#sing mini bang 2017

[singminibang]

Streets of Gold (6 times Buster showed he cares, and 1 time they repaid him)

Author: OtaGamerKorin (tumblr: @otagamerkorin)

Artist: stevetwisp (tumblr: @stevetwisp)

Summary: It’s been a long time since Buster has had what he could earnestly call a family. So it’s not really a surprise that he’s a bit out of practice with the “care for and protect” side of things (though not for lack of trying). It can’t be that complicated right? When a member of the theater though, life is anything but mundane.

Chapter 1: The Time He Got In Over His Head

(Read the rest on AO3.)

Buster had never really had a family. Well, perhaps that was a bit of a lie. He’d had one once, long ago. His mother had passed away when he was quite young, and for years it had just been him and his father. But even he’d had to leave eventually, leaving Buster a theater, a legacy and a bit of a predicament. The young koala had never been interesting in settling down, his heart belonging firmly to the preforming arts, and he had no closely related family with whom he could potentially bond. As thus, he’d quickly resigned to the idea of spending the rest of his days alone, surrounded perhaps with friends and colleagues, but none he could truly call family.

But then the performers came into his life, spurned by a desire to achieve that he couldn’t help but cultivate. Suddenly he was surrounded by people he’d put anything on the line for, even his precious theater, in order to protect. And they, though certain ones tended to deny it, would do just the same. It was an odd group, rag-tag and coming from all walks of life, but he loved them. Although you’d never hear him say it out loud, he’d found his family.

So it was no surprise that, when Rosita stumbled in one morning, looking like death incarnate, he’d immediately leapt to his feet and rushed to her side.

“Rosita, are you alright? You don’t look well.” He asked, looking her over. Her shoulders were slumped in exhaustion, eyes lightly unfocused when she glanced at him. She urged a tired smile onto her face, giving a little sniffle before she spoke.

“I’m fine Buster. Things are just a bit hectic at home is all. Half the kids are going through growth spurts and the rest are all just getting over colds. I must have picked up a bit of a bug from them. I should be right as rain in a few days.” She assured him, but the koala still tilted his head in concern, placing a hand on her arm.

“Are you sure?”

“I pulled through finals week for my engineering degree with a nasty case of pneumonia. It’ll take more than a simple cold to take me down.”

“Alright, if you’re certain. Gunter’s already back in the practice room. But if you start feeling any worse I want you to come tell me alright?”

“I promise Buster.” She replied, before tromping off in the direction of her partner. He stared after her for a moment before being distracted by a familiar engine rev, heading outside to meet Mike.

The rest of the morning passed much as usual, Buster moving between the different performers and giving them direction as needed. Rosita’s voice was straining a bit on certain higher notes and she was taking more breaks than usual, often choosing to sit and cool down by the air vent while Gunter practiced his solo moves, but otherwise the mother seemed to be holding up fine.

It wasn’t till the day was nearing mid-afternoon that he noticed something amiss. As he glanced into the dancing duo’s while he passed, he noticed her leaning against the wall, her head leaned back against the cool paneling. Frowning, he opened the door and softly called in.

“Rosita?”

At her lack of reply he and Gunter glanced at each other in concern and made their way over.

“Rosita? Are you alright?” He asked once more, taking a knee and reaching out to gently shake her shoulder. This seemed to wake her from her doze and her eyes sleepily opened. She lifted a hand and rubbed at them as she fully sat up, giving a yawn.

“Buster? Oh, did I doze off? Sorry.”

He disregarded her words, choosing instead to settle a hand on her forehead. He grimaced and pulled back, looking at her with a series gleam in his eyes.

“Rosita, you have a fever.”

“A fever? Oh Buster, I’m sure it’s not that bad. I’m just a bit waa-“

Her protests slurred into a groan as she tried to stand, swaying violently on her feet for a moment before sinking back to the ground, head in her hands.

“Alright, that’s it. You’re going home. No if’s ands or buts.” The koala declared before she could try and argue again.

“Gunter, could you help me get her outside?”

Rosita slumped a bit between them with a sigh, evidently giving up on her protests. As they helped her through the main stage towards the parking lot, the rest of the team quickly caught sight of them and made their way over.

“Rosita? Did something happen?” Meena asked, looking the woman over for injuries and the mother smiled at her.

“I’m just feeling a bit sick. Nothing to worry about. I’ll be good to go after a bit of rest.”

“Johnny, may we borrow your truck? We’re going to take her home.” The director asked as the others crowded around.

“Oh, yeah of course.” The gorilla said quickly, digging through his jacket and handing him the keys. He noodled in appreciation and, gently shooing the worried others out of the way, they started once more for the parking lot, the koala giving a call over his shoulder.

“We’ll be back soon, just keep practicing in the meantime!”

With that they helped her out to the black pickup, settling her comfortably between them in the front seat and setting off. Rosita’s house wasn’t all that far from the theater, thus why she walked every day, but by the time they reached it she was dozing again and Buster gently shook her awake as Gunter parked. They helped her out of the car and to the door, Buster fishing the keys out of her purse.

“Thank you guys, I really appreciate the help. Once I get some rest I should be just fi-”

As Buster opened the door a veritable explosion of sound erupted from behind it. Rosita’s face became confused for a moment before she shook her head.

“Right, the kids only had a half day. Well, so much for the peace and quiet.” she sighed before stepping inside, the other trailing behind her.

As the door clicked shut behind them there was a sudden lull in the ruckus, before there came a chorus of shouts and the sound of stampeding feet.

“MOMMY!”

The piglet’s rounded the corner in mass, their eyes going wide with gasps of delight as they spotted them.

“UNCLE BUSTER! UNCLE GUNTER!”

Normally Buster would have found the nicknames endearing, adorable even, but he found himself a bit too terrified to notice as the kids rushed them. Rosita braced herself with the poise only someone who’d been practicing for years could achieve, but Buster and Gunter weren’t so lucky. As the swarm launched themselves at the three the latter two were almost knocked off their feet, Buster actually collapsing back against the wall under the weight of the multiple children clinging to his torso and legs.

“Alright, alright everybody calm down. They won’t be here long, they were just helping Mommy-”. She gave a chuckle at their antics as they tugged at her legs, lifting her hands to calm them. Before she could finish though, she gave a little groan, pressing a hand to her head as a wave of dizziness passed over her. The children stilled when they noticed, releasing Buster and Gunter so they could crowd around their mother.

“Mommy? Mommy, what’s the matter?”

“She’s just feeling a bit sick, so we brought her home. How’s about you all help us get her into bed?” Buster tried and the kids jumped to action, most rushing off while a handful stayed behind to lead them through the house. They successfully made it up the stairs to find the rest waiting by the open bedroom door, just finishing fluffing the pillows and straightening the comforter as they walked up. Rosita smiled warmly at the sight.

