If Incredibles 3 turns out to be a cinematic masterpiece I will buy an Incredibles DVD and eat it like a bagel. I am not joking. I expect nothing from that movie.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
not to be pretentious but yall should really read this… C.H.A.T. (Come Here for All Talk)
- Thread starter Astra
- Start date
Honestly I'm kind of getting sick of online doom posting, and today's nintendo direct just solidified it for me. Like, not all of what was announced caught me eye of course, but I am looking forward to a lot of the Mario stuff, Tomodachi life and plza! However, wherever I go online, impressions are. ... less than welcoming. Of course, it's not like I'm trying to defend all the anti-consumerist stuff, it's bad that's for sure. But at the same time, at least for me, it's not the end of the world or anything like that. I'm still plenty excited in spite of the Kalos mega starters being a ranked match reward only. But everywhere I go, I just see pure negativity. So many people who claim Nintendo has morphed into the next ea, who say their hype for the game has been disintegrated. I know those people have their reasons and all, but I can't help myself from feeling bad about it. I just wanna find people to share some healthy hype for an upcoming release, at least one more time...
TLDR; Still hype for the direct's announcements, but upset at all the online negativity.
TLDR; Still hype for the direct's announcements, but upset at all the online negativity.
honestly it just feels like people are looking for things to hate on nintendo about. the price-related things people are complaining about are all either industry-standard practices that nintendo is just now adopting or reactions to the catastrophically worse economic state of the world compared to pre-covid times. people are mad at nintendo for charging $80 for games that would've been $60 in 2017 but they don't realize that this is literally just the cost of inflation over that time:
and this isn't even factoring in the tariffs, or japan's demographic crisis, or the global cost-of-living increases, or any of the other factors that make it more expensive to mass-produce and ship games and less likely for people to purchase them. things are really fucked up right now, for everyone, and loath as i am to defend a large corporation, nintendo is not to blame for this. they are not "the new ea". people are just mad because they don't realize how bad the economic situation is as a whole, or because they're haters
What were you even trying to search up? Just curious
I looked up various classic mecha anime on crunchyroll and there's nothing. Trying to see the Getter Robo selection and first result is isekai slop.
No Shinkalion or Astro Boy either btw. It's literally just the Woody & Buzz "you have no swag" meme. You know the one
i hate to say it but i actually don't
"You don't fuck with no Getter, no Eldran, no nothin'?"
"Woody, I like mecha, so long as it's none of that toy commercial shit-"
OK, I need to shout into the void about something that has drove me up a wall for years. Get ready for hyper-specific ranting. Because it's me, there will also be an in-depth analytical case study. Yay?
As someone big into music and video game fixations, I've listened to a lot of video game fan music. I'll divide them like this for rhetorical convenience.
Covers make little change from the original music.
Remixes make more changes, but are instrumentals (no lyrics).
Fan songs make more changes, including new or modified lyrics.
Fan songs are my focus right now. And a lot of the time, I love them. New text is awesome at breathing even more life into powerful moments and ideas from games, especially since they're often light on text.
However, I'm often dissatisfied with the quality of the lyrics themselves, independent from the singing quality. Maybe that's because I have more knowledge and sensitivity for language than musical skill. Maybe fan creators just aren't great wordsmiths on average – though there are certainly exceptions! Either way, it's a nagging issue for me that really gets in the way of me enjoying lots of pieces. I'll boot something up from a creator who's made work I like, and is covering a game I love, but just start wincing at how they build the lyrics.
Some Common Issues:
- Awkward, forced rhyme and meter (syllable layouts and patterns, especially stress/unstress)
- Awkward, forced use of proper nouns from the game
- Poor thematic conceptualization (poor understanding and use of abstract ideas, e.g. being too edgy or vapidly wholesome, or giving incoherent messages that don't line up with each other)
- Pacing (micro-level, e.g. not having confidence in a big moment and not giving it space to breathe)
To sharpen my sense of what exactly I think about all this, and to explain what I mean, I'm going to go in detail on two similar fan songs with differing lyrical quality. Luckily, I have a really nice control group. I'm comparing Man on the Internet's fan song for "Hopes and Dreams" from Undertale with... Man on the Internet's fan song for "Hopes and Dreams" from Undertale (remastered version). I'll call them Original and New here. Both are largely written by the same person. Unfortunately, I think the New version is a substantial downgrade in lyrics.
I'll provide the lyrics and detailed commentary for both versions. Mechanical discussion is about writing structure like rhyme, meter, while Narrative discussion is about theme, energy, direction, stuff like that. Prepare to really feel how long a song can be when you are concentrating hard.
Note that this is only looking at lyric quality, not anything else like singing quality, instrumentation, art, etc. Also, I didn't want to litter this with "I think" "to me" etc., so just remember I'm an amateur enthusiast here speaking from my own (as unbiased as possible) point of view, not a professional.
Undertale Spoilers, if that wasn't clear.
(Post in Progress)
As someone big into music and video game fixations, I've listened to a lot of video game fan music. I'll divide them like this for rhetorical convenience.
Covers make little change from the original music.
Remixes make more changes, but are instrumentals (no lyrics).
Fan songs make more changes, including new or modified lyrics.
Fan songs are my focus right now. And a lot of the time, I love them. New text is awesome at breathing even more life into powerful moments and ideas from games, especially since they're often light on text.
However, I'm often dissatisfied with the quality of the lyrics themselves, independent from the singing quality. Maybe that's because I have more knowledge and sensitivity for language than musical skill. Maybe fan creators just aren't great wordsmiths on average – though there are certainly exceptions! Either way, it's a nagging issue for me that really gets in the way of me enjoying lots of pieces. I'll boot something up from a creator who's made work I like, and is covering a game I love, but just start wincing at how they build the lyrics.
