#but like goodness guys there are so many other amazing cultures and styles and genres of music and subdivisions within cultures and i just.

[ignatiusteto]

i think sacred music in the kryn dynasty would be very cyclical and repetitive in form to symbolize the idea that life is a continuous thing (at least those who are consecuted right right) and is a cycle across lifetimes and yeah

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I saw two of my favourite musicians live the other night. It was brilliant, here's some stuff I wrote down.

Quick bit of background because I probably write posts like this too often without context: Canada has four East Coast provinces - Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia is full of Scottish descendants and Newfoundland is full of Irish descendants and as such, there is a lot of Celtic folk music in both those places, with a lot of overlap but they have their own distinct culture. Distinct partly due to their roots (get you get more Scottish Gaelic lyrics in Nova Scotia and Irish Gaelic lyrics in Newfoundland, the Nova Scotians are always wearing/singing about the Nova Scotia tartan, that sort of thing), but also they've developed their own Canadian styles of folk music that are in some ways distinct from each other but in many ways similar. There are lots of great folk musicians from all over Canada, but the East Coast provinces are where folk music is by far the most popular, ranging from traditional to modern, from Celtic-inspired to their own thing. There's an island that's part of Nova Scotia called Cape Breton where they teach (Scottish) Gaelic in language class and step dancing in gym class and fiddle in music class so all the kids grow up to be folk singers and you cannot throw a rock without hitting someone who's won an ECMA (East Coast Music Award, they're a big thing if you're into that sort of thing). My dad raised me on folk music in general but specifically on East Coast music, which now that I think about it is a bit odd because it's my mom's side of the family that's actually from Nova Scotia. He doesn't only listen to East Coast music and neither do I, there is more to Canadian folk music than just the East; my dad grew up buying every album by Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell and Bruce Cockburn, and he saw Neil Young play in a bar in 1975. But a few islands on the East Coast of Canada are responsible for a shocking amount of my favourite music per capita.

Dave Gunning and JP Cormier are both Nova Scotian folk musicians (JP Cormier is one of those guys who adopted the East Coast despite not actually being from there, but in this case “East Coast Canadian folk music” is more of a genre than a specific location) who’ve been among my favourties since I was young, so I was delighted in 2017 when I heard they were putting out an album together. When I actually got to hear the album, it exceeded my very high expectations, it’s one of my favourite albums in the entire world, by anyone. It’s called Two.

They’re both among the best on their own for different reasons, but together they’re so much more than the sum of their parts. The biggest thing that I still cannot get over about them together are the vocal harmonies. The seams between their voices disappear completely on every song, they do it like it’s nothing. It’s incredible.

JP Cormier is head and shoulders above most of his peers as an amazing multi-instrumentalist. He can play the guitar and the fiddle and the mandolin and the banjo and the cello and somehow percussion and piano. And he doesn’t just “dabble” in the variety. He put out an entire album of instrumental-only guitar tracks once and it was amazing, he’s also won multiple awards for his fiddling. Also he’s got the most beautiful melodious singing voice. On pure talent he’s just the best at everything. I saw him do a two-hour solo concert at a bar in 2008, his album The Messenger had just come out and he played almost every track off it and that is such a good album, and it was one of the best fucking things I’ve ever seen.

In 2009, when I was 18, I went to the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, Nova Scotia. JP Cormier had played that festival every year for decades, he was a hero there, and it was a big story throughout the festival that this year, for some reason, he’d agreed to perform at the Sudbury Folk Festival on the same weekend so he wouldn’t be at Canso. It was disappointing. It was my second time at StanFest (it’s a 16-hour drive from where I live, followed by a weekend of camping, I’ve been in 2002 and 2009), and I had greatly enjoyed seeing JP Cormier there the first time I went, so I was sorry that my second trip happened to be the one time he wasn’t there.

On the Sunday, last day of the festival, they have a tradition where at noon, they stop all the stages besides the main stage, so everyone at the entire festival gathers in the big field at the main stage for an hour. They put about 12 musicians on stage, who take turns singing Stan Rogers songs/playing backup music on each other’s songs, and at the end of the hour everyone in the entire crowd singings Barrett Privateers and Northwest Passage a cappella and I get to see some old people around me cry so that’s fun (seriously, it’s fucking beautiful).

That weekend, they’d just finished introducing the 12 musicians on stage when suddenly I heard the crowd around me erupt into cheers and they were all turned around, so I turned around and saw this huge man walking down the aisle separating the lawn chairs. The cheers were deafening and kept up all the way until he reached the stage, walked up, grabbed the mic out of the announcer’s hand, and shouted “I was on the plane to Sudbury when I realized I belong here, so I told those people they can shove it and I turned around!” And then he proceeded to back up all the other musicians in their Stan songs, and he sang one of his own. And you have never seen a crowd of senior citizens go so wild.

It wasn’t until after it was over that my dad pointed out to me that they never said his name. JP Cormier’s got a pretty distinctive appearance – basically he’s massive – and every person in that entire crowd all recognized him instantly, and collectively lost their shit despite him having no introduction. That’s pretty cool. It also, of course, occurred to me that actually, if he really canceled on a different festival at the last moment, that’s kind of a shitty thing to do. But I’m going to hope he was just saying that for bravado to a crowd that wanted to hear it, as he didn’t arrive in Canso until noon on Sunday. He’d have had time to play a bit in Sudbury and then fly back. Hopefully that’s what he actually did. But that crowd in Canso, Nova Scotia was pretty fucking happy to hear he’d told Sudbury to shove it for them.

I’ve seen JP Cormier live lots of times, but the other major one that comes to mind was in 2019, when I went to the Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. My parents and I got tickets to see him in a concert hall with Tim Edey, this British guy he’d been touring with. They both started playing guitar at the beginning of the hour… and then they didn’t stop. Not once. For the entire hour. Mostly they played at the same time, sometimes one or the other would play solo for a bit, but the whole time, neither of them said a word, and at least one was always playing. Sometimes one of them would slow down enough to make it look like they were going to stop this, turn to the crowd, say “Thanks for indulging our fun improv”, and then start playing their actual songs, which was what the audience had expected (it hadn’t be advertised as anything but a normal concert by two guys who do have songs). But just as they’d almost faded out, they’d renew their energy and start playing faster. Sometimes they’d get in each other’s faces, one would play something particularly fast or odd, challenging the other to match or one-up it, and they would, the other one would repeat the riff and add something, and then other would repeat that but even faster, and they’d go back and forth and it would be incredible. They did not stop until the hour was over, when they waved to the crowd and walked off stage.

I suppose that technically, the audience didn’t get what they expected when they paid for the tickets. But I cannot imagine a single person in that building could feel cheated. I’ve seen many concerts, but I’ve never seen anything like that. My parents and I still talk about what an incredible thing we all got to witness that night.

So JP Cormier is a fucking legend, which makes it odd that off the two people in the double act I saw the other night, if pressed to choose between them, I think Dave Gunning would be my favourite. Dave Gunning’s a strong candidate for my favourite musician. I would probably say Lennie Gallant is my favourite musician, but I think I’ve spent more hours of my life listening to Dave Gunning than to Lennie Gallant. I’ve spent more hours listening to Dave Gunning than to JP Cormier. To almost anyone.

I first saw Dave Gunning at the Lunenburg Folk Festival in 2014, when I was 13 years old. I normally went to folk festivals with my father, but he was back home while my mother and I were visiting my grandparents in Nova Scotia. We drove into this little Nova Scotian town called Lunenburg, because their folk festival was on while we were there, and a Cape Breton guy I really liked named Bruce Guthro was playing.

Bruce Guthro had a guy opening for him, just playing about three songs before Guthro did his full hour. That guy was tall and skinny and appeared mildly terrified to be there, but then all three of his songs absolutely captivated me. My mom and I kept nudging each other to say “Oh wow, this guy’s better than we were expecting.” At the end of his short set he plugged his solo show that he was doing later that day at a (smaller) stage at the same festival, and his then-new album, Two-Bit World. I enjoyed the Bruce Guthro show that followed, but when it ended, my main comment to my mother was I couldn’t believe how good the opener was. We went to his own show in the afternoon, saw him do an hour of socially awkward patter around incredible songs, they were too good to match how self-effacing he was. We immediately went to the CD tent and bought his album.

This was exciting to me, because until then, all my favourite music was stuff to which my dad had introduced me. My dad had a huge CD collection that I was lucky enough to be able to use as a library when I was a kid, taking CDs to my room a few at a time to play on my boom box stereo, because that’s the era in which I grew up. I hear people talk about what was the “first album” they bought, and I’m not sure what mine was, because my favourite albums as a kid were all things I didn’t have to buy as my dad just let me use them.

So when I was 13, Dave Gunning became the first music I ever got to introduce to my dad, rather than the other way around. I was so excited to play the CD for him when we got home from Nova Scotia. He asked how he didn’t already know this guy, and I said I don’t know, I can’t believe he’d missed him. My dad listened to that CD once, and immediately started looking into acquiring Gunning’s other albums, and looking up when he was performing out our way so he could see him live too.

Dave Gunning has been a staple in our family ever since. We did acquire the stuff he made before 2004 – a live album from 2002, and one from 2000 called Caught Between Shadows. He also has a couple of albums from the 90s that I have tried quite hard to find but they do not appear to exist anymore.

I have no idea how many times I’ve seen Dave Gunning live since that day in 2004, but it’s a lot. A lot of times my dad and I would see him several times in one festival, just following him from one stage to another. He was on stage at StanFest 2012 when JP Cormier made the whole crowd scream at once by telling Sudbury to shove it, and the day before that, I think I’d seen Dave Gunning play four different workshops. I have every album he’s released since Two-Bit World, and I think for all but two of them, I saw him live at least once when that album was new and he was promoting it, so I’ve seen him play most of his albums live. I’ve seen him play in fields and basements and pubs and concert halls and community centres.

I think anyone would admit that Dave Gunning does not have the blinding multi-instrumental talent of JP Cormier, because absolutely no one has the blinding multi-instrumental talent of JP Cormier. But pretty well no one can write a song like Dave Gunning. They’re deceptively simple but subtly complicated. They’re sometimes playful and sometimes contemplative and sometimes devastatingly poignant and sometimes meaningful stories and a surprising number of them are about old-timey executions.

My mother’s parents grew up as high school sweethearts in Nova Scotia, then moved all over the place as my mother was growing up, and 30 years ago retired back to rural Nova Scotia. They’ve been married for almost 67 years. This year they both turned 90 – my grandmother in November 2023 and my grandfather in January 2024. I wanted to make them something special, so I found a bunch of old pictures from when they were young, and put them together in a video to play at their birthday celebration and make my grandmother and my mother cry (that mission was very much accomplished).

There was no question about what song to use: Dave Gunning’s Saltwater Hearts, a song about an elderly Nova Scotian couple that had lived their lives by the Atlantic Ocean together. This song is off Two-Bit World, the first CD I ever bought by him, and it was one of the three songs he played the first time I ever saw him, when he opened for Bruce Guthro. The first time I ever heard that song it made me think of my grandparents, and now, 20 years later, my grandmother calls me every few weeks to tell me she’s watched the video again with the pictures and the song about her and my grandfather. Dave Gunning's music is now embedded into my family history.

I’ve written before about the kid at the centre where I work as an autism therapist, who loves music. He can only say a few words, he doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to use augmented communication, he gets overwhelmed easily and can try to hurt himself or others, and unlike a lot of the kids there, he’s not interested in toys, so there’s not much we can do to keep him happy. The only thing he really likes is music, but he loves that, so I’ve learned how to use that to help him emotionally regulate. I play him a big variety of stuff, but I think I can say Dave Gunning’s his favourite. It’s probably the stuff I play him most often. It started because Gunning’s put out a couple of Christmas albums, and I played the kid some Christmas songs because that’s good kid-friendly stuff. But then one day I accidentally put on one of Dave Gunning’s fiddle medleys, and the kid loved it, so now I play him Dave Gunning’s full catalogue, from the silly Christmas songs to the trad Celtic stuff and everything in between, and it all goes over well.

I think the kid’s favourite album is Dave Gunning’s Tribute to John Allan Cameron, which I first saw Dave Gunning promote at a bar in Halifax where he played most of the album and the crowd went wild for it and it was amazing. That album came out in 2010, four years after the death of John Allan Cameron, who was a Cape Breton guy who got credited with taking the folk songs that got sang in kitchens of Cape Breton, and playing them in public to popularize them. He died, Dave Gunning made an album with a combination of covers of songs written by John Allan Cameron and songs that John Allan Cameron liked a lot, it’s Gunning’s most traditional album because John Allen Cameron was a trad music guy, it’s also the kid’s favourite album, proving that I never had to be concerned about avoiding playing him music that would be too traditional for a kid. A silly concern, really, as I loved traditional music when I was a kid.

One time I was able to stop the kid in the middle of a meltdown by putting on The Mingulay Boat Song – he went from standing up and crying to immediately sitting down on his knees, closing his eyes, and just swaying back and forth until the song ended. Because of that kid, I’ve been listening to a lot of Dave Gunning the last eight months or so, as I’ve been playing it at work as well as at home.

I have so many memories of Dave Gunning across so many years. I remember the first time I heard his song Made on a Monday, played at some folk festival or other (I think it was the Stewart Park Festival in Perth, Ontario), which he introduced by saying he wrote it after being told to never buy a car that was made on a Monday because no one does their best work on Mondays. When I heard that song, it was the first time I ever thought, “Oh, cool, there’s an adult who knows how I feel.” I now, of course, know that the world is full of songs about teenagers who don’t fit in, it's not an unusual topic for music. But I didn’t know that when I was a teenager, because I only listened to folk music, which didn’t cover that feeling quite as often as teenage music did. So it was a revelation to hear an adult sing about feeling like you’d been made wrong.

That was the same album that had the song Big Shoes, so I’d have heard that for the first time at the same festival, in probably the same set. I don’t remember the exact circumstances around it, but I distinctly recall the first time I heard that one, sitting on a lawn chair in some field and being overwhelmed by hearing a man describe how music felt to me. Big Shoes is a song that Dave Gunning wrote about how he felt when he saw Stan Rogers and John Allan Cameron live, but I heard it and looked up at Dave Gunning and thought that’s how Dave Gunning makes me feel, as does so much else at that folk festival. “It was rock and roll to me/He might as well have been the king.” Amazing line to hear when I was 19 and had this music that I loved and shared with no one but my parents, no one at school had heard of any of it, they were all talking about their teenage bands and I just had these folk musicians who were my rock and roll. (In my late teens/early 20s I did actually get into various genres of rock music, as well as alt-country, but for the first 20-ish years I was pretty exclusively into Canadian folk music, which meant I had nothing to contribute to conversations with people my age about what we were listening to.)

Given all this, you can imagine my delight when JP Cormier and Dave Gunning put out a joint album in 2017. And you can imagine my further delight when it was even better than I’d expected, even better than the sum of its parts, it’s now one of my favourite all-time albums. And you can imagine my further delight when they put out a follow-up album in 2023 called Leather and Dust. And you can imagine my mixed emotions when, in summer 2023, my parents were in Nova Scotia at the same time as Gunning and Comier were playing a small folk festival out there to promote their new album, while I was back home and couldn’t go. Both my parents went, and I made my dad send me pictures and videos. It looked amazing.

I actually got pretty emotional about that, because I realized I’d seen almost no live music in several years, since pre-COVID. I’d taken folk festivals for granted for so much of my life, as a staple of every summer, as well as more live music sprinkled across the year. When 2020 cut all that off, I just never took up live music again. Watching short videos of my parents seeing Gunning and Cormier last year reminded me of how much I missed it.

I figured I can’t have the amazing East Coast music scene because I’m not in Nova Scotia, but they still have stuff here, so I Googled folk music in my area. Learned about a relatively new venue that plays folk music exclusively and has a monthly Celtic night. Bought tickets to that Celtic night, attended it in August 2023, loved it, resolved to take up live music again. Since then, I’ve been to a bunch of gigs at that same venue, it’s a wonderful place, I’m so glad I was prompted to discover it. A folk festival crowd all year round.

In November, I was browsing that venue’s calendar because I didn’t have a Christmas gift for my parents, and I saw that Gunning and Cormier were playing there on April 25. Perfect. I got tickets. Well, I got Garnet Rogers tickets for my mom and I, which we went to in February and that was also great. I got Gunning and Cormier tickets for my dad and I. I shared the plan with my mom and she got a ticket too.

And that is where I was a couple of nights ago. Fucking amazing night. I’m still most blown away by the harmonies. I’d never seen them play together before (not specifically as a double act, anyway – I’d seen them share stages with lots of others a few times at festivals), and it was incredible how little setup there was. I hear the magical vocal combinations on their albums, and I assume they must plan that carefully, do several takes, have to get into the zone to be able to pull that off. But nope. Live, they can be joking around with the crowd, and then two seconds later they’re playing their guitars and matching their voices perfectly. If I close my eyes it could be one person singing.

They put on a great show. JP Cormier is gruff in his inter-song patter, such a contrast to his soft and lovely singing voice. Dave Gunning talking is exactly what you’d expect from his songs, exactly what you’d expect from his gangly appearance, awkward and humble and differential to JP, but repeatedly genuinely funny. They were both funny.

They gave interesting stories to explain some of the weird shit going on in their Leather and Dust album, which was cool, because I had been wondering. It’s a wonderful album, but in some cases, fucking weird. They’re a couple of Nova Scotian folk singers, but this album contains covers of The Alan Parsons Project, this weird American guy who sang about school shootings among other things, Stompin’ Tom Connors, and The Killers. The last one being one of the few songs off Leather and Dust that they didn’t play and also didn’t acknowledge at any point, we got no explanation for why they did that. Human by The Killers – a pop/rock song that used to be inescapable on mainstream radio – is just on a Gunning and Cormier album and they felt no need to tell us why.

It reminds me a bit of that time when Great Big Sea wrote an apology for going all weird on us after they got famous in the States, and put it on the same album as a Led Zeppelin cover. To be fair Gallows Pole is a traditional song and therefore technically more in the wheelhouse of Great Big Sea than Led Zeppelin, but Robert Plant has an arranging credit on a Great Big Sea album, and that is the only case of East Coast Canadian folk musicians covering something out of character that’s more weird than Gunning and Cormier doing The Killers.

Anyway, though, the point is that the concert was great even if they didn’t explain that. Dave Gunning pulled out his Stompin’ Tom impression briefly, which reminded me of that time on his live album from 2002 when he did an entire Stompin’ Tom cover in character as his Stompin’ Tom impression, and it’s a fucking good impression. I once played that song for my mother without telling her what it was, and it took her over two minutes to realize that wasn’t the actual Stompin’ Tom singing.

James Keelaghan was in the crowd (at the gig the other night, not during the live album from 20 years ago - I mean he might have been there too, I guess), which was fucking cool, you know you're at a cool music show when other musicians you like are also there (I've been playing a bunch of James Keelaghan for the kid at work lately, it's been going down well). They even referenced something I remember from years ago! When I was a kid, I saw several folk festival workshops with Lennie Gallant and James Keelaghan on the same stage, where they'd always tell the story of how they once got into a debate about who had killed off the most people in their songs. "And I thought I'd won," Lennie would say, "Because I've written a song about the Titanic. But James wrote a song called Everyone Dies." The other night, Dave Gunning and JP Cormier made some jokes about how they keep writing songs about outlaws getting hung on guillotines, and they like to kill people off in their songs, and then they pointed at James Keelaghan and said of course, the master of killing people off in songs is here tonight. That was fun.

