#member/group/song in alt!

[ewkpop]

IG @ ryuserasera: Who remembers this song???!!

[seuonji]

Hi, can do a svt! x idol!reader where the fans ship them, like giving each other glances, smiling when one of them appears on screen/winning an award, dancing/getting excited when there songs comes on, lovestagram, coindeces on social media and their chemistry during variety shows.

if this is inaccurate from what you wanted please let me know i am willing to write another one! (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

from aya: thank you so much for requesting!! i have written most of these scenarios in these posts (links underneath this paragraph) so this post will mainly be on how fans ship you guys ^^

one ๑ two ๑ three ๑ four ๑ five ๑ six ๑ seven #mlist

fans shipping idols is a wild topic but let’s pretend the fans aren’t toxic with the amount of interactions you and your svt boy has!!

what fans that ship you would post:

imagine playing the telepathy game, your group against svt (game where there’s a word and all members have to do the same action) everyone from your group and svt do the same move except for you and vernon/mingyu. there’s multiple rounds and you keep doing the same thing. “are you two close by any chance?” the host joked. fans would make so many edits of that scene—

there would be so many edits or compilations of you and minghao/seungkwan in variety shows because you two bicker so much when you both are in the same room. would be the comedy type of video.

i imagine there would be ‘seungcheol/jihoon/wonwoo/mingyu falling in love with yn for 7 minutes’ compilations from when you guys were in a variety show together. he doesn’t put up a wall with you even though there’s cameras (to an extent). viewers can generally tell you guys must know each other well.

semi serious edits with jeonghan/jun which showcases you two are into each other. especially with the way you look at one another whether in variety or award shows.

+

you’d have a lovestagram with seokmin/mingyu!! fans caught on with that one pretty quick..

joshua/jihoon would copy your tweets sometimes. like if you use a sun emoji, he will as well. might copy the way you structure your sentences.

+

imagine you and your svt bf coming across these posts—

you and seungkwan/chan enjoy reading posts about ‘why yn and seungkwan are dating’ on twitter. you enjoy it a bit too much— at some point you two made an alt account so that you could like some of them and secretly interact. you clowning your fans fr.

when jeonghan sees an edit of you and him at any point, he would run to your room in the hybe building and show it to you. (like he couldn’t just send it to you…but he likes seeing your reaction.)

when you and mingyu are bored you both would watch compilations or you two. a way to pass time amirite.

[tarotomorrows]

WE GOT THE OG 5 IN THE HOUSE!!! This is part of my Inside Out punk au. Their band name is Harmony! So let me introduce their roles and how they came to be. PART 2

Our 3rd member is Fear! He joined Joy and Sadness’s clique way back in their 7th grade year.

He is the only band member who didn’t join already knowing how to play an instrument. In fact he actually started at the artist and would often make designs for the band’s potential logo and was very keen on staying out of any potential limelight. Although during the 8th grade talent show Joy and Sadness needed someone to play the guitar as Joy was planning to do some acrobatics/dancing choreography while singing and didn’t have the stamina to play and sing at the same time. Fear knew how much this meant to the two and had seen them practice for weeks and with only 2 weeks left he pushed his own fears aside and offered to learn the chords to the song to help the duo out. In the end he liked playing so much that he continued even after the show and with enough practice later on joined as the 3rd member.

During their time on the tour Joy forced them all into. He was the first to deny and the most out of it while on the trip. In fact he it got so bad it would interfere with playing which would upset Joy and the others but as time passed on it only seemed to bother Joy in the end.

He missed home and he didn’t ask for this but didn’t want to start conflict so in an act of desperation to feel heard he confided in Sadness about his true thoughts on the matter which sparked the ignition for Sadness to really have a talk with Joy about the stakes this whole music career dream has gotten them into. Once it was announced by Joy that they would be returning home he was ecstatic he didn’t care why he was just glad they were. Right? I mean what does it matter if the reasons are known…

Next is Anger he’s the teams killer drummer and owner/designated driver of Bing Bong! (The giant mini van the crew uses to travel in, who Joy named Bing Bong because of the silly sound the horn makes).

He was the fourth to be recruited to the team. After getting sent to detention for one of her senior pranks Joy met Anger in detention where she over heard the accidental killer rhythm he had going with his shoe and pencil tapping. Joy asked if he played he gave a simple eyes roll, which was good enough for Joy. She begged him to join and he proposed she couldn’t do anything in the world that would make him join her crazy idea. In the end Joy proved him wrong by breaking both if them out of detention and also returning the item he had stolen from him that he fought trying to get back (the whole reason which got him into detention his drumsticks). Reluctantly out of the honor system and due to a possible charming face he caved and became the band’s official drummer.

He may or may not have had issues with the whole unorganized and possibly dangerous on the road tour trip but he had faith in Joy’s judgement and the strength and bonds of the rest of the group. However the more and more the trip dragged on the more and more he started to realize just how far apart they actually were…

Last but certainly not least is Disgust! Although not a band member she is still an important asset of the crew as their manager. She handles finances,bookings, and how their brand is presented and NO, She will not be dressing in rags (aka how she refers to the punk/alt aesthetic) but she will deck herself out in her own uptown style.

She was the last to join the crew. Although friends with everyone since sophomore year she never partook in any of their “rough housings” she called it. She never saw the appeal in getting all sweaty and lugging around heaving metal equipment but one day Joy asked for her help to organize the flyers for the show they were doing for the Senior Festival.

Getting to talk about how amazing her friends were and how she’s affiliated with them and getting to look pretty while doing it. Now that was something she could do not to mention managing the funds for new equipment and getting to style them with awesome costumes for when they started doing shows outside of school. She loved everything about it the generosity, hanging out with friends, and the popularity…

During the trip she was the second to snapping, Fear obviously was the first. During the trip she did her best to manage the finances with the best odds she could, it started off alright but of course later on their lack of funds lead to more cramped nights sleeping in the van. It came to a point where she started to up-sale some of their merchandise in hopes of allowing the everyone to eat a full meal or have enough gas. After the fateful night Fear confided with Sadness, Disgust, overhead their conversation and grew livid, she could live with Joy’s delusions but blind ignorance towards other people’s own well being was not on the table. She swore that night that if Joy couldn’t see that this was beyond hopeless she was gonna knock her around and make her see it. That fateful evening when dinnertime arrived Disgust did more than just expose Joy’s selfishness but also how morally and emotionally taxing this dream of hers has been on all of them and what she’s had to resort to doing to meet ends meet for everyone. In the end Joy stormed off which is what prompted Sadness to have that heart to heart later on in the night.

In the morning after Joy announced about them going back to Anderson Falls a huge relief was lifted off their chest. Well some relief she still felt horrible about how Joy had treated them. However she wasn’t going to apologize for what she said to her, you don’t say sorry not for being right at least. So she vowed that until Joy owned up to her mistakes back home they’d keep the pleasantries to a minimum and distance herself as far as she could. It’s not like she had to try very hard as Joy had already began to stop talking or listening to her. Which is fine she can wait till Joy’s ready to be a grown up, she can patient I mean that’s all she’s ever given anyone. She can keep waiting, it doesn’t matter how long it takes…

[geoffrard]

My Chemical Romance, Hardcore Sexual Repression, and the Lemon Stealing Whore

[Content warning for non-graphic references to pornography, sex, sexual violence, and negative attitudes towards sex work. There is no explicit nudity but you might not want to read this in front of your boss. All images have descriptions in alt text. See sources here. Read this essay on my Dreamwidth here.]

It’s the setup of a joke: Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Matt Pelissier, and a porn actress huddle around a leather couch in a dingy room as a camera rolls. The actress, a young and bright-eyed Joanna Angel, asks each member of My Chemical Romance in the room, “Do you guys watch porn?”

Most of us have seen the interview. If not, stop and watch it now, because nothing else I say will make sense otherwise. (And here, just for you, I’ve reuploaded the video with at least 10% more pixels. Watch below, or read a transcript here.)

The fact that My Chemical Romance, whose faces have decorated shirts at Hot Topic for over fifteen years, whose songs have saved lives and inspired memes, who all have wives and children, would end up associated with an alt porn website like Burning Angel often baffles fans watching the interview for the first time. 

For example, see these comments left on the original video uploaded to YouTube: 

These comments, though more than a few years old, generally represent how a lot fans understand the interview. Other people think it’s funny and perhaps a little out of left field, but don’t question how four members wound up on a porn site like Burning Angel. Both attitudes are a pretty typical example of the MCR fandom’s ignorance about the New Jersey hardcore scene, as well reflecting general weirdness about sex work. 

