#DUDE--- NOT ONLY IS THE MUSIC VIDEO SO NICE- IT'S SIMPLE BUT THE VISUALS ARE SO NICE THEY'RE SO RPETTY

[sodiren]

please oh please give this a listen it's really nice

[asbcblog]

TOP SONGS OF 2020 WRITE UP!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6WDeuRMOV8neAhU2zd193d?si=lZ9gDIp0TsCCEOeCS7_QGw

1. I remember everything - John Prine

I was going to write an incredibly earnest and long review of this song that outlined just how much John Prine meant to me. I can’t really do it and I think this song probably says enough alone. With only a few chords he always manages to express all the little things that make love what it is, all different kinds of love. Long lasting, short moments, love with places, sounds, going places and staying home, endless family ties, and the often fragile but in the end tenable love between all human beings in the face of catastrophe. The pandemic stole a lot of things from a lot of people this year, including John Prine, but he will remain one of the greatest songwriters of all time and his songs will live on forever.

2. Dream Palette - Yves Tumor

I can’t drive but let’s pretend I’m driving, I’m in LA and it’s night time or something, my elbow’s out the window, don’t know why I’m wearing sunglasses, this song comes on the radio, I’m the coolest person alive.

3. Boylife in EU- Yung Lean

Not to repeat my review of Garden but when the chorus comes I feel like I’m on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and im screaming but this time its because of a no-deal Brexit.

4. Garden- Joseph Futak

My review was already used as part of Joe’s promo campaign and it said: “feel like im on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and I’m screaming when the drums come in x x”

5. Circle the Drain- Soccer Mommy

I like this song because I too, am often alone in my room, and I have also become obsessed with subtle breakbeats to an extent where people around me have become very bored of the subject.

6. The Brothers William Said- The Innocence Mission

I listened to this song over and over when I was travelling round London in January just after my birthday, it felt like I’d been listening to it for years, like it was in a movie I’d forgotten. It felt at the time like I was saying a lot of goodbyes, recognising that things weren’t really like they used to be.

7. On the Floor- Perfume Genius

Say it with me ladies: I CROSS OUT HIS NAME ON THE PAGE!!!!

8. Shameika- Fiona Apple

She may not believe it but I bet Fiona Apple looked tough with a riding crop.

9. Song for Our Daughter- Laura Marling

Everything about this is fantastic, mellow and bright at the same time. Every part is brought forward individually and no part of this song gets left behind. A stunning vocal from Laura Marling and purposeful lyrics set to a cinematically emotive instrumental. Pure magic as always.

10. Building site outside- Piglet

Not going to lie, I was in a very vulnerable emotional state when I listened to this song for the first time, but I think that makes it no less powerful and just, sad. The lyric ‘she smiled at me so much last time’ is just so simple and devastating that you forget this would’ve been on every indie film soundtrack from 2000-2008 if Piglet was an industry plant.  

11. I wonder- Shamir

One word: EPIC

12. Crimson Tide- Destroyer

Listened to this every time I came on my period this year.

13. In the Dining Room - Joe Pera talks with you

Adam showed me Joe Pera when I really felt incredibly sad at the very beginning of this year. It’s a show that’s made me feel good, no matter the circumstances. This moment in the show made me smile, and I love hearing Gene come in a bit too early.

14. Stupid Love- Lady Gaga

Shakin my little booty in the kitchen to this x

15. Might bang, might not- Little Simz

Livid we didn’t all get to go to End of the Road and see all the hot dad’s loving Little Simz.

16. Fire- Waxahatchee

A truly insane vocal. I listened to this song on my way to work almost every day from September to December and fantasised singing back up at some kind of outdoor gig in the summer and it made everything significantly less bleak.

17. Hannah Sun- Lomelda

This song is too nice and genuine for me to say anything other than, “really lovely song :)”.

18. Scroll of Sorrow- Machine Girl, guayaba

Listened to this a lot this year while sitting on my kitchen floor staring into an empty oven, wondering if I was ever going to go to a party again.

19. Build a nest- Jeff and Ruby Parker

Have put this on in the flat because the guitar solo reminds me of everything my dad listens to at home. A really great piece of music that kicks off a really exciting album.

20. Kiss me thru the phone- That Kid

Ned said yesterday that he thought it was funny how much the original of this song is so foundational to hyper pop and I agree. Also I’ve started saying ‘Bitch’ like That Kid does every time I stub my toe.

21. Cuckoo- Sam Amidon

I am punting down a creek, looking in the branches that hang over the water for the bird that shall lead me to my next clue.

22. Places/ Plans- Skullcrusher

Used this song to comfort myself in moments where I also just don’t understand why I’m not famous.

23. Sweetjoy- Jam City

Finally….. HAIM for dudes.

24. Clean Living- Slow Weather

I saw someone listening to this on the side of my Spotify so I decided to give it a go and it was a fantastic decision. It’s mental that half of this song is an outro.

25. Summer All Over- Blake Mills

Along with the music video visuals and the dampened piano tone, this wins the competition for least summer-y song with the actual word summer in the title.

26. Ready Cheeky Pretty- CHAI

All of my joy this year has been brought to me by CHAI. I have nothing negative to say about CHAI. If you have anything negative to say about CHAI you’re gonna have to go through me.

27. Diaphanous- Land of Talk

This band was recommended to me by a guy I was trying to flirt with at rough trade east but everything closed before I could impress him by saying ‘I think they’re really cool’.

28. Anything - Adrianne Lenker

Anyone who has ever attempted to write a song with me knows how much I simply love rhyming. Seriously though, every thing rhymes, brilliant stuff. (It’s also such a brilliantly full and constant song that still manages to move and remain exciting from start to finish. I imagine this is partially due to Adrianne Lenker’s almost nursery rhyme- esque structure and also due to her beautifully colloquial approach to family dynamics.)

29. Blow- Dj Gigola, Kev Koko

This song makes me wish I was Jason Bourne- just wanna jump really far while something explodes behind me.

30. Money Can’t Buy- Yaeji, Nappy Nina 

‘Well I’ll buy some Yaeji tickets, they’re for NOVEMBER, there’s NO WAY they’re gonna get cancelled’.

31. Only the Truth- Johanna Warren

When I first listened to this song I felt like I was floating in the ocean looking up at the stars as the drums came in on ‘what more can I do’. An incredibly beautiful and careful song.

32. Gasoline- Haim

2020 could probably be summarised with the phrase ‘WHY AM I NO LONGER IN CALIFORNIA? WHY DID I LEAVE CALIFORNIA?’ And this song is the 3 minutes 13 seconds seconds of escapism I needed to not topple into a full spiral.

33. Mapuu - Ic3peak

No one can convince me that Ic3peak are real people. They are a collective made up of child ghosts.

34. Don’t Worry- Bladee

Whenever I have an anxiety attack in the night I wake up and see Bladee’s ghost of the future over my bed, he says ‘Don’t worry’ and mumbles for a bit as I fall back into a peaceful sleep.

35. The biggest tits in history- The magnetic fields

The most relatable magnetic fields song imo.  

36. Sand Castle- nijuu

Yujin is a genius and my answer is yes, I do want to just walk for a while.

37. Curl Up- Darren Hayman

Ned reminded me how much I used to love Darren Hayman, and both of them have been a pretty big part of my year.

38. When Will Death Come- Sarah Mary Chadwick

‘Wow, mental voice’ - Ned, while doing the washing up.

39. Dear Dad - Sylvie Wiley

‘But I didn’t cry, you’d be proud’ Sylvie, I’m weeping forever.

40. 34+35- Ariana Grande

Hehehehehehehehehe

41. Garden Song- Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers is a pretty unparalleled lyricist and this song feels like a disconnected series of thoughts that somehow all make sense together and come to create something that doesn’t build, but all just kind of sits? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t really know what she’s talking about but like, I get it.

42. Ringtone (remix) - 100 gecs, Charli xcx, Kero Kero Bonito, Rico Nasty, 

I love the way it sounds like everyone got just one take and had to improvise all the lyrics but it still bangs.

43. Changer- Andy Shauf

Thank you lord for another album about a smaller than average man overthinking all of his social interactions with lots of lovely clarinet parts.

44. What’s your pleasure - Jessie Ware

My pleasure jessie? Probably just sitting by the fire with a tough crossword and a glass of merlot x

45. Slime- Shygirl

Shygirl’s series of singles this year made me even more livid that I had to take out my eyebrow piercing for my new job this year.

46. Sears Tower- Salem

Perfect halloween release.

47. Title track- happyness

Ned turned to me and said: ‘so is their new thing that they sound like Elliot Smith’ and I said: ‘and that’s a bad thing?’

48. Cross-sound ferry (walk on ticket) - Hamilton Leithauser

Have found unbelievable joy in chopping veg and shouting GREEEEEEEN PORT, NEEEEEEWWWW YOOORK alone in my kitchen.

49. Lowswimmer- Hailaker

I’ve loved hearing Jemima’s voice when I haven’t got to see her much this year. I normally take the piss out of the Hambledon line but I haven’t seen that this year really either. I guess we find sentimentality in strange places.

50. XS - Rina Sawayama

This song made me feel very decadent on those days where I didn’t wash.

51. Emily- Clem Snide

Let’s be more kind and brave in the face of it all.

52. Building a fire- Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

P.O.V you’re doing bushcraft in the garden with your husband Bonnie Prince Billy and he’s here to protect you.

53. Asexual Wellbeing- Okay Kaya

This song absolutely bangs but I am truly bewildered by the way they singled out the line ‘if they could put a pulse into a spinach leaf, can they turn the two of us into a tree?’ in the production as if that was a true piece of genius. As I say great tune tho.

54. Anthems- Charli xcx

The soundtrack to couch to 5k

55. Never Better- Kitty Fitz

A SE London queen bringing us huge pop tunes in 2020. So so excited to see what 2021 brings us from Kitty, she’s gonna be a real force!

56. Deep in Love- Bonny Light Horsemen

This is such a delightful song which (mainly due to the time I actually got around to listening to the whole record) for me really rang in the spring. A beautifully recorded testament to the feeling of love getting stronger meaning you have a lot more to lose.

57. Malibu- Kim Petras

My song of the summer, made me feel like I was at the beach when really I was in Lewisham.

58. Like I’m Winning it- Girlpool

I’m so delighted that the turn girlpool have made this year is towards dramatic goth music with breakbeats. Their voices both sound amazing and they look simply incredible.

59. Azad- Frazey Ford

I have no idea what she’s saying as always but I love it.

60. Helio- Charlotte Dos Santos

I’m literally so excited for what Charlotte Dos Santos is gonna put out next. The production is fantastic and her aesthetics are flawless.

61. Lost in the Country- Trace Mountains

‘I checked my email twice as I cried’. Safe to say we’ve all been there this year amirite girlies x

62. Unfold You- Rostam

I hated this at first, I thought, what’s this lo-fi beats to study to shit, but it’s now my classic ‘I’m just gonna pop to the shops, anyone want anything? x’ song. Huge.

63. Oh Yeah- A.G cook

One of 2020s realisations is that me and A.G Cook kind of look like we could be cousins.

64. Can’t cool me down- Car Seat Headrest

I would like to personally thank will Toledo for giving me a tune that got me off my ass when I was too warm to do exercise this summer.

65. Take back the radio- Katy J Paerson

In love with Katy J Pearson’s voice and the way this song builds. Just pretty flawless and feel good in my opinion. I think she’s such an exciting new artist who’s gonna be around for a very very long time.

66. Good Woman- The Staves

‘I’m a good woman’… speak for yourselves.

67. A Little Love- Jack Francis

Feel like I’ve been singing this song for about 5 years! It’s amazing and I’m so excited about what Jack’s going to bring out in 2021, he’s a genius and also the nicest man on the planet.

68. Lullaby No.4 - Snailbeach

This song makes me feel like I’m being hypnotised on a haunted carousel in a very relaxing way.

69. Boyfriend in every city- Roma Radz

Sucks that she can’t see any of her boyfriends cos of covid :(

70. Jaja ding dong- Will Ferrell

Get back in there and play Jaja Ding Dong !!!!

71. Highway- Jonatan leandoer96

Man, would be pretty sick to have 20 boys outside the club but alas the clubs are dead and I’ve only regularly texted about 4 people this year.

72. De nadie- Kali Uchis

Felt v sexy listening to this for the first time in a Morley’s in Honor Oak.

73. Weird Fishes- Lianne La Havas

This album was a pretty triumphant return for Lianna La Havas and me teenage self simply couldn’t be happier.

74. Micro Creature- Aya Gloomy

Love that despite everything about this song telling me otherwise, that the artwork for this single looks like Aya Gloomy is just chilling in the fields by my family home in Hampshire.

75. Si Ella Sale- Bad Bunny

Better get on the duolingo now if I’m gonna know what this guy’s saying at Porto next year.

76. Through my sails- Mountain Man

Truly gentle reimagining of an already incredibly beautiful song, mountain man make every word seem new!

77.Christmas Day (get me outta this funk) - Baggio and Blue 5 Years- Bath days

In joint 77th place are two banging Christmas songs that have soundtracked a pretty bleak Christmas period and have made me feel pretty joyous in their ways, despite one literally being called Blue Five Years.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2006

17 to 18 years old. First to second university year, studying History. Another slightly chaotic year, to be honest.

It’s yet another great year for hits, even if 2005 and 2007 are both even better.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

At this point it was beginning to be clear that my mother wanted me out of the appartment as quickly as possible so staying at home was becoming more and more unpleasant. I basically spent most of my day outside or at the library when I wasn’t in class, then ate dinner and slept at home. I had a few friends at university but was very unpopular (by the start of the second year, my nickname was “the hobo”, mostly because I was always wearing the same old black coat and bad jeans, but also because I liked to fish for coins under vending machines cause I had next to no money). I also had a brief but extremely bad relationship that year, which ended with me punching the dude back after he punched me between two classes near the end of the year.

While making these lists I found a tape labelled “spring 2006″ and nothing else. I think it’s one of the last tapes I ever made.

After listening to it, it contained:

Mr Brightside (The Killers) (who’s surprised?)

Crazy, by Seal, but sung by a woman. No idea who that is. (Edit: Alanis Morissette! thank you purplecyborgnewt)

Alice & June (Indochine)

You And Me (Lifehouse)

A couple of seconds of Precious, Depeche Mode

Oui (Zazie)

Precious (Depeche Mode) again. A radio host states it’s the n°15 favorite song on Europe 2 that week, whichever week that was.

City of Blinding Lights (U2)

Nolwenn Ohwo (Nolwenn Leroy)

Fragment of Song to Say Goodbye (Placebo), then the entire song.

The ending of Talk (Coldplay), followed by another fragment of Talk

Juste Après (Fredericks, Goldman & Jones)

Talk (Coldplay), this time in its entirety (I can still smell the frustration more than 13 years away)

Broken (Seether)

Enjoy the Silence 2004 (Depeche Mode)

Fragment of Missing (Evanescence), followed by nearly the entire song

Jeune et Con (Saez)

A bit of a radio show I found funny

An obscure remix of Sans Contrefaçon (Mylène Farmer).

So yeah, I stopped making tapes around that time. I also only bought two cd singles that year.

Just like the previous year, some of my favorite albums from that year have exactly zero singles elligible for this list. They are Alice & June by Indochine, and Meds by Placebo. The worst part? One of the best songs on Indochine’s album is a goddamn duet with Brian Molko from Placebo. It’s called Pink Water and it’s great. Please listen to it if you don’t know it yet. What can I say, I’m a weak and simple person, I hear a duet between two singers I adore, and I die instantly.

Anyway. Meds is kind of underrated as far as Placebo’s discography goes and I’m especially fond of Infrared, which was one of the songs of the year for me. Indochine’s Alice & June, meanwhile, is a concept double album about two girls making a suicide pact. It’s a bit of a mess and it’s not as tight as Paradize was but it’s still really, really good for the most part. The first eponymous single should have been elligible. But it isn’t. I’m sad.

On to the honorable mentions!

So Sick (Ne-Yo) - Usually this kind of music just sounds bland to me, but that one was really pleasant.

Miracle (Cascada) - Not as good as Everytime we touch. Still a lot of fun.

Smack That (Akon) - This shouldn’t be this catchy.

Pump It (Black Eyed Peas) - Same here.

Living On Video (Pakito) - I only just now realised this was a cover. What the hell.

SOS (Rihanna) - Not her best song. Still good.

L’Amour N’est Rien (Mylène Farmer) - Really funny lyrics, meh song.

World Hold On (Bob Sinclar) - Stay tuned for more.

Hips Don’t Lie (Shakira) - Song of the summer, whether you liked it or not. Fortunately, I liked it a lot.

Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol) - Very pleasant.

SexyBack (Justin Timberlake) - That beat is just incredible.

Call Me When You’re Sober (Evanescence) - I remember Rock Mag finishing their KarmaCode (Lacuna Coil) review with “We hope Evanescence’s next album will be fantastic, because this is their most serious rival yet.” And nope, Evanescence’s album wasn’t nearly as good as KarmaCode. But this song still made the year-end list, while nothing from Lacuna Coil ever crossed over. Our Truth SHOULD have been a huge hit. It had a ton of crossover appeal. One of the biggest musical tragedies of the year right there. Oh well, the Evanescence single is still good though.

Say It Right (Nelly Furtado & Timbaland) - The last cut from the list, and when you’ll see what replaced it, you are going to hate me.

And now, the top ten.

10 - Everytime We Touch (Cascada)

US: #31 / FR: #5

This kicked Nelly Furtado off the list.

I am not sorry, just so you know.

9 - Ridin’ (Chamillionaire)

US: #8 / FR: Not on the list

This is a song about respecting the law and driving at a reasonable speed and cops being mad because they can’t do anything against you. He’s a gangster, just... not doing anything illegal at the moment. I absolutely adore that concept. This is the best.

8 - Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)

US: #7 / FR: #29

I’ve never met someone who disliked this song, and for that reason I have nothing to say about it. It’s just one of these tunes, like Hey Ya, which are too perfect to argue or say anything constructive about them.

7 - Temperature (Sean Paul)

US: #2 / FR: #48

Half of this top ten 10 is made of absolute bangers with untouchable beats and you know what, I really miss that time, mostly because the current charts are morose and depressed (for good reasons, but still). This is no Get Busy, but come on, who can say we need less Sean Paul in our lives? Not me that’s for sure.

By the way, one of the very first videos I saw on (the very new at the time) youtube was a misheard lyrics version of this song. I think you all know which one it is, the original has been deleted but it was reuploaded several times since then.

6 - Rock This Party (Bob Sinclar & Cutee B)

US: Not on the list / FR: #19

You really can’t go wrong with this “Everybody dance now” sample, and this is one seriously kickass song, and yet another banger on a list already full of them. Also, this was possibly the best music video of the entire year, featuring three kids trying to imitate music videos from just about every popular genre. Check it out if you’ve never seen it, it will make your day.

5 - Marly-Gomont (Kamini)

US: Not on the list / FR: #1

Possibly the most unexpected hit song of the decade in my country. Basically, this guy made a rap song about the tiny rural village he was living in, and a funny music video shot on a 100€ budget to show to his friends and family. And it was well written. And it was hilarious, while still being insightful. And it became a viral sensation. And it charted! And suddenly it became the biggest hit of the year.

If you’ve never heard it, here it is. There was no translation available for it on lyricstranslate, so I made an account just to translate it myself. You’re welcome. Please give it a try. It’s great. It was a hit for a good reason, and I promise you the music video is funny even if you don’t speak the language.

4 - Slipping Away/Crier la Vie (Mylène Farmer & Moby)

US: Not on the list / FR: #15

So, uh, earlier in this post I said “What can I say, I’m a weak and simple person, I hear a duet between two singers I adore, and I die instantly.”

This is a duet between Mylène Farmer and Moby, based on a song from Hotel, which, if you recall, I listened to on a loop the previous year.

My poor heart didn’t need this. What did I do to deserve this. What a blessing.

3 - Over My Head (Cablecar) (The Fray)

US: #13 / FR: Not on the list

This was my #1 at some point. Then I realised the version I kept listening to was a punk rock version by A Day To Remember from Punk Goes Pop, and that I had nearly forgotten what the original sounded like. So I listened to it, and it’s still very, very nice, but it’s not quite the same.

I still bought the album, though.

2 - Nolwenn Ohwo (Nolwenn Leroy)

US: Not on the list / FR: #43

I had completely (and I do mean completely) forgotten about this song until I started to check the French year-end top 100 to make this list. Erased from my mind entirely by some sort of MiB neuralyser. And I was like “hang on, wasn’t this a good song? This rings a bell. I used to love it, didn’t I?” (and sure enough, it’s on that 2006 tape I found). So I wrote it down for the honorable mentions, just in case.

Before making the definitive list, I put the song on, and I felt like the critic in Ratatouille having a flashback.

Holy. Shit.

I remembered ALL the lyrics. While listening to it, in under three minutes I successively put it in the 6th spot, then the 4th, and when it ended, it was #2 on the list. I downloaded it and put it back on my mp3 player and on my playlists. I’ve listened to it about 30 times in the past week. It’s so great. How did I ever forget this song existed. I feel so alive.

I never cared about this singer, but this is written by Laurent Voulzy, who’s music I actually love, and he’s firing on all cylinders here. Just listen to it. Please.

It could have easily topped the list if it wasn’t for the most useful and helpful song in the entire year.

1 - Pas le Temps (Faf Larage)

US: Not on the list / FR: #2

I never watched a single episode of Prison Break. This was the French version of the opening song. I don’t even know what happens in the series. I don’t really care.

I. Adore. This song. It’s yet another #1 that helped me a lot.

The beat is untouchable and this rap is actual poetry. Not even remotely kidding. Here’s a part of one of the verses.

Aussi loin que la lumière semble s'éteindre (As far as the light seems to flicker) Seule une étincelle au fond de moi peut l'atteindre (Only the spark hidden inside of me can reach it) (...) Les dés sont jetés, rien n'est joué (the dice is tossed, the game is set) Même le sort retient son souffle piégé dans ce sablier (even fate holds its breath, trapped in this hourglass) J'ai décidé de ne pas être prisonnier (I decided I wouldn’t be a prisoner) J'n'ai que ma vie à offrir si jamais j'échouais (I only have my life to offer if I ever fail) Pas le choix faut y'aller (No choice, let’s go)

The line “pas le choix, faut y aller” (no choice, let’s go) keeps being repeated in the entire song and it’s so, SO motivational. As I said before, 2006 was not as bad as 2003 but it was still a difficult year - at the end of it, I was an adult with no money, very little hope for the future, no diploma yet apart from the highschool one, still trying to NOT become a ball of anger because of a couple of assholes in class, all of this with dysphoria and a mother who wanted to kick me out as soon as possible. And I wanted to win, and punch the world, and say here I come, I’m alive, I survived, better watch out.

Si je dois exceller, tout donner, prendre c'que j'peux (If I need to be the best, give everything, take whatever I can) Si le monde m'appartient restez pas au milieu (If the world is mine, don’t stay in my way) Et si le sort est contre moi c'est tant pis (And if fate is against me, too bad) On fait des plans pour s'en sortir, écoute (We’re making plans to survive, listen) Pas le choix faut y'aller (No choice, let’s go)

This song defined the entire year for me. This was my fight song. Everytime I wanted to give up, it was there to give me a very simple reminder.

No choice. Let’s go.

Next up: here it is, at last, the absolute best hit song of the decade

[like-twilight]

I’m jus’ gon do this cause why not I stole it from Here.

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

According to my last.fm in the last seven days: 1: ATEEZ: Wave 2: ATEEZ: Illusion 3: ATEEZ: Win 4: TxT: Run Away 5: ATEEZ: Precious 6: ATEEZ: Say My Name

Guys. I like Ateez.

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

My sister.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

Well I ain’t standin’ up so here’s line 17 from page 23 of Vale which is on my computer.

