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bts-weverse-trans · 4 years

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201127 Weverse Magazine ‘BE’ Comeback Interview - Jungkook

Jung Kook: “I hope this feeling never fades” BTS BE comeback interview 2020.11.27

I had a chance to interview BTS before, when they debuted. During that interview, Jung Kook had one small habit; when I met him again a while later, he had corrected it. He makes a conscious effort to change himself. And after seven years, I met Jung Kook again.

You directed the music video for “Life Goes On,” BE’s title song. Jung Kook: I was really eager to direct the music video from the outset. My plan was to organize the synopsis, discuss it with the music video director I was working with, shoot and edit them, but we were short on time. So I worked on it while sharing ideas with the director. Originally there were a lot of scenes with lip synching in them, but we took some of them out and put in more scenes that conveyed the members’ emotions better. It wasn’t easy to combine scenes, but I think now I know more about how much of everything is needed when shooting a music video.

You had shot the Golden Closet Films and uploaded them to the BTS YouTube channel, and now you shot a music video. Jung Kook: Once we were on location, we had directions for everything we needed to shoot prepared in advance, so I took candid shots of the members here and there with a camera during the shoot. We were filming in a beautiful place so when they asked me to take pictures of them as they wanted to be presented, I did.

What kind of pictures did you take of yourself? Jung Kook: I was just, in them. (laughs) I’m not in the shot for the Golden Closet Films either. I kind of take a back seat. The director had to shoot my parts for the music video, since I couldn’t film myself, so I relaxed a bit. I tried to make the other members look really good when I recorded them. Since this was a BTS music video and not my own, I wanted to show what was happening with every member and the team, not just one individual’s thoughts. Each person who watches the video might feel different, but I wanted to show that we feel what other people feel, that we’re in the same situation.

You get your picture taken a lot, but you don’t pay much attention to the ones you’re in. Jung Kook: I never really liked having my picture taken. (laughs) And I’m usually with the others when we’re working, obviously, but it’s hard to take a camera and take selfies. So I take pictures and videos of the other members every chance I get.

Do you still find it difficult to have your picture taken? Jung Kook: I put my best face forward when it’s for something I have to do, like for photo books, but it’s still not easy. Videos are okay, though. And even though I’m not nervous at all when I sing in front of tens of thousands of people, if I have to sing or talk in front of a small group, I get super nervous. I never feel that way on stage, but maybe I have a hard time doing things that are a little bit awkward for me.

It seems like you draw a distinction between work you enjoy and work you find difficult. Jung Kook: Work related to music, like recording, composing, writing lyrics, filming music videos and things like that, are all fine. But anything outside of that is probably a challenge for me.

On BE, you each explained your feelings about work in the song “Dis-ease.” You must have experienced a cycle of enjoyable and difficult work over seven years, so how did you get through the hard times? Jung Kook: I actually understand my own problems well, so most of the time it’s okay. I can figure things out one at a time through experience instead of just looking for answers. I’m always growing and my personality changes, depending on my environment. I think I’ve learned to do things I used to find difficult by experiencing it little by little.

Speaking of growth, “Skit” was very memorable. You recorded it the day after “Dynamite” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and you, who talked about what you did before you became trainees in “Skit” in your debut album,talked about being first place on the Billboard Hot 100 this time around. Jung Kook: When I was a trainee, I saw the older members rapping and thought, “Wow, they’re so cool!” But now, after having spent everyday together, I’ve forgotten about all that. (laughs) Sometimes I see the lyrics they wrote, see them dancing and hearing the things they say on stage, and think, “Oh, right. That is the kind of person they are. They’re a lot different now.” You know how you don’t feel it when you live with your family, but if you can’t see them for a long time, you miss them. You might even cry. We’re a real family. Like, legit! (laughs)

Your “legit family” (laughs) each put their own songs on BE and came up with units spontaneously. What was it like making the album that way? Jung Kook: We talked with the company over the outline of the album and organized our ideas together. That was our process for making songs. Then we’d listen to them together, and if we thought they weren’t great, we’d go back and work on them some more. The members would get together and say, “Hey, how about so and so do a unit song this time?” or, “What should it be about?” and share a lot of ideas that way.

How did the others respond to your song, “Stay”? Jung Kook: That song was originally meant to be on my mixtape. We planned to put a different song on the album, but after V heard it, he said, “This song that Jung Kook wrote is really good,” and then the other members all listened, said it was better than the other one, and somehow (laughs) “Stay” made it into the album. The message for the other song was also, “Even though we’re far apart, stay just where you are.” I wrote my song with the same theme so I loved that it was included in BE. At first, I wanted to talk about how we’re always together, using the English word “wherever.” I wanted to express how we’re always together no matter where we are, but Namjoon heard that and said “Stay” might be better. I liked his suggestion, so I changed it. He really helped me to organize my thoughts, since I’m not always good at writing everything I want to express.

One might go as far as to say the lyrics sound heartbreaking, but it’s arranged in EDM. Jung Kook: We imagined we were performing for the fans while we made it, jumping up and down with them.

It sounds like you really miss your fans. Jung Kook: This album really hit us in a different way, with this situation being what it is. Because the world is struggling with COVID-19, we have to keep our heads up and convey our messages to our fans.

What can your fans expect from you when you finally meet again? Jung Kook: There’s nothing specific, but when I watched our old performances, my facial expressions were awkward and my dance moves weren’t always perfect. I keep working to improve myself, so I hope when the fans see me, they think my performance is amazing and that my aura fills the stage.

Are you happy with how you look in your latest work? Jung Kook: I’m not 100% satisfied, no. When we did performances for “Dynamite” recently I kept seeing my imperfections.

Your acting in the intro to your “Dynamite” performance was really impressive. Even in COVID-19 times, you captured a feeling of liveliness and being cool, as though to explain what the song is all about. Jung Kook: Actually, on the first day of filming the music video, I was supposed to film my parts first, but I was so bad that it had to be pushed to the end of the shoot. So,I was a bit more relaxed when the camera rolled.

So that’s what you get when you’re relaxed! (laughs) Jung Kook: Yes, I relaxed, and something went “pop!” and “boom!” inside me, and then I did it however I wanted. (laughs)

It’s fascinating how someone who performs the way you do during stadium tours can feel nervous while filming and yet still do so well in it. Jung Kook: I can be a shy person. When people used to ask me to sing, I couldn’t always do it—like in front of adults or teachers. And I’m still a bit like that. If I start thinking, “Oh, I can’t do this,” then I really end up not being able to do it. Even when I could have done well.

Why do you think that is? Jung Kook: I feel the same way about my dancing and my singing, and I can’t compose a really amazing melody either. I feel like I’m always somewhere in the middle. But then I also think I have my own colors, so I like to quietly, slowly open up to people, and let them know what kind of person I am. Yeah, something like that. (laughs)

But, when you review your songs and performances objectively, you see all of your changes, don’t you? Jung Kook: There’s a lot of change. My voice has changed a lot; I grew taller and my frame and facial structure have changed, too. I could tell how awkward I looked at the beginning, but after a while, I think, “My gestures look better now, but I feel like my dance is too rigid.” And again after a while, “Now my dance is fine and my gestures are good, but I’m making awkward facial expressions.” And later, I say, “Now I got the facial expressions down, but, hmm, there’s no killer move.” (laughs) That’s how I slowly changed. And then my actions, thoughts, dreams, goals, what I value, what I want to do—all these things will change depending on the situation.

You had some changes in BE, too. Throughout “Life Goes On,” you lightly carry your voice and tone throughout the whole song, like they’re flowing. Jung Kook: Right. I think that’s very important. My general feeling was my voice should be woven into the song, rather than bringing out my individual voice. The lyrics say the world stopped, but I can’t keep on being sad, and life continues and flows on. I wanted to mix a little bit of my own colors into that complex, subtle sadness. I listened to how the other members recorded their parts for the song, and I sang while thinking about how I could do it in a way that it would all blend together well. I kept changing my voice exploring how to make it sound better, cleaner. I kept trying new things while I was recording, performing, and practicing.

When you look back after all that change, don’t you feel like you accomplished a lot? Jung Kook: I don’t really pay attention to things that have already happened. I think more about what it is I need right now, so I rarely think, “I got a lot better from how I used to be,” or, “I did a good job.”

You sound insatiable, in a good way. Jung Kook: Yes. This is how I want to keep living, and I hope this feeling never fades.

You’ve found immense success with BTS. What makes you want to keep doing more and keep improving yourself? Jung Kook: I want to show people who I am: how I talk, how I act, how I sing, and so on. And after that, I want to be acknowledged for doing what I like to do, and for people to see what an amazing guy I am. I want to do these things step by step. I want to be appreciated as Jung Kook, as the real me.

What do you think is the source of that energy—the energy to keep proving yourself, even though you’ve already achieved so much with BTS? Jung Kook: I think my heart’s telling me to. BTS was able to climb this high thanks to the group members, the company and our fans. But there’s always the question of whether I could receive that kind of recognition by myself, so I have this feeling of wanting to throw myself at some challenge alone. There’s a lot I want to do, and a lot I want to achieve.

By gradually improving yourself, what kind of person would you ideally want to become? Jung Kook: A person who’s crazy awesome in their field. (laughs) Those kinds of people look cool even when they do something different. I still have a long way to go. I feel like I could be more captivating and draw more out of people by improving any number of things, by trying hard to be confident about my singing, or the way I dance and perform. BTS is way more important and meaningful to me than I am to myself, so I’m not saying I want to do anything alone. But I hope I get to the point where I can perform alone for three or four hours in a venue full of people.

It’s clear that your job, music, is very important to you. Jung Kook: I must never let it go. That’s what I always think. I have to keep it close to me, even if I get bored, or I don’t want to hear it, or it feels like a hassle. I want to keep on making music. It may be a long ways down the road, but I want to prove myself with my music.

You said before that your MBTI is ISFP, so I looked it up. Obviously, MBTI can’t sum up a person perfectly, but it says ISFPs tend to be “curious artists.” Your answer reminds me of that. Jung Kook: That sounds about right. I looked up the personality traits for ISFP too, and it was interesting. (laughs)

Maybe that’s the reason you set your goals so high. You seem like you have high standards and want to keep growing. Jung Kook: It’s like a foggy mountain top. (laughs) I can’t even see it yet.

You’ve been climbing for seven years, staying curious. Is there anything you want to say to the people who have been watching you all this time? Jung Kook: Umm … Well, there are seven of us, and the seven of us keep running ahead. So it’s possible we could get tired, one by one, and drop out, right? But if more people join us, one by one, and run with us, we can support each other and pull each other up if someone falls down. That’s kind of how I feel. There are people who supported us from the beginning who have been watching us the whole time since, and because of them our follower count keeps going up, and they all keep us on track. So the only thing I can say is—thank you. We were nothing special, really (laughs) but they keep on liking us and supporting us, and the best way we can repay them is to give them our all through our music and our performances. They push me to work hard, even on things I find difficult. (laughs) I’m eternally grateful.

Just like in the last line of “Stay.” Jung Kook: “We are together.”

Trans © Weverse

#bangtan #jungkook #weverse #weverse magazine #be album #comeback interview #201127 #2020

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fyeah-bangtan7 · 4 years

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Jung Kook: “I hope this feeling never fades”

One might go as far as to say the lyrics sound heartbreaking, but it’s arranged in EDM. Jung Kook: We imagined we were performing for the fans while we made it, jumping up and down with them.

Are you happy with how you look in your latest work? Jung Kook: I’m not 100% satisfied, no. When we did performances for “Dynamite” recently I kept seeing my imperfections.

So that’s what you get when you’re relaxed! (laughs) Jung Kook: Yes, I relaxed, and something went “pop!” and “boom!” inside me, and then I did it however I wanted. (laughs)

You sound insatiable, in a good way. Jung Kook: Yes. This is how I want to keep living, and I hope this feeling never fades.

Maybe that’s the reason you set your goals so high. You seem like you have high standards and want to keep growing. Jung Kook: It’s like a foggy mountain top. (laughs) I can’t even see it yet.

Just like in the last line of “Stay.” Jung Kook: “We are together.”

#bangtan #jungkook #m:weverse magazine #o:interview #201127

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Top 12 Christmas Episodes!

Merry Christmas Eve Everybody! We’ve reached the end of my christmas reivews and what not on this blog.

But as a wise barrel chested canadian man once said, I fucking love christmas, So if i’m finishing up the holiday on my blog I want to go big and stay home. So in honor of the holiday, my memories of it and just how GREAT it makes me feel i’m counting down my top 12 christmas specials! After last year’s worst of list I really wanted to do the oppsiite.. but it was naturally a lot harder. Shows usually put a LOT of effort into their christmas outings, even the ones who do so once a year, so the good FAR FAR OUTWEIGHS THE BAD. To show the contrast I could only find like.. 8 I was comfortable with putting on the worst list and even some of them aren’t that bad just not good. With the best of list? I had over 60 considered and even once I started narrowing down.. it was still around 30 or 40 REALLY GOOD specials I had to work down into this list. It took a lot of work and up to the last one it was really HARD to cut it down this far. But this is the best of the best of the best of the best of the.. you get the bit. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and this review was already supposed to come out on christmas eve, so, since I won’t be able to use this for another year...

Er. Top 12 Christmas Specials.

12. Merry Christmas Johnny Rose (Schitt’s Creek) So I finally watched all of Schitt’s Creek this year.. and i’m kicking myself for not powering through it’s terrible starting decent ending first season earlier because the show is easly one of the best comedies of the last decade and rightly earned it’s emmy sweep this year. Heartfelt, hilarious, and starring some of the best names old and new in comedy, the show is really great and I recommend checking it out.. just again be aware the first few episodes are not very good and if it wasn’t vital to the rest of the show story wise, i’d just recommend skippping season 1. While the characters minus patriach Johnny are insuferable at first... it’s their growing from self absorbed assholes to still self abosrbed but really good and decent people that is the beating heart of the show. And no where more is this heart on the show’s sleve than at christmas time as this episode is baked in just how far our cast have come.

The episode centers on Johnny Rose, played by Eugene Freaking Levy who co created the show with his equally talented son Dan who desrves the lion’s share of the credit for the show’s upturn in quality. Since the Roses used to have big lavish christmas parties once a year, Johnny decides to throw the equilvent of what they can do on a budget at the Motel they all live in. But his family all has other plans with daughter Alexis, now happily with Ted again, meeting his friends for the first time, son David, played by Dan Levy, busy at his store with his partner, in both senses, patrick and his wife Moira having a performance with her acapella group. At first it just comes off as something typical of johnny: Something well meaning and what not but ultimatley just not something his family is into or that he planend well for.

It’s only when Johnny finds himself alone at the local diner with Moira coming to see him we find out why he’s REALLY doing this: the old lavish parties, which we see one of at the start.. ultimately ended up with him alone, sad and everyone off to their own corners. WIth the family having actually come together over the past 4 seasons, Johny simply wanted to celebrate that and says such in one of the best moments in the entire show and with one hell of a line.

"I just thought, in spite of all the hardship, we found ourselves coming together, the kids, you and me, as a family. And it just seemed like the perfect day to celebrate that. The perfect day for a Rose Family Christmas Party." But Moira has already taken care of it and thus takes JOhnny home to find all their friends and the rest of the family gathered, wtih the Jazzagals serandading eveyrone with a beautiful rendition of silent night. It’s just a warm, well done character piece that really fits the holiday while also really cementing what the show had become: a show not afraid to make dirty jokes or humilatie it’s cast but one that has a true sweetness to it. It’s only that the first half’s jokes don’t quite pop all that well and feel a bit at johnny’s expense that holds it back. Otherwise this is one i’ll be coming back to every year.

11. Father of the Bob (Bob’s Burgers) Bob’s Burgers is a damn great show i’m season’s behind on. Warm, charming, weird and with an expansive side cast played by a whos who of whose in comedy today. It’s a damn fine show and i’m happy it seems to have manatained it’s quality long after the simpsons and family guy lost theirs. And the show really loves christmas.. and halloween.. and valentine’s day.. and thanksgiving. Oh god does it love thanksgiving. Point is, the shows good at holiday episodes and loves doin em and has produced some stellar ones and I had a lot to pick from here.. but I ended up going with my gut and my personal faviorite. It’s not the most christmasy despite the trappings, but the character work is just too good to leave it out in the cold. It’s Christmas Eve and the Belcher’s are visiting Bob’s Dad. As you can tell by the fact the most we’ve seen of him is a picture of his restraunt, big bob’s diner in the belcher’s living room and a flashback where he told bob to work instead of play as a kid that set off an episode’s plot, they don’t have the best relationship. Bob has a firm rule about not spending more than 15 minutes with his dad, as that’s the point they run out of things to talk about and his dad starts getting overcrytical and making jabs at bob’s life and restraunt. Linda, being Linda, decides to meddle and when she finds out Big Bob’s short order cook is missing, has our Bob fill in. But as we see in flash backs it’s not THAT easy to repair things, as there’s a long, bitter history between the two: When a youngbob made his first unique burger and served it to a customer, his dad threw it out without even letting anyone taste it. He then offered bob a partnership when bob was a young man but Bob snapped at Big Bob in front of his friends and left to make burgers his own way, leading to where we are now. And honestly i’ts the perfect origin story for Bob and adds a lot of shades to his character. He’s obessed with the restraunt not just because he genuinely loves cooking but because it’s HIS. His place, to create creative burgers, his family and his regulars. It’s his corner of the sky. It makes the restraunt’s existance and surivvial that much more heartwarming to know the meaning behind it.

Naturally things end up blowing up with Bob pointedly serving the burger to make a point and Big bob walking out angrily and sadly. It takes bob’s gift from the kids, who had their own neat subplot of making gifts for bob in the basement, a snowglobe wrapped in newspaper.. to find out hsi dad kept the newspaper with the review of his first restraunt and kept ALL reviews of Bob’s Burgers. Despite being a stone faced critical ass on the outside, Big BOb STILl cared.. and bob relizes he needs to make amends and actually make an effort instead of just avoiding his dad or gettin gback at him. And through the power of gay club next door line dancing, and nick offerman whose a wonderful guest star here, the two reconcile with Bob admitting he shouldn’t of humilatied his dad even if he had to go his own way, and Big Bob admitting he’s hard to work with, the loss of his wife hit him hard, and he was a bit too much. The two hug, and it’s genuinely just a good, well done story of father and son that somehow gives even more dimension to Bob, an already pretty damn fleshed out character. Just a really great episode whose holiday timing makes it better.. though not being AS much a holiday episode as a really good bob’s burgers that’s enhanced by it is why this one’s so low. Next!

10. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (MST3K) I”m honestly surpised i’ts taken me THIS long to get to something MST3K related. I’ve loved the show since high school, first exposed to it thanks to a dvd from the library and continuing from there to present day. I love the show’s combination of riff’s on perfectly cheesy movie and fun skits with really good puppets especially for the budget. It’s just good comfort food in show form and no where is comfort food more welcome than christmas, and each era of MST3K, so far hopefully the show will come back again eventually, has had i’ts own damn good christmas special, with this being my faviorite out of the three.

The other two are good: ironically I have a poster for the santa claus over my computer, or rather crow and tom as santa and pitch aka satan respectively. Yes really, that’s the premise. IT is as awesome and batshit insane as it sounds. Point is I like that one and year without a santa claus, this one just has more personal warmth to me. I jus tlove the holiday feeling of joel and the bots readying for christmas in the host segments. It just feels like christmas and it’s wonderful to see the bots act like kids. That being said.. it’s still also fucking hilaroius, with the mad’s hilariously petty wish squisher, a device that turns good gifts into socks and other unwanted presents, the best Crow T Robot quote of all time as he gives joel his santa wish

And of course, one of the best and most patently insane christmas songs ever: Have Yourself a Patrick Swayze christmas, which has become oddly sweet after his death and got me to watch road house for the first time last year... and it’s as awesome and wonderfully rediclous as this song inspiried by it and even better once you get the refrences

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But while the host segments are what push this film into the list, the movie is still a delightful bit of 60′s cheese as, to restore their children to being children, a couple of martians kidnap santa to bring christmas to mars. Fights iwth robots, an asshole martian and an obnoxious sidekick named droppo, yes really, insue. IT’s just some fun cheese for the holiday and a staple of my holidays.

