#i like prismatic too its a fun concept

[warlordfelwinter]

FINE bungie i'll admit it you got me with the old tower and cayde ok

[flooficandii]

thats got me thinking actually . i havent rly had the energy nor the interest to update nuniq's doc to include interactions w/ the newest agents . including harbor and tjats literally her boyfriend lmao 😭😭😭😭 but anyway lemme make some poorly drawn depictions of what nuniq thinks of the newer agents (starting from clove to gekko)

clove

honestly. nuniq wasnt too jazzed about the idea of hiring a kid (grown adult but theyre a kid to her), especially an untrained one . she understands they might have a link to omen going rogue but is still iffy about the whole situation

also oof. the whole immortality thing? yeah it must be a lot to bear for clove, theyre just very good at hiding it. but like with a lot of the young radiants, nuniq lets them know they can approach her about this stuff bc shes been through it too

she can admit she gets pissed at clove bc their immortality causes them to make more reckless decisions on the field . she wants to get it in their head that you still have to be smart about these things no matter how much power you have

but! she thinks clove is very nice. very silly very sweet guy who is an excellent storyteller. storytelling is very intertwined in both nuniq and clove's cultures so she loves listening to whatever clove can whip up

clove has probably dragged her into dnd at least once

she took a while to grasp it but thats ok shes trying her best

anyway yeah clove talks a lot and sometimes nuniq cant understand them so she has to ask them to slow down

iso

valorant hired him because he was a kingdom killer and nuniq was ALL FOR THAT !!!!

she can tolerate the cocky smug little shit thing bc hes professional at least

hes not very hard to work with and is very cunning and calculating. nuniq likes that

iso has most definitely heard about nuniq before and was surprised to see her alive bc a lot of media made it seem she was dead to quell the uprisings against kingdom

nuniq is fascinated by iso's radiance but it definitely makes her think about how fast and how complex the concept of radiance itself is evolving . to think he could create his own pocket dimension with prismatic energy

besides that i feel like they mostly mind their own business

theres a mutual respect for eachothers skill and grit and they just *nods*

deadlock

like the thing says. theres currently some weird tension between deadlock and nuniq rn (and its surprisingly not gay)

theyre both so cold its kinda hard for either of them to approach eachother

deadlock is. working on her relationship with gekkos creatures! which nuniq appreciates

but idk nuniq never forgets anything and its hard for her to get over the fact she almost killed wingman multiple times

+ proposed awful countermeasures to keep the radivores in check

yk that one headcanon someone made about gekkos friendliness and critters winning over a lot of the protocol?

and how they immediately had beef w deadlock because of it?

yeah thats the situation with nuniq

things have simmered down with the creature situation but nuniq mostly ignores deadlock outside of work

and frankly i think deadlock's scared of nuniq too so

gekko

last but not least GEKKO !!!!

nuniq loves gekko!!! hes so silly

hes fun and lighthearted while still being a good fighter

being around gekko makes nuniq feel. Friendlier idk how else to describe it

also his critters have 100% stolen her heart sometimes she asks to babysit wingman when gekkos busy

she has had to apologize for aput using dizzy as a chew toy though

gekko has dyed nuniqs hair temporarily; it was northern lights-colored streaks that looked really cool when braided, she kept it for about a month until it washed out

overall she thinks hes very sweet and she and reyna can get along over being protective of him

anyway yeah i think thats every agent so far after harbor! wow !!! i cant believe we've already made it this far to agent 25 .. and agent 8 still hasnt been revealed yet i love valorant lore (tired

[faerun]

Worldbuilding Question: Are the fish gods real or just a part of the religious beliefs? Also why the long, unatural winter?

Ah! Thank you for the question!

The question of whether or not the gods of this world are real is one I'd like to leave up to interpretation for the reader. I kind of... dislike it in certain fantasy series when gods are undeniably real beings with tangible influences on the world rather than being more similar to real life religions, where the god or gods work silently in the background to maintain natural order and its debatable whether or not things are caused by divine beings or can be explained by science. Hopefully that makes sense!

That being said, the Azureli people definitely believe their gods are real! Most of my writing so far has been from their perspective, so in my writing the gods and their actions are often framed as undeniable facts of life. The Azureli people worship a pantheon of gods which represent different facets of existence that they consider most important.

The predominant religion of Azurel is known as Prismatism, and the core tenets of the religion are survival, adaptability, and a respect for the natural world. Their gods represent concepts such as the pursuit of knowledge in the name of survival, the fragility of nature, the inherent divinity and beauty present in the natural world, the destructive and restorative forces of nature, the cycle of birth, death, and change in all aspects of existence, including their own gods.

Copy and pasted directly from my home made wiki-

"At the heart of this belief is the understanding that change is an inherent and necessary aspect of existence. Just as the seasons cycle through periods of growth and decay, so too does society experience cycles of prosperity and ruin. These periods of ruin, known as Collapses, are events of intense devastation and death brought on by some form of natural or unnatural disaster. These are considered moments of reckoning, where the sins and shortcomings of the Azureli people are laid bare, and where the foundations of society are tested and reshaped." In short, Collapses are disasters thought to be tests administered by the gods to push the Azureli people to constantly improve and change. The Azureli view these cycles of societal death and rebirth as opportunities for improvement in the constant race to establish themselves as a perfect society, after which they will be rewarded with an era of absolute peace and prosperity. This most recent Collapse was the onset of climate change, turning Azurel from a chilly but temperate planet to a frozen wasteland. Other past Collapses have taken the form of more conventional natural disasters, like floods or droughts or disease, but this disaster has persisted for the last few hundred years and has altered the fabric of Azureli society more significantly than any other.

I'm still trying to nail down the exact nature of the Collapses and also work out some plausible scientific explanations for them, in keeping with my whole thing of not wanting to explicitly confirm or deny the existence of the gods, but I'm still working on all that as it takes a lot of research and this is just kind of a side project for me right now! Still, this whole project has pushed me to learn more about a ton of subjects that I would otherwise not have much interest in and its been really fun so far researching what all goes into effective worldbuilding so I'm not complaining. I don't really have a 'story' per se to go along with this world, so I'm just tackling it a little bit at a time and further developing it at my own pace.

All of this is subject to change and has changed a lot since I started doing it, for instance it used to be that the world was constantly cold just because I liked the idea of an arctic planet, but since then I've developed the main religion of the world a lot more and wanted the climate and the gods to be more closely connected.

Thank you for your question and giving me a chance to lore dump a little bit!

[meiusoo-twistedtwst]

[Twisted Wonderland Theory] The Nations of Twisted Wonderland: What Do Their Names Mean and Can We Get Info From It?

(Image from the Twisted Wonderland Wiki Fandom page. Please don't sue me)

WARNING: Contains slight religious concepts. I do not mean to offend anyone if I do. I respect all religions.

Land of Pyroxene: Pyroxene is anything of a large class of rock-forming silicate minerals, generally containing calcium, magnesium, and iron and typically occurring as prismatic crystals.

There are a handful of people from the Land of Pyroxene, almost all of them are like jewels and are of high class.

Rose Kingdom: Roses often have something to do with romance, but white roses symbolize purity and holiness, while red means passion and sacrifice.

Many people are from the Rose Kingdom. Heartslaybyul paints white roses red during certain events. They sacrifice their fun-filled lives and freedom in order to passionately follow the Queen of Hearts rules while attending NRC.

Afterglow Savana: Afterglow has two meanings, but one ties in with Savanaclaw; good feelings remaining after a pleasurable or successful experience.

Savanaclaw would regain their glory in Magishift and feel very prideful if they were to finally beat Diasomnia dorm, plus Leona would be praised. So, Leona and Ruggie did everything they could to beat them, even if that means harming students of other dorms.

The Coral Sea: Corals typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.

Octavinelle students seem to hide or cover up their true feelings and intentions. Building up a ''hard skeleton'' that no one can break through.

Land of Hot Sands: Deserts have dangers such as sand storms and flash floods. Sand and dust can cause serious health problems if you inhale too many of its particles.

Scarabia may seen like a food and party heaven, but actually has many dangers: betrayals (cough, cough, Jamil-), intense heat, lack of water, etc...

Village of Harvest (Part of Pyroxene): Harvest is a season where people gather crops.

Obviously, farmers only harvest crops during the season where they are ripe and ready. Epel is the only student we know that's from that village, and he's slowly growing every day, like an apple.

Isle of Lamentation: the passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weeping.

This one is very interesting. Idia's pose in the countdown cards makes him look like he's having a breakdown. People are sorrowful and tend to weep when a loved one dies. Idia could be reflecting on the pain and despair he felt during Ortho's possible death and funeral.