““Well then, Your Highness,” I say and crouch down, trying to get a look of her face”

4: What do you think about most?

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad things.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

From a real person that’s not an automated message from a bank or a website it’s from my co-worker from October 26th that says “Ok I’ll do it, print it then I’ll replace it”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Well. PJ’s are clothes so.

7: What's your strangest talent?

I don’t think I have any.

8: Girls... (finish the sentence); Boys... (finish the sentence)

Girls not allowed. Boys also not allowed. Leave me alone. (My nb friends can come tho.)

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

If I did then the creator didn’t tell me :”D

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

I... can’t recall.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

Frogs.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Maybe as a baby?

13: What's your religion?

I don’t belieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

I’m not outside. But I’d probably be going to work or the store or the post office.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Ateez!

17: What was the last lie you told?

“I’m okay!” #deep

18: Do you believe in karma?

god no!

19: What does your URL mean?

It’s a quote from Ateez’s Twilight.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

I’m very depressed. Strength is probably that I’m still alive? Idk

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

Idk. Find a lot of famous people attractive I-? I Don’t have just like The Celebrity Crush. Jeong Yunho’s cute tho.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

No.

23: How do you vent your anger?

I throw a temper tantrum.

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

Just a mason jar of my tears. Also every Ateez album released so far.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

Neither! Fucking email me, bro.

26: Are you happy with the person you've become?

God no :D

27: What's a sound you hate; sound you love?

Ambulance sirens hate. Fuckin... panflute I love.

28: What's your biggest "what if"?

What if I was a... giraffe.? Or a tardigrade. 

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

I believe in things we can’t perceive scientifically or whatever. Not ghosts per se, like souls of dead people or whatever. Also yes to aliens.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

Nothin I’m jus sittin on my bed. If I move my arms up and down a bit then my blanket and a bottle of water.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

Nothin. Is just my room.

32: What's the worst place you have ever been to?

Uuuh a cemetery?

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

In America? Idk which is less racist in general?

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

What’s an “opposite” gender? I know you mean male but I refuse to give into the cISSEXIST SCUm. 

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

I have no idea what that means.

36: Define Art.

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

37: Do you believe in luck?

Yes. But I’ve never been the lucky one unfortunately.

38: What's the weather like right now?

Uuuh I have to google it. Clear. 8°

39: What time is it?

21:30

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

No. But I probably would.

41: What was the last book you read?

Pfssssshhhh, one that wasn’t written by me? Fucks me, dude. Fault In Our Stars? The Death Cure? I can’t remember, it’s been years.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yeah!

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Tia.

44: What was the last film you saw?

Uuuuuuuuhhh... UUUUHHHHHHHHH How to Train Your Dragon 3, it was nice.

45: What's the worst injury you've ever had?

Had a bleeding spine! Kinda miss it tbh.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

I probably haven’t tried, I’ve just tried to get them to land on me.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

Uuuh I’m into Ateez these days.

48: What's your sexual orientation?

I’m byesexual.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Yes.

50: Do you believe in magic?

Again, I do believe things could exist we can’t scientifically explain but idk. Not in the Harry Potter magic way.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

No, cause I believe everything is my fault.

52: What is your astrological sign?

Aries.

53: Do you save money or spend it?

I save money TO spend. I think I found a healthy balance.

54: What's the last thing you purchased?

A fukin... bike. That’s like in your room. Not by accident but because it’s meant to be there.

55: Love or lust?

Like.. in what context? Love? Idk.

56: In a relationship?

Love.

57: How many relationships have you had?

None relationships.

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

I can’t.

59: Where were you yesterday?

Like on average? Or 24 hours ago exactly. Cause I was at work for eight hours and then I was just on my bed.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Yeah, my phone case.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

Ye.

62: What's your favourite animal?

Cat? Idk.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

:DDDD If I had any then people would like me.

64: Where is your best friend?

???? 

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

I... I dunno? The ones I follow?

66: What is your heritage?

I don’t know what that means. Like what I’m gonna be remembered by? I whined a lot!

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Cried.

68: What do you think is Satan's last name?

Choi.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

Why would I lie about masturbation. Yeah I did.

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Fuck no.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog, fuck off.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) I am telling everyone. b) Be paralysed by fear and waste all of it. c) Yes, very much.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

I feel like that’s stupid. 

74: What's a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

Illusion by Ateez these days. 

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

4153

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

I wouldn’t know, buddy.

77: How can I win your heart?

Just be nice to me and I’ll probably be emotionally attached to you for life, sorry.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

I don’t think insanity is the cause for any creativity. If an insane person is creative then they would be creative with a sound mind too.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Got into kpop, that was nice.

80: What size shoes do you wear?

42

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

“Balled 2 hard lol”

82: What is your favourite word?

There are too many words.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Kokoro.

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

I don’t think there is one.

85: What's the last song you listened to?

Treasure by Ateez.

86: Basic question; what's your favourite colour/colours?

Pink and yellow.

87: What is your current desktop picture?

A picture of.. Ateez... sorry.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald Trump.

89: What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?

Uh, I think I’m p truthful, yeah. Ask me anything.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Scream. Maybe scramble on the floor and push past them if I can.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Immortality!

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Oh geez. I was on a carousel in Italy once, that was awesome.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

The one that gave me depression idk which one it was but can it go away?

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Ehh, I don’t want that. Like... I don’t know those people, they could be Awful in bed or just in general too. Like I need an emotional bond first and they don’t even know me and I only know the persona they show to the public. Plus it could potentially ruin the music for me later on, it’d be weird, no thank you.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

UUUUUHHHHH I DUNNO Lyon cause Grenoble doesn’t have an airport. Well, actually my sister isn’t in Grenoble right now. Hm well if I grab my card before I go then I can just find a hotel there until she comes home.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

I don’t think so? 

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

I had to throw up in a car and then asked the driver to stop the car so I can throw up outside the car.

98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes. Seven times. SEVEN TIMES? Yeah, holy shit.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Someone help me, I am so so so incredibly in need of help, please. Please. Thank you.

[the-kipsabian]

Please do this at your convenience but like. Can you put me together a playlist of what you consider to be Danny's best vocals? Or his best work in general? Nsp, starbomb, skyhill? I just want a good starting place

dude, honestly tho? i would be absolutely honored to do this

k so aaaAAAA lets start with. skyhill i guess since thats the first one on the line? (technically i think northern hues is the first band he was in that published stuff but i havent listened to it myself so i dont knoooow anything about it other than what i just read from a comment on a youtube video and that is that it definitely sounds like the kind of music dan would have made in his stoner days which probably was true lol)

skyhill has a lot of really good chill songs tho? i personally really love ‘the city as you walk’ and ‘black & white’ the most i think - both are like lyrically really nice to listen to and the chorus especially in black & white is just hnggg. its so good tbh. but really any skyhill songs are good! they arents. as advanced vocally as his later stuff obviously, since this band is like. 12 years old at this point at least but its nice chill stuff with honestly really nice but simple lyrics if you want some good stuff to listen to as a break from all the dick jokes and whatnots that nsp and starbomb have to offer tho!

starbomb is honestly a bit more difficult tho cause its like. much more arin-heavy with the raps and such? but! lets not have that fool us cause there are still plenty of quality songs with pretty vocals by dan tho! ..also hahaa i think its needless to say but hey heres a heavy nsfw warning for these songs

‘mega marital problems’ is a personal favorite, mostly cause dan does like. three different voices in this one? and its hilarious. also if you listen in the chorus parts, you can hear the layered singing he does and its honestly just so good mmmm

‘crasher-vania’ i feel like im gonna betray myself if i dont put this on the list for multiple reasons. 1. its EASILY the most popular song on the album. 2. its freaking fantastic, with the story and the lyrics. 3. the chorus, again? (as dan most often did the chorus work on the first album!) it sounds beautiful and especially in the second chorus, you can hear him emoting it out with the lyrics. 4. the background music. if you stop to listen to it, its honestly so good? like, its very simple, yes, but it works and it just sounds awesome. always brings a smile on my face to listen to those tasty keyboard jams ~

im gonna add ‘regretroid’ here too, as its a personal favorite too. but also his voice. goes so high? and it sounds nice?? also this song is just banging with a female feature vocalist! which is real nice!!

as for the second starbomb album! im separating it a little cause woo the boys honestly improve a lot between the albums (which is crazy cause theres only like. a year? year and a half at max? between these two albums so i cant even think how good the third one is gonna sound with five years between albums and how good current nsp sounds lol)

‘smash!’ i gotta mention cause its like. the single song from the album i feel like? also cause mark is in it! and they all sound rad and yeah it doesnt have exactly too much singing but what it has sounds. so freaking good tho mmmmm i lov

‘glass joe’s title fight’ is a must on this tho cause like. this is the one starbomb song thats so much more sing than rap heavy and hngggg its so good

‘god of no more’ okay but. dans vocals in this are gorgeous. and its a super fun song too. so its a win-win

and as a personal favorite, im just gonna throw ‘robots in need of disguise’ here cause i love this song. no other reason really lol

and thennnnn we arrive to the glory that is ninja sex party! i could be a little shit and just say to listen to all lol, but im gonna try to pick things here and there among my favorites! trying to also go by album order with these ~ also nsfw warning for this but idk what you expect with a band called ninja sex party tho

‘nsp theme song’ i mean. come on. you gotta start somewhere so lets go with this lol. and its hilarious (and kinda cute but maybe thats just me lol) and the lyrics are just. well what you’d expect with the name of the song. its very simple vocal-wise, but other than that, grade a stuff tho

‘dinosaur laser fight’ is just a classic, so here you go. its wonderful and weird and animated by arin so aaaaaa!

..also i wanna add ‘objects of desire’ here cause this song is like. lyrical genius tbh. its fucking weird but its also like a ballad so theres some nice vocal stuff here too so yay. thingssssss

‘unicorn wizard’ i honestly wouldnt be true to myself if i didnt add my FIRST nsp song to this list, the one that got me listening to these fools cause mmm. this song is ridiculous and but also lyrics? are so good?? idk how that combo works out but it does and its beautiful. also dannys vocals in the chorus are mmmmm. so solid

‘fyi i wanna f your a’ im not even ashamed to say this is one of my faves tbh. its just. the glorious kind of weird and this is like one of my favorite examples of how well these nerds write lyrics tho? also such a hard song to learn the lyrics tho, but its so worth it, trust me lol. aLSO DAN HARMONIES IN THE SECOND PART GIVE ME SO MUCH LIFE HOLY SHIT

‘let’s get this terrible party started’ gets a special mention cause of the badass jams tbh. also the lyric ‘its a ninja sex party party’ gets me every fucking time. even after five years of listening to this song lol

oooof attitude city is so hard to pick just few songs from tho aaaa. but, as ive done about three from every album so far, lets try that with this one too. tho honestly just. listen to the entirety of attitude city its so good mmm. but. lets start with what i personally feel is the most underrated song on the album, ‘peppermint creams’. i dont think i need to say more than holy shit the emotions tho? especially in the chorus cause mmm. my heart

‘attitude city’ gets here too tho cause like. im personally very nostalgic for this song as it was the first real hype i had for the album so yeah. also its honestly just a really good song. also the video. includes dancing. and we all should know how i feel about dan dancing so mmmMMM im biased as shit i admit it

‘cookies!’ i wanna put this here cause it shows the how stupidly versatile these nerds are with their songs, cause this is badass and silly cute at the same time and hngg. also visually? demon!dan is way too much of a guilty pleasure. judge me all you want i donT CARE

..also i just gotta mention ‘samurai abstinence patrol’ cause of the vocal work. and just cause this song was in progress for four years before this final form and its beautiful honestly. also ‘danny french kissed a girl like he was the king of versailles’ will never get old to me gosh

I SWEAR IM DONE WITH ATTITUDE CITY AFTER THIS but also ‘6969′ is a must to mention. its an eight and half minute song but its just. amazing at everything. beautiful jams and awesome vocals. its gorgeous tbh, a masterpiece

‘cool patrol’. first of all cause apparently i “traumatized” one of my friends by making him watch the video to this and yeah. this is vocally one of my absolute favorites from them tho, dan sounds amazing in both styles, and its just. so positive and cute and aaaaa. its just such an uplifting song i love it

‘danny don’t you know’ cause this one made my cry the first few times i listened to it and its just. so relatable. also fucking beautiful vocals tho and yes the lyrics are personal which makes it even more emotional song. hnggg i love this so much tho cause it just. goes from kind of a ballad to a more of a rock song and its amazing. development similar to the story its telling

‘first date’ i mean. i gotta put my current fave song of theirs here, right? RIGHT? personally i love this cause its just a positive song, in a way i guess, but it stays true to the original nsp style and the lyrics are just perfect for their song about dating tbh. especially with how it just keeps getting gradually weirder and weirder. its just perfection hnggg i love this song. so much. god its so good (honestly tho if you give me a lyric like ‘i’ll take you back to your place and we’ll craft the perfect alibi’ idk how you expect me, a thriller writer, not to absolutely love this song to hell and back)

‘courtship of the mermaid’ idk how you expect me to make a list without this. the emotions in the vocals of this song are beautiful and its, again, hilariously absurd. as a mermaid princess i highly approve of this song

‘mansion party’ its so sad there will probably never be a video of this song cause they want to film it in an actual mansion and so far they havent mentioned that they got a chance to do that so mmmm. cause this song is so fucking banging it deserves a video honestly. the chorus is like. one of the few things in this world that makes me wanna dance. and also theres so many genius lyrics in this that its just pure gold all the way through tbh (also how do you smoke champagne? asking for a friend)

one more i swear, but the whole cool patrol album is so good hngg. but! ‘smooth talkin’’! in all of its absurdity is a must to listen to. its just what the title says, about how smooth danny is with talking to ladies. im not gonna explain more just. it goes as well as you’d expect at this point

..this is already super long but hey did you know we are still missing the two cover albums tho??

‘everybody wants to rule the world’ this one makes me wanna cry every single time. its so nice and emotional and just. a+ vocals. its just beautiful

‘subdivisions’ idk what it is really with this song but these lyrics just fit together with dan’s voice so well its just. hnggg so gorgeous? i mean it might be cause its a rush song but also yeah. its so good

‘africa’ i mean i already told you, but his vocals are so nice in this and they fit into the style of the song so well. plus africa is a beautiful song to begin with so its a win-win really

‘pour some sugar on me’ cause oh boy my pal isnt this song just banging mmmmmmMMMMM

and for the finale! ‘heat of the moment’! like. everything about this song is just really good okay? the vocals and especially the music itself is like mmm i love it?? also the cowbell. idk what it is with that in this song, but it just. it sounds so good with dan’s vocals and aaaaa

..have i rambled enough? is this a good list?? literally just mmm anything from any of these bands is a good listen, these are just mostly my personal faves or what i feel like would be the best representations of what they are about!

[patricksilvrrozartistry]

Current Music Obsessions: November 16 - 30, 2018

Wow. We have a super long list. I'm sorry, I'm not sorry. Starting out with the honorable mentions as always.

Jinjer - Ape Eyes of Eden - When Gods Fall Amaranthe - GG6 Arkdown - Wake Up Bring Me Eternity - Immersed The Anix - Wasteland Blackbriar - Arms of the Ocean Poppy - Play Destroy feat. Grimes K/DA - Pop/Stars Clean Bandit - Baby feat. Marina and Luis Fonsi Dark Sarah - Pirates Allamedah - 4 AM Sirenia - In Styx Embrace The Modern Age Slavery - The Silent Death of Cain feat. Tommaso Riccardi (ex-Fleshgod Apocalypse) In Dreams of Reality - Oni Cellar Darling - Insomnia Levinia - Push and Pull Blackbriar - Cry of a Banshee Mother Feather - Shake Your Magic 8 Ball Sirenia - Desire Sirenia - Queen of Lies Elitania - Templos de Cristal Porselain - Hiraeth Promethee - Witness The Loudest Silence - Wake Up in My Dream Warkings - Sparta feat. The Queen of the Damned (Melissa Bony (Evenmore, Rage of Light) Divine Ascension - Bittersweet Divide Since Ever - Following

I have A LOT of main obsessions, because November ended so close to when I generally find my favorites for the week. So let's just get this over with and look at all those main obsessions.

Kim Petras - Turn Off the Light feat. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

I learned about Kim through a guy I follow on Twitter. He kept going on about her, so I decided to check her out. Her music really isn't my thing, but I really liked this track. I love Elvira's cameo in the bridge and how spooky the choirs are after that cameo. It's just a really cute Halloween song. Can't really go wrong with it.

Haken - A Cell Divides

This is an amazing prog track. I love how djenty and proggy this track gets. The lyrics have a bit of a sci-fi feel to them, but it's more sciencey than sci-fi. The lyrics are cool is what I'm getting at. Definitely a great driving song and a wonderful song to just blast in general.

Exilia - Feel the Fire

This is their newest single and I love it. I've been a fan of these guys for many years now. I discovered them during my angsty edgelord days and have kept up with them and witnessed them evolve into the band they are today. I love the vibe of the track and you get a great feel for just how powerful their front woman's voice is.

Tillian - Black Holes

I found these guys through a Facebook ad one day. This is some really nice prog right here. I'm really digging their sound and am gonna have to check out more from them. They're on the softer side of progressive metal, but it's still some proggy goodness, and you can't turn that down.

Meg Myers - Jealous Sea

After finding and falling in love her song Numb, I had to check out more from her. So I decided to give this song a listen since it was a music video. Best decision ever. I love the play on words with the song title and the song over all. This song alone made me listen to her new album, which is amazing. There's something about this song that I just absolutely love and I just can't get enough of it.

Marcela Bovio - Roardin (No One is Born a Hero)

I'm really liking the direction Marcela's new album is going in. I love how it features both the strings and the piano. I also love how she describes her sound: chamber prog. Anyways, this song is so pretty. It packs a really empowering message that we all need to hear sometimes.

Blackbriar - I'd Rather Burn

I wasn't planning on listening to the We'd Rather Burn EP, but after hearing Cry of a Banshee, I had to. I fell in love with the EP as a whole, but this song was constantly in my head afterwards. The chorus is really catchy and I just love the lyrics so much. A witch being burned at the stake who reminds the people who are burning her that she'll be back to torment them. What isn't there to love?

Poppy - Am I A Girl?

After hearing that she experimented with metal on her new album, I had to check it out. Shockingly enough, I really dig the album. This song though is my favorite. The vibe is so fun and the message behind it (or at least how I interpret it) is a non-binary anthem. It's so much fun and I love the pre-chorus a lot.

Dimlight - Into the Thrice Unknown Darkness

This track really shows off just how beautiful Mora's voice is. She takes the lead here on the softest song on the album. I wouldn't call it a ballad track, so we're calling it a softer track. It's also great to be able hear just how powerful she is. This song gives off this overwhelming vibe of uncertainty and melancholy. I love it.

We, the Bones

Yes, I have two songs from Dimlight that I obsessed over. This song is definitely more on the aggressive side compared to Into the Thrice Unknown Darkness. I love the orchestrations on this track so much. It might be a rather simple track, but those orchestrations really sell it for me.

Piqaia - Parable

If you're into atmospheric progressive metal, check this track out. It's so pretty. I love their singer's voice so much. He's got a really pretty range and you can really tell just how beautiful it is here on this track when those harmonies kick it. This song stood out so much on the Artifact album. The vibe is just so different for some reason and I absolutely love it.

Amaranthe - Dream

This song really stood out to me on Helix. It's such a pretty track and really shows off the pretty side to Nils' voice. Not only that, but it shows off Elize's vocal range. Mariah Carey who? Homegirl can hit some really high whistle notes.

Sick N' Beautiful - New Witch 666 (The Rising)

This music video is absolutely everything. The visuals are so beautiful, but in a very spooky kind of vibe. The colors and the looks their front woman turns out in this video are to die for. The song is so catchy and fun. I'm so glad that their front woman liked a photo of mine on IG a while back, because if she didn't, I wouldn't have discovered this powerhouse of a band. Such a great jam.

Amazonica - Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult cover)

I found this artist one day a while back when trying to see if the singer featured in Cradle of Filth's cover of Temptation had any other material out there. I completely forgot that Harry was the singer here. This is a pretty decent cover of this song. It's a very different take on it, like a new wave/synthwave kind of vibe. I'm really digging it.

Black Tongue - Second Death

I don't really keep up with these guys, but I might change that soon. This is the second or third track I've ever heard from them and I really dig it. It has a really meaty sound to it. Doomcore is such a strange way to describe your sound, but it really suits them.

Within Temptation - Firelight feat. Jasper Steverlinck

Holy shit. This song is literally a lovechild between Within Temptation and My Indigo (Sharon's solo project). Sharon said that this song was too dark for My Indigo and decided to release it under Within Temptation. This song is so gorgeous. It's so different and really stands out as a Within Temptation track. And Jasper. Dude. His voice is stunning.

Phildel - The Deep

I discovered Phildel many years ago through one of my og beauty gurus, Klaire de Lys. I've always really loved her voice, but back in those days I wasn't really into ambient music as much as I am now. It's like rediscovering her. This song is so gorgeous and pretty. And I adore the video. The animation is so pretty and cute. I'm definitely am gonna go through and listen to her music again and fully rediscover her.

Veil of Mist - The Flute and the Blade (The Archangel of Terror pt.1)

I don't remember subscribing to their YT channel, but I'm glad I did. This track is a powerhouse. If black metal, prog and power metal all had a baby, you'd have the sound and vibe of the instrumentals. The singer has such a strong and interesting voice. I don't know what it is about it here, but I really love her voice. This song has such a dark vibe to it that I absolutely love. I'm definitely am gonna check out more from them.

Soundgarden - 4th of July

I recently picked up a copy of Superunknown and while listening I was instantly drawn into this song. I'm not too familiar with them, so when I heard just how doomy and sludgy they got on this album, and especially on this song, I knew I made a good purchase. I love how doomy and sludgy this song is. Such a great track to chill to. I really need to listen to more grunge music.

Qveen Herby - Beverly Hills

This is my second favorite off EP 4 (Alone is my number 1). I love the trap beat and the overall vibe of the track. It's so chill, but also pops off. Definitely a great track to chill, drive, and jam to. I hope they do some touring soon, because I need to see Amy perform this shit live one day.

Levinia - The Fall

The Liberation EP is absolutely amazing with so many wonderful tracks, but this one really stood out to me. It's so beautiful, but is still really heavy. You get a really good feel for Court's range. My favorite parts are when she sings "and I remember" during the bridge and especially during the exit. It's so pretty and for some reason makes me feel slightly nostalgic of the 90's. Don't ask me why, it just does for some bizarre reason.

And that's it for this month! Hope you guys have fun enjoying all (or at least some) of these tunes.

[dreamchoerry]

[XX] LOONA ALBUM REVIEW

Hi guys, so recently LOONA just released their repackage album called XX and I thought it would be so cool to do a little review of the songs on my first listen. This is just a review on the audio only not the visuals or dances or anything so hope you enjoy haha. 

TRACK #1 XX

Of course we can’t start a LOONA album without an intro! It was such a nice introduction and it certainly set the mood for the album!! 

TRACK #2 BUTTERFLY

Holyyyyy!!! First of all what an amazing title track. I mean BBC wasn’t kidding when they said that this type of music had never been done before. To be honest, when I first heard Butterfly the chorus was not my cup of tea. But as I got to listen to it more and more to stream the music video the chorus and the beat drop is one of the best things I have ever listened to. I am not exaggerating. The song was just so unique and I loved everything about it. Gowon and Choerry’s rap was my favourite part as well as Gowon’s bridge. The song was literally made for our crunchy queen. Everyone killed it, Yves, Kim Lip, Haseul, Chuu, Jinsoul, Heejin and Choerry had such beautiful vocals. And don’t even get me started on Olivia Hye, she absolutely killed her parts!!!! Also Vivi, Yeojin and Hyunjin sounded absolutely beautiful and I’m so glad that had their moments to shine. I’m extremely happy that the line distribution in Butterfly was a million times better than Hi High or FavOrite, but again it is hard to evenly distribute lines between 12 girls. So props to the producers for this amazing track!