9. The Three Wise Men (Letterkenny) It’s no secret Letterkenny has quickly become one of my faviorite shows. After watching it last January, it’s become part of my being and one of my go too feel good shows, a funny as hell, uniquely weird slice of life show set in rural canada. While like it’s fellow recent legend of canadian television Schitt’s creek it’s first season CAN be a bit rough.. but it’s not as rough and getting through it is worht it as the show immiedatly picked up and became one of the funniest things to ever exist. It’s also uniquely tied to christmas as every year a season of the show has dropped on that day on it’s home streamer Crave TV in canada, and on boxing day here in the us. So it’s only fitting the show also has a REALLY great christmas special.

It’s Christmas eve and our heroes the hicks, are having a christmas party. For the uniniated the hick’s aren’t really all that “hick” ish just hardworking farmers who still accept everybody and work damn hard. Leading man, terse talker and certified badass Wayne is suprisingly really into christmas, as he spent pretty much every holiday spouting out inacuracies about it but this day? He genuienly enjoys, even insiting on awful holiday drinks only and a midnight toast, the titular three wiseman (Canadian, irish and American Whiskeys, one shot of each). “It’s tradition”. And thanks to tradition we get the main gag of the episode: most of the episode is wayne calling in various members of the town, most of whom he dosen’t like very much and some who deeply annoy him, to give them presents. And while i’ve admitted to being a guy who dosen’t like a plot that basically repeats itslef.. it works here.. mostly because while the setup is the same, each member provides something new and hilarious: while it starts innocently enough with Bonnie Mcmurray, local fanservice, nice lady and fangirl of wayne, getting a camera and offering to be an elf, an offer wayne is forced to take up, it soon becomes a parade of weirdness and bullshit Wayne really dosen’t want to put up with and that really makes me laugh hard: Local loveable sex maniac and bar owner Gail goes on for a good minute about her sexual antics with Wayne’s beloved departed uncle eddie after Wayne gives him a picture of the guy, Glenn, another of wayn’es unwanted admirers and local pastor, obsesses over a christmas themed digeredoo, local druggies and emos the skids intitally refuse to open their gift out of prinicpal until wayne simply asks “What if theres drugs in it” (It’s insted vitamin d), the local hockey coach sings a hilarious and gloriously cringe song about having sex with his wife when they were alive and the hockey players make wayne uncomfortable both by crying a bit. Also tanis gets an apron.

But even if the reactions horrify or piss off our hero into needing his elf’s help, the heart is in the fact that despite hating most of these people, he still got them a gift and one that’s hearfelt and well meaning. And naturally the sweetest is saved for his family of choice with the hicks: Squirrely Dan gets a pencil case for his oft talked about women’s studies class, Dary gets some clonge since he wears his barn clothes everywhere, and Katy gets an obscure korean christmas movie since her subplot that episode had been spent trying to get a christmas movie going, only for everyone to pick it apart: from the racisim of santa and co towards rudolph to pointing out how profoundly fucked up the premise of the santa claus is (including the fact various serial killers could’ve gotten the suit), which I agree with, it’s just a sweet gesture that shows how well he knows his friend. Overall it’s just a fun hangout of an episode that feels like a real christmas party and in these troubling times we could all use that. Now let’s all have a spit.

8. The Feast of Alvis (Sealab 2021) Another Christmas staple for me.. and a gloriously strange one at that. This time we’re checking under the sea with Sealab 2021, one of the earliest adult swim shows and the blueprint for the abriged series format, it took a dry hannah barbara show about an underwater research station and remixed it into the antics of a bunch of idiots and lunatatics throughuly unequipped for the task. Except Dr. Quinn, the only sane person aboard.. most of the time. It was comedy gold courtsey of Adam Reed, creator of the later Frisky Dingo, a throughly underated show, and Archer, which is like Frisky Dingo but refined into it’s truest and most sucessful form. It was magical and just talking about it makes me want to talk about it again at some point, probably in a best of list. So naturally this madcap energy was perfect for the holidays. Originally the crew planned to use ACTUAL religions for this, but were forced by network to change it.. which ended up being one of those cases where the network ended up actually making the right call as the creators instead created thinly veiled substute for the various religions... and centered it around Alavanism, which is christianity.. but if christ was instead born in the us at some point, and instead of being a pacifist, was a drunken beligernt gun loving redneck who shot a guy in the face, has “vengance is mine” as one of his quotes (from said face shooting) and still had pomp and circumstance as part of his holiday. Helping this though is our Alvian for the evening is Captain Murphy, the series best character and often the center of it’s best moments, played by the wonderful and sadly late Harry Goz, a half crazed half chidlish cloud cuckoolander who often comes off like a demanding child in an old man’s body. So naturally this holiday is for him and even more naturally he’s holding a massive alvis day cermeony that’s as batshit as he and his religion are in the main deck: he’s got buffalo, a buffet that’s deeply unsanitary, and a hallogen light mimickign the alvistide star that he wants to plop a baby under. Naturally no one else is happy about this. Well Stormy, local hilarious dumbass, is as the only other alvian on board for this, and a general sucker for dumb shenanigans but he’s so plastared he’s even less coherent than usual and can mostly muster the desire to kick something’s ass or a weak “shut up” Most of all Quinn and his girlfriend debbie, who point out religious tolerance is a part of the sealab charter and that this kind of grotesuqe celebration really isn’t in season. I’ts also a nice dig at “War on Christmas Assholes”, long before that was as big a problem with Muprhy very much being the asshole and his cleebration rapidly crumbling. He also attempts to fire Sparks for being a wiccan stand in so yeah he deserves it. It’s all capped in Muprhy getting visted by a drunken halucination of his lord. All in all easily one of the best and most insane christmas specials ever put to film. If you have HBO Max watch it today or tommorow you will NOT regret it.

7. Arnold’s Christmas (Hey Arnold) A classic of my childhood, Hey Arnold is one of the best animated shows period. It’s something i’m not shy about saying, I bleivie I said it in my thanksgiving list and i’ll say it quite a bit. It’s not PERFECT, it has it’s flaws.. but it’s still damn good and the golden standard for slice of life shows.

This episode naturally is one of it’s best and, while I didn’t catch as a kid the signifigance or what this was about, touches on of all things the vietnam war and the children who were helicoptered out. In a heart destroying story, Mr. Winn, one of Arnold’s boardinghousemates, reveals he has a daughter he has no idea where she is as to give her a better life, he made sure she got on one of those helicopters as an infant. While he was able to immigrate later, he never found her. Arnold being our own personal jesus, refuses to let this stand and goes out of his way to figure it out and goes on a quest that seemingly ends in failure. It falls on Helga to save the day as Helga actually gets what she wanted from her parents, a pair of nice boots, and gets the rare moment where they actually acknoledge her.. but loving arnold and seeing the noblility in his quest.. she gives it up. Just to make someone elses’ dream come true. He may never know who did it and tha’ts okay. An utterly heartwarming and heartbreaking episode. Nuff said.

6. Santa Claus is Comin To Town Speaking of classics this is how you do a santa origin story. Not the first or last i’d see, and we’ll get to one of those in a moment. While i’m not a huge fan of Rankin Bass’ other big hit with Rudolph, this one really hits the spot for me and is only this low because it’s pacing is really slow at points. Otherwise this special is near flawless, looks good and holds up today. As I said this is a good Year One for santa establishing how he became immortal, how he met the elves, he was raised by them, how he started giving out toys, how he met mrs claus you know all the stuff you’d ask about. To me what really sells it the best though is Mickey Rooney as Santa. While I had no idea who played him till literally writing this article in my mind his earnesness, kindness and genuine nature just.. fit the old elf to me even as a young man and everything from his humble beginings to his wanting to help children just out of kindness to his teaching an old man to dance to his romance just feels.. genuine and warm like christmas should. It just makes me feel good and like others on this list.. FEELS like christmas if that makes any sense. Not a lot else to say. Burger Meister Meisterburger isn’t the best vilian, but it was the early 70′s and we weren’t quite to diamond levels of complex interesting villians just yet so fair enough. Baiscally I don’t have a TON to say about this special in short, I may review it next year, we’ll see, but it’s really good, really fun and sometimes simple just works I guess? Speaking of stop motion..

5. Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas (Community) I love a good sitcom. I haven’t shared that love enough on here, I should try and change that at some point, but I do, as a fourth of this list should make crystal clear. So while sadly some of my faviorites like Brooklyn Nine Nine, Parks and Rec and Roseanne didn’t make the cut, Community thankfully did. Community is a show that’s really damn good and had THREE awesome Christmas episodes. All three, all winners and all in contention for some time. Regional Holiday music just barely didn’t make the cut. But ultimately I went with the best of the best, the most creative, most character driven, and most intresting. And the one that in Community’s traditional style, decided to take a spin on an old genre. In this case Abed, the study groups resident pop culture junkie, guy who thinks in tropes and future Huey Duck, is seeing everything in stop motion and may get thrown out of school as a result. With his friends deeply worried, they turn to Greendale’s local psychologist and british areshole Professor Duncan, played by my spirtual father John Oliver. ALL HAIL THIS MAN

Duncan takes the two into Abed’s fantasy and thus into a rankin bass special where Abed slowly weeds out his friends and tries to get rid of Duncan, whose naturally only intrested in proving a case. It’s a fun, chaotic ride including christmas pterodactyls, and the cast all in bizzare forms based on what Abed thinks of htem. it’s really damn creative and beauitfully animated at that. Naturally like most of these what clinches it is the heart and soul. We find out towards the end WHy this happened: Abed’s mom is spending christmas with her new family instead of him and it’s broken him to not be able to watch specials like they do> Thus the group rally behind their friend, beat duncan in a wonderful christmas number and watch specials with their buddy, as the weird ass family some of whom have or will make out, they are.

4. A Charlie Brown Christmas With my love of comic strips and sentiment, it should suprise absolutely no one this is on here. I love peanuts and have only grown to love it more over hte years for it’s mealancholy, finely constructed cast and weird bits people forget about like Snoopy’s disco phase, that really damn good arc where his house burned down, his brother stealing his fiance only to have her stolen from him, the fact Lucy threw Linus out once, that peppermint patty was once held back a grade and her snores took her place at her desk, the fact there was a character named 5, Charlie Brown and Linus’ friend roy who introduced peppermint patty to the cast, the fact a character named crybaby boobie exists, the fact there are specials devoted to a pastiche of call of the wild, a friend of linus’ getting cancer, and Flashbeagle. Just flashbeagle.

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It is glorious. And I really need to add that to my review queue.. maybe for late january. Seriously, tis glorious. And I OWN this one. So yeah. What were we talking about? Oh yes the special that made all the specials, especially flashbeagle, possible: A Charlie Brown Christmas This one has always been part of my life, but even beyond it’s signifigance to me, having grown up with it and grafted it to my soul, it’s just .. good. It has some good commentary on the consumrisim of the holiday with Charlie Brown rightly a bit upset about it and ending up roped into directing a christmas play. Great gags, and charlie brown trying to stick up for a scragly tree no one enlse likes insue. Oh and scripture as this is probably the only overtly religious special on the list. Not that ther’es anything wrong with not being religious and celebrating christmas: i’m not anymore but I still do and while I respect people who celebrate the holiday int he spirit of christ I have none for people who bash anyone who dosen’t just see it religiously and whose over zealous about it. Your just as bad as war on christmas people and you should feel bad. But yeah overal it’s just an inconic special whose clunkyness in production and audio just adds some charm to it. It shows it’s age.. but only in the animation and production values, which is just.. charming. It’s message is timeless, it’s characterization is perfect as you’d expect from peanuts in it’s prime, and i’ts ending is truly heartmelting. If you’ve never seen this one.. just go do that. I can wait.

3. How Santa Stole Christmas! (Ducktales) I”ll be brief on this one as, since it only aired a few weeks ago, i’ve already done a full review on it. But I will justify why such a recent special is this high up: because it’s just that good. It may of JUST been aired, but it’s as good as anything else here and age dosen’t matter. Quality does. There will likely be future specials worth this list i’m sure but for this moment in time this one earns it. It has Santa perfectly charactrized and tells an utterly heartrending story of friendship that ends up ending simply because the two are moving in opposite directions and of Scrooge learning the meaning of christmas. Not thorugh the ghosts, they already brilliantly messed with that one. It’s just really fantastic, gets the christmas spriit perfectly and uses the characters just as flawlessly. I will defintely be watching this one every year. Just a warm, creative, funny as hell special.

2. Comfort and Joy (Justice League) Speaking of reviews I held off reviews of my final two so I could save more thoughts here. I probably still will review them eventually, especially this one, I just felt i’d be repeating myself or have to be brief like the last one. But yeah this one slaps. The Justice League cartoon is easily one of the best superhero cartoons, if not superhero properties, period. Taking the base already built in from the previous three dcau cartoons, this one builds out the world and expands it , and introduced a young me to my lifelong loves of Martian Manhunter, The Flash and especailly the green lanterns with John Stewarts badass reciting of the oath easily etched in my brain. The only reason he isn’t my faviorite lantern is because mogo exists.. aka the lantern that is a living planet.

You can see why. But yeah Jon stuck in my mind. So it’s probably no suprise that the christmas special heavily featuring all three. It’s Christmas Time and after the league stops it’s usual disaster, they head off for their usual holiday activities. Batman and Wonder Woman are missing, but it’s fine. While I love both, especailly DCAU Batman, the episode is probably better off not trying to shove them in there just for the sake of it. One of the show’s greatest strength’s was character ballance, not forcing EVERY member of the big 7 into every episode and just using whose needed and shuffling them in and out FAR BETTER than say, Ducktales. Point is this, much like being loved by anyone, was not unusual and it makes the episode tighter. Even more so since this is the ONLY half hour episode in the first two seasons, the rest are basically hour long episodes split into two parters, though still paced for being two episodes so it’s good.. and three movie length three parters for the premire, and the season finales. Fun Fact: As a kid I missed starcrossed and thus had to find out second hand, and barely at that, why hawkgirl was gone at the start of unlimited. I still have not seen it. I will correct this eventually. It was a diffrent time.

So yeah this episode not only has a main character cast of 6, with 3 other major supporting characters, but is handily split into three amazing plot lines. The first has Green Lantern try to teach Hawkgirl how to have christmas fun by playing on a snowy world, while Hawkgirl takes him to a bar to show how she celebrates.. i.e. getting hammered and starting a fight. Nanananana, she’s gonna start a fight. It’s a fun really sweet segment, and some nice ship tease between the two. The other two though are what make this special.. not that the first one is bad these two are just really inspiried for the characters involved: For the Flash, who in this series is both Wally and a bit of a smug quipster.. we see beneath the ego and flirting he’s really a sweet, caring guy and spends his christmas finding a toy for the orphans in this case a rapping duck.

Not QUITE as embarassing btu close. He runs into the Ultra Humanite whose destroying the toys because he hates the comercialism and how it dumbs things down for the kids. Have I mentioned that I love the Ultra Humanite? Because I do.. the animated version. The comics version is REALLY fucking creepy but this version? He’s fucking great, an intellectual whose a formidable threat.. and honestly sympathetic. His motive here, while misguided, is well meaning and his price for selling out the injustice gang and going back to jail quitely? one of the best gags in human history. Getting PBS to say “This program was supported by viewers like you.. and the ultra humanite” He’s just awesome and i’ts a shame he never returned for unlimited. His comic version, while not BAD is just.. not NEARLY as intresting or deep and I wish the comics would have him take after this version. And that depth shows as once he learns what was going on, he willingly helps flash and simply reprograms the duck to recite the nutcracker. It’s a really nice gesture, that flash returns by giving his foe a christmas tree. Really good stuff. And I saved the best for last. Heading home for the holidays, Clark takes Jonn with him since otherwise he’d be stuck at the watchtower and batman was apparnetly “Begging” for duty. Granted one wonders what his surrogate dad and adopted sons think but odds are alfred would just drag them up there anyway no mater how much Dick protested. And of course Alfred has watchtower clearance, he’s alfred: he’s the only one besides Diana looking out for bruce.. and no I don’t buy the bullshit from the batman beyond comics that never happened. And Clark too, this is true... but it takes a village to get bruce to go the fuck to sleep and most of that villiage is alfred. And if your wondering “wait won’t he be in danger”... the only thing that can kill this man is apparently bane. He’s survivied earthquakes, poisonings, turning into a supervillian via radaition induced crazies, yes really, apparently dying leading to the supervillian thing, being stabbed, being shot at, having to help raise damien... my point is the guy’s been through a lot in comics, I doubt the dcau version is any less resilent and god damn I miss this old man. Salute alfred, salute. Where was I oh yeah, Clark insists on taking John home. And it’s stuff like this why I freaking love superman. Many dismiss him as corny, unrelaistic or boring.. all untrue. Sure he’s a boyscout, but he’s meant ot resprsent the best in mankind, what we can truly be powers or no, what we can achieve and the kind of moral, kind person we can be. He’s an inspiration for us all. And this kind of act is what shows that: his response to one of his friends having nowhere to go on christmas and not having been around the holiday? Take him to his house to share in the warmth and love. And Clark’s parents here show WHY he’s the hero he is and why I freaking love them in all flavors.. except Zack Snyder flavor and even then tha’ts only for Pa “Letting people die is the right thing to do now i’m going to throw myself into a tornado to prove that” kent. But it’s christmas so i’m not here to bitch about zack snyder and if you want that in full, you can pay for it. My point is they show, as they should how he became the moral paragon he is: they meet a man from mars, who they’ve never met and their son just invited.. and welcmoe him without a thought. While this isnt’ their first alien obviously, and they say so, it’s still really sweet they just warmly welcome the man in and give him their surrogate daughter/their sons’ biological cousin’s room while sh’es away. Oh Kara’s away conveniently skiing with barbra. Also she lives with them in this continuity. Also maybe that’s where dick is. I dunno, but I hope so. Dickbabs for life.. depending on the continuity. I”m still dick and star for life in the titans cartoon. Point is we get nice of sweet, and hilaroius, holiday stuff: Jonn is suprised to see this side of clark: while he’s always warm and inviting as Clark.. he can also be relaxed, enjoy the holiday and get real spirited. For one day he dosen’t have to be superman. He can just be clark. Evne superman can take a day off.. and he’s superman, he desrves one. Let Bruce and Diana take care of it after they finish marathon sex and Diana finshes with Cheetaah and Maxwell lord. But yeah as I was saying hilarious as we find out clark used to peak and they had to, and still do, line it with lead foil to make sure he can’t peak, and Martha gives John a sweater, saying his company is all they need for a gift and when it’s a bit big he charmingly grows into it. Jonn also walks among the humans a bit and we get a great little bit of him sneaking down a chimney after hearing the thorughts of a girl whose worried santa isn’t real. It’s just all great stuff that cumilates in Jonn joyfully singing a song in his native tounge while stroking Kara’s cat Streaky.. who sadly does not have a cape or super powers in this universe. Yet. Just a really good superhero story, a damn fine christmas story and one of the best episodes of a stellar show that thankfully is still remembered in this new age of heroes.

1. It’s Christmas You Dorks (Harvey Beaks) Yup not probably a lot of people’s first choice but fuck it. I’ve loved this one since i saw it a few years ago shorlty after the series ended, having grown far behind and caught up just as it was ending... and regretted it as Harvey Beaks is easily one of my faviorite shows from the wall to wall hit parade that was the 2010′s. It’s charming, hilaroius, heartfelt, and creative.. and really weird if not as weird as CH Greenblaht’s previous show chowder.. but still weird enough.Thankfully Big City Greens is carying the banner for this kind of show, as is Craig of the Creek, so the kind of gentle, slice of life stuff hasn’t gone away, but this show was still it’s own thing and i’m sad it’s gone. But while it was here it was spectacular and this is one of the best of em if not the best. And naturally for a show like this it has a neat approach: The episode is dialouge free, only having some singing in the last act and that’s diagetic, the characters singing a christmas song. We’ll get to that. This isn’t the FIRST silent christmas special i’ve seen, Courage the Cowardly dog did it’s own take on the nutcracker, but it’s still the best. And given Courage the Cowardly Dog is one of my faviorite shows, that’s high praise. Each segment is charming, unique, and well done.