Since I cannot turn my historian brain off, I wanted to provide some of the extremely interesting historical context behind the video. The post I had originally planned to make very, very briefly outlined how MCR ended up being interviewed by Joanna Angel, founder and longtime CEO of Burning Angel. But the more I looked into it, the more I fell down a rabbit hole. This eventually turned into something of a mammoth manifesto about women and sexuality in the late 90s hardcore scene that gave My Chemical Romance and Joanna Angel careers. I will warn you: this is long. But it’s also important historical background information that rarely gets discussed at all—especially by MCR fans.

(So, with all that said, please feel free to ask any questions about anything I say here! Sources for will be posted on a different post which I will link at the end, and I have been quite thorough, though not as thorough as I could have been.)

Tl;dr: Joanna Angel came up in the exact same scene as My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Midtown, a scene which stigmatized open sexual expression, at the expense of women and queer people—especially those involved in sex work. When she started her porn site, Burning Angel, she applied the same DIY values that her peers did to their own bands, but faced violence and ostracization from a subculture much too repressed to embrace such blatant expression of female sexuality. In this context, the My Chemical Romance interview with Burning Angel in 2004 was not only a group of guys doing a favor for someone they had probably known for years at that point; it can also be read as a somewhat controversial act that pushed back against this aversion to sexuality, and that helped legitimize and popularize both the site and Joanna Angel’s career. 

Burning Angel: the Movie (2005)

Say you’re a diehard My Chemical Romance fan in 2005—if you really want to watch your favorite band discuss their porn-viewing habits, you’ll have to travel to either your local adult entertainment store or go to the hardcore porn site BurningAngel.com and order their first DVD, appropriately titled Burning Angel: The Movie. Once you have the disc, you’ll have to fast forward through several sex scenes and interviews with other bands before you arrive at what you wanted: the actress who you’ve just seen in hardcore sex scenes asking Gerard, Frank, Mikey and Otter questions about their preferences in adult entertainment.

The DVD was Burning Angel’s first attempt at more professional pornography, and Joanna’s first foray into full participation in filmed, live-action sex. Joanna Angel would later go on to be one of the most well-known porn stars of our time—in Virgin Territory (2006), for example, she played a lemon stealing whore; you might have seen the video—and Burning Angel would be credited with the popularization of the “alt” porn genre, which broke from the exploitative mainstream porn model and typically featured models representative of subcultures.

But in 2005 her alt porn empire was still in its infancy, and Joanna was still struggling to rectify her recent full expulsion from the local New Jersey hardcore social scene with her enduring devotion to DIY values—and the fact that members of the sexually repressed subculture that had ostracized Joanna were her site’s target audience.

Joanna Angel on the Scene

Any thoughts of a future career in adult entertainment and the last name Angel were far from her mind when Joanna Mostov enrolled in Rutgers University in 1998. 

Though she often pushed back against the wishes of her religious orthodox Jewish family, the extent of her adolescent rebellion had ended at sneaking out to punk shows and getting piercings her mother wouldn’t approve of. At Rutgers, Joanna quickly became enmeshed in the New Brunswick hardcore scene, putting her in the same circles as a host of people whose names you might recognize: Geoff Rickly of Thursday (who ran hundreds of shows out of his basement), Gabe Saporta of Midtown and Cobra Starship, and Alex Saavedra of Eyeball Records. 

Geoff Rickly: Well, you know, the funny thing is that, at the time, Joanna, who would later go on to form Burning Angel and become a famous porn star in her own right, was playing in her goth bands with chelsea haircuts and the basement shows. Like, her local goth band would play. And they’d bring out people and stuff, and I’d put touring bands on that show, and so it’s funny to me how, weirdly, DIY punk hardcore scenes and porn had weird associations then. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

The NJ hardcore scene was close-knit enough that while she only has documented friendships with some of these people, she had to have crossed paths with most of them multiple times (for example, Joanna was at the show on December 31, 1998 where Thursday and Midtown played their first real sets). She went to every show she could and hosted some in her own basement. 

While we don’t necessarily have a written record of her friendship with Frank Iero and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance, the fact that Joanna attended plenty of shows in the North Jersey area and also spent a lot of time at the Eyeball House (Alex was a close friend; and Pencey Prep was on his label) suggests that, at the the very least, Joanna, Frank, and Mikey were aware of each other’s presence in these early years. They were peers in the same scene, just as they were with everyone else who frequented the same venues or played in the same basements.

For years, the hardcore scene mattered to her more than anything else; it was her social life and what she based her values upon. 

Those hardcore values and a growing curiosity about her own sexuality lead Joanna to sex-positive feminist activism and a writing internship with Nerve.com, an online magazine which explored topics related to sex and romantic relationships. From there, her interest in expressing her own sexuality continued to develop.

[Suicidegirls in 2001]

So, in 2002, when her roommate and friend asked her if she wanted to start a porn site that offered more explicit content than sites like SuicideGirls, which featured punk aesthetics and band interviews but stayed away from anything more than simple nudity, Joanna agreed.

BurningAngel.com went live in April 2002. It wanted to do things differently than other porn sites. While not necessarily pushing the boundaries of beauty standards, the site used models who were beautiful but in a more approachable, average sense. Joanna has said that since she had little experience even watching porn prior to starting the site, she wanted the site to mimic the kind of sex she was having with actors who looked like the people she was having sex with. 

Joanna: When we started the website, it was a reflection of ourselves. It still is to this day. There's band interviews on the website, the style of girl that we use is not your average typical porn star and the personality on the website is a little bit different. All the members interact with each other, all of the girls have blogs and profiles, and people become friends with each other. It's more of a community and a reflection of a subculture rather than just being a website with content to jerk-off to and never think about again. [source: Complex: Interview: Joanna Angel Talks Alt Porn, Piracy, And Her Blow-Up Doll, 2011] 

[Burning Angel’s homepage in June 2002]

Hardcore Punk Reacts to Hardcore Porn 

Her longtime involvement in the scene and her application of DIY ethics to her porn business did not mean that the hardcore culture actively nurtured Joanna Angel’s career in porn. In reality, many parts of the scene were actively hostile towards Joanna and the site once Burning Angel went live.

This backlash isn’t incredibly surprising within the context of late 90s hardcore, a subculture that by and large refused to acknowledge sexuality of any kind. 

The sexual repression in hardcore reflected several different aspects of its culture: a negative perception of women active in the scene; a reaction against the violence of tristate hardcore in the early 90s; and, more than anything else, the general privilege of those involved in the underground.

Like Joanna, Geoff Rickly, and Frank Iero, most people involved in New Brunswick hardcore were enrolled at Rutgers, and white, middle-class male college students dominated the scene. For many of them, applying DIY values to their own lives meant distancing themselves from their socioeconomic upper-hand. Consequently, the scene as a whole developed an attitude of asceticism, rejecting anything that served no purpose beyond pleasure or personal enjoyment. (Of course, it was easy for them to reject their social privileges, especially when they could just as easily cast off their aesthetic of poverty and self-denial for an adulthood of relative comfort.)

To do anything just because you enjoyed it, or because it brought you happiness in the moment, was seen to be a betrayal of hardcore’s higher intellectual goals—and that included sex. You can see this trend, for example, in lyrics from NJ hardcore bands, which focused on things like political issues or childhood traumas instead of the common themes of sexual and romantic desire found in mainstream music.

Joanna spoke about finding comfort in the general sexual repression of the scene because of her own adolescent insecurities:

Joanna: Me being very sexually not advanced and insecure, [90s hardcore] was the perfect place for me, because I could ignore [sexuality]. I was getting older, I don’t know, I wanted to explore myself more. So I began to write these graphic sex stories. My roommate, Mitch, knew about it, and I remember him getting a kick out of it. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

For another salient example, Geoff Rickly of Thursday has spoken about his own struggles with the hardcore scene’s repression, especially in regards to the shame he felt about writing sexually explicit stories for pay:

Geoff Rickly: You have to think, this is the 90s punk scene. It's not now. Nobody would openly talk about sex in DIY punk. It was such a repressed PC time, where — I mean, a lot of that stuff is my heart, like the political activism that was still such a part of punk, and actually just giving a shit about things that matter, and modes of how you're doing what you're doing. Those things seemed to matter back then, and I appreciated that side, but it was also so uptight. So repressed. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

While its general aversion to sexuality might have been born out of an initial desire to reform the violent misogyny of other hardcore cultures, it created the conditions for certain social problems to go completely unaddressed. After all, how can you address the rampant misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence in your community if any acknowledgement of sexuality is taboo?

