#though imagining him as having been young/immature at some point in his existence is fun

[lithi]

He’s so funny

Demise: *sends his teenage-ish(?) fool servant to the surface*

Ghirahim: mmmhh what if I became... ✨Lord Ghirahim ✨

[flying-elliska]

Headcanons for ADHD characters Masterlist

I was asked for this a while ago and I feel this is a good discussion subject because the canon representation for ADHD is kind of abysmal and is often a caricature or a joke.

usual disclaimer, I'm not a therapist, this is not a diagnosis tool, just for fun, etc etc...basing this on my own experience/knowledge with ADHD and meeting a lot of ADHD people IRL. I'm going off the main symptoms first (inattention and/or hyperactivity, restlessness, impulsivity, problems with emotional/focus regulation, daydreaming, messiness, hyper-focus, fidgeting etc) and then looking at character traits that are not a necessary symptom but often associated (substance abuse and addiction, need to please, sensitivity to rejection, compassionate and creative, thrill seeking, very imaginative, charming and witty or withdrawn and shy or angry and irritable, whimsical and fun and a bit child-like, out of the box thinker, self esteem issues, unstable life, comorbidity with anxiety and depression, very intense feelings, functions better with adrenaline/in an emergency, disregard for rules and problems with authority OR extreme compliance, codependency, perceived as weird, clever in an atypical way, problems in school, extremely good at one specific thing, etc)

Also I found this list with actual canonical representation

BOOKS :

The 'fits to a T so I'm seeing it as my personal canon' list :

note : doesn't mean that the authors actually meant to create representation but it's very likely they at least got inspired by people who did have ADHD (even when the diagnosis itself did not exist) and explained it with 'it's just their personality' OR the story happens in a setting where the label doesn't exist as such. also not meant to be exhaustive.

- Helen Burns (from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë) One of Jane's school friends from the start of the novel, fits the inattentive type to a T : she can't seem to focus or learn her lessons, is constantly daydreaming, describes herself as messy and careless, forgets rules, and is easily distracted. She talks constantly about her own 'defective nature' and seems very sensitive to criticism but incapable of changing. She doesn't defend herself against the nuns' harsh punishments as she thinks she deserves them. She's presented as kind-hearted and compassionate, almost too good for this world, and hyperfocuses on her faith. Apparently sb even wrote an academic article on this. She dies so it's not super fun representation but it is interesting to see in an older book, to push back against the idea that ADHD was invented yesterday by Big Pharma lol.

- Grantaire (from Les Miserables, Victor Hugo) Part of the student revolutionary group Les Amis de l'ABC and resident skeptic, does not believe in the cause but is fixated on the group's idealistic leader (and yeah it sounds very gay, they die holding hands, there is a lot of Symbolism). He spends his time ranting about things that are only vaguely connected, is described as brilliant but incapable of sticking to any one profession or hobby, is an alcoholic, has a creative streak (was a painter at some point), likes wandering around the city, has massive self-esteem issues and is a general mess but does seem to care about his friends. This is not a very flattering portrayal as Grantaire is described as morally deficient but again, interesting in an old book. ADHD!Grantaire is a popular take in the modern fandom (i was in it before I was diagnosed it brought up a lot of Things) and it's very cathartic to see him get actual therapy in fic lmao.

- Luna Lovegood (from the Harry Potter series) JKR sucks but this is probably the most high profile case of a possible inattentive ADHD character so I didn't want to leave it out. She's a daydreamer, she is a big space cadet and seems to live in her own world, she has a very out of the ordinary sense of style, she's bullied for being weird, but she's also very kind and perceptive and cares a lot about her friends, and good at coming up with out of the box solutions. I wouldn't call it good representation, she's described as a wacko whom a lot of characters find cringeworthy but she's also pretty heroic, so. And she does seem to hyperfocus on magical creatures. Plus her father could also have it (and it runs in families).

- Jasper Fahey (from Six of Crows duology, Leigh Bardugo) Part of a young group of thieves with a heart of gold, he's a charmer and a compulsive gambler who quits college and incurs debts so massive he stops talking to his father out of shame. He's also an extremely talented sharpshooter and the scenes where he describes how the whole world slows and the rush of adrenaline when he is shooting sound like hyperfocus to a T. He's a loyal friend but also quite dependent on Kaz, the leader of the group, to keep him in line. He's witty, messy and he likes danger. His boyfriend later in the series, Wylan, is dyslexic and the way they learn to accommodate each other's issues honestly makes them one of my favorite couples ever. I need to reread these books and I am so stoked for the series I hope they do Jasper justice.

- Julian Diaz (from Cemetary Boys, Aiden Thomas) Love interest of the book, introduced as the 'high school resident bad boy', energetic motormouth who can't sit still and actually very endearing, has issues in school and gets bored easily, main problem is that he's a ghost...sort of. The whole thing was very cute and I love that Julian's personality is described as fun and attractive instead of annoying (which is, if you haven't noticed already, a pattern).

- Evie O'Neill (from the Diviners series, Libba Bray) She's a flapper in 1920s New York who ran away from her boring little town to make a life for herself ; she's a party girl and an impulsive thrill-seeker who hates standing still and is always looking for excitement to 'fill the void'. She craves fame and attention and pretty things, she can be a loyal friend but is also frequently self-centered and forgetful, she's street smart, resourceful and very charming and witty. She's also grieving, drinks too much and is definitely depressed. She's obviously meant as an archetype of the era, caught between trauma and excess, but it does come over as very hyperactive ADHD as well. Her powers to read objects also really pinged me as a good metaphor for the ADHD tendency to be overwhelmed by details.

The 'bit more of a reach but there's a vibe' list :

- Emma Woodhouse (from Emma, Jane Austen) Frequently cited as a character with ADHD, I didn't come up with this one but she fits. She's daydreaming, easily bored, has flights of fancy and hyper-focuses on matchmaking, is a bit impulsive and thrill seeking, clever in an unconventional way, described as a bit immature, mix of caring and self-centered.

- Ronan Lynch (from the Raven Cycle, Maggie Stiefvater) Ronan just has Neuroatypical Vibes, even though it's not entirely clear what, and I've seen people label him all sorts of things which is very valid. As for ADHD, he's restless, impulsive, likes to Go Fast and do street racing, he has very strong emotions he doesn't know what to do with, and big self esteem issues esp. at the start, is very all or nothing with people, snarky, drops out of school to be a magic farmer, problems with authority, looks like a scary mean goth but is actually a big softie (but like, with a few people), pulls shit out of his dreams. Is kind of dependent on his best friend at the start too.

- Sherlock Holmes (from the eponymous series by Arthur Conan Doyle) Again a character who has been diagnosed with all sorts of things. The biggest ADHD vibe for me is 'my mind rebels at stagnation' and the way he needs drugs to function outside of the thrill of a case, and the way he hyper-focuses on information he needs to be a detective while completely ignoring common knowledge. Also sort of dependent on his best friend Watson and isn't great at social interactions. Doesn't care much about upholding social conventions either. The RDJ adaptation is the one that has the most ADHD vibes to me.

- Harley Quinn (DC Comics/Movies) Big codependency issues (that's arguably the thing she's most known for) and sadly people with ADHD are often prone to getting into abusive relationships. It depends on the story too but she's very energetic, zany, impulsive, she likes shiny things and bright clothes, she's fun and chaotic and likes to break the rules, she's a criminal but she does seem to have a heart, she's also frequently immature and rash, etc.

What are your headcanons ? I would love to hear if you have some so I can add them to the list. I'll make a TV/Movies list soon.

[vocalyunho]

Forbidden

pairing — Mingi x reader (fem)

genre — angst(?), smut (honestly this has an entire storyline so idek anymore)

word count — 3.9k

warnings — daddy kink, angsty unprotected sex, usage of unrelated objects for sexual purposes.

synopsis  — your contract said it clear: ‘any type of romantic relationship with the artists is forbidden’…but what if the feelings are mutual.

When you sent your resume to KQ entertainment, you never knew things would turn out the way they did. Your only intention was to find a job that will pay enough to live decently in an apartment that will make you feel like home. You never asked for feelings and especially towards one of the artists of the company, nor did you ask for these feelings to be returned.

Makeup wasn’t your first and only profession. You studied it along with psychology which was your university department and since the makeup school required only 2 years of attending, you gave it a try on your gap year between high school and university. By your second year of uni, you were already done with makeup and since then you only focused on your studies, but once you graduated from college, psychology didn’t seem as exciting anymore.

This scared you a lot...this department always made you curious, made you wonder how the human mentality works and how the brain gets mixed in all of that and now...it just doesn’t. You knew this was probably a phase, there’s no way you suddenly stopped loving something you always dreamt of doing. So, after a lot of thinking and long conversations with your parents, you decided it’d be okay to do something else for a bit and this is how you ended up applying for the position of a makeup artist in a music company.

When the company accepted you and your last obligation was to accept the contract terms, you clearly read, written in big and bold letters, that “any type of romantic relationship with the artists is forbidden and if existent, it’ll lead to the worker’s dismissal from the position”.

You didn’t mind that at all and like every normal person, you accepted this work that offered not only a good salary, but the chance to work with many people and the freedom to put your imagination and makeup skills to work.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ 

You’ve been working for the company for 6 months now and every single day feels like a new adventure. You get to travel around the country and sometimes even in other countries and continents too. You get to see many places and how shows work to put out a result that’ll leave the audience in awe. You get to meet so many people, that at this point you don’t even remember the names of half of them, but still all of these make you excited. Even though it’s hard and you rarely have time to rest during the day, when the day’s over you feel like a full person that’s been productive and that’s enough for you.

You don’t work for all the artists of the company, though. Instead, you and 2 other makeup artists, a talented guy and an also very talented girl, are responsible for the members of ATEEZ, a rookie group that consists of 8 young men, all kind of close to your age who have a lot to show and a bright future, for sure. They seem kind and fun to be around and sometimes you talk to them during the makeup sessions, but even if you’re all comfortable around each other, you still keep your distance ,always having in mind the contract.

They’re all friendly apparently, always asking you and your 2 coworkers how you’ve been, if the day has been tiring so far and even if you’ve eaten, which really warms your heart. In the waiting rooms, you all sometimes sit down to eat and talk together and catch up on various things. However, since around the 3rd month of you working there, a particular member has been acting weirdly around you. You tried explaining it by checking how he acts towards your coworkers and, indeed, he doesn’t act the same way. You, also, tried thinking that he’s extremely flirty as a person, but still he’s not like that towards the others and that worried you so much that you tried to keep your distance, especially from him.

When you had to do their makeup for a show, you asked one of the two other artists to do Mingi’s makeup, when you were all hanging out in the waiting room you never sat next to Mingi and even when you were all talking, you never addressed a single word to him. You knew this would seem rude, if he noticed and unfortunately, he did and this is when he started acting more friendly.

He was still flirty in all ways, but he was the one trying to get closer to you after he realised you kept a distance. He would compliment you about every tiny thing you got or changed on you and it surprised you sometimes, because not even your friends see every small change you make on you. He would ask personal questions, to get to know you and sometimes even imply sexual jokes.

His every day behaviour made your heart clench unexplainably and the fact that he was also touchy didn’t help at all. He was never rude or inappropriately touchy. Instead, he was kind and acted like a gentleman with a hint of implication that he’s into you and you couldn’t lie to yourself, you were into him as well. His nice behaviour made your heart leap, his body and the way he moves would make your mind go crazy, especially when they were practicing in the waiting room. His deep voice always made you wonder how he’d sound in bed and if he’d be the type to moan or groan...what his favourite position is...and ohmygod is he rough and hard or gentle and soft?

All your questions were answered the night of their 1st win, when you all met in their dorm to celebrate their achievement until everyone got drunk and long story short... you and Mingi ended up fucking in his bedroom with no one noticing it. That night you both didn’t realise anything, you have no idea how you ended up on a chair riding him or how he ate you out afterwards or even how he told you he has a daddy kink...the only thing you know for sure is that since then you haven’t exchanged a single word with Mingi.

No one seems to have noticed it, even if he’s trying to reach out to you every day. At work, he tries to find you alone to talk or even get any type of sign from your gaze, but nothing and when the day is over he, sometimes calls you but you’ve never picked up.

You’re afraid. You broke your contract because of some damn alcohol and...fuck...you like him, you like him a lot, but this is forbidden. You might lose your job if something happens and the rumours, which are more reality than rumours, start going around from ear to ear and mouth to mouth.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ 

Yesterday was the beginning of the tour and Mingi tried to reach you before and after the show, failing both times because before the show you made sure all the members were around and after the show, you managed to leave without Mingi seeing you. Later that night though, he messaged you instead of calling like any other time.

11:23

from Mingi.

"tomorrow i want us to talk. Stop ignoring me, we're not 5...let's talk things out"

he's right. You're being immature all this time and ignoring him won't lead anywhere...but what does he wanna talk about? oh, that was a good fuck, but don't worry i won't let anyone ever know? our secret is safe? you won't be dismissed by the company?

11:25

to Mingi.

"we have nothing to say...please don't make me any more uncomfortable. It was a mistake and I’m sorry".

11:26

from Mingi.

"no. we have to talk. wait for me after the show. the others will head to a restaurant".

You didn't answer after that. You can't even look at him in the eyes after that night, how are you supposed to talk to him?

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ 

"don't you dare leave after the show, I'll talk to you today want it or not". He's whispering and even if he's trying to act chill because of the staff around, his gaze is burning you. He's mad and his voice is so deep, it sent chills down your spine.

"leave me alone" you whispered back. Who is he to order you? if you don't wanna talk to him, you won't talk to him and that's that.

Everyone is running around now. The show is about to start, the last makeup and outfit checks are done, the members are on their line with their mics in hands ready to greet their beloved fans and the first song plays...

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ 

"good job today too. Thank you everyone for your hard work!!" ATEEZ's manager speaks and all types of "thank you's" can be heard from both the staff and the 8 members. Everyone starts picking up their belongings, the staff put all the equipment on their big bags and the members changed into comfortable clothes to wear on their dinner. You and your colleague are on the makeup room, as the third one just left and you're both about to call it a day too.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Y/N? as we said?"

"yeah! Let's get some nice brunch please...I haven't had a decent brunch for years"

"don't worry, I know a nice place. See ya"

"byee"

Everyone must have left, including Mingi hopefully, because all the lights are off except for the one in the room you're in. The entire day you've been under a hell of a stress...the shows are so chaotic, you have to run around every minute, redoing makeup, fixing it, wiping it off and doing it again...and Mingi...he gave you even more stress with his texts last night but at least he didn't keep his words today. You turned the light off, ready to leave when a sound came from the wardrobe. It was a loud one because the room is all the way down the hall, but you heard it in the makeup room...you know you're not allowed to leave before checking all the rooms, but now you're afraid and everyone has already left.

Taking the heavy bag on your shoulder, you started checking all the rooms one by one ready to use the bag as a weapon if needed, until you reached the wardrobe door. A dim light can be seen from under the door and if you were afraid before, now you're literally shaking. Keeping the bag with a strong hold, you opened the door with a fast move, only to reveal a seated Mingi on one of the couches in the room.

"fuck...what are you doing here? I nearly passed out"

"I told you I wanted to talk...and as I see, you want to"

"no I don't. I was actually leaving just now, hence the bag" you said and turned around to leave, but Mingi got up and pulled you in, closing the door afterwards.

"listen to me now" he's keeping you in front of him with his hands on your shoulders.

"I said I’m leaving" you said, pulling away, but he got a hold of your bag throwing it down across from you.

that’s it.

"listen, I don't know and I don’t care who you think you are, but I want this night totally erased from my mind and yours too. It was a mistake, I know it and no matter how much I liked it, it should've never happened. I won't destroy your career, if you're worried about that and if it's needed I'll even quit this job so-"

"shut up"

"excuse me?!"

"you liked it"

"what are you talking about...I never said that"

"you just did".

He started taking steps towards you and you took some back, the big wooden table of the room stopping you from walking backwards more.

"tell me you liked it, again" he's in front of you seeming taller than he actually is and his face is so close to yours, you have to look all the way up to meet his eyes.

"I didn't, I hated it".

"I'll make you like it, then" he said and crushed his lips on yours, not even hesitating a bit.

You didn't pull away, you really wanted to feel him again and now that you are, it feels like you needed it. He picked you up, making you sit on the table behind you and now you're on the same height, completely facing him.

“Your lip glosses always taste so good”, he breathed out and bit your lip, eagerly sliding his tongue inside you, as you opened up the slightest bit. He played around for a bit and when he grasped your thigh, you let a desperate moan fill his mouth at which he grabbed your throat and parted your lips.

"have you been thinking about me since that night?"

"y-yes" you looked anywhere, but his eyes.

"look at me...yes what" he growled, his hand around your throat turning you on more and more.

"yes, daddy"

"that's the good girl I know" he said and attacked your neck, his kisses trailing down from your ear to the valley between your breasts. Your eyes fell shut and his hand left your throat and barely lifted your skirt to cup your centre, but you instantly grabbed his wrist to stop him.

"I want you inside me, not your hand”.

"whatever my babygirl wants, she gets".

He unbuckled his belt, while sucking on your collarbone and let his jeans and underwear fall down. Your hand grabbed his dick, stroking him slowly and he let his head fall on your shoulder.

“fuck, baby”

“mm, do you like that?”

“more than you can imagine”.

He’s breathing heavily as you pull you skirt up and move closer to the edge of the table, hoping he gets the hint.

“so impatient” he half whispers half chuckles on your shoulder.

“please, Mingi”.

He pushes your legs wider apart and touches his forehead against yours.

“babygirl” he gives a peck on your lips and the burn on your stomach only gets stronger by the words he uses mixed with his deep voice “I’m about to fuck you raw now, will you take it for me?”

“yes...daddy”

He pushed you down, making you lie on top of the table as he pumped himself and his free hand moved your panties to the side. He shoved himself into you fast, bottoming out with a smooth motion and letting a groan leave his lips. Your breath got caught in your throat as he grabbed both your wrists and pinned them down on each side of your body.

He starts to move, pulling only halfway out before snapping his hips against yours again. His pace is fast and his thrusts hard enough to make your eyes roll on the back of your head. Incoherent syllables and whines are making their way out of your lips, getting mixed with the feeling between your legs.

Your submission to the pleasure gets bigger and bigger with each powerful thrust of Mingi’s dick inside you and you’re so tight around him, you can feel every ridge of his cock getting dragged along your walls.

“fuck, I don’t remember you being so tight”

“h-harder”

He lets your wrists and digs his fingers into your sides, holding onto them for dear life as he’s pounding into you mercilessly. His grunts and your soon-to-be screams are filling the, otherwise, silent room and if the lighting wasn’t so dim, you’d be able to see his face clearer and admire every single fucked out feature of his, like he’s the most beautiful painting in a museum or the most meaningful song on a vinyl, but you can’t.

“tell daddy how good his cock’s fucking you, baby”

“you-you’re fucking me s-so well so well-AH”

He’s pumping in and out of you harder and choked out screams have taken the place of your whines. His hand flies to your clit and just then you realise how sensitive you are...just his touch made your legs and lower torso tremble uncontrollably, the bundle of nerves is going crazy under his fingers and the filling of your pussy is over the edge now.

“ffffuuuck me- I’m gonna co-come-“ you hold his wrist on your clit as your back arches from the table and you come all over him, all around his length still inside you, fucking your juices back in. Your voice comes out in choked out screams and meowls while your eyes roll back and your body shakes under him.

“that’s it baby, that’s it” he’s pounding, not slowing down a bit and when you feel him twitch, you unconsciously use his own weapon to get him to his climax faster.

“come inside me, daddy”

With a single thrust and a number of curses falling from his lips, he’s come all inside you and before even finishing, he pulls out, his dick still twitching as white spurts of liquid eject from his tip.

