#also had a bit of an art block -> art style change recently so this is a bit different to the things i’ve already posted

[hey-melissa]

Don’t be scared of the dark 🔭💚

listened to pulp musicals and now i’m OBSESSED. can’t wait for episode 4!!!

[basement-buddy]

did you ever run into art block when you first started posting art online? if so, do you have any advice for getting out of it? i recently decided to push through my anxiety and make an art account but found myself unable to draw anything because of how harsh of a critic i turned into thinking its not worth to post even trying to change my style bc my current one doesnt seem nice enough ( ;´ - `;) so im not able to motivate to draw at all these days ;;

I hit art block all of the time and I know this might not work for everyone, but honestly the only way I get through it is just by drawing whatever, even if it doesn’t meet my standards. Take this time to try some new things, learn some new stuff, draw whatever you want without pressure. Don’t worry about posting anything for a bit and just go head first into a bunch of new stuff. And don’t worry about it looking perfect or anything, or trying to meet your own standards or appease the critic inside you. I know that’s harder said than done, but if nothing is going to turn out how you want it right now, anyway, then why not just try something new?

This helps with your style dilemma, too, every few months I get upset about my artstyle, so I just do some studies or follow some anatomy tutorials, some nature drawing videos, get used to seeing something else on the paper in front of you, you know? If you go a while without seeing your style, when you finally get back to it, you can see less of the flaws. Or better yet, you’ve learned some new things that could help fix the things you don’t like about it.

Sometimes it also helps to look at my old art. The younger me would’ve done anything to draw how I am drawing now, and I’m sure it applies to you as well. You’re always improving no matter how much you’re not vibing with your work.

Most importantly, don’t put too much pressure on yourself! Creating something at all is wonderful. No matter how it turns out, you’ve done something most others just mourn not ever trying. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve created an art account, and I’m super happy that you want to share your art with the world, but don’t beat yourself up too hard. Don’t draw something with the intention to post, draw it for you! Back when I first started, I was nervous enough that I wouldn’t post things for upwards of half a year. I would sit on drawings because I was too shy to show them. If it helps, don’t post at all unless you absolutely want to. When you sit down to draw, don’t imagine the reactions, or other artists with other styles, imagine just what you want out of that particular drawing. I had to learn the hard way that posting should ALWAYS be an afterthought.

Sorry if this was rambly, I’m very very experienced with artblock and there’s just so many ways I’ve personally learned to deal with it that it’s hard to organize my thoughts properly. A lot of these are easier said than done, so just take it one step at a time, and remember that you’re doing awesome, that YOU’RE awesome, and no matter how you feel about it, your art is awesome, too! Take it at your own pace and be easy on yourself. ♥️

[vqlisms]

if no-one else is gonna dissect n’s room i guess i have to do it myself

this is based purely on the games btw :3

n is about the same age as the rest of the bw protags, perhaps a bit older. estimations and canon information say they’re around 18-20 in bw and 20-22 in the sequels.

n’s room is on the fourth floor of plasma castle. it has purple and white checkerboard walls, and blue and white cloud pattern flooring. the ost plays a melancholic music-box theme, a sharp contrast to the pressure of the orchestral (or as close as the bw soundfont can get) symphony in the castle halls.

the toys in the room are not interactable, but do have text prompts.

an incomplete train set loops around the entrance. “It’s a set of trains and tracks. Has it been played with recently?”

a toy box rests beside the looping train. “This toy box contains pieces of a train set.”

a downsized basketball court takes up half the open floor. the hoop, with a toy train blocking the net, reads: “It’s a home-style basketball hoop…” the basketball on the floor beside it reads: “It’s a basketball that looks like it’s been used a lot. It says Harmonia on it…”

underneath a rotating plane suspended from the ceiling, “A skateboard is resting on a pile of wheels.”

to the right, blocking the back wall and more toy boxes, is a half pipe. “A halfpipe for skateboards… It has Pokémon scratch marks on it here and there…”

the only reachable toy box behind the halfpipe reads, “This toy box is full of new toys…”

on the back wall are three decorations. the leftmost one is a dartboard with several darts stuck to and around it. a frame beside it, hanging crookedly from the wall, reads, “This panel has a dart stuck in it.” the rightmost picture is made up of two shades of purple. “An art panel with a printed geometric pattern.”

n’s room is barely larger than the others we’re able to visit in the castle. the room is childish and colourful, not a bad thing, but definitely not fitting to the king of team plasma or the person who has been so confident in their ideals.

n was adopted by ghetsis when they were small, likely not even 10. they had no knowledge of what was normal or necessary for human children’s development. the world had no knowledge of them either, since ghetsis isolated them from society with only abused pokemon and their sisters or other team plasma members. this castle was underground for years, they were physically and emotionally dependent on people who shared ghestis’s ideals.

children are easy to manipulate. children are easy to mould. children are easy to control. no-one has changed n’s room with their growth because they weren’t supposed to; if n grew and learned and thought, they wouldn’t be the perfect king that team plasma needed. but this room, whimsical and lonely, isn’t a king’s room. n is a figurehead and a symbol. they have no control or duties, their responsibilities end at looking regal. only the people allowed into their room—ghetsis, their sisters, and select other plasma members—see that they are nothing past the garb and speeches that they preach.

aaaaaalso symbolism time!!! once again the castle is underground for the majority of the time it exists but also, please note the layout of the rooms that exist within it. none of the rooms have windows, but most of them do have chimneys. in a normal house, windows, useful or locked, at least allow a person to acknowledge the existence of an outside. since windows are useless in an underground castle, there are none. but that’s not quite true, is it? after all, the point of the construction of plasma’s castle was for it to rise from the dirt and surround the league. most of the rooms have chimneys, which would be nothing but a hazard underground when the smog would have nowhere to vent to. but they have constructed chimneys, because this castle isn’t meant to stay underground forever. n’s room does not have a chimney, or windows. there is nothing connecting their room directly to the outside of the castle.

also, the pattern of the flooring specifically is clouds. the pattern is rote, symmetrical. there are no variations, no deviations. also, this pattern is on the floor. of course, we can’t see the ceiling because of the camera limitations/perspective and the style of the game, but i think putting the sky on the ground is still interesting. because n knows what outside looks like, they grew up in the wilderness for years, enough to learn to understand pokemon. but now, in this castle, they can’t leave. the sky is upside-down and carefully graphed, and part of that is like with the toys to keep n from getting restless, but it also shows how warped their environment has made their view of the outside world. they’ve been told everything they know about society and how it functions, presented like the truth, and have only been given evidence that certified what they’ve been told.

also, a fun bit of colour symbolism. reshiram follows the hero of truth, while zekrom follows the hero of ideals. now here’s the fun part: their colours are swapped. reshiram and truth are black, while zekrom and ideals are white, corresponding with the twin dragon that the protag is able to catch in the story. outside of the dartboard on the back and some lineart, there is no black in n’s room. i don’t care if it was intentional or not, n’s room is a figment of their and the people around them’s ideals, all presented as the truth. but no matter how they present it, no matter what they wrap it in or how they light it, there’s no truth to anything they’ve been given.

also real quick the presented/fake freedom to n’s room parallels the difference between what team plasma is presenting their goals to be and ghetsis’s actual goal of holding power over people

IM BACK also note how the newest toys are shoved in the very very back of the room, almost hidden behind their old ones. they’ve played with the same toys over and over and over because they’ve had nothing else to do. they don’t have crayons or paper or crafts, their entire room is made up of solid unchanging toys. they can rearrange them and look and play from different angles, but there’s fundamentally nothing new they can do with anything. this parallels how the only ideas and ideals n could ever conceptualise were ones literally handed to them growing up. they didn’t have any information or experience to create their own because they didn’t know anything else existed. any new ideas they shoved away and repressed, regardless of how close they were to their own, or who was presenting them to them. nothing new has ever existed for them, not for a very very long time.

OH MY FUCKING GOD I COMPLETELY FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING there is literally zero (0) furniture in n’s room. no bed, no dressers, absolutely nothing. there are two things i want to point out about this, one to do with n’s position in team plasma and another to do with a bit more symbolism i guess? n’s room isn’t meant to be comfortable, it’s a gilded cage, it’s simply meant to hold them, so that they don’t get restless, so that they don’t leave, so that they play along. they are a puppet leader, plasma grunts obey them because of their figure, but almost all of the major decisions of the team are either from ghetsis or from his manipulation. and ghetsis treats them like a puppet, too. after all, dolls may look human, but they don’t need anything. and n was in a perfect position for not needing anything, since they had no standards of what a human should receive in a healthy household, emotionally or physically.

anyways if i forgot anything whoopie daisy, i’ll add it later or scream about it or something (current edit count: 3). for now let’s just say pokemon won’t be called pokemon anymore after i’m done with ghetsis

[pochqmqri]

With how OtonaPre ended up being mid and had several questionable choices, I know that there are some, myself included, who are worried about how the MahoPre adult sequel will turn out. Even so, I remain cautiously optimistic, as this was always the one out of the two I was the most excited for.

Going back to the initial announcement for both OtonaPre and the MahoPre sequel, it's interesting to note that they only tentatively call it Mahou Tsukai PreCure! 2. They don't outright call it something like Otona Mahou Tsukai PreCure!, so maybe it's not really tied to the OtonaPre brand.

This would be a welcome change because one of the main problems with OtonaPre was that they tried to juggle a main cast of 8, arguably 10, or even 13, in just 12 episodes. This meant that several characters got shafted in development, notably Rin, Komachi, and Mai. In a MahoPre sequel, we'd only really need focus on Mirai, Riko, Haa-chan, and Mofurun, and maybe a few of the other side characters. Realistically I don't see what other seasons they could try and jam into MahoPre2, like not GoPriPre or KiraPre. MahoPre has such a distinctive style to it with all the witchcraft stuff.

Another thing to note from that initial announcement is that MahoPre2 will be airing on the late-night Animazing!!! block owned by TV Asahi and ABC TV, on Sundays 2:00-2:30 AM. This is quite the unusual choice because even OtonaPre, which aired on NHK-E, aired as late as Saturday 6:30PM. Similarly, Tokyo Mew Mew New aired around midnight when it broadcasted. I don't know what this really means in terms of "adult content" though, because even TMMN was mostly restrained in that regard. OtonaPre aired on a night/afternoon timeslot, but it also aired in the same block that had stuff like Spongebob, so they couldn't get too "adult," the most being stuff like alcohol consumption and climate change.

From this article back in March, Producer Takashi Washio notes that when NHK-E ("E" standing for education) was chosen to air OtonaPre on, he was asked if they could focus on topics related to SDGs, sustainable development goals. This is why OtonaPre has a large focus on climate change and sustainability, despite it feeling a bit out of place. I appreciate the focus on such topics, but I felt like it was taking up too much space in OtonaPre when combined with the topics of adulthood struggles and usual PreCure stuff, especially for just 12 episodes. I also think that the aforementioned Tokyo Mew Mew New, which aired last year and earlier this year, was much better at conveying these topics.

There's not much we know about MahoPre2, but I think I can say for certain that it won't have much of heavy environmental theme to it, and more so focus on expanding the lore of the Witch World. I expect the sequel to have 12-13 episodes like OtonaPre did, so not trying to jam several themes into such a limited scope will be good.

Another thing, that's a bit small is that, personally, I wasn't a fan of the art direction, notably the character designs, of OtonaPre. Toei outsourced the anime primarily to Studio DEEN, so most of the staff, character designer, series director, animation directors, art director, etc. were assigned to people who didn't seem to be that familiar with the series and the final product sort of reflected that. It's understandable why Toei outsourced most of the production, as this year, they also had to focus on the usual yearly PreCure, One Piece, the Sailor Moon Cosmos films, etc., and I expect more of the same next year for MahoPre2.

But I think that, at least in terms of character designer, we might get Emiko Miyamoto, who was the CD for the original MahoPre, back. The reason why Toshie Kawamura, who was the CD for Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, didn't come back for OtonaPre, seems to be that she's currently not accepting new work due to her poor health, as stated in her Twitter bio. This makes sense, as Kawamura recently did the character designs for the all-male Dancing Star PreCure, which, as a live-action stage play, had less commitments for her to deal with compared to OtonaPre. In contrast, from what I could gather, Miyamoto appears to be in good health, and she hasn't really done much work since Dragon Quest: Adventure of Dai, which ended last year. She did do some small animation work for the recent PreCure All Stars F film, but that's pretty much it. I think there will be time for her to return next year for MahoPre2, along with other staff like head writer Isao Murayama and series director Masato Mitsuka.

