#haven't played this version since 2020

[ladyfarona]

It's that time again...

[gh-0-stcup]

My thing is that I just do not trust a single person who was involved in the show. It just seems like a lot of PR to fix their image and foster sympathy/goodwill/interest.

[loregoddess]

HA! finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring today, I'm still not entirely sure why this worked to get me to read, but now that I know this works I will be continuing on with the rest of the trilogy...

while also balancing playing Echoes of Wisdom when it comes out, but I think I can balance the two

here's hoping I can find audio books of all the other books in my pile of to-read books, or at least that I can figure out some other way to trick my brain into reading time mode along the way

I think? I think I figured out a workaround around my mental block about reading for fun

since my main block was I couldn't focus on the text if it was too noisy, after much contemplation I went and found an audiobook so I could read along as I listened

(audio alone I can't do bc I will zone out but if I have something to look at this isn't an issue, and if I can't do text alone bc of background noise then maybe purposeful noise would help cover up the background noise <--my train of logic in developing this hypothesis).

And like? I'm a little over 100 pages into The Fellowship of the Ring, so it seems to be working.

[thealexchen]

thoughts on LIS: Double Exposure?

This is probably gonna be my hottest take in awhile, but: I deeply dislike the idea of an official LiS1 direct sequel game existing. Excluding all my thoughts on the gameplay, story, Max's character, etc. I don't think a game like Double Exposure is necessary.

This isn't a new take either; back in 2020 I made a Reddit post saying I was glad we never got a continuation of Max and Chloe's story, because in order to have a plot, you have to have conflict. And to have conflict means your characters are forced to change or struggle in some way, and I simply wasn't interested in seeing that again. I never even read the comics. As long as Max and Chloe's future existed only in the fanbase's collective imagination and not in an officially licensed game, Pricefield could be as happy as I wanted and I wouldn't have to witness DN or D9's version of canon.

A lot of fans, including myself, are also confused and upset as to where Chloe could be in Double Exposure. Even if Chloe winds up having a surprise role, it would likely be too logistically difficult to write Chloe into one version of the story and not the other. Either way, DE is strongly pointing to Chloe no longer being the deuteragonist. If D9 was going to make a direct sequel with Max and Chloe, I could at least be intrigued by how they might write their dynamic and how they'd use Max's power in new and interesting ways. But instead there's... none of that. Chloe's nowhere to be seen and Max can't time travel anymore.

On a narrative level, Max and Chloe are the heart of the original Life is Strange. They represent the game's central relationship, and their very first interaction (Max saving Chloe's life) kicks off the entire story. Throughout the story, their dynamic advances the plot and mutually motivates their character arcs. You can't have LiS1 without either Max or Chloe; the story simply wouldn't exist without them. Now in DE, they don't even seem to be in each other's lives anymore. It's true, this series is meant to reflect universal feelings and experiences, which could include breakups, but the romantic catharsis of Pricefield as canon soulmates who defied time and space itself to stay together forever is something you can only get from the beauty of fiction. To jab DE's story with a dose of reality and go, "Eh, they grew apart. Shit happens," totally undermines everything the Bae ending stood for.

On a technical level, Max's rewind was an objectively brilliant game mechanic. LiS1 arrived onto the scene after Telltale had paved the way for the resurgence of choice-based, episodic games, but LiS1 totally reinvented the wheel by giving the player the option to go back and weigh each option before continuing, essentially save-scumming in-game. But the right choice was never that easy to determine, and Rewind brilliantly complemented Max's character arc of overcoming her indecision and learning to live with her choices. Not to mention, you could also use Rewind to solve puzzles, instead of the endless fetch quests the later games had. No other LiS game since then has given the player that kind of agency and interactivity. LiS2 had telekinesis, but the player couldn't use it, only Daniel. D9 tried with Backtalk and Empathy, but Max's Rewind was truly the narrative and gameplay jackpot that they haven't been able to recreate since.

So if you take away one half of the central relationship that made the first game so memorable, and the supernatural power/game mechanic that made it so fun to play... why even bring Max back at all? It just feels like D9 threw away their golden opportunity to build upon the major selling points of the first game and are only relying on name recognition of the Life is Strange "brand" and Max Caulfield.

What upsets me most of all about a direct sequel existing is that it proves that Life is Strange, as a series, now stands more for profits than originality. Life is Strange will always be an IP meant to make money for Square, I know that, but back when LiS1 was just a brand new episodic game, it stood out for how different it dared to be. In a landscape saturated with shooters, sexualized female characters, and casual misogyny, LiS1 instead featured a teenage girl in a contemporary setting that took her seriously and made her the hero of her story. Before it was a franchise, LiS wasn't concerned with the bottom dollar; it was a piece of art that just wanted to tell a thoughtful, unique story.

Whether you love it or hate it, Life is Strange 2 was an insanely risky follow-up to Life is Strange that refused to rely on the convenience of a direct sequel because Dontnod stuck to their artistic vision. Meanwhile, all of Deck Nine's games have leaned on the first game's following to generate interest (BtS being a direct prequel, TC bringing back Steph, and Wavelengths expanding on Steph's connection to Chloe, Rachel, and Arcadia Bay). In other words, all of the subsequent LiS games by D9 have played it very, very safe. It's worked like a damn charm because there are still elements I love about each game, but the basic principle is nostalgia-baiting fans. It's just that now, Double Exposure isn't hiding that nostalgia bait at all anymore and prioritizing profits over telling a unique story. It's sad to see that LiS has strayed so far from its risky, daring, original, and unique artistic beginnings.

Before I end, I'll say that I can't be too cynical about it all, nor do I want to be. Because I can't deny how much joy this whole series has brought me, too. LiS was what got me into narrative adventure games and pushed the boundaries of what a video game could be. If nothing else, I am truly thrilled that Hannah Telle got the chance to play Max again. D9's always been great at maintaining relationships with their actors, and the casts of their games always have consistently great chemistry. Getting recognized by Erika Mori on my own blog is still unbelievable and speaks to the amazing community that LiS has built. As you can see, I'm still posting and reblogging stuff about Double Exposure. And while I don't see myself buying or playing this game for myself, I know it'll keep all of us talking for awhile, and I still live for a good discussion.

Thank you for asking! And thank you for reading.

[discluded]

I just realized that the porsche in the book was probably like kinn’s type? Cos they initially imagined a korean actor to play it right.. so apo being called to cast is really sus lol

I have never read KPTN and according to people who have, it's better for my brain that I haven't 😂

According to Reliable Sources, apparently Porsche wasn't Kinn's Type™ because Kinn's type is pretty and novel!Porsche wasn't pretty. But Apo is very pretty so obviously that wouldn't work 😁

Okay since I have a minute now:

KinnPorsche Casting: The Lore

First posting (one version) of the casting story for everyone to set the stage. Thanks to @lorddio for helping me find this one again and MileApo Safe Place for translating as always. it's got a very special part that needs highlight 😉

But setting the record straight(ha!) about the basics:

Mile was Kinn's face model, and purportedly many elements of Kinn were based off of Mile's public image (very importantly: wealthy heir to an important Thai family)

In the variations of posts about Mile is Kinn lore I've seen, this was the specific photo that inspired Daemi's Kinn. He reposted it around the same time his casting for KPTS was announced (this was reposted Dec 2020) but if I remember correctly from scrolling back in his feed, it was taken when he was 24-25 years old.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MP 15.15 (@milephakphum)

As anon mentioned, and Apo mentioned in the clip above, Daemi chose a Korean actor as the face cast for Porsche.

