art by @hhyeart

I find it... interesting that Resident Evil 8, subtitled Village, is the first to introduce vampires and werewolves to the series. Up until that point, the series had always been about biological weapons, mainly of the viral kind. As a Dracula fan, I immediately pledged myself to catch all the way up on the series in anticipation for VIII after seeing the announcement trailer in June 2020. I basically didn’t know anything about the series, as I was too young for M-rated games during its heyday (at least by my parents’ standards) and had no older cousins or siblings who’d introduce me. I didn’t even make the pandemic connection at first. All I was thinking of was how my new PS4, bought with the money I’d originally saved to go see my mom in Tennessee one last time, was slowly becoming my new favorite thing. It’d gotten my roommate through April with The Last of Us Remastered and it got me through May with Horizon: Zero Dawn. If I’m gonna make the switch from Nintendo to Sony, I may as well get to know Resident Evil starting in June.

The pandemic parallels came in much later. I’m playing them in release order, and it’s not until the second game that the characters have the time and awareness to consider synthesizing a vaccine. The characters in the first game have to figure out what’s going on as it’s happening to them, and it’s important to remember that zombies came back into popularity due to the efforts of that first game, meaning the exact nature of the threat would have come off more ambiguous at the time. The game’s Japanese title, Biohazard, holds the clue: we’ve scarred an ecosystem, and the human damage may be beyond repair. All you can do is try to save all the people who don’t deserve to be there as it happens.

Starting in the second game, I'd hear the characters talk about vaccines. I myself will reach full vaccination status tomorrow afternoon, and here I am playing games with characters who’ve killed just to get close to making one. The difference between our viruses in theirs is that we actually have some hope of curing ours, as in the world of Resident Evil, everything seems unstoppable. Momentum never seems to end once it’s been picked up - not for the virus, not for the destruction, and certainly not for human greed. The player is supposed to survive and nothing more, not live and thrive but to continuously struggle, lose, and sacrifice as they make their way through an environment that is either mastered or deadly to the touch. “Don’t get too close,” the special operatives say to their fellow agents. Resident Evil offers the power fantasy of knowing how to handle something impossible through trial and error. The horror is overcome by learning to live with it. 

At least that’s how the first three games work. Starting with the fourth, all the atmosphere, pacing, and level design keep their levels of quality, but instead serve a much more direct fantasy of power in the form of a dread thriller with a pint of action thrown in for good measure. It’s clear that our relationship with the environment had changed by the time it was released. RE4 became the blueprint for third-person shooters, but funnily enough, going back to it reveals that it’s everything around the shooter that allows the main mechanic to shine that deep into the spotlight. The characters, for instance: Leon, now a professional, is infected with the game’s new virus himself early on, and he begins to have nightmares about what it might be doing to his body. If you’ve just come off playing through Leon’s first day as a cop in RE2, this is terrifying. He is practically a special agent at this point, meaning he’s accomplished quite a lot since the last game, so his plot armor can’t exactly be thick. Are we gonna see a character in Resident Evil, a game requiring a lot of death at first, actually die in canon? 

More importantly: what does he do now that he has the virus? Is he gonna be okay? Am I hitting myself too close to home? Or is this the only piece of media that feels relevant to me anymore?

Resident Evil 5 takes place in Africa, and despite semiplausible claims of racism actually ends up being a staunchly anti-colonial parable about overcoming a world of fear. Chris Redfield finally lets go of fear when he looks over at Jill Valentine and Sheva Alomar, the two women who have now saved his life too many times to count. RE5 was built for co-op play, and its story is based around the vulnerability and necessity of partnership. It’s not defeating the big bad in a giant volcano that helps Chris live uninhibited. It’s his support network, however small it may be. (There’s even a woman of color in it). The characters of RE have always been at the forefront of the experience, but 5 at least tries to make it clear that there really are people worth fighting for out there, and ten times out of ten, you can spot them as the ones who’re fighting right there with you. 