Ideally, I would hope that MahoPre2 has the women transform into adult Pretty Cure, unlike what OtonaPre did, but there's really nothing right now that I can predict, other than that it seemingly not being apart of the OtonaPre brand may raise some hope.

So yeah, these are the reasons why I'm holding out hope that MahoPre2 will still be good. Hopefully they don't do what they did in OtonaPre and have Mirai and Riko be paired off with random faceless men, and instead with each other. They have to make it gayer, with maintext, not subtext, like how they kissed in the manga.

[arishto]

I really like the painting you shared recently! It came across my feed and I couldn’t find any of your other pieces but I really like your style.

I was wondering if the lamb is supposed to be Gojo and if so, what does it mean to you for Geto to be holding the animal in such manner and with such expression?

thank you so much! i haven't posted my art before due to art block i have had for many years, but i would really love to post my pieces from now on. i'm planning to post it here :)

first, this piece was about innocence, and gojo's eye appeared in my head a bit later. and now it is not only about innocence - but about betrayal too. sometimes circumstances appear to be like this and not otherwise and we cannot change them nor avoid them. do we feel devastated? yes, though nothing may be done about it. maybe it is also about it - about resignation to fate. that is the basis of geto's emotions.

but the only thing we know for sure - both of them are attached to each other, and something bad is about to happen.

[popculturebuffet]

Next up for Nickelodeon era of shows, who is your favorite character from each of the early to mid 2000s Nicktoons shows you've seen like: The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, Chalk Zone, All Grown Up, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Danny Phantom, Catscatch, The X's, and Avatar the Last Airbender?

Jimmy Neutron: This is the entry for jimmy neutron... gotta blast.. arf arf you know the rest. Faviorite character is Hugh, an easy pick I know, he was in ASB1 for a reason, but the fact the man can make any scene memorable by opening his mouth says something. Sheen is a close second. The show itself is great and having rewatched an episode recently, stay posted for that review, I was reminded how.. timeless it feels, it's 50 sci fi feel meaning that apart from some slight age on the cgi, it feels like it could slot in anywhere in time. It's got great jokes, a standout cast, and a really intresting lead who does screw up but more because he thinks he knows everything rather than being a jerk as is sometimes common in cartoons.

Chalk Zone: Hi hi hi to you all, who else could I pick i'ts gotta ne skrawl. Intriguing origin, hell of an introduction and a silky singing voice. It's concept was a tad dated even for the time, but I love chalkzone too much, from said concept allowing for endlessly creative ideas, to giving a character godlike powers in a way that isn't SUPER op. Truly great show, dearly miss it and i'm sad it probably won't be back in some form.

All Grown Up: I really wanna shout it out all grown up with you. God this block is stacked. Dil is the easy winner here. His plot lines were always funny, his weird friendship with vice principal pangborn that evolves from "He thinks their freinds" to "Actually they kinda are", and his easy charm: he gets flak from the twins for being weird as shit.. and just lets it bounce off either not noticing or more likely not carring. As for the series as a whole.. i'ts pretty good from what i remmeber. Admitley the kids ages are weird, probably should've bumped them up to all being 12, but the series itself is a lot of fun: it's neat seeing where everyone ended up, having Kimi and Dill get fleshed out more as characters, and see how they've changed and what hasn't. (I.e. Phil's still gross, but lil is growing out of it, Chucky's still anxious but ti's now more social anxiety, tommy's curosity has turned to filmaking. ) I'ts good stuff and something I should revisit , and should watch on this blog at some point.

My Life As a Teenage Robot: Her teenage robot, life. And this one was a bit hard. The series honestly has a great suply of characters but my pick is.. armagedroid. A bit left field as he basically has one appearnce.. but it's such a great concept: a giant robot designed to bring peace.. but not able to do so without destroying everything and his fight with Jenny is easily the series best as she's down to her HEAD fighting this monstrosity. The series itself is genius and one of Nick's best and how it was treated sucks hard. Jenny is a likeable, fun protaganist who will screw up, being a teen at all but in relatable ways, nicely blending slice of life teen issues with high concept robot shenanigans. I also like Brad quite a bit being a fun sidekick with extra points for not being shipped with the protaganist because 'THAT'S WHAT YOU DO I GUESS'. NOt saying it can't work (if we get to disney they had easily the best around this same time period), but god was it overdone. The series itself wasn't, having art deco style for days and is in need of a revivial stat.

Danny Phantom: Gonna catch em all because he's danny phantom gonna.. you get the bit. Vlad. Nick's best villian ever, and the perfect green goblin to danny's spider-man. His episodes tended to be the series best and martin mull, rip, was a dream as him. The series itself is a stellar superhero show, probably the best of this excellent era for them. It has some age spots (most of these shows do, you may sense a pattern), but it's a great action show with nice continuity, a killer rogues gallery and a nice sense of progression. It's top tier and reviewing a good chunk of it has only helped my opinon.

Catscratch: LALALALALALA CATSCRATTTTCHHH. This is one I need to revisit as I don't remember it well but it has an all star voice cast up front. I mean it has Wayne Knight , Kevin McDonald, and Rob Paulsen as your leads and Maurice LaMarche and Liliana Mumy as your supporting cast. What else do you need?

The X's: don't really have one. This isn't a bad one I just.. dont' remember it hardly at all other than having a great art style.

Avatar the Last Airbender; Sokka. Your faviorite jokey hot mess boy wins this one easier than he should> He was one of my faviorites as a kid, that stands now, Sokka deserved better in Korra. We deserved to see his kids if any. The show itself is one i've been meaning to revisit for years now and is one of Nick's best period: Gorgeous, has one of the best built worlds in fiction, well plotted aside from a few filler feeling episodes (Which i'm gunshy on as Steven Universe got this accusation FAR too often. You can't call every episode that's a break from the main plot filler.. but you can call some of avatar's side adventures filler for sure), including the one they outright mocked, and some shipping issues that were fine when I was a kid but now aged badly, everything else is immaculate and makes for good tv. There's a reason both this show had a second wave of popularity form netflix, and that both it's sequel and reamake have struggled to reach this level. Though Korra as we'll ge tto is still pretty good. More on that later.

[saratravel]

This morning, I had considered going to a clock museum in Kleipeda. However, I really wanted more time to rest, so I hung out at my accommodations until it was time to check out at noon. Some days, you just need to stay in your pajamas as long as possible.

Around 11:30, I hopped in my car and headed north into Latvia! The border crossing was seemless, as is standard in the EU. It weirded me out coming from Norway by plane (notably NOT EU but I guess is buddy buddy enough to count). I noticed an immediate change in the street signs. Different font, slightly different symbols. Also the speed limit was much lower, but that could have been just the highway I was taking being much smaller.

It was only a 1.5hr drive and I had another 1.5hrs to kill before check-in at my hotel so I went to go see a major stop in my itinerary: Karosta.

Karosta is, currently, a neighborhood of Liepaja. Previously, however, it was a military base built by Alexander III of Russia in the early 1900s. Then, it was a Latvian military base after they gained independence after WWI. Then, it was a Nazi military base. Then it went back to being a blocked off Soviet base, completely cut from neighboring Liepaja. And then it was a bit of a political desert after the Soviet Union fell up until the 2010s. It was not a safe place until very very recently, when the city of Liepaja expanded its city lines to include Karosta, some factories and housing were built, and art festivals began being held annually (one is happening THIS WEEK). While driving around today, I noticed just as many women and families walking about and lots of kids playing. It's like any other residential area I've seen so far, minus the fact that there's just Soviet style housing mixed with a massive Orthodox Church and a surely haunted military prison smack dab in the middle.

The prison was my first stop. I took a tour spoken in both Latvian and English. The guide so seamlessly translanguaged between them I had to really focus to notice when he was saying something I could understand. He showed us the different cells and I volunteered to go into their confinement cell for a few moments with about 5 other people. It was very dark. They used to keep people in there for 23 hours. Here is that cell, as well as other lit cells and a picture of me a kind woman offered to take. I realized I didn't know how to pose for a picture in a military prison cell.

A number of the cells have been converted into spaces, keeping WWI memorabilia, as well as recreations of home rooms from the 60s-70s and 90s.

I have way more pictures of just the prison and then I have another museum/street art gallery to share so bare with me- I may do a few picture dump posts next.

[prof-peach]

:0 I've never seen the other Pokemon on your team, what are they like?

My perma-team is a vulpix, Valka, a 20+ year old heavy hitter, despite her small stature. She was my very first pokemon, through gritted teeth we bonded, and now I fondly refer to her as my shadow. I go no where without her. She puts everyone who resides on the island in their place with unnerving strength. like literally any comic she's somewhere in the background, if not underfoot. Not hard to find more art of her, she is quite menacing.

Then we have Booker, Teddiursa, silly old grumpy bear. He had a hard time with poachers when he was real young, and imprinted on me during my ranger days many years ago now. He doesn't want to evolve, wears an everstone bead on his tail. He's partially blind on one side but we hiked to a colony of Machop and trained with them in the mountains for months to help him regain balance and confidence! He seems grouchy but is actually sweet.

Then we got Minerva, a shiny lopunny i nabbed at an airport when i was quite young, from a bad breeder. she was a scabby weedy flea infested runt when we first met, hardly the pink colour you'd usually expect from her type. She is fierce and fearless, will jump head first into anything with confidence and style. Loves to dress up, steals a lot of my nicer clothes. Will smash you into bits if you cross her, a total diva and i'd change nothing.

you've no doubt recently noticed the posts about Boadicea, a CharizardXGarchomp hybrid who's the baby of the group. Needy, clingy, total idiot, lap pokemon despite her ridiculous size. Very fast mount for flying.

For ground travel i use a dear Stantler called Donut, he's rather docile if you're not a problem to his "herd", with a neck so thick and strong you can hold onto his antlers and be lifted with ease. He's very chill.

We got a delivery Noctowl whos been around the block with me a few times too, lil guys really friendly, no real name for him, we all just call him 'Fancy pants' or 'dude'. hes got fancy eyebrows.

Of course not forgetting Quintin, a Scizor, my first egg hatch ever, been with me since i was a real youngster, a gentle soft sweet boy with a heart of gold, and collectively about 4 braincells. We all adore him.

then theres the house pokemon, each of these has blurb in the blog somewhere, they're all rather naughty... except Bob and Rosco. They're a delight.

uhhh lets see, this rat is always under my feet.

And then theres the pokemon who are out and about. the team mates who do jobs around the island, usually maintaining the peace.

Theres also 3 Bronzong that hang about the island,

Some notable partners from my various travels and adventures would iniclude

Dutch - Porygon-Z (helps around the lab, very loving, bit mad)

Typhlosion - Propane (odd markings, a spicy meatball)

Grimm - Steelix (real docile, very into scratches)

Riot - Lycanroc/midnight (Fiery, naughty, likes to thrash)

Suneater - Golisopod (shy, kind and very smart, loves to be alone)

Jewel - Ribombee (mean tempered! fussy)

Wotsit - Vikavolt (real clingy and super curious, to a fault)

Hemlock - Heracross - (a total babe, really protective and jolly)

Potato - -Bulbasaur (strict but fair, very old)

Murdoc - Crobat (timid in the light, proud of his speed)

Sugar - Tyranitar (Soft baby lady, total gentle giant)

Summer - Meganium (variant lady, gentle, calming aura, healer)

Tobi - Dreadnaw (rare water type for me, he's always sleeping)

Moss - Stonjourner (covered in moss, aptitude for grass attacks)

Zeplin - Aerodactyl (old battle maiden, now retired to the mountains)

Madam - Eldegoss - (will try to poison you, shiny, total nuisance)

I must admit, i often am one to release pokemon back to the wild, but the ones mentioned here are pokemon who have had the option to leave, and have chosen to stick around (apart from Madam who is a liability if left to go free), at least for now. We've been on many adventures together, and now work side by side managing the island. I have yet to draw them all but theres at least some visuals here for you. This also doesn't include pokemon who are residents at the lab and its facilities, who like our company but are not technically registered to myself or any of the staff. We breed all kinds of grass types, and they're all pretty friendly give or take, so if we have a certain job that needs more hands, we can call upon the residents who suit the work. Many of them have been through treatment or rehab with us, and we've built up a relationship with them, enough to work well together.

