mouth full of white lies {Machine Gun Kelly} 2

2. i been fronting that it’s just for the summer

Summary: So you’re together, sort of, and it’s great! Everyone seems to be convinced, that’s not the issue. The issue comes when you fly to LA for filming, and you decide to stay with Colson, but the room only has one bed. And the paparazzi crash your first “date”. And he kisses you and your heart feels like it’s going to burst out of your chest, which is not supposed to happen because this isn’t a real relationship! But it’s fine. Probably. 

A/N: So bare with me, it’s a very long chapter. Also, pretend the Tunnel of Love remix by haroinfather came out before 2018 and not in 2019. Enjoy. 

the brainstrust: @sataninsatin @silvertonguedserpent @juliarose21 @kellysimagines @estxxbritt @machine-gun-casie @harringtonstudios @misscharlottelee @narcvissa @hiworlditishumbleme @angelwarner28 @nevilles-insinuations @rumoured-whispers @mgkobsessed @edwardtriggerhandzz @suckerforbarnes @wastelcve @bakerkells @local-troubled-writer @freddiessmallnipples @oopsiedoopsie23

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It feels like you’re braced for impact when you walk into rehearsals the day after you release the video. Douglas has already seen it, of course he has, he messages you minutes after it’s posted.

[Dig Doug: Not gonna say I Told You So, but im glad you’re happy. 🦆🦆]

It gets you to smile, despite your anxiety surrounding the whole situation.

“Now what?” Colson asked after the video was posted, sitting next to you on his bed. The duvet is so soft, and somehow the whole situation is so inherently soft. Maybe it’s that you’re both in hoodies and sweat pants. Maybe it’s that you’d just told the world that you’re dating. His eyes are so blue.

You phone goes off. 

His phone goes off. 

Both of you have Twitter muted, but even so, it needed to let you both know that you were getting a lot of mentions.

“Now we’re dating,” you say, flipping your phone over, while Colson picks his up, opening Twitter and beginning to scroll through his mentions. Where in the Hell were you meant to go from here.

“Alright, cool; you wanna get pizza or something?” He asks, simple as that, and it’s now you seem to realise that you’ve been so stressed from everything that had been happening that you hadn’t been remembering to feed yourself.

“Honestly, I’d love to.”

The next day, however, it’s the elephant in the room; the others don’t say anything, but everyone, even Douglas to some extent, was wondering how in the hell they had missed your apparent relationship. But it’s not awkward; you and Colson act the same as always, you take notes for Josy, and get coffee, and type away on your laptop. 

They break for lunch, and you look up from your work only to see Josy making a beeline for you, an intimidating look of determination written all over her face. Ah, here’s where the interrogation begins. Glancing over your shoulder you see Colson shoot you an amused, if concerned look, glancing to Josy. In response, you shrug; it can’t be helped.

“We need to talk,” Josy tells you, steers you from the room, across the parking lot, into a whole new building, where she paces for about three minutes, unable to look at you, hands basically pulling out her hair, all of which amuses you greatly. When she comes to a stop in front of you, it’s as if you can see the cogs of her brain turning, her fingers steepled in front of her mouth as she tries to order her thoughts.

“You know you’re my favourite assistant in the world and I treasure our friendship, right?” She asks, and you fix her with a fondly exasperated stare.

“Of course, you see fit to remind me every time I bring you coffee -”

“Then why, my little duck, my little goose, apple of my eye, enchilada of my bosom,” she says with an almost poisonous sweetness, looking you directly in the eye, “would you date one of my actors?” And you have to hold back your laughter in the face of her sincere and rather angry confusion.

“Josy, please,” you start, and she already looks like she wants to interrupt, “I like him is all, okay? I won’t be a distraction -” you can already see her trying to protest, but you hold up your hand to stop her, “and he won’t distract me; if anything, it means there’ll be no outside distractions, hopefully.”

“[Y/N] you test me,” Josy sighs deeply, scrubbing at her face, “how long?”

This gives you cause for hesitation, because neither you nor Colson had thought to get your whole story straight the night before. He had ordered room service and you’d just talked about music until you finally went back to your own room. An oversight, sure, but you had been glad to have a plan, and were happy to figure out the details later.

“A few weeks -” when you say this, Josy makes a choked, wheezing noise, and you pause, “since... uh, since he took us around the city at the end of the first week.”

“Does Douglas know?”

“He’s not my handler,” you fire off reflexively, and Josy winces, a little sheepish, “but yes.” You paused. “Now.”

Josy lets the whole conversation slide with some reluctance, and she asks you to get her lunch from the deli a few blocks away. You agree, partially because it’s your job, but mostly because you’re just glad to get out of the building and away from her exasperated, judgmental stares.

He’s corrupting you. It’s what the media thinks. It’s what Josy thinks. And something about the assumption is already starting to get under your skin. But right as you start to get truly annoyed by the subtext she had been blasting you with, you hear your phone chime.

[Colson: am i gonna get The Talk from my AD later on? Ducky: wot Colson: like u no... if you hurt my daughter im gonna hurt you Ducky: Josys not my mom??? shes like 3 years older than me???? Colson: its a joke. chill ducky. everything alright tho? Ducky: told her wed been dating since that night i filmed a few weeks ago Colson: smart. everyone thinks weve been together since then nyways Ducky: you want anything from the deli? Colson: what Ducky: im at the deli. u want a sandwich? Colson: yeh sure. surprise me. maybe chicken idk. webber wants a chocolate milk Ducky: milks bad for vocal cords Colson: he doesnt care 😈]

It makes you laugh. He makes you laugh. It’s as easy as that; you’re still friends, it’s just that you spend more time together, are closer, when you go out for dinner with the cast, he’s invariably beside you. You’re both always on time to rehearsals, and he keeps sending you selfies from costume and makeup tests, and it’s going fine, great even, despite all the nasty DMs you were still receiving. Of course the supportive ones always outweighed the negative, and even the negative didn’t really bother you, because it’s not as if there was a real relationship in jeopardy, so it actually took a lot of weight off your shoulders.

Filming is set to start on location in LA after about a month and a half of rehearsals, and while the first month had primarily been working on scenes, the extra fortnight you’d been there had been almost consistently rehearsing as a band for eight hours a day, six days a week. The day before you’re due to fly off, the whole cast looks exhausted at brunch. 

“Pass me the salt,” Colson yawns, half asleep with his head against the window of the cafe.

“It’s right in front of you,” you counter, knocking his knee with yours beneath the table.

“My arms don’t work,” he groaned, but he was smiling now, just a little. You look to the other cast members all enjoying their own respective breakfasts. Daniel’s on voice rest, despite the fact that they’re going to be using recordings of Motley Crue themselves for the actual film, they still want him able to perform covers for when they’re filming; currently he’s nursing a lemon and ginger tea with enough honey to drown a bee. Actually, Colson was the only one out of the four of them not to be drinking tea; both Iwan and Douglas both having ordered a cup with their breakfasts. Iwan was the only one who looked ready for the day, with the rest of them all slumped over in various states of exhaustion.

“Ducky, come on, please?” Colson actually whined, and you rolled your eyes, passing him the salt.

“You’re so needy,” you tell him, but your smile is enough to let him know that you’re joking.

“Why���re you called Duck, if I may ask?” Iwan asks, and you heave a sigh, knowing Douglas was already smiling before you even turn to look at him.

“Because when our parents first brought her home, all she did was follow me around like a duckling,” his tone is all fond, and he wraps his arm around your shoulders, pulling you in for a side hug despite your indignant noise of protest.

“Adorable,” Iwan grins over the lip of his cup. You just groan, and steal a bite of Douglas’ pancakes, though he doesn’t seem to mind, “have you worked much in the industry?” Iwan’s accent sounds like home, and despite how quiet and bitter he is in character, he’s rather bright and talkative as a person.

“Here and there; I actually spent quite a few of my teenage years as Doug’s assistant when he would be filming in London,” you say with a half-smile, “still a bit of a duck I suppose, but it looks good on my CV. I do odd-jobs on sets here and there back home, have been a runner for a few TV shows, but I don’t really go out of my way to be on camera, you know,” you shrug, before hearing your mistake. Both Colson and Douglas are already laughing, while Daniel and Iwan just seem confused. “Apart from, like, my actual job, you know? Like I’m on camera for YouTube, but not for a real movie or anything.”

“Well you seem very good at your job, we’re glad to have you onboard,” Iwan nods with a surprisingly sincere smile. Beneath the table, Colson’s hand is on your knee, and he gives you a small squeeze.

“I thought your hands didn’t work?” You raise an eyebrow at him, and Douglas almost spits his drink all over Daniel at the implication.

“Excuse me?” His eyes are wide as saucers and Colson’s quickly turning red.

“I said my arms don’t work but damn, call me out why don’t you?” He splutters, raising his hands in the air in mock surrender, with only mild wincing. It’s about now that you realise the assumption that your brother had jumped to.

“His hand was on my knee, Doug, I was trying to make a joke,” you explain, flustered, though Daniel and Iwan on the other side of the booth have collapsed on top of each other with laughter. You, Douglas, and Colson, however, are all equally mortified, and make a point to move so neither of you are touching as you finish your breakfast quickly.

“I just appreciate,” Daniel was still chuckling as you all left the cafe, as was Iwan, “that Doug genuinely thought Colson was getting busy with his sister at brunch, like, right next to him under the table.

“Nah,” Iwan actually laughs, his smile sharp, “they’re just really in character.”

“Hello! Hello and welcome back, ducklings! Today we’re flying all the way to sunny L.A, which honestly isn’t that far from Portland, but the production company was nice enough to not make us road trip it.” 

The video starts in your hotel room, and follows you as you pack your things, and cuts to a montage set to some royalty-free music, of you heading to the airport, of the cast yawning. Your brother buys you breakfast at a fast-food restaurant in the airport, and you check your bags; a panning shot in the waiting area, of every single member of the cast and crew that are taking this flight on their phones.

“You look cute,” you mutter very quietly to Colson, who’s sitting next to you, scrolling through Twitter with a travel pillow squished up around his neck. He gives you a toothy smile, leans his cheek against the pillow, and winks at the camera. 

The hotel you’re staying at is beautiful, all marble pillars in the foyer and beige and cream counters, and it feels like it might be too much. This is where the stars stay, and you? You know you’re absolutely not a star.

“Duck?” And there’s Josy’s voice, hesitant, about to tell you the jig is up, hand you keys to a water stained motel room a few blocks away. When you turn to her, she’s got two separate key cards in her hands.

“Yes, Josy?” You ask sweetly; it’s not her fault, after all, that you’re not a top-billed star. 

“So corporate wanted to put you with some of the other crew, they’re staying in a place down the road - it’s really lovely, trust me, and if you want it we can still get you a room - but,” Josy glanced to the cards in her hand, before holding them out, one in each hand, “if you’d like to stay here, both your brother and Colson are happy to share with you.” And at this, your brain stalls, looking at the key cards being offered to you.

“Why didn’t they tell me this?”

“Because they’re already heading up, but they wanted me to let you know that the offer’s there.”

So it seems that in the three minutes that you were mooning over the architecture, and giving the guys their space, since you’d assumed you’d be staying elsewhere, both your brother and your fake boyfriend happened to mention that you’re able to stay with them if you want. Douglas is not a surprise; Colson is. 

“How big are the rooms, I don’t want to -” you start, but Josy’s quick to cut you off.

“The size isn’t the matter; they’re big enough rooms, got really comfortable sofas from what I could see, but...”

“But?” You prompt, and Josy gives a smile. 

“Of course, it’s all about what you’re comfortable with; you know Doug’s more than happy to take the sofa, I just know you and Colson haven’t been together that long -” And here it all starts to make sense, and you hope the smile you give isn’t nervous as you ask which key is which. You take Colson’s.

The elevator ride up to the cast’s floor has you wracked with nerves, which you think is ridiculous; you can sleep on the sofa, it’s no trouble, and he wouldn’t have offered the room if he hadn’t meant it. So why does the idea of staying in a room with him, with only one bed, have your heart beating so fast? You’d been teasing each other, flirting and being cute together, in front of other people, that was easy, but since the night you’d released the video, you hadn’t really been alone together. You hadn’t needed to be. It seems like all you can think about as you walk down the beige hallway to your room, on auto-pilot as you scan your key card and enter the room.

It’s quiet.

There’s the gentle whistling of wind that comes from the balcony, the overhead sun beating down on the pristine, Hollywood beaches. He sits on the balcony, plush armchair, smoking a joint with his shirt off. Inside, it’s all white walls and gold accents, his suitcase on the bed, already open the contents inside surprisingly neatly folded. There’s a door beside you that you’re pretty sure leads to the bathroom, and the room itself is spacious, with a gorgeous, gray sofa sitting off to one side, and a wall-mounted television on the other. Just for the moment, all the fears and anxieties in your mind vanish at the sight of this pristine serenity.

Quietly, you wheel your own suitcase to the sofa, and pull out your phone. 

He’s stunning, like that, his feet up on the coffee table on the balcony, free hand tapping a lazy beat on the arm of his chair. You take a candid photo of him as he exhales smoke, and it catches the sunlight beautifully, with the water out of focus in the background. 

“Can I post this?” You ask, and he jumps a little, not having heard you come in, before his concerned expression morphs to a genuine smile when he realises that it’s you. Turning the phone to him, you show him the photo you took, and he lowers his sunglasses to get a proper look at it. After a beat, his gaze flicks to yours.

“’course, it’s a nice photo.”

“You’re very photogenic,” you brush of his compliment with a smile, and he pushes his glasses back up his nose, looking out from the balcony.

“You crashing here?” 

“If it’s not too much trouble,” you respond, and he actually laughs, though the sound is kind.

“Wouldn’t have offered if it was.”

Easy. Like everything else about him, it seemed, this was easy.

You caption the photo ‘the view from my balcony 😍’ and post it on both Twitter, and your Instagram story, tagging him in both, and you set about checking out the room’s facilities. It’s a normal, if fancy hotel room. Little bottles of soaps and shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom, TV with a bunch of standard channels, and a whole ton more that you could pay for if you wanted, it even had a set of cables so you could charge your phone, either side of the bed. The singular bed. Which Colson has clearly already claimed.

Maybe it had been a mistake to not board with your brother. 

“I’m getting lunch, you want anything?” You call, needing to get out of your own head for a bit, wanting to explore the city a little. He’s quiet for a moment, then you hear a strained ‘yeah’.

“Gimme a moment, let me put on a shirt and I’ll come with you,” he tells you through a lung full of smoke, putting the joint out in the ash tray provided, tucking the other half in his pocket for later.

“You not gonna vlog this?” He asks, half smiling in the elevator, hands tucked into his pockets. 

“Oh, shit, knew I forgot something,” you mutter, and you go to punch in the number of your floor again, but his hand catches yours. 

“We’re coming back after, don’t worry about it.”

And, well, you don’t.

It’s easy to talk to him, you swap stories about life in the entertainment industry from two wildly different perspectives, and you find a cute and overpriced restaurant to have lunch in. All the while, you’re so aware of where you are, how there could be any number of people snapping photos of the pair of you. It’s not like you’re being overtly couple-y, you’d only been putting on this ruse for three weeks at this point, but he pays for your lunch.

“Oh, I didn’t realise this was a date,” you admit, a little surprised, a little flustered. He shrugs, eats the last bite of his burger, and smiles.

“Why not? We haven’t had the chance to go on one yet, let’s take it for a test drive. Do they- are boardwalks still a thing? Is a boardwalk carnival still a thing or was that just the nineties?” You’re actually rather taken aback by his suggestion, and can’t help but grin, picking up your mostly empty glass to swirl the ice at the bottom.

“Pretty sure boardwalks are a thing, not sure about carnivals on them, but we can check it out.”

You each finish your drinks and leave, setting off for the waterfront. Feeling bold, you tuck your arm in his, and enjoy the Spring-time sunshine. The boardwalk, as it turns out, is still definitely a thing, as are the kitschy carnival rides along it. 

“I feel like a fuckin’ teenager,” Colson mutters under his breath, knowing you’ll hear it, “if we see a couple where they’re both wearing braces, looking like they just got out of school, I’m throwing myself straight into the ocean.” He informs quietly, and you snort at that.

“Not a fan of traditional cute date shit?” You ask, as the pair of you approach the ticket booth. 

“Not in the slightest,” Colson admits through his teeth while trying to smile at the attendant. The attendant, who obviously recognizes at least one of you, is doing her best not to look like she’s staring. You each buy a ride pass and head in, and the girl tells you to have a good afternoon, with a nervous sort of excitement. 

“This feels like somewhere I’d go with my daughter,” Colson looks doubtfully up at the ferris wheel that sat ahead of you at the end of the pier, looking more than a little perturbed, but his words struck you in a way that you hadn’t expected.

“Have you told her about us?” You asked, and he casts an unreadable glance at you.

“Listen, if we’re going to talk about... stuff like this, let’s at least do it somewhere a little more private?” It seems he, just like you, is acutely aware of how busy the little set of attractions is, and having already been recognized once, it’s almost certainly not going to be the last time today.

The gangly-limbed teenager working the ferris-wheel doesn’t even hide that he’s staring at Colson with hero-worship in his eyes, and he gives you a look over, followed by an approving, rather smug nod, before closing the door of the carriage. It makes your skin crawl.

“Why does everyone get to decide if I’m good enough for you based on my looks?” You hear yourself mutter, but Colson’s slinging his arm around your shoulders as the pair of you are raised steadily into the air. 

“Who gives a shit? They’re jealous, and it doesn’t matter because we’re not really together anyways,” he’s got a point, but your expression is still downcast, and there’s a strange sadness settling in the pit of your stomach. 

“I suppose.”

Once you’re high enough in the air that no-one from the ground should be able to hear either of you even a little bit, Colson sits back, lets his gaze drift across the horizon.

“I told Cassie about us, told her the truth.” He doesn’t sugar coat it, doesn’t try and explain his way out of it, when instead he looks tense, like he’s read to defend himself. You, however, nod, giving him an understanding smile.

“Of course, she’s your daughter,” you pause, and he finally looks back at you, and you think you see some hint of relief in his eyes, “I never expected for you to lie to her.”

“She’s a good kid,” he assures softly, “got a good head on her shoulders.” And now he’s turning fond, giving your shoulder a squeeze, “fuckin’ who knows where she got it, ‘cos it ain’t me.” Laughing a little, he’s surprised when you answer, voice soft and sincere.

“You’ve gotta give yourself more credit,” you tell him matter-of-factly, “you wouldn’t be half as successful as you are if you didn’t have a good bit of sense.”

“I knew there was a reason I was dating you,” he teases, pulling you in close, but you play along.

“Yeah, it’s that good sense of yours,” you returned, and he gave you a gentle shove. “Am I going to meet her at all?” You ask finally, and Colson gives another shrug.

“Yeah, I mean sure, she wants to come to set, so if you’re around you’re welcome to meet her,” his fingers are drumming lightly against your shoulder, “I should warn you though, she tends to vet any girls I’m getting serious about pretty hard, fake or not.” And yeah, you’re laughter’s a bit disbelieving, and though he sees the humour in it, he doesn’t seem to be joking, “she’s a good judge of character, and I’ll tell you now, I’m mad protective of her, but she’s mad protective of me too.” The thought of it is actually endearing, and you lean into him, letting yourself heave a sigh of contentment, glad to have talked this through.

“This would have been real nice to film,” he muttered, a teasing edge to his voice as the two of you stared out at the glittering ocean.

“Don’t even start,” you gave his ribs a shove, which only made him laugh, the sound warm and easy in the afternoon air, the sun moving slowly to the horizon.

Slowly but surely Colson was warming to the little boardwalk carnival. The two of you play obviously rigged games, and ride the rollercoaster that creaks ominously, and he even convinces you to share some fairy floss. He snaps a picture of you grinning wide and genuine as you offer him the treat, and posts it to Twitter with the caption ‘sweet’. 

There’s a Tunnel of Love ride that Colson had adamantly refused to go on at first, but as sunset was drawing closer, he relented. 

“I’m not a cliche! I’m not a fucking cliche!” He huffs, sitting beside you with his arms crossed, his legs so long that his knees came up almost comically. You’re filming on your phone for your Instagram story, and will later add at least two heart gifs, but for now you’re just obnoxiously singing the Tunnel of Love remix, thankful that you’re the only two on the ride at the moment.

