#friday effortposting

[magnetoeisenhardt]

[singularityranger]

Okay, potentially controversial take incoming, but…

I think that the canon Thrawn books are simply better than the legends ones.

I honestly don’t know how most people feel about this, but I’m gonna throw my opinions out there anyway. So, what are the big differences between the two? The main thing is this: we get a lot more development of Thrawn himself in the canon books, especially the Ascendancy trilogy. However, in legends, Thrawn as an actual character is most fleshed out in Outbound Flight (note: I have not read the Hand of Thrawn duology and can’t comment on it). This is not to detract from legends Thrawn; I love both iterations of the character and Outbound Flight remains a favorite of mine. However, Thrawn in his original trilogy is very much a force of nature as opposed to a very fleshed-out character, given that he was the villain. His development was also somewhat retroactive, as Outbound Flight was written afterwards. Meanwhile, we’re a lot closer to Thrawn in both his canon trilogies.

Furthermore, and this is one of the big things, his motivations are much more interesting in canon. He has willingly been vilified by his people and put into exile in order to infiltrate the empire, and spends a lot of time there in order to help the Ascendancy. He spends over a decade in the imperial service, and during that time, he goes out of his way to do things that benefit his people, even though it risks his station and life. He sends Eli Vanto to Ar’alani, tries to recruit Nightswan, repeatedly annoys Darth Vader in order to rescue Chiss Navigators, and openly works with the Chiss without permission, skirting dangerously close to treason. Thrawn in canon is a character who is going to incredible lengths to do anything that has even a chance of benefiting his people, even when it risks his own life. Especially when it risks his own life.

The other major improvement from legends is the increased development of the Chiss Ascendency and its characters, as well as an increase in those characters. Ar’alani gets much more focus in canon than she did in Outbound Flight, and has become a key part of Thrawn’s story. And speaking of Outbound Flight—Thrass is given increased attention and development in the story, not in place of his time in Outbound Flight, but in addition to it. Nothing of Thrass’ character in Outbound Flight is seriously countermanded by his Ascendancy characterization, and many aspects of Outbound Flight, especially the Chiss parts, have been effectively canonized by the Ascendancy trilogy. Eli Vanto, Karyn Faro, Samakro, Thalias, Ba’kiff, Thurfian, and all the rest are also wonderful additions to Thrawn’s mythos. Getting to see snapshots of Thrawn’s youth, his rise, his struggles within the Ascendancy, and even his failures also go a long way towards making him more of a fleshed-out character and not just the overwhelming tactical genius that he was in legends.

And most importantly: Eli Vanto actually appreciates the art Thrawn studies and can give meaningful commentary rather than just saying it’s “interesting” (looking at you, Captain Paelleon).

Anyway, that’s my take on why canon Thrawn is better than legends. Feel free to agree or disagree, I’m eager to hear what people think.

[anhedoniacity]

cardcaptor sakura translation note!

sakura’s family name, kinomoto (木之本), means “the origin of wood.” her whole family also has first names that are plant themed:

fujitaka (藤隆) — the first character in sakura’s dad’s name means “wisteria”

nadeshiko (撫子) — sakura’s mom is named after a type of flower that is called a fringed pink carnation in english. additionally, she is an example of a “yamato nadeshiko,” a term that refers to an idealized archetype of a japanese woman who is beautiful, elegant, and traditional

sakura (桜) — as many people know (since the word has been loaned into english), her name means “cherry tree” or “cherry blossom”

touya (桃矢) — the first character in touya’s name means “peach”

according to her character profile, nadeshiko’s favorite flowers are wisteria, peach blossoms, and cherry blossoms, so i suppose it makes sense that she named her kids after them.

but the actual point of this post is to say that the reason touya always uses that sillyass mug with the peaches on it is because it's his name :)

[d1nosorcerer]

The Power Fantasy: Fun With Alternate History (Part 1)

Chapter 1: Heroes and Villains

Heavy refers to Texas as a "red state". The red states for Republicans/blue states for Democrats shorthand was codified surprisingly recently in our world, in the 2000 presidential election. Presumably this happened a bit earlier in TPF, which isn't too far-fetched since there was precedent for blue and red being colors used in election maps on news channels, they just weren't as consistently assigned to one party or the other. A Republican wasn't president in our 1999, but it's safe to assume there's been enough of a butterfly effect for that to change. More on that in a minute.

