#Recreating a fan’s reaction (?) video

[happypeachsludgeflower]

Modern day YouTube au where Xie Lian is infamous on the internet for his catastrophic cooking channel.

[heymeowmao]

2023.09.02 - https://weibo.com/l/wblive/p/show/1022:2321324941623929995754

Long time no see~

bgm: 我只愿朝着光 (I Only Wish to Face the Light) [Be Your Own Light OST]

LYN: Long time no see, friends. Long time no see.

C: Are you better now? LYN: I’m much better. As a man, to get sick a little is normal. There’s nothing  to ask about. Thanks, everyone. LYN: My throat is still a little uncomfortable. It’s not as easy, but I still thought I would come to stream for a bit… because I brought all this equipment with me but I haven’t used it once. When we were packing up to leave I remembered that I brought my streaming equipment. If I don’t use it now I’ll feel like I’d have packed it up for nothing. I wrapped up a little early today and even though I’m not in the greatest condition I thought I’d stream. You can all be a little more understanding.

C: So you were in Chongqing. LYN: You must not be my fan. You’re one of the ones who pretends to care a lot about me. I’ve been in Chongqing for a long time already. It’s been more than half a month. C: You’ve gotten thinner. LYN: I don’t know about that. I probably just look a lot more weary/haggard. After I got sick I haven’t had an appetite, so I’ve been eating less and look haggard. I haven’t gotten thinner, though. LYN: I haven’t been in the greatest condition, but when I go back I don’t know when I’ll have the time to stream so today I wrapped up early and I feel good enough to chat, so I came. I didn’t come for a particular reason. Just to chat.  C: Remember to rest. LYN: It’s alright. I don’t have too many scenes for this drama and we’re not in a rush to film. I’ve been able to rest up for a couple of days here in Chongqing. It’s not extremely busy, so I’ve been able to take breaks in between.

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C: Your physical. LYN: I’ve done it already. I did it back in Beijing. All the results are pretty good. I don’t have any problems, so my physical is done. The only problem is that I might have a slight calcium deficiency (?). It’s fine though- I just have to supplement it. I guess that explains why I broke my foot- I have a calcium deficiency for my bones are more easily broken. I’ve got some health supplements and I’m ready to boost my calcium. Everything else is normal. C: Have you gotten taller? LYN: Funny that you mention it. I really did. They measured my height and I curiously found out that I’m taller than I was before! It might be that I keep trying to fix my posture, so my back is a bit straighter than it was before and it helped my height a tiny bit. C: Growth spurt? LYN: Probably not. Ning-ge’s already 30+ years old. I can’t be having any more growth spurts. It’s probably that my back’s straighter so my height grew. There’s nothing more to say about this. It’s not like I can lie. Before, as an actor, maybe if you were tall it would be hard to find roles, but times are changing. There’s a market for people like me who look like telephone poles, now. I’m not worried about not finding a role because I’m too tall. If you’re tall, when you shoot guzhuang dramas you can look a little more dazzling. There’s nothing to hide. LYN: I used to say I was 1.89m, right? In reality after measuring I was 188.5cm, so I liked to say I was 1.89m. After getting my physical this time I found that I’ve surpassed 1.9m. C: So tall. LYN: It’s no use, though. Telephone poles are also very tall- what’s the point of them? There’s no point to being tall. Tall isn’t useful. C: Exactly how tall- 1.9__?? LYN: What does that have to do with you? What does it matter how tall I am? As if I can share some height with you?? Why do you care? Are you a medical examiner? Or are you a tailor? You want to use my measurements to make a pair of pants or…??? What do you care how tall I am?! I already said I was 1.9. Why do you have to wonder whether it’s 1.91, 1.94, or 1.95? You’re like a tailor. Are you going to make clothes for me??

C: Ning-ge, if you boost your calcium maybe you can grow even taller. LYN: Don’t scare me!! I already have a hard time buying pants. I don’t need height, but it’d be nice if I can gain some bone density. C: I’m afraid you’ll grow to be 2m tall. LYN: Shush. I’m already 30+ years old, how can I still grow taller?? I’m not getting any taller, don’t hold your breath. If you tell your neighbors or friends that “I hope your kid grows tall” it would be a blessing, but if you tell me “I hope you grow taller” then it’s a curse. I don’t want to be too tall. It’s enough. I have enough to get by.

C: I hope my son can be as tall as you are. LYN: It’s possible. Kids nowadays are growing quite tall. None of them are very short anymore. It’s a different era, now. They’re well-fed. How balanced are their diets, now? There’s only the one at home, and they can eat all they want, so of course they will not be lacking in nutrition. Friends, you don’t need to worry about your child not growing tall. Unless you want your kid to be a celebrity. Then, they can be tall. Or a basketball player or model. But normally, they don’t need to be so tall. 

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LYN: I saw a comment the other day- because I went to the Eastern Billboard Awards, right? There are people who go to the event and then later come back and write about their experience. Whenever people go somewhere they have to come back and write up a report- what do they call it “repeat” or something. [t/n: REVIEW??] Anyway, they have to share their feelings about their experience. Their opinion of me? That my fans tend to be on the older side. That made me angry. (/joking) What do they mean by that?!? LYN: I guess a lot of my fans went by winning a lottery or blind box and being gifted tickets to attend. After going the only descriptor other people could think to give them is “on the older side.” What do you mean by that?? I just want to ask. LYN: My fans are… those who like LYN are all mature women. /laughs/ Isn’t that right? They’re all very mature. Whether by age or by mentality- they’re all mature. But I do have young ones! The other time in my stream didn’t you say that some of you were in your teens? I have younger fans, too. My fans are from a wide range. Sometimes I’m more biased towards the older ones because- I’ve said it many times before- they seen it all. Their children are already grown and they’ve seen what the world has to offer. To be able to still like me, after all that, means that I’m just a little outstanding. I can attract their attention. It’s not just a heat of the moment thing, for them.

LYN: Most of my fans all have children. Some of them are old enough to be attending college! They have school aged children, but are still my fans and I think that’s great. Now I want to say something to my fans who have children- try not to make your kids give me things, alright? I’m sure you’re not getting anything out of it, because you probably also tell your children, “Ning-jiujiu is outstanding. When you grow up you have to be as tall as he is.” and etc. I’m sure you must have told them about me before and so they are receptive to me. But still, try not to make them give me things. I’m not accepting any gifts. Let me tell you why-

LYN: You all came out to support me that one time, right? And I went out to see you. I don’t know who it was but one of my fans passed over a huge bag. They knew that I like to take some things with me when I walk by. So they prepared a big bag for me- it was really convenient. The first thing they did was hand that bag over, as if telling me “Ning-ge, go ahead and fill it up.” I could put all my spoils into it, because my fans like to give me cards or small toys. It has nothing to do with the cost. It’s just meaningful- they wanted to leave me with a souvenir. I was taking letters, cards, and headbands and stuffing them into the bag… and I was recorded doing it. Someone posted it online with the header, “LYN takes a tote bag to receive fan gifts.” Then the media got started on it- saying that I brought my own bag just so I can take your gifts. Amazing. LYN: First of all, I didnt want to become an artist just so that I could receive your small gifts and cards. Do you think I’m lacking that much?? But once someone’s pointed it out, it sounds really despicable. As if I can’t afford to make a living for myself so I have to rely on you to support me. That I survive off the things you give me. That’s a miserable existence, isn’t it? So from then on, I’ve been telling you that I don’t accept any gifts from my fans. This way it will be more difficult to hold something against me, you know? It will be harder for them to criticize me, not like it’s necessary to in the first place. I’ll only be accepting letters from now on. Whether I look at them or not is another story, but I will accept them.

LYN: I won’t be accepting gifts from you anymore- even if it’s very small and not worth anything. I won’t take it. It’s the thought that counts- you can keep it for me. If you have a kid, though, they might not understand this concept. They just know that “It would be nice if I can give Ning-jiujiu something.” So you prepare something that your child can give to me. In regards to gifts from children- I wouldn’t normally accept those, either. But the thing is I don’t want to see them disappointed. If they want to give me something and I tell them no, they’re going to be upset. What if it becomes some sort of trauma for them? You know? I know it’s not my kid, but it’s yours so you SHOULD feel bad for them. LYN: So, don’t make them do this. If your kid wants to give me something you have to advise them against it. Just tell them that I don’t need it. Tell them that Ning-jiujiu is a wealthy second-gen kid and that I don’t need it. Tell them that I have a job and I can buy things for myself, so when THEY grow up they have to get a job so they can buy themselves food and toys. Anyway, don’t let your kid give me anything. I really don’t have the heart to not accept. I know it’s just a very small thing- a toy- but when someone gets it on film that I’m accepting gifts- even from your kids- it become problematic. Try to empathize. Try to advise your kid not to give me anything- let them keep it.

C: Ning-ge, you’re a rich first gen, not a second gen. LYN: If I give all my money to my mom, then that’ll make me a rich second gen wouldn’t it? Makes sense, doesn’t it?

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LYN: Another thing is, I think my relationship with my fans is different. I feel like I’m… investing a different set of emotions in you. I’m not trying to be polite or anything. I’m just sure that there are very few people who can be like me- who treat my fans with a certain degree of attentiveness, or companionship. I feel like I’m close to my fans, and they respect me. I like this mutually respectful environment. But when you start disrespecting me, I feel really hurt by it. LYN: I feel like I give you a lot of respect and I’ve given you the most companionship that I could. But sometimes… when I see that some fans are out of line I get really disappointed, you know? I feel bad. Not angry, just bad. Just like how when antis try to bring me down- I would never be angry at them. Or when media talks shit about me- I don’t particularly care. But if it’s someone close to me who says the same things, I would find it difficult to bear. 

LYN: I’ve been filming recently in Chongqing, right? Many of you come out to the set to… watch a monkey (see me). I’m the monkey- the other actors aren’t. Every day I’m filming in Chongqing I feel more and more like a performer monkey. You’re just surrounding me- as if watching a monkey in a cage. It’s not like I’m out there to shop. I’m there to act, and there are just people all around, watching a show. Sometimes you even give me a little something to eat. It’s not that I’m annoyed by it- that’s your freedom to do what you want. In this society you can go wherever and do whatever, as long as you are abiding by the law. I don’t have the energy to care about your personal freedom- you can go where you want, *as long as it doesn’t affect me or the film crew. That’s the most important thing. You can watch from afar, but don’t record it on your phone. Everywhere I go, you’re following me with your phones. I don’t even know what you’re trying to do, here. LYN: I had even asked you, the last time. I don’t want to interrupt your quest to see your idol. You can come out to see me, and that’s fine. But why do you insist on recording it on your phone?? Do you want to become viral? You want to learn from me how to be internet famous? Are you going to post it on your weibo and wait until you gain enough fans before you start influencer marketing? After you have enough traffic, are you planning on accepting advertising gigs, or…?? I just don’t get it. Why do you have to record me? If you come to see me I can nod my head at you, smile at you, and even exchange a few words. But the moment you lift up that phone I’m not going to say a word to you. I had told you all before. When you’re trying to greet me, don’t record me on your phone. I feel like you’re trying to interview me. LYN: That day there was someone like this, “Welcome to Chongqing, Ning-ge. Welcome to Chongqing. I want to ask you- have you eaten Chongqing hotpot yet?” I felt as if they were a native blogger or something. They were here to promote Chongqing’s culinary delicacies and they came to interview me, to get the thoughts of an actor who came to Chongqing to film. It makes me really uncomfortable. If you could put your phone down and ask me the same questions, I would have told you that “Yes, I did eat.” and what I ate, and what I thought about it. I would chat with you. But as soon as you pick up your phone I feel like there’s a distance between us and I don’t want to say anything to you. LYN: The people on set, too. You’ll find that as long as you’re not brandishing your phones at me, I won’t open the umbrella (to block your sight). I can’t NOT let you see, but if you take photos/videos of me while I am working on the drama and then go post that media online and it affects the drama itself- that’s on me. You can come to see me. As long as you’re not brandishing your phone, I won’t try to reject you. You just have to record- I don’t know why.

LYN: I also posted to the group chat- if you’re on set, please don’t record. All of you agreed. But the next day? You were recording as normal. I saw with my own eyes- someone lift up their phone to start recording. OK. If you’re not going to listen to me, then it doesn’t matter. When I got off work that day, that person even greeted me! “Ning-ge, you worked hard. Ning-ge! Hey-” As if you’re very close to me?? You don’t even listen to me. LYN: I already told you, that you can’t be recording me while I’m filming this drama. There’s a reason for that, but I can’t tell you the details of why. I just can’t have the drama be affected because of me, but you are still stubborn enough not to understand what I’m trying to say. I can’t tell you flat out, either. I’ve told you not to record me, but you still do it. Let’s not drag passersby into the picture- there’s nothing I can do about them. But MY FANS- If even if I tell you, you still don’t listen then there’s no point. LYN: To my other friends- if you’re not in Chongqing, don’t come here to attack those fans that are here. There’s no need. They acting normal, and I can understand, but I just want to say-

C: Are they paparazzi? LYN: If they were, I could just tell the security to tell them to stop. But I know that you are my fans, so it’s not like I could tell them to help me get MY FANS under control for me. Do you think I could do that? I don’t know- I haven’t filmed very many modern dramas so I haven’t encountered this situation much before. This time, since I’m facing the situation now I want to say: If I’m shooting a modern drama you can come to watch but please don’t record. You can keep me company or watch for fun. Don’t make trouble for me, please. Thanks. I’m not the only actor in this group. The other actors are under a lot of pressure already and are too kind to say anything about it to me. I’m sure that they would find it embarrassing on my behalf to tell me how to manage my fans. But as LYN- as an actor- do you think I’m not aware of the situation?? Just because they don’t say anything doesn’t mean that I can let it continue. LYN: YOU’RE happy recording on your phones, but have you ever thought of how awkward it is for ME? It’s so embarrassing. Whenever I get to the crew in the morning someone always asks me, “Hey, are those your fans? There are so many.” … How am I supposed to answer that? Am I supposed to say, “Yes, I’m very popular! I’m amazing!” How do I answer, you tell me. I just say, “Those aren’t my fans. They’re probably just passersby.” LYN: I can’t control your how you chose to spend your time but please don’t affect the drama crew. I’m not angry! I just haven’t encountered this situation before, so I want to get it straight now. I hope that in the future my fans can supervise each other. If you all come together I hope that someone can say, “Let’s not record Ning-ge. Let’s not affect the drama crew.” We can play amongst ourselves but once it starts to influence other people, we’ve got to stop. I can’t wave or greet you when I’m on set because I don’t want the other actors to think I’m trying to show off that I have a lot of fans. Everyone is there to work but it looks like I am there to socialize and have a mini fan-meet?? Do you get it? This is a working environment- I’m WORKING. I can’t be friendy with you because if iit gets recorded and posted it will look like I am encouraging you to come to set and see me. I can’t afford that. Do you understand? The crew isn’t made up of only me. Everyone else is famous in their own right. Just because they’re not mentioning it to me doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of what’s being perceived. Try to understand my hardship. 

LYN: You have to consider other people’s feelings. I care. I could disregard my own feelings, but not other people’s. After working with them for a while, I start to care about every person I work with. I cherish the opportunity to be able to work with them. I’ve got to leave a good impression, right? My main thing is having a good reputation, isn’t it?