“Aww thank you my dears.”

They helped her into bed and she looked down at the kids watching worriedly at the beds’ edge with a smile.

“Why don’t you all go play downstairs while I talk with your “uncles”?” she suggested and the children were out of the room in an instant, even closing the door behind them as they went. Once they were gone Rosita turned to them with a look of appreciation.

“Thank you both so much for the help. I’m sorry for being such a bother today.”

“Bother? You’re no bother! You’re sick! Of course we’re gonna help you!” Gunter replied and she gave a chuckle.

“Either way, you should probably be heading back to the others.”

“Are you sure you’ll be ok here alone?” Buster asked and she shook her head.

“I’ll be fine. Norman should be home from work in just a few-“

She suddenly paused as though something had occurred to her and gave a frustrated groan, letting her head fall back against the pillows.

“Oh damn it.”

Gunter and Buster jumped a bit at the exclamation then regarded her in confusion, the koala speaking once more.

“Is something wrong?”

“I just remembered that Norman is out of town for a business conference till tomorrow morning. Well, there’s not much that can be done about it now.”

The two men glanced at each other and exchanged a nod.

“Alright. Gunter, head back to the theater and let the others know they can go home. I’ll stay here for the night.”

“What?! Buster, I couldn’t ask you to do that! You’re so busy lately!” Rosita chirped, jerking back upright.

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not asking me then. Besides, how are supposed to recover if there’s no one around to keep an eye on you, hmm?” He replied, handing the truck keys to Gunter. The mother considered his words for a moment before giving a sigh and relaxing once more.

“If you’re sure...”

Accepting her surrender, Gunter headed out, boisterously bidding the piglets farewell whilst Buster stayed behind to fetch a few books for the sick singer and pull the lamp closer within her reach. He paused when he felt eyes on him and turned to see Rosita staring at him. He cocked an eyebrow and she sat up a bit to meet his eyes better.

“Buster, are you really sure about this? I know you’ve been busy getting ready for the new show.”

To be honest, she wasn’t wrong. The instant he’d announced their new project, the workload had picked up quite a bit. It was to be a unique one, that’s for sure, and when he’d announced the theme the others had leapt headfirst into the fray, but that also meant even more long nights for him than usual. Still...

“Rosita, it’s fine. I’m happy to help. Besides, we don’t premiere for a few more months. One missed work night won’t bring everything crumbling down. Now get some rest.” He assured her, moving to the door and opening it. He winced at the wave of noise that leaked in from downstairs and quickly fetched a thick blanket, pinning it over the doorway to help block the clamor. With that he took a deep breathe, braced himself, and headed downstairs.

What he found was absolute chaos. Free to play, the children were going absolutely nuts, chasing each other around, jumping on the furniture, throwing balls and other toys to each other, and generally being kids. As he stepped off the landing several of them saw him and ran over to swarm around his legs in excitement. He froze and looked around in panic as they laughed and tugged at him, at a loss for what to do. Something suddenly landed on his back, nearly knocking the breath out of him, and he just barely managed to catch the kiddo as they climbed up over his shoulder and fell with a giggle. Gently holding them up in front of him, he felt little feet once again clambering on his back and then a weight settled on his head. A piglet’s upside-down visage appeared in his view as they leaned over into his face, a grin on the youngsters face.

“C’mon Uncle Buster! Play with us!”

Buster gave a nervous hum, feeling sweat bead on his forehead. Oh boy, he may have bitten off a bit too much this time.

“Umm, maybe in a bit kid.” He replied, glancing out at the chaos. No way was Rosita gonna get any rest with all this going on. Well, seems like he had a step one at least. And, while he didn’t know much about children, he had more than enough practice at wrangling theater casts. Swapping the piglet he held over to one arm, he glanced between him and the one on his head.

“Cover your ears you two.”

Though looking a bit confused, they did so, and he lifted two fingers two his mouth, giving a loud whistle. The pandemonium stilled as the kids turned to look at him in curiosity. Gently setting down the two clinging to him, he crossed his arms and addressed the crowd.

“Alright everybody, listen for a minute. You’ve been sick before right? And your mom always took good care of you, right?” He asked, keeping his voice calm and friendly, and a chorus of “Right!”s met him.

“Well, right now she’s not feeling well, so now our job is to take care of her. And the first thing we need to do is make sure to keep the noise down so she can rest, ok?”

Again there came a clamoring of replies and he felt a tug at this pant leg, looking down to see one of the kids looking up at him questioningly.

“Is there anything else we can do to help Mommy?”

He smiled down at the child, reaching down to ruffle their ears as he thought. Rosita still had a fever, if not a very high one, so it was probably best they dealt with that first.

“You guys have a medicine cabinet?” He asked and the kids leapt into action, grabbing at his hands and tugging him towards what he assumed was the kitchen. They lead him to a cabinet near the sink and he had to grab a few of them as they climbed up on the counter in an attempt to get into it, grabbing a stool and peeking inside himself. It was well stocked thankfully and he quickly acquired cold medicine and some Advil, even finding an ice bag tucked away in the back. He sent the kids to fill it and grabbed a glass of water in the meantime, thanking them when they swiftly returned. As he moved to return upstairs though he found the entire group tagging along at his heels and paused on the first step.

“You don’t you all stay down here and clean up your toys while I take this up to your mom?” He suggested and they scrambled off, some even giving him little salutes before they left. He swiftly headed upstairs before they could change their minds, quietly slipping back into the bedroom. Rosita was dozing when he walked in and she awoke when he set down the items on the nightstand, smiling sleepily at him as she sat up.

“Oh, thank you Buster.”

“No problem.” He replied, measuring out the correct dosage on the liquid medicine. It was advertised to taste like blueberry, and it most certainly smelled that way, but something told him it probably tasted more akin to burnt tire rubber.

“I know this won’t be the most pleasant but you know the drill.”

She gave a chuckle and took the capful of blue slime from him, swallowing it down with a grimace and chasing it with a gulp of water. Even this simple a task seemed to take the energy out of her and she laid back down with a tired sigh, falling back into a doze almost immediately. Buster carefully arranged the ice bag on her forehead and, leaving the Advil and water on the dresser for her, quietly slipped out.

When he made his way back downstairs, he was more than a little surprised by what he found. The kids had cleared out the toys lying about in mere minutes and now appeared to be...cleaning? Some were darting about with wet rags wiping things down, others were going at the corners and under chairs with the hose from the surprisingly quiet vacuum and there was even a group in the kitchen wrestling with the mop and a bucket of water. Buster couldn’t help but feel himself taken aback at the sight. The piglets he’d become acquainted with were almost always a force to be reckoned with, constantly running about with their focus jumping from place to place as they caused chaos. So the sight of them doing something so constructive out of the blue was just odd. Admittedly, they weren’t exactly the most proficient at the job, with a few of them wielding long handled Swiffer dusters with such ferocity he was surprised something hadn’t been broken yet, but they were still cleaning.

