#maybe the acoustics in a cone of silence would be pretty cool

[abandoned-as-mustard]

Musicians with night inspiration but living with others is just wishing you had the cone of silence from get smart

[rkjinwook]

• • •  STARTING LIVE!

       02AUG2020  |   🐥 JINWOOK’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🥳 🥳        DURATION   |   1:02:22

it’s a cute set, albeit typical for this kind of broadcast. the staff have provided jinwook with a fixed camera framing his mini birthday table, complete with multicolored balloons decorating the back wall. there’s a small tablet to monitor the stream and comment feed, which jinwook fiddles with as he waits. in retrospect, he thinks it would’ve been nicer to hold a more casual conversation with fans for his first solo live, but that might just be the nerves talking.

he fills the silence with music, his guitar in his lap. it’s an everyday sight, but jinwook realizes most fans won’t have heard him play much, so he takes care to warm up cleanly, and warm up his vocals too. he only alternates between a few simple chords, though. it’s the sort of background music he used to hear when he’d occasionally attend church services with eve. as jinwook plays he imagines an audience quietly filing in, taking their seats at his birthday party as they each receive the live notification. finally the staff motions for jinwook that the actual video is starting, and he rests the instrument in his lap, out of view for now.

“hello! i’m convex’s sunshine, jinwook.” the greeting is bright and familiar as he dips his head toward the camera. it’s unlikely that the viewers, who arrived so early from a notification, don’t know his name, but it can’t hurt to start off formally. “today is my birthday! yay!!” also evident from the title and the backdrop. jinwook gives himself a round of applause anyway. then he picks up a party hat from the table and slips the cone over his head. “tada~” 

“since we can’t meet in person, i wanted to greet you all with a live today to celebrate.” there’s a pause as jinwook adjusts the thin elastic of the party hat. he takes a breath. “last year, hmm...” he taps a finger to his cheek as he thinks back. “oh, last year i made cupcakes! i was helping our team sphere on the mgas.. so i couldn’t meet consta that time, either.” jinwook hums in thought, suddenly a bit nostalgic about his time as a coach. he shakes his head. “so i’m excited to try this out now.”

“let’s see...” he says, quickly moving on, “is everyone settling in here alright?” he peers over the tablet and rests a finger over the chat to pause its scrolling speed. the amount of viewers is staggering and the number only keeps rising, but jinwook focuses on the individual users sending messages instead. it’s a relief to see the majority in his native language. “hello and hello and hello,” he says, reading off a string of usernames and greeting each one individually, “and thank you for coming, and thank you for coming, and thank you for coming~!”

when jinwook releases his finger from the screen, the chat jumps back to life, shifting too quickly to read. he frowns and tries to pause it again. it takes some concentration to read off the unusual username combinations, but he does his best.

💬  :  happy bday 🥳 🥳 🥳 💬  :  you look handsome!!! 💬  :  happy birthday oppa~ 💬  :  thank you for being born 💖🎁🎁 💬  :  bare faced jinwook is the best!

“ah, thank you~ hello!! thank you too~ thank you for being by my side! oh! this one...” jinwook is startled into a laugh at the last comment, bringing a hand over his mouth. when he drops his hand he shows his full face to the camera, grinning. “this is definitely not bare faced jinwook, but, still i appreciate you thinking so~”

as he tries to keep reading, he tilts his head and squints. many of the messages are just full of celebrating emoji or animated emotes. it’s less to parse, but more noise to sort through. “ah, so much emoji in chat, you all must’ve learned from me, huh...” he muses.

after another minute he leans back again, his nerves settled. well, jinwook’s never had much trouble even talking to himself, so it shouldn’t surprise him that speaking to a bustling chat window comes naturally, too.

💬  :  did you have a good day so far?

“i’m happy today!” jinwook answers confidently. “my grandmother always wakes up early on sunday mornings, so i called her on the way to practice! and later tonight i’m going to video call with my family. actually i told my sister what time i was going live, so she might be listening too?” jinwook squints back down at the tablet and bites his lower lip. “ah, the chat is going way too fast to tell...”

💬  :  where are the other members!!

“hmm, training?” jinwook grins. “i’m taking a break to talk for right now~ but we are all working very hard otherwise!” he shares another smile, proud of himself for not mentioning anything further - although if his eyes sparkle, he can’t be held responsible. “they might stop by at the end!”

“that reminds me!” jinwook reaches below the table for his bag, pulling out a fresh journal that jaehyun had gifted him in the morning. he holds it up for the camera, proudly showing off the nice foil accents and the fold-out attachment. “my roommate, haru, got me this really pretty notebook. it’s supposed to work as a real midi keyboard.” jinwook’s runs his fingers over the cover. “he has good timing since i am almost out of pages in my old notebook... i’m excited to use it.”

