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#jeez way to erase frank
nellie-elizabeth · 4 months
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Doctor Who: The Star Beast (2023 Special 1)
I mean, I'm going to be emotional no matter what about seeing David Tennant and Catherine Tate back on my screen as the Doctor and Donna Noble. To be frank, this episode didn't have to be that good to draw me in and make me sentimental! Let's see how it went.
Cons:
I think the little prologue thing where we get reminded on the history of Donna and the Doctor as characters was a little strange. I almost would have rather just had a "previously on" with Tennant doing voiceover or something. Especially since the Doctor later explains the whole "Donna took in the mind of a time lord and had to have her memory erased" bit, on screen, to another character.
While I overall want to praise the way pronouns and gender were quite casually discussed in this episode, I did think the fact that Rose was the one to speak up and basically say "did you just assume this alien's gender" was a little clunky. I wish the Meep had just corrected the Doctor outright instead of the one trans person in the room needing to intervene? That's the smallest of nitpicks, though.
Another slightly less small nitpick about the way gender was discussed in this? I really hated the "this is something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand" line. Because isn't the point that the Doctor is male and female and neither and more? And the Doctor has just finished living as a female-presenting Time Lord, that's kind of the whole point, right? So shouldn't it more have been something about, like, Rose and the Doctor both having explored their gender in different ways, made them more aware of how to let go the parts of yourself that you don't want, and hold onto the ones that you do? Couldn't it have been a thing where the Doctor takes ownership of his presentation, like he realizes that subconsciously he wanted to revisit someone he used to be, for a while? And that that's okay? Instead it just felt like this clunky moment where Donna and her daughter got to be like "you don't get it because you're just a stupid man" and that felt so out of the spirit of what the message was meant to be. Also, why give up the meta-crisis? If it wasn't killing them anymore? Jeez.
I did think the dialogue was again a little clunky in the explanation for why Rose was able to take on part of the meta-crisis. Because at first I was 100% on board, the fact that Donna had a child meant that the thing that was too much for one human was passed down and shared between the two of them. That Donna's memories were there buried in Rose's mind, that she made toys based on the aliens they'd met over their adventures, and that she picked the name Rose in part because of Rose Tyler. That's a lot of fun and it makes sense within this wacky sci-fi universe. But I wasn't sure what the "we're binary" and "she's not" business was supposed to be about. Based on what they're literally saying in the scene, it sounds like the Doctor is the nonbinary one, is he not? And Rose is a young transwoman, she's not nonbinary, except in so far as she connects to that? I don't know, it was just sort of a weird explanation. I'm not mad at it like I'm sure stupid reactionary conservatives are going to be, I'm just literally unclear on what they were trying to communicate there.
Shaun seems like a very nice man but he didn't have a ton of time to develop. I felt like I had time to revisit this version of the Doctor and Donna as characters. And Sylvia, it was lovely to see her again, it was like no time had passed. Rose got a few good personality beats, as did another new character Shirley. But Shaun was just kind of there... and a nice guy. And that's fine, I just didn't find him as compelling as the rest of the episode.
Not sure about the new TARDIS design? It seems a little sterile to me. Maybe it'll grow on me.
Pros:
But despite some gripes, I honestly had a really, really good time. And I'm not surprised: having these characters back on screen warmed my heart so much!
Just... instantly the energy of having them on screen together, it was so good. The Doctor seeing Donna, trying to avoid getting sucked in, but everything starts happening so fast that he can't avoid it. The "Rose" "What?" "Rose" "What?" "ROSE" bit was so fucking funny and just the kind of fan service that I personally am after.
I also loved the psychic paper not having caught up to the Doctor's current gender presentation, that was a fun little gag. I appreciated just in general that Tennant played the Doctor like he was slipping into a comfortable and familiar set of clothes. I sort of worried that he'd go mugging about and camping it up too much, and there were a few more bombastic moments, but a lot of it was toned down in a way that I really appreciated. The scene with Shirley, the UNIT scientific advisor, was a good example of this. I loved how she just came up and knew who he was, and he oh-so-casually started chatting with her. Both of them playing it cool in a way that was satisfying to see. Shirley's meeting a legend that she's heard about for who knows how long, and the Doctor is reconnecting with UNIT after a long while. ("Waited your whole life?" / "You wish!")
The Meep is so cute in such an obnoxious sort of way. I love the Doctor's incredulous "it's so cute", almost affronted by the reality of it. Because - same. And everyone saying "The Meep" in such a serious tone of voice was a constant comedic beat. Of course, the plot twist about The Meep being the bad guy and the scary insect aliens being good guys, was fairly predictable, but it still made me laugh! I think sometimes people forget that this is a family show, and it's got to have over the top ridiculous fun for the kids.
It's this wonderful tension throughout the episode, the fact that Donna doesn't remember the Doctor. There's this beat where he hands her the sonic screwdriver to hold for a second while he's working on pushing shields into place, and when she takes it there's this sense of automatic cooperation between them that feels innate to Donna. There's no dialogue, just an expression on her face, to communicate this. I love small moments like that!
I also really loved the through-line of Donna's mother and her worry that Donna will die when exposed to the larger truth about the universe around her. It's not that Sylvia is the perfect mother, there seems to be tension between them and moments where they don't always get everything right with one another. But her care for Donna, the lengths she'll go to, to keep her safe? Very moving for me. She's the one constantly on alert for Donna to start remembering, and the haunted look on her face towards the end when she said "she called him the Doctor", was honestly really powerful.
