Conor - Robert Langellier

This is Robert Langellier. You may know him as Sunday Robert. I know him as Robert Langellier.

But who exactly is he? What makes him who he is? How can we fix key elements of his personality to make him better? I will answer these questions and more throughout the body of this article, but not without a little help from my friends.

I texted several passerby's and asked for a short statement summarizing their thoughts on Robert, and I will be inserting what they have to say now and then throughout the article. Their thoughts will be written with italics. 


First, the facts. 5'11". He has brown eyes. He often wears hats. He has a weird thing for vests that may or may not be ironic? His birthday is September 2nd, but this date usually comes and goes without anyone really noticing. Robert is too bashful to make his birthday publicly known on facebook, and his own girlfriend had to go through her text messages in order to figure out the exact day. Speaking of his girlfriend and facts, I have totally kissed his girlfriend before. She has nothing but positive things to say about the multiple (more than once) times we kissed using our lips, but when asked about her current boyfriend, she expressed "indifference. Yeah, yeah I guess indifference is the best way to put it." Robert's cell phone number is 217-494-1823, and he loves texting.

But the facts paint a hollow, lifeless picture. Robert is arguably so much more than that. I think one friend described it best when they said that "Robert is the greatest... sometimes."

Yes, yes indeed.

Robert IS the greatest, sometimes. Truly he's one of my best friends, in a weird way. I've known him for the past 2 years or so, and we always liked eachother (RIGHT ROBERT? WE ALWAYS LIKED EACHOTHER, RIGHT, MAN? RIGHT?!) but we only became good/the best of friends towards the beginning of this past summer. So like, our true friendship anniversary is still a few months away.

"Robert is like Yoshi. He's super cool and you can ride off his jokes and its super fun, but when you get hit by a bad guy (spite), he cries and runs like a bitch and spits up some bullshit."

That's pretty weird to say, whoever said that!

Robert is a good friend. He is funny. He has a quick wit about him. He takes jokes in directions you don't see coming, and he sells them. The rhythm of his speech is almost identical to mine, and it's weird. He does this thing where he makes this like "pffff" sound right before shouting "What?!" if something ridiculous is said, and I find it hilarious. It almost annoys me how funny I find it. He tells the truth, but he does not claim to be any kind of authority on matters. He makes an honest effort to be fair and give everything and everyone the chance it/they deserve. He does not always succeed, but he tries. He is sometimes brutally honest. He doesn't do well with confrontations and seems to avoid most conflict. This is not because he is weak. He's just a nice guy. "A scholar and a gentlemen," claims one source. "[He] is a cool guy," says another.

"He is a dumb friend," says one indignant Robert protester. He certainly does seem dumb sometimes. Once, he dropped his phone into a pitcher of water at a Denny's. He was not drunk. It was not an accident. Robert was completely aware of what would happen. Robert was basically double dog dared into doing it, and he did it rather than ever back down from a joke. Admirable, and really really dumb.

Someone told me today that Robert "looks like Jon Wurster."

Yeah I can see that.

Robert is like a cactus, in that he doesn't take much to maintain. Like, in a metaphorical way involving friendship. See I don't really talk to him that much now that we live far apart from one another, but not a lot has changed. I feel like, metaphorically, if I were to leave Robert in a windowsill for several weeks I could come back and he would be fine. As in, when I run into Robert next, we'll immediately find ourselves doing things we don't want to in order to prove that we are funny and clever.

Also like a cactus, I feel like I have this mistaken belief that Robert, slash the cactus, needs me, when it really doesn't. This sounds sad and pathetic, but I do not intend it in that way. It actually reveals one of his best qualities. Robert will be happy in pretty much any situation you put him in, with anybody you put him around. Robert's a cool dude, and he gets along with most everyone. He was happy in Springfield (RIGHT ROBERT?!?!?!!) and he's happy at Mizzou and he'll be happy wherever he ends up after that. That's good. That's great. I just hope that, like that cactus I got in 2nd grade and promptly forgot about, I happen upon Robert from time to time, and we can chat/infuriate one another. That would be nice.

I'm going to end with another quote I got from someone.

