#the levels of foreshadowing would be OFF THE FUCKING CHARTS

[cosmiado]

hey so like. i know the chances of it happening are INFINITESIMAL. but could you even fucking imagine if the teens find a way to get past Willie's barrier and break into heaven and, lo and behold, there's Hermie performing a one-man version of A Midsummer Night's Dream to an audience of one. could you even IMAGINE

[bestworstcase]

What was the thing that made you go "Oh, RWBY is very smartly written"? Because it seems like a lot of the online space just keeps insisting that it's a badly written mess that deserves to be rebooted, despite that not being the case.

i remember very distinctly hitting players and pieces and thinking “oh yeah this is going places” because that episode is where things like characterization and tempo start to really click into place. and then in volume two—

okay this is a really specific analogy, but. the first discworld book i ever read was thud!, which if you’re not familiar is quite late in the series and very much not a book that makes much sense if you haven’t read any previous books in that line. i had a fucking blast but also spent the whole book in a state of bewildered disorientation trying to piece together the MASSIVE AMOUNTS of missing context undergirding the story.

watching volume two for the first time felt a lot like that, except because it’s happening at the start of the story all of the question marks are, uh, surprise tools that will help us later.

this is a risky thing for a story to do. a lot of people—i would even tentatively hazard most people—would not enjoy the experience of reading thud! as their first discworld novel. deliberately seeding information this way, as a scattering of tips-of-icebergs incongruously floating around in what appear to be the tropics, risks irritating your audience by asking them to pay close attention to small details that don’t make any sense yet, before you’ve earned their trust that there will be a worthwhile payoff for investing that effort.

rwby, uh, delivers. in spades. the rewatch value of the first three volumes but especially volume two is off the charts just on the strength of the foreshadowing alone. that’s not an easy thing to accomplish! foreshadowing is difficult!

the third thing is the momentum and escalation as the dominoes fall in volume three. speaking as someone who’s written a story paced in a similar way—the slow build to sudden out-of-control explosive catastrophe—it’s really hard to get right. you have to set up the pieces in such a way that it’s believable for things to go so, so badly wrong once you flick down the first domino. and rwby pulls it off fucking flawlessly. and then does it again with the fall of atlas.

that’s not even getting into how much the story rewards digging your teeth into it.

the story just fits together really well at every level, broad strokes down to the tiny details. which is not something that happens by accident; intricate narratives takes a lot of planning and care.

[ghanjrho]

A:TLA; how it should have ended.

Recently, I've been on a deep dive into the A:tLA fandom, specifically the Zutara sphere. And that means I've found a lot of long-form meta on the show, it's ending, LoK, script final drafts, you name it. That's all gone in the brain blender, and here's what came out the other side.

Sozin's Comet honestly doesn't change that much; only two real differences.

The magic rock is gone. Instead, we get a flashback to Guru Pathik, and Aang realizes that he has to let go of his attachment to Katara.

The Maiko/Kataang victory laps in the last 5 minutes are gone. Mai and Zuko get a scene where they wish each other well, but acknowledge that they're over. Katara and Aang have a nice moment where they choose friendship. There's love there, but it's Philia, not Eros.

@burst-of-iridescent has a delightful essay series on Zutara, and the part that sticks in my head is that in the run-up to the finale, Aang and Katara are at their least unified. To wit:

In "The Southern Raiders" Aang is preachy, condescending, and more than a little hypocritical about Katara's plan to take vengeance for her mother. The episode ends with Katara explicitly rejecting Aang's belief that Yon Rha was forgiven.

In "The Ember Island Players" Aang is distraught at the idea that EIP!Katara's statements, namely that Aang is like her brother and she's attracted to Zuko, are true. When he questions Real!Katara about this, he responds to her statement that she's confused about her feelings by kissing her. The kiss is not returned. Again, no resolution is had.

Finally, in "Sozin's Comet Part 1" Katara is part of the chorus condemning Aang for refusing to even consider killing Ozai, no matter how many people are at stake. He runs off from the group, and from there disappears into the Spirit World to get Lion-Turtled. Yet again, no resolution, and the two don't reunite until the tea shop.

Now speaking of the Lion Turtles, I'm actually not opposed to them. Yes, they come out of nowhere to deliver an 11th Hour Superpower that handily spares Aang from having to actually make a choice he disagrees with, but at the end of the day it is a kid's show. Nickelodeon was never going to approve a script where Aang killed Ozai. Throw in a little bit of foreshadowing, and I'm good. It's worth noting here that the story of Avatar Wan was supposed to be covered in A:tLA, which would handily cover that requirement.

Now, for the post-canon. We'll start with Fire.

Zuko is NOT left alone in the Fire Nation. Similarly, Iroh does NOT fuck off back to Ba Sing Se.

Toph and Suki stick around. Suki in her canon role as commander of Zuko's Kyoshi Warrior bodyguard, while Toph and Mai use Toph's lie-detection and Mai's insider knowledge to purge threats to the new peace.

Toph eventually goes back to the Earth Kingdom to start a metalbending academy, but first she needs to make sure that her Sparky lives to be the grumpy old man he was born to be.

While Iroh is correct that for political and diplomatic reasons Zuko needs to be Fire Lord, he also bows to the reality that Zuko is plain and simply not ready to be the Fire Lord.

Zuko went from 4th in line to 1st in line basically overnight, and the 5-ish years he spent as Crown Prince were clearly not spent preparing him to succeed Ozai.

So a teenager with a fairly surface-level understanding of "how to monarch" has to self-Reconstruction the Fire Nation, while paying reparations, without having been militarily conquered.

This is how idealists get assassinated. New Plan!

Zuko is crowned Fire Lord. Iroh is his Prince Regent. It's very clear to all involved that Zuko is the one charting the course forward for the Fire Nation, while Iroh is there to convert intent to action, while teaching Zuko how it's done.

It doesn't hurt that Iroh is one of the Fire Nation's most successful military commanders, so the civil war route is a lot riskier for anyone to attempt.

Next, Sokka

Sokka honestly has a pretty good arc in the post-canon. Nothing I really feel the need to correct.

Eventually, Suki is able to hand off her duties in the Fire Nation to someone else and goes home to Kyoshi Island

It’s still home, but it isn’t the same. Or rather, she isn’t the same.

She never leaves the island behind, but it’s usually a stop on the journey from Wolf Cove to Republic City.

Then, Aang

Aang divides his time between Avatar duties and Last Airbender duties.

Avatar duties involve a lot of sitting in on meetings and reminding people that the ultimate goal is peace.

Last Airbender duties involve a lot of teaching Air Acolytes everything he remembers from his childhood. He gets lucky here, though.

The Airbender Genocide wasn't complete. More than a few Air Nomads escaped the Genocide, and hid themselves away. Some in small villages built in remote mountain valleys, others blended into Earth Kingdom settlements.

Plenty of quarter- or eighth-Air Nomad kids running around with airbending potential they never had the knowledge to develop. Think very early Book 1 Katara here.

The result is that a resurgent Air Nation is being formed, with a culture woven from the threads that survived through relics, the refugees, and Aang himself.

Airbenders are still rare, and it's over a decade before another airbender earns their mastery, but it's not his son and his grandkids when Korra comes around.

Finally, Katara

Katara spends a lot of time traveling. She spends time in the South Pole, helping to rebuild and learning Southern Style Waterbending from the released waterbenders. She also travels the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, doing what she can to solve problems.

There are a lot of problems to solve.

Her travels in the Fire Nation are particularly fruitful; word of the Last Agni Kai has spread, so she is known to be the one that the Fire Lord sacrificed himself for, and who healed his wound.

She and Zuko stay in contact, allowing themselves to have a slow-burn courtship.

After a couple of years she moves to Caldera City and starts getting down to seriously courting Zuko, preparing herself for Fire Ladydom.

The year before Iroh is set to retire as Regent, she and Zuko start thinking about the wedding.

There are a lot of potential traditions to uphold, even just between the Southern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation

This goes double for the daughter of the head chieftain of the Southern Water Tribe, and the Fire Lord himself.

They decide to have fun with it and do everything.

Aang presides over a private ceremony, family/close friends only, that is really just a mutual declaration of love and friendship.

Then come the Southern Water traditions. It's the full gamut, with ice-dodging, sacred hunts and more. In the end, Zuko is an honorary member of the Southern Water Tribe, and he and Katara are wed (again).

There's a diplomatic tour through the Earth Kingdom, stopping at Kyoshi, Gaoling, Omashu, Ba Sing Se, the Foggy Swamp the former Fire Colonies, and ending at the Northern Water Tribe. The language used artfully slides over whether the couple is newly married or about to be married, but overall it works well for the Fire Nation's reputation abroad.

The final act is in the Fire Nation. A full Royal Wedding, a grand affair of state, held at high noon on the day of the summer solstice. When all is said and done, Zuko and Katara now rule alone as Fire Lord and Fire Lady.

Alright, I have more, but I'm tired. Tune in next time for the Fire Nation (extended) Royal Family! featuring Steambabies (Found here)

[shidoukanae]

YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise​

Favorite series:

My favorite series based on what I watched and enjoyed would have to be Arc-V!!! It's honestly the series that got me to adore YGO when previously I'd seen YGO as, and I chilidishly quote, "uncool". Everything about Arc-V is pretty much wonderful: Yuya's presence as a "everyone MUST be happy" kind of character in a plot that discusses themes of war, revenge, and despair is absolutely refreshing (especially when Yuya's ideals of happiness are stripped from him and made a mockery of by, *coughs* one of my favorite characters in the franchise *coughs*). 

I love how the four Yuu boys are a wonderful combination of "protagonists" (/anatagonists) and how they each play off of each other's weaknesses and strengths, often acting as mirrors to each other in their individual dimensions while having amazing interactions (Yugo and Yuri, anyone? Yuri and Yuya?).

I admire how the endgame plot is a perversion of Yuya's ideals: he gets what he wants, showering happiness upon all, but that "happiness" is corrupted into the notion of entertainment. While Yuya seeks to provide people with smiles and laughter, to give them hope to work together through tough times and to stay strong in the face of adversity, his "counterparts" in the endgame are really good at acting as Yuya's mirror: showing that his style of performing can also be used to appease the bloodthirst of one's own self and that happiness can be corrupted into self-deserving power.

...Hard to put that into exact words without spoiling a lot of things but, gosh, let's just say that Yuri and ____ are the perfect mirrors to Yuya in terms of what his entertainment dueling style is meant to be.

The plot over all is pretty good! I won't lie and say it stands strong all the way throughout the story but the first half is amazing and there are some pretty strong episodes in the second half (Yugo and Rin, the parasite episodes in general, Yuri Yuri YURI). I can definitely say that the humor is there, the characters are amazing (if nothing else, watch for the Yuu Boys, the Bracelet Gals, and Shun versus Sora!!) and having come into the show around episode 104, I was pleasantly surprised by the trip Arc-V brought me and how it played with its protagonist, giving him hope, kicking him down, and toying with his mind - just like the way a warzone might to any idealistic individual.

In terms of other series, I like VRAINS but only up to like episode 19 (or the end of the Data Bank arc). It had potential and I kept hoping it would get better but the plot was constantly floundering, there are plot holes abundant (sewer monsters, ugh), character development is inconsistent not to mention very shallow, VRAINS has some of the best side characters but they're kicked to the curb by a bland protagonist and a villain that could've been so much cooler but they made him a sympathetic mess.

...I have a lot of gripes with VRAINS but, if it were to ever be rewritten with clear goalposts and plot twists in mind (not to mention development on ideas like Charisma Duelists because at the end of the show I still have not a fucking clue what a Charisma Duelists is or was) I would say it has potential to become my favorite series but Arc-V clearly beats it for me in every category lmao.

Zexal’s also really good too!!! I don’t get all the hate behind it because it’s actually really interesting and engaging (also IV’s definition of fanservice is literally the only type of fanservice I will ever accept) and I think I’ve even cried a couple of times during the course of the plot which is like,,, shocking considering it’s not a show I thought I’d cry over (I cried in Arc-V too but goddamn does tiny Yuya just want to make you tear up lmao). This show is really good emotionally and it’s literally so stupid how Kaito carries a lot of the early and middle game of the show yet most of the meat of the plot doesn’t begin to unravel until the second season.