However, he was contacted and specifically invited to audition for the role of Porsche. According to Apo, he didn't even read for any other characters

Those are the basic public facts we can agree on. But of course there's more going on behind the scenes! There's actually a lot going on here so I'm going to break it down for each actor, starting with Mile because that might set the ground for some of what happened with Apo.

Admittedly some of this is my opinion or interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt and use your own judgment! Again, the above facts are what is probably known and agreed upon.

Casting dates (a clarification)

First of all, there's a couple of confusing things going on with the dates, which I actually didn't highlight in the last post about it, but was exposed by the Facebook posts.

The first Facebook post dated October 1, 2020 talks about how the audition process has started and the first round will go on to October 3. The second post is from October 4 and then lists the dates of the auditions for October 10.

Now, October 10, the "official" audition date is (1) The day Mile and Apo were both fast tracked through auditions and (2) met again. I don't think anyone on the English side of fandom has noticed this or at least publicly talked about this discrepancy so I'm bringing you hot news (that I've been sitting on and not sharing lol)

It is worth pointing out that this is supposedly the photo below is of their first kiss from the auditions, and they're both wearing different clothes, so. I'm guessing the fast tracking was actually for the first round of auditions between Oct 1-3, and then the kiss was Oct 10.

Anyway, they sat next to each other and Apo talked to Mile first, regardless of if it was the same day (likely not, in my opinion)

There's also a couple of different photos of them together at audition.

Notably, in the first they're sat in uh, waiting area chairs. There's a different clip of Apo sitting behind Bible, so I'm guessing this is before Apo talked to Mile and he had noticed Mile while sitting in this area and went to talk to him.

The moved together down the line to the audition room, I think?

where Sprite interviewed them:

Also based on this last photo they switched sitting order at some point while waiting to audition

Mile's casting

So aside from the fact Mile visibly went to auditions, there is a rumor with some basis that Mile was pre-cast as Kinn. Probably soft confirmed by Mile himself.

I'm just going to close the loop on this discrepancy too: I think Mile was an invited audition/casting in the same way Ke Huy Quan was invited to audition for for Waymond Wang. Mile did audition. He was likely get the role because he was so preferentially invited by the authors and was the basis for the character.

Clearly, Ke Huy Quan won an Oscar and Mile won a GQ breakout actor award, so in invited casting, even for seemingly "unimportant" roles, it doesn't speak to an actor deserving or not deserving the role based on of acting skills. Mile also was cast as the main character Bohn in My Engineer in 2017 before turning it down; he clearly has some acting chops and can win lead roles.

In academia, often times internal postings will open for tenure track positions with a preferred candidate in mind; but due to rules these postings are made public and sometimes an outside candidate will blow the preferred candidate out of the water in terms of quality and get hired instead.

Which is to say there could have been another actor that ended up impressing more in auditions as Kinn even with Mile being preferred, or another actor pair that seemed more suited for Kinn and Porsche.

The other thing auditions do is allow for actors to screen test chemistry. So finally, Mile actually going through the casting process allows him to screen test a for a pairing partner. Which brings us to...

Pre-cast Preferred casting rumor credibility: 10/10

Apo's Casting

Play Mastermind.mp3 by Taylor Swift

Once Twice upon a time, the planets and the fates And all the stars aligned You and I ended up in the same room At the same time

Okay if you didn't catch it on the first watch...

Mile, what the heck is that expression. 😂😂😂

Again, Apo was invited to go to casting specifically for Porsche and only for Porsche. Apo has never acted in a BL before going to audition for KPTS, so the question begged who invited him and why?

First of all, Mile has made it clear that he was a fan of Apo's acting work and followed his career after they met in the gym. He's also made it clear he had the world's biggest crush on Apo. Look how excited he was to talk about working with Apo and how handsome he thinks Apo is in January 2021 (like 3 months after they met again!)

If Mile was the preferential Kinn cast and he didn't have an pairing partner, it would make sense to ask him if there were any actors he thought he might work well with.

I'm not entirely convinced Mile engineered for Apo to get cast or anything. Apo's acting career and skills stand on their own and I think their insane screen chemistry speaks volumes about why they were cast. But as for who made the request to Apo's manager ... hm 😏 Maybe we'll find out one day.

Mile Phakphum - Mastermind.mp3 rumor credibility: 6/10

[ethankyou]

A while back I had a chance to play Cyberpunk Red, which is the 4th edition of Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.

Red is also the successor to Cyberpunk 2020 which was the inspiration for the notorious Cyberpunk 2077 - haven't played, don't intend to, not the subject of my discussion here!

So how did it go?

Cyberpunk Red is a lot of crunch though plays really easy once you get past the initial learning curve of the rules.

But there are a lot of rules.

I find my go to when learning a new game is to find a video of someone trying to give a briefer on the game system and then go to the book to cement those ideas myself.

I found this video pretty helpful when researching character creation. XPLoveCat does a whole series guiding through the creation process. If you like to listen to someone explain things (it's a big help for me) this might be a great place for you to start too!

Once you pick your lifepath, if you're going with the beginner one (i don't remember what it's called it's been nearly a year sorry!) the creation process is pretty smooth, it's just following some steps. There's a medium and veteran version of the life paths that add more complexity to your character creation process and I feel like since our group was a bunch of RPG vets we could have handled that, but it does speed things up to go with the quicker start for a one shot.

Meanwhile Red is like "You have 60 skills and one of them is fashion and one of them is looking good."

Whenever I'm starting a new game I also like to have a character sheet handy so I can piece everything together. And once you get Red's character sheet in front of you, it really begins to feel like a game from the 90's with a modern coat of paint.

The character sheet in question. 3 pages!

There's a lot of fun to be had in older systems! But newer systems have opted to streamline things like skills and stats and stuff nowadays. I remember being glad that 4th edition D&D cut skills by more than half by just folding a lot of similar ones together, something that would continue into 5th edition as well. There were some casualties along the way though (rip use magic device, and all the extra knowledge skills!) and typically the stuff that got cut was stuff that would facilitate like... You know.... Playing a character? Not just murderhoboing your way across the country.

Pictured below, everything that is "Cool" in the year 2045 (taken from a custom character sheet)

Creating a character is an interesting process because it follows this lifepath system. So you choose one of several paths and the game streamlines the creation process by directing you which page to go to next in an almost "choose your own adventure" sort of layout. This is very helpful, but while it's easy to go forward, it's not so easy to go back. If you went to the wrong page or just didn't like what you read and want to try something else, you'll be searching for where you made that wrong turn. A lot of ttrpg books can be like this so this isn't exactly a new problem, but the way the book is laid out it really does need you to follow this path to new pages instead of discovering the information yourself by reading on. I guess just write down the page numbers of places you want to go back to before flipping forward.

Initially finding things on the sheet is tough because if you're told to make a "Tracking" check, you might not immediately assume that's an Int skill. Since the skills are grouped by attribute, you'll have to go through the process of figuring out what skill belongs to which group. I don't think this is a bad thing, because the alternative would be an alphabetical list of 60+ skills, which might make it harder to figure out their associated stat, or would just make the sheet more bloaty with repeated stats beside each and every skill. All games have an adjustment period to them and this is a pretty minor one. I remember this being a sticking point for our group after playing it originally but having some time to think on it I think there's a valid argument to be made either way. Someone in our group even mentioned this was one custom character sheet away from not being an issue and I agree. And apparently others do too because there's a lot of them out there! Many of which sort the skills differently and many also try to condense the 3 page sheet to 2. I know there's a lot of wasted real estate on the third page but it's pretty cool!