[thompsonstessa-moved]

'Teraz Rock' Interview - english translation

A well know polish magazine about rock music 'Teraz Rock' (Now Rock) had an interview with Måneskin, and since one of the polish fans on FB shared pictures of the magazine, I decided to translate the interview, because I loved some of the stuff they said there! :D

As always, the whole thing is under read more. ;)

Maneskin is not only ‘Zitti e buoni’ and their winning performance in Rotterdam during the recent finale of Eurovision Song Contest. Italian band fits perfectly into the trend of rock restorers, and at the same time fights with the mental narrowness, prejudices and homophobia. On August 19th they will play In Park Kolibki In Gdynia.

I: You started by playing on the streets of Rome…

V: Unfortunately, there is not a lot of possibilities to debut in Rome. Rome is lacking the appropriate places, there are almost no rock shows. So we couldn’t find a place where we could show ourselves to the people. So we decided to play on the streets to gain the following, the listeners. We did that for good few months. And we had a lot of fun doing that. We think it really helped us, too. Because when you play on the streets, you don’t play for someone who came to listen to you. You need to attract people’s attention. So it was a great lesson on stage skills, to keep the attention. And we played many hours each day, so we also evolved as musicians, as a band.

I: Is it true that you had issues with police? V, D, T, E: Yes, that’s true!! (laugh)

D: It was all because of this old lady, that lived on the first floor, near the place where we used to play. She snitched on us! And sometimes police came and tried to get us to leave.

I: They didn’t arrest you?

D: No, it wasn’t that bad.

V: We were 16 back then. We just went all ‘We swear we won’t do it again!’ (laugh). We hid somewhere for 10 minutes….

D: Went around the block….

V: And played again (laugh).

I: You admited that at first you were shy. How did it happen that you gained so much self-confidence? Do you think one has to be self-confident if they want to show the world that they have something to say in music, in art?

V: It is important, but its more about feeling good with yourself and having fun doing what you do, rather than confronting the world. I think that if you lack confidence, you can’t fully enjoy creating, because you keep thinking ‘What the other will think about it?’. But everyone has to go through this phase. In my opinion, self-confidence is not something you’re born with. Everyone has the moments of hesitation and doubt. I have them too, still. And I think that’s perfectly normal. But you need to learn to appreciate yourself, accept yourself the way you are, because you can’t run away from yourself. We have whole life with ourselves, until the day we die (laugh).

I: Damiano, in one of the interviews you said ‘What we say, can change someone way of thinking’. Do you want to influence your audience? Artist like Chuck Berry or AC/DC just had fun on stage.

D: We also have fun on stage. But now, when we’re well known, we can get to many people, especially young ones. And there’s a chance, that if we say something positive to them, we could help them with their problems, that they can’t fight on their own. For example – like Vic said – we can help them gain more self-confidence and make them feel safer in the world around them. I’ll say this: if as a musician you have something to share with others, do it. But if you just want to have fun playing, that’s OK too.

T: Exactly.

I: Your behaviour on stage is often the reason for homophobic attacks. What would you say to homophobes here in Poland?

V: Fuck them!!!

T: Fuck them!

E: Fuck them, fuck them! (laughing)

D: Maybe not so vulgar.....

T: Fuck them!

D: For sure they should open up more, get rid of prejudices. Make a step forward. Free themselves from the old way of thinking. Let the others live however they want.

I: You debuted in 2017 with EP ‘Chosen’ with two of your own songs and few covers. Even tho you were so young, you already came off as mature musicians with a set style…

V: Thanks, but I don’t think so (laugh).

D: I don’t think we would agree with that.

E: We wouldn’t agree with that, definitely.

V: My bass playing skills definitely left much to be desired.

D: 'Chosen' definitely has its advantages, but… we were still looking for our sound back then. That EP is so much more different than our other albums. But it is a part of our career, our journey, and we don’t regret anything that has to do with it. We had a lot of fun recording it and… its something we did in the past and we’re happy that people loved it.

V: Still love it!

D: Exactly, still love it. Even tho we changed so much since then.

V: The most important and coolest thing about that EP is that even tho we were really young and our skills weren’t as good, you can still hear that we already had charisma and knew what we wanted. And even tho most of the EP consists of known songs, we changed them, played them in our own way, our own style. And that’s really cool because it shows us as a band with their own personality. Of course, now that we listen to that EP, we have lot to complain about…

D: We would do the songs much better.

V: But we like the attitude we already had back then. Even tho we were so young.

E: Our sound really changed since then, but you need to remember that when we we’re recording it, it was already a huge accomplishment for us.

D: That’s true.

I: On ‘Chosen’ Damiano sung in english. On your first album, ‘Il ballo della vita’ from 2018, you had songs in italian as well. Did your songs get more personal because of that?

D: I wouldn’t say that. We started writing songs in italian out of necessity. If you’re an Italian artist and want to reach Italian audience, you need, you have to sing in italian, because not a lot of people speak english there. Now it’s different, we managed to reach international audience, so we can make more songs in english. But we won’t resign from italian, we like to write in italian as well.

I: While recording ‘Il ballo della vita’ you made documentary ‘This Is Maneskin’…

E: They will never forget it! (laugh)

I: You can see there, that during that time you argued a lot.

D: We were young!

I: Did the conflicts threaten your band’s future?

D: No! We were just starting out...

V: Conflicts were inevitable. We were very young and suddenly tabloids were writing about us. And recording an album required a lot of work. And we never experienced that before, we had issues dealing with work in the studio. Because creating and recording together isn’t easy. You need to make many decisions, everyone has their own opinion. Now we’re more mature, we know how to deal with those situations. We can discuss with each other in a constructive way. We were much more childish back then and yeah, we fought sometimes. But even then nothing happened that could threaten our band.

I: ‘Il ballo della vita’ is a concept album of sorts. You have there Marlena, who, like you said, is personification of the concern a lot of you have – that we’re not able to be yourself…

D: The album was supposed to share a message to our fans. We wanted to tell them how important for us is the freedom to be yourself. The ability to love someone, that was chosen by our heart. Freedom to wear the clothes we like. Et cetera, et cetera… We realized that the album would speak to people more, and will be easier to understand, if we gave that idea a name. Of course it’s an idea that we still share to this day, just maybe a bit differently.

I: Your last album, ‘Teatro D’Ira Vol. 1’, you recorded live in studio. Did the way you worked on it was much different from the way you recorded ‘Il ballo della vita’?

D: Oh yeah! It definitely took us less time!

V: Definitely much faster. It was very exciting. We wanted to keep in studio the energy we have when we play concerts, which meant playing together. Which is of course much more difficult than recording separately. But we told to ourselves: let it be, we should at least try. And we loved the result.

D: You know, at first you work on the material in rehearsal room. And you’re full of energy. But then you come into recording studio, where you divide the song into parts, and you loose that power, that magic. So we realized that we should change the way we work, so we could keep the emotions from rehearsals.

I: ‘Teatro D’Ira Vol. 1’ is another concept album. You said its all about the rage, that plays the role of catharsis sometimes. Can you say something more about it?

V: Anger is mostly seen as something negative. And we think that classifying emotions as positive or negative is stupid. Especially in art. When you’re creating, anger can make you give more from yourself, say more. And that’s what our album is about, talking about the world of theatre. We show that something that’s seen as bad, can – especially in the world of art – become something good. And those songs, that are so full of rage, can bring relief to our listeners, which only confirms what I’m trying to say.

I: In the lyrics to 'In nome del padre’ and ‘Vent’anni’ you’re talking about mistakes you made in the past...

D: They are very different tracks, even if they seem to talk about the same topic. Vent’anni is all about our age, because we think it’s a very special moment in your life: you become an adult, but you’re still too young to be considered as such, and they don’t treat you seriously. We wanted to share that with our fans, because maybe they think the same. And In nome del padre is about the battle we had to fight, the mistakes we had to make, to get where we are today. Of course we’re still young, we still make mistakes. But I’m singing about the mistakes from the past, because they made us the way we are today. And I’m saying: don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because they are a part of your journey, your life. What’s important is how you react to those mistakes.

E: It’s not a mistake to make mistakes.

I: The next album, continuation of ‘Teatro D’Ira Vol. 1’ – is it already recorded?

D: No, no.

V: Indeed, our next album will be continuation of ‘Teatro D’Ira Vol. 1’, but we’re still working on it. We don’t want to record it in a hurry, we want to take our time making it.

D: We have a lot of songs already, but we want to have plenty to choose from. We want the album to have the most representative songs, the best ones.

[thecrownnet]

Congratulations to Adriano Goldman , ASC, BSC, ABC, Director Of Photography, for his Creative Arts Emmy win OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A SINGLE-CAMERA SERIES (ONE HOUR) for season 4 episode 3 ‘Fairytale’ on September 11, 2021. Here are his insights on filming the episode with director Benjamin Caron.

‘The Crown’ Used Lighting and Composition to Trap Its Characters Inside a ‘Fairytale’

Director Benjamin Caron and cinematographer Adriano Goldman discuss how they destroyed Diana and Charles’ marriage before it even began.

Behind the Scenes of “The Crown” Season 4, Episode 3 Photo: Netflix

Over “The Crown’s” four seasons, the halls of Buckingham Palace have become familiar visual signifiers for both the grandeur and the pressure placed upon the royal family. But in the third episode of this most recent season, “Fairytale,” cinematographer Adriano Goldman and director Benjamin Caron stretched the limits of the show’s visual language to create — and then to destroy — Princess Diana’s (Emma Corrin) fairytale fantasies.

Much of the episode is given over to Diana slowly realizing that, like many princesses stuck in a castle before her, she has fallen into a trap. But Goldman and Caron opened up the ways they shoot their Buckingham Palace sets to show how the demands of the Crown consume everyone on the eve of the fateful marriage.

They force the jaws of the trap open wide with a pre-credits sequence of Diana’s night out with her friends after Charles (Josh O’Connor) proposes to her. The scene is a departure in every sense, not just to the swank ’80s members’ club that Diana frequents.

“You try to deliver something that is more romantic, a little bit more colorful, fun to start,” Goldman said of the sequence in an interview with IndieWire. “We wanted to not change the style too much, but there should be a transition from a very colorful pre-title sequence, a very interesting and more romantic beginning.”

That romance is on full display, most noticeably in the brighter, guadier colors of the club and much warmer tones of Diana’s Earl’s Court flat. But Goldman’s camera also interposes itself almost as a fourth (slightly intoxicated) friend, swinging around inside the girls’ cab to get a look at both Diana and Buckingham Palace, or flinging itself down onto the bed with the girls at the end of the night. The look of the sequence stands in contrast to the stately shots and slow tracks which are the show’s normal rhythm for everyone in the royal family. Well, for everyone in the royal family except maybe Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham-Carter), who gets to dance by a pool every now and again.

“We really considered how we could reverse [that fairytale opening] and be very present with her, and [how we could] make her feel young, actually. Part of this is she’s a young girl going into the palace,” Caron said.

Caron and Goldman gave the audience several visual signifiers that are easy to clock in this sequence, as well as Diana’s goodbyes to her friends that follows: the gold and neon hues of the night out, the warm, eye-level close-ups of Diana dancing in the club, and a signature spiral staircase Diana descends to begin her life as a princess.

Over the course of the episode, these colors will fade. The close-ups inch slightly above Diana’s eyeline, so that it feels like the camera, along with the rest of the Royals, is looking down on her. And when a spiral staircase reappears, it will lead to Diana’s lowest point.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

With Diana ushered inside Buckingham Palace to shield her from the press in the run-up to her and Charles’ wedding, Caron and Goldman emphasized how small and vulnerable Diana looks inside the palace walls. The opening of “Fairytale” had a long shot of the club, and Diana fit snugly within it. Once inside Buckingham Palace, the negative space often overwhelms Diana, and the camera backs away to show just how alone she truly is, perhaps best exemplified in the scene of her grandmother (Georgie Glen) physically tying her up while instructing her in how to speak like a royal.

Caron and Goldman deliberately call back to the romance of the opening to twist the knife, having Diana dance ballet inside the palace and then try to break out of the regimented structure of it as the pressure on her mounts. “I remember sort of holding the frame and I remember the camera operator was trying to follow us, but [I said no,] just hold the frame static and let her move in and around it,” Caron said. “So it really felt like someone trying to break out [of] somewhere.”