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LYN: I do have to thank you for your support when I had collaborations with Pomellato and L’Oreal, though. Thank you. When it was first announced that I has a collaboration with Pomellato- it really proved that some of you have mines at home (they’re wealthy). We really do have some “jiejie-s” among my fans. We never avoid this subject. I already told you last time- when you come to my concert, bring the deed to your house. Because I also invite different brand representatives to attend, so if they that all my fans have their deeds with them, they would know that you can afford to buy their products. Then the collaborations will come rolling in, wouldn’t they? Some of you are... well off. LYN: At the time I saw that you were posting your receipts and everything- those things aren’t cheap. From my… position.. to have so many fans support me and spend so much, I am really thankful. I posted in the group chat to thank you, too. But many of you are students and probably can’t afford it- we’re all the same. But the ones who could afford to supported me a lot- I posted in the group chat. “Thank you for your support. Thank you to all the wealthy women. You sure have money.” I just wanted to express my thanks. I was over here trying to THANK YOU, and someone took a screenshot and posted it so I received another round of criticism. LYN: Someone had sent it to me, “Ning-ge, look. Another yxh posted about it- that you’re thanking your wealthy fans in the group chat.” I was thinking- I can’t even do that?!? My fans are supporting my collaborations and are buying some products, and I want to thank them, but I can’t even do that?? Would the value drop, or what? I don’t understand. Should I NOT have thanked them? I don’t understand why I would be criticized for such a thing.LYN: Let’s say for example I see one of my fans by a product from a brand I’ve collaborated with. They tell me, “Ning-ge, I bought it!” Am I supposed to say, “Oh. Suit yourself.”?? Should I have had that sort of attitude? If someone tells me they bought something from a collab I did, shouldn’t I be thanking them for their support? One, it represents that fan’s love for me and two, I should thank them on behalf of the brand. I just don’t get it! When they told me I was being criticized for thanking my fans I just found it really funny. LYN: Any artist or actor- anything they do falls under the “customer service” category. We’re here to serve the viewers and our fans. Without all of you, what would we be? Do you really consider that we’re people who can survive on talent alone? This is too funny. We work in customer service.

C: Ning-ge, if you’re a waiter, then let me give you some tips. LYN: No, I don’t need any. XD You’re trying to give me tips now?? It would have been great if I had met you back when I was singing in the bar. LYN: Some people are laughing. Don’t laugh. I think that people who want to give tips are really great. Why? Maybe because I came from that industry- honestly if you want to survive in customer service, you can’t do it on your base pay alone. You have to rely on tips- so that you can make a little more money. From then on, I’ve always thought that people who give tips are great. C: I’ll give you 50. // How’s 1,000? LYN: No, no. I don’t need it, really. You can keep it. C: I’ll give you coupons. LYN: Do you give coupons as a tip?? Is there some hotpot place where if you spend 300, they give you 30 in coupons? Then you give it back to a waiter and tell them you’ll treat them to hotpot? That’s too awful, isn’t it? Later we find out that you have stock in the hotpot place. You were actually out there promoting, but making it look like you were giving tips.

C: I’ll give you a discount coupon to LYN’s concert. LYN: I said once before, that anyone who helped me to get a trending topic can get a 5RMB coupon to apply to my concert ticket. Now you want to give that coupon back to me?? First of all, it’s free for ME to watch LYN’s concert. Even if you gave it to me I would have no use for it. I can go for free. AND I can stand on the stage to watch it. XD My seats are better than yours. C: Your seat is the best. LYN: Yeah, I can watch from the middle of the stage.

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C: Ning-ge, have you been playing with the beads lately? LYN: I have. C: Do you put oil on them? LYN: I can’t believe you’re asking me about this! C: How’s it going though? LYN: The more you play with them, the more into it you get. It’s a pit. The more into it you get, the deeper you go. I’m playing with baixiangzi, which are different from the [names different types]. They’re different because each seed shape is not the same (whereas the other types are set shapes). Some are “lotus shaped”, or “ghost faced”, or deeply pitted, and etc. It’s a lot more complicated. Once you buy one strand you’ll want to buy others to see what they look like. And then… you just keep buying other ones and end up with too many. LYN: I don’t advise you to start… I just don’t. There are funner things to do. With me, I bought them online but then when I got them in hand I didn’t like them anymore and gave them away. To everyone around me- my acting coach, hair and makeup team, assistant, and everyone else in my group. Now they all have one strand each. When we go out to work everyone in the car- other than the driver- all have gloves on and are brushing the beads. Our team is so healthy, now. We’re a team of Bead Counters. There’s just no helping it- I bought it but after I received it I didn’t like it anymore so I gave it away, and repeat. By now I’ve already sent a bunch out. I don’t have anyone to give them to anymore. Another thing- this was a while ago because I’ve bought enough- let’s say if you can count on one strand for three years, I have enough to last me until I’m 80. I have too many, a huge bag with so many different types. 

LYN: I was watching a stream- the owner sells these things- and saw something funny. This was before I stopped, because I like to look for nice ones to buy. But I was in the stream and found someone trying to buy them. [...] I saw this user’s name and it was “LYN’s ____”. ? I’m guessing this “LYN” means “Liu Yuning”, right? Is this one of my fans, seeing that I’m starting to play with these things and wanting to buy one for themselves? But it just so happened that I was also in that stream! So I asked them, “Hello, hello! What does “LYN” mean?” They ignored me! It’s not like I could say that /I/ am LYN. But I kept asking and they just kepy ignoring me. It’s not like there were that many people in the stream, either. So then I switched tactics and started using code: “LYN… is it Jiang-ge?” Jiang Junhao (BYOL). After a bit they replied, “Yes. It’s Jiang-ge.” Oh before that, after asking them multiple times who LYN was they replied. “LYN is a very important person.” Then I asked them if it was Jiang-ge and they said, “LYN is Jiang-ge.” I was thinking,”Oh. This IS my fan.” So I was just quietly watching them throughout the stream and in the end they picked a strand that they liked. I direct messaged the seller and told them to return the user’s money, and that I would pay the bill for their order. The store owner was confused. I told them, “It’s ok. This “LYN” person is my friend. Please return their money and I will pay. You just need to send it to their address.” The shop owner said, “OK, da-ge.” What that means is Ning-ge bought you a strand of beads. You have to remember that. LYN: But then later the shop owner got back to me about another part of the order, and at that point I excused myself from the chat. The strands are cheap, but the accessories are expensive. I excused myself- I think it was about enough. LYN: It was just a fateful encounter with a fan, was all. I saw that they were buying something they liked and wanted to help out. This is normal, for a Northeasterner’s personality. For example if we go to a restaurant and see that a friend is already eating there, it’s either they will pay my bill or I will pay theirs. I don’t know about other places but in Dongbei that’s what we do. I just have a strange little habit of liking to pay other people’s bills. It just so happened we were shopping in the same stream that day. I saw a friend, so I paid their bill. C: Shandong people are like this too!

LYN: Yeah- places with a lot of loyalty are probably all like this. It’s a normal thing. I didn’t think anything of it, and it’s been a while since it happened. I never mentioned it before because I just thought it was funny, but since we were on the topic I decided to tell you. I’m just afraid that this person would remember which stream it was and then post about it.

LYN: I’ve already stopped buying them, I have enough. I don’t want to show you- it’s a really big bag. In any case, it’s fun to play with when I’ve got free time and it’s stress-relieving. Sometimes at night when I’ve wrapped for the day I like to play with them when I am remembering my next lines. When you play with these beads you won’t even find yourself reaching for your phone anymore. Let’s say usually in the car or something you’ll swipe through videos or play a game. Since I’ve started, I don’t play on my phone anymore. I’m just brushing and counting them. It makes you stop playing on your phone, which is nice. It also helps you to still your mind and relieve stress, which is also nice. C: “wan-wu-shang-zhi” (when you start to play with object, it will hurt your intelligence) [??] LYN: Yes, right. But I also think that as long as you’re not going overboard it’s fine. As long as it can still help you relieve stress and unhappiness, then it doesn’t count as “wan-wu-shang-zhi”. C: Raffle them off. LYN: I won’t because some of them were quite expensive… Maybe later, if there’s a chance I’ll raffle them. On my birthday I’ll give one away. One that costs 150RMB.

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C: Where’s Daimi? LYN: She’s waiting for me in Hengdian. I need to film for a while in Chongqing, but this hotel does not allow pets. It’s a little troublesome if I go through the trouble of bringing her here but not be able to house her. She’s in Hengdian. We’re just about to move over there, too. So she’ll show up then.

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C: Pie in the sky +1 LYN: Wha- how could giving away a strand of beads count?! Oh my gosh… What “pie” is this? I have plenty of beads to go around. 

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C: I miss Daimi. LYN: Okay, then when I get back I’ll let you see her. /distracted/ LYN: I’m looking at the tv- there’s a burger on screen and I really want to eat it… Sichuan spicy, CP burger. Mouth-watering chicken flavored. … It looks pretty good.

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LYN: I saw that some people were making fun of my brand collabs? Well it’s not considered “making fun of”... they were just commenting. Regarding collabs... I can’t say I’m not like other artists, just that I am the same as myself. (?) I have a good mentality I don’t really like accepting brand deals. That’s the truth. Because I don’t like shooting the ads. So I only accept the ones that I can. I don’t like to do very many per year. Another thing is- let’s say that this year I have signed with a shampoo brand. When that contract expires in a year and a different brand of shampoo comes to ask for me, I won’t accept their contract. I think this is being responsible towards my fans and towards the brand I previously worked with. I don’t accept just anything. I’m not saying this for the public to hear; this is for my fans to hear. Don’t assume that I am at such a low that I can’t get any brand deals. That’s unlikely. C: Professional. LYN: It isn’t being professional, either. I just feel like it’s not a right thing to do. There are many ways to make money, but you have to have morals. I won’t enter into a similar contract right after one has ended. Maybe I’ll wait a year in between, but not directly one after another. That’s not a good look, I feel. LYN: As an artist, when you sign a brand deal all your fans will go furiously support that brand. After they’ve bought from one brand, you want to sign with another and make them buy more products from the new brand, too? What- what are you trying to do here?? I don’t want to do that to you. I would find something different to collab with- something you can use, something practical. You all know which brands I’ve worked with. I would never sign with something you’ve never heard of.

LYN: There are some things- I just want to share. You all know I really like cars, right? There have been some car brands that have looked for me to collab with. I have not accepted. Why? Because I look down on the brands? No. I like cars too much, I can’t sign a deal with any one brand. Everyone already knows the car I like the most is Ferrari. I’ve already set that as my dream carl, so if you want me to also sign a contract with a different brand I don’t think I would be able to take it. It would make it seem like my dream car changed. No, that’s not right. C: Ning-ge, did Ferrari come find you? LYN: Of course not! Why would they? Who am I??

LYN: Anyways, I just have these strange sort of ways of thinking. I want to tell my fans- if you think that I am not signing enough brand deals- that’s not the case. If I WANTED to I could have a lot more, but I don’t want to so that’s why I have so little. Another thing is I know that I’m not popular enough. I’m not popular enough yet, but there are only so many different brands. I was thinking I would wait until I get a little more popular and THEN sign contracts with these brands- that would increase my value, wouldn’t it? Do you get that logic? If I were in a rush to make money and sign with every brand that comes now but then later get even MORE popular- no one would want to work with me, because they already have. Let’s develop some more before I start signing deals, and that way I could make a better profit. XD

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LYN: It’s been a while since I came to chat with you, and I was planning to chat and talk nonsense and mess with you a little bit. It’s very relaxing, and it’s been a while since I’ve come to chat. Even if I feel a little worse for wear today, I still wanted to come. :) C: Lao-da, what are you doing tomorrow? LYN: What’s it to you? Why do I have to tell you what I’m doing tomorrow? You’re overreaching.

C: Is recording for the album all finished? LYN: It’s finished. Rather- all the songs I have until now are finished. I’m still lacking four songs. Four songs. /sigh/ It’s maddening. I’m still looking for songs. The first half are all done and in production, but I’m still missing four. I have to see how I’ll handle that. Since I’m in a crew now I’m focusing on my acting, but I’m still looking for songs. C: Wasn’t it three? LYN: It was three, but then after some consideration I kicked Fall in Love off the album. It was supposed to be the first song on the album, but after that track it was hard to find other songs. Now it’s been so long since Fall in Love was released; it’s been two years. If I kept it in my album as was planned I don’t think it would be interesting. LYN: It’s still a very nice song, so that’s why it was released as a single. I just can’t put it in the new album because it’s been too long already. I can’t explain it away anymore.

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LYN: I’ve been working on my new drama- it seems that a lot of people, my fans especially, have lots to say about my appearance. As if you’re very disappointed in my look. I saw your comments and was really sad. Because the thing is, first of all, trying out this hairstyle is already putting a lot of pressure on me. You’ve all seen the short hair by now- there are reuters everwhere. Short hair requires high demand from your five features and face shape. Secondly, your condition when filming is very important. As an actor, there’s no way that your condition is going to be the exact same every day. Some days you might be tired and you look swollen the next day. Or if you stay up too late at night, your eye sockets look really deep. It differs, but your condition is really critical for how you look on film. If you have longer hair, you can use the bangs or ends to cover up the face a little bit, but with short hair that’s not possible. So I was already apprehensive when taking on this short-hair challenge. [t/n: nooo he’s cute. Look at this bts vid: https://weibo.com/1856222553/Ngo7kE49Z ]

LYN: After some ugly photos of the look were released online after the first day of shooting my fans were already having a breakdown. So much so that they starting cursing. Cursing out the drama crew and the production company. You’re making me look bad! I’m a very strong person, but in the face of suh a big challenge I had a lot of pressure myself. Add to that my fans, starting to cause trouble? I was thinking, “These people must be crazy.” You’re making me look bad, but I also understand- you just… don’t get it. LYN: You don’t understand the process for the drama crew. With all of my guzhuang dramas and my more modern ones- you didn’t really have awareness before, because frankly back then I was just in supporting roles. Your demands of me weren’t as high, then. You were probably thinking it was nice that I got to shoot dramas at all. You didn’t care about my hair or wardrobe- it wasn’t important as long as I was in the drama. But after I started getting lead roles, you started to get spoiled. You started making demands of my hair and wardrobe. It’s gotten to your heads. I didn’t drift, but you’ve started to!

LYN: If you think about it, when I was playing all those supporting roles I didn’t hear any of you comment on my hair or nitpick on what could be changed. You never did, before. Did you really think I looked very good in those roles? I don’t think so- there were also ugly ones. There were a bunch of times LMX was looking ugly. So… you’ve also drifted. I’m not trying to teach you a lesson or brainwash you- but I don’t have an agency. I only have my studio, and my team consists of the same small group of people. Every post you see my studio account make- is made after all of us discuss what should be posted. I am the boss. We don’t have different groups for management, finance, and promotion. It’s all the same small group doing all of this. When you’re cursing out my studio, it’s no different from cursing at me. I don’t want you to learn the bad habits from this industry, which is that fans like to yell at the studio, the hair/makeup group, the crew, the production, etc. It’s a bad practice and you shouldn’t do this. Don’t think that by yelling at these groups you’ll make it seem as if you know what you’re doingl. That’s not the case. Me, LYN Studio, and fans of LYN are all a big family. Let’s not play these underhanded tricks, okay? Let’s learn some good things. Don’t just take away the bad things.

