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currentfandomkick · 4 years

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Bio! Dad Strange Part 5

Some paris update again with more Rogue shenanigans. Heads up, this is more a ‘i decided everyone can be complex and get along somewhat so im altering character dynamics from cannon to my prefrence’

When Marinette and Max and Nino ended up in Chloe’s class the trio made a simple pack on sight—aviod her at all costs.

Why?

Max is fairly certain Marinette is some type of meta. Fairly. She’s still the only person on his level close to his age, so he isnt saying anything.

Nino doesnt share this suspicion, but she’s close with Sabrina, who’s dad keeps checking in on him and Marinette’s family way more than the other stidents at Dupont. Nino doesnt like this, and by proxy, Chloe is horrible.

Marinette thinks Chloe and Sabrina could out her and aviods them to prevent this.

Their teacher sees this and decides to ignore the mandate to keep Max and Marinette And Chloe and Sabrina as science partners in every situation by switching things up.

Max hates working with Chloe—she keeps foddling and talking about fashion when its chemistry class. Focus on the lesson you heathen

Marinette works well with Sabrina (both organized) but she is extremely uncomfortabke with this as Raincomprix starts asking her for help on cases out in the open. Woth science and she has to fake not knowing about them. He takes forever to catch on that her mom doesnt know, and would be pissed if she knew.

Raincomprix then uses his daughter as an inbetween for his and marinette’s joint ‘solve the coldcase’ game. Sabrina gets involved to practice english and science, and finds out she’s good at finding overlooked clues.

As you can guess, this leads to Sabrina and Chloe joining the group.

Marinette and chloe talk fashion sometimes, Chloe critics her color pallettes and stitches. Also her choice to use rogues as inspiration becuase “arent they bad guys?”

“Eh? I think theyre just bad at getting the help they need.”

“Didnt joker kill people?”

“That was mostly mr. J. Easy mistake.”

“...okay...”

This curbs a decent amount of Chloe’s bullyign early on. Chloe is not borderline meta in this, just fixated on fashion to an insane degree—she knows everything about all aspects of the industry but cant design from scratch. Her mom looks down on her for this.

Chloe is also how the group know of ‘adrikins’ who is her prince and will marry her someday or be her forever family, uncertain which.

Alix gets along well with chloe as she needs someone to be salty with when Kim is being an idiot and Marinette is too nice and it goes over Max’s head and Nino is... there is some doubt if he’s scared of Kim or just really respects him.

Sabrina and Max cannot be left alone under any circumstances though. They will try to outsmart each other. Sabrina via legal things, Max via facts and trivia. Marinette is used as their buffer, much to her frustration as she does have designing to do guys!

Kim is showing signs of a crush. Marinette has not noticed as has a secret identity to keep, rogue family to manage from another country, other people’s secret identites to keep (she blames Tim.) so many languages to learn and practice and to top it off, friends to keep from killing each other during school. She has a lot on her plate, ok?

So that summer was more rogue sheneigans and dodging heroes while being herself and forcing her Father to cook with her—mostly Great Uncle Wang’s recipes.

“I am being bossed around by a child. In my own kitchen.”

“You were the one that claimed me as yours. I demand compensation in bonding time.”

“Uh, Mr. Smith was it? My neice suggested a aimple soup seeing as you are a... novice.”

This lead to an oddity for the Science Rogues—Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Strange and Riddler—getting into cooking wars. Only the RKC knew how and Not one of them would spill, only looking at Marinette who was smiling as she said “my great uncle did that!”

This also left the four with less plotting to destroy gotham time. It worked out for the most part.

If she got bored (and she does) she visits Ivy and helps out in the greenhouse or her the wayne’s gardens. Rose now has her own plants sprawling about gotham (marinette dropped fast grow seeds) so she can escape the Greenhouse and move about Gotham without mama bear Ivy trying to take over the city while looking for her teen-appearing child.

Frost was busy with college and so was Ghoul, so she hung out more with Puzzles due to proximity. Puzzles got it in his head to prank Hero Stalker and Batman. Marinette tried to talk him out of it, she did.

It failed. And somehow it was a night with Batgirl and Nightwing/old Robin trying to help Batman with his grief over the last robin who died. The new robin had yet to be revealed, but she noticed hero stalker was more motivated lately. She knew she couldnt stop him—he’s a year older than her and probably rich. (And she’s not supposed to exist...)

So Puzzles pretends to be Riddler and lures them into an old tv set. They were not expecting it to be a hideout for a gang.

And if Marinette was in an old Harley Quinn outfit with a hammer her size to match, well... disguise?

Harley realized what was happening when she checked the groupchat and no one knew where they pair was until Rose was pestered for a bit to have her plants check.

They went into a drug den and the batfam was with them. Fuck.

Puzzles and her get out of there when the realize what’s up. Why? Guns and not being invulnerable.

Marinette is worried though and hides and may hit one of the armed men hard enough to fly across the room.

Puzzles stares at her. She flies to tackle him and grumbles about sunlight messing with her meds again.

Nightwing caught that, realizes who knock off harley is, and guns for the kids. Only there are more goons now and—shit. Where did the kids go?

Batfam took down the gang.

Harley is seen in her car a few blocks away with... are those kids? It trends on social media that Harley has a daughter who’s grounded for messing amwith gangs.

The Council meets to scold Marinette and try to get the story straight.

Dent snorts when he finds out they were just going to silly string the batfam and slime them on camera. The camera was busted in the fight though...

Hero stalker freaks out about the whole thing and tells the pair off. “You almost died!”

“He said my dad was dumb! It was a matter of honor!”

Hero stalker is Done with Puzzles and tries to talk sense into Marinette, who says its her job to keep him from dying, ok?

Hero Stalker/Tim is upset but kind of gets it from watching Batman. Sometimes your partner does dumb things and you have to keep them safe y going along with the dumb thing.

Riddler puts them in a puzzle maze for a week. Marinette figures it out and goes in and out of it to make it look like she’s still trapped.

Strange rolls his eyes as yes, this is his daughter. Yes, she is smarter than Riddler.

Ed Nygma the other hand is keeping Puzzles grounded for another week. He lets Marinette visit to check up on his and Riddler’s states since they share a body and all.

Harley is still lecturing Marinette and gets her to agree shell at least tell Rose when something is up from then on.

Rose puts a plant on marinette. I am not joking, she puts a vine on marinette’s arm to keep her safe and make her take her meds since “you cant fly otherwise nets. And put in your earplugs!”

At somepoint there may be a case of music master making an appearance, but idk if it should be marinette is immune due to earplugs or marinette gets dragged into being seen by the league AND rogues at once and they bith try to grab a very freaked out Marinette who flies back to france where Max is mid-panic since she needs someone to talk to and uh, she figures he knows most of it so, help. She needs logic and hers is shot at the moment.

Next time we get more of a quick fic on marinette’s training with Zsasz as a kid.

#maribat #maribat au #bio!dad strange #bio!dad au #marinette strange dupain cheng #marinette strange dupain cheng part 5 #my au #my ideas

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nadziejastar · 5 years

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I haven’t been the kh fandom long, but whenever I see the old sea salt content (Axel and Roxas) I see fans shipping them romantically and sexually together. And it’s fucking gross. Axel is an adult and Roxas is a child. And I see a good chunk of Axel/Roxas content, which is one factor on why the sea salt dynamic is super popular. Which again, gross.

Don’t forget the Roxas x Axel shippers who thinks it’s cute to ship a grown man and a child together. Like one of the reasons why Roxas and Axel fandom kinda bug me. People who LOVE to over step boundaries and do gross shit

Oh, yeah. I’ve been a fan for a long time, and it’s always bothered me. It was so big, especially after KH2. Honestly, I never understood why. I think the trolls I get are shippers. They’ll send me angry messages about how much they HATE seeing my posts in the tags all the time. You think they’d just…ya know, block me if that was the case? It’s really not that hard. But no. Of course they don’t. They have to personally message me, lol. I guess it makes them feel better?

Being Special

When it comes to what befell our late comrades at Castle Oblivion, ambiguity suits me just fine. But the Keyblade master and Roxas come out and say every little thing that comes to mind. Maybe that’s human, or maybe they’re just special.

I can’t stop anyone from shipping Axel/Roxas. But I honestly don’t know how anyone saw it as romantic from an objective standpoint, especially after Days. In KH2, Roxas made Axel feel like he had a heart.

We don’t have hearts, so we accept the facts we’re given as the truth. But something far more important lies behind that truth. Saïx would laugh at people with no hearts calling one another friends, but that doesn’t make it not so. As the Nobody of the hero of the Keyblade and the Replica of that Nobody, these two are special. Unique in every sense of the word.

But Sora and Xion made him feel the same way. And he didn’t even know Sora personally. I think it was extremely important that Saïx didn’t think people without hearts could be friends. Axel was desperately lonely when he met Roxas and this cannot be overlooked. He and Sora were both special to Axel.

Axel: Love is what happens if there’s something really special between two people.

Roxas: You mean, like, if they’re best friends?

Axel: Well, you can care about your friends, I guess, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

But not in this kinda way. I also find Roxas/Axel gross. And creepy. When I see Axel/Roxas art it just feels so degrading to Axel. He’s SO much better than that. He enjoyed Roxas’ company because he was so pure and innocent. Being romantic with Roxas was the last thing on his mind. The whole idea was that Roxas and Xion are like Sora. He has the pure heart of a child, and can connect to many people. Axel was one of those people. They were special to Axel because they made him remember who he used to be.

Roxas: If I had a heart, you think I could love somebody?

Axel: Once Kingdom Hearts is complete, you’ll be able to do all kinds of things.

Roxas: That’s good.

Axel is not the type of person who would be interested in someone who he didn’t have an equal relationship with. Axel had to teach Roxas basic facts about life and human relationships. He didn’t know what friends were, or what love was. He was 15, but a lot of the time he was more like a little kid due to his amnesia. They were NOT on equal levels. Any romantic interest in Roxas would be exploitative and gross. I was happy with how Days handled Axel/Roxas.

Xion’s Conception

Where did the initial concept for the character Xion come from? Was she perceived before the completion for Kingdom Hearts 2?