Valley of Thorns: In the Bible, the Crown of Thorns is very symbolic; the thorns were meant to prick our (sinners) conscience and hearts, rather than cut our hands or feet. Because of our sins, our conscience will always prick our guilty souls with sharp thorns.

I'm kind of confused on this one. I'm not Christian so I don't fully understand the meaning of thorns in the Bible. But I think Diasomnia may have committed more sins then we think. They are guilty of the sins, who knows what they could have done in order to protect their Lord Malleus? Even though he can easily protect himself.

Jubilee Port: Jubilee means a special anniversary of an event, especially one celebrating twenty-five or fifty years of a reign or activity.

I'm guessing Jubilee Port has been a nation for around twenty-five to fifty years. I don't remember if Crowley or one of the staff members mentioned anything about Sam's Mystery Shop, but the shop could have been up and running for about twenty-five to fifty years now. I doubt the shop would be as old as the school's apple trees, or the whole school itself.

[kaiekasunwhisper]

The Ebon Hold

((Co-written with @thefugitivemango / @avehi-the-adamant​ ))

~*~*~

Here she was again; Avehi felt like she spent too much time here. And at the same time, never enough. Acherus was such a fluid constant in her unlife, from the very beginning of it. She was raised in these halls. Conditioned to obey the Lich King’s call here. Then fought that very conditioning. All right here. She hated it, and loved it all at once. 

Memories weren’t the only thing the floating necropolis brought. The Ebon Blade was working tirelessly to uncover the mysteries surrounding the Shadowlands, and the inequality that plagued the scales of the afterlife. The latest on that front; The Lich King himself had become involved. Avehi didn’t know Bolvar Fordragon well; which was to say she’d never met him. But every Knight knew who he was, and what he had become. A sacrifice so great, and a burden so damning. She had reverence for the human. Reverence and caution. 

The Helm of Dominion on his head gave him the potential of becoming an enemy of life itself. So far, he’d shown great restraint. But nothing lasts forever. She was wary of him, to say the least. So upon hearing the Ebon Blade had begun working with him in recent days, pledging Knights to serve him once more… Avehi grew increasingly uncomfortable.

She crossed her arms, examining the training yard on the upper level. Her brow raised, tail flickering as she beheld one of her recent converts - Kai’eka Sunwhisper, a cultist warrior she’d met, killed, and risen. The woman was truly terrifying in that training ring! Other Knights cheered as she bested contenders one by one with her twin blades. The Draenei smiled, as she observed; Kai’eka was a good choice for this. Perhaps her best choice, so far. She turned to come around and down the steps, to speak with the warrior as her final fight came to its predictable conclusion.

Kai’eka beamed. She offered a hand to help the human up, her thanks for a fight well fought, before harnessing her weapons to leave the ring for the next pair of fighters. Being among the Ebon Blade felt good. Sparring against them was much more fun than the living. They held more strength, stamina, and one didn’t have to hold back to avoid a ‘killing blow’. While she still hadn’t grasped exactly how hemomancy worked yet, it didn’t matter as she usually came out of the ring victorious. 

She smiled at Avehi. An actual, genuine smile.

“Avehi,” she greeted her friend, “Was wondering when you’d show up again. Need to figure out how to fix my link with these swords.”

“I can show you. We use runes, not unlike the ones with which you’re familiar.” the Draenei replied, smiling in return. “Come, I’ll take you to the Runeforge.”

She led Kai’eka up from the fighting pit to an ominous, towering forge. The power it emanated thrummed as they drew near, the lich fire flames within crackling strong and bright. As far as skills developed postmortem, runeforging was something Avehi excelled at. She already served the Ebon Blade as a weapon smith early on, and picked up the undeath-unique skill from a fellow Acherian artisan. Now, she was regarded as a seasoned runemaster in her own right.

“You’re fitting in well here, it seems.” she commented to Kai’eka, smiling back to her. “How are you feeling about all this?”

“Never better, actually,” the Ren’dorei replied, “I don’t need to eat, sleep or drink. I don’t sweat, I don’t get tired… Honestly, I haven’t found a down side to this death thing yet.”

She eyed the runeforge as they approached, ears perking up in curiosity. She’s heard of them before, but never seen one up close. She eyed her blades, the cultist powered runes having faded since N’Zoth’s defeat… something she was still trying to wrap her head around. Before now, the Old Gods were all she knew… her ultimate truth. Now that she’d seen for herself the lie she grew up believing, it was time to re-evaluate where she stood and what to fight for. A confusing and frightening concept at first, but after a few days and nights of contemplation, she was excited for her new start to ‘life’ in undeath. 

“So how do these things work? Is it the same runes from a different power source, or different runes altogether?”

“I expect they’ll be quite different than the runes you’re used to.” Avehi nodded once.

She tried to keep neutral on Kai’eka’s cultist past. True, that’s what led to their conflict, and ultimately the ren’dorei’s death, but Avehi wasn’t one to fault anyone for coming to terms with the fact that their beliefs were all wrong. She could relate, after all. Kai’eka seemed genuine in her desire to move past all that, anyway. And Avehi wasn’t about to hold her back.

“They’ll function similarly, but how they bind to us and how they’re etched and forged is a very unique process. Nothing the Living can emulate… and survive.”

She opened the forge’s 'jaws', revealing a small platform. A stand, to hold and imbue the Death Knight’s weapon. Then, the Draenei stepped aside, and motioned for Kai’eka to place one of her weapons inside.

“We’ll start with a simple one, to draw upon runic power. Think of it as a reserve of necrotic energies you can call upon when needed.” she explained. “The rune you draw for it is simple; but by the nature of these runes, it’ll bind the weapon solely to you. No one but you will be able to call upon its power.”

She nodded once to the elf.

“Come, I’ll show you.”

Kai’eka nodded at the explanation, observing the blue flames spouting from the forge in the same cold blue color her eyes now matched. She drew one of her hooked blades as she stepped forward, but hesitated for a moment.

Her eyes left the forge momentarily to the now faded runes on her blades, the last symbol of her dedication to the Ancient Ones. Something about that notion tugged at her unbeating heart. Doubt clouded her mind, as over six hundred years of formation nagged at her mind. What if this was all a test? The final trial before being allowed into her promised afterlife? Eyes closed as she mulled it over… thinking of everything she’d sacrificed in life, all in their name. Her sole dedication, the blood she spilled, risking her life time and time again to obtain artifacts of power in offerings, shortening her own lifespan in ritual to give a more worthy servant longevity, her body as she gave herself in to the Void, Alteris… her own life.

No. If all of that hadn’t been enough, then she was done. Even if what she’d been led to believe was true, the Old Ones  were now powerless after N’Zoth’s fall. Had Alteris still been alive, he’d no doubt be boasting to her about it now.

“I killed my brother,” she said, opening her eyes and starting at her distorted reflection in the blade, “That’s how he died. He… interfered with the cult so…”

She shook her head, sighing. Her earlier good mood having dissipated completely in her contemplation. She wasn’t certain why she was telling this to Avehi now… perhaps because of the Draenei’s faith in her being able to change... 

“He meant the world to me. But that’s how much I fucking believed in the cause…”

Outstretching her arms, she placed the sword onto the platform, her cold gaze never leaving it.

“Never again.”

Avehi knew well when to keep quiet. Kai’eka’s moment of realization was surely one such moment. She watched the elf silently, observing her expression and demeanor change through pensive staring at her blade. The revelation was unexpected, certainly. But clearly it needed to be said. She remembered Kai’eka sharing word of her brother’s death upon their first meeting. Now, with more details given to her, it began to paint a picture of her life, and where her priorities had been. Skewed by a higher power. Muddied by faith. The Draenei’s tail flickered, before she took her place beside Kai’eka. No hand on her shoulder, no comforting embrace. Only acknowledgement of what the elf told her. Acknowledgement, and understanding.

“The Light inspires similar devotion.” she commented, as she drew her hammer from her back. “We’ve done terrible things in its name. We’ve turned our backs on our own people, even after one of the darkest chapters in our history. All because they, too, ‘interfered’ with the harmony the Light instilled within us.”

Avehi shook her head. She recalled such days. Such was her own thought process back then, amidst the fanfare and accolades of serving as a Vindicator. The Light’s chosen warriors, empowered to protect her people. She pondered herself; if she, too, had a meddlesome brother interfering with the Light’s designs, would she silence him as Kai’eka had? Her brow furrowed in disgust with herself, when the answer 'no' failed to clearly and definitively ring out in her mind.

