Tumgik
#I love me some spider punk but he's like one example of a very specific kind of punk he's not the baseline please understand
thottybrucewayne · 3 months
Text
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, Punk is a music-based subculture and isn't inherently anarchist/commie/leftist. Yes, there is a long history of very political punks and yes, people who care work hard to get skinheads and racists out of their spaces. But that isn't universal. Y'all gonna get hurt going into these spaces if you think everyone there is progressive and kind. Hell, even the "anarchist" punks have a lot of racist/sexist/ableist tendencies themselves. One goodnight white pride patch does not reading actual theory make.
Tumblr media
429 notes · View notes
badchoicesworld · 10 months
Text
blog guide !!
requests are closed, but feel free to send them in regardless. just expect them to be answered a little later !
this is (for now) an across the spiderverse blog !
please allow me up to a week to write up your asks
characters i write for :
Miguel O’hara
Miles Morales
Miles 42
Hobie (let’s go brit rep)
Pavitr Prabhakar
The Spot
Peter B. Parker
Spider-Noir
general info :
i cannot stress this enough, i exclusively write everything but fem reader, y’all got enough .
that being said, feel free to request anything else at all- when it’s not specified i will just assume gender neutral for the sake of inclusion
trans readers, non-binary, everything in between and all about is completely valid here and i’m more than willing to write about it <3
i do have a health condition that can catch me some days, so there may be times where i’m inactive but it should never be for long periods of time
feel free to get oddly specific with requests ! the more i can work with, the better
but i also don’t mind if they’re just general requests that don’t require a lot of detail
i will NOT write explicit NSFW, i draw the line at clothes being removed unless it has something to do with a prompt (e.g. seeing top surgery scars for the first time), some of these characters ages are not specified yet and i don’t feel comfortable potentially writing NSFW for minors. that is a crime.
there will be some requests i won’t obviously be able to complete for a number of reasons, please do not spam me if this is the case. if i’m willing to fulfil a request i will try my best to communicate with you if needed :]
i have the right to deny requests.
i do wanna say that i am a white guy so i can’t write from first hand experience, but if you request something that includes diversity like a specific race or cultural aspects i will try my absolute best to deliver accurate works. I’ll research to whatever extent i need to (if you don’t already give some information) so i can provide for groups of people that are seriously neglected when it comes to fanfiction and such. and please, in the future, if i ever do fuck up PLEASE hold me accountable and if you can show me what i’ve done wrong and what i should’ve done; what i can do to improve, i would be so appreciative- my goal is to be as inclusive as possible with my writing and the last thing i want is to offend any body of people.
finally, there will be types of writing i can’t do for specific characters. for example, spot, idk how tf i would write like a whole one-shot when my man is how he is now so i’d probably just have to stick to headcanons n such
what i will write :
requests can be either platonic or romantic dynamics, potentially other stuff if you have any ideas. just lemme know ! i do like to consider myself half decent at writing, i’ve studied english literature and linguistics my whole life and i love it very dearly <3 i’m going on to study english as a whole at a higher level (literature, language, linguistics, creative writing)
i'm happy to also apply these headcanons to the cc's, so transgender miguel for instance! just let me know :]
i typically write in bullet points because im a mess
x male reader
x nb reader (feel free to specify if they’re ambiguous, masc leaning or whatever if it’s relevant to the ask)
x trans reader
x cis reader
x spider reader
x mutant reader
character x reader
if you request multiple characters (which is fine <3) i’ll likely default to headcanons for the sake of ease
what i won’t write :
x fem reader .
character x character
NSFW
triggering topics (excluding canon events)
weird fetish/kink stuff :[
hate speech, everyone is welcome here
masterlist :
hobie brown:
how i think Hobie would react to GN!reader calling them their husband casually, even though they’re not married
hobie brown with a transgender, vigilante reader (ftm reader)
hobie admires your fighting spirit (gn reader)
hobie’s punk, you’re metal (band edition, masc reader)
where you and hobie have the most loving connection, but don’t label it (gn reader)
where hobie meets gwens older brother (masc reader)
hobie notices how startled you get when he kisses you (gn!)
hobie realises you’re not as naive as he thought ! (gn reader)
with an s/o that cries a lot ! (gn!reader)
hobie with a snake mutated boyfriend !
hobie with a butterfly mutated boyfriend !
defending his trans partner !
miles morales
miles with an artistic boyfriend riddled with anxieties
miles with a snake mutated boyfriend !
defending his trans partner !
miles 42:
miles 42 w/ an artistic spider-reader ! (masc reader)
miles42 with a butterfly mutated boyfriend !
miles 42 w/ and alien boyfriend !
defending his trans partner !
the spot:
the spot getting flustered by masc!reader
the spot falls into winged readers home (gn)
spider-noir:
spider-noir finds out you’re transmasc on a mission !
helping noir understand trans issues (deadnaming, ftm reader)
with an s/o that cries a lot ! (gn!reader)
noir finds out you wear trans tape (transmasc!reader)
defending his trans partner !
