#(bonus points if the latter is the only one to truly understand the former)

[maiumeni]

my favourite ship dynamics if that makes sense:

#otp prompts #ship dynamics #if you think about it metaphorically enough #idiot x smart idiot #lower class x posh #complicated wrecked mess x neatly composed #(bonus points if the latter is the only one to truly understand the former) #gaslight x girlboss #drinks x smokes #fruit tea/coffee x green tea #popular x loner #maybe i am reading into it a little too much #this is so #murder husbands #drarry #stanarrator #lawlu #saigenos

[popculturebuffet]

Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Vs the Universe or So Sad So Very Very Sad

Hello all you happy Scottaholics! And welcome back to Scottrospective, my 8 part look at Scott Pilgrim: all 6 volumes of the comic as well as the game and movie just in time for their respective 10th Anniversaries. If your just joining us or needa  quick refresher, here are links to the other four parts, in order: Precious Little Life, Vs The World (Comic), Infinite Sadness, and last month’s look at my favorite volume Gets It Together. And if that’s not enough to fill your belly with Scotty Goodness, hop over to my patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet.  There you’ll find reviews of all the content I didn’t have time for in the retrospective proper: Free Scott Pilgrim, The Wonderful World of Kim Pine, Monica Beetle, Style, and the bonus comic strips. It’s only a dollar to get access to the bonus reviews, and every bit you can give not only helps me make these reviews int he first place, but gets me closer to my stretch goals, the 25 and 30 dollar ones including looks at O’Malley’s Other Works: Lost At Sea and Seconds for the former and Snotgirl for the latter. 

But more than plugging my past and paid works, there’s something else far more important I need to get to before I get into this one: Thank You. No Seriously thank all of you who have been reading these, liking them. My Precious Little Life Review is easily one of the most liked things i’ve ever had on this blog, getting more viewers every day, and last month’s look at Gets it Together is STILL racking up likes. Given most of my non-duck reviews, paid for and on my own time, tend to be ignored half the time, this just warms my heart. It shows me two great things: that even after a decade Scott Pilgrim still has a huge following and given how young this platform tends to skew that it’s gaining more fans every day, and that people care about what I have to say about htis wonderful comic. It really touches me to both know my voice matters and that something I truly loved as a teen and still do now is STILL picking up more and more fans. What i’m saying is you guys are the best and I wouldn’t be doing these reviews without your support of my very hard work. These are some of the hardest reviews i’ve done at times, but seeing you all enjoy them makes it all worth it. 

As for the Volume itself there’s something I just gotta get off my chest right away: I HATED this volume when it came out. To understand why you have to consider my mental state: I was a teenager at the time, in my junior year of high school. Scott Pilgrim was my goddamn world: while I was picking up comics monthly at the time this was honestly the first north american comic I loved and obessed over and Scott and friends were like family to me. To an awkward teen who couldn’t talk to girls, struggled to keep the video game club a friend founded together in a way that in hindsight was wholly unecessary, and getting messed with due to my anger issues by friend, foe and frenemy alike, Scott was my port in the storm. A sunny version of Tornoto where I could retreat to to feel at peace.

So yeah this shattered the fuck out of that peace and was essentially one long slow motion kick to the balls to a younger me: Hollie gets derailed and horribly betrays Kim, runing my faviorite characters life and leading to her LEAVING, Scott and Ramona’s relationship crumbles, the band breaks up , and the volume ends with Gideon still gunning for our hero because life hadn’t punched him in the face enough for one month. I was livid, not stopping the series, obviously, but upset that everything i’d grown to care about was basically gone in a flash and couldn’t understand WHY O’Malley would fucking do this to me. This volume was also what kept me from re-reading the books for as long as I did as while the rest had fond memories all the ones I had of this one were pure misery.

But by the time i re-read it in december of last year I had two important things in my hands that helped me truly enjoy this one: The first was Volume 6 itself: knowing things would work out, that most of the bad stuff would be undone and in a truly awesome and satisfying way helped.

The other thing was the perspective that came with growing older: For one as an adult while I still like Scott as a character and find him intresting I no longer look up to him, nor put stock in his hapiness for his own. Sure I still care about characters and relate to some, but Bojack Horseman taught me the hard way you CAN’T put all your hopes in a character’s fate or them getting better for you to get better. 

The other is that while this volume again is pretty bleak after a while.. it’s also NECESSARY. Part of the series charm is i’ts realisim and a sad part of real life is people can drift apart from you, and things can change seemingly all at once. And things moving the way they do is necessary for the ending: every step and move here puts things where they need to be for the final chapter.  The pain our heroes go through is necessary so they can all grow.. except Stephen and Wallace. Stephen sucks and Wallace dosen’t need to change. He does need his own spinoff. But for Scott, Ramona and Kim the trials to come are necessary to make them into their best selves by series end. 

So join me under the cut as we get sad so very very sad, this is Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe. 

Precious Little Life:  We open with Scott’s Birthday! Hit it MC Chris!

But yes it’s septmeber and Scott is now 24 years old. Also Julie is there because presumibly Stephen dredged her out of her swamp for the evening despite Julie likely not wanting to be there and Scott sure a shell not wanting her there.  He vows that he will be the best 24 year old ever...... yeah let’s take a brief look into the future to see how that pans out

But we have a full volume and more metaphorical rakes to whack Scott in the face before that paticular one. 

A MONTH AND A FEW DAYS LATER

It’s the day of the dead, whoa ho way down in Tornoto. It’s hosted by Satan Herself, who dosen’t realize the holiday for hags was yesterday. This is for remembering the dead and rising out of the grave to go resuce your young wards by ramming a bunch of guys in butterfly costumes with your car or stealing your children’s kidneys.  This is Rat Girl’s new place, a fancy loft she and 3 other girls went on to throw the best parties beaause of course. She’s also a bitch to our hero and heroine because of course. 

But Scott soon has more important things to worry about: Ramona spots his next two opponents.. the twins hinted at last time, Kyle and Ken Kataynagi, Perfect Jerk and Handsome Asshat respectively.

Kyle and Ken are easily the least intresting of the 7 exes. With the other 4 so far having been a loveable ham, a stoic movie star whose suprisingly nice and dies via skateboard, a gloriously douchey and dumb psychic evil version of our much more loverable dumb douche with personal connections to both him and Ramona, and Roxy who was genuinely sympathetic, held back by her own selfishness and anger.. we get.. two smug assholes who use robots. Their not UNINTRESTING, the robots have cool designs and the fight with them is genuinely exciting.. but they just don’t have the charisma or personal factor. Their jsut two assholes ramona dated at the same time who happen to know more about her well guarded past than the other exes and are more liable to bring it up.. and even then it’s not anything new as Envy pulled similar tactics far more intrestingly in volume 3. THey don’t ruin the volume or anything, thier fine, but I just wish O’Malley had done more. Especially since he clealry had more intresting ideas with them: the sound battle we saw in the movie was an early draft of this and one early draft had Scott’s previously unseen brother Laurence working with them. I don’t knowWHY he scrapped that as it raises the stakes and makes this far more personal for Scott. Which at this point is what the exes SHOULD be: Todd and Roxy BOTH were more personal threats, Todd being his ex’s boyfriend and first love and Roxy being a genuine competior for Ramona. These guys again are just two douchers who show up because we need 7 douchers to complete the doucher circle. 

So the twins declare their not going to fight scott.. and instead send a tiny robot to fight him. Awww. But for this fight O”Malley does something really intresting and creative.. he dosen’t focus on it. No really Ken and Kyle are dicks to Ramona so Kim wisely gets her out of there, and the two have a casual talk on the balcony while Ramona smokes. It’s some fun banter between the two that both shows why their shipped to all hell. The two just play off each other really damn well. Though we also get Craphole asking people if they want to come watch Scott get beat up because the worst. 

Something important character stuff comes up though: As was shown last time at her rightful rage that Stephen HAD an opportunity to book a gig and kept refusing it for his fecking album, Kim is still fairly salty about the whole recording an album bullshit. The biggest part of it..

It’s something you really DON’T expect to here coming out of kim: that she really LIKED the band. But beneath the pillar of salt she puts out daily... these were her friends, this was getting to do something creative and passionate, and it was a break from the daily grind. Even if her job isn’t TERRIBLE, getting to watch movies and hang out with her best friend Clerks style.. it’s still a retail job and those still weigh on you.. though frankly i’d take one of those over food service but sadly tha’ts what i get most of the time. This was fun.. and Stephen ripped that away from her for his own selfish reasons. No one else in the band really cared about making an album.. if Stephen REALLY wanted to find a more professional band.. then he should’ve just told them so Scott and Kim could find someone else to do guitars for them. Instead he forced them into doing something they don’t want to do and refuses to actually play shows, which COULD help both perfect songs for the album version and get them new fans for said upcoming album and provide them recurring venues to SELL said album,  because he really just wants to be with Joseph and fuck anyone else. Stephen is really just an inhernetly selfish git and i’ll get more into that in a bit. But first Wallace has a text for Scott. 

Now I COULD have just skipped over this.. but I didn’t want to. Plus we dont’ se Wallace for a while in this story so i’m taking what I can get. 

So back to Stephen being a repugnant ass. I’ve been waiting for this scene for the entire retrospective. I”ve hinted at it, and largely blamed it for why I hate him so damn much. The time is nigh to explain WHY. 

Stephen is with Knives, as the two are close friends and such. Stephen expalins Sex Bomb-Omb isn’t playing because he and the personfication of bitchiness broke up. Which knives points out is for...

But it’s clear from context this was the LAST time. Why he still got invited I dunno, plot convience. So far so normal.. until Stephen picks up that Knives is STILL hung up on Scott. Which is understandable crushes can last a while but i’ts equally understandable that Stephen is utterly baffled by it. Which I get,  I didn’t make an entire tom lucitor retropsecitve because I liked that his relationship with Star ended with him stepping aside due to what the show thought was “true wuv” but what comes off instead as his self loathing casuing him to blame himself for a realtionship that’s crumbling for reasons that aren’t his fault. 

And his actions here are incredibly well meant: He bluntly gives Knives the wake up call she DOES need: Scott cheated on her, he dated her because she was easy to date, strung her along for a bit while seeing someone else, then dumped her with not one care for her well being. That is stuff she NEEDS to get into her head so she can move on. She needs to see him for what he IS and not for what she’s built him up as in her head. And while yeah his rant DOSNE’T take into account the fact Scott geninely tried to make up for his actions in volume 3, Stephen wasn’t there for that and Knives probbably didn’t tell him about it.  So from his point of view scott broke her heart and did nothing.. and evne IF he knew that, Scott still hasn’t tried to do anything since despite Knives still being obessed with him nor come clean to her or Ramona at any point. Scott deserves this call out and the consequences that come with it. 

So your probably wondering WHY I hate Stephen because of this scene when he’s you know, RIGHT. Well it’s simple: being right dosen’t save you from being a MASSIVE hypcorite. He’s railing on Scott for cheating and hurting someone.. when he cheated on Julie and would’ve hurt her if she had the capacity for human emotion, empathy, or self awarness. The ending of the last volume and how bad, even for them, their relationship was implied the hell out of it, with him nervous when she brings up being paranoid over knives.. as if he WAS cheating. on One Face just not with a teenage girl but a grown ass man who hates everyone as much as BLARARARGAGAG does. 

Not only that.. but he was with Julie for the SAME DAMN reasons Scott was with Knives: it was easy. Now I WILL grant Stephen some sympathy: he’s a queer man and as one myself, bi for the record, I GET how fucking hard it is to come to terms with that, that what you thought you were isn’t ENITRELY true or, if Stephen is gay and not bi or pan, ENIRELY FALSE. So I do have some care that it was hard for him to sort all this out. I do and that Jospeh could’ve seduced him or what not. We don’t have all the context here. But he STILL cheated at the end of the day instead of telling her he was queer until MONTHS later.  And why yes the fact I have to feel bad for JULIE does make it that much worse. And yes their relationsihp COULD simply be that toxic or she could’ve gaslit him, but it seemed more like their relationship was messy breakups and getting back together over and over. While Julie IS vile, she’s not a domestic abuser mental or physical as far as I can tell. She’s a bitch and their relatioship is unehlathy but there was no indication their relationship involved gaslighting or evne phsyical violence: it was just fucked from minute one. So yeah he stayed in an awful relationship beacuse it was easier than coming out, when he should’ve broken it off as soon as it was clear he and Joseph were actually going somewhere. Waiting while he figured out who he was is one thing, tha’ts fiar, but cheating on someone just because you don’t have the nerve to break it off with them when their genuinely awful to you and your only hurting them as much as they can be hurt by dragging this out... yeah that just makes you an ass. 

Another point of contention is that he NEVER called Scott out on this. Never. Not even after this scene. Never encouraged him to tell Ramona or apologize to Knives, again he didn’t know Scott already had tried that. Never gets on him.. he just ignores Scott’s shitty behavior like eveyrone else and unlike Kim, whose still got unresolved feelings and is at the very least clearly bothered by his shitty behavior, and Neil, whose young and thus like me likely looked up to Scott at the time, he dosen’t have an excuse other than “Well I don’t want to ruin our friendship by actually calling him out when he does something objectivionally awful.” Especially since Wallace DID actually take action: he didn’t break up the relationship or say anythign to Ramona, which is wrong... but he did tell scott flat out after his first date with Ramona to break up with Knives. And when Scott chickned out of that, Wallace gave him the ultimatium, may it live in empathy, to do so or he WOULD tell Ramona. And at least Wallace has a motive for not telling Ramona other than “I don’t want to risk my friendship with a guy I really don’t care about and think is shitty”. He wanted to see Scott recover from Envy, something Stephen never gave ONE. SHIT. ABOUT. He saw Ramona was good for him and knew telling her, while the RIGHT thing to do, would severely harm Scott, and by volume 4 leave him homeless. Plus Wallace frankly enabled him for some time anyway, letting him live at their place rent free and paying for all his food and frequently letting Scott steal his credit card. WIth Wallace at least while it’s not the RIGHT move, it’s understandable and complicated vs Stephen who really dosen’t seem to like or get along with Scott after volume 1, suddenly cares what happens to his relationship. 

And what proves this... is this little exchange that ends the conversation. 

Knives despite her issues, despite blinding herself to how Scott treated her, despite everything... thinks Ramona should know. And she’s right. And Stephen KNOWS THIS. He knows it was the right thing to do and just.. takes a swig instead of admitting he’s a fucking hypocrite or explaining himself in any way.  He NEVER cared about Ramona’s feelings or how this would effect her or saw her as important in any way shape or form. Kim at least clearly feels guilty. Wallace clearly is only doing so because it’s better for both her and Scott that their together and is a flawed human being. Stephen.. just dosen’t do so out of some masculine bullshit code of not ratting out your friend and his own cowardace. He clearly COULD go walk up to Ramona right now and tell her, but he won’t. And again I don’t buy he honeslty cares enough about Scott for their friendship to TRULY be enough of a factor to stop that. Fuck. Stephen. Stills. 

So Scott wins naturally, but is bummed there’s no reward.. but Stephen points out there’s tons of free food over yonder so he noms before he and Ramona leave. 

We get some cute domestic bits with Scott and ramona: Scott playing games on her phone all day, the two cooking dinner, and Scott admititng he hasn’t thought of envy at all. “I have you now”. Though through it there are some signs of unease: Scott finds a letter to Gideon, and Ramona asks about her hair and stares out into the window. Nice little hints that even before the big bomb abotu to drop she’s not at ease.. she loves Scott.. but it’s hard for her to let herself BE happy. It’s easy to wager she wasn’t for most of her life. 

Can’t Face Up

So next we find Sex Bomb-Omb working on the album. Or rather Stephen and Joseph are. Scott and Kim are praying for death but death won’t come and Kim wonders why the fuck this isn’t finished. Joseph wants her out of his house... forgetting that Kim lives in said house. 

Still his expressoin implies he’s going to do a murder on her if she stays in the room and since Drummers are hard to come by Stephen spirits them to kim’s room for a band meeting. Turns out they do have a gig but naturally Rosemary’s Baby booked it... and they haven’t practiced in months because Stephen’s a moron. He theorizes it’s Freddy’s Revenge, which is admitely probably valid though Kim can TELL something worse happened Stephen won’t cop to because he’s a piece of shit. I spent several paragraph’s establishing that. They try blaying and two sucktacular minutes i’ts clear their fucked sunday. 

So after a scene of Knives trying HARD to justify Scott’s actions and blame htem on Ramona, to no success, we get one of my faviorite parts of this book: Scott rambling on for god knows how long about the x-men while Ramona gets dressed and is presumibly barely listneing. 

I relate so hard to this it hurts. While not this era I wll GLADLY go on and on about X-Men and anything X-Adjacent at any goddamn opportunity and anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis and you know this. I need to tlak more x-men outside of my slowly failing New X-Men retrospective (Which is on the back burner because no one seeems to genuinely care after chapter one). If I did have a signifgant other, they would probably end up in a situation like this quite a lot and i’d have no shame about it. 

I also love this scene even more as while I DID love x-men at the time, I wasn’t quite the mega fan I was, nor as familiar with Claremont’s long, epic and often fucking weird in the special wonderful way only comics can run. Given I OWN over half his run at this point, that has changed. Though oddly not this part. So not only do I get Scott’s talking about x-men I Know what SPECIFICALLY. 

And for the unitatied, a quick explination of what the fuck Scott’s going on and on about: In the late 80′s, the x-men fought a reality warping malevolent trickster god named the Adversary. IN order to beat him their friend forget had to perform a cermony to lock his ass away that required willingly given life forces. The X-Men did REALLY fucking die.. but the Goddess Roma, daughter of Merlin and enemy of the advesary brought them back to life. With their deaths having been broadcast on live tv, and with tons of dangerous enemies at their heels, the X-Men choose to let the world continue to think they were dead so they could hit said enemies where it hurt.

SO this is where Scott’s story comes in:The X-Men’s first mission was clearing out the reavers, a bunch of racist cyborgs, from a ghost town which they took over as their base. As Scotty said they traveled all over the world, fought aliens, more racists, and then went to New York as it literally went ot hell. it’s a LOT and I haven’t read most of that era. I just know about it. I have read that last part though: the x-men were ambushed while wolveirne was away by said racist cyborgs so Psylocke shoved them through the siege perilous, a gate thingy romana gave them that would give them a new life and amnesia and such, leaving wolveirne to get crucified till Jubilee, who’d been hiding in their base gary busey style, freed him. The two would travel the world, find psylocke body swapped which is why she was asian for several decades, and get into general stuff for a few years real time till the X-Men slowly reunited. And you probbaly dind’t need to hear all of that but your life is better for knowing it. 

As you can tell Ramona’s discontent is mounting. And probably not because of Scott rambling about x-men. Last night he told her about the time Magneto beat them all because they stupidly rushed him one at a time then forced them into high tech chairs while a robotic nanny babbied them and then esecaped because shut up before fighting magneto, getting surrounded by lava and having beast ASSUME they were dead because fuck actually coming back and searching just in case like a rational human being because magma or no the x-men have surivived worse, including the depths of space, and restoring all of reality from scratch.  I may of just read those issues tonight. 

She procedes to make things worse for our hero as when he asks fo rher advice.. she reveals she dosen’t like his band.. and while she means nothing BY that, she’s nice about it, telling him his band sucks days before a sudden show where you guys eat a lot isn’t something you do. Wallace is naturally even less helpful and maybe his not liking the band is why we barely see him interact. Maybe he just figured Stepheen was on the fence sexuality wise but wasn’t willing to put up with Julie to test that. I dunno. 

So at the restraunt Stephen’s a dick, refusing to help Scott with his problems. WHich for once are legitamte as he worries abotu Ramona keeping secrets. He just wants to talk about hte band.. but 48 or something hours after this he has no real plan. 

Scott mopes to Kim about Ramona and she has some sage advice for him...

Also thing one and thing two are at the bar with a remote. This cannot end well... granted givne our heroes are not at all prepared and are playing two diffrent songs, this was never going to end well. 

And things only get worse for Scott in the bathroom.. he’s not there.. but his girlfriend and his ex are. Knives tries to work it out.. but Ramona being a bit short with her, which is fair given Knives tried to stab her a bunch a few months back and never apologized, leading to a quick fight.. but with Knives heart not in it this time and Ramona pissed and this time NOT confsued as to what the hell ihs going on, it ends with Ramona slamming knives into a wall... and Knives sadly revealing the truth to Ramona...

