#I saw some posts on other socials and I banged my head on my keyboard

[grabby-smitten]

Will I ever stop romanticizing Sylus? No.

I live in my silly little world in my silly little head with my silly little headcanons and I could care less about your silly little opinions.

[soundsof71]

FIVE ALBUMS YOU NEED IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!

aka, My Top 5 of 2020, but I didn’t want to seem too retro!

Yep, I have a classic rock blog. Yep, I think that the best rock and roll in history is being made RIGHT NOW. And yep, ALL of it is being made by women. 

(Shown at top, Nova Twins by Ant Adams [x] and The Tissues by Michael Espleta [x]. I was planning to make a collage of all my faves in concert, but  not all of them were able to play in 2020. Both of these photos are pre-pandemic.)

There’s been quite a bit of movement on this list, and all five of these have spent some time at Number 1 as the year has done (gestures broadly) All This™. Anyone looking for rock and roll is going to dig any of these. 

Rocking out is just the start of it, though. Wrestling with my bipolarity and schizophrenia is tough on a good day, and there haven’t been too many of those lately. The plague has also taken its toll around me, with two family members dead and a third who’s doing better, but will likely never be all the way back. (Mask up, kids!)

I’ve written plenty about how deeply Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers have moved me this year (and will do so again), but in those rare stretches where I’ve had enough spare energy to listen to music at all these days, I’ve mostly been looking for more than beautiful music. Heavy times need heavy lifting, and I find that in heavy music. 

The five albums here have all helped carry me, pointing the way toward light.

1) BULLY, SUGAREGG

Alicia Bognanno is a force of nature as a guitarist, vocalist, composer, and producer/engineer. (While working on her degree in audio engineering at MTSU, she interned with Steve Albini, who remains both a fan and an admirer). A Nashville transplant from Minnesota, she’s still a natural fit in her home on Sub Pop: as heavy as Soundgarden, as hooky as Sleater-Kinney. 

I was blown away hearing her searing honesty while working through her discoveries of her bisexuality and bipolarity (double bi!), and her triumphant roar lifts me out of my seat every time I listen.

“She sings the hell out of [these songs], her voice fraying to the point of combustion every time she launches to the top of her range. This is phenomenal music for converting anger and anxiety into unbound joy.” ~Stereogum, Album of the Week

Also, check this fantastic interview with Alicia in the New York Times talking about what she’s gone through to get here. 

TURN IT UP!

2) GANSER, LOOK AT THAT SKY

Ganser syndrome is a rare dissociative disorder characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions and other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual pseudohallucinations and a decreased state of consciousness. ~Wikipedia #it me

‘Just Look At That Sky’ doesn’t presume to offer solutions; it’s an honest document of what it feels like to wade through anxiety, day by day, not a survival guide or handbook of answers none of us actually have. Whether or not you pay attention to this, Ganser are simply one of the most invigorating, exciting new bands. ~Clashmusic

I saw one very positive review compare Ganser to a cross between Fugazi and Sonic Youth, but I think they hit much, much harder than either of those. And as you can surely guess, I also deeply relate to their themes of mental illness and dissociation while trying to make it through All This™. But my god, are they TIGHT. This is a BAND.

Ganser has two fantastic lead vocalists, and on “Bad Form”, bassist/vocalist Alicia Gaines wrote the song for the voice of keyboardist/vocalist Nadia Garofolo. Alicia also wrote a FANTASTIC essay on the strains that making an album during a pandemic puts on the mental health of the entire band at talkhouse: “Writing, recording, reaching out, balancing relationships outside and within the band, I found (and still find) myself under-rested and agitated to no particular end. More than not doing enough, I was not enough.” 

(If you can’t relate to that, I can’t relate to you, tbh.)

This video also does a fantastic job of showing dissociation. TURN IT UP!

3) THE TISSUES, BLUE FILM

“Blue Film” is a ten-song shot of dagger-twisting electro-(s)punk. It’s completely addictive from the very first listen. The tour de force is “Rear Window”, an art-punk masterpiece of slashing guitars and mad caterwauling. Copious doses of jaunty poetics and social commentary reward the earlooker patient enough to untangle Kristine Nevrose’s hysterical meowing about intergalactic salt shakers and hysterectomies, but I’m too emotionally invested to look under the hood.” ~ Sputnik Music

“Rear Window” is in fact my most-played 2020 track. TURN IT UP!

4) GUM COUNTRY, SOMEWHERE

It’s not all heavy! But even when I’m looking for something light and hooky, I need a bite, and Gum Country has done it with the kind of swirly, feeedback-laden wall of sound that Lush or Yo La Tengo would make if they lived in LA. (Recent transplants to SoCal from Vancouver, I do think that the sunshine has gone straight to their heads, in the very best way.)

Indie music nerds will know guitarist/composer/singer/front woman Courtney Garvin from The Courtneys, and she really does throw up a glorious wall of sound. I adore this video too! Sweet, swinging, fun -- and yes, the drummer is playing keyboard with one hand while slapping the skins with the other! 

I mentioned earlier that all five of these albums have spent part of the year at #1 on my list -- I think that this one might have spent the longest stretch there. Like all shoegaze, even as hooky as this, the truth of these songs is revealed in VOLUME. TURN IT UP!

5) NOVA TWINS, WHO ARE THE GIRLS?

Now, THIS is heavy! Amy Lee (vocals, guitar) and Georgia South (bass) are fucking LOUD, and insanely intense. A mix of grime, hip-hop, metal, punk, and good old rock and roll, they’re a harder-hitting, more theatrical Prodigy, with a pyre of intensity that recalls the heaviest howls of Rage Against The Machine. Indeed, Nova Twins spent a good bit of 2019 playing heavy metal festivals and toured as openers for Prophets of Rage. (Tom Morello has been a fan and supporter from the beginning.)

As you may have noted in the photo at the top of this post, their musical audacity extends to visuals too: they design their own clothes, hair, and makeup, they art direct their own videos, and more. They impress the hell out of me, and I’ve been a huge fan since hearing their first singles in 2018. I’ll plant a flag and say that Georgia South in particular is the most innovative musician on any instrument in any genre right now, but they’re both absolutely monsters. 

I’m honestly not at all sure that #5 is high enough for this, but I’m absolutely certain that after this video, you’re gonna need to rest for a little. LOL

“Taxi” is the story of two gleefully and creatively violent women shaking up the local crime syndicate as they use a vintage cab for their moving murder scene. This is the movie that Robert Rodriguez wishes he was making with Sin City, if it were combined with Blade Runner and The Matrix. And gangsters. And a snake.

I’m gonna take your crown I’m gonna, I’m gonna bleed you out We demand it by the hour We devour, control, power

I’m gonna burn it down Even the, even the royals bow

So not the same kind of therapeutic work being explored on this rekkid, but you know what? Fucking shit up is therapeutic too! 

Definitely take this full screen, and for the love of fuck, TURN IT UP!

SO. Not done with the best of 2020 yet? I’m sure not! A lot of my favorite songs aren’t on albums (at least not yet), so for an unedited list of everything I’m finding, check out my Spotify list, 2020: Shuffle This List! 268 songs and counting, over 15 hours, and not finished yet. I’m still checking out everyone else’s Best of lists (including yours! Message me links to yours!!!), so will probably be adding to this for most of 2021, too. 

And for more banging tracks by women from 2020, plus a few 2019 gems that I’m still grooving to, check out my more thoroughly curated Spotify playlist Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam. (You’ll see a couple of these tracks there!) I’m working on a YouTube playlist and an essay to properly roll that one out. I’m also still tweaking the ending, but the three dozen or so tunes there are definitely bangin’.

Tell me if you hear anything you dig here, and tell me what YOU’VE found! We’re gonna get through this together.

Yr pal, Timmy

[ausqueendom]

Formation: The Story of SIX - Chapter One - Three Is Company

Wet hair, oversized t-shirt, sweatpants, and wine. A normal Friday night in the Parr apartment. Cathy stumbled out of the bathroom and flicked her hair back then moved towards the kitchen before being stopped by a knock at the door. She walked towards the door slowly, placed her hands softly against the frame and lifted herself up on to the tips of her toes to see through the peephole.

“Hello?” She said confused as to who would be coming to her apartment. There was no answer. “Hello?” She asked again a bit more forcefully. Cathy turned around to the clock on her wall. “It is nine o’clock. Who is knocking on my damned door this late?” she said to herself quietly. Then as she moved back towards the kitchen something slid beneath her door. It was a piece of paper. 

Cathy spun around and ran to the door to open it up. She peered up and down the hallway but no one was in sight. She turned and moved back into her apartment, picked up the piece of paper, latched the door and once again moved into the kitchen. Sitting the piece of paper on the counter, she grabbed a glass and poured herself a well-deserved wine. 

Picking up the glass she took a sip, she let out a sigh as she swallowed and then looked down at the piece of paper. Cathy studied it with intrigue and took it into her studio. With the swipe of the mouse, the entire room lit up as all her recording equipment powered on. She tapped at her keyboard and logged in.

