All about rage

 ....yeah, I'm not good at coming up with snappy titles for my blog entries. :P 

Anyway, this post is about rage and why and how different people express it, and what their reasons are.
I was just writing about this on Facebook, making multiple posts about it as there was just too much to say, and finally I gave up and decided to just make one centralized big blog post about it, because hey, that's exactly what blogs are for. 

I've been trying to express my feelings on this matter a lot over the years, as I constantly have people saying to me "oh, no one will listen to you if you express things to angrily"; "tone it down"; and "if you get mad nicely, people might listen." 
I'm tired of being subjected to these comments that do have some truth to them, but don't apply to my situation, as I don't rant to inform or educate people, or even to get anyone to change their minds. 

I rant to get things off my chest and feel better. I rant to -- quite literally -- vent. 

I don't expect to change anyone's minds. If I wanted to, I'd definitely take a different approach to doing so. I wouldn't rage at them. No, that's just something I do for my own sanity. It's emotion. It needs to come out somehow. The same can be said of sadness and anxiety. 

Would you say "oh, you'll never get anyone to understand if you say things so sadly" if someone's crying too hard because they're sad? 

Or "oh, you'll never get anyone to understand if you say things so strangely/excitedly" if someone's freaking out because they're anxious? 

No, because that would be absurd. You know they're just feeling emotion and not necessarily trying to debate or argue or make a point. 

It's just emotion. That's it. 

Anger is the same. When I lose my temper or need to get something off my chest, it's not necessarily because I think I'm "right". It's most certainly not because I want to debate*. It's just an emotion I need to express, something that I can't hold in any longer. 
(*On that note, a lot of people need to stop conflating "I don't want to debate" with "no one is allowed to disagree with me." Come on, folks. This should be socializing 101!)

Like, for example, imagine it this way. You're carrying a very full, heavy box. You can't carry it forever! At one point your arms will buckle, and you'll drop the box, spilling the contents whether it's "appropriate" or not. You can't make the contents spill out "nicely" or in the "right way"; they're just going spill out as they will. You're physically incapable of holding them in any longer. 

All that being said, of course--there are toooons of people who use anger as a way to attempt to inform/educate others, and this is something I really try to distance myself from. I know when I get yelled at constantly, I eventually mute or unfollow.

If you truly want to change people's minds (and if you're being honest with yourself here, and that's what you REALLY want to do, as opposed to just wanting to vent like I do), you also need to remember that--wildly hot take here, but--people don't like being yelled at!

I know, I know. Neither change nor progress are made through being nice. Obviously. You know, when it became really trendy for awhile to say "don't tone police me!" I was really happy because I finally felt validated in my (very vocal) anger about important issues.
But you can't be that way all the time about everything, then act shocked when people (very justifiably) walk away. Everyone's dealing with enough shit as it is. NO ONE needs people screaming at them on top of it all. It's one thing if you're ranting to let off steam, but expecting people to listen to you while you do so is rather tone-deaf, if you asked me. I mean, do you expect people to nod their heads and be like, "Yeah! You know what? You're right! Thanks for yelling at me in a blind rage, you really helped me see the light."

Like, for sure that's going to work sometimes--hell, it's worked on me in the past. Just in general, I think, the reality is that people are going to pay attention if you make a fuss. 
But, that only goes so far. Not everyone is going to be persuaded by you if pure fury is the road you take, and you have to learn to be OK with that. What's really important, I think, is to not dismiss these unfollowers as lazy, disinterested, or bad. And I see a lot of this. It's just completely unreasonable. How can you blame people for wanting to walk away from you when you're constantly being unpleasant? It's one thing if you don't care what they think, but so many of you do. You get so mad when people choose to distant themselves from just constant negativity, and it's totally absurd and flat-out irrational of you to do so. 

People aren't "apathetic" just because they don't want to listen to you rage and insult them. 

Time for Suggoi FEVER!

 OK, I'm watching a Hello Project playlist right now and Suggoi FEVER! just popped up, so how could I not write about it?! Look how cool and wonderful this music video is! Riley has the best close-ups! And I love that it's an actual SET and not an overly-CG'd confusing mess like Wake Up Call's MV is. (More on that next time.) Nah, this is an actual physical set (you can even spot shoe marks on the floor!), and it makes allll the difference. 

Of course, one of the greatest part of this video is after the dance break, when all the Morning Musume members get down and worship--err, present the graduating queen herself, Fuku-chan! And then she gets some great moments with 17ki. Of course, all the close-ups everyone gets in this MV are awesome, cute, and fun. Riley's really such a scene-stealer though! 