There are also apparently free quick start rules that come with premade characters and everything! Free is free and you can check that out on drive thru RPG! It's called easy mode but my understanding is this includes the core rules too. This would probably be the best choice for a one shot game to test the water but we just weren't aware of them at the time.

But a major part of creation is your role. This is the part I might be the most critical of. While they give you a lot of skills and everyone has access to the same skills, each role has basically one major ability that only they can do. The med tech can use medicines to help the groups, the netrunner can take more actions while in a netrun. That kind of thing. But that's pretty much it. Improving your role may allow you to use your role abilities better or more frequently, but there's not a lot in the way of new abilities.

And also the divisions between the roles feel pretty arbitrary. Like the med tech is the only one who can use a bunch of medicines. But why? Everyone has access to the first aid skill, which is something the med tech is also proficient in. What's stopping someone from taking one of their medicines and using it?

I think having well defined roles for each player is very important! And the roles do provide this, but I don't feel like they go far enough. We did only play one session though so perhaps this is something that would be more evident over time.

I played a Netrunner (a hacker) which ends up also having to play a little minigame separate from the rest of the action. I knew what I was getting into but wanted to try it out to see how the game handles it. In previous games that I've played a hacker, it bogged down the game by either having an entire session play out for the hacker while everyone else waits, or does nothing while everyone else is in the middle of the action because they have to stay with their big cool hacker rig. Red deals with this in a really great way - your rig is a headset that has wifi. And if you want to hack a secure system, you need to be hardwired into that system. This means the Netrunner has to be on site and still has an opportunity to join the action. Or may even be forced to do both at once.

As far as the actual hacking game goes, I really like the implementation of hacking a cyber infrastructure. You bring programs that all serve different functions, such as attacks or other actions and then you have to fight your way up the digitial infrastructure, with each level offering more rewards, but higher threats. The programs all have a fantasy aesthetic and the architecture functions kind of like a dungeon in Netspace. You can take multiple netspace actions, but you're still able to act in meatspace as well during this time. Sometimes you'll have to balance your actions in and out of netspace.

The biggest problem I had with the Netrunner goes back to my problem with roles. There's a Tech stat and several Tech skills so what kind of check do you make? Why, you add your role to your roll! The Netrunner uses their role, which starts at +4. Compared to their Tech skills which are floating around a +10 or so. Now the DVs for these checks are all lower to compensate for this but... Why do we gotta do it this way?

There could easily be a skill that could have covered this and the DVs could have been comparable to everything else in the game. You might think, well if other characters were allowed to hack, they could prove to be just as effective as the Netrunner so it has to be a balance issue right? Well the Netrunner role allows them to take 3 actions a round in Netspace which would make them much more efficient than someone without the role. But also having the role is what grants the interface feature, which is required to take NET actions at all! But even though the Netrunner is obviously the best choice for the task, what's stopping someone else with a rig from attempting the same thing and just being less efficient at it.

The way I guess this is addressed, is that you can take on other roles potentially? You have 4 in your starting role, so I believe you'd start with 1 in a new role. But with a +4 in my Netrunner role I found that I struggled a lot, so I can't even imagine floundering around with just a +1. You'd be at the whims of the dice.

Despite that though, I appreciate the game does allow this sort of multi-classing. Especially since many of the roles seem to be very gear based, so it feels silly to not allow any crossover.

In the end, the hacking did feel balanced, which is important. But it didn't feel awesome, which i guess is what it came down to for me. But I also failed a lot of those checks Netrunner checks, which brings me to my last major gripe.

Rolling a single d10 for checks is fine, but if you critically fail on a 1, which is 10% of the time, that is lame. I don't mind using a d10 for checks but without some kind of way to mitigate 1's it makes things brutal, not in a fun or challenging way. I feel like if I was going to play again, I would need the crit fails to just be gone altogether.

Overall, I did enjoy Cyberpunk Red! I think it's a bit hard to dig into for a oneshot, but we managed just fine. If you really wanted to get a feel for it though, I'd recommend you play a 3-5 session arc. This game is definitely worth your time!

I'm also curious about going back to previous iterations to see how it's changed over time.

So, fun fact time, Cyberpunk Red was published in 2020, 30 years after Cyberpunk 2020 was originally published which is goes hand in hand with every scifi media that has predicted a date in the "far future" that we have now reached (and passed!).

See you in 2045 for the 5th edition of Cyberpunk I suppose!

[andrewlloydwebber]

sondheim/furth's company should have stayed a retroactive period piece. when it premiered in 1970, it was set in present day and there have been several revisions since, even before the gender swapped "bobbie version". the idea is to update the setting to present day, which is fine i guess, but frankly stuff like changing "look i'll call you in the morning or my service will explain" to "i'll call you in the morning or i'll TEXT YOU and explain" or references to the seagrams building changing the infamous "drag" rhyme, is just the theatrical version of the "landlord special". the cultural references and plot points of company are so, so, so early 70s.

if bobby turned 35 in the year 1970, he was born in 1935. if bobby turned 35 in 1995, he was born in 1960. if bobbie turned 35 in 2020, she was born in 1985. the differences in generations/ages between these bobbies is not insignificant.

smoking weed might be a new and exciting experience for 30 somethings in the 1970s, but that's not really necessarily the case for someone who graduated high school in 1978 or 2003. the whole karate scene isn't really something that would happen in the "modern era".

the lyrics to "the ladies who lunch" describe women reading copies of time magazine ("just to keep in touch") and going to matinees of pinter plays (there were four total broadway productions of harold pinter plays between 2010 and 2020). they lounge in caftans and goes to classes in optical art and drinks vodka stingers. the woman joanne describes would be "of a certain age" in 1970, but elderly in 2020. at this point, sondheim should have rewritten the lyrics to reference botox and spanx, but at this point, they should have just written an entirely original musical.

just keep Company set in the original time period and watch it as a period piece, reflect on things that haven't changed and things that have.

[whenthegoldrays]

i've been meaning to ask: do you have any recs for kdramas available on amazon prime? other than marry my husband i haven't found a ton of the ones you've mentioned available on there :((

Hey honey! I’m so sorry for leaving this ask for so long 🫣 I kept thinking “I’m gonna find some for her soon” and then wouldn’t do it akajdh 💀

To be honest, I personally haven’t watched any kdramas on Prime besides MMH, but there are a couple that I’m a bit familiar with because my parents or friends have seen them, so here’s a few recs I pulled together for you 😉

My First Love (2018). This is on the shorter side, just 10 episodes. It’s about Kang Shinwoo, a high school teacher who has a chance to reunite with Jisoo, his first love from high school, only to hear that she’s died in a car accident. Then he’s transported back to high school, but as his own adult self, and tries to play cupid for his teenage self and Jisoo. I didn’t watch the first episode of this myself, I think I joined my parents about halfway through episode 2. It was pretty interesting, bittersweet but funny and cute.

My ID is Gangnam Beauty (2018). My mom watched this without me, but I think it was a cute one! It’s about a girl who’s been bullied for being ugly her whole life, so she gets plastic surgery in order to completely start over at college. And then she has her little romance with Cha Eun-woo’s character 🥰

Mischievous Kiss (2013). This is actually a jdrama, a remake of the 2010 kdrama Playful Kiss, but I’m only familiar with the Japanese version because my best friend was super into it a few years ago. (You know how I am about twinkle melon? That’s how she was about Mischievous Kiss 😆). This is an “oh my god, they were roommates!” story between two high school, and later university, students. (Unfortunately, season 2 isn’t included with Prime, only season 1.)

