#i also lost track of details that i got off or wonky in my original sketchbook imitation that i copied from. like her left arm is

[creatediana]

A half-assed whiteboard imitation of Evelyn de Morgan’s The Love Potion (1903), done in a few minutes in Expo marker on 12/05/2022

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I honestly would love to see Black Cat and MJ just hang out more. Because of the love triangle I’ve always heard about how much they ‘must’ hate each other, but honestly I could picture Pete waking up one day, finding MJ and Felicia in the living room having coffee and asking what she’s doing here and MJ just says, “Dude we meet up like twice a week to hang. We’re going bowling tonight.” or something.

They’re relationship is actually more complicated than simply being catty rivals or some such. 

The harsh truth is, for better or worse, writers pitted the pair against one another lightly in the 1980s, famously the first instance of this was in the iconic ASM #258, the issue both immediately after MJ reveals she knows who Peter is and where Peter learns the truth about the black costume.

Initially the animosity was more on Felicia’s end than MJ’s, whether she meant it or not, she briefly felt Peter was better suited to Black Cat.

MJ became Peter’s confidant not too long before he and Felicia broke up and when she was later reintroduced into the titles MJ became more clearly down on her. This is epitomized in Spec #119 (a great Felicia story).

That issue also  ends though with MJ admitting she has complicated conflicting feelings towards Felicia, the complications of which are wrapped up in her complicated feelings for Peter. In the story Felicia single handily takes down Sabertooth.* In a sense she defended civilians and Peter in doing so and thus MJ is caught between admiration and jealousy.

Their romantic rivalry becomes more out and out mean in Spec #123 and ASM #288 which follows up on that subplot. In the issues MJ resolves to set her and Peter’s ‘will they won’t they’ thing straight only find Felicia in Peter’s apartment (he saved her earlier that day and she needed somewhere to regroup). At the end of that adventure though Felicia basically forcibly stayed in Peter’s apartment so MJ was none too pleased to find her there when she showed up to make Peter breakfast in bed.**

The pair remained in disdain of one another after this but also didn’t interact face to face again until after Pete and MJ got married and more specifically after Peter lost his cosmic powers defeating Tri-Sentinel. Felicia had learned Peter had gotten married and as revenge began dating Flash with the intention of breaking his heart to hurt Peter by proxy. She also delighted in makig him and MJ uncomfortable though.

When MJ and Felicia interacted one-on-one Felicia was shockingly straight up assaulting MJ!

At this point MJ obviously didn’t like Felicia but she was not giving as good as she got. Things began to shift not too long after in a storyline that saw Peter give up his powers and Felicia begin to develop genuine feelings for Flash. During this storyline Felicia stepped up and began acting as the muscle for the powerless Peter. MJ still didn’t like Peter was starting to reluctantly recognize her as more of an ally than an enemy. In particular the story ended with Felicia powerless and deciding to temporarily retire and date Flash sincerely.

Whilst they weren’t exactly friends it did get to a point where MJ was okay with going on double dates with Flash and Felicia, considering the latter was no longer out to get her/hurt Flash/steal Peter away.

However a significant turning point occurred in Web of Spider-Man #80. The story short is that Peter/Spidey is missing after he and Mj got attacked. MJ turns to Felicia for help, citing the fact she still cares for Peter and that’s common ground for them to work with for the moment. She gives her a tracking device Peter made to zero in on him. She even admits she’s out of her league on this front and it’s up to Felicia. Felicia of course helps save Spidey and whilst initially claims her locating him was due to their ‘connection’ (meaning their romantic history) she admits MJhelped witht he tracking device. The issue ends though with Felicia admitting that MJ’s device actually didn’t work, meaning Felicia simply let the Parker couple think it did out of kindness to MJ. This didn’t turn the pair into friends, but it showed they were clearly mellowing towards one another.

This didn’t make them chummy as catty remarks still occurred during later interactions (noticably from MJ). I’m skipping over stuff to get to some highlights, the next of which is a big one. 

In Felicia’s first ever solo mini-seires MJ not only appears int he first issue but they are actually hanging out...together...as friends!

Or at least as frenemies. It’s clear there is still some underlying jealousy or jousting to be had, but they’re very open about it and Felicia is actively confiding in MJ, even talking about how she feels regarding Peter. And not just Peter in general, his then current state of being. This was back when Peter was unravelling due to the aftermath of the Robot Parents crap and becoming more anti-social and obsessive about his Spider-Man life, spending less time out of the costume. It got Felicia and MJ concerned. A very significant line of dialogue in this scene is MJ saying she’ll call Felicia later. It implies that they have hung out together before or are at least okay with doing do again in the near future. 

Also this was at Felicia’s home, so for MJ to have voluntarily gone to the home of the woman who once assaulted her says a lot about how things have changed.

Again skipping over some stuff but the next big moment for MJ and Felicia came in Web of Spider-Man #125 where MJ once again calls upon Felicia’s aid to find Peter (though he’s not in trouble, she just needs him present). The circumstances are decidedly different from Web #80. There is no jousting going on. Partially this is due to their relationship having grown deeper but it’s also due to MJ being pregnant and amidst the chaos of the time (Peter was on trial for murder, Aunt May had just died and MJ had been recently abducted by Kaine) she was clearly feeling very vulnerable. 

Vulnerable enough in fact that Felicia can clearly tell MJ is upset and outright hugs her, offering some support and comfort. 

This time Felicia isn’t seeking out Peter less because she cares for him and more because she wants to help MJ and the baby. If ever there was a moment clearly demarking the pair had fully transitioned into real friendship, this was it. 

Whilst MJ and Felicia don’t directly interact in Web #128 Peter makes a reference to MJ and Felicia talking on the phone for hours.

Skipping waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead now. The tl:dr is that Felicia clearly began to develop some feelings for Peter again during Howard Mackie’s run. This became more significantly a factor in the Evil that Men Do Limited Series where Felicia is putting the movies on Peter and also refers to MJ derogatorily. 