“Uhh, what are you guys up to?” He asked one of the kids dashing by and they paused to look at them.

“Oh, well Mommy always cleans after she gets home, but she can’t if she’s sick, so we’re gonna do it for her! We don’t want it to be all dirty when she feels better!” They replied with a grin and Buster felt his heart swell at the sentiment, a grin stretching across his face as well.

“Well, what can I say to that kinda enthusiasm? Here, gimme one of those cloths.” He replied, tugging off his jacket and dropping it on the coat rack.

The piglet tossed him one and he dove into the fray alongside them. Damn it if they wouldn’t make this place shine by the time Rosita was up and about. They swept, moped, dusted and cleaned for what felt like ages, one of the kids even arranging a division of their siblings to go start sorting laundry. By the time Buster glanced up from the work it was beginning to grow dark out. Fishing out his phone, he discovered it was closing it on dinner time. He straightened up, feeling his spine pop, and gave another, quieter, whistle to get everyone’s attention.

“Ok guys, I think that’s good for today. Let’s get cleaned up.”

The cleaning supplies were quickly put away and they once more assembled in the living room. He could see that, despite their childish enthusiasm, most of the kids were beginning to run out of steam. He crossed his arms once more, looking out over them.

“I think you all deserve a break. Why don’t you mess around in here for a while your Uncle Buster fixes dinner?”

Most of the kids flopped down on the couches at his words, but a few remained standing and scurried over to tug at him.

“Can we help?” One asked and he smiled, patting them on the heads.

“Well, aren’t you hard workers? If you want to, sure.” He replied and they gave little cheers as they followed him out to the kitchen.

“So, what can I refer to you little helpers by?” He asked as he opened the fridge and they announced themselves as Perry, Gail, Tess and Caspar. He greeted them in return and turned back to the fridge to see what he had to work with. The thing was fully stocked to the brim, just as he’d expect from Rosita, so ingredients would be no problem. He tapped his fingers against the door with a thoughtful hum. What to make? He was a pretty decent cook, if he did say so himself, and a number of recipes swirled around in his head. It should be something easy and fairly to make, he didn’t want to spend three hours cooking this evening. His mind finally settled on a nice stew he remembered and he began to pull vegetables and other ingredients out.

“How’s about you guys help me wash and peel these?” He suggested, piling potatoes, carrots and the like into the far side of the sink. The kids leapt into action, one taking up a station at the sink to begin scrubbing and then passing the freshly cleansed veggies to the other safety peeler wielding tots. Buster quickly found a large bowl for them to put the finished goods into and went to work looking for all his cooking instruments. He discovered a huge pot almost half as tall as himself in one of the lower cabinets and, with quite a bit of effort, hefted it up onto the stove. While the little ones were distracted with their own task he went to work, chopping up various herbs and other ingredients to add to the pot. In addition he set aside a far smaller pot to the side for Rosita. While he wasn’t sure if the illness was effecting her stomach or not, a light vegetable soup would probably be better suited for her right now than a thick stew. Faster than one would have though he was being handed a full bowl of peeled veggies and he began giving them various kid-safe directions, handing him various things and washing spoons and such. They ended up having to pull out the mop again when one of the kids dropped the bag of flour they were bringing him, but otherwise things seemed to go quite smoothly.

Just as he was setting the pot to simmer for a while, a cry of rage and a chorus of dramatic “OOOOOOOH!”s came from the living room and he nearly dropped the lid he was holding in his panicked scramble to get out here. He rounded the corner and 20 pairs of eyes turned to look at him, one piglet still starting at the tv in frustration where a few of them seemed to be playing some racing game.

“Is everyone alright?” He asked, suddenly feeling out of breath, and the group nodded, one pipping up from within the crowd.

“We’re fine.  Nelson was just in first place on the last lap and Carla blue-shelled him.”

“Who does that?!” said piglet cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation and Buster shook his head in relief. He got both pots set to go and quickly cleaned up, joining the kids in the living room while he let them simmer. They were in the middle of an intense tournament of sorts, the 4 players swapping out after every few races and Buster soon found himself entranced. He’d never seen a game form and break friendships so quickly before. Before he knew it the timer he’d set on his phone rang and he went to go finish up on the dishes, taking them off the heat and adding a last few seasonings. He prepped a tray for Rosita and then stuck his head into the living room.

“Dinner’s ready! Could you guys wash up and get the table ready while I go take this to your Mom? Just don’t touch the stove.”

A clamoring of excited shouts greeted him and the game was quickly abandoned as they ran to follow his directions. Leaving the chaos to unfold behind him, he made his way upstairs.

The singer was awake when he entered this time and looked a bit better than before, some of the flush gone from her cheeks. She looked up from the book she was reading and smiled when she saw him.

“Ah, Buster! How are thing’s going down there?”

“Just finished with dinner. Was just bring you up yours.” He replied, and her eyes widened in surprise, just now seeming to see the tray he carried.

“Oh, Buster! You didn’t need to-“ she began, her words halting when she noticed the cocked eyebrow he was regarding her with. She smiled sheepishly as he set the tray in her lap, reaching over to feel her forehead as she examined the food. Her temperature had gone down for sure, but she was still feeling warmer than normal. Grabbing her mostly melted ice bag, he made a quick trip downstairs to refill it, passing the kids diligently, if a bit clumsily, following his suggestion. When he returned she was just tasting the soup and her eyes lit up in delight when she looked up at him.

“Buster, this is delicious!” she exclaimed and he chuckled, setting the ice bag on the dresser.

“Thank you. I’m glad some of my cooking skills carried over from college. When you’re done you should try to get some more rest, if you feel up to it. I’ll be back up to get the bowl later.”

As he turned to leave a hand closed around his wrist and he glanced back to see her regarding him with a warm smile.

“Really Buster, thank you for all of this.”

He smiled back at her, flipping his hand over to it rested in hers and gave a light squeeze.

“Any time Rosita.”

With that he took his leave and left her to her dinner, venturing back downstairs to dish out to the kids.

