#i'm getting to the point where i hit translate on a tweet and just think

[gallus-rising]

the best part abt mostly following JP Bravern fans on twt is occasionally one of them will go on a massive tweeting spree and i'm like. ok ok let's see what she's cooking. and start translating and it's just 15 consecutive tweets that are "MEN CAN PRODUCE BREAST MILK IF YOU BELIEVE HARD ENOUGH SO DON'T GIVE UP, ISAMI/SMITH!!!"

[9w1ft]

Hi! I'm a longtime kaylor lurker, but I saw you and your anons were trying to think through the reason for this Travis Kelce push and I thought I'd share some perspective as an American who's not exactly a football fan per se, but is from an area of the country where football is very popular so I'm kind of an ambient fan by default. I'm very sorry this got a little long, but I do think there are some really interesting dynamics at play here, but the tldr; is - broad appeal for the American premiere and politics.

There are some optics about Travis Kelce that are I think getting lost in the NFL-to-Swiftie translation that may be important. He's a famous football player, yes, but NFL fans skew heavily towards older men in non-urban areas, which also means NFL fans skew conservative. Travis Kelce promoted Bud Light when transphobes in America were boycotting the brand, and is also partnering with Pfizer for a public health campaign to promote the COVID-19 vaccine, which is very controversial for American conservatives. He's also known as a very stylish man (which is weird to say but is pretty uncommon among American athletes, especially white ones, and he's well-known for it) and before Taylor, all of his known/rumored exes have been Black or mixed (I could write an essay on the racial dynamics alone of this weekend, but... suffice it to say it's there and messy). I'd also heard rumors that he was closeted before he got together with Taylor, but I never really looked into them that deeply so I don't know how true they are, or whether they arose just because he dresses well and doesn't usually date white women (sad but true that for a portion of Americans, that would be enough to make them doubt his masculinity and therefore heterosexuality). Which kind of gets to my point - before this, a lot of the more conservative wing of NFL fans saw Travis Kelce as controversial, "beta", not sufficiently manly, despite the fact he is a champion football player. I know all of this sounds a little insane, please remember that these are the people electing Donald Trump and going after drag shows and banning books with LGBTQ+ people in them.

So, with that slightly more nuanced image of Travis Kelce, I think that makes the clearest takeaway from this weekend, at least for me, how extremely traditional all-American it was. Football player, blonde girl cheering in the stands with his mom, driving off in his convertible after the game, them making a point to correct the initial reporting that she had paid for people's meals so that he's the one renting out the restaurant for her. To be clear, this isn't really how Travis Kelce is normally seen, and already I've seen some hit tweets with people dunking on conservatives criticizing Kelce for being insufficiently manly by responding something along the lines of "uh, he won the Super Bowl and bagged the world's most famous pop star, I think he's doing okay" - so, reading between the lines, he's performed (specifically) white masculinity very successfully. And for Taylor, too, I think we've already seen a lot of people saying how she's finally with a "real man" - he's very tall, he's very athletic, he's American, I think a lot of the joking anti-Joe "he's got a real job" comments fall into this bucket as well. She is performing white American womanhood in a very specific way, a large part of which is that she's being framed as not the 'dominant' partner in the relationship in the way she was in her relationship with Joe (by virtue of their differences in wealth and success).

So I think this is re-orienting both of their images into a new, very traditional, Americana-inspired direction. I don't think this is a market Taylor has really gone after maybe since she moved into pop in the first place, but especially not in recent years, when she swung very hard into a much more urban liberal niche (basing herself more out of NYC and London than Nashville, associating herself musically and socially with people like the Haim sisters, Phoebe Bridgers, MUNA).