(For a brief but interesting perspective on the impact of hardcore sexual repression upon queer people in the scene, check out Episode #4 of Geoff Rickly’s podcast Dark Blue, in which Steve Pedulla and Norman Brannon discuss their experiences as gay musicians in the scene.)

Of course, these issues aren’t confined to the New Jersey hardcore, nor were they unique to the late 1990s. This particular brand of sex-averse misogyny reflects important threads within the feminism of the time which villainized open female sexuality—especially when it concerned sex work. Left-leaning spaces like music undergrounds adopted this sex-negative, misogynistic attitude as a part of their feminism—not in opposition to it.

In particular, the Riot Grrrl movement of the late 80s/early 90s pushed back against a culture (and a subculture) that shamed women for publicly expressing their sexuality. Following that, early fanzines and performance practices addressed the mistreatment of sex workers in hardcore as one way that female bodily autonomy was limited and women’s bodies were policed. Bikini Kill frontwoman and Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna has spoken about her past in sex work, the hostility she endured for openly discussing it, and the importance of that experience in shaping the form of Riot Grrrl’s protest. 

Kathleen Hanna: “Whenever we were written about in the press, I wanted my sex-work history to be part of the description, because I wanted other women whom I danced at clubs with (and who never knew my real name) to see themselves reflected in some way. A lot of women who are doing music now have been sex-trade workers, prostitutes, dancers; I thought it was really important that I didn’t hide that. But I also didn’t want to glamorize that experience in being a super-cool thing in itself. I just wanted other women who work in the sex industry to remember that we can be sex-trade workers and be philosophers, writers, musicians, artists, or whatever. [Andrea Juno, Angry Women in Rock (1996)]

Riot Grrrl gained significant traction and nation-wide attention. In the decade or so after Kathleen Hanna and her peers catalyzed the movement, bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile remained incredibly popular, and likely contributed a lot to shifting attitudes towards sexuality in music subcultures. 

Still, these sex-negative attitudes prevailed among enough people involved in local underground scenes that, when Burning Angel launched in 2002 and Joanna started marketing it in local hardcore spaces, the site received a lot of attention—both good and bad. The positive attention fueled the site and allowed it to expand beyond just photographs, text interviews, and low-budget personal sex tapes that characterized its early content. 

However, the negative attention Joanna and her site received was vocal, targeted, and occasionally involved literal physical violence. As Kathleen Hanna had faced moral condemnation for her time in sex work, Joanna Angel faced criticism from fellow members of her subculture who thought sex work to be completely antithetical to their social justice goals. She has spoken about how difficult it was to see a community she had cared about for years turn her back on her completely for engaging in a type of work that she found enjoyable, and that she thought could be done with moral integrity. 

Joanna Angel: People were calling me ugly, calling me all sorts of mean shit, how [Burning Angel was] making a profit, [we were] exploiting women, blah blah blah. And I was so bummed. I was like, you know, this isn’t fair! I always support every fucking band in the punk scene. Even if I don’t like the band, I support them—I go to their shows, I would hand out fliers for their shows. I thought it was like a code, in the punk scene, that it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. If this is part of the scene, you accept it, and you help it, and you love it—and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. I remember being very hurt, you know? I was like, dude, I didn’t violate any punk laws by starting this. My friend from my computer class is the one who put it online. All the other girls on the site—all three of them— were punk chicks and part of the scene. And I felt really bad; people were insulting the other girls, and I really thought I was starting this cool thing where girls could just explore their sexuality. And mind you, at the time, the beginning of Burning Angel was just photos, not even videos. People were getting all up in this upheaval because of a handful of naked photos on the internet. It’s crazy to think about now. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Amidst the mounting antagonism and after an incident at Hellfest 2004, Joanna officially decided to leave the hardcore scene that she’d been involved with for over five years.

Joanna Angel: I remember going to Hellfest one year. Maybe it was like 2004?…these girls were throwing water balloons at us because we had a booth there. Because we used to get booths at some of these shows and sell tshirts. We didn’t even have any DVDs—we’d literally get in a booth and sell tshirts and hand out fliers and stickers. And these other girls were throwing water balloons at us and calling us sluts. I was like, “Hey, that sucks, can you stop doing that?” And one of my friends—he owned a record label. He owned Eyeball Records, Alex…he saw the girls picking on us, and he went over to the girls, and said, “Hey, can you cool it? They have a booth here—let them do their thing. They’re not gonna get in your way.” And then those girls and their boyfriends beat him up, and he wound up in the hospital. He almost died. It was terrible. And I was like, we have to get out here. Let’s just stay away. If we’re a porn site, let’s just be a porn site. Let’s promote ourselves with other porn companies; let’s step away for a little while. Everyone in the punk scene knows who we are. They’ve made their decision about if they like us or not. I’m still gonna interview bands, still gonna do that thing—but I’m done. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Joanna and Burning Angel’s separation from the NJ hardcore scene in 2004 finally brings me to Burning Angel: The Movie, My Chemical Romance, and that interview.

So, 2004: after over two years spent largely behind the camera and slowly expanding her porn site, Joanna finally decided to get in front of the camera and produce a more intentionally crafted alt porn video that retained the feel of the website. Thus Burning Angel: the Movie was born. 

As Joanna explains in the interview, the general idea of the DVD was that different self-contained pornographic scenes would be interspersed with band interviews. One of the key features of Burning Angel, like Suicide Girls before it, was the band interviews subscribers could access alongside the porn, so it made sense to preserve this aspect of the site on the DVD experience. Joanna interviewed five bands in early 2005: Killswitch Engage, Eighteen Visions, Shadows Fall, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and, of course, My Chemical Romance—all bands that Joanna admired, and who had been involved in the same scene that she had recently left because of very real threats to her emotional and physical well-being.

Within this context, My Chemical Romance’s decision to participate in the Burning Angel interview was a statement, as they put their support behind an enterprise that was highly controversial within the social circle most immediately relevant to them. 

Fresh off the 2004 Warped Tour and promoted Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance might have appeared to be largely divorced from their scene of origin, but they still acted in response to those politics—politics that impacted American culture at large more than you’d think—in both intentional and incidental ways. 

That is not to say that MCR was being overtly political; they’ve made a clear effort to distance themselves from the clear-cut political imagery and goals of some of their peers in hardcore. Still, the band (Gerard especially) very obviously cared a lot about using their music and stage presence to express shades of sexuality that they perceived to be lacking from some forms of music.

Gerard: I also wanted, at the same time, [for] the record to be a testament to self-expression, and putting stuff in there like that, while not being a homosexual myself, but expressing myself in a homosexual way, is either going to push your buttons in a negative way or you’re going to identify with it. [AP: Well, this whole scene wants you to be sensitive, but not too sensitive.] It is extremely homoerotic, especially the whole emo-sensitive thing. Everyone’s wearing women’s pants; everyone’s got women’s haircuts; everyone’s wearing youth-medium shirts. I don’t want to come out and say it. It’s blatantly obvious. Wearing a leather jacket is an extremely masculine thing to do in this scene. Even the hardcore bands, the really hard ones, you see them in makeup and stuff. I like that. I think it keeps it dangerous. It keeps it exciting. In a way, sex has really been missing from rock, especially because of all the sensitivity. That’s what I really wanted to convey on the record, too. I wanted the record to be very dangerous and sexy at the same time. There’s such a lack of sex in music. It’s been more about getting in touch with your feelings and being there for each other, which is great, but it’s definitely lacking this sexual duality. [Source: Alternative Press #193, Aug 2004; emphasis mine]

Additionally, many of their moments of explicit sexuality on stage were designed to be somewhat incendiary and polarizing. 

But it’s important to remember that, just as late 90s New Jersey hardcore was not the first subculture with issues of sexual repression, My Chemical Romance does not represent the first attempt to push back at this asexual culture and definitely weren’t leading that particular conversation. Gerard took inspiration from artists already pushing those boundaries and incorporating sexual expression into their art. He has spoken, for example, about the impact of Riot Grrrl acts upon his music and stage presence (Joanna Angel has similarly pointed to bands like Bikini Kill as significant influences). These bands had already incorporated resistance against harmful sexual repression, values which Gerard and his band mates took on when they adopted their styles into My Chemical Romance.

(I also want to mention briefly that other significant people in the hardcore world have spoken out against pornography, such as Ian MacKaye of the formative post-hardcore band Fugazi. MacKaye owned Dischord Records, the definitive underground music label, to which a young Frank Iero unsuccessfully attempted to get his band Sector 12 signed. The matter of pornography and its role within the hardcore world was not one upon which you could maintain a neutral stance after, say, appearing on a porn DVD.)

