other book, now watch him go on a new adventure that I wrote for him.

[lady-of-glass-and-bone]

Duck's Halloween Movie Picks!

I love Halloween and spooky season in general. So here's my list of many, many (but not all) horror movies to watch this October!

🧠 Zombies 🧠

Sometimes dead is better.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) & (1990)

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Overlord (2018)

Pet Semetary (1989)

Dead Snow (2009)

Dead Alive (1992)

#alive (2020)

Train to Busan (2016)

Little Monsters (2019)

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)

Zombie (1979)

Wonderfully Witchy

It isn't Halloween without a witch.

The Witch (2015)

The Craft (1996)

Practical Magic (not a horror movie but I don't care, I love it) (1998)

Hocus Pocus (a true classic) (1993)

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Don't Knock Twice (2016)

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Ghastly Ghouls

Ghosts, Demons, and Poltergeists oh my!

Includes but is not limited to: haunted houses and/or people, demons, cursed objects, beings from other dimensions, etc.

The Exorcist (1973)

Insidious (2010)

The Conjuring (2013)

The Nun (2018)

Poltergeist (1982)

Verónica (2017)

Hellraiser (1987) & (2022)

Candyman (1992) & (2021)

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

The Shining (1980)

Evil Dead (1981)

The Fog (1980)

Paranormal Activity (2007)

House on Haunted Hill (1959) & (1999)

The Frighteners (1996)

House (1985)

Hell House LLC (2015)

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Gonjian: Haunted Asylum (2018)

Possession (1981)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Ringu (1998)

The Entity (1982)

Vicious Vampires

Because they're bloody sexy.

Nosferatu (1922)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1999) plus all the other million dracula movies

Interview with a Vampire (1994)

30 Days of Night (2007)

Boys From County Hell (2020)

Underworld (2003)

Bloodsucking Bastards (2015)

Near Dark (1988)

Salems Lot (1979)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Fright Night (1985) & (2011)

Stakeland (2010)

The Black Water Vampire (2014)

Werewolves

Fluffy and vicious, the perfect combo.

Dog Soldiers (2002)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Night of the Wolf: Late Phases (2014)

Ginger Snaps (2001)

The Wolf Man (1941) & (2010)

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Cursed (2005)

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

Howl (2015)

The Howling (1981)

Silver Bullet (1985)

Wer (2014)

Bad Moon (1996)

The Beast Must Die (1974)

Miscellaneous Monsters

All monsters need love, not just the classics.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

The Mummy (1999)

Frankenstein

Wishmaster (1997)

Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Feast (2007)

IT (1990) & (2017)

The Descent (2005)

Jaws (1975)

Jeepers Creepers 1 + 2 (2001) & (2003)

Horror Express (1972)

Cold Ground (2017)

Devil's Pass (2013)

The Ruins (2008)

Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Monster Squad (1987)

Under Wraps (1997)

The Babadook (2014)

Slashers

Because people are scary too.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Friday the 13th (1980)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Halloween (1978)

The Collector (2009)

House of Wax (2005)

The Strangers (2008)

The Crazies (1973) & (2010)

SAW (2004)

Scream (1996)

The Hills Have Eyes (1977) & (2006)

The Burning (1981)

The People Under The Stairs (1991)

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Terror Train (1980)

Stage Fright (2014)

You Might Be The Killer (2018)

The Toolbox Murders (1978)

Hell Fest (2018)

Revenge (2018)

The Invitation (2016)

Audition (1999)

It Came From Space!

As if space isn't scary enough on it's own.

Includes: anything sci-fi related, not just space stuff.

The Thing (1982)

Alien (1979)

Predator (1987)

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Event Horizon (1997)

DOOM (2005)

Monsters (2010)

Re-Animator (1985)

Bride of Re-Animator (1990)

Pandorum (2009)

Chopping Mall (1986)

The McPherson Tape (1989)

Extraterrestrial (2014)

Always Anthology

The more the scarier!

Creepshow (1982)

Creepshow 2 (1987)

Tales from the Hood (1995)

V/H/S (2012)

V/H/S: 2 (2013)

V/H/S: 94 (2021)

V/H/S: 99 (2022)

Body Bags (1993)

Asylum (1972)

Trick 'r Treat (2015)

All Hallows' Eve (2019)

Holiday Specials

We can't leave out these holidays during spooky season!

My Bloody Valentine (1981) & (2009)

Prom Night (1980)

April Fool's Day (1986)

Black Christmas (1974)

[doomedandstoned]

Italian Duo LE SCIMMIE Raise Hell on ‘Adriatic Desert’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

It's time to shake off those winter blues. Spring is blooming and the weather is slowly changing. You need some good tunes to go along with the good times. That's where a good stoner rock band comes in. Enter Italian duo LE SCIMMIE. Their name translates into English as "The Monkeys" and when you hear the way they move and groove, you understand why.

The duo phenomenon is something we documented a few years back, and at that time limited our focus to the Latin America scene. Duos of course, a global phenomenon, fueled certainly by the simplicity of the model, not to mention the success of The White Stripes and Black Cobra, whose live performances quell all doubts.

If you're wondering whether Le Scimmie can really bring the volume, you're about to bear witness to their explosive new LP, 'Adriatic Desert' (2023). The beast on its front cover and the band motto sum up this spin: "Guitar, drums, and vital energy."

Opening number "Wild Boar" tosses about between drums and a devilishly downtuned guitar with low-end umph. It revs up hot like a desert rocker and later goes slow-mo for an unexpected turn to doom metal. There was something mesmerizing about this one. I could see it being a great encore.

The album's title track comes at us like a dust storm, with several grindy doom motifs interchanging throughout the piece. A second guitar enters the picture and compliments this mosher with melody. As the song reaches its final minutes, a hypnotizing riff summons a wicked tarantella.