“ffuuuck- you little brat-“ his breathing is quick and loud, but his voice so desperate.

“you like that...a lot hmm?” you’re still trying to catch your breath, but he’s not having it.

“If you hadn’t called me that, I wouldn’t have come yet...I’d still be fucking you, but you’re an impatient little brat” his eyes are dark.

“Fuck me more, then” your voice is playful as he positions himself in front of your hole again.

“but not with your dick daddy, I wanna try something else” you say, turning your head to the mics on the table and he does the same with a smirk painted on his lips. You know which one is his and you grab it as he moves quickly to his backpack, after pulling up his jeans a little, and returns with a condom in hand.

He took the mic from your hands and slid the condom onto it and your hand flew to his fully erected dick again that’s chasing after a second orgasm.

You can still feel your pussy throbbing and the juices spilling out and wetting your thighs, but the thought of him fucking you with his mic after his member was in you gets you excited like never before.

He comes as close as possible with the mic in his hand and lifts your leg to place it on the table as you do the same with the other, spreading them as much as possible for him to have the greatest view.

“oof, baby is wetter than before” he says touching your core with his fingers to test your wetness.

“do you want me to fuck you with my mic?”

“yes” you say stroking him slowly and steadily, earning a long sigh from him.

“beg for it, then”

He’s not in a position to make you beg, not with your hand on his cock but you do it anyways, not to hurt his pride.

“Mingi please, just do it”

“...”

“please Mingi, fuck me good with it”

“you forget a little something”

“please, daddy”

“that’s right” he pins your right leg down and slowly pushes the head of the mic into you. Your breathing hitches and when all of the head is inside you, you realise that the width difference between it and his dick isn’t that big, it’s pretty much the same. Your own hand starts pumping him faster, letting the squeaky sounds of his and your juices on his cock echo in the room. He slowly pulls the mic out all the way, just to push it halfway in again. He’s being gentle and slow, he’s probably never done something like this before, so that’s why he’s so careful. You hum biting your lip instinctively and he notices, bringing his head closer to yours.

“let me hear every single one of your sounds” he says and pushes it in fast, drawing a breathy moan from your lips.

“fuck” the feeling of it isn’t much different from a regular member with a condom on and you’re glad about that. He hisses at the feeling between his legs and now that he’s closer you can see his pretty features with his eyebrows furrowed and his teeth showing in an attempt not to be too loud.

His left hand grabs your nape, connecting your lips and as his lips are against yours, he starts moving the mic faster.

“ah,ah” you breathe against him and he bites your lip, preventing you from pulling away, just to earn a good amount of choked up moans in his mouth. His dick twitches between your fingers and you can feel the veins on it pulsating, signalising he’s close once again.

The overstimulation doesn’t let you keep up long enough and your legs have already started trembling.

“I’m gonna come again” you cry out breaking the kiss and feeling your walls clench around the mic.

“do it”, he says and pushes the mic faster in and out, letting the wet sounds get mixed with your panting and you come for the second time this night. Your cries and his groans fill your ears and your hand keeping you up feels weaker than ever before. He lets go off your neck focusing on the sensation on his member as louder throaty grunts take place until a single harder press on his cock takes him to the edge. He comes in quick, hot spurts and you position him downwards to prevent it from staining both your clothes.

After he’s done you let go of him and plop down on the table trying to bring your breathing back to normal. He pulls the microphone out and takes a minute to fix himself up a little and admire the wet condom. When he’s done, he takes it off and walks away, still breathing heavily. Your chest is rising and falling fast and your eyes are closed, when he speaks...

“you know I can lose my job too, right?” his back is facing you as he’s searching for something in his backpack.

“what?” you lift your head.

“of course...my contract doesn’t allow me to form romantic relationships with coworkers either”.

“and why are you doing all of this?” you say sitting up.

“because I like you...and no I’ve never done this with any other staff member before, I’m not like that” he’s looking at you now.

“we can’t keep doing that, Mingi. It’s risky and forbidden”

“but...”, he says, walking back to you with tissues in both hands.

“BUT if someone...ANYONE knows about this, we’re both done...we’ll be gone, Mingi and I can’t risk you losing your job. You have 7 other people who need you to keep moving forward, to make the team’s dream come true...you can’t let them or your own dream down because of some damn hormones”

“do you like me, Y/N?” he’s speaking softly, looking down as you help him wipe all the unnecessary liquids from your thighs and centre.

“...I do...”

“then, please, wait for me...”

“what if it doesn’t work out, Mingi?”

“we can still try”

“I don’t know...”

[johnadamsbignaturals]

“Where did you go? :(”

so ive gotten a few asks over the past year about why i’ve been so innactive on this blog, and i’d be lying if i said that it wasn’t largely due to how this fandom addresses racism.

now, i’ve made posts about this in the past. i’ve written paragraphs upon paragraphs from 2015-2018 about how, when dealing with content focused on slaveowners and white people in general from over 200 years ago, one has to be careful and critical in how we interact with it. and up until recently, the 1776 fandom was really, really great in that regard.

as a fanbase that was more history-focused than other circles around history based content, we would take care to recognise the shortcomings, the mistakes, and even the evil actions made by these figures in addition to any good they might have done. we made it clear, time and time again, that while we might be entertained by the characterization of these figures in 1776, that we understood that more often than not that many of these men weren’t great people.

another thing that helped with this is that the show itself took time to focus on the negative aspects of these figures, pointedly letting the viewer know that slavery was an evil institution and that those who owned slaves were clearly in the wrong.

for years, things were great for me here in this fanbase. yes, after the ham-mania died down our numbers dwindled, but i was still happy to be participating in this musical niche. then, about a year and a half ago (forgive me if my timing is wrong) i began noticing a massive influx of fanmade content about edward rutledge.

for those of you who are unfamiliar with 1776, edward rutledge is portrayed as a young, wealthy plantation owner from south carolina. he is unabashedly racist, and holds slavery as something sacred.

after singing a song declaring that the north ought to take as much responsibility for the existance of slavery in america in the south due to slave ships being run by northern merchants (an argument that, historically, is not necessarily factual), he leads the southern delegates out of the congressroom. this is on the grounds that the slavery clause in the original draft of the declaration of independence, describing slavery as immoral, must be removed if he and the other southern delagates were to vote for the bill to pass.

he is at no point redeemed. this is not a fun villain. he is not written in a way that would make a reasonable audience like him. during his song, “Molasses to Rum”, he paints a graphic picture of the process of forcing black people onto ships and being sold into slavery in auctions, and that scene is intense enough to turn my stomach. he’s also a southern gentleman dressed in white, which is in fact an allegory for the devil. i have often said that while john dickenson is the antagonist of the story, rutledge is the villain.

so i am at a loss to understand why, just WHY anyone would be interested in woobifying this figure. i could at least understand (even if i disapprove) talking about a horrible figure like they’re your “sweet precious baby <3” if they were featured in media that portrayed them as being better than they were, but rutledge?? he was never made out to be likeable in the slightest. his entire character in 1776 is built on his privilege and racism, and he has basically no other character traits. it pains me to say this, but if i’m being entirely honest the only reason i can imagine someone upholding him is if... well, if that person agreed with his views on slavery on at least some level.

the thing is, it wasn’t always like this! back when i first joined that fandom, people HATED rutledge. he was thought of as someone who was disgusting, immature, and downright evil. now, though, if i look through the 1776 tag it’s FILLED with fan content of him, and i can’t wrap my head around why this has happened.

so that’s it, really. don’t get me wrong, i still love 1776 but, as a black woman, i can’t force myself to continue to interact with people who continue to uphold someone so viciously racist. it’s just not fair to myself.

[ultravioletsoul]

Maybe an unpopular opinion regarding Makarov/Character Analysis (part 1)

Sometimes I read comments of CoD fans saying that Vladimir always was an asshole for apparently no reason, that he was the typical Russian cliché villain doing cliché bad things (such an original concept, I know). And while I do agree that for the most part the games didn’t do a very good job at giving him any significant depth (and he acts like a jerk, it’s true), I also have to say that he’s probably one of the most misunderstood characters in the series. Not because I think he was some poor innocent man who did nothing wrong, but because his villainous portrayal tends to take the spotlight every time he’s onscreen and we literally cannot see anything else beyond that. Which, of course, makes him look very one-dimensional since the game always has to remind you in oh-not-so-subtle ways how evil he is.

The story of MW never goes into full detail as to what drove him to do the horrible things he did. And it’s not clear unless one bothers to analyze some obscure information hidden in the loading cutscene of No Russian and does a little research on the side. In all honesty, I wish his story would have been better explained and developed by other means than just a slideshow of newspaper articles and an overview of his dossier. I would have been content with a special trailer that actually explained his background, rather than have him say some pseudo Sun Tzu lines in a few teasers and let that be the entirety of his character development but okay… I guess this was as far as Infinity Ward’s story-telling capabilities went back then.

Sure, you may think: who the hell cares about his motivations? He was an evil mofo and needed to be put down. Well, unfortunately for these people, I exist and I do care because Vladimir is one of my faves— perhaps my most favorite character in the entire MW universe. And though I like him because he’s an unapologetic baddie, that’s not the only reason.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Vladimir is this super complex character that nobody else gets, but there are definitely some elements that give him a few extra layers and they’re worthy of being analyzed.

Beware, this is going to be a long post and will contain a few historical references. This isn’t a comprehensive breakdown, and I’ll probably make a lot mistakes along the way because I’m not a history buff by any means (please, don’t yell at me ;A;), but it should be a rough explanation of what I think led Vladimir to such extremist views and why I think he’s a good antagonist in Call of Duty. Also it could be a helpful reference for anyone who wishes to write a story about him.

I’m not claiming this is the most accurate interpretation of Vladimir, or that it’s the only valid one, but if any of this information comes in handy or offers a different insight into his character then I’ll consider my mission accomplished.

Without further ado, here we go!

Tagging @sunset-and-periwinkle​​​ and @renegad3spectre​ because they may be interested in this post :v

1. No Russian

So one of the first recollections that come to mind when thinking about MW2 is the infamous mission of No Russian. This kind of content was so violent and crude for its time that it caused quite the controversy and it still divides the opinion between people who think videogames should push boundaries and people who believe there are things that shouldn’t be portrayed in such an offhanded way. Whether including that level in MW2 was a good or terrible choice is not the point of this post. However, I’ll share my personal experience.

Me, back when I played this mission I didn’t give it much thought. I mean… it didn’t have this serious impact on me as I’m guessing the developers intended, from what I’ve read, but that’s mainly because I wasn’t mature enough to make a proper assessment of the story-line and to me CoD games weren’t about deep narratives either. Keep in mind that I was an immature kid and I just wanted to play a game that my brother enjoyed. So yes, without much thought I breezed through No Russian, accomplished the objectives and it wasn’t until the end of the mission that I realized I’d been played like a damn fiddle.

And my first reaction to seeing Makarov killing me was “bro, I thought we were allies”. Never mind the carnage that had ensued moments ago, never mind that I had participated in it. I was more offended by this unexpected 'betrayal' and well... imagine how stupid I was for thinking Vladimir could be my friend. The fact that Allen was a CIA agent completely eluded me and I didn’t understand a freaking thing of what was going on but that was on me. I shouldn’t have been playing those games at my young age because evidently I wasn't ready to handle adult themes like that.

Replaying this mission now that I’m older made me realize how messed up it was, and maybe not for the most obvious reasons. Yeah, innocent people die all around us and that's something we cannot stop from happening, no matter what we do. However, it’s not really necessary for us to hurt civilians to complete the level (we’re not punished for not doing it) so we can be simple witnesses to the brutality ensuing in front of us, which is as equally messed up perhaps. You can even skip the whole mission altogether if you want to, so no biggie: you’re spared the nightmare fuel and you can happily head to Brazil to capture Alejandro Rojas. Heck, you’re even rewarded a glimpse of Ghost ready to torture Alejandro’s assistant and all is back to normal, yay!

However, when you think about it, from the perspective of the story, Allen wasn’t given the option to skip anything. He was pushed to commit a vile deed and ordered to follow Makarov’s lead no matter how morally questionable those actions turned out to be in the end. Shepherd told him that this mission would cost him a piece of himself and he was right about it. Had Allen survived, I’m pretty sure he would have been scarred for life after what he did. I don’t know how he could have lived with himself knowing that he slaughtered all those innocent people. Vladimir killing him off was kind of… an act of mercy in a way, though of course we know he had completely different intentions for doing so.

So people may wonder, why the heck Vladimir carried out that massacre? Some common opinions I read is because he’s an asshole, because he’s crazy, because he wants to make a statement, because he enjoys being a psychopath and hurting others. All these may be true to some extent, we’ll never know for sure, but it’d be very simplistic to just leave it at that without taking into consideration other elements of the story that were left implicit.

I’m going to say that, from my perspective, I didn’t get the impression Makarov enjoyed killing those civilians (but hear me out, neither did he regret it!). It would have been pretty easy to make him this psycho that slaughters people with a smile on his face, but that’s not what we see in No Russian… and perhaps it’s even more terrifying when you realize how casual he is about the whole affair. You really get the impression that he’s a man on a mission and he carries it out in a very no-nonsense manner, does it all with a straight face, without batting an eyelash, without any trace of doubt about what he’s doing, not even a hitch in his voice, absolutely no emotion whatsoever. His actions, his words, his whole demeanor, all scream about being a professional at what he does for better or for worse.

He didn’t know these people, he had no quarrel with them, and yet he killed them all in cold blood. Why? Because they were stepping stones to his goals and there was a very established purpose for that op. To the rest of the world, yea, it  may seem like there’s no logical reason for what he did other than he’s nuts but, honestly, Vladimir could care less about that. The only thing that matters to him are the results.

Even if the whole world thinks that he’s insane, in his mind this was the most reasonable course of action. To him it had to be done, there was no other way, and he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came because he was truly convinced it was the right thing to do. The fact that he (a criminal who’s wanted by the entire world and probably cannot afford to leave himself out in the open) participated in that brutal event shows the utmost importance it had to his plans. Vladimir personally oversaw and carried out the operation, he didn’t leave anyone else in charge because of the very special meaning it had for him. He says “for Zakhaev” before engaging FSB units because this incident would mark the beginning of a new chapter in Russian history, a chapter Vladimir would write in honor of the man who was his friend and mentor— the man who started it all, who gave him a cause to believe in and fight for.

He definitely had his reasons for what he did. They were the wrong reasons of course, but Vladimir didn’t act on a whim nor did he waste his time on matters that didn’t advance his agenda. He didn’t start a war nor massacred hundreds of people at that airport for simple fun and without a solid motive (though this isn’t by any means a justification, it still was a pretty shitty thing to do). We all know that it was a false flag operation, as he wanted to put the blame on the US for the attack. His intention was sparking a war between Russia and America and he was willing to achieve that by any means necessary, even if thousands of his countrymen had to die, even if he had to make common cause with Shepherd (we don’t know under which circumstances and terms), a man who by all accounts should have been his worst enemy— a man who had set up an entire task force for the sole purpose of hunting Vladimir down. And don’t get me wrong, they weren’t buddies, they still hated each other’s guts and would kill the other in a heartbeat, but they were willing to work together towards the same goal because none of them would succeed on their own.

So, ultimately, Vladimir’s objective was riling up the public opinion to push for an invasion of America and provide the Russian government a ‘legitimate’ reason to do it. Does this have 9/11 commentary undertones? Well, I’m not gonna be the judge of that but it could be a possibility.

However, to understand this moment, we’ll have to go much further back in time.

2. His Childhood

This is going to be a huge oversimplification of Soviet history, I’m afraid, so my apologies in advance. Don’t take my word as the absolute truth, this is barely scratching the surface.

According to the information seen in No Russian, and Return to Sender, little Volodya was born on April 10th (not sure how reliable is the wiki since I was convinced he was born on October 4th *shrugs*) of 1970 in Ivanovo, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Or for those who, like me, don’t like those long names, better known as Soviet Russia.

As a curious fact, Ivanovo is known as the City of Brides because it was a very important center of textile industries in the Soviet Union that attracted many young women seeking work. It also has an important historical significance as hotbed for revolutionary activity in czarist Russia and was the city where supposedly the first Bolshevik assembly took place (earning the nickname of City of the First Soviet). During the Second War it proved invaluable as a front city, located close to enemy lines, receiving refuges and injured soldiers of the Red Army that treated their wounds in the many hospitals that were set up for that purpose. Also, in addition to producing armament and fighting in the war, the citizens made good use of their industries and donated huge quantities of fabric to make millions of uniforms.

Back to the topic, next thing we have to wonder is what Vladimir’s life was like as a child born in the 70s. We don’t know much about it and it’s never even mentioned anywhere in the game but, if we had to hazard a guess, he most likely had a relatively happy childhood— raised like any average Soviet kid at the time. His parents were maybe workers, maybe doctors, maybe engineers, maybe teachers, maybe in the military, but they surely weren’t bad people and they wanted their son to be a decent member of society. They didn’t raise him to be a criminal, they didn’t shape him into a monster. If Vladimir had at least one grandfather alive, then he would have served during the Great Patriotic War (a term used in Russia and other former Soviet republics to refer to the conflict in the Eastern Front during WWII). And as a kid, Volodya probably grew up in a typical khrushchyovka apartment with his family. It wasn’t very luxurious but, you know, it wasn’t so bad either and it was home sweet home for them.

Now you gotta imagine what growing up in the Soviet Union was like. Education was heavily influenced by the Communist party and children swam in a sea of propaganda. No, no matter what western propaganda says, they didn’t teach him to hate the west as a kid. Vladimir didn’t want to wipe out Americans from the face of the Earth or skin them alive as you probably imagined at some point, but from a young age he was taught to be proud of being born in the greatest country in the whole world and he pitied the ‘oppressed’ American workers for their lack of Soviet blessings, for being unable to stand up to their imperialist overlords. Heck, this was a popular song in the 80s, when he was about ten years old and probably every Soviet kid sang it at school, including him.

Speaking about that, at school he must have been in contact with several ethnic groups— remember that the industries attracted a lot of people to Ivanovo, particularly women, from many places all over the Soviet Union and, even to this day, Ivanovo is a multi-cultural city with over a hundred nationalities. It’s safe to say that Vladimir would have never given it much thought if someone wasn’t an ethnic Russian nor would he have cared. There weren’t nationalities or differences back then. Everyone was a Soviet citizen and everyone was equal or so it would seem at least, if you ignore the multiple genocides, mass killings, deportations and other horrors of the Stalin era before the Soviet Union adopted a more moderate domestic policy and started a process of de-stalinization after his death— eliminating his cult of personality and other institutions that allowed him to hold autocratic power.

This was also known as the Khrushchev Thaw period, and it was during this time that repression and censorship began to become more lax thanks to Nikita Khrushchev’s policies, and millions of prisoners were released from the gulags. It also opened up the Soviet Union to some economic reforms, trade with other countries, as well as educational and cultural exchanges in the form of foreign uncensored books and movies, music, dances, fashion, and new forms of entertainment in national television. So all this would seem a shift towards a more positive outlook for the Soviet citizens.

Our little Volodya shared and played with other kids in his neighborhood in the playgrounds of the apartment buildings, maybe fell off those Soviet swings and whacked his head a few times but that was okay, he still had fun and laughed and cried like any other child. He grew up listening to old pop music, synth (because people just didn’t listen to patriotic music all the time) and watching Bollywood movies which were all the rage at the time in the USSR as an alternative to western cinema. He had friends, a family that loved him. He spent weekends at the dacha (cottages outside the city) working the land with his family, growing fresh produce. He probably had an affectionate babushka that looked after him, told him many stories, and cooked hearty meals for him because she was a genius at handling finances and feeding the family. She surely was a god-believing woman despite the widespread atheism in a society where the word of Marx and Lenin had an almost religious significance, who took no shit from anyone, and who would  chew Vladimir’s head off if he so much went out under-dressed in a breezy day. Even as a grown ass man, she would still intimidate him because you don’t mess with babushkas!

