#so fucking unnecessary to make a video about hate just because it would get more views

[mikalilys]

The urge whenever I see a post that says “what’s something you hate in the marauders fandom” to say “videos like these” is immensely strong and ever growing

[genderqueer-miharu]

I really think we need to make it illegal for people to say "the game is too easy" in a videogame review/critique

[arafilez]

BACK HOME ㅤㅤㅤ☆ ㅤ —﹙ c.hs ﹚

WHEN ㅤ,ㅤ you can't wait till hansol comes back !

ㅤㅤ ᶻzㅤ( x reader ) 𓂃 ㅤ fluff ㅤ drabbleㅤ warnings kissing ㅤ⋆ ( 628 wc ) ㅤ❟❟ㅤ library ㅤ svt shelfㅤ navi

When you first heard about Hansol moving away, your initial reaction was to stand in confusion. This is life, best friends move away too, you had heard your mother say and you had scoffed in your mind. But Hansol had kept his promise, he had kept in touch through his blunt remarks and soft voice echoing over the caller whenever you called.

You have been best friends for four years, but the two years when he moved away made you much closer. So when you see his text light up your phone you almost fall out of your bed. He is coming back home.

Everything came rushing back from the last six years to you, the last two years hammering more. Late night chats, shy giggles, smiling at a single text and anticipation of his return. God, you wish he could come faster and you could see him already. Then the clouds of doubt over your mind will vanish.

Liar, your mind echoes but you push the thought to the back of your mind until he video-called you. Tousled hair and tired eyes welcome you as you pick up his video call. All that cracked voice and low-quality video but he is literally shining. Your heart feels an unnecessary pang as you cut the call and know you are screwed.

You like him. It’s obvious and you groan knowing your friends had every right to tease you. It felt so cliché, you almost wanted to push your face in a pillow and scream. The moment he comes back you are confessing!

Everything goes to hell when you sit in your bed that night and realise you are the most impatient person ever as the text you sent lights up your screen with a single tick beside it. You wished so much you could hold it in because texting and confessing is absolutely the worst way to let someone know but fuck that!

You wanted him! He needed to know at all costs! Fuck everything if you can have him!

You groan, throwing away your phone at the end of the bed and slump down on your bed, pulling the covers to your face, closing your eyes and praying and hoping he likes you back.

A knock on your window jolts you awake making you yelp in confusion and back away from the window. Blinking, you gape in shock as you see the lopsided smile and bright eyes. Hansol. Hansol?

“What the hell?” you whisper and open your window quickly checking the clock- four in the morning. He shuffles inside as you rub your eyes trying to make sense of the situation. “Why are you here, at four?” you whisper shout making him grin and say, “I couldn’t wait.”

“For what?” you grit out glaring at him. As much as you love this boy and his goofy nature you hate being woken up from your sleep. “To do this,” he whispers holding your hand and leaning in as your breath hitches. No! This can’t be real! You are dreaming.

A single nod and he gets the permission, cupping your jaw he presses his lips to yours softly as you try to catch up. You had imagined multiple times what it would feel like to have his lips on you, but the reality felt so much better. You gasp lightly, kissing him back and running your hands throw his hair as he intertwines your fingers with his other hand.

When you break apart he clears his throat and says, “If it wasn’t clear, I like you back,” making you giggle. Cheeks pink in the twinkling lights, tell me about the first time you saw me. Oh it was very clear. And you loved it just as much as he did.

ARA'S NOTES ㅤ,ㅤ omggg i am so happy for @weird-bookworm i literally wrote this inspired from absolutely mini kdrama worthy love story, i was swooning so much sky !

ㅤㅤ ᶻzㅤ( TAGLIST ) ㅤ @slytherinshua @weird-bookworm @haneagerr @aaa-sia @yeosayang 𓂃ㅤ fill this or comment or ask to be added.

ㅤㅤ(ㅤㅤ© arafilez on tumblrㅤㅤ)

[ciderjacks]

Like I’m sorry I just really can’t get over how many of you said outright that you didn’t consider their art and effort worth anything, that you preferred when they didn’t have creative freedom due to financial strain, that their employees are “unnecessary”. What the hell?

Ykwat I hope that watcher succeeds and does better than they’ve ever done before and never associates with their fanbase again. And tells all of you to fuck yourselves. And cancels their lives and doesn’t refund anyone. Yall suck. The way you people are acting is some shit beyond shameful.

[niiwa-angel]

you are not a feminist when you share words of hate, and spew dehumanizing language about women you don't like.

I know you're referring to my takes on fat acceptance and frankly, if you think it's feminist to lie to other women about the state of their health, that's on you. For all us radical feminists talk about science and how important it is to not put feelings over facts, ignoring it when it comes to the obesity epidemic makes us look like hypocrites.

Obesity is an epidemic that mainly affects women, more specifically, it mainly affects women of colour. This is in large part because food deserts are felt hardest by the poor, those in rural communities, and and those with limited access to transportation. These are all social issues that need to be addressed and a massive symptom of it is the obesity epidemic. And in that sense, that it is a social issue, I have no issue with fat people.

What I have a problem with is spreading misinformation, glorifying dangerous behaviour/lifestyles, and perpetrating alternative sciences. What a lot of the fat activism/acceptance nonsense does is spread misinformation about obesity, the health issues it can cause, and whether or not anything can be done about it. Obesity is directly linked to diabetes, kidney disease, cardiovascular issues, strokes, joint issues, and various types of cancers. It also has proven negative affects on your mental health. It is not just a harmless thing, doctors are not fucking with you when they tell you that obesity is damaging to your health. Obesity is, in large part, caused by an excessive amount of calories and an insufficient amount of exercise. A reduction of calories with increased exercise will lead to weight loss. Weight loss done with proper dietary change, under the supervision of a doctor or nutritionist, is not the same as a fad diet or anorexia. Not all diets lead to anorexia. Diets don't fail, people.lose the weight, go back to eating the way they did before, and gain all the weight right back.

To follow up, when I say obese, I don't mean 90's movie, heroin-chic era 'fat' girl.

I mean in the high yellow all the way to the dark pink level of over weight. I mean the type of over weight where you cannot get up a flight of stairs without feeling like you're dying. I mean carrying so much access weight on your frame that it's a constant strain on your lungs to breathe around it.

I don't want people walking around looking like Eugenia Cooney, I strongly disagree with trends like heroin-chic, fad diets, photoshopping models to make them look inhuman, and promotion of medically unnecessary intervention like ozempic, gastric bypass, or other weight loss aids. These are not words of hate. Pointing out that the fat acceptance movement promotes false science is not 'dehumanizing women I don't like' it's pointing out facts. Lots of people have had successful weight loss journeys, I've seen this in family and friends, my father lost over 150lbs a few years ago, one of my good friends is down 75lbs and still loosing. They themselves have said, they feel better with healthier diets and exercise.

If you want some good stories, I recommend checking out Obesetobeast and Michelle McDaniel, both of them had their own weight loss successes and have great advice. I would also click around on YouTube for budget meal planning videos, you can get some great advice from them. @fitnessfor-me @fitness-not-haes @anti-fattitude @anti-fat-pro-facts all have great advice on their blogs too, for some more local resources.

[sewerpalette]

Little rant I might make a video out of:

Edit: disclaimer I wrote this directly after waking up so it’s very awkwardly paced and hard to read I’m so sorry.

AL-AN is not a good person, now I’ll start this off with saying that I looove his character, especially before the rewrite and this certainly isn’t an attack on anyone, just something I’d like to point out because I think the shift of perspective between both games is fascinating.

If anyone remembers the subnautica fandom before Below zero was even remotely announced, there were certain opinions flying around, people believed the architects to be the grand villain(s) in the bigger picture of the game lore for just how messed up they were, they literally hated those guys for being at fault of the sea emperors suffering and there were even theories going around that they made the kharaa to wipe out all other life around them- but it had went wrong.

But now it’s not like that anymore, no AL‘s previous actions are completely ignored because he showed some remorse for being responsible for the deaths of 7 architects specifically, together with messing up before pretty much an audience of billions, it must’ve been embarrassing- but when he apologizes he specifically only mentions the other architects, because he isn’t sorry for the other things he’s done, clearly. I mean dissecting a fetus is one thing, especially with their goal in mind, DISPLAYING it is another, like that’s just purposely gruesome. Together with all the other dissected experimented on animals in the shelves just hung up like prizes (I know the concept itself is not inhumane, but in this case it just wasn’t necessary.) also research specimen THETA anyone? Yeah we know it didn’t die because of the facility collapsing because there’s no injury displayed on its bones that would suggest that, and that part of the facilities insides also didn’t collapse, they just left it there until it either succumbed to the virus or starved to death, same with the sea emperor but they survived, kept alive by unfinished business for the next couple thousand years. Not to mention who the fuck comes up with a quarantine program that includes semi sentient killer machines and a giant gun made to shoot anything down from atmosphere, there were so many better solutions, I get the warper thing, I mean kill anything that’s infected makes sense, but the gun?? Literally why, if they send a signal through the network that this planet is diseased nobody is going to go there (we know that at that point humans weren’t advanced enough to travel space and they knew that so for who was that even for??) it was completely unnecessary to create a giant weapon in wich even more destructive weapons are stored wich let me get into that real quick because there’s also some implied stuff there, appearently AL was so desperate to get rid of his mistake that he attempted to blow up a doomsday device?? (Which would’ve destroyed most of the solar system in an instant.) In the entry it says it malfunctioned so they must’ve tried to use it, and even if they didn’t why would they have it on them anyways? Including all the other weapons. Also let’s talk about the architects in the little sanctuaries in the first game, it’s implied they stored multiple souls in like one of them, literally cramped up all their data whilst AL stored himself in a big ass sanctuary like idk man that’s kind of an asshole move. And those were just the first game events! (And there’s probably even more there.)

In BZ he can’t really do anything except for talk to robin because he doesn’t have a physical form, so there’s less to go off here but even then it didn’t seem like there were other sanctuaries in BZ for the other architects. and sure, you could make the arguement that architects don’t feel at all connected to their physical forms, wich is true, but don’t you think seeing a dead architects body, an architect from his team, a colleague, would illicit some kind of emotion from him beyond “great, now fetch me their skin.” (/j) even if he doesn’t see the attachment to the vessel, if it’s all that’s left from that time and from the crew, there would still be projected attachment onto it realistically. Also he was smart enough to hide himself from alterra because he guessed they didn’t have good intentions- scraping himself off the grid both physically and on any radars they had (presumably with hallucinations), but wasn’t smart enough to distract the critters running around infront of the sanctuary to idk get the help he needed with the failing sanctuary from the mercury, marg, or the alterrans that genuinely wanted to help instead of being eaten by sharks right infront of it.

Like man I love you but that’s just messed up.

And we know he knows he messed up, that’s why he’s so gloomy and does attempt to apologize at the end but like??? He said he wanted to make amends to his people showing that he still doesn’t care about everybody else he hurt, only those he deems as important, not the over 150 people that died on the aurora or the mercury or the degasi or the sunbeam or the research specimens or even the alterrans he’s indirectly caused death to, it is all his fault but he doesn’t see these people as important because he feels they are below him - sure you could make the arguement that he didn’t know about the ships that crashed, fair point. But seemingly he did if he could sense that alterra was there without even seeing alterrans in the first place, especially because Ryley has made contact with the thermal plant and other architect tech before, so he’d definitely know- especially based on the data robin has of the missing sunbeam and aurora incident on her PDA wich he has canonically said he read through.