While something told him this was a far calmer dinner than normally occurred in the house, he was still forced to wrangle 25 young kids as the late night and long day began to bring out their silliness. More than once he had to keep them from adding things to their sibling’s dishes while they were looking away, though they did manage to slip past his notice a few times. (He had to admit though that watching one nearly sneeze themselves silly after their neighbor dumped a decent mound of pepper on their spoonful was far funnier than he should have found it.) Eventually they made it through the meal and he could see the tiredness hanging in the children’s movements, the day finally catching with them. He sent them to get ready for bed while he gathered the dishes and they stumbled off without a single complaint. While they were brushing their teeth he went to check on Rosita and found her sound asleep, the empty bowl set on the dresser. With a smile he collected her dishes, settled the ice bag in place on her forehead and bid her a quiet goodnight. He found the kids already in their pj’s and made quick work of getting them settled in bed. He switched off the lights and was moving to leave when a voice called out to him.

“Uncle Buster, will you read us a story?”

He turned back to see many pairs of expectant eyes watching him from the dark and he shook his head with a chuckle.

“Alright, but just one.”

He headed to their bookshelf and began fishing through the tomes there. They had quite a collection it seemed and he soon came across a book of Scottish fairy tales that seemed intriguing. Leafing through it for something mundane enough (he knew the Scottish tended to have a penchant for the darker side of folklore), he settled down at the foot of the bookcase. Soon he found something he thought might work and cleared his throat, all the kids settling down in anticipation.

“Once upon a time, a beautiful princess was born. Soon however her aunt grew jealous of her and cursed her to be light as a feather...”

Buster awoke in darkness to the feeling of a blanket being draped over him.  His eyes flickering open, he blinked in sleepy confusion. From the plushness beneath him, he deduced he must have fallen asleep on the couch while waiting for the next batch of laundry to finish. He glanced around, finding the outline of someone standing next to him in the dark.

“Wha...who...?” he slurred sleepily and the shape chuckled.

“Whoa, calm down. It’s just me. Rosita called earlier and told me what happened.” Norman replied and Buster gave a tired noise of understanding, immediately slumping back down against the cushions. The pig gave another laugh and patted him on the shoulder.

“Thanks for looking after her Buster.” He murmured and Buster gave a little hum.

“No...problem...”

When the koala awoke one more it was light out. He yawned and sat up, trying feebly to tame his flyaway hair as he gave a long stretch and felt his back crack.

“Well, looks like someone’s awake.”

He turned sleepily toward the kitchen doorway to find Rosita standing there in a robe, a mug in each hand. There was still a bit of frogginess to her voice, but she looked leagues better than she had the day before and he smiled at her.

“Looks like someone’s feeling better.” He bantered back and she gave a laugh, coming to sit beside him and hand him one of the mugs. He took a long sip of the coffee inside and gave a happy sigh, the two settling into a comfortable silence.

“Thanks again for everything yesterday Buster.” Rosita said at last, swirling the last of the drink around in her cup.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would have been fine.” He replied and she gave him a playful shove on the shoulder.

“I’m being serious. I wish there was some way for me to replay you.”

She fell into thought for a moment before turning to him with a smile.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll figure something out. Speaking of, we’re having breakfast soon. Would you like to join us?” She asked and he grinned back at her.

“I would love that.”

[discographystraykids]

DEPUT ALBUM

I AM NOT

I am NOT

Stray Kids (stray kids), debut album 'I am NOT' is the title track of 'District 9' announcement

- 'Best 2018 rising stars' Stray Kids (stray kids), the first mini-album, 'I am NOT' music industry official debut

- " I am NOT', an ambitious debut album filled with self-composed songs! It contains the identity & sincerity of an infinite growth-type group!

- 'District 9', a title song that expresses Stray Kids' unique musical hangout! A hybrid genre combining hip-hop, rock, and EDM

Stray Kids, the most anticipated star in the music industry in 2018, will officially debut after releasing their debut album 'I am NOT' and the title song 'District 9' on March 26th.

The nine members are Bang Chan, Woojin, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and IN. Stray Kids, aiming to become a single organism and a group of infinite growth types, takes the first step in the high expectations of domestic and foreign music fans.

In the reality program 'Stray Kids', which was presented by JYP Entertainment and Mnet in October 2017, the members not only worked on the song, but also participated in various fields such as producing, concept, and performance.

With their pre-debut album 'Mixtape' released before their official debut in January of this year, Stray Kids proved their keen interest abroad by ranking first on the iTunes album charts in 4 countries including Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Philippines. In addition, it was selected as the 1st place among 'Top 5 New K-Pop Artists to Watch in 2018' selected by US Billboard, attracting attention as the best rookie of the year.

Stray Kids revealed their ambitious ambitions by filling all 8 tracks of their debut album and first mini-album 'I am NOT' with self-composed songs. The album name, which starts with the awareness of 'I am NOT', signals the beginning of the musical identity they will develop in the future.

The title song 'District 9' is a song that expresses Stray Kids' unique hideout. The message of 'District 9' to break away from the standardized and standardized framework and build their own domain by breaking the existing system perfectly matches the group name Stray Kids. The lyrics were composed with a strong aspiration to turn everything upside down in a special area set by them, and a hybrid genre combining hip-hop, rock, and EDM created a lively sound.

Track 1 'NOT!' is a hip-hop song with the theme of this debut album 'I am NOT', and the cyberpunk sound design and trap meet.

The 3rd track 'Mirror' is developed with the content of reflecting on one's own mind 'Who am I' while contemplating self-identity. The ever-changing rapping and various vocals harmonized.

Track 4 'Awaken' strongly expresses the will to 'break your own mold' based on the rock sound. It is a song that shouts an autobiographical story, starting with the awareness of 'I am NOT'.

The 5th track 'ROCK' is a feeling of frustration amid the confusion of identity. It features witty lyrics that say, "I'd rather be a stone." The linguistic play and the powerful sound were in harmony.

Track 6 'You're Doing Well' is a lyrical hip-hop song with a warm message of consolation.

The 7th track '3rd Eye' is an R&B genre that expresses the earnest desire to see oneself through the new 'third eye' rather than the existing gaze, and draws a lot of sympathy from peers.

Track 8, 'Mixtape #1', is a special song that can only be found on CD, and has 'placebo effect' as its keyword. Stray Kids conveys the feeling of ascending with a light sound by placing a spell saying 'I can go up'. You can feel the bright and positive mind of Stray Kids.

Stray Kids sing their real situation and the stories they really want to tell through their debut album 'I am NOT'. 'I am NOT', which thought about identity and tried to contain sincerity, became the base of Stray Kids' musical growth to infinity, signaling their meaningful beginning.

Track

NOT!