Some Common Issues:
- Awkward, forced rhyme and meter (syllable layouts and patterns, especially stress/unstress)
- Awkward, forced use of proper nouns from the game
- Poor thematic conceptualization (poor understanding and use of abstract ideas, e.g. being too edgy or vapidly wholesome, or giving incoherent messages that don't line up with each other)
- Pacing (micro-level, e.g. not having confidence in a big moment and not giving it space to breathe)
To sharpen my sense of what exactly I think about all this, and to explain what I mean, I'm going to go in detail on two similar fan songs with differing lyrical quality. Luckily, I have a really nice control group. I'm comparing Man on the Internet's fan song for "Hopes and Dreams" from Undertale with... Man on the Internet's fan song for "Hopes and Dreams" from Undertale (remastered version). I'll call them Original and New here. Both are largely written by the same person. Unfortunately, I think the New version is a substantial downgrade in lyrics.
I'll provide the lyrics and detailed commentary for both versions. Mechanical discussion is about writing structure like rhyme, meter, while Narrative discussion is about theme, energy, direction, stuff like that. Prepare to really feel how long a song can be when you are concentrating hard.
Note that this is only looking at lyric quality, not anything else like singing quality, instrumentation, art, etc. Also, I didn't want to litter this with "I think" "to me" etc., so just remember I'm an amateur enthusiast here speaking from my own (as unbiased as possible) point of view, not a professional.
Undertale Spoilers, if that wasn't clear.
Introduction
The Asriel fakeout opener is the same with Old and New.
Original Stanza 1:
Now hold on
To the dreams
You created
For a happy life
Mechanical:
Solid meter. First two verses are very clean Strong/Weak (trochaic for you verse enthusiast lot) meter. I personally like trochaic, so that's rad. This is similar Syllabic Stuff to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose name is pretty snappy. The slow pacing here, only three syllables per verse, helps the song build up, and lets us sit on the thematic importance of dreams a bit.
Second two verses gradually expand the syllable count, which is natural buildup. The 4th verse's different emphasis pattern, visible from the first syllable, helps ease in the shift in length – you're really just taking the previous Strong/Weak/Strong and sticking a Weak in front of it. Similarly, the 5th verse takes the pattern of the 4th and adds one more weak in front of it. Good, smooth stuff.
The first syllable in "created" could come off as a strong, and "life" could come across as a weak, which could disrupt the meter, but this isn't terrible by any means.
Narrative:
In isolation, picking dreams to center around is a solid choice. Not just because it's in the title of the song – luckily the incorporation of a title element here is subtle. Dreams are an appreciable part of Undertale. The monsters dream to return to the surface, Asgore dreams of a future for humans and monsters together, and the deaths of Chara and Asriel wounded their dreams of rejoining humanity on the surface. Various characters are either pursuing dreams (Papyrus joining the Royal Guard, Muffet reuniting the spiders, Alphys and Undyne pairing up), or struggling with the question of whether they should have dreams (Flowey failing to find meaning in life, Sans struggling with resets, Toriel letting children go versus pursuing a family life with them).
At first blush, though, there seems to be a mistmatch. Asriel is addressing Frisk, who is not mentioned here. While Frisk is pursuing desires and goals of living a happy life with the monsters, they've only been stuck in the underground a little bit. I wouldn't call these goals dreams. Not a catastrophic conceptual break, dreams and goals are related, but a bit underwhelming to talk about dreams and focus on one of the less-fitting characters.
However, here I must spoil a twist of the song. Asriel thinks Frisk is Chara, repeatedly calls them Chara, and Frisk repeatedly insists they aren't Chara. It's a spotlight thing. We'll discuss that in more detail later, but for now: Asriel is talking about Chara's dreams. With this knowledge, the stanza gets a lot more serious. He's either talking about Chara's plan to sacrifice themselves so Asriel can break the barrier and fulfill the monsters' dreams, giving them a happy life on the surface, or Chara's desire to be part of the Dreemurr family and live a happy life themselves. This is honestly a heartbreaking juxtaposition. Asriel is poking at (to his knowledge) Chara's heartstrings, calling out their fundamentally incompatible visions for their life. As someone who really likes Chara as a character (Chara the human person, not Chara the demon serial killer), I find this very powerful.
Original Stanza 2:
It's alright
All the things
We sought for
So long will all be worth this fight
Mechanical:
A lot of the same comments from Stanza 1 apply here, but the buildup acceleration is more sudden and breathless. That is great as we transition out of the introduction, into the main lyrical body. Stranding "so long" in the fourth verse instead of the third is a pinch awkward, but the verse is really fun to say. The tension release on the "long," with the declension into the consistent, very strong, iambic meter, is awesome. "things" is a bit of a weak word, particularly to end on, but whatever. Great stuff.
There's a soft cross-stanza rhyme here, which would more properly be called assonance. The vowel sounds in the even-number verses are basically repeated - dreams/things (imperfect) and life/fight. I think this is marginally nice to increase cohesion.
Narrative:
Really strongly setting out a central narrative thesis here. Asriel first raises Chara's turmoil to our attention, and shows that he doesn't care about it at all. He blows it off, and says it matters because it enables his totally epic fight scene with LASERS and HYPERDEATH. This is a really solid read on Asriel's character as expressed through his pre (Flowey) and post-battle phases. He's starting from this Flowey platform of no empathy, no care for the world or others, just self-fulfillment. It has become more kid-like with the over-the-top coolness as he returns to his kid self. Over the course of the fight, with his heart (and everyone else's) beating again, he will return to empathy and emotions again.
A small note. While I loved the syntax of the fourth verse for meter, I do think it makes this messaging a little awkward to receive when listening to the song and not sit-down analyzing it.
________________________________________________________________________________________
New Stanza 1:
It's the end(.)
It's your doom(.)
As you draw
Your final breath
Mechanical:
Again starting with trochaic 3 syllable verses, but the meter is less earned, since the "It's (article / pronoun)" start is repeated and fairly easy. With these short verses, the triple repeat of "you(r)" sticks out a bit and is not ideal.
"Draw" is a bit, I'll say, "idiomatically stranded." "Draw breath" is an idiom where the word "draw" takes a specialized meaning pretty unrelated to its normal use, so ending the verse on it (with the default expectation of normal usage) before breaking normal use with the idiom is a bit awkward. Nothing catastrophic, especially since the previous context makes the idiom more likely.