As shitty as it was that they needed approval from the men in the scene, My Chemical Romance, along with other bands, supported Burning Angel, a new kind of porn, and helped legitimize Joanna Angel’s claim that what she was doing was not backwards or exploitative but had integrity. 

Have you had an issue with people you grew up with when they find out you're in the adult industry? Joanna: At first people had problem[s], but not anymore. Once the cool kids in bands said, "I think what she's doing is cool" all the others turned around. Everyone I ever respected didn't have an issue with it and all the stupid, annoying hardcore kids had a problem. For as much shit as I got, I also got a lot of support. [Source: Hustlerworld Interview: Joanna Angel]

I don’t mean to glamorize the porn industry or to depict Joanna Angel as some savior of female sexuality in the early 2000s. But, as Kathleen Hanna points out, sex work is legitimate work, and sex workers deserve to have workplaces that treat them with dignity and communities that recognize their humanity. The reality was that NJ hardcore as a community did not support sex workers. Fundamentally, these were the barriers that caused Joanna and Burning Angel to make an exodus from the local hardcore scene—and they are the attitudes we risk reproducing when we express discomfort that a band we admire has interacted with a sex worker.

My intentions with this post (which turned out longer than I had ever anticipated, so Jesus, thank you for reading) were to shed light on the historical context of one moment in My Chemical Romance’s history. I’ve found that the average MCR fan, even those with a specific fondness for their early years, doesn’t actually know much at all about it—so I hope this has given some clarity.

I’ll end on this note: Without bands supporting Burning Angel, who knows—we might have never seen the lemon stealing whore. At the very least, the culture surrounding porn would look a lot different. That might not mean it would look better or worse—though you can’t deny the role that Joanna Angel played, nor the role that bands from the New Jersey Hardcore scene like My Chemical Romance played in shaping the American culture of pornography. 

Find sources for this post here.

[acknowledgements: thank you so much for reading! my forever thanks, as always, to nic @raytorosaurus, sophia @sendmyresignation, vyn @bringmoreknives, and maddy @8thnotes for their continued cheerleading as i spent over a month writing this long, long post. additional thanks to wes @killrockstar for very kindly offering some incredibly helpful guidance about riot grrrl and sending me resources about kathleen hanna. and much gratitude to merlin @void-flesh and @transmascfrankiero for their feedback on the final draft of this essay.]

[darl-ingfics]

Sicktember Day 11: ALT - "I didn't mean to wake you up."

Fandom: Seventeen

Sickie: Vernon (stomach flu), Joshua + Dino (regular flu)

Caregiver(s): Joshua, Dino

Word Count: 1,953

As he trudged through the door of the dorm behind the rest of the hip hop unit, Vernon believed he had never truly felt this tired before. The week had been excruciatingly long. Seventeen had been asked to attend a collaboration stage with a handful of other artists on Saturday, which had been derailed when over half of them had gone down with the flu. Or, to put it more specifically, two separate flu viruses that had assaulted them from all sides. No one had thought much of it when Seungcheol had made the decision to send Seokmin home on Monday with a cough and low-grade fever, and still didn’t after lunch when Mingyu barely made it to the trash can before throwing up. It was overwork, exhaustion. Or at least it was until Seungcheol had to run out of the subsequent meeting with their management team to avoid throwing up in the room with them. It was at that point that everyone (members, managers, EVERYONE) realized something bigger was going on, and subsequent tests revealed that, while all three members had the flu, the virus infecting the two rappers was different from the vocalist. 

But that hardly mattered when everyone knew they were in for a rough week.

The group had been picked off one by one until only five healthy members remained on Friday: Jeonghan, Soonyoung, Wonwoo, Seungkwan, and Vernon. Their managers considered cancelling their appearance on Saturday, but Jeonghan (acting leader) and Hoshi (actively leading also) had convinced them to just send BSS, since both Soonyoung nor Seungkwan had been spared thus far, and Seokmin, as one of the first to get sick, was starting to turn the corner and argued he’d be healthy enough to get back out there if they pumped him with meds the morning of. They had, of course, been taking measures to keep the last healthy members as germ-free as possible. So their managers reluctantly agreed. But their hopes were ended with Soonyoung throwing up at 2am Saturday morning, and Seungkwan spiking a fever at 7. And because it was too late to back out now, the group chosen to represent Seventeen had been the hip hop team, since neither Seungcheol nor Mingyu had thrown up for 48 hours, and Wonwoo and Vernon hadn’t been sick at all.

The performance had been perfect. There was nothing better than sharing the stage with their colleagues, combining talents and seeing their fans eat up the interactions. 

What was less perfect was the dull throbbing assaulting Vernon’s brain. As each song wore on, it became harder and harder to ignore the pounding in his skull, the pulsing at his temples. He started to feel claustrophobic in his own skin; the sweat pouring down his face, sticking his hair to the nape of his neck, adhering his clothes to his body, was agonizing. 

Even more agonizing was that Vernon immediately knew he was getting sick. There was nothing he could do about it now. Except pray he hadn’t caught the stomach bug. 

Thankfully, the rest of his bandmates didn’t seem to pay much mind to his listless silence on their journey home. Wonwoo was usually quiet after performances, recharging his social battery, and the other two clearly weren’t back to a hundred percent yet, so everyone was mercifully quiet and lost in their own thoughts on the drive back. Vernon certainly appreciated their distraction to hide his own condition, but at the same time, he had nothing to distract him from the growing pressure in his abdomen. But he could, and definitely was, owing that to the placebo effect. 

When they arrived home, they were met by a welcoming party in the living room. 

“Hey superstars!” Jeonghan smiled brightly from his spot on the chair with Chan wrapped around his abdomen, (Vernon didn’t have the energy to figure out how Chan was doing that, but knew that an unwell Chan wanted nothing more than to curl into one chosen hyung’s body and not let go, so he figured physics didn’t apply to him.) Jun waved from one of the couches, but the effect was dimmed since it was only one hand waving from around Minghao’s head, as the younger dancer was slumped against Jun’s left shoulder while Jihoon’s head was pillowed on his right thigh.

At Jeonghan’s words, Soonyoung’s head appeared from the back of the other couch, hair smushed up and face red with the pattern of the throw pillow. “How’d it go?”

Seungcheol chuckled adoringly, rubbing Soonyoung’s cheek. “Fantastic.” The dancer captain nodded contentedly before falling back against the couch. Vernon smiled in spite of the horrible feeling in his gut, moving quickly away from his members to escape into the void of sleep. If he could just fall asleep right now, maybe he could avoid the inevitable. 

As Vernon hurried to his room, his feet automatically stopped outside a closed door. There was only one thing he wanted as much as, if not more than, sleep. Vernon considered the handle carefully, then tapped twice. There was no response. So he pushed it open. The hall light fell on the bed, on a deeply asleep Joshua’s arms already wrapped around Seungkwan. Vernon’s heart sank. Both of them looked so peaceful, yet so obviously ill, so in need of this sleep. Vernon wasn’t selfish enough to take the few steps to awaken his chosen comfort person. He closed the door with the gentlest click possible, and scurried to his own room, rubbing tears out of his eyes with a mix of frustration and embarrassment. 

***

Vernon had been able to sleep for all of an hour before his body decided enough was enough. He awoke to the worst pressure he’d ever felt in his abdomen, a tangled, cramping pain as if there were a monster writhing beneath his skin. His head was pounding worse than before. His skin was clammy and sweaty and too tight. He was going to throw up. And soon. 

There were no memories between the moment he woke up and the moment he was in the bathroom, emptying the contents of his stomach. In fact, Vernon would very much like to not be present in this moment at all. The churning in his stomach, the horrifying, acidic feeling of bile in his throat, the loss of control, the desire to instantly clean everything… Vernon would rather suffer anything else than vomiting. 

He had no idea how long he’d been in the bathroom, how many times he’d lurched over the toilet, when a hand, ever-so-gentle, was placed on his back, right between his shoulder blades. And, try as he did, Vernon couldn’t stop his muscles from tensing, an automatic, uncontrollable response of ‘get the fuck off me.’ A sign that his body knew exactly what it wanted and would reject anything else. 

And his attempted comforter knew it too. The hand withdrew, only to be replaced by the softest of grips on both of his shoulders as Chan’s voice whispered in his ear, soft as honey: “It’s okay. I’m getting Shua.”

