#also who releases 6 eps in less than a week???

[sunniss]

tae-yi and do-yoon: (?)

[roo-bastmoon]

BTS Tutorial: Billboard Charts

So how does charting work when it comes to Billboard?

Hey, fam. Let’s get into it.

First off, this information mostly pertains to folks living in the United States or Puerto Rico. If you live elsewhere, you’ll want to pay attention to the rules for your own country and concentrate on helping the boys chart on Hanteo and GaOn (Circle) charts so they can win awards in Korea.

Second, did you know there’s more than one Billboard chart to focus on?

The first chart is Billboard Hot 100. This is the music industry standard.

This chart is focused on singles. They track how well the singles do for 1 week (from when it drops on Friday night until the following Thursday.) The chart usually updates by the following Tuesday morning.

Streaming is the most dominant factor, but sales and radio play also are important.

Jimin is releasing singles for FACE and we want them to chart well, so if you can afford it, it’s important that you pre-order the digital singles for “Set Me Free Pt.2” & “Like Crazy” at the official BTS store.

(The single CD for “Like Crazy” is also available for pre-order if you can swing that!) You can buy those things here and they will count for the charts:

If you have Amazon Prime, it’ll let you connect to your account and you can pay for it that way—super convenient.

Now hear me out: If you can’t afford it, that’s okay. Don't stress out.

Please save up to buy the album on iTunes and Amazon, if you can do that, and either way, just be prepared to work your butt off streaming the singles online. (I will be posting a mini-tutorial on streaming soon).

But don't neglect the singles. Hot 100 very much matters.

The second chart is Billboard 200. Getting BTS members on this chart at least is a matter of honor.

This chart is focused on albums and EPs.

Roo, what is an EP? I’m glad you asked!

EP stands for Extended Play. It’s for mini albums, like FACE, that typically have 6 or fewer tracks and run less than 30 minutes. For EPs, it’s great to stream the songs in the order of the original tracklist, so all songs have an equal chance to chart.

LP stands for Long Play. That refers to a traditional album with 6 or more songs (sometimes more than 12!) that run longer than half an hour.

Of note, we saw photos posted on social media in 2022 of Jimin working with a bunch of artists and producers who do not seem to be featured on the mini-album FACE. It is therefore possible (I am not making promises) that he might have plans to release an LP later. Let’s keep an eye out.

Anyway, back to Billboard 200.

This one is a big one and we simply must help Jimin to place well here. In order to make the chart, Billboard tracks pure sales, and something called SAS (streams and sales) which combines TEA, SEA, and SES.

What is up with the alphabet soup, Roo? Again, so glad you asked.

TEA stands for Track Equivalent Albums. In this case, 10 tracks = 1 album.

SEA stands for Stream Equivalent Albums. If you cannot buy the album, you need to stream your guts out. As far as I can tell, the following formula still holds true:

--1,250 streams from a premium stream (such as a Spotify Premium account) = 1 album/unit sale. --3,750 streams from an ad supported stream (such as a free Spotify account) = 1 album/unit sale.

So if you sign up for a free trial for Spotify before FACE comes out, your streams will count 3 TIMES AS MUCH as a free account’s efforts.

And you need to stream 1,250 times for it to count as an album sale. Please be ready to have a device devoted solely to FACE streaming nonstop for a week.

SES stands for Stream Equivalent songs. Here’s the formula for that:

--125 streams from a premium stream (such as a Spotify Premium account) = 1 song unit. --375 streams from an ad supported stream (such as a free Spotify account) = 1 song unit.

Like Hot 100, Billboard 200 tracks from Friday night through to Thursday night and posts results the following Tuesday.

Finally, there’s something called Billboard Global 200.

This includes world-wide songs counted in 200 different territories. The chart tracks both streams and downloaded sales.

A note about digital sales: it’s not enough to just buy. Once you buy, you gotta DOWNLOAD IT onto your device or it won’t count.

Also please note that streams only count from official sources (subscriptions and ad-supported platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music). Playing your digital copy on WeVerse does not count for Billboard.

By the way, did you know YouTube has a Music platform for charting, beyond just watching the official music video on regular YouTube? Check out YouTube Music and get familiar with it!

Now this is important so please pay attention.

Do not use a VPN when you are trying to chart something. VPN hides your IP address, which makes you look like a bot or a non-US/PR user, and that disqualifies your efforts. TURN OFF YOUR VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK WHEN YOU STREAM.

I found all these very helpful explanations around Billboard Charts from this source (all credit to them):

Please note, however, that much of their info came from 2021 so I’m not exactly sure it’s all still accurate. As I learn more, I will update. If you know of better info, please comment or DM me so I can update this post!

Feel free to reblog or share this post with others so we can spread the word and share the techniques.

Be on the lookout for mini-tutorials coming soon on how to stream on different platforms. We have a whole month to practice until FACE drops and you really do need time to get used to switching between accounts and figuring out the best playlist techniques.

Stay strong, Jimin stans! By March 24th we will be in good shape and as prepared as possible to help our IT BOY. He's worked hard for us, now it's our turn.

[animesavior]

“This is the story of how I became the world’s greatest hero. Sure, but not just me. It’s the story of how we all became the greatest of heroes.”

-          Izuku “Deku” Midoriya, My Hero Academia (Season 6, Ep. 24)

This is the Toonami Trending Rundown for the month of April 2023. This month marked 11 years since Adult Swim gave us the “Night no 90’s Kids Slept,” reviving the block for a night as an April Fools stunt that ultimately revived the block less than two months later, which continues every Saturday to this day. Among the highlights from the month, Toonami ran the final five episodes of My Hero Academia season 6, while Food Wars continued with its fifth and final season.

In regard to trending for the entire month of April, #Toonami trended in the United States on Twitter alongside My Hero Academia (save for April 29-30, as the season finale aired the week before) and Food Wars. #Toonami also trended on Tumblr alongside My Hero Academia (also save for April 29.)

As the wait begins for My Hero Academia season 7, it should be noted that while Toonami does have a new show coming to replace it (though encore runs of MHA will air at the backend of the lineup in the meantime), the network is waiting for the greenlight from the show’s license holders in Japan to announce and begin airing said new show. So, for until at least May 13, the midnight hour will begin with the airing of this week’s Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and encore airings of Primal.

Regarding these delays, Jason DeMarco explained the issues in a Twitter thread:

“Here’s what’s unique about our block: all the anime. All licensed anime releases have to be approved by the rights holders in Japan. So, when we want to announce a new season of, say, My Hero… the licensor has to GET PERMISSION from the rights holder in Japan. So sometimes we have to wait. And wait. And wait. For someone in Japan at whatever company owns the rights to the show (frequently a giant manga publisher) to grant us permission. This is not a thing in any other sector of media. But it IS a big thing in Japanese business. Announcing w/o permission could get our licensors in trouble with their rights holders. They can’t afford that and neither can we. A function of the archaic way some elements of Japanese business culture work. That’s about 85% of most of our schedule delays. The rest are internal network/company things that are a fact of the way giant megacorps run. And this actually does happen to other networks, it’s just that Toonami is lucky enough to have a passionate fan base who CARES about schedule changes. Most other networks don’t! 👍🏼 Anyway, sorry for the delays in schedule announcements! But most of the time there’s basically nothing we can do about it, and trust me- it frustrates all of us far more than any viewer. But it is what it is. Our hands are pretty well tied here.”

Tune in tonight for the hour-long premiere of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, among other great moments. Until next time, congratulations to UConn and LSU for winning the men’s and women’s basketball national championships respectively, and stay gold as always.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

April 1-2, 2023 Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#13]

#MyHeroAcademia [Trended with #Toonami]

#FoodWars [#13]

Tweet Counts:

#Toonami [6,057 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#7]

#My Hero Academia [#10]

April 8-9, 2023 Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#9]

#MyHeroAcademia [Trended with #Toonami]

#FoodWars [Trended with #Toonami]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#4]

#My Hero Academia [#6]

April 15-16, 2023 Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#7]

#MyHeroAcademia [Trended with #Toonami]

#FoodWars [#28]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#4]

#My Hero Academia [#10]

April 22-23, 2023 Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#13]

#MyHeroAcademia [Trended with #Toonami and #FoodWars]

#FoodWars [#26]

Tweet Counts:

#Toonami [3,008 tweets]

#MyHeroAcademia [7,561 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#2]

#My Hero Academia [#3]

April 29-30, 2023 Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#12]

#FoodWars [#13]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#1]

Everything is going to be okay. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[stoneycarterartist]

Who I am

As an artist I seek to speak to the similarities of those around me, especially those of my generation. Those of us who graduated from high school in 2017 and less than 2 years later were faced with a global pandemic look at the world just a bit differently.  My family always teases me that I was singing in the crib and my musical timing was a real thing even as a toddler. I got my nick name Stoney from my great grandmother because I would bang on her pots and pans. I attended a small high school in an even smaller city where I was fortunate enough to discover that music would be what I wanted to get involved in. I will never forget the day that Casey Veggies visited my high school and shared his music with my fellow classmates. I will also never forget the day that I saw Tyler the Creator at my middle school, it is because of him and seeing someone who looks like me that I decided that I wanted to express myself using my voice through music. I will also never forget the choir courses afterschool. The college level classes that I was able to take in high school through El Camino Community College including piano and photography solidified my path. I then attended the 1500 Sound Academy and was able to learn firsthand production and engineering techniques from Grammy Award winning songwriters, musician and artists Larrance “Rance” Dopson (“Boo’d Up”) and James Fauntleroy, (“On the Run” derived from “Take Me”).  Every week we had a celebrity guest artist who delved into why and how they created a certain piece of music and what inspires them to keep moving forward, growing, changing and evolving as an artist. I have collaborated on songs with many of my fellow 1500 alumni family. But my ultimate goal is to complete my own EP and have it available for listeners on all streaming platforms. As of now I have released 3 of my 6 songs that will form my EP. My goal is to perform at local community colleges and universities to establish a fan base of listeners who will grow with me as I transform into the artist that I hope to become.  I am currently at Cerritos College pursuing a degree in Commercial Music Production and I hope to transfer to Cal State University Dominguez Hills University and earn a Music degree. I am influenced by so many artists that have a unique sound, tone and style like Ant Clemmons, the Dream, Teddy Walton, Bryson Tiller, Vory and classic artists like Stevie Wonder, Charlie Wilson, Babyface and Teddy Riley. I hope that my music will continue to grow, evolve and become something that everyone can find a commonality to relate to and connect with. I hope that my education, training and growth are emphasized in each chord, each note and each progression and that like me they constantly grow on you and hopefully, you can’t get the sound off of your mind.  

#Whoisstoneycarter

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

March 2021 Part 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. 

This is a LONG ONE, it’s been A WEEK everyone. 

Ongoing Series - Thai

Lovely Writer Ep 5 - a little slow this week, but at least Gene finally flirted back, and very cute flirting it was, too. Also we got Aey’s motivation, background, and love interest. Thank goodness for that. 

Brothers Ep 8 - still pants, what can I say? Clearly I am a BL masochist. Very embarrassing for everyone concerned. 

1000 Stars Ep 9 - the conflict over Tian’s father was REALLY well done. The plot of this drama is excellent, the leads are great together, and yes I totally cried. What, you didn’t? 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Word of Honor (China) Ep 16-18 - big battle fighty fighty stabby stabby. Ep 17 switches to “this drama isn’t big enough for two chaotic-neutral godlings!” So what do they do? Drink together and bicker... A LOT. Then in Ep 18 we all get the dubious joy of really freaky puppets. (I HATE puppets.) Also how is China letting this be so SO VERY VERY GAY?  Also, I wanna walk through the forest wearing a smanshy purple robe and waving a big fuck-off white fan around simply because I’m a pretentious fuss monger. And frankly, I feel like this is an achievable life goal for me. 

We Best Love 2 (Taiwan) Ep 4 - not gonna lie, this is looking to be one of my top 3 BLs of 2021. It’s SO GOOD. Big bonus to this ep for treating stalker behavior like the mental illness it is and not as some dumb representation of enduring love. 

The Most Peaceful Place is My Place (Vietnam) Ep 1 - finally dropped (find it under NƠI BÌNH YÊN NHẤT LÀ VỀ BÊN EM on O2′s channel). It’s got actors already comfortable with BL and looks pretty good so far. An angry tsundere uke reunited with his ex, a stoic chef, giving us lots of snap, crackle, and pop out the gate. 

Dear Uranus (Taiwan GL) Ep 2 - I want to love it, but it is just moving too fast. There’s not enough character dev and then they’re throwing flashbacks in? It feels like a treatment rather than a show, and a rushed treatment at that. Bummer. 

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 2 (AKA Ep 3-4) - let the cheesy popcorn continue! Idiot remains an idiot; ingenue remains an ice queen; nice gay guy remains nice and gay; obsessive stalker brother is getting ever more whackadoddle. Of course these last two have the best chemistry. (It’s caregiver codependency and the salvation trope. We got us a Leo/Fiat situation going on.​) Plus lots of classic BL tropes because OF COURSE there are lots of tropes. 

Occasionally, I am tempted to argue that shows like H4 or Cherry Magic or Ossan’s Love aren’t technically BL because of the office setting and age of the protags - but then they all behave like high school students anyway, so *shrug* 

Stand Alones

Cute little Taiwanese micro BL Friend or Lover dropped, about bisexual realization within a friendship group. Normally these are too short for me, but this one did pretty good with its 15 minutes of charm, plus it’s abad boy + shy softy pairing. 

Breaking News - Thai BL

Fish Upon the Sky released its actual trailer. The upside-down kiss is gone, which makes everyone sad, and it seems far less rivals to lovers than the first iteration, which makes ME sad. But it still looks good and a more classic BL than GMMTV has given us in a while. New trailer focused more on the makeover trope and they’ve upped Mix’s role (the object of everyone’s affection) now that he’s proved himself. (Or they are using him more to carry the trailer since he has a fan base form 1k*). Starts April 9 on GMMTV in 1K*’s time slot, probably with a 10 ep run. 

2gether the movie is apparently coming April 22 to Thai theaters. F4 Thailand must be having issues or GMMTV just wants to milk the BrightWin cash cow. It’s rumored to be a combination of 2gehter + Still 2gether with some extra scenes and ending. Also, one assumes a lot will be cut out, if it’s movie length.

Call It What You Want released its updated trailer. If anything, it looks more scary than before. What are we in for? April 9th. 

Nitiman got a release date, May 7 on One31. 

I Told Sunset About You 2 got an updated release date of May 27 on LineTV. 

Second Chance the series is coming to LineTV on March 29. I don’t know much about this one. Tons of familiar faces (mostly TharnType side dishes) and some nice looking new talent but a dearth of eng subs. I think it may take on Brothers’ time slot. Line did eng subs for Brothers so maybe they will do 2nd Chance too? 

Close Friend the series is coming April 22. This is a combination of 6 couples with 6 story arcs as music videos (maybe)? It’s an epic fan service with familiar faces like OhmFluke (UWMA), MaxNat (LBC also in Y-Destiny), YoonLay (YYY also in Y-Destiny), KimCop (GenY), and JaFirst (TT2).

Y-Destiny starts March 30, and has starting dropping couple’s trailers. I’m still suspicious given the director but it seems like there is plot (or plots) and a theme. Looks to be a series of 7 single ep vignettes (amended, see comments, might be 2 eps each for 14 eps total), different couple each time, some with supernatural elements, all with decent chemistry and acting chops. 

Sun MaxNat’s tutor/student arc

Mon jaded rich kid meets poor innocent  

Tues sports romance enemies to lovers 

Weds the messy realistic actual dating one 

Thurs hot ghost boyfriend (sad) 

Fri YoonLayPerth coping with loss and finding new love (sad). This one will all rest on Lay's acting so we know it’s in safe hands. Our boy is going to KILL it. 

Sat time-slip memory loss reunion romance 

I’m thinking we can’t expect any of these to end happy or be classic BL. They’re gonna be more slice of life-ish. 

Gossip - BL Outside of Thailand 

Scholar Ryu’s Wedding Ceremony AKA Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korean historical BL) got a legit teaser (eng sub here). @curriculumvtae​ reports that it’s releasing April 15th on WeTV (Philippines & Thailand) and Idol Romance (South Korea), while Will of Thai Bl says it’ll be on Viki too. It’s a short run of 8 ep built on a fake relationship trope (arranged marriage variant):

Ryu Ho Seon’s (Kang In Soo from You Wish) arranged marriage turns out to be with his expected bride’s brother, Choi Ki Wan (Lee Se Jin from Mr Heart). Ryu tries to undo the marriage, but his ill mother opposes this saying the scandal would be too much. Meanwhile, Kim Tae Hyeong (Jang Eui Soo from Where Your Eyes Linger), a senior at Ryu’s school, comes to congratulate him and falls in love with Choi. Then one day, the original bride disappears.