C: They’re all getting paid but not producing good work. LYN: What if I told you that my studio doesn’t get paid, how would you reply to me then? It’s not about getting paid or not. Some things are not achieved just by simply opening or closing your mouth. I understand your passion and good intent but there is one thing that I am confident in. That is: there are experts to do expert things. Do you understand? For example, if I go to some event to sing- the venue is full of technicians. You’ll see a lot of performers on stage: [/starts describing a situation where he attends an event and the performer has high demands (down to the decibel) of the sound system]. I understand that they have high-demands and admire them for it. But I don’t understand as much as those singers, so that’s why I bring a technician with me. Why? Because they’ve been at this job for 20+ years, so they would know a lot better than me, a singer of just 4-5 years. They could be 40 years old this year, and have spent the last thirty years doing this exact thing. What have you been doing? Going on variety shows, shooting ads, etc. Do you think you’re more professional than these experts? Hire experts to do expert things. There’s no way someone outside of the industry would be more professional than they are. Do you get this logic?

LYN: This applies to the fans, as well. When you tell me my acting or singing needs work, do you think I don’t know that?? You don’t need to think about the reasoning why- all you know is that it looks bad. You don’t understand WHY it looks that way. Do you think I don’t know? You understand acting better than I do?? I mean, it’s possible that you do. But do you get what I’m trying to say? The things you see- we’ve already seen, but there’s a reason why it is the way it is. I know the fans mean well when they start being critical, but they just don’t understand the reasoning. You don’t need to worry. When you encounter this problem in the future, too. Don’t worry. I would know if it’s a problem better than you would. We just don’t fix it because the problem is 1) part of the process or 2) has a reason. LYN: When I bring a technician to an event, I’m not picky. I leave it up to them how they want to adjust the sound settings. However they feel is the most comfortable. At the most I will ask them to turn down the volume of my mic input, and set the accompaniment to something I am comfortable hearing. Everything else is up to them to decide and it’s all set. Leave it to the pros.

LYN: I started getting angrier as I talked about it. Why didn’t you care this much about my appearance when I was doing support roles?? You should have said something a long time ago! Then at least I wouldn’t have looked so ugly in my past dramas. XD /laughs at himself/ How can I blame others for that? C: Then, we should have “drifted” earlier. LYN: No, that’s not what I mean. Don’t think of things in such extremes, ok?

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-- break #1

C: I could already recite these videos. LYN: Then recite them for me! Why don’t I believe you? If you remember it, then prove it. C: What are you eating? LYN: A lozenge.

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LYN: I noticed something- in the recent year- there really has been a batch of new fans. I always thought- /setting up bgm/ I always thought that I hadn’t gained a new fan in a long time. I thought that was normal, because I don’t have very many new works to show you. But what I didn’t know was that there are a lot of you who came in silence to support me, and you all came in the past year or so. LYN: /burps/ Oh? Why did my throat make that sound? Sorry, sorry. /drinks some water/ /burps again/ LYN: The mood’s broken. :p

LYN: Anyway- I always thought that I didn’t gain any fans in the past year, because I really don’t have anything to show. The most recent thing was ALZ and BYOL, but before that I didn’t really have anything. But then I discovered that I actually did gain fans! I didn’t find out through my weibo statistics; I found out in a very obvious way. The new batch of fans are calling me “lao gong” (husband). I’ve already taught my old fans better. My fans aren’t allowed to call me “lao gong”- it seems too shallow. It makes our relationship shallow. First, what are you calling me husband for when you already have your own?? [t/n: since most fans are older and already married.] Secondly, you’re going to have a boyfriend at some point in your life. It’s not good to call me “husband”, then. I’m not worth it and you really don’t need to. Don’t call me that. LYN: Let’s not be like everyone else- because they like to call their idols “husband” too. Let’s not do the same. What are you thinking?? We’re just friends, okay? Recently there have been a lot of people calling me “husband” and I know immediately that they’re new fans. My old fans already know the rules and they know how to act with propriety. So friends, fam, my brothers and sisters, propriety is very important.

LYN: It’s the same old. If you’re older than me you can call me ‘Xiao Ning’ and if you’re younger you can call me ‘Ning-ge’ or ‘Liu Yuning’. It all works. Just don’t call me “lao gong”. Thanks. I just really think it’s (calling him “husband”)… in poor taste/vulgar/inelegant. Thank you. C: I’ll call you “baobao” (baby). LYN: /retches/ C: I like being vulgar. LYN: Shut up! / Guards!! Drag them away! // How dare you! C: Can we call you “Lao Liu”? LYN: Yes, you can. Call me whatever. “Lao Liu” is ok.

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C: Do you have a music variety? LYN: Nope. I can’t remember- I was on a variety show last year, right? I didn’t sign with any this year. … Was I not on any variety show last year? Was I on one…? I really can’t remember. Did I have one last year? // Oh, The Truth was last year! I thought it was the year before last. In that case, I didn’t sign with any for this year. I’ll probably pick one up, then. My plan is to have one or two varieties a year, and 3 or four dramas.

C: Can I call you “son”? LYN: I don’t know if you have any ill-intent, or if you just think you’re funny. LYN: You can. /threatening/ Come find me tomorrow and call me “son”. Say it to my face. Give it a try. You can. Come on. Come call me “son” to my face.

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C: Can you sing “Rang Jiu”? LYN: I won’t sing tonight, because my throat is uncomfortable. I got sick, so I won’t be singing. LYN: But I am always scrolling through comments and videos, and I saw something funny. Someone said, “Hey, let me tell you something interesting. I recently became a fan of LYN…” I always see these videos, and this one had that special effect where they just have the eyes and mouth. They were saying how they recently started liking LYN and started talking about their experience. At the start its like this- hold, on. Let me imitate it for you- /laughs/ I see a lot of videos like this.

--: I don’t know why but lately I found myself liking LYN. I didn’t pay him much attention before, almost to the point where I was an anti. I first heard about him because of the fact that he was singing online, and I was thinking to myself, “What’s so special about that?” Then he got so popular for no reason, and why does he have so many fans? I keep thinking that he has someone company backing him up. Anyway, I didn’t really have a good impression of him. But then later, I was watching a drama- Tomb of the Sea- and there’s a song in it I really like! It’s called “Rang Jiu.” I really like this song, but at the time I didn’t know that LYN sang it. I often listened to the song, but I didn’t know who LYN was. --: Then, suddenly, I was watching Ultimate Note and I found myself really liking the actor who played Hei Xiazi. I thought he acted really well. The attitude was on point. I didn’t know the actor before, but I found him really cute. Even though he’s not like the source material at all, I still thought he did a good job and started liking him. I didn’t know it was LYN. A long time had passed and I got the feeling I stopped hearing about him, and the only things I could find online were really trivial. I still didn’t pay him much attention. --: But I was scrolling through videos and stopped on a clip of the drama he acted in with Tao-jie. I thought, “Oh? His acting came across naturally.” So from that clip I started watching BYOL. I never watch these types of dramas, but somehow I found myself finishing it. After I finished I started to get the feeling that LYN was a pretty interesting person. When I’m scrolling through videos sometimes I find clips from his livestreams and he’s pretty funny. Once you start watching his videos, they’re all that’s recommended to you. Whenever I watch those recommendations I think they’re funny. Somehow I started to think well of him. The more I learned about him, the more I felt for him. --: He really made it this far, step by step, and it wasn’t easy. When you don’t understand someone you’re bound to have some bias and prejudice against them. Of course, you wouldn’t want to understand someone you don’t like, anyway. But I wanted to say- for LYN- as long as you start to get to know him, there’s nothing not to like. I can’t say there’s NOTHING, but at the very least you won’t hate him. I want to advise people online not to buy into the media or easily believe things heard from someone else. What we see and hear may not be the truth. You have to make an effort to understand it yourself. Sometimes how you interpret it may not be the truth, either. But anyway, this is how I started liking LYN. It’s mysterious. I started off as an anti and didn’t have a good impression of him, but lately I’m SO into him. --: He’s really cool and it wasn’t easy for him to get this far. Sometimes when I’m online I see bad posts about him- like the leaked photos or images that make him look bad. But then when he streams he chats about it so casually and in a funny way, to make us laugh about it. One day- I saw that filming started for his new drama and people were posting bad things about it- on the first day! In that moment I didn’t think it was funny anymore. You’ll start to feel sorry for him. He’s just really (mentally) strong. He’s able to compartmentalize everything. As fans, I know that we don’t need to worry for him, but in that moment you start to realize that he’s actually just as human as the rest of us. He’s probably not as strong as we all think he is. Anyway, I hope that people can stop using what they see/hear online as a means of understanding someone. Honestly, it’s probably not at all true. That’s how I started liking LYN, and that’s what I wanted to share.

LYN: Now I’m starting to suspect if that video was something I posted myself! I think I imitated it too well!! When you’re scrolling online and come across a video with special effects that explains someone’s process of liking LYN, it could be that LYN posted the video himself. /cackles/

bgm: 就在江湖之上 (Above the Jianghu) [Mysterious Lotus Casebook OST]

C: It’s almost exactly the same. // How could you remember it so well? LYN: If it’s a compliment about me, of course I would remember. If it’s about someone else, I probably wouldn’t be able to think of things to comment on. Since this is about myself, it all comes naturally when I open my mouth. C: Did you watch it many times over? LYN: You don’t need to watch these things too many times. I could remember it all with one watch through. This is what you call... talent. LYN: First of all, as an actor I think you have to have some natural talent for imitation. I can’t imitate anything else- like some classes will have you imitate animals. I can’t do that. The thing I am best at is imitating my fans. When I imitiate their gaze and their small habits, I can do it well! Exactly the same. I can even pretend to be one of LYN’s fans! C: Again! LYN: You haven’t seen enough? You even want an encore? I’m amazed.

C: Act it out for me. LYN: I won’t be. I pretty much gave you the gyst of all these videos with the one I just did. Only that the special effect was a lemon with the eyes and mouth, is all. That was pretty fun. I think everyone’s fans like to use that specific effect to talk about things. I don’t know if it’s an industry rule or something?? I’ve seen a lot of videos where someone stopped being a fan of their idol, and they use that effect to get rid of all their fandom stuff and vent. XD They also use that effect. I don’t know if it’s a potato or lemon, but they all use that effect. LYN: Is it used to stay unnamed/unknown? C: Watermelon. LYN: Yes, there’s the watermelon one, too. LYN: Is it to stay unknown? There are a lot of different effects you could use, like the one I just did. But they all seem to use that same one. I don’t know why. LYN: /puts on a different filter/ This works too, doesn’t it? Look at how big the eyes are. /playing around/ Wink! Oh, it can’t wink? C: You even know “wink”? LYN: /laughs/ What do you mean?? Is “wink” a very difficult English word to remember?

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C: Have you eaten Chongqing Xiao Mian? LYN: Everywhere I go, why does it seem like you ask me whether I’ve eaten the local specialty or not?? I just want to say- our country is very well developed. In Beijing you can eat the local specialties from all countries and regions. Do you think Beijing doesn’t have Chongqing noodles? Can you not find hotpot in Xi’an? There’s no way- it’s everywhere.

C: It’s not authentic. LYN: What do you mean “authentic”?? I always see people talking about how Chongqing hotpot is authentic, but I also see them selling the hotpot base. I went to eat hotpot the other day and there was a stall in front selling the soup base. If I bought that home, wouldn’t it be equally authentic? LYN: I get what you’re trying to say. But if Chongqing hotpot is packages and ready for purchase- why can’t I buy it and take it back to Dandong to eat? Then you tell me whether or not I’d be eating local, authentic Chongqing hotpot in Dandong or not. Isn’t it all the same?

C: The pot is different. LYN: I’ll just buy the same pot!! I’ll buy a pot home, does that work for you?

C: It’s still different. LYN: If you’re going to say that then you’re messing with their business. How can you say that? For example, if I were a Chongqing hotpot shop owner and I sold my base in my shop, would you stand in front of my shop and tell people that buying the base to eat at home makes it not taste “authentic”? You’re going to tell people that buying it home is different from eating it in store, and not to buy it?? Now, you tell me if the owner would give you a beating or not. Is that something a person would do??? C: It really is different. LYN: Then by your standards, all the hotpot bases in the country should stop being sold. You’re influencing a whole industry, I’m telling you now.

C: The atmosphere is different. LYN: If I buy a pot, Chongqing hotpot base, then make a room in my house LOOK like somewhere you would eat Chongqing hotpot, would it be okay then?? Would it still be different? I’ll remodel my house to look like a Chongqing hotpot shop. Buy one of the pots home. The electric stoves are all the same. Use their hotpot base. Tell me how it’s still different.

C: The water is different. LYN: I’ll take two pails of water home.

C: The land is different. LYN: I’ll dig 2kg of Chongqing dirt to bring home and spread it across my floor.

C: The air is different. LYN: /laughs/ What the heck are you saying. The air is different…

C: No waiters. LYN: Is the point of eating Chongqing hotpot to be waited on? The critical part of having Chongqing hotpot is the waiters, is that what you’re telling me? No way. But it doesn’t matter, because /I/ was a waiter. I just told you, too. Whether actor, singer, or artist, we’re all in the business of customer service.

LYN: In any case, we’re getting into semantics, but it wouldn’t really make much of a difference. It’s different from before. Now our transportation and shipping speeds is very developed. It’s not as difficult to get something you want to eat, from somewhere specific, as it was before. Delivery services are so much more convenient- what can’t you get nowadays? Don’t get too caught up in the details. C: It really is different though… LYN: Ok, fine then. If you say it is, then it is.

C: No Chongqing dialect. LYN: I’ll speak it myself! // I’ll play a song in the Chongqing dialect! -- 朝天门 by GAI LYN: I’ll listen to this song while eating hotpot, is that okay with you?? I’ll eat some then say [t/n: something in the Chongqing dialect, which I can’t understand. Maybe “So spicy!”?]. I’ll pretend I’m in Chongqing. Is that not authentic enough? // Fine, I won’t fight on this with you anymore. X’D

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C: Ning-ge, have you been to Hongya Cave? LYN: Is that the popular destination? Is it called Honga Cave? I’ve forgotten. It’s said that if you go there at night- the lights turn on at 8p and it looks nice. It looks like a scene from [//]. LYN: I went out to eat one night and crossed by a bridge. There were a lot of stalls on it, so I thought it would be nice if I could shop around. I saw there were stalls, but also there were people just standing on the bridge. What were they looking at? The bridge was really high up. Chongqing is a mysterious place. The bridge - the walkways are all high up. Almost as high as a building. I was wondering what they were all looking at, just standing onthe bridge?? But then my makeup artist told me that they were waiting for Hongya Cave to turn on the lights. That when the lights are on it’s really pretty and looks like something from a fairytale. So I looked it up on the internet and saw some pictures- it was very pretty, yes. In any case, I saved myself time waiting in line (to see it in person). XD I didn’t want to get up on that crowded bridge, so I just looked it up and saw it online.