I know I said I wouldn't talk about singing here, but the singing delivery ties into the mechanics here. The first two verses are hard-stopped, which is why I add the period in parentheticals, but the latter two are left to trail off, like all verses in the old introduction. This choice is a bit jarring, since the first two lines don't seem to merit particular emphasis over the latter two – they're all going in the same direction...
Narrative:
...which bleeds into narrative issues. Why do they spend four verses saying the same thing? Even if this song is going to focus on this battle as the end, we can develop the concept further while still retaining focus on that idea.
I'm also confused why they picked this thing to repeat. In the game (and later in this song), Asriel does not think the battle will be anyone's final breath; he thinks they will keep fighting and playing endlessly, as he fails to be defeated. There are various other ways this fight could be an end, like it's the final fight of the player's journey, but I don't really know where they're going.
Doom is a bit of a dorky word in context. Is it intentionally chosen to highlight Asriel's kiddy interest in the "cool," or is it unintentional bathos?
New Stanza 2:
Now my friend,(.)
let's resume(.)
Face the GOD OF HYPERDEATH!
Mechanics:
Resume is awkward diction here.
God of Hyperdeath feels like a forced insert of a game proper noun. However, I'm not CinemaSins here. Seemingly weak conventions can be used to good effect. The insert of GOD OF HYPERDEATH isn't trying to be subtle.
I talk more about this in the Narrative section.
Versus the Original, the end of stanza buildup is less in syllable count, and more in subject matter. Our final line is many syllables, like before, but it's a third line and not a fourth line, and it's identical in length to two more lines of the short 3-syllable kind. I think both routes are fine.
I think the hard stops are better there than in stanza 1. Using "friend" in this fighting context, and talking about doing something again, is dripping with tension that a hard stop is suited for. Also, it's less jarring that this doesn't carry into the final line, because there's only one line and not two, and because the last line receives a lot of focus and attention in delivery and presentation, making its ending pattern fade into the background more.
I think "breath" was slotted into the Stanza 1 ender because it rhymed with Hyperdeath, and resume was slotted in the second verse of this stanza because it rhymed with doom from Stanza 1. I don't think the breath and resume lines are that great, so it'd make sense that they're subordinate to the lines with more notable words that the writer prioritized.
This greater commitment to cross-stanza rhyme than the Original's assonance is fine in isolation. But its greater stringency risks forced and awkward verses, which I think the resume (diction) and breath (conceptual emptiness) lines fall into.
Whatever the reason for putting in the "doom" and "GOD OF HYPERDEATH!" lines, they commit to it in presentation, so hopefully there is some payoff.
Narrative:
Like with "doom," is "GOD OF HYPERDEATH!" to show Asriel's dorkiness, or is it just unskilled writing?
There's another possibility. This fan song is being written for fans who love the game and its traits. Unapologetically calling attention to game details can be a way for fans to celebrate and revel in the game. Campiness and hamminess aren't automatically bad design. However, it falls flat for me here. It has a weak lead in with the "resume" line, which is awkward wording and also is unclear in what it's trying to say. (I talk more about this below.) The first stanza is awkward too, giving a finality that definitely isn't present in this battle. Why set up revelry of the game by going out of your way to change the game's framing of the battle?
Looking bigger, I think the issue for "GOD OF HYPERDEATH as fan revelry" is directorial. What is the setup supposed to be? How is this emphasis line going to pay off something, how will it generate release and catharsis?
The introduction is over, and we're more aura farming than setting up any narrative threads. Uh oh. There's not really any narrative common ground with the first stanza.
Resuming: I don't know what Asriel would be "resuming," whether he's talking to Frisk or Chara here. If he's resuming playing with Chara here, just like old times, that seems contrasting with Stanza 1, because playing usually doesn't end with anyone dying. I fail to see this battle as an extension of Chara's plan to free the monsters either. Anything else feels like too much of a stretch.
Maybe "resume" means, "Chara" already lost the fight and restarted? But that would contrast with the finality setup of the prior stanza. Maybe the finality setup is Asriel being a showman and taunting, and not something he actually believes, which would explain how it lines up with the future lyrics about playing forever? These are the kind of ideas that would benefit from setup to make them clearer, which is absent.
The Asriel fakeout opener is the same with Old and New.
Original Stanza 1:
Now hold on
To the dreams
You created
For a happy life
Mechanical:
Solid meter. First two verses are very clean Strong/Weak (trochaic for you verse enthusiast lot) meter. I personally like trochaic, so that's rad. This is similar Syllabic Stuff to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose name is pretty snappy. The slow pacing here, only three syllables per verse, helps the song build up, and lets us sit on the thematic importance of dreams a bit.
Second two verses gradually expand the syllable count, which is natural buildup. The 4th verse's different emphasis pattern, visible from the first syllable, helps ease in the shift in length – you're really just taking the previous Strong/Weak/Strong and sticking a Weak in front of it. Similarly, the 5th verse takes the pattern of the 4th and adds one more weak in front of it. Good, smooth stuff.
The first syllable in "created" could come off as a strong, and "life" could come across as a weak, which could disrupt the meter, but this isn't terrible by any means.
Narrative:
In isolation, picking dreams to center around is a solid choice. Not just because it's in the title of the song – luckily the incorporation of a title element here is subtle. Dreams are an appreciable part of Undertale. The monsters dream to return to the surface, Asgore dreams of a future for humans and monsters together, and the deaths of Chara and Asriel wounded their dreams of rejoining humanity on the surface. Various characters are either pursuing dreams (Papyrus joining the Royal Guard, Muffet reuniting the spiders, Alphys and Undyne pairing up), or struggling with the question of whether they should have dreams (Flowey failing to find meaning in life, Sans struggling with resets, Toriel letting children go versus pursuing a family life with them).
At first blush, though, there seems to be a mistmatch. Asriel is addressing Frisk, who is not mentioned here. While Frisk is pursuing desires and goals of living a happy life with the monsters, they've only been stuck in the underground a little bit. I wouldn't call these goals dreams. Not a catastrophic conceptual break, dreams and goals are related, but a bit underwhelming to talk about dreams and focus on one of the less-fitting characters.