This is a small thing, but the techno-babble felt especially comedic and ridiculous in that good campy sci-fi fun way that Doctor Who is often so good at. "Brandish the gravity stanchions" / "Gravity stanchions brandished" had me laughing out loud. And "vindicate the cyberline", "inculcate the plexidrones" were some other good ones. I'm sure if I went back and watched again there would be another dozen I could chuckle at.
The fact that Donna has like... a mindwipe reinitiating sequence, like the freakin' Winter Soldier or something, is honestly so funny to me. But also, Tennant and Tate are good enough performers, and there's enough of a history and build-up with these characters, that his realization of what he has to do to save London still hits really hard. It's almost an echo of the sacrifice the Doctor made all those years ago to save Wilf. (Who, we find out, is still alive and living in a very posh nursing home. So that's fun!)
But it really worked well for me, the Doctor starting to break down, wondering why it had to be this! He's suffered so much, and he loves Donna so much, and he just wants her to be safe!
I was genuinely moved by Donna's death scene! There's something about the Doctor when the role is played really well, and the script is firing on all cylinders, where the fact of his impossibly long life is there, a pressure filling up the room, adding weight to every moment. The fact that the Doctor and Donna have this final exchange and the Doctor is able to quite calmly smile down at Donna as she dies in his arms... the part where he might have gotten this face back just to say goodbye, and Donna saying "good fun, though".... it was so sweet and simple, and then cut to the mind-controlled soldiers coming into the room as he cradles her dead body. They say they're here to kill him, and he says "do what you want." Amazing. Chills.
And then that bit at the end: "I really do remember, though. Every second with you. And I'm so glad you're back, because it killed me, Donna." I did in fact have all the feels.
A couple other moments that really made me smile: the Doctor realizing about Rose's name, that was quite lovely. And the bit where Donna's husband isn't even a little bit insecure at the thought of Donna going somewhere alone with the Doctor, because, come on: look at him. And Donna giving up her lottery winnings because she wanted to be kind and soft and helpful like the Doctor, even though she couldn't remember him? That fucks me up in the best way!
While I've critiqued a couple of awkward moments with the discussion of gender, I do also want to take a moment to praise what worked well. First, just meeting Rose and seeing her without being pre-introduced to the idea that Donna's daughter is trans. Then, that scene with Donna and Sylvia in the kitchen, where Sylvia accidentally says "he" and feels self-conscious about commenting on Rose's looks, even in a positive light, because she never did that back before she transitioned. That felt very real to me and like a good way to lightly address a real issue for the audience to maybe contemplate a bit.
So now we're off on another adventure, and we've got two more episodes to look forward to with the Doctor and Donna. I feel really grateful for a chance to hang out with them again. What other cameos from the past might we get to see?
8/10
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dehydratedpercy · 3 years
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Every time someone comments on my fic saying "I'm sad because the endgame is clearly percabeth" or "the endgame is clearly jercy" or whatever I lose another year off my life
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thedragonemperess · 3 years
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I Saved Your Life! - Superhero Kaz/Bionic Chase AU
Fandom(s): Lab Rats/Mighty Med
Pairing(s): Kase/Chaz
Rating: G
Warnings: Slight language
Tags: @starspangleddummy @tronagon
Notes: Based off of these two posts by @starspangleddummy
       “That was a great job, guys,” Chase said to his team as they exited the hydro-loop, dropping a duffel bag with supplies.
       They had just gotten back from a mission. Another one of Mr. Davenport’s devices had become unstable and they were sent in to fix it. Specifically, Davenport Industries was messing with a new form of renewable energy, but they overdid it. The workers had to be rushed out, but some of them were blocked in, not to mention the fact that the device handling it was gaining more energy each second, getting ready to explode if nothing was done. After rescuing everyone, they rushed to the main location of the warehouse and found some more people hiding. Amy and Micheal (who could lace their bodies in metal) took the remaining three scientists and hid them in front of them, while Teresa used her force fields to surround the area. Chase used his molecular kinesis to push it through the roof and into the water nearby, so that it wouldn’t cause as much damage.
       “Thanks, Chase, but we owe it to our Mission Leader,” Teresa said, playfully punching him in the shoulder.
       Chase shook his head. “As nice as that compliment is, you were the one that came up with how to contain the energy and Micheal and Amy’s quick thinking protected the people working there. I may have got us in, but you guys deserve just as much credit as I do.”
       “Yeah, what he said. Now can we please go to our capsules? I would really like to shower after all of this,” Micheal asked.
       “Yeah, that would be nice. Then hopefully we could relax a bit. I mean, we’ve had missions all week,” Amy added
       Chase nodded at them. “Go ahead. I need to talk to Mr. Davenport real quick, but I’ll be close behind.”
The others nodded at him in return before jogging down the hall.
       Chase watched them until they were out of ear shot, and then walked over to the cyber desk in order to call Donald, who was at home with Tasha and Naomi at the moment. He was about to press call when another mission alert came up. He quickly dismissed the alarm and read into it.
Super villain by the name of Professor Slime running rampant in Philadelphia. Urgent.
       Chase weighed his options. He could take his team with him, who is in desperate need of a break, or go alone and fight some guy with a very terrible code name. He laughed to himself at it. Anyone with that silly of a name must be fake news. He came to the conclusion that it was either a false alarm or the people in the area were overreacting.
       He heard footsteps coming from behind him. He turned around to find his team on their way over.
       “What was the mission alert for?” Teresa asked, exhausted.
       “Oh, it was nothing. It was a false alarm. Someone must have still had a business card from when Leo started advertising us. It was just some cat stuck in a tree. I called the fire department for her, it’s nothing to worry about,” Chase lied, brushing off any concern they might have had.
The others gave a small cheer.