Election '76: Texas wasn't always red!

Chapter 3: The Music of the Future

A teenage Valentina destroys the Soviet nuclear arsenal in Cuba and the US' in Turkey, averting the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis. And possibly another near-miss international incident between two huge countries. Now, what on Earth could I be referring to?

These made-up lines through the mountains are really important, guys, honest...

If you somehow guessed "the Sino-Indian war of 1962", you are right! And good job because I came across this by complete happenstance. Keep in mind that at this point, the Sino-Soviet split was splitting so China and the USSR had some massive breakup drama going on, even though they broadly remained opposed to the Western Bloc. Lots of crying, drunk texts from Khrushchev at 4 AM, etc.

Now, tensions over borders in the Himalayas had been building up for some time, so the idea that China attacked Indian-held disputed territory at the time that it did because the US and USSR were distracted by the missile fiasco is probably an exaggeration. However, there's reason to believe that they took advantage of this distraction, and neither country was able to provide substantial support for the Indian army. A few weeks after the Cuba crisis had been resolved, China retreated despite its initial successes out of fear of such intervention.

In the world of The Power Fantasy, assuming a more or less similar situation, the whole thing could be over in a week or two rather than a whole month. Also, the Cuban government's relations with the Soviets apparently soured after negotiations regarding the missiles were done largely without their involvement, which would be less of an issue here. But this tangent has gone on long enough. Let's return to presidents, shall we?

Don't worry, no one's gonna miss him anyway

So in 1969 after the US government's assassination attempt against Valentina causes massive civilian casualties, she storms into the Oval Office, not knowing it would cause the painful, untimely deaths of President Nixon and several others by radiation poisoning. Oops.

We know the pre-1989 politics of The Power Fantasy are somewhat recognizable, since Etienne alludes to Ronald Reagan's presidency in issue #5 in a 1981 flashback. I like to think there are some effects of the Nixon administration getting cut short, though. For one thing, Spiro Agnew is president until at least January 19th, 1973. What, you've never heard of Spiro "Ted" Agnew, the first American vice president of Greek ancestry?!

I Spi with my little eye...

Well, I didn't see him anywhere in the 1969 scene, so I assume he assumes office. He was a polarizing figure who ended up resigning early in his second term in our timeline, and Nixon even considered a different running mate in the 1972 election at one point. It's hard to imagine his re-election campaign being a landslide then, especially with the increased scrutiny he'd receive as president, so in my head canon he loses to the Democratic challenger.

In our 1972 that was George McGovern. It's worth noting that Edmund Muskie was initially leading the Democratic primaries before scandals manufactured by Nixon sabotaged him, so maybe he would be the next president instead. Or maybe not, one could argue his failure to handle the controversy proves he'd have a hard time anyway.

And that's before even speculating about the differences in society and events from 69-72 in the Power Fantasy universe. Like, does the New Mexico massacre turn public opinion more against the government or the superpowers? Many people became afraid of Valentina, and some probably dismissed the whole thing as hippie nonsense, but surely there'd still be some controversy about a bombing that killed tens of thousands! Maybe the Democrats' campaign condemns the excess deaths but still fearmongers against our angelic friend.

Made this just for fun, not arguing this is what actually happened in the comic's world

Alright, that's it, that's everything in the first three—oh, right, yes! Europe. 1989. Well, that could be a whole post by itself, so let's get back to that. Stay tuned for Part 2, and possibly even more...but first, I'll probably do something special for Black History Month.

[justabeatboxanalyst]

hello beatbox person ! i recently found a comment under a korn track calling the noises davis makes beatbox and now i wonder whether it counts as it in your opinion or not (for examples of the noises see twist, freak on a leash, good god has some im p sure. i think you know what im talking about but just in case) like it doesnt sound like a stereotypical beatbox for me but like it sure isnt singing?

