radio414

you thought i wouldn't take a recommendation i specifically asked for? anyway

Okay! Maybe they were getting somewhere. Gabby guessed that she could talk to skeletons and Kyouko had a bat and that was basically halfway to a plan already. Maybe the skeletons knew. They were monsters, after all. They were a part of this. Or maybe skeletons couldn’t talk, what, with their lack of tongues and everything. But having more to work with would be useful. But unfortunately, speaking of monsters, the bathroom suddenly became significantly more crowded as three monstrous individuals sauntered their way into the restroom. Melissa shrunk back; she instinctively knew where this was going. What she didn’t expect, though, was the exact method of approach: hip-hop, and bad hip-hop at that. Not that she was, like, a connoisseur or anything like that. A few albums had been thrust upon her growing up in a “you like Christian stuff so here’s Christian Rap” sort of way and she’d really only listened to be polite. It wasn’t for her, that was all. But now the choices were either go on a date with… what? Or rap? Neither was great. Obviously, the latter was preferable, but expecting her to come up with something on the fly like that? Now please excuse me, I’m not much of a lyricist Something you can tell if you are being empiricist was really all she had in terms of cute rhymes to use. And they weren’t really that cute. But, fortunately, while Melissa was searching for follow-up rhymes (something with clouds? Cirruses?) Jun stepped forward. Really, all you want is a date? Well, that’s a problem ‘cause you’re just a bit late See our plans for today are already spoken for But we’re a great group of gals so I can see why you’d adore Much better than anything she could come up with. Who was even making a beat, though? It didn’t matter. Jun ended with a pretty good mic drop of “You can hit them now,” too, which, while Melissa wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of violence, these were extenuating circumstances. Through Kyouko, Melissa even felt a little bit of catharsis. She actually felt better than she had been before; they could actually do this. Do what, she wasn’t really sure yet, but it was a good feeling to have. The following sensation, of being grabbed by the arm and dragged out of the restroom was less nice. She didn’t exactly fight it, but it was still a feeling of being jerked around. But Gabby was the one doing the pulling, and Melissa trusted her to do what she thought was best. As soon as they were out, though, it almost went the other way around. “Should we… try to get help?” Gabby said. Now she was trusting her. What was Melissa’s answer? “Of course!” Well, she didn’t say “of course,” or at least not like that. It was more of a “We really should.” But, like, it really was a question with only one answer. And just because she didn’t know exactly how to go about it didn’t make it any less true. She glanced around like there was supposed to be anyone else around. There wasn’t. But when her gaze returned to Gabby, her eyes were wide and staring down the hall. When Melissa followed her gaze, she saw a large drudge of skeletons. And the skeletons were coming their way. Melissa didn’t scream. Her flight-or-fight response was stuck between running away and making sure no further harm came to the girls still in the bathroom. What if the skeletons went in there after she’d done nothing to stop them? But at the same time, they were skeletons! She’d already run from Mokey Mokey, what else was she going to do here? “Hold still. I’m going to try something.” Try what? What was there to try? Kyouko was the only one with a weapon, and she was a door and a trio of thugs away. What could they possibly- “Cease your movements, lowly servants of skull! You dare approach me, Gabriela Von Draculesti, in such a manner?” With these words David sharply rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way. -1 Samuel 24:7 (NIV) It worked! The skeletons -- the Skull Servants -- were hanging on Gabby’s every word, and she ordered (using some rather ambiguous language, Melissa couldn’t help but note) them into the restroom to help with the brawl inside. Though they were seemingly safe now, Melissa didn’t let herself exhale until all the skeletons had crossed the threshold to the restroom. There were one- no, two things to do now. The first was to hug Gabby. No words necessary there, just one long and tight until she’d managed to calm down for the other thing. The other thing was thinking about what just happened. Gabby had said she could control skull servants, and she did. But wasn’t that how duel space worked anyway? If you had a strong enough will and you were dueling, couldn’t you just create a space around you that was representative of you? And even if you weren't, isn’t that what summoned the beat Jun rapped to? Hadn’t been Hitomu’s application of duel space been one of the things that had brought Gabby and her together in the first place? Is that what Souji had been going on about when it came to getting used to duel space? An idea formed in Melissa’s head. It wasn’t even a “what do we do next?” idea, but one fully-formed and, while it probably couldn’t fix everything, it at least could help make things a little safer and a whole lot nicer. “I have an idea.” Yes, she had to say it out loud, first. That was step one. “It needs some duel disks maybe, and I don’t have mine on me, uh, the first hurdle is getting those, but then the only other thing we need is a whole bunch of people. Can you help me with that?”