“It’s a harsh lesson on blind devotion. One I had to learn as well.” she nodded. “But now that you’ve learned personally… it’s a mistake you’ll never fall prey to again.”

She lowered her voice, and glanced around.

“Serve no one so steadfastly that you fail to question their intentions. Not even the Ebon Blade.”

Avehi’s words were appreciated, yet surprising to hear. As much as Kai’eka had always despised the Light, it was rare to hear someone describe that side of it. Even more so to hear it from a Draenei. She listened intently, taking in Avehi’s words of wisdom.

A nod of understanding, before she turned her attention back to the task at hand. Avehi set her crystalline hammer into a stand beside the runeforge, head upright. It glowed in proximity to the forge, the same blue flames flickering within the shimmering prismatic weapon. One rune in particular began to glow at Avehi’s command; a simple enough pattern of a semi-circle beneath an acute angle opened left, with a solitary dot nestled in the arc’s cradle. The rune projected from the weapon, enlarging for clarity’s sake before the elf.

“This is the Rune of Reserve.” she explained. “When you are prepared.”

Kai’eka’s ears perked up a bit as she studied the rune. As dark as the subject of her brother was, there wasn’t much that could take away the excitement of rune inscription. Even through a different process than the Coterie, she enjoyed learning about them and what they did. And she looked forward to feeling connected to her blades once more.

“I’m ready,” she informed, “What do I need to do?”

"Draw it."

The instructions were simple enough; Avehi extended her hand, two fingers pointed out as they traced along the rune suspended before them. The rune itself flickered, glowing brighter at the Death Knight's touch. Her hammer, too, exhaled a notable wave of power as the rune was redrawn. She turned her eyes to Kai'eka once again, and nodded.

"Focus your mind on your weapon. You're well familiar with it, yes?" she asked, though already knew it was so. "Focus intently on it. Feel its smooth, cold surface in your thoughts, and trace the rune out before you. You'll feel it as it's etched, both into your weapon… and into you."

The Draenei loosened her gauntlet, before tugging it off and setting it aside. She upturned her hand, revealing the same rune aglow on her forearm. It was identical in every way to the rune etched into the weapon, glowing from beneath Avehi's skin. As the rune on the hammer's glow dissipated, so too did the glow on the rune in her skin - both fading out until they had seemingly vanished entirely.

"This power is a curse on it's own. Unbridled and untempered, it turns lesser Knights to madness. Static, it would burn our souls to dust, from within." she cautioned. "The runes focus the power coursing through us, applying it to greater uses than simply reanimating our corpses. Runeforging transmutes this danger into an asset. This pain into our drive. This curse… into a gift."

Avehi nodded, smirking slightly. She remembered hearing those words for the first time, when she learned runeforging for herself. They resonated deeply with her, then; a lost soul, hoping desperately she could pivot her dark fate into some semblance of salvation. They resonated with her still, but now for a different reason.

"Draw it," she repeated, as she tugged her gauntlet back over her hand. "and embrace this gift. Your power."

Kai’eka’s ears flicked as Avehi explained. It was a rather long winded answer for a simple question. She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes and making a snarky comment about it. With Avehi being her only contact in undeath so far, she attempted to keep her more abrasive side in check until they knew each other a little better. 

“Got it. Simple enough.”

She removed her gauntlet as Avehi had, and went to work at tracing the tune in the air in front of her. She felt the inscription almost immediately as it became engraved into her arm and blade; quite a different feeling from ritual tattoos. It burned, but with cold instead of heat. Her lips parted at the new sensation, a grin forming as she felt the bond with her blade renewed, like meeting an old friend after some time apart.

Once the runeforging was complete, she looked down to her arm to admire the new marking.

“You keep saying ‘curse’. What do you mean by that? I haven’t seen or heard a downside to any of this at all.”

“And I truly hope there never is one, for you.” Avehi nodded, replacing her gauntlet - flexing her fingers to situate it properly. “Back in the days of the Lich King, soldiers and warriors were raised without much discerning. People from all backgrounds, brought back from death against their wills. With no consideration for what it might do to them, mentally.”

She shook her head, recalling how horrible that time all seemed back then. Compared to now… it was abhorrent. The entire reason she was so against raising the dead in the first place came from that terrible feeling she got anytime she thought of the early days. Before the Ebon Blade. Before the Lich King fell. But things were different, now. And if she didn’t learn to adapt, and keep her morality flexible, how was she any different than zealots like Argonas? She grunted resolutely, as she looked to Kai’eka once more.

“It’s different, now. I picked you because I thought you’d handle it well. Better than anyone else.” she told the elf. “You don’t need to be empathetic. But at least be cognizant that it’s nowhere near this easy for other Knights. Especially those of us from the Scourge days, who suffer from the Hunger.”

Kai’eka raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more on the subject. She’d heard about the Hunger, but didn’t know exactly what that was about. According to Avehi, it wasn’t something the ex-cultist has to worry about, so she didn’t really care. She assumed it was something unpleasant, nonetheless. And it was true, she’d seen some Ebon Knights walking around that looked half decomposed. She supposed she was lucky to have been brought back right away.

She turned her attention back to her blade, removing it from the platform to admire the freshly inscribed rune a moment, before setting it aside and placing her other weapon in.

“Does the same rune go on each blade? What’s the limit on how many you can have?” She asked, returning to the subject at hand.

“For this rune, they’ll be separate inscriptions so you can draw on one, the other, or both.” Avehi answered, as the impromptu ‘lesson’ resumed. “The limit comes with a balancing. Our power is limitless, like a river. But too many branches in its path will cripple how well it flows, yes? You’ll have to be mindful. Try three or four for now - these two each counting separately - and see how that feels. We can add or remove runes as you please.”

She raised her hand to the hammer, causing the rune they’d drawn before to glow and expand - reference once more for Kai’eka to imbue upon her second blade.

“Fair enough,” she nodded before going back to concentrating on the rune ahead of her. 

Having already gone through the process once, the task was already familiar, though that didn’t mean Kai’eka took it less seriously. Her connection to her blades was important to her, and she kept her concentration on that as her fingers traced the rune once more, ears flickering as she felt the inscription etched into her arm. It felt good, being able to do the runeforging herself as opposed to having to depend on a Speaker to inscribe her tattoos. It was empowering. She felt more in control of herself than she ever had before.

The process complete, she took hold of the blade, and then the other, holding both in each hand as she stepped back from the forge. She smiled, satisfied with her work. Two runes would do for now.

“Gonna have to test these in the ring soon.”

Avehi couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at that. For all she was, Kai’eka was at least predictable. She nodded approvingly as she took Rokaa up from the stand and sheathed it to her back.

“You’re welcome to now, if you wish.” she offered. “I’ve a few more errands around Acherus. Others to check on. Perhaps once I’m done, I’ll even join you.”

She chuckled again lightly, before dipping her head to Kai’eka. Despite their rocky past, Avehi felt good about this one. Emboldened and encouraged to carve her own destiny after having lived a lie, Kai’eka’s afterlife would be much better than Avehi’s ever was. And in the end, that had always been the Draenei’s intent for those she raised. It felt good to see the beginnings of that trend.

[anhed-nia]

THE EMOJI MOVIE

I've actually tried to watch this several times, and never made it past the first twenty minutes or so. The whole concept--that emojis inside a boy's phone struggle for survival when their glitchy antics provoke him to try to wipe the device--is so uninspired that it was hard for me to imagine it even being kitschy enough to justify watching the whole thing. However, since its release (only a year ago, but isn't it starting to feel like it's been with us forever?), THE EMOJI MOVIE has become so notorious that suffering through it feels like some sort of rite of passage. As of this morning, I can say with absolute certainty that this experience is actually much worse than you probably think it is.

I don't even want to get that much into the "plot", but for the sake of whatever: TJ Miller is a "meh" emoji by birth, who is secretly plagued by a full spectrum of emotions. When he is classified as a "malfunction", in a series of repetitive arguments that sound uncomfortably like they're just barely skirting "the R word", Meh goes on the run to avoid destruction by his fellow emoji, who need to manage this crisis before their user erases all of them.

If that is like...not very heroic-sounding to you, then you're hearing me right. THE EMOJI MOVIE is I guess about being yourself or something, but the details of Meh's adventure are so outlandishly stupid that it's hard to even worry about the moral of the story. To my apoplectic shock, our hero's escape from peril is totally dependent on Dropbox. That's almost all you need to know about this movie, actually: That it requires you to somehow reimagine a collaborative file management product as the Millennium Falcon, or Dorothy's ruby slippers, or something. Even if I were able to accept this proposal, it still remains beyond me why a tween boy would have Dropbox on his phone. I mean, is he going to Project Management Junior High or something?