Something to note about Evil that Men do is that it gets a lot of details wrong and it’s continuity is wonky. the first half came out when Peter and MJ were seperated, but the second half came out years later and used then contemporary continuity from when Peter and MJ would’ve been back together. The important thing to note is Felicia went back to having the hots for Spider-Man and also being down on MJ

To my recollection the next time I recall MJ and Felicia having a significant interaction was in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #5. In the issue Felicia has rescued Peter from the Vulture and is helping him investigate Aunt may’s recent kidnapping. Peter was badly beat up so Felicia and Mj were nursing him back to health. The scene where Peter wakes up clearly conveys that there is some tension and competitivness going on between MJ and Felicia even though they are talking in a friendly manner to one another. When Felicia leaves MJ looked really bummed out, which might’e been due to some insecurities regarding Felicia or because of their financial troubles at the time (she was keeping them from Peter).

Later on in Marvel Knights #10, when Peter has resolved to break Norman Osborn out of jail in order to save Aunt May, Felicia going along with him for this, MJ blows up at Felicia and basically tells her to back off from Peter.

In defence of MJ here, Norman Osborn has pushed them to the edge big time so I think she’s having a major wobble regarding Black Cat.

Anyway, she’s not wrong about Felicia as the remaining issues of the arc make it clear that Felicia is absolutely in love with Peter again if Evil that Men Do didn’t make that clear enough.

Next up in Spider-Man: Breakout #2, MJ is similarly pissed off about Peter contacting Felicia for help tracking down the U-Foes.

Frankly...I find this instance rather out of character but I thought I might as well mention it.

Then we have Spider-Man Unlimited volume 3 #14. In this issue, as payback for helping him bust out Norman Osborn, Felicia demands Spider-Man help her steal something from Doctor Doom. Peter isn’t happy about this until it turns out that the item in question was a spider tracer with his finger prints on it, meaning Felicia was trying to once again protect Peter. MJ wasn’t happy to find out Peter was hanging out with Felicia but acknwoeldged she helped protect them.

The next notable interaction was during Civil War when Peter was unmasked, the Parkers were fugitives and Peter was half dead from a beating via the Rhino. Felicia upon learning of this sought out the Parkers and volunteered to even the score with Rhino. When all is said and done, MJ asks Felicia if she wants to give Peter a message from her.

We then transition into shitty post-OMD continuity and frankly I’m not touching 90% of that sans one notable story (Web of Spider-Man volume 2 #11-12) in which Felicia, who has totally forgotten who MJ and Peter Parker are, nevertheless befriends MJ after an adventure to save Peter.

I bring up this story simply because your original question was regarding MJ and Felicia friendship.

This story’s canonicity can be debated for a few reasons, it doesn’t make sense in general because the mindwipe was asinine shit and it has 0 follow up. In fact it doesn’t even really jive with later appearances of MJ or Felicia. It is amusing though that it completes a sort of trilogy wherein MJ and Felicia become more friendly in Web of Spider-Man.

Anyway, that brings you pretty much up to date.

Essentially there are two distinct eras for MJ and Felicia’s relationship. The 1980s-1990s where they have a clear arc transitioning from acquaintances who’re not that fond of one another to rivals to frenemies to outright friends. 

Then you have the 2000s and beyond which pits the two against one another again but in a very different dynamic to before as MJ is Peter’s wife and recognizes Felicia’s as an ally.

It’s not impossible to reconcile the two narratively but I’m not going to do that here. 

I think the second era might’ve been done in order to inject more tension into the Spider Marriage and in fairness, it did work. It was dramatic.

But I personally prefer the second era much more as it portrays a clear character arc. As a bonus I should mention that, since it diverged from Spider-Man continuity in the late 1990s, in Spider-Girl MJ and Felicia’s relationship continued to develop in a friendly manner to the point where Felicia would pay Mj a visit in her office and the pair would chat about their daughters and their mutual problems. In MJ’s case a difficult pregnancy and in Felicia’s her rebellious daughter who wasn’t fond of her same sex partner.

To bring this right around to your OP, the scenes of friendship have more or less happened in canon and in stories that are pseudo canon. 

*Bear in mind this was the same decade where Sabertooth participated in the infamous Mutant Massacre storyline where he and his peers mass slaughtered a bunch of defenceless mutants. Readers knew he was no pushover.  

**Because you see according to Joe Quesada, Steve Wacker, Dan Slott et al Mary Jane was clearly not dating Peter at this time and I think we’ve all brought groceries to our ex’s apartment (that we own a key to) in order to make them breakfast in bed. It’s the single most platonic gesture possible.

[curestardust]

if you want: great animation / vampires 

I was initially drawn to this anime due to the character designs. And that’s basically all I got as well.

Let me start with some of the good stuff first. The production value is up to par. The animation is great and especially shows its strength during melee encounters. The music was also a amazing to me with mostly electronic and synth heavy tracks. And umm...yeah.

Now, what was my main problem with Sirius? It completely breaks the “Show, don’t tell” rule. As in, this anime takes monolouging and flashbacks to the next level. As i said above, the fights are nice, however they’re not very long and don’t seem to have any structure to them (just go, shooty, stabby, boom boom and it’s over). This is a problem because these fights are the highlights of the whole thing. The rest of the time we’re either watching a 10 minute long fight scene or someone giving us some mad exposition to either themselves or some other character who don’t respond to anything they’re saying. It becomes so mindnumbingly boring after a while that I wanted to scream everytime it happened after a while.

The second problem is the characters and how many there are. Too many, is the answer. We have our main character Yuliy, his gang of 4 characters. Then 2 other unrelated characters shove themselves into the protagonists bussiness and then we have the antagonists aka the vampires. It’s even worse that almost everyone has a different plotline and we don’t see them interacting much so there’s no time for us to get invested in them. In my opinion, the 2 unrelated characters could’ve been easily cut out of the story and nothing would’ve been lost.