Taking another sip Cathy placed the glass on the coaster next to her monitor and held the paper in her hands. Slowly opening it up to see a messily written note: 

I think we have a “mutual” friend. 

Please help me. 

You’re the only one I can trust. 

A

Confused, intrigued and a little worried Cathy opened her Facebook on her computer. “A. Who the hell signs their name with a single letter?” she said as she scrolled through her friends and suggested friends list. “If she needed my help why did she disappear?” with so many questions running through her mind Cathy started writing down the names of every possible A she could find. 

Two hours passed and Cathy looked at her computer’s clock. “SHIT!” she screamed realizing it was almost midnight, she picked up her phone and called her friend Lucy. “Yo, Luc. You aight? I need your help! I have a track due by six and I am missing some lyrics! Can you come help me out? You are the best! See you soon!” Cathy hung up the phone and started to organize the studio. 

Ten minutes later there is a knock at the door, Cathy flew out of the studio and slid across the floorboards into the door frame with a bang. “Jesus P, you aight?” a voice said from the other side of the door. Cathy unlatched the door and opened it up. Lucy walks through the door in a hoodie and jeans, “Honestly, you think you would know better by now to call me a lot earlier than six hours before a deadline. I got snacks and I also brought a friend with me to help us out.” another figure followed Lucy through the door “P, this is Toby, Toby this is Cathy Parr my number one hot mess of a friend who is trying to make it big in the music biz.” Toby nodded politely in Cathy’s direction. 

Lucy made herself at home, kicked off her shoes and headed straight to the studio. Toby doesn’t say a word. “Alight you, what are we working with here? Where is your pad?” Lucy walked around the studio looking for Cathy’s lyric book. “Ahh! Here!” she held up a tatty brown leather-bound diary. Toby giggled. 

“It make look stupid but this contains some of the best lyrics we have ever written I tell ya.” Lucy scoffs at Toby as Cathy returned to the studio. Lucy took a seat at the console and Toby slumped into the lounge as Cathy made her way to the microphone. “Guessing you have a track ready?” Lucy spun around to the computer as Cathy coughed. “P! YOU ARE JOKING RIGHT?”

“Look I am sorry aight! I just have been s….” Cathy went to defend herself when there was another bump on the door. “You guys get started, I will be right back!” Cathy sprinted to the door, opened it up and stared once again at an empty hallway. She heard footsteps going down the stairs so she ran to the stairs in time to see a girl in a green sweatshirt and jeans sprint out the complex door.

Cathy took off down the hallway, leaving her apartment door wide open, she jumps down the steps and catches the door just before it closes. Cathy headed out onto the street, looked left then right and sees a figure dart around a corner. “Hey! Stop!” Cathy yelled as she ran down the footpath.

“Is your friend alright?” Toby says looking out the window down to the street watching Cathy run past. Lucy confused about Toby’s comment moves away from the computer and over to the window just in time to see Cathy disappear behind the corner. 

Lucy sighed and turned towards the door. “You keep writing, I will be right back.” Toby nods and Lucy walked quickly back to the lounge room, she noticed the door wide open and begun to run after Cathy. “P! Where are you?” she yelled as she approached the corner. As she turned around the corner she is met with darkness. 

Cathy is standing still about ten meters away with her hands on her head breathing deeply. She turned around to face Lucy and looked like she has seen a ghost. “Woah! What has happened?” Lucy said moving towards Cathy giving her a hug. 

They slowly walked back to the apartment in silence. Cathy trudged up the stairs, pushed the sleeves of her sweatshirt up to her elbows and went back into the apartment. Toby met them in the living room with her wine glass. Cathy took it in her left hand and gulped the whole thing down before finally breaking the silence. 

“Luc, I think someone is following me.” Cathy went to the kitchen pulled out another two glasses and topped them up. Toby and Lucy joined her at the counter. Lucy put her arm around Cathy’s shoulder and took a sip from the glass. 

“Following you? Are you sure? What makes you think that?” Lucy pulled up a stool and awaited Cathy’s response. Cathy didn’t say anything, she set her glass back on the counter and went back into the studio to grab the paper. 

She returned back to the kitchen a few seconds later and handed the note to Lucy. Lucy’s eyes skimmed over the note she flipped that paper back and forth before handing it off to Toby. “So they just slid this under the door and bolted?” Lucy said intrigued by the situation. 

Cathy shrugged. “All I saw was a green hoodie running away. Nothing was said. She just slid this under the door and ran. I picked up the note came back to the studio, tried to figure it out then realized what time it was and called you.” she said getting worked up. 

“It’s okay! Breathe! I will call Henry and let him know what is going on and get this deadline pushed back.” Lucy said calmly then she turned to Toby, “Toby can you please make up some social graphics for P to put up to let everyone know there won’t be new content tomorrow.” Toby nodded and pulled his phone out to start making the posts. 

Lucy walked back to the studio and closed the door. She pulled out her phone and called Henry. “Henry, its Luc. Hey. Look P is really shaken up at the moment. No please don’t come over. Toby and I are here we will look after her. I wanted to let you know that there won’t be a new song tomorrow because of all this. NO! Henry listen to me! She isn’t in a good place! Just give her a few more days! Thank you.” frustrated Lucy hangs up the phone. She tucked her hair behind her ears and walked back to the lounge room. 

Toby sees how flustered Lucy was and broke his silence “graphics are ready. Cathy open your phone and I will airdrop them to you.” he looks at Cathy with a smile. She obliged, pulled out her phone and a few seconds later her phone vibrated. “There ya go!” Cathy thanked him with a nod. “So all you saw was a green hoodie? Nothing else stood out?” Toby asked prying for a little more information. 

“Not really, oh wait… her hair… it was really oddly put up… umm” lost for words Cathy gestured to the top of her head to try and think of the right word, suddenly “SPACE BUNS! She had space buns, the whole time I was running down the street all I could think of is who wears space buns” everyone laughed, except Toby. 

Lucy looks Toby dead in the eye. Toby looks back at her like a deer in headlights. “P, Toby and I have bags in the car. We will crash here the night, let us go grab them yeah?” Cathy noded. “Come on Toby. Here boy.” She giggles as she taped her leg like she was calling a dog. Toby let out a small grin as he followed her into the hall. “Okay mister no sense of humor, what’s going on?” Lucy asks as they make their way down the stairs.

“I know who A is.” Lucy goes to say something “and before you go making a wisecrack about me thinking I do because I have watched Pretty Little Liars a million times, you are wrong. I actually know who she is.” That put Lucy in her place. The exited the complex out onto the street where they parked their car. 

“Well then Dr. Seuss, care to enlighten me?” Toby looked at Lucy a little confused by her attempted analogy. He popped the trunk of his car and pulled out a black duffle bag and also threw a backpack over his shoulder.

“Before I hit you with all my wisdom. This Henry guy you were talking to. He wouldn’t happen to be Henry Tudor would he?” Lucy threw her bags over her shoulders and then stopped in her tracks as Toby finished his sentence. Toby closed the trunk and locked the car. 

“Yes, T how did you know that?” Lucy dropped her bags just inside the complex door. 

“Because Ms. Mysterious, used to be my best friend in college and dated Henry and things didn’t end well. So my question to you how does Cathy know Henry?” Toby started to trudge up the stairs as Lucy collected her bags and follows.

They approached the top of the stairs, “we are married” a voice says from above. Toby looked up to see Cathy standing there. He gestured his head towards the door and they all headed inside. “So, care to tell me what is going on Toby?” Cathy said sternly watching them place their bags near the sofa.

“Grab your wine sis, you are gonna need it I think,” Toby said patting the sofa beside him silently asking Cathy to sit next to him. Cathy grabbed her glass and took up his offer.     

“Alright Toby, let’s go. What do you know that we don’t?” Cathy crossed her legs on the couch next to Toby as Lucy sat on the coffee table in front of him. It was almost like an interrogation. The girls were breathing down his neck. 

“Okay, so Henry. Your husband. Did he tell you about the others?” Toby anxiously watched the girl's faces as they processed his comment. Lucy got up and moved to the armchair, Cathy swung her legs back around and placed her glass on the table. 

“Others? Like more than one? He told me about his last relationship but nothing else.” Toby bent forward to be inline with Cathy’s face. 

“If I am right. You are the sixth. How much would you like to know? You see I know who A is, and I have a pretty good idea as to why she is trying to reach out. BUT! And that is a big but, you need to be prepared to hear it.” Toby placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Let’s wait till morning. Try and get some rest.” Lucy interjected quickly. Everyone agreed. Toby and Lucy bunked in the spare room and Cathy slowly made her way to her room, tired and worn out.

© Josh Mitchell 2019

[kookie-for-you]

Royal Flush, Chapter 3

Previous Chapter

Masterlist

“So for the order of member debuts, it’s going to start with Yeji,” our manager, Soonbok, said, hitting a button on the keyboard, bringing up the two photos of me for the debut, one in that cute fluffy skirt and the other in a pair of high waisted denim, high tops, and a crop top.  Our concept was all about the duality of feminine style—the sweet, cute side and the more punk and rebellious side.  Or, as our manager called it, “Sugar and Spice.”