I don't think we can know exactly why she's leaning this direction yet, but if I had to guess it's more about the American documentary premiere. In Hollywood, typically for the biggest box office impact you want a "four-quadrant movie" - one that appeals to the four biggest demographic quadrants (male/female and under 25/over 25). Taylor Swift's fanbase skews female and young, with a solid presence over 25 as well, and like I said earlier, the NFL's fanbase skews male and over 25. I don't think showing up to a football game will make a bunch of NFL fans suddenly want to see her documentary on opening night, but it may make them more inclined to go see it with their girlfriends, wives, or daughters a few days later, instead of staying at home, and that would have a very big box office impact.

I also think she *might* be looking at the political optics, and wanting to not only move on from MH but also put herself in a kind of solidly centrist-liberal place (she likes good ol' American football but also the vaccine! she votes Dem but she's not one of those New York liberal elites, she eats chicken tenders with seemingly ranch! - truly seems like this is a couple tailor-made (or maybe Taylor-made ;) ) to appeal to swing voters), which I think is very much where she tried to position herself with Miss Americana as well and which seems relevant given her voter registration push recently and as we move into an election year. I'll be very interested to see if she does anything further politically, or says anything about politics in her documentary again. Between her voter registration effort and his Pfizer partnership and the timing of both, politics is actually the angle I'd bet on driving this.

hi! thank you for sharing these thoughts, it provides more context for everything! i do think it shapes her persona in the public eye, and it’s interesting to think how that might benefit her in ways other than a profit motivation

[thankskenpenders]

Comic-Con has come and gone! It’s been an exciting time for Sonic comic fans with news about the upcoming Scrapnik Island miniseries, a live mural painting from Adam Bryce Thomas, Gigi Dutreix, and co., and more. Also, Penders was there

For a while now Penders has been saying that SDCC 2022 would be where he released the new hardcover reissue of Mobius: 25 Years Later with an added extra chapter and a few names changed, now packaged as The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings. (Before anyone asks: yes, he has the rights to rerelease his old Archie Sonic stories following the lawsuit, and yes, he says he’s going to pay the artists royalties. Kudos to him for that, at least.) While I take every creative endeavor the guy announces on Twitter with a massive grain of salt for obvious reasons, I thought this one might have some small hope of actually happening because it’s mostly just a collected volume of some comics that already exist and not a whole new graphic novel

So, did that happen?

Nope!

But he did show off a new build of the iOS-exclusive The Lara-Su Chronicles motion comic app, which is the main way he plans on releasing these things. He’s shared a few new videos on Twitter, too, so let’s take a look at those. This is what he’s been working on all these years

Let’s tackle these in chronological order. First up: the M25YL “remaster.” (I'm just linking directly to the original tweet because Tumblr won't let me upload more than one video.)

From that first page it's immediately obvious that the hand lettering is gone, replaced with a font. Between the few character names changed to maintain consistency with TLSC and the many translations he's doing, digital lettering is probably just easier on that front. I won't knock him too much for that, although the fact that he kept the same random words bolded is funny to me

No, what really knocks me on my ass here is when we get to the second page and we see that the new motion comic format and the need to show more of the backgrounds means that not even this "remaster" is safe from Ken's horrible fucking photo backgrounds. Here's a direct comparison of how he ruined this panel, originally drawn by Steven Butler and colored by Jason Jensen:

I should add in here that I don't hate the use of photo backgrounds on principal. You can do some really cool things with mixed media! As is true of basically everything in art, any technique can be cool if it's used with the right intent. I was a Homestuck reader in its heyday, and it made cool use of color-altered photo landscapes and images taken straight off the internet mixed with the cartoony characters and original elements. But this is not that. This isn't trying to be mixed media or alternative or counterculture or whatever, it's just a shoddy attempt to save time on a hamfisted tribute to Silver Age comics

It's also worth noting that Angel Island, which looks extremely tiny here, is in fact the same shitty image Penders has been using as his personal logo for years

Next up, an excerpt from The Storm, the prologue chapter starring Geoffrey that will be included with the rerelease of M25YL. He's been posting previews of this for years

This one also has voice acting! Bad voice acting!