And I’ll say it again I love AL, next to Bart he’s probably my favorite subnautica character in the whole game series, but I don’t like the portrayel of him suddenly being completely redeemed or being an inherently good person, he still doesn’t understand empathy or morals (you can be a good person without having those, don’t get me wrong.) and acts like a total idiot whilst victimizing himself, like yes, the other architects on the mission died and it’s his fault, they weren’t stored to keep him company and that’s his fault; neither did they like him, wich is very fair in my opinion. He can’t pull all this crap, disobey orders and get everybody killed and then pull the “but I’m sad about it so that erases everything I’ve done” like oh my god. I like him, but I would also like more content showing all this.

Sorry this was a very long kinda pointless rant and I don’t have any images because my phone which has like a whole folder of these is at home and we’re still stuck in England so it’ll have to do without for now.

TLDR: I want more morally dubious AL please and also he killed a fetus (well pretty much borderline newborn at that point) so he’s going into the fictional child murderer category for me.

[spatial-jump]

Spoilers for all episodes of the Umbrella Academy Season 4 and profanity below.

What the actual fuck was that finale?? Was I watching the same thing directors looked at and went, “Yeah, this is cool!”

Those last two episodes were a total shit show. An absolutely horrendous finale to a wonderful TV show.

The first thing I am so fucking pissed about is how they’ve written Five in this season. They ruined him. They tore apart the aloof apocalypse-obsessed arsehole who loves his family, destroyed it, spat on it, and then danced on the grave before crushing it under an anvil.

In no fucking timeline whatsoever would Five and Lila be a thing. I understand where some people would come from to defend it — that yes, they were both isolated for seven years and could only find company in each other, distorting their relationship as they sought comfort which mistakenly and incorrectly transpired into ‘love’. No, it’s messed up. It’s so fucking messed up and creates unnecessary drama that the writers probably wanted since they were undeniably lacking in the finale. When I first saw the camera angles and shots they were getting prior to Year Five in the subway, I was naïvely thinking, “Surely not. Please don’t tell me this is where I think it’s going.” And lo and behold, I was right. And I’ve never hated to be right so much in my entire life.

Lila (WHO HAS THREE ADORABLE CHILDREN WITH DIEGO, BY THE WAY) has known Five for absolutely ages — since he was in the body of a thirteen-year-old child. Mentally, he’s however many decades older. Regarding the actors, Aidan and Ritu, themselves, there is a fifteen-year gap between them. But my point is, Five is not a home-wrecker. Five is the type of character who would not deliberately fuck around with his brother’s wife because he absolutely adores his family. It’s not in the nature that has been presented to us, and goes completely against his values — and for what? To serve exclusively as a shitty love triangle so that Diego and Five would fight in the finale and break up the family even more at the most crucial point for them?

Five is your textbook example of a pragmatist. He knows how to prioritise, and would certainly not decide that the time to fight Diego was when two of their siblings were badly injured and another had merged to bring about the Cleanse — a.k.a. end of the world, again.

I am so, so disappointed with this, especially as Five is the character I’ve had the strongest attachment to, ever. I think I’ve managed to disconnect S4 him from the first three (that fucking greasy rat’s nest hair of his has finally been given a beneficial purpose), but I’m still sick to my stomach.

Anyway, next thing: the episodes. I know we were told in advance about how there were only going to be six episodes, and we knew they had a lot to fit in to make it work.

It didn’t. It was executed very poorly. I understand some fans didn’t like the unnecessary subplots and fillers from the previous seasons, but S4 was a bit too rushed? I mean, they found and drank the marigold within the first episode. And floundered around at the end, not even bothering to stop the Cleanse until it had been aired on TV. I get they might’ve wanted to make the show more fast-paced, but it could’ve been handled differently. They didn’t have to do a ‘Stranger ThingsTM’ and make four goddamn films for a Part One. They just needed to properly iron out everything, and that didn’t happen, which is a massive shame.

The finale itself (not the erasing their identities, but from the moment Ben is shot) deserves some YouTuber to pick it apart with a four hour video until it’s dust. It was badly structured. Normally, you see a rather pleasant — not exactly linear, but in the concept we’re progressing positively — pattern as the episodes and plots build up to the finale. We see the family find out about an apocalypse, they fight and break off individually, then they slowly pair up, eventually coming together to save the world. This was not like that.

Instead, you had one sibling fucking around in a subway with his physically much older and mentally much younger sister-in-law, another that was hopelessly obsessed with a girl he just met (but no hate for him — no one exactly told him that being closer to Jennifer was just harming them both and the world), one germaphobe who, despite not taking drugs or drinking, is off looting money wherever he can find it and deciding that was the moment to pay off his debts??, three others doing fuck knows, and then the last one who actually gives a shit, teamed up with his hideous father, and tried to prevent him from killing Ben as long as possible because he knows what it’s like to end the world, and is therefore the only one who did anything useful. God, that was a long sentence, so I’m sorry for those of you who struggle with it.

The finale was not your Umbrella Academy finale. Once everyone had (I say this in the lightest way) been ‘brought together’, they had no bloody idea what to do. In the meantime, they’d disbanded about three times within the thirty minutes of screening because of petty fights and the drama I’ve already discussed. Five leaving them at the most essential moment (due to Lila and Diego, blah, blah, blah) was an error in his character. This old man has survived through apocalypses, the one who tries to round everyone up despite everything he has seen. Even with his doubts in the S3 finale, he was still there — and his doubts were shared enough that they created a majority. In this S4 finale, there was no majority. It was just Five, and Five alone. There were gaping holes and shredded pieces of the beautifully developed characters the show had done so well in portraying. They did this with Allison during that scene in S3, where they took her villain arc too far. There are so many flaws in this, and there is definitely many people out there who can communicate it better and more concisely, but here is my two pennies anyway.

I have a lot more thoughts, but I’m currently bone-tired. I might post another rant if I remember anything else — but don’t be too surprised if it’s Five x Lila related.

I am thankful and appreciative that the Umbrella Academy was one of the lucky shows that saw its way to the very end, but I think all of us are entitled to a little disappointment at its quality and execution as it was brought to a close.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Kokichi Ouma from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony vs Peter Pan from Once Upon A Time

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Kokichi Ouma:

LOVE: - "hes a bitch and that makes a lot of people hate him and a lot of other people love him. no one can decide on his motives and i think thats kind of the point. i like him personally but hes a raging asshole <3" - "Not a single DR fan I've ever met is neutral about Kokichi, he's perfect for this poll. I think he's a clever character with consistent internal logic, and his interactions with the other characters are as compelling as they are hilarious. He looks like a dog squeaky toy, and he plots like Artemis Fowl. He's one of my favorite characters in the series and I love him dearly." - "NOBODY CARES ABOUT THIS BOY'S PSYCHOLOGY AT ALL. HE SACRIFICED HIMSELF AND HIS IMAGE AND MADE EVERYONE HATE HIM AND CONSIDER HIM A MONSTER ON THE SLIGHT CHANCE HE COULD USE HIS LIFE TO HELP EVERYONE ELSE ESCAPE AND SURVIVE AND NOBODY CARES. THEY SHOW HIS BREAKDOWN AND NOBODY BELIEVES HIM. I'M SO TIRED" - "not only is he a danganronpa character (inherently controversial) he is also the antagonist and constantly lying because That's His Whole Deal. people either love him or hate his guts. he's a little piece of shit. i would submit komaeda but i feel like views on him are more positive, generally. sorry i have bad taste in video games" - "he's a horrible little guy trying his best in not very good ways what more could you want" - "I don't know, people say he's badly written because they don't pay attention to his arc beyond the cartoonish facade he very obviously forces, and they don't like him because he caused someone's death which like..fair (he did feel super bad about it though so its fine.) Some people also don't enjoy his wonderful personality and think he's a mean piece of shit, which he is, but it's fine. They're just sensitive." - "I know people don't like him because he's like. a shittier version of Komaeda. But that's what's so GOOD about him. He's a shitty asshole of a person, playing pretend at being a villain because he's desperate!!! I think that's really fun. He's dooming himself and I want him to be okay after everything ends, but he dies so he can't even have that much :(" - "so i saw you got submissions for him. but not enough i need to submit him myself he is my favorite character from anything ever. he is the silly man he is so funny one time (actually, two times if you count one optional interaction) he asked a robot if he had a dick and it's absolutely iconic i love him"

HATE: - "(dangan spoilers ahead if that matters) look ok i didn’t originally feel too strongly about kokichi. i think his character is interestingly written (can’t say well-written bc danganronpa but yaknow) and he adds a lot of charm to v3. i understand why he’s popular- he’s one of the few characters in v3 to have both a personality and plot relevance. but oh my GODDDDD he is not a good person!!!! and i am so SICK of seeing him woobified into ‘ooh little baby he did his best he wasn’t doing anything wrong’ JUST BECAUSE you find out he was trying to end the killing game after he dies doesn’t mean he wasn’t incredibly fucked up throughout the game!!! like he was incredibly manipulative, a bully, encouraged infighting, Literally Orchestrated A Murder And Protected Himself From Danger By Getting The Big Stupid Sweetheart To Do It which caused TWO unnecessary deaths and- oh yeah- tricked everyone into believing he was the mastermind and the world had ended to make them so depressed that they just wouldn’t do anything anymore bc can’t kill someone if you’re rotting away in your room!!! AUGH like he’s a good character but it’s BECAUSE he sucks that he’s interesting. maybe this is just the komaeda fan in me but sometimes!!! the character is cooler when you understand that they’re a bad person. at least komaeda gets an actual redemption arc. kokichi’s just an asshole that the game tries to make you sympathetic for at the very end but he spends the entire game being an asshole so why the hell would i like him??? and then i go in a fandom tag and it’s constant unending ‘kokichi did nothing wrong’ the whole point of his character is that he does EVERYTHING wrong. i truly feel like the dr team was trying to replicate komaeda’s popularity but it was messy and poorly handled bc he’s not even a bad person in an interesting way like komaeda he’s just got trust issues that lead him to be stupid and An Asshole. then again people eat it up so what do i know lmao. i love to hate that little shit i wanna punt him into the goddamn stratosphere. score a field goal with that asshat. this is all lighthearted btw i love to die on small hills" - "WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE HIM OH MY GOOOOOOD HES SUCH A FLAT CHARACTER HES A SODA I LEFT OUT FOR 3 DAYS kokichi oma is easily the WORST written danganronpa character. it has been a while since i was into danganronpa so the details are a bit fuzzy but my rage has NOT subsided. following the success of Easily One Of The At Least Top Three Best Written Danganronpa Characters known as nagito komaeda, kokichi had some shoes to fill. he instead showed up in clown shoes. kokichis whole premise is that you dont know if hes lying or not, him being a huge clown and causing shit for like a good third of the cast. kokichi was a simple character. hes a bitch, he sturs shit up, he eat hot chip and lie, it was FINE. not GREAT, but FINE. and then he died. suddenly— kokichi was from modest beginnings. he was actually a genius who was actually doing all of this to save everyone. he was a martyr. they TRIED to follow up on the success of nagito komaeda, and failed miserably. the guy literally has nazi imagery he didnt need to be complex he just needed to be an asshole and force the plot. for assholes that force the plot with actual good depth, may i interest you in byakuya togami? for guys who lie all the time with actual good depth, may i interest you in sou hiyori the beanie man himself from your turn to die [similar genre]? seriously. you guys could do SO much better. just... get better taste oh my GOD JUST BECAUSE HES A TWINK DOESNT MEAN HES WELL WRITTEN" - "Omg I hate this guy,,, people either baby him & make him a uwu soft boy or a funky clown dude, & both those types of people forget all the things he has done??? even if he "redeemed" himself in the end (which i don't think he did--) that still doesn't negate all of the things he did before??? actions speak louder than words but he could never rely on that bc all the does is lie anyway-- i have some strong opinions about him."