The scene hits like a truck with both devistated.. Ramona not having realized Scott with this shitty.. and Knives FINALLY accepting that he is. Finally letting her obession with him drop and realize what he was and what he did and let the full impact hit. The last part also hits hard “No One Else Would’ve Told You’.  It’s a sad hard truth and it’s CLEARLY something that hits both women hard.  For Knives it’s realizing Kim and Stephen, who she’s increidbly close to at this point, both don’t have the stomach to do the right thing, and thus hid this from her and Ramona. Stephen DID tell her.. but he still didn’t have the guts to tell RAMONA nor the actual care. It’s the realization the people she looked up to truly let her down and that she had to do what they couldn’t, even if it tore her apart to do it. For Ramona it’s realizing her closest friends outside of Scott could’ve told her and never did. No matter how close she’s gotten to Kim and Wallace, neither gave a fuck about her rights or her need to know. 

So Ramona is rattled and barely speaks while Scott has been fighting anothe rrobot and ends the gig accidnetly smashing his bass. Stephen is pissy with him and blames hi mfor runing the gig, which turned out to be a trap anyway complete with fliers. 

Ramona decides to gently throw him out as he forgot his keys while his other friends won’t house him leaving him with the one friend he has who dosen’t hate him right now. WALLACE!

The Glow:

So at Casa De Welles, Wallace has some buddy time, not making any bones about the fact Ramona clearly threw Scott out for the night and wearing a neat robe. Scott mopes about the fact he hasn’t met mobile whose apparenlty on the astral plane. I wonder if he has any buisness with Emma.. I mean the x-men did live in san fran sicsio but given decimation didn’t have many psychics. Might’ve been tryign to get another one. THey didn’t have a whole island that walks like a man yet.  And while Wallace wasn’t in much of a coaching mood last time he is willing to help. He couldn’t get bupkiss on the twins since Scott can’t even remember their names, but he did pull off a miracle. Despite their being a million Gideons in New York.. Wallace found THE Gideon. Granted all he got was his full name, Gideon Gordon Graves, and a few burry photos, one with Ramona confirming this is our douche, but given he had only a first name and an ex to work with this is some damn fine work. Wallace asks scott about his future with Ramona but he just.. has no earthly idea because of course he dosen’t. He hasn’t REALLY thought about what comes after beating the exes because he never thinks anything through. Interesting stuff The next day Scott meets up with Kim at No Account Video and we get our first, and I mean literally first, indiciation things are falling apart with her and Hollie. Scott wants to say hi, Kim refuses him and gives a smart ass comment when he asks if them being roomates isn’t working out. He wasn’t even being a dick it’s just clear SOMETHING bad’s going on she won’t talk about because she puts up walls around hrself on a GOOD day and this clearly isn’t one.

It gets worse when they stop by Stephen’s place only to find Neil whose both taken up a combination of smoking and moping in a dark room. Never a good sign. Nor is Stephen apparenlty being at band practice.. meaning either he lied to Neil about where he went.. or he already started the band we’ll see him with next volume and is already stabbing his friends in the back. There wasn’t much to like about the guy to BEGIN with, but his behavior just gets worse with every volume and it’s reached it’s apex here. The speech was shitty enough, I spent several paragraphs explaning why, but the rest of his behavior isn’t much better. He abandoned two people who were, for god knows what reason loyal to him and abandoned the band because of some bearded asshole probably encouraging him to. 

We also get some telling behavior on Kim’s part. Whlie she’s usually morose around Scott in the face of this both just hang out, it’s plesant. She even smiles when she asks if it’s going to be a regular occurance when he stays with her that night. Granted she brings back her frown soon after, but as has been clear her feelings for him never really went away entirely, and this is the closest the two have been in volumes, just enjoying each others company. It’s also telling that Scott trusts kim with a favor.

We see the favor the next page: Kim hangs out with Ramona.. and Scott marchs in completely on purpose soon after. Granted Kim probably didn’t know THIS was part of the plan, and it’s mildly stupid.. but it DOES show progress for Scott. Keep in mind his usual tactic is “avoid the fuck out of it and hope it goes away’ So ACTUALLY wanting to talk about things and find her again, and not doing it in a creepy way but simply drawing her out with a friend, shows SOME maturlity. It’s still not the most mature.. but with Ramona clearly not wanting him at their place, her work not having a set location as she just picks stuff up and drops it off (And even if she’s picking up packages at the post office we don’t know which one or if there’s multiple and even if we did scott sure as hel l does not), he was out of options. It also WORKS, with Ramona breaking her mopeynesss to laugh and Kim stunned it didn’t just piss her off further. 

So we find out what happened with Hollie when Scott brings up jason. She points out they were dating but... welllllllll

Yeah... as you could probably tell I do not like this plot point at all. For one thing we never really got to KNOW Jason, and with him and Hollie getting a little too cozy at the end of the last volume...

It’s clear his ONLY roll in the story was to be there so Hollie could betray Kim in some way. And look I get a LOT in this series happens while we’re not looking, ti’s part of it’s charm. Things not pausing for the side cast is a trope I enjoy: it allows some things to progress faster and allows for some intresting stories when the main cast catches up. Steven Unvierse and Ducktales both used this well as does Scott Pilgrim but all three weren’t immune to someitnes goofing up and taking it too far. 

This whole situation is that: Hollie is a character I got attached to: She had a great report with kim, they were really close and she offered her a place to stay when it was clear she was miserable with the four horseman of the bitchpocalypse she lived with. So while having her suddenly heel turn is realistic... it just feels thorughly unsatisfying. We do not see Hollie again after she’s sudeenly derailed, so we never get to see what she’s apparenlty REALLY like or get any explination why this happened. Suddenly Kim’s best friend is a douchebag even though it makes no sense for her character. Just because in real life people can turn out to be really shitty on a dime dosen’t mean it’s a neat thing to READ in a story and it feels like a waste of what was one of the series best side characters. And granted i’ve been through FAR worse treatment of side characters, trust me but this one still blows to this day and if there is a netflix adaptation this either needs to not happen or have actual depth. Seriously Netflix your adapting everything else, get on the bus already. 

Scott is GENUINELY apologetic, we’ve rarely seen him this nice but he genuinely feels bad for her.. and unlike Stephen’s thing it’s okay to feel shitty someone got cheated on even if you were a cheater in the past. As I said Stephen wasn’t wrong about how Scott treeted knives.. he just also was trying to take moral high ground which Knives proved he absolutely did not have in seconds.

This triggers Ramona’s glow, the squggly line thing that shows up over her head ocasoinally.. and while Ramona grills Scott... Kim just finally asks what the hells up with her head. Scott’s reaction is “OH good you guys see it too”. Kim does try to show it to ramona but it’s gone by then and she drops it for now and outside encourages her to come to Julie’s latest shitty party.. I mean their miserable but at least it gives thems omething to do

So we get another instalment of “Scott rambles about the X-Men” or New Mutants in this case as we’re talking about Magik, Aka Illyana Rasputin 

So for the long version: The X-Men were staying at a creepy temple that Magneto had been working out of beause the mansion was being repaired. Colossus, everyone’s favorite Russian and Deadpool co-star, had his kid sister Illyana with him as Arcade, a ginger maniac assasian whose gimmick is creating elaborate murder theme parks, kidnapped her in a plot to get the x-men to fight Dr. Doom for him. Given this was during the Cold War they coudln’t exactly take her back, so she stayed with the X-Men and her beloved big brother. 

So naturlaly the spooky temple decorated in Cthulu’s had a portal to hell in it and  an evil and genirc looking fucker named Belasco kidnapped her to a hell dimension known as Limbo>  the X-Men went after her as you’d expect and things got WEIRD as due to some complicated and weird time dialition stuff I sitll don’t quite understand there ended up being two copies of the x-men: ours who came in right after, and a second batch who stayed there for about 7-8 years and got warped by Bellsaco’s magic as he killed or changed most of them. As a result Storm became a sorcerer to fight back, Kitty Pryde became some sort of cat creature and Kurt became a creepy evil version of himself. Illyana stayed htere, learned magics from both storm and asshole, learned to fight from cat kitty, and eventually escaped after a lot of horrible bullshit, hardnered and with her soul scarred from it, now a teenager. She joined the New Mutants, the training class of x-men in the comics, soon after. She’s a member agian in present day, one of the great captains of Krakoa, and one of the two co-leaders of Krakoa’s younger mutants, i.e. 20 something to teens and kids. 

This is the best of the two scenes as the narrative , or at least Scott’s versions parallels Ramona’s own; Getting taken in by an evil man and feeling tainted by that. 

So at the party Ramona runs into Neil whose a dick about it and with some girl. She WAS going to be fleshed out more in the original draft but Brian ended up scrapping it for time, but does regret it. It’s here we get Neil’s face punchingly dickish comment that’s also a massive hint as to Stephen’s sexuality. 

Yeah even if Stephen’s been an UTTERLY shitty friend to him.. this was uncalled for even for the late 2000′s. What a prick. I do like the arc of Neil slowly falling apart though getting more and more bitter as his old friends abandoned him casually, especailly Stephen. While his comment was still HORRIBLY unwarranted even with Stephen being a dipshit. 

Speaking of assholes we get our last major with Julie who berates Scott for grabbing some booze and brings in the twist. I’m.. i’m not even bothering to give her an insluting and weird nickname. She’s still a HORRIBLE piece of shit, as she brought Scott’s enemies there to try and beat him to death for her own amusment and berated him for getting booze at a party she CLEARLY expected him to come to, but she’s ALMOST gone. Seriously after this she’s GONE for the volume and barely in the rest of the series. So i’d rather celebrate FINALLY having earned my freedom over worrying about her any more than i have to. Cue the music!

So with that Kyle.. or is it Ken. 

But the blonde one needles ramona, giving her her faviorite booze and telling her “this is all just temproary”

So Ramona gets all glowy.. and Kim gets her phone out....

The Universe Fights Back So in a random bedroom Ramona gives up the ghost: SHe DOES know what that is she just can’t tell Kim. Kim accepts it and they share some drinks. Scott, after beheading the douche bros latest science project, joins them and we get a lovely scene of the three drinking and bonding and geneuinely just having a good time. Though Kim DOES mention that she wants to go back to school.. This will naturally be very important. 

What’s more important is this scene is ENITRELY while I poly ship these three dum dums. I mean while part of thier hapiness here is their blasted out of hteir heads, it’s also just Kim’s wall sbeing down. She tells the two she loves them, and I think MEANS IT. Not to mention this...

Okay maybe it’s just the two of them but they also love Scott. And again I get htier VERY obviously drunk.. but given Kim and Ramona are clearly actively supressing any bi parts of themselves most of hte time this is telling. The fact Ramona asks kim to sleep in THIER bed, likely with them, is ALSO very telling and Kim only dosen’t because their using sub space. No really that’s the only reason this volume didn’t end VERY diffrently with the three of htem having a three way before the argument coming up.. and possibly fixing said argument by having kim to mediate. I mean I get Scott’s not a big part of this so if you don’t want to ship him with them and just leave them alone that’s fine, ut I like the idea of them as a throuple: they ballance each other out.. and frakly with Scott’s irresponsblity and Ramona’s emotoinal issues they need someone to call them b oth out in the relationship, while these two are two of the only three people in the work i’ve seen Kim take her walls down for. Not even Jason got that, but Jason was also a carboard cutout. 

Things take a turn from Kim.. from an almost threesome where she CLEARLY would be getting most of the attention... to two assholes kidnapping her. Now while I don’t like the twins that much their plan for the final act IS actually clever: their the first ones to think to actually use the people Scott cares about.. or anything resembling strategy really. Matt just charged int here, Lucas coudln’t give less of a fuck, Todd just used brute strength like a teletkentic juggernaught, and Roxy DID use some but it was less to actually fight scott and more to get into ramona’s pants again. The twins see Kim clearly still loves Scott, and that while he acts aloff to her sometimes she really is one of his best friends. No really, think about it. Wallace is his BEST friend.. but Kim sticks by him even when he’s shitty, calls him out when needed, and despite her grumpiness is the one who has the most faith in him out of ANYONE. It’s a large point of the volume: she dosen’t bother watching the fights.. because she belivies he’ll win simply because he’s Scott. That’s love right there. The kind of love that gets you kidnapped as part of an elaborate scheme but love nonetheless. 

So we then get the scene that’s been coming for five volumes... after having sex, Ramona confronts Scott. While Scott admits he didn’t cheat on her with knvies, the other way around, that’s not better. He admits he’s been trying to forget about it.. and she calls him a bad person. And that. .hits him hard. While he DESERVES scorn for what he did... as he puts it next he’s been trying to change for her. To BE better. And all she sees, and outright confirms is another evil ex in waiting with Scott DESPERATE to prove her wrong and wrongly thinking beating the next three exes will fix this. It’s a VERY hard sceen to watch as while Scott does deserve this.. it’s also hard not to feel bad for him too. It really sums up the character: He is a dick.. but he’s TRYING to be better. He WANTS to be, he just dosen’t know how. And MAN can I relate to that.  It dosen’t help that Ramona is clearly projecting her own insecurties about this lasting, about actually being happy and about this really being her life onto him, using this as an easy out after having a month of doubt. Yes Scott did something unbelivibely shitty.. but both are trying to take the easy way out of it instead of genuinely discussing why it’s shitty, what he did was wrong and geniuinely unpacking if this is the end. Ramona clearly wants to bail, and Scott clearly just wants to punch a few guys to make it better. Neither thing will work. They need to work thorugh their issues to work... but neither is capable of that right now. They both want to run from the problem. 

This volume is in part about Ramona herself.. and showcasing her OWN flaws.. and like Scott her biggest is that she runs. She wants to escape her past too and both assumed the other would be an easy fix, that by having a good partner they’d be better.. when really their both mildly shitty people who need to make peace with their past and repair the bridges they’ve burnt and flip off the ones not worht reparing instead of running from it all the time. But sadly before both can.. their just gonna run again. Because sometimes fixing yourself is just not that easy. 

So the next morning Scott’s heart stops fo ra second when Ramona is seemingly gone.. only for her to instead be in teh shower. But Scott gets a text telling him the twins have Kim and TRIES to tell Ramona.. but she’s in the shower. As a result she’s worried he just ran off... and makes a decision , her hair cut back down after growing it out this volume, a sign of her hapiness.. now gone. 

The Glow Part 2 So at an abandoned wherehouse the fight is on. The twins have the advantage in part because Scott is hung over.. something they take offense to.. even though they were THERE last night. He was at a party. They don’t know he teatotles. What state did they THINK he’d be in this morning?

We also find out their origin: as Scott correctly guessed at the end of last volume, Ramona dated them both at the same time and pit them against each other. They found out and vowed to always fight as one.. which means Scott is not only fighting two equally powerful opponents at once, but two who work as a perfct team and double hurricane kick him. They also mentally break him down, pointing out her previous job and how she’s a runner and she’s here to run from her past working for Gideon.

They aren’t but I already went into that so let’s get onto more pressing issues: Scott is not only hung over but now doubting himself and his dumbass plan to beat gideon and magically fix things, while Kim is naturally not happy about being stuck in a cage all night. And while at first she’s genuinely just grumpy as always as it becomes clear Scott has lost hope and the twins are going to win this one her expression is heartbreaking...

After EVERYTHING she still loves him and can’t bear to see him in so much pain... and can’t loose him.. so she gets desperate and claims Ramona texted him to give him hope. 

This is one of Kim’s definting moments, the other coming next month. When faced with the person she loves possibly dying.. she lies to him.. so he can surivive. So he can have hope and make it through this.. despite how much it’s CLEARLY KILLING HER to not only tell him someone else loves him but to clealry lie that person loves him, knowing it’ll hurt him more.. but knowing if she DOSEN’T he’ll die. It’s one of the most painful, heartbreaking and beautiful moments in the entire series. It’s why I said earlier while I don’t like the brothers their climactic fight his excellent.. because it is. Their verbal breaking down of Scott is hearbreaking and Kim’s sacrifice equally so. 

And before stomping them into coins SCott shows further growth.. by showing he CAN give off a good one liner now...

So Scott beats them and gets Kim out of the cage, worried about her.. but despite having a chance, Kim lets him get on his way to ramona and morsoely wlaks off... while ominously the sign points out this will soon be the Chaos Theater. There’s still one left to go. 

But.. it’s sadly not enough. While Scott gives her a heartfelt speech... even if he quotes the song as long as you love me... he dosen’t care who she is.. but Ramona does.. calling herself a bad person.. as she vanishes.... and I cry my eyes out again. God two really heartbreaking scenes in a row sweet jesus this volume will be the death of me.. and not just because i’ts taken so damn long to write this review. And on top of tha the looses the cat and ends up locked out. 

World of Ruin:

So yeah if you thought those bits weren’t easy.. it only gets roughter as we see Scott in the aftermath of the breakup. His dream world is now desolate and he’s alone. Now to his creidt as much shit as i’ve given him Stephen didn’t ENTIRELY abandon Scott: he put him up fo rth enight (though he kicks him out after work) and offers to take him to after work drinks. We also see a nice side of Scott’s intimdating boss as she offers her symaptheties at him crying... while he says it’s the onions... he’s transparenlty lying. 

Next up is Kim. Though she dosen’t have a couch because Hollie sold it.. which as dickish as she suddenly is it IS her couch as Kim points out.. so yeah Kim and Scott end up sleeping awkardly in the same bed facing away from each other.. and to add another emotional guttpunch at the worst possible time: She’s going back home. 

Stacey is even lesss helpful as SCott continues to ask about cats and is unsypantethic about her leaving despite you know,  him REALLY not being at the shit talking her stage yet bud. At least we do get to see Stacey in this one I genuinely forgot she was in it. 

So at Wallace’s he’s no help either pointing out she might be with someone else because he’s wallace and we meet a guy with Glases.. and in his bad state Scott assumes i’ts gideon. it’s not though. WE finally meet Mobile!

He’s exactly what wallace needs.. a fellow sarcastic asshole. 

So next up is Kim’s goodbye.. which once again is really emotinal..a nd not just because  my faviorite character is leaving and again, younger me didn’t know this wasn’t forever.. or that she’d be back for a rather huge role next time. But still it’s a damn good scene that shows how far Scott’s come...

While the first part is standard... the second is Scott realizing that she still had feelings for him, clearly given her actions during the fight, and he’d been a right dick this whole time never dealing with it or apolgoizing for his past. Granted he still has a way to go to REALLY apologize for it... but he’s trying and means it. And with her possibly never seeing again.. she needed that. Also her coat is damn cool. I’d say I want one like that btu i’d really prefer one like Scotts complete with x-men patch. Pax Krakoa bitches. 

We get a really nice scene after where we meet Scott’s parents! Their also really kind helping him get a new place and move on... and runs into another glasses guy. But this time it’s Laurence! Who he drop kicks.. and then gives a broken bass back to. Eh... i’ve seen worse relationship with siblings honestly. He didn’t murder scott’s friend or plunge a whole galaxy into war or try and murder his daughter. Other Scott’s weren’t so lucky. 

So after that awkardness SCott finds the note to gideon which is a break up letter... she never sent. However there’s something more pressing as he gets a call... and you can probably guess given his luck lately who that’s from. 

Eh it’s not that murderoius creep but another one. 

The end.. is in a few weeks.

Final Thoughts: 

As I said I hated Vs the Universe on first read but re-reading it with hindsight and maturity.. it’s damn good. It’s depressing as hell.. but the things it does need to happen to push scott into a bad enough place for the next volume to work, and are natural: Ramona and Kim leaving, The band  breaking up, Scott kicking his brother in the face.. all natural things. It hurts, this was a HARD one to write and I only feel the next one will be harder because it’s way longer with less slice of lifey stuff to skim through in my recapping. 

But it’s a damn good one, with fantastic art, really gripping scenes, x-men refrenes and a spotlight shone on my girl kim. Even it’s weak spots dont’ hurt it: the twins are only weak by comparison, and still work well enough for the story, pushing ramona into the bad mental place she needs to be for the story to work. Hollie’s thing DID Need to be written way fucking better... but it does push kim into leaving which is CRITICAL for next time. So they aren’t GREAT elements, but they work. The only real other problem I have is knives just.. vanishes after her scene outside of one bit with Stephen, but that I can understand as the book is pretty tightly packed and she gets a fitting sendoff next time anyway. All in all another amazing entry and the perfect warm up for one of the best endings in comics history

Next Time: I said it and I meant it: one of the best endings in comics history as Scott hits on some exes, fights himself and betters himself as he prepares for his finest hour! Will Ramona Come back? Will Kim? Will Julie?... to answer your questions yes yes, and god dammit. Thank you all for reading, see you at the next rainbow. 