When asked what happened to Geoffrey's signature accent, Penders said that he only had access to an American actor, and that he'd rather not have him use a fake accent. The audio is apparently also temporary, although how much will or won't be changed in the full release is impossible to predict. Either way, the wooden voice acting does Ken's typically clunky dialogue zero favors here, and it continues to baffle me that he thinks all of these motion comic bells and whistles are somehow worth all the added time and effort when it's been over a fucking decade and he still hasn't released the first of seven planned volumes

Also noteworthy here is that we actually see the point where the timeline-altering energy wave or whatever hits? I guess? I assume that's what's happening, because the art style deliberately changes from Ken's best approximation of what he thinks Archie Sonic looked like (which already isn't great, although the dog girl is almost kinda cute) to his new style for TLSC, which. God. Look at that profile view of Geoffrey

Lastly we have a preview of the opening of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, AKA the actual first volume of the series. It's the scene of Lara-Su walking on the beach and shedding a single tear over how Knuckles is dead, as one does

It's not as noticeable in the video, but I need to link to the full res version of the shot of Lara-Su sitting on the rocks so you can appreciate how truly fucking horrendous the jpeg artifacting is. At the risk of referencing Homestuck too many times in one post, this is truly some Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff level shit. I don't know how he did this

And, at the very end we have a special guest appearance from the one, the only... the unlicensed likeness of Anthony Mackie that he is still fucking using for this character. Despite his appearance changing slightly in other art, this page still very much just uses a redraw(?) of Mackie's IMDB profile photo

And that's it! If you've been following the updates on this project for years like I have, you may have noticed something

None of these pages are actually new!

I'm pretty sure we've seen every single one of these before. Some of them are from years ago. If there's actual new material in this preview build of the app beyond the addition of speech bubbles to some of these pages, it's not present in these videos. Penders says that his next priority after recharging from the con will be releasing TLSC Beginnings (the M25YL rerelease + that Geoffrey chapter), but it's hard for me to believe he's anywhere close to releasing anything in the state these previews are in, unless he's secretly sitting on a whole bunch of pages that he just didn't want people to read for free at his con table

As usual, though, Penders claims that the responses from Comic-Con attendees were positive, particularly in comparison to the constant dunking he's subjected to on Twitter. People were even buying his prints. (He also posted a photo of Karl Bollers visiting his table. I don't know what Bollers thought about the app.) My kneejerk reaction is that I find this kind of hard to believe, but it's also like... I dunno, people are just generally going to be polite at a con, nine times out of ten. Most people are not going to walk up to someone at an artist alley and be like "hey bro your prints look like dogshit." It isn't the place for that. They don't wanna cause a scene by getting into an argument in the middle of their expensive con trip. I also don't doubt that there are a lot of people out there who probably see the old Archie Sonic comics he always has for sale at cons and go "oh hey I've heard of that" or "oh I read some of those as a kid!" and then realize he was one of the writers and wish him luck on his new endeavors, blissfully unaware of decades of obscure Sonic drama. And while it's well documented that I don't like the guy or his work, I don't think that's a bad thing! People are allowed to be polite to him. I do not want him to get pelted with fucking tomatoes every time he goes outside

But the thing is, most of the feedback the guy's getting is either polite well-wishing within the context of a busy convention, or people spamming him with pictures of Donkey Kong and telling him to retire on Twitter. And so he's shutting out the latter, and taking the fact that people aren't beating his ass in the QRTs at the SDCC show floor as a sign that he's on the right track, and that Twitter is just full of haters looking for ammo

And like. He's not wrong on that last point! People blame him for all sorts of shit he didn't actually do and take many things wildly out of context and spam his replies for fun

But Jesus Christ, my guy. You've been working on these comics for a decade and the art looks like this

[honeymouthedtales]

Not fic related, but what can you say about the issue surrounding hc? Some say its lost in translation but idk what to believe. I'm not fluent in Korean after all. I'm quite on the heavy side, so seeing haechan say such words, as his fan, is uncomfortable...