"Acid Lime" begins with a mingling of various stoner motifs dancing about in fiendish fashion. The guitar's pedal effects shine here, coming in at key moments to create a sense of the strange.

"Mammatus" takes us to the half-way mark, setting out on another frenetic trek. Like the great mammatus clouds of the Himalayas, the mood builds ominously and grows ever darker. The song stomps and grinds its way to a murky, doomy midsection, then rains down hail from on high.

"A Giant Summer" kicks off the B-side by strumming a cynical punk riff, totally sucking me into the song, and transforms this into a live fast, die hard stoner-punk-garage number.

If the last song got wild, what can we expect from "Hysteria"? Perhaps a riff that will drive you mad, or a rhythm that will entrance you. This one's got a certain Clouds Taste Satanic ring to it, with melodic guitar imaginatively soaring over the morass.

"2007" is the shortest song on the album, and it feels like a good one to shake out the jitters, giving off a surf punk spirit in the same musical neighborhood of LaGoon. Concluding the album is "Fluorescent Dinosaur." The band seems to conjure the creature with the swagger of guitarist Angelo Mirolli and the pop-pop of Marco D'Aulerio's drums.

Le Scimmie tells us:

'Adriatic Desert' was born in Mirolli's mind during intense walks along the shoreline of Abruzzo's Adriatic coast and took shape with D'Aulerio in long jam sessions in the rehearsal room to the sound of Big Muff and amplifiers pushed to the limit.

Oh, and did I mention that the album is entirely instrumental? You can jam out Le Scimmie's Adriatic Desert on Thursday, April 27th, when the records releases digitally and on compact disc via Frekete! Records (pre-order). Stick it on a playlist with Karama To Burn and BelzebonG. Here's a first listen for Doomed & Stoned readers.

Give ear...

Adriatic Desert by Le Scimmie

SOME BUZZ

Le Scimmie was born in 2007 in Vasto, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo), from the guitarist Angelo "Xunah" Mirolli; in December of the same year they released their first self-produced EP, 'L'origine,' with which they started playing live. In 2008 and 2010 the duo reached the final stages of the Abruzzo selections of the nationally known festival Italia Wave, arriving first in the semifinals and two years later in the final. In 2010, the duo released their first official album, 'Dromomania' (self-released).

In September 2012, they left for their first European tour, playing together with bands of the caliber of Stoned Jesus and Samsara Blues Experiment, culminating in the date at the Robust Fest in Kiev; in the same year they participate in the Tube Cult Fest in Pescara, sharing the stage, among others, with Karma to Burn. Also in 2012 the band released the digital single "Habanero."

After a long break in 2016, Mirolli took over the project again and, with a new line-up and a third member on synths, released the album 'Colostrum' (Red Sound Records). In 2017 the band was invited by the Ukrainian label Robust Fellow to represent Italy in the compilation 'Electric Funeral Café.' The unreleased track is titled "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi." 2023 is the year of the third album 'Adriatic Desert' (Frekete! Records): a work that sees the return to the duo lineup. 'Adriatic Desert' is a record of impact; an energetic record. Stoner. In fact, 'Adriatic Stoner.'

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[mst3kproject]

Bog

Imagine Creature from the Black Lagoon but made by the creative (for lack of a better word) team behind The Giant Spider Invasion.  That’s Bog.

Bog Lake is the type of little nowhere town that looks as if it ought to have a local cryptid, like the Flatwoods Monster or Mothman… and sure enough, tourists who come to fish in the lake are getting drained of blood by some creature with a chitinous proboscis!  The police are baffled, the locals are buying guns, and the coroner straightfacedly suggests it might be Count Dracula.  The only person who seems to really know what’s going on is The Old Hag of the Woods, and she claims that the swamp monster is some kind of ancient god.  Once awakened, it must feed on blood before it can return to the slime at the bottom of the lake and sleep for centuries more.  At this point, the viewer is probably expecting something like the Giant Leeches crossed with Cthulhu, but the truth manages to be even cheaper than a Corman film and, unfortunately, infinitely rape-ier.

Why does this movie remind me so much of the works of Bill Rebane?  The main reason is probably the 70s soft focus and the midwestern accents, but there are quite a few points that spark specific memories of The Giant Spider Invasion.  The movie’s heroes are two people in at least their forties, in which the woman is a more qualified scientist than the man.  The married couples we see are totally dysfunctional and dissolving in booze. A shotgun-wielding mob forms and chases the monster towards the instruments of its demise.  There’s even a middle school chemistry classroom that stands in for a laboratory (I particularly enjoyed the fact that this, which presumably represents a room in the town morgue, has a map of the moon on one wall) and science that starts out grounded in reality but then dives headfirst into bullshit while hollering “cowabunga!”

On the other pedipalp, there are also ways in which Bog is notably better than The Giant Spider Invasion, most of which have to do with the characters.  Admittedly, these do not get off to a good start.  The first people we can really be said to meet are two assholes who have come for the camping and fishing, and their wives who have come to complain.  The couples clearly hate each other and we can’t imagine why they ever got together in the first place, and each individual is kind of an idiot.  I won’t complain too much, though, because the crabby wives get eaten almost right away and the asshole husbands fulfill their plot function by bringing it to the attention of the authorities and then follow their spouses out of the movie.  Good riddance.

The real characters are the Sheriff, Ginny the Coroner, and Brad the Doctor.  None of them are exactly likable but they come across as the sort of very ordinary people you’d probably meet in your day-to-day life and while they’re not your close friends, you don’t dislike them.  Ginny is of an appropriate age for her position of authority, and her colleagues treat her with the respect she is due.  Her romance with Brad is clearly something that’s been going on for a while now and doesn’t suddenly develop over the course of a weekend, and the two of them are close in age.  All three of these characters behave in a professional manner and seem to have good working relationships, which is a breath of fresh air.  Far too many movies try to insert unnecessary drama by having characters who hate each other for no reason.

