#licenses of the intro song

[iamonlyperson]

idk yall but asking s2 of teos..... i don't think we gonna get it after what mark has said about it (i would use expose but it isn't really exposing). as much i also want s2, i think there isn't really a hope. maybe.

[horsejawbone]

Currently being incredibly autistic over House MD

[7s3ven]

SO AMERICAN. theodore nott - university au

intro…

“And he laughs at all my jokes. And he says I'm so American. Oh, God, it's just not fair of him to make me feel this much.”

( olivia rodrigo inspired! reader )

A hidden romance between a guitarist who has loved her since childhood and the lead singer who’s stuck on her toxic ex. What could go wrong?

TRACK LIST.

we’re getting the band back together ! in which… theodore nott, guitarist of a disbanded group, decides to get everyone together again for their final year of uni.

good 4 u ! in which… theo doesn’t expect the band’s first big hit after their reunion to be a song about y/n’s ex. as he stands behind her, playing his guitar, the memories of her crying in his arms come flooding back.

lovesick ! in which… the tension between theo and y/n grows after they spend their holidays writing songs together. everybody can see their feelings for each other but them. “what idiots” draco malfoy says while rolling his eyes.

driver’s license ! in which… after getting her driver’s license, y/n is ready to admit her feelings for theo. her plan ends in tears, though, when she sees him with a blond girl. so what does she do? she writes a song.

enough for you ! in which… as high school comes to an end, the band agree to go their separate ways. a year later, theo is listening to y/n’s newest album, but he notices a shift. little does he know, her songs are no longer abt her ex. they’re abt him.

miss americana & the heartbreak prince ! in which… theo convinces y/n’s manager (+ his friend), pansy parkinson, to let him into the concert for free. as he stands in the front with a large, maybe unnecessary, sign, he realizes how much he has missed y/n.

so american ! a short epilogue of theo and y/n’s life as the it couple after years of pretending they’re just friends. “told you he’d confess eventually.” lorenzo berkshire pipes up, waiting for matteo to hand him the cash.

HP TAG LIST (comment to be added or removed): @leona-hawthorne @jetblackpayne @rafeslittleangel @opheliamalfoy236 @pleasingregulus @jj-ever-lovely-jewel @okkvtsu @stargirlv0id @emilieluckwood @synicaljah @https-sofia @lydipop @pleasingregulus @potteraep @stargirlv0id @lunaestrella102 @emilieluckwood @synicaljah @sofshea @i-donthaveanideaforaname

[kukuandkookie]

The end of 2024 has proven that 2025 seems to be a huge year for donghua and I’m gripping everyone to give all these donghua besides just the most popular ones a chance!!!:

Link Click, Yingdu arc: releasing December 27, 2024

Nezha 2, sequel to Nezha 2019 aka Nezha zhi motong jiangshi, confirmed for January 2025

To Be Hero X, likely April 2025 release (I hope people will also support the version with Chinese VAs! 🙏)

Lord of the Mysteries, 2025 summer release—accompanied by more good news: the novel has officially entered the British Library and it will also be translated into English by Yen Press

False Memory, series version, confirmed 2025 release

I am making this post because False Memory just released its new trailer and I am very much so looking forward to it! The series started as an indie short before growing into a bigger thing, much like Fog Hill of Five Elements and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and Alita’s Trial. We’ve thus been waiting a couple years for news so this is really exciting, especially after it recently got a Twitter account!!

Bonuses:

Ya She, released a couple months ago but late enough into 2024 I’d still love for more people to check it out!

Scissor Seven, another one that’s had its newest season out for a while now, but I assume that for those who have Netflix, it hasn’t been officially English subbed or dubbed yet. We’re also still getting trailers for its game!:

I Am What I Am 2, released Dec 14, 2024 in China!

Reminder that Mo Dao Zu Shi is now on Crunchyroll! They may have removed it from Tencent’s donghua YouTube channel for this, so definitely go support it if you do have Crunchyroll!

Some children’s donghua have also recently released, including news of the new Balala the Fairies season and the other magical girls show, Rainbow Crew! The latter is confirmed for an official release in English.

The Yi Ren Zhi Xia game is also coming soon to global, and Fox Spirit Matchmaker even updated their OP recently after quite a long time of silence.

And speaking of silence, even the long-awaited SVSSS donghua saw some movement recently!?

Now if I could get a confirmed 2025 release for White Cat Legend season 3 (and maybe God Troubles Me and Lie Huo Jiao Chou and Fei Ren Zai and All Saints Street and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng etc…)), I could die a happy man (gender-neutral)—after watching all of these newly released donghua shows and films and seasons, of course ahaha. 🙏

For more news and info on donghua, you can check here:

There’s a bunch of new donghua information in the above document that came from 2024, even though they don’t have official release dates yet! Including but not limited to:

The announcement and PV of Call-Up Girls, based on a baihe manhua

The announcement of a Nirvana in Fire donghua, based on the danmei novel with a famous cdrama adaptation (with the manhua having recently gotten an official English license via Aloha Comics)

Trailer and announcement for 《向火而生》, based on Shui Qian Cheng’s danmei novel Blazing Armour

More announcements for Jing Wei Qing Shang, based on the popular baihe novel

Trailer for The Story of Rong Song, a spin-off of the famous Big Fish and Begonia movie

and many, many more…!

Hope everyone can join me in watching more donghua for 2025!! :D

[honeekyuu]

squeeze. [sakusa kiyoomi x reader] satin black intros.

place of (homosexual) business

masterlist.

[playlist]. satin black || vibes

a/n. im completely totally normal about this au. completely normal.

warnings: me.

✗ !!! minors do not interact !!! ✗

✗ !!! ignore timestamps !!! ✗

satin black moved into its current location about three weeks ago, and theyve tortured brews abridged ever since

they were at a smaller location for 3 years prior, but they outgrew it when each of them independently went a little viral online for their work

everyone has a license to both pierce and tattoo, but iwa/akaashi stick to tattooing and suna sticks to piercing

akaashi’s the only one who went to art school

iwa taught himself on youtube

suna and sakusa taught themselves by practicing on each other – all of suna’s tattoos are by sakusa and all of sakusa’s piercings are by suna exclusively

it went a little like this the first time around: "i can do this. i dont need instructions-" "ARE YOU FUCKING SURE ABOUT THAT!!!!"

akaashi specializes in black and grey tattoos and iwa does color; sakusa does both but prefers black and grey

iwa’s best known for watercolor style art and akaashi’s best known for geometric art 

sakusa’s best known for japanese style art

suna's keeps trying to sell people on new and strange places to get pierced. this is dangerous and sakusa has banned him from doing it 8 times already.

hes actually so good at his job, hes just an idiot

theyre total assholes who chain smoke in the shop and swear at each other from across the room

the shop motto is "make them horny until they come back" and boy does it work

every single one of their clients transferred across the city with them when they moved

sakusa doesn't actually take new clients anymore, he just keeps up with regulars. he's very adamant about this

he is most often found in his office, which is also his private studio

the shop playlist consists of music added by sakusa, suna, and iwa -- they tried to get akaashi in on it but he got apple music just to spite them and wears his headphones when he works

suna can and WILL add the most unhinged shit to the playlist. there is a near-daily incident where sakusa tries to skip past suna's songs but suna keeps going back to them just to be annoying

this results in the shop being filled with the nonstop sound of skipping songs and sakusa screaming at him from his office

iwa usually joins in too because he has a short temper

akaashi always has to put his gun down and dissociate, because he can feel himself about to fuck up his lines with how hard his eye is twitching

akaashi has the least tattoos but that’s really not saying much; they have a board in sakusa’s office with the running count for each of them

everyone who comes in for the first time always sees two tattoo artists: iwa, who sits in the corner chain smoking and frowning and generally looking like he could kill you; and akaashi, who is generally polite and looks way less scary than iwa.