However, here I must spoil a twist of the song. Asriel thinks Frisk is Chara, repeatedly calls them Chara, and Frisk repeatedly insists they aren't Chara. It's a spotlight thing. We'll discuss that in more detail later, but for now: Asriel is talking about Chara's dreams. With this knowledge, the stanza gets a lot more serious. He's either talking about Chara's plan to sacrifice themselves so Asriel can break the barrier and fulfill the monsters' dreams, giving them a happy life on the surface, or Chara's desire to be part of the Dreemurr family and live a happy life themselves. This is honestly a heartbreaking juxtaposition. Asriel is poking at (to his knowledge) Chara's heartstrings, calling out their fundamentally incompatible visions for their life. As someone who really likes Chara as a character (Chara the human person, not Chara the demon serial killer), I find this very powerful.
Original Stanza 2:
It's alright
All the things
We sought for
So long will all be worth this fight
Mechanical:
A lot of the same comments from Stanza 1 apply here, but the buildup acceleration is more sudden and breathless. That is great as we transition out of the introduction, into the main lyrical body. Stranding "so long" in the fourth verse instead of the third is a pinch awkward, but the verse is really fun to say. The tension release on the "long," with the declension into the consistent, very strong, iambic meter, is awesome. "things" is a bit of a weak word, particularly to end on, but whatever. Great stuff.
There's a soft cross-stanza rhyme here, which would more properly be called assonance. The vowel sounds in the even-number verses are basically repeated - dreams/things (imperfect) and life/fight. I think this is marginally nice to increase cohesion.
Narrative:
Really strongly setting out a central narrative thesis here. Asriel first raises Chara's turmoil to our attention, and shows that he doesn't care about it at all. He blows it off, and says it matters because it enables his totally epic fight scene with LASERS and HYPERDEATH. This is a really solid read on Asriel's character as expressed through his pre (Flowey) and post-battle phases. He's starting from this Flowey platform of no empathy, no care for the world or others, just self-fulfillment. It has become more kid-like with the over-the-top coolness as he returns to his kid self. Over the course of the fight, with his heart (and everyone else's) beating again, he will return to empathy and emotions again.
A small note. While I loved the syntax of the fourth verse for meter, I do think it makes this messaging a little awkward to receive when listening to the song and not sit-down analyzing it.
________________________________________________________________________________________
New Stanza 1:
It's the end(.)
It's your doom(.)
As you draw
Your final breath
Mechanical:
Again starting with trochaic 3 syllable verses, but the meter is less earned, since the "It's (article / pronoun)" start is repeated and fairly easy. With these short verses, the triple repeat of "you(r)" sticks out a bit and is not ideal.
"Draw" is a bit, I'll say, "idiomatically stranded." "Draw breath" is an idiom where the word "draw" takes a specialized meaning pretty unrelated to its normal use, so ending the verse on it (with the default expectation of normal usage) before breaking normal use with the idiom is a bit awkward. Nothing catastrophic, especially since the previous context makes the idiom more likely.
I know I said I wouldn't talk about singing here, but the singing delivery ties into the mechanics here. The first two verses are hard-stopped, which is why I add the period in parentheticals, but the latter two are left to trail off, like all verses in the old introduction. This choice is a bit jarring, since the first two lines don't seem to merit particular emphasis over the latter two – they're all going in the same direction...
Narrative:
...which bleeds into narrative issues. Why do they spend four verses saying the same thing? Even if this song is going to focus on this battle as the end, we can develop the concept further while still retaining focus on that idea.
I'm also confused why they picked this thing to repeat. In the game (and later in this song), Asriel does not think the battle will be anyone's final breath; he thinks they will keep fighting and playing endlessly, as he fails to be defeated. There are various other ways this fight could be an end, like it's the final fight of the player's journey, but I don't really know where they're going.
Doom is a bit of a dorky word in context. Is it intentionally chosen to highlight Asriel's kiddy interest in the "cool," or is it unintentional bathos?
New Stanza 2:
Now my friend,(.)
let's resume(.)
Face the GOD OF HYPERDEATH!
Mechanics:
Resume is awkward diction here.
God of Hyperdeath feels like a forced insert of a game proper noun. However, I'm not CinemaSins here. Seemingly weak conventions can be used to good effect. The insert of GOD OF HYPERDEATH isn't trying to be subtle.
I talk more about this in the Narrative section.
Versus the Original, the end of stanza buildup is less in syllable count, and more in subject matter. Our final line is many syllables, like before, but it's a third line and not a fourth line, and it's identical in length to two more lines of the short 3-syllable kind. I think both routes are fine.
I think the hard stops are better there than in stanza 1. Using "friend" in this fighting context, and talking about doing something again, is dripping with tension that a hard stop is suited for. Also, it's less jarring that this doesn't carry into the final line, because there's only one line and not two, and because the last line receives a lot of focus and attention in delivery and presentation, making its ending pattern fade into the background more.
I think "breath" was slotted into the Stanza 1 ender because it rhymed with Hyperdeath, and resume was slotted in the second verse of this stanza because it rhymed with doom from Stanza 1. I don't think the breath and resume lines are that great, so it'd make sense that they're subordinate to the lines with more notable words that the writer prioritized.
This greater commitment to cross-stanza rhyme than the Original's assonance is fine in isolation. But its greater stringency risks forced and awkward verses, which I think the resume (diction) and breath (conceptual emptiness) lines fall into.
Whatever the reason for putting in the "doom" and "GOD OF HYPERDEATH!" lines, they commit to it in presentation, so hopefully there is some payoff.
Narrative:
Like with "doom," is "GOD OF HYPERDEATH!" to show Asriel's dorkiness, or is it just unskilled writing?
There's another possibility. This fan song is being written for fans who love the game and its traits. Unapologetically calling attention to game details can be a way for fans to celebrate and revel in the game. Campiness and hamminess aren't automatically bad design. However, it falls flat for me here. It has a weak lead in with the "resume" line, which is awkward wording and also is unclear in what it's trying to say. (I talk more about this below.) The first stanza is awkward too, giving a finality that definitely isn't present in this battle. Why set up revelry of the game by going out of your way to change the game's framing of the battle?