LYN: It was pretty. I think Chongqing is a beautiful place, and I really like it here. The food’s good- very spicy. The shop owners always try to advise you, “You won’t be able to eat this. Don’t take it lightly. Don’t order this dish. You won’t be able to take it.” It’s all very spicy. But if I eat it every day, I think it would be too much. Because their specialty is heavy on oil and heavy on spice; but after you eat it you’ll feel so good. Still, I don’t think I could eat it every day. C: Can you eat spicy? LYN: I do ok. Even though I’m from Northeast China, I can still eat spicy foods. My tolerance is good. I dont have any big issue with it. There’s no problem.

C: Suzhou food is really good. LYN: I don’t know, but if I get the chance I want to try. I’ll get there eventually. I was in Xi’an for a while, and there I ate- was it Xi’an? My brain’s not working… Did I go to Xi’an? What did I do there? … Oh, Chunzhen! I was saying, I think I went but I couldn’t remember what for! I didn’t go there to film any drama… Oh, it was Chunzhen. I remember now. LYN: I went to Xi’an and ate, and I thought it was really good. The great thing was that I went to a few restaurants, and maybe the places I went to had less people around, but the aunties in the restaurants were really welcoming. Not “welcoming” in a “customer service” kind of way but sincerely welcoming. They would tell me that one dish is really delicious, or not to order too much because I won’t finish it all. You can feel that they’re very sincere. They’re very down to earth people, and the portion sizes are big! I thought the people there are really great. Real, sincere, and kind. It wasn’t only the one restaurant, either. It was every one I went to. It was nice. // I had fun.

C: Chongqing is really nice too. LYN: I didn’t really get out much in Chongqing. The most I’ve interacted with in Chongqing was my fans from here. /stares into the camera for a second/ Fans from Chongqing. I saw them every day. C: The personality is different in each region. LYN: I don’t know about that, but I had fun nonetheless. I ate a lot of delicious foods. Everywhere I go I’ll eat something delicious.

C: When are you coming to Guangxi? LYN: Guangxi… when I have the chance. LYN: In the early days when I was working, there was a senior who was from Guangxi. Sometimes when he spoke none of us understood him. He was a really funny guy, though. So I’m.. full of curiosity for Guangxi.

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LYN: It’s about time. It’s 10:54p. When I stop streaming I have to grab something to eat; I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll just stream until 11p. I just came here to chat, anyway. Let’s see how long I’ve been streaming for; I don’t think it’s been very long. 2 hours. It’s a decent time, not too short. So, friends- there are many of you who still have not subscribed to my weibo. If you haven’t, please do so. Thank you. Thanks for keeping me company tonight. After I return to Hengdian my schedule would be considerably more stable, but I will have a lot more scenes to do there. But since I consider it my home now, I’ll feel a lot more at ease and that way I can stream more often if I have the time. My equipment will be better there, too.

LYN: I hope I get better soon, but I think I still have a few more days of recovery to go. It’s not a big problem, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m already this old, and I am strong and healthy! It’s no big problem. I’ll be better in a few more days. 

C: /asks him about something specific/ LYN: I didn’t come here to get into any particular topics. I just came to chat. I have to watch what I say, because I don’t want to let anyone get something over me. I went to the Eastern Billboard and said I wanted to release my album before holding my concert, and somehow someone took that to mean that I was trying to subtly bring someone else down. It’s strange. Apparently everything I say is a subtle diss on someone else. As if I have the time to care about what other people are doing?? So in that case, I’ll just try to say less. LYN: I don’t have the time nor mental capacity to care about other people. I have my own work to take care of, and strings of beads to play with. I don’t have time to pay attention to other people’s problems or understand how they live their life. 

LYN: I hope you had a relaxing, happy and wonderful night. It was great to have you and I hope you had fun. Let’s meet again in the next stream. Goodnight everybody. -/starts imitating that fan video again/

[putellasawfc]

exposed !

jen beattie x arsenal!reader

( a/n: omgggg this has been in the works FOREVER, before jen announced leaving arsenal which i am still not over tbh. but it’s finally here! especially dedicated to @mccabeswife since she requested it ! i hope you enjoy ! )

-

another media day at the arsenal training grounds meant a lot of bored footballers sat around waiting for their turn in front of the camera, the current youtube video being filmed was for three pairs only, another one of those ‘guess what the person is saying whilst you wear sound cancelling headphones’ videos that people went crazy over. the lucky girls who had been paired together for said video had been chosen at random, and you had ended up with leah with frida, manu with katie and viv with lotte which meant the rest of you were trying to entertain yourselves elsewhere.

which wasn’t really an issue when you were all shoved into a recreational room with an assortment of snacks, gossip and phones in hand. beth, the self proclaimed quidnunc of the group had been sat in between you and alessia for the last ten minutes, and had yet to stop telling you about the ongoing drama in the west ham team that she had found out about at an event over the weekend. you paid attention for as long as you could, sharing looks with alessia as you both struggled to keep up with the fast paced ramblings coming from the yorkshire woman but beth was none the wiser.

you felt a dip in the sofa to the left of you, the last bit of space being occupied by someone who threw an arm around your shoulder and when you got a whiff of the familiar perfume she sprayed on every morning, you knew exactly who it was.

you turned your head and smiled at the culprit, jen sat sporting her usual messy bun on top of her head and cheeky smile on her face. she pulled you further into her side and gently squeezed your upper arm, “she still talking your ear off?”

you huffed a laugh at that, looking to see if beth had heard but she was still too busy ranting and raving, now focusing her attention on alessia since you were now occupied elsewhere, poor girl.

“something like that.” you hummed, snuggling up to your taller girlfriend who was happy to let you lean on her. “you finished your influencer activities?” you teased, referring to the number of tiktok’s she had forced some of the girls to take part in since they all arrived.

“aye, i get a lot of love and appreciation from the fans for providing them with five star, behind the scenes content i’ll have you know.” she told you, “but yeah. letting steph take over for now, think she’s really getting into those football murder mystery filters.”

you glanced over to where she nodded towards, indeed seeing steph with her phone in her hand obviously recording herself, with kyra and vic sat either side of her laughing at the story that was unfolding on the filter.

“what happens when she steals your tiktok crown?” you asked with a sly smirk, knowing the older woman would have a meltdown if steph’s content starting getting more love than hers.

“don’t jinx it.” she shoved you lightly, “i’d have to post something outrageous to get me my title back. know i have some mugshots of you deep in my camera roll, i’m sure they’d come in handy.”

“you wouldn’t!” you gasped, sitting up slightly in your seat and the scottish woman laughed at your reaction.

you knew she had accumulated a hefty amount of embarrassing pictures of you over the year that you’d been together, ranging from you asleep with your mouth open to you pulling the ugliest faces whilst you awaited the impact of the ball to hit you during games.

“then you better hope steph gets bored quickly.” she shrugged.

you playfully rolled your eyes at that, finally relaxing back down beside her, grabbing ahold of her hand that was hanging over your shoulder, interlocking your fingers as you did.

“you’re so mean to me, sometimes i don’t know why i agreed to be your girlfriend.” you shook your head as if you were disappointed with yourself, trying your best to hold back the smile that was itching to come out.

that didn’t last long though, as only a moment later the defender jumped up from her spot on the sofa and leaned most of her body weight on you, her hands flew to grab either side of your face so she could get a good view of it as she began to lather every inch of your skin in kisses, her lips not leaving one patch of your face untouched. your squealed and thrashed wildly beneath her, your shoulder knocking into beth’s who finally halted in her gossiping at the interruption.

she kept going, stopping for a second to grin at your flushed state. “you fancied me too much to say no to being my girlfriend you goon.” and with that she continued her loving attack on you.

you wriggled around, laughing as you fought for breath and attempted to push her from you but she wasn’t budging.

“jen! stop, i can’t breathe.” you shrieked between giggles, hands gripping at her red jumper, “you’re right! you’re right, please let me go!”

finally deciding you’d had enough, jen let go of you and you caught your breath as you sagged against beth with a hand on your chest. “you could’ve killed me then, i hope you know.”

“so dramatic you are.” she tutted, pulling gently on your arm so that you were sat upright once again. “now gimme a proper one.”

you grinned, and gladly leaned in towards your girlfriend, giving her exactly what she wanted as your lips met halfway and you sunk into the display of affection almost immediately, your lips moving together in unison before you felt a harsh nudge in your side.

you yelped and pulled back, glaring at beth who only looked proud of what she’d done.

“not in front of the children please.”

-

the next day you arrived back at the training grounds, this time with a full day of practice ahead of you rather than a day in front of the cameras which you were very much looking forward to. media day was always fun, especially when you were partnered up with the right person and yesterday you were lucky enough to have gotten cloe as your pal for the day, so you had no complaints.

but you were excited to get back to doing what you loved, especially with an important match ahead of you. you wanted to get your head in the game and make sure you were one hundred percent ready to face the opposing team on sunday.

everything was normal for all of five minutes, you walked in and greeted some of the staff lingering near the entrance before you headed off to the changing rooms so you could change into your training kit, but before you even had chance to push the door open, a body came barrelling into yours, making you stumble on your feet and your arm fly out to steady yourself against the wall.

you looked to the person with furrowed brows, your jaw dropped in shock at the scare you’d just gotten. “christ steph, what’s up with you?”

she looked worried, as her hands gripped onto both of your arms and the aussie looked behind her where leah and lia were approaching, with much calmer demeanours. “i have to tell you something before you find out from someone else, but you have to promise you won’t be mad at me.”

you eyed her warily, your head cocking to the side before you looked over to the two other girls with narrowed eyes. “what is it?”

“no! you have to promise first.”

you rolled your eyes at that, beginning to panic a little as your mind ran wild with possibilities of what information steph could be withholding from you.

“fine, i promise. now tell me.” you told her, not really meaning it, you just needed her to spill the beans before you tired yourself out from overthinking.

“i kind of, may have, accidentally posted a tiktok that had you and jen kissing in the background of it.” she winced, waiting a beat to carry on. “but i promise it was a genuine mistake! if i had known it was in there i would’ve never, ever posted it i know you guys didn’t want your relationship to be public yet, and i am so sorry please don’t be mad at me.”

“what?”

a stupid question, most definitely but it was the only thing that you could manage to say at this moment in time. you didn’t know how to feel or what to say as you processed the information just given to you by steph who was still watching you carefully, as if she was awaiting some kind of wild outburst.

an array of different emotions passed through you simultaneously, you were annoyed at steph for outing your relationship on a platform that spread content like wildfire. no doubt screenshots and recordings of the tiktok had already been shared to the likes of twitter and instagram, posts made that couldn’t be taken back now. how could steph have let that happen? why did she not spot it before she pressed post?

you were also panicking. did jen know? would she be annoyed? would this change things between you? you’d both agreed when you first began dating, after months of mutual pining, that when you got together you would keep your relationship as private as you could, for as long as you could.

something that was unfortunately common amongst women’s football, was how invasive some fans could be in the players lives. you had seen how they could overstep boundaries and pry too deep into stuff they didn’t need to know about many times, which would then jump to them spreading their opinions without a care about who was on the other side of their sometimes vicious comments. you’d been witness to it ruining some of your friends relationships, and you didn’t want that to happen to you and jen. jen who you loved, who loved you back, jen who you could see yourself marrying one day in the future. so you had come to the smart, unanimous decision to keep it hush for as long as you could. but now, it was out there.

“does jen know?” you asked next, deciding that was the priority for you right now.

steph shook her head, “no. i was gonna tell her but she’s been talking to jonas since she got in.”

jen had set off an hour prior to you, with fans sometimes lingering outside the training grounds in hopes of getting a photo with some of you before you came in, you didn’t want to risk them seeing you and jen showing up together a few times too many and start to put two and two together, so more often than not you took separate cars and showed up at different times.

you nodded at that, and took in a deep breathe as you tried to think of what to do next. seeing as it was already out, there was no way you’d be able to backtrack or deny that you were in a relationship with jen, so the only real option you had left was to come clean to the fans about it all. you just weren’t sure how to.

“are you still my friend?” you were brought back into the present by steph’s quiet voice, her eyes were still scanning you warily and you probably would’ve laughed at how silly she sounded if you weren’t the person on the other end.

“course i’m still your mate steph.” you told her, and the blonde visibly deflated in front of you. “just wish you had the common sense to check what’s going on in your tiktok’s before you posted them.”

you were half joking, half serious. but when steph tutted and shoved you playfully, you didn’t have the heart to be upset with her anymore. it’s not as if she had posted it on purpose, and with how she reacted when she approached you, you were sure she’d been beating herself up over it since she’d realised what she’d done.

“see! told you she wouldn’t be mad, got yourself all worked up over nothing.” leah spoke up, and then you remembered her and lia were still lingering in the back.

“yeah well, i wouldn’t have blamed her if she was.” steph said, and you pulled the aussie in for a side hug.

“it’s okay steph, just gotta find jen now and spill the beans.”

-

it was only twenty minutes later when jen joined you all in the changing rooms, already clad in her arsenal training kit and with her water bottle in hand, she spotted you almost instantly and her face brightened when she realised you had arrived whilst she’d been busy.

“when did you get here?” she asked, pulling you into a hug which you gladly reciprocated.

“not too long ago.” you told her, rubbing your hands up and down her back. “got something i need to tell you though.”

she pulled back a little at that, looking down at you with a raised brow. “should i be worried?”

you shrugged, “i mean, it’s not anything to panic about but … i don’t know if you’re going to like it.”

you nodded your head towards the door, gesturing to the empty hallway on the other side where you could both have the conversation privately with nobody there to eavesdrop. jen nodded in agreement, retracting from your embrace and pulling on your hand to tug you in the direction you had just motioned towards.

now standing in the vacant corridor, you leaned your back against the grey wall and watched jen as she stood in front of you with her hands on her hips as she waited for you to speak, which you did after a sigh.

“steph practically ambushed me this morning, she um, did something stupid.” you began, scratching your head as you thought about how to put what happened into words. “you know all those tiktoks she was messing around with yesterday?”

you waited for jen to nod, which she did a second later so then you continued. “well she posted some of them and in one of them, it has you and i kissing in it, in the background. and it’s definitely too late for us to do anything about it.”

you stood with baited breath, similar to how steph had been when she was breaking the news to you, all of a sudden wishing you had the power to read minds as jen’s poker face came out in full force, the brunette not hinting to how she was feeling at all. at least she wasn’t tugging at her loose strands of hair, or biting at her nails, two big tell tale signs that she was stressing which you’d picked up over the months you’d spent together, which was a small win you were willing to take.

“well i guess the secrets out then.” jen shrugged, her hands remaining on her hips as you looked at her slightly puzzled.

“you’re not bothered?” you asked, half expecting a bigger reaction from the woman who was always so careful with how you interacted in public.

“i mean, it’s not great is it?” she asked, “but honestly, a part of me is kind of glad its out there now. i love our little bubble, not having to deal with people we don’t even know deciding whether we’re a good fit or not and all that stuff. but at least now, we don’t have to stress over the littlest things everytime we go out together.”

you listened to the points she made, nodding along with pursed lips in agreement with what she was saying. one of the most annoying things about have a relationship that wasn’t public, was having to be on guard everytime you both wanted to spend time with eachother out of the house, leading to the two of you just ending up having most of your date nights at home instead, not having the energy to make sure there were no prying eyes wherever you went.

“and we don’t have to watch what we post on social media. no more making sure our stories don’t give away that we’re at the same place, or triple checking that none of our stuff’s in the background.” she added on, and your lips quirked up in amusement at the amount of times you’d had to quickly delete a story or instagram post when you realised there was a beattie shirt in the background, or anything else that gave away who you were with.