During the intermission, Dave Gunning came out and was walking around. JP Cormier stayed backstage, which is fair enough, and while I heard a few people asking where he was, my father commented “That’s what I’d do, if I were him, rather than go out and make small talk with strangers.”  You can see why my father and I get along so well.

I’ve written before on this blog about how I get painfully star struck; the few times I have been in the same room as comedians I like, I have found it overwhelmingly scary to imagine them even briefly perceiving my presence. Last year I managed to push this aside enough to get autographs from both Josie Long and Grace Petrie at their shows, which was cool as fuck, but I did do a lot of panicking and quite literal stuttering at them and basically being an incoherent mess during our brief interactions. I do not do well with meeting famous people.

However, that doesn’t normally apply to the Canadian folk musicians. I think because I’ve been seeing them since I was a kid, so I am used them. My parents taught me the etiquette when I was young for the acceptable way to approach after a show or during intermission: buy something from their merch table – even if you already own all the CDs, buy another copy anyway as a bribe for a moment of their time and then just give it to someone as a gift or something – go over to them with a marker and ask them to sign it, politely tell them you’re a big fan and the show’s great, then run away before there’s any risk of outstaying your welcome. I’ve done it many times, I know the drill.

I think I might also be less intimidated by Canadian musicians than by British comedians because – well, I tend to operate under the assumption that if someone lives all the way in Britain but I’ve still heard of them from Canada, they must be very, very famous. While with Canadian folk musicians, I might slightly under-estimate their fame, because I live in the country where they’re from and I never meet anyone who’s heard of them (besides my parents), so they can’t be too famous to have twenty seconds to talk to me when they’re signing CDs, right? Even though of course that’s a fallacy, because these people are quite famous, just not among people my age.

Anyway, the other night, I looked over the merch table to see what was on offer. There were a bunch of CDs I already owned, and, interestingly, a couple of vinyl records. I don’t have a turntable, but I thought it would be cool to have a Gunning and Cormier vinyl album cover on my bedroom wall. Especially if it’s signed. The price was a bit steep for what I’d be essentially using as a poster, but it wouldn’t consider it too much money for a signed poster.

I bought the album and saw Dave Gunning over by the bar, talking to a woman who’d bought an album just before me and was getting it signed. I went over and stood sort of near them – close enough so I could get in there once she moved along, but I hoped, not so close that I’d seem to be awkwardly putting pressure on the situation.

As I stood there, I started to get very anxious. I’d done this many times before, but not for years (not with Canadian musicians, anyway), and I suddenly started thinking about the massive influence Dave Gunning has had on 20 years of my life and how fucking wild it was that he was just standing right there in person and how I didn’t belong here. It was the first time I’d been in a room with Dave Gunning for about five years, even though I used to see him two or three times a year. My mind started racing, and I worried about taking up too much of his time when I approached him, and then I realized the record had plastic packaging on it, and I didn’t want to make Dave Gunning wait while I took that off.

So I started taking it off while standing by the bar, making sure that when Dave Gunning was free, I could approach him, hand him the album, hand him my dad’s pen, get a signature, mumble the words “big fan”, and get out in under 20 seconds, he’d barely notice me, it would not be a big thing, it would be fine. While I was thinking this, I finally got the plastic off the album, but it turned out I was holding the case upside down, so when the plastic came off, the record fell out and loudly hit the floor.

My efforts to avoid attention had backfired, as a bunch of people in the area turned to look. Including Dave Gunning, as the woman talked to him had just wandered away and he was now free. I immediately started apologizing to the people around me, saying it’s okay, no need for a commotion, the record is fine, I’ll just pick it up. But before I could do that, Dave Gunning came over and picked up my album off the floor. He asked if it was okay, and I said yes yes it’s fine sorry it’s absolutely fine I’m so sorry yes it’s fine. Dave Gunning then walked a few paces away where there was better light, and he held up my record to the light to look for scratches. On one side, and then he turned it over to check the other side. He told me, “If there’s any damage we’ll get you another one.” I just stood there freaking out, not wanting to take up the time of an important person, but also not wanting to tell him: “Look, I basically bought this to use as a poster, I don’t even have a record player, it doesn’t matter whether or not the record itself is scratched.”

Dave Gunning finally pronounced the record unharmed, and handed it back to me. I stammered that the reason I’d unwrapped it in the first place was to ask him to sign it, and then I reached into my pocket and panicked again when I could not immediately find the pen my father had lent me for the occasion. Dave Gunning said not to worry, and then he pulled a sharpie out of his own pocket and signed the cover. Then he put the record back in the cover, handed it back to me, and showed me the correct way to hold it so nothing falls out (it turns out, for anyone who’s unaware, you’re supposed to hold it so the opening is at the top), I thanked him several times and then ran away, and realized afterward that I hadn’t even had the presence of mind to say the words “Big fan” to him.

But he was so nice. He’s so so cool. So cool. And after the concert, I stayed at my parents’ place where I was reminded that they have a turntable, so we played the record for a bit before I left for work the next morning. I ended up leaving the record itself at my parents’ place, so they can play it on their turntable. But I took the cover home.

My mother even found a couple of glass frames that are meant to hold vinyl records. Because she had two of them, she told me I could take my pick from her/my dad’s record collection and have one other record cover to put on the wall next to my new one. I picked out Ian Tyson’s Cowboyography, because it’s an iconic album that pretty much started Canadian country music in its modern form (modern form only, of course, all due respect to Hank Snow). So now I have this on my bedroom wall:

In a larger section of my bedroom wall that contains my Cape Breton Nova Scotia poster (okay, it's a dish towel that I got in my stocking at Christmas one year and decided to put up on my wall like a poster instead of using it as a dish towel), the photograph of Signal Hill in Newfoundland that my dad bought me after a trip there years ago, the old Josie Long poster that I got signed last year by both Josie Long and Grace Petrie, the printout of one of my favourite Bugle quotes, and the Nova Scotia sea glass art that my mother bought me when I graduated university:

Pretty good, I think. Solid use of bedroom wall space.

I miss live music and I'm glad I'm getting more of it back into my life. I'm planning to go back to that venue next month for their Celtic music night. Here are JP Cormier and Dave Gunning playing together at the Celtic Colours Folk Festival in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 2018 (I wasn't there that year, but I did get there in 2019 to see JP Cormier play guitar for an entire fucking hour like the coolest person in the world):

And here they are on April 25, 2024 (I only took one quick picture and then put my phone away, I promise):

[binniesthighs]

call me babydoll | reader x chan

a/n: ahhhhh holy holy heck this chapter is SO DAMN EXCITING hehehe I had sosososo much writing and doing all the research!! please let me know if there is anything factual/cultural that I need to fix! I tried the best I could although I most def am not an expert in Egyptian culture so I appreciate it a lot :) hehe i hope ya have fun reading this chapter teehee oh! also I love hearing what you thought of it too! :D 

Four 

Pairing: self insert, female reader x bang chan 

Genre: action, mystery and suspense, fluff, smut, angst 

Tags: (of this part) bodyguard au, secret agent au, royal au, moderndayprince!chan, secretagent!reader, secretagent!jeongin, secretagent!jisung, collegestudent!seungmin, royal!minho, skz side characters, adventure and mystery, action and peril, plot driven, running out of time, slow-ish burn, growing feelings, sexual tension, explicit language, several mentions of food and alcohol as well as getting tipsy/drunk that good, good making out, suggestive themes

CWs: mentions of guns, mentions of knives, themes of jealousy (expressed by the reader) 

Word count: 7.5k

Parts 

ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE 

“Well, we’re in Cairo alright.” 

Two tugged the amazed young stow-away-student, Seungmin, by the hand of his backpack to keep him from running into one of the palm tree planters decorating the terminal. The young man had nearly slept the whole flight due to the length as well as the exasperation that he had just been through. While his eyes were still darkened from his nap, his glossy pupils still wondered all around him. 

“I take it back. I’m so glad that I almost died so I could end up here with you guys.” 

Jeongin slapped him from the backside of his head. “Never be thankful for almost dying. Life is a lot more fucking fragile than you think. This isn’t just some joyride--” 

“--Ease up F.” You interrupted your partner as you shouldered your bag. The kid had already been through enough already: he didn’t need accosting on top of it all. 

The dashing prince sighed out and stretched his arms. “Ahhhh Cairo. It’s been a while; too long actually.” 

The airport was humid: the kind of sticky warmth that dripped down your neck in a matter of seconds to then get caught above your lip. It wasn’t much help to the anxiety that already had seeped into your veins. The closer you got to a gun the more comfortable you would be. You and the other two guards created a formation around the prince with two in the front and the other in the flank. While each of you were dressed in regular street clothes, your responsibility of his detail still hung over your head with a severe air. 

Chan threw his arm over the young student with an obscene grin. His hair had become a little disheveled from the plane seat and his hoodie, but he didn’t appear to mind. Seeing him so normal was somewhat of an odd change to your previous unbreakable impression of him. 

“Seungmin my friend, you’ve never lived until you’ve been to Cairo. I’ve never seen another place so enriched in history in my whole life...it puts my kingdom to shame. It’s almost like...you can just feel the time here: hundreds of thousands of years...beauty, art, food, industry...I’ve got a thing or two to learn.” 

Seungmin nodded at the prince’s grandiose gestures in the terminal with an enamored smile. “I can’t wait to see it!” 

Your partner put a firm hand on the prince’s back to guide him to the baggage claim. “We won’t be here for long, so, don’t get too excited. We’ve come here for one reason and we shouldn’t dally otherwise.” 

The young boy appeared to frown, and Two bit his lip with a little chuckle. “Way to crush the kids dreams F.” 

“You know the mission, J.” Jeongin gritted his teeth with the words. “Everything is set, there will be a car waiting for us in the garage, and at the hotel we’ll have anything we need.” 

Prince Chan lulled his head back with heels clicking on the flooring. Rogue strands of his hair hung over his sunglasses where he threw a look back at you while pulling them down. 

“Don’t forget our little deal Bee? We’ll have time for a little pleasure.” 

The white haired agent rolled his eyes with gusto then adjusted the royal’s glasses over his face. “We’ve still got to be careful, you Highness. We never know where they could have eyes.” 

“I know where I’ve got mine...” He turned back once more to throw his cockiness in your general direction. 

“Listen to F, your Highness...if you want to live.” 

“Oooo. Feisty as ever, Bee. I love it when you bite back.” Chan turned to his new pet, Seungmin, “She’s really something isn’t she?”

The young man nodded, but not necessarily because he agreed, but it just seemed like it better to agree with a prince than to disagree with him. 

The air appeared to turn even thicker in the summery and arid city and your group approached the parking lot half shaded. Outside of the cement lot, iridescent waves of heat wiggled on the horizon, and further, the astonishing urban sprawl of Cairo, and just over it, the stretch of the Nile and Giza. Palms and other varieties of plants spotted the landscape and above it all, a perfectly crystal blue sky streaked with thin clouds. Had the circumstances been different, you really would have wished to have been there for pleasure. 

“This one. Right here.” Jeongin announced upon spotting the black armored sedan. It wasn’t the most inconspicuous vehicle, but you were prioritizing safety over aesthetics. Your partner touched his index fingerprint to the car door’s invisible panel, and it flashed blue just as the lock had at the safehouse with the ticking clock insignia. 

Two whipped his head around to make one last check of the surroundings before taking off his sunglasses and reddened eye. “Get in. Both of you.” He urged the prince and the student. He popped the drivers side open to find a different pair of glasses in the storage compartment: gold framed aviators. 

“Huh,” He said happily while putting them on. “This is more my style.” He rummaged around a bit more to find a new pair of black framed glasses there too. “Fox! Think fast!” He threw them over to your partner who sighed out with relief. 

“Thank god.” 

The trunk opened with a mechanical sounding creek, and you lifted up the trunk bed to find your whole arsenal: Heckler & Koch MP5′s submachines, Remington 870 shotguns, and Glocks complete with thigh holsters. Among the pile of metal, various knives and other weapons were held in foam holders. 

“They’ve got knives back there?” Two asked while pulling the rearview mirror to see. 

“Oh yeah. What? You more of a knife guy?” You teased while looping your thigh holster over your cargo pants. It fit just right. 

The illusive man popped his gum with a shiny smile. “‘Don’t ever have to reload them...that’s what I’m saying.” 

“Thank you Carroll.” Jeongin sighed upon seeing the thick laptop among the weapons. “Finally I can do some real work. That kid’s damn Chromebook was killing me. I nearly short circuited it trying to connect to our network.” 

“You what?!” Seungmin was suddenly much more interested. 

“Dont worry yourself too much, its still fine.” 

“Are there cameras in here?” You quickly asked your partner. 

“Agency should’ve fried them a long time ago. Why?” 

From the trunk bed you sized up the Glock to feel its weight and how cool it settled into your sweating hand. You unloaded the magazine to see that it had already been filled. 

“Carroll. She really is too kind to us.” You slid the magazine back in then, pulled back the slider to lock it once more, catching Chan’s adoring glance. 

“Something interesting pretty boy?” 

The prince appeared to shiver a little, but brushed it off sighing, “Oh, nothing.” 

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Either it was Carroll or the King, but someone had spared no expense on the young prince. The sun set upon the sparking Nile where you had arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza. 

Anything for His Royal Highness The Prince. 

The towering and gleaming building was a sight to behold in and of itself. It was nestled right into the riverside anchored with several leisurely sailboats bopping in the evening breeze. As day crept into night, the city grew with a swell of lights washing as far as you could see. Extensive bridges and roadways glowed with headlights and every building appeared to be illuminated along with more boats strolling down the river in a rainbow of colors and music. 

The prince craned his head as close to the window as he could and rubbed together his hands excitedly. He looked from you to your partners, finally making a disapproving scoff. 

“Come on. You’re not just a little excited to be here?” 

“We’re here on business, how many times do we have to explain?” Jeongin typed away at his computer from the front seat. 

“Bee?” He looked back to you with a hopeful little glint to his eye. 

“Like Fox said...tomorrow is our appointment with White Rabbit, then we’re on the first flight back home for you.” 

The young prince frowned, but this quickly faded once he had seen the golden brass doors to the magnificent hotel. Seeing the state that the four of you were in, it was a bit comical that you had rolled up to a place such as this. Immediately a valet and bellhop jogged up to the car wearing perfectly pressed uniforms and spotless shined shoes. Little did they know you had no belongings to your name...the rest was waiting in your suite: the royal kind. 

Seungmin cranked his neck to take in the scale of the building in all of it’s regal glory and let out an airy laugh his with his backpack straps snapped tight. 

“Holy shit.” He exclaimed with a giant smile 

Two rose a “no thank you” hand to the valet, and asked him where the garage was in perfect Arabic. The gesture surprised you...as many things did with that man. Jeongin gave a little nod in appreciation to the bellhop and expressed with his own broken version of Arabic that you group had no luggage. The young man was confused, but still gladly took the bills that Jeongin had slipped into his hand for the inconvenience. 

“We’re staying here?” Seungmin wondered while he followed you in. 

“When you travel with The Prince, it comes with some perks.” Chan tore off his glasses with a particularly prideful grin. 

“I feel like I need to pay for just...breathing in here.” 

Indeed, it was a luxurious and grand place. The atrium was patterned with various plush lounge chairs and benches and the path was made of emerald green marble tiles with swirling designs of beige loops. Thick, round columns also supported the ceilings in the lobby, and crystal glass chandeliers sparkled. On several tables, massive floral arrangements had been freshly placed, and you wondered how much the hotel must've paid for them to look that good just to have them replaced the next day. 

A couple formalities were exchanged with the worker at the front desk, and soon the keycards to the royal suite were placed into your hands. Seungmin held his piece of plastic as if it were a gold bar in his hands whereas Chan shoved it right into his front pocket. 

“Everything that we should need should be up in the room.” You told the group who were too distracted to hear what you had just said. 

Just before you had entered the elevator, a tug at your sleeve stopped you in your tracks. Jeongin pulled you back, nodding at Two to go with the others up first. 

“Remember what we talked about before?” He muttered in the hollow and stone corridor. “About the prince?” 

“I need to stay beside him?” 

Your partner nodded with a furrowing brow. “We’re out in the open here, it’s a big city...anyone could be watching us. No distractions, no messing around, no anything. We see White Rabbit and we leave. Hell, I’m even inclined to make sure he doesn’t leave the room...” 

“Jeongin...” You squeezed your partner’s shoulder which felt stringy and tense under your fingertips. “I got it. Trust me. He won’t leave my sight. I promise.” 

“..Okay.” He said with a nervous brush to his hair, then he pressed the elevator button with his knuckle. 

“You...okay?” 

The young man appeared to snap out of a trance. “What? ...Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m keeping it together fine. It’s just...there’s a lot riding on this mission. I don’t...” 

The gold and reflective elevator dinged to the ground floor. 

“We can’t disappoint Carroll with this one. There’s too much riding on it...I can’t disappoint Carroll.”      

You invited your partner into the marbled and mirrored interior of the small space. 

“Don’t worry, we won’t.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━ 

 Even without the help of his royal helpers, Chan managed to clean himself up nice...provided, only the finest clothes had been sent for him to wear. While they weren’t the usual designer labels that he was used to, it was clear that they had been picked out from the finest markets and boutiques in the area. Chan, as he always was, was a prince to the full extent of the word. After a shower and some perfume to his chest, he was the same man that you had been introduced to. 

A loose linen shirt swayed from his frame with little regard for the usage of buttons. He wore slacks that had been pressed made of a kind of fabric that you had never seen before, but looked airy and comfortable. As always, there was a small assortment of shoes for him to choose from as well. He picked brown leather loafers, then tucked up his sleeves to reveal his arms; scratched as they were, but still strong and spiderwebbed with thick veins. 

Arrangements had been made for you to share one of the bedrooms with him--as much as you had fought it at first. Chan was thrilled with the idea, and gladly let you settle into his room with your small assortment of sidepieces and modest set of clothes by regulation of The Agency. While it had mostly been denim button downs and several kinds of functional trousers, they had sent an evening gown. 

The silky white fabric was not unlike the dress that had worn for the gala, but it appeared to be even more sultry once you held it to your frame. The thin spaghetti straps barely held to your shoulders and the back dipped nearly halfway down your back. 

Knowing the man that you had an appointment with, you figured the dress would make it just a little bit easier to talk to him. Along with it, there was a matching set of diamond earrings and a necklace that glinted with the same sheen of the sea. 

“You’ll look gorgeous in that.” Chan said while slipping on a wristwatch. “I’m sure that it will suit you perfectly.” 

The wooden bedside nightstand creaked when you put your holster and Glock in with a matching matte black knife. You had to be careful with that one, as it had nearly cut your finger upon inspection earlier.         

“Hm. I think the both of us know that you’d prefer it on these lovely marble floors rather than on me. Correct?” 

The confident prince strode across the room in the dim lighting of a couple lamps with stained glass shades. Outside of the balcony attached to your room, the sheer curtains blew in the night air and distorted the city lights across the river. Further, Cairo Tower surged with a pink light wrapping around the length were the cylinder pierced the sky. 

“Maybe.” He tutted, then crinkled the king-sized bed where he sat. The prince’s disposition was alluring, there was no denying. He tiled his head to inspect you further, jaw clenching with a sharp angle and a testing glare to his brown pupils. The man smiled slightly while rubbing his index and ring finger down the sleeve of your considerably less scratchy blouse. 

“I hope that during our time here Bee, I’ll get to know you a little better. I’m...really looking forward to our drink later. I made reservations for us.” 

“Reservations? When did you do that?” 

“Oh. When you were showering.” He smirked at his sneaky plans unbeknownst to you. 