Peter Pan:

LOVE: - "My propaganda is that like. Half of the OUaT fandom is OBSESSED with this guy and the other half write fanfiction about their self-inserts beating the shit out of him. The tumblr sphere might be a bit too biased in favor of love and I doubt he'll make it far but from what I've seen people either adore this guy or want him dead in the streets"

[gartenofbanny]

You all know what time it is, time for the review for the most hyped up episode since The Circus!

The Good

Vortex

Vortex, as always is the best character in every episode he's in. As always he's pretty chill and nice around Loona treating her like a person and he's really nice with his girlfriend Beelzebub. There is one scene of Beelzebub talking about fucking Satan despite the fact that she views him as a brother and Vortex just doesn't say anything..and lets Beelzebub say it.

This is honestly reminding me a little bit of Rent a Girlfriend, I really fucking hope they don't make Vortex into a cuck because that'll make me lose respect from the writers and Beelzebub. Not so much Vortex because idk what the hell he's even going to do against Satan when he finds out Beelzebub sleeps with him. The most he could do is leave Beelzebub.

Gluttony Ring

The Gluttony Ring looked pretty creative, it's my 2nd favorite one behind Wrath Ring. Why is it my second favorite? Because the atmosphere and the setting a little bit looks more like Earth than it does Hell. And the location where they're at just looks like a bee-themed tropical beach instead of fucking Hell. This is probably the last thing I would think of when I think of "Gluttony Ring in Hell". It's pretty, but it isn't something I'd imagine that Hell would have. Also, why is it that some places in Hell look fucking disastrous but other places in Hell look like oasis? Is this supposed to be a place where Sinners suffer or just Earth 2.0? We don't know and Viv doesn't either.

Animation

The animation in this episode is pretty solid and looks good which is expected for a Helluva Boss episode, but there are some times when I find the animation to be really weird.

In the beginning of the episode, it shows Demons partying, but doesn't show their full appearances just silhouettes.

And in the same timeframe, Loona and Tex outside has different shading, but once they're inside the shading instantly changes and they have thick black lines around their body. Making their characters not fit with the background. And all this shit happens in the first 47 seconds of the episode, holy shit.

Viv did say that this episode was supposed to be "A grand visual spectacle" but the only grand visual spectacle was the Cotton Candy song which took a significant chunk of time from an insignificant episode.

Yeah, there's not much I actually liked in this episode, so let's move on to the bad.

The Bad

Beelzebub's Design

I don't have any problem with Beelzebub personality-wise. She's cool and surprisingly nice for one of the Seven Princes of Hell. Vortex really does have good taste in women..aside from her wanting to fuck Satan. But I can dismiss that as a joke and pray to God that it doesn't actually happen.

But what I do not like about Beelzebub is her design which I know damn well the animators didn't get paid enough for animating this.

Nothing from this design tells me that this is Beelzebub. I was completely confused on whether or not this woman was Beelzebub until I saw the credits. Beelzebub is depicted in Demonology as an insect, not a hellhound variant. A lot of people and I assumed that Beelzebub was going to be a bee due to the Bee Aesthetic in Gluttony, but we just got Jay Jay recolored and with four arms with miniscule insect aspects.

The second reason why I hate this design is because it's not creative at all. This design without a doubt was heavily inspired by Jay Jay, but it wasn't just heavily inspired it's literally copied and pasted. They copied Jay Jay, gave her Loona's legs, recolored her, added so many unnecessary details, and called her Beelzebub. Looking at Beelzebub and the other furry characters that Viv designed in her past you can see that there's little to no difference between them.

Beezlebub's design reminds me of how video game characters have alternate skins because her design is literally Jay Jay but recolored and with added cosmetics.

Or how in Injustice: Gods Among Us the yellow costume for The Flash is Reverse Flash but he still looks identical to the regular Flash. So different personality, but the same skin just recolored.

My third reason why I don't like the design is that Beelzebub's insect features are so miniscule that you can easily miss them. The only insect like features she has are the bee wings, four arms, and antennae in her eyelids and ears. Aside from those, there's nothing else. Now when she increases her size, Beelzebub does have bug like eyes but again that doesn't really say much.

My fourth and final reason why I don't like the design is that Beelzebub has so many unnecessary additions to her design that it looks pretty overwhelming but at the same time distracting. What was the point of giving her a lava lamp stomach? What was the point of having honey levitate from behind her? Why is her fucking eyeliner dripped as if she cried? I'm most likely going to do a design comparison with another iteration of Beelzebub, but yeah those are just my thoughts on her design overall. It's lazy, but also somehow overcomplicated.

It would fit more if they made her into Cerberus instead of Beelzebub as Cerberus is a three-headed hellhound in the Gluttony Ring of Hell that likes to consume a lot. This design is more fitting for that to me.

Kesha voicing Beelzebub

Kesha voicing Beelzebub was a weird and bad choice not because of Die Young, but because Beelzebub represents what Kesha was running away from in her past. For those who don't know Kesha had a persona called Ke$ha who she describes as a "front for her emotional pain". And there are a few things that conclude to me why Beelzebub and the persona Ke$ha are nearly identical. They both overindulge in partying and drinking since Beelzebub represents overindulgence in those two things and many other things, but that was a really toxic lifestyle for Kesha to go through. There are two differences between the two characters that being Beelzebub also overindulges in eating but Kesha in the past had an eating disorder. She couldn't indulge in eating because as she says "I convinced myself that being sick, being skinny, was part of my job" and having Beelzebub a character who can overindulge in eating but still manages to stay skinny and thin is insensitive and unrealistic. The second difference is Kesha had to go to rehab in order to stay away from all of that and most likely doesn't partake in those anymore while Beelzebub doesn't have to.

Simply put Beelzebub represents the persona Ke$ha and not the person, the same persona that Kesha used to mask her emotional pain and had to go to rehab to fix. I am fully aware that Kesha is an adult and she can make her own decisions, but having someone voice act a character who represents the persona they had in the past is really absurd and stupid, especially on Viv's part.

It's likely that Beelzebub will never appear again or will have a different voice actor. Because Kesha being involved caused legal issues that took almost two years to resolve. If Beelzebub does return then I think she'll be voice acted by her singing voice actor Rochelle Diamante or someone else entirely.

Cotton Candy

After listening to the Cotton Candy song multiple times, I've come to the conclusion that this song is ass. It's not even intentionally trying to be bad either that's the worse and funnier part about it. The words "Cotton Candy" takes up 1/3 of the song, there's an entire video called "Cotton Candy, but only when they say Cotton Candy" and it's 1 minute long.

My problem isn't with the singing the singer behind this is fantastic, but my main problem with this song is the lyrics and beat. This song sounds like a bootleg version of Die Young, I know that was intended by Viv but that doesn't mean the song is good. The lyrics rhyme "Cotton Candy" with "Cotton Candy" Whoever was writing this song just needs to stop.

Also, why is the song about Cotton Candy and not Honey? Beelzebub does have a bee aesthetic around her so wouldn't it make more sense to have her sing about honey. It's sweet and addictive

This video perfectly summarizes my thoughts on this song

Loona barely has a spotlight

Loona was hyped up exponentially a couple of days before this episode came out. From the voice actress stating that she'll return to voice Loona while striking a pose to a Loona plush releasing not too long ago.

While I don't believe Loona was hyped up for this episode in particular she was still hyped up regardless and this episode was assumed to be a Loona-centered episode...that is until Beelzebub. Beelzebub stole the spotlight from Loona due to her character reveal being the sparkly song it was and a lot of people liking her design due to it being flashy.

Even a couple of days after the episode's release I still see more people talking about Beelzebub than Loona, regardless of how I feel about this character Beelzebub stood out more than Loona did to me. It's amazing that Loona was sidelined in her own episode

Slight Tonal Issues

There are some tonal issues with this episode particularly in the middle and near the end. So in the middle of this episode, Loona walks out of the party wanting to leave feeling as if she didn't belong there.

When Blitzo was going to leave, she gets flirted with by some other hellhound and that's more than enough to convince her to stay. So apparently, Loona getting hit on allows her to become less insecure and more sociable. Jesus Christ

Near the end of the episode, Loona places Blitzo on his couch after pouring him some water then all of a sudden Blitzo suddenly has a sad moment saying that he'll die alone old and wrinkled.

I gotta add if you don't want to die alone then stop treating people like shit Blitzo.

But anyway, this scene really just comes out of nowhere because Blitzo didn't express any problem with what happened at Ozzie's before he went to the party. I understand he was drinking all of his pain away but it still felt weird and forced to me.

Then after Loona calls him "Dad" for the second time in this episode, Blitzo suddenly just puked for the sake of comedy...

Jesus Christ, even a filler episode has tone issues. Oh yeah, speaking of filler episode.

This episode is meaningless

This episode isn't a direct continuation of Ozzie's nor does it affect any future episodes. Viv stated that Ozzie's is the true season 1 finale and that this episode is a "grand visual spectacle"

So all of this is just meaningless and what reinforces this is Loona's behavior. Loona went from her taking care of Blitzo to even calling him dad to straight up physically and mentally abusing him just because he wanted her to be nicer to the clients. Seeing Stars takes place at least a few days after Queen Bee so there's literally no reason for Loona to even act like this.

Raises more questions than answers

This episode like all of the other ones in Helluva Boss raises more questions than answers. Hell, I'll even say that it doesn't even answer any of the questions I had. Beelzebub can literally make food from nowhere, so what's even the point of Wrath? Why is Tex and Beelzebub dating good, but Stolas and Blitzo dating isn't? How many abilities does this Beelzebub even have? Does the food she make has any side effects on those who consume it? Like there are so many fucking questions but NONE OF THIS GETS ANSWERED.

At this point, I will be really surprised whenever one of the major questions that the fandom has actually gets answered. Because I'm getting tired of this.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this episode really meant nothing and despite it not meaning anything I didn't like it. Especially Cotton Candy, that song sucks, I don't know why they didn't use Silva Hound's "Monster Ball" it sounds leagues better than "Cotton Candy" plus it's more fitting since Demons are monsters. Anyway, thank you all for reading and I hope you all have a nice day!

[tasty-littl-snack]

I saw some clips of that one streamers show and they all seem kinda not great and no I will not be naming because I hate them with a passion but maybe you can guess who. But anyway, it got me thinking; Why does most of the watchers content just feel so…authentic. Like they put so much hard work and passion into their stuff and I’m just feeling so emotional about them right now lmao. Steven’s cooking shows(yes all of his cooking shows) Ghost Files, Puppet History and WWW are just so fucking amazing and the love and care put into them is just so beautiful. ;-;

Sorry to be weird in your inbox but I had to let this out lmao

Hope it's okay to answer this because you got me thinking and yeah I agree. While I don't watch any other let's call it "youtuber with a streamer" type channels, so I can't really speak to wether they are good or bad I know that watcher is the only one that appeals to me. From what I've seen the others have the "quantity over quality" aspect and while that is a way to game the system and get people feel like paying for more content is worth it (I personally think that it's a disease of modern times like why would you pay for one good movie if you can have several bad ones for the same/lower price), I prefer to pay for something that is done out of passion even if it's some kind of niche stuff I didn't think about before. And it's very well made and I feel like Watcher delivers just that.