“You so fucking cute, when I see you, I uwu, can you be my fucking boo? Can you be my sailor moon?” Hearing the smile in your voice, he turns to you, something about his expression softening as he sees the joy written all over your face that the camera can’t see, “and I don't wanna fight, I just wanna treat you right; I was aiming at your heart and I don't wanna say goodbye.” 

He just laughs, and shakes his head as the ride takes off, fond adoration written all over his face.

The sun’s setting by the time you’ve ridden all the rides you wanted to, eaten all the candy you could possibly stomach, and failed at enough rigged games that you were about ready to call it quits. 

“Hey I didn’t just wanna come here for the carnival shit,” he said, and you’ve got your arm tucked into his again as he steers you both to the edge of the boardwalk, where there was a set of steps down to the beach. 

“Under the boardwalk,” you nod knowingly, which he parrots back with a smile. Beneath the boardwalk there was a gaggle of youth, looking slightly older than teenagers, some still in uniforms from boardwalk rides, some smoking, most looking intimidating, but when Colson asks them for a light, they seem to get much less hostile.

“Hey are you MGK?” One asks, and when Colson lights the half a joint he had from earlier, he nods. “Sick.” The kid nods sagely, before his gaze turns on you. “And you’re that Booth chick, aren’t you? I’ve seen you on Twitter.” It’s not hostile, it’s genuinely curious.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Eddie, that’s [Y/N], do you live under a rock?” One of the girls pipes up, decked out in black, with a thick piercing through her septum, and an intimidating amount of eyeliner. The boy, Eddie, flushes scarlet, and snaps that not everyone watches the same shit as her. “I’m Samara,” the girl offers with a grin, offering her hand to you, which you shake, more than a little pleased with their various reactions.

“I heard yous was boinking -” a third girl interrupts, wearing a boardwalk uniform and hitting a vape pen pretty hard. 

“Emma!” More than one of them shout, though Samara is the loudest.

“Is boinking still the term?” Colson snorts, taking it all in stride, though he’s got an arm around you now, “Jesus fuck I feel ancient.”

“You are -” Emma interrupts, much to the rest of the group’s chagrin, but Colson just laughs.

“I’m twenty-seven you fucker!” He crows, and Emma cracks a smile, and takes another hit off of her vape pen. “Whatever,” he shrugs, “just tryin’ to show my girl everything LA has to offer.” 

“So you come under the boardwalk?” Eddie asks, with a skepticism that made you all flustered at his insinuations.

“Can you blame us for wanting a bit of privacy?” Colson smirks, to which the group of youths all collectively ‘ooh’ at, and he gives your hip a squeeze. 

“Try the one a quarter of a mile that way,” Samara points further down the beach, “less carnival, less people.” She winks, before adding, surprisingly hopefully, “but could we get like, a photo or something first?” 

Of course you both agree, and among the group photos, you learn that they’re all working around town during winter break for college. Samara specifically asks for a photo with you, where she plants a kiss on your cheek, looking a little flustered herself, muttering a quiet thanks. You follow her back on Instagram, and she gives you this starry-eyed look.

“She’s got a crush on you,” Colson snickers as the two of you head down the beach, well and truly out of earshot of the others, and you smile, finally looking up from your phone, a little endeared at the young woman’s antics. 

“Jealous?” You ask, loftily, and you expect him to laugh, but he goes quiet. When you turn to him, he’s regarding you with amusement, and something else you can’t quite identify. “Colson?” And you slow, now near enough to the next section of the boardwalk. As promised, it was rather secluded. 

After a beat, he leans in and kisses you, soft and unexpected, but his lips fit against yours like you were made for each other. Leaning into him, you wrap your arms around him, letting him pull you close. Not exactly sure what triggered this, you’re just happy to lean into it, enjoying the moment. And then he’s pulling back, forehead resting against yours.

“You see the guy to our left who’s just left the group of kids under the boardwalk? Hawaiian shirt and expensive camera?” He asks quietly, and you glance out of the corner of eye, only to spot the exact person he’s talking about, you make a quiet noise of confirmation, and you keep up the ruse, hand coming up to cup his jaw, butterflies going ballistic in your stomach despite now knowing that it was obviously for show, “been following us for the past hour.”

“Fucking paps,” you hiss, but before your expression can sour, he kisses you again, gives you a squeeze, as if to remind you to put on a show of not noticing him. Much to your surprise, he bites gently at your bottom lip, and you let out a quiet but pleased noise that neither of you had expected, and when he leans back, he looks both surprised and kind of into it, what’s more unexpected is that the exact same expression is written all over your face too.

“Back to the boardwalk, uber back to the hotel?” You ask, resolutely not talking about what had happened, but still smiling and all up in his personal space.

“Love it, let’s get out of here,” and he takes your hand, and leads you back to the safety of the street. It’s the first time the two of you had kissed, not that you’d realised it in the morning, but it was good, you reflect, it felt like it made sense. If you’re a little more giddy than you probably should be on the way back, Colson doesn’t seem to notice, in fact, he’s grinning too, humming to himself.

There’s two posts, one right after the other on Samara’s Instagram story when you check it that night, after having briefly seen it in the uber on the way back to the hotel. 

The first is a video captioned [gross thats my mom and dad] The video was pixelated as hell, and she hadn’t tagged either you or Colson, but you knew it was the two of you, wrapped up in each other, half a mile down the beach. In the background, her friends are arguing about something much closer, though one voice cuts through louder than the rest.

“Hey, Hawaiian shirt hipster paparazzi fuck! Yeah you! Give ‘em some fucking privacy!” And as the voice, who you think is Emma, shouts, Samara turns to focus the camera on the paparazzi Colson had spotted earlier, still incredibly zoomed in, capturing his sheepish, angry expression in all it’s rather pixelated glory.

“Fuck you kids!” He shouts back. Someone throws a can at him.

“Piss off!” Samara shouts, “we know you’re not taking photos of seagulls, cunt!” He goes to respond, but the group just starts chucking things at him. In the background, you can see yourself and Colson heading back up to street level, oblivious to what was going on.

The second post is a screenshot of a set of DMs between yourself and Samara.

@yourinstagramhandle mentioned you in their story

6:28pm

@yourinstagramhandle responded 😍 to your story @yourinstagramhandle: god i fucking love you guys, it was so great to meet you @unholy-samara-tin: 😅😅😅 it was the right thing to do lmao no stress he was a creepy fucker

It’s captioned [HOLY SHIT I’VE DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN].

You get dinner with Douglas and tell him about your day, and he gives you this sweet, if a little smug smile.

“You seem very happy.” He says, knowingly.

“I am, it was a good day!” You tell him, and he hums, but won’t say anything else on the matter. The conversation is taken up mostly by excitement regarding the makeup and costume fittings that they have over the next week and a half before filming starts, and then it’s back to your own rooms. At your door, Douglas calls out to you, three rooms away.

“It’s strange to see you so grown up, duckling,” he hasn’t called you that in so long, not since you were children, even your mother had abandoned that nickname for the mildly less embarrassing ‘Duck’ in the past few years, and while it warmed your heart, you couldn’t help but tense in anticipation for some sort of gentle, sibling embarrassment, probably to do with you sharing a room with your ‘boyfriend’. 

“And?”

“And nothing,” he shrugged, “never thought you’d become cool is all, a star in your own right, aren’t you?” 

“Of course I’m cool, would you like me to give you some pointers?” You asked sweetly, and Douglas couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“I walked into that one, didn’t I? Anyways, have a good rest of your night, Colson and Dan have gone out drinking.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” you tell him, and the two of you finally go into your separate bedrooms. He’s right, of course, there’s clothes strewn all over the bed, and the shower’s been recently used, and the whole little place has a warm, clean smell, like the last mist of some spiced cologne was still lingering in the air. The only light on is one of the bedside lights, and the lights of the city outside twinkle brightly, though you can’t see many stars for the light pollution. You crack the screen door to the balcony open, and shiver a little, though you tell yourself it’s from the cold, and not because the rather comforting and clean smells were quickly dissipating. 

You are alone when you try to fall asleep on the plush but desperately uncomfortable sofa, alone and struggling to pass out with the bedside light still on, not wanting Colson to have to stumble around in the dark when he gets back. You spend almost a full hour on your phone blocking people who send you nasty DMs, and responding to a few kind ones, and you post a photo of the roof just captioned ‘cant sleep’.

It’s just gone one when the door clicks open, and Colson steps in, pretty well coordinated, and trying to keep quiet. But then there’s you, staring back at him in the lamp light.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” 

Awkward silence.

“Why are you on the sofa?” He asks, hauling his bag from the bed, shoving his loose clothes in haphazardly, before patting down his pockets. “Sorry if I woke you,” it’s almost an afterthought, and he pulls out a box of cigarettes.

“You didn’t,” you tell him with a yawn that says otherwise, but you power through it, “and I didn’t want to intrude.”

He casts a dubious glance at how you’re angled on the sofa, but doesn’t say anything, and opens the sliding door wider to sit on the porch and have his cigarette. Without even hesitating, you join him, and your spine thanks you the moment you stand.

“Nice night?” You ask, sitting out on the balcony with him.

“Nice night,” he agrees, adding, “nice day all around.” And something about it makes your heart flutter. “You know you can take the bed; I’d rather sleep on the floor than have you get scoliosis.”

“I don’t think that’s how scoliosis works,” you say with a huff of laughter, but he just hums, “and you don’t need to do that, I’m fine,” you try to insist.

“You know you’re welcome to just share the bed, it’s fucking massive, I feel like I’ll get lost in it,” he actually yawns, takes another drag of his cigarette. 

“So you want me to, what, ground you somehow?”

“I just wanna know that if I roll over in the night and there’s something solid there, that it’s your arm and not like, the lightpost in fuckin’ Narnia,” he tells you, and breathes out a lung full of smoke. You watch it hang in the air, pale and silver in the light of the moon. 

“We’re gonna be in the tabloids tomorrow,” you tell him quietly.

“No-one reads tabloids anymore, we’re gonna be on like, those snapchat news things,” he says, and laughs but it doesn’t sound very amused. “Have you been getting less shit?”

“Actually,” you consider, “yeah, most of your fans are mad supportive when you ask them to be. What about you?”

“Your fans are cute, you know that? I was scrolling through twitter and I saw a whole bunch of photos of us like, photoshopped together,” he paused to chuckle, “some had flower crowns.” You can hear the smile in his words, and he seems quite enamored by the phenomenon. It’s a nice moment; he’s drunk and a little high and you’re exhausted, and you fall into bed like it’s a sitcom.

“Tell your spine I said ‘you’re fucking welcome’,” he tells you, and it’s so absurd that you laugh, even as you pull the covers up over you and snuggle in, comfortable as all hell, before turning the light off.

Then, there’s movement, and a loud ‘thwap’ as Colson’s hand comes to knock your shoulder, landing on top of the duvet. 

“Narnia?” He asks, and you give a small smile in the dark.

“Just me.”

You wake in the morning to the sound of Colson’s alarm, or more accurately, his groaning at his alarm. And swearing. And muttered ‘fucking makeup tests’. 

He’s dragging himself into the shower while you relish your days off, nose and eyes peaking out from the covers when he comes out of the shower wrapped in a towel. The two of you make direct eye contact before you mutter a flustered apology and flip away from him, though he doesn’t seem to know how to react, just quietly getting dressed. The rest of his morning routine passes mostly in silence, before you hear him open the door.

“If you wanna get like, lunch or dinner or something, lemme know, or I’ll let you know if the boys are organising something,” he tells you, and you call out a sleepy thanks in response. The door closes. Silence. You could go back to sleep, but you’re curious about the turn around time for paparazzi media, and you were not disappointed.

MTV’s snapchat story posted “MGK and New Boo [Y/N] Booth Caught Getting Steamy Under the Boardwalk” the headline.

The self-proclaimed ‘Rap Devil’ Machine Gun Kelly, best known for his album bloom, has managed to find himself locking lips with YouTube’s darling [Y/N] Booth, though you may know her best as the vlogger, and entertainment industry insider, DuckDuckBooth.

It seems new media’s hottest couple have finally landed in LA after their surprising hookup in Louisiana, set to continue working on some mysterious project that they keep hinting at, and they seem to still be going strong!

The pair were caught after a cute date along the Hollywood seaside - 

[And here they’d entered your Instagram story, from the Tunnel of Love, as well as Colson’s Twitter picture of you with the fairy floss.]

- after meeting a group of fans, they found somewhere a little more private to get a little bit romantic in a way that 90s kids truly will appreciate; making out under a boardwalk. It feels like it should be ripped straight from a John Hughes movie set in Hollywood.

However unlikely this pair may be, you can’t deny that they’re cute together.

[And here’s those traitorous, and almost painfully HD photos of yourself and Colson, wrapped up in each other, that the paparazzi had taken the day before, though with the legs of the boardwalk, as well as the ocean and the sunset as your backdrop, the photos themselves are surprisingly stunning.]

“Fucking paps,” you mutter under your breath, and screenshot the photo anyways. If it’s your lock screen, well, it’s what any real girlfriend would do, right?

Words with Jetson

Our next interview is with a producer and rapper out of a beautiful place known as Tauranga, in New Zealand, This creative is known as Jetson.

He happens to be one of my cat, Rain's personal favourites for sleep time and regardless of the amount of thumping bass Jetson's music creates and picture frames it knocks over, I understand why he sleeps so sweetly.

Probably a lot to do with the fact that bass has rhythm, just like the sweet sweet words Jetson correlates with his word-plays in tracks such as "Milk" and "SENSEI". Not only impressing cats, Jetson has made moves and connections beyond the long white cloud, proving isolation doesn't always silence brilliance. Jetson brings words any generation can hold some sort of relevance to, words that allow one to notice life moves fast and slow and sometimes you just have to chill and become an observer rather than an instigator.

This is something I feel Jetson has accomplished with his rather low-key approach to releases and interviews.

Jetson is a natural, a true prodigy of sound and a sharer of moods, and to me, is a reminder that with a little bit of passion and persistence, great things can happen, whatever your field.

Jetson’s collective and label - Chill Children is evidence of that, as through it , Jetson is able to work and release with producers and beat-makers all over the globe.

emo the optimist, BACKWHEN, fuyu, eets, and junyii are just some of the diverse talents working with Chill Children and everyone on the catalogue are game-changers that make music that’s anointed in chills. 

Creators that push boundaries and portray emotion through sound in the most soothing way, one must check Chill Children.

So with that I hope you enjoy rare words with the nuance wonder, and in his own words.

Sit back, relax, get baked, create, f**k it.

Enjoy and much love.

Hey man thanks for the opportunity to share words. Let's start with a few random quick questions to get things going. Favourite Beverage: Lemon water. Favourite thing to do in your down-time: Make music/skate. Views on Reincarnation: It will be cool if it is true but I guess it doesn't really change anything if it is 🤷‍♂️ Favourite Food: Sushi. Favourite Album of All Time: Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders A song to break it down to: Ethereal & Playboi Carti - Beef A song to chill to: Durand Jones & The Indications - Cruising to the park Do you prefer Sunrise? or Sunset? Why?: Sunset, because I'm never awake for sunrise. A childhood memory in regards to music: I remember saving up to buy Graduation by Kanye West and listening to that shit front to back for weeks straight. Favourite Place to be: Probably on an island.

Thanks for that, so let's start by asking what inspires you to produce and not only produce but continually produce, what to me is an array of tunes fitting so many genres?

Do you have a set of goals in place when you release a track or do you just hit upload and just hope people are feeling your sound?

What I like to listen to is constantly changing so I like to challenge myself to try and make the things that I'm inspired by.

I like to think that you never know what you're gonna get when you listen to my music but I've still got so much to learn and experiment with. I just try have fun with it and not think about it too much.

How long have you been producing music, and what did you find was hardest to get the hang of when it first came to producing beats?

I had no music theory knowledge or anything when I started making beats (I still don't have much) so there was a lot to learn right away.

Probably the hardest thing that I still battle with is knowing what you should release, what you shouldn't etc. It's hard to balance knowing when something is finished and when it still needs work.

Could you give a quick run-through of the process you follow when it comes to making a beat?

I try to change my process as much as I can to keep things fresh and fun for myself. But I really enjoy hearing a sample somewhere like keys, a quote or a rapper I want to remix, then I start working with that piece and see where it goes.

I'll mess around with the beat for a while and sometimes a track comes out. It can take one day, it can take months. Just depends.

Oldies are always goodies in my books and I have to mention your "bumps from 2014" mixtape, it truly is something special.

What inspired those little bumps? What were you doing back then? Also, can you remember the mood you were in when you made them?

I'm glad you like it haha. That was when I really had no clue what I was doing in terms of making beats, I was making all of those 'off the grid' in Ableton so I was placing drums in random places, I had no idea what bpm the samples were or anything. I really didn't know wtf I was doing, just going off of a vibe. 

My mood was really just being excited about making music, I was living in the basement at my mum's house blasting beats on the speakers all day.

[bumps from 2014] - https://soundcloud.com/sleepgodd/bumps-from-2014

You are also a rapper. My favourite NZ rapper to be more precise so thank you for the vibes you create. How did you find out you had it in you to rap and how old were you?

Damn, I appreciate that ✌️ I started rapping with a friend of mine, Jesse aka j cafe when we were around 20. We'd sit in my room smoking weed, and free-styling over beats on Soundcloud all night. 

Then we decided to make a track, so we found a beat and jumped in the closet to record some vocals on the laptop microphone.

We put it up on Soundcloud and I've been addicted to making music ever since.

Link to j cafe’s Soundcloud here - https://soundcloud.com/j-cafe

Cover art for Jetson’s 2019 rap release - bluntscraps

Album cover art by Takuroh Toyama

When did you first start rapping in front of others? What did it feel like in the beginning compared to now when you perform live?

I was insanely nervous the first time I ever did anything live and that feeling really hasn't left me lol.

Except now I know how to deal with nerves a bit better and actually enjoy the whole experience of doing something live.

I definitely think I'm a lot better now than my first time doing it, but I still kinda suck 😂 Staying on topic with your rapping, material-wise you have mad skills, your music is forever helping me chill out so thank you.

When did you start writing down your words and turning them into structured songs? Do you have any other artists that inspire your writing style?

When I was younger I really liked the flow of rappers rather than what they were actually saying.

Dudes like MF Doom and Earl Sweatshirt really influenced me at the start wanting to come up with lines that were catchy and different.

To form an actual track I usually just mumble over beats to get the flow, then I start placing words in the spots where I think they fit.

Does your family know you make music? If so what do they think of it, any dance parties in the Jetson Family Household? 

My immediate family all know and support my music. My mum used to have one of my tracks as her ringtone for years lol.

No jetson dance parties yet, but seems like every year more people in my extended family know about my music.

You were also a member of NZ Duo, Chill Children of which you rap and produce with yet another kiwi talent, both having low-key approaches when it comes to presenting yourselves through social media. What happened with that?

Me and J Cafe started Chill Children as a rap project in the early days but we moved to different places in the world and started doing our own solo projects so things sort of stopped happening with it.

I still credit those times with really getting me started on music though. He's still making dope shit and we'll probably link up on a track soon.

So then it became a sort of collective community, and through your Chill Children Soundcloud, you allow a platform for other artists to have their music heard.

Much Love on the concept, What inspired you to start sharing other artists music and what keeps you sharing? I'm very grateful btw, too many gems.

I work on music a lot with my friend emo the optimist (aka kodama) and we always wanted to run a label/collective kind of thing so we could release music from artists that we really liked.

After me and Jesse started doing our own thing, Chill Children seemed like the perfect place to start doing that.

It's one of my favorite things to work on as we have a hand in working with the artists on every release. I just love that we're able to share so much music that we really like with the world.

Check Chill Children here -

Bandcamp - https://chillchildren.bandcamp.com/

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/chillchildren

Instagram - @chillchildren

Any new Chill Children material we should keep an eye out for?

We always have new music from new artists dropping so definitely follow our instagram/twitter if you want to stay updated on it.

We're currently working on a phonk compilation with guys like DJ Yung Vamp, Genshin etc. It's gonna be crazy 🤯

Back to your solo releases through your alias Jetson. What made you want to start putting out your material alone? Also, do you have a favourite Jetson release?