So I've been thinking about this quite a bit to the point that later down the line I might write an essay about it. I'm not too familiar with Korn so I had to specifically listen to the examples you put. Modern beatboxing can't really be reduced to only drum sounds, as there are vocal sounds and many sounds that can be pitched or serve as sound effects (think a water drop sound). That being said, there is a rich history of many other forms of vocal art/music. For example, there's scat-singing, throat singing, rapping, etc. I'm not an expert on any of these, but I know beatboxing often draws upon techniques from these other artforms. For the case of Korn, Davis is making a lot of rhythmic gibberish sounds that probably could be called scat-singing? But if you want to call it beatboxing, I don't particularly mind either.

TLDR:

Does it count as beatboxing? Sure why not.

[magnetoeisenhardt]

I should preface this by saying that Gail Simone's secret Secret Six run is one of my favorite comics of all time. I don't think Nicole Maines' 2025 Secret Six run was terrible, but I do think it was far from actually being good. From my understanding, Nicole Maines did not initially set out to write a Secret Six run, and wanted only to continue the story of her trio, Nia, Jon, and Jay, and was pressured by editorial to turn her planned story into a Secret Six run.

Nia, Jon, and Jay are definitely the strongest aspects of this run, which is a shame because I don't really care about them all that much. The run is dealing with the fallout of Absolute Power, which I did not read and also do not care about. This is not really the fault of Maines; crossovers are the death of art and editorial is the enemy of comic fans. I came out of this book feeling positively about Nia, and bored by Jon and Jay. At least they're now broken up.

Because I'm unqualified and uninterested in the characters the book is actually supposed to be about, I'm going to, probably unfairly, focus on Tom and Floyd, two of the characters I do actually care about. I'm interested in discussing this panel here:

I think Maines has a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship. In the 2025, the central conflict between Tom and Floyd is that Floyd had once again gone off to work for Amanda Waller's suicide squad, leaving Tom behind in the process. Tom feels that Floyd has chosen Waller over him, and is jealous as a result.

My major problems with this are that it's boring, and that it goes against everything that's been established for their relationship. I don't find jealousy compelling as a motivation, especially since it was totally absent in their original dynamic. Maines has gone for a much more explicitly romantic framing of their relationship, which I am all for, but has lead her to crush their relationship down into the mold of a traditional romance, which I am all against. To fit Tom and Floyd into a traditional romance plot, their dynamic and both of their characters has to be reduced until they're unrecognizable.

The central conflict between Floyd and Tom is that that they both hate themselves, and they each hate the other for reminding them of their agency in their own miserable lives. When Floyd was a teenager, he accidentally killed his brother, whom he loved, to save the life of his father, whom he hates. Since then, he has decided that his life is basically over, and he is going to take every active step to ruin his own life up until someone finally gets around to killing him.

In contrast, Tom intentionally kills his mother, whom he loves, after being pressured by his father, whom he hates. In revenge, he then tortures his father to death. He blames himself for only being able to kill his father after his mother had already died, and therefor being unable to save her. Tom believes in the righteous application of violence, and that if he just tries hard enough, he can pull it together and be a good person through only hurting the right people.

At the beginning of the 2008 Secret Six ongoing, which was a continuation of her previous Secret Six miniseries, Tom is having a bit of a fling with Huntress, another murderous vigilante who has mostly succeeded in redeeming herself. Inspired by her, Tom decides to try to fix his life and come to terms with his past actions, and has the following conversation with Deadshot as they drive to a local deli.

Floyd has a much clearer view of both of them than Tom does. However, with all of that knowledge, Floyd chooses to do nothing but mock Tom, who once again tries to violence his way into becoming a good person.

Through the rest of the series, Tom repeatedly tries to become a better person, and every time, he fails, inevitably committing a brutal act of revenge. Waiting for him smugly after every failure is Floyd, who never fails by virtue of never trying. Tom hates Floyd for being a reminder of what he is, and Floyd hates Tom for ever trying to be something else.

However, because they're in the same hole, they have a unique understanding of each other, which they each resent but cannot avoid. They can trust each other, in the sense that they can always trust the other one to disappoint them. Many times, they are even aligned in their brutality, and they're best suited for each other when Tom is at his lowest. They're something like best friends. Their lives would have certainly been better off if they had never met.