Jisoo’s hands flew to her cheeks.  “Oh, Yeji-eunnie you look so good!  How did you look so perfect?”

“Why me first?” I asked, feeling my heart speed up with nerves.  I critically examined the photos.  In my opinion, they weren’t anywhere close to perfect.  My hair laying weird in one photo, and my legs were way too thick, even after the editing that I’m sure had been done.

“You’re the center, and the visual,” Soonbok explained.  “Bang PD-nim thinks that you’ll grab the attention first, and get people excited for everyone else.”  I nodded slowly, unsure how I felt about that reasoning.  I had a feeling it was a little bit less exciting being called the visual than it was for Minji to be called the leader, or Jisoo to be called the lead rapper.  It just felt like less of an earned position.

“Who’s next?” Jahyun asked, clapping her hands excitedly.  

Soonbok obliged, clicking to the next slide of her powerpoint.  “After Yeji, it will be Minji,” she told us.  Minji’s photos were lovely.  Her bleached blonde hair popped against her tan skintone, and the blues and reds the stylists put her in looked amazing on her.  “Then JJ.”

JJ.  That was Jisoo’s stage name.  Her name was Jung Jisoo, and in English her initials were JJ. Sometimes I forgot she had taken one, since we all still just called her by her name.  We’d have to get used to calling her JJ more, at least for during interviews and things.  Jahyun had taken one too—Juliet.

I’d been offered a few stage names too.  Roxy, Stacey, Maya.  In the end I’d decided to keep my own name though.  Kim Yeji suited me.

“After JJ is Juliet.” I realized I’d basically missed Jisoo’s pictures.  I made a mental note to look back at them later.  Meanwhile, now Jahyun’s adorable face was smiling on the screen.  I was surprised by her edgy photo though—I hadn’t been on set for those photos, and had yet to see them.  It almost seemed wrong to see our bubbly and cute maknae posing in combat boots and ripped jeans, but she pulled the look off as effortlessly as she did so many other things.

I could tell Jahyun was proud of the pictures as well, so I leaned over and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze.  Her grin grew wider as she snuggled back into my arms, craving cuddles as usual.

“Haneul-eunnie is last?” Jisoo asked, looking to our eldest sister sitting on the end.

Soonbok nodded, giving Haneul a kind smile.  “Haneul’s energy is so kind and calm, she’s a great way to round out the group and make people feel secure that the group is grounded.”  Soonbok always had a way of delivering information in such a nice way. Maybe that was why she was (secretly) all of our favorite manager.

Haneul’s pictures were pretty too.  She’d had her hair dyed a dusty pink, and they’d done her eye makeup to match with sparkly pink eyeshadow in the soft pictures, and hot pink eyeliner in the edgy ones.  I found my eyes drawn to how impossibly small her body seemed to be—before Haneul had even been a trainee, she’d trained for years as a ballerina, and her body shape told that story.

Minji sighed, looking equal parts nervous and excited.  “Having a schedule for the photos makes debut seem all the sooner.”

Haneul nodded.  “Only two months now,” she said, and I felt a shiver run through me.  Was I excited?  Terrified? What if the fans hated us?  We had a lot to live up to.  I’d been on social media, and I’d seen people speculating about us, and how Bangtan set such an example for us to follow.  It was a lot to take in.

Coming up after Bangtan would provide us with a lot of opportunity, certainly.  People would be watching us right away.  We’d start out with probably bigger shows and interviews. There were even already talks of a small tour around the US early next year.  But there were drawbacks too.  We would get away with a lot fewer mistakes than an average rookie group.  Everyone was going to be watching Royal Flush.

 * * * 

Two hours later, we were mid-dance rehearsal.  We’d just finished another run-through of our debut song when our choreographer gave us a break to rest and have some water.  I smiled as I saw Jahyun dramatically collapse onto the floor right where she stood, reaching up to drag Jisoo down to lay with her.  The two of them giggled as they cuddled up next to each other, sweaty as they were.

I followed Haneul over to the side of the room where our water bottles were.  Somehow, she already had mine and handed it to me.  “You look exhausted,” she joked, pushing a sweaty strand of my hair from my face.  

“Not really,” I replied, taking a long drink of water.  It was still cold and fresh—the insulated water bottles Haneul had bought for all of us were so good.  “Minji?” I called out, handing our leader Jahyun’s water.  “Take that to the kids, please.  They’ll forget to hydrate.”

“What do you think of being the first member debuted?” Haneul asked as Minji scampered off to deliver water to the maknaes.  Haneul and I both took a seat resting our backs against the wall, watching as the tiny leader was coerced to joining the other two who were now starfishing in the middle of the studio floor.

I shrugged.  “I mean…it’s not like it means much,” I said, trying not to seem too nervous about the idea.  “So they’ll see my face first.  It’s not huge, they’ll see Minji’s the next day, and then Jisoo and Jahyun and you.  We’re a group.”

“Jahyun is already planning out her first twitter post once we gain control of the account,” Haneul said with a smile and a shake of her head.  “She wants so badly to make a good first impression on the fans.  It matters so much to her.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  Too easily, Jahyun could be seen as just a silly teenager who was excited about becoming a star.  But us—Royal Flush, and the staff—we saw how hard that girl worked every day, even while still going to school and growing up.  Her family were all the way back in Daegu.  Jahyun might have given up the most of any of us for this, and she kept a smile on her face the whole time.

So often were people going in and out of the studio, we didn’t really notice when the door opened, but then a voice called our attention.  “Hello, Royal Flush.”  Simultaneously, all five of us looked over to see all seven members of Bangtan standing in the doorway.

I don’t know how we all managed to get to our feet and bow so quickly.  “Hello Bangtan-sunbaes,” we replied, almost in unison.  I heard Jahyun giggle nervously, and I looked over to see her halfway hiding behind Jisoo.  While I watched, I saw Jisoo pinch Jahyun’s elbow in an attempt to get her to calm down.

Kim Namjoon was the one who had greeted us.  “We thought it was about time that we came and saw you all.”

By now, all of us had finished bowing.  My eyes moved from one member to the other, too entranced by the sunbaes to focus on one. Jeon Jungkook seemed to be focusing on his leader and avoiding our eyes, Park Jimin gave a cheerful wave, and when I caught Kim Seokjin’s eyes, the saucy man winked at me.  I felt a furious blush rise in my cheeks and ducked my head, terrified that my face was now the same color as my hair.

Minji stepped right into her role as leader, stepping away from the group and bowing again to Bangtan. “My name is Kong Minji, sunbaes,” she introduced.  “I’m Royal Flush’s leader.”  

Haneul stepped forward as well.  “I am Li Haneul,” she said, bowing as well.  “I’m the eldest.”  Haneul looked over at me expectantly.

When I looked over the group again, my eyes met with Min Yoongi.  They seemed to lock with mine just the same way they did in the practice room.  I wondered if he had told his other members—well, other than Namjoon and Jimin—about how we’d already met.  “My name is Kim Yeji, sunbaes,” I said quietly.  “I’m…Yeji.”

I heard Jahyun snicker so quietly I’d almost felt I imagined it.  A tiny smirk showed up on Yoongi’s face, though it was gone in a second.

“Ah, another Kim!” Seokjin said, throwing his head to the side to whip his bangs from his eyes.  “Tell me, Kim Yeji, how does it feel to be the second most attractive Kim at Big Hit?”

My blush came back full force, exactly at the same time as Namjoon and Taehyung both shoved and shouted at Seokjin playfully.  I simply forced a giggle, ducking my head down again and pulling my hair in front of my face.

“You’ve made her shy, hyung,” Jimin protested.  “Don’t let him be a tease, he never knows when to stop.”  The boys laughed, including Seokjin.

Jisoo took her chance to give another bow.  “I am Jung Jisoo, sunbaes, but you might know me by my stage name JJ.  I’m the main rapper for Royal Flush.”

“And I’m Yuk Jahyun.” The maknae didn’t wait a second to introduce herself, clearly eager.  Her bow was as bouncy as her personality.  “I’ll be debuting as Juliet.”

“You’re the maknae, aren’t you?” Taehyung asked with a smile.  He slung an arm around Jungkook, who was still being very still and quiet, avoiding eye contact.  “Our Jungkookie can give you some tips on debuting so young.”

“Oh yes!” Jahyun said, nodding.  “I’d be honored to learn anything sunbae had to teach me.”

“We were hoping to catch a sneak preview of your choreos, if that’s all right with you?” Namjoon suggested. His calm smile and demeanor really radiated out of him, putting me almost at ease again.  “It looks like you were taking a break…”

“Of course, sunbae,” Minji agreed, and when she looked around the rest of us nodded eagerly along. “We can surely run through our debut choreography again.”

“Fantastic!” Seokjin exclaimed.  His exuberance seemed only to excite Jahyun more, and she giggled while bouncing up and down and clapping.  Bangtan made their way further into the studio, joining the staff who had been watching us from one side of the room.  As Haneul and I placed our waters down and rejoined our members in the center, I took the time to observe the way our sunbaes interacted with each other.

