#in my baseball era x2

[themilkoviches]

Tagged by @milkimick (Thank you Mara x2! 🥰❤️) to do this here thing! 

Nickname: Kam is basically a nickname I’m going by on here to stand for my actual name which... I don’t like and don’t use online anymore.

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio...... 😔

Height: 5′5! I always make fun of people for being short, but alas, I am also short. 

Last thing I Googled: ‘fall out boy from under the cork tree merch’ because I’m selling my one piece of FOB merch that’s from that era I’m presuming. 

Followers: 254. 

Song Stuck in my Head: Trouble’s Coming by Royal Blood. 

How many hours of sleep: Oh, it’s either 2 or 12... There is no in between for me. I either get too much or too little sleep everyday. 

Dream job: If capitalism didn’t exist? Record store owner/employee. In a capitalist world, it’s a psychologist/social worker. 

Lucky Number: It’s always been 3 for me? I have no idea why. 

Currently Wearing: My My Chemical Romance hoodie over my My Chemical Romance baseball T-shirt (LMAO.) with my Nike joggers and my Vans Ultrarange shoes. Oh, and a black beanie to complete the look.

Aesthetic: I never know how to answer this... Flannels, coffee, the smell of old record sleeves, tattoo parlors, rainy days...? 

Favorite Song: I don’t have an overall favorite. That’s such a tough question for me. My favorite band is My Chemical Romance though and my favorite song by them is The Light Behind Your Eyes, so if I’m choosing, it’s that. 

Favorite Author: Chuck Palahniuk, even though I haven’t been reading a lot of books lately. Just fanfiction... 😅

Favorite Animal Noise: Cats purring is instant serotonin, along with a dog playfully barking! 

Tagging @mixkeymilkovich, @mikhailo-m, @shameless-notashamed, @grossmickey, @catgrassplantdad and anyone else who wants to do this! 

[cheonsans]

★ ＸＸ

ｔｈｅ ｆｉｒｓｔ ａｌｂｕｍ

XX, or 01, is the debut album from Superbia Entertainment’s duo, X2. It was released on October 21, 2015, and featured the title track chill. Unlike traditional idol group debuts, there were no member teasers released. Instead, 15 second clips of each song were posted on Superbia’s instagram feed two weeks before debut, and a cryptic link that led to a website that was entirely blank and white other than XX and ARE YOU READY? in black, plain font in the center of the webpage. A few inventive fans inspected some of the code on the site, and found more information leading to a second webpage that linked to X2′s official instagram, which was hidden under a nondescript handle. Even still, no photos of the members were released, and although a new photo was posted every day (later revealed to have been taken by RJ), anything that featured a human face was intentionally censored with a glitch effect. A few people guessed that Junsik would be making his duo debut after his solo career (under the name J.SK) kinda fell off the map.

(playlist link)

As the debut date grew closer, the Instagram started becoming more and more cryptic, featuring obscure quotes and graphics, which later were revealed to be hints about the members themselves. Numbers such as the coordinates of their birthplaces and heights were scattered throughout the graphics, and many potential fans on social media figured out that the key to figuring out the numerical code was the word “ready.” After that, things were a lot easier to decode, and the day before the proposed date of their music video release, a teaser was finally posted of each member, with their names.

Even during Junsik’s solo career, he did everything he could in order to avoid showing his face to the public, not wanting to sacrifice his privacy just yet. His teaser was more cryptic than RJ’s to reflect it, but both of them were photographed in a room that seemed to be entirely constructed out of metallic silver, down to the floors. Rj was posed sitting on the edge of a table, a relaxed smile on his face. His style was simple - a hand-painted denim jacket with wave designs on it, jeans, and expensive-looking white sneakers. He wore a baseball cap with the same wave design, hair black and styled slightly messily. Junsik was photographed lying down on a metallic silver couch, an open book draped over and hiding his face. The book cover once again had the wave design on an otherwise solid blue background. The words “RIP BARTHES” were on the bottom part of the cover, a clear reference to the French writer, and in particular, his essay, The Death of the Author. All that could really be seen of Junsik was that his hair was black as well, though his short-sleeved grey tee displayed his tattoos, which a few people recognized from photos that were allegedly of Junsik during his solo works, though they were never confirmed to be him.