District 9

Mirror

Awaken

ROCK (돌)

잘 하고 있어 (Doing well)

3rd Eye

Mixtape#1 (CD ONLY)

[doubleattitude]

Club Dance Studio

The Dance Awards, Las Vegas 2017: RESULTS

High Scores by Age:

PeeWee Solo

5th: Ellie Smith-’Amazing Grace’

6th (tie): Madyson Barney-’When You Wish Upon A Star’

Didn’t Place

Brinklee Grako-’Wonderful World’

Sydney Kelly-’The Blessing’

Mini Solo

1st: Alexis Adair-’Strands’

3rd (tie): Brightyn Rhines-’Petrichor’

4th: Brooklin Cooley-’Solitude’

7th: Paige Kracht-’Daylight’

Didn’t Place

Kanon Greer-’Roxy’

Vanessa Valenzuela-’Heart Cry’

Isabella Lynch-’Blue Birds’

Bella Fernandez-’Stargazing’

Kenzie Charboneau-’Cinema Italiano’

Addison Jones-’Ooh Ooh Child’

Rachel Loiselle-’Only The Winds’

Bella Sor-’Every Season’

Brynlee Schabron-’Beautiful Like Me’

Hailey Baer-’Go Crazy’

Riley Knab-’Move’

Delaney Taylor-’Burnin Up’

Posey Harris-’Lipstick’

Mckenzie Robinson-’Holding On’

Sayler Conover-’Rich and Famous’

Chloe Slone-’Nuvole’

Grace McKinley-’Hold Up’

Jonah Benyamin-’Grey’

Kyla Robinson-’Won’t Ya Come’

Olivia Benyamin-’Trust’

Arie Russell-’One Woman Army’

Brooklyn Jones-’Wind It Up’

Junior Solo

5th: Audrey Caldwell-’Beach’

8th: Kaya Walsh-’Without’

9th: Samantha McGowan-’Slither’

10th: Summer O’Haver-’Darkness’

Didn’t Place

Kylie Propps-’Evil Like Me’

Paetyn Kuntz-’Pacing’

Marianna Hedger-’Crossed Paths’

Makenna Taylor-’Hyperballad’

Breanna Ng-’Lose It’

Kayla Walsh-’Without’

Milla Fabirkiewicz-’To My Soul’

Daylyn Lucky-’Peace’

Marlee Grako-’Trophy’

Elle McAuley-’Perception’

Landrie Peterson-’Solitude’

Teen Solo

5th: Jasmine Robinson-’Surrender’

7th (tie): Kendall Wheeler-’The Storm Within’

9th (tie): Jazlyn Robinson-’Transformations’

9th (tie): Jenna Valenzuela-’Yearning’

Didn’t Place

Chloe Davis-’Another Life’

Taryn Bee-’Much Closer’

Aspen Lynch-’Oasis’

Jenn Gamma-’Distant Lights’

Claire Glessner-’On Reflection’

Tatiana Savedra-’Funny Valentine’

Taylor Knab-’One Way Or Another’

Jaelah Stanley-’Keep An Eye On Me’

Sidney Hopkins-’Runnin’

Marley Gorman-’Question’

Sophia Benyamin-’Love For That’

Laynee Hahn-’Time Passing’

Hailey Jimenez-’Breathe In’

Kamilla Johnson-’Dawn’

McKenna Dickson-’Tremors’

Senior Solo

1st: Simrin Player-’Tiger’s Bride’

10th: Isabella Boyer-’Spine’

Mini Duo/Trio

1st (tie): Alexis Adair, Brightyn Rines, Brooklin Cooley-’Stable’

PeeWee Group

2nd ($100): ‘Silent Night’

Mini Group

4th: ‘Til’ Morrow’

5th (tie): ‘Don’t Worry About Me’

Didn’t Place

‘Grown Woman’

‘Hair’

‘Isn’t She Lovely’

‘Viva La Swing’

Junior Group

5th: ‘Le Corsaire’

Didn’t Place

‘In Love With A Monster’

‘Sky Full of Stars’

‘Sleep’

‘Superego’

‘The Wait’

Teen Group

4th (tie): ‘Concentrate’

Didn’t Place

‘Cage Of Bones’

‘Heart of Stones’

Senior Group

1st: ‘Settle In’

Didn’t Place

‘Foolish Games’

PeeWee Line

2nd ($100): ‘Lullaby’

Mini Line

4th: ‘Wanting’

5th (tie): ‘No More Fear’

5th (tie): ‘We Run This’

Didn’t Place

‘In Person’

Junior Line

1st: ‘Awakening’

5th (tie): ‘Strings’

Didn’t Place

‘Chicago, Illinois’

‘Do You Love Me?’

Teen Line

3rd (tie): ‘The Self House’

Didn’t Place

‘Esmerelda’

‘Give Us A Little Love’

‘Goons Out’

‘Pick Up the Pace’

‘Viva La Vida’

PeeWee Extended Line

3rd ($50): ‘Hard Knock Life’

Mini Extended Line

1st ($200): ‘We So Meek’

Didn’t Place

‘Ease on Down The Road’

‘I’ll Fly Away’

‘Sing Like The Birdies’

Junior Extended Line

1st: ‘Vibeology’

3rd (tie): ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat’

Didn’t Place

‘Afterglow’

‘Did I Mention’

‘Good Morning Baltimore’

‘When I Grow Up’

Teen Extended Line

Didn’t Place

‘3 Strikes’

‘Do You Remember?’

‘Flashing Lights’

‘Holy Water’

‘Let It All Go’

‘Mine’

‘Money’

‘Ooh, Kill Em’

‘Opposites Attract’

‘Red Arrow’

‘Sexyback’

PeeWee Production

1st ($200): ‘Cookin’ With Grease’

Junior Production

1st: ‘No Mercy’

Teen Production

2nd: ‘Bang’

High Scores by Performance Division:

PeeWee Jazz

1st ($200): ‘Cookin’ With Grease’

PeeWee Musical Theater

1st: ‘Hard Knock Life’

PeeWee Lyrical

1st: ‘Silent Night’

2nd: ‘Lullaby’

Mini Lyrical

1st (tie): ‘Don’t Worry About Me’

2nd: ‘Isn’t She Lovely’

4th: ‘I’ll Fly Away

Mini Musical Theatre

3rd: ‘Sing Like The Birdies’

5th: ‘Ease on Down The Road’

Mini Jazz

4th: ‘We Run This’

5th: ‘Hair’

Didn’t Place

‘Grown Woman’

‘In Person’

‘Viva La Swing’

Mini Contemporary

4th: ‘Til’ Morrow’

5th (tie): ‘Wanting’

Didn’t Place

‘No More Fear’

Mini Hip-Hop

1st: ‘We So Meek’

Junior Lyrical

1st: ‘Afterglow’

5th: ‘Sky Full of Stars’

Junior Musical Theatre

1st: ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat’

Didn’t Place

‘Chicago, Illinois’

‘Good Morning Baltimore’

Junior Specialty

1st (tie): ‘Superego’

2nd: ‘Did I Mention’

Junior Contemporary

1st: ‘Awakening’

5th (3-way tie): ‘Strings’

Didn’t Place

‘Do You Love Me?’