RE6 picks up on this theme of connection, gets high on nostalgia, and plays fast and loose with tone in a sort of victory lap. I’m not finished with it but it isn’t great so far. I also haven’t touched RE7, Code: Veronica, or Zero, as I want to finish those last two spinoffs before I move on to another phase of the mainline titles. And all the while, all my gaming channels are covering RE:Village without really covering it at all. I know that Capcom is bound to have some scientific explanation as to why vampires and werewolves made their debut in the series with this game, as it’d been in development for three years prior to its announcement, an echo of the past finally heard. But still, even if we’re grading on a curve, context is context. How wild is it that a year and change after the pandemic began, a game series known for its bio-weapons turns a gothic corner and drops its original moniker? Indeed, RE:Village is also the first not to have “biohazard” on any release title anywhere, regardless of region. In truth, I can’t quite blame the publications - I wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t sit down to write this tonight.

Would I have boarded that hype train in June if the game had kept its chemical warfare? The Last of Us: Part II, another franchise brought to me by Sony, also had its virus and pandemic in the foreground, and that’s a top ten game for me now given my specific experience with it. But then, Resident Evil is special. The beautifully detailed graphics, endearing character moments, atmospheric pacing, motivated sound design, and confrontational control schemes have all made it stand apart to me as a series. I really have no comparison for how these games have challenged me and made me feel during this time. I’ve watched Chris become a soldier, Claire become a mother, Leon become a hero, and Jill come back from the brink, all while underneath the heavy horrors of a natural environment turned unstoppably hostile. One way or another, I’m glad I met them.

This was the year everything in my life took off in directions that I could no longer follow or keep up with. I can’t describe to you how much I feel like I’ve lost, despite all the incredibly important personal work I have done behind the scenes. I realize now that there are some changes that simply can’t be stopped or unchanged, only survived, endured, and adapted to. It’s taught me that we hardly ever seek change - it seeks us, and we are offered the task to accept it or defend against it. There’s something that feels right about playing these games at this time, of that I’m sure. I find it interesting that, by the time I get to RE:Village, the franchise itself will have changed into something quite different. But with each new game I’ve crossed off my list, RE has earned more and more of my trust as a series that knows all too well how changes come and go. Hopefully I will change right along with it. 

How To Save The Album | HumanHuman

Can the album be saved from continually declining sales?

In a follow-up to our article Welcome to the Singles Era, in which we expressed the opinion that the music industry and listeners alike are all too dependent on hit singles, we’re tackling a new area of music consumption - the album. In the somewhat brief overview, we'll be looking at the different ways in which labels, PR companies and artists themselves are trying to boost album sales.

The questions that naturally arise are 1) can the traditional LP be saved from declining interest of the general public? and 2) does the album even need to be saved, or is it perhaps a change of perspective that’s in order? Let’s find out, shall we.

Stream It

Living in the digital age now means that streaming music is the most convenient way to access the albums that you love and have yet to discover. Until recently, these virtual libraries were seen as a thorn in the side of the music business, in which potential profit was forever leaking out. However, there’s a new message in the air these days - streaming is the future. We’ve seen such achievements as Fetty Wap’s debut album perform extraordinarily well online, which was certified platinum this month with 70% of the 1 million units belonging to digital sales and streams. This recent switch to counting streams as album sales (1,500 is now the equivalent to one physical purchase) now allows more artists to receive recognition for genuinely impactful releases. In light of this, let’s consider Lorde’s debut Pure Heroine which was released in 2013 and continued to sell records into 2014 with 750,000 units, but in neither year did the record manage to reach platinum status (according to Forbes), but perhaps the record would have if album streams had been counted.

On the other hand, this can also be a misleading representation of an album’s popularity. Looking back at the time when Rihanna’s ANTI LP was certified platinum, it had only managed to peddle a measly 460 real-life sales, and so it would appear that streams led the way to success for Rihanna’s sixth studio album. Well, that’s not really the case either. Shortly after the inexplicable 1.47 downloads in less than fifteen hours, it came to light that the star’s sponsors Samsung had actually pre-paid for 1 million copies of ANTI, which were then made available to TIDAL users as free downloads. This mass giveaway raises some questions about the lengths that industry behemoths will go to in order to fudge album sales. Even Billboard had to excuse the album’s sudden placement on the Billboard 200 chart, by bringing attention to their multi-metric consumption statistics. In direct response to this, one Indie Shuffle writer paints a bleak picture of the future:

“In an industry that has become increasingly dominated by streaming sites, this could be the new normal. The music executives potentially marketing an album as a huge success and citing figures from streaming and free downloads in order to enhance the product's reputation early on in the eyes of the general public.”— Mark Molyneaux, Indie Shuffle

Surprise!