“so this is kind of like a blessing in disguise?”

she grinned, “yeah something like that. but don’t tell steph i said anything, she’ll be gloating for weeks.”

you laughed at that, finally being able to relax properly for the first time since steph had practically jumped you whilst you were on your way to get changed. jen approached you, clearing the few steps that kept her away from you and pulling you into her warm embrace, pressing a kiss to your forehead as she did. “at least now we don’t have to do any big, relationship reveal post. you know how much i’ve been dreading that.”

you hummed, “think we should get steph to do a big post for us? i’m sure her drafts are stacked with videos of us.”

“we can ask. but not yet, wanna pretend i’m really mad at her for a bit so i can bribe her into pampering me for a bit.”

you scoffed at that, giving the scottish woman a faux disgusted look. “you’re evil beattie.”

“you love me.”

[damiansgoodgirll]

are r up for writing about gavi if so could you do gavi reacting to u pranking him telling his a guy did ur brazilian wax? if not that’s ok but can u then do it with kylian?

i’m not really a gavi fan so i hope you don’t mind i made this with kylian 🫶🏻🥹

kylian mbappè x reader

Prank goes wrong

you saw this video on tiktok right before you had your wax appointment and you had this mischievous idea to recreate the same with kylian, even though you wouldn’t be filming it you couldn’t wait to see his reaction.

“hey baby!” you said almost screaming once you got back home from your appointment.

“hey mon amour” he said from over the couch “come here next to me” he aimed at you for joining him on the very large and comfortable sofa he had in his living room.

“how was your day?” you asked him.

“boring. no practice, nothing to do…you were gone all morning and the house was pretty silent without having you here” he confessed.

“i’m sorry baby…you knew i couldn’t cancel my appointment today” you smiled to him and kissed him.

“i know i know…by the way, how did it go?” he asked, focusing all of his attention on you.

“oh pretty good! you know, the usual girl who wax me was sick today so i had someone else to do it” you said trying to act natural.

“oh, was she good?” he asked.

“yeah, he was really really good” you said, not looking into his eyes yet.

“oh great…wait, he?” kylian asked you turning off the tv.

“yup…no one else was able to do it this morning, but they have this new guy and he’s actually really good” you said once again.

“but-but where did you? you know…where, which part of your body?” he asked you trying to keep it cool.

“oh, i shaved my legs, my armpits and my vagina” you said completely normal.

“hold on…you’re telling me you had a man touching you down there?” he almost screamed.

“what? he wasn’t touching…he was just doing his job kylian, why are you so pressed? you’ve never acted like this when it was one of the girls doing it…” you said.

“exactly! those were girls! today you had a man! a man! a man who basically saw you naked! isn’t this illegal?”

“why should it be illegal kylian? he was simply doing his job…i don’t get why are you so mad…” you tried to look hurt but inside you couldn’t stop laughing, this was evil but you were having so much fun.

“but-but…a man? seriously? he touched you down there y/n…a man!”

���you probably said man a thousand times already…kylian, i don’t get why you are so mad, he was just doing his job…” you tried to resonate with him but he was actually pissed about it.

“i’m not mad!” he screamed and you looked at him “okay…i’m mad…not mad mad, just mad, i don’t know okay? i don’t know how to feel! a guy saw you naked down there and touched you and i don’t care if it was his job that shit should be illegal! a man? no way that’s crazy! you know what? give me the name of that place…i want to get waxed too…” he said and that was the moment you completely lost in and bursted out laughing.

“why are you laughing? it’s because i wanna get waxed too?” he asked you.

“no…no that’s not the reason” you said between laughs “you’re so jealous i love you kylian”

“i don’t get it…” he looked like a lost puppy.

“no man touched me down there…” you kept laughing.

“then how did he wax you?”

“kylian…” you had tears in your eyes because you kept laughing “no man waxed me, it was all a prank” you said.

you couldn’t decipher the look on his face. he went from mad to confused, from confused to sad, from sad to relieved and from relieved to speechless.

“so you thought this was funny?” he asked you and you nodded “why would you think it would be funny? i was about to get fired a man that doesn’t even exist!” he said.

“you are so jealous you would even get a man fired for me?”

“well if a man saw my woman naked i would have his head on my table…” he said smirking at you.

“oh my - you’re something else” you kept laughing.

you both spent the rest of the day laughing about the prank you did but what you didn’t know was that kylian was already working on how to get revenge on you.

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

Hey.... Heyyyyyy.... How y'all doing.... take the Nimona headcanons that have been rotting in my notes app for the past four months

Ambrosius has kept track of the weirdest things he’s signed for a fan

At the very tippy top is a dinner plate a dog crate and a baby

And by baby I do mean living breathing crying baby

He tried really hard to find something else to sign but for some reason the parents were really insistent on it being their baby

And for some reason he did it

There are hundreds of photos of this infant with a signature on his forehead 

And that kid to this day will whip out his baby photos and show people that he was that baby 

Multiple knights (cough cough Todd) tried to recreate that situation but it didn’t have the same effect 

I feel like Bal gets really bad migraines (which kind of comes with the territory of using your head like a bartering ram) 

And when they do happen Nimona and Ambrosius do everything in their power to make sure that it doesn’t get worse 

I feel like Ambrosius is stupidly good at video games 

I have this little headcanon that books and games were kind of an escape for him

His own personal little oasis from being the golden child with a million expectations and responsibilities on his back 

He's not very good at playing with other people tho because he was always scared people would figure out who he was just based on his voice alone (and he’s not wrong for thinking that)

Nimona is also really good at video games (I mean she’s also half of the reason they were invented but that’s a long ass story) 

So because I’ve been away for so long I wanted to bless you with my friend's reaction to the movie

Just for some context tho it did take us months to finish because we all have work and school and we couldn’t see each other for a while so if I missed some stuff I’ll add it later

“Aw boyfriends” (When they were on the catwalk)

“Why are they so cute” “they’re literally my otp” and “they have cute banter” (The entire time before the knighting ceremony)

JB: “Oh she’s got Daddy issues huh” Me: “why do you say that?” JB “cause why else would she follow a man”(As they’re walking through the kingdom)

JB: “God what a fake fucking bitch I hate the way she talks” (As the director is scolding the knights)

“He knows him so well”(He hates freestyle jazz)

“It’s his boyfriend” “aw bae why’d you throw a smoke bomb at me” “look how frantic he is to find him” “he can’t shoot look at that face” (the entire subway/market scene”) 

JB: “I think this scene is curing her daddy issues and yours” (the alley scene)

(Same scene) KO: “why is he acting like it’s hurting him more?” Me: “Cause that’s his kid” KO: “wow this really is healing your daddy issues” 

JB: “What am I even watching?” “I fucking knew it she was such a fake bitch” (The squires video) 

“Oh my god he’s so embarrassing” “is he really jealous of a kid” “oh my god the director really doesn’t give a fuck huh?” “He didn’t say that out loud” “but does she?” “No” (Ambrosius freak out) 

JJ: “oh my god this is like Archane” Me: “shut the fuck up about Archane” (in my defense he kept mentioning Archane the whole time)

“If I could turn into a dragon I’d never turn back” “same I’d love to breathe cereal” (during the fight) 

“He’s so embarrassing why is he dying that dramatic” (proceeds to make fun of Ambrosius' “death” the whole time) 

“Did they really upload her confession to their version of YouTube” “is his account name really BalliSTAR?” “Why are they dancing?” “His username is Loins_of_gold? Why is he such a dork??” 

JB: “Awe nachos are totally their thing” “he remembered he’s allergic he still loves him!” 

JJ: “he’s a knight?” Me “have you been watching this movie with your eyes closed?” 

And then we freaked out about Ambrosius saying I love you and Bal not saying it back 

We said nothing when Bal pulled a sword on Nimona they kind of just sat shocked 

JB kept mentioning the flashback and after it happened all I said was “you wanted the flashback there’s your fucking flashback” while she sat in sad silence

They also just kept saying in shock “that’s her? That’s Gloreth” while I laughed 

We kind of spent the rest of the movie in silence until Bal and Ambrosius kissed at the end and then everyone collectively lost their shit

They lost their shit again when Nimona showed back up and JB went upstairs because even tho Nimona came back to life she was still sad

[centrally-unplanned]

I watched the Scott Pilgrim anime! I was deeply ambivalent, which I am sure is a shock to no one who knows me and saw it lol. I think I have a sequence of thoughts, so I will tackle the obvious one first to get it out of the way: Marketing, Adaptation, & Genre Drift in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Starting from top, if you don’t know, the Scott Pilgrim anime is not an adaptation of the original source material, but an alternate history version of the events where the titular Scott isn’t present for the majority of the episodes and Ramona Flowers is the main character. Which has been controversial! Not…amazingly controversial or anything, this is an extremely low stakes scenario and from my analysis the majority of people liked it. But controversial enough to get insufferable Kotaku articles “explaining the backlash��� which don’t explain the backlash well. Let me see if I can do a better job - its fun to set low bars for yourself to clear after all.

The backlash starts with the marketing; really just the professional drama-trolls would have objected beyond an initial reaction to Netflix announcing Ramona Flowers vs the World; as a concept it makes a ton of sense, and it is essentially what they actually did (well, we will get into that). But that is not how it was sold:

“Join Scott in his fight for love, life, and rock!” I’d love to, still waiting for the invite! This is the first teaser for the show, and if you do a quick “frame count” it pretty equally privileges Scott & Ramona both, but Scott is still on top and it deliberately hides any sense that it is an alternate timeline. It even has this screenshot as one of its final moments:

Which I am pretty sure does not appear in the actual anime! If it does its in some flashback alt-timeline scene in a later episode, not its implied context (in the actual episode Scott ‘loses’ this fight). I can show more evidence - casting the original cast of the movie to make it seem like a ‘recreation’, statements by O’Malley where he plays deliberately coy with the idea of how similar it's going to be, and so on - but I think I don’t have to, because it was intentional, you don’t have to read the tea leaves on this. The bait-and-switch is part of the marketing, not an accident from it.

That is the step 1: people are thrown about being deceived. The step 2 is simple - this is a deception about an adaptation. I am someone who constantly complains about shows sacrificing cohesion & storytelling for “the twist”, but its too common these days to be that mad over it in a mass way. My designated punching bag over at Kotaku points this out:

This is a recurring theme for metatextual work like Final Fantasy VII Remake and the Rebuild of Evangelion films: initially they’re presented as retellings of beloved stories, only for it to become clear at some later point that they’re going to take more than a few liberties and tell a different story entirely.

The difference here is that FFVII and Evangelion are remakes, not adaptations. FFVII is a video game being made into a video game again; Evangelion is a tv show + movie being made into a movie series. The FFVII decision was controversial, but fundamentally you can just go back and play the original game; fucking everyone hated the idea of the Evangelion rebuilds being remakes because that is pointless, the originals have aged amazingly, and they had to deviate to justify their existence (they failed at that, but a story for another time). Meanwhile, Scott Pilgrim is a comic, that has never been a TV series, or an anime. There is the movie, but did you know a bunch of comic fans hate the movie? You see a lot of comments like these all the time (from a discourse reddit thread debating the new show):

Personally, I thought it was fun. I agree with a lot of your complaints honestly, but I don’t understand how you liked the movie? I can’t stand the movie because I feel like the characters are all flat, especially Ramona who has absolutely no personality at all.

I disagree btw, the movie is great, but it is a loose adaptation - hell it was released before the final volume of the graphic novels was finished, it has a different ending! A short, cohesive movie could never adapt a long-form, episodic graphic novel. And its live action, stylistically very different. So this TV show was both branded as, and was expected to fulfill a demand for, a first “real” adaptation of the comic, that people wanted. The fact that Evangelion deviated in its remake is a poor comparison. Questioning that people want full adaptations of works they enjoy isn’t really worth our time.

Now I personally don’t care about the above two - I am explaining the debate, but they aren’t problems for me. Step 3 is where I start caring - I think Ramona Flowers vs the World is a great idea. They thought they made that, and I wish they had. But in the process of telling the bait-and-switch of the story, they also bait-and-switched the genre. There is this great quote from O’Malley about the original graphic novel’s story from an interview (whose headline we will revisit in another post, don’t you worry):

Yeah, I mean, when I was writing Scott Pilgrim the first time, I just wanted to come up with a very simple story engine: fight, fight, fight, get to the end. That gave me something to hang all this other stuff on, all this slice of life hanging out in Toronto.

Its such a nice summation of what Scott Pilgrim is - the fighting against the evil exes? Its all sizzle and jokes, none of it matters. Its a plot device to structure the real story, which is a slice-of-life romance drama, coming-of-age narrative, and extremely intimate portrait of Toronto’s scene of indie music venues and hipster coffee shops. The joke is that Scott is dealing with all this crazy video game/anime shenanigans on top of actually having to navigate very grounded past emotional damage and present challenges of adulthood. The heart of the comic is not the fight scenes, some of which literally happen in the background while other characters are talking, but scenes of a group of friends hanging out at 11:00 PM at a dive Korean restaurant:

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off meanwhile is not built around this cast. Its built around a mystery plot and Ramona Flower’s evil exes, who she is investigating, and Scott Pilgrim, uh, checks notes travelling to the future and fighting his …aged enraged alternate self from the original timeline…? Anyway, Ramona’s evil exes are mainly joke characters, comic reliefs who engage in crazy shenanigans. Half of the episodes are structured around them, and their episodes are filled with extended comedy bits and very-long fight scenes. Episode two has a 13 minutes long fight scene between two of them, including build-up, over control of the League of Evil Exes. Hell, they don’t even live in Toronto - a ton of the new anime takes place in New York City and a bit in California. The comic meanwhile has panels just…explaining locations in Toronto sometimes:

Listing the hours of operation, its so cute! The anime has no time for this in between its sci-fi plots and fight scenes, and its far cheaper for it.

The decision to focus on shallow characters like Ramona’s exes is downstream of the decision to focus on Ramona without Scott -besides the exes the rest of the characters are Scott’s friends, who Ramona gets to know through him. Which is the final point here - who are the characters people love from Scott Pilgrim?

All of Scott’s friends ofc. Characters like Lucas Lee are memes, not people. Obviously Kim Pine, Young Neil, Knives Chau and so on appear in the anime. Sometimes they have great scenes - like the adorable scene of Knives & Kim playing music together, Knives’s first time really trying to jam:

Which goes absolutely nowhere from a character perspective - Knives & Kim barely interact after this. It sets up Knives doing a comedy-meta musical for the plot, sure…but that’s boring in comparison to real emotional connections, Knives doesn't have an arc. But they can’t have more, because our main character Ramona Flowers doesn’t know these people; she wouldn’t just hang out with them, and she is busy with her mystery investigation. She sees them when she needs them for plot reasons. Kim and Knives and Stephen Stills are much flatter this time around (Julie, to her credit, kicks ass in this one).

Obviously I could point out that Scott & Ramona’s relationship in the anime, given that they have literally one date before Scott vanishes, has no depth to it, but that is easy. The funniest way to summarize this character issue is if you check the tags on Tumblr right now, you are going to be awash in Scott/Wallace shipping posts. Like I swear, at times its straight(?)-up 50% of the posts going on, its a rabid gay horde out there lusting for this sugar daddy/baby dynamic. Which makes sense, they have so much sexual tension & emotional depth as friends…in the comic. In the anime they barely know each other! Wallace hates Scott and interacts with him maybe a half dozen times, primarily to tell him to move out, then does his own shit. This is all people projecting comic!Scott/Wallace onto the current show.