Secret Zoo (2020). I nearly forgot about this one!! This is a movie about a lawyer who’s assigned to bring business back to a zoo his firm has acquired. The only problem is, they have no animals, so they do the only thing they can and dress up as animals themselves. I just about died laughing with this movie, it’s a great mood lifter.

This is not a kdrama, but I just found out this beautiful movie is on Prime now and I’m going to take this chance to mention it: Running for Grace (2018). It’s a romance between a doctor’s ward and plantation owner’s daughter in 1920s Hawaii. It’s been a few years since I last watched it, but the grip it had on my heart 😩😩 10/10 recommend

[selfproclaimedunicorn]

Well, here they are: the sigils for the OC Houses I mentioned.

Less than half for sure have any kind of major bearing on anything. The rest are, for all intents & purposes, NPC Houses with varying levels of "these guys show up" to their names. If I am give an excuse to world build as a creative exercise, I will usually take it (also some of the Houses were co-made with my bestie, so I can't take the blame for 3 of these). Also, there's a pinterest for the castles because half my work for this AU is just playing around with my silly little expansion pack nobles.

I think I used to have info on these somewhere on tumblr, but 1) I haven't used the desktop version since 2020 when my computer died, & 2) in my infinite reworking (this time it's serious) I think I purged most of my old stuff that's barely "canon" anymore. Whatever, though 🤷🏻‍♀️

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, am really really interested to read your thoughts on Seven!

*

Ask 2: Hey bpp, can i be honest?? Ive been checked out of the fandom but still keep track of any music releases. So i didnt know abt any rumors abt 7. Imagine me being kind of disappointed that it’s another english song from jk when i watched the mv😅 it feels like his most promoted songs since last year has been all eng song… idk i wanted & expted something diff… i didnt like l&r, dreamers and now 7… it’s back to back lol. Tbf i didnt like My You too and thats in korean. At least not enough to listen!again after the first listen.

Im happy that still with you is finally on spotify tho. I’ll still be waiting excited for his album whenever it comes out. Hopefully ill find something i like in it!!

**

[BPP Note: Both asks above were sent before my "I don't like it..." post. The asks posted below were sent afterwards.]

**

Ask 3:

Same here

All the hype didn't matched with the song

1. rest members songs had so much depth and substance to it while this was the cliche boy chasing a girl song. Like we always dont need deep songs but the quality could be so much better. This was like just another pop song.

I think I'll put this on same level as BAD DECISIONS. But for bad decisions, atleast the chorus was staying on my mind while for this nothing was catchy enough for us to humm. Just because it's JK it will get hype but otherwise it's so generic. I think I liked LEFT and RIGHT way better than Seven. Even the rap portion felt so unnecessary and boring.

2. MV was kinda nice because of the production but concept was too shallow, the stalking and chasing was so outdated. In my country we have like 9293928843837 MVs in this same concept that not many make the same theme songs again.

3. The choreography. We haven't seen the full version. But for tiktok they do the highlight portions if that's so mediocre idk how rest will be. It was again giving the same mediocre showing off choreography and for me backdancers ruined it with their awkward moves.

4. they wanted this song to be played everywhere around the world. But there was nothing catchy enough to attract gp or go viral on tiktok, even if we sped it up. The only way to make everyone listen is to shove it down their throat but doing payola. But idk if investing in payola is worthy for the song. I also doubt the longietivity, as for me it was boring after 2 listens. I'll rather listen Like Crazy or wildflower or closer 20 times than listening this once.

5. I HOPE he'll bring something fresh to the table for his album and don't involve this mediocre producers who uses the same formula and same superstar persona to make a song successful. He is so much talented to sing a song which is so rich in melody and lyrics. And he can produce way better songs by himself.

Prolly a 4/10 for me

*

Ask 4: troye sivan's rush (which also came out last night) is exactly what I wish Seven was. I don't mean that in a 'I expect the things JK to make to be gay' way just in the way it's a fun, very danceable, sexy summer song that doesn't pull its punches. Something about seven feels too run through a commercial sanitizer a few times, even with the explicit lyrics.

***

Hi Anon(s),

Jungkook likes to fuck.

Rather, Andrew Watt likes to fuck and thinks Jungkook can relate.

JK has been talking about wanting to show more mature and explicit sides of himself for a good long while now. So I’m glad he’s finally gotten to do that, confirming for us why he keeps getting noise complaints from his neighbours since the mattresses all over his apartment don't help.

BTS has made songs explicitly referring to sex before (though it's been mostly the rapline doing so). So it's nothing new but I guess it's cool JK gets to share with us that he too has sex.

The question I posed to my friends immediately after watching the MV is, “Do you know who's been doing A&R for BigHit since 2020? I really need to know who is doing A&R for BigHit in America because they’ve been doing an appalling job lately. I'm starting to wonder if it's an inside job cause this song is kinda ass.”

That was me ~11 hours ago.

I didn’t like the song.

I’ve streamed Seven about 20 times since then I think, took a break from the song for a few hours, watched his GMA performance, caught a few minutes of the Wlive, then listened to it again just before writing this post and…

I still don’t like it.

Jungkook did a good job on the song, Latto's verse wasn't terrible, and while the song itself isn’t bad… the song isn’t good either.

It’s painfully, and at this point it’s a pattern so I have to add, predictably, mediocre.

Reserving judgement for the album, but Anons, I agree with you for the most part. The suits at BigHit are trying but they are woefully out of touch with the reasons BTS blew up in the West in the first place. I don't even feel like spending any energy doing a review or even trying to explain what I mean. So I'll just ramble on for a bit but try to keep it brief.

---

I have to give BigHit some credit because I can see what they're going for here. Andrew Watt is a very celebrated producer in the US, he won the Grammy award for Producer of the Year in 2021, he's got A listers in his portfolio. So, he's not a cheap name to book and I can see why the suits at BigHit thought he's the genius to gift them a song clinically designed for American radio.

But that pandejo phoned it in. There isn't a lick of creativity to be found anywhere in all 3 minutes and five seconds.

It reminds me of VIBE by Jimin and Taeyang, as the closest analog to the vague dissatisfaction morphing into annoyance and then pragmatic rationalization I experienced in that same sequence when listening to it the first few times.

The song is disappointing because we've all heard it before. Too many times, and we're bored of it. We've heard JK sing this sort of song for years, as covers mostly. So on one hand, while I guess it's nice JK gets to have an American summer JB-reject pop tune of his own, it's not good enough to be the track that introduces him to the world as a solo artist.

It's fine for any white, blonde, blue-eyed heartthrob that can ride on a pretty face and implicit bias to rack up accolades, it's not good enough for Jungkook.

And BigHit needs to start using whatever leverage a US$10.6 billion market capitalization buys you in Hollywood, to insist for songs that are at least as good as the songs made by BTS members and produced by their in-house team. It's a waste of money and everybody's time to fly a battalion to LA just to record 2014's summer hit in 2023.

In my opinion.

Still With You > Stay Alive > My Time > Stay > Left & Right > My You > Dreamers > Seven

*

All that said, I can't ignore JK has a taste for songs like this, and it's not his fault the song is shit (he didn't write, compose or produce it), so technically he shouldn't be punished for it. And the song is made for radio, while it's not my personal taste a lot of people really like the song (one of my friends likes Seven the most out of all the BTS releases so far), and it will catch on with some support. So, ARMY will support it including me, just to a lesser degree than I've done so far. Fingers crossed JJK1 has something solid on it.