As Chan’s soft footsteps retreated, Vernon hung his head in defeat and felt tears threatening. This was the very last thing he wanted, to be a burden to others. Now he’d likely insulted and hurt Chan by rejecting his help, and Chan was going to wake Joshua, who was also sick and needed his sleep, and the roiling of his stomach had yet to stop, and both Joshua and Chan would probably stay up to take care of him, which was the worst possible outcome in all of this, not to mention how horrific his entire body was feeling at the moment, and…

Vernon’s brain stopped completely when gentle hands wound around his abdomen, and he was enveloped in a cloud-soft hug from behind. The contact, the only thing his body wanted, opened the floodgates that had threatened for the past hour, and he let out an unrestrained sob.

“Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Joshua asked, his grip tightening ever so slightly to calm the sobbing without upsetting the rapper’s fragile stomach. 

“I don’t feel good,” Vernon cried. 

Joshua clicked his tongue. “Oh, Sollie. It’s gonna be okay, baby.” Vernon sobbed again, falling back into Joshua’s arms. “Have you thrown up?” Vernon nodded. Another sympathetic tongue click. “I know you hate that.” One hand left Vernon’s stomach and pushed his hair back from his forehead. The other stayed firmly in place over his abdomen, the warmth already soothing the pain there. Vernon closed his eyes as he nodded again. “Think it’s gonna happen again?” Instead of nodding, Vernon’s face screwed shut with another round of tears, prompting Joshua’s finger to smooth over his cheeks. “Oh, sweetie, I know. I know. It’s gonna be ok-ay…” The elder broke off coughing, leaning away and retracting his hand to bury his face in his sleeve. Vernon whined against his will as Joshua’s fingers left his face, and his eyes swam with new tears, this time with guilt at his selfishness. It was only a moment before the fingers were back in his hair. “Sollie, it’s okay.” 

“I’m sorry…”

“Hey, hey, none of that.” 

“You shouldn’t be here…”

“Honey, please…”

“Hyung, you’re so sick too, I can’t…”

Joshua’s hands cupped Vernon’s face, gentle but firm. “Chwe Hansol, listen to me. It is one in the morning. You are in a heap on the bathroom floor, throwing up, which is something you fear with a burning passion. You need to focus on you. I will be fine. I am going to sit here with you until you are ready to go back to bed, and then I’m gonna stay with you until you fall asleep. Got it?” 

Vernon’s answer was to collapse forward against Joshua, face buried in the older man’s shoulder and arms scrambling for purchase around his waist. Joshua couldn’t wrap his arms back around him fast enough. 

They had been sitting like that, Joshua rocking them back and forth, for an indefinite amount of time when Vernon heard a whispered, “How can I help?” He squirmed enough to see that it was Chan, leaning in the doorway, looking incredibly young. Vernon felt like crying again for rejecting the younger’s help earlier. 

“Can you grab us a water, please?” Joshua replied quietly. “Maybe a damp towel too?”

“Of course.” The younger man sprang forward, pulling a clean wash cloth from the cabinet below the sink and dowsing it with water. He handed the cloth to Joshua before disappearing into the hallway. 

“Okay, love, I need to sit back just a bit, there we go.” The older man pressed the damp cloth to Vernon’s forehead, smoothing the damp material across his overheated skin, cradling both cheeks and the nape of his neck. Vernon’s eyes slipped closed. 

“Thank you, Shua,” he slurred. 

“Anytime, love.” 

Vernon didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep sitting up until he was jostled awake, hands tugging at both of his arms to try and stand him up. He pushed himself to his feet, only stumbling a little bit as his knees shook from sitting on them too long. His supports (Joshua and Chan, of course), wrapped his arms around their shoulders as they led him back to his bed. Vernon crawled under the waiting covers, his entire body sighing with relief at the soft surface of his bed after the cold discomfort of the bathroom floor. He settled further when he felt Chan slide into the bed against his back, Joshua climbing in on his other side. 

This was all he’d wanted. Warm and content, safe with his best friends in the entire world, Vernon let sleep pull him under once more. 

[sageistri]

I remember someone asking why namjoon picked a song like come back to me for radio promotion also I've seen a lot of people me included wondering at some BTS members choice of title tracks despite the fact that they seem to want chart success. I had an answer for that when cbtm was released but I wanted to wait until the full album drop to say what I wanted and now the discussions surrounding him taking inspiration from Tyler the creator proves me right.

Certain members of BTS release songs that obviously do not have the potential of becoming big with the hope that it does become big because just like scooter did with jk, over the years some members of bts have tailored their artistry after other popular acts.

Members like namjoon and tae especially continue to release these boring lifeless music even if they know the fandom wouldn't like it because

° They can't do anything else

° They see artists like mitski, joji, Billie, Tyler the creator, frank ocean, Daniel Caesar artists that have been able to create a name for themselves with alternative music/alt rap/ alt rnb and have decided that this is what they want for themselves. "If they can do it, I can". They forget that these artists have a certain something that prevents their music from falling flat or being perceived as boring.

They enter the studio with a particular artist in mind and they decide that this is who they want to emulate with this record. They have these artists on their moodboard, replicate their aesthetic, employ artists who have worked with these people in their quest to replicate their success.

They don't want to have to make radio friendly music to find success because they can't (for example tae's vocal tone is a huge limitation and I think it's one of the reasons why he's stuck with alternative RnB) and because they have decided that they're going to follow in the path of these alternative artists forgetting that 8 times out of 10, these artists are only able to get a hit song because one of their songs suddenly goes viral on social media, they don't get huge numbers right off the bat.

Alternative music can be fun as we have seen with artists like Billie, but if you decide to release alternative or rnb songs that fall flat, when you're still dependent on a fandom who are fans of pop and upbeat songs, don't act disappointed when you don't get the same success as these artists you're imitating.

How about market your music to people who are fans of these alternative artists instead of dropping these songs without marketing them to it's target audience all because your group has a huge fandom.

And I don't even think it would be so easy to get an audience for these songs because as a huge fan of RnB and alt music, I have not liked any of taehyung's songs in chapter two, also only liked the title track of rpwp. So instead of making music in an attempt to replicate someone else's success and art, how about make music for you without having any specific artist in mind.

There's nothing wrong with choosing to do a specific genre and taking inspiration from other artists, just make sure it doesn't fall flat in your attempt to replicate exactly what they've done in the past.

Just because Tyler found success with "earthquake" doesn't mean "lost" would have that level of success, and just because "glimpse of us" by joji was one of the biggest songs by an Asian act, doesn't mean it's songwriter will give you the same hit, just like working with mhj did not guarantee a successful or memorable debut album.

Last time I fully enjoyed a namjoon album was mono, and even indigo was better than rpwp.

Way too much singing, not enough rapping, and all the songs seemed disjointed and not in a fun way, about 4 songs sounded more like interludes than actual music.

[enhadaze]

ᛝ⠀⠀⠀ENHADAZE⠀⠀⠀｡ ⠀⠀♡　　﹒　is a study in the consequences of fame and survival shows. features themes of found family, nature vs. nuture, and finding one's confidence through the story of OLIVER SONG as a member of the idol group ENHYPEN and his time on I—LAND.

alt timeline au inspired by @talklara — ask oliver anything!

[deathbirby]

K here are some terrible takes I have collected. Short thoughts for each one.

"Rhea intentionally caused famine by not sharing knowledge with Faerghus"

We have no idea what kind of knowledge she shared. And pick a side! Rhea has to stay out of human affairs because she's not human, OR she has to involve herself with human affairs because otherwise she's bad?

"The Church is homophobic"

Nowhere is it even implied that same-sex relationships are frowned upon in Fodlan. Hell, the archbishop, goddess, and many devout characters are queer, and nobody raises a fuss about their love lives in their endings.

Their holy book also says that the goddess does not deny love.

The whole crest stuff is not the church's fault. They tell you not to abuse crests, and had no hand in the creation of them. Humans did. And speaking of humans, Edelgard says that the people are the ones who elevate crest bearers, not the church.

The Church also has no control over the nobles, who would be the homophobic ones in this scenario??

"Cyril is Rhea's slave"

Cyril was an actual slave at House Goneril until Rhea saved him, something he is expresses his gratitude for by doing chores. He wants to feel useful in some capacity. This is a child who wants to feel useful and takes on extra chores because of that. He's a stubborn little lad, and we love him for it.

"Rhea keeps Cyril uneducated on purpose"

Cyril says in his and Lysithea's support that he keeps his illiteracy a secret because he doesn't anybody to feel like he's not up to a task because of it. AKA: He wants to help out!