Another form of an enhancement that has become a common feature in the music industry, and has so far proved to be extremely effective, is the surprise tactic. The searingly obvious example is of course Beyonce’s self-titled 2013 release, which led to many christening the day ‘Bey Day’. It wasn’t only the surprise element of the superstar’s fifth album that got fans so excited, it was also the set of full-length, highly choreographed and stylised music videos that represented the album in its initial form. More recently, we’ve seen other artists use visuals in order to signal an oncoming release, such as the late David Bowie who dropped a video for title track “Black Star” from what would be his final work. Much of the time albums appear without warning in order to create hype and a sudden burst of sales, but that’s not the only explanation. Kendrick Lamar’s unexpected release Untitled Unmastered wasn’t a money making scheme (at least not in any direct manner), but as MTV suggests it’s “a peek behind the curtains” of Lamar’s creative process. In this way he keeps fans as loyal as ever and secures sales of future, unwritten works.

Keep ‘em waiting

Artists who release records sporadically and after long periods of avoiding the limelight are able to cultivate a sense of suspense within their listenership, so that when an album does finally arrive, it’s a feeding frenzy of consumerism. We’re currently in the sway of anticipation for albums from artists like London Grammar, Jungle, Banks, Baby Alpaca, Sampha, and the aforementioned Lorde, just to name a handful. It worked for Justin Timberlake who released The 20/20 Experience seven years after his last album and an even more extreme version is My Bloody Valentine’s MBV LP which broke twenty-two years of silence. One artist who is widely known for not rushing a record is Adele, and so we were left to wait four years for her third album. Quality over quantity is one of many lessons that Adele’s affluent career teaches us. Her success also plays directly into the fact that selling CDs - a continually outdated format - is still a viable and profitable option for some artists. Adele’s 25 in particular was cited by many as saving the industry, such as chief executive of HMV Ian Topping who said it was their “fastest selling album for many years” and journalist Ian Sherwin who interred that 25 “may even have introduced a new generation to the delights of ownership” (The Independent). We only have to look to the statistics to see how Adele’s 2015 release eased the decline of falling industry sales. According to Forbes, this is represented by the sale of 1.71 million physical copies in its first week and 900,000 digital copies sold on its first day on iTunes. Whether it was the wait, the campaign, or because Adele is really, really good, 25 took the business from a potential 9% fall in sales to a more manageable 3%.

Get into vinyl

Since the growth of digital recording, this classic audio format of vinyl has long been thought of as the realm of the niche and obsessive music collector. Yet, over recent years this fringe market has grown considerably as more music-lovers try to tap into a physical relationship with their purchases, and in particular with 12-inch LPs. Mainstream endorsement came this year in the form of Sony and Panasonic’s showcases of next generation vinyl players at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. There was the luxurious Technics SL1200-GA from Panasonic and the extremely innovative Sony PS-HX500, which allows users to rip vinyl records onto hi-res audio files and therefore backs up your physical collection to a digital library. Whilst vinyl stores are yet to make a comeback as a high street staple, in the UK “vinyl sales [have] increased from £3.3m in 2009 to £25.9 million in 2014” (Wired). What’s probably most surprising about vinyl popularity in 2015 was that this format wasn’t dominated by rare recordings and obscure bands, but by pop favourites Adele who moved 116,000 vinyl copies of 25 in the US and Taylor Swift whose vinyl version of 1989 sold 74,000 units (The Verge). The other thing that makes vinyl an unexpected saviour of the music industry is it’s ability to resurrect old favourites, like Amy Winehouse’s breakthrough work Back to Black which was the second highest selling LP last year in the UK. Delving into our discoveries, we’ve seen excellent LP releases such as Holly Herndon’s Platform, Ibeyi’s self-titled, and Kamasi Washington’s The Epic (The 50 Best LPs of 2015, The Vinyl Factory). One thing is evident, music ownership is in.