       “Yessss! I can finally finish reading my book then!”
       “You do that, I’m going to sleep.”
       “If you need me, I’ll be out on the beach.”
       Once they turned around, Chase looked back to the cyber desk and hit one of the buttons, saying that someone’s on the way. He runs back to the hydra loop, grabbing the duffel bag on his way. He sits down and looks through it, grabbing a teleporter that he and Douglas had made a year ago. The doors close and he zips back to the mainland. He puts in the coordinates, and as soon as he exits the hydro-loop again, he disappears.
_____________________________________________
Chase flew into the concrete wall, sliding to the floor. Professor Slime walked up to him slowly.
       “The fact that you ever thought you could defeat me is amusing, and then the fact that you actually tried is even more so, but sadly, I’m going to have to kill you now,” he proclaimed. He raised a ray gun and aimed it at Chase, looking down on him.
       “Not on my watch!!” a new voice came from the side. Chase looked over slightly, seeing a blur of orange, black, and brown fly by, tackling Professor Slime.
       The blur was on top of him, holding him down to the road. “Hey! I got him! I actually got him!”
       “Why don’t you try again?” Professor Slime exhorted, dissolving into slime and slithering away.
       “What the hell--?”
       Professor Slime morphed back into a human behind him, and kicked the blur down to the ground.
       “I guess I’m going to have to kill you too, then!”
       The gun powered up, but a blast of ice knocked it out of his hand, its ray hitting a mailbox while being thrown against the wall by Chase. Professor Slime looked over to the person that owned the cryo blast with a scowl.
       “Who are you people, and where are you coming from?!”
       The other boy moved his hands to his hips and looked off into the distance, attempting to look heroic.
       “The name’s Cold Front, and what you’re doing, isn’t very ice.”
       “Really dude?” the blur asked?
       Cold Front looked at him and back at Professor Slime, changing his pose to a fighting stance, his expression changing to a more serious one.
       “Come at me, Archie.”
      Professor Slime, or Archie, ran at Cold Front, who was barely just barely able to dodge him. Professor Slime stretched his arm, and grabbed him, lifting him up. The blur shot a blast of fire at his arm, melting the slime off of him. Cold Front dropped to the floor, falling forward onto his knees. Professor slime ran to the parts of him that melted off and tried to gather it back into his body.
       “Cold Front! Blast him! Now!”
       Cold Front did a double take, but reached his left arm out and blasted him, getting up as he did so. Professor Slime’s form slowly froze, until he was completely covered in ice. Once done, Cold Front turned to the blur and put his hand in the air.
       “Up top, Pyre!”
       The blur, now known as Pyre, high-fived him. “Heck yeah, buddy!”
       Chase looked over to the ray gun, still next to him, and grabbed, weakly pointing it at the two of them. “Who-who are you?! And how were you able to….well, that!” he gestured to Professor Slime, whose frozen body was hunched over on the floor.
Pyre walked up to him and stuck out his hand. “Dude, relax, we’re just here to help.”
       Chase shook his head frantically. “But what you just did was impossible! Are you bionic? Are….are you alien? Are you one of those superheroes? Even if you were any of those, what you just did goes against all laws of science! Am I dreaming? What just happened? For real?”
       Pyre rolled his eyes. “You got your ass handed to you. I saved your life!” A loud coughing noise came from behind him, making Pyre roll his eyes again. “Okay, we saved your life.”
       Chase finally looked up at Pyre and froze. “Oh god he’s cute. What do I say, now? Do boys like confidence? Yeah, be confident!” he thought to himself.
       “Well, I didn’t need your help.”
       “Not that confident!”
       “Sorry for trying to help someone in trouble, then. Jeez,” Pyre stated, retracting his hands and turning around to head to Cold Front.
       Chase panicked. “Wait!” He pushed himself up, leaning back against the wall.
       Pyre turned back around. “What is it? I thought you didn’t need our help, and we got other things to do.”
       “I, uh,...look. What I said came out wrong. I just panicked. Thank you, Pyre, was it?”
       “Yeah, Pyre. And no problem.” He started to turn again, but Chase stopped him.
       “Wait! Again. Sorry, but can I keep this? To study? I don’t know if you know who I am, but, uh, I’m Chase Davenport.”
       Pyre’s face seemed to light up in awe and realization. “Oh! Yeah, sure! Umm, we’ve met before! At the island. Remember the whole thing with the Incapacitator? I was the better looking Frank.”
       (“Hey! I can hear you, y’know!”)
      “But if that was you, how were you able to do all of,” Chase gestures to Professor Slime, again, “that?”
       “It’s a long story that I will make sure to tell you some other time. But I have to go bring Archie, over there, to jail. So keep the ray gun, erase anyone who saw me and Cold Front’s memory, and I’ll see you around.” Pyre turned around completely, and jogged over to Cold Front.
       “Ready?”
       “Ready.”
       “Wait, wha--”
       Chase was cut off with a flash of light. When he looked over to where Pyre, Cold Front, and Professor Slime once were, there was nothing. He looked around him to see if they were anywhere close by, but when they were nowhere to be seen, he scanned the area for his duffel bag. After locating it, he walked over to it and took out the Neural Scrambler. Doing what he was asked too, he talked to anyone who saw the battle and erased their memory of it, just as confused as they were.