"Seteth is doing propaganda"

I'm guessing this refers to the Shadow Library. Seteth removes books there that are either inappropiate or have information that's extremely dangerous if it got out. Some books talk about bans, but since those books are in the shadow library, that likely means they're outdated.

Or this refers to him calling Edelgard mean things?? She declared war against them; of course he's not happy.

"Byleth regains their humanity in CF"

Byleth was never human. Their mother is VERY much implied to have been a Nabatean, and their heart belongs to their (likely Nabatean) mother and the goddess.

Byleth also embraces their Nabatean heritage. Remember that Silver Snow is called Byleth's Route.

Byleth's Legendary Alt in FEH is their Enlightened One version.

Byleth's Brave Alt in Feh is Sothis's regalia, and they sing the Song of the Nabateans.

Byleth's Halloween Alt is a Duo with Sothis.

Byleth's Summer Alt is a Duo with Rhea.

Byleth's Khadein Alt talks about the Goddess's hand in events.

Byleth's Fallen Alt's Forging Bonds has Sothis taking over their body to protect them.

This argument also implies that it's bad for someone to be Nabatean, which is like... yikes.

"Seteth kills the western church members cuz theyre heretics"

"Indeed. The Western Church is attempting to seize sacred ground by force."

- They explain it to you in the exact same paralogue!

"The Nabateans benefit the most from the current state of events" / "The Nabateans are the ruling/top class in Fodlan"

How does the nearly extinct group benefit most from a system where their people's bones are used as WMDs?

They are walking on glass, y'all. If the truth (or even a lie) got out, they would get hunted down.

"Lonato is a good man"

He incited an armed rebellion against a church and would've mowed down villages to get there. He also goes around the knights to attack the students. No, he is not a good man.

"Nabateans ruled over humans in the past and their rule was bad" / "Nemesis did the right thing by taking out the Nabateans"

The word the devs use for the Nabatean rule is apparently something like "cure."

It is also NEVER stated that their rule was bad? Just that the Agarthans hated it (because they hate everyone).

Even the Agarthans talk shit about Nemesis. Nobody liked him.

And you can't... justify genocide? What?

"Sothis and her kids are colonizers and the Agarthans are the natives who got wiped out"

Fun fact! Despite all my theories, it is never made clear whether or not humans already lived on Fodlan when Sothis got there! The beginning cutscene flashes (Sothis's memories) show us a gorilla first, which implies that either life was not advanced, or humans did not exist by then.

Let's say humans did exist then. Sothis landed there and just started her own family. She never took any land by force? She shared knowledge with the humans which allowed them to build modern cities. That's not colonization. Please look up cases of actual colonization; I beg of you.

Sothis is more accurately an immigrant who shares her own culture with others.

"Sothis is not a god but a space alien"

It's never confirmed if Sothis is a space alien so that's actually just theory/headcanon.

Even if, all of her feats (and the dev's words) say that she's a god.

There are many more takes like these, but these are the ones I remember from the top of my head.

[syoul]

⟢　　 HALF 　　 HEART, 　　 ALL 　　 SO(U)L 　　 !

SO(U)L, often stylized as SYOUL by fans, is a fictional seven-member boy group under STRMRUNNER Media—a company created and co-owned by JYP Entertainment and HYBE Corporation—that debuted on DECEMBER 3RD, 2018 with the mini-album Epilogue containing two title songs. prior to their debut, no official information about them had been revealed to the public. the group was formed by a combined number of trainees from both major companies, three from hybe co. and four from jyp entertainment. they quickly became known for their synchronization and stunning live vocals, ranking among the top idol groups in those categories.

however, their story didn’t start there.

originally stepping into the limelight on JANUARY 4TH, 2018, six out of the seven current members would partake in the making and recording of their pre-debut single, Ignorance in Bliss, and released it to the public through both the official hybe labels channel and strmrunner media’s. the song only just managed to pull two million views within the first week of publication but formally introduced the new group as The Soul Project, succeeding in at least getting their name out there. with both companies choosing to not reveal any information about who was to be in the group, and almost acting as if they never existed, the solid fan base they could’ve had dwindled down to just a handful of dedicated people.  

Ignorance in Bliss would make its short rounds on social media for the next month, slowing down gradually, before eventually coming to a complete halt. both fans and the companies had moved on by that point, focusing on their current and upcoming acts. it would continue to only be radio silence from here on out. 

by october, the seven members still had yet to be revealed, but on the 23rd of that month, an article would make its way into the public eye; specifically on twitter. titled The Soul Search and written by someone under the pseudonym Blanc, the author went into detail about the research they had been doing for the past nine months to find any and all information they could about the group. while they clarified that the contents found were all to be taken with a grain of salt, there was no denying the fact that the supposed track details—and most shockingly of all—profiles containing the names, ages, and even some of the members’ faces, had been leaked. 

while strmrunner media made no official comments on the situation, it’s speculated that the group’s debut was moved to be a week earlier than originally planned. hitting the internet on december 3rd with the title tracks Ignorance in Bliss, an overlooked gem, and Back to You, their mini-album instantly became a hit and earned them the recognition they deserved for their earlier efforts and turbulence they faced. the seven would quickly establish their brand as an entirely self-produced group soon after, a way to distance themselves from the management that failed to do anything for them. claiming the titles of all-rounder kings, they’ve gained the reputation for their lyricism, stage presence, and quality concept.

⟢　　 THE 　　 BASICS 　　 !

 ⸝⸝ 　 GROUP NAME  : 　 SO(U)L 　/　 SYOUL 　 ( 소울 )

 ⸝⸝ 　 COMPANY  : 　 STRMRUNNER Media 

 ⸝⸝ 　 PRE-DEBUT DATE  : 　 January 4th,  2018 

 ⸝⸝ 　 PRE-DEBUT SONG  : 　 Ignorance in Bliss 　 ( single )

 ⸝⸝ 　 DEBUT DATE  : 　 December 3rd,  2018 

 ⸝⸝ 　 DEBUT RELEASE  : 　 Epilogue 　 ( mini-album )

 ⸝⸝ 　 DEBUT SONGS  : 　 Back to You  &  Ignorance in Bliss

 ⸝⸝ 　 MAIN GENRES  : 　 Alt r&b,  contemp. r&b,  pop-punk 

 ⸝⸝ 　 GREETING  : 　 “Part of one! We are, SO(U)L!” 

 ⸝⸝ 　 FANDOM NAME  : 　 Yu 　/　 Yunies 　 ( 유 / 유니스 )

⟢　　 CONCEPT 　　 THEMES 　　 !

caution : angels,  life & death,  mortality,  reincarnation,  facing reality,  grief,  what it means to be humans.

the strangely bittersweet tale of seven friends who tragically passed away, one not too long after the other. six would reappear in the form of benevolent beings, forced to watch over humanity yet never connect back to it. the last would forever be stuck on earth, soul tethered to the ground, resulting in his constant reincarnation after death.

⟢　　 THE 　　 PIECES 　　 OF 　　 SO(U)L 　　 !

since their debut, the members featured in the lineup have not changed and continue to be seven. once mentioned by their leader during an introductory video to the group, the members are officially all-rounders that switch up roles with each comeback. “management were the ones to position us,” he stated, “but please don’t misunderstand, we’re all capable of much more than our labels.”

 ˒ kim ISEUL   1998,  main vocalist,  dancer,  visual  ˒ choi OLIVER   1999,  main dancer,  lead rapper    ˒ kang SEOJUN   1999,  leader,  main rapper,  vocalist, visual  ˒ baek “MARS” hyunwoo   1999,  lead rapper,  vocalist  ˒ gong “KJ” kaijun   2000,  main vocalist,  lead dancer   ˒ yoshinaga “RYO” ryota   2000,  main dancer,  vocalist    ˒ kwak “SEVEN” yunseo   2001,  lead vocalist,  lead dancer,  visual 　

[dimorphodon-x]

Updated setup for Oardivia’s colony, now cut up into 5 cities instead of one giant city. This technically isn’t the finished look of the colony but if I add anymore stuff to this model I’m going to die.

Updated lore below 👇

The colony of Oardivia sits on one giant structure with buildings sprouting from it. It is divided into layers depending on depth, with each city even being named after the depth it is located in. There are five total cities, all stacked on top of one another.

The smallest cities of Oardivia are Sky and Epip. Most who live in these first two layers are seals and seabirds, and they are the two cities with the most amount of natural light.

Sky houses primarily flying bird alt modes, such as gulls, pelicans and so on, so many of the buildings there are incredibly tall and there are even structures dedicated for perching up high.