Nomura: The name Xion and her background story was thought of and constructed during the production of this title, but we actually had the concept for a girl character like Xion drawn up since Roxas’s defection from Organization XIII. Therefore during the production of this title, we just worked on expanding on the ideas we had for that girl character and wrote Xion’s story around that concept.

Nomura said they came up with the idea of a girl around the time they imagined Roxas’ defection. Personally, I think one of the reasons he emphasized this point was because he was taken aback by the Roxas/Axel shipping. I think the huge popularity of the ship made Nomura and the team uncomfortable, since it’s not really…appropriate. I definitely think he wanted to distance himself from that interpretation, since he loves Axel, and that was not the impression he wanted his character to leave. I think Axel was always envisioned as a lonely guy, who had a tragic life history. He was an assassin, after all. But he was cool and decent. He wasn’t like all of the other members. He wasn’t supposed to come off like he was a sexual predator interested in a kid. That’s not cool.

How did you come up with Xion, who became such a key person in the storyline?Nomura: We showed how Roxas left Organization XIII in KH2. At the same time as we were polishing off the KH2 project, we had assumed to a certain extent what Roxas’ movements were during the time period when Days happens, and thought that “Roxas definitely left the Organization because of the influence of someone close to him.” And, we thought that “someone” should be a girl his own age. Flowing from that, we began to construct the storyline, beginning with Xion’s existence.

They thought a girl his own age should be the main influence causing him to leave. Roxas/Axel being the only important people in each others’ lives would send the wrong message. Xion was a necessary member of the trio to send the right message. 358/2 Days went out if its way to distance itself from the shippy interpretation of Axel/Roxas.

Xion’s memories were really Sora’s. But the form she had taken was reminiscent of Kairi. And that was because of Sora’s memories inside Roxas—the memories that knew Kairi as someone precious to him. Like Xion had become someone precious to Roxas.

I remember thinking that when I first played it ten years ago, too. It’s not that Roxas didn’t care about Axel. But Xion was special to him. That kind of special. The game was not even subtle about it. Roxas had a love interest and it was NOT Axel. He wasn’t broken up when he parted with Axel like he was with Xion. Their scene was really intimate. Roxas cried. Their Mystery Gear is “Aubade”. An aubade is a morning love song or poem about lovers separating at dawn. It’s the morning version of a serenade. And since both Roxas and Xion were influenced by Sora and Kairi’s memories, it made sense that they were the primary couple. Sora’s memories of Kairi are his most precious. That’s what Roxas and Xion’s whole relationship was about.

Roxas likes Girls

Xaldin: All the servants speak highly of her. It’s only fitting someone so well regarded would be given such fine lodgings.

Roxas: She’s pretty, isn’t she?

Roxas was like Ventus.

Merryweather: Stop, you get away from her!

Ven: Wha– Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.

Unlike Axel, he noticed pretty girls. He didn’t express any interest in Axel that way (thank God). But he took a particular interest in Xion right away.

Axel: Did something happen yesterday?

Roxas: Nah, it’s nothing.

Axel: …Girls sure are complicated, huh?

Roxas had girl issues. Axel was amused by it. He knew Roxas liked Xion and he couldn’t have cared less. Because he didn’t look at Roxas that way.

Roxas: How did you know that’s what I was thinking?

Axel: Because you’re not so complicated. But don’t take it personal. Most Nobodies aren’t.

Roxas: You mean…real people are more complex than us?

Axel: Well, sure! Especially if they’re real and female. That’s like a double dose of complicated.

Axel thinks he’s not complicated. It’s his way of saying that they’re not on equal levels, psychologically. As an adult, Axel can’t relate to Roxas in the necessary way to have an intimate relationship.

Axel: Well, just give her some time.

Roxas: Why?

Axel: Because if you rush in there and try to fix things, you’ll just press more buttons.

Roxas: Fine, whatever.

Axel: Ha ha. You’re all right, kid.

Roxas: Don’t call me “kid”!

Roxas: Stop laughing!

Axel even calls him “kid”.

Ven: What does THAT mean?

Terra: You’ll find out someday, I’m sure.

Ven: I wanna know now.

Terra: You’re too young to know now.

Ven: Quit treating me like a kid.

Like Terra did with Ven. And he hated it just as much as Ven did. It was clear to me that Terra and Aqua were on the same level with each other, and related to Ven differently. Roxas and Xion were on equal levels, and related to Axel differently.

Roxas/Xion & Sora/Kairi

Axel: Roxas… Xion is like a mirror that reflects you.

Roxas: What?

Axel: The Organization made her to duplicate your powers. She’s a puppet.

Roxas: Have you gone nuts? Xion’s a person, not a puppet.

Axel: She’s smoke and mirrors, Roxas. And when I looked in the mirror…It wasn’t you I saw.

Roxas: I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Xion is Xion. You can’t expect her to be me.

Axel: That’s not what I mean, Roxas. It was only a matter of time before somebody had to break the mirror.

Roxas got angry when Axel fought Xion.

Roxas: You mean destroy her. Answer me!

Axel: Roxas, if somebody doesn’t, you’ll… You won’t be you anymore.

Roxas: I’ll always be me! Your best friend–just like Xion!

Axel: Roxas, you’re…you’re not seeing the bigger picture. Any of it.

Roxas: Ugh, forget this.

Axel: Roxas! Why can’t you understand…

He wouldn’t listen to what Axel was telling him, even though Axel was trying to save him.

Xion: What, did you two have a fight?

Roxas: I can’t believe that jerk would actually attack you.

Xion: So he’s a jerk now? Roxas, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you if Axel hadn’t done that. He’s your best friend.

Roxas: So are you.

Even Xion defends Axel, and tries to explain that he just did what he had to do. Roxas won’t even listen to her. He can’t think clearly when it comes to Xion. It was like Sora in Castle Oblivion. He wouldn’t listen to Donald and Goofy when they tried to reason with him about Naminé. And since both situations involved memories of Kairi, this made sense.

Xion: Here, I brought you this. It’s a seashell. I’ve been picking one up every time I go out on a mission. Hold it up to your ear.

Roxas is sentimental about the seashells Xion left him. He put them by her bed too, when he was afraid she wouldn’t wake up.

Xion: It’s too late…for me to undo my mistakes. But you can’t let Xemnas…have Kingdom Hearts. You can’t. Good-bye, Roxas. See you again. I’m glad…I got to meet you. Oh…and of course, Axel, too. You’re both my best friends. Never forget. That’s the truth.

It was the only thing she left behind after telling Roxas to never forget. He sheds a tear for her.

Xion: Roxas, don’t be sad. I came from you and Sora. I am you…the same way that I am Sora. You’ll forget me, but the memories themselves will never go away. Memories of you and me will always be together…forever, inside him.

It all suggested to me that Roxas had romantic feelings for Xion. The seashell thing was special—something meaningful only between them. It was very personal, related to their memories of Destiny Islands. Something only they would understand about each other. They’d never forget each other. Like Sora and Kairi.

Axel’s Memories

However there were two parallel stories in Days. Roxas and Xion’s connection to Sora was one. But Axel’s connection to Sora was the other. Xion was born in Castle Oblivion. And Axel changed after coming back from there. He told Roxas Sora rubbed off on him. Sora’s memories of Kairi formed Xion. But his memories of Kairi also had a connection to Axel, too. Axel and Sora had parallel character arcs in Castle Oblivion. He had special memories of his own that nobody else would understand.

Axel: You will need to follow your memories. Trust what you remember and seek what you forget. Then you will find someone very special.

Goofy: You mean King Mickey and Riku?

Axel: You will just have to give some more thought to who it is that’s—most important to you. Our most precious memories lie so deep within our hearts that they’re out of reach. But I’m sure that you can find yours, Sora.

Axel started off trying to manipulate Sora.

Riku: And as long as they’ve got their hands on Sora’s most precious memories–the ones of Kairi–I don’t think Sora will recover.

Sora’s most precious memories were of Kairi. These were going to be the key to manipulating his heart, using Naminé. All of his memories would be replaced, and he’d be under the Organization’s control. But Axel was impressed by the strength of his heart and changed his mind.

“I mean, Demyx doesn’t have a heart, but he’d go nuts if you took his sitar, wouldn’t he?” Roxas tried.

“Huh…you’ve got a point. So, okay, say you don’t need a heart for things to be important to you… Maybe the closest thing we Nobodies have is our pasts. It’s the memories that give things value.”

After coming back, when Axel is asked what’s most important to him, he says it’s his memories of the past.

Day 150: Too Precious to Lose

Xion didn’t come to the clock tower again today. She and Saïx had some kind of argument. Axel and I talked for a while about the things we can’t bear to lose. Axel thinks that for Nobodies, it’s our pasts, because that’s all we have to remember the pain of losing something.

They’re too precious for him to lose—his weakness. Just like Sora’s memories of Kairi were.

Marluxia: In this place, to find is to lose, and to lose is to find. That is the way in Castle Oblivion.

Sora: Castle Oblivion?

Marluxia: Here you will meet people that you have known in the past. And you will meet people you miss.

They are all that’s left to remember the pain of losing something. Which was what Castle Oblivion was all about.

Goofy: Don’t worry, fellahs! We might forget about where we’ve been or what hings we’ve seen, but we won’t forget who are friends are.

Donald: I don’t know…

Goofy: C'mon, Sora, when you turned into a Heartless, did you forget about me and Donald?

Sora: Of course I didn’t!

Goofy: There ya go! No matter what happens, you won’t forget your friends.

Sora: Huh… You’re right. Thank you, Goofy.

Donald: So, if there’s nothing here that can make you forget about your friends…then we have nothing to be scared of! Let’s go!

Axel was intrigued that Sora retained a sense of self after becoming a Heartless. It was because of the strength of his heart. He never forgot his friends. Kairi was even able to change him back because she couldn’t forget him.

Lea: I want everybody I meet to remember me. Inside people’s memories, I can live forever.

Isa: I know I won’t forget you. Believe me, I try all the time.

Lea: See, I’m immortal!

Axel felt the same way in the past as Sora did. He remembered who he was thanks to being in Castle Oblivion.

Sora: Why me?

