#like they were writing 2 22 minute scripts a week it was fucking bad

[fishyartist]

So mad about me just realizing the color pallet despite being in Sonic mode for the past like week

#I’ll repost this w/ the doodle dump later #but also feel free 2 rb now #if u want #I’m just too lazy to tag #I’ve been mostly thinking about fucking Sonic underground. #which is worse than danny phantom but for sure in the category of #’’has enough missed potential that I go insane’’ y/k? #triplets r fucking born man #plus what’s known about the production makes me want to find the asshole who ordered a 40 episode single season in 1997 #expecting it to be fucking done in 1998 #INSANE #it missed that deadline and didn’t come out til early ‘99 which is still CRAZY for a first season #like they were writing 2 22 minute scripts a week it was fucking bad #like u have to do so much production shit that most shows take 2 1/2 or more years for a 26 episode order #DiC sucked dick man #plus production seemed to think they were making a don bluth movie which is NOT the kind of designs u wanna be getting for tv animation #when u have about 2 1/2 weeks per episode (NOTE: NOT ACTUALLY HOW PRODUCTION WORKS. ITS MULTIPLE STAGES HAPPENING SIMULTANEOUSLY LOL) #ok I’m gonna stop bc I’m gonna try to do an underground doodle dump too and if I do I can talk there #where it’s relevant

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 14x05 “Nightmare Logic”

oh, what a perfectly soft and emotional Destiel-parallelly piece of Meredith Glynn artwork. so precious, so loved~

03:47pm

things i know about this: meredith glynn wrote it

LET’S WATCH

-

03:50

noooo maggie don’t do things like this alooooone

-

i like the music as she enters... kinda weird and sparkly and awkward

-

03:53

sammy...... you know what you need

someone to do the night shift

if only...... you had.............. someone else........................

*looks pointedly at dean*

-

03:55

where does sam get the financial resources for shit like body cams

we never see them running credit card scams any more so........ ???????

-

03:57

i love these cable things by the roads

so aesthetic

-

03:58

even more spooky pretty music as dean and sam enter the tomb

-

03:59

dean and sam lie so effortlessly and so in sync

i always enjoy seeing them do this, ever since dean told a firefighter he needed to go back into his apartment because he has a yorkie who pees when he’s nervous

-

04:01

aw man i thought the “colleagues” would be cas and jack

bobby and mary’s cool too

-

04:02

bobby’s wearing a cap like michael’s

and mary’s wearing a coat like cas’

..does this mean this story’s gonna be about dean’s war between those two things, like the two worlds he knows

bobby’s parenting vs. mary’s parenting

michael’s need for him as a vessel vs. cas’ love for him as a bestest buddy bro friend

not sure how bobby = micheal / mary = cas but i’m sure there’ll be some kind of explanation later

OR maybe they’re just costumes and they mean nothing

but......is that ever true? trenchcoats are automatically a cas thing now. and that cap is so iconic as michael now???

-

04:09

i relate to this lady in the suit who has had Too Much Of Everything

i enjoy seeing people know their limits and expressing them to others rather than continuing past breaking point

sam’s doing great but also....... no

take a page from this lady’s book, sammy

-

04:11

mary’s walking with sam

and i just wanna take a minute to appreciate how EASY meredith glynn’s episodes are to watch

her scripts flow so gently and everything makes logical sense

and her characters are coherent

there’s just this nice touch of emotional human realism cloaking all the supernatural weirdness and i so, so appreciate that

like.. for me personally, there’s not a single writer on the current team whose writing comes close to glynn’s

i want her to write more episodes with cas though, i know she’d write him just right

i honestly feel like i’m being hugged by someone as i watch this

so soft around my heart

is good

-

04:16

sam: “you [and bobby have] gotten pretty close lately”

mary: “i thought so too”

OH WAIT I GET IT

I GET THE COAT AND THE HAT NOW

IT’S A DESTIEL THING

OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW DID I MISS THAT

IT’S SO BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS HOLY FUCKING FUCKDISAFKDSHGF

even the casual viewers will probably have noticed this one. i know it took me a second but as soon as this discussion happened it clicked

 this is probably the most obvious parallel they’ve ever done i think

i didn’t see it before because i didn’t EXPECT it, you know?? ugh this is so validating

-

04:22

now every word mary says, i’m just envisioning how it applies to cas’ perspective too