i tried to find an ask i was sent about a similar issue but it was jeno talking to haechan a few months ago, because my answer will be the same i gave that day. unfortunately it was on cc and cc doesn't allow to look for old tweets, nor is twitter helpful in any way so i'll try to answer again.

under the cut bc very long sry

first of all, it's completely normal to feel uncomfortable. those are your feelings and they're valid. your feelings are separate from the intentions of the person who said those words, so no matter what you're entitled to feeling hurt if you feel like your bias might be fatphobic and no one should be telling you otherwise. in any case, feeling disappointed is not wrong because as many people are saying he is a public figure and his words can reach (and hurt) many people.

this said, as someone who lives in korea, i do understand why some people who are korean are saying his words are being greatly exaggerated by ifans. korean people constantly comment on other people's weight. it's to the point that i think it's a way for them to make small talk. just like they ask people if they have eaten when they want to ask how they're doing, food is often used in connection to health. when people haven't seen you for a long time they usually tell you that you've gained or lost weight as well (happened many times with me) and people do tell others to eat well as a good health wish. that's why i think that telling people to get in shape and take care of your body does not necessarily mean that he thinks they are fat, it's just a way to say take care of your health. imo it would be wrong to read a deeper meaning in it.

back to my previous point. does that make your hurt unnecessary? no, because you can get hurt even he didn't mean to say something hurtful. if you get run over by a car it doesn't matter whether the driver meant to do it or not.

but i don't accept the narrative that hc is a terrible person who judges the members' bodies because he is fatphobic, and anyone believing this has clearly never lived in korea, where the kind of sentences he said are as common between friends (especially male friends) as using the weather to make small talk. if you want a real example, i dare you to look at the other nct dream members. all of them have, in other instances, made comments that according to our standards would be judged "fatphobic" while they were talking among each other. do we stan a group of assholes or are we going to acknowledge that there might be a certain degree of cultural difference at play between the way we consider acceptable to talk about other people's bodies and the way they do it?

i'd like to add something i said when this issue happened with jeno and haechan was called fat instead. i'm not haechan's babysitter. he doesn't need me to defend him when he's talking with his friends. if what is said among them is problematic, i'm sure they are all old enough to talk among themselves and solve the problems. what they don't need is some fans (often solo stans or akgae) inventing a narrative in their head, analyzing reactions to support their theories and then proudly saying "member x is an asshole" and deciding that they, as strangers, know their friendship better than dream, the actual group of friends. and this is just to get rt and likes, for the drama. it's meaningless to always praise dream for having a genuine relationship but then distort every single instance of genuine reaction we get from them just to make a hit tweet. if jn and jm were annoyed by that comment, i trust them to say something among each other without everyone butting in blindly.

finally, i'm sorry that as a haechan fan he disappointed you. i do think what he said is wrong. i think he should've minded his words better. i don't like when he says stuff like that. i don't believe he wants to be hurtful, but at the same time i don't think he saw a problem with what he was saying because most people around him don't. not only the other members, but also the staff, his family, other celebrities. it's alright being disappointed, but i hope we can all be realistic and stop pinning the weight of a behavior that is widely normalized on a single idol every time something like this happens.

I hope I explained myself properly. It's a delicate issue, and as a fan I have to juggle between dealing with my own feelings of disappointment and seeing many comments of people who are inventing things or being hurtful just because they finally have a good pretext to do it.

[vmin95zworld]

Vmin moments flashback pt. 3

*and then remember when taehyung got confused while they were filming the mv for 'dope' and jimin said, 'i guess you got confused from behind because of my ass' (This clip kills me lol)

*and then remember when, at a music show pre-recording, taehyung said, 'jungkook has the best thighs, but jimin's butt is the best'

*and then remember when taehyung wrote a poem for ot7 and when he got to jimin's part, he said, 'no matter what you do on stage, you'll always be the coolest performer i've ever seen'

*and then remember when jimin had to get taehyung a gift for the run ep, and he was upset that the budget was only 30k won because he wanted to spend more (spoiler: he did), and he bought taehyung 2 bears that taehyung photographed as the bears for his 'winter bear' cover art