and they always choose akaashi, because he looks nice

he is not fucking nice. he is mean as shit. iwaizumi is the nicest one in that shop.

iwa so often is the type to roughly grumble "oh, yeah we can take a break -- this placement always hurts like a bitch. i need a smoke anyway" (hes already smoking).

akaashi keiji is the type to whisper "oh, did that hurt? pussy." and go in even more.

he is mean as shit and everyone makes this mistake.

sakusa and suna met in high school -- they would skip class together and sit behind the school smoking and blasting bass boosted music

theres something about running from campus security every day that bonds two people into brotherhood

theyre like,,,, fucking carbon copies of each other, these two -- two tall as fuck, tatted up, pierced up dudes with matching judgmental expressions and chipped black nail polish, standing outside the shop smoking, talking shit, and glaring at anyone who comes out of the stupid ass 3-in-1 shop next door

they met iwa and akaashi during their apprenticeship. they really didnt get along at first, but it takes a very unique combination of crazy to be able to open the kind of tattoo shop sakusa wanted.

and he had his combination of crazy right there in front of him.

iwa’s the most normal one and just wants to be akaashi’s friend. thats all he wants. he wants to make his silly little money and be akaashis silly little friend. 

iwa is the only one akaashi trusts for literally anything related to the shop but he wont ever say that

it's so painfully obvious that suna named their group chat. sakusa stopped trying to change it back years ago.

taglist = [open]

@mollyrolls @nectardaddy @onlytendoguesses @scinclaitnoir @marsoverthestars

@bookskeepers @choerry-picking @siheez @introvertsince2003 @eggyrocks

@atrashsith @beckixwsm @kakeru-eem @atsumusc0ck @seroh

@reignsaway @a-little-pebbl @bakingcuriosity @dondoncool @corvid007

@asthmaticcchoeee @liliumaraneae @savemebrazilhinata @whydoyoucare866

she put my hand up on her throat and told me // squeeze that shiiii-

squeeze [ghostemane].

[l3v1uhthan]

Intro!!!

IC:

Hey. Whats up? G'ahh! That sounds weird!

Anyway- I made a Tumblr!

No Normies allowed!!! Shoo!! This is a normie free zone!

RULES

Don't be mean to other people!! We're all in this together! I know we're in hell, but even I have the deceny to be nice to the people in my community!

No, and I mean no, weird stuff. Weirder than I. (OOC: i mean pedophilia, incest, etc.) I will report you to Lord Diavolo if I have to!

Please don't vent in my asks! If you need help, I can't give you it! Unless its in Mononoke Island. Then I can help. But mental help, I can't do! I'm not a licensed, therapist? MC says they're that all the time. But I'm not! I can't help you.

I answer all asks! Unless... they break my rules or boundaries. Then it'll be deleted and sent to Lord Diavolo! You don't wanna get on his bad side...

If you mention Luke, this falls into rule two, then be safe for work!! He's a child!!! Simeon WON'T be happy if you're not. Nor will anyone!

I don't do NSFW role-plays! I mean I'll answer a nsfw ask but I don't do NSFW role-plays! Come on people!

OOC:

Just be respectful to me and others. I really like role-playing as Levi and I don't want you ruining the fun!!! Levi may be a bit OOC as he's a bit funky to write, lol.

Purple text is Azazel (Z), an OC I have. She's Levi's best friend and a very powerful sorceror. She has an account over at @azazelthesorceror Orange text is good ol' Levi. Sometimes Z will take over the account (esp if an event is going on where levi is unable to speak normally), but mostly she'll just chat with Levi! I run @moneyluvsdamien , a Mammon fankid!

I run @tuneymusic as well, AKA 🎶 anon/music anon.

I run @l0rdi4v0l0 too! An obviously Lord Diavolo roleplay account.

Since this has been happening alot, please stop tagging me in stuff. (Unless we are friends/I tag you in stuff)

Stuff like "tag your friends to spread knowledge!" or stuff like "Send your favorite song and tag 5 other people!" fills up my activity, which makes me miss semi-important reblogs.

I try to answer reblogs, but if I don't, it's better to send asks.

[woodcrownedlexi]

Hiiii everyone! I've decided to upload my ranking of the new JD+ Fitness pack AND do pixel coaches for them as I rank them. BUT! I wasn't able to find any clear images of any of the backgrounds for this, so hang tight with me please 😭 6. Feel So Close

This map was just okay to me. There's nothing really special about it. The song is kind of basic as well. The lines in the background during the drop are kinda ugly. Cad's design feels like they just put random shapes into shirts and pants. Maybe it's just not for me, but this routine is just so... Boring. Like I don't feel the need to know more about Cad or get invested with this choreo. 3/10 5. This Is How We Do (Fitness Version)

(wow the background really botches her earrings) Anyway, I feel the same way about this as I do about Feel So Close, although not as much. While it is somewhat boring, it's not in the sense where I feel like it's missed potential, and we could've gotten much better. I do appreciate the routine for what it is, though. But what it is isn't a lot. 5/10 4. Juice

This routine is cute! I love it! Random headcanon: I feel like Brezziana knows these coaches. Maybe P2 also is an influencer. I had a lot more fun playing this routine, and definitely felt the 'I wanna see more of this!' feeling that Feels So Close and TIHWD didn't really get for me. 7/10 3. i like the way you kiss me

LOVE the coach designs here!! But... I'm not the appeal for this song. I don't have the 'runaway car band' aesthetic this map is going for, but I still appreciate it! I don't mind the choreo being repetitive, but I do wish they switched up after the first chorus, since all the moves are the same after it. I think they could've at least changed the outro a little. Oh well. 8/10 2. Rabiosa (Fitness Version)

Yasss queen! I love the flow and energy of this map. The background is a little quirky, but in a good way. It reminds me of those self-care note apps, and this is a fitness routine, so... I guess it works? But it works WELL! I wish they gave the other 2 returning maps a name, but I get why they didn't... It's because they're lazy! I'ma catch them

8/10

Apple

UGHHHH! I loveeeee this one! The teen mall aesthetic, the brat shirt (even though the fitness text is a little cringe but who cares), Julia, everything decorated in her room, the way it gets digitized, the second part when she's in that pixel field, the intro with the planes, the outro with the the apple outline, it's just so great!!! I do wish they used the TikTok dance, but I understand why they didn't. It's probably a nightmare to try and license and that's okay lol

10/10 Overall: Our first song pack for Just dance!! The songpack is great, but... I miss the hype seasons had. We'd have a buildup, things to look forward to, actual trailers... Now it's just a lifeless "take it all or leave it" cash grab. We didn't even get achievements for any of the maps or anything. I guess I'm not surprised, I hope the budget ubi has is doing okay. I also think that none of the new maps have anything to do with Fitness, except Feel So Close... and we saw how that turned out. :( But I still have hope for the future! I believe everything will go well.