25 notes · View notes
anhed-nia · 4 years
Text
BLOGTOBER 10/17/2020: SPOOKIES
What do we watch, when we watch movies? This question was sparked by my SOV experience with the very different, and differently interesting BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER FROM HELL and HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5. Within the Shot On Video category, one can find inventive homemade features that are driven entirely by blood, sweat, and the creators' feeling of personal satisfaction. The results are sometimes fascinating, in their total alienation from the conventions and techniques of mainstream filmmaking, and after all, one rarely sees anything whose primary motivation is passion, here in the late stages of capitalism. But, all this talk about what goes on behind the camera points to a discrepancy in how we consume different kinds of production. The typical mode of consumption is internal to the movie: What happens in it? Do you relate to the characters? Are you able to suspend your disbelief, to experience the story on a vicarious level? One hardly needs to come up with examples of films that invite this style of viewing. Alternatively, we can experience the movie as a record of a time and place in which real people defied conventions and sometimes broke laws in order to produce a work of art. SOV production is usually viewed through this lens, where the primary interest is not the illusory content, but the filmmakers' sheer determination to create. We find some overlap in movies like EVIL DEAD, which simultaneously presents a terrifying narrative, and evidence of what a truly driven team can create without the aid of a studio, or any real money to speak of. See also, Larry Cohen's New York City-based horror films, in which a compelling drama with great acting can exist side by side with phony but beautiful effects, and exciting stories of stolen footage that would be dangerous or impossible to attempt today. I'm thinking about these different modes of consumption now because I just watched SPOOKIES, a legitimately cursed-seeming film whose harrowing production history has superseded whatever people think about what it shows on the screen. The lovingly composed blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome includes a feature-length documentary that attempts to explain the making of the film--which is accompanied by its own feature length commentary track by documentarists Michael Gingold and Glen Baisley. The very existence of this artifact suggests a lot about the nature of this movie, in and of itself. The truth behind its existence is as funny as it is tragic.
Tumblr media
I'm not going to do a whole breakdown of the tortured origins of SPOOKIES, which is much better told by the aforementioned documentary. To summarize: Once upon a time in the mid 1980s, filmmakers Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran and Frank Farel conspired to make a fun, flamboyant rubber monsterpiece called TWISTED SOULS. It was wild, ridiculous, and transparently fake-looking, but it was loved by its hard-working creators; as a viewer, that soulful sense of joy can rescue many a "bad" movie from its various foibles. Then, inevitably, sleazoid producer Michael Lee stepped in--a man who thought you could cut random frames out of the middle of scenes to improve a movie's pace--and ruined it with extreme prejudice. Carefully crafted special effects sequences were cut, relatively functional scenes were re-edited into oblivion, and the seeds of hatred were sown between the filmmakers and the producer. Ultimately, everyone who once cared for TWISTED SOULS was forced to abandon ship, and first time director Eugenie Joseph stepped in to help mutilate the picture beyond all recognition. Thus SPOOKIES was born, a mangled, unloved mutation that would curse many of its original parents to unemployability. For the audience, it is intriguingly insane, often insulting, and hard to tear your eyes off of--but in spite of whatever actually wound up on the screen, it's impossible to forget its horrifying origin story as it unspools.
Tumblr media
As far as what's on the screen goes: A group of "friends", including a middle-aged businessman and his wife, a vinyl-clad punk rock bully and his moll, two new wave-y in-betweeners, and...a guy with a hand puppet are somehow all leaving the same party, and all ready to break into a vacant funeral home for their afterparty. Well, this happens after a 13 year old runaway inexplicably wanders in to a "birthday party" in there, that looks like it was thrown for him by Pennywise, and he has the nerve to act surprised when he is attacked by a severed head and a piratey-looking cat-man who straight up purrs and meows throughout the picture. Anyway, separately of that, which is unrelated to anything, the island of misfit friends finds a nearly unrecognizable "ouija board" in the old dark house. Actually this thing is kind of fun-looking, having been made by one of the fun-havers on the production before the day that fun died, and I wonder if anyone has considered trying to make a real board game out of it...but I digress. Naturally, the board unleashes evil forces, including a zombie uprising in the cemetery outside, a plague of Ghoulie-like ankle-biters, an evil asian spider-lady (accompanied by kyoto flutes), muck-men that fart prodigiously until they melt in a puddle of wine (?), and uh...I know I'm forgetting stuff. One of the reasons I'm forgetting is because of this whole side story about a tuxedo-wearing vampire in the basement (or somewhere?) who has entrapped a beautiful young bride by cursing her with immortality. That part is a little confusing, not only because it doesn't intersect with the rest of the movie, but because sometimes it seems contemporary--as the bride struggles to survive the zombie plague--and sometimes it seems like a flashback, as our heroes find what looks like the mummified corpse of the dracula guy, complete with his signet ring. So, I don't know what to tell you really. Those are just some of the things that happen in the movie.