“If you think that I’m letting you go anywhere else besides this hotel--” 

“--Bee?” The young royal grew quieter, softer, careful even. His hand cascaded from your arm down to your waist where he tentatively went to grab at your hip and squeeze lightly there. 

While your first reaction was to swat him away, your second crept up on you unexpectedly, and swelled with a kind of confused euphoria feeling the pressure of him on your body. You let his hand linger there, thumb pressed into your hipbone. 

“You don’t need that dress to be beautiful.” 

His words snapped you back; sickly sweet, and sticky in your chest. You cast his hand off of you. 

“You’re crossing the line, your Highness. Don’t...don’t touch me again.” 

The royal sighed as he rose, then inspected his face in the sizeable mirror. Each of his cuts and scars had been skillfully covered with makeup the best he could manage.  

“Bee, I’d cross multiple lines for you. I thought you knew?”    

“THIS BED IS FUCKIN’ AMAZING!!” Seungmin called from the opposite of the suite. 

The prince smiled, then followed you to the door. 

“I’ve already got enough on my hands, your Highness. I ask that you not distract me.” 

“Distract you?” 

As soon as you had said it, regret bit at the tips of your ears. You couldn’t meet his teasing glances, but rather slid one of your more discrete sidepieces into your crossbody bag--as if guns as such could be such a thing. 

“I-I...I’ll sleep on the couch.” You then resolved out loud, however the prince chuckled at your sudden break. 

“As you wish Bee.” 

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“I think that this is the best meal that I’ve ever eaten in my entire life!!” 

Seungmin kicked his legs under the table to the embarrassed glances of both Jeongin and Chan. Before you, the prince had ordered a variety of both cold and hot mezzah dishes with a couple main entrees for you to share. While he was the only one to drink, he indulged in the most expensive wine that the hotel had to offer. Granted, everything would be paid for in cash from The Agency, however the Prince swore up and down that anyone could order anything that they wanted and that The Agency would be paid back in full. You and your partners ate modestly, however the young student didn’t hold back. As the boy shoved his face, it appeared to make the prince happy to see him eating so well. 

You were still an odd group, and garnered curious glances from other restaurant guests. While they were only glances in passing, they still didn’t make you feel any better. You had already drawn enough attention to yourself with you being an odd mix of foreigners who each held themselves differently. You could sense that you partner felt it too while he sipped at his seasonal soup with eyes up to scan the room as he did so. 

Chan threw his arm behind your chair to take in the rest of the room: perfectly decorated with jade green chandeliers and perfectly symmetrical wallpaper and furnishings. It was as if he felt somehow content with your strange little group; like he was the ringleader of it all or some king of the round table. For a moment, he paused to watch the way that the boats passed by on the river from the window nearest to him and sighed. Knowing him, he was probably enjoying running for his life in this way. 

Two cleared his throat and unbuttoned his fashionable suit jacket as the waiters came to clear the table for dessert. 

“So. What are the specs for tomorrow?” 

Jeongin fiddled with his glasses, then dabbed away at the corners of his mouth. “He’s invited us to come around 11pm. He wants us to dress up too--as I’m sure you’ve all seen the clothes that have been provided for us. He apparently loves his formalities, but, anything to make him feel more comfortable I suppose. His men will meet us in the front and take us to him, then we try our best not to fuck it up.”

“--Which we won’t.” You soothed your partner. 

Seungmin perked up, “I’m coming too?” 

“How else are we going to look after ya, kid?” Two ruffled up the young man’s hair. 

“W-wait. Didn’t you say that it’s a club? Will they even let me in? I’m not like, 21 yet? I mean, I will be in a couple months--” 

“--Ahhh you’re so cute.” Chan beamed. “If you’re rolling with us that doesn’t matter.” 

Seungmin blushed and played with the condensation of his water glass. “Oh.” 

Your partner shifted in his seat. “Speaking of. Considering that you’re “one of us” now. We need to discuss something important with you. Your identity.” He looked over to you to finish the rest of the speech that had been pushed off for just a bit too long. 

“Your name...is your most valuable asset. It’s the only thing about yourself that you can keep for yourself. No one else should know it besides you...and, well, us. If they know your name, they know your family, they know where you live, where you go to school, even that girl that you had a crush on in the fourth grade. Got it?” 

Seungmin gulped dry with blown out eyes. “I-I think that I understand.” 

“What do you want us to call you from now on?” 

He paused, considering towards the ceiling. ”Well...if you’re B, and he’s F...and he’s J...I could be S? Simple enough right?” 

“S it is then.” 

The waiters arrived with every dessert possible: chocolate cake, Crème Brule, fruit cheesecake garnished with mint, as well as traditional desserts like Om Ali and Mehalabiya--a type of milk pudding dressed with delicate, pink, edible flowers. 

Seungmin--now dubbed S--made happy little eating sounds while he tried a little bit of everything. 

“Thank you.” You finally spoke to the prince, who now smelled strongly of Lotus and Jasmine. 

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind treating my friends.” 

The word hung in the air, and you didn’t quite know what to do with it. 

Friends. 

“Where is this reservation that you mentioned?” 

He took a swing from his crystal glass with finesse. “Hm. That’s for me to know and you to find out.” 

“Jeongin told me that I need to keep an eye on you, you know that? It would be best if we didn’t leave the hotel at all--” 

“--But what would be the fun in that?” The prince nearly pouted. 

From the others side of the table, Two in his aviators brushed off his lap before standing. “I’m going to get some sleep, if that’s alright with you? I’m feeling pretty jetlagged and I want to be prepared for tomorrow. Excuse me.” 

The slender man bowed to you at the table, then even deeper to the prince. 

“What was that about?” Jeongin muttered while he poked at the thin caramel layer of his French dessert. 

“Actually, I think I want to head to bed too, I’m stuffed.” Seungmin rubbed his belly in his contentment. “Also...I think I might have homework due...heh. I don’t know...I’ve got to figure out all these all these time differences and stuff.” He pushed in his chair then gave the prince a deep bow. “Thank you, your Highness.” 

“My pleasure.” Chan said with a tiny bow back. “Rest up, kid.” 

With the empty holes at the table, the silence was deafening. 

“And then there were three.” Jeongin yawned. “Bee? Wanna do some laps in the morning? I saw that they had a pool? Wanna see if you can beat my record...again?” 

“Psh. I was coming off that biochemical cocktail the last time we tired. You had an advantage.” 

“Then you’ll beat me? Hm! I look forward to that.” Your adorable partner flashed the first smile that you’d seen in a couple days. You missed it, you realized. 

“Sleep tight Bee. Goodnight your Highness.” 

“Thank you Fox.” The prince mirrored his warm smile. 

Knives and forks clinked on china in the dining room, and music softly payed the soundtrack of the evening. A low hum filled the space where the tourists and patrons chatted among themselves. It was peaceful and normal amidst everything that had been pricking your skin and plaguing worry over your mind. The prince merely sighed, sparking eyes reflecting the candles dying out on the table. 

“And now it’s just the two of us.” 

“Seems like it.” 

“Can I whisk you away now?” 

“Whisk? Who said that I would allow any whisking?” 

“Come on...Bee. Just this one time? I promise to be on my best behavior.” 

You laughed out incredulously at the comment. “You out of all people can’t promise something like that.” 

“I guess you’re right about that. But...still, I won’t try to make a scene or anything.” 

The royal placed his napkin on the table with his knife and fork respectfully tilted off the edge of his plate. 

“Follow me?” 

Chan held out his hand. It was pink with heat and scraped a little from the glass that had pierced the fragile flesh. In some way, you had felt a twinge of guilt seeing the small injury knowing that you couldn’t have protected him well enough then. You allowed him to lace your fingers with yours, and felt the rough cuts of his scars in your palm. 

You had promised to yourself that he would never know such pain again. 

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Annnd...this is it!” 

You had taken all of twenty paces outside of the hotel when Chan gestured with open arms to the riverfront. Just at the riverbank, a steamboat was anchored with open doors for hotel guests to enter. The massive, multideck, white steamboat shone like the moon peaking at the ocean’s horizon. Each of the semi-circle windows were lined with white lights and from the inside, the delightful sound of laugher and live music spilled out to the glossy water of the Nile. 

“W-what is this?” 

“Well…it’s a dinner cruise but I just signed us up for the bar part. Are you...surprised? I thought that it must be pretty safe considering that we’re on the water and no one can drive up and shoot at us.” 

“I mean...it’s a bit closed off, but nothing that I can’t handle.” 

The prince held out his arm for you to lead the way, then took your hand to help you watch your step down the stairs. Chan provided his name to the conductor in elegant sounding Arabic, leaving you shocked. 

“Y-you speak Arabic too?” 

Chan chuckled once more, taking your hand in his to bring you down the creaking wood deck with swinging with lanterns above your heads. 

“As a royal and diplomat, it’s best for me to know how to communicate if I might need to.” 

“I must say your Highness, I am definitely impressed.” 

“What? You thought I was just another pretty face?” The charming prince escorted you to a room within the steamboat that was lined with red velvet carpets and small bar tables with tea candles and water lilies floating in a shallow dish. He pulled out your chair before his own, then settled with hands folded in his lap. “I’m trained in hand-to-hand too, although I could use a refresher; that was so long ago, back when I went to school.” 

“Hand-to-hand? Well! You really are full of surprises.” 

The prince appeared smug and faintly amused by the compliment as he crossed his legs under the table and leaned in with his dizzying floral scent. 

The waitress appeared and Chan flexed his language skills once more while he ordered a Hemmingway Daiquiri for himself and a French 75 for you. Somewhere off in the distance or perhaps a different part of the boat, louder and more excitable music played along with the echoing claps of those who listened along. Here, it was much quieter, and the loud sound was replaced with a jazz song that you had heard before--likely from your more formative years. 

“It’s a beautiful night.” Chan began, “Thank you for agreeing to do this with me. I know that I’ve been a bit forward, but, I appreciate you entertaining me.” 

“If I had said no, what would’ve happened then?” 

“Well, maybe I would’ve dropped it, but...knowing you...I don’t think that I would’ve given up easily.” 

The waitress returned with the drinks on a silver platter: his grapefruit pink and yours the color of a lemon drop. 

The royal rose his glass for you to clink with yours, “To...adventures.” 

“To adventures.” 

With a resounding sound, the glasses met, and you watched the way that the shimmering liquid ripped across the prince’s nose. 

The two of you sat for several moments more, saying nothing, but sipping and soaking in the night breeze and the humidity that made your whole body feel blanketed with a sense of calm. You had felt this way before back at the safe house, and it snuck up on you once more. Simply exisiting with the prince provided you with a sense of solace that had long since faded from your life. The sense of responsibility that you felt for the man was noticeable, but you couldn’t help but notice how he provided for you the same sense of safety that you did for him. 

Perhaps it was the loneliness of the job and the solitude that came along with it. Was that you craved to be touched? Listened to? Admired? You had distanced yourself from irrational things such as love and other feelings of attachment. In your line of work, people died often, and you had to move on just as fast as their lives had been taken from them. You supposed that you had become unfeeling at this point...but this prince, so full of himself and focused on the material...there was something about him that reminded you how to feel. 

“Bee? What are you thinking about?” He asked carefully. 

“Oh...nothing.” 

“You looked kind of lost here.” 

“Was I?” 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah...yeah. I’m fine. Maybe the drink is just...getting to me.” 

“Just one drink?” Chan giggled a bit, “I didn’t take you for being a lightweight Bee. I thought that they gave you like, drinking lessons or something back at that agency of yours.” 

“I’m fine. I shouldn’t have more than one drink anyway.” 

The prince nodded, understanding. “So, what will you tell me about yourself? Is there anything that you’re allowed to tell me? Or...will you always be this mysterious, beautiful, enigma?” 

“Me? Enigmatic? Ha! Hardly.” 

“Well? What then?” The prince sucked at the lime garnishing his glass. “Since I don’t have the pleasure of knowing your real name, I’d love it if you could tell me something.” 

Over the stereo, the muted trumpet played along with the twang of thick upright bass strings,

“I suppose I could tell you how...” Chan leaned in, “I didn’t want to join The Agency. At first.” 

“Oh? Why’s that?” 

“It felt like a bit of a last resort and anything that is a last resort is something that can’t come easy.” 

Chan titled his head as if to say, I’m listening. 

“Life...fucking sucks sometimes. Sometimes...you’re left...living with your sleazy uncle with a letter addressed to you post mortem telling you to carry on the family name if you want to feel some connection to the parents that you never knew.” 

The royal cast his eyes down, “I-I’m so sorry.” 

“The Agency has been everything I’ve known since I was a teenager. This life...it’s everything. I think in a way I feel obligated to it...since it was what took my parents from me...I owe it to them to do a job that they spent so much energy on so that it wasn’t in vain.” 

You stopped, realizing the weight of your words in the air and how they cut like the blade of the knife that you kept tucked in your waistband sheathed in a leather cover. Once the sharp metal was taken from it’s confines, there was nothing to protect those from the damage it could do. 

“Bee...I don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry. That’s terrible. I can’t imagine what it must be like to loose your parents and have been thrown into this life...no one deserves that.” 

“Its okay.” You sighed. “I did it to myself. Now, it’s of no concern. I can take care of my own, and I have a new family. I try not to look back.” 

As he had done numerous times before that night, Chan’s hand reached out for yours under the table, brushing up against the white cloth. 

“I can’t say how much I appreciate you enough for what you do; risking your life for me...I owe you everything Bee.” The prince softened, rubbing his thumb against the back of your hand. 

The chug of the steamboat hissed softly behind you in that back bar room, and just through the windows, you could see the stars dotting the sky just as they did in any corner of the world. They were a reminder that while some things changed, others didn’t. 

The echo of footsteps on the deck clicked, causing you to turn a careful glance back to the direction of the sound. The man who entered was dressed in a casual cotton button up and navy slacks. On the white of his breast, he wore a pin holding the symbol of a crest.

“Lee Minho?” Chan gasped. 

“Your Highness!” The handsome man bowed immediately with a startled little smile. 

The friendly prince stood immediately upon seeing the other royal to shake his hand. “What a coincidence that we meet again!” 

Lee Minho shied with a polite smile while fiddling with his hair that looked to be masterfully styled. “Must be...fated. Or something like that.” 

“Are you alright? Last I saw you was at the shooting at the gala. I’m so glad to see that you’re safe. You didn’t get injured I hope?” 

This close, Lee Minho had oddly cat-like eyes that were as intense as they were alluring. He was just as you had remembered him to be--put together and polished like a true royal, dastardly handsome with all the right curves to his body, and just enough mystery to him to pique the interest of anyone who had sensed his air--just as the prince had. 

“What are you doing in Cairo?” Chan asked, gesturing for the stranger to pull up a chair. 

Lee Minho swatted away the question with an annoyed cringe. “Royal stuff, you know how it goes. Everyone is always trying to poke their noses in places where they shouldn’t be...unless they’re looking to get themselves killed. That's why they send me. I’m dispensable.” 

“Oh, I’d hardly say that.” 

In seconds the prince’s entire body had shifted towards the direction of the other man, and hung onto each of his words as if they were a siren song. 

“When you’re not as high up in the ranks as you are your Highness, royalty starts to feel more like servitude than a legitimate position.” 

“So, where are you poking your nose?” 

Lee Minho’s eyes nervously flicked to you, and Chan realized that he had skipped right over introductions. 

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce the two of you. Minho, this is Bee, my--” 

“--I’m a member of his detail.” You spoke for him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you formally Lee Minho. I recall seeing you at the gala.” 

Minho bowed slightly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.” 

It was obvious that you had made the man uncomfortable, just as you had liked it to be. While you could see what the prince had seen in him, you had the disposition to be much less trusting than his Highness. 

“Which royals are employing you? I’d love to know! It’s always exciting for me to learn about who is plotting what. The royal drama keeps me really entertained.” 

Minho sat up straighter, then waved a hand for the waitress to come scuttling over. 

“Some of my family members. You wouldn’t know them, we’re all dreadfully insignificant to be honest. They heard all this business about those men with the red crests and they’re starting to get scared. After they targeted...you, they’re wondering which royal family might be next...if any. I’m here to find out who they are, their whereabouts, anything else.” 

“Wow! That’s actually what we--”

“--And where are you planning on getting this information if I may ask?” You hushed the prince’s loose lips as quickly as you could. 

Minho leaned in over the flickering candle to lower his tone, “I heard that there’s an informant here in the city who might now something about this group. They’ve been popping up on national news too as of late. I’m looking to talk to him tomorrow evening. Luckily, I was able to make an appointment but it was no small feat. I had to bribe him to high hell to get him to speak with me.” 

“Hm. Sounds familiar.” You mumbled. 

Chan’s eyes widened, then he looked back to you to ask for permission. You gave him a nod.

“It seems like we’re here for a common purpose my friend.” The prince leaned in to bridge the gap between them, his hand notably reaching to rest on the other man’s thigh below the table’s surface. “We’re seeking similar information and I think we might be speaking of the same informant.” 

“But your Highness, isn’t it dangerous it you to do something like this?” 

“Not when I’ve got her around.” Chan threw a sly grin to you across the table. “I’m well protected. And you? Where’s your detail?” 

“I’m afraid that I’m out here alone. Like I said, when you’re as low in the ranks as I am...” 

“What? That’s terrible!! They aren’t even protecting their own? Bee!!” 

“Yes, your Highness?” You already knew where this was going. 

“Let’s bring Minho along with us tomorrow! We know that there’s safety in numbers--” 

“Your Highness, in case you haven’t noticed, our hands are already a bit full...”

“I can fend for myself.” Lee Minho suddenly piped. “Travelling alone, I’ve picked up a few things about protecting myself. You don’t have to protect me, but, I appreciate the offer.” 

“Nonsense! You should come with us! I would feel more comfortable if you did rather than went by yourself.” 

Lee Minho gave the royal a smile in his thanks, it was pure and a little adorable you had considered...but that was likely the champagne going to your head. 

“Really? I appreciate it, your Highness.” 

While you were distanced, you nearly could’ve sworn that the prince had squeezed the other’s leg reassuringly, and you were willing to bet he had rubbed it with his thumb too just as he had done to you. 

After long, the waitress returned with Lee Minho’s drink, and the two men chatted like old college buddies while you slipped away at your drink in an attempt to make it last as long as you could. While Chan did try to engage you in conversation, it would never last for long until he would become puppy-eyed over the stranger again. In the end, you wondered if the tipsy prince would’ve also confessed to this man if he had one too many drinks. 

The table bumped with their jovial and restless legs, and you could only imagine what wandering hands sought to discover. 

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The hotel was quiet save for the click of heels on the marble floors from ladies who had just gotten off the steamboat and clung to their husbands in their drunken stupor. They cackled in the empty and golden lobby, then pressed hasty kisses into the stuttering mouths of their husbands who’s mouths then smeared with hot pick lipstick. Chan giggled at the sight while he tripped over his own feet too. 

“Ahhhh. Being in love is so cute.” He adored them once you had entered the elevator. 

“You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?” 

The prince hiccupped, then shook his head. “Unlike you I know how to hold my liquor. I’m fine. Just a bit sleepy I think. Must be the jet lag.” 

The tones for each floor beeped in the compartment, and Chan lulled his head back and forth. 

“So. Lee Minho huh?” You said, not even able to help yourself. The alcohol had brought you a bit of an edge...so you thought. 

“Lee. Minho.” He sighed out dreamily. “What do you think of him?” 

“I think I can’t trust anyone as long as I haven’t ran at least three background checks on them.” 

“Awww, Bee, you’re so thoughtful of me.” 

In the empty hallway, the prince with squinting eyes leaned against the doorframe to the royal suite, reaching out to brush up against your blouse once more. You let him, excusing his drunken state. After he did so, his eyes hazed over with something much different, while he looked exhausted, it was laced with something else: something much more longing. 