‘Sleep’

‘The Wait’

Junior Jazz

1st: ‘Vibeology’

Didn’t Place

‘In Love With A Monster’

‘When I Grow Up’

Junior Ballet

1st: ‘Le Corsaire’

Junior Hip-Hop

1st: ‘No Mercy’

Teen Contemporary

4th: ‘The Self House’

Didn’t Place

‘3 Strikes’

‘Cage of Bones’

‘Concentrate’

‘Flashing Lights’

‘Holy Water’

‘Red Arrow’

Teen Hip-Hop

2nd (tie): ‘Bang’

3rd (tie): ‘Ooh, Kill Em’

5th: ‘Goons Out’

Teen Lyrical

Didn’t Place

‘Do You Remember?’

‘Give Us A Little Love’

‘Heart of Stone’

‘Let It All Go’

‘Mine’

‘Viva la Vida’

Teen Ballet

1st: ‘Esmerelda’

Teen Jazz

5th: ‘Opposites Attract’

Didn’t Place

‘Money’

Teen Specialty

2nd: ‘Pick Up The Pace’

3rd (tie): ‘Sexyback’

Senior Lyrical

3rd: ‘Foolish Games’

Senior Contemporary

2nd (tie): ‘Settle In’

Specialty Awards:

Mini Outstanding Technical Achievement

‘No More Fear’

Junior Outstanding Technical Achievement

‘Awakening’

Teen Outstanding Technical Achievement

‘The Self House’

Senior Outstanding Technical Achievement

‘Settle In’

Best Production Performance

‘No Mercy’

Best Jazz Performance

‘Vibeology’

Best Ballet Performance

‘Esmerelda’

‘Le Corsaire’

Best Hip-Hop Performance

‘No Mercy’

‘We So Meek’

Best Contemporary Performance

‘Awakening’

Best Musical Theatre Performance

‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat’

Best Specialty Performance

‘Superego’

Best Lyrical Performance

‘Don’t Worry About Me’

‘Afterglow’

Best Performance:

Mini

1st runner-up: ‘We So Meek’

Junior

2nd runner-up: ‘Awakening’

Teen

5th runner-up: ‘The Self House’

Senior

3rd runner-up: ‘Settle In’

Best Dancer:

Mini Female

2nd runner-up: Brooklin Cooley ($100)

Top 22: Vanessa Valenzuela

Didn’t Place

Olivia Bell

Olivia Benyamin

Kenzie Charboneau

Kanon Greer

Addison Jones

Brooklyn Jones

Paige Kracht

Rachel Loiselle

Isabella Lynch

Grace Mckinley

Kyla Robinson

Arie Russell

Chloe Slone

Bella Sor

Delaney Taylor

Mini Male

Winner: JT Church ($350)

Top 13: Jonah Benyamin

Junior Female

Top 21: Audrey Caldwell

Top 21: Milla Fabirkiewicz

Top 21: Marley Heath

Top 21: Samantha McGowan

Junior Male

Top 12: Isaiah Wilson

Didn’t Place

Paetyn Kuntz

Bailey LaMagdelaine

Madison Levato-Demar

Elle McAuley

Breanne Ng

Summer O’Haver

Landrie Peterson

Taylor Ponsness

Kylie Propps

Makenna Taylor

Kayla Walsh

Teen Female

Didn’t Place

Sophia Benyamin

McKenna Dickson

Jenn Gamma

Marley Gorman

Chevelle Heller

Hailey Jimenez

Kamilla Johnson

Jasmine Robinson

Jazlyn Robinson

Tatiana Savedra

Carlee Schield

Jenna Valenzuela

Mia Wilson

Lizzy Zaritsky

Teen Male

Top 22: Sky Bleeker

Senior Female

Winner: Simrin Player ($1000)

Didn’t Place

Isabella Boyer

Senior Male

Top 20: Brandt Czerniski

Studio of the Year:

Winner: Club Dance Studio

[studioweus]

NOTES: This article was originally posted on the 28th of January, 2017. This was when MAS 0094 (now ONEWE!) were properly starting off their careers in the music industry. The article (which is linked as the source) outlines interesting information about their predebut ventures so I decided to translate it if you wanted to know more about their prior activities in 2015! If you wanted to repost somewhere, you’re free to do so - but please take out with credit! There may be minor translation inaccuracies but the idea should remain the same throughout. 

Kanghyun (Guitar), Dongmyeong (Vocals/Keyboard), Harin (Drums), Yonghoon (Vocals/Guitar), and CyA (Rap/Bass) are members of the band MAS 0094. The group, who released their first single in August 2015, focused on starting out through consistent busking performances instead of broadcasting activities.

2017 was their year to leap forward from that. Releasing their second mini album 'Make Some Noise' earlier this month, MAS 0094 has advanced to performing in various music stages, all the while showing off their intense skills to the fullest.

Composing a song for the victims of sexual slavery and performing for children with developmental disabilities, I sat down with MAS 0094, who is dubbed as a "concept band," to talk about their New Years resolutions and wishes.

-- Your team name is unique

DONGMYEONG: 'MAS' means MAKE A SOUND. The '0094' part refers to the the members that were born from 1994 to 2000 in that order. It's also always been a dream of ours to passionately perform various songs. Since it's hard for the fans to pronounce, we just ask them to call us 'MAS.'

-- There must have been a lot of episodes  [of pronunciation mishaps]

KANGHYUN: The numbers change when we go to events sometimes. There were foreign fans who were like 'Ah so they're called MASU 0094.' Others mistake the 00 (zero zero) as the letters OO in English.

DONGMYEONG: We met senior SHINee Jonghyun on a radio program and he said '[MAS 0094] looks like a jet plane name.' (laughs). Despite the occasional pronunciation mess ups, I'm pleased with the name since it's quite easy to remember.

-- I'm curious to know how you formed this team

KANGHYUN: We originally had three members. The three of us (Kanghyun, Harin, CyA) all went to the same academy and we matched quite well. But we didn't have a vocalist then - all we did was perform with instruments. As my interest in how the music of the band will transpire grew, we met CyA's close friend Dongmyeong.

HARIN: We met Yonghoon at a K-Pop contest at Suwon-si in 2015 where we went as part of a session. He showed off his amazing singing abilities and was awarded a grand prize. We immediately offered him a spot in our band after.  

YONGHOON: I was in college at the time. The grand prize was one million won [roughly $850 USD] and I competed to earn the money. I never thought I would come across these guys. They were brave enough to offer me a position in their band, and at first, they were even playing hard to get (laughs). I found out that they were exceptionally talented so I decided to join them.