"Robert captures the essence of attractive. He brings you in with his curiously warm eyes, keeps you there with his stable flowing charm, and lets you go at just the right time so you're sure to not want, but need, to come back for more."


Yeah, cool, awesome, whatever.  I think this quote shows Robert in a much more interesting light when creatively edited.

"Robert captures... you in his... stable.... and lets you go..."


Now there's the Robert I know and love.

Conor - This Post Actually Happened

Nicholas Dietrich I am a man of my word, eventually.

Everyone's seen Inception, right? Even if you haven't, listen to this. This is the ending theme to Christopher Nolan's Inception, and it's a powerful, powerful theme. Without giving away the details to the plot of the movie (the summary would probably get pretty longwinded and hard to follow anyway), the ending is emotional. It's triumphant, but there's a sadness underneath it all. There's ambiguity there, and the pain all of the characters have gone through is evident through this song. Hans Zimmer is incredible and I love this song, but movies are terribly finite things. The song starts, and 3 or 4 minutes later it's gone. It comes, it goes, and that's all we get. It captures the moment perfectly, but the moment is much too short. 

That's the beauty of Nobou Uematsu's work. He is the man who is responsible for probably like 99.9% of the music in the first ten Final Fantasy's. Nobou Uematsu's primary line of work does not involve capturing a scene, although when asked he does that quite skillfully. No. Nobou captures characters, towns, and entire worlds through his songs, and I love him for it.

Take Aerith's theme, for example. Or maybe her name is Aeris. Squaresoft sortof fucked up on that one. Aerith is the light of hope in Final Fantasy VII. She's a tragic character, but she never falls or breaks down to the sadness around her. She's unrelentingly positive, and not in an annoying way. Despite her outlook she can't prevent her death at the hands of Sephiroth, a girly looking badass, but she dies smiling. She's stabbed through the chest with a giant katana and she's like, smiling. This song perfectly communicates all of this. At least to me it does. Aerith's death scene is iconic, but I think it's the events immediately following that really blew me away the second time I played through the game. After Aerith totally dies and stuff the play her theme, and even as you fight this huge mutated beast, her theme continues to play, reminding us of why we're fighting and what we've lost. Ask Brian and Eliot, I didn't shut up about how cool I found that shit. 

Combat in Final Fantasy takes on 2 different forms. 1) Battles that are relevant to the story, i.e., fights with central antagonists, confrontational battles that push the plot forward. 2) Random fights that are irrelevant and extraneous, but necessary, because, well, it's a video game. Random fights comprise the vast, vaaaast majority and there's such variety in these battles that Nobou has to make upbeat, energetic, dramatic music that won't become obnoxious when listened to for the 300th time. He's damn good at it, too. FF VII and X have particularly good ones. But it's in the specific, story related fights that the epicness truly kicks it into high gear. With these specific tunes Nobou gets to personalize his themes. The final boss of FF VII is classic. Basically, the aforementioned pretty boy Sephiroth has turned into a shirtless angel 6 wings making up his lower body and a huge dark halo surrounding him. He has become a god, and his first new law as God is that he's going to destroy everything. A bold move that I think politicians should mimic. The music is apocalyptic and chaotic, the chorus sings "SEPHIROTH" and the world feels like it's falling apart. Awesome. Awesome.

I'm worried that I'm asking too much of you guys, so one last song. Check it out, Ami, from Final Fantasy VIII. This is the theme of the one place the main characters call home in the game. It's the only place they really belong, and as the game goes on they're forced to consider their home in a critical light and question it, but they never truly forsake it. While walking through the place, this is the song that plays, and by the end of the game you've probably heard this music dozens of times, for literally hours, but it never becomes grating. It always feels welcoming, familiar and warm. Whenever I walk back into Balamb Garden it's there. It's infinite.

The length of Final Fantasy games contributes to the music. Games take 40+ hours to beat. If it's one of the better Final Fantasy's, by the end you know the world and characters pretty damn well. Imagine if someone you were really attached to had a theme song. Imagine that your house, or some other place you truly love, had a song that embodied everything you liked about it. That's what Nobou gives to us. That's what he deals in. 

I TAKE MY FINAL FANTASY MUSIC PRETTY SERIOUSLY.