But of course, the camera never does let her leave the frame. Unlike the quick, fun cuts of Diana dancing in the club, there is no pressure release here. There is nowhere for Diana to go.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

Caron wanted to use visual features that would feel right at home in a Disney princess story to their most punishing effect and perhaps the most powerful one of these motifs reoccurs when “The Crown” has Diana descend another spiral staircase. “[Ben] was very specific about this spiral because she’s going down on a spiral emotionally,” Goldman said of the shot that leads Diana down to the kitchen, a moment of late night desperation that kicks off her eating disorder. “He didn’t want to follow her on the steps, like on a steadicam. He wanted [the camera to be] facing down and going down with her to the very bottom of her feelings and her emotions.”

Caron described it as going to the “bottom of a well,” once Diana enters the kitchens and becomes enveloped in darkness — except for the fluorescent blues of the refrigerator lights, which makes the space feel like a morgue. This strong use of color, like all the changes in the episode, is grounded in the reality of whatever space Diana finds herself in. But the emotion and, indeed, the foreshadowing that Caron and Goldman are able to imbue those spaces with give Diana’s spiral real visual potency and a visceral sadness.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

What is so thrilling about “Fairytale” is that it spares no one. Two striking scenes toward the end of the episode don’t have Diana in them at all, and yet push the series’ visual language to show how the palace and this marriage will swallow the characters who have been there all along.

In the first of these, Margaret tries to persuade Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (Marion Bailey), and Philip (Tobias Menzies) to call off the wedding. Caron wanted the scene to have a “conspiratorial, almost a Jacobian feel” to highlight the cold, businesslike calculations these four people are making for the happiness of two others.

“I remember saying to Adriano,’no no no, let’s go darker,” Caron said of this sequence and the next one. Goldman also recalled the desire to push the scene even further visually, lighting characters at harsh, dynamic angles or in almost complete shadow, so that the scene would feel spiritually closer to “The Godfather” than to the show’s usual style. The comparison is apt, given the mahogany browns and greens of the sitting room and the firelight that Goldman and Caron used to emphasize shadows falling into the crags on the characters’ faces. Vito Corleone could easily be sitting in a corner of one of those frames.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

The next scene — when Elizabeth goes to find Charles and offer him a final few words on his marriage — Caron and Goldman viewed as a way to visually crystalize their relationship and how it is marred by their obligations to the monarchy. “Wouldn’t it be painful if you had Charles looking out the window and he felt the reflections of the fireworks and the noise and the celebrations outside?” Caron said about how he started conceiving of the blocking and framing of the exchange between mother and son. Each cinematic choice builds from a sense of what would be more painful, what would put more strain on the relationship.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

The filmmakers created this visual strain between Queen and Crown Prince not just by keeping them at opposite sides in the composition, but by keeping one of the pair always just out of focus in the shots with the two of them — they can’t even occupy the same level of detail in the frame. Color plays a role, too, with bright blues and reds from the fireworks, reflections of the Union Jack, always being part of the light through which the audience sees the resigned sadness on Colman’s face and the abject misery on O’Connor’s. Goldman said this is the scene where he realizes he will never escape the system of the monarchy. “He realizes it’s too late. It’s a trap. He’s been trapped.”

“It always comes back to the Crown,” Caron said, and it is really from the perspective of the Crown itself that we watch the characters prepare to head to church on the day of the wedding. When the audience finally sees Diana in her dress, she faces away from the camera and moves into that oppressive cavernous space which has put so much pressure on her throughout the episode. It’s a slow, almost funereal march toward the fate the audience already knows awaits her. Charles, on the other hand, gets the close-up this time. But the camera, with equal grimness, tracks slightly down and in, so that his face begins to loom over the frame, making him look monstrous.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

Of course by now, the visual choices that Caron and Goldman made for “Fairytale” have taught the viewer that there is another monster, a much more powerful one, looming over the episode’s final frame: The Crown is the monster that always gets you in the end.

[rustbeltjessie]

13. How do you get out of a creative block?

I have lots of different tricks. They don’t always all work, but usually if I cycle through all of them I eventually land on one that works.

One of the things I often do when I’m stuck on a particular piece or project is just work on a different project. A poem is giving me a hard time? I’ll work on my novel. My novel isn’t working? Why not an essay! Or, I’ll work with a different art form entirely. I have writer’s block? I’ll make a collage. I’m having a difficult time making visual art? I’ll pick up my guitar and noodle around a bit. The point isn’t even to make anything “serious” or “good” in another art form, it’s that I’m still being creative but not actively working on the thing I’m stuck on. What tends to happen is that my brain is still working on whatever I’m stuck on in the background, but since I’m not actively working on it, it’s free to just sort of play around and often times that’s enough to jar whatever I was stuck on loose.

Other things that sometimes allow my brain to work out creative problems/blockages without my meddling are baking/cooking, making playlists, dancing, and even cleaning/reorganizing. (Honestly, thank g-d for writer’s block in that regard, because without out it my house would be even messier and dirtier than it is now.)

Getting out of my house helps a lot. Taking a long walk or a long drive, weather permitting, often helps me immensely. Sometimes it’s because something I experience on the walk or drive clicks things together in my head, other times it’s more like what I mentioned above—while I am focused on the walk or the drive, my brain is working on something in the background. It’s also good when I can get out of my house to write. In the Before Times, I wrote at cafes, diners, and bars whenever possible, but I haven’t had the chance to do that in over two years. Now, in nice weather, I’ll go to a park and write; otherwise, my mom has an art studio and when she’s not using it, I sometimes get to go there and write. If I can’t leave my house, sometimes just writing in a different room of the house than I normally do is enough of a change of scenery to get me past my writer’s block.

Reading can help. Not so much sitting down and reading through one book straight through (in fact, that can have the opposite effect), more like: reading an article here, a short story there, a poem or two there. All the different words and tones and ideas sort of vibrate against one another and sometimes spark something new or help click things together in my head regarding something I’m already working on. (For this reason, I’m usually reading three to six books at any given time and alternating between them.)

One thing I’ve started doing recently is writing about how I can’t write. If I sit down to work on a poem or other piece of writing and I’m finding it difficult to begin, either because I’m afraid I’m not good enough to write it, or because the topic is something that’s hard for me to write about, I’ll start by writing something like I can’t write this, this is too scary, this is too hard, and keep doing that until just the act of writing snaps me out of my block and I can get into writing what I actually wanted to write. And if I hit another block in the middle of writing whatever it is, I’ll go back to writing I can’t write this, rather than quitting. It makes for some disjointed first drafts, but that’s what editing’s for!

Finally, if my blockage is poetry-specific, I try writing a poem in a different form or style. For some reason, having to follow the constraints of a form can help stop me from overthinking the other aspects of a poem. And if all else fails, I compose a cento. When coming up with my own words and forming them into a poem is just not happening, I am still able to take other people’s words and collage them into a poem, and at least I’m still keeping my poetry muscles in shape, and eventually my own words will come back.

[dreamescapeswriting]

hey, how are you? it's kind of awkward for me to send an anonymous message here but i think i have to say a thing or two to you about something that's been bugging me recently. first of all, i love you work, absolutely a 1000 out of 10 if i was to rate it. recently, i feel like i have been less excited about your work, i used to wait for your post to come up. did you change your style of writing a bit? if so, then it's going good! if not, then also good. this is very messy, but i'm just writing my thoughts here. your work, for me, isn't the same like before. i admired you, i still am, and like you are someone who just writes so beautifully even if you are asked to write a paragraph with just one given word. that's it, excited is the keyword maybe, or like. i hate to say this, i despise myself for saying this but i don't like your work anymore, you gave me comfort with your writing, you still do but maybe, a bit lesser than before. i am proud of you and i will be in the future, keep going up and up! you are a piece of art and i'm glad that you are sharing that talent of yours. -signing off, a dear anon.

Hey,

I totally understand what you mean. With my writing as of recently, I have been going through a lot and I had a huge mental block for a while. I'm deeply, truly, sorry to anyone else who agrees with this anon. I'm mostly disappointed in myself for allowing my work to not be enjoyed as it once was.

I haven't changed my writing style, I think its where I've been blocked and I've tried to push through it. I'm so sorry. I will work on bettering myself and my writing in the future so you guys can once again enjoy it 🥺 Wishing you so much love and luck in the future my love. I’m proud of you too

I'm going to work on myself more, on what I accept as requests, what I'm willing to write and maybe even the timeline and how I write.

Once again, I'm sorry

~ M

[sanstropfremir]

the hotly anticipated kingdom episode 7 review is here!!

this episode was a lot less spectacle-y than the last one (the last episode with stages, i mean), and i think that was a good choice for all the groups on the whole to tone it down on the run up to the finale, because at the rate everyone was headed there would be no room to go any higher. i'm very glad that there was actually a collab stage and not just a song swap, especially because it gives a chance for the boys to work together and make friends when they otherwise arent going to be able to interact much. love love love to see them making friends and having fun doing these stages!

i'm not really sure why mnet didnt put the vocal stage this episode, because what on earth else are they going to put in the next episode with it??? i know it's a content stretch but still, it seems like a weird choice to me. anyways, there’s four stages for me to talk about this time and i'm going to try to not ramble out of control, but we’ll see. i did enjoy watching all of these, but we’ve all got favourites and i'm going to rank by which group i liked better out of the two for each stage, and then i put a few conclusions at the end. strap in folks this is another long one.

rap stages

skz + btob + atz

i was actually really surprised at how much i liked this stage. i would not classify myself as a rap fan and believe it or not i actually do not place a lot of importance on lyrics when enjoying music. although i have very high lyric retention and comprehension, i focus more on the sound than the literal words, so a fair amount of rap is swing-and-a-miss in my personal listening. plus when you add a language barrier on top of that, a lot of the nuance and technical skill of it just flies over my head. so i really dont have much to say about the sonic elements this time around, sorry. also.....i know i joked that nobody from the kingdom staff is reading my reviews.....but is someone from the kingdom staff reading my reviews????? i specifically mentioned that i think skz should do an art themed stage and then we got one????? i know i manifested the punk ateez stage but did i manifest this also??? am i just that powerful???

costume

obviously these are pretty basic rap/hiphop stage looks, but the white was a really good choice for visibility’s sake, and also thematically: it reflects the colours in the lighting really well.

i am DYING to know who the designer of minhyuks jacket is. if somebody knows please tell me i love it so much. it looks like some of the recent belted jackets that dior was putting out, but the drawing on the front armscythe piece reminds me of the superm/kim junggi collab for tiger inside. say whatever you want about superm, but you cannot deny that that is not some of the coolest merch on the kpop scene.

loved the traditional korean elements that came through in addition to the western references: the screens, hongjoong’s fan, minhyuk’s big fuckoff brush, the masks, and the sleeves on the dancers at minhyuk’s bit. those are a costume feature from a style of korean traditional masked dance called bongsan talchum. the masks themselves are versions of hahoetal masks, which are used in a very specific archetypal ritual dance in andong. i think these are imae masks, who is the servant/fool archetype that mocks the nobleman and the scholar. i suspect that was a deliberate choice, but i can only speculate.

another point about the masks which is not relevant but maybe a fun fact for people who don’t know. i actually thought at first that they were western theatre half masks, which are a very old style of mask that, like with hahoetal masks, represent a number of archetypes/stock characters. maskwork is a very common training practice in theatre schools, because it teaches body language and control, because half your face is covered and you cannot speak in your own voice (sometimes you cannot speak at all, this is one of the rules of full mask). the tradition of usings masks to portray emotion goes all the way back to the ancient greek chorus, but more commonly people in the west sometimes know it from the italian commedia dell’arte, of which you will have definitely seen some of the character archetypes before. i just find it neat that the same types of art pop up in different places seemingly independently of each other. humans are cool.

set

not much to say here, it's pretty bare with just some propwork. thought the screen use was fun and they used it smartly in a couple of transitions. 

thought changbin’s bit of ‘interrupting’ the artists was cute and fun. there’s obviously a picasso reference there, and the four technicolour paintings are a reference to andy warhol’s pop art silkscreen portraits, most famously of marilyn monroe, but he also did many other celebrities in the 70s and 80s.