The best of the three is actually the Sheriff, who is one of a very few small-town movie sheriffs who actually seems to take his job seriously.  Aldo Ray used to be a real actor, and you can tell – he plays the Sheriff a with nice everyman quality and a great deal of integrity.  This unfortunately makes it all the more puzzling when the character suddenly runs off to fight the monster with fisticuffs and gets killed for it. Brad says it was in the Sheriff’s nature to do this but it doesn’t seem to match the sensible and down-to-earth characters we’ve seen so far.

I got the impression, actually, that the Sheriff was what was keeping the movie sane because after he dies it starts getting weird.  Ginny does some scientific tests that consist mostly of pouring coloured liquids into Erlenmeyer flasks, and determines that the monster is made of cancer and molybdenum. If either of these facts have any effect on the plot I missed it, although I did imagine Crow deciding the monster was his long-lost relative.  Then we get into how it reproduces and things go right off the deep end.

You see, there’s only one of these monsters, and it’s a boy.  Fauxilla got around this through hermaphroditism, but the monster from Bog prefers the Humanoids from the Deep route.  If you’re lucky enough not to have seen Humanoids from the Deep, its fish monsters have decided they need human genes to speed up their evolution.  The monster in Bog does kind of the opposite, devolving humans to make them compatible with itself.  It does this by injecting a dose of its own blood into the victim and the result is a huge clutch of transparent spawn that Ginny describes as ‘not really a seed, not really an egg’, whatever that means.

This, we later learn, is how the Swamp Hag knows so much about the creature – she’s apparently been its mate for hundreds of years! She dies attempting to warn the monster that it’s walking into a trap, which leads Brad and an ichthyologist to conclude that one effect of this infusion of monster hormones is that ‘the victim becomes willing’.  That is icky and I hope it doesn’t reflect the writers’ feelings about real-life situations of sexual assault.  The idea is intended to add urgency to the need to rescue Ginny from the creature.

Creature from the Black Lagoon never did give a reason why the titular monster was interested in kidnapping human women.  It was obvious enough that the Creature was supposed to be a sexual threat, but its quest was clearly doomed and it was not apparent why the women were attractive to it.  Humanoids from the Deep appears to have arisen from the brain of somebody who spent way too much time thinking about these questions and trying to come up with answers to them.  Bog decided its monster simply didn’t have any choice – there aren’t any other bipedal things around for it to mate with.  What neither of these movies realize is that the questions didn’t need answers to begin with.

There are things movies need to be explicit about, and slimy swamp creatures raping women is not one of those.  A lot of times, horror works better when the details are left to the viewer’s imagination, and the fact that Creature from the Black Lagoon doesn’t understand that it cannot get what it wants from its captives actually makes it worse. The writers of Saturn 3 did something similar with Hector the robot’s crush on Alex and while Saturn 3 was not a good movie overall, that aspect worked fine.  Going into the details just gives the audience an opportunity to think about how stupid it is.

It is worth noting that neither Creature from the Black Lagoon nor Saturn 3 felt a need to use the words the victim becomes willing, either.

The monster’s silhouette resembles a man in a fish costume he probably bought on Amazon, and it sounds like it doesn’t want to get up in the morning. I suspect that hidden in the poor lighting is something that would be a shitty movie monster classic on the order of The Giant Claw or the spidermobile from The Giant Spider Invasion, if only we could see it.  There are very few things I enjoy more than movies that are loud and proud of their abysmally cheap monsters, but sadly Bog doesn’t want to show off.

This is doubly a shame because a lot of this movie just drags. The bit with the scuba divers takes way too long for the payoff it gets.  Brad and Ginny’s makeout scene lasts way after we’ve gotten the point, whether or not it bothers you that the people doing the kissing are middle-aged. And anything with the two fishermen and their wives is not only slow, but annoying.  The movie is at its Giant-Spider-Invasion-est here, when everybody on screen is a repulsive caricature of a human being and you can’t wait for them to die.

There may be a slight 70’s Nature’s Revenge angle to this film, in that the monster is apparently awakened by some idiot fishing with dynamite, but Black Lagoon is evidently the primary inspiration.  Unfortunately, all the things that made that movie enjoyable are missing here.  The monster doesn’t look particularly realistic or well-adapted to its environment. Attempts at suspense are just boring and the movie is unnecessarily explicit about things that should remain implied. Bog is not a complete write-off as bad monster movies go, but it’s not all that great either.

[dragonnan]

First 20

Snatched this from @writingwife-83

Guidelines: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20,  just list them all.) Choose your favourite opening line, tag some friends!

I have a mix of fandoms below (The Psych ones are mostly from many years ago but I kept them in this order given this was when they were cross-posted to AO3)

Sed Diabolus (Avengers) - It was a pretty great view.

Your Loss Would Break My Heart (Sherlock) - He could have taken the helicopter but, quite frankly, he had needed the drive in order to structure what he would say to them.

Three Little Piggies and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Psych) - Deep shadows across the yard stretched from the clusters of trees - painting the lawn with cool patches of dark green.

What Dread Grasp (Sherlock) - It was freezing, next to the Thames; the water clopping against the base of the dock.

Paint it Black (Psych) - “We're this close to the money and you're screwing it up! We don't need this distraction.

Hell's Kitchenaid (Psych) - “Spencer!”

Oompa Loompa Doom-Pa-Dee-Die (Psych) - Hot sun beat down from a gloriously cloud free blue sky. 

The Fire in Which We Burn (Sherlock) - “I just wanted to let you know that... well, Dennis is scheduled to be released this afternoon. 

Beware the Jabberwock, My Son (Sherlock) - Forty-five minutes.

Cold Comfort (Sherlock) - There was a clinical detachment to watching her fingertips gradually turn the faintest blue.

Imperfect Perfection (Lucifer) - The file had been gathering dust long before her curiosity had come across that thin folder.