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #scott pilgrim vs the unvierse #kim pine #ramona flowers #julie powers #julie power #steven stills #stephen stills #joseph #wallace wells #kyle kyatanagi #ken kyatanagi #gideon gordon graves #gideon graves #stacey pilgrim #mobile #laurence pilgrim #knives chau

[softschofield]

a bit of historical / military context for 1917

because it certainly added to my appreciation of the film to understand a little more of the background of a few of the lines :’) ♡

“the last time i was told the germans had gone, it didn’t end well”:

here, schofield is referring to the opening day of the somme on the 1st of july 1916, and, more specifically, the first day of the first battle of thiepval ridge.

in the week prior to the opening day, the british expeditionary force (BEF) let loose an artillery barrage on the german positions of some 1.7 million shells. the commander of the fourth army, general sir henry rawlinson, told his subordinate commanders: “nothing could exist at the conclusion of the bombardment in the area covered by it.” in short, the germans were supposed to be gone. so sure were the generals of utter success, a misguided feeling of complete calm optimism filtered down through the ranks - so much so that the infantry forces were instructed that there need be no hurry in getting across no man’s land and into the enemy trenches: there would be little to no resistance, as the germans and all their artillery and machine gun outposts would have been obliterated, and they could take it at a leisurely pace across the land that was hundreds of yards wide at some points.  

of course, within just a few minutes, the opening day turned into a catastrophic disaster. the artillery barrage had hardly touched the german defences and the majority of their troops had been sheltered safe and sound in deep underground bunkers for the entire week. the barbed wire had not been cut by the shelling as the generals had hoped; the land between the british and german lines was torn up by their own artillery and muddy from days of rain; and the germans were not gone. when the british mine at the hawthorn redoubt was blown at 07:20 rather than at 07:28, when the other mines along the front line were due to be detonated to begin the offensive, the germans were given a full ten minutes warning of the british attack and could set up their defences before the infantry had even gone over the top of their trenches. 

at 07:30, 2,000 officers blew their whistles all along the 12-mile stretch of front and the 65,000 soldiers of the first wave climbed out into no man’s land all at the same time and began their simultaneous advance in one, long line. when schofield climbed out of his trench, he would have started on the muddy, uphill climb towards the ruins of thiepval village, with tens upon tens of thousands of soldiers on either side of him and the men that he had gone through training with most likely among them - in relative silence at first, as the echoes of the whistles died away, but soon in roaring chaos, screaming confusion, and white-hot fear as the wire was discovered to be uncut, the germans were discovered to be very much alive, and the orderly advance fell into bewildered and terrified disarray. within seconds, it was slaughter. 65,000 soldiers died on that first day alone and over four million would become casualties in the following four months, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history. 

all because, despite cheerful promises, prideful boasting, and empathetic assurances to the contrary, the germans were not gone.

“lieutenant leslie has command”: 

it really does need saying just what a vast degree of difference there is between a major being in command, as had been the case before leslie was forced to take over, and a lieutenant. the section of the yorks that were holding the front line was most likely a company, around 150 soldiers at full strength. a company was commanded by a major, with a captain as second-in-command, while a lieutenant was the second lowest ranking commissioned officer in the BEF, just above a second lieutenant. 

to put into perspective what a lieutenant’s role usually comprised, they were in command of one platoon each - around 50 soldiers - with a sergeant as their second-in-command, corporals in command of each of the three or four sections within the platoons, and lance corporals in command of the fire teams. platoons would have a small headquarters, and command of one was usually a newly commissioned officer’s first posting before they moved on to bigger and better things. it is therefore staggering, and truly upsetting in the context, that a lieutenant was put in a position where he was forced to take over in the place of a major, a full two ranks above him - and even more so that he was clearly left as the highest ranking officer in the company.

no wonder he was so overwhelmed - he was a relatively junior officer, already traumatised by war and most likely by losing all the men he may have been close to only two days ago, who had suddenly been handed the lives and wellbeing of a hundred men and told to care for and lead them. the burden of such sudden responsibility, of not being able to do or be enough for them, would have been too much to cope with for most anyone, and it’s little wonder he turned to alcohol to numb the fear and, perhaps, the insecurity.

“the germans are gone” / “i think they wanted to bury us”:

from february through to the 5th of april 1917 - 1 day before the beginning of the film - the german army initiated operation alberich and retreated back to a newly formed defensive position known as the siegfried position, or the hindenburg line to the BEF. it was built to shorten their stretch of held land by 30 miles and replace the former front line, which had been increasingly manned by insufficient numbers of physically and psychologically drained soldiers and which could no longer be held: their fighting force on the western front had been depleted and exhausted by the battle of the somme in 1916, the success of their offensives on the eastern front had forced them to stretch their resources across an even larger stretch of land, and the entrance of romania into the war had added even further strain. 

by wasting the land between their old trench systems and their new line, they hoped to delay an expected spring offensive by the british and french forces. to achieve this, they completely desolated the landscape, turning it into a bleak and devastated wasteland that would severely try the logistics and resources of the anglo-french advance, and render it unusable, uninhabitable, and often dangerous to even cross: they systematically destroyed bridges, buildings, roads, forests, and wells; booby-trapped buildings and objects that they thought might tempt a british soldier to pick up, such as trophy helmets, souvenirs, and food; and left the remains of barbed wire entanglements, deep shell holes and old trenches full of water, and unexploded artillery shells in the former battlefields. 

“the sap trench was blown to hell weeks ago”: 

sap trenches were temporary, shallow tunnels dug under no man’s land and towards enemy lines so close to the surface that when an offensive was launched, the attackers could collapse the tunnel roof, advance troops into a trench that was now far closer to the defenders than the latter were anticipating and way beyond the front line that now lay behind them, and go over the top with a much shorter distance to cover before they reached the enemy trenches. 

had they been better and more extensively used during the battle of the somme, they might have made all the difference to the soldiers who had to advance across no man’s land in full view of the germans watching from up above on the high ground. 

“at least wear your medal”:

it’s possible schofield was awarded a medal for gallantry at the somme - perhaps for having reached the village of thiepval itself, as a few advancing BEF troops were seen to have done (and which then ultimately resulted in even more carnage, as the no doubt terrified and bewildered soldiers entering the village and finding themselves alone and without the rest of their battalion inadvertently prompted the british artillery to direct fire away from the german defences in the village, thus leaving the troops still trapped down below open to even worse targeted machine gun fire) when most scarcely made it out of the trenches - but it’s perhaps more likely that he was simply awarded a medal for having participated in the battle.

bonus bit, because it breaks my heart:

it’s entirely possible that, with the air of optimism in the BEF prior to the first day of the somme, schofield, perhaps a fairly fresh recruit, was daring to feel hopeful. that he was smiling and laughing and believing that maybe it would actually work - maybe it would all be okay. and that, afterwards, he was left with his spirit destroyed. if schofield was a different person before the war - if he was happier, if he smiled more, if he softly but passionately loved books and poetry and flowers - then thiepval took it all away and turned him into the quiet, hollow-eyed man we know.

(and, to just copy-paste my own tags on an earlier post about the fact that he’s seemingly stagnated at lance corporal after so many months because it somewhat ties in:

have they tried to promote scho and he said no? has he just sunk into his silence and become almost invisible and forgotten? has he done something wrong and they won't promote him because of it? bad behaviour? did he go mad after thiepval and do that thing some soldiers in the trenches did where they just try to go over the top and get themselves killed? and they've been watching him distrustfully ever since in case he has another outburst? did he used to be a higher rank and they demoted him because of shellshock or a lapse in ability because he just went silent after his trauma? did he ask to be demoted? has he really just stagnated at lance corporal? there's so much DEPTH there. 

like i feel like someone can only be that... quiet and Given Up and distant if they’ve absolutely lost it at one point and then just accepted that there’s nothing they can do and crumpled into learned helplessness by the time we meet them. that’s my headcanon now: he lost it and was just unhinged and raging and screaming against the injustice of all his friends dying, and he was given an official warning and maybe demoted and eventually just faded into a silent nothing when he realised no one cared and no one would do anything and nothing would change. and now he’s been left with that incredible capacity for leadership, with all those skills, with all that caring, and nowhere for it to go)

#im here im queer im BACK FOR MORE BABEEEY #1917 #mine #honestly that thing about leslie makes me so SAD #leslie does care!!!! he cares so much!!!!! he loves kilgour!!! he's just AFRAID AND DOESN'T BELIEVE IN HIMSELF #DOESN'T THINK HE #'S CAPABLE OF LEADING THEM #I LOVE HIM

[monstersdownthepath]

Deity: Iai-Cophleal, the Scarred Diviner

Lawful Evil Outer God of Destiny, Agony, and Sacrifice

Domains: Evil, Knowledge, Magic, Rune, Void Subdomains: Velstrac, Education, Memory, Rites, Legislation, Dark Tapestry Favored Weapons: Scalpel (dagger) Symbol: An eye with three scars trailing down its surface; or hand with its fingers curled inwards towards an eye in its palm. Sacred Animals: None Sacred Colors: Purple, red

BIG WARNING: This deity deals a lot in the concepts of torture and self-harm. Do not read further if you are sensitive to either topic.

What would you give to know?

What price would you pay to understand?

What sacrifices would you make to achieve enlightenment?

How much are you willing to suffer to get what you want?

The core belief in the faith if the Scarred Diviner is that all progress requires sacrifice, that one can never gain without giving. The alien god holds fast to his belief that pain, fear, loss, and death are the greatest motivators for change and adaptation, and that many of the greatest creations or steps forward in mortal history have been achieved in the throes of deep and piercing agony. It is through this suffering that all have learned, and it is through yet more than he will teach.

He is the guardian of knowledge against the unworthy, those who’d sacrifice nothing, who’ve never known suffering, and those who’d never pay the price themselves. Such creatures will find themselves unwelcome in the Diviner’s flock, unable to hear anything but his barest whispers and scraps of knowing, because while they can torment as many helpless victims as they want in his name, it’s the victims themselves that gain the greatest insights into the truths of the cosmos and receive his greatest blessings. They are the ones paying, after all.

The Scarred Diviner can be called cruel, sadistic, or callous, but he is fair. Knowledge belongs to those who pay for it. And the more you give, the more you get.

The Scarred Diviner is something of an anomaly among Outer Gods, registering and interacting with mortal life on a scale even their comparatively diminutive minds can understand. He does not see them as insects to be exterminated or ignored; indeed, he does not view them as insignificant at all. Perhaps to the greatest among their kind--Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, and Shub-Nishurath--mortal life is little more than dust, but to the Diviner, their capacity for change under pressure (Outer Gods rarely change or experience pressure) is an absolutely fascinating phenomena, one he has studied ever since there was life to study.

In a universe filled with suffering, going out of your way to inflict yet more upon yourself to gain strength through adversity is a blessed act to the Diviner, an act that must be rewarded. His faith is thus filled with people covered in ritualistic scars and bearing the signs of self-inflicted tortures and dismemberment, who perform excruciating experiments upon themselves and each other in an attempt to commune with and please their lord. The screaming of nerves, burning of muscles, creaking and cracking of bones, and tearing of flesh is sometimes referred to as “his voice” or “his song,” and those who ‘hear’ it long enough begin to receive flashes of divine inspiration and instruction, visions of the future or of steps they must undertake to reach their goals, answers to the questions that plague them or instructions on how to find them, or even the keys to obtaining divine magic.

As one discovers and surpasses the limits to the agonies they can feel, eventually their bodies will simply no longer respond to their self-inflicted tortures, and the Diviner’s song begins to fade from them. Most turn to restorative magic to fix their most grievous injuries and heal dead nerves, but the fact of the matter is that, eventually, they will reach a point where they feel pain, but no longer suffer. While many would consider such a state to be ‘perfect,’ believing that all the weakness has been carved from their bodies, those used to feeling the song coursing through them and those who still need answers may grow desperate to feel again. The former is difficult to satisfy, the supplicants often ending up destroying themselves in the search for more exotic means of self-torment, but the latter is thankfully rectified by the fact that the Diviner cares little who is paying his price, so long as someone is.

Within the faith, members who’ve scoured their bodies to the point of numbness often work through proxies. Initiates who long to hear the voice of the Diviner, practiced members who need to learn more, poor fools stolen from the streets or their beds, it matters not who suffers so long as there is suffering. The Diviner rewards the victim with the answers to questions they ask (or are forced to ask), the torturer-surgeon attending then extracting those answers via whatever means are at their disposal. With others in the faith, it can be as simple as asking. With stolen victims, their nerves unprepared and screaming in time with the song, are typically less likely to simply hand over what they’ve learned through their blessed suffering and may require some coercing. Of course, most will shout everything they’ve gained just to make it all stop. Alas, the intricacies of enlightenment through adversity can be lost on the uninitiated.

Rather understandably, this practice causes pockets of the Diviner’s faithful tend to veer into “sadistic torture cult” territory (and be justifiably viewed as such by polite society). He blesses those who pay his price, but the lazy and weak will often get others to pay the price for them--willingly or otherwise--and then extract the obtained knowledge from their victim without ever suffering a single papercut themselves. They go on their merry way to live a life free of suffering, never changing or facing adversity. He does not hold back when punishing those who would abuse his system; direct action is impossible for him as it is for any divine figure, but those true to his faith will quickly hunt down these “soft ones” and teach them to truly hear his song. In a similar vein, he dislikes those who torture their victims to death so that they cannot use the knowledge they’ve paid for, and will work to punish those who too often prevent the Diviner’s song from concluding properly.

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OBEDIENCE AND BOONS

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Mortals have been suffering ever since the very first birth, all of their collective knowledge driven towards the goal of minimizing and eliminating that very suffering. Abundance and safety are anathema to the Diviner, who believes that safety will lead to stagnation, that a lack of danger or threat of agony will prevent mortals from continuing to adapt. Thus, he and his flock work to assure mortalkind will keep moving forward, quietly sabotaging events on both a short- and long-term scale to prevent or subvert anything that would otherwise birth utopias or civilizations free of worry.

The majority of the Diviner’s faith are masochistic mortals either attracted by the allure of knowledge or looking for a purpose to their penchant for mortification. While individual organized cults may be more restrictive (a dislike of Constructs is especially common), the Diviner himself accepts all kinds into his flock; those of any background or species are accepted, for all beings can suffer in one way or another. His faith is especially popular among trollkind, whose regenerative abilities allow for an endless cycle of self-destruction and who can perform one of the most powerful sacred acts of the faith: gutting ones self to divine the future through one’s own entrails. This action is obviously fatal without the assistance of healing magic or major medical intervention, but the trolls can do so with almost insulting regularity and ease... Which is why the Diviner regularly demands that they escalate even further, branding their bodies and their exposed organs with fire and acid.

Velstrac who dislike the madness of their Demagogues can find curious solace in the teachings of the Diviner, turning away from the practice of endlessly butchering others to graft the most appealing parts onto themselves and instead moving towards... the practice of endlessly butchering others for the sake of teaching them. Velstrac who serve the Diviner sometimes claim to have found some corrupted equivalent to self-sacrificing enlightenment, unable to hear the Diviner for themselves due to the ruination of their bodies but eager to help others listen to his song.

As Outer Gods do not possess a dedicated Prestige Class for accelerating the power of their faithful, one can only enter the actual Evangelist, Sentinel, and Exalted Prestige Classes to obtain Boons at a much faster pace. Otherwise, they are gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. One must have the Deific Obedience feat to enter into the mentioned Prestige Classes, and entering the classes as soon as possible allows one to obtain the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14. 

Obedience: Ritualistically inflict painful wounds upon yourself or upon another living creature. These wounds are grievous and scarring, reducing the recipient’s HP maximum by 3 for the next 24 hours. The recipient must be able to survive the reduction for this ritual to succeed. Benefit: The recipient of the ritual torture selects two Knowledge skills. They gain a +4 profane bonus to checks with those skills, and are considered trained in those skills for 24 hours.

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: Sight And Suffering (Sp): Gain Anticipate Peril 3/day, Augury 2/day, or Inflict Pain 1/day.

Boon 2: Hear His Song (Sp): Through suffering, you shall receive the answers you seek. Once per day, you may inflict a gruesome, lengthy, and agonizing ritual upon yourself or another sapient creature that is willing or helpless. This ritual takes one hour to perform and inflicts 5 points of Constitution damage on the victim if they are a living creature. Undead take 5 points of Charisma damage; being reduced to 0 Charisma destroys them. The creature must be able to survive this affliction for the ritual to succeed. At the conclusion of this ritual, the victim asks the Diviner a single question and receives an answer to it as if they had used the spell Commune. Unlike most beings contacted with Commune, the Diviner is omniscient and is capable of answering any question that can be answered with yes, a no, or a five-word phrase. The damage from this ritual cannot be undone through any means for 24 hours. 

Boon 3: Apostle of Pain (Su): In the twisted, blood-soaked dungeons of the Diviner’s most horrid faithful, creatures of great power await the call of his greatest agents, eager to show off their talents. Once per day as a full-round action, you may call an Advanced Velstrac Interlocutor to your side, which will unquestionably obey your commands. In addition to its normal retinue of spells, this Interlocutor may use both Heal and Harm 1/day. It lingers for 1 minute per HD you possess, after which it politely departs, vanishing back to its home.

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: Careful Cuts (Sp): Gain Inflict Minor Wounds 3/day, Cure Moderate Wounds 2/day, or Fractions of Heal and Harm 1/day. 

Boon 2: Touch of a Surgeon (Ex/Sp): Helping your victims back on their feet (provided they still have feet) is an important step in the Diviner’s beliefs, as slaying your victims after every session is likely to anger him if it happens too often. You gain a profane bonus equal to half your HD to all Heal checks, and may treat creatures with Heal in half the normal time (a standard action is reduced to a swift action). You may treat a particular creature’s deadly wounds a number of times equal to their Constitution modifier (min 1) each day. In addition, mistakes happen; thus, you may also cast Breath of Life as a spell-like ability 1/day.

Boon 3: Tapestry of Scars (Ex): Your body bears countless terrible scars and wounds from your self-inflicted injuries, but you are not inconvenienced by them; quite the opposite, in fact. You’ve been cutting weakness and ignorance from your body for ages now, and the Diviner blesses these wounds, granting you a +2 profane bonus to your Armor Class, as well as to your Constitution score and one mental ability score of your choice.

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: Cruel Teacher (Sp): Gain Interrogation 3/day, Blood Armor 2/day, or Excruciating Deformation 1/day.

Boon 2: Mercy in Cruelty (Ex): You know exactly where to strike to cause lethal blows... And know even better how to render a victim unconscious through agony alone, so that you may use them further later. You gain +2d6 Sneak Attack damage, stacking with any Sneak Attack damage you may already have. You may use a dagger nonlethally without suffering a penalty, and doing so allows you to use your Sneak Attack nonlethally as well. When using a dagger to deal nonlethal damage, your bonus Sneak Attack damage from this ability is raised to +4d6.

Boon 3: Tortuous Chorus (Sp): The Diviner’s song reaches a terrifying volume within you each time you suffer enough damage, a volume you cannot possibly contain within your own body. Each time you take damage equal to or exceeding 25% of your total HP from a single action (such as an attack or a full attack, a spell or spell-like ability, or an environmental hazard), you may use an immediate action to shriek out in agony, afflicting a number of creatures equal to your Constitution modifier (min 1) of your choice that are within 60ft of you with Power Word Stun. This Power Word Stun is a pain effect, rather than a compulsion and mind-affecting effect. You may use this ability a number of times each day equal to your Constitution modifier (min 1).

#torture / #body horror / #self harm / #Original Concepts

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Candyman (1992)

All I know about Candyman is that I saw the movie cover innumerable times at Blockbuster as a child and it ALWAYS freaked me out. I think bees are involved? And a hook, and maybe a mirror? And the great Tony Todd, whom I know better from the Final Destination films, and whose voice is one of the all-time great voices in horror or anywhere else. With the new Jordan Peele-produced Candyman coming out this year (maybe...if, you know, movies ever come out again during the apocalypse), I wanted to watch the original for the first time, so I’d have an idea of what I was getting into. 