Also, if you ever want to watch a show of 100+ episodes that is so masterfully written that there is foreshadowing for stuff in like episode 130+ on EPISODE ONE, please watch this. Literally there are so many hints of what is going to happen in the future in the early episodes and you won’t really be able to tell what those hints are until you’ve finished the show but goddamn when you go back and rewatch things it does indeed feel amazing how much foreshadowing they threaded into the show without you ever knowing...(please don’t search for spoilers if you intend to watch this. I went into the show knowing some spoilers tho not all and, while I was still pleased by what I watched, I honestly can agree the show is A Lot Better without knowing ANYTHING)

Favorite Protagonist: Yuya. For sure, out of all the series, Yuya. 

He’s a refreshing protagonist, especially considering he shines in a world of war and despair. He’s also someone who you empathize with right at the start and want to hope in, especially since he is the “happiness” in a word of “madness” and “sorrow”. He’s not someone out to save the world (not really, anyways), but his actions touch on the lives of others anyways, giving people in a hope in a world that is otherwise cruel and heartless. Also, it really helps that he’s able to pull you into his world of “egaos”, making you believe in him and root for him despite how cheesy his ideals may or may not sound.

Also love how, despite being the centerpiece of “happiness”, Yuya isn’t allowed to always be happy :> Not spoiling plot related things but if you like protagonists going off the rails insane at times, Yuya’s definitely a fun protagonist for that!!!

Favorite Rival:

Kaito Tenjou!!! Literally the best rival in the series that I’ve seen. Everything about him is literally perfect ngl. From the way he’s chillingly introduced, with the spine-tingling whistles and cruel, almost merciless nature, to the way he slowly becomes sympathetic while also remaining a terrifying presence whenever he appears...I love him????

Favorite BFF:

Does Shoichi count? Because like...he’s Yusaku’s closest friend and ally in the series and I generally don’t pay attention to the other BFF’s in the other series (or at least, the ones I can recall bc I know in Zexal that Yuma has a whole group of friends lmao).

But I like Shoichi!! He cares about Yusaku a lot, is pretty damn cool as a sidekick hacker, his sideplot with his brother was actually honestly endearing and I loved the mystery about him. His early-game jokes w/ Ai to tease Yusaku were also a good laugh.

Favorite GFF: 

Not a girl friend forever for the main protagonist (although she like...lowkey confessed to him...though that plot really never went anywhere so I still don’t know what the fuck THAT was about) but,,, Ema Bessho,,

If y’all knew me back in my peak YGO days when VRAINS was airing,,, this gal was and STILL is my favorite girl of the YGO series. Even though she was pretty much done dirty imo I still love her (even despite considering she’s been made a damsel-in-distress at least three times, she’s only ever won one duel on-screen despite being supposedly good at dueling, ngl they could’ve done so much more with her but tbh she’s mostly just an asset to solve problems at whim and barely gets character development/does nothing but watch and spectate stuff late-game).

Even though she’s like...the unfortunate side character who’s probably meant to be more fanservice than interesting, in the first 19 episodes (and even the Revolver vs. her fight as well as the one time she meets Aoi IRL early-game) made her out to be a lot cooler and complex than she ended up being. I mean,,, a hacker gal who’s self-serving, cynical, and cold-hearted taking on the tasks of her (potentially ex) boyfriend while being really nice to his sister to the point she baffles even herself,,, we could’ve had a really unique and cool character to play around with here but instead we got...cool-ass character with potential to be something more reduced to a spectator with nothing better to do than idolize the main protagonist and have a plot with her brother that honestly detracted from her character more than it added to it imo.

Also Ema could’ve been a female Yuri but,,, nope,,, they decided she was better as a background piece instead TwT

Favorite Villain: Yuri.

Literally Yuri.

I could choose the leather jacket w/ fluff boi in a certain series because hot damn was that guy convincing AF that he wasn’t an evil psychopath (and even while knowing that he was, I still got fooled into thinking he was a good guy somehow omg) however,,, I’ve always held a love for Yuri and the way he’s been portrayed.

Despite ALWAYS being the bad guy, the show has always made this purple fucker into the most entertaining character on-screen. He even beats Yuya sometimes in terms of how entertaining he is - that’s literally how good he is,,

Also his facial expressions are amazing, he’s a VERY VALID threat to the main cast (and his creeper levels are not only off the charts but literally called out by the main female protagonist herself lmao), and he acts as the perfect foil to Yuya, battling not to entertain others but to entertain himself.

Also, he likes killing people.

No this is not a joke.

He literally likes killing people. And is pretty sadistic about it, too.

(^^^^ for those who don’t get the joke, “Fusion” is pronounced “Yuugo” which sounds similar to “Yugo” which is what,,, Yuri is making fun of,,, more context is needed of course but this is a Great Running Gag)

Favorite card:

I don’t know if it actually exists as an actual card but...that crystal dragon from the YGO movie with the glass pyramid. Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon...it’s really pretty...I love it...

Favorite Episode:

I’m...too lazy to search for names of these episodes but I can give brief summaries of them,,, because I can’t choose,,,

Arc-V: Shun vs. Sora (ALL episodes). Hot damn if you have never watched YGO but want to try and see for yourself why people like it: WATCH THESE EPISODES. I can’t explain how amazing these episodes are and, while I admit jumping straight into them might have you missing out on some important context (such as who Shun is or why Sora’s battle tactics lead to revelation) it’s honestly an amazing fight regardless. The battle starts off plain enough - there’s obvious tension, it seems like a typical fight of a battle royale, etc. - my god does the battle ramp up in emotional tension and promptly kick you in the gut with not only how blindsided you’ve been, but it also showcases just how cruel these “entertainment duels” can really get.

Any episode with Yuri. Literally any episode he’s in. 

I think this is like...episode 8 of VRAINS...but whenever it is that Akira hires Ema to find the reason why Aoi just...straight up got knocked into a coma. Literally this is my favorite episode when it comes to Ema. The way she makes fun of Akira even while aware of his situation,,, her cruel selfishness and desire for money bubbling to the surface, the way she confesses how she can’t be trusted willingly and still asks Akira why he’s hiring her,,, god I love this episode in terms of what Ema could’ve always been.

Episode 13 (/14?) of Zexal!!! This is the episode Kaito appears and when the show REALLY picks up. Kaito is a fun bastard of a rival and tbh I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting chills of him walking in, debris frozen in time all around him, as he approaches his victim, whistling an eerie children’s tune as he gets ready to close in for the kill,,,,

Favorite Deck to Use:

I don’t...really play the game itself but...I have used a couple of decks and I guess you can say I really love Raid Raptors??? First of all, those warbirds make really fun sounds I love ‘em in the anime but they’re also just fun to use in general (even tho I used a,,, very basic deck for them,,, I love them still).

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, XYZ, Pendulum or Link:

XYZ bc it’s really the only summoning method I’m used to lol :P. Also XYZ loyalist I guess???? 

Years in fandom: roughly five to six years iirc? I mean, I was a fan of the early day YGO and watched it as a kid but not active enough to be in the fandom for it lmao. Also not in the fandom atm because Sevens lost my attention (it’s a good show!!! I’m just unfortunately more a fan of things with serious plots and darker themes and it’s hard for me to stomach slice-of-life shows that don’t focus on a mature and engaging plot). However, Arc-V and Zexal holds a special place in my heart (as does VRAINS, begrudgingly) and so I occasionally find myself wandering back to these shows like right now,,, 

[lemongogo]

So Hawks let twice to just idk multiply without doing shit and then dabi comes and steps on him. Wtf is happening? I really don't like this shounen style of suddenly getting mushy and letting the villain off the hook and then being surprised that: ohhh he multiplies and ohhhh dabi comes. Am I the only one?

i understand what you mean, but i feel like this situation employs it differently so that its justified? in a sense? like , previous actions and events leading up to this moment have foreshadowed hawks’ hesitation pretty well. and that hesitation will do a lot in propelling the story forward, most especially in defining hawks as a pivotal character in shifting the narrative away from this binary of “good v evil”

obviously w that being said you dont have to agree ! i just feel as though it works well in this case given that this is the first instance of it happening in the entire manga (and it has an ultimate purpose for doing so)

hawks’ hesitation stems from two (interlocked) perspectives: one, he befriended twice during his time at the plf and two, he functions best as a morally grey character who (hopefully) will challenge the commission’s insistence on militant justice

hawks doesnt incapacitate twice immediately because the story wanted to show us that twice meant something to hawks. that, although his mission was to infiltrate the league and manipulate whoever he had to for information, he began to understand/appreciate twice on a personal level. twice was the first person in the manga who addressed keigo (keigo!! not hawks !! big difference) directly about his concerns (e.g. “feeling trapped”) and suggested that they could find a solution together. thats !! monumental !! from what i can tell, hawks has never really gotten that. he’s kinda only ever existed as this pawn for the commission- you see it in how he was raised and how he was the youngest ever to top the charts / start his own agency (he even says himself that he wants to slow down.. take it easy). and while his personal feelings for twice didn’t overshadow his general goal in providing the plf raid information, it creates a really tense and complex situation where now he’s face to face with the guy who cared for him. twice cries for him. he pitied hawks !! its understandable, to me at least, why hawks would hesitate

but on top of that i feel like it plays into this larger idea of like. showing the audience that hawks is starting to think for himself rather than follow all of the commission’s orders at will. this is demonstrated rly well in the visuals of 264 where you have hawks in the shadows (representing the commission) vs hawks in the light (representing his own free will / choice). if he had immediately taken care of twice, it shows us that ok ! hawks is sticking to his teachings and thats the end of it. continuation of “the heroes are always justified” theme. but now that he let twice go, it opens up this door where we can finally begin to move away from this binary of “good” vs “bad” and what defines the two. it suggests that , hey, this system is actually pretty fucked up and maybe it’s time we change that. idk. its rly complex !! and i think its a really interesting element to add to the story when all of the previous villain encounters have always been straight to the point

[dndaddyissues]

im new to DMing, and while i seem to have gotten the hang of most things well, im super confused when it comes to running battles (especially when theyre my own monsters) how do i balance a battle? how do i tell how many enemies/how much health per enemy = fair for certain amounts of players? is there a chart or resource somewhere you know of, or is it all intuition? (bonus question: how long should normal and boss encounters last irl time wise?) thanks so much!

thanks for sending me this question! this answer is particularly huge… you have been warned. 

as usual, here’s the tl;dr:

- for an easy to moderate challenge, have the same (or fewer) number of enemies as there are players;

- for an advanced challenge, outnumber the players;

- lower your enemies’ AC to something that your players can hit 60-70% of the time;

- in exchange, buff your enemies’ HP;

- feel free to fudge hit points whenever you want;

- utilize the “minions” mechanic from 4th edition;

- for boss battles, introduce special bonus actions, reactions, and villain actions;

- combat usually lasts 3-4 rounds: plan accordingly;

- ask yourself: why is this combat happening? what narrative/dramatic and character stakes can i introduce?;

- and have fun!

i want to preface my answer by saying that i don’t enjoy easy combat – unless played for laughs/comedy, or used to foreshadow something plotwise (like a goblin scout’s death alerting the goblin horde at large), i hardly ever throw an easy combat encounter at my party.

so, the following advice is given with challenging the players in mind – either moderately, immensely, or impossibly. i guess i’m just a big sucker for jim murphy/matt colville-style DO OR DIE challenges. otherwise, what’s the point?

another preface: this answer is given in the spirit of avoiding the “slog” – the combat encounter where it feels like baddies and PCs are just stepping up to the plate, whacking at each other, and stepping back down. that’s boring. and boring combat is the worst. sometimes it’s unavoidable – we all have our off days, nothing wrong about that – but the less that it happens, the more fun that everyone has! right?

now, on to the answer itself!

first of all, i’ve already written an answer to an ask a little while back about combat that might be useful to you. click here to read about how to make more action-oriented monsters, especially for boss battles and random encounters that you want to feel significant and deadly.

second of all, here’s the 5e CR encounter calculator i used to use all the time. it’s extremely intuitive and has toggles for number of players, level of players, monster CR/EXP, and how difficult encounters would be rated (easy, medium, hard, deadly). 

third of all, i never use that calculator anymore.

over the course of the 2.5 years i’ve spent DMing 5th edition, there are three main things i’ve learned that can drastically increase, or decrease, the difficulty of a combat encounter. they are: # of baddies, armor class, and # of hit points.