As for what each are: The wraparound is a gorgeously animated bit of stop motion or something like it where the spirit of winter goes around and turns fall to winter or helps the kid with winter fun. It’s a bunch of really adorable stuff. The first proper one is the kids having a snowball fight when a bunch of asshole adults interupt, and hte kids end up getting even by hiding in some snowmen. Again just some really fun, really well done stuff. But the first one that really makes it follows Technobear, local wannabe ladies man in training who has a crush on Harvey’s mom and fantasies about giving her some lovely read shoes and skating with her. His hopes are dashed when instead her daughter michelle, the horrifing baby child pictured above, takes them instead. But not only is it heartwarming to see the stone faced future rule of the world crack a smile, Techno instnatly realizes whats’ improtant and takes the bby ice skating. The next segment is just some goofy googus with the squirrels, the local crooks who are also squirreels, but it’s still pretty good. We then get Jeremy trying to be santa which is both funny but genuinely heartwarming and finally the best bit as Dade, local killjoy, gets annoyed at everyone singing a popular new christmas song instead of the old standard he likes and being a dick about it before softening a bit when Harvey genuinely offers him camradere. It’s just.. good stuff that’s hard to put into words, and given putting it into words is my thing, it really speaks to just hwo good this special is. it just, makes me feel nice, and really gets the spirit of the holiday in all it’s forms. It’s gorgeously aniamted, well paced, and never stops being entertaining and that’s why it’s both my faviorite and why every year.. i’ll be coming back to little bark. And if nothing else.. it’ll keep this warm, great show alive in my heart. So with that I end this list. If you didn’t like it tha’ts fine, this is my opinon. But I wanted to share my faviorites with you and hope you’ll check them out this or next chirstmas. Until we meet again... Merry Christmas to all,and to all a good night.

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defensefilms · 3 years

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Defense Films Names His Top 5 Favorite Rappers

In All It’s Infinite Glory And Magnanimity, Defense Gives You His Top 5 Favorite Rappers.

5. 50 Cent

To this day, when you need a playlist for a MMA class and the group is hella diverse, you’re not really sure which way to go with it, pop in that 50. Can’t go wrong with Get Rich Or Die Trying (the original), or even that G-Unit Beg For Mercy.

That run from late 2002-2005/06 was unlike anything you’ll ever see again. That was a perfect situation where there was organic support from fans and there were people at a business level, mainly 50, that knew how to turn it into the wave that it became and industry has been trying to replicate this ever since.

While most people remember is the numerous scandals, beefs and controversies of that time but it was the music that moved the audience. For all the ways 50 Cent’s success mirrors ruthless American capitalism, his debut album is low key one of the most inspiring albums you’ll ever listen to.

It’s a foxhole mentality on wax. It’s me-versus-you type thinking. It’s someone has to lose and I’ll be damned. It’s who ever has to get hit, is gonna get hit.

See the first time I listened to it, it was about “In Da Club”, “Wanksta”, you know the more palatable records that got on radio and all that but the more I listened the more I realized, it was actually built on the backs of songs like “Patiently Waiting”, “Many Men”, “Back Down”, “Don’t Push Me” and “Gotta Make It To Heaven”. On one side it’s as motivational as you can think of but it’s not the wacky kind of naivé motivational talk because it’s willing to get it’s hands dirty and go in to much grittier ideas.

Like his predecessors, 50 pulls off the trick of balancing easy-to-listen-to records on a foundation of graphic and aggressive songs.

Recommended Songs: Maybe We Crazy, When It Rains It Pours

4. Jedi Mind Tricks

I’ll give you props if you know who these man are but they are legends. Point blank. Violent By Design will forever rank as one of the great group albums in hip-hop history. Vinny Paz, Jus Allah and producer/DJ Stoupe The Enemy of Mankind, gave hip-hop a shockwave they weren’t ready for, especially back in 1999.

Hip-hop as a business wasn’t ready to market a group, whose themes were rooted in topics like government control, military warfare, covert control tactics, religion and psychological warfare. To have all that in one bundle wasn’t something that big time A&R’s were ready for.

Had they started this group in 2010, they would have walked in to a business landscape that was far more suitable to who they were as an act and as MC’s.

Even with that JMT still enjoyed a lot of notoriety and they definitely succeeded in establishing their following, despite the odds.

While Violent By Design may serve as the magnum opus of their body of work, their run really starts in 1997 with the Psycho-Social, Biological & Electro-Magnetic Manipulation Of Human Kind.

Yes guy, that’s an album title. You gotta think now, I was in high school the first time I heard this and I was very into conspiracy theories and nonsense, so this album hit me right between the eyes. The idea that someone could use the medium of hip-hop in this way was crazy and the album would have been more than 10 years old when I first heard it.

No, the hip-hop historians among us will argue that Wu-Tang were a better and more influential group and I’d tend to agree, I can also bust back and say, “these dudes took Wu-Tang’s formula and gave it a whole different edge.”

I’ll break it to you like this, Wu-Tang gave the world swordsmanship and the first projectile weapons like bow and arrows, spears and the likes. Jedi Mind Tricks gave the world gun powder, advanced modern explosives and semi-automatics. You see what I mean?

Recommended Songs: Untitled, Retaliation Remix

3. Jay-Z

No top rappers list is complete without my man. The only reason he ain’t higher is because, I rate a rapper more highly if they’re in the prime of their musical abilities. If this were an all-time list he’d be way way higher.

Beginning with Reasonable Doubt is really the only place to start when it comes to Jay. The production, the skits, the way every sentence was so tightly wound together, the word selection and sentence construction. It’s remembered as an album of hits because of tracks like “Cant Knock The Hustle”, ”Feelin It” and “Brooklyn’s Finest” but Reasonable Doubt was really defined by “Dead Presidents”, “D’evils”, “Politics As Usual” and “Can I Live”.

The first batch of songs gave the album some relatability, as far as depicting club vibes and nightlife glamour because that second batch of songs were all built on darker themes like betrayal, jealousy, greed, blind ambition and deception. That combination of themes as well as the production to match each one is why that album will always rank high among a certain listenership.

With that being said, never make the mistake of thinking Jay or any man is perfect. There’s like a 3 album run where there’s moments of dope-ness but not a truly complete album.

Still with that, songs like “Imaginary Player” and “Where I’m From” will rank among his best songs.

It’s only when you get to The Blueprint can you start to see Jay perfecting the art of crafting, whole, complete albums that bump from start to finish. The Blueprint was near perfection in this regard. “U Don’t Know”, “Heart Of The City” and “Momma Loves Me” will rank as his best efforts and yeah, I skipped a few.

The Black Album replicated the Blueprint’s listenability, while also dealing in topics that created an album that sounded very personal to Jay.

All told, the best parts of his catalogue are so strong that there is no denying his place on my list.

Recommended Songs: Dead Presidents, I Love The Dough

2. Action Bronson

I cannot for the life of me fathom how this man doesn’t get the love but the real ones know.

The mixtape download era (2010-2017 give or take), had many unlikely success stories. An overweight white guy, who grew up cooking in his parents deli/eatery, turned pro-chef then turned rapper, is beyond unlikely. Only the internet could allow this man to succeed and thank the hip-hop gods it did.

From 2012 to about 2018, Action was one of the only constants in my playlist. I still remember where I was the first time I heard “Brunch”. His catalogue starting with the Tommy Mas produced, Dr Lecter and boasting full collaborations albums along side Statik Selektah and the Alchemist, and of course the classic Blue Chips series. This man’s prime will be underrated.

If you’re going to take one chapter of Bronson’s art and study it, it’s going to be Blue Chips 1 and 2. Both are thematically perfect without ever trying to be. Which is what allowed Party Supplies to make production choices that grabbed you from the jump. From the first time you hit play on the opening of Blue Chips 1, you’re hit with the sound of falling shards of glass and a violin sound that makes the opening song un-skippable. The songs themes are also a perfect introduction to the man himself. Debauchery, expensive taste, hedonism, revelry, unabashed pleasure-seeking, drug use and just enough self-depreciation that you felt you were along for the ride rather than just a fly on the wall, turning your nose in disgust. It was a perfect mixtape, at a time when mixtapes were at a crazy dumb high standard.

It’s not so much that a rapper made punchlines about food, that would be an over-simplification and really missing the trick. It’s that he made everything he said sound like the dopest thing ever and the most underrated trick about his music is that he made grown man rap without needing to be thuggin’. A rare feat.

Bronson has since gone on to establish himself as a content creator/producer/food review guy but man, what he accomplished as a complete body of work is nothing short of astonishing.

Recommended Songs: Midget Cough, Bonzai

1. Headie One

So it’s late last year. I’m hanging with my boy Phil and Brown, we had just finished some content and Phil says “yo listen to this”. He proceeds to play Golden Boot and it hasn’t stopped bumping since.

A UK rapper with a lyrical nous and wit that rivals even legends like Jay-Z, but rapping over trap and drill beats. What Headie One is doing is not the norm and I’m talking in terms of his lyrics, sentence construction, word selection, metaphors, he does it all and like all the greats, he makes it look easy.

His collaboration with RV definitely helped mold him, with both the “Sticks and Stones” and “Drillers and Trappers” mixtapes giving you an idea of what Headie offers as a lyricist. He compliments RV’s brash, aggressive boasts with slightly less obvious but incredibly witty boasts of his own.

His discography though really starts to peak with 2018′s “The One”. That’s where Headie begins find a sweet spot between his lyrics, production and the themes of his songs. A mixtape like this can only exist via independent release because outside of the aforementioned “Golden Boot”, ain’t none of those songs getting any radio play especially in a country as “conservative” as England. Even in a genre saturated with gangsta/trap, “The One” stands out for what he accomplishes lyrically.

Headie would follow that by releasing “The One Two” in June of 2018 and he ascends even more in what he’s able to accomplish with the words.

The track “Banter On Me” should be in an all-time list somewhere for being the wittiest track of all time. The song is literally just Headie finding new and innovative ways to boast, call out and bait his foes. Hip-hop/Rap has plenty of beef songs that weren’t really direct call outs to any known public figure but were still definitely taking shots at someone. 50 cent’s “Wanksta” and “Officer Down” are some examples of such songs I can think of. Those did not really have the kind of wit Headie displays here. The constant streams of alliterations, double meanings, puns, metaphors, inferences and innuendos is just astonishing. There’s a real mastery of language at play here. The song is a lesson in language, no textbooks.

Headie has since released his debut album along with additional tracks for the delux version of the album. His debut studio release “Edna” does what studio releases are supposed to do. “Parle-Vouz Anglais” and “Aint It Different” will standout and are difinitely the most palatable songs as far as radio play. Those are the 2 songs I’d play for first time listeners.

Recommended Songs: Hard To Believe, Dues, Zodiac

#music #hip-hop #rap #50 cent #jedi mind tricks #jay z #action bronson #headie #headie one

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ground-todo · 4 years

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how kaminari would react to you stealing his hoodie — headcanon

PAIRING — kaminari denki x gn!reader

GENRE — fluff, crack

You were bored

Kaminari wasn’t around to help you beat your boredom because he went to the gym with Bakugou and Kirishima

And so that’s why you were left alone in your room, scrolling through tiktok

By the time you even got bored of the app, you decided to take a shower and just film a tiktok video or something

You weren’t that famous on tiktok, possibly a few thousand followers and a few videos that were mostly done out of boredom

But your boyfriend Denki, he is what you would call tiktok famous

He mostly does povs or skits that are usually crack, sometimes he would do dance challenges with you and some transitions

It was unfortunate that you would be making a tiktok without the king of the app himself but you have no other choice.

And so you went to shower first, wanting to look and feel fresh as well as to have an excuse for changing clothes.

When you got out of the shower and looked through your closet for something to change into, you saw a hoodie that was definetly not yours on the desk beside your closet.

It was Kaminari’s hoodie. Although you don’t know when and how it got there

Without a second thought, you put on the hoodie and some shorts,

The hoodie fitting you well, just slightly larger than you had expected, but all in all, you look cute!!

And now you were now ready to film a tiktok video!

You decided to do a dance challenge and have already went through ten times because you keep forgetting the steps or because it was lagging

You were determined to get it done this time so you put on your game face and stared filming

Midway through your filming you heard the door open and a exhausted sigh that you know was your boyfriend’s

You weren’t sure if you were going to continue filming or not, but you decided to continue because it took a lot of effort and this time it was almost perfect

Kaminari on the other hand who have closed the door behind him and saw you dancing infront of your phone was quite shocked

It was the first he he saw you filming from behind the scenes and he couldn’t even process how lucky he is to have you as a partner

And he knows well enough than to disturb filming so he just leans on the door behind him and takes in the sight of you dancing—

Wait is that his hoodie?

When realization hit him that you were wearing his clothes, he felt so happy and bubbly and all in all flustered seeing how you look so goon in it.

Kaminari was practically annoyed when he couldn’t find his hoodie earlier but now he wasn’t because how could he even get mad at you when you look cute in them?!?!

So after you finally finished filming and put your tripod and ringlight (that you and Kaminari share) away and quickly posting the video you just finished filming, not once did you glance at Kaminari because you felt embarrassed that he had to see you film in his hoodie, your boyfriend trapped you in his arms with a hug

He says after pulling away and then looks at you with a smirk, his arms crossed over his chest as he takes in the sight of you in his clothes “So you’re the hoodie thief.”

You were more embarrassed now, trying to cover your face with your hands “I-I’m sorry Denki!! I found it on my desk and just thought I could borrow it just to film one video and—“

Kaminari cuts you off with a kiss, smiling at how flustered he had gotten you

“You look cute in it, Y/N”

You were almost as red as a tomato by now making him laugh, you punched his chest before turning away to hide your burning face

“I should drop of my clothes here more often, no scratch that! I could give you all of my clothes—“

“Denki no, if you do that you won’t even have clothes for yourself!”

“But if I do that you could always be cuter and everyone would know you’re mine” (insert pikachu pout)

“With you always kissing me in public I think everyone knows I’m yours by now.”

“Hmm.. you’re right, I guess what’s left is to let you know that I love you behind closed doors!!”

You two have a cuddle session afterwards, with Denki occasionally teasing you

“You know babe, you’re such a theif.”

“I’m sorry for stealing your hoodie okay?? I won’t steal them again without your permission from now on.”

“You know what else you have been stealing?”

“Huh?”

“My heart” Denki winks playfully and you punch his chest lightly, blushing at his pick-up line

A/N — I am guilty for stealing hoodies. But because I’m single I steal my friends’ hoodies and I haven’t even given them back yet HAHA anyways, requests are OPEN! see ya in the next post!

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bitletsanddrabbles · 4 years

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Theater vs. Books

One thing that has routinely shocked me in the Downton Abbey fandom is how little people seem to know about how TV works, particularly when compared to written fiction.

Examined logically, this should probably not be surprising. I’ve been involved off and on in school plays, church plays, acting camps, etc. for as long as I can remember. I actually went into university on an acting ticket, only to switch when I realized I’d get ulcers if I tried to make a living at it. Between writing classes and Dad going “Honey! The Vacation Bible School skit scripts are terrible again this year! Can you fix them?” I have way more scripting know how than I realize, not to mention directing since I then directed all the skits. I took a few combined study classes in college that involved film and, of course, my BA is creative writing, which does not make me the be all and end all of writing knowledge (there are people who haven’t taken a writing class in their lives who can out write me), but does mean that I have more idea what the different parts of a story are and how they fit together than someone who just took high school English.

However, one of my personal neurosis is that I know the education system I went through is substandard and that I am bad at research, therefore I expect the entire world to know more than I do. From a logical stand point this is rubbish, but try telling my psyche that when someone talks about how bad an actor is and then holds up a badly directed piece with a lousy script. (Guy in high school who insisted Nicole Kidman couldn’t act because Batman Forever, I am so looking at you.)

I mean, really. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve done or how much I know. If I am the only person on the planet who did not, at age five, win an academy award for my first screen play, which I also produced, directed, and starred it, everyone else should know more than me.

Don’t think I can’t see that trophy you’re hiding behind your back.

So for the sake of spreading awareness of what education I do have and helping my neurotic little mind cope with the reality that I’m not the least education person on earth, I’d like to make a few points on theater - both stage and film - versus the written word.

- Theater is an incredibly limited art form. Unlike prose where your narrator can spend pages taking you deep into a character’s psyche, most theater is restricted to communicating entirely thorough what can be seen and said in dialogue or monologue. Some theatrical pieces do use a narrator, but a lot of disadvantages to this in an acted piece (it creates pacing issues, people find it off putting, etc.), so it’s not common. Now, since people perceive emotions differently based on their personal experience, getting an entire audience on board with a nuanced performance is basically impossible. Take sarcastic characters, for example. In a book, you can say that a character made a sarcastic joke that wasn’t meant to be malicious, but that people got offended anyway. Different people will read it different ways - some people will insist it was malicious despite the explicit statement it wasn’t, etc. - but the story has told you the impression you’re intended to get. In theater, your actor has to be sarcastic, the other actors react poorly, and even if you write in, “I was only joking, geeze”, it’s up to the audience to decide whether that was true or not.

So no matter how good your actors, directors, and writers are, it will always be tricky to nail down the intended authorial intent of any one scene or character.

- Theater requires a large budget. Writing does not. Seriously, these days technology is all about multitasking. It’s pretty much gotten to the point that you can buy a toaster and write a story on it. The most expensive books to write I know of are the early Harry Potter novels because JKR wrote in notebooks with pens. Oh yeah, and she bought coffee to drink while she did it. Now, you can argue that computers still cost a fair amount of money, but they’re pretty much a one time expenditure (unless you insist on upgrading or you break it or something basically not-inherent to computer owning).

Every time an actor walks on a stage or screen, they earn money. Every time a character changes clothes, that costs money. Every time there’s a scene (mostly stage) or location (mostly film) change, that costs money. Every time something catches fire, that costs money. Every rehearsal costs money. Theater is one, big shopping list.

- Theater has time limits. Books do not. One of the things in the budget for a theatrical production is space for that production to be seen. It’s a stage or a park or a movie theater or TV air time. All of that costs money and how much you can buy depends not only on how much money you have, but how much time the owners of the theater, park, TV station, etc. are willing to give you.

This means unlike book editors and publishers who can look at a work so stinking long no one would pay for it or want to hold it up long enough to read and go “Sorry, Mr. Tolkien, but we’re going to have to break this into three parts,” the people writing scripts need to try and meet a strict time limit - not shorter, not longer - and if they go over, the editors have to actually take stuff out.

The closest thing writing really has to this is things like drabble challenges where you have to tell a story in an exact number of words. When these first hit Live Journal they were popular because they were a challenge. When they started losing favor, it was because 90% of the time you wound up sacrificing good writing for word count.

Theater, thankfully, is generally a bit more forgiving, but still. Telling a segment of story in a one hour time slot - or a full story in two hours - is not a walk in the park.

- Theater is not a one pony show. There are so many times I have seen people criticize an actor or director or script writer for something that is blatantly not their fault (see above), that I can’t even begin to count them. Theater is a group effort. If someone blows their lines, it’s not the script writer’s fault. If a director insists that an actor ham it up, that is not a reflection of the actor’s skills. There are times when directors actively screw up the action and the script writer doesn’t get a chance to fix it. An example of this is Downton Abbey, season two, where Anna and Ethel were supposed to be fluffing the couch cushions - the part you sit on - by dropping them. This was filmed as them dropping the throw pillows, which made no sense, and by the time Julian Fellows got to see the rushes, there wasn’t time (or money) to redo the scene. So we’re stuck with two maids who apparently don’t know how to fluff pillows and, if you do know how to fluff pillows and have not read the scripts with authors commentary, an audience who assumes that the writer was the person who got it wrong.

- In theater, especially film, mistakes are forever. This is more or less true in traditionally published writing as well, but it’s amendable. If an author makes a typo or gets off in their timeline or forgets where Dr. Watson’s war wound was in the last story, it’s set in stone for the already printed edition, but can, if the author so chooses, be corrected in later printings. Similarly, in stage theater a gaffed line is gaffed and there’s no un-gaffing it, but you can get it right in the next show.

An error in film is set in stone until someone decides to do a remake.

- In no institutionalized story telling medium is the audience comprised of one person. Unless someone is telling you a bedtime story, the story is not meant to cater solely to you. In fanfiction, which is amateur by definition, you can appeal to as niche a group as you like. In professional story telling, you need to appeal to as broad an audience as possible if you want to be successful. In theater, with it’s time constraints, this means every time spent on one plot line is time that can’t be spent on another plot line. In order to please the fans of character A, you have to take story time away from the fans of character B and vice versa. It’s a balancing act where you try to please everyone, and pleasing everyone is impossible. And everyone I’ve seen say “We really didn’t see enough of (x) in this show! We were robbed!” has a plot (y) that “served no purpose” that could have been sacrificed for their satisfaction, but guess what? Someone loved plot (y), wanted to see more of it, and thinks (x) could have been cut out to make that happen. The reason the creator gave us a little bit of both instead of a lot of one and nothing of the other is not because the don’t care about the fans of (x) or (y), but because they care equally about both of them.