Through this lens, Tom's line in Maines' run of "Nothing I do is ever going to ever be enough for you!" is incomprehensible. Floyd wants, in a very literal sense, nothing from Thomas. He wants to be Thomas' last option. Floyd wants Thomas to know, every time he's with him, that there's no one else who would take him. Tom doesn't want to impress Floyd, the impressive thing would be to get away from Floyd!

Anyway. The other problem with Maines’ writing is Floyd “I know what lesbians are through porn” Lawton being comfortable enough in his sexuality to flirt with a man. I do appreciate the queerbait though, if nothing else. This is a comic that has a frank mention of bottom surgery, so presumably Maines is baiting out of pure love of the game, which is righteous and honorable.

[magnetoeisenhardt]

Is Magneto Jewish

“...For me, being a Jew means feeling the tragedy of yesterday as an inner oppression. On my left forearm I bear the Auschwitz number; it reads more briefly than the Pentateuch or the Talmud and yet provides more thorough information. It is also more binding than basic formulas of Jewish existence. If to myself and the world, including the religious and nationally minded Jews, who do not regard me as one of their own, I say: I am a Jew, then I mean by that those realities and possibilities that are summed up in the Auschwitz number.”

Jean Améry, At the Mind's Limits

CW: This post is going to be about the holocaust, and will focus on the life and testimony of a real holocaust survivor, Jean Améry. One of Améry's suicide notes will be quoted.

Mandatory Disclaimer: For reasons that are the focus of this post, making a positive claim towards Jewish identity is not something that I am comfortable doing. However, most people reading this post would consider me to be Jewish.

Jean Améry was born in Austria in 1912. He was born under the name Hans Maier, but changed his name to Jean Améry in 1945 for reasons that are the focus of this post. Améry had a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Améry's father intended for Améry to be raised Jewish, but died in World War I, leaving Améry's mother to raise him Catholic.

It was in 1935, after the passage of the Nuremberg laws that codified German and Jewish identity, that Améry realized he could be Jewish. Legally, under the German Reich, Améry had a claim to German citizenship. Someone who was half German (Austrian), half Jewish, was Mischling (mixed race), first degree, and would be considered German provided that they did not practice their Jewish faith. Améry, being raised Catholic without any history of Jewish practice, was decreed to be capable of being German. However, a Mischling married to a Jew was considered a Jew, and in 1937, Améry married a Jewish woman. If Améry had not married her, he may have been spared his fate. Instead, in 1938 when Austria welcomed German rule, Améry and his wife fled to Belgium through France.

Améry was deported from Belgium back into France for being German. In France, he was detained in three seperate internment camps before he managed to escape back to Belgium, where he found that his wife had died of a heart attack. Améry joined the Belgian resistance in 1941, and operated for two years before he was captured and tortured by the SS for distributing pamphlets. He was sent to Auchwitz III Monowitz-Buna, a labor camp, and assigned to work as clerk. Améry survived the death march, and was freed by the British army on April 15, 1945. Améry survived 642 days in a German Concentration camp. He counted them.

Améry lived his new life in Belgium. In 1966, inspired by the work of the French existentialists, especially Jean-Paul Sartre, Améry published At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and its Realities. This is his most famous work, and the only work of his that I have read. In it, Améry attempts to answer the question, "Am I Jewish?"

Améry was not raised Jewish. His ties to Judaism were a father he had no memories of, and a wife with whom he had shared only a single year of life. He did not believe in God and did not practice the Jewish faith. However, the evidence for Améry's Judaism was 172364 written on his arm. It was not clear to him that there existed evidence that could overcome it.

Jean Améry killed himself in 1978. He wanted it to be known that he had done so "voluntarily, in full possession of his mental faculties." In his suicide note to the police, he wrote, "I belong to no religious group and would prefer the cremation of my remains over any other sort of burial; should my wife nonetheless demand interment, then her wishes should be respected."

Perhaps that is the truth of the matter.

Magneto is not real. His time in Auschwitz was likely based off of Zalmen Gradowski, who had written and buried a secret diary of his time as a Sonderkommando, the inmate unit tasked with the operation and maintenance of the gas chambers and crematorium oven. Gradowski was executed during the Sonderkommando rebellion in October of 1944. However, his fellow rebels were able to tell the Nuremberg prosecutors where the diary was buried, and it was used as evidence in their prosecution of Nazi officials.