And the song itself? It's fantastic, of course. I could do without that creepy voice yelling "SUGGOI!" over everyone (I think more or less everyone feels that way? lol), but it doesn't distract too much from the song, imho. The very first time I heard a preview of this song on Twitter, I thought of Rasputin. It's absolutely got one of those 70s-era Eurvision vibes to it, but mixed with some of the typical "cool" and "disco-y" HP songs (Seishun Night! and Sukatto My Heart immediately come to mind, but Suggoi FEVER! is so much cooler than both those songs!). 

Also, going back to the MV, I love how they're all wearing pink, the member colour of the great leader herself. 
Soon to be former leader. 
I can't believe her graduation is so soon! It's....*checks date* It's in 2 weeks! 

City? In the SKY? This was supposed to be about Suggoi Fever!

The other songs on Mizuki's graduation single, other than her solo Neverending Shine, are Suggoi FEVER! and Wake-up Call ~Mezameru Toki~.
I love both these songs. A lot.

Morning Musume's singles have been much better lately. For me, the weakest of the more recent singles (15ki+ onward) was Lovepedia. Even though I thought it was a great song, it wasn't *amazing*, and I ended up not being entertained by there being two arrangements of the same melody. They're both all right songs, though Lovepedia is the far better of the two, only because Ningen Kankei No Way Way samples TURKEY IN THE DAMN STRAW in the middle, and that makes me automatically dislike it quite a bit, no matter how hard I try to ignore that part. In fact, the more I try to remind myself that it's truly only, like, 5 seconds of the entire song, the more I can't stop noticing it and allowing it to ruin things for me. 

It's kind of like the OG Morning Musume album song, Harajuku 6:00 Shuugou. I freakin' looooove that song, and it's honestly and genuinely one of my very favourite non-single Morning Musume songs of all time, and yup, that includes everything in the Platinum, Colourful, and Mizuki eras. That being said, I can never let myself full enjoy it because of that stupid T-rex sound at the beginning and middle. 

Why is there a T-rex roaring in the song? It makes no sense whatsoever. I'd understand if it were, like, a Hyokkori Hyoutanjima-style song where they were hunting for dinosaur bones instead of being pirates, but no, it's a song about picking a way-too-busy spot (Harajuku station) to meet a date at 6pm. It's all about crowds and cool/hip young people hanging out in Harajuku, and nothing to do with dinosaurs or dinosaur movies. It's just so out-of-place and increeeeedibly annoying and impossible to ignore. It's really really too bad, because it is such a fabulously good song otherwise. I really, really wish there were a "non-dinosaur" version (doesn't that already sound like something Hello Project would totally do anyway?). 

That being said, there's some music where I'm totally able to filter out the parts or sounds I don't like. I don't know why. Why is brain (and my ears!) able to do that with some music, but not others? What determines that? It can't be the level of annoyance or intrusiveness, as a certain piece of Zelda music from Twilight Princess debunks that. I'm thinking of City in the Sky. Not only is it easily by favourite piece of music from Twilight Princess (and yes, that includes Midna's Lament...yeah, I know I'm weird); it's also one of my favourite pieces of Zelda music of all time, across the entire franchise. 
The thing is though, is that it's got a really annoying "honking" sound throughout. I don't know how to describe it; the first word that came to mind was "honk", but it's even odder than that. Should anyone else be reading this, here. Check it out for yourself: 

See? Isn't it really annoying? It's super intrusive, I find, yet I can somehow ignore it and just focus on the synth-y string-like melody that makes up the piece instead. And to say I adore that part of the composition is really an understatement, and it really does transport me to another place, and works as the soundtrack to the City in the Sky so unbelievably perfectly.  I remember reading a description of City in the Sky's music by someone who wrote that it sounded like a beautiful palace that you didn't belong in, it was pretty but not for you...not a place for humans (or Hylians) to step foot in. If you've every played through City in the Sky in Twilight Princess, you know that's spot-on! Or at least, I feel that it is. 

Anyway, weird how the brain works when it comes to listening to music and absorbing it as part of our listening experience and/or our gaming experience--and movie experiences too, but that's another post for another day. On that note, my actual thoughts on Suggoi FEVER! and Wake-up Call will also have to wait for another post on another day! This post was supposed to be about them, but it looks like I got side-tracked--something that happens to all of us, I think. The beauty of writing a blog for oneself is that it simply doesn't matter. Freedom! :)