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lovingrosewho · 3 years

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Fake Dating (pt. 1)

Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5

Hello again! I’ve been really busy with this one, I was bored/tired of not finding a lot of tropes involving Crowley that were SFW, so I decided to write my own :-) This has pretty much every major trope I can think of; Winchester!reader (although it’s not specified and you can decide that), fake dating, sharing a bed (sort of), lack of heat, etc. Maaaybe the last chapter will be NSFW but I haven’t decided that yet (if you have any thoughts or suggestions on this I’d appreciate them a ton) anyways, I’ll shut up now and let you read, PLEASE, if you have any feedback it’s gladly welcomed! I lately realized that I put a looot of dialogue into fanfiction and perhaps not enough context, so I tried to fix that <3 Usual disclaimer: English is not my first language, bla bla bla :-) Ly!

MULTICHAPTER

Pairing: Crowley x Reader

Rating: T. I guess fluff/crack?

Word count: 1.2k

Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester need your help with a case, which involves pretending to date the King of Hell.

Warnings: mild innuendos, summoning?

“Nuh-uh, I’m not doing it” you declare turning your back on the boys. Dean runs to you and gently grabs your arm without you stopping.

“(Y/N) come on, you’re the only one who can do it” he begs, which gains a sigh from your mouth and you finally stand still, tilting your head at him as a prompt to keep talking “It’ll just be a couple of hours, just until Sammy and I are able to get to the house and hide from those two jackasses before they get there”.

“Are you actually asking me to have dinner with a couple of psychos... pretending to date him?” you question Dean sincerely, a look of concern and disbelief plastered on your face. Said petition, coming from the most protective Winchester brother, was a true surprise.

“You know I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t our only option. (Y/N), please” he supplicates one more time.

It had all started when Sam and Dean screwed up at catching the shape shifters you were after, it was a simple job, but of course, they went in guns blazing, walking into a trap, a set-up, and when they realized, the monsters were gone. Funny enough, they turned out to be quite the art collectors, which seemed logical, given the circumstances under which they were killing and stealing from. But who could possibly know a pair of loonies like that? Even better, be friends with them? Exactly.

The King of Hell.

It wasn’t as if Dean were asking the world from you, it was a simple date. A risky one, sure, but you’d had it worse and with far worse men. The plan was straightforward, you entertained the shifters pretending to be Crowley’s girlfriend, whilst Dean and Sam got to turn down the security system of the house and hide, surprising the shifters the moment they entered.

“Fine” you mutter after a few minutes considering your possibilities. Dean immediately lifts you up the ground and kisses you all over the cheeks and forehead repeating again and again a series of ‘thank you’. You sigh for what seems to be the eleventh time this day and follow Dean towards the dungeon where Sam is waiting with the ingredients. You nod over at him to let him know you’re ready.

“Et ad congregandum, eos coram me” Sam proclaims as the blood from his ripped open palm runs across the dagger and through his fingers, dripping inside the summoning bowl.

A strong tug shakes the earth beneath you, and a low thunder sounds in the distance as the King of Hell himself, presents before your eyes.

Crowley looks directly ahead at the three of you, and then brings his gaze down, rolling his eyes in annoyance at the sight of the devil trap.

“Hello, boys” he salutes politely “(Y/N)”.

Your legs falter at the sound of your name in his voice, his lips savoring each and every syllable as your core twitches and you’re forced to bite your lower lip down not to hum in response. You had always been attracted to him even if you didn’t know how to act around him, it wasn’t as if they taught you in any manual nor hunter school how to make a move on the King of Hell.

“Aren’t we a little past the whole devil trap deal?” Crowley asks bringing you out of your musings “What is it that you want this time?”

“The shape shifters you were talking about the other day, the art collectors” Dean starts and is interrupted by the demon.

“What about them?” Crowley says with a bored look until his glare lands on yours. You arm with courage and mentally scold yourself for being such a nervous fuss, giving a brave step forward and speaking.

“We need your help to trick them” you tell him and catch an interested shine in his eyes.

“And why exactly would I help you with that? Mind you, they’re my personal acquaintances, very important, and very dangerous acquaintances” he exclaims, his stare not dropping yours “What’s in it for me?”

“A date with me and the three of us not kicking your delicate ass” you declare, crossing your arms in your chest, trying to maintain your tone neutral and your mind in place. Crowley’s eyes finally leave yours to roam throughout your body.

“Threatening, aren’t we, sexy?” he speaks at you, clicking his tongue. Dean takes a step forward, demon blade in hand and angry stare, you stop him right in his tracks grabbing him from the hem of his jacket and yanking him back again “Lucky for you, those shape shifters have been meddling in a... particular, and highly important, business of mine, so, I’ll gladly help”.

The three of you stare blankly at him.

“Just like that?” Sam asks him, which causes Crowley to roll his eyes once again.

“I’ll happily deny until you have something else to offer if that’s what you want, Samantha” he affirms and causes the youngest Winchester to frown in response and raise his arms in surrender.

“So it’s settled then” you declare, exhaling a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.

“Text me the details, will you love?” Crowley pronounces softly. You nod quietly and walk towards the devils trap to free him, but when you’re near enough you trip over some ingredients that were still on the floor, breaking the seal either way. Crowley catches you and holds you tightly by the waist.

“Eager much, (Y/N)?” he purrs in your ear and you feel yourself melting at his touch, but you readjust just fine and separate from him when you catch sight of Dean beginning to sense something odd. Crowley raises an eyebrow at your impassive glance, but says nothing, instead, to your surprise, he brings out your cellphone from his suit jacket.

“How did you...?” you start, looking into the side of your jeans you thought you had it in.

“Not so hard to pickpocket you, darling” he expresses, curiously eyeing you “I have very talented hands”.

You gulp as you turn to stare back at him, just to see him typing something on your phone, his smug smile not going unnoticed by you.

“I guess I do affect you at some level, don’t I?” he mutters so only you are able to hear him. You stay still, not saying a word, biting your lip down as he handles back your phone to you, his fingertips delicately brushing your hands, vanishing the moment the electronic touches your palm, the lights of the archive room seeming to fade at the singular contact and light up again when he’s gone. You check your phone to see what he did, the words “My King” read on the top of the screen and the number “666” at the center. You roll your eyes and put your phone back in your pocket.

“And? What’d he do?” Deans asks expectantly. You make a dismissive gesture with your hand.

“Nothing. It’s done” you declare turning to the Winchesters, proceeding to leave the room with both brothers looking at each other like questioning, what did they just miss?

Part 2

MASTERLIST (If anyone would like to be tagged you’re free to tell me! <3)

#crowley x reader fic #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fic #crowley #crowley supernatural #crowley x reader #crowley x reader fanfiction #crowley fanfiction #crowley fic #crowley spn #supernatural masterlist #crowley masterlist #crowley multichapter #crowley one shot

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moons-and-stars-and-shit · 3 years

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hi !! can I please get a 🍰?

i just came across of you writing and it is so cute !! (´-﹏-`；) every post made me feel all warm & fuzzy inside ~ please feel free to totally ignore this if this isn't the proper way to ask or if you already closed your request (also I'm sorry if you already closed your request I didn't noticed) . Also sorry if this has any grammatical errors or if the descriptions don't make sense, english isn't my first language.

so, uhm, to begin my name is elliot (she/her) I'm 5'4, I'm from argentina (south america) i speak spanish & english (among other languages) idk how much I'm supposed to put on here so I'm just going to describe myself as redacted as possible. (Don't know if this is necessary but I'm jewish ¿) ^_________^

I have short brown wavy hair, just a couple of centimeters below my ears, i have bangs, I'm very pale ¿ not chubby but also not skinny average if i may say so. My fashion style changes from time to time but i usually wear clothing in the range of black to white, also sometimes I like trying whatever aesthetic is going around at the time.

Personality wise I'm pretty calm at first, i'm not very good with getting to know new people so I try to be as quite as possible but once I get comfortable i tend to be very loud, i like making my friends laugh since i think that's the most sincere way of knowing they talk to me because they like me. I would say I'm like the mom friend/therapist friend since i really like helping and listening people talk. I love having deep conversations with friends/loved ones, they give me this sense of connection nothing else can give me. I am very blunt and it usually comes off as rude but i try to sugar-coat my words as much as possible.

And while I very much love everyone who is friends with me I have a very hard time showing it and/or showing my empathy for them (one of the reasons as to why I'm not good with meeting new people) but i try to become a better version of me day to day.

What i look in a person is someone who can understand me and my boundaries, since I'm germophobic PDA isn't really something that i enjoy doing but with time i can get myself around to it. Someone whom I can trust enough to be emotionally open with and vice versa. Talkative or not doesn't matter to me. My love language is acts of service. ^_________^

I hope you have a really amazing day ! ! remember to drink water and eat something yummy (*＾3＾)/～♡ don't be too harsh on yourself and keep in mind that many people love you, ba-bye ! ╰(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯

🍰 for @vvanteffect

Romantic Matchup

Sakusa Kiyoomi

How yall met

You guys met during the All-Japan Youth Training Camp

(You were a partial manager from Nekoma during that time)

Shockingly enough he actually approached you

Granted his cousin was forcing him to socialize but that's not important

He had noticed how you tended to stay away from other people or how when you did talk to someone it was usually a very short conversation

Basically you seemed like the least contaminated person he could talk to so he just went for it

Right away he noticed how blunt you were

Like he would ask you a question adn the longest answer you would give him was about a sentence

“Hey how are you”

“Good”

“Uh so what school are you from”

“Nekoma”

You get what i'm saying

But honestly he didn't really care he just kept talking to you

And the longer he talked to you the longer your responses would get

You guys spent the rest of camp together

And when it was time to go home you exchanged numbers so you could stay in contact

Your schools weren't too far from each other so you guys would see each other in person when you were both free

And well he ended up falling for you

What they love about you

Of course he loves that your also a partial germaphobe

It makes it easier for him to be around you knowing that you try your best to stay clean

He loves how simple you are

From the clothes you wear

To how you talk to other people

He tends to over analize if people are to complicated

But with you everything is just short and sweet

He loves how good of a listener you are

Like if he's had a bad day he can just call you and rant about it

And not only do you listen

But you also help him solve his problems

This next one isn't really something he loves more like something he's proud of

He's very proud that he's gained enough of your trust for you to talk to him

Like full blown conversations

Your guys convos have come a long way from the very first conversation you had

He's just happy that you trust him enough to talk to him

What you love about them

You love that he respects your boundaries

Let's be honest here

Mans isn't really into PDA either

Like come on

LOOK who were talking about here

But that's not the only boundary he respects

He respects All of your boundaries

Like all you have to do is tell him you don't like something and he'll stop

You love how he can handle your bluntness and not get offended

Honestly when you look back on how you met him

Your shocked that he even kept talking to you

That whole training camp people would keep on trying to talk to you

But then leave after a short while because you were being blunt and they took it the wrong way

But not Sakusa

He kept on talking to you even when you were acting pretty cold

And your very appreciative about that

Favorite things to do together

Ok so even though you live semi close together

It's not like your neighbors

So his favorite thing to do with you is to just facetime you and talk about each others days

And when you guys are able to get together

He prefers that you both just stay inside for the most part

So you do just that

Usually your in person hangouts include playing board games, reading,or watching movies together

And if you guys decide to go out

He makes you wear a mask the whole time

And you guys will usually just take a walk at a park or on the beach

Somewhere where theres not a lot of people yk

Random Hc

He has bought you two matching masks

His homescreen on his phone is a picture of you that he took while facetime you

Once you guys were in public and he accidently gave you a kiss while both of your masks were on

And now thats just became a norm for you two

You guys have these matching pajamas

Friendship Matchup

Kuroo Tetsurou

How yall met

You are Nekomas manager

And since kuroo was the captain you worked very closely with him

Which eventually made a friendship bloom

Why you became friends

He kind of saw you as a compitition if that makes sense??

Like when he first met you it's almost like you didn't want to talk to him

Which couldn't be true because he's awesome!

Sure you are kuroo

Anyways kenma had made some backhand comment on how some people just dont wanna talk to him

And kuroo was like 🧐

So he made it his goal to befriend you

It started with him having basic conversation with you everyday

Then it turned into him talking to you during the school day

Which then turned into him inviting you to hand out after school

Eventually you guys just became besties

What yall love about each other

He loves how straightforward you are

Like if you don't like something youll say it

If someones ticking you off you'll tell them

Even though your bluntness is something you get insecure about sometimes

He thinks it's one of your best traits

He also loves that you are bilingual

It makes for a good time when your ranting about something because your languages will start to blend

And if your really mad you'll just switch to spanish and just start ranting

And even though he can't understand a word your saying

He just smile and nods till your done

You love how deep your conversations can get

Like he'll play along with whatever deep topic you talk about

“What's the meaning of life”

“I would say its to give life a meaning”

Yeah y'all talked about that for HOURS

You also like how helpful he is

If your ever having a hard time managing the team he'll always offer a helping hand

And if your ever struggling with schoolwork he's always there to help you

Random Hc

He was very shocked when you and Sakusa started dating

He threatened to kick his ass if he ever broke up with you

Hes tried to learn spanish but gave up after a week

But he did learn how to say all the cuss words in spanish

After he befriended you he rubbed it in kenmas face

Kenma was just like 😐 ok

But kuroo took satisfaction in his victory

You really had kuroo thinking for a whole day when you asked him

Did the color orange come before the fruit? Or is it vice versa?

Still hasn't come up with an answer to that question

#haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #haikyuu fandom #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu hcs #haikyuu matchups #sakusa hcs #sakusa x reader #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x y/n #kuroo headcanons #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo hcs #kuroo x y/n #kuroo tetsurō

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konstantya · 3 years

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Frankenstein’s Meme - Day 4

(Full list of questions at the bottom, under the cut. Previous answers can be found here.)

4. What are the origins of your penname/username?

I’m of Polish descent, and “Konstantya” is the Polish, feminine form of “Constantine,” and I settled on it mostly because I liked the sound and look of it. (It’s a bit...idk, bolder and stronger sounding than a lot of feminine names, I guess.) I wanted something pretty simple and straightforward, that wasn’t tied to any particular fandom, so it worked out nicely. Originally (way, way back in the day when I was only on FF.net), I went by “Sztorm,” which is Polish for “storm” (which is technically the masculine form of the word, but I thought it sounded sexier than “burza” at the time, pfft). I might still be going by “Sztorm” if only the username had been available when I signed up for LJ (in...2008, I think?). It wasn’t, hence my choosing “Konstantya,” and then I eventually changed my FF.net username to match, because I like consistency and figured it would help people find/follow me across the different platforms.

In hindsight, the name has really served me well over the years, as it’s almost never taken on English-speaking sites, so I’ve been able to keep that cross-platform consistency up. The one exception is Wordpress (where I chose a different female Polish name to go by, heh).

(Originally posted by trobadora, on DW.)

1. What’s changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days? 2. Your newest fandom. 3. You’ve got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them? 4. What are the origins of your penname/username? 5. What’s a fandom that you wish had a bigger following? 6. What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it? Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way. 7. What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place? 8. Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily “icky”, though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar. 9. What’s the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™? 10. Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon? 11. Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed. 12. A ship you have never liked and probably never will. 13. Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be? 14. A pairing – platonic, romantic or sexual – that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind. 15. What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom? 16. Do you remember your first OTP? Who was in it? 17. What is your favourite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)? 18. How many fandoms have you written for? How many have you been in, and how many are you still in? 19. Has social media caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why? 20. What fandom broke your heart? 21. Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you dislike or even loathe.) 22. Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend. 23. Your rarest fandoms. 24. A fandom you’ve abandoned and why. 25. Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 26. A trope which you are virtually certain to love in any fandom. 27. A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom. 28. How did you first get into fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote fic for? 29. Have you ever tried to write for a fandom or ship, and found you couldn’t? 30. Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

#personal #meme #frankenstein's meme #language #?