Looking bigger, I think the issue for "GOD OF HYPERDEATH as fan revelry" is directorial. What is the setup supposed to be? How is this emphasis line going to pay off something, how will it generate release and catharsis?
The introduction is over, and we're more aura farming than setting up any narrative threads. Uh oh. There's not really any narrative common ground with the first stanza.
Resuming: I don't know what Asriel would be "resuming," whether he's talking to Frisk or Chara here. If he's resuming playing with Chara here, just like old times, that seems contrasting with Stanza 1, because playing usually doesn't end with anyone dying. I fail to see this battle as an extension of Chara's plan to free the monsters either. Anything else feels like too much of a stretch.
Maybe "resume" means, "Chara" already lost the fight and restarted? But that would contrast with the finality setup of the prior stanza. Maybe the finality setup is Asriel being a showman and taunting, and not something he actually believes, which would explain how it lines up with the future lyrics about playing forever? These are the kind of ideas that would benefit from setup to make them clearer, which is absent.
Main 1
Original Stanza 1:
I will not(.)
Destroy this world(.)
I control time
Chara you'll be mine
Mechanics:
I like the hard stops on the first lyrics. Not is a natural inflection point to emphasize in Asriel's declaration. The short syllable hard stop works is especially emphasized in contrast with the previous longer, breathy verse. From there, the second hard stop concluding the thought follows pretty naturally. It's a bit weaker hard stop here, which makes sense, since it's a subordinate stop.
The ending near-rhyme is nice on the ear. It's especially helpful to connect these lines narratively - more on that soon.
There's an interesting meter here. We have 3 Trochaic, 4 Iambic, 4 Iambic, and then Chara (Trochaic) + 3 Trochaic. I don't have much to say besides the 1+4 2+3 mix-up, and the clean follow through on the scheme, being pleasing to the ear. Adding more to the final verse is natural because the earlier verses give plenty of buildup and time to breathe.
Narrative:
The flow from the introduction is solid. In a small scale sense, transitioning from "this fight will be so worth it" to "I won't destroy the world" is, like, OK cohesion. The fight will be worth it in part because he will keep it going on forever, and he's doing that because he's refusing to use his power to control the world. OK.
I really like the ending couplet here. The connections between the second, third, and fourth verses are not blindingly obvious, which allows them to storytell more, say a lot of ideas and vibes, in little space. Control over something as fundamental as time tells us that Asriel has the power to destroy the world, which makes his refusal to more important. It also hints at how he will exercise his power - he'll keep the current moment going on forever. These ideas strengthen the final line. He has the absolute power and the specific means to make Chara his, to trap them here.
These ending connections also strengthen the big-picture connections and cohesion between the Introduction and here. Asriel remains cocky and unempathetic, focusing on possessing Chara.
Original Stanza 2-4:
Your progress, your memories
Will be reset(.)
We'll do it all over,
Chara you won't forget
The best part?
I know you'll do it(.)
Then you'll lose to me again
Lose again
Over and over
That's what you'll do
For your best friend
I don't love analyzing so many stanzas at once, but these are so inherently linked. It's a setup-payoff set. Because that narrative structure is the core, I'll start there, and then talk about mechanics.
Narrative:
Stanza 2 solidifies a concept. Asriel has implied this battle will last forever, but now that becomes concrete and clear. He'll keep restarting the battle, manipulating Chara's memories to do so. It's all about repeating, which sets a foundation for the word and concept repetition in the future stanzas, which draws the leader into that repetition.
The oxymoronic rhyming juxtaposition of "[Your memories] will be reset" and "You won't forget" is interesting. My read is like, battling Asriel will be the one thing Chara remembers (to do), and they won't go off and do something else (like sacrifice their life for their plan to free monsters) because they don't remember anything else. That fits in with the unempathetic, manipulating personality of Asriel so far. I think it's a bit awkward, it's a different type of (not) forgetting that isn't super strongly connected to memories (and their being reset), but oh well. Sometimes you swing for the moon with an abstract oxymoron comparison, and you hit a single. OK.
Now that we set up the nail in Stanza 1, we hammer it into the dust. We already got into the details of what Asriel and "Chara" will do, so we can convert that payoff in Stanza 2, using the first two verses to soak in the energy of Asriel's fun, unapologetic, infectious confidence. This "I've already won" moment of "I know you'll do it" gets the time to breathe and soak in that it deserves. Its time to breathe shows the songwriter's confidence, which bounces off of Asriel's confidence in the song.
And then he just keeps going. Lose again, lose again, over and over, you'll do it again. We carry over the confidence, and transition from another biting read in Chara's psychology to this lovely "neener neener" taunt. Asriel knows he has the time and power to talk, and he's going to use it to taunt, because why not at that point???
Finally, we end in a psychological taunt that relishes in his established manipulation, bringing the psychological digging and overt taunting of the prior verses together to put a bow on the set. Great.
Mechanics:
"Your progress" and "Your memories" (as pronounced) having the same meter helps make this unusual Strong/Strong/Weak meter less jarring.
Reset is a subtle integration of a game proper noun, since "resetting progress" is a common idiom, especially among the kinds of people who would be listening to Undertale fan music.
This four line stanza, with a clear, solid rhyme on the even verses, is completely broken by the following three line, unrhyming stanza. This is a great break to undergird the transition from more normal singing, as we've seen, and more conversational singing, making the delicious taunting almost like an aside to Chara. Asriel is interrupting his own song to go out of his way to taunt them and call attention to his taunt. Perfect.
The second two stanzas have great syllabic stress. The second stanza is full trochaic throughout the entire stanza – not each verse is trochaic, but the combination of all verses is trochaic – which makes it devilishly fun to say. You can absolutely drill in every strong syllable, especially because the stanza is not crowded with syllables, giving them space.
The third changes that up, stacking strong syllables with the end of the final verse of the second stanza. This is to emphasize "Lose," which was also strong in the second stanza, and that break of the trochaic pattern does well to emphasize the neener-neener "Lose" even more. The final two verses are full trochaic, similar to the second stanza. It being so easy to say makes sense, as it's a block of conversation.