There are more downstream consequences of these decisions & other issues (like the overdone meta elements, or abandoning most of the indie-music aesthetic) but this has gone on long enough. The point is that telling a different version of the story would actually be fine. It would disappoint some fans, sure, but if done well you would likely win them around. Hell, the original comic’s ending kind of sucks, good time to polish some things. But if you change the main character and the genre and the cast focus and all the character dynamics…at a certain point its just its own new story now. A story irrevocably tied to the old one, but not about any of the things the old one cared about. I think you can see why that would be a harder sell than Ramona Flowers vs the World, even if it was a good zany action comedy anime in its own right. You will get backlash from this level of drift - and you will deserve it.

Also fuck Lisa am I right? Jeez, 0 out of 2 for moving picture adaptations. What you get for being blonde I guess.

[insane4fandoms]

I saw this video and now I believe that all Matpat egos have arachnophobia and need someone else to kill spiders for them (even Hermit, Mad, Warf, Darkpat and fan ones like Caliban)

In case the link doesn't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVq4y0Qzxrk

Pause on my storyboard arc, gotta answer this. ÒwÓ

@crazy-obsessed-enby

Absolutely, all of the egos would have arachnophobia, including the proclaimed “scary” ones.

All the somewhat sane egos such as Detective, Ness, Mack, and the og Matt would have the natural reaction and freak the fuck out.

Mack would be more dramatic and have those high pitch girl screams and scramble across the room.

Ness is armed with a broom and clutching it so hard it broke in half a minute later. His eyes is locked with the spider so it wouldn’t jump him.

Detective is also armed! But with a gun. Doesn’t matter if it’s not practical, there will be a scream, a gunshot, and a hole into the ground with the spider still alive.

I feel like Hermit would see spiders as his enemy. Before the island, he would cry and run to his parents for help. And after getting rescued, Hermit would still be unnerved by them, but at least he has his knives to defend himself with.

If you watched Disasterous life of Saiki K, you know how Saiki teleports to another country the moment he saw a roach? Yeah, that’s Darkpat. He straights up disappears in a flash the moment someone says they saw a spider.

We need to make sure Warfpat does not spot a spider, or else the entire world would twist and bend out of reality. With the snap of his fingers I feel like Warf will erase the world and recreate a new one with no insects in it, which may or may not cause problems, but at least the spiders are gone, right?

We should also make sure Mad doesn’t see a spider, though it wouldn’t risk the reality of the world, just the risk of a fire spread. He has his flame throwing chainsaw ready, and will first use the chainsaw to swing around, and if that doesn’t kill the spider, the flames will.

Either way, they all react like Matt: loud screams and squeals.

They all rely on Reader to either trap it, squish it, or move the egos to another location. Unless you have arachnophobia, then everyone is screwed.

[awek-s-archived]

i am a bit curious as to why you dislike idle. i don't particularly love them myself but i'm curious as to your reasoning

ok thank u so much for asking first of all because i feel like a lot of people over the years have been curious about this and instead of asking me abt my reasoning regarding anything to do w idle they kind of default to anon hate, so. DKLFGJKLDF

im gonna give background, i followed y/uqi predebut, since that video came out of her as a young trainee moving from china to korea and being a part of a series where trainees go up to strangers in the streets and ask them to listen to them sing to gauge some of the public reaction to them if they debut. she sang in front of this one particular girl who used to be a trainee herself but couldn't live with the pressure and kind of yearned for that dream still, i guess? anyway, she gave y/uqi a lot of advice that i feel really helped ground her and to this day i think she's actually the only or at the very least the most grounded member of idle. and the only one i actually have nothing against and would love to see thrive, because i sincerely think she would and i'll come on to that later.

the tldr version is that i don't agree with the rampant racism and cultural appropriation that they engage in from music videos to general looks to sounds and beats in their actual songs. it's a lot. i know kpop groups in general are very guilty of this and sometimes, not very often, when you tell them it's wrong they apologise and stop doing it. but idle fall under the same category as suju and m/amamoo in that they literally don't care that they're doing it, because they have seen and i believe apologised about it then continued to do the same thing. but my issue with them as a group wasn't ever really directed at specific members until miss s/oyeon's international fuck-up where she said she wants to make 'ethnic hip' music as basically her excuse of why she appropriates cultures.

i paid a lot more attention to their group behaviour after that and there was a time of hiatus where y/uqi and m/innie in particular were very chill and doing their own thing where they were extremely different from how they were when s/oyeon ruled over them. y/uqi went back to being the grounded, friendly, chaotic and generally nice person she was before with no issues or controversies and m/innie did also. i don't really care about the other two so i can't comment on them extensively but these two i paid attention to because i know i liked them from before. but miss s/oyeon?? well, she carried on the group controversies all on her own, lmao. more racism and cultural appropriation but this time she also blatantly plagiarised another producer's songs and released them, lied about asking for permission to recreate the song DOWN TO A T (the song is wave by a/teez btw). basically she admitted to stealing it without using so many words but continued to promote it and didn't give the credit that was due for her plagiarism. i think this was one of 3 (?) plagiarism accusations in the space of a few months. so she's very big on growth as an artist and thinks of herself as a big producer but ultimately all she does is steal the songs from smaller artists and smaller producers and pass it off as her own. obviously as a creative myself, i'm not ok with this and i think she's a poor excuse of an artist to do it. she doesn't deserve the title.

in the last couple of comebacks, she profited off m/arilyn m/onroe's death and image, which is disgusting to me. i don't care what excuse her fans think up to make it ok -- especially when this came out at the same time as 2 documentary series about m/arilyn and she was a huge subject of discussion globally again. so it was evidently a ploy for cash and probably a good stepping stone to s/oyeon trying to make ~empowering music~ for women. sadly all she's doing, if her lyrics are anything to go by, is promoting the exact stereotype of women that everybody else is trying to fight against. she's saying, it's ok for women to love themselves but creepy for them to engage in sex or for men to be physically attracted to them because that makes them perverts (nxde lyrics allude to this VERY heavily).

i also personally don't like the attempted profiting off lgbt fans with 'oh my god', which people made theories about BEFORE she publicly came out as saying that it represents love in all forms, and kept alluding to it AFTER to give fans something to talk about despite officially saying she doesn't want to limit it to homosexuality -- so, how was it a song for the gays then? it wasn't. she was going with the fan theory to get talked about. it's not a bad marketing strategy but it is vile from an actual gay person's point of view, and the fact that she backtracked officially to say it's not ABOUT anything specific while feeding into the ~ally~ delusions privately is disgusting to me, personally. and i'd get if it was taboo to the point of it being career-ending, but there are plenty of other kpop groups who have explicitly stated their videos or songs or dramas, or ANYTHING, are strictly in representation of lgbt love both before and after oh my god -- o/nlyoneof in particular.

more recently of course, the attempted dissing of rookie groups, however light -- those are children. you're a grown woman. if you want to write a disstrack, don't do it about people who are a decade your juniors, OR a decade your seniors. she dissed h/yuna and h/yojong in a song and then sent h/yuna a signed album this comeback. weird to me, even if there are no hard feelings. it's not about the action so much as the attitude with which she keeps doing those things. this is where my newfound m/innie dislike comes in too, because she recently PUBLICLY dissed i/ve for winning an award against idle despite the fact that idle had already won a similar award something like the day before or a few days before. but i think i'll get over it because i genuinely don't believe that that's her actual attitude, i think 100% it's s/oyeon's influence.

and my reasoning for THAT is y/uqi's recent interview, where she said she and s/oyeon don't get along virtually at all, and fight all the time. she (y/uqi) finds it funny and thinks it's a sign of being close and honest, which it can be -- but that's not a healthy relationship, period. if you can't talk to someone without arguing, you don't get along ever.. that's not a friendship. but it does in a sense bring me comfort because i hate the type of person s/oyeon is and the fact that y/uqi argues with her so much tells me that she's the polar opposite. furthermore y/uqi also mentioned wanting to be the leader in situations, and that just tells me everything i need to know re: how much they actually agree with s/oyeon's creative decisions for them as a group and perhaps as individuals too, since she's currently cube's favourite and has significantly more pull than anybody else at that company.

i know you asked about idle full group dislike but it does all come down to s/oyeon in the end, because i think all of this controversy and all this behaviour could've been avoided if somebody knocked her down a peg. but i think everything she does is shallow and performative at best, she's not a hard worker like everybody thinks she is, but she does see herself as a martyr in all aspects and i guess tries to capitalise off it. which ok, that's her business, but i think it's gross and unfair to drag the other girls down with her. nevertheless all her choices (that she's proud of, too, let's not forget) up to now have made the group as controversial as it is now and is why i dislike it so actively as a unit, even aside from the other individual members.

[bananaofswifts]

Sorry, Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy: Marjorie has stolen the show again. Not that Taylor Swift’s beloved grandmother actually puts in a vocal appearance from the great beyond, as she did on the “Evermore” album three years ago. But Marjorie Finlay still manages to be a dominative force in the Vault Tracks for the newly released “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” by having her photos appear throughout the lyric video for the closing track, “Timeless,” and having her relationship with Taylor’s granddad be a focus of the inspirational ballad. Twenty-first-century pop-punk or emo can hardly compete with that emotional a capper.

But for those less sentimentally inclined, Paramore’s singer and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump will be way up there in what Swift fans immediately take away from the six previously unheard compositions that have been appended to the previous 16-track running order of 2010’s “Speak Now.” The duet with Williams, “Castles Crumbling,” is particularly pungent, as a lament that just about could have been an outtake from the more recent “Folklore” or “Evermore” instead of an album that came out a full decade before those. As for the FOB-aided track, it’s the farthest thing from a Swift classic. But — having been written, like the rest of these tracks, when the artist was 18 or 19 — the number does hark back to an era when girls (and Fall Out Boys) could just wanna have fun.

A more careful inspection of the 16 re-recorded tracks will have to wait, since the details of what feels the same or different bear a certain amount of forensic analysis, or at least repeated A/B comparisons. (Of course, the whole world has just done an instant side-by-side of the altered lyrics of “Better Than Revenge” — see our story about that here.) But before we figure out how more or less haunting the new “Haunted” is, here are insta-reactions to the six never-before-heard tunes.

“Electric Touch”: Although the recreations of the 16 original songs credit Christopher Rowe as Swift’s co-producer (filling in for O.G. producer Nathan Chapman), when it comes to the six Vault Tracks, Swift splits those producing collaborations between her two modern-day mainstays, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. Neither guy gets to do anything either as modern-sounding or eccentric as they have on Swift’s last few albums — they stay true to the stylistic spirit of 2010, for the most part, with the organic pop-rock band sound she favored at the time. “Electric Touch” is probably the least immediately interesting song here, compositionally; it lacks any of the truly great, peculiar lines that mark a Swift song as unmistakably hers (or “Mine”). Yet embedded underneath the hopeful, anthemic and — honestly — somewhat generic rock veneer is a lot of the pessimism and self-doubt that goes so far toward making Swift our most relatable superstar. “I’m trying hard not to look like I’m trying,” Stump sings, stealing some of 19-year-old Taylor’s lines, “’cause every time I tried hard for love it fell apart.” It’s the uneasy tension between luck and predestined loss that gives this one a little tension amid the breeziness, before it tips on the side of even the losers getting lucky sometimes.

“When Emma Falls in Love”: Dessner is at the co-reins again on this one, but this time leading things off with a lilting piano that lends the song a childlike spirit. On the scale of sweet songs about fictional girls that have Swift doing a little third-person projecting, “Emma” is close to being up with there with “Betty.” “She’s the kind of book that you can’t put down / Like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town / And all the bad boys would be good boys / If they only had a chance to love her.” Any chance this could actually be about a small-town gal from Reading, Pennsylvania? Nah, because Emma makes all the right moves and figures out that’s how you get the boy. It has a happy ending right out of “Love Story,” but by the time of making what was her third album, Swift was feeling like she had to assign something that cheerful to an alter ego.

“I Can See You”: Well, now, here is a groove. Jack Antonoff comes on board for the first time on the revamped album, and you might have to look to “1989’s” “Style” to find another song in the Swift catalog that benefits as much from the simple electric funkiness of a well-played rhythm guitar. (This particular riff sounds especially fine in headphones, landing just off the beat and bouncing between ears ever so slightly.) Swift never had an office job, but must have attended Take Your Daughter to Work Day just enough to wonder what it’d be like to seduce a guy in a suit and tie. “I could see you up against the wall with me,” she sings — because she knows places you two can hide, and they’re just around the corner from the copy machine!

“Castles Crumbling”: As mentioned, this sounds like a flash-forward to the Swift Songbook of 2020, and surely would have had a different production in 2010 than it gets now with the artist and Antonoff updating as a more modern mood piece. Williams is her duet partner on this one, and it recalls Swift’s vocal collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers on the previous “Taylor’s Version” just a little, in that both this song and “Nothing New” have her writing about foreseeing the end of her fame, or at least her acclaim. In a way, its paranoia prefigures the defensiveness against a fan base she sees turning on her that would come to real fruition in later years on the “Reputation” album. But in another sense, this is the less chin-up mirror image of “Mean,” a song that obviously did make the original “Speak Now.” “Mean” had her bucking up against a blogger who told her she “can’t sing,” and in this number, it’s as if she imagines a whole nation of fans as that blogger, turning backs on her. It’s like she’s following that maxim about imagining the worst and you won’t get disappointed.

“Foolish One”: A strummed acoustic guitar starts this one, and although a bit of drum programming soon kicks in that probably isn’t what Nathan Chapman would’ve done, it still belongs distinctly to the turn of the decade it came from. As with “Electric Touch,” this teeters back and forth between possible optimism about the outcome of a relationship and fatalism, but lands on the side of one-sided love doomed to go to heck in a handbasket. It still sounds impossibly cheerful, in the way that Swift’s falsetto tips up at the end of lines, as is so often her trademark, with a final realization: “He just wasn’t the one.” What’s with this gentle acceptance, for a singer we want to obsess over scarves forever?

“Timeless”: The most truly “organic”-sounding of all the bonus tracks on this new edition — it has ukulele and flute floating in the background behind those acoustic guitars and organs — “Timeless” is a ballad you can imagine Swift having considered for a “Speak Now” album-closer at the time, instead of the brotherhood-of-the-road anthem “Long Live.” Most of the initial lyric videos Swift put up on YouTube have visuals of the static or circular screen-saver variety, but this one is the exception, consisting largely of a lot of photographs of Swift’s grandparents, modeling a great love she believes would have happened in any era, falling just shy of putting in an endorsement for reincarnation. It’s not the emotional tour de force that the song “Marjorie” was — there’s no otherworldly soprano reaching out from beyond the grave to jerk your tears, here, and good, since fans can only handle so much of that in one lifetime. But the grandmother’s solely visual cameo may still ply misty from you.