Of course, this is only one example of THE EMOJI MOVIE's inability to produce exciting, easy-to-understand ideas. It may not be surprising, on paper, that an unwieldy chunk of the story involves a loud advertisement for the money-grubbing mobile game Candy Crush. However, it's still jarring when the movie has the sheer nerve to insert its characters into a 3D version of the very-2D Candy Crush board, have them discuss the rules and mechanics of Candy Crush at length, and then have them actually play Candy Crush, in a scene that really accomplishes nothing other than exactly what is on the screen while it lasts. The audacity of the thing makes the McDonald's breakdancing sequence in MAC & ME look downright subtle.

The aforementioned scene should really be enough to sink basically any cinematic ship, but THE EMOJI MOVIE doesn't settle for less than 100% failure. Almost everything in it is so poorly considered that there isn't enough time in my life to get through it all, but I have to get *some* things off my chest. I mean, how the fuck do you take a concept like this, and decide that a whole bunch of your movie should involve DANCING? How can you possibly ask me to look at a bunch of Pac-Mans with little rudimentary limbs, and expect me to be able to tell that SOME of them are really good dancers and SOME of them are really shitty dancers, and ALL OF THE SUSPENSE hinges on this distinction? And while we're talking about physical activity, what are even the rules of this world? Apps are both giant monolithic cubes, like they are on your home screen, that can slide around and crush you between their unyielding walls, and they are ALSO little subdimensions that you can enter (not that we really see how this works) and dick around in. "Internet trolls" are somehow not separate human users, but technological entities that exists inside the world of the phone, right alongside junk mail and computer viruses. And speaking of junk, like, why is the phone owner deleting individual apps WHILE he's on his way to a Genius Bar to get the whole device reset? What the fuck is going on in any part of this movie?

While I'm talking about how ~completely~ disastrous this movie is, though, I should admit that maybe I blew past the plot too quickly. The most remarkable thing about THE EMOJI MOVIE is that it manages to be so fathomlessly moronic, AND so majestically pretentious at the same time. There is something interestingly perverse about the idea of taking humanity's most vapid, dehumanized linguistic development, and using it as some kind of allegory for the supremacy of emotion, and the prismatic nature of the soul. It's disturbing, actually. On the one hand, the movie cannot resist advertising for office products and parasitic IAP-driven games, and all of its ostensible charm is predicated on the viewer's preexisting familiarity with fun icons for human shit and compressed fish byproducts. On the other hand, the movie makes a big deal out of identifying the fascism inherent in controlling how people express themselves, and confining their potential to the dictates of their heritage. At some point the movie even drags in some shallow commentary on the tyranny of gender roles, with a subplot about a "princess" emoji rejecting the few, oppressively girly options for females of the species--just in case there were any audience members left who didn't feel personally condescended to yet.

At this point, you might be wondering why I even bothered to write all this down, having already suffered the unnecessary indignity of watching the thing. The truth is that I have an insatiable curiosity about the psychology of productions like this. When I see something so abjectly catastrophic, I start to have enthralling nightmare visions about what it must have been like to make this movie. Especially considering the fact that it is animated: At what point did people begin to realize that something really bad was happening? Who noticed it first? Was there a protracted period of convincing oneself that everything was going to be fine, or did the darkness sink in at the very beginning? What happened when the movie came out? Have all of the actors even see the whole thing? How did they manage their social lives when it started to become common, international knowledge that they had participated in the creation of one of the worst movies in the visible history of the medium? Does one lose relationships over a movie like this, either among friends who don't know how to address it, or comrades who can't stand the slightest reminder of what they've been through? I am completely entranced by my own fantasies about what happens with movies like this. I would happily watch a documentary about the making of THE EMOJI MOVIE, or better yet, some sort of distorted psychodrama about the emotional environment of the production. Somebody get Peter Strickland on the blower.

PS Mike White, I am so, so sorry. What happened to you?

[gyromitra-esculenta]

Synchronicity 13

F.E.A.R.!AU And we are out of the Talon blacksite by the end of this chapter. This is mostly combat porn. Also, introducing Sombra as Paxton and Jesse as Point Man. Jack's dissolution of reality is really fun to write. On the other hand, the most tedious (and secretly entertaining) thing is keeping track of his inventory.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

(...)Lips pressed against his back, just below his neck; a thumb lazily rubbing circles into his arm; their legs tangled together. 

Something skitters on his palm and Jack flicks it off absentmindedly.

“Have you ever thought about later?” (...)

***

(…)

A man with a grudge and a case

A man with intent on his face

And if a man walks into place

Let it be known I won't hesitate

(…)

The mechanical hiss makes him glance over the makeshift cover – one of the hatches in the ground opens giving way to the rising black matte container – big enough to contain a human, barely. The coffin. That’s how they call it. He can feel the visceral knowledge claw at his insides, the acidic panic, the claustrophobic pressure on his mind.

It stops with a jerk. Jack tightens his grip on the Seegert.

The container opens slowly, agonizingly so, and from the inside stumbles out a masked figure dressed in a strangely familiar uniform yet nondescript enough he cannot place the affiliation. There is an ‘S114’ printed on his left breast in bold white letters. The man almost trips and then straightens, his posture undergoing a complete shift in the split second between the actions.

Jack has his eyes on the rifle held ready in the enemy’s hands, waits for the barrel to swing away from his position as the man scans the room. There is only a slim window for action, growing even smaller with two other hatches activating.

He climbs over the wall in one fluid movement and launches himself at the enemy, sending them both sprawling to the ground, twisting his pistol to the man’s neck and firing several times, lets go of the grip and grasps for the rifle, tears it away from the twitching fingers.

“Enemy sighted.”

Shit. Jack clenches his teeth and ducks behind the coffin offering close to no protection. They will flank him, it’s the basic maneuver. Any movement will put him in the line of fire, and even this cover is fleeting, the whole container shudders when the lid closes, and it starts to sink back underneath the surface of the training range. Inhale.

He dashes to the right, not bothering with blind cover fire, to lean against the concrete partition. Ignoring such risks as negligible is well within the usually calculated simulation parameters. Soldiers like this are expendable. Exhale.

The rifle, Patten – he smirks, lines of it fluid under his touch, not their usual loadout, but he’s familiar with it – should have the full magazine in. Thirty rounds. Good stopping power, moderate armor piercing capability. Bad news if the others are armed with those, still more of a fighting chance for him.

Inhale. Listen. A crunch to the left. Around ten paces back. His hands are wet with sweat. Visualize the height and the posture. Reconstruct the room. A sound of fabric from the right side. Build the replica in your mind. Exhale.

Inhale, prepare, rise up. Hold your breath. Shoot. The man jerks back and breaks in half when the bullets from the short burst impact with his mask. Chips from the concrete brush Jack’s cheek. Duck behind the cover. Exhale.

His heart is thudding in his chest. Close, too close. Again, the whirr of the machinery, two more coffins. He won’t last here long. There is a touch of hysteria to those thoughts, he knows, but knowing is different from managing. His fingers are becoming jittery, spasming on their own without control. The Beast grips his left wrist. Grounds him.

“Remember, Sunshine,” the oily sound coils itself around his mind. Inhale. The magazine should have around twenty-six bullets now. Three targets. Exhale. Accumulate the tension in the muscles. Prepare. The sound of the coffins popping open simultaneously. Inhale.

“Flanking.”

Jack springs out of the cover to the left, keeping low. The sound of the gunfire chases him as he moves in a semicircle. He passes the body on the ground and flings himself behind another partition. The dead soldier lies halfway out of the cover, he grabs his leg and hauls him closer with a strong jerk of his arms. He snags the two grenades, pulls the pin on one, counts down, and throws it over the cover blindly. The other one follows just as the dust brought up by the first explosion flows over the concrete to his side.

“Compromised. Need reinforcements.”

This gives him the time to eject the magazine from the dead man’s rifle. Around fifty-six bullets now. Two targets. Inhale. Jack leans out of the cover. He can see one enemy, crawling on the ground, one leg torn off above the knee, the other just a bloody mess under the ragged fabric. Lucky throw. The second soldier is hidden from his view now.

The man manages to lift his gun with one hand, the other bracing for purchase on the ground. Fuck. Do they even feel pain? Do they even register it? Jack cannot wrap his mind around the concept. Exhale. Shoot. One bullet through the mask. Fifty-five left, rough estimate. He notices three more black shapes in the gaps between the obstacles, at least two of them already open. No time to panic. Need to change position. Four targets now, minimum. Inhale.