lighting

i LOVED this lighting. super bright and fun, lots of use of colour, obviously. the projections were there to enhance the visuals and weren’t distracting in any way. i thought the transition to black and white/ink with minhyuk was smart and had good contrast, it gave a strong rhythm to build back up to for the climax.

sound

bang chan’s ‘spelling colour with a u’ bit had me SCREAMING with laughter. we spell colour with a u normally bang chan, the americans are the ones that are wrong. 

staging

i don’t really have a whole lot to say here, it was pretty straightforward and fun. like i’ve said in previous reviews, i wish they were more conscious of the steadicam direction and would stop showing extended bits of the production crew. at least everyone was wearing full blacks this time.

fun use of the upward angle combined with the groundwork/leg choreo during hongjoong’s verse, that was a highlight for me.

sf9 + tbz + ikon

nothing against this stage, the other one just hit harder for me. bobby is the best rapper on the show and he really carried this stage with his charisma. he’s a fun performer to watch and he knows how to command a space. i'm sure there’s technical notes that people have about the raps themselves, but i'm here looking at visuals as a priority, which i'm sure you’ve all grasped at this point.

costume

these were clearly extensions of these idol’s personal styles, with is a perfectly fine choice, especially for a rap stage where the emphasis is more on authorship. LOVED bobby’s 11yro girl at recess look.

amusing that both rap stages involved paint in some way? loved the backup dancers shooting supersoakers filled with paint at them, but i wish i knew the reason for it? i'm glad i saw this stage first because i would have been underwhelmed by the paint throwing if i had seen this after rainbow bonanza.

set

almost no set at all here, just a few props. i'm not judging as harshly on lack of set this round because these stages are meant to be more about skill than anything else. 

lighting

i loved the projections, i thought they were unobtrusive and i admit, i LOVE outer space themed anything.

i liked that they did more concert lighting and had no projections in the first half to put more focus on the performers, it really highlighted the fact that this stage was about them, and not about anything extraneous.

sound

it was indeed a song.

staging

i do wish there had been a bit more control of the space, because it did look very empty at some parts and they could have staved that off by keeping tighter camera shots. this stage is so fucking big, holy shit.

they really brought their onstage chemistry and they looked like they were having a blast, which FINALLY!! 

i actually really liked hwiyoung’s opening, i think there was a lot of potential there for some sharp contrast work that i wish had been played through a little more, especially with the cool white light overtop the black costumes. it actually reminded me a bit of the intro in the music video from a rapper i do actually listen to, bewhy’s gottasadae.

glad to see some more use of camera effects with the black and white, but why did they do it over the paint throwing? it just made the trajectory of the paint invisible because there was no colour contrast.

performance stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

ok obviously im gonna have a lot more to say about the performance stages, nobody is surprised there. this one was the better constructed of the two and my personal pick for better stage, but i actually liked watching the both of them equally.

costume

king shit, literally. we love contemporary hanbok in this house. there was good colour and style distinction between the three of them without clashing. 

costume change was fun and neatly blocked, it's pretty common to see backup dancers and chorus hiding quickchanges but i liked how this was a more unusual formation.

taeyang rocking the organza skirt and the big purple eyeshadow, thank you for keeping it cunty as always.

i really liked juyeon’s underlayer look. finally we get a good tbz costume look thats thematically relevant!

set

like all the stages this round, pretty minimal. the setting was almost entirely established through the costumes and the projections, which is some really good designwork. it's pretty much just the litters (the lifted chairs they entered on), and some smaller props. they managed to not make the stage feel empty because there was a lot of projection visuals to compensate, which is difficult to do without being overbearing, but i think they mostly pulled it off.

i originally thought it was gonna be weird to try and mesh the traditional korean architectural aesthetic with the weird mnet deco, but i ended up not noticing it as much as i thought i would.

lighting

like i just said, projections very well done and do a fantastic job of conveying setting without being overly distracting. like with the atz/skz/btob rap stage there’s a really broad range of colour use here that they offset by brightening and properly fill lighting the faces so you can actually see what’s happening.

the use of the strobing lasers and more concert style lighting fit really well with the change in the music from traditional instrument sounds to electronica and the more hiphop/isolated movements.

sound

i liked it well enough! i think it had a good arc that we can see echoed through the rest of the piece, like previously stated in the lighting and movement style. 

staging

like i mentioned with the quickchange, there was some really interesting formations using the backup dancers here, especially as a lead toward/away from the camera

having the three of them enter on litters; again, literal king shit, love to see it.

this has a pretty clear narrative that doesnt really need an external explanation, which is good. i have to assume that the burning of the paper with 妃 (concubine) is intended to be a gesture of ‘burning’ the love out of their hearts, but that was the only thing i'm still confused on. this may very well turn out to be a reference to a specific story that i just have no idea what it is, but we’ll see once the subs are out!

i loved juyeons solo bit with the alcohol drinking and the table flip, that was the choreographic highlight for me. i just really wish he would use the other muscles in his face more often. we know youre pretty, you dont have to blue steel your way through all your performances!! take a page out of donghyuk’s book and make some ugly faces, it's good for you!!

i though taeyang’s swordwork was fine, but since i do actually have a decade of sword training i'm very judgemental. it's not bad, he obviously has practiced with the weapon and he knows how to control it, but he doesn’t have the same understanding as someone who has trained with a sword as a weapon and not just as a prop. if we hadn’t seen another stage with swordwork in it i probably wouldn’t have brought this up (that's a lie, i still would have brought it up, i have a third dan), but you can really see the difference between how minhyuk moves with his sword and how taeyang moves. a lot of this has to do with the proper weighting of the blade, which i mention briefly in my second episode review in btob’s section (and also this ask here, where i talk about properly weighted weapons in relation to the gun choreo in sf9’s and ateez’s previous stages); minhyuk is likely using a ‘real’ sword (it’s blunted but still made using proper methods and materials), and taeyang is using a cheaper-made replica (unless you’re doing full contact striking a LOT there’s no way a properly made blade breaks like that. also you would never tape it together hello??? respect the blade). if you know what you’re looking for, you can tell from the movements themselves when someone has training. minhyuk did a load of real training for a film where he was a swordsman, and you can tell; the sword is an extension of his arm, all the movements lead with the tip of the blade first, because that’s your first, your fastest, and your most dangerous point. you do 90% of your cutting with the first eight inches of blade, but it takes a lot of specific training to get your hands and arms to a place where that kind of movement is possible. taeyang’s movements are driven from his hands, which is unsurprising, because that’s where he’s used to his extensions stopping. the tip follows rather than leads. wow this got insanely sidetracked i hope you liked this crash course on swordwork.

this is pretty much what i expected to see from this unit. these three groups all have standout soloists, so i wasn’t surprised to see these three boys as the picks. juyeon and taeyang especially, theyre both from groups that are more likely to do experimental stages and choreography that highlights them as soloists and skilled dancers.

skz + btob + atz

this was a letdown from ateez’s last two stages, because they knocked those out of the park, but it's only fair that they have a bit of a fall. that being said, i did really enjoy watching this for its sheer ridiculousness; i’m forgiving the wolf concept this time because well, it’s wolf. you can't cover wolf and not do a wolf concept, that’s against the law. also, like i’ve said before, i'm all for dark concepts IF you give them thematic weight. is it on the nose? yes. is it thematically relevant? also yes. is it dumb? also also yes, but that’s never stopped a single kpop group in the history of ever.

costume

friendship restored with ateez stylists, rivalry started with skz stylists. the fur shoulder fluffs??? stupid and i love them. perfect in every way. however i keep seeing the same fucking costumes on the skz boys and i will come directly for the stylists at jype if they dont get their shit together. be! more! creative!!!

i really really wish they had gone more 2013 kpop with it, we need more of that ugly ridiculous styling. peniel was actually pretty close, with the overly long tunic and those yellow lenses. very vixx on and on (yes i know they were vampires from outer space, let me live)

i actually thought the wolf gloves were fun? the small bits of uv paint actually worked instead of looking out of place, and i'm glad they put them on wooyoung because the uglier an outfit, the better he pulls it off. 

set

same dice, just the long table and the camo net at the beginning, which i thought was unnecessary. the table was useful for levels though, so happy to see they utilized that.

lighting

there is so much happening all the time. lots of lasers. it's definitely aiming for camp territory, and i dont actually hate it as much as i did on my first watch. it actually wasn’t as dark as i thought either, because its mostly lit with blue and amber. but it doesn’t really have that great of an arc and its not really that good on the whole.

the projections are a bit much for me, but that’s only when i'm actually looking at them. true to form, i didn’t even notice the excess of red slashes until like my fourth rewatch because i was too busy watching the performers.

sound

rookie exo my beloved. the original wolf goes so hard for absolutely no reason, so i’m not knocking this stage for being ridiculous. in fact it should have been more ridiculous. i think they did a fine job updating the song for a.....less 2013 sound. 

i like that they didn’t bother to live sing the stage even though they recorded vocals for it, it gave them all a chance to actually focus on just the dance.

that being said, i am kind of missing all the adlibs from the original. but even though there’s some strong vocalists in this unit, they aren’t made of the same stuff as baekhyun, luhan, chen, AND d.o.

i literally just realized that peniel had already debuted when this song came out AND is technically exo’s senior because btob debuted like two weeks before exo officially did.....oh no

staging

choreographically this feels a lot more like the skz stages that we’ve seen rather than the ateez ones, so i'm curious as to who the choreographer was. 

the tricking was definitely more ridiculous in this one, but i can't really say any of it was there for no reason because it all had elements of fighting in it. the scale of the tricks was quite large though and not very well blended with the rest of the choreo, which ending up making them look awkward. i thought it was a nice detail that they shone a green toplight on the dancers that made up the cliff wooyoung climbed up so that it looked like there was grass on it. cute.

the blocking is lacking a lot of fluidity, and i think that’s partially the scale of the tricking and also the editing, because this editing is TERRIBLE. there’s so much cutting, why is there so much cutting!! haven’t we already learned that longtakes are the best for this???

there’s a lot of stuff here that had good potential but could have been pushed a little farther. i feel like i say this for every mediocre stage, but what can i say, i'm good at constructive criticism. 

they should have given more showcase to the tree and the scratching arms; it's the most iconic move!! i also wish they had kept some kind of iteration of the different unit ‘leaping’ in over the exiting one, i always thought that part of the original choreo was really fun and did a lot for establishing them as wolves. 

i LOVED peniel entering with all those backup dancers in chains, thats some fucking iconic shit. very ‘im the alpha wolf,’ which is valid because he’s like at LEAST five years older than everyone else on the stage. i wish that instead of being the backup dancers it was the actual members, because THAT would have been an image. theyre all wearing harnesses and collars anyways, just clip em in! he’d be like one of those dogwalkers!

me last week: specifically talking about how krump is an uncommon style in kpop and it's very hard to get right kingdom, throwing the manifesting dodgeball at me for the third time: here would you like a KRUMP SOLO?

if you didnt believe me before that krump is hard to get right, i sure hope you do now. peniel did fine, but you can see how easily you can veer off into looking ridiculous.

some conclusions

i mentioned this really briefly in an ask i got earlier today, but i do think it's important to establish that the two performance units are doing two different types of performances. i can understand why people are underwhelmed by the atz/skz/btob stage and wanted it to be less of a traditional kpop dance stage and more like the experimental stages we’ve been seeing for the last few weeks. and i agree! i think they could have done more with it. but i also think that this kind of stage was a good choice for this particular subunit. unlike with the sf9/tbz/ikon unit, there are not really any standout technical soloists in ateez or skz. ateez has, in my opinion, the highest ratio of dancers with actual stage presence of any of the 4th gen groups ive seen. they’re at a solid 75% for any given performance, and occasionally they can bump that higher depending on the stage. that high of a stat is rare. it's extremely rare for a group to have all its members have good stage presence (i can think of like, maybe two or three?), and to get over 50% is pretty damn impressive. but ateez’s strength isn’t in how good they individually are as dancers, but it's in how well they work together. there’s a reason why they put FIVE of them in the performance unit. one of the first things i said about ateez to hanya is ‘i love wooyoung but he doesn’t stand out when he's not centre.’ which is for good reason!! he’s not supposed to! they all willingly give up centre and take it back when they need to, because they have that charisma. there’s a very cohesive push and pull to watching ateez that speaks to their strengths as performers. dancing in a group where you are all meant to be equal is a very different skill than just being a talented soloist. you have to understand what to prioritize in a different way. taemin dances differently with shinee that he does in his solo career, especially since they’ve been back. he understands when to step back; more often than not i find key to be the standout dancer in shinee choreo.