I really felt like I had to release music solo to see what I could do.

I've learned so much about myself through that process, became more confident and a better musician.

Probably my favorite rap track I've made is called 'Escape'.

Not many people have heard it but it's on Spotify and other places.

My favorite beat I've made is probably 'dylan rieder'.

Have to ask, are you working on any new releases we should keep an ear out for? If so, what can we expect with your coming releases?

I just released an album on Bandcamp called THROWED TAPES which was really influenced by DJ screw and other phonk producers.

I'm working on a lofi R&B tape for Bandcamp, a lofi beat tape, and I really want to release a rap EP.

Who knows when those will come out though haha

Taking it back a little to your rapping again I have to mention "Milk". What inspires the words in this track?

Also please share the story behind your track "Melancholy"? The words are somewhat mesmerizing, thank you!

With milk, I just heard the beat from bsd.u and really wanted to make something weird that just followed the flow of the beat.

On melancholy I tried to think about what I was saying a little more. The instrumental is so introspective and smooth I knew I had to come correct on it.

THROWED TAPES By Jetson, released August, 27, 2020

Musical Recommendations?

junyii - emo the optimist - knxwledge - j cafe - jesse james solomon - the smiths - dj yung vamp - shuggie otis - hm surf - alicks - MIKE - baccyard - meraki soul - steve hiett I could go on for days though lol

Creatives to keep an eye out for in music and art? Takuroh Toyama (photography) Moebius (visual art) Steve Hiett (photography/music) Any Last Words?

It really trips me out that people enjoy something I love to do so much.

So just thank you for vibing with me, I have a lot more to share ✌️

Support Jetson here -

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/highimjetson

Bandcamp - https://jetsonbumps.bandcamp.com/

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/2bkf2PmiVyfCqg2uzIFIqJ

Twitter - https://twitter.com/jetsonbumps

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jetsonn/?hl=en

Milk by Jetson (Production by bsd.u)

FEATURE: Happy 10th Anniversary To Every Anime Opening Ever Made (The Video)

  I don't remember where I was at when I first watched "Supercut - Every Anime Opening Ever Made," but I do remember the inescapable truth it showed me after I watched it. Maybe I was on Gaia Online or some other forum when someone posted the link and asked "have you seen this?" I started the video and saw the seagulls flying in the sky. Then the white text on a black background showed up, saying that the following was in every single anime opening sequence...

    The montage began! Cameras heading towards the sun! Going right into the character's eyes! The running! This dude was right: This stuff IS in every anime opening!  

  This Youtube supercut turns ten years old today, and if you were in the anime fandom around 2010 you had probably seen this video at some point. Now with 3 Million views, I think the reason it resonated with so many people is that for as much anime we watched, we probably noticed these trends but didn't make the full connection until it was fully presented in front of us. Regardless of genre or tone, there was this underlying connective tissue across dozens of shows that we may or may not have seen before. And shown in such a slick and edited fashion provided a connection across the shows we love.   While videos like this are likely uploaded onto Youtube now more than I can imagine (maybe even right now as I write this!), this supercut was the original, back in a time when fandom was certainly a lot smaller and growing. Even though Youtube was becoming more of a hub for anime content  (as we were slowly getting out of the Bleach-episode-split-into-three-parts era), fandom was more split in the sense that everyone had their own particular hub or forum they claimed home. There was no AniTwitter or Youtube Community tab to trudge around and find out what wider fandom was talking about. And yet, everyone seemed to have come around and appreciated this, a small stepping stone to what the community would end up becoming today.   I was just going to celebrate this little piece of fandom fun with an article going down memory lane, but I decided to try to reach out to Derek Lieu, the original creator of the video, to see if he had anything to add for this retrospective. And luckily he got back to me really quickly! Can you first introduce yourself and what you do?   My name is Derek Lieu, I currently live in Brooklyn NY and I make video game trailers! I’ve worked on trailers for Firewatch, Subnautica, Spelunky 2, Ooblets, Dead Cells, Half-Life: Alyx, and a lot more.   How did you get the idea to make the "Every Anime Opening Ever Made" video?   When I learned the American X-Men animated series from the 90s had alternate opening sequences made for when it aired in Japan I became fascinated by what made those openings so distinctly Japanese. I don’t remember my precise thought process, but I started downloading textless versions of anime openings from YouTube to start, and started sorting the footage. I think the one exception I made was for Neon Genesis Evangelion because I couldn’t not include it.   About how long do you think it took to edit?   Believe it or not the whole project took about an afternoon and maybe part of the evening. Downloading all the openings took longer than the actual editing. After downloading them I sorted the different tropes into categories like I normally do when editing stuff. Once the footage was sorted I barely moved anything around except to adjust for music sync and also where each chunk of tropes fit into the video. I used a specific Ayumi Hamasaki song which was used for the cel-shaded Molly Star Racer trailer (which much later became Oban Star Racers). The original remix song is much longer so I edited it down to about 3.5 minutes.  

  Is there anything in particular that stood out to you when you were making it? (Outside of so many shows using the same shots, obviously haha)   I think the main thing that occurred to me is that so many of these tropes are just great ways to create cool moving images using as little animation as possible, but which still feel dynamic and fun to watch. One interesting bit of trivia is Trigun is one of the few series whose opening is footage from episodes cut together. This was by far the exception to the rule.   I remember this video very fondly back in the earlier Youtube days, and it has 3 Million views as to date. Did you ever expect it to be that successful?   Haha, not in the slightest. It seems the videos I give the least amount of thought always get the most number of views and the ones I spend a lot of time get the fewest.   What do you think is your favorite and least favorite "trope" in the original video?   I like the head turns. I didn’t even give attention to that one when I started the project, but it very quickly revealed itself as one of the most common ones. I don’t think I have a least favorite; they’re all fun to watch. One of the funniest is a person reaching their hand out to someone on the ground; I like this one because it’s so incredibly specific.  

  Do you still watch any anime? And if you do, do you see any of those same shots/frames/movements in particular still being used today?   I don’t currently watch any anime, but I assume a lot of openings still use a lot of these tropes. Because they cover everything from standing still to running. I later made a video for unique anime openings because there are some which have really great stylized art and interesting images. I also made one for classic anime from the 80s and earlier which helped me see where a lot of the tropes originates.   Do you have any other thoughts on the video looking back on it ten years later?   Reading comments from people who watched it as a kid and now are rewatching it as adults makes me feel old, haha. Also, people keep telling me I “forgot” an anime. I once tallied all the anime people say I excluded and the list was far far longer than the number of anime in my video. Also, a lot of people mention anime which released after the video was made :P One bit of trivia, I didn’t include any Naruto because at the time I thought it would’ve been funny to exclude the most popular anime at the time. Sorry, Naruto fans.   We'd like to thank Derek Lieu for not only making the video, but also for taking the time to speak to us. You can find him on Twitter and Youtube.  

    Kyle Cardine is an Editor for Crunchyroll. You can find his Twitter here.

By: [email protected]

Verdant Flame (working title)

Okay, I’m running with the suggested title.

This post is going to be just putting thoughts out there about how I’m going to do this project, possible ideas of how to publish, and what major changes I’m going to roll with.

I’m going to put it all under the cut so I’m not wreaking havoc on your dash. X3

Before the cut: For those somehow not in the know (like, how could any of my followers on Tumblr or Twitter not have caught wind of the bonfire of gnashing teeth much of the Magic LGBT+ community is dealing with right now, I don’t know, but just in case, and especially if this post is seen later): WAR Forsaken dropped and with it Gruulfriends went from canon to retcon in a way I didn’t expect: Biphobia and erasure among other issues. I’ll talk about the mess itself later, but for now, lets adress what we are doing as a community and what I”m doing in particular.

The basics is that we are kinda rebelling against Wizards in what small way we can; but being creative, interesting and having fun with the canon. Take the means of production, canon is ours now!

But for me in specific, I’ve been playing with using Chandra and Nissa as well as the world of Magic to create frame works for stories I wanted to tell, but until now I boiled down everything to its basics because I just wanted to use frame works and use tropes as jumping off points. But now? Fuck that, I’m thinking about pulling an E.L. James, but good.

What does that mean? Well, E.L. James literally wrote a fanfic, changed some names, and published it. So screw it, going to do the same over here. I’m going to take a step or two further back then she did, since 1) Wizards/Hasbro might not be as nice as Stephenie Meyer and 2) I feel like I can be a better writer then E.L. James.

So, how will this project play out? This is where I make a cut and we get down to business:

First: How to publish?

I think if I’m going to make this a thing, I’m going to have to go with self publishing and do these in short stories. I’m not sure how short, but I feel like once I get the ball rolling, I want to just keep going. If I’m taking years to put out one book and you guys are waiting that long for it, I’m going to loose steam and you are going to loose interest. This is definitely a ‘strike while the irons hot’ situation.

And the iron is near melting right now.

Second: What is going to be the basics and how will it differ from MtG Lore ‘Canon’?

First and most obvious is that I need to figure out what I can keep and what needs to be changed.

As I said above, while I am definitely in the mood of ‘you know what, this is ours now, fuck off’, the fact is, the law is the law. If your work is too similar to another, you can get in some heavy trouble.

I’ve covered some of this in my other posts about this, but I’m pulling this into one spot with the new info to make it easier for me and others to find.

World: I’m going to use analogs of each of the planes of MtG to make countries and kingdoms. It’s a lovely short hand and will make the world building go that much faster... Tricky part (much as the characters) is renaming things and setting it enough apart that it isn’t exactly the worlds and what not from MtG.

The main ones I’m going to use are:

Zendikar: Still going to be the land my ‘Not-Nissa’ hails from. First step is to just fully expunge the eldrazi history and effect. I am thinking about having some sort of ancient thing buried there, but in a very adventure-y feel of like an old dragon or some other powerful creature.

Kaladesh: Still home to ‘Not-Chandra’, still a place of one-ness with nature and artifice. Debating on how much I should carry over the sense of Indian aesthetic. Like, I don’t want to be window dressing like the actual Kaladesh is, but at the same time I’m not sure how well I can make it feel ‘right’ in that regard. I think I’ll keep the plot idea they started, but carry it through right.

Theros: Not-Gideon and Not-Elspeth will definately have history here. There won’t be actual gods, though a great power they attribute -to- gods will exsist. Which brings me to wonder how I should handle the cosmology... especially when we are talking about

Innistrad: I envision a very gothic, germanic country side, probably bordering Not-Theros. There will be a cult that worships a great power hidden on the moon. I’m going to use this as an opportunity to do a thing that came to mind when Emrakul locked herself away...

Vryn: I’m not sure if or how I’ll use this since we know so little about it. Might just cut it and have my ‘Not-Jace’ come from somewhere else. Hell, might just cut to the chase and make him connected with my Not-Ravnica. And speaking of...

Ravnica: Obviously a major trade hub and likely a center piece of the setting. Not-Jace, Not-Vraska, Not-Kaya, and Not-Ral all would be seen here. I think i’d also take all of the Fiora stuff and fold it into this so that I don’t have too much going on in the world and can pull together a lot of neat characters from that set too. Not-Marchessa might be fun as a side... well not ‘villain’, but definitely not helpful to our heroes... usually. X3

Ixalan: Pretty easy; coastline adventure. Just use any ideas from the block for pirate based shenanigans. Not sure if I will write enough to get to this sort of craziness, but it would be a lot of fun if I do.

Amonkhet: Not sure if, when, or how I am going to use this. Though a desert region might be fun. Might combine this with Regatha and that plan that Teyo comes from.

Kamigawa: I mean, really, this is ‘japan: the setting’. They went so hard on the Japanese lore here that it’s not going to be hard to make my own with little effort or consideration. Do expect there to be a Not-Tamiyo. X3

Alara: To be honest, I was never too big on this plane, but then it was a big deal years ago and I never really ‘set foot’ there. I mean if I did use it, I could use it to sorta map the bigger world’s zones? But that feels too much like the silly ‘elemental nations’ angle. Worked well for Avatar, but won’t work here.

Eldraine: I’m thinking about using this as a rough overlay of the main areas and goverment and what not tied to and surrounding my not-ravnica. Not sure. I haven’t finished the book yet, and it’s hard to get a solid bead on the details of the world without the old uploads, the clear posting of lore that used to happen (remember how we all knew what was going on with the color pie/race spread of Kaladesh?) and just having mostly the cards to go one leaves me wanting a bit. Not to mention they aren’t making the art books anymore. FUCK. I liked those. They needed to be improved not canceled T3T ... anyhoo...

Dominaria: Given what Dominaria now is to magic lore, I think I’ll set it as the history past. This world IS my Not-Dominaria.

I’ll figure out other planes as I go along, though I might just stick with what I got here. Adding in more is going to muck up the world I’m crafting. I may be taking parts that aready exist and remixing it (which, if we are honest with ourselves, is really how we tell stories in the first place, I’m just leaving my ‘mix’ lumpy XD), but I do need to concetrate more on the characters. I can’t introduce a new land every book. I need familiar ground, routes that readers can follow, places characters can be from that matter.

Speaking of characters:

Characters: Again, the idea here is that you should be able to recognize them to some extent, but I sitll have to work with the ‘legally distinct’ Not-Gatewatch... So here is what I got so far:

Chandra: What we keep: Fire based magics, brashness, cute. What we change: Not much. Most of her changes are going to be involved with the way I change the world around her. I think the big difference is instead of having her ‘planeswalk’, when her family gets hunted, they end up traveling toward the border, and she ends up running, getting lost, and finding herself on the steps of a (monastery). Also... no one would hate me for going ahead and making her trans, would they? Like, by the story proper’s start, she’ll have a woman’s body (or maybe that could be a part of her quest?), but I do like the idea. X3 It adds more of a personal touch to my Chandra.

Nissa: Debating on if I should keep her an elf. Keeping her an elf AND keeping the nature magic might be too alike. If not Elf, what should I make her? Still, the basics of her story are that she is looked down on, shunted to the side. stuff that leads her into being more comfortable on her own. Chandra is going to help her out of her shell, but only due to her honesty and clarity.

Gideon: No inviciblity. But definately going to keep him being the classic hero type, but with a genuine heart of gold. Going to change up his armorments from the sural to a short sword, buckler, and a lance/javalin? something like that. Hails from Not-Theros, has taken residence in Not-Ravnica

Jace: Trans man. Doing that right from the start. I know it was some folks head canon for a long time, and I see nothing wrong with making it canon here. Going to have to play with his past a bit. I think I’m not going to bother with the memory erasure. Instead, he trained as a spy with some mental powers and illusions. After betraying his original handler (someone that was a part of a different country), he defects to the not-ravnica and gets wrapped up with that stuff, eventually going out to help other nations in an effort to unite the continent or something... I’m kinda forming stuff as I write this. XD

Liliana: Still a necromancer. Going to cut out the deals with the devils. Maybe one, but not four. Might still have marks, but it will be more from her own magics rather then a contract. Still served a terrible master, but maybe with less strings attatched (or at least she thinks so). A friend in a discord suggested I have her have a binding on her bother as a lich vampire hunter. I’m warming to the idea, but still need to work out the details. I like the idea of her regaining her youth, that might even be the first story where Not-Chandra and Not-Nissa interact.

Vraska: Will end up in a relationship with Not-Jace... but I’m not too keen on keeping her a gorgon. I like the look of her ‘hair’, but I might just go with straight up dreads. Someone suggested making her some form of Naga, and though I’m not big on taking away her legs, the idea of some snakish relation is not out.

Ral: Inventor. Jackass. Friend of Not-Jace, has a Gay lover? yep, keeping all that. I think most of his changes, like Chandra, will be more about how the world around him shifts do to how I write rather then actual character changes.

Kaya: Keeping the Assassin, and can fight Ghosts. Still fleshing this one out. Likely to have ties with whatever I do with the Orzhov still. I adored the whole being hired by Teysa and ending up in charge thing, though I’m not sure I’ll go quiet that far? Mmm

Jaya: Still a mentor to Chandra. Less mystery around her though. It’s going to be less ‘she was the founder of our group’ and more ‘an adventurer that chose to settle down in her old age’ or something. And yes, the cookie scene I drew a comic for a while back will be in the story X3

Karn: Golems are a thing in fantasy, I don’t see a reason to stop now. But the Urza history is going to be retired. I think he might be an invention of someone in the current world and ends up as a helper to Not-Chandra and Not-Nissa at some point. 

Jhoira: I’m thinking grand daughter to Not-Jaya. I like her and I want to keep her, but I like the adventure her. Might have a rivalry between her and Not-Chandra. like a friendly one. She might even have a bit of a chip on her shoulder as she doesn’t have fire magic, but Not-Chandra does.

Rat and Teyo: Might might not. The cast is getting big already, we’ll see. Might have them as a duo from the start with a sort of ‘adventures in the sewers’ thing going on.

Ugin: Not a dragon, but definately a powerful being. and still has that stick up his ass. Often wrong about what he thinks should be done, but his heart is genuinely in the right place. Going to make Not-Mizzet his son maybe?

Nicol Bolas: Bastard, got a plan, and it will be similarly a slow build, but he is going to be less ‘has his hands in everything’ and more a ‘mmm, I could use this’ sort.

Alesha: Fuck timelines! This woman is a friend of Not-Chandra and helped her discover herself. Whether she rides with her people near... wait... OH GOD I LOVE IT: Something I literally thought up while writing. She and her nomadic bandit team travel the roads between many lands, and they find young not-Chandra. After coming out as being a girl, Not-Alesha is what helps solidify her sense of Identity. After showing off her fire magics and how uncontroled they are, adding in how young she still is, they drop her off with the (monastery) XD I’m loving this change already.

Oviya: Still Chandra’s Auntie. Big change? Her lover is still alive, because fuck that noise.

Olivia: Plans. Hungry. 

Avacyn: Doesn’t exists at the start of the story, but thinking about having her be created during it.

Sorin: Not sure....

Still thinking about a lot of other characters. I’ll get to them as I go.

There is also the Guilds of Ravnica to consider... With those, I think I’m going to keep the identity but not quite the orginizations. At least not so directly. Like not all of them are absolute ‘guilds’. There is less straight up organization. But there are definately a strong sense of jobs and a loyalty to those you work with...

Story:

And then there is the story itself. I think I’m going to start it with Not-Chandra meeting Not-Gideon much like before, but the goals are that he is traveling on a mission to see what is going on in Not-Zendikar. The seers/mages/whatever have been sensing some shit going down in that area and it’s close enough to the boarders of not-ravnica to check out. He and Not-Jace pass through and Not-Chandra gets curious and follows. She is going to meet Not-Nissa on the way. The four become a team and face down a nasty threat to the land and uncover a old history of Not-Zendikar that might need to be followed up on.

That can be book one.

Book two can be Not-Liliana’s introduction. The four, having worked so well together, are made a team by Not-Ugin and charged with trouble shooting all around the realm and seeing about maybe making more allies for Not-Ravnica. They find an old woman and they help her regain her youth... and in her they find an old villain. But the world has changed since last Not-Liliana walked the lands outside her keep. And it turns out that Not-Olivia, a vampire queen, has been making a name for herself. There are other darknesses afoot in her territory. For now, she would offer the team aid... as long as it suits her.

I think that can be book two

A return home would be the third story. Yes, this is kinda following how the stories were flowing at first, but after this one things are going to shift. The return home will bring Not-Chandra in direct confrontation with her past. The big changes I made to that and to Not-Kaladesh become big here. I’m thinking this is also where Not-Jhoira hangs out. The war behind the scenes is brewing, but it’s only starting. The all out mess won’t be till a later book.

What will happen in the story though is the confrontation with Not-Baral, Not-Chandra almost nuking herself in grief, and Not-Nissa being the anchor she needed. This will be the point of confession.

And so on... I’m not sure how far I’m going to go with this, but I want to try to push as many stories, but with as high quality as I can. Can I do it? I have no freaking clue.

I’ll post more as I go. For now, the working title is Verdant Flame. If I change it, I’ll continue to use the title to tag all the stuff I do till I go back and add the new title to old posts.

Now to transfer these notes... and figure out names. you don’t know how tiring it was getting adding ‘Not’ to everything.