He maps out the layout, the explosions still ringing in his ears. Exhale. Move on the outer rim of the range, sprint along the wall, pass the car. Inhale. He moves with the purpose, changing position, in the open…

“Target sighted.”

With the electronic voice comes the impact. It feels like a jackhammer to his side, then a short blackout as he topples down. Desperately, he drags himself forward. Hyperventilating. He rips off the helmet – his head is buzzing, his vision swims – the thing is dented where the bullet hit.

Every breath hurts. The vest held on the chest. His left side is numb and cold. Don’t look. He traces his fingers over the hole, its ridges already wet. He’s going to die here. Jack cranes his neck down.

“Don’t look, Sunshine,” the voice stops him, ghostly fingers rest over his hand. Don’t look. Might stave off the shock. It’s still numb, does not bode well. He’s behind the damned burned out car frame, it offers little protection. He grasps for the dropped rifle. His hand is slick with blood. “Hold your breath.”

He can hear them converging on his position. He’s going to die here.

The screen on the wall, he can see it from here, and there is a movement that catches his eye, a swath of color, purple, violet, pink? The person – woman – stops before the nightmarish chair holding the misshapen twitching human. There is a snap of neon lines in the air and the creature is literally ripped apart into pieces that fall separately around the contraption raining blood.

His lungs begin to burn.

“Exhale,” the Beast orders and Jack does as he is told to do. The next breath comes slowly, unfurls in his chest at the same time the pain in his side slowly comes into focus, stabbing, living. Good. Pain means time.

“My Los Muertos, they dared, they dared to belittle them with… with this!?” The woman’s voice booms over the speakers. Jack pulls himself up a bit, to look back through the window of the frame. No, he won’t question why the soldiers now just stand in place, swaying lightly, like dormant hanging marionettes with no-one to pull their strings. “This fake?”

“Feeling obsolete, bitch?” Another voice, thick with the accent, joins in. His head snaps to the side, searching against reason. McCree.

“Oh. I’ll show you obsolete and shove it up your ass, dear brother. But first,” she turns to the screen, her movements somehow birdlike in how her limbs snap into place viciously, “you killed them, but now you will die because they are with me as they should be.”

“Proceed,” comes from behind before the hail of bullets rips into the car. Jack curls on himself. Bullets perforate the brittle metal, something singes his cheek. Metal shavings bite into his skin. He’s going to die here, there’s too many of them. There is a new side of aggression in their offense. No space to act.

“Do you remember your training, Sunshine?” The Beast whispers insistently, but the training won’t help him now. Only the rifle, almost two magazines. Last stand. Force down the panic. You’re going to die, take them down with you. All soldiers are is lambs led to slaughter. A future banquet for worms. “Remember your training, Sunshine,” the Beast paces restlessly along the old gnarled tree. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.” Jack feels the calm descend upon him, like a blanket, his breath slowing. His heart stills inside his chest. “You will take me with you when you go, won’t you?”

“It makes it easier, Sunshine,” the Beast smiles with all its fanged mouths, dark tongues lolling out in mirth. Clawed hand cups his bleeding cheek and for a moment Jack looks into crimson eyes. “You are always with me, and I, I am always with you.”

He glances to the side, at the bullet slowly sailing by his head, the air behind it stretching the prismatic luminosity in its wake, metal fragments exploding in points of unexpected brightness. All sounds distort and dampen. Jack inhales even as the wet stringy darkness tugs at the corners of his vision. He stands up with Patten braced against his shoulder.

Six targets total. Two shots per each, accuracy and precision. Watching the impact, the strange whiplash as he hits the targets – their bodies jerked violently with enough force to rip them apart at seams – is strangely satisfying. He feels the passing bullet ruffle his hair.

“This is it, Sunshine, this is how we are together, this is how we were meant to be, always,” the Beast coils between his fingers, nips at his neck, breathes the words into his ear, and he listens. “The hatch on the left,” its voice points out and Jack turns, runs, slides over the gravel and slips into the opening, his back contorting when he hits the lowering coffin. When he tumbles to the cold floor, the time and reality slam back into existence. Jack curls over the rifle, hands clutching at his side, the vicious stabs of pain bringing tears to his eyes. He feels saliva gathering in his mouth in reaction, and whimpers. No. Swallow even if it hurts only to think. He is dehydrated and bleeding. He cannot afford to… “I know, Sunshine,” claws rest on the nape of his neck almost non-threateningly, but the points dig into his skin deep, “you can’t rest here. You have to go.”

Yes. He can’t stay here, there are black coffins stacked on one another along the sides of the corridor, one of them actually being moved along the transportation line above him. It snaps into place below the hatch he used to escape the training range.

Jack moves to his knees, his grasp on the rifle faltering, and small whines of pain making it past the clenched teeth. With difficulty, he heaves himself up, left hand clasped over the bullet hole, and unsteadily follows forward. Each step burns. His breath shortens.

“You… you will take me with you… won’t you?” The darkness creeps into his vision as his right leg almost sinks under him. He manages to stabilize himself, leaning on the wall.

“I am always with you,” the Beast whispers back when he sinks into the grass, into the smell of a warm sunny afternoon – the richness of the green and the earth soothing in their onslaught. Lips pressed against his back, just below his neck; a thumb lazily rubbing circles into his arm; their legs tangled together.

Something skitters on his palm and Jack flicks it off absentmindedly.

“Have you ever thought about later?”

“You’d miss it.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Too broken and too intertwined to ever find another way, yet here, in this place, at this time, perfect and content, wrapped in each other, breathing in and out in symmetry to the music of the buzzing insects. Jack closes his eyes.

“Turn around.” The voice, it’s wrong, doesn’t belong here – wherever and whenever here is – sends shivers of cold down his spine. Nails sink into the skin of his arm. “Turn around.”

“…no,” he answers, the word breaking in half on the hitch of a breath.

“Remember your…”

“No, please, don’t make me do this, don’t take this from me,” Jack pleads with the inevitable. His fingers dig into the dirt, into the clumps of roots below, into things slithering under the surface. Cold hands close around his throat.

“This does not belong to you,” his doppelganger snarls at him spitting blood. “It never did! It never will!”

No, this is not his, and when the pressure lessens he opens his eyes to artificial light and the smell of cordite and ozone in the air along with the stink of burning plastic and circuitry, and something else he cannot place due to the strange haze that makes his fingertips tingle. Railing, he’s leaning against the railing, on a slightly raised platform over the rest of the chamber, and to the left, there is a half empty IV bag hanging, hooked to the metallic balustrade, the needle feeding its contents into his arm. By his side lies an emptied field kit, bandages and tape strewn around, some stained with blood.

Jack clenches his hand and starts. Morphine syringe. Used.

His vest is open. He lets go of the syringe and cautiously feels around the wound. It’s dressed. The touch makes him inhale sharply in pain. Past the threshold. Movement is going to be troublesome. Slowly, hissing under his breath and bracing against the railing, Jack stands up. The strange alien tug inside his stomach… the bullet is still in.

Now he can see the bodies below and still-smoking remnants of a powered armor.

“Do you understand now, Sunshine?” The Beast purrs snugly pressed against his chest. “Together, we are unstoppable. We will bring about the end.”

His hand hovers for a moment over the blinking console. No other time than now. He touches the prompt and looks up when he hears the grind of machinery. The enormous hatch in the ceiling opens raining dust and the platform starts, then laboriously moves upwards.

He can hear the feedback from his comm unit grow stronger.

“I’ll just find…” Lena. She stutters. “Jack!? That bloody you?”

“Yes. I think so.” He can’t keep the weary smile out of his voice.

“Bloody hell, you daft bugger, I was getting bloody worried…!”

“Lena.” It’s Winston, still calm and composed. “If anyone was going to get out of there on their own it was Morrison.”

“Bloody fucking right, Papa Winston.” Jack can hear the gears in her head turning. “I managed to hail Bunny, she’s working on bringing the meat wagon around but it’s the bloody apocalypse out there and traffic is killer. GPS is dead as fuck, but I dare say you’ll find the bloody stadium, right?”

“We will tear, we will rend, we will feast, together,” the Beast chortles, its maw pushing against his cheek in a needy way, and his hand pets it eliciting little whines of contentment. “Nothing will stand in our way.”

“Yes,” Jack confirms.

[clearinz]

Pokémon - Top 10 Signature Moves

Okay new Pokémon list time, which will hopefully become much more common.