this is a very long winded way of saying that wolf was a good choice for them even though the stage didn’t turn out as well as it could have. also the fact that they made a cohesive performance at all, with a week of rehearsal and while working with essentially strangers is a feat and speaks to all of their skill at their job. performing in a group is a huge part of kpop, and they did call this the performance stage, and not the dance stage.

i'm not entirely sure on what the breakdown is on why each of the subunits were formed. i know the team sizes are extremely uneven, with sf9/tbz/ikon clocking in at 26 people and atz/skz/btob clocking in at 17 (i'm not counting changsub because he's not there and probably has a scheduling conflict), which is like, a whole extra group of difference. but atz/skz/btob utilizing their whole groups for each of the units (5/3/1 for performance, 1/3/1 for rap, and 1/1/1 for vocal, for 7/7/3 total), verses sf9/tbz/ikon only bringing out six people for these two stages and then six for the vocal stage is......weird? that's over half of their group number that’s not performing. i do think the groups brought out their standout performers and made smart choices with the stages but the balance still strikes me as odd. i do wish tbz had actually done some group choreo because they are very strong group performers and it would have been fun to watch.

ateez really played the long game here, good job boys. teaming up with the group who gets the highest fan votes AND the group with the strongest technical skills? i see you.

i think this is probably too wild of an assumption and is only based on circumstantial evidence but.....i think hongjoong might actually have a lot more creative sway than i previously thought. all the stages he’s been a part of have been very well designed, and i know he provided suggestions for the two ateez stages prior to this... i’m probably thinking too much. 

ok you know what i know there were some other points in my brain somewhere but this is already 4000 words so i’m going to stop. if i remember anything else its probably gonna end up in the answer to some of the asks i’m inevitably going to get because i think my opinions on these ones are a little bit more controversial, whoops!

not entirely sure if ill do an extensive review for next week’s stage, because i'm not really a ballad fan and i dont really do vocal reviews, but i could do a quick one. i guess it also depends on what else they put in the episode. we’ll see!!

[verdandasrsblog]

So this week I got Annoyed™ at Kara-Meir and Garlandia’s designs (Partially due to @enkoro-rs suggesting I do Kara-Meir, after which I fell down a rabbit hole). Like with the Laniakea overhaul I’m going to put my reasoning/inspo under the cut for anyone that’s interested

Honestly, where do I even start with Kara-Meir? I guess I’ll just go top-down, 

1) Hair - Based on the novel covers it seems like she was supposed to be blonde originally, and just have an absolute shit ton of hair. Since the flow of the in-game design’s braids didn’t make no goddamn sense, I found some ACTUAL braided bun hairstyles and combowombo’d them into one mega hairstyle.  The pins in the buns with the danglies are really just to be fancy, but I also wanted to incorporate the bits hanging off her belt in her in-game model’s concept art. 

pictured: whatever the fuck these are supposed to be

2) Skin/Face/Eyes - So originally I actually colour dropper her skin from the concept art and then realized she was maybe a bit tanner than the concept, but you know what? Fuck it. I tried to keep her face shape from the concept since the cover art of her is just kinda “Generic white lady” but honestly she got a bit pointier than that in the end. I’m also not sure what her canon eye colour is supposed to be; Zooming in on the ref just gave me brown, which is what I ended up using, but if that’s not correct and anyone has the novels let me know. 

3) Clothing - So I restrained her cape to something someone could maybe��fight in, but my main concern was her armor - She’s supposed to be a knight but what’s up with the bikini boob breast plate? She’s portrayed as wearing both chain and full plate in the cover art and is clearly a melee fighter, so changing her to plate armor seemed obvious. Since she can wield Sunspear (t75) it makes sense to me that her Def would be somewhere in the 70s to match, which with the rework means necronium. 

So like, obviously Necronium is a particular aesthetic that didn’t seem quite right for her. Looking at her lore, she has a wolf theme in her backstory and since she's also supposed to have some smithing ability (she was raised by dwarves) I thought it'd make sense that she might make her own. She’s also been to Morytania in the books, meaning she could have access to Phasmatite (Her access to the Necrite is a bit more iffy but she is hanging out on Tuska after that event so she has at least some experience with the desert).  I had tried out the red glow initially but it looked like shite and didn’t really fit her anyway, so I think the gold is a better compromise both character-wise and aesthetically. 

4) Sunspear - So she canonically has a sunspear, and I ended up using the current in-game design for it since her concept art one just seemed... unstable 

I get that it’s reforged or whatever but it looks like it’s gonna shatter on impact with anything

Truthfully, though? You know what she should have? One of THESE bad boys:

AKA just a Grecian-style spear head. It’d also be more believable that she thinks it’s a dagger if it looks like this. I still think the in-game sunspear is a bit more ~dramatic~ but it should just be a spear tip quite frankly 

Okay, onto Garlandia: 

1) Hair/Face/Skin/Eyes - I’m grouping the hair in here since I honestly just left it as the in-game version (At least from what I can see from her chat head, I can’t remember if there’s some BS going on on her back or not).  Ancient Greek women did tend to braid their hair so that’s accurate-ish, I guess. For her skin though, she mentions in dialogue that “Her skin shed its colour”, but her model isn’t any paler than the other icyene in game. Accordingly, I made her significantly paler, and gave her a bit of frost bite damage on her extremities from the winter she had to endure after her wings were ripped off (I considered making it darker but there’s a point where they just need to be amputated since it won’t heal, so I went with something less intense to show that it’s healed since). For her eye colour, I zoomed in on her chat head but it wasn’t quite clear - 2/4 icyene in-game have blue eyes, but I went with gold to match the rest of her pallet. 

2) Clothes - This is a big one since I spent a lot of time staring at Greek art trying to figure out what a Greek-inspired character would wear when they never want to be cold ever again (It would make sense for her due to the trauma). Additionally, her skin is kinda fucked, and having it be uncovered would probably just lead to sunburn which is the last thing she needs. The shape of the middle woman’s chiton below inspired the hem of her dress, since I wanted to give her a very flowing, fashionable look:

She was supposed to have been a noble so like, fuckin’ Fashion, Baybee

I also turned her weird metal underpants into a girdle, since a waist band of some form or another isn’t uncommon in the images we have of ancient Greek attire: 

Garlandia, why did you have metal panties? 

Since she’s a bard (I THINK?) I also strapped on some extra storage for sheet music. Her jewelry was inspired by the following pieces, though TBH she could probably be decked out more, I just wanted to leave her hands mostly free for that good good harp playin’ 

3) Shoes - These get their own section because I did way too much research for it not to. Basically, most Greeks straight up didn’t wear shoes, never mind socks. Also, in her model, is it just me or do her shoes look uncomfortable as fuck??

Yikes girl are those cutting into your thighs?

Anyways, with her feet/toes being fucked up from frostbite, I wasn’t going to NOT give her shoes/socks, which meant I started looking at roman artifacts instead:

I found mention of romans wrapping their feet in fabric when it got cold, but the only “sock” I could find was from a roman fort in Britain:

So, like, needless to say after all that and also getting suckered into reading about the nuances of gladiatorial combat for like an hour I ended up going for something more modern:

So anyways they’re 0% accurate from what I could find but I like the vibe 

4) Himation - So remember what I was saying about how Garlandia would probably hate being cold? Check out these bad boys: 

Basically the ancient Grecian version of the Blanket Cape, and also used as outerwear in the winter! It seems like the winter ones would have been made from wool, I’d imagine she’d wear it most places except maybe the desert or Karamja since those are warm enough on their own. 

Anyways thanks for coming to my fucking runescape character redesign dissertation, next on the chopping block? Who knows. Maybe Zuzu (I heard her voice acting recently since I never play with sound and YIKES YIKES YIKES YIKES I HAD NO IDEA OH GOD)

[jeongyunhoed]

Past-Present-Future Black Dahlia

Two major tragedies bring Lee Mirae closer to the edge as she goes through the stages of grief in a more violent manner that would affect not only her relationships with her boyfriend Jeong Yunho and her half-brother Choi San, but also has her becoming closer with the immortal mutant Kang Yeosang. Fueled by rage, grief, and pain, along with a very rude awakening that has Mirae spiraling out of control and questioning everything she holds dear.

Group: ATEEZ Member: Yunho Pairing: Jeong Yunho / OC Genre: Action, adventure, angst, fantasy

Watch Out! : Violence, blood, death, grief and loss, major character deaths, use of weapons, some jealousy (but no cheating ofc), implied smut (not sure if there is any but i’m putting it out there nonetheless), mental illness (probably?), gambling and alcohol

Anything else? : Mentions of other idols of course as well as other characters. SuperM, Dean, Chanyeol, Zelo, soloist Park Jihoon to name a few.

Author’s Note: SuperM hello. Also, sexc car chase scene with Yeosang driving. This hasn’t been proofread much, so sorry for the errors you might see.

Listen to: Dark - Hans Zimmer 

Masterlist

Chapter 4

Yeosang glanced over at Mirae, who was still blankly staring out the window. She had been that way in the first few hours of the drive. He wouldn’t admit it, at least right away, but with the silence coming from her, Yeosang was even more convinced that she was that sad. Dare he say it, he was beginning to feel a little concerned yet knew that sometimes the polite thing to do was not to say anything about it. The music playing on the radio acted as white noise between them, and Yeosang was hardly even listening to the songs. 

Mirae looked down at her hands, feeling the deck of playing cards in her jean pocket. She barely had time to think about how expensive the clothes she was wearing were - Yeosang’s excuse was that the Dior boutique was the nearest. Mirae wanted to scoff right then and there, but she was impressed at how he got her clothes that fit her. 

Her thoughts were going back to how she left Yunho. How she left him unconscious in Yeosang’s apartment while hoping San got to him, or anyone at least. A feeling of guilt was setting inside even in the midst of the overwhelming feelings of sadness and rage. Was it even possible to feel like this? She wasn’t sure. “How did you meet them?” She suddenly asked. 

“Who, my dear?” 

“The one you’re taking me to.” 

“It’s not just one person. They’re a small group of people, people like us,” Yeosang replied, glancing at her from time to time as they entered a flyover, cars intersecting above and below them. “They felt they were above the place we lived in, so they uh, how should I say it? Created their own little world.” 

“So how did you meet them?” 

“I met them through another immortal. His name is Mark Lee. I’ve known him for centuries. We were rivals for the affections of Emperor Octavian’s daughter, Julia. Amazing woman in every way possible,” A smirk crept up on Yeosang’s lips as he remembered. “I nearly became an emperor if Mark hadn’t intruded that one night.” 

“To this day, I still don’t know how old you actually are.” 

Yeosang chuckled. “My dear Mirae, age is not important, especially my age. When I met Mark again, in recent… shall we day, decades? Or at least some few years ago, he introduced me to a group of mutants he was friends with. Some of them are quite powerful, one of them, I think, is an omega-level mutant like you.” 

“I guessed as much, if they thought they were so superior,” Mirae looked out the window. 

“We’ll see about that. Sometimes, mutants only intimidate others just by mentioning their powers, empty threats even though they could deliver on it, lessens the dirty work but it gets into their heads,” Yeosang said. Glancing at the rearview mirrors, he noticed three black cars in a formation behind them. “My dear, if you could assist me a little bit, I think we are being followed.” 

Mirae looked over her seat at the three cars that seemed to move closer while Yeosang kept his foot on the gas to drive faster. “I wonder who they could be,” She watched for any signs of movement from the driver’s seats. Mirae saw a set of small rockets come out from the lights on the bumper. “They plan to kill us. Do you know them?” 

“No I don’t, I promise you,” Yeosang swerved a few times past several cars only for the three black sedans to be able to keep up. 

Mirae shook her head at the sight of the sedans keeping up, one of which was already across from them. There were spikes that extended from the rims of the wheels. The car bumped into them, Mirae clutching the armrest. “They plan on destroying your car while they’re at it,” She said, her eyes glowing red as she stared at the car next to them. The tires exploded, sending the car skidding, the rear hitting their vehicle. 