As we break out of Stanza 2, the four line form returns, but again with no rhyme (or even assonance). The greatest conversational framing is deservedly on "I know you'll do it.", placed in the middle of this conversational 3 line stanza. But even beyond that into Stanza 4, the lack of rhyme gives a nice conversational feel for the rest of the taunting.
New Stanza 1:
Time and space
In my hands
With a thought,
It will RESET.
Mechanical:
The meter is very similar to the prior stanza's, and unlike with the Old version, there isn't a contrast of a breathy ender into an emphasized hard stop. As the music ramps up, this metrical similarity makes me ask where the lyrical build up (and payoff thereof) is.
The use of "RESET" here is unsubtle proper noun use. As with my discussion of GOD OF HYPERDEATH in the introduction, this unsubtlety is intentional and isn't inherently bad. It isn't setting up Asriel's edginess, which lends credence to the use of GOD OF HYPERDEATH as fan revelry in the game versus setup. From there, "RESET" carrying over the revelry helps establish it as a strong element in the piece. The setup and payoff are not super strong, but this instance of revelry isn't as much an inflection point, so that's fine.
Narrative:
Like the corresponding stanza of the Old version, we're building up Asriel's power, but with a bit less of that subtle storytelling tendonage. The Old stanza is more focusing on what Asriel will do, his agency and goals and motivations, and this stanza is more focusing on his powers. The idea is that Asriel has all this power, but he could just easily let it go, which emphasizes how powerful Asriel is by showing how much he's comfortable losing. It's a bit awkward through-line though, because space isn't something that you reset, which helps make "RESET" feel a bit forced.
New Stanza 2:
All ERASED
At my command
One more round
You won't forget
Mechanics:
The meter is snappy and strong, albeit in a way that rhyming the even lines could help it really commit to that. Strong/Weak/Strong for the odds, Weak/Strong/Weak/Strong for the evens. Like with the above stanza, there is less buildup in the New version, either in syllable count or topic.
Narrative:
The first two lines here are basically the same as the last two lines before, but they have a different game proper noun to revel in. I have to recognize the facts that revelry is a valid goal of experience that is largely different to the artistic goals of this analysis. However, saying the same thing, just with a different proper noun, farms less aura than treading new conceptual depth.
I was a bit confused at "forget" in the Old version, and I'm even more confused here. If it's the final "one more" round where "Chara" will draw their "final breath," how could they forget or not? I don't get it.
New Stanza 3-4:
Still I know you'll keep on trying
Even though you'd lose again
You would play through endless dying
For the sake of your best friend
Mechanics:
Well there's our buildup in syllable count. Pretty jarring to go from only 3-4 syllables to verse to 8-7. Especially because, since the verses are so long now, it's hard to communicate escalatory emphasis through giving words space to breathe, because the singer has to keep a fast clip to get all the words out in time.
Especially compared to the Old counterpart: so many words, so much less snappy. The fourth stanza is a natural point to slash the syllable count per verse, using the long end of the third stanza as a jumping off point to emphasize the new, shorter snappiness through contrast. They don't do that though.
There's again a very consistent meter, and now with very consistent rhyming on alternating verses, but with how muddying the wordiness is, I read this more as unskilled structural rigidity versus effective use of meter. (In other words, it's the sort of material someone would write if they understood what meter was, but thought all poetry had to rhyme.)
Narrative:
With the wordiness, we don't have time anymore to pay off the setup of explaining the endless loop, to hammer in Asriel's power to lord over Chara like he did in the Old version.
Instead, we have the first line of the fourth stanza, which is muddying for me. Explicitly framing the light-hearted "play" and the dark "dying" as the same could be interesting, but I don't think it really works for Asriel, because it doesn't line up with how he sees play. He sees it as less serious, winning and losing (see: the preceding stanza), and something positive, versus something as ghastly (and explicitly framed as a negative) as dying forever. It's almost like he's talking to the player, for whom dying (in a video game) does mean "losing", but then the player isn't Asriel's "best friend."
Original Stanza 1:
I will not(.)
Destroy this world(.)
I control time
Chara you'll be mine
Mechanics:
I like the hard stops on the first lyrics. Not is a natural inflection point to emphasize in Asriel's declaration. The short syllable hard stop works is especially emphasized in contrast with the previous longer, breathy verse. From there, the second hard stop concluding the thought follows pretty naturally. It's a bit weaker hard stop here, which makes sense, since it's a subordinate stop.
The ending near-rhyme is nice on the ear. It's especially helpful to connect these lines narratively - more on that soon.
There's an interesting meter here. We have 3 Trochaic, 4 Iambic, 4 Iambic, and then Chara (Trochaic) + 3 Trochaic. I don't have much to say besides the 1+4 2+3 mix-up, and the clean follow through on the scheme, being pleasing to the ear. Adding more to the final verse is natural because the earlier verses give plenty of buildup and time to breathe.
Narrative:
The flow from the introduction is solid. In a small scale sense, transitioning from "this fight will be so worth it" to "I won't destroy the world" is, like, OK cohesion. The fight will be worth it in part because he will keep it going on forever, and he's doing that because he's refusing to use his power to control the world. OK.
I really like the ending couplet here. The connections between the second, third, and fourth verses are not blindingly obvious, which allows them to storytell more, say a lot of ideas and vibes, in little space. Control over something as fundamental as time tells us that Asriel has the power to destroy the world, which makes his refusal to more important. It also hints at how he will exercise his power - he'll keep the current moment going on forever. These ideas strengthen the final line. He has the absolute power and the specific means to make Chara his, to trap them here.
These ending connections also strengthen the big-picture connections and cohesion between the Introduction and here. Asriel remains cocky and unempathetic, focusing on possessing Chara.
Original Stanza 2-4:
Your progress, your memories
Will be reset(.)
We'll do it all over,
Chara you won't forget
The best part?
I know you'll do it(.)
Then you'll lose to me again
Lose again
Over and over
That's what you'll do
For your best friend
I don't love analyzing so many stanzas at once, but these are so inherently linked. It's a setup-payoff set. Because that narrative structure is the core, I'll start there, and then talk about mechanics.