[traversalcc]

Traversal Devlog 2: 11/11/2024

What is Traversal? Having crash-landed on an island in the Atlantic Ocean, you take the role of Player, a man determined to get back to the mainland for his nephew's sake. While traversing through several islands in this action adventure game, you'll need to help the islanders, solve puzzles and survive to make your way back home.

Update News: I've said this on social media already, but I want to get an update out next year, but I haven't said anything past that yet.

My plan is to, first, update Traversal's demo from the current release, 0.2.6, to a newer, higher quality version, 0.3.0. This update will be the same length as the 0.2.6 demo, beginning and ending at the same points, but filled to the brim with quality of life changes (through gameplay and the settings), minor story tweaks, and changes to visuals.

(There are over 100 lines of additions, changes, tweaks, fixes, and removals in the patch notes.)

The second island is, currently, about 90% complete and playable, with the third island being around 50% complete and playable, albeit a lot of the elements of that 50% are placeholder.

Either together or separately, these will release sometime after the 0.3.0 demo comes out. However, this release will be separate from the demo, being released in Early Access.

(I'll speak more about that when the game actually enters Early Access, but I figured I might as well mention this now for anyone curious about what exists past Outline Island, and when and how they'll get to experience that.)

Almost on Steam: I've been recently working on getting Traversal on Steam. Hopefully, that should come soon, and, when it does, you'll be able to play the classic 0.2.6 demo through your Steam client and you'll be able to add Traversal to your Steam wishlist. When Traversal's 0.3.0 demo releases, it'll be there, on GameJolt, and on Itch.io, however, when the game goes into Early Access, it will do so on Steam.

The Chillin Creative Website: Chillin Creative has an official website (chillincreative.cc), and, as a result, there's an entire section of the website dedicated to Traversal. There's an archive of every bit of Traversal news that's been posted since 2020. Additionally, if you have an RSS reader, you can add the devlogs as an RSS feed (technically, an Atom feed) to get any new devlogs sent right to your reader.

Conclusion: Until then, you can play Traversal's 0.2.6 demo on GameJolt and Itch.io. Feel free to check out this devlog on the Chillin Creative website!

[cant-get-no-worse]

I mean Messi and Ronaldo both won lots of ballon d'or young but wasn't it just because there wasn't any other good player around? like Messi was good, but not a young prodigy like Erling or Mbappé. He became very good after a few years though. Ronaldo too he was alright in United but only became really good at Real Madrid, meanwhile Erling for his first season at City broke every record and Mbappé is considered amongst the best while still in PSG. He won the world cup at 18 I mean!!

Why... are we having this debate, again? It makes it seem like I have a beef with these players when in fact I don't. Love Erling, like Kylian as persons. But buckle up because I won't stand for career revisionism of the two grandads, even Ronaldo, cause ain't no fucking way the football world held ten years of obsessional, insufferable rivalry for youngsters to barge in and say oh, actually, were they that good?

I don't know a whole lot about Ronaldo because I only followed him through the Clasicos/RM era. But he wasn't "alright" in United. He was, at 18, compared to G. Best, David Beckham, etc. Was already decisive in finals. Won his first Ballon d'Or there at 23. There's a reason his transfer to Real was costly and such a show; he was way more than "alright". As much as I despise the guy's guts — I liked him alright when he was younger, but the traits that irked me at that time that I could dismiss as youth are now still present and even worse as a grown ass man, and I can't stand it — he was a fantastic football player. Will of winning, his work ethic, his football. He was absolutely lethal to play against.

Messi, well. I won't ramble on it because you can find that anywhere, really. Before he reached 20 years old, he was considered amidst the world best players. At 18 years old, Maradona said of him he was "the player who will inherit my place in Argentinian football". Ronaldinho (at the time ballon d'or winner and viewed as best player in the world) said he "wasn't even the best at Barcelona", refering to then 18 years old teammate Leo. He was seen as one of the key players carrying a failing Barcelona team while being fucking 18/20 years old or something. I haven't got words for him. Genuinely. He's a magician, a genius with the ball, he embodied football. At 18 just like as 25 or 33 he was making you shake your head in disbelief at the sheer insanity of his goals, assists or playmaking.

Both Messi and Ronaldo being 36/38 now kind of make new football fans think they're just those washed versions of themselves and overrated. I assure you. Those fanboys, medias, pundits, coaches and ex-players were not obnoxiously talking about them h/24 for nothing. 18 - 28 years old versions of Ronaldo and Messi would make an utter mockery of any current player in the world, and I'm weighting my words.

Those two hags both embody the exact meaning of young prodigy, and I'd say Messi even more so. Personal preference, I leave it up to people. The fact that they were considered as such before they won any international trophy such as the world cup as, as you pointed out, Mbappé won with the French NT at 18, answers your own question and tells you stricly everything you need to know. They were the best players in the world all seasons long, from when they were 18/20 to more than ten years. They were absolutely ridiculous. Hope we can enjoy such rivalry with Erling and Kylian, but it's not the same, since it's all about stats and awards now, football is taking airs of NBA. It's different. It's not style versus style. That 2007 - 2020 decade was wild, and as much as I dislike this saying, you just had to be there.

So yeah, they were that good. They were even better than that.

[shingetsu-online]

☆*WELCOME TO MY SPECIAL HELL*☆

☆ Hello, I'm Hugh. I'm a person who draws and plays videogames for fun, with a keen interest in analysis and psychology, and I enjoy the process of modding video game consoles. Welcome to my blog, shingetsu-online! ~.^*☆ ☆ text dividers by @cafekitsune ☆

☆*^.~ABOUT THE DUDE IN CHARGE~.^*☆

☆ My name is Hugh, though I also go by Mr. Crescendo, Shingetsu, & Hyuu. My pronouns are He/Him, and I am a transmasc agender demiboy who is gay, cinthean, demiromantic, & a sex-repulsed asexual. I'm 13 years old, so do please try to keep my boundaries in mind! I'm part of a system, and my headmates may pop up on here and make posts of their own. If you want to refer to us collectively, call us the Blue Raspberry Collective or the Moonjelly Hivemind. I am WaningCrescendo on A03, though I haven't posted anything on there yet! Please do not repost my art without permission or credit.

☆*^.~INTERESTS / FANDOMS~.^*☆

☆ My major hyperfixations are in blue & bold text, so I'll post about them more often than others.

☆ GHOST TRICK: PHANTOM DETECTIVE (I've beaten the entire game on my 3ds via emulation and it both fixed me and made me worse. Live laugh Inspector Cabanela. It is my absolute favorite game PLEASE play Ghost Trick PLEASE)

☆ HOMESTAR RUNNER (I got into it in 2020 and recently got back into it when playing Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People on my Wii.)

☆ POKEMON (Generations 5, 7, 8, & 9 mostly. I also enjoy the gen 8/9 DLC campaigns. Mostly the games, though I have read a bit of PokeSpe. I do not post about the animes.)

☆ A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (Both the books & the live-action series adaptation.)

☆ MIITOPIA (Both for Nintendo Switch & 3DS, I've played through the Switch port several times & I recently started the 3DS version!)