They have to.

It’s their job.

#theater #film #writing #books #how things work

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kaistarus · 5 years

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Clickbait(YouTuberAU)--Chapter7

Pairings: kiribaku, tododeku

Words: 5,006

Summary: A lot of great things came with being a big name YouTuber, but along with those perks were some serious drawbacks. One of the biggest being your lack of personal privacy.

Due to just one video, Kirishima's least well-kept secret has become a viral sensation, and now he has to deal with the repercussions from both the YouTube community and the public. Hopefully, those he's dragging down with him won't mind...

Notes: I love these idiots so much:) this chapter made my soul happy lmao

Ready the whole thing here

Kirishima tapped his foot repeatedly against his bedroom’s carpeted floor while aggressively brushing his teeth. All his laundry was haphazardly strewn across his room in hopes of making an outfit decision easier. But in actuality, it left him staring at a zebra-striped tank top for twenty minutes confused why he owned it in the first place. The only progress made had been kicking his winter apparel into the far corner of his room to be dealt with who knew when and increasing his dental hygiene to a level his mom would finally be proud of. In other words, nothing that benefitted his date with Bakugou.

Kirishima groaned exaggeratedly and left to find the others in the main area of the house. He had wanted to at least try getting ready on his own, but reluctantly accepted he was too out of practice. And Bakugou was no baby step back into the dating scene, so he couldn’t afford any embarrassing mistakes.

Mina sat comfortably at the kitchen island, swinging her feet and leaning heavily on the granite countertop while watching her laptop screen. She paid no attention to the scene behind her of Kaminari struggling to decorate a Christmas tree while Sero stood next to him with the camcorder, filming his efforts with an entertained smirked. Kirishima took one glance at Kaminari tangled in colored Christmas lights and decided it wasn’t worth asking.

“I need help,” Kirishima said through a mouthful of mint toothpaste. Mina gave him a disgusted look and Kirishima rolled his eyes, going to the kitchen’s sink to spit and rinse out his mouth before continuing, “help me.”

“Pre-date panic?”

“He’s been panicking since last night,” Sero said, angling the camera in their direction. “He did three loads of laundry this morning.”

“I didn’t have anything to wear.”

“I didn’t know you went through three loads of outfits on one date,” Kaminari said, throwing the string of lights onto the ground once released from their constriction. “I must have a different definition of hiking.”

Kirishima glowered at Kaminari. “What are you even doing?”

“Setting up for a skit?” Kaminari said. He popped open one of several cardboard boxes marked ‘don’t open till x-mas’ and started pulling out cases of ornaments. “Some of us are lonely and still have jobs to do.”

“But our Christmas tree?”

“It will probably be fine.”

Kirishima wanted to argue, but he knew it could be worse. He would never recover from the morning Kaminari filled the living room walls with borderline sexual fanart of himself. It was a whole otherworldly type of pain— he actually felt his eyes burn and his mind start rotting. Just thinking about it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Are you almost done? We still need to get supplies for my video.” Mina turned to Kirishima with a mischievous smile. “I’m giving me and Kaminari beards. I saw it in a dream, so I must make it a reality.”

“If someone helped me it would go a lot faster.”

Sero just waved the camcorder at him as his excuse. Kirishima and Mina both shrugged in response.

“I could do a lot of things, but that’s not one of them,” Mina said. She flipped her laptop closed and gave Kirishima an elevator glance. “Alright, first we need to change your outfit.” She said, pointing to his pajama shirt. “Then we need to get food in you because I know you’ve been starving yourself from nerves.”

“Obviously, we have to change my shirt. That was my whole issue.” He said, ignoring her latter comment. She raised a dainty eyebrow to show that it didn’t go unnoticed which sucked. If he threw up during the date that was on her.

“C’mon,” Mina hopped off the stool and gestured towards his bedroom. “You have much to learn in so little time.”

“Five hours is little time?”

She shot him a teasing look over her shoulder. “So much to learn.”

He trailed after her and was surprised at how quickly she went to work once they were in his room. She kicked items off to the side, picking up various shirts to hold up to his chest before tossing them over her shoulder without a care for where they landed and continued the process without letting Kirishima in on the system. He didn’t bother asking and let her take control of the situation. He was too busy stressing about the cocky smirk that wandered into his mind whenever he stopped actively distracting himself.

Out of nowhere, Mina chucked a long-sleeve at his face. He peeled off the red shirt and held it at a distance to discover it was his favorite Crimson Riot shirt he’d bought in college. “This?”

“It’s the most authentically you shirt I could find,” Mina said. She kicked more clothes around the floor before mumbling, “now pants.”

Kirishima was taken back. He guessed the point of dating was authenticity. He tightened his fist around the cotton fabric and focused on the faded logo across the center. He wondered how long it would take Bakugou after truly knowing him to realize that Kirishima wasn’t worth his time.

A pair of athletic shorts slapped him in the face, and he ripped them off. “Mina!”

“Stop being self-deprecating and help me find socks.” She raised her eyebrows at him challengingly. Kirishima sighed. He sunk down to the floor to rummage around the mess of clothes they’d created, attempting to remember where the sock pile had originally formed. A few feet away Mina pulled out a pair excitedly from under a few sweatshirts and waved them in the air.

Kirishima chuckled at Mina’s antics. He could do this. He just had to remember that even if everything went wrong and Bakugou completely hated him, he would still have this. Mina would still come over every day doing things like putting fake beards on them, Kaminari would still be putting Christmas trees up nowhere near the holidays, and Sero would still be encouraging the chaos and recording their memories. He just had to try and remember that he would still have his friends no matter how today turned out.

He threw a shirt at Mina after expertly blocking her own clothing toss and they began a full-on war. He laughed while burying her with piles of his now questionably clean laundry.

Yeah, he thought. He’d be okay.

~*~*~*~

He changed his mind. He was absolutely not going to be okay.

Kirishima tugged at his athletic shorts nervously. He hadn’t been able to settle since he’d seated himself in the passenger side of Mina’s car and the squirming only got worse the closer they got to Brush Canyon Trails. It had been easier for him to push back the reality of his situation until Mina had started the engine and it hit him full force that he was actually going on a date with Katsuki Bakugou.

He was going to throw up the toaster waffles Mina shoved down his throat.

“This is a bad idea,” Kirishima said, adjusting a white bandana over his spiked hair. “We should turn around.”

“Eijirou. You would never forgive yourself if you stood that boy up.” Mina said, making a sharp right turn. Kirishima’s stomach sunk as the dusty trails came closer to view. She was right, of course, living with that regret would be infinitely worse than anything Bakugou could throw at him. Kirishima let out a pathetic whine and sunk deeper into the leather seat.

Mina whipped into the entrance of the trails and parked somewhere that probably wasn’t legal. Kirishima let his eyes skim over the people mulling around the popular park’s entryway. Brush Canyon trails were the best hiking paths in LA, having various levels of difficulty winding through the brush and what greenery the mountain could provide; however, the view of the city and Hollywood sign also made it a popular tourist attraction. A family of five unloaded too many supplies from their van for Kirishima to believe they were locals, a girl in workout apparel stretched her legs while her German Shepard laid beside her bored, and a pair of teenage boys in too little clothing for the chilly weather checked over their cameras. When he first came to LA he felt awkward recording in public, but now he didn’t even think twice when there were vloggers on every street corner.

Among them he spotted Bakugou, sitting casually on a flattened rock and scrolling on his phone. He was dressed perfect for overcast weather—sweatshirt, athletic pants, nothing fancy—but Kirishima’s heart still skyrocketed when his mind registered who he was staring at. Part of him thought Bakugou wouldn’t show up.

Fuck. This was actually happening, wasn’t it?

“Do you think he’s been waiting a while? Should we have left earlier?”

“Ei, we are ten minutes early. You are more than fine.” Mina clapped her hands together and met his eyes with excitement. “Are you ready?”

He wasn’t. He’d spent all night imagining every possible scenario, and still seeing Bakugou actually sitting there sent his nerves in a frenzy. “I don’t know if I can do this Mina.”

“You can.” Mina grabbed his hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Ei, you are the greatest human I know. You might not believe it in here,” she poked his forehead, “but you are way out of that boy’s league.”

Kirishima nodded halfheartedly. He looked back at Bakugou and tensed when they made direct eye contact. Kirishima gave a small wave through the window and received a finger gun in response. Mina started snickering as Bakugou looked at his hand confused before quickly hiding it behind his back and changing his gaze to his sneakers.

“You’ll be fine. If anything goes wrong just text me and I’ll be here.” Mina said while nudging him out. Kirishima took a deep breath once completely out of the car waving goodbye to Mina as she pulled out of her parking spot. Kirishima was officially on his own. He could do this.

“Hey,” Kirishima called out and he willed his heart to calm down. He hadn’t even been here a full minute and if it kept that up he’d pass out halfway through their date.

Bakugou nodded in acknowledgment but had his eyes locked on Mina’s retreating car. “You could’ve told me you needed a ride.”

“Oh, I mean… Mina was on her way to get beards and hair-dye anyway. So, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Bakugou cocked his head to the side, mulling the statement over. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.”

“Perfect,” Bakugou stood and slung a USC drawstring that had been resting beside the rock onto his back. Kirishima thought it was pretty extra to bring a whole bag for a water bottle but didn’t want to insult him this early on. Bakugou gestured towards one of the trails and Kirishima gladly let Bakugou take the lead for their hike. “So, is there a fucking method to your guys’ madness or what?”

Kirishima scrunched his nose as he thought. “Maybe? I just try to make it fun.” Kirishima kicked a large rock that lay in his path. “Last week I turned our swimming pool into a ball pit just because I could.”

“You’re something else,” Bakugou said with a thoughtful expression.

“Thank you!” Kirishima chose to take that as a compliment, following it with, “so, are you all packed for New Orleans?”

“I know the routine. I’ll pack my shit when I get home.”

Kirishima found it interesting how easily Bakugou moved through the paths, confidently passing other locals as if he owned these trails. Kirishima had no issues with Bakugou navigating the way, it meant he could take more time to admire the view—both LA and the ash-blonde beside him.

“You’re almost done for this season, right?”

Bakugou nodded. “A few more.”

“What do you do on off-seasons?” Kirishima asked. He never entertained the idea of taking even a week off. In four years of uploading twice a week, Kirishima had only missed once. He uploaded the day after too, so it honestly barely counted.

“Prepare for the next fucking season,” Bakugou side-eyed him. “We might be adding some new shit.”

Kirishima straightened and faced him more properly. “New? Like what?”

Bakugou hesitated. “I’m not supposed to…” He glanced around as if making sure no one was in hearing distance. “It’s kind of my own segment. Not ghost bull shit.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Yeah. I’m actually kind of—”

“Excuse me,” a pair of teens stood in front of them. The taller teen had her long hair held back with a baseball cap and behind her hid the younger boy, barely peeking out around her shoulder. “Are you RedRiot?” The girl asked.

Kirishima’s eyes widened. “Yeah.”

The shorter teen stepped out and his face blossomed into a wide grin. “You’re my favorite YouTuber.” He tugged onto the girl’s t-shirt. “I told you it was him.”

She swatted his hand away. “He watches you every day. It’s kind of annoying having your theme in my head all the time, no offense.”

“None taken.” Kirishima got recognized a decent amount, but no matter how often it happened it never felt real “What’s your name?”

“Damien,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “My favorite vlog was when you painted Chargebolt’s car to look like a giant croc.”

Kirishima smirked proudly and he heard Bakugou snort behind him. That was a great video, and Kaminari only stopped talking to him for three days. Worth it.

“Are you that guy from the ghost hunting channel?” The girl pointed a finger at Bakugou, and he stiffened.

“I’m not a ghost hunter.”

“Whatever. Hey, we have to get going.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Can he get a picture with you?”

Kirishima opened his mouth slightly, but the teen had already saddled up next to him. He had no issues taking pictures with his subscribers—if it wasn’t for them he wouldn’t be living out his dreams. He just felt the situation a little awkward given his current circumstance. The two were quick to scurry off after their photo, waving their goodbyes which Kirishima mirrored. He found Bakugou smirking at him amused rather than annoyed.

“Does that happen a lot?” Bakugou asked, continuing the hike as easy as they’d stopped.

“Uh, more often lately.” Kirishima adjusted his bandana uncomfortably. “I would give anything to meet every single person that watches my channel but…” Kirishima wrinkled his nose as he searched for words. “Sometimes I wish I could go out without being recognized.” He waved his hands frantically. “That sounds ungrateful. I love them and I didn’t mean—"

“No,” Bakugou quirked his lips into a small smile. “It’s not selfish to want to feel normal sometimes.”

Kirishima sighed in relief. He enjoyed seeing this side of Bakugou—soft and relaxed. The Bakugou that didn’t have a crease between his brow or a sneer to his lips. Of course, every version of Bakugou was fantastic, but this one felt uniquely special. Like it was reserved for specific moments and people and Kirishima got to be one of them.

“That’s why I don’t have any verified social media,” Bakugou added smugly. “I don’t have to constantly put on an act for subscribers.”

A record scratch sounded in Kirishima’s mind. “Verified what?”

“Social media?” Bakugou rolled his eyes. “You honestly thought that I could be in this dumb ass community and not have some sort of social media account.”

“I guess not… Can I have it?”

“No.”

Kirishima’s jaw went slack. “You can’t do that.”

“Who says?” Bakugou smirked challengingly and Kirishima cursed every god that made him so fucking attractive because it made it really hard arguing with him.

“Me.” Kirishima crossed his arms. “I at least want a hint.”

“I follow you.”

Kirishima whined. He had millions of followers on Twitter, so that was the most garbage hint Bakugou could possibly give him. “That’s not fair.”

“Not my fault you’re mister hotshot YouTuber.” Bakugou snorted. The grin he wore told Kirishima he was having too much fun with this. “Another mile up there’s a resting spot. We should stop there.”

Kirishima grunted in agreeance. “Fine. But just so you know. I can only assume you’re Twitter is a fan account dedicated to me, and that’s why you won’t let me see it.” Bakugou’s cheeks tinted red and Kirishima perked up. “Holy shit. Is it?”

“What the fuck? No. Fuck off.”

“I don’t know. That blush is pretty telling. You can just admit it. This is a safe place Bakugou. No one will judge—”

Bakugou shoved his hand in Kirishima’s face and he laughed as he was half-heartedly pushed a few steps back. Bakugou jogged ahead to get away from Kirishima’s teasing but paused after a good distance. Kirishima felt a pleasing flutter pass through his gut when Bakugou glanced back at him uncertainly as if worried Kirishima had actually taken offense or something. He sent him the most reassuring smile he could and hurried to catch up to Bakugou’s side, and once he reached him the pleasant feeling lingered. Kirishima felt it the entire hike upward as they bantered over nonsensical topics, and that warmth lasted long after they reached the clearing Bakugou had mentioned.

The resting point was on a ledge that overlooked Los Angeles. There were several wooden benches near the metal fence blocking people from accidentally stumbling over the rocky mountainside. Kirishima ran straight over to the rusty railing while Bakugou hung back to use one of the water stations—fountains heightened for both people and pets. No matter how many times Kirishima saw Los Angeles he felt like he was seeing it for the first time. There would be a new graffiti painted somewhere he’d been thousands of times or a new store popped up out of nowhere. The people changed the city as fast as they came.

He felt pride that he could call this place his home.

“It’s amazing, huh?” Kirishima said wistfully when he heard Bakugou approaching.

Bakugou leaned against the railing beside him and shrugged. “It’s alright. The mountains are cool. Ocean’s close.”

“We’re so lucky.” Kirishima’s grip on the metal tightened. “If I could tell middle school me that I’d end up here. He’d lose his shit.”

“Middle school me would be pissed,” Bakugou said humorously. Kirishima raised an eyebrow at the surprise response but Bakugou waved it off. “I was an asshole kid. This wasn’t really my game plan.”

“Game plan?”

“Good grades. College. Job.” Bakugou shrugged his bag off his shoulder and wandered to the cleanest bench. “It took a lot of convincing to get me out of that mindset.”

“What changed your mind?”

Bakugou eyed him carefully and hesitated before saying, “someone said some shit that resonated with me, I guess.”

“Well, they must be pretty awesome if they were able to do all that.” Kirishima plopped down beside Bakugou and watched him dig around in the drawstring bag. He was impatient to see what Bakugou had been carrying around the whole time.

“He’s okay.”

Bakugou pulled out two plastic containers—one red and one orange—and handed the red box to Kirishima. He took it with a confused half-smile and gently popped the lid off, hyperaware of Bakugou’s watchful gaze. Kirishima’s jaw dropped at the rows of onigiri inside.

“Did you make these?” Kirishima asked. They looked nicer than anything he’d ordered from any take-out restaurant.

“So, what if I did?” Bakugou asked. He scrunched his nose and took a large bite of the snack in his own container, avoiding Kirishima’s fond smile.

Kirishima’s chest felt overwhelmingly full at the implications of Bakugou spending time making these for him. He took a moment to just sit with that feeling before carefully biting into his treat and slowly savoring its taste. Unsurprisingly Bakugou was perfect at everything he did. He stole a glance back at Bakugou, and his now calm expression while he picked at his food.

Bakugou looked, for lack of a better word, beautiful being haloed by the slowly setting sun. His hair was a soft peach from the sun’s orange hues and his tanned skin practically glowed. For the first time, Kirishima was able to appreciate his barely visible freckles dotting the bridge of his nose and the fullness of his eyelashes. He could try to hide it behind scowls all he wanted, but Bakugou was a pretty boy through and through. Bakugou leaned against the bench at ease, yet still, his presence dominated the space around them. Kirishima felt honored knowing he was granted access to this private view.

“What are you looking at?”

Kirishima reeled himself back to reality. He met Bakugou’s red-tinted eyes filled with confusion. Kirishima’s brain lagged too many steps behind his mouth when, without permission, he blurted out. “You.” Kirishima followed up with a quick apology when Bakugou went slack jaw.

“It’s fucking whatever,” Bakugou said. Kirishima started berating himself for ruining what could have been a perfect first date when Bakugou continued, “this is going well, right?”

“What?”

“Like the thing that we’re,” Bakugou gestured between the two of them. Kirishima’s eyebrows shot up when he understood.

“The date?” Kirishima asked. Bakugou nodded his head a few times. “I’m having a good time… are you… having a good time?”

“It’s pretty above average.”

“Then, yeah. I’d say it’s going well.” Kirishima grinned dopily as he shoved another bite of onigiri in his mouth, swinging his legs beneath him. He caught Bakugou grinning in his peripheral and his heart soared.

Yeah. This was going great.

It didn’t take them long to finish the rest of their food and begin their descent down the mountain. Once they noticed the sun had begun setting, they agreed it was best to head back since the park closed at dusk. Kirishima was reluctant for their time together to end but was having an easy time distracting himself with Bakugou’s current state.

“So obviously I just wanted to go home, but fucking Deku decided that it would be a genius idea to just hop the fence when we hadn’t gotten legal permission to be on the fucking premises.” Bakugou threw his hands in the air. Kirishima’d learned quickly that Bakugou played up a bad boy image, but was actually a goodie two shoes, “and Todoroki comes in like the lovestruck dipshit he is and boosts him over. No one is listening to me, like always, and now Deku has a broken leg and is stuck on illegal grounds. And we’re all fucked. And I had to fix it.”

“Dude, what the hell.” Kirishima tried containing his laughter to speak. “You should record this stuff. Do behind the scenes or something.”

“I just said it was all illegal, were you even listening?” Bakugou nudged him with his shoulder and Kirishima chuckled, pushing back. He thought back to the mention of Bakugou’s roommate and wondered if that was a bad date conversation.

“Hey, speaking of Todoroki…” Kirishima drummed his thighs uncertainly before deciding, fuck it. “Why does he hate me?”

Bakugou’s pace slowed and his face contorted. “He doesn’t hate you, he just... hates change?” Bakugou frowned to himself. “It’s not my place to talk about things, but his family was kinda fucked.” Bakugou turned to him and shrugged. “He acted the same around Deku at first if that helps.”

It didn’t. Kirishima was left with more questions than answers but felt like it was an inappropriate time to delve into the topic. For now, Kirishima could work with the idea that Todoroki would one day warm up to him like he did Midoriya.