--In 2015, you released your first song called "Butterfly, Find the Flower." I heard this song was composed for the women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese militaries?

DONGMYEONG: That's right. CyA had that idea when he first learned about it in a WebToon. When we heard the story, the members thought about how we could offer our help to the victims.  

KANGHYUN: We wanted to give the grandmothers happiness. So we gathered profits made from our busking activities and also found the time to volunteer at The House of Sharing*

[The House of Sharing is a nursing home for the “comfort women” (I do not recommend describing them as such since they’re ultimately victims, and this term seems to carry derogatory meaning with it, thus the quotation marks) who suffered through sexual slavery]

DONGMYEONG: We spent a year busking and then visited the grandmothers at The House of Sharing, and it was the first time we felt that we accomplished our goals. This is something that I won't forget for the rest of my life.

-- I heard you also did other kinds of volunteer work.

KANGHYUN: We also set up a performance for children with developmental disabilities not too long ago. We even met with the MC in person and let him know about the instruments. We get to learn more that way instead of just performing. We promise to work even harder as well.

HARIN: It makes me feel happy whenever I do good work. When you see how much fun these kids have, a smile just naturally appears on your face.

YONGHOON: We also performed for their parents once. Then for some reason, I couldn't control my tears and I started crying. I thought that this was the reason why we perform and do music.

-- Let's talk about the new mini album you released earlier this month - 'Make Some Noise'

CYA: The album has this sort of feeling where we're just messing around together and not thinking about anything else. The title track "Make Some Noise" was created to mimic the kinds of stages you see in rock festivals. That's what we had in mind when the song was made.

DONGMYEONG: As we were preparing for the performance, I wondered "do we have any songs that are exciting?" and we improvised, we felt good about it, and we even recorded it. The company's response was also favourable so it became the title track.

YONGHOON: We've also tried different genres like ballad, jazz, and hip hop. This time around, when we combined EDM with band-style music, we soon realized that it created good synergy. We're thinking of going a bit further with that style in the future. But we won't be sticking with just one genre. Since MAS 0094 is a team that composes its own music, we'll be trying out various things as well.

-- What are MAS 0094's pros?

YONGHOON: I'm confident that we have the most on-stage experience among the rookie groups. We typically busk at Hongdae, Suwon, Hangang Park every weekend. We learned a lot from the senior groups that we've met (No Brain, DAY6, BOL4) on stage.

HARIN: We’ve also tried putting ourselves in the audience's perspective, instead of just thinking about going up on stage. As we see everyone take their seats, we want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and can see clearly, and that their view of the stage isn't being obstructed.  

-- What is the most memorable stage for you?

YONGHOON: I'm afraid it's difficult for bands when it rains. One time, I suddenly got scared when the power [electricity] coming from the microphone shot up.

CyA: The performance in China was also memorable. I felt a new kind of energy and realized the status of KPOP. That recognition was more than when you copy [do a cover] of popular Chinese songs. When we sang Block B and Big Bang seniors' songs, you could hear the audience doing the fanchants.

--This was the first time you've ever done an 'actual' stage [compared to busking activities in the past]

YONGHOON: We have more music show schedules this time around. We're seriously standing in front of the general public. We want to show a stage with a different style and a good performance.

KANGHYUN: We'll be showing you the 'Mannequin Challenge,' which has been popularized nowadays. We've also been preparing for '007' 'Rewind' versions.

--I'm curious to know about your goals.

CyA: For MAS 0094's presence and songs to be known everywhere. I also want to see us go up in the charts. I also want to go to 'Infinite Challenge' as well. Seeing Rose Motel, Chang Ki Ha, and Hyukoh in person would be really cool, too.

-- What kind of team do you want to become?

HARIN: Boohwal seniors are my role models. They've had a lot of hit songs and have been doing activities [together as a band] for a long time. I want us to become great band stars like them as well.

-- What are your wishes for the New Year?

YONGHOON: I wish we could receive a "Band Award" at the end of the year ceremony.

DONGMYEONG: I hope all the members stay healthy. And also, I wish people are filled with happiness whenever they listen to our songs.

HARIN: #1 on Gaon Chart! I want to accomplish that someday, if that doesn't happen this year.

KANGHYUN: I hope we can release a full-length album. With that album release, I also want us to hold a large-scale concert.  

[falneou17]

BanG Dream! Favorite List

So... people have been requesting I made this for quite some time now, and I decided that I might as well. It might be a nice thing to look back on the past three years and see how I have formed and changed my opinion on the various characters.

The main reason why I held back with it for so long, aside from wanting to avoid giving off the wrong idea with who my least fave is, is because I was playing on the JP server while conversing with people who were only playing on EN. I stopped playing JP about a year ago now (the last event I remember playing on the JP server was Babyglow, actually), so the EN server has more or less caught up to what I remembered from the JP side of the franchise; which means that there is still a decent chance that my preferences might change from this point onwards. Not to mention that the third season will air next month, too.

I want to do these regularly-ish, but with how “fixed” the rankings have been ever since RAS’ introduction I wonder how often that can be done.

Icons are taken from the bandorisorter tumblr.

Favorites

1. Yamabuki Saaya Same old song and dance, she has been my favorite BanG Dream! girl since day one. She radiates an aura similar to Saten Ruiko from the Raildex franchise (who also happens to be my all-time favorite character), and this, coupled with her supportive, sacrificial, helpful nature really helped Saaya in solidifying a spot in the #1 spot. The only way I can feasibly see her drop from this spot is if she doesn’t receive any character growth and development because she has been, admittedly, rather static in this department.

2. Aoba Moca A name people still think is my fave of the franchise, she might really become it soon depending on how much Saaya grows in the future. A “simple” character at face value, I really started finding out just how deep her character is when I started getting more into her design and learned more about her. She is overall a really fun character to work with and nothing says that more than the fact that she has been the centerpiece of all my multi-chapter fanfics for this fandom at the time of writing this.

3. Mitake Ran Ran goes almost hand-in-hand with Moca, but where Moca had the element of surprise and curiosity to keep her high on the list, Ran felt like this mixture of two characters of a different franchise I really enjoyed, combining both their strong points into who we now know is Mitake Ran. And I am sure you all already know how much I like Ran considering the BlueFlora works I have done since April of 2017.

4. Hazawa Tsugumi Tsugumi is probably the easiest character, at least among the Afterglow girls, for people outside the BanG Dream! fandom to relate to, and for good reason. She’s a hard worker, remains positive, and you know things will go south when Tsugumi isn’t being optimistic and charging forward like no tomorrow.