☆ ACE ATTORNEY (I've seen playthroughs for the entire main trilogy & the Investigations games, I am currently playing through Apollo Justice, & I have finished The Great Ace Attorney's 3DS English fan-slation, and I am trying to get the Chronicles so I can play Resolve! Don't worry about spoiler for the mainline 6 games & the Investigations games, but I am trying to play TGAA as spoiler-free as possible.)

☆ RHYTHM THIEF (I have played through the entirety of the main story! Also Charlie Vergier is transmasc & anyone who she/her's him is dead to me. /lh)

☆ RHYTHM HEAVEN & WARIOWARE (I classify these 2 together since they are heavily linked together! For Rhythm Heaven, my favorite games are Rhythm Heaven DS & Megamix, and for WarioWare, I like Smooth Moves, Move It!, Touched!, & Gold!)

☆ YOUR TURN TO DIE (I have played up to Chapter 3-1B!)

☆ THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU (I have NEO for my Switch, I have seen the anime, and I have the original DS game via emulation!)

☆ NINTENDO CONSOLE MODDING & HOMEBREW (I have watched so many videos on 3ds modding & Homebrew applications. I have modded my New 3DS XL and I am open to any questions concerning the process! I am trying to make a custom theme for it!)

☆ COOKIE RUN (Both Kingdom & OvenBreak!)

☆ TOMODACHI LIFE (I have the game for my 3DS! I am a firm Tomodachi Life Switch Port believer!!)

☆ NEEDY GIRL OVERDOSE/NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD (I have seen playthroughs!)

☆ GUILTY GEAR (I don't post much about it anymore, sadly. I just really like Bedman.)

☆ SPLATOON (I have 2, Octo Expansion, & 3. I am working on getting the DLCs soon!)

☆ ONE PIECE (I just watch the anime, & I've been stuck on the Water 7 arc for months now. I know most of the spoilers, so I don't mind.)

☆ PROJECT SEKAI (I haven't played since November or so, I just post about Wonderlands X Showtime & RuiKasa a lot. It's just mostly Tsukasa Tenma.)

☆ ALIEN STAGE (Nothing much to say, I've seen up to Round 6 & I just really like Luka's Sweet Dream cover & Hyuna in general. Oh yeah & IvanTill.)

☆ HAIKYUU!! (My friend dragged me into the Haikyuu!! hellhole. I'm very early in the show, & I mainly just dub over it with my friends for fun.)

☆ SUPER MARIO BROS. SERIES (I pretty much grew up on NSMBWii. I also like Paper Mario Color Splash, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, & Super Mario 3D World, though I've only seen playthoughs for Color Splash & 3D World. I'm playing Bowser's Inside Story!)

☆ THERE IS NO GAME (I have played Wrong Dimension & the original Construct Jam entry!)

☆*^.~SIDEBLOGS~.^*☆

☆ @hughstace - Ace Attorney blog. (I post a lot about Simon Blackquill, The Apollo Justice Trilogy, as well as BlackBright.)

☆ @koopsttyd - Paper Mario: TTYD blog. (May potentially be used for other Paper Mario games as well!)

☆ @6switcher - Rhythm Heaven series blog. (Lots of lockstep and Rhythm Heaven DS/Fever posts on there!)

☆ @raymondyaoi - Animal Crossing blog. (Usually ACNH/ACNL.)

☆ @jotchuakiryu - The World Ends With You blog. (Lots of JoshNeku.)

☆ @gayboy-from-diamond-city - WarioWare series blog. (Sadly not very active.)

☆ Other blogs not listed here are VERY inactive or they're personal.

☆*^.~THINGS TO KNOW~.^*☆

☆ Hey!! Here are some things to be aware of when interacting with me, so keep these in mind if you can!!

☆ I have a poor memory, but I'll try my best to remember things like when to use tone indicators or people's preferred pronouns.

☆ Please do not send me any interactions regarding/revolving around Friday Night Funkin'. It is incredibly triggering for me, and I would prefer it if you do NOT talk to me about it.

☆ Please don't send weird asks. Seriously, please be normal about this. I'm a freaking minor.

☆ Please don't advertise stuff in my inbox either. It's become a huge problem and it bothers me a lot.

☆ I block people freely, meaning that if they post a lot of something I'm uncomfortable with, I'll block them.

☆ Although I'm a sex-repulsed ace, I make sexual jokes from time to time, but it's usually just something like "that's what she said", penis jokes, or something similar.

☆ I have poor anger management, and I snap easily, so be wary.

☆ I try to avoid mention of politics as much as I can.

☆ I'm protective of headcanons so much to the point where it gets annoying FAST. That being said, most headcanons of mine align with my own identity, such as Crispin from Pokemon being gay and transmasc. However, I'm NOT going to attack people because my headcanons don't align with theirs and vice versa.

☆ That being said, I post a lot of shippy stuff, mostly revolving around said headcanons.

☆ I ship OC x Canon. Don't like it? Feel free to block me and move on.

☆ I'm in a system, and occasionally, one of my headmates will post on here instead of their own blog / our system blog, so if something seems different with me, just know that it's one of my headmates posting or goofing off.

☆*^.~DNI LIST~.^*☆

☆ If you apply to any of the below, please don't interact with me or any of my posts.

☆ Basic DNI criteria.

☆ Queerphobic people, including aphobes, TERFs, or SWERFs, as well as truscum or transmed people.

☆ NSFW/Minors DNI/NSFT blogs.

☆ People who think cringe culture is normal.

☆ Proshippers/Comshippers/"Anti-Antis".

☆ Zionists/People who support Israel.

☆ Conservatives & supporters of Elon Musk.

☆ Anyone who I block. Don't try & find a way around it.

☆*^.~TAG LIST~.^*☆

☆ Information on the tags I use on my posts.

☆ #shingetsu online - My general posting tag, all of the posts I make myself are tagged with this, but reblogs don't.

☆ #ask hugh - Like the one above, but this one's for asks.

☆ #hugh art tag - Tag I use for my artwork.

☆ #hugh oc tag - Posts that involve my OCs / Original Characters.

☆ #hugh's horrible hall of fame - Posts that involve me that I deem important. Usually it's just shenanigans.

☆ #i think my money is gay - Posts with Jay Eazy. It's usually just Megaman memes.

☆ #theatre of pain - Video posts, usually tagged this way for saving/archival purposes.

☆ #fav - My favorites tag. It's either important stuff or just funny stuff.

☆ #funnies - Memes / funny videos that I like.

☆ #save - Usually important stuff / references.

☆ #musik - Posts with music / that are music centered.

☆ #chefboy - Posts that include Crispin from Pokemon.

☆ #toothpaste boy - Posts that include Drayton from Pokemon.