And the last thing is the story. It’s just so...meh? The initial clonfict is that there are jaegers and vampires and they’re trying to kill each other. Right. Then we find out about some artifact that everyone wants and then rest of the story is just people chasing after the item. The item which we don’t really know anything about or what it does. Riveting stuff.

Listen, if you want some nice animation mixed with some supernatural stuff, you might like this but if Sirius didn’t catch your attention the first time, no reason to go back to it. [6/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: well, it’s BNHA lmao / amazing animation / amazing music / shounen / superpowers and heroes / to have a good fucking time

So yeah, I’ve finally gotten around to watching BNHA and goddamn, does it deserve the hype surrounding it.

I don’t want to draw this out much. Everyone knows what BNHA is at this point so giving an extensive review for it would be kinda useless. Let’s see...the animation is incredible and I could count on one hand the wonky characters I saw throughout all 13 episodes and those were all faraway shots. The music also falls into the same category, nothing to complain about. Same with the voice-acting. Like DAMN. Most importantly though, not only is the technical aspect of the anime more than up to par, they work together in way where if even one aspect was worse, we wouldn’t have gotten the same quality. The flawless and detailed animation gives a feeling to the fights while the music swells and quiets at exactly the right times to make your heart beat faster and get you as invested as possible. It’s truly amazing and I can’t praise it enough.

The story and the characters lack in some areas but not in a drastically bad way. They don’t take away from the overall experience at all and my complains are more nitpicky than anything. They did well with the short runtime the first season had. Besides the (2) main character(s) we have a few more who are part of the main cast, who get the most screentime. Then we’ve the rest of the class. Making all of them unique characters and giving each of them at least some amount of screentime was a great choice that pays off in the latter half of the season but some of them still felt really expendable and could’ve been removed without any detriment to the story. Still, it’s fine. 

They managed to fit a surprising amount of plot into these episodes. Our main character goes through an entire personal arc, then we have the school arc and then the ending arc. Throughout the first two, there’s also a rivalry plot that further develops our characters and their relationship. 

This is a shounen and it’s obvious that the target democraphic is kids. The sometimes ridiculously cartoonish superpowers and constant flashbacks to certain scenes remind you of that. And it’s...and incredible anime of its kind. Watching it made me feel like when I watched Naruto as a young kid. The world, the characters and the powers got me completely immersed and absolutely hyped. [9/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: immature and over-the-top comedy / virgin beta male main characters

Grand Blue is admittedly wild and all over the place and yet, it left such a small impression on me that I don’t even know what to write about it.

As last season’s most viewed anime were surprisingly decent, I decided to go ahead and check out the 2018 Summer Season’s most popular original anime: Grand Blue.

We start out with a quite normal set-up. Iori is going to start going to college and has decided to move to his uncle’s diving shop for the time being. At about 5 minutes into the first episode, all hell breaks lose. Iori immediately runs into a bunch of buff naked guys loudly shouting in the lobby at which point he decides to peace out and go back home. But we wouldn’t have this anime if he succeded so this is where he gets introduced to 2 members of the diving club who very enthusiastically urge him to join as well. Later on, the diving club grows in numbers by one of Iori’s female cousins, Chisa, a weirdly aggressive weeb guy, Kouhei, and another member whom I won’t spoil.

Now, don’t get confused. Grand Blue isn’t a diving anime, even though the majority of the time we’re watching the various messes the diving club gets into.

GB is a comedy. The jokes are basically that everyone is constantly getting drunk and naked. And that when characters’ react to things their faces morph into overly detailed ridiculous expressions, reminiscent of Asobi Asobase. But would that be enough to shoot this anime to the top? Ha. The reason this is such a fan favorite is that the main characters are virgin beta males. I’m guessing the general weeb audience finds this very relatable (lmao). When I read a review saying that this was finally a “manly anime” because it had beta cucks and buff guys, my brain basically went blue screen and tried to reboot itself. 

I ain’t gonna lie, I laughed and chuckled at a lot of stuff. However, about halfway, Iori and Kohei somehow befriend a group of other virgins from their class and we suddenly got segments of them hanging out and I HATEEEEEED all of those scenes. The whole thing was that they wanted to FUCK the wohman VERY much. And it was so boring and just plain not funny. Not to mention, all of their friends were completely despicable and disgusting and I just UGH.

No one has a personality in this anime. Iori goes from “I respect wohman” to “I wanna fuck the wohman very much, boobies” in 5 seconds, depending on who he is with. Everyone else has about 1 personality trait which are only used to make jokes. I don’t even remember anyone’s name, I had to look them up for this review.

Sometimes Grand Blue is hilarous. Sometimes cringe-inducing. Honestly, if you want some mindless, meaningless and really over-the-top comedy, you may like this but if you’re looking for anything else from an anime then no, it isn’t worth watching. [5/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[smoldinopup]

SHINee World V - Hong Kong

A fan account I’m just writing for Tiia @gone-with-the-bling, because she wants to read one, even though I’m not quite sure what to write. First things first, this will be once again not really a fan account, because my head is a mess and I can’t point out things in order. Secondly, everything I write should be once again read with a grain of salt, because I’m just one person (who was really exhausted that day I might add) of many.