Whump (Doctor Strange) - The corded straps tightened over his wrists with every turn of the of the bar; corkscrewing the restraints until the joints in his wrists popped under the pressure.

The Tiger and the Shark (Sherlock) - Flashing lights – purple haze...

A Russian, Two Spies, and an Elephant (Sherlock) - As Mycroft had been so fond of saying, “There is no such thing as a 'simple op'.

On Call (Doctor Strange) - Four fevers; three of them children with panicked caretakers.

Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang and a Sha-La-La (Psych) - He was, beyond any doubt, very tired of being tied to a chair.

That Little Grey Area (Iron Man) - There was a reason they were here.

Avengers: New Beginnings (Avengers) - Late afternoon turned the light into golden fire where it seeped along Bleeker Street.

How You Get There from Here (Avengers) - They'd thought it was fear.

Just Another Day in New York (Doctor Strange) - There were moments, during his meditations, where he allowed the memories to live. 

I think my favorite opening among this list is Cold Comfort.  I like how it quickly establishes there are dire things in play while also showing Molly’s sorta dark humor. 

Tagging: @mizjoely @sgam76 @disappearinginq @hanuko @ariaadagio @villaniouslyawesome @kitcat992 @aelaer @ceruleanmindpalace

[ewh111]

2017 Annual List of Favorite Film Experiences

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

With each passing year, I find it harder to keep up with new release films, as well as the growing queue of ones on my “To See” list. On the other hand, it feels like quality films are sequestered till the end of the year (nothing against summer blockbusters, but with a few exceptions, many are forgotten by the time you get back to your car) and the growing appeal and abundance of quality television fostered by its broader canvas for in-depth storytelling and character development is another distraction. 

But that brings me to one of my favorite things about the holiday season in Los Angeles. The last six weeks or so of the year is filled with many appealing options as films jockey for exposure ahead of the awards season. And I have a great deal of appreciation and gratitude (and a bit of jealousy) for the many artists and others who have the passion to make these visions come to life for us to enjoy.

All the best for a wonderful 2018 and hope that you get a chance to see some of the films below that moved me in some way, sometimes filling me with emotion or awe, or provoking long-lasting thoughts, or just trigger the desire to re-experience and see it again. So, here they are, in no particular order.

Cheers, Ed

P.S.–I’ve gotten many requests to also review favorite meals of the year, so that might come in another post. :)

Indelible Coming of Age Tales

Call Me By Your Name — Northern Italy, summer, 1983. Having read the André Aciman novel, this was my most anticipated film of 2017. And it did not disappoint. This beautifully told and lushly shot coming of age romance features a remarkable and revelatory (and perhaps best of 2017) performance by newcomer Timothée Chalamet (also in Lady Bird), who achingly captures the universal yearning, passion, heartache, and torment of first love. Kudos also to Armie Hammer and director Luca Guadagnino. While many moments stand out, including the empathetic and compassionate speech by father Michael Stuhlberg (also in Shape of Water) that is the dream of every LGBT kid, it’s the minutes-long reactive close-up on Chalamet as the credits roll and song of yearning plays that devastatingly endures. My favorite of 2017.

Lady Bird — Sacramento, 2002. A semi-autobiographical coming of age in the suburbs tale featuring the humorous, turbulent, and affecting relationship between mother and daughter by Greta Gerwig in her directorial debut. With a fabulous performance by Saoirse Ronan as the head-strong teen who calls herself Lady Bird, a terrific Laurie Metcalf as her mom, and HW alum Beanie Feldstein ’11 as her best friend, this is the rare comedy that is smart, witty, and endearing.

Compelling Period Piece True Stories 

Dunkirk — Dunkirk, France, 1940. A visually and viscerally compelling piece of filmmaking about the miraculous evacuation of 300,000 British troops from the doomed beach at Dunkirk, masterfully crafted by director Christopher Nolan via three intertwined timeframes (a week on the beach, a day by sea, and an hour in the air) that intersect and fold back and ultimately, come together in the end. 

The Post — Washington, DC, 1971. Spielberg + Streep + Hanks = a highly timely and relevant telling of the Washington Post’s saga to publish the Pentagon Papers. Resonant on so many levels with urgent themes of today—the need for a free press, the role of women in a man’s world, and a judicial branch independent from an overreaching executive branch—all told with briskly entertaining and thrilling pace. 

All the Money In The World — UK/Italy, 1973. I’ll admit that I was initially attracted to this pic to see how director Ridley Scott erased Kevin Spacey and recast Christopher Plummer in the role of billionaire J. Paul Getty and reshot major portions of his film six weeks before its release date. Hats off to him for pulling off a very engaging thriller depicting the notorious kidnapping of Getty’s grandson. Michelle Williams is spot-on as the mother who goes toe-to-toe with her infamously frugal father-in-law who refuses to pay ransom for her child. 

Dark Master Works By An Irish Playwright and a Black Comedian 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — Ebbing, MO, present day. Loved this very dark dramedy whose story emanates from a tragic event in a small town. There’s plenty of levity and wonderfully drawn characters via Martin McDonagh’s clever screenplay that mixes revenge, redemption, and moral ambiguity, featuring a trio of tremendous performances by raging mother of deceased raped daughter Frances McDormand, small town police chief and target of McDormand’s ire Woody Harrelson, and racist, violent, alcoholic mama’s boy police officer Sam Rockwell. 

Get Out — Suburban countryside, present day America. A creepy, twisted, funny, scary, and subversive version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” crossed with a little bit of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” for the post-Obama era. A brilliant, provocative, and unnerving nexus of sophisticated horror, comedy, and extremely biting social satire by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut.

