All art is at once surface and symbol

I feel dirty defending Vivziepop, but geez, people talk about Stolas like he's on the same level as Christian Grey and Edward Cullen, and a lot of the conversation around him and Blitz is disgusting.

( Spoilers for Helluva Boss S2. )

I don't consider myself Stolas's biggest fan, but god. Congratulations Stolas hatedom, you got me defending him.

"omg don't you appreciate friendships? Why can't two men just be friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiends?"

And then they wonder why Rivals to Lovers and Enemies to Lovers is so popular. Not that it stops people from bitching about that too.

Catching up on Evangelion while playing Blue Kaizo is giving me weird dreams, and I'm not even at the darker episodes of Eva yet.

I had a dream AVGN was reviewing The Rescuers for the NES, except it doesn't really act like an NES game at all, let alone have much to do with The Rescuers. Basically, you play as Penny and run away aboard a ship. Each level you're in a storm and facing off against the sky, where the clouds form a variety of nightmare fuel monsters (which get creepier and stronger with each level) that threaten to drown you or throw you overboard. The entire soundtrack is Tori Amos music, with one song for each level. In fact, most of the review is gushing about how hardcore Tori is rather than the game itself. :P

I want a psychological horror game like that now. Where you're a runaway kid facing your demons at sea, I mean.

I miss The Rescuers. Particularly because I watched a video about how underrated Down Under is and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm sad we'll never have a third Rescuers movie... but at the same time, I'm glad both movies are relatively ignored by Disney and not subject to ~ * ~ The Disney Brand ~ * ~ and their other current garbage that sucks the soul and passion out of their movies. Heaven forbid they ever try to do a live-action remake (shudder). There's a reason animation exists as a medium; I never watched the Stuart Little movies because the live-action setting with a talking CGI mouse was too fucking weird for me. Modern Disney dunking on traditional animation aside, you just know they'd butcher Miss Bianca and Bernard's characters and turn the former into a Catty Girlboss TM. D: She's already feminist, leave her alone! (Oh wait, they are leaving her alone. Good. Let it stay that way)

Funny how dreams make me nostalgic for weird things. Hmm.

So I watched reviews of a new show called "Velma." Yeah, you know the one. It's every bit as bad as you think.

"Velma" is literally hours of Mindy Kaling bragging about how much better she is than everybody else. Dump a serving of every All Adult Animation is South Park cliche possible, along with an entire cereal box of MCU Phase 4 Meta Writing & Humor and you get this blatant middle finger of a show. The very fucking second Velma opens her mouth, you're already mad.

Suffer with me.

( I'm not even a fan of Scooby-Doo and this hurts me inside. )

Toxic lessons from dumblr: BDSM is abuse. Um, WHAT?

( Talk about NSFW topics and abuse and Puri's enraged screaming. )

I hope to GOD someone types an extremely long and detailed rebuttal to that post complete with links and professional sources, because I can't stand the thought of damaging misinformation like this spreading like wildfire.

So, I think I have enough songs for a fanmix (we called 'em "FSTs" in the ol' days of Livejournal) so I'm checking out how 8tracks works to see if I can get one ready. Which leads me to a rant about something that annoys me about 8tracks.

The biggest problem I have with 8tracks is I can't see the tracklist. I have to listen to the entire fanmix first, and I'm only allowed a certain number of skips. What if there's an artist I don't like? I wouldn't know they're there until it's too late. Sometimes I want to look at what other songs people have for Frisk, Chara, etc. So that I, a fanmixer, don't end up using the same songs everyone and their mother already uses and associates with Frisk, Chara, etc.

I don't have time to listen to entire soundtracks. JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN TRACKLIST AND I'LL DECIDE IF I WANT TO LISTEN OR NOT. This is what I really miss from the FST days on Livejournal. YOU HAD A DAMN TRACKLIST. At least some 8tracks fanmixes are advertised on tumblr posts with a tracklist included, saving me a lot of time. Still, it's extremely frustrating.

"But Puri, the whole point of 8tracks is to discover new music! You can't do that if you have immediate access to tracklists!"

DON'T TELL ME HOW I SHOULD LISTEN TO MUSIC.