Narrative:
Stanza 2 solidifies a concept. Asriel has implied this battle will last forever, but now that becomes concrete and clear. He'll keep restarting the battle, manipulating Chara's memories to do so. It's all about repeating, which sets a foundation for the word and concept repetition in the future stanzas, which draws the leader into that repetition.
The oxymoronic rhyming juxtaposition of "[Your memories] will be reset" and "You won't forget" is interesting. My read is like, battling Asriel will be the one thing Chara remembers (to do), and they won't go off and do something else (like sacrifice their life for their plan to free monsters) because they don't remember anything else. That fits in with the unempathetic, manipulating personality of Asriel so far. I think it's a bit awkward, it's a different type of (not) forgetting that isn't super strongly connected to memories (and their being reset), but oh well. Sometimes you swing for the moon with an abstract oxymoron comparison, and you hit a single. OK.
Now that we set up the nail in Stanza 1, we hammer it into the dust. We already got into the details of what Asriel and "Chara" will do, so we can convert that payoff in Stanza 2, using the first two verses to soak in the energy of Asriel's fun, unapologetic, infectious confidence. This "I've already won" moment of "I know you'll do it" gets the time to breathe and soak in that it deserves. Its time to breathe shows the songwriter's confidence, which bounces off of Asriel's confidence in the song.
And then he just keeps going. Lose again, lose again, over and over, you'll do it again. We carry over the confidence, and transition from another biting read in Chara's psychology to this lovely "neener neener" taunt. Asriel knows he has the time and power to talk, and he's going to use it to taunt, because why not at that point???
Finally, we end in a psychological taunt that relishes in his established manipulation, bringing the psychological digging and overt taunting of the prior verses together to put a bow on the set. Great.
Mechanics:
"Your progress" and "Your memories" (as pronounced) having the same meter helps make this unusual Strong/Strong/Weak meter less jarring.
Reset is a subtle integration of a game proper noun, since "resetting progress" is a common idiom, especially among the kinds of people who would be listening to Undertale fan music.
This four line stanza, with a clear, solid rhyme on the even verses, is completely broken by the following three line, unrhyming stanza. This is a great break to undergird the transition from more normal singing, as we've seen, and more conversational singing, making the delicious taunting almost like an aside to Chara. Asriel is interrupting his own song to go out of his way to taunt them and call attention to his taunt. Perfect.
The second two stanzas have great syllabic stress. The second stanza is full trochaic throughout the entire stanza – not each verse is trochaic, but the combination of all verses is trochaic – which makes it devilishly fun to say. You can absolutely drill in every strong syllable, especially because the stanza is not crowded with syllables, giving them space.
The third changes that up, stacking strong syllables with the end of the final verse of the second stanza. This is to emphasize "Lose," which was also strong in the second stanza, and that break of the trochaic pattern does well to emphasize the neener-neener "Lose" even more. The final two verses are full trochaic, similar to the second stanza. It being so easy to say makes sense, as it's a block of conversation.
As we break out of Stanza 2, the four line form returns, but again with no rhyme (or even assonance). The greatest conversational framing is deservedly on "I know you'll do it.", placed in the middle of this conversational 3 line stanza. But even beyond that into Stanza 4, the lack of rhyme gives a nice conversational feel for the rest of the taunting.
New Stanza 1:
Time and space
In my hands
With a thought,
It will RESET.
Mechanical:
The meter is very similar to the prior stanza's, and unlike with the Old version, there isn't a contrast of a breathy ender into an emphasized hard stop. As the music ramps up, this metrical similarity makes me ask where the lyrical build up (and payoff thereof) is.
The use of "RESET" here is unsubtle proper noun use. As with my discussion of GOD OF HYPERDEATH in the introduction, this unsubtlety is intentional and isn't inherently bad. It isn't setting up Asriel's edginess, which lends credence to the use of GOD OF HYPERDEATH as fan revelry in the game versus setup. From there, "RESET" carrying over the revelry helps establish it as a strong element in the piece. The setup and payoff are not super strong, but this instance of revelry isn't as much an inflection point, so that's fine.
Narrative:
Like the corresponding stanza of the Old version, we're building up Asriel's power, but with a bit less of that subtle storytelling tendonage. The Old stanza is more focusing on what Asriel will do, his agency and goals and motivations, and this stanza is more focusing on his powers. The idea is that Asriel has all this power, but he could just easily let it go, which emphasizes how powerful Asriel is by showing how much he's comfortable losing. It's a bit awkward through-line though, because space isn't something that you reset, which helps make "RESET" feel a bit forced.
New Stanza 2:
All ERASED
At my command
One more round
You won't forget
Mechanics:
The meter is snappy and strong, albeit in a way that rhyming the even lines could help it really commit to that. Strong/Weak/Strong for the odds, Weak/Strong/Weak/Strong for the evens. Like with the above stanza, there is less buildup in the New version, either in syllable count or topic.
Narrative:
The first two lines here are basically the same as the last two lines before, but they have a different game proper noun to revel in. I have to recognize the facts that revelry is a valid goal of experience that is largely different to the artistic goals of this analysis. However, saying the same thing, just with a different proper noun, farms less aura than treading new conceptual depth.
I was a bit confused at "forget" in the Old version, and I'm even more confused here. If it's the final "one more" round where "Chara" will draw their "final breath," how could they forget or not? I don't get it.
New Stanza 3-4:
Still I know you'll keep on trying
Even though you'd lose again
You would play through endless dying
For the sake of your best friend
Mechanics:
Well there's our buildup in syllable count. Pretty jarring to go from only 3-4 syllables to verse to 8-7. Especially because, since the verses are so long now, it's hard to communicate escalatory emphasis through giving words space to breathe, because the singer has to keep a fast clip to get all the words out in time.
Especially compared to the Old counterpart: so many words, so much less snappy. The fourth stanza is a natural point to slash the syllable count per verse, using the long end of the third stanza as a jumping off point to emphasize the new, shorter snappiness through contrast. They don't do that though.