Strange and Untraditional Love Stories 

Phantom Thread —London, circa 1950s. I love Paul Thomas Anderson, and he’s made one strange but riveting movie here. A gorgeous Jonny Greenwood score swings from elegantly jazzy to intensely haunting, setting the mood for this darkly humorous film featuring hard to describe relationships (I hesitate to call it a love story) between an obsessively demanding and fastidious fashion designer (Daniel Day-Lewis supposedly in his last film role), his muse, and his ever-lurking sister/business partner and their respective emotional/psychological (and ultimately perverse) gamesmanship. And one may not listen to water-pouring or toast-buttering, or mushroom omelet eating in the same way again. 

The Shape of Water — Baltimore, circa 1962. Mix in a large dose of Cold War thriller and Creature from the Black Lagoon, plus a little Busby Berkeley, and you either get a political allegory (marginalized “others” whether mute, black, gay, or non-human vs. the Man) or romantic fairy tale. Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to bring us the more “romantic” one in this strange love stories category, an oddly beautiful and enchanting interspecies romance between two mute and isolated beings, one a cleaning woman (a wonderful Sally Hawkins) and the other a Creature From the Black Lagoon-inspired merman kept in a top secret government facility. Arguably, the “monster” in this story is the intensely sadistic government agent played with gusto by Michael Shannon. 

Bizarre Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Tales 

I, Tonya —  Portland, OR, 1994. A stellar Margot Robbie plays the hard scrabble, trailer-trash, and ultimately disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding in this unbelievably crazy but true story of her life leading up to the infamous incident before the 1994 Winter Olympics. Told in zippy mockumentary style that is fun to watch, Allison Janney as her zany, abusive mother leads a supporting cast of inept characters involved in Tonya’s dysfunctional life. Directed by Craig Gillispie who also directed the offbeat gem, Lars and the Real Girl. 

The Disaster Artist — Hollywood, 2003. Another bizarre, but true real life story about the enigmatic writer/director Tommy Wiseau who made one of the most absurdly bad films ever that eventually turned into a cult classic (The Room). Humorously portrayed by James Franco, who also directed this offbeat but unexpectedly poignant movie about making a movie, though it’s ultimately more about the importance of friendship, having dreams, and America’s fascination with celebrity and movies. (And the side-by-side comparison of scenes from the actual The Room and recreations in Franco’s film are hysterical.)

Docs About Felines and Cheating Russians 

Kedi — Yes, this a documentary about cats, but it’s not just about cats. Rather it’s a meditative and heartwarming look at the community of felines that inhabit the streets of Istanbul, delving into their centuries-long symbiotic relationship with humans in the old city. The city is teeming with cats that are neither feral or domestic, each with different personalities and lives they share with the people they adopt. And therein lies the heart of this film, as the locals share their bonds and therapeutic experiences with these complex creatures, ranging from the mundane to the profound. 

Icarus – Putin + mysterious deaths + performance-enhancing drug conspiracy = A fascinating and crazy documentary that plays like a spy thriller. It starts out as an odd personal experiment by the filmmaker/amateur cyclist mimicking Lance Armstrong’s doping regimen, but through sheer dumb luck and serendipity, he develops a friendship with Gregory Rodchenkov, the affable, eccentric, and charismatic camera-loving head of Russia’s Anti-Doping Lab…and, as it turns out, the country’s mastermind behind its decades-long state-sponsored doping program. It then becomes a terrifying race to uncover the world’s biggest sports conspiracy, implicating everybody including the Russian president (resulting in the NY Times exposé) while trying to save whistle-blower Rodchenkov’s life from the clutches of Putin. 

Docs about Life and Death 

Obit. —While it may sound morbid, this behind-the-scenes look at the NY Times’ obituary staff writers is enlightening and fascinating, and in fact, quite lively (even its peek into the “morgue,” the paper’s clipping archive). Beyond celebrities and notables, who makes the editorial cut in the pages of the NY Times obit section? And how does one get appropriately celebrated in death, warts and all. Now you can find out.   

Chasing Coral – A wake-up call to the accelerating world-wide death of entire coral reef ecosystems by “coral bleaching.” This remarkably emotional doc follows a team of biologists, including a self-proclaimed “coral nerd” in a race against time to document this die-off with powerful visual evidence, and the result is an inspirational eco drama that moves you to act before it’s too late. 

Others Worth Mentioning 

Baby Driver (the soundtrack and editing alone are worth the thrilling 112 minutes of this stylish heist story about a young getaway driver); It (I don’t generally like horror films, but this retelling of Stephen King’s classic was one of the most engaging and well told of its genre); Star Wars: The Last Jedi (my favorite of the series); Loving Vincent (every frame of the film was hand-painted in the style of Van Gogh); Mudbound; Spider-Man: Homecoming (loved Tom Holland as the new Peter Parker); Beach Rats; The Big Sick; War for the Planet of the Apes;The Only Living Boy in New York; Wonder Woman; Spielberg; Battle of the Sexes; Stronger 

In the Queue

Coco, Darkest Hour, Detroit, Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool, Downsizing, Molly’s Game, Florida Project, Victoria and Abdul.

Binge-Worthy Television

13 Reasons Why, Stranger Things 2, The OA, Mindhunter, Big Little Lies, Grace and Frankie 

Trailers

All the Money in the World: https://youtu.be/KXHrCBkIxQQ

Call Me By Your Name: https://youtu.be/Z9AYPxH5NTM

Chasing Coral: https://youtu.be/b6fHA9R2cKI

The Disaster Artist: https://youtu.be/cMKX2tE5Luk

Dunkirk: https://youtu.be/F-eMt3SrfFU

Get Out: https://youtu.be/sRfnevzM9kQ

I, Tonya: https://youtu.be/OXZQ5DfSAAc

Icarus: https://youtu.be/qXoRdSTrR-4

Kedi: https://youtu.be/w9fwhVx9zR0

Lady Bird: https://youtu.be/cNi_HC839Wo

Obit.: https://youtu.be/BgpMNerK9cU

Phantom Thread: https://youtu.be/xNsiQMeSvMk

The Post: https://youtu.be/nrXlY6gzTTM

The Shape of Water: https://youtu.be/XFYWazblaUA

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: https://youtu.be/Jit3YhGx5pU