Axel: You have lost sight of the light within the darkness. And it seems that you’ve forgotten that you forgot.

Axel knew that Sora’s memories were going to be distorted and he’d forget Kairi.

Axel: Nothing lasts forever, man. Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But you know, we’ll still have each other…even if things change and we can’t do this anymore.

Roxas: Yeah?

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

But it was really Axel who had forgotten that he’d forgot.

Axel: Would you like me to give you a hint?

Sora: I’m gonna figure it out for myself. If you’re in my way—

Donald: Don’t worry, Sora! We’ll protect you!

Axel: Good answer. Just what I’d expect from the Keyblade master. But be forewarned… When your sleeping memories awaken, you may no longer be who you are now.

He told Sora that he’d no longer be the same after his sleeping memories awakened.

Naminé: No matter how much I change his memory, Sora will never forget Kairi. Memories of me— More false memories of me will just make his feelings for Kairi even stronger than before. Because…I’m the shadow of Kairi.

But Sora was able to stay the same. Naminé changed sides, and his memories were restored. He wouldn’t even remember Castle Oblivion afterwards.

Talking to Roxas and Xion always brings back memories of my human life, back when I was a kid. It’s a weird sensation. I ought to be able to share all this with Saïx, but I just don’t feel like it anymore. It’s strange, but I’m content with just missing what’s gone. I’m not the one who changed. You did.

Axel’s words were foreshadowing himself. After his sleeping memories awakened, he’s the one who changed. But he really just went back to being his true self. Axel’s memories of Isa were the equivalent of Sora’s memories of Kairi. Sora slowly forgot who was most important to him. Axel slowly remembered who was most important to him. It’s sad that Lea’s relationship with Isa was so underrated, and got treated with such little respect. If the popularity of the Roxas/Axel ship had anything to do with it, then that is just sad and pathetic.

#kh meta #kingdom hearts meta #kh axel #kh lea #isalea #kh isa

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umbracado-blog · 6 years

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MAJORA | GOLDEN GODDESS

Throughout the Zelda series, the three GOLDEN GODDESSES who created the world of HYRULE and the TRIFORCE (DIN, NAYRU, and FARORE) are repeatedly mentioned and are shown to be both real and extremely powerful, albeit usually hands-off concerning their creations. That said, there are a few other entities in the Zelda canon that are comparable, at least in terms of raw power or significance. Examples include Oshus from Phantom Hourglass and DEMISE of Skyward Sword fame, but this theory will be focusing on the big players in TERMINA.

The FOUR GIANTS of Termina seem to have a role parallel to that of the three Golden Goddesses. Though they are never explicitly said to forge the world of Termina from scratch, Locals say they were responsible for creating the four distinct areas surrounding Clock Town, which make up a majority of the game’s world. The fact that four of them working together can stop a flying celestial object shot at the world by a vengeful deity also speaks volumes about their power.

In fact, three of the Four Giants’ regions can be seen as reflections of Din, Nayru, and Farore.

Din, whose essence is in the TRIFORCE OF POWER, is also associated with fire and theGORON people, who tend to eat rocks and live around volcanos. SNOWHEAD in northern Termina is where the region’s Gorons live, the local Temple rewards Link withFire Arrows, and the Temple also requires Link to use his physical Power in his Goron form to break obstacles to complete the temple.

Nayru, the Goddess of Wisdom, is also associated with Water, Magic, and the ZORApeople. The GREAT BAY in Western Termina is home to the region’s Zora population, has obvious associations with water, rewards Link with Ice Arrows (Ice and Water overlap sometimes in Zelda) in its Dungeon, and contains a Research Laboratory. The Lab’s location and its being associated with Wisdom could be a stretch, but note that LAKE HYLIA, a location in Ocarina of Time associated with Nayru and the Zora, also has a Lakeside Laboratory. Plus, the GREAT FAIRY of Great Bay Temple grants Link a Defense upgrade, similar to the Spirit of Wisdom in Phantom Hourglass.

Farore, the Goddess of Courage, is the relative oddball of the trio, being associated with Wind, Life (especially Woods and Plants in Particular), Green, and races such as theKOKIRI and DEKU.family of creatures. The SOUTHERN SWAMP in Termina is dominated by the DEKU SCRUBS, who are not only plants but also capable of limited flight, using Deku Flowers to launch into the air. The basic bow and arrows that are unlocked in Woodfall Temple have no special magical characteristics, but note that even basic arrows are just flying pieces of wood.

This leaves one giant’s location, IKANA CANYON, unaccounted for. Ikana Canyon’s recurring motifs are the presence of death and the contrast between light and darkness. Death examples are easy to come by, such as the graveyard and presence of undead GIBDOS andREDEADS. Though this is the only region without a corresponding transformation mask, the Song of Healing can be used to obtain the GIBDO MASK, which tricks the undead into thinking Link is one of them. The infamous Elegy of Emptiness (elegies are laments for the dead) creates husks of Link’s current form that are necessary for completing Stone Tower Temple. TWINMOLD, the big boss fight in this area, resembles a worm or maggot, animals typically associated with death and decay. As for Light and Darkness, the Mirror Shield is obtained here, and STONE TEMPLE TOWER features the Light Arrows. Also note that the Tower itself is light-based despite being surrounded by darkness and death, and actually doesn’t include the Gibdos and Redeads found elsewhere.

So, why do three of the Four Giants match one of the three Golden Goddesses so easily, leaving only one exception? Maybe there is something else in Hyrule that corresponds to the last Giant, associated with the themes of Death of Light. For the sake of both the canon timeline and real life release dates, let’s mostly focus on Ocarina of Time’s incarnation of Hyrule.

Ocarina of Time largely focuses on other motifs until later in the game, using settings such as trees, caves, and really big fish for its dungeons. The two last regular dungeons in the game though (excluding Ganon’s Tower of DOOM) are almost exact matches. Also note that either one can be completed first and that both require more time traveling than any other dungeon.

The SHADOW TEMPLE (plus the Well) near KAKARIKO VILLAGE is based around the themes of Death, Darkness, and Deceit. They are packed with undead enemies, including the same variety of Redeads and Gibdos that haunt Ikana Canyon, STALFOS, DEAD HAND,BONGO BONGO, and those flying magic skull things (you know the ones… with the things).

The most useful treasure found here is the Lens of Truth, which sees through illusions. The temple is also loaded with various references to death and darkness, my personal favorite being the boat that is a “ferry to the other side,” almost certainly an allusion to Charon the ferryman from Greek Legend.

The SPIRIT TEMPLE, which is on the exact opposite side of the world, focuses mostly onLight. This temple requires playing as both a child and adult. Child Link needs to collect theSilver Gauntlets and Requiem of Spirit to complete the temple as an adult. Note the oddity of a Requiem (prayer for departing souls) being used to reach the Light Dungeon. As an adult, Link collects a Mirror Shield to solve Light-based puzzles. He also fights three IRON KNUCKLE enemies, which are also found in Ikana Canyon in Termina.

If we look for connections between Ikana Canyon and the fourth entity in Hyrule, we can guess that they were likely associated with either the GERUDO or SHEIKAH, much like how other races were associated with other goddesses. Their color of choice is likely purple, based on the purple color of the Shadow Medallion. Purple is another recurring color in Zelda, ranging from Player 4’s color in the Four Swords games, the Element of Earth in Minish Cap, and MAJORA from Majora’s Mask.

Yes, we finally got to Majora.

Let’s review what we know about Majora and its Mask. A long time ago (“ancient tribe” is a bit ambiguous), this mask was used by a now extinct group for magical rituals, but any more details in-universe are largely guesswork. Even the HAPPY MASK SALESMAN doesn’t seem to know that much about it, other than hinting that the mask was the home of a dangerous spirit rather than being an evil costume piece. Majora is also unbelievably powerful, seemingly far more so than Ganon ever was at any point in the series. Even the likes of Demise probably couldn’t destroy the world in a three-day weekend while still technically being bound within the mask.

And although the mask is too alien to easily empathize with or rationalize, it is obviously a conscious being, based on some of the game’s latter scenes and dialogue. It is also aware of what’s happening around it, as seen with the four children wearing boss-based masks on the moon indicate.

One thing that’s often overlooked, however, is that Majora likely came from Hyrule. That’s where the SKULL KID and Mask Salesman were found in Ocarina of Time, a short while before Majora’s Mask took place. The Mask Salesman also seems to have had Majora’s Mask for a while, but he can easily be found in CASTLE TOWN throughout Ocarina of Time, suggesting that he at least had it with him in Hyrule for a while. The game actually begins in Hyrule, when Link is ambushed looking for his lost friend. And even though Skull Kid and Majora curse a bunch of people, these all happen a relatively short time before Majora’s Mask begins, suggesting that Skull Kid only started using the mask very recently.

Last, let’s see what Majora itself had to say, both in person and via the Moon and moon children.

I wonder, if you do the right thing, does it really make everyone happy?

Your friends… What kind of… people are they? I wonder… Do these people… think of you… as a friend?

When a body is used by another, it can be called nothing but a puppet.

OK, let’s play good guys and bad guys… I’ll be the good guy, and you be the bad guy, and when you’re the bad guy, you just run.

Everyone has gone away, haven’t they?

That’s surprisingly insecure for a destroyer of worlds. And considering how Skull Kid has been left behind by the end of the game, it seems that this can not all be the thoughts of the Skull Kid still echoing in Majora. It’s as if Majora itself has some deep-seated issues involving trust. It questions the morality of its actions, worries about being used by others, and seems very concerned with how others view it.

THE THEORY IS THIS:

The Golden Goddesses once included four members: Din, Nayru, Farore, and Majora. Each played a valuable role in its creation and complemented another member of the four. Din and Nayru balanced one another, with Fire meeting Water, Power meeting Wisdom, and Creation meeting Order. Likewise, Farore and Majora balanced each other out. Farore would bring Wind, Life, and Courage while Majora would offer Earth, Death, and Peace (themes seen in Ikana Canyon).

The four of them created the world of Hyrule and its many peoples. Perhaps Majora’s favorite people were the predecessors of HYLIANS. Though a variety of humans exist in the Zelda universe, it should be noted that the ones with pointed ears (Hylians, Sheikah, and Gerudo) are most closely associated with many of Majora’s favorite points, as seen in OoT’s Spirit and Shadow Temples.