Okay it seems a bit twisty turny for ONLY 8 EPS, but oh my goodness how excited are we? Our first intentional historical BL out of Korea!

We already knew Hong Kong was doing a remake of Japan’s Ossan’s Love under the same name (not my favorite Japanese BL but so very popular) but it’s now reported to be coming to Viu in June. Who knows how the CFA will take it. Depends on whether Hong Kong bows before the NO GAY KISSES regs or if they are going to use this as a political nose thumb... things could get cray with this puppy (the original has several kisses and s shower scene). Are we back in Addicted territory only with added comedy and civil unrest?

Speaking of Japan, Absolute BL (AKA Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko) dropped sooner than anyone thought, March 27. But being Japanese who knows how/when/if we get subs. Protag finds himself trapped in a world of BL, but being straight he fights against any hot guy that draws near, but the whole world (literally) is conspiring against him. It’s a parody adapted from a yoai.

What with Absolute BL from Japan plus Lovely Writer and Call it What You Want from Thailand, is 2021 the year of BL being ultra self referential? Sure feels like it.

In Case You Missed It

Faded a gay micro film from Taiwan from 2017 deals with parental acceptance and serves up a ton of BL tropes (piggyback, forehead kiss, etc). I’m pretty sure this was a propaganda piece for legalization of gay marriage, and it’s an interesting nugget of BL history as a result. Yes, it ends happy. It’s cute. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed a day later than actual air date for accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

Man there’s a lot going on right now! Spring has sprung... I suppose. 

P.S. I cannot believe I missed Absolute BL as a blog name. Numbnuts = me. 

[inmyarmswrappedin]

So, because Fatou’s season ends today and, as far as we know, Druck hasn’t been renewed yet, I want to go over the things I feel the team did well in this season and the things I hope they take with them when they sit down to write the next season (which I’m manifesting will be Ava’s).

I think that s5 and, perhaps to a bigger extent, s6, were the team’s attempt to address fan feedback for and criticisms of s3 and s4. So I have hopes that, after possibly the most scrutinized season of any Skams, they are still willing to read even more feedback and sit down once again to craft a couple more seasons (possibly even 3 or 4 more seasons!).

So, without further ado, things that were done well! (Do I have to add “in my opinion”? Do I??)

I liked that for both s5 and s6, the thorough-line for the season wasn’t made obvious or shared in a press release, but rather it was up to fans to connect the story threads for themselves.

I loved that the team sought to address one of the biggest criticisms of s3, that is, that Matteo was given so many symptoms of a mental illness, but it ultimately went unaddressed in the narrative. They did this by giving Nora a dissociative disorder, and Fatou dyscalculia. (Matteo has been headcanoned as being mentally ill and having a disability.) It allowed the teams to develop both fan theories into full-blown seasons and give each of them the importance they deserved.

I have said this already, but I really appreciate that the team chose misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented mental illnesses and disabilities. I feel like s5 and s6 will be referents for many years, because they really took the time to portray a dissociative disorder and dyscalculia in a down-to-earth, unhurried way that isn’t meant to shock and awe, but simply allow us to understand why and when Nora and Fatou will struggle. Druck got the viewers to anticipate when Nora and Fatou would struggle, and that’s the first step in being able to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the Noras and Fatous of the world. I really can’t overstate how important this is and what a difference it makes in a real, tangible way. These seasons aren’t meant to be enjoyed for voyeuristic reasons, but they will legitimately help people.

One of the biggest criticisms of s4 was that Amira and Sam didn’t connect as women of color. In fact, it seemed like in s4 Sam was treated as another white friend, when in s2 both she and Amira were the victims of Kiki’s racism. The team addressed this by giving us Ava and Fatou’s friendship, which I want to say might be the first friendship between main characters of color where their race is a substantial reason for their bond. (There are the Sanas with their Jamillas, but the Jamillas aren’t main characters, and then there are friendships like Jo and Megan and Zoya, or Imaan and Liv, or Luca and Yasmina, but iirc in every case their bond as women of color isn’t made explicit.)

Another criticism of s4 was the way Kiki turned into the world’s most understanding white friend offscreen. The team addressed this with the Ava and Mailin storyline, which I think was wonderfully and subtly set up in s5, then built on with the biology test leaked answers.

On the topic of race, I think a major criticism of s3 was that David’s ethnicity wasn’t acknowledged (to the point where a white actress was cast to play his sister gvhvhv). The team has made up for this with Josh (more in the s6 sm than in s5, but I still count it) and with Kieu My. Fatou and Kieu My bonded over being first/second gen children of immigrants, and in doing so, they acknowledged that these characters aren’t white and have different experiences than white Germans.  

The first 6 episodes of this season were some of the finest writing in the Skams. The storylines all connected and built on each other. The motifs were just so good and beautiful and fitting. The themes were all clearly defined and easy to follow.

The tortoise plot was one of the most fun and imaginative storylines in any Skams, it connected Fatou and Ismail in a believable way. And not to rave about a fucking tortoise, but animals can be really uncooperative and that tortoise delivered every fucking clip. Druck has a reputation for being one of the most depressive versions of Skam, but the Maike/Burger plot was just plain fun.

I feel like some of the old gen’s instas were a bit self-indulgent. I’m thinking specifically of Matteo’s memes and how they they weren’t necessarily the kind of memes a gay dude born in 2001 would pick, but someone a decade older. I think this is much better done with new gen. Fatou’s memes reflect her age and her sexuality, and not just that, but Ava, Mailin, Kieu My, Josh, etc. all pick memes and even focus on different aspects of recent news, based on their gender, race, personalities, interests, etc.

I appreciate that the team found a way to fit a sex scene between Fatou and Kieu My to add to the small catalogue of wlw sex scenes on Skams (I’m including the scene in lovleg or we’d only have two lol). While I understood the reasons eskam opted not to include one, I thought there were ways to feature a sex scene that didn’t sexualize the actresses and didn’t require nudity. Cases in point: the lovleg scene, and this scene in Druck.

And it also needs to be said. This is the first original season with a main of color, and the third season overall (after Liv and Imane) where 10 episodes are given to a character of color and no one else. Of the three, it’s certainly the season that loved and respected its main the most. The bar is so low it’s in hell, but Druck did clear that bar!

With all that said, let’s talk about the things I would really want the team to address in following seasons:

The thing I most want them to fix might be small or unimportant for a lot of people, but I think it’s at the core of why the season has been unenjoyable or certain plot points haven’t come across the way the team wanted, for many people. I am talking about the overly expositional nature of the writing.  It appears as if the team approached the writing of the clips with the intention of hitting each beat as noted in their agreed upon outline, and absolutely nothing else was to be added. This is an issue both in s5 and s6. It’s just less noticeable in s5, because s5 is setting up stuff for Fatou’s season, and possibly even seasons that haven’t been written yet. The fact that absolutely every second counts makes for a stressful watching experience for me, because the narrative tension is always heightened. Whereas with Skam, the narrative tension would build throughout the clip. Take the Pride scene in Skam, for instance. The clip allows for Isak and Eskild to get increasingly more agitated as they butt heads. I feel like if this Druck team had done the Pride scene in s5 or s6, the clip would’ve started with both Isak and Eskild already on edge, and cut much of the dialogue that got them there.

On the topic of naturalistic dialogue, this season doesn’t have it. Here is an example from ep 10 clip 2, Wieder vereint/Reunited 11:37.

Fatou: I’ll get a certificate too and bring it over to you. And I checked it, I only have to change one course and my schedule will work.

Teacher: Miss Jallow, you are not the first one to come to me with an epiphany. We could fill entire school weeks with the lessons you missed. In addition, Doctor Steinberg told me about your, well… activities. You don’t have a lot of arguments on your side. 

Fatou: But I’ve spoken to all of the teachers and they said they are okay with it. 

Teacher: You seem to have friends among the teaching staff. Mrs Pavlovic put in a word for you. Okay then, do it and go before I change my mind. [translated by @kieu-tou! Thank you!] 

Like. This is the bare bones version of a dialogue. This should be the first draft, not the final version. The coordinator goes from absolute no to yes, with just one line from Fatou. The coordinator gives reasons that would necessitate more than one sentence of counterargument, like Fatou’s absences and the Biology test leaked answers. The coordinator even says Fatou doesn’t have a lot of arguments on her side, and yet it takes Fatou one line to change her mind!

And of course we viewers don’t want or need a lot of time with the coordinator. And particularly at this point in the season, no one would enjoy a naturalistic dialogue with the coordinator of all people.  But my point is that this is an issue with the dialogue all this season (and last season as well, but this season has been more scrutinized), the reason I picked this example is because of how easy it is to see here.

Which brings us to the pacing of the clips, and specifically the Friday clips. Because the script goes straight to the information the team wants to convey to the viewers, skipping the build up to it, many Friday clips have fallen flat, felt abrupt, and have been, tbh, unsatisfying. Again, I had this issue in s5, but as that season went on, I felt like the team had a better grip on Friday clips. But then they did it again in the first Friday clip this season, and so I think this is something the writers really should work on. The first Friday clip in Isak’s season closes on Isak being sandwiched by Emma and Even on a bench, visually setting up the love triangle, or more accurately, the personifications of who Isak should want to hook up with and who he really wants. But in order to get there, we’re shown a good amount of info, from the way Vilde, Eva and Sana are handling Noora’s absence, to Chris and Kasper, Even hovering around Isak, Emma trying to impress Isak, Isak escaping and, like, draping himself on the walls because he’s so over it all. Isak playing a game on the bathroom to stall for time. The paper towel maneuver to immediately give us a sense of what a weirdo Even is. A conversation between Isak and Even that gives us some clues about Even’s shame, as well as establish interests in common (like weed), and this is all before Emma even joins them! Just think of all the stuff we learn about who Isak, Even, Emma, Eva, Vilde or Sana are as people, before we get to the point of the clip! Fatou’s season simply didn’t have that. Compare it with the first Friday clip of Fatou’s season where the cashqueens quickly talk about the leaked answers, one of the major storylines this season that only gets a couple lines, before Fatou says she doesn’t want to talk about school (Fatou’s struggles with school, another major storyline), and then we’re onto the point of the clip, which is that Kieu My likes girls too. AND FADE TO BLACK. When people say they want longer clips, what they mean isn’t artificially inflate the clip length or add more plot stuff. Just let us watch the characters interact with each other so that we get a feel for how they relate to each other. I know I wish we’d have gotten more of Ava and Fatou interacting with each other before things turned to shit, and Ava with the other girls, so that I know why they all like and value Ava so much. I wish we’d have gotten more of Kieu My talking to the cashqueens about, like, why she didn’t make use of the biology test answers, instead of getting it on a chat. Or food combos they don’t like. So it makes more sense that later on Kieu My actually thinks she and Fatou are friends.  And every line doesn’t have to count. In Skam España, the characters are constantly talking and not everything they ever talked about ended up being relevant. When one of the characters lied about her house undergoing renovations to hide the fact that she was poor, the characters joked about Italian marble and put on bad Italian accents and made that Italian hand gesture. None of this was important to the plot because those renovations weren’t real to begin with, but they made viewers feel like these were real friends joking around, instead of characters needing to hit every storyline beat in a clip.

I have this joke with my friends about Druck always going 🤪🤪 in the last third of every season, in which a season that was very tightly written and cohesive suddenly pulls something inexplicable and pretty much impossible to resolve in 1-3 episodes. Hanna’s season suddenly switching to Mia, Björn creeping on Mia in episode 9! of a total 10, David getting outed in episode 8 and then disappearing for a whole week, Amira’s season pivoting to Mia and Hanna. It has happened in every season except Nora’s, so I thought the team had learned its lesson, but then the forgotten date with Ava happened. To be clear. It really makes no sense that Nora would have hung out with Ava several times since Tuesday, and the topic of the cashqueens being officially introduced to Kieu My wouldn’t have come up. it’s just not realistic.gif I feel like at that point the writing for the rest of the reason became super contrived to keep Fatou miserable and apart from Kieu My and Ava to artificially delay the reunions until episode 9 and 10. Why add a cheating insinuation and the main checking her partner’s messages in episode 8 if you know you won’t be able to properly resolve it? Why make Kieu My mock Fatou’s “uhm” if it’s not going to be addressed in their reunion clip? Kieu My had taken the initiative for a lot of the relationship, so it’s okay for Fatou to take the initiative when it comes to making up. You don’t have to add things that can only be resolved through an expositional info dump. (Please no more exposition than it’s necessary! I think we’ve established that at this point lol.) In the case of Fatou’s season, this is even sadder because I feel like Kieu My’s intimacy issues could’ve been the reason to drive them apart for two weeks, rather than the Maya/uhm stuff. This could’ve also been resolved through Fatou and Kieu My explicitly negotiating their boundaries and how they want to be comforted and how they want to comfort each other, which I thought was the issue with Fatou rejecting Kieu My’s attempts to help while wanting physical touch, while Kieu My didn’t want to be touched but rather seen.  

There are going to be many thinkpieces on why a myriad of stuff didn’t work for people, so I’m going to keep this simple and address one last thing. I think that choosing to focus on Nora’s mental illness and Fatou’s disability is a great choice that doesn’t complicate the themes too much, but Druck (and all the Skams, but I’m invested only in Druck succeeding at this point) still struggles with being intersectional. This is the major reason why the Ava/Mailin storyline ended not with a bang, but a whimper. There just wasn’t enough work done to connect Fatou’s struggles not just to her disability, but also to her race (and even her sexuality). I think that if people really want (and lbr, it’ll be mostly poc who will put in that effort and work), they can see how Fatou’s race affected the way other people and especially adults reacted to her, but this wasn’t made explicit. If Ava and Mailin are going to argue about racism all season, why not connect that with Karin firing Fatou from Aquarius? As it stands, Karin fired Fatou because of a disability neither of them knew Fatou has, and that was the resolution to that storyline. Why not make it explicit that the Physics teacher had preconceived ideas about Fatou because Fatou is black? Why wasn’t Fatou’s disability addressed in the meeting with the coordinator? Why didn’t Fatou express to Mailin that Fatou, too, had issues with how Mailin was acting wrt racism? It felt like, with the way the season was putting so much emphasis on racism, all these threads were going to be connected. In the end though, it almost felt as if only Ava is affected by racism (aside from Mailin mentioning Fatou in the last episode). It’s not like talking about how racism affects Fatou is going to make the topic redundant for Ava’s or Ismail’s season. As a light-skinned black lesbian with a disability, Fatou’s life is going to be impacted by racism in a different way than Ava’s will, as a dark-skinned black fat straight cis girl, or Ismail’s, as a Turkish-German possibly Muslim possibly non binary person. All these experiences are specific enough, and different enough, that they can be touched upon in different seasons without becoming redundant. The fact that Fatou’s season almost seemed to forget at times that she is a black lesbian, doesn’t bode well for Ava’s and Ismail’s season to acknowledge all their struggles.

The bottom line is that this season really was great and did a lot of good, and I feel like the writing just needs to be tweaked a bit for further seasons to be even better and more enjoyable overall. I am very pleasantly surprised by how the team took s1-s4 fan feedback to heart and worked to implement suggestions, and so I really trust them and hope they keep working on the show. It’d be a shame if Druck wasn’t renewed, with this team at the helm.    

[p1harmonyofficial]

[📰] K-Pop Rookies P1Harmony Are Writing Their Own Coming of Age Story

By Crystal Bell

K-pop group P1Harmony debuted three months ago with their audacious single "Siren," and member Jiung is already dreaming of the perfect solo vacation. The 19-year-old singer wants to emphasize that this is a trip he'd like to — no, needs to — do alone, when he can safely do so. ("You need to bold the word 'alone,'" leader Keeho adds in English, a knowing glint of mirth in his eyes. "Put it in italics too.") So, more about this excursion: "If possible, I want to go to a foreign country," Jiung tells Teen Vogue from an office in Seoul, South Korea. He doesn't have a specific place in mind, just somewhere new and exciting and, most importantly, a place where he can be alone to freely organize his thoughts without any other responsibilities.

It sounds like a lyric ripped from the pages of his notebook, or the plot of a coming-of-age movie his 17-year-old groupmate Intak would enjoy: a young man on a voyage of self-discovery, chasing a feeling to a faraway land to escape his adolescent ennui. For now, however, it's just a lofty resolution for the new year.