[rebellionandallies]

Epilogue: A Nuclear Throne Tale

In the cold dead of the desert evening, two humanoid shapes sat on warped logs around a campfire. As the flames flickered like a buoy in the darkness, the two figures stared at each other in a moment of hesitant examination. One had the posture of a tired man, nearly beaten down by the broken world around him. He wore the faded uniform of an American police officer, and tuned a battered guitar in his scaled hands. His brow was furrowed as he looked up from the taut strings, the fins lining his arms folding in as he met eyes with his companion. His weary face met the burning gaze of his companion, a young woman covered head to toe in dirty gauze, what flesh could be seen from the glow of the fire was burned and twisted. The two post-apocalyptic wanderers maintained eye contact, one worn out and the other bright and furious, before the man returned to the maintenance of his guitar.

His companion however, maintained her stare at his scaly head. “I cannot believe you’re going to get yourself killed, Frank. After everything we’ve been through, you still want to die for the sake of some fairy tale.” The aquatic man raised his head and put his guitar to the side, leaning it against his log to rest it safely, bottom nestled in the wasteland’s desert sand. As he spoke, leaning back with his face receding into the shadow of the night, his voice rumbled like some terror from the black lagoon might in films long gone. “If anything is going to kill me Rebecca, it’ll be you nagging me to while away my retirement on this wacko dust ball. You know I can’t wake up proper without a cup of coffee. And that just doesn’t exist anymore, does it?”

           The bandaged gave a hard glare and some choice words, arms folded as she leaned forward, her voice raised as she criticized her companion. “And nobody is certain that damned Nuclear Throne exists either. But we’ve lost good friends on this fool errand, and it seems you’re determined to die like a fool too.” The slimy fish took up a stick from the log as his companion glared at him, hands on her hips, shaking his head with a certain sadness. “Reb, this is a sad world. Do you want to keep living in it? I think I might’ve taken the way out if not for that legend.” He kept his eyes on the stick, jabbing it into the sand to pierce a struggling beetle, which he then held over the fire on his sharpened stick. “You really think of it as suicide? Well at least its suicide with a bit of hope mixed in. There’s a chance it could work, you know. And I’m willing to take that risk.”

           Rebecca took up her own stick, quickly stabbing into the sand and piercing a toothed worm, holding it over the fire, silent as the creature squealed. A minute of silent roasting, interrupted only by the popping of the internal bits of the two bugs, and the two took their small meals out of the fire. Rebecca slid the large worm off the stick, biting right into the motionless creature, speaking only after her mouth was filled with faux desert sausage. “Frank… it’s not your risk to take. The Nuclear Throne is just some story made up to give dying kids hope their fatal mutation will disappear, maybe. We’ve wasted too much time on chasing some phantom gizmo, when we need you here. To help us rebuild.” Frank meanwhile, simply stared at his roasted beetle, legs still slowly moving. He did not bite into it, or even peel away the shell. Instead, he lowered his stick and looked over to his companion. “Do you know the last thing I ate before those bombs dropped?” As Rebecca groaned and leaned back, the ex-cop smiled and put his beetle-on-a-stick down. “A burger with all the fixings, double patty, melted cheese and a side of fries. That’s just not something we can rebuild, you know?” Frank smirked, as his beetle continued to burn away in the fire he allowed it to fall into. “I was a week away from retirement, you know. Real cliche, isn’t it? Just about to retire to the mountains, and they dropped some mutagen whatsits all over the world.” He frowned, interlacing his webbed fingers as best he could. “I want my past back. I think we all do. One more dead man won’t doom this world further, but if we can hold out hope a little longer, maybe we can get it back.”

His voice grew wistful, and Rebecca regained her unsettled expression as she swallowed her meal, tossing her stick into the night and pointing a finger at Frank. “Don’t you feel like we’ve lost enough? Four years and billions of people dead, dozens of close friends passed on, do you really want to make their deaths mean nothing?” The ex-officer sighed, hands on his knees. “Reb, if I don’t take up the torch they held, then their deaths really would mean nothing. They had… hope, you know? Don’t you miss that, hope?” An uneasy quiet holds them both, while the bandaged mutant took her time to formulate a response. Eventually, she had a reply, lifting her head back up to continue the tense discussion. “Frank, that’s just a dream. That’s giving up. Making something new, building for the future, isn’t that what the real hope is?” Her hands moved as she talked, arm swinging as she emphasized her points. “If you die out there, you’ll be killing most of the hope I have left in this world. We made it this far, isn’t that good enough? Isn’t it good enough to know we can make something better for others?”

The fire started to dim, as Frank withdrew the tip of his stick from the fire, broke it into kindling, and tossed it back into the shallow hole in the sand. “I don’t think it is. This future, it doesn’t feel right. You can go ahead with it if you want, but I’m going to do what I feel is right.” Rebecca shook her head, scowl apparent on her face. “You’re being a fool Frank. And you’re making the rest of us weaker as a result. And you can’t pin that on the bombs, that’s on you.” Her scowl lessened as she realized the strength of her words, but Frank did not show any signs of offense. Instead he smiled and stood up, brushing dust off the front of his faded clothes. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get some sleep. There’s a big day ahead of us, and I’m hoping you’ll join me.” Rebecca stretched her limbs and closed her eyes, breathing out slowly before kicking loose sand over the fire. As she lay on the compact desert floor, she grumbled into the inky blackness, “If you don’t die out there… come back. Please.” A chuckle came from the night, both irritating and welcome. “Well, I try my best to not die. Have some faith, Reb.”