“Bee...fuck, I really want to kiss you again.” 

“Hm. That’s ripe coming from you who was just viciously flirting with Lee Minho.” 

You could see his head spinning in his dilated pupils. “What?” 

The door clicked open and you less than gracefully lead the prince through the dark to your shared bedroom. 

“B-Bee, what are you talking about?” 

You scoffed, “I’m not blind, you know.” 

“A-are you...jealous?” 

“W-what? Fuck no. I’m just...you can’t just...toss people around thinking that they’ll all bend to you.” 

Chan sat at the edge of the bed and rubbed at his temples when you turned one of the lamps on. 

“I-I was doing that?” 

You tore a pillow from the bed as well as the throw blanket at the end. “I’m sleeping on the couch. Good evening, your Highness.” 

“Wait! Bee!” The young prince stumbled after you, stubbing his toe against the bedpost in the process. “Ah-FUCK!” He grunted. 

“What?” You growled back to him, half shrouded in the darkness of the suite living room. 

The royal stumbled out, eyes blank and backlit from the bedroom. While you couldn’t see him fully, you later could assume that there was something in him terribly torn and ripped in that moment that made little sense to him, as it did to you to. 

Arms reached out, bodies softly illuminated by the lights of the city, and the prince leaned himself fully into you, pressing bitter tasting lips to yours with a heat and desire that only seemed amplified the breather he had gotten. While he tasted of lime and grapefruits, with a twinge of alcohol. He was just as addictive as any vice. You wanted to feel him. As infuriating as he was, and oblivious, your abhorrence to him was just as strong as your attraction. 

“Mm, Bee--” He moaned directly into your mouth while shuffling both of you back to the bedroom. 

The prince’s trembling breath floated from his mouth to yours where he used both of his large hands to pull your face closer to his. You knew that in some way, there must have been something ingenuine about the whole scenario, but you didn’t care too much, not when kissing him felt like something. Maybe he had kissed you out of pity, or because he really had wanted to kiss you. You broke for seconds before both of your tangled limbs hit the bed. 

“Before...you said that you wouldn’t kiss me.” 

“I didn’t make any promises...but, how come...you said that you wouldn’t hesitate...? But you kissed ba--” 

You silenced the prince’s words with your own heated kisses that made little sense, only that kissing him as such felt good. You straddled the man while his hungry fingers traced all the way down your back. The prince’s hips sunk into the cushiony mattress, and you screwed him down even harder into it with your own heated hips grinding into him with as much pressure as you could muster. 

“This is what you want, right?” You pulled at his lip with your teeth to hear him groan from it. 

“Is it...what you want?” Chan got out between more kisses. 

You could blame it on loneliness or lack of touch all that you wanted, but it wasn’t even close. 

“Wait. Wait.” Chan suddenly interjected. 

“What? What is it?” 

The prince looked up at you, that haze in his eyes now fading to something much different that wasn’t covered in the lust that he held before. 

“Bee...I-I don’t know if I want it to happen this way. It feels...it’s not...” 

“Not what?” 

He brushed his hand upward now to caress your face, lingering on the side of the peach fuzz on your cheek. “You deserve better than whatever the hell this is.” 

“Oh, so when I finally want to fuck you, you’re saying it isn’t right?” 

“I’m saying, I’m drunk, it’s late, clearly there’s something that’s upsetting you, and I want to know what it is before we do anything else. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

It might’ve been Lee fucking Minho, or it might’ve been something else much stickier for you to admit, but seeing the prince like this, it was too much. He was gorgeous under you, practically angelic looking. 

“I-I’m...complicating things.” You whispered out, and the prince softened even further. 

“That’s what it is? Bee, I told that you don’t have to worry about--” 

“--Yes. Yes I do...your Highness. I-I can’t feel...” 

“Bee--let’s just talk about--” 

The prince might’ve said more, but his words faded into murmurs once you closed his door behind you, then crawled onto the couch in Jeongin and Seungmin’s room, locking their door too. 

~🌹~

Bunch of (Ro)ses!

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @eunaeiekim @lunarskzzz

[somegirlsnerdywords2]

Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a O (Part 2)!

Yep this is how i’m going to bring over all the anime and manga i’ve watched and posted about on the old blog. It’s not so detailed but it will have to do. Anything new I watch or read from this point on will have their own posts.

Orenchi no Furo Jijou:

Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Josei, TV short

Synopsis:  On his way home from school, Tatsumi sees a man collapsed near a lake. When he approaches him, Tatsumi notices something strange: the person in need of help is actually a beautiful merman named Wakasa! Because Wakasa's home has become too polluted to live in, Tatsumi graciously offers his bathtub as a refuge. With a boisterous merman as his new roommate, Tatsumi's normal life won't be returning anytime soon, not to mention Wakasa's aquatic friends—Takasu, Mikuni, and Maki—often show up uninvited, making them all quite a handful for the high school student. As he humors their curiosity for human life, Tatsumi sometimes finds himself enjoying their childish antics, but he will have to keep his cool if he intends to keep up with his daily life and newfound friendship. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8.5/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 13, 4 minute long episodes. 

My Thoughts: A soothing tv short with a fantasy twist and cute guys as far as the eye can see! 

Oshiete! Galko-chan:

Genres: Slice of Life, Comedy, School, TV Short

Synopsis:  At first glance, Galko, Otako, and Ojou are three high school girls who seem like they wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. Galko is a social butterfly with a reputation for being a party animal, even though she is actually innocent and good-hearted despite her appearance. Otako is a plain-looking girl with a sarcastic personality and a rabid love of manga. And Ojou is a wealthy young lady with excellent social graces, though she can be a bit absent-minded at times. Despite their differences, the three are best friends, and together they love to talk about various myths and ask candid questions about the female body. Oshiete! Galko-chan is a lighthearted and humorous look at three very different girls and their frank conversations about themselves and everyday life. No topic is too safe or too sensitive for them to joke about—even though every so often, Galko seems to get a bit embarrassed by their discussions! [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2016 with a total of 12, 7 minute long episodes. 

My Thoughts: Cute art/ animation style. An alright short but nothing amazing. 

Otome Youkai Zakuro:

Genres: Demons, Historical, Military, Romance, Seinen, Supernatural

Synopsis:  Second Lieutenant Kei Agemaki, the son of a famous general, has hidden his extreme fear of paranormal beings all his life. However, when he and two others are reassigned to live and work with youkai in the Ministry of Spirit Affairs, he is brought face-to-face with his worst nightmare. Now with the help of the fox spirit Kushimatsu, he and his fellow officers must learn to work alongside youkai maidens—Zakuro, Susukihotaru, Hoozuki, and Bonbori—to solve paranormal cases. Set in the midst of an alternate version of Japanese Westernization, Otome Youkai Zakuro explores the clashes and unions that can occur when east meets west, local meets foreign, and women meet men. The unusual alliance of the youkai maidens and human officers must learn to work together in a world that is changing around them. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2010 with a total of 13 episodes. 

My Thoughts: An interesting (if not a bit cliche) but incomplete anime. Has a manga.... which is also incomplete and updated very, very slowly. 

Ouran Koukou Host Club (Ouran High School Host Club):

Genres: Comedy, Reverse Harem, Romance, School, Shoujo

Synopsis:  Haruhi Fujioka is a bright scholarship candidate with no rank or title to speak of—a rare species at Ouran Academy, an elite school for students of high pedigree. When she opens the door to Music Room #3 hoping to find a quiet place to study, Haruhi unexpectedly stumbles upon the Host Club. Led by the princely Tamaki Suou, the club—whose other members include the "Shadow King" Kyouya Ootori; the mischievous Hitachiin twins, Kaoru and Hikaru; the childlike Mitsukuni Haninozuka, also known as "Honey"; and his strong protector Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka—is where handsome boys with too much time on their hands entertain the girls in the academy. In a frantic attempt to remove herself from the hosts, Haruhi ends up breaking a vase worth eight million yen and is forced into becoming the eccentric group's general errand boy to repay her enormous debt. However, thanks to her convincingly masculine appearance, her naturally genial disposition toward girls, and fascinating commoner status, she is soon promoted to full-time male host. And before long, Haruhi is plunged into a glitzy whirlwind of elaborate cosplays, rich food, and exciting shenanigans that only the immensely wealthy Host Club can pull off. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2006 with a total of 26 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Raise your hand if you believe this series deserves a remake!? I would lose it if they remade this series but the original isn’t all that bad either! Worth a watch if you’re a shoujo lover! 

Outbreak Company:

Genres: Harem, Comedy, Parody, Fantasy

Synopsis: Shinichi Kanou is a shut-in otaku with a vast knowledge of anime, manga, and video games. One day, after applying for a job in hopes of escaping his secluded lifestyle, he is kidnapped and transported to the Eldant Empire—a fantasy world filled with elves, dragons, and dwarves. Trapped in this strange land, Shinichi is given an unlikely task by the Japanese government: to spread otaku culture across the realm by becoming an "Otaku Missionary." To accomplish his mission, Shinichi has the full support of the Japanese government, as well as the half-elf maid Myucel and Princess Petralka of the Eldant Empire. Together with this ragtag bunch, he will overcome the obstacles of politics, social classes, and ethnic discrimination to promote the ways of the otaku in this holy land. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2013 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Not memorable at all. Character design looks nice, very shiny... 

Owari no Seraph:

Genres: Action, Military, Supernatural, Drama, Vampire, Shounen

Synopsis:  With the appearance of a mysterious virus that kills everyone above the age of 13, mankind becomes enslaved by previously hidden, power-hungry vampires who emerge in order to subjugate society with the promise of protecting the survivors, in exchange for donations of their blood. Among these survivors are Yuuichirou and Mikaela Hyakuya, two young boys who are taken captive from an orphanage, along with other children whom they consider family. Discontent with being treated like livestock under the vampires' cruel reign, Mikaela hatches a rebellious escape plan that is ultimately doomed to fail. The only survivor to come out on the other side is Yuuichirou, who is found by the Moon Demon Company, a military unit dedicated to exterminating the vampires in Japan. Many years later, now a member of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army, Yuuichirou is determined to take revenge on the creatures that slaughtered his family, but at what cost? Owari no Seraph is a post-apocalyptic supernatural shounen anime that follows a young man's search for retribution, all the while battling for friendship and loyalty against seemingly impossible odds. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 4/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Cliche, but not in a fun way. I rarely watch anime involving vampires though so that was a bit fun. 

Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen

Genres: Action, Military, Supernatural, Drama, Vampire, Shounen

Synopsis:  Yuuichirou Hyakuya is finally reunited with his childhood friend Mikaela Hyakuya, whom he had long presumed to be dead. Upon their reunion, however, he discovers that Mikaela has been turned into a vampire. Determined to help his friend, Yuuichirou vows to get stronger so that he can protect Mikaela as well as the comrades in the Moon Demon Company. Kureto Hiiragi receives information that a large group of vampires will be gathering in Nagoya, preparing for their assault on the Imperial Demon Army's main forces in Tokyo. Led by Guren Ichinose, Yuuichirou's team is one of many selected to intercept and eliminate the vampire nobles. With the Nagoya mission quickly approaching, the members of Shinoa squad continue to work towards fully mastering their weapons, while learning how to improve their teamwork. Yuuichirou must gain the power he needs to slay the nobles and save his best friend, before he succumbs to the demon of the Cursed Gear. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 3/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: It somehow got a sequel... still lacking. Plenty of pretty people though with little substance...

[quentineliot]

Country music. Everybody's favorite. Right? ;P

I grew up in the Southern US. "The South" people from the area would more affectionately call it. I've moved, and done a lot to separate myself from not only the so called culture there, but also it's music.

And I LOVE music. Sang in the car to every song that came on the radio from the age I could make sound, to 21. My mom always tells this story about how I would cry as a baby unless Vince Gill was playing on cassette.

It's been around 7 years since I've turned on a country radio station. But because I grew up on the music (and classic rock like zztop) occasionally a country ear worm will stop by. And being a fully realized transman, it makes sense looking back at the lyrics of many of these songs, why I didn't notice sooner. And why telling my parents was incredibly terrifying.

Not EVERY song uses the "sweet girl with an overprotective dad that just a good ol boy wants to marry and raise a family with" formula. But it's a Lot of them. And if it's not a song about a guy just wanted to settle down with a pretty girl who can cook a good meal, it's about jealousy. And how (typically) women act in these songs is sung at the top of your lungs, about how she'll fuck up his car, steal his dog, or murder him and his mistress.

Miranda Lambert has a song about burning everything down and lighting it on fire. Which, is honestly a mood. But having been In The South, people don't think it's hyperbolic. There are a LOT of people that, if they were willing to bring Dixie Chicks back into their hearts, would be doing some Goodbye Earl's of their own. (Though, this song is a better example of justice taken, and of all the references so far, I think I'm most comfortable with this one.)

Take a look at these lyrics from Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mine"

"Any man of mine better be proud of me

Even when I'm ugly, he still better love me

And I can be late for a date that's fine

But he better be on time"

Okay so I'm with you on the first two lines. Great start. But you're saying you don't want your man to be late but You* can be late. Double standard and not okay. This was music I absorbed as like, idk, a 6 years old? I'd need math and Google and I don't feel like it. Moving on.

"Any man of mine'll say it fits just right

When last year's dress is just a little too tight

And anything I do or say better be okay

When I have a bad hair day"

First two lines, personal preference I suppose. I'd rather be told if I don't look good and change my clothes. Not everyone is me, a lot of people would much rather get "yes baby you look amazing!" always. Top two lines, good.

But ANYTHING YOU DO OR SAY BETTER BE OKAY WHEN YOU HAVE A BAD HAIR DAY?!!! Excuse me???!!! Absolutely not.

-------

I mentioned Carrie Underwood's Before He Cheats earlier. All you really need is the chorus. I don't need Google for this one.

And I dug my key in to the side of his pretty little suped up four wheel drive

Carved my name into his leather seats

I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights

Slashed a hole in all four tires

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats

TLDR: he cheated on me so I destroyed his car. And while this song was a fucking Anthem when it came out, any woman who exhibited even slightly agressive behavior was Shut the fuck Down. Make it make sense. The song is about criminal activity so, clearly, anyone who does this should be charged. So why wouldn't people let women and girls show anger in a productive way?

Trisha Yearwoods "She's in Love with the Boy"

Is literally just romanticizing getting married at 16 or 18 or to your first love.

Faith Hill's "This Kiss" gets a pass but only because of "Cinderella said to Snow White, how does love get so off course?" And I thought they were in love with each other 😂

I can't even begin to unpack Fancy by Reba McEntire. And Reba is legendary, she's been making music since before I was born and I love her. It's just, that song.. Eugh. Yikes.

I've been trying to find other songs that absolutely put "go find a nice boy and have babies" into my brain at an early age, and I stumbled on George Strait and I know a few of his songs by heart. Oceanfront Property. All my exes live in Texas. Check yes or no. Amarillo by morning. I can't find anything wrong with any of his music. So it CAN be done.

I'm just salty about the amount of redneck inspiration porn I was made to sing as a child. (my mother made me sing at parties. I preferred singing alone) No other genre of music does this. Rock music isn't over here all "look pretty, shut up, and find a good husband" 🤨

I feel I should mention that there have been recent songs that defy this formula. ",This ain't my momma's broken heart" by Miranda Lambert. Taylor Swift has a unique writing style so I'm sure she's written SOMEthing that's not just trucks beer women muddin or whatever else today country is about? There's a couple about whiskey I think. It's always whiskey or beer..

Country music is like all about family, or something sad and mourning that loss. Heaven, angels, wings, gods watching over you, memaw is watching over you, you're not alone I'm there with you even tho I'm on a truck 100 miles away, think of me when you hear the wind blow kiddo🙃

Finally, to be clear, I don't hate any of the songs Ive referenced or pulled lyrics from. They were my entire childhood. Lonestar was my shit, I choreographed a dance to Shania Twain's "Man I feel like a woman" and did it in front of an auditorium of people, I still know every word of Suds in the bucket by Sara Evans and anything Martina McBride I've sung hundreds of times. It's beautiful music. But dang does country music and the south know how to brainwash people. It's scary.

[translations-by-aiimee]

Dig a Grave to Dig Out a Ghost - Chapter 14

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 14 - Lecture

For most people, it was just like any regular Monday afternoon. The temperature was high and there hadn't been any rain in over a week. A black Audi stopped at the entrance of the school's auditorium and really stood out. In the distance, he saw a big red banner at the entrance of the building: "A warm welcome to Professor Chen XX, appraisal researcher from the Palace Museum, for holding a cultural relic appraisal lecture in our school."

The auditorium had been recently built in the past few years. The entrance hall was very magnificent, with a light blue dome and wall, and the entire wall near the gate was made of glass. From the outside, he could see the crowds of people in the hall. Different from the usual modern style, the overall layout of the hall was more reminiscent of ancient designs. There were two large vases with impressions of a Ming Dynasty maid enjoying spring peaches. The promotional posters were framed by carved wooden windows. It was almost like walking into an antique shop.

The air-conditioning in the hall was turned too high and Lin Yan rubbed the goosebumps on his arms as he stood in the queue, staring at the posters to pass the time.

The professor on the poster looked like an unopened file folder, and even the reflection on his glasses looked like the transparent plastic wrapping paper on the file folder. Lin Yan was stumped, and then suddenly realized why he thought he looked so familiar. This person is the editor-in-chief of "Research on the History of Ming Dynasty Clothing". You could see his headshot when you turn to the first page of the textbook. It was said that he was quite famous in both professional research and folk antique auctions. He had probably seen him in a treasure appraisal program. Lin Yan recalled that he hadn't met him during the internship. Maybe because he had been an irrelevant excavation member.

On the other hand, why would someone ask him to participate in the excavation of a Ming Dynasty tomb?

"There are still 20 minutes before the doors open. Please wait patiently in the queue. Our staff will provide you with an introduction pamphlet for the event and free drinks." A sweet female voice came from the lobby intercom. Not far in front of Lin Yan, a tall boy who had been playing on a PSP with his head down turned his head and smiled wryly. He said to the person behind him: "The girl's voice is so sweet."

What's peculiar is that this person is wearing a modified Hanfu outfit, tailored to fit his body but with wide sleeves. With his pimples on his face and the PSP in his hand, he looked very strange. Lin Yan glanced around the room and was surprised to find that not only the PSP guy was dressed up, but many others had certain ancient style elements in their outfits. One girl even had her hair curled, and the ebony crested hairpiece swaying down by her sideburns.

Lin Yan stared, bored, outside the glass wall, and a familiar figure in a blue cloth robe caught his eye.

It was the little Daoist priest, squatting by the flowerbed not far away, feeding a lazy big yellow cat with some ham in his hand. The yellow cat curled up with a comfortable look, and his chubby figure resembled a large snail with a lot of privilege.

As soon as the little Daoist looked up, he saw Lin Yan beckoning to him. He threw the rest of the ham to the yellow cat in a hurry and ran into the hall with his schoolbag on his back. Lin Yan stepped out of line, and the cold surrounding him moved with him, although it seemed a little reluctant.

"At least A-Yan is a living person. You don't know how long you've been dead." Lin Yan couldn't help muttering. The series of events such as the exorcism and giving him talismans made Xiao Yu disgusted with this little Daoist priest. Every time in the past week that he had called A-Yan to ask about sending away spirits, well, his reaction was clear.

"Come here and wait." Lin Yan greeted the little Daoist priest who had just rushed into the hall. "It wasn't eating well, so I brought some ham for it." A-Yan was still holding half of the red plastic container in his hand. His face suddenly flushed red and he looked at Lin Yan with bright eyes.