"I also want to travel alone because I've never done it before," youngest member Jongseob, who recently turned 15, enthusiastically offers in Korean. Jiung, always one to help the younger sort out his feelings, is quick to quash the teenage rapper's theoretical plans. "That's not very realistic," he says. "You're too young to travel alone." Undeterred, Jongseob carries on: "Then my goal this year is to drink more milk."

"He wants to grow taller, but I don't think milk helps that much," Keeho comments, shaking his head while his teal quiff stays firmly in place. "I heard that's a myth."

Technically, they're not wrong. Unaccompanied minors can't travel internationally without a parent's formal consent in South Korea, and there's no proven scientific correlation between dairy and height. But spoken aloud, this interaction sounds more like playful goading among good friends. It's a testament to Keeho, Theo, Jiung, Intak, Soul, and Jongseob's comfortable dynamic as a group that the copper-haired youngest just earnestly smiles through the minor sting of his hopes being swiftly dashed.

For all of the training that goes into a K-pop artist's career, perhaps the most vital lesson is learning how to symbiotically coexist in close quarters with someone who is unfamiliar to you. Like most things, it is a process. Harmony isn't achieved overnight, especially among six teenage boys who have differing definitions of the word "clean." Cultural differences present unique challenges, too. When Keeho left his home in Canada to pursue his musical dreams as a trainee at FNC Entertainment in Seoul, he didn't have much trouble fitting in. Or so he thought. "He was funny," Jiung says in retrospect. "But I don't think we were able to communicate well." It wasn't that they couldn't understand what Keeho was saying — the soulful singer grew up speaking Korean with his family — but rather they couldn't understand him.

"Everyone would be stressed out, and I would be like, 'Guys, relax. Why are you stressing out over this?'" Keeho says animatedly with his hands. "They couldn't understand why I was so relaxed. How could I not care about anything? And I couldn't understand why they were always so stressed about things. It took a while to get on the same page."

That's where communication comes in. "The key is being honest," Jiung explains. "We have a lot of talks." These regular conversations allow the members to resolve potential issues before they spiral into larger, more disharmonious problems. Keeho is refreshingly open about this. "We're always stuck together," he adds. "We live together. We see each other 24 hours a day. Seeing anyone 24 hours a day, you'll eventually be, like, ugh, get away from me, but because we communicate so much, that [feeling] is reduced." Establishing rules and boundaries also helps. "We have a basic rule that you clean up the mess you've made," Jongseob says from where he's perched behind Jiung. (This rule is especially important to methodical Jiung.) And then there's vocalist Theo, the eldest member who also takes on the role of the group's even-keeled mediator because he's a good listener, and he likes giving advice.

"I'm not very opinionated," the blonde says. At 19, he's a few months older than Keeho but harder to read. He's both lighthearted and enigmatic. "I'm not good at expressing my feelings," Theo explains. "But the members are really good at expressing themselves and their emotions, so I'm learning how to open up because of them." According to Keeho, Theo is "bad at being serious," adding, "We'll have to have a serious talk, and he won't be able to take it. He's always trying to lighten the mood. He's the comedic relief."

Keeho makes a habit of describing the members' various idiosyncrasies in fervent detail. It's a very leaderly thing to do, to make sure that everyone feels understood. Occasionally, he also jumps in to help interpret their answers into English, or to encourage others to speak. Soul, who is half-Korean but was raised in Japan, could be described as a quiet person: an introvert who wears a lot of black, listens to metal, and has a particular obsession with massive skull rings and accessories. But he's also acutely perceptive. He'd rather listen and observe than be an active participant in the conversation. "I like when the rest of the members are discussing an idea," he says quietly in Korean (he's still learning the language). "I like watching them talk." It's not that he's not involved, but as Keeho puts it, "He's always supporting us silently and observing us." For Soul, it's more fun to sit and watch.

You can get a sense of these dynamics as they unfold on the last track of the group's debut EP, Disharmony: Stand Out. It's a skit, or audio recording of the members — then, just trainees — as they talk candidly about their dreams to perform and contemplate the implications of such aspirations. "I work hard here for the debut, but when I go to school, I wonder, 'What am I doing here?'" Intak says on tape, recalling how strange it feels to not have the same priorities as his classmates who are all preparing for their college admissions. Theo quells his concerns, telling him how lucky he is to already be working toward his dream. "That's a cool thing," Keeho adds, as Soul silently listens in the background.

While his peers prepared for their academic futures, Intak was spending his evenings dancing, rapping, singing, and writing lyrics, while also stunt training alongside his groupmates and preparing to become a… movie star. A few weeks before the release of their album, P1H: A New World Begins hit theaters across South Korea in early October. The first K-pop origin story to hit the big screen, the feature film introduced P1Harmony and their sci-fi lore to the masses. Long story short: After a deadly virus spreads chaos and violence around the globe, six boys with extraordinary gifts are humanity's only hope for survival. The filming experience was invaluable for the artists, who until that point had only ever studied music and performance. "Acting training really helped with my facial expressions," Intak says. "I learned how to portray my emotions on stage." Keeho agrees, adding, "We got very friendly with the camera."

Singers who rap, rappers who sing, dancers who act — the boys of P1Harmony forgo clearly defined roles in favor of being versatile and, well, good at everything.

As for their music, Disharmony: Stand Out is a snapshot of Gen Z unrest, simmering with angst ("Siren") and bucking wildly, vibrantly against convention ("Nemonade"). Teenage turmoil has been fueling the K-pop industry since the very beginning, and there's a certain nostalgia to P1Harmony's no-holds-barred approach. Members Soul and Jongseob both credit B.A.P and their hard-hitting style with inspiring them to become artists, with Zelo influencing Jongseob to pursue rap in elementary school. You can hear those more aggressive, hip-hop-tinged influences on Disharmony, as well as softer, more lyrical R&B flourishes ("Butterfly").

"We wanted to convey feelings and situations that are not harmonious," Jongseob says. "We want to say don't be afraid to stand out and to say what you want to say — speak your truth, and do it with courage and confidence." Despite his age, the young rapper carries himself like a veteran. By all accounts, he's earned the title, having won the competition series K-pop Star 6 at age 12 in 2017 and competed in YG Treasure Box less than two years later. These experiences, he says, helped him feel more comfortable performing. By the time he came to FNC, he was already a prodigy with the confidence and flow of a performer twice his age.

"There are so many people, our age especially, who aren't always able to speak courageously and confidently," Keeho adds. "So we wanted to encourage everyone, especially ourselves, to never be afraid to say what you want to say."

And they practice what they preach. All of the members are credited lyricists on the album, with all six collaborating on the roaring hip-hop track "That's It." Part cypher, part vibes, "That's It" is teeming with boyish swagger and possibility. "Even though it was the first time all six of us worked on a song together, surprisingly we were all on the same page from the very first meeting, and it came together quickly," Jiung recounts, adding that each member wrote their own verse. "It was fun," Keeho chirps.

That creative energy is also channeled into their performances. "Because we do take part in a lot of the songwriting, we also want to convey that in our dance," Intak explains. Though he's part of the group's rap line, his first love was dance. He started taking lessons as a child. "My mom is a dancer, so she's where I got my love of dancing," he says. As such, he's well-versed in conveying emotion through motion. "We always have an idea of how we want to portray these emotions with our bodies," he says. The members choreograph their own center gestures. These movements are a small but significant part of any performance, because this is where their charisma and individuality shine brightest.

"I wanted to become a singer because I wanted to perform onstage," Theo says. "So being able to be on music programs performing on real stages, surrounded by bright LED lights and visual backdrops, I feel like a main character. When all of the lights are on me, I feel like a star."

Unsurprisingly, even when he's offstage, he's still singing. He even likes to call his friends and take song requests. "I like to sing to my friends through the phone," he says. "I'll sing anything they want. I play piano for them, too. They're very open to listening to me." Next to him, Keeho adds, "My friends would not want me to sing to them." (The internet respectfully disagrees.) Meanwhile, Jongseob turns to making music and writing lyrics in his downtime. It's a great way to relieve stress, he says. These days, Intak turns to animated films to ease his mind. He's a fan of Studio Ghibli films, and he really likes the Japanese manga characters Doraemon and Shin Chan.

"I watch a lot of coming-of-age stories about these innocent kids who are in the process of becoming adults," he explains. "I get inspired by watching them. I don't want to lose that innocence, so watching those animations make me feel youthful." It's hard to imagine Intak without his boyish sensibility. It's seeped into every social media post and YouTube vlog (or, #PLOG). Yet, as an artist, as a teenager, it's an unusual phenomenon to be perceived by thousands of fans before having the clarity to perceive yourself. It's something no amount of Miyazaki or training prepares you for.

Initially, Theo had a hard time opening up on camera. The mere thought of it made him nervous, but the more he did it, the easier it was for him to parse his own feelings. "I'm not very good at expressing emotions like thank you and I love you," he says. "But it's a lot easier to express those feelings now because I feel them so sincerely. I can say thank you for loving me [to fans] because I truly mean it."

"There are people from all around the world who leave me messages, and that makes me so happy," Intak says. "It drives me to do more and to give more to them."

And there will be more to give. Disharmony: Stand Out was just the beginning, and Keeho already has some very big goals for 2021. At the top of the list? "Rookie of the Year, come on!" he says spiritedly of the K-pop industry's coveted award. "It's definitely possible. I'm manifesting it right now." He also wants to make more music, maybe release more covers. "We want to come back a lot," he smiles. "I'm thinking [of] at least three releases next year."

Then there are more personal goals, like Jiung's solo travels. "I want to take better care of my mental health," he adds, noting that it starts with a more positive mindset. "I want to be a better person overall." Intak wants to, for the first time in his young life, maintain a consistent routine for a healthier lifestyle. That includes getting enough sleep when there aren't any schedules. ("He could sleep, but he chooses not to," Keeho jokes.) After monitoring his fancams, Theo has decided that he wants to build more muscle. And Soul hopes to go home to Japan to see his dog, a Frenchie named Mochi.

As for Keeho, in true Libra fashion, he wants to maintain a sense of balance: "I want to stay true to myself," he says. "I don't want to be like, oh, the fame is getting to me. I don't want to change. I want to stay grounded and stay thankful and be grateful, always. I also want to make some more money." He laughs, then adds, "I can't lie!"

No, he can't. Honesty is the key to harmony, after all.

[jq37]

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 9 Safe Harbor

Out at Sea

We start this week on the recently commandeered La Fondue, milk raining down on our exhausted and injured PCs who are still reeling from Stilton’s betrayal. Most of Annabelle’s crew are even more badly injured so the PCs are forced to help sail the ship in a group skill check which 4/6 of them pass for a group pass. The gang watches the surviving enemy ships sail away and Jet considers blasting them with canons but the La Fondue doesn’t have artillery. Jet also asks Annabelle if maybe, now that they’ve saved all of their lives, they can break protocol and bring them to Candia instead of the Dairy Islands, a question she doesn’t answer at the moment.

(Edit: Wait! I should have called this section Sweet Life on Deck! Dangit! They better be on a boat again so I can use it!)

Most of the group start to fall asleep, understandable considering they’re living through the longest day of their lives, but Theo takes a second to talk to Cumulous first. He asks about Cumulous’s backstory and learns that the Spinning Star monks used to be able to teleport all over the place with teleportation circles made by Lazuli but, without her around to tend to them, they’ve been breaking down and are now unstable and dangerous to use. Him using one to get to them was a big risk and he really only made it because he’s one of the strongest monks. Additionally, as alluded to before, Candia being at war with the Concord released him from certain vows which allowed him to join the fight. They also bond over being the #1 and #2 Archmage Lazuli stans (or actually maybe #2 and #3 as we’ll find out soon) and Cumulous who is either really into magical weapons in general or magical weapons made by Lazli or a little of both gets emotional over Battlepop like he did over Sourscratch a scene before. 

The next day, there’s a funeral for the one sailor Annabelle lost in the fight. Ruby ties the milk-silk handkerchief from Primsy to her collar in solidarity. Speaking of, Primsy shows up--still injured from the attempt on her life--and invites everyone not to tea, but to a parlay. Clearly affected by the recent events, she declares that she doesn’t recognize the excommunication of Amethar and questions the church’s position on witchcraft considering all the witchcraft her Candian allies used to save her. She’s also pretty chill about the whole Stilton thing considering.

Primsy says she’ll help them but first wants them to fill in the gaps in Brie’s brief letter. Amethar explains about how he was excommunicated for still officially being married to Katherine Ghee. During an aside to this conversation, he drops what I naively thought was going to be the headline news from this episode: Caramelinda was engaged to someone else before marrying Amethar--Lazuli! It was for political reasons in part but also a love match and when Lazuli died, she ended up getting married to Amethar to at least maintain the alliance. Anyway, Ruby asks if Cara knew about Ghee and Amethar says no one knew except Jack, Belford (the priest), and Ghee herself (plus his sisters but they’re all dead). Annabelle and Primsy question whether Amethar didn’t try to have the marriage annulled and he says that he did right after the war but she couldn’t be found. Annabelle says that there are a lot of little islands she could have run to in the aftermath of the war (a smart move considering the target that would be on her back) and says that Dairy ships have a better chance at finding Ghee if she’s still around so she’ll help arrange that.  

They have a little convo-detour about various plot points:

Primsy asks how the Pontifex knew to ask Jack about Ghee in the first place. Ruby and Jet suggest she used magic or maybe found something in the files Ciabatta claimed had no Candian secrets. 

Annabelle questions the fact that Plumbeline would name Ciabatta as the successor right before having to swear on the Book of Leaves. That seems to indicate that either she’s not working with the Pontifex or the Pontifex wanted to specifically and publicly rule out Ciabatta as a possible candidate. 

Also, we learn that ex-communicating Amethar doesn’t take away his right to rule as Emperor. The Pontifex doesn’t have that authority, at least not on paper. But, as Ruby points out, she effectively has the authority by power. Still, if they can get the Book of Leaves and confirm Amethar was named emperor, that’s a huge point in their favor because he obviously wouldn’t declare war on Candia as emperor so the war would be without proper authorization and a violation of the Concord pact. 

Theo and Amethar speculate that the Pontifex doesn’t actually want to name a new emperor and want to just “provisionally” (but really indefinitely) fill the power vacuum herself.  

Anyway, Primsy reaffirms that the Dairy Islands are with Candia all the way and they continue to sail. They have 18 days before they land and Jet uses that time to finally read the rest of her banned book. You’ll remember that she already read about the first thing--the Profidian Heresy--which was an old, now heretical belief of certain members of the church that the Hungry One was as strong as the Bulb. We get a little bit of new info on that: One person who believed that doctrine and was later killed for it was a Veduit Priest (fight me Brennan) named Bartholomew Brocolpatch who was a mentor to a young Belizabeth Brassica. 

Onto the second term--the Ramsian Doctrine (did not clock the Gordon Ramsay reference until it was mentioned on Adventuring Party). It is a full, end times, Revelations, Ragnarok type thing. Ruby helps with this because she speaks Bulbosi (which is like Candian Celestial or church speak). Basically what it says is that the Bulb can’t win until the Hungry One devours the world and the Hungry One won’t devour unhealthy souls (Ruby translates “healthy” from the Bulbosi phrases “farm to table” and “locally sourced”) so in order to bring about the end of days, there needs to be a destruction of all the trash people or, phrased differently because the word for people and food is the same in Bulbosi--the junk food.

Even knowing what happens later in this episode, this still might be the thing I'm most mad at Brennan about.

Cumulous later calls a meeting of all the Candians and drops a little more exposition on them. He says that the reason that Candia has magic and the other kingdoms largely don’t is because his order of monks curates and tends to the magic of the realm while other kingdoms neglect their sources of magic. He also says that the church’s power comes from others not having it. After Ruby mentions that she sees Lazuli on a semi-regular basis through her magic, Cumulous drops the bombshell that his power comes from the Hungry One--though he doesn’t worship them. It’s just like a power source. They also discuss Jet’s research on the end of days stuff and Jet thinks maybe the move is to spread as much junk food as possible to delay the apocalypse.  

Homecoming 

After a long time out at sea, the gang arrives at Port Syrup at the mouth of the Cola River. As they sail in, they see three sunk Imperial warships and that the port is heavily defended. Clearly they got the memo. And we quickly see who gave it to them when Brie and Manta Ray Jack run up to meet them! Amethar is super happy to see his friends alive and they also confirm that Cal made it out and so did basically everyone except the Swirlies (RIP). The Jawbreaker castle--Castle Many-Licks--is under siege but it’s very hard to break into and it seems like most of the rest of Candia is doing OK.