Basically a couple of grad students, Helen and Bernadette (Virginia Madsen and Kasi Lemmons), are studying local urban legends and folklore in Chicago when they find out about the legend of Candyman (Tony Todd), a murderous spirit that haunts the projects in Cabrini Green and the poor black folks who live there. As Helen digs deeper into the mystery, strange things start happening to her until she finally is forced to confront Candyman face-to-face and then things REALLY go off the rails. So is this a slasher movie filled with racial tension, the precursor to more cerebral horror fare like Get Out or Midsommar? Or is this more Eddie Murphy Vampire in Brooklyn 90s ridiculousness? Well...

Much more the former than the latter. There’s a lot of stuff going on here, and not all the ingredients in the smoothie work well together. There’s a lot of good - strong performances, some great set pieces, and some truly tense, nerve-wracking sequences. My 7-year-old self was definitely right to be super freaked out by that VHS cover.

Some thoughts:

Ok this Philip Glass soundtrack is already really unsettling and weird in a great way. It turns out the soundtrack is one of the elements that really makes this film memorable and stand out from typical slasher schlock.

Ah, it’s based on a story by Clive Barker, ok so this is gonna be violent and sexual and uncomfortable, got it. [Ed. note: this assessment was pretty accurate.]

I don’t understand in what universe you want to like, play a Bloody Mary type game when you’re about to have sex. Is that what turns some people on? I’m not here to kinkshame anyone, but I just feel like there are other ways to court a bit of danger during sex that don’t involve invoking a murderous mirror spirit. 

I am loving these oversized sweaters. Was any decade better for oversized sweaters than the 90s?

The set design is really incredible - this derelict building in the Cabrini Green projects is eerie, there’s an oppressive presence and an abandoned feeling to it all at the same time. And Wife pointed out that man, people really loved painting walls pink in the 90s, you just don’t see that kind of pink anymore. This movie has a really rich feel to it, like all the decisions were made with real craft and care. I can definitely see how this had ripple effects on other atmospheric horror, especially in urban settings, later down the road.

I can’t help but feel like our white woman protagonist is a tourist in a world she doesn’t understand. That sense of not belonging is a big part of the horror here, and at first I was very uncomfortable that this was playing into racist stereotypes of the young blonde white woman being threatened by all the big bad black people. But instead, the film humanizes and offers an air of protectiveness over the residents of Cabrini Green, and in many ways it is Helen who is shown to be the dangerous and harmful outsider.

The jump scares are real, and very effective.

Um what grad student has business cards tho, c’mon now.

Ah yes, the Clive Barker of it all arriving right on time with this completely unasked for child mutilation. 

I love Jake (DeJuan Guy) and his incredulousness. He’s a pretty fantastic and emotive child actor. 

Can I just say, Helen is really really out of Trevor’s (Xander Berkeley) league. I don't know what she sees in him. And it skeeves me out that he’s a professor and she’s a grad student because, although it’s never explicitly spelled out, I would bet a million dollars that she was his student. 

Man, Candyman looking fly as hell with that fur trimmed coat and those shiny black shoes. “Be my victim” ok, Tony Todd, ok, I’m on board!

OH NO THERE IS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE TO A DOG. IT’S VERY GRAPHIC AND SUDDEN AND UPSETTING EVEN THOUGH IT’S FAKE LOOKING.

There’s also a lot of tasteful sideboob if you’re into that sort of thing.

You know, grad school was a stressful time for me, but at least I can say I was never woke up covered in blood and was accused of murder. 

This dramatic motherfucker flying out the window backwards. Between this and the outfit, Candyman is extra AF.

I can’t get over how much Virginia Madsen resembles Gillian Anderson in early X-Files days. It’s similar facial structure and those big eyes, sure, but a lot of it is this hair as well. As any millenial lesbian can tell you, Gillian Anderson in early X-Files days was Very Important to our cause, so uh, I’m pretty into Helen’s whole vibe honestly. 

At first I thought this was going to be about racial symbolism and Candyman being a physical embodiment of the horrors inflicted upon the black community in urban environments, but thigs get muddy with this whole murder plot and framing of Helen as this victim of some supernatural conspiracy theory, and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to take from it? But damn, this is compelling and stressful. 

OK but if she’s been in the hospital for a month, then this baby has been in this dirty ass room for a month with only a dramatic hook spectre man taking care of him? What did he feed baby Anthony?? I happen to know that he’s covered in bees and babies can’t eat honey. 

Why do they have a giant paperclip on their wall as decoration?

The actor who plays Trevor, Xander Berkeley, is so burned in my memory as the foster dad from Terminator 2 that I keep expecting him to make the same dumb face while he’s covered in blood (because let’s face it, I’m expecting EVERYONE to die in this movie, and he’s been particularly shitty) and ope time almost ran out but there it is! 1991/1992 were the glory days for this guy dying bloody in movies. 

Did I Cry? No, but I was VERY distressed about that dog :(

Overall, I can definitely see why this has entered the cult classic pantheon. Strong central performances from Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd carry a lot of this film, but there are elements that I’m still confused about, mainly due to a muddled and overstuffed plot. The racial injustice and lynching feels like rich material to draw from but then why is the belief in Candyman yielding the murders of other black people living in Cabrini Green? I would think the vengeance would be on the heads of the folks who actually did the lynching. Why did he have to kidnap the baby? Was it for leverage to get Helen to do what he wanted? Surely someone she had a stronger personal connection to - Bernadette, probably - would have been a wiser choice? And if, instead, this is all some Dracula-esque plot to reconnect with the reincarnated spirit of his long lost love, what on earth was all this other bullshit about? It’s a movie that works best when you don’t ask too many questions about it, and the soundtrack and visuals - especially that mouthful of bees - are ones that are going to stick in my memory for a long time. 

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#120in2020 #candyman #candyman 1992 #candyman review #tony todd #virginia madsen #xander berkeley #kasi lemmons #dejuan guy #movie reviews #film reviews #horror reviews

[bakudomaster]

Charmed (1998 - Part 2)

[continued from Part 1]

STRUCTURE, WRITING & DEVELOPMENT

Charmed, like most of its supernatural contemporaries, mostly followed a villain of the week plot, with the sisters using their powers, spells or potions to overcome a demon or warlock. At the time, it was a very trendy theme to follow: thanks to media like The Craft, audiences were starting to shake of the moralistic panic that boomed in the 80s and explored the occult through familiar lenses, such as that of high school girls or modern working women.

The showrunners at the time (Constance M. Burge, who was the one had developed the idea and Brad Kern, who would head up the show over its 8 year run) were very aware that the supernatural theme was trendy at the time. Both Buffy and Sabrina had their premieres in 1996 and had developed a loyal following by then. The vampire slayer aimed for very dark and mature themes, whilst the teenage witch went for a lighter and airier approach. The Halliwell sisters struck it straight down the middle between the two - though the show would incorporate themes of death and frequent danger, it would also make use of heartwarming family moments and a dry sense of humor.

The writers used a very clear motto when coming up with scripts - these were sisters that happened to be witches, not the other way around, something mentioned in season 8′s bonus featurette. As important as magic was, it was not allowed to completely overshadow the various hurdles the Halliwells faced away from the cauldron - careers, boyfriends and family issues all had a significant hand in developing their characters.

Seasons 1 & 2 had a very simplistic formula, though it was a bit shaky. It can be forgiven when you consider that the show was doing trial and error in its own way, seeing what worked and what didn’t. Many of the memorable episodes come from these seasons as the writers laid down the history and mythology of the Halliwells.

Season 3 is where the real action began. Swinging in a much darker direction and taking the risk of an overarching plot, viewers were introduced to Cole Turner and his plot to kill the sisters whilst falling in love with Phoebe, Leo and Piper getting married and Prue continuing to power through life like the badass she was; all of which culminated in the season finale where the eldest witch was killed off. Many of the episodes stand out for their consistently solid writing, the outstanding acting and the dead on sarcastic humor.

After this, it was understandable that many fans and even the network was worried that the show would lose its momentum. Shannen Doherty was arguably the most famous person on the show - would the role of Prue be recast or would Phoebe and Piper carry on as a twosome? Would the show even come back?

All fears were allayed when the fourth season aired. Paige was no Prue, but her presence sent Charmed in a new, more offbeat direction. The same presence from the previous season continued, with the sisters battling the Source of All Evil for their very lives whilst having to deal with a new family members and burgeoning loves. Rose McGowan was refreshing and her being on the show caused the dynamic to change before it got too stale.

Charmed officially jumped the shark in season 5. The season long plot was eschewed in favor of episodic plots again, though they weren’t on the same level as the early seasons. The show also started to steer away from the traditional Wiccan feel. I feel the word ‘stereotype’ is inadequate here but I’m not sure of what else to use - leprechauns, genies, wood nymphs, mermaids; you name it, it was made into an episode. In essence, it became sillier and a parody of what the show had initially wanted to be.

The last three seasons were relatively mediocre. Though there are some good episodes here and there, it did not live up to the pinnacle of seasons 3 and 4. Overarching stories were back, but they didn’t mesh well with the lighter approach the show was going for. Character decay set in and ratings soon started to drop. Upon the renewal of the show for an eighth season, the lead actresses made it clear that this would be their last and did not want to continue further as the Power of Three. It was a decision that I imagine was hard, but fair. Charmed was no longer magical and in an age of rising reality TV (The Hills) and fascination with the obscenely rich (The O.C.), no spell in the Book could help.

Here are a list of episodes I recommend watching for various reasons:

The Witch Is Back - Melinda Warren, the witch who started it all, makes her first and last appearance on the show

Which Prue Is It Anyways? - watch for a different take on the Power of Three

Chick Flick - hilariously funny

Coyote Piper - a filler episode done right

Bride & Gloom - watch what happens when good girls go bad

Sin City - another filler done right

All Hell Breaks Loose - arguably, the best episode of the series & Shannen’s best performance

Hell Hath No Fury - Holly’s best performance

Charmed & Dangerous - the second best episode

Long Live The Queen - Alyssa’s best performance

Sympathy For The Demon - Rose’s best performance

The Power of Three Blondes - a very funny filler

Forever Charmed - the series finale

BULLSEYES & IMPROVEMENTS

What it got right:

The sense that no matter what you did or who you wanted to be, your family would always have your back

Darryl and his passive-aggressive snark at being dragged into the magical world time and again

The original spin on Wiccan principles & mythology in the first four seasons

The Book of Shadows & its artwork

Penny Halliwell - the grandma you always wanted

The awkward but fast connection Paige made with her sisters

Prue & Jack - proof that opposites attract

Cole’s arc during seasons 3 & 4

What it got wrong:

Wyatt - overpowered and seemingly out of nowhere, he was a bit unnecessary. Apparently, the writers made him this way to justify a baby being in the house with demons about to the network, but there are much better ways to get around this without giving him every single power

Future Chris - whiny, snotty and way too controlling. Also, Drew Perry is a very poor actor compared to the rest of the cast

Phoebe’s love life - apart from Cole, take any two of Phoebe’s love interests and tell me how they differ, I dare you

I’ve already mentioned the general silliness, but Seasons 5 & 6 takes the cake in this

Zankou - what could have been the smartest villain on the show was wasted due to too many storylines running about in season 7

Leo’s arc in season 7 - he doesn’t do brooding as well as Cole and it doesn’t make sense for his character

Darryl eventually turning against the sisters - it made no sense and it undid so many years of trust and friendship

Magic School - had this come in earlier seasons or just for an episode or two, it would have been a fun setting. The fact that it was  a very focal point post season 6 made it seem like a Hogwarts knockoff

Piper & Leo post season 4 - a very strong & loving relationship was marred by unnecessary trials. Really, he was made into an Elder in season 5 and had to leave home, but in season 6, he basically stuck around anyways, so what was the point? Just leave them together FFS!

CULTURAL IMPACT

Like many shows on the WB in the 90s, Charmed was very popular with the younger demographic even though its characters were about five years older than they were. Many resonated with the messages of family and female empowerment to the point of making a show a cult classic, even though it wasn’t as critically acclaimed as Buffy or Angel. Up until

Unfortunately, the environment on set was not ideal. Rumors of feuds between Shannen and Alyssa were plenty abound, causing the gossip machine to speculate that the latter’s rise in popularity was the result of the former leaving. Recently, Brad Kern was also exposed for being responsible for a very toxic & misogynistic work atmosphere. It’s a cruel irony, given the feminist tones the show cultivated.

Up until Desperate Housewives, Charmed had the honor of being the longest running TV show with all female leads. It was a truly imaginative show that made its own identity known. I haven’t watched the remake nor do I plan to - I have nothing against the new show and I’m sure it has it’s own highlights, but there’s only one Power of Three for me...

[... and that’s why we’ve truly been Charmed]

WHERE TO WATCH IT

Charmed is available for streaming on Netflix

#charmed #prue halliwell #piper halliwell #phoebe and cole #paige matthews #literary analysis

[happymetalgirl]

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

Apart from the finally realizing release of Tool’s exasperatingly long-teased fifth album next month and arguably Rammstein’s ten-year-awaited self-titled album, Slipknot’s We Are Not Your Kind is and was always going to be 2019′s biggest metal release, and since its release its chart success has fulfilled that prophecy.

 Every new Slipknot release is quite the momentous and fixating occasion for the metal community, both for fans of the band their detractors, and part of these new releases feeling like such a big occasion is because they don’t come often. Despite the band blowing up in no modest sense of the phrase at the turn of the millennium with the one-two punches of their iconic self-titled debut and its successor, Iowa, the band have only released four more albums (including this one) in the nearly two decades since their sophomore album in 2001. And despite the motifs of brotherhood the band make a notable part of their image, the tight-knittedness among the nine of them there always seems to be some kind of inner tension or circumstantial tumult surrounding the band and these releases that results in hiatuses and hold-ups that result in these long push-backs.

The band took a hiatus right after Iowa’s draining touring cycle and volatile recording process that nearly prevented them from getting their first Grammy with 2004′s Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), after which they took another hiatus before the tense and disjointed recording of 2008′s All Hope Is Gone, which the band have since cited in hindsight as a low-point of moral for them. Bassist Paul Gray’s death after the album’s touring cycle understandably put the band’s future in doubt and, along with the departure of longtime and beloved drummer Joey Jordison, contributed to the six-year gap between All Hope Is Gone and .5: The Gray Chapter (this album’s predecessor), which I consider their best work since Iowa. And Remember when Jim Root said he didn’t want the next Slipknot album to take a long-ass time... back in 2015? Yet, here we are, nearly five years after album number five with album number six. And yet, Slipknot consistently remains one of metal’s most recognized figureheads and biggest touring acts. I mean, fucking Slayer opened for them the first time I saw them live.

As much as we can take their presence for granted at this point, Slipknot’s unprecedented ascent from the desolation of Iowa to worldwide stardom and maintenance of it with a lot of “despite” along the way is certainly spectacularly intriguing. And the band’s sustained high profile could be owed as much to the band’s magnificent balancing act of raw, death-flavored nu metal and anthemic alternative metal as it is to frontman Corey Taylor’s notorious charisma with the metal press and his ability to draw headlines and speak so widely and mostly eloquently to and for the metal community. Like if this genre had to elect a president for some reason and candidates had to campaign for it like any other presidency, Corey Taylor would easily be the most poised to demagogue his way into office, with Loudwire Fox-News-ing behind him the whole way there, and that hypothetical scenario is the only time I will liken Corey Taylor to Donald Trump because I know the former really does not like the latter. But again, Slipknot’s career has been an impressive balancing act of infectious melodies and tasty grooves with unbridled visceral aggression that unites both casual and deeply invested metal fans and that a lot of other bands see as the optimum career model in this day and age (often citing Slipknot as the last big metal band to get hugely culturally relevant outside metal). So with the twenty-year mark of the debut of heavy metal’s arguably last big figure, how does that band’s sixth record contribute to the preservation of their relevance?

Like just about every Slipknot album before it, We Are Not Your Kind came with its own contextual tempest, this time being percussionist Chris Fehn’s suing of the rest of the band for financial injustices just a week and a half after the album’s announcement and swift subsequent dismissal from the band, leaving only six of the nine members that recorded the band’s first four albums. As much as the band’s proclamations of camaraderie in the face of one internal conflict after another might seem unfounded, internal disputes and line-up metamorphoses are a common reality of most bands, and it’s not surprising that the nine members in a band twice the size of the average band in the genre get sick of each other and fall out in some way. They can’t all be Rammstein, but even that marriage has had its rough patches despite never suffering a line-up change. But the falling out with Chris Fehn is not like your usual “creative differences” or “time for a new chapter”. The allegations of unethical financial misconduct by his former bandmates of his lawsuit are seriously heavy and potentially quite damaging to Slipknot’s and that hypothetical metal president’s reputation. Yet it has been relatively quiet since Fehn’s departure, the potential juiciness of which would be undoubtedly squeezed by any surrounding press, which has led to a lot of speculation about the band perhaps trying to resolve this with Fehn quietly and diplomatically and about his yet-unidentified replacement perhaps not being a replacement at all. And I bring this up because of “All out Life”, the single that was released in late 2018 from which this album’s title is derived that I did not place on my year-end best songs list last year because it sure seemed like it was intended to be on an album. Despite being a truly ripping riff-fest featuring the album’s title as a lyric, “All out Life” was curiously left off the final track listing of We Are Not Your Kind, which led to speculations of it being left off for legal reasons in the face of this pending lawsuit (being that Fehn was featured on the track). Yet, the song made it onto the Japanese release of the album as a bonus track at the end, which leads me to explain how I’m going to be assessing this album. “All out Life” is a great, identifiably Slipknot track and the album is better with it, and while it’s not the most official part of the album, I’m listening to the album with it every time, and I’m including it as part of the album for all assessment purposes. It’s a song the feels like it was intended to be more of an opening statement right after a signature Slipknot intro track, and its sudden finish feels a little weird at the end of the album, but it works in its own way as a more abrupt closer more effectively than “Solway Firth” does as a not-so-grand finale. So, yeah, for the good of this album, I’m taking its differently-titled-not-included title track into account.

Okay! Wow! That’s a lot of context; let’s have a peaceful, uneventful album roll-out next time guys, even though I’m sure the seventh album being due to be released (by extrapolation of the pattern of its predecessors’ releases) during the Kanye presidency will inevitably come with some more gaffs, laughs, and way-too-long preambles, maybe stick it out for one more album, Clown, for me, so I don’t have to write another history paper. (Good God what am I going to do next month with Tool’s new album) OKAY! Enough! On to the fucking musical content of Slipknot’s sixth album.

Like I said, I really loved this album’s predecessor, .5: The Gray Chapter; the band were dialed in both compositionally and performatively all throughout the measuredly varied track listing, and the production was spot-on, with Corey sounding assertive and with Mick Thompson’s and Jim Root’s guitar tone to fucking die for. We Are Not Your Kind is a different story. It’s not a stylistically or procedurally radical departure or anything, and much of the production carries over from their last album. But there’s a certain twist to the band’s otherwise enrapturing X factor that feels like they’re trying to do something unnatural for them. And a lot of it stems from the odd bits of widely noted experimentation among the longer-on-average tracks across this album compared to previous albums. It’s not that the band haven’t incorporated diversions into industrial or eerie ambient tension-building territory in the past, but albums past have incorporated these non-exclusively-metal features in cohesive ways that contribute supportively to the albums’ flow, whereas here, the flow of certain songs and certain sections of the album feel disjointed as a result. Also contributing to the weird flow of the album is the distinct era-mimicking of certain songs (quite possibly unintentionally). The album’s opening song after the “Insert Coin” intro track (which might unfortunately be the most meager and least effective hype-building intro track of the band’s six albums) and lead single, “Unsainted”, feels quite like it’s 2019′s “Sulfur”, with the similarly alternating gruff alt. metal verses and soaring cleans on the melodic choruses and the bridge slowdown. Like “Sulfur”, I find the primary melody sufficiently anthemic, and even though I wish the band did more with the choir supplementation that kicks the melody off, I quite like the song. But then there are stylistically schizophrenic trajectory and flow disruptions not too long after, like the distinctly Vol. 3-type groove-banger, “Nero Forte”, whose pair of headbang-inducing nu metal beat and falsetto melody and the battle snare drum march at the bridge akin to “The Blister Exists” are certain calling cards to the band’s third album. Fans seem to have taken quite a liking to this song in particular, and I like the delicious nu metal riffage at the core of it, but I feel like the song is a bit repetitive as it goes on and still needs to do a little more across its run time to feel as fulfilling as it should be. I’m sure it’ll get the crowds moving though, and I sure appreciate that.