[madilynlovesbsdfr]

intro<33

hiii my names madilyn :D

-isfp

15 turning 16 on June 6

Music I like:Melanie Martinez,Mitski,Tyler the creator,Olivia Rodrigo,Billie Eilish,Alex g,Arctic monkeys,Ariana Grande,Clairo,Beabadoobee,Doja cat,Elita,Lana del ray,Mac De Marco,Rebzyyx,Tv girl,The weekend,The neighbourhood,The Maria’s,Tame impala,SZA,Steve Lacy,Playboi Carti,Pink Pantheress,Odd future,Lady Gaga,Insane Clown Posse,Frank ocean,Mitski,Jazmin bean,Laufey,Conan Gray,Cigarettes After Sex,Deftones,Sabrina carpenter,And many more I listen/watch anything!!

shows I love:American horror story,The umbrella academy,Stranger things,South Park,Adventure Time,Shameless,Outerbanks,Squid game,Skins,Scream queens,Arcane,The End of the fucking world,Wayne,Dexter,murder drones,Alice in borderland,Jennifer’s body You,Euphoria,Insatiable,alien stage,total drama island, the owl house,the amazing digital circus,Milgram,and many more I also loveeee musicals

Movies I love:the notebook,The craft,500 days of summer,Alice in wonderland,Mean girls,Little Women,Bones and all,Beautiful boy,Girl Interrupted,GoldFinch,Scream movies,IT(I was a huge fan of the losers club),chucky,pearl,Scott pilgrim,Coraline,Corpse Bride,Beetlejuice,Just any horror or romance movie also deadpool and spiderman>>(I love Andrew Garfield and timothee chalamet sm)

games I love:doki doki literature club,genshin impact,roblox,Minecraft,omori,Hsr,Needy streamer overload,Mystic Messenger,Identity V,Pjsk,Yandere simulator,silent hill,fatal frame,Wuthering Waves,Muse Dash,Class of 09,MiSide,You and me and her,Danganronpa,Fnaf,Cuphead,Broken colors,persona 5,obey me,FNAF,undertale,etc

DNI!!:pedos,anyone who’s rude

I love laughing Jack/creepy pasta too

I really love the wolf trilogy from Tyler!!

I also really really love heathers and jd!!

my fav songs are:Treehome95,Do I wanna know?,Oxytocin,Teddy bear,Mad hatter,wish you were gay,Sunsetz,Moonlight on the river,Wine pon you,Favourite toy,drivers license,Obsessed,Sad girl,etc!!

Animes I love(I watched like over 100😭):bungo stray dogs(DAZAI IS SO ME FR!!),death note,Vanitas no carte,Diabolik lovers,Free,My future diary,Junji Ito,hxh,Tpn,Seraph of the end,Aot,Jjba,Tokyo revengers,Evangelion,Azumanga,Perfect Blue,Date a live(I love kurumi sm)Toilet bound Hanako-kun,Jujutsu Kaisen,A Silent voice,Konosuba,Horimiya,Ao Haru ride,maid sama,fruits basket,Chunibyo,Howls moving castle(Studio ghibli ily)When they cry,Nana,Bocchi the rock,Chainsaw Man,Black butler, stranger by the Shore,Demon slayer,K-on,Kamisama kiss,madoka magica,Lain, blue lock and more

Mangas I love sm:When a magicians pupil smiles,love and heart,firefly wedding,also secret alliance but that’s a manhwa,I love Amy,Killing stalking,Oyasumi Pun Pun,etc

Dazai is me fr

I LOVEEEE CINNAMOROLL!! (Best Sanrio ever)

I draw sometimes^^

I’m obsessive,depressed,bpd,social anxiety(anxiety in general),irl yandere(kinda i have like obsessive tendencies but im not a rough yandere just a sweet and clingy one<33),sh,ed

jirai,Lolita,baggy clothes,cutecore fashion<33! Idk I love anything tbh😭

[ancient-qveen]

EMPEROR in Decibel magazine issue no. 14 (December 2005)

The making of Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse

[…] Released from prison in December 2002 after serving nine years and four months’ time, Faust joins fellow ex-Emperors Samoth, Ihsahn (guitar/ vocals/keys) and Tchort (bass) on the eve of a sudden Emperor reunion (featuring Samoth, Ihsahn and longtime Emperor drummer Trym) to recount the making of one of the most historically fascinating and sonically influential albums in the annals of extreme metal…

[ancient-qveen: This is one of my fav emperor interviews and so i've just personally highlighted some stuff in blue for me to look back on. And i've just highlighted their names in red and added a couple pictures to help break up the huge walls of text :3 enjoy]

What are your most vivid memories of the recording sessions for In the Nightside Eclipse?

Faust: There were a lot of practical things we had to organize, because Bergen is like 500 kilometers from Oslo, and we were very young at the time, and we didn’t really know how to organize ourselves. But we managed to get hold of a car and we managed to actually get an apartment in Bergen. The car we used was from Samoth’s father, and I was the only one who had a driving license.

Ihsahn: For me personally, it was kind of a turning point. We had recorded demos before, and also the first Emperor EP, but that was in a very cheap studio. This time we went to Bergen and Grieghallen, and recorded in a big studio with an experienced sound engineer and everything. I was only 17 at the time, so I couldn’t get into the pubs, and since I had to do the guitars and the vocals and all the keyboards, I spent a lot of time in that studio. When the other guys finished their parts, they could always go to the local rock pub and hang out. I’d generally been very interested in sound engineering, and because I couldn’t get into the pubs, I’d spend my nights with Pytten, the engineer, learning about recording and studio technology.

Tchort: I remember Varg Vikernes walking around the studio in his chain mail eating ice cream. I had just turned 19 and was starting to drink coffee for the first time. Grieghallen was huge—the drums were set up in a big hall and that’s where I recorded the bass as well. Before, I had only been inside a small basement studio, and this was a hall where big orchestras could be recorded live.

Samoth: I had just turned 19 that summer, and I remember Bård and I terrorizing the Bergen neighborhoods in my dad’s old Ford Econovan. [Laughs] We had a lot of fun during those weeks, but also a lot of work. We were quite inexperienced as far as being in the studio, and this was really the first big recording for any of us. There were some magic musical moments in the studio, for sure, but I don’t remember too many concrete incidents from the actual studio session. I remember more about the time, the atmosphere and the total rebellious freedom I felt back then.

Were all the songs completely written beforehand, or were parts improvised in the studio?

Ihsahn: Oh, yes, we’ve always had all the material ready before we go into the studio. I would say it was pretty well rehearsed. We never booked time before we were actually finished writing the songs.

Samoth: The song structures were all done, but a lot of the symphonic keyboard parts were actually made in the studio. We didn’t have a keyboard player at the time, so we never rehearsed with keyboards prior to the recording. Of course, certain parts we already had planned the keyboard lines for, and some riffs were made with keyboard lines in mind to begin with, but the overall symphonic and atmospheric layering on Nightside was pretty much composed by Ihsahn during the recording session.

Tchort: As far as I remember, most of the material was written beforehand, but the intro for the song “Towards the Pantheon” was made during our stay in the apartment next to the studio.

The album was co-produced by Pytten, who also produced Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and the first Burzum albums. What was he like?