There's again a very consistent meter, and now with very consistent rhyming on alternating verses, but with how muddying the wordiness is, I read this more as unskilled structural rigidity versus effective use of meter. (In other words, it's the sort of material someone would write if they understood what meter was, but thought all poetry had to rhyme.)
Narrative:
With the wordiness, we don't have time anymore to pay off the setup of explaining the endless loop, to hammer in Asriel's power to lord over Chara like he did in the Old version.
Instead, we have the first line of the fourth stanza, which is muddying for me. Explicitly framing the light-hearted "play" and the dark "dying" as the same could be interesting, but I don't think it really works for Asriel, because it doesn't line up with how he sees play. He sees it as less serious, winning and losing (see: the preceding stanza), and something positive, versus something as ghastly (and explicitly framed as a negative) as dying forever. It's almost like he's talking to the player, for whom dying (in a video game) does mean "losing", but then the player isn't Asriel's "best friend."
Last edited:
Why do men age so fucking bad
Like the average 45 year old woman is active and looks decent. The average 45 year old man is a broken husk of a person
I see it in my parents. My father is only 2 years older than my mother and he's riddled with diabetes, respitaroy insufficieny and all kinds of chronic shit. My mother had a knee operation once and takes 12 hours physical labor as if it wasn't shit
Friends too. My male friends in their 30s are already withering away, have heart issues and sleep apnea. My female friends in their 30s haven't changed physically in any way since they turned 20
It's why I don't get younger women dating older men. Like what do you get out of dating the sick? I don't get it man
Like the average 45 year old woman is active and looks decent. The average 45 year old man is a broken husk of a person
I see it in my parents. My father is only 2 years older than my mother and he's riddled with diabetes, respitaroy insufficieny and all kinds of chronic shit. My mother had a knee operation once and takes 12 hours physical labor as if it wasn't shit
Friends too. My male friends in their 30s are already withering away, have heart issues and sleep apnea. My female friends in their 30s haven't changed physically in any way since they turned 20
It's why I don't get younger women dating older men. Like what do you get out of dating the sick? I don't get it man
i actually have an answer for this
externally, it's because women have heavy societal pressure on them to look younger. makeup, hair dye, all sorts of anti-aging treatments, as well as actually being encouraged to take care of their hair and skin in the first place, all of that contributes
internally, there are a fuckton of complicated reasons. most women have two x chromosomes, which is associated with a lot of biological factors that prevent aging, such as longer telomeres and healthier mitochondria (i don't need a wikipedia link for this one, you already know what mitochondria are). more significant are the hormonal differences. testosterone causes faster cell division (which ages you faster), and the loss of testosterone throughout the aging process leads to lesser muscle and bone mass. higher testosterone levels are also linked to balding earlier in life, which can make people appear older than they are. meanwhile, estrogen is an anti-inflammatory, protects against a lot of different kinds of stresses and cell damage, promotes cellular regeneration, helps with muscular and skeletal health, is suspected to boost neurological health, and basically just does a ton of anti-aging stuff. testosterone and estrogen are present in both male and female bodies, but testosterone is much more prominent in men and estrogen is much more prominent in women. estrogen also decreases much more steadily in men over the course of their lives, whereas in women it stays at about the same level until menopause and then drops dramatically. this also directly affects skin collagen production, which is why men get their wrinkles gradually but women mostly keep them off until around menopause
tl;dr estrogen is basically fountain of youth water
Why do men age worse than women?
the enlightened DaddyBuzzwole: a highly detailed and serious response
the intellect-broke phoopes: skill issue lol
the enlightened DaddyBuzzwole: a highly detailed and serious response
the intellect-broke phoopes: skill issue lol
As a man, yes they are
>Pokemon has a rough patch of controversial, unpolished games that doesn't seem to have any affect on the brand's appeal to the target audience of children
>Near-immediate explosion in indie monster catching games, some of them seeing major success, even Digimon has a modest resurgence
>Star Wars is a nearly non-stop dysfunctional clown show since 2017, first 2 Mando seasons and Andor notwithstanding, big budget TV projects are just straight-up financially failing now
>Nobody other than Zack Snyder (lol) even tries to build a serious competitor brand
So what's the issue exactly? Is going up against Disney Money and R2-D2 just that daunting of a prospect?
>Near-immediate explosion in indie monster catching games, some of them seeing major success, even Digimon has a modest resurgence
>Star Wars is a nearly non-stop dysfunctional clown show since 2017, first 2 Mando seasons and Andor notwithstanding, big budget TV projects are just straight-up financially failing now
>Nobody other than Zack Snyder (lol) even tries to build a serious competitor brand
So what's the issue exactly? Is going up against Disney Money and R2-D2 just that daunting of a prospect?
that’s a good question
I feel like it’s related to fanbases
I feel like it’s related to fanbases
The hit game sonic free riders is a game with motion controls. In the multiplayer mode for this game, there is a mechanic where you hold hands in real life with the person you're playing with. If you find a really hot woman that you're interested in, invite her around to your house to play sonic free riders so you have an excuse to hold hands with her.
I think it's a few things:
- When it comes to grandiose sci-fi, there's a pretty hard budget floor. You can make an indie game with monster catching mechanics similar to Pokémon (provided that Nintendo doesn't obtain a patent on your central mechanic, I guess) and compete with it on things that you don't need a lot of money for (gameplay, writing, etc.), but Star Wars has always been about telling its brand of story on the most massive scale possible, and especially in the Disney era, you're really fighting a money battle to try to compete in the same niche.
- A lot of super hardcore Star Wars fans are not general science fiction fans. They don't even give a fuck about Star Trek, let alone anything that doesn't have an enormous lasting mark on nerd culture. Science fiction has always been more niche than fantasy anyway, so there's just not a huge market share to justify the spending you'd need.
- Related to the second point: A lot of ride-or-die Star Wars fans are such because of childhood nostalgia and a lifetime spent following an extended universe, advantages that new media properties necessarily don't have. You can overcome these forces to build your own hardcore fanbase, particularly when the fans you're trying to draw to your work are pissed off, but it's tough.
Attachments
asking someone to come over and enter the "Docked Stance" with me