The album even presents even full-on callbacks to the fast-paced visceral vitriol of Iowa on “Red Flag” and the industrial nu metal creepiness of the debut on “Birth of the Cruel”. The pensive acoustic strumming and seething melodic guitar work of the interestingly emotionally progressive “A Liar’s Funeral” also feels somewhat lifted from the dynamic of the band’s previous album (which makes for a pretty bright highlight in my eyes). “Orphan” and “Not Long for This World” revel in the same thick, crunchy guitar tone, metallic percussion, loud-soft dynamics, emotive guitar melodies, and elevating chorus vocal melodies that made songs like “Nomadic”, “Sarcatrophe”, and “The One That Kills the Least” on The Gray Chapter so integral to its consistency, and “Critical Darling” feels like it pairs Iowa-reminiscent violent alternative metal verses with a Vol. 3-esque melodic chorus. Again, I quite like these songs. And on their own they are mostly well-composed and all fine and dandy, and I’m certainly not knocking Slipknot for sounding like themselves, but together the songs run like a compilation album with some rarities and scrapped tracks from the vault tossed in the mix as well. But getting past the weird flow of the album is not too high of a hurdle to clear, and once cleared, the album really is a confident, appetizing, and satiating exhibition of Slipknot’s time-tested talents that have put them at the level they are at.

The album has been noted as palpably experimental in comparison to previous efforts, which occurs in the album’s dark, muggy corners interspersed around the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus structures at the foundation of the album: the ambient experimental bits that take the form of codas like the end of “Critical Darling” or interlude tracks like reverbed xylophone plinking of “What’s Next” and the incantation of “Death Because of Death”.

Despite its cliché title, the album’s most perplexing exercise of experimentation comes on the drawn-out, experimental, atmospheric melancholy of the song “My Pain”; it serves as a breather of sorts on kind of a take-it-or-leave-it basis. And the song “Spiders” I’m not really a fan of either; the repetitiveness of its harmonized chorus clashing with the intended spook of the song gets old kind of fast, which is too bad because I quite like the industrial sampling, the eerie piano plinking, and the weirdly effects-driven guitar solo around it. But honestly, that’s the lowest the album goes for me, and there are still positives to be taken from those songs, which is a testament to the band’s work on this record.

This album honestly took some time to grow on me after my first experiences with its weird flow left me perplexed. But once I got past the flow and familiar with the album enough to be able to focus more distinctly on the individual tracks, I was able to see it as a comprehensive display of the band’s full arsenal of abilities, a balancing act of Slipknot’s long-running balancing acts that still manages to make room for surprises (that the band might be able to expand upon in the future as they continue to carefully develop their sound) without sacrificing compositional or stylistic/aesthetic integrity. Again, the flow on this album is quite unlike any other Slipknot album, but it’s hardly enough to spoil the strong compositions from end to end. Despite my and many others’ high expectations for this album (and perhaps its high susceptibility to disappointment), I was pleasantly surprised with We Are Not Your Kind; and I think the band will be able to look back on this album positively in the years to come. Evidently, we should probably just let Slipknot take their time on the next one too because this one was worth the wait. And I know it’s probably the basic bitch thing to do to praise a Slipknot album like all the other mainstream metal critics probably are, but I can genuinely see why, and I’m not gonna slag an album just because its creators are extremely popular and it looks good for underground karma points. It’s apparently fun for jaded metal fans to shit on Slipknot for not playing 280 bpm blast beats or for using clean vocal melodies and emotive acoustic sections like a bunch of pussies, which is laughable. I mean if you don’t like what Slipknot strive for and it’s not your cup of tea, that’s chill, but if you’re talking shit because you think you’re special for liking a lesser known death metal band that plays faster and think Slipknot is shit because they aren’t doing what you want by not playing like your favorite techdeath band, that’s so tired, narrow-sighted, and embarrassing not just to you, but to the aforementioned chill people you embarrass by extension. If liking a Slipknot album like Loudwire and Metal Hammer probably do makes me a basic bitch, then buy me a pumpkin spice latte next month and send me a crop top with “live laugh love” on it in the form of a black metal logo.

Despite/10

#Slipknot #We Are Not Your Kind #WANYK #new music #new album #album review #alternative metal #nu metal #heavy metal #metal

[poplarpriestess]

Robert Sugden, Single Dad

Chapter 5

When Robert got back to the village, he had to admit to himself he felt a lot better than he had done when he and Seb were out in Hotton.

This was his space and he knew it. And there were going to be no nasty surprises around here, no sick rumours to throw him.

And now he knew what was wrong with his son – why he had been so fussy and irritable of late they were going to be able to tackle that too.

“It is all going to be ok little man, daddy promises,” Rob murmured as he got him out the car and headed to his stepmother's place of work.

 “It’s colic with the added bonus of acid reflux,” announced Robert as he and Seb went into the B and B to find Diane and Victoria there.

When he saw the two of them, he knew he was faced with a choice.

To tell them what Rebecca had said to him or not - and he did not have to ask himself what he was going to do, for he knew as soon as he saw their faces, he came to an understanding with himself not to tell them what she had said.

For one thing, he had no proof yet. Rebecca had been through so much of late, she might not even know what she was saying. And for another thing, he knew damn well that the thought of Seb not being his was going to break their hearts.

It had broken his heart and he was not going to spread that around unless he absolutely had too.

“Oh our poor little fella,” said Diana. “That does not sound as if it is much fun. Why don’t you come and have a cuddle with your granny?”

She had had the great honour of knowing Jack’s kids since they were kids themselves and she was well able to see that that morning had had quite the effect on Robert.  The lad needed five minutes to himself.

Ever since Seb had been born, she had been as proud as punch as Robert. True enough there were things he had done in his life which she had to admit she was not so proud of him for but the way he obdoted on the little lad was not one of them. That made her hold her head higher.

After Seb had had his first course of medicine his stepmother and sister tried to encourage R to go for a lie-down. He had been running around so much of late that he did deserve a rest.  But he knew before they said the words he was not going to go – he would just lie there thinking.

There was a time when he would have gone to the scrap yard and get his head down in to his work there for a bit as well, but if he did that then he knew he was going to come face to face with Aaron and if he did that, then there was a good chance he was going to tell him all that had gone on and that was not fair.

So as he just sat down on the sofa and listened Diane try to keep the baby calm,  though he knew she was not really going to be able to do that. His boy was going to need his dad before long. And after a screaming fit through dinner, Robert had a feeling that time was coming much sooner than later.

“Why don’t you take the little man out for a walk and see if that is going to settle him a bit?” Victoria suggested. God knows they had tried everything else.

Robert wished he had some grounding to bite back and tell her that was a bad idea but right then he could see it might work and the fact of it was he was willing to try anything.

He missed the days when he was just able to sit in the evenings and relax. But then there was no chance of him doing that tonight. His head was just going round and round and he could hear what Rebecca had said to him in his ear, whispering like a curse.

Not Seb’s dad.

“Yeah I think I will,” he said as he took Seb’s coat off of the chair and put it on the litte one. It was not long since he had had his medicine and half a feed though god only knew Robert was aware that did not mean they were definitely in for a peaceful walk.

“You are going to get through this,” his sister said to him.

Victoria knew Robert better than nearly anyone else in the world – but that night he knew she was misjudging him, no doubt putting his mood down to his concern for Sebastian. And he was worried about the colic and saddened that a little man so young was going through that.

But colic was not the thing that was threatening to tear their life apart.

“Thanks, sis.”

Initially, after the two of them had left the cottage Robert was surprised to find he was happy his sister had suggested this to him for it was lovely to get out and get a bit of fresh air not only into Seb but also himself.

It was a time to be alone and to be quiet, the latter being a memo his son missed.

His joy soon worn off as his own troubles stalked him and Seb continued to be unsettled.

“Come on mate, I’m trying here – meet daddy half way,” he pleaded.

But for the first time, his own use of the ‘d’ word bothered him.

What if he wasn’t? What if Rebecca was telling the truth? He felt as if he could not contemplate it, but he knew he had too.

He walked on through the village.

Robert realised that somewhere between home and where he was right then he had begun to cry as well.

This was not what he had wanted. His life was not meant to be like this.

He cried for all of them. For Andy and Katie, for his mum and dad, for Chrissie, for Lawrence, for Seb, for Liv…

And Aaron. Good God, most of all he cried for Aaron.

They had got married. They were so close.

They had nearly had it all.

They had gone all the way from being co-conspirators in the robbery at Home Farm to husbands and at one point or another they had been everything in between. He had been through more with Aaron than anyone else in his entire life and just then he thought he would go through any period of their love just to feel it all over again.

The joy and the pain, the misery and then anger, the happiness and the soul-soothing peace only being together could bring.

And then he had thought with his cock instead of his head on one night when he had been lonely. And it was all over.

When Aaron had needed him to be strong for him the very most he had failed as he was sure he was failing his baby right then.

And it was not just him he had to be strong for.

No matter what was going on between the two of them, he knew he had to be there for Rebecca the best way he knew how – she had lost everything.

Yet she also seemed dead set on taking everyone from him.

He wasn’t sure if he could stand it right then – if he could be there for the sister of his ex-wife as he had a feeling Chrissie would want him to be deep down.

God, he thought to himself, when it really came down to it – it was all such a mess. And that was all he knew.

X x x

Aaron had just been putting out the bins at The Mill when he had come out to see Robert walking in the rain.

After Christmas, he was sure he had done the right thing and it had ensured that his future with Alex was going to be secure… but at the same time the thing which he hated most in the world to see those he cared for or those he had cared for in the past in pain.

And Robert was definitely in pain…

Even if he wanted to walk back in and not say something to him he knew he could not for it was not in his nature.

Robert was yet to clock him so he had a moment to observe father and son for just a moment. Aaron was in no doubt that the baby was wrapped up warm as was befitting for it was a cold February night. On the other hand, Aaron was concerned to see, however, that his ex-husband did not even have so much as a scarf on and only a thin jacket – the idiot.

He approached him and then stopped once more. It was raining – but those were definitely tears in Roberts' face. He knew him well enough to know when he was upset and when he was just wet – and he was the former.

“Robert!”

On hearing Aarons voice, Robert wished he could turn and run. If he was asked he did not think anyone was going to believe him but he truly had not planned on turning up there that day. He hadn’t meant to head to The Mill – he just had. 

As if he was some sort of homing pigeon.

“If the two of you do not come in then you might catch your deaths,” the man he had once been lucky enough to call husband said.

They looked at each other for just a moment.

Robert debated rejecting the offer which felt as if it was the right thing, or going into the home he had planned for them both…. The temptation was too strong.

x x x

First thing was first – Aaron got Robert to take off his wet jacket and put on instead one of his own warm hoodies.

“You can’t get sick Robert – “ Aaron stated as fact. Nothing could be closer to the truth.

The new dad nodded as he pulled the garment on and tried not to inhale the scent of the scrap yard and shower gel which clung to it. God how he loved that smell.

Then Robert got Seb out the pram and tried him on a bottle. As if the young man had had enough of crying – either that or the medicine which he had been given was finally beginning to kick in – he took this second bottle with greater ease than the first and settled in his dad's arms. For once that day, Robert felt as if he was doing something right.

Once his son had had his own drink, Aaron presented Robert with a coffee and the new dad knew it was going to be the most wonderful thing he had ever tasted. Aaron had always known how to make a good cup of coffee – it was one of those little things Robert missed about him, along with a hundred others.

“So are you going to tell me why you were walking about the village crying or am I going to have to drag it out of you?” Aaron asked.

Robert wasn’t sure if he knew where to start.

With honesty he supposed.

“It is all such a mess.”

“What is?”

“Everything.”

“I am going to need you to be a bit more specific.”

Robert looked at Aaron as if trying to weigh up what to do – and then he blurted what had happened that day out. He had not intended to, but it was so easy to talk to Aaron and god knows he had to tell someone – or else he was going to burst.

Aaron looked at him blankly for a moment, no doubt thinking about the ramifications of this…

The current ones and those they had been feeling for the past few months already.

“I do not understand – if you are not the dad then why did she say that you were, why put your name on the birth certificate.”

There were more and more questions going around Aaron’s mind and the more he thought about them the angrier he found he was.

There was a taunting little voice saying she had done it all to destroy them.

Maybe she had been able to see what they had and thought ‘no - no they cannot be that happy if I am not’ but that had been the first time Aaron had been truly happy in so long - since him and Jackson in their very earliest days… before that had just all gone to hell as well.

“I do not know – to mess with me?” Robert asked and it was clear there trains of thought were on the same tracks.

But to Aaron it did not seem likely – were they doing a disservice to Rebecca, he wasn’t sure. He did not suppose it really mattered.

“She has been through a lot lately. She might just be confused.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” Robert admitted.

Aaron reached out and took Roberts hand. He looked like his best friend who had had the weight of the entire world on his shoulders when he arrived. He looked as if he was a bit more peaceful now.

Aaron rubbed his thumb backwards and forwards along the back of Roberts hand.

“I just do not know what I am going to do –“

If he is not mine.

Aaron could well hear what Robert would not dare to say in front of him.

But that was not what was important right then…

Aaron looked at his ex. And all he saw was an overstressed dad who had too much on his plate and not enough sleep to deal with it.

“Shut your eyes,” Aaron murmured

“I need to –“

He threw him a pillow from the other end of the sofa.

“Shut your eyes.”

Robert looked at him blankly for a moment as if he was trying to work out if he was going to be able to get forty winks here and then he nodded. Yes – he would sleep here better than any where else. The pillow, which was soon under his head, smelt deliciously of home and for a moment he found he was able to focus on that…

And if that was not a thought that was sleep inducing then he did not know what was. As Robert drifted off Aaron tried his best not to do that creepy thing when you watched someone else sleep but god damn it he was doing it before he so much as knew it. Try as he might to deny it, Robert was still so beautiful to him and if he tried to think of him any other way then all he was, was a liar to himself.

He felt the same punch in the gut as he had done every other time he knew the two of them could not be together. For a moment the mad thought of why could they not be together hit him but too much water had run under that bridge.

He knew that.

As if trying to distract him, there was a small cry from the pram.

During the time which the two of them had been talking Seb had managed to go to sleep but that was clearly not a state which the little one wanted to stay in, thought Aaron, though his daddy was quite enjoying it.

“Shhh,” he murmured as he crossed to Seb and picked him up, gathering him close.

“None of that, lad,” he murmured and kissed his forehead on instinct.

It was strange given what he just heard but for the very first time he really looked at the little fella and Aaron admitted to himself alone that all he saw when he looked at him was a mini Rob.

In fact if Seb was not Roberts, then Aaron would eat his hat – he was sure of it.

In order to settle the lad, he walked and bounced with him a bit. Aaron did not have a huge knowledge of babies, but he had babysat for Leo more than once and he had vague memories of a tiny baby girl call Liv who he had adored, even then.

And they did say practise made perfect. It was gratifying for Aaron to see Sebastian obviously agreed for instead of having a full on melt down, soon the baby was snuggled deep in his arms, asleep.

Just as his son was snoozing on Aaron’s chest right then, Robert was slumbering on.

Aaron did not see any need to change that. He stood, walking and pacing with the little one, until he was sure he was deeply asleep enough to go back in him pram. After tucking Seb in, Aaron went back to the sofa and Roberts side, and watched the log burner flicker in the dark of the night.

They stayed there for well over an hour and it was only Robert waking up which disturbed the peace.

When he woke up he felt disorientated to find himself – well, at home. He did not know why he was there but then he remembered all that had gone on.

What Rebecca had said to him. Then what he had said to Aaron.

“Alright sleepy head?” asked the man beside him.

“Time is it?” he asked.

“Time you were turning into a pumpkin.”

Yes – he supposed it was he thought as he saw the pram out the corner of his eye.

“I need to get him home,” said Robert - he felt embarrassed to have fallen asleep here, even if Aaron had all but ordered him to do so, yet it had felt so comfortable. And glorious to unburden his mind – yet  he wished he had not put that burden on to Aaron. That wasn’t fair.

“Sorry,” he said meaningfully without looking at him.

There was a lot of his life he was not happy with. But Robert did not want to pass that on. He got up and begun to get himself and Seb ready for the off.

“You do not have to say sorry - you are my best mate,” and if he did not help, then Aaron was sure he was not worthy of the title. Robert wished he was not afraid to label the look on Aarons' face right then as he dared to turn to him-  once upon a time, he would have named it love.

Shaking such thoughts out of his head he got up and looked at his son, tucked up in his pram.

He was sure he had not been the one to tuck his giraffe up next to him.

He looked at Aaron with what he knew was shock on his face.

“Getting to know the little man?” asked Robert daringly. He still did not know how far the two of them could dare to joke about all of this.

He looked at Sebastian himself for a moment and felt his heart break a little. How could he think of him otherwise, but as his son? As his little man?

Almost as if he was able to read his thoughts, Aaron was at his side. “Do not let anything change until you know the facts,” he advised.

Facts were important things – lives could be made or broken on them. The same could be said of lies.

“I won’t. Thank you, Aaron.”

“Anytime.”

Please review!

#my writing #emmerdale #robron

[charlenelouise-gdc]

Personal Practice:

Lessons from BANG BANG CON: what it means to truly understand your consumer + community and joy aided by design

Over the course of two days, they aired past concerts in an 8 part series. The line up spanned across various points of their career, from their early days (Red Bullet Tour - 2014) to their most recent feat (Love Yourself Tour - 2018). BangBang Con aired in Korea time continuously from Youtube and Weverse, their own unique App founded by their label and entertainment company BigHit.

In the midst of the pandemic, this was the perfect antidote. When many across the world are bitter about this new reality and feel disappointment, they offered a joyful escape from the extraordinary time we currently live in and challenges we face. Many look to music as a source of comfort and gigs/arenas are seen as safe havens. Through this online streaming event, BTS once again was able to bring fans happiness and convey their music, albeit in a different way. BangBang Con also demonstrates real innovation from their label; they confidently adapted to the times and the problem at hand. With COVID-19’s dangers meant a ban on large gatherings, it consequentially lead to the inevitable postponement of BTS’ highly anticipated world tour with their most successful album yet - Map of the Soul:7 (2020). Although the future of tours remains uncertain, streaming their former concerts was able to replicate the experience of what could’ve been; though admittedly not the same, it serves as a sufficient stand-in for the meantime.

Another positive bonus offered by this event was that it was democratic for fans. BangBang Con was aired entirely for free. BTS’ shows demands high production value, from large set ups to extravagant visuals, and this is surely reflected on their ticket prices; for Map of the Soul Tour, the price range varies from approximately £80 - £350 (converted from the confirmed USD prices). This meant that not everyone has the financial means to experience their concerts in real life if ever given the opportunity. More so, the logistics and complexity of tours meant that they’ll only be able to cover selected cities, further limiting the fans from the experience. It’s also worth noting that the band does offer DVD equivalents of the concerts being aired at BangBang Con. However, they still come at a steep price, despite being comparatively cheaper than concert tickets themselves (for example, Love Yourself DVD - Europe retails for £55). Although the band has a wide demographic, a great proportion of their following are young adults and teenagers; those who don’t have much disposable income or are financially dependent. Through this alternative way of distributing music/entertainment, BangBang Con was able to satisfy many, while overcoming the predicaments of touring, and also level the playing field for fans. With a simple connection to the internet and a device of their choice, Army (BTS’ fanbase) was able to experience the concert collectively as a community in the comfort of their own homes; in real time, they were able to share the experience with fellow fans. They are all united, despite the (social) distance.

Interestingly, they were the first musical act internationally to attempt such project in the midst of COVID and this new reality. After BTS announced BangBang Con to the world, many musical streaming events followed (including One World: #TogetherAtHome", led by Lady Gaga). In this act alone, BigHit and BTS proves of their innovation and international influence.