“he’s been hunting all the time, he won’t take a break even for a second. there’s something on his mind”

yeah, that mICHEAL HAT, quite literally sitting over his head like a dark halo

-

04:26

the music in this episode is just so pleasing to my ears

-

04:31

things i appreciate:

normal people being all “wtf you hunt monsters” and just being present while dean and sam talk about their shit

sam’s reference to “hunteri heroici” (my all-time fave episode besides “scoobynatural” jdgd that was five years ago what the hell)

-

04:35

me: takes screenshot of this very pretty, very anxious lady because i want my hair to do what her hair does

-

04:36

oop we just found the dean mirror and now we get to hear someone talk about the things he feels and offer advice that ultimately helps himself

god i love this

AND THE FACT I CAN UNDERSTAND THIS PARALLEL AND WHY IT’S HAPPENING

AGAIN SOLIDIFIES THE DEAN/CAS THING WITH BOBBY/MARY

because what mary said about bobby = what cas thinks about dean = what’s true about dean = this lady being overworked = dean not taking time off from hunting

(although it does seem to specifically apply to sam as well ?)

and sam mentioned earlier about how the dad he knew and the dad mary knew were different people, plus the earlier mentions this season about john’s problematic parenting (i forget when)

yeah that really makes a point of saying john abused his kids, for sure

-

lady: “he was gone all the time, working for us, he said”

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

-

lady: “i worshipped him when i was a kid. didn’t know any better”

oh deanie

please take notes

please know it’s okay to be angry at john and not continue to love him in a way that excuses his behaviours, even 14 years after he died

-

wait wait wait

dean tells her to let it go, it’s the past, there’s nothing you can do about it now so it’s just baggage

WAIT

THAT MEANS

THAT MEANS HE LET THAT SHIT GO ALREADY???????

WHOA

OKAY COOL. COOL COOL COOL I’M PROUD OF YOU

now go be gay with cas

-

“i try. every single day.”

hell yeah dean winchester giving good mental health advice to people and also millions of depressed people with various traumas watching this

ngl this legit just helped me a tiny bit with my issues with my own dad

urhgutguugb meredith glynn you are the good we need in this world

..............suddenly getting real emotional because goddamn i wanna meet her someday ;~; i wanna meet 1. misha and 2. meredith glynn, maaaaybe 3. jensen idk

mEREDITH GLYNN IS MY KINDRED SPIRIT

and DEAN WINCHESTER HELPS ME BE A MORE SELF-ACCEPTING PERSON

yay

-

04:49

no but like.......... everyone seemed to enjoy last week’s episode, i only saw people posting good reviews. and i felt bad not not enjoying it, even though all the things people pointed out should’ve been right up my alley, something about the overall thing just fell flat for me

but this one

this one speaks to my heart

-

04:53

maggie: “i didn’t mean to get caught--”

sam: “no no no, stop that. you did nothing wrong. okay?”

sam being a better dad to maggie than john ever was to anyone

-

04:57

OH NO BOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!

-

05:01

dean: “you’re giving him transfusions?”

nurse: “keeps up his iron”

suddenly i don’t trust the nurse

trying to take over the property maybe? a la scooby-doo, it’s always about real estate

-

05:02

dean: “sasha, could you go....... make me a ....sandwich ?”

DEAN NO

(i type, in pain, as i laugh)

-

/rewatches that interaction because it was actually really sweet the way dean mouthed “go” to sasha and she understood

-

05:05

i’ve wanted a djinn story for SO LONG

(even wrote one myself - Prince of the Ether Realms)

trust glynn to be the one to re-weave the exact threads of this 14-year saga that also interest me specifically

also kudos for the fact she’s so obviously knowledgeable about the ENTIRE HISTORY of the show, as opposed to certain other writers who seem to contradict previous facts and re-reference things that were used differently before to make an important point, thereby nullifying the first point when used a second time

-

05:11

hunter with the shaved head 10/10 style

headcanoning them as non-binary and into girls because of reasons

also there was a slight continuity error, this hunter hugs maggie twice in the two consecutive shots

-

05:15

bobby: “it ends the same” [with bobby dead, i guess?]

