i need to find a place where excess negativity IS welcome

Quote from: Batch on May 10, 2019, 06:46:45 PM

But why?

Why do they have to produce all this live action dribble...looks shit

Well at least live action Hunch Back of Notre Dame is out of the question.

they already made one and it's excellent

Pretty weak batch this time. I wouldn't even bother if I were you.

This batch does come with a theme, however: Decent but unspecial alternative rock music with obnoxious vocalists. All five of these albums qualify.

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Blessid Union of Souls - Home
Pop rock
Debut album

Some happy-pappy soul-infused rock music with solid instrumentation and respectable playing, but Eliot Sloan's vocals kinda grate on my ears a little bit. There's a couple cuts worth listening to here, but that just makes the record feel kinda bumpy and uneven.

My favorite track, "Would You Be There," has a pretty nice beat to it, even though it feels very out of place.


6/10

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Railroad Jerk - One Track Mind
Indie rock
Third album

I think these guys had a lot of potential with their punk blues-infused indie rock sound, but none of their records ever really left a strong impression on me. It's like they never gave it their all. This record is no exception; it's a mixed bag in terms of quality, with some catchier cuts that show a lot of promise, color, and personality, but an equal amount of time is spent with tracks that just sound like the band is dicking around.

Its still their best album from what I've heard, though (and they only went on to make one more after this one).

Here's one of the better tracks. It's not outstanding, but it gives you a feel for their personality:


6/10

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Death - Symbolic
Death metal
Sixth album

I'm not a death metal guy, but I respect Death. They basically invented the genre, as far as I'm aware, and the only reason it's a genre at all is because people started copying them. Even Sentenced, the Finnish death metal band I covered way back, remarked that the new direction they took on Amok came about as a result of not wanting to sound too much like Death.

That being said, there's a limit to how much I can enjoy this style of music. Death is known for taking their sound in slightly different directions with all of their releases, mostly from a lyrical or thematic standpoint, but by experimenting with things like melody and extremely technical playing.

Symbolic is the first album of Death's, in my opinion, that doesn't really push the band's sound much further in any particular direction. It feels more like a culmination of all the things they've learned so far, kinda like a final dungeon would in some medieval action RPG. That's cool for the fans and all, but personally, it kinda left me feeling a little bit cold, because their ability to remain consistent in spite of their ever-evolving style pretty much made up the entirety of their intrigue for me.

It can't be denied that Death is notoriously technical, but I did mention before how I don't really care about technical prowess in music that much. I don't listen to music to be impressed by someone's mad skills; I listen to it so I can feel things, and that's kinda the bottom line. I wound up feeling more things when I listened to Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy, both of which I'd consider stronger overall albums.

Oh, and in keeping with the theme, I simply cannot get behind Chuck Schuldiner's vocals. Death metal vocals in general have always been my biggest problem with the genre. It just comes across to me as a bad gimmick, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to take seriously the more albums I listen to from the more "extreme" subgenres.

I'm still going to give this record a
7/10
though, because like I said before—I do respect the music, and I definitely understand the appeal (more than I ever have before). It's not for me, but at the same time, I'm still able to see the merit it possesses in the minds of whom the music was created for. It's easier to enjoy than country music, I'll say that much.

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Morphine - Yes
Jazz rock
Third album

This is an alternative rock band that employs a saxophonist, resulting in a refreshingly unique sound, but unfortunately, not a very memorable one. The only thing about this band that wound up sticking with me is Mark Sandman's dumb voice and silly lyrics. If not for them, this may have been a 7/10.

6/10

---

Headstones - Teeth and Tissue
Alternative rock
Sophomore album

Another spotty record that happens to possess all the general pros and cons that I've described for the records above:
- Uninspired, derivative, and amateurish, but still manages to hold your attention somehow
- Occasional brilliant flashes in the pan where the band comes through with a catchy riff or some other cool thing, only to shit the bed in the very next track with some boring-ass love song or something stupid
- An overall inconsistent mixed bag of quality
- Bad vocals all throughout, but with a ton of personality in spite of it

I'm trying not to sound like a broken record here, but this really wasn't the greatest selection.

6/10
This one might actually be a 5/10, the more I think about it, but I'll leave it as is for now.

---

Next up:

Silver Chair
Red House Painters
Smog
Wilco
Soul for Real

Celine Dion has over ten albums in her pre-1995 back catalog, so I'll put hers aside for now (that's my new system).

Quote from: Solonoid on May 09, 2019, 11:49:36 AM

How did you come to that conclusion?

I mean, it's one thing to have your grievances with Carmen and then use her trans identity against her because of pre-existing problems (it's still not okay but it's understandable,) it's another to call someone a degenerate because they're using hormone suppliments.

it's banter

cheat said the exact same thing about solonoid, which was pointed out, and the sentiment is merely being echoed as a lighthearted jab

Quote from: Solonoid on April 17, 2019, 03:47:41 AM

Quote from: Killua on April 17, 2019, 03:42:05 AM

What do you mean? The dropdown works for me. "Read your messages" takes you to the inbox and "Send a message" takes you to writer/editor.

No when creating a new thread

Still works there for me. No idea what you're talking about.

he's talking about this shit



the drop-down menu itself works fine, but it doesn't do anything, in spite of it always being there

since there was no such feature on bungie.old, cheat had no reason to incorporate it into the site's design, but rather than just remove it, it just kinda hangs there vestigially, and it's a little awkward

i assume that it's hardcoded and impossible to remove, or it's a small enough detail that cheat doesn't care

I can think of a certain big name Disney movie coming out this December that could definitely use a second chief in charge *cough*cough*Star Wars*cough*.