*and then remember when jimin said he fell asleep listening to winter bear every night for several months and that he had a dream where winter bear was the bgm and two bears walked up to him and then taehyung appeared in his dream too and he said, 'it was a nice dream'

*and then remember when jimin said, 'i wanted to be the only one to know about this song,' in regards to winter bear, and then he said he's possessive and that he doesn't want to share his 'handsome friend' with us and that we probably won't know him anyway

*and then remember when taehyung tweeted a photo of his hand clasped in jimin's, with seoul as their nighttime backdrop, and he said, 'let's go for a long time, i only have you'

*and then remember when vmin were dreaming up a cute future and pointing out buildings on opposite ends of the street and said things like, 'in some years, you buy this one, i'll buy this one. let's say hello to each other from the top.'

*and then remember when one of the questions on taehyung's festa profile was, 'what do you want from jimin?'

& taehyung said, 'just for jimin to be happy'

& for the question, 'my best moment with jimin is: ', taehyung wrote, 'from the first time i met him until now is the best'

*and then remember when jimin once said, 'in taehyungie's head, there is only me...cutie.'

and then remember when an interviewer was praising taehyung, but taehyung just said, 'yes, thank you, can i go back to talking about jimin?'

*and then remember when a reporter once asked jimin if taehyung has a crush on him and why it looks like he does, and jimin was like, 'taehyung has a crush on me? we are the same age, so we are close. 😊'

*and then remember when jimin said, "when i first saw taehyung, i thought he's a strange kid, but the things i found weird back then have now become things i've grown to like. some days, i think he is the handsomest man in the world; others, i wonder, is he really that handsome?"

*and then remember when jimin proudly showed off his phone case to their interviewer and said taehyung made it for him and painted the word, 'penicillium' on it (after jimin's 'serendipity') and hobi laughed it but jimin ignored him and said, 'it's cute. it has a vintage charm.' https://t.co/svTW2QiYlA

*and then remember when a fan asked taehyung what jimin is to him, and taehyung said, 'he's mine'

and remember his birthday letter for jimin, when he wrote, 'jiminie is mine, jiminie's birthday is also mine, jiminie belongs to me; let's go for a long time'

+ 2 staff accounts

*and then remember when jimin said, "taehyung is the happiest when he's with me"

and then remember when taehyung said his protector his jimin and he asked cutely, "will you stay and protect me forever?"

*and then remember when jimin said the first time he saw taehyung, he was only in red boxers

or when taehyung said that the first time sang in front of jimin, he wanted to look cool in jimin's eyes, but only ended up humming 'doombadoomba' the whole time because his mind blanked

*and then remember when vmin filmed a puma ad together and jimin said, 'you're really weird...but that's why i like you.'

*and then remember when jimin said, 'i'm your angel,' & taehyung smiled fondly and said, 'that's right.'

remember when jimin bought taehyung a dreamcatcher necklace because he was scared at nights & taehyung wrote in his diary entry, 'jiminie gave me a necklace so i'm very happy'

*and then remember when taehyung arrived to malta late and jimin aggressively made everyone record an 'i love you' message for taehyung and when taehyung replied to him while jimin was outside, jimin immediately wanted to go back home so he could see tae's messages with the wifi

*and then remember when taehyung looked at jimin and said, "when i feel blue, your smile can cheer me up."

or when taehyung arrived at malta and said, "i want to sleep with jiminie," and jimin couldn't stop giggling

*and remember when, at a fansign, someone asked jimin what he thinks is the cutest thing about him, and taehyung answered instead, saying, “from head to toe, everything about jiminie is cute.”

*and remember when, at the same fansign, jimin said the thing that makes him happiest these days is ‘taehyungie’s eyesmile’

or when someone asked taehyung to say something about his pet at home, and he said, “jiminie is very cute and obedient and listens well.”