Except without the lovey-dovey part obviously.

Their walk down the mountain was much faster than the hike upward, and they reached Bakugou’s car faster than Kirishima wanted. For how nervous he had been he was even more disappointed that their time together would be ending. He reached for his phone to begin texting Mina that he would need to get picked up soon.

“I’ll give you a ride home,” Bakugou said. He unlocked his older-looking car from a distance and didn’t bother waiting for Kirishima’s response.

“Are you sure?” Kirishima stumbled over his words. “I can just text Mina and—”

“Don’t be stupid I can drive you home.”

Kirishima’s heart had never leaped so high at being called stupid. The door creaked when Kirishima opened it and his first thought was how insanely clean the interior of the car was. Compared to the fast-food wrappers that littered Kaminari’s dashboard and the empty Starbucks cups that filled Mina’s flooring, Kirishima forgot what the interior of a car even looked like. He was able to step in without throwing items in the backseat and it was an enlightening experience for him.

He realized once they were confined, he had miscalculated how different that would feel compared to the spaciousness hiking provided. Kirishima became hyperaware of everything: Bakugou’s breathing, the rhythm of fingers tapping against the steering wheel, his squirming in the seat as he drove, and every time he reached for the radio the hairs on Kirishima’s arms rose. The air had shifted to something not quite awkward, but not comfortable enough that Kirishima didn’t feel like he shouldn’t be trying to break the silence somehow. Especially since they were already halfway to his house without speaking.

“So, that was fun,” Kirishima said. “I mean, I had fun. Did you… have fun?”

Bakugou raised a confused eyebrow and, not taking his eyes off the road, nodded his head. Kirishima gave him a thumbs up. “Awesome!”

He quickly tucked his hand to his hip and looked at himself angrily in the window’s reflection. He did not just give Bakugou a thumbs up… what the hell was that? He should have just let them drive in silence. Kirishima wanted to smack his forehead against the window but controlled himself to stop from looking even more like an idiot.

Minutes later Bakugou pulled into Kirishima’s driveway, and they glanced at each other awkwardly.

“So…” Bakugou started, his tapping on the wheel increasing. “We should do that again then?”

Relief spread through Kirishima and he nodded in agreeance. An uncontrollable grin spreading across his face.

“Cool.” Bakugou bit his lip and looked anywhere that wasn’t Kirishima. “I’m not really great at this shit, but I feel like we… I don’t know… vibed?” He ran an anxious hand through his hair. “Shit. That sounded dumb, but you know what I meant. I don’t hate spending time with you? That sucked too, I don’t know how to—stop looking at me like that.”

Kirishima’s heart felt overwhelmingly full against his chest and he gazed softly at Bakugou. He couldn’t push down the fond smile resting softly on his lips if he wanted to. “Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know… like you fucking—”

“Like I like you?” Kirishima asked. He didn’t bother fighting off the stupid side of his brain from running rampant. Not when Bakugou was blushing a soft red and pushing his lips to pout like that. “I’m not sure I can Bakugou.”

“That’s so fucking lame.” Bakugou countered.

“Probably, but you’re the one asking me on a second date so what does that say about—”

“Can I kiss you?”

Kirishima froze. Bakugou’s cheeks and tips of his ears could now rival Kirishima’s hair and from his deer-in-headlights look, he was about as surprised as Kirishima from the question that popped out of him. “Fuck. Sorry, I shouldn’t have—that was weird. Just pretend I didn’t—”

Kirishima cupped Bakugou’s cheek tenderly and Bakugou snapped his mouth shut. Kirishima tried not to overthink what he was about to do, losing himself in the specks of red in Bakugou’s gaze now filled with something akin to hope, stirring a fire in the pit of his stomach. Bakugou’s eyes flickered downward to Kirishima’s lips and he moved without thinking, pulling Bakugou the final distance.

He’d admit the kiss itself wasn’t great, they hadn’t exactly hit their mark on the first go and even with his hand guiding Bakugou they managed to bump noses, but the moment was perfect. Kirishima felt consumed by the firewood scent he would forever connect to Bakugou. Bakugou’s hand clutched tightly against the fabric of his shirt and gave it a whole new reason for being his favorite apparel. And when he felt Bakugou start to smile against his lips, Kirishima knew that if he could remain in this moment for the rest of his life he would. Pulling away from Bakugou was one of the hardest decisions he’d ever made.

They rested their foreheads together for a brief second like there was a magnetic pull that made it too difficult to separate immediately before Bakugou leaned away. Kirishima whined internally at the space between them.

“So,” Bakugou said, a genuine smile creating dimples on his cheeks and filling Kirishima with pride. “I get to see you again then?”

“I’d like that, yeah.”

Bakugou nodded.

Kirishima stepped out of that car with disappointment at having to say goodbye and giddiness that he’d see him again both swimming around his stomach. He waved goodbye as Bakugou drove away with a dopey grin plastered onto his face that would remain well into the next day. Kirishima took a deep breath, placed his hands on his cheeks and smushed them together as he giggled to himself.

He had gone on a date with Bakugou. He would be going on more dates with Bakugou. He had kissed Bakugou.

He would get to kiss Bakugou more.

Kirishima smushed his cheeks harder as the thoughts swirled around his mind. He closed his eyes to better feel the cold nip at his exposed skin, the wind flow through his hair, and his heart threaten to burst from his chest. He wanted to memorize these feelings. To truly live in this moment.

This was rare for him. He never wanted to let it go.

#kiribaku #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #bakusquad #bnha #bnha au #clickbait #youtuber au #boku no hero academia #kirisquad #i love these idiots so much #you aint even ready for this shit #<3

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usualsuspectsfinalproject · 4 years

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The Usual Suspects (1995) Final Project

COM 323: Films of the 1990s

Introductory Video

The Usual Suspects (1995) Trailer

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Production

The first inkling of The Usual Suspects film came to director Bryan Singer as he read an article in the magazine known simply as Spy. It was a passage regarding the famous 1942 film Casablanca in which the character of Louis Renault says that they need to, “round up the usual suspects.”

With a title now in mind, Singer and his screenplay writer Christopher McQuarrie could get to work. The screenplay for The Usual Suspects took McQuarrie around five months to create. He had used elements of one of his previous, not published works to forge the story. McQuarrie combined several real-world elements into the film’s screenplay including the true crime story of John List who killed his entire family then took on a new identity for some 20 years until he was caught. According to an article from The Guardian, “A lot of the inspiration for Keyser Söze, the villain, came from the character of Yuri in the 1980s thriller No Way Out – a spy within the Pentagon who may or may not exist.” The name “Keyser Söze” is based on one of McQuarrie’s previous coworker’s name, Kayser Sume. When trying to adjust Sume’s surname, McQuarrie used a friend’s Turkish dictionary to discover the word “söze,” which means “talks too much,” which, in hindsight, is hinted at through Roger Kint’s nickname “Verbal” and his self-admission of being talkative. The name origin also potentially explains why Söze is described as "supposedly” Turkish. Similarly, characters mention that Keyser Söze‘s father might be German. His first name Keyser seems to be a reference to the German word “Kaiser” which means “Emperor.”

Once the screenplay had been completed to Singer and McQuarrie’s liking, they began to show it to studios, hoping to find an interested party. However, that turned out to be much harder than anticipated. Despite the excellent writing by McQuarrie, the vacancy of the cast and non-linear storytelling elements scared off most studios. The film’s rough start is described in “Usual Suspects, Unusual Devices,” by Martin Barker and Thomas Austin. The journal article reads, “It almost didn’t get made. Its director Bryan Singer and writer McQuarrie tried 130 film financiers before finally cutting a deal with two European sources. Even then, the deal almost fell apart just days before filming was due to start, when one backer withdrew. Finally, a recut of the distribution and video rights brought in combined finance from Polygram and Spelling International.” So, they finally found some hope in Europe with the PolyGram film company, though the actors were going to have to be paid significantly less than their usual fees. The actors which they cast were okay with the lower pay, however, as they wanted the opportunity to not only work with Singer’s direction and McQuarrie’s script but also the other actors involved. In fact, in 1993, Kevin Spacey had met Bryan Singer and told him that he wanted to act in Singer’s next production.

The Main Cast - “The Lineup”

When the film began production, the budget was set at five and a half million dollars. Perhaps due to funding or other factors, there were only three shooting locations for the entire film. These were the cities of Los Angeles, New York City and San Pedro, CA. The film was shot in only 35 days, which is quite short compared to other films. Although it would seem the most prominent issue for the film would be the lack of financial backing, it turned out to be the actors themselves. Director Bryan Singer could not keep his main five actors in character, especially when they were all together like the famous “lineup” scene. Several scenes would take much longer than expected to film due to the actors being unable to stay in character because they would laugh with one another. In the final take of this scene, the characters are seen giggling, this is partially purposeful to show their camaraderie but much of it was the actor’s genuine laughter, particularly during Fenster’s delivery of the line.

The Usual Suspects (1995) “Lineup” Scene

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Another less humorous issue that plagued the shoots was the size of filming locations. They had to film in many confined areas which made the job of cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel all the more interesting. In order to combat this issue of space, he used creative zoom tactics and dolly movements to simulate motion which made the space feel larger. The film wrapped shooting two weeks prior to its estimated date. However, one day Singer had a feeling that the mystery of Keyser Söze was unfinished. He felt that the film needed to convince the audience that Dean Keaton was Söze to up the ante of the twist ending. From this revelation came one of the film’s most crucial and shocking scenes. The sequence is the one at the very end, where Kujan stares at the board whilst past dialogue looms in the background as he pieces together the mystery. I have attached the video clip below:

The Usual Suspects (1995) Ending Scene

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Marketing

The advertising campaign for The Usual Suspects started off with an unusual issue. The studio executives were worried that audiences would not know how to pronounce “Keyser Söze.” So, they thought a good way to combat this was to create posters and television advertisements which read, “Who is Keyser Söze?”

Though, many people still mispronounced it despite their efforts. The film itself initially aired at the now famous Cannes Film Festival in 1995. Here, it was met with a good reception from both critics and fans. Before it could get its full theatrical debut, it was shown in select screenings in Los Angeles and New York City, two of its filming locations and general movie hotspots. After these showings, it was aired in many theaters around the country and grossed around $23 million, which shattered its small budget numbers.

Reception

Despite successful monetary gains from the film, the critical reception after its full release was less than ideal. Overall, most critics felt the film was either predictable, confusing or only created to give its cast Oscar nominations. Famous film critic for the Chicago-Sun Times, Roger Ebert, gave the film a terrible one and a half stars, writing, “The story builds up to a blinding revelation, which shifts the nature of all that has gone before, and the surprise filled me not with delight but with the feeling that the writer, Christopher McQuarrie, and the director, Bryan Singer, would have been better off unraveling their carefully knit sleeve of fiction and just telling us a story about their characters – those that are real, in any event. I prefer to be amazed by motivation, not manipulation.” Other critics gave it similar ratings like USA Today’s two and a half stars. Though there were some outliers at the time, like reviewers for The Independent and The New York Times who gave it positive reviews. One of these reviews was from Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, who wrote, “Dense with plot intricacies, thick with atmosphere, and packed with showy roles for a hip ensemble, The Usual Suspects is fun to watch — a celebration of cool actors having a good time playing sweaty and devious lowlifes.” However, her opinion seemed to be in the minority.

Fast forwarding to today’s view, the film seems to have had a shift in opinion. The three most popular film reviewing sites, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic gave it an 8.5, 89% and a 77, respectively. Notably, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a whopping 96%. Clearly, there has been a change of thought towards the 1995 film over the years. Today, the film is included on many lists of “top” films. Some of these lists include top movies of the 1990s, top crime dramas and even best films of all time. Many even cite this film as a “classic” or a “must watch” which is a sign of remarkably high praise. Some of the more well-known lists it has made were curated by the American Film Institute and the Writers Guild of America. Not to mention, the film has won numerous awards, even back in the 1990s. Some of the most notable awards being McQuarrie’s wins for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs and the Independent Spirit Awards. Along with Kevin Spacey’s win for Best Supporting Actor also at the Academy Awards among many others for the cast and crew alike. So, even if the critics did not seem too keen on the film back in ’95, there still were many who supported it enough for them to score such high accolades.

Since the film’s release in 1995, it has found its way into different areas of popular culture through references, homages and other nods to the film. In fact, there was even an official remake in Hindi called Chocolate in 2005. But looking beyond this remake, acknowledgements to the film can be seen all over from a monologue by Stephen Colbert to Family Guy cutaways to Key & Peele skits and perhaps most famously in Scary Movie (2000).

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Many of these come in the form of citing famous lines from the film or re-hashing crucial scenes such as Kujan’s piecing together Verbal’s fabrications or Verbal’s shift from limping to walking normally. Along with loving references to the film, there has been a bit of controversy as well. Actor Gabriel Byrne, who played Dean Keaton, claimed that the film’s production was temporarily halted due to Kevin Spacey’s inappropriate behavior on set. Byrne stated for The Sunday Times, “I mean, he was kind of a joke in that people would say, ‘That’s Kevin,’ but nobody really understood the depth of his predations. It was only years later that we began to understand that [filming] was closed down for a particular reason and that was because of inappropriate sexual behavior by Spacey.” Director Bryan Singer has since spoken out about Byrne’s claims. He denied the allegations against Spacey.

The Neo-Noir Genre

The neo-noir genre is defined by Mark Conrad in his work The Philosophy of Neo-noir as, “...any film coming after the classic noir period that contains the noir themes and sensibility.” The genre is a revitalization of the classic film noir, hence the prefix “neo” which means “new.” These films aim to capture a similar essence to the past noir crime films. They maintain similar characteristics in their writing style, cinematographic choices and essential themes. Some of these themes include crime, mystery, twists, paranoia, vengeance and deception. The way in which neo-noir differs from classic noir is seen through its use of updated technology and tackling of more modern societal problems. These films are also defined by the way in which they approach character. In classic noir, the motivations of the criminal or the detective were typically clear. But in neo-noir there is often a blurred sense of the world, where the character’s motivations are unknown or misunderstood and there is no clear division of good and evil as well as reality and fiction.

The way in which The Usual Suspect’s plot unfolds and its conflicts are battled perfectly fits the neo-noir outline. Writer J.P Devine describes the film in an article for Central Maine’s website as, “...a game of chess, a masterpiece full of fake clues, twists and turns that flows from light to shadow and back again. ‘The Usual Suspects,’ as most filmmakers know, rests somewhere near the top of the list of the greatest film noir thriller-capers of all time.” First and most obviously, the baseline of the entire film: crime, criminals and police. These three elements defined the classic noir genre at its core and have continued to define the neo-noir predecessor. Next, the film is based around one central mystery who is “Keyser Söze?” Neo-noir cinema most commonly revolves around questions or figures like these who the viewer and the characters will spend most of the film trying to pinpoint their identity. As the viewer watches Kujan stare at the board after Verbal has left the interrogation, both the character and the audience begin to piece together the fabrication of Verbal. As Verbal is seen shifting from limp to upright walk it all falls into place as the real Söze drives off uninhibited. This moment is exemplifying two examples of neo-noir cinematic patterns, the twist and deception. Verbal has fooled everybody, the viewer included. He has fabricated the perfect story to lead everyone off his trail and onto Keaton’s, who is confirmed dead, which means Söze would be too. As Stanley Orr explains in his, “Postmodernism, ‘Noir’, and ‘The Usual Suspects,” “Throughout the course of the film, Verbal installs himself on the periphery as mere documenter, ‘alone returned to tell the tale.’ Seemingly innocuous, Verbal diverts suspicion by focalizing upon Keyser Soze and Dean Keaton. In the last moments of the film, Verbal leaves Rabin's office under a new aspect: his ‘hand flexes with all the grace and coordination of a sculptor's’ (McQuarrie 120).” He has convinced everybody that he – the talkative, limp-footed “Verbal,” does exist while simultaneously convincing that the mysterious, all-seeing crime boss, Keyser Söze, does not, just like the devil.

Along with the plot and structure of the film fitting the neo-noir genre, so do the characters themselves. In the journal article, “Rounding up ‘The Usual Suspects’: The Comforts of Character and Neo-Noir” by J.P. Telotte, the author notes, “The Usual Suspects offers an especially telling illustration in this regard, particularly of the impact of character in the neo-noir. It is a film that begins with a mystery and almost literally invites its viewers to play at guessing that mystery, at ferreting out the clues to its narrative and anticipating its twist ending. Moreover, that mystery depends totally on the film's conception and our own orchestrated and convention-driven misconception-of character, a set of reactions that pointedly flies in the face of our anticipation of narrative conservatism and undercuts one sort of pleasure or comfort we have come to expect from our films.” As explained previously, Keyser Söze is a brilliantly written character along with his Jekyll and Hyde-esque counter-part Roger “Verbal” Kint. Both of their motivations seem unclear for most of the film until the twist is revealed. Once they are established as the same character, many of the the motivations for Söze fall into place such as his paranoia that the man on the boat was going to expose him. Hence why he sent the criminals on a wild chase for some non-existent drugs on the ship. He wanted that man to be dealt with without the “lineup” knowing exactly why.

Also, the conflict between good and evil can be seen through both Söze and Keaton. Keaton’s struggle is more obvious and active throughout the film. He wants to escape the life of crime and live a morally and legally “good” life with his girlfriend, however, he finds it difficult to fully separate. Over and over he tries but he keeps being pulled right back. He cannot create true division between the good and the evil within himself. Similarly, after Verbal is revealed as Keyser Söze, this conflict comes over the audience. Initially, one feels themselves almost inclined to tip their cap to Verbal for his performance. Despite knowing the crimes he has committed, the viewer cannot fully write off Söze, he tows the line between likeable and truly evil in the minds of the viewer. The way in which the audience finds turmoil in supporting or disdaining his character is comparable to how readers feel about Satan in John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. Something draws the audience into these characters despite or perhaps because of their wicked ways. In “Usual Suspects, Unusual Devices,” Martin Barker and Thomas Austin explain that, “The Usual Suspects rewards its viewers with the pleasures of unpacking its cleverness, and at the same time it rewards us by enabling us to demonstrate (to ourselves, to film-going friends) our cleverness in deciphering its deceits. It rewards with frissons of delighted shock the terror of a conspiratorial view of the Underworld: an attractive/dangerous stock of appalling characters. It rewards us if we are willing to play with the notion that authority is a mixture of inept and corrupt – but that corruption may be as nothing in the face of an awesome corruption so demonic that the petty authorities who think they run things are just self-deceivers.” His character is the encapsulation of the neo-noir genre’s blurring and bending of right and wrong, of good and evil, of reality and fiction. He lives his life miles ahead of those who wish to unravel his mystery. By the time anyone can wrap their head around his deceit, it is too late because, in devilish fashion, like that... he’s gone.

Works Cited

Derschowitz, Jessica. “What Critics Thought of 'The Usual Suspects' When It Came out 20 Years Ago.” EW.com, 16 Aug. 2015, ew.com/article/2015/08/16/usual-suspects-20th-anniversary-reviews/.

Telotte, J. P. “Rounding up ‘The Usual Suspects’: The Comforts of Character and Neo-Noir.”Film Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 4, 1998, pp. 12–20. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1213240. Accessed 28 June 2020.

Ebert, Roger. “Ebert's Most Hated: Roger Ebert: Roger Ebert.” Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert, www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/eberts-most-hated.

Ebert, Roger. “The Usual Suspects Movie Review (1995): Roger Ebert.” Movie Review (1995) | Roger Ebert, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-usual-suspects-1995.

Gelly, Christophe. “The Usual Suspects or the Potency of Falsity.” Mise Au Point. Cahiers De L'association Française Des Enseignants Et Chercheurs En Cinéma Et Audiovisuel, Association Française Des Enseignants Et Chercheurs En Cinéma Et Audiovisuel, 1 Apr. 2014, journals.openedition.org/map/1646?lang=en.

Hoad, Phil. How We Made The Usual Suspects. 4 Jan. 2016, www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jan/04/how-we-made-the-usual-suspects-bryan-singer-gabriel-byrne

Schwarzbaum, Lisa. “The Usual Suspects.” EW.com, 25 Aug. 1995, ew.com/article/1995/08/25/usual-suspects/.

Sharf, Zack. “'The Usual Suspects' Reportedly Stopped Filming Due to Kevin Spacey's 'Sexually Inappropriate Behavior’.” IndieWire, IndieWire, 5 Dec. 2017, www.indiewire.com/2017/12/usual-suspects-kevin-spacey-sexual-misconduct-bryan-singer-1201904039/.