mary: “no. you are not allowed to give up on me”

seeing this as dean and cas again

yeah i saw someone mention how at the end of last episode, dean suggesting they drive off a cliff and sam being like NOPE kind of reflected the wrongness of the they-all-die-at-the-end for the finale of SPN

and i think this brings it back to that again

i agree that the best ending is the one where they live to fight another day, not go out guns a-blazing

and this is cas telling dean he’s not allowed to give up and die because he wants to live side-by-side for as long as they can

i just really really want cas to say that to dean in a soft emotional scene like this. we don’t really get those unless they’re parallels??? and i wANT MORE DEAN AND CAS TALKING ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS DAMMIT

-

05:20

DEAN AND CAS PARALLELS um i mean BOBBY AND MARY GOING OFF TO HANG OUT ALONE IN A CABIN OF LOVE AND HEALING

GDI LET DEAN AND CAS DO THAT TOO

but also awwww i actually kinda like the mary/bobby thing? because at the core, they ARE dean and sam’s parents, really

family don’t end with blood etc

bobby was the dad john never was

-

05:23

sam: USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM

this is so satisfying

next up: hula hoops of salt and iron knuckle-dusters

-

05:25

i love love love that dean can have a healthy mental approach to this shit, finally

i’m so fucking proud of him you don’t even know

i just......... i really wanna see him not only return to baseline mental goodness, but then overcome that and become greater at his zen thing, and then AT LAST be ready to accept cas’ love for what it is: romantic and everlasting and epic, and not have to interpret it into something else or ignore it to protect himself

-

05:28

that light over dean’s shoulder is the angel on his shoulder

but is it michael or cas?

i’m going with cas, given that michael is a dark-hat-halo

-

05:30pm

it’s over

that was amaziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing ;u;

bless meredith glynn for existing and bringing us such beautiful stories

BUT WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE GARDENER

WHY WAS HE THERE besides to ~add some colour~??? and i guess a red herring for viewers, so we have someone to suspect?

(idk. i never suspected him, because he was black and meredith glynn is better than that - unless she was trying to trick racist viewers?? (i know there's a lot of them, i saw the super-toxic comment section on instagram when jared, jensen and misha posted a “vote beto” thing the other day. and there was a poll mentioned at comic con once, half the american spn fanbase are republicans??? guess they really love guns and fascism))

i don’t really have anything to add here, i said it all as i went along

that dean/cas parallel....... oh boy

just please please please pleASE can we have Actual Destiel and not just parallels and hints. like. they barely talk???????? HOW IS THIS A SHOW WHERE TWO OF THE MAIN LEADS ARE CONSTANTLY FRAMED TO BE IN LOVE, WE’RE TOLD THEY’RE BEST FRIENDS, BUT WE ALMOST NEVER EVEN SEE THEM TOGETHER ANY MORE

HOW IS THIS HAPPENING

anyway the costuming was just so very UNSUBTLE and obvious and i think a lot of people would’ve caught that parallel even if they weren’t looking for it

music was good, directing was good, sasha’s hair was good, nobody we know actually died, that was good too

10/10

ten thumbs up

yeee

#WHOOOO WHAT A GOOD ONE #Meredith Glynn #14x05 #nightmare logic #spn spoilers #season 14 #Elmie watches things #post of postiness

[soshortstoryteller]

deep get to know you questions

1. What’s one thing you would like to change about yourself?

I WANT MY TWO TATTOOS AND MY DYED HAIR NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

2. Are you religious? If yes, what is your religion?

Nope

3. What was the best phase in your life? What was the worst phase in your life?

The best phase is this one, the one I’m living right now. The worst phase was my teenager phase in full swing

4. Are you the person you thought you’d be when you were little?

Yes and no. I’m doing what I love, which is something I always wanted, but I thought I would have a boyfriend at 13 and at 13 I was like NOOOOOOOPE

5. Who is one person you would talk to about anything?

My mom, without a doubt

6. Have you ever lost someone close to you?

Yep. In dying terms, my uncle and my greatgrandmother. As for friendships, my best friend when I was 8 (she moved) and a great friend of mine.

7. Have you every had your heart broken? Have you ever broken someone else’s heart?

Yep. That friend I said in the last question? Well, we’d been talking almost everyday for 3-4 years, but she suddenly one day disappeared when I was 16 and she 17. Then, she appeared out of the blue after 4 months of silence and worry about her. She wanted to be friends with me again. I told her I may forgive her if she explained to me what had happen. She answered she was getting dressed and would tell me afterwards.