           As the morning sun rose to greet the mutants of the new world, the two figures rose from their positions by the campfire, lazy smoke from the ashes trickling up to greet the sky. Rebecca and Frank looked at each other in unease, as they made a halfhearted attempt to separate on good terms. The ex-cop put a hand forward to shake, only to slowly lower it as he saw the ex-bandit had raised her arms for a hug. Neither could find a way to properly say goodbye, and so they parted in silence. The fish man strode into the baking desert sun, guitar in his hands, strumming the instrument like a character straight out of a heroic western film. And the bandaged mutant limped in the opposite direction, toward a crumbling city block a short distance away from the dead fire. A handful of other mutants milled about the road cluttered with rusting automobiles, and she soon took her place among them, placing her shoulder against the wrecks and heaving at the obstacles with all she had. The day faded to night as they moved the rubble into the shifting dunes, and a new fire was lit when darkness fell.

[doomedandstoned]

Cave of Swimmers Reach Epic Heights in Infectious New Spinner ‘Aurora’

~Review by Billy Goate~

Album Art by Brian Olson

I've always said that given the right circumstances (say a good set of professional ears lodged in influential places) that CAVE OF SWIMMERS would be a sensation. Why? Because they've got all the right stuff to really connect with people at a time when heavy music has been simmering underground, well-past ready for a fresh outburst. Hamstrung by lockdowns, financial burdens, and fear aplenty, we're ready to dust off our air guitars and party like it's 1987 again (incidentally, the year I first discovered heavy music). I'm not alone in speculating that we're in for another Roaring Twenties, not unlike the carefree days that followed the last global pandemic. And it's precisely this kind of energetic vibe, with its unique Latin-meets-metal flavor, that is ripe and ready to rock 'n' revel to!

Hell, we've not heard a sound this contagious since, well, maybe Sepultura -- and that was another animal entirely. With that said, Cave of Swimmers are very much metal to the core. And oh what a crowd-rousing live show Guillermo Gonzalez (guitar, synth, vox) and Arturo Garcia (drums, backing vox) can put on! I was there when Cave of Swimmers energized a hung-over and droopy mob gathered 'round The Vinyl Stage at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, lo those many years ago at the inaugural Psycho Las Vegas.

Doomed & Stoned · The Doomed & Stoned Show - The Cave Of Swimmers Special

All that and they have an appealing back story: two friends whose families relocated to Florida amidst tumultuous circumstances in Venezuela. As teenagers, Arturo and Guillermo grew up idolizing bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica and now they've crafted a fantastic, original style of their own, with wicked guitar play and grandiose vocals built atop a rhythmic array that is simultaneously feverish and suave, with choruses that are imminently singable. Stream their latest LP at least twice through and I can predict which lines you'll be humming at work and crowing in the shower at the top of your lungs.

When the band burst upon the scene in 2013 with Cave of Swimmers, I remember the community sharing it like mad. From "Materia" onward to their incredible namesake anthem, it was as if the Latin Candlemass had emerged from the salty Atlantic to enthrall crowds like some kind of warbling Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Cave of Swimmers by CAVE OF SWIMMERS

Their music-making only got better from there. 2015 gifted us with a second EP, Reflection, featuring a song I have no doubt will one day be a doom metal standard, "Prince of the Power of the Air". I'm telling you, the Psycho crowd went stompin' nuts when they heard those quasi-Biblical lyrics sung in epic doom fashion accompanied by that stern guitar tone, leading up to an incredible solo, and then a delirious second-half, which made everyone dance (whether we wanted to or not). It's infectious, like I said. I'm telling you, this sound cannot be matched. And I'm convinced it will not be stopped, either.

Reflection by CAVE OF SWIMMERS

2021 is Cave of Swimmer's year to ascend, for thus saith the Prophet that dwelleth atop the Rocks on High! Pandemic or no, it was this duo's time to release the material that had been welling up inside of them for so long. I guess we can call this their first LP, even though every spin so far has felt sufficiently hefty to refer to as a full-length. Six songs clocking in at over 30 minutes -- it's the band's next stepping stone in their journey from the recording studio into your earbuds and mine.

Aurora by CAVE OF SWIMMERS

'Aurora' (2021) plays like the first songbird of spring, if you'll indulge my idyllic wording for a moment. It's just so full of earnestness, life, and yes joy. Three things that we've been longing for in the midst of so much treachery and nihilistic despair. Hell, I consider myself something of a nihilist, but this band melts away my grim pessimism. It's all encapsulated in the thrashy, downtuned attack married to a kind of urgent Latin vibe that says "We've got one night left to live, let's die with a smile!"

After an atmospheric introduction that foreshadows material still to come, we're treated to "The Sun," which the band released as a single awhile back. I remember telling them at the time, "You guys should be huge." I meant it with all my heart, too. Certainly, this isn't watered down pop music fare, yet I think the average heavy music listener will find it wholly accessible. I'd put this Cave of Swimmers neck-and-neck with any Top 50 touring metal act, based on this track alone. Maybe I'm just enamored of their sound and being less than objective. So sue me.

Next up: "Double Rainbow," which is a kind of resurrection of optimism. Hope for a new and better tomorrow. "Forget the hate, forget the scene, forget the life of complacency," Guillermo sings. "A second arc, new scenery, our time is here. Don’t let it go! When I hear it, I too want to believe." It's a message that's especially important for us to convey to the next generation of rockers and metalheads, lest they be weighed down by our own disillusionment and mistakes. This is a song that encourages that that brash, foolhardy youthful joie de vivre and its power to change the status quo.

"My Human" opens up with a burst of syncopated guitar that reminds me of something Tom Morello likes to cook up, but its mere window dressing for a song that develops into something purely Cave of Swimmers. A single melodic line of epic singing accented by a soft layer of synthesizer lays out the verse, followed by one headbanger of a chorus. It's a song about companionship and the consolation that we can have in one another, if we will only open ourselves up long enough to being truly human. To give and in turn receive. It also seems to speak of a hope beyond this life, at least in some ethereal, metaphysical sense.