Like a good Soviet kid he was taught to never lie, to help his parents and respect the work of others, to have good manners and not be a spoiled brat, to be considerate and kind to his elders, encouraged to be resourceful, to do things by himself and not expect others to come to his aid, to improve his culture and intellect, to study hard and become someone who would help build the future of socialist paradise. He probably collected silly trinkets like many kids do, he spent his time learning to carve wood and other crafts, reading about the great war heroes and the communist leaders. Year after year he played zarnitsa, a war game for kids and a very popular activity in the Young Pioneers (the Soviet ‘Boy Scouts’, so to speak) that trained young generations for military life, compulsory for every man, cultivating their love for the USSR and preparing them to defend the homeland from the enemy.

Life back then could be tough at times, true, but he must have been quite happy and there was joy to be had. He was raised to be patriotic, a good communist, living in what he believed was a place of peace where all were equals and all were comrades. Having little contact with western influences, he grew up listening to a carefully woven narrative and was told of the decadence of warmonger capitalists that feared the spread of communism so much that they would wage countless wars to stop it and destroy other peace-loving nations. So much could be argued regarding this statement, sure, but this is what he was told and it was during a time when Operation Condor (the US-backed campaign of state terrorism and wave of right-wing dictatorships in Latin America during the 70s-80s) was in full swing to eradicate communism and any Soviet influence from South America. Not to mention the many proxy wars waged throughout these decades, as well.

“For years the western hypocrisy has made the world a battlefield.”

Little Octobrists and Young Pioneers were a thing and the Communist ideology was still going strong even if some started to quietly question it. Not that many did, at any rate, since the dreaded KGB kept a close eye on everyone so dissidents wouldn’t spread the wrong ideas in the Soviet society. Well, at that time maybe you wouldn’t be sent to a gulag just for saying bad things but someone would ‘talk’ some reason into you and there would be subtle threats to tone your attitude down or else your life and that of your relatives could be screwed. Don’t say this, don’t do that, the walls have ears and you’re being watched.

You have to keep in mind that he also grew up under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. And much like American kids, Vladimir would have been greatly concerned about nuclear armageddon and be familiarized with procedures to follow in case such a terrible event came to pass.

The US and Russia pointed nukes at each other for many years and the NATO military exercises of Able Archer— at the peak of Cold War hysteria— didn’t help matters. These were annual exercises but that year of 1983, new elements never seen before had been introduced, and then there was the menace of the new Pershing II nuclear missiles that had been recently deployed in Western Europe. If launched, these would be able to reach their target in less than ten minutes (faster than any other missile known until then), landing with high accuracy and virtually no warning.

Until then the only thing stopping a nuclear war was the threat of mutually assured destruction, but these missiles tipped off the scales in favor of the west, since the Soviets would have no way to retaliate if their command centers or even their own missile launch facilities were targeted. So the Soviet Politburo was very concerned about this situation, in a time when president Reagan poured great efforts to fight the Brezhnev Doctrine (which established the legitimization of military interventions in Eastern bloc states, or any country that became a threat to international socialism) and show the world that the USSR wasn’t indestructible.

The increase in realism of these exercises, the strained relationship with the US under the Reagan administration, previous psychological operations, participation of heads of government in the exercise, and recent deployment of these new ballistic missiles, made the Soviet military believe that the US and NATO were preparing for a preemptive strike and that the exercise was nothing but a ruse. In response, the Soviets readied their nukes, air forces in East Germany and Poland were put on high alert to any funny business, and Soviet intelligence monitored the situation closely for signs of an impeding attack.

After nine days, the exercises came to an end and that was probably the time both countries were the closest to nuclear annihilation since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

So in those years, Vladimir was living under the administration of Leonid Brezhnev famously known for his era of stagnation and also for his passionate kisses (the famous socialist fraternal kiss, you guys :v). Though it’s worthy of being mentioned that in the early 70s the Soviet Union had reached the peak of international power and prestige.

Nikita Khrushchev, Brezhnev’s predecessor, had promised that by the 80s communism would be a reality and maybe that wasn’t so hard to believe at the time. The economy was growing at a rate of about 3% annually and things had started off relatively well in the mid 60s when Brezhnev assumed office. There was full employment, even minimal wage was sufficient to afford basic necessities, healthcare was a given, education in all levels was free and once you finished university or a vocational course, there was a job waiting for you. Things were pretty much settled for everyone. There wasn’t a lot to worry about, not many uncertainties. It was a pleasant predictive life for the most part. Not perfect, by any means, and it had its difficulties but Vladimir’s family felt protected and safe and they had great hopes for the future.

What went wrong then?

To be continued in part 2

[a-damson-in-distress]

The Protégé 5

Pairing: MadaSaku

Plot: In search of a new cellist for his prestigious orchestra, an infamously feared maestro stumbles upon a young rising star.

The Protégé 1 | The Protégé 2 |  The Protégé 3 |  The Protégé 4

Note: I don't even know what to say at this point, I mean I'm such an unreliable fanfic writer that you guys have probably forgotten this here thing even exists but ANYWHORE the saga continues. As with every chapter so far, here's the song recommendation for the Beijing concert, the one with the jazz theme and Mei's vocals: Hooverphonic - 2 Wicky (Live at Koningin Elisabethzaal 2012) as well as Hooverphonic - Mad About You (also the live version). 

I suggest you listen to the entire concert and all the songs, because the band is just great, though not all of their songs have that slow, seductive James-Bond-like sound I was imagining for that particular concert. Some of them are more happy-go-lucky pop songs, so Madara wouldn't have picked them for the concert. But just imagine that the entire programme would have consisted of songs like 2 Wicky and Mad About You. I chose the songs based on the singer mentioned in this chapter, because I think that's the type of music that would best fit an alluring and seductive woman like Mei Terumi.

Anyway, have fun reading and please let me know what you think! I'm dying to get some feedback, because things are finally kicking off in this chapter and it was so much fun to write and I'm really looking forward to your opinion.

                                                        ---------- 

Sakura Haruno stunned Tokyo with her first solo performance in Maestro Uchiha’s ensemble with the grace and elegance of a musician far more experienced than what can usually be expected of a twenty-year old. Demonstrating her mastery of the cello with Camille Saint-Sa��ns’ Cello Concerto number 1 in A minor, the young Ms Haruno proved once again that she was worthy of her nickname. Imperatrix Furiosa is what the press are calling her, though the talented cellist seems to be only channelling that alter ego on stage. At the afterparty, Ms Haruno was less a furious empress and more a down-to-earth, if not timid, girl-next-door type, prompting criticism by some that Maestro Uchiha signed her on at too young an age and that the shy cellist may have bitten off more than she can chew with her world-famous globetrotting new conductor (Madara Uchiha pictured here with Sakura Haruno during the afterparty at the Sky Lounge Stellar Garden Bar).

Sakura’s eyes travelled from the article to the photo right next to it, depicting her maestro and herself. While Mr Uchiha was his usual suave self in a black-lined burgundy-coloured velvet suit jacket and his signature barely-there-but-still-somehow-visible smirk, Sakura stuck out like a sore thumb. Not only because of her hair colour and her height – she was sure Mr Uchiha would dwarf her even if she wore Ino’s tallest high heels. It was this whole timid and immature little girl vibe she was giving off with her floral collar dress, her pastel pink ballet flats and her shy and unsure smile.

Having read the review of their Tokyo concert, Sakura was now worried whether or not the critics were right. Was she really too young to join such a prestigious orchestra? Was she too immature and inexperienced to have so much pressure and responsibility thrust upon her as a principal cellist? Despite feeling comfortable and self-assured during a concert, there were moments where she did feel somewhat out of place amidst her older and more experienced colleagues. Like during that afterparty two days ago, where everyone showed up all dressed up and fancy and confidently rubbing elbows with Tokyo’s music high society, while Sakura felt like a farm girl who wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between a Virgin Mary and a Bloody Mary if it bit her in the ass.

Gnawing on her bottom lip, the young cellist let her gaze wander through the airplane interior. They were currently on a flight to Seoul for their first international concert. Her worried gaze landed on her conductor sitting two rows in front of her to her right, currently busy with adding notes to the sheet music on his tablet.

How she wished she could confide in him now.

Sakura recalled the feeling of euphoria when he had called her his protégé in the dressing room while fixing her bow tie. She never felt so incredibly confident while playing a concert on stage as she did during those 30 minutes following his compliment. Sakura almost couldn’t believe that her maestro had said that to her in the first place, so she decided to ask him about it during the afterparty.

Sakura remembered how nervous she had been the entire evening. The pink-haired cellist thought about a hundred different ways how she could ask Mr Uchiha about his declaration without coming off as the attention-seeking and completely love-sick puppy that she really was. It took her more than an hour to build up the courage to approach him when he was alone at the bar.

“Um… I-I’m sorry, Mr Uchiha? Do you have a second?”

When her conductor turned around, he actually had to look down to meet her gaze. Her maestro really was ridiculously tall. He turned his body to face her, left hand casually in his pocket, right arm leaning on the bar with a drink in hand.

“Yes, Ms Haruno?”

“Um…,” she ran both hands down her dress to smooth out the non-existent wrinkles, “I-I wanted to ask you… something.”

When she dared to lift her gaze to look at him, she was met with a raised eyebrow and an expectant grin.

“Go on, Ms Haruno. I’m not going to bite,” her maestro added with a widening smirk.

Hoping the blush colouring her cheeks at his remark would cool down soon, the pink-haired cellist gathered her courage, cleared her throat and spoke, “Sir, it’s about what you said to me in the dressing room, when you- when you fixed my bow tie? Um, you see I was really nervous, and I wasn’t really thinking straight, I mean I’m never really thinking straight around you,” heat crept up her face again and her eyes widened as she realised what she had just said, “I mean- I didn’t mean… it’s just, you make me… a little nervous, is all. And anyway, I probably wasn’t even hearing right, but for some reason my muddled brain seems to think that I heard you say… that…,” at this point her courage started fading away. Sakura started playing with the hem of her dress while thinking of a way to continue without sounding desperate for his approval.

“Heard me say what, Ms Haruno?”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his intense gaze staring at her expectantly.

“I think I heard you say that- that I was your…,” she leaned a bit closer to him and whispered, “protégé.”

And now that the word was finally out in the open, Sakura couldn’t stop herself.

“And I just wanted to ask you if that really was what you said. Because even though every fibre of my being wants it to be true, there’s still a part of me who just wouldn’t believe that you- the Maestro Uchiha would have said that to me of all people. I mean you’ve never publicly acknowledged anyone as your protégé before, and I- I’m so young. You see, I just didn’t want to get my hopes up in case it was just a misunderstanding and I didn’t hear it right. So please just be honest with me. You can tell me if I was wrong, it’ll crush me for a day or two, but I can take it.”

She stared up at him with a look of what she hoped would even remotely resemble determination, though that look started to falter when she was met with her conductor’s amused grin.

“I heard wrong, didn’t I? Ok, well… Sorry for wasting your time, Sir.”

Sakura was just about to turn around, when she felt his warm hands circle around her biceps, holding her in place. She saw his mouth open to say something just as they were interrupted by a photographer asking for a picture of the two of them. After posing for a few seconds and waiting for the photographer to leave, her maestro turned around and finally spoke, “Ms Haruno, that day you were in my office, what did I tell you about the difference between you and all my other musicians?”

“That I was the only one who didn’t have to audition?”

“Correct. I didn’t want the other musicians, I simply needed them to fill my ensemble. But you – you, I wanted. There were hundreds of suitable musicians for every other role in my orchestra, and they all had to audition, but there was only one suitable musician for your particular position. You, Ms Haruno, were the exception from the start.”

“So… does that mean that you really did say what I think you said?”

“Would you like it to be true?”

“More than anything in the world.”

“Good,” Mr Uchiha said before taking a sip of his drink.

And then he said something that made Sakura’s insides tingle with excitement even two days later.

In that case, you’re mine now.

                                                           ----------

“We’re done for today. You’ve all got the rest of the evening off. Do not overdo it, though, I expect all of you to be in top shape for our next rehearsal tomorrow at 10 a.m.”

Madara watched his musicians hastily pack their things and stow away their instruments. He was aware that they were eager to get back to the hotel and relax for a few hours; after all, they landed in Seoul only this morning and already had to endure a four-hour rehearsal. They deserved a break.

Madara, however, wasn’t done yet. And neither was his protégé.

“Ms Haruno.”

He would never tire of the way she immediately sprung to attention whenever he called her name and how she would fix her huge doe-like eyes on him, like a puppy in training expectantly waiting for its master’s orders and determined to use every opportunity to impress him.

“Yes, Maestro?”

“I hope you haven’t got any plans for this evening.”

Madara didn’t want it to come out so suggestive but seeing that adorable blush spread across the young cellist’s cheeks was worth it.

“Um… No, Sir, I- I don’t, actually. W-Why are you asking?”

“I want you to go through your parts again, on your own.”

“Why, Sir? Was I not good enough? I’ll do better, I promise,” she said with a pleading look on her face.

Her dedication to her craft was inspiring. And her constant need to please him was an incredible turn-on.

“Let’s start with Bergersen’s Sun,” Madara ordered while watching the last of his ensemble leave the stage. When he heard a nervous sigh escape her lips, his gaze was immediately drawn back to her teeth chewing on her bottom lip. Madara allowed himself to be transfixed by the sight for a few seconds, fully aware that this indulgence would just lead to more wet dreams. Like the one he had last night about her kneeling in front of him and nervously chewing on her bottom lip as he gives her a step-by-step instruction on how to suck his cock.

“Am I doing it right?” she asks after having released him from her mouth with a loud plop. She stares up at him with her big, innocent eyes, desperately needing his approval and his praise.

“Just like that, keep going little one,” he orders while tugging a strand of hair behind her ear and watching her lips close around him again.

“That’s a good girl.”

Madara was torn from his short daydream when he realised the young cellist had stopped playing. His gaze focused on Sakura’s face and he felt his cock immediately stiffen when he saw the expression she was wearing. It was the same as in his dream, right when she asked him if she was doing it right – all innocent and hopeful eyes, silently begging him to praise her.

“Am I doing it right, Maestro?”

Gods damn it, of course she had to go ahead and say the same words, too.

Despite the inappropriate nature of his current train of thought, the reminder of his last wet dream gave the conductor an idea. The Sakura in his dreams would always light up like a Christmas tree and her eyes would sparkle with adoration whenever Madara called her a good girl. And now it was time for the conductor to test how close real-life Sakura was to her dream persona.

He came to a halt directly in front of her and looked into her wide, expectant eyes.

“Good girl.”

The megawatt smile she gave him as a response was enough to prove his theory. Madara would be damned if he didn’t use every opportunity to praise her like that from now on. Much like she seemed to crave his approval and appreciation, Madara, too, found himself enjoying the looks of pure and unadulterated worship and reverence he was met with whenever he deemed her worthy of his attention.

“That was well done, Ms Haruno. Now why couldn’t you deliver the same performance during rehearsal? I had the feeling you were distracted by something.”

He watched her shoulders slump and her face fall as she leaned back into her seat. “I know, Sir. But it’s nothing, really, just… just something silly. I won’t happen again, I promise.”

Madara would murder that something silly if the mere mention of it was enough to dim her smile.

“What’s going on?”

“You don’t need to worry about it, really. I’m sure you have much more important things to do than listen to me whine about my trivial issues.” Sakura tried her best to give him a reassuring smile but judging by the way she was nervously playing with the strings of her cello, that particular issue seemed to really eat away at her.

“Ms Haruno, part of being your mentor also involves making sure you feel confident and good about yourself on a personal level as well, not just on a professional one. If something is bothering you and you don’t deal with it properly, it might turn into a bigger issue someday, which could in turn affect your performance. Now, out with it.”

Sakura looked at him hesitantly, before sighing and opening her mouth, “It’s this review of our first concert that was published in The Japan Times. They said you made a mistake with me, that you signed me on too early and that I’m too young for you and too inexperienced and too shy and that I’m basically just not good enough for you.”

Madara had read the article himself, and he had already thought that his protégé would be bothered by the criticism. He grabbed one of the many chairs on stage and took a seat right in front of his principal cellist. “Is that why you’ve been distracted today? You think you’re not good enough?”

“It’s not just that. Or actually it’s not that at all, because I know I’m a damn good cellist, and I don’t think I’m lacking anything in the talent department. What bothered me most is that they kept mentioning my age and how young and inexperienced I am. They made me look like some naïve little farm girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing with all those big shot musicians who are just going to eat her up and spit her out.”

“Ms Haruno, I’ve been in this business for two decades now, and I was responsible for enough auditions to be able to tell which musician has got what it takes. Trust me when I tell you I would not have picked you if I didn’t have absolute faith in your ability to keep up with the rest of my orchestra. In fact, part of the reason I chose you was precisely because you were so young, so don’t ever let anybody make you feel like that is a disadvantage, because it’s not.”

Madara could see that his words had a calming effect on her. His reassurance resulted in a timid smile tugging at her lips as she tentatively asked, “Do you really mean that? That you picked me because I’m so young? Because you’ve never worked with anyone my age before. You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”

“The last thing anybody would accuse me of is sugarcoating my opinion and buttering someone up. Trust me, I never lie to my musicians, least of all to my protégé.”

“But why? Why was my age so decisive when you thought about signing me on?”

Well, I didn’t know it back then, but as it turns out I have a thing for little girls with a Daddy complex and a desperate need to please.

Naturally, Madara couldn’t give that particular explanation, so he went for the next best thing, “For the same reason an artist would never paint on an already used canvas. You’re easier to mould now. You’re my blank canvas.”

And he was going to paint her in all of his colours. Especially in all sorts of red hues, like the ones adorning her cheeks at the moment.

“You want to mould me?”

Among many other, much much naughtier things.

“I am your mentor, after all, and that’s what’s expected of me. We mould our protégés into their best possible selves.”

He gave her a tiny reassuring smile and stood up from his chair.

“Now let’s continue. Richter’s Infra 5. I want the mezzo-staccato more pronounced this time.”

                                                        ----------

Her maestro’s encouraging words should have been enough to dispel any worries she had about her age and the question of whether or not she was too young and inexperienced to be part of his orchestra. And yet, here she was, five days after their concert in Seoul, sitting on stage in the Beijing Concert Hall, feeling all kinds of inadequate and wishing she had half the cup size of their singer.

Mei Terumi. Half Chinese, half Japanese opera diva par excellence and a proud E cup. She had the voice of an angel, the curves of Aphrodite, and all the grace, elegance and finesse of a mature woman who – contrary to Sakura – can not only walk in high heels, but actually stand around in them and sing her heart out for four hours straight without breaking a sweat or ruining her perfect hairdo. She was Maestro Uchiha’s special guest for their Beijing concert tomorrow; they were the musical accompaniment while Ms Terumi would beguile the audience with seductive jazz songs.

While Sakura loved the pieces her maestro chose for the concert, she was glad that particular programme wasn’t planned for every performance and that the opera singer wouldn’t accompany them for the entire tour. Because their conductor chose different pieces for every other city they would perform in, the jazz theme with Mei Terumi’s vocals was only planned this once for Beijing.

And judging by that weird feeling of inadequateness Sakura got every time she even so much as looked at the singer, one performance with her is more than enough to dampen her spirits.

“Do you think the two of them are doing it?”

Her head whipped to her right where she was met with the sight of their principal percussionist twirling his drumsticks. They were currently on a short break during their rehearsal, so Naruto came to join them in the string section.

“What do you mean ‘doing it’?” Sakura asked while trying to avoid getting the pointy end of his drumsticks stuck in her eye.