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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march - just some thoughts

i have read more this month than any other month? and its not slowing down its only 3/12 so i have 2/3 of a month to go and i’ve read 26 chapters. even if these chapters are ‘short’ at 10 pages, if i wanna count by ‘20 page’ chunks i’ve still read 13 chunks so far. and i’ve still got more time in the month left. most other months i’ve managed to read ‘a lot’ i read 10-20 chapters. so i’m doing really good.

grammar is a weird thing? in reading i feel like its quite easy now to understand. when listening or watching - same. and yet if asked ‘why do i say/type X’ or ‘why is it written/spoken like X’ i have absolutely no explanation in my head. i could not explain the grammar if prompted. this puts me in a weird place and i feel like i SHOULD go over a grammar guide again just so i can WORD what i’m intuitively understanding.

this is a bit bizarre to me because within the first 6 months of study i DID read through an entire grammar guide just to get an idea of what i was about to look at, and it hardly made sense once actually reading/watching/listening. i understood the guide fine, but actually Seeing chinese i was still confused. i would reference AllSetLearning’s Chinese Wiki on some basic points, then after 6 months i just stopped. now its been what 1.5 years and - reading is so easy, listening is so easy, grammar wise. none of the grammar confuses me. but i no longer ‘explicitly’ have any idea what the fuck the grammar is. i used to. i studied it explicitly before trying to read/listen. and yet now that i can read/listen, i have no idea how to explain the grammar. i can listen to a podcast and i don’t think about what the grammar is i just get it. i read and just know what i’m looking at. its like english - i cannot fucking explain it. Which makes speaking/writing a bit hard. Because when i try to check if i’m right i have no fucking clue HOW anymore - i just say/write what comes to mind and HOPE it makes sense. i have no way to conciously check for errors except ‘does this feel right’? And that’s not good enough for me lol. So I definitely do need to eventually read a grammar guide for explicit explanations again.

Technically I think “English and Chinese Grammar Side By Side” grammar book would be an excellent one to use. Because i read the first 50 pages of it and it compared it to english (so it explained english too), and it was very easy to understand and started basic then got more involved.

I’m probably gonna use my very old Chinese Grammar Self Taught by Thimm book instead. Just because I really like that book. Then I guess use another after (probably Basic Chinese Sentence Patterns since its modern and perfect for ‘catch your own mistakes’ study and much shorter than Eng+Chinese Grammar side by side).

Anyway I’m in a very weird place right now lol. I know i’m understanding grammar that is stuff I never even studied initially in the grammar guide, but unable to explain what it is, and a lot of stuff i did explicitly study in a grammar guide i completely forgot the explanation for. My reading and listening is GREAT, because all my effort only has to go into learning new words lately! its relaxing! Its the only part i need to do! But my writing/speaking i am very concerned about because being able to check myself for mistakes is something i’d like the ability to do.

how grammar is presented really makes a difference in how well i get it. there is some serious benefit to ‘show simple first then build up what you know’ that text books tend to prefer. versus like grammar reference books that may start with some in depth stuff.

i tried to read a japanese grammar guide the other day and 1 it was great but 2 it covered some ADVANCED stuff i never learned in genki 1+2, and so it was Explicit grammar description of stuff i had literally years ago been immersing in japanese and Still not conciously known about. So i felt. Overwhelmed lol. I felt so confused. I feel like I might switch to Tae Kim’s grammar guide primarily just because its structured with basics covered first. and i feel like until the basics are again glued into my brain, seeing even more advanced stuff just confused me so much i had no idea how to remember it. which is funny because? my usual strategy with grammar guides is to just read it and let what sticks stick and what is confusing be moved on from, in the hope i will later see it again and understand it better. so like based on what i usually do i should’ve just been able to read through it (and i’m gonna try anyway lol). but truly japanese grammar just... my mind does not like wrapping around it and remembering it. (chinese grammar is so much easier for me... so much easier....;-; )

i have been tempted to just Restart Nukemarine’s LLJ (Lets Learn Japanese) memrise decks, because I KNOW they worked for me last time really really well. And they include Tae Kim grammar lessons. And I know if i did it then maybe i’d get back to where i was years ago pretty fast.

I tried Earthlingo app. Its a cool idea, I don’t think its worth it though unless you planned to get Rosetta Stone (since Earthlingo is FREE). Earthlingo features 1000 words per language, taught to you by exploring video game worlds as an alien. Its a cool concept, but since all words seem to be nouns then you aren’t even learning the most common verbs/adjectives. And 1000 words is not a lot. And you could learn 1000 quite fast if using srs flashcards like Memrise or Anki (think weeks if you push yourself, and a month or two months if going at a regular pace). Earthlingo you have to slowly explore the worlds so that eats time, you have to choose to test yourself (so you don’t review nearly as often as flashcard apps), and one test includes walking around the world clicking the object which you’re given the word for (takes time to find the right object). All this means a word that might take maybe 15 minutes to study over a few weeks, might instead take much longer to study and learn. I don’t use duolingo because it generally covers so few words (usually 2000-4000 i think which is good for a beginner resource but you have to do the WHOLE course to get to all those words and i take so long on duolingo that could take YEARS for me versus a month on a flashcard app or clozemaster). Duolingo I also don’t use because it very slowly paces learning material (it takes me months/years to get through 1000 words on duolingo - just personally i go so slow on it, i think faster people would find a use for it). Likewise Lingodeer takes me AGES to get through (and i think covers 2000 words nowadays? I’m shocked Duolingo has more words for the japanese course tbh). However, Lingodeer is by far the best ‘app’ for Japanese grammar lessons in app practice form. Even if basically all the apps feel pretty slow to me in how fast they give you new info. Earthlingo is cool that its free, and for learners 12 and under i think it would be super useful as a way to engage them and keep them studying (since what child likes flashcards? whereas as a child i would’ve loved this). But as an adult Earthlingo is sooooo slow on how fast you can learn words, and it does not even offer very many words (1000 is a nice bare minimum but without verbs/adjectives it can only be a supplementary learning tool for beginners at best).

Link about Lingodeer having 2000 words in a course. (Since its SO hard to lookup how much vocabulary lingodeer includes :c )

Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise decks (which I’m considering going through again but ToT agh flashcardssssss.... they sure do work though agh)

http://www.chinese-grammar.com/beginner/ - this is the site I read a chinese grammar guide on at like Month 3. I am rereading it now maybe it will help me remember wtf grammar explicitly is. ToT (A tip, read Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced sections). Last time I visited the site you just clicked a section, then saw each fully explained grammar point and clicked ‘next’ it was nice. Now its laid out a little less ideal for me, but its still got all the same nice info! (Also honestly if you are a beginner I really DO like this grammar guide... it introduces basic info first, gradually gets more complex, and i could follow its logic knowing like 200 hanzi and 100 words ToT. its very easy to understand even if it takes a while to apply that info).

im probably gonna read hanshe more today. i’m at the point where either i know enough vocab, or the writers style has just ‘clicked’ idk. but now i just am not getting bogged down by unknown words and am just. speeding through enjoying the plot. Also rip me this novel has 155 chapters and im only on chapter 30.

watching japanese lets plays is really fun! i feel like im 3 years old cause i just see nouns i can learn pretty easy in context cause i know the game well, and hear some vaguely familiar verbs, but its fun! also it helps i know kingdom hearts 2 like by heart so. a lot of it makes me instantly cheerful and nostalgic. roxas’s voice is so cute in the japanese version.

oh i almost forgot: I found a book recently for chinese that for it’s like 10 page grammar guide summary at the beginning ALONE i think is more than worth the 4 dollars it costs to get. It has a ton of compound words and its a reference book in mandarin and cantonese (it has pronunciation for both, all characters are in traditional). I got it initally because it as a bunch of compound words and I’d like to get better at knowing a lot of common ones. But the intro to the book has a page explaining sentence structures in chinese, then examples. Its so straightforward and to the point. I love it. The book is “Understanding Chinese: A Guide to the Usage of Chinese Characters” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy. (There is also a companion book for individual hanzi, which is nice but this book specifically I’m finding more useful).

what i really like about Listening-Reading method, and reading, as study activities: no matter how I do them it is only improvement. I have a tendency to ‘redo’ material i don’t feel i fully mastered, or refuse to move on. So when i have duolingo, flashcards (sometimes i can move on if i ignore reviews/make myself do new stuff), books, grammar guides, self guided classes - i have a tendency to redo the material. over and over. and not progress and challenge myself. whereas with reading - every time i look up a word its useful because its new or something i clearly Need to review (not something i’ve actually learned and can move past reviewing). so whether i reread material or read new stuff, as long as i run into things i find somewhat challenging (feel the desire to word look up), i know i am running into new material i can learn. Same with listening-reading method: whether i finish a book or just skip to random books, any new chapter i do will give me new words to learn/remember (until i’ve reached a point of perfect listening comprehension which is a WAYS away). There’s no way for me to mess it up. I can give up a book im bored with, i don’t have to stick to one resource to the end.

someone tell me why professionally made chinese audio books almost NEVER line up to the chapters???? whyyyyy ;-;

Even More Notes lol:

So I read so much in Pleco, which auto pronounces, I have COMPLETELY forgot. 得地 - for these two, when they’re attached after a description like 淡淡慢慢高兴 etc, when are they pronounced di versus de???? i’m pretty sure 得 is pronounced de when its an adjective like ‘-ly’. but for 地, i don’t remember if when part of a describer if its pronounced di or de????

#rant #march progress #march #everyone using ore in kh2 is hilarious a lil to me tho #u are all bishies u are all tiny kids WHy u acting so tough lol

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cassianus · 3 years

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Good Jesu: what will you do with my heart?’

I have always loved the writings of the Carthusians and have found them to be be both beautiful and challenging. But recently I came across a homily given on the occasion of a jubilee celebration of a priest's ordination. The homily focuses on the love and commitment of Carthusians martyred under the reign of Henry VIII, in particular St. John Houghton. It speaks not only of the beauty of the priesthood and the sacraments but also what God can accomplish in hearts open to His love and grace. It speaks of the grace that is both needed and offered when we are faced with the difficult challenges and choices of life, no matter what our particular vocation may be. The following is a rather lengthy excerpt from the homily (one that I found deeply encouraging) and I hope you enjoy it:

“The story of the Carthusian martyrs is not as well known as it should be. No doubt this is because, in the great tale of the early English Reformation, the figures of Sts John Fisher and Thomas More tower over all others, for many and obvious good reasons. And yet nobody becomes a martyr without some extraordinary qualities—tenacity, faith, holiness—that make it possible to face all the consequences of simply doing the right thing when it is required. And yet how difficult that simple thing can be, even in small matters.

The monks of the London Charterhouse (who provided most of today’s saints) were renowned for their holiness of life in the early sixteenth century. It had become fashionable to grumble about monks at that time, but nobody grumbled about them. Thomas More, who could be rather scathing about monks who were no holier than they should be, actually lived with the London Carthusians for several years, and contemplated joining them. Carthusian monks, following a somewhat different and stricter form of the Benedictine life, have as their proud boast that they have never needed reform. Theirs is, and always has been, a very silent and recollected life: The London community in the sixteenth century was led by Prior John Houghton, a relatively young man, already with a reputation for sanctity. You will understand, then, why Henry VIII was particularly keen to get him and his community on side. Being widely respected, they would lend authority to the King’s claims to the headship of the Church in England.

When presented with the King’s demands that the London Carthusians recognize his claim to the headship of the Church in England, the community took three days to pray about it, on the last of which they celebrated a Mass of the Holy Spirit. During Mass, at the elevation, the whole community actually had an experience together that they unanimously identified as the Holy Spirit breathing in the chapel, and which gave them courage for what was to come—courage they would sorely need.

John Houghton, together with two other priors from the North, went to speak to Thomas Cromwell, the King’s strong arm man in religious matters. We can be sure that with his lawyer’s training, St John tried everything to make it possible to take the oath of allegiance to the King, without, however, compromising principle. Nothing availed, however, and all three were arrested, the charge being that —and I quote — ‘John Houghton says that he cannot take the King, our Sovereign Lord to be Supreme Head of the Church of England afore the apostles of Christ’s Church’, which rather makes it sound as if the apostles had also usurped what was the King’s rightful position.

In any event, he was condemned, of course—Cromwell had had to threaten the jury with treason charges themselves in order to achieve it, and the three priors together with a Bridgettine priest and a secular priest were all dragged to execution together. St Thomas More, by now in the Tower of London, watched them from the window of his cell setting off, and commented to his daughter who was visiting that they looked just like bridegrooms going to their wedding, a comparison that St John Fisher was also to use on the morning of his own death.

King Henry was insistent that the priests should be executed in their religious habits, to teach other religious a lesson, one presumes. This meant that after St John was cut down from the gallows, still alive, to be butchered, the thick hairshirt he wore under his heavy habit had to be cut through by the executioner, who had to stab down hard with the knife. And then, finally, as the executioner drew out St John’s still beating heart before his face, he spoke his last words: ‘Good Jesu’ he said, ‘what will you do with my heart?’

‘Good Jesu, what will you do with my heart?’ These are words that can speak to us at any stage, indeed in any moment in life, because we are daily confronted with choices between good and evil, or even simply between good and better. These words place the element of choice firmly in the Lord’s loving providence, praying for his grace to help us make the right decision.

When it comes to lifetime choices, however, St John Houghton’s words become more eloquent. There are any number of ways one can give ones life for the Lord—martyrdom is only one, albeit just about the best. One can also give ones living life for Him, by living in the married state, by working in any number of vocations in the world, and, of course, by spending ones life in consecrated religious life and/or the Priesthood. I think that the key element that identifies when a job becomes a vocation is when there is an element of self-giving to it—or in other words, when there is at least an element of martyrdom.

I have always been very struck by the story of Blessed Noel Pinot, a martyr of the French Revolution, who, having been arrested when about to celebrate Mass, ascended the scaffold to the guillotine dressed in the same Mass vestments, reciting to himself the same words we said today ‘Introibo ad altare Dei’. The mother of St John Bosco said to him on his ordination day; ‘remember, son, that beginning to say Mass means beginning to suffer’. These words come home to me and strike at my conscience, but I increasingly think that I can never really be worthy of my priesthood until I pour myself more entirely into it. There is nothing worth having that does not carry its price label, and the price label for following the Lord is imitating him in all things or, as He said Himself, taking up our cross daily. The question is not what do I want (the answer to that is straightforward: I’ll have an easy life, please, involving some nice dinners in agreeable company) but what does He want. In fact, ‘Good Jesu, what will you do with my heart?’ Because whereas my little wants are rather petty and contemptible, his are wonderful beyond comprehension. And very often beyond my comprehension, anyway.

Thanks be to God that the priesthood of God’s Church does not belong to me but to Christ, that I do not exercise it, but he exercises it through me. Thanks be to God that the sacraments we offer do not depend on our worthiness but on His.