She’s still dressing. 

I don’t think I have, but if I have and I don’t know, I want to apologise because I surely didn’t mean harm.  

8. Do you believe in second chances?

Well, as you can see, I do, but it depends on the actions. Example: I would not give a second chance to a serial killer or a raper but I would to a friend who’s been behaving badly.

9. What is one thing that people always misunderstand about you?

People tend to think I’m manipulative just because I’m social and a born leader

10. What is your biggest regret in life?

I will always regret one thing: not choosing music over painting when my mom asked me what I wanted to do. By now I’d play the fucking violin. 

11. What things are standing between you and complete happiness?

SELECTIVIDAD. THAT’S IT.

12. If you lost everything important to you tomorrow, whose arms would you run to in order to make everything okay again?

Once again, my mom

13. Does the most important person in your life know how much they mean to you?

All of them do, yes

14. If you could send a message to the entire world, what would you say to everybody?

READ THE LITTLE PRINCE

15. If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you spend today doing?

I would go to all the places where there are pieces of art

16. How would you describe yourself in 5 words?

punk, curious, writer, mythologist, talkative

17. What opportunities have you not taken that you regretted not taking?

Taking up music, as I said. 

18. What would you do differently if you knew that no one would judge you?

I don’t care what people think, but maybe saying swear words in class? 

19. If you could ask one person a single question and they had to answer 100% truthfully, who would you ask and what would you ask them?

Where are the aliens?! - to NASA 

20. If you could start your life over, what would you do differently?

Taking. Up. Music. And also not letting insults get through me when I’m little again AND GETTING TO THE OPTICAL STORE AND SAYING: NOOO! DON’T YOU DARE GIVE ME RED GLASSES AGAIN. IF YOU CAN’T GIVE ME PURPLE ONES I’LL CHOOSE ANOTHER FRAME BUT NOT RED THAAAAAAAANKS

21. Are you currently holding on to something that you need to let go of? If yes, what’s stopping you from letting go?

Bitting my lips, inner cheeks and hang-nails. It’s impulsive, like people who bite their nails. I’m actually doing so while answering this. Welp.

22. Are you living or just existing? How do you know?

I’m living most of the time because I’m doing what I love and I feel life but sometimes I just exist because I’m too tired or sad to do anything.

23. What was the last thing you did that was really worth remembering?

Graduating with honors ^^

24. What do you want most out of life?

Peace

25. If you had one year left to live, what would you want to do in the next 12 months?

Travel, know, talk, smile, laugh, go to concerts and museums, read, be with my loved ones. Repeat. 

26. If you could get one wish to come true, what would that wish be?

The eradication of capitalism (and of course the world would change to better in my wish)

27. When you think of home, what comes to mind?

A wooden house in the mountains with my parents and friends in it. 

28. What scares you the most?

Not being able to cope with some of my thoughts

29. What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness?

I’m mentally strong and I make people feel better / I doubt a lot about my capacities

30. What did life teach you yesterday?

Yesterday? It makes no sense getting worried about things that hadn’t happened yet (SELECTIVIDAD POR EJEMPLO)

31. What have you done in the past week to make someone’s life better?

Talk to them when they felt anxious or sad

32. What makes you special?

Being me

33. What was a time that you did not speak but you should have?

When I was 7 I stole a pog from a classmate and when he discovered it was gone he told the teacher and we started looking for it and I actually helped him by saying: YEAH IT WAS THERE I SAW IT! I felt horrible but at the same time I felt victorious for 2 things: a) I HAD A SUPER POG BECAUSE IT WAS HUGE and b) I thought: Well, Álex, you should take care about your possessions.

I was filthy and I should’ve said the truth bUT I HAD MY POG

34. Describe what you want the next five years of you life to be like in a single sentence.

I want to study Art History and how to write scripts while I make new friends, I get more knowledge and, in sum, I’m happy

35. If you knew when and where and how you were going to die, would your life be better or worse?

I’d try to live just the way I’m living right now, but knowing how obssesive I can get I’ll say it’d be worse because even if I tried not to I would be thinking about it quite a lot. 

36. What would life look like for you if you never wasted another minute of it?

A life without any minute wasted? XD. Seriously, that’d be boring. Always doing things. Sometimes I just want to waste time because I need to relax. Ideed, I don’t think you can waste time.