☆*^.~USERBOX TIME!!!!~.^*☆

[x-on-the-calendar-business]

ryan ross iceberg (tier 7)

tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, tier 5, tier 6, tier 8

deep waters:

light up skechers fancam:

this is a fancam made by twitter user fleetwood_wac. the background song is skechers by dripreport, and i think it was a tiktok song? (i don’t have tiktok) in 2020/2021, it became famous on ryan ross stan twitter. i don’t think the original tweet is still up, but aryn has it in this reply.

side note, if you weren’t on ryan ross stan twitter in 2020, you were sorely missing out.

go figure. to late honey:

this is a quote from one of ryan’s livejournal posts from july 3, 2005. it’s SO iconic.

zrosswald:

this refers to ryan/z berg/alex greenwald. i think it’s meant to refer more to their friendship; the golden trio, if you will. however, i’m sure there are people who genuinely ship them all together, just like rydan.

they have been a tight group for a while, as z and alex both played with the young veins some. also, ryan and alex made appearances at z’s prom events.

eta: as i suspected, this is definitely a real ship.

here's a tumblr post explaining the ship dynamics a bit more. this blog has a lot of zrosswald content if you're interested!

kale:

on thanksgiving of 2011, ryan tweeted this:

in 2021, it became a meme in the ryan stan twitter community, and people tagged gordan ramsay in the tweet, asking his opinion on ryan’s cooking.

first male model for mac:

the story goes that in the fever era, the makeup company mac offered ryan a spot to be their first male model. unfortunately, he declined. according to the comments on a livejournal post i found, ryan discussed this in a 2006 spin magazine interview [i]. there were scans of the interview, but sadly, they’re not available, like most pictures on lj. it hasn’t been archived either.

the same commenter says that article doesn’t specifically mention mac, though. mac did offer ryan free products, but he doesn’t say if he accepted them [i].

so, it’s unsure if ryan was offered to be mac’s male model (unless there’s another source i’ve missed) or another brand’s. either way he turned it down. my guess is that the mac idea came from the fact that he used mac’s products back then.

beef with pete wentz:

after the split, brendon got pete in the divorce.

in a MTV interview that ryan did in 2009, it says “…he wishes Urie and Smith well and still considers them both to be his friends…The same cannot be said, however, about his former boss -- Decaydance Records honcho/ Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz -- who seems to have clearly aligned himself with the Urie/Smith camp following the split" [ii].

in the same interview, ryan specifically says:

"I haven't spoken to him in a while, since this happened. I guess I've been meaning to call him back. He called me, but I've missed a lot of phone calls this week," Ross said. "We're not sure [whether Ross' and Walker's new band will be on Wentz's Decaydance Records]. I'll have to talk to him, but obviously from what's happening online, I think he's ... he's written a lot about them. I don't know if they're working together on their stuff. I'm not really sure, but it's been awhile since we've spoken. It's strange. It's kind of weird" [ii].

the author of the article speculates that ryan and pete’s friendship is over [ii]. i can’t find the source for this, nor can i remember what the specific comments were, but i swear that pete did make some shady comments about ryan at one point.

however, it does seem that their relationship is not on negative terms currently. in 2016, pete tweeted this and this about ryan [iii] [iv]. also, this year (2023), pete mentioned ryan in a video fall out boy posted of pete reviewing his old fashion! you can watch it here:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fall Out Boy (@falloutboy)

i’m also going to link an article i found that chronicles ryan and pete’s entire relationship, which is an interesting read (although i get the feeling they’re a little biased against ryan…).

ryan’s pet turtles:

i can’t find the post or comment, but on a lj post, ryan commented “this reminds me of when my dad ran over my pet turtles with the lawn mower. thanks.”

“i went to high school with ryan:”

i have two sources for this, and i’m not sure of which one is the original. however, this one is the one i remember seeing first (around 2014).

on tumblr, someone sent in an ask saying essentially the same thing, also in 2014.

i know that both are referring to the same thing; i’m just not sure if the first pic is based on the ask, or if the ask is based on the image. either way, the sentiment is the same.

honestly, i don’t think this story is true. still funny nonetheless

hot girls eating pizza:

this is another one i cannot find a source for anywhere (not even a tweet mentioning it), even though i was able to in the past. i apologize.

but i’m pretty sure that what this is about is a tweet/social media post in which he referred to hot girls eating pizza.

if anyone has a source or more information on this one though, please let me know!!

(i was going to dm the creator of one of the icebergs i referenced to ask her, but twitter won’t allow me to send dms to someone who doesn’t follow me unless i pay for twitter blue. i’m committed to explaining this iceberg but not enough to give elon musk my money i fear)

sent to an island:

in an alternative press interview from 2018, z said that on christmas eve, she shipped ryan off to an island to clear his head. ryan says, “true story” [v].

kate moss playboy:

in the following picture from ryan’s instagram, you can see a kate moss playboy on the table.

hentai:

in the fever era, panic did interviews for a japanese magazine. someone ran ryan’s portion through an image translation, and it brought back something about hentai.

eta: update, twitter user givememallce bought the actual magazine from japan and provided us with translations of this image and the questions the band was answering! they also included the answers from the rest of the band if you're curious about those [vi]. so the biggest shoutout to them and their service.

fake wedding with z:

in 2009, ryan and z pretended to be married. ryan tweeted a picture of z with a wedding ring, called her his wife, and also tweeted a quote of her calling him “the best husband ever” [vii].

later, he tweeted that his wife left in the middle of the night. he then had a revelation:

the best part is that all of these events took place within a single day.

here’s the masterpost with all the details:

not actually 5’11:

this is a conspiracy that ryan is lying about his height.

one piece of evidence was that brendon is 5’9, meaning ryan would be 2 inches taller than him. however, in a lot of photos they look to be relatively the same height.

the other piece is that multiple fans who have met ryan said that compared to their own heights, he can’t be 5’11. i don’t have specific sources of people saying that, but i know it was discourse on twitter at one point.

next is the final entry in the iceberg, where we get into the most obscure stuff the iceberg has to offer and finish this thing up.

tier 8

references:

[i] https://bandfandom-ref.livejournal.com/133181.html

[ii] https://www.mtv.com/news/1fedpk/exclusive-ryan-ross-talks-about-leaving-panic-at-the-disco

[iii] https://twitter.com/petewentz/status/794988164901261312

[iv] https://twitter.com/petewentz/status/795025751930114048

[v] https://www.altpress.com/ryan-ross-z-berg-the-bad-list/

[vi] https://twitter.com/GIVEMEMALlCE/status/1695649402663363028

[vii] https://pathetic-at-the-disco.tumblr.com/post/180912208431/ryan-ross-and-z-bergs-wedding-masterpost

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

4 years, 40 facts about me loving napo... let's go 🏃🏻‍♀️

...or as @leonscape called it, 40 "Mopoleon" facts?! (picrew link)

the date of our "anniversary", June 19th, is one day after the date of the battle of Waterloo 💀

both our given names are of Italian origin

we're both leo zodiac signs

our birthdays are 8 days apart, in the same month

he's my first otome route ever played

i've only played his route once, in July 2019

i've never seen his dramatic ending

my first impression of him on a teaser tweet of ikevamp EN was that he looks like an asshole, and I didn't like his looks either...

my falling for him was utterly illogical as despite these thoughts I put him on my phone wallpaper a few days later (still before the release of ikevamp EN)

as of right now ao3 says he appears in 59 of my posted works: the total number of fics I have published with him is higher as a few of those are stand-alones in a multichapter fic (napoleon bday prompts 2019 +9, yumeweek 2020 +5, mini requests +4, headcanons +11 ) ...he appears in about 1/3 of all my fics!

we share a hobby of reading biographies! the official ikevamp character sheets state it as his hobby

our height difference is 18 cm

the @xxsycamore blog exists solely because of him, as well as my passion for writing - I started this blog because I wanted to express my love in some kind of creative way, as previously (and for the longest time) I thought my medium would be art instead of writing

despite that, my first ever posted fic is not with him but with Arthur!