And for those really keeping score: Why yes, some of this -was- what Dragon Quixotic was. There is enough difference between the two worlds that I feel confident that I can keep them as separate stories now.

The June 27th Post | A homage to Houston rap culture One Time For The Homie DJ Screw | A brief history of Chopped & Screwed music A pioneer of Houston rap music but also the creator and godfather of Chopped and Screwed music. Robert Earl Davis, Jr. aka DJ Screw started slowing down records in the early 90s. He began the Screwed Up Click (SUC) on the Southside of Houston, TX in 1990. The group consist of but is not limited to Big Moe, Lil Keke, Lil Flip, Big Pokey, Mike D, H.A.W.K., Lil-O, Clay Doe, 3-2 and Trae. The notable rap duo UGK (Underground Kings), formed in 1987 and consisting of Chris “Pimp C” Butler & Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, were SUC Affiliated. The click put out over 100 tapes, all produced by Screw, in 1998 alone.
Purple Drank is a popular substance cocktail, popularized by Houston rappers in the 90s. The drink consists of Promethazine and/or Codeine cough syrup mixed with alcohol and/or soda and/or juice. DJ Screw and SUC were avid users of the fusion drink. Unfortunately, the drink comes with lethal side effects such as rapid weight gain, slowed heart rate, loss of balance and addiction. The effects took a toll on Screws life and resulted in an overdose and ultimately his demise. Subsequently, Kenneth “Big Moe” Moore and Pimp C, died within months of each other due to sipping syrup combined with their own individual pre-existing conditions.
Since Screwed Up Records, DJ Screw’s recording studio and record shop were on the Southside the Northside felt the need to compete. So in 1997, Michael “5000” Watts and Ronald “OG Ron C” Coleman established Swishahouse, a record label. Watts was already picking up the slack right before Screw died because Screw had semi paused production due to his constant use of syrup. So naturally, Watts was up next for the Chopped and Screwed scene. Later, in 2011 OG Ron C & the ChopStars would go on to create Chop Not Slop where they essentially do what their predecessors did, make remixes of popular songs and albums where the tempo is slowed tremendously. Swishahouse consists of but is not limited to Slim Thug, Lil Mario, JDawg, Big Tiger, Big Pic, Lester Roy, Archie Lee, Mike Jones, and Lil Keke. If you notice, Lil Keke repped SUC but officially signed with Swishahouse after DJ Screw died. A very political yet sensible move. Big Moe | City of Syrup & Z-RO | Mo City Don My mom played City of Syrup the Chopped version so much when I was a child that I was under the impression that Big Moe was the only artist who sung in a low tone and occasionally would restart his songs by accident. Thankfully my family corrected me. Thus beginning my interest in Chopped and Screwed.
City of Syrup was Big Moe’s debut album and featured hits like “Barre Baby”, “Maan!” and “Freestyle (June 27)”. It featured many artists from Screwed Up Click such as Big Pokey, H.A.W.K., Lil-O, Tate Eyez, Mike D, DJ Screw and Z-RO.
The distance between Alexandria, LA, where my family is from, and Houston, TX is only a little over 200 miles. Most of Alexandria’s music, even to this day, is heavily influenced by Houston artists. So it’s very plausible that my mom’s music taste is influenced a lot by Houston because of where she grew up.
For the year of 2017, I lived in Houston and in more ways than one it was eye opening. I gained a whole new appreciation for music. I made a lot of forever connections so much so that my good friend Sarah, whom I met at work, ended up asking me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I humbly agreed. Fast forward to the wedding day and the entire wedding party is being transported to the reception via party bus. The groom has the AUX cord and he began to play a familiar tune. The whole bus began to sing in unison the lyrics to “Mo City Don” by Z-RO. I awed in wonder, wishing I too knew the lyrics. And then, just as the song is about to end, he shoutouts Lake Charles, Lafayette then my hometown of Alexandria. I had such a sense of pride in Alex at that moment. Houston Up-and-Coming Artists Spotlight | Megan Thee Stallion | Tobe Nwige | Té Allen | The H Town Hottie | Megan Thee Stallion Megan was born and raised in Houston, TX and she is the hottest female rapper out right now. The self-proclaimed “H Town Hottie” is hitting airwaves with her woman empowerment mantras and sexually liberating rhymes. At only 23 years old Megan is already topping charts all while being enrolled at Texas Southern University. My favorites of hers so far are as follows: “Running Up Freestyle”, “Big Poppa Freestyle”, “Big Ole Freak”, “Sex Talk”, “Shake That”, “Best You Ever Had” and “Stalli Freestyle”. ALL STREAMING SERVICES: Megan Thee Stallion
ALL SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES | @theestallion #GetTwistedSundays | Tobe Nwigwe Actually hailing from Alief, TX, a subsection of Houston, Tobe Nwigwe is ahead of his time. With songs like “MURDER.”, where he flips Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” into a song all his own, and “RĖÂŁITY” where he flips Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” into a song about his reality growing up and present day. Tobe has a series on Youtube called Get Twisted Sunday’s. On the series, every week he recorded himself getting his hair either twisted or braided by his wife whilst premiering a new song. EVERY WEEK for months straight. His sound reminds me of the great Andre 3000, with his futuristic sound and originality. ALL STREAMING SERVICES & SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE | @TobeNwigwe Birthday Cake | Té Allen Té Allen is an all-around star. Being born and raised in the south, his musical influences can be heard throughout his music. His first mixtape, Smooth Vibes (2015), was his breakthrough into the world of music. Since then, he has released a series of songs and an EP, Birthday Cake (2018). Interesting enough, the promo for Birthday Cake went viral. Té decided to put a rather embarrassing picture of himself as a child as the cover art and offered his audience $100 for the best roast of the picture. Needless to say, the cover was not only shared for laughs but was a genius way to promote his project. He is currently prepping for the release of his next project. The first single off his upcoming project, AIM Blue is accompanied with crisp visuals as per usual for Té. ALL STREAMING SERVICES |Té Allen
Instagram|Twitter| teallen3
Snapchat| lavonteallen3

It’s trendy to hate

Ok, so this is kind of a follow up from a previous post from my blog post on cancel culture. Something that I have observed in the last two years on social media is that there is a trend in hyping people up to great success and then once they’ve reached that level, we then see hate start to increase. The first person I saw this happen to was Taylor Swift. After the massive success of the 1989 era, her transition into pop music, we started to see a lot of hate towards Taylor. Part of this I do believe was from the whole Kanye West/Famous situation where Kim had released a recording of Taylor and Kanye’s performance in which we hear Taylor hear the lyric “I think me and Taylor might still have sex”.

We hear Taylor respond to this lyric citing no problems with it. HOWEVER we do not hear that in that recording that Taylor know about the following lyric of making her “famous”, so I’m definitely think to this day Taylor didn’t know about that lyric until The Life of Pablo was released. After this episode of KUWTK aired, the hate for Taylor was immense. Her Instagram comments were filled with snake emoji and a hate train had arrived. Thankfully Taylor was able to take this snake narrative and turn it on it’s head in the Reputation era. Something that I love.

Another example. After Cardi’s Grammy win, she received major backlash from it to the point where she temporarily deactivated her Instagram account. Since Cardi’s Grammy win, I’ve seen a lot of people overnight start to hate Cardi and it begs to question of why do people just start to hate things that are popular. Ella Mai got a fair share of hate the other day when made reference to Jacquees singing trip at Drake’s Assassination Vacation tour where Tory Lanez brought him out as a guest (by the way, you’re in front of 20,000 + people and you sing a cover instead of your original music. That’s the perfect moment to plug your music you idiot). Once Ella, who has had little to say on the situation spoke on how she felt in that moment and yet jacquees did a whole press tour on it, people said she should “get over it” and that’s she’s jealous...a Grammy award winner with two platinum songs and probably another platinum song, a platinum album, a feature with Meek Mill and a sold out tour is jealous of Jacquees’ mediocre cover. Ok go off.

Ariana Grande is another person that received a mass amount of hate after the release of Thank U, Next accusing her of appropriating black culture when Ariana has been heavily influenced by black music from the beginning of her career. Her debut album is a throwback 90’s R&B album heavily inspired by Mariah and Whitney. I could get into the whole culture vulture argument because there is valid point to made about how people roast others for appropriation but let Bhad Bhabie become a thing (this still angers me to this day because she is a joke and a walking caricature)

It’s like it’s cool to hate what’s trendy but is this jumping on the hate train because everyone is? I strongly believe so and this is very dangerous. Kevin Hart in a recent interview spoke on this and I could not agree more on what he said. We need to all have our individual opinions, not collective ones. Why do we build people up only to want bring them down? I just don’t understand this at all. My inspiration for this post was from numerous viral hate tweets about Jennifer Lopez. Recently I keep seeing tweets undermining Jennifer’s career in music and it’s frankly quite annoying and hypocritical and shows that a lot people don’t know the ins and outs of the music industry. The claim that Jennifer has stolen songs is a narrative that has been falsely spread and a couple YouTube video which I will not share the name of because I do not want to hear this narrative at all. For those of you that don’t know, back in 2001-2 the singles I’m Real and Ain’t it Funny remix were co-written by Ashanti. Ashanti’s vocals are also featured as background. Ashanti herself had admitted that she not the so called “ghost voice” of Jennifer Lopez. Also since you lot love Ashanti, I have a crazy suggestion. SUPPORT HER MUSIC AND HER CONCERTS! If you love her so much then why is cancelling concerts because of low ticket sales and not charting. Just saying. Don’t @ me. Period. Slagging off Jennifer does nothing for either one of them when Jennifer minds her, makes money and takes care of her kids and is engaged and you’re making viral tweets like that’s gonna bother her day and brighten Ashanti’s. I’m sure Ashanti would be grateful if you supported her music instead of tweeting.

Ashanti and Jennifer are cool to this day, she’s in the Ain’t it Funny music video and Ashanti is still to this day proud of how successful the songs were. This is a very common practice, there are many examples of this in music. Joe Jonas’ See No More, Lighthouse and Justin Bieber’s Christmas Eve were all written by Chris Brown and Chris’ vocals can be clearly heard in the background and yet no one thinks that Joe and Chris are ghost singing or stole from Chris. Huh. A lot of songs originally intended for other artists get passed on and sometimes their vocals are still on the track. This is a COMMON music industry practice. Some artists write songs from other artists and aren’t even credited for their contribution. An example of this is Jason Derulo’s Want You to Want Me. Want You to Want Me was actually ghostwritten by Chris Brown for his sixth studio album X but the track was abandoned because he felt that it wasn’t cohesive with the album as a whole which I agree with. His demo can be found on YouTube which I will link but unless you go on to Wikipedia, you wouldn’t know this fact. Tracks can be stolen and that has happened but 95% of the time, it is the producer that is responsible for this or a label executive. A sample of the song Firecracker was orginally meant for Mariah Carey’s Loverboy but ended up on Jennifer Lopez’s I’m Real. It was revealed that Tommy Mottola was responsible for this happening. For those of you that don’t know who Tommy Mottola is, he was the head of Sony music all through the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Tommy Mottola is responsible for many artists careers in particular Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez. Tommy Mottola was also Mariah Carey’s first husband who she was with until 1997. Mariah has been candid about the mental and emotional abuse she dealt with in the marriage and how she practically a prisoner in her own home as Tommy controlled everything in her life. After their split, Tommy seemingly attempted to sabotage her career and the stealing of the sample was one of this many attempts. A lot of the time when events like this happen, the artist is unaware of this. Yeah 3x uses the melody of Calvin Harris’ I’m Not Alone, something that Chris Brown was not aware of until he met with Calvin Harris and he played I’m Not Alone to him. Calvin knew the producer DJ Frank E and he had uses his melody with Calvin knowing. Thankfully Calvin was then credited as a featured writer on the song and the situation was resolved. I believe to this day and it’s pretty damn obvious that Tommy Mottola used Jennifer as a pawn in his plan to ruin Mariah’s career as revenge. He put Jennifer out there as his new golden girl replacing Mariah and this helped the false narrative of feud between Mariah and Jennifer when neither artist has ever said anything negative about each other and Jennifer has said in interviews that she loves Mariah as an artist.

This became very long winded but I had to discuss this because I’ve had enough but I will say this. Have you notice a theme in the trendy to hate? Because I have. They’re all women. Women are trend to hate and men get all the glory huh? Below is all the songs I mentioned and chicagojlover on Twitter did a thread in regards all the ghost singing rumours that needs to go viral.

https://youtu.be/yy5nkChQ2E0

https://youtu.be/6kXIC_6wQgM

https://youtu.be/3mC2ixOAivA

https://youtu.be/JeTE5cnkhGc

https://youtu.be/g8MyX_ewXfM

https://youtu.be/lbh7RFWS4Ro

https://twitter.com/chicagojlover/status/1114197870519967749?s=21

Inside BTS-mania: A Day in the Life of the K-Pop Superstars

The screaming begins just beyond baggage claim, when the first bob of purple-gray hair peeks up over the security wall separating the biggest Korean pop band in the world, in history, from its fans. Amid shrill hysteria, the seven soft-faced men of BTS stride through Los Angeles International Airport flanked by human trains of burly people in yellow “Event Staff” shirts. The boys smile, wave and, with the efficiency of British royals, slip past a few hundred young women and teen girls into black Escalades, their portal to the heart of the American mainstream. It’s mid-November and BTS have flown here from South Korea, propelled by the fervor of their admirers, a diverse group that calls itself ARMY (short for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”). The band is here for a string of high-profile TV appearances: They go from the airport to James Corden; Jimmy Kimmel the next day; then they’ll meet Ellen Degeneres, who’ll compare their U.S. arrival to that of the Beatles in 1964. But BTS are mainly in town to perform their hit song “DNA” at the American Music Awards – a performance that will make them Google’s top trending topic and set a Guinness record for Twitter engagement. Group leader RM (short for “Rap Monster”), 23 and palpably ambitious, compares the whirlwind trip to being “like surfers on a big wave.” But at 9 a.m. the day after BTS land, the vibe is more like “showing up for work.” We’re at a rehearsal studio when AMA reps arrive to shoot promo photos in the parking lot. Bubbly ham J-Hope, 23, an MC and onetime street-dance champ, walks out with his arms up, shouting, “Hello! AMA! Whoa!” The others trickle out with less ado and take turns getting primped, on the asphalt, by a team of stylists also in from Seoul. There’s Jimin, 22, the prettiest yet most puckish, a former top modern-dance student who’s currently shaving his chin while a woman holds a mirror. The perpetually wide-eyed singer V, 21, another art-school kid, who made his screen debut in a Korean historical drama last year, gets his purple-gray bob brushed and parted. A man uses a pick to dislodge something from the teeth of Suga, who like RM started his career as an underground rapper. Lead singer Jungkook, 20, a devout Belieber who joined BTS at 15, gets a streak of eyeliner. Meanwhile, singer Jin, 25, an aspiring actor so handsome he was recruited by a boy-band casting agent while walking down the street, shuffles quietly through the flurry. Their entourage is massive; I lose count in the mid-thirties. There are managers, publicists, a choreographer, a masseur, the interpreter, groomers, folks with cameras, unsmiling guards and several drivers with earpieces. Back home, BTS are pretty much only breaking their own records at this point – for video views, album pre-sales and chart placement – and it’s spilling over to other countries. Their recent EP, Love Yourself: Her, which features a song written with Andrew Taggart of the Chainsmokers, topped iTunes’ album chart in 73 countries, and BTS have become the first Korean-pop group to crack the American mainstream, with a Steve Aoki remix of their “MIC Drop” recently crashing the Top 40. ‪"We are so lucky that we’re living in this time, in 2017,“ says RM, the only one who can carry on a conversation in English. “When we post a tweet, it becomes translated to more than 30 languages.” The group’s lyrics – which are almost entirely Korean but close-captioned on YouTube and translated for sites like Genius – are a big part of its international success. BTS songs tackle issues like depression and anxiety. They promote progressive social ideals like female empowerment and accepting people from different backgrounds. They even address the internal unease of ditching less commercial career paths to become “idols,” as K-pop stars are called. BTS fans appreciate the band’s empathy, honesty, and independence—themes that are particularly in-demand amongst Western pop audiences these days. Plus, BTS set their message to canny hyper-modern production (frequently done by the members themselves) that devours all manner of EDM- rap- and R&B-leaning pop – think Major Lazer, Justin Bieber, DNCE, Logic, the Chainsmokers, Nick Jonas – and spits out a deeply catchy, slightly askew pastiche. After the photoshoot, the guys go in to practice their AMAs routine. From the opening whistle of “DNA,” they are a single-minded, many-limbed organism. Jin, who normally seems like he’s brooding, deploys pouty looks and precise hand jives. They goof around a bit – Jimin grabs Jungkook’s ass after the latter executes a balletic twirl – but are in the zone. An hour later, at 10:40 a.m., they’re chugging water and getting cooled off by women who use their entire bodies to swing paper fans emblazoned with the boys’ own faces. Jin quickly nods off in a rolling chair but is soon awoken by the masseur, who wants to jam an elbow into his shoulder; Jin winces as he does. Minutes later, V is yowling in pain, mouth wide as a handler treats a canker sore inside his cheek. Later, RM will dance with a bloody tissue in his nose – the wages of jet lag and constant hustle add up. An early lunch of cold burgers and fries seems meager compensation, but they eat with abandon. BTS, an acronym for Bangtan Boys (“Bulletproof Boy Scouts” in Korean), was built around RM and finalized via auditions. The group was assembled by a small company – Big Hit, run by songwriter “Hitman” Bang Si Hyuk, who co-founded one of the so-called Big Three agencies, JYP, before leaving it behind – which gives them underdog appeal. And while BTS came through the famously rigorous K-pop system, living in dorms together and training constantly, RM says Big Hit offers relative artistic freedom. To wit, in a unique spin on K-pop fan service, BTS build mythologies around their albums, like last year's Wings, whose theme comes from Hermann Hesse’s 1919 bildungsroman Demian. The concept appears in the lyrics, art and videos. Exactly how these subplots take shape is unclear, but it’s feasible that RM, who reads heady authors like Haruki Murakami and Albert Camus, is involved. “We try to make our own BTS context,” he says. “Maybe it’s risky to bring some inspiration from novels from so long ago, but I think it paid off more. It comes through like a gift box for our fans. That’s something you can’t find easily from American artists.” Instead, he likens it to Star Wars. “The big thing about creating our universe is expandability,” adds Suga, the most contemplative of the group, via interpreter. “Because it draws from our personal lives and interests, we can expand it as much as we want and it’s not alien for us. Having that allows us more diversity in the stories we can tell and the music we can make.” Do they feel free enough to write about Korean politics? RM says they’re working on a song that does so subtly, but Suga cautions that the subject “is fraught with danger, not in a literal way, but because of the risk of being misunderstood by young people who may not have fully developed sensibilities.” He’d rather focus on fostering understanding than “inciting conflict.” The rest of the group stays silent for our midday interview except to shout out ARMY and admit they’re eager for more crossover opportunities. As J-Hope puts it, “It’d be an honor for us to work with anyone.” RM says that, instead of breaking more records, the band’s mission is to promote individuality, which isn’t always encouraged back home. “Especially in Korea, there are all these standards: Get married, go to a nice university.” How will they spread that message? He smiles. “Better music and doper performances.” After selling out arenas in California, Chicago and New Jersey, BTS are planning a bigger U.S. run in 2018. They’re in unprecedented territory. Unlike PSY, their success here didn’t spring from a novelty hit – their rise up American charts was gradual and shows no sign of slowing. While they’ve brushed off the idea of an English-language album in the past, RM dropped English verses on a Fall Out Boy remix and Wale collab this year. At 1:30 p.m., it’s time to get ready for Kimmel. I follow BTS from the dance studio into the hall near their dressing room. There’s a folding table covered with silver rings, flashy necklaces and dangly earrings for the choosing. On the floor is an outsize ziplock full of identical Puma slides. After hair is redone and outfits adjusted, they load into the four Escalades with no fuss at all. As our caravan passes Hollywood Boulevard and turns onto the small street leading to Kimmel’s backlot and outdoor stage, we see them: more than a thousand BTS zealots who explode when they see us. They’d been waiting for hours. Kimmel music producer Mac Burrus later tells me a group of five teens spent two nights out there, on the street, in sleeping bags. In the green room, there is finally downtime. Suga and RM eat bananas. Jin plays his Nintendo Switch. Jungkook and J-Hope sleepily lean into one another on the couch. V lays on the floor to get his neck adjusted by the masseur’s bone-crunching assassin-twist before settling into a sofa to stream “Carpool Karaoke.” Around 4 p.m., producers bring in a couple ARMY moms for a skit where they taunt their girls, who are still in the line, via FaceTime from BTS’ inner sanctum. The daughters eventually come back and I steal them for a chat. Both discovered BTS on YouTube. Adriana, 24, is teaching herself Korean “slowly but surely” so she can hear the boys in their own tongue. Rosa, 18, insists, “Language isn’t a barrier when it comes to music.” At 6:20 p.m., BTS head to the stage. From the back, it sounds like there’s a roller coaster full of shrieking riders on the other side. A grizzled staffer walks by with a kooky grin, muttering, “This is nuts.” From the wings I watch the band rip into a six-song set that inspires face-clutching and tears. For “Save Me,” a “Where Are Ü Now” soundalike, the crowd deploys a coordinated K-pop “fanchant,” roaring each member’s birth name in perfect rhythmic succession. I can barely hear the music, so it doesn’t occur to me until the end that BTS don’t seem to be using vocal backing tracks, as a U.S. or U.K. group might – they rap and sing every last part while doing constant choreography. When it ends just after 7 p.m., an exhausted J-Hope flops onto the asphalt out of view of the crowd and his team, chest heaving, eyes wide. After 30 seconds, he picks himself up and rushes to join the other members of BTS disappearing into the hall leading to the green room. As he turns the last corner, a voice squeals, “Oh, my God! J-Hope looked back at me!”