All in a good campaign

With decreasing sales, there’s seems to be less revenue going around to spend on promotion (unless you’re sponsored by Samsung or some other business giant), so the answer is that emerging artists need to be more creative with their campaigns. Let’s take rising indie-pop pair Oh Wonder as an example. Their self-titled debut made a gradual appearance with one single every month throughout 2015, and this take-it-slow attitude meant that listeners had a whole year to get acquainted with Oh Wonder’s first album. This approach is exactly the opposite to the surprise tactic that many established acts appear to be using to promote albums. All of Oh Wonder’s monthly releases reached #1 on the Hype Machine chart and these newcomers also became the second most blogged about band of 2015. Continuing their trend for going against the grain, the duo of Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West released the record initially on vinyl, further emphasising their status as a band for the critics. If that wasn’t enough, their debut album came in at 26th place in the UK charts, which is pretty impressive for a band who had written, recorded, produced and self-released a record in the space of a year.

What not to do

As much as listeners love a freebie and even the savviest of buyers can fall for a well-orchestrated press campaign, music ownership isn’t something that can be forced, even when someone else, and at no extra cost, downloads it for you. Of course, we’re talking about U2’s iTunes debacle when their album Songs Of Innocence was pushed into the libraries of Apple devices without the consent of the users. After a wave of social media outrage, Apple had to issue instructions of how to delete this unwanted “gift” as CEO Tim Cook called it and U2 frontman Bono took it upon himself to air some kind of apology. The best input on this situation comes from living legend Iggy Pop: “The people who don’t want the free U2 download are trying to say, ‘Don’t try to force me,’ and they’ve got a point.”

“Part of the process when you buy something from an artist, it’s kind of an anointing, you are giving that person love.”— Iggy Pop via The Guardian

That’s the real reason we should all be working to save the album, for the artists, bands, concepts and music we love. If we want the music industry to continue, we have to invest in it.

https://humanhuman.com/articles/how-to-save-the-album

So I’ve been meaning to make a post about my feelings on Jen (and Jared, Ginny, Josh, Bex, and Emilie...but mostly Jen) leaving the show, season 7, and what may as well be the end of OUAT/CS...or at least OUAT as we know and love it, this entire week, but I’m finally just getting around to it

I feel like before the cut, it must be said that I 100% support all the cast, both those leaving and those staying, in their decisions and future endeavors. Did I cry a little when I found out JMo was leaving? Abso-fucking-lutely, but you can sure as hell bet I respect her decision and will continue to follow her career. 

As for my future involvement in the fandom YOU BETTER BELIEVE I’M STICKING AROUND. I definitely want to continue reading/writing fics and enjoy all the other amazing content this fandom makes, and I want to stay in touch with all the incredible CS shippers I’ve met here. Regarding S7, I’m going to at least give it a shot if only because Colin is staying. Also,I’m hella intrigued by the developments of the series season finale. I’m just going to look at S7 as a spin-off, as opposed to a continuation of the same show, especially since the S6 finale would have been the perfect series finale. 

I’m not sure who will actually read the lengthy post below, but I can’t let this moment pass without reminiscing just how amazing my experience with the CS fandom has been...and now for some happy memories!! 

I started shipping CS just at the end of S2, summer of 2013. At the time, I was having kind of a shitty summer, seeing as I was fully anticipating that I would be doing the Disney College Program and moving to Orlando once school ended. Plans changed, my best friend went and I didn’t, and I was just not in the best place during that time. At one point, I started chatting with a couple other OUAT blogs about shipping and fell headfirst into this fandom. 