Tumblr media
Some people like this a lot, and have supported its ascendance to cult status, which is a huge relief when you know what everyone went through to make this movie, only to have it ripped away from them and used against them. I found SPOOKIES a little hard to take, for all the reasons that the cast and crew express in the documentary. It holds a certain amount of visual fascination, whatever you think of it; something of its original creativity remains evident in the movie's colorful, exaggerated look, and its steady parade of unconvincing but inventive creature effects. But then, you have to deal with the farting muck-men. What was once a scene of terror starring REGULAR muck-men, that sounded incredibly laborious to pull off, became a scene of confusing "comedy" when producer Michael Lee insisted that the creatures be accompanied by a barrage of scatalogical noises. Apparently this was Lee's dream come true, as a guy who insisted everyone pull his finger all the time, and who once tried to call the movie "BOWEL ERUPTOR". But, of all the deformations SPOOKIES endured, the fart sounds dealt a mortal injury to the filmmakers' feelings, and even without knowing that, it's hard to enjoy yourself while that's happening.
Tumblr media
Actually, all the farts forced me to ask myself: Is this...a comedy? Like for real, as its main thing? As the movie slogged on, I had to decide that it wasn't, but I was distracted by the notion for around 40 minutes. I was only released from this nagging suspicion when the bride makes her long marathon run through throngs of slavering zombies who swarm her, grope her, and tear off her clothes, before she narrowly escapes to an even worse fate. The lengthy scene is strangely gripping, and sleazy for a movie that sometimes feels like low rent children's entertainment. Part of the sequence’s success lies in its simplicity; it is unburdened by the convoluted complications of the rest of the movie, whose esoteric parts never fall together, so it seems to take on a sustained, intensifying focus. The action itself is unnerving, as the delicate and frankly gorgeous Maria Pechuka is molested and stripped nearly-bare by her undead bachelors, running from one drooling mob to another as the horde nearly engulfs her time and again. Actually, it feels a lot like a certain genre of SOV production in which, for the right price, any old creepy nerd can pay a small crew-for-hire to tape a version of his private fantasy, whether it's women being consumed by slime, or women being consumed by quicksand, or...generally, women being consumed by something. I wish I could describe this form of production in more specific or official terms, because I genuinely think it's wonderful that people do this. Anyway, Pechuka's interminable zombie run feels a little like that, and a little like a grim italian gutmuncher, and a little like an actual nightmare. Perhaps it only stands out against its dubious surroundings, but I kind of love it--and I'm happy to love it, because apparently the late Ms. Pechuka truly loved making SPOOKIES, and wanted other people to love it, too.
Tumblr media
Which brings me to the uncomfortable place where I land with this movie. On the one hand...I think it's bad. It's so incoherent, and so insists on its impoverished form of comedy, that it's hard to be as charmed by it as I am by plenty of FX-heavy, no-budget oddities. Perhaps the lingering odor of misery drowns out the sweet joy that the crew once felt in the early days of creation--which is still evident, somehow, in its zany special effects, created by the likes of Gabe Bartalos and other folks whose work you definitely already know and love. But I feel ambivalent, about all of this. On the one hand, I can be a snob, and shit on people for failing to make a movie that meets conventional standards of success. On the other hand, I can be a DIFFERENT kind of snob--a more voyeuristic or even sadistic one--and celebrate the painful failures that produced a movie that is most interesting for its tormented history and its amusing ineptitude. I'm not really sure where I would prefer to settle with SPOOKIES, and movies like it. (As if anything is really "like" SPOOKIES) With all that said, I was left with one soothing thought by castmember Anthony Valbiro in the documentary. At some point, he tells us how ROSEMARY'S BABY is his personal cinematic comfort food; he can put it on at night, after an exhausting day, and drift to sleep, enveloped in its warm, glowing aura. He then says that he hopes there are people out there for whom his movie serves that same purpose, that some of us can have our "milk and cookies moment" with SPOOKIES. Honestly, I choke up just thinking about that.