Epip houses most of those with seal and penguin alt modes, though many dolphins also enjoy this city. The buildings in this city tend to be quite large for the small area the city takes up, so there’s a lot of space to just walk around in.

The capital is the city Meso. This is where the Senate and Leader live and where most politics take place. Many mechs who live here are rather rich, and Meso is thought to be the cleanest and richest city. Though many who live outside this city view most of its inhabitants to be nothing more than spoiled brats. They still frequent the city either for work, shopping, and it is also where the academy is.

Bathys contains the Grand Gatherhome, so most religious practices take place in this city. Some days hymns, usually describing how life originates from the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean, can be heard from the Gatherhome or smaller nearby churches. Religion on Oardivia is often casual, mostly just singing old songs from when the colony was new, though it’s more than likely most if not all songs have changed over the many years.

Just as our oceans on earth, the deeper down you travel through the cities, the darker and colder it gets. The lower parts of the colony, namely the city Abbyso, is where many gangs hang out, along with the addicts, criminals, and other struggling members of the colony. Many consider Abbyso and those who live there to be dirty. Surrounding Abbyso are the remains of old broken down buildings and piles of junk, most of which comes from the cities above. Scavengers and careless youngsters will often rummage through and explore the ruins and junk piles in hopes of finding something of value, or simply to quell curiosity.

A majority of buildings of Oardivia are multi-story towers that are connected and reinforced through bridges and strong metal cords. Each building is required to have at least two dry exits, for anyone that wishes to walk to the neighboring buildings rather than swim.

All five cities are busy with life, buildings and bridges are decorated with bright billboards and many large buildings contain multiple stores, theaters, eateries, arcades and so on, effectively making them malls. There are even places dedicated for small bands to perform, and the billboards outside play the performance for outside passersby to watch.

There are of course buildings for housing. No Oardivian will have a single building to themselves, by design, all Oardivians live in apartment complexes.

Oardivians often live in groups between three to five, so a good home must have enough room for up to ten individuals to comfortably move around in. While that is the expectation, it is not guaranteed all complexes will have that amount of space.

[project-sekai-facts]

Do you have a list of all the people who’ve done the animations for MVs? To my knowledge they’re mostly omu but I’m wondering who else there may be regularly producing MVs

I spent all day putting the credits for every MV into a spreadsheet. stats time

omu has done the motion graphics for the most 2DMVs, with a total of 43 as of posting. This includes 33 event songs that were originally released as a 2DMV (only missing Glory Steady Go!, Tricologe, Metamo Re:born, Parasol Cider, CRaZY, and Purpose), 3 other commissions (Keitai Renwa, Aoiro Enogu, and Hurray), 1 Virtual Singer MV (Just Be Friends), and 6 covers (Inochi ni Kirawarete iru., the Kanade alt vocal MV for that song, Viva Happy, Miracle Paint, Jishou Mushoku and Hello,world!)

It seems they're entirely reserved for event commissions nowadays

The second most frequent animator is OTOIRO, who has done the motion graphics on 18 2DMVs. Their first MV was Otome Kaibou, and some of their other MVs include TONDEMO-WONDERZ, Salamander, PaIII.SENSATION, and three of the 2022 April Fools MVS.

Interestingly every MV they've worked on has had a director and they're usually the animator on MVs with a bigger production team (aside from the traditionally animated ones like Gunjou Sanka and NEO which don't have motion graphics, and also Tokugawa Cup Noodle Kinshirei)

Next would be Lye, who has worked on 11 MVs. The first MV they worked on was Jackpot Sad Girl, but their other works include Traffic Jam, STAGE OF SEKAI, and Twilight Light.

There's multiple MVs made by motion graphics artists from a group called THINGS. One of these animators is Akito Nakayama, who has worked on 6 MVs, the 4th most out of anyone. Some of the MVs he worked on were Shoujorei, IDSMILE, and the April Fools Venom cover

Another member of THINGS has started working on MVs recently, and I've seen a lot of people say they're one of the best editors we've had. That would be NUL, who did the animations for Darling Dance, purpose, and DAYBREAK FRONTLINE

3 other members of THINGS have worked on MVs. Takumi Osera worked on the April Fools MV for Positive☆Dance Time and the vsinger MV for potato ni Natte iku, ZIIEK worked on Amanojaku, and Hano worked on Cutlery

Another editor that's popped up recently is Aoespring, who did the Villain and Fixer MVs. (on Fixer they're credited with (STUDIO KAIBA) which I'm assuming is a studio they belong to, not sure why it's only listed on one of their MVs though)

The only other editors to have done more than one MV are Ikumi (magic number, ray, Doctor=Funk Beat, Phony), Norainu (Glory Steady Go!, Cosmospice, Parasol Cider), Mizuki (Time Machine, Cinema, Chururira) and Guu (Warera Stain Busters!, CRaZY)

There are actually 10 MVs that don't credit an animator. These are Fragile (Bad Dogs cover), Hibana -Reloaded-, Happy Synthesizer (MMJ cover), Bocca della Verità, Sweet Magic (WxS cover), Roku-chou nen to Ichiya Monogatari, Chikyuu Saigo no Kokuhaku o, Positive☆Dance Time (WxS cover), Ren'ai Saiban, and Aishite Aishite Aishite. The last one does credit a text animator and compositor though so I guess one of them edited the rest of the video (the compositor probably would've done it)

[retromotherfuckers]

OBX Rock Band AU (headcanon)

Characters:

jj maybank, john b routledge, pope hayward, kiara carrera, sarah cameron

Word Count:

~700

A/N:

i have no idea if this has been done before but the idea came to me the other night in the shower lol. i’m in a band so you can guess what i loosely based this on

JJ - Drums

is my opinion biased on this one? probably

my favorite band member and character

the one with the most problems

drinks a little too much,  stoner

personal life in shambles most of the time

once he found the drums as an outlet he dove into it, eventually becoming an intensely devoted musician 

that drum set has seen some things

jj lets his anger out on that poor, innocent drum set

all the different pieces have had to be replaced so many times because he beats the living shit out of them

the one that got john b into rock music and the rest was history

he's not one of the chill drummers who just shows up and does their thing, this man is a show-off

so many tricks

long solos whenever the chance arises for one

flirts with the entire band

music genres: rock, grunge, alt, metal

bands/artists: Sex Pistols, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard

John B - Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar

a no-brainer. this is practically canon

no i will not be hearing opposing opinions at this time

he's the frontman

the one most people's eyes are drawn to right away

controls the vibe in the room

him and jj put on a show

stoner

is naturally a gifted singer, but had a vocal coach for a little while to get some pointers

rhythm guitar because most rock songs need at least two guitars and he's played guitar since he was a kid just for fun

music genres: country, rock, alt, pop when jj isn't around

bands/artists: The Rolling Stones, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Aerosmith, Taylor Swift, Johnny Cash 

Pope - Lead Guitar/Band Manager

he's just there to vibe but also an incredibly skilled guitarist 

the one that tries extremely hard to keep everyone on track, but can't because no one listens to him

also the one that found kiara and Sarah

he's classically trained, but he only did classical as a kid because that's what he thought the smart kids were supposed to do

he plays like Slash: relatively controlled body language, but his fingers fly back and forth on the frets 

music nerd

everyone can tell he loves what he's doing

manager because who else would manage these fools?

music genres: rock, alt, indie rock

bands/artists: Falling in Reverse, Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, Green Day, Hozier, The Killers, The 1975

Kiara - Bass

i will not be accepting arguments on this one

she 100% grew up on cello, but wanted to rebel against her parents as a teen and switched to rock but realized she fucked with it

this girl is hot as all hell and knows it, but has nothing to prove

she's one of the more responsible members of the group but also super laid-back

stoner

effortlessly keeps everyone in check 

she just wants to vibe and play some songs

flirts with the entire band

weird, hippie, earthy screams bass player

music genres: indie rock, r&b, pop punk, anything from the '60s and '70s

bands/artists: Janis Joplin, The Strokes, Young The Giant, Hozier, Paramore, Joan Jett, Whitney Houston

Sarah - Backup Vocals

she was definitely an attention seeker in her young years and would've hated backup, but now she's perfectly content chilling in the background with some killer harmonies 

she has a few songs she leads in the set when john b needs a rest

she absolutely KILLS them

but she loves playing with the melody and adding a harmony on something that you wouldn't expect

this girl has perfect pitch so harmonizing takes about 3% effort from her

if a song is too low for her or too high for john b, she transposes everything (perfect pitch and all)

she will. not. touch. an electric guitar with a 10-foot pole. 

don't ask, i have no explanation for that one

on the occasion a song needs keys, she's the go-to

music genres: she's a retired theatre kid so she listens to just about everything under the sun except country

bands/artists: Taylor Swift, The Beatles, Queen, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Knicks, Amy Winehouse

[th3-0bjectivist]

Dear listener, this week I feel compelled to bring Tumblr a little slice of music from the Silversun Pickups, who, despite my best and most concentrated efforts to despise their sound, have managed to become endearing to my nearly non-existent heart. Regardless of my sincerest attempts to stop listening to them over a decade or so, this group is SO GOOD at what they do I just cannot manage to quit revisiting their catalog without a semi-religious consistency after being hooked by their intoxicating post-punk sound, and the complete experience that they have to offer. In terms of atmosphere, overall personal resonance, and contextual vibe… I keep returning to this band almost exclusively for their ability to manipulate my gloomy heartstrings like a melancholy violinist on a well-tuned violin. Smash play just above for Lazy Eye from their 2006 debut album, Carnavas, and if you want more, scroll on down.