“You know, it.” The blonde musician suggestively wiggled with his eyebrows, but his expectant look was met with only more confusion, and Sakura shrugged her shoulders.

“Give it up, Naruto. Forehead is way too innocent to even think about such things. Isn’t that right,” Ino asked with a teasing grin, leaning closer to Sakura before whispering, “little Miss virgin?”

Sakura didn’t even have time to cover her blushing face when she heard Naruto snicker right next to her. “Oh my God, you are so adorable. You seriously didn’t know that doing it means having sex? You are such a pure, innocent little flower, and I shall shield you from being corrupted by this evil, sex-obsessed witch.”

“This evil, sex-obsessed witch will visit your hotel room tonight and shove her clarinet up your ass if you don’t shut your cakehole soon. But seriously though, the two of them are totally doing it. I mean look at her, who wouldn’t wanna do her? Plus, she’s totally Mr Uchiha’s type, you know mature, sophisticated, can probably tell the difference between Scotch and Bourbon. Hell, I’d do her, and she is so far out of my league she might as well live on Proxima Centauri.”

Sakura followed Ino’s gaze and let her eyes rest on the singer standing next to their conductor, currently busy with discussing a particularly complex piece. There was nothing overtly flirtatious about her behaviour, not now and not during the previous handful of rehearsals they had over the past two days. Both her and Mr Uchiha were always extremely professional, never getting too close or touching each other inappropriately. Though Sakura had to agree with Ino: Mei Terumi was so incredibly attractive that it probably wouldn’t even take that much flirting to wrap any guy around her finger. But weirdly enough Sakura wasn’t bothered so much by the idea of her conductor and the singer being intimate with each other. Sure, Maestro Uchiha was a god to her and she revered him as such, but never in her wildest dreams would she dare to think of herself as an object of his romantic or sexual desires. She was used to competing with others for his professional attention, but the thought of competing with women like Mei Terumi for his romantic attention had never crossed her mind, because Sakura believed him to be very much out of her league. And since intimacy wasn’t something she aimed for or even associated with her relationship with Mr Uchiha, her feeling of unease didn’t stem from romantic jealousy.

Mei Terumi was more of a reminder of Sakura’s lack of experience. The singer was basically oozing confidence and maturity with her flirtatious smiles, the way she held herself around big shot conductors like Madara Uchiha, and the way she knew exactly what to wear to accentuate her killer curves. In comparison to her, the young cellist felt all kinds of inadequate with her frilly little dresses and the fact that she didn’t even know that doing it meant having sex.

Mei Terumi and everything she embodied made Sakura feel too young, too inexperienced, as if she could never be up to par with the grown-ups if she kept sticking to her little girl persona.  And she desperately wanted to prove to her maestro that there was more to her than floral dresses and Hello Kitty stuffed toys.

Having made up her mind, the young cellist turned to her blonde friend.

“Ino, do you think I could borrow one of your dresses tomorrow?”

                                                         ----------

Madara nearly spat out his drink when he saw the outfit his principal cellist chose for the afterparty.

He was always the last to arrive at such events, and as soon he entered the lounge his eyes automatically scanned the crowd for a mop of pink hair. Sure enough, he found her, but unlike most times when he set his eyes on her, he didn’t like what he was seeing.  

She was dressed in a little black neckholder dress that hugged her petite figure and exposed just the right amount of cleavage to be alluring without coming across as slutty. Madara watched her nervously run her fingers through her long silky hair which was pulled into a tight high ponytail, and when her lips closed around the straw in her drink he noticed they were painted a provocative burgundy. His eyes travelled down the shape of her slender legs and landed on the dark red stilettos she was very obviously wearing for the first time, judging by the way she kept awkwardly twirling her foot on the heel of her shoe.

There was absolutely nothing slutty or inappropriate about her outfit. In fact, this was the way most of his female musicians dressed for events like these, and usually he couldn’t care less.

But little Ms Haruno once again proved to be the exception to each and every one of his rules.

Because even though he wouldn’t bat an eye whenever he saw Yamanaka, Sabakuno or Hyuuga in such outfits, because they were all older, seeing his protégé pretend to be someone she’s not dressed up in something so wildly unlike her made his hand tingle with the need to spank some sense into her.

As if she could sense his glare, the pink-haired cellist turned her head and let her eyes rest on him. For a second, Madara could have sworn she looked like a child who got caught with her hands in the cookie jar. He raised his hand and beckoned her to him. Like the good little girl that she was, she immediately left everything and everyone behind and made her way to him.

“Mr Uchiha, I’m glad you could – “

“What are you wearing?”

Madara watched as her hands immediately flew to the hem of her dress in an attempt to pull it down and cover a bit more skin she was suddenly and very obviously self-conscious about.

“You don’t like it?” she asked nervously as she looked up at him with huge, doubtful eyes.

“I think you already knew that I wouldn’t like it when you asked Ms Sabakuno to lend it to you. Or was it Ms Yamanaka?”

“But Sir, my outfit doesn’t violate the dress code, I even asked Deidara. Plus, Ino said she wore that dress a hundred times and nobody ever said it was inappropriate.”

“Do you feel comfortable in it, Ms Haruno?”

She lowered her gaze in defeat and instead absent-mindedly let it rest on his tie as she shook her head.

“Then why are you wearing it?”

Madara watched his young protégé shrug her shoulders and turn her head as a blush crept up her face. With a tiny, shy voice she added, “I just wanted to show everybody that I’m not just some young inexperienced rookie. That I can hang with the big kids, you know?”

“Wearing clothes you’re clearly uncomfortable in isn’t going to help with that. If you want to show them that you’re someone worthy of respect, you need to do it with merit and not by pretending to be someone you’re not. Now I’m going to take you back to your hotel room and you’re going to change, is that clear?”

Madara’s hand found the small of her back as he guided her to the lounge’s exit.

“Sir, is that really necessary? I mean sure, the shoes hurt, but I was only going to stay for another hour or so anyway. I can make that without changing.”

When they exited the building, the brisk night air made the young cellist shiver, so Madara wordlessly took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders before hailing a taxi. As he opened the door for her and helped her get in, he fixed her with another glare and said, “The hotel is only a five minute ride away from here, so that should be enough time for you to think about why I’m disappointed in you. We’ll talk about this when we’re in your room, so I’ll expect an answer from you, young lady.”

He closed the door and got into the taxi on the other side. It was a tense five minutes, though probably more so for the pink-haired musician than for Madara. He could practically hear the wheels turning inside her head as he silently let her mull over his accusation. But he believed that giving her the time and opportunity to self-reflect was going to prove a valuable lesson for her. Not least because Madara knew she was always desperate to fix the mistakes he pointed out.

After arriving at their hotel, the conductor helped Sakura out of the car and told her to go ahead so he could pay the driver. Leaning closer to the man’s front seat window, he heard him say, “You have a lovely daughter, Sir. With a firm daddy such as yourself, I’m sure she’ll turn out just fine, so don’t be too harsh on her. I’m a father too, you know, and I’m very proud of my little princess.”

Great. The universe was clearly torturing him. Madara knew he had to keep his lewd fantasies regarding his pretty little protégé in check, and yet some greater force deemed it necessary to dangle them in front of him every chance it got.

But he couldn’t give in.

He really shouldn’t.

“What were you and the driver talking about?” Madara heard a shy voice next to him ask.

As they entered the hotel’s lobby, the maestro steeled his resolve to not overstep any lines while they were alone in her room. He reminded himself this was purely for the image of the orchestra. He was just going to make sure that his protégé wouldn’t embarrass herself and his ensemble by wearing clothes unfit for such a young woman. Right, there was nothing more to it.

Nothing inappropriate was going to happen.

Getting into the lift, he pressed the button that would lead them to her room as she asked again, “Sir, what did the driver have to say?”

“You’re a nosey little one, aren’t you? If you really must know, he didn’t say anything that would concern you.”

Madara turned his head to face her and was met with the same look of absolute reverence and adoration she always had reserved only for him. In that moment, he knew he just lost the most decisive battle of his life.

And he couldn’t care less.

With a devilish grin tugging on the corner of his lips, he leaned a bit closer to her and whispered, “At least it doesn’t concern you … yet.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

His grin widened at the sight of her adorably confused face before he exited the lift and headed for her room. The driver did say something that concerned Sakura, but Madara meant what he said – it didn’t concern her yet. Because she sure as hell was his little princess and he sure as hell would be the firm daddy doling out spankings left right and centre – she just didn’t know it yet. Now that he threw caution to the wind and decided to give into his desires, Madara couldn’t wait to implement some changes in their relationship: The maestro would slowly and subtly introduce her to some of the things he had been craving to do to her since the day he met the little cellist, and if she responded to them willingly Madara would make her his for good. Though judging by the way she was already staring up at him with hearts in her eyes and a look that said please love me, daddy, Madara was sure she would jump at the chance of being nurtured and disciplined by him in more ways than a professional one.

Closing the door to her hotel room, Madara had to force down his devious grin and instead pretend to be angry. He turned around and fixed her with a glare. “Go into the bathroom, remove all of that make-up and change into something more comfortable.”

“Yes, Sir,” she mumbled with a pout before turning on her heel and disappearing into the bathroom.

When she got out, Madara had to stifle a groan at the sight of her new outfit: She was wearing pastel pink flannel pyjama bottoms with unicorns on them and a snug white shirt with a picture of her instrument and the words Cello: Everyone Else Is Accompaniment below it. She couldn’t possibly be any cuter if she tried.

Madara motioned her to sit on the bed while he crossed his arms in front of his chest and positioned himself in front of her in his most authentic imitation of an angry dad posture.

“Now, Ms Haruno, can you tell me why I’m disappointed in you?”

Tucking her chin into her chest, Sakura mumbled something incoherent in that tiny unsure voice she always used whenever she thought she did something wrong.

“Speak up, little one, I can’t hear you.”

“Because I pretended to be someone I’m not?”

“And why do you think that upset me?”

She started chewing on her bottom lip which drove Madara absolutely mad for 5 hellishly long seconds before answering, “Because you told me once already that I shouldn’t worry about my age or how experienced I seem to others, and that you picked me because I’m so young, and that I should be proud of it and not try to hide it, but I did that anyway and now you’re mad at me.” The pinkette was now nervously tugging on the ends the blanket she was sitting on while looking up at him with a pleading look in her eyes, silently begging him to forgive her.

Madara knew he was being cold when he didn’t answer immediately, instead fixing his glare on her for a few more seconds and allowing himself to enjoy her display of absolute submissiveness.

“Please, Sir, I can’t stand the thought of you being disappointed in me. Please, just tell me what I can do to make it up to you. I’ll follow all of your rules. I’ll be good, Sir, I promise.”

Gods have mercy on him, she was the perfect little girl. All submissive, obedient, and desperate to please him. And the best thing was, she wasn’t even faking her little persona. She didn’t just wear frilly dresses or unicorn pyjama bottoms to impress someone, she didn’t just braid her hair into pigtails because she wanted to look younger, she didn’t just pretend to constantly crave his guidance and approval because she thought that’s what turned him on – she just really was genuinely little.

And also in desperate need of some punishment.

“It seems like you’re no longer able to decide which clothes are appropriate for your age. In order to prevent you from embarrassing yourself and our entire orchestra, I will decide what you wear to formal events. We start right now, I’ll find something more suitable for tonight’s party. You’re going to change and we’re going to go back, so you can prove to whomever you want to prove that neither your age nor your clothes define how good and how experienced a musician you are.”

Madara opened her closet where she had hung a couple of dresses, skirts, and blouses and started going through her clothes when he heard her protest behind him.

“But Sir, is that really necessary? It was a one-time thing, I promise it won’t happen again.”

He handed her a simple white blouse and a floral skirt he had often seen her wear and sternly added, “I’m giving you the opportunity to comply with my rules willingly. If you keep misbehaving and disobeying me, I can always just spank some sense into you.”

Judging by her scared wide eyes and the deep blush spreading across her cheeks, that threat was enough to get her moving. With a nervous little Yes, Sir, Sakura disappeared into the bathroom to change into her new outfit. When she got out, he beckoned her to get closer to where he was leaning against a desk.

“Now isn’t that more comfortable?”

Madara watched his pretty little protégé twirl in front of a mirror before she nodded her head in confirmation. “This is actually one of my favourite skirts. Though I rarely wear it to formal events.”

“Why is that?”

“Well … it’s silly, but … I rarely wear skirts and dresses without thigh high socks, because I just think it looks so cute.”

Oh, he noticed.

“And even though I admittedly don’t have the fanciest fashion sense, even I know you don’t wear thigh high socks to an after party. So I usually just choose an outfit where I wouldn’t have worn socks anyway. Even though I’ve got the prettiest and cutest socks ever that just go perfectly with this skirt.”

Madara noticed the way her eyes started to sparkle as soon as she got out of the bathroom. She obviously felt much more comfortable now, and she even seemed to enjoy playing dress-up for him. So he decided he would indulge her.

“Well if you really think that outfit is incomplete without your socks, why don’t you put them on and show me?”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, and she immediately dashed to her suitcase where she rummaged around in search of her socks. Taking a seat on the bed, she quickly rolled them over each leg, stepped in front of the mirror to Madara’s left and twirled around all happy and cute. Then she turned towards him and extended her left leg to show him her socks. “See, they’ve got cute little kitty faces on the upper part here, and they’ve even got cat ears sticking out of the hem, and I use them to pull up the socks.”

“That’s adorable, little one.”

She blushed and shyly bit her bottom lip before whispering a tiny Thank you, Sir.

“There’s only one problem. You got changed so quickly that you look all dishevelled now. Your blouse isn’t neatly tucked into your skirt and your socks aren’t pulled up to the same height. I can’t let you go to a fancy afterparty like this, now, can I? Come here, princess,” he spread his legs and gently pulled her closer to him, so she was now standing between them, “let me fix this for you.”

While Madara was busy fixing her outfit – smoothing out wrinkles, tucking in her blouse, neatly rolling up her sleeves, and taking his sweet time doing it – Sakura was busy trying to stand still and not sway back and forth from the constant pushing and pulling. “Little one, you’ll need to stop fidgeting if you want me to fix your outfit. Hold on to me, so you can keep still.”

Gingerly, his little protégé placed her tiny little hands on his shoulders and used them to push back against his pulling and prodding.

“Sir, is this an outfit you would deem appropriate for me to wear to formal events?”

“Absolutely. Why?”

“Good. Because in that case, I don’t think I have a problem with you choosing my outfits from now on. I’m glad you seem to know what I like.”

Madara was met with a shy sincere smile from the pink-haired girl standing between his legs, and he was once again reminded of the fact of how adorably innocent she was, because no other woman – or even girl for that matter – would say I’m glad you seem to know what I like without being aware of the sexual innuendo of such a statement. But Sakura was so incredibly pure and chaste that Madara would bet his left testicle that she could suck on a popsicle in a room full of men and still be surprised that every single one of them was sporting a giant hard-on.

He took in her appearance and noted that the only thing still in need of fixing were her socks, which he purposefully saved for last. Now was the time to see if she would stop him from really overstepping the mark. Though, granted, fixing one of his musician’s outfit in such an intimate manner was already inappropriate, Madara still would have found a way to somehow talk his way out of it and make it seem like a halfway reasonable thing to do for an image-conscious conductor. But putting his hands underneath her skirt and pretending to pull up her socks under the thinly veiled guise of fixing her outfit – that was a completely different kettle of fish altogether.

“Are you going to do my socks, too, Sir?”

When Madara looked into her face, he immediately had an answer to his question of whether or not she would allow him to go this far. Because there was no insecurity or hesitance in her eyes, there wasn’t even the tell-tale blush or the flirtatious smile of someone who understood the intimacy of a man about to put his hands on a woman’s bare upper thigh. She looked at him expectantly as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a conductor to pull up the thigh high socks of his musician beneath her skirt.  

And so that was exactly what he did.

“Of course, little one. We want your two little kitties to be at eye level with each other, don’t we?”

That remark got him the cutest little giggle as Madara hooked his fingers into the hem of her left sock and slowly pulled it up her slender thigh.  

“Sir, you can’t forget to put the faces in the middle. It will look weird if the two kitties don’t face the same direction.”

“You’re right, princess. We don’t want somebody thinking your two kittens aren’t getting along with each other, now, do we?”

He could hear another giggle as he enveloped her left thigh with both his hands and rotated the sock so that the kitten face was in the middle. He allowed his thumb to slowly brush the back of her thigh before he willed both his hands to let go of her. Madara gave the two cat ears another tug and turned his attention to her right leg.

Again, he hooked his fingers into the hem of her sock and very slowly pulled it up, until it was the same height as the left one. Then he put his hand on the back of her knee and let it wander upwards to smooth out any wrinkles until his hand almost touched her ass. Using both hands again, he enveloped her upper thigh and gave the sock a few twists until the kitten face was in the middle. While his right hand was busy fixing the cat ears, Madara’s left hand was stroking up and down her inner thigh and came dangerously close to her panty line. He allowed himself to enjoy the feel of her soft flesh beneath his fingers for a few more seconds before lowering his hands to the slightly more respectable area of her knee caps.

“All done now.”

A shaky breath escaped her lips before she shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Sir. But I can’t see anything. The skirt is too long, it’s covering the kitties.”

“Pull it up, then.”

“Oh… right, of course.” Sakura shot him a bashful look, bit her lip, and then grabbed the hem of her skirt to pull it up a bit.

“See how pretty your legs look?” Madara asked while stroking the back of her thighs beneath her skirt.

“Mhm. I love these socks, they make me feel so pretty. I’m glad you made me change, Sir, I feel so much more comfortable now.”

“I’m glad you didn’t make a fuss. See how easy everything can be when you’re a good girl who listens and does as she’s told.”

“Um, Sir … about that.” Madara watched the young cellist start nervously playing with the end of his tie. While she was lost in thought, he took the opportunity to slowly move his hands upwards until his fingers were barely brushing the underside of her cheeks.

“Were you, um … were you really going to – I mean, if I had put up a fight, would you really have … you know?”

When she raised her head to peek up at him, Madara was met with the usual combination of a bashful look, a tell-tale blush and her signature circuit-frying lip bite. But she wasn’t the only one capable of rattling the other, he thought. After all, his hands were still very much beneath her skirt all but groping her ass.

“Would I have done … what, Sakura?” he prompted teasingly while giving the back of her thighs a firm squeeze.

She closed her eyes for a second and sighed quietly, before looking at him again.

“You know, Sir. Would you … Would you have,” she leaned in closer and whispered, “sp-spanked me?”

“Of course, I would have.”

Her blush turned an even deeper shade of red, and Madara could hear her breath quickening. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was intrigued by the thought of his hands leaving bright red imprints on her ass.

“Don’t worry, little one, I’m not going to spank you now for what you did tonight, because we didn’t set any rules for that and you didn’t know that punishment was even involved. But you do know now, so I suggest you try your best to be a really good little girl from now on.”

She eagerly nodded her head and added a nervous little Yes, Sir before she went back to playing with the end of his tie.

“But um, when you,” Madara watched her tongue dart out to wet her lips, “spank me … what does that feel like? Does it hurt?”

“Now why would you want to know that? As long as you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about on that front.”

“I just don’t think that I can sleep tonight knowing that there’s a possibility of me getting punished and I don’t even know what that form of punishment looks or feels like.”

Oh, she was intrigued alright. Madara couldn’t shake the feeling that he just broke a dam. For both of them.

“Well, I wouldn’t want my protégé to lose sleep over anything.”

He grabbed the back side of her skirt, pulled it up above her ass and gave her right cheek a sound smack.

And Gods have mercy on him, in that exact moment he heard the most delicious moan he ever elicited from a woman. If Madara hadn’t already thought that this innocent young cellist was the perfect little girl for him to nurture and to discipline, hearing her moan after being spanked for the first time would have given him the last proof he needed to know that she craved his dominance as much as he craved her submissiveness.