regarding # of baddies. due to how the action economy in 5e plays out, the more creatures there are on either side of a combat, the bigger the advantage that side has. it’s just kind of how it works. so, an easy way to bump up the difficulty: throw more monsters at the players than there are players.

the one soft exception is boss battles. personally, i fucking LOVE having just ONE, super badass, super hard to kill, hardcore boss that the party gets to face down during crucial turning points in the campaign. it makes me feel like i’m running fucking Dracula in Netflix’s Castlevania against some lovable and deadly dumbasses. it’s great. it’s fun. it’s thrilling. to make bosses as challenging (and therefore rewarding) as possible, i highly recommend reading the ask i linked earlier in this reply. (click here for the link again.)

now, i say it’s a soft exception because i like giving my bosses minions. i basically utilize the 4th edition (i think?) “minion” mechanic where the AC, bonus to hit, and damage of all minion creatures are the same as regular versions of the creature. the only difference is, they have 1 HP. 

this can give the PCs the awesome feeling of wading through waves and waves of minions – say, dozens of zombies, as an evil lich cackles upon their raised stone dais 80 feet away. i don’t utilize this too often because then it can feel tiring to the party. but done sparingly, and with narrative stakes, it can be quite thrilling! (that maxim is also true for basically any kind of combat encounter in D&D.)

regarding armor class. obviously, the higher the armor class, the harder the challenge. if you can’t hit the damn thing obviously you can’t kill it. i personally like to pitch the AC of my enemies a liiittle bit lower, to increase my PCs’ probability of hitting. the exact number of the armor class will depend on your players’ level.

as a super general guide for players at level 3, 10-13 is easy, 14-15 is moderate, 16-17 is challenging (heavily favoring 17), and 18+ is very challenging/almost impossible. 

just so you know, i generally set my enemies’ ACs for a level 3 party to be 13 for less important creatures, and 14 for more important creatures. i’d probably set the AC to be 15 or 16 for a mini-boss, and 16 or 17 (if i’m feeling cruel lol) for a boss.

obviously, this scales as your party levels up, finds magical items, and gains special features and boons. i would scale the difficulty by 1 when they hit level 4 and get an ability score improvement, and then by 1 every 2 levels or so.

in other words, at level 4, i’d consider an AC of 11-14 to be easy, 15-16 as moderate, 17-18 as challenging (heavily favoring 18), and 19+ as very challenging/almost impossible. and by the time your party is levels 12-16, AC can often feel like it doesn’t freaking matter anymore because they’ll be able to hit, like, fucking everything. anyway.

there’s some nitty gritty mathematics about this if you like to get granular. this is a good video about dice math, armor class, and calculating advantage mathematically if that sort of thing interests you.

regarding # of hit points. honestly, i fudge this most times. because i like to scale my AC on the lower end, in exchange, i make my creatures fucking FAT. like, i’ll look at their stat block in the monster manual, and add 30-50% to what they already have. sometimes i’ll straight up double or even triple it.

for example, the spectator normally has 39 hit points, but i gave my spectator ~100, because it was a miniboss. i did, however, keep its armor class at 14 because that meant my players, at 3rd level, would be able to hit it 60-70% of the time. this strategy of mine tends to work out, because my players are usually able to dish out a LOT of damage per round. (we have a barb, a fighter, and a warlock in the party lol.)

something i did in the spectator fight, that i wish i didn’t do, was stay faithful to the number of hit points it had. the barbarian ended up killing it with a rather anticlimactic attack. i know for certain that my warlock, which was next in the initiative order, had this SUPER cool and character-relevant attack planned. what i would do differently, is keep the spectator alive just long enough for my warlock to do their cool fucking move, and have that move kill the monster.

and now for the big takeaway. combat, for me, is all about giving my players a chance to shine, be badass, utilize their class abilities, and be creative. just like any other aspect of d&d, such as roleplaying and exploration, combat is an exercise in collaborative storytelling (for me, at least).

i rarely introduce combat that doesn’t tie into an A plot, a B plot, or a side quest that the PCs are chasing. i don’t have anything against random encounters – in fact, i ran some RE’s in the second-most recent session – but what makes combat fun for me as a DM is the fact that it advances story, and potentially deepens the players’ understanding of their character.

so, before you throw your players into a combat situation, ask yourself: why? how can i make this narratively dramatic – and not just a slogfest?

bonus answer: most combat encounters will struggle to last beyond three, maybe four, rounds. especially if there are an equal or fewer baddies to the player characters. however, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. in fact, if combat went on for five, six, seven rounds, it can begin to feel like… well.. a slog.

so make the most out of your three, four rounds, and make each combat encounter unique! how about an environmental challenge? slippery ground, swinging axes, pools of lava, a sudden earthquake, a portcullis dividing the party, water filling the room.

or roleplay/plot-related challenges? maybe there’s a circle of mages attempting to summon a demon that are protected by enchanted suits of armor that the PCs need to hack through. maybe there are hostages. maybe there’s a powerful magical artifact that the baddies and PCs both want, and the challenge in the combat lies in who can most deftly and efficiently maneuver through the clockwork maze protecting the raised dais the item resides upon.

[qveenpoppy]

z2 thoughts

i wasn't able to watch it live and got distracted on friday night when i tried catching up after the fact so i just compiled all my thoughts into one list rather than a bunch of live blogging posts.. enjoy!

bucky's still anti-zombie, huh? at least there are some zombies on the cheer squad now (including bonzo!!! good for him!!!)

ohhh they got some good choreo over on z-team at cheer camp!

the zombietown theater's main showing is a werewolf movie…. i smell foreshadowing!

"i've decided to be school president" can like zed run just so bucky loses the election

WHO IS IN THE SHRIMP COSTUME, it's bothering me… can it get a luke benward cameo

AW SOFT BOY BONZO I LOVE YOU (also if he wrote her name, does this mean he's learning english? or is there just no zombie version of "bree")

"i thought werewolves were just myths" "yeah like cavities" WHY ARE THESE MOVIES SO FUNNY

"i'm always looking like a snack" god

zed getting down on one knee to ask addison to prawn is so pure

also addison rejecting the promposal… the rapunzel/eugene energy is off the charts

i like that the football coach has a little more to do in this movie, even if he's comic relief

IS THAT WYATT IN THE PUBLIC WORKS UNIFORM???? IS HE UNDERCOVER OR SOMETHING??? HIDING OUT AMONGST HUMANS???

why did i lowkey predict that

i was honestly just wondering why this seemingly bg character suddenly got more screentime

are these werewolves ever gonna go full wolf or is this it

ohhh so they just think addison is the alpha… it's probably gonna be a mistake

yo why does this wolf song slap

wow i also called zed running against bucky… huh. does this violate any monster laws?

it's crazy how easily they agreed to let werewolves in the school

OH THIS SONG ALSO SLAPS, kinds gives me "chillin like a villain" vibes

baby ariel (is she wynter in this movie?) is kind of adorable. reminds me of… brena, is it? jane from descendants. where is the crossover fic where they're girlfriends

(on the subject of crossover ships… carlos/wyatt please. it'd be cool for his dog fear to result in him getting beastie bfs)

pls tell me they actually got new choreographers for this film bc the choreo is so fucking good

(not that it was inherently bad in z1 but i feel like all the non-"BAMM" numbers were meh in terms of choreo, this movie is like that quality choreo but for EVERY NUMBER!!! and we love to see it)

wynter on the football team pls and thank you

i thought bonzo spoke english for a moment ajfhshd, pls let him learn some english, he clearly understands it but why tf can't he speak it

bonzo is taller than zed, pass it on

the aspect ratio is so jarring considering this is a made for TV movie

i recognize that "fired up" music!!!

also bonzo in pink is so good, i have to say

fine smelling wyatt?????? what????? how does he smell good he's half dog??????

bucky is still a prejudice SoB huh

if addison is actually a wolf i'll scream, it doesn't make sense

also can we stop having dcom couples break up in every movie, it's so tired. give us healthy relationships 2k20

"says the girl who wore a wig her whole life" ZED NO

is this actually the same school as the last film, like the gym looks the same but we're suddenly seeing a lot more hallways???? guess they got a bigger budget to build more sets

there are tears in zed's eyes… milo manheim oscar when

why is it bothering me that zed's jacket has one long sleeve and one short

everyone in the bg has pastel clothes but the cheer costumes have hot pink in them… hmm. interesting choice

gotta go my own way has been found dead in 2007 (in other words this duet slaps)

"WE BELONG TOGETHER", i'm gonna cry

are those pink marshmallows in her hot cocoa

wynter is baby

do the werewolves actually just… live in the middle of the woods? they're not actually animals… (or will they actually go full wolf?)

okay how does bree understand bonzo when he speaks zombie

why is the score so intense, i know it's a dramatic scene but it's like theater level intense

they have different connotations of howls……. okay. do the writers realize wolves can communicate other ways, right? growls, hisses, barks?

i guess addison could be a werewolf if her parents adopted her but why would they knowingly raise a werewolf as human if that were the case????

yo this song slaps too

descendants soundtracks found dead in a ditch

this song sounds so summer-y, it's hard to explain. like such a good beach song

wyatt/addison……… cute. can she have two monster boyfriends?

(yes and then wyatt gets dp'd by her and zed during his heats)

i hate addison's alpha look though i have to admit, let her be a cute baby, she ain't no fierce alpha

full zombie zed…… Hot

throw me onto the bed like that bby

we do deserve explanation for the white hair but werewolf just doesn't seen like it, there has to be another explanation

did the wolves always exist while zombies were just created? this universe is wack

this is why you need to plan your trilogies out instead of throwing darts at a board and seeing what sticks

"you like sunsets too, that doesn't mean you're a vampire" DO VAMPIRES EXIST HERE TOO?!

if vamps exist and we get z3 can they cast thomas doherty as one of said vamps for irony

or luke newton so i can write the fanfic where ben and sean are vampire bfs

(anyone else watch the lodge?)

if she's not a werewolf, will that necklace just kill her?

"stay out of our amazing hair" you can't just have a line like that in a dramatic moment

oh zed stole the necklace… Good

a rapping debate… second time disney tries ripping off hamilton. ironic now that they own hamilton.

bucky can't even rap, he automatically loses my vote

"dude, you eat brains" "if i did, you don't have one, so you'd be safe" OHHHHHHHHH

bucky = republicans, zed = democrats

zed's dancing making me nostalgic for milo's dwts season… take me back 😭

OH NO THE MOON STONE FUCKED WITH THE ZBAND

this is like the best dcoms wow

i mean sans the wolf addison thing

it feels more like a cw show than a disney movie and for that reason, i fucking love this

this is also the best dcom soundtrack since lemonade mouth, 0 cringe songs so far

saw this comment on twitter but yeah what is the point of the water here, are they just trying to copy d2?

you know this is also a really well-timed movie considering how a bunch of teens are standing up to the adults bc the teens know better… hopefully this is foreshadowing for the election to come later this year

"flesh and bone" is also 100% the best song in the movie, i might have chills

ngl i expected addison's dad to override zed's dad's order but i guess there isn't enough time for more drama in this movie

i lied there is time for more drama lol

explosions in a dcom, that's new

BONZO AND BREE ARE HOLDING HANDS

are bucky and the aceys all each other's prom dates??? is disney saying poly rights???

A SOMEDAY REPRISE????

the only valid reprise in dcom history

what's with the earthquake?

THE GROUND IS BREAKING??? WTF

oh the moon stone is underground

"you said that perfectly" WYATT/BONZO CRUMBS GOD BLESS

okay now this end number sounds like a fun halloween bop 😅

bucky really wasn't redeemed do the writers realize this

ZEDDISON KISS HELL YEAH

there's still 5 mins left on the dvr… wait

ALIENS?!?!?!?!

ADDISON'S AN ALIEN?!?!?!

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Highlights - “Exit Wounds” (5x06) ... 2.0

Hi guys. So some of you may be reading this title in mild confusion right now because “didn’t she already do a highlight post for 5x06?” 

And you would be right! I did, indeed, create a highlights post for this episode that you can view here. And I would be lying if I said it didn’t bring me some level of satisfaction in posting it, but - alas - it does not really fit the purpose of this series in the first place ... which was to spur positivity within the fandom for whenever we experience another inevitable meltdown.