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MGA SEASON 4 EPISODE 2 90 SECOND PERFORMANCE - - - [ 가시나 cover 0:09 -- 1:39 ]

hyunjoon has never been so nervous for something his whole life.

literally, he could count on one hand the amount of times he has been really nervous for something. there was the first time he cooked dinner for the family, it had been a big deal because normally he hadn’t been allowed to cook alone but this one he did all by himself. then there was the time he got caught backstage--he hadn’t been sneaking around--by cameo from empty enigma and he was so sure his rock idol was going to kill him.

and now there’s this.

in the long run his being here was his own fault. he auditioned due to his parents mocking him about not having any passion or anything and it had been enough to spark hyunjoons temper to get him at that audition. he never once expected to even make it past the initial audition, thinking that not only his younger age of inexperience and overall lack of real talent in anything but dance would have him out the door before he could even say his name. yet here he is, walking in with everyone else to a stage here he would have to put on another performance in front of 5 BIG CEO’S of the potential company he could end in if he makes it a significant distance in the show. Any of these five could pull him from the crowd and be like we want you and then he finds himself whisked away to trainee life. Something he never considered for himself.

But he’s here. He’s number one even #4001. He doesn’t know how he feels about being on the show LET ALONE being number one. He guesses one good thing about this would be he gets done with his stuff sooner and can just observe the rest. But it also means he sets the stage. He starts the show off for everyone.

They’re seated by numbers, odd on one side, even on the other. Leaving hyunjoon seated next to the junmyeon guy he remembered in episode 1. The one who had a lot of screen time and this only proves to further hyunjoons stress. Because the cameras are bound to be on this guy often enough already and with hyunjoon being right next to him. He worries this means attention will be brought to him as well. But junmyeon turns out to be nice enough, and hyunjoon is able to find his calm again talking to the older male. The teen actually responding as opposed his normal tight lipped routine. He was too tense to keep himself quite, the excitable 15 year old in him slowly making an appearance.  

Besides, sungho hyung was right. No need for dramatics, it’ll work out, just be prepared. And that’s what he keep in mind to keep him going. His hyungs words keep him centered through recording, kept him calm as they waited for all contestants to be seated and for the performances to start--for hyunjoon to be called up. He knows sungho had been worried, the older male doesn’t outright show or say his feelings rather like hyunjoon, but the teen can just tell these things. and he wants to keep a brave face, and do his best too make sungho proud.

He walks onto stage once called with a calm expression, his body appearing relaxed something he is so good at faking and has been good at faking. He has always been amazing at keepin his emotions how he wants them, total control and all that. Hyunjoon knows what he wants to portray to the CEO’S knows what look he is going for. Because while initially he had freaked out about all of this, he realized not only could this be an amazing experience. But he wants to dance. He likes dancing, he’s liked dancing since he joined orion with haknyeon and juyeon. Came to love it during the idol dance class and getting to meet ricky once again. There’s a reason Taemin is one of his favorite public trainee’s from KT and why he likes NOVA so much. He’s a dancer. He’s in control of himself and he wants to prove that he isn’t just a closed off teenager.

Hyunjoon stands before the judges, his knees a little wobbly because this is so much more intense than busking for some random people in hongdae. “Im heo hyunjoon, 15 years olds and master of the wink. Im shooting arrows to capture everyone’s heart.” he has no idea what he’s saying but every newly debut rookie group always says cheesy things so he figured he could give it a try. He lives on stan twitter enough to know these things. As he spoke he made sure to mime the action of drawing back a bow and arrow and shooting it, winking as the arrow was released. “Thank you for your time!” he finished with a bow. The music kicks on, and he gets serious.

Your cold eyes They kill me The fire in your heart that used to grow Why are there only ashes remaining? Maybe time is medicine But I’m getting weaker The sad pain is getting numb too

He choose gashina after going back and forth between a few songs. He hadn’t been sure if he wanted to come off as a hard dancer and do some intense dark boy group song, or a softer contemporary style. He has no real training for dance so he knew he wouldn’t be able to do a set style, and it was after going through a few routines they do during busking that he realized he could do a mix of both. Gashina mixes in some softer areas with the intense ones. Cute to serious. He could make it work and do both ideas he had for this performance.  

The song starts him on his knees, he decided to open the dance with a more of a cute feel. He knows thanks to haknyeon that when he smiles his cheeks become more mochi like and he figures he could use that appeal by starting off with a small smile. His eyes curving just a bit, and expression he rarely ever lets anyone see mostly because it normally leads to someone pinching his cheeks. The music goes and he’s going with it, walking forward on the floor with his hands so he was stretch out a bit but making the move softer by laying on his tummy and kicking his feet back and forth a little, his chin cupped in his hands. He fuels his embarrassment for how he was acting into just making it cuter, knowing his cheeks were probably a touch red.  

Fine, I’ll forget you I’m gonna live like a flower, I’ll be myself Can’t nobody stop me now No try me

Everyone wants my scent But only you don’t know, like a fool Are you sure you’re not crazy?

He slides up from the floor as the beat changes and the lyrics start. His expression shifting so quickly to a more serious, more collected one. Fitting with expression that should be displayed as he gets through the song. About thirty seconds the song hits the pre chorus, and the cute switch is back on. His hands raising up smoothly as a smile takes over. He’s back to his knees for a brief second, and as he stand back up, he changes the action with his arms to make it so he was pulling finger hearts from his shirt, an almost teasing smirk on his face. The expression of a playful teen who just wants to have fun dancing.

Then the chorus hits, his hands cup his chin, fingers wiggling a little against his cheek as he scrunches up his nose and smile. The cute appeal bleeding through right as he goes back into the serious one. The playful one. hyunjoon’s smirk stays as he does the gun dance, head moving in time with the movie. He follows along as if the dance had been made for him, the music and him fitting together in a way he hadn’t really thought he could do. Hyunjoons been dancing with orion for a few months now and he knows he’s improved. But this feels like so much more than just goofing off with dancing. He can feel himself getting into it. Just like during the audition, and during the idol dance class at NOVA. it’s so much fun that he can barely hold back his smile. Can feel himself wanting to slip out of the persona he was painting on stage.

Why are you leaving the pretty me here And going?

You’re leaving me here You’re leaving me so easily You promised we’d go together But you’re leaving, leaving

The track he choose was a remix of the original, so after the first chorus it hits the bridge, the slower music lets him use this time to show off a more smooth look to his dance. His expression softening as he moves do. He knows his time is almost up. The song will end right before the chorus plays again. He builds up, the bridge speeding up a little before fading out and instead of ending with the gun move again, hyunjoon draws back his arms as if he were drawing back a bow and arrow. When the music ends he releases the arrow, winking once more to make his point from when he introduced himself.

왜 예쁜 날 두고 가시나

Once back in his seat, hyunjoon finally lets the adrenaline take over for a moment. A happy grin pulling across his face for a moment, hand raising to cover his mouth. He’s sure his hyungs who were here would be so surprised to see how he did. Hyunjoon, even during busking, never really shows this side of him. He figured it would work in his favor here. Everyone loves an adorable kid who works hard, and if he could come off like that then maybe it would work in his favor. A laugh bubbles in his throat but he holds it back. Schooling his expression just enough to look calm, though the small smile on his lips stayed. He was so energetic from this, and he couldn’t keep it to himself.

He makes sure to pay attention to the rest of the performances, wanting to get a feel of what he might be up against should he make it past this round. He isn’t the most competitive, but hyunjoon would like to be able to make it at least a few rounds in. so he can have the validation of being here in the first place. If he fails here, then it kind of just proves his parents point--and proves to himself that he isn’t a dancer--but if he makes it a few rounds in. well, then this was worth it. The experience alone would be amazing for him.

His expression stays rather even during most performances, a small smile on his lips and eyes watching the performances closely. He claps after everyone, politely and supportively. After all, he went first so he has 53 performances to sit and watch. It’s a lot like when he’s forced to sit in on student council meetings for clubs and he has to be respectful of all the club ideas thrown their way. He makes sure to never have a sour look, keeping to the image of a curious teen who’s happy to be here. There are a few moments when he shows more enthusiasm. There’s when momo goes, he leans in more a bit more focused on one of his friends. And then haknyeon follows her and he actually cheers this time--responding to what his hyung does with owahs. Yoongi and Juyeon come a bit later back to back and again his attention is spiked. Cheering for his hyungs.

The big one is when jeno comes up a handful of people later. He isn’t sure if the fact they’re brothers has been made known. But he’s sure it will should they both stay on the show. And hyunjoon never hides the fact that jeno is someone he looks up to a whole lot. His expression filled with awe and pride as jeno performs.

Sana goes, followed by chungha, another two girls he’s friends with. Though, chungha is almost more like a parent with how she is with him. He claps a bit more for both girls, extremely proud to be on the show with such talented people. Then a real shock comes when sungwoon goes up. Hyunjoon remembers briefly meeting the older male--a friend of woojin--and being so confused as to why the older male seemed familiar, yet not at the same time. And his questions are answered when the older sings. The voice hitting hyunjoon hard and his expression is wide with surprise and shock, nearly slipping from his seat. That voice has been one that comforts him in dingy buildings late at night, a band he loves so much. Fucking squall is right here, on a show with me. Woojins friend my ass. Is all he can think, a grin pulling across his lips as he claps for sungwoon. Fully planning to corner him later.

#4050 goes and hyunjoon feels like he should also know who this guy is. His mind almost short circuited at how attractive he is too, and the teen is just glad he doesn’t start blushing. Then finally changmin goes and he bounces back.. Cheering for his friend who wrapped up the show, expression brightened having gotten to see his friends really show themselves off just now. But its also obvious that he’s a little worn from this. He keeps himself from slouching, but his smile is starting to fade.

He’s proud thought, of himself. Of going up there and stepping out of his comfort zone for once. Maybe this will be good and the judges will see that he has many faces he can show. That he can bring a different energy to the stage.  

Carat Day || Seventeen as Carats

This is not our usual boyfriend content, but we wanted to do something special for Carat Day so please enjoy!

Seungcheol:

the ultimate carat 

loves and supports seventeen with all of his heart 

goes to every single concert, meet up and fan sign event 

knows the fanchants by heart and probably yells them the loudest 

signs and raps along to every song 

really energetic on concerts 

has a lot of merch 

probably seventeen recognizes him 

really proud of them probably cried when they got their first win 

bias: chan 

ship: literally everyone

Jeonghan:

started to stan because of one fine day 

which explains his choice of bias 

probably skipped school at some point because seventeen dropped a mv 

watches fan theories but never tries to analyze them because that's too much 

stays up all night to watch fan cams 

has a tumblr page with very specific and short tags so it's really neat 

and you can find everything there 

you can search for seungcheol's hand and five pages will pop up 

goes on long hiatus and no one knows why because he never tells but irl he is just bored of posting and probably rewatches one fine day 

enjoys reading nsfw fics

bias: mingyu 

ship: mingyu and aji

Joshua:

does an acoustic cover of every single seventeen song

he has a youtube channel where he uploads videos talking about fanboy life

he also makes videos with hansol who has his own channel as well

they sometimes try to cover seventeen’s dances but not always succeed

he is enthusiastic about his rapping but no one tells him that he is not that good

his confidence cannot be stopped 

he feels attacked whenever hip hop unit curses in english 

but lowkey enjoys it

always asks on vlive from the members to speak in english

“you need jesus” - says whenever they do or say something perverted

bias: seokmin

ship: wonhui

Junhui

soft stan who does a lot of translating and subbing from korean to chinese

he does all the subbing by himself and he is very tired every time but he likes to work this much for other chinese fans who don’t understand korean

he is very active on twitter and he even tries to interact with his mutuals in english

whenever seventeen comes to china he just has to be there

literally never missed any chinese fan meeting or concert

when he meets the members on a fan signing event he tries to teach them each a word in chinese

he is just overall soft and friendly

bias: seungkwan - because he likes it how caring and funny he is

ship: the gag trio - they are just hilarious and junhui likes to laugh at them

Soonyoung:

new seventeen video out? doesn’t even take a day for him to upload a new dance tutorial video of their choreo

he likes to add his own style into the dance covers

people are telling him he could be an idol as well or a choreographer

he is part of a couple of dance crews

one time he danced to boomboom while wearing a mask

people thought he is an idol

does reaction videos to year end award show performances

he likes body roll movements a lot

both doing it and watching it 

bias: junhui - because of his dancing skills

ship: he is a sucker for China line

Wonwoo:

what is sleep and school in wonwoo’s life? 

he only knows gaming and fan fiction writing 

he is online 24/7 and he has different names for his gaming and blogging profile

on tumblr he goes by @/stanseventeen and he writes different aus with the members

he loves to put the members into mystery and fantasy genres 

he has many followers and they often ask him for advice on their daily lives

he is always asking them to go on variety shows

probably watched going seventeen episodes more than once

but when in real life he meets with kpop fans he becomes really shy

he even hides away the merches he has when he is in public

he is just an overall shy and soft stan

bias: hansol - because he really likes his funny side but also his laid-back style of rap

ship: he just loves verkwan because they are so silly and soft (and so real tbh) 

Jihoon:

is there for the music 

probably has every single version of their albums 

makes remixes of the songs and uploads them on his soundcloud 

a lot of people ask him about his bias but he always tells them that he doesn't have a personal favorite 

because obviously what matters to him is the music 

but secretly he has a soft spot for one of the members 

and because some carats know him from soundcloud they record him on a high touch event and they leak a footage of him almost passing out when seeing Jeonghan 

he also states that he doesn't do ships 

he does 

bias: jeonghan 

ship: jeongcheol

Seokmin:

that confused fan who never knows what’s going on

but is still supportive and loud af

he does a lot of song covers and he gets praised for his talent

even when he doesn’t understand what’s going on he is still laughing his ass off

he loves vocal unit he is really amazed by their talents

probably could win in high note battle against the members

he is always so nervous when he meets them during events

one time he cried so much seungcheol had to calm him down

he is a soft stan so when they are too exposed he wants to put a coat on them

when he goes outside he literally wears only seventeen merch

bias: jihoon obviously the producing legend with an angelic voice

ship: he is too pure for shipping 

Mingyu:

the artsy one, no surprise

he does digital, traditional, any kind of art of the members

his favorite style is chibi because it makes them even cuter

he sells his own art in stickers, key chains, and anything you can imagine

from that money he buys art supplies and seventeen merch for himself

occasionally he uploads a how-to video or shows his drawing process 

he gifts the members presents that he made by hand

they are also personalized

he likes to design clothes with their logos and with rose quartz and serenity colors 

has been dying to see the members on the return of superman

he wants to have 13 dogs each named after a member

bias: wonwoo - the chill cutie whom he loves to draw realistic portraits of

ship: soonwoo - they are fun and seem soft with each other

Minghao:

runs a chinese fansite alone 

always there at the airport when they arrive 

takes a lot of pictures and he is slowly improving 

does airport fashion evaluations 

always worried about their health 

some of them got injured? he already wrote a long rant about it and is ready to sue pledis 

"just let them rest damnit" 

always sends them cute messages when they post on sns 

mainly to jun because his korean isn't that good 

never wants to admit but mingyu is his biggest bias wrecker 

always feels attacked by him 

loves the choreos and since he is in a street dance group he always sneaks in a little seventeen 

bias: soonyoung 

ship: soonhoon

Seungkwan:

literally has no chill when someone insults seventeen or carats

he gets into fights and arguments pretty easily online

he is like in the battlefront when it comes to fan wars

but with his mutuals he is really sweet

if he sees pledis mistreating seventeen well he is going to be that one netizen who really doesn't leave the company alone until they do justice

on fansigns the members can already recognize him

he always makes them laugh and gives them funny gifts

he can even be sassy with the members but they like him a lot

hates when the members have to rank each other on their looks

he is a lowkey abbs hunter whenever they have loose sweatshirts on

bias: joshua - with his sweet voice and funny rap style

ship: jihan 

Hansol:

the meme master 

has a folder only dedicated to svt memes 

someone of seventeen made a derp face? has it gifed in milliseconds 

has a crack youtube video account where he uploads videos with face voice overs 

when someone posts something online he replies with a meme 

literally haunting seventeen 

probably has the tweet of that one time when minghao noticed him printed and framed 

always asks them to do the trends 

goes to concerts with cardboards of their derp faces 

he likes them peach booties and tight pants

bias: seungcheol 

ship: meanie

Chan:

a hardworking carat 

organizes fan projects worldwide for concert 

also organizes for special events and they are pretty big 

like they would turn off the music during their performance and have the whole arena sing while a video is played for seventeen 

has a carat squad that everyone knows and likes 

they interact a lot online openly and they are pretty funny 

the one who sends birthday presents to every member 

and buys food for fan signs because they have to eat 

"guys the moral of the story is stan seventeen" 

stays up to vote and uses several accounts 

streams mvs for weeks 

bias: minghao 

ship: gyuhao

Happy Carat Day!

3. Learning from algorithms and live audience feedback #testingandevaluation

A constant process of testing and evaluation took place throughout this campaign, informing the production and direction of all its elements. As this project requires new, small pieces of content to be regularly shared on Tenzin's social media channels, the live responses from actual audiences have been carefully monitored and evaluated, the new knowledge gained then used to inform ideas that are implemented in the successive content. On top of navigating audience reactions, the campaign also had to consider platform dynamics, algorithms and creative challenges that helped or hindered the success of this outreach plan.

Short videos

The first series of videos, three "remixes" of popular songs by similar artists, where Tenzin recreated the hook of the songs with household items. These were produced and shared on all the social media channels that Tenzin had: Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok and Instagram. They were then monitored for responses in terms of views, likes and comments on each platform for the following 3 days.

It was clear by the third evaluation that the videos did better on Instagram compared to other platforms. This is likely because Instagram is the most popular social network among Tenzin’s core demographic (Khoros, 2021), and he also already had a considerable fanbase there which helped elevate the videos’ popularity. Additionally, Instagram’s “Reel” feature that actively puts videos in front of new users, helped promote the video, compared to more closed audience spaces on other social platforms that mostly only showed content to people who were only following you. While there was some positive reaction by audiences, it was soon clear that the time and effort required for the videos was too much to receive the response that it did. Each video took at least 6 hours of research, production and editing, incredibly resourcing intensive. The style of the videos, remixing, was also very generic, meaning that anyone else could produce the same type of content, failing to establish the unique proposition that Tenzin can offer compared to other content creators.