His arm was squeezed by a cold hand and it pulled him away from the little Daoist priest. Lin Yan was already uncomfortably cold by the air conditioner, so he frowned and pushed down Xiao Yu's hand.

The lingering cold leaned against him, and abruptly shook against him. Lin Yan thought he must be really angry. When he looked up, he saw a group of students dressed in ancient costumes coming out of the golden gate of the auditorium. Unlike the people wearing the modified Hanfu costumes, these dozen or so people wore put-together Ming Dynasty outfits. Boys wore blue or white cloth with trimmed edges and silk scarves on their heads. Girls wore outer coats with gold and jade pendants and outer sleeves with beautiful embroidery. Some blouses and moonflower skirts were plainer for everyday Ming women, and some of them dressed as graceful ladies with big red sleeves. They each held a plate. There were small disposable paper cups inside, which the staff brought out to distribute.

Something wasn't right with Xiao Yu. His whole body was trembling against Lin Yan. Lin Yan was startled. He tried not to move his lips too much and asked him in a low voice, "Did you remember something?" Xiao Yu didn't answer, but Lin Yan remembered when he saw the ghost on the computer screen for the first time, he was not wearing a high hat at all, it was a futou.

"I'll take over, you guys go on break," a clear voice rang out. Lin Yan was shocked. A familiar figure stood in the staff's team, with short hair set against the various pieces of brocade. While distributing black tea, she turned around and laughed with her acquaintances. No matter how she changed her style, Lin Yan would never mistake that it was Weiwei.

Lin Yan wanted to lower his head and pretend that he hadn't seen her, but Weiwei had obviously noticed him. After a second of pause, Lin Yan called out and walked straight over to the buffet table. The colours of the rice farmer outfit she wore were interlaced and she was wearing very little makeup. There is a small Hetian seed around her neck, which is kind of chunky and stiff, which made a very natural look.

"Long time no see, are you here alone?" Weiwei smiled and handed a cup of black tea to Lin Yan. "Do you want to join us?"

Straightforward people like Weiwei never took embarrassing memories to heart. Lin Yan couldn’t do it. He always felt that he could never be friends with his past love affairs. Since they broke up, he did his best to avoid any situation where he might run into Weiwei, whether it was class reunions or birthdays, he always went with someone else. Of course, there were times he couldn't escape her, such as right now. Lin Yan reluctantly raised his head, forcing a laugh.

"No, no, I came with A-Yan." Lin Yan's face felt very hot, and he hurriedly pulled the little Daoist priest to hide behind.

Probably because of the little Daoist's strange reputation, Weiwei glanced at A-Yan in surprise. She quickly adjusted her expression, took a cup of black tea from the plate and handed it to A-Yan. She also gave Lin Yan two laminated pamphlets. Shee said: "This is the biggest activity of our club this semester. I have been busy preparing for more than two months. I'm losing my hair from how tired I am."

"Sounds great." Lin Yan's answer was a bit awkward.

"I hope you like it." She grinned.

A team of staff members rushed forward as they called her name. When they saw Weiwei and Lin Yan standing face to face without speaking, they began to mock: "Hey, is this the guy you used to go out with?" Shu Shengfu gave Lin Yan a once-over, shifting their gaze from the plaid shirt with good texture to the CK label on the jeans. He said, "You know how to pick the lookers. Such a nice little boy."

Weiwei didn't get angry. She simply turned around and said calmly: "What kind of look? This was the man I almost married. It doesn't matter what kind of person he is, he will marry into someone else's family." Everyone's face changed into realization in the shift of tone, and there was a wave of awkwardness. Shu Shengfu had a grimace on his face, and he pat Lin Yan on the shoulder. "So that's who you are. You had such an amazing girl get away from you. Too bad we don't have time to catch up" The words were addressed to Lin Yan, but his eyes kept staring at Weiwei.

Lin Yan smiled and said faintly: "If you want to know my methods, it'll be 100 yuan per lesson. Although you should look at my state now to see how it turns out."

There was another burst of laughter. Weiwei was a little embarrassed. She glared at Shu Shengfu and turned her face to Lin Yan and said with a straight face: "Don't pay attention to them, they're just fooling around. By the way, you two don't need to line up here. There are a few rows of seats reserved for the staff. We all have to be on duty at the door and can’t go in. It’ll be a pity for them to be empty, and it doesn't look good for the photos. Go sit there.” She pulled out two blue tickets from the bottom of the pamphlet tray, which were similar to those in Lin Yan's hand, except that there was a small yellow VIP logo in the upper right corner.

Lin Yan instinctively wanted to refuse, but when Weiwei said that there was a question-and-answer session in the lecture, she was too nervous to sit in the front row and talk directly with the professor. He clutched the pamphlet hesitantly but eventually accepted the tickets.

"However. . ." Lin Yan thought for a second: "I need three seats, can I?"

Weiwei glanced sharply at the girl behind Lin Yan. Lin Yan shook his head with a strange expression: "No, my friend hasn't come over yet."

Weiwei asked the girl next to her for a ticket, She seemed reluctant to ask, but she whispered: "Lin Yan, are you. . ."

A large group of well-dressed girls swarmed behind him, and the one who took the lead was surprised when she saw Weiwei, gesturing to the handsome guy that was in front of her. Weiwei glanced at Lin Yan helplessly. She wanted to say something, but Lin Yan suddenly interrupted her: "I'll go now if that's alright. My friends are still waiting for me."

A group of people huddled Weiwei and she continued to hand out drinks. She was a very social person. No matter where she went, people always flocked around her. Lin Yan was the opposite. Although Lin Yan was popular, he felt more at ease alone as opposed to being in the crowd every day. Lin Yan handed the three VIP seat tickets to the little Daoist priest, and the two walked along the red carpet to the staff seats together.

The backstage corridor was completely different from the front hall. The western-style decoration was magnificent. The gilded flowers float across the wall. After staring at them for a while, they seemed to jump off the wall. Lin Yan stroked the wallpaper with a finger, unsure of what to feel. He was a little embarrassed, a little nostalgic, he didn't know what expression he should wear. He wasn't sure what to do with himself.

His life shouldn’t be like this. Lin Yan looked up at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling. He had felt that the world was splitting apart when he and Weiwei broke up half a year ago. In a normal world, he and Weiwei would have been the ideal couple, standing at the door of their home together to welcome their guests. Here, he walked down the corridor alone in a daze, and fell into an abyss behind the main entrance of the lecture hall, falling endlessly to the ground.

The cold fingers touched the back of his hand. He held his wrist a little harder. His thumb slid into the palm of his hand and opened his fist, giving his hand a light squeeze. Lin Yan paused and sighed, his fingers curling back around the other's hand. It was as if holding Xiao Yu's hand was natural. It was cold, firm and slender, like holding a piece of porcelain. Xiao Yu turned around and wrapped Lin Yan's right hand in his palm. He didn't know why he suddenly felt so calm. He thought it was always good for someone to stand by him through the most embarrassing moments, regardless of whether or not that person had been dead for almost 500 years.

[im-the-punk-who]

Hey, I was wondering if you have a book rec

!!

Okay so in full disclosure, I have a really hard time reading books. My brain sometime around six years ago just decided that wasn't its style anymore, so I don't read a TON. A lot of these aren’t going to be recent releases. However, here are a bunch of books I would absolutely recommend checking out! I tried to include a variety of genres but I have uh.....five bookshelves in my apartment so if you're looking for more of a certain genre let me know!

Theatre:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

These are my two favorite plays - they're both absurdist, humorous, and have some fun things to say. They’re both by old white guys but like....I love both Tom Stoppard and Samuel Beckett DEEPLY and they have all of my love and respect.

Non-Fiction/Educational:

Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum - this is considered a 'classic' on the psychology of racism, and was particularly helpful for me as a white person in arming myself against 'reverse racism' thoughts and in dissembling my own prejudices. This is mostly a rec for other white folks, but Tatum also addresses 'having the courage to sit at the black table' as a way of claiming your own identity outside of the stereotypes the dominant society expects of you.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown - Okay listen I just really REALLY love Brene Brown, she is a therapist most famous for her TED talk about Vulnerability and this is just...listen I really like to read this book when I am sad and feel like shit because it makes me feel strong. I reread this book at least once a year.

Imagined Communities by Benendict Anderson - This is an absolutely fascinating read on the rise of nationalism. It’s a bit dry and wordy, but the ideas and use of history as propaganda, spinning the story of a nation to pit it against or on the same side as other nations, and the ways in which these tactics shaped cultural history is just!!!! Amazing.

Gay New York by George Chauncey - This is just one of the most informative and interesting reads of queer history in New York that I’ve ever come across. It’s one of the ‘must reads’ of queer history and has so many interesting tidbits that I have to recommend it. It’s a bit old(published in 1994) but I still find it relevant and interesting to read.

Personal Fiction/Autobiographical Fiction

White Girls by Hilton Als - I went to a reading of this book when it first came out. It was so much fun and so eye-opening for me as a baby queer in NYC that I bought the book there. I wanna be really clear that Als does not pull punches and a lot of people don’t quite like it, but I love Als’ style of writing. The stories and essays in this book are amazing and funny and heartbreaking and informative of queer experience - particularly black queer experience - that I always feel like...honored? to experience through writing? This is one of those ‘you’re gonna suffer but you’re gonna be happy about it’ reads - it can be hard to face because of how very hard the pills are to swallow but like....gosh I just love this book and it’s interesting and hilarious and great.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins  - this is my tin hat favorite. It hits....ugh. This is one of those books that came out and like every government agency freaked the fuck out over it. It’s an interesting look into the quote-unquote dark underbelly of capitalism; how and why countries manipulate each other through economic policies. Super interesting read with a nice style of prose.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs Okay so full disclosure I have not finished reading this, but I’m far enough through to rec it. This book chronicles the author’s attempt to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica from front to back, and it is just as kooky and hilarious as it sounds. I am very incredibly and deeply offended this author stole both my schtick and my initials, thereby preventing me from doing this exact thing. I read through the phone book in its entirety when I was three. I had it in me. Anyway, this is basically the author just listing weird interesting facts he’s read about and connecting them to his daily life, but it’s a fun read, and you learn a lot of totally useless facts, which is absolutely my jam.

When Skatboards Will Be Free by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh - HI I LOVE THIS BOOK. I’ve read it maybe three times over. It’s so fun and interesting. You may notice that a lot of the books I rec are very absurdist in their humor, and this is no exception. This book is full of the dry wit and just weird goddamn shit you could only expect from the child of a revolution that never came. You want to read a book about someone who Went Through Shit? Read this book. It’s funny and heartbreaking and just. AHHHH. Seriously I cannot recommend this enough.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch - FIGHT ME ON THIS. I love this book.....so much. Yes it’s technically a comic book but the stories are so INTERESTING and hilarious and full of exactly the dry absurdist humor I eat the fuck up. Also! Allie Brosch recently released a sequel of sorts called Solutions and Other Problems that I recommend without even reading it.

Poetry

Pansy by Andrea Gibson - IF YOU ARE NOT READING THE POETRY OF ANDREA GIBSON WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. I cried seven times reading this book. There are only like 14 poems. Please please read this to break your own queer heart :)

Bloodsport by Yves Olade - This is a tiny book full of absolutely devastating poetry. Most of it has to do with the grief of relationships, but like....gosh I love all of Olade’s stuff. (Also!! This is available as a pay-what-you-wish pdf!!)

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón - This book focuses a lot on the author’s experiences of loss, and knowing that loss is going to happen. I’m completely devastated every time I read this.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Bartimeaus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud - So what if I am a dumb millennial I love this series. It’s another dry and deadpan humor, with weird additions and Stroud’s use of footnotes to absolutely crack me the fuck up means I gotta rec this. I just gotta. Four(I think?) books following the deeply unlikeable Nathaniel and his Djinn Bartimaeus, who just wants to eat humans and have a deeply enjoyable enemies to lovers plotline with his arch rival.

The Magic's Price Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey - Okay I know I’ve recced this before. I will rec it again. This was the very first series I ever read that featured a gay protagonist and I was. Devastated? Reformed? I latched onto Vanyel Ashkevron and I am never letting this depressed emo boy go. Try me, I bite. Seriously, this book was released in the 80s and yet it is still relevant, I still cry - god i LOVE this series SO MUCH. And, MERCEDES LACKEY actually invented unbury your gays, sorry I make the rule on that one. :) Also there are magic talking horses??????? Seriously please read this series I love it so much.

Fire Bringer & The Sight by David Clement-Davies - This is another series that was absolutely formative in my baby lexicon. These are books about magical animals and their inner societal workings and both books address the ideas of good, evil, darkness, compassion and good will, and destiny. I am obsessed with these books, they are some of the most interesting of the genre I’ve read, and so incredibly intricately written. LOVE these books.

Vampire Earth Series by E. E. Knight - The Witcher before it was cool. Sort of but like...there are schools of Cat, Bear, etc and it has COOL VAMPIRES I LOVE THSI SERIES. Basically, earth has been taken over by a race of alien ‘Vampires’ and follows a human involved in the resistance. The writing in this series is...wow. It’s so intricate and interesting and involved. I own the whole series because I love it so much, including the after-series hardback novels. I’m so messy and I love it.

Kindred by Octavia Butler - You know how people are like ‘YOU SHOULD READ OCTAVIA BUTLER!!’ ? You should absolutely do that. This novel is mindblowing and interesting and the pace and narrative are so so so interesting. Heartbreaking, god, horrific. Butler is an amazing writer and this novel, while my personal favorite, is not by any means the only of her books I would recommend. STORIES. STORIES!!!!!!!

Fiction

The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel: A Novel by Magdalena Zyzak - This book is so fucking good. It’s imaginative, funny, intelligent....it’s honestly one of the best fiction novels I’ve ever read. Again, dry, absurdist humor, this book sort of reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s style of writing.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London - This is a classic, a true classic. The social commentary of this book is so so good, London’s style flows and, personally, as a dog and animal expert, the anthropomorphisation of Buck and his fellow animals is just so well done. I love this book, it’s quite an easy read, and I reread it at least once a year.

Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark - Okay. Okay okay!!!!!! I gotta take a deep breath about this one. This book is. Yuh. This is a bit younger leaning than the other fictions, focusing almost entirely on high school level characters, however the experiences and commentary is just so so good. Focusing on a diverse group of characters growing up in Hawaii in the 1970′s, this book addresses the intersectionalities of gender, sexuality, race, immigration, education, and how we define who we are. I’m obsessed.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles - A heartbreaking novel about war, innocence, adolescence, and how we hide from our truths. It’s...so good, this book hurts me a LOT okay. The prose is phenomenal, the story is poignant, and it feels like I’m ripping my own heart out with a fishhook every time I finish it.

The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan - This is one of those books I half recommend because it’s so good, and half because of the deep wealth of knowledge it presents the reader. The author’s use of her own culture is just....goddddddddd. Intricate and interesting and so delicately included in the narrative that you can feel the love the author has for it. It’s a long read and it took me almost a month to get through reading every day, but god. It’s so soft and amazingly written I both wanted to read it all at once and take my time with it. This is another one that deals with the duality of humanity and how we connect with one another. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead by James Kirkwood Jr. - I love this book I love this book I LOVE THIS BOOK. It’s fucking hilarious, entertaining, I literally laughed out loud at every single chapter. Hilarious and poignant and surprisingly deep, this book literally follows the journey of a man in which literally everything that could go wrong does. It’s fucking hilarious.

I hope that helped and gave you some new books!!! <3

[letterboxd]

How I Letterboxd #12: Joe Lynch.

Self-described cinedork and Mayhem filmmaker Joe Lynch tells Horrorville’s Brett Petersel about cinematic sausage, getting to direct Creepshow episodes and being a three-star starter on Letterboxd.

“Even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going ‘okay people, let’s screw this up today!’” —Joe Lynch

It is always a pleasure to find film directors lurking on Letterboxd. Joe Lynch is a bona fide, OG member, having racked up more than 1,500 diary entries, giving half-star reviews to his own work, and creating lists of the movies that have influenced the making of his films.

There are the films that were in Lynch’s subconscious when he made Mayhem, a workplace splatter led by Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving. There are the movies he watched while researching the Salma Hayek-starring Everly. And this just in: films that influenced The Right Snuff, one of Lynch’s two episodes for the new Creepshow series—based on the 1982 horror-comedy classic and its sequels—which premieres on Shudder April 15.

Like so many of us, Lynch took time during the pandemic to catch up on films he had neglected to watch in spite of a previous career as a video-store clerk (a Criterion Channel subscription helped him get on top of the backlog). In this edition of ‘How I Letterboxd’, Lynch discusses how those classics have informed his craft, who his Letterboxd faves are, and why the horror genre is the future of the industry.

Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving in Joe Lynch’s ‘Mayhem’ (2017).

How long have you been on Letterboxd? Joe Lynch: I remember when Letterboxd was in its beta phase way back in good ol’ 2012 and I couldn’t wait to sign up, breathlessly waiting for an invite to the party. At the time, I had a digital database where I would log movies I’ve seen, but it was always subject to whatever laptop or device I had handy and would just be a mess of titles with no rhyme or reason.

When a member follows you, what should they expect? I put it right up top in my description: “I am not a critic”, just a lover of cinema. At first I didn’t want to write “reviews” in the description, especially since I first started using the service whilst in the throes of a horrible experience making a film that I thought would bury me and I’d never work again. I was like, and I still feel this way, “who am I to rip on a movie when someone can throw it right back at me? Like ‘dude, you directed Knights of Badassdom, sit down’.”

I’ve always had the highest regard for filmmakers who can get anything made. So even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going “okay people, let’s screw this up today!” but instead were trying their best and circumstances just got in the way, which always happens. Having made a few films and TV now, I’m fully aware of the trials and tribulations that go into making a movie and have all the respect in the world for anyone who can steer that ship to completion. It’s hard making movies and even harder making one that is your original vision [and] that is widely embraced by an audience.

I have very weird tastes so don’t be shocked if you glance at my recent activity and you see Casablanca, The Silence of the Lambs or Bigger Than Life right next to The Legend of Billie Jean, Con Air or Candyman 3. I’m usually bouncing all over the place in terms of what kinds of movies I’m screening. From films recommended to me, to films that I may be watching for research, or even just how I’m feeling that day and maybe need a good laugh or a good cry or to be scared stiff. I like that kind of variety. There’s something out there for everyone and every emotion. If anything, I’d say expect the unexpected when it comes to my viewing habits.

What’s your favorite feature to use and why? One of the residual effects of working at video stores as a kid was my desire to siphon people’s tastes in movies and possibly recommend films to others as well, so my favorite feature is the ease of use in logging films and being able to quickly recall those films as well in the event someone asks me “what’s something I should watch?”. Getting older, the “employee’s picks” in my head is getting a little harder to cross-reference than usual so to have the ability to whip out my phone and say “oh man, I just watched Possession and it was awesome!” is exponentially helpful to a cinedork like myself.

‘Big Trouble in Little China’ (1986)—a five-star film says Joe Lynch.

How do you rate the films you watch? For example, what type of film is worthy of a five-star review? Funny, I always start out on three-stars mainly because I’m so proud of the filmmakers actually getting it completed! I’ve been there! I’m somewhat biased in my reflections because I’m always rooting for the artists and from there, it’s usually gauged on both an emotional level and a technical level. I always get made fun of while watching movies because I can point out hidden cuts or when a shot is reversed but [I’m] not trying to point out flaws, it's just how my brain is wired at this point. When you pull the curtain back enough to see how the cinematic sausage is made, it's harder and harder to objectively watch a movie without trying to dissect how it was done. I try so hard to shut that part of my brain off to just passively enjoy a movie but it’s tough. I usually skew towards the positive.