Brie thanks Ruby for her help in finding Manta Ray Jack and then confirms Amethar/Theo’s suspicions that the Pontifex is ruling in the absence of an emperor (she says that until Candia is back in the Concord, technically, there can be no emperor). He also swears to duel Liam who truly cannot stop putting his foot in his mouth (this time about the church and a *very* confusing..complement?), after the war.

Amethar and Cumulous have a quick aside where Cumulous once again says that his mission is more to protect the magic of Candia than them specifically. It just so happens that, right now, those two things are pretty aligned.

As they make their way back to Castle Candy (w/ their Dairy Island friends), the citizens are pretty stoked to see them so it seems that war with the Concord has not lessened the populace’s love for their king. They take a pit stop and get a war update. The mountains are full of Imperial soldiers and random marauders plus there are reports of “Long Live the Queen” written in Imperial soldier blood on the side of a mountain which isn’t ominous at all. Also, there’s a call for all the help they can get to defend Castle Candy because an army from Comida is coming. Ruby tries and succeeds in communing with Lazuli who sends her a vision: to help Castle Many Licks troop-wise, they’d have to leave Port Syrup defenseless basically which would be a huge strategic loss. Meanwhile, the army coming to Castle Candy is full of discord so there’s a better chance at being able to muster (not mustard) troops there and be successful. The Dairy peeps say they’ll help as well and leave for Lacramore--except for Brie who holds down the fort in Port Syrup and Jack who goes with them to Castle Candy.

They make it there, at like 4am and Carmelinda is there to meet them, full weeping in relief at her daughters’ safe return. Cal is also there (with fancy new pants) and very happy to see Amethar. Caramelinda is less happy to see Amethar and you can clearly feel the tense conversation they’re gearing up for. The girls want to stay but Cara lays down the mom hammer and starts lecturing them. They all try to stealth away (non-daughters included) but Cara goes Full Mom and hits a Nat 20 to eyes-on-the-back-of-her-head notice. She stomps her foot and traps them all in caramel, demanding they all stop messing around and go to bed. Theo Messages her to give a quick word in favor of the girls and their maturity and battle prowess which Cara acknowledges.                   

Cal gets acquainted with Cumulous while Amethar follows Cara into their chambers for a convo that had me feeling like *I* was in trouble. She’s emotionally overwhelmed in a kind of understated and detached way as she talks to Amethar--she’s again openly weeping but not really about him. She doesn’t expect much from him. Him never telling her and hoping the problem would go away like a child makes sense. But his sisters knew which means Lazuli knew and never told her which hurts a whole lot more because, “Lazuli I loved with all my heart and this is just politics.” Ow. Amethar promises he’s going to do better. She doesn’t seem convinced as she leaves the room.      

Later (Note: I’m not 100% clear on the timeline since Siobhan says when they wake up but it seems like it’s still dark in the next scene), Ruby takes the “For Candia” note from Lapin and brings the rest of the PCs to the Sugar Plum Fairy’s standing stones to have a little funeral. Liam finds a peppermint seed and puts it down for Preston. Cumulous is also there and has the urge to meditate while everyone goes back to the castle.

Rocks Fall 

Ruby and Jet see, as their mom walks out of her study, a piece of tearaway lingerie in her desk as she locks the door behind her. And it’s not Jet’s. You know the girls gotta investigate that and Ruby, of course, gets a Nat 20 to pick the lock. In fact she doesn’t have to pick it. She approaches it with an air of mischief and it yields to her, opening without her even having to break out her thieves' tools. They find a letter from Lazi Fierce (interesting name choice) of Lazi Fierce Lingerie who apparently has been spying on them for their mom since they were little (which is funny considering she seemed outraged about their buying lingerie in ep 1). The letter also cryptically refers to something she’s keeping hidden in the attic of her shop and that she needs to leave and she doesn’t know when she’ll be back so if Cara needs it, she should go get it. Much like Siobhan/Adaine stealing that book in S1 of Fantasy High, there is no way the girls were gonna get that info and *not* follow up on it. They grab Liam and go.

With a 25, Ruby easily picks the lock and...we cut to Cumulous. 

As he’s meditating, the Sugar Plum Fairy appears to him in a traditional, cutesy form. Cumulous sees through the glamour and asks what she wants. She says she wants the magic of Candia safe, same as him and says she would owe him a boon if he brought the royal family (who she needs safe) to the Great Stone Candy Mountain. She says there’s safety there for them and Candia’s magic. Maybe not in the way Lazuli planned but this is a better plan. Cumulous says he’ll think about it.

Calroy finds Amethar and takes him to the ramparts of the castle to have a guy chat and also talk strategy. As they get up there, Amethar sees that there’s a ton of soldiers in tents out in the fields. And then he feels a knife in his back. Brennan asks for 3 Con saves.

Water dagger.

He takes 34 points of damage (about half his HP) and is paralyzed as Cal starts to monologue about how he’s always hated Amethar for being so lucky. Fifth in line and somehow makes it to the throne while he’s stuck having to wheel and deal for everything he has. He reveals that he had Rococoa killed when she found out he was selling weapons to Cersians AND that the tents in the field aren’t all Candian tents. Some of them are Ceresians. He got Stilton interested in Primsy. He set up the cheese ambush. He worked with Alfredi to get the water daggers to Kerradin. He told the Pontifex about Ghee (he was in that conversation you’ll remember). He *also* says that, in her younger days, the Pontifex had Citrina (who he claims to have actually liked) killed in the street by Vegetanian knights. 

“I wonder if they’ll call you Amethar the Unfallen after this.”

Boom, Amethar is sent over the castle walls. 

Jet, Ruby, and Liam are in the attic and they see a gleam of golden light from a chest where something is clearly being held. Brennan makes everyone roll Initiative as they walk in and Liam sees four shapes in the room move, all masked, dressed in black, and holding water-steel daggers.  

Ally scrambles for combat dice--because this is a STORY episode what is HAPPENING--and attacks for, in total, 67 damage to one guy who smells of sourdough and does not drop. He hides and Ally, in a burst of realization, puts together that it must have been Ciabatta, something confirmed by Brennan’s coy smile as he rolls a million dice.

Emily and Siobhan hold hands and brace for whatever’s coming. 

Ruby is hit by a dagger and Jet, it seems, is hit by two (since she takes 6 saving throws to Ruby’s 3). Ruby takes 49 damage (down to THREE) and Jet takes 53+51, dropping her and poisoning her. She has to make a death save with disadvantage (bc of the poison) which she passes.   

Ruby wants to stay and fight but Liam and Jet insist she run so, visibly distraught, she casts Invisibility on herself and runs for Theo. Liam casts Rope Trick, grabs Jet, and brings her into a little pocket dimension with him. Ciabatta takes off his mask and tells his men to find them and they say, “Yes Imperator.” They leave. We’re out of combat.

But Jet still has death saves to make.

Nat 1.

That’s two fails.

Liam tries to make a DC 15 medicine check to stabilize her or at least give advantage but fails.

She rolls again.

Nat 1.

As she lays in the Rope Trick, bleeding out, Liam trying his best to stanch the wound, Jet feels a glow on her Locket of the Sweetest Heart. Ruby feels the glow as she sprints over the bridge back to the castle and as she reaches the other side, the glow extinguishes.    

“Tell Ruby I love her,” Jet says to Liam, not from her body, but standing above her body. “And tell her she did the right thing.”

The spirit of her aunt Rococoa shows up to ferry her to the other side.

“Good job soldier. You got her home. Ruby’s gonna be alright. Work’s not over. There’s plenty we can do from this side. You ready?” Oh, hell yeah she is.

Which brings us to Theo who is in the castle, looking for other knights, when he finds Sir Toby in his room, butchered. The door is slammed and locked shut behind him by some of Cal’s men who taunt him about eating Toby’s corpse to survive. But Theo isn’t just a brawn guy. He’s the ward of Archmage Lazuli. He casts Knock and the door flies open.                    

Cumulous hears shouting from the castle and runs towards it immediately.

And Amethar is still falling.

Brennan says he has the time to make 3 checks to come out of paralysis. He comes out of paralysis on his first turn and, as is mechanically useful and narratively appropriate, goes into a rage. As he falls he thinks about Ruby doing that slick aerial arrow shooting last ep and Jet stabbing that dude with him during the ambush. He sees a point of light across town cross the bridge and go out and he *knows* Jet is dead. If he wasn’t raging before, he’s raging now. He falls and takes 72 points of damage, halved to 36. He’s still up. Amethar the Unfallen, yet again. 

The sounds of war erupt and that’s where we end our ep.

Safe harbor my ass. 

In Memoriam

Oh, Jet.

I’ve known this was something I was going to have to write for ages now. I’m honestly only surprised this wasn’t the first one. Jet has had a date with the Grim Reaper for ages now and it was just down to confirming the date and time.

The moment she said, “I go on top of the carriage and lay myself perfectly to protect Ruby,” she might as well have started picking flowers for her grave. Her willingness to throw herself in harm’s way to protect anyone she held in any regard without the slightest hesitation was always going to be her downfall. A noble end to be sure, but still an end. And it sucks that, if she had to die, she didn’t die in a blaze of glory in battle, but she made the most of her senseless death. She died, telling Ruby to run, wishing she could have done more to save her, telling Liam to make sure she knows that she’s loved and that she didn’t abandon her, she did the right thing. Not a single thought for herself, only for her sister. 

Jet, who never wanted to be queen and now never will be.

Jet who longed for war and fell right on the cusp on the biggest one in years.

Jet who was forced by circumstances to step up and did so every time. 

I didn’t include her last exchange with Rococoa in the recap because I wanted to use those lines here. 

Her aunt says, “I have bad news. If you thought the adventure was gonna end, it’s not.”

“Well,” Jet replies with a slight smile, “if you thought the adventurer was gonna die, she definitely fucking wasn’t.”

The Bastard Jet Rocks. RIP.

1 Million Years Dungeon 

That damn cake bastard and his stupid fancy pants. I KNEW it I KNEW it I hate that I’m right but I KNEW IT.

Not that it was a crazy puzzle as a viewer. In a story like this there *has* to be a traitor to the king and for someone to be a traitor, they first have to be a friend. And Cal has been *real* friendly.  Brennan thought he could throw us off the scent by saying that Cal was is his DMNPC, as if we don’t already know he’s the enemy. That’s just more evidence for the pile baby! I SEE YOU VILLAIN. 

But damn if it didn’t still hurt when it happened. After what he’d just been through? That’s just insult to injury, or vice versa I suppose. And in a story ep???? Brennan?????

Wild that he waited 20 years to off this dude and then monologued his entire plan and didn’t wait to make sure Amethar--the famously Unfallen--was dead though.

Anyway, absolute BASTARD MAN (and not in the cool Jet way). I need him DEAD and I need that to happen ASAP.

(Also, this is more on Brennan but full-circling Lou’s “shit/piss” running joke with a MURDER ATTEMPT? That’s an extra year dungeon my guy.)

Sunnyside Up

“You’ve struck me. Why have you done this? It was wee and gentle but you've struck me nonetheless.” I love Primsy with my whole heart. 

The “slam down big style” line was, like, moderately funny when I first heard it but every repetition in and out of game made it exponentially funnier. 

“If we have to follow the rules, you have to follow the rules!” 

“Everyone needs to stop making sworn enemies. We already have enough.”

“I sentence you to death.”/“No let him do it.” and then his, “Later.” So good. 

It didn’t *end* funny but I maintain that that the, “There’s a *war* going on,” back and forth between Jet and Ruby was gold. 

This isn’t actually from the episode but everyone roasting Brennan with full lies when he gets up to use the bathroom in the Adventuring Party is one of the funniest things Dropout has ever put out. Also, Murph taking Brenna’s cookie story and Murphing it is very good. Just watch this week’s AP, even if you don’t usually. 

Things I’m Concerned About

Going into this battle ep, Ruby has THREE HP and Amethar has FIFTEEN. Like I know Rococoa said Ruby would be OK but I hope that has some mechanical effect because IDK ABOUT THAT.

Is Lady Donetta w/ Cal or was she just a pawn, like Primsy?

Also, idk if this matters but I can’t shake the thought that Cal murdered the Swirlies. Like it’s very probable that they just suck but the thought struck me. 

Don’t love that it seems like Cal is going right for Cara this ep. Hopefully Theo (who Big Brained on that clutch Knock) can help her out and, if not, it looks like she has some skills of her own. I’m pulling for her. 

How out the window is the format? Like, I’ve been concerned about a random combat ambush for a while now--partially because of the genre and partially because of how story heavy the tourney ep was. Things have been bleeding through already and now, at the halfway point, it seems like a plausible time for Brennan to fully throw the rulebook out the window and be like, “Game’s changed y’all.” They didn’t roll for initiative at the end of last ep. I wonder if that’s logistical or somehow relevant (like, are they going *right* into combat or not).

AHHHHHHH, OK, Jet’s death. As much as I felt it coming, ouch. And not just ouch for me Ouch for everyone. I am so worried about how this is going to break Ruby specifically. Like, poor Cara--she *just* got her daughter back only for her to die in her old stomping grounds because of a letter *she* had--poor Amethar--he’s outlived his firstborn who he saw safely through battle and loved more than anyone besides his other daughter, just like he outlived all his sisters--but Ruby? This is going to CRUSH her. She egged on the sneaking out. She ran instead of staying to try and help (correct move but total guilt trip). She’s never been alone before. I know we’ve all been kinda tense for whatever that, “Family is vulnerable,” line from Siobhan in the trailer is but man I’m *so* much more tense now. I wonder if she’s gonna take a class tweak like Liam did (I know he had more of a reason for it but still curious). 

(Also, Theo who’s whole purpose in life is protect the Rocks family having Jet die and Amethar almost die in one night? RIP to that dude’s mental health.)

Note: I recognize that there’s a theory floating around that Cara set up what happened as an ambush and is evil but I refuse to consider that and if that makes me boo boo the fool in two episodes, so be it.

Seriously though, Concerned about whatever that “Long Live the Queen” stuff is. Like it could be referring to Cara but it could be referring to someone else entirely. Either way, sketchy.   

Lol also the health food-pocalypse. That’s a thing. Extremely wild that that’s not even close to the headline of this episode. 

I may have trusted Lapin by the end but I do *not* trust the Sugar Plum Fairy. Whatever’s going on with her and Cumulous? Do not vibe. 

Ciabatta better be toast by the end of this show. This isn’t a concern. This is my Denny’s order. Toasted Ciabatta with a side of dice I can pour down Brennan’s throat.

Five More Things

So, Emily’s new character. I have two thoughts. One (and this was suggested to me by @buck92) is that she’s playing the Queen’s Champion--Ser Amanda Maillard who’s been mentioned twice--once in the first episode by Theo and Sir Toby and once this episode as part of the war effort (leading troops south). A named character doing important things but with no art sounds like a possible backup PC. Also, Emily getting to play this cool knight who Murph’s character is slightly jealous of would be A Dynamic. The other strong possibility is the Sugar-free chocolate warlock Brennan mentioned in episode 1 when they were on the way to Comida. I thought they were gonna get jumped by that character and they weren’t which makes me think that’s a PC too. It would also make Emily 3 for 3 on warlocks! 

RIP to all of us who made the Bread Wedding joke before the season started. We were right, but at what cost. 

Ruby talking about how it doesn’t matter what she does because she’s not next in line and then having Jet suddenly die and instantly becoming crown princess has painfully Big Amethar Energy. 

Also, a nat 20 to break in and find the letter and then two Nat 1 death saves? The dice REALLY wanted Jet dead. Addendum: Almost forgot! Liam *just* learned Twinspeak! Like, off. What a narrative hand-off having that happen right before Jet died. It was like written in the stars.

It’s just a little moment but I loved Cara including Liam in her lecture with a little, “You are included, Liam.” 

One More Thing!

This has been circulated a bunch already but I still wanted to shout out this very good video edit by @breadddie! It hit me real hard man. 

Also, I don’t think I can link this properly without tumblr getting mad at me but this animatic with Amethar’s Fall set to What’s Up Danger on Twitter is excellent!

Edit: Here’s a link to an ask where I link to the animatic! Novatank is the artist’s @ btw. 

[onestowatch]

Aidan Gallagher Has No Limits [Q&A]

Photo By Allan Zaki

There are many facets to Aidan Gallagher. On the surface, his scene stealing prowess as the co-star of The Umbrella Academy has catapulted him to an immense level of popularity on a piece of prime real estate amongst Hollywood’s brightest young A-List celebrities. But beneath the surface of this 17-year-old actor lies a multi-instrumentalist. An independent singer-songwriter who doesn’t seem to care about the mainstream attention that his music may garner in the future, only the substance for which it can bare.  Musically, his original compositions like “I LOVE YOU” and “4TH of July” draw early comparisons to acoustic-pop artists like Jack Johnson and Passenger. While lyrically some of his introspective words jump off the paper as if they were indie pop-ballads written by singers like Jason Mraz or Aqualung back in 2003.