What a wonder it is that the Lord loves us at all! And yet he does, and is happy with the feeble struggle and great labour we make of bearing his sweet and gentle yoke, he rejoices as a parent does when guiding the first steps of a child or when speaking his first words. Caused by grace, these shallow twitches in our lives towards doing the Lord’s will and setting aside our own desires are no matters of mere jubilees and quarter centuries, they are the stuff of eternity leaking into time. These things are signs of the Kingdom of God, where, in eternity, eye has not seen nor ear heard what good things God prepares for those who love him. Which is why we pray with St John Houghton: ‘Good Jesu: what will you do with my heart?’”

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bl4cklabyrinth · 4 years

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GiGS October 2020 Cover Feature Translation Part I: Hiro [Vocal] Interview

Disclaimer: Please do not retranslate my work into other languages, as my translation may not be accurate. I am no Japanese or English native.

Photo from here.

Starting things off is a solo corner where I talk to each of them about their latest album “V”.

First up is Hiro, who has been leading MY FIRST STORY as its obligatory frontman.

Not only does he breathe life into their music with his unique, high-toned voice, but he also writes the lyrics to all of their songs. That being said, how did he go about creating this album?

- Hiro, you’ve been writing the lyrics to all of MY FIRST STORY’s songs. Is that something you decided on yourself, or was it something that just came about naturally?

Hiro: I guess I just kind of went with the flow. I’ve always thought that the lyrics should be written by the vocalist, and that the only things I could do in this band were to think of melodies and write lyrics. Because of this, I felt like I had to do what I could. None of the members wanted to write the lyrics either, so I ended up taking on the job.

- I think one aspect of it is that the words coming from the singer himself are more easily conveyed. Having said that, what is important to you when writing lyrics?

Hiro: They aren’t exactly like the punchlines used in rap, but I try to include words that would catch the listeners’ attention and get stuck in their heads even if they were just doing a quick listen. To incorporate hooks, so to speak, in key parts of the song. It’s words like those that leave a strong impression.

- I think being catchy comes with leaving a strong impression. The lyrics you write also always match the taste and deepen the worldview of the song.

Hiro: I’ve never written lyrics before everything else. I listen to the track first, then I quickly jot down the image that comes to mind and the words I could possibly use in the song. I’m the type of person who decides on a theme before I start writing, so the lyrics I come up with naturally complement the music. I guess my songwriting process is kind of like writing an essay or a paper. I don’t just write whatever I want to say at the time; rather, I set a theme and work from there.

- Some people have trouble settling on an image and take some time choosing a theme. How about you, where do you stand?

Hiro: I probably fall among the quick decision makers, but that doesn’t mean I don’t reconsider my choices and change the theme during the writing process. I listen to the song, quickly decide on a theme, then immediately start on the lyrics. The thing is, it takes me quite a while to continue writing after that (laughs).

- I see (laughs). So is adding lyrics the last step in the production process?

Hiro: Yes. I only start writing after the backing track is completed and the melody is set. For example, when words come to me while thinking of a melody, I would sometimes include them in the lyrics if I like them enough, but I won’t start writing the whole thing until the melody is finalized.

- More than that, it’s impressive how your lyrics reveal your inner weaknesses, your pain, and your negative side.

Hiro: I don’t really mind showing that side of me; on the contrary, I have nothing else to write about. I’m also not very good at writing the inspirational, “Let’s do our best!” type of songs. Coming up with those kinds of lyrics frustrates me and tests my patience so I find them difficult to write. However, I was thinking of adding some of those lyrics in the album. Teru composed “Akashi”, and since it’s one of the more cheerful songs on the album, I thought it would be best to make its lyrics positive. So, I decided to give it a shot.

- With the line “Moving forward in the right direction will be my testimony”, “Akashi” is a song that gives the listener a push in the back. Another thing is that your lyrics have the perfect balance between English and Japanese.

Hiro: I guess you can say I find it easier to write lyrics in English. With English, I don’t have to worry too much about the appeal of the words, and there aren’t as many expressions to use either. With Japanese, for instance, the word “ai” (love) connotes all sorts of things such as “itoshi” (dear/beloved), “koishii” (missed/longed for), and “mederu” (to cherish/admire). With English, however, there’s only the word “love” (laughs). It’s straightforward on its own, and you can get your message across depending on how it’s translated. That’s why it’s easier for me to write in English.

- It just occurred to me that you seem to have the tendency to perceive words based on their rhythm.

Hiro: Ah, you’re right. That’s true.

- In that case, it must be easier to write in English.

Hiro: Yeah. English makes it easy to attach words to a melody in a way that sounds good. It’s nice to listen to a melody that’s in sync with the lyrics, right? Getting results like that is simple when you use English. I also think there are a lot of people under the impression that English sounds cooler. I want to make everything as catchy as possible though, even when writing in English, so I try not to use difficult words whenever I can.

- That’s part of the charm. Even so, you added more Japanese lyrics to “V”, didn’t you?

Hiro: That’s right, I did. We’re a Japanese band after all, so writing lyrics in Japanese is still the ideal.

- It’s an advantage to be able to use Japanese and English in a similar way. Speaking of which, when did you write the lyrics to the songs on “V”?

Hiro: It varies from song to song. I wrote the lyrics to “Underground” about a year ago when it was composed. The way this song was made was unusual. I started on the lyrics early because the demo was up sooner than expected and I didn’t want to have a hard time later on, but as it turned out, I didn’t make it in time… or something like that (laughs).

- I see (laughs). On that note, more and more artists are writing about their thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic, but there aren’t any songs like that on “V”, are there?

Hiro: There aren’t. Actually, some of the songs on “V” were made after the coronavirus started spreading. “Starting Over” was composed quite a while ago, but the lyrics were written around the time the pandemic broke out. Same goes for “Daimeiwaku”. Nonetheless, I never thought about writing a song on the coronavirus. I feel like the nuance of the lyrics would be a little too strong for the album. We wanted the whole album to be poppy and catchy, so adding a song about corona would only get in the way of that. I experienced and thought about a lot of things over the course of the pandemic just like everybody else, but I still don’t know what the right thing to do is, and I felt like it wasn’t my place to write about it given the current situation. It’s okay to talk about it during live MCs and stuff like that, but I didn’t want to etch it permanently on something as timeless as a song. That being said, I don’t think I’ll be writing about corona anytime soon. Even if I were to sing about it, it would probably be expressed in a very abstract manner.

- I understand. Every artist is entitled to their own opinion on the subject, so I think those who choose to sing about it and those who don’t are both doing the right thing.

Hiro: I’m in no way trying to invalidate those who sing about corona. As you mentioned, it’s all a matter of perspective. I don’t like singing about topics that directly concern the world… like political discontent. It’s difficult to write about those kinds of themes; I’d rather write lyrics that express my thoughts on a variety of themes and hope that those who are listening can relate them to their own feelings and sentiments at the time.

- There certainly were songs that resonated with me when I listened to them as the pandemic went on, even though they were about something completely unrelated to it. Now that we’ve talked about the lyrics, I’d like to ask you about the songs. How was the recording process for this album?

Hiro: I was away from MY FIRST STORY for a while since quarantine started and I couldn’t hold shows or go to the studio. A long time had passed since I last recorded, so in a good way it felt like I was singing someone else’s songs. That was good for me, because it naturally set forth a new direction and brought out singing techniques in me that I had never used before. Still, I wondered what would happen if I made those kinds of songs with MY FIRST STORY, so I consulted with Nob and our engineer to see how it would turn out. I asked during the recording session, “How would it sound if I sing it like this?” Everyone thought it was unexpected but good when I tried it out, so we just decided to proceed in that direction. It’s this kind of approach that led to more versatile songs this time around. I’d like to believe they fit in with the current era where listeners look for all sorts of things in their music.

- The fact that you were able to present multiple facets in a single package proves that you produced something next-level. “Unexpected but good” is great, because the appeal of a song is more important than the direction it takes.

Hiro: I’m not so sure about that. Most of the songs on “V” were made by Nob, so they were kind of like “Nob’s vision + myself”. It wasn’t all me. I’m glad it all worked out in the end.

- You need a great deal of singing experience to be able to adopt that kind of approach, so I’m sure you sing a lot of different songs on a regular basis. Come to think of it, in the interview with your instrumentalists for the GiGS September 2020 issue, it was mentioned that you sing quite a few songs at karaoke after your live shows.

Hiro: I do (laughs). I find other people’s songs more fresh – or rather, more refreshing. Unlike MY FIRST STORY’s songs, I don’t get the chance to perform them very often so I can sing them pretty casually. I love it. That’s why I sing a ton of artists’ songs when I go to karaoke.

- About singing casually, you’re the type of person who likes to have fun while singing other artists’ songs and doesn’t always stick to his own style, right?

Hiro: Right. To put it another way, there’s a pattern to those who always choose to stick to their own style. I believe that each song has its own merits – ballads, for instance, have a certain charm to them. If you ignore that and sing every single song in the same way, those listening will eventually get bored. Of course, there are advantages to doing that as well, but there’s a part of me that wants to make the most out of things and try different forms of expression in my songs. That’s been in my mind for a while now, and I feel like I was able to expand my range even further with “V”.

- The variety of expressions and range of the songs are wider than ever and they’re really worth listening to.

Hiro: There’s this thing the members often tell me: “Whatever song it may be, it will be MY FIRST STORY as long as Hiro is the one singing”. Teru was the first person to tell me that. He said that around 2 to 3 years ago, and from then on, I stopped being so conscious of my own identity. That was the biggest thing that helped me expand my range.

- Truth be told, the entire album has a touch of Hiro’s personality, all the while showcasing its breadth. Now, if you had to pick a song from “V” that left a strong impression on you, what would it be?

Hiro: There’s really a ton of them this time. It’s like Nob had a theme for each song when we were working on “V”. There were songs that paid homage and some that had a subject matter. I didn’t really pay attention to it, but I was able to see that person’s point of view and the music he’s playing objectively, so I have a strong sense of trust in that. The songs on this album were all new and innovative, so as we got to the later songs, I got a little confused about how to sing them and that made recording pretty difficult. Nob and our engineer pulled it off really well, and I believe we ended up with great results. Among those songs, if I had to choose one that left a particularly strong impression… “Aikotoba” was probably the hardest one to make.

- Bringing something new to the table, “Aikotoba” is a song that has a guitar-rock lyricism to it that’s a bit different from the symphonic ballads you’ve done in the past.

Hiro: That’s true. This song needed to be sung with a nuance that hadn’t been there before. I listened to a lot of music under the so-called guitar-rock genre, and that was the best way for me to get rid of my own tendencies. At any rate, I had to be mindful of singing the song smoothly.

- There are many other notable songs as well. For example, I was strongly drawn to your voice in “moonlight” that seemed to transcend even gender.

Hiro: From the moment I heard the demo for “moonlight”, I knew I wanted to put it in the album. It had a lot in common with “mine” from the “Mukoku” single (2019.8.14) which I thought was a must-have in this album, so I had to make this song just as compelling. I enjoyed recording the song, and I had a great time writing the lyrics as well. I honestly thought that I would struggle with the lyrics, but everything went smoother than I expected, so I have to say that I had the most fun working on “moonlight”.

- We haven’t seen much of it in MY FIRST STORY’s discography so far, but it’s great that you’re able to enjoy songs like this now.

Hiro: I was a bit surprised myself that I was able to make “moonlight” so easily. I’m glad that I discovered a lot of things I wasn’t aware of during the recording of this album, and I’m sure this will continue on for MY FIRST STORY in the future.

#my first story #マイファス #Hiro #print #2020 #this was such a struggle to finish #not bc it was hard #but bc it was so boring to translate #this interview is old news compared to his roj feature #can't wait to start on the other members #sighs

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niwiwin · 4 years

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Ryo in GQ Japan - June 2020

Scans from raveman

Note: Most of this is translated with online dictionaries, as opposed to me actually understanding the interview and writing it in English. (I can’t really read Japanese lol). I welcome corrections. Another thing, this is a magazine cover celebrity profile. The piece is somewhat editorialized, with flowerier words than what you’d find in a standard entertainment article, I think. I tried peppering with some flowery-ish words, but I’m not a writer, haha.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF RYO NISHIKIDO

Seven months since going independent, to a place not yet seen

The True Face of Nishikido Ryo, In His Words

He launched a private firm in September of last year and started activities as a solo artist. What kind of state of mind is Nishikido Ryo in now? NOMAD - announcing an album named nomad, going on a nationwide tour, we went after the true bare-face of a former idol who just began walking to a “place not yet seen.”

Nishikido Ryo comes to a music studio, takes out a seemingly beloved acoustic guitar, and starts playing a ballad tinged with sorrow. An “adult” face of a man that he had never shown before doing solo activities. And then as if something suddenly struck his mind, he plucks the strings to the melody of “Higedance,” a staple of Shimura Ken’s.

Since the fall of last year, it has been seven months since he quit the agency he had belonged to for about 22 years since he was 12 years old. “Even when I think of wanting to be that, or do this, I'm bundled with the word idol. I’ve always been in a situation where I’m easily judged by the title, from some time ago. It has been irritating. It’s not that I hated being an idol, but it makes me think that as long as I don’t move, I will be perched there.”

A small conflict that he had been carrying. The year before last, a member of the group he belonged to left. It was upsetting and the conflict grew bigger. “If one person leaves a group, the balance unequivocally changes. Especially for twin vocals, my counterpart went away somewhere... I gotta do something, there’s nothing to do but work hard and pull everyone! was what I thought. But, I think I worked too hard. I didn’t know where each member was facing towards. I was in a state where I didn’t know how far I could aim. Everyone was was giving their all. It might have been a problem of how I felt things, but I started to feel a discrepancy between our passion and enthusiasm. Even a small discrepancy becomes tough when the discrepancy gets to an unallowable range. As for myself, I steadily got more and more exhausted.”

As he talks about the matters in his heart, his expression is serious. Every time words are about to come out, some traces of hesitation are apparent on his face. “(Regarding producing) I think I’m someone who’s passionate about it. While I do it, there are times where I would feel decisively no, I don’t think so... If so, I’ll just work hard by myself, I want to meet the challenge as long as it’s possible, I want to step on the gas fully! That’s what I thought.”

He says he has a straightforward disposition. “I can’t lie in my heart. I'm bad at playing my cards well. I want to live truthfully.”

However, leaving means losing the backing of a top-tier agency at the same time. “Of course I was anxious. I may look like this but I get scared quite a lot (lol). But when I thought what that anxiety was, in the end, isn’t it for my self protection, I thought. Now, I’m 35 years old. I can’t imagine myself doing the same thing even when I’m old. I thought I should steer the rudder while I couldn’t see the ceiling yet. I guess you could say like jumping out of a huge ship and boarding a small yacht. Up until then I was in such a huge ship that I didn’t even know the faces of the crew, didn’t know who worked in the boiler room. I was protected,” he says, without a doubt having ruminated over it time and time again.

“In all honesty, I was there for 22 years, I learned an extremely great deal. But, from here on out I'm going out into the wide world, bouncing everything off of me. I was prepared to bear all the responsibility. But you know, expectations of what’s ahead and my excitement were bigger. I think last year was when the timing of different things were on top of each other.”

On the crossroads of life, he was faced with huge choices. After quitting, he launched a private label, “NOMAD RECORDS.” Before the novel coronavirus hit, in November of last year he embarked on his first nationwide tour, the following December he released his first album, “NOMAD.” “I’m the type that moves fast after deciding things. I think a sense of swiftness is important. I want to do many things from now on, but right now, what I can transmit myself is only music. So I started from there.”