“Damn,” Yeosang kept the car in its lane. “Very good, my dear Mirae. Perhaps you can do something about the other two?” He said, swerving several times so as not to bump into the cars surrounding them to get ahead. 

Mirae took out one card from her pocket and threw it as hard as she could at the other sedan that caught up to them. The sedan exploded, the impact of the explosion moving them forward. “If they’re your friend’s bodyguards, then I think they don’t want us coming,” She said, her eyes still glowing. “Not that I care.” 

She eyed the remaining black sedan that was following them that launched a rocket. Mirae looked at both the rocket and the car, both exploding in the middle of the road. The remaining cars began to cluster towards them. “Apparently, they were everywhere all along. The way must be heavily guarded, or that they don’t want us going,” Yeosang glanced at the rearview mirrors. 

Mirae stayed still, staring at all the cars in front of them. Her eyes were glowing brighter than ever as she kept her gaze on them, the vehicles exploding one by one. She glanced at the rearview mirror on her side, the cars behind them exploding one by one as well, the smoke from the explosions blocking their view of the road. 

“Thank you, my dear,” Yeosang drove on through the thick smoke in the air. “All this smoke means we’re getting close.” 

The color of the smoke changed from the usual gray and black to white as he moved forward. The glow in Mirae’s eyes faded just as the smoke began to fade, only to see that their surroundings had changed. 

Past the wide roads of the highway, they were at the entrance of a dreary lakeside village. “This is where they live?” Mirae glanced at him. 

Yeosang chuckled. “No, they live up there,” He pointed to the nearby cliff. There was a white mansion molded in the usual 1930s art deco style that Mirae noticed in the immortal mutant’s apartment. 

Mirae noticed that the residents in the village seemed to dress differently, as if wearing different variations of the hanbok. The anger seeped in again, knowing that they were approaching the home of who may have been behind the explosion of the Danger Room, behind the deaths of Chanyeol and Hyuk. Yeosang drove on, down the route of the mansion’s driveway, the sight of the house growing bigger and bigger until they finally approached the gate. 

Two guards were standing by and stopped them. “Name?” They asked. 

“Kang Yeosang and Lee Mirae. One of them is expecting me by now,” Yeosang replied. 

The gates opened on its own and the guards stood by for their vehicle to enter the grounds. As soon as they pulled up, they saw someone standing by the front doors, dressed undoubtedly like he owned the place, but also that he was strikingly handsome. One half of his coiffed hair was blonde, the other side was red. His eye on the blonde side was also blue, the other a dark brown. He was smiling as they pulled up, opening Mirae’s door. 

“Hello,” He said as she got out, taking her hand and kissing it. 

“Taeyong, quite a greeting you’ve got there,” Yeosang pointed out, tossing the key to the valet. 

The male with the name turned to Mirae again. “Forgive my manners, or lack of. I’m Lee Taeyong and I own this house. It’s nice to meet you at last.” 

Lee Taeyong was an omega-level mutant like Mirae. Taeyong was an omega-level psychic that could not only read minds, but could also control a person’s mind and manipulate their memories. Taeyong also had the extraordinary gift of turning into organic diamond, making him almost invulnerable to harm and giving him added strength and a psychic shield. However, Taeyong’s limitation was the fact that he could not use his telepathy while he was in his diamond form.

Mirae glanced at Yeosang and before she could speak, he shook his head. “It’s not him you’re going to see,” He advised. 

Taeyong smirked. “You must be jumping for joy now that you’re on a drive with the apple of your eye,” He glanced at Yeosang. Turning back to Mirae, he let go of her hand. “That’s what he was thinking. He thinks very loudly.” 

“My thoughts are not for you to read, Taeyongie, as I’m sure your brother has taught you that much. Taemin, where is he?” Yeosang asked. 

“He’s attending a business meeting. He won’t be here until tonight. But Mark is here, I guess you haven’t seen him in a while,” Taeyong replied. “Come in, come in, I can’t read your thoughts but I can read his and I know who you plan on seeing. Don’t bother taking off your shoes in the main area.” 

He turned around to lead them inside. The interiors were decorated in shades of black, gold, and white on marble similar to Yeosang’s home. Mirae and Yeosang followed him further down the hall and they stopped in front of two mahogany doors. “At least one of us couldn’t be read,” She muttered to him. 

Taeyong opened the doors, leading into what looked like a parlor, with red velvet couches and chintz chairs, mahogany chests of drawers in the same art deco style, and a crystal chandelier in the ceiling. They saw two people by the fireplace drinking champagne in crystal flutes, watching a drama on a tv that was placed above the mantle. Mirae felt her heart drop as the two figures, whose backs were turned, looked familiar.

“They’re here,” Taeyong announced, making the two people turn around. 

Mirae’s eyes widened, looking like a deer caught in the headlights upon seeing their faces. “...Baekhyun? … Jongin?” 

The shorter and paler of the two, Baekhyun, smiled. “Mirae, Mirae, Mirae, long time no see,” He said.

Byun Baekhyun was skilled in manipulating and creating light and light energy. Baekhyun was also skilled in hand-to-hand combat, specializing in hapkido. Kim Jongin had the ability to teleport, leaving a wisp of black smoke in his wake.

“It’s been years, hasn’t it?” Jongin spoke this time, approaching her. “You look like you’ve been through a lot.” 

Mirae still couldn’t speak. She was too stunned to utter a word. All this time, Baekhyun and Jongin survived the Seoul attack but had never made themselves known. “Hello to you too, Yeosang,” He glanced at the vampiric-looking mutant, who nodded. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” He said to Mirae. 

“I couldn’t blame her, we haven’t exactly seen her since that day,” Jongin patted her shoulder. “Do you like our new place? It’s not underground like the Center, but it’s here in this little village, it’s cozy,” He gestured for her to sit down while they did the same. “Mark’s here too, by the way, he’s probably off playing tennis or something.” 

“So, what brings both of you here? I doubt it’s because the weather’s nice in this place,” Baekhyun poured her a glass of champagne. Mirae quietly accepted the drink, staring at the bubbles. 

“Don’t act clueless, you know why they’re here,” Taeyong chimed in, giving the elder a look.

“Taeyong, it’s rude to read other people’s minds without their permission,” Baekhyun chided. “Even if I already know, it doesn’t hurt to ask to make sure. They might be misleading you, even in that respect.” 

“I don’t have the capability to be paranoid when I can read everything like an open book,” Taeyong rolled his eyes. “Dinner is already prepared, by the way, I’ll call Mark-” 

He stepped back when out of thin air appeared Mark himself. Unlike Baekhyun, Jongin, and Taeyong, Mark was dressed in a pinstripe suit. Yeosang’s expression stiffened upon seeing him. Mark Lee was, like Yeosang, an immortal mutant whose fortune over the centuries led him to own a business empire that had bases in both South Korea and Canada. Mark had the ability to teleport anywhere and everywhere he chose while also possessing a strong telepathic ability. Mark was also considered a doctor among his peers who studied Languages though he barely put that knowledge of his to the test as he usually tackled his businesses. 

“No need,” Mark said, stopping at the sight of Mirae and Yeosang. “Brought her here to meet them, ‘Sang?” He asked. 

“As a matter of fact, I did. Ruined anyone’s pursuits lately, Mark?” Yeosang shot at him, watching him take Mirae’s hand and gently kiss the back of it in greeting. 

“As long as it’s your pursuits, which I can tell is this lovely woman in front of me,” Mark said. 

“I’m taken,” Mirae pointed out.

Mark glanced at Yeosang. “Oh? You have pursued her? This is going to be fun.” 

Mirae pulled her hand back, seeing Baekhyun and Jongin’s amused expressions. “I’m guessing you’ve been living your lives here all this time,” She said. 

“Well, yeah, since the Seoul attack,” Baekhyun nodded. “Before you two arrived, we were all discussing a business venture we were looking to carry out in the capital. Maybe you could help us out, Yeosang?”

“Me?” 

“Yeah, Mark and Taeyong have the capital to build it on, maybe some added manpower would help make the project solid. Let’s talk about this over dinner,” Baekhyun said, gesturing to the doors. Mark disappeared in an instant. 

~ 

The dining room of the mansion had a view of what was outside. Yeosang and Mirae noticed that it had gotten much darker, realizing how late it was getting. Mirae still couldn’t believe that Baekhyun and Jongin were alive all this time, that they actually survived the explosion from the Seoul attack, the impact caused by her own powers. She was still trying to process this new situation. 

Could they have been the ones who tampered with the Danger Room? The question reminded her of why she was there, having dinner with them, with other mutants who were also quite powerful, especially psychics as powerful as them. Mirae could only hope that Yunho would be able to read her mind at the moment, so he would know where they were. 

“So, as I was saying earlier, Jongin, Taeyong, Mark, and I are looking into setting up a new business venture and Yeosang may be able to give it the added credibility it needs,” Baekhyun broke the momentary lull when everyone else tucked into the food. Mirae poked around the courses on her plate as she listened. 

“Is that what you’ve been up to since the Seoul attack?” Mirae asked, glancing at him from time to time. 

“Yeah, killing monsters and aliens wasn’t fun for me anymore, I’m sure you understand that,” Baekhyun smiled. “Knowing that Taeyong, his brother Taemin, and Mark are businessmen, when Jongin and I found each other and in turn found them, the business world seemed a little more interesting.” 

“What kind of venture is it?” Yeosang asked. “I’d like to know what it is before I make any deal.” 

“It’s called Project Apocalypse,” Baekhyun said with a grin on his face. “Project Apocalypse is going to be the next big thing among mutants and non-mutants.”

“It’s more of a think-tank. People come to us for answers, we give them the answers,” Jongin added. 

“What kind of answers would those be?” Yeosang asked in between a sip of wine. 

“Political answers, mostly, economic answers, diplomatic answers, you name it,” Mark replied. “You and I both have the experience for that. Didn’t you meet the adviser to Chun Doohwan during the uprising?” 

“I have. I killed her,” Yeosang replied, both Baekhyun and Jongin looking surprised at how nonchalant he was about it. 

“She could’ve been useful to us, you know,” Mark said. “Oh right, I see. You killed her because she was trying to get to Mirae over here,” He added, having read his thoughts. 

Mirae sighed and ate a forkful of her salad instead. “You know, Mark and I can read everyone’s minds here, except for her. Why is that?” Taeyong raised a brow. 

“Psychic shield, Taeyongie. I remember Junhong telling us about it when we first started training,” Baekhyun chuckled, glancing at her. “If you can’t read her mind, her psychic shield must be that strong.” 

“We can’t read everyone after all, it would be too easy if we could,” Mark chimed in. 

“How is Junhong, by the way? Has he been well? He’s alive, isn’t he?” Jongin asked her. 

“Very well. Fixed my staff the first time we met again. He’s fixed a lot of other things, sometimes without me knowing,” Mirae replied. 

“The three of you go a long while back and yet you’re acting like you don’t know each other,” Taeyong chuckled in his place. 

“It has been a while since we last saw each other. We did, however, spend a few years together in the Center for Paranormal Research,” Baekhyun nodded, finishing the food on his plate. “I remember it was me, you, Minseok hyung, and Tao that were put forward because of our fighting skills.” 

“Do you have any idea what happened to them?” Mirae asked. 

“No idea. I thought I was the only one left, until I saw Jongin from the corner of the street, teleporting out of that place in time,” Baekhyun glanced at her. “I guess the same could be said of you.” 

“Yeah, and Hyuk, and Chanyeol. Remember them?” 

He smiled. “Why don’t we go take a walk? Just us, you can play catch up with Jongin after,” Baekhyun suggested. 

“Yeah, I’ll tell you more about Project Apocalypse after we pitch the idea to Yeosang over here,” Jongin nodded eagerly, exchanging knowing looks with the older male. 

Baekhyun and Mirae got up from their seats. Mirae eyed Yeosang, who had a look of concern all over his face at the suggestion. She followed him towards the patio doors and out into the well-manicured backyard of the mansion that had a swimming pool with a diving board and several patio chairs. The question was still nagging at Mirae as a silence came between them while they walked along the cemented areas of the estate. “To answer your question, I do remember them. Vividly, actually,” He said. “The tall dope and the guy I remember you used to like but is also your best friend.” 

“Years have gone by since the Seoul attack,” Mirae said. 