[squirrellypoo]

I made a tribute IWTV crew teeshirt

In the official Behind the Scenes documentary, Sam wears a slate blue teeshirt with a coffin drawing on the front, which I really liked, so I did a bit of investigating. It turned out that this was the "crew shirt" for the show - a promo item made and distributed to cast and crew only. Usually these are pretty tacky affairs with just the show logo on a tee or trucker cap, but I really liked the subtlety of this one - it looks like it does have the show name on the sleeve and a bit of text on the back that can't be read (my guess is maybe "Memory is a Monster"?), but mostly, I was into the coffin drawing. I did some cursory searches on eBay but with NDAs these days, I didn't really expect to find anyone selling theirs. So if I wanted one, I'd have to make one myself!

Since I sew, it was honestly easier to just make myself the base tee rather than buy one. I started with the fabric, using this "Powder blue" bamboo jersey from Textile Express. It's not a perfect match, but it's close enough for me and it's light enough that the black coffin stands out.

For the pattern, I used the Fehr Trade Versatili-Tops pattern, because I liked that it would give it a little something extra than just a standard teeshirt (there's no side seams!).

The next step was to design and cut the coffin detail. The only thing I really had to go on was the scant footage from the Behind the Scenes videos since the graphic was never used in any official promotion material. So I had to recreate the coffin from scratch, using Adobe Illustrator and some rough ink brushes to make it look hand drawn.

Jacob shared a quick little doodle of Louis ahead of the AMA session on Reddit back in November, and someone on Twitter took his Louis doodle and did Lestat and Claudia in the same style, which I absolutely love (and I wish I took note of who it was that did it so I could attribute - message me if you know!). So I turned this into a vector, as well as recreating the "Of Course!" heart that's one of the most used reactions on my favourite vampire Discord server, and cut these out on my Silhouette Cameo machine in black matte heat set vinyl. I placed the coffin on the front chest, in roughly the same placement as the inspiration tee, with the doodle heads on the right sleeve and "Of course!" on the left sleeve.

I absolutely love how it turned out, and is a totally one-of-a-kind tribute to the show. I have no aptitude for the skill involved in creating fan art or fanfic, and I'm not really into cosplay, so this is a way for me to express my love of the show in my way.

And still look like a fairly normal person (joke's on you - I've never been normal!).

PS: if anyone else has access to a Silhouette or Cricut type cutting machine and wants the svg files, let me know and I'll put them up somewhere to download

[spaceorphan18]

Glee Musical Retrospective: Vogue (The Power of Madonna)

Sung by: Sue Sylveester Original Artist(s): Madonna

Okay... one of the most pivotal moments of the show -- right here. Look, while we'll get into the lose story connection in a minute, let's be real for a moment... The purpose for doing this is entirely for Ryan Murphy to be indulgent. This song really has no purpose except for the fact that Murphy wanted to redo an iconic music video in his own way.

And you know what? That's not a criticism. Glee is shedding its need to have the music adhere so close to the narrative and push in on doing things for the fun of it. Is that indulgence good all the time? No, not really. But this was such a fun, inspired, and brilliant performance, you can't help but smile at the ridiculousness of it.

This music video is a delight, and I'm glad that Glee just gave in to its creator's whim.

Story Analysis

The definition of the word 'vogue' is as follows...

Noun. popular acceptation or favor; a period of popularity; the leading place in popularity or acceptance Verb. to strike poses in campy imitation of fashion models especially as a kind of dance

The whole thing about 'vogue' is to be at the height of admirable popularity in the moment. Madonna was when she created the song. And Sue Sylvester wants to be in the episode. I also think there's a big fourth wall break, too, where the show was coming into the height of its popularity. It was very in vogue to be a Glee fan back in 2010 -- the show knew it was cool, and this was kind of capitalizing on that.

So, while this performance doesn't necessarily move any story beats along, it does make commentary on Sue and on the show as a whole.

I love the lengths the show goes to make this performance seem like it's something being done in the Glee world. It's Kurt's vision (with the help of Mercedes) to do a multimedia project. He has Artie direct it -- and my god, why didn't Artie put this on his resume?

(Fun fact - legendary director David Fincher did Madonna's original video, so Artie being able to recreate this is kind of amazing.)

And... it speaks to Sue's character. She wants to be the one admired, feared, loved, respected, empowered, revered, and anything else that keeps her at the center of the conversation. She wants to be the one in vogue. And I think in this meta moment, she is.

I have a few questions though --

Who thought of this song? Was it Kurt or Sue? Or even Artie? I think this song speaks to Kurt's story, too. The beginning of the song speaks to pain and heartache -- and letting it all go to enjoy the moment. I think this speaks to his personality, what inspires him, and what his aspirations are.

What were the in universe reactions to this? That's the thing about the song, though. As neat as it is to see -- there really aren't any direct story tie ins. Sue's story gets played out in other ways. And yes, this lets Kurt and Mercedes have an opportunity to join the Cheerios. But it's a shame that no one in universe even makes a comment about this video. Ah well.

The thing about this one, overall, is that while it's a big set piece of the episode, and while it does speak to both Sue and Kurt's character (and the show as a whole) - there isn't a whole lot to break down? It's funny, because I think this song is one of those things that Glee might be remembered for - but it's so kind of detached from the narrative, it makes it this interesting little side beat.

But - something to note - because this was such a hit, the show does take a turn into this direction. The show is going to push more into the spectacle of the song they've picked for better or worse, whether it's important to the narrative or not.

Technical Thoughts

Just gonna bullet point all of this...

They went out of their way to recreate the music video as much as they could -- watching the original video as they shot.

Jane does an excellent job with the song. You have to give her some bonus points, too, for making it funny on top of being an homage.

(Though if you notice - they do not make Jane do the heavy lifting dancing that Madonna does in her video. Probably for the better.)

The line 'Will Schuester - I hate you' and Kurt's reactions might be one of my favorite comedy bits from the entire show.

Speaking of Kurt -- the kid was made for this kind of classic Hollywood look. He's so good in this. (Sorry Mercedes - she's great, too, but Kurt just pulls so much focus.)

Fun fact - apparently, Naya and Heather did hand work in this, and Heather was the one in the cone bra.

They used their usual group of dancers -- and everyone in this video is just so good.

Hats off the the editors - they did a phenomenal job cutting this to be nearly identical to the original video.

I honestly don't have a ton to say about it -- it's a great performance, and you can see just how much the entire team put into making it something special.

vs. The Studio Version : There's an added two minutes to this version, though it doesn't really feel like it? The beginning is much longer, and the chorus is repeated a few more times, but that's about it.

vs. The Original Version : Well... now is your chance to compare and contrast! How did they do? Really well actually. ;) (Also - if you put it into youtube, there is someone out there who did a side by side comparison.)

[richincolor]

New Releases

A bunch of fun books out this week. What will you be reading?

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron Bloomsbury YA

This heart-pounding slasher by New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron is perfect for fans of Fear Street.

Charity Curtis has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.

But the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity’s role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they’ll need figure out what this killer is after. Is there is more to the story of Mirror Lake and its dangerous past than Charity ever suspected?

Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam by Thien Pham First Second

A moving young adult graphic memoir about a Vietnamese immigrant boy’s search for belonging in America, perfect for fans of American Born Chinese and The Best We Could Do !

Thien’s first memory isn’t a sight or a sound. It’s the sweetness of watermelon and the saltiness of fish. It’s the taste of the foods he ate while adrift at sea as his family fled Vietnam.

After the Pham family arrives at a refugee camp in Thailand, they struggle to survive. Things don’t get much easier once they resettle in California. And through each chapter of their lives, food takes on a new meaning. Strawberries come to signify struggle as Thien’s mom and dad look for work. Potato chips are an indulgence that bring Thien so much joy that they become a necessity.

Behind every cut of steak and inside every croissant lies a story. And for Thien Pham, that story is about a search– for belonging, for happiness, for the American dream.

This Town is on Fire by Pamela N. Harris Quill Tree Books

From the critically acclaimed author of When You Look Like Us comes a page-turning YA contemporary novel about what happens when the latest “Becky” on the internet is your best friend. A lot is up in the air in Naomi Henry’s her spot as a varsity cheer flier, her classmates’ reaction to the debut of her natural hair, and her crush on the guy who’s always been like a brother to her. With so much uncertainty, she feels lucky to have a best friend like Kylie to keep her grounded. After all, they’re practically sisters—Naomi’s mom took care of Kylie and her twin brother for years. But then a video of Kylie calling the cops on two Black teens in a shopping store parking lot goes viral. Naomi is shaken, and her town is reeling from the publicity. While Naomi tries to reckon with Kylie, the other Black students in their high school are questioning their friendship, and her former friends are wondering where this new “woke” Naomi came from. Although Naomi wants to stand by her best friend, she now can’t help but see everything in a different light. As tensions in her town escalate, Naomi finds herself engaging in protests that are on the cusp of being illegal. And then a bomb explodes, and someone is found dead. Will Naomi be caught in the center of the blast?

And Break Pretty Things (Sacred Bone #1) by Lena Jeong HarperCollins

Inspired by Korean history and myths, the first book in the Sacred Bone series is a rich and evocative high-stakes fantasy that is perfect for fans of Gallant and Six Crimson Cranes.

Mirae was meant to save her queendom, but the ceremony before her coronation ends in terror and death, unlocking a strange new power within her and foretelling the return of a monster even the gods fear. Amid the chaos, Mirae’s beloved older brother is taken—threatening the peninsula’s already tenuous truce.

Desperate to save her brother and defeat this ancient enemy before the queendom is beset by war, Mirae sets out on a journey with an unlikely group of companions while her unpredictable magic gives her terrifying visions of a future she must stop at any cost.

An Echo in the City by K.X. Song Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Sixteen-year-old Phoenix knows her parents have invested thousands of dollars to help her leave Hong Kong and get an elite Ivy League education. They think America means big status, big dreams, and big bank accounts. But Phoenix doesn’t want big; she just wants home. The trouble is, she doesn’t know where that is… until the Hong Kong protest movement unfolds, and she learns the city she’s come to love is in danger of disappearing.

Seventeen-year-old Kai sees himself as an artist, not a filial son, and certainly not a cop. But when his mother dies, he’s forced to leave Shanghai to reunite with his estranged father, a respected police officer, who’s already enrolled him in the Hong Kong police academy. Kai wants to hate his job, but instead, he finds himself craving his father’s approval. And when he accidentally swaps phones with Phoenix and discovers she’s part of a protest network, he finds a way to earn it: by infiltrating the group and reporting their plans back to the police.

As Kai and Phoenix join the struggle for the future of Hong Kong, a spark forms between them, pulling them together even as their two worlds try to force them apart. But when their relationship is built on secrets and deception, will they still love the person left behind when the lies fall away?

[agentnico]

Fallout - season 1 (2024) review

The evolution of the phrase “okey dokey” throughout this show says so much for the good old fashioned writing of this season.

Plot: Over 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse devastates America, a violent raid by bandits on an underground fallout shelter forces one of its residents to set out into a barren wasteland filled with radiation, mutated monsters, and a lawless society of those who remained on the surface.

For a very long while in the cinephile and gaming community there has been this shared agreement over the video game adaptation curse. Video games have been plagued with adaptations that end up being met with terrible reception due to a combination of bad writing and poor visuals that don’t live up to the original game. To this day this fact arguably still continues with the likes of Resident Evil and Uncharted. And look, I love Hiroyuki Sanada as much as the next person, but that Mortal Kombat flick from a few years back was not great either. That being said, in recent years there has also been a trend of genuinely successful attempts that have translated surprisingly well. Detective Pikachu banked a lot on Ryan Reynolds sarcastic persona and the Pokémon creatures were utilised well; Netflix’s The Witcher has done pretty well for itself, well until now when they’ve swapped their lead actor for one of the cheaper Hemsworth brothers; Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Sonic flicks I’m not a fan of myself, but evidently from the box office numbers and audience reactions they seemed to have hit the right spot in the fans’ hearts. Then there’s The Last of Us. The original game won people over for its heart-wrenching human drama against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse, and the TV show has done a perfect job of capturing that. Every episode has recreated the game down to the last detail, and even when things are changed, the spirit of the source material is still kept alive. All of that makes it a rare adaptation that succeeds in giving people a new version of the original game and then some, giving it plenty to offer for old and new fans alike.

Now it seems that positive trend continues, furthermore underlining that the video game adaptation curse is now a myth. Well maybe, as that upcoming Borderlands movie is a looking suspiciously clunky but we’ll see how that one turns out. As for presently, Prime Video has shocked us all by giving us a truly fantastic show in Fallout. And I say shocked as the last time Prime Video adapted a famous property was The Rings of Power series and they butchered that one hard! I mean I’m sorry, but making an entire over-bloated season about the mystery of who is Sauron, and at the end the reveal is he’s some teen-Twilight-era dude and we’re supposed to all gasp in awe?? Look, I get that it’s not Prime Video themselves to be blamed, but the show runners and writers, but naturally Prime has left a sour taste in my palette. HOWEVER - Fallout is actually genuinely a good time!

I’ve never really played any of the Fallout games. Never appealed to me, and I have always found it difficult to get into any Bethesda games. My fiancée however tried Fallout 4 half a year ago and apparently gave up as she found it too confusing and she got stuck at a monster boss fight early on. I do hope she wasn’t stuck fighting one of those tiny little bugs, surely not. That would be embarrassing. So I went into this show without being a fan of the games, though I was aware of its post-apocalyptic backdrop. One of the best things about Fallout the TV show is that it’s very accessible whether or not you’ve played the games. Yes, fans of the games will notice a lot of fun stuff from the source material, but even if you’re a total newcomer, you can watch and follow along without any issues.

The story revolves around three main characters 200 years after a nuclear war basically destroyed everything, driving some survivors into underground bunkers called Vaults. Ella Purnell (that’s right, one of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children!) plays Lucy MacLean, a Vault Dweller who, through unfortunate circumstances, leaves the relative safety of Vault 33 and travels to the surface on a life or death mission. She’s joined by Maximus (Aaron Clifton Moten) a squire in the secretive Brotherhood Of Steel - Power Armor-wearing knights who roam the land looking for lost technology. Maximus is almost as green as Lucy, venturing out on a quest he’s not very well prepared to tackle. Finally, rounding out the main trio, we have Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, a gunslinging bounty hunter and mutant who’s managed to live for well over 200 years. We learn more about his past as celebrity Cooper Howard through a number of flashbacks. Naturally more characters pop up along the way. I just want to urge anyone sitting on the fence to give this series a shot. It’s great fun, with plenty of humour, action and mystery and its creators clearly put a lot of effort into making it true to the game universe, while also being inventive with their storytelling.

It’s also really gory. You get to see a lot of human flesh out on display (heck, there are even zombies in this thing!) and it’s all visually looked really well done. Again with Bezos’ Amazon budget, like The Rings of Power show, Fallout looks like an expensive series. It just so happens that unlike Rings of Power this one happens to also have good writing, characters and narrative. There’s some impressive world-building, with every shot filled with various details that I’m sure will please the game fans. The story is really engaging, and I loved getting into the politics of this world and how companies like Vault Tec have more to them that meets the eye.

The primary element that works for Fallout is that’s its easy. As in it’s really enjoyable and straightforward and makes for a solid binge watch. Walton Goggins is superb as the Ghoul. Johnny Pemberton as Thaddeus, a squire for the Knights, was a great use of using a comedic actor and making them play things straight by simply trying to survive in this world, so that when the funny lines did come up they hit strong. Oh, and did I mention that Agent Dale Cooper himself, my boy Kyle MacLachlan is in this show?? Honestly, Fallout is a great time! Amazon, I still haven’t forgiven you for Lord of the Rings, but this is a good attempt for an apology.