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dukeofriven · 5 years
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Batman: No Man’s Land is what made me a Batman fan - and it is equally what made me abandon the “Big Two” comic companies some years later as everything I liked was erased from continuity, Cassie Cain was treated like dog shit, the “Bat Family” became an all-boys club and so on. Given that DC has rebooted everything at least twice I feel my disdain is warranted - you can go on all you like about how Batman is ‘an eternal story’ but I firmly believe that  the kind of storytelling I want from Batman cannot survive contact with constant reboots and disregarded continuity. I could live in a world where twenty years from now Batman is retired and his predecessors are living out his ideals in their own way - comics keeps doing this but never lets it stick, the commitment to some platonic ideal of brand identity never letting anything move on. All the stories I’ve loved over the last few decades have largely been serialized ones - I can enjoy non-seralized work, even love it: a good Calvin and Hobbes strip is always timeless. But C&H and DC comics are trying to do very different things - Calvin can stay young forever, I don’t think I really want that from Batman. Every few years my favourite characters all become strangers, or cease to exist, and I’m supposed to just keep reading? Sorry, DC - investing in an ephemeral story subject to the whims of editors hunting more sales and restarting everything because that’ll let “new readers get on board.” Given the ever-falling drop of DC and Marvel comics sales, coupled with the endless hard and soft reboots, I don’t actually think that’s true. i think jumping on to a story with years of depth behind it is wonderful. When Is tarted reading MTMTE I wasn’t put-off that it was the latest entry in a long line of them: I went back and read the entire decade-long run of IDW Transformers comics. And some of it was shit, yeah - but some of it was great, and when i returned to the new stuff all that weight of past actions and people meant something. It gives worlds substance, even if you’ve not read that exact issue being referenced - you know that others have come this way before. All of this is a very long intro to this: I am re-reading all of NML to see if it still holds up - writing, story, all that jazz. And... uh... Oh Jeeze. I forgot about this. This is my old nemesis: Mark Buckingham.
Mark Buckingham has had a very storied career. He’s a decent inker, fine as a colourist blah blah blah - but he... woof. he’s a dreadful penciler. And he’s won lots of awards and renown and I’ve never understood why - because his faces do this thing and it’s the worst. Mark Buckingham first came to my attention when he took over as penciler on issues 6 of Fables. He replaced Lan Medina who did the first five issues and had this wonderful, kind of old-fashioned romance comics style I love, especially his rendering of Snow White:
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(Fables #01) Medina left after issue five - no idea why . - eventually snagging an Eisner for it but not, as far as I can tell, much name recognition beyond that, one of those jobbing artists who pencils in relative obscurity, occasional attached to something big but never bestowing much on him. Or maybe he’s huge among those “in the know” -  time on Google came up with a lot of stub articles and the like. Anyways, from issue 6 Mark Buckingham takes over and goes on the pencil the vast majority of the next 145 issues... This is a tragedy, because when Lan Medina drew Bigby Wolf his face... well...it didn’t melt.
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These are all from Fables #07, which is the first issue i really started to notice this problem. Most of Buckingham’s work is unobjectionable, but he keeps having these bizarre faces almost always involving Bigby.
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Fables 13
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Fables 14 Hell let’s jump ahead to:
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Fables #50 Fables #50, by the way, is the point at which I really started to question “why the fuck am I still reading this?” It’s the issue where after a big long masturbatory commando raid the Big Bad Wolf turns to the camera and tells Gepetto - but really the audience - the author's opinions on Israel.
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It’s as jarring and out-of-place as it looks. If you’re wondering”‘Should I read Fables” the answer depends entirely on how much you enjoy something that isn’t so right-wing that it openly endorses fascism, but just right wing enough to surprise you now and again with something that leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. Fables always feels what would have happened if Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman had been merged into a single being and made an imaginative but reactionary comic book. But all that lay in the future. In 1998 Mark was working of Shadow of the Bat, one of the numerous Batman spin-off that all came together to make Batman: No Man’s Land, including Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Detective Comics, Azrael: Agent of the Bat (which is shit), Catwoman, Robin, Batman Chronicles, Nightwing, Catwoman, a couple of one-shots like Batman: Huntress & Spoiler, crossovers with Young Justice and JLA, and last but not least, a comic called Batman. (I can’t stress how bad Azrael: Agent of the Bat is. When people make fun of angsty, over-wrought 90s comics, they’re talking at least in part about Azrael. Apparently he made it over to the new Prime universe. No idea why.) And boy - if you thought Fables had a melting problem, let’s look at Shadows of the Bat! (These are are all from #73)
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It’s something to do with the mouth - his habit of erasing the middle of it just makes men look like Jim Halpert crossed with Guy Smiley and I hate it.
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Oh Jesus, Oracle - eat something, for the love of God, you’re emaciated!
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Blargle blargle blargle
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This isn’t an example of bad art. I just wanted to note that Anarky is here. Who is that, you ask? He’s a third-rate V rip off who exists because it was the 90s. You don’t care about Anarky. Nobody has ever cared about Anarky. He was supposed to be the third Robin and got dumped - that’s how much nobody cares about Anarky.
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Guest appearance by Jim Carrey!
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Why is this so god-damn funny?
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asoue-sideblog · 5 years
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Penultimate Peril pt 1 liveblog
note: includes spoilers from books and/or promotional details that go past TPP part 1
really good opening shot
well Kit, you know, it could very well be both
okay again WHAT ABOUT JACQUELYN. can’t they have the Baudelaires ask and Kit tell them that Jacquelyn isn’t there? it’s just... a really glaring omission.
“children make the best flaneurs” okay kit
“of course we will” PLEASE DON’T.... DON’T FORGET NOT TO TAKE ORDERS BEFORE YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION... DON’T DO THIS, VIOLET
“my husband, what’s-his-name” oh my god
“He’s kidnapped those Snow Scouts we kidnapped!”
“I like her” VIOLET... please... that doesn’t mean you should trust her...