Ihsahn: He was the sound engineer at Grieghallen Studios, and still is, as far as I know. He also recorded several Immortal and Enslaved albums. Grieghallen came to be the studio where everybody recorded their first black metal albums. But Pytten wasn’t a metal guy at all—he was just a very good sound engineer. He used to work for Norwegian television, as a host on a youth program. He’s a very nice guy and a very skilled guy, socially. He related very well to all these extreme types— all these young black metallers who were coming in. He took it very seriously.

Faust: I have only good memories about him. He was very well educated in his work, and very relaxed. In the past, Grieghallen wasn’t one of my favorite studios, but I think he put a trademark sound on each recording—a very organic and dynamic sound. I think he was a part of getting the right sound for In the Nightside Eclipse. At the time, he was already famous in Norway as a musician— in the ’80s he was in a band called Blind Date. His daughter is one of the most famous handball players in Norway now—she’s a very known icon for sports, and I think she was voted most sexy female in a magazine back in 2002 or something. We met her, because she would always drop by the studio when bands were recording there. I think she was maybe a year or two younger than us.

Tchort: Everyone seemed to “know” Pytten from a TV show he used to be on, but I didn’t recognize him. He was cool to work with, kinda relaxed. I remember he didn’t like the bass I brought, so I borrowed one of his for the recording. I don’t think his bisexual daughter was into handball—or at least not known—back then, as she was probably only 15 or 16 at the time.

Five of the songs on Nightside actually have the word “Emperor” in the lyrics. Did you think of Emperor as a character, or was it purely self-referential?

Ihsahn: [Laughs] I didn’t realize that. You know, I can’t really remember all that was put into the lyrics at that time, because some of them are mixed with stuff that Mortiis wrote before he left the band. He wrote lyrics for “I Am the Black Wizards” and “Cosmic Keys [to My Creations and Times]” and then me and Samoth wrote some lyrics together. I wrote the lyrics to “Inno a Satana” and “The Majesty of the Nightsky” on my own. So it’s all a big mixture, but I think they were partly drawn out from some of the concepts that Mortiis was working on at the time. The rest was pure imagination. I think there was a lot of running through forests [laughs]—it’s all very epic. I suspect we used the word “landscape” more than once as well.

Samoth: I think we saw “Emperor” as a sort of entity. We didn’t really ever use the word “Satan” much in our lyrics. We’ve always used a lot of metaphors and symbolism. Emperor became a metaphor for our own entity, for the dark lord, for the devil, for the strong and the mighty. There could be several ways to see it, you know.

Tchort: I don’t think I read the lyrics until I was holding the finished album in my hands. I came from a different part of Norway, so the few times we met were for rehearsals — I didn’t witness the birth of the songs and the lyrics behind them.

There’s an essay in the appendix to the book Lords of Chaos that compared black metal as a Scandinavian youth phenomenon to the Norse legend of the Oskoreien, “the ride of the dead,” which was also reflected in a Norse folk custom that involved groups of young males terrorizing villages on horseback while wearing masks, making noise, etc. Are you referring to Oskoreien in “Into the Infinity of Thoughts” when the lyrics go, “In the name of the almighty Emperor I will ride the Lands in pride, carrying the Blacksword at hand, in warfare”?

Ihsahn: Until you say it now, I’ve never heard that comparison. To be honest, my only connection to Oskoreien is more or less the famous Norwegian painting—I’ve seen the original at the national museum here in Norway. It’s also on the cover of the Bathory album Blood Fire Death, which is my favorite black metal album. But I never read Lords of Chaos. I know I did an interview with that guy, and I think I’m referenced in the book, but I never bothered to read it. I’ve never had any interest in that side of it—all the hysteria, and what everybody else wanted it to be. Of course, in the beginning, we knew all the people involved, but the whole idea of a unified black metal scene was just very unfamiliar to how I experienced it. I’ve always been detached from that and, how do you say? . . . kind of self-centered about my own work. I’ve never cared very much for the whole scene and its development.

Was there anything in particular that influenced the lyrics—books, films, etc.?

Samoth: Emperor expressed many things, both internal and external, during the years. The power of Norwegian nature was always a source of inspiration for us, especially in the earlier years. We found great motivation in the vast forests and mighty mountains, and would actively be a part of it and also use its visual strength in our artistic vision. We also had a strong fascination for anything ancient, such as the Viking era. Ihsahn and I would spend a lot of time brainstorming on concept ideas, and at one point we had this whole concept of a dark fantasy world going. It was all very visual, I think. We drew a lot of influences from artwork related to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And keep in mind, this was 10 years before you could buy a “Lord of the Rings burger” at Burger King—quite a different vibe, so to say. We also had a period where we had a strong fascination for the whole Dracula myth and everything related to Transylvania, the Carpathian Mountains, the dark corners of Eastern Europe and folklore. For example, a film like Nosferatu—both the 1979 one and the 1922 silent movie—was a big part of our ambiance and visual influences.

Ihsahn: The lyrics represent very much the imaginary world we were occupied with. I never really read The Lord of the Rings or any of the things that everybody in that scene was reading at the time. I steered away from that, but the words we used and the fantasy imagery were still part of the whole way we thought and played. It doesn’t really mean much in particular on this album, but it does capture the essence of the atmosphere of that time.

There weren’t that many black metal bands in existence at the time you recorded In the Nightside Eclipse. Were you enjoying the freedom of what was essentially a new art form, or did you feel restricted in any way by an ideology you felt you had to adhere to?

Samoth: I don’t think we felt too restricted. When we first started Emperor, we stripped everything down from what we were used to with our death metal outfit, Thou Shalt Suffer. Our aim was to go back to basics and sound like Celtic Frost, Tormentor from Hungary and Bathory . . . lots of Bathory! But as we got more serious with Emperor, we started to develop a more personal sound in addition to the obvious black metal influences. It was based a lot around the use of keyboards and the whole atmospheric and symphonic aspects. It became our thing, and we just took that further and further, really. But at the same time, it was very important for us to make sure we still maintained a certain spirit in the sound.

Faust: Black metal had existed for many years, but this was the second wave, and ours was the more symphonic black metal. We knew—or we started to realize—that it would be something different, but I don’t think we felt we were caught by any ideology because we pretty much did what we wanted.

Tchort: Black metal was still very new to me, and since I hadn’t been in the scene—I came from a death metal band—I didn’t know much about the ideology, so I certainly didn’t feel any restrictions. I understood the passion for atmosphere and even melodies that was put into the music, but besides that, I tried to play my part well and not be concerned about anything else.

Ihsahn: We were so young, and we had no idea what kind of impact this whole thing was going to have. I suppose now black metal has become a world-renowned phenomenon, but at the time, it was so small and so totally underground, we were just occupied with trying to do our best. I mean, I know Pytten used a lot of big reverbs, so it all sounded very majestic, which is maybe how he interpreted it. For In the Nightside Eclipse, we also kind of built further on the use of keyboards to try and give it more of an orchestral feel.

Not many other black metal bands were using keyboards very extensively back then.

Ihsahn: Yeah—I think that came from when me and Samoth played in several bands prior to Emperor. We used keyboards in [Thou Shalt Suffer], so that kind of developed into a more progressive death metal. At the time we did the first Emperor EP, we wanted to use some layers of keyboards, and that kind of evolved on In the Nightside Eclipse—but even on that record the keyboards are very simplified, compared to later releases. At the time, there were no bands using keyboards in the same fashion.