💬  :  oppa’s hair is cool today!

“my hair, ah..” jinwook reaches absently to touch it, pleased. “it grew!” it’s worn longer than it was for pretty u era, freshly dyed and parted down the middle. he’s lucky he’s even allowed to have it showing for the live right now, since it’s a similar shade to his old cut. “i’m kind of happy, since it feels healthy recently...” he chuckles a little, the compliment leading him to another train of thought.

“speaking of cool, consta, did you guys see our call me baby special stage last week?” jinwook looks up to the camera and leans in, curious. “the concept was slightly darker for us, since unit black is so, you know... cool.” jinwook gestures vaguely but laughs at the understatement. it’s not a big enough word to describe some of the biggest superstars in the industry. “we have songs like rock but it’s different from convex‘s usual image, maybe,” he adds thoughtfully, knowing full well that their next comeback is inching in that direction. “do you think we suited it well?”

💬  :  convex is cool too!

jinwook nods, pleased by the positive responses in the chat. “so it was okay, then?” he laughs a little because of course, they’re all biased fans and he asked for it on his birthday, but it’s still reaffirming. “mmm, it still felt a bit refreshing and funky like convex, too. so i think there can be a middle ground,” he says, as if simply imagining how things could evolve in the future. “something smooth like that stage?”

something smooth. jinwook’s thinking of crazy in love, specifically, but the title song itself is an even bigger departure from their pretty u sound and aesthetic. “ah..” he shakes his head with a sheepish grin, “i think i’m rambling a lot.” jinwook takes a dramatic deep breath and collects his thoughts.

then he shifts away from the tablet to pull up the guitar in his lap. “i wanted to answer a lot of messages, but i actually prepared a song for you, too.” he strums a bright chord for emphasis. “it’s nothing fancy but i thought consta would maybe enjoy something like this. so i don’t have to sing happy birthday to myself, or anything,” he jokes.

🎵  :  heartz / minhee&luda — i’ll be there

“this is one of my favorite songs recently! i thought it would be nice for our fans, too.” it’d been an easy choice when jinwook was preparing for this stream. it’s a recent sphere release, plus he’s been listening to and singing the song since it came out, so he already knew most of the words. still, jinwook pulls up the lyrics on the tablet just in case. since he frames it as a fan song, there’s no need to change the gendered parts, although he doesn’t think he would have bothered, either way. 

jinwook only slows the tempo and lowers the key slightly to fit his guitar and his voice. the song has a different energy with an acoustic guitar instead of the bouncy synths, but it’s just as sweet and upbeat. he takes his time, singing all the way through both verses and two choruses. 

just before the bridge, jinwook trails off with a little smile. “ah, i just practiced up until here so far...” he keeps strumming idly as he leans over the tablet again. the comments flood with cheers that jinwook only can read some pieces of. it feels good, though, and jinwook feels confident about the vibe.

he watches several prying questions about heartz fly by in response, and carefully doesn’t acknowledge any of them. “of course i’ve been cheering for heartz,” is all he says. “i really liked around you and vivid also! and i’m excited for the next singles released this week, too.”

💬  :  please a convex song next!!

“oh,” he says, “a convex song?” jinwook takes a break, first, to roll out his wrists. then he hums in thought, searching for something he could play on the spot. “do you remember this one?”

🎵  :  convex — 20

he transitions into a familiar guitar intro. long-time fans might recognize it as the vocal unit song from convex’s debut album, but jinwook is pleased to introduce it to anyone else who’s unfamiliar. personally, he thinks it has held up pretty well over the past two years. “shh—” he mimics the sharp first line, then smiles as he continues strumming and begins to sing.

the song proves difficult to solo, and jinwook wishes he’d thought to prepare more material ahead of time. a medley could’ve been nice, but with all of the comeback preparations going on..... instead jinwook giggles as he trips over the lyrics, attempting the first verse’s backing and lead vocals both together. “hm..” he mumbles, glancing up at the camera. he casually redoes the section to make a decent recovery, and the chorus soars as intended. 

“ah...” says jinwook wistfully after he eases to a stop, “i’ll have to come back to that one someday. that one is nice to sing to consta, too. i always liked the lyrics a lot. you’re my twenties~”

he taps his fingers against the body of the guitar and is reminded of the special day. “but today my twenties are officially half-over, aren’t they? wah... scary....”

twenty-five. he stares blankly toward the tablet, thinking he should follow up: then i’ll just spend the second half of my twenties with consta!

these days, though, it feels like an unfair promise to make.