So, my mind goes a little over the top at times – she said after booking a flight to Korea just an hour ago to see the puppy *coughs*  –  and in a state of some sort of delirium I thought it’s a good idea to just go to Hong Kong to see SHINee World V after I didn’t get any tickets for their concerts in Japan back in December. For one I really wanted to attend one of their Korean concerts, and I also desperately wanted to see some songs live (Ring Ding Dong, Lucifer, Please don’t go, Odd eye, Ready or not, Replay, and Sayonara Hitori – I still ignore the fact that there is a Korean version of this song and I will do so until the end of time – to be exact) because I have such a strong attachment to the older songs, and just wanted to hear them live in Korean. ;-;

Ticket, flight, and Hostel were quickly booked, and so I skipped university on Friday and went from Shizuoka to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Hong Kong. The whole journey took me around 15 hours in total (one could think I travelled to the States), but that’s another story. Hong Kong…oh well, let me tell you it was a ride, and my biggest adventure until now. I won’t go into details, but I was in a constant state of I want to go home – home being Japan – during this whole trip. It was just a little too much of everything.

Anyway, I was almost too late for the concert *nervous laughter*. I met up with friends on my second day of Hong Kong and I spent more time with them than I originally had planned. They just pulled me from one restaurant to the next one and along the way I lost track of time. The food in Hong Kong is really delicious! Actually, I also wanted to meet up with @5-25 before the concert, but my time miscalculation didn’t allow it. *sad face* ;-;

So, I only arrived at my seat when the opening had already started. The weird thing is, I was on a train with some other Shawols who were like the embodiment of calmness while I flailed around on the inside, constantly thinking ‘OH MY GOD…YOU TRAVELLED ALL THE WAY TO HONG KONG TO SEE SHINee AND YOU MIGHT MISS THE BEGINNING OF THE CONCERT’. However, when I arrived at the concert hall tons of people were still waiting outside, and I was like ‘What? Why? Does the entry start at 6pm after all?’ So at 17:45 I got in line – at least I thought that was the waiting line – until I overheard some Japanese Shawols in front of me who were told by another Japanese friend that this was the wrong line and the actual line was somewhere else. 

I followed them discreetly. 

Then an announcement was made that the show was about to start in 10 minutes and I was like ?????? How??? There were so many people waiting outside still and the fun thing was, they didn’t let anyone in. The doors were closed and people had to wait, so I just got more confused. I thought the entry was very badly managed. How can there be an announcement that the show is about to start, but the staff doesn’t let people into the hall? I haven’t experienced something like this until now, so I’m still full of questions.

Long story short, I made it in time, some staff helped me to find my seat in the dark, and I ended up next to an elderly lady who may accompanied her granddaughter? She didn’t seem like a fan – why do I always end up next to the elderly??? Does a higher power want to tell me something??? -  I loved how everyone was screaming during the VCRs, because no one screamed in Japan during them – at least not at the concerts I’ve been to. Minho appeared? *SCREAM* ONEW appeared *SCREAM* … It was marvelous. I also couldn’t make out a fan favorite, which I highly appreciated. There was just constant screaming, and excitement over all the members equally. Thank you Hong Kong Shawols for being good fellows.

I wanted to stand up as soon as the boys entered the stage, but then I realized that everyone around me was sitting, so I stayed seated, because I didn’t want to block the view of anyone, especially not of the elderly lady - me, an actual nice person. Apparently, my block was an exception since the people on the other side stood up. I’m just so used to standing throughout the concerts that I was a little weirded out in the beginning.

Key had some clothes malfunction going on during the first songs, and was constantly fumbling with his jacket, shirt, pants, wiring? I don’t even know, but he was highly distracted and was gone for the start of ‘Why so serious?’ and walked back on stage when it was his turn. After that everything seemed to be fine, though.

Shawols really partied hard and sang at the top of their lungs to every song – me included, even though I had to remind myself several times to not sing the Japanese lyrics –, but the fan chants were a little uncoordinated. But it was cute! ^^

I hoped that Key might talk some English in between, but there was a woman who translated everything in Cantonese during the talk segments. For the whole ‘ENTERTAINee’ experience I have to say that people should visit a concert of SHINee in Japan or Korea – if they ever get the chance to do so – , since the translation process just takes out a lot of time and fun for the audience and the boys as well, because the reaction of the audience is delayed, and they always have to wait before they can continue speaking. I just realize this only makes sense for people who actually speak Korean or Japanese otherwise it doesn’t matter anyway.

I mean I live for Jinki’s puns! But according to fan accounts from the North America dates and from my own experience at the Hong Kong concert now Jinki didn’t talk that much, especially not really entertaining things more the usual ‘leader things to say-things’. On the other hand, in Japan….he was just hilarious and warmed my heart. He’s not even fluent in Japanese, but he tries and I love him for that, and yeah…Japanese speaking Jinki is on my top five list of SHINee concert things!

I was immensely hypnotized by Taemin’s hips during Odd Eye. I mean damn! If anyone has a Taemin Hong Kong fancam during Odd Eye for research purposes *coughs*…I’d be forever thankful. When I came back home last night, one of my Jonghyun posters was lying on the floor. It was probably a sign that wanted to tell me whom I was supposed to look at. Sorry! :’)

Apropos fancams, I didn’t take any. I just wanted to enjoy the concert, so bear with me. ^^ I’m really surprised that so many pics and fancams surfaced already, though. Maybe the security was non-existent in the pit? Because on my side there were tons of security guards, constantly running around, pointing flashlights at people or telling them off when they saw them recording something with their phones. During Trigger it got really wild and all of a sudden 7 security guards went to the block next to mine and didn’t leave for several minutes. Maybe they had discovered a fansite in between the other concert goers? I was strangely fascinated by the strictness of the security guards and the staff.

Please don’t go. I don’t know, but for the majority of the song I thought Jinki was singing too low? Something seemed off and even after two days I still haven’t figured out what it was. Maybe it was just me. I need to check fancams. Also, Jonghyun missed a note and it made me laugh - me, an actual mean person. I also loved how Jonghyun was all *heart eyes Jinki* during the song while Jinki’s eyes were closed for the majority of time or he looked to the ground. He only started to look at Jonghyun when the song was about to end. One-sided puppy love right there.