“How can we tell them apart?” “(complete bullshit non-answer)” 
I’m glad they’re keeping the “distraught and pregnant” but choked up for two seconds and a fading smile as they leave ain’t a desperate crying jag about how they’ll fail
I like the “send my regards to Frank” fakeout with Dewey
oh huh, Lemony and Kit.
"Some parents! They wouldn’t even pay the ransom” HOLY SHIT
“Something red. A sauvignon blank.” alkjfaksldfj
“Frank or Ernest?” “exactly” alkfdjaslkdfjakjd
“Are you Frank or Ernest?” “That’s an interesting question.” This seems to be the Netflix version confirming (in a pleasingly subtle and ambiguous way) what was just a theory about the book version: that the third time a manager appears in the lobby it’s an early Dewey appearance. I like that, I’ve always liked that theory.
rip lettuce bikini
THE CLANG ON THE BEACH BALL... SO THAT’S WHERE IT IS...
BIRD-WATCHING IS ALWAYS IN
Violet is... not very good at eavesdropping. bless her heart.
“You of all people should know who JS is!” ooooooh I love this, they’re gonna drop hints for the different JS’s
so you’re just gonna have the manager flat out tell Violet that he wants her to give Carmelita the harpoon gun... Netflix really isn’t a fan of ambiguity. 
“have you considered being a doctor” aldskfjasdkfjasdkf great line
“we met at a support group for people who were terrorized by Esmé Squalor” wtf “it’s definitely not a cover story” uh... huh. okay I think I like this. 
holy shit they just made Jerome/Charles and Babs/Remora canon
“I despise you” aldksfjalsdkfj thanks, thanks Sunny
it’s really, really too bad about the actors they couldn’t get for these episodes but so far I like what they’re doing with shuffling the reappearances around
Olaf’s line about really liking kids is incredibly fucking disturbing, Jesus Christ
ahahaha Olaf dragging Jacques in disguise
oh god this is like what he did to Violet in book Reptile Room, fuck off I hate this
huh, they had Poe have written this book instead of Jerome. I... don’t know about that.
“like orphans or cats” alksdfjalskdjfalskdfjaskldfjasdf
huh, so Ernest is flat-out a murderer in Netflix canon.
FINALLY they mention Jacquelyn, jeez
the elephant poem ;_; bertrand ;_;
Violet’s little diagram is really cute
HERE SHE IS!!!!!!!!!!!! JUSTICE STRAUSS!!!!!!!!! JS JS JS JS
Despite everything, despite how she’s failed them before and will again, it’s really nice to see her again. She may be a failure, but she does love them.
ALKSDFJALSKDFJASKFJ QUIGLEY SITTING NEXT TO HER
Hm. So this is Strauss’s plan in this canon. Oh, okay, it’s her book. yeah, I’m okay with that. I mean... hm. To a certain extent The Penultimate Peril shouldn’t be streamlined, but I can get behind making parts of it more neatly centered around Strauss instead of Strauss and Jerome Squalor. But making the entire thing Strauss’s plan absolves VFD of responsibility for the plan’s failure and erases the implications that the trial was about re-securing VFD’s position and clearing the names of prominent volunteers, and erases the implications that VFD had exploited people who wanted to help the Baudelaires by setting them to digging up secrets VFD wanted instead of doing something actually material helpful for the kiddos, implications that I believe with all my heart very much were present in the book and had provided moral ambiguity to VFD buffaloing ignorant children into putting themselves at risk to help secure the trial and bla bla bla I’m still banging this drum, bla bla bla VFD sucks bla bla bla.
“THEN THIS NIGHT IS DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS” FUCK FUCK FUCK I AM CRY “WE’LL BE A FAMILY SOON” I’M DYING
“The world’s troubles aren’t the fault of any one person, but it is your fault if you do nothing” - that’s not a bad moral. I can get behind that.
ooh I like the change with the Baudelaires finding the sub-basement
“Kit and I are leaving V.F.D. to raise our child” it’s cute that you think that, Dewey
"hey what if I go enjoy my own family while you take care of my responsibilities instead of finding a home and family of your own” holy shit Dewey what the fuck is wrong with you. though I do like the fakeout of the “sub-library or Justice Strauss?” dilemma existing for all of two seconds before of course we realize they would never even get that choice.
“it’s not poorly organized, it’s arranged like a library catalog” Klaus... it can be both
Esmé that’s... that’s not a good hairstyle
“a man whose pant leg doesn’t even cover his ankle” OH SHIT
holy shit the way the tendons on her neck stand out when she hisses “EX TREME LY OUT” oh my god
Esmé being devastated that Olaf is breaking up with her seconds before she could break up with him aldskfjalskdfjasdkfj that feels so right
“It’s all I know how to do” ;_;
oh the lights coming on, and the voices, and the crows... I like that
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fieldsofplay · 4 years
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Top Albums of 2019
Top Albums of 2019.