It was concluded, therefore, that the campaign should focus on growing Tenzin’s fanbase on Instagram alone, rather than juggling the four different platforms. This decision was influenced not only by the success that Tenzin found on this platform above others but also because of its features that allow more dynamic ways to engage and grow engagement through targeted content and ads, “Reels”, “Explore” functions, etc. Further reading and research also informed that it is more strategic to build brands online by focusing on single platforms rather than several ones all at once to really tailor the content and master the ins and outs of the one platform (Sprout Social, 2021).

To create videos that were more unique to Tenzin, it was decided that the second series of videos would showcase his songwriting capabilities instead of his music producing ones. Popular internet subcultures of veganism, cat memes and house plants were parodied with original song and lyrics. While there received a similar response to the first series, they were far less resource-intensive, taking a lot less time to make, and were more effective in promoting Tenzin’s originality.

A third series where covers of song presented in cinematically captivating fashions were experimented with, encompassing two videos as these too were resource-intensive and not effective at promoting Tenzin as his own artist.

It during this point, I understood from some insight I gathered from experience and information presented by other users, that Instagram favours videos filmed within the Reels feature, helping them get a leg up in its complex algorithm, compared to videos made independently and then uploaded. This meant that to maximise outreach, videos must be filmed and edited within the app. However, due to technical restraints, it was almost impossible to create videos like the ones that had been previously executed. A new format and style needed to be crafted.

Series four of the videos featured Tenzin performing his original songs straight into the app. This allowed the videos to be directly recorded within the Reels feature and get a leg up with the extra algorithm points. There was still the 15-30second time limit though so we had to be very selective with what song and what part of it would be performed and in what context. All three videos started with an introduction to set the scene and bring context to the viewer, followed by the performance of catchy or relevant verse that would resonate with the Instagram audience. These were relatively effective, and even more streamlined than the other three strategies since it was not only quicker and easier to produce but also helped promote Tenzin’s own music and also reached a wider audience having mastered the technical secrets of the platform.

The constant testing and evaluation, therefore, concluded that the videos would be shared on Instagram, more particularly, directly in its Reels feature, and would feature an original composition by Tenzin.

Stories

Although the campaign had initially planned for a lot more and frequent short videos to be published, it slowly became apparent that this would be more challenging than originally thought. The shortfall of this type of content however was made up by regularly posting Stories(images and clips that appear on the profile and feed for 24hours only) - content that shows insight and behind the scenes access to Tenzin and his everyday life. By allowing his fans this kind of access, they were invited into an even more informal and intimate connection with the artist, helping form more personable relationships. Initially, this started as an experiment, sharing two posts a week, but due to a positive response (regular viewership and comments), this was increased to 5 posts a week.

Khoros | Digital care, communities, & social media software. 2021. The 2021 Social Media Demographics Guide. [online] Available at: <https://khoros.com/resources/social-media-demographics-guide> [Accessed 9 May 2021].

Sprout Social. 2021. Building your social media marketing strategy for 2021. [online] Available at: <https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/#engaging-content> [Accessed 9 May 2021].

Scrapbook: In which I declare my love for the umpteenth time

[This was originally targeted to be published in October, but shit happened and I don’t think I will ever finish this now, so I’m posting it as is.]

[No, that’s not the kind of title I would have used if this was a proper, finished post.]

Have you played the demo for Octopath Traveler? It's a gorgeous looking game, and it looks fun. It's shaping up to be the Romancing SaGa of what Bravely Default was to classic Final Fantasy. On top of that, the music is wonderful. Too bad I don't have a Switch.

I hope you didn't think I'd write about my impression on the game.

Here's the thing though: I love Yasunori Nishiki, the composer. I love his music with my whole being, more than anything that isn't charming Spanish Flamenco or Tango inspired music. Oh, it just happens he has written such songs too. As you can see, he's really high in my list, I think he's one of the best composers I've heard in recent years.

And so with Octopus Octopath being the topical thing at the moment, there's no better time to talk about him than now! And I'd like to introduce a couple of his songs!

>> Profile

Yasunori Nishiki was born in Kanagawa, Japan, on July 10, 1985. Nishiki graduated from Film Scoring program of Tokyo College of Music in 2009 and joined KONAMI directly after.

His first contribution as a composer in Konami was for Quiz Magic Academy VII, released in 2010. He continued composing for the series until the ninth installment, Quiz Magic Academy Kenja no Tobira, after which he left the team to be the sound director and main composer of then-new Oreca Battle. He later also became the sound director of another game related to Oreca, the arcade version of the mobile game Dragon Collection.

Behind the alias Vivian, he first debuted in Bemani, Konami's line of arcade music games, in REFLEC BEAT colette, 2012, with the song guerre à outrance. His latest appearance in Bemani to date was in beatmania IIDX 23 copula, 2015. It is currently unknown if he will use this alias again in the future.

He also made contributions to a number of console titles, such as NeverDead and Frontier Gate - which he composed almost half of the soundtrack of.

In 2015, Nishiki left Konami and started freelancing. Outside of Konami, he took on various projects, working as a composer/arranger or synth manipulator amongst others. The projects he has written composition for include SHOW BY ROCK!!, the theme song of Fate/Extella, the anime adaptation of Granblue Fantasy, and the latest, Square Enix's Project Octopath Traveler.

So, I've been following Nishiki's activities ever since I first heard Vanity in jubeat saucer. That was in December 2012? Five years ago? How time flies! Around that time was also when I started getting into QMA music.

By the way, I mentioned Romancing SaGa above, but did you know Nishiki made an official rearrangement of SaGa music for SE's Lord of Vermillion Arena? It was SaGa Frontier 2, though.

Anyway, wow, Octopath Traveler. I didn't think the day when he would be recognized by so many people would come so soon, but here we are. I'm so proud, so happy for him. It makes me want to introduce some of his songs that may share the same style as Octopath.

I like to take any chance I can get to introduce his music to people, particularly his Oreca songs, and this time isn't any different. If you have ever wondered why Oreca in particular, there are two reasons why. The first is, Konami has uploaded a lot of Oreca songs to YouTube, making it easier to share them the legal/officially approved way. The second is, in my opinion, Oreca was where Nishiki shone the brightest in his time in Konami.

Nishiki worked on Oreca ever since it was first developed then released in 2012, and he kept composing for it until he left Konami in 2015. Within that time period, he composed and arranged about 150 songs for this little game alone, his songs making up more than half of its whole soundtrack at the time of the writing of this post.

The reason behind the huge number of songs in this game is because, being a constantly updated arcade game, it has lots and lots of boss characters, and almost every one of them has a battle theme of their own. It also has a decent number of stage music and such, but those character themes make up most of the game's soundtrack.

This is where Nishiki showed his true potential. Back when he was in QMA sound team, he only composed orchestral songs. In Oreca, he still was fond of orchestral songs (and still is until now), but to realize the vision of unique character battle themes he branched into other genres, revealing the versatile artist in him. From electronic and pop to rock and metal, from ethnic and classic sounds to modern ones, from mellow to aggressive - he covered everything he could.

[Then my plan was to review some of his Oreca songs, but, well. Below are the songs I considered to be included in this post, along with some short comments instead.]

[Of course I wouldn’t have included everything if I finished this post. Choosing is hard, however.]

Great Sorcery Mimi & Sisi's Theme: A safe song that played straight to his strengths, but a solid one nevertheless. It’s unexpectedly complex for a pair of goofy mice. I adore the sense of adventure in this song.

Mage Knight Chaos Magica's Theme: I’ve always felt Nishiki’s music might have some baroque roots, then this song came.

Deep Sea Emperor Barolo's Theme: This is the last boss. That was the feeling I got when I first heard this song.

Underworld God Anubis' Theme: I wanted to include this just to make a point that his dominantly electronic work can be as strong as everything else by him.

Kudlak's Theme: I like to call this song “Faux Castlevania” but really. It’s a song for a vampire character, I won’t be surprised if it was intentional. Oh, and, Nishiki rearranged Beginning too for Oreca. Despite being Faux Castlevania, this song is still brimming with his usual details.

Thin Ice Knight Dante's Theme: A rearrangement of a popular song for a popular character - popular between Oreca players, at least. A cold and lonely arrangement of an elegant song.

Purgatory Emperor Ares' Theme: Menacing, dark, and moody. It also has another version featuring Yuma Ito’s solo violin. You can never have enough of his violin when it comes to Nishiki’s music.

Great Djinn Ifrit's Theme: One of his more atmospheric songs, but still reeks off boss smell.

Dragon themes in a separate category, as he took one composition and rearranged it plenty of times. I’d argue the dragon theme is his most important legacy in Oreca. I want all Konami composers to remix the dragon theme.

The original dragon theme, for reference.

Ocean Stream Dragon's Theme: I think I picked this for similar reason as I picked Mimi & Sisi’s theme: it sounds like such a delightful adventure. It also has a lot of castanets, I like it when he use castanets.

Great Tree Root Dragon's Theme: Nishiki described this song as “dark fantasy” and I agree. This whimsical rearrangement is one of my favorite dragon themes.

Dragon Emperor Fei Long's Theme: I think I added this into consideration mostly to add variety. It also sounds really pleasant.

Celestial Dragon Bahamuth's Theme: Bahamuth and this song was to debut in WHF, an important event for the game, he gave everything into it and even incorporated real choir as he was in such high spirit. I will always remember about this little story. It turned into a grand song fitting of Bahamuth, and everything was worth it.

Divine Dragon Kuzuryu's Theme: My original intention was to only include songs that are officially uploaded, but I wanted to give an exception for this song badly. It’s easily one of the best dragon themes. It may not sound like a dragon theme at first, but if you listen closely you’ll hear that this is a dragon theme through and through. Here the usual melody takes a backseat while a new one gives a new soul into the song. Sachiko Watabe’s serene vocals definitely bring the song to life. I salute her, especially for that difficult chorus. Also, I vaguely remember Nishiki saying something along the line of “vocal song for BGM is unusual, especially in arcade games” but I don’t remember where. Twitter? Somewhere else? Eh? Anyway I’m glad he went for it anyway because that decision led to this song coming into existence. Thank you.

[Thank you for everything. Sorry I couldn’t finish this, I will do better next time.]

[I will always support you wherever you are.]

Understand Climbing Home as well as Techno Artist Sysdemes|EDM Identification

As the final times of the year show up nearer imminent, our experts captured up along with climbing superstar Sysdemes to converse regarding his recent launches as well as more!In search of some new designings in the world of property as well as techno? You are actually in chance due to the fact that Sysdemes possesses you dealt with! Among the artists that has genuinely entered his very own in 2019, his developments manage the range of underground designs to take listeners on a journey right into the midsts of the soundscapes he creates in the studio.This year has

been actually a gigantic one for Sysdemes as he's carried on to climb through the rankings of the dance music scene. On the launch front, he's provided a flurry of superb tunes that have ranged coming from "Bloodsucker" to his 2 EPs on mau5trap, Young people as well as Fade that have left behind audiences stunned. In addition, he is actually graced the stage at events like EDC Orlando and also even dominated the decks throughout Room Yacht's Halloween party.Now, with completion of the year imminent, our company recorded up along with Sysdemes to reassess the experiences he's invited 2019, chat regarding his recent releases, as well as explore his effects. Listen closely to his unique visitor mix below and continue reading for the full interview!Stream EDMID Visitor

Mix 197|| Sysdemes on SoundCloud:

Hi Sysdemes, thanks for taking the opportunity to talk along with us today. Allow's stop things off through checking out at your starts in the realm of dancing songs. That were a few of your earliest music influences as well as what led you to determine to seek an occupation as a DJ/producer?

I began entering into electronic popular music around seven years outdated. I possessed some video game, I assume it was Midnight Nightclub 2. The soundtrack possessed a ton of French techno and property, it truly determined my musical tastes. I keep in mind hanging out online trying to find even more electronic music, that inevitably led me to find Daft Ruffian, deadmau5, Wolfgang Gartner, as well as it just went on coming from there.I was actually creating songs just before I intended to make it a profession. It wasn't until I viewed some live streams of Ultra Popular music Celebration as well as observing each of individuals dancing that I would like to really seek it as a career, it looked thus fantastic to play your songs for people.You have actually been actually

regularly progressing over the past few years with plenty of initial releases that range coming from electro and modern to ariose techno and also tech-house. When you are actually resting down in the studio to make some beats, do you share a specific suggestion in thoughts or perform you allow the monitor cultivate itself as you go?It really relies. The majority of the time I will definitely simply sound concept or even set out midi till I obtain a keep track of suggestion, merely find where it goes from there. However other times I seem like writing a specific genre based on my mood. Or even, possibly if I haven't composed some tough electro in a little while, so I will service that audio particularly. I desire to have a really good volume of monitors in all the styles I just like to make.Last month you likewise fell the Fade EP on mau5trap, can you share what the production procedure resembled for this launch? Was actually these monitors created with the entire deal in mind or even did they merely feel straight when positioned together?Production for the Fade EP was not incredibly linear. It was sort of tossed all together from ID's I have actually had on my hard disk. "Disconnection"as well as"Awkward"were actually produced instead just recently but "Isn't It Amazing "was actually composed early last year. " Endings"was additionally a more mature I.D., but I remodelled it for the EP.I haven't placed with each other an EP along with the entire tip in mind. I more or less spam mau5trap with IDs and also find where they fall. Our team then cover the tracks they just like and create an EP.

I assume I had delivered over 21 songs just before our company picked the final tracklist. My Youth EP was helped make the very same way.It isn't simply your originals that I have actually thoroughly appreciated given that your remixes have also been actually absolutely fantastic. What's the technique you take when you are actually placing a fresh twist on a tune? Just how do you decide

which ones to take on?When doing a remix, I regularly intend to make it a brand new track. Tracks along with vocals are very easy, you can easily only create a brand new song to go along with the vocals. But in digital monitors, I seek a hook from the authentic, something super detectable.

I'll utilize that element in the remix but try to compose a brand-new take on it. Regarding monitor variety, I'll just browse the net for controls. If it has contains, I'm way more probable to remix it.Your launches have enriched tags like mau5trap and Emercive. What has it felt like operating with these traces and as an expanding musician what does it indicate to have their support?I need to give a whole lot of because of Emercive. They were actually the very first label to take my music as well as presented me the ropes of the market. I still message Emercive's tag head whenever I need some advise or to examine a contract.Working along with mau5trap has actually been actually so impressive, they have provided me a ton of

options to journey and play shows with all of them. Opening for deadmau5 as well as launching my first EP are actually some personal highlights for me. Via mau5trap I was likewise able to attend both EDC LV and Orlando, impressive knowledge. I am actually delighted to proceed

working with all of them and increase as an artist.On the other hand, you required to Twitter recently and also discussed that you are actually not an enthusiast of self-releasing yet that you are considering putting with each other a" Sysdemystery Box ". Can easily you broaden on the subject of self-releasing music and also offer our team a preference of what may be forthcoming for this special release?Ah, right that twitter update. It holds true that I do not just like to self-release, providing for streaming plus all of that things does not intrigue me at all. Previously, I will just put a keep track of for free of cost download on SoundCloud, no gateway or anything. I possess thus several paths on my difficult travel, they will definitely never ever be actually launched if I do not receive all of them out.So my concept was to make a puzzle container

of my monitors on call for acquisition. Primarily I'll assign a rarity to every of my I.d.s, and roll mistaken coming from a list when its bought. I believe acquiring and also streaming songs has actually acquired therefore zestless, this could create it kind of exciting. Like acquiring a plastic report you have certainly never listened to before. Still exercising the details!Aside coming from your center developments you've additionally taken show business at celebrations like EDC Orlando and also the mau5trap showcase at Day Vacation in LA this year. When you're prepping for a series, what are a number of the important things that go by means of your mind?Not very a lot goes through my mind, I do not intend to overthink it and also give myself stress and anxiety. I simply select the monitors I would like to participate in as well as develop a prepared around them.Since you are actually from San Diego, perform you have an ideal taco outlet to grub down on some Mexican food? What's your best order?Lolita's Taco Shop! I receive the poultry taco combo and also possibly excessive salsa.Finally, along with 2019 just about fully in the rearview looking glass, what goals do you really hope to accomplish in 2020? For 2020 I intend to release technique more music and also attempt to play as many celebrations

as feasible. I also wish to participate in a title show. 2020 is actually a leap year and also my special day is actually the 29th, will really love to perform something exclusive for that!Follow Sysdemes on Social network:

This content was originally published here.

Beginners Guide to Memeteen

No one asked for this, but i made it anyways

General Info:

So the memeteen group signed under Pledis which also has Pristin, Nu’est, Orange Caramel and After School (Everyone has issues with Pledis don’t even get us started about them). 

Group name Seventeen with 13 members because 13 members, 3 units and 1 team equals 13 (also originally they had 17 members but this works too). 

They finally debuted on May 26, 2015 after being pushed back for far to long 

debuted with the amazing song Adore U, and so far have had 8 comebacks: Mansae, Pretty U, Very Nice, Boom Boom,  Don’t Want to Cry, Clap, Thanks, Oh My!

They also have an mv for their song Healing, Love Letter, Shining Diamond, Smile Flower, and Q&A (just scoups, woozi and vernon), Change Up (scoups, woozi, and hoshi)

Have 9 amazing albums: 17 Carat, Boys Be, Love & Letter (Repackaged), Going Seventeen, A|1, Teen,Age, Director’s Cut , and You Make My Day (buy the albums tho) 

They made their Japanese debut on May 16, 2018 with Call Call Call! and released an album called We Make You

Units

Hip-Hop Unit:

Scoups (leader), Wonwoo, Mingyu, Vernon

-created the masterpiece that is Check-In

Mansae Hip Hop Ver.

Trauma MV

Vocal Unit:

Woozi (leader), Jeonghan, Joshua, Dk, Seungkwan

-created the masterpiece that is Chocolate

Adore U Acoustic Ver.

Very Nice Acoustic Ver.

Pinwheel MV

Performance Unit:

Hoshi (leader), Jun, The8, Dino

Adore U Perf Ver.

Mansae Perf Ver.

-created the masterpiece that is Highlight rip carats

Lilili Yabbay MV

Seventeen-BSS

Hoshi, DK, Seungkwan

Just Do It

Just Do It Dance Practice

Members

Scoups/Seungcheol {info} aka the dad 

-So he’s the leader of memeteen, #1 dad lets be real, longest trainee in svt, someone please give this boy a puppy he just needs a dog in his life okay. super sweet and caring, best leader ever honestly no one else could handle those other 12 boys. 

-appeard in Nu’est Face MV, After School Blue’s ‘Wonder Boy’ MV, Happy Pledis ‘Love Letter’ MV (pledis boys ver)

Jeonghan {info} aka the mom

-one of his nicknames in angel, but don’t let that fool you, he’s a swindler. Will not hesitate to cheat watch out for this one. sleeps everywhere possible anytime possible. each comeback his hair gets shorter, lets just hope he doesn’t go bald. Exo’s Sehuns worst nightmare.

Joshua/Jisoo {info} aka the church boy

-Instagram

-Oh shua, our beloved meme and church oppa this is a very dead joke now plz dont use it but if you see it thats shua. 1/2 of american line. Seems quiet and normal but the longer you know him the weirder you realise he truely is. Has a weird obsession with aliens (1,2) Stan talent, stan pindropping shua. huge anime lover. He has also had pink and purple hair and every carat cried 

-beautifully covered Overcome  with Nu’est’s Minhyun

-The jokes that never die: Drink water, not Alcohol, when in doubt, sings Sunday Morning, and his crappy beautiful rapping

Jun/Junhui {info} aka the real mom of the group

-Crazy for you cover

-1/2 of china line. Best eye rolls the world will ever know. people call him greasy, hes not reall but whatever. very sassy. his legendary part in Mansae that makes him look like the McDonalds logo. Also the time he dressed up in an actually carrot costume. 

Films: The Pye-Dog {pt.1 pt.2} (sorry i couldn’t find it in one part), Ip Man: The Legend Is Born, Intouchable (a series)

Hoshi/Soonyoung {info} aka naega hosh

-Okay so choreographs all their dances goals so naturally, best dancer ever. LOUD. Also shinee’s biggest fanboy, if you thought that you were shinees biggest fan ur wrong its Hosh proof: 1, 2, 3. a cute little hamster i die everyday. 10 hours 10 minutes. Black belt in Taekwondo... why dont we ever get to see anything ??