Sayonara Hitori *happy sigh* I just love that song so much. The stage outfit looks kind of wonky if combined with the blue hair, though. It makes him look less Vampire!Tae and more Anime!Tae now. I would have preferred it if they had used the smaller stage for his solo performance. He looked a little lost on that big one. But I figured that they chose that option for the smoke machines on the main stage.

I loved that they had the little carts to drive around the concert hall. That was the only time my block actually stood up. -.-“ I also only realized that there were different fan projects going on when I found a banner squished in between my seat after sitting on it for two hours. :’D But the happy birthday singing and the blinking balloons were a really cute touch. It looked and sounded beautiful. I also think the boys appreciated the effort.

Mmhh…what else? Oh, I didn’t mention Minho yet. He said a lot of ‘I love you’s’ and threw a lot of kisses, and waved a lot…just your normal Choi Tenderheart at work. Can’t remember anything specific, though. I missed his Japan Mr. Right Guy pants…haha

Jonghyun didn’t change his pants for the performances again, but I only noticed that during the ‘all white outfit’ performance, because he was the only one in black pants. I hope he will get some rest for his ankle soon, so it can properly heal. All that dancing can’t be good for the healing process. Also, Jonghyun looked so beautiful. He was glowing and I was in a constant state of awwwww – with the exception of the Odd eye performance, because yeah, I got distracted during it as I mentioned above.

SHINee all looked really beautiful that day! I mean they always do, but you know…the prettiness is real. Key – he’s a work of art. He took his jacket off at some point and everyone cheered very loudly. Key – a people pleaser lmao. I’m also a big a fan of the faces he constantly pulls as if he was the protagonist of his own comedy show, breaking the fourth wall by looking into the camera, waiting for a reaction.

The closing video got me really emotional. :( It’s so sad…I can’t wait for the DVD release. *SM take all my money*

After the concert everyone got really hectic, and at first I thought ‘Ah…they want to catch the first train so they can go home quickly’ – me, a naïve human being. Side note, the concert hall is in close proximity of the airport and connected to it also by train – it’s just a 3minute ride or so. However, later I realized everyone was flailing around and getting off at the airport – me included – because of SHINee. Well, I only got off the train to take the next bus back into the city while all the others ran to the departure hall. :’) I don’t know. I can understand while people are going to the airports and welcome their idols or see them off, giving them letters or gifts, but for me personally it’s not something I’d do. To me it feels weird and intruding in some way. Even though I love seeing SHINee’s airport fashion photos, seeing fancams often disturbs me. All that running and screaming and pushing that occurs way too often is not really to my liking. I find it intimidating. So yeah, I didn’t see SHINee off, but went back to the city instead – me, an actual bad fangirl.

I think that’s about it. I don’t regret flying to Hong Kong to see SHINee. The people were fun and so was the concert, and I also won’t play favorites by saying this or that was better. Every concert is something special I believe, so I try to treat them like that as well. ^^

Unrelated to Hong Kong, but I got a ticket for one of Jonghyun’s concert, and I’m ecstatic. I do consider myself partially insane at this point, but I don’t really care anymore. I take everything I can get before I have to go back to the continent that is constantly ignored by SM. Actually, I would love to participate in that concert letter writing event thingie, and let one of my fellow Korean students translate it into Korean or so, but I’m not sure yet. Just imagine how awkward it would be, if the letter gets picked and I sit in the audience, not able to say anything else but 종현아,사랑해! 결혼 하자 !!!! I mean it sure would leave an impression!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So yeah, I don’t know about that yet. 

[tinymixtapes]