Decided to start off this semi-revival with my top 10 favourite Signature Moves in Pokémon. A signature move is a move that has been, at one point, a move exclusive to one family of Pokémon. For this list I’m not only counting moves that are still exclusive, since that would be far too limiting. I’m also excluding moves that became exclusive AFTER it was first introduced, e.g a few Pokémon could learn Pay Day by TM in gen 1, but in gen 2 it was exclusive to Meowth, so it won’t be counted on the list.  Z-moves are also excluded.

The list is based more on what the move brought to the table rather than just looking cool, so I had to make a crap ton of cuts to awesome moves :[

List is below the break because it’s very long.

#10 Spore - Paras line (Gen 1 and 2)

Starting off the list is a move that has been around since gen 1. Back then the otherwise forgettable grass/bug type managed to make a name for itself by having the only sleep move in the entire game with 100% accuracy. Sleep is a really powerful status effect, but it often comes at the cost of low accuracy, so being able to immobilise one of your opponents Pokémon risk free is great. 

The move is still useful today, admittedly by stronger mons like Breloom.

So the reason it makes this list is because it showed what allowed mons to have a place on teams for reasons other than just pure power.

#9 Chatter - Chatot (Gen 4 onwards)

I had to include this move just because of how absolutely ridiculous it is. It has lost a lot of it’s novelty since gen 4, but back then, the sound that Chatot played was actually chosen by your own recording, which makes it one of, if not they most interactive move in Pokémon. The idea of being able to turn your own voice into a weapon is hilarious. To make it even better, the chance of confusion was based entirely on the volume of the recording.

The compensation for no longer allowing your own recordings is that Chatter was buffed so that it ALWAYS confused when it hit. Making it one of those few moves that can cause damage (and a somewhat decent amount at that) while also promising a status effect.

#8 Megahorn - Heracross (Gen 2)

This might seem like a bias choice, considering Heracross is my favourite Pokémon, but I do have a legit reason to put this here. This move pretty much single-handily allowed Bug type Pokémon to be an actually threatening offensive presence. Until then all bug type moves were weak and underwhelming. Then Heracross comes in with a move that ranked among some of the strongest, like Fire Blast and Blizzard.

So this moves on the list for basically saving an entire type from another gen of being forgettable - at least offensively since bug types in general were a lot better in gen 2 (Scizor comes to mind), they just lacked any good bug moves.

#7 Flying Press - Hawlucha (Gen 6 onwards)

Flying Press gains a spot on the list for an interesting concept - dual typing moves.To this day it’s still the only one of its kind, and I’d love to see more.

It’d be higher on the list, but unfortunately Flying and Fighting are relatively boring types to mix together. The flying type part of it basically loses all of it’s Super Effective power other than against grass types, while fighting type loses a rock and steel type effectiveness. It still has 5 types that resist it, and one completely immune to it. There’s basically no reason to run this move outside of the novelty of using a signature move, but the concept is so cool that I had to include it.

#6 Magma Storm - Heatran (Gen 4 onwards)

I wanted to include Magma Storm since it took a concept that I always liked, but were essentially useless - trapping moves, and adding some much needed power. When the move was introduced it dealt a massive 120 damage, later reduced to 100 with the compensation of an accuracy increase. This way you can fire off a massive amount of damage in one turn and then guarantee some damage in the following turns, plus prevent your opponent from switching (not as useful ingame however as AI never switch).

So it makes it on the list for turning an interesting concept that was otherwise ignored due to all available moves being useless, and turning it into something powerful and fun.

#5 First Impression - Golisopod (Gen 7)

It’s basically Fake Out, but bug type and 90 base power. This is the kind of move that can just save a Pokémon from being useless. 

I don’t have too much to say about this one. It’s basically here because it showcases how a signature move can actually define a Pokémon and make them fun to use, and powerful.

#4 Outrage - Dratini line (Gen 2)

This one is on the list for almost the exact same reason as Megahorn, but it’s higher for multiple reasons. For one thing, while you might expect bug types to be weak (not that it’d make sense from a balancing standpoint), when you think dragon type weak is the last thing on your mind, so the fact that gen 1 only gave them a single STAB move with a set 40 damage was insanely underwhelming. This move brought destructive power to a type that you’d expect it from. The other reason it’s higher than Megahorn is just due to the fact it has cooler animations, and a generally better concept, what with the whole rampaging dragon aspect. 

So, yeah, Outrage is here thanks to it giving a move finally worth of the dragon typing.

#3 Prismatic Laser - Necrozma (Gen 7)

What’s this here for? It’s basically just Hyper Beam? Well kind of. Basically I’m adding this to the list because it’s the strongest signature move, outside of Z-moves, and even the 2nd strongest move in the game outside of Explosion and Self-Destruct which have the obvious drawbacks of death. The first strongest would be V-Create which I really wanted to include right here, but apparently it’s not Victini’s signature move (Rayquaza can learn it in gen 5 too), so I guess this is the next best thing.

Sometimes all you want is pure power, and that’s what this move provides. It’s your typical Hyper Beam move, but with even more power, and when Hyper Beams power is too low for you, that’s when you know you have a move of immense damage.

This move, imo, best represents those overly powerful and flashy looking legendary signature moves, so I think it deserves this spot.

#2 Judgement - Arceus (Gen 4 onwards)

A 100% accuracy, 100 base power move that can be any type and has no drawbacks? Hell yeah that’s awesome. Not to mention the entire concept revolves around GOD passing judgement on your enemies. 

#1 King’s Shield - Aegislash (Gen 6 onwards)

This move definitely deserves the number 1 spot imo. This single move pretty much defines an entire unique play style for a Pokémon. I don’t think there’s any other move in the game that’s as vital to a Pokémons identity as this one. 

This move allows Aegislash to be a huge defensive and offensive presence, play massive mind games with the opponent, and is even pretty powerful in its own right, creating a semi-protect-like effect, while crippling physical attackers.

I’m putting this move here at #1 because pretty much no other signature move that actually created a brand new play style for it’s user, to the point where it’s nothing without it.

[gyrlversion]

DAY6 Open Up About Insecurities, Inspiration, And Learning To Live Life In The Moment

“Five points if you know where that’s from,” vocalist and guitarist Jae tells me over the phone from a conference room in Seoul. It’s the kind of playful remark you’d expect from a 26-year-old raised on the Internet. And spoiler alert: I didn’t get the reference. (To be fair, our connection was a little spotty.) But I don’t need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of memes to understand DAY6, the Korean pop-rock quintet whose guitar riffs and dynamic melodies offer a piercing snapshot into young adulthood and all of its raw, earnest emotion.

Their most recent release, The Book of Us: Gravity, is a mix of genres, sounds, and sentimental lyrics from vocalist and bassist Young K (who’s a credited lyricist on all six tracks). It’s their brightest release today, tonally and melodically. Their energetic lead single “Time of Our Life” captures the exhilarating, heart-pounding feeling of a new romance — or, the start of a “beautiful page of youth,” sings honey-voiced keyboardist Wonpil. From the opening cymbals to the sweeping vocals to the wholesome melodies, the single is a prismatic manifestation of the clarity that comes with a bit of adult perspective. The message itself is uplifting and welcoming.

And while Sungjin, Jae, Young K, Wonpil, and Dowoon are starting a fresh page of their story, The Book of Us proves that you can’t forge ahead without reflecting on where you’ve been.

MTV News caught up with Jae and Young K following the release of the EP to talk about its bright, anthemic sound, their creative process, their insecurities, the book of their lives, and how their fans influenced the direction of the album.

MTV News: If there were a story of your life, what would the title of this chapter be? 

Jae: It would be called “Adjustment.” I’ve been in Korea for seven years, and at first, I did have a lot of difficulty. I still don’t know a lot of things, whether it’s about the language or the culture, even the humor here. Those things confuse me a lot, but I think I’m starting to understand. I’m starting to be able to genuinely and honestly laugh with people when they crack a joke. So, “Adjustment.”

Young K: My title is “Young K.” I’ve been Young K for about four years now. And I think it’s the great chapter of my life, but I honestly don’t know how long it’s going to go on for, and I’m still writing it down. So I guess this point of my life, the chapter would be called “Young K.”

MTV News: When do you feel most creative? 

Young K: At a place where it’s not too quiet. Like for example, [in] cafés with a lot of people. Or when there’s something going on in front of me.

MTV News: Do you often work out of coffee shops?

Young K: Yeah, I use coffee shops quite often. I try to get something from everyday life, so I tend to look around a lot — just when I’m living [my] daily life.

Jae: When I’m in my creative zone, I’m usually — this is really weird — but I always have a sad song on and that just kind of gets the gears going. I don’t know why, it just does.