37. Do you consider yourself to be the hero or the villain of you story?

I’m the hero because I’ve saved myself so many times. 

38. How much do you love yourself?

A lot! 

39. What or who have you given up on?

I’ve given up on getting a world without tags and/or genders and I’ve given up on that friend I said

40. Who are you really? Deep down, who are you really?

I’m me. A messy mind with messy thoughts just like my hair. I’m happy and fearful, sad and often laughing. I’m a fighter. And I didn’t know this till I saw this question, but even when I doubt, even when I feel bad or helpless, I am strong. I am Carla. 

#others #mine

[houstonlocalus-blog]

Ben Wheatley on “Free Fire”

Ben Wheatley may not be a household name, but to cinema mavens he’s one of the best writer/directors currently making movies. None of Wheatley’s films are the same, yet they all share a love of mixing genre conventions.

Speaking with Wheatley at a press junket for his latest film, Free Fire, last March during SXSW, it’s obvious he’s spent time in the trenches of 1970s cinema, observing and learning. Wheatley, a native of Essex, England, now lives in Brighton with his wife Amy Jump who also co-writes most of his films. The junket was held at Stunt Ranch, located about twenty minutes from downtown Austin.

“I feel like one of those British indie bands. They come over and do one gig and then go home again,” says Wheatley to Free Press Houston, along with other outlets at an outdoor round table.

Wheatley’s previous film High Rise, based on a novel by J. G. Ballard, was set in the ‘70s and depicted the class struggle between the lower and upper floors of a luxury apartment. Wheatley’s other films blur the line between good and bad yet always with a wry comic grin.

For instance, Kill List (2011) starts out like a secret agent film only to become involved with Druid conspiracies. Sightseers (2012) begins innocently enough with a couple that meet cute and decide to go on a road trip. The first day they accidently run over and kill a pedestrian, and before long the couple are driving around landmark sites on a killing spree. A Field in England follows trekking soldiers during civil war in the 17th century and a combination of one-on-one combat situations, alchemy and psychedelic mushrooms transform the players, and the audience, into another realm.

Free Fire is going to make a splash. It’s getting a multi-theater release, not going the way of Wheatley’s previous films that played one week at the Alamo Drafthouse or Sundance Cinemas Houston. The ensemble cast of Free Fire includes Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy and Jack Raynor.

During our conversation, Wheatley or maybe one of the reporters present at the round table brought up ’70s/’60s films like Zardoz (1974) and Modesty Blaise (1966). Wheatley is able to drop those films and their meaning into the gist of the conversation.

About the immortals that populate Zardoz, Wheatley quips: “I don’t know about living forever. That’s a tough gig. Why would you want to? There’s this guy, he says if he takes the right selection of pills he can live to 200. I mean why would you want that? I asked him, ‘Why the fuck would you want to do that?’ And he told me so I can talk to my great great grandchildren.

“And I was like, they won’t want to be fucking talking to you,” says Wheatley.

Free Fire depicts a massive shoot-out in a Boston warehouse. A gun deal between arms dealers and the IRA goes wrong. The setting is the 1970s so everyone has wide lapels and flowery clothing. “There was detail to everything, my hair, my facial hair, my clothing,” says Hammer, also at the table.

“We had one training session. We were still inside the warehouse and in a little room off to the side. It was even more full of rumble,” adds Hammer. “Everyone had their character gun and they were like, here we go. ‘You want to fire off a couple of shots?’ Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Great. Training over.”

Wheatley used transcripts of a shoot-out as the genesis of the script. “There was a shoot-out in Miami between the FBI and some guys who were going to rob a bank. The FBI had to write down a report shot-for-shot where they were, where the police were, where the bullets were. When I read that I thought, ‘How messy and horrible,’ and how it went on for a long time. People got shot a lot; this was no great epiphany,” says Wheatley. “Everything I’d seen in Hollywood wasn’t like that.

“There has to be a way to show a procedural of a gun battle in real time. I’m not saying that Free Fire is a documentary, but it is using some of that realism.

“There’s no mystery anymore is there?” asks Wheatley referring to why the film is set in a pre-cell phone era. “Nowadays you have teenagers walking past a haunted house and they look at their cell phones and go ‘Five people died there, let’s not go inside,’ or ‘There was a witch in 1520, let’s not go there either,’” says Wheatley.