TRACK #3 SATELLITE

Dude this song. THIS SONG. Was such a bop. It’s not even my favorite b-side on the album and I love it so much. This song had me hooked from beginning to end, the vocals, the chorus, the bridge, EVERYTHING was just so well produced. My favourite part was probably the bridge where Haseul, Yves and Choerry showed of their amazing vocals as well as Vivi’s cute “I’m talking about you”. But the chorus was absolutely amazing!!!

TRACK #4 CURIOSITY

Another amazing amazing b-side. Loona honestly does not know how to release a bad song. I couldn’t choose a favourite part of the song because I loved every second of it but I have to say that the chorus was not what I expected. I honestly love when they all sing together for the chorus parts. Chuu and Kim Lip really shined for me in this song because their vocals were stunning but Hyunjin and Gowon killed it in this song. This isn’t my favorite song off the album and honestly not what I would listen too normally but Loona has introduced me to so many different genres that I could probably listen to anything at this point.

TRACK #5 COLORS

Okay this song I have so much to say about this song. This is my favorite b side of the album actually my favorite song of the album like aahhhhhhhhh. The beat drops, the chilled rapping, the smooth R&B vibes, honestly fit my tastes perfectly. First of all Haseul sounded absolutely gorgeous. Also the harmonization with Kim Lip was so beautiful ahhh. The song is so aesthetic. Like give me a second to explain!!!! First of all the song is called “colors” and guess what all the girl’s have... COLORS. If you look up the English translation you can see that there are a lot of references made to past songs and to the other members. There are references to the mirroring of the girls from OEC and 1/3 This song is basically like another snippet into the Loonaverse and I love that so much. Jaden Jeong is actually a genius guys I have no doubt.

TRACK #6 WHERE YOU AT

I have been desperately waiting to hear more about LOONATHEBALLAD since yyxy had “One Way” and the fact that this song is part of loonatheballad makes me so happy. This song came in a close second when it came to my favorite of the XX album. The song was so beautiful and all the girls sounded gorgeous. It was simple but the natural flow of the song literally took me on a roller coaster of emotions. When I heard this song I suddenly thought of Heejin especially and how she was the first person to start this amazing group and how she stayed supporting everyone else while waiting to join everyone as a group. Heejin makes me cry guys, I love her so much. 

Okay guys, that is my review of Loona’s XX EP. I apologise that this isn’t really a professional review or anything these are just merely my thoughts as an Orbit. I would just like to say that I’m proud of these girls for having such an amazing comeback and they already have achieved so much and we Orbits should be extremely proud and stay positive. We will get their first win!!!!

Don’t forget to stream butterfly!!!

[okashiras]

Summary: A comprehensive collection of online articles, magazine clippings, etc. documenting the dating history of pop stars, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura.

(AU in which the K in Kpop means 'Konoha.')

Note: Possible anachronisms are my mistake, and I invoke artistic license for things that may get too unrealistic. Thanks!

All persons and companies are fictitious and any resemblance to existing persons and companies is purely coincidental. Kinda.

Special thanks to @lilmikomiko​ and @hobok​!

ao3 link

2006

KAGE is Konoha’s New Exciting Boy Group

08/29/2006

Kage have emerged as an unstoppable force in the Konoha pop scene, and now the group is already on their way to take over the world. Its two main tracks, “Beasts” and “I’m on My Way” landed on the number 1 and 2 spots on all major music charts on Konoha and abroad, while the rest of the tracks on the album “Jutsu” are on the top 20. The group’s four music videos on their YouTube channel have already amassed nearly 200 million views and counting.

The five members—Hyuuga Neji, Sai, Inuzuka Kiba, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto—all helped write and produce the songs on their album.

Kage is KG Entertainment’s first idol group. The label previously specialized in hip-hop and more experimental soloists and groups, so the decision of debuting a pop group was met with either eyebrow-raising incredulity or feverish anticipation.

“There was certainly a huge amount of pressure from both sides—from the ones who anticipate because we don’t want to let them down, and from the ones rooting for us to fail because we want to prove them wrong,” said leader Hyuuga Neji. “But we simply channeled the anxiety and frustration into working hard to make an excellent debut.”

Kage’s debut also came at the most opportune time. Konoha’s pop music is on the rise and is being recognized all across the great nations. “I think it’s pretty cool that our music is reaching other countries! Kinda makes you realize what they say about music’s power to connect everybody,” shared Uzumaki Naruto, the mood-maker and the youngest of the group.

With a world tour currently planned, Kage really would be able to connect more with their fans. The group is set to visit 6 countries and play 30 shows. 500,000 people are expected to attend. Now, that’s something to look forward to.

In the meantime, see the profiles of the members below:

NEJI

Real Name: Hyuuga Neji Role: leader, lead vocals, visual Birth Date: 3 July Sign: Cancer Blood Type: O Height: 184 cm Instruments: Piano

SAI

Real Name: Anbu Sai Role: vocals Birth Date: 25 November Sign: Sagittarius Blood Type: A Height: 176 cm Instruments: Flute

KIBA

Real Name: Inuzuka Kiba Role: main dancer, vocals Birth Date: 7 July Sign: Cancer Blood Type: B Height: 173 cm Instruments: Guitar

SASUKE

Real Name: Uchiha Sasuke Role: rapper, songwriter, producer Birth Date: 23 July Sign: Leo Blood Type: AB Height: 182 cm Instruments: Piano, Bass Guitar

NARUTO

Real Name: Uzumaki Naruto Role: rapper Birth Date: 10 October Sign: Libra Blood Type: B Height: 180 cm Instruments: Drums

banana_dolphin · 8 years ago Nobody can rock a crop top like Sai does

KXGE · 8 years ago WORLDWIDE KINGS OF POP

uksem · 8 years ago sasuke put a shirt on. jk don’t

Vaccuum · 8 years ago I’m a dude but Neji is more beautiful than half the girls I dated

NaNaNa · 8 years ago NARUTO IS SO CUTE!!!!

crentist · 8 years ago Wonder what shampoo Neji uses

Catherine · 8 years ago Kiba is like a puppy who will bite you sometimes but it’s ok cuz u love him~

EMO_gee · 8 years ago I would die for Sasuke.

7 Facts You Didn’t Know About Uchiha Sasuke // PopFire

With the debut of KGE’s hot new boy group KAGE, you must be dying to learn more about the members! Let’s start off with the charismatic and dangerously sexy, Uchiha Sasuke. :*

Uchiha Itachi of the legendary 2nd generation group Akatsuki is his older brother. (Handsome bros <3)

He trained with Oto Entertainment for 2 years before transferring and debuting under KG.

The Sharingan Group is a conglomerate owned and founded by Uchiha Madara, Sasuke’s grandfather, making him an heir. (OMG!! Sounds like the beginning of a drama plot XD)

Sasuke’s family has also taken over the film industry through his cousins, Uchiha Obito, an up-and-coming film and music video director, and Uchiha Shisui, an actor known for his role in ‘Crows.’

He has said that if he wasn’t a singer, he would probably pursue a career in the arts. We may have an idea where this interest comes from. His mother, Uchiha Mikoto, is a renowned contemporary art curator and commissioner. (Probably a Mama’s boy ^^)

Despite his high-class background, according to interviews, his preferences are quite simple. His favorite food are tomatoes and fish flakes, and he loves camping.

He has also ventured in the underground rap scene in his teenage years under the name “Taka.” Among his colleagues are Sui, Juu5, and Karin who have appeared as contestants in popular rap competition “Show Me What You Got.”

2007

KUNOICHI’s Debut: New KG Girl Group Makes Major Moves on the Charts

It has only been a month since Kunoichi debuted but they’re already slaying the charts.

See also: Kage’s Uzumaki Naruto names Jiraiya and Killer B as his major influences in Video Star episode

The quartet—consisting of Sakura, Ino, TenTen, and Hinata—made their official debut with two singles, “Bloom” and “Mindblower.” Both tracks debut on World Digital Songs Chart at numbers 1 and 2 respectively.

Kunoichi is only the fourth Konoha act to hit number 1 on World Digital Songs Chart, joining Akatsuki, Tsunade, and Kage.

Get to know the girls behind the chart topper hits.

SAKURA

Birth name: Haruno Sakura Nickname: Forehead Girl Position: leader, main rapper, vocalist, songwriter Birthday: 28 March Zodiac Sign: Aries Birthplace: Konoha Height: 165 cm Weight: 45.4 kg Blood Type: O Some Facts about Sakura:

Trained for 5 years.

Signed as a trainee in KG the same year as Kage’s Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto.

Best friends with Ino.

Her favorite foods are syrup-coated anko dumplings, umeboshi, and anmitsu.

Sakura’s ideal type: someone really cool

INO

Birth name: Yamanaka Ino Nickname: Ino-pig Position: main vocalist Birthday: 23 September Zodiac Sign: Libra Birthplace: Konoha Height: 164 cm Weight: 46 kg Blood Type: B Some Facts about Ino:

Trained for 6 years, the longest in the group.

Best friends with Sakura.

Used to part-time in her family’s flower shop during summers.

Her favorite foods are pudding and cherry tomatoes.

Ino’s ideal type: the type to survive on a deserted island

TENTEN

Birth name: Ten Ten Nickname: 1010 Position: main dancer, rapper, sub-vocalist Birthday: 9 March Zodiac Sign: Pisces Birthplace: Konoha Height: 166 cm Weight: 47.3 kg Blood Type: B Some Facts about Tenten:

Trained for 3 years in KG.

Before training in KG, she has appeared in various dance competitions.

Likes fortune-telling.

Her favorite foods are sesame dumplings, Fire Country delicacies

Tenten’s ideal type: a mature, sensible man

HINATA

Birth name: Hyuuga Hinata Nickname: Hinata Position: visual, sub-vocalist Birthday: 27 December Zodiac Sign: Capricorn Birthplace: Konoha Height: 163 cm Weight: 45 kg Blood Type: A Some Facts about Hinata:

Trained for 6 months.

First cousin of Kage’s Hyuuga Neji.

Likes flower pressing.

Her favorite foods are zenzai and cinnamon rolls.

Hinata’s ideal type: nice and lively

alana 7 years ago OH MYGODDDDDD YAAAASSSS QUEENSSSS SLAAAYYY REPLY

Clau_Chi 7 years ago Ino can murder me and I’ll thank her REPLY

d-zine 7 years ago I can’t believe Sakura isn’t the visual cuz she’s so eye-catching with that stunning pretty face and that pink hair REPLY

pau_ 7 years ago tenten’s buns are adorable!!! so is her hair!!! lolol REPLY

SIS10 7 years ago MINDBLOWER IS THE BOP OF THE CENTURY REPLY

2008

KAGE Unveils Titles of First Two Singles of Comeback Album 04/04/2008

KAGE has finally unveiled the title of two tracks on their upcoming comeback album.

See also: Rock Lee on being the rookie to introduce trot music to the youth

To kick off their highly-anticipated return, it has been revealed that the group will be releasing “Will of Fire” and “Endure” this coming July 1, as seen in the brand new teaser posters for KAGE’s ROOTS PROJECT released earlier today.

Also indicated in the teaser posters are the personnel in the production of the tracks. KG Entertainment veteran Hatake Kakashi produce both tracks as he always does for Kage, while all the boys would take turns to write and compose, and the main rappers, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto would pen their own verses. This time however, one of the writers of the second track “Endure” is none other than Kunoichi’s Haruno Sakura, alongside the group’s primary lyricist Uchiha Sasuke.

Kage leader Hyuuga Neji says of Sakura’s involvement in their album, “Sakura-san was kind enough to gift us a song, to which we are grateful. Its style is unlike anything we have done before and it gears towards a different but interesting direction for us as a group.” Neji adds, “We hope the fans who have supported us up until now will continue to let us show them Kage’s new colors.”

Meanwhile, Kage will be gearing up to start their world tour on October 10 at Konoha Memorial Stadium which would include the tracks from the new album in the setlist. They plan to visit 11 different countries, hold 50 performances, and meet 1.2 million fans.

[+2032, -159]  Finally!!!! ㅠㅠ July 1 can’t come fast enough!!!!!!

[+1869, -324] KAGE!!!! ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I miss them. Can’t wait for the promotions.

[+1575, -197]  Sakura must be really close with the boys or at least one of them ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Sasuke, maybe?

[+1187, -108]  Which devil do I gotta summon and sell my soul to so I can listen to Endure right now

[+447, -321]  Why does Sakura have to be involved? It’s a Kage album... Why not let the other members write instead?

‘Idols Weekly’ Kage Episode Highlights 08/05/2008

Hey, guys! KageYah here. The video for part 1 is already up but it hasn’t been subbed yet. For those of you who can’t wait, here are some highlights of the episode. (Spoiler alert?)

It’s Kage’s second time as guests and hosts Hashirama and Tobirama (mostly Hashi) pretend to be emotional because they say the boys have grown up so well and will probably be really chic and cold now after their international success.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, the hosts said they prepared a red carpet only for Kage.

Finally, the boys enter one by one in the studio driving a toy car on the red carpet.

Kiba tumbled off the car towards the end.

Sasuke was blank-faced the whole time and everyone was laughing.

Hashirama tells the editor to pause a few times for Neji’s footage to give viewers a chance to screenshot him on the car while wind blows on his hair.

After introductions were made, Tobirama asked them what has changed with them in the past two years besides being recognized more. Neji said nothing much and that they are the same. “Yeah, we never learn!” Naruto interjected. Hashi beamed at this saying he was gonna make them talk shit.

Sai: “I was specifically instructed by our CEO to ‘stop talking shit.’ …  He didn’t like it when I said that he said he asks for malls to close so he can shop and that we have the same dermatologist among other things. He also didn’t like that I talk about peni—” The members had to cover his mouth for this, lol.

Hashi asked if they got themselves significant others in the past 2 years since they all claimed to be single last time. Neji said that it has gotten more difficult for them somehow because they’re so busy. “Speak for yourself!” Kiba said. He and Naruto were howling.

During a beat, Hashi asked Sasuke, “Sasuke-kun, how’s your grandfather?” Sasuke was all ‘what’??? [T/N: I don’t know either?? He asked this the last time, too.]

Naruto told Hashi to ask Sasuke if he has had a girlfriend. Sasuke replied no. Everyone in the room went crazy with this revelation. Sasuke said, “Nor have any of these guys. I don’t know why they’re celebrating.” [T/N: AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!]

Sasuke: “I take relationships very seriously, so I won’t start anything with anyone unless I feel something very deeply towards them.”

Tobi: “...Damn, suddenly we can’t make fun of him anymore.” Everyone laughed.

Hashi: “You’ll never get married, Sasuke!!!” Sasuke shrugged comically.

Then it’s time for Dancing at Random, where the boys have to dance to their own songs played on shuffle. Whoever is the least synced with the other members by the end will be hit by a toy hammer in the head. The songs played are: Will of Fire, Beasts, Believe It!, and Illusions.

[T/N: I have to say, Kage is at the point of their career where they really don’t give a shit anymore. In other words, they couldn’t remember most of their choreography.]

Despite not remembering their choreography, Kage is still very much synchronized with their idiocy. Except Naruto, the King of the idiot line. The rest of the members wordlessly conspired to betray Naruto so he had to take the hammer in the end.

“I CAN DO THIS!!!” Naruto said as he bowed his head for the hammer. He looked like he was close to tears. “IT HURTS!!!!!!!!”

Hashi and Tobi felt sorry for him and decided to give them a chance to dance to one more song. The plot twist was that it wasn’t a Kage song--it was ‘Bloom’ by Kunoichi.

Another plot twist: everyone nailed the choreography.

Hashi: “This is… really something, you guys.” Tobi: “Naruto, maybe you should ask to be transferred to Kunoichi instead.”

Naruto: “Maybe I should!! Those girls will never betray me!” Naruto said Sasuke would join him if he transfers to Kunoichi not because they’re friends but because… Naruto never got to finish what he was saying because the camera caught Sasuke glaring challengingly which made everyone laugh.

PREVIEW FOR PART 2: apple game, jumping rope??? Sai shows off painting skills??? Why is everyone yelling and bleating like goats???

lightsaver 6 years ago THANK YOU!!! Sounds like a fun episode!! Will be looking forward to the subs. REPLY

TheConspiracy 6 years ago Kage knows Kunoichi choreography but not their own -- priorites, amirite REPLY

miko 6 years ago ^even Sasuke knew the steps to bloom??? what a time to be alive!!! REPLY

belieeeeeeeve 6 years ago Neji is so beautiful!! Soft and bouncy haaaaaair~~ REPLY

saleholic 6 years ago Kage rarely ever does variety but when they do it’s always a riot jdklajfaklfa REPLY

2009

SASUKE MAKES SOLO DEBUT WITH MV FOR BREATHING FIRE 2009-05-15

Uchiha Sasuke releases a brand new single to mark first solo project.

See Also: Dosu-3 drummer Abumi Zaku breaks both arms in an accident

Fresh from the success of his group’s Roots Project and rap subunit SN, with member Uzumaki Naruto, the Kage rapper who is known for the dexterity of his words and dry wit, ditches radio-ready pop for a more experimental raw rock-funk-hip-hop hybrid in his solo debut album “Revolution.”

“Breathing Fire” is about a man’s obsessive pursuit for power that it ends up burning him. The music video is a single take of the camera zooming out to show an empire slowly burning to dust, providing a stunning supplement to an already captivating track.

The release of this single also kicks off a series of shows that Sasuke will be doing around Fire Country and abroad. Tour dates to be announced soon so keep an eye out for them.

In addition to “Breathing Fire,” Sasuke is also set to release a music video tomorrow for “Heavenly Hand” which features a vocal line from Kunoichi member Haruno Sakura who is also busy preparing for her own full-length solo album tentatively set to be released later this year.

Until then, check out the MV for “Breathing Fire” below, and be sure to stick around for more updates on your favorite artists and idols.

[Link]

Source: KG Entertainment

All visual and audio media courtesy of KG Entertainment

Tags: Uchiha Sasuke, KAGE, Haruno Sakura, Revolution, Breathing Fire

usurat0nkach1 5 years ago WHAT AN AMAZING VIDEO!!!!! I consider it as art XD Hoe-kages are so proud of you sasu-chan!! REPLY

GirlType 5 years ago A Sakura feature!!! She seems to be working a lot with them huh. I’m glad she’ll be getting to do her own stuff..but knowing KG it’s probs gonna get delayed til next year. REPLY

TiraMisu 5 years ago this is so different from what he usually does in his group. makes me excited for what his solo album sounds like as a whole. REPLY

[4K] 090723 Sakura and Sasuke talk @ REVOLUTION Concert (+ENG SUB) 931,187 views

doraemin2 Published on July 25, 2009

Revolution concert held at Konoha Stadium Fancam by lala

1,435 comments (sort by)

Pinned by doraemin2 doraemin2 · 5 years ago

Here’s the transcript/translation. Enjoy!

Sasuke: Thank you. Sakura: Thank you, thank you. Ss: Introduce me to the audience. Sk: Everyone, this is Sasuke-kun. Please show him some love! Audience: (cheer) Ss: Thanks. Sk: Sasuke-kun! Ss: Yes. Sk: Do you remember this stage? Ss: Hmm… Sk: You don’t? Ss: Remind me. Sk: We did our first collab stage here. Don’t you remember? Ss: Is that so? Sk: We covered New Paths at the KGE concert! Sasuke-kun! Ss: Hmm… Sk: Gosh, I guess it was too boring that’s why you forgot… Ss: I’m kidding. Of course I remember. Audience: (laugh) Ss: I enjoyed it. Sk: Ah, I’m glad. Audience: (scream) Sk: Wow, this audience is so lively! And there’s so many of you! I’ve never performed in front of this many people. Ss: You’ll get used to it in no time. Sk: You would know, right? Ss: No, it’s my first time as a solo act, too. Sk: Really? You’re amazing. I mean— (inaudible) Audience: (scream) Ss: Not me, the audience. Sk: Both of you, then. Ss: You, too. Audience: (scream) Sk: Um, what else should we talk about... Ss: I should do the hosting since this is my show but it’s a skill I have yet to acquire. But you’re good at this, right? Sk: Well, I— What should I say? Ss: Just treat it as if it were your own. Sk: ‘What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine’ kind of deal… Ss: Aa. Audience: (screams) Sk: Everyone, what songs do you want to hear? Audience: (screams) Ss: Well, then. Since Sakura’s here, can we request one more song? Sk: I would love to. Audience: (screams) Ss: What song should we do? Sk: How about we do a Kage song? Ss: Which one? Sk: I can sing anything. I can do Naruto’s parts. Ss: Don’t. Sk: (laughs) Audience: (screams) Ss: Let’s just play one randomly. Sk: Yes! Let’s do it! REPLY 968

tuktuk · 5 years ago both of them…. LEGENDS. both got PAK in their own groups and now as soloists. talented…beautiful….amazing…singers…songwriters….that’s what fans need..=)) name a better duo ill wait..lol REPLY 290

iHartu · 8 months ago THE SEXUAL TENSION IS OFF THE CHARTS!!!!! REPLY 32

Eloise Mercy · 5 years ago both of them are my fave <3 your fancams are the best. thank you for your hardwork. REPLY 156

Adrienne · 3 years ago 1:56 Sasuke making a joke???? 3:47 ARE THEY REALLY FLIRTING OMG !!!!! 4:16 the proposal!??! Oh gosh these two are so cute i can’t REPLY 85

Woe Is You · 5 years ago HOW CAN A GUY BE SO AWKWARD YET SO SMOOTH AT HTE SAME TIMe?>.. gosh i can’t stop smiling.. REPLY 59

9:40 pm - 10/13/2009 JUST A QUICK BLIND ITEMS POST!!!

Top girl group member and rookie actress A is getting some criticism on her acting, with some fans attributing the drama’s failure to her lackluster performance. In addition, viewers are criticizing the circumstances of her debut, noting that while her other members trained for 4 years on average, her training period did not even exceed one year, which led fans to speculate that she was only able to debut due to her connections in her company.

Super boy group member B is rumored to be dating Top girl group member C. Since both are from the same company, their activities have overlapped in addition to having collaborations, leading to developments between the two. Reservations on making this relationship public stem from company pressure, and from B being very high profile, and C, despite being well-loved, is divisive and draws a lot of ire from the public, which could only worsen should the relationship become public.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding large company CEO D for trying to recruit already-established stars from other companies, even going as far as extortion.

Tags: blind item

MoMo 13th-Oct-2009 9:45 pm (UTC) God I love blind items but I’m so bad at them. I can never figure them out. reply | thread | link

beauty_mind 13th-Oct-2009 09:48 pm (UTC) A is [Spoiler] reply | thread | link

pineapple 13th-Oct-2009 09:51 pm (UTC) ^was gonna say the same thing lol reply | thread | link

mmmmugz 13th-Oct-2009 09:54 pm (UTC) ^^I’m her fan but I can’t deny this XD reply | thread | link

fixit_felix 13th-Oct-2009 10:01 pm (UTC) Are these really blind items? These are all so obvious… reply | thread | link

Tea_Gardner 13th-Oct-2009 10:05 pm (UTC) 1 I’ll give you a HIN T 2 pink eyeshadow 3 Not sure who this is but ssssssoundssss like a Ssssssnake~~~ reply | thread | link

oystersauce9 13th-Oct-2009 10:06 pm (UTC) ^YESS!!!! I was waiting for you to comment!! Thanks for always coming thru Queen T. reply | thread | link

LavaCake 13th-Oct-2009 10:09 pm (UTC) ^oh b, i knew it. everyone knows c. a is obvious just from watching their live performances alone lol. reply | thread | link

Kwik 13th-Oct-2009 10:15 pm (UTC) ^wait, who’s b??? sasuke sakura??? reply | thread | link

2010

[MV] Sakura _ Silently, Strongly (Feat. Sasuke) 58,381,034 views

KG Entertainment Published on March 27, 2010

29,871 comments (sort by)

KitKat · 4 years ago The short hair suits her so well!! Looks pure REPLY 988

yangming · 4 years ago what an amazing collab! i’m gonna be looking forward to sakura’s solo stuff from now on <3 REPLY 875

Light L · 1 month ago WHO’S WATCHING THIS IN 2014 REPLY 32

Rawrr · 4 years ago Is it me or do thier voices blend well togetrer.? I think they can be a cutie couple XD REPLY 532

[INTERVIEW] 100923 KoKo Magazine: Sakura Throughout

We catch up with Haruno Sakura on her journey as an artist, and beyond.