I remember the excitement of SDCC 2013 - obviously I enjoy every SDCC, but I don’t think anything can quite compare to the hype and excitement of that year, at least for me. I remember all the new people I met in this fandom, hardcore fangirling about each tiny development we found in SDCC news. The Captain Swan fandom and SDCC honestly pulled me out of a huge slump that year and needless to say, I’m so happy this ship came into my life. Suddenly, I had things to get excited over again. 

I remember S3, which I think was honestly the peak time to be in the Captain Swan fandom....yes, perhaps even more so than during wedding/engagement time. The episodes in that season were quality af and it felt like every episode we were getting some kind of CS development...”until I met you”, “when i win your heart and I will win it”, the coconuts, and so many other moments that I remember excitedly discussing with the fandom. And then of course, THE KISS HAPPENED and the fandom lost its collective shit and I have the absolute best memories of sharing that original kiss image far and wide on this godforsaken website.  Then the first video popped up during the middle of a two hour lecture and I recall rushing out afterwards to grab a seat in the lobby of building my class was in, just so I could watch the CS kiss on my computer before heading home. I also remember texting my roommate about the kiss video being posted but not being able to watch it  and her asking how I was alive and HOW WASN’T I WATCHING IT, and me telling her that I honestly didn’t know and finally her promising to watch the Kiss with me when I got home, even though she never watched OUAT and her only knowledge of it was through me. 

I remember ACTUALLY WATCHING THE KISS and being so full of feelings after that episode I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the gym in my apartment at 1 in the morning to run off all my feelings about Captain Swan. 

I remember my weekly liveblogging, back when I used to be around to watch the show live every night, and all the fun I had interacting with fellow CSers. I looked forward to that every damn week and I’m still a little sad I never really got back into it after S3.

I remember moving to Disney and meeting my best friend because a Once related Facebook post and numerous discussions about Captain Swan = of course, we fangirled together from season 3B on! 

I remember the couple years I did Captain Swan Secret Santa and Valentine’s Day, some of the most fun things I’ve ever done and it brought more new friends. I’m hoping that we don’t stop this tradition just because the show is essentially over as we know it because I love the massive amounts of amazing fan art and fics that come about because of it. 

I remember the one season (S4) I was able to consistently join the Captain Swan Net chat and how much fun I had every week, freaking out about all our babies’ precious moments. I especially loved fangirling with all of you because the other group chat I was in during OUAT was with all my Disney friends who didn’t like Emma for some reason and didn’t ship Captain Swan how I did and I really needed like-minded people to flail with. 

After S4, my participation in the fandom really dwindled. Once I moved to Florida permanently, the theme park life didn’t allow me to be home on Sunday nights...plus the fandom just didn’t seem as active as a whole. However, I do remember the S5 finale, knowing I’d be working at Magic Kingdom til well after the episode ended. When I went on break that night, right before 9, I decided to go to a different breakroom than usual because I wanted a vending machine and the Tomorrowland breakroom didn’t have one. Well, as luck would have it, I went to the right breakroom at JUST THE RIGHT TIME and Once was already turned on on their TV. I was able to watch Hook and Emma reunited after his funeral and it took everything I had not to start crying like a baby in front of tons of strangers and WHAT A HAPPY COINCIDENCE THAT I HAD NO FOOD AT HOME BECAUSE I WAS IN THE PROCESS OF MOVING. 

And of course, the wedding - the amazing fairytale ending we’ve been dreaming about for CS since S2. 

I could go on, but I won’t since this post is a damn novel already. Captain Swan, thank you for bringing so many amazing memories and wonderful people into my life. I truly hope this fandom doesn’t die just because the show is taking a different direction and in a way, we essentially got our series finale last night. Finally, a HUGE THANK YOU to anyone who’s ever fangirled with me about this ship, as well as all the wonderful content creators who put out some of the best fics, gif sets, videos, manips, etc, that I think any fandom’s ever seen. Whether you’re still active in the fandom or you’re one of those URLs I haven’t seen cross my dash in ages, thanks for flailing along with me. 

If you’re no longer watching after last night, thanks for 5 seasons of Captain Swan and I hope to continue to see those familiar URLs around my dash! If you’re continuing to watch along to S7, I’m excited to see what this show will bring us next! <3 I love you guys!