True story: I tried to hate this band for about two years after I had discovered them (2015 or so). Looking back; I was immature, brash, a little punkass bitch. Also, true story, I have personally determined that hating them is impossible, especially after the emotional ride they have managed to provide for me in my limited time on planet Earth. I have realized that this dialect of rock music just isn’t for me, and still come back for more. They’ve got a lead male singer (Brian Aubert) whose voice registers as feminine to my ears and an overall sound that I would plainly describe as sonic. As of writing this musical recommendation, color me humble… their music is rabid and fervid with beautiful lyrical poetry, genuine passion for their craft, and a unique ability to bring me to the points of my knees just by being sincere and making songs about universal moments. This is a rare musical gem that I enjoy adoring, despite the nature of the force that formed it. The name of the group is derived singularly from the fact that the members early-on in their career picked up their alcohol from a store called Silversun Liquor… making it a Silversun pickup. Further, this group originally had not one, but two romantically involved couples in the lineup. When both couples broke up around the same time, and two members left subsequently, it nearly destroyed any future collaborative work… until around 2006 when they established their permanent lineup and released their first album which went gold by industry standards. I do honestly enjoy their earliest works more so than their later ones, as they had a knack for making me listen to shoegaze without actually wanting to open a vein in the process. Later on, they let their badass lady bassist, Nikki Monninger, take the lead vocal reins and they’ve even rubbed shoulders with industry titans like Butch Vig and Alan Moulder on the production end. Further on in their production cycle (2015-2022) their albums take on a newer, more mainstream sound that still feels groovy but also seems somewhat overproduced to me… as is the nature of getting in bed with music industry big wigs. But hey, that’s no sleight coming from me! I’ve got my headphones on right now and even their overproduced recent stuff is markedly better than approximately 91. 9999% of modern music. I just prefer their earlier stuff, which is why I will dovetail this post with There’s No Secrets This Year from their 2009 album Swoon!

This is a musical group I enjoy very much in spite of the type of music they make. Outside of a few bands here and there, I don’t even think I really like listening to rock music that much at all these days. SP makes my chest feel like it’s full of glitter and silly string, all while causing my head to bob up-and-down uncontrollably at the same time. Great job SP: your tunes actually make me feel something, unlike the rest of these indie/alt rock jabronis. Image source: https://www.livenation.co.uk/artist-silversun-pickups-2426

[shineearticles]

9 Thrilling Moments From KCON 2023 L.A.: Stray Kids, RIIZE, Taemin & More

"Taemin and his group SHINee have rarely appeared in the U.S. and never toured as solo artists, making his appearance at KCON a rarity.  But it wasn’t just diehard fans — known as Shawol (short for "SHINee World") — there to see Taemin. Younger performers were seen coming from backstage to witness the three-song set by the now 30-year-old icon who debuted in SHINee when he was just 14 years old. Taemin’s distinct brand of seductive alt R&B and darker contemporary dance numbers was front-and-center as he performed "Advice," "Criminal," and "Move." Known for his genderfluid performances that push the boundaries of what male pop idols and boy band members are typified by, Taemin’s powerful set confidently and skillfully showed the thousands of fans at KCON why he is known as one of the best."

link

[trippygalaxy]

Question about your band AU

Do you have any album names picked out? Either for their own sets or group ones?

:D

Ooo!!! Good question!!

For the albums that are created solely by one of the members (with help of others but that members is the MAIN creator and director of that album) they are named in a similar way to their games!

Wild’s would be “Melodies of the Wild”

Warriors would be “The Hyrulian Warrior”

Etc etc!

As for albums that are a collaboration of all of them/normal albums, those tend to be based on the themes of songs. So if they were working on a more grunge like music, it would hold a similar title. The boys arent that creative when it comes to titles and often bicker about it so— uh they try to keep it simple so they’re arent any fights about it!!

Some would be “Castle town blues” (angsty vibes, mellow and reflects on the everyday life they havent gotten to live in a while)

“Stomping giants” (rock/alt music, more based in anger and frustrations that comes with living in an unsafe environment)

Hope this makes sense!! Thanks for the ask!!

[sageistri]

I think a lot of armys are going to use the fandom doesn't care about this music genre excuse again when rpwp doesn't do great the same way they've been using that excuse for rapline about hiphop and also for Tae about blues / jazz. That might be true to some extent but I'm going to say though, I'm an alt girl. I love Tyler the creator, Mitski, Gnarls Barkley, Blue Scholars and many more amazing artists. I don't like this album. It's ok - it's not awful but it's nothing special. Armys are a huge fandom - a lot of people (like me) check out these releases when we normally wouldn't just because it's from someone in BTS. You're telling me that in this global fandom whose numbers they keep bragging about, nobody likes alt hip hop or jazz? Armys don't care for rap but they bring up ugh and ddaeng every other week.

Armys will make excuses as they will but if any of the members are going to grow from this, I hope they don't reach these kinds of conclusions. They're young guys and being a part of BTS gives them the privilege of continuing to be able to put out solo releases even if they actually totally tank (which none of them have done even if some of their numbers are less impressive compared to other groups). The reason RM sometimes rubs me the wrong way is because he'll say something like I see other people achieving that and I want it too or something like that but the intention of self growth is unsaid. Maybe it's implied but it's also unseen. Yoongi too has an ego the size of a hot air balloon. Of course they should hold pride in being a part of a band as path breaking as BTS, but RM and Yoongi have both put themselves on a pedestal in their own minds in my opinion. Just because you've done good work doesn't mean every idea or song you make is genius. Just because you have a fanbase of sychophants doesn't mean you've achieved the pinnacle of artistry and now you only have to wait for the accolades for your work to come rushing in.

I might be projecting - I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into what the two of them say in the past. I just feel like their ego from all the success they've achieved as BTS is really holding them back from breaking down why their solo releases may not be charting as they want it to. And again this might be a projection because of what armys say all the time but rapline does seem treated like they're more "responsible" for being the architects of BTS compared to vocal line. Yeah vocal line is handsome and popular and the dance line means we can take it easy in the back but in terms of music - of the thing that really matters in our legacy - it's us rapline and esp us RM and Yoongi that have built it.

I think if that's the kind of mentality they have then growth as solo artists is going to be very difficult. I'm not sure if this is an astute analysis or some fanfiction I just wrote but I hope my points made sense

Yes.

But at the same time, we all have different artists we go to for different genres of music. Armys do not have to like namjoons version of alt music if he doesn't do it as well as the other artists they listen.

Also the question about rapline not doing as well as vocal line or maknae line is pretty simple. Il

First of all rapline just arent as popular as vocal line, and Armys are first and foremost lovers of singing before rap, and even if rapline attempts to sing, it's not going to work because they are not singers. Not even hobi, doesn't matter how much armys try to push the "hobi vocalist" schtick because he can sing only in small doses and he can't sing a full vocal heavy song.

At this point they just need to wait for a time when they finally release a song that the fandom and the GP resonates with. Because not even taehyung as popular as he is has found any worthwhile solo success that isn't pushed by Thai fans streaming.

And they are capable of it, they just need to find that one song. I think some members of BTS have almost gotten huge solo songs but they/the company fumbled.

Daechwita, it would have been a hit especially on kcharts if it was promoted and available on kcharts at the time of release.

Super tuna as silly as it was would have probably gotten Jin something close to a pak and good Spotify numbers if it wasn't just released on YouTube.

Filter would have been way bigger than it was and would probably have gotten Jimin a pak if it wasn't just a bside on a BTS album, if Jimin had been allowed to promote it.