Interview: Alex Cobb

Since 2005, Alex Cobb has mined the depths of drone, noise, ambient, and modern composition on his venerable label Students of Decay. Originally begun as a means of releasing his own work (both under his name and as Taiga Remains), Cobb’s imprint has unleashed some of the best work from the likes of Natural Snow Buildings, Billy Gomberg, Anne Guthrie, En, Mark Banning, and Secret Pyramid, to name a few. Students of Decay has achieved a longevity based on following Cobb’s exceptional curatorial instinct rather than on trends. Recently, Alex’s life changed dramatically, as he and his wife celebrated the birth of their son this past year. In addition to that massive life event, Alex has been working on a new imprint, Soda Gong, which incorporates “a sense of playfulness and a sort of willful naivety” not heard on Students of Decay (which will continue running). The first Soda Gong release is, appropriately, a new solo project, dubbed Etelin. The inaugural release, Hui Terra, is slated for release November 9. In the interview below, we’re excited to premiere the track “Water the Ferns,” which highlights the record’s musique concrète-inspired tone. Over Skype and a few email follow-ups, Alex and I caught up on the origins of Soda Gong, his ethos on curating releases, and how he keeps himself motivated after nearly a decade and a half spent releasing records. --- I just want to start off and say congrats on being a dad! Tell me about this new project. Did this experience influence your approach to the new album? Thanks! Yeah, this record is certainly bound up in the experience of being a new parent. I was playing it for a friend somewhat recently, and I realized how certain pieces are almost conceptual to that end, though unintentionally and probably only discernibly so to me. One track in particular features processed samples of my son’s voice right after he was born, and as I’ve realized after sitting with it for almost a year now, it actually kind of obliquely articulates a specific nurturing experience that I remember from the first few weeks after the birth. There’s a part of me that very definitely does not want to explain the record in this way though, as a “new dad” record or whatever; I’m reticent to do that. Overall, I’d say there’s a sense of playfulness and a sort of willful naivety going on that wasn’t present in my work as a musician or curator in the past, as well as a rejuvenated excitement for discovery and true experimentation. Anyone making work that falls under the rather unfortunate umbrella of “experimental music” will understand what I mean here, I think. Essentially, just like with any creative pursuit, sediment accumulates: go-to techniques and sounds (and album art and press release verbiage…) emerge, and, generally speaking, then comes stagnation or just a reiteration of the status quo. Recently, I’ve found myself just very fatigued with sort of po-faced quasi-academic drone music. It asks so much of the listener at the level of being taken seriously, even reverently, and very often doesn’t actually articulate much in the way of ideas, new or otherwise. I just want more spontaneity and dynamics in the music I’m making and curating at present, so I’ve been steering away from monochromatic ambient stuff and finding myself drawn more towards rhythmic or at least very dynamic music — so lots of dance music, ethnographic recordings, and musique concrète. With this new imprint I just want to open things up a lot — produce a body of work culled from a wider range of genres, including a lot of work that I feel is sort of post-genre, or at the very least tough to pigeonhole. I’ve always contended that running a label is an art of putting together something cohesive first and foremost, something that has an articulate sensibility. To that end, it doesn’t make any sense to me to start putting out certain types of records on Students of Decay so many years into the label’s trajectory. So, I’m trying to afford myself the space to curate more freely, though still with an eye towards making something that has a defined identity. I want to have a catalog that’s very diverse, but comprised of releases that still feel of a piece with one another. That’s the goal for me. At the risk of over explaining everything, how did you come up with Soda Gong as the name of your new label? And at what point did you decide that Hui Terra would be the starting point of a new imprint? Soda Gong is the title of a poem by Clark Coolidge. I think it does a pretty good job of evoking the sensibilities I want to explore without being too literal or on the nose. Coolidge’s work definitely informs some of my own recent practice — his playfulness, his treatment of rhythm and repetition, his aggregation of detail and detritus into constructs that are somehow both wonky and balanced. The Etelin record makes sense to me as the first release because it also embodies a lot of these concerns: naivety, experimentation, spontaneity, etc. I guess it’s almost like a thesis statement. Running a label is often thankless work, so much so that for a little while I had lost sight of what makes me continue doing it. This feels like a way to maybe get back to where I want to be. You’ve mentioned that you’re still fleshing out the details of the new label, but when you talk about that, I’m reminded of the interview we did a few years ago. You talked about building up Students of Decay to where people can blindly buy whatever new release you have. Is that something you want to pursue with Soda Gong, or do you see it as something where more people may flock to a house record or instrumental hip-hop versus musique concrète? I think, at their best, labels are clearing houses or organizers of music, and much like other cultural productions — textiles, books, films, coffee, tea, alcohol, etc. — if you find that your taste accords with the person who’s piloting the ship, you’ll likely feel as though you’re in good hands and want to follow along on the journey. I quit drinking alcohol, but I drink a lot of tea. In the puerh market, certain vendors cultivate a sort of house profile, much like a brewery might, so you can drink across their catalog — material from different regions, of different ages and processing techniques — and feel confident about following them out on a limb, stepping out of your comfort zone. So maybe there’s someone who never listens to house music or techno or musique concrète, but they like what the label put out previously (or what SOD puts out or they have some faith in my curatorial tendencies), so they check out a record that they wouldn’t otherwise. Maybe that leads them to the realization that there are in fact a lot of similarities between dance music and drone music, in terms of detail accruing over time or how the art of it often lies in subtle or microtonal gestures. One of the main conceits that is driving this label is a desire to focus less on genre and more on feeling and sensibility. There are a couple dichotomies that I’ve been thinking about lately that also get at what I’m after: naivety vs. refinement, autodidacticism vs. formal training. I’m interested in music that, at first pass, might seem quite naive, but when you listen to it more you realize that the person or people who made it have really worked out a vernacular of their own and there is a strong degree of refinement to their ideas and techniques. I’m looking for music that is startling, that creates a mythology or world for itself. So Students of Decay has been around for 13 years now, is that right? Yeah, since 2005. I know that you read about it in other places, about the pros and cons of running a record label right now. We’ve kind of touched on how it hasn’t necessarily gotten better, but there does seem to be a renewed interest in vinyl, so I don’t know if that’s making it better for smaller labels. I don’t mean to get too deep into the logistics of vinyl pressing, but do you plan to continue Students of Decay’s vinyl only format aesthetic with this new label? Yeah, it’ll be digital and vinyl. It’s what makes the most sense right now. Regarding SOD, I think it’s because I got sort of buried in production difficulties and certain difficulties with artists, but things started really feeling like a chore to me this past year or so. Lots of frustration and tedium with little in the way of satisfaction. While that’s to be expected with your day job or whatever, it’s not what one looks for in a passion project or hobby. And while I’m happily keeping SOD going, and I have records coming out that I’m really quite excited about, I felt I needed something else — something new and in some ways less defined by time and expectation — to help me actually enjoy putting out music again. So this will be quite a bit different in how it’s executed at the levels of things like curation, visuals/design, orienting/promotional language, release schedules, and notions of what constitutes a “proper release.” Running a label is often thankless work, so much so that for a little while I had lost sight of what makes me continue doing it. This feels like a way to maybe get back to where I want to be. The label has been around for a long time. Do you ever come across any upstart labels, or does anyone hit you up for advice? Do people come to you about longevity in the music world? Yeah, for sure. People who are thinking about starting a label will email me and ask anything from “should I do this?” to “what should I expect?” or “is this stupid, what am I doing?” My attitude with respect to running a label is pretty much the same as it has been since the beginning. First and foremost, I don’t think anyone should try to rely on it for income, because I don’t think it’s viable and it prioritizes the wrong things. I really believe that art should be separate from capitalistic concerns; the notion that anyone de facto deserves compensation for wanting to play a synth or write a song is wrongheaded. If you go about it from that angle, odds are you’re going to be frustrated and probably end up with a discordant mess of a label. In a lot of ways, I feel like we’re in a very strange climate for releasing music at present. I confess I find it a bit tough to navigate sometimes. What made sense in 2005, 2010, and 2015 doesn’t make sense now. I think a lot about what the truly imperative things for a label owner to do are and lately I come up with a lot of blanks. For example, the landscape of editorial coverage has changed so much. There used to be so many great sites that people