MTV News: Is there like one sad song in particular you like or one that’s recently inspired you?

Jae: Lately, when I’ve had melody ideas or when I’m thinking of concepts or lines or lyrics or whatever, I’ve had on Post Malone’s “Stay.” I don’t know why, it just works.

MTV News: From an outsider’s perspective, the Every DAY6 part of your career seemed equal parts creatively fulfilling and somewhat exhausting, releasing two songs every month for a year. Did you feel burnt out by it? And how did you power through any creative blocks? 

Jae: Oh, man. Young K’s got stories for you.

Young K: I have? [Laughs] When the company confirmed that we were gonna do the Every DAY6 project, they said they were going to use a lot of the songs that we already wrote. None of the title songs got confirmed, though. So we had to write it again and again and, and by the third month I felt like I was out of it because we already wrote, like, 20 songs before the project started. So I already felt burned out.

Jae: Lyrically, he’s pretty much the main contributor of that whole Every DAY6 era. Melodically, I think the group in general — because we all top-line — we kind of came to a burn-out point around “Shoot Me” because we’d been writing on and off for about two-and-a-half, three years. We just ran out of juice. We started to see a repetition of very similar melodies. That’s where we came to a point where we were like, OK, we got to buckle down, we’ve got to study. We did that for a little bit, and it worked itself out.

MTV News: What do you do when you’re staring at a blank page? 

Young K: Lyrically, I tried reading books, but it didn’t work for me because I’m not a book lover so much. I read a lot of lyrics, and I tend to observe a lot when I’m living — for example, when it rains or when I look at the rain. How would this make someone feel? Or when I’m watching a couple talking in a loving way. I always try to look at a different point of view.

MTV News: On your latest album, The Book of Us: Gravity, each song is like a snapshot at a different stage of life or life experience. At what point after Remember Us did you start working on this next chapter? 

Jae: We’re always writing, so I don’t think the process ever stops for us.

Young K: And, to be honest, two of the tracks on this album were written a long time ago. “Wanna Go Back” was one of the songs that Jae and I were involved in a while ago. That was written for every taste. And “Cover” was written last year.

Jae: When we start writing, we don’t necessarily start from a point where we’re just like, OK, we need to make a song that sounds like this and it needs to talk about this. We’re curious guys, so wherever our curiosity leads just that day or that week, that’s the song that comes out.

MTV News: So for this album, it’s bright. It’s optimistic. How did you decide on that tone? 

Jae: One of the main contributing factors was the fact that during our world tour we were doing concerts and everyone was having fun and everyone was having a really good time, but we felt like maybe we were in need of more concert music. So, like, break points where everyone could just clap, where everyone could start jumping at the same time and scream out certain words. That’s one of the main points in how our album became what it is today. If you listen to “Best Part” or even our title song [“Time of Our Life”], it’s made to be enjoyed at a concert.

JYP Entertainment

From left to right: Dowoon, Jae, Young K, Wonpil, and Sungjin

MTV News: Speaking of “Best Part,” that’s a song that’s all about living in the moment and the real kind of joy and happiness you could feel if you do so. But it’s not always the easiest thing to do, to forget your troubles. Are you, personally, someone who lives in the moment? Or are you more of a worrier?  

Young K: I am the person who lives the moment, who always wants to give my best. Even when I’m on the stage, [or] when I’m preparing for the stage or anything that doesn’t have to do with the stage, like, spending time with my friends, I want to have the best time. All my life, my motto is carpe diem. So I guess I’m that type of guy.

Jae: I said that this point in my life was “Adjustment,” right? And that’s also one of the things that I’m adjusting to. My team is very positive. I think it also has to do with the cultural differences. In America, when you’re 18 and you go to college, you’re kind of just thrown out there, and you start figuring everything on your own. And then you start worrying about life. I’m not saying that people don’t worry in Korea, but I think there’s this understanding that things are going to work out. That’s something that I see in my team, and it’s something that I’m also adjusting to, because to be completely honest, I’m pretty negative. I’m always thinking about the worst things that can happen in situations. But just living with my teammates, I’ve been learning to live life in the moment. If I think positively then positive things are gonna happen.

MTV News: I like that the album starts with “For Me” because in a lot of ways it’s the most personal song. It’s a song to yourself, a song that acknowledges your shortcomings in an effort to get to this place of self-love. Is there something that you used to be really insecure about that now, with a little time and understanding, you really admire or love about yourself? 

Young K: Actually, my appearance. The way I look, like, my face.

Jae: What’s wrong with your face?

Young K: Even when I was young, I got a lot of opinions that I intimidate people. Some people might say I don’t look nice when I talk [or] when I don’t smile — that I always look angry. That’s why I practice smiling in front of the mirror. But then I realized that it’s actually a good thing because people tend to not take me easily. Also, at the same time, when we’re doing a photoshoot, I can give out a very strong image. All I have to do is just not smile and look at the camera.

I found out that everybody has strengths and weaknesses. And if you have a weakness you can work your way to kind of cover it or have make that weakness be smaller.

JYP Entertainment

A smoldering look from Young K

MTV News: Jae, were you intimidated by Young K when you first met him? Did you think he looked mean?

Jae: Straight up. If you don’t know him, then you don’t know that on the inside he’s smiling. You gotta understand he’s always smiling on the inside. It’s just on the outside it’s a plain expression. His features are so sharp that they look like they’re glaring at you, but they’re not. It’s a misunderstanding. He’s completely innocent.

MTV News: Jae, what’s something that you were used to being insecure about but now you’re like, “You know what? I love that part of me.” 

Jae: See that’s where I go back to “Adjustment.” Because I’m still trying to adjust to that positivity part. I don’t think I’ve matured enough to understand that my flaws are actually my strengths. There is the fact that I’m not good at Korean, and that sometimes when I get asked hard questions I can just act like I don’t know what they’re talking about.

MTV News: I saw you tweeted a few months ago that you wanted to be better at live vocals. Has your voice ever been an insecurity of yours? 

Jae: I don’t think an artist’s ever satisfied, leaving a stage thinking, oh, that was a top performance. They’re not thinking about how good it was. They’re thinking, I messed this part up, I messed this part up, that part wasn’t good. So I’m just not there yet. I think I need some work. I’ll get there.

MTV News: I love that you gave Dowoon a fan-favorite vocal part in “Wanna Go Back.” Was that always part of the song?

Young K: It was just that part was supposed to be an octave lower. It’s very low. So who has a low voice on our team? Dowoon. So Dowoon was called.

Jae: Young K always has a master plan. So when he’s writing lyrics, he’ll try to write the lyrics to adjust to how we sing.That’s also something he’s really good at — our vocabulary, the way we pronounce things, what we’re good at. I think we’re always trying to include Dowoon.

Young K: Low voice equals Dowoon.

MTV News: That song had originally been written for Every DAY6. What was it like to revive it for this album?

Young K: It fit the vibe of the entire album, which is very bright. It’s got an upbeat tempo. And the message it’s giving out about how you want to go back to the simple days [of youth] but since I can’t, I will just miss it. We wanted to write about human relationships, and in order to start a very healthy relationship, we felt like we need to know ourselves better. And “Wanna Go Back” would be the song that looks back on your life.

MTV News: What was something you wanted to be when you were a kid? Did you always want to be rock stars or did you have other dreams?

Young K: Singer wasn’t one of it.

Jae: Definitely not.

Young K: Not for us. Wonpil definitely wanted to be a singer.

Jae: Yeah, Wonpil knew. He knew from his youth.

Young K: I think that at one point, for a very short period period of time, I wanted to be a KBL [Korean Basketball League] player, but realized that cannot happen. And then I wanted to be working in stock management. I thought that was a really cool job. But here I am.

Jae: I went back and forth. Singing was never really a thing that I thought was a serious profession. I don’t think it ever is for anybody. All the artists that we’ve spoken to or that I know kind of just one day closed their eyes and opened them and they’re just here. That’s kind of what happens. I feel like we’re really fortunate. But for me, I was going to college, and before I came to Korea, I really wanted to be in the UN. So I’m kind of a dreamer, right? I either wanted to be in the UN or I wanted to lobby for somebody because I like arguing. So that was my thing. I started interning at an MPO, trying to network, [and] then I opened my eyes, and I was in Korea.

MTV News: September will mark your four-year anniversary as DAY6. What is the biggest change that you’ve seen in the group since you’ve made your debut?

Jae: I think our teamwork.