For Aidan Gallagher the musician, the year 2020 began with a sold-out show at the Troubadour in his hometown of Los Angeles, California. This live performance on January 6th was supposed to be his introduction to the tour life. In fact, a couple weeks later, he even announced that he would be playing a live set at SXSW in March.  But…just as quickly as the Neon Lights Tour began, it came to an abrupt end due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Although his first ever headlining tour has been temporarily delayed, it hasn’t stopped Aidan Gallagher from publishing fresh content for his listeners along with a series of new music videos.

There are many facets to the year 2020. On the surface the pandemic this year alone has derailed the plans of some of the world’s most talented independent recording artists. But when you’re an intuitive songwriter like Aidan Gallagher, times like these can provide the backdrop for some of the most emotional compositions that you may create.

We caught up with Aidan Gallagher to talk about his emotional subject matter, his dream collaborations and his future plans to balance his music endeavors with a budding acting career.

Ones to Watch: With all of the success that you've enjoyed over the course of the past two years, you've become one of the most recognized actors in young Hollywood. But now you're starting to get a lot more attention as a recording artist. In fact, you currently have four music videos that have garnered over 1 million views on YouTube. Those are very impressive feats to have accomplished without the support of a major record label. What was your personal goal when you first started releasing music? And are you happy with the reception that your music videos have received so far?

Aidan Gallagher: There was always less of a defined personal goal in terms of a release schedule other than just to make great music and put it out there and if people enjoy it, that’s really gratifying. I’ve always made music as a means of working out emotions and because it’s one of the most rewarding hobbies one can have.

Two singles that you've released this year are "I LOVE YOU" and "Blue Neon." Lyrically, they're both heartbreaking tracks that teenagers can relate to. But you also reference some introspective experiences that many adults in their 20s or 30s can relate to. What inspired the lyrics to these songs?

I've often found that the melodic structure and the micro-tonal characteristics of a riff are what inspire the emotional landscape of a song. When I hear music, I see colors and shapes and textures that I couldn't necessarily describe to another person. I let that imagery inform my emotional state and the subject matter of the song. The lyrics always coincide with this. Sometimes the lyrics relate more to the music than myself and other times they are stripped word for word from my own personal experience. Either way the lyrics always come from an honest place. I don't see how you could create anything of value without that.

“4th of July" is a Folk song that pulls on the heart strings of your listeners. The date is very specifically addressed in your lyrics, so why did you choose to release the music video on August 1st instead of the actual day of July 4th?

Thank you! I’m really proud of that song. It brought together a lot of what I’ve been learning about music production and engineering. It gave me a chance to show what I can do. A lot of people have asked about the timing of videos and our team has found through the advice of some very wise music industry people and just trial and error that it’s best to release a listening only video first. I like the idea that people will listen to the work before they start dissecting the visuals. I want them to have their own interpretation and not necessarily the visual scenery I put on it.

Of all the musicians and bands that have released music videos in 2020, which ones have inspired your imagination the most, when it comes to creating your own videos?

I often find myself influenced by a variety of artists across musical genres. To give an example or two, I really love what Jacob Collier and Finneas are doing with their videos. But at the same time, some of my favorite videos are the ones that are stripped down, and the artist is just performing their song in a studio or on a stage. I think it puts a beautiful focus on the music and the emotional texture of the song.

The 2020 Blue Neon Tour was going to be your first heading tour, but it was cancelled back in January due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Can you tell us a little bit about what you had in store for this tour?

Well, I was lucky that I got a chance to kick it off at the Troubadour here in Los Angeles.  Just that alone was pretty cool. I had a full tour planned to go around the country and then travel to international cities and do meet-and-greets with my fans and really connect. I was really looking forward to my first SXSW performance, so that was a really hard pill to swallow when they cancelled the festival. But all things considered, I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life and my little plans pale in comparison when you look at the state of the world right now.

How many songs have you recorded since the pandemic shutdowns began? And will you be releasing an EP or debut album anytime soon?

“I Love You” and “4th of July” were released this year but everything else I’m doing is currently in a state of flux. I’ve definitely got the songs but it’s a balance of finding the time to put into recording them. I have a large catalog that I’m really proud of that will be coming out one at a time as I can get to it. With (Covid-19) it’s really slowed down my ability to record because I have to engineer everything myself. With “4th of July” I had 3 different engineers on rotation come to my house to work so it kept me working on a strong schedule and we knocked it out fast. When (Covid-19) put everyone in quarantine I lost that team and schedule. We’ll get it back though.

Who would your dream collaborators be for a full-length studio album and why?

Wow, I mean, if I was ever lucky enough to work with any of my idols, I’d be over the moon. If I got to collaborate with another artist for an entire album it would probably be on a production or writing level. I’d love to work with John Mayer, Finneas, Charlie Puth or Ed Sheeran.

If you could pick any film director to direct the first music video from your debut album who would it be and why?

Honestly, I don’t think in terms of music videos. I only think about music. Once a song is produced then I have the luxury to get into the ideas for a video. I do have some raw visual impressions in my mind of what the song means to me but it’s hard to say until the song is done. Though there are many film directors that I’d love to work with as an actor such as Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Damien Chazelle and the list goes on and on and on.

We heard that you're a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. Tell us about your work with the UN. What made you want to get involved with their efforts to stop Illegal wildlife trade? And why has it been so important for you to shed more light on the animal agricultural industry?

I can’t begin to tell you what a privilege it has been to be able to magnify my concerns about saving our planet through their channels. The environmental crisis is the largest and the most complex problem we face in the world. I have always wanted to use the platform I lucked into as an actor to showcase that. It all started with not being able to go surfing after a rain and that led to many realizations about carbon emissions and the role of the animal agriculture industry in those emissions. I don’t want to seem preachy to people or judge anyone’s choices, but I do want to spread awareness as I learn from the world’s top scientists. The truth is that if we don’t take aggressive action in the next few years, my generation isn’t going to have a viable future in a collapsed environment. The UN is calling the next ten years the "Decade of Action.” As individuals, there are a lot of small steps people can take that make a huge difference collectively such as “Meatless Mondays”, cutting down on single use plastic and cash voting for the environment with your daily spending.

You launched a five-part Q&A series on your YouTube channel back in September. Most of the questions from your fans were centered around your role as Number Five on The Umbrella Academy. Are you planning on creating any new content for your channel that primarily focuses on your musicianship and artistry as a songwriter?

I have a lot of plans for all kinds of content and ways to stay engaged with fans and it all makes me really happy. I’ve been doing music performances for my Patreon members every week, and music performing has always given me happiness. I bet a lot of performers are experiencing depression once they lost the ability to tour. Patreon brought back that happiness to me. Not every person who follows me is into my music, so it’s just for those who are and who would come to a show if I were touring in their city. I try to balance my time between the various things I’m passionate about; however, the past few months have really been about promoting the vote.

You play the guitar and piano. In addition to singing, producing and engineering. Take us back to the early stages of your timeline as a musician. Were you a self-taught musician or did you have instructors and mentors help you develop your skills?

Well, when you're first starting out you generally work on covers to develop your skills with your instrument while also making it fun. Once you can play the chords and you have an understanding of how your instrument works, you can learn things at your leisure. I started off taking lessons but eventually I stopped due to production and had to let my ear guide my learning. That's also when I started writing songs. I never took lessons for songwriting, I just watched YouTube. In particular I remember John Mayer’s seminar at Berklee College of Music to be a defining influence on my methodology for songwriting. As for producing and engineering, I'm completely self-taught and rely only on YouTube research and my own musical instinct to create.

Most of your songs could be categorized as Pop-Rock. What other genres of music would you like to incorporate into your sound?

I like all kinds of music, so I’m not necessarily trying to find a genre to incorporate but I guess you get influenced by whatever you are listening to. Genres are so blended these days, and I really think music operates on more of a spectrum than it does on individual categorizations of itself.

Who are your top five Pop-Rock artists/bands of all-time? And why?

There’s way more than five!  But since 5 is my lucky number I’ll try to narrow it down but it’s not in any order. Also know that this list is characterized by how I define Pop-rock. My Chemical Romance, The White Stripes, David Bowie, Queen and Foo Fighters.

We noticed that you filmed season two of The Umbrella Academy in Toronto. How do you think the experience of living in that city helped shape you as a songwriter and artist?

I think in order to write about life you have to live life. At this point in my life, I don't at all consider myself worldly as I simply haven't lived long enough and because of that I find that a lot of my music is introspective, and my songs often feel like the places I've written them. By putting yourself in new environments, I think it pulls new ideas out of you. Travel broadens the mind.

Hypothetically speaking, if you had to choose between winning a Grammy Award as a solo artist or a winning Academy Award with the entire cast of The Umbrella Academy, which option would you pick?

Awards aren’t why I make music or act. I don’t think about them. I just love music and acting. Any part I can play in those fields brings me happiness and I'd love to experiment with the different aspects of those art forms. Initially I got into acting because I wanted to be a director. I also loved listening to music, but I had no idea I would be a musician until I started taking piano lessons.

What’s the plan for your music career moving forward? Do you plan to continue to release material independently or would you prefer to be signed to a major record label?

It was a hard decision, but right now it’s best for me to remain an independent artist as I’m growing my music and balancing an acting career. I had really exciting offers from major labels, but they all want me to drop acting and tour full time. I also really enjoy having creative control over my songs. For the past couple of years, I’ve mostly been writing and because of that, I’ve built up a huge catalog of music to produce when I get the time. After that I’m really looking forward to being able to perform more and on tour.  For the time being, I’m really excited about catching up with what I’ve written so that I’ll finally be in a place where I can write a song and begin recording it the next day.

[rigelmejo]

march 3/15/2021

im trying to read through tae kim’s grammar guide right now because i’m officially further in the nukemarine LLJ  memrise decks (there’s tae kim grammar guide sections in there) than i am in actually reading the grammar guide. And obviously these example sentences in the memrise deck would teach me more if i CLEARLY understood why they’re like how they are. which i... need to read the grammar guide section to understand lol.

my goal rn with japanese is? to get further in the nukemarine LLJ decks than i did last time. I’ve already mildly accomplished that (have done officially MORE of the tae kim section than before, have NOT redone the 190 common words i did last time i did this though). there are about 400 more cards in this tae kim section (LLJ 4) and then 1000ish cards in the common word section (LLJ 5). I would love to get them done. 

it would be sweet if i could get them done before April 22?/24? whenever Nier Replicant comes out because then I could play that baby in english and japanese! Then Nier Automata! ToT The Entire thing that kicked me back into wanting to study japanese was my old love for certain video games and desperately wanting to know what their stories/characters are like before translation/localization. So it would be cool if I could play them a little ;-; or at least check out lets plays. 

(which, checking out the kh2 lets play has been going pretty well so far... also that part where namine says “we aren’t meant to exist” and roxas says “how could you say such a thing? even if it were true” he says in japanese like “thats brutal/harsh to say. even if its true.” ...great to know that line is equally raw and heartbreaking in japanese lol. KH2′s localization did real good on like equal vibe to original just like ‘less nuanced’ if that makes sense. also thanks to the chinese hanzi i know now watching the KH2 lets play means i can figure out a lot of noun’s writing even though i don’t catch the pronunciation... also i’m catching a lot of words that mean like ‘beautiful/good’ as in like ‘great move’ and ‘dang’ lol.)

i had to stop myself from redoing the chinese flashcards i’ve done in the past! because i get ‘into a zone’ lol. And i really don’t need to waste time redoing those 2000 cards. i also needed to stop myself from doing the hsk 5-6 cards. because realistically? i know half of them, i should just set a lot to ‘ignore’ on the computer but im too lazy, and i’m learning a lot of vocab from reading right now. i don’t need hsk words to pass any test. The words i’m learning right now in reading are a lot more applicable to the actual shows i watch/things i listen to/things i read. its more useful to me to keep reading. and also to not sidetrack my japanese lol. i have read... 39 chapters this month... this month is only half over! hanshe is truly motivating ToT it also helps the story CONSTANTLY ends on cliffhangers so i keep clicking next chapter. who knows, maybe hanshe will help me kick up my reading speed. it already shaved off 10 minutes per 20 pages - now my 20 pages are down to 30 minutes to read, which is better than a few months ago. hanshe has 155 chapters so i HOPE it speeds up my reading lol.

hanshe is increasing my vocab though, its definitely noticeable over time. and hanshe has really good repetition of vocab which helps with learning and later the payoff means i never have to look up the word in future once its learned while it remains useful to me and i keep being reminded of it. after i get bored of hanshe OR i finish it, whichever comes first, its either back to a priest novel or into another pingxie fanfic written by hanshe’s author. The author did one fanfic that’s only 33 chapters so that would be NICE to do after this one lol ToT

summary of what’s turned out to be my studying methods this month:

Japanese:

reading through grammar guides (the one yue-muffin made and tae kim’s). so just grammar explanation reading.

doing nukemarine LLJ decks (in the ACTUAL order they are in the deck to completion - last time i did like 3 per time and never finished any lol. this is bolded because it’s the primary activity i’m prioritizing). so SRS flashcards. it’s working well right now because i can just put this activity in anytime i have downtime, like when i pause shows (since we know me i gotta take a break from a show every 20 minutes lol). i am bafflingly in a flashcard mood and i’m trying to take advantage of it while i got it. 

*when i feel like it: watching kh2 lets play. so some immersion where i look up words. (and when Nier Replicant remaster releases next month I’m likely to at least a tiny bit try to play it in japanese ToT lol we’ll see)

so grammar reading, srs flashcards covering some grammar/listening/reading/vocab, and some optional immersion.

(a note: i gave up on the japaneseaudiolessons for now because i got bored. its a great resource! i just don’t feel like it right now. and from an efficiency perspective, nukemarine LLJ decks cover vocab, grammar, audio, reading - so I don’t need another resource for that right now).

Chinese:

reading through hanshe. so immersion reading, intensive reading looking up unknown words. (unknown words are happening less so its getting less ‘intense’ lol)

listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio. so listening to audio flashcards. for building up listening comprehension/repetition to pick up some more common words. (i’ve been doing this during daily walks making it much easier for me to consistently do, doing it mainly to supplement the Reading Heavy study i’m doing, i can drop this and pick it up later if i want since its mostly easy background listening)

*I am slowly rereading the grammar guide on www.chinese-grammar.com for explicit grammar clarification. but this is not a high priority, since I sort of implicitly understand a lot of this and i’m not working on fixing production mistakes yet. i just... miss knowing wtf is going on in the grammar lol.

*when i feel like it: Listening Reading The Glass Maiden/Love and Redemption Novel. I’ve done 2-3 hours of it this past week, but i don’t know when or if I’ll just stop. Thankfully l-r is beneficial somewhat even if i switch up books later. i WANT to L-R you have no idea (to Silent Reading and Guardian REALLY badly lol). But its so time intensive, and requires a lot of focus, and i have to really plan to do it for an hour at a time usually. I am so bad at doing stuff for that long consistently. I was in the mood earlier this week! ToT 

*when i feel like it: watching chinese shows raw. I was super in the mood this month because Word of Honor came out, and Killer and Healer came out, and Rattan came out, and I didn’t want to wait for subs. As a result I watched a LOT of raw episodes this month. However, english subs have caught up and since I’m lazy I’m inclined to just watch the subs - especially since youku ITSELF just put english subs on their most-ahead viewing schedule version of the eps on youku vip. so guess who’s buying youuku vip today? -3-)/ That said... even if I stop for a while, if Rattan subs move too slow I’ll probably watch those raw. And as SOON as 2ha’s drama Immortality drops I am highly likely to watch the raws for that since I likely won’t be able to wait. Watching shows is pretty highly dependent on how much I want to watch something and if subs take a while lol. 

so reading, and listening. and a little listening-reading method too. mainly just working on reading, listening, vocab acquisition. chinese is going good - for a few months now i’ve just had the plan ‘read often while looking up unknown words, and add some listening study activity when i have time.’ It’s simple, and its been working well.  later on down the road i’ll need some explicit grammar clarification again, but this is bare bones enough of a study plan at the moment. i’m clearly picking up words and phrases and hanzi at a reasonable pace. its not the Fastest obviously, but it is causing improvement over time and since i’m enjoying it i see no reason to change it up.

ending things

...who knows WHY i am so well focused this month with so much energy... tbh... i track how many chapters i read a month/audio i listen to/show episodes i watch etc, and this month is like as much as 3 other of my usual months combined. also my japanese has been basically ‘dabbling only’ prior to this month.

 although... maybe in part its how i’ve gotten better at reading hanshe? Reading being easier certainly motivates me TO read more. And watching shows was MUCH easier this month (still not ‘easy’ but following the main plot is) which definitely makes me Want to watch more. Also i am... unbelievably motivated by a challenge. I think i got it in my head that i ‘really want to do more of Nukemarine’s LLJ courses and see how much i understand after them’ and now... i really want them DONE. so maybe the current things motivating me will hold out for a while. 