authored just because of their interest in music… you know, the “blogging era,” but that’s not really the case anymore. I actually think it’s pretty weird that with the proliferation of technology, with how welded to our phones we are and how unthinkable it is to ever be without the internet, music blogging has basically died. It probably says something about our collective priorities and diminishing interest in sustained cultural criticism… So anyway, the question of how to get yourself/your musicians heard or considered — and what that even looks like and what effect it will have if any — is kind of in flux. Put simply, my advice to people considering doing this is to try to make something that is authentic, that is distinctive, that is not derivative, that you can stand behind. Do that and have faith that people will get interested if you are persistent and committed to making beautiful/engaging/exciting things. If you’re chasing a trend, that trend will end and you’ll have to find another one to chase and your label will seem perpetually outmoded and disjointed. So don’t do that. Cover art for Etelin’s Hui Terra The Etelin record makes sense to me as the first release because it also embodies a lot of these concerns: naivety, experimentation, spontaneity, etc. I guess it’s almost like a thesis statement. Do you still make any of the music in the style of Taiga Remains or under your name? Or are you taking a break from that kind of music? I would say taking a break, though I don’t know if I’ll return to it. Making those three records under my own name, which kind of feel like a loose, heavy-hearted trilogy, strikes me as a nice way to move on from that type of very minimal, very sad ambient music. I actually sold my guitars, and in truth I’m pretty tired of guitar-based music. I bought a sampler and a digital synthesizer, basically equipment that I felt would give me a lot of versatility and force me to reevaluate my process from the bottom-up. Having run a label for so long, what continues to drive you, and to be rewarding, in running a label? Do you still see frustrations or drawbacks? I’m mostly interested in what continues to drive you in a time when it seems harder to get people to pay attention to an album. The impetus behind doing it is that I don’t know how not to do it. It would be really strange for me to not have a record in production, to not be talking to someone about working on a new project, listening to demos, etc. I’ve done it since I’ve been an adult, and I’ve done it through some crazy and destabilizing shit in my own life where it really functioned as a sort of ballast. I’ll always value it for that if nothing else. Going off of that, I wanted to bring up the Anne Guthrie record that you just put out [Brass Orchids]. I don’t want to lump her and Billy Gomberg together just because they’re married, but it’s interesting to listen to his last record [Slight at the Contact], and then her last record that you put out, and to hear this new one. They all move in this direction that, as a music journalist, is supposed to be my job to describe, and I can’t do that, but it’s a compelling sound. Anne was pregnant during the making of that record, and I think it bears marks of that major life change. It maps a sort of volatile emotional topography and mines familial history in interesting ways. There’s an argument to be made, of course, that every record has its roots in the biography of the person making it, which gets at something that I am interested in: the question of artistic honesty and the problem of how to be earnest in one’s creative work. There’s a David Foster Wallace quote in which (I’ve been reading a fair amount of alcoholism recovery literature recently) in reference to writing during his own recovery, he talks about how he’s trying to write “single entendre” sentences. I think this gets referenced a lot when people talk about the New Sincerity movement. I really like this phrasing and am attracted to the impulse to attempt to consciously reject guile and artificiality in one’s practice. This is Wallace decidedly not trying to be the smartest person in the room or to do the most interesting subversion of x, y, and z — it’s him saying “this expresses a feeling or an experience, warts and all.” So much capital L literature, arthouse film, institutionalized art, and, indeed, experimental music is so self-aware that it’s actually deeply frightened of honest, emotion-on-the-sleeve expression. This is, of course, because the work might come off as saccharine or cliche-ridden. Those are the stakes. So, anyway this all to say I guess that right now I find myself drawn to things that endeavor to strip away artifice. Yeah, I like that idea of the single entendre sentences, and not only thinking of your music, but as we’re talking I’m looking at my record shelf, and thinking about how there doesn’t need to be a meaning behind the sound you hear. You don’t necessarily have to know, and that’s interesting. In my line of work, you get lots of press sheets that try to over-explain a record, or go overboard on the narrative, like you said earlier, or trying to hold your hand while you’re listening. Yeah, it’s like the culture of RIYL or “for fans of __________,’” you know? Of course, there is a lot of very good music that is heavily dressed up and marketed. I find myself in this conflicted space of being fatigued by being hard-sold on things, by having onesheet narratives pushed on me, but also recognizing the importance of cultivated mythology and narrative crafting as they apply to being a musician and running a label. SOD just released its latest, Daughters of Time, from Blue Chemise. How did this project find its way to you and the label? Where did you first hear about Mark Gomes’ work? I reached out to Mark after really enjoying his record Influence on Dusk and a subsequent 7-inch. His work sits quite well with the SOD catalog — it’s distant, elusive, and a bit mysterious while also sort of willfully against au courant compositional/production techniques and aesthetic touchstones. He’s got a great ear and editorial sensibility, and I’m always attracted to ambient music that prioritizes concision. You mentioned that you got rid of older equipment from previous releases, and you’re working with a blank slate, so to speak. Can you tell me about how it came together and pared everything down to an album? My wife Melissa and I had our son, Casper, in September of 2017. There’s this term called “newborn haze” that I learned the meaning of firsthand. Your sleep is completely derailed. You don’t leave home for like a week at a time. You’re totally in your own world, which is now a radically altered place. It’s kind of terrifying! The notion that the world is still going on per usual seems crazy, oddly unthinkable. I remember going out to pick up food at one point and seeing people doing their everyday routines and thinking how alien all of it seemed, this outside world. I didn’t think I’d be making music during this time. In fact, I wasn’t making music at all then, I hadn’t for some months. I had however made some recordings of things during Melissa’s third trimester, just as a way of marking time, things like thunderstorms at her parent’s country house, a conversation she was having with my mom right as she went into labor — both of those recordings actually show up on the last track of the record. And then, after the birth, spending time with Casper as he was becoming ever more aware of things, I would be listening to records, naturally, and with certain albums — I recall Nuno Canavarro, Bernard Parmegiani, and Luc Ferrari specifically — I noticed him very interested, like paying close attention in a way that was distinct from how he seemed to at other times. They say that babies’ sense of hearing is the most defined at birth, after touch. He would make sounds when signals panned across the speakers, or look surprised, or even scared, if the music went to a particularly intense place. So I found myself inspired to make some music that would give him those kinds of engaged experiences, but be just ours. I started working with a Waldorf synth and some old granular computer patches and a sampler — really quite haphazardly and at all hours of the day. Pretty quickly, I’d amassed a bunch of recordings. I arranged them in ways that would result in interesting pieces for Casper to listen to with me, playing them back over studio monitors, through bluetooth speakers, in the car, etc. Pretty soon, I had an hour or so of music that I felt good about, so I started to fine tune things and make edits. I really limited myself in that regard, more than I ever have before. It’s ironic, because this album sounds more detailed and produced than my other work, but it’s actually much more spontaneous and has a lot more restraint at the level of editing than anything I’ve done before. I decided to leave things in that rubbed me the wrong way, “mistakes” as I might think of them normally. I chose to view them as giving character rather than detracting from something I’d idealized. I made a point of deleting the work sessions themselves, all the stems, as soon as I bounced the audio tracks, and I arranged big chunks of exported sound instead of having tons of tracks that I could modify, you know, tamper with or overcook. I’d say this record is defined for me by a sense of personal renewal. Obviously becoming a father is a huge life change. I also quit drinking at the beginning of 2017. I feel great, very lucid. I started to recognize that alcohol had become a problem for me and that it had a negative effect on a lot of aspects of my life, effects that I’d been trying to ignore but which had become unavoidable. I knew I was blunting my nervous system, but I didn’t know I was blunting my creativity as well. I recently read this book The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, which I highly recommend; it’s a sort of hybrid memoir/critical work dealing with alcoholism, both personal and within creative writing communities. She addresses her concern that by quitting drinking, she would cease to have a creative identity or make compelling work. This was a very real fear for me. I thought that by getting sober, I wouldn’t have anything to say anymore. But really the exact opposite is true. I feel like I am more able to collect and articulate my thoughts now, and I’m more open to experience and discovery. For me, alcohol just dulls everything, and now I want the ragged raw stuff of life, the unfiltered light. http://j.mp/2oYFu5C