It was so easy, the way they walked and talked.  Namjoon and Seokjin seemed to be discussing something together as they both stood at one end of the group.  Taehyung and Jimin were both clearly whispering teasing words to Jungkook, as his red cheeks and stifled laughter seemed to imply.  He repeatedly shook his head at them and shoved them away as they attempted to hang off of his shoulders.  Hoseok watched them and occasionally added a ruffle of Jungkook’s hair.

Yoongi seemed to stay off to the side.  He’d chosen to crouch down, and was simply staring at his shoes, seeming deep in thought. While I stood there, wondering what he was thinking, he looked up and our eyes met once again.

I looked away quickly. I really needed to stop that.

We quickly got back into the very familiar starting position for our choreo.  I started in the center, and knew every eye would be automatically drawn to me.  I’d have to be careful not to make any mistakes.  The choreography wasn’t exactly easy, and Royal Flush was no exception to Big Hit’s love of precision and synchronization.  It would be noticeable if we weren’t together.

It was just another run-through.  I couldn’t be nervous.  I looked down at the ground, ready in my opening position.

When the music started and the first eight beats went by, my head popped up right on cue, and after that, I wasn’t really aware of anything that happened.  My body got carried away by the music, and by the long hours of work and the sheer memorization of this dance.  I forgot who was even in the room and just focused on dancing as good as I ever had.

The second the music stopped, and all five of us had stuck our ending positions, Bangtan broke out into applause.  My cheeks burned automatically, and I felt a sheepish grin on my face.  “Wow, our juniors are the best,” Hoseok kept repeating.

“Really, Royal Flush, that was awesome,” Namjoon said, standing up from where he’d crouched down next to Yoongi to watch.  My eyes slid over to Yoongi, who was simply nodding along to what everyone else said. He looked tired.

“Oh man, I’m going to be singing that song later,” Taehyung commented.  “Jisoo-ssi, that one line you have?  Deck of cards with five queens in one hand, I’d call that a Royal Flush, that is such a killing line.  Did you write that?”

“Yes, with Yeji-eunnie’s help,” Jisoo said, and I smiled in receipt of the acknowledgement.  “Yeji-eunnie is great at lyrics.”

“She is great at dancing, too,” Hoseok said.  “I couldn’t keep my eyes off you, seriously.”

“Haneul too,” Jimin interjected.  “I can tell, you must have a background in modern dance or something?”

“Ballet,” Haneul said with a smile and nod.  Jimin nodded as well, and smiled along with her.

“As much as we’d love to stand here and compliment our juniors all day, Bangtan does have practice as well,” Namjoon said.  He threw an arm around Jungkook’s shoulders.  The maknae had seemed to brighten up during the performance, though he hadn’t said anything.  “We will leave you to your practice, Royal Flush.  Minji-ssi, is it all right if I get your cellphone number, so I can text you when our groups can meet up for a meal sometime?”

“Yes, of course, sunbae,” Minji said hurriedly trotting over to her bag to grab her phone.  Most of Bangtan wandered out with smiles and waves from them and bows from us.  Haneul gripped my arm tightly.

“Can you believe Bangtan liked our dance?” she whispered in my ear.

I looked at her, a little surprised.  “I thought nothing shook you, eunnie,” I teased.  “They’re our seniors, of course they like us.”

“They could have ignored us, but they didn’t.  And Park Jimin complimented my dancing.  ME,” she repeated, seeming in shock.

While I couldn’t understand why she was surprised someone would enjoy her dancing, I understood the feeling. “I know,” I repeated, watching as Namjoon left, last of his bandmates.  “It feels like things are really starting to come together.”

“Like this is real,” Haneul added.  I nodded.

“Yeah.  Like this is real.”

Next Chapter

A/N:  If you would like to see a GREAT idea of what Royal Flush’s dance/performance aesthetic is like, I highly recommend ITZY’s dance rehearsal videos.  I use them for inspiration when it comes to Royal Flush.  The Dalla Dalla dance rehearsal is a great idea of what Royal Flush’s choreography looks like, with the members as follows:

Yeji-Yeji (I decided this BEFORE I knew this member’s name was Yeji, I was shocked)

Ryujin-Jisoo (JJ)

Chaeryong-Minji

Yuna-Haneul

Lia-Jahyun (Juliet)

[kootenaygoon]

So,

It was like Fantasia meets Pulp Fiction. 

For over a week now I’d been hyper and giddily elevated, hurriedly banging through my Star stories before marching home to get to work on my fiction. But the more I sat at my keyboard, the more I ended up thinking about Ryan Tapp. Which set me to sleuthing through social media, figuring out who he was friends with and searching out posts related to him. The guy was beloved, it was clear. I couldn’t find anything that seemed like a warning sign leading up to the event; the dude’s life seemed blissed out and uneventful. He knew one of my best friends, my little Aussie squirrel Lauren Herraman, and was tight with the lead singer of Val Kilmer and the New Coke.

Andrew Stevenson was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, like he was disappointed in me. The dude had been lurking.

“You’re not going to solve this crime on Facebook, Will. You have to actually do something. Do you know what it was like, climbing into my car on the way to a job? That feeling, you’ll never know that feeling unless you try it,” he said.

“There’s millions of murders in the world, but this one happened in your city. So this one is yours. That’s just how it works.”

I growled. “I’m a fucking arts reporter.”

“So what, you’re going to make me do this alone?”

“This is what police are for. It has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to carry this around in my head. I haven’t seen Ryan for like a year.”

Andrew chuckled. “Sometimes we don’t get to choose our company.”

“We can’t do anything until there’s an autopsy report, man. And right now everyone just thinks it was a suicide. So there’s no reason to reopen it.”

Andrew scoffed haughtily, and picked up his shotgun. “Fucking idiots.”

It was mission time. The first task was to figure out the identity of Ryan’s roommate. It didn’t take long to find him, and I didn’t approach him directly, but as the community came together to do a fundraiser for the other occupants of the property, his name kept popping up. I wondered if I would run into him in town, if I could get a chance to talk to him. Meanwhile, one of Ryan’s prominent musician buddies was currently having a very public mental breakdown all over social media. This stuff was a shit-storm of grief and doom. We walked up out of Brendan’s basement and sauntered over to Lakeside Park. Andrew kept the shotgun low at his side.

“Who are we looking for again?” I asked.

Andrew was driving my RAV, while I sat in the passenger seat. We bumped over the railway tracks and coasted out towards Red Sands. That’s where I would always find some sort of peace, cross-legged and bowing to Elephant Mountain. That’s what I needed to do, was get naked and go swimming. All this basement time was making me go a little weird. I wasn’t feeding myself, I was barely sleeping. What the fuck, exactly, was going on here? The world was bulging with colour and flash, throbbing all around me. I rolled down the window and looked out at the trees. When we arrived, we lugged a six-pack from the back of my RAV and took it rambling down the traintracks. We weaved down through the woods to the pink swath of rapture I loved most.

“We’re meeting Niles.”

“What, when did you make this plan? I’ve been avoiding him.”

“He’s noticed.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means Niles has underworld connections way beyond what you thought. And it’s him, it’s been him the whole time. He’s like the Marsellus Wallace of hard drugs in the Kootenays.”

I couldn’t believe it. “My Niles? I mean, I know he deals a bit, but...”

“But? A drug dealer’s a drug dealer.”

I shrugged. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

“I thought you were serious about solving this thing.”

I thought of all those heartbroken people on Facebook. I thought about Randy Tapp, Ryan’s father, who had reached out to me. Even in his darkest moments he had a powerfully positive energy, like he was vibrating on a different level. We ultimately ended up having lengthy phone conversations and long e-mail exchanges, but at first it was just friendly little bursts of well-wishes through Facebook Messenger. I’d never met the guy, but felt like I knew him on a strangely intimate level. And I agreed with him that there was something fucking foul going on with Ryan’s death. Even if it wasn’t a homicide, it needed to be something other than a suicide. Because a suicide made no sense.

Andrew cleared his throat. “When things were getting tight, and I knew I had to pull another job, I would just get this stress I could feel in my body. This heaviness. And sometimes I just wanted to take this shotgun and blow my brains out, Kurt Cobain-style.”

I smiled. “If I had a shotgun, you know what I’d do? I’d point it straight up at the sky and shoot heaven on down for you.”

He smiled. “Sublime. I fucking love Sublime.”

That’s when Niles arrived. He had two large dogs with him, and one was Snapper’s dog Brutus. I bristled at the idea of that dude. He’d gone to trial for rape in town and the day he got off posted on Facebook “NOT GUILTY” as he swankily strutted through the frame. I wanted to rip that fucker’s throat out and feed it to him.

“Breathe, Will. It seems like you’re losing control. You were doing so well, keeping track of the narrative. Now you’ve fucked it all up.”

“I just want to know what happened to him. I want someone to give me some legit answers about this. So if you know even a shred of something, can you tell me? Because I need to make some forward momentum with this. Like, for his Dad. I just think about his Dad, and what he went through, and I can’t take it. We have to figure this out.”