Q: It’s very difficult to get an interview with you. We wanted to know more about you. Sakura: I like doing interviews but I don’t get that many opportunities to do them. Maybe it’s because my company thinks I thrive in easy-consumption type of media. (laughs)

Q: But you’ve been all around this year and prior. You released your first solo album, you’ve been featured in a few tracks by different artists, and you’ve gotten songwriting credit for a Kage track. What was that like? S: It was a mixture of tenacity and luck. Before debuting, I was insistent that I wanted to write or at least contribute to writing our own material, to the point where I think I annoyed our company. Our CEO said they would only agree if I made a song that they determined would be a hit. So I wrote and wrote every single day, two track ideas at least. Luckily, I got a few songs in and they allowed me. But then I’m left with a heap of material just waiting to be worked on, and counting! It was really just luck that I went to the KG Studios when Kage were throwing ideas around for their comeback. Naruto asked me—maybe as a joke, now that I think about it—if I had anything lying around, and I said I did. I’m just glad they liked it enough to work with it and took a risk even if it sounded different from what they did. That became a starting point where our company decided to take a chance and make me release my own album.

Q: Your album Love Throughout had really good reviews. What did you think about that? Were you expecting it? S: Not at all! I still couldn’t even believe that it exists sometimes, and that I was allowed to do it. I’m really thankful of the warm reception. It makes me want to work harder and better. I hope they’ll let me do it again.

Q: Your collaborations with Kage’s Uchiha Sasuke were also well-received. S: I was honored that Sasuke-kun asked me because ‘Heavenly Hand’ was a lovely song. He was nice enough to return the favor with ‘Silently, Strongly’ on my album. Next time, I’ll be the one to return the favor, and then this exchange will go on forever. Hopefully the fans won’t get tired. (laughs)

Q: What do you wish to do next? S: I would really like to try my hand at producing. I’m currently taking a few courses in music theory and production at KUA (Konoha University of the Arts) because I want to take this seriously. I’m not actually producing anything at the moment but I’ll be ready when it comes. (laughs) If it doesn’t, well, I’m having fun learning, at least.

Q: You seem to be a very disciplined person to manage studies in between activities. In what other ways are you strict towards yourself? S: In many aspects. As a public figure, I’m obligated to maintain an image so I watch my weight and take care of my hair and skin and all that. I’m most strict towards myself with making music. My pre-debut habit of making two song ideas before the day ends has carried on to this day. I have set high standards for myself. I’m pretty sure I have put off some people with how intense I am. (laughs) But I think of being here as a gift and that it’s my duty to work hard to show that I am grateful and worthy of it in return.

Q: Lastly, this question begs to be asked: any news on Kunoichi comeback? S: At the moment, we’re all very busy doing individual activities. I have promotional activities and school at the moment. Ino is working on her own solo album to be released next year which I’m looking forward to. Sprinting Sisters variety show has gotten even funnier since TenTen joined as a member. Hinata’s doing her drama. I still keep in touch with them, especially Ino, and they’re all really pleased with their accomplishments, as I am. We are all looking forward to come back as a group in the near future but in the meantime, we hope Kuchis will support us in our individual endeavors.

Source: KoKo Magazine

Flower Power Wow, she’s out of the KG dungeon for once. She doesn’t get enough interviews? That’s bullshit. She seems very smart and well-spoken. Like · Reply

Girly Tam Lovely, one of a kind gal...please come to Kumo.. Like · Reply

Koneko Nori I’ll never get tired of Sasuke/Sakura collabs!! Please keep them coming. Like · Reply

Kim Ame Thanks for sharing this!! Keep working hard Sakura-chan! We’ll support you! <3 Love, Kuchi Like · Reply

Azumi Kiyo It would be ridiculous of KG to not allow her to have another solo given the success of this one. But it seems she’s not confident of it happening again, which is too bad. Like · Reply

Hana Hime Probably an unpopular opinion, but I prefer Sakura solo than Kunoichi XD Like · Reply

DanDan Soi @Hana Hime no, i feel the same. Like · Reply

Uehara Yu love you.. Like · Reply

2011

Tsunade Talks About Experience Working with Sakura Thursday, 2011 May 20

In a recent interview with local news outlet K-Daily, Tsunade discussed her thoughts and feelings about working with Haruno Sakura (Kunoichi) on her much awaited comeback album after a 5-year hiatus following the death of her husband, Kato Dan.

See also: SuMu Siblings Wrap Up Music Video Shoot in Wind Country

When asked, “Is there a reason you decided to work with Sakura of all the more experienced producers?” the legendary singer commented, “I only met her personally last year but her career has been one of the few that I’ve truly followed and anticipated. When we met, she mentioned that she’s trying to branch out into producing so I invited her to work on my album, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Tsunade also adds, “She is very comfortable to work with, and it didn’t feel like she was a beginner at all. She has a clear vision of what she wants, and puts her heart into achieving it.”

Even before her comeback, Tsunade’s first single, “Rebirth” got a lot of attention for being written by Kage’s Uchiha Sasuke and composed by Sakura herself. Regarding this, Tsunade reveals she initially didn’t know about the song’s origin when it was brought to the studio.

“I had no idea it was Uchiha’s track and only found out about the fact while working with Sakura. I told her I wanted to have a song that commands and has a lot of energy, the kind that makes you think, ‘Oh! The baddest bitch is back.’ Then when we returned to the studio the next day, she looked like she pulled an all-nighter, but she had the perfect song for me,” Tsunade reveals.

Tsunade says she has yet to meet Sasuke in person, “We haven’t met but the recordings would go back and forth, and he would give notes through Sakura on the kind of feeling that would go with so and so part.”

With the success of ‘Rebirth,’ Tsunade hopes to collaborate again with Sakura and Sasuke in the future.

Source (1, 2)

4 Comments

schwifty · 3 years ago rebirth was by sasuke?? i knew it had his style the moment i listened to it i felt it lol :P +5 | -0

KawaiiFemalePunk · 3 years ago Tsunade, “The baddest bitch is here.” OMG! Excited for this comeback~ +4 | -1

nuuie · 3 years ago sasuke and sakura pulling aan allnighter??? this is only fueling the dating rumors omg!! p.s. plz do more collabs!! +5 | -3

Anonymous · 1 year ago who the hell does sasuke think he is not coming to meet tsunade in person when she's like 20 years older than him ㅋㅋ you can smell his rotten personality from here. sakura jjang don't hang out w/ trash like him too much~ +1 | -8

FULL INTERVIEW: SASUKE TALKS CREATIVE PROCESS, FEATURES, BEING COMPARED WITH ITACHI + MORE 2011-11-14

Kage member Uchiha Sasuke is this month’s cover artist for K-D magazine. The editor sat down during the photoshoot for an in-depth interview. Check out the translation below.

Q: You look pretty tired even though it’s still morning. Is the photoshoot too early for you? Sasuke: No, it’s fine. I’m just a bit jet-lagged is all.

Q: This photoshoot is highlighting a different side of you—a softer, more natural concept than the ones we normally see you in. Does looking like an idol make you feel uncomfortable? S: No—well, I am an idol. This is the path I have chosen so I should be able to get past any sort of discomfort I would feel on my own. Also, I was told fans seem to enjoy this kind of thing.

Q: Tsunade’s ‘Rebirth’ which was released this year got a lot of positive feedback. What did you think about it, as the one who wrote it? S: It did? That’s great. Tsunade’s distinctive voice has been something that I regarded highly as I was growing up. The song wouldn’t have worked as well had it been sung by anyone else, in my opinion. It’s an honor to have my song sung by her.

Q: You said, “It did?” as though you don’t pay attention to charts. S: I don’t. Not about stuff I did myself at least. Or rather, when I was told that Tsunade liked it, and when I heard the results and was satisfied with it, then that’s all that matters. Not that it’s surprising that it did well; this is Tsunade after all.

Q: That was a cool thing to say... S: Anyway.

Q: You’ve always written your own stuff, and now, aside from collaborations, you’ve started writing songs for other people. How do you know which songs to give away, which songs to use for Kage, and which ones for your solos? S: They aren’t premeditated decisions. When I work on a project, I work with the mindset that I have at that moment so the output would come organically. Although, when I work with Kage, the decisions would be informed by the opinions of the members and mass appeal. When I’m on my own, as I said, I’m less concerned about whether it would chart or not, and more about releasing content that currently speaks to me, or that I’m curious about. There would always be ideas and tracks that wouldn’t work so they’d be put in the back burner until an opportunity arises, which was the case with ‘Rebirth.’ And then there would be songs that would never see the light of day—the ones I keep for myself or for certain people.

Q: Like a significant other? S: Sure.

Q: The last two years have been very eventful for you especially as a solo artist. I heard that not only did you produce your album, but you also participated in its visual concept and direction. What prompted that decision and what was it like? S: It seemed like a natural course of things since I wanted the album to show facets of myself I haven’t shown before. Up until then, we’ve been making decisions as a group and we’ve always trusted Neji’s aesthetic sensibilities in terms of the direction of our visual concepts. It was just something I wanted to try on my own. In working solo, I wasn’t so much worried about looking cool as I was about showing visuals that would effectively complement the tracks. It was like problem solving so I thought it was enjoyable.

Q: Also in the last two years, you have been a featured artist in various tracks from a whole range of artists—there’s ‘Retrieve’ with Shino A; and then there’s ‘Silently, Strongly’ with Sakura with whom you also collaborated on Tsunade’s ‘Rebirth;’ and then if you consider your subunit with Naruto— S: I don’t.

Q: Oh, alright. And then you’re also set to feature on a track on Troublesome’s new album. My question is, is there a reason you do all these features? S: You say it as if I have done so many, but it’s not nearly as much as the featuring offers I’ve gotten. I’m rather selective on which tracks I feature in. I would always consider if I can really be of help to make the song better, if my current mindset matches the tone of the song, and also if I can offer and learn something different from this collaboration. It must be a give-and-take, in my understanding. Shino has an interesting turn of phrase in his lyrics; Troublesome has a unique eclectic sound; Tsunade, I’ve already mentioned; and Sakura is incredibly talented and I’d be a complete idiot if I said no to her. It’s burdensome to turn people down but I’d rather be thorough than half-ass these things.

Q: You’re very particular about where you lend your talents to that’s why it always yields good results. Now I understand why people consider you a top idol rapper. Who do you think is your current competition? S: Naruto told me that if I were to encounter a question like this, I should answer his name. So my answer is no comment.

Q: Are you at all competitive? S: With rapping, not anymore. There’s a prejudice against idol rappers that they’re somehow less legitimate than those in the underground scene, so they’re upheld to a different standard anyway. It’s futile to compete. Frankly, I’m not interested in it. As it is now, rapping is just a means to an end for me. I’m more concerned about making good music that reflects who I am, what I care about.

Q: Ever since you debuted, you have been compared with your brother Itachi of Akatsuki. What is your opinion on this? S: I knew it would be inevitable from the start even if I tried to distance myself and debuted in a different company. The admiration I feel for my brother even from before he debuted remains, so I’m not resentful at all. But I think our directions are different. Itachi has surpassed being a musician to being an icon. His influence extends to fashion, lifestyle, art, business, and such. I’m just trying to make good music. I’m flattered by the comparison but I would prefer to be viewed in a different light.

Q: Lastly, any hopes for the next 2-3 years? S: Be more courageous.

Source: K-D

Tags: Uchiha Sasuke, KAGE

susan00 3 years ago Thanks for translating and sharing !! I got a copy of this issue on Konoha Airport but I haven’t read ;; Thanx so much !! ^^ REPLY

eyelids 3 years ago “Q: Like a significant other? S: Sure.” DID HE JUST??? ADMIT HE HAS A S/O???? REPLY

yacchaU 3 years ago ^maybe he was being sarcastic? I can never really tell with his tone….. REPLY

Fantasy 3 years ago I love how he doesn’t give a shit. REPLY

ROOT_BABY 3 years ago when he said he can’t say no to sakura,, XD REPLY

mandrake 3 years ago ^MAN SHUT THE FUCK UP REPLY

2012

KG Entertainment CEO Danzo laughs off Sasuke and Sakura dating rumors. 2012-02-15

Photos recently surfaced on various social media sites of what appears to be Uchiha Sasuke (Kage) and Haruno Sakura (Kunoichi) in a grocery mart, in an attempt to spark up dating rumors.

Despite the fact that these dating rumors would usually fizzle out after a few days, KG was quick to dismiss them with an incredulous scoff. CEO Shimura Danzo himself spoke to various news outlets: “It’s utterly ridiculous. The reports are merely unfounded rumors.”

A representative from the company spoke of the photos, “Kage went to Wave Country last year for a world tour and Sakura was a guest performer at the time. They had a free day and decided to go out as a group, including PD’s and managers. ” They added, “Our company prides itself in having talents that treat each other as they would their families and friends. Rumors like this would only hurt that.”

[+876, -681] Can’t these people go out without having everyone all up in their business? Gosh, let them be.

[+765, -469] KG was quick to dismiss the rumors. A little too quick if you ask me… ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[+519, -145] He seems to treat her like a younger sister. I doubt this is romantic. It’s probably weird for them to date within the company.

[+202, -347] Whatever, I still think they’d be cute together.

[+194, -431] Great! Now when is he gonna confirm NaruSasu ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[ARTICLE] What does KG mean to Sasuke?

“We’re a family… is what I’m supposed to say contractually. In reality, it’s just a workplace.”

SOURCE: KonohaAll via punnie

[+619, -13] I know Sasuke’s joking but it felt refreshing to me as a fan ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[+534, -19] Even if he was joking, you know what they say, jokes are half-meant

[+268, -8] I wonder if Sasuke being petty like this has anything to do with Danzo not letting him and Sakura date by dismissing those rumors immediately ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[+153, -3] KGE used to be nurturing with their artists but it became all business once Danzo became CEO

[+42, -5] Hul… Then just leave the company if you think it’s such a chore ㅋㅋㅋ not like you need the money since you already have your trustfund

Are Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke dating? August 21, 2012

Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke are longtime friends and songwriting partners, but could their relationship be blooming into something more?

Fans are determined to prove it.

KG representatives have previously denied the existence of this relationship which seemed to quiet the rumors down for a while, but they were sparked anew after Haruno Sakura uploaded a photo on her Instagram. The photo is taken in a park and featured a blurry man’s pair of legs. Seems innocuous, right? It could be anyone!

However, a few minutes later, Uchiha Sasuke uploaded a photo that looks like it was taken on the same park. Fans kept noting the similar bench, light posts, and trashcan, and deduced that they must be together. Some more meticulous fans even went as far as zooming in on one of the trashcans to reveal what was supposedly the reflection of two people who are believed to be Sasuke and Sakura. Almost immediately, Sasuke removed the picture which only added more fuel to the fire.

Back in March, Uchiha Sasuke discussed being in the middle of relationship rumors in an episode of Video Star: “There are pros and cons to admitting. Because I’m a celebrity, being in a relationship with me would potentially do more harm than good. Although the public has a right to know whether or not I’m dating someone, I have no obligation to disclose anything.”

So it looks like we won’t be able to have any kind of confirmation (affirmative or negative) anytime soon.

“There’s nothing to confirm because there’s nothing going on. If that blurry blob of whatever really was them, then so what? They could be just hanging out. It’s not impossible for a man and a woman to just be friends/workmates,” reasoned one K-netizen.

On the other camp, fans are going wild.

“ok am i thE ONLY ONE WHO WANTS THIS TO BE TRUE?!?!?!! i’ve seen their stages and i think they’d be a cute couple!!!! #confirmthisrelationship #please,” another K-netizen exclaimed.

More evidence? Back in 2011, when Sakura collapsed after Kunoichi’s concert in Konoha Arena, Kage were in the middle of promotional activities in Earth Country, but the day after, Sasuke (and Naruto) were already back in Konoha. Some people even claim spotting Sasuke bringing a pillow to Konoha General Hospital where Sakura was confined. In addition, recently Sakura has been spotted visiting the Leaf Gallery where Uchiha Mikoto (Sasuke’s mother) is a director. The two seem to be very friendly based on the photos Mikoto posted on her Instagram page.

But for all we know, this could all be just a huge coincidence and that they really are just friends.

What do you guys think?

lililala · August 21, 2012 I think people need to mind their own damn business.

TeaTime · August 21, 2012 obviously, the real reason as to why he took the post down is because it messes up his ig feed aesthetic.

Lee_Ann > TeaTime · August 21, 2012 lol tru!!

GumGum3x · August 21, 2012 This rumor has gone on for too long for it to not be true. But yeah, we need to leave them alone and let them confirm it if they ever decide to.

fabcat94 · August 21, 2012 WHAT NOOOOO!!!! SASUKE X NARUTO FOREVERR

avvkvvard · August 21, 2012 He wouldn’t have deleted it if it didn’t mean anything

FrannyZ · August 21, 2012 Still praying this is true tbh~

2013

REVIEW: Sakura’s Courage braves into more adventurous sounds, more intimate songwriting angles 31-Mar-2013

Up to this point, the Konoha pop scene has often been disregarded for producing fluff pieces that would always shy away from hard-cutting themes. Sakura’s appropriately titled sophomore offering Courage is a bold example of stepping up to the challenge by baring her doubts and vulnerabilities, and finding comfort in the person underneath it all. With the sonically diverse musical styles experimenting with folk, electronica, R&B, and classical music, Courage’s sound echoes the complexity of the artist within Sakura.

When Sakura softly sings, “Women have to be strong in order to survive,” on the title track Courage, even with a distinctive, almost tremulously emotive voice, it was no soft declaration, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Having debuted as one-fourth of Kunoichi, KG Entertainment’s first girl group fresh after the overwhelming international success of its flagship group Kage, she has been thoroughly judged by the public through a microscope since she was 19. In the years following their debut, she was often mocked for her appearance and presentation, and their group’s success was often questioned as only riding on the coattails of the boy group before them. Moreover, she is involved in an ongoing “dating scandal” with a member of said boy group.

This preface is a necessary evil because as we now arrive with Courage, we recognize that Sakura’s declaration is no small feat. Sakura addresses the frankly, oddly obsessive level of hatred directed at her in the tongue-in-cheek and drone-like, “And all I do is cry, and all I do is cry, and all I do is cry” hook of Useless repeated ad nauseam, sandwiched in between verses that are a litany of her supposed faults. In addition, the chill-inducing restraint as she sings in a silky voice, “Smile to ease out of a situation / Even if it’s fake,” in Fake Smiles gives the audience a glimpse of what’s underneath the glitter and glamour of the star: a human, working through the anger and hurt all the while having to appear pristine and perfect.

Maturity is certainly a theme in Courage, and in the time between this and Sakura’s debut solo album Love Throughout, she has undergone relationship rumors and scandals. The veracity of these rumors notwithstanding, heartache can be found in Courage, specifically with the songs 181 and Maybe Next Time, about distance and pining. Softly sung with Sakura’s gentle and emotive voice, like a secret—they’re infinitely intriguing.

With Courage, Sakura isn’t afraid to show moments of self-doubt, insecurity, and loneliness. An album like this proves the importance to have musicians explore deeply into themselves and express themselves in compelling ways, to show the humanity underneath all the glossy production, and gorgeous visuals.

8.9/10

Watch: Sakura talks pre-debut + shares songwriting and life advice with a lucky fan

On the June 25 webisode of “The Road of Life,” Haruno Sakura visited a fan who has a dream of becoming a singer-songwriter.

See also: Shino A.’s much buzzed-about collab with indie band Troublesome already in the works

The episode began showing the daily routine of Moegi Kazamatsuri, the fan. Sakura surprised her with a basket of goodies that she handpicked herself, moving Moegi to tears.

Once she had calmed down with Sakura’s words, the two quickly became comfortable with each other, with Moegi saying that she’s usually shy around new people but she felt immediately at ease with Sakura. Moegi began to explain the inferiority complex she feels and how hard it is to break into the industry. “It’s like no matter how much I try to raise myself up, there’s always going to be another wall that I need to overcome,” Moegi said. “At the moment, that wall is the feeling of never having anything good or important to say. People who want to get in the industry all have unique voices and stories to tell. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to be, let alone who I am.”

Hearing Moegi’s words, Sakura empathized because she said she has felt that way at some point, and that she still does every now and then. She began to talk about the rejections she had faced before she was finally signed as a trainee. “I can’t even count how many companies I have tried to audition for,” she laughed. “It was definitely a lot for a 12-year-old. I kept wondering if there was something wrong with me, if maybe people who make it innately have something, and that perhaps I’ll never have it—whatever it is.”

Sakura added, “But performing and writing was something that I have always enjoyed. My mom says I’ve been making up songs ever since I learned how to speak. Being able to express my thoughts is a good release for me. I’m sure you know that feeling.” Moegi agreed.

“As for them being good or important, those standards are too ambiguous and arbitrary. You can never please everybody, so you might as well just do what you think is you—your thoughts, your experiences. You are the only one in the world who is you, so that alone makes you and whatever you say important. I think if there’s at least one person out there who listens and finds something compelling in what I do, then that’s how I know I’ve chosen the right path,” Sakura said.

The conversation took on a lighter note when Moegi started to ask Sakura about her creative process and how she finds inspiration. “I do try to write from experiences, although not in a literal sense,” Sakura explained. “I wrote about “Tearfully pleading in the middle of the night/ Don’t go” in my previous album, but I have never really experienced that when I wrote it. It was more about my hopes at that time. Not that I hope to tearfully plead to someone! (laughs) I mean, I guess I hoped to feel that kind of all-encompassing love towards someone.

“So while Love Throughout was about my hopes, I tried to be as genuine as I can in Courage. The songs here really are my own experiences and thoughts. I tried to be personal and vulnerable in this album, and then tried to find strength in that vulnerability. I think that’s what I was going for,” Sakura added.

This revelation prompted Moegi to ask if the story behind Sakura’s hit ballad “Maybe Next Time” from her latest album really happened to her. “Were you really in mutual pining with someone?” To this, Sakura blushed, “I guess I dug my own grave here! (laughs) It was a situation where we weren’t in the position to pursue anything even if we both wanted to, not at the moment at least.”

As the night ended, Sakura posed for a photo with Moegi before walking her home. The two shared a big warm hug before saying goodbye.

Watch the full webisode here: [LINK]

Hansum · 226 posts Posted 28 June 2013 - 4:08 AM just from the text, it seemed like a deep and insightful conversation especially from an idol. I love what she said about being good and important, speaks a lot abt her as a person :’>

nyaachu · 8,045 posts Posted 28 June 2013 - 4:10 AM (Edited by nyaachu 28 June 2013 - 4:29 AM) Sakura is Amazing. An Angel. Nation’s First Love. EDIT: who’s willing to bet she was talking about Sasuke in the end

uranusas · 156 posts Posted 28 June 2013 - 4:08 AM i always wonder how real is the road of life ? i mean how she can act surprised and not notice when she can see the camera all around the room . seems scripted ..

RockLeeLuvr29 · 3,101 posts Posted 28 June 2013 - 7:59 AM She’s so wise&mature,for someone her age.Hope that fan had a lot of fun w/ her ^^ @nyaachu, u think??