He handled all lyrics, all music, and producing himself. He says, “I’ve taken up songwriting with a guitar since when I was around 20 years old.” He puts in the feelings of his life-sized days in the songs. “If I were to sing songs by other people with half-baked singing, I’d rather give my all to melodies and words that I write. Even if I don’t sing it so well, I think it’s cooler that way. So that’s what I chose. What I made is what I will fight with, and I think all I can do now is stack up actual achievements and get recognized. I’m happy if somebody listens to my songs, feels something, and enjoys it.”

A sense of running at full speed fills up the the title song which contains the phrase, ”To a place not yet seen... This is the beginning step,” he shouts as if overflowing with emotions, during a live performance in a simple look of white T and jeans. With his sworn friend, Los Angeles resident Akanishi Jin (former KAT-TUN), they started a joint project, “N/A.” They plan to announce an album in the summer. “We have meetings every day on LINE calls.”

He himself named the record label “Nomad,” which carries the meaning nomad people or wanderers. “I guess I got it from the term nomad workers. I like it because it’s interesting as a movement of society.” (nomad workers: Japanese term for workers who don’t work in offices but in cafes or other public places with just a laptop)

His manner of living freely by his own axis really suits Nishikido who says “I hate shackles.” Born and raised in Osaka, he dropped out of high school. “It’s a city with lots of delinquents (lol). But I might have learned quite a lot of what I could have studied in school from those fellas.”

Nishikido likens his strong will to survive to weeds that are cultivated on dust covered streets. “I think once I can’t act strong, that’s it. And if I lose, that’s the end.”

Waiting For an Encounter with Film Works

Nishikido Ryo is also known as an actor with outstanding acting abilities. Even in this photo shoot, and during the interview, he speaks with his “eyes.”

From a young man committing domestic violence in the name of distorted love, a teacher that is undependable, comical acting as a time-warped samurai, etc. his repertoire is broad. Amongst all that, in a movie released in 2018, “The Scythian Lamb,” he plays a government worker in a rural town who has to face former felons with subtlety. He received high regards for that role. “Acting was where I could be as myself, away from the group. There, it makes me very happy to be evaluated as an actor and it’s something I take pride in. I’ve never been consciously particular about how I confront a role. I’ve heard that people would condition their feelings before a crying scene, but for me....that’s wrong. Feels phony. The moment I hear ‘Action!’ is when I start acting. Foreign actors that I like are Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington. One time, Denzel said, ‘I don’t embody roles,’ so cool, and I personally really relate to that. Be as oneself at that place, is what I think acting is.” (I don’t know how to translate 役作り. It means: thinking about the particulars of a role and really plan how to embody the characteristics of the role as if transforming into the role prior to filming. Almost like method acting.)

And then he says, “I think it’s about chance encounters with projects.” After a bit of silence, “But it would be really great if I could meet one (a project) as soon as possible,” he laughs. “I want to be in works I’ve never been able to until now, but I also think it’s important to do what I’ve always done until now. I’ve been getting offers, would you like to do something this, and such. But which would be good, I intend to mull over the various ways of how I appear on my first project.”

Now that he has begun rowing out across the big seas on his own, “I want to pursue things that only I as a person can do, be it music or acting,” he turns to a heated gaze. “I will run believing in myself. Just keep on running.”

#nishikido ryo #gqjapan #gq japan #PLEASE DO SERIOUS ACTING #nomad has erased by doubts to his capabilities as a singer songwriter #but i will always prefer actor ryo to musician ryo #i don't mind waiting if you're really searching for the best projects

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rinnnyxr · 3 years

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What have you done before you turned 18 Gone on a date Joined a sport club Dyed your hair Kissed someone Gone on a road trip Gone to prom Accepted yourself Accepted other people Attended a concert Learned self-defense Asked out your crush Learned to drive Learned an instrument Learned a new language Gone on a plane Gotten a job Gone out alone Learned to cook Given a donation Cooked for your friends

This or That chicken or pork lemon or lime asparagus or eggplant mushrooms or pickles strawberries or blueberries carrot or corn zucchini or broccoli noodles or rice apple or pear avocado or pumpkin notifications on or notifications off procrastinate or do everything in time messy or in order work alone or group work make questions or answer questions extrovert or introvert computer or laptop lose things or find things passenger or driver dine-in or delivery

Fashion formal or casual neutrals or colors denim or leather flats or heels every day or designer polka dots or stripes jeans or overall shorts or skirt boots or sneakers jewelry or accessories purse or bag

I wash my hair every other day. I have an iPod. Apple juice > orange juice. My grades could probably be better. I can’t drive, but I want to learn. I would love to live in a big city. My shirt is black. I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I am watching TV right now. I share a room with someone. I would consider myself upper class. I keep a journal. I am a slow typer. I have a lot of guilty pleasures. I have had one of my pets since it was a baby. My nails are painted. I am always on time. I’m forgetful. I am the middle child in my family. I play video games. I wish I had more free time. I have too much free time. I am a good artist. I love to talk on the phone. I have a blanket covering me right now. I have brown eyes. I am Asian. My room is painted pink. I know where I want to go to college. I wore jeans today. I love baking. My job is stressful. I do not wear makeup. I play basketball. I am good at origami. Chemistry is my favorite class. English is my favorite class. Gym is my favorite class. I am using a laptop. I smoke weed. I am single. I have a lot of friends. I have no friends. I am very smart. I use Instagram. I have been to New York. I celebrate Christmas. I like Kanye West. I have good spelling and grammar. Dogs are my favorite animal. I drink coffee. I have done modelling. My favorite colour is either red or green. I am Jewish. I am a terrible singer. I am texting someone right now. I was born in the 90s. I know all the words to a Madonna song. I can play drums. I believe in Miracles. I like horror movies more than comedy movies. I rarely cry. I have no allergies. I have had the same phone for over a year. I have a child. My biggest pet peeve is people who don’t use their turn signals. I bite my nails. I have never had a proper job. My room is tidy. Baby Spice was my favorite Spice Girl. I am a picky eater. I smoke. I listen to more old music than new music. I miss Myspace. I still use Myspace. I don’t like it when people I don’t know very well touch me. I have some sort of mental disorder. I have been in a school play. I would rather be hot than cold. I think I am a good friend. I love iced tea. I have an addiction to something. I like little kids. Italian food > Mexican food. If I could go anywhere in the world, it would be somewhere in Asia. I am a morning person. I have been to see a movie in the past month. I am thin. Fried chicken is delicious. I have already planned out my wedding. I am bisexual or gay. I have been in a car accident. It is between 1 and 6pm right now. I can cook. I have plans tomorrow. My boyfriend’s name starts with ‘N’. I am over eighteen. I can rap. Pepsi is my favorite soda. I have Pinterest. My phone needs charging. I don’t like beer. I did not/am not going to my prom. I am a brunette. I have a fear of crowds. I worked out today. My first name has more than five letters. My dream car is a Mercedes. I get more than six hours sleep a night. I like 80s music. I am wearing PJs. I want to go into medicine. Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream. When I drink, I usually drink vodka. I would hate to live forever. I am going to a party within the next two weeks. I need a hug. Astronomy interests me. I am happy.

(This is by no means supposed to be used to figure out what your actual MBTI type is! You can find out what is yours through online tests or careful self-analysis. This is but a very simple Tumblr bold survey to kill some time, based mostly on each type’s most common characteristics.) Bold what you identify with: INTJ You think being ambitious is actually a positive trait. You are ambitious yourself. Learning how things work interests you. You consider yourself to be a rational person. You tend to be rather clueless when it comes to flirting. It’s hard to control your perfectionism. People have said you’re too judgmental before. You’re usually pretty self-confident. You’re hardworking and try not to slack off too much. 5/9 INTP You’re very creative. You prefer to be honest and straightforward about things. You tend to be a private person. Being left alone with your thoughts is often refreshing. People have considered you a weirdo before. You have a hard time expressing your feelings. You tend to be the skeptic one. It’s harder for you to believe in something that isn’t a fact. You’re really interested in science. 6/9 ENTJ You have little patience for stupid people. You have little patience for people in general. You come across as arrogant sometimes. You’re usually the leader of the group. Shy is something that you definitely aren’t. People have said you’re inspiring before. You never give up until you’ve tried everything you can. You wouldn’t mind being the boss of a team. You are often stubborn. 5/9 ENTP Debating excites you rather than scare you. You usually seize the opportunity to give your opinion on a topic. You enjoy learning about all sorts of different things for fun. You talk a lot in social situations… …Especially when what is being discussed is something you like. You’re good at brainstorming. You find it hard to focus on one thing at a time. You get bored too easily. You greatly dislike routine.

2/9 INFJ You believe in the paranormal/supernatural. Life would be a lot better if we lived in a world with magic. You’re very passionate about the things you care about. You’re usually altruistic. You’re very sensitive about criticism. You prefer to keep your private life to yourself. You can be too idealistic sometimes. Your perfectionism can be a problem. Fantasy stories are your favorite. 5/9 INFP You’re usually open-minded and flexible. You enjoy writing. You enjoy the arts in general. Working on things that require creativity is fun to you. You’re usually the peacemaker among your friends. Taking things too personally is one of your flaws. You get sensitive easily. People think you’re difficult to get to know. You feel really bad when you can’t help someone. 8/9 ENFJ You’re the friend people come to for advice. You’re very tolerant of different points of view. People say you’re the “natural leader” type. You can keep your cool in a stressful situation. You’ve gotten into fights on the behalf of your friends before. Your self-esteem is either up high or down low. Making decisions is very complicated for you. You’ve been considered naive before.

3/9 ENFP You’re way too curious. You’d be willing to try anything once. You’re always up for an adventure or exploring. You’re very observant of your surroundings. Making friends is easy for you. Your mind tends to hop from one thing to another without focusing. You tend to overthink too much. 2/9 ISTJ Honesty is the best policy to you. You do your best to meet your obligations. People sometimes are amazed by how patient you can be. You’re usually very responsible, or try to be. It’s hard for you to lose your temper. You’re often very hard on yourself, especially when something goes wrong. Once you have your mind set on something, it’s hard to change it. You prefer routine over trying new things.

5/9 ISFJ You’re the “mother” of your group of friends. You’re usually quiet in social situations. Taking care of others is something you genuinely love to do. Your feelings can get hurt way too easily. You often get out of your way to make people happier. You’re quite shy. You repress your feelings way too often. Change is something you prefer to avoid. You’ve gotten in trouble for being too nice for your own good before.

5/9 ESTJ You finish most of the things you start. You get shit done, period. You’re a very organized person. You prefer to stick to what you know works better. People have considered you a traditional person before. You can get aggressive when defending your ideas and principles. It’s hard for you to just relax. You hate to admit that the opinion of others matters a lot to you.

4/9 ESFJ You’re a sensitive and warm person. You’ve done charity before. You feel terrible at the mere possibility that you’ve hurt someone’s feelings. You end up apologizing a lot. People can confide you with their secrets knowing you’ll take them to your grave. Being needy is a problem you have sometimes. You get insecure easily. If a stranger strikes up conversation with you and starts ranting about something bad in their life, you’ll listen with genuine interest and want to cheer them up.

7/9 ISTP You tend to be optimistic about life. You’re actually a very logical person. You aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty when the situation gets tough. You’re usually quite relaxed. Worrying about the future is pointless, so you just live the present. It takes a lot to scare you. Sometimes it’s almost like you have no sense of self-preservation. Commitment is not something you’re very comfortable with.

3/9 ISFP You’re very artistic. It’s very important for you to pursue your passion. You avoid conflict at all costs and try to keep it minimum. Science may interest you, but it’s not something you’re crazy about. You’re the chill one in the group. When things get stressed, your go-to reaction is to shut down emotionally. You’re sensitive and cry pretty easily. Competition thrills you instead of scaring you.

4/9 ESTP Socializing is fun for you. You’re a go-getter for the most part. Mind games are not your thing - you prefer to communicate clearly. You like to stand out and be original in your looks or style. Emotionally charged situations are awkward for you. You’re prone to rebelling and being defiant. “Carpe diem” is a quote you live by. People have said you seem insensitive before.

5/9 ESFP You have very good people skills. You bring your artistic side into your words, actions, clothes, hair etc. You’re talkative, and sometimes talk way too much for your own good. Traditional people are usually boring to you. You love change. You’re really bad at planning long-term. You struggle a lot with things that require you to sit still and quiet. You need things to be exciting in order to get you motivated. 5/9 According to the survey, i’m INFP.

I really, really, really love books! Sometimes, I can be really dramatic. I miss my sibling. ^They live somewhere else. I wish I had more friends to do things with. I just got a new phone. My cell phone is blue. I have a case for my cell phone. Lately, I haven’t been taking as many surveys as I usually do. I love apple juice. I have Verizon. I have a ton of books. ^My bookshelf can’t hold them all. All the good shows seem to be canceled or are over. I stay home on new years and watch the ball drop on TV. I used to hate Charles Dickens, but now I love him. I currently need a job. ^I’ve applied to many places. I like getting new sneakers. I have really bad back pain. I have scoliosis/know someone who has scoliosis. I have really bad heartburn. I’ve ordered a lot online recently. ^Mostly books. I know how to knit. ^I’m pretty damn crafty. I have a wireless mouse for my laptop. ^I’m not used to it (I keep using the one on my laptop). The Simpsons is better than Family Guy. I recently went shopping with my dad. I miss all of the old 90’s shows!

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readyforit · 4 years

Note

Rank your classes (either in tiers or in order)

hi sorry for taking forever to respond but here you go!

history - this isn’t necessarily my favourite subject (I’m not overly passionate about any of them I don’t think) but at least it’s one I enjoy! tbh it can get pretty boring a lot of the time, especially when you have to learn about stupid white men, but it can also be fun and interesting - especially when you look at things like one long story. it’s also nice to see the causes and consequences of events and how it shapes the world today. I also kind of like the structure of the subject, like I guess I like writing essays and expressing my opinion on things, I love how there’s no right or wrong either too

fine art - I love art so so much but this is hands down the most stressful subject. we constantly have mountains of work to get done so I’m always behind, and tbh I sort of find the course pretty narrow - like all the art we create has to be have been inspired by a specific artist, which I think limits our ability. we also have to do soooo much analysis like... I just want to make art <3 I don’t care about the symbolism or deeper meaning of it. that being said, it’s the best to sit down and express yourself through an art piece you’re working on - kind of like disconnecting yourself from the world for a bit

chinese - I don’t know if I REALLY like chinese but it’s like the easiest subject that I take so it’s like the only time when I’m never lost or confused. it’s also really interactive so lessons are always fun and upbeat. I hate the tests, we have to read write listen and speak, but other than that it’s pretty fun!

english - to be honest... most of the time english is soooo boring I don’t know how I can stand it. not EVERYTHING has a deeper meaning and it’s so silly to keep droning on and on and on about the literary devices in text I couldn’t care less about. it’s even worse when we have to write our own essays. it’s just pretty boring as a whole but... at the same time I guess I kind of like english, it’s always a calming peaceful environment and again, I love how there’s no right or wrong and anything could be open up to debate

maths - I don’t really like maths as a whole - but I guess it depends, it can be a breeze once you understand a concept, but it can also be sooo miserable when you don’t understand anything. and I’m usually the latter because I can’t concentrate. <3 also I’m bad at science so there’s a lot more pressure for me to do well in maths. I like how it can be so straightforward though, like a universal language anyone could understand

biology - I used to hate biology but I think it’s becoming my favourite science! it’s actually kind of fun to learn about life, plus the concepts are pretty straightforward and pretty much basic knowledge. I think I found biology really confusing last year and that’s why I hated it, but our bio teacher left and our new one is great at teaching and makes everything seem so simple so !!

music - I HAAAAATE MUSIC. music the art form is the greatest thing in the world, but the subject... goodbye. I have a background in music so I thought this subject would be pretty easy for me, but it’s so impossible that I have a mental breakdown like twice a day. I think it’s so pointless - especially the analysis component of it. we have to analyse these music pieces right down to the smallest details, it’s so dumb!!!! like how on earth am I meant to know why the composer decided to use an F# note in bar 489???? we have to memorise stupid details like that for the exam, I’m going to cry. on top of that, we have to create a composition and perform a piece and ahhhhh it’s so much for me. I find it so stressful and I don’t find it enjoyable at all. I tried switching to geography last year but my head of grade told me that I should take music as a “fun challenge” so :)

pe - don’t even know why pe exists <3 if people want to be fit, they should just do it outside of class. I think it’s such a waste of time dlfkjflkj and it’s obvious everyone in my class agrees. also I think it’s kind of stupid but we get graded based on our effort, like how is our teacher meant to know how hard we’re trying dflkjdfbflj

physics - physics is literally maths but harder and with more words. who wants that. I think physics can be pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it, but it’s so hard to memorise all these formulas and equations, it gets so technical sometimes I hate it

chemistry - CHEMISTRY IS THE WORST. not even exaggerating when I say that I’ve never understood anything in a chemistry lesson before. I couldn’t even tell you what I don’t understand because it’s just ~everything~... absolutely nothing makes sense. it’s so ugly and awful I can’t stand it. I don’t know why but like as soon as I step into the science lab, I physically feel my brain turn to mush and I can’t focus through the whole lesson dlfjkflkjf. it’s just so frustrating and I’ve never understood chemistry or found it interesting in any way and I’m so excited to get it over and done with when the year ends

#thank you for the ask 😼#anon #love letters

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jingabitch · 4 years

Text

An Arrangement for Convenience ch.3

Summary: It's ridiculous that girl groups aren't allowed to date, and are kept under such strict lock and key that they can't satisfy their desires. Enter Ha-eun, YG's solution to the problem.