-appered in Nu’est Face MV, and Hello Venus Venus MV

Wonwoo {info} aka rbf master

-was originally a singer, but switched to rapping before debuting, so not only does wonu have an amazing voice but can rap suuuuuper well, and can easily switch between the two its stunning. always calm and usually has an rbf but hes actaully really fun love our emo wonwoo. kinda reminds me of a sloth but i love him even more becasue of that lol

-appered in Nu’est Face MV, and Hello Venus Venus MV

Woozi/Jihoon {info} aka smol fairy devil

-fear him. He may look tiny and soft but he will crush you. Composes almost all of svt’s songs. Super cute and hes coming to except this as time goes on lmao. shortest member. one of the big reasons svt became a self producing group

- first to get a solo in svt called Simple

-appered in Nu’est Face MV, and Hello Venus Venus MV

Dk/Seokmin {info} aka literal sunshine

the sunshine of svt, always smiling. i saw a video of him crying once and my world shattered. LOUD pt2. super funny i love him. one of the most stable vocals in svt. can hit those high notes like nobody else. 

-has this beautiful cover

Mingyu {info} aka gaint germ

-Instagram

-walking puppy? yes actually he is. also a gaint germ (1,2) so get ready. sneezes everywhere then touches everything. can go from cute to sexy with no time in between its insane. If he’s not your bias he’s your bias wrecker. Wild orange hair durning Check In era end everyone made fun of him or loved it no in between.

-Svt’s personal hairstylist  

-appered in Nu’est Face MV, and Hello Venus Venus MV

The8/Minghao {info} aka arthao

-Instagram

-Literally has become the biggest artist in the world what an icon

-other half of chine line. last member to join the group. He did b-boying in china for like 6 years. here is baby hao b-boying at age 12 (he’s the tallest skinny guy and also the leader). crazy good Martial arts skills.  comes off super cute a fluffy and sweet with that voice and all but a serious thug tho like 1, 2, 3 

Seungkwan {info} aka future mc 

-Instagram

Boo Seungkwan our sassy little guy that i love more than life itself. LOUD pt3. gonna star in the next hollywood film because of his flawless acting. Also one of the most stable vocals in svt. hits high notes so easily its not fair (like in pretty u i died). a cutie from jeju. Koreas next best MC watch out world Seungkwan is coming. pretty much helps set the happy fun tone in svt

-covered Beautiful Tomorrow perfectly

Vernon/Hansol {info} aka the living meme

oh vernon. other half of american line. best friends with Seungkwan. literally a walking meme. anything he does is dumb and i love it. example: his weird dance from Boom Boom. lots of Hotline Bling. His iconic: “mom, i won this.” terrible hair durning mansae era 

-was on “Kids Explore Life” when he was little. Also a contestant on ‘JTBC Made in U’ .... headlines headlines ....

-appeared on one of Eric Nams Can’t Help Myself stages and Hello Venus ‘Venus’ MV, Sickness ft. Eunwoo of Pristin

Dino/Chan {info} aka the baby

The baby of the group. Once a baby always a baby. Dino, nugu aegi? tragic hair durning mansae era as well. best glow up of the world let me tell you i called this. Like if you think jungkook of bts had a glow up time to meet Lee Chan because his was more intense and if not faster. Fresh out of High school and living life large lol

-This amazing fancam

-his song Zero (here is the performance) and you can bet i cried when i heard this. He grew up so fast T.T

Other

Active Twitter Fansites

Seventeen’s One Fine Day: Season 1: {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, Season 2  

Best Stages

Girl Group Medley / Relay 

Sorry Sorry cover

Happiness

Tell Me (Immortal Songs)

Boy Group Remix

Bindaetteok Gentleman

My Ears Candy (Jun and Mingyu)

My Ears Candy (Seungkwan and DK)

U

Who (performance unit) oddly enough this song isn’t talked about much, i think it killed every carat cause it killed me

Decalcomanie

and some of my personal faves: Show Me Your Love, Honey + Very Nice (Remix), 2016 Melon awards: Very Nice

Dance Practices/Part Switches

Adore U: Fixed Ver, Follow Ver, Part Switch Ver

Mansae: Hide Ver, Seek Ver, Follow Me Ver, Part Switch Ver

Pretty U: Love Ver, Letter Ver, Dear Carat Ver

Very Nice: Roof Top Ver, Dance Practice Ver, Part Switch Ver

Boom Boom: Front Ver, Review Ver, Santa Ver 

Don’t Wanna Cry: Front Ver, Review Ver, Part Switch Ver

Clap: Practice

Thanks: Choreography Video

Other Video worth mentioning: Highlight (13 Member Ver), No. 1 Cover, Without You

Offical Links:

Offical Website // Youtube // V App // Twitter // Instagram // Weibo // Soundcloud //Facebook

Extra

Seventeen TV

Boys Wish Kindergarten Skit    

Bongbong gyus precious child (a few of the many insta posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, also bongbongie has no gender so stan talent)

the famous English Time w/ Svt

the memeteen diaries (ive never laughed so hard tbh)

ISAC aerobics - inspired by Transformers 

ISAC 400m Dash

ISAC warm up dance created by our boys (ft dokyeoms singing)

Seventeen and Monsta x interactions (they’re debut buddies if you don’t die everytime they interact with each other you are doing something wrong)

Seventeen x Nu’est stage Heaven (aka the best crossover the world has yet to see)

so yah stan talent stan my memes Seventeen

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15th September 2019

This is a pretty damn busy week all things considered, especially in comparison to the last few weeks which have been incredibly dry, by that I mean “No new arrivals” dry, so without further ado, let’s review the charts.

Top 10

Now I’m puzzled, why hasn’t “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy, remixed by Sir Spyro with additional verses from Jaykae and Aitch (Yes, I’m saying that whole thing every time) been dethroned yet? It’s its third week at #1, and I understand that it’s Ed Sheeran making watered-down white-washed grime music which follows somewhat of a UK hip hop trend with pop sensibilities and riding off the waves of a late 2000s grime/UK garage nostalgia phase, it’s essentially the perfect #1 for late Summer-early Autumn 2019 in Britain, but come on, this isn’t a great song and it’s been so close to stepping down from this spot in the past three weeks, in fact...

Aitch may as well have dethroned himself by technicality this week, since the release of his AitcH20 mixtape (I don’t like the dude’s music but I respect the pun) has propelled his lead single “Taste (Make it Shake)” up a spot to number-two, which is a new peak but not the #1 spot as I very much expected, and dreaded, this week.

Potential #1 “Higher Love” by Kygo and the late Whitney Houston is down a spot to number-three thanks to Aitch’s impact, which fortunately, isn’t notable enough for an Album Bomb feature; neither is Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding but we will see some of that later on.

“Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey is staying still at number-four.

Meanwhile, we have a humorous blunder on the BBC’s part, who said that Post Malone’s “Circles”, at number-five this week, is “down 6”, implying that Post Malone reached the impossible: A #0 spot on the UK Singles Chart. Pretty impressive. This song has grown on me, especially in album context, but I’m not bothered about it all too much still and I do think “Goodbyes” with Young Thug is miles better.

Joel Corry’s “Love Island anthem”, “Sorry” featuring uncredited vocals from Hayley May, is at number-six this week, which isn’t a change at all from last chart.

Unfortunately missing its chance of #1 now is “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike, down two spots to number-seven. I predict Fike’ll be a one-hit wonder because of his general apathy for promotion and performing live, especially since none of his other singles seem to have matched the success of his breakout song, but that debut album will be what decides it, I suppose.

Lil Tecca is down one space to number-eight with “RAN$OM”, which still isn’t plummeting fast enough – I did a UK Top 40 ranking on my Twitter @cactusinthebank and this just barely missed the bottom of that list, so if you wanted any insight on how I feel about that track, there you go.

Young T & Bugsey ride off the Aitch feature as “Strike a Pose” is up another chart position to number-nine.

Finally, we have a gain I’m ecstatic about, as “Goodbyes” by Post Malone featuring Young Thug gains a second wind, up four spaces to #10 thanks to the album release. More on that later, but I’m glad this returned to the top 10, it is a near-perfect pop song.

Climbers

I’m ecstatic about this gain too as Regard’s Jay Sean remix, “Ride It”, is up 10 spaces (or “down 10” – thanks, BBC) off the debut to #15, becoming Regard’s first ever UK Top 20. Congratulations, but man, who cares? Jay Sean has another hit. It’s his ninth UK Top 20 hit overall and first ever since 2010, I hope this guy makes a comeback. Speaking of people getting their first UK Top 20 hits, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I had an unexpected boost 12 spaces up to #19, becoming her first ever as well. There are no other climbers but there are a ton of fallers, so...

Fallers

I think I need for the first time in months to separate these fallers by genre, so...

In reverse order of how high up these songs are on the chart unless noted, and starting with pop, EDM and rock(?), “bad guy” by Billie Eilish (Featuring Justin Bieber, kind of) is down six spaces to #37 as this one’s definitely on its way out. Skipping two songs for the sake of the writing to flow, “Ritual” by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora is down four to #28, “Someone You Love” by Lewis Capaldi is down six to #27, “Castles” by Freya Ridings is down six as well to #26, “Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid is down five to #24 and “boyfriend” by Social House featuring Ariana Grande is down five to #22.

Our second genre is Taylor Swift, as “You Need to Calm Down” has an end to its second wind thanks to the Lover album release, down eight spots to #36 (It’ll be out pretty soon), and the title track (That’s “Lover”) is down nine positions to #31.

Our third and final genre category worth noting is hip hop and R&B, starting with MIST and Fredo dropping a whopping 26 spaces to #35 with “So High”, just as I start to actually like this song, thanks to what are probably streaming cuts... and that’s actually all for that genre. Huh. Maybe I shouldn’t have split this in the first place.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Our drop outs seem to all be songs from the last stretch of the charts, in fact all of last week’s #36-#40 have been replaced this week, mostly some songs barely holding onto the UK Top 40, specifically in the realm of hip-hop seemingly, with “I Spy” by Krept & Konan, K-Trap and Headie One dropping out from #39 and “Location” by Dave featuring Burna Boy out from #40, as well as “Wish You Well” by Sigala featuring Becky Hill from #38, while some recent debuts are also out of the chart. “The Man” by Taylor Swift is out from #36 but won’t be back and is probably the result of a combination of a busy week and Lover hype dying off, while “Lalala” by Y2K and bbno$ is out from #37 off of the debut, but will re-enter next week at even possibly a higher position actually. It’s just because it’s a busy week and it happened to break in late, it’s not losing in performance.

There are no returning entries so let’s get into the most EPIC part of the show:

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Slide Away” – Miley Cyrus

Produced by Andrew Wyatt and Mike WiLL Made-It – Peaked at #11 in Slovakia and #47 in the US

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Miley Cyrus song I enjoy, even in eras people seem to praise like Bangerz and... well, just Bangerz. I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan of Cyrus to be honest, I’m definitely not a fan of the slight country twang she has in her voice and I never think her production is any good or even worthwhile, usually provided by Mike WiLL. It’s either completely misguided and cringeworthy like SHE IS COMING or to an even worse extent, Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, or generic, country-influenced pop slush like her Disney efforts and once again to an even worse extent, Younger Now. I did see a lot of buzz about this track in particular that seemed pretty positive, and I’ve got to say, it took her 16 UK Top 40 hits and a music video being released recently, but she’s finally got a charting song that I like, in fact, I might love this. Those slick guitar riffs that start the song off as well as soulful pitch-shifted vocals set a really sombre atmosphere, propelled by the trap percussion with 808s that really dig into the centre of the mix, and an odd scatting and incoherent vocal sample, which is actually an interesting addition and probably Mike WiLL’s contribution. The chorus here is insanely powerful, with Cyrus’ country twang being more subtle and overall, her performance here is a lot more bearable than normal. The swell the airy synths have here especially in the hook is less non-descript than most modern pop and doesn’t present any grandiosity like you’d expect, especially backed by the strings. It sounds more like acceptance, which is incredibly fitting for the subject matter, which as a result from Cyrus’ split with one of the Hemsworths, is focused on how she wants to safely move on rather than focusing on the past as it’s pretty unhealthy especially as she’s now a grown woman (Which she points out in the pre-chorus), with the fully instrumental and surprisingly lengthy outro (Really love the subtle touches there as well, as the vocal sample comes back briefly as well) full of vocodered synth brass and strings flailing out and going nowhere... much like her marriage. Was that on purpose? Probably not, actually, I doubt Mike WiLL really cares, he was probably there to programme some trap drums that sounded a tad sombre and then move on to giving Rae Sremmurd a reason to be making music. Yeah, this is pretty great, although I’d prefer the writing to be a little less undercooked, with a variation on the verse rather than a simple reprise, but I’m not complaining about how it is now really, considering this is a massive improvement on... pretty much everything else. Check it out if you haven’t already.

#38 – “Liar” – Camila Cabello

Produced by watt, The Monsters and the Strangerz and Jon Bellion – Peaked at #13 in Singapore and #56 in the US

I love how history repeats itself. In 2017, Camila Cabello released a double A-side single of sorts, with a trendy pop song following what was popular at the time and a slightly left-field Latin-tinged R&B cut. The trendy pop song, “OMG” with Quavo, underperformed, although the Latin-tinged R&B cut with the incoherent Young Thug guest verse was “Havana”, a #1 hit and one of the most popular songs of the decade, later ending up on the album. Similarly, the “dark pop” Billie Eilish rip-off that is “Shameless” was given the obvious label push but fans seem to really prefer the Latin one, “Liar”, which shows they should probably stop marketing Cabello as a pop star, but we’ll see how that goes in a few months when the album releases. For now, however, we’ve got “Liar”... wait, why the hell does Lionel Richie have a writing credit?

Okay, so I’ve covered 1994’s Year-End list for a Top 5 Best and Worst Hit Songs feature, and I’ve listened to the 1984 list as well for a Top 10 Best Hit Songs feature for that one, and as I guess is a gift of fate, one of the best songs from the 1994 list and one of the worst from the 1984 list are both sampled and/or interpolated in this Camila Cabello song, and trust me, once you hear both of them, you can’t un-hear them, and I heard them immediately. It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be, the song can still be a catchy pop ditty with the blatant sample... but no amount of Melodyne and vocal manipulation can help Cabello from her rubbery and squeaky, slightly off-key(?) falsetto cooing. It’s not sensual or “Broken”, it just sounds awful. Oh, yeah, and the ska beat is mediocre, with hilariously plastic horns, especially in comparison with “Havana”... Honestly, replacing Pharrell with Jon Bellion and removing Young Thug entirely is probably the worst decision the label made. Nothing here is enticing except an admittedly tight bassline, but what’s the point? Just listen to “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base, download some extra FL Studio saxophone sound effects (Even though the cheap horns in the original are dated, they sound a lot better than the recreation here), and you’ve got a somewhat better version of this song. It’s a weak effort, but my expectations weren’t high in the first place. Still better than “All Night Long (All Night)” though, but that’s a pretty difficult feat.

#21 – “Buss Down” – Aitch featuring ZieZie

Produced by Mojam

Remember ZieZie? I wrote paragraphs on paragraphs about that “Fine Girl” song he had but it really was an enigma to me at the time and still kind of is. Anyway, this is the instant grat single and breakout song from Aitch’s second mixtape, AitcH20 (There are layers to that pun and I respect it). I don’t care about Aitch all that much, he just seems to be a safer alternative and pretty accessible guest rapper, like your grandmother’s favourite British trap artist. This is his fifth UK Top 40 single and ZieZie’s second (I never thought I’d say those two words in my life)... but first of all, I commented on this when I talked about “Fine Girl” but the dude’s released more singles so it’s even more jarring now – why is his pre-fame single “Low Life” still listed on Spotify as “ZieZie- “Low Life”” in both the album and track title? He’s signed to a major label, he’s on one of the biggest UK rappers’ promo single, how has no-one fixed this? Sigh, well, the song’s okay. It’s very much not a trap cut, it takes some influence from the Afroswing that people like MoStack make, especially with the piano riff that’s used as the main synth melody, as well as some cute 808s and an admittedly great hook from ZieZie... but the beat doesn’t change and Aitch is existent. The chorus is four lines, all of which sung twice in one chorus, which happens four times in the song. It’s mostly Aitch with corny lyrics and a really sloppy flow on the verses, with a third verse from ZieZie that is absolutely dreadful, pushes this song to mediocre for me. Not only is it incoherent enough for there to be some [?]s on Genius still, but it’s about taking your girl... but letting ZieZie’s friend have sex with your girl, although apparently your girl likes it when her and ZieZie have rough sex, even though your girl is having sex with ZieZie’s friend instead and your girl loves how caring ZieZie is... Huh?

#20 – “Sounds of the Skeng” – Stormzy

Produced by Sir Spyro

Now, THIS is some good British hip hop. This is Stormzy’s 17th UK Top 40 hit and tenth UK Top 20 single, and it’s pretty great. I understand why it didn’t have a Top 5 debut like the sweet gospel-pop number “Crown” or addictive bop that is “Vossi Bop”, because this is just straight-up grime. It’s not UK garage, there aren’t any pop beats or Jorja Smith vocal samples, it doesn’t go soft, it goes hard. It’s produced by Sir Spyro, it has three rapidly-flowing verses, and it’s an absolute banger. You can barely even hear Stormzy under the dramatic synths and bursts of brass, but you can tell he’s just going and going and going. The only sense of melody we get in this bass-rattling single really, other than the synths and smooth jazz horns in the left channel, is the producer tag that plays briefly in the chorus and never again. There are several moments here I just love, not even necessarily lyrical moments although those are usually on point here, but Stormzy’s wild inflections throughout. Most verses start with a simple, Westernised modern flow and then go into a more speedy and aggressive delivery that barely doesn’t clip in the mix. The first verse is comparatively relaxed, with a pretty lazy cadence, making a pretty obscure Kendrick Lamar reference for whatever reason, with the “Perfect!” sample from Street Fighter perfectly implemented. I like how the first verse seems more like a threat while the second verse and third verse are right into the action, as he asks “old Mike” not to resurface, and in the chorus, even mentions old persona Wicked Skengman or Mr. Skeng. The title of the song has a lot of thought into it as well, being a reference to The Sound of Music juxtaposed with grimey London slang term “Skeng” and the Sir Spyro producer tag, “Sounds of the Sir”. Stormzy starts dissing British rappers who use too much Americanised slang and beat selection in the second verse, with lazy, dismissive ad-libs almost mocking trap-rappers overseas like Migos, and then he reaches the peak of the song. The second verse, personally my favourite, is where he has a machine gun flow enraged outburst, and it is insane, mentioning his two BRIT Award wins while also keeping an impressive delivery that is pretty much just really quick yelling, it’s really intense, but he sounds focused and determined. The third verse is the cooldown, paying tribute to So Solid Crew and their flow and ad-libs, as well as some pretty clever wordplay regarding other rappers Flipz and MIST, as well as Giggs, whose song “Whippin’ Excursion” is rhymed with a brag about how tall he is. He’s 6’5’’, which is towering above me. All three verses here have their own unique flow and cadence, as well as theme seemingly, but that’s not all that clear right now. I’m excited for this one in album context, but this is great already. Check it out.

#11 – “Hollywood’s Bleeding” – Post Malone

Produced by Louis Bell and Brian Lee

Really? The title track? I mean, understandable, it’s the first song on the album and it’s not a bad song at all, but there are so many better and more interesting songs on the album that you’d figue would debut high. “Saint-Tropez”, the “Wow.”-type banger? “Enemies” with DaBaby? The awesome alt-rock banger “Allergic”? Kanye West-produced “Internet”? Future and Halsey pretty much saving the ballad “Die for Me”? Hell, I figured the record-breaking “Take What You Want” with Travis Scott and the legendary Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath would be the obvious choice to chart in the UK, it has Ozzy on it for goodness’ sake! Thanks to UK chart rules, this is the only track from the #1 album allowed though, and it’s not a bad song at all, far from it. It’s just a good more than half of the album, which admittedly is pretty great especially for a Post Malone album, is better than it, most by far. Regardless, it’s Post’s twelth UK Top 40 hit and 11th UK Top 20 hit, and it’s a pretty good introductory song. I should note though, that Post’s last album, beerbongs & Bentleys, also had its non-single intro track with no features, “Paranoid”, also co-produced by Louis Bell, debut and peak at #11, just more than a year ago. What a coincidence. Anyway, the song (And album may I add) starts with some sombre vocals from Post complaining about Hollywood and he sounds pretty great, with less strained vocals than usual and a slight warble which I’m actually a fan of, which is well integrated into the chorus, but when that trap beat hits, it knocks. It’s a great drop. Otherwise, eh, I love Post’s performance here, with a lot of flow shifts throughout both verses, but it’s a pretty standard beat until that one note Post holds into a beat switch, with a very glitchy rock beat with oddly mixed 808s, and it sounds pretty great... until it’s gone in like less than 10 seconds. Good song, but nowhere close to his best.