It is also likely that the four goddesses spent a while living in the world they made, much like the Giants of Termina. This would be a bit of a weird dynamic for common people, especially concerning Majora. Gods associated with accepting one’s fate and returning to the Earth are not always going to be popular.

The thing is, if there’s one thing the Zelda series is consistent about, it’s powerful beings able to be defeated by much weaker ones. Link defeating Ganon a bunch is the most obvious example, but even benevolent deities like the WIND FISH and Four Giants are shown to be vulnerable to something they should be able to take on. So it’s possible that the peoples of early Hyrule could defeat Majora with a well thought out plan and the element of surprise. This plan: trapping her in a mask, which would only be used for exploiting her power.

The remaining trio could react in a number of ways. they would almost certainly be upset, both because of personal safety concerns and the outrage at Majora being imprisoned by the world she helped create. Rescuing Majora would be a high priority, but being very powerful doesn’t necessarily grant omniscience. A mask is very easy to hide, and they wouldn’t even necessarily know to look for a mask in the first place. That said, it would be an utter waste to destroy the peoples they created. Not all of them were necessarily guilty. Nevertheless, Hyrule was no longer safe for its creators.

So the Golden Trio departed from the world, leaving only a portion of their powers behind to create the Triforce.

Thing is, without the Golden Goddesses, the world would soon be attacked by outside threats like Demise. This was bad enough, but worse was the fact that Majora could not contribute her efforts into maintaining the world’s balance. Thus, the nature of Hyrule changed forever. Without an entity that could manage death and ultimate peace, undead creatures would begin to plague the world. Worse, monsters like Ganon were literally unstoppable, since they were powerful enough to overcome any force that would make them face a proper death or ending.

And so, by trapping the Goddess associated with Death, the people of Hyrule allowed the greatest killer in their history to go largely unopposed. After all, even when a hero rises, he can not always stop Ganon immediately. The Downfall timeline is based on the good guys simply failing.

Majora didn’t see most of this. She was in a mask most of the time, wondering why her three sisters had not saved her. Did they know about this? Had they taken part? Why would they betray her?

So ages later, when little Skull Kid allowed Majora to see her surroundings for the first time in at least a few centuries, likely much longer, she was neither entirely rational or calm. When she saw Termina, she saw something resembling what the world she made might look like after X many years. So bringing the moon down? That was revenge.

Theory by u/salnax

#ᵃᶰᵈ ᵏᶰᵒʷᶫᵉᵈᵍᵉ ᶦˢ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ; HEADCANONS.#First post? Most important post.#Like the first scene in a movie you get me?#Got to set the tone.#I'm setting the tone with a READING ASSIGNMENT! SAGE OF WISDOM YOU GOOBS PICK UP A BOOK.#I base large parts of Zelda's story and reactions to the world based on this headcanon.#You don't have to accept it to be here. but if you're writing with my zelda know that it's her CANON.

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rainbowravioli · 7 years

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Hello! I have read your YOI meta/critiques extensively and I am so happy to know I am not the only one who feels incredibly disappointed by some of the things that happen in the anime. Thanks for all your thoughts! I would love to know your thoughts on something.

I (personally) have always felt like some sports anime betrayal their protagonists. I noticed this in haikyuu. One instance in the anime that really struck me was when kageyama tells hinata, “you’ll never be an ace” (ep 10). He goes on to say “As long as i’m here you are invincible.” Hinata even contends saying, “I don’t have the fighting power to be ace.” This moment really struck me because I felt like essentially hinata’s existence on the court is dependent upon kageyama, which I feel undermines his entire character and undermines his position as the protagonist and shifts the focus from Hinata to kageyama. I also felt like this in ace of diamond. I feel like ultimately the character development and story became focused on Furuya as opposed to Eijun (the protagonist). I feel like the protagonist in some sports anime ends up becoming the “rival” as opposed to the initially introduced protag. In other words, I feel like sometimes our protagonists get the short end of the stick while their “rivals” end up accomplishing all of their goals. I especially feel like this happened with yuri and yurio. But, I’m not sure and maybe I’m just being hypercritical and overlooking important moments. Also, I’m not putting down these animes, they all actually have a special place in my heart. I would love to know your honest thoughts on this and have your input! I really respect your metas/critiques :)

Oooooh interesting question! And it just so happens that I recently discussed the Haikyuu!! portion of this in real life. Oh, before we jump into this, thank you for the kind words you are really sweet ❤

There’s two key differences between YoI and the two examples you mentioned: one is the time frame in which the narrative happens and two is the aspect of team sport vs individual sport.

Time frame - Yuuri wants to win gold at this season’s GPF. His entire character arc is about realizing that he always had the skill to do it, he just lacked confidence. Through the span of the 12 episodes of the series, Yuuri goes through his complete journey, has exactly the character development he needs to finally win, competes in the GPF…and loses. And even if they give Yuuri gold later (because we know the series will continue), he was still robbed of his character’s arc resolution, and gold in any other circumstance will never be as meaningful. (x)

Haikyuu!! and Diamond no Ace are still on-going, long term series. The objective of both protagonists is to become the ace of their respective teams, but none of them have the skills necessary to do it yet.

Another way in which the time frame works is where our protagonists are placed in the beginning of the story. Yuuri is not a beginner at figure skating, he’s 23, Japan’s best male skater and has been competing for years now. More than technical aspects, what Yuuri needs to learn is to trust in himself, have confidence, take advantage of the skills he already has and understand self-love. On the other hand, both Hinata and Eijun on the other hand are still in high school and still very incomplete as athletes. They have time and room to learn and grow towards their objectives.

Team vs Individual - Yuri on Ice is, like the name indicates, about Yuuri. It’s Yuuri’s journey. Victor and Yurio are main character but they are not the protagonist. Yuuri competes by himself. . At most, you can argue that Yuuri and Victor are a team (and they are) but Victor is not on the ice, and while he is an active participant in Yuuri’s successes by being his coach, Yuuri is the one that has to go out there and perform by himself. Yuuri’s character goal and narrative goal are linked and join together in the desire to win gold at the GPF, something that Yuuri is robbed from achieving.

Volleyball and baseball on the other hand, are team sports. While both Hinata and Eijun have their individual goal of wanting to be the ace, they also share with their teammates the broader goal of helping their team win and advance. Since they are part of a team they can’t develop by themselves, which is why teammates and rivals play such an important role in pushing them forward. This is not the case with Yuri on Ice. While Yurio’s role can be seen as that of a “rival”, Yuuri himself doesn’t really see him as such. Yurio is a lot more focused on Yuuri and uses him as motivation than the other way around. They are not teammates, they’re barely even friends and their arcs are not as intertwined as you would expect for a protagonist/rival dynamic. Yuuri’s journey is a very personal one and the character that influences it the most if Victor, who never takes over Yuuri’s protagonist status, character arc or achievements (unlike what ends up happening with Yurio in the finale).

Now your question is, in the case of Haikyuu and Diamond no Ace, are the teammates/rivals really pushing the protagonists forward or are they holding them back and stealing the spotlight?

I promise I’ll try to be brief.

Let’s go case by case, starting with Haikyuu.

Haikyuu’s set up is very clever in the sense that it tricks you into believing that Hinata and Kageyama are going to be rivals and the series will be about watching Hinata grow strong enough to compete against Kageyama once they meet again in competition. That premise is thrown out extremely fast. Daichi makes it very clear very fast - they are on the same side now and they need to work together as a team.

They are not rivals, they are teammates. Kageyama is not competing for the ace position - he’s a setter.

In fact, Haikyuu places a big importance in the concept of team, team work, and how every role is equally important to achieve victory. We don’t see this just with Karasuno but with the rival teams as well. Kenma says Nekoma is strong, not because he is particularly strong but because everyone else on the team is. Seijou is strong because of Oikawa’s dedication to the team and how he makes it a point to know his teammates’ strengths and weaknesses so well.

Haikyuu is not just Hinata’s story but Karasuno’s. Karasuno used to be a strong team but they are not anymore and the series is about how the current generation will achieve greatness once more and win Nationals (story goal).

Hinata’s character goal to be the ace gets sidelined very early in the series. As Hinata is right now, he can’t be the ace. Especially at the start of the series, the things he has going for him are his speed and jumping ability. He’s not a great player, but he also never had a team that would take advantage of his assets and shape him into a great player. Karasuno is doing that, and so is his partnership with Kageyama and their quick combination. Remember, at the star of the series it was hard for Kageyama to work effectively with anyone who wasn’t Hinata as well. He had to learn to be a better setter, he just learned faster because of his genius status. There’s a big focus on him as well because he ends up as Hinata’s partner on the court. Hinata is not diminished by having to work with Kageyama to make the most of his skills because he currently needs that help. The earlier part of the series is all about showing Hinata and the audience that he doesn’t have to be the ace to shine on the court and he one of the most important members of the team. He is Karasuno’s secret weapon, but he’s still not polished enough to work without Kageyama. But he’s getting there.

Hinata’s idol, the Small Giant, only started to develop enough to compensate for his height halfway through his second year. Hinata is only a first year, but he’s growing fast, and everything indicates that he will also find a way to overcome his weakness and become the ace in the future. He has an incredible game sense, learns quickly from his mistakes, improves during the actual matches and is one of the few players with the ability to see entire width of the court when he jumps.

So at least for now I don’t think Haikyuu’s narrative is betraying Hinata at all.

Diamond no Ace has a similar case but with some key differences. Eijun and Furuya are both aiming or the same position on the team, thus making them both teammates and rivals. As such, both of their character development and growth as players is intrinsically connected. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

However.

At this point in time, Furuya has already achieved his objective of being the ace. He is still growing into the position and developing (and I’m pretty sure we’re approaching some major development for him in the manga considering how things are) but he’s there. And he’s been there for a while. Eijun on the other hand, only just recently got acknowledgement from Miyuki on his potential to be the ace. We’re already in act II of the story and it still doesn’t look like Eijun will be the ace any time soon. This means we’ve been watching him struggle for almost 500 chapters and Furuya’s ace position is still extremely solid.