Travers, Peter. “The Usual Suspects.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 25 June 2018, www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-usual-suspects-93781/.

“The Usual Suspects (1995).” Rotten Tomatoes, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/usual_suspects.

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monkey-network · 6 years

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Good Stuff’s Best of 2018

WARNING: I just want to say cheers to you for making it through another year. I send you best wishes for next year to be fruitful. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

Dedicated to Stan Lee, Stefán Karl and Stephen Hillenburg, the number ones of children entertainment

Bow Whacka Wow, playas and players. 2018 gave us quite a lot to consume while society continues to fumble like a Tumblr update. While hopefully the chaos has died down for the final weeks of the year, I’m counting down the best cartoons/animations I’ve seen and loved this year in no particular order. Only two rules, no sneak previews of future projects (sorry 101 Dalmatian Street and MP100) and no potential entries from last year’s list (sorry True). With that said, roll it....

10. UNIKITTY!

I love the Lego Movie. I’ll potentially like the sequel. I like Unikitty. She got a show, and it was a great show to start off the year. Upbeat, colorful, off the walls sometimes, perfectly capturing the spirit of the eponymous character. I’m glad the other characters are just as enjoyable, I never get tired of the theme song, every episode had me smilin’ one way or another, it’s just a quality bottle of positivity juice. Don’t know how else to explain it, Unikitty, the show and character, just makes and continues to make me smile.

9. POP TEA-- SIKE!

This anime ain’t nothing but unfunny randomness and skits with a forgetful arc in the first and final episode. I don’t get it, never gonna get it, so I don’t want to get it! MORE LIKE POOP TEAM EPIC, ‘nuff said. Which is why the actual number nine is....

9. BOB EPIC TEAM

Honestly, there is something endearing about the way Bob Epic Team presents itself. The simplicity and variety of its animation is remarkably good and makes it feel timeless sometimes. The comedy works in a way that gives you a clear grasp on the two characters while letting them do whatever they want. The surrealism of this is fun to think about, showcasing a hedonistic philosophy that rivals that of Epicurus. The duo’s chemistry is what especially got me, as they felt like the best of friends, potentially love birds *wink wink*. This anime was just creative in every sense of the word and, like Unikitty, it was a great anime to start of the year.

8. CRAIG OF THE CREEK

The ska is RAH. I honestly find this to be the loose spiritual successor to Hey Arnold and Recess. Like the playground, the creek is a well fleshed out setting with the many characters that hang there, from the TAZ trio to the loving witches of the creek. Though I will say the best episodes are when we get insight on the main three’s personal lives with their families and when the characters themselves go through a personal trial to understand themselves a little better. The shows thrives in the theme that the creek is a place where you can enjoy getting your hands dirty and work towards something you want, even if it doesn’t add to any concrete long term benefit beyond learning a thing or two about yourself and others. And I say for somebody that relates to Craig as a character, that’s a welcoming thought that the show has yet to perish. And the ska is a welcome choice of music, IMO.

7. THE EPIC TALES OF CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS

It’s funny in how a little over a year of getting a movie, Captain Underpants gets an animated series with not only original stories in lieu of just animating the already printed stories, but puts it all in a format similar to reading a book with a sardonic narrator and separating the plot of the episode into chapters with subtitle cards; one of the first I’ve seen do this. But really, a “Captain Underpants cartoon” is something I can’t say would turn out bad, and I’m right as this is a show that revels in what made CU great in the first place. George, Harold, Melvin, and Mr. Krupp/Captain Underpants are all great characters with the additional supporting cast providing welcome life to the world. Every Incredible Violence Chapter is brilliant in their own right, and while I wasn’t a fan of the ending they had for the season, it’s great that almost every episode is self-contained, boosting its replay value. Honestly, any compliment I have for this was already said in my review of this and the movie, so I’ll just say this too was faithful to its source material and benefited heavily for it.

6. GARY AND HIS DEMONS

Rick and Morty done better. BOOM, send tweet! It is safe to say that this was quite the sleeper hit and I can’t help but say it’s lowkey one of the best adult cartoons this year next to Ballmastrz and Final Space. And while I certainly appreciate the other two *hint hint* this one got a step above on the grounds that it works as a comedy and a solemn tale of a chosen hero that stumbles through years in the office life. It’s improv humor feels natural and it can be as melancholic as Bojack Horseman without making it all too deep like so; has a great balance of both. Main man Gary, unlike Rick for the most part, is a guy that’s both reasonably reprehensible yet pretty relatable. Not to mention, while it was bittersweet, it had a very satisfying finale to where I feel like this was a complete series all together. With a rough art style that compliments it’s tone, this was a series that surprised me in its sharp quality.

5. APPLE & ONION

I’ll admit. Initially wasn’t a fan of it as it felt like a knock-off to Regular Show (may it rest). Just had a duo of bros living together, doing mundane labor while coming up with impromptu tunes along the way. Then again, I was gladly proven wrong because the charm of it generally being a simple show, even with every person being food, somehow more regular than Regular Show. Every song they make is upbeat and catchy, all of the characters are endearing, and with only 10 episodes, each one was well paced and had quality writing to the point where I teared up a couple times. It stinks that this and Summer Camp Island have generally been receiving the shaft this year after their premieres, but I'm just glad that they haven’t been truly forgotten by CN and are getting more episodes next year. Plus, I love food and this show is about food. Debate over.

4. LEGEND OF THE THREE CABALLEROS

I was familiar yet never saw The Three Caballeros, ironic since Donald is one of my favorite Disney characters. But then, out of the blue, I found this and I was stunned, amazed, confused, nonetheless invested. It has a bumpy start, but it’s a joyous adventure from that start to end. The look of it is something I’ve rarely seen in animation since... freakin’ Wakfu. I love Xandra and I was glad to see her be an active player on the team. The villains are such a hammy delight. And Jose and Panchito were very lively and entertaining foils to Donald’s cynic nature while all three work as well together like the 3 stooges. Donald himself gets a great arc of his own throughout the season. And the theme, HO MY GOD I LOVE THIS THEME! It’s a damn shame Disney hasn’t released this already (since it’s all online already) because this series is much better than it has any right to be.

3. GOLDEN WIND/VENTO AUREO

I say, the beauty of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is that regardless of what part you start from, you’re enthralled into its world and ya feel compelled to dig into it more. Parts 3 was what got me into Jojo, like most I bet, but it was part 5 that got me “Oh yeah, this series [just] works on more than level”. The characters are what keep me hooked, regardless of Crunchyroll refusing to give their stands proper English names [Zipper Man, CR?], Fighting Gold and Freak ‘n You will never get old, and David Productions putting great effort into the small details and giving life and style to the original manga. I’ll just say, as one who’s read and loved the manga, this anime has not ceased to keep me impressed and guessing for more.

2. INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

Funking superb, you afro having web-slinger. I hate to say it, but 2018 didn’t have the most impressive line-up of western animated features. Most were average, entertaining sure, but nothing felt like 110% was given. Until Spidah-Man came on the scene and I was like “WIG...

The only major problem I have with this film, besides a bit of slow pacing, is more of a missed opportunity where the stakes of getting the Spidermen back to their dimensions before dying felt like an afterthought. Then again, that’s ALL I have for problems. It looks fantastic. The action is smooth, coherent, and satisfying to see. The tiny details and comic book aesthetic of it was a blessed touch. I loved almost every character here. Nick Cage and John Mulaney. The fact that it has so much yet was able to juggle it all blew my mind. Even the post credits scene made this such a love letter to the wall-crawler. This film was refreshing to say the least and the central theme behind the idea of Spider-Man made this as great of a superhero movie as Infinity War and Lego Batman. Just saying, this better make its budget back and THEN SOME. It deserves it.

1. HILDA

Netflix, we’re not on good terms mind you, but ya done did it again. This is honestly one of the few shows that I genuinely took my time with as opposed to binging it, because binge watching is a devil in itself. Like the Spider-verse movie, it got the style of its source material down to cozy colored T with its autumn color palette and etched lining in the characters. Like the Captain Underpants series, while having a grounded arc of Hilda journeying through the city life and her colliding wildlife, each episode can be generally be enjoyed on their own. Like Gary and His Demons, it felt like a complete season and the fact it’s getting a season two made things all the better. But above all, it was a generally peaceful yet captivating fantasy cartoon to watch with incredible animation, an endearing main character, amazing looking folk creatures of all sizes and powers, and a cuddly deerfox for a pet. I say this is to the fall what Harvey Beaks was to the spring, and if I can compare a show to Harvey Beaks you know you’ve achieved greatness. Like True and the Rainbow Kingdom, gives you a moment of honest bliss and happiness that can influence your outlook on looking forward to better things because like Hilda herself, you push forward and have some fun exploring.

Just saying, I cannot stress this enough this is NOT my number one favorite show of the year, hell of all time. THAT goes to....

1. 👏TEEN 👏TITANS 👏GO, BABEEEEEEY!!

ONCE AGAIN, Teen Titans GO reigns supre-- Huh, what’s that? Oh my god, you’re serious?! The Number One is

TOTAL DRAMARAMA OUT OF NOWHERE! IT IS NOW CARTOON NETWORK’S ‘NEW FAVORITE SHOW’.

THE STREAK *DING DING DING* IS OVER

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timegal25 · 5 years

Text

The Odd Side of Youtube

YouTube, the popular video sharing website, has been around for over a decade. It’s had it’s over abundance of videos themed around Fortnite, “emotional apology videos” stuffed to the brim with ad revenue, a disturbingly high number of poorly animated nursery rhymes, and surprisingly graphic skits targeted at kids. But it’s also been an outlet for creative expression and connection for those outside the mainstream. For a socially awkward and isolated kid who found companionship in watching YouTube, fandom videos offered a sense of connection, belonging and reassurance that there were “odd people” out there who shared his interests and passions.

While the vast majority of people know about things like “Gangnam Style” and “Let’s Plays,” not as many can say they have extensive knowledge of the various niche fandom videos that make up a good portion of the website itself. These are the odd clips that either you only come across by looking up directly, or have randomly pop up in your recommended feed with no real reason as to why. In my case, I remember a majority of these from watching them when I was younger, and then rediscovering them when looking deep into the site on late night nostalgia binges. It’s a common hobby of mine, and it usually leads to me finding some of the strangest things as a result. Oddly, a great many of these strange finds just so happen to include Sonic the Hedgehog.

Let me preface this by saying what follows is in no way an attack on any of the creators of these videos, nor is it a call for others to go out and harass them. In fact, that’s part of the point. Many of the people who create some of the more odd or innovative content on YouTube are doing it as creative expression of who they are or what interests them. It’s a place to express a part of themselves, and it takes courage to do it. It’s easy for those who aren’t so brave to attack the creators. I actually enjoy a lot of the content I’ll be referring to because the people behind it are genuine and clearly having a ton of fun making it. This is all done in good fun, and shows just how strange and odd fandom culture as a whole can be. And for some of these innovators who dared to put themselves out there, it paid off big time just by how fondly remembered they are by those who talk about them. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin.

Part One: Hedgehogs and Dragon Balls

To start things off, let’s look at a project that is fully animated. Before YouTube, there was the popular website Newgrounds, a place where you could watch videos, play games, and just mess around. This is where a lot of influential and important creators got their start by posting their little animations on the site. On August 14, 2006, user Chakra-X (real name Aaron Cowdery), posted the first part in a three-part movie called Sonic: Nazo Unleashed with part two coming a week later and part three following in 2007. All three parts were later uploaded all into one HD remaster under the title of Sonic: Nazo Unleashed DX on YouTube in 2014. The film follows Sonic and his friends as they take on the mysterious and powerful Nazo, an unused form of Sonic from a promotional video for the anime Sonic X.

Now what makes this special from say the dozens of Sonic themed fanfics that follow a somewhat similar premise? Chakra-X did something no one had dared to do before. The animation was very heavily inspired by the anime megahit Dragon Ball Z and its then airing sequel Dragon Ball GT . The sound effects used and the presentation of special moves were ripped right from the series and even parts from the climax are just ideas presented in the show such as two characters fusing to make one new powerful being. In 2006, it was unheard of to see Sonic characters perform such high speed anime action. What was even more notable is that it was created by one single guy on the internet. The professionally produced Sonic X TV show that was airing at that time paled by comparison, even with a team of professional animators with high tech equipment.

In the decade since Nazo Unleashed originally came out, Chakra-X has been a part of various animated collabs and now works for Titmouse Inc , an animation company that has done work for companies like Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even Disney. What was even more inspiring for me, Chakra-X is a young black man . This was the first I’d become aware of anyone who looked like me being a much sought after animator. It told me that I could be him, I could be in his position if I put in as much effort and love into a creative project. And with how amazing the upcoming sequel he’s working on looks, I feel that kind of hopeful inspiration even more.

The next piece I’m going to examine is another well known series in the Sonic fandom community that also is heavily influenced by Dragon Ball Z. While it is also animated and is full of high speed action packed fights, this one has its own amazing identity. The series I’m talking about is the always spectacular Super Mario Bros. Z by Mark Haynes, aka Alvin Earthworm, starting in 2006 and going until 2009. While this series was originally created on Newgrounds, it’s real exposure and popularity came from being uploaded to YouTube.

The series follows Mario, Sonic and friends as they go on an epic race against time to secure the powerful chaos emeralds from the clutches of the evil Mecha Sonic. Much like Nazo Unleashed, the influence of Dragon Ball Z series is anything but subtle, with the plot of “good guys need to find powerful objects before bad guys” being one of the key ways to describe Dragon Ball as a whole. One of the key things that makes this stand out on its own is the fact that this entire series is animated using sprites from the games. Just about every character that wasn’t made specifically for the series has their models taken right from their games. Mario and Luigi for example come from the Mario and Luigi role playing game (rpg) series on the Gameboy Advance (GBA), while the Sonic and Shadow sprites come from Sonic Battle also on the GBA. An extra step is taken by having the characters act like they do in their retrospective series. Mario and Luigi never actually use dialogue boxes in their games, with other characters still understanding them. The same is true here with the brothers’ words never actually being seen on screen. Going that extra step to emulate the games made the videos feel more authentic.

I was relatively young and new to the internet when Super Mario Brothers Z (SMBZ) started popping up. I wasn’t fully aware of what sprite animations were, as they weren’t as easy to make or common back then as they are now, so I would see all the action and Sonic and Mario on screen together and I thought that it was an actual game. I wanted to play it so badly on my Gameboy Advance SP. On one trip to a Gamestop, my young self boldly walked up to the lady working the register and asked “Hey, do you have Super Mario Bros Z ?” She gave me this look that said either she knew exactly what I was talking about or didn’t have a single clue at all and just nicely said that they didn’t. I went on to repeat this at several more gaming stores before I realized that it wasn’t a real game, nor did it ever claim to be. It was then that I started looking for games I wanted myself because sometimes just saying a title out loud can make you look like the strangest person around.

What made the SMBZ series so attractive and so entirely different from anything found on YouTube at the time was the animated action. You might think that since the series is using pre-made assets and models, that there must be some limitations on what can be done. However, with a bit of help from some custom new sprites as well as some fast editing and sound effects, things can get insane . Being able to translate the speed and intensity of a Dragon Ball Z fight is hard enough to copy with regular animation, yet Mark was able to do this with 2 dimensional sprites and flashing lights. And even that pales in comparison to the pure adrenaline of fights concerning the series main antagonist, Mecha-Sonic.

Originally starting off as a mostly side boss in Sonic and Knuckles , Mecha Sonic became a fan favorite thanks to this series. Like any good antagonist, he can easily prove himself as a threat to the heroes while also being able to take the hits himself. This comes across easily in the series most popular episode, Brawl on a Vanishing Island . This 30 minute episode has a variety of characters going up against each other, but the mood quickly turns the second Mecha Sonic arrives and absorbs the power of the Chaos Emeralds. What follows is an absolutely brutal beatdown of another team of antagonists, the Axem Rangers X. The speed, the sound effects, alongside an amazing remix of Sonic and Knuckles’ Doomsday Zone playing in the background, this is a simply amazing bit of animation that can’t really be put into words without it sounding absolutely ridiculous. And much like with Nazo Unleashed, so much of this was done by just one guy.

After episode 8 in 2009, things basically ended on a cliffhanger with the series being presumed over. Haynes had his own life and things to deal with, and something that took up so much time to make could be easily seen as poor use of it. In the years following, many others tried their hand at sprite animations with heavy action scenes with that becoming its very own subgenre on YouTube. Then, in 2016, Mark made a glorious return with the first episode of what was basically a reboot of the series. Fans loved it, amazed to see how far things had come. And then..there was basically nothing else. Originally, Haynes had a Patreon set up so that fans could fund him making this as well as possibly being a way for him to make this his job. It was shut down, most likely due to him directly saying it was going towards the series and Nintendo seeing it as someone else profiting off their IP. With any funding that could go towards rewarding all this time and effort being taken away, as well as Haynes having more important personal things and depression, it is unlikely that we’ll see an update anytime soon. It’s been three years since the first episode went up on YouTube, and while I still hope someday he’ll return, but as someone who knows that forcing yourself to make something others want even if you don’t want to is like, the personal happiness and health of Mark Haynes is so much more important. He’s already left an amazing legacy on the net, and the stuff he’s given us is already great enough as is.

And now to go from flash animation, to sprite animation, we’re reaching the next logical step. Out of all the series discussed in this part, this one is my absolute favorite. And it is one of the weirdest things out there. Another crossover series featuring the world of Mario and Sonic, alongside a few notable others. One that’s full of action and character, and it’s all animated in PowerPoint (no, I’m not kidding), this is Chocobro Cinemas’ The “Dimension” Saga. Strap in, things are gonna get really, really weird.

The series started in 2007, with Dimension Mix-Up as it followed various characters from Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, Frogger, Invader Zim, and Calvin and Hobbes. That was all 100 percent serious, and to the credit of both this and Super Mario Bros Z, there is a feeling of self-awareness running throughout the whole series. I unironically love this entire series from start to finish, mostly just due to the fact that there’s so much creativity and love being put into something that most people would just brush aside as another cheap fanfiction. When I originally found this back in 2007, it was like the most amazing thing ever. The computer I had at the time took forever to not only load flash animations, but even playing them took like 5 years for just a few seconds. I hadn’t really known what Newgrounds was fully back then either, so Super Mario Bros Z also wasn’t something I watched at the time, and I came across this. An action filled adventure that had characters not only from Sonic and Mario, but also Invader Zim which was still super huge at time, and Calvin and Hobbes?! To a megafan of all those things who would actually spend their time on Fanfiction.net reading stories about this stuff (Yes, even Calvin and Hobbes), this was like the holy grail. Also Frogger was there, so...that was cool?

This story should not work, these characters all being together on screen expecting viewers to care for them all should not work, this idea of using powerpoint back in 2007 to simulate animation of any kind should not work. Yet somehow...it does. Even with the fact that this is clearly just a camera recording a screen at this point, there’s something rather entertaining about it all. And the action isn’t half bad for something made with a tool that clearly was never meant to be used in this way. It can actually be creative with how some fight scenes are done. The whole of episode 6 is able to show off a giant robot boss battle with some pretty decent speed, while episode 8 can trick viewers with its looping backgrounds. The best part of this comes just from watching how not only does the quality of the video improve over time, but so does the writing and the story. Dimension Takeover and Dimension Obliteration are amazing and admittedly addicting watches that have the same level of love and care put into them as the previous two series discussed in this. Giving the fans such high quality action and adventures while also doing a really great job of making all the interactions feel like they’re from their source material. Well, at least as close and one can get when you have a hedgehog talking to an imaginary tiger and a group of cartoon frogs. I can’t say thank you enough times to the people who’ve made all their series, as my love of writing stories based on my own favorite series probably wouldn’t be as strong today. And hey, one can surprisingly do a good job with powerpoint. At least it wasn’t just a slide show.

Part Two: These literally are just slide shows!

Sticking to the topic of Sonic, he seems to be a super popular subject for crossovers. Besides Mario, he and his friends have appeared in both official and nonofficial meetups with all kinds of pop culture favorites. The one series that seems to dominate the realm of Sonic crossovers online is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic . The series itself has had quite the impressive run of nine years, with its final episodes airing this year. What probably would have been seen as just another cheap product placement by the majority of people if it hadn’t been for the rather large audience of grown up fans that for a time basically ruled the internet. While in the later years the fan base has shrunk as all fandoms do, there are still those that happily enjoy watching cartoon ponies and doing various things related to them online, myself included.