“This is what a spanking feels like. A very, very nice spanking, mind you. It’s going to hurt a lot more when I’m angry with you.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.” She nodded her head in understanding while rubbing soothing circles on her backside.

Madara was enjoying this way too much, so he had to bring this to an end soon before he completely lost control of his senses. If he were to see her bite her lip one more time, Madara swore his dick would explode.

“Now that we’ve cleared up a few things, I suggest you return to the party. There are a lot of people there eager to meet you. And remember,” he grabbed her chin between his fingers and leaned closer, “be a good little girl for me.”

Madara watched her blush deepen as she stared into his eyes with a dreamy look and moaned a tiny little Yes, Sir.

After she had gathered her things and grabbed her purse, they both left her hotel room. Sakura headed towards the lift when she noticed Madara wasn’t following.

“Aren’t you coming, too?”

“You go ahead, I’ll join you in a bit. I just need to take care of something first.”

My rock hard dick.

The conductor watched his protégé step into the lift and wave goodbye. “Ok then, see you in a bit, Mr Uchiha. And um … thanks.” Sakura shot him a bashful smile before the doors closed.

Madara released a sigh of relief before focusing his gaze on his hard-on.

“You’re going to both hate me and love me for what I did tonight.”

[nctinfo]

[TRANS] NCT DREAM interview for ‘Urbanlike’ March 2019!

RENJUN  “It feels like an age where you start having a sense of responsibility”

A soft and quiet voice, with a strange power to it, has made me focus. No matter how carefully he’s chosen his next words with his endlessly soft voice, there was a weight of seriousness to it. Even as he was shooting the calm atmosphere around him remained unchanged. Quietly nodding to the photographer’s orders, with the end of each cut he was looking at his face in pictures and continuously kept correcting his expression and gestures. Like a person that keeps asking themselves questions just to find answers. But when asked to describe himself in 3 words, without hesitation he says that three words aren’t enough. It was something he answered because he knows well what kind of a person he is and what charms he possesses. Is there anything more powerful than knowing yourself well? It seems like now Renjun’s canvas will be filled with countless colours. The countless images in his head have become one solid piece of art. 

First day of the new year Along with my family in Korea, we had some meat, shared stories and spent it in a cozy atmosphere.

The most memorable moment of last year It’s the most recent memory anyway, it was the last day that was the most memorable. When the 2019 bells started ringing I couldn’t believe I’ve just become an adult. (laughs)

Something I’m into lately Drawing. Imagining animals that don’t exist in this world and then drawing them has become my hobby lately. Expressing animals that live in your head is really fun.

Song from your playlist that you play on repeat the most I listen to NCT DREAM’s most recent track ‘Candle Light’ a lot. The more I listen to it with interest the more I don't get tired of it, I hear more details of the member's voices part by part

The most fun thing Imagining things. It’s fun to imagine things you’ve been always curious about. Thoughts on becoming 20 years old It feels like an age where you start having a sense of responsibility. Sometimes I realise that I’m 20, sometimes I don’t. As nice as it is, it’s a bit of a shame that I can’t go back to my teenage years that have just ended.

Something I want to do upon becoming an adult I want to go backpacking on my own. Wherever is good. I want to travel freely and go out with local friends I’d make. Also now that I’m an adult I want to try a usual album promotion! I want to try something a bit more adult like. 

JENO “I thought that maybe being 20 years old could be my life’s turning point”

Being 20 years old came to Jeno with a bit of a different meaning. Rather than giving him a sense of freedom, he first felt like it’s a shame that he has to abandon his 19 year old self, he wanted to cling onto the ever passing time that couldn’t be helped. An age somewhere in the middle of being a kid and an adult. Being able to be both innocent like a kid at times, then be mature like an adult, it’s an age he wishes to remain at, says Jeno who’s got a lot of emotions buried within him. “I thought that maybe being 20 years old could be my life’s turning point”. If he was still closer to being a young and immature teenager since birth until now, it’s because Jeno is transitioning into adulthood only now.  Standing on the starting line again, Jeno has tried to see his true self. Not knowing how to approach his adult image, he’s decided to go through each one. Wanting to grow up into a good adult, the boy’s desire has only gotten stronger. His future journey is the reason why he’s not scared. The most memorable moment of last year December 31st, the year-end music show was the most memorable. It was the last stage as a 19 year old, so I was more stressed than usual and only thought of making it even more perfect. It was a day of thinking “Now I’m really 20 years old huh” after happily getting off the stage, so I was a bit excited. Apart from that, it’s not much different. (laughs)

Thoughts on becoming 20 years old Rather than feeling like I’m 20, I’m still in the phase of being more sad that my teenage years have ended. So I like to think that turning 20 is life’s turning point. Because I think that my life started with being born until being 19 years old, and then it starts again at age of 20, so I’d like this year to become a time when I carve out new life goals or mindset. I want to become an adult that will find his true self and find aspects to compliment him one by one, in my head, I want to grow into an image like this.

Something you want the most upon becoming an adult I’ve talked about this before, but rather than becoming someone with a flashy exterior, I want to be someone who can be overflowing with aura even when being reserved, someone with inner coolness. I’ll put this goal in place by consistently reading books this year.

Something you’re into latelyThere’s nothing like that these days. Last year I liked making things so I was collecting plastic models, and now I’m trying to find something else. As it’s a new year something I think about the most anyways is wanting to show a new, better image to our fans. I want to meet them soon.

Musical influence I still haven’t watched <Bohemian Rhapsody>. I’m saving it up to watch it by myself, as a lot of people who have watched it said it felt like watching what Queen’s music and music, in general, is to them. I think that just by listening to the story I’ve gotten a grip on myself. 

Future dream I want to become a singer that can be loved by anyone at any time. I want to grow into an artist that’s well-rounded skill and sense wise. I’ve learned so much through ‘NCT DREAM SHOW’. I’ve experienced so many new stages that could’ve only been done at ‘NCT DREAM SHOW’, so in the future, I’ll showcase an even better image.

JAEMIN “There's only one thing I hope for (and that is) becoming an artist the fans can be proud of.”

Jaemin was good at being the mood maker during the shoot. His "HAHAHA!" hoot of laughter made the members next to him start laughing with him and turned the atmosphere of the shoot as cheerful as possible. Even though the shoot started early in the morning, everyone was able to give a wholesome impression thanks to Jaemin's bright energy who filled the set. Although there was the expression of a serious Jaemin somewhere contained in the camera, he always had a bright appearance behind the camera. "There is this thing around the coming-of-age ceremony. It's the day you receive perfume and flowers and get kisses, right. I think it would be nice if the members gave each other kisses too." Jaemin, who expresses his affection and aegyo to the members without hesitation, straightened up and set all jokes aside the moment it was time to talk about their fans 'Czennies'. (It's was like) watching the moment a butterfly, who was dancing in the air with its wings, landed on a petal when Jaemin began talking in a low voice. On that spot, Jaemin's sincerity that came from the deepest point of the heart was blooming.

First day of the new year On January 1st, I went home and ate with my mother. In commemoration of me becoming an adult, my mother poured me a glass of alcohol. The taste, after having a sip 'Oh?', is like this? (laughter) I concluded that it does not fit well with me. Haha!

Thoughts on becoming 20 years old To be honest, I have yet to grasp the feeling of turning 20 years old. During the New-Year celebration, I felt like the feeling of 'I'm still 19 years old' was stronger. However, after turning 20 years old, people around me have been saying "since you're an adult now, let's act more responsible". Thanks to that, I think I have to be more careful about everything now.

The most memorable moment of last year Wouldn't it be receiving my id-card? It was the first thing I did while waiting to become an adult. I felt proud looking at my card with my photo, address, and fingerprint on it.

Something I’m into lately Collecting limited edition album is my hobby. I think its beauty is being able to listen to songs on the CD that you wouldn't be able to find on (streaming) sites. 

Song from your playlist that you play on repeat the most The way I like to listen to songs is not by just looking at the song title and playing those first, but rather listening to the whole album. Whatever song I'm listening to, I listen to it from the beginning to the end. There are songs that I like from the first time I listen to them and there are songs that get better after repeating it several times. But one song I like a lot lately is Gallant's Gentle man. Musical influence I think 'Czennies'. We were able to release songs because we have fans. I gain strength to work harder because there are people who listen to our songs. Rather than other artists, I think the existence of the Czennies is bigger than any other driving force to show my full potential.

Future dream There's only one thing I hope for (and that is) becoming an artist the fans can be proud of. It's my goal is to make sure that the fans can confidently say "our idol/singer is really good!". I want to become an artist who can always make his fans smile. I want to make the fans smile bigger this year. We know well that we wouldn't be able to exist without our fans.

CHENLE  “I have the most fun when I’m on stage. When I go on stage I’m not sleepy or tired.”

If Chenle had to be described in one sentence, wouldn’t the expression ‘bright�� be the most appropriate? He’s a boy whose eyes shine the brightest when he talks about things he likes. With a voice raising by about a half Chenle keeps on talking clearly, his facial expression loaded with happiness. But even then as he kept an eye on the members who were ready to shoot first, the thoughtful boy wanted to say that “Me, as well as Jisung, always like to do it with self-confidence. Like right now it’s always fun and happy so we’re enjoying ourselves.” to Jisung who was sat next to him. In the future he dreams of flying around a basketball court like Stephen Curry and the days he and his members will sing and dance, combining their strength together like Avengers to save the world. In these dreams Chenle sparkles and shines more than ever, smiling brightly.

First day of the new year I went to my hometown Shanghai. I spent time with my family whom I haven’t seen in a while. The most memorable moment of last year ‘We Go Up’ promotions were the most memorable. It was the most fun then. Jisung crying when he saw we were high up in the digital music charts has stayed in my memory. (laughs)

Something I’m into lately I’m always into basketball. Especially NBA! I’m the biggest fan of Stephen Curry.

Song from your playlist that you play on repeat the most NCT 127’s ‘Simon Says’. I always listen to it repeatedly. Even now it’s still the same

The most fun thing It’s the most fun when I’m on stage. Sometimes when we’re preparing for early stages I feel sleepy and at the practices I get tired, but the moment I go stage I’m not sleepy or tired. The most recent year-end music show was really fun.

If you were to describe yourself in 3 words Lively, cute, smart. I’m lively by nature. Lately, I hear that I’m cute a lot. (laughs) And I think I’m the smartest in NCT DREAM. I don’t know if the members will agree! HahaMovie I like The Shawshank Redemption that my dad has recommended to me last year! It’s an extremely touching movie. I also like Marvel movies like Avengers or The Amazing Spiderman 2. 

JISUNG  “I want to grow more. Personally, and as a team.”

Even when his expression is blank and he gets quite the look, he comes back to his boyish image immediately the moment he smirks a little. When he’s standing in front of the camera wearing a gray suit, staring into the lenses intensely, touching his hair with an expression full of curiosity and then puts on that bright smile of his it seems like he can switch between being a boy and an adult freely, just like that. But the 18 year old maknae Jisung is always happy promoting with NCT DREAM. “When I first joined the company I was 12 years old. I was 8 years old when I started dancing so I’ve been walking this path for over a half of my life. So I want to keep growing even more. Personally, and as a team”. Jisung whose eyes can’t be described by words ‘boy’ or ‘adult’, rather than focusing on the time spent walking knows to look at the path ahead instead. A singer, artist - Jisung is these in himself. What I’m saying is, when he’s on the stage his dancing is more refined and skillful than anyone else’s.

First day of the new year I went home and had some food with my family, we rewatched the year-end music show together too so it was a really happy time. The most memorable moment of last year It feels like 2018 passed quicker than the other year. On January 1st we had the first practice for ‘NCT 2018 EMPATHY’ album and then in autumn, we did our best with ‘We Go Up’ album promotions. It felt like it just kept going without a break. Every moment of 2018 was memorable. It has become special to me personally.

Something I’m into latelyI’m into reading these days. I especially like books that go back to your childhood like <The Little Prince>. I’m still young, but as I get older I forget the pure heart of the child me, so reading a children’s book helps me every time I feel like this.

Song from your playlist that you play on repeat the most I like all songs by EXO hyungs. Recently I’ve been listening to ‘Been Through’ often, the beat is unique and the lyrics are good too. It has a creative and cool feeling when you listen to it. It’s just my style. (laughs)

The most fun thing Thinking. When I think I feel like a person. I’m not good at drawing like Renjun hyung, I can’t draw an animal that doesn’t exist in this world with a pencil. But I can draw everything well in my head when I think.

If you were to describe yourself in 3 words Black, future, curiosity. First of all I like the black colour. It’s dark but it’s because it can absorb any other colour. The word future is young anyways so in my heart I’m anticipating how my own future will unfold. And lastly curiosity, ever since I was little I was very curious. Even now there are so many things I’m curious about.

Movie I like I like animes like <Your Name> or <The Girl Who Leapt Through Time>. Rather than movies with a definite ending, I prefer those with open endings that allow me to imagine the end how I like it

Q&A

Favourite food JN: Sushi. Ever since I was little it’s something me and my parents have been eating the most often and my entire family likes it. JM: Home food (stir fried pork, ribs, soybean paste, soybean soup) RJ: On cold days I like warm hot pot the most. CL: Veggies, fruits, milk, water, pork neck, ribs, hot pot, lamb skewers, Chinese stir fried veggies, and stir fried chicken with tomatoes! JS: Ramyeon, fast food, whenever I eat these they’re good. But I think about my health so I don’t eat it often.

Member best at cooking and their best dish JN: Whatever Jaemin cooks is good, it seems he likes to keep seeing us eat deliciously. Jaemin’s roasted ribs are just in my style. JM: Me! Give me any ingredients and I’ll cook anything. Haha. RJ: Jaemin. He makes really tasty soy sauce egg bibimbap. CL: Me. There’s nothing I can’t cook. I can do anything. (laughs) JS: Jaemin hyung cooks a lot and it’s all delicious!

Food I’d like to eat the most right now JN: Ice cream. I want to eat ice cream more during the winter JM: Rice. Wherever I go as long as there's rice and side dishes I have no problem! RJ: I always want to eat hot pot. CL: The thing that comes to my mind right now is SPAM. I have never tried it before so I’m always curious about it! JS: The tastiest thing in the world is love. As long as I receive love from you guys I’m full. (laughs)

Food I eat on special days JN: Seaweed soup. It’s my favourite food that my mom makes. JM: It has to be meat on special days. Ribs, beef! Even better if there’s some rice and bean paste stew too. RJ: Hot pot that my mom makes. CL: Chinese stir fried veggies are the best! JS: Lately I want to eat so man things it’s really hard for me to pick just one thing from the menu. But isn’t homemade food the best? 

Food I dislike (or can't eat) JN: Oysters. I remember eating an oyster when I was young and I think I have not eaten it since then. JM: Fermented Stingray. RJ: Coriander is the hardest for me to eat. CL: Wasabi JS: I almost cannot eat all sorts of seafood. Especially oysters

Translation: Alex, Esmee @ FY! NCT (NCTINFO) | Source: (1, 2) — Do not repost or take out without our permission!

[quanticlub]

Long Lore Rant

... Needs to be reformatted into something pretty rip

Background:

Aight so as per the great and infallible wikipedia, Taoist cosmology states that everything started with wújí and then created yǒu jí. The former means limitless and comes from the words "nothingness" and "reaching the end" ... so nothingness at the end aka no boundaries

the latter was the limited. it's only briefly mentioned as its conception brought on a polarity to the universe - yin and yang

taiji itself is the boundary embodied by you-ji with respect to the infinite wuji and represents the Absolute

The split into yin and yang has a the connotations listed above in the pic ((except... for tikki and plagg the feminine vs masculine seem to be switched cuz from the description, tikki is more closely associated with yang)). Yang is represented by one long dash –– while yin is two small broken ones - - . Now, in the middle column where there are category names for what yin and yang represent the wu xing category (elements, second from the bottom) has earth listed as neither. It also doesn't include air, which the wu xing doesnt include in general but is included by almost every other major culture when classifying the elements.

Kwami Origins: Null

In the beginning there was a great big nothingness and then came a tiny blip of umm... everythingness? making the Absolute. This gave the nothingness and everythingness a consciousness. (wow lots of -ness words here). The nothingness part of the absolute became Null. The everythingness got no name cuz it quickly split off into the rest of creation.

Null's concept art is a three-eyed little creature with two kwami tendrils.  I propose Null as the glowing white kwami they originally made but with all black eyes and The Other One as the all black kwami but with glowing white eyes. The prior emptiness/nothingness was energy while the delineation/everythingnes was matter(?). when they created the Absolute, parts of themselves mixed i na typical yin-yang fashion, thus the eyes being like those of the others. This gave them power over the nature of the other sorta???? hard to explain

 For Null, he had power over mass, time, and space - matter is anything that has mass and takes up space at a given moment. The Other One (imma call them Higgs bc of the Higgs boson particle but it wouldnt be the real name) had power over tendencies of energy*. So. energy can be used up to build something (creative force - in human metabolism it's an anabolic reaction), released to tear something apart (destructive force - in human metabolism it's a catabolic reaction). bBt it can also be stored/dissipate with no specific purpose, instead being available for all sorts of possible things later (chaotic force?)

idea is that Higgs, upon consciousness, sacrificed themselves to give rise to existence. The Big Bang. they justs sorta fucked off to become a bunch of cool rocks/stardust floating in space and initiated the course of time (which could theoretically be split into different timelines? idk time travel is weird and this is superfluous to my current ramble)

the three aspects of Null that Higgs had gained powers from became concepts that would gain sentience of their own. The yin and yang markings are, technically, three lines. not two. cuz yin is split ( –– vs - - ).

* = this bit's a little less science-y except for keeping with the triad thing bc neutron, electron, and proton

Three, Not Two: Tikki, Plagg, & ...Hexx?

I imagine Null took up the developing concepts and nurtured them sorta. like they were incubating under Null's protection. Tikki emerged out of Null's sphere first; she had the most power from Higgs though all three were pretty closely matched. she was the creative force. 

Plagg came out of Null's sphere last. He was the destructive force. Sorta. It was actually coser to... decay?  Plagg is really more of a kwami of decay than destruction. He doesnt just obliterate things, he accelerates their decomposition. when his powers act on metal, for instance, it rusts. thats not destruction it's just the wear-and-tear expected to happen over time. Destruction as a concept opposite to that of Creation and Order involves more entropy and plagg really isnt as chaotic as would be expected. While he represents destruction in the sense that the thing is ceasing to function as a unit, the chaos would fall more under hexx.

The third force, the one that embodied possibility, was too erratic. they got out of Null's care first but remained in the sphere for a while longer. they didn't get out til after Tikki. I'm thinking maybe  emerged from Null's domain just a few seconds before Plagg (time is still wonky at this point). while Tikki is yang ( –– ), Plagg and #3, henceforth referred to as Hexx, are both yin ( - - ). Plagg is slightly weaker cuz he was "overcooked" and Hexx was "undercooked". Tikki came out just right like a yummy batch of cookies ;)

While Plagg is the biggest cuz he stayed with Null for so long, Hexx is the smallest. Even more so than Tikki but only by a little. I was thinking of him looking like a mix of Tikki and Plagg. More cat-like but with red accents and maybe blue eyes instead of green.

That’s the gist of it with a quick reminder note that time still affects kwamis differently like they mentioned in Sandboy or whatever. so they might be around ten billion years old be the time earth shows up but theyve been very immature. like little kids. and unlike kids that go to school to learn how things work, they were given immense amounts of power and 0 instruction so they have to figure out what they can do, what their identity is, and what purpose they want to have in existence

Tikki has a very do-good attitude and wants to help (even if shes proven sometimes she doesnt give the best advice) and be a Good Kwami. But Plagg isn't a bad kwami. The opposite of love isn't hate after all; it's apathy. Plagg just doesnt really care and will follow Tikki around bc he enjoys her company and his primary concern is himself. Oblivio was a good example of this cuz he's like "no fuck you whats in it for me" but still gets affected by tikki's words and comes back to do as she says eventually.