Sometimes, if I see artists I like on the fanmix? I may be encouraged to listen to the others. And I haven't heard every single song by my favorite artists, especially if they've got a HUGE library like say, Tori Amos or The Beatles. So finding songs that remind me of a character or pairing by an artist I like that got buried beneath Archive Panic is a cool thing. Ex. I hadn't registered "For Good" from the Wicked musical as a Friskriel song until someone pointed it out and sang a cover for it. Even if it's a song I already have, I could agree with the fanmixer's choices and I'd want to know what else they've got. Back when fst was still active, I used to comb the archive for FSTs that had at least one song by an artist I liked, such as Patrick Wolf or AniDiFranco or Bjork. That's how I got into their music, from little trickles that people would include on FSTs. Didn't matter if I didn't know the fandom. I'd look up, see they have a song by Garbage or Say Anything I hadn't heard yet, and pounce on it like a cat with a new ball of yarn or a laser pointer dot.

And this way, I have something to associate the song with to remember it by, as opposed to aimlessly wandering iTunes. Ex. I have this gorgeous male cover of "I Hope You Dance" (done by Ronan Keating) I got it off of some random shippy Iruka/Sakura FST or something. I wouldn't know anything about the fandom or pairing at all, but I'd go, "Oh hey, I got that song from a random Naruto FST! :D"

Hell, I can tell you the FST I was introduced to Patrick Wolf from. It was for Ken Ichijouji from the second season of Digimon. Looking through the tracklist, I saw "Magpie" along with a few sample lyrics. I thought, "Hey, that looks pretty" and downloaded it. I was blown away. Like, from the first note.

( Reaction .gifs? Oh yeah. Required. )

Where was I? Oh, right. I can't really do that anymore on 8tracks. I'm forced to go blind with the exceptions of a few artist names in the tags instead. THANKS 8TRACKS.

Well, That Escalated Quickly

Someone at the Mary-Sue posted an article about the idea that Samus might be trans. It went just about as well as expected.

( Something that's been bothering me regarding transphobia. ALL CAPS at the end, with a mini-rant about biphobia. )

*panting* I think I need to look at a pile of potatoes.

Zar played a game called Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea, and she wondered if I played it yet. So I told her I'd review it, nom. I've been dying of boredom since my cough, and I was getting burnt out on Story of Seasons. TIME FOR SOME OLD FASHIONED INDIE HORROR. I downloaded a program that let me open .zips, and so far so good, my computer's cooperative. So I zoomed through Wadanohara! Yay!

I thought I'd enjoy it more, tbh. I mean, it's an okay game, there's a lot to like about it, and I came in without much expectations (and I was warned for gratuitous sexual assault, which I'll discuss in a bit). But by the time I finished it, I thought it would have much more than what I got. :o It had potential and a lot of cool concepts, but they never really got expanded upon and it makes the game feel incomplete. It didn't leave me mad in a "Uggggh, how could you waste such a good idea" kind of way like some Pokemon movies did, just... empty and kind of hanging.

( SPOILER ALERT! Also a rant regarding rape and sexual assault. )

I spent way too much time talking about this game. There's probably some points I've forgotten, but eh. I'm not in a rush to play Mogeko's other games any time soon.

Will Sylvain Reynard shut the fuck up about "Closer" from Nine Inch Nails? All she ever does is quote the "fuck you like an animal" line and act like it's the single most objectifying and sinful lyric in the universe. Never mind that Trent Reznor's written other sexually-charged songs and that "Reptile" is 100x more violent, degrading, and disturbing. Never mind that he wrote "Fragile," one of my favorite NIN songs and one of the wibbliest love songs ever. On the other hand, I totally see Reynard using "Fragile" as a way for Gabriel to compare it with Julia, and yuck. I actually hope it never comes up. Reynard already thinly alluded to Trent doing backup vocals for Tori Amos' "Past The Mission," and I don't want her to shit on more of my favorite bands and songs.

Everybody in this book other than Gabriel has better chemistry with Julia. Rachel was basically professing her love to Julia before she had to go on the plane. DON'T LEAVE ME RACHEL, YOU'RE THE ONE CHARACTER I DON'T FEEL LIKE STABBING A PIKE THROUGH *sobs*

It never ever goes through Julia's brain that her big nostalgic night with Gabriel was when he was drunk off his ass. Of COURSE he doesn't remember her! Why the fuck doesn't she tell him about the night at the apple orchard? Just say, "Hey, I don't think you remember me, but one time, we kissed at an apple orchard." It's not that fucking hard. Manufactured drama/Lack of Communication Kills like this does not increase the goddamn tension in romance novels; it just makes me think the characters are fucking stupid!

IhatethisbookIhatethisbookIhatethisbook

By the way, there's still four chapters open for anyone who wants to spork the book here. :D I might consider taking another chapter on, this book is pissing me off this much.

Edit: ( TW: Slut-shaming and tasteless use of eating disorders )