Pairings: Jisoo x oc, eventual ot4 x oc

Warnings: oral sex (f receiving) | sex work | semi-public sex

A/N: Wrote this a while back and posted on ao3; reposting here because I want to be more active on this platform. While I currently have 8 chapters written which I will be releasing on Tumblr gradually, I am currently on hiatus due to school and work commitments and will not be actively writing and posting new stuff until the semester ends in December.

Series index

It wasn’t until two days later that Lisa and Chaeyoung were able to… summon Ha-eun, she supposed, for lack of a better word, since she’d had classes in the morning and had to accompany her brother to the hospital in the afternoon for his treatment. After that, they’d come straight home, where she’d stroked his hair, made him dinner, and given him plenty of hugs and kisses.

As she was leaving her final class of the day at two in the afternoon, though, her phone buzzed in her pocket as she stepped out of the building into the sunlight. Squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun, she shielded her eyes with one hand as she fished her phone out of her pocket to see who had texted her with the other.

The name that flashed across the screen made her literally stop in her tracks, causing the people behind her to bump into her. Well, it was really an emoji - the four girls had chosen their own contact emojis. Ha-eun apologized distractedly to the grumbling students who were just trying to go about their lives, ducking to the side to open the text in relative privacy.

Leaning against the wall, she tapped on the screen to open the text from the acorn (Chaeyoung). It was simple and straightforward - be at the YG building in an hour. Sending off an acknowledgement to the instruction, Ha-eun readjusted her backpack and started walking to the subway station.

Making it to the YG building with ten minutes to spare, Ha-eun used the pass she’d been given by Blackpink’s manager to enter the building, feeling a little weird about having it in the first place. Was she an official YG employee? She supposed so, given the contract and all, but it was so… strange.

Putting the thought out of her mind, she went up to the floor indicated in the text, and tried to find the room that Chaeyoung had told her to go to. Finally finding it after fifteen minutes of wandering around the corridors, utterly lost and starting to believe that she was going to die in a random spot of the YG headquarters, she knocked on the door then waited.

Almost immediately, Lisa opened the door, grinned on seeing that it was Ha-eun, and pulled the younger girl into the room by her wrist.

“Well, hello to you too,” Ha-eun said as she let herself be manhandled. “What’s- oh,” she cut herself off as she realised that the four girls weren’t the only ones in the room. It was a recording studio, and there were a few other staff there. She recognized Teddy Park in particular, and immediately folded her hands in front of her and bowed politely. “Hello,” she directed at the room in general. “I’m Kim Ha-eun,” she said, not sure what else to add after that.

They just nodded at her, and Chaeyoung patted the couch cushion next to where she was sitting, then held out her hand. Ha-eun put her own hand in Chaeyoung’s and let herself be pulled down onto the couch between her and Jisoo. Jennie, who was still in the recording booth, just waved and smiled.

“Okay, Jennie, once more, please,” Teddy instructed, and she gave him a thumbs up sign in response.

Chaeyoung picked up her phone and started typing on it, and Ha-eun didn’t pay her too much attention, immersed in watching Jennie sing, until her own phone buzzed. Stretching out her leg to dig her phone out of her pocket, she raised a brow when she saw that Chaeyoung had texted her again.

Sighing, she excused herself as the text directed and went to the closet that Chaeyoung had told her to wait in, looking around to make sure nobody was looking before she let herself in. Sitting on the ground, she was killing time going through some emails on her phone when Chaeyoung entered.

“Ha-eun-ah?” she called softly.

“Chaeyoung-unnie, I’m here,” Ha-eun replied, standing up.

Chaeyoung closed the short distance between them, pinning Ha-eun against the wall with her hands and body.

“Hello,” Ha-eun said, giggling as she rested her hands on Chaeyoung’s waist, curling her fingers in the belt loops on her jeans and tugging her closer. “You seem to have gotten lost,” she joked as Chaeyoung’s mouth descended on hers, muffling the last part of the sentence.

Chaeyoung’s hand cradled the back of her head, softly tugging on the long silky strands of hair as she kissed her deeply. Ha-eun moaned softly as she registered how soft Chaeyoung’s lips were, the sweetness of her warm breath on her face and her tongue in her mouth. When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing hard.

“Why did you get me to go to the studio in the first place?” Ha-eun said, laughing a little as her dexterous fingers worked the fly on Chaeyoung’s jeans.

Chaeyoung hummed. “To tease Jennie-unnie,” she admitted breathily as Ha-eun finished unzipping her jeans and slid her fingers down them, circling the pad of her thumb over Chaeyoung’s clit.

Ha-eun chuckled. “You could do that just as well at home, unnie, and we both know it.” With one hand down Chaeyoung’s pants, she put her other hand to work sliding up the back of Chaeyoung’s shirt, undoing the clasp on her bra with a one-handed flick.

“Mmm, maybe I wanted to show Teddy how times are changing,” Chaeyoung breathed. “You’re quite the sensation at YG, you know.”

Pushing Chaeyoung’s shirt up so she could suck a nipple in her mouth, Ha-eun hummed, trying to encourage Chaeyoung to continue without saying so, since her mouth was otherwise occupied.

Between gasps and moans, Chaeyoung explained, “CEO Hwang decided that this idea made a lot of sense for girl groups, and ever since people found out they’ve been wanting their own… I know iKON and Winner both asked.”

Ha-eun detached her mouth from Chaeyoung. “I’m sure they have a far easier time having their needs met,” she said, beginning to kiss her way down Chaeyoung’s abdomen as her fingers hooked in her waistband, pulling her jeans down her long legs.

“Got that right,” Chaeyoung said a little snappily, clearly resentful at the double standard in the way girl groups and guy groups were managed.

Laughing, Ha-eun got onto her knees, pressing a kiss to Chaeyoung’s pubic mound. “Hey, don’t be mad anymore,” she cajoled the older girl as she directed her to spread her legs apart a little wider. “Looks like you’re the winner here,” she said, her breath washing across Chaeyoung’s pussy.

Shivering, Chaeyoung found that she couldn’t really disagree with that logic.

“Fuck, eat me out,” she gasped, her hand on Ha-eun’s head pressing it closer to her aching core.

Giggling, Ha-eun obliged, sucking Chaeyoung’s clit in her mouth as she slid a finger into her pussy.

“Oh God, sweetie, your mouth is magic,” Chaeyoung said above her, pushing her face deeper into her pussy as she started grinding herself on Ha-eun’s face, her breath hitching every time her clit slid over Ha-eun’s nose.

Ha-eun stilled for the most part, allowing Chaeyoung to get herself off on her face, rubbing her juices all over her nose, cheeks and chin. She shivered as she wondered if Chaeyoung might have a little bit of a facesitting kink, based on the way she was almost smothering her (as best she could, anyway, given the rather awkward position they were in). Pressing another finger into Chaeyoung and crooking it, she was gratified to hear Chaeyoung’s breath catch and then a high, breathy moan as she gushed and came all over her face.

When it was over, Ha-eun gently extricated her fingers from the other girl, sitting back on her heels. “You okay?” she asked Chaeyoung, pulling her fingers from her hair and holding her hands comfortingly.

Chaeyoung let out a light giggle. “Yeah, sweetie, I’m great.” The endearment, said in English, warmed Ha-eun’s heart whenever it rolled off Chaeyoung’s tongue in her drawling Aussie accent, even if it did sound a little awkward since the rest of the sentence was in Korean.

“That’s good,” Ha-eun said, standing up and rotating her neck, which was a little sore from the awkward position it had been in. Helping Chaeyoung get her clothes back in order as well as she could in the dark, she squinted as the other girl opened the door to the well-lit corridor. Even though she’d only been in the closet for about twenty minutes, tops, her eyes had gotten used to the dark.

Chaeyoung looked behind her at Ha-eun and giggled. “It’s a good thing you weren’t wearing any makeup,” she said.

Ha-eun’s hand went up to her cheek reflexively, her mouth falling into a little o as she felt the sticky wetness coating her skin. “I should go clean up…” she said, turning away from Chaeyoung to find a bathroom.

“No, don’t,” Chaeyoung said, her arm snaking out to grab Ha-eun. “I like this, being able to smell myself on your face,” she crooned sultrily, resting her forehead on Ha-eun’s.

“Okay.” Even though it was embarrassing for her to keep the evidence of what she’d been doing on her face for everyone to see, especially the strangers in the room, Chaeyoung’s words pulled the acquiescence from her effortlessly. In fact, now that she knew it would please the older girl, she wanted everyone to know that she’d been off having sex with Park Chaeyoung of Blackpink.

Her shoulders were a little straighter and her head held just a tad higher when she re-entered the room, trailing behind Chaeyoung, but the moment her eyes met Teddy Park’s, she deflated, going right back to the couch to sit next to Jisoo, clutching her shirt as she snuggled insistently closer, until Jisoo raised her arm to wrap it around her shoulders as she burrowed into her side.

Chaeyoung smirked a little at Ha-eun’s obvious embarrassment at her request, even though she’d agreed to it so easily. She met Teddy’s gaze steadily, quirking a brow right back at him when he looked at her questioningly.

“All right,” he murmured to himself, eyes flicking once more to Ha-eun, who was now glued to Jisoo as they giggled quietly about something. He’d heard about the new arrangement with vague interest, being too old for this kind of gossip, but the girl sitting in front of him now definitely seemed too young and wide-eyed for such a job. He’d heard that she was in college, but with her bare face, t-shirt dress, cardigan and sneakers, she hardly looked old enough to be in high school.

Ha-eun, sensing that she had his attention, looked over and honest to God winked at him. Now ensconced in Jisoo’s warm embrace, she was feeling brazen, and Chaeyoung’s words about her being a topic of interest in YG were still ringing in her head.

Lisa, sitting next to Teddy discussing her part of the new song they were recording, saw the interaction and stifled a giggle. Ha-eun was definitely way too sassy for her own good, and Teddy’s shocked expression as he turned back to her to continue explaining the vibe of the song he had in mind was gold. Pressing her lips together and swallowing her laughter, she shot Ha-eun a mock glare as she turned back to the sheet music.

Jennie made her way out of the recording booth and sat down on Ha-eun’s other side, as Chaeyoung went to take her turn recording. “Hi, how are you?” she asked, taking Ha-eun’s hand.

Even though they’d only known each other for a few days, Ha-eun was irrationally pleased at how comfortable they were around her. Then again, she supposed, having her face between their legs probably did wonders for the levels of physical intimacy they were comfortable with in public.

“I had a good day at school today,” Ha-eun replied, curling her fingers in Jennie’s palm comfortably. “My professor gave our midterms back, and I got an A,” she told Jennie, smiling softly.

“Ha-eun-ah, that’s great! We’ll have to reward you when we get back,” Jennie said, the meaning behind her words unmistakable. Ha-eun bit her lip but couldn’t hold back the smile, shooting back, “I can’t wait,” as Jisoo pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Lisa came over, now that Teddy was busy with Chaeyoung, and sat next to Jennie, resting her head on the older girl’s shoulder. “What are you guys talking about?” she wanted to know.

“Ha-eun got an A on her midterm,” Jennie informed her, and Lisa cooed, “Aww, that’s amazing!”

All the attention made Ha-eun flush a little; she hadn’t expected so much excitement over her rather mundane everyday life, and it was always a little weird when her clients wanted to get to know her personally; it wasn’t what she was there for. Her job was to create the illusion of an emotional connection for the client.

Trying to shift the conversation back to topics she was more comfortable with (and wasn’t that something for her to chew on later, that she was more comfortable talking about sex than how her day was going) she sent Lisa a laviscious wink and said, “That’s not the best thing that’s happened to me today, though.”

Lisa, getting the message, giggled. “What is, then?” she played along.

Instead of answering, Ha-eun looked back at the recording booth, where Chaeyoung was singing, then back at Lisa.

It was interesting, watching the girls record their new song. The process was usually kept so opaque (and if she were being honest, she’d never had much interest in what went into producing and recording a song) that she found herself fascinated watching them take turns in the recording booth, then all go in together.

Time flew by, and it was night before Ha-eun knew it. She was still sitting on the couch behind Teddy, watching the four girls in the booth, when Teddy leaned forward, pushed a button and said, “Okay, that’s a wrap for today.”

While they were putting their headphones back and filing out of the recording booth, Teddy turned and said to her in a low voice, “Whatever you did today, keep doing it.”

Ha-eun turned to him, surprised. He hadn’t said anything to her before that, and she wasn’t even sure he’d been talking to her. “I’m sorry?” she asked.

Teddy nodded towards Chaeyoung. “She’s never sounded so relaxed and confident in the booth before, and all of them sound slightly brighter today.”

Ha-eun blushed, knowing exactly why Chaeyoung had been relaxed earlier. “I’ll try my best,” she promised, and Teddy winked.

“What did he say to you?” Jennie asked later, as they were in the elevator going back down to the basement to get in the van.

Ha-eun shrugged. “That your singing is better with me around.”

All eyes slid to Chaeyoung, who coughed and looked away from them, fixated on the flashing numbers on top of the elevator door indicating the floors they were passing.

“Well, I definitely need to improve my singing,” Lisa said, finally taking pity on Chaeyoung as she draped an arm around Ha-eun’s shoulders and kissed her cheek.

Ha-eun laughed as she interlocked her fingers with Lisa’s, pressing a kiss to her lips right before the elevator doors opened. “Aww, I’d be more than happy to help out,” she cooed.