Which to me is the main problem with Diamond no Ace - the pacing. It drags. I understand the author wants to be as realistic as possible with the slow development of the characters, but it can get very frustrating at times. Some things have already been lost along the way. For example, Eijun, Furuya and Haruichi were quickly established as a trio early in the story, but both that concept and Haruichi as a character have been completely sidelined.

Since Eijun is our main, we can expect him to eventually become the ace, but it feels like the timing for that has already passed. Furuya is so established in the position at this time that it doesn’t make sense story-wise to give Eijun the ace number unless we come up with some convoluted reason that will force Furuya away, like an injury. This would be unfair to both characters. So probably what we can expect is more extremely slow development. By the way, this isn’t to say that Furuya didn’t deserve his position, not at all. Both him and Eijun work hard on their weaknesses, both are important members of the team and most importantly, both respect each other as players. It’s just that the focus on Eijun’s desire to become the ace and his work towards the position has never really shifted, and after years of watching him struggle for it, it would feel unsatisfying to never see him achieve it.

Considering how fandom is so divided on this issue, to the point of there being a lot of unfair and unjustified hate for Furuya as a character (I love Furuya and am on his defense squad), I can’t say Terajima has made the smartest story choices.

That said, there’s another way to interpret what Diamond no Ace is supposed to be about. Aces. And what the position means and how different characters interpret and deal with said responsibility. Which is way the ace characters (and aspiring) tend to be the most developed of the cast.

Still, Eijun is still the main character and in this case, due to the structure and pacing, I do feel that many times he is not treated as such. Which is a shame. If we’re talking anime only, he is certainly not given his due like he deserves.

But…slow build *sigh* We’ll see how things go.

#Anonymous #replies #meta #I don't even know how to tag this one #yoi critical #because that's happening a bit #and mmmmm #haikyuu meta #daiya meta #some daiya critical but no Furuya hate or anything don't worry #spoiler alert I was not brief

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healthnotion · 6 years

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The 7 Habits: Think Win/Win

Welcome back to our monthly series that summarizes, expands, and riffs on each of the seven habits laid out in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

The first of Covey’s 7 Habits are what he calls the “habits of private victory”: Being Proactive, Beginning With the End in Mind, and Putting First Things First prompt us to get our own lives in order. By living these first three habits, we start acting as autonomous, high-agency individuals, learn to recognize what we want in life, and begin to turn our ideals into reality.

But we don’t live in a vacuum. We have to interact with other people who have their own desires and ambitions that might conflict with our own. Sure, your goal in life might be to get a job with a certain company, but that company has its own goals and might not think you’re the guy to help reach them. Or maybe you have a goal of working out first thing in the morning, but your wife wants you to help get the kids ready for the day.

How do you successfully navigate the world as an individual who lives among other individuals?

That’s what the next three habits seek to answer. Covey calls them the “habits of public victory,” and the first of this trio of outward-facing habits — Think Win/Win — provides the framework, or “paradigm” in Covey-speak, for all of them.

Seek to Order Yourself First, Before You Seek to Order the World

The habits of public victory build off the habits of private victory. You can’t skip the inward habits and expect to successfully implement the outward ones. Before you can successfully interact and cooperate with other individuals, you have to be an individual yourself. You have to know who you are, where you’re going, and what you stand for. Failure to develop a strong sense of self will only result in frustration and confusion as you bump up against other people who all have their own agendas, and will pull you this way and that.

In other words, if you want to fix the world, start by fixing yourself first.

Jordan B. Peterson has said something similar; to paraphrase Peterson-speak: “Sort yourself out, bucko, before you try sorting out the world.”

Now does this mean you have to have your inner life in complete order before you start trying to order the world around you? Of course not. You’d never get started with the outward habits if you did that. No one is ever entirely “sorted out.” It’s a lifelong process. But if you are to have any progress with the outer habits, you need to be in progress with developing the inner ones.

The Public Habits Are “Unsexy,” But Critical

While it’s crucial to order yourself before you try ordering the world, I think a bigger problem than getting these steps out of order, is failing to ever move on to the latter part of the equation.

While sorting yourself out may seem like a “hardcore” principle, and is indeed a task that will require grit and determination, in truth, it’s the easiest, most fun and excitement-filled part of improving your life.

It’s a bit thrilling to set your own course. The project has a wonderfully simple, single-minded focus; responsible for yourself alone, you’re freed from the entangling burdens of external alliances.

I think that’s why I’ve noticed when people talk about The 7 Habits, they talk enthusiastically about the first three, which have to do with private victories — what I call the “sexy” habits — and pretty much ignore the subsequent ones that deal with other people.

But the habits of public victory are overlooked at an individual’s peril. They may be unsexy, but they’re critical to achievement in every area of life.

Here in America, we love the idea of the “self-made man.” The scrappy, rugged individualist who, without any help from others, pulls himself up by his bootstraps and makes his way in the world.

It’s certainly an inspiring archetype that encourages the admirable virtues of initiative and self-reliance.

But it’s a myth. A useful and inspiring myth, but a myth nonetheless.

The reality is that our success in life isn’t purely an individual effort. Yes, it requires pluck and drive on our part, but it also requires the cooperation of others, no matter how autonomous your path in life.

If you’re a writer, you need readers. If you’re an entrepreneur, you need customers — and have to deal with employees. If you want to create a flourishing family culture, you need to work together on it with your wife. If you want friends, well, you need to interact with folks other than yourself!

You can’t reach full flourishing in your professional, familial, and social life without other people.

So while personal initiative is necessary for success, it’s not sufficient. Our relationships (and a bit of luck) are the other critical part of the equation.

The 4 Paradigms of Relationships

Relationships may be essential to our success, but they sure can be hard to navigate. We have to work with people who have their own ideas, their own goals, and their own way of viewing the world.

In every relationship, whether business or personal, each party wants something, and Covey lays out four possible dynamics/outcomes that can emerge from this collision of agendas:

Win/Win

Everybody feels like they benefit from the relationship. Agreements and solutions are mutually advantageous and all parties are committed to making the agreement work. In business, this could mean a contract that’s equally beneficial; in a family, it could be a chore arrangement that both parents and children are on board with.

Win/Lose

In a Win/Lose paradigm, you get what you want while the other party feels like they got the short end of the stick. According to Covey, individuals who utilize a Win/Lose paradigm tend “to use positions, power, credentials, possessions, or personality to get their way.”

Win/Lose is when a boss tells his employee that he needs to stay late after work or else he’ll lose his job, or when a parent tells his kid to pick up his room because “I said so.”

There’s certainly a place for a Win/Lose paradigm. A football game requires a winner and loser, some business markets can only support one dominant firm, and sometimes kids have to do stuff they don’t want to do, even if, from their perspective, they don’t stand to benefit.

But the Win/Lose dynamic often results in a pyrrhic victory — you gain what you want in the short-term, while damaging a relationship in the long-term.

Lose/Win

Individuals who take the Lose/Win approach towards relationships are the stereotypical “nice guys.” They’re the doormats of life. They just let people walk all over them. They approach every encounter with another person through the paradigm of “I surrender, and you get what you want.”

“I’ll do whatever you want to do.”

“Oh, you were late with that report? That’s completely fine! Don’t worry about it. No big deal!”

“I won’t go hang out with my friends because I know it bothers you.

For Covey, Lose/Win is even worse than Win/Lose because at least the person who approaches relationships from the latter perspective has some standards and self-respect that he’s willing to fight for! The Lose/Win guy doesn’t believe in anything — he just wants to avoid conflict and keep people liking him.

The insidious thing about Lose/Win is that while it can smooth relationships over in the short-term, resentment and anger slowly builds up in the individual who takes this approach towards life. And that resentment can eventually ooze out in passive aggressiveness or explode in rage.

That isn’t to say there isn’t sometimes a place for Lose/Win in our lives. Maybe we take that approach when the issue is truly not worth making a fuss over, or when belaboring it would do harm to the long-term relationship. Maybe a negotiating partner wants a term that would inconvenience you in the short-term, but is a big deal to him; you can make a federal case about it, but it may harm the business relationship down the road. Covey would argue that maybe the wise thing to do is concede on that point and take the hit for the sake of your long-term prospects. Knowing when to fold, though, requires one to have a firm sense of purpose and self.

Lose/Lose

Lose/Lose is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you’re going down, everyone else is going down with you. Lose/Lose situations occur when two stubborn and prideful people are pitted against each other. Lose/Lose is the businessman who bankrupts his company litigating a lawsuit that was launched to get back at a competitor; it’s the friend who makes the evening miserable for everyone because he didn’t get to do what he wanted.

While Win/Lose or Lose/Win can be used strategically and sparingly, there’s probably no situation in which adopting the Lose/Lose approach is beneficial.

How Seeking Win/Win Relationships Develops Your Maturity

While there’s certainly a time and place for Win/Lose and Lose/Win in our dealings with our fellow humans, Covey believes that the Win/Win dynamic is the one we should strive for most, since it’s the only one in which you get what you want and you strengthen the long-term health of a relationship.

But I also think that seeking win/win relationships is a key in helping us achieve maturity — a firm, well-sorted posture that promotes well-being and success in every area of life.

Here’s how:

Develops your humility. The idea that you can get where you’re going alone is a product of ego, and ego is the enemy. Individual success, Covey says, is actually a product of interdependency, and interdependency naturally presupposes dependency, a condition we hate to countenance. But forthrightly acknowledging the way we rely on others to exist and succeed demonstrates not only a clear-eyed realism, but a sober humility.

Recognizes the full humanity of others. When you’re young (or immature at any age), you feel the world revolves around you. Even if it’s unconscious, you don’t see everyone else as fully human — at least not in the way you see yourself; you don’t recognize the fact that they have needs, desires, and dreams that are just as salient to them as yours are to you. (How long did it take you to realize that your parents don’t exist entirely as your mother and father, but are people with lives and identities just as distinct and complex as your own?)

When you seek Win/Win relationships, you recognize that other people have goals that are just as real as yours — you recognize their individuality. That not only helps you understand the world better, and navigate it with less frustration, but that level of perspicuity makes you a more mature, fully formed individual yourself.