My initial purpose of starting this series was, ironically enough, exactly for episodes like 5x06 - the episodes that fandom despises. I did a highlight post for 4x04 last year, another episode many people did not enjoy, in an attempt to put a more positive spin on it and lift the moods of people in fandom. My motivation for creating this series was mostly in the attempt to preserve the sanity of myself and the fandom as a whole.

So, forgive my petty crackpost. While I had my fun with it, it was always my intention to do another, more serious list of highlights for the episode when I gathered up the energy to do a rewatch.

So here it is. The new and improved (????) list of my favourite parts of 5x06:

People of Wonkru, hello and welcome to the 100th annual Hunger Games. I have to say, I did appreciate my wife, Charmaine Diyoza’s homage to THG. She grew up in the early 2000′s, she knows what’s up. Dropping a bunch of parachutes from the sky full of rations? Now that’s a power move. A woman after my heart.

“Two missiles and this war would be over.” “And then what? How many of our people are farmers? How many are engineers?”

Seriously CHARMAINE IS SO SMART. She’s not rash, she’s calculating. And she doesn’t fight needless battles. She isn’t here to kill, she’s here to take the valley. But she’s also willing to negotiate peace in order to reach her goals - she isn’t irrational, and she isn’t cruel. Never have I ever rooted for an “antagonist” on this show more. Every episode she just gets more likable and more relatable. She says everything I’m thinking, I swear.

“In war the greatest victory is the one that requires no battle.” I don’t think there has been a person in power on this show who has ever verbalized such a thing. It’s no wonder Kane is siding with Diyoza. Even if Octavia wasn’t such a tyrant, how could he resist teaming up with the one person who actually practices what he’s been preaching for all these years?

“We’re the only thing that can defeat us.” Why does this line feel like foreshadowing? 

Okay, I have to take a moment to scream (again) about how aggressively into Gaia’s look I am. Damn girl. No idea how you bleached your hair down there but good on you. Good. On. You.

“Gina at Mount Weather. Ilian in the conclave. Me, on that damn cliff.”

Listen. I fucking cheered at that line. I cheered. And I don’t think I have ever cheered for Octavia in anything she has ever done, or said, since maybe Season 2. I am not an Octavia fan. I’ve been pretty vocal about that, but this is one of the few moments during the series in which I could actually understand and empathize with her, because in this episode she voiced everything that the audience has been thinking AND. IT. WAS. SO. VINDICATING.

First of all, shout out to my girl, Gina Martin. You were the realest, and you deserved better. RIP. I don’t think it is actually possible that I could ever dislike any line that acknowledges her.

Second of all, Marie SLAYED the delivery of this line. Her voice actually breaks when she references Echo almost killing her in 4x04. I was trying to place what it was about Octavia in this scene that I liked and I realized: she may be swinging a sword, but that is not Blodreina talking. Underneath that armour is Octavia. And, judging by the way she clutches her stomach, she can still feel the wounds inflicted on that day on the cliff. Now, however, it isn’t Echo who is holding the sword: it’s Bellamy. This isn’t Blodreina holding up a facade to maintain her power; this is Octavia expressing real pain. And I may not agree with how she treats her brother, but this is perhaps the one case in which her argument is completely, and totally valid. 

I don’t know if Marie clutching her stomach like that, right where the scar would be, was an acting choice or a directing choice but I really liked that small detail.

“Why are we even doing this? So your sister can go to war? What happened to us being the good guys?” Thank you, my precious Monty, for being the light this world needs. Now go ditch Wonkru and join up with my wife Charmaine. 

Listen, I cannot describe how initially soothed I was when I heard Niylah’s accent. Finally, someone seeking out my girl Clarke! It felt like old times (and this is coming from someone who never used to give two shits about Niylarke, if I’m honest). *sigh* 

“I’m sorry. It’s just, everything’s so different.” God, my heart BROKE for Clarke so many times during this episode. I feel so much for her and it’s just SO easy to connect with her this season. She’s definitely my favourite character after the time jump, thus far, and I’m loving every second that we get of her. 

I already said that I never really cared much for Niylarke but giving her that black panther was CUTE. Sue Me.

“You saved our lives, again. Thank you by the way.” “That wasn’t me; that was Bellamy.” First of all, my girl is getting the acknowledgement she deserves. Second of all, I will take my crumbs - thank you very much.

I’m not going to lie: The 100 can disappoint in many ways, but the soundtrack never does. Tree Adam’s score was slaying the game in this episode, especially in the scene with Niylah and Clarke. That track was beautiful. It had the perfect amount of softness and nostalgia and melancholy and I loved it.

“How do you explain the sun to someone who’s never seen it?” This line was so eery and creepy HOLY shit. But I loved it, even as much as it broke my heart to realize that the one person who sought Clarke out in this episode was only using her for information. 

“I can still tell when you’re lying.” dark!Niylah - I never knew I would be so intrigued.

“Gaia, what are you doing?” “Protecting the last true natblida, as my order has always done.” BA DUM TISS

That plot twist ... I have to admit that I honestly did NOT see that coming. I was sure that Gaia was shoved straight up Octavia’s asshole. I cannot express how much gratification it brings me to know that Gaia was playing her the entire time. As Murphy would say, “that’s a survivor’s move.”

“I’m not the one you should be afraid of.” Seriously, the story potential this twist opens up for Clarke, Gaia, Octavia, and Madi is just OFF the charts. I cannot wait to see where this goes.

The entire interaction between Gaia, Niylah, and Clarke was simply fascinating. Three woman who I didn’t know I needed to interact this much.

“I don’t enjoy seeing you suffer, John.” “Then why’d you leave me.” I’ve never been a diehard Memori stan (just casually enjoyed it) but goddamn this episode was prime angst material for them. I have such a weakness for angst, my friends.

“You didn’t need me anymore. You were always off doing your own thing with Raven.” “SO WHAT?” YOU TELL HIM EMORI

“When we were on the ring, I was part of something bigger than myself. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. And you punished me for it.” This is my favourite version of Emori, guys. Remember when we all thought that Emori died off-screen before S5 aired because there was no BTS of Luisa? I’m so glad we were wrong. Her story this season has been absolute fire. A prime example of natural character development following a time jump ... *ahem*

“A spy and a murderer ... with a conscience. You’re right Bellamy, she has changed.” I SCREAMED at Marie’s delivery of this line. It was just ... so on point you guys.

That shift transition from ***** *** (I can’t type it out - this is supposed to be a HIGHLIGHT post) to Clarke packing ... with the same music playing. aasqkqisnsksks I ain’t gonna say a word

“Six years is a long time. Octavia is not the girl from the stories I told you.” Madi’s hero worship is mildly cute but indulging it can’t possibly lead to anything good. I really appreciated this line. And I don’t blame Clarke one bit for feeling like she needs to leave.

“If anything happens to me ...” Give me a moment to recover. I’m Triggered.

But seriously that Madi x Clarke scene was just so beautiful and emotional and heartbreaking. Eliza is slaying the game. and why does lola’s face remind me so much of bellamy in THAT scene y’all know the one. the resemblance is real i said what i said

Clarke looking over to ***** ******* like a wounded puppy ... for the second episode in a row. I AIN’T GONNA SAY A WORD

“W h a t?” THE PAIN IN HIS VOICE i’ll take my crumbs

“No, YOU don’t understand.” GO OFF CLARKE !!! Also, WHO’S READY FOR HAKELDAMA 2.0 

BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HE STILL HELPS HER FIND MADI WITHOUT EITHER OF THEM NEEDING TO SAY A WORD EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE IN THE MIDST OF A FIGHT BECAUSE EVEN WHEN THEY ARE ANGRY THEY ARE STILL EACH OTHER’S PERSON AND GOD HELP ME SIX YEARS CANNOT CHANGE THAT AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE 

^^^ THIS SCREENCAP RIGHT HERE OFFICER

“On me.” *sigh* it almost feels like old times

Bellarke kicking down a door = hawt

I stan one (1) power couple

Is anyone gonna talk about the Kara Cooper/Echo parallels? Cause, like, they’re Real fam

I cannot express how much I loved that they showed Madi reacting to having her hand slit open realistically. Like that girl is trying so hard not to show pain but she FEELS it, and she was whimpering. Like, damn, I felt that. Lola did such a good job showing how a child would realistically react to that happening. 

Not to be That Person. But. Bellamy’s hair game marginally improved in his scenes with Clarke. I only know Truth.

THE SLOW-MO OF CLARKE RUNNING TOWARDS MADI AS OCTAVIA’S VOICE ECHOES IN TRIGADESLENG. Y’ALL ARE COMING FOR MY LIFE THAT WAS SO CREEPY AND COOL

“I understand why you lied Clarke. You were just trying to protect her. But Madi no longer needs your protection - she has mine.” I LOVE antagonist Octavia. Seriously. I’m so happy they decided to go the villain origin story route for her, it just makes her so much more interesting. AND SHE’S SO DAMN CREEPY

“I executed traitors. And I made it look like a real defection.” Okay, okay, okay, so was shooting the defectors cold-blooded as shit? Yes. But was it smart? YES. I think Octavia is a bad person but damn girl. Dammmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnn.

Don’t come for my life but I HONEST TO GOD ENJOYED OCTAVIA IN THIS EPISODE. And not because I like her as a person but because she made sense to me with pretty much every move she made. And I’m not used to that feeling with her.

Echo hiding the piece in Karina’s wound. F u c k i n g hell mate. AND WHAT WAS THAT LOOK AT THE END. I dunno but I’m intrigued. 

Sooooooo in case y’all were wondering. I do think 5x06 holds up better on rewatch (as most episodes do). Not all of the episode was bad, as my initial highlight crackpost made it out to be - there were still some good moments. I thought the last ten minutes of the episode were particularly strong, and to be honest all the stuff with Clarke and Memori was A+++. So, definitely not bad all around. And it has a good set-up for the episodes to follow which I am genuinely looking forward to.

Hope you enjoyed this newly revised highlight post! I’ll see ya in a week for 5x07. 

[cerastes]

HEY DRIMO it's been a while since you did a big myth post so how about you tell me a cool story about my boi karna

Oh dear me, Hindu mythos, damn, ok, so, first rule of Hindu mythos is that you all have to wear your seat belts while reading this. If you don’t, you are susceptible to immense physical and spiritual damage, enough that it might kick you right out of the cycle of reincarnation, and then the Mythos Retelling Collective (MRC) will revoke my license due to Irresponsible Sharing of Intense Tales (art. 23847). Are you all strapped in? Y’all got your helmets? Alright alright, let’s get this show on the road.

SO, KARNA. I assume most of you are familiar with Karna having Big Strength and being god damn unkillable. Ok, so, it goes beyond that. It goes at least three Milky Ways in width beyond that. Originally known by his other name, Vasusena (and this dude has like 14 different names), Karna is the main protagonist of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, and–

Oh, right, before I can tell you anything about the Mahabharata, or about Hindu mythos in general, I need to explain power levels. So you know how in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Vegeta and Nappa use “Raditz” as a unit of measure for power levels and ki? “My power level is 500 Raditz.” “My power level is 23000 Raditz”, the joke being that Raditz was such a weak grunt that his meager total power can be used as a unit as you would with centimeters? Ok, this is actually canon in Hindu mythos. They have a scale of power levels, referred to as “Levels of Warrior Excellence”. The levels are:

Ardha-rathi: The lowest level, meaning literally “Half of a Rathi”. Read the next section for a more elaborate explanation, but this is Yamcha-tier, basically, the weakest of the badasses.

Rathi: It almost sounds like Raditz, doesn’t it? Well, Rathi is the unit by which all the other levels of Warrior Excellence are measured, as well as a rank by itself. A Rathi is an individual so powerful and skilled, that they can do battle with 1000 regular warriors simultaneously. This is the “Dynasty Warriors Playable Character” tier: Strong, but still susceptible to frames per seconds drops and getting stunlocked by arrows.

Atirathi: HERE is where things get spicy. An Atirathi is a warrior that can fight with six Rathi simultaneously. This is the level of strength possessed by Kevin by the time of Home Alone 2.

Ekarathi: You thought six was impressive? TRY EIGHT RATHI SIMULTANEOUSLY. We are entering Popeye-with-spinach levels of world-ending strength now.

Maharathi: The top level, the cream of the crop, the true definition of “Fuckhouse”. Those who reach this level are immensely powerful, and can do battle with 12 or more Rathi simultaneously. That is 12000 asses worth of whoopings. This is where you favorite Touhou is, obviously, and fuck what everyone else says.