Hexx would be the "bad apple" though kwamis dont really have moralities cuz those were human constructs and are incredibly subjective. He wouldnt be hatred in the analogy with love, but rather fire-y emotions that are still more negative. quick anger and stuff. usually happy go-lucky. temperamental goes with the nature of being THE force of chaos. while he doesnt wanna help necessarily, he still wants to DO. he's the one that instigates mischief and wants to fuck around for the fun of it.

Making the Miraculous

So from the dinosaur ordeal we know the kwamis DID have effects on earth, but they couldnt consistently intervene - at least not in a controlled fashion. and they couldnt really communicate with humans cuz different field of existence. but their presence became known even if the humans didnt know what they were exactly

the set from the miracle box was made my a mage in china for the purpose of conquests. Hexx’s mischief and meddling probably gave the humans access to the magic/knowledge/whatever they’d need for making the Miraculous. The pitch to get these baby gods to agree was that tikki would have greater control of her powers and could communicate and help! tikki was down. It seemed like a Good Thing and she wanted to do good. Plagg was meh but might as well cuz tikki insisted. hexx wasn't convinced. they werent warned theyd be confined to the miraculous and essentially trapped. plaggs agreement was more out of ignorance of this fact. he figured he could make tikki happy but still fuck off to do what he wanted. never imagined that he'd be subject to another's will. 

tikki was happy regardless bc very young (developmentally) and naive and honestly believing that the human knew best and it's what was best for both the kwamis and humanity. she had so much power her jewel had to be split into two - thus, earrings. all other kwamis inhabit a singular miraculous.

when hexx was being trapped it was against his will, unlike plagg and the others. he fought it. he still got trapped but the miraculous wasnt like the others. the nature was different... it was corrupted. Cue: cursed miraculous(es) ((still not sure of the plural)). If he has to suffer then by Null so do the humans who did this. Thus the name Hexx. Opened the option for kwamis to try to fight it or go for it. Werewolves perhaps stem from a group of cursed canid kwamis? The Miracle Box is basically the kwamis who were aight with the idea but other cursed kwamis exist. 

The nature of a miraculous depends on the "recipe" used to make the jewels and the kwami's receptiveness to being basically enslaved. The Miracle Box miraculous were all made by the same mage mentioned earlier so they had the same recipe so to speak. All the kwamis in the miracle box fall under yin or yang. Including the elements. So the Zodiac and Wu Xing kwamis are all in either tikki or plagg's domains. Except for one. I propose trixx as the exception, even if they dont fit the traits of earth. i was thinking for the other supporting kwami to hexx there could be one that also refused to join the mage... the kwami representing air (wu xing is basically the only philosophy without air as an element in some shape or form). Possible name: Jinxx, a crow. The fox/crow/cat are all typical tricksters in myths. 

The way the kwamis’ powers can be manipulated varies and the cursed kwamis offer the least control to their wielders - and the greatest side effects. I imagine jinxx just fucks off to follow hexx's miraculous, wherever it may be. Hexx is closer to the original curse on pv chat noir... the curse is possibly activated and summoned by the use of tikki or plagg's powers outside their miraculous? And dormant after death of wielder or kiss from LB or something. So that would mean Plagg activated him in style queen and then helping him get a better location/target with the smaller cataclysm in i think catalyst (when he's like "ive been practicing!).

Together, plagg and tikki have that OP wish granting ability but they cant truly summon Null to the this dimension without Hexx, who adamantly refuses. it's not like Hexx's miraculous can be stolen cuz it's cursed onto the subject. As a summary of combined powers... Tikki + Plagg = wish granting? ... Hexx + Tikki = good luck ... Hexx + Plagg = bad luck ... cuz Hexx is about possibility and consequences. So creation-related effects tend to manifest as what humans deem to be good while destruction-related ones are seen as bad.

Hexx Making an Appearance

For the current Mari/Adri plot I thought of Hexx cursing Felix or sth and bringing him onto the hero scene. Comes with the benefit of jealous CN. Maybe a scene where cat-ish Felix tells Chat Noir that he’s not interested in LB, only Mari and they have some sorta agreement to respect that (would work best in the half brother’s thing if Adri found out). All hell would break loose if/when LBs identity came out.

 Also I like the idea of Hexx having been locked in Pandora's jar with other angry ~cursed~ miraculous and the others immediately fucked off and scattered their miraculous but Hexx remained. possibility and consequence does not mean bad things. it's the uncertainty of the future that allows for hope, which is what pandora found. the greek tales also have varying connotations on whether finding hope was a blessing or a curse depending on how you looked at it

[davidmann95]

Where does Robin stands nowadays in the Batman's world in your opinion? How different is it from where it started in the DCU?

Over 78 years and at least 4 ‘main’ versions, yeah:there’ve been some changes.

The thing about Robin though, in terms of how he grewalongside Batman? For the first 30ish years of his existence, he’s not actuallya character; he’s an accessory, another item on the utility belt, albeit oneBatman cared about a lot more than a grapple gun or flashbang. Past that greatpage with him and Batman swearing the vow by candlelight, providing valuablesymbolism and context for (much) later on - and even there, Batman’s emotionsand motivations for bringing this kid into his world amount to “Well, Iguess you and I were both victims of a similar trouble.” - Dick’s just*there*, the junior crimefighter, thrown in to add variety to fight scenes andgive his partner someone to bounce dialogue off of. As little as the comicsbrought up Batman’s parents dying in a filthy alley back then, it at leastoccasionally merited a mention, whereas I could almost believe you if you toldme Robin’s origin was literally never brought up again for the first 20 yearsof his career.

To be clear, that’s not at all a failing of those stories. Robin’s great even then, a fitting splash of color into Batman’s world thatpaved the way for further weirdness down the line and a great design in his ownright (even if the lack of pants hasn’t aged as well as Superman or Batman’slooks at the time), as well as a reader-identification figure in a time whenhanging out with Batman still seemed like a fun prospect. But compared to itsbig rival in Superman, which silly as it got still often dove intobig, primal emotions children could relate to - at least in the Silver Age- Batman was mostly rooted in process: here’s how Batmanfights his way past the goons/escapes the deathtrap/figures out the mystery.The closest there was to an ongoing emotional conflict was Batman wonderingwhether or not he should settle down with Batwoman. As a result, despite reamsof pagetime and plenty of solo stories, Robin himself had less characterizationthan, say, the likes of Jimmy Olsen, or even Lori Lemaris. Even stories zeroingin on their relationship like Robin DiesAt Dawn are based on Batman’s guilt, not anything substantial on Robin’send. He’s not even a tonal contrast yet, since Batman himself is pretty chipperby now, and will be for the next few decades.

The turning point is in 1969 when Dick leaves for college aspart of a general attempt at streamlining Batman’s operation; while the O’Neil/Adamsteam hadn’t come onboard yet, the Adam West and Burt Ward show had ended theyear before and I imagine DC was already feeling the backlash, so it marked thestart in earnest of trying to get everybody to take Batman a bit moreseriously. The unintended result being that Robin, while appearing on occasionin the main titles, was for all intents and purposes hermetically sealed awayin his own corner of the DCU away from what was happening to Batman, first insolo adventures and then with the New Teen Titans. And eventually,inexorably, that meant that Robin shifted to not really fitting with Batman’sworld as we knew it anymore, and that’s therefore what came to define DickGrayson: he’s not like Bruce Wayne, and moreover he doesn’t especially want tobe, until him even nominally being Batman’s sidekick anymore doesn’t work oncehe grows up and realizes he doesn’t want to sit in a basement scowling for therest of his life.

Of course, taking Dick Grayson out of the picture meantthere wasn’t going to be a Robin period, and the rejection of the fun Robinrepresented wasn’t complete enough to deny the value of his iconography, soalong comes Jason Todd, The Robin Who Makes Sense For Grim Batman once he getshis Post-Crisis origin. He’s got a dark backstory (one that even doesmarginally more than Dicks’ did to justify the conceit of Batman taking on ayoung aid - after all, if Jason wasn’t Robin he’d possibly be doomed to a lifeof crime), and a personality that lets him trade jokes with the bad guys inclassic Robin style, but as fueled by a rage at injustice that meant he didn’tcontrast that harshly with a post-Miller Batman. There’s a bit more of adeliberate contrast with how Batman himself functions - something that becomesimportant later - but it’s subdued in the face of Jason’s anger boiling over,until his presence becomes untenable both in-universe and among the fanbase,and what happens, happens. Because goodness knows that if there’s one thingBatman was lacking, it was a defining tragedy to motivate him to fight crime.

So you have a company that recognizes that Robin probablyshould be a thing, but their attempt at making him mesh with therough-and-tumble modern world of the 1980s failed so spectacularly that havinga child beaten to death by a clown was preferable to having to continue to putup with him. So they were going to have to work with something a little morefamiliar, while at the same time finding a whole new way to make the ideapalatable, especially now that the obvious dangers of bringing a powerless kidto fight supervillains were right at the front of everybody’s minds.

And that’s how you get the most important Robin story of alltime past his debut in A Lonely Place OfDying.

Not the best,mind you; later stories explored the idea introduced here in far moreinteresting ways. And for that matter, I’mon the record that Tim Drake is by far the least interesting Robin, ageneric grab-bag of traits from other characters who never remotely approachesthe sum of his parts (and that disappointing streak in fact starts right here,where the question of “how do you justifyendangering a child after what happened to Jason Todd?” is kicked under therug by having a new kid show up out of nowhere who happens to be amazing andperfect for the gig both physically and mentally). But what happens here iswhere the idea hinted at now and again in the likes of The Dark Knight Returns finally clicks into place, where Robinactually becomes Robin as we now know him with the idea that his contrast withBatman isn’t a bug, but a feature.

That’s what Robin brings to the table, retroactivelyexplaining why Dick worked and Jason didn’t, why he makes sense in Batman’sworld, and why Bruce in fact needs him: because there needs to be a light inthe dark, someone to remind Batman just what it is he’s fighting for and keephim from losing himself entirely to his mission. That Robin saves Batman justas much as the other way around, and that having a laughing young daredevil outthere alongside him will keep Batman’s head in the game, keep him alert andengaged and alive now that he has someone else to look out for. In short, Robinbeing around forces Batman to be an adult, rather than the kid still crying inthe alley all these years later. And in so doing, he has the chance to showthese kids a better way, just as he once found one. It’s a take that sticksright away, since that’s the contrast they went with a couple years later for Batman: The Animated Series, setting instone how those two related to each other in the public eye to the point whereit’s hard to remember it any other way (especially since flashbacks to Dick’s period as Robin now retroactively cast him as the upbeat good cop toBatman’s hardass).

It doesn’t quite hold in the comics among the creatorsthough, and the result was an odd period where things were thrown in twodirections at once; some writers it was becoming obvious actually did dislikeor even hate Robin, or at minimum had no use whatsoever for him, and he startedto get kicked to the side at every available opportunity since now not only washe silly on his own but he actively represented the idea that Batman shouldhimself lighten up. Others clearly started to like Robin as a figure more thanBatman himself, hence getting storieswhere it turned out Nightwing was called into Gotham on the night of Jason’sdebut so Bruce could rub it in his face that he was replaced, or Brucereplacing Tim with an inadequately-trained young woman who eventually gotkilled to try and bait him into resuming the role himself. And by the timethings returned to some sort of equilibrium, it was already just about time forthe next big shift.

Finally, we come to the star of the show if we’re talkingabout how Robin works and where he stands today: Damian Wayne. The son of Batmanasopposed to the brother, and therefore probably why Bruce catastrophically fails at every turnwhen trying to raise him (outside maybe a few so-so Tomasi comics) - he’s acesat barking orders at partners, but not so much at emotionally connecting with achild who’s for a change actually immature compared to him, rather than beingnoticeably emotionally healthier. He couldn’t even properly help Jason; what hope didhe have at reaching a 10-year-old assassin raised from birth with the promisethat his destiny is to one day wreak bloody revolution and seize the world inhis grip? Bruce fights crime; what’s he going to do with a kid essentially raisedby the platonic concept of capital-C Crime? Hence why he’s not Bruce’s Robin, andnever really could be. Even if they could work together without findingthemselves at each other’s throats, it’d be two terse efficient warriors cooperatingsmoothly, with none of the spark that makes Batman and Robin thrive as apartnership in an emotional sense. He’s Dick’s.

He has to be Dick’s,because as Dick’s grown since his years in the speedo, through Nightwing toBatman and back again, he’s become the official adult in the room of the BatmanFamily (at least as far as the members in tights go). He’s the one who smiles,who has at least semi-stable relationships, who Bruce saved and who thereforegrew up not being afraid and vulnerable in the same way as him. And because ofthat he’s the one who’s able to talk with Damian as a human being to beunderstood and guided rather than an apprentice to be disciplined - just as hewas retroactively the one to make the effort to connect with Bruce, he’s ableto do the same thing here, except this time the power dynamic favors him - and becauseof that Damian eventually comes to understand there’s more to crimefightingthan punishing ‘degenerates’, but in protecting the innocent and serving ahigher ideal of justice. To the point where the privileged little brat whooriginally thought blood alone made him worthy of being Batman not only turnshis back on the crime that defined his life, but joins the Bat-Family inearnest by essentially orphaning himself with the rejection of hismother.

It’s the completion of a circle, where Dick proves hisworthiness as Batman by succeeding in saving Damian where Bruce failed to saveJason. They have the chemistry that defines Batman and Robin as a modernpartnership, able to bounce off each other with the wise snarking veteransuperhero always able to needle the self-important teen samurai billionaireuntil the kid comes out, whether to laugh along with him or show how deep hiswounds go. And the reason this truly works as a reconfiguration of the Batmanand Robin relationship rather than a new one altogether became clear in Nightwing Must Die!, where we see whatDamian brings to the table in turn: Dick as a well-adjusted person doesn’t havethe diamond-solid certainty in his identity or mission that Bruce did, butDamian most definitely does, and can bring the fire to Dick when he needs itthe way Dick could with Bruce. He’s the one who believes in Dick as Batman evenmore than he believes in Bruce. Hell, probably even more than Dick believes in Bruce.

As is that’s the issue with Robin, at least as far as thecomics go - he’s not working with his partner, and you can’t especially shove himtogether with Bruce without either killing the drama or going endlessly back tothe “You’re not my real dad, man!” well (yetanother reason Dick should absolutely still be Co-Batman), and while he’s honestlya strong enough character to work on his own, that’s not his situation at themoment. Thankfully we’re still getting a pretty effective contrast with JonKent in Super Sons, along with whatever they’re doing in Teen Titans right now,but as Robin specifically rather than Damian Wayne he’s kind of inevitablysidelined until Dick either takes back the cape or just takes Robin as hissidekick even while he’s Nightwing. Bruce himself seems to have moved pastneeding a Robin truly all his own at the moment, instead cycling through thelikes of Bluebird and Signal and Gotham Girl. The honest answer to what Robinmeans in the DCU right now is probably “identitythat’s going to remain in a holding pattern until the DCEU Batman and Nightwingmovies come out, and then they’ll do whatever lines up with those”. So, uh,come back to me in 2019 or thereabouts. But on the whole? Batman and Robin arethere to save each other. It’s that simple.

[sweetlifetownsville]

The Blather Storm Gathers Strength: The Astonisher Is So Desperate For Love, Is Tinder Next?

BLAM! The Astonishers iditor scores another bullseye on her tootsie, while penning a paean of self-praise making the floods all about THEM, not YOU. For comic relief, it cant be bettered. Whats our deputy Doo Dah, Messagebank Walker not telling us? ThePie hears he is so upset with some Facebook jibes, that hes seeking legal advice. Also, the (old) gangs all here Townsville gets another council CEO with a chequered history. And THAT photograph of a female footy player to revert to a dismissive saying of his youth, The Magpie asks whats the hairy deal? And motor scooters dont usually make us laugh, but this one does. But first In these days of whine and posers, few things are hard to imagine as being impossible but The Magpie being genuinely indignant ON BEHALF of Pauline Hanson would be up there until this week. This screechy harridan is truly an ill-educated, blinkered ignoramus, but the set piece public bullying ambush on national TV during the week successfully cast her as a victim deserving sympathy and thats a role she doesnt really deserve. So David Koch and Derryn Hinch have more than their unprofessional behaviour to be ashamed of, but also the fact that it immediately gave Hanson the undeserved role of a victim of misogyny. The is a deplorable trend in pop media to mistake shouty bullyboy ranting as a justified replacement for clever and reasoned questioning. The smug stand-over tactics of the hugely self-satisfied talent-cipher David Koch was reinforced by a swearing and blaspheming Hinch. Any moral point they were trying to make on Sunrise i.e. that Hansons track record of anti-Islamic rhetoric played more than a totally speculative role in the Christchurch massacre was completely lost by their behaviour. Bentley was totally unimpressed.

These two dunderheads quickly learnt that their ranting was self-defeating, with viewers generally sympathetic to Hanson and making widespread calls for Koch to be sacked and Hinch well, well just have to wait on the ballot box for him to get his. The ABC Tries Its Hand At Soft Porn It was the week of THAT photograph of THAT kick. The image that dominated the public chatterati this week was this one AFL footballer Tayla Harris.

And the young lady can thank Channel 7 for the publicity she is now enjoying (well, she indicates she quite OK with the attention.) The pic was put up by 7 on their FB page earlier in the week, but when it attracted some totally predictable low comments from some pimply near-illiterate trolls, the station made the bizarre decision to remove the image instead of just the comments. This skewed logic suggested they agreed that the trolls had some sort of point with their totally unacceptable view of things. Cue predictable outcry over this sort of flinching management oafishness and back up it went sans comments of course. As is the world these days, this attracted a great deal of notoriety for the picture and for Ms Harris, and various members of the professional huffnpuff brigade. Now, you may find this hard to believe, but The Pie has looked and looked and looked examined this photograph at least a dozen if not 20 times, and was nonplussed as to what the whole thing was about. But then the awful truth dawned, courtesy of ABC TV news on Wednesday night. It was what was NOT being said that was the problem. The ABCs lengthy tut-tutting report showed, for reasons known only to themselves, a series of stop-motion pics of the entire Harris kick. Not once, but TWICE (roll through to 16.38 and 17.39 if the link is still up). The relevance or necessity of the extra pics is not immediately apparent. This very un-ABCish display hit like a freight train to the senses the lovingly slowed, later zoom, double dose started to take on the semblance of soft porn for the trolls and talk about the Streisand Effect (decrying the publishing of something magnifies its exposure tenfold). Because the one thing absolutely no one was saying was that the picture was undeniably sexy. And anyone who indignantly says otherwise is simply lying. Or dead. The athletic female form is every bit as sexy as that of a male perhaps more so, but it seemed everyone was tip-toeing around this fact. But The Pie let it all pass until the following night, when a further ABC TV report on the issue again featured the same series of photographs (scroll to 25.14), which started to look like an excuse to run the pics again and again. This was now beyond ingenuous. And it was dishonest, close up zooms and the like also making it clearly prurient. Of course, the whole thing was clothed in a finger-wagging moral tale, with the photographer wittering on about a beautiful, graceful, powerful image - which it is and some other thundering gorgon calling for detection and expulsion of the trolls if they were found to be gasp members of an AFL club. Speaking your mind on social media nowadays requires awareness, common sense and an understanding that private thoughts and grubby unattainable ambitions should remain just that, private. But the medias prissy denial of the reality in this instance, pretending that an obviously sexy image should not be seen as such, just aggravates the situation instead of taking a sober look at the issue. And an image like this can bring out the wrong reaction in the emotionally immature. Sport has always been inextricably linked with sex, indeed, born of it, the first instances of ancient games were devised to advertise the best genes available for breeding purposes and thats not a million miles away from the way sports like tennis, swimming, gymnastics and athletics are subliminally marketed today. And, like the seasoned exponents of other, established sports, Ms Harris and the other women who play AFL will soon get comfortable with the new reality and no doubt flaunt their new image for fun and profit. (As an AFL die hard, The Pie might be unkind enough to suggest the photograph was the only thing worth watching of the new womens league.) But even after rocking that vision back and forward a score of times, The Magpie admits he is stumped try as he might, he just cant see it what all the fuzz is about. The Bulletins New Slogan Its All About Us Well, thats what they meant, and at least thats a refreshing burst of honesty and hilarity. In what in The Magpies experience is an unfortunate first, Bulletin iditor Jenna Cairney has used a prominent two page spread (about $10,000s worth to punters) to tell us how wonderful she and her team have been for doing their jobs. Like hundreds of others, continuing to do their jobs despite suffering flood damage to property . And what tough times she and her battling journos had of it. Suddenly it was Were For Us ,and not Were For You.