“There’s a real issue with modern cinema where we really haven’t addressed the whole way of communicating by phone. There’s an American cable show, Ray Donovan. They use the phone a lot in that and it’s not about communication.

“When Amy and I are writing contemporary thrillers we always work out where the flow of information is coming from,” says Wheatley. “It moves between characters.”

Free Fire takes place in a single location. For the most part, the film was shot chronologically. “It’s hard, the issue is if there’s a screw-up at the start you might not know about that until five weeks in, when you find two characters are really too close to each other. There’s a lot of planning that went into it,” says Wheatley. Storyboards were rendered in 3D so Wheatley and cinematographer Laurie Rose could “go inside and walk around the space to make sure it would work. The sets had to be built in a certain way so that all the explosives were wired into the walls. This was all done seven or eight weeks beforehand.”

In a departure from their previous collaborations, Wheatley and Jump would write updates to the script on the set to mirror the relationships that were evolving between the characters.

One reporter asks Wheatley about the cinematic influences going into this film. “Evil Dead 2 and the Warner Brothers cartoons of Tom and Jerry,” replies Wheatley. “In the Raimi movies, there’s the thing where they set up the gags, slapstick gags, and then it pays off. There’re two types of actions cinema. The stuff that comes from Seven Samurai and James Cameron, which is very specific. There’s a cause and effect.

“Or the cinema of Tony Scott or Michael Bay, which is a bit more impressionistic. You have the flags waving in slow motion and shit.

“I also was thinking about the comic book Sgt. Rock. How you always have the platoon and how they make an effort to tell each single person apart. There are individual things, so you know which character is which. In Free Fire it’s similar,” says Wheatley. “Their clothes are very specific to their characters. I have this theory that fashion stops for you when you become 22. You buy your last fashionable clothes and then you wear them constantly for the rest of your life.”

Wheatley ends the interview with an anecdote about watching movies. “Do you know the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? So this guy went to see it with his dad. And it has a break in the middle of it, an intermission where you go get some ice cream and come back. But this guy was like ‘that’s the end of the film?’ The break comes just as the car goes off the edge of the cliff, before it flies back up in the next part. So that was the most depressing film they had ever seen.”

Free Fire opens this weekend at area theaters.

Ben Wheatley on “Free Fire” this is a repost

[theworstbob]

yellin’ at songs, 2.25.2017

or should i say, yellin’ at seangs this week! you know, ‘cuz of all the big sean they put in there, these are seangs this week, i say! my wit is grand and deserving of mass attention.

22) "No Favors," by Big Sean ft./Eminem 70) "Sacrifices," by Big Sean ft./Migos 74) "Halfway off the Balcony," by Big Sean 76) "Jump out the Window," by Big Sean 86) "Owe Me," by Big Sean 97) "Light," by Big Sean ft./Jeremih

...I prepared myself for a lot of things when I decided my weekly routine would include this silly project. Did I know I'd be listening to and thinking about a lot of songs I otherwise never would have made time for?  That couldn't be avoided. Was I aware a song I loved and would stand up for could fall off the chart the very next week? It hurts that we lost "Run Up," but yes, I know no pop song is destined to hit the top 40. ...Did I prepare myself for six Big Sean songs. I was cognizant of a newly-released Big Sean album. Did I realize relatively deep Big Sean cuts would make their way into my life. Did I realize that, thanks to this fractured world where major artists give their preferred streaming service the right to be the sole host for their album, how difficult it would be to find a song with an Eminem feature on The You Tube. I worked harder to listen to "No Favors" than I ever otherwise would have. I could have said, "Eminem is on this track! I bet that's bad to listen to." Nope. I had to spend three minutes clickin’ on various YouTube videos until I found the actual song so I could confirm that Eminem is still not worth anyone's time, to say nothing for the time it took to find this song. Eminem describes himself as "rapey" and describes beating Jamie Lee Curtis with a spaceheater. Eminem, still incredibly not cool with the fact women are alive and breathing the same air as he does! Still thinking as he ever has, that one. Eminem turns 45 this year.