The films I’ve given five-stars are movies that have continually affected me over the years and have inspired me as a person and a filmmaker, which is everything from The Empire Strikes Back, Dawn of the Dead and When Harry Met Sally... to Big Trouble in Little China, The Blob, The Last of the Mohicans. I looked back at my five-stars and it’s mostly movies that made a significant impression on me from an early age and continue to do so, maybe even more so as I get older and I view these movies in a different light.

The anthology show Creepshow returns to Shudder this month. Tell us about the two episodes you directed for the series, ‘Pipe Screams’ and ‘The Right Snuff’. Both Creepshow and Creepshow 2 were important films in my youth and even today, they were some of the first movies I remember where I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to be scared or laugh. These films proclaimed we could do both! As a disciple of George A. Romero, Stephen King and Tom Savini, Creepshow really shaped how I watched movies and how I made them—consider the anthology I did a few years back, Chillerama, as a prime example. So when Shudder announced the show, I had to do everything on my part to convince them I could take the baton from these masters of the macabre and do them and the many fans proud.

To come to the table and say “I want ‘The Right Snuff’ to feel like 2001: A Space Odyssey crashed into The Andromeda Strain, and ‘Pipe Screams’ is my homage to The Blob and Delicatessen”—and then everyone just immediately getting it—was a dream. Between the casts I was lucky enough to work with and the amazing crew, especially the FX geniuses at KNB, it really was one of those dream jobs I’ll never forget. I hope audiences dig the madness we conjured up on those!

Season 2 of the Shudder series ‘Creepshow’ returns to the horror streamer this month. A third season has been ordered.

If you were to expand the Mayhem universe, what would it look like? We tried! I pitched the producers the idea of the ID-7 virus in other locations and situations because in essence the idea of being uninhibited by mental and emotional constraints is so ripe. My favorite was the idea that it would get loose in a Wal-Mart or a mall on Black Friday when consumers swarm to these department stores for the best deals. You’ve seen the videos, it’s just mass hysteria. The footage already out there would have been perfect to use already and those people aren’t even infected!

Sadly it didn’t come to pass, mainly because they asked “how do we get Steven and Samara back?” and I didn’t want to force those characters into that scenario, Die Hard 2 style. Plus they’re both huge stars now and likely unavailable for the next twelve years. But the ideas people have thrown out to me show that it was impactful enough to warrant variant scenarios in a “what if?” way that’s really exciting. Who knows, maybe the ID-7 virus could find its way onto the set of a movie production…

What excites you about the future of filmmaking, especially in horror films? The world is embracing new faces and voices more than ever and it means we’re getting stories that may not have ever had the chance to flourish and be seen and heard before. For the longest time the system was much more rigid because executives and producers thought that the audience was much less accepting of a wider world view in cinema and I think the last ten years has proven them wrong. There shouldn’t be any more “token” character or “strong [insert non-white-male] character” descriptions in development meetings. I hear it less and less, which is great because that’s not our world and since cinema—especially horror—is and always should be a reflection of our culture and times, it should reflect these evolutions as well.

When I made Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, the discussions over how one of the characters—a Black character played by Texas Battle—survived at the end was not in the original script but I pushed for it mainly because it was rare for the Black character to do so in a horror film. That shouldn’t be an anomaly! Why can’t there be a ‘final guy’ or have the survivors be LGBT+ or a POC and not the usual stereotypes?

I think now it’s more commonplace to see this and it excites me for the future of the genre that artists are being more welcome to express themselves without it feeling like it’s a gimmick or a twist on the norm.

I think generations of kids growing up with horror now are gonna see these strides in the storytelling—and who’s telling the stories—and push it even further. Places like Netflix and Shudder are willing to take chances with new voices more than the studio system, now more than ever, and that’s only going to produce some great stories now and in the future.

Erica Leehrsen and Texas Battle in a scene from ‘Wrong Turn 2: Dead End’ (2007).

How has the pandemic affected your creativity and influenced your work moving forward? Aside from losing a bunch of gigs due to the shutdown and being delayed on shooting Creepshow—which was a blessing in disguise considering the time we took to further develop the scripts and design of each episode—one of the main effects of the pandemic was how it gave many of us the time to catch up on a lot of films, mainly older ones. As you’d see from my diary entries on this very site, my viewing habits changed from a lot of modern films in that rat-race of catching up with the latest release, to mainly watching films I loved in the past and a lot of ’40s to ’70s films that I never got around to.

We have the tendency as film lovers to keep a mental list of films we’ll eventually get around to as if we have all the time in the world, but with the threat of the apocalypse and no real new content coming our way at the usual rapid clip, it was so gratifying to buy an annual subscription to Criterion Channel and start watching films like The Old Dark House, The Crimson Kimono, Contempt and many others.

All of these films impacted how I view film now and have bled into future projects I’m working on—especially on the technical side, when the world wasn’t influenced vicariously through MTV coverage and letting scenes play out in masters or longer takes, relishing in the performance or the mise-en-scéne. So, silver linings!

Before we go, who are some of your favorite follows on Letterboxd? I’m a big fan of Sean Baker, who I’ve known for almost 20 years now! We worked together in NYC and I was already a big Greg the Bunny fan but our mutual appreciation for fringe and exploitation films, especially international horror and genre films, seems to have bonded us for life. I love when he posts what he’s watching. Even if he’s just saying he screened something on Blu or streaming, his thoughts on cinema are always enjoyable and engaging.

In the same breath, filmmaker Jim Cummings has the best perspective on modern filmmaking and he’s clearly a big fan of using Letterboxd, so whenever I see peers like them using the app it makes me feel less like an obsessive movie dork myself, who should be getting back to work.

Some of the other follows I really enjoy are cineastes like Elric Kane and Brian Saur, who are the hosts of the New Beverly podcast Pure Cinema. Writers Anya Stanley, David Chen, Walter Chaw and Lindsay Blair Goeldner, musician and filmmaker Brendon Small, writer and critic Brian Tallerico, author Glenn Kenny, filmmaker Rodman Flender—just to name a few people who clearly love film and love sharing their thoughts on films in a very thoughtful way.

More times than not, I’m getting some great advice for what to watch next in my “new from friends” section! Because, like being at the video store, it’s casual conversations like the ones on Letterboxd that I love and always steering me to new films or revisiting old ones with a new perspective.

Related content

Joe’s film influences for ‘The Right Snuff’ Creepshow episode

The Video Store: Hollie Horror’s list of horror films with memorable scenes in video stores

Office Workplace Horror: J Cara’s list of office horror and workplace thrillers

Follow Brett on Letterboxd

Follow Horrorville—the home for horror on Letterboxd

[skamamoroma]

“I Told Sunset About You” - Review/Recap/Whole Bunch of Nonsense Rambling about my Love!

Every now and then a show comes along that I get absolutely knocked off my feet by and I can’t stop thinking about it until I write a whole bunch of nonsense because it’s THAT GOOD and this damn show. I’ve thought about it all week. Outside of the SCU and other longer running stuff, the last time a show sidetracked me like this was San Junipero and I dreamed about that episode for weeks! This show got to me so much that I knew I had to write that whole bunch of nonsense for real and I decided to write a bit of a review and then some specific posts about some of the themes, metaphors, ideas and shots etc that I adore. So if this is not your thing, I tag religiously!

So if you haven’t seen it, the show is about two young boys, Teh and Oh-aew, living in Phuket in Thailand about to take their entry exams/go through the Uni acceptance process. They were childhood best friends until they had an argument which caused them to stop speaking to one another for many years until they meet again at a Chinese class. The story is about friendship, identity, love, rivalry, family, authenticity, ambition and growing up. It’s sweet, funny, painful, warm, difficult, romantic, hopeful, honest and insightful. I hope you don’t fall asleep reading... !

My friend in Japan recommended this show to me. I watch a lot of movies/tv from different parts of the world but rarely from this part of the world not because I don’t want to - I DO! - I just don’t know what’s good and I tend to rely on recommendations from friends or coming across things by chance. If you’ve followed me for even a while, you know my JAM is character driven, nuanced, beautiful shows that go heavy on authentic emotion but use cinematography/music/sound/colour and other creative tricks to further the story. Nothing makes me go starry eyed more than a show SHOWING without a single moment of TELLING where it isn’t necessary and this show hit every single one of those things and more to the point that I was completely swooning at how much of a masterpiece it is. I swear some tiny moments in this show have me floored with how effective and meaningful they are. ARGH. 

As icing on the cake, it’s beautifully LGBT+ themed (written in part and, I believe, directed by LGBT+ folks - if I’ve got that wrong from translations, let me know). These themes are created with care and love, felt refreshing with characters I don’t feel I’ve really seen before. I know that there is info to suggest that they wanted to create this show much more FOR LGBT+ folks and to differentiate it from a style of show that is perhaps more popular for a mainstream audience or a certain audience that wants a certain thing from some Thai dramas (I’m personally not into BL - I think that’s what the genre is called as I kinda don’t know how to feel about that stuff being hella tropey and made for a specifically straight female audience)… and you can tell. They apparently didn’t promote this as that genre. Some of the other themes were so interesting and explored so beautifully. The idea of rivalry and competition was handled with so much insight and depth that it really did stun me at time’s how skilled the writing is. 

The acting… oh the acting. I know Billkin and PP have apparently been close friends for many years but even that sometimes doesn’t guarantee to equal this level of chemistry. They are stunning actors, genuinely nuanced, so charismatic and loveable. I love that even the sad anguished moments are messy as hell (and a couple so delightfully dramatic), the gentle sweeping romantic moments are swoon worthy and allowed to linger or exist in silence, the tension they create is often feels a little too intrusive to watch and the nuance - so much is said without saying anything at all. Some specific moments are handled with so much care when dealing with really complex emotion and I’m floored to see such young actors achieve some of the moments they do because some of the emotion is genuinely complex. There’s a lot of Teh who is terribly complex and to achieve that balance between difficult to work out and yet still feeling like you understand him is a very tricky thing and yet, that’s what I felt when I watched his character. I am in awe of their abilities to be honest and just found them completely mesmerising from start to finish. I love that a lot of their character traits are established so strongly through acting choices that by the end, when both have come kinda full circle and have learned from the other, you can see the OTHER in the OTHER, if that makes sense! Teh in the final few scenes takes on some of Oh’s characteristics. It’s so noticeable but never oversold. Perfect.I can’t overstate this enough! Some moments left me breathless for so many reasons. 

My mum lived in Thailand for a while and in Phuket where the show is set and I loved seeing stuff I recognised from a few of her photographs. I felt I learned a lot about Thai culture too, stuff my mum would have learned and I adored the world surrounding these characters! Btw, if I get anything incorrect re: the culture - come shout at me! :)

The music. Knowing that the soundtrack was written for the show and sung mostly by the two leads was such a surprise because they are beautiful songs. The score is, and I cannot emphasise this enough, bloody gorgeous. There are parts where they play the most gentle soft piano music that kinda breaks my heart and others when they perfectly place the most uplifting soaring sounds that enhance some simple scenes so much that they felt so impactful. There’s a song on the score called Skyline Minimal which is used in a specific scene and in the documentary the director talks about how just the sound of it, you don’t need the lyrics, it just makes you miss someone and makes you cry and he’s absolutely spot on so that when you hear it, what happens on screen just shatters your heart. The soundtrack is woven into the storyline so deeply that the lyrics are used, the melody is used to trigger Oh-aew’s memories at one point and the pretend source of the main song, Skyline, is directly linked to not only the idea of learning Chinese and what that means for them both as characters and as a pair but two of the main themes of the season, ambition and identity! 

The cinematography. Christ on a bike. I could write essays. I am a sucker for meaningful camera work, stuff that does half of the storytelling for you and I cannot praise this more highly other than to say it’s close to perfect. Some moments are so absolutely mesmerising and meaningful that a simple movement or a simple peek at something means a LOT. I’m going to have to write a whole damn post on some of my favourite moments because I can count on one hand the shows/movies of late that I’ve seen that achieve what this show does with camera work, directorial choices and general approach to non-verbal story telling. The level of thought and detail and using a camera in a creative and loving way... I found it so moving and so beautiful the way you could feel the level of consideration that went into the smallest moments, how entire moments of character development were done silently…

The use of metaphor. Anyone who knows me knows I am absolutely WEAK for this stuff. If a good complex emotion or concept can be developed in a way other than with words then I am yours… I will read into everything, enjoy every clever reference and revel in the use of colour or light or sound or motif. This show was a gift in that sense. I’m going to end up writing posts about stuff like the use of colour and the hibiscus flower and coconuts and the use of Chinese words. Again, some moments were so genuinely beautifully done and unexpected that I was like a kid in a sweetshop and was a little swoony over them. There are some moments when the Chinese phrases/words are used through their tutoring in a way to sum up the character’s feelings, moments are built up to by establishing motifs that, when used to their conclusion make for the most BEAUTIFUL or gut wrenching moments. The hibiscus flower scene/colouring in may  be one of my most favourite scenes in the whole show and I just smile thinking of how wonderfully it was developed.

Another thing I truly adored was how I genuinely loved every single character. There’s no demonisation, no discarding of characters at the expense of others (especially as I hate when women in movies are treated this way when there’s no reason to), no characters who are used as scapegoats. If anything, you come out adoring the characters who traditionally “get in the way” of a pairing because, well, they don’t. They don’t feel in the way or an annoyance. They feel genuine and lovely and you root for them. That’s a really really kind way to treat your characters but, above anything, it’s just lovely to see that much consideration given to characters to treat them all as humans. I get a little sick of seeing ‘bad guys’, you know? I like flawed, messy but human people. Hoon as a big brother is so understated but when he appears and when it matters, some of his moments are so genuinely emotional it’s amazing how they allow him to be a typical brother, kinda dismissive and teasing his younger sibling but then he’s THERE and really fully there for his brother in some truly significant moments. It felt so earned for me and goodness, one moment kills me when Teh is full on in the middle of a family fight, sobbing and confused and in a room of them all, Hoon goes directly to his brother and the simple way it happens had me in bits. Apparently, that was an improvised scene too so it makes it a little special.

The ending. Any LGBT+ soul out there knows the pain of watching another miserable ending and, don’t get me wrong, I’m ALL FOR endings where you don’t necessarily get what you WANT but only ones that make sense and are earned so they make you think or realise you don’t NEED what you want etc. BUT also want happiness and hope and love and watching LGBT+ characters thrive. Not to spoil, but they treat these two very well by the end… you just have to make your way through a box of tissues first!

So yeah, it was alright. Hahahaha. I genuinely think it’s a masterpiece. I feel the love and care that went into it, the time taken to consider and think and find ways to say a LOT by saying very LITTLE. I feel the commitment to LGBT+ media, little nods to other shows/moments… I feel their wish to be original and to try to make new characters feel fresh and unseen. I just adored it and I’m so grateful it exists because as a piece of art, when you finish it and can write legit essays (and I’ve seen posts other people have written and I’m in NO WAY the only one here) then you know you’ve done something kinda special! So that’s me, getting my whole bunch of nonsense down… and now I can make specific posts and ramble a whole bunch more! Mwahaha.

[gizkasparadise]

kdrama rec/review: into the ring

KDRAMA AND CDRAMA MASTER LIST OF REVIEWS

Series: into the ring Episodes: 16 Genres: politics, comedy, romance, slice of life, some drama (not a ton) Spoilers in the Rec: minor ones/for the set-up If You Like, You’ll Like: parks and rec but if it was about 15% hornier and had inhaled a bunch of helium, women who top, and underdogs fighting for good causes or whatever 

Rank: 9/10

PREMISE

seo gong myung is a civil servant, punches in and out of work directly on time, and has the vibe of the kid in class who reminds the teacher that they forgot to collect the homework. initially part of the planning and finance division, he ruffled one too many feathers by holding the higher ups accountable and got demoted. now, he sits at a desk and answers civil complaints from an anonymous, online nemesis--who goes by the alias of The Tiger Moth.

goo se ra goes by the alias of the Tiger Moth and files constant civil complaints. unable to hold a job and lacking in Credentials, she spends a lot of her time getting riled up about lost causes, chasing down people who litter, and barking at civil servants because she’s an underdog, god damn it. finally, one job opportunity that lines directly with her interests appears: running for office to represent her district

inevitably gong myung and se ra’s paths cross. and they fight motherfucking crime

mostly through documents

but still

fighting motherfucking crime 

MAIN CHARACTERS

goo se ra

the main heroine of the story, se ra is the perfect candidate for public office: she’s passionate about civil affairs, stand her ground, and she really cant hold down any other job. motivated by the high yearly income (which amounts to about 50k in USD, the world is a nightmare), se ra sets out to secure her spot representing the district she’s lived in her entire life. 

justice first, think later. living embodiment of do no harm but take no shit. tops. big time.

gong myung

a mid-ranking civil servant, gong myung is seemingly content to live a straightforward, dry life while wearing a satchel until ser ra essentially bulldozes her way into it. very much a letter of the law type of guy, he gets caught up in se ra’s campaign and the chaos that follows it and finds his life changing because of it.

you think he’s going to be an asshole but he’s actually a precious little nerd man. will cradle se ra’s closed fist as gently as a baby bird because he is s o f t. overestimates his ability to seduce away someone’s financial records.

SOME SUPPORT CHARACTERS

jo maeng deok

a long-established politician and a classmate of se ra’s father. he’s got some backstory with other characters but i dont want to spoil. major asshole. 

kim min jae

se ra’s boyfriend of 9 years who works as a secretary for jo maeng deok. puts work over love and willingly walked away from se ra’s sexy anniversary party so something’s clearly wrong with him, morally. his actor played the sweet, tragically dead boyfriend from be melodramatic which caused a lot of cognitive dissonance 

yoon hee soo

fabulous councilwoman who is also an attorney who also has amazing hair. a little ambivalent about her own moral code, but i mentioned the hair, right? great hair.

goo young tae and kim sam sook

 se ra’s parents. i feel like anything i say will ruin some pleasant surprises, so just know that they are awesome and i love them and it’s clear chaos is an inherited trait. 

kwon woo young, jang han bi, and  kim ja ryong

se ra’s #squad who become her campaign team and motivational support, consists of a young mother trying to get back into her finance career, a former judo champion with a tragic past sports match, and a literal child who just kind of hangs out with them after se ra stops being his babysitter 

Drawbacks

this might just be a translation/cultural exchange issue, but there were points where i was completely lost as to what was happening with the #Politics side of things--mainly in the back half. sometimes the politics plot wasn’t as interesting to me because of that

Reasons to Watch.

it’s just so goddamn weird? the filming style is something i haven’t seen in a kdrama before, and it fits the tone and characters so well. there’s such a consistent style of humor throughout that i loved, and the reaction shots alone can be so A+++

the characters fail sometimes. but it’s not a desolate thing. it shows that they’re scrappy and they come back after every defeat. the tone/message of the show is consistent from start to finish in a way most shows don’t do

but really it’s about the otp. it’s all about the otp. here’s so many subversions of typical kdrama tropes. i will attempt to demonstrate with some examples, some spoilers ahead:

se ra sees gong myung with another woman late at night. sounds like it’s time for MISCOMMUNICATION. but no, he comes up to her and literally says “I don’t want to be misunderstood” at the end of his explanation (keep in mind they weren’t even dating yet)

despite being like 4 feet shorter, se ra pushes gong myung against the wall with sexual tension multiple times. lmao and his knees legit buckle. i love them

the couple gets together about halfway through, stays together, and are a gd team throughout

gong myun is willing to be her secretary, and there’s no drama about him feeling emasculated over it

also there’s just so many adorable things about their body language? se ra often stands in front of/physically shields gong myung from things or people and he does the same (although less often, because se ra #protects), and the aforementioned cradling of her fist like a baby bird. they’re just. real cute. real real cute. and it feels like an original dynamic. 