[bittybunnyboots-blog]

Creative Sprint Reflection

Originally I was unsure of whether I was going to get much out of doing this creative sprint. I have done ‘Inktobers’ and other creative daily exercises, and while fun, I always ended up getting side-tracked and not finishing. With this project, though, I was a lot more motivated, and I ended up enjoying the little exercises a lot more than I imagined I would. I felt like I was getting something done. I felt productive, and it was relatively stress free work that I could do very quickly, which helped me get out of creative slumps very quickly.

I also noticed that I was a lot more productive in general after getting a sprint day done. It got me into a creative mindset, which then carried into my other work in my arts major, and even my english minor. I enjoyed seeing the work of my peers as it appeared on Instagram, It was a lot of fun to see how everyone interpreted the prompts so differently despite all receiving the same ones. I think seeing the work of my peers motivated me a lot to make my own work better. If I learned anything from the experience overall, It’s that you definitely shouldn’t procrastinate. I put off starting for a long time because I wasn’t sure if I would like the outcomes of my efforts, and had to cram a lot into the second half of the sprint to make up for lost time. It’s far easier to work in little chunks over time than to let the work build up and have to do it all last minute. I also learned that I shouldn’t be so afraid to post my work, no matter whether I like it or not, because I may not like something but other people might see something I don’t. It’s also super important to get creative feedback on all your work, because feedback, positive or negative, really helps you grow change, and get stronger as an artist and as a person. For this project, I tried to stay true to my personal style and in particular, how it relates to my chosen career path as a children’s illustrator. I think doing this project has allowed me to be a lot freer and softer with my work, I was able to stop getting hung up on minute details and really allow myself to branch out and experiment. I have found that this experimentation and looseness, my ‘playing around’ with the pieces, has allowed my work to become more playful and humorous as well. Levity with a purpose is an important part of being a children’s illustrator, and I think I have grown a lot and been able to better incorporate that levity into my work as a result of these pieces. It’s okay to feel like a little kid, to play around a little, because it informs your work and adds lightness and warmth. I think that is something I may have at times lacked in my own creative endeavors in other classes, and I think this project has opened my horizons up a lot.

I would say the days that best represented my love of the goofy and surreal are probably Day 13 and 14, and 21 and 22. These pieces I decided to do digitally in order to give myself more freedom of color, and in the case of the two photographs, freedom of expression in the characters I was creating. The frog piece fo Day 21 was a fun one because I absolutely love frogs, and the person who suggested the pairing of the frog and the movie quote liked what I made, and suggested I do some more little strange icons with various barely connected quotes. I think of the pieces, Day 3 and 4 are my personal favorites, because of the colors of Day 4, and the absolute wonkiness of 3. I remember the conversation from Day 3, “Is that a fucking ferret?” “I thought they were extinct” very clearly because I heard them while sitting in the library working on a completely different project and the word ferret seemed to completely snap me out of my focus. I loved how genuinely confused the second party of the conversation was that ferrets were apparently not extinct, and the implication that somehow they had somehow managed to get over two decades into life and never once encounter a ferret, not even in a pet store, or if they had, did not realize that a ferret was what they were seeing. For Day 4, I am drawn to the grieve because it feels a lot more finished than some of my other pieces, and also the song itself is one of my all time favorite tunes.

Overall, I would say this creative sprint has been a success, and I am glad I took the time out of my day to do it. I think I will try in the future to continue the practice of drawing every day, as I think it will help me a lot as an artist.