(On the listening-reading front meanwhile, that activity takes SO much concentration its hard to do if i’m tired, BUT i have so many TRANSLATED novels i want to read recently and honestly its fun hearing the chinese narration and audiobook actors so like... i very much Want to do l-r so i can hear them as i read the translation... immovable object of me tired versus how much i’m interested in them lol ToT).

also thank u thank u @a-whump-muffin for sending me those lets plays because honestly it got me so excited again and its so cool to see them!!! <3 <3 and its so much easier to watch them versus committing to playing a whole game myself just yet ToT 

[astro-break]

Thoughts on the 7th ep of Hypmic Rhyme Anima. Spoilers beware 

Ep.1 | Ep.2 | Ep.3 | Ep.4 & 5 | Ep. 6

Can we get an MTC ep for Samatoki’s birthday please?

nope its MTR

ah man i always get really down whenever i see Doppo’s workplace environment. it suckssss

EYYYYY BUSTER BROS SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i forgot the name of the song in the moment but is Ikebukuro West Gate Park which is funny since thats where the ikebukuro prelims are held)

OOO IRIS ON A MOTERBIKE!!!!!!!!!!!! thats so hot oh my god, the CGI was good too! she had no right making to popping a wheelie over speedbumps look cool

Tom mentioned last episode that he had picked these three up from bad places and I have a feeling that Iris was once either an adrenaline junkie, thrill seeker, or involved in something that had her on the run

I don’t know about Rex. I think society just took one look at him and pushed him away because his personality is weird. He’s honest and kind, almost too kind. It don’t help that he doesn’t look traditionally Japanese which will garner him a lot of unpleasant experiences

MTCCCCCCCCCCC HELL YEAH

love that theyre one of the few units shown actually going out and doing intel searching on their own

god the TDD flashbacks harken to the manga and thats so cool

There’s a lot of underline threads going on in here and its going to be hard keeping track of them. I hope that the anime doesn’t choke itself on all the threads

T.REX is hilarious i think i might actually grow to like him. he’s a dumb himbo

ah even more threads and previous connections. i really really really hope that everything is ties up nicely by the end of the season though that doesn’t seem plausible, not with only 5 episodes remaining

OH GOD WHY WAS YOTOSUJUJI BROUGHT UP NOW IM TEARING UP

ah of course robberies are going to happen on the day of the rap battle

That ruikawa guy is suspicious. it might be my INFP speaking but his kindness seems a bit weird

ah yeah red flags right there. he’s definitely one of the robbers or in cahoots with them

ah yeah hes a robber. theres no doubt about that. “ive found a place to release what builds up inside me”. thats crime isn’t it. the fact that he won’t talk about it just raises more red flags

ahahaha see i was right

hey at least it was doppo’s hardass boss. could be someone more innocent and less asshole-y

YOU JUST GAVE YOUR INDEITY AWAY ASSHOLE wow even doppo caught on

EYYYY SHINJIKU STYLE!!!!! HELL YEAH

Those stills are absolutely mesmerizing though. 

i love the sense of trust and mentorship between matenro with Jakurai as Hifumi and Doppo’s mentors. At least that’s the feeling I get with them ahaha

Doppo’s english is a bit harsh but also weirdly fits his style. im a bit mixed on it but with the whole song being more melancholic with english sprinkled in, it matches the theme

The song itself is such a mellow and soothing song though. Its different than Maternro’s usual work and its a good different. I love the subway and old timey imagery that came with the song and the image of a subway train lighting up the way to a new path is such a great way of showing that there are different paths and different destinations that one can take. Even if you take the same train, you can end up in a different place. The light imagery in particular is just so good since Ruikawa’s original line of the city being a beacon of light for him is mirrored in the song.

The lyrics especially are so soft and powerful with the imagery within the words being simultaneously rough and tumble but also soft and reassuring. It seems more like a lament or a elegy to a life that could have been if they had gotten on a different train. I love the lyrics, especially the chorus since it speaks of mundane things but things that everyone can understand and relate to

it also carries mad Spirited Away vibes. It’s also called Falling which I think is pretty fitting

the only thing that I don’t like about the song Jakurai’s vocal beats within his verse. Usually it works since there’s a big beatboxing feel to those beats but with Jakurai his lyrical rap doesn’t mesh well with the harsh guttural sounds beatboxing

The pain of having one of your few friends betray you hurts and wow this episode is out to make me feel a lot of sympathy for Doppo

SMILING DOPPO!!!

Hell yeah they actually had a plan and followed through with it

Did they just set up the MTC episode lmao. thats sneaky

OOh that beat change for FP ending is so nice!!

--

I think I’m only noticing this just now but the episode titles are all famous quotes from people/proverbs. 

Ep. 1) “As Soon as Man is Born, He Begins to Die“ This is an old proverb. Who said it I don’t know and a quick internet search gave me nothing, but its commonly said to convey the meaning that nothing lasts forever. IDK why this proverb was chosen since there’s no indication of any of the teams disbanding any time soon except for TDD era teams which have already happened

Ep. 2) “Speak of the Devil and He Will Appear“ Again, another old idiom which dates back to the 16th century. This one is probably about Ichiro and how he appears whenever he is called or whenever he is needed. Though it could be a overall commentary on how the brothers are reliable no matter the situation

Ep. 3) “Two Heads Are Better Than One” - John Heywood This quote describes DoHifu pretty well. Its because these two work and rely on each other that they’re able to not only make it through each day but also make each day worth living. Because they help each other, but they’re not the same, they’re better for it. This could also apply to MTR as a whole being a team where each member thinks outside the box and their ideas collectively make such an interesting team

Ep. 4) “A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed” This one is an 11th century proverb which explains that in times of need, true friends will show their colors. That's the main mentality behind MTC though I believe that it applies to Rio in particular for this episode. While the entirety of MTC are willing to help each other in times of need, in this episode it mainly focused on Samatoki and Rio’s plights and how the members as a whole show that they are all true friends to each other

Ep. 5) “Seeing is Believing” The origins of this quote is blurry but there the bible seems to be the origin of this statement believe it or not. While it does fit the episode’s theme of ghosts and how rumor's can harm people and businesses, it doesn’t really describe FP like the other quotes do the other teams. I find it odd, but I hope that FP are redeemed in their next feature episode. FP deserves better and are being done dirty in the anime.

Ep. 6) “He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best” - The Christmas Prince. I think this one is pretty nice in describing not only the episode but the series as a whole. It doesn’t matter who’s winning in the begging, or the middle. The final outcome is what really matters. It’s pretty apt for the series since even though The Party of Words are winning currently, its who wins by the end of the series that matters. The episode encompasses this pretty well too with the whole plotline.

Ep. 7) “The Darkest Hour is Just Before the Dawn” Dating back to 1950 ish, this one carries the simple There is hope in the worst circumstances message. Again, its pretty suitable for the series as a whole since the Party of Words might be making life harsh, but there’s still hope to be found in the world.

Ep. 8) “Dead men tell no tales” - Thomas Becon. NGL, this one scares me because it can either apply to MTC, or the universe as a whole. We’ll just have to wait till next week to know for sure but i think we’ll get some Jyuto angst with his parents

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15/05/2021 (Coldplay, J. Cole, Trippie Redd & Playboi Carti)

I’m awful at predicting this chart, I really am, but most of that is probably down to how I only make vague predictions at the end of each episode without even considering most releases that’ll actually chart. Let’s just say I didn’t expect nine new arrivals this week. At the top, however, little has changed as the absolutely huge “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne with a remix featuring whoever the hell is spending its second week at #1. The rest of the chart, however, gets a bit more interesting. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

The biggest story to effect the chart this week is of course 2021’s BRIT Awards happening this Tuesday, which I’m sure boosted a lot of songs during the mid-week. I also actually covered the awards show on that day if you’re curious, with some of my observations, predictions and opinions. We can very clear see – or hear, for that matter – the impact of the BRIT Awards in this week’s chart, as it did cause a lot of gains and new arrivals that shook up the chart right in the middle of the tracking week. Firstly, we do have some drop-outs from the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, only one of them, “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy, being all that important given it was a top five hit but we do have a handful that lasted five or more weeks or peaked in the top 40, like “Medicine” by James Arthur flopping embarrassingly, “Addicted” by Jorja Smith dropping out to prepare for the rebound next week given her album release and “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake.

Speaking of Drake, he also provides the singular returning entry as “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is proving to be the actual hit from that three-pack from March, coming back to #65. Scaling down the chart, we also have some notable losses, songs that dropped at least five spots on this week’s chart. Those that fell include “Your Power” by Billie Eilish dropping harshly to #15 off of the debut, as well as “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S at #18, “Confetti” by Little Mix to #21 off of the return (with Saweetie, the artist quite literally solely the reason it’s had this second wind, still bizarrely left without a credit by the UK Singles Chart), “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #27, “Titanium” by Dave at #31, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted (yes, THEY��RE credited) at #36, “Patience” by KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G at #42, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Giveon at #44, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #47, “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack at #49, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #51, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 and Megan Thee Stallion at #55, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #56, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK at #59, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee at #67, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae at #69, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #70, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber getting ACR’d at #71, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #73 and finally, “6 for 6” by Central Cee at #75.

Filling up the room for those losses, however, are the gains, always a tad more interesting, as the songs that rose at least five spots on this week’s chart – or make their first appearance in the top 40, 20 or 10 – are usually having the BRITs to thank to some capacity. The climbers include “Summer 91 (Looking Back)” giving Noizu his first top 40 hit at #31 (and I’ll admit, the song is growing on me), Griff also getting her first with “Black Hole” at #35 thanks to her win and performance at the BRITs, “WITHOUT YOU” by The Kid LAROI rebounding to #13 thanks to that once-again uncredited remix with Miley Cyrus and finally, entering the top 10 for the first time is “Anywhere Away from Here” by Rag’n’Bone Man and P!nk at #9, getting the boost from a perfect trifecta of gains: Rag’n’Bone Man released his album on Friday then on Tuesday had the closing performance of this song at the BRIT Awards with additional vocals from the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS choir, who are also now appearing on a new release of the song the day after, prompting a whole lot of sales, of which I assume and hope are going to charity. It’s Rag’n’Bone Man’s third top 10 hit, P!nk’s 21st(!) and interestingly enough, the NHS choir’s second top 10 hit as they had the Christmas #1 back in 2015. With all of that out of the way, I suppose it’s time to get to our varied array of new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “Dick” – Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat

Produced by Nius and SoFLY

This week is kind of a weird week if that wasn’t immediately obvious as our new arrivals are kind of all over the place, starting with... well, I think I could say less about the song than the title does. Starboi3 is this SoundCloud rapper from New Jersey who made a song with Doja back in 2019 – I assume she was more accessible for features back then –and it didn’t blow up at all, really, giving Starboi3 some additional traction but not until 2020, in which Doja Cat got her #1 hit and TikTok picked up this explicit single as a new sound. Sadly – or thankfully – the song was never released officially onto streaming until very recently, meaning, surely, the hype’s over by now? The answer to that is no, as it’s climbing up charts in both the UK and the Bubbling Under in the US... so there’s got to be something good about this song, right? Well, no. Not at all. Of course, that is subjective, but I do question your sanity if you’re honestly enjoying this unlikeable nobody shout “Dick!” over a basic, no-melody trap instrumental with heavy 808s not too dissimilar to drill, before going into a beyond basic chorus and verse about, well, you can guess, with rhymes sounding either like an awful freestyle or a kid with a rhyming dictionary. “She not with him tonight, she not with Jim tonight”? Of course, that’s in the post-chorus because if there’s one thing this song needs, it’s a freaking post-chorus. I also don’t think Starboi3 realises that making her scream for her parents is quite the opposite of sexy – or even raunchy and mindless, as it’s actually just creepy and terrifying. Speaking of terrifying, Doja Cat is here and not even she can add a less basic flow with a verse that just ends up going in one ear and out the other, even if I do like the seductive backing vocals that at least try to make this not a slow, joyless slog. However, I do NOT like the Pickle Rick reference. To be fair, this was 2019, but also to be fair, never reference that again, I am begging you. This is a disaster on all fronts and probably one of the worst tracks I’ve had to review in this series. Good start!

#64 – “Freaks” – Surf Curse

Produced by Surf Curse

This new song is actually even older, being released initially as a deep cut from this Nevada duo’s 2013 album. As you’ll probably tell, this is charting off of people streaming after hearing the song on TikTok and, I mean, at least the song’s actually good this time, careening off of a clearly surf-inspired clean riff surrounded by some basic drumming and a good bassline. It’s not great as it does feel increasingly basic as I said, almost like one of those local bands that don’t get much national attention or traction but do play some gigs and get some love at those places, to the point where it’s kind of big if they play shows outside of their region... which makes sense because that is exactly what they are. This is just some band from Reno but here it is charting on the UK Singles Chart and while it’s here, I should say whilst there’s not much here to discuss given how minimal it is, Nick Rattigan’s vocals are fittingly desperate for the theme of social alienation and particularly rejection as it’s pretty obvious he’s aiming venom at himself for a bad break-up, although given the sound and tone of the song, probably his first, with that double meaning of the mantra in the outro, “I won’t wake up this time”, potentially being a crushing line for someone in similar circumstances. That’s not me, exactly, so this doesn’t hit, but I’m glad that Machine Gun Kelly song from last week got replaced with some actually decent alternative rock on the chart. I hope this does well.

#60 – “One Day” – Lovejoy

Produced by Cameron Nesbitt

“One Day” is the biggest track from new English rock band Lovejoy’s debut EP, Are You Alright?, and whilst I was planning on not mentioning the fact that the band is fronted by Minecraft YouTuber Wilbur Soot, that is the only reason it’s charting – and he’s charted with “Your New Boyfriend” a couple months back, a song that I actually kind of liked. It’s also immediately obvious in the writing that this comes from an Internet personality, with some not-so-well-woven detail and increasingly gratuitous self-awareness that eventually cycles back and ends up as seeming like they have none at all... okay, like most indie bands but that’s beside the point. This happens to be Wilbur’s least favourite song on the release – one that I haven’t listened to because even if I’m not too old for mindless pop music, Minecraft YouTuber alt-rock may be where I draw the line – and I can completely understand the distaste for this given that it starts with the line, “Why’d you have to kill my cat?” I also have some qualms with the song sonically as it may be the most derivative rock single I’ve heard on this series, given how obviously it rips from indie rock bands of the 2000s, with an oddly clean mix that doesn’t exactly fit the obvious stream-of-consciousness lyrics and Wilbur’s erratic delivery. Also, there’s a whole lot of trumpet on this song, which I guess is a surprise, but that doesn’t make up for a drummer who can clearly play very well but has to chaotically play over a song with practically no groove. I do like that second chorus in how it builds up to a somewhat anti-climactic guitar solo but as a full song I do not really get the appeal of this that I don’t get out of other post-punk revival bands from decades back who are still pumping out music. This isn’t bad – I swear, don’t dox me – but I just want something more compelling from this. I will always be glad regardless of the quality that we have more rock on the chart, though, even if this’ll be gone by next week.

#57 – “It’s a sin” – Years & Years and Elton John

Produced by Stuart Price and the Pet Shop Boys

One of my favourite performance from the BRIT Awards this year was Olly Alexander of Years & Years sharing the stage with the iconic Elton John to cover Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin” which had renewed interest from last year as it was the namesake for a hit TV series about HIV/AIDS, for which this fittingly played a role and has kind of been recontextualised as a gay anthem, which makes complete sense if you look at its lyrics about the Church telling Neil Tennant “how to be”. It’s also one of the Pet Shop Boys’ most camp and theatrical songs, so giving it to Years & Years and Elton John to cover for the BRIT Awards make all too much sense. No, they’re not able to live up to the theatricality of the original, especially if Alexander’s vocals are going to be this clearly manipulated at points, but with Elton John’s piano laying a perfect foundation for the rising intensity of the track, we do get a sense of that original melodrama, with the synth-work and house groove coming in before Elton John’s voice, sounding smokier and wiser with age, and in my opinion, more compelling as a vocalist, especially if they’re both going to sell this song with the most convicted of deliveries. I don’t think a cover could ever live up to that original iconic track but if anyone’s going to get close, it’s Elton John. Expect this to rise next week.