Their measure of unit is basically “How many thousands of dudes can this person fight, or how many people that can fight a thousand people at once can this person fight?”, which, in other words, means that India has not fucked around a single day in it history.

So you might be wondering, “where’s Karna in all of this?”. Well, Chili Con Karna is SO MINDBOGGLINGLY STRONG AND SPICY that he is, literally, a Double Maharathi. Karna is stated to be “in terms of strength and skill, equal to two Maharathi warriors”. These peak jokers made this elaborate power level chart just so they could say “AND KARNA IS DOUBLE AS STRONG AS THE STRONGEST”. He is Two Gokus. Karna could literally look at you, without the laser, and you would just be atomized, restructured, and atomized again in the span of minus three seconds, and you would thank him for it. And damn RIGHT you would thank him for it, because he probably didn’t mean to do that to you. That’s because Karna, despite having more powers than Superman and God combined, is the Ultimate Good Boy. This dude is Puppy Kiss Central, this dude chips in on Pizza Thursday every week, and makes up for those who didn’t chip in. Karna lets you take the last chicken nugget. Karna lets you use Player 1 when you hang out at his place. Karna tells you to text him or call him once you get home after hanging out and he gets worried if you don’t. That dashing guy you saw doing volunteer work at the homeless shelter the other day? Probably Karna. The owner of Old Friends Dog Sanctuary? Definitely Karna.

He’s GOOD.

And that’s why the Mahabharata is so painful: I don’t speak Hindi, but I am pretty sure “mahabharata” translates directly to “Karna Has Bad Day :(”. Today, we’ll be talking about Karna’s Three Curses, with a little bit of his childhood for context on the first one, and because I just want to talk about his dumbass mom. Also that one time he clowned Arjuna and Planet Fucking Earth got mad at him.

SO, there was this lady named Kunti, princess of the Kunti Kingdom (yeah), and this one time she was the host to a sage named Durvasa, who was visiting. She is a most Excellent Host, and provided Durvasa with the best of services, the most delicious food, the most luxurious of drinks, and every volume of Detective Conan, and Durvasa was so stoked at this 10/10 Would Come Again service, that he gave Kunti a special boon: With a mantra he taught her, she now had the amazing power to get knocked up by any deity of her selection. Kunti was really happy with her new pregnancy powers, and couldn’t wait to try them out, so she did to call upon the Sun God Surya, and guess what fucking happened: That’s right, fucking happened. It was a violent and intense cyclone of sex so kinky that the baby was born with armor and earrings (in some versions, Surya “handed” the child to Kunti, but in others, which I opt to believe, Kunti bore his child, and his fat solar load was so powerful that the fetus was armored). And then Kunti was like “oh fuck it worked lol but I am not wed” and since she didn’t want to be an unmarried mother (refer to Hindu tradition for this one), so she did like many other Mothers In Mythology and she put Armor Baby on a basket and set him afloat on the rivER LIKE A REAL KUNT, IT WAS IN HER NAME ALL ALONG, WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES KEEP DOING THIS.

THE REST IS UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE THIS IS TURNING LONG.

Like many other Babies In Mythology, Armor Baby was found by someone, this someone being a charioteer named Adhiratha, but not just ANY charioteer, this was the chief charioteer of King Dhritarashtra, who I hope will forgive me if I wrote his name wrong, and was adopted by the charioteer and his wife, Radha. Armor Baby was given a name, Vasusena, and his pet name was Radheya among the locals. Being born an armored baby, it should come as no surprise Vasusena was interested in the military arts, and so he approached this really cool dude named Dronacharya who taught princes about warfare, BUT Drone told the armor kid to fuck the off because he only taught Kshatriyas (the military social caste in Hindu culture), but he was very impressed by Vasusena’s guts because this shit ass kid more or less just strolled into his house and said “HEY TEACH ME HOW TO BE A BADASS”, so he suggested to his father to change his name to Karna, which means “one who peels his own skin”, as a reference to his guts and totally not any sort of foreshadowing to anything NO SIR WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT.

So ok he got a cool name and whatever, bUT SEE, he still got told to fuck off, which he DIDN’T LIKE, so Cartman, not one to be daunted, sought out Dron’s own teacher instead, because fuck you, that’s why. So Kane finds him, name of Parashurama, and asks him BUT FIRST he disguises himself as a Brahmin, because Futurama only teaches Brahmins, and Karlos was not gonna make THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE. Panasonic agrees, seeing potential in this Double Goku kid and so begins the training arc. Result: Parashurama proudly announces that Karna is his equal in the art of warfare and archery. All this heaving and hoing gets my man Parmesan tired, though, so Karna, ever the good boy, offers his sensei his lap so he can sleep, sensei says fuck yeah and he uses his lap pillow. While he is sleeping, however, a very angry bee goes and stings the hell out of Karna’s thigh, but he’s got his sensei on his lap, which is like when you have a cat or a puppy on your lap and it falls asleep and you do not DARE move. So he didn’t, and this leads to a very important lesson to be learned in the Mahabharata: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. When he woke up, Parashurama saw the wound and the blood that flowed from it (and from this, I take bees in India are Cazadores from Fallout New Vegas) and immediately realized that Kane was NOT a Brahmin. This lie meant he had ILLEGALLY STOLEN INFORMATION, and so he cast a curse on Karna that made him forget everything about how to wield the divine weapon Brahmandra-astra, an immensely powerful divine weapon he learned to use, but Karna pleaded to please be reasonable, at which point Par realized, hey, maybe this is kinda excessive and impulsive, so he reduced the curse to make it so Karna would only forget it when he needed it the most against an equally powerful warrior, which IS NOT ANY FUCKING BETTER, and then he felt EVEN WORSE because Karna had basically been his best student ever and is a Good Person, so he gave him his own divine weapon, the Bhagavastra, as well as his bow, Vijaya. I mean, you could’ve just. Undone the curse. But hey. New weapons!

So Karna, a dedicated and excellent archer, was VERY HYPED to try out this new legendary bow he had come to own! There’s a thing in Hindu martial arts called “Shabdavedi Vidhya”, the art of hitting a target by detecting the source of the sound. What Karna didn’t consider is that shooting things by just detecting their sound, you know, means you are not REALLY LOOKING AT WHAT YOU ARE SHOOTING, but hey, like eager-to-try-new-toys mother, like eager-to-try-new-toys son. Three guesses as to what happened. You are RIGHT, HE SHOT A FUCKING COW. And it’s not with a little arrow or a harmless stick, this was with the Vijaya, which means that cow was obliterated off the face of this god damn planet. My dude was practicing “shooting at sounds” with a tactical nuke launcher. What the tits did he expect to happen. SEE, I’m sure you know, but shooting cows in India is not exactly something you just apologize about. But Karna, albeit not the brightest crayon in the box, was still Ultimate Good Boy, so he went to apologize to the owner of the cow, who happened to be an actual Brahmin who had performed the Agnihotra rite daily, which made him extra holy. Brahmin, of course, was pissed, and since apparently people in India just have a full moveset of curses ready to sling at a moment’s noticed, cursed Karna AGAIN, with this curse being “fated to die a helpless and callous death”. Not the best series of days for Karna. He could’ve just walked away, but he’s a Good Boy, so he had to take responsibility. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

So I want to call attention to this bitch of a life for a second: Baby is born because some cunt used her super pregnancy powers to see if they worked without considering the consequences of, you know, getting super pregnant, Baby is chucked into a basket and sent to fuck off on the rapids, is picked up, immediately tries to enroll with a fighting master, instead enrolls with a SUPER fighting master that taught the previous fighting master, and gets double cursed for being a good boy and having bad trigger discipline.

Now, let’s skip a couple of chapters, and we arrive at the moment where the Pandava princes, all demi-gods, hosted a “tournament” of sorts to show off their skills to the people and to their guru, Drona. They were all having a good time, being badass and superpowered WHEN SUDDENLY Karna shows up and arrogantly challenges them because he knows he can do better, from what he has seen. One of the princes, Arjuna (kept you waiting, huh?), who was regarded by Drona to be the most powerful and skilled on the Pandava, told him to maybe fuck off, and that they couldn’t compete because they were above him, as his caste was no doubt lower than theirs. A certain pair of ears DID NOT LIKE THIS and jumped to Karna’s defense: Duryodhana is the name of the owner of said ears, and he’s got Authority. How much of it? Well, he just up and named Karna King of Anga then and there, just so he could compete. Holy SHIT. Now, see, Duryo hates the Pandava. Duryo REALLY, REALLY HATES the Pandava, and he was 100% behind supporting this random stranger if it meant he could possibly maybe humiliate these ugly sumbitches. Maybe. Ok, see, here’s where it gets a bit weird, but depending on who tells the tale, Duryo and Karna actually already knew each other and were childhood friends, but most tellings make this their first meeting, and I am absolutely on board with that, because it only goes on to show how much Duryo hated the Pandava, and divine people in general. He just fucking HATED gods, man. Can relate. So Karna goes and UTTERLY OUTDOES AND UPSTAGES the Pandava princes. Outright beats all their highscores and writes “ASS” in the 1st Place billboard on each entry as his name. They are all FURIOUS at him, especially Arjuna, who had aced every single event, and now had to wear a nice 2nd place on all of them because this absolutely nobody (no one knew Karna was the sun’s son yet) showed up and utterly pulverized them. This also starts his relationship with Duryo, with whom he’d become fast, and eventually, best friends.

BUT, SEE, HE KINDA GOT MADE A KING, SO HEY, HE HAD TO GO, UH, TEND TO THAT. He was checking his brand new sudden kingdom, when he came across a WEEPING CHILD. If there is one thing Ultimate Good Boy can’t stand, that’s the tears of children, so he approached the girl and asked what’s wrong. See, the girl had accidentally dropped her ghee (kinda like butter but less dense) and she was going to get her ass whooped by her step mother. Karna kindly offered to buy her new ghee, but she said it had to be THAT SPECIFIC ghee with the dirt on it, and that she didn’t want any other. Karna, in his infinite kindness, said “oh, sure, lol”, so he grabbed the dirt and squeezed it with all of his extremely godly might, extracting the ghee back into the jar as if squeezing water out of a sponge, because that’s just the kind of solution you come up with when you are the strongest person in Ever.

hey

hey

you guys remember what I said a while ago?

WHY YES

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

Guess what happened. Guess whose anger he incurred. He got Bhumi Devi/Mother Earth herself pissed at him. And what was her beef, you ask? Well, see, Karna squeezed that soil SO DAMN HARD that she took offense. Yes. Really. And guess whSHE FUCKING CURSED HIM TOO, OH MY GOD, CEASE THIS, YOU CAN’T JUST HEX A DUDE FOR SQUEEZING DIRTY, COME ON. The curse this time was that she would one day trap his chariot’s wheel during a crucial moment in his life. All because that little girl wouldn’t make do with a new jar of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

WORST. WORLD. EVER.

And guess how Karna dies.

Yes.

His chariot’s wheel gets trapped on the earth (third curse) during a crucial confrontation with Arjuna, he attempts to defend himself with his astral weapon, but forgets how to conjure it (first curse), and is decapitated by a shot of Arjuna’s Gandiva as he helplessly leans against the chariot’s wheel, unable to free it (second curse).

The moral of the story is don’t fucking help anyone, ever, and don’t own up to your mistakes, because if you do, you’ll be triple cursed.

                                                                                       Karna deserved better.

[rapuvdayear]

1994: “Intro” The Notorious B.I.G. (Bad Boy/Arista)

Strap in, this is going to be a long post (even by my standards). Like, more than 5000 words long.

In the annals of rap history, there are certain periods that are just plain loaded. For example, between 1986 and 1988, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, Boogie Down Productions, the Beastie Boys, Eric B. & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, Too $hort, and NWA all released absolute classics that not only redefined the genre, but have become touchstones for the rappers who followed them. 1992-1996 boasts a similar embarrassment of riches: The Chronic, Doggystyle, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), The Infamous, Soul Food, All Eyez On Me, The Score, Ridin’ Dirty, and ATLiens, among many, many more. Smack dab in the middle of that run, 1994 was arguably the apex of rap’s golden era. In any other year, The Diary would’ve taken the crown as the best/most important album. But Scarface’s opus gets unfairly ignored because 1994 also saw two releases that appear on any serious (read: not trolling) all-time top ten list, and are perennially in greatest-ever discussions. I already covered Nas’s Illmatic back in April. And today, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Christopher Wallace’s debut, Ready To Die.