2014

Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura Caught Up in Dating Rumors Once Again + Affiliates Respond

Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura are caught up in dating rumors once again, and sources close to the two idols finally respond.

On an online community, one exchange student reported that Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura were spotted together in Snow Country. Haruno Sakura was there from February 9 to 12, while Uchiha Sasuke was seen on February 13. Some outlets reported seeing the two together in Kazahana, before returning to Konoha separately with a three-day gap between their flights.

On February 20, Haruno Sakura’s affiliates stated, “Haruno Sakura had promotional activities for the movie ‘The Strong 100’, where she is set to appear in. The schedule was tight and it would have been impossible to meet with Uchiha Sasuke. The two are not dating.”

Uchiha Sasuke’s camp also denied the rumors stating, “Mr. Uchiha went to Snow Country for a project, not to meet Ms. Haruno.”

This is not the first time that dating rumors about Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura have surfaced. However, while rumors in the past have been denied by their label KGE, this is the first time that sources from the two idols have outright denied it.

Source: (1) (2) (3)

theorem 1 month ago Well, there goes the dating rumors. I don’t think Sakura’s people would cover it up but they really outright denied it this time. REPLY

BINGOOO 1 month ago a project?? could it be *wedding bells* they only said they’re not dating because what if they’re actually already engaged lol XD i can dream right oTL REPLY

DoritoLocoLover 1 month ago Keep denying it and date in peace. REPLY

Mind-Blown 1 month ago maybe they really were dating all this time but then they broke up in Snow that’s why they announced that they weren’t dating anymore TT.TT REPLY

bitter_queen 1 month ago god, leave them alone. they should start suing whoever starts these rumors. REPLY

Pessimiss 1 month ago Still hoping it’s true… Silently and strongly… REPLY

BREAKING: UCHIHA SASUKE AND HARUNO SAKURA TO GET MARRIED LATER THIS YEAR

March 30, 2014

The two debuted as members of groups Kage and Kunoichi under KG Entertainment and have since gone on to work as solo artists.

Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura are to be married on November 5 later this year according to the statement released by their agency.

Below is the full translated statement:

“Greetings! This is KG Entertainment. We would like to extend our gratitude to the fans who have shown a lot of love for our own Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. Moreover, we would like to ask for everyone’s understanding as we announce the news of their engagement. They will be having a wedding on the 5th of November this year and it will be a private affair between two families and some of the couple’s closest friends. The best gift we can offer the new couple in their upcoming union is to respect their wishes. As always, thank you for your understanding.”

The engagement has been a huge trending topic since it was announced yesterday. The two have since left messages on their respective fan pages.

Sakura writes: “I have known Sasuke-kun since we were young and even as trainees, I’ve carried such deep respect and admiration for him. It was a huge honor to grow alongside him, not only as a colleague but also as a friend after all these years, and it makes me look forward to spending the future together with him. As nervous as I am at the moment, I still hope your support and love for me up until now will extend to my soon-to-be husband—I still can’t get over the thrill of saying this—as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Sasuke writes: “The last five years have been the most tumultuous of my life, but Sakura has been there to ground me, as she always has. I have been wanting to speak about our relationship earlier but out of courtesy to Sakura and her family, I had to proceed with caution. It’s not just about me anymore, and there’s no one else I’d want to continue this journey with other than Sakura. With this news being made public, I trust everyone’s understanding and support, if not for me then for my future wife. Thank you.”

Twitter went wild with the news, making #SasuSakuCouple trend worldwide with happy reactions about the engagement.

Check out some of the best responses about the pair’s upcoming nuptials. Congratulations, Sasuke and Sakura!

Kimmy @gh0ulfriend When you expected a dating confirmation but you got a wedding confirmation #sasusakucouple 6:38 AM - March 30, 2014

cool anna @mrsucuzinu me: *logs into twitter* news: uchiha sasuke and haruno sakura are getting married me: *dies* 7:23 AM - March 30, 2014

Bad Little Girl @byungie I can’t believe Sasusaku invented Marriage and ended all idol couples :)))) 7:23 AM - March 30, 2014

sparrow @lyring THEY DENIED THEY WERE DATING LAST MONTH CUZ THEY TECHNICALLY WEREN’T DATING ANYMORE THEY WERE ALREADY ENGAGED DON’T TOUCH ME!!!!1 UNFOLLOW ME NOw!!11 7:44 AM - March 30, 2014

hayzzze @takataka I don’t even think i’m gonna be this excited for my own engagement 8:05 AM - March 30, 2014

kage_facts @KAGEFACTSS WE’RE ALL GETTING MARRIED!!!!! 8:12 AM - March 30, 2014

END

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff’s Best of 2017

WARNING: I’d like to thank everybody who was here for me when times were low. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

Cartoons; the one thing that I will continuously watch until I go blind. 2017 was an emotional handful and an exhausting trudge, can’t deny that, and I’m counting down the best cartoons/animations I’ve seen and loved this year in no particular order. Only two rules, no sneak previews of future projects (sorry to Unikitty and Hideo Kojima). Here we go....

10. HANAZUKI: FULL OF TREASURES

This was a sleeper hit tbh. The fact all the episodes were free on Youtube blew my mind, but having a well structured story with a lovely cold space color palette, actually relatable characters, and a sinister undertones below its tender, colorful charm to be as a nice headliner to when Friendship is Magic came back in spring. It was an inviting start for the year, and with the guy behind Motorcity and Superjail taking the helm and having two more seasons being produced, Hanazuki is something I find is in good hands come 2018.

9. LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA

Four long years. I waited FOUR long goddamn years...and fuck me was it worth it. A spectacle is what I can call Little Witch Academia. Almost every episode dazzled me with its stage made bravado and confidence that always made me say, “Okay. Let’s make it til’ the next week”. Even when things got serious, LWA knew how to have fun and make the most of its concept. There is a sense of predictability sometimes, but the series would still throw you some good curve balls to never lose your interest. What did lose my interest was Netflix’s sorry excuse of a dub. The movies: fine. But Netflix, try that again, with any other anime, and I will rip your nuts off.

8. Now I might be cheating here since it’s not a cartoon, but shit it might as well have been

CUPHEAD

The effort that went into this is phenomenal, beyond the many other games of the year no doubt. While not everything is animated, I could tell they were cutting corners in some areas, the frame BY frame animated enemies, bosses, and effects made this one of the most visually colorful and alive games to date, next to Mario Odyssey. Not only was this game a frustrating yet joyous romp to start and finish, but the music and art flawlessly channeled the essence of a time where the word “cartoon” was only starting to make good progress. My favorite character would have to be Satan King Dice, whom is an animated homage to great musician and composer Cab Calloway. His stache, his clothing, even his Cheshire grin captured the cool, jazzy vibe Calloway always provided in his performances. He and his fight was the highlight of Cuphead for me and I hope this game, if a sequel isn’t possible, is well remembered for its unexpected excellence in how a video game can look.

7. CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS/L-EGGO BATMAN

Faithful is what I can describe these two. Captain Underpants was just an awesome book to elementary schooler me, but to see a well animated, well written movie about a dude in his underwear was nothing short of a simple yet powerful masterpiece. As for Batman, this is one of the three truest DC and Batman movies around this time, and it has a gay undertone with Batman and the Joker’s relationship (how can you not pull that off, Suicide Squad?). While not a big fan of lego myself, The Lego Movie put my faith WB making another one equally as good, and they did not disappoint. It’s a shame it got snubbed at the Golden Globes, it deserves the award more than the Boss Baby. Plus it had a Superman that didn’t bore me while having a terrible CGI lip job that’s only made worse by his two way dick nose....

Justice League costed 300,000,000 dollars.............

6. DANGER & EGGS

To me, this series felt like one of the few steps forward the world took to make the LGBT+ community feel more welcome and inspired in public outlets; a small step, but progressive none the less. It is a colorful and lively action comedy, a first to be created by a transgender person, where you can see a non-binary character, a pride fest, diverse background characters of orientation and ethnicity, and it feels like they are a part of the world and not footnotes that states that you should respect queer, bi, ace, and so on based on a say so. It’s a show don’t tell type of series and it brightened my summer before I had to remind myself that college exists and is expecting me.

5. TANGLED: THE SERIES

*ring ring* “Hello?” Ye, Disney? How fucking dare you?

My hype for this was undoubtful. I love Tangled the movie, I consider it one of my favorite 2010 disney flics beside Wreck it Ralph and Moana. And when the art style was up for a preview for this (?), I just sat and waited until it finally premiered and damn. I never stopped loving it, but it is until episode 16 where the series starts to hit high note after high note with the direction it’s going for the story. The fact that this all takes place not long after the movie makes the thought where Eugene and Rapunzel finally get married feels all the more earned. It’s working its way to a happily ever after, I adore this show, and this makes me appreciate Frozen a bit more for how far that’s fallen in the world after its one year of fame. Seriously, Gigantic had to get chopped, but Olaf can still live? Give me a break, Disney.

“Sir, I understand your enthusiasm....but this is Domino’s.” Then I will have the 5.99 large with Salchicha and pepperoncini with a liter sprite on delivery.

4. MADE IN ABYSS

This was so beautiful, so awesome, and much better than...

I wasted my life and I cannot say that I will ever reclaim that time proactively again the Anime

Made in Abyss is like Hunter x Hunter except Gon’s more booksmart and Kilua’s a timid robot. The bond between Riko and Reg was a fucking dynamic and heartfelt where Riko’s helps build Reg up and Reg kept Riko and himself safe with his bodily arsenal. That and this series has the best world building where they not only give the low down on almost everything about the titular abyss, but the atmospheric environments and the designs of the inhabiting creatures made this a unique world to want to explore myself. It knew what to show, and knew what to share. When things got serious, I actually tensed up at the thought of shit truly going down; they knew how to soften the terror while maniacally instill fear in us for the safety of the traveling kids. I want to recommend this link to an awesome breakdown of how great Made in Abyss was. However, as it seems that a season two has gone down the abyss as well, and I’m afraid it can’t come back up.

3. LET’S BE HEROES!!

Is it safe to call this the M.U.G.E.N. of cartoons? Just an all up mashup of stuff I love in a Saturday morning? Campy, action, and laid back, this is something I can be sober or grab some kush and I would be enjoy the show just the same. They even have references you might not have ever heard of, but might like the search. OK KO’s a popcorn cartoon, it’s not for everybody, but it established itself well into the modern CN era when Adventure Time finally has to move on. 

2. SAMURAI JACK

Getting this out of the way: episode 6 toiled the final season of Samurai Jack for me. Not gonna go into detail, but if that episode was remade, I would have been more satisfied looking back. However, that does not stop me from saying this is how a revival should be, this is how a reboot should work, THIS is how you can bring nostalgia back. Samurai Jack was great back then, but this season, wrapping up the loose plight of our boy trying to get back to the past and defeat the demon Aku, was satisfactory to many fans. Even those who’ve never heard or remember Jack could just enjoy this as a dynamic mini-series; it gives you context of what happened before without having to recap the original plot of it. For non fans, it’s mostly about an ageless samurai, longing to return to his own time, stuck in the future for over 50 years to the point of losing his honor and his mind. It’s a binge worthy 10 episode season, originally intended to be a movie, and aside from polar opinionated finale, this made Samurai Jack feel great to love again.

1. TRUE AND THE RAINBOW KINGDOM

This is a personal choice from me because 2017 was an honest to god terrible year for me; nothing but turmoil, season to season, and the struggle to cope with that despair in a way I felt actually could help. However, this small series here boosted my spirits because even with it being a show for little kids that I originally wanted to watch as a joke, the competent, enthusiastic spirit it had just moved me in a way that cartoons that I love for eons could only try to do on a whim. It’s not the best made cartoon, it’s not something I sincerely recommend to you all, but it helped me realize that the best thing about life is finding and seeking things that don’t just distract you from the hard and testing times reality puts on you, but gives you a moment of honest bliss and happiness that can influence your outlook on looking forward to better things because things like this, cartoons like this, CAN make you feel better. 

*sniff* Which is why, the actual cartoon of the year....

1. is STEVEN U., BABY!

Just kidding, guys! You will NEVER win, Steven!

TEEN TITANS GO! WINS IT AGAIN, BABYYYY! ONCE AGAIN BABY (i don’t even like it no more...), YOUR NEW FAVORITE SHOW (i don’t even fucking like it no...) RISES TO THE TO-

But Steven Universe in Space, though. That’s when it’ll be great again.

[rebels-advocate-blog]

fbi: don’t move

hOwDy hO, hErE wE gO

Ivan is a completely ordinary, totally unassuming, simple meme-loving guy, and Alfred is the FBI agent who secretly lives in his camera. Governments and grudges are thrown aside as chance encounters in Washington D.C. bring them closer and closer together.

read it with your own eyes on fanfiction.net!

read it with your own eyes on archive of our own!

or, just scroll down a bit and read the first chapter right here! (with stolen eyes)

.

fbi: don’t move

Ivan laughed, which was to say he snorted very, very lightly. Even snorting was an overstatement; a silent wisp of breath escaped him as he swiped away at his screen, liking the photo and commenting: LOLOKOLKOLOLOL1!1! He switched gears to search up the hashtag under the meme, something he almost never did, and found a semi-sorted collection of posts following the same theme. He wasted no time screenshotting a few of his favorites to pirate for himself later.

Soon. Soon he would break 999K followers. And then, and then. Then he would have a million followers. A million was a lot, depending on who you asked. Beyoncé only had fifteen million—at least on Twitter. (On Instagram she had eleven hundred million.) He wanted to rule the Internet.

Ivan turned his phone off and threw it across the bed, forcing himself to get up and move if he wanted to retrieve it. Stretching languidly, he rolled out of the warmth of the covers and faced the day.

He dressed in comfortable, durable clothes; Ivan had recently secured a position as a horticulturist for the Smithsonian Gardens along the National Mall, which was a fancy way of saying he cut grass and trimmed hedges all day, except it was really nice grass and they were really nice hedges. Obviously, wearing his favorite scarf was less than ideal for the sweaty work, but Ivan would never and could never take it off. He slipped into his boots and thrust a spare pair of gloves into his pocket. Sadly, he couldn't use his phone on the job, but he could use headphones. He began to hum to himself, imagining the songs he would listen to on his first shift.

Before shoving his phone into his bag, Ivan took a glance at the blank screen. A strange feeling overcame him as his eyes drifted upwards, making contact with the minuscule blue dots of light inside his camera lens. He held its gaze for a brief, piqued interest that lasted about two seconds, then giggled. "Goodbye, Mr. FBI," he sang to himself.

It was silly. He dropped the phone into his bag and left his apartment with haste.

.

Alfred grabbed street food on the way to work, washing it down with a hefty Starbucks to go. Whipping the shades off from overtop his regular glasses, he strode into headquarters. Immediately, he had to give up his meal so it could be scanned for toxins while he himself was stripped and searched. Elizabeta Héderváry, chief of the gray division, took an eternity to scrutinize Alfred's badge. Alfred tapped his toes and fidgeted to himself. Predictably, Ivan would be online in seven minutes. "Alright, Jones." She handed back Alfred's ID. "You're clear. But don't let me catch you in here again, or it's straight to the slammer." She drew a line across her throat.

Alfred gratefully collected his food and his badge. "Wait, what the? Dude, I work here!"

She stared him down.

Alfred, without hesitation, steadied himself and stared back.

After a few seconds of silence, Chief Héderváry burst into hearty laughter. "I'm only testing you, kid! I guess it's very Gilbert of me. But gosh, you would have thought I had just admitted to you that the tooth fairy isn't real, or that Santa is Illuminati propaganda, or that JFK is still alive up on a secret moon base in space...oops." She covered her mouth. "I've said too much."

Alfred blinked slowly. "Okay. I'll just...get to work then, um, before you zap me and wipe my memory."

The agent nodded. "Better bolt. Gotta keep you on your feet." She then began drawing her stun gun, but Alfred had already disappeared down the hall. He frantically dove into an arriving elevator and jammed a finger down on the button to close the doors as the clunky boots of the Héderváry's footsteps came closer. Alfred hugged his food to his chest and pressed into the corner of the tiny metal box. He had had his memory wiped before, he was certain, and had even had to do it to others once or twice—it was a ghastly, abominable experience. The chief's image appeared between the elevator's two closing doors and Alfred screamed, but when the shot was fired the elevator had already begun its descent.

Alfred shivered, cradling himself. He was safe for now. He dug into his food and snuck out a bite of greasy fry. It would be two hundred more dings of the elevator before he arrived at the secret underground black zone where all the FBI agents monitored their respecting, (un)suspecting citizens.

Alfred had finished half of his coffee before he made it to the negative two hundredth floor. It was pretty swampy down there, due to the thick consistency of cubicles, the heat coming off of so much compressed technology, and also due to the government having concealed the fact that, yes, Washington D.C. had really been built atop a swamp. He had his semi-greasy fingerprints scanned a second time and then navigated the maze toward his cubicle. He only had two minutes at best before Ivan came home.

Ivan was Alfred's monitor man, Alfred's subject of spy. Alfred had Ivan's schedule practically burned into his brain: he woke up at six-thirty, dabbled on his phone for fifteen minutes, then put it in his pocket and didn't use it again until four, when he got off work. Ivan did not have a computer, making Alfred's hacking tasks both easier and harder by reserving everything to Ivan's cell phone. Alfred would transfer Ivan's morning visuals to Alfred's own laptop to monitor in the morning, and Alfred usually came to headquarters to watch Ivan during the rest of his day. Sometimes he took shifts with another agent, but lately Alfred had been finding himself at headquarters more and more. After all, it was important to develop a deep understanding of your subject, even if your subject had no idea you even existed.

Alfred fired up his special, government-issued laptop, opening the monitor. Just in time, too; Ivan's face soon filled the screen. Alfred sighed. It was on.

Alfred knew almost everything about Ivan. His names (Ivan "Vanya" Braginsky), his family (one older sister and one younger sister), and even the songs he sang in the shower (surprisingly a lot of Taylor Swift). Alfred knew Ivan was the head of a semi-famous online meme domain. Alfred knew Ivan watered the sunflowers in his window every day as soon as he came home. Alfred knew Ivan didn't have many friends. Alfred knew Ivan had long, red scars circling around his neck, hidden under that huge off-white scarf he always wore. Alfred knew Ivan liked soft things and had five blankets on his bed. Alfred also knew that Ivan was at the top of the FBI's list of suspected dangerous Russian intelligence agents, and it was Alfred's duty to report any fishy activity. So far, Alfred had observed none.

Other than the fact that Alfred had to be constantly alert in his job, monitoring Ivan was pretty easy. Ivan had a cute face, and often made little childish noises and expressions whenever he saw something that grabbed his attention. Alfred had trained in the Russian language for years and still couldn't capture the melodiousness of Ivan's murmurs to himself. Sometimes Ivan would be scrolling through social media at night and fall asleep on his phone, which was annoying but undeniably adorable. And he was an immigrant; Alfred could damn well appreciate the hard work it must have taken Ivan to leave his homeland and adjust to life here.

However, this morning, Ivan had addressed Alfred personally, saying "Goodbye, Mr. FBI" before he put his phone away, and that had been hella creepy.

Ivan wasn't saying anything now, just staring at the screen, his eyelids half-shut, eyes moving in line formation over whatever he was reading. Alfred took a sip of his Starbucks and tapped into Ivan's phone display, bringing up a rectangle of white with a thick block of Helvetica text. Alfred's eyes scanned it himself, knowing it was another online post, and Alfred had read thousands of Ivan's. They were quality. When he finished laughing, he switched focus back to Ivan's camera visual; the ceiling behind Ivan was moving as Ivan sat down at his kitchen table. Ivan picked at his lip, snorting a little. The sound of his bags hitting the floor echoed to Alfred, and soon Ivan began humming a sweet song.

Alfred kicked back in his ultra-comfort wheely chair and popped in another fry, enjoying the music. He had no reason to feel so comfortable in the artificial presence of a creepy Russian, yet his wariness was drowned out by tribute for the memes. And Ivan's face. Thank god Ivan at least had a nice face that Alfred got to stare at all evening.

There was a knock on the wall of Alfred's cubicle. He spun around too quickly in the wheely chair and had to overcorrect, graciously spilling a couple of fries into his lap. "Whaddya want?"

It was Toris. A fellow FBI monitor, the long-haired Lithuanian stood stiff in the doorway to Alfred's workspace, making more eye contact with Alfred's inspirational NASA star map poster than with Alfred. "Hi. Um, Felicks went to the bathroom, so I was going to be taking break, and if I remember correctly, you told me to 'mosey on over when you get a chance, because I got the goods?'"

"Aw yeah!" Alfred pushed down his laptop screen so it was at a forty-five degree angle. Toris knew who Ivan was, and sometimes covered Alfred's shifts when Alfred stayed up too late playing video games or reading Marvel fanfiction, but Alfred still didn't want to be interrupted on the job. After all, both Ivan's screen and his camera were blank and black; he must have gone to take his daily shower. "Right here, man. Check it out. They were handin' them out all down the Mall, and I managed to snag a few extras!"

Toris took the item in his hand and inspected it cautiously. "This is a…a SAVE THE WHALES sticker?"

"No, a SAVE THE WHALES magnet!" Alfred corrected, spinning it over. "I thought you might want one, since your space is so plain and boring and all. It'd give you something to look at other than Felicks's fancy skirt collection, or whatever."

The tips of Toris's ears turned red. "They're designer." Yet he didn't refuse the magnet.

Not every FBI monitor happened to be stationed in the vicinity of their subject; Felicks lived halfway across the world from Toris, and was an alleged underground market weapons dealer, with emphasis on alleged. Mostly he just took selfies in the bathtub and embarrassed Toris to no end. Alfred considered himself lucky that Ivan was only half a city away, though they had yet to cross paths in public.

Toris drifted out with the magnet in hand and Alfred was left to finish dinner in peace. He flipped his screen back up and found that Ivan was at the stove, cooking his own meal while watching a Vine compilation. Alfred grinned, keeping up both the front camera and screen views as he dug in so he could laugh along with Ivan. "I smell like beef." A long time passed. They finished eating their dinners at the same time; Alfred imagined the noodle casserole thing Ivan had cooked tasted better than Alfred's weak Starbucks.

Now Ivan had set his phone against the wall to rest while he washed the dishes. He was mumbling peacefully to himself again, but Alfred couldn't tell if he was singing or talking over the sound of swishing water and clinking silverware. After a couple more plates, Ivan's movements slowed, and his gaze slowly climbed back up to the phone screen. The phone camera. "Are you there, Mr. FBI?" he whispered.

Alfred jolted in his seat. It was just like this morning! No warning, no nothing. In English! There was no way Ivan could ever know, of course, that he was being monitored, so the sudden unprompted conversations with a seemingly inanimate object had to stem from Ivan's latest meme obsession. Alfred knew about it.

He was onto them.

"How was your day?" Ivan asked, redirecting his gaze towards the skillet he was scrubbing. "Mine was well. I planted flowers today, and I had a nice conversation with a policeman. Do you talk to police often, Mr. FBI?"

Alfred let his shoulders relax, his mind wandering unintentionally, following Ivan's statements. Coincidentally, his brother Matthew was a DC police officer and friend of the division, but sadly, they didn't have many chances to talk. "What are you doing, man?" Alfred blurted out. "You know this is weird, right?"

Alas, Ivan would never be able to hear Alfred. He had already begun saying something else by the time Alfred was done speaking: "...and work around the people, because it is so fun inside, and there's AC! People are scared to talk to me when I am working outside. But at least I don't have to stand all day." Ivan's voice had gotten quieter, forcing Alfred to pay closer attention. "Do you stand all day when you work, Mr. FBI?"

"Hell no." Alfred kicked the wheels of his chair. "But don't get excited—it's a curse, dude. I would choose a nice garden with fresh air over this stuffy old garage any day."