Now how does a super fast and cocky blue hedgehog that saves the day from an evil egg shaped man and his army of robots have any kind of connection to a cartoon about six colorful and talented ponies as they go through their lives learning about and solving problems with the power of friendship? Well, both are series that have similar characters with Sonic and Rainbow Dash both being blue,fast, and cocky. Both series deal with giant world ending disasters by using powerful gems and the power of teamwork. And both believe in the real power of friendship. So, yeah. There’s bound to be a ton of fan series based on seeing these two worlds meet up. And hoo boy, Youtube sure seems to love hosting a ton of them.

The common theme in all the Sonic/My Little Pony Crossovers in this part is that they’re all going to be slideshows. There might be a few clips from the shows or games, maybe a piece of fanart or two, but 99 percent of the stuff in these videos is just going to be static text. Let’s start with the...highest quality one of the three brought up in this part, Sonic X Equestria by Speedstar Productions . The plot is nothing new. Eggman shows up to wreak havoc and Sonic must team up with the cast of My Little Pony, or Mane Six as they’re called, to help stop him. When I said most of these are just slideshows... I wasn’t kidding. The entire series will go from random screen cap to random promotional images, with text overlaid on the bottom. There is no original voice acting either, with the only voices that occasionally can be heard coming from the clips or sound bytes. There is no promised sense of consistency either, as photos of the characters can be pulled from different seasons, games, comics and shows all together. In this, Sonic is supposed to have his normal modern look but some screenshots are from Sonic Boom which is a show with different designs. Another example of this comes from shots of Twilight Sparkle. This show takes place in the My Little Pony world after Twilight becomes the princess of friendship and gets her own wings. Even shots from the first episode will use photos of her without them. It’s never actually a thing that matters to the show, as it acts like everything is on model, and that we can perfectly see everything that’s going on.

Another thing that this and many others like it seem to have in common is the idea that Sonic is the one doing all the work, while all the ponies just kinda...watch in the background. Sure, Twilight will pitch in with her magic every once in a while, but if Sonic’s taking on Eggman? He’s mostly going in solo. Sure, these ponies have easily taken on things like chaos incarnate, and powerful tyrants with black magic. But a man in a giant robot suit? Too unpredictable . Sure, one could argue that it’s because the mech being used in the fight only has images of Sonic fighting it...but in a later episode , the girls join in a fight that’s entirely animated! I shouldn’t be mad about this, yet I am!

Though..despite the rant, I still find myself enjoying watching this series. I can’t fully explain if it’s ironic or if it’s unironic. Maybe it comes from the fact that everyone still acts in character to their on-screen counter parts, leading to interactions that fans wanted to see. We want to see the ponies talk to Sonic characters, and help take down Eggman. The use of actual pictures from the shows and games helps too, making us help visualize it as if it were an actual episode. Maybe it comes from the fact that it feels like something I would watch in the early days of Youtube. The kinda low effort yet also decent attempt of trying to make events appear coherent in some way, even if the images shown aren’t the most in continuity. Though, episode 11 is literally the Shadic vs Nazo fight from Nazo Unleashed. Those things aside...this is still kind of a guilty pleasure watch that I’ll binge from time to time.

Sometime last year, I was looking up Nazo Unleashed videos late one night, due to that time bringing out a large sense of nostalgia for days gone. As I was looking, I saw a thumbnail that stuck out to me. Or rather...a title that stuck out to me, as well as a runtime that had my interest set to max.

The Adventures of Sonic in Equestria Nazo Unleashed The Movie HD , by Adam Selvig, is a title that feels like it should be one of those videos that promises an upload of a current movie in HD that only links to scam sites that will give your computer a virus. It isn’t that. This is a slideshow that’s the length of a movie. College lectures aren’t this long. The best way to describe this one is that Sonic and the ponies must come together to defeat Nazo as well Tempest Shadow, a character from the My Little Pony movie. Also, Sonic and Rainbow Dash have a daughter called Sondash, which is literally just art of a child Rainbow Dash. This series is weird. Another strange thing is that a lot of the channels posting Sonic / My Little Pony stuff in series like this...usually have around 1K subs. That’s nothing to any major Youtuber, but the idea that even just one thousand people subscribe to watch this stuff as soon as it comes out..is just mind blowing.

This film is part of a series, one that started all the way back in January of 2018. The playlist for this thing says that the series as of March 4th, 2019...is 103 videos long?! And with seemingly all of them in the 20 minute range...the question becomes, how long has Selvig been working on this thing, and does he have others help him with it? And again...why is it always Sonic that seems to be doing everything around here? Are the ponies just lazy now that an outsider is here?

The odd thing is that there are so many Sonic/My Little Pony crossover videos on Youtube, but when looked into, so many of them are the exact same content. Stills and transparent photos with clear backgrounds with text overlaid. And so many are able to get these creators at least a few hundred subscribers. In a surprisingly deep sea of similar executions, are there any left that stand out above the rest? Good news, there is at least one series that goes in another direction. In more mixed news, well…

This is Harmony and Chaos by Michael Evans. While originally popping up as text on gradient background sometime in 2017, the whole series is now being voiced over by its creator. That’s all this is. Text on a background while one man narrates over it in various voices. And for the most part, there isn’t much there at all in terms of action. Now, I’m only nine episodes in this seemingly sixty plus episode run with multiple seasons series, so I might be wrong. The main focus of this series is romance, and boy is there a lot of it. If there’s a male character from Sonic and a female character from My Little Pony that interact a lot in this thing, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll end up smooching somewhere on down the line. This sounds exactly like what many seem to see fan bases as general as, writing overly long amounts of fan fiction that are also chock to the brim with romance and needless drama. In this series, Rainbow Dash is getting a divorce from her husband who she thought was cheating on her, when really he only made it seem that way so that she wouldn’t have to know that he was dying from a deadly disease. It’s a move right out of the soap opera playbook.

Despite all of this, I find myself coming back to all of these series and watching them in huge chunks. It comes from a sense of odd curiosity on how the story is going to play out. It also helps that the people behind this stuff seem like just genuinely nice people that want to post their creations online and share it with the world. It’s just that the stuff they make is really weird, not bad, just strange. And even then, it’s not the most strangest thing on the net that’s out there.

Part Three: Big Adventures, Bigger Casts

The best way to start this final part was with an image. An image that perfectly tells someone everything they need to know, as well as absolutely nothing at all. Welcome to Pooh’s Adventures , a seemingly endless number of movies and tv shows that are “edited” to include characters from Winnie the Pooh, My Little Pony, Transformers, Thomas the Tank Engine and so, so many more. I put edited in quotes because really, does this count as editing in any way, shape or form? To give a basic plot outline of just about every single Pooh’s/Thomas’/Insert Character name here’s adventure, large group of characters are inserted into popular movie or show, where they help the main character of said movie or show against the antagonist who is now usually joined by other villains from various forms of media. Rinse and Repeat for every movie ever with vague hints of events from previous adventures running into this one. Take any movie, and there’s a good chance there’s at least the idea for a Pooh’s Adventures on it. Like for example Winnie The Pooh vs. Jaws , which while not a real movie as of this writing does have a devoted page on the fan wiki . And it seems to promise quite the cast of characters.

It can actually be somewhat hard in trying to find some of these, due to the fact that they’re just full movies with other copyrighted clips put in at random intervals. Those that are still up on Youtube seem to be the ones that use the most obscure of movies as their source . And just like with the Sonic/Mlp stuff, all of these channels seem to have at least a few thousand subscribers thanks to it. Of all the adventures that still remain on Youtube, Winnie the Pooh Goes to Hotel Mario / Pooh’s Adventures of Batman Forever is the one I’m most proud still remains. There is no connection between the two, besides the fact that both Hotel Mario and Batman Forever are both seen as surreal experiences that have very little connections to their source and are enjoyed in a “so bad it’s good” way.

There are still ways to find both older and newer uploads of the various adventures online. Many of the members will just upload their older stuff to Google Drive or Dropbox , and more recently, a lot of uploads are being moved to Pandora.tv, a mostly Korean based website where they can run ads on the video.

The wiki for this fandom is massive, with there being over thirty five thousand articles as of the time of this being written, with new ones being added or updated seemingly every few minutes. Most fantasy wikis can’t reach numbers that high! Though, most of the pages on it are bare-bones with only a single line or two for a ton of characters while others are pages clearly ripped right from other fandom wikis. There’s also ideas for series that are just the title and then nothing else, along with transcripts and posters put next to dozens of dead or empty links. For a site that seems so bloated and full, it’s actually pretty empty and hollow upon closer look.

I wanted to share all of this because so much of this resonates with me in some way, even Pooh’s Adventures , since I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought up crossovers with insanely large casts that really should have nothing to do with each other.I guess in a way...I saw these all as the things I wanted to make but never knew how to. I’ve always wanted to animate, to tell my stories with these characters that I know and love to as many people as possible, to hear their feedback on all of it. That’s why I got so passionate talking about all certain moments or episodes, it’s all the things I would do! They’re people just like me, and that’s why I wish Mark Haynes the best in his life, why I’ll say the guys who work on the Sonic and My Little Pony seem like nice people. That’s why I’ll be so amazed by someone having a thousand subs or more. I see myself in these creations and the experiences of their creators. The pains of depression, the joy of seeing how their work has influenced others, the effort and care put into these things. I want to see them succeed and be supported, because that shows me that I can succeed too.

#informal essay #crossover #sonic the hedgehog #pooh's adventures #smbz #Super Mario Bros Z #sonic #super mario #Mario bros #nazo unleashed #My Little Pony #my little pony friendship is magic #dimension mix up #youtube #essay #calvin and hobbes #invader zim #fandom

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bts-weverse-trans · 4 years

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201123 Weverse Magazine 'BE' Comeback Interview - Jimin

Jimin: “I’m the kind of person who likes to be loved” BTS BE comeback interview 2020.11.23

When he’s talking, Jimin often starts his sentence with phrases like, “I just,” “it just,” “they just …” But then he immediately goes on to open up about his feelings, always providing a sincere response.

On one V-LIVE session back in October, you wore the clothes that you had planned to wear at the airport if you were to go on tour. Jimin: I hadn’t really noticed, but I think I’ve finally come to terms with the reality of our present situation.

By “situation,” you mean how it’s difficult to meet your fans in person? Jimin: Yes. If we had to go on stage in this situation, or if we had to perform our songs, I’m not sure how we would go about accomplishing that. At the same time, It felt like something that was closed up and blocked was opened up again. There isn’t the kind of excitement we got from tour season, though, so it’s easy to feel worn out. But, just like when we’re making new songs, I try to do whatever I can.

BE feels like it’s all about taking care of your feelings and the process of moving forward. Jimin: I had the role of listening to what the members wanted to include in the album, but it’s more a record of the present than it is about our individual feelings. We talked openly about how we’re having a hard time and how we’re trying our best to get over things, and that became the album.

As the project manager for BE, how did you go about gathering and organizing all the members’ ideas? Jimin: I became the project manager because Yoongi recommended I do it, but I didn’t think I had to lead anything along, more just make sure the other members could do their work quickly and easily. Usually that meant asking about their opinions, or passing opinions back and forth with our company. So I would collect ideas, organize them, say, “These are some of the ideas we got back. What do you think?”—ask them again, if they said okay, pass it on to the company, and if they made a song, I sent that over, too.

How did you prod along the members who were taking too long with their ideas? (laughs) Jimin: I would mention them by name in our group chat, and that got them to reply. (laughs) Any time I said someone or other didn’t submit their idea yet, all the others would chime in with, “Hurry up, guys!” and then they’d give it to me.

Sounds like it’s great for one of the members to be project manager. (laughs) How did you accommodate all the different ideas? Jimin: When we first started, we sat down for about an hour and said: If you feel downtrodden, just make a song about feeling desperate; if you want to give others hope, go ahead and write a hopeful song. Let’s find the topic and work from there. And since there’s seven of us, and the album’s going to be about current events, let’s put in one skit to make seven songs; and let’s not put in any solo songs. Let’s make something that we can all work on together.

That approach must have been different from the way you worked on your other recent albums. Jimin: We never said anything like, somebody will make this song and someone else will make that song. We would just take a song and say, Who wants to do this? Who wants to do that? I became more ambitious, and wanted the other members to recognize the work I was doing. And because it was so fun working together, any time I made something, I wanted to play it for them right away. I also loved when they gave me compliments, so that added to the fun. When the songs are eventually finished, we hoped the fans would be able to pick up on all those emotions exactly as we felt them, although there are some songs that didn’t make the cut. (laughs) It was really fun.

You could say that, while it’s important to deliver songs to the fans, the process of creation itself is also important. Jimin: A little while ago, I learned something new about myself: I’m the kind of person who likes to be loved. Looking back, I realized I do what I do not just for the work itself, but to be loved by my friends, family, the group, and fans. It’s been really hard to hold onto those connections, but I felt a fullness once I was sure of that love and kept those relationships close. It was like getting something of my own.

Rather than simply being loved, is it actually a satisfaction arising from the effort involved and the deep sense of trust it builds? Jimin: I used to think more frequently about what I was getting from them than what I was doing for everyone else. Even if I don’t strictly owe our fans or group members anything in return, I feel a deep and sincere appreciation for all the things they do for me. I also saw some people for who they really are, some people who don’t really care about me. Rather than pushing those people away, I learned how to react less emotionally to them. Likewise, I was able to be more emotionally honest with people who are very considerate toward me.

It’s become difficult to express those kinds of feelings to fans these days. The only choice, really, is to talk to them through your songs. What is your message this time? Jimin: There’s a message in every album and music video we make; but you don’t have to understand the message, I just hope you enjoy listening and watching. That’s the first thing. I hope you really like the songs and videos I created while working to not become complacent, so I took great care and practiced a lot to present something perfect to you.

On that note, I think your singing and dancing are changing quite a bit. Your performances in “Black Swan” and “Dynamite” are completely different, but perhaps because of your changed body silhouette, the feel of your dance has become more consistent. As a dancer, what is it you want to express? Jimin: I just hope my emotions come across. I just want the emotions I put into my dancing, actions, and singing to be felt. So I got a lot of feedback, asked around, did some research and found that for each emotion you might express on stage, there’s a body most appropriate for the job. We all have different body types. In order to get the body that can best express my emotions at my age, I went on a strict diet, but I don’t stick to it nearly as intensely as I used to. (laughs)

If you watch your dance in “Dynamite,” your body, especially when you turn away, looks different from before. You look lighter. What effect did your new body have on your dance moves? Jimin: I look how I want to look when I’m around 58 kg, so I went on a diet and lost 5 kg. That’s when I found the look I wanted to present to everyone. I can’t be objective about myself, but there was a certain vibe that I wanted. In the past I tried really hard to be no-frills, and by focusing less on trying something new and more on avoiding mistakes, I prevented myself from advancing any further. But in “Dynamite,” I tried out expressions I’d never tried before. I wanted people to be able to tell that I was really concentrating on this when they watched the video, so for this song, I tried to be sentimental and—how should I put this—I even tried to look suave (laughs) and funny, too . I ended up focusing on painting a single picture rather than on each of the individual elements.

And what is it you wanted to show off? Jimin: We haven’t been able to put on a real show during COVID-19. I wanted to show that we didn’t waste all that time but rather have kept going through it all, that we keep working hard. But portraying “working hard” through dance would look really tiring, so I smiled and danced throughout filming “Dynamite.”

How was that possible? It couldn’t have been easy to keep the whole team motivated. Jimin: With the spread of COVID-19, it took us a while to really believe our rise to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. When we checked our phones and it said we got first place we were amazed, but it was hard to believe, although we were all crying. (laughs) But when COVID-19 first hit, we said, “Ah, it’ll pass quickly and we’ll be right back on tour.” The reason was that we had said, even if it gets tough, let’s give it our all for the next year. Give it our all and collapse.. That was the plan, but we were really disappointed. What was worse was, when I heard it would be hard to have any performances this year, my head … it sort of went blank. My mind was empty. We couldn’t just take a break either. Other people had it really hard but we could keep working. I didn’t know whether we should be happy or sad about it. There were no answers for anything. It was really tough.

How did you get over that? Jimin: If an interviewer or anyone else asked me what my goal was, I told them my goal is to perform with the members for a long time, and that is probably my biggest goal; but I was really saying that to the group: I want to be with you guys for a really long time. I think we conveyed that feeling well to one another. I seriously worried a lot that the group would get exhausted. But they’d be laughing with one another, cheering each other up. We had a lot more time to chat together, so whatever was going on, we could always talk about it over a drink at our home and work it out.

What makes you take your work so seriously? Jimin: I really want to love this job inside and out. If we just look at work as work, all we’ll be after is money, but I never once thought that our group’s dynamic, or the relationship we have with our fans, was based on that. But I think if you’re exhausted mentally and physically, the work becomes a chore, and then your relationships will inevitably suffer. That’s what I was afraid of.

The song “Dis-ease” is about how each member feels about working. How do you feel about your work? Jimin: I don’t consider my main profession, performing and singing, “going to work.”. But when I’m doing something else with the camera right in front of me,that feels like “work.” Singing and performing for our fans isn’t work—it’s something I really, really want to do.

You helped write “Dis-ease,” correct? Jimin: The bridge. I was recording with Pdogg and there was one part that didn’t have a melody, so—should I call it improv?—I was just singing something without thinking about it, and then he asked me to sing that again. So I asked if he was sure, and then he asked me to write the melody, so I ended up writing it.

Some of the other songs on BE have something like that too, but “Dis-ease” somehow feels particularly like old school Korean hip hop. Jimin: I thought so too. I thought of 20 years ago when I sang it. The majority of the song was written by j-hope, so that might just be my thinking (laughs) but I sang it when there was a question mark on who would sing the vocals. I was really doing whatever I wanted, so I sort of had to be restrained (laughs) but it was fun.

Was there any place the vocals changed while recording? There are a lot of parts on BE where you use almost a normal speaking voice. Jimin: I usually already have the big picture set in my mind when I sing, but this time it wasn’t like that. “Life Goes On,” especially—that song’s not about me, but I couldn’t help but empathize with it, so right from the beginning I performed it without having to think about how my voice should sound. I wasn’t thinking about some particular emotion of mine I wanted to express to you. I just recorded exactly the feelings I had as I sang.

There’s a song titled, “Telepathy.” When you streamed yourselves in production on YouTube, the group mentioned the idea of telepathy which made me think you were sending the song directly to your fans. If you could talk to them through telepathy, what would you say? Jimin: People have kind hearts, and I just hope they don’t let that go. You asked about telepathy, but I think we really do have a telepathic connection with our fans. It’s not crystal clear or anything, but I think if we’re sincere then they can feel it somehow. I think that’s why our fans support us and are always by our side.

And what about the other way around? What would you like to hear from your fans? Jimin: One thing I’m always curious about, about our fans, is what’s the hardest thing in their lives. What each of them is struggling with, what’s making them happy—I’m really curious to know. We face our own difficulties as well, so I always wonder if there’s someone in each of our fans’ lives to ask them if they’re doing okay. I hope things get better soon, that people can keep holding on, and that the adults will follow all the rules. Kids don’t have a lot of options right now to do the things they want to do. I imagine a lot of kids see this as something that’s being forced upon them by adults, so I hope the grown-ups will properly explain the situation to the kids so they can help each other too, to end the pandemic.

The news is saying that they’ve made a COVID-19 vaccine, so you might be able to meet your fans sooner than later. What are you going to say to them when you finally see them again? Jimin: I don’t think we’ll say anything. I think we’ll just look at each other for a very long time. And if I’m able to say anything, I’ll probably say, “You made it. Now let’s get back to having a good time.”

#bangtan #jimin #be album #weverse #comeback interview #weverse magazine #201123 #2020

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fyeah-bangtan7 · 4 years

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Jimin: “I’m the kind of person who likes to be loved”

#bangtan #jimin #m:weverse magazine #p:website #201123

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daily-monsta-x · 6 years

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Daily Monsta X’s 1st survey

These are the official results for the survey conducted from Daily Monsta X. The survey form was open from November 2018 to February 2019, and a total 539 individual responses were collected.

Response data from all questions will be given here. At the end of the post, we will list all the questions in the extensive survey, as well as a link to the results spreadsheet.

Disclaimer: Results are not representative of the fandom, and should not be taken as such. This survey was conducted purely for fun.