12 notes · View notes
joyamidstdarkwaters · 8 years
Text
vintage interview with giant peach
originally conducted and published by the now defunct depressionchamber.tumblr.com in april 2013
So, who all is in this band?
M: Frances Chang and Mike Naideau both sing and play guitar.  Dave Shotwell is on drums and Luke Holstein on bass.
When did the group form and what was everyone reasoning to play in the band? Or I suppose how did everything fall into place?
M: The group as it presently is formed relatively recently. Dave, Fran and I got together about 2 years ago and and played as a trio until about 6 months ago when Luke joined. We've let it evolve naturally and I am just happy to be playing music with some of my best friends.
D: I think we all have this soft spot in our hearts for music that's unabashedly loud and gritty and fuzzy and huge, even if that doesn't always come out in the recordings we make. We like making lots of noise.
There's no doubt that there is a noisy loud element, the guitars are very jangly and intense. They are magnificent in the portions of songs where you guys are just rocking out really hard. Next question will have to be, what inspired the initial sound of the band? If you guys can be more specific then that's great. I've been listening to you guys a lot and I hear a lot of Velocity Girl, but more as a post hardcore influenced band than an indie pop one. It's coming from the drums, which are very commanding. So I can just assume already that there's a whole array of different places you guys are coming from.
F: I think we definitely all bring our own influences to it. In terms of the initial blooming of musical interest we had separate experiences since we didn't really get together until the last couple of years. I'm prefacing because I think the band started as a pretty straightforward personal project, not with any concept of specifically and stylistically what we were going to be. For me, early on I'd say Elliott Smith, Built to Spill, The Cure. On the noisier more guitar - soundscape - side, Olivia Tremor Control, Broken Social Scene, My Bloody Valentine. I definitely started out with an appreciation for the overall sound, mix and mood of a song before I began obsessing over songs that were holistically and articulately thought out in terms of structure and lyrics. That became my new standard for "inspired." And now it's kind of drifting back again, splitting the difference. Some of the more recent songs could be considered narrowly channeled inspiration from: Liz Phair, Delay, The Replacements, PJ Harvey.
M: Major inspiration for me to start playing in a band came from seeing Long Island bands at house shows in the early 2000's. Maybe that's where some of the post-hardcore influence comes from, not sure. There were a lot of cool hardcore bands playing locally around the time, The Solidarity Pact being a good example. My brother introduced me to great bands and people doing really interesting stuff over the years. Aside from that I would say that Neil Young has been a great influence in terms of writing.
D: Cool, thanks! I'll have to admit ignorance as far as Velocity Girl goes, though. Before we had a bass player, I felt like I had a bunch of space to fill, so I was moving around a lot on "Callous and Strange" and the earlier stuff, borrowing a lot from older emo and punk shredder guys like Mike Kinsella from Cap'n Jazz/Owls and Tré Cool from Green Day. It was fun and chaotic, but Luke is a maniacal genius with a bass guitar and he holds the new stuff together so much better than I did when I was banging all over the place. I'm trying to do a lot less with the new stuff, more grooves and less chaos. I love the way the drummer in that band Hum plays. I've been learning (and stealing) a lot from him recently.
Okay so from what I can gather via your answers, you guys are all write your own parts to the songs and there is no primary song writer? Is this correct? How often do you guys feel it is necessary to practice in order to solidify songs, or is there some consensus to a song ever being finished? Is it done when it's played live or is it done when it's recorded?
M: It's definitely a collaborative process but yeah, usually either Fran or I will put a basic version of a song out on the table which becomes a foundation off of which the rest of us can write. We don't really have a consistent practicing schedule right now which has lead to a unique kind of final sound and approach. With a lot of the new material it's as if we're all writing the exact same song but separately, approaching it from our respective perspectives and instruments, and then getting together, practicing and filling in all the blanks at the same time. I think when a song is finished there is a consensus, but we're all intrigued by the idea that it can be revisited and become something else pretty easily if we want it to.
D: Mike and Fran are the real songwriters for the whole thing. They're like the industrial wet-dream dynamo; crazy frequent quantity without ever sacrificing quality. They come up with the progressions and lyrics that eventually become the songs, and as a band we try to develop the aesthetics and transitions within those structures until we get a final result that we're all stoked and giddy and happy with. Ultimately though, I think song's are never really finished. They change and jumble around for as long as they're relevant, or as long as everyone in the band wants to play them. We pretty much treat all of our songs that way, in a sense. We try to nail down a "final" version for the purposes of recording, but after that we always tweak and revisit stuff and change parts around.