Ivan was silent and complacent, as if he was really listening, Dora the Explorer-like, and Alfred still couldn't discern if it was endearing or eerie. Ivan's eyelids were halfway shut, a tiny smile gracing his lips. He waited a second more, then nodded. "Is your work boring, Mr. FBI?"

He considered. "Yeah. Not that you're that boring, but…" Alfred let the sentence hang. It wasn't as if it mattered if he finished it, anyway. And the fact was that Ivan was pretty boring. He was the only one ever in his apartment, and went to bed early on Friday nights. On Saturdays he did laundry and cleaned, and every Sunday he napped and called his sisters! "I'm just glad you work so much so I don't have to. Wow, I did not mean for that to sound mean. Um, it's true, though. If you had a computer, things would be differen—"

"Agent Jones?" a recognizable accented voice peeped around the doorway. "Whom are you talking to?"

For the second time that day, Alfred jumped and pushed down his screen, muting Ivan. "No one, good golly, don't scare me like that!"

Chief Arthur Kirkland, Alfred's boss and the head of the black division, didn't appear to notice or care. He stood stiffer than Toris had, clipboard and pencil in hand. "Okay, so, listen. You're mates with Agent Beilschmidt, right? He never checked in with Chief Héderváry and she wanted me to ask—"

Alfred adjusted his glasses, scrunching up his nose. "Which Beilschmidt?"

"The elder." Arthur steeled himself, putting a perplexed finger to his temple. "Apparently, Gilbert's gone MIA."

Alfred crossed his arms. "I haven't seen him since office bowling on Friday. He got his arm stuck in the ball return. Today Héderváry tried to stun me when I checked in! What is up with the gray division?"

Kirkland shook his head to himself, beginning to pace in place. His eyes were as wide as quarters, staring unforgivably at his clipboard as if it held all the answers. "With Carriedo missing already, I'm sure there's foul play to suspect, or even worse—the Mafia. They're on the same team; it's too much of a coincidence. It also means—" He gasped suddenly, raising his crazy blond head in epiphany. Then his voice lowered to a whisper. "It means someone else will be next."

Alfred sat up straighter, suddenly excited. "Whoa, really? Can I help? What case were they working on before they disappeared? Who saw them last? Where—"

"No." Arthur Kirkland was cross. "Not your division. Just let them handle it. Who are you monitoring, again?"

He hesitated. "Ivan. I mean, Braginsky. The...the guy—"

"The Russian spy, right." Arthur stuck his pen behind his ear. "Well. I'll be off, then. Remember to record any—"

"I know, I know." Alfred waved his hand. He felt more and more antsy the longer the Chief was in his space. "Just get on with it. It's fine."

"Right." Arthur frowned and touched his headpiece, half-turned away. "Good day, then. Do your work."

Alfred swiveled back to Ivan, groaning loudly as Arthur departed. Sometimes he felt like he was never taken seriously, but then again, he did sit at a desk and watch a famous memer's life all day. He wasn't sure if such a job should be taken seriously or not.

"I wish I was in a different division," Alfred blurted out. While he had been distracted by Arthur, Ivan had finished washing dishes and was now wiping down his stove and countertops. "I want to do more field agent stuff. My job would be a lot less boring if, instead of hacking all your gadgets and watching you from behind this screen, I could actually go out and spy on you. You know, like, shadow you from around street corners, hiding in the bushes with binoculars, open up the refrigerator door and BAM I'm there!" Alfred slapped his hands on his knees, grinning. "Eat all your food. Make you drop your croissant."

Ivan was still smiling to himself in that charming, unnerving way as he strangled the last drops of water from his rag and hung it over the faucet to dry. "What do you like to do when you're not working, Mr. FBI? Or do you work all the time? I imagine you taking shifts with someone else. Which FBI do I speak to now?"

"Nope, just me. I mean, other black division monitors like Toris sometimes, or Ludwig Beilschmidt if I can convince him, but mostly just me. They all have other guys to watch; y'all suspected criminals are weird. If I wasn't here I would be at NASA." Alfred glanced wistfully at the star chart above his head. "But they wanted me to work on computers, and I wanted to go to space. Diddly darn dang, I love space."

Ivan waited five more seconds before responding. "That's nice."

Alfred nodded fervently. "Damn right it is. Arthur—what a mom—says I waste my talents—"

"I hope you are having an good day, wherever you are," Ivan mused. "I assume you work at FBI headquarters. I walked by that place today. Tomorrow I work in the butterfly garden. It is very close, and my favorite place to work."

"That's rad. I've been there. It's right next to the Museum of Natural—"

"It is next to the Museum of Natural History." Ivan was staring directly at the camera. For the many months Alfred had been Ivan's monitor, he hadn't noticed the purple hue his eyes took on in this dim kitchen glow. "Very beautiful, da? Convenient that most of the Smithsonian buildings are close to each other, all in the same place. I can look at prize artifacts and arrange flowers at the same time."

Alfred was silent. A vision of Ivan with a butterfly perched atop his big nose entered Alfred's mind. He wished Ivan used his phone on the job, wondering what Ivan actually looked like while working. The phone was harder to hack when it was turned completely off; Ivan normally kept it like that during the day while Alfred was away.

"Oh. That reminds me. One moment, Mr. FBI." Ivan walked off out of view.

An idea began to take shape in Alfred's mind, replacing the image of Ivan and the butterfly. Really, allowing Ivan to go that whole slot of time without documentation was a bad strategy, especially if Ivan really was a dangerous Russian intelligence agent. Who knew what he could be up to? And with all the gray division field agents being abducted by the Mafia, apparently, there would be less people to go out and make sure Ivan wasn't, like, putting poison into the plants or something. Alfred could step up and ask. Alfred wanted to see Ivan irl.

And speaking of Ivan, where the heck was he?

Alfred instinctively leaned forward before forgetting it was impossible to see around the kitchen through Ivan's phone. He was positioned so he was staring at Ivan's undecorated refrigerator. He couldn't even hear Ivan, though he remembered Ivan had excused himself.

Ivan never did this. After dishes he would always make himself a lunch for the next day, spend another thirty minutes online, read a little of the book he was slowly working through, check his phone again, and then get ready for bed. Alfred stared frustratedly at the screen, willing it to shift. "Hey, get back over here!" he protested. "You can't just leave me hanging like this!"

From the other room came a thump and a crinkle of plastic that sounded like an empty Doritos bag.

"Ivan!" Alfred huffed. "Don't make me do it!" He brought up a tab of the phone's controls. His finger hovered over the mouse. "Alright, you asked for it. Hear that? I'm doing it, Braginsky!" He pressed a button, making the phone burst into a frantic buzzing.

A few seconds later Ivan reentered the kitchen, his soft boi face appearing innocent and concerned through the screen. Alfred shut the phone's buzzing off, crossing his arms smugly. "Explain yourself."

Ivan, however, didn't say anything. He picked up the phone, opened it, and went straight to his meme account. Alfred felt betrayed when Ivan didn't speak any more, just swiped through his feeds. "So close," he mumbled to himself, having switched back to Russian. Alfred was a bit startled by this, as well; if Ivan knew (or thought he knew) that no one was going to hear and respond to him, why had he been using English when he spoke to "Mr. FBI?" Alfred accepted it was just another of his quirks that made Alfred's job easier. But it signified that their conversation was now over.

"Okay, whatever, it's chill, then." Alfred glanced at the time. He still had a few long hours to go before Ivan clocked in for the night. He had been caught off-guard by the unprompted half-conversation, and now was embarrassed at how he had whined about being ignored. Deep down, Alfred didn't really believe Ivan was a criminal or a spy. Criminals didn't get drunk on vodka home alone and laugh so pleasantly. Spies didn't jump on their beds in excitement whenever it snowed and knit their own oven mitts. Ivan was as ordinary and unassuming and simple as one could be, and immigrant or otherwise he had absolutely no reason to be on the FBI black list.

So Alfred sighed and settled into his cubicle for another evening of memes, same as always. He waited, watched and waited, stole food from Toris and waited, but it turned out that Mr. FBI didn't even get a "Goodnight."

.

Ivan had no intention of telling his phone goodnight. In fact, he had been reading (and posting) so many FBI memes lately that he left his phone on his bed under the covers in paranoia while he went to the bathroom. But not because it was gross to have someone watching him do his business, which it was. It was because under his sink, squeezed behind the water pipe, was a laptop computer no one knew about but himself and an invisible faction of Russian hackers. Stored on that computer was vital information he had been slowly leeching from the Smithsonian Institute. He didn't know what the circle would do with the info when he sent it, wrapped up with ribbons and bows over a deep web email provider, but he knew if he didn't do his job there would be consequences. He made sure to flush the toilet and run the water on his way out.

Ivan hopped into bed and picked his phone back up, humming as if nothing had happened. He refused to look at the camera lens again, but chided himself. If someone really was watching him, he would know. He distracted himself by checking his meme account once more.

Ivan buried his body under the massive pile of blankets, turning off the lamp and letting his phone screen be the only source of light in the room. He had read that blue light before bed destroyed the eyes, but figured he was already too far gone in that direction to fix anything now. Someone had commented "Congratulations! Heart emoji, fireworks emoji, clapping hands emoji," on his most recent post. Ivan's breaths picked up as he doubled back to check his follower count, gasping when he saw it.

He had broken one million.

.

I have nothing to say for myself.

[picturebookmakers]

Peter Elliott & Kitty Crowther

In this post, Peter and Kitty talk about their collaboration on ‘FARWEST’ – a wildly original picturebook which is based on an old French expression. First published in French by Pastel–l’école des loisirs, there are more foreign editions to come.

Visit Peter Elliott’s website Visit Kitty Crowther’s Instagram page

Peter: Since I was a kid, I’ve been a musician. I write songs. And since childhood, I’ve received a great deal of pleasure from drawing. So I carried on as a musician and became an illustrator, and then later, an author.

I wrote FARWEST as I write lyrics for a song. It always starts with a simple idea. In this case, it was the French expression, ‘qui va à la chasse perd sa place’ (why this expression, I don’t know). The literal English translation is ‘he who goes hunting loses his place’, though I think ‘move your feet, lose your seat’ works better in English.

I simply asked myself what would happen for real if somebody leaves their place and another one takes it...

I thought it would be nice to welcome the guy back anyway, like: “Hey dude, take a seat; you’re welcome!”

Very quickly, I realised this is a perfect way to meet people. And I love to meet people. So... Thinking of all this, I let the rhythm of the words lead the game. I wanted to make the text sound like music.

And finally (the same night) I made sketches for the illustrations. At that moment, I was making the book on my own.

A few days later, I sent ‘Qui va à la chasse’ to Kitty (only the text, not my sketches). I wanted to know her opinion on what I wrote and if she thought it was good enough to present to Odile, our publisher at Pastel.

Kitty and I have known each other for a long time. We were at the same art school, Saint Luc in Brussels, and we’ve shared the same publisher for over twenty years.

Also, I’d seen Kitty dancing back when I was playing live with my band, Busty Duck. This is the reason why I asked her to illustrate the cover of our album ‘Zoomorphic’ in 2009 (our third and final album; the band isn’t together anymore).

I think that Kitty and I have a particular relationship to music. Maybe this is why she felt the rhythm in my text so strongly.

I was really surprised when Kitty asked me if I was okay to let her illustrate the story. I replied: “you’re welcome!” And Kitty decided to do the story with cowboys and to name it FARWEST.

During the making of the book, Kitty and I were with our publisher Odile at Kitty’s house, to see the sketches for FARWEST. It was amazing to discover how my words had been interpreted by Kitty’s brain. How her imagination had devoured the story.

On that day, I met this magnificent red horse and Jonas, a funny dog who is the link between the humans. I also saw this sketchbook page with Jeff, Jim and Koko playing music around a fire:

Odile and Kitty suggested that I compose the music from that picture. Kitty illustrated my words with pictures, and now I could illustrate Kitty’s picture with music. I loved the idea!

A few days later, my father gave me a tenor banjo. That night, I sat on the floor of my workroom, which is also where I record my songs. I lit a candle (my fire), played a few chords and I started to sing. With the lyrics, I wanted to talk about refugees and all the lost people. And to claim that the only possible answer is “welcome.”

Today, I just can’t believe how beautiful the book is. And I’m dazzled by the strength and the truth that I feel in Kitty’s pictures – just as I was back at art school, when I first saw her work pinned to the wall of the studio.

FARWEST. I wrote a story. Kitty made a world of it.

Kitty: It’s nice to be back on Picturebook Makers. Thank you for inviting us to talk about this wild, crazy cowboy book. I am super-proud of it.

As Peter mentioned, we have known each other for a long time. We often write to each other. I’ve always loved the way Peter writes his emails and I encouraged him to write novels. So one day, he asked me to read one of his texts and tell him what I thought. I fell for it. I loved the rhythm.

He sent it in March 2015, so thank you for your patience, Peter!

When I read a text, I must be able to see the pictures in my head. It has to take me on a journey; I have to travel. And it has to be very different from what I do with my own books. I love writing; I always feel it’s a different muscle that’s working. And I think that one lifetime won’t be enough to write all the stories that I want to tell. So, I’m not usually keen to illustrate other people’s words, even if they’re nice. With FARWEST, I didn’t say yes to please Peter, but because I believe very strongly in this story. I need a lot of freedom and Peter knows this.

I thought it would be too obvious to have ‘Qui va à la chasse perd sa place’ as the title, and Peter agreed to change it to FARWEST. I’m a big fan of Tarantino, old Westerns, trappers, wildlife, Jack London, Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, and all the others. And now the Westworld TV series.

In this book, there’s an accumulation of people. And it can be read on different levels (I hope).

You could see it as an immigration story. Or the fear of losing your seat. I remember as a child, it was always hard for me to find my seat. To find my place.

During the recent American election, I felt sick. So much hate. So much lack of wisdom. Hardly any empathy. All my bones were hurting, thinking of my ancestors invading America all those years ago. The descendants of those people. Hunger for gold and land. Escaping misery.

Millions of Native Americans died. Pushed out from their lands. Killed or consumed by illness. They were treated the worst way you could imagine.

I recommend reading the beautiful words of Russell Means, a Native American activist and actor (1939-2012): ‘If You’ve Forgotten the Names of Clouds, You’ve Lost Your Way: An Introduction to American Indian Thought and Philosophy’.

It’s frightening that we hardly take care of nature’s guardian tribe. We just create eager people. More is never enough.

The story of FARWEST starts on the title page. A Native American, drawn in charcoal, sitting on his horse. Beside him is his dog. It’s a black and white page, like this would have happened a long time ago.

(I asked Peter to add a horse and a dog. It amused me so much to see this supposedly loyal dog changing master all the time!)

So, you have to create the link between the title page and the following page. I’ve always been fascinated by the passing of time in books. Page one and page two; what happens in-between?

You have three characters at the start of the story. Two white people and one Native American. It made me smile to draw the Native American with a costume – almost like he would be more educated than the other two. Playing with visual language.

I wanted to draw big landscapes. I think it’s very good for your spirit to see far into the distance. It opens your brain up to possibilities.

I had to choose the person who replaces the little hero of the book when he goes out hunting. It was hard to find this person. An African boy? A Native American boy? A Chinese boy? A girl?

Then I was looking at this incredible animation film from Max Fleischer...

I am totally fascinated by how Koko the Clown moves and dances. Such beautiful art!

Anyway, inspired by Koko, this yellow guy showed up.

My Koko has an emoji face, or smiley. People all around the world use them.

With the way he’s dressed, Koko seems to come from the music hall.

Peter insisted on no guns in this book. You think of cowboys and you see guns. But when you see the situation with gun laws in the USA, it’s really frightening. It’s easier to buy a gun than to publish an edgy book for children. Ha! Guns are like drugs/tobacco/alcohol/petrol/human trafficking and all the rest, just to feed the appetite of angry-black-suited greedy men and women (I’m sure these are shortcut thoughts, but hey!).

The next character who arrives is a woman. Rosa Parks.

For the ones who don’t know her, she is a famous African-American civil rights activist. She sat at the front of a bus where African-American people were forbidden to sit at that time. She refused to give up her seat. Very brave her.

With the next ‘names’ that arrived in the story, we tried to find people who work/worked for freedom and humanity.

So there’s Russell Means (read about him earlier in this post).

Then there’s Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (1864–1922; her pen name was Nellie Bly). She was known for her pioneering journalism, including her 1887 exposé on the conditions of asylum patients at Blackwell’s Island in New York, and her report of her 72-day trip around the world.

Patti Smith. Because she is such a beautiful punk.

Martin Luther King. Because he had a dream.

Calamity Jane. The letters to her daughter – even though it was later discovered that they weren’t really written by Calamity Jane – are amazing.

Django from the Tarantino film, based on the legendary African-American Marshall, Bass Reeves.

I love it that the sweet cowboy says: “At the end of the day, I may have lost my seat, but there’s still plenty of space.”

(You might have noticed that all the characters in FARWEST have something in common: their nose! Little round black noses, like Micky Mouse or in Picsou magazine, the Beagle Boys or Felix the Cat. It made me smile to do this.)

Okay, to finish, I'd like to talk a little bit about the animation I made for Peter’s song (see the video earlier in the post).

Peter suggested we use the picture of the gang singing and playing music, and that we could make the fire move...

But I was afraid we would get bored after a while.

I really love animated GIFs – hypnotic ones, like the bison by Eadweard Muybridge.

Muybridge was an English photographer. I recently discovered that he emigrated to the USA in 1850. And in 1868, his large photographs of Yosemite Valley made him world-famous!

But Muybridge is best known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion in 1877 and 1878. A few years before this, a French physiologist and inventor called Étienne-Jules Marey wrote that a galloping horse had all four hooves off the ground for a brief moment, and that the way horses were depicted in some paintings was wrong. I always find it fascinating when art mixes with science and discovery.

Through his pioneering work, Muybridge proved that Marey was right. So thank you to Mr Muybridge (even if it’s said that he killed the lover of his wife and was never punished). And thank you, Monsieur Marey. Because I think that the horse is one of the hardest things to draw, and I always wanted to try to understand it. In fact, horses run on their nails!

With my animation, I wanted to make it as easy as possible to do, and I used the same technique as the wonderful artist, William Kentridge: repeatedly erasing and reworking charcoal drawings.

That’s all folks!

Content © Peter Elliott and Kitty Crowther. Post edited by dPICTUS.

‘Wonderful People’: Lyrics and music by Peter Elliott. Animation by Kitty Crowther and Sam McCullen. Music recorded by Peter Elliott at Constellation 8. Mixed and mastered by Fabrice Lefèvre at Born2Groove studio.

Buy this picturebook

FARWEST

Peter Elliott & Kitty Crowther

Pastel–l’école des loisirs, Belgium, 2018

The weather was beautiful that morning. “I am going hunting,” I announced. As I went out, followed by my dog, Jonas, I greeted Jeff and Jim. It was my very first time hunting and it wasn’t that easy!

Later that day, I returned home, opened the door... and I realised that someone had taken my place!

Jeff said it plainly to me: “Move your feet, lose your seat! There’s no two ways about it!”

[sam-eulde]

The Greatest Showman

I usually don’t make movie reviews but I feel like this movie deserves so much more than the critics let on. Yes, there are flaws and let me say those first in every sections but there are good things too. I am not a movie expert but as an aspiring movie critic, here are my thoughts.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Plot and Characters:

To be honest, it is cliche and cheesy for the most part. Rags to riches, the classic forbidden love (2 of them, actually) and the feelsy good ‘I finally found a family’ trope. BUT I love my feelsy good 'I finally found a family’ trope. I just wish that they gave the circus folks more focus so that I could see how tight their bond is, but I did feel it in the 'This is Me’ and 'from Now On’ Song Numbers.

I am going to compare this to some stuff that I have seen so far.

Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus have a different genre overall but the thing is they focused on the Circus Folks, making us invested in them. We saw their background, their history and why they joined the circus. In my opinion, the 'This is Me’ song number would be more powerful if they did the same. I considered the running time of the movie too. Maybe they did not get the chance to put the background of these characters because the movie was getting too long. That’s why I agree with Beyond the Trailer in her review here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nriwcs4UZHc , that this should have been a Broadway musical first. Maybe they would have the time to do the character focus thing.

I also considered that the movie is called 'The Greatest Showman’ not 'The Greatest Circus’ or something. Which is fair. Speaking of which, P.T Barnum reminds me a lot of A. Hamilton. (I am referring to the character in the movie, not the real P.T. Barnum.) Besides their aspirations and visions, they are basically the same person. A once, poor young orphan who married a rich woman (who is basically the best of wives, best of women *wink*), learned to stand up and strive for what they wanted and got overwhelmed with success that they lost sight of their true vision because of this one woman. The difference is Barnum snapped out of it. (out of topic, kinda: the fact that there is a Philip in both made me chuckle. Good thing TGS Philip survived lol.)

I get that the critics are whining about how P.T. Barnum is not realistic. He is not a good person in real life. We get that but it said 'Inspired by true Story’, not 'Based on True Story’. Think of the movie like an AU where Barnum is a better person. If you are looking for a realistic portrayal or anything about the real P.T. Barnum, watch documentaries or read any articles about him. This movie is completely fictional. Never expect anything realistic in a musical, people. I personally just enjoyed the shit out of the P.T. Barnum  that was presented to me. Hugh Jackman was AMAZING in this role. You can’t say that he did not enjoy playing The greatest Showman. We don’t deserve him, honestly. I am praising him because if he wasn’t as enthusiastic as he is, the movie won’t be as amazing. Even though J. Franco won that award, you are the winner of our hearts, sir. Zac and Zendaya have great chemistry on screen. I wish we focused a biiit more on these two and their relationship as well. Their love story is nothing new but, again, if you feel the love of those characters, it is presented well.

I think they had enough focus on the Barnum family. Again, reminds me so much of  the Hamilton family. I have nothing to say here, honestly. Miss Rebecca Ferguson was great at being Jenny Lind. Shame that she did not really sing Never Enough. I don’t know the whole story but my guess is, she can;t hit that high note or her voice is just not as powerful? Why not Miss Loren Allred as Jenny? Maybe she looks too young for Mister Jackman? Who knows? Like I said before, I wish that they focused more on the Circus folks but Miss Keala Settle was sassy and fantastic. Her voice was fantastic. Mister Sam Humphrey was cute and amazing too. i love that he’s the first one that Barnum discovered. I just wish that they did not lower his voice that much. I saw this one video of him and I think he’s fine having that voice in the movie.

Visuals and Choreography: I have nothing bad to say in this section because EVERYTHING WAS GORGEOUS. Sure, the steps might not be nothing new but the way they are presented makes up for that. The part/song where the choreography shined, in my opinion, is 'Rewrite the Stars’. Considering that Zendaya did most of her stunts, it was a big bonus too. She and Zac made that big stage small with just the two of them on it. They got creative with the ropes and the other things that they had.

The choreography of Mister bartender in 'The Other Side’ was brilliant. If you made a movie where almost everyone is praising an extra with no name, you are doing something right. 'This is Me’ has this aggression to it and it made me feelings aggressive too, which is good. The other songs have nice dance numbers as well but I have favorites and those are those three.

The costumes are creative and beautiful. Zendaya with pink hair and violet costume is fabulous. I like Miss Keala’s dress too but I feel awkward whenever she does this one dance step. Maybe that’s just me though, I don’t know. Oh, Miss Rebecca’s wardrobe was just elegant and pretty. Like, I want those dresses, stat. It’s funny how she always appears so angelic since she wears white so much lol.

The settings are nice too. My favorites are the bar, that stage where zac and zendaya trapezed (?) in and the rooftops because they showed how they can get creative in those spaces.

Music: This soundtrack was gorgeous. Some may shrug it off as forgettable and some may say that some songs are unnecessary but to me, it’s the lyrics  that always catches my eyes. Lemme try to break down the songs and what happened during these numbers.