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25.  William Tyler – Goes West
For those of you reading along, I want to thank you for sticking with this blog for basically an entire decade at this point. Jeez, where does the time* go? To that end, I’m gonna put out a decade list sometime next week, so to keep my sanity somewhat in check, this years tops list is going to be a little more abbreviated than usual. A few less records, a few less words, but still the same self indulgence you’ve come to know and expect.  To that end, William Tyler.  Tied for my favorite cover art with IGOR.  This is beautiful finger-picked cosmic acoustic guitar music with some nice flourishes added by Brad Cook and the usual suspects.  Perfect for fall days.  I accidentally heckled him at a concert about the Andy Griffith show, but I was only trying to say he shouldn’t be ashamed about liking that program.  The shame still haunts me, much like this music. *A fictional social construct
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24.  Floating Points – Crush
Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend to know much about electronic music.  I don’t know the deep history, I don’t know the technical lingo, but like pornography, I know it when I hear it.  Much has been made about the impact opening for the XX and being limited to minimal gear while doing so had on Sam Shephard, and I’ll admit the differences from Elaenia is palpable.  Where that album felt minimal, Crush is maximal, bursting with colors and ideas, not unlike the beautiful painting that adorns its cover.  I never quite knew what the phrase Intelligent Dance Music was supposed to mean, but to me, that’s precisely what this is. You could dance to “LesAlpx” if you wanted, or you could just throw it on headphones and drift away to its unceasing pulse. Find you a man who can do both.
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23.  Nerija – Blume
Let me be the first to tell you that jazz is back! Centering largely in London, there is thrilling music being made by the likes of Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming, and this year, by Nerija. Breathing new life into a long moribund form (at least until Kendrick Lamar started featuring jazz musicians on his albums), Blume literally does just that, unfurling jazz from a long dormancy.  While I’m not normally a fan of the guitar in jazz, here it keeps the whole thing moving forward, as the horns swirl around in a supportive role and the percussion cooks.  “Riverfest” is the best exemplar, as the guitar chimes with joy while the cymbal-crashes enliven the vibe.
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22.  Florist – Emily Alone
A tale as old time (song as old as rhyme): member of ambient-electronic band puts out solo acoustic album, about the sadness of moving to LA and finding oneself.  No one is reinventing the wheel here, but I can’t help but feel little touches of Florist’s electronic full-band output in Emily Sprague’s solo record—the way the words repeat, subtly, but building meaning with each little phrasal repetition. Plus, the ocean is a recurring image, and dear lord do I miss the sea. If you want to listen a sad girl sing sad songs accompanied by acoustic guitar, you aren’t going to do better than Emily Alone this year.
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21.  Kevin Morby – Oh My God
Possibly the best Kevin Morby record?  No one else would say that, but I will.  If so, why is it so far down the list? Well, when you consistently put out amazing records year-after-year it becomes difficult for any individual album to make an imprint on the “culture.” I think “Seven Devils” is possibly his finest tune.
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20.  Sacred Paws – Run Around the Sun
My friend David turned me on to this band right before I was about to embark on a road trip up north in the middle of the summer, and let me tell you, that was the perfect time to first experience Run Around the Sun.  Noodly guitars burst out of every seam on this record, as bubblegum lyrics tie the whole shebang together.  If you ever wondered what the Shangri-las would sound like if Johnny Marr played lead guitar, I give you Sacred Paws.
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19.  Jamila Woods – Legacy! Legacy!  
On Legacy! Legacy! Woods takes the R&B of the excellent Heavn and applies a jazzier sheen, to excellent results.  One need look no further than the track titles (“Frida,” “Miles,” “Basquiat,” “Baldwin,” “Sun Ra” etc.) to see that Woods is consciously engaging with the titans of history, and here, while she doesn’t exactly reach the heights of those innovators, she certainly begins to carve out a legacy of her own as one of the best voices in a currently thriving R&B scene.
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18.  Mt. Eerie & Julie Doiron – Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2
On Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2 Phil Elverum (of The Microphones) and Julie Doiron (of Eric’s Trip) recapture the magic they bottled on the first Lost Wisdom back in 2008.  It is hard to imagine sparer music than this, but the duo make so much of a pair of voices and few plucked guitar or banjo lines.  As with all of his music of late (for obvious reasons), loss hangs all over Elverum’s output, but here, the loss is more mood and less of a literal presence (with the exception of the blistering “Widows”).  Few songs I can think of capture a single, specifically odd phenomenon quite like “When I Walk Out of the Museum.”
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17.  DIIV – Deceiver
As capital-G guitar music recedes further into irrelevance, it’s good to still have a band like DIIV kicking around, who make shoegaze like it’s still 1991.  And it’s a good thing they are still making their beautiful walls of feedback, as heroine has repeatedly knocked this band off the rails of what appeared to be a very promising career.  This is ominous, portentous music, that swirls with white noise and black despair.  Shoegaze is premised on making beauty out of the squall of overdriven electric guitars, and DIIV make beauty of the squall of 21st century opiate addiction.
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16.  Earl Sweatshirt – Feet of Clay
Earl continues the excellent experimentation of Some Rap Songs in the (slightly) more structured Feet of Clay.  Whereas Some Rap Songs felt like fragments, the tracks on Feet of Clay (almost) feel like “songs” proper.  Earl continues to quickly sweep the ground out from underneath you, whether it’s in the form of oddly woozy backing tracks that can’t really be called “beats” or the sub 2-minute run times, but he seems to pack slightly more structure into those abbreviated entrants, even if there are a lot less of them than there were on Some Rap Songs.  Right now no one is pushing the boundaries of hip-hop like Earl, and each new release, even if the total run time is under 15 minutes, is a thrilling event.
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15.  Better Oblivion Community Center – S/T
Yes, last year I had Boygenius as my number one record, but if I’m being frank, and I am, this is the better collaborative album put out by Phoebe Bridgers.  At first blush a record between the up-and-coming Bridgers and the largely has-been Conor Oberst seems like a desperate grab at continued relevance by the latter, but having seen them live, I must admit the pairing makes perfect sense.  The energy between the two is infectious, and while they share a common fascination with emo, they really draw the best out of each other.  Bridgers plays the Emmylou Harris role from I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning to perfection, and Oberst plays the Kenny Rodgers in “Islands in the Stream.”  For a period I could not turn on Radio K without hearing a song from this album, which is strange because, as a college radio station, every hour is usually completely different.