*alternatively, remember when joon addressed vmin as, ‘orange hair & his pet dog’,

& when namseok said, ‘taehyung, you found your soulmate, jimin!’ during a blindfolded game

& when joon cut in with a, ‘because he’s your friend’ when jimin said, ‘taehyung’s making my heart race’

*and then remember when jimin accidentally blurted out that he went to taehyung's family home to visit tannie & then taehyung started talking about all the tricks tannie can do now. he said that these days, tannie likes to kiss people & jimin said, 'my innocence was stolen today'

*and then remember when jimin said that the song that comes to mind when he thinks of taehyung is standing egg's 'little star'

*and then remember when they were paired up for a cooking contest, and jimin held taehyung's hand the entire time and said firmly, "stay by my side, i'll take responsibility for you."

*and remember when taehyung said, "jimin-ah, when you try to do aegyo, it's really not cute at all...but because you're the one doing it...why do I still find it cute?? thank you"

*and remember when jimin said tata's design was meaningful, and remember that taehyung, 'used to draw jimin as the heart figure'

*and remember when jimin insisted on wanting to check inside taehyung's pants when he got hit over the dick with a paintball, 'for your safety! be careful with that!'

*and remember when taehyung said he feels thankful for, "jiminie & friends"?

how about when taehyung said, "i wish i had a jimin-mode on my phone"

what about when taehyung sang, "it's me, you, me, you & me, you, me, you, & me & you,' at jimin while jimin laughed fondly.

* And then remember the letter taehyung wrote for jimin in BV 2 ?

(p.s.

things jimin has called taehyung:

• baby bear

• beloved

• baby

• lovely

• pretty

• precious

• handsomest man in the world

• special person

• best friend

• unique friend

• true best friend

• soulmate )

(p.p.s.

things taehyung has called jimin:

• baby

• cutie

• angel

• best friend

• warmest person

• unique best friend

• one and only true best friend

• beloved

• his moon

• soulmate )

Again This is not 100% accurate specially in translation But when you saw all this moments You will definately connect it

Crdts: @vmxn (twitter)

[bloodontheredrose]

My Brutally Honest Opinion on the new BTS album...

*Please note this is just a personal opinion.

I decided to post it because I wanna see if there are armys out there with the same opinions or it might be just me, having this kind of feelings about the 7 album.

* It took me a while to process it so here it is.

I honestly believe "Persona" had more potential to get a Grammy than this one. That's why is depressing Persona never got a nomination. I'm gonna explain it.

My biggest problem with this album is the boring, empty, blunt production when the boys wrote some of the best lyrics and songs of their careers.

SHADOW: is one of my favorite tracks. Nothing much to say about it. It's Yoongi. Dark, real and raw. It also sampled a past song, so the production it's automatically a success.

BLACK SWAN: I loved the concept. It took some time for the song to grow on me. Powerful lyrics but something was wrong with the melody. The first times I listened to it, I couldn't remember it. I couldn't recall the chorus. I personally think that when a song doesn't leave a trace in your mind the first time you hear it, it's not a powerful song. Because it's forgettable.

FILTER: It perfectly describes Jimin. A Libra King. Jimin the people pleaser. The song is fun, it makes you move but I heard it before. Nothing deep. Nothing original about it. It's a mix of Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello... drunk latino vibe. Another song that grew on me with time.

MY TIME: I was convinced this song was dedicated to JK's secret hookup with all that " I can't call ya", " I can't touch ya" in English. It's a sex song until you read the lyrics. Weirdly, it bored the hell out of me the first time I heard it to the point I wanted to skip it. It gave me The Weeknd vibes and despite the meaningful, sad message it failed to make me feel emotional. Up until, like I said, I read the translation.

LOUDER THAN BOMBS: The moment at least 10 people tweeted, including Troye Sivan, that they worked on it...my expectations went crazy high. It delivered. It caught me from the first second but it was not as good as I expected it to be. Way too short and it would've been easy to make it longer by giving V and Jin a proper number of lines. Just saying.