I feel like the difference with Watcher and their content is that there is a lot of heart put in their shows, and they are doing things that they are curious/passionate about, and they have the ability to also awaken that curiosity in the viewer. Kinda a "follow me on this deep dive into a topic I just learned about", which is also the appeal of like video essay/long form content, but in watcher you can really feel the love they have for the thing and the people they work with. Steven once said in his interview that finding new people is their goal but it's very hard to find them because they feel like the chemistry and 'clicking' has to match with what they are doing. And when I heard that I was like "well this feels unnecessary" but then I watched the www woundtable where Violet talks about finding the right locations for www and how research goes into that, and then I felt it you know. They really care about every detail, to the point where you feel like "Wait why does this matter" but then the end result is a high quality episode of a show.

If you think about it, all of these shows are made from scratch. From ideas that they come up with and then discuss how to execute them well. The fact that Ryan got his popularity with unsolved aka things he was interested in and that allowed him to gather a team of trusted people who know what to do to make his idea a reality (and a better show and I will die on the hill that Ghost files is better than unsolved) is amazing to me. Shane with his interest in fun history facts and Puppet history starting out as a spiritual continuation of his previous show but then being combined with the manic energy of hot daga allowed him to express his creativity in ways that I really admire. (Like listen to believe me maizy and then to the dinosaur metorite song back to back you can feel that the creativity is there but as the years passed he got better at writing storytelling songs.)

I also think Steven is an interesting example because he wasn't a foodie at first but then got known for a food show so it feels like food is the niche he has to do. But even then, if you look at his first shows on Watcher it's Grocery run which gives voices to Asian-american influencers, and home made which is comparing the home made foods to the restaurant ones. The conclusion in that one is that even though sometimes home made is better the restaurant ones have a love for food as well. So he chose food as connecting with people and nowhere it's more shown than in dish granted which, yeah started as a show able to be made in a pandemic but also as making food for his friends to express gratitude for what they meant to him. The expensive stuff is the gimmick to get clicks, but you can see that the connection with people is really what that show is about. Travel season is again, an exploration of different countries through food and the fact that he chose Korea to start it off with - knowing that his wife is Korean, and the way he introduces some of the food to Andrew and Adam I think it's another expression of love he has for the connections he can make while eating food.

I just think all the shows are made with love, even the ones with guest shows. You can really feel the passion there that they have for the topics they explore and for the people they work with. I think that's what makes Watcher different and I really love that about them. They also find ways to improve their current shows and always evolve, and that takes time and effort but I feel like at heart they are creative people who got popular, whereas other people got popular first and then felt like they have to come up with things to keep this going. And that might be the difference and what sets watcher apart from all the other similar channels.

[littlealeta]

Ralph Breaks the Internet Review/Rant

When I first watched this film in 2018, I thought it was fairly decent. I was glad to finally see Wreck it Ralph again after 6 years. But even then, I still found it a disappointment from the first one. I hated how they did Ralph and Vanellope and I hated that Felix and Calhoun were barely in the film. Over the years, after reflecting more on this film, I realized that I might've been a bit too nice to it. So, I rewatched it again. And... yeah, it's pretty mediocre. It's still a fun time, especially for kids, but I wouldn't recommend it if you don't want it to ruin your love for the first one. I couldn't even watch the first one for years after watching this trainwreck.

This is going to be longer than some of my previous reviews because I have a LOT to say about this film, including spoilers. But you can always scroll down to the overall section if you want to see a concise version of this review.

Story

The film starts off nice. Ralph and Vanellope just hanging out in other games and talking. But, by the time the conflict comes around, the story becomes ass. Ralph and Vanellope break Sugar Rush by fucking around with a new race track Ralph created. They go through the Internet on a rollercoaster ride (using teleportation would make more sense). Then, they end up accidentally bidding 27,000 dollars for a new part at Ebay. So, now they have to gather up 27,000 dollars in 24 hours before the part expires when they could just wait for the item to expire and then re-bid. (Seriously, this whole movie wouldn't have happened if Ralph and Vanellope hadn't been idiots).

It doesn't matter, though, because Ralph somehow gets instant internet fame by making cringy youtube (called buzztube when youtube exists in that world for some reason) jokes and being a real life person somehow (that no one questions), ok. Why do we need a movie about the Internet with two characters from a movie about video games?

There are some cool concepts with the Internet, like the little avatars walking all over the place, the spamming, and Miranda Sings getting her ass kicked off by Ralph breaking her Internet. But then, there are also a lot of unnecessary Internet references. We see Google, Amazon, Twitter (with all the birds retweeting one post, like you could've had other posts instead of just retweets), Snapchat (which is an app), and Oh My Disney, which is just 5 unnecessary minutes of Disney kissing their own ass.

I will, however, say that the parody with the Disney princesses, the I Want songs, and how Vanellope interacts with the princesses (an atypical Disney princess, so you can imagine how well they bounce off of each other) is funny. The only problem is, they're just wrapped up in this terrible story. Like, if they kept the video game concept and they had something like Disney Infinity being one of the more wholesome games Ralph would send Vanellope to and then they meet the Disney princesses in there, that would be better.

The emotional scenes are just shit. Like, I can't NOT mention the contrived comment scene, the whole theme about friendship, and Vanellope glitching when she's insecure, how the fuck, lmao? The comment scene just came off like elementary school/middle school bullying instead of how people actually talk on the Internet. It gives me flashbacks of the 2011 film Cyberbully.

And the way the conflict gets resolved is shallow too, because everything is shallow in this film. I mean, "Don't read the comments"? I mean, it's kinda right for certain situations, but sometimes comments can be useful in helping you improve and seeing how other people see your videos. Sure, you should ignore bullies, trolls, and mean comments, but you shouldn't ignore every comment.

While the letting your friend go and follow their dreams message is a well-intentioned message to send to kids, the way they did it here is actually harmful and contradictory to the first film. I don't want to get too much into the characters because I have a special character section for them, so I'm just going to talk about the theme and how it relates to the world. Vanellope LITERALLY goes turbo. She ditches her Sugar Rush friends, players, and her game. Seemingly putting her friends and game in danger, yet no one questions it. I can't believe this was made by the same people who made the first.

In the climax of the film, Ralph releases a virus to protect Vanellope from the dangers of Slaughter Race. But somehow, it ends up detecting and copying insecurities? I mean, it's a cool concept, but it doesn't make sense when that wasn't even Ralph's intention to begin with.

And like a lot of things in this film, the way they resolved that conflict is anticlimatic. Supposedly, it's a symbol of the theme of the movie which is about letting friends go, which is fine, but why does it need to be in the form of a literal antagonist? Also, I feel like this whole thing is kinda breaking the Show, Don't Tell rule.

The movie also suffers from a lack of subplots. One particular subplot involving Calhoun and Felix was teased but then gets completely thrown out the window. It isn't really an original concept, but it still feels disappointing that they fucked it over.

Characters

Established characters barely even act like themselves. They say and do a lot of stupid shit. Like that contrived joke with Tron having a glitch (no pun intended) and they assume it's already fixed, but it turns out it wasn't fixed. That could've easily been rewritten as Litwak announced it was fixed, but it turns out it wasn't.

Dialogue is pretty bad, too. There's a lot of unnecessary Internet references, laughably idiot dialogue (mostly from Ralph) and a few potty humor that aren't even funny. Oh, and this movie is weirdly fond of philosophies too.

Why would Ralph be interested in a book club?

Ralph is now an idiot loser. He spends the entire film whining and crying about how Vanellope doesn't love him and his hair, even when she's saying nothing about him, it almost comes off as sus (I don't think I can say the actual word I'm thinking of). He says stuff like this.

Bitch, you could've said, "Why are you angry at the rainbow." HOW HARD IS THAT TO REWRITE, WRITERS?!?!

If Ralph just stayed the overprotective father that didn't want Vanellope to wander into dangerous games like Slaughter Race and be around sus people, that would be fine. But no, he gets upset because he and Vanellope were inseparable for 6 fucking years. That is just problematic in more ways than one. Like, Vanellope's your only friend? FELIX IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE! WTF HAPPENED TO YOU, RALPH?!?!

As for Vanellope, I think the concept of Vanellope getting bored with her game is a good concept to explore and would've been a good catalyst for character development, but here's the thing: SHE NEVER LEARNS. At the end of the film, she gets what she wants and RALPH has to be the one to learn something. Don't get me wrong, Ralph is also in the wrong for being clingy and not wanting his friend to leave his side for 5 minutes. But Vanellope was also a selfish, insensitive b!tch for putting her own game in danger and hurting her friends and her players (by the first movie's logic).

Now, on the positive side, there are some decent characters. Spamley, Yesss, the creepy Slug, Shank, and Knowsmore. Any new character in the film is amusing to watch.

Spamley is the spam junk guy. He's shady and wants to help Ralph and Vanellope get rich by looting from video games. I feel like this character could've probably been the antagonist as I always felt like he was going to backstab Ralph and Vanellope.

Yesss is the world-weary, aloof Youtube Algorithm with a loving side if she cares about you. It's how I'd imagine an Algorithm would act like if it was a person.

Knowsmore (who weirdly enough isn't google) also acts like how I'd imagine a search engine would act like. Saying what they think the other person is typing into the search engine.

The slug (I don't know if they mention his name) is aggressively creepy. He's the guy that Ralph buys the virus from. Fitting for how I'd imagine someone with a virus would act like.

Shank is the weakest of the characters because she's the one encouraging Vanellope to go Turbo, but she does have a cool personality. She may look slightly reminiscent of Calhoun, but she's not stern and hot-headed like her. Instead, she's easy-going, charismatic, and has some badass moves. I still like Calhoun better overall.

Animation/Music/Voice Acting

You can clearly tell it's a step up from the first movie. It's more fluid and cleaner. However, one thing I would like to complain about the animation is the way that some of the 2D princesses are translated into 3D. Ariel, Cinderella, and I think that was Tiana, look unrecognizable as 3D. Especially, Pocahontas, uh.

I think the voice actors were amusing to watch and portrayed their characters decently well. Sarah Silverman, however, felt somehow off to me. Like her voice is pitched up and she didn't really have as much range as she did in the first one, but it might just be the bad script and directing. Bill Hader, I thought he was great as Flint Lockwood and Fear, but his voice is a bit off in this film. Most of the time, he uses his Flint Lockwood voice (which I don't think really fits the character) and other times, he sounds different.

There's only two songs in there, one of them only lasts a second and somehow, it sounds better than almost anything about the full-length one. A Place Called Slaughter Race is not only Vanellope being a piece of shit, but it also doesn't sound particularly catchy. The melodies change like every minute and it's not even in a good way like Bohemian Rhapsody, it just sounds weird.

Overall

Ralph Breaks the Internet is just The Emoji Movie but a bit better. It does actually offer some creative things with the Internet. But it also could've done better in its portrayal of the Internet and that includes making the world feel more natural and cutting down the amount of Internet references (and there's A LOT).