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14.  Chromatics – Closer to Grey
In a certain way, Chromatics are victims of their own tendency towards self-mythologizing.  Their last two official albums were absolutely perfect slices of Italo-Disco, equal parts late night ennui and seething dancefloor longing.  There was way more guitar on those albums than most anyone would appreciate on first glance, and yet Ruth Radelet’s smoky vocals were unquestionably the star.  In the interim Johnny Jewel (the mastermind behind the band and basically everything on Italians Do it Better) famously destroyed all the copies of the long teased Dear Tommy after a near death experience, provided essential music to Twin Peaks: The Return (which included multiple Chromatics performances at the dear Road House), and then suddenly dropped Closer to Grey out of the sky, with neither warning nor fanfare.  This record is everything you would want a Chromatics record to be, but perhaps that is part of the reason it didn’t really make a major impression. It felt a little Chromatics-by-the-numbers, right down to the cover of “The Sound of Silence” to open it up.  I absolutely love this album, and if it weren’t for the incredible quality of albums put out this year, it would certainly be a top-10 or top-5 in any other year (hell, in the terrible-for-music 2018 it would have been number one by a mile).  Perhaps the biggest frustration is just how fucking good “Light as a Feather” is.  It hints at a version of Chromatics influenced by Portishead, and now that’s all I want more of.
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13.  Thom Yorke – ANIMA
Doubt it if you will, you sneering youngsters, but Thom Yorke and his more well-known band are currently making some of the best music of their careers.  Just as A Moon Shaped Pool was a much needed return to form after the completely forgettable King of Limbs, with ANIMA Yorke gets back to what made The Eraser so compelling all the way back in 2006.  While a fondness for Aphex Twin is no longer at all exceptional in rock music in 2019, it was in 2006, and with ANIMA, Yorke gets back to the creepy, clicky, paranoid distrust of modern consumer culture that is solidly his wheelhouse.  Bonus points for using Netflix and a pairing with PTA to make America care about a long form music video again in 2019.
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12.  Black Marble – Bigger than Life
I would call black Marble my favorite new band of the year, but the thing is, they aren’t new, just new to me.  Bigger than Life is their third record, and first for Sacred Bones (whose distinctive album art is what first caught my eye).  Because their music is comprised solely of arpeggiated synths, melodic bass, and clinking drum machines, overlaid with melancholicly narrow vocals, it is easy to accuse Black Marble of being a little same-y.  However, if you, like me, worship at the temple of New Order, than this is the band for you.  I have lived with their three extant albums the last couple months (the second, It’s Immaterial, being my favorite), and in reality, this is really the only music I want to listen to.
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11.  Big Thief – U.F.O.F. / Two Hands
If you’re reading this than you likely already know how much I love Big Thief, and you might be a little surprised that one, if not both, of the records they put out this year is not sitting atop this list based on how much I’ve professed my love for this band over the course of 2019.  So here’s the thing, the highs on both of these albums--“U.F.O.F.” “Not”--are better than anything else anyone has done this year, but to my ear both records suffer from a flew blah-ish passages that prevent either album, on its own, from achieving top status.  However, if you borrow a few tracks here (Cattails, Contact) and a few tracks there (Shoulders, Two Hands) and made one album out of the highlights of both sessions, you would unquestionably have the album of the year.  That Big Thief gave us two records brimming with amazing folk rock ideas is a blessing.
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10.  Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow
Hey, do you remember Sharon Van Etten put out an amazing record in 2019? I bet you don’t.  The culture moves so fast these days that albums from January might as well have been released five years ago, and it seems to me like this record slipped off a few peoples’ radars as the year progressed, which is a shame, considering how damn good it is (her best imho).  There are few runs on an album I’ve enjoyed more this year than “Jupiter 4’s” electro-throb into “Seventeen’s” Springsteen chug into “Malibu’s” comedown.  Bonus points for being my dear friend Hadley’s downstairs neighbor for all those years.  Ah Brooklyn, how I miss thee.
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9.  Black Midi – Schlagenheim
Yes, that most reliable of music-critic tropes: the hot young band from London.  Black Midi made waves with a legendary youtube video of their live show, and having seen it in person, let me tell you, even that now infamous video doesn’t do them justice.  Much like its gobldy-gook made up title, Schlagenheim is an amalgamation of strands of music that don’t really fit together but somehow they pull off with aplomb.  At times they play with the hardcore fury of Minor Threat, while at others the proggy interconnectivity of Rush at their most arena-rockish, all with a weird dash of David Byrne wiry energy holding it all together.  If they come to your town, go see them, just don’t stand in the front unless you want to be swept into the maelstrom.
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8.  Helado Negro – This is How You Smile
Did you love Little Joy (the Strokes sideproject) but wish it was occasionally electronic and periodically in Spanish? If so, I give you Helado Negro. This is the prettiest record of the year; it never goes above a certain emotional register / decibel range, but it inhabits the spectrum in which it lives like a ghost in its occasional electronic flourishes.  This is a record for someone with a long drive with something to think about. “Seen my Aura” is simultaneously funky and restrained, acoustic and electronic, and emblematic of the joys of This is How You Smile.