Chris didn’t really know what he had been expecting when Estellise’s light shone over that mysterious black patch but, yeah, the way down probably should have been near the top of his list. In fairness, his mind had been otherwise occupied by Sergei trying to tell him what to do, and not in a tactical way. “You can’t just go running off ahead,” he’d said like it wasn’t Chris’ job to run around unfamiliar places with a cautious eye. He hadn’t gotten hurt before and he wasn’t about to start now. Or more hurt than normal, anyway. Estellise had already spent time fixing the rest of the party up and while he’d managed to escape injury so far (despite being covered in blood) he wasn’t so prideful that he thought he was going to completely avoid any nicks or scrapes. Then he heard it. It was Lana who sent the call out, actually, but he could hear their noise even above her. More rats, and when he turned around he saw how many. Well, three started to feel like an “only” sort of number now. Like, if all the rats they’d seen this floor had decided to group up, then they’d have been in big trouble, but especially after they’d all recuperated a little, it didn’t seem so bad. With the rats approaching so cautiously, Lana had the right idea, Chris thought. He slowly made his way to the new front of the group and waited, weapon drawn and ready, for the inevitable charge.

“Read ‘em and weep,” Makoto said. So he did (well, the first part anyway) and… “Wait, you just decided to write down a bunch of puns?” Peter said. There was no lesson here, no way to improve or grow. And it wasn’t like he would have cared too much, but he’d been under the impression that the paper was for game notes; it had been his paper originally, after all. And it had been his pun that seemed to inspire Makoto. “Kick into high gear” was pretty good, though. Peter could totally imagine some duelist on the entertainment circuit saying that. And really, once he thought about it some more, it wasn’t a big deal, just a shock. Besides, the alternative was another duel and he didn’t really want to duel again, did he? Especially not after a loss. And now that he was okay with it, he kind of wanted to help out. “Aren’t the little pointy bits of gears called teeth?” Peter said. “So there’s a whole well of tooth-related puns if you want to go down that road. ‘Kick someone’s teeth in’ is kind of a repeat but you can have that one for free too. “Also, what do you have for dragons? All I’ve got is, like, ‘drag on’ which has about one use case and it gets old quick. You have any ideas?”

top x (where x is however many you want to list) bands you'd recommend to people? and by people i mean me

Elsie was pretty sure she was going the right way. Like, Lachlan said her choice “looked good” whatever that meant (all the hallways looked the same, didn’t they?) so although the hallway stretched on there was no hesitation to how she pressed onward. And again, the conversation, no matter how banal the questions and answers involved, helped with that. Lachlan, when given the opportunity, actually asked a lot more than the one question Elsie proffered. And sure, one of them was a gimme -- she’d asked “How’d you end up here?” she definitely expected to get it thrown back at her -- but the rest seemed to come from a stream of consciousness where the water was worry with an undercurrent of fear. She didn’t really see a good place to start besides the beginning, so that was where she did. “I’m about the same, I guess. There’s this witch tradition called Rumsprig- uh, Rumspr-” “Rumspringa,” Corbin said. “Yeah, that. Basically, I was already wandering around when Jekyll showed up so it was a pretty easy decision to just travel along on a flying castle rather than a broom. Plus I thought he could’ve used the help. “Second question, or I guess a bunch of those questions? Uh, I mean, it is an arena; there was a whole bunch of fighting before you got there and there’s probably a bunch still coming but nothing besides the fighting. That’s where all that light came from, by the way. The dragon slayer and Alexandre were having a spat. I guess it wasn’t super powerful if you’re just walking away from it though. “And then why I left? I mean, I wasn’t like, worried or anything,” “She was worried.” Elsie shushed Corbin before sheepishly continuing on. “Maybe, but I wasn’t worried worried. I don’t think anyone wants to get hit with anything, really. I got shoved earlier before anyone else showed up and I’d still rather not repeat the experience. Plus I’d watched enough of everyone else fighting to sate my curiosity and you seemed like you needed a hand so…” She shrugged. “Jekyll seemed to be the obvious next place to go anyway if you didn’t actually need the med ward. Speaking of which…” Elsie stopped walking in front of a rather ornate door, a much more stand-out design than all the other ones down the hall. “Pretty sure this is it,” Elsie said. She gave a little flourish, said “Alright” under her breath, and threw the door open. “Hey! Jekyll! Jee-kyll! Jeekster!” She paused to give everyone in the room sufficient time to react, whether that was Corbin’s shock and immediate facepalm (or face-wing or… whatever) or just stunned silence (who wouldn’t be in awe after a surprise visit from her?), but it was a short enough pause that her follow-up still felt like, well, it still felt like a follow-up. “Are we there yet?”