The entire film wouldn't have happened if Ralph and Vanellope hadn't goofed off during work hours and forfeit the bid, but no. We GOTTA HAVE MEMES AND INTERNET REFERENCES FOR THE ZOOMERS AND ALPHAS!

BuzzTube and Knowsmore existing while Google and Youtube exists is weird. I guess they had some weird contract disagreements with these products?

There is little tension to be found as most of the conflict is resolved through anticlimatic and shallow dialogue and scenes and lame Internet jokes. And conflict is often started or ending with inconsistencies with the previous worldbuilding or with how the Internet really is.

There are barely any subplots in the film. One is teased, but never expanded upon.

Jokes are hit-and-miss. A lot of the dialogue felt unnatural and disgusting, often for the sake of making little kids laugh. Yet, the movie even tries to be r/I'm14andthisisdeep for no reason a few times.

Vanellope and Ralph are now almost completely different from how they were in the first film and of the two, only Ralph learns something and it's a pretty harmful message in the context of the film. However, I do like the new side characters. I personally think they should've done more with Spamley, but they all have fun personalities and act like how I'd imagine the Internet in character form would act like. And the parody with the Disney princesses and the interactions between them and Vanellope is actually creative to watch.

Animation is a clear step up from the first film besides the designs of some of the Disney princesses looking off. Voice acting was mostly decent except for a few characters sounding weird at times. Vanellope's I Want song is disappointingly forgettable.

Ralph Breaks the Internet gets 5.3 bells out of 10.

Also, why is it called Ralph Breaks the Internet instead of Ralph Wrecks the Internet? Ugh, they couldn't even get the title right.

Sour Bill is also one of my favorites and I would've loved to see more of him, too.

[edvinception]

I hope you don’t mind me sharing since this might fuel more unwarranted drama but I wanted to share some thoughts — from Felicia deleting her twitter account and looking at the pics from monaco, I feel really sad for her. I think the (v unnecessary) hate is beginning to take a toll on her. She (and Edvin kinda?) look pretty sad or at least despondent from what I have seen from pics/videos.

From everything we have learned from YR, re: Simon’s storyline and how he received hate from sm, it just feels so fucking meta and I know it’s not the fandom as a whole, but the hate does seem louder now that the show is over - I wish people could just be more empathetic or reflective. Like she has been w Edvin for a while now && is actually pretty fucking quiet about it (if i were her, i would totally only post about my relationship more & shove it in people’s face just to be petty but she’s more mature than me lmao) and yet people have trouble separating fiction from reality??

Like her, E, and O are all friends and yet people try to make her into some type of villain??? The internalized misogyny (since most who are spewing hate identify as women I think …) is unreal. And I know even using that as an argument will be considered an attack…

I mean what outcome do people want? Why can’t people just accept and move on??

Sorry for the long message - I feel so much empathy for E and F since I think he might feel guilty since it does seem now that he is on the rise to fame, people will always find a way to hate his partner. It’s with every male actor/celeb w a large fan base and it’s disgusting. I hope he and F have a good support system and ignore the white noise from social media echo chamber.

I agree with everything you say.

But also, I think they are okay, obviously getting hate on a daily basis is gonna take a toll on you but I think they have become good at distancing themselves from it, even before taking a step back.

That's not to say that this behaviour is okay by any means no matter how hard people try to justify their behaviour or claim it's all fair. It's really not and deep down they know it. Or they will grow up and be embarrassed when they lool back at their behaviour.

They are in the wrong, there's no buts, no excuses, nothing to legitimate it. But there's no reason to discuss or reason.

Just know that they are still in a minority and they seemingly have a lot of issues. One day they are gonna be like "yikes" at themselves. And if they won't then that's even more of a yikes because jfc what kind of a person are you.

[paralyze-fic]

Paralyze.

Chapter 29

The exam began, and all the other schools ambushed us, yelling something about 'U.A.'s destruction', ready to eliminate every single one of us. I got ready to defend myself and whoever I could, but before any attack could get close to me, a hand grabbed me and pulled me somewhere else. I didn't have to look at his face to know who it was.

"Katsuki!" Behind us, I could hear Eijiro and Kaminari calling out for Bakugou too, but he just ignored them. "Where are we going?!"

"Where nobody could take you out, dumbass, we're going to pass this damn exam and get our licences," Eijiro said something about how manly was that of Bakugou to say, and I just blankly stared at him.

I have no idea why but lately Katsuki has been more... clingy?

Everywhere I went, he followed me, everywhere he went, he would drag me along. When somebody got close to me to talk, he would threaten that somebody until they went away or simply drag me somewhere else, the same occurred if I wanted to talk with someone, he would be there listening to our conversation and would be whiny about wanting to play video games.

But the weirdest one was whenever we would make physical contact, Katsuki would stutter then blush and his eyes would be anywhere but on me, and after some minutes of awkward silence, he would stick to me or hug me and say curses like 'I'm doing this because I'm fucking cold' or 'You're taking the whole fucking couch, move asshole!' And so on.

He confused me... Katsuki was confusing.

Maybe he... he liked me back? That would explain the little scene he made earlier with that Shindo guy.

Must admit, Shindo is pretty hot and stuff, but maybe too straightforward, I like the tsundere type a little bit more.

While I was thinking, we began climbing up a ladder, and Katsuki was still arguing with Kaminari, as usual. But I kept thinking, mostly tuning out what they were saying, following the blond closely, until I saw him almost falling forward, I swiftly caught him.

"Are you okay?" He looked at me and blushed a light pink, hardly visible under his mask, only to push me back a bit and tsk as a response.

What is happening to Katsuki...?

"Kirishima!" Kaminari's yell made me snap out of my thoughts. I turned to look to my left where Eijiro had been caught by a... weird mass?

He was being morphed into what looked like... what is that? I have no idea what that is, I just know that it looks disgusting, ew. But poor Eiji though.

"Damn it, let me go!" He struggled in the air in a futile attempt to try to free himself, only to end up in the palm of a purple-haired guy.

"What is that?! What happened?!" Kaminari exclaimed right in my ear, making me frown and grunt at him lowly, he jumped and backed away from me a bit, slightly frightened by my reaction.

"That asshole did it, right? I'll kill you." I sweatdropped at Katsuki's behaviour. Why? Does he have to be so aggressive every time... Well, I guess that's what I signed up for when I fell in love with him, lucky me.

"Us from Shiketsu are obligated to use the hat of our uniforms while on duty, why? Because all of our movements are crowned with the traditions from Shiketsu High School," he dropped Eijiro and that made me angry, this is still a test, he shouldn't treat other students that way.

Briefly looking around I noticed more people had been morphed. That guy could have already passed the exam if he wasn't such an asshole, this was just unnecessary, even if other schools were essentially "villains" to us.

"It's a demonstration of power. We give great importance to the obligation and dignity of education, differentiating us from the pawns who aspire to become heroes like us..." Oh, well, he's one of those guys, that explains pretty much everything.

"I hate those like your type." I heard Katsuki say and I looked at him.

"What did he say? I don't understand anything," Kaminari's confusion made me laugh a bit. He was so dumb and that was kind of cute, I must admit.

"He said that his eyes are tiny and can't see the strength of his opponents," I said for the first time since we met this dude, and Bakugou snickered at my comment, whispering a subtle 'nice one'.

"My eyes are big and attractive!" The purple-haired guy yelled with a desperate tone, well, someone has a complex. Then I heard Kaminari say something, but Katsuki tsk-ed and he got my attention, "U.A. High School, I respect that school. It makes me proud that you consider us equals. But you act in a way that stains your dignity." Behind him, some more of that weird mass was moving, and I knew he was preparing to attack us.

Kaminari exclaimed something again, but Katsuki made him shut up and I pulled the electricity boy a few steps behind me.

"Obligation? Dignity? You don't stop talking. Show it to us with actions and not words, senpai!" ... okay, I never thought I needed Katsuki to say 'senpai', ever. I don't think I'm weird for liking how Katsuki said, right? He sounded a bit condescending which made it better.

But this was not the time to fantasize, (M/n)! There's an incoming -gross, by the way- attack at the moment!

The Shiketsu guy had crouched down and leaned forward slightly, directing that mass towards us and we got ready to defend ourselves, "Especially you, Bakugou!" Katsuki was running at him as I got my quirk ready.

Katsuki used one of his specials moves; AP Shot - Autocannon. It looked so cool I couldn't help but stare, however, we had a situation on our hands, and snapping out of that, I tried to help, so I looked around for any pieces of mass that he could've sneakily sent somewhere.

I noticed a really tiny peace inching slowly towards Kaminari and me, crawling on the ground like an earthworm. Now I wasn't sure if I could stop it, but I could try, I mean, it moves so it has to have some kind of muscle, right?

I kept my eyes on it, and I watched as it curled on itself and then it... melted? Somehow.

That guy was talking again but I wasn't paying attention because I kept searching around us, just in case.

"He talks too much, I'll kill him!" Katsuki yelled and ran at the Shiketsu guy.

"Wait! Don't forget this is a test!"  Katskui glanced at me for a moment but ignored me and used his previous move again as 'Tiny Eyes' attacked once again.

This is getting repetitive, isn't it?

"This would go nowhere. I'll finish quickly with this!" I looked at Kaminari, who was loading his support item and fired a disk in Tiny Eyes' direction. But he dodged it and Kaminari cursed.

He was about to charge at us, but Katsuki yelled at him, "Don't ignore me!" And used a normal AP Shot. Tiny Eyes covered himself with his mass just in time, and I glanced over at Katsuki.

"Katsuki, watch out!" He saw the moving mass, but couldn't avoid it and we watched as it grabbed him around the support on his shoulders.

"You saw it with Kirishima, didn't you? If it touches you, it's over."

"Bakugou!"

"Katsuki!"

Kaminari and I yelled at the same time. I tried to stop the quirk but it just twitched and kept morphing him.

"Idiot! Here!" Katsuki threw something to Kaminari who caught it and I glanced at it.

One of his hand grenades...

Tiny Eyes talked once again, but I was busy thinking of a plan to get Katsuki and Eijiro back to normal, something for the four of us to pass the exam and make this asshole shut up once and for all. Stopping him didn't stop his quirk, and if I get close I risk getting caught in it so there wasn't much I could do. But when I saw him stepping on Eijiro I had an urge to blow up his face...

If only I was Katsuki.

"By the way, their senses, including pain, are normal in this form. Your electricity would hurt them all, Kaminari Denki."

Kaminari looked at me and I nodded slightly, only for him to notice. He talked as I stared at Tiny Eyes legs, just in case-

Kaminari threw the grenade but Tiny Eyes managed to dodge it in the opposite direction to where he was supposed to go. I heard Kaminari cursing to himself, but he talked to our opponent, trying to distract him from what I was gonna do.

I quickly joined our limbs, his left leg to my right and his right to my left, slowly taking a step to my right.

"Eh?! What is this?!" He locked eyes with me, and a scowl formed on his face, his quirk appearing again for the attack.

"By the way, senpai... you're in a good position now," Kaminari shot his electricity as I stopped my quirk, and the guy screamed in pain, kneeling on the ground when Kaminari was done with his attack.