Niles put his hands on my shoulders, just like Brendan. Once I was calm, he began to speak in a low, even voice. “I asked around, okay? Ryan had a lot of different contacts all over the country and down in the States, he was a entrepreneur so he had things going on all over. If we were talking murder, it could have come from a whole variety of places.”

“Right.”

“That’s the first possibility, that the Bad Guys got him. And it’s a very real possibility. But much more likely is that it was his girlfriend. They were fighting, shit was violent, she’s a bit of a head case. So if you can buy that a woman offed her own boyfriend, that’s your second possibility.”

“And you knew him? Ryan?”

Niles smiled. “Knew him? I loved that kid.”

That’s when I remembered that I had an appointment. I was scheduled to meet with the Nelson Star publisher, Aaron Layton, to discuss my mental health benefits. I had been seeing a counselor and established a rapport, but she wasn’t covered under the new plan that had just been introduced by Black Press. I felt like I desperately needed some sort of mental health intervention, and I wanted to make sure he knew about that sooner rather than later. I sprinted back to the RAV alone and flew across town, coming to a stop right below his office. Before going upstairs I spritzed myself to hide any pot scent, and then took a moment to pull myself together.

When I entered the office, it still had the Carpenters’ bad energy. I couldn’t let it go, my anger for them. It was like a disease. I sat down across from Aaron and tried to be as amiable as possible.

“There have just been some heavy stories lately, and I’m starting to feel like my mental health is really deteriorating, right? So I’m worried that now I can’t see this counselor I don’t have any support. And I’m on antidepressants, which I think are supposed to be supervised,” I said.

Aaron blinked, blown back by my aggressive energy. “The trouble is the plan has to apply the same for everybody. I’m sure there are plenty of other counselors covered under the new plan.”

I stewed. I had no real problem with Aaron, because he was a giant improvement from the Carpenters, but it was almost like I innately gravitated towards an anti-establishment posture. Fuck the police, that sort of thing.

“I thought maybe you could find something for me. Like if I told you it was an emergency, we could work out a raise but instead of a raise I get counselling. Something like that. Because I’m so fucking broke I could scream.”

Eventually Aaron convinced me to take a pamphlet, and I headed back out to the parking lot to where Andrew was smoking. He laughed when he saw my dejection.

“We’ve got more hunting to do.”

The Kootenay Goon

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Bri Hand

Pen testers rely on a variety of methods to compromise their clients during penetration testing service engagements, but none are quite as fun as when they must don a disguise to blend in with their surroundings. So, in honor of Halloween, we thought we would celebrate by sharing a few of our Rapid7 pen testers’ costumed crusades. Did they trick employees into doing their bidding, or were they treated to proper security protocols? Read on to find out!

‘The Boy in Blue,” by Trevor O’Donnal

I’ll never forget the time we were penetrating a police department. We had finished our pillaging and left the building, but once we reached our rendezvous point, we realized our good friend Ross was missing. We tried to reach him on our two-way radios, to no avail.

As we started to panic, in walks Ross in full police uniform, including a police radio! He had to raid the clean laundry in the basement dressing room to get out of the building. We bowed before him because we weren’t worthy.

And yes, this was all in scope. The police chief had said, “Anything goes, short of killing or kidnapping someone.” He had a great laugh about it in the end.

‘Here Are Your Flowers,’ by Robert Stewart

I once did a physical social engineering engagement where I didn’t see a clear path into the customer’s office space. The receptionist was behind a locked door and used a remote speaker to talk to guests and let them in. All of the other doors into the office could only be accessed by a badge, and my attempt at cloning badges was unsuccessful. But I wasn’t giving up.

I did a ton of recon on the employees and after finding one woman on LinkedIn first, I tracked down her Facebook page using her name, location, and profile picture. Her Facebook page was public, which meant all of her personal details were available. I learned about her family, her habits, her hobbies, and her husband.

I devised a plan to show up as a flower delivery guy to surprise her with a dozen roses from her husband and a song to serenade her with in the office. I worked up my costume to appear like a delivery guy would, and got the receptionist to let me in. The employee was called from the back to the front desk, which was a bummer because I wanted to be at her desk, but I rolled with it. I gave her the flowers, sang, “You Are My Sunshine,” and finished with, “Love, Tony!”

Her response was a confused, “Tony? Who is Tony?!”

“Uh … I don’t know, that’s what the order said!” I replied, and promptly booked it out of there. As it turns out, the woman I found on Facebook was not actually the right person, despite the fact that they had the same name, lived in the same city, and looked very similar. Totally crazy.

Though I failed at getting into where I wanted to go, this is still one of my favorite engagements because of the way it ended.

‘Pizza Delivery!’ by Aaron Herndon

On a previous red team operation, we had recently completed our objectives remotely. Access to the network had been obtained, servers were compromised, and loot was exfiltrated. In the twelfth hour, our point of contact had an idea. He wanted us to infiltrate the physical security operations center (SOC) with either a plant or some type of attack. This operations center had its own entrance separate from the rest of the main facility entrances, making it possible to knock on the door and gain entry directly to the lobby attached to the SOC room.

Assuming the SOC facility would require badge and PIN access (which turned out to be correct) and that tailgating would not be feasible due to the center being a single room with a small number of employees who all knew each other, we decided to take a new approach: enter as the pizza man.

Using a uniform from a large pizza chain, we dressed the part. Then we ordered the SOC some lunch. The odd request was that we asked for an empty pizza box from the pizza chain, which they did provide. Inside this box was our laptop, equipped with a CrazyRadio PA device running the MouseJack firmware. On loop, the device would scan for vulnerable USB mice and keyboards to remotely inject keystrokes (a surprisingly common vulnerability due to the wide adoption of Logitech peripherals in the workplace). We configured our MouseJack payload to quickly open the run prompt, download a payload from the internet, and execute it, giving us remote access to the machine.

On the day of our attack, we approached with four pizza boxes and a bag with some two-liter bottles of soda. The top three boxes actually contained pizza, while the fourth housed our payload delivering machine. With our hands full, we banged our elbow against the door of the SOC room to get their attention. An intercom buzzed, and we were asked to identify ourselves. After saying we had a pizza delivery, the door quickly opened to reveal an excited employee.

We indicated that we weren’t sure who had ordered the pizza, but were told to come to this room for delivery. The SOC employee directed us into the room, allowing us to set the pizzas down. We spent a couple of minutes making small talk, letting our mousejacking attack go to work. Then, we mentioned that the bottom pizza was actually to be delivered to another individual at the company, and reclaimed our payload box, making a smooth exit.

Returning to our car, hearts racing from excitement, we quickly contacted one of the red team operators to see if the attack was successful. Sure enough, we had received a connection to our payload server and the attack launched. Unfortunately, the connection died four minutes into being used. Had they discovered our pizza Trojan horse? Did the employee shut their machine off to go indulge themselves in the food provided? We still do not know.

‘The Construction Worker,” by Leon Johnson

I was once part of a Red Team of three tasked with testing an energy company with three locations in three different cities. My assigned location was surrounded by an 8-foot barbed-wire fence to guard most of its service and Cat heavy equipment vehicles.

I started by driving by the site on the first day of testing, watching people arrive for work and leave to get an idea of what sort of activity this location had. I went to dinner, and when I came back around 9 p.m., I realized there was a business next door that allowed for cover after hours. I decided to jump the fence and walk around the property in the shadows as much as I could. My goal was to avoid getting picked up by any cameras and getting caught.

As I began checking the commercial vehicles for unlocked doors, I found that one had a laptop on the armrest inside. I got excited, as I was thinking of all the possibilities for what I could do with a laptop if I got my hands on it. The vehicle’s locked doors stumped me for a while until I realized the quarter window was unlocked. I was able to push it open, unlock the truck, jump in, and grab the laptop.

I sat there for about five minutes waiting to see if anyone had spotted me. When nothing happened, I tried to get into the laptop but struggled because I didn’t have any tools on me. I made a call to my point of contact and asked for permission to take the laptop, which was granted. I then slid it under the fence, jumped over to my rental car, and headed to my hotel. I worked on the laptop all night, getting past the login first with Kon-Boot and adding a local administrator user. Later, I mounted the hard drive with Kali, as the drive wasn’t encrypted. I pulled up the local admin hashes off the PC and set up some malware so that when the box was booted up, it would call back to me and give me access when it was on.

The next morning, I broke back in and returned the laptop before employees’ shifts started so no one would suspect anything. I got a local administrator shell, but it died before I could do anything with it. So, I had to go back the next day and do it again. Once more, I briefly got a shell I was unable to do anything with.

I decided to go to an office of theirs and attempt to see whether I could clone some RFID badges so I could use them to gain access to the facility without having to jump the fence every night. It turns out, the location I cloned badges from was a shared office, and I was unable to tell who or where the cloned badges I obtained came from. In the end, none of them worked at the location I had been given permission to test.

At this point, it was the second-to-last day of the assessment, and I didn’t have everything I wanted. So, I decided to do it again but just keep the laptop and use it to get into the corporate network. This time, I got into a truck and put on a uniform someone left inside. I used this uniform to walk around the property and gain access to more trucks. I figured if I were seen on camera, I would look like a legitimate employee just doing some maintenance or say that if I were somehow found and questioned.