Young K: The team has to be thought as a whole. The team includes five individuals, but at the same time it’s considered as one. Dowoon came in only a few months before our debut. Having that one [new] person in the group completely changes a lot. Even musically. So our teamwork on the stage and off stage, we know each other better now.

Jae: When writing songs in the beginning — because everyone’s fresh, we’re young, we’re ambitious — parts play a big role. But then after writing songs together for this long, you come to the realization at some point that your part doesn’t matter and that whoever sounds best on that part is the best result. The competition within the team doesn’t really matter at all. After our second album everyone stopped caring about parts and we just saw the song as something that needs to be good.

The post DAY6 Open Up About Insecurities, Inspiration, And Learning To Live Life In The Moment appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[its-just-like-the-movies]

June 2017 Viewing Log

Same number as last month! Steady stream, though I hope to at least pass 42 next month. Especially since I only got July before school starts. But ah! Film Studies classes. Lordy, what a good month I had, if Barefoot in the Park was the worst thing I’ve seen. Enjoy!

The Crazies (10, B): Tight as a drum, dialing every set piece perfectly, utterly thrilling & scary even if we’ve seen this blueprint before. - 06/01/17

The Help (11, C+): Engaging for its length, but baggy. Structure alone speaks to iffy politics. But Viola Davis holds up like a steel tower. - 06/01/17 (rewatch) (review)

Enough Said (13, B-): Lovely ideas and dynamics somewhat hampered once the full conceit reveals itself. Thank God Gandolfini saves Albert. - 06/03/17 (review)

The Godfather Pt. II (74, B+): So many glories, such powerful, epic ambitions on all fronts, but stumbles a bit for all its glories. - 06/03/17

The Godfather (72, A): No real tweet.

My Dad and I saw The Godfather in the front row in easy chairs and seeing something so epic only two feet from the screen was so perfect - 06/04/17

I’m Not There (07, A): I understand prismatic as a term now. So virtuosic! To paraphrase many great men: “Look at all these Dylans!” - 06/05/17

I learned so much more about Dylan that Thatcher, Belfort, Liz II. And you know where he says he was?

(talking to someone else) I can’t wait to rewatch it. Now that I’ve spent two hours in awe I’ll spend the next two studying it more.

Carnival of Souls (62, B): Low budget, bare-bones plot feels like it could collapse at any moment but this is bizarre, spooky, interesting work. - 06/06/17

The Mourning Forest (07, B): Maybe too into its photography, none too exciting. But it’s tough at its center. I look forward to a rewatch. - 06/06/17

The Edge of Heaven (08, B+): Exciting, unpredictable trajectory with rich rewards. So finely attuned to the emotions of its characters. - 06/07/17

Wonder Woman (17, C): A lot of ways as a film it could’ve been better made. But as an experience it was exciting, and so goddamn important. - 06/08/17

Definitely has some problems in the moment. But my sister cried three times, and its connecting with so many people in a way that matters.

Zodiac (07, B): Triumph of structure and theme, abetted and inhibited by Fincher’s direction. Sets, photography, Lynch pretty swell too. - 06/09/17

Sophie’s Choice (82, D+): So brazen in its appropriation of the Holocaust, and of Sophie, in some Southern babe’s coming-of-age story. - 06/10/17

Streep’s miraculous, but she can’t escape how nasty the film’s structure is to her, and there’s no picture to support this character.

This should have been told from Sophie’s POV, not Stingo’s. That alone would’ve done wonders for this film.

Zootopia (16, B): No tweet.

Jane Eyre (11, B): Again, no tweet.

Capote (05, A-): Cold yet deeply personal, like a gunshot to the head. Evokes real crises of character. Performed, directed to a T. - 6/11/17

It Comes At Night (17, B): Weak jump scares give way to a truly paranoid, scary chamber set-up. Between this and Alien who wastes Ejogo more? - 6/11/17 (review)

The Hurt Locker (09, A): Terrifying, textures every scene and every character so adroitly. So technically prodigious. Bigelow a genius. - 06/12/17

The Grapes of Wrath (40, A-): Filmmaking as sturdy as the Joads. Genuienly timely tale of the working class that honors a doozy of a novel. - 06/13/17

The Bridges of Madison County (95, A): Maturely observes its characters, how they experience their loves, how they judge their lives. - 06/14/17

Two romantic triumphs for Eastwood that seem so outside his usual oeuvre. With every new Streep performance I’m almost crying. She’s perfect.

Magic Mike XXL (15, B): The Odyssey, but with strippers, and a more lackadaisical tone. Cast, changing rhythms hold it together. - 06/15/17

Dark Victory (39, A-): Richly full of feeling, somehow dodging easy sentimentality towards a supremely likable lead, fully realized by Davis. - 06/16/17

Walk the Line (05, C): Baseline quality to high to call rote, but never is it very special. Amazingly, unhelpfully slow and stodgy. - 06/16/17 (review)

Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (12, --): No real tweet, but guys. This was great to watch at 1AM. - 06/18/17

I’ve been thinking a lot about Elisabeth Röhm’s killer work in Joy but that doesn’t explain why I’m semi-enamored with her Lake Placid perf rn

Double Indemnity (44, A-): Crackerjack plotting, slickly realized by Wilder, gorgeously photographed. Inimitable cast. Richly scored. -06/19/17

Red Hook Summer (12, B-): Thematically and emotionally complicated. Filmmaking, story, kids falter frequently. Peters never strays. - 06/19/17

Hyenas (92, A): As absurd & darkly hilarious as many tragedies can be. Magnificently adapted in itself, to West Africa, to African cinema. - 06/20/17

Julieta (16, B): Definite case of not walking in with the right mood, but I still appreciate plenty. Just one I know’ll do better on rewatch. - 06/20/17

 The core feels more elusive here than in other Almodóvars, and of course I appreciated it visually. Leads felt like they weren’t adding much.

Female Perversions (97, B+/A-): Characters and concepts come to startling life. Deliciously specific, neurotically and visually captivating. - 06/20/17

The Letter (40, A): Never slows down from the first six shots. Davis and Wyler do psychologically, emotionally rich justice to a lurid tale. - 06/21/17 (review)

Young Adult (11, C): Prickly ideas. Cody barely has consistent characters. Reitman barely shapes it. Theron, Oswalt still get somewhere. 06/22/17

Hope Springs (12, B): Filmmaking ain’t much, but who cares when the result is so earnest invested in its characters, and at their age. - 06/22/17

How lovely to watch for Meryl’s birthday, but equally fitting for Tommy and Steve. How lovely in general.

Blue Valentine (10, A): What would Dean and Cindy have to say to Kay and Arnold? What do they have left to say to each other? - 06/22/17

So adroitly textured, in the past and the present, for the couple and each partner. Wedding bells cross-cut with marital funeral rites.

127 Hours (10, C): Like Steve Jobs, stylistically out of sync with its lead and their story. Compelling, but I took a while to start caring. - 06/23/17

The Omen (76, B): Not all its tricks survive without a laugh, but for the most part this doomed lurch towards biblical tragedy holds up. - 06/24/17

I’m taking back the number of the beast/cuz six is not a pretty number/eight or three are definitely better

Barefoot in the Park (67, C-): So underdone most lines DOA. Useless camera. Redford, Natwick too droll. Fonda too serious. Least Boyer’s fun. - 06/25/17

I canme about 20 minutes late to the broadcast. But lord even when the film was playing I felt I wasn’t missing much.

Metropolis (27, A): Endlessly fascinating realization of revolutionary acts, cinematically and politically. Relevant in best and worst ways. - 06/25/17

Macbeth (15, B): Haunted by actions its character have and have yet to take. Smart choices, vividly realized, by Lord and Lady especially. - 06/26/17

Could Atlas (12, C): Ambitious, fine, and accomplished in many ways. Yet why am I so underwhelmed? Six stories end in three places. - 06/26/17

Maybe because every take I find online is so one way or the other I can’t get much out of them. I can’t grasp it and no one’s helping.

Maps to the Stars (15, C+): Not sure how well Cronenberg’s style fits Wagner’s scripts. Not sure about much beyond Moore(!!), honestly. 06/27/17

Damsels in Distress (12, B+): I know people like this. Delightfully absurd, kind to the characters it skewers. Sambolas across a tightrope. - 06/28/17

Night of the Iguana (64, C): Coulda used more guts, especially in coloring its sexualities. Gardner a blast. Burton, Hall, camera intrigue. - 06/30/17

Okja (17, B+): Poignantly zany, doing that societal satire thing way better than Snowpiercer. Almost feels child-friendly. Hug the pig. - 06/30/17

Additional Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (16, yuck) (review)