F: I think we are all sorta loners, and that's reflected in our need for solitude to focus on writing at least in terms of the first skeleton of a song and everyone's initial conception of their individual parts. There are a lot of home recorded demos from me and mike flying around that are pretty complete structurally. Once we give it a whirl as a group, though, it undergoes a seriously rapid growth period where we just bounce ideas back and forth and it transforms dramatically in a hyper-accelerated way. We just work together really energetically. Figuring it out collectively is the most fun and stimulating part of being in this band.
It's kind of hard to pick who to respond to, but honestly it seems like the way you guys answer questions is the way you guys practice. There are kind of separate versions of the answer but each one seems to fill in the others. Do any of you have any past bands or solo projects? Also, if so, do you feel as though some of those past bands/solo projects seep into Giant Peach? Does Giant Peach seep into any of the projects any one of you is working on congruently?
L: Hi. Luke here. Used to be in a band called Bearface. I currently play bass for Giant Peach, Hot Shot, and FM Circuit, and play guitar in a band called The Shower Scene. Giant Peach has definitely influenced the way I play in other projects. The music that I write for my other bands has always tended to be rather straight forward. By this I mean that the songs are relatively simple in their structure and I rarely venture outside of what I consider to be "normal". Writing bass lines for Giant Peach songs can be challenging as they push me to play outside of my normal comfort zone. I find Peach songs to be more structurally complex than what I'm generally used to. Mike, Fran, and Dave each have a distinct style of playing and it's really exciting to see what comes out when the four of us are playing together. Quite frankly, I would love to be able to play like either Mike or Fran but they both play in what I think is a drop D so I have no idea what they are doing. Their fingers look like spiders. Being in Giant Peach has inspired me to experiment more with dissonant sounds in my other bands. Haven't quite gotten myself to learn play in drop D yet though.
Mike: We've all played in past other bands and work on solo projects on the side. It's nice to have that kind of supplementary outlet. I'm working on a tape of my own recordings right now as well as playing in a band called Outta Gas. It all seeps together. It's never clear exactly how or in what aspect, but it's inevitable, and I think a lot of it happens internally. The more you experiment, the more natural it all feels.
Hi Luke. Honestly it does sound like Mike and Fran have "spider" fingers when playing the guitar. It's legitimately complex.
I suppose this question(s) is more for Mike and Fran... what do you guys usually tend to write about lyrically? Some of the stuff seems to come from very direct slice of life experiences, but there's also this huge dark shadow of mystic and eeriness to the songs. One of the more eerie lyrics that I can remember off the top of my head is the part in "Big Trouble" about having a dream of being murdered by a neighbor.
F: I've actually been struggling lyrically a bit lately because the subject matter has become more and more about anxiety and other weird internal mental traps that don't really manifest outwardly that much, and so are hard to put into words. Nothing is too constructed, though - it's always been fairly stream of consciousness for me. If the music sounds dark or surreal it's because my strongest feelings are sometimes intertwined with fear or constriction. Or cause I can understand things in a series of subjective emotional and aesthetic impressions better than I can verbally. Or maybe the creepy dark shadow you are sensing might be reflective of... I think of life as pretty mystical I guess.
M: I tend to write lyrics to help myself remember an experience. Sometimes trying to capture a specific feeling or moment, but tend to do it by trying to take a step back and see what's going on from a larger, more removed perspective. I guess existential in a way, but still very personal. Hard to say where the line is drawn, but I am intrigued by the kind of duality and contrast you can unearth by bringing those two ideas together.
To be fair, there are a lot of things going on in the band both lyrically and musically. This might stem from the band letting itself go through many angles and letting members have input that most other bands usually tend to avoid/ignore. I think this has created a really solid dynamic within Giant Peach and truly gives you guys a very unique sound, although still etched in familiarity.
Where do you guys see the band heading? Any musical direction, fame, money, fortune? Touring more - Europe, South America, Asia? I personally think that even within a DIY frame all of those places are solid options of this band. But I am a fan.
M: We're planning on recording a lot of our new material for a full-length in the next month or so. I'd love to do a tour once that is out, visit some friends and bands we've met on the road and check out some new cities in the US. Any other country would be great too tough, but no plans yet. I think I'd be partial to South America. I don't think of the band in terms of expectations, so as long as we continue to make things we're proud of and excited about then I couldn't be happier.
0 notes