💬  :  like a gorilla like a gorilla!

his eye catches on one of the suggestions breezing down the chat window, and it interrupts his brooding with a burst of laughter. “gorilla? de:code’s gorilla?” he repeats. he tries a few chords but they’re not in the right key, and jinwook grins as he puts away his guitar on its stand. “i don’t know, that one would be an interesting acoustic cover.” he sings a little phrase of it anyway, a random adlib from the ending: “girl you make me feel~!”

“but!” he points a finger at the camera, not wanting his opinions to be twisted. “maybe one day i could cover their song beautiful, or i’m fine from predebut!”

💬  :  what are you listening to recently?

“hmm... what is new?” jinwook absently adjusts his elastic party hat elastic and pulls out his phone. “i like lee hi’s holo! per_se have a nice summer album.. with o sole mio, and of course...” jinwook hits a pretty falsetto as he opens the music app: “this is how i feel about you, twilight~”

“it’s like twilight, yeah~” he flicks through his playlist and wonders if he should just share screenshots of the whole thing on fancafe. “ah, and eclipse’s comeback!” he adds. “look, isn’t the album cover pretty?” his screen is probably illegible, when he holds it up close to show the camera, but at least his enthusiasm is clear. “i like their night side the best, with that unique rock sound...” jinwook pauses, and reconsiders. “actually, navillera was totally my style, too.” he shakes his head and grins. “eclipse is definitely cool no matter what.”

💬  :  it is already 4 in the morning here why 😭

english. jinwook has glazed over every message in foreign languages but he laughs at this one. he trips over a stilted reading of the comment, and quickly switches back to korean to answer. “i’m sorry ahh, next time i have to think of different timezones, right?” he tilts his head. “mm, it seems impossible to find a good time for everyone all around the world? but i’m happy you could visit with me for even a little bit. please make sure to rest well~” as an afterthought, he finishes in english: “and goodnight~”

💬  :  can you show a rap verse? 

“rapping?” jinwook’s eyes light up at the suggestion, and he laughs out loud. “can i tell a secret?” it’s not the right question to ask, judging by the staff’s reaction. but jinwook leans in sneakily, and continues despite their concerned looks. “we tried to switch parts for adore u once, so i learned seungcheol’s rap! that choi seungcheol,” he says with a grin, “has pretty good expressions on stage these days... his parts are fun! i like practicing his pretty u verse, too.”

he tells the story casually, although that part switch was not just boredom in the practice rooms, but an official planned anniversary release. that weekend in incheon is still a fond memory despite the disappointment of never getting to see the final edit.

he rolls his shoulders. “anyway, i don’t have the nice low voice for it, but there is a little melody to his parts a lot of the time...” jinwook postures up for full effect and puts on his best rapper expression. “how can you dazzle so much? you’re so pretty it’s—”

it’s probably for the best that he is interrupted by a loud knock and a rowdy chorus of happy birthday starting right outside the door.

➡️  :  continued in part two...

[howtohero]

Sound Based Enemies

You know who likes to make a huge ruckus? Supervillains. Seriously, for the most part superheroes don’t actually need any sort of alarm of warning system. When something supervillainy is going down you’re definitely going to hear it. Not just hear about it. You’re literally going to hear it. If they’re not standing atop a giant animal shaped mecha and ranting through a megaphone about the how unfair it was that they lost a childhood swimming competition to “That blasted buffoon Rodrick Rodigan” then they’re in the middle of the city square blowing up cars they “brought from home so it’s not technically a felony ha.” (You still need those alarms to alert you about like natural disasters and attacks from alternate dimensions I suppose.) Then there are some villains who have had the good sense to recognize that they’re really very loud and to weaponize that facet of their character. They use sound to commit their heinous crimes and to defeat the pesky superheroes who “deign to approach [their] superior visages.”

When you’re dealing with a supervillain who uses sound as a weapon it’s important to determine exactly how they’re using sound. Some villains for example can control others with their voices. In cases like that they don’t need to worry about the volume of their sound, just that they can make it. Even the faintest whisper can be enough to sway someone to their command. So when dealing with a villain like that you need to make sure there is absolutely no way that you can hear them. Ear plugs should generally do the trick. Like we said, these guys aren’t necessarily particularly loud so you don’t have to work too hard to protect your ears from them. But just because you had the good sense to protect yourself from the villains abilities doesn’t mean everyone else in the area did. Civilians are notoriously bad at taking the proper precautions for dealing with supervillains. It’s embarrassing really. Don’t you people watch the news? There are supervillains everywhere. New ones pop up literally all the time. I once even created a supervillain entirely by accident! (You guys remember Mustard Man? Were you around for that one? Basically I made fun of a man for his hotdog condiment choices and now he’s a supervillain.) Pack some earplugs before you go out. Don’t be a fool. 