#50 – “Never Left” – Lil Tecca

Produced by ThankYouWill, Taz Taylor and Cxdy

I’ll always be annoyed that Lil Tecca blew up as a rapper instead of a producer, as I don’t think this guy has any likeability or charisma about his flow, cadence or delivery, and that’s only after you get over how dry and whiny his voice can get. However, he can make some great and incredibly infectious beats for other rappers, including a song I see becoming a hit soon in SoFaygo’s “Knock Knock”, which I will bet on at least making the Billboard Hot 100 if not the UK Singles Chart. It’s unbelievably catchy. With that said, Tecca is here in the form of some SoundCloud raps over a boring synth pluck and vaguely tropical Internet Money trap beat, sounding and flowing way too much like Gunna for his own benefit, or Gunna’s benefit, if we’re honest, as this shows how easily he can be replaced. I usually don’t write off this type of rap and will absolutely defend it, but this song isn’t even catchy or unique. I mean, I don’t like “Ransom” either but at least it was kind of fun and I still know the lines in the chorus a couple years later. I’ll forget all about this by next week if it doesn’t stick around. At least he shouts out Chief Keef. God, I hope he charts sometime, that’d be funny.

#45 – “All I Know So Far” – P!nk

Produced by Greg Kurstin

So, P!nk is back but not with a studio album, rather an upcoming live album in which the two new, original songs are about or featuring her daughter. This is the second single from said album and is probably coasting off her appearance at the BRITs in terms of a relatively high chart debut. I’ve never been that big a fan of P!nk but she has her classics, none of which are in the past 15 years but that’s beside the point. This single in particular is an acoustic ballad dedicated to her daughter in which P!nk provides a rapid intensity alongside pretty great-sounding acoustic guitars, pounding drums and strings that sells the content about empowering yourself, with some nice lyrical detail about always being yourself, basically, which would come off as cliché and preachy if it weren’t for some oddly specific lyrics in those verses and the chorus that basically just tell her daughter that despite the fact the world will constantly try to crack down on her and everything she does much like life does to anyone but especially women, she should stand up for herself and what she believes in. However, none of that cuts deep when she’s being raised by a millionaire, huh? There’s little Hell to be put through when you’re born with a silver spoon, huh, Willow? Regardless, this isn’t a bad pop song and its content isn’t as misguided as it is just sang by the wrong singer, although I’d find it hard to get a singer with as much rasp and wisdom in the mainstream to sell this as convincingly as P!nk does – vocally, not lyrically. This is a couple steps above that last single, “Cover Me in Sunshine” at least, which was just insidious. Next.

#32 – “Miss the Rage” – Trippie Redd featuring Playboi Carti

Produced by Loesoe

Okay, so all of our last three new arrivals are in the top 40 and we start with... o-okay, well, it’s 2021, anything can and will chart and I should know this by now, but it’s still surprising to see a song by these two guys debut so high, especially since Whole Lotta Red produced absolutely no charting hits in the UK outside of “@ MEH”, which doesn’t really count. This is Trippie’s highest-charting song ever in the UK that isn’t fronted by KSI, so I guess streaming must have been that good – also, the charts are still weak. For what it’s worth, I do like both Trippie and Carti to their respective extents, and I am aware that this is only as big as it was because of the hype from the leak, which also featured Mario Judah, and that in itself was a big song but it took years for Carti’s feature to be cleared by the label, as is infamously true for much of Carti’s work and even his last official collaboration with Trippie that was actually deleted after release. I’m still hoping on an official release for his verse on Yung Lean’s “Yayo”, but whilst we have this instead, I might as well talk about it and... Well, let me explain to you what I see as the appeal of these two rappers. That appeal is, mostly, that they don’t rap even though they both very much can. Trippie yells, moans, growls, screams and spends most of his work singing in his typical raspy, venomous voice, whilst Playboi Cart spits and coughs his way through substance-less ad-libs to the point where any actual wordplay or lyrical detail gets you excited for that brief moment. In this song, Trippie and Carti don’t eschew the typical role of a rapper and both just... rap normally, which would not be a complaint if they weren’t so bland in that role, which is the whole point of their unique, phlegm-filled deliveries in the first place. As a result, this song just ends up feeling empty, even if this awfully-mixed, bass-boosted beat with some lovely distorted video-game synths and hardly audible trap skitters does go incredibly hard. Don’t get me wrong: this is still catchy and Trippie flows very well over a beat that sounds made for him and Carti. Hell, Carti has grown on me so much recently that my fondness for this might just be me eating anything he releases up. With that said, he’s the worst part of the song as his baby-voice style emphasises how lacking this song is in just anything. I do like the wordplay at the tail-end of the verse as, yes, that happens, perhaps not as iconic as some of his other oddly profound or clever lines on his last record but at least it’s something. At least this is some interesting American trap, unlike...

#25 – “i n t e r l u d e” – J. Cole

Produced by J. Cole, Tommy Parker and T-Minus

The pandemic has affected the music industry to the point where big-name rappers release album interludes as lead singles. Said album has songs shorter than this interlude, with most of its dull filler feeling like additional interludes, quite unbefitting for such a big and hyped-up album from Cole which frankly is just another boring addition to an already consistently dull catalogue. I’m just not interested in what Cole has to say because he’s never been likeable and I feel like there’s better rappers that bridge the gap between old and new like how Cole sees himself as doing, the “MIDDLE CHILD”, perhaps, like, you know, Drake? If we want to go for a more direct comparison from lesser-known rappers, the direct comparison I use for this new record is Aminé’s latest, also made up of a variation of trap bangers featuring massive, charting names versus introspective, conscious lyrics, yet Aminé is an interesting character with quotable lyrics that aren’t embarrassing, knows how to write an actual hook and whilst he also brings on both classic and modern features, he’s never out-done by them, creating an actual bridge rather than just some guy who thinks he can write his own role in the industry and culture without his own music backing his case. Unfortunately for me, it works – every freaking time – largely because of his continually loyal fanbase but also a general public interest in the guy that I do not understand, especially when more than a decade into his career, he’s still pushing out mediocre projects. He cuts his album’s length by a ton and still ends up with a bloated record. I barely need to talk about the track itself, right? Even if it has as much structure and effort put into it as his normal songs do, it’s labelled quite literally as an interlude. Sigh, well, in this interlude, Jermaine raps over a drowned-out soul sample and admittedly, sticks to the topic of reminiscing on where he came from, the violence in Fayetteville, a similar violence of which was what killed Nipsey Hussle, who he compares amongst Pimp C and Jesus as they all died at 33. Cole himself is 36 so I guess for once he doesn’t think he’s Jesus. It took him a while to realise.

#12 – “Higher Power” – Coldplay

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and Bill Rahko

I assumed this would debut at #3 until the BRIT Awards performance gave it a boost to debut at the top but I guess everyone else had the same opinion of that awful opening performance as I did, because here it is at #12. Well, that doesn’t matter, right? Coldplay’s last album similarly underperformed... but at least that time, they had a genuinely ambitious album for once in their careers with some genuine experimentation and themes I did not expect to come out of Coldplay. It was a better album but not an accessible one, with its only pop single being a bittersweet anti-war anthem which trivialises bombing in the Middle East to onomatopoeia. It’s a great song but it wasn’t going anywhere, so it’s no surprise that their next lead single is a soulless synth-pop track produced by Max Martin. Admittedly, the synth tone in the intro is kind of unique in all its nasal 80s nostalgia, but, man, I thought we moved past just rehashing for a hit, Coldplay. This is pretty obviously just a crap attempt at being “Blinding Lights” which trades in its machine-gun loco-motive drum pattern for one that is a lot more stiff, and its iconic, memorable lyrics for a forgettable set of love-struck laziness. Oh, yeah, and Chris Martin is far from the Weeknd both in the studio and live at the BRIT Awards – seriously, dude sounded half-alive. This isn’t offensive, just a bore that is clearly a desperate label move ready for when they can tour again, and if their last record proved anything it was that Coldplay seemed like they were finally above that.

Conclusion

Well, that’s our week – again, a questionable one at best and kind of a bad one at worst. Either way, this is a strange array of songs and I do like how the UK Singles Chart subverts everything you’d expect of it so often that chaos becomes the trend, even if not all of it is any good. I guess Best of the Week goes to “Freaks” by Surf Curse, with an Honourable Mention to Elton John’s cover of “It’s a sin” with Years & Years. Surprisingly enough, J. Cole actually doesn’t get Worst of the Week as the album gets a lot worse than that interlude, so he gets a Dishonourable Mention alongside Starboi3’s “Dick” being crowned Worst of the Week, and honestly probably Worst of the Year so far, not that I’m keeping track of that. Here’s this week’s top 10:

What’s coming next week? More J. Cole, Olivia Rodrigo’s newest single and probably – and hopefully – some album tracks from Jorja Smith and Nicki Minaj. For now, though, thanks for reading. It’s a big week next week, and I’ll see you then!

[psychodollyuniverse]

STRANGELOVE albums: Time For The Rest Of Your Life / Love And Other Demons /Strangelove 

Strangelove were an English alternative rock band, formed in Bristol in 1991 comprising singer Patrick Duff, guitarists Alex Lee & Julian Poole, bassist Joe Allen and John Langley on drums. They released three albums before they disbanded in 1998

Strangelove formed in Bristol, in 1991, after David Francolini (drums, of Levitation) spotted singer Patrick Duff, who at the time was a street busker. According to Duff, Francolini's words were "Get in the car, you're going to be a pop star." Francolini then got together various musicians he knew throughout the area; Alex Lee (guitar, formerly of The Blue Aeroplanes), Julian Pransky Poole (guitar, formerly part of The Jazz Butcher's band), and Joe Allen (bass guitar). With Francolini on drums, the quintet played their first gig at Bath Moles Club on 9 October 1991. Francolini took on the role of drummer for only two gigs, before being replaced by John Langley. The first song Duff wrote for Strangelove was titled "Zoo'd Out", in 1991, and released two years later as seven-inch Rough Trade single. Duff's tales of despair and sorrow struck a chord, and his impressive, emotionally charged vocals were described by Tom Doyle in Q Magazine's World of Noise compilation as "evoking thoughts of Morrissey as vocally-tutored by Scott Walker"

Following an early morning set on the NME Stage at Glastonbury 1992, the band were approached by John Peel to record a BBC Radio 1 session at Maida Vale, on 30 June. The band then released their first EP Visionary in October 1992 on Sermon Records, from which the title track was made 'single of the week' by Cathi Unsworth in Melody Maker. Another Peel session followed on 5 January 1993.

A second EP, Hysteria Unknown, in February 1993 earned them a support slot on Radiohead's Pop Is Dead tour. "Radiohead are definitely post-Strangelove," remarked Ed O'Brien. "We toured with them for 'Pop Is Dead' and we changed quite a lot after that. They were inspirational. Apart from their trousers."

Critical acclaim for the early singles led to major-label interest and they were signed to EMI label Food Records in 1993.  Strangelove released their first album, Time for the Rest of Your Life on 1 August 1994, produced by Paul Corkett, who would go on to work on Strangelove's later albums. Time for the Rest of Your Life made numerous top albums of 1994 polls, and brought them to the attention of Suede who invited them to support on their Dog Man Star European tour in 1995. Manic Street Preachers' Richey Edwards was also a fan, inviting them to support at the London Astoria on the penultimate gig before his disappearance in 1995. Edwards' bandmate Nicky Wire commented that Time for the Rest of Your Life "fits staring out of the window and watching the rain in a small valley town".  Suede and Strangelove bonded, and covered each other's songs at Sala Multiusos Zaragoza on 16 May 1995. Strangelove played Suede's "Killing of a Flashboy", while Suede played "She's Everywhere" (then under the working title "Spacey Vibe Thing"). Brett Anderson and Richard Oakes would later guest on this song in the studio, providing backing vocals. Love and Other Demons was released on 17 June 1996. The second single from the album, "Beautiful Alone", went to number 35 in the UK Singles Chart.

For singer Patrick Duff, internalised struggles and a heavy addiction to drugs and alcohol threatened to take his life. His battle with depression and excess were highlighted in one vaguely suicidal Melody Maker interview in 1994, and an aborted NME interview, during which he kept falling asleep due to drugs and alcohol in his system. After the second album's recording, Duff was booked into a rehabilitation clinic to finally kick his habit, and confront the demons within. He wrote about this difficult journey to getting clean for The Guardian in 1996: "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. My personal life was now in tatters – and I decided my last chance was to throw what was left of me into our album. Something was left in me that wanted to do something positive. Thank God."[8]

By this time, Nick Powell had joined the band to play keyboards, expanding their sound. A third, eponymously titled album was released 6 October 1997. Written in Bethlehem, South Wales, and recorded at Abbey Road Studio Two, this album was seen as significantly more uptempo than previous albums with Duff choosing to write less directly introspective. Songs like “Superstar” and “Freak”, which were recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubs, set the tone.

The album yielded another UK Top 40 single, "The Greatest Show on Earth", and sell-out shows at the London Astoria and Shepherds Bush Empire. However, seemingly on the point of a major breakthrough, Strangelove split up on 20 April 1998. In later interviews, Duff acknowledged how "unfocused"[9] he was on music while in Strangelove, that he could sense the band had run its course, and he needed to get away from the fast-paced life of touring to truly recover, and discover his calling as an artist. When asked about the possibility of a Strangelove reunion, Duff explains that while everyone in the band are still friends, and is not completely opposed to the idea, the chances of it are very slim. As a solo artist, Duff has played stripped down, acoustic versions of Strangelove songs, sporadically.

from Wikipedia

Strangelove were and remain one of my favourite bands of the nineties. Unfortunately, despite realising three beautiful albums, they remain incredibly underrated. I invite you to rediscover their albums and singles and be conquered by their music.

[atcostmag]

Mashmellow’s Egor Berdnikov on his multiple musical personalities and writing 90′s Dream Pop nostalgia in Moscow while the world fixates on Post-Soviet ennui

With their youthful energy and euphoric flourishes of sound, Mashmellow breathes new air into a world that is seemingly infatuated with Post-Soviet decay. It is this a pervasive doom and gloom that has become as commonplace as bears, balalaika and vodka as an unfortunate stereotype affixed to modern-day Russia. It’s an ennui so famed, that exiled Soviet author Nabokov even referred to the adjective "toska" as unique to the Russian language; "No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause." However with all that said and done, Egor and Masha of Moscow's Mashamellow are quick to dispel such adverse connotations. With the recent release of their post-punk fantasy "Someday Club", Mashmellow shift away from the dark, dreary romantics of their New Wave congeners. Emboldened with their blissful naivete, Mashmellow write simple love songs that relay hope and optimism. A man of many musical personalities, Egor speaks on the creation of Mashmellow and how he's not one to sit still with simultaneous releases through his projects Hospital and Silklake.

Words: Peter Quincy Ng

Tell us about how you met and how your musical styles came to be as Mashmellow.

Masha Shurygina and I met a few years ago in Moscow at the birthday party of a mutual friend. We connected as we both born in the Russian Far East. Masha is from Vladivostok and I am from Komsomolsk-on-Amur. We started spending time together and found out a lot stuff in common especially with regards to our musical preferences. We both loved the sound of the '90s; Brit-Pop and classic dream-pop bands. 

“Voices”

Mashmellow · Voices

During that time I was in the band called Hospital and we had just released our third album. It was a hard time for the band, so we decided to put our activity on pause and have a break from each other. But I wasn’t one to sit there doing nothing! As soon as Masha showed the song she wrote called "Share It", I knew it was really something and we did this record just to see if maybe we could do it. That’s how the story started. As for Hospital, we are still playing from time-to-time and are even going to release the new single this week.

Hospital - “Collapsed Light”

Hospital · Collapsed Light (single 2020)

Tell us about your latest record that you have just released, and what inspired it.

Our latest released record is "Someday Club". All the songs were written by Masha and I. For Masha, it became her first songwriting experience, “Share It” was the first we made for the album. The album does not have a particular narrative. It's just a few catchy and dream-pop songs with a lot of guitars and Masha's beautiful voice. That was the whole idea actually. We listened to a lot of 90′s Brit-Pop and indie during that time. We just really missed that sound a lot. It was a deliberate choice to not sound like Imagine Dragons.