I've always loved languages but he had influence over my choice of learning especially french in uni. It's hell but I don't regret it at all

I have a playlist with sleepy-themed songs for him 🥺

birds are my favorite animals (any kind) and he has a pet eagle!!

our mbti personality types are a so-called perfect match! infp + enfj

I don't like black-haired, blue-eyed men because of him, it was my type before him too! (not many such ikemens around but I have a handful of faves like that from other media)

as the fictional napoleon bonaparte is light years away from the historical figure, I thought I wouldn't be interested in learning about him - until I ended up reading multiple books on him, the thickest of which 680 pages... while I don't mix the two in my head, the napoleonic era history (+ russian empire history) is still pretty cool to know imo!

there's hardly any writer around here who hasn't received a napoleon request from me at least once... I'm so sorry...

it is implied in the game that napo has kissed boys (they were taking turns waking him up and they all know of his habit......) which gives me enough reason to headcanon him as bi....like me 🥺

I really suck at completing the bday creation challenges I host for him, as last year I did 0 prompts and the year before that 2....but in 2019 I did 10!

I love making bday gifts. I love birthdays. I don't have the exact number but last year a lot of characters received a bday fic from me but not napo 💀 partly because I was shadowbanned back then!

the only real tradition I have when it comes to his bday is to make homemade crepes since it's his favorite food! but my favorite part is eating them...

I still haven't watched the movie "Napoleon & Me"...

I don't have much napo merch, but I do have the Naplushieon doll which is plenty

I was still in highschool (11th grade) when I fell for him 🥺🥺🥺 it feels like ages ago

I love the song written for the ikevamp stage play and sung by his voice actor Nobunaga Shimazaki, "Lucida", so much you can even find it and play it on my blog... recently some kind soul uploaded the whole version on youtube (I've been waiting for so long....) and I haven't been the same since

my dream napo merch is the clothes hanger with his neck and face so that I can hang my silly little sundresses on him (I'm going to make it on my own actually, just watch)

after having so many random fic ideas for him that will never see the light of day, I accepted the facts at last and now I feel so much better and more chill

I'm currently working on fanart series where I try to post one tablet-drawn art of him every month... I have trouble keeping them simple as desired sometimes but I'm having lots of fun while learning (I still consider myself fairly new to drawing with my tablet)

once I wrote a death anniversary fic for napo!

the best napo song i've discovered so far is Wings by Su!YoON!

I don't know. anything. about his sequel. i just know the cgs. not that is hard to avoid spoilers LMAO

my most favorite napo cg is the 5th bday one (where they're in a field of roses) (it was on my phone's background for a very long time)

my most favorite napo card...that's a trick question but I think the one that is on the left banner in my blog (desktop view)

yes, yes I do want to go to Corsica one day what about it. I have a lot of other dream trip destinations too!

yes, I do love Napoleon cake (It's a russian recipe) (it was my bday cake in 2020)... but so do I love a whole lot of other cakes...!

Fact number 40 is that I love Napoleon a normal amount 😇 nono listen!! I do talk a lot about him, and here I tried compilating facts that are not too cheesy: believe it or not there are days I don't think about him, ok! I never pressure myself to get all the event bonus stories, or to always have a fic ready for him... in a world where im a worrywart about anything and everything, he's my safe place? my chill place? And if I begin to think about the gigantic mass of things surrounding him that are exactly aligning with what I love, with what comforts me, with what traits im looking for in a person, i'm going to get dizzy. So let's end this here with me saying, ily so much Napoleon 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 im such a nunuche sometimes but im your nunuche ‼️‼️

[ivalice-tifalucis]

Blue World

Guys, since TT3 is coming back and we're packing up our hype for the next album, I think let's make another post about Barlliams/Creamcakes aka my favorite ship in Take That crumbs.

I don't know why any of you haven't talked about this yet. Maybe you have but I didn't see it or know but haven't talked about this yet or maybe I've seen you talked about it but I forget for some reason.

In 2018, in one of his now deleted youtube live streaming which I actually watched when it was live (which is rare because I can count on one hand how many times I watch any live stream that he did), he showed this unreleased Take That song likely from Progress era based on the tune that sounds like Eight Letters, the beat that is Progress-like, and even "in requiem" words which become a whole song by Gary in his solo album. If you listen closely, this is clearly a duet between Rob and Gaz.

Edit: Can I just say I was internally screaming in 2018 when I first hear Blue World. We are so parched of CC crumbs that this got me gasping like OMG THAT'S GARY'S VOICE!!!!! (starts from 1:56)

Another time where he played this song again in Coronaoke series on instagram live back in 2020 during early pandemic. In this year, he said the title to this song is "Blue World" and played the song from start to finish. Trying to make this blog entry make me realize he actually played a different version of the song in 2018 and in 2020. I think they are reworking this song, hmmm interesting isn't it?

I tried to write the lyrics based on what I heard and try to tell which part is Robbie and which is Gary. It is hard and I might be wrong because Robbie's higher register and Gary's higher/middle register actually sounds similar which is something that I realized when Gary fill in Robbie's part in Everything Changes (Odyssey Version) in the last part of the song "thinking thinking about you". It took me like couple of listening to finally realize wait a minute, that's Gary's voice not young Robbie's. The only difference is that Gary has that soft edges on his voice while Robbie doesn't have that.

Plus, Robbie was karaoke-ing over this song and being Robbie he doesn't even know the right words of his own songs and sing the wrong words and sometimes just mumbles so I have to pay close attention to the song in the background. There are small parts that I still can't catch what the lyric is. I hope they released this song at some point. Have been waiting since 2018 and still wait patiently.

Edit 2: thanks @beautyofred for the notice. It is “You know how young we were” 😭, "You might be living but we're holding hands", "Can't stand the frequency here". After this, it makes even more sense this song is about them. So in the 2018 version, Blue World is basically like this:

(Gary) Blue world, your fate is calling Blue world, at last control A new world of final curtain calls Look how we've come together Just when we've reached the end In requiem

(Robbie) You know how young we were And feel how much it hurts We might be loving but we're holding hands We might be leaving but we're making plans Below our bleeding sky watching our mother's die It seems forever wasn't long enough Why must we always lose the ones we love?

(Gary) Will moment share it musters? But this fragile blue world With the cruel sunlight burning in our eyes ... And in 2020 it is like this:

(Robbie) Blue world, your fate is calling Blue world, at last control A new world of final curtain calls (Gary) Look how we've come together Just when we've reached the end In requiem

(Both) You know how young you were And feel how much it hurts You might be leaving but we're holding hands We might be dying but we're making plans Below our bleeding sky watching our mother's cry It seems forever wasn't long enough Why must we always lose the ones we love? (Robbie) Will moment share it musters? But this fragile blue world With the cruel sunlight burning in our eyes (Gary) You said, I don't know if I could love you for the rest of your life But I’ll love you for the rest of mine That we're led around your silent heart (Robbie) A blue balloon on a barbwire The weather on the ground is catching fire now And when you hear that sound (Both) You know how young we were And feel how much it hurts You might be leaving but we're holding hands We might be dying but we're making plans Below our bleeding sky watching our mother's die It seems forever wasn't long enough Why must we always lose the ones we love? (I'm sure this part changes at this 3rd reff but I can't catch what it is)

(Both) Because can't stand the frequency here Call my name and I'll appear I'm traveling at the speed of light When nothing matters but the life that seep your eyes (Gary) Hold us together Hold us together Hold us together Hold us together I know a secret about you

(Both) You know how young we were And feel how much it hurts You might be leaving but we're holding hands We might be dying but we're making plans Below our bleeding sky watching our mother's cry You know forever wasn't long enough Why must we always lose the ones we love?

You know how young we were (Hold us together) And feel how much it hurts (Hold us together) You might be leaving but we're holding hands (Hold us together) ....