The Greatest Show An obligatory opening number and a good one at that. It’s not my favorite (am not a fan of opening numbers in ANY musicals though so that’s just me) but I do find myself humming and bobbing my head when it comes on. They pulled out their nice and flashy visuals for this one, which makes sense. It is introducing you to their circus.

A Million Dreams This introduces you to the character and the aspirations that young Barnum has. As the song progresses, it became what young Barnum held onto even when going through shit in his life.  this song is also the transition of young Barnum to being Adult Barnum. it also shows that Adult Barnum still have bigger dreams and he’s not there yet.

A Million Dreams (reprise) Now, I don’t really consider reprises an actual number since it has the same tune and lyrics (mostly) but what I like about them is how the characters progressed over time. Are they still feeling these feelings? What this number did was it reminded Barnum what his true dreams were by his own daughters. Simple as that.

Come Alive I think this is already obvious. It’s about opening their Circus to the public and how fun it is for the people who are seeing it. The visual and choreography are beautiful as always. It kinda sounds like a Michael jackson song, not gonna lie.

The Other Side One of my favorites because of the creativity with the glasses and shots. The glass hitting and siliding on the table adds to it and I am glad that some as in the soundtrack. It is a negotiation music number. This is a big deal because Carlyle is risking a lot in the deal. it is hard to break out of the routine that you are used to. In a way, it is an intro to Carlyle’s character. My only problem with this is it sounds so Pop? Hearing Hugh jackman sing it is like watching my dad sing an HSM song, which it weird. But the bridge part makes up for it. I love that bridge.

Never Enough Jenny is a singer so of course she gets a song. But during this one, seeing Hugh’s expression just made it more powerful than it is. Miss Rebecca was alone in that stage but Miss Loren’s voice filled the room and filled every empty space. It’s just so beautiful. They could have made this song number just be Miss Rebecca singing but it also showed 2 things. Barnum’s expression. He was moved along with the crowd and his song describes him. Even after all his success, he still wants more. Charity saw this and judging by her expression, she was saddened/scared of what Barnum might be thinking but she trusts him and his promises and clapped for Jenny. The second thing is Philip and Anne’s relationship. the song also describes it. Just being beside each other, seeing each other was never enough. They wanted to progress but it showed that Philip is still afraid of what other people will think of them. (I heard from a reviewer that it is like a taylor swift song and I was like dude, just because she repeated 'Never’ doesn’t mean it’s already like a Taylor Swift song lol)

This is Me This song won the award. yay~ Good props for them. The message of this was simple yet inspiring. The beats and the tune made it more powerful. Kudos to Miss Keala again for giving her best performance in this. I just wish that there are more focus on the circus folks like, maybe, Barnum not really paying attention to them, a family moment or one of them being attacked by a protester or smth. Little moments like those building up to this song would make it more powerful. That aside, this is beautiful as it is. fighting for being free, being who you are. It just hits me all the time.

Rewrite the stars this one had a build up to it so it did make it more special. they had a scene prior to this song and it made it better. The song is catchy and the visual is not colorful but it is creative with their props and I loved it very much. Zac singing made it feel like I’m watching 'Breaking free’ or something. I just love it. Zendaya’s stunts were amazing. It has a simple thing that it wants to convey. Forbidden love. Boy wants girl, girl reminds him that it can’t be. That’s it. Without it, I don’t think you’ll be invested with their reationship.

Tightrope now, everyone may have mixed feelings about this but Miss Michelle’s voice was just so pretty in this one. The downside is that onscreen, you will see montages, which may take away your attention to the lyrics of the song or, maybe, the song itself. Think of this as a milder version of Hamilton’s 'Burn’. Feeling of being betrayed, broken promises and such. the difference is Charity is not really angry in this one. She still hopes that Burnam will remember how they were before like she is doing at the beginning of this song. I just think this song is underappreciated, which is a shame. I love this one too.

Never Enough (Reprise) Well, another reprise. In the original one, Jenny is singing about what some people in the room are feeling. In this one it feels like she realized that she has been singing about Barnum all along. She realized that he never loved her the way she loved him. in a way, she’s now singing about herself too. She may be the character we have close to a villain but i feel her in this one.

From Now On This is like a Gospel song but I love gospel songs so.. That’s a plus. At first I was skeptical about this song but it got catchier and catchier the more I hear it. We are also back at the bar, which is great. They have more people in it and it was amazing. It’s a party and I just wanna dance with them. this is simply about Barnum realizing his mistakes and what he would do to make it right. So basically, it is promise again.

So in conclusion, are some of the songs unnecessary? Not exactly. They all conveyed strong feelings at certain plot points. Also, they only have 11 music numbers. For a musical movie, I think that is a decent amount. La la Land had the same amount plus 4. Broadway musical to film had a lot more so I think It is just right. Are they out of place? With the setting, of course they are.  Is that bad? Not in my opinion. If you are talking about out of place  soundtrack and setting, just look at Hamilton. But it does not automatically make it bad. You can’t just hate on the soundtrack to be honest. It is one of its charms. The film is trying to tackle every character that they could but it failed that we only got a glimpse of what they might be trying to do. Its heart is in the right place and you could see what it wants to do. It wanna make you feel good after watching it and it worked for me, and a lot others too. It’s just there were things that they could have done if they had more running time. (i guess you could say that it is 'Never Enough’ *wink*)You could see that the actors are enjoying what they are doing and for a first movie of a new director, this was pretty darn impressive. The passion is there, the talent and skills are there. Besides the lack of character exploration aside from Barnum’s, it was a great movie. Visually, this was a treat.  I just wish that it has more recognition. If I hadn’t seen gifs or fanarts of it, I would not have heard of so, the fans are doing a great job too. A great way to end 2017 OR start 2018, depending when you saw it. To be honest, it looks like a nice Christmas film. I could see that I would watch it with kids during Christmas. I love it.

[the-chaotic-neutral]

I’m so unprepared this year! Due to a lot going on in life, I didn’t have time to watch either of the semi-finals or even pregame with the official music videos! So that means I’m going into the finals 100% cold. I feel both unprepared and excited. I haven’t gone into finals without research and preconceived judgement before. I have no idea what each country’s songs will be like or what style their stage shows may take.

So here’s to art, entertainment, and surprises! 🥂

Opening performance by TK. Last year’s winner, Salvador Sobral, championed authenticity (sometimes to the ire of other contestants and fans) and it feels like

I’m watching the US broadcast this year, which is presented by Logo and hosted by Ross Mathews and Shangela. Since Eurovision is still relatively new to the USA, and very new to Shangela, this broadcast is a perfect entry for American viewers. Ross explains the basics along with the idea of the Big 5[foot]The Big 5 are the countries that have contributed the most amount of money to Eurovision which guarantees them a spot in the finals without competing in either night of semi-finals. They are [/foot]. It’s also available as a live stream on Logo’s Youtube channel regardless of your TV package, so it’s accessible to literally anyone to watch.

01. Ukraine – Mélovin “Under the Ladder” A vampire rises. The song isn’t great, and the performance suddenly loses some of its exoticism when it becomes apparent that he’s singing in muddled English and not Ukrainian. It gains some back when his entire set catches on fire (on purpose).

02. Spain – Amaia & Alfred “Tu canción”

Super cute! Simple staging and great chemistry between these two makes this performance so damn endearing! But they’re really early and not much of a spectacle, so I worry they’ll get buried by later performances.

03. Slovenia – Lea Sirk “Hvala, ne!” She’s trying to throw down tough and maybe come off like Pink, but that’s hard when she’s got a huge, goofy grin on the whole time.

04. Lithuania – Ieva Zasimauskaitė “When We’re Old” A slow, sweet ballad with holograms. Holograms can be a real risk in a show. It can be a neat effect, like when Australia used it for a Minority Report computer interface, and it can be the show-stealer, like when it’s a nude clone with wolves. This came of as middling, especially because she seemed to reign in her own vocals. It felt more like a verse of a song rather than a full performance.

05. Austria – Cesár Sampson “Nobody but You” Great job utilizing the stage and lighting as a single performer, but this song is not up for the job.

06. Estonia – Elina Nechayeva “La forza” Estonia has a history of visually impressive performances, and this is not a disappointment. With this, the world comes one step closer to the Diva from The Fifth Element. Her voice is great and her dress is all projection mapping! This is how you make a strong impression while pushing the vocals to the forefront.

07. Norway – Alexander Rybak “That’s How You Write a Song” Shoobidoo dap dap, shoobay doop hay, that’s how you write a song.

No it’s not. This an adorable performance with incredibly inaccurate instructions on song writing. Major props on playing the violin, and the whole thing is really endearing, but I think it’s too breezy to stick in this competition.

08. Portugal – Cláudia Pascoal[h] “O jardim” This is the home team, the current champions, so they have a lot to live up to. I don’t know if it’s authentic enough for Sobral but I’m loving it.

Anyone else get a total Lola vibe (from Degrassi) from her? These are not the same person.

09. United Kingdom – SuRie “Storm” I’m getting Annie Lennox redux. Her song is not the Tim Minchin song, disappointingly, but this is one of the best UK contestants in years. Many of the Big 5 countries, which can go straight to the finals, seem to phone it in or at least submit very generic pop. This is the first time I can remember actually enjoying the UK contestant.

10. Serbia – Sanja Ilić & Balkanika “Nova deca” (Нова деца) Amazons and the grim specter of death! And discotheque! Unfortunately the visuals are the best part of this group. Their song is meh and I don’t think I’ll even be able to remember what they sounded like the next morning.

11. Germany – Michael Schulte “You Let Me Walk Alone” Really touching, personal ballad. The stylized screen show behind him came off as far more effective than the holograms. I was really surprised at how honestly the whole thing came off touching. The song and accompanying performance are all about Schulte losing his father, and that personal connection does a lot to elevate this from just another pop ballad to a standout act. Also Schulte looks like Philippe and I had a son together, so I am very proud of my boy.

12. Albania – Eugent Bushpepa “Mall” This is clearly a grunge or metal band performing their first ballad before they go soft. Okay song, but could have been more specific to Albania or the band performing it or, well, more memorable in any way. And the disconnect between the look and the sound is jarring, disappointing, and lackluster.

13. France – Madame Monsieur “Mercy” Velcome to Sprokets. Just a reminder that this isn’t Germany’s submission. Okay, enough about their look. There’s a fundamental problem with this song here, though the song itself is good. It’s a really good song about real life baby born on a ship of refugees fleeing to Europe. This song would have been great on an album, but in a music and performance competition the nuances get smoothed out and the striking visuals take, no pun intended, center stage. I’ll probably come back to them as a band, but think that they’ll be lost when the voting starts.

14. Czech Republic – Mikolas Josef “Lie to Me” The year is 1994. The soundtrack is The Mask. The costume is Minkus from Boy Meets World. The inspiration is Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The performer was having fun, so I guess that’s nice. And that’s really all I can say about it.

15. Denmark – Rasmussen “Higher Ground” Do you like vikings? Do you like Silent Bob? Do you like when people take a theme (in this case, All Aboard) 100% literally? Well, have I got the group for you!

16. Australia – Jessica Mauboy “We Got Love” And the Bland Award goes to… The only words I can think of to describe this is “Europop” and “gyrations”. There’s nothing more to say.

17. Finland – Saara Aalto “Monsters” The remix of this song could be a club hit, but not this version. As it is now, there’s not enough bass or and energy for a club and not enough complexity for a pop hit.

18. Bulgaria – Equinox “Bones” I can’t be the only one that sees this guy and thinks black Jack Black.

The song itself was not all that great, but as a group their voices sounded great together. Similar to France, I’m not a fan of this one but I am intrigued enough to keep an ear out for the rest of their singles.

19. Moldova – DoReDoS “My Lucky Day” They’re introduced as a folk-pop group but… well, that must mean something else in Moldova. They have the presentation of a Laugh-In skit and the emotional range of a Bar Mitzvah DJ team. Hard pass.

20. Sweden – Benjamin Ingrosso “Dance You Off”

SCENE I. A desert place

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First witch

Performance of Bieber

Second witch

Face of Ephron

Third witch

Song of Timberlake

I’m assuming that’s how this performer was summoned. An amalgam of safe bets, it’s no surprise that the song is generic yet appealing. Coupled with a great use of stage lighting, I don’t really like this one but I’m betting it’ll be a contender.

21. Hungary – AWS “Viszlát nyár” Yet another country who’s music submission seems to be off by a decade or so. The look screams Fall Out Boy but the music is more of a mid to late 90s pop metal. Whatever their inspiration, I spent way too much time trying to remember what forgettable bands they reminded me of and had no time to actually pay attention to them.

22. Israel – Netta “Toy” Yasss! Netta! And then… Okay, so I am very much not crazy about the Asian appropriation, but I’m here for everything else. The whole kimono and maneki-neko motif is just not sitting right. Please, you can do but. But her amazing sneer, the bizarre incorporation of the chicken dance, and the dance-able Tel Aviv music is killing it! Also, it’s great to see my homeland with something that’s not some punchable dude-bros on a beach.

23. Netherlands – Waylon “Outlaw in ‘Em” When you think of the Netherlands, what comes to mind? High taxes? State supplied health care and other services? How about Ted Nugent tributes and awkward krumping? Well, it will from now on.

24. Ireland – Ryan O’Shaughnessy “Together” This is the reason that China lost the finale broadcast rights. The musicians are recreating the Broadway show Once while a So You Think You Can Dance routine plays out with two dancers. Honestly, I kind of loved this. It was intimate and sincere and lovingly executed. One of my favorites of the night.

25. Cyprus – Eleni Foureira “Fuego” Oh no! Cyprus has read from the Necronomicon and opened up a rift in time! Ash Williams, come save us! This is Cyprus expect a danceable track. Because that’s what you’ll get. Also, every year there seems to be a Beyonce impersonator. Just saying.

26. Italy – Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro “Non mi avete fatto niente” I immediately see this one as a real contender. Not because I love the song (I don’t) but because it’s engineered with brutal efficiency. It perfectly balances poignant lyrics, earnest performance, and a solid song. The lyrics come up on the video screen with stylized fonts, rolling through various languages in a brutal and brilliant method of bringing in the world audience. You could maybe find a performance that is better in each category, but none so perfectly balanced across the board as Italy’s.

And now we wait for the votes to come in and be tallied. There’s always a lot of confusion about how they work so I’ll break it down to the best of my knowledge for y’all.

The jury votes. Each competing country has their own jury of voters that rank a top ten list. Then points are portioned out to their picks, with a top 11th award getting 12 points.

Public votes. These are given out based on the call-in voting from across Europe. This are announced second as they completely reorder the competitors.

If that sounds convoluted, it is. And purposefully so. The system was designed to draw out the suspense of the announcement as long as possible. So really the jury votes set up a baseline that can be completely overturned.

And impressions of this year? Well, I’m happy that the “white dress and a ballad” phase seems to be over. No clear style came out as a successor so maybe next year we’ll see a clear group-think strategy emerge.

My top picks, in no particular order, are:

Estonia

Portugal

Germany

Israel

Ireland

And I want to draw attention to a few more musical performers from Portugal, that weren’t in the competition but performed in the opening and closing segments. Mariza, Sara Tavares, and Mayra Andrade all caught my attention. So if you’re actually looking for new music in the midst of this spectacle, those are a few people I’d like to draw your attention to.

After an insane amount of re-ordering, and a long stretch when it looked like bland-as-bland-can-be Austria might win, Israel won! I am so happy, as that was personal pick. I figured Italy would take a high place in the public vote, and they did with 3rd place.

However, I think I would have preferred that Germany (my precious boy) would have won, as I do worry about Israel hosting Eurovision and all of the possible repercussions. Between the security issues of the people to go, and the political statements of the people who won’t, it’s going to be interesting. So now we can all revel in the greatness of Toy (if not the Orientalism of the performance) for a year. In the meantime, I’ll start a betting pool for how many countries will pull out of Eurovision between now and then.

NEXT TIME IN JERUSALEM! !השלב הבא בירושלים

I watch Eurovision because I know you didn't! I was totally unprepared this year. Still had a great time, though. Eurovision 2018: Finals I'm so unprepared this year! Due to a lot going on in life, I didn't have time to watch either of the semi-finals or even pregame with the official music videos!

[redscullyrevival]

Take You There: Vid Notes

This here post will mostly focus on inspiration, the process, and some technical stuff for my vid Revolutionary Girl Utena “Take You There”. 

‘Cause I’ll tell ya what; I may have spent months working on this dumb thing but in a years time I will absolutely be like “LOL why’d I do that?”

I don’t even know where to begin talking about how I got to where this vid ended up. It’s a messy ball of so many things. 

Finding a song was not even remotely difficult thanks to Mr. Baz Luhrmann. Dude always pulls through with soundtracks that I’m cool listening to for a full year non-stop every single time and The Get Down has been no exception.

Miguel’s “Cadillac” is a sampled and refitted version of Hot Chocolate’s “Heaven’s in the Backseat of my Cadillac” and is a complete euphonious joy. But while the lyrics are good for an amused chuckle thanks to the creepy car obsessed Akio Ohtori, they weren’t exactly enough of a pull to justify the amount of work required for the vid. Five minutes and fifteen seconds in life is nothing, but as far as a song goes it’s on the longer side of pop and in the vidding world it’s a goddamn eternity - and that’s after I had edited it down some.

The real reason I even bothered with this monster of a song is for it’s ending, which is jazzy, breezy, and just a little bit sad. I figured the later half of the song was were I’d put my vid’s soul. I, uhh, have no idea if I’ve actually pulled such a thing off mind you, but that’s expected.

For those of you who don’t fan vid, here is the thing: Eventually you get to a point of no longer being able to discern if what you’re toiling for is any good - which is horrifying but that’s just what working on a lengthy long term project is like a lot of the time. Your enthusiasm winds down and you enter the chasm, which is when you have to trust that your idea is solid enough to pull you through your own disassociation with having heard the same song and seen the same images so many times they no longer hold any meaning.

Going in I knew that hallow chasm feeling was going to be the hardest part (I’m an idiot who picked a five minute song after all) so I outlined the shit out of what I wanted to do. When in doubt, when lost, I’d consult my outline and notes. I even took extreme measures and only ripped the first few episodes and then the Akio and Apocalypse Arcs of the show. I didn’t want to be tempted to dive off from the planned idea and waste time combing footage (I already have to fight for editing time as it is). And that pained me and scared me. Having limited footage meant I needed to really prioritize and focus. Ugh, ew.     

My biggest visual inspiration are those old VHS recordings of the Revolutionary Girl Utena musicals. Back in the days before youtube the best most of us could hope for peaking a glimpse at the stage productions was to wait a full day on dail-up downloading a horrible quality clip from a fan site. The humor of using all that new technology for mere glimpses of grainy off tracking glory wasn’t lost on me back then and once I ripped my beautiful limited edition DVDs I slowly became convinced the best idea I’ve ever had would be to take this pristine cleaned up footage, to make the best I’ve ever seen Utena look (until those blurays are mine anyways!) and drag it back down to fuck-all quality.   

I stand by that choice but like many of my best ideas it was also kinda dumb. The process of making “from scratch” effects in adobe premiere pro is a doozy and I know from experience that that’s why Sony Vegas has such a following; it’s presets aren’t total shit.

But, eh, what can I say? Getting the footage to look how I wanted wasn’t hard necessarily, just a time consuming vacuum that created a rendering hellscape! 

The majority of my footage has been adjusted to look “old”. Overlaying tracking footage onto images does not give an accurate feeling of “old”, what it does is make nice footage look like it has bad tracking on top of it. As such, the entire video has had a noise overlay added to it (in varying degrees of grainy, as needed) and the overwhelming majority of my used clips have been ‘adjusted’. 

A quick rundown for posterity’s sake: I had to copy a clip three times and with each copy assign a RGB value, blend them together, then adjust the most bottom, the original clip, to be larger than those above it - a simple but somewhat tedious method of giving footage a saturated, worn, slightly off look. 

The next big thing was to overlay that sweet, sweet tracking footage. Big thanks to the weirdos out there who are sharing blank footage of VHS players being shit. Love you guys. The easy thing would have been to simply overlay tracking footage in it’s entirety and let it be but I’m controlling as all hell and had in mind specific tracking visuals for every damn use I had for tracking. So, I amassed a sturdy collection of tracking footage and combed through them marking which squiggles and wiggles I liked best then found homes for them peppered throughout my vid. Yikes Scoob!

This vid took me a little over five months to complete from planing to final edit and in the end I’m pretty… Honestly, I’m pretty ambivalent about it. Mostly I feel kinda exposed. Again, this isn’t like the vids I’ve shared in the past, this is a lot more like the editing stuff I do for my eyes only and the natural feeling of showing others that is kind of weird? I feel weird. I like what I’ve done, I’ve gotten as close to replicating my idea as best to my ability (sans the instances of footage I made up in my head to fit my vid - the forever dilemma) but I don’t think it’s particularity what-people-want-from-Utena a lot of the time? So why am I even sharing it? Le sigh.

Basically, I’m having a lot of doubt and I’m hoping that has more to do with me feeling uncomfortable putting something so full of ME out there and not because I’ve actually made something shit. And, of course, some overall massive overthinking.

My thematic goal was to try and simultaneously capture both the goofy and emotional side of Utena - which in reality are one and the same. The general over-the-top-ness of Revolutionary Girl Utena isn’t a up and down experience traveling hills of emotion down into zany valleys; it is an all around extremely level experiment in information totality, with the absurd meaning just as much as the emotional. 

I like to think I’ve pulled off my silly song choice hitting emotional home runs. A very Utena-like goal. 

BORING TECHNICAL STUFF: Footage - Ripped from Nozomi’s Limited Edition DVD release of Revolutionary Girl Utena (plus a few sneaky shots from Adolescence of Utena)  Original Footage Dimensions - 1440x1080; beautiful and transcendent  tumblr Dimensions - Who the fuck knows; eyeball garbage Audio - "Cadillac" by Miguel (from The Get Down soundtrack Part I) Completion Time - Five-ish months

[lulusoblue]

Headcanon: Casey Jones being on the Autistic Spectrum

I see plenty of neurodivergent headcanons for the turtles galore, but never for any of the human characters. In all honestly, saying one of the turtles is on the autistic spectrum is iffy and uncomfortable to me at least because it’s sorta implying that said autism would be the result of a mutation caused by an external element. Because it’s not like we’ve had shit over some dickhead portraying autism as a side effect of vaccination rather than it being a mental disorder that’s as embedded in our genes and beings as internal organs and a massive part of who we are as people. also fuck you wakefield

And so thinking about it more, it just clicked that Casey could fit an autistic headcanon. So here’s a list of things about his character I believe fit such a headcanon based on personal experience and from other autistic people I’ve known:

• Apparently the writers put him at around 17 years old, a year older than April, with some intent that he might have been held back during his education (probably to tie into him seeking April for tutoring). I don’t have any knowledge of American education beyond secondhand information I may see on the internet or pop up on my dash, so my only knowledge of being autistic in a learning system built around neurotypical students is from brief personal experience. Neurotypical education sucks when there isn’t enough awareness of learning difficulties or the teachers don’t have enough training to know how to handle it. Casey might have trouble with his education because he may have difficulties trying to pay attention and absorb information without the tools or support to help him focus. This can get you labelled as just bad behaviour or being dumb/stupid. I sure as hell wasn’t able to follow lessons in school until I finally had someone who listened to why I didn’t like lessons and found them hard to understand. We don’t have any clue as to when Casey was held back if this concept still applies in canon, but being held back might not mean he just didn’t care to study or doesn’t have the smarts to pass. Granted it gets harder to care about learning when you have trouble understanding and your educators don’t bother to help you so much as call you lazy. Which brings me to my next point.