I also knew the laptop would now be reported stolen in the morning, which meant I didn’t have much time to work with, since they could have had a way to shut off access to it. I started taking a forensic clone of the system and decided to take a shower while it was cloning. When I came out, I saw the mouse cursor was moving and closing things! It became a fight for the mouse and keyboard at this time, and I ended up just disconnecting the network connection. I eventually got on the corporate network and gained local admin access on some other systems, which led to domain admin access. With that, I was able to do whatever I wanted on their network and systems.

That was fun.

Interested in learning more about how Rapid7 pen testers conduct their assessments? Check out our 2019 Under the Hoodie report.

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Go to Source Author: Bri Hand This One Time on a Pen Test, Halloween Edition: An Ode to Our Favorite Pen Tester Disguises Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Bri Hand Pen testers rely on a variety of methods to compromise their clients during…

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

Meet Genies, the lifelike personalized avatars that reenact news

“We plan on making Bitmoji obsolete,” says Akash Nigam, CEO of Genies. Bragging about beating one of the world’s top apps before his has even launched is emblematic of Nigam’s and Genies’ brash style. But with $15 million in funding at a valuation over $100 million, top investors like NEA and Hollywood royalty like CAA are buying into the avatar startup. It already has 680,000 kids waitlisted to sign up for the Genies iOS app that launches today.

“If, God forbid, Donald Trump bombs North Korea, you’ll see your Genie riding a nuke to North Korea,” says Nigam. Whether that idea makes you giggle or roll your eyes, this is Genies’ plan “to be the next BuzzFeed,” the 24-year-old CEO tells me. “Your Genie is the star of the show. The script is whatever happens in the world that day.”

It all starts with customizing your big-headed, photorealistic Genie avatar. While Snapchat-owned Bitmoji look like a comic strip, Genies are closer to Pixar. First you’ll select a personality type that determines some of the scenes you’ll see, based on clouds of brands like Coachella, BuzzFeed and Supreme for cool kids, or TechCrunch and the BBC for techies. Then, using the Genies trait selector wheels, you can quickly scrub through tons of options for a dozen characteristics, like face shape, hair and eyes. Finally, you’ll outfit your Genie in clothes ranging from generic shirts to popular brands.

Genies sends you 10 to 15 animated scenes throughout each day that are around 10 seconds long and feature your avatar. They include quirky little situations for holidays like Christmas, cultural staples like hungover-Sundays and ones based on the top daily news for your personality type. Human editors review the scenes for factual accuracy, coherence and humor, and can tweak them before they’re sent out. Typically, new scenes will arrive quietly in the Genies app, with notifications reserved for huge breaking news or batched digests of updates.

Nigam says Genies taps more than 1 million sources with a focus on reputable news outlets to figure out what’s trending as early as possible. He claims that Genies’ art team and AI have built millions of pre-designed creative assets, and that the AI can actually piece them together to automatically create the animated scenes. If all the blogs are reporting Elon Musk’s plan to colonize mars, then it will cobble together space, stars and Elon himself to show your Genie rocketing to the Red Planet alongside the headline.

You can swipe up to read the top source article for the news. But what Genies really encourages is you messaging the video scenes to friends via other apps like Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger or Snapchat. “Everyone has Giphy, but they use it everywhere else. Exact same thing with us,” Nigam tells me.

The idea is to leverage vanity to make the news seem interesting and shareable, and deliver it through a social app instead of a traditional media publisher. “At our age, we get the majority of our news from Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram.” And for added virality and personalization, many scenes include an empty silhouette you can fill with a celebrity of your choice, like Trump or Kylie Jenner, or insert a friend so you act out the scene with your buddy. If Facebook taught us anything, it’s that people will always open a notification if they get tagged in an image.

Overall, the Genies look great, with much more nuance than you see in alternatives with either fewer customization options or that rely on facial detection. Nigam says he’s not a believer in technologies for automatic avatar generation, saying that even small inaccuracies can be jarring, and testers enjoyed the personalization process. If Genies just released an emoji keyboard with the avatars so you could use them anywhere, it could prove popular.

But the animated scenes are often gimmicky, crass or even offensive. Over a few days of testing, I saw ones advocating for beer bonging, pot brownies, study drugs like Adderall and pouring crappy vodka into Grey Goose bottles to save money. Nigam defended the content, saying these were “party-oriented” for a “young demo where they share and learn through the lens of pop culture.” Others like “Wanted: Holiday Bang Buddy” might be too lewd even for college kids. And one even parodied the important NFL protests of racism and police brutality, featuring students “taking a knee” to get out of a pop quiz. That should never have made it past the human editors.

Those that weren’t worrisome often felt mediocre, like showing two avatars building a sandcastle to represent an article about Facebook launching the Messenger Kids app. Your Genie runs across the screen dropping bitcoin before someone bursts the bubble in one of today’s scenes. Perhaps the best one I saw was a mock-up for what Genies could have sent after the Las Vegas mass shooting tragedy that encouraged people to read a Newsweek article about how to give blood.

As a social app, the avatars are too contorted into specific situations for general use, and as a news reader, it feels haphazard and inefficient. The team has a powerful idea, and the graphics are pretty, but the execution on the content needs work.

Trying to make magic

“We did a bunch of apps, and they sucked,” Nigam says about previous products his team built before Genies. “We’d think they were gonna blow up and there’d be 16 users.” Born and raised in Silicon Valley’s Mountain View, Nigam is the kind of guy who’s been dreaming of launching his own app since he was old enough to be allowed to use them.

Genies co-founder and CEO Akash Nigam

He met his co-founders during hackathons while studying computer science at University of Michigan. They raised a seed round and built a failed group chat app called Blend while working out of a tiny room attached to a mosque in San Jose. They had a weak exit opportunity for Blend and turned it down. Seeing Bitmoji hover around App Store No. 1 for years convinced them there were greater riches in the avatar space.

Now they’ve pivoted Blend into Genies with $15 million over a few rounds of funding from traditional investors like NEA, Foundation Capital, Box Group, Great Oaks, Lerer Ventures and Trinity Ventures. The entertainment industry was also hot to trot, with backing coming from CAA Ventures, production company Management 360, Prizeo/Represent’s Bobby Maylack and former Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull. And strategic celebrities are also funding the startup, including NBA star Russell Westbrook, the football great Joe Montana, musician Shawn Mendes and former Vine stars Cameron Dallas and Jake Paul.

They see plenty of revenue opportunities in Genies, which could easily do product placement and sponsored content in its animated scenes. “Your Genie doing a Gatorade shower,” Nigam suggests. “We can monetize any time we want to turn on the spigot.” The startup also plans to let you buy the clothes you put on your Genie, or even get your avatar plastered on custom merchandise. “Brands get really fascinated by the wheels. We could do an entire Supreme wheel,” he explains, referring to the trendy urban fashion wear line.

Now the company has Silicon Valley and LA offices, plus engineering in Bucharest. “We take kids from the streets into our office every day for testing,” says, noting San Francisco doesn’t always know what’s hip. The startup spent the summer on an aggressive college marketing campaign, with tons of scantily clad models wearing Genies merchandise and signs asking the company to “Make My Genie.” All those waitlist sign-ups could help it score some traction today.

When asked about what he’d do if Snapchat’s Bitmoji started acting out the news too, Nigam fired back that they’d “force you to live inside Snapchat itself” rather than share elsewhere. And just to dig the dagger a bit deeper, he said, “They’re a trend that may have already reached its peak.”

Perhaps I’m showing my age by being put off by some of  the content. Nigam boldly states “We don’t really trust people in product unless they’re actively talking to teens all the time.” But being a news publisher, even one that looks nothing like the rest, can be more complicated than it seems. Snapchat has had to go to great lengths to teach news outlets how to make Discover channels for Gen Z. And Facebook is reckoning with how much damage can be done with fake news.

Genies has a ton of potential. The idea of a mini-you visually depicting the news is fun, and piggybacking on other messaging apps instead of trying to build another feed is wise. Still, the content feels rushed and half-baked at times, and could either fail to entice users or be too thin to persist as more than a fad. It has plenty of money and connections to find the talent necessary to improve the scenes, though. And if the avatars become something everyone wants, that could be enough in the meantime.

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Meet Genies, the lifelike personalized avatars that reenact news was originally posted by A 18 MOA Top News from around

[poppedmusic]

When In Manchester 2017

15th April 2017

Words: Julia Grantham Photos: Lydia Maycock

Are you familiar with the phrase: “Don’t open all your Christmas presents at once?” Or words to that effect. I think it means something along the lines of: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait. Hopefully my friends from the band, Cupids, won’t mind that I borrowed the title of their debut single for this, here, introduction to a very special, independent and relatively new festival. After all, Cupids (formerly Gramotones) performed in the very first When In Manchester in April 2016 and when I interviewed them for Popped Music in October 2015, they asked me to give a “shout out” to Ethan and The Reformation. A band that I have wanted to see and write about ever since, and who I saw perform a full set on Saturday for the first time. So here we are. I finally saw them on Saturday 15th April 2017, among several other fantastic artists, all of whom, I can’t wait to tell you about here.