Conclusion

All things considered, this is a pretty great week. I’d probably give Best of the Week to Stormzy for “Sounds of the Skeng” with tied Honourable Mention going to Miley Cyrus and Post Malone for “Slide Away” and “Hollywood’s Bleeding”. Worst of the Week is going to Camila Cabello for just plain mediocrity in “Liar”, so Aitch is scot-free (Although ZieZie is both the best and worst part of that song). Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for, to be honest, SpongeBob memes and very infrequent musical commentary and ramblings, and I’ll see you next week!

Track: Ellie Goulding ✕ Bon Iver - Lights ✕ Calgary

Video Samples Source: Chaalbaaz - Tera Beemaar Mera Dil

TL;DR version: I'm pretending to make music. Somewhere in 2007-08, I got introduced to the idea of "internet mash-up artist" when a friend living in the US sent me a link to one of the first mash-up artists to go viral on the Internet, DJ ToToM. He mixed everything we were listening to then. It was fascinating to listen to something like Bob Dylan through the gaze of The Pixies. It's a different song, it's the same two songs but now it's different. It means something else now. Yeah, you can still be attached to each of the two (or more) songs that make the mashup as well. But it's just that they were made for each other also.

Since then, mashups have become a part of my library. Every now and then, I go looking for some new mashup artist who is utterly mindblowing when it comes to their matchmaking abilities. Others just make remixes, where they take an electronic sample beat and then speed up/slow down two tracks to match beat with that sample beat and play them on top of it. Or my nemesis: Bands who play two covers clearled stitched together one after the other. Yes, I'm a mashup hipster. A mashup is all about sampling. If you're doing anything other than sampling then you're making music (it may even be amazing) but you're not making a mashup. A mashup is about an alternative reality's pop culture (as defined by all alternative reality references/imagined in popular culture).

2010 onwards, mashups became my way of celebrating New Year's Eve. Two of the biggest viral mashup hitmakers Dj Earworm and Daniel Kim would release their own year-end specials -- a mashup of the Billboard top 50 tracks of the ear -- titled United States of Pop and Pop Danthology. (In my head, it's like the mashup boxing match of the year. I'm sure neither of the two artists think that way.) Then I compare notes between the two mashups. Who made the smoothest, coolest mashup with songs put together in the least forced way possible. All of this is dependent on my own judgement of course, not some standardized guide or musical knowledge. Every year, I've spent a couple of days on Audacity trying to see if I can mash songs together before realising I know shit about creating music and giving up. (I actually know nothing, I love listening to music though.) I tried reading hack guides and watching terrible videos about how to extract vocals from a song. (Hey, it never works for anything but the song they're demonstrating in the video.)

Somewhere in 2011, I discovered Girl Talk. He has taken ‘mashup artist’ to a whole new level. His mashup albums are a like a reflection in the entire genre that would be made of mashups and samples. In his discography, you'll find everything from banging dance numbers to just good soulful listens to sometimes even an exploration in noise. I'm not sure I'll ever go that deep into the art/craft of mashups. You must listen to at least one full Girl Talk album to know what I'm talking about.

Recently, I started following oneboredjeu on twitter, who I consider perhaps one of the finest mashup artists that lives on the Internet. I walked into her YouTube channel for the Gambino and Gorillaz mashups and stayed for everything else. Among her recent uploads, her Sia-Lorde and SZA-Ariana Grande mashups are to die for. Through her, I found Raheem D. His Lil Kim-Ariana Grande mashup is da bomb. That was when I also discovered there was a mashup artist scene and their own space on social media. Reading them discuss mashups, hearing their uploads, I learnt two key things which I used when I restarted my attempts at mashing songs on Audacity:

1. It's best if songs are on the same key and close to each other in BPM (beats per minute) count. Because I know shit about making music, I couldn't guess what key any given song was, and I could never count beats already. 2. You can't just cut vocals out of a song like it works with image editing (which I had learnt already). Mashup artists source their stems (different tracks that make a song: vocals, strings, percussion, or the complete instrumental backing track) from all over the Internet.

Finally, we're at how did I end up here. A few weeks ago, I was hanging out with a friend from Chile. Our usual scene was sitting on his couch, and having a YouTube party where we'd keep showing each other videos or music. That day, the moment I entered his house, he jumped up.

"Duude! Do you remember the Asereje song?" He was doing the step. "The Tomatina girls or something?" "Yes, yes! That one." "We just called it the Ketchup song in India." "That's not the point. Somebody finally figured out what the gibberish part of the song was!" "There was a gibberish part?" "The lines that come after Asereje are all gibberish!" "They're not Spanish? They sound so much like Spanish!" "Yes, they do but they're Spanish gibberish. If you understood Spanish, you'd know." "So what's the meaning of Asereje?"

He then played a video from a Chilean news channel where they were reporting that a dude on Twitter had cracked the Asereje code. So in Spanish, the girls are singing the story of Diego. One night Diego is wrecked on alcohol and drugs and arrives at a club. The DJ starts playing a song, which happens to be Diego's favourite song. Y la baila (And he dances), y la goza (and he enjoys it) y la caaantaaa (and he siiings): Aserejé, ja deje tejebe tude jebere Sebiunouba majabi an de bugui an de buididipí Sebiunouba majabi an de bugui an de buididipí Sebiunouba majabi an de bugui an de buididipí So Diego's favourite song iiiiis: I said a hip hop, hippie to the hippie The hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it out Bubba to the bang bang boogie, boobie to the boogie To the rhythm of the boogie the beat

Rapper's Delight! Yes, that blew my mind and I can no longer take The Ketchup Song lightly. I have regrets for taking it lightly when I was in college and the song was a sensation.

So at this end of this long detour in my mashup story: I got home that night and tweeted, asking the Internet for a mashup of The Ketchup Song and Rapper's Delight. Someone from my twitter social life was equally mindblown and asked for the same. Something hit me then and I made this just ffs. I'd successfully managed to get vocals only tracks of Rapper's Delight and The Ketchup Song, and an instrumental version of The Ketchup Song to put together that short clip -- in my head, it was more of a proof of concept that I can mashup AND that the guy from Chile was right, Asereje IS Rapper's Delight. Last Monday, I got bored one evening and also was itching to see if I could get even close to making a mashup. So as usual, my mashup attempt of 2017 was underway. I googled to see if somebody had compiled a song keys database and ta-da: I found Audio Keychain. While just clicking through their database to see if any song strikes me in particular that I wanted to try using in a mashup. I found Katy B's 5AM, which I really like. A reverse search told me that Blue Oyster Cult's hit The Reaper had the same key and almost the same BPM. There it was decided, for my first attempt, I was going to mash these two songs together. I found the Katy B stems on some filesharing platform after some searching. A decent instrumental (backing track) version of The Reaper on YouTube was found much easily and downloaded. I worked for a couple of hours and made an almost 2-minute draft. It was working but I hit a creative block there onwards. So I exported the 1:48 clip to mp3 from Audacity and sent it to the friend who first introduced me to ToToM and went to sleep.

The next day at office, I played the mashup over and over again to see if still made sense. I made a colleague listen to it because I was confident that I had no distance and it would sound amazing to me. He said, "I haven't heard either of these songs but I like this song I'm hearing." That was hella encouraging. Although, I was sure that it was a fluke that I managed to make that one. If I try once again, I'll fail miserably. On Wednesday, I opened Audio Keychain and decided to try again. After some hits and misses, I finally ended up with Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself (backing track) and David Guetta/Nicki Minaj/Bebe Rexha's Hey Mama (vocal track). After the first draft, there were lots of empty spaces for which I didn't find any vocals that fit. So I added the chorus from Charli XCX's Boom Clap, which doesn't really fit as well as the first two songs with each other. But it was all sounding pleasant and I hadn't fucked up as miserably as the last seven years.

Thursday evening, I didn't even think twice. I got home, logged onto Audio Keychain and started looking for tracks to mashup. A lot of random and terrible experiments later, Ellie Goulding's Lights and Bon Iver's Calgary seemed like they had promise together. Unfortunately, just like the bad Charli XCX stem from the previous mashup, I found a below-par vocals only track for Lights. I didn't actually care because all I wanted to see was if I could make a decent mashup again. I really, really liked how the two tracks came together. Hence, this decision of publishing the mashup. I would've published on Thursday night itself but I think I was too happy about how these two tracks worked together. I felt this track needed a video. And in a vision due to a fuckton of sleeplessness, Sridevi and my favourite song from Chaalbaaz came to mind - Tera Beemaar Mera Dil. So then I downloaded the best available YouTube video for that song and started to work on it. After quite a few drafts, a low-end machine, where every render takes 2 hours and the only way to see the video is to render it because otherwise everything starts malfunctioning due to the load, here's the final mashup video for a mashup track.

[Fan Account] Da-iCE’s NEXT PHASE Live in Saitama!

Da-iCE hasn’t listed a tour date for Tokyo yet (which makes me think another performance might be added to the end of the tour, but of course this is just me guessing), so for my very first Da-iCE tour performance, I made the trip to nearby Saitama to see them perform during their second day of the tour at Misato Cultural Center. It was about an hour and a half from my apartment, but as I’ve mentioned before, Japanese performances don’t require you to line up early-- if it’s a seated venue, like this one was, you’ll have the same seat no matter how early you get there, and standing venues still have entrance order numbers written on the ticket.

Once inside, there were several vendors. One to encourage people to sign up for the fan club, one selling Da-iCE albums, one passing along info for signing up for a credit card with Da-iCE's image on it, and lastly the standard merch table. I'd already purchased the light stick, but this time I also grabbed a tote bag since my normal purse isn't big enough to carry around the giant novels I'm always reading >_<

For this tour, I finally broke my bad streak of lotto numbers and snagged a seat in the third row. Each row was divided into left stage, middle stage, and right stage. I was the leftmost seat in the left stage area, and based on the dance formations, we got a lot of visits from Yudai and Taiki in particular throughout the night.

Before the show, the staff asked us to take out our light sticks, and we were all surprised to find out that they have a special function! When they're in range of the current concert venue, they can be controlled to change colors from their standard purplish-blue shade. Throughout the night, they were frequently moved from red to green to yellow to aqua blue and so on. The staff did a really good job of matching them to the tone of the songs and stage lights.

After demonstrating the light sticks' magic power, there was a short, futuristic intro video, and then the boys stepped out of this cool, dice shaped construction made out of the video screens and the show began!

Breaking down the night by song:

NEXT PHASE: When the album came out, Da-iCE claimed this would be their new show opener to replace FIGHT BACK, and it really fills the role well! The boys were wearing different costumes than their Tonikaku HEY gear, but their looks had a similar theme-- bright colors paired with retro style jackets. They all looked amazing (Sota’s back to 100% red hair!) and kicked off the show with some very strong dancing.

Watch Out: Even though this song came out last year, it's really grown as one of my favorites, so I was psyched that this was their follow up. Once again, it was a great pick to bring up the energy, and the vocals were as on point as ever. I love the bouncy parts of the dance during the “Won’t you try it?” section of the chorus.

Step Back: This was our first use of prop/special stage design of the night, and let's just say CHAINS WERE INVOLVED. I'm not joking. The set design featured prison-esque bars and the boys danced with prop chains binding their wrists. And yes, it was as good as it sounds. This was my first time seeing this song live, and I have to say that the dance was stellar!

Noise: After Step Back, the boys had a short introductory MC (trolling Sota ensues) where they also asked everyone how many "Phase" concerts they've been to ever since Phase 0 kicked off. They transitioned into Noise, one of my fave songs from Fight Back, using headphone props. Every time one of the boys put on the headphones, a certain kind of music would play and they would dance to it. For example, when Taiki put his on, it was a really upbeat techno track, so he did an almost seizure-like dance to it, then close with one of his trademark funny faces when he pulled the headphones off. When it was Yudai's turn, the intro to Noise started, and the boys began the performance with the headphones on. Every time they pulled them off, the music would change to tinny and muted, in the radio-esque style the original song evokes. It was really well done! But as Yudai mentioned on Twitter yesterday, he did make a few mistakes in his timing of pulling of the headphones, but I wish he wouldn't worry too much since it was a really complex performance and overall they did a good job with it!

Free Falling: This was our second set design on the night. A table with several chairs and a round of shot glasses (and I think some Jack Daniels as well?) were brought out, and the boys delivered this more rock-based number with a smoky bar room theme. They made good use of the chairs and table in the dance routine as well, and the performance came across like a cool, movie-like moment.

Chocolate Sympathy: Since the chairs were out, it was time for Da-iCE's famous chair dance routine paired with one of their sexiest songs. Chocolate Sympathy should be illegal, that song paired with that dance is too much all at once T^T. As I was watching, I kept on thinking how badly I want a CS instrumental because that beat is jamming, and in a sense I got my wish, because after the performance was over, it was time for performance solos from the dance line to the tune of the CS instrumental (remixed slightly, naturally). They played a quick game of Musical Chairs to determine who would go first. Hayate lost (after Toru took his chair, causing Hayate to dramatically fall over), so he led off. His dancing, unsurprisingly, WAS DOPE. Following his solo, he dashed offstage, and it was Taiki's turn. After, Taiki and Toru did a bit of a duo dance together, then Toru wrapped up, and both he and Taiki left the stage.

Koigokoro: Immediately Koigokoro kicked off with a costume change, since Yudai and Sota had been backstage during the dance solos. They were now wearing dark pants paired with a white dress shirt with a simple design in black down the front paired with a black bow tie. VERY sharp. The two vocals started off, and since Hayate had also had enough time to change costumes, he led off the dancing solo. Taiki and then Toru appeared later in the song. This is by far one of my fave Da-iCE songs and one of my faves to watch live. The vocal line absolutely kills it, and the dance is beautiful and emotional. One of my faves of the night.

Reason: Since we were in slow song mode, they transitioned into Reason, paired with a background video of the boys walking through the streets of Japan. This is one of the most beautiful songs off the new album but I keep forgetting that, so this was a good reminder to have it on rotation more often.

Sugar High: While the Reason videos were playing, the staff had set up coat racks with blue velvet suit jackets behind the screens. When I saw them, I thought next up would be Kirenai Mama no Coat, but it was actually our new OT5 track from Tonikaku HEY, Sugar High! Dressed in their daper jackets, all five members participated in the harmonies in the track, and they did a FANTASTIC job. I really do hope Da-iCE continues this trend in the future. Taiki is already at a great level of vocal ability, and Toru and Hayate’s confidence in their abilities seems to have skyrocketed.

Setsunakute (acoustic): And continue the trend they did! As a B-side to a pre-debut single, this song doesn't get much play at concerts, but Da-iCE brought it back with all 5 members on vocals! Not only did the dance line sing, but they actually sang the majority of the song! I'm praying Da-iCE will release this in some form, because it was glorious. Taiki did the first chorus on Toru did the second, and both of them delivered beautiful.

Yudai darted off stage following this performance, leaving the other four members to handle the MC while he changed costumes. The members speculated what Yudai would talk about for a solo MC and decided on 'protein'. Sure enough, when Yudai emerged in the new costume (black, white, and red-- Da-iCE's colors!), he chose to talk about protein while the other members changed. Unfortunately, I have a very limited knowledge of protein vocab, so I didn't quite follow >_<

[at this point, I can't remember for sure which of the next two songs was performed first, but I'm making an educated guess here lol]

Into You: All the boys were now in their Da-iCE colors after the costume change. They looked great, but Taiki's black piece, a button down, had the misfortune of sporting Guy Fieri-like flames... Taiki, I thought you were the fashionista!

I wasn't expecting Into You to be performed, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was! This is Da-iCE’s killer cover, and they SLAYED it live. And the Hayate jump kick move from the music video was there as well. And Sota's iconic "A little dangerous my boy" :D

I'll be back: Since we got Setsunakute, we also got I'll be back! This will also slightly edited, so instead of the Sota rap(ish?) bits on the second verse, we got a dance break. I'm personally a huge fan of Da-iCE dance breaks, so even though the performance was a little shorter than the original track, it was an amazing watch.

Fantasy: Another track I've never seen performed before, and another track improved by adding a dance break to the live performance. It makes me wish the dance break instrumental was part of the original track, I think it really enhanced it!

Five: Our first pre-debut mini album classic! This is one of my personal favorites from the pre-debut era because I love how the lyrics represent their bond as five members. I'm hoping for them to turn this into an OT5 vocal song one day, but as for now, I was thrilled to see this live finally! Also, our section finally got a much needed dose of Hayate fan service when he visited left stage.

Tonikaku HEY: Before performing their latest single, Da-iCE did a mini competition to see who could get the loudest audience "HEY"... of course, it was Sota vs. the rest of the members :D All a-i are winners, so the boys didn't choose favorites in the end. This song is kind of like the new "Hush Hush" where the audience participates in the dance since the moves during the chorus are simple hand movements the audience can follow. It's such a fun live track and you can tell the group really loves performing it.

BOND: This is a pretty light hearted song, so the boys were mainly paling around during the performance. For the set design, three sets of big white steps (the symbol for NEXT PHASE) on wheels were brought out, and the members played around on the steps and wheeled each other around. As the audience, we were in charge of the "pa-pa-party party" vocals

Stand: Another pre-debut mini-classic! The boys had stashed autographed balls under their stairs, so spent a portion of this track pitching them to the audience. None came close to me, but a girl at the other end of my row caught TWO. Guess my luck could have been a little better, even though I got third row.

Kimiiro: After all their fun with the last song, the boys calmed down and directed our attention to the screens, which flashed the release date for the new single. They than had a full performance of the new single, which I LOVE. It's not quite in the same vein as their previous summer singles, though it is uptempo. If anything, I think its vibe is half way between those songs and Sora, which is a really good sound for them. Can't wait for the release!

TWO AS ONE: I saw this performed live at Tokyo Swish and their vocals and choreo combination was really moving moment at the time, so it was beautiful to see it again. I love the MV, but I really wish more of the choreo was featured so you all could see it. I really think the story it tells is beautiful, especially since it's a thank you song to the fans.

ENCORE TIME!

Everybody: We heard the opening words of Everybody, but Da-iCE was nowhere to be found onstage...we whirled around...and there they were, in the audience! The five members walked around the aisles and shook hands with fans as they passed, much to everyone's delight! A lot of areas were reached by all five members, but the staff kept blocking the group from coming to my area because it was a tight squeeze between the edge of the rows and the side stage. Toru didn't care and broke through anyways. I made good use of having two hands and got a double handshake from Toru as he passed. YES!

Osaka Lover: I love this cover from the new single and think it's perfect for summer, so I'm glad they included it in their encore line up. The dance was great, so I'm extra psyched that we're getting an MV for this on the upcoming single!

Paradive: Da-iCE's most famous single closed out the night in upbeat, towel waving style. It's such a fun song, and Hayate's dance part during the instrumental has become so beloved that the members shout out "HAYATE" before he starts it. It's a great way to close on a happy and exciting note!

The two girls sitting next to me had talked to me before the encore and found out my favorite member was Sota. I'm not sure what I did to deserve such generosity, but one girl gave me a Sota NEXT PHASE wristband, and the other gave me Sota postcards. I was really so touched! At every Da-iCE I've been to, people have come up to me and asked me about how I got into the group, which is really so amazing for me! I feel a little awkward sometimes being a foreigner who stands out a lot since I'm the kind of person who prefers people (members of Da-iCE excepted) not to focus on me, but everyone has really shown me kindness and helped me to become more comfortable. My first Da-iCE tour performance was a total blast!!!