ON: is the biggest disappointment on this album for me. Specifically because it's the lead single. I loved the lyrics, I loved the concept but once again, just like JK's solo, I couldn't connect with it. It was as forgettable as Black Swan and it took 2 days for me to remember the chorus. A failure if I were to compare it with their past singles like " Fake Love" " Idol" etc. A thing that makes you forget the vibe of the song the first time you hear it, it's actually Jk's beautiful bridge. Somehow it breaks the vibe of the song and I think they could've easily avoid it to make the song more catchy.

UGH!: The rap line always gets it right. And they did. It's the best song on the album because the song delivered both lyrically and sonically...

Zero O'clock: I expected a Truth Untold when I heard it's the vocal line doing it. It didn't happen. It bored me the first time I heard it and it grew on me the second time I listened to it and looked up the lyrics.

INNER CHILD: It made me cry the first time I heard it and I cried harder the moment I read the lyrics. It's the only solo on the album that actually delivers. It's personal, it's emotional, it's Tae...

FRIENDS: A private, fun song. It perfectly describes them. I felt like an intruder while reading the lyrics in English but I disliked the sound the first time I heard it. Not my type and I think it's harder for people who don't know V or Jimin to connect with it.

MOON: I honestly think Jin is underrated so I expected more from his solo. It's a beautiful song he dedicated to the armys but I really wanted him to take off the insecure, " I'm world wide handsome" mask. I know he's more than that and I wish that will come out also in his songs. Wished he would've went as deep and personal as Kookie and Tae did honestly.

RESPECT: It gave me nice vibes. Like driving in a car with the sun in front of you. It brought back old memories. It's a chill song. Though... Despite belonging to two of the best writers and producers in the group it doesn't say much lyrically. All you hear for half of the song is Yoongi's sexy Daegu dialect " What is respect, dude?"

WE ARE BULLETPROOF: THE ETERNAL: It disappointed me at first because after all the previous slower, ballade songs I wanted this one to go higher like the first bulletproof did and maybe be the next Dionysus. It didn't happen. It's more the Mykrokosmos of the new album and I accept it since it shows how BTS changed, closing an emotional circle. It's the song that gave me goosebumps reading the translation because it reminded me they're about to go to military service and in the future retire. So it hit hard. It felt like this song was screaming "this is the last album you get as 7" right in my face. I can't quite listen to it without this thought coming up. Even tho it might not be true. It's excruciating.

EGO: When it came out as a trailer after Shadow I didn't quite enjoy it. I wanted Hobi to go in a different, darker direction. But it completes the album and is the perfect song with its vibe to close it.

ON feat. SIA:

*insert "what was the reason" gif*

I don't wanna say they robbed Sia because maybe the guys told her what she was supposed to sing and she sang it the way she sang it. It was horrible af. It sounded awful. The more I hear it, the more it annoys me. She tried too hard to sound like them or get into their vibe. Which makes me think she has no idea who they are. She sounds like a twelve year old who recorded herself singing the chorus over the original song. I didn't even recognize her voice at first. I remember the team at the conference before the release how they were rambling about Sia bringing different colors to the song and the song being different from the original. Uhhhh... Where? It sounds exactly the same and at times you don't even notice her. This colab was wasted, Sia's voice was wasted and it wouldn't have been that hard to give her a proper verse. Whatever...

In all honesty I think the album, despite its emotional baggage, is too weak to go to the Grammys. It's an album dedicated to the armys. It's already hard to understand the guys in Korean. If you are not a fan and the songs don't catch you at the first listen, if they don't tell you much despite the language is 100 times harder to reach these other people. I thought Persona was that kind of album. I remember how I felt when I heard " Singularity", " Pied Piper" " The Truth Untold" for the first time. No songs on the new album delivered that kind of feeling for me. It might be just me so...

I just wanna say I am thankful for BTS and their music but it's ok to have conversations about things we don't like I guess.

IF YOU DISAGREE PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL.

I 💜 YOU!