Final Thoughts.

justice first, think later!!

[fyexo]

200915 Lay Zhang Is Aiming To Bring Chinese Music To The World

It’s been a few years now since Lay Zhang (also known as Zhang Yixing) released his debut EP Lose Control in 2016. Already a prominent star throughout Asia after debuting as part of K-pop boy band EXO back in 2012 and becoming a prominent television personality in China, Zhang – who is usually known mononymously as Lay – started down a path that year that would turn him into one of the biggest musical players in Asia less than half a decade later: in 2018, he broke onto the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart with his album Namanana, and this year he ranked No. 5 on Forbes China’s Celebrity 100 ranking.

This year, Lay dropped the duality of his Lit LP, split between two parts that arrived in June and July. A multifaceted release that spends its length blending modern musical styles with traditionally Chinese performance elements, Lay’s latest puts the emphasis on his roots. It extensively draws from classical styles and storytelling influences as he attempts to bring China to the world, as he says in the single “Lit” and relays through that song’s highly cinematic music video that sees Lay as a warrior facing down enemies amid a grandiose historic setting, inspired by the legendary general Xiang Yu.

The title track, and the album as a whole, is Lay’s attempt at expressing what he calls “M-pop,” or mixed Mandarin pop music, a genre he’s spearheading with the aim of bringing Chinese culture to global – primarily western – music listeners. Coming at a time when the world is more divided than ever, and China and the U.S.’s trade war continues, it may seem like a lofty aim. But Lay, although he shies away from discussing political ramifications on culture during a conversation with Forbes, has hope that bringing multi-cultural influences together will create greater understandings between one another and different cultures, as long as we take the time to listen to one another. Or, in his case, M-pop.

Tamar Herman: You released the long version of Lit in July, and saw much love for its blending of traditionally Chinese and modern musical elements. What was the inspiration overall for this album?

Lay: I just want to share Chinese culture, so I’m trying my best. Because I’m Chinese and I learn a lot from China, I think our country has a lot of good culture and good traditional instruments that maybe people don’t know. I want to promote that part, and let people know the very dope Chinese culture.

The sound of [the word] “lit” is very close to the Chinese word for “lotus.” I want people to know they can become what they want to be, no matter where they started, like a lotus flower that begins in the root and become beautiful flowers. I was also inspired by the cycle of life and wanted to have a Chinese perspective on it, so the first part of the album is more about the past and [tells] Chinese stories, using more traditional instruments. The second part, about the present and the things we deal with now, has more modern sounds and I worked with great producers like Scott [Storch] and Murda Beatz. Learning [and working with them] so I can mix different cultures on one track, for me it’s amazing work.  

Herman: You released an epic music video for “Lit” as the album’s first lead track, and you’re back again on Sept. 14 with a remix of “Boom” by Dutch-Moroccan DJ R3hab, which you previously released as a single. What about these two songs make them your perfect pairing for listeners to get drawn into your Lit album?

Lay: For “Boom,” I want everyone just to jump and forget. This year is really terrible, right? I want people to forget the bad things and ignore the bad things. Just make happy vibes themselves.

For the second half of the album, my original intention was to have “Changsha” to be the single. However, during the course of the release cycle, “Boom” was selected instead because it really represented a little more what’s relevant to this current climate that covid has brought to the world. I wanted to focus more on that.  I want everyone just to jump and forget. Putting aside the negativity of this year and focusing on positivity.

Herman: How did your creative process differ between Lit and prior releases?

Lay: If I play a video game, my level just goes up and up, right? So I want every year to go to the next level, ever year get better.

Herman: What type of video game character would you like to be?

I’m a warrior. If I can have the opportunity to go to another country, I’ll join the battle with [krumping originator] Tight Eyez (Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis).

Herman: Speaking of... I asked fans if they had any questions on Twitter. And while there were many great suggestions, I was surprised by how many wanted to know about your love of krumping. What about this form of dance is appealing to you and made you want to highlight it through “Lit”?

Lay: “Lit” has a very slow tempo. I just found jazz, hip-hop, etc. choreo didn’t match this song. Krump matched this song, so I tried to learn the [style]. In the beginning, it was very hard to do. I couldn’t copy the teacher, the motion, the action. I wanted to know why. The teacher was like, “You have to spend time in this kind of dance, then you can change.” I tried very hard to practice the feeling and vibe. I took maybe three months, and I’m just the beginning of krumping like a teenager. Level three in a game, maybe.

Herman: In “Lit” you say you are taking China to the world, and you’ve been talking a lot recently about how you’d like to spearhead M-Pop’s growth internationally. What do you hope to achieve?

Lay: I think Mandarin can mix with other countries’ languages to become one song, so that everyone can feel a Chinese vibe whether it’s English, French, Korean. It does not matter, I just want to mix a lot of languages, to create one track or music. If people can guess what English [songs] are talking about, they can guess what Chinese [songs] are talking about. It’s very easy to understand songs. The influence that I want to have isn’t about ranks or charts, but spreading Chinese culture to the world.

Herman: Typically, Chinese popular music is known in English as “C-pop,” with variant categories like Cantopop and Mandopop. Why do you feel it’s time to reframe the conversation as “M-pop”?

Lay: Because I think we need to mix something. It’s a global world. Also, I want music arrangements to have Chinese traditional instruments and other countries’ [instruments] put together. Traditional Chinese instruments, it’s better to use one style of instrument itself not with others. It’s a very unique sound, but you can [blend it with others] to make a new vibe.

Herman: You’ve been a top star in both the K-pop and Chinese music industries. K-pop’s having a moment in the west right now, how do you feel about M-pop’s potential?

Lay: Everybody, even me with “Namanana,” we just mix the languages, English with Chinese. But it’s basic, right? I think now M-pop has to change rules. From Lit, I saw the potential that we can reframe M-pop to another level. Let people know that it’s not just language mixing but culture mixing, instrument mixing, genre mixing. Letting people know that we have distinct instruments and unique sounds in China. I think there’s a potential to take M-pop to another level. I want to tell people, “This is Chinese music.”

Herman: You’ve been performing for many years now. How do you feel your approach to your artistry and performances have changed overtime? What have you realized is important to your craft?

Lay: For me, first of all, I think it’s all about music. If I can’t find the right music, I can’t make the performances very dope. Secondly, I think practice is very important. Practice is important if you want to make an amazing, perfect stage. So you have to spend the time practicing dancing and singing. Thirdly, I really respect my staff. Because we have these guys, they can make the stages, lights, speakers, and things for performers. Also, fans. Fans are very important. Without these four things I can do nothing.

Herman: This year’s hard on a lot of people. What makes you happy or hopeful in rough times? Any advice for people?

Lay: 2020 was terrible. But we have to trust tomorrow will be good. We have a very good tomorrow, a good future. So don’t lose confidence, don’t lose happiness. Don’t forget your dreams. Chase your dreams and be happy. And spend time with your family. If you want, you can get anything.

This interview was conducted in English and Mandarin, and edited for clarity.

source: Tamar Herman @ Forbes

[queenlua]

The Good Game Critics TM (a giant post o’ links)

yesterday i was complaining:

damn, how come the only people who are writing The Good Video Game Criticism TM are exclusively relegated to… abandoned Blogspots and Tumblrs that haven’t been updated in five years…?

and someone asked:

addadashofpepper: can you like, post links to some of these? cause the thing about these is that they are really hard to find!

oh boy, tumblr user @addadashofpepper, i would be DELIGHTED to share.  i dug through my RSS reader / bookmarks, and here’s what leapt out at me:

[under a cut because this got LONG and i got EXCITED]

ella guro: indie dev and creator of Problem Attic, which made a splash back in the day (a somewhat Braid-inspired platformer iirc).  she’s mostly removed herself from the game scene these days, but she still blogs about artsy-culture issues from time to time, and if you dig through the archives, some of her old posts on games (probably circa 2012-2015?) are so so good

prophet goddess / blood church: i discovered them literally two days ago, but i’m digging what i see (their ladykiller in a bind review was the first post i stumbled on)

dead genre chronicles: a group of three friends did a monthly JRPG podcast, where they’d play a JRPG in its entirety and talk about it.  see, they found mainstream discussions around JRPGs annoyingly stilted, including the term JRPG itself—like, we’re still using the term “JRPG” to mean “turn-based combat with funky anime aesthetics,” but that airbrushes over so many weird and fun and distinctive mechanics that developers inside-and-outside of Japan have been experimenting with, right?

they had a blog attached to the podcast, and the blog was ALSO excellent

unfortunately, they took their main website down a while back :( however:

you can get some of the old blog posts by fiddling with the wayback machine

becky backed up a bunch of her contributions to the site (i particularly liked her ffxv post & this sort-of ffxiii post that punched me in the face in a good way)

leeroy, one of the other contributors, blags here, though i don’t think he backed up his stuff from the original site

the entirety of the podcast is archived on libsyn and is very good if you’re into podcasts!

no don’t die: okay, this blog/interview series is AMAZING.  and still active!!!  ahh!!!

the whole concept is, this dude finds people who work in games.  or used to work in games.  or who ran a weird fansite for video games back in the early 00′s.  or curate some video-game-shaped things as part of a museum exhibit.  and so on, and so forth.

the dude has a knack for finding really interesting people with all kinds of windows/perspectives on games, and manages to get them to talk about really interesting things.  two of my fave interviews: rebecca heinman, who ported Doom to 3DO in ten weeks on her own in utterly batshit conditions, and mustin, because i’ve got that overclocked remix nostalgia

my friend pokey: so, they’re on tumblr, they write in all lowercase, and their writing style tends to be on the dense and referential side, which ordinarily has all the warning signs of “all pretentiousness, no substance,” right?  (i am not exempt from this, by the way; look at me typing in all lowercase like a scrub.)  but, i’ve reliably gotten interesting insights out of their posts & have been surprised how often i mention their blog to a Friend Whose Aesthetic Tastes I Respect and they’re like “ah! i LOVE that blog!”  also i liked their notes on chrono cross at the end of this post because i literally want to talk about chrono cross every waking moment of my life, come talk to me about chrono cross friends, etc

em reed’s blog is excellent.  i really liked this post about what the phone/gacha game experience is like

auntie pixelante: anna anthropy’s old blog; still not sure why she didn’t archive it somewhere?  but whatever, the wayback machine has your back.  this early review of Gone Home is reasonably representative

tim rogers: i have kind of mixed opinions on him, but i do find something in his work compelling enough that i keep coming back to him, so.

the dude made his initial splash with his extremely long mgs2 review back in the day; there’s a slightly more recent archive too; he also does a lot of sadposting on medium that ranges from “guy in my MFA” to “fuck i can’t believe this dude’s making me feel feelings” in quality, ymmv.  (he also apparently does video reviews now? that are like many hours long? and i am just not the youtube generation so i tapped out on that one bud)

tevis thompson: another critic i have mixed feelings about, but if you’re the kind of dork that enjoys reading stuff that Made A Splash At The Time, and like, nerd subculture histories, you'll have to read his “on videogame reviews” for that reason alone.  i also really dug his 100-word video game reviews series

ludus novus: i haven’t read this dude’s blog in ages, but i liked it a lot when i read it in 2012ish and there’s TONS in the archives

emily short: an IF writer who goes way back.  i haven’t read her blog lately, but the archives / older posts definiely have cool thoughts on the structure of interactive fiction

jonas kyratzes: indie game dev, creator of The Sea Will Claim Everything.  he tends to blog about lefty politics and general arts stuff more frequently than he blogs about games, but he does blog games from time to time.  i liked [1] and [2], for starters.

adam cadre: this guy goes waaay back in the IF scene and has made a bunch of Inform stuff.  i’ve never actually played his games!  but i like his blog a lot (convenient tumblr mirror here).  he almost exclusively blags about books and movies and such these days, but if you dig you can find him talking about games sometimes.  (also, Masterchef Australia, which he loved so much he wrote over fifteen thousand words about it and it’s one of my favorite bizarre blog posts on the internet)

the fool reversed: this blog is focused on LARP game design & issues around that, but i’d say it’s relevant to anyone interested in game-y topics.  as a mostly-outsider to that scene, i thought this was a fun find!

annnd a few last ones:

i haven’t kept up with critical distance in ages, but it used to be a great way to find new game writers, and quite possibly still is, i dunno

while i’ve personally bounced off timber owls a few times, i know some folks who like their writing a lot

hope this helps!!!  happy digging through internet archives and such

[nctinfo]

[TRANS] WayV’s interview with Vogue Korea December 2019 issue!

The reason why idols of 2019 differ from idols of 10 years ago, apart from fashion and music, is because they are from another generation. Rookie idol group of the newest generation. I realized this again when I interview WayV (Kun, Winwin, Ten, Lucas, Xiaojun, Yangyang, Hendery). They answer questions about dreams or people they admire differently. Before we continue on this, we need to know what exactly their team name 'WayV (Weishen V)' stands for. WayV is a Chinese group that made its debut under the Chinese label 'LABEL V' after going through SM's systematic production system. WayV is 威神V in Chinese. 'V' stands for 'Vision' which means 'to grow into global artists through music'. WayV, written in English, is a shortened version of 'We are your Vision'. The team name is explained in three languages.

They debuted in China on January 17 with their first digital album <The Vision-The 1st Digital EP> setting a record for 'firsts'. The title track ‘理所当然(Regular)’ came in second on the Chinese music website QQMusic popularity chart upon the release, third on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart in the U.S and 4th and 16th on the Social 50 chart and the Emerging Artists chart, respectively. This being the best result ever for a Chinese boy band. On May 9th, their first mini-album <Take Off-The 1st Mini Album> topped the QQMusic popularity chart and 30 local iTunes charts, making them the Chinese boy group with the most no.1 ranks on iTunes Album charts. On October 29, the title track 'Moonwalk' of their second mini-album <Take Over The Moon> topped the Chinese music site QQMusic's popularity chart and topped the iTunes Albums chart in 16 regions.

They also sang Chinese songs on a Korean stage. 'Moonwalk' was introduced on MBC Show Champion on October 30th. For Lucas, who is also a member of SuperM, it was the first time to sing a Chinese song on a Korean stage. "It was amazing. Since I had never been on a Korean stage as a Chinese idol. There are not many stages in Chinese to show our performance, so the members were very happy and nervous." (Lucas) "Around two-thirds of the audience were Korean fans. I was very happy to see we're liked in Korea too." (Winwin) Already, WayV is forming fandoms not only in China but also in Asia. On November 22nd, they will start their Asian Fanmeeting Tour, starting in Wuhan, China.

Their beginnings were all commonly K-Pop. Except for Xiaojun, who naturally dreamed of becoming a singer as both his parents and brother were involved in music and Ten, who danced from when he was young and after his grandmother introduced him to artists, he went on the path to become a singer after seeing K-Pop stars. "EXO is very popular in China. I dreamed of becoming an artist after watching Hyung's music videos". (Winwin) The same goes for Yangyang who grew up in Germany from 11 to 16 years old. "I saw EXO sunbaenims stage of 'Growl' in Germany and took part in SM's world audition. Now, I want to become an artist who is good at anything like Taemin sunbaenim." (Yangyang) "I wanted to be an artist who plays the piano and sing ballads. As I entered the company I dreamed of dancing and performing while watching EXO sunbaenim." (Kun)

As expected, the classic idol formula 'let's try our hardest everything' is common to them. They continue learning and upgrading themselves. Language is fundamental for those who dream of a global stage. Although there was an interpreter during the interview, the members spoke basic Korean. "At first, there were trainees who gave up because it was so hard. In fact, I cried a lot when I was a trainee. Since I didn't know how the future would look like, rather than studying hard. So that's why I thought I needed to learn more and build on my skills." (Hendery)

With the same mindset, Hendery learned to play the drums. "My roommate, Ten, suggested to look up different fields, saying that dancing and singing are basics for idols. There already are members who play the guitar and keyboard, so I chose the drum. Although we have a busy schedule, I'm constantly learning." (Hendery) "For me, I open my dictionary and watch Korean dramas. Recently, I watched < Melo Is My Nature>  and although there are a lot of lines they talk fast, I try to keep up." (Ten) "Korean idioms like 오장육부 [human organs], and proverbs like '내 코가 석 자 [something like: I have my own problems and can't take care of others]' are fun. I'm learning it to use it someday." (Winwin)

The most impressive part of WayV is the unique 'me' orientation of the new generation. They don't specifically mention the ones who they admire, want to resemble or a stage they want to stand on. In older interviews with idols, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake were often mentioned as icons and [idols] wanted to stand on the Super Bowl stage or Tokyo dome stage. Favorite music genre and songs were also shared without hesitation. But rather than wanting to be like/envy someone special, [WayV/the new generation] wants to choose from and combine numerous cultures that eventually create their own 'me'. The most important thing is to find and perfect your own style.

When we asked lead vocal Kun which vocalist he wants to resemble he replies "I want to continue finding my own style". After majoring in practical music, he is studying composition, and often plays his own songs to his team members and receives feedback from them. "I learned music theory in school, now I'm trying to find my own thoughts, my own style in music." (Kun) The same goes for Ten, who all members acknowledge as being an artist. Starting with breakdancing to popping, hip-hop and auburn dance, Ten says there isn't one particular choreographer he especially admires. "I just want to learn all kinds of great choreography, I don't want to resemble someone. A creative choreography needs to have your 'own identity'. It's important to find that first." (Ten) All his actions are linked to self-expression. "One part of my identity/self-expression is the silver accessories and piercings I'm wearing right now. I also draw to express myself. If I weren't an artist, I would have had another job that would allow me to express myself, for example, a fashion designer or photographer." (Ten) Idols of this generation don't hide their other dreams. Gone are the days when other dreams could only be hinted at during booming popularity. “I want to stand on a musical stage. Whether it's as a singer or for a musical, the stage is precious to me." (Xiaojun) "If there is a chance, I would like to act. I saw almost all of Ha Jungwoo's work." (Winwin) 

Another strength of WayV is their unity. Among them, leader Kun, nicknamed 'Kun-ge', is the one who the members go to when they have concerns. “The members have a lot of concerns about music. Not long ago, I talked with Xiaojun on how to express emotions while singing. Although my nickname is Kun-ge, I often feel comforted by our youngest Yangyang. Yangyang is someone with a lot of bright energy. The goal is to deliver great energy to the fans and this guy is already doing it naturally." (Kun) During their Korean activities on <Show! Champion>, Winwin, who is a detailed member, let the other unfamiliar members know where the restroom could be found. "We always get together to eat and also go out together. These days, we often go to the Han river on the electric kickboard that are popular in Korea now." (Winwin) "We go to schedules together and are together in the dorm too. We play games, watch movies and do everything together with the seven of us. It's nice, I like it." (Xiaojun) Lucas describes WayV in one word 'family'. "We understand each other, help each other, point out what we lack and hug/care for each other when we're sick. There were struggles when we were trainees, but that only made us stronger. WayV is not just someone I met through work, they are family. You have no idea how fortunate that is." (Lucas).

Translation: Esmee @ FY! NCT (NCTINFO) | Source: Vogue Korea — Do not repost or take out without our permission!