Abigail Richardson, Nicole Buzz, Miriam Rahimov and Ellen Offredy are the four young women who are responsible for putting this festival together. Between them, they promote, create and manage this festival, as well as other bands. And their efforts and vision, their creativity and flair, their humble, friendly approach is collectively a perfect summary of Manchester. I met all of them on Saturday. They were all smiley, friendly, pleased to meet me and had little pieces of sunshine in their eyes.

First, we saw The Strawberries, from Leeds! My home town, and a band I’d been fortunate enough to see at my favourite ever gig venue: The Brudenell Social Club back in October 2016 when they’d headlined The Games Room show alongside Cupids, Bang Bang Romeo and another whose name I forget. I loved their attitude from the start: cheeky Yorkshire banter. I get that. That’s me all over. A confident, loud, heavy bass led intro led straight into their first hook: Fantasy Machine. A great opener which led straight into the fabulous Caramel Eyes. Steady, rhythmic guitar riffs, building up the bass and percussion with each one, The Strawberries know how to attract their audiences with a combination of attitude, humour and tempo. A great track about being attractive, and attracted. Clever. Sitting Idol is slow and dreamy, a nice antithesis to Caramel Eyes. At this point, people are dancing around at the front, spilling in from the back. Did I say you needed to watch this band in a small venue while you still can? I noticed throughout Whirlpool, Heavy Head and Whiplash, how well the three guitars and percussion worked. Being a pianist, I always notice the use or absence of a keyboard but they do the pingy high notes on guitar to great effect. I was waiting for my favourite and super awesome finish track – Laburnum House. I think I danced. A bit. I sang a bit, too. This band know what they’re doing. They lick the mic’, they’re fast, they’re confident. But they’re friendly.

Popped photog for the festival, Lydia, and I went off and discussed our next move. We’d decided to be fair to each other when choosing bands. My definite-could-not miss band was Ethan and The Reformation. Hers: Jordan Allen. That meant Kashmere had to be a miss this time around. Lydia suggested Sapho. I knew nothing of them but went with the flow and wow! I am always intrigued when I see a simple three piece. I instantly think Nirvana. I was waiting with nervous anticipation.

Their set consisted only of five songs. But each one seemed effortless, cohesive and not a note out of place. The Smiths were playing in the background as they were setting up. They had a good reputation was what I was hearing from others as we waited for the music to start. Opener, Change, was bass led, and reminded me of 70s rock. Each band member was in perfect harmony with each other, not just melodically but in sync: I later learned by talking to them that they’d worked on Liam’s GCSE music project together. They were school friends and that bond really showed. I loved the fact that the drummer was wearing a red and black checked shirt. I have one of those and so does a friend. Radio reminded me very much of Aneurysm by Nirvana. It had heavy bass interwoven with pitchy vocals, a bass led and percussion bridge and was just so catchy and and solid. No backing vocals, but it didn’t matter! I loved the wonderfully slow, and paced 70s style finish.

Ethan & The Reformation – I was finally getting to see them! Cupids had recommended them to me. Sometimes in life we’re given chances and opportunities but the timings just aren’t right. But, Saturday 15th April was the night. During the sound-check I noticed a good few eager faces milling around. I was standing right at the front, having secured my place to centre stage left, I like the viewpoint from the left, everything sweeping out to the right and I had table for my drink and a wall to lean against. The warm-up was perpetuated with strong heavy bass. I mean this was just a sound-check: but it was great! It had soul.

When they came back on stage to start with Free from Everything, I clocked three guitars, akeyboard and some drums. James Corderio showed the audience the back of his bass guitar. It said: “fuck off” written in black marker pen. Love it. I heard a Sergeant Pepper stylie sitar sound on guitar (I was later told this was an influential album) and this made for a long dreamy introduction. Very, very heavy on bass and I was reminded of a hash-tag on twitter that I’d used: amps in yer face. The sound they created just boomed. Brilliant. Fractaline Fantasies came next and was a slow but sure number.  I loved Lost in Wonder. All at once it was a bass meets high sustained and distorted guitar and keyboard notes (I think) in any case it sounded like sound effects from space. I loved it because it really fused the sounds of the past with eerie futuristic sounds of what will become of life I the future? I feel like it was supposed to be thought-provoking. For me it was very post-modern. Sublime. At some point I stopped taking notes and just danced.

Last but by no means least we covered Jordan Allen. He was at The Night & Day Cafe, a venue which has a special place in my heart. I threw open the back doors there once and recorded a song. But anyhoo, Lydia was keen to see Jordan, having met and photographed him before. I’d not heard a note by him, but instantly loved the fact that his sound-check was Minority by Green Day. I think I counted nine amps on stage. The drummer was topless with tattoos and had a blue towel around his shoulders. I could tell this was going to be a loud and fun performance! There were lots of people milling around and waiting for the start. Jordan Allen was one of the headliners across the four venues in The Northern Quarter and you could tell that there were plenty of people eagerly awaiting this set. The opening track, Dancing In the Dark, was a fast, and slick performance. Before it ended, the venue was full. As I glanced around, people had secured their places at the front, and more than a handful of people were dancing, tapping their feet and clearly had an affection for this song. Uncharted Youth followed and was a slower and more purposeful number than the previous hook where as  Imperial Leather was a humorous nod to the ubiquitous shower gel I can only assume! This track was very well appreciated and known to the crowd. A three-part harmony made it a very cohesive sound and had a very raw quality to it. It was during this song that Jordan announced to the audience that it was “good to be home”. Bless him. I love Manchester. This is a rising star, folks.

When In Manchester was the first festival I have ever covered for Popped Music and it was both a delight and honour to be able to do so, to share my experience with so many, make memories, meet my friends, new bands and make new friends. I paid £8 for my ticket. Insanely cheap, but I couldn’t possibly put a price on what it meant to me. I’ll be back at Christmas for part four – I’ll see you there!

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Live Review: When In Manchester 2017 When In Manchester 2017 15th April 2017 Words: Julia Grantham Photos: Lydia Maycock Are you familiar with the phrase: “Don't open all your Christmas presents at once?” Or words to that effect.

[adventuresaroundasia]

I’ve noticed that the more I travel and the busier I become, the more impossible it becomes to keep up with my travels in real-time. Well, never fear monthly recap posts are here!

Merry Christmas from China!

Yes, I know the month is half over. But you know what? I was busy!

I considered abandoning writing this December review altogether, especially considering I gave you all a yearly review already, but then I realized I’d be giving up on the one thing I do on this blog with actual consistency.

So, here we are! At least December was interesting.

Where I Went

I stayed in Beijing the whole month of December right up until the last few days where I took a flight home to Seattle!

Highlights

Wonder why it took so long…

1. So… I’m No Longer Single

Yeah, THAT happened.

Remember that one time I published an article about my quarter-life crisis and had a job and a plan just one month later? Well, I guess all I need to do is publish a viral article on Huffington Post and Matador Network about how travel is ruining my love life, and then the sexy traveling men come running!

If you read my writing with any consistency (or follow my Snapchat), I’m sure you know exactly who I’m dating. If not, you’ll figure it out when I head to Sumatra with him in two weeks.

So, what’s changing now that I have an actual real relationship and not just 3-6 month casual flings? Well, we’re going to write a couples blog together!!!

… Just kidding.

Pretty much nothing with change except for the fact that I’ll be going on my annual Chinese New Year trip with him instead of solo. There will probably also be less self-deprecating jokes about my 5-year single cat lady status.

Edmonds Washington on a rare clear day

2. I Went Home to Seattle

At the very, very end of the month, I headed home to Seattle for the New Year. Since I wasn’t allowed to go home for Christmas, my family had a fake Christmas for me (on January 1st, I’m a cheater!) where we ate Thanksgiving food and exchanged gifts from me and one of my aunts who was sick and wasn’t able to make the real Christmas celebration.

I’ll spill more Seattle details in my next monthly recap (in two weeks) since most of the fun stuff happened in January. But I will say that it was so nice to go home! The air was fresh and crisp (and not polluted), and it was great to see my family and a few friends after such a long time apart.

As usual, I kept forgetting I could drink water from the sink and flush toilet paper. I also had trouble sleeping on my bed because it was too soft. #ChinaProblems.

Wandering Houhai Lake

3. My Sexy Man Came to Visit Beijing

Okay, I’ll stop.

But in all seriousness, after almost two months of not seeing each other, a quick visit in December was a great boost to my busy work life. We exchanged Christmas gifts, tried out my favorite restaurants, and had a great time despite the cold and pollution.

My favorite day was probably the one we spent exploring my neighborhood Beijing. After a morning brunch with all of my roommates at Cafe Zarah, I took him to Houhai lake. While unfortunately, it wasn’t frozen enough to ice skate on yet, we walked around the whole lake and even saw people swimming in the freezing water!