Lisa gave a mock sigh as they walked towards the van. “It’s so hard being the youngest,” she pouted. “I’m always the last one who gets to play with new toys.”

Ha-eun, climbing into the van after Lisa, pinched her butt playfully as Lisa got in, then sat next to the older girl, draping her legs across Lisa’s lap and her arms around her neck.

“Look, I’ve gotten a pet koala,” Lisa joked, though she didn’t seem too displeased as she wrapped an arm around Ha-eun.

Ha-eun, giggling, shot back, “You didn’t say you were into pet play, Lisa-unnie.”

When Lisa just stared at her, Ha-eun smiled and tightened her arms slightly, so Lisa had to lean forward to kiss her.

“Lisa, hope you like tasting me on Ha-eun’s face,” Chaeyoung said from the back.

Pulling back, Lisa just looked at Ha-eun in disbelief. “She didn’t let me wash my face after,” Ha-eun defended herself.

“I don’t mind,” Lisa breathed, her mouth slanting across Ha-eun’s again, and she wriggled closer still to kiss the older girl more deeply.

The manager, driving them home, had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. The four girls had always been pretty funny and interesting, but having Ha-eun around certainly made things more lively - their jokes had never been this sharp and sassy before, and she certainly was good for the group’s morale.

He could still remember how happy Jennie and Jisoo had been yesterday, cheerfully greeting him when he’d arrived at six am to pick them up although neither could really be considered morning people. Most days, they would file in sleepily and ignore him for the rest of the trip, but yesterday while the two younger girls dozed, Jennie and Jisoo had politely asked him about his new girlfriend and how work was treating him.

“Okay, here we are,” he said as he pulled up in front of the dorm building, causing Lisa and Ha-eun to break apart and peer out the window.

“Come on, guys, don’t actually have sex in the van,” Jennie sniped at Lisa as she got out of her seat to move awkwardly to the door.

“Okay, I guess we should go then,” Lisa said to Ha-eun, as the younger girl detached herself and stumbled out of the van. Waiting for Lisa to get out, the two of them held hands as they went up the elevator back to their apartment.

#blackpink smut #bpsmut #blackpink #kim jennie #kim jisoo #lisa manoban #park chaeyoung #ot4 x oc #lisa x oc #jennie x oc #jisoo x oc #rose x oc #an arrangement for convenience #aafc

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badlydrawnarsenelupin · 4 years

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Thoughts on Sherlock, Lupin and Me (Books 2-4)

Wasn’t sure if I should post this here or not but this is Lupin related so... Kind of a review on the Sherlock, Lupin and Me series, which is a collection of children's books originally published in Italian about young Holmes, Lupin and Irene Adler as detectives going on adventures.

I’ll mostly be talking about books 2-4 because my library didn’t have book 1, also since a lot of public spaces around me are shut down now, I don’t think I’ll be able to get it anytime soon-

General Thoughts:

Overall, there is a decent amount of references to historical locations, figures and events. The stories of the books are set during the Franco-Prussian war (book 1 specifically states July 6, 1870), some well-known authors and their literatures were also mentioned in various places (the ones I remember being Edgar Allan Poe and both Alexandre Dumas père and fils).

I really loved the covers and illustrations inside the books, especially in the inner covers. They were really nicely rendered with a lot of details and do a great job of conveying a vintage, Victorian aesthetic while containing bits of information on the plot of the book:

I can’t say much on the original writing, but from the English translation that I’ve read, there were parts where I found the pacing to be a bit slow for me. It sometimes spends many chapters detailing Irene’s journey from one location to the next that didn’t seem essential for the plot, although they do expand a bit more on Irene’s relationship with her current family. Some chapters end abruptly, in the middle of a dialogue or scene that felt like it should’ve been followed up by something but wasn’t.

In contrast to the slow details of Irene by herself, some of the more important/plot relevant scenes end up being summarized.

The thing that probably bothered me the most is how the narrative loves to remind the readers that yes, it is told from the future and there are things that changed/are not what they seem now. It just felt like it was trying to foreshadow things/create anticipation for future events, but in the most obvious way possible.

General Thoughts on the Characters:

The mysteries of the books are pretty simple and straightforward, the real highlight is the chemistry between our three protagonists. As characters on their own, they are pretty nicely written. I did enjoy the trio’s antics with Irene’s exasperated butler, Mr. Nelson, who end up as an accomplice to their adventures as the story progresses.

The stories are narrated from Irene Adler’s first-person POV, who is stated to be 12 years-old in the first book. Going by the dates we have, I assume Sherlock is around 16 and Arsène is said to be in between the two, putting him around 13-15. It was also mentioned in the first few pages that Sherlock and Arsène are now the famous detective/gentleman thief respectively, but not yet at the time of the narration, which justifies the lack of any John Watsons.

Irene was mainly supplied with a lot of original backstories and such, which is understandable seeing how she only appeared in one story in the og canon. While I did enjoy her, Irene kind of gives off the feeling of the “I’m not like the other girls” trope. The writing tries very hard to make sure the reader knows that she is this tomboy who rebels against standard Victorian ladies’ etiquette, reads grimy Poe literature and comes back home covered in dirt from adventuring. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but there are probably more subtle and clever ways to present these characteristics.

From what I’ve seen of the first book, it weirdly starts off by Irene introducing herself as “the first and only girlfriend of Sherlock Holmes” in the first sentence, which is disappointing for me. Seeing especially how there is already an abundance of Holmes/Irene in adaptations, despite the original canon by Conan Doyle specifically stating that Holmes have no romantic feelings towards Irene Adler.

I suppose they were trying to establish a connection between Irene⁠, a minor character in the canon, to the familiarity of Sherlock Holmes' name. However, it made for an awkward introduction and kind of a moot point imo seeing how this is supposed to be read by children, who probably know little of Sherlock Holmes in the first place.

I’m not well-versed in the Holmes canon, but there are more references like

young Sherlock drinking hot cocoa as a stimulus instead of using cocaine

Sherlock paying other children to dig up information like the Baker Street Irregulars + some mention of Baker street

some scenes showing off his fighting and disguise skills

Sherlock’s addition of a little sister, Violet, in this series was also a nice reference to the theories surrounding Violet Hunter from “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches“ of the original canon.

Thoughts on Arsène:

In this series, Arsène travels around with his father, Théophraste Lupin and his circus. What is interesting is that Arsène was shown to have a rocky relationship with Théophraste, the stories indicating arguments between the two and Arsène running away from the circus twice in separate books to hang out with Sherlock and Irene instead.

There are references to Théophraste’s past life of being a thief, along with Arsène’s lockpicking, simple sleight of hand/magic tricks, plus his acrobatic and boxing abilities which the story is good with letting him demonstrate those skills in various situations. In book 4, he was also shown to be decent with biking a long distance, which might be a subtle nod to this line in “The Escape of Arsène Lupin.”

Overall, I didn’t have many problems with his characterization, in fact I was rather glad that he was kept vaguely… uhh, biased against Irene as a girl. As seen from a few remarks regarding Irene in some of the dialogue and kissing her once out of nowhere, which I’m assuming hopefully on the cheek but it wasn’t specified- There were also many parts noted by Irene on Arsène’s attractiveness

“He was tan, his eyes were dark and shining, and his cheekbones and jaw were carved as if by a sculptor...”

“...handsome and elegant...”

which is well, accurate to canon-

My main complaint is probably the reveal of Arsène’s mother in book 4, who was not Henriette d’Andrésy but some woman called Madame Vaudron-Chantal. I have no idea why they decided to change her name.

Maybe, just maybe, it was a reason to justify Arsène living with Théophraste as Arsène’s relationship with this Vaudron-Chantal is, like the one with his father, just as much… shaky. There’s definitely something going on in the Lupin family, but unfortunately for me the other books in the series aren’t translated yet so ig I’ll just have to wait.

There was also a lack of any mentions to Victoire or “Raoul,” which the latter I could somewhat understand as it is less well known than his “Arsène Lupin” name and probably not as good for a title. Still disappointed tho, seeing the prevalence of Raoul in Leblanc’s canon.

Conclusion:

Overall, it was a mostly positive experience. The writing level is a bit too simple for me to find it truly engaging and I wished there were more notable Lupin canon references, something that probably would’ve won me over.

While the premise is a neat idea and I’m glad that someone wrote this, I did feel there was a bit of wasted potential with using these already established characters without touching on the things in the original canon.

I’m also not sure it this is a good representation of the characters for people who have not engaged in the Doyle or Leblanc’s literature before, so I probably wouldn’t recommend it as a starting point into the canon. It’s an quick and easy read for anyone who is interested in Holmes or Lupin though.

#m: mots.#long post #[ extremely long post...#there's a part 2 bc i had to split it up oop- ]#reviews; en coulisse.#ooc; en coulisse.#b: Sherlock Lupin & Me

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helloandwelcometomariasblog · 4 years

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Review #64: Hymn of Death

사의 찬미. (I like the Korean title a whole lot more than the English title.)

I have read comments stating that this drama is not historically accurate, so I won’t go into that aspect of the story. What I will go into, are aspects that really moved me to write this review.

Before I even began watching, I had a vague idea of what the story was about as I had (stupidly) watched one or two clips on YouTube and read the comments. Therefore, I expected a simple romance story with themes of infidelity. However, I was surprised.

I know and you know and everyone knows that I began watching it for LJS. However, I had no idea what kind of character he would play. So far, I’ve seen him as an array of characters: Cha Eunho (playful, successful, cute and jealous younger man), Hamyung/Dalpo (unfortunately I can’t fully remember his character anymore), Kangchul (rich, determined, slightly conceited), and Namsoon (apathetic but warm-hearted student with a dark past and no academic passion). His character in Hymn of Death kind of took me by surprise. It was a character I had never really seen before in LJS. Ujin is quiet and composed. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s purposeful and poetic. He’s a thoughtful and serious man who doesn’t open up easily and puts up a wall around his thoughts and feelings. Scared that he will get too invested. Scared that he will actually fall in love. He’s an obedient son, who keeps his feelings bottled up until the very last moment. He’s an artist and a poet, who seeks beauty and feels it deeply. He’s a highly sensitive introvert. He’s a writer who knows how precious and life-giving words can be.

And I know, and you know, and everyone knows that I am very much attracted to that. I could even almost relate to him. I also use writing to express myself and to find solace. When he exploded at his father and said that these pieces of paper and those rare moments of writing are his shelter and escape, and asked, do you want me to live or die, I cried alongside him. When he spared his words, his compliments, but still expressed his hesitant but positive feelings towards Shimdeok, I melted alongside her. I’m just saying - those people are rare nowadays. People don’t treat words as carefully or worthwhile anymore. They just blurt out whatever they’re thinking (or not thinking). And yes, it was done with the face and body of LJS. I get it.

So let me cut to the chase here. I really fell for LJS’s character. I just can’t help but fall for these types of characters. Kyungsoo in 100 Days My Prince, for example. Those quiet but strong characters who love art and cherish it. Those who appreciate beauty around the world and are thoughtful and sensitive enough to not speak hastily. Someone with whom you can share thoughts on literature and film. Ujin was like that. And it was just so adorable but heartbreaking at the same time seeing him try and distance himself from Shimdeok, knowing that he was attracted. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself from falling for her.

One thing this drama did really well was show us the gradual process of the two characters falling in love. Not once did I wonder why they were drawn to each other. There are dramas where I ask myself why they even like each other. In those dramas, it seems as though they’re only liking each other because they’re the main couple, so they have to. But with Ujin and Shimdeok, it was completely believable. The steps were so clear. I could clearly see why Shimdeok was attracted to Ujin and vice versa. I guess it’s also the actors’ feat - their faces of falling in love were extremely convincing. I could see Shimdeok falling slowly for Ujin’s goals, determination, and love for writing. And it was SO CUTE seeing her act upon it (I love her character) - she was so adorably honest and straightforward with her feelings. How could Ujin not like her back? LJS played it very well, showing us how hard Ujin was trying to hide his feelings and be aloof and even cold towards her. However, with someone like Shimdeok constantly stepping closer to him, and being the charismatic and strong young lady she is, Ujin soon has trouble hiding his own feelings. It was just so incredibly convincing. When Shimdeok stands up during the meeting and encourages the team to keep going, you know Ujin has fallen for her, and you know it’s completely valid. It’s something he would totally fall for. And you know when he hears her sing for the first time, he’s hiding his admiration (which he does admit later on, in the most Ujintastic and soft-spoken but sure way). Ujin is attracted to Shimdeok as a person, and Shimdeok is attracted to Ujin as a person. I don’t know - I feel like I’ve never seen a drama that made this so incredibly clear. It was just so damn convincing.

The slow but sure way they fell in love really grasped me. I guess it’s also because it’s kind of rare nowadays (both in the real world and in media). People are so quick to express their feelings and get on with it. But both Ujin and Shimdeok took their time, getting to know each other through the team and through touring, and kept a slight (heart-fluttering) distance. (And I know the distance was required because Ujin was married and all, but I’ll talk about that aspect in another paragraph.) That romantic tension is gold. And I know this probably sounds crazy but I respect Ujin for drawing the line and inviting Shimdeok to his house along with the team to show her the reality of his life. I know, I know, it means nothing later on but I liked that decision and I liked that scene.

Another scene I absolutely loved was when the tour came to an end and they all celebrated at the dance hall. I loved it because it was a great portrayal of their feelings towards each other in that subtle and careful way - when you love someone, but you can’t express it to them yet, so you steal glances and hope that something will happen. Shimdeok kept glancing at Ujin and vice versa, but I loved how their eyes never really met. Golden romantic tension. This drama did the “ssum” stage so, so well. I also loved how Shimdeok actually stood up to make that move and approach Ujin at the dance hall (after several stolen glances). I would’ve done that too, Shimdeok. I think that’s why I’m attracted to people like Ujin - because I like being the active person, making the moves (lol).

One thing I realize over and over again about myself is that I am really drawn to films where emotions are shown in a very subtle way. In this drama, they don’t have a ton of physical intimacy (especially in the beginning stages of attraction and affection) and that makes the little moments even more prominent and overwhelming. For example, whenever they shake hands, when they almost touch fingers while reaching for the kettle at the same time, or when Ujin comes close for a kiss (which he doesn’t carry through with in the end - which showed his inner turmoil). This also means that the non-physical actions mean a whole lot - such as the time when Shimdeok comes over to spend time with a “sick” Ujin and tries so hard to stay for longer (which Ujin coldly and outrightly rejects, very so-in-character, but later watches and smiles at the window) and leaves with the umbrella that she earlier said never brought along. That’s what always wins me over, I guess - when affection and attraction is written in film in ways other than the oh-so-obvious physical action. That is much more interesting and emotional to me, and provides a whole lot of romantic tension.

I think it was also quite interesting and a rare sight in the K-drama world that the both of them actually told their families about their change of heart instead of running away without a word. I wasn’t expecting that. I was especially surprised that Ujin told his father about everything before leaving.

Speaking of families, I honestly have never felt more frustrated and angry watching Ujin’s dad and Shimdeok’s family. I’m not sure which family I hated more. I honestly couldn’t stop swearing and grabbing my forehead and I actually CRIED. I shed tears because I was so frustrated and sad. I felt this especially with Shimdeok’s family. They’re the fucking worst. Nobody in that fucking family was redeemable. Not the mother who was so obviously without morals and only cared about her other two kids, not the brother who fucking doubted Shimdeok’s morals and values, not the sister who believed the fucking rumours, and above all not the father who pretends to be on her side but is in fact the fucking worst? He acts all victim but in reality he’s the worst and he’s just a fucking passive version of the mother. And Shimdeok is the one providing for all of them. HAVE SOME RESPECT. Have some damn gratitude. I honestly felt it when Shimdeok fell speechless at her siblings’ confrontation and accusation and choked out, “you two can’t do this to me.” Damn right. Fucking ungrateful assholes. They’re so damn immature and selfish.