[dailyexo]

[INTERVIEW] Lay - 200915 Forbes: “Lay Zhang Is Aiming To Bring Chinese Music To The World”

"It’s been a few years now since Lay Zhang (also known as Zhang Yixing) released his debut EP Lose Control in 2016. Already a prominent star throughout Asia after debuting as part of K-pop boy band EXO back in 2012 and becoming a prominent television personality in China, Zhang – who is usually known mononymously as LAY – started down a path that year that would turn him into one of the biggest musical players in Asia less than half a decade later: in 2018, he broke onto the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart with his album Namanana, and this year he ranked No. 5 on Forbes China’s Celebrity 100 ranking.

This year, Lay dropped the duality of his Lit LP, split between two parts that arrived in June and July. A multifaceted release that spends its length blending modern musical styles with traditionally Chinese performance elements, Lay’s latest puts the emphasis on his roots. It extensively draws from classical styles and storytelling influences as he attempts to bring China to the world, as he says in the single “Lit” and relays through that song’s highly cinematic music video that sees Lay as a warrior facing down enemies amid a grandiose historic setting, inspired by the legendary general Xiang Yu.

The title track, and the album as a whole, is Lay’s attempt at expressing what he calls “M-pop,” or mixed Mandarin pop music, a genre he’s spearheading with the aim of bringing Chinese culture to global – primarily western – music listeners. Coming at a time when the world is more divided than ever, and China and the U.S.’s trade war continues, it may seem like a lofty aim. But Lay, although he shies away from discussing political ramifications on culture during a conversation with Forbes, has hope that bringing multi-cultural influences together will create greater understandings between one another and different cultures, as long as we take the time to listen to one another. Or, in his case, M-pop.

Tamar Herman: You released the long version of Lit in July, and saw much love for its blending of traditionally Chinese and modern musical elements. What was the inspiration overall for this album?

Lay: I just want to share Chinese culture, so I’m trying my best. Because I’m Chinese and I learn a lot from China, I think our country has a lot of good culture and good traditional instruments that maybe people don’t know. I want to promote that part, and let people know the very dope Chinese culture.

The sound of [the word] “lit” is very close to the Chinese word for “lotus.” I want people to know they can become what they want to be, no matter where they started, like a lotus flower that begins in the root and become beautiful flowers. I was also inspired by the cycle of life and wanted to have a Chinese perspective on it, so the first part of the album is more about the past and [tells] Chinese stories, using more traditional instruments. The second part, about the present and the things we deal with now, has more modern sounds and I worked with great producers like Scott [Storch] and Murda Beatz. Learning [and working with them] so I can mix different cultures on one track, for me it’s amazing work.

Herman: You released an epic music video for “Lit” as the album’s first lead track, and you’re back again on Sept. 14 with a remix of “Boom” by Dutch-Moroccan DJ R3hab, which you previously released as a single. What about these two songs make them your perfect pairing for listeners to get drawn into your Lit album?

Lay: For “Boom,” I want everyone just to jump and forget. This year is really terrible, right? I want people to forget the bad things and ignore the bad things. Just make happy vibes themselves.

For the second half of the album, my original intention was to have “Changsha” to be the single. However, during the course of the release cycle, “Boom” was selected instead because it really represented a little more what’s relevant to this current climate that covid has brought to the world. I wanted to focus more on that. I want everyone just to jump and forget. Putting aside the negativity of this year and focusing on positivity.

Herman: How did your creative process differ between Lit and prior releases?

Lay: If I play a video game, my level just goes up and up, right? So I want every year to go to the next level, ever year get better.

Herman: What type of video game character would you like to be?

I’m a warrior. If I can have the opportunity to go to another country, I’ll join the battle with [krumping originator] Tight Eyez (Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis).

Herman: Speaking of... I asked fans if they had any questions on Twitter. And while there were many great suggestions, I was surprised by how many wanted to know about your love of krumping. What about this form of dance is appealing to you and made you want to highlight it through “Lit”?

Lay: “Lit” has a very slow tempo. I just found jazz, hip-hop, etc. choreo didn’t match this song. Krump matched this song, so I tried to learn the [style]. In the beginning, it was very hard to do. I couldn’t copy the teacher, the motion, the action. I wanted to know why. The teacher was like, “You have to spend time in this kind of dance, then you can change.” I tried very hard to practice the feeling and vibe. I took maybe three months, and I’m just the beginning of krumping like a teenager. Level three in a game, maybe.

Herman: In “Lit” you say you are taking China to the world, and you’ve been talking a lot recently about how you’d like to spearhead M-Pop’s growth internationally. What do you hope to achieve?

Lay: I think Mandarin can mix with other countries’ languages to become one song, so that everyone can feel a Chinese vibe whether it’s English, French, Korean. It does not matter, I just want to mix a lot of languages, to create one track or music. If people can guess what English [songs] are talking about, they can guess what Chinese [songs] are talking about. It’s very easy to understand songs. The influence that I want to have isn’t about ranks or charts, but spreading Chinese culture to the world.

Herman: Typically, Chinese popular music is known in English as “C-pop,” with variant categories like Cantopop and Mandopop. Why do you feel it’s time to reframe the conversation as “M-pop”?

Lay: Because I think we need to mix something. It’s a global world. Also, I want music arrangements to have Chinese traditional instruments and other countries’ [instruments] put together. Traditional Chinese instruments, it’s better to use one style of instrument itself not with others. It’s a very unique sound, but you can [blend it with others] to make a new vibe.

Herman: You’ve been a top star in both the K-pop and Chinese music industries. K-pop’s having a moment in the west right now, how do you feel about M-pop’s potential?

Lay: Everybody, even me with “Namanana,” we just mix the languages, English with Chinese. But it’s basic, right? I think now M-pop has to change rules. From Lit, I saw the potential that we can reframe M-pop to another level. Let people know that it’s not just language mixing but culture mixing, instrument mixing, genre mixing. Letting people know that we have distinct instruments and unique sounds in China. I think there’s a potential to take M-pop to another level. I want to tell people, “This is Chinese music.”

Herman: You’ve been performing for many years now. How do you feel your approach to your artistry and performances have changed overtime? What have you realized is important to your craft?

Lay: For me, first of all, I think it’s all about music. If I can’t find the right music, I can’t make the performances very dope. Secondly, I think practice is very important. Practice is important if you want to make an amazing, perfect stage. So you have to spend the time practicing dancing and singing. Thirdly, I really respect my staff. Because we have these guys, they can make the stages, lights, speakers, and things for performers. Also, fans. Fans are very important. Without these four things I can do nothing.

Herman: This year’s hard on a lot of people. What makes you happy or hopeful in rough times? Any advice for people?

Lay: 2020 was terrible. But we have to trust tomorrow will be good. We have a very good tomorrow, a good future. So don’t lose confidence, don’t lose happiness. Don’t forget your dreams. Chase your dreams and be happy. And spend time with your family. If you want, you can get anything."

Credit: Forbes.

[agir1ukn0w]

Guys I really, REALLY think more white people, around the world but especially in the US, need to listen to more music created by Black people. And I’m NOT talking about doing it just so you get brownie points for being “progressive,” and I also don’t mean that you should force yourself to listen to these amazing, fantabulous artists. If you simply haven’t found an artist you like yet, that’s fine. But I really do believe that, if more people at least give Black people a chance to share their beauty and their mastery with you, your life and your perspective of life as a whole will change for the better, even a little bit. There is always a unique experience when you discover new genres and styles of music/art, and even if you don’t absolutely fall in love with any particular creator like I have, at least you’ve dipped your toes into a wider, more vibrant and harmonious ocean. All human beings have music in their souls, and I’m not saying that you have to stop listening to White artists altogether; many, if not most of my all-time favorite singers/musicians are white (not sure if that says more about me or the culture I grew up in, probably both). BUT!! Consider this: Black people have been listening to and enjoying music made by both Black AND White artists for a long time, and so they tend to have a much broader understanding of music as a whole (again, I’m really trying to avoid blanket statements here, and if you’re a Black person who only likes to listen to Black music, Good On You👍), whereas I think that a majority of white people, especially people like me who grew up in predominantly white middle-class suburbia, tend to not get exposed as much to music made by people of color, esp. Black people. Rap definitely counts, as it has historically been very much the purview of Black people, and they have as much if not more right than anyone to “own” it (not that anyone can technically own music, but you get what I mean). But there are SO MANY other genres into which Black artists have ventured or that they straight-up invented that most white people in the US will probably never hear because they are never exposed to it. It’s usually not their fault, but the Culture’s, and the “Veil” that is drawn between White and Black America. Black people have been going back and forth and straddling down the middle of this invisible divide for generations. And even white people who are fans of Black music cannot begin to imagine all of the gifts and stories that they have to share. Even just a taste of something new, something genuine and full-hearted, can change your life forever. Black people are not our teachers, are not responsible for enlightening us. But I think that they incidentally have A LOT to teach us, and that these lessons are thousands of years long overdue. We only need to stick our heads out the window and listen.

[popwasabi]

Lockdown Lookback: Catching up on the past months’ Pop Culture

Aaaaannnd we’re back!

It’s amazing what a little pandemic can do to shake you out of your creative cobwebs but if we’re all going to die, I want to make sure all my pop cultural hot takes are up to date at least.

Many of us are already on lockdown and many major movies including “007,” “Black Widow” and ummm I guess “Mulan” are all getting pushed to the backburner as no one is leaving their God damn homes unless they’re told to!

(Didn’t realize the thing I wish I had more of in the apocalypse would be sweatpants...)

But there’s still plenty to talk about from the previous months and other hot topics I have been meaning to write about but just hadn’t found the time or energy for. Life has been hard I think for just about all of us these days thanks in no small part to this pandemic. For me personally, I’ve had two different vacations canceled because of the virus and currently working understaffed at my job which is considered essential. Not to mention my therapist is on call only at this time and both my martial arts schools have been suspended, so I can neither talk nor punch my feelings out of my system.

So, I might be just a LITTLE on edge at the moment.

(My internal monologue for most of these past few weeks, more broadly years...)

Anyways, I digress, you come here because you like to read my highly unprofessional takes on pop culture and genuinely to those who have cheered me on from the beginning thanks, you guys are my prime motivators. But anyways let’s talk about all the shit I was supposed to write about these last two and a half months.

 “Birds of Prey” was a hot, but needed, mess

Earlier last month I got to see the sort of sequel to the much-maligned “Suicide Squad” in “Birds of Prey and the…waaaay too long of a title for me write here.” I had cautious optimism for it because it looked strange and off the beaten path of most comic book movies and seemed to promise at the very least a fun time at the theater but it’s still also a DCEU movie so the floor was pretty low on its possible quality as well.

In the end, the movie is kind of bit of everything; the best and worst parts of the DCEU. 

In terms of the good, it’s definitely outside the box, a sort of fem Deadpool first person story as told frenetically by Harley herself. Margot Robbie is, of course, still quite great at this role and you can tell she’s having a blast as this character. The humor is mostly good and visually the bright colors and cinematography pops on each screen and on that front there isn’t much to complain about.

But as a DCEU movie it does suffer from some narrative imbalance partially due to it’s psycho storyteller but mostly, and more than likely, due to corporate editing that probably axed an entire dance number that I was honestly looking forward to from the trailers.

(Seriously, I actually wanted to see the full unedited version of whatever hell this ended up being.)

It’s definitely in the “could’ve been better” camp of comic book movies but you know what? I’m still glad it exists. You know why? Because comic book movies dominate our blockbuster culture right now and if the genre wants to survive, at least artistically, it needs some outside the box films like this. I HATED “Joker” but I appreciate that it opened the door for stranger, more unique takes on a genre that is getting increasingly more stale. This movie falls into that unique category too.

(Also, to all the faux-intellectuals and alt-right nerds making a culture war out of “Sonic” vs “Birds of Prey” *kindly* reevaluate your lives please...)

We’re at the point now where comic book movies should be getting weirder, not more formulaic, and that means swinging for the fences even if a couple don’t quite make it out of the ballpark. If it takes a few not so stellar takes on the genre for Hollywood to greenlight a truly fantastic one I’m all for it.

In any case “Birds of Prey” doesn’t quite end nor continue the DCEU’s recent hot streak but it is enjoyable enough to where I would be more than open to a sequel. It’s worth a watch.

 The Mandalorian and The Witcher: Two shows about violent mercenaries and fatherhood

Both these shows are old news at this point, but I did want to talk a little about both for a bit if you would have me.

First, “The Mandalorian” which was Disney+’s flagship production to begin its streaming chapter late last year is definitely a more than welcome addition to the galaxy far, far away. It’s pretty easy to feel fairly jaded about Star Wars these days given how flat the new trilogy ended but for what it’s worth “The Mandalorian” was a good mix of nostalgia bait and something new and interesting for fans to chew on. Its production value is obviously top-notch, no doubt because of all the Disney money pumped into it, it’s well-acted and thrilling and fun from start to finish. It plays heavily on the genres that influenced the series, primarily westerns and old samurai flicks, and fans of those will certainly enjoy the homages to them all.

The series was something of a coming out party for Deborah Chow who directed two of the season 1’s best episodes. Her steady hand, eye for details and tributes to Asian cinema throughout really gave the series an extra kick at times and showed how Star Wars can evolve still. Chow is set to helm the upcoming “Kenobi” series and one can only hope that she *really* leans into the samurai genre for that show.

(Hopefully, there are some “Yojimbo” vibes in there somewhere...)

The Mandalorian’s best and worst parts though are its semi episodic nature making each episode easy to digest as a one-off but also lacking some narrative tension between each. It plays kind of like a Saturday Morning cartoon to both its benefit and detriment with bite-size easy to digest plots and dialogue for the viewers but not offering a ton of depth beyond that.

The Mandalorian himself is also kind of a Gary Stu. His armor is basically impenetrable and far and away the best killer onscreen typically, making more than a few action scenes lack real stakes and tension. Baby Yoda certainly helps at times to make him more vulnerable and puts him in precarious positions plenty of times but outside a few moments (mainly episode 2 and to a lesser extend the final episode) he’s just a little too overpowered to be a more interesting character.

But this show and frankly the Star Wars series as a whole is meant for kids, no matter what the neckbeards try to tell you (violence =/= adult), and that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. Plenty of kids productions can be both great and even sophisticated and while I wouldn’t say “The Mandalorian” is either of those it’s a good and fun kids show for the fans.

(And yes I’m aware that the books, some comics, and games have touched on more adult stuff, you weirdos. But how would you describe the overall tone and presumptive audience of the movies and TV series as a whole, guys??)

As far as “The Witcher” goes it also has a bit of an episodic style to it as well with an overarching, albeit, convoluted story that runs parallel to it. The first 3-4ish episodes can be classified as a quasi “Game of Thrones” clone leaning perhaps a little too heavily into the tropes of that series. Once the series finally starts leaning into its real identity, a dry-witted hack and slash fantasy, the series is much more consistent both tonally and narratively.

Henry Cavil is solid as Geralt of Rivia and the supporting cast of Joey Batey as Jaskier, Freya Allen as Ciri and even more so Anya Chalotra as Yennefer are all great in their respective roles delivering some great moments throughout the season.

(And lest you forget this earworm...)

“The Witcher’s” early season struggles keep it from being as tonally or narratively consistent as “The Mandalorian” but where the monster slayer beats the bounty hunter is that it has overall more compelling drama and has more to say, leaning much more heavily into the thematic greys of the plot. There are tons of problems with “The Witcher” on a story-telling level but you can definitely say it cares more about adding some depth in between the more pulpy aspects of the story which is something you can’t say as much for in “The Mandalorian.”

Of course, I’m partially overselling “The Witcher” a bit here, it’s not anywhere near “Game of Thrones” best (yet at least), and on the flipside one could argue that “The Mandalorian’s” more subtle sense of story-telling does its themes better. But when it comes down to these two shows you get somewhat similar story-telling ideas, mostly involving both characters and their smaller counterparts, in two very different genres with equally diverging conclusions to their respective seasons. 

(🎵 Toss an “Oof” to your Witcher...🎵)

All in all, they’re both good and worth a watch and I think they deserve a chance to evolve and hopefully showcase more of what they have to offer moving forward.

“Parasite” wins Best Picture! Many people have some hot takes, including the president...

Last month one of my favorite films of 2019 “Parasite” won Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s a movie that is becoming increasingly relevant as elites and celebrities alike are getting front of the line testing despite being asymptomatic in the middle of pandemic and think they can assuage our concerns and dread by poorly singing “Imagine” together within the comfort of their McMansions.

It’s about as a good time as any to revisit this movie, I mean where else are you going to go during this timeline, and at a later date I’ll write something more extensive about it eventually (hopefully) but first here’s a helpful video on one particular thing that came out after director Bong Joon Ho took home the night’s top honors:

 “Cats” is still a fever dream of madness

Back in late December, I watched “Cats” for science, as I had AMC A-List and a friend crazy enough to join me. I figured it would be bonkers and unlike anything I had seen before in the worst way but even then, I don’t think I was truly prepared for what I ended up seeing that fateful night.

I remember quite vividly going to the bar inside the theater and ordering a stiff drink beforehand to numb the pain and the bartender asking “So what are y’all watching tonight?” and beginning to laugh manically like an insane asylum patient at the innocuousness of the question. Walking into the theater was like that feeling you get before getting on a particularly scary-looking rollercoaster at Six Flags but instead of the pre-ride jitters eventually subsiding to the eventual fun and joy of the ride, only a deep sense of existential dread built up and sustained itself through what felt like six hours of the most baffling thing put to screen in front of my eyes ever.

(The music that played in my head as I exited the theater...)

Have any of you watched the Stanley Kubrick movie “Eyes Wide Shut” before? You know the scene when Tom Cruise is walking around in his mask observing the strange occult sex orgy going on around him at the mansion? That’s kind of what “Cats” felt like except way more terrifying, somehow MORE sexual, and definitely crazier.

(Is...this some type of...intepretative dance to summon an eldritch horror??)

There’s a voyeuristic terror that comes from sitting in that theater room as you watch bipedal humanoid looking felines dance to confusing songs about “Jelicle” cats (whatever the fuck that means) and all other manner of things that should NOT take human form throughout it’s near-endless runtime. A lot was made about Rebel Wilson and the disgusting roach people she consumes but NO ONE warned me about the frankly HORRIFYING mice children in the same scene!

(I am not perusing the internet to find that image again for y’all. I have enough nightmares each night...)

The saddest thing about the whole movie is everyone, save for Ian Mckellen who seemed to be acting as if a gun was pointing at him offscreen and Judi Dench who looked 100 percent like a geriatric in her digi fur, was giving the movie their fullest effort in what can only be described as a Titanic-sized level of hubris by all parties involved. This movie really needed a “Chaostician” involved in evaluating the production for studio heads and shareholders because there were definitely NOT enough people on this project wondering whether or not this film SHOULD exist...

(Dr. Ian Malcolm coming to Universal Pictures to access the film.)

What has “Cats” wrought upon this world? The universe has been clearly out of balance since this movie came out and while I’m not saying it’s director Tom Hooper’s fault, I’m not saying it isn’t either.

“Cats” is one of those things, much like The Matrix that cannot be simply described but must be seen to believe. It’s one of the worst things I have ever seen onscreen but with the right group of people and a few stiff drinks it’s certainly an experience you won’t forget. Consider it for your next Google Hangout during this apocalypse.

  Anyways, that about wraps up my thoughts on the last few months. Going to try to be more consistent going forward especially given how much more time I have now to write, for better and worse. But more importantly, just want to say stay safe y’all. It’s going to be a process to get through this and while things are more likely to get worse before they get better there will be a day when this all ends and some normalcy may yet return to our life but in order for us to get there we need to remain vigilant. 

So stay at home, wash your hands, and if you want to watch movies just order it online for now and we’ll just wait until aaaallll this blows over…hopefully.

Don’t panic...