Faust: Emperor and Enslaved were the only bands with guys who could actually play the synth and the piano. Up ’til then, all the use of synth in black metal had been made out of very minor knowledge of the instrument—just mak- ing the easiest chords and stuff. But Ihsahn and Ivar from Enslaved were able to create good melodies on the synth and use it as an instrument along with the guitar and bass and drums. I remember people in other bands would see Ihsahn and say, “Shit, this guy really knows how to play the synth.” It wasn’t really that common back then, so I think we realized that we were a lot different from bands like Immortal and Burzum, who played a very primitive kind of black metal back then.

Tchort hadn’t been in the band very long at that point.

Faust: Tchort replaced Mortiis, who was kicked out or asked to leave in the beginning of 1993, after the recording of the mini-album.

Samoth: After Mortiis left, we played without a bass player for a while, and then actually Ildjarn [who had been in Thou Shalt Suffer] played bass for us, but that didn’t end up being anything permanent. I think we hooked up with Tchort during the winter of ’93 [early ‘93]. We left for our first tour in June, which was the U.K. tour with Cradle of Filth, and by that time he had already been with us for a little bit.

Tchort: I felt comfortable with the band and its other members, especially since we had just spent two weeks together touring in the U.K., but recording the album and being in a professional studio was a new experience for me. I had only recorded a demo before that. I didn’t have more than a handful of rehearsals before we went to the U.K. to play—and then we went straight to the studio.

Ihsahn: [Laughs] When we went to the U.K. to tour with Cradle of Filth, they were our support act!

The album was recorded in July of 1993, but wasn’t mixed until the following year. Why the delay?

Faust: Well, basically because half of the band ended up in prison. I was arrested one month after the recording, as was Samoth, who was released not long afterwards. My charges were a bit more serious, so I stayed in prison and didn’t take part in the mixing. I wrote down my point of view on a piece of paper for them to take into consideration during the mixing, but it was mostly about the drums and stuff.

Samoth: There was a lot of stress that fall with Bård and I being arrested and taken into custody. I was, however, let out again some few weeks later, but Bård didn’t come out until nearly 10 years later. Fucking crazy, eh? There was a lot of turbulence within the scene around this time, and this pushed the whole thing back quite a bit. I believe that Grieghallen was also booked for a while, so we had to wait. Eventually we found the focus and got studio time booked for the mix. It was just Ihsahn and I who went for the mix; I remember us sleeping in a rehearsal room in Oslo, and taking the early morning train to Bergen. I believe we gave Candlelight all production parts by late fall of ’94. They had it pressed in ’94, but it didn’t really reach most distributors and shops until early ’95, so that’s why many see it as a ’95 release. It was a very frustrating time, as we lost our drummer, the stable lineup, and the whole Norwegian scene was in turmoil and we weren’t really sure what lay ahead for us as band. But in retrospect, I actually think the whole delay of the album made it an even stronger release. We sent out advance tracks to a lot of friends, and the tracks spread around the world and created a great expectation for the release.

Tchort: I also remember Ihsahn was sick during the recording of his vocals and he was spitting blood during the sessions. He did some vocals that were replaced with new vocal recordings later on—when he got better—so I think that contributed to the delay as well. They had to go back to the other side of the country to redo the vocals and do some more keyboards. He probably couldn’t do any clean vocals when he was sick, either.

Bård, were you nervous about getting caught by the police while you were record- ing the album?

Faust: Not really, because a lot of time had passed [since the murder], so I didn’t really think that much about it. I think it was a bit of luck that we were able to finish the recording before both Samoth and I got caught.

Varg Vikernes killed Euronymous shortly after you finished recording In the Nightside Eclipse. He also lived in Bergen. Did you see him often during the recording sessions?

Tchort: He came by and we spent some time at his apartment, too. I think I took a shower there and used his bubble bath. [Laughs] The killing happened later on, but I can’t recall exactly when Euronymous was murdered.

Samoth: It was just weeks after we returned from the studio that all hell broke loose in Norway. It’s weird to think about, really. If all the controversy with the police had happened a little sooner, this album would have never been made and the future of Emperor would probably have taken a whole different turn. We went to see Varg several times during the recording sessions. Even though we knew there was some tension between him and Euronymous, we didn’t really involve ourselves in that and didn’t really think that it would come to such extremes only weeks later. I have a classic memory of Varg stopping by the studio in his chain mail and standing in the recording room enjoying a huge ice cream with a smirk on his face.

At what point did you decide to dedicate the album to Euronymous?

Samoth: Sometime during ’94, I’m sure, when we pieced together the artwork for the album. It was natural for us to do so, as Euronymous had always been very supportive of what we were doing and he was also a friend of ours, especially to Bård. He wanted to sign us to his label, Deathlike Silence Productions, but we had already done the mini-album with Candlelight and made the decision to stick with them.

Ihsahn: I think it felt very natural at the time, since he was so recently deceased, and we were releasing an album at that time. Bård was working very much with Euronymous at [Euronymous’ infamous record shop] Helvete, so it felt right at the time.

Faust: Yeah, I reckon that I was the one closest to Euronymous. I worked in his record shop and also at some point lived together with him. I think it was a consensus some time after the murder when things finally started coming down to ground again. No one thought about not dedicating the album to him. It was the most obvious thing in order to commemorate his memory.

Where did you pose for the photos on the back cover?

Faust: Apart from Tchort, I think they were all taken outside of Samoth’s place—in the woods—but at different times.

Tchort: My photo was taken at a local cemetery. I was later arrested because I stole that stone angel with the blood covering it and placed it in my bedroom.

Ihsahn: I remember there was no Photoshop or anything like that at that time. If you look at my photo, there’s this dark background, and that was a very manual cut and paste. I’m cut out with scissors and glued onto a different back- ground. I think it was the same with the goat in Samoth’s picture. We had to be very handy at that point—we didn’t have all the technology that people have today. We took our own photos, too—we didn’t have any contact with photographers or designers, you know? Things are almost too easy these days.

How did you decide on Necrolord’s cover art?

Samoth: I’d seen some of his work, like Grotesque’s Incantation mini-LP and Dissection’s The Somberlain, and liked his style. This was before he took off as an artist, I guess, and before long, every black metal album had a blue-toned art piece as a front cover. [Laughs] Originally, an ex-girlfriend of mine had tried to draw something for us, and from that we had a sketch of the tower that can be seen on the cover. Later, Ihsahn and I pieced together a bunch of ideas, [including] the tower and incorporating the death rider from the first mini-album, and we sent that to Necrolord. He did an awesome job and totally got our ideas and the vibe we were looking for at the time. I think to this day it stands out as a classic black metal album cover.

Faust: I thought it was fantastic—the perfect visual for the music—even though today it might seem a bit cheesy. It’s a little bit mysterious, and maybe a bit Lord of the Rings.

Which song holds up the best for you personally?

Ihsahn: I think both “Cosmic Keys” and “I Am the Black Wizards” hold up well still—especially “I Am the Black Wizards,” which was popular from the beginning. But usually my favorites from the albums we’ve made have hardly ever been the same as everybody else’s. I think my favorite from this album is probably “In the Majesty of the Nightsky” because it has some musical elements that I feel were very well thought out for the time.