This is why, when Shimdeok receives the letter from Ujin saying that he wholeheartedly trusts her and her alone, and telling her to come to him quickly, I honestly cried with Shimdeok, and it began to make sense that they would run away together. This drama did their beats EXTREMELY well. One thing led to another, and each and every event/beat was convincing. I was just naturally led from beginning to end on an emotional rollercoaster and never once stopped to think, “does that even makes sense?” The writer constantly upped the level and made the characters suffer to the point they couldn’t stand. That’s good writing. It’s sad that the characters really couldn’t stand it and chose to end everything, but the lead up was undeniably good. It made me believe that they really didn’t have a way out. I still had hope when the only obstacle was the father’s disapproval (but even that was a bit too stifling cause the father was a closed-minded selfish prick) and the poverty that Shimdeok was faced with. But when it escalated to the point where Shimdeok was sexually harassed (I got so angry with this scene, and Shin Hyesun acted so incredibly well) and she was threatened into being a singer for the promotion and praise of the Japanese government, and Ujin was threatened with his father’s health, I had to throw in the towel. It all made sense. Even I couldn’t do it anymore.

But nevertheless, their tragic ending was really sad, and I hoped (and still hope) there was another way out. It reminded me of The Sorrows of Young Werther, and made me think of how sensitive and emotional artists and writers could be and how dangerous that can be. I had such a happy time watching the first two or so episodes that the tragic ending made me feel way too sad and hollow. I wish they could have overcome it somehow. Or even just run away somewhere and live together. At the end though, I’m not sure if it was the way LJS was playing the character, but it felt as though he was a little hesitant about the death compared to Shimdeok. Shimdeok seemed really set on the idea, as though there was no alternative, but Ujin seemed a little aloof, almost as though he was going through with it because it’s what his lover wanted. But when thinking back on how much he suffered because of his dad, and how much he gave up, it does make sense that he would have come to the same conclusion as Shimdeok. It’s just sad. I really wish it could have ended differently.

I would watch this drama again for two things: the beautiful cinematography, and the absolutely beautiful process of the two characters falling in love. (and yes for LJS, okay?)

p.s: Shin Hyesun really cannot lipsync. + LJS really needs to stop putting his hand in his pockets. It’s so frequent that it’s awkward - it’s like suddenly being hyper aware that he’s acting. + the one scene that really didn’t make sense for me was when Shimdeok abandoned her dream stage to run after Ujin. I wish the film had made it so that she was singing the last line of the song and finished it before running after him. But then again - that just shows how much she loved Ujin and just how much he meant to him. (But still.)

#review

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bookenders · 5 years

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💠 for the writeblr positivity compliment game :) I was looking at your excerpts from All Our Painted Colors and they're written in a simple and elegant way, which I find very hard to do in my own writing.

[Send me some flowers!]

💠 Your writing style is easy-to-read and accessible yet intellectually rigorous. How did you teach yourself to strike this balance?

OH GOODNESS thank you!! 💜💜💜

This is honestly one of my main goals with my style and I’m so happy that it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

With AOPC, it mostly comes from the voice. Since I wrote it from Teva’s point of view (and in first person), the prose mimics the way she talks. (Also, everything I’ve posted from AOPC so far has gone through like, at least 3 rounds of edits, so take all this with a grain of salt.)

Here’s where it gets super technical for me.

(I’ll take it apart and then explain it, like the good little English major I am.)

Teva is a pretty blunt person, and I tried to make the writing reflect that. She’s training to be a storyteller, but she’s still new at it. She doesn’t use too many complex sentences. Her rhythm is straightforward. All the metaphors she uses are taken from her environment, her village, things she’s seen and things people have told her. In my mind, their language doesn’t use contractions very often, which gives the writing a bit of a Data-from-Star-Trek feel, like someone who is feeling out a language, or a culture, and is learning formality rules or is proper in ways that might contradict their actions.

I do all of that because I come from a linguistics background. A big ‘ole word nerd, that’s me. I pay attention to the niche style things that a lot of people use without analyzing it because that’s how I was taught to do it.

Now, with the creative writing background, I use a ton of contrasts and parallels. They’re my favorite, because once you get the hang of using them, they can elevate almost any piece of writing with a little bit of careful planning.

Like in this little section:

Elder Sanga said that I do not want to hear the Call. Sarevo told me to wait. Keema asked me why. What do I want? I want to be a part of my tribe, to belong to my people like I am supposed to. I want to stand beside my sister and be seen as her equal, not the sum of my potential. I want to breathe in the land and sea and sky and feel at home. I want to listen and be heard.

But still I hear nothing. I step away from the edge, keeping my eyes on the water. I don’t want to cry in front of Sarevo.

That’s like, 90% parallels and contrasts. The sentences are super simple, but the placement of them in the paragraph is what gives it that “literary” feel, you know? They say, they say, they say, I want, I want, I want, I want, but nothing, move away. It’s a build up and a drop. (It also has to do with sentence length, here in particular, and how it changes through the paragraph.)

As for teaching myself how to do this, I kinda didn’t. I had a lot of great teachers. One of them made sure to point out how important it is to edit at the sentence level, which is what all of this is. How do the sentences work together to say what you want to say? It might seem obvious, but it kinda isn’t. (Just like anything with linguistics: once it’s explained, then it seems like the most obvious thing in the world. But it’s not, really.)

This is why I love formatting. Putting things in the right place can do just as much as writing a super long fancy sentence (which I also love doing, in the right places).

It’s tough! And it takes a long time. And you gotta practice a ton. I’ve been writing for what feels like forever, and it took me ages to figure out what I was doing by accident and start doing it on purpose.

#appendix #ender answers #authoressasusual #Writeblr Positivity Week #botanical compliment asks #I *love* answering craft questions #can you tell?#writing advice #my writing style #my process #my writing process #AOPC

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poppytheorist · 5 years

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Scary Mask

I don’t know what to say when people come apart

The road is long, the road is dark

And these are just the words to somebody else’s song

Before I get into it, I’d like to quickly note that this is not best post to start with. Same goes for the one on “Me Laughing.” My older posts are much friendlier reads and not nearly as dense.

Okay, let’s go.

At first I thought “Scary Mask” was straightforward, i.e. Poppy uses her persona (“I wear my scary mask”) as a defense when she finds herself in uncomfortable situations (“when I’m afraid I don’t belong”). “Well that was anticlimactic.” Indeed. But, of course, this is Poppy we are talking about, and nothing with Poppy is quite so simple.

The problem with basic interpretations that sum up a song with single sentence is that such readings miss all the nuances of the work, i.e., they leave out all the fun little twists in the lyrics, the double-meanings in the lines, etc. Basically, simplistic interpretations of lyrics ignore all the poetry, which is part of what allows music to transcend language. Poetic lyrics also provide us with new pieces of language so that we can better understand the increasingly complex world around us. Nestled in the gaps between our definitions lies the inexpressible that only poetry can render sensible.

Well-written (read: poetic) lyrics are part of what allows songs to completely baffle us; they allow songs to elude simple characterization and slip the shackles of obsessive categorization (e.g., genre). A truly great piece of music leaves us speechless; we cannot simply explain it to someone. Instead, the best we can do is say, “you know what? Just listen to this,” to which they are only able to reply, “wow… you’re right.”

This is why I love metaphors and dualities. Yes, I realize the previous sentence just caused every person who hated English in school to audibly cringe. Look, I’ve been there, I get it. I used to think English was a cruel joke played at everyone’s expense and that it was stupid because ‘there is no right answer.’ Then one day, all of that changed. Almost as though a switch was suddenly flicked ‘on’ in my brain. It wasn’t until I understood English that I finally appreciated it. I’ve never wanted to go back, so hear me out.

Metaphors are essentially a way of controlling the associations formed by your brain when you read or hear a word. They can make you associate simple pieces of language with something extraordinary, and make you see things in a way you would never have previously considered.

If you’d like to get fancy, you can start introducing dualities; that is, setting two concepts on opposing ends of a spectrum. When you do so, you allow the reader to consider new and (seemingly) impossible gradations, all born from the struggle between two relatively ordinary ideas.

Take, for example, Poppy’s ‘poetry-ecstasy’ duality that she introduced in “X.” This was the first thing that made me take a more serious look at her work, i.e., “I think something else is going on here…” We know poetry and ecstasy are meant to be diametrically opposed in “X” because the colors in the music video change in sync with Poppy’s delivery.

If YouTube subtitles weren’t broken, they would read: “poetry, poetry, poetry”

Likewise: “ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy”

It’s not obvious that poetry is the opposite of ecstasy unless you’re in Wonderland in which case, you messed up somewhere. Moving on, when you set two concepts against each other like that, you introduce a new interplay between the two ideas. Now the audience is forced to see things from a new perspective, one they would not have otherwise considered. Or, they just ignore it, as is usually the case, but I digress.

With all this in mind, further study into “Scary Mask” reveals that some parts of the more basic reading don’t quite add up. Take, for example, lines like, “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” or “You ain’t gonna see me tonight”; these lines refuse to fit neatly into the obvious interpretation e.g., why spell out ‘mask’? Why are [they] not going to see “you” “tonight?” Most people would choose to ignore these outliers or simply shrug and go about their day. If this post’s existence didn’t clue you in, we won’t be doing much ‘shrugging’ or ‘ignoring.’

You’ve probably noticed this already, but I try to forge readings of Poppy’s work that fit as many different pieces as possible into them. To craft interpretations that capture the interplay between all the elements in a song. Often, this requires approaching the song from multiple angles, some even being right. If this post is good, each interpretation should form its own colored shard of glass, leaving the reader with a beautiful explanative mosaic. If this post is bad, grab a broom and wear shoes for a week.

Hilariously, doing justice to the more abstract bits of art usually means I have to use figurative language to explain other figurative language. “Sounds meta.” Indeed. Some puzzles can only be done justice with other puzzles, which is also why my writing frequently dips into obscurity. Close reading yields wonders, but means interpreting ‘carefully’ and ‘openly.’ “Sounds like a lot of work.” It is, but anybody can come up with a vague idea of what a song is ‘about,’ e.g., “this one’s about love!” How insightful, you should post that on Genius, that’s just what they’re looking for. I mean, really, at that point what are you even getting out of the song? A few minutes of pleasure before you move onto the next one? Is that it? Are you going to just spend your entire life constantly devouring one helping after another, waiting hungrily for your favorite artists to dish up your next meal?

I may be going to hell, but at least I won’t be stuck doing that.

II.

Rise and shine—

get out of bed!

Take my hand,

there’s darkness ahead.

“Scary Mask” is one of Poppy’s best songs. No, I’m not interested in arguing about this. It is also one of Poppy’s most important songs. This, however, I am interested in arguing about.

For the sake of the following discussion, I will be ignoring most of Poppy’s singles. “Metal” and “Immature Couture” and [other singles] are good but they complicate things and I don’t have time to deal with them, despite having the time to tell you how little time I have. Fancy people would probably call such exclusions “exceptionally non-rigorous,” but I’m over it.

I tried to make this section not-boring, dunno if I was successful; my writing takes on the flavor of whoever I read last, hence why the “Me Laughing” post reads like schizophrenia. Lately, I’ve been feeling especially masochistic, so I’ve been reading [redacted]. Expect that to shine through.

Let’s zoom out for a bit: “Scary Mask” is the flagship song of Poppy’s Choke EP, though I am sympathetic to arguments for “Meat.” “Scary Mask” ties the whole EP together and makes it possible. It’s critical to Choke’s ‘flow.’ This isn’t a given, I’ll explain/pretend to explain.

The structure of Choke almost perfectly mimics that of a five-act play. Yeah, like that Shakespeare guy. The EP contains exposition, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a conclusion. The methodically squeezing “Choke” sets the mood and introduces a problem statement to color the rest of the EP. With its pendulum-like bassline and hypnotizing array of voices, “Voicemail” depicts a forsaken mind becoming further and further dissociated from reality. A complete breakdown occurs in “Scary Mask,” the explosive climax of the EP and, at least so far, Poppy's work. Following “Scary Mask” comes the bleak and gruesome “Meat,” which is clearly akin to the falling action. And finally, we are given “The Holy Mountain,” the EP’s pessimistic and wistful send-off.

As for the context in which “Scary Mask” was created, Choke comes after two pop-y records, Bubblebath and poppy.computer, and a half-pop, half-??? disc, Am I A Girl. After AIAG, Poppy had a choice: back off and return to pop or double-down and bring on the metal. Thankfully, she chose the latter and made Choke. Let’s all take a minute to praise AIAG for even allowing Poppy such options, for flowing together so smoothly, etc. Okay, séance over, let’s return: “Scary Mask” carried Choke, without it, the EP would’ve been severely lacking a massive, stand-out song to serve as the EP’s creative apex.

“Scary Mask” is, in a sense, the ‘no turning back’ point for Poppy. Producing “Scary Mask” was like Poppy locking her old style away and throwing out the key; “X” and “Play Destroy” were #wild, but “Scary Mask” was the third strike. Put confusingly, “Scary Mask” was Poppy’s ‘home run’ while also being the ‘final nail in the coffin’ and other idioms. The track is so far removed from the days of Bubblebath and P.C that it actually created a distance, a gap, between nu-Poppy and Pop-y. “X” has pop elements and Poppy cutely ‘ooo-ing’; it was walk back-able. “Scary Mask” has Jason Butler demonically screaming and saying the ‘fuck’ word; fine print says “no refunds.” Or, if you’d prefer analogies that are unlikely to age well: think of a giant iceberg breaking off from the main Arctic glacier and slipping into the cold, dark sea. Once it’s off, it’s not freezing back on. In other words, once Poppy dropped “Scary Mask,” ‘princess with a pistol’ became ‘demonic metal queen.’

I’ll also argue that “Scary Mask” is the least compromising song in Poppy’s current discography. It’s her truest expression of self pre-I Disagree. All artists have to make their music listenable-enough to get bread, just like I need to make my writing readable-enough to get read. Unfortunately, compromise is inevitable, but artists can still create good music. It’s just hard and getting harder. Plus, nobody agrees what ‘good music’ even means because we have no rigorous definition for art so—

When an artist decides to really ‘go for it,’ to make no compromises, and does it well, a beautiful thing happens. That’s what “Scary Mask” is for Poppy; she decided to pull no punches, and the result was, well, “Scary Mask.”

“X” and “Play Destroy” were both successful, but they didn’t guarantee Poppy’s nu-success. “Play Destroy” had Grimes, and “X” could have been an anomaly. If Poppy went back to pop, fans could have passed off her dip into metal as ‘weird’ but ‘kinda cool’ and that would be that. However, Poppy didn’t let up—“Scary Mask” proved she could consistently make quality metal tracks, and now we’re here and Poppy is about to destroy the world or something. Nice.

In summary: “Scary Mask” functions to transition Poppy’s sound, it does a damn good job of it, and I’m definitely looking forward to her new album.

III.

You try to take the best of me

Go away

You try to take the best of me

Go away

Alright, zoom back in. Yes, “Scary Mask” made it possible for Poppy to throw in crazy distorted guitars and for everyone to love it, but it does more than that. “Scary Mask” also transitions Poppy her(?)self, which sounds strange but it will make sense later, probably.