Self praise is never any recommendation. But in this virtue-signally fest, a desperate bid to establish that the turnstile staff door at the Astonisher doesnt exist and everybody is here forever, Jenna comes spectacularly undone. First, theres this laugh-your-arse-off clanger

Despite in itself the highly questionable claim of who does what and where, (certainly much of the advertising layout is done in The Phillippines) the boast doesnt say much about the papers writing or subbing or local knowledge when it is featured above a picture carrying an incorrect caption. There is no intersection or corner of Norris Street and Queens Road, these streets run parallel and dont intersect, they are two blocks apart. The initial error could be forgiven, formed under trying circumstances but that was back then, now is now, where any sub with local knowledge wouldve picked it up, or at least checked. And real papers keep the archives updated. But thats not the only dubious claim when we read on.

Just love that line much of what they say will be true; much will be their version of the truth, and lets be blunt, some may be downright lies. That would make a much more accurate description of the Townsville Bulletin instead ofnthe mimsy Were For You, which by the way, is a News Corpse company-wide slogan for all mastheads across the country. So we are to trust you when you tell us 77% of locals read our content. As the Hotels Combined bear keeps saying Really? Lets see, total population of the immediate Townsville local area i.e. possible circulation, is, in round figures, about 250,000, 77% of which is 179,000. Yet the latest Roy Morgan readership figures show that on an average weekday, 43,000 see a Bulletin and on the weekends, 52,000 and almost all these readers are the same repeat readers, the Bulletin is not a destination for casual browsing. Nice try at creative accounting, Jenna, hope you dont do your books with this method. And your risible claim that we can trust the Townsville Bulletin is as believable as this little bit self-praise bollocks.

Pure and utter tosh, and the city knows it. But good job on youth crime, though, mate, herograms all round to your tough journalists. And boy, is your closing going to come back and bite you on the bum sometime soon.

Like they say in Hollywood, Jenna, when you can fake sincerity, youve got it made. It seems appropriate to follow those sentiments with this ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL WITH JENNY AND JENNA Make no mistake folks, were on the campaign trail, and its the Jenny and Jenna show from now until next March. Get used to it.The blizzard of bent bullshit is gathering force down at the Astonisher. We could have been excused for alarm and panic when we read the suggestion that our new council Chief Excecutive Officer is yikes!! Mayor Mullet herself!! Isnt that how anyone would see this at a glance?

But hang on, thats obviously an error in putting the story together, so lets ignore the click bait come on, and click through to the real story as it appears in the online Bulletin.

Nope, still looks like Mayor Mullet. But then we get to the story which is by established practice, usually summarised in photograph and headline and we find that the familiar-sounding Mike Chiodo has been bumped up from acting CEO to the full time gig. So lets look down through the story, see what this Chiodo bloke looks like. No luck! Seems the Bulletin hasnt got a pic of him to inform us what our new CEO looks like. So let The Pie help out here this is our man an why his bname souns familiar AS REPORTED IN THE MAGPIE JULY 15, 2017 EDITION.

New TCC CEO MIke Chiodo Back in 2017, that same article included this .

The mystery resignation was never publicly cleared up, but again, in July 2017, The Pie reported this interesting tidbit about Adele The Impaler Youngs NT chum and now successor.

Seems Mr Chiodo has hit on another sweet little earner in yet another city he is passing through. Look, he may be a fine administrator Christ knows, anybody will do after Adele Young but a bit more transparency at how the choice was made, and what other interest was shown in the position would have been well in order. But of course, Mayor Mullet is like Jenna, and just wants us to trust her. OK, Big Mama, we trust you yeah, right. A Little Messagebank Mystery

Deputy Doo Dah Les Messagebank Walker This floated into The Nest during the week from a Magpie contact (trust The Pie, please ). I read with interest an article you put together some while ago with respect to Wellards possible involvement with certain councillors and some unusual behaviour with feed lots and land. Step forward to our dispute in relation to the Cattle holding yards near Oak Valley. Plenty of opposition from the locals, and for good reason, the submission by the developer (Gary Dixon & Co aka Ronmar Rural Pty Ltd) was an absolute shambles. I suspect they have been trying to strong-arm the planners at the TCC to get their way. Regardless, I thought that you may find it interesting that Les Walker excused himself from chairing the Planning Committee meeting that heard the case. He alleges that posts on social media (I presume the private Oak Valley Facebook page) indicate that he has a relationship with the developer. There certainly have been some comments, but none that anyone who has a thick skin but is innocent wouldnt deflect with a chuckle. Therefore, quite curious behavior from our deputy mayor who he is apparently seeking legal advice on the matter. Thats now on The Magpie watch list. An Historical Bit Of Doggerel For Our Coming Federal Election Season. Some observations defy time and changing fashion, never to lose their core truth. This from Jonathan Swift 250 years ago. Let them, when they once get in, Sell the nation for a pin; While they sit a-picking straws, Let them rave at making laws; While they never hold their tongue, Let them dabble in their dung We may, while they strain their throats Wipeour arses with their votes. And Another Timely Reminder Of These Political Times It applies just about everywhere.

This Is Just Fall-About Funny Motorbike fanciers, cant yet afford that souped-up, scream machine youve always dreamed of? Heres your answer in the meantime. This Week In Trumpistan

Just when you think Americas Chump In Chief cant sink any lower in his increasingly demented ramblings, this week was dominated by his attack on much-loved war hero Senator John McCain. While a young Donald dodged Vietnam because of alleged bone spurs made him unsuitable for the armed forces, pilot McCain was captured by the Viet Cong but remained loyal and unbreakable through years of imprisonment, deprivation and torture. Of course, McCain couldnt reply to Trumps barbs, hes been dead some months now. Trump denigrated McCain viciously, and for no real apparent reason except McCain wouldnt go along with his loopy policies the response to the attack came from across America and was instantaneous, as reflected by cartoonists on all side of the political divide.

Another ridiculous week has gone by, and somehow, were still here. Hit the comments page with your thoughts or just for silly fun. And sincere thanks to those who have supported this blog with a donation, times are a bit skinny at the moment, funds are always needed to defray costs; if you can help out, the how to donate button is below, it will be greatly appreciated.. http://www.townsvillemagpie.com.au/the-blather-storm-gathers-strength-the-astonisher-is-so-desperate-for-love-is-tinder-next/

[v-le]

Kmusic: My Decade-Long Journey with Kpop

Foreword: I had been working on this post for a few weeks now, in between university and everything else. In the middle of its composition, Kim Jonghyun of SHINee passed away and shocked the world. I, too, was appalled, and I don’t think I will ever properly recover from his death. I want to dedicate this post to him. This story is about how kpop has grown with me in life. This story defines everything I have ever thought or felt about kpop and that now, very much includes Jonghyun’s passing. 수고했어, 종현아.

Book 1

I can’t really recall it, but the very first kpop song I’ve ever listened to was either “Nobody” by Wonder Girls, “Genie” by SNSD, or “Gee” by SNSD. I was about seven years old around then. My cousin had shown my sister these songs and she, too, quickly got swept into the music. For the first years of this exposure, I had heard a myriad of songs ranging from Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry”, SHINee’s “Replay” & “Ring Ding Dong” & “Lucifer”, Taeyang’s “Wedding Dress”, Big Bang’s “Gara Gara Go”, Infinite’s “BTD” & “She’s Back”, 2NE1’s “Fire” and many many manyyyy more. These songs would waft out of my sister’s speakers whenever I was using my computer next to her’s in the computer room. And during those first years, I flat out hated these songs. I didn’t understand anything they were saying. They sounded obnoxious. And these boys that my sister was obsessed with weren’t even that good looking. I can recall that she was specifically infatuated with Donghae of SJ during that time. I can also recall going as far as to mock some of these songs, especially “She’s Back” by repeating “cheese pack” in an annoying tone back to her. Despite my detest for kpop during these several years, I unknowingly picked up a lot of knowledge on it. I could name many groups and recognize many of their songs, all from the fact that my sister played so much of it and I had seen her computer screen many times. Nonetheless, I complained to my mom, that I didn’t understand why she listened to that stuff when she couldn’t even understand it. My mom had told me that it was totally fine, it’s simply about the beat of the music, and that you didn’t have to understand it to like it. I remember feeling a little upset because she defended my sister. All in all, during these years of premature kpop exposure, I was petty, unrelenting, and simply immature. I didn’t like kpop.

Book 2

I remember for some reason, reasons unknown, one day when I was at my friend’s house in 5th grade, I decided to show my friends “Ring Ding Dong” for fun. I remember a few days before that, I had watched the “Wedding Dress” MV for the first time on my own and I cried, too. During these next months, my pettiness towards kpop began to dampen and I started to get pretty good at recognizing groups and songs, and maybe even some faces. The only issue was that I tried immensely hard, as if my life depended on it, to not let my sister see what I was up to. I knew that I would receive massive backlash from her, for being such a hypocrite. So throughout 5th grade and a little bit of 6th, I started to dip my toes in a little, into the infinitely large pool that is kpop. I slowly and secretly, grew minuscule fondness for some songs, but not enough to want to add them to my music library. I kinda liked kpop.

Book 3

In the early days of middle school, a really good friend of mine loved Super Junior to death. Another friend of mine listened to some kpop, but only a little bit here and there. One day they showed me a song from LEDApple and I can officially say that they were the first group I completely fell for. LEDApple had such a different, dynamic and unique vibe to them, that I almost felt like I had triumphed over my sister. I had found and enjoyed a group that she probably did not know at all, and their music was actually really really really good. Personal favorites include “Time’s Up” and “Someone Met By Chance”. Much later, they released “Sadness” and I was even happier with that song. I quickly learned the names of all the members and I considered them my favorite group of all time. LEDApple was my introduction into this “fangirling” gig that kpoppers lowkey highkey have to keep up with. With LEDApple, I learned:

How to memorize members

That MV meant “music video”

How to watch every single video of them that existed on youtube (although for them, it was minimal because they were so unknown)

That subbers were a thing, and for specific groups, too

How to watch variety shows of them

How to memorize birthdays

That Koreans have a different age system than internationally

That they wear excessive makeup

And much, much, much more

I would consider LEDApple to be my “first” for everything. I really did cherish them as a group, along with their music, and I slowly learned the do’s and dont’s of kpop during this phase. More than LEDApple though, I quickly became even more aware of more groups and songs, and I started to favor some more than others too. I liked kpop.

Book 4

My love for LEDApple started to dwindle as I discovered and started to really like more groups like MBLAQ, Big Bang, SHINee, SNSD, B.A.P, B1A4 and especially Infinite. I completely fell for Infinite as I listened to songs like “Paradise”, “Be Mine”, and “Can U Smile”. And yes, as I listened to more of their discography, I recognized some songs as the ones my sister had played in the past as well. Then, they released the Chaser and it was game set from there. I remember searching up Infinite’s profiles, comparing the images with their MVs and matching their names with their faces. I remember when I first saw Woohyun in Be Mine, I thought that he looked like Harry Shum Jr. AHAH how wrong I was….  I also remember struggling a little bit because the profile pictures I used were from their debut, with their slicked back hair and white button shirts and suspenders :’). Soon enough, I became very familiar with everything Infinite-related and I eventually claimed them to be my favorite group of all time (and to this day, they have remained as so). I really liked kpop.

Book 5

This book becomes a little hard to explain, simply because I feel like my emotions seemed to be mundane externally, but inside, I know that they were deep with a sort of affection that words can never fully explain. My love for Infinite was immense, driven, and completely pure. I did not have a favorite member, because no really, I just couldn’t choose one. All their songs were absolutely amazing; Infinite taught me how to fall in love with even the non-title track songs. Their entire discography is the only discography of any artists that I know like the back of my hand. Their choreography was always on point; they prided in being 99.9% synchronized with knife-like moves. I really, truly thought that they were all handsome in their own, unique way. Their personalities were genuine and interactions were always hilarious and the brotherhood between the boys ran as deep as blood. Their early days were the brightest ones that I can recall, and I am so grateful to have watched them develop since. They were extremely relevant within the industry, and “The Chaser” lifted them to even newer heights. I clearly remember their 2nd anniversary as well. I remember thinking to myself, that they were “SO YOUNG!!”, with Sungjong being just 18 years old at that time (which is exactly how old I am now, YIKES). Awaiting a comeback after The Chaser era was definitely an eventful one because I was so expectant and excited and it was the first (of many) that I experienced as a full-fledged fan. It took them nearly a year, but they eventually returned with “Man in Love”, and then “Destiny” immediately afterwards, and then on November 11th, 2013, I had the miraculous blessing to see them live in concert. It was my first concert ever and it was during their first world tour, as mere 3-year idols. 2013 was a year of big feats for Infinite and it all really was just a blessing. A mere five months later, I would again, see them, at the LA Kpop Festival on April 12th, 2014. Boy, was it a time to be alive as an Inspirit.  During these few years, everything I did, in my life, really did revolve around them. My school projects, artwork, everything, had to relate to Infinite somehow. I made poems about them, I had collected a total of 24 posters of them on my wall, and I had also racked up physical copies of their albums, my first one being Infinitize on July 29th of 2012. When they posted fan events like the Infinite Love Letter Contest, and when the members used Google+ and when every little thing happened, I was there, and I was supporting them endlessly. As I transitioned into high school, Infinite released more and more things, and my love for them never dwindled, even for a second. When I went through rough times, in all the ways imaginable, Infinite was always there. In the beginning, I had made folders for photos of each member, otps, and the complete group on my computer. I even named the OT7 pictures folder “What I Live For ~”. My passwords all had to do with Infinite. I named all my devices like my computer and such “IFNT7”. The phrase “My love is Infinite” was my favorite of all time. Just the sight of some colors translated into Infinite to me. Every. Little. Thing. My heart belonged to Infinite more than ever. I loved and cherished them, and still do (but maybe not as blatantly), with a burning passion. And not just them, but I really did like other groups like ZE:A and T-ARA to name a few, during these times, but Infinite truly meant the world to me. I loved kpop, especially Infinite.

Book 6

During those fangirl days, I was not completely blinded by love to a point where I was oblivious to the future; rather, I was apprehensive in a way in which I knew that when I got “older”, I “wouldn’t love them as much”. I didn’t doubt that I wouldn’t stop listening to kpop, but I knew that i couldn’t be a diehard fangirl forever. And so, around 2015 ish is when school started to kick my butt, and i really did completely disconnect. Disclaimer though: I was still endlessly thankful for and in love with Infinite. I was so proud of them no matter what, and I supported them from the sidelines with a burning heart. In fact, despite the fact that the amount of attention I dedicated to them decreased, my love for them grew nonetheless. I was so so so thankful that they were just alive, whole, and still doing music. Together. However, I was physically and mentally incapable of keeping up to date with everything, not only Infinite-related, but kpop-related, during that time. I had realized that this was probably time to prioritize things in my life, and not feel so obliged to the whole kpop thing anymore. And so, with Infinite, I tried my best, but of course I did not try hard enough. I did enough to keep up with kpop releases and such, but that was about it. I had no time for shows and small activities and interviews, and all the things that I was an expert on in the past. I no longer had time to check thru all the infinite tumblr blogs I had bookmarked. Instead, I began to turn to the simpler things, as in the music. I realized that if there was one thing that was worthy of putting effort into, it was the music. I began to only care about the music that the kpop industry was churning out. And let me just say, that during this time was probably the beginning of the death of 2nd generation kpop as well. I started to dislike the style of music that Kpop was turning towards, and I noticed how saturated it was with random groups that couldn’t even leave a mark. I also noticed its immense rise in overall popularity: Kpop was becoming more and more mainstream at a rapid rate, and I was having none of it. Instead, I began to venture into k-indie, acoustic, soul, and simply put, healing songs. I turned to artists like Eddy Kim, Davichi, Baek Jiyoung, Kim Feel, Echae En Route, Roy Kim (one my truest loves), Ggotjam Project, Clazziquai Project, Urban Zakapa, Kassy, Fromm, and many, many, many more. I have had the blessing to watch these almost-nobody artists grow, release more music, gain a tad bit more recognition, and simply become even more amazing than they already were back when I discovered them at their early stages. (Sam Kim would debut later, in 2016, and blow me away as well. In fact, all the Antenna Angels). The music from these artists, kept me alive in a similar, yet different way, than Infinite had in years past. I didn’t need to know their faces or ages or personalities or honestly, anything, about them, to feel instantaneously better. These artists and their songs were healing, in a way where the only thing that truly mattered, was their voice.

A quick story about Kim Feel, who has come to be my all time favorite artist whom I would die for: I came across a song from Younha called 없어, and it blew me away. It was gorgeous. A hip hop duo, named Elupant featured in this song and I simply became aware of their name through this track. A few months later, Elupant would release the single Crater featuring. Kim Feel. I gave the song a chance because I vaguely knew of them, and I was once again, blown away. I did not know who this vocalist, Kim Feel, was, but I knew that he was indescribably amazing at singing, and something about his voice was just so different. For months, I wouldn’t even know what Kim Feel looked like. I barely knew that he was a singer because I had only seen his name from that one song, and his WIkipedia page didn’t even exist at that time. Then, in mid-June of 2015, I saw somewhere on Facebook that Kim Feel was releasing his first mini album, and that’s when I finally got some decent exposure to him. I finally saw what he looked like, how he placed second on SSK5, and how he had released several singles here and there in the past. His mini album, Feel Free, was everything I didn’t know I wanted, and I loved it to death. Later, he would go on to perform on Immortal Songs 2 and literally make me cry ugly tears from just one performance. Kim Feel is an artist that I got to know and fall in love solely through his voice and music and nothing else. That is the true beauty about singer-songwriters. He is an absolutely amazing artist and has come to be my most cherished one. Unfortunately, he is currently serving in the army right now, but my soul will always belong to Kim Feel and his music.

I didn’t really like kpop anymore.

Book 7

I want this part of my story to simply be about my current thoughts on kpop, in this moment in time, over a decade after first being exposed to this entire culture. In this book, I will pick apart the sort of darker sides in the Korean pop music industry, which are easily overlooked amidst the fervor of fans and idols and flashing lights. This is a perspective that I have come to hone throughout years of observance and trials and growth, and simply maturing into an adult alongside the ever-changing industry itself. My view of kpop has come to change in a way in which I no longer support several aspects of it. There are simply things that go on within the industry that I want nothing to deal with. Things that I have may have enjoyed in the past are now things that I do not need in my life any longer. Please remember that kpop goes beyond music and idols. It is a lifestyle. For many people, it is a way of living about their daily lives: listening to their favorite group’s music, watching countless videos and shows of them, keeping up with their daily whereabouts and activities, knowing their birthdays and family members and personal details, and simply associating themselves with their favorite group in any way possible, as much as possible. For many kpop fans, it goes beyond liking a group’s music: it is liking their looks, personalities, habits, style, affiliations, it is liking everything. It is true that this isn’t the case for nearly every fan in kpop, but I think it is safe to say that it is a common practice amongst many kpop fans. People come to live for these groups, but of course, there is nothing wrong with that. No one knows how to breathe and wake up every day and live for a kpop group better than I do. But I want to make one very important point clear: Kpop is a market and everything is a concept. Now, let me elaborate a little bit more.