• Casey’s interests and knowledge in gadgets, vehicles, and metalwork. The boy knows his stuff when it comes to Mad Max-looking makeshift weaponry and devices, which is clear from his decked out bike and the crude taser that he’s managed to strap to his arm without frying himself. He worked with Donnie to rig up a supercar as a hobby and helped pimp up the Party Wagon. And he’s still flunking trig. (so’s April but shhhhh that was just a Season 1 thing) Casey seems like a very visual learner in this case: he picks up on things through observation and is self-taught on what interests him. For all we know he figured out cars while being cooped up on a farm with nothing better to do while one of his terrapin friends was in a coma. I’ve ended up doing that with some programs I use or with life stuff in general. Manuals are boring and slow and easy to lose focus on. Maybe look up a couple of video tutorials for something but most of building skills and interests is self-teaching and trial-and-error. (my experience of video editing and art programs is “what’s this do and can i figure out what makes it tick without looking it up”, which is an approach to new interests I think also fits Casey). Likely not something specific or common in autistic people, but figuring things out in such a way has been a thing that popped up for me and a couple of old friends. What I’m saying is Casey made that new mask after half-watching a couple of cosplay tutorials and winging it with some scrap.

• Casey wears those gloves and that headband all the damn time. Even when he’s eating pizza, he’s eating it wearing gloves that have probably been worn working on his bike, wielding a hockey stick/baseball bat that’s likely bashed sweaty heads in rain two weeks ago without being washed, and just the day-to-day things that would get those gloves sweaty or grimey or icky. He wears that headband at all times, even when he’s wearing a mask thank would probably fit better if he took that band of material off of his head. What do his headband and gloves also have in common? They’re articles of clothing that usually have elastic to stay in place. Sure canonically they’re just there to fit his grungy look (get to that hoodie in a second), but digging myself deeper into this headcanon i got to thinking they might also serve sensory/stimming purposes. If there’s something that I think is one thing autistic people have in common or a feeling they share, it’s fiddling/fidgeting and certain sensory things to some level: e.g. I usually wear loose tops because i like fiddling with the hems and corners of my clothing. Some people wear tight or loose clothing based on how they process the sensation of skin against different type of clothing. Casey never taking off his damn gloves or headband could be seen as him liking the sensation of the elastic in them around his wrists and forehead. He probably pings the elastic as well because that’s fun too when you’re bored and need to fiddle.

I refuse to believe that he has never washed that hoodie. I mean yeah the turtles have smelt worse living in a sewer but Casey is a Human who has spent most of his life around Humans and his Human father would probably have burnt his clothes by now if Casey never washed the stink out of them. That and Casey is a hockey player, and I imagine stinking clothes is an annoyance that comes from most sports. Those paint stains on his hoodie I think he’s leaving there on purpose, like he’ll wash his clothes but no dad his clothes get washed separate because he can’t wash his clothes with your clothes because you use stuff that lifts stains and that’ll get rid of the paint splats that he likes on his clothes and why does he want paint splats because he does and they look nice and he probably won’t get the same splatter pattern again if he tried and shush dad this hoodie stays the same because it has to because shut up. We don’t really see Casey tagging anything regularly so unless it’s because they don’t change the texture on animated models because what’s the point it’s not a cgi blockbuster we’re making here Casey probably keeps his paint splattered hoodie like that because it looks nice and it’ll stay nice dad. It’s a Thing.

• Casey constantly refers to a love of heavy metal music. Too much sound for an autistic person can end up in sensory overload and that fucking sucks. And in general just the world around you can suck and you wanna shut it out because ugh. You know what helps? Headphones and really loud music. What genre has really loud music? Yup.

Casey having a social battery. He just pops in and out of the show all the time because the writers dunno what do with him shrug so yeah. Autism likes to play up the variance of a person’s social needs and wants and limits. You want to be friends but you just can’t be asked to be with people right now. You get this surge of wanting to hang out with friends and be loud for a bit, and then you have this mood where you just want to not exist or just not do things. Basically like this:

“raph great to see you i love your face” “whatever weirdo”

[dude where are you] [home] [you’ve been at home for three days] [i’m waiting until i stop hating faces to talk in person again]

If anyone has any other things to add to this headcanon, please do share/add onto this post. Now if you’ll excuse me i’m gonna dig myself further into this headcanon.

EDIT: I forgot another point I wanted to put in and also @a-specforest added some cool addon tags so broski if you don’t mind imma put them here too

• #okay so one symptom of autism is speaking in ’pre learned phrases’ #and casey has a ton of catchphrases • #sometimes speaking in a tone that doesn’t match the conversation? #casey does that a lot too • #he seems to have a few hyperfixations #in season 2 he’s practicing hockey late by himself #and the working on cars that you mentioned

1) how else would he come up with Goongala of COURSE!!! That and pre-learned phrases are great to have when spontaneous speech is a bitch and you trip over words and stammer. not that i would know anything about that nooo We’ve already heard him muddle up words in the moment (I think he said jumbled up “racism” later in S4)

2) Tone control is something I’ve dealt with, too. Apparently I have resting bitch voice so I’ll say something and get asked if i’m in a bad mood or snapped at for “being rude”. Also knew other autistic people who would have ranges of tones in certain convos too, e.g. one always sounded happy and chipper and laughed a lot even when something wasn’t particularly funny, one person’s tone of voice went everywhere it was hard to tell what their feelings were even with the context of conversation. Casey’s attitude and tone in conversation, even serious ones, might be an indication of that, I agree.

3) Oh yeah, he definitely fits hyperfixation. There’s his hobbies, and also there’s how he sees his future. When he and April are in the park for their first study session, he’s got two clear ideas for what to do with his life; Hockey Star or Bounty Hunter. With him immediately trying to play hero when confronted with a walking talking tank of organs his bounty hunter fantasy may have something to do with it. He’s reckless and headstrong, but it also lends to his fixation on one of his dream careers; if fighting a monster that he’s confronted with something he sees as a step to bounty hunting, he’ll likely put up his dukes and get melted because ACID HANDS I have definitely known people who were determined on doing something because it was what they wanted. It might’ve come across as stubbornness or rigidness depending on what it (even something as simple as just doing something like a chore a certain way), but in context of ambitions and their future they were pumped as hell to take the steps they needed to take to do what they liked and what they wanted for themselves. They didn’t care about what people thought of them even if they didn’t pass as neurotypical and would get stares on the street. Not sure how they would react if say culinary career path involved fighting mutated food, but considering the show itself is an action-adventure cartoon with mutant turtles I think we can give Casey a pass on that lack of realism there. we begrudgingly give the writers passes all the time so why stop now

Aaaand the point i forgot to put in my original post:

• Casey’s less-than appropo reactions or attitudes in situations possibly links to difficulty reading people, being empathetic or understanding social cues/priorities. Reading and understanding facial expressions and body language can be a bitch if you’re autistic. There’s even a learning software program a couple of students from my school would use in one-to-one sessions that specifically addresses this for those who find it THAT hard to tell what another person is expressing. It’s especially troublesome because empathy can be a confusing thing too, because it can go from you not really having any empathy to you having so much that you think you’re hurting the feelings of a pair of shoes because you chose to wear something else that day which totally isn’t the extreme i experience at all hahaha help i’m mentally apologising to a boot Casey doesn’t appear to take things seriously in dangerous circumstances the majority of the time, nor does he appear considerate of others at other times. It’s a lot of confidence and certainty that things will turn out OK (with a heaping spoonful of “self preservation instinct what self preservation instinct”). It’s not always an appropriate attitude to make jokes and quips and tease and make jabs at people, but he HAS taken things seriously and shown worry/sadness at appropriate times. He’s really quiet and almost numb when the subject of his family’s fate comes up in Invasion, and he was surprisingly the only one to be most affected after watching someone get mOLECULARLY RIPPED APART. From experience, both personal and through observation, figuring out how to react and respond to things when you don’t really know how to is a pain in the ass and often distressing because you feel bad for not knowing. Sometimes you resort to humour to lighten things and try to ease tensions, sometimes you have an internal screaming match with yourself and panic and go through an archive of potential reactions because what the fuck would apply here, or sometimes you just shut down or just don’t react like it’s not really a big deal or even happening. Or you end up going through verbal barfing and dig yourself deeper into a hole of instant regret because you’re making yourself look like an ass when you don’t want to why is this so hARD. I think Casey would fall into the “address things with confidence and cockiness” kind of reaction pool, because it’s an attitude he’s comfortable with and how he better deals and processes things. It’s not to say he doesn’t have some empathy or disregard for other people’s feelings (hello Buried Secrets), it could be that it’s not comfortable territory for him even when he wants to be serious/emotionally supportive. did any of that come out right fffffffffU

• Casey’s small social circle and it possibly being by choice. His best friends are the girl who he met through tutoring in a subject she was failing before and four giant turtles who are trained in ninjutsu. He only mentions having one friend before, a friend with whom he had a falling out, and he didn’t seem to like Irma all that much (you can say it’s because “she’s a third wheel on dates” but even outside of that he didn’t seem to get along with her much). With things like hyperfixation and the like making a vast group of friends is tricky. Being autistic might mean the friends you choose to make have lots of interest in common with you rather than just being someone you get along with. Not to say being autistic means you are limited to a few friends. I’m no expert on autistic social lives, I can only draw from firsthand experience. I found trying to maintain a number of friendships difficult and often overwhelming so at some point in school I stopped trying to make friends, with the exception of a couple of people I liked and had common interests with. I chose to keep my social circle small because the thought of making lots of friends and keeping in touch with them all and remembering who likes who and what overwhelmed me and made me nervous as a child. Still kinda leaks into adulthood because I don't have many friends outside of the company I keep on tumblr. In this autistic headcanon, Casey’s very small social circle could be by choice. He doesn’t mention having any other friends besides one previously, fixates on April (and yes I am knocking the romantic aspect out the window for this) after approaching her for tutoring because he found her cool and likes hanging out with her (and probably saw kicking a mutant’s ass as common ground/bonding too), hung out with her even when a person he wasn’t keen on (Irma) was also there, and even when he’s introduced to the turtles and befriends them he still appears to be platonically closest to April arguably, depends on how the writers want to write him that week. Considering how the love triangle bullhockey has been given little to no reference as of late, his concern for April in Tokka vs the World and his annoyance at Leo’s teamup picks in Tale of Tiger Claw might be more because he can’t be with his favourite person. (and yes that can be a Thing too) He might also fixate on having April’s company because she isn’t much of a social butterfly herself outside of the friendly neighbourhood mutants living in the sewer. Compare how many times we see him hanging out with the turtles minus April versus when April is present.

[sambart93]

2017.06.27 Nintama Rantarou Musical [Review]

I went to my first every Nintama Musical on Tuesday went in without really knowing what to expect. I knew it was a popular kids anime and I knew it was a popular stage and that Tenmyu actors sometimes do it after Tenimyu (e.g. most of D2Boys like Jinnai Sho, Mitsuya Ryo, Shiramata, also Aramaki Yoshihiko etc.).

Official Website here Official Twitter here Press Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4 Video Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4 PreOrder the DVD here

CAST AND CHARACTERS

5th Years Yamaki Toru as Kukuchi Heisuke Sato Tomohiro as Ohama Kanemon Yoshida Shogo as Fuwa Raizo Kuge Kyohei as Hachiya Saburo Kurihara Taiga as Hachigaemon Takeya

6th Years Ebisawa Kenji as Shioe Monjirou Nihira Shougo (aka Shougo-kun) as Tachibana Senza

Teachers Kitamura Keigo as Hyogo Daisan Kyouemaru Nitta Kenta as Kagero Sugie Masahiro as Onigumomaru Kunta as Yoshimaru Tachibana Tatsumaru as Miyoshimaru Kuramoto Hiraku as Shige Takemura Hitoshi as Doi Sensei Imai Yasuhiko as Yamada Sensei

Bad Guys Watanabe Shuto Takahashi Hikaru as Captain Tatsumaki

NON-SPOILER REVIEW: Overall: I went in with such low expectations that I was pleasantly surprised and loved it. I thought this show was supposed to be for kids but clearly not because, in typical butai style, it was full of girls squealing ‘kakkoii! kakkoii!’. The story is super simple and ridiculous but they make it very fun and enjoyable. It’s very interactive too; the audience clap along to songs and there’s high touches at the end and such. Lots of comedic moments and lots of laughter. It’s just good ol’ fun. It’s somewhat childish (as it should be) but not too childish. You can tell the actors are enjoying themselves too. I’m interested in seeing the previous stages on DVD for sure now. Rating: 7-8/10

SPOILER REVIEW

As I stated above: I was SO surprised when I saw it was ALL women. I thought this was supposed to be a kids stage?! But nah! It was just the usual ‘all girls’ crowd that you see at any other 2.5 or stage these days. Also I was 6th row and had an aisle seat. I’ve NEVER had such a good seat at Sunshine before! So that was nice! Especially for the ending, but I’m getting ahead...

A quick heads-up before I start! I’m going to be honest; I honestly just spent this play enjoying it rather than focusing and analyzing it which is why all my comments about the actors are more about how good looking they are, rather than how well they acted. It’s also why I don’t really remember what happened; I wasn’t making mental notes throughout this play because I just wanted to experience it because, as I stated, I had no idea what to expect. So yeah, don’t expect any real critical and detailed comments this time around. Sorry!!

---

STORY

The teachers are on a ship one day but it gets bombed and somehow they all get away safely, just about. It’s the 5th year’s mission to find out who it was and where they are. Turns out it was the Dokutake’s doing. But just before they find out, one of Dokutake’s minions (Watanabe Shuto) has disguised himself as one of the local people and snuck into the school to steal some plans. Fortunately, he gets tricked by one of the twins without realising and they get a hold of the map to where Dokutake’s ship is. So, the ninjas decide to get their own back and board the ship. But of course the bad guys have a few tricks up their sleeves such as trap doors and being able to hide in the dark before striking out and attacking. In true story style though, the ninjas eventually get the upperhand, blow the crap out of the ship and win for the day! And in true kids show style; the enemy survives and swears he’ll get his own back.

Very simple story right? The story, while simple and some-what juvenile, is entertaining and fun! All the characters are ridiculous too. So it leaves a lot of room for fun, songs and action; which is what it does give!

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THE STAGE

I really liked how the stage worked; they could change it and make it into so many different locations! I really loved the boats they used and could move by themselves. Also the blue cloth for the sea is always a classic xD 

They also had a scene when they were on Dokutake’s ship where Captain Tatsumaki would stomp a foot down and the mechanical plank would come up and he’d attach a cog and turn it and the stage would open up and it’d show the different battles between the ninjas and the bad guys. He did this about four times and on the forth time, when he stomped his foot, the plank came up on the wrong part of the stage, and so he stomped again; wrong part of the stage. he had to do it about 5 times; it’s super childish but I was dying on laughter. I was the only one dying of laughter at this part. I thought it was so hilarious! It’s very child-like and I loved it!

THE MUSIC

THE SONGS! Holy moly the SONGS! They are ARE WELL DONE! I am so impressed with the songs!!! They’re all amazing and very well written and produced! You could easily take the songs out of this musical and stick it into another (more serious) stage and it would still fit and have emotion and make sense! Guys seriously, I want the CD for this musical! The songs!!! Are so gooood!!! And they can all sing! I so want this soundtrack!! Some of my favourites were Nayami no Otoshi Goro, Bokura no Jidai and Akai Umi.

AND THEY SANG YUUKI 100% AT THE END!!!! I thought that was a Johnny’s Entertainment copy-righted song!! But apparently not?! At first I was like ‘this song sounds oddly familiar’ and then it clicked! And they had a dance to it and it was so much fun! I could quickly learn the dance -- everyone in the audience already knew it which meant they’d been to it several times -- seriously guys, I was the only one who was a newbie there I swear to god! I think 90-95% of the audience were Nintama fandom fangirls. There’s definitely a different air in the room which this audience and I automatically felt like I was the odd one out. This clearly showed it. AND when everyone knew whether it was a song to clap to or not, everyone was fucking ready! So yeah... this audience is solid and dedicated to the Nintama fandom.

BUT my poor ears whenever the kids sang... their voices are too high even for my ears! Everytime they started singing I was like ‘how can I kid be this high pitched?! Hurry up and hit puberty so my ears can rest or at least turn the mics down when they sing!’ xD

All the Videos linked above show a lot of the songs just listen to them! ^_^

THE CAST/CHARACTERS:

There were so many ikemen than I was expecting! When I first saw all the visuals, I was like ‘man, they all ugly (I’m so shallow, I apologise)’ but seeing them all in the flesh? Holy mama, I get why it’s full of women watching the show; they’re all good looking and those pants they wear aren’t the most baggy of pants, especially around their butts xD SO MANY IKEMEN! I can tell you right now; Shougo, Taiga, Kunta, Tachibana, Kuramoto and Shuto are ALL ikemen! Also Sato is a cutie! Nitta has a very good body too! Anyway... time to try be a bit more critical on them:

Yamaki Toru as Kukuchi Heisuke: This one super, super confused me. He’s supposed to be the main but I do not remember anything about him or his performance or when he was even on stage?! He was clearly the Zachou (lead) because he was the last to bow at the end and got the biggest applause but... I remember jack shit about him! Sorry dude but damn you were for-get-a-ble! So sorry to those who like him but I didn't even notice he existed.

Sato Tomohiro as Ohama Kanemon: Oh my, what a cutie! He was and looked so adorable! And he had these chubby cheeks and perfect teeth. His character was so cute. He was always smiling! Guys.. I dread to look up the ages of this cast... I have a feeling they’re all too young...

Yoshida Shogo as Fuwa Raizo and Kuge Kyohei as Hachiya Saburo: How are these two not twins seriously?! I could NOT tell them apart and was convinced they were actual twins! I didn’t really pay attention to them because (shallow me again) in their Nintama costumes, at least, they were not attractive and I didn’t want to look at them. They did however have an After Story at the end of the play, which is kind of like higawari extra scene. It was them two and Shige and Hyogo Daisan Kyouemon and they wanted to meet Kyouemon’s brother because he’s also a twin but he wouldn’t come out at the same time as his brother (it was one actor so of course he and his twin couldn’t come out on stage at the same time xD). It was a rather funny scene. They were funny but just their faces... sorry!

Kurihara Taiga as Hachigaemon Takeya: This guy! This guy caught my eye straight away. He reminded me very much of a young Endo Yuya. Something about his face and how he acts just reminded me of Endo Yuya. His character was super interesting and I liked the look of him too. He amused me a lot because while the other actors would look far out if they were turned towards the audience, Taiga would instead focus on someone in the front rows. Maybe it was his nerves or something but he never looked straight out he always looked closer to the stage and to the closer audience xD it was a super interesting observation that I had. Out of the five main characters, he was my favourite.

Ebisawa Kenji as Shioe Monjirou: This is my second time to see him on stage - the first time being Konchuuger last month (review here). And he was the victim of the higawari this day. The old school head was like ‘what’s pin pin/’ and he had to explain and he ended up getting into this song and dance and it was very hilarious and all the Teachers were trying to keep a straight face -- I don’t know HOW Shougo-kun managed to keep so straight faced, good job boy xD -- and the audience found it so funny we ended up clapping when he finished his bit. Ebisawa has a lot of energy and he’s good with these types of roles, but again his voice can’t reach a far range; good job we have mics for this stage, unlike Konchuuger. I got a high five from him at the end =]

Nihira Shougo as Tachibana Senza: I totally get why both Shougo-kun and MakiChan both got the role of Tachibana and I totally get why I like both of them. They’re very similar in how they act and they both act the same way when it comes to ‘proud’ character roles just like Tachibana is! He’s very... ousama/prince-like and proper and calm and collected; a role which both of them suit perfectly! So I totally get why they both got this role when they did/do Nintama! Clearly I have a type and not just when it comes to looks, but also when it comes to acting style and character types xD

Anyway, I really liked Shougo-kun as Tachibana. Just a shame his stage time was so short in comparison to some of the others. But his fighting choreography was great, his acting was great, he did a great job! He can act, he’s very good at what he does(!) but for some reason he just doesn’t get any many jobs as the other actors I support... this boy needs more gigs(!) He can do it! Also he’s a skinny-ass rat! His body is SO tiny! He needs to eat more xD

Kitamura Keigo as Hyogo Daisan Kyouemaru: He was very funny with his ‘I have a twin but you’ll never see us together and the only way to tell us apart is from our mole which is on the opposite side to each other’ joke.

Nitta Kenta as Kagero: We got a good look at his upper body when he (and the rest of the teachers) were injured and he has very nice arms xD

Kunta as Yoshimaru: At first I wasn’t quite sure about him because visually, he looks and reminds me a lot of Juri who is someone who I can’t look at; I can’t stand his face at all. But very quickly Kunta as Yoshimaru was so cute and he has this great smile and he did an amazing job keeping calm and keeping a straight face whenever Ebisawa had to do a higawari or something unscripted but hilarious happened. Also I got a high five from him at the end <3 he’s also a lot younger than I was expecting. I thought he’d be an 80s kid but he ain’t! AND I got a high five from him at the end ^_^

Tachibana Tatsumaru as Miyoshimaru: I was instantly attracted to this man. I just really like the character and we got quite a few scenes of him with his shirt somewhat off - either through injury or having to swim in the ocean. He is visually pleasing for me... what the fuck is this review turning into?! Like just look at him!! He’s gorgeous! And his character was courageous, taking it upon himself (and Shigeru) to dive into the wave and set up the bomb!

Isn’t he gorgeous!!!!!

Kuramoto Hiraku as Shige: And here we have another cutie! He helped Miyoshimaru bomb the bad guys ship towards the end of the story so we got good somewhat shirtlessness from him too. He;s another one I dread to look up how old he is in real life... I bet he’s young...AHA! He’s a 91er! PHEW!b Yeah... he’s cute... I got a high five from him too!! Okay I’m done sucking it up with the highfivingness xD

Watanabe Shuto: he’s plays the badguys newest minion and he’s supposed to be this super elite who managed to do all the bad guy training in 3 days rather than in 4 years. BUT he’s easily tricked by the 5th years. His fighting choreography was very good and he was very funny and I liked his character a lot. He did some great stunts too! But goddamit he’s a young-un.

Takemura Hitoshi as Doi Sensei: This guy didn’t give me much of an impression, until he crossdressed! He looked SOOOOO cute as a girl! And he has this cute pink dress on but obviously had to slip up a few times, like stand too manly and exposed his underpants a little and such xD He was a very cute girl and he’s a sweet sensei too! The guy playing Yamada-sensei also crossdressed and he owned it xD

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This was a LOT better than I was expecting. A LOT better. I went in expecting to be bored and for it to be childish and such BUT it ended up being creative and fun and funny and it was VERY interactive. The audience are encouraged to clap along with the songs and to laugh a lot and to cheer and there’s lots of high-fives and it’s great! 

I feel bad for having my expectations so low and for going in expecting just boredom and for it to be awful and childish. I should’ve realised from the ALL GIRL CROWD that it would’ve been up my street. It seriously is just like... it’s basically Tenimyu but with Ninjas and where everyone can actually sing (remember the amount of dodgy singers we’ve had in Tenimyu? xD).

The interactiveness is what makes it very different from Tenimyu. Every song, everyone knew what clapping rhythm we had to do and everyone knew the 100% Yuuki choreography at the end -- I quickly got the hang of it although I did feel awkward at first because I didn’t know it nor expected it! Also, during the final battle whenever the ninjas pulled out their (ultimate?) weapons, a sign of the weapon’s name would pop up somewhere on stage, and we would clap super hard every time. Just these little things really made the audience more engaged and it made it a lot of fun! I definitely want to watch the previous stages now and see how it’s progressed and developed and what other comedy scenes and stories we have in this series. Also it’s full of tenimyu actors (MakiChan!) so I kinda already planned to watch them anyway, but this has encouraged me to move it up my priority list of stages to watch asap.

The bad guys in this are SO ridiculous that you can’t NOT like them! They’re so much fun and so silly and stupid! xD

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And that’s all I really have to say on this musical! If you ever get time to watch one, I recommend you watch it and go in with just wanting to enjoy whatever the hell happens xD