Properly assessing Biggie’s impact and legacy is a near impossible task. No other rapper has burned as brightly for so brief a period. After doing a nine-month bid in North Carolina for crack dealing as a 19-year-old, he was featured in The Source’s Unsigned Hype column—back when it was the still rap’s undisputed publication of record—off the strength of a now-infamous demo tape, a recognition that also helped launch the careers of Eminem, DMX, Common, and others. Big’s come up after The Source nod was similar to that of his contemporaries, like Nas, in that he stole the show on a couple of posse cuts. But while Nas went the “lyrically lyrical” route for a time and, with Illmatic, made an album featuring a Who’s Who of boom bap era producers, Big’s style was harder to pin down. He recorded just two official full-length albums, and only Ready To Die was released during his lifetime; in fact, Ready to Die is now officially older than Big was at the time of his murder, a crime that is still unsolved (and if that’s not a depressing statement about rap, violence, and blackness in America, I don’t know what is). His debut was recorded at a time when the West coast g-funk aesthetic was dominant, and East coast rap still meant “NYC,” which was primarily divided into two camps: the Timbs-and-hoodies style of the so-called New School rappers who could trace their lineages back to the Def Jam superstars of the 80s and Queensbridge’s Juice Crew, and the more “alternative” and Afrocentric stylings of the Native Tongues clique (there was also Wu-Tang, who combined elements of both but were also just weird as fuck). Ready To Die, in this sense, is much more representative of the Timbs-and-hoodies crowd, but it also paved the way toward a much more introspective, darker style of rap focused on violence and material wealth in equal measures that would become the standard in New York for the remainder of the decade. It’s a gangsta rap record with a boom bap sound. And though Biggie was certainly no slouch on the mic—his internal rhyme schemes are complex, and his flow is versatile—he didn’t need to rap fast or sound like he’d memorized a thesaurus in order to distinguish himself, either. His greatest strengths were his lovable-yet-dangerous personality, bawdy sense of humor, and unparalleled skill as a storyteller, which he would showcase to even greater effect on 1997’s Life After Death. Add everything up, and it makes perfect sense why Big is remembered as one of the—if not the—best to ever do it: he emerged at the peak of the golden era, but was also an originator rather than an imitator.

The 2Pac beef, East Coast-West Coast war, and “playas vs. thugs” dichotomy in mainstream 90s rap have all been broken down in painstaking detail elsewhere, with conspiracy theories lurking around every corner (for anyone interested, I think that the best resource for understanding those stories and where Biggie, Pac, and LAPD corruption fit into it all is this 2001 Randall Sullivan article in Rolling Stone). Separating history from hagiography is tough enough in a culture that is built on braggadocio; no rapper worth their salt has ever “let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.” But Biggie’s tall tale/folk hero status is on a different level, arguably even more so than Pac’s, with whom he will forever be linked. Much of that is due to the fact that his career was so short and his talent so undeniable; as distasteful as it is to admit, Biggie’s legacy undoubtedly benefited from his early passing, leaving us with two outstanding, classic albums and a handful of loosies, guest appearances, and posthumous compilations that continue to fuel speculation about the heights that he could have reached. Just as Jimi never made an experimental jazz guitar album and Otis never made disco, Big never recorded Nastradamus or Kingdom Come.

In the final analysis, Biggie’s career is defined by death, but not necessarily his own. Many have observed that the title of his debut album, Ready To Die, was, in a way, a foreshadow of things to come, and that the second, Life After Death, serves as a chilling acknowledgement of what occurred just two weeks before its release. But on a deeper level, a careful listen to both records reveals Biggie’s obsession with death: what he sees happening around him, the ways in which he might die—possibly even by his own hand—and the unanswerable question of whether or not death is the end. Behind all of the jokes, tales of sexual escapades, and reflections on how enjoyable the playa lifestyle can be, at its heart Ready To Die is extremely nihilistic.

That nihilism begins with the cover art, which along with The Chronic is the first rap album cover I can remember noticing. Despite what Nas and Raekwon may think, Ready To Die’s cover probably owes more to Nevermind than it does Illmatic: Nas’s childhood photo laminated over the Queensbridge housing projects on his debut evokes nostalgia for his roots; Ready To Die, on the other hand, is a bleak statement about being born a black man in America. Here’s this cute baby with an afro and a diaper set against a stark white background, and we the viewers are invited to wonder what his future holds. In other words, the point is that every American black male is born “ready to die” because that’s what the statistics tell us (in actuality, the photo model is alive and well). As an 11-year-old American white male from rural Maine, this was completely lost on me at the time. Looking back on it now, I can’t help but feel goosebumps.

The cover also simply yet effectively communicates the album’s narrative arc, such that there is one. Ready To Die isn’t a concept album by any means, but it does chart the life of Christopher Wallace from the womb to the tomb, so to speak. The first sounds we hear on the intro are a heartbeat, a woman in labor, her partner urging her to push, and then a baby crying. The last sounds are of a gunshot, a body falling to the floor, a voice on the other end of the line pleading, and a heartbeat slowing to a stop. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go through it track-by-track; this is one album that is all killer, no filler.

Intro (link above): This is a classic rap album trope: the introductory skit that establishes where the rapper is coming from, sort of like a superhero’s origin story. Maybe this is symptomatic of having recently been listening to only mid-to-late 90s rap, but it seems to me that these sorts of intros used to be more common than they are now. There’s no actual rapping here. Instead we get something very similar to “The Genesis” on Illmatic, a mashup of different iconic sounds from “the culture.” Whereas for Nas it was an excerpt from Wild Style followed by a skit over that movie’s theme, Biggie’s intro is more personal, and more comprehensive in terms of situating him in a time and a place. It begins with Christopher Wallace’s birth in 1972 over the sounds of “Superfly,” followed by an argument between Biggie’s parents about his antics that turns quickly to violent threats while “Rapper’s Delight” (1979)—the birth of rap, officially-unofficially—plays, then Big and a friend discussing a plan to rob subway passengers set to “Top Billin’” (1987), and finally Big being taunted by a corrections officer as he’s released from prison and Snoop’s “Tha Shiznit” (1993) can be heard in the background (this last part is definitely pure fiction; Big’s only recorded stint inside was back in 1991). The point of the narrative is obvious, but the musical choices are also significant. Biggie was part of an emerging generation of rappers who could still remember a time before rap, but who also grew up alongside the genre, their lives’ milestones scored by a soundtrack featuring the likes of The Sugarhill Gang, Audio Two, and Snoop. By 1994, rap itself had changed several times over already, and with Biggie’s entry it was set to change again. This theme continues on the next track…

Things Done Changed: First of all, this is one of the few songs I can think of that takes full advantage of stereo sound as the beat jumps from right to left and back again before the first harmonies kick in. In college, my friends and I used to love driving around with Ready To Die in the tape deck and performing a ritual of sorts to this opening, nodding our heads and pointing to the speakers on one side of the car and then the other (Side note: after college when I moved to Prague, a group of friends rented a car one night for the express purpose of driving around the city and listening to this album in its entirety. We actually got pulled over when we accidentally found ourselves in a Czech police extortion trap and had to bribe our way out, but that’s another story…). “Things Done Changed” is exactly what the title declares: a mix of Biggie waxing nostalgic about the bygone days of his Brooklyn childhood and communicating the harsh reality of post-crack NYC. The “back in the day” rap is another trope, but whereas previous examples like The Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By” (1992), Pete Rock and CL Smooth’s “T.R.O.Y.” (1992), and even Nas’s “Memory Lane” (1994) all are accompanied by production that emphasizes the slow, sweet, happy remembrances of things past, “Things Done Changed”—with samples from 70s funk group The Main Ingredient—sounds downright foreboding. The message is that there’s no time to lament the past because it’s over and done with and the future is anything but certain. As if this point weren’t clear enough, the Dr. Dre sample on the chorus—“Remember they used to thump? But now they blast, right?”—and Biggie’s appeal to his contemporaries—“Motherfucker, this ain’t back in the day/ But you don’t hear me though”—eliminate any sense of ambiguity. There are so many great Biggie lines sprinkled throughout (e.g., “And we coming to the wake/ To make sure the crying and commotion ain’t a motherfucking fake”; “Back in the days our parents used to take care of us/ Look at ‘em now, they even fuckin’ scared of us”; and “The streets is a short stop/ Either you slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot,” which incidentally was quoted in the cringeworthiest way possible in 2000’s Boiler Room), but one in particular stands out to me: “It make me wanna grab the 9 and the shotty/ But I gotta go identify the body.” A former roommate of mine always loved this part because it encapsulates not just Biggie’s moral dilemma, but in many ways the definitive contradictions of gangbanging and the drug trade: I’m so angry and in pain that I want to visit extreme violence upon the world, but at the same time I have to deal with the fallout of the violence around me in the most intimate of ways. Did I mention already that this album is nihilistic to the core?

Gimme The Loot: This song will always hold a special place in my memory. It was either this or Snoop’s version of “Lodi Dodi” that was the first rap I memorized word for word. In high school, my friends and I used to go out to the cross-country running trails after school to, uh, do what burnouts do, and more often than not would end up reciting “Gimme The Loot” in its entirety at the top of our lungs (I hope that we changed all the ****** to “suckas” or something…). Biggie voices two characters, both plotting small-scale robberies with grotesque levels of passion. For real, some of the lyrics for the album version had to be censored because, well, this: “I don’t give a fuck if you’re pregnant/ Give me the baby ring and the #1 mom pendant.” “Gimme The Loot” is also a perfect example of Big’s style: it’s played for laughs, but the subject matter is darker than dark. I like to think of this as a companion piece to “****** Bleed” from Life After Death—my all-time favorite Biggie track—which is about a much more ambitious robbery that is also full of jokes. In line with the album’s theme, “Gimme The Loot” ends with Big presumably dying in a hail of bullets during a shootout with the cops, “a true motherfucker going out for the loot.”

Machine Gun Funk: Ooh, this beat! As anyone who follows this account already knows, one of my favorite things about rap is how much great music I’ve been introduced to via samples. In this case, “Something Extra” by 70s funk band Black Heat. Easy Mo Bee, who produced this and five other tracks on Ready To Die, doesn’t get the acclaim of contemporaries like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, or Large Professor. But his bona fides are solid—coming up with the Juice Crew—and his work on this album is spectacular. As with “Gimme The Loot,” some of the lyrics in the second verse censored: “For the jackers, the jealous-ass crackers in the blue suits/ I’ll make you prove that it’s bulletproof.” This was, after all, around the time that NWA and Ice-T had provoked outrage—and FBI investigations!—for their anti-police lyrics. “Machine Gun Funk”’s overall gist is summed up in one line: “I’m doing rhymes now, fuck the crimes now.” In other words, Big is just as hard as he was on the ascent, but he’s transcended that life now and is making bank from rap. It’s another well-worn trope that’s become almost obligatory for rappers to talk about now.

Warning: Another funky Easy Mo Bee beat, this time with an Isaac Hayes sample. Biggie relates a story of being awakened early in the morning by a friend who has gotten wind that his enemies are plotting his demise (he also shouts out fellow Brooklynites M.O.P., which is a nice touch!). He demonstrates his capacity for catchy internal rhymes—“They heard about the Rolexes and the Lexus/ With the Texas license plates out of state/ They heard about the pounds you got down in Georgetown/ And they heard you got half Virginia locked down”—and penchant for clever metaphors—“There’s gonna be a lot of slow singin’ and flower bringin’/ If my burglar alarm starts ringin’”; “The criminals, tryna drop my decimals.” There’s also the continuation of the “ready to die” theme with a depressing statement about trust and paranoia: “It’s the ones that smoke blunts witcha, see your picture/ Now they wanna grab they guns and come and getcha.” “Warning” ends with a darkly funny skit of sorts that leads right into the next track…

Ready To Die: I mean, it’s right there in the title: this is the entire album in a nutshell. Big is defiant here and completely nihilistic: “My shit is deep, deeper than my grave, G/ I’m ready to die, and nobody can save me/ Fuck the world, fuck my moms and my girl/ My life is played out like a Jheri curl, I’m ready to die!” And why all the violence? It’s simple, really, a means to an end: “Shit is real, and hungry’s how I feel/ I rob and steal because that money got that whip appeal.” This Easy Mo Bee beat is appropriately eerie, too, flipping the organ from blaxploitation film score legend Willie Hutch’s “Hospital Prelude Of Love Theme.” “Warning” ends with Puffy reciting “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep,” similar to how he would start “You’re Nobody (‘Til Somebody Kills You)” on Life After Death with the 23rd Psalm: both are prayers about death and the afterlife.