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7.  Sturgill Simpson – Sound & Fury
Each of Sturgill Simpson’s last three records have been fundamentally different from one another, and each has been excellent, which is almost impossible to accomplish.  Metamodern Sounds in Country Music introduced many, like myself, to a new voice in an often overlooked medium, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth dusted off the horns from Elvis’s stax-era and romped around, and now with Sound & Fury Sturgill looks to the outlaw tradition (and ZZ freakin Top) he’s so-often been associated with, but rarely resembled, to crank out an incredible record that is far more “rock” than it is “country.” Throw on a heaping of 80’s-era Springsteen synths and you have the recipe for a record that makes me very, very happy.  The two halves of “Make Art not Friends” have little business coexisting within a single track (the first half sounds like Tangerine Dream, the second half Arcade Fire) and yet it is precisely in this tenuous cohabitation that Sturgill has produced his best record to date.
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6.  Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride
Vampire Weekend started out their career being accused of stealing from Graceland and ended up becoming Paul Simon.  Funny how that works out sometimes.  Modern Vampires of the City has become, next to Sound of Silver, the definitive record about life in New York during my era (2005-2016).  On the follow up, the band, newly shorn of Rostam Batmanglij (whose solo record is also phenomenal, even though he’s maybe one of the worst performers I’ve ever seen), decamped to California, and Father of the Bride revels in both the California sun and a well earned sense of accomplishment.  “Hold You Now” is my favorite song of the year, it is simply stunning.
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5.  Bill Callahan – Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest
There is a bit of theme developing here at the top of the list: established artists putting out arguably their best work deep into storied careers, and no one on this list is deeper into a more storied oeuvre than Bill Callahan.  Between Smog and under his own name, Callahan has been releasing consistently great albums since 1992, and to me, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is his finest work to date.  Having found domestic bliss, so the press materials state, Callahan is content to sit back and let that world-weary baritone spin out all the comforts of a well-worn chair near a fire in a hearth.  This is the type of record that gives you hope that happiness isn’t the exclusive provenance of the young.
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4.  Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains
If I were to really sit and write out all of my thoughts about David Berman this blurb would probably be 10 pages long, at least, so rather than spill a bunch of digital ink lamenting the loss of a true inspiration, I’ll just try and stick to the album itself, which is almost impossible now in the wake of his suicide shortly after its release.  Even on first blush this was a difficult hang, clearly the product of someone who lost their wife to a series of poor decisions / mental difficulties, and who hadn’t come to terms with it.  Understandably so.  Berman remains endlessly quotable, right up to the very end, and “we’re just drinking margaritas at the mall” remains emblematic of his ability to compress the tedium of middle american misery into a single haunting, yet, hilarious, image.  While “Nights that Won’t Happen” lives on as his suicide note directly to the fans (“The dead know what they’re doing when they leave this world behind” ; “all the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind”), and it is hauntingly beautiful, it still makes me cry every time I hear it. As does most of this record. So the song I’ll carry on with me, and can still actually listen to, is “Snow is Falling in Manhattan.” Just a beautiful song from a beautiful man.  
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3.  Tyler, the Creator – IGOR
I really don’t have the words (well, clearly I have some) to express just how impressed I am by the arc of Tyler’s career.  The one-time shock-rap flash in the critical pan quickly turned into forgettable homophobe who perfectly fit a description of Eminem’s fan base I once heard: kids who call their mom a bitch to their face.  The first startling change came with Flower Boy, which came right on the heels of his step out of the closet.  Flower Boy is a really great record, but it still largely sounded like Tyler, just a more mature version who stopped saying cringe worthy shit.  IGOR is something entirely different.  I honestly don’t even know what to call it. It’s not a rap record, and there are honestly entire tracks on it where I’m not sure what it is he does on them, but my god, this thing is incredible.  It’s basically a Parliament album for the end of the world, and if the earth is going to burn down around us, we might as well dance our way out, which is precisely the party Tyler has orchestrated here.  I cannot wait to see what he does next.
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2.  Angel Olsen – All Mirrors
All Mirrors isn’t just clearly Angel Olsen’s best album by a clear margin, it is the best pop album made by anyone in sometime.  Just like black clothes make anyone a little slimmer, orchestration can make any pop song sound symphonic, but most pop acts don’t have the power of Angel Olson’s voice to match the bombast of the string section and percussion.  It feels like the term Beatlesesque has started to fade from the critical lexicon, but this music is truly akin to the orchestral richness of “I am the Walrus” or “A Day in the Life.”  People celebrate Lana del Ray for her torch songs (and I really liked Norman Fucking Rockwell, even if it didn’t quite make this list in a stacked year) but no one carries a torch like Angel Olsen.  I was initially reticent to catch her live show this tour, it was on a weeknight, it was cold, I had to go downtown, I’d seen her a couple times already, yadda yadda yadda, but I knew deep down I really wanted to see if she could recreate the power of these songs on stage (the inverse of how that equation usually goes).  Reader: she did.
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1.  (Sandy) Alex G – House of Sugar
House of Sugar may not be quite as experimental as IGOR, or as pop-perfect as All Mirrors, but it takes those two impulses and melds them together into what is my favorite album of the year, even if strictly speaking it may not be the “best” as measured against the other entrants in this top 3.  “Hope” was actually a “hit” song on the local college radio station, and understandably so; it sounds like Elliott Smith and tells a comprehensible story about a friend who died from an overdose.  But “Hope” is jut one facet of House of Sugar, which is a veritable hall of musical mirrors.  “Walk Away” is hypnotic in its repetitions, “In My Arms” is a legit straightforward acoustic love song, “Sugar” sounds like The Knife (no joke), “Sugarhouse” could have been on The River, and while I already said “Hold You Now” is my favorite song of the year, “Gretel” has something to say about that.  I saw a show right when this album came out, and as the band left the stage for the final time the soundguy cued up “Gretel” not, I’m guessing, because the band requested it, but because it rules and he just wanted to share it with everyone as they receded into night.
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