Couldn't find a good studio recording so there's a bit of audience noise in there, sorry

I could be pedantic and choose something like, I dunno, Duel of the Fates or even one of a couple Queen songs given that they were in Disney movies but you alluded to the animated canon in a conversation earlier so that's what I'll be working with. Gonna leave the Fantasia songs out of this; I trust this isn't exactly a controversial stance. I'm also leaving out the Eurobeat versions, but I did want to mention them because did you know there are eurobeat versions? There are some bangers on there. 4) Everybody Wants To Be A Cat, from The Aristocats, but only when the Asian caricature cat's part is yeeted into the sun. So basically the first and last thirds of it. Which I guess is a testament to how catchy the rest of the song is that I'm putting it on this list. It was basically stuck in my head for, like, a decade after only seeing the movie once or twice, so that's why it's here. When I actually went back to watch the scene... yeah a lot of it isn't okay. Fortunately, there's at least one electro swing cover that doesn't have it so I listen to those more than the orignal these days. 3) Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, from Mary Poppins. A short one and more a novelty than anything else but there's a memetic ubiquity about it that gives it a certain charm. In my experience, as soon as I say the word people tend to get right into the rest of the chorus, which has to count for something, I think. 2) A Friend Like Me, from Aladdin. Admittedly, a lot of this is carried by the animation accompanying it (and I could probably do a whole essay on how the live-action version tries to replicate it (with success depending on the viewer, I suppose)), but it's still a banger that introduces Williams' energy to the movie and I can't imagine anything (or anyone) else doing the job. 1) Hellfire, from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I had to keep it down to just one villain song, and this is that one. Not much needs to be said about it, I think. So good I made a version of it for Yugioh Skies. It goes a long way to develop Claude Frollo's character, but it also serves to firmly establish him as someone who cannot be reasoned with or brought to redemption except by an act of God, something neither the movie nor its source material provides.

pretty sure i made this a top four sort of place This is going to have a lot of recency bias because while I have started "seriously" watching movies (scare quotes mandatory), I only really started to do so around 2015 and I definitely have not caught up on the backlog of good (or at least acclaimed) movies that I've missed. I didn't see Gone With the Wind until late last year, for example. This, of course, is not to mention how vague the categories are. With such a large set, whittling down to four each has proven difficult. Like, ask me again tomorrow and if I didn't look at these lists, I'd probably have a new set of movies, or at least a radically different order. I have made Top X lists in the past, but it's always been "of this year" or "that were nominated for something" or "directed by so-and-so" And yes, I recognize the hypocrisy of inviting top four suggestions, talking about how much I like talking about movies, and then poo-pooing the first time someone wants to indulge me. Let's give it our best shot. Live-Action Movies 4) Madeline's Madeline, directed by Josephine Decker 3) Upstream Color, dir. Shane Carruth 2) Good Time, dir. Josh and Ben Safdie 1) The Handmaiden, dir. Park Chan-Wook Animated Movies 4) World of Tomorrow Episode 2: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts, dir. Don Hertzfeldt 3) Kiki's Delivery Service, dir. Hayao Miyazaki 2) Anomalisa, dir. Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson 1) Millennium Actress, dir. Satoshi KonI can and have written whole essays on these films but I'm on my phone so maybe later. Also, another thing I do when making Top X lists is try to add a little variety to them, like "mainstream" vs not (again, scare quotes mandatory) or whatever because I'd rather these be read as recommendations that authoritative fact (something I touched on when talking about films answering Sethera's first question). There's a whole variety of things to choose here if you do decide to check any of these out and there's a bunch more where that came from if you need more things to watch.