"Senpai, Katsuki can be vulgar, but he's really trying to become a hero. Throwing Kaminari his grenade," we watched as Tiny Eyes' mass regrouped itself, "Was the result of his quick decision-making, don't you think?" I noticed Katsuki and Eijiro moving, trying to go back to their normal form, so I nudged Kaminari slightly so he would keep talking instead.

"And Kirishima is a guy who jumps at the enemy even if it's a foolish thing to do. You just have some information about them, so don't insult them as if you know everything about them!" The Shiketsu guy prepared another attack and he was so engrossed in both of us, that he didn't notice the two guys getting up on their two feet.

"I'm telling you to understand better your positions! Idiots!" He didn't get a chance to do anything as Eijiro punched him, followed by Katsuki's explosion.

After he didn't get up, I heard them talking to each other before Eijiro turned towards us. "Thank you, Kaminari, (M/n)!"

"Why did you take so long, asshole?!" Despite me being here and half at fault, Katsuki only yelled at Kaminari.

Poor Pikachu.

But now, after Kaminari panicked about the rest of the students also coming back to normal, Katsuki stared at them and licked his lips with a hungry look in his eyes.

The movement of his tongue made the illusion of going in slow motion in my eyes but it also made me unaware of the girl trying to sneak up on me until an explosion brought me back.

"Be careful, idiot. We're about to finish this, don't lose now." I smiled and nodded at Katsuki, facing forward to attack and pass this exam.

//////

"There are four who passed together..."

Kaminari, Eijiro, Katsuki and I were walking towards the anteroom, and that was when Kaminari spotted Uraraka, Sero and Izuku.

While those four were doing a funny dance and making me chuckle, I smiled at Izuku and waved at him. I was about to tell him something, but Katsuki walked between us, "You passed? Damn Deku." I frowned at him.

"Kacchan, eh, yeah..." Izuku smiled nervously at him.

"It's normal with that power. You made yours what you took, huh?" My confused stare followed him as he walked on his own, I turned to Izuku once more to ask him, but instead, I ran to Katsuki after I saw his expression, it was something between surprise and fright.

"What did you mean by that, Katsuki?" He looked over his shoulder at me but kept walking.

"Nothing, (M/n)."

//////

We all watched the screen, showing us how the arena started to collapse.

So, the second phase is rescue, eh?

[fan-a-tink]

Young Royals S3 thoughts

EP 1

First word of the season is crown prince.

The queen is ill. taking pills. Simply depressed or something else too? 

„Was this how you imagined it would be?“ „No, this is better.“ My heart.

Settling the video issue outside the courts. Simon just wants it to be over - Linda why are you not listening to your son?

Fuck you Rickard for telling everyone about Simon and the drug thing anyway. That was so unnecessary!

And then they all just signed anyway?

The queen having a breakdown scares the shit out of me. Wille is going to have to take over so soon, and the responsibility will be the death of him and Simon.

Madison is the only one seeing that something is actually wrong with Felice, and she’s trying to be such a good friend. 

Farima seems cool!

Simon grounded. wtf, I don’t like it. And it’s not exactly his fault he didn’t tell Linda about everything that was going on - like she has to take some blame there too.

Vincent you fucking idiot. I hate you. You don’t get to blame Wille for this. And don’t you DARE talk to a reporter.

That kiss, in the library, and everyone going absolutely quiet - AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Crown prince.. and your boyfriend! - AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

I’m not sure they are really listening to each other, actually. Please guys, no more miscommunication!

YES, Wille!!! Show off your boyfriend and shut down their reactions with that look of ‚that’s my boyfriend, and if anyone has a problem with that, they have a problem with me!“

Fucking hate Vincent. „You and Wilhelm can sit together on the bus out to the slums.“ Fuck you Vincent. - Also, is it bad that I think August actually handled that situation really well?

Sara, my love - do you need a hug? 

That heart on the hand is a heartstopper reference, and no one will ever convince me otherwise!

So Marcus talked about Simon to the press. As if we needed any confirmation that he was a dickhead. Good riddance.

Simon don’t respond to the tweets!!!!

Foolish. But brave. - Yes, that sums up Wille pretty well :)

Wille saying „I wish I could ask him“ about Erik breaks my heart. Look at his eyes when he says it! There is so much grief which he has not processed at all. 

Sara going to Micke. I love that he takes her in, but also, she should really talk to someone else, not rekindle the extremely strained / non-existent relationship with her dad which was so traumatic to her! Saraaaaaaaa, please talk to your mum, or a therapist. Anyone!

Wille waking up peacefully smiling and redrawing the heart on his hand. This is joy. 

Ok that initiation shit sounds traumatizing as hell - who the fuck thought that would be a good idea? 

And no, Vincent, shut the fuck up, you don’t get to blame Wille for any of this!!!! Just fuck right off!

Did Simon keep that seat for Wille? 🥰

Simon’s expression at ‚Is it true? Did it happen to you?‘ And ‚what about the other stuff?‘ - just not able to comprehend how Wille could have done any of it. Ohhh, I smell drama on the horizon, and I don’t like it.

I love that them hearing about the restrictions makes them hold hands even tighter. I love that they can just do that now, in public, in school, in front of everyone. Still not over it. 

The new principal’s smile gives me serial killer vibes.

Aaaaahhhhh, I’m not ready for the drama, I’m not ready for the discussions, the tensions, the secrets, for any of it!!! I’m scared to keep going, because I don’t want them to have to go through any of it - haven’t they suffered enough? Haven’t we suffered enough? 

[mint-ty]

I get the disappointment re: the lack of bojere content. We were all expecting more, especially after finding out that JO would spend so many days with him. But I don't think Jere hates bojere, considering how much he himself has willingly and knowingly fed us bojere enjoyers. But I do feel like he is afraid that his involvement and presence throws a shadow over JO, and really wanted JO to have their proper moment in Finland now, and not make it about him. And having been to both shows, I think it was the right call. I feel like even bringing Häärijä on stage on Saturday, while cute, was unnecessary and a bit of a mistake. Sunday's show was the perfect JO experience and I'm glad they got to have it and that Jere was able to enjoy it from the audience for once. And also he is on vacation and kinda in between "eras" right now, and JO is also moving on from ESC, so I feel them playing Cha Cha cha now would have felt weird. Idk, maybe they'll do something in July, when Jere is back to work, so to speak. Or maybe they won't. But I'm happy they'll at least get to meet again fairly soon. Especially when I think about last May and Jere crying, because he didn't know if he'd see bojan again. 🥺❤️ And I'll continue to wish for a proper collab song, so that they would always have an excuse to perform together if the opportunity arose and it wouldn't be awkward (like playing just Käärijä or JO song would be, I think)

(puting under cut because I'm just waffling depressing shit)

man, anon, I don't even know why it's hitting me so hard. The weird thing is that I fully agree with everthing: him on stage would have been unnecessary and kinda setting a bad precedent, and I'm happy they keep their friendship private, as they should. (the friendship that is absolutely real and I never doubted that). But the timing and the way it was done... like the silence is so fucking loud. The only conclusion I can draw is that Jere regrets doing things the way he's done during JO Nordic Tour... Am I now a bad person that I enjoyed that content? Because whenever I had a bad day it was such a comfort to look up videos of Jere and Bojan... but if he regrets that those videos are public, I feel like I'm not allowed to rely on them anymore.. That we're not invited to Bojere anymore.

And again it's completely fine, they don't own us anything. But the christmas is gone and I don't know what to do now.. I keep reminding myself that I can't expect anything and honestly that's very depressing.

I also undestand that these are fully my personal issues, I'm most likely overthinking all this to oblivion and I'm also sorry for bringing all this up here. It would make me most happy to know I'm the only one feeling this way.

Oh and I love you anon, I hope you have a good day 💖

[boysplanetrecaps]

Produce 48 Recaps: Auditions Begin (episode 1)

When we left off in my probably-unnecessary-but-still-necessary Rewatch Recap of Produce 48, the 96 girls had made their entrance into the huge studio, and the judges were just about to reveal themselves. Let's get to it!

The judges come out!

First, it’s Lee Hong Ki, a powerful vocalist, here to teach them to sing. He’s from FT Island, and amazingly, was in the *second* K-drama I ever watched, You’re Beautiful, which was fun at the time, but which I cannot actually recommend. I will say that Hong-ki is the best part of it despite his, let’s say, broad acting choices. 

The character he played on You’re Beautiful was named Jeremy, and I can’t help but think of him as Jeremy. So just understand that I will be calling him Jeremy for the duration of these recaps. Thank you. 

Here he is as Jeremy. He’s ACTING! 

Next, it’s Soyou, from Sistar. She was overshadowed by Hyolyn but is an excellent vocalist in her own right. She’s here to be the other vocal trainer. 

It wouldn’t be an MNET show without this asshole:

I don’t want to learn his name but he’s that choreographer/dance teacher/ sociopath who always makes sure that all of the trainees’ mental health is hanging on by the merest of threads. I’m going to call him Psychopath. Seriously, fuck this guy. I’ll note that he comes across as sweet and loveable in this episode but I can’t forgive him for the shit he pulled during Boys Planet. Nope. Never. He has earned my undying hatred. To be clear, I do not support sending him hate messages or harming him in any way. I will just quietly, and personally, hate him on my Tumblr which gets maybe 5 or 10 readers. 

And then there’s her:

Bae Yoon Jung! She’s also pretty intense, and I know she’s mean to them on the first day, but she has the capacity for normal human empathy, as I recall. I’m going to call her Dance Bae. That doesn’t mean that I co-sign on her casual cruelty. It’s just that it’s literally her name and it’s easy to remember.

I don’t remember this lady:

Her name is May J Lee and she’s also a dance trainer. She’s cute. Here’s to hoping she understands that the trainees are human beings!

It’s Cheetah, here to be the rap trainer! God, I love her song Villain so damn much. The video is great, too, but trigger warning for violence. “I could fix you, but I won’t.” HECK yeah. 

And special one-day trainer, Kahi, who was the dance trainer for PD101 Season 2.

Kahi was in After School, then “graduated” in June 2012, right around the same time that Gaeun joined. They undoubtedly have spent time together, so it’ll be interesting to see if they interact much in this episode. (Maybe Gaeun being on the show this season meant that Kahi couldn’t really be the judge for the whole time?) 

The judges glare holes into the trainees while explaining that they’ll be sorting them into groups -- A, B, C, D, and F -- based on skill level, with the ultimate goal of bringing them all up to A-grade. And now it’s time for these would-be performers to perform, and of course, they don’t want to actually perform. 

41:50 The Auditions Begin

The girls are nervous. Yoon Hae Sol (윤해솔), 20, former member of Aqua, lets out a gusty breath. And this girl is nervous too, whoever the heck she is. 

Kim Chaewon, it says on her nametag. Well, she’s cute. Meanwhile I’m fascinated by the shoe behind her. WHOSE SHOE IS THAT? WHAT IS THIS SHOE? 

The AKB-48 girls are even more nervous. Oda Erina, 21, in a stylish bob and a blue, yellow and white jacket is intimidated by the Korean girls. Mogi Shinobu, also 21, a living meme with blue furry sleeves, is so nervous she looks like she might cry. We love you, Shinobu.

Time for the first audition! Or at least, the audition that the editors have moved to the beginning of the episode, even though it was probably not the first one to happen in real time! Because they wanted to front-load excellent Korean auditions to emphasize the skill gap between the Korean and Japanese contestants! 