1) It is a factory.

I do not recall it being this bad in the past, but nowadays, I can say for sure that groups are debuting left and right, nonstop, almost every week, or even every day. It’s just too much. Too saturated. Talent is exploited.

2) Most of these kids lack talent.

I know that every single new rookie isn’t completely talent-less, but in such a relentless industry, and especially nowadays with the sheer amount of people trying to break through, all these girls and boys look the exact same to me. Long ago, I gave up on getting into and keeping track of rookies. I decided that they I preferred my golden groups, the ones that defined that my own kpop era, and that they were the only ones I really had time for anyway. I am not saying this applies to all of them, because of course there are always exceptions. Take the latest show, The UNIT, for example. These people are supposed to be already debuted idols, looking for another shot at fame. Yet, the most jarring thing I noticed, especially with the females, is that they can’t even sing. Is that not a basic? These girls were out there on stage belting flat notes left and right and it was atrocious. It blew my mind, because even on P101, trainees who haven’t even had “experience” like those idols had, could sing significantly better. I don’t remember when the standard to become an idol dropped so low, but it is outright disappointing to me. For me personally, a nice face or some cool dance moves or a wholesome personality is not going to make you worthy of being an idol. You have to be a performer. And if you can’t even accomplish the basics, as in pull off the right notes, then why even try?

3) There is a lack of self-expression.

This is something that could be argued from several angles, and I am glad to agree that the stereotype has been changing more and more these days, towards a better direction. But if we are to speak straight from the debut days of Boyfriend or Infinite, or even SNSD for example, then the story is a little bit less complicated. It is simple: many of these groups are forced to do things that they do not necessarily want to or choose to do. Although it varies, almost every aspect of these people’s lives is controlled by their companies. The songs they sing, the dances that they dance to, the clothes they wear, the places they go to, the food they eat, the people they have to meet, and sometimes, even the things they say. These are very frequently not 100% under the artists’ complete control. And that is simply… pretty hard to grasp, but certainly true in most situations. Hence the “everything is a concept”. Because it really is. Many of the things that these artists do are a part of a concept that they must pull off, an image that they must present to the public, whether that is their true self or not, little do we ever know. Hoya’s talk about his departure from Infinite and Woollim does a really good job of exposing this sort of culture that goes on behind the scenes. Of course, nowadays at least, many artists are receiving more musical freedom and even the opportunity to partake in the very creation and composition of their own music.

4) Kpop idols are HUMAN.

This is one that I want to emphasize as if my life depends on it. Time and time again, I think the fact that kpop idols are human is something that people seem to completely disregard. I have never seen a fanbase as cruel and scrutinizing as the kpop fanbase. It almost downright scares me. Sasaeng fans are a reality that I wish did not exist, because they are just so rude, inconsiderate, and intense. Those manic, excessive fans really make me fear for idols’ wellbeing. Furthermore, there are so, so, soooo many incidents in which a Korean artist would do this or do that or say this or that and the situation is completely, totally, blown out of proportion. I have read articles about complaints that made absolutely no sense. I want to make this clear: Nobody's perfect, and neither are kpop stars. They will make mistakes, more than once if anything. But how, in the world, in any universe, does that give people permission to write hate comments at them? To bash on every little thing about them? To write petitions for them to leave their respective groups completely? Why do people think that is okay? Why do people not understand that, just like you and me, and anyone else, kpop stars have feelings. Is that so hard to believe? That no matter how small of a word or phrase you use to hurt them, you are instilling hate regardless. And that is not okay. It is never okay. Because they are human. The world, fans, no one, will never really know what is going on in an idol’s life. I do not want to make this part solely about Kim Jonghyun, but I think it is only right to mention him here. It was stated time and time again that Jonghyun was suffering from severe depression, to an extent where he took his own life. And the entire kpop world fell into complete shambles since then. Does this make it more transparent for everyone? That hate comments, that inner feelings and emotions, that all of these things are very real aspects of idols’ lives. It is so extremely hard, for me personally, to watch these idols become decreased to shoddy titles and names over the smallest of incidents. The hate needs to stop. Kpop idols are humans. Please.

5) The exhaustive work schedules.

This basically stems from the whole humanizing kpop idols thing. But I absolutely despise of the fact that is it common for idols to faint on stage, become hospitalized for over-exhaustion, or take breaks to recover. I have one simple question: Why do we have to work them until they reach that point? Are their bodies and capabilities expendable objects or something? Why is it okay? Why is it common for crying out loud? These people are literally worked to their limit, for several weeks on end. Once again, I’d like to point out that they are not invincible gods with undying strength. They are humans. There just has to be something done about the ridiculous work schedules that these people have to deal with. It just is not okay.

6) Companies are milking fans for their money.

This one is a big statement. It is not necessarily completely true for every single company, but it is definitely not wrong in any way at all. Think about why a company would start up a group in the first place. To give these hard working people a chance in the limelight out of generosity because they totally deserve it? No, of course not lol. There is a win-win situation within a lot of these groups, or at least the more successful ones. They earn lots and lots of money, a large portion of which goes straight to company, while also becoming famous and etc etc everything else they’ve always wanted. But companies are playing a game at the same time, marketing these groups to any extent possible. Ever wonder why groups frequently venture into the Japanese market? Ever wonder why groups have to release 4952548 different versions of one simple album (which is totally a newer-generation-of-kpop trend. groups in the past never did this)? Ever wonder why Lee Soo Man purposely created a multicultural group when it probably would’ve been much easier to just make a purely Korean one? Everything in the kpop industry, and I mean everything comes down to money. That is the reality of it. It is a market.

6) The music no longer sounds like kpop to me.

With the massive rise to global stardom that a lot of current day groups have acquired has come the musical shift into which, in my opinion, the overall sound of kpop is very much more westernized. Many groups are following the trend of releasing music that is edm, trap, tropical house, dupstep, etc -oriented. And for me, I’m not digging it. I fell in love with kpop because of sounds like Big Bang’s and Infinite’s older music. But now, the music is so completely different. A lot of these songs honestly just sound like something I would hear playing on the American radio. Which may just be the goal anyway. But for me, if kpop just sounds like everything else now, why would I listen to it? I originally liked it because it was different, and didn’t sound like everything else I was already hearing. But now it just does. Sigh.

7) There has been a complete generation shift.

This is something that I talk about extensively to my friends and peers. I’d like to say that it is something that I am very passionate about. There isn’t a day in which a part of me isn’t internally mourning about the death of my kpop generation. I think the generational shift becomes more and more apparent as time goes by: look at the groups that were active 5 years ago, and compare them to now. Are any of them even the same? Probably not. And that sort of reality pains me a lot. I understand that it’s simply about growth, getting over it, and moving on. But I’ll always reminisce from time to time. Here are the groups that defined my generation of kpop, and what happened to them:

Big Bang: indefinite hiatus (TOP is in the army, w/ the others well on their way)

SHINee: active (this one breaks my heart even more because not only did I constantly commend SHINee for staying whole and active, despite their apparent downfall in popularity and relevance, I was just always thankful for their undying perseverance as an older generation group. The loss of Jonghyun completely broke my heart because it was a reality I never wanted to believe in. I’m still in shock and it really does hurt to think how SHINee’s name will now forever go down in tragedy rather than legendary)

SNSD: indefinite hiatus (this one is a little hazy. It has been stated that the name of SNSD lives on, despite the members being in different companies. A sliver of hope remains for them)

2NE1: disbanded (first they lost Minzy, and then they completely fell apart)

LEDApple: disbanded (or at least i think so?? The members moved around all over the place and I’m pretty sure no one is left)

2PM: indefinite hiatus (Taec is in the army, while the others are doing their own thang for now. I have faith that they’ll return as 6 one day, though. Fight on, 2PM <3)

B1A4: active (i got to see them in feb, too, bless up)

ZE:A: indefinite hiatus (all the members are in separate companies. Minwoo & Taeheon returned from the army already while Kwanghee, Heechul, and Siwan are currently serving. The rest have been doing their own things as well. In fact, Kevin resides in Australia now. They have stated several times that despite being in different places and companies, the group has not officially disbanded yet. It warms my heart to think that there is still hope for them.)

U-KISS: active (they lost Kevin and AJ and Dongho in the year past and I know they’re still managing to stay alive with the addition of Jun as well)

Teen Top: hiatus (L.Joe was caught up in some messy legal stuff with his company and seemed to have left the industry as a whole in a rather ugly way… it definitely hurt to watch this pan out in the way that it did… nonetheless, Teen Top is basically still irrelevant anyway, despite the multiple comebacks they’ve had in years past.)

4Minute: disbanded (;__;)

Super Junior: active (this is such a blessing, honestly, to have Super Junior alive and active, despite alllllll the shit they’ve been through these past years. I know they’re definitely on the older side, but these guys are absolute legends and it makes me so happy to see them still together, even if just partially)

f(x): indefinite hiatus (their last release was in 2015 which means it’s almost been 3 freaking years since we last saw them active as 4, after Sulli’s departure. Wow… I really do hope to see them soon)

Apink: active (but barely relevant…They were also once 7, until Yookyung left in 2012, I believe.)

Girls Day: active (but not as relevant as they were before, either. Their recent, occasional releases have been decent, but not good enough to be big. They also technically lost a member before, too.)

BEAST: active as Highlight (They lost Hyunseung, and then they all left Cube. Miraculously, these boys kept themselves afloat and even established their own label together, as five. I am honestly so happy for what they have accomplished and even though it sucks that we’ll never hear the name BEAST in same way or affiliation anymore, these five guys are still going strong. I think they proved to me that they really do enjoy being idols, which is kinda rare considering how long they’ve been active in the industry)

VIXX: active (and probably one of the most relevant idols out of this list)

Miss A: disbanded (it was unclear for a while, but also pretty obvious because each member went their separate way. But JYP recently declared their disbandment official)

Sistar: disbanded (they were active for exactly 7 years, debuting and disbanding on the same exact day. This one definitely hurt)

BAP: active (they took a long hiatus somewhere in between, but it was well-deserved considering how ridiculously active they were back then. They still come back quite often nowadays, but it is unfortunately safe to say that they no longer leave the same impact as they did years before)

KARA: disbanded (despite adding Youngji after Nicole and Jiyoung left, they couldn’t last long enough. this one also hurt because of how spot-on their music always was for me.)

MBLAQ: indefinite hiatus (the name itself still lives on, and they never officially declared disbandment. but MBLAQ is probably one of the only groups that will go down in pure tragedy in my heart because I really did, truly, love them to death at one point. The departure of Lee Joon and Thunder threw this group into shambles and they barely managed to come back once as a trio, until their company disintegrated before our eyes and screwed them over even more. These boys used to be top of the top, dominating the industry in every way possible, musically and in variety shows, too. But lately, in fact, not even that recently, G.O. had taken to his personal social media to reveal the mistreatment and basically the complete shit they had to go through as idols. He was utterly traumatized by his experiences in the industry, to a point where he never wanted to sing again. But he talked about how the other 2 members gave him strength, as well as the few fans that were left to support him. MBLAQ literally dissolved into ashes right before my eyes, yet no one, and I mean no one, has been talking about this. They honestly just went through so much and have lost a lot as well. It hurt so bad to watch such an amazing group fall apart so fast, without even making a sound. Fuck the industry.)

Wonder Girls: disbanded (these legendary girls first faced the departure of Sun, and then Sohee. Sunmi was added into the mix after a very long hiatus, but they lasted for about 2 years until they officially disbanded)

T-Ara: indefinite hiatus (this group has faced a ferocious path of ups and downs. First with Hwayoung, and her departure, then with Areum and her departure as well, and then the very sudden departure of Soyeon and Boram. The four remaining members have decided to not renew their contracts with their current agency, but it is unclear if T-Ara still really exists at all at this point.)

Block B: active (and thankfully pretty relevant, I think)

Boyfriend: hiatus (Donghyun is on the Unit right now. I know they haven’t been super active in the past years, but when they tried, it was lackluster. They’ve definitely lost a lot of the momentum they once had years ago :( )

After School: indefinite hiatus (so many members have “graduated” in the past years, that only five are left now. I honestly can’t recall the last time they released music, but I can tell it’s been a very long time…)

CN Blue: active (but unfortunately very irrelevant anyway. They celebrated their 8th anniversary recently though! Congrats (: )

Rainbow: disbanded (so so so sad…)

Infinite: active (bless the heavens. Hoya’s departure shattered my world and I was admittedly a sobbing mess for several days on end. But their impending comeback is going to warm my heart and ears, I just know it. It’s been a good one whole year and a third since I last saw them come back. I have definitely missed their once steadfast presence. Welcome back, my loves <3 )

Welp, that was quite refreshing, to take a quick peek at the histories of these groups that once defined my middle school years. It definitely hurts to count how many times I had to write “disbanded” or “indefinite hiatus” because of how unclear and shaky a lot of these groups’ futures look. It has been pretty obvious for a while, that with the progressive crumbling of this once sturdy, strong, and seemingly invincible gang of groups, a new era of groups has been ushered in to take center stage and render the rest of the once-legends weak and irrelevant. Groups that used to make headlines on the daily basis and smash charts consistently are now barely hanging onto existence in the industry. It is quite painful to watch. There are many times where I just want to go back to those days where the names and faces and songs that were “mainstream” were the ones that I could actually recognize and enjoy. Now, it is quite the opposite. Adieu, my generation of kpop.

I just really don’t like kpop anymore. (but I still like Korean music! :) )

[rachelzee143-blog]

Another Mother Against Promposals

<p>My stance on the issue of the Promposal trend was recently placed in public view when I read this blog post here: http://www.scarymommy.com/promposal-trend/</p> <p>A friend of mine, a millennial who is smart, outspoken and whom I hold in high regard responded by saying this: <blockquote>Hi I’m 22 this is sounds EXACTLY LIKE LITERALLY EVERY article by a bitter out of touch middle aged person ever. Seriously the world we’re growing up in is screwed the public education system is a shit show they deserve the whatever celebration they want for simply surviving cyber bullying, hormones, growing up, common core and deciding what to do with their lives before their brains are even done developing. You can’t make enough money working part time to put yourself through college (I would know I’m trying!) so they might not even get to finish. No degree? good luck making enough to get married or start a family, look at the people a few years older than high school seniors, millennials, people this woman’s age can’t fucking shut up about how we’re ruining everything by not getting married, buying houses and starting families AND WHY do they think we’re not doing these things?? Because we’re selfish and only want to be “free and focus on our selfies, avocado toast and careers” when the reality is we can’t afford to marry the people we love without coming under criticism for not having a dress or a church, we can barely afford the shoeboxes we do live in so a house might as well be a mermaid and if we kids living the way we do we’d never hear the end of how awful we are pawning them off on our parents because we can’t afford daycare and rent. Let these kids party as extravagantly as they please because it may be a long time before they ever seen the rest of those mile stones.“

My response? I read the article twice before posting. I have a general rule against posting propaganda that perpetuates generational divide. Because the truth is, when I was 22, it sucked just as much. For different reasons, but it sucked. When I was 22, we had new frontiers to handle. We were not certain this planet would be around long enough for us to see our own children. Would it be nuclear war? The hole in the ozone? Pollution? Many of our parents got divorced when we were young, giving way to the term "broken homes”. Ours was the first generation to have predominantly two parents working full time. We were called the latch key generation; later the more ubiquitous Generation X. We witnessed the AIDS epidemic first hand and a government try to ignore and scapegoat it away. Trust me: we had plenty on our shoulders and I remember. At 22 I had to drop out of college (lack of finances and inability to pay back loans.) I worked two full time and one part time jobs plus babysitting and lived with my parents for the next few years. When my husband and I finally got married we had been together for six years. He received some money from his grandmother to put a down payment on our house - a double, so we always have income from the upper. At a time when weddings were expected to cost 15-30k, ours cost about 6k. My mother hand sewed my dress. We got an amazing deal on tulle and other decorations from a florist that happened to be closing. We made it work. So when people lament about how great it was “back in my day”, I hesitate to get on board with that. We had the same criticisms of “kids don’t play outside” and “none of the parents understand the way their children are being taught.” We felt misunderstood by the Boomers and the Silent Gen'ers who raised us. And they felt misunderstood by the Greatest Gen'ers before them, and so forth. The struggles that occur as part of a coming of age may be painted with different medium, but they are all the same. And I don’t want to pretend that somehow my people got it all sunshine and rainbows right just because we brought the world Google and our mothers could yell for us from five blocks away to get us home in time for dinner. But this prom thing… my God, the pressure! I went to three proms (mom made those dresses too.) For the first two, I asked my dates to go with me. None of the guys I asked were even in my grade. I am quite certain nobody wanted to take a chubby weirdo like me. I cannot for the life of me imagine if the expectation had been a promposal that for me would simply never have come. The humiliation would have been crushing. Seeing others in my not quite fully developed but highly perceptive mind experience this might literally have killed me. But I did go, with nice boys who were my friends. One of which I felt compelled to bribe by buying his ticket and arranging for him to wear my brother’s vintage tuxedo. My mom tailored it for him and made him a tie and cummerbund to match my dress. (And I was rejected by the first guy I asked for that year.) [The third prom was my boyfriend’s senior prom. He actually asked me. I was in college. I married that guy.] And even then, I remember parents complaining about the unnecessary extravagance of it all - the limos, kids renting hotels… my junior prom date wore his nicest suit (not a tux) and our parents drove. For my senior prom, my dad borrowed a friend’s large van and took us to our restaurant and then to the prom. [My future husband has his own car]. I think my point is… I don’t want to take anything away from the experiences of the people who come after me. But at the same time, there is elegance in simplicity - which often gets overlooked in our youth and only more so when parents encourage it. I don’t want to take away anyone’s opportunity to celebrate and live it up. It’s just that when I look at these things, I wonder why this has to be SO big? It felt enormous when I lived it and it wasn’t this big. The expectations become even more difficult to meet. Seems like so much pressure to create a massive set up for potential disaster.

<p>Later, I spoke with my oldest daughter about this phenomenon. She is an incredible romantic who swoons at rom-coms and spent much of her earliest years enacting weddings with Barbie dolls and such. She is fourteen now and even though she is pretty certain all boys her own age are immature and gross, there is certainly a part of her that yearns for the summery sweetness of a fumbling slow dance on a dark and starry gymnasium floor, or a hand to hold while strolling through a carnival.

To no surprise, she said that these are “so cute” and “sweet”. And I get that. Some of these kids really come up with unique and fun ways to get the date.

But as the article says, when is enough enough? As a Gen-Xer myself, I tend to revolt against the mentality that somehow other generations (before or after) are wrong, or had it easier or whatever. We have all sailed uncharted waters. We have all taken risks by ignoring the warnings of our predecessors, and benefitted from them as well as failed. We have traded things along the way that have both helped and hindered our worlds equally. I believe this to be one universal truth of the whole human existence. Gen-Exers were once classified as cynical if not ambivalent, helpless, hapless and hopeless, in some ways eternal seekers - though that was not a compliment at the time. So by no means am I into speaking out against a generation. That’s just mean. <p>What I see is the nefarious underbelly of teenage expectation. For example: what if the askee still says no? What if the askee is asked by more than one person? What if the askee thinks the asker has bigger feelings than they do? What if the asker has bigger expectations in mind, since they went though all the trouble? </p> See, those problems have been there all along in the history of proms, and yet somehow the Promposal seems to amplify the stakes even more.