“I know. It changed everything. It changed everyone. You with that streak in your hair, still playing with the same stick you always used to lug around. It’s almost like a part of you, isn’t it? That staff of yours?” Baekhyun said. 

“I never leave without it. Even when I go to work, it’s with me,” She pointed out. 

Baekhyun nodded. “I see. No matter how much has changed, you still seem to be the same person. It didn’t help that when Professor Jang died, Ino took charge and started to play favorites.” 

“You were one of them, Baek,” She said carefully, remembering the nickname he would often go by. 

“That I am, Tao too. Minseok hyung too. We were like, how should I say it? Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. We led the fighting for the rest of them,” Baekhyun grinned as he remembered. “Too bad things went the way it did, otherwise we’d all still be there, cooped up underground with all of those simulations.” 

“That’s a memorial now. A lot of things happened since then, at least to me,” Mirae recalled everything, feeling her heart sink further upon remembering Jihoon, then Hyuk and Chanyeol. 

They stopped in front of a ceramic bust perched on top of a small pillar. Baekhyun looked up. “What brings you here, then? You didn’t know I was alive, much less Jongin.” 

“I came here because Yeosang told me I’d find answers here,” Mirae replied. “Chanyeol and Hyuk are dead now, and I find out that the Danger Room was tampered with leading to them dying. I’m trying to find out who did it and why.” 

Baekhyun smiled. “I knew you were going to say that. Actually, Taeyong knew just by reading Yeosang’s thoughts over there. He was thinking of what you were going to find out upon coming here. I can hear him telling me now. Yeosang’s looking out for you, he’s kind of worried about what you will know, and how you’ll react when it’s all revealed.” 

“You know who did it, didn’t you?” Mirae stared at him. “All this time, you were alive and you never meant to make contact? Not even with Junhong? You didn’t even bother to look for us in the places you figured we’d be?”

The male chuckled. “For a trained assassin like yourself, you’re getting pretty bad at stealth, aren’t you? I’ve come across you quite a few times since then, but you never saw me, much less took notice of me.” 

She raised a brow. “Well I never got any message from you. Not even a hi or a hello.” 

Baekhyun shook his head. He leaned closer with a satisfied look on his face. “No, no, no. My way of making contact with you was through the tragedies you have experienced. Jihoon, and now Chanyeol and Hyuk. To be honest, I was surprised at how I managed to hit two birds with one stone with both of them. The tall dope and the music producer.” 

“What do you mean?” Mirae had a feeling she knew what he was about to say. 

“It was all me, Mirae. Jihoon’s death, Chanyeol’s death, and Hyuk’s death? It was all me,” Baekhyun revealed calmly. “I am the author of all your pain, of all the grieving you were and still are doing.”

Mirae stared at him, feeling a chill down her spine at the revelation. “Jihoon was killed by those Utopian cult thugs.” 

He shook his head. “I had a little help. I met Mark around that time, and when I told him what I wanted to do, he gladly possessed the body of the man who pulled the trigger on your dear friend, the friend you thought of as a brother,” He explained. 

Mirae was still staring at him, as if prompting him to continue explaining. “Jongin, you know, of course, teleported me there once Taeyong found out the location of the so-called safehouse you put up, saw that Junhong was creating a simulation room like the one we used to have. With his help as well, I was able to make a few adjustments like rerouting some circuits to overload,” 

“I was actually thinking of getting Chanyeol first, out of sentimental reasons. I knew him longer than Hyuk, so naturally I thought he should get the first strike. Little did I know,” Baekhyun smirked. “It would get Hyuk too. I doubt Junhong had a clue that the systems were hacked. Taeyong and his brother run a tech empire.” 

She could feel her eyes well with tears at the explanations, the tension she was feeling slowly getting replaced by sadness and rage. “It was you all this time. Why? Why are you doing it?” She asked. 

“Because I wanted you to know the pain and grief I felt after that attack happened,” Baekhyun replied, looking her in the eye. “My family thought I was dead when that came in. I was thrown into the ocean from the explosion you caused. They had given up on searching for me, in turn, they gave my brother all the money that was meant for me. Knowing you made the final blow to those goblins, all of the trouble I experienced, I knew I had to make you pay.” 

Mirae looked away, fighting back the urge to break down the more Baekhyun talked. He sounded so satisfied. “And now you’re all alone, Lee Mirae. And you know the best part?” He tilted his head as he looked at her. “Ino knew all this time. Ino knew it was me. Yet he allowed it to happen anyway.”

[wordsoflittlewisdom]

Watching bop again

I kinda forgot Cass was at the roller derby game. Love how all the characters are connected

Why does Roman’s voice...sound like that

Boss Bitch is weirdly nostalgic now

I like that the whole roller derby team is wearing like. team jackets. and harleys got her whole fringe sleeves thing going on

YES LOVE WHEN SHE THROWS THE NECKLACE AWAY

The chemical plant blowing up as fireworks was a very Harley choice

“So I’ll start where I fucking want” four minutes ago

huntress huntress huntress huntress huntress

I read somewhere that this huntress and Montoya scene was one take and they just changed the lighting to show the change

romans middle name being beauvais is probably the clearest clue they could have given that he was from a rich family

Love that Renee finds the necklace and knows Harley and the joker broke up. I like this idea that superheroes/villains are kinda like celebrities in this world

The egg sandwich scene is great what more can I say

Love that there’re cars and people just living their lives in this city

It’s a crime that we never see Harley wear this glittery fanny pack

The music is really good in this

It’s neat how the line between her narration and her dialogue is blurred, like how she’ll say the first part of something in narration and the second part in dialogue

Huntress’s little flute theme

And Montoya knows Cass; c o n n e c t i o n s

Montoya’s been going after Roman, too

And now we’re flipping back to the bertinelli massacre and diamond

Even if the whole missing diamond plot isn’t that unique, everything’s woven together so neatly

And now Dinah and Renee are on the phone about Cass and the diamond

It’s all connected

Harleys whole “I’m here to report a terrible crime”—she could have just run in there but she wanted to be Dramatic

I do wish the vocals were a little louder here maybe?

Big fan of this fight choreography

Harley pausing on a frame where she’s making a weird face before rewinding to explain about the diamond—it’s so rare to ever get to see women like. making weird faces in movies. All the women in his this are gorgeous but they don’t always have to be; they look beat up after fights and get dirty and make weird faces and it’s great

Dinah singing? Exceptional

“Loans, liquidity, laundering” ah yes the three L’s of illegal business

I unironically listen to Black Canary’s man’s world.

I like that everyone just calls Dinah “Canary”

“I’m all on my lonesome. It’s great” Harleys even an unreliable narrator when she’s just talking

I’ve really never seen a movie that feel like it’s from the female gaze visually as much as this one—all the rings and earrings, the hair, the makeup, it feels like what women might fantasize about dressing like

Dinah yelling “you motherfucker!” While beating some creeps up is quality

What time of day is it? Dinah would probably be leaving early in the morning, but I Refuse to believe that Roman would be awake particularly early any morning

She either canary is leaving her nightclub singing gig in the late morning/early afternoon or roman is still awake from the night before and is going to go to sleep soon

Cass and Dinah in the same building. (Bernie voice): I am once again talking about the connections

I’ve riffed on this before but i refuse to believe that Roman can drive

This Dinah and Renee scene establishes character, backstories, and moves the plot along all at once

Jesus some of ewan mcgregor’s acting in this is painfully bad

I love that Cass has a big bomber jacket and longer, looser shorts

Jurnee’s abs wow

The lights from behind the hands with the eyes behind Harley, who’s surrounded by people and then Roman and Victor emerge from the back, whispering to each other? Beautiful

One of the grievances roman has against Harley is “constantly interrupting him, like I’m doing right now”

Harleys “you’re really not as complicated as you think” bit is almost satirical of this cult we’ve created of “complicated” white male movie villains who have massive fan followings (cough cough joker)

Interesting that Roman holds the knife to Harleys face but hands it off to Victor to do that actual cutting

Someone handed Roman a bowl of popcorn

Harleys pocket tampon

It’s diamonds are a girls best friend yeah babey!

The male backup dancers are wearing muzzles/masks (Roman has one too for a split second) is an interesting flip on the way women are typically the ones being silenced, as well as Harleys desire to silence the men around her and be the one telling and controlling her own narrative

“Hey! you’re that singer no one listens to!” “Hey! You’re the asshole no one likes!”

Harley with her glitter gun

Harleys reaction when the sprinklers go off is perfect—Margot makes her feel like a living cartoon

This cell block fight scene is a showstopper

I like that cass doesn’t immediately want to stay with Harley. It gives her some agency in a story where she’s mostly just following the curveballs life throws her

Harleys little stare straight into the camera when cass admits to eating the diamond

Harley at the grocery store really emphasizes that she’s a total weirdo

I think I heard somewhere that the pic of child Harley with the nuns is a pic of young Margot??? Not totally sure though

Cass not knowing who the joker is goes with the whole supers are like celebrities thing—cass probably follows a whole different group of them (like how most kids follow different celebrities than their parents)

Huntress huntress huntresssss

“Give me number 32. Mild”

This kid in helenas flashback doesn’t really look like she’s grow up to look like Mary Elizabeth Winstead

This filming in this flashback has so much style

Helena practicing in the bathroom mirror with her drawing and her multiple bottles of travel mouthwash

We’re in the scene where Roman makes the girl dance on the table and oh god it’s so uncomfortable

No no no no no not this hate this

Alright that nightmare’s done

“and that’s why you should never pay federal income taxes”

Harley offering to bring cass to Roman after hearing doc say “business is business is interesting

OH ITS HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT TIME

Dinahs car is yellow because it’s...canary yellow

Roman putting on the mask is cool and all but he’s just gonna have to take it back off to get changed

This Harley vs Renee fight is fun because they keep mirroring each other—they’re fighting each other, but they’re really on the same side

The way the women all kind of circle each other at first and don’t immediately get along

Cass popping up with the gun also gives her some agency—she’s at the end of her rope with the diamond and being betrayed by Harley

“I am nOT THE CROSSBOW KILLER”

The way Huntress sounds so uncertain when she says “...and now I’m done” Mary’s acting really popped off

Roman’s a bitch but I like his outfits

Helenas little smile when Harley says “you just killed his BFF”

I love how excited Harley is when they all agree to work together

Roman’s giving his little speech in the back of a pickup truck?

When all the guys turned around with masks on I got chills

“I love this chick she’s got rage issues.” “I DONT HAVE RAGE ISSUES”

Huntress stabbing the guy while going down the slide is peak cinema

This set lights up as the scene progresses and reveals more

I love love love that Helena is genuinely caring towards Cass and recognizing that children shouldn’t have to go through trauma like her

“When the fuck did she have time to do a shoe change?”

THE HAIR TIE YEAH

Forgot to mention this but it’s a stroke of genius for this place to be called the booby trap

Love me some canary cry

“Told ya she had a killer voice”

Harleys chase was a real group hurrah—the canary cry cleared the way and pushed her forward, Huntress towed her, Renee gave her the gun with one bullet

Cass and Roman are just sitting in the back seat. That must have been an awkward car ride

Cass pulling the gun away from Roman when he tries to shoot up at Harley when Harleys on top of the car is elite

Damn this is one foggy pier

When Harley starts with “your protection is based on the fact that people are scared of you” you expect her to say that it’s wrong or something but she says “I’m the one they should be scared of” this movie messed with tropes so much

That also includes the whole “one bullet” thing—Harley misses with her one bullet, and you don’t really know what’s gonna happen next

“I took your ring”

You can pinpoint exactly when Harley and Roman realize what Cass did

I’d put the entire taco scene here if I could

Renee moving the drink away from cass shows her caring side—she doesn’t want a kid to get into alcohol and make the mistakes she did

“Does she always talk like the cop in a bad eighties movie?”

Harley and Cass stealing the car is a fun way to show that she may be on the side of the good guys sometimes, but that doesn’t necessarily make her one

“Woman” by Kesha

Wow the outfits in this scene are iconic

I mean they are in the whole movie but I especially like these

Cass riding around with Harley and a hyena, wearing cute outfits and learning the ways of chaos

Harley got her sandwich!

The credit art for this movie is cool

Especially how they represent each character

In conclusion this is still my favorite movie

I know I’ve been kinda absent recently, but watching this again has really reminded me how much I love it. I got really busy but I’m going to Make An Effort to be a contributing member of the bop fandom again.