TRACKLIST

chill (title) / insp. crush & sik’s song of the same title

cereal / insp.crush & zico’s song of the same title

half moon / insp.dean & gaeko’s song of the same title

bout u / insp. jeebanoff, kvsh, and olnl’s ‘about you’

what 2 do / insp. dean & crush’s song of the same title

hug me / insp. crush & gaeko’s song of the same title

hands on u / insp. dean & anderson .paak’s ‘put my hands on you’

down / insp. sik-k & crush’s party (shut down)

2 much / insp. loco & dean’s ‘too much’

ERA NOTES

The music video editing was very artistic, featuring inventive transitions. Some examples were a glass of silver paint being knocked over, and the camera going into the spill to cut into the next scene, as well as plenty of glitch effects, and upside down cuts of the members seemingly on the ceiling while singing and rapping and seated.

Junsik didn’t dance at all in the music video, but there are a few cuts of RJj dancing a bit in a room with solid blue walls, silver paint slowly dripping from the tops of the walls to the floor. He later released a video of the full choreography, and tutorial videos in English, Korean, and Japanese.

RJ definitely got more screen time, but that was Junsik’s preference. Although he seemed comfortable behind the camera when his face was shown during the music video, he seemed obviously uncomfortable during interviews, especially next to baby twenty-year-old RJ all bright-eyed and eager to talk as much as possible.

After the chill MV was released, both of the members were featured in interview-style videos, where they introduced themselves and spoke more about who they were and their decision to distance themselves from the music, referencing Roland Barthes’s theories on the death of the author, and how by removing the context from a piece of art (whether auditory or visual), the true essence of the music can be gleaned. RJ spoke at length on how someone might have preconceived notions, for example, on his skill or lyrics if they had known his age and lack of experience beforehand beforehand. Both discussed how Korea’s music industry is so image-oriented that what they did was risky, but ultimately created the intrigue they needed around their music. When asked why RJ chose to reveal his face sooner than junsik, he commented that although it made him nervous, he needed to do it in order to prove to himself that he could do it.

RJ took it upon himself to translate almost everything he said into the three languages he knows, and Junsik joked around with him about showing off, but the easygoing and good-natured affects of the two were well displayed in how they interacted with one another onscreen.

A live performance version of hands on u was released, and once again, more dance from RJ. Junsik teased him about how he should have just debuted in an idol group if he wanted to dance, and RJ did unfortunately receive a bit of controversy for his eye roll and disgusted expression at the suggestion.

They got off to a bit of a rocky start with further controversy right from the beginning as pictures of RJ were leaked that showed him drinking underaged predebut, but he apologized, and claimed his friends were drinking but he wasn’t while with them. (Which was a lie, and he was much more careful from there on out).

During an interview, junsik was asked how he felt about debuting again, especially with someone so much younger than he was. Junsik literally looked the camera dead in the eye and said “it beats going broke.”

So yeah maybe RJ was fully convinced Junsik hated his guts for the first like eight months of working together.

As some of the tracks are explicit, the English curse in chill was censored with “messed up” rather than “fucked up”

RJ was clearly uncomfortable with the amount of recognition he received right off the bat for being able to sing, rap, dance, model, and produce at his age. He tried often to keep bringing up how talented Junsik was in interviews and to divert the attention away from himself, but it made him come across as dismissive and ungrateful...which led to more difficulty for the poor thing, so debuting had its ups and its downs for both of them. RJ spent the first few months after debut stressed as hell and grappling with how difficult it was to maintain a good image, as everything he said and did was so harshly analyzed. 

A few people recognized RJ as a dancer from some dance videos and covers, as well as a back-up dancer for a few groups. In fact, he went somewhat viral a few months before XX’s release for being “the hot backup dancer” for a popular soloist, though no one really expected him to be a trainee about to debut himself.