Audition 1: Yuehua

Kim Si Hyeon (김시현), age 18, in the long sleeved shirt, now a member of Everglow. 

Choi Ye Na (최예나), age 18, with her hair in a ponytail.

Wang Yi Ren (왕이런), age 17, pink shirt with black edges. She’s Chinese and is now a member of Everglow. 

We see a clip of the Yuehua girls back stage, where Choi Yena accidentally draws on the camera with red marker and then apologizes profusely. AND SHE NEVER WORKED IN KPOP AGAIN!!

Then we get a flashback of Gross Guy personally watching the auditions of all 96 girls prior to the filming of the first episode. He’s so gross. Ugh. He makes JYP seem like a sweet, safe guy. Anyway we find out that after Choi Yena performed her song, she asked to do an extra performance. She begins speaking in what sounds like decent Japanese and does a little miming routine with sound effects. She’s pretty charming, actually. 

Cut back to audition day. The Woolim girls are backstage waiting for their turn when they recognize Sihyeon from her time on PD101, Season 1. Sihyeon interviews that she’s embarrassed when she looks back at herself on PD101 and that she’s gotten a lot better since then. In fact, as we find out later, she got an F in that season. 

Link to full audition on Youtube

Song: Move by Little Mix 

My Thoughts: They do great, in my opinion. Siyheon has a great clear, strong voice and her English pronunciation is mostly pretty good. Yena and Yiren don’t sing as clearly, but their dancing is great and they have a lot of presence. God, Yiren sparkles so much! I feel like she’s getting bad advice from whoever is around her now, because in more recent Everglow performances she always seems so muted. Seeing this, I can see she’s capable of great stage presence -- I hope she finds her way back to this. I dig Everglow and just want them to keep living up to their potential. I would have given Siyheon an A and the other two Bs, I think, though it’s hard without seeing the other trainees to compare. 

The MNET Edit: The editing emphasizes Yiren and Yena more, but overall the editing is kind to all three. We see some of the Japanese girls saying “why is everyone so good”, almost as if this ISN’T the first team to go up. (Also, we see that other girls are already wearing their grade name tag, though they’re blurred out.) The judges give Yena an A and the other two get Bs, which I guess reminds us that as long as you *kind* of sing while you also dance a lot and are very charming, then…. you get an A. Anyway, A and B are fine.

The editors really want us to know that the Japanese girls are very worried about their auditions. It is true that they generally don’t have the training the Korean girls have -- I’m not commenting on their inherent worthiness, just their preparation. But the show really, really focuses on that. I’m sure at least some of the Korean girls were nervous too, but we don’t seem to be seeing clips of that on the show.

Auditions 2 and 3: Woolim and WM Entertainment

Next, the MNET editors decided to further confuse anyone who has previously confused WM Entertainment with Woolim Entertainment by overlapping these two agency’s auditions, same as they did when the girls entered the auditorium. Thanks, MNET editors! Thmeditors. We learn that Woolim manages Lovelyz, while WM manages Oh My Girl (their rivals), though now in 2023 I think we all know that Oh My Girl kind of won that particular fight. Apparently the girls view each other as rivals? ...? But do they, though?

Woolim is up first. They take a moment finding their places, and we learn that Eunbi is their leader/mom who brought them medicine and Japanese phrase books. What a good unnie! 

Left to right: Suyun, Eunbi, Sohee, Chaewon

Kim Chae Won (김채원), age 17   now: Le Sserafim   wearing a short sleeved white top, tie Kim So Hee (김소희), age 14  now: Rocket Punch  wearing pigtails Kim Su Yun (김수윤), age 17  now: Rocket Punch   wearing short sleeved black top Kwon Eun Bi (권은비), age 22   now: soloist wearing a tie, cardigan

Link to full audition on Youtube

Song: Ah-Choo by Lovelyz / Bad by Infinite

My thoughts: It’s always awkward when you have one member who’s 14 (and looks 12) and one who is 22 (and looks 25) -- they’re always going to sort of make one another look bad. But overall, this is actually a really good audition.  I watched it multiple times and didn’t pick up on any mistakes or bad moments. All four of them had kpop acceptable vocals that didn’t stand out as fantastic or terrible. Chaewon’s a tiny bit shaky on the high notes, but they are really high notes. Little Sohee’s dancing was less powerful than the others’, even during Ah-Choo, but that’s fine considering she’s so much younger. I did think they looked a tiny bit silly doing that super powerful choreography to Bad while still dressed to perform Ah-Choo, but the goal was to display different skills and they did that. Knowing how deep the hole can go, I think I would have given all these girls As or Bs, maybe a C for little Sohee. It’s hard to know for sure since it’s not always clear what is live singing and what’s the backup track. 

The MNET Edit is fair. The rest of the trainees appreciate their performance. 

Backstage, Lee Chaeyeon says Eun Bi caught her eye the most. I actually noticed Suyun a lot too, but her time will come later. 

The judges compliment their synchronization and ask to see them perform something else. They launch into a second performance, which seems equally well rehearsed. I don’t recognize the song off hand (if any of you do, feel free to let me know!) but they do a great job with it. Dance Bae says, in an almost irritated way, “why haven’t you debuted yet? You seem ready to me.” I think she’s speaking mainly to Eunbi, who smiles wide at the compliment. We won’t hear their grades until later, but I’ll tell you their grades now, because I just love subverting the MNET editing monkeys. Kwon Eun Bi gets an A, ChaeWon gets a B, and the other two get Cs. Maybe I’m just biased toward Suyun from knowing her now? It’s hard to say. But I still think a B would have been fairer for her. 

Next, WM Entertainment. The girls come out on stage and the judges immediately tell Chaeyeon she looks familiar. She acknowledges having been on Sixteen with Somi (2015) and on Kpop Star 3 (2013). She says that this time she really wants to show us what she’s got. The other girls are excited to see her dance.

Trainees: 

Lee Seung Hyeon (이승현), 17 now known as Riina in H1-Key, in the black shirt Lee Chae Yeon (이채연), 18, currently a soloist, in the pink shirt  Cho Yeong In (조영인), 16, in the white Link to full audition on Youtube

Song: Shower, originally by Becky G

My thoughts: All three of them do well dancing wise. It’s not surprise that Chaeyeon would dance well, and she certainly outshines the other two, but Seunghyeon holds her own and Yeongin doesn’t look bad. I think vocally, Seunghyeon does the best job, but Chae’s belted note sounded good. Yeongin’s vocals were noticeably shaky compared to the other two’s. I think I would have given Yeongin a B or C, Chae would get an A, and Seunghyeon an A or a B depending on what the dance teachers said. Overall though it was a good audition. 

The MNET edit is again pretty kind. Everyone focuses on Chaeyeon, of course. When they’re done, the judges ask her to freestyle to Instruction by Jax Jones featuring Demi Lovato, and she dances in a style that’s really appropriate to the song. Everyone’s impressed. The judges announces the grades. Chaeyeon gets an A, which seems completely correct. The other two get Bs, which is ok. 

The editing is setting Kwon Eun Bi and Lee Chaeyeon up to be rivals. Surely, they must hate each other, if they’re both good dancers and their agencies are on the same street in Seoul! 

In the audience, Kojima Mako says to her friend, “It’s so amazing that I’m not even nervous anymore. Our friend Juri says to Shinozaki Ayana,  “I feel like I’m just watching a TV show.” Me too, Juri! We stan a relatable queen. But yeah, it’s more of the whole “the terrible, silly, weak Japanese girls are in awe of the mighty, powerful Korean girls” narrative that MNET’s editing monkeys keep pushing. 

Auditions 4 and 5: The Very Pretty Girls

Next, we have the introduction of two Very Pretty Girls:  Kim Min Ju (김민주), age 17 from Urban Works, in her colorful striped shirt, and Kang Hye Won (강혜원), age 18,  from 8D Creative in a blue mini dress with a big pink and white collar. The other trainees think that these two girls look like actresses, so maybe it’s no surprise that now (2023), they are in fact both actresses. I renew my complaint from earlier that I don’t understand why certain girls are considered prettier than the others, and remind you that this isn’t an insult to them, as they are certainly very pretty, but more of a compliment to the others, who I view as equally pretty. Isn’t Kwon Eun Bi just as pretty? Is she not? I don’t understand. I will be saying that a lot in these recaps so I guess I’ll just call it my Particularly Pretty Problem (PPP) and leave it at that. 

Agency:  8D Creative

Trainee: Kang Hye Won

In a pre-show interview, they ask her such questions as “were you always pretty?” and she says that yes, she is. This is the part of kpop I like least. She says that the position she wants is 청정 or purity. I guess I understand that -- there is usually a sexy member of a given group (see: Kai in Exo, Hyunjin in SKZ, Joy in Red Velvet, Soojin in G-Idle) and there’s usually a funny or approachable one (see: Chanyeol, Changbin, Wendy, Yuqi), so I could see there being a sort of pure or extra cute one. It’s not as crazy as it might sound.

Link to full audition on Youtube

Song: You and I by IU (2011)

My Thoughts: Well, that was pretty terrible. There’s room at the bottom, but she barely dances and she only kind of sings. The singing is breathy, faint, and pitchy. The dancing is half hearted and my grandma could have done this choreo even after her stroke. She has negative stage presence. Also, to me, she always looks confused. There’s something about either her facial features or her expression that make her look bewildered. I’m sorry if she’s your favorite. She may have charming personality traits that I don’t know about yet. She’s just not particularly skilled in either singing or dancing. She should get an F. 

If you can’t handle me saying that about this audition, then I really suggest that you just not read any more of my recaps because I’m going to say stuff like this about bad auditions. I don’t care if she’s “pretty”. I don’t care if she has gone on to be successful. Other people -- Eun Bi, for example -- are pretty and they can also sing and dance. I believe that if you make your living as a singer and/or dancer, you should be able to sing and/or dance. 

The MNET edit:They don’t do her any favors, zooming in on her non-dancing and focusing on the judges’ reactions to her shaky high notes and nearly stationary body. When she’s done, she stands there with this look on her face, which is the way I always remember this girl looking and how I recognize her in her more recent endeavors. 

Dance Bae says, “Purity is all you have. F.”  Done and done. 

Agency:  Urban Works

Trainee:  Kim Min Ju 

Link to full audition on Youtube

Song:  No Matter What by BoA

My Thoughts: This was so much better than Hyewon’s audition. For one thing, she actually danced. She showed a variety of different actual dance steps, including legs, body, arms, head, face. She danced! The singing was extremely faint and I think a lot of it was the backing track, but this was leagues ahead. Without being able to clearly discern her singing, it’s so hard to tell, but I think I’d put her in C territory. 

The MNET edit:They show the judges adjusting their ear buds and looking bored or put off, and focused on a part where she dropped into a squat and looked a little awkward. But that was just the dance move! This was originally done as a partner dance and it was adapted for a single person (I think? Unless it was just made new, whole cloth?), so maybe they should have just cut that squatting part out -- it’s not her fault. They also show a girl in the audience looking bored (maybe cut in from a totally different performance). It’s not kind. Minju, you deserved better. 

They give her a D. I don’t know. Seems like they’re punishing her for being pretty. But maybe the singing was worse than I thought. 

I’m not going to comment on it every single time it happens, but just assume that after every performance there will be a reaction/voice over from a Japanese girl saying, “If that didn’t get an A, I’m going to get an F for sure” or “the Korean girls are so much better than me” or something like that. It’s constant. 