One More Chance: This was one of the tracks that Big recorded during the second half of the Ready To Die sessions at Puffy’s urging. While Big allegedly didn’t want to make any concessions to commercial tastes, being the ever-calculating businessman that he is, Puff encouraged him to include a few tracks that weren’t just about robbing and killing. As such, the tone here is a little different from the album up to this point. However, it does give Big a chance to explore another of his signature topics and themes: sex, but in the lewdest way possible (I mean, he raps about shifting kidneys, shattering bladders, and “fuck[ing] her ‘til her nose bleed”). As my friend Jason pointed out to me recently, the skit in the intro is more interesting than it would appear at first, too. Ostensibly, it’s recordings of women on Big’s answering machine who he’s ghosted. However, the second caller doesn’t seem to be someone he’s slept with, but rather a female friend chiding him for being inconsiderate. Who knows whether this is meaningful or not, but maybe just maybe it’s a small subversion of the “g’s up, hoes down” mantra pervading rap? Eh, it’s a stretch. “One More Chance” was remixed and released as a single in 1995, becoming one of Big’s biggest hits. The original version is far superior, though, IMHO. Another minor note: verse 2 contains a cool shout out to Houston’s Geto Boys and the “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” video, complete with the beat switching up briefly to index that song.

Fuck Me (Interlude): A skit featuring Lil’ Kim. I usually don’t like rap skits, but this one is notable for making “Oreo cookie eatin’, pickle juice drinkin’, chicken gristle eatin’, biscuit fuckin’ suckin’ … V8 juice drinkin’, Slim Fast blendin’, black greasy muthafucka” into passable dirty talk. And that’s all I have to say about that.

The What: When Nas said, “My first album had no famous guest appearances/ The outcome: I’m crowned the best lyricist” on Stillmatic, this is the song he was talking about (well, either this or “Brooklyn’s Finest”… yeah, it was probably the latter). Given how rappers have stuck to the formula of paying for the services of more accomplished figures to drive interest in their debuts, it’s a testament to Nas’s and Big’s greatness that both Illmatic and Ready To Die only had one feature apiece: AZ on “Life’s A Bitch,” and Method Man on “The What.” With all due respect to AZ, no one’s mistaking him for a “famous” guest. Meth, on the other hand, had only really been famous for a couple of years at this point, but he was far and away Wu-Tang’s breakout star and would become the first group member to drop a post-36 Chambers solo just two months later. His participation here is also unexpected given the less-famous-yet-still-potent beef that existed between Wu-Tang and Biggie. Collabos and features are often underwhelming; either the guest feels like an unnecessary afterthought, or ends up “murder[ing] you on your own shit.” In this case, though, Meth is able to keep pace with Big and vice versa. Although his chemistry with Redman is legendary and their work together was super enjoyable, “The What” makes me wonder what a Meth and Biggie full-length would have sounded like. Easy Mo Bee laces the beat with the most stonerific production on the album, a laid back, fried melody that samples the outro to Leroy Huston’s “Can’t Say Enough About Mom” (1974). It works!

Juicy: It’s funny, this used to be my least favorite track on Ready To Die, entirely because of the chorus, which I thought was too “soft.” But now that I’m older, I appreciate its anthem-ness and the funky-ass Mtume sample. “Juicy” was, of course, the album’s lead single, but it was recorded toward the end of the sessions because Puff realized that they needed a radio-ready hit if Biggie was going to be a success. As a result, it’s the most discordant track on the album because of its uplifting tone, message of positivity, and nothing in the lyrics about death or dying. Along with “Things Done Changed,” this is the most autobiographical song on Ready To Die. And it’s chock full of quotables: “Time to get paid/ Blow up like the World Trade” (which has subsequently been censored in post-9/11 radio versions); “Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way”; “Considered a fool cuz I dropped out of high school” (that one always resonated with me, haha); “Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis/ When I was dead broke, man, I couldn’t picture this” (which sounds hilarious now as far as stunting goes); “Birthdays was the worst days/ Now we sip champagne when we thirstay.” Also like “Things Done Changed,” “Juicy” is a nod to the past—the first verse is basically a list of 80s rap influencers—while signaling that a paradigm shift is happening; when Big says, “You never thought that hip-hop would take it this far,” he means for both himself and for the genre as a whole. He probably would have been a star anyway without “Juicy,” but its inclusion on Ready To Die definitely helped drive his early mainstream appeal.

Everyday Struggle: This anthem is still relevant today. They wouldn’t be brave enough (or stupid enough, depending on your perspective) to actually do it, but Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders could totally use this as a campaign song in 2020. The name of the game here is “precarity” and the choices people make just to survive. The sample, from Dave Grusin’s cheesy 80s jazz composition “Either Way” (1980), starts off in a vaporwavish muffle that makes the intro sound like a classic TV theme song. And then immediately we’re vaulted back into Biggie’s bleak, nihilistic take on contemporary life, and his suicidal ideations (a foreshadowing of things to come…): “I don’t wanna live no more/ Sometimes I hear death knocking at my front door/ I’m living everyday like a hustle, another drug to juggle/ Another day, another struggle.” The whole song is about drug dealing, but it’s not all glorification: Big makes it quite clear that a) violence and the possibility (inevitability?) of death are ever-present, and b) it is an endeavor that is fundamentally about preying on one’s community. As he puts it, “Baggin’ five at a time/ I can clock about nine on the check cashin’ line/ I had the first and the third rehearsed, that’s my word,” all of which is to say that he had a clear understanding of the temporal rhythms of government assistance, wage payments, and the financial habits of the unbanked. It’s less of a lament than what appears in other rappers’ odes to “the game,” but I think it’d be remiss to ignore his discomfort with being a participant in an activity that clearly destroys lives and neighborhoods.

Me & My Bitch: Woooooo, talk about a problematic song! This is Kevin Gates before Kevin Gates. On the one hand, you could make a legitimate case for “Me & My Bitch” being the most romantic gangsta rap song ever (which is saying something in and of itself). On the other hand, Big would definitely be cancelled in 2019 for this. The opening line is classic Biggie humor: “I’ll admit when I first saw you my thoughts was a trip/ You looked so good, huh, I’d suck on your daddy’s dick.” But it soon devolves into your run-of-the-mill rap misogyny: “When the time is right, the wine is right/ I treat you right; you talk slick, I beat you right.” It’s all a fantasy—AFAIK Big never had a romantic relationship like the one depicted here—that’s the textbook definition of “ride or die.” Emphasis on “die” because that’s where the song ends up (because of course it does, this is Ready To Die after all). At first, Big tells us, “And if I deceive, she won’t take it lightly/ She’ll invite me, politely, to fight, G/ And then we lie together, cry together/ I swear to God I hope we fuckin’ die together,” which say what you will, that’s kind of a sweet sentiment. But alas, he doesn’t get his wish, as his lover is gunned down by his enemies, collateral in a war against him. Again, his eulogy for her is also kind of sweet, in a perverse way: “It didn’t take long before the tears start/ I saw my bitch dead with a gunshot to the heart/ And I know it was meant for me/ I guess the ****** felt they had to kill the closest one to me/ And when I find ‘em, your life is to an end/ They killed my best friend.”

Big Poppa: Another of the more radio-friendly, Puffy-inspired tracks, and consequently one of the album’s biggest hits (and second single). This is also the closest the Ready To Die comes to emulating 1994’s pop rap zeitgeist as the production on “Big Poppa” is clearly g-funk, complete with a high-pitched synthesizer straight out of Dre’s toolkit. It’s quite the contrast with the previous track, going from “ghetto soap opera” to “big willie playa fantasy.” Overall, “Big Poppa” is solid club song. Also, did Biggie invent the “weird flex” with this line: “A t-bone steak, cheese, eggs, and Welch’s grape”?

Respect: This one’s a nod to Biggie’s Jamaican roots, and introduces another chapter in the autobiography established through “Things Done Changed” and “Juicy.” “Respect” features Jamaican reggae/dancehall singer Diana King on the hook and reggae-ish beat from Poke of the Trackmasters that interpolates KC & The Sunshine Band’s “I Get Lifted” (1975). Even here Biggie pushes the “ready to die” theme as he narrates his birth!: “Umbilical cord wrapped around my neck/ I’m seein’ my death, and I ain’t even took my first step.” Verse 2 contains some more reflection on the uncertainties of the drug game: “Put the drugs on the shelf? Nah, couldn’t see it/ Scarface, King of New York, I wanna be it/ Rap was secondary, money was necessary/ Until I got incarcerated, kinda scary/ … Time to contemplate, damn, where did I fail?/ All the money I stacked was all the money for bail.”

Friend Of Mine: Easy Mo Bee does it again! Another of my favorite beats on Ready To Die. This one’s mostly Biggie-style sexual humor, similar to “One More Chance” only funkier and more misogynistic. It’s Big’s version of “g’s up, hoes down” or “Scandalouz.” The double standard regarding male and female promiscuity is in full effect. Even so, there’s a cleverness to the lyrics; Big’s descriptions are just plain different from other rappers’ (side note: the same argument can be made for Gucci Mane): “I don’t give a bitch enough to catch the bus/ And when I see the semen, I’m leavin’”; “Now I play her far like a moon play a star.”

Unbelievable: Scoring a DJ Premier beat for your album in the 90s was basically confirmation that you were someone worth paying attention to. Nas did it with Illmatic, and Big pulled the legendary producer’s card for this, the final track recorded for Ready To Die. Premo even gave Big a discount, charging him less than his usual fee because he’d gone overbudget already! The sample, from The Honeydrippers’ “Impeach The President” (1973), is well-traveled territory in rap, having been sampled in dozens of songs already by that point. “Unbelievable”’s content is mostly just Biggie boasting about his greatness at all things. And you’ve gotta respect the audacity of sampling yourself, from another song on the same album, giving yourself props (“Biggie Smalls is the illest!”). Even without a clear narrative or any deeper message, “Unbelievable” is a showcase of Biggie’s range of technical skills from internal rhymes—“And those that rushes my clutches get put on crutches/ Get smoked like Dutches”—to sly metaphors—“I got three hundred and fifty-seven ways/ To simmer sauté”—and original adjectives—“car weed-scented.” Big and Premier would link up again on Life After Death for two of that album’s standouts—“Kick In The Door” and “Ten Crack Commandments”—but three tracks still feels like far too few for such a potent combination.

Suicidal Thoughts: Dear lord, what an ending! If you doubted that Ready To Die was nihilistic up to this point, “Suicidal Thoughts” leaves no question as to the tone that Big intended. This is my second favorite of Biggie’s songs, and IMHO his most poignant. I almost feel as if he invented emo-rap here, letting the listener into his tortured psyche in a way that only Pac and Eminem have even come close to imitating. I’ve written about this track and my fondness for it already, naming it my “rap of the year” for 1994. The overall concept is Big calling up Puff to deliver what amounts to a suicide note. As Puffy pleads with him not to go through with it, Biggie enumerates all of the reasons that he’s “a piece of shit, it ain’t hard to fucking tell” and why the world would be better off without him: his criminal escapades, his sense that he’d let down his loved ones, his lies and infidelity. The key passages: “All my life I been considered as the worst/ Lyin’ to my mother, even stealin’ out her purse/ Crime after crime, from drugs to extortion/ I know my mother wish she got a fuckin’ abortion/ She don’t even love me like she did when I was younger/ Suckin’ on her chest just to stop my fuckin’ hunger/ I wonder if I died, would tears come to her eyes?/ Forgive me for my disrespect, forgive me for my lies”; “People at the funeral frontin’ like they miss me/ My baby mama kiss me, but she glad I’m gone/ She know me and her sister had somethin’ goin’ on.” Additionally, this is one of the things that truly separates Big from Pac when it comes to their musings on death and the afterlife: while Pac rapped about heaven and “thugz mansion,” Big seemed convinced that he was headed to hell both here and elsewhere: “When I die, fuck it, I wanna go to hell/ … It don’t make sense goin’ to heaven with the goodie-goodies/ Dressed in white; I like black Timbs and black hoodies.” If “Ready To Die” was a defiant declaration, then “Suicidal Thoughts” is Biggie proving that it was no lie, that he is, in fact, ready to pass on even if it’s his own doing. The beat is handled by Lord Finesse—another boom-bap veteran—and complements perfectly the tension that builds until the final moments: the gunshot, the thud, and the flatlining heartbeat (the sample is Miles Davis’s “Lonely Fire” (1974)).

There’s no denying Ready To Die’s place in the pantheon of rap history. People can debate whether or not it and/or Big are the greatest ever, which is fine, but ultimately meaningless. What we have here is an album that can be enjoyed on many different levels. And even if it is all about death, as with any work of art, it will live on as long as people keep listening to and loving it.

[joshnekuu]

Over the past three days I decided to binge Cute High Earth Defense Club (after watching RobiHachi which is apparently made by the same group or something like that?) and I. Have feelings? It’s so. Fucking dumb, I honestly cannot deny that- but I also had a lot of fun watching it and it was a cute show that left me with a lot of thoughts so I guess I’m just gonna talk about it? Spoilers and some criticisms below, but also some love because I did genuinely enjoy this silly show <3

Season 1 was definitely a thing. Of the three seasons, it’s definitely the one I have the most grievances with? That’s not to say that I hate it- without it, I really don’t think I would have enjoyed season 2 as much as I did (which is to essentially say, it set my expectations at a somewhat low bar, so that season 2 was able to exceed them even more easily). 

First off: The homophobic jokes were not great. Episode 7 was definitely the worst offender, and I’m not even gonna dive into it, cuz this is an older series and I don’t feel like it’s really worth dragging out the old laundry and complaining about it, cuz everyone who’s seen the series knows what I’m talking about. It was a bad episode. But even outside of that, season 1 had a tendency to pepper in little moments of ‘no homo’, or the boys being grossed out or uncomfortable with the prospect of there being gay people in their midst. Which is never a great sort of humor to have, but felt especially weird side by side with the moments of ship tease/fujoshi baiting that they also peppered throughout? It felt like a battle to balance it out so that they could appeal to an audience who wanted to ship the boys, without losing an audience who would be turned away by the insinuation that these guys might Actually be gay. 

Second, the Student Council. I liked them a lot, for sure, but it was mostly because of their designs? Their motivations were just. Not compelling to me at all, because I really couldn’t gauge why they cared about a world of order or taking over, or anything like that. Like, the best I can really say is that they wanted to take over the world because they were entitled rich brats? It’s the most likely reasoning. 

And then there’s the issue of Kinshiro and Atsushi’s conflict... gosh. I’m not going to say that I didn’t like the ending, Kinshiro is a character type that I tend to have a weak spot for- the scorned childhood friend turned rival who is motivated by feelings of hurt toward his old friend. But being. Upset over Atsushi going to eat curry one time and making a new friend without him, and never talking about it for the next several years, and Atsushi being Non-Confrontational King and just letting it happen. The levels of petty drama are off the charts.

On one hand, I understand it- this is a very silly series. It makes sense that, ultimately, the driving force of the conflict is something that in a lot of ways is very silly. But I think that on top of the root of their falling out seeming like such an easily fixable conflict, the issue also lies in the pacing of it through the season? It’s introduced fairly early on that Atsushi and Kinshiro were childhood friends, and that something must have happened to make Kinshiro resent Atsushi. There are little moments throughout the season where it’s clear Kinshiro is thinking about it, or that his frustration is starting to build, but it’s not until episode 10 or 11 that we’re finally given any hints about what actually happened. There’s never really any sign on Atsushi’s part that he’s bothered by Kinshiro’s aversion to him or anything. There’s all this weight put on this dynamic by the framing of it with the ending for each episode basically being a showcasing of Kinshiro’s jealousy and resentment, so having it all boil down to a last minute reveal that this all happened because of a misunderstanding over curry just feels a bit too bizarre to be intentional? It doesn’t feel like it’s meant to just be a joke because it’s not really framed that way by the show, it seems like it’s something we’re meant to take seriously, so it just feels a little too ridiculous in some manners.

But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t still love the drama in the finale, with Atsushi swooping in to save Kinshiro and declaring that he never stopped thinking of him as a friend, and Kinshiro returning the favor and getting worked up over Atsushi not being mad at him because it makes it hard to own up and apologize to him. The build up was a bit mismanaged, but the pay off was still cute at least.

It’s kind of hard for me to say a lot more about it? Because it’s not really until season 2 that I started getting more invested in the characters? I liked Yumoto and how he was a very active character that dragged the others into action, I liked the episode where En and Atsushi had their falling out because of the monster and then powered through it with the power of friendship, and I liked the episode where Yumoto had a personality change and everyone realized that they prefer him the way he is. It was silly, not all the jokes hit but it was a fun ride with a silly and sweet ending.

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Season 2 is definitely my favorite of the three. In almost every way it was just a big step up from season 1. I felt like they took all of the issues I had with the first season and either fixed them, or discarded them altogether! The homophobic jokes and frequent no homo-ing? Gone! The antagonists? Had a clear motivation that was foreshadowed early on and built up throughout the season, leading to an engaging and moving finale! They even gave Yumoto more emotional depth, as well as a direct connection to the antagonists, overall making his role in the team and story a lot stronger, and making him an even more enjoyable character to me.

I loved the twins so much. They hit even more marks for me in terms of character type than Kinshiro, and were given even more depth and exploration throughout the season. Honestly, I feel like they were given more exploration and depth than the heroes in a lot of regards? Which was probably what made them stand out to me so much. Their backstory informed their motivation, and even if it was incredibly misguided, it was also incredibly understandable, and it was difficult for me not to feel sympathetic toward them. They were desperate and lonely children fixated on a goal they thought would bring them happiness, and I wanted to root for them as much as I wanted to root for the good guys, because I just felt bad for them and wanted them to be happy. 

And honestly I just loved Yumoto in this season? In season 1 he was a funny and cute character, but he didn’t have a whole lot of depth to him. To be fair, no one in the main team really did?? But he was on the same level as the rest. He could easily veer into annoying territory I think, if you didn’t like him. But in season 2 I feel like they strengthened his character a lot. Highlighting his relationship with Gora, and showing that he was raised solely by him in the absence of their parents, really gave a lot of insight into why he is how he is? He was raised by a very supportive and loving person, who instilled him with his values at a young age, and helped shape him into the compassionate (albeit often tactless) person he is. And showing more of his vulnerable side in regards to worrying about his brother and being afraid of losing the only family he has really made him more sympathetic and endearing! Also, the moment where he’s breaking down because he’s scared of losing Gora, and then all the other Earth Defense Club members tackle him down and calm him down and remind him that they’re here for him and for Gora too? My heart... vewy cute... ty boueibu...

The only issue I really had with season 2 was unfortunately a product of the twins, which is. The incest baiting. Hhhh. It was not as blatant as some series thankfully, there really wasn’t any suggestive dialogue between them or anything, but their frequent touchy-feelyness with each other, especially at the start of their transformation sequence, just felt like it was loud wink and nudge at people who fetishize that kind of stuff, and I could have done without any of that (especially since one dip into the tag is pretty much immediately met with people shipping them.....).

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I was really excited for Season 3 after that, because the improvement had been so noticeable? So I’m a bit sad to report that Season 3 felt like a considerable step down after Season 2 :/ In a lot of ways it felt like a retelling of Season 1, just with some tweaking to make it Different Enough that it wasn’t a complete copy.

But like... The villains are a Student Council trio again. The head of Student Council has beef with one of the members of the Earth Defense Club, due to a childhood misunderstanding he refused to confront  at the time and let build into a massive resentment. Just as things are coming to a head between the two parties, a third party makes itself known and the teams must join together to fight them off. The characters and personalities are different enough that it isn’t a complete carbon copy or anything, but a lot of the story beats are pretty much exactly the same? Without quite enough alteration to make it feel like a massive improvement of the original.

I will say that the new Student Council got a lot more fleshing out than the original. We got a lot of moments where we were given more insight into their personalities, as well as their relationships with each other, and their friendship and loyalty to each other felt very genuine because of it, which was the most noticeable improvement on the original I think! Unfortunately, this seemed to come at the cost of developing the Earth Defense Club? I came away feeling less of an attachment to the individual protagonists, and I feel like it had to do with the fact that we really didn’t get as many episodes that were dedicated to examining the various duos in the group. 

Though, there was more of an emphasis on the dynamic between the two sides, which I did find refreshing! Having the two sides be aware of each others existence, identities, and motivations right off the bat, while also having very little genuine animosity or rivalry between them throughout the story (aside from Maasa and Ichiro, and obviously Ata toward Kyo). The friendly rivalry and implied history between Nanao and Taiju was also a really interesting dynamic- the only shame really is that there just... wasn’t a lot of depth given to these relationships? And that isn’t to say that season 1 or even 2 went overboard with the relationship depth, but I feel like the episodic spotlights they would give to certain dynamics really helped make them more memorable in the longrun.

ALSO I did really appreciate that the issues between Ata and Kyo were foreshadowed earlier/more than Kinshiro and Atsushi, and that Ata’s resentment toward Kyo was also largely due to a feeling of inferiority and that the bath incident was what pushed him over the edge, rather than that alone being the inciting incident. That was also an improvement in writing, I think! There were definite improvements in Season 3 compared to Season 1- I feel like they really tried to polish some of the things that were lacking in season 1, but wound up sacrificing aspects of season 1 that really worked in order to do so? Which is just kind of a shame. 

I think that season 3′s biggest sin was that, overall, it was just kind of boring? I found myself distracted and surfing tumblr or twitter on my phone throughout a lot of the episodes, just waiting to reach the finale because after a couple episodes it became clear that it wasn’t really going to pick up until the end when Ata’s baggage was revealed. The dynamics between the Earth Defense Club weren’t explored as deeply as I’d hoped, the humor was a lot more toned down compared to season 1, and a lot of the battles against the monsters started to feel repetitive or just lackluster- and I’ll admit, I just didn’t enjoy Kyo as the driving character as much as Yumoto.

As a foil to Yumoto, he’s perfect. Yumoto is an active character that drives a cast of comparatively more passive characters. Kyo is an incredibly passive character that has to be dragged into helping, but still manages to save the day by saying the right thing, despite not really being involved in what’s going on. I think the issue is that there wasn’t really anyone who had the same energy as Yumoto? The other characters weren’t particularly driven to Help the monsters any more than the original Earth Defense Club members were, and their battles were always rather lacking in passion, so having the one to finish things be even less driven or concerned about what was going on than the others just didn’t make for as interesting or amusing a formula as Yumoto’s role. Also, Kyo disappearing to fall asleep every time a battle started, stopped being funny to me after like... two or three episodes.

The resolution of the Honyala Land plot was really nice though, and kind of a saving grace that set it apart from Season 1? I loved Karls and Furanui being united over the desire to save their father; Wao trying to pull a ‘We’re not so different you and I’ with Furanui and convince him that his father and brother don’t care for him because they’re so different, only for Ata to open his eyes and get him to realize that’s just not true. And the king confirming it, not just to Furanui but to Wao as well, telling his brother that he loves him despite their differences? It was just incredibly sweet. The brothers becoming co-kings instead of one being left behind was also lovely, it was just the kind of sappy, happy ending that I love.

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Overall, I think that was one part of the series that I did really like. Even if some of the messages were a bit off, or just fell flat, or were even meant to be taken more as jokes than a real heartfelt message, the overarching themes of love and happiness, and everyone having the power in their hands to create new bonds and find happiness in their lives, was really nice? The antagonists being motivated by feelings of jealousy, loneliness, and rejection, only to be met with apologies and acceptance and unconditional love, is just. Absolutely my shit. Even if it wasn’t always done perfectly smoothly, even if it wasn’t always meant to be taken 100% seriously, there was still genuine heart in these stories, and I think that’s what really made me enjoy them all in the end, even with the parts I didn’t like as much.

I still have to watch the OVA, but it is very late here so I’m done with it for the night. I just wanted to share my thoughts cuz I’ve been thinking about it most of the day! Ty for reading, if you did!