When you’re dealing with villains who are a bit louder than your average persuasive speaker you need to take more intense precautions. For example, if your villain uses horrible screeching sounds to render people catatonic. Or if your villain has weaponized the disturbing powers of the brown note. In cases like those you need to make sure that there’s no way their sound attacks can effect you. Professionally speaking, I think that the best way to guarantee that is to just render yourself deaf. If you can’t hear you can fight these guys no problem. They’ve only got the one trick. They didn’t expect you to be immune to it. You’ve really ruined their entire day now. How you choose to make yourself deaf is up to you. It can be as simple as turning off your hearing aid or as complicated as journeying into the desert in search of a tiger shaped cave that holds within it a magic lamp which contains a genie who can magically remove your powers of hearing. Whether or not this process is permanent is up to you, but you never know when another sound based villain will pop up. So make sure you think everything through here.

Another thing you can do to stop a sound based villain is too silence them. Wow. Revolutionary. I guess you didn’t really have to deafen yourself after all. If your sound based supervillain happens to be one of the many sentient gun that shoots very loud blanks that we have running around and committing crimes (such as for example The Lone Gun or The Blanker) then silencing them is as simple as getting close enough to them to screw a silencer onto their barrel. If, for some reason, your sound based villain is not a sentient floating gun don’t fret! We can still get you through this. Try projecting some kind of cone of silence around the villain. Or a sphere perhaps. A quiet time bubble. Ooh that’s good. I have dibs on that name now! Throw a big ol’ Quiet Time Bubble® around those suckers. The Quiet Time Bubble will simply trap their evil sound waves inside with them so as soon as they try to use them they’ll just end up hurting themselves. Amazing! The Quiet Time Bubble® fights the bad guys so you don’t have to! Think of all the time you’ll save not having to physically go toe to toe with these robot/cassette players and living sound waves. Heck, you could write a book, see the world, start an entirely new society from the ground up where everybody gets their own cool personalized sweaters and money is illegal! Wow, these Quiet Time Bubbles® sound almost too good to be true. If you want in on this hot and spicy silencing action, call us now and tell us how to invent it!

Then there are villains who weaponize sound in a more aggressive way. Instead of using the sound to hurt people’s ears and brains they actually use sound to physically push people around. Which is just baffling. Why would you use sound for such things. You can push people with any number of tangible objects. Sticks, bulldozers, a cow. (Your arms!) Yet these noisy nuisances insist on cranking up the volume so loud that they’re knocking people off of their feet and hurling cars. Inconsiderate. And also, it makes it very difficult for people to get close to them. They’re always pushing people away. Which means they don’t have very many loved ones, which is sad. And it also means that it will be difficult for you to get close enough to them to beat them up. Even if you’ve got earplugs. Once again our solution lies in using the baddie’s own sound against them. 

Let’s talk a little bit about acoustics. Generally, sound bounces well off of smooth and hard surfaces while softer surfaces tend to absorb sound. So if you were planning on charging into battle wearing a suit made of pillows maybe wait a minute. (Why would that ever be the plan?) In order to defeat this bad guy they need to be overwhelmed by their own sound. Anything you try to throw at them will simply be reflected back at you. So lure the bad guy into an abandoned concrete building. Or drop one around them. Depending on what kind of resources you have. Villains are pretty easy to lure wherever you want, thanks to the fact that they’re always loudly declaring their motivations and ranting about what they want. Just put whatever that is inside the building you want them to go to. Next you need to goad them into using their powers inside. If they know anything about their powers (honestly it’s 50/50) it might be a bit more difficult to get this done. They might even figure out what your plan is and then you’re out of luck. They also might use them without thinking as soon as they see you. Really it can go either way. Some villains are really dumb. Most villains though, are extremely hotheaded to the point where a few well-place insults should trigger an explosive episode from them. For some good insulting techniques see our post on banter. Now, since you’re trying to get them to unleash their powers in a place where their powers will be reflected and bounced back every which way, you certainly don’t want to actually be in the room when that’s happening. So you need to either get a hologram projector, a good teleporter, or get tricky with mirrors to make it look like you’re there when you’re not! 

Sounds are all around us. I’m making sounds right now. If you hold up this post to your ear you may even be able to hear them! Let me know. Supervillains make more noise than anybody else and they’ve even learned to corrupt it, as they do with all things, to suit their own treacherous purposes. So you need to be prepared to fight those nefarious noisemakers and quiet them the heck down.