Requires a long-term perspective. When you go through life trying to make relationships Win/Lose, you can certainly get what you want in the short-term. But you burn bridges, and often sabotage your chances of success in the long-term. Seeking a Win/Win situation thus involves exercising the capacity of delayed gratification — putting in the effort upfront to make sure that not only do you get want you want, but that the other person does too, so that you’ll not only benefit in the moment but down the line as well.

Requires becoming assertive. Guys who approach relationships from the paradigm of Win/Lose are overly aggressive. Guys who approach them from the paradigm of Lose/Lose are overly passive.

The best approach is to avoid these extremes in favor of pursuing a golden mean between them; that is, being assertive.

Diagram from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

When you’re assertive, you’re able to state what you want firmly and without apology, but also take into consideration the needs and desires of others. You don’t act like a petulant child and just make demands, nor let people walk all over you like a quintessential Nice Guy. You directly pursue what you want, without being an a**hole about it.

Or as Covey eloquently puts it, “Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration.”

Offers a grown-up challenge. The public, outward-facing habits aren’t as sexy or fun as the inward-focused, private ones because the latter deal with a single variable: yourself.

But cultivating the other-oriented habits can offer its own distinct satisfaction, interest, and even excitement, when viewed from a certain frame of mind — one which, befitting Covey’s terminology, sees relationships as something of a game.

Now, I don’t mean you should treat relationships as a game in the sense of treating people as playthings without regard to their feelings and goals. But rather looking at them as a challenge, a puzzle, an arena in which thoughtful tactics and strategy must be deployed. Every scenario is different, and there are no preset or universal rules. How can you maneuver multiple variables so that everyone ends up with some reward? What moves can you make so that you get what you want, but the other person feels like they benefit as well? Can you improvise? Can you use your phronesis — your practical wisdom to find the best solution?

Figuring how to get to Win/Win isn’t a child’s game, but a mature pursuit for he who’s sorted out himself, and is ready to move on to sorting out the world.

The post The 7 Habits: Think Win/Win appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

The 7 Habits: Think Win/Win published first on https://mensproblem.tumblr.com

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday until the start of the 2018-19 regular season, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

1. It’s pretty hard to get upset at a 29-goal, 60-point season from a 21-year old non-generational player but having so few second assists on a team that scored as much as the Jets did is kind of disappointing. Not that it would have greatly altered his fantasy performance – an extra five assists isn’t the difference between winning and losing a league – but it’s just a reminder of what could have been for Winnipeg’s Nikolaj Ehlers. That doesn’t even factor his limited power play usage (at least on the top unit).

This should give fantasy owners hope for next year. Ehlers didn’t have any percentages out of line, be it his own or the team’s when he was on the ice, and he’ll continue to make a dynamic duo with Patrik Laine. A bit more fortune with assists at five-on-five, and maybe a few more power-play points, and 2018-19 has 70-point season written all over it for the dynamic Dane. (may03)

2. Brayden Point’s nine postseason points (thus far) sit second behind Nikita Kucherov for the Tampa Bay lead. The former third-round selection is facing the oppositions’ top line each night and manages to create offense out of nothing. He and Ondrej Palat have formed a deadly matchup duo. It’s safe to say we haven’t seen the best out of the 22-year-old just yet. His 66 points this season appear to be just the tip of the iceberg. (may05)

3. As for Palat, he has three 50-point seasons and one 60-point season in the last five campaigns. In that span, however, he’s averaged just 69.8 games per 82 played due to injuries, and 2017-18 was another injury-plagued campaign.

The fantasy value for Palat would depend a lot on the type of league. He’s not a multi-category performer, having never managed 25 goals, 2.2 shots per game, 40 penalty minutes, or more than 15 power-play points in any campaign. He does have very good hits totals but that’s about it. His value, then, is largely in points-only leagues, and is largely derived from assists.

Therein lies the problem for 2018-19. If he can play 75 games, on a productive second line Point, his production may be just fine. But his secondary assist percentage from 2013-17 was 28.2 percent, a far cry from the 43.5 percent he posted in 2017-18. Even with that sky-high percentage last year, his 82-game pace was 52 points. Even in a full-ish season, expecting him to be in the 55-60 points range he’s flashed in the past is pushing it. Don’t be surprised if he comes in under 50 next year. (may01)

4. Roman Josi is not getting it done in playoff pools, which of course I discovered in my own playoff pool. As of Sunday, the Preds’ captain had not only been held without a point in the entire second round, but he had also not recorded a point since Game 3 of the first round, which spanned a total of eight games. Josi has just two assists in 11 playoff games. His 0.42 points/game over his playoff career is well below his 0.61 points/game regular season career average. (may06)

5. What will be key to Jonathan Marchessault’s continued success will be the sustainability of his linemates. Will William Karlsson be able to replicate his tremendous goal-scoring prowess? Do we see Reilly Smith slip back to being a 50-point threat as he has been most of his career, or does he maintain the 60-point level he displayed this season?

There are no assurances in this world but the way the trio is playing in the cocoon of the wild-west Golden Knights’ system appears to be a reasonable bet. And what better place to lay a bet down than Las Vegas. (may05)

6. It may be time for people to start opening their eyes to Timo Meier. The 21-year-old winger just completed his first full season in the league and posted a very respectable 21 goals and 35 points. And he’s backed that up with two goals and three helpers in his first nine playoff games this year. He’s part of the reason that the Sharks are playing some of their best post-season hockey since deep run in 2015-16.

What stands out the most when looking at the Swiss forward this past season is his shot generation. A total of 210 shots in 81 regular games while seeing under 15 minutes a night. That’s an average of 10.5 shots-per-60 minutes. While I don’t have cumulative data for this season, that number would have landed him within the top 20 skaters in 2016-17. All this while seeing second unit power play time and having his second most consistent linemate be Chris Tierney.

The flashes of dazzling skill are becoming more frequent and you can see his confidence growing. That was obvious for all to see in Game 2. That night, he played a career-high 27 minutes, had a helper, six shots, six hits and over three minutes of power play time. While his true breakout may be another season away, Meier is a player that needs to be rising on people’s lists of keeper players to watch. (may05)

7. Everything went wrong in Montreal this year: Jonathan Drouin had a poor first season, Max Pacioretty had a down year and then was injured, and Shea Weber missed most of the season. Outside of Jeff Petry and Brendan Gallagher, it was a disappointing year across the board, Carey Price included.

The question is Price’s health. He has started just 122 games over the last three seasons and getting 40-odd starts a year from your franchise goaltender is worrisome. Will he be 100 percent healthy next year? Only Price knows that.

If he’s to bounce back in fantasy, his team has to help him out. Injuries and a rotating cast of defensemen likely played a part so maybe just having a healthy lineup changes things. It’ll be the team’s second full season under Claude Julien and his staff, so familiarity should help a bit. (may04)

8. We had a rare mid-playoff trade as the Arizona Coyotes sent Jordan Martinook and a fourth-round pick to Carolina for Marcus Kruger and a third-round pick. Carolina retains 10 percent of the salary.

I can’t imagine Martinook’s role increases in Carolina, so there’s no fantasy relevance there outside of deep leagues that count hits. Kruger should have a regular bottom-six role, so he might have some use in deep leagues that count face-offs. Basically, for fantasy hockey, not much to see here. (may04)

9. Blue Jackets announced that Zach Werenski will need five to six months in recovery from shoulder surgery. Five months would put him in line for the beginning of the regular season, six months would have him miss the start of the year.

This is tough for fantasy owners but we’ll just have to play it by ear. Not having an offseason to recover and train properly is worrisome. As is the fact Werenski had already lost the top power play job to Seth Jones. He is a superb talent on the blue line but 2018-19 might be a bump in the road. (may04)

10. Detroit’s Gustav Nyquist had the lowest percentage of secondary assists compared to total production last year, coming in at 9.4 percent. He had just three such assists on 32 points. Over his three seasons from 2014-17, Nyquist averaged a shade under 30 assists a season; he had 19 in 2017-18. The problem was he skated most of the season at five-on-five with Henrik Zetterberg as his center. Zetterberg had his lowest goal total for an 82-game season of his career with 11.

Nyquist was on the ice for just 46 Detroit goals at five-on-five this year and he scored 18 of them himself. In fact, if you raise the parameter to 1200 minutes of ice time, he was on the ice for the fewest amount of goals in the NHL. When you look at all this, it’s no real surprise he had such a low secondary assist rate.

Does it change next year? Zetterberg will be a year older. The defense isn’t getting better, which may not seem like a huge problem, but if team defense can’t move the puck effectively, the Detroit forwards are pushing a boulder uphill all season. This team is just flat-out incapable of producing offensively. I think Nyquist is very talented but I’m not very bullish that anything changes next year. Nyquist’s best hope is that he moves to Dylan Larkin’s line and Larkin has a Nathan MacKinnon-esque breakout season. Outside of that, it’s a pit of despair. (may03)

11. If you’ll excuse me, I need to wipe off a bit of this egg on my face for saying last summer that I wouldn’t draft the Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin because of his injury history. A total of 98 points in 78 games later, he helped win leagues. (may03)

12. In recent memory, there probably hasn’t been a player with a quieter 40-goal campaign than Isles’ Anders Lee’s 2017-18 campaign. He tied Jamie Benn and Vladimir Tarasenko for seventh in five-on-five goals with 23, while John Tavares and Josh Bailey combined for 29. It’s pretty easy to see why Lee had a low secondary assist percentage; he was scoring all the goals. There’s not much more to discuss here until we know the future of John Tavares. Until we know where he’s signing, the fantasy value of every Islanders forward is in limbo. (may03)

13. Par Lindholm had been rumoured to different teams but the Swedish center is apparently going to be signed by Toronto soon. This helps fill the void in the bottom-six that will ostensibly be left by Tomas Plekanec and Tyler Bozak moving on. Lindholm will be 27 in October. Bottom-six centers usually don’t have much fantasy value outside of deep leagues but we’ll have to see how they use him. (may01)

14. Often ‘healthy-scratched’ by the Golden Knights during these playoffs, I’m intrigued for Tomas Tatar’s fantasy value next year because I do believe he’s a very good player and should see top-six minutes. I imagine he gets overlooked given his lack of success after being traded by Detroit. (may01)

15. Oilers’ Milan Lucic’s scoring struggles were well-documented with his 10 goals being the lowest mark for him in any season where he’s played over 50 games since his rookie campaign. Naturally, his career-low shooting percentage goes hand-in-hand with that goal output but that’s another conversation for another day.