Samoth: Actually, I think the whole album holds up still. Of course, songs like “I Am the Black Wizards” and “Inno a Satana” have both gone down as “classics,” but the whole album has a very real and natural flow, I think.

Faust: I think “Inno a Satana” is the perfect black metal hymn. That track manifests itself as the personification of symphonic black metal. I think it’s a really, really good track—it’s what constitutes symphonic black metal for me.

In the Nightside Eclipse is the record many people would consider the first fully realized symphonic black metal album.

Faust: Yeah, I think it’s the first album that consciously tried to make black metal symphonic. Ihsahn has always been very good at orchestrating music, and I think that everybody who has a relationship to symphonic black metal always points back to In the Nightside Eclipse as maybe the first album that inspired him or her to start making that kind of music. That’s a huge compliment.

How long after its release did you realize the influence/impact it had?

Ihsahn: I remember the first time we went on a European tour with Bal-Sagoth. They were actually older than us, but they said they started playing more black metal–style music—with keyboards—because of the first Emperor EP. We felt that was a bit strange, but later on we were in England and we met the guys from Cradle of Filth, who claimed that In the Nightside Eclipse was the album that everybody had. But the impact Emperor, as a band, has had on this black metal scene—and to some extent extreme metal—has been most noticeable after we quit the band. But I haven’t given much thought to how influential we were, or how influenced we were by others, or any of the more superficial aspects of it.

Tchort: I am still to this day overwhelmed by the impact the album seemed to have on the scene. I travel more than ever now, with my bands [Green Carnation, Carpathian Forest], and in the darkest and most uncommon places of the world, I meet with people who approach me and tell me how much that album means to them.

Samoth: It wasn’t really until after [1997’s] Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk] was released that we started getting a lot of front covers and bigger media attention, and then Emperor really started to become larger and taken more seriously in general. Looking at Nightside, I think there was a lot of buzz and hype about the album even before it came out—with advance tracks spreading around the world, there was a lot of anticipation in the underground about the release. When it finally came out, it quickly became an album that led to a lot of influences in the growing black metal scene—or black metal boom, rather.

Faust: I corresponded with Samoth while I was in prison, and I had access to magazines and stuff, so I saw that black metal was growing bigger and bigger. The album sold very well, and I saw that people were inspired by it, but I’m not sure I realized how big Emperor were before I started to see the tours they did and things like that. I was a little bit hidden from all that attention when I was in prison, so I didn’t really see or understand it before I started to come out again on weekends to meet people and go to gigs again. I think it was in 1998 that I had the possibility of actually going out, but it wasn’t very often—maybe six times a year or something for 12 to 24 hours. I was given that opportunity because it’s a part of the Norwegian prison rehabilitation program. I remember going to a Dimmu Borgir gig in Oslo in 1998, and it was packed with a lot of people and young girls who I wouldn’t really imagine going to a black metal show. That’s when I saw how big it had become.

Do you feel differently about the album now than you did at the time you recorded it?

Ihsahn: At the time we recorded it, I was of course very proud of it. By the time we did a couple of more albums, it’s always like you wanna go back and change things you think you could’ve done better. [Laughs] By now I feel like that about all our albums. But I see it as a product of that time, where we were musically, and how old we were. It makes me feel like an old man at times, because it’s such a long time ago, and there are so many kids coming up these days that have the album, but were barely born when we recorded it. But I’ll be 30 in October, so I guess I’m not that old.

Tchort: For a period of time, I didn’t like it so much, mostly because of the production. But I’ve probably only heard it three or four times since it was recorded. The last time I heard it was earlier this year, after a show I had done with Carpathian Forest. There was an after-show party and I was lying on a couch when they played the whole album, and it struck me that I really got a kick out of the music. And I got that old vibe again . . .

Faust: Well, I do realize that if it was released today it would be a very cheesy album, but that’s something you can’t take into consideration, because it was recorded in 1993 and released one and a half years later. I don’t really listen to the album anymore—it’s been many years since I actually put it on, but I can appreciate the moods and atmospheres in the music and I can understand that a lot of people like it because it was a very good album at the time. But for me, today, there wouldn’t be any point in trying to re-create that album or to establish a band to continue in that vein.

Samoth: The album was something totally fresh for us when we were in the middle of making it, but today I see it almost in a historical sense—as a part of my life that also had great impact on how my life has become today, actually. We didn’t really know that we had made a groundbreaking album. We knew it was a good album that had something personal and unique to it in our genre, but we never really saw it becoming one of the classic black metal albums of all time. Even saying this now is weird, but it makes me really proud of what we managed to put together. We took our music and everything around it very seriously. Those times were very special. We were quite young and very active in a rather obscure underground movement. It almost seems like another life looking back at it now.

[ryunumber]

Does Ken (Barbie's boyfriend) have a Ryu number?

Ken has a Ryu Number of 3.

(clarification below)

Aqua's "Barbie Girl" has been in the Just Dance games, complete with dancing coaches that look like Barbie and Ken.

"Look like" being the operative phrase here. The lyrics of the song obviously make reference to Barbie and Ken, but the intros to some iterations of the routine have them showing up in a box labeled...

"Dolly & Dan". I'm gonna assume it's a licensing thing.

[fairyycoffin]

100 FOLLOWERS EVENT

welcome to my fairytale (such a magical word, isn’t it?). i’ll begin by saying thank you to 100 beautiful fools for keeping me company and being wonderful people. this is how i want to celebrate your existence!! you know those scenes in disney movies where an ancient-looking book is flipped opened dramatically to reveal, in a swoopy, golden font:

once upon a time…

that’s what i want you to envision. shall we begin? 

close your eyes, my dear. the air smells of strawberries and freshly printed pages and cosmic dust. let your eyes adjust to the light. you might see a castle, or a field of wildflowers, or perhaps the flash of lightning. it is, after all, your story (this is merely for artistic license, i’m in complete control of how this is going to go but i find the illusion of choice to be rather comforting). regardless, this world is full of mystery and magic. don’t be shy!! welcome to my kingdom!! 

for anyone entering the kingdom

feel free to drop one or more of the following emojis in my ask box (i don’t bite): 

🌹- i’ll assign you a fairytale trope

🎶- i’ll send you a song that you can frolic in a field to; it works wonders for the soul 

🐞- i’ll bombard you with cute animal pics

🌷- i’ll give you a compliment (that you absolutely deserve!!) 

🥀- i’ll read your tarot for you  

for my lovely, lovely mutuals

🧚‍♀️- i’ll write you a handwritten platonic love letter (i’d actually love to do this) 

💐- i’ll make you a playlist that tells a story 

🍓- i’ll write you a fairytale of your choice

🪺- i’ll infodump about fantastical flora and fauna 

🦊- i’ll tell you what you remind me of   

🌻- i’ll make you a mood board

your journey in this realm is complete, but never fear. there is so much left for you to discover, if not here then elsewhere. have some tea, darling. 

thank you for sharing this with me! i love you all so much! 