Auditions 6 and 7: The Punching Bags

These next two auditions are shown mainly to mock these trainees. Neither of them do a stellar job, but both deserved a little better than what they got.

We see a scrap of  the audition from Shin Su Hyun (신수현), a 22 year old represented by FAVE Entertainment. 

She’s performing Playing with Fire by Blackpink. I watched her full audition, but we only see a little bit of it in the actual show. She started off with rapping, which the edit doesn’t show; I think she’s going for a rap position, not a singing one, which helps excuse why her singing was weak. The dancing wasn’t great -- she was a beat or two ahead of the choreography (something I only noticed because I know the song so well). But I thought she at least had charisma. I think a C wouldn’t have been out of line, but I don’t know the rubric. The edit replays a part where she sort of does a chicken-dance wiggle during the chorus when that’s not quite what the choreo is like, but I had to go back and rewatch the original to see that the original choreo is different. The PWF choreography is kind of weird -- I’ve always thought so. What’s with the dogpaddling in the chorus, or that weird “drawing a line with your finger” at the end? Anyway, my point is that the edit makes her look even worse than she actually did. 

They intersperse her audition with the audition of Cube’s Han Cho Won -- she’s only 15 here, but you may now know her as one of the most popular members of Cube’s youngest girl group,  Lightsum. The edit here make her look like a complete idiot. If you watch her full audition, you’ll see that, yeah, it’s not great, but there are some extenuating circumstances.

The biggest problem is that the song was a poor choice. Red by Hyuna is a HYUNA song. Like a third of the lyrics are “red is Hyuna”, and there’s a whole 10 second segment where Hyuna just sits on the ground and flirts with the camera. It’s all about being sexy and having a nice body, specifically a nice butt, and the choreography is very core/waist/butt centered. It seems that Chowon just can’t quite move her body that way, and at 15, maybe just isn’t up the task of embodying the universal sex symbol that is a full-grown Hyuna. I don’t know who is! 

Anyway, I think Chowon should have done Pepe by CLC, assuming she was going to stick to a song by a Cube artist. The song has a fun retro feel and it would have been more appropriate for a 15 year old who doesn’t know how to twerk yet. Or maybe Pretty Pretty by Pentagon -- I bet Hui would have helped her remix something for the show if the agency had asked him to -- he's a good sunbae -- and the song has quirky, funny choreography that might have made the judges smile. Sigh. 

Poor Chowon -- it wasn’t a great audition, but I blame whoever either told her to do this song, or allowed her to do it if it was her choice. The whole point of having management is to get smart people to help you make decisions like this, especially when you’re fifteen. But that’s asking too much from Cube, I guess. Kahi even says that she had been at Cube briefly and that they don’t teach you anything, which checks out. Cube is just the WORST. 

Both Chowon and Suhyun get a lecture on needing to learn (or review) the basics and both get a D. It’s not totally unfair -- it’s just that I know that there is so much worse to come. 

More discussion about how the Japanese girls aren’t really given any training and just learn to perform by watching their sempai/sunbae/seniors. Dance Bae says it’ll be fun to watch them grow. 

And now it’s time to see the AKB48 girls perform. We see that they’ve changed out of their entrance outfits -- those plaid monstrosities -- into different outfits, most of which are also monstrosities. 

Audition 8: Get You!

See, it's a play on words because the song is called Get You and also MNET wants to get them

Agency:  AKB48

Trainees: Oda Erina 21, and Nakano Ikumi 17

Erina, left, with the shorter hair and Ikumi, right, in the blue shorts.

The judges comment that Erina is known for her singing and Ikumi for her dancing. 

Link to full audition on Youtube

Song: Get You! by Morning Musume (a different J-pop idol group)

My Thoughts: Well, this wasn’t terrible. They do sort of take turns either singing or dancing, and rarely do both at the same time. The choreography they do is mostly extremely simple and not super well synced, but they do throw themselves into it. They have a lot of energy, which I know is important in J-pop. If you asked me, “which of these is the singer and which of these is the dancer?” I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But neither of them assaulted my ears. Judged by J-pop standards, this was great. By K-pop standards, not great. I’d give them a C and see how they do learning the choreography for the signal song.

The MNET edit: The edit makes it seem much worse than it really was. Honestly, it wasn’t that horrific. They were more fun to watch than Kang Hye Won for sure. 

The judges ask Ikumi to freestyle dance, which she agrees to with an English “Yes!” They play “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift. She tries to do a sort of interpretive dance thing, and I appreciate that she at least tried. She has lovely body lines and seems to understand rhythm and tone, anyway. They keep showing her trip a little on her platform sneakers. God, those things look hard to dance in. After a bit she seems to give up, pulling her hair over her face, and the judges call it. Her AKB-mates are impressed, but the judges aren’t. 

Dance Bae compliments her on her energy, but says she seems to not know what to do with it. “I’m not sure that the fact that you danced to the beat warrants you having won first place in a large competition,” Dance Bae scolds. “If you keep continuing like this, you won’t ever be able to perform on stage.” 

Ikumi gets a D, and Erina gets a C. We don’t actually see that, though -- I had to look it up. It’s not part of the narrative to see that neither of them got an F, I guess.

Next, we have a mini montage of various girls, especially Japanese girls, saying that Dance Bae is the scariest judge, known for her terrifying line: “You really want to be a singer?!?” Which I think is a fair question! So many people get into the Idol Biz because they want to be actors or tv hosts -- I wish there was a pipeline to celebrity for people like that that didn’t involve them humiliating themselves on a show like this. 

Auditions 9 and 10: What’s Your Name and Knock Knock

We cut to another audition, in progress, with a caption that seems to imply that this is just a preview (“Coming up…”) but no, this is the actual audition, as much of it as we’re going to see.

AKB: What’s Your Name?

Here’s the original song being performed by 4Minute. Things were different in 2013 -- this was before Catch Me If You Can by SNSD came out so nobody yet knew that women were actually able to do intense choreo, I guess. But even for 2013 standards, What’s Your Name has easy choreo. I mean, it barely has choreo aside from just sort of bending over and displaying your butt. Also, the lyrics are three quarters “what’s your name/ ireumi mwoyeyo?” So it’s a really good choice for a rookie group!

Here’s their audition.

Left to right: Manami, Ayana, Chiyori, Miho, Shinobu

Ichikawa Manami, 18, in the blue top, red skirt Shinozaki Ayana, 22, in the light blue skirt Nakanishi Chiyori, 23, in the pink fluffy skirt Miyazaki Miho, 24, in the sparkly top, navy skirt Mogi Shinobu, 21, in the turquoise skirt, fluffy blue sleeves

We just met Shinobu earlier, when she was talking about how scary Dance Bae is, got her name wrong, an apologized profusely. She's our living meme and we love her. We also almost met Miho; she was the one who knows how to write in Korean.

My thoughts: Oh no. There’s something so incongruous about someone in a sparkly cupcake skirt and Mary Jane shoes doing a pelvic thrust. These outfits look like… Ok maybe this is a deep cut but do you know those fashion plate toys? I had my cousin’s old one and I was obsessed. It was like stencils, but you had a head and a top part and a bottom part, and you’d choose one of each and then stencil over it to make a picture you could color.

That’s what these outfits look like. Like someone went nuts with a fashion plate and glitter glue and then just brought it to life.

Left to right: Shinobu, Chiyori, Ayana, Manami, Miho

It’s so hard to pay attention to their performance in those outfits. And the shoes! Those shoes I noticed behind Chaewon earlier are Shonbu's! And I’m obsessed with Ayana’s red-shoe-and-patterned-socks combo.

Also Miho’s and Shinobu’s… furry… peplums? And the quilted skirts? And how none of the tops seem to go with any of the bottoms, even though they appear to be dresses? Question Mark? It’s so bizarre to me. What. Is. Happening. Each dress is awful alone, they’re worse together, they're even worse with the shoes, and they’re the worst in the context of this particular song, which is meant to be sort of swaggy hiphop. 

When I try to focus on the actual singing and dancing, there isn’t much there to judge. The song itself is kind of a nothing-burger tune wise and there’s hardly any choreo to speak of. They have energy, I’ll give them that. No one strikes an obviously horrendously bad note or falls over. They manage to do what they’re doing in some reasonably high heeled shoes, and they’re singing a song that is at least mostly in Korean. It’s clearly not up to the standard expected from debuted Kpop artists. I feel like I’d have to see them in normal clothes to be able to really judge. None of them stands out as better or worse than the rest. I give them an E for effort and I’d probably give them all Ds. They were still better than Hyewon. 

Dance Bae gives Chiyori and Miho both Ds, and the rest get Fs. (We hear Dance Bae saying that they all get Ds, but the on screen caption says otherwise, and my internet sleuthing agrees with the on screen caption.) I think, watching it back, that Chiyori and Miho got Ds for just taking on a big role in the performance and trying that little bit harder. Miho seemed to be the main vocal, sort of, and Chiyori was the center. 

Ok, let’s take a peek at some of the youngest -48 girls, singing the Japanese version of Knock Knock by Twice.

Asai Yuka is 14 and from SKE48.  We met her earlier when she walked in with Jurina. Umeyama Cocona is also 14 and is from NMB48. 

Left to right: Cocona with the big bow, Yuka with the blue ribbon

My thoughts: Aww, they just little babies! They probably practiced by themselves in a hallway or something for a few hours with no help. There’s not much to judge here. They’re obviously underskilled for this show and would have to be given Fs but it’s not their fault. I’m not going to make fun of a couple of 14 year olds who signed up for an adventure, not knowing how hard it would be. I sense tears in the future. 

I wrote that, and then watched Dance Bae give them both Fs and say, at a pre-show meeting, “I think these girls will cry a lot while they’re here.” Perhaps she’d be pleased to know that poor Cocona withdrew from the show before the second evaluation even took place! There's also some potential back story here. Per reddit:

From what I’ve heard (and I’m not sure how credible it is), Jurina and Yuuka planned to perform together for the first evaluation, but the producers wanted Jurina to do a solo, so Cocona got pulled from the NMB group [that performs Funny People] and her and Yuuka did this. That may explain why they did…particularly bad, to the point where it looks like they don’t even know the song.

That does sound like something MNET would do, and it also would explain how these two girls ended up in a performance together despite being in different groups (SKE48 and NMB48), giving it the ring of truth. So I'm going to be even more sparing of my criticism of the girls. They do come across as unprepared, but I think that's just because.... well, they were, through no fault of their own.

In any case, Cocona is one of the Japanese trainees who withdraws early in the process. It's probably for the reasons we'd imagine -- flying back and forth from Japan is taxing, and she's young enough to need to go to school still. She probably just wanted to go through so much stress just to get insulted and yelled at. Can't blame her!

Since we’re not going to see much of Cocona again, let’s find out what happened to her after she withdrew from the show. She went back to NMB48 and continued performing with them for a few more years, graduating at a special concert on March 26, 2022. She did some modeling for magazines in 2020, so she might still be pursuing that. Here’s her instagram -- she has 95,000 followers and seems to post influencer-esque content with lots of hashtags.

 Ganbatte, Cocona! Happy trails and much success to you!

10 auditions down, about 30 to go! Thanks for reading so far -- feel free to do all the things: like, reblog, comment, share, blah blah blah. Tune in next time when we continue the auditions, and stay warm, my friends!