Overall score: 7/10

[splishsplashyouropinionistrash]

AFTG Fic Recs

After receiving several recommendations for AFTG fics, I decided to compile a list of my own favorites so far. All of these are on AO3.

1. it would have been you by thereisnothis ~ 

Jerejean oneshot

TW: major character death, suicide

“Jeremy should have known. He should have fucking known. All the signs were there. How could he have been so blind?”

Short and painful fic where Jean never recovers from the Raven’s Nest and Jeremy is left to pick up the pieces. I sobbed violently. 

2. Scribbles and Sticky Notes by Fortheloveofexy

Andriel oneshot

TW: major character death

“It started soon after Andrew’s official retirement from Exy.”

A painful hurt/comfort fic after Neil is injured and forced to retire. Another one that made me sob uncontrollably.

3. Teach Me How To Heal by foundinthedark

Jerejean, 1/7 parts published, last updated 7-28-22

TW: panic attacks, mental illness, and all the fun stuff that comes with Jean

“After Jean Moreau struggles at practice, his therapist suggests he starts a seven-day self-esteem journal to get him back on track. “

Jean learning to be happy after coming out of the Nest (with Jeremy’s help). It melts my heart-

4. assorted cannon/post-cannon compliant aftg brainrot by mostly_maudlin

a series of oneshots about the Foxes, check out the TW for individual stories

5. In Which Neil Josten is a PR Nightmare by CoverYourEyes

Andriel, 16/? parts published, last updated 7-27-22

TW: None, surprisingly

“the one where Neil does what he wants, picks fights with reporters, discovers Twitter, breaks the internet, and really shouldn't be allowed out of his house. Andrew does nothing to discourage him.”

Post-cannon from an OC’s perspective (his publicist). Kept me up cackling at ungodly hours of the night.

6. never fallen (from quite this high) by crystalcrow

Andriel, 43/43 parts published

TW: All the fun cannon-typical warnings

“For most people, a problem is a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful that needs to be dealt with or overcome. For Andrew Minyard, it’s the word that fits Neil Josten with a capital P.”

It’s the series from Andrew’s POV, what else do I need to say? A must-read for AFTG fans.

7. Hoax by gus_47

Jerejean, 26/? parts published, last updated 8-01-22

TW: recreational drug use, all the fun stuff that comes with Jean (he deserves a break, oh my god)

“ Jean's first year with the Trojans / a recollection of his last year with the Ravens”

It’s a Jerejean after the Ravens fic, fairly self-explanatory (and fairly heartbreaking so far)

8. goodbye, family by queenDay05

Background Andriel oneshot

TW: mentions of death

“the day before his countdown ends, Neil films a video. it's an apology, a goodbye. for the foxes.”

Neil knows he’s dying, so he leaves a goodbye for the foxes. Utterly heartbreaking.

9. don’t say goodbye by queenDay05

Background Andriel oneshot

TW: mentions of death

“the foxes reaction's to Neil's goodbye video“

Sequel to goodbye, family after the riot when the Foxes realize Neil’s missing and find the video he left them. Somehow more heartbreaking than the first.

10. Innominate by Major_816

Andriel, Jerejean, Ichirou x OC, 17/74 parts published, last updated 7-24-22

TW: mental illness, mafia shit, and general aftg warnings

“An AU where Mary never got Nathaniel out. Instead, he became too invaluable of an asset to be killed off or 'gifted' to Tetsuji. Instead, he's raised with Ichirou and Jean as a part of Ichirou's inner circle. He'd always had a knack for languages and lying and all the 'messy stuff' came easily enough when your father is called the Butcher of Baltimore. So Nathaniel became the Wraith. He was untraceable, unknowable, infalliable; a criminal fairytale. When Kevin Day leaves the Nest, there's no better person to send.”

Neil is in the mafia (and he’s a total badass). Big found-family vibes, a good mix of fluff and angst. One of the best fics I’ve ever read, I am begging you to go read it.

11. Let’s make things interesting by Nico4undead 

Andriel, background Jerejean, 16/? parts published, last updated 6-24-22 (might not be abandoned, author is slow to update)

TW: Nothing, I think (shocking, I know)

“Andreil, after they both join a pro Exy team. Neil suggests they make things a little more interesting and don't necessarily tell anyone about their relationship, just act as they usually would. Cue the Minyard/Josten rivalry and basically just Andrew and Neil being little shits and thoroughly enjoying making everyone think they can't stand each other.”

Andriel after Palmetto. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will laugh some more. It’s hilarious and fluffy and heartwarming (while staying cannon-compliant).

Well, there you go! A list of every AFTG fic I read and enjoyed since figuring out how to use AO3 five days ago (do I have a problem? maybe). 

Hugs and kisses, my loves. Go read about our gays <3

[missingmywing]

Me: /sees today's yesterday's prompt

Me: /maniacal cackling

Me: YOU FOOL, YOU’VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

aka AUs, Time Travel, and identity shenanigans are my biggest interests in any fandom at all so KH drew me in for a reason. This will be fun. Enjoy or suffer through my rambling about my main AU. I apologize for the length, but there’s a reason I had the immediate reaction I did.

Also sorry it’s a day late, yesterday was thesis presentations and then I was dragged out to drinks and karaoke after by my classmates so I didn’t have time to finish this.

@khoc-week Day 4: Alternate Universes

Hahahaha my first KH au I made when I was 15 and then spiraled WILDLY out of control after KHUX finished and DR happened.

So this au started as one of those “what if someone from our world died and reincarnated as a main character” fics that were so popular in the 2010’s, but over time it changed significantly. The main premise is still the same, girl from our world dies to a Heartless that really shouldn’t have been there and her heart makes a conveniently timed connection with Ven, and then reincarnates as Sora. Except it’s not quite as convenient as it seems because Kingdom Hearts itself is meddling.

Because her heart was actually Etheria’s.

This is my biggest KH au that’s lasted almost ten years now, it’s extremely self-indulgent and I keep making adjustments to it as we get new info, but I think I have it plotted out solidly. It’s also the one that’s technically canon to my keykids.

So, KHUX happens as it does, no real changes beyond Etheria and Ephemera finishing up Game Central Station together and coming back to Daybreak Town in time to trigger the finale. Etheria traps the darknesses in the tunnel, they wound her fatally, she dies holding Chirithy, etc.

The change comes with what’s next. Because Nomura BAITED US and I had an entire year to sit on my plans before the Dark Road finale dropped and ruined them all, and I decided “screw it, I can work around this”. And kind of. Threw out canon to a degree.

Yiskah is reincarnated after the Keyblade War as the Missing Link protag, so whatever reveals we get there will be his story. Etheria reincarnates as Xehanort, because I had PLANS NOMURA. So ML happens, Yiskah takes Xehanort to Destiny Islands, all of this will probably follow canon pretty closely. Dark Road also happens as canon, Xehanort having Etheria’s heart doesn’t really change much because these events “need” to happen. Whether it’s Darkness pulling the strings or KH itself… who knows. But DR happens pretty much as canon, and the post-events are where we get our first major split into AU territory.

When Xehanort goes on his lonesome trip around the worlds, trying to gain perspective, it starts as canon with him meeting MoM. But afterwards, when he returns to the Keyblade Graveyard, it’s not the Master of Masters that’s waiting for him but our single unaccounted for Darkness. His trip through the worlds was supposed to make him fall to darkness, make him decide to recreate the war, but because he has Etheria’s heart he… doesn’t. So Darkness takes matters into its own hands and tries to take him over. Naturally he fights back, refuses to let it, so it decides the more optimal route would be to simply remove that problematically light heart and simply claim his body for itself and pretend to be him.

So that happens. He dies, and it’s Darkness in his body who returns to Scala to take the Mark of Mastery with Eraqus, and kick off the next phase of canon.

Etheria/Xehanort’s heart ends reincarnating as a girl on a sort of… reflection of our world, losing their memories upon reincarnating as is supposed to happen, and growing up to be a fan of a certain video game series until dying to a Heartless who was drawn specifically to their heart because Events Are Happening (Ven just got his heart broken and Kingdom Hearts needs someone to go fix it, and who better than an old friend and its valiant champion? Etheria surviving the Keyblade War and her heart touching KH directly in the process was not a good thing for her, just to point that out.) So her heart comes in contact with Ven, shares part of it to fix his, and in the process kind of breaks the usual reincarnation rules so she keeps her memories of this past life, and the thus the memories of the Kingdom Hearts game series.

So at this point: Alana becomes Sora and knows absolutely nothing about being Etheria or Xehanort, but does remember being from “our world”. The Xehanort of this AU is just Darkeness using his identity to push the plot it read in the Book, because that’s What’s Supposed To Happen. For the sake of ~Drama~ I’m going to say she’s caught up to canon for everything except the Final Update of KHUX. To everyone who remembers that cliffhanger they did between the first half of the finale and the second… yeah. Imagine dying and reincarnating into that universe missing HALF THE FINALE OF KHUX and over half of Dark Road. It is endlessly frustrating to them, Ven, and Vani. 

From here canon… happens similarly, but also different.

KH1 has Riku being possessed much earlier because Sora convinces him to come back, and Maleficent and Ansem SoD don't like that. Kairi and Ven are both awake and helping, so there's that. Kairi is part of the final battle as an active keyblade wielder, even if she gets pulled home after.

CoM happens very differently because Vanitas is awake with Ven gone in Roxas, so he's Solana's companion while Namine can see Alana's memories and knows far more than she should because of it. She finds so many loopholes to allow Alana to keep memories of CoM, even if Sora's have to be broken later.

KH2 has Xion and Roxas awake and joining Ven and Vani, and things get loud. Roxas takes every chance to try to fight the Organization, drive forms are between the Heart Hotel rather than Donald and Goofy, and Kairi joins the party halfway through after kicking Axel through a wall. She joins them for the final fight against Xemnas too, and then opens the portal for them home.

Solana is busy having a guilt-induced breakdown about their parents never coming back from the islands falling to darkness to participate in Re:Coded, but they do meet the apprentices and start making peace between them and the Restoration Committee when they show back up. They and Ienzo get along... really really well, to their surprise.

DDD is a mess, because the dream world gives the Heart Hotels bodies and they are actively participating in the Mark of Mastery along with Sora, Riku, and Kairi. Ienzo was paranoid enough to make a secondary link with Solana before it started, so when Yen Sid lost contact with them Ienzo could make link so they could see everything happening. Canon happens and it SUCKS. Solana has much trauma from YMX.

KH3 is wildly different, because People Know Things, and Death Deities Are Weird Around Solana (aka Hades and Persephone are closer to their myth forms, and make a deal with Solana about nine death avoidances for a favor, so they only use the power of waking once at the end rather than to save everyone), and Aqua and Ven are rescued before Arendelle so they've got half the game to catch their breath before the war.

And because Darkness is Xehanort, the scene with Eraqus is very different because Solana flat out steals the keyblade from Xehanort at the end of their battle - the same way Riku does from Sora in KH1 - and stabs him with it. No soft scene here, just murder. Eraqus does show up, reassuring Aqua and Terra, but Kairi and Ven swapped places in this AU as the sacrificial being of Pure Light, so... it's much rougher on the Wayfinder Trio. Solana gets him back, though, ala canon, but that's the tenth revival after the first nine so they will disappear eventually, it just won't be immediate since they only did it once. Gives them time to hang out, get Ienzo to put some cameras in the Graveyard to catch the Foreteller meetup, do a heart dive to figure out their weird dreams and accidentally get their memories of KHUX and DR both back to the shock and horror of everyone, and then disappear.

I want you to know that this is the short version, because the longer version accidentally turned into a plot outline.

[pencopanko]

Backstage X Bar Boys Part 1: Rafael

Shortly after filming and promotions for "Coco" is completed, Héctor and Ernesto decide to visit a new bar in town. There they meet three men, two of which also work in the industry but to varying levels while the other one is the bartender/owner of the bar.

Let's talk about Rafael Herrera Meza first:

Rafael Herrera Meza is a triple threat in the industry, and is the second Latino entertainer ever who has won an EGOT (followed by Robert Lopez, another talented songwriter who co-wrote "Remember Me" with Héctor), while also working as a talent scout/music producer. His charisma stage presence is on-par with Ernesto's and Héctor's, and his baritone voice is second to none. However, off-stage he is a shy and anxious man with the driest humor known to mankind.

He used to act in telenovelas, movies, and musical theater during his prime as an actor before making music production his main thing.

If you think Imelda Rivera's social media life is private, Rafael's is even more private nearly to the point of nonexistence. Nobody knows anything of him outside of his career. His strong feelings towards the paparazzi, his age (he's around forty or so, and yet he already has a few streaks of white on his jet black hair), and his familial connections to the Herrera Oil Company also play a role in making him extremely private. He is also very rarely seen on interviews and social events, unless he has an obligation to attend.

Because of how private he is, whenever a project is revealed and Rafael is somehow involved it is considered as a major cultural event. The thing is, he also up in the most unexpected places. One minute you can see him as part of the cast for a Hispanic remake of Parks & Recreation as its equivalent to Ron Swanson, then the next time you see him he is on the cover of Vogue México along with his longtime friend/protégé Ronaldo, and then you see his name in the voice actor credits part of a video game or an animated series, then you see his name as the producer for México's greatest hit of the season, and if you are extremely lucky you can even see him sing with the local mariachi just for the fun of it.

He is very embarrassed to admit it, but he is more than aware of how women see him. Particularly younger women. Their reaction towards him is similar to how people see men like Pedro Pascal, Hugh Jackman, and Oscar Isaac. He did think of becoming a father before deciding on the life of an eternal bachelor, but being called "daddy" or "papí" in this context is not what he signed up for. He does appreciate the gifts from fans. After his trusted secretary Brenda sorts through them, of course.

He is just as shy and anxious as he is private, and this goes up by the tenfold when he is with a woman he is romantically interested in. And it just so happens that the woman he has been crushing on for a while is none other than the renowned opera singer/actress, Rosita Álvarez, who was also a supporting actress for "Coco" as Tía Rosita. Héctor and Ernesto, along with Miguel have been trying to set a date for the two of them.

Rafael met Rosita during a charity concert the both of them were a part of. Rafael was impressed with Rosita's soprano and wished to work with her. Well, that's what he would tell you. In reality, he was smitten the moment their eyes met when it was his turn to get on stage. Rafael noticed Rosita gazing at him from her seat, and before he knew it he winked at her as an attempt to flirt.

News of Rafael Herrera and Rosita Álvarez dating was well received by fans of both parties, with references to them being the cutest middle-aged couple. Their relationship is also just as private as Héctor and Imelda's, if not more due to Rafael's dislike of paparazzi and the fact that paparazzi don't go after opera singers that much either, much to Rosita's delight.

After around three years of dating, they got married at a church near Rafael's childhood home in Jalisco. The wedding was simple and was only attended by family and friends including the cast of "Coco", but due to Mamá Herrera's insistence on something more lavish for the two of them she gifted Rafael and Rosita tickets for a cruise all around the world. Photos of them on their honeymoon started circulating online and people loved their wholesome vibe, even long after their honeymoon.