Lucic managed his most secondary assists at five-on-five (10) since 2011-12, and he had averaged under six per season over the three years from 2016-17. Now, even if here were to drop four or five secondary assists here, his goal scoring should tick up so it will mitigate that. Also, Lucic has never been drafted in a fantasy league for his stout assist totals. Just don’t expect a huge uptick in production based on goal-scoring rebound alone. (may01)

16. Aleksander Barkov set career-highs in assists, points, and shots but also played over 22 minutes a game this past season. I don’t know if the Panthers can keep playing him so much. His injury history is lengthy and though he’s still young, you don’t want to wear down your franchise center.

One can look to Anze Kopitar as a player who’s managed to sustain 20-plus minutes a game for basically a decade but the Kings also had to back off his TOI from 22-plus to 20-plus once he got to his mid-twenties.

If Florida decides to back off his minutes, combined with a decline in secondary assists, maybe a 75-80 point season is the most we can ask for from Barkov. Not that it would be a poor season, I just think some people are hoping he can be a 90- or 100-point guy. On the other hand, a better power play would go a long way in unlocking his full fantasy potential. (may01)

17. I like Mikko Rantanen a lot as a player but I worry where his average draft position will end up next year. There hasn’t been much chatter about his 84-point campaign in general but fantasy players, and you Dobber heads, tend to be much smarter than that.

He had the ninth-most secondary assists league-wide in total and was among the leaders in percentage of points. He will still be featured on a heavily-used top PP unit that features studs like Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Barrie, and he’ll be stuck to MacKinnon’s hip at five-on-five. I just worry about any player riding high percentages basically across the board. All it takes is one unlucky season and 84 points becomes 48 points real quick (ask Tyler Johnson from a few years ago). It might be a case where I’ll let someone else draft him if his ADP is too high. Still a long time until draft season, though. (may01)

18. Now that his sophomore campaign is over, one which I consider a ‘slump’, I expect Viktor Arvidsson to have a big year next season. Jake Guentzel is another one – these guys are coming off weak seasons (versus expectations) and I think in 2018-19 they meet those expectations. (apr30)

19. Let’s discuss NHL Draft prospect Andrei Svechnikov’s potential impact on the Hurricanes. This team will already have two of the following three prospects making the jump next year: Martin Necas, Warren Foegele and Valentin Zykov. All three impressed during cups of coffee this past season but I don’t believe an established team like Carolina will have four rookie forwards. I think you can cap it at two and maybe a third rookie join in the middle of the season. If all three of them just won’t be denied, I think there’s a chance that Svechnikov could be this year’s Jonathan Drouin. That is to say, there is a chance that he just rips up junior for another season and makes the jump a year later. That risk exists – he’s not a shoe-in.

The ‘Canes will be saying goodbye to Lee Stempniak and possibly Derek Ryan. Joakim Nordstrom is an RFA but I wonder if he’s even worth qualifying, given the talent that’s on the way. If Svechnikov makes the team, my hunch is that he won’t be shooting out the lights en route to a 60-point Calder-worthy season. Instead, something conservative in the mid-40s. This is just the wrong team for Svechnikov to make an early impact – Montreal would have been better for first-year results. (apr30)

20. So, the Habs are looking at Quinn Hughes, a lefty rearguard with high-end wheels who can run a power play. Just what the doctor ordered for this team. And despite all the jokes going around the Internet – general manager Marc Bergevin has learned his lesson about trading young high-end defensemen (example: Mikhail Sergachev). He’ll keep this one.

Normally I would say, on about 20 other teams, that they would push to get him signed and turn pro. One thing to keep in mind here is that Quinn’s younger brother Jack (Hughes) is looking to play for Michigan and so the possibility of playing a year with his brother is a factor here. But that aside, many teams would push for him to turn pro and put him straight on their team. Montreal? Look at Sergachev and Noah Juulsen – both players had to go back to their respective leagues for at least another year. Would the Habs guarantee a roster spot to Hughes? With that track record I wonder. And without the guarantee, the temptation to play a year with his brother may be too tempting. (apr30)

Have a good week, folks!!

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-22/

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paulisded · 6 years

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Live Ledge #314: Best Records of 2017

As I was putting together this year’s list of my favorite records I came across a article from a music journalist claiming that lists such as this are idiotic. Since it’s impossible to hear every single album that was released over the year, nobody has the needed knowledge to proclaim anything as the year’s best records.

Come on. This is ridiculous. Nobody is claiming to have the definitive look at the year in music. I’ve never read any music critic claim to have heard each and every record.

But that doesn’t mean these sorts of think pieces aren’t worthwhile. Every writer, fan, or publication has an area of expertise, and if they’re honest they’ll admit to their cultural shortcomings. Mine just happens to include pop, hip-hop, and bro-country. I know that the new Kendrick Lamar is probably the year’s greatest musical achievement, but it’s not my thing. At the same time, I don’t need to hear the latest records by the likes of Luke Bryan, Taylor Swift, or whatever Jonas Brother that still makes music. Why would I waste my time when I know I’m going to hate it?

The purpose of these lists aren’t for people to proclaim themselves as the world’s biggest music expert. They exist mainly because as fans we want people to discover records they may have overlooked. I look at dozens of these types of articles, from giant publications to local music nerds, hoping to discover something that I’ve missed. Inevitably, I find quite a few, and I hope that my yearly list does the same for others.

This is a good year for this type of exploration. It’s been the best year in music in quite some time. Oftentimes, finding 40 records worthy of inclusion is not easy. This year, I started with over 80 candidates, and it took quite a bit of soul-searching to cut it down to my usual length. It’s such a good year that artists that routinely reside near the top (The National, Spoon, Steve Earle) didn’t make the cut.

What is it about 2017? Why was this a fertile year for music? Given the state of the music industry these days, there really shouldn’t be such an abundance of fabulous tunes. My theory is that as the possibility of fame and fortune fades away we’re left with artists who just HAVE to create. It’s in their blood. A musician and/or songwriter is who they are, and they’ll carry on as long as they can.

What’s even more surprising to me is the number of great releases by veteran artists. So many of my favorites from years past came out with their best records in decades. Who would have predicted the return of The Jesus and Mary Chain? Or that Robyn Hitchcock would put out one of his best records? Or that Guided By Voices would release not one but two albums that weren’t full of half-assed, seemingly unfinished tracks?

So here are 40 records that I consider the best albums of the year, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on my picks. Let me know what records have turned your crank this year. Tracks from each of these albums were also aired on Live Ledge in a reverse, countdown format. Click here for Live Ledge #314, or nab it via iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn, or many other online spots.

1. Bash & Pop, Anything Could Happen. Anybody that knows me well probably knew this would be my favorite record of year. Yet the return of Tommy Stinson’s first post-Replacements band is even better than I ever predicted. It’s every bit as good as the 1993 Bash & Pop debut. In fact, it may be even better, as the original was Stinson’s first serious stabs at songwriting. Almost 25 years later, Stinson’s skills as a tunesmith has deepened, and combined with the Faces-ish feel of his outstanding bandmates this would have been towards the of any year’s list.

2. The Courtneys, II. The best description I’ve read of this great Canadian trio is “fuzzy, slacker pop”. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Yet that would be meaningless if it wasn’t combined with sugary, singalong melodies. There’s a bit of a Blake Babies influence, but I also hear elements of late 80’s post-Jesus and Mary Chain bands such as The Primitives.

3. Ty Segall, s/t. James Brown used to be called the “hardest working man in show business”, but he’s a slacker compared to what Segall accomplished in a given year. Besides his usual album and a handful of singles, he’s involved with at least a half dozen other bands, and is inevitably a contributor as a musician or producer on a ton of his friend’s records. This year’s main release is also among his best, as it flows in and out of a number of styles.

4. The Jesus and Mary Chain, Damage and Joy. It was a big enough surprise that the warring Reid brothers reunited for a tour in 2007, but few thought that would result in a new album by the groundbreaking 80’s noise-pop veterans. The fact that it took a decade for it to happen is probably a sign that not all wounds have healed over the years. Yet this album is a pure joy for any fans of the original run. Yeah, it rarely deviates from the patented J&MC formula, but if it works why fix it?

5. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound. Easily the most acclaimed Americana album of the year, and it deserves each and every accolade. Isbell is at the top of his game, as rousing anthems comfortably sit next to heart-wrenching looks at crumbling relationships and the difficulties of chasing the American dream.

6. Guided By Voices, August By Cake/How Do You Spell Heaven. Robert Pollard has always been one of rock’s most prolific songwriters, and is also quite possibly the worst at quality control. Each and every year has seen a handful of albums that are frustratingly dominated by half-baked song fragments. 2017 saw the release of his 100th and 101st albums, and both of them Pollard’s best efforts in well over a decade.

7. Juliana Hatfield, Pussycat. How can a record of bitter politics sound so sweet? Juliana Hatfield is not happy with what’s happening these days, but it’s somehow inspired her to write some of her catchiest songs ever.

8. Warm Soda, I Don’t Wanna Grow Up. Let’s get this out of the way. Matthew Melton found himself dropped from his label earlier this year for comments he and his musician wife said about immigration. Having said that, the final record by Warm Soda is easily the best power pop record of the year. Can one separate the music from the opinions of the person who creates the music? That’s definitely a major question these days, and I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.

9. Kevin Morby, City Music. One of my favorite new finds of this year. Formerly of Woods and The Babies (not the 70’s pop band), Morby’s fourth album has been described as a tribute to New York City. While there is a definite nod to the Ramones (“1234”), the record’s nods to the metropolitan experience works with almost any skyline.