“i only ask to be free, the butterflies are free.”

npt some of you:

@bleep-bloop-boo @nothing-but-glitter-and-lashes @nickbutnodick @nopesjsgwhqgsx @creature-from-unknown-orgins

@i-eat-so-much-grass @mybedroomceilingsbored @that-dam-heartstopper-fan @th3-st4r-gur1 @daydream-of-a-wallflower

@strawberryapologist @dandelionflowery @agentwaffle @gay-little-isopod

@bassguitarinablackt-shirt @clearcloudlesssky @ch3rry-t0mat0 @rapidlydecayingcorpse

@catinasink @marylily-my-beloved @kennetea @catholickedd

@honeii-puff @some---weirdo @a-wondering-thought @littlebookworm69 @literatureisdying

am i missing anyone?

link to my intro post:

[miwhotep]

JAMES BOND REFERENCES IN MORIARTY THE PATRIOT

I am a big fan of James Bond since my early teenage years. I watched every movies and read all books, so when the Moriarty the Patriot manga first started using James Bond references, I basically screamed. And my voice got 100x louder when the iconic My name is Bond. James Bond. scene happened.

I always wanted to write an analysis of YuuMori's James Bond connections, so now here we are.

First, let's talk a bit about the actual James Bond universe. The character of James Bond - the MI6 agent numbered 007 with a license to kill - got created by Ian Fleming in 1953. He first appeared in the novel called Casino Royale. Fleming wrote 12 novels and two short story collections with the character. The novels soon got movie adaptations, too, the first James Bond movie was Dr. No in 1962, where Sean Connery played Bond. Currently there are 25 Bond movies.

The James Bond movies can be classified into eras by the actor who played Bond. In order, these follow:

Sean Connery

(George Lazenby - but everyone tends to pretend this movie never happened)

Roger Moore

Timothy Dalton

Pierce Brosnan

Daniel Craig

The movies didn't come out in chronological order when it comes to James Bond's life-happenings. Most movies can be watched as stand-alones - but the Daniel Craig era tried to built up a storyline, where the movies are tied to each other. The James Bond movies always have an iconic intro, sing by a popular singer of the current era (the last movie's intro song was by Billie Eilish.)

The James Bond movie universe started to fuse with the Sherlock Holmes universe thanks to the Alan Moore comic book series, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (1999). Professor Moriarty appeared here as M - the title what later ended up with Mycroft. The Elementary series (and somewhat BBC Sherlock) continued this tendency, featuring Mycroft as someone who has ties to the MI5/MI6.

Professor Moriarty in TLoEG

The Moriarty the Patriot series features most characters who are important in James Bond movies. They are..

M - the leader of the MI6, which role was fullfilled by Albert and Louis.

Q - the inventor who keeps coming up with weapons and cars for James Bond. In YuuMori, Q is Von Herder, the blind mechanic mentioned in the Empty House Conan Doyle story.

Ms. Moneypenny - a secretary working personally for M. In the Daniel Craig era, she started as a field agent, but later moved to do office work. James Bond always gives her flowers and little souvenirs.

When it comes to James Bond, his personality in Moriarty the Patriot is similar to the canon one: loving good cars and guns, flirting with woman (especially Moneypenny) and while it's not vodka martini he orders in the pub when he met with Patterson, he asks for the drink shaken, not stirren. (On the other hand, the Macallan scotch he asks for is a reference to what James Bond drank in the Skyfall movie.)

The location of the MI6 in YuuMori is also similar to the James Bond movies: underground and underwater in the Thames.

The headquarter in Skyfall

The Q-sector

The Man with the Golden Army arc features other references for the James Bond universe. The arc's title refers to the movie/book The Man with the Golden Gun (Roger Moore-era) - the two stories only similarity is that both deal with special guns. In that arc, Sebastian Moran takes on the identity of the 006, Alec Trevelyan. The character originally appeared in the Goldeneye James Bond movie (Pierce Brosnan-era) played by Sean Bean. He had the number 006 and he was the mentor of James Bond (like Moran later on). He seemingly got killed off at the start of the movie (but later returned as a villain).

Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye

Maybe not an intentional reference, but still interesting: the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies features an evil media mogul, Elliot Carver as a villain who likes orchestrating catastrophic incidents so his newspaper can be the first to write about them, manipulating people that way and gaining control in the media - kind of similar to Milverton (yes, the media mogul Milverton thing is from Sherlock, but still), who was the mastermind behind the Jack the Ripper murders then manipulated the public through the news he created. (I can actually see him orchestrating incidents in order to gain more power and become the King of Media, too.)

Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies

We've yet to see the main villain of James Bond: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, (first appearing in the Thunderball book) the head of the crime organization called Spectre. I wander when he will appear in YuuMori, if they appear at all, but I really wish!

I hope in the next stories YuuMori's James Bond world keeps expanding - that's such an interesting aspect of the series, I love to see more references!

[waterlilychaser]

olivia rodrigo is secretly regulily (aka how i think every one of her songs relates to lily evans and regulus black)

brutal - “i’m so sick of seventeen, where’s my fucking tonnage dream” you can’t tell me this isn’t regulus as a death eater. if choices was a tv show, i would play this song as his intro after the time jump and you can’t tell me it wouldn’t SLAP

traitor - i’m not a big fan of a jegulily cheating fic because i want them all to kiss eachother on the mouth in succession, but i have read some fics where lily and james are together but then he leaves to be with regulus, so i think this song could be from lily’s perspective in a situation like that. or vice versa!

drivers license - sounds like lily being betrayed by regulus joining the death eaters and the cult against people like her tbh

1 step forward, 3 steps back - i feel like this song would be what it would be like to date regulus black. i love him, but his partners would never know where he’s at in a relationship.

deja vu - again i feel like this could be about either regulus or lily being jealous or resentful of the other once they go and be in a relationship with james. i find them to be really similar characters in a lot of ways, so i think it suits it really well

enough for you - the title says it all. this is a regulus black anthem.

happier - another potential lily/regulus/james triangle angst situation

jealousy, jealousy- i see this one for lily because growing up with a sister and living with girls all the time i think it would be really easy to compare yourself to them a lot. and also when you are in such close proximity to people you tend to learn a lot about them, see what kind of lives they lead, and end up feeling like you fall short in comparison.

hope ur ok - “well i hope you know how proud i am you were created, with the courage to unlearn all of their hatred” is actually lily evans talking to regulus black actually

all american bitch - i headcanon lily as half american sooo this is too perfect! also like the criticism of the ideals of the perfect woman play into the way lily’s character is often reduced to just a mother when she can be so much more

bad idea right? - regulus would definitely pull something like this, be so for real

vampire - i’m thinking this could be about lily and snape actually but idk

lacy - lily’s lacy is petunia and regulus’s lacy is sirius i will die on this hill

ballad of a homeschool girl - regulus regulus regulus!! regulus feeling like everyone got the guidebook of life and he never did

making the bed - regulus :( he’s so tired of being the girl that he is

logical - hear me out, regulus lying to lily and james that he will leave his family for them. this song would be them in the aftermath realizing just how he never intended to fight for them to be able to stay together

get him back! - wait why did i just imagine a fic where lily and regulus both have the same ex and somehow they meet eachother and are like omg that dude sucked so then they team up together to get him back and they do all the things (key his car, kiss his face with an uppercut, etc.) but as they do they fall in love with each other and their shared devious abilities and what if the ex was james and instead of getting him back they get him back and then jegulily happens?