Magneto was born in Germany as Max Eisenhardt, probably during the 1920s. He had two Jewish parents, and was raised Jewish. His family considered themselves German, but under the Nuremberg laws, they had no claim to German citizenship. The Eisenhardt's briefly escaped to Poland, which was quickly captured by Germany. The Eisenhardt's lived in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, until the Nazis began to deport the residents for extermination at Treblinka. The Eisenhardt's attempted to escape, but all but Max were executed.

Max was re-captured, and sent to Auschwitz II Birkenau, where he worked as a Sonderkommando. According to his written testament, likely modeled after Gradowksi's, Max had seen at least a quarter million dead bodies during his time at Auschwitz. During the Sonderkommando rebellion in October 1944, Max escaped from Auschwitz alongside Magda, the woman who would become his wife. Max and Magda lived together in an unspecified village in the Carpathian mountains, and then moved to Vinnytsia to raise their daughter Anya, a city in what is now Ukraine and was then part of the USSR.

Max's powers manifested out of anger, and Max first used them to attack his boss who was refusing to pay him. In response, the people of Vinnytsia burned down Max's home, killing his daughter. In response to that, Max murdered them all, and blew up a large section of the city. Magda fled in fear, and Max spent the next few years of his life chasing after her, creating the identity of Erik Lensherr to aid in his search.

Magneto's past as a holocaust survivor is revealed in Uncanny X-Men #150, published in 1981. In the next panel, Max both hints at his past faith and affirms his current lack thereof.

When Max states that he has turned his back on God, he is not merely making a claim of atheism, but rather an explicit rejection of God. Max cannot worship any god that allowed the holocaust to happen. Furthermore, by becoming Magneto, mutant Avenger, Max embarks on a mission to supplant God, and to protect and avenge his people in a way his old god never did. This stance is consistent; every time Magneto makes reference to God it is either to disavow him or to supplant him.

While Magneto lived in Israel and worked with the Israeli government during the 1950s, after discovering that there was the potential for a community of mutants, Max severed all ties with Israel, and the Jewish community he had lived in by extension. While a relationship with Israel does not qualify or disqualify someone as being Jewish, his history as a Jewish Zionist becomes contextualizes Magneto's subsequent mutant Zionism. When Max seeks to prevent another holocaust from befalling his people, he identifies his people as mutants, not Jews. In pursuit of the protection of mutants, Max has tried to exterminate most Jews. Magneto has made numerous attempts to wipe out all of humanity, human Jews among them. Identifying as of a community with Jews is diametrically opposed to his mutant separatist/supremacist ideology; they are human, and he is mutant.

Given that, it's worth asking what it means to say that Magneto is Jewish. Magneto does not identify as Jewish, for both personal and political reasons. Magneto's ideology is an explicit rejection of Judaism. To say Magneto is Jewish is to reject Magneto's adamant self-identification otherwise.

Was Jean Améry Jewish? Who gets to decide? Does the experience of having been tortured in a concentration for being Jewish make one Jewish? Améry's identification as a Jew was based on a solidarity of experience, without which, he felt, his life would have no meaning. As long as the antisemite would designate Améry as Jewish, Améry would be Jewish. His own lack of internal identification with Judaism was irrelevant in the matter.

Certainly, before the holocaust, Max was Jewish. However, it is only in this negative identification that Magneto could still be said to be Jewish. On one end of the scale, you have Magneto's own testimony. On the other end, the Nuremberg laws. Who gets to decide?

[justabeatboxanalyst]

What does good beatboxing sound like? Part 2 (With examples!)

My last effort post was entirely void of any actual audio content and ended up being an essay breaking down beatboxing into objective categories. It was very good and I will reference it a bunch here so go check it out if you haven't already. Still, I don’t want to put in the same amount of effort every week so this post will be a bit lighter on the word count. 

Since purely written descriptions can be abstract at times, I wanted to be able to provide examples of the categories I discussed last week. I’m going to show some videos that I would consider examples of Good Beatboxing™ and highlight the categories in which I think they shine. Once again, I heavily recommend listening with headphones, otherwise you’ll miss the full range of frequencies that each artist has to offer.