“Someday Club”

Mashmellow · Someday Club

I have to say beyond just having a fantastic record, you've also created some fantastic visuals. Some of which extend from Egor's solo project Silklake. What can you tell us about running two simultaneous music projects and where they both converge and diverge? 

This video is really great, both of them actually. The story behind them is much more prosaic and less romantic than it seems. Ksenia and Kostya, the creators of the videos, just came to us with the idea that it was possible to make two clips at the same time to save time and money. That's why we have the same decorations and all that stuff. 

”Share It”

Also, we thought that it could be fun to make one story for two different projects. However, in the end it became more about the final result, rather than about our story producing two videos at the same time. 

Silklake - “On Your Side”

Speaking about interesting visuals were you also in a Reebok commercial? 

Yes, we took a part in the Reebok commercial this summer. It was all very spotaneous as we are neither actors nor models, but it was a very interesting experience.

The sound of your music is decidedly euphoric, reminiscing of the early days of late 80's, early 90's dream-pop nostalgia. A lot of the songs are written about love while being in love. Was it an intuitive choice writing about love? 

Yes, it was just natural. As a writer, I am not really into the heavy, conceptual stuff. I guess Masha and I don't think too much about the idea of a song until it's finished. We just speak from our hearts and trying to be honest. As Paul McCartney once sung, "You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs, I look around me and I see it isn't so". God, I love this song (laughs).

“Heaven is You”

Mashmellow · Heaven Is You

Through the “Doomer” musical sub-genre, gamer culture and the crossover success of Belarusian post-punk band Molchat Doma, there’s been a recent fascination and revival of the Perestroika-era musical aesthetic. What are the challenges of working with an international audience when all they expect is the doom and gloom? 

Actually, we don't really like that tendency because it refills the idea of Russians as gloomy, rough and sad people in some way. For us, it's the same as a common stereotype about bears, vodka, and balalaika; Dostoevsky's esthetics and all that stuff. We are totally different. We also love The Beatles and Abba, you know? We love good melodies; we love the sense of hope and we believe in better. Sometimes it's hard to convey this idea to people who still think about Gorbachev and Perestroika when you tell them about Russia and Russian culture. 

“Melt”

Mashmellow · Melt

Let's end this interview on a positive note shall we? What's next for Mashmellow and Silklake, and tell us something interesting about yourselves that we should probably know? 

I am not sure about Silklake so far. I have about 20 songs for this project, so maybe someday they all will become part of an album or EP at least. I hope so. As for Mashmellow we are just finished our new mini-album with 6 songs and just released the first single called “Enough is Enough”. We really love this song! It's like if Madonna was a member of an alternative rock band from the 90′s! Also, there’s are even more guitars to expect on the new record than on the first EP.

“Enough is Enough”

Mashmellow · Enough Is Enough (single 2020)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

April 2021 Part 1

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Second Chance Ep 1 - living up to its name since it looks to be a series of redemption arcs. Launched with a college confession and a broken friendship, then a flash back to them as seniors in high school. Pairings include friends to lovers, nerd/jock, and maybe cafe boss/employee. There’s a lot going on, but it’s still... quiet and sweet. The script is pretty pat but it’s still WAY more watchable than Cupid Coach or Brothers and most of the acting is solid. Ep 1 tropes included: he’s in engineering, wound tending, fast & bicurious. This could turn into what I wanted My Gear & Your Gown to be. Fingers crossed. 

Love Poison 2 Ep 1 & 2 turns out I did watch and report on season 1 (8 eps), season 2 seems equally unmemorable. Thai countryside setting, strong dialect, incomprehensible plot, camp side characters, and ghastly singing. 

Y-Destiny Ep 1 (eng subs?) - opened with the sports romance enemies to lovers (they aren’t going in the teaser order). When the couple got over fighting, the flirting was v cute, but the flipping SPONGE BATH trope had to rear its ugly head. Still, this series is shaping up to be less coy and more frank than most BL, better than expected. It feels, I don’t know, gay-er or something?  *** Sources were correct that each couple is getting (at least) 2 eps, and MDL has been updated to say this is a 15 episode series (not 7). 

Cupid Coach 12 fin - The new Nite was great and should have been a main all along. It felt like we got a tiny nugget of what could have been in about 10 minutes worth of this last ep. It was way too slow with terrible editing and a criminally bad script, but at least it ended happy. Mostly, like Friend Forever, I’m just disappointed that these two actors were done dirty by the series. Bad Cupid Coach, no screen caps for you. 

Lovely Writer Ep 6 - breaking news, there’s a het couple I like: toppy bi femme + soft boi = such a good pairing! I know, but this NEVER happens. Meanwhile, Sib’s secret is out, Gene is a bit of a drama queen, and the plot thickens. We half way through.  

Brothers Ep 9 - Kaow had a serious moment of advice giving that was truly lovely. Lots of family dama made this a superior episode to... well... any of the others in this series. Which isn’t saying much. 

1000 Stars Ep 10 fin - at the start this series didn’t grab me the way GMMTV’s last BL, Tonhon Chonlatee, did. But boy did it end 1000x better. Might have given us 2021′s best forehead kiss. I enjoyed the ultra romantic cliff-top reunion kiss, and I LOVED the stinger flirting scene. That was an absolute gift we had no right to expect. This drama is a poster child for finishing on a high note (always focus on that dessert course). Final thoughts? This was FAR more a classic romance than it was BL. There were some BL tropes used but not many and most of them originated in the romance genre not yaoi. A picture perfect ending bumped 1000 Stars much higher up my best-of list than expected. Not sure how often I’ll rewatch it as a whole, but this last episode? I’m probably rewatching it right now. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Dear Uranus (Taiwan GL) Ep 3 fin - I guess that’s it? Okaaaaay  

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 3 (AKA Ep 5-6) - we got actual legit gay culture not just BL (always appreciated) from XingSi. I’m starting to find LiCheng’s “show them we fucking” hijinks hilarious rather than annoying (not sure why, maybe I just love a rubber chicken, or maybe it was the STUFFED CORN WITH THE TASSEL that did it). 

-- H4 Moment of RANT --

Tropes included beach trip, there’s only one bed, cook for him, baby is a floppy drunk, carry baby to bed, and.... drunk non-con. Whoopdedoo. Here we go again. Did TharnType teach us NOTHING? (Apparently it taught us if the chemistry is good enough, I have no morals at all.) At least H4 seems to be taking us out of cheese into serious when it comes to assault. Or is it? 

I take back what I said last week about XingSi & YongJie being codependency + salvation trope, that only works if YongJie is the uke. He’s NOT. So we got us an obsessive predatory villain with a possible redemption arc. That’s more common in crime dramas, mafia romance, and epic fantasy than BL. It’s real hard to redeem a sexual predator in a reality-grounded universe like contemporary romance (See Kla in LBC1&2). 

Next week is gonna be a test of the whole damn franchise. Imma remind both me a you that this was ep 3 of 10 so we got a ways to go yet... but ooof, what have we wrought, BL? (I ended up doing a whole post about the stepbrother trope because of this sub plot.) Taiwan is killing me.

-- RANT ended --

Word of Honor (China) Ep 19-21 - over half way point so we got ALL the back story (in a classic 4 act story structure midway reveal). Now we know who WKX really is and his lineage. We also got some cute hugs and hand holds. Moving along at a nice clip despite being 36 eps total. Still gayest thing to come out of we-not-gay China since Advance Bravely. 

Most Peaceful Place (Vietnam) Ep 2 - takes them a while to get eng subs together and ep 2 didn’t drop until late. So I’m putting this in a Thurs time slot going forward. Miscommunication already cleared up and a 2nd couple has been introduced. The pacing on these Vietnamese BLs is always a bit... off. But it’s still better than most of its ilk, enjoyable. I’m thinking it’s a 6 ep arc. 

We Best Love 2 (Taiwan) Ep 5 - after the initial drama DRAMA of ep 2, the current external crisis at work is much quieter, giving this whole season a top heavy feel. Taken along side the first season, I think it’s fitting nicely into a 4 act structure, but that might be my bias. I hope I’m not wrong, we’ll find out next week. Shi De puttering about being domestic with Shu Yi on his back was the best execution of the piggyback trope EVER. Meanwhile, our little D/s side couple of codependency, salvation trope + mental illness is becoming weirdly appealing. I don’t know. H4 done mess with my head. 

Stand Alones 

Absolute BL AKA Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko  (Japan) Ep 1-4 mini series. Found subs under A Man Who Defies The World of BL. IT’S HILARIOUS. It’s Japan making fun of us, but also itself for having started this whole BL nonsense - from yaoi roots to present day. It’s parody goddamn gold. Utterly cheeky unto the very last line. We are not worthy. 

Apparently the most powerful tropes of all time are: baby is a floppy drunk and the piggyback fo nobility. Oh and chocolate. {Full review here.} 

Honestly, this show may have been made with only @heretherebedork and I in mind. I don’t know if you’d even understand half of it if you don’t have a history with the manga source genre and an obsessive interest in underlying narrative devices. I haven’t seen much chatter in the blog’o’sphere on this one because, in the end, it’s not a romance at all, it’s social commentary. 

The ending line was a masterclass in lampooning a genre. I’m going to rewatch the whole thing just to catch all the digs I missed first time around. It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. 

Thank you Japan. I forgive you all your hair-styling sins of the last decade. 

Breaking News 

Spring Line Up:

Scholar Ryu’s Wedding Ceremony AKA Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korean historical BL) April 15th 

Close Friend the series (Thai trailer) April 22. 

2gether the movie (Thai trailer) April 22 to Thai theaters.

Nitiman (Thai) May 7 on One31.

I Told Sunset About You 2 (Thai) May 27 on LineTV

Ossan’s Love (Hong Kong) June to Viu 

Gossip 

Bad Buddies released its first promo op via Arm Share, which means GMMTV is at least *thinking* about filming it. 

Fun behind the scenes gossip sesh with eng subs for Tell the World I Love You (that Perth Bas movie we are maybe getting someday but will likely be sad). 

New Thai BL Bite Me (adapted from novel Grab a Bite) dropped a teaser. It stars Mark Siwat (Kla in LBC) as uke character Ake, a delivery boy with special foodie powers, and chef Eua (seme played by Zung Kidakorn) who discovers him. It’s from the same author as Manner of Death so we might even get some actual plot. Since it’s an established BL actor who I happen LOVE, a known author, and a plot about FOOD, I could not me more excited for this one. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed a day later than actual air date for accessibility reasons. Some are dropping multiples at a time but just started so I’m not sure on numbering. 

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[yfere]

I think a week seems short but at one point Fjord was consuming a magical item like every few days. I think if Fjord had found some magical item to sacrifice there would have been more of a build up to this but Uk'otoa saw his champion go silent for a while and gave a verbal warning then a warning shot. You're absolutely right that one week between dream and this is fast, but it's not like Fjord went silent the day before the dream

 You’re right, of course. I am speaking rashly. So out of academic interest, I cobbled together an extremely rough timeline of Fjord and dream/temple nonsense. Dates may be inaccurate by a day or two–it’s based off of the wiki (incomplete), cr stats (I’m surprised they don’t track Fjord visions), transcripts (useful up to ep 42), and my wee fallible memory and finger counting. Very, very rough.

Dream 1 (Episode 5)20 Sydenstar: 

WATCHING. POTENTIAL. LEARN. GROW. PROVOKE. CONSUME. REWARD. PATIENCE. (side note: lmao at Uk’otoa asking for patience) Righty-o, so first (?) dream, Uk’otoa 1) lets Fjord talk, that’s nice. Even if Uk’otoa fucking sucks at fielding questions, it’s nice to be heard. Right now Uk’otoa’s  being a bit gentle with its first contact, and its general attitude seems to be “Level up, Fjord! You are a wee bab and you must prove you have the ability to survive before I start investing a lot of effort into you.”

Dream 2 (Episode 16) 2 Fessuran —14 days/two weeks after Dream 1

CONSUME. CONSUME. GOOD. Heyyy, Uk’otoa being positive here! But the only thing it’s really doing is guiding Fjord through his creepy new powers. No presh to do anything for Uk’otoa itself.

Waking Vision 1 and a Voice in the Head (Episode 21 and 22) 10 Fessuran—8 days after Dream 2

LEARN, Fjord hears in his head, as he’s pulled towards the merrow lair. Which is the solidest evidence we have that Uk’otoa does in fact just know where Fjord is at all times when it says it’s WATCHING…or maybe it just senses proximity to orbs. 

 Then when Fjord vjores the orb he gets the Vandren vision and POTENTIAL CONSUME REWARD. Cool, so Uk’otoa is now beginning to ask Fjord to do some specific stuff, and showing Vandren doing the same as a kind of model? Questions I have: how in the ever living fuck could Uk’otoa have known that Fjord’s contract with the Gentleman would bring him next to an orb? Was it just circumstance? Like I know why it happened outside of the game, but theoretically, would Uk’otoa have waited around for Fjord to randomly stumble on something (what are the odds) or would it have tried more active guidance, like it tries after the Sour Nest?

Waking Vision 2 (a little one) (Episode 30) 25 Fessuran—15 days after Vision 1

Who knows what visions Fjord may or may not have seen while he was captured, but when he finds Avantika’s letter and meditates with Summer’s Dance, Uk’otoa sends a little vision of the ocean, just to let Fjord know (in an annoyingly vague way) the location where he’s expected to go next. And I’m still wondering: how could Uk’otoa have possibly known that the route Fjord chose without guidance (the Gentleman) would bring him in contact with all this shit?

So then we have, 16 days travel back to Zadash, everything fine, no antsy Uk’otoa maybe because it’s a southerly direction? From the 14-26th Quen’pillarwhile the others are fucking around in Zadash I believe is when Fjord starts heading down south looking for rumors of his crewmates–which is again the direction Uk’otoa wanted, even if it isn’t the exact intent it was shooting for, and there’s the implication that should Fjord get the information he wants, he would pursue it whether or not it brought him anywhere near the ocean in the end. Then Fjord heads back up, the M9 reconvene, Fjord says “Let’s go to the Menagerie Coast!” So they go. In all that traveling and hanging about places, Fjord got 48 days Uk’otoa vision free (I think, barring Fjord’s adventures with moving eyeballs, failed attempts to meditate his sword into talking to him, and whatever is happening in his dreams behind the scenes)

Then he learns of Uk’otoa

Dream 3 (Episode 37) 17 Cuersaar–48 days after Waking Vision 2

In which Fjord gets Uk’otoa’s Master Plan and also fun puzzles where he gets to symbolically destroy Sabien and Vandren and a bunch of random sailors. LEARN GROW PROVOKE WATCHING WATCH REWARD REWARD. Uk’otoa is also nice here about guiding Fjord as much as it seems able when Fjord complains about not understanding what’s going on. Also a great reminder that Fjord is being watched, so there’s that. 

18 Cuersaar (Episode 40)–The first seal breaks the very next day

Waking Vision 3 13 Duscar (Episode 44)—24 days after the first seal breaks

Fjord finds and absorbs another crystal, and gets a brief vision of ocean depths (and there is an implication Fjord may be getting ocean themed dreams more frequently than on airtime?) and Uk’otoa grinning and looking super happy with him. No words at all, it’s that pleased.

Waking Vision 4. 22 Duscar (Episode 47)—9 days after Waking Vision 3

Fjord breaks the seal to the second temple, gets his cool new water powers, and gets a vision of the final temple location. WATCHING. ADAPT. REWARD. RELEASE. Fjord doesn’t attempt to talk here, so who knows if Uk’otoa would be receptive to more communication.

Dream 4. 18 Horisal (Episode 52)–23 days after breaking the second seal

5 of those days were involved in travelling roughly the direction Uk’otoa wanted, best Fjord could tell. This is the first PUNISH dream. WATCHING. RETURN, REWARD. WANDER, PUNISH. So–Uk’otoa has definitely noticed Fjord is a bit off-track, (as always watching) but it has waited about the same length of time it took between breaking the seal to the first temple and finding the orb for the second temple. My argument would be: it’s not like it’s been ages, it’s just that Fjord is getting sidetracked now when everything he was doing previously seemed to be more or less the direction Uk’otoa wanted him to go. Fjord neither attempts to speak nor does Uk’otoa seem to encourage it.

Dream 5. 24(?) Horisal (Episode 61)–6 days after Dream 4

The second PUNISH dream, that we’re all fresh from seeing. A very, very fast response to the first dream, and in fact the fastest Uk’otoa has ever followed up with Fjord over anything. Curious. Here, Ukotoa asks WHERE, which seems like a question, but Fjord is not given the room or the time to speak on his own behalf.