10. The Feelies, In Between. Hoboken’s greatest band’s first album in six years actually feels like a sequel to 1986’s The Good Earth. Those same loud/quiet dynamics are again the focus, but not in the Pixies/Nirvana way. Instead the record’s best songs feature a gradual buildup that ultimately turns into a cacophonic roar.

11. Beaches, Second of Spring. Certain albums deserve to be played in full. This is one of those records, even if it’s a 17-track double album. Each and every song of the all-female Australian psych rockers’ third album perfectly fits with what precedes and follows it. Sonic landscapes of fuzzy instrumentals dissolve into catchy pop nuggets, which then spins into more experimental fare.

12. L.A. Witch, s/t. This fabulous new trio is pretty much impossible to pin down. There are elements of 60’s girl groups, but it’s mixed with surf, rockabilly, psych, and garage rock. It’s sort of like if The Runaways had a bigger record collection (and minus the dictatorship of Kim Fowley).

13. Matthew Ryan, Hustle Up Starlings. Only a handful of songwriters can create intense environments with (relatively) quiet sounds. Matthew Ryan is one of them, and it’s simply because he completely inhabits the identities of the subjects of his songs. Those subjects tend to be the forgotten members of society. The people who struggle to find work, let alone keep their jobs. The people with regrets over past mistakes. People who need their voices heard.

14. Danny Dodge, Baby Let Me Be Your Mess. I know next to nothing about Danny Dodge except that I love this record. Discovered via bandcamp, the only information I’ve been able to find is that he’s a veteran of various garage and glam bands in Portland. This album definitely has elements of those genres, but there’s also a does of sugary jangle pop.

15. Waxahatchee, Out in the Storm. I’m not going to lie. I’ve found most of Kate Crutchfield’s prior releases to be a bit hit and miss. However, her fourth album under the Waxahatchee name is great from beginning to end. Credit may have to go to producer John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth), who primarily recorded the band playing live in the studio.

16. John Moreland, Big Bad Luv. After the success of 2015’s mostly acoustic High on Tulsa, it would have been pretty easy for Moreland to just copy the sound and production of that record. Instead, he wisely expanded into a full-band sound that accentuates his hook-laden songs of heartbreak.

17. John Murry, A Short History of Decay. Murry has lived quite the life. A second cousin of William Faulkner, his childhood was marked by undiagnosed autism. He eventually turned to drugs, and was hospitalized for both psychological and drug issues. Music may have saved his life, but it also led to other issues too numerous to list here. His second solo album was recorded in five days with help from members of Cowboy Junkies, and his heartbreaking songs detail much of his life’s lower moments.

18. The Cairo Gang, Untouchable. Discovered due to his summer appearance in town, Cairo Gang leader Emmett Kelly is best known for his presence on the last two Ty Segall records along with various Bonnie “Prince” Billy releases. The fifth album under The Cairo Gang, produced by Segall, is truly a solo album, as Kelly plays that vast majority of instruments.

19. The Buttertones, Gravedigging. Another great bandcamp find, the debut release by this Los Angeles band is sort of like rock and roll history condensed into one full-length album. What other record combines surf, rockabilly, post-punk, garage, and psych with elements of The Clash and Cramps?

20. Meatbodies, Alice. I’m not going to lie. The name Meatbodies threw me off a bit. Yet once I heard this latest album by Chad Ubovich and crew I was itching for the rest of their discography. A little bit of research explained exactly why. Ubovich has spent time in Mikal Cronin’s band, and also plays in Fuzz with Ty Segall and Charles Moothart. Yep, it’s part of that L.A. orbit of musicians and bands.

21. Hurray For the Riff Raff, The Navigator. This record could have easily made the top ten, as the first half is about as exquisite as one could expect. Most of the second side doesn’t live up to that standard, though, so while it contains one of the year’s most inclusive record. Inclusive? Yes, leader Alynda Segarra combines various elements of Latina styles with classic American doo wop, folk, gospel and Motown sounds.

22. Alex G, Rocket. Alexander Giannascoli started off as a bedroom singer/songwriter who somehow got the attention of Frank Ocean. This led to his guitarwork appearing on a recent Ocean album, which has given him a weird notoriety that has very little to do with the lavish dream pop-ish sounds of his latest album.

23. Together Pangea, Bulls and Roosters. I first discovered this great band thanks to Tommy Stinson, who recorded their 2015 EP, The Phage. Their sound is firmly established in garage rock, but a bit quirkier than most bands of this type.

24. CFM, Dichotomy Desaturated. Here we go again. CFM is Charles Francis Moothart, who we’ve already noted is Ty Segall’s drummer. He’s also toured in Mikal Cronin’s band, is the guitarist/vocalist with Segall in Fuzz, and also participates in other Segall side projects. CFM is his band, though, and this second album is a great companion to that self-titled Segall album at the top of this list.

25. Old 97’s, Graveyard Whistling. After a few albums where the alt-country veterans took some mini-detours, this year’s model harkens back to the mid-90’s revved-up country roots. Leader Rhett Miller is still a master at turning a clever phrase, and the rest of the band has not lost a step.

26. Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile, Lotta See Lice. This is something I’d love to see more often. Two critically acclaimed songwriters befriend each other on the festival circuit, and decide to collaborate on an album. Each of them brings some new tunes, and they both sing a song written by the other. Plus they cover a Belly song, and another tune written by Barnett’s girlfriend, Jen Cloher.

27. John Wesley Harding, Wesley Stace’s John Wesley Harding. Let’s get everything straight. The artist known as John Wesley Harding was born Wesley Stace. He uses his birthname on his novels, and has also put out a few records under that name. This year’s album, his best in decades, attempts to clear up the confusion over his name. His writing is still full of wit and snark, and who can’t love an artist who makes fun of the music industry? It’s also worth noting that his band on this album is The Jayhawks, who do a masterful job at staying out of his way but adding whatever elements are needed.

28. Flat Worms, s/t. Flat Worms would be considered a supergroup in some circles, as everybody in the band has played with artists such as Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Kevin Morby, and Dream Boys. Regardless of where they’re from, this collaboration doesn’t rely on the usual sounds that generally come out of the Segall/Cronin/Thee Oh Sees circle of friends. Instead, this is a bit of a tribute to the heavier postpunk bands of the past. There’s a bit of Wire, later Buzzcocks, and even some pre-grunge Seattle in their sound.

29. Wand, Plum. You know what I love about this band? First off, they’re prolific, as this is their fourth album in three years. They’re also a band that’s constantly changing, as none of their albums sound the same. Plum may be the best of the bunch. It’s certainly their most varied, which makes it next to impossible to describe as it flows in and out of various subgenres.

30. Dream Syndicate, How Did I Find Myself Here? Here’s another band I never expected to see release new music. And I certainly would have never predicted that anything they did record would be so great. Their first new studio album since 1988 is similar to the new Feelies record in that it’s like there hasn’t been any time between releases. It’s a perfect companion to their neo-psychedelic classics The Days of Wine and Roses and Medicine Show.

31. Palehound, A Place I’ll Always Go. Palehound leader Ellen Kempner recently lost her grandmother and best friend, and poured all of her grief into her second album. While that may sound depressing, it’s tempered by the fuzzy, alt-rock guitar rock that fans of Waxahatchee should love.

32. Son Volt, Notes of Blue. It’s been quite some time since anybody but the biggest Jay Farrar fans paid any attention to Son Volt. Weirdly, it took a recent obsession with Skip James and Mississippi Fred McDowell that led to a record that’s reminiscent of the band’s classic early records.

33. Robyn Hitchcock, s/t. Again, a veteran artist puts out his best album in decades. For his 21st album, Hitchcock actually gives a few nods to his Soft Boys power pop days, and that energy permeates through the entire album.

34. Ne-Hi, Offers. Chicago’s place in indie rock circles has certainly grown in recent years, thanks to the likes of Twin Peaks, Whitney, and our very own The Kickback. As they told me in an interview before playing Total Drag earlier this year, Ne-Hi originally formed to record a soundtrack for a friend’s film, and it worked so well they decided to become a “real” band. After a debut recorded in a basement, they hit an actual studio for this record, but the resulting still feels like the result of a marathon jam session.

35. Micah Schnabel, Your New Norman Rockwell. Two Cow Garage is one of our country’s most underrated musical jewels that took Americana and gave it a Replacements-ish edge. This record may be a solo record, but it’s really a more stripped-down version of a typical Two Cow Garage album. Which means, of course, that it’s brilliant.

36. Daddy Issues, Deep Dream. This list doesn’t have enough snotty all-girl punk rock, even though it’s been a great year for bands such as this. As my friend Gorman Bechard says, they’re so good that they can even make a Don Henley cover (“Boys of Summer”) sound great.

37. POW!, Crack an Egg. This is a record that one needs to hear on vinyl. The first time I heard this was a digital version, and it was way too dominated by their propulsive synths. The vinyl version, though, obviously still has this despised (by me) instrument prominently in the mix, but the analog version is highlighted by the deeper, fuller sounds of the entire band.

38. Damaged Bug, Bunker Fun. John Dwyer is another artist who obviously had little to no free time this year. Besides running a busy, successful indie label that’s well-represented on this list, Dwyer released records under the names Oh Sees and OCS. (Thee Oh Sees name was retired after two 2016 releases.) He also had time for his solo side project that relies more on electronics than his other bands. His third release under this name is a bit heavier, a bit funkier, and heavier on prog elements than his main band.

39. Greg Ashley, Pictures of Saint Paul Street. Although a veteran of Texas garage-punk bands, along with a number of solo records, this record was my first hearing of this interesting songwriter. From the very first song, I heard a bit of Flowers-era Stones, mid-period Kinks, a pinch of Dylan, and even a touch of Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen. Ashley’s songs may primarily deal with despairing, hopeless characters living on the fringes of society, but he manages to turn them into messengers of righteous anger.

40. David Nance, Negative Boogie. Describing this lo-fi Omaha musician is next to impossible, as he’s anything and everything. There’s a bit of Crazy Horse at their one-take coked up best, quite a bit of Pere Ubu-weirdness, and maybe a bit of the Velvets and The Chills, and even a touch of 70’s outlaw country. Yet it somehow works, even when he throws in a surprise shambolic cover of Merle Haggard’s “Silver Wings”.

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