Wing - Attention

Wing has been getting a lot of attention (heh) lately due to a combination of his music videos, short form content, and recent performance at the 2025 Grand Beatbox Battle (basically the world championships). Despite his more recent success, he’s been in the community for a long time notably winning the South Korean Championship in 2017 and Asian Championship in 2018. This video, a cover of Charlie Puth’s Attention, was his submission to the 2018 Grand Beatbox Battle (GBB). Unfortunately it ranked just below the cutoff, and he was unable to compete that year.

While this performance excels in many aspects, I want to highlight two things. First is his clarity/cleanliness. Wing has always been one of the cleanest in the game, and this earlier example of his beatboxing shows that it’s something he’s never lacked. Each sound is concise; there’s no extra air or indication that he’s straining himself to reach a frequency or a pitch. Each sound is also consistent; if it wasn’t caught on video one could imagine they were generated by pressing buttons on a drum machine. Clarity, along with power and speed are great indicators of a beatboxer’s level of control over their beatboxing. While Wing certainly doesn’t lack in power or speed, his sheer cleanliness makes him one of the best in the game.

The second thing I want to highlight about this performance is its structure. While musical structure can be more subjective and varied depending on what ideas the musician wants to convey, there’s still a way to do it. I’m not versed in music theory nor am I a professional songwriter so forgive me if I sound amateurish here, but Wing does at least construct a piece with solid structure. He starts by introducing Attention’s melody in the form of humming with a basic/quiet beat. He then picks up in energy with a simple drum buildup while singing the lyrics, transitioning with a quick filter effect into a bassy and groovy drop. He keeps it fresh by having plenty of variations of different sounds and drum patterns, then moves onto a second drum buildup that removes the melody. His second drop is less melody heavy but introduces new drum textures and as a bonus he throws in his signature w-w-wing sound. In the end, he starts to close out with the opening humming beat but fakes it out by reiterating the first drop, and then does a true ending with the humming he started with. In summary, he follows a basic beatbox track structure- intro, buildup, drop, second buildup, second drop, then conclusion, but explaining how he does it so masterfully in more detail would ramp up the word count and I’ve got things to do so I’ll leave it at that.

Osis - Cash

Osis is an Irish/Latvian beatboxer. An absolute powerhouse of a beatboxer, Osis won the 2022 Online World Beatbox Championship, and scored second at the Grand Beatbox Battle 2024. Cash was his video submission to the 2024 Grand Beatbox Battle, scoring first place amongst the video submissions and earning him a spot in the battle (where he went on to get second as I previously mentioned).

If Wing makes his beatboxing look easy, Osis is the exact opposite. If you compare their visuals across the two videos, Wing looks like he’s vibing and Osis looks like he’s in physical pain. But don’t mistake this as me putting down Osis; while Wing gets aura from his effortless groove, Osis’s performance is impressive from him being locked the fuck in. How? His use of dynamics, specifically power. While Cash has audio mastering, it can’t hide the sheer loudness behind Osis’s sounds. His kicks sound like explosions and his snares sound sharper than an axe splitting logs. The vocal effect he puts on his first “money in cash” is a sound called vibration bass, a sound that’s notorious in the community for being inconsistent and quiet (for example, Wing has noted several times that he’s sometimes unhappy with how his comes out). Yet Osis pushes it to balance its volume out with his drums. He goes all in on loudness to show his audience that he's all in about beatboxing.

Cash isn’t necessarily the best example of sheer power in beatboxing (see the person who beat Osis in the finals of GBB24, Julard), but it’s a great example of power with the second category I want to highlight- texture variety. To create the sub bass frequencies, instead of relying on one sound he uses five. He has two vocal basses (vibration & inward bass), one created by the lips (liproll), one created by the tongue (sub clickroll), and then one which is one of his signature sounds which I kid you not is a lip oscillation (buzzing your lips) layered with polyphonic singing (singing 2 notes at the same time) layered with a whistle. Beatboxers are freaks. For higher pitched frequencies, he has his polyphonic singing and his aforementioned signature sound. He also uses a variety of different drums and poppy sound effects with different textures to keep things fresh. In a way, the variety he shows in his frequencies is its own form of complexity- but I’ll get to that some other day.