Yeah, like Rian Johnson!

how does he not like the stage builder wtf

i get that it's 95% memes for most people but mechanically it's pretty objectively the best one we've had

verb watch more anime

Maybe

evangelion is coming to netflix in june with a new dub, and since it's on the verge of becoming my new favorite japanese cartoon i'm actually decently hyped for it, so i might post about that

the mass consumption of garbage that i was doing before was... not healthy, though

semester's finally over, so i'll check this out tonight

have you never been to a hotel

also no fuck that

But these flaws just make us love the character more.

nope

it seems to me that you just like shit characters

note that one part:
>her "flaws" are meant to be endearing

yes, i would say that azula's flaws are specifically crafted to endear you to her

normally, well-written character flaws are supposed to make you like the character a little bit less for the purpose of the narrative, or at the very least, put you in a mindset where you hope that they improve themselves over the course of the story

with villains it's tricky because you're not supposed to be on their side, but you're supposed to be able to understand WHY they are the way they are—with zuko, you could do this; with azula, you could not

when zuko was still a villain, it was great because his flaws were sensible and real and gave you the impression that his character is redeemable in some way—maybe not RIGHT at the beginning when he first debuted, but each episode slowly unraveled his (genuinely sympathetic) backstory at a pace that made sense and allowed the viewers to digest his inner motives, on top of giving us a lot of enigmatic things to chew on, like the first blue spirit episode

with azula, it was clear from the beginning that she's irredeemable, which instantly makes her less interesting as a character because there's practically no room for development

azula's only flaws are designed to make you feel bad for her, when she simply doesn't deserve to be felt bad for, and i think expecting me as a viewer to start liking her all of a sudden just because she has this sad little trite backstory which wasn't made clear to us until VERY late into the series is a LOT to ask of me, because it's so contrived and unearned

obviously you don't have to like every character in a story, and writers shouldn't be expected to only write likable characters, that's the opposite of what i want

the problem is that azula is written to be a cool villain and she's not, she's WAY too strong to be an interesting threat and none of her "flaws" matter or make you feel like there's any possibility that she won't find a way out of everything, plus she's such an over-the-top cunt that i just get annoyed with her personality more than i've ever enjoyed any of her dumb one-liners

the true definition of a mary sue is an author insert

nope

sometimes it's a manifestation of a writer's desire to create the coolest possible character that is impossible to dislike or even criticize because of how perfect she is, NOT as a person (because nobody is perfect), NOT as a character (because all good characters have flaws), but as a figment of the narrative

she checks all the prescriptive boxes that a "cool villain" is supposed to arbitrarily check, every single one, which has the effect of making her less cool because they tried too hard, and it shows

this is why it backfires so hard and so often when writers write like this, because they're so afraid of writing actual characters that they resort to leaning on prescriptive notions of what makes a character good, rather than taking risks and being creative

and that's bad

so my friend is dragging me to watch it w/ him tmr, since he doesnt wanna watch it alone

you'll have a unique perspective, to say the least

have you seen any of them at all

Quote from: Verbatim on April 22, 2019, 09:39:31 PM

azula being a cunt is justified given that she's a villain

what makes her a lame character is her tendency to be sue-ish

How is she sue-ish at all when her character's goal, not the way she's written, is perfection? She's not perfect whatsoever, and that's fucking foreshadowed in the first episode she appears in:


("One hair out of place...")

As Jono mentioned, she's terribly lacking in all social skills (look at Zuko Alone for perfect example of how she uses fear, not genuine social maneuvering, to keep friends - Azula attempts a cartwheel and fails, Ty Lee attempts one and does an amazing one with a flourish at the end, Azula pushes her down and laughs), and lacks a basic grasp of how love, empathy, and paternal affection operate.

If you think she's perfect in any way, you severely missed the point of the writing of the character, and it makes me worry about how many other basic points in the show you also failed to grasp, out of laziness or pure lack of literary skill.

mary sues are not defined exclusively by perfection, so that shows how much you know right there

having just enough "flaws" to make you think she's not a sue actually makes her an even MORE egregious example of one, because it's a significantly less honest and cheap way to go about earning our sympathy, when she doesn't actually earn it at any point whatsoever

so in a way, you're right—she's worse than a sue, because the way she's written in the show, a villain sue played straight would actually make her marginally more likable as a character, because they're not trying to fool the less intelligent viewers into thinking she's sympathetic or relatable in any way that feels realistic or natural for the kind of personality she has

not better than having no sue tendencies at all, of course, but better than pretending that she has none, which is only part of what makes her the biggest blemish on the series (other than all the gross and unnecessary child romance)

grey delisle's VAing is to blame, too, given the overall ham-fistedness of her performance—if she's supposed to be this grounded, nuanced human character, the fact that no effort is made to make her sound like it either means that delisle wasn't given proper direction, she's an incompetent VA, or the character was never meant to be all that sympathetic to begin with, making all the attempts at humanizing her towards the end of the series seem jarring, hackneyed, and rushed (or, all of the above)

whatever the case, she's the worst and most insufferable fucking character in the entire show, because Mike and Bryan just couldn't agree, apparently, on whether to make azula more sympathetically human, or completely monstrous—two concepts that don't mix at all, and never have, but they tried anyway (and, imo, utterly failed)