Then I took him to my favorite cat cafe for a quick coffee and a hutong Christmas market filled with vendors selling mulled wine, jewelry, locally made products and some pretty awesome homemade peppermint chapstick. Afterward, we ate dinner at my favorite Sichuan restaurant, Zhang Mama, and had alcoholic pie shakes (yes they are as good as they sound) for dessert at Rager Pie!

An EPIC seafood dinner!

4. Office Christmas Party

With admissions season being very intense, having a fun little Christmas party was exactly what I needed! We did an office Secret Santa where I was tasked with finding a gift for a young Chinese coworker. I know she has a penchant for good Baijiu (strong Chinese liquor), so of course, I gifted her a bottle!

She absolutely freaked out, trying to figure out who gave her the gift. My coworkers had a great time teasing her, telling her the head boss gave it to her. Eventually, she discovered it was me after a day of accusing all the coworkers.

In addition to cake and pizza for lunch, the head boss took all the college counselors out for a fantastic seafood dinner. We ordered a giant platter of delicious lobster, crabs, shrimp, crayfish, regular fish and more. We made a pretty good dent, but we definitely needed at least two more people to finish it off!

After an awkward and tense last few months at work, the Christmas party and seafood dinner smoothed things over a bit. We also got to celebrate getting a kid into Princeton! While he wasn’t one of my students, I did spend 5+ hours coaching him for his admissions interview, so it was great to get a shoutout from my manager when he got in. At least I know I’m kind of valued!

Me not crying in the office on Christmas

Challenges

1. Not Going Home For Christmas

Like I said last month, I wasn’t allowed to go home for Christmas due to the whims of my boss and manager and rules that didn’t make any sense. While I was perfectly fine working Christmas eve (seriously, it was a slow day), and spending the evening watching a movie while munching on a Turkey and mashed potato pie from Rager Pie (and a pecan pie for desert!), the pity I got from others was really annoying.

It felt like everyone was absolutely shocked I couldn’t go home, especially since I was one of the only ones. All of my roommates flew home, except one, and pretty much all of my foreign coworkers too.

Every student who came to the office was shocked to find me there. Every Chinese person I encountered that weekend asked me why I wasn’t going home. People assumed I at least should have some grand Christmas dinner at one of the foreign restaurants, or a potlatch with all my friends.

Well, you know what people? I had no friends to hang out with on Christmas and I was FINE WITH IT. I didn’t even mind looking at everyone’s Christmas pictures and snaps on social media. I just wanted everyone to stop pitying me and let me enjoy my Christmas pies and massage in peace.

and we celebrated with a lot of seafood

2. The End of Admissions Season

IT’S OVER.

US college admissions season is finally over. All of the millions of essays and stress are OVER. This should be in my “Highlights” section, but since admissions season lasted until January 1st (with a second deadline for some schools on January 15th), I don’t officially get to celebrate until my next monthly recap.

Last month was pretty stressful getting everything done, and I wanted to bang my head on my keyboard more than once. I had students changing their intended major half-way through a 200-word essay (SERIOUSLY??). I had kids giving me 800-word essays for a prompt that only allowed 450 words. I even had to edit a recommendation letter from a parent about her son (?!) which is NOT in my job description. She just needed help getting it down from over 1,000 words to 600. At least she loves her kid?

3. Absolutely Horrifying Pollution

What’s new? We had a 3-day red alert in Beijing, which meant that all the schools were closed… but I still had to go to work! The WHO recommends PM2.5 levels stay under 50, but for a Red Alert in Beijing, the pollution forecast needs to be 300+ for 4 consecutive days.

Guess how high the pollution was in Beijing? BETWEEN 600-800!!!!

At least it wasn’t as bad as surrounding Hebei province, that had some cities with pollution over 1,000! Let’s just say I lived in my pollution mask and had my air purifiers on constantly. I also developed excruciating headaches, but now I’ve discovered the headaches are actually from me needing new glasses (I think).

A giant roomie brunch!

My Most Popular Post

You all seemed to really love my post on eating like a local in Beijing’s hutongs. I absolutely love Chinese food, and the hutongs, so a hutong food tour was right up my alley. It was so fun to discover all of these incredible places to eat right near my apartment, and I loved being able to share all of them with you!

Best Instagram

Just when I was starting to run out of decent photos of myself, an angel in the form of my friend Sarah delivered a bunch of cute shots of me in Vietnam. This photo of me temple hopping in Hue Vietnam was the post popular!

I loved exploring all of the many temples in Hue Vietnam. I only had one day there which definitely wasn’t enough. I guess I’ll just have to go back!! Thanks to my friend @peachelette for taking this incredible photo!

A photo posted by Richelle (@adventuresaroundasia) on Jan 7, 2017 at 8:52pm PST

Song of the Month

For those of you who watch my Snapchat, this song might sound a little familiar. I started most of my Seattle snap stories with this one and I’ve had a lot of people ask about it. Thank god for Spotify Discover!

What I’m Reading

This last month I read 1.5 books and a manuscript for a book my friend is writing! Here’s my take on the two books you can actually buy and read.

1. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale is one of those “school books” I should’ve read growing up but never did. But when I discovered Hulu is making a tv version with Elisabeth Moss as the lead, I figured I should probably get around to reading the book.

The Handmaid’s tale is INCREDIBLE, and it’s by far the best book I read this year. A patriarchal totalitarian Christian dystopia, this book really made me understand what it must be like to live as a woman under the Taliban or ISIS. The story centers around Offred, a woman who grew up in modern New York and experienced the Gilead revolution.

Separated from her husband and daughter whilst trying to escape to Canada, Offred becomes a “handmaid”. Due to a nasty strain of syphilis, most of the population is infertile, so handmaids are given to the commanders to help them bear children. Not a concubine or even a sexual object, Offred’s sole purpose is to help repopulate the world.

Seriously, everyone should read this book and then watch the show when it comes out!

Who needs babies when there are cat cafes?

2. What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding- Kristin Newman

I’m not quite finished with this book yet, but I’m already obsessed! Written by a screenwriter for shows like How I Met Your Mother and The Neighbors, Newman chronicles her comedic and romantic travel adventures for the last decade and a half.

After spending all of her 20’s in serious relationships, Kristin takes her 30-something commitment phobia to a new level, having wild, sexy, and hilarious adventures abroad. I actually can’t put this book down!

Hello Houhai!

The Best Blog Posts

Here are my absolute favorite blog posts of the month!

Six Ways Living Abroad Made me a Worse Person– Matador Network

I really enjoyed this post by Isabelle Sudron on Matador because it’s so relatable! As an expat, sometimes it’s hard not to fall into the trap of not learning the language, only associating with other expats, basking in unknown privilege, and judging your friends back home. I consistently work not to fall into these traps, but sometimes it can be hard!

Asia is Not Your Dumping Ground– Adventurous Alexis

I see this less in China (Chinese people kind of treat their own country like a dumping ground), but I encounter this phenomenon a lot in Southeast Asia. Entitled backpackers and tourists arrive and drink themselves sick, refuse to respect the culture, experiment with illegal drugs, dress inappropriately, and trash pristine beaches.

Southeast Asia might be like a Disneyland for adults but it’s also home to many people with way less privilege than you. When you visit someone else’s’ house, you respect it.

Enjoying latte and a pasta at Cafe Zarah

How Moving to Mexico Helped My Family Cut Bills by 55%– Tim Leffel

Shocked? I’m not.

Every time I go home people still don’t understand why I’m living and working in China. They see the smog and the culture difference and assume I’m sacrificing a lot to live here. But I feel the same way when I see my friends cutting coupons back home.

People are shocked when I explain how I’ve saved almost $20,000 USD in 1.5 years without even really trying. I live in downtown Beijing in a pretty nice apartment (with 5 roommates… hey, rent is expensive!), I eat out, I get $5 coffees and drink craft beer or nice cocktails at hidden hutong bars. I travel to places like Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines during my holiday breaks. I take taxis whenever I feel like it, and I even have a bi-weekly maid.

Sure I have to wear a mask a few weeks out of the year, but I have a pretty great life in Beijing!

Pin me!

What’s Happening in January 2017?

Well, January is already half over, but it’s going to be a great month! I got to spend the first half of it home in Seattle, and now I’m back in Beijing for just a week and a half. Chinese New Year is early this year, so at the end of the month, I’ll be heading to Sumatra Indonesia! This will be my first time in Indonesia and I’m so excited!

While most people go to Bali, I just didn’t quite feel like going to a touristy island. I don’t know why, but I just never found Bali super appealing. I would go live there for a few months as a digital nomad, but I wanted to go somewhere a bit off the beaten path this time around.

I went to Thailand but skipped Phuket and Koh Phi Phi. I went to Cambodia and spent only 2 hours in Sihanoukville oh the way to Koh Rong. I visited the Philippines and skipped Boracay in favor of Siargao and Siquijor… I guess you can say it’s a pattern.

Happy New Year Everyone! How was your December?

  This Beijing Life: Month 16 I’ve noticed that the more I travel and the busier I become, the more impossible it becomes to keep up with my travels in real-time.