Zer0 - 2021 Kickback Wildcard

If you ask a beatboxer who in the community has the best drums of all time, there’s several names that come up. Alem, the 2015 world champion. Colaps, the 2021 GBB champion. But there’s one name that gets thrown in the conversation despite how few live events he’s attended. That would be Zer0, from Azerbaijan. While his location and finances made it difficult for him to battle on the big stage, he rampaged the online scene throughout the 2010s and throughout the pandemic years. Notable achievements include winning the 2020 online (read: pandemic) edition of GBB, and winning way too many online battles to count. He’s currently a full time surgeon, so he’s not as active in the scene anymore but the occasions when he pops back in are always something to behold. This video was his submission to an online battle called the Kickback Beatbox Battle in 2021, which didn’t actually make it in for reasons I forget.

One of the main reasons that Zer0 is one of the contenders for greatest drums of all time in the beatbox scene is his speed. He creates unique fills that compress an impressive amount of sounds into brief phrases. Throughout the video there are plenty of parts where he leaves space between his beats to not overcomplicate things and even still, he will add throwaway flourishes that show off how fast he can go even in a low energy, casual beat. When he picks up the pace and energy, he goes even faster (see the portion from 1:00-1:20). Whether it's playing with further subdivisions of notes (16th notes, 32nd notes) or just increasing bpm, Zer0 can do it all.

The second category I want to highlight in this track is dynamics again. While for Osis I highlighted the aspect of loudness and power, I want to show off another aspect of dynamics- control. In the section starting from the 1:20 mark of the video, Zer0 does a beat with his mouth entirely closed, creating a filter effect that mimics hearing loud music muffled behind a wall, as if you were in the bathroom at a party. Let me be honest here. That’s cool as fuck, and the beat goes unreasonably hard. While Cash turns up the volume as high as possible to show off how powerful Osis is as a beatboxer, Zer0 plays with the dial, choosing to turn the volume down at a key point to create an amazing moment in his piece.

Bizkit - Don’t Speak

I love my local/national community too much to just not include an American as an example of Good Beatboxing™. And what is a more relevant example of an American Good Beatboxer™ than the current US Champ? Throughout 2025, Bizkit saw a string of victories, from getting 2nd at Vokal Total, a high level European battle, to 1st at the New York Championships, and then 1st at the USA Championships. Unfortunately since the 2025 USA Championships happened in December, the videos haven’t been released yet and I have to use his 2024 performance (in which he got second place). The part I will focus on is his second round from his top 16 battle against Brody, another American beatboxer (5:03-6:33).

Bizkit excels at a lot, and I wish I could break down everything I like about this song or his style in general but I have to get this out before midnight EST or my other Friday effort poster friends will make fun of me. Since this video is a live performance unlike the others I want to highlight his stage presence. First, his little “wow look, they know my lyrics” quip is a response to his opponent bragging “watch how they know my lyrics” in the previous round. Second, as a dancer (yes he’s also a dancer), he’s completely in tune with moving his body along to the beat, moving his arms to emphasize his lyrics, bouncing his body real low when he brings the beat low at 5:27, and doing a little sassy walk at 5:49 during his second buildup. He also engages the crowd, making clapping motions when he wants the crowd to clap along, and having them sing along to his lyrics as mentioned before. I was there to see it live and the "hey" chant was electrifying.

I also want to point out his control over pitch. The entire song follows the blues scale in D (Music theory nerds please clown me if I say something wack or wrong here, I need to be punished for my hubris), and if you listen real close, you’ll notice that every single one of his non drum sounds stays on the scale and/or follows the melody he introduces in the beginning. This allows him to keep the audience engaged by hooking them on a familiar melody throughout the piece while introducing new textures with every new sound. Yes he has good structure, yes he has great variety in textures/frequencies, but part of the reason he’s able to maintain his structure with his varied frequencies is how he keeps hammering the main melody home no matter how many times he changes up everything else. 

Hope you enjoyed this week’s effort post. If you have any other observations, notice a mistake, or disagree with anything I said, I’m only human. Please clown me with a comment or long chain of tags in a reblog. Engagement makes a happy analyst.