Please note the survey was conducted before the release of Take. 2 We Are Here (and thus before Alligator) so it does not feature as a response on any of the questions. Jooheon is also used throughout, as he had not yet taken the stage name Joohoney at the time.

Results are under the cut.

Responses shown in bar graphs/charts allowed multiple options to be chosen; those in pie charts allowed only one answer.

Favourite overall comeback

Shoot Out was the winner for favourite overall comeback, with Beautiful a close second and Dramarama third. I tracked the results for this answer, and Shoot Out and Beautiful were in close competition throughout, but in the end, Shoot Out took the win.

Favourite comeback song

Beautiful won this question, with Dramarama getting second and Jealousy and Shoot Out winning joint third. All In missed out on top 3 by 6 votes. Some songs, like Jealousy, Hero, and Stuck, won more votes for favourite song than they did for favourite comeback. Overall, competition was tougher in this category.

Favourite MV

Dramarama placed first, followed by All In, then Beautiful. Story-line MVs were comparatively more popular, although Fighter got fewer votes than expected.

Bias

I.M won most votes for bias (favourite member), followed by Wonho and then Jooheon. Don’t have a bias/all seven was also a very popular option, coming in 4th.

Bias wrecker

No bias wrecker/all seven was the most popular response, followed by I.M and then Kihyun. Wonho, who placed 2nd for bias, came 3rd for bias wrecker. I.M was most popular bias and bias wrecker.

Favourite ship

(Due to the large number of options, I had to compile these results in MS Excel)

Most popular response was I don’t ship/no ship. Most popular ship was HyungWonHo (Wonho and Hyungwon), followed by JooKyun (Joohoney and I.M). JooHyuk (Minhyuk and Joohoney) was third most popular ship. Nearly every ship was entered in others, but KiHyuk (Minhyuk and Kihyun) were the most popular among these.

Favourite concert unit

From Zero (Wonho and Hyungwon) got first for favourite concert performance unit, with Versace on the Floor (Shownu and Jooheon) getting second and How Long (Hyungwon and I.M) getting third.

Favourite release (album, mini album)

The Connect was voted most popular release, followed closely by Are You There?. The Clan pt 2.5 came in third, a fair number of votes behind.

Favourite promoted B track

Criteria for the options was being performed on music shows, but not as a title track. From Zero easily took first place. Second was Be Quiet, followed by Myself. This was one of the few categories Monsta X’s earlier work (Hero (album version)) got a fair amount of votes, coming fourth.

Favourite Japanese song

Livin’ It Up took first place, Spotlight second. Combined, these two options took almost 90% of the votes.

Favourite Jooheon song

Songs composed by Joohoney, not including his solo work. This was one of the most even distributions of votes, with the highest votes not exceeding 19%. First place was In Time, second White Love, narrowly beating Special. This is another category where earlier works (Blue Moon, Gone Bad) got comparatively more votes.

Favourite Wonho song

The least even distribution of votes. From Zero won almost half the votes. Second place, Oi, got roughly half. Third was If Only.

Favourite mixtape track

Options included both Joohoney and I.M’s mixtapes. Only solo-released tracks and those with MVs were counted. I.M’s Fly With Me got most votes, narrowly beating Joohoney’s Red Carpet. Combined, these two songs got nearly 70% of the votes. Third ranked I.M’s Who Am I.

Favourite OST

All songs released by members, either all seven or as solos, used in original soundtracks of dramas or games. First ranked Love Virus, narrowly edging The Tiger Moth. Can’t Breathe came third, winning around half the votes of each of the first two.

Favourite special clip

Hero (rooftop version) won most votes, followed by Stuck and then Beautiful (acoustic version). Earlier releases got most votes in this category, with the top two coming from the first three releases.

Favourite self-cam

First place for self-cam (or self-filmed) MV was Tropical Night, second Perfect Girl and third Rollercoaster. Vote distribution was relatively even in this category.

Favourite story line MV

First place with near 40% of the vote was All In, followed by Dramarama and then Destroyer. The other options got a combined 8% of the vote, a very small percentage.

Favourite variety

Monsta X-Ray is easily the most favourite voted variety, with first season getting first, second season getting second and third season with third.

Favourite female character

Dodo (Hyungwon) was first place voted female character, followed by Dior (Minhyuk) and then Wonhee (Wonho). Female characters from the rural village episode were comparatively less popular, with the exception of Wonhee.

Favourite skit couple

Another near landslide victory, with Namjoo x Yeojoo (Shownu and Kihyun) winning first, followed by Sandong x Minji (Kihyun and Jooheon), and then Hangyeol x Dior (Shownu and Minhyuk).

Following survey questions focused on the respondents.

Age

Majority of respondents, more than 40%, ranged from 18 to 22 years. Next most common age range was 13 - 18, and then 22 - 26. Very few respondents were outside the age range 13 - 40.

Location

Over half the respondents live in North America. Next most common region is Europe, followed by South East Asia. Together, these regions counted almost 90% of the total responses.

Language

Most of the respondents spoke English as their first language, taking final count as roughly 60% to 40%.

Source of updates

Majority of respondents got their Monsta X updates from tumblr, and second-most from Twitter. Together these were more than 400 out of the 539 responses. Instagram came third. As the survey was conducted on tumblr, results might have been skewed towards the site.

Introduced: how

Majority of respondents were introduced to Monsta X through their MV on YouTube. The second most common way was by a friend, followed by through a meme or funny video. There were a varied number of responses entered under others, including through live performances, YouTube reviews, etc.

Introduced: when

Most respondents became fans in the Dramarama and Jealousy eras, followed by Beautiful era, and then Rush and Hero era. No.Mercy and debut (Trespass) era converted relatively fewer fans.

Fan content

Most respondents, over 60%, are do not create content. The most common created content is fanfiction, which has around a third of the votes of non-creators, followed by graphics/photo edits/memes, and then gifs.

One word descriptions

Shownu: Most common response was Bear. Others like Dad (or variations thereof, like father, fatherly) and Leader were also very popular, as were attributes of him such as shy, humble, etc.

Wonho: Most common response was Soft. Most responses were on the more innocent side. Bunny (and squishy) were common as well, as was Sweetheart and Angel.

Minhyuk: Most common response was Sunshine, by a large margin. Other common responses included Extra (and similar), Adorable (surprisingly, very few instances of cute), as well as energetic, moodmaker, etc.

Kihyun: Most common response was Mom. Most responses were like this, with traits associated with mothers (fussy, gentle, etc.). Accordingly, Caring was a very popular response. Another very popular response was Talented (or vocals, vocal king, similar words).

Hyungwon: Most common response was Meme. Handsome was popular as well (along with ethereal and beautiful). Another common response was Prince.

Joohoney: Most common response was Cute. Similarly, adorable was also very popular, as was Honey. Another very common response was Talented, as well as Charismatic (and similarly, powerful).

I.M: Most common response was Baby. A large number of responses also stressed on how he was Eccentric (unusual, unpredictable, weird, etc.). Deep (and introverted) also featured a number of times.

Monsta X: Most common response was Family. There were a lot of responses in this vein (connected, brothers, united, etc.). Perfect/Flawless was also a common answer, as was Talented and Extra (and synonyms of such).

Favourite song

Many, many different responses were received. The most common answer was Beautiful. Second most popular song was easily Lost In The Dream. Other popular answers included From Zero, Underwater, and Destroyer.

Discussion

Overall, older comebacks tended to garner fewer votes, with some exceptions. Trespass and Rush were comparatively unpopular overall, but certain individual tracks from those eras were popular.

Although efforts were made to have the results as unbiased as possible, there were many sources of error. Firstly, most of the respondents found the survey through tumblr, which explains its high rank as a source of updates. Secondly, most of the admin’s fandom circle are writers, which could be why fanfiction is found as the most popular produced fancontent. Most importantly, the sample size is very small compared to Monsta X’s fanbase, so results are obviously not indicative of the fandom as a whole.

Survey questions

Favourite comeback overall?

Favourite comeback song?

Favourite music video?

Bias (favourite member)?

Bias wrecker (second favourite member)?

Favourite ship (pair)?

Favourite concert performance unit?

Favourite release?

Favourite promoted B track?

Favourite Japanese release?

Favourite song composed by Jooheon?

Favourite song composed by Wonho?

Favourite mixtape track?

Favourite OST?

Favourite special clip MV?

Favourite self-cam MV?

Favourite story line MV?

Favourite variety show?

Favourite female character?

Favourite skit couple?

How old are you?

Where do you live?

Is English your first language?

What is your main source of Monsta X updates?

How did you become a fan of Monsta X?

When did you become a fan of Monsta X?

Do you create any fan content for Monsta X?

Full spreadsheet of results are here.

Thank you to all participants of the survey! Do to all of you, we were able to conduct a successful survey. Please don’t hesitate if you have any questions or suggestions for any future surveys ^^

#monsta x #text #survey

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kai-borg · 6 years

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Just a touch o' interesting bio-vids I found

Recently I've been gettin' a touch bored and just scrolling through the bio-motion vids on youtube to see if I can find anything fun, and I have to say I've actually found quite a bit! From just single videos, to entire series and channels I've literally never heard talked of despite how fantastic they are!So I decided I'd make a little list of the best ones, or just the ones I was personally impressed with/interested in I've found. Random order o' course, and some of these I've known of from years, from a number that actually inspired my love of bionicles years back, and just a few I've more recently discovered.1. 리스L https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD5XlPJl6OU Ok, now the fact I haven't seen much for this guy is understandable due to the majority of his channel being in a different language. Channels such as these while generally really awesome (for some reason...), and fairly popular aren't generally talked about too much in the English circle from what I can tell just because we can't understand anything, and it drives us nuts. (It sure does for me at least.) Either way, holy crap this guy is awesome! Not just because he's translated even some of the series which is my favourite so far out of his others, but because his scenes are well done, his special effects, while not used too often, when used are awesome (such as the bullet scene), and his fight scenes are smooth, and fun as 'eck to watch! 2. Gionganer grav https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRIJ2y7WL-k And another, non-english channel. This guy's mainly moc-vids and all that, not exactly my favorite type of vid, but his moc's are quite well done, and a fair amount of short stop-motions, which, as you can see above, are smooth, and utilize (from what I can tell is) some well-done green screening. He also has some kind of... trailer/short film things (don't really know 'cause I can't read the title) which make for a nice little watch each. He's even got a break down for at least one of the ones I've seen, and it's pretty interesting to watch, help gave me a few ideas m'self. 3. MrLegolover55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ySVBnjYCs So here's this guy, another bio-tube who I've never heard talked of, yet who has a number of fairly amazing series out! Now, while he may not use stopmotion (something fairly common now-a-days), quality wise his videos are good, the story was intriguing, his characters are understandable (if perhaps lacking a touch in the full range of the voice-acting spectrum that could've been used, but still a good range for the amount of characters), and in all I'd recommend giving him a look. 4. Masteryker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ3X-dLuemE And once again a channel my inability to understand any language beyond English drives me insane to watch, but I can't stop just because of how good it is! So, fully Hero-Factory to warn all you fuddy-duddies who hate that, but holy-crap I recommend you at least give him a look if just to see his character design! While a bit stereotypical in the 'everything is rusty/damaged/whatever-that-look-is-called' in the paint department I feel it works, his stop-motion itself is once again impressive, his video quality and effects are well-done, and the story (from what little I can gather) is enough to hook me... even despite how much I miss out on (a disheartening fate). 5. Robomaniac7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Vq2bnr7wE Ah, and this guy. While not one of the best at this time, he was at least amusing, and at the time of his videos, fairly impressive in his stop-motion (and age too from what I can tell). Just a guy I'd recommend giving a view if you want a laugh. 6. Jacob Daeath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLOD9z2ZB_s Really not a lot for this guy, in truth this was mainly it (counting the second of course) in his bio-vids that caught my eye (he did have a second I found humorous). From what I can tell I think he had some ties to Robomaniac7, but my memories terrible so don't trust anything I say. Its got some nice stop-motion for its age, a nice bit of humor, and just a generally fun to watch story. 7. Spinny SterTwelve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZJ52dhfLpY Now, far from the best he may be, but the fact he got me at all interested in something that combined transformers with bionicles (before the bio-former craze too I think), and made a lengthy series was more than enough to at least deserve the mention for those who might want find an interest in the idea. 8. Plastic Arm Productions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihnu0N6-3Gg Now this guy, this guy I'm surprised I haven't heard of. While he may have the stereotypical 'my-self-moc-is-better-than-all-others' self-moc, but I feel that the fact he's made a 1-on-1 fight video between all of the Toa, and in every combination (I think at least, I gotta check again...) , all of which have well done fight animations, camera quality, and a kinda neutral win-loss chance (poll based) should've at least gotten him a touch more known. Perhaps he is, perhaps all of them are and it's my terrible luck at find anything bio-fandom related is just hitting me over the head once again. 9. Dinosaurs united https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMmzn1kuQy8 Chaotic, well done, well designed, and humorous? Give a check to all of them and you get a pretty nice series out of it! From star-wars to knights kingdom, from hero factory to both generations of bionicles, it all connects and it is a bizzare yet worthwhile watch! 10. AJ Roo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNC-0ovJHLk Odd, lacking stopmotion, and overpowered characters inspired by ManiaMac1613? Yes to all of them. While another bio-tube who's more obscure status I can understand he does at least have an amusing range of voices for his characters for a single voice-actor cast. Give a watch for perhaps some enjoyment, but do be warned, some of his stuff is even too chaotic, odd, or otherwise strangely added even for me. I can say I do at least greatly enjoy his demon problems series, and his other short-vid series despite the overall 'memetry' of the clips. What can I say? Once you get an understanding of how his 'world' runs its hard not to find some amusement, especially when paired with his chosen voices. 11. Bukkey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4xv19onY7I Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! Now Bukkey is a glorious fellow! He's anime all the way, even when using canon-sets he manages to get an anime-style feel to 'em, and his use of green screen effects (especially in his more recent tests) is brilliant! While not a lot of videos yet I cannot wait to see what he'll bring later, 'cause like, holy-crap, the effects! 12. TheNufinger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICPKWlHnBlM Ah, NuFinger. How is he not more popular?! Sure, sure, I can understand some of his... 'humor', and moc's are less than stellar, but just the relative originality (for a bio-series), absurdity of a number of his videos, and generally multiple minute long clips I feel should've gotten him a bit more love than he got. Can I agree his use of certain... 'humor', MMD, and kinda OPness of his self-moc dissapointed me? Yes. Of course the fact he took so much inspiration from anime made his self-moc seem a lot less OP in comparison with the rest of his characters did help counter that bit. The fact he used quite a number of clips from PurpleEyesWTF's abridged videos to make skit videos also helped my opinion 'cause it's so rare to find any sound-clip skits that don't come from a vine, family guy, or some other various related semi/fully-adult cartoon episode. Another point was that his channels all english, yet all of his videos are anime-inspired! His kinda au-ish, weird home-verse-esque, anime-world-thing he stuck his mocs in was also fun, for me, to see. (Of course what really got me into him, despite her small amount of appearances, and my favorite character of all, was Ember, the magical... whatever she is who can teleport entire pool tables with her mind.) 13. Garmagic2yFhenrakh9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MWbZ5jQLiM Another 'Arghhh!Why-must-you-inspire-me-to-try-and-learn-your-language-so-I-can-understand-your-story!' channel. Smooth motion, good fights, good camera angles, and bloody intriguing looking videos! Some problems with camera quality/saturation editing, but otherwise another fun watch if you want to see some nice animation. 14. Katsuhono https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-QcRFM_l5A And now this guy, this guy I am happy to have found! Do his various MLP videos bother me a bit? Yes, but I can assure you his stopmotion videos, any of them really, more than make up for any... discomfort being subbed to a channel with MLP on it brings. I mean, just look at all this! Smooth motion, brilliant effects, even giving his mixel videos a watch is beyond worthwhile! 15. Andrew Eusebi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE2ajOjbYmM Once again another channel I feel could be better, but hey, his story's intriguing enough for me! Yeah, another none/less bio-based channel, but its got some kinda crazy multiverse story thing going that I have to say does make it work. 16. TheSlimToa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBRMDov1Cg A small channel sure, but ey! His stopmotion makes for a nice, inspiring watch! 17. Cy4Lego Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_wrXNVwfac GIVE THIS GUY LOVE! Sure, not a lot of bio-stuff, but holy crap! Look at what he does do! This guy deserves some chatter, especially for this thing! XD 18. BIOforge Studios https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5CzuIyiPU Also this guy! His voice acting, and some of his choices in... effects may be a bit grating, but he more than deserves to be better known for the effort he's putting into his channel to keep it running at an active (more-so than my owns) rate of production! ---------------------------- And now a pair that have somehow stuck with me for years, and managed to be some of the biggest inspirations towards my love of bionicles, if less so towards my character and story. 1. ToaScarak44 - Heroes of Ora Nui https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJaMn0kE-zI Ah, heroes of Ora-Nui, the first series I ever found, and the one that became my first, and numerous following footholds into the bio-fandom. I remember whiling away ages as a kid just watching his stuff, 'ell, I can remember actually waiting for episodes to come out before I ended up forgetting the series name. It was disappointing to discover that the series would never be finished, and that one of my favorite biotubers, my first one at that, had quit. Will I ever know why I loved this series so much despite its... 'problems'? Who knows, all I do is that once I found it again after forgetting the name for years I was overjoyed to see it again, and I'll probably remain just as happy to watch it over, and over again. 2. Zadohk - Sirac`s journey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C10pgt-_0zY And so I continue to have no idea why I love this series! This was the second bio-series I'd ever watched, and essentially what got me back into the bio-tube portion of the fandom after I'd dropped out a year or so past my loss of ToaScarak's series, which I suppose can give you a fairly good concept of how long I was out of the fandom beyond books and sets. No stopmotion, nowhere near the best voice acting, and a disappointingly short series before he died off. I do have to say I did greatly enjoy the environment of his videos. Otherwise, I have no clue as to why this series has somehow managed to carry the place in my heart it still does. No matter what though, Sirac's journey will always remain memorable to me for its standing as the series that got me back into the fandom. ---------------------------- And last, but not least, the honourable mentions! From just single videos, to small, lesser quality channels I feel you might at least find some enjoyment in. 1. GeneralChroma https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZyCFZc3TLI Fairly sized, not of the English persuasion, and far from the best, but hey, he's got a nice number of lil' skits to watch for fun. 2. WittyFox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RRb2XSWX-8 Another small channel, but at least they're not dead, and so far they got some nice bio-motion for a small channel. 3. Toynimation Studios https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpiduZwz9Yo Small, short, but well done, and with some nice use of motion and special effects. 4. Dia Mon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dBXiTfmKCM Now, while this video is the one that truly stood out to me (I must say I do find it amusing) that doesn't mean I don't recommend you see the other ones, in fact I recommend you do! They make for another bundle of fun little time-spenders. 5. Lamchops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP6YI06ZMTU Lamchops, short, smooth, and really very few bionicle animation videos. Another chaoticly-oriented channel, but at least his stop-motions are a good, albeit short watch! 6. Biomoron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1OAgsnqimo Ey, what can I say? I'm good at finding the disappointingly dead channels. Oh well, still a worthwhile couple of videos to see if you ask me. 7. Thriller Metru https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramKDTirbAg You can understand why I put this one up. 8. George Carlin Robot Animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhGSvorkjY Ok, now this is bloody brilliant! I mean, tell me you're still not unsure whether it's CGI or stopmotion after viewing it at least twice. 9. After hours - real life of working robot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isaU2Z0yLKo Eh, it's well done, and amuses me. A double win! 10. Jornova Productions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxzas9fJrx0 Alls I gotta say for this is that man am I ever glad he kept this channel mainly separate from what else its connected to. Also, voice acting, still needs work. 11. Uniters of Team Nova Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZLAuhyeVZs All's I gotta say for this is, at least the majority of this video is bionicle/lego/edited backgrounds compared to the only other video that used bionicles in the series this episode is included in. Pretty nice stop-motion and effects. Makes up for some... lacking quality in the voice-acting department. 12. New Age of Heroes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtUFf4P3FAo Really, I'm only putting this up because the way they managed to edit in the special effects, and bionicles/lego-piece-things into an IRL setting actually impressed me a good bit despite the overall... disappointing quality of the video. Of course seeing how the trailer is more impressive than the actual video kinda manages to make the video even less worth giving the time to watch.

#bionicle #animation #stopmotion #just some youtube things

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