5. Imai Lisa Lisa shares a lot of similarities with Saaya, or at least how I described Saaya. Nevertheless, there are still a handful of factors that would explain the gap between them. The first is that I saw Saaya on the screen first, so Lisa was doomed to become “similar to Saaya” as a result (the way the first season animated both girls didn’t really help). The second is the way Lisa is shipped by the general fandom that makes me feel a lot more restricted in using her freely. The final point is not Lisa’s fault, but while Nakashima Yuki has done an amazing job at taking over the role... she is not Endō Yurika.

Loves

6. Uehara Himari I make fun of Himari a lot, but she is still an amazing character and a great gear in the Afterglow machine. And while I personally feel like the English translation of Himari’s catchphrase is not doing it justice, I am very much aware of how important Himari is to the chemistry of Afterglow. She is the leader of Afterglow, after all.

7. Shirokane Rinko What started out as just a playful headcanon has really gotten traction and popularity amongst my readers and helped Rinko rise up to this spot, managing to even beat out the fifth member of Afterglow in the process. Although very different from the characters I usually wrote for, Rinko manages to be this breath of fresh air to allow for a different pace than what I usually work with. The only reason that is holding Rinko back is not even her own fault: Akesaka Satomi made Rinko into the character that I’ve come to know and love; she was Rinko, so losing her was and always will be a big blow to me. Shizaki Kanon is doing her best, and I respect her as a seiyuu in her own right, but... she’s never going to replace Akesaka Satomi as Rinko in my eyes.

8. Udagawa Tomoe Tomoe is a weird one. On the one hand, she’s very fun, energetic, and is tunnel-visioned enough to be fairly predictable in a fun way. On the other hand, she is the most static character in her band and one of the most static of the entire franchise, so... she’s still really high up thanks to the Afterglow bias in me, but who knows for how long that can last?

9. Maruyama Aya I really am unable to talk about Aya without bringing up her seiyuu, Maeshima Ami, because the phrase “the seiyuu is the character” rings very true when it comes to this one. And she is a very fun character, too! I am not really good with stumbly fumbly characters, but watching Aya on the screen has never been a bad thing. It also helps that her singing voice matches Misawa Sachika’s so much, reminding me of Misawa Sachika’s Polaris mini-album and even convincing me for a short period that Misawa Sachika was Aya’s seiyuu.

10. Okusawa Misaki/Michelle I am not really breaking the mold here, having Misaki be my favorite Hello, Happy World! character, so I don’t think I need to add much to it. In a nutshell, Misaki is to Moca as Lisa is to Saaya. But instead of being put in a band I like overall, Misaki was put in what is arguably my least fave band of the franchise (mostly because the style of music does not fit me, personally, and I like the other five bands more)... which really limits how much Misaki can rise in my list.

11. Wakamiya Eve I only have one thing to say about her: BUSHIDO. In all seriousness, Eve is adorable and her fascination with Japan can really act as a parallel to how some fans adore the culture. In short, much like the vocalist of her band, there is never a dull moment when Eve is around.

12. Asahi Rokka Rokka is a really fun addition to the cast through the second season that aired earlier this year. And what is really interesting about her is that, while the other four RAS girls have been a hit or a miss in the fandom, Rokka seems to be almost universally liked. She is just an adorable bundle of cute, what’s more to say about her?

Likes

13. Tamade “CHU2″ Chiyu So remember how I said in Rokka’s entry that RAS’ characters tend to be a hit or a miss? Well, CHU2 is, in my experience, the most polarizing of the RAS girls; people either love her or hate her. I personally really like her, because while she may appear as a brat at first there is obviously a lot more going on beneath the surface. And I enjoy watching those characters develop, so here’s to hoping that season 3 is nice to CHU2.

14. Nyubara “PAREO” Reona Now unlike CHU2, I can’t really pinpoint what it is exactly about PAREO that makes me like her. But I do, she is enjoyable, her dedication to RAS and CHU2, while bordering something else entirely, is still... quite admirable to see, in its unique way.

15. Ichigaya Arisa Arisa is a weird one. I enjoy watching the subtle actions she does in the background to show that she cares for and supports her friends, but at the same time... she’s competing with Himari for the title of “who can be the butt of all jokes”... which is a bit of a shame, but oh well. Another thing that is kind of holding her back is the fact that one of her defining qualities, being a tsun, is... not the most unique personality trait in the anime world, to put it lightly.

16. Tsurumaki Kokoro Kokoro is... an interesting case. I think I mentioned earlier that I am not really good with eccentric characters, and Kokoro is exactly that with a capital E, but on the other hand... the few times when we do get to see through that bubble of energy we get treated to a surprisingly deep character. It also helps to share birthdays with me, I suppose.

17. Hikawa Sayo Another really weird one to place, and one that will probably define the rest of the list. Sayo, by far, has received the absolute most character growth of any of the other girls. That is normally a good thing, but in Sayo’s case it kind of acts like a double-edged sword; while she grew to be a better person and a better sister, above all else, she... lost things that really defined who she was in my eyes. And because of that, I don’t quite know where to place her... I do enjoy her and still like her, but... I dunno...

18. Hanazono Tae Tae has always been a fan favorite ever since she first appeared in the anime, but... she faces a problem I have mentioned before: she’s pretty static. She’s still fun and the fact that I am kind of looking forward to the way her seiyuu continues to grow will probably keep Tae up, but not too high.

19. Udagawa Ako All right, so Ako being here should already tell its own story, but... generally speaking, when a character is “created” with its whole purpose being to surpass another specific character, they will never come close to that character on my list simply because I end up thinking of Ako relative to Tomoe (in Ako’s case). Ako is fun to see and her chuunibyou side makes for some cute interactions, but aside from that... with the fall of Rosela came the fall of its members...

20. Satou “MASKING” Masuki At this point in time, we don’t really know that much about her. She had like... what? Five lines in the entirety of season two? From what I have seen of her so far, however... she catches my interest, but depending on how well her character and backstory are handled she can rise or fall accordingly.

21. Minato Yukina So remember the whole “fall of Roselia” I mentioned? It is not really their fault, losing Endou Yurika and Akesaka Satomi was a big blow, but the effects it had on both the characters and their respective seiyuus are still... there. Yukina in particular also suffers from the whole notion that she is introduced as this super professional singer with more talent than she knows what to do with, but... in part due to the seiyuu shift of Lisa and Rinko, Roselia’s songs have taken a hit in how much I enjoy them (to emphasize this point: I haven’t really enjoyed a new Roselia original song ever since Akesaka Satomi left Roselia). The only two things keeping Yukina in this “tier” is that she is still somewhat interesting to work with and her rivalry with Ran can provide... quite the amusement.

Above Neutral

22. Shirasagi Chisato Once we’re in this tier, it... really is a bit of a blur as to who is placed where relