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percheduphere · 6 months

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Okay. First post trying to use gifs properly. I've switched out improper gifs for these type for my last 3-4 posts. Gonna work on some more corrections tomorrow when I have time. Please let me know if I'm misstepping anywhere. Thanks for your patience! That said...

LET'S TALK ABOUT SYLVIE💕, INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM (SYLVIE & LOKI)✊🏽, AND QUEER REPRESENTATION (LOKIUS)🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️!

SYLVIE

I'm rooting for Lokius, AND I also love how much Sylvie has forged a life for herself in S2. A lot of her development is implied, so I think it's worth looking at her growth outside the context of Loki himself: She found a job, locals know her by name, she has friends and acquaintances, she has hobbies!

People call her by name in her timeline on 4 occasions:

1. When the McDonald's shift manager (John) checks in on her after work. See the kid with the tie in the image below. I couldn't find any gifs of him visiting Sylvie at her truck. She asked him if his mom was gonna pick him up to make sure he was gonna be okay late at night. 🥹

2. When a customer picks up their McDonald's order and thanks her (cheerfully). Also note how many employee stars she had on her badge! Queen.

3. Lyle at the record store. They seem like really good friends, and I got the "beginnings of an attraction" vibe between the two of them. Unfortunately, the gifs below are the only ones I could find of him and I'm still searching for the source. His interaction with Sylvie before spaghetti-trauma was so sincere. He could tell she was down and offered her Velvet Underground. Come on, that's a solid move.

4. Eric at the bar, who comments 2 shots of bourbon is a good choice. Let me tell you, finding a gif of Eric was like finding a needle in a haystack, but here he is leaning close to Sylvie. Thank you, @zehiiro!

I tried to find more gifs of all the people Sylvie has in her life but couldn't find any, which is a darn shame because there are so many subtle cues she's built a support system on her own and she's thriving.

She's a regular at many places in her timeline, and when people greet her, they do so with a smile. She loves music, a hard drink, and punk fashion.

When she engages with Loki, she may come across as cold, but I honestly think she's being firm with her boundaries and true to her beliefs. The TVA threatened her life for centuries. I don't doubt setting foot in the building is traumatic for her, which may explain why she was more harsh than usually in S2E4. Her psychological defenses were all on overdrive. Yet when Sylvie's in her own timeline, far away from the TVA, she can be her real self. Turns out, her real self is pretty well-liked! (I'll talk about how this is mirrored in Loki soon).

INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM

Sylvie's an unapologetically "selfish" woman who knows what she wants, wants it on her own, is doing it on her own, and isn't afraid to put her foot down when it comes to her personal boundaries. We should be applauding all of that!

This is exactly the kind of female representation we need, but the show did Sylvie a disservice in S1 by coming at her character as a love interest first (look at all the media promos classifying her as such) instead of more thoughtfully showing how badly she has been affected by the TVA and planting what her desires are throughout. If they had done this with more intention and finesse, her position in S2 wouldn't come off as completely irresponsible.

As a result of this apparent marketing and pre-production development decision, her perception as a character (by both lokius and sylki shippers) is muddled by the question of her relationship status with Loki. This truly isn't fair, most especially to Sophia Di Martino.

Of course, Sylvie isn't perfect. No well-written character should be. I just think she's cooler than she gets credit for precisely because her character arc doesn't require the fulfillment of a romance. She will be fine whether or not she ends up with Loki. It's very feminist!

Loki, in turn, found safety, belonging, and love at the TVA. All the things that are the complete opposite of Sylvie's lived experience. I often see fans complaining about how Loki is ooc in his own series.

The thing is, and Loki admits this himself: it's all part of an illusion.

This illusion started far before the first Thor movie. He comes from a hyper-masculine (dare I say toxic-masculine) warrior society. His true nature doesn't conform with this, so he has to overcompensate with some (genuinely awesome) bad assery.

BUT he doesn't like it.

As a comparison to a far lesser but more relatable degree: imagine putting on a customer service persona 24/7. UGH. It's just not sustainable without becoming increasingly angry and bitter, which is what Sacred Timeline Loki becomes. Mobius gets ahead of this.

In the series, Loki can finally TURN OFF that persona, and TURN IT ON again when it's needed (and fun!).

He also now has the freedom to be silly, expressive, and magical (unapologetically queer!) without anyone making fun of him for it.

The end result is a much calmer, happier, likable person (like Sylvie in her timeline, his defenses are no longer on overdrive!). Who shows him this is possible?

Here's the receipt:

QUEER REPRESENTATION

Sociopoliticaly, Loki and Mobius come from a different angle. A lot of men (cis, fluid, trans, or otherwise) struggle with the social expectation of burying feelings and never ever showing vulnerability, especially to another men. Now, some might argue that shipping men together perpetuates this construct. There's some truth to this, but only through the lens that it is shameful to be gay. In order to get to a point in society where there's no shame in being mistaken as gay (or queer, generally) when being affectionate with another man, there must be continuous positive representation of homosexual relationships in which the characters are not stereotypes. Loki and Mobius are exactly this, especially Mobius.

Whereas Loki, on Asgard, represents the openly queer oppressed (i.e. magic and cunning, qualities historically tied to witches or "immoral women" instead of brute strength), Mobius can represent the closeted repressed.

In S1, Mobius was much more uptight, rule-abiding, and just shy of holier-than-thou. The power structure in which he existed perpetuated this, until Loki reveals to him it was all a lie (an illusion).

In S2, he becomes more flexible, more fun-loving, and more expressive in his affection. In S1, most of his support of Loki manifested as words of affirmation. In S2, his support extended to physical touch and bonding. Mobius, if seen through the lens of a closeted man allegory, finds the courage (and partner) to slowly come out.

#loki #sylvie #mobius #lokius #sylki #loki meta #loki season 2 #loki spoilers #sylkie #my meta #loki series

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anincompletelist · 4 months

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year in review: favorite lines! :D

hi friends! so this is entirely self-indulgent (both the part where I share my own work and the part where I tag you all to do the same) but I feel like we all have those special pieces of art/fics that just mean a little more to us but don't really get a chance in the spotlight. plus, any time is a good time for a bit of shameless self-promo and supporting friends! rules and my own contribution below! <3

RULES: there are no rules! I am quite literally making this up as I go so please don't take this too seriously ksjhdkh. feel free to share your top three/top five/however many favorite snippet(s)/line/quotes/paragraphs from your published fics (or wips, I don't care!) and don't forget to share the link of course! see below for an example.

here are mine!

from Sure As the Stars in the Sky:

They’re both honest people, sometimes to a fault, but Henry’s truths are private, quiet, and Alex’s are loud. From the day Henry met him he’s been brash and earnest, unafraid to speak his mind even when he’s scared, without making sacrifices or harboring fear of punishment for doing so. It’s both intoxicating and infuriating. Alex screams to a crowd of thousands of supporters, holding up bright posters with encouraging messages, and Henry screams into his pillow. When Alex speaks everyone listens, when Henry does he’s stifled, told to quiet down, to get back in line. Alex tries and succeeds. Henry tries. And tries and tries and tries and tries and still it isn’t enough to make any real difference. His whole life he’s felt linked to Alex in a number of ways. He’d taken comfort in their similarities despite their disagreements on more than a few occasions, because it’d been so nice just to have the knowledge that someone out there in the world had some idea what he was going through. That maybe he wasn’t as alone as he often felt. He and Alex’s paths converge at many points, but this is not one of them. Henry rolls over and presses his face into the pillow again, stays there until all of his senses have redirected toward something else, until all he feels is the constricting of his airway and the rush behind his eyes, until his instincts force him to lift his head again, to take a breath, to survive.

from take my hand if you can take me as I am:

And it’s probably just a power play. It’s probably just something that Henry enjoys in the bedroom that’s unrelated to anything else. Lots of people like choking, Alex reckons. But here, now, it feels like— it feels like Henry, Prince Henry, who holds a tremendous amount of power over the whole of his entire country, Henry Fox who tries so hard to balance it all on his shoulders without ever complaining or asking for help even when it’s ripping him apart, Alex’s Henry who shows up in shifts at the oddest of times with his sweet words and his soft, kind heart and his quiet hope — it feels like all of those versions of Henry, each with an equal amount of power, handing a bit of that over for a moment. Like he’s letting Alex have another little piece of him, offering it up like the most precious secret, asking nothing in return. Like he trusts Alex to hold it, to hold him, because he knows he’ll push him only as much as it takes to shake off the dust so he can shine again, never enough to shatter him beyond repair.

from praying our bridges don't make waves:

Alex’s chest burns. Here he is, standing in a bedroom Henry never asked to be in, with someone that’d never been a part of his plans, putting his gentle hands and tender lips on Alex’s roughness even when he’s dirty, even when he’s broken. Even when he doesn’t have anything to offer him but that. Even, even, even. Even when Alex is drifting somewhere miles away, Henry draws him back.

from but I can count on you to tell me the truth when (I've) been drinking and you're wearing a mask:

The ceiling of Alex’s dorm room is cracking in one corner. He knows because he stares at it a lot these days, in between going to classes and lacrosse games. It hadn’t been there when he moved in but it’d steadily grown since that first year. Alex wonders if somehow it’s his fault.

tags: YA'LL THERE'S NO PRESSURE AT ALL BUT ALSO PLS DO THIS SO I CAN APPRECIATE YOU AND YELL AT YOU IN THE TAGS! @affectionatelyrs @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @firenati0n @kiwiana-writes @daisymae-12 @read-and-write- @inexplicablymine @happiness-of-the-pursuit @heybuddy-drabbles @firstsprinces @sparklepocalypse @littlemisskittentoes @getmehighonmagic @wordsofhoneydew @nocoastposts @zwiazdziarka @luainthewild @england-would-fall @iboatedhere @magicandarchery @gayrootvegetable @raysletters @tintagel-or-cockleshells @eusuntgratie @ninzied AND ALSO ANYONE ELSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SHARE PLS TAG ME ! also might try to come up with some writer asks for end of year stuff too, but we'll see.

I'll see you all for wip wednesday! I hope you're all well! :D

#my fics #tag games #rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb fic #firstprince #red white and royal blue fanfic

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pinkorchidsinspring · 11 months

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youtube

I just would like to bring up this heavenly cover, (if you haven’t watched her cover of this you need to) because I have many things to say after reading comments, and just watching it.

(This cover aired October, 2014)

I love that she’s so “straight” that not only did she not change the pronouns, but her and the interviewer said the song was from a woman’s perspective.

Let’s simply go through the lyrics shall we? Here’s a little key for my organized babes reading my complicated explanation 😘

Orange: Karlie

Pink: Taylor

Blue: 1989

Green: evermore

I was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations

Taylor was scared of pretty girls, does that sound like any supermodel we know?

This guy decides to quit his job and heads to New York City

Taylor quit her life back home in Pennsylvania & Nashville and headed to New York City, and lived near who? Cornelia street anyone?

This living situation obviously resulted in quite the album called “1989”.

This video came out on October 9th, 2014, it was obviously promo for 1989 which came out October 27th, 2014.

We obviously know and realize that part of 1989 is about Diana Aragon and Taylor’s relationship with her.

We also realize that by the time both this interview and 1989 came out Taylor had publicly known Karlie for 11 months.

However this Victoria’s Secret fashion show⬇️ was actually taped in November of 2013, so they had officially known each other almost a full year privately.

So the way she didn’t change any pronouns and was so happy singing it because of this lack of change, implys her happiness with whatever relationship they had going on. Whether that be platonic or romantic.

This cowboy's running from himself

Taylor is running from herself and the pain she caused herself with her last relationships. And of course Incidentally references her not yet planned 9th studio album.

And the song called “cowboy like me”

You're a cowboy like me, Perched in the dark

Telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear

Eyes full of stars

Hustling for the good life (fame +riches)

Never thought I'd meet you here (at a VS fashion show? 😏)

It could be love

Wonder who that songs about… anyway-

And she's been living on the highest shelf

Karlie is a supermodel, she makes bank, and gets the highest tier treatment.

Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen

(Michelle pfeiffer left, karlie kloss right) If you skip to 2:20 in the video, Taylor cannot keep a straight face simply out of anticipation to sing this lyric. She’s grinning up to her eyes. 💗

A little bit self explanatory why this cover wasn’t done just for promo isn’t it?

Taylor communicates with us. People just don’t listen.

Link to my other song analysis’

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tired-night-owl · 3 months

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Blood Runs Cold

Fandom : Star Wars The Bad Batch

One shot ?

I tried to write a small fic about Crosshair and Omega in the new promo that’s been released because I can’t wait to see them together in the new season even if I know my heart is gonna get crushed by Dave Filony again… Hopefully I am the opposite of last season and I am soooo wrong and they will all be reunited as a big family where no one dies or sacrifice themselves for the others ! Anyway I hope you enjoy :)

Word count : 866

Summary : Crosshair has much to think about in his new conditions, what doesn’t help is when a far too bubbly and optimistic teenager comes and ruins his peaceful self pity moment.

Notes : brief mention of torture I guess, small but graphic description of tech’s death, Siblings!crosshair x omega, Spoilers for the new promo clip !

He noticed it a while ago, when they first started their wicked experiments on him. He tried to keep it under control mostly for his pride because seeing as with such a condition, his (now rendered useless) talent would be even more so wasn’t helping his morale. Crosshair didn’t mind it too much for now because not one clone in this cursed facility was in any shape or form to judge him in his misery. That is until the girl showed up.

That child has been the sole cause for any misfortune he had to live though in the last couple of months he thought, but scolded himself to at least not make it show. She has enough to deal with too at the moment without having to suffer his endless wrath and sorrows. Still she cost him everything. His family, in more ways than one, his station, attempting to save her branded him a traitor and a VIP ticket to Hemlock’s test table and —

His mind went silent

His brother Tech…. He had to give his life for hers. Skull smashed to pieces because they didn’t heed his warning. There's no way the batch can survive without its brain now.

His mind whirled with thoughts like these locked in his dark cell all day. Some would say they were enough to drive a man insane but Crosshair already knew insane, and it wasn’t by his choice. Now he sees it, the effect that damn chip has had on him. How it made him turn on the only people who ever cared for him. He couldn’t turn on this one now.

« Crosshair… »

« Crosshair ! I tried to come earlier, but there are too many guards watching me…»

He tried to calm his usually snappy tone for the sake of the girl who must be as terrified if not more than he is at the moment.

« You shouldn’t be down here at all » he tried to make her realize a little harsher than he wished.

It was foolish of her to put a target on her back by snooping around, on THEIR backs. In a situation like this where there is no hope, it’s best to comply and hope you die as painlessly as possible. Though that seemed unlikely for him at the hands of that sick scientist. But there might be hope for her yet if she stopped escaping her quarters.

The girl continued with her misplaced energy and optimism.

« How else are we gonna plan an escape ? »

An escape ?! Had she gone insane? Did she not realize they were in the middle of no where, in an unknown imperial playground, surrounded by guards with no moral compass except loyalty to the credits they earn at the end of each shift filled with screams of tortured people. Better to kill that idea in the egg before she gets too altruistic.

The sniper resumed his usual cold and unapproachable attitude, hoping the girl would realize that planning an escape in a place such as this with only 1 ally was foolish already but with no one, it was simply stretching your neck to help the executioner do his job.

« There is no WE, and there is no escape… I’ve already tried. »

The young clone didn’t budge.

« Every stronghold has a weak point ! Maybe I could convince Emerie to help, she’s one of us. »

His brothers has taught her well he could tell, and by that he meant by filling her head with useless idiotic tactics and informations for a obviously changing galaxy. Besides if they shouldn’t trust one person in this Sarlac pit, it was HER. That double crossing scientist woman. Testing on people was bad enough but on her own « brothers » that was being a plain sociopathic hypocrite.

« Not every clone is your ally ! » The sharpshooter reminded her.

« You trust too easily… »

He expected a reply and one sounding similar to that one too, so he doesn’t know why her words struck him so.

« Maybe you don’t trust enough. » Omega replied with that same misguided hope as earlier.

An uncomfortable silence surrounded the two and then it started again : the shaking.

The stupid shaking he couldn’t stop. The best sniper in the whole GAR with quivering hands, how ironic. He felt uneasy having her see him like this. It was as if his own brothers could see how low he had fallen and for a prideful man like Crosshair, it was not an easy feat to overcome.

« Crosshair ? » The young girl asked after her gaze fell upon her brother hiding his hands from her.

Not so long ago he would’ve snapped at her for simply seeing him in a state like this, desperately trying to steady his once reliable hands but now, he just didn’t have the heart or the energy to do so…

« Just… Go. » he simply said.

« Before you make things worst for both of us… »

In this moment he came to the conclusion that yes, he didn’t want to be punished for the girl’s misbehaviour but he also mostly didn’t want her to suffer because of him.

Knowing Hemlock, he wouldn’t even do it to punish Omega… but he would do unexplainable things to the girl to make HIM suffer.

#the bad batch #star wars #tbb #tbb spoilers #star wars the clone wars #tbb finale #tbbspoilers #tbbedit #tbb crosshair #bad batch season 3 #tbb omega #Siblings!omegaxcrosshair #my fic #crosshair the bad batch #crosshair #omega bad batch #omega tbb #star wars fic #star wars fanfiction

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evilwickedme · 1 year

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You seemed sad that nobody's asked for jayroy fic recs. I want jayroy fics! I am a simple creecher with simple needs.

God what a mood tho. ngl I'm obsessed with these two

I've already recommended some of my favs in previous posts! here and here for your enjoyment

anyway here we go

ace-spectrum!Jason

one of my favorite hc and with a lot of support from the text imho; I have more of these these are just my favs

Kiss Me, Kill Me, Take Me Home - 5+1 times somebody kissed Jason, ace!Jason

Jane Austen Never Said Anything About Speed Dating - this one's pretty long. an au where Jason never died and is dealing with trauma from an abusive ex. again, outright ace!Jason and his ex absolutely raped him, so dark subject matter but it's still so good. Jason's brothers try to get him back in the game after the breakup and he ends up running into Roy at speed dating; they decide to fake date to get both their families off their backs. some nice Lian stuff here too.

Between These Pages (Is a Wonderful Place To Be) - ace!Jason gets extremely injured and Roy reads to him, cute little oneshot

(can you feel) the fire burning through your veins - nothing wrong with a little bit of self promo, right? this is demi!gay!Jason figuring his identity out and navigating his changing relationship with Roy. it takes place in a slightly alternate timeline where he's been to therapy for a couple of years and he never slept with Talia so it's his first time with pretty much everything. there actually is smut but it's Jason's first time :D

there is sex in this

I’ve Got the Feeling You’re the Right Thing After All - more poisonivory??? yes please!!! Roy's has had feelings for Dick since their teen titans days, but still ends up in a fwb with Jason when he's asked to help Jason run the iceberg lounge... somewhat plotty, smut in basically every chapter, so fucking good

Let me shipwreck in your thighs - we all have a thing for Jason's thighs, lbr

Arrows and Bullets - a two fic series. injured Jason falls into Roy's apartment and stays there until he heals. once again, some quality Lian stuff here. the sequel fic has some minor Jason-comes-back-home and surrounds christmas.

Boys Don't Cry - trans!Jason. I think this does have a minor plot?? I can't remember it's basically just fifty thousand words of marathon sex over the course of like at least a week

there's a middle ground between ace and outright smut actually

Some Kind of Disaster - this is actually one of my favorites and I've reread the whole thing more than once even though it's a mildly long series (although tbf I've reread longer). instead of outright dying at sanctuary Roy is just grievously injured and Jason runs to his side the moment he hears and refuses to leave. there's a lot of angst. one of the fics is smutty; halfway through the series Roy discovers Lian exists and that's where the plot really kicks in. so good

The Midnight Snow - Robin!Jason is in a time loop and Roy gets trapped in there with him

Flowers Are My Love Language - Jason keeps trying to get Roy to date him using flowers, and Roy simply refuses to get the message

Around Red Hood's Barn - Neighbors au where Roy and Jason are still partners as vigilantes, Roy just doesn't know Red Hood's identity, and Roy CANNOT STAND his new neighbor Jason. I love me some good identity shenanigans in a superhero fic

Magnet Tar Pit Trap - I already linked one cowboy au in the first fic rec (linked above), why not one more

other

remember how canonically Roy died in Heroes in Crisis? ow. I actually already rec'd my favorite one of these in the first Jason fic rec (linked! above!) so check that one out too

It is only, and all about Roy - I actually really regretted not putting this in the original fic rec (again, linked above). Jason shows up in Star City and ends up collaborating with Oliver. JayRoy is only implied but either way Jason is clearly deeply grieving Roy's death and so is Ollie

Please, come back - JayRoy were together before sanctuary and Jason grieves his death deeply. happy ending tho!

anyway yeah that's some good fics believe me when I say I could've rec'd twice as many honestly. unfortunately I had to stop somewhere so that's it for now

#there's so much good jayroy+lian fluff I wish I'd put more here but again. this is already so much #like fifteen is just so much #I also tried to include mostly fics that are actually respectful towards Roy cause a lot of jayroy fics are really only interested in Jason #jayroy #roy harper #jason todd #lian harper #oliver queen #arrowfam #batfam #dc #dc fic #fic recs #gail speaks #ask #vote-4-crow #jason todd my beloved #jt

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louisupdates · 1 year

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What I learned about Louis Tomlinson from making his documentary

Director Charlie Lightening on capturing the former One Direction star in 'All Of Those Voices'

By NME | 30th March 2023

Louis Tomlinson shot to fame with One Direction, the era-defining boy band who conquered the world after being formed on ‘The X Factor’ in 2010. Since the group parted ways in 2016, Tomlinson has forged a solo career that has seen him swap the band’s peppy pop-rock for Oasis-inspired indie bangers. He followed his 2020 solo debut, ‘Walls’, with last year’s chart-topping ‘Faith In The Future’.

For his new documentary, ‘Louis Tomlinson: All Of Those Voices’, the singer has teamed up with Charlie Lightening, the acclaimed filmmaker behind Liam Gallagher’s big-screen doc ‘As It Was’. Here, exclusively for NME, Lightening shares what he learned about Tomlinson from shadowing him during a pivotal and emotional period in his career.

Charlie Lightening, director: “I first met Louis at the premiere of the Liam [Gallagher] film. Well, I say met – I saw him across the way, but we didn’t actually talk. But then he got in touch to ask if I’d make some music videos with him, so we met up properly. I really liked him and found he had a real depth to him. He seemed a lot older than his years and had so much more to say.

When we got talking about his plans to release a solo album [Tomlinson’s 2020 debut ‘Walls’], the idea to make a film came together quite organically. But at that point, I didn’t realise that I would end up shooting him for the next four years. The idea was to follow him on his first solo tour, but he only got two shows in before COVID happened. I think having it all taken away like that made Louis think and really appreciate what he does.

To begin with, Louis’ plan was to do smaller live shows to get a feel for the audience and find out what it’s like to tour as a solo artist. But because of the pandemic, he announced a live-streamed show instead and sold 160,000 tickets without even doing any promo. I think that made him realise: ‘Oh my god, there really is demand for me out there’. So when it was time to get out on the road again, he was ready to bring it.

He started off doing smaller theatre shows in the US, then arena shows in Europe, and by the end he was doing numerous arena shows in South America. So as a filmmaker, I’ve captured a trajectory that would normally take an artist two or three separate tours to achieve. And because of COVID, the fans had two years to live with the [‘Walls’] album, so it much more meaning for them by the time Louis was finally able to play it live.

I think what I find most striking about Louis is how resilient he is. He has been knocked down quite a few times in his life and he keeps getting back up again. He lost his mum [Johanna] in 2016 and sister [Félicité] in 2019 but he never let this define him, so when he says ‘life always throws shit at you’ in the film, he knows what he’s talking about. But he’s still a very positive person and calls himself the product of his mum’s upbringing. Growing up in Doncaster really moulded him; I think that’s why he has such perseverance and self-belief.

At the start of the film, he talks about not really feeling like part of One Direction to begin with. He felt like he had to find his role in the band, as he was excluded from lead vocal lines on the first few singles. This made him more determined and so he started to be involved with writing songs for the band. By the time the band ended, he was the member with the most songwriting credits, which is something that really means a lot to him. He’s proud of that.

I do think that he definitely still misses the band. In a way, you could compare him to Liam Gallagher, who also never wanted Oasis to end and become a solo artist. But I think that’s why Louis’ touring band means so much to him. Louis has done everything already with One Direction – he’s played the world’s biggest venues – so to relive it through their eyes on this tour was a very special thing for him.

Louis is a very private person but I think people will be surprised by just how much he opens up in this film. You see him being a dad and being vulnerable with his family. But what I’ll take away most from the experience is just how much Louis has grown as an artist. At one point, it felt like it was Harry [Styles] and Niall [Horan] who were getting all the headlines and Louis was being slightly underrated, as he hadn’t released anything at this point. I do think that some people who watch this film will be surprised by the level he’s already got to as a solo artist, but this is just the beginning. He knows where he wants to go creatively and he’s in control of his headspace, so the next album will be another massive step forward.”

‘Louis Tomlinson: All Of Those Voices’ is in cinemas now

As told to Nick Levine

#nme #louis press #louis tomlinson #aotv review #charlie lightening #30 march 2023

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total-drama-brainrot · 2 months

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Hello hello ophe 👋😇

Just gonna say hockey bro Gwen

That it’s that is the ask

But I have a question? If you mind answering I’m fine if you can’t answer it really 👽

Do you have any writing tips for an amateur fanfic writer? (Me😔) cause I have a hard time with characterization. Just tips on that would be great😊 but it’s kinda sad to see that some people think of Rice Krispies like that even though it has been tagged and all that 😔

But I wish you the best of luck ophe! 😎🥳

-Ass Stars anon

Hello hello, Ass Stars Anon! 👋😊

(Is it obvious that I know literally nothing about hockey?)

As for writing tips, I'm not exactly a qualified or professional author, but I'm more than happy to share some of the tips and tricks I use when it comes to characterisation.

Primarily, it's really important to understand three key aspects of the character you're writing; their habits, their motives, and their temperament.

When you're writing for a certain character, always consider not only what they're doing, but why they're doing it. You can have your characters do something entirely OOC if you can justify why they'd be doing it, either through circumstance or by utilizing the three key aspects.

For example, when Trent gets uncharacteristically aggressive towards Cody in "Up the Creek", it's still in character because it's motivated by his feelings for Gwen- Trent's already established as a bit of a hopeless romantic, so having him act irrationally due to his uncertainty over Gwen's returned feelings excuses his hostility (despite his usual laid-back nature). We see later, especially in Action, that Trent has a habit/tendency of acting irrationally when it comes to anything that threatens his love life.

Of course, habits can also refer to the little patterns and behaviours certain characters have; for example, Harold's continuous use of "Gosh!" is a habit of his- something that can be easily identified as a Harold Behaviour, and something super easy to add to his dialogue to keep it feeling in character.

Another good example of utilizing dialogue habits is (not to self promo here) how I write Alejandro's speech in my stories. Throughout the show itself, you'll rarely hear Alejandro use contractions and abbreviations (he'll say "we all" instead of "we'll", or "is it not?" instead of "isn't it?"), and his manner of speech is very formal (for a ~16 year old) both due to the fact that English is his second language and the fact that he's the son of a high profile diplomat. That's why, when I write for him, I make a point of keeping his written dialogue as contraction-free as possible.

I hope that my little tangent there helps at least somewhat!

And thank you for the concern! I think some people misconstrued what my intentions were with the RK fic, which is understandable given one of the primary concepts used in the fic is generally used in a sexual context (which is such a waste of a perfectly good plot device by the way! Honestly, I wish people would stop associating cool concepts with The Horny to the point where people trying to explore them as narrative devices are assumed to be creeps 😓) but the anon who initially accused me of unsavoury things has since apologised, so no harm no foul. Though my fic is properly tagged, I should've made it more apparent either in the summary or the author's notes that it isn't as, uh, 'distasteful' as some might assume.

I wish you the best of luck too! 😁

#this one's kind of all over the place huh? we've got doodles writing advice and fic discussion all in one condensed post #i'm not gonna use any main tags for this one in the interest of not clogging them up with my ramblings #ophe doodles #ophe rambling #ass stars anon #replies #rice krispies fic #⬅ (for blacklist purposes)

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beardisable · 11 months

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OH MY GOD OH MY GOD okay.

so i watched the 8 hour jack stream(jesus) aka watched genloss top to bottom again and listened to his theories and stuff(i really vibe with the "kidnapped as kids" angle more now) and started thinking about some theories he and chat mentioned and.

now im thinking with like. ok its probably a pretty common theory, this post was what prompted this additional idea of mine actually, but ill explain it a bit: the theory that, since sneeg and charlie can come back over and over again, and they have referenced like, refusing to do the cooking challenge in ep 1, and how charlie was playing the mouse trap but ate the cage, they have obviously done the same kind of scenes we saw ranboo do, right. and then in the Announcement video we see the same kind of "missing poster" type headshots of them, with the caption "Found them!"

i dont remember exactly where it was confirmed that showfall made the missing person posters, but like. yeah. these images are for missing posters like ranboo had. and with sneeg being caught by the security in ep 3, he had tried to escape, just like ranboo and charlie. and i feel like this wasnt the first or last time they have tried this!

also, during that screenshot the announcer says "our hero will meet a cast of crazy characters, who you may recognize", aka the audience has seen these "actors" before in other things! this is their first live show but what have they made before...?

then, with one of the Very first lines Ranboo says in the first episode, "it wasn't supposed to be like this"... showfall/hetch made it seem like this is ranboos first show and he's being tested for how well he does as The Hero.

I dont think what we saw is Ranboos first time starring in a showfall production.

its the first live thing like the announcement video said but i think hetch lied when he talked about how its a test, i think Ranboo's been here at least a few go arounds, if not tens/hundreds/thousands of times. WHICH MEANS in the end when he gets his memories back... theres an infinite amount of possibility of things they could remember for what they have been made to do in the past :) Bc remember, while this is comedy->horror, it was still relatively tame and non-explicit (at least by my personal standards?) so it is quite possible they have been in more R rated horror stuff, slashers, gore, actual saw, some kind of even worse psychological horror things, but also that they might have had incredibly good experiences like love and joy and community and anything positive too, and to remember all that in a rush... oh boy so i believe it is a circular reproduction, maybe they run through scenes repeatedly over and over while perfecting every little detail and getting different takes of genuine emotion but every time Real and a First experience... some kind of purgatory(omg christian hell reference) or endless torture or such...

ok that got really maybe unneccessarily angsty so heres my other thought:

i love me a fucking colour theory and colour symbolism! it bothered me a bit how like. in the promo game we get ranboo, then green friend/the villain(obviously charlie, tho the villain part still confuses me a Bit since its not quite true?), the blue friend/the taken(obvs sneeg) and then the red stranger/the saviour. and like it would logically follow that the red is hetch right?

jack when theorising said the titles are self descriptive, which i buy into, at least for the first episode context, charlie is the villain role, sneeg was taken(put in a cage and later snatched by the sharkciclester), and hetch was trying to help and save ranboo from this situation! but then in the second ep we also have red puzzler, and red niki? i WISH niki had. any kind of bigger role to build a Saviour type off of her but i dont think she does :( the puzzler is an option, since they make it seem like the puzzler tries to save ranboo? and thats actually a whole other thought like. since we know hetch was not actually helping ranboo, was the puzzler Genuinely helping them, and somehow showfall found out and killed him?? idk ANYWAYS that colour coding falling apart a bit made me think about how ranboo is also red!! rgb trio yknow??

if the titles are self descriptive... well i dont think Ranboo really felt like The Hero much, especcially not in the end...

I think Ranboo is actually meant to be the Saviour.

Esp with the jesus coding! I believe this kind of thing has happened many times before, with sneeg/charlie/ranboo/others realizing that shits fucked, and trying to escape, only to be caught and put back in the production. I think Ranboo(main character syndrome) was in a previous iteration the Saviour, who tried to help sneeg and charlie and others get out of there, to save them, save everyone. but they failed. got captured. once again waking up again with a "it wasn't supposed to be like this..."

and so the cycle continues, and the content wheel keeps spinning.

(ive only been in tumblr tags so feel free to link me any other ppl who arrived at the same conclusion)

#if you actually read to the end of this somehow ily take a cookie #this is giving me prologue/au ideas so i wanted to type it out to anyone who wants inspiration or smth #generation loss #genloss #ranboo #ranboolive #generation loss the social experiments #genloss meta #genloss theory #genloss au #bear.txt #i am bearpat #this post took so long bc i keep having more ideas but adding them all would make this even more incomprehensible i gotta stick to a thesis

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incalculablepower · 6 months

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some fics i've liked lately

it's been a weird year. when i made this list of recs back in january i fully intended it to become a monthly thing, but life happened and then i guess it just kept happening. in early 2023 things were ramping up in my new career, i was practicing and playing a lot with my band to prepare for our first show, i was settling into dealing with depression and anxiety with medication, i was getting over a miserable breakup. then i fell in love. i lost my job (the best and most favourite job i've ever had) abruptly this past may. this is my longest period of unemployment since i was a teenager and while you think it would be the best time to lose yourself in fandom, i felt the opposite. fandom was such a lifeline to me when i had a miserable job and was in a bad relationship and needed an escape but i was very present in my own life this summer. i took my partner to visit my family and spent a lot of time with friends and played shows (and recorded some music... shameless self promo once again) and in between i watched so much star trek on my couch. this is such a long preamble to explain why i haven't been fandoming as much lately and why idk if i'll write anything again anytime soon (let's say, once i have a job i want to procrastinate at) but -- i HAVE been reading fic! not as much as before, but i have been, and there's enough for a fic rest list so that's what i'm giving you today. when times are dire [podfic] - @aibidil

drarry. i have such a soft spot for middle aged draco and harry falling in love, the relationships they have with their friends and their grown children. @aibidil reads her own podfics and it's an utter delight. i usually only listen to podfics or audiobooks when i'm doing work around the house but i can going on walks with my headphones just so i could listen to more of this one.

purple haze by @ashesandhackles

romione. i was so so honoured to see this pop up in my ao3 gifts during @thethreebroomsticksfic pride fest this year. it turns the well tread romione ground of shell cottage and the yule ball over a bit, using them as settings to explore a confusing mix of jealousy and sexuality for ron and hermione. ashes knows i love mess with these and it captures that teenage chaos wonderfully, then lets them laugh at it as secure and settled adults.

crookshanks by @ala-baguette

gen. warning that this is a tearjerker, especially if you've ever loved and lost a pet. i think the pure and simple expressions of love and gratitude from crook's pov here would be a comfort to any pet owner.

at some point this year, i got REALLY into the idea of a one-sided dramione. it's hard to look for, especially since it's such a popular ship but i managed to find a few that scratched the itch until i find the time and/or motivation to write one of my own new years eve by 2daughtersofathena, the guardian angel by mylifebelongstothebbc, and a boy of hans by elixirsoflife. the last one being my personal favourite, a grim take on the hanahaki disease trope.

every mother is a grave by witchofimber

this was recced by @whinlatter in @thethreebroomsticksfic discord (btw i feel like no one on my followers lists needs anyone to remind them to read beasts -- but please read beasts) and when i saw "gillian flynn treatment" in the tags i slammed the mark for later button. this is probably the most balanced and realistic portrayals of molly weasley and her role as a mother that i've ever read in hp fic. it's not weasley family fluff but it doesn't devolve into something so flat as bashing either. molly is regular mother with flaws and strengths like anyone else and how they amplify and shift with love and grief and pain and stress and duty and pressure. every single relationship she has with her children is uniquely expressed and the way it ties the past to the direct aftermath of the war is so well done and a great way to organize this giant, messy family. particular care here went into fred and george, giving them their own identities in a way that can be difficult, given the source material. a favourite line:

“Probably have tried to make us name the twins after them.” He stopped laughing, sucked in a breath. “Do you want to?” For a second she considered it. It would be wonderful, getting to use those names again like living things. But - “No,” she said. “I - if they were alive, I’d have said no, so I’m saying it now. Let the boys be their own people.” The truth was that she didn’t want to lose her brothers. To have their faces erased in her memory, painted over with her sons. To have to say no, not THAT Fab, I mean UNCLE Fab - he died before you were born. Anyway, she liked the names Fred and George. It was easier like this.

the scrunchie by @saintsenara

another fic i've meant to read for ages and finally got around to just yesterday. the background drama of these side characters as a cheap scrunchie from boots floats around them is so perfectly teenage. reminds me of the other series i loved as a teenager around the time HP was coming out: georgia nicolson and gossip girl. i could also compare it to derry girls a little, how despite the environment surrounding them these girls are still being girls, arguing about stupid things and getting crushes on boys and having the absolute most ridiculous blowout fights with your sister (parvati and padma's portrayal here is probably my favourite i've ever read!)

i also can't leave without reccing @saintsenara's wip, one year in every ten. i can't get enough of a good case fic. tomarry/harrymort (both versions of this ship, oddly, apply to this fic) is not something i've ever sought out but i really think the way it's handled here could win over any non-believer. it's sharp and funny in a way that makes it turns into poignancy hit even harder. i screenshotted two full phone screen pages of chapter 27 so i could go back and read them over and over. it might be one of the best things i've ever read from ron's POV (emphasis mine):

It had been a long ten years, with a chair at their table always left empty and a hole in their hearts always unfilled. Grief was exhausting and boring and dully painful, like a slightly sprained ankle which you can still walk on, but which always bothers you a little bit. But there had been love among the grief. There had been love before the grief - indeed love had caused the grief - and there had been love after. His love for his parents and his siblings had changed, the way wine left in a barrel changes and becomes richer and deeper. There was more sorrow in the love, as he threw a quaffle around with George and saw the tired lines at the corner of his eyes. There was more recrimination, more struggle with the mistakes they had all made in the past, as he finally sat down and had a real chat with mum and dad about how a lifetime of corned-beef sandwiches and maroon jumpers had made him feel. But there was more joy there too. And with joy came forgiveness and understanding and hope and fun.

image used is wildflowers (1915) by tom thomson

#hp fic recs #fic recs #fandom thoughts #too personal #i spent like 2 hours on this after applying for jobs so #proscratinating fandom participant is back #at least a little bit

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one-additional-time · 1 year

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Daft Punk in Chronic'art 2007/2008 - scans & translated interview

Here it is, the long-awaited monster interview that sat untouched on my bookshelf for 6 years. I bought this magazine on eBay in 2017, fresh off the Grammys performance with The Weeknd, and I was really excited when I realized it was a huge 10 page spread... Until I started translating and realized the content was extremely in-depth and complicated. So, it got put to the side and accidentally left there for many years.

Anyway, here we go. Buckle in for a long read! Please note that I did not translate the extra sections of the article titled "Discovered" and "Very Disco" as these are just basic information about DP's discography and samples they've used- they are not part of the interview.

My usual disclaimer- I am not French, nor am I fluent in French, so some of this may be incorrect or interpreted differently than the author intended. If you find any glaring errors, my ask box is open for feedback and I can update the post/files as needed. (Post updated May 2023 with corrections)

Feel free to repost to other platforms/social media sites, but I humbly beg that you link back here or give me credit because I really spent a lot of time slaving over this (like 50+ hours).

Thank you so much for sticking around my blog after so many years. I really appreciate this fandom and community and I'm excited to experience new music with you all soon!

(Trigger warning for discussion of suicide [Electroma] in the interview!)

Download full scans and translation at my Dropbox.

Full translation below the cut.

In ten years, from Homework in 1997 to Alive 2007 and Electroma, the electro duo Daft Punk have popularized electronic music, launched fads (the French Touch, filtered house, monumental live shows), and transformed a simple music project into a verifiable universal, even metaphysical, concept. Are Daft Punk dropping the helmets?

SCANS AND TRANSLATION BY STEPH @ ONE-ADDITIONAL-TIME.TUMBLR.COM

(Please see the downloadable PDF file for translation notes/comments)

Everyone has been hearing about Daft Punk for the last two months, because their live CD (Alive 2007, from EMI) and the DVD of their robotic road-movie Electroma are being released for the holidays. We wanted to go a little bit beyond the obligated promo, and the repeated wooden language found in all the media, by trapping Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo for an hour and a half in a restaurant in the Latin Quarter, subjecting them to questioning, and if possible, making them drop the helmets a little bit, over ten pages and many questions.

We’re not going to harp on what you already know (the French touch, the robot helmets, the live pyrotechnics), we’ll just say that we wanted to do this thorough interview with Daft Punk because they’re more than a CD or a DVD, more than music, more than any current pop group. They are an essential symbol of our post-post-modern times, speaking in a very clear yet always paradoxical voice (between hedonistic joy and profound existential sadness) on the human condition, no less. Over the ten years of their career (Homework, like Chronic’art, again, decidedly, appeared in 1997), Daft Punk have invented a new way of presenting music to the world. The robot helmets reveal (social uniformity) more than they cover (buried humanity) and have given them perfect anonymity, which seems like the anonymity of those who succeeded, not in annihilating the self, but becoming self-less. This anonymity accentuates the dominance of the art over the artist, and it has made Daft Punk a universally well-liked and famous group.

A conceptual, pop, philosophical, even metaphysical group, Daft Punk mixes Andy Warhol (seriality, pop art, emptiness) and Friedrich Nietzsche (the man who wanted to die in Electroma, the superhuman for and against technology), mass culture (disco, Albator, Star Wars) and esoteric symbols (the masonic pyramid), the dancing body and thinking brain. In that respect, they are a purely manufactured product of our culture and likely represent the completion of the pop figure began by the Beatles: fragmented culture (the sample) and repetition, theatricality and abstraction, universalism and experimentation, technological innovation and advanced marketing, refusal of the embodiment and worship of the personality…

The current tour (Alive can also mean “en vie”) also refers to an interstellar voyage, like Discovery and Interstella, which seemed to mean that humanity is, by nature, dispossessed, that humans do not belong on Earth but came from Heaven and are destined to return there, that they are “stardust.” They themselves [Daft Punk] are probably not aware of the symbolic and almost metaphysical significance of their creations, and they always prefer to talk about “emotions” rather than thoughts, the heart instead of the head, and they act as the “guinea pigs” for their own experiments. Listening to them, we realized that Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo do not really theorize their work, their music, or their image, but that they react to the infinite accumulation of data from our culture of abundance, that they are indeed the guinea pigs of an experience that has outrun them, marionettes played by “high culture,” pop culture, and the entertainment industry. Maybe Daft Punk really are robots, and no one is pulling the strings, certainly not them.

Chronic’art: Between Homework, which would correspond to your schoolwork or your learning phase, Discovery, which would represent your adolescence, the discovery of the world, microscopic to macroscopic, and Human After All, a moment of reset before a new cycle, it seems to us like you have come full circle, which would be represented by the mirroring of your two live albums, in 1997 and in 2007. Could you have scripted your career?

Thomas Bangalter: It’s strange. We have never written out any part of our career, because even ten years ago we didn’t think we would do this for a long time. After the fact, without having planned it, we realize more that we had sort of reset prior to the live show from 2007. For us, these concerts, this tour, this CD, they are more of a new step than a conclusion. We had not done concerts for 10 years, and there was something very exciting about doing things that weren’t technologically possible when we started. With the last live, we wanted to produce something original, that could predict what might become the norm of tomorrow. We know that we’ve done certain things in the past that were five years ahead of their time, and we are happy to be trying something no one else has done right now. We feel like, during each album, we’ve started back at zero and have had to create a new process, even if it’s true that there is a consistency which emerges in the straight line of our career. But this consistency is not defined a priori, we just emphasize working on projects that can become sort of a realignment of everything we’ve accomplished until now. Interstella was consistent with Discovery, the live show was consistent with our third album compared to the two previous albums, but each step represents, in the moment, the desire to start a new cycle. As for Human After All and Electroma, they’re about something darker, less celebratory… Maybe the live show is a loop; our record label released a Best Of last year, but the concert itself and the way we worked on it is more a way of combining things and expressing them in a new way, rather than celebrating a sort of anniversary or something from the past. We definitely didn’t want to give people the impression that they were in 1997, in a continuation of past music: we instead wanted to give them the chance to feel like they were really in 2007.

During the live shows, you mix together your own tracks, referencing and quoting yourselves. It’s like being simultaneously and precisely between 1997 and 2007, as if the past and the present were merging. All of your songs evolving in a sort of loop…

T.B.: It’s almost the third generation of sampling: us sampling ourselves. At the same time, it’s like having created a universe and an aesthetic that is more than the music, or that the music isn’t actually a central vector. Our approach isn’t at all demonstrative, it’s entirely sensory. There isn’t another message to understand. That being said, there is a desire for cohesion, to make sure that each element added to the structure resonates with the others, with the little mythology that governs this universe. It’s a bit like in a video game, each new element opens a new level in a new environment rather than replacing an older element. We wanted, for example, to break these things with Human After All, but in the end we realized that the album was very cohesive in the continuity of our work.

There is a very strong sense of nostalgia, mixed with a strangeness, in the timeless juxtapositions listeners are subjected to in the tracks. They seem to be complementing and responding to each other, as much musically as thematically…

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo: It’s especially very exciting to see that twelve or thirteen years after our first maxi, our music has not aged too much. There is a sense of nostalgia1, but it still works in the present, and it’s very strange to see that we can mix four tracks from four different eras simultaneously, and not a single one kills the mood. Right after we started making music, we were seeking timelessness. It’s the same with Electroma. At our core, we are fans of timeless things. If you listen to the Beatles, aside from their very first period which is a little bit stuck in the past, you notice that time doesn’t touch their music. We are following that: we are trying to move through time without getting stuck in it. In the same way, we are trying to make sure that our music can be listened to by a lot of different people, without having to worry about languages or genres.

The Beatles were, for that matter, the first group to reference themselves, for example in All You Need is Love, where John Lennon sings She Loves You…

G-M.H-C.: We don’t compare ourselves to the Beatles, either…

T.B.: The idea is constructing a cohesive universe from a series of spontaneous attempts. If you watch Star Wars, people don’t seem to come from when the film was made. It’s as if the 70s have no effect on the film’s universe. Its atmosphere is its own, even if mixes a lot of things together. For about five or six years we have tried not to let the times we live in make an impression on us.

You are very privileged to be in a time when everything moves so fast, or everything ages so fast, right in the middle of acceleration. For example, you did a massive world tour without having an album to promote…

G-M.H-C.: The day before the first concert of the tour, at Coachella, we were terrified, we weren’t sure of anything. Every time we try something new, we start back at zero.

T.B.: It’s the live show that sparked the craze, I think, truly. The success was really unintentional. Separate from that, being immersed in a certain underground before our first album taught us a lot. We’ve seen all the trends come and go—jungle, speed garage, electroclash, new rave, French touch, revival—and we are really surprised to have slipped by all of that. We didn’t want to be specifically concentrated on music, we only released three albums in 15 years, and we had a lot of luck. The legitimacy of our music, the future of our music lives in the combination of different forms of expression, the scope of influences, the mixing of techno with funk, with metal, the intermingling of rules and cliches. A lot of important decisions have been roughly made; also by means of spending time solidifying this roughness in order to share it. In fact, electronic music, in the 90s, put you in a state of experimentation, urgency, innovation, it literally prohibited you from repeating yourself. Electronic music was still very elitist, because it was expensive—you had to go to the library to find out about these musicians, you had to go to Beaubourg to make photocopies of books on filmmakers, you had to go to small shops to buy old drum machines. We know what changed, we’re familiar with the saturation that followed. We were also lucky because actually there wasn’t much of that happening when we started out.

The permanence of Daft Punk is also really linked to your image. People don’t only dance to your music, they dance with your personas, with the robots, like you predicted the fatal characteristic of the embodiment of rock (John Lennon, Kurt Cobain). With your robot helmets, you have made the entire process of love, requisition, and the sacrificial reclaiming in your place impossible. You come across as impersonal and therefore verifiably impossible to sacrifice. Not gods, rockers, heroes, nor rulers. The helmet prohibits any kind of identification process. When put on, they show the listener-viewer their own reflection. By giving nothing, the helmet says (silently), “Know thyself.” Can your work be considered an invitation for people to know themselves?

G-M.H-C.: Yes, I agree with that interpretation. At least, that’s what happens with our concerts. Audience members, rather than being lost in the view of a far-off guy, Mick Jagger or another inaccessible idol above the audience, find themselves between us, or even with themselves. It’s kind of like a rave, without superstars, like in the era of anonymity. The robots don’t give the audience much except music. There are robots in a pyramid, but the audience enjoys it in a more selfish, more self-centered way.

T.B.: It’s a mixture—the chance to show the listener their own reflection, to respond to a question with another question, but also the opportunity to go back to a fiction, in a cult that isn’t the cult of a personality, but of an art, of an image, of an aesthetic. Without personification. Then we can let ourselves to be two robots in a pyramid of light. If our faces were uncovered, it would be the most megalomaniacal thing in the world; with the helmets, no one sees us because we stay within the fiction. And without wanting to make a joke, there is also a degree of separation, a distance. A distance from the reflection, like in Electroma, or a distance from the entertainment, softer.

All the lines from Human After All work in the same way. They recall Kraftwerk, but Kraftwerk developed a precise message about celebrating, in a way, the immediate future. Your messages are a lot more ambiguous: are they critical, ironic, devoid of meaning? Like we see so well in Electroma, your helmets are, above all else, mirrors…

T.B.: Ambiguity is good, because it allows for a certain interaction between the viewer and the artist; between what the viewer interprets and what the artist is trying to depict. It’s very participative, and that comes from a desire to go against the demonstration. We are the first consumers of our music, and we hold the view that we can’t make any judgement values by calling things into question. In speaking about technology, about consumer society, which completely inhabits our art, we don’t want to teach a lesson, or offer a point of view or a judgement, we just want to find paradoxes and point them out as is. For example, we’re dependent on consumer society and it’s so appealing, productive, optimized, and at the same time totally terrifying, horrible, and very funny.

Your work is dialectical: sometimes it seems to denounce a sort of robotic totalitarianism (like in the Technologic video which depicts propaganda of a robot on top of a pyramid) and at the same time it plays with this imagery, strikingly. The video for Around The World also shows how robots surround and surveil the population; they are in the last circle, and they are the ones who chant the phrase “Around The World.” Does the video denounce the surveillance of us by nonhumans, or does it condition us to accept it? We never know if you’re denouncing a conspiracy against humanity or if you’re participating in it. You use of language is equally dialectical. Your language is refined, born from catchphrases and words of totalitarian order (Technologic), and if taken literally, it’s this: the phrase “Television Rules The Nation” can be taken as the assertion of an established fact. It then becomes constraint, manipulation. At the same time, the distance imposed by the performance can give the words a double meaning, and adds to them a critique of this established fact, even the denunciation of a totalitarian power. This recalls the “doublethink” in Orwell’s 1984: the capacity to simultaneously accept two opposing points of view and thereby put critical thinking on the back burner. Where do you situate yourselves in this in-betweenness?

T.B.: But it’s inside this paradox where we progress. In terms of our experimentation, we are in fact the heart of the system; it would be totally obscene to lean more to one side or the other, to claim to be part of a totalitarian system, as if we were giving lectures. It’s because this is so interesting that we refused to do any promotion for Human After All, because there couldn’t be a willingness on our part to encourage people to buy the album, because of this paradox. Because it’s like an unbiased opinion on technology, on consumer society. The video for Technologic actually gives you the keys to derive an ironic and scary message from the track, but it has since been used by Apple in a commercial for the iPod, and there the lyrics turned into blind praise for technology! It’s funny seeing to what extent the double meaning has effectively functioned. That’s why we so often refer to Andy Warhol who had an experimental approach through his connection to pop culture that, depending on the project, had as much a place in very elitist and private circles as it did on supermarket shelves. Creating with perplexity, in short.

Nevertheless, you use very strongly significant symbols, like the robots or the pyramid. The pyramid that you use on stage is a Masonic symbol. It is on the dollar bill, with George Washington and the note, “New World Order.” The pyramid represents the structure of society, from the masses up to the elites and the leaders. The cornerstone with the “all-seeing eye” surely represents the summation of technology which, though it could be plainly operational, will make sure that the “New World Order” can truly start coming forward and establishing itself on Earth. Some interpret it like the construction of a new technology, a technologic eye that would see all, through a generalized surveillance. With that said, the presence of robots like operators of this pyramid makes a lot of sense. How do you fit in with regard to these symbols and this story?

T.B.: We work a lot with the senses, with the power of symbols on the subconscious, and the pyramid, in effect, is a very heavy symbol, in terms of the senses. We don’t want to discuss the details of the symbolism, but to question its power without its history. The pyramid has become a symbol because, geometrically, harmonically, it’s a magical, occult, mysterious object. There is also this mysterious and occult, on the verge of paranormal, power in music. No one can really theorize about the effects of music on the body and mind, so it’s incredible. We just try to pass on that magic in a rather empirical way. Moreover, we could carry out experiments on the way in which light or sound intensity acts on the body and on crowds, to see which types of sensations or emotions are provoked by one frequency or another. But we could never really explain the reason for these effects.

G-M.H-C.: We are the guinea pigs of our own universe. We managed to create a sort of self-sufficiency between the two of us, which lets us experiment with a consistent voice, and what works for us tends to work for the audience, it’s like a small miracle. We put a pyramid on stage because we think it’s cool, and it makes everyone trip out.

When you talk about guinea pigs, it’s as if you were manipulated from the outside, by a mysterious third-party, as if you were also puppets. There is a determinism there, but one that serves humanity. According to the Laws of Robotics by Isaac Asimov, it’s humankind who constructed the robot, and the robot is at its service…

T.B.: Above all we want to express a paradox on the discussion of human dependency on technology. We’re not virtuosos and we rely on technology like a crutch. We could never do it without technology, and at the same time, we try to value, like any artists, the human element in our work. The process we’ve used for these fifteen years has been to try merging the machines and us. We are the operators of these machines, the editors of the experiments: we select them, we choose them, and we decide to keep them or not. Daft Punk is the product of a tug of war between human and technology, always questioning the place of technology in the project.

Electroma addresses this discussion between human and machine, in a sort of grand general inversion. Electroma seems to be the account of a traumatic experience: in the world of robots, the two characters presented a human face to the others, in openness, generosity, expressiveness. The result of this demonstration of humanity leaves them ostracized, chased, and reduced to aimlessness and suicide. Do you think that showing your humanity is dangerous?

T.B.: Yes, that’s the background of the film. But speaking more broadly, formally, it’s part of the same approach as what we’ve been able to do before; to know how to create emotion while using machines, in a creative process. Without actors, without a script, without a real plotline, but with photography, color, framing, made from machines, objects, just like a still life. We began with creating an environment around the spectator, who is almost like the only actor in the film, and wondering how to make them experience these emotions, which are not the same as those on the dancefloor, but aesthetic emotions, where the spectator can project onto themselves. The film is totally open, and we thought a lot about Magritte when making the plans. What you can see in Electroma is essentially sensation, that’s a lot more at the level of the gut or the eyes than of the brain…

Robots After All by Philippe Katerine was clearly inspired by your album Human After All and touches on the idea that human society has attained such a degree of conditioning and conforming that humanity became a species of robot, a determined creature, ruled by automation, in their language as much as their everyday comportment. When we recently asked what he thought about your music, Katerine told us, “I hear nothingness in it, so I want to find a place there.” Is the universality of your music due to the fact that it’s also, in a sense, empty?

T.B.: It’s empty because it’s more sensory than significance, yes. Theoretically devoid of sense, it allows people to see something from nothing and project themselves there. We just heard Katerine’s single. Our music is open, it can be interpreted and taken in different ways.

The musical abstraction and loops that by and large make up your music allow each person to take possession of the music and go beyond it. There is a shamanic aspect in this usage of emptiness and repetition. As a matter of fact, musicians like Animal Collective, who were inspired by shamanic trances, now cite you as an influence. Also, you could interpret the end of Electroma, when the two robots die by explosion and combustion, as referring to shamanic initiation rituals, in which one goes through a symbolic death by division of the body or self-combustion. Could you say that the end of Electroma represents, in some sort, this symbolic and initiatory death? In other words, do you perceive a shamanic side to your music?

T.B.: Yes, it’s a trance: the loop, the heartbeats… We use samples to express the desire of prolonging a strong sensation that comes during one or two seconds in a track, and wanting to repeat this sensation, not only feeling it for ten minutes, but also seeing what consequences come from ten minutes of that feeling, how everything unfolds. Visually, with Electroma, our desire is the same: to create images or an assembly of images that produce a physical sensation, a feeling of hypnosis, wandering, or weariness; in any case a state of mind that you can only reach by feeling this sensation for a certain time, for quite a long time.

Wandering, loss of identity, and expropriation are pop themes in a sense. If you think of the Beatles, the “Magical Mystery Tour,” the transformation of the Beatles into the “Lonely Hearts Club Band.” As of now, you are a group that “turns,” that travels, to those “lonely hearts.” Is there a “trip” pop?

T.B.: It’s true that during this tour, we felt a little bit of a psychedelic thing: there are people who saw and re-watched the concert multiple times, almost like a Grateful Dead concert, with this idea of there being, during the concert, something imperceptible that you can never capture on disc or on film: an experience which was unique and can only live in reality, at a time where everything is virtualized. We felt like people wanted happenings, concrete experiences, which could consequently be produced by advanced technology: we could multiply the giant screens, have a very strong sound, and combine everything into these unprecedented audiovisual processes, which had never been seen anywhere before. Even a film projected in an IMAX theater could be no more than the “ghettoblaster” from another experiment with new technologies. Our music is moving: it was within an industrial system which ended, it was dependent on the economy. And the economy was destroying itself, it influenced new formats and new ways of creation, like the tours we’re doing currently.

Today, music needs to find new ways for distribution, with the death of the record industry and the virtualization of music. The live show, as a unique experience, is a response to this situation. You were the first to start a download site on the internet, with the Daft Club in 2001, which didn’t work out. Was it five years too early?

T.B.: Being current five years too early is really better than we can hope for. It’s good to be precursory, it’s almost our principal objective. Speaking about the musical economy, I think that music has never been as important as it is now, and the concert isn’t a response to difficulty selling CDs nowadays, because live shows are also very expensive. Economic upheavals are interesting: I read a book recently by Jacques Attali, Bruits, which talks about the musical economy and its power since the Middle Ages, and if you look at the place of music in the world in the last 2 thousand or 3 thousand years, the place of the record and pop music industries will have not been an end in itself, compared to music as a whole. It’s interesting to try to find out where music will go and what it will generate, in the sense that it is often a precursor of the relationship to come between social and economic powers. But we define ourselves less as musicians than as artists and creators, in trying to combine things and experiment with new formats and new technologies. We aren’t uniquely musicians.

Homework represents a sort of pinnacle of the age where a certain technologic novelty was expressed directly through music. You could literally hear knobs being turned. Does Daft Punk necessarily have to excel technologically in an age where all these methods have become normalized? Were the concerts from your new tour sort of like an advantage?

T.B.: It’s not an advantage, it’s a set of challenges that could be technological, actually. You wind up with a concert that looks sort of futuristic, like a remake of Close Encounters of the Third Kind or a mix of a Grateful Dead and a Kraftwerk concert. Making something that we couldn’t make before. We pick up the tools, we manipulate them, we try to progress. Electronic music in itself, in 2007, doesn’t seem to me to be very conducive to experimentation from a strictly musical point of view. I’m waiting for the new generations to prove to me otherwise… We pay attention to technological developments because we’re interested in them, and because they are at the heart of our art. Musical instruments are advanced technologies which have continuously reinvented music.

Since Human After All was released online, there were a lot of rumors about the album, which was an indication that people were waiting for you. In that context, are you able to feel free as musicians? Have you produced things in reaction to the public’s expectations?

T.B.: Actually, we aren’t free relative to our own expectations. We can’t totally set the public aside, but we have our own demands and we respond to our own vision of what we make, while taking into account paradoxes, contradictions, restarts, new beginnings. But we don’t think about the public: it’s both selfish and more respectful for people because we don’t have the pretentiousness of putting ourselves in their shoes.

G-M.H-C.: We are our own fans. We work until we find moments of pleasure in our work, and when we save those moments and explore them on an album or in a film which we release, that resonates for people. But within those moments, which are like lightning, we are like spectators—we feel like we’re revealing something, and discovering something we created at the same time. In this way we are ourselves in the position of spectators and fans. I imagine that this process is even more evident in painting: you have a piece of canvas in front of you, and there is a tangible process of creation. Creation is a mystery and you can really speak about magic when it comes to music or art.

Could the image of the pyramid that you use be a graphic representation of your music? With its foundations, progressions, ascents, and its climax? Bercy, it so happens, also has a pyramid shape…

G-M.H-C.: Not all of our songs follow a progression. We have flat songs, square songs, round songs… And in the live show, there are a few final moments where the tension comes back down. Bercy really does have a pyramid shape, but the top is missing. And it’s true that we would have really liked to play on top of it (laughs)…

#daft punk #HAA #interviews #translations #thomas #guyman #PHEW it's finally done #I really spent so many nights poring over this #including painting out cat hairs and ink spots in photoshop :')#ifcwdjd- master- how did you do it so many times

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