And then I remembered that I have Amazon Music, because I am a 51-year-old office manager who needs all the Steely Dan he can handle and is thus in the Amazon Music target market, and a cursory search showed that Big Sean did not make his album exclusive to one streaming service. So while I am not thrilled to put four other Big Sean songs into my life (there's an Official Video for "Halfway off the Balcony"), I am elated to give you a version of Yellin' at Songs which is complete and honest in its evaluation of every pop song to make its chart debut in 2017, except for the 1.7.2017 chart, that chart doesn't count for... some reason, don’t ask, I’m weird I AM PLEASED however, to report that my opinion on Big Sean is the same as it was when we discussed "Moves:" Big Sean has made great strides as a rapper, and while I wasn't looking forward to hearing any of these songs, I didn't mind them! Why, I downright enjoyed "Light," though I'm just a big fan in general of the first song of albums. (I like introductions. I like starting things. It's the middle and end parts here I'm like, enh, I don't know how to do this, but beginning a new thing is always a rush.) "Sacrifices" was also somewhere better than okay. So we have one song I'd be okay listening to again, one song I mostly enjoyed, one song that might end up being the worst thing I'd heard this year (remember that this year has included a Brantley Gilbert song and "Body Like a Back Road," and know that we're about to get to "Look at Me!"), and three other songs. Given that this easily could have been 24 minutes of nothing, I'll gladly take three songs I could have thoughts about!

43) "Believer," by Imagine Dragons

Listen, we have our fun with Imagine Dragons. It's pretty nuts that this is the biggest rock band we have going, imagine going back in time and playing this for Chuck Berry and telling him this song is a direct descendant of his work, but this song, it's pretty okay! It's a nice "love letter to the fans" sort of song, there's nothing terribly offensive about anything that's happening, it's a perfectly competent rock song that is going to serve well as the walk-up music for the Kansas City Royals' back-up utility infielder in two years' time. My opinion of this is absolutely colored by the fact that this song contains an itemized list. 1) I'll say the words in my head. 2) Don't tell me who you think I could be. 3) Thank God for the haters. 4) We made it, you and I, and I gotta give mad love to you, the fans. I dig any song with a list. I still defend Jay-Z's verse in "Monster" on the grounds that rap could use more lists.

68) "My Old Man," by Zac Brown Band

Before the Grammys hit, I went through every nominee field for Record of the Year to see how representative the Grammys had ever been of trends in pop music (spoiler: THEY NEVER WERE), and something I wanted to do was go through each year and determine the true Record of the Year field. I didn't have time for that because I started writing the post early Saturday morning and wanted to get it out before the Grammys started, but I ended up doing it anyway, and I present this to you: "Chicken Fried" absolutely would have been an ROTY nominee for the year 2009 if the Grammys had any got damn sense. I don't know if there's been a country song this country has been more in agreeance with since. Everything about that song works, it even earns the ode to the flag! 2009 wasn't one of the best music years in recent memory, either, you don't have to stretch the imagination to see a nice song about how great fried chicken getting ROTY consideration. Zac Brown Band puts out really solid country music. They're not Chris Stapleton-y throwbacks, they're not trying to revolutionize the genre, but they have their niche, and they know exactly how to operate within that niche. Most country songs about a strong paternal figure would be insufferable, but this is about as good as that sub-genre gets! Zac Brown Band, generally pleasant to hear since 2009!

87) "Beauty and the Beast," by Ariana Grande ft./John Legend

The least necessary thing on the planet is pop remixes of signature songs from Disney musicals. It only worked for Elton John, but those were songs he was writing, so that is a CLEAR EXCEPTION. The pop remix didn't work in the '90s, it didn't work with "Let It Go," and it doesn't work here. I REPEAT: Angela Lansbury or GTFO.

89) "I Don't," by Mariah Carey ft./YG

The most amazing line on Wikipedia is "Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970)." That says so much, and not all it says is about Mariah Carey, but we learn so much about Mariah Carey from that biographical tidbit. But why was I on Wikipedia looking up Mariah Carey's age? Because I just had to listen to a 39-year-old man sing a love song with a woman 15 years younger than him, and one of the reasons that Mariah Carey is a legend is that she is nearly 50 years old but still getting in those slinky dresses and getting 27-year-old gangsta rappers to write guest verses about how hot she is. That’s amazing. Like, think about female romantic leads in Tom Hanks movies for a second, or in Woody Allen movies, or in any movie, literally any movie, it’s always, the dude is hella old and the woman is portrayed by an early-20s ingenue, and here Mariah Carey is FLIPPING THE FUCKING SCRIPT. That’s what you get to fucking do when you’re a legend. Think about YG for a second. In the same 12-month span, YG released a song called "Fuck Donald Trump" and wrote a verse about proposing to Mariah Carey. That's not a mark against YG, that is a testament to Mariah Carey's legend, that we’re nearly 20 years removed from “Heartbreaker” but she still wields the same influence. I did not start writing this series about pop music to besmirch Mariah Carey's good name. What I think of this song is immaterial. She is a goddess come to earth, and her every movement is a blessing.

93) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini

So, I don't know about this song's long-term ability to stay on the chart. It's been out since last October, and it's apparently part of a popular Snapchat filter, and I'm not sure I'm ready for a world where songs can get big via Snapchat. I barely got used to Vine hits, now I've gotta worry about Snapchat? Anyhoo. Take a trip with me. On last year's year-end Hot 100, the hip-hop entries were all either trap or Drake, with the exception of "All the Way Up." It's been way too long since we've had a solid pop/rap song hit the charts. And this is such a blast! Even the rap singles I've enjoyed over the course of this project, they're still slightly ponderous. This young man just wants to eat candy, and it's like "Cake by the Ocean," yeah candy is a metaphor for something but this dude doesn't want you to think about it too hard, he just has this dope song you can enjoy. It's nice to hear music that isn't taking itself seriously. Bless you, friend.

94) "In Case You Didn't Know," by Brett Young

Meanwhile, the world has hundreds of versions of this exact pop/country song. We're all good. We don't need more. This is a new dude! How do they keep finding dudes like this to sing songs like this? Are they just in a mall somewhere scouting dudes like this in line at the Auntie Anne's? Do they just go to baseball games and look for tall dudes with stubble? Do they just carry guitars to karaoke bars, and when they hear a voice just nasally enough to be considered twangy they give him the guitar to hold for a few minutes and evaluate how hot he looks while holding that guitar and smiling? “Oh, yeah, that could be an album cover. I could see that on an album cover.” “So y’all from ar” “Shhh, shh shh shh, you talking ruins everything we like here.” Where do these guys COME FROM even?

95) "Look at Me!" by XXXTENTACION

But I kind of understand the appeal of bro country. At this point, when I see a white dude's name on the Billboard chart, I know I can expect one of two things: a fast jam about a hot summer night in a Chevrolet truck, or a slow jam about a hot girl the bro truly loves. And there's a certain safety when you know what to expect. If you feel safe enough in an environment, you'll want to spend more time in that environment, and if you spend enough time in that safe environment, you'll eventually call that place your home. This is all to say that, as I listened to "Look at Me!" I found myself appreciating the mundanity and predictability of "In Case You Didn't Know," and it takes a certain kind of aggressive unpleasantness to make me consider the bro-country universe's redeeming qualities. This song is horrendous. There's no musicality, the lyrics are the most misogynistic thing I've heard IN A WEEK WITH A FUCKING EMINEM VERSE, there's nothing here that suggests this is something meant to be enjoyed. Who is this for? Who's listening to this song that would subject themselves to it more than once? There is neither creativity nor artistry, just a horrible worldview presented abrasively. Y'all rejected "Run Up" for this and I will never forgive you.

Anyway, we’re a month and a half into this thing, and I think we’ve encountered enough Cs and C+s to expand the Top 10 into a Top 20! 20) "Road Less Traveled," by Lauren Alaina (2.11) 19) "I Don't," Mariah Carey ft./YG (2.25) 18) "El Amante," by Nicky Jam (2.18) 17) "Timeless," by A Boogie Wit da Hoodie ft./DJ SPINKING (1.14) 16) "Beibs in the Trap," by Travis Scott (1.21) 15) "My Old Man," by Zac Brown Ban (2.25) 14) "Castle on the Hill," by Ed Sheeran (1.28) 13) "Call Casting," by Migos (2.18) 12) "Running Back," by Wale ft./Lil Wayne (2.11) 11) "I'm Better," by Missy Elliott ft./Lamb (2.18) 10) "Way Down We Go," by Kaleo (1.14) 9) "Light," by Big Sean ft./Jeremih (2.25) 8) "Guys My Age," by Hey Violet (2.11) 7) "Good Drank," by 2 Chainz ft./Gucci Mane & Quavo (2.11) 6) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25) 5) "Shape of You," by Ed Sheeran (1.28) 4) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 3) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Run Up," Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18)