love is embarrassing - regulus would absolutely think live is embarrassing and that’s why he’s always in denial

the grudge - i think i’ve heard people say the grudge from lily’s perspective is about severus and the grudge from reg’s perspective is about sirius and i support this message

pretty isn’t pretty - okay so i think most people imagine regulus as being really pretty, and i almost feel like pretty people put so much identity in their beauty that it feels like all they are worth. and so when being just pretty isn’t enough, it leaves you being not enough, which again is regulus black’s inner monologue

teenage dream - this is just soooo marauders coded of a song, works for reg, lily, and everyone else

obsessed- this would also go crazy as a jegulily ah where one of them dated james first and then broke up, then he gets together with the other and they become obsessed with the ex

girl i’ve always been - lily and snake friendship song for sure

scared of my guitar - aside from the guitar part, i think this song feels very regulus coded like “if i was brave and noble like you, id have the nerve to stop stringing you along”

so american - again half american lily serenading either her french boyfriend regulus or her british boyfriend james

[goldensmilingbird]

I watched the interview with Zag and Aton Soumache (he's the executive producer for ML and honorary president of Mediavan) and took some notes. I'm not going to retell the whole interview here, only certain parts, you can watch it on your own if you wish (it's an hour long).

It bugged me a bit that it's called "Meet the creators of Miraculous" even though Astruc wasn't there and Aton is more on the business side, from what I understand. But anyway.

The interviewer asks Zag about how they developed this universe, and Zag talks about how the market at the time was against girl power and it was hard to sell, but ultimately "the world embraced the vision and it became what it is today". He also says: "we didn't just want to produce just content, we wanted to launch a brand". To make it huge, one of them had to go to US, so Jeremy went, and Aton stayed in France. The idea with Miraculous was to be "glocal" - basically to keep their local, French culture and influences while making it global.

Then he talks about anime influences - and this sent me, I'll just put the whole quote: "And when you look at the anime from Japan, there are girl powers, there are girl power superheroes, but they're very very sexy. [...] And this is something that is culturally okay there, but in France or America, it's just impossible. But when you look at the message behind it, these are girls who save the world. And when I grew up watching like, Sailor Moon, at this age I didn't even realise that she was super sexy. I was just...watching, and her aspirational character, and I was waiting for the final combo when she will do, you know, the super flashing light from the power of the Moon and kill the villains, and that's just what I was excited about".

So he wanted to mix this magical girl power with American look and feel of the comics. He thought about how he liked Goku or Spiderman and as a kid he didn't care about what studio was behind them, they were just characters to him, and so he approached Ladybug the same way. Then they discuss licensing, and how it's hard to do "if you don't start in the beginning, in the creative process" (in Aton's words), or, like Zag put it, "you don't make the toys of your content, you have to think about it as a brand"; "once you have the DNA, you can tell different stories, Ladybug will remain the same".

And they move on to talking about the movie. Aton says that you might think it's easy to make a movie for a brand, but it's the opposite, because it has to be different from something you can watch for free on tv, but also not dissapoint the fans. "And somehow when you say it's a success on tv, people say okay, it's for the young audience. And we wanted to make a bigger audience, we wanted to make a family movie". That audience distinction surprised me a bit.

Zag couldn't bring the show team on the movie because they were constantly busy with the show. He says it was painful because they had "great beginning and great ending and great stories" but every time they'd be like "omg we cannot say this, in episode X she said the total opposite". So for example they had planned an intro (you can see the animatic here, if you haven't seen it), where Marinette moved into Paris from China but then they remembered that "wait, in the Shanghai special she said she's never been to China" and had to scrap it. And also Zag couldn't be aware of everything that was going in the story room because he was so focused on the movie. (I wonder how much of the movie was Zag knowingly diverging from the show and how much was him forgetting or not knowing what's canon)

Aton says "the idea came from the music". Zag was preparing songs for a musical, when someone said that the music was so emotional and had a cinematic feel, we should go for a movie. Aton said the idea was "crazy", but also that they had something unique 'cause no one ever did a movie with superheroes singing. And also to them, it was opportunity to bring new people, especially parents into the show. And according to them, it did work because parents were going "I can see why my kid is crazy about this show now" and the ratings did get higher.

The interviewer asked how many people are working on the show, Zag said they started at 3, then 4, then 10, now there are like 15 to manage the story, and to manage the brand around 200. 120 in France, and the rest in America, and some in Asia, Africa, etc. He also mentioned they brought in new writers, because the show needed "fresh blood" and some writers move onto other projects, but Thomas and Sebastian are still the "keepers of what the episode should look like".

He talks about Lady Tiger, and how she's from Japan and has cancer and is balding, and how his dad went through the same thing. "When someone is sick, it's their whole family that is sick". And adds: "we have like 10 characters in the next 11 years, and they're like, all written and all in production already" (which I already rambled about, but I cannot imagine them all being in production at the same time).

They talk about animation some more, but what I wanted to know is their answer to the last question about AI. Basically, Aton was like, AI is scary for live action folks but not for us, because "AI is animation, you go quicker" and "if we can go from 4 years to 2 years with AI, I'm only happy with it". And Zag's stance (based off this and another interview) is that genAI can't replace imagination and passion (I agree) but it's still a great tool (ehhh) and it's "just a computer", "nothing about it to be scared about".

And that's where it ends.

[itssovero]

I dreamt that some FFXIV fan had spent the last year making a speculative CGI intro to Dawntrail but they had started back when we knew next to nothing about it and then got discouraged when the actual expansion didn't go in the direction they'd wanted it to, so it was based entirely on now-debunked fan theories and the visual fidelity and animation quality gradually got worse as it went on.

It started with a wildly detailed, beautifully animated scene in a golden forest where a noticeably older Alphinaud fights enemies to some licensed song you would expect to hear in a car commercial (think "Boom" by X Ambassadors).

Then there was a less detailed but still decent-looking scene where the Prima Vista lands in Radz-at-Han while FF9 music plays as if to say look, it's FF9 stuff, wow! but then the cast of the Return to Ivalice raids come out and the scions are just like "Oh, right... it's just you guys".

By the final scene, the whole thing had devolved into a shitpost about how "we didn't go to Meracydia, this time" with unfinished Gmod-esque animation and googly-eyed rainbow sock puppet dragons.

[pazak-thion-brady]

Hi! I finally sat down and listened to your GtN musical, and I am super curious about what your overall plan for it is. Is it sung through? Will it be pulling material from the other books? (I ask because as a musical theatre composer myself, I had some thoughts of my own about how tlt could translate to stage, so I'm curious about your vision)

Thank you I'd love to share my vision for it.

It is not entirely sung through. I'm not a fan of entierly sung through shows, they always feel like they're there for more spectacle than plot. Saying that a few shows pull it off well like Hadestown. The plan for song number is 35, with 15 in act 1 and 20 in act 2 with a planned run time of 3h20m.

I have a few main musical influences like Mother Mother music for any scene where a major step towards Lyctorhood is taken. Jod and Cytherea's music is based on They Might Be Giants.

A few bits of the later books will be roped in through Jod's songs. Jod has a song where him and 4 of the og lyctors explain how necromancy works. This happens during the 6th intro song and they find one of Jod's old streams.

The show has been sent off to Tamsyn's agent to apply for licensing so it's up to her now if we get it.

What were your thoughts for a GTN stage adaptation?