Now time for the fun part.

Sometimes I like to begin my analysis with a song's verses before circling back to the chorus, as was the case with "The Holy Mountain," however, "Scary Mask" is so crazy that it doesn't even matter where I start. It's what I lovingly refer to as “straight-up bonkers,” like some twisted monstrosity tearing its face off as it stumbles around in the dark. Reminds me of the psychos from Borderlands, an analogy that already has not aged well. Basically, “Scary Mask” is all over the place, so I might as well start from the ‘beginning.’ I'm going to have to pick up the pieces and stitch them into some monster that would do Mary Shelley proud anyway.

Let's dive in.

Poppy opens the song with: “I wear my scary mask when I'm afraid I don't belong.” Okay, seems pretty straightforward so far. There isn’t much to work with here, but maybe we can add some color to this line. BUILD series conducted a relatively listenable interview with Poppy earlier this year. One excerpt to note:

Interview: “Well, why wear a mask?”

Poppy: “Sometimes you just have two faces.”

Interview: “And that’s okay?”

Poppy: “Only sometimes.”

This is why I was debating just skipping “Scary Mask”—the opening line was a little cliché, and it seemed like Poppy had taken Batman Forever literally, neither of which are particularly good signs. However, I want to stress that lacking an interesting message wouldn’t necessarily make “Scary Mask” a ‘bad’ song. This idea may seem very strange, especially in modern society where it appears everyone agrees that deep themes=good art. We’ve been raised with the notion that the best art is art that tells a message, and it’s difficult for us to consider otherwise. However, not only does the conception of ‘depth’ quickly fall apart (as I noted in the “Me Laughing” post), but it’s entirely possible that thematic elements have absolutely zero bearing on the aesthetic quality of a work. In other words, ‘themes’ may not be what make art ‘good.’

Yeah, take a minute and think about that.

Anywho, after deciding I could afford to pay attention, I found many interesting things. Note Poppy’s word-choice. She uses the word “scary,” an almost child-like characterization of something fearful. Indeed, in the music video, Poppy’s hair is hidden or pulled back, giving her a youthful appearance. Look, pictures:

Moreover, peppered throughout the song are Poppy’s pouty squeals and she sings with call an almost ‘whimper-y’ tone, the end of her words marked by a spike in pitch. Obviously, we’d like to ask: why is she presenting herself to us this way?

We find answers in the second half of the line: “when I’m afraid I don’t belong.” Okay, so when she finds herself in situations where she is uncomfortable, where she is struck by the feeling of being small, almost child-like, she resorts to the mask as a defense mechanism. Now we’re getting somewhere, though I would like to ask: why is the mask “scary”?

Being two-faced does not necessarily mean the one face has to resemble Harvey Dent post-toasting, it could simply be a different side of your personality. Perhaps the next line will help:

You can’t read my brain until it’s off

Note Poppy says “brain” instead of any other word such as ‘mind’ or ‘thoughts.’ Using the word ‘brain’ signals a sense of invasiveness. Think: Sylar from Heroes cutting open peoples’ skulls and studying their brains for secrets. I’m sure many obsessive fans have tried digging up details on Poppy’s personal life and many interviewers have tried asking her inappropriate questions. It appears that Poppy wears a “scary mask” as a counter to such intrusions, as if she decided that the only appropriate response to these inappropriate behaviors was a face-to-face with the scary mask.

Holy shit, was this entire song written as a response to the AMP Radio interview? That would be hilarious.

Poppy then repeats that the mask is “not coming off.” Hey, wait a minute…

Okay, so after a fairly badass guitar interlude, Poppy begins feverishly chanting the lines: “I'm never gonna take it off, so don't touch me / Never gonna take it off, stop looking at me.” I’m sure some fans hate me because I’m always banging the drum that Poppy’s work is about obsession, and thus, appear to be attacking them, but come on, how clear would you like the message to be? Go watch “Repeat After Me” if you’re not convinced.

Anyway, in a sense, Poppy’s scary mask (read: freaky persona) operates as a shield from foreign bodies who seek to violate her personal space.

I’m going to leave Jason Butler’s lines for the end because, well, you’ll see.

IV.

In the music video for “Scary Mask,” after Poppy first puts the mask on and has a little breakdown, there are many instances where she is no longer wearing the mask, but is still acting like a possessed teen in desperate need of exorcizing. This is weird, here are some possibilities:

1) Poppy takes the mask off in the music video because she’s pretty and people want to see her lip-syncing.

2) The mask was always on.

We’re going with door #2.

Let’s look at some of the weirder lines, like Poppy chanting the incantation: “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” By spelling out ‘mask,’ Poppy signifies that the “am I okay?” question is directly referencing the mask she wears. In other words: is it okay for Poppy to wear a mask?

We already know Poppy came down pretty hard on one side of the fence when she answered “sometimes” in the BUILD series interview. My equally unambiguous answer is: “it depends.” There are many reasons why wearing a ‘mask’ is a terrible thing that slowly renders you psychologically ‘fucked,’ go read TLP or Lasch if you want more info on that (actually, you should just read them anyway). However, we’ve already established “Scary Mask” was an empowering song for Poppy because it served as a truer artistic outlet for her, so any masquerading should be approached with this in mind.

Alright, so when is it a good thing to wear a mask? How can it be a good thing to pretend to be someone you’re not?

Well, when you’re an artist, you typically create art to express something. Often, this ‘something’ is deeply personal to yourself. You put a lot of yourself into your work. This means criticism of your work can really hurt. After all, if someone calls your [song/painting/writing] ‘trash,’ it’s like calling you ‘trash.’ It feels like that criticism is aimed directly at that piece of yourself you put into your work. Yeah, that sucks. Sometimes it’s so difficult to bear that you avoid creating anything so you don’t have to be faced with such attacks. You forgo creating art because the injurious potential of criticism is too daunting. Without a creative outlet, your feelings remain bottled inside, slowly eating away at you from within. It’s a lose-lose game and everyone’s the player.

So, you ask: “what do I do?”

Well, that’s where the mask comes in.

The artist can use a persona to get around these problems. In other words, putting on a mask can actually allow you to finally be yourself, which seems paradoxical, but I’ll explain.

Take, for example, me. After reading enough of the silly words I write, you may start to form a picture of me in your head. To speculate and fantasize about what I actually look like or how I actually act. Without even knowing your thoughts, I can assure you that any such conceptions are completely inaccurate. I know that I’m not actually as [adjective] as you imagine me to be because I work with a protective persona. The persona allows me to write without worrying too much harsh criticism. Hence, with a persona, I can safely express myself through my work.

The same is true for Poppy. As I’ve noted in previous posts, Poppy has a lot to say about the world. She would like to express these messages artistically, but it’s not always easy to face criticism of her work (and Poppy gets a lot of hate). By adopting the ‘Poppy’ persona, Poppy is able to safely express herself. To finally say what she wants to say. To be who she really wants to be. And when she is faced with scathing criticism, she is able to continue her work undeterred because it feels like the criticism is directed toward Poppy (persona) instead of Poppy (person).

An alternate (and hilarious) reading of the lines “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” and “I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright” would be to imagine them as part of a demented question-and-answer period with Poppy. Many of her fans have expressed concerns over the effects of living your life pretending to be a [robot/alien/demonic angel], not to mention the section of Poppy’s fan-base who seem to constantly worry about Poppy being Titanic’s so-called ‘puppet’ and that he is abusive towards her. You can interpret Jason Butler screaming “I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright” as Poppy’s response to such concerns. Seems like an appropriate answer to me.

You try to take the best of me

GO AWAY

YOU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME

GO AWAY

YOU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME

GO AWAY

There are some remarkably odd lines in “Scary Mask” that need some serious groundwork to render sensible, so let’s switch gears for a second and complain about pop music. Yes, I know. It’s not exactly brave (let alone novel) to decry pop music as a vapid and soulless caricature of art, but I find it therapeutic. Plus, I’m clearly writing a narrative here. If these words make you indignant, first ask yourself ‘why?’ and then relax. I listen to pop music too, most of which is terrible. Also, I’m talking about the correlation, not the rule. If you fight me with exceptions, I’ll hit you back with trends.

Pop is the most apologetic music genre out there (though mumble rap and country are giving it a run for its money, literally); pop music’s main purpose is stated by its terminology: it exists to be popular. To be as widely palatable as possible so as to garner as many listeners as possible. The implications associated with a genre revolving entirely around popularity for the sake of commercial success are pretty disgusting. I’d even go so far as to say the existence of ‘pop’ as a musical genre is a strong indicator that culture is no longer treated as an essential component to human society, but is instead only another industry, and has been for a while. People love celebrating the façade or appearance of culture (partially so they can consider themselves ‘cultured’), but the truth is that culture now exists mainly as a commodity to be endlessly repackaged and sold back to people under the guise of ‘art.’ “I blame capitalism!” Sure, and you may not even be wrong, but that’s a discussion for another time. The point here is that to successfully create music with value, music that isn’t just a meaningless product, one needs to escape such a hyper-commoditized regime i.e., the corporatized pop-music industry.

Business-wise, Poppy did this by ditching Mad Decent and signing with Sumerian Records, an independent label which will hopefully make her very happy. Music-wise, she also had to transition. Recall: putting on the mask (read: persona) allowed Poppy to be herself and make the music she wanted to. So, to evolve her music, she had to also evolve the mask. After releasing two and a half pop records, people will generally expect, well, more pop. People don’t like when their favorite artists abruptly change, probably because they don’t wish to face the idea that said artists were never making music for them in the first place. Either way, for Poppy to tell tales of an impending apocalypse or drop an insane metal album like I Disagree, she had to ease fans into it. Musically, this is the second half of AIAG and the entirety of Choke, but it’s also a perfect encapsulation of “Scary Mask.” It’s possible that the bipolar nature of songs like “X,” “Concrete,” and “Scary Mask” is only due to Poppy trying to transition her sound without upsetting too many fans. Hence why these songs incorporate lighter sections to balance out the darkness. Perhaps “I Disagree” is as dark as Poppy’s going to get, but given recent news of her hanging out with Nadya Tolokno from Pussy Riot, I doubt it (“don’t know how long until they see the rest of me”).

This is also where Poppy’s YouTube videos come in. While producing new music, she can quickly put out a few videos and slowly ramp up the darkness, facilitating a comfortable change in artistic tone for the fans. Something, something, frogs and hot water.

Considering all of the above, I agree with something @thatpoppyuk said a while back in regards to people saying “Moriah is coming out!” when Poppy dyed her bangs:

Not only is it potentially insensitive to call Poppy ‘Moriah,’ it’s simply inaccurate. For better or worse, people don’t regress, they progress. Poppy is not doing something so #basic as ‘returning to her roots,’ she is becoming who she’s always wanted to be.

VI.

Now that we have completed the necessary groundwork, we are able finish off the rest of the song. Lyrically, “Scary Mask” is rather focused; we’ve actually covered all of Poppy’s lines, so I’d like to examine the role Jason Butler from Fever 333 plays in the song.

I’ve actually refrained from gushing about how good “Scary Mask” is until now, but I don’t think I can contain myself any longer. Fever 333 was an excellent feature that perfectly meshes with Poppy’s harmonics and the chomping guitar riffs. Not only that, but lyrically, Jason Butler brings an insane performance. He brings scary mask to life.

Fever 333’s role in the song is complicated and will take multiple approaches to flesh out. First, consider the scary mask (Jason Butler’s lines) as an entity speaking for Poppy, as though it were some demonic hype-man:

This would then explain the line, “well you heard the woman, so fucking look away.” It appears that Poppy needs someone telling others to “fucking look away,” betraying a sense of dependency. After all, if Poppy could handle such onlookers on her own, she wouldn’t need someone else telling them to ‘beat it.’ We may interpret this as a sign that Poppy has come to rely on the shielding-nature of the mask. She relies on her persona for protection, but reliance gives way to over-reliance. Naturally, substitution and dependency follow.

However, this isn’t wholly satisfying, nor is it very charitable. Let’s consider another, more empowering, approach, this time as Poppy speaking through the mask. In this case, a synthesis is underway between Poppy and her new persona (read: scary mask). During the violent transformation, she screams and struggles as the darkness of the mask washes through her, until the process is complete and both are one. Or, rather, Poppy is transcending her persona through her persona, a process of metamorphic self-realization.

Approaching the relationship between Poppy and the mask as a symbiotic one will perhaps explain one of the most bizarre lines in all of Poppy’s discography (minus every line in “Voicemail,” of course): “You ain’t gonna see me tonight!” I mean, what the hell. It’s difficult to explain how much this line confuses me, words simply elude me. This is one of those lines that normal people would shrug and come up with a half-hearted explanation such as: “well, Poppy is wearing a mask, and because she is wearing a mask, you aren’t going to see her. You know, because she’s wearing a mask.” Poorly-conceived explanations such as these negate the whole point of studying art. You can’t just jerk responsibility when ‘the going gets tough.’ The reward isn’t merely the end result, and people who believe this are the exact same people who Genius exploits. It is the work, the method, the climb, the struggle that is important because it is while grappling with the piece that one learns the most about oneself. With that being said, this line has haunted me for three weeks now, but I think I can do it some justice.

First, we examine the context in which the line appears in the song. The line first appears near the beginning of the song, wedged between a crushing guitar interlude and the Poppy’s staccato-ed “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” build-up. Then the line comes again at the end of Jason Butler’s insane post-chorus breakdown which is interlaced with Poppy’s disembodied screams. This second appearance follows a punchy chorus from Poppy and directly precedes a charged guitar solo and Poppy’s explosive final meltdown. From all this, we notice that “You ain’t gonna see me tonight!” is always delivered amidst a great deal of turmoil, always sprinkled into the middle of a violent episode.

Next, we look at the line itself. “Ain’t” and “gonna” are very colloquial, like the speaker hasn’t been taught to speak ‘properly’ or has lapsed into a state where they are unable to or simply do not care. I’m also picking up a touch of mentally-disturbed giddiness, as if some deranged killer is frothily barking this at you outside your window while his head jerks around. “Well, I’m definitely glad not to live on the ground-floor.” Likewise.

I must comment, however, that “Tonight” is an odd word choice. “Well, maybe they just needed a word that rhymed with ‘alright’?” Remember what I said about giving up when things get difficult? No, “tonight” relates a sense of shadowy immediacy, like a doom drawing near. Perhaps Poppy is about to descend upon the world, shrouding it in darkness with her black angel wings.

Hence, “You ain’t gonna see me tonight” relates the sense of foreboding violence that comes with Poppy’s new persona. This makes a lot of sense in the context of Poppy’s work because I Disagree is likely going to be her most aggressive album yet. See, for instance, “I Disagree.”

Basically: full dark, no stars; Poppy’s out for blood, time to take cover.

VII.

In summary: the ‘scary mask’ is a protective garment for Poppy as well as an empowering one. The adoption of an artistic persona allows her to cope with criticisms and continue her work. Recently, she has adjusted her work, and thus, her persona, to something truer to herself, and “Scary Mask” was an integral part of her transition.

Well, wasn’t that fun? I know I enjoyed myself.

Wait, what? You have a question? Ah, wait—I know what you’re thinking:

“If Poppy only wears her ‘scary mask’ when she’s ‘afraid she won’t belong,’ then why is she ‘never going to take it off’?”

Well, maybe she feels like she will never belong.

#poppy #scary mask

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