"Looking Glass'' unloads a spitfire of "Say hello to my little friend!" style riffage that rips open into a chorus I could definitely take with me to salsa lessons, if I were to dare return. Remind me to tell you about the time I accidently cracked a partner's nose with my elbow while trying to pull off one of those fancy turn-and-swing maneuvers. Sigh. Some of us have no rhythm, whatsoever. But I recognize a good slam-dancing song when I hear it!

Which leads me to talk "Dirt." Much more gritty than its predecessors, accompanied by a spooky synth of the kind Rob Zombie or Acid Witch are apt to toy with. Even as the mood turns grim, it's a foot shuffler nonetheless. And there's no denying the power of those soaring, falconesque vocals. Guillermo seems capable of transporting listeners to a higher plane of consciousness. Good thing, too, because the message is that we've all been living in our mental prisons for far too long, reinforced by "pride and ego trips."

Billions of us Where are we going to? Chasing our tails around the sun Bleeding our hearts Divided and conquered, too Buy us for sale at the dollar store Raised like pigs on dirt

It's time to break free. The song ends with a section of flamenco-style guitar executed with deft classical technique. It reminded me a bit of Psychroptic's "Euphorinasia" -- another song that makes brilliant use of acoustic guitar.

"C.S." is Cave of Swimmer's swan song -- a send-back to their earliest work. Their reprisal reminds me of something Metallica would do. There's a certain "Nothing Else Matters" mood about it all. Then out of nowhere, a spurt of volcanic riffage and mad drumming breaks out into a Gojiraesque hoe-down. Oh yes, and there's another celebratory trve metal guitar solo lodged in there juxtaposed with complex rhythmic percussion.

I'm telling you, Cave of Simmers cannot be beat. The game belongs to them. Their time is now. Give ear...

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[dragonnan]

Get to know me: fic edition

Thank you so much for the tag, @hanuko :)

Name:

Tanya

Fandoms:

Current: Sherlock and MCU (either Avengers team, Tony Stark, or Doctor Strange). Recent past: Psych Ones I plan to start writing soon: Prodigal Son, Lucifer Ones I want to write someday: Doctor Who (primarily 10 and 11), Good Omens

Where do you post your fic?

Psychfic (previously), and AO3

By kudos, most popular one-shot:

Just Another Day in New York (Doctor Strange and Peter Parker misadventure story with a dash of Tony Stark)

By kudos, most popular multi-chap:

All Nighter (Psych - Henry watches over Shawn at the station after an attack nearly kills both him and Gus.  And the night isn’t over...)

Personal favourite (fic):

HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!! As others always point out - easily one of the most impossible questions to answer.  I can more easily say fics I’ve written that I didn’t like lol.  Soooo... Hm.  Trouble is I’m multi-fandom so that just makes is exponentially harder.  So I guess I’ll go by genre...

MCU: so even though it’s a WIP I already KNOW Sed Diabolus is my favorite.  I’ve never done that much world building before and that’s in large part thanks to @kitcat992 and her amazing brain storming.

Psych: Paint it Black - I had wanted to write a disability structured story for years but my biggest concern was not being sensitive to people with vision loss or blindness.  The story finally started to develop when an online friend suffered a pretty severe stroke which, in addition to causing significant brain damage, also caused near blindness.  I wanted to explore both the blindness as well as how the character would cope with it in his own manner - which often involves lots of humor and masking what he really feels.  In the end I was really happy with how it all came together.

Sherlock: I don’t have as many to choose from as I’ve only written a handful of stories so far but my first, The Tiger and the Shark, still remains one of my favorites.  I have explored faucets of non-con in most of the fandoms I’ve spent a long time in - the big difference being that was the FIRST story I wrote for Sherlock.  My goal with this type of story, always, is to show the courage of people who experience this sort of assault.  The journey through healing is what I crave most in stories.  Nobody handles it the same way which is why I find myself returning to this topic. 

MISC: Just for fun I’m grab something from the mixed bag of one-off fics I’ve written.  That would be Imperfect Perfection which is my first Lucifer fic and a sequel to chapter 3 of @disappearinginq‘s awesome story collection,  Imperfect.  This story, also, deals with non-con though it is set years after it occurred and there’s nothing graphic.  I love the original short story and I really wanted to see what took place afterward (going back to what I’d said earlier about wanting to see the journey of healing).  I really just loved writing these characters and getting into that different mental space to “hear” them in my brain.  It was also a fantastic experiment to see if I even COULD write these characters and I was very pleased with how it all came out.           

Method for titling fics:

It varies.  I’ve used song lyrics, poem, book, and chapter titles, or taken something existing and changed it up to do a play on words (my favorite).  A few of my favorite (no shock all of them are Psych) titles are:

Forever Is Hollow When Dreams Lie Did You Make it to the Milky Way to See the Lights all Faded Three Little Piggies and the Creature from the Black Lagoon Hell's Kitchenaid Oompa Loompa Doom-Pa-Dee-Die A Bigger Boat Would Be Nice- But a Gun and an Oxygen Tank Would Be Better The Wizard Was the Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow Lost His Courage

Work I am nervous about posting:

Not any specific one but anytime I post a non-con fic I half expect someone to scream at me for writing that kinda story.  I also feel anxious when posting to a new fandom just because my interpretation may not fit with whatever the established fanon might be.

Do you outline your work or just wing it?

Both.  MOSTLY I’ve winged it but after starting that mega MCU fic I’ve found tremendous aid in creating a loose outline.

AO3 Stats (some info can be found on your Dashboard):

Works: 112 (includes fanart)

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Tagging: @sgam76 @ariaadagio @aelaer @ceruleanmindpalace @mizjoely @kitcat992 @disappearinginq