From a business stand point, it proved to be a successful move. The event helped boost sales for the band. Not only from their current inventory (e.g. their discography, sponsored goods, past merchandise), but also their latest stock. In the following weekend, the label decided to sell what would’ve been exclusive tour merchandise for their upcoming tour - “Map of the Soul”; items that could’ve easily sat, collecting dust in their stock room as their schedule is left on hold. Army has sold out all the items listed, from clothing to posters. These goods, designed with care and are clear products of hard work from the band’s design team, inevitably made it home to the people it was made for despite unlikely circumstances.

In the end, the entire event accumulated 50 million views in total. BigHit and BTS’ generosity to their loyal fanbase was a worthwhile sacrifice. BangBang Con was an example of a good relationship between seller and consumer; a relationship that would not be made possible without research and understanding of your particular market. From a business standpoint, it would’ve been easy for BigHit to charge people to stream for small fee - it would be easy money. However, knowing the current climate the fans are enduring and acknowledging that the disappointment of postponed tours goes both ways - not just for the fans but for BTS themselves as artists. The event would not be as successful as it would be if it was the latter. More so, it shows that there are other ways to still make a profit. BangBang Con revived Army’s love or made their devotion anew. Although the event and the tour merchandise sale that followed are not directly linked at the forefront, it had an undeniable a positive effect on BigHit’s sales. Ultimately, the event overall was a profitable move and good for business. However, BangBang Con demonstrates that the core of it all is the relationship between BTS and Army. The experience has once again strengthened the bond between the band and fans; they took care of their fanbase despite the challenges at present. BigHit and BTS didn’t have to offer BangBang Con as an alternative to the postponed tour but they chose to. The other positives, including profits, that came out of this was deeply rooted in that care and understanding.

THE MOST EXCITING FEATURE: BTS “BOMBS” AND UX DESIGN

The most interesting feature of BangBang Con is the UX design it involved.

BTS have their signature light sticks (named “Army Bombs”). These devices are brought by fans to concerts, which are lit up and decorates the arena. It’s made to enhance the collective experience. Additionally, it individualises every person in the crowd.

These Army Bombs are the most effective in concerts. However, concerts only occurs every once in a while and these devices are often left on fans’ shelves, waiting to be used again until the next tour. BigHit saw this as an opportunity to be filled, utilising further what would usually be an item of novelty. After all, these items typically retail at £35.

For BangBang Con, fans was able to connect their light sticks via an app (again, through “Weverse”). The light sticks are then sync with the footage during the live stream and matching the light patterns programmed in the show, as if they are living through the concert themselves.

It’s not essential to enjoy the event but it’s certainly a nice touch. It enhanced the viewing experience. Through this, they were able to replicate the real life concert experience and made made the streaming even more special. Most importantly, it made fans a little less alone and part of something bigger. As I mentioned earlier, concert venues are sacred places of community. In a time where these places can’t be accessed and everyone is longing for human connection, it enabled fans to be closer to their community - even though they are isolated in their own rooms. Ultimately, it closed the distance between them.

  beNX, the subsidiary division of BigHit was responsible for this. They are tasked to maximize the fan experience, both online and offline. Since its establishment, it created unique platfroms like Weverse, a successful multimedia app enabling artist-to-fan communications (extending beyond the usual social media options such as Instagram, Twitter).

The use of this light stick programming was first mentioned in BigHit’s Corporate Briefing with the Community (a biannual event which details BigHit’s plans as a business for both fans and industry). It was rumoured that this piece of technology is intended for another upcoming event later on in the year. However, due to the spread of COVID-19, the need of the hour came much sooner. In an interview (see below), staff working on this process declared that they were expected to work on this for a month - from design to execution - before it goes live. However, they worked quickly to be able to deliver the experience in time for BangBang Con. They were able to run the programme successfully within a week. Approximately 500,000 Army Bombs was connected and used actively throughout the entire total streaming period.

BangBang Con was not only a fantastic event for music and a clear example of innovation in entertainment, but it’s also an excellent demonstration of great UX design. It showed how design can can bring a sense of togetherness - especially in a time of COVID-19. More so, it shows how design can have positive effect, not only in communities but also in individuals.

In this act alone, BigHit reconfirms their title as pioneers, not just in entertainment but also in design and technology. It would be very exciting to see how this technology further evolves and elevate the community experience - especially in the fan sphere and beyond the Eastern market.

#Personal Finds

[fountainpenguin]

I like "The Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom" for their potential for angst. In the former, you have Timmy's miserable life, Vicky's potentially traumatic childhood and Timmy's despair at the fact that Cosmo and Wanda must leave him eventually. In the latter, you have Danny risking his life, being horribly injured and fearing what his parents might do to him if they knew what he really was. Just out of interest, where's the potential for angst in "Bunsen is a Beast"?

Oh my gosh, you’ve got my heart racing. Where do I even start?

I guess we start with our title character. We all know how Butch loves the fantastic racism trope (which is one thing I love about his work so much- his use of these things as serious worldbuilding details, and not merely as “one and done” plot points), and it’s a huge part of Fairy and Anti-Fairy culture. 

Fantastic racism is a thing in BIaB too. Here you’ve got this little Beast boy who speaks and reads only limited English. Although he doesn’t have huge talons, he does have horns, a spiny tail, and a lot of scary-looking teeth. As soon as he steps out of his car and starts towards the school, he is hounded by news crews:

He manages to shake them off and head inside, but as she’s introducing him to the class, the teacher says, “I hope this whole co-mingling thing works out, because if not, man and beast will be in a struggle for dominance until one side drives the other into extinction.”

Aw, snap! So you have this show about this twelve-year-old kid with the weight of two species resting on his shoulders. And he knows. That’s what I love here- he knows. Instantly when Miss Flap reminds him of this, Bunsen deflates from his happy mood (Bonus: As you continue through the series, it becomes more obvious that his natural personality is to be reserved rather than social, and that he’s way outside his comfort zone here in trying to make a good first impression and win over new friends).

There’s just so much here that’s interesting! Bunsen is clearly very aware that if he proves Beasts can successfully integrate into human society, it means a better life for his people. But if he screws up badly enough, he might have to watch his family and friends be slaughtered, on top of fearing for his own life. And if he screws up the other way, he might see humans killed as his people revolt and take over.

Now, obviously, with the fate of these races resting on him, so many politics can be dragged into this. It’s my headcanon that after petitioning for years, Beasts were finally given the okay to allow a single Beast to attend a school in a very small human town, as a test. Now, who are they going to pick? Bunsen is very fluffy and cute, so he’s a good candidate to promote the idea that Beasts aren’t dangerous and should be granted rights. Although his English is still stilted and he can read only a very small amount of it at this point, he knows enough to be verbally fluent.

So the question is, how long ago did they decide to send HIM? Has he been groomed for this position his entire life? Just think of all that pressure, those years of studying, that fear of failure drilled into his entire being since he was a kid… And that’s not even bringing up the question of whether this fight to get Beasts a human education has been going on for decades, and if he was specifically bred for his cuteness and gentle disposition. And, what if he didn’t want to be “the chosen one” in the first place? Delicious inner turmoil.

Really, it’s a show about a minority constantly struggling with thoughts of, “Should I leave all my culture behind and embrace a new one?” and “But my culture is a huge part of my identity and I don’t want to lose it.” And he shouldn’t have to lose it. So, he’s working to find a balance that makes him feel good about himself, while dealing with his fears that humans are going to look down on or even hate him for it.

If anyone was wondering, I personally feel that if Bunsen were human, his ethnicity would be one of mixed Asian origins. If I’m remembering correctly, it’s a stereotype that Chinese people are good at ping-pong, and he has a relative (possibly his mom’s brother b/c octopus tentacles) who is a ping-pong master. 

That, and it looks like he has a large extended family staying in Muckledunk with him, suggesting closer ties than I, your average white American girl, see in my own family, even though everyone on my dad’s side of the family lives in this area, and almost everyone on my mom’s side does too. Thus, the fact that he’s eating spaghetti with forks in the theme song is just kind of amusing to me. I wonder what kind of eating utensils exist in Beast society.

So, those are a few culture-related angst topics about Bunsen. Others are certainly the fact that he’s moved to a new place and has regular jitters about that, and that one of his classmates is constantly attempting to gather evidence that he’s a danger to society and should be cast out of the school and the town. Said classmate also has a rich and influential father, and it’s been made clear that some people will be unfair to Bunsen purely not to get on her father’s bad side.

And I forgot to mention all the hints that Bunsen is a pacifist (or at least that he dislikes confrontation), so his default reaction to having mean words thrown at him is to withdraw into himself and believe them.

Whether it’s because of his inborn personality or because of all the pressure resting on him, he never fights back physically, and rarely argues verbally. The closest he gets is the occasional sassy comment. Although he’s more relaxed when alone with Mikey, Bunsen seems to have somewhat low self-esteem.

Perhaps because he’s an introvert, Bunsen is very perceptive. I might argue that he picks up on subtleties better than Mikey does- so if your words or body language suggest that you don’t like him, he will know. Mikey was willing to ignore Jerry’s emotional instability in “Mikey Is a Beast” because he saw Jerry as his hero, but Bunsen picked up on it and was very nervous at the thought of hanging around him. Throughout that episode, Bunsen continues making nervous faces even when the main focus of the scene isn’t on him- such as when Jerry shouted for Mikey to stop crying over Bunsen’s head:

I greatly appreciate whoever includes these things in the storyboards! These characters are just constantly in character even in the background.

Ooh, then there’s the piece of his character that solidifies Bunsen as a lawful neutral- his utter devotion to following rules, even when he doesn’t like them (For example, wanting to touch things in the museum, but restraining himself when he sees ‘Do not touch’ signs). He’s extremely committed to a set of values known as the Beast Code. This code outlines good etiquette such as “Beasts are always polite”, but sometimes it pins Bunsen into corners.

For example, in “Handsome Beast”, Amanda asked Bunsen out to the girls’ choice dance. Even though he dislikes her, it’s apparently “against the Beast Code to decline an invitation”, so Bunsen was thoroughly convinced that he has to not only go to the dance, but “follow the rigid steps of the Beast wooing procedure” too. He feels more stressed out by the thought of disobeying the Code than by the action of taking someone he doesn’t like on a date.

Beasts appear to have super unstable genetics, because when they have allergic reactions, they take on characteristics of the thing that upset their body systems. Here, Bunsen evidently had a reaction to the body spray Mikey was using in the hopes of attracting girls. He’s also confirmed to be allergic to bee stings and Swiss fondue.

Let’s see, what else… Bunsen obviously has a very close and understanding relationship with his parents, considering that even after everything their whole family sacrificed to move to Muckledunk - stability, friendships, money, possibly years of special educational programs depending on how long ago he was selected as the Beasts’ representative - they were completely willing to move back to the underground Beast World after Bunsen confessed to them that he was terrified of thunder, and couldn’t handle the sound of it anymore.

(These nerds even have matching pictures of each other)

There’s a lot of angst potential there, because up and leaving Muckledunk like that could not have been an easy thing for his entire extended family to agree to do. Or an easy decision for Bunsen to even make and consider talking to them about. He’s Beast World’s champion. Their saving grace. As much as he hates thunder, I’m sure he felt absolutely awful to know he was disappointing his entire race. This is the only time thus far, I think, that he truly puts himself before thoughts of duty and honor. These showing and not telling details really drive home how terrified of thunder the poor guy is.

So, Bunsen! I could name a couple of shows about a kid with an animal (or Beast) friend, but of these friends, Bunsen is my favorite. Cartoons like this generally involve one character who doesn’t caremuch about consequences dragging the other into zany schemes. But this is a show about a kid who is honestly curious about the world, and has strong morals that keep him out of trouble. I’m huge on following rules myself, so having a show with characters who are aware that their actions have consequences (Bunsen moreso than Mikey) and who don’t intentionally bend the law means a lot to me.

From a writer’s perspective, Bunsen is a very well-balanced character: he’s very reactive, so he acts as a nice foil to active Mikey. However, he can be plenty active too, such as when he’s introducing Mikey to his home or talking about his culture and biology. And it’s not out of character for him to be this way. It’s all dependent on his comfort level in a particular situation; by default Bunsen is reserved, but he starts opening up and being more active as he gets to know you. He’s very, very balanced and well-written, I think.

Oh. Also, his best friend has a morbid sense of humor, and even cracks jokes about taxidermy when Bunsen sees his uncle on display at a museum.

And BOY HOWDY, we haven’t even gotten to Mikey yet!

I. Love. Mikey. In fact, he’s probably the character I relate to more than anyone in any show I’ve ever watched. I’ve heard that some people don’t like BIaB because Mikey is just “a boring, regular kid”, but I don’t know what show they’re watching, because I could go on and on about how cool this boy is. In fact, calling it now, the Mikey section of this post will likely be unfairly longer than Bunsen’s.

Where to start, where to start… Well, you wanted angst, so let’s start with this. Remember how in “Abra-Catastrophe”, we found out that until he was eight, Timmy’s parents used to obsess over and record every second of his day on video cameras? Mikey’s childhood resembles that a little bit… except it never stopped.

Mikey has helicopter parents in both senses of the word. They obviously love him, but thus far in the show, they have only interacted with him through this drone. I wouldn’t be surprised if never seeing them in person is a running gag in the series, the same way not revealing the names of Timmy’s parents is a gag in FOP. The implication here is that they’re out of town a lot- meaning that he’s been left at home to raise himself-

-surrounded by security cameras and microphones, of course. Major props to whoever designed Mikey’s yard and drew this storyboard, because I love how none of the characters ever call any attention to the cameras or anything. They’re just. There. Watching. Details like this make me happy.

Y’know, when you’ve got a SMALL TOWN CHILD whose parents install SECURITY SYSTEMS, you can’t help but wonder if said child has any problems disabling the security systems on any building in said small town. Problems physically, or morally. I wonder…

I’m really curious to know when his parents got this drone. Mikey hasn’t revealed anything about a babysitter. Did his parents start leaving him at home alone once they got it and could watch out for him? Or did they leave him home alone to fend for himself even before that? 

Mikey’s parents are very nice people - probably better than Timmy’s parents - but they’re not there in the way he needs emotionally. They try to compensate for this by stalking him with the drone whenever they can spare the time. The ability of the drone to find him is interesting too… Perhaps they track him using the location of his phone. Surely they wouldn’t actually GPS chip their child.

Children need safety (physical and emotional) for healthy development. Given the security cameras and the presumed reputation of his parents, we can assume he has the former. But violating his privacy “without probable cause” the way they do can be psychologically damaging and lead to trust issues. Especially because he’s asked his parents to stop, and they haven’t.

Previously, I’ve mentioned my theory that Mikey has an older sister, which would explain why he had the dress, sandals, ribbon, and make-up on hand (and might answer our question about who watched over Mikey pre-drone):

I think she might have disappointed their parents in some way (such as having a baby while an unmarried teen, or stealing money and the family car), and so she took off for the hills. I like this idea because it helps “justify” why Mikey’s parents are so obsessed with monitoring him. They don’t stalk him constantly, but when he gets older, I feel like he’ll have at least one parent on his case at almost all times while the other is installing security systems. One Munroe kid going sour is bad enough for their reputation. Small town. People talk!

Additionally, his voice actor (Ben Giroux) revealed that he used to “terrorize his sister” with the Mikey voice when they were kids. Imagine Mikey doing the same thing to his sister once upon a time, pfft.

This sister theory is just a headcanon, but it’ll be interesting to see what hints about his home life and family are dropped in future episodes. And did I mention that Mikey occasionally visits his uncle in prison, possibly because this is the only family member he has who can’t run away? I love him.

That was Mikey in the past. Now, what about Mikey in the present?

Let me say it again: I. Love. This. Kid.

I’m majoring in psychology, and when I started watching this show, I quickly ended up leaning back in my seat with a knuckle in my mouth, grinning at the ceiling. Mikey is a textbook case for narcissistic personality disorder, with the bonus joke thrown in of, I have no idea if Butch and the writers meant to do this or not (at least, they may not have realized they’ve been checking off all the diagnostic criteria as we go along). Either way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a narcissistic cartoon character pulled off so subtly and so well- and without the cliché stereotype of being obsessed with his looks to boot!

People with this personality disorder are typically characterized as being “arrogant” (Check), “self-centered” (Check), “manipulative” (Check), “concentrating on grandiose fantasies [such as their own success or brilliance]” (Check), and as having “a need for admiration” (Check), “a lack of empathy for other people” (Check), and they “may be convinced that they deserve special treatment” (CHECK- Did you see “Beast of Friends” and “Astro-Nots”?). Such narcissists might “have difficulty tolerating criticism or defeat and may be left feeling humiliated or empty” when their pride is injured. That sure sounds like Mikey to me!

(Technically, since he’s young, we can’t officially diagnose him until he’s acted this way for a year, but if he continues in this pattern then he should fit the bill!)

What a personality disorder means is, this is his personality. You could maybe tone him down by reinforcing certain behaviors, but there’s nothing you can do to “fix” him permanently. There’s no medicine that will change him. It’s just the way he is, and it’s not really his fault. Mikey just loves being the center of attention. And I’m sure it doesn’t help his ego that he’s lived a life with cameras focused on him, and he’s possibly the second child and baby of his family.

He just constantly refocuses the spotlight on himself, like in this scene here where he expresses no sympathy for Darcy being alone all day (or even acknowledges her statement whatsoever), and changes the subject to him:

“Outside, when you were very close to my face, you said something about… helping me?”

Translation: “I’m only here for my benefit. Are we actually doing this, or are you just wasting my time?”

His narcissism is especially prominent throughout “Beast of Friends”. Not only does he interrupt Bunsen once he hears Bunsen has a friend who’s a wish-granting fairy, but when he meets Timmy Turner, all Mikey wants to do is make wishes. Timmy even asks him nicely to stop, and Mikey agrees by making comments like, “I totally hear you. Just let me make one more wish”. 

Spoiler: He doesn’t stop at one more. And when Timmy is tripping over himself, struggling to cover up hints of magic and fairies from his dad, he begs Mikey to back him up. Mikey cheerfully says, “Timmy’s totally right”, and immediately turns his attention back to Wanda and - you guessed it - makes more wishes. He’s completely blind to the fact that he’s causing Timmy distress. He hardly seems to register Timmy’s presence, because he’s so focused on the fact that Timmy has fairy godparents. Mikey even assumes they’ll grant his wishes, and never asks Timmy for permission first. This also happens to be the only episode thus far where Mikey realizes he got a little carried away, and apologizes for it. It took the threat of Bunsen’s death to get him to this point.

He also just honestly forgets to think about others a lot of the time. I think the best example I could pull up is that scene where Bunsen congratulates Amanda on winning “hide and go freak”, to which Mikey responds-

He forgot Amanda. As soon as he saw Bunsen’s game room, all bets were off. He just naturally assumed that if he wasn’t playing, the game was over. It didn’t even cross his mind to tell Amanda he wanted to play ping-pong instead. And he’s like this throughout the show. All. The. Time.

Of course, apart from his narcissism, Mikey has another fair reason to be distractible: there are heavy hints that he has ADHD, not the least of which is that he seems to be canonically dyslexic:

(“Go”)

(“Doomed”)

(Here he’s struggling to spell “cat”)

Dyslexia isn’t an actual diagnosis in the DSM-5, but he would have a specific learning disorder for writing - aka spelling, grammar, punctuation, and clarity (refer to the script he wrote above) - but he has no impairment in the reading department (fluency, comprehension), which is why he can read perfectly fine.

ADHD and dyslexia typically go hand in hand. On top of that - and this is SUPER fascinating to me - he’s actually animated as having an inability to sit still. He’s constantly out of his seat, or in his seat and changing position.

I actually had a different example in mind but it was too long and wouldn’t loop

When I first heard of this show, I naturally assumed Bunsen was going to be the wild one, and Mikey would be your average, plain kid along for the ride. It just seemed the cliché default. But then comes this huge plot twist in my mind: Bunsen is playful, but a bit reserved, and Mikey is the extremely peppy and hyperactive child. So, I think that’s really cool and lots of fun. Mikey is the first time I’ve ever watched a show and selected a lead to be my favorite character, so obviously something’s going right here!

ADHD also has some angst potential along with it. Aside from the obvious examples of struggling in class, he’s confirmed to be the head of the school welcoming committee. So, when it comes to designing posters, that can’t be the easiest job to do!

Oh, did you think that was all? NOPE! It’s been hinted numerous times that Mikey has an interest in psychology (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent hours poring over childcare books when he was younger as he tried to figure out if the way his parents were raising him was right or wrong). 

And, whether he started doing this intentionally or not, he’s turned into a massive guilt-tripper. He cries, people give him what he wants, he stops.

To be fair, Mikey doesn’t seem to realize that what he’s doing is wrong in any way. He’s sensitive in general- that part certainly isn’t faked, nor is he trying to be mean. Simply, this guilt-tripping behavior has been reinforced. 

Repeatedly.

As of “Astro-Nots”, he has yet to come up against anyone in the show who says no to big sad eyes (and he seems to have, perhaps unconsciously, taught this guilt-tripping behavior to Bunsen by this point). Since Mikey hasn’t tried to guilt-trip Amanda onscreen, it’s possible he’s tried in the past, but wasn’t reinforced and so unhappily gave up. He’s just savage to her with his words.

Now, I have that GIF above of Mikey guilt-tripping even Bunsen, his best friend, to do something he really didn’t want to do. I wouldn’t call their relationship abusive at all, especially with Mikey not seeming to realize what he’s doing is wrong. They’re good, close friends and get along awesomely. A time or two of guilt-tripping shouldn’t be reason to end their friendship. Really, what Bunsen did when agreeing to be Jerry’s mascot was a favor. Although being a mascot wasn’t something Bunsen wanted to do, he did want to make Mikey happy, and he did willingly agree to this- as a favor to a friend.

But for angst purposes, he didn’t want to do it. Like I said, I don’t consider their friendship abusive or anything like that, but it might be a tad strained at times. Think of it like, your college roommate might have really irritating quirks, but they’re probably not abusive. Only if Mikey’s manipulating got out of hand to the point where Bunsen was in distress and wanted this to stop - and Mikey refused - would this become a big problem. But, everyone has character flaws and their own struggles in relationships, and for now, this is just one of Mikey’s.

Don’t get me wrong. Mikey’s a really nice person, and he’s proved it multiple times (One of my favorite lines of his is, “Help me help you”). This is the thing: he always wants to get his way. If his way happens to be, “I want to make you happy”, then you’re in luck! But if you’re opposed to his views… he’s not going to make life easy on you. Mikey’s the sort of person who only says sorry out of sympathy- not when you insist he’s made a mistake. Not easily, anyway. He’s a narcissist who reads about psychology- he hates admitting that he’s wrong.

Heh heh. He’ll totally be there if you directlytell him what you need. But he can be a little blind to the feelings of others. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

On top of ALL of this, Mikey has to put up with his rival being attracted to him:

She invades his personal space constantly and forces physical contact like this on him, and it obviously makes him super uncomfortable. I can relate. In my ninth grade math class, I had to sit next to a couple of jerks who - not an exaggeration, because they told me this - had grade point averages of 1.9 (out of 4.0). I didn’t show any interest in them, except once when one of them was bugging me about what my name was, I finally reinforced him by revealing it. This did not go well for me. And for whatever reason, the girl who sat in front of me thought I had a crush on this annoying kid. No clue why, because he was awful. So, she told him to come up behind me and rub my back.

Okay. So, no. I was out of my seat so fast, grabbing my thick, heavy school binder and whirling around, ready to smack him upside the head, but the bell rang just then so he got off scot-free. Keep in mind that I’m not even five feet tall as a college student, so I was even smaller back then. But BOY, did that kid have the face of someone who thought he was going to die.

Gosh, why is Mikey so relatable…

Then there’s more angst to be found within Amanda, Beverly- and of COURSE, Commander Cone… I could talk about them for a while still, but this post has gotten pretty long, so I’ll settle for just discussing our leading boys.

Mostly, the angst in BIaB is that sort of subtle emotional angst that’s obvious if you’re an adult paying attention to the show, but that’s easy to miss if you’re younger. It’s similar to “Fairly OddParents” in that respect (which is a show I personally favor to “Danny Phantom”, even though there are several things I could name about DP that appeal to me too).

Huh. Come to think of it, I wonder if that’s why DP has always been so popular- the younger generation caught onto its angst potential because it was more physical and obvious than the emotional angst present in cartoons like FOP. Plus he’s like a superhero and kids like superheroes. I tend to favor subtleties myself… I suppose because it feels more like I’m in on the joke than like I’m being force-fed.

Anyhow, “Bunsen Is a Beast” is not a cartoon that requires angst to move it along. And yet it’s sprinkled in there anyway; it never feels forced to me. Along with its super-expressive characters, that’s one thing that attracts me to the show- Holding my breath in anticipation to see if I can catch the subtleties. 

For example, all throughout “Body and the Beast”, Mikey refuses to say “school picture day” because he’s convinced something bad will happen to him if he does. That’s a hint that he may be superstitious, and adds a fascinating layer to his character since he’s our man of psychology and science. 

Isn’t that neat? Depending on how deep this runs, he might even struggle with thought-action fusion: the belief that thinking something is the same (aka, as “sinful”) as actually doing it- and there is so much angst tied up with that. 

And OH MAN, we didn’t even get to the part about Mikey “mysteriously” going bald two years prior the show’s beginning. Pardon me, but what is a ten-year-old narcissist who isn’t getting the emotional affection he desires from his parents going to do to himself for attention? Thaaaaaaaat’s right.

(Or if you want bonus angst potential… ever heard of trichotillomania?)

The clip where Mikey refuses to mention picture day and goes straight into talking about how he went bald two years ago was only a few seconds long, but it reveals so much! See? There’s so much fun here for someone like me! But like… It’s left up to me to choose if I want to see these characters as the sum of their parts, or if I want to enjoy this show while merely scraping the surface: Bunsen being cheerful and Mikey being his happy friend.

I like having this depth. I like having subtleties. With DP, “Star”, and “Gravity Falls”, every episode tasted very, “Meh, that went the way I expected it to” in my mouth. I guess you could say that that the subtle details I like in BIaB are very “inside joke” in nature. With those other three, everyone who watches the show is going to catch angsty things. It doesn’t take the coolness out of them, but it takes that excitement of discovery away from me a bit, I suppose? 

Could be. I don’t like being spoon-fed emotions. That’s why you don’t normally find me shipping characters (and when I do, I often tend towards background couples). I’m just not a very emotional person. I don’t tear up at anything less sad than Radio’s death in “Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue”, so you can guess how often that happens, because hoooooly wow, that death scene.

See, there are very few things that bug me about “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”, but the fact that I’m expected to feel bad for Star when Marco starts dating the girl of his dreams is one of them. The ending of “Just Friends” bothered me, with the way that Star lashed out and destroyed the stadium billboard like she was five. Ick. I guess the show put a little too much faith in the idea that people watch shows for ships. Yes, lots of people do- but I’m not one of them. I don’t ship two people just because they’re there, so I have a very hard time sympathizing with Star’s refusal to let Marco be happy with Jackie. 

In my mind, she’s an exchange student. They live together. They’re foster siblings. So when you don’t pity her, Star just looks like a selfish brat throughout the end of Season 2. Good glory, I so do not want Starco to be the endgame couple… I know it’s extremely unlikely to happen, but I’d love for her to end up with Oskar. Just. The potential of freaking Oskar being Mewni’s king. I need this so badly. Plus, they just feel so natural. 

Awesome show. But I don’t really go for the idea of, “She had to leave him, and it was so sad because she was in love!!!” What is this, a nuzlocke? I’m much happier fawning over Ludo and his story, like the way he once said, “Are you proud of me?” and then when he was complimented, he hesitated and asked, “Can you say proud?” That tells you everything.

I did really enjoy the twist in “Danny Phantom” that Danny doesn’t need to keep his identity secret from his enemies, but from his family- not to protect his family, but because his family are ghost hunters, and they’re liable to hurt him. But, like… I would have enjoyed some filler episodes, actually. Episodes where Danny didn’t even fight ghosts. Episodes that gave him more character traits. Because who is Danny without his ghost powers? He’s a shy kid who enjoys learning about outer space and wants to get with the cool crowd, but has only two close friends. Mostly, he only does poorly in school because he never has the chance to sleep or study, or when he does have free time, he’s distracted by video games.

I wanted to see that Danny a little more, and not just when Danny gave up his ghost powers in “Phantom Planet”. I wanted THAT Danny to have angst. The problem with Season 3 was, in Season 1, Danny was learning to control his powers for the first time. In Season 3, he’d mastered them. He didn’t struggle anymore. He lacked good weaknesses. His weakness became exhausting himself to the point where he slipped back into human form. Aka, the removal of powers: kryptonite. His angst was about fighting ghosts. It was very plot-based. And that worked really well until suddenly it didn’t. Fans of the show have rounded his character out some more, but canon!Danny was left flailing for weaknesses in Season 3, or so I think.

I didn’t mean to go off about shows that you didn’t even ask about in your question. Sorry! This is the first time I’ve tried putting into words my thoughts about why those shows are neat to watch, yet I don’t consider myself part of their respective fandoms. 

What I enjoy about BIaB is, the fantastic racism element is definitely there, but it’s not the main focus of every single episode (Geez, that would get annoying fast). It’s a show about, well… fitting in. Making new friends. Struggling with a bully who hurts people emotionally instead of physically. Culture shock. It’s about two kids caring for one another, accepting who they are and who the other is, making mistakes, and learning to be better people in the process. Y’know. With plenty of angst sprinkled on top. The type of angst that fleshes characters out and builds up solid worlds. The kind of angst that I enjoy a lot.

So, DP, GF, and “Star” are generally well-done and awesome, but for whatever reason, I just appreciate them in a different way than I do FOP and BIaB. Anyone who’s been around my blog for awhile knows which of the shows I watch I actually produce fanwork for.

I think it’s interesting that people enjoy different things, don’t you?

#Bunsen Is a Beast #asks #Anon #Beasty such a beaut #Fluffy blue transfer student #Official human buddy TM #Distant helicopter parents #Savage spittle queen #screenshots #GIFs #'ChalkZone' is another very nice 'subtle-angst' show you may enjoy #Going Ghost! #Dimensional scissor show #99% true as far as we remember

[thefilmsnob]

Glen Coco’s Top 10 Films of 2018

As with my Oscar Predictions, I’m just going to forgo a flowery prelude and dive right into this nonsense. But first, I’ll list the runners-up and the traditional bonus track. There’s always a bonus track.

Runners-Up

-Annihilation

-At Eternity’s Gate

-Avengers: Infinity War

Full Review: http://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/173652439630/avengers-infinity-war-12-out-of-5

-Can You Ever Forgive Me?

-First Man

-Game Night

-Grinch, The

Full Review: http://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/180497247345/the-grinch12-out-of-5

-If Beale Street Could Talk

And here are my top 10!

#10b. (Bonus Track) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman (Three directors. Jesus.)

Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld

At first glance, this seems like an unnecessary endeavour, especially since we’re not hurting for Spider-Man films. Yet, although the final act is a bit of a blur and there’s some clutter here and there, this a gorgeous, innovative and hilarious spin on the Spider-Man mythology. We follow Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino teen who becomes another universe’s Spider-Man and must unite with even more alternate-universe web-slingers to save the day in the classic comic book tradition. Miles and his supporting cast are beyond likable, especially Spider-Ham who has the likeness of a little pig. It’s also refreshing to see some eye-popping animation that diverges from the standard Disney/Pixar fair. It even changes styles with various characters. The cherry on top of this cinematic desert is the humour which includes one of the funniest throwaway lines you’ll ever hear regarding a bagel.

#10. Green Book

Director: Peter Farrelly

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini

You could argue that it’s been done before or that it’s a little too corny in places or that Viggo Mortensen’s performance verges on caricature. Or you can accept the minor flaws and enjoy this beautiful story of friendship and its undeniably charming characters. Frank Vallelonga aka Tony Lip is tasked with driving pianist ‘Doc’ Don Shirley through the racially intolerant American deep south of the ‘60s for a concert tour in a film that’s important and informative, especially in today’s sociopolitical climate. But, what makes it so charming is the friendship that forms gradually between two polar opposites--the boorish, ignorant loudmouth, Tony, and the sophisticated, articulate gentleman, Don--a friendship that’s completely engrossing and a wonderful example of how people can and should look past their differences. It helps that Mortensen completely transforms himself as Tony and Mahershala Ali gives a pitch perfect performance, maybe the best of his career. So, ya, there’s some sap, but maybe we can use a little of that right now.

#9. Isle of Dogs

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Koyu Rankin, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson

2018 was a great year for animated features and like Into the Spider-Verse, Isle of Dogs moves away from the Pixar model to give us a uniquely textured and imaginative look at a dystopian Japan of the near-future. By turns charming and unsettling, the story follows a young boy named Atari who searches for his dog Spots on Trash Island after the species was banished there following a canine flu outbreak. He’s helped by a group of dogs voiced by a who’s who of Wes Anderson favourites including most of the actors listed above. The dogs are already well developed and fun to watch, but these familiar voices make it that much easier to identify with them. There are plenty of intriguing social and political themes at work for a cartoon and Anderson adds his signature quirky tone and deadpan humour, but it’s the impeccably detailed stop-motion animation coupled with some truly inspired action sequences that make this movie come alive.   

#8. Roma

Director: Alfonso Cuaron

Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira

One of cinema’s greatest qualities is its ability to challenge society and its ugliest of tendencies. Whereas men like Donald Trump would try to convince you that Mexicans are all drug dealers and rapists, director Alfonso Cuaron and his film Roma introduce you to the real Mexico and an ordinary group of people not so dissimilar from you and me. But, because Cuaron’s at the helm, the commonplace becomes a thing of beauty and, with the help of newcomer Yalitza Aparicio, an ordinary maid to a wealthy family becomes a hero, a transformation that sneaks up on you before taking your breath away. As you begin to watch, you may struggle to understand what all the fuss is about, but gradually you become almost hypnotized by Cuaron’s slow, smooth, contemplative camera pans and crisp black & white presentation that feels more colourful than most films. These qualities factor into some of the most quietly powerful scenes you’ll see in film like the beach sequence, devoid of the usual pyrotechnics yet destined to become iconic.

#7. Widows

Director: Steve McQueen

Starring: Viola Davis, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Liam Neeson

Director Steve McQueen follows up his 2013 masterpiece 12 Years a Slave with another extraordinary film about a group of resilient women who take up the work of their husbands who died in a botched robbery and steal a large sum of money to pay back a crime boss in order to finance his electoral campaign. Did you get all that? If not, you will during a viewing because, though screenwriters McQueen and Gillian Flynn weave a complex web of crime, revenge, political corruption and social injustice, ultimately it’s easy to follow and even easier to enjoy. This quartet of ladies is a pleasure to watch in action, especially the Oscar snubbed Viola Davis, facing numerous threats including a truly sinister villain played by Daniel Kaluuya and a few corrupt politicians in a movie that has no shortage of plot twists and turns. The best shot of the movie, thanks to McQueen and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, places our vantage point on the hood of a limo during a fabulous extended take. The wealthy politician played by Colin Farrell discusses business with his assistant within the car as our eyes remain fixed on the neighborhoods around them that start out impoverished then become gradually wealthier until they reach their headquarters. This one shot tells us so very much. Widows is more plausible, insightful and nuanced than most heist films and one you really ought to see instead of Ocean’s 8.

#6. BlacKkKlansman

Director: Spike Lee

Starring: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace

This is one of the most bizarre stories told this year and would be so unbelievable if it wasn’t based on real events. In a return to form for writer/director Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman recounts that crazy time when the first black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department, Ron Stallworth (played with boundless charisma by John David Washington) infiltrates a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The only thing is, that plan would be insane. So, fellow detective Philip ‘Flip’ Zimmerman (Adam Driver) acts as his surrogate when ‘Stallworth’ has to meet the Klan in person. This old story, right? In this briskly paced film full of snappy dialogue, Lee does the impossible and finds the humour in the situation. He walks the finest of lines and keeps his balance, imbuing the film with a light tone and some actual laugh-out-loud moments while refusing to allow the comedy to undermine the serious nature of the issues he raises. The movie works as a comedy, drama, thriller and, with the help of Terence Blanchard’s nostalgic score, a ‘70s style action flick. Honestly, Topher Grace portraying the nonchalantly evil ‘Grand Wizard’ David Duke is worth the price of admission.  

#5. A Star is Born

Director: Bradley Cooper

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott

How is it that a film that’s been remade 57 times starring a woman who’s never headlined a movie, directed by a man who’s never directed is one of the best films of the year? It’s due to writer/director/actor *huff puff* singer/producer Bradly Cooper who’s made the familiar gritty, more contemporary and painfully honest, enlivened by stellar performances, both musical and dramatic. The old story of the the scruffy, alcoholic veteran singer (Cooper) who meets, falls in love with, mentors and harms the career of the vivacious undiscovered prodigy (Lady Gaga) feels surprisingly fresh. We know Cooper is a great actor and Gaga can sing like an angel, but who knew the former could sing and the latter could act? When the duo sings ‘Shallow’, the best original song of the year, it starts out great, but when Gaga takes center stage and belts out that chorus, it’s purely sublime. This film really benefits from its authenticity; not only is this true of the acting and dialogue, but of the musical performances as well. Each one feels like an actual live event and, in fact, some were even filmed at real music festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury with real audiences. And, yet, they feel  deeply personal, despite the grand scale which is true of the film as a whole.

Full Review: http://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/179054198000/a-star-is-born-out-of-5

#4. The Favourite

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz

If you’ve overlooked The Favourite out of fear that it’s a stereotypically stuffy historical drama, you might want to reconsider because this isn’t your grandma’s period piece. This film has everything: crazy monarchs, duck racing, gun-toting duchesses, rooms full of bunny rabbits, aristocratic love triangles and even some insane 18th century breakdancing. And that’s not including the deliciously alluring plot involving Queen Anne’s (Olivia Colman) advisor Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and her impoverished younger cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) vying for the affections of the queen in order to become her ‘favourite’ with the schemes  growing more ruthless as the movie unfolds. The goal of this farce is to highlight the ridiculousness of unlimited power and those who’d strive for it, especially amidst an unseen war occurring in the background. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better trio of performers in 2018; the three lead women are sensational and deserve their Oscar nominations. You’d also be hard-pressed to find a more peculiar looking film. Director Yorgos Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan use some truly bizarre yet stunning lenses and camera pans. At certain points, it’s as if we’re looking through a telescope, observing these snobs and their shenanigans like a twisted social experiment, luckily from a safe distance.

#3. Leave No Trace

Director: Debra Granik

Starring: Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie

For a film that’s the second-most reviewed motion picture with a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, you’d think more people would know about it or at least give it some recognition at awards shows. But, that wasn’t in the cards for this incredibly touching indie film about an Iraq War vet, Will (Ben Foster), suffering from PTSD and living with his 13-year-old daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), in a public park in Portland, Oregon. They live in fear of being discovered and forced to live in society. Both actors give such raw and convincing performances within this heartwarming, at times heartbreaking, father-daughter relationship. This, combined with director Debra Granik’s naturalistic approach and Michael McDonaugh’s vivid photography, makes the movie feel almost like a documentary. Consequently, some passages feel so intense that the characters’ anxiety becomes palpable as when the two are lost in the dangerously cold forest with only minutes to build a shelter. Writers Granik and Anne Rosellini do a masterful job at exposing the agony of mental illness and the awful treatment of some veterans yet refuse to paint Will as a saint and the authorities as evil. We understand the perspectives of everyone involved who are just trying to do what’s right for the young girl born into someone else’s pain.    

#2. A Quiet Place

Director: John Krasinski

Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt

Like Bradley Cooper, John Krasinski is way out of his comfort zone, taking on triple duty as writer, director and star of a horror film despite his mostly comedic background. In a genre whose output is usually pitiful, Krasinski excels by eschewing the standard group of disposable teens for an intelligent and loving family for whom we care deeply and instantly. The premise, involving the few survivors on Earth trying to avoid creatures with impeccable hearing by staying virtually silent, might seem gimmicky at first, but Krasinski explores its full potential as it evolves in ways that are so creative and complex that you could argue it’s one of the best allegories for our current political climate or dictatorships in general. The film also looks and sounds gorgeous with crisp shots from Krasinski and cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Chistensen that are rich in information and sheer beauty, accompanied by the wonderful score from Marco Beltrami. The acting is great all around, but Blunt is on another level, expressing terror in some of the most nerve-wracking sequences imaginable, exquisitely staged by her real-life husband. And the ending is pitch perfect; at once revelatory and obvious, it makes complete sense with regards to the film’s established rules yet makes us look at what preceded it in an entirely new light.  

Full Review: http://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/173081465380/a-quiet-place-out-of-5

#1. First Reformed

Director: Paul Schrader

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles

*I promise this is the last time I’ll talk about this film. It’s the start of a new movie cycle and I’m looking ahead. You will not here another word out of me about how this movie and Ethan Hawke were robbed of accolades as I cried myself to sleep 27 times since the nominees were announced......anywho:

Paul Schrader is responsible for writing some of history’s most lauded and iconic movies like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ, and now he’s written and directed First Reformed, a movie that rivals even those classics. It’s tragic that no one’s heard of it. In possibly his most demanding, powerful, complex and, ultimately, greatest performance, Ethan Hawke plays Ernst Toller, reverend of the First Reformed Church that mostly serves as a tourist attraction. Already dealing its declining attendance, alcoholism and the death of a his son, he now has to deal with a crisis of faith after speaking with a despondent radical environmentalist who challenges Toller’s beliefs, causing the reverend to mentally and spiritually unravel throughout the film while battling physical illness just for good measure. Obviously, this isn’t a popcorn flick, yet it’s so profound, topical, haunting and mesmerizing. Cinematographer Alexander Dynan helps Schrader create an almost horror movie feel which is appropriate for dealing with issues like a deteriorating man and the end of the world. There are so many striking, if not shocking, images on display and at times the film enters into the realm of the surreal. This is truly a work of art that challenges you to think critically about the world and where we’re headed. When you add these heavy themes to the stellar acting, directing, writing and overall grandeur of the film, you get the one true masterpiece of 2018.

[imapplied]

Achieving a healthy work-life balance at a digital agency

The agency world has traditionally been terrible for work-life balance.

From the Mad Men-esque “good old days” to today’s always-on culture there is a widely accepted norm that agency life is one of long working hours, unrealistic deadlines and counting down the days, months and years until that dream in-house role presents itself.

Yes, the odd long lunch here and night out there take the edge off, but even these don’t lighten the workload – quite the opposite in fact – and they can hardly be seen as payoff for consistent 14-hour days.

At best, an organisation failing to proactively manage work-life balance is irresponsible, and at worst it is downright damaging to everyone involved. The Mental Health foundation states that work-related stress costs Britain 10.4 million working days per year. Literally no-one wins.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance is at the heart of how we operate at Builtvisible, and this article serves to outline our approach, inspire other organisations to adopt a similar level of focus, and lift the lid on one of the core factors that makes this agency an incredible choice for our people and our clients alike.

What does work-life balance actually mean?

Before we dive in to how to manage work-life balance it is important to define what we mean by the term work-life balance.

A lazy Wikipedia search produces

“the term used to describe the balance that an individual needs between time allocated for work and other aspects of life.”

While this serves as a starting point, it is very easy to gloss over the most important point in this statement – that of the individual.

For me, the key to beginning to understand work-life balance is to acknowledge the fact that the notion itself is completely different from person to person. There is no one-size-fits-all approach and it takes an investment in time to unearth what it means to everyone individually in your organisation.

Not only is it very personal, but it is fluid. The idea of balance changes as both our careers and personal lives progress. What someone considers balanced at the beginning of their career certainly isn’t the same at the middle or the end, and anything can happen in life to change its definition from one week to the next.

Clearly, to scale this as a management team requires buckets of empathy and complete alignment on priorities. We’ll dig in to what good looks like after we’ve run through a few key benefits.

How does a healthy work-life balance benefit the agency environment?

Living the cultural ideal of a healthy work-life balance begins and ends with the most important asset you have as an agency – your people.

Balance keeps morale high, it means people stick around and it genuinely makes for more rounded individuals – an essential trait in what is usually a fast-paced, diverse and challenging environment. I genuinely believe our focus on delivering this for our staff is one of the key contributors to our low turnover rate and average tenure of ~5 years. The longer people stick around, the better relationships they build and in turn the more balance this provides.

But the benefits extend beyond your team.

Your clients get the best of your people. They work with energised, switched-on individuals that understand that while work is important, it isn’t the be-all and end-all. Not only that, confidence that an account team is going to be consistent over many years is something about which few agencies are able to boast – an area I deem critical in supplier selection.

Finally, the work clients receive is all the better for it – the result of an appropriate investment in time, clear thinking and enthusiasm for the task at hand.

So, what can you do? Here three of the initiatives we have solidified at Builtvisible to buck the trend in agency work-life balance.

Define what you stand for and bake it in

Establishing a clear set of specific, tangible values to which the agency holds itself accountable is an essential part of building the foundations for success. Going through this process in conjunction with our front-line agency staff was one of the most useful exercises we have been through as a business to help guide how we operate.

We avoided buzzwords and vagaries, and instead focused on personal, direct feedback from our team about what working at Builtvisible meant to them. Part of what emerged was demonstrable evidence that balance was an important part of why the guys enjoy their time here so much, so we baked it in to one of the five core company values that relate to our people.

“Builtvisible gives us the balance we need to become better human beings”

This statement allows us to not only make sure we aren’t working all hours under the sun but has inspired new initiatives such as volunteering during working hours and physical and mental wellness support – two brilliant schemes that highlight perfectly the idea that balance doesn’t just mean going home on time.

It also caters to those who want to constantly push themselves, those that don’t, and those that fluctuate between the two as life priorities shift.

As a management team we are completely accountable to the idea of balance, and it is abundantly clear when we have to act, whether that means hiring to increase our resource, redistributing work, or dialling down someone’s allocation.

Invest in a resourcing model that works for everyone

Re-engineering how we resource the agency has been one of the largest and most complex projects we have undertaken in our 10-year history. Simultaneously it is also one of the most effective – with top line delivered revenue rocketing almost overnight and workloads beginning a long decline to more manageable levels.

The former meant we could reinvest more back in to our staff (thus further improving balance) and the latter remains an on-going challenge to find the perfect balance. It still isn’t perfect and we have to iron out a few kinks, but clear guiding principles have kept us focused on what we wanted to achieve.

Obviously, the aim is that we are able to successfully deliver the work we sell to our clients at the quality they have come to expect, but with our own people at the core of our thinking, we were always able to focus our attention on what was really important and look after them before anything else.

As such, the system we built has a couple of key components that facilitate a healthy work-life balance:

Built-in tolerances: We aim to resource the agency at 80% of capacity. This means we have 20% of our time left over for unexpected client priorities, personal development of the team or internal tasks such as marketing. Again, this is an ideal, and it does fluctuate month to month, but this our entry point to ensuring resourcing works for our team.

It also removes the idea of presenteeism as tolerance means the vast majority of people can leave at a reasonable hour – making late nights and weekends the exception, not the norm.

Control through detail: Our resourcing system is complex. It has been built predominantly by our Financial Director in collaboration with Client Services and departmental heads. The business outcome is a hugely nuanced, bespoke system that generates invaluable data on how we are performing as an agency.

The outcome for our staff and their work-life balance is a system that is so much more than human Tetris. It understands individual competencies, provides early warning systems for managers and makes sure we don’t over-promise and under-deliver – one of the most common crimes of agency leadership.

Don’t be greedy

Over-selling is a consistent problem in agency world.

When you think about it, the only winner is the sales team in the form of commission or bonus. Everyone else loses.

Your front-line staff lose on a personal level as their evenings and weekends disappear for six months. The work they are doing gets worse because they are tired, deadlines are impossible and they don’t have the time they need to do a good job.

Morale starts to dip as a consequence, and you start to experience that classic agency churn in terms of both fed up staff and clients that no longer trust you to deliver.

My good friend Luca at Genie Goals always talks his belief that if all agencies were better, there would be more trust in the model and there would be more business to go around – “All ships rise with the tide”. Overselling is a very easy way for clients to lose trust in agencies in general through awful experiences.

If you truly value your staff and your resourcing model tells you that you can’t deliver it, manage the client on timelines or scope. It is as simple as that.

In summary

Genuinely achieving work-life balance in agency world is difficult. It is an idea that needs buy-in across the company – from trust within the front-lines to accountability among the management.

Bake it in to your values and be held accountable. Otherwise you are just paying lip service to an idea that few have cracked over the years. It is difficult, and there is always more that can be done, but it will keep you focused on being better.

Use these values to inspire your operations. Don’t be like everyone else and over-commit to work. Instead create the most accurate view on your resourcing you can and use it to control what comes in and what goes out. Without either of these your commitment is baseless.

We have witnessed first-hand that focusing on these processes has resulted in tangible outcomes for Builtvisible such as better staff retention, more efficient hiring, cultural alignment with the right types of clients and a more enjoyable day-to-day experience for everyone involved.

I could not recommend a similar approach more.

Source

from https://www.imapplied.co.za/uncategorized/achieving-a-healthy-work-life-balance-at-a-digital-agency/

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Nintendrone Editorial 01: The version you can actually read!

Nintendrone Editorial Entry 1 - "Your Sword Is Badly Damaged"

          An "extremely biased" review of     The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Hello. This is Matthew Young, and my newly made "Nintendrone Editorial", an attempt to review video games that I purchase and play, so that you, the reader, can know whether or not said game is worth purchasing and playing. For my first review, I will tackle the recently released nineteenth installment to the critically acclaimed Legend of Zelda series, Breath of the Wild. I will give a fair warning that while the title Nintendrone is in jest, I, like many, have been a fan of this game series since I was a young child. Of course, I'll make an effort to hold my nostalgia down while talking about Zelda, but it could come all crashing down in one colossal fanboy bias of praise. That said, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best game ever made, and if you say otherwise, you are wrong and everything you like is bad just like Horizon: Zero Dawn, which is a stupid dumb baby game!      ...kidding of course, let's take a deeper look...

Waking up and setting out... So let's start with the synopsis. Breath of the Wild sees Link once again in the iconic kingdom of Hyrule, though it has seen better days. Left in ruins for one hundred years by the malevolent force, Calamity Ganon, who has imprisoned Princess Zelda within Hyrule Castle. Link must arise and defeat the porcine perpetrator and return Hyrule to its former glory. And you are completely free to do this in any way you want. You start your journey on the Great Plateau, a sort of tutorial area if you will, so you can learn and master the game's mechanics before setting off into the rest of Hyrule. And might I say what a great way to learn the trappings of a video game. In a modern industry where developers shove every single facet of your moves in horribly dull, horribly mandatory tutorials (cough cough Twilight Princess), it's a breath of fresh air to see a game simply push you out into a world and let you learn how to survive it on your own. Of course, little messages will pop up and give you pointers on how not to die, but the tricky stuff is for you figure out. Another thing to point out is that the Great Plateau gives you all of the tools you'll need on your adventure up front. Powers are in the form of runes, in which Link will use his Sheikah Slate (basically an iPad) to execute. These runes consist of the power to lift metal objects in a limited space, a power to stop time on singular objects and enemies, a power for conjuring a pillar of frozen water, and even just conventional bombs with the added bonus of being remote controlled (and strike me down if the square bomb isn't the single most greatest item in video game history). This certainly compliments the go anywhere, do anything style Breath of the Wild boasts, as all your options are available to you in the beginning with your own creativity playing front and center for solving puzzles, exploring, and dispatching foes. It'd be good to bring up that no problem in the latest land of Hyrule has one single answer. You are free to go about any challenge however you like, and your results won't be the only way to complete it. An example of this being in a particular puzzle where you must roll a ball through a little maze to where it needs to go. You can use the game's oft iffy motion controls to roll the ball through the maze as intended, jump into the maze yourself and take the ball to its destination, or flip the maze upside down to reveal the smooth surface below that the ball can easily glide to victory with. That is three different solutions to a simple little puzzle and most problems follow suit with that design. Needless to say I find that fascinating. Option for exploration... Your options aren't extended to mere problem solving either. This being an open world game, the world is very open, as well as the way you explore it. After leaving the plateau, you are free to set out into any direction you please, and yes, that includes Hyrule Castle. From the first hour, you can make way to the final boss wielding a stick and a pot lid, wearing no clothes as we all do... Though your chances of succeeding that siege are next to none, as you'll likely be blasted by the first patrolling Guardian you pass. So it is there that the game encourages you to travel the world, and cobble together an improved arsenal and understanding of Breath's narrative. But it's all completely optional. The only two tasks you must complete are getting off the Great Plateau and defeating Ganon, everything else only serves as choice stepping stones to that final path. Of course, the first and foremost thing to look out for are... Shrines... The little ball maze example I gave you earlier can be found in one of Hyrule's many shrines. Weird little puzzle rooms that stick out like a sore thumb in this world. Each shrine has a puzzle for you to solve and a monk to dissolve, which in turn rewards you with a spirit orb. You're going to want these, as they permanently upgrade your health and stamina meter. (And that stamina meter starts out pitiful). Meaning that every time you see a shrine, be it in the open or the reward at the end of a side quest, your going to unceremoniously stop everything to activate it, (which turns it into a nifty fast travel point) and go inside to reap the rewards within. I'll be honest, sometimes these can be more of a bother than a boon. While there is always treasure to be found in them, sometimes it feels like I'm pausing my journey just so I can get some trivial bauble that will eventually be used to upgrade Link. It takes four spirit orbs to get a heart or stamina container, and I'd be lying if I said every single one of these shrines were fun (Those tests of strength can piss right off). Explore to your heart's content... Thankfully, the potential bore of a shrine is remedied by the journey you take to get there. Exploring Hyrule in Breath of the Wild is clearly the main draw. And Hyrule does not disappoint. The world is filled with points of interest and things to do in them. And you will be rewarded for your curiosity. This is by far my favorite part of the game, because I was honestly nervous that this part of the game would be boring. I don't play open world games very often because I'm disappointed when I see sprinkled content and collectables over a barren landscape they call "open" (cough cough Assassin's Creed). But Breath of the Wild eased my nerves by making an explorable world with things to actually explore. Early on in my playthrough I happened upon a beach and noticed a far off island. I sailed to that island and was pleasantly surprised by the events that transpired (killed by them too... a lot.). This stuck with me, as similar experiences would frequently happen as I continued on my adventure. That is to say, an adventure. Never before have I, in my personal experiences played an open world quite like this one. This is a game where exploration is encouraged above all. You can climb any surface, tame a wild horse for faster travel, get directions from townsfolk, signposts, and traveling merchants. The latter is one thing I always love to see, as you can easily explore the world and its many side quests without the need for map makers or dotted lines. Treasures are abound within every nook and cranny of the mountains, forests, river sides, canyons, towns, deserts, ruins, and valleys of Hyrule. And that is one point, if any point, that I want to share today. Breath of the Wild is truly breathtaking as an open world experience, with a genuine adventure to be had. (Well, as genuine a video game adventure can get) But that's only if you can survive it...

There's no denying that Breath is a much more difficult game than previous Zelda games in recent years. Everything in Hyrule will make quick work of poor Link. He must keep warm in extreme cold or cool in extreme heat, or he will die. He must put his metal weapons away during a thunderstorm, or he will die. He shouldn't be climbing a mountain while its raining, or he will fall and probably die (by the way, slippery rain mountains serve no other purpose than to hinder you, and are complete crap). But of course, the biggest threat to Link's mortality are the many ranks of Ganon's malicious minions. These mainly consist of three variants. The mischievous Bokoblins, aggressive Moblins, and crafty Lizalfos, with a few other monster types sprinkled about. The game's high difficulty comes mostly from the creatures strewed about, however, that difficulty is a bit of a farce. In Breath, Ganon's forces hit like a big truck, and take about as much damage you'd expect a big truck to take from a brittle sword. Which is a segway into the infamous weapon durability. Weapons are frail as frail can possibly get. It will only take a couple of skirmishes before your weapon of choice shatters into a million blue sparkles. This is something that many loathe, and many will defend. I personally think that there's enough weapons bursting from the seams to justify them breaking left and right. From the Bokoblin's flimsy clubs, to the mighty swords and spears that pop up everywhere you look, you will not have a shortage of weapons. It's a divided mechanic, and I'd say it's up to your preference if it's garbage or not. The monsters themselves are great. They're expressive while in combat and out. Bokoblins alone will chat with each other at a campfire, and sometimes do a little dance, they'll hunt animals, and fly into a rage when you steal their weapons. In short, they're hilariously charming. If only I could say the same for bosses... Unfortunately, bosses and the dungeons you encounter them in, do not capture that same charm. The four proper dungeons (if you want to call them that) are the disappointing lows of Breath. Gone are the days when dungeons were varied labyrinthine pits of perplexing puzzles, memorable monsters, and... daunting danger... Now they're like shrines... only slightly bigger... and even more boring. To be fair, some of them offer a specialized puzzle solving mechanic that can be accessed anytime from the map, and that is cool. But the experiences overall are lackluster and leave you wanting for more, as you meander about the innards of a big animal robot looking for places to put your iPad. Matters are only made worse when you lock horns with each dungeon's boss. I won't sugar coat it, they're lame, all five of them (the four within the dungeons, plus Ganon himself). They're underwhelming for the most part, and while you can dispatch of them in multiple ways, it does not make for a memorable bout. It also does not help that these five main bosses have, in my opinion, terribly silly designs that clash with the Zelda universe. They're a messy cluster of hair, limbs, and weapons that looks more akin to a failed Resident Evil monster (ESPECIALLY CALAMITY GANON). Kind of sad, really, seeing as how easy or hard, dungeons and their bosses are typically among the best moments of the Zelda series. A sadly hallow legend this time around... Being as big and open as it is, this game has some great gameplay, however, a hit in quality had to be made somewhere, and I'm not just talking about the frame rates. As I've already stated, everything outside of leaping from the plateau and killing Ganon is completely optional. Meaning the narrative had to match its non-sequential and optional playstyle. As a result, the story and main characters aren't the best. I found myself let down as I met the cast of Link's pals, as they are very underdeveloped and one note. Fortunately, minor characters and various NPCs you meet are filled with charm and witty dialogue, and definitely make up for the less interesting main cast. Beedle, Kass, Sidon, Bolson, and every Gerudo guardswoman are only a tiny few of the examples that come to mind. Link himself is an emotionless husk of Boko clubs and mushrooms who stands in his superhero pose with a blank expression as the people around him express their woes and confess their feelings. Link obviously has no need for those, so he ironically contributes nothing to the narrative despite being the main character. He's the polar opposite of the Link in say, Skyward Sword (In fact it's not a stretch to say the entirety of Breath of the Wild is the polar opposite of Skyward Sword). Breath of the Wild tells a story about what happened rather than what's happening, and I feel it suffers in that regard. Small points and Final thoughts... I mentioned the frame rates earlier, it is a problem. It's no secret Nintendo's new console-handheld hybrid isn't exactly a powerhouse (Know nothing of the Wii U version), so some areas of Hyrule will get slight visible slow down. This is seen mostly in fields with tall grass, and a bit heavier in particular forests. Rarely (and I mean extremely rarely) the frame rate will just up and kill itself while fighting Moblins in certain areas, the game freezes altogether if only for a moment. These frame rate drops are few and far between however, and shouldn't put a huge damper on your journey, but when it's there, it's noticeable. Music is great. The minimalistic and melancholic tunes you hear on your adventure is a constant pleasure to the ears. Manaka Kataoka, the lead composer for the Animal Crossing series did a wonderful job for this game (she also dabbled in Spirit Tracks as well, so bonus points for that). The voice acting, which is a first for the main series, is... not as great... The voices aren't terrible, but they aren't too good either. All in all, this game is great. Obviously, how can Zelda do any wrong!? Hyrule is a huge place filled with places to explore and 900 Korok seeds to be found (I found like 80, so good luck). Breath of the Wild offers you an epic adventure that I've always wanted to see from open world games. However, by doing so, I feel it throws out the Zelda formula we've all come to know and, for most, love. And that's not particularly a bad thing in some aspects, but a piece of the heart that makes a Zelda game has been left in a lonely chest. To me, this is a fantastic open world game... But it's no where near my favorite Legend of Zelda game. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 8.5/10 - Great game, highly recommended

You may be wondering, "Matt! Too little too late! This game's been out for weeks, why review it now?" And you're not wrong there, it is a little late to be sharing my thoughts on it. But this is my first review, and I wanted it to be a big game that I put a great deal of time in to. That said. What do you think, too long? Too short? Never want to hear my opinion ever again? The feedback will be duly noted. I wonder what game I could review next, til then, I suppose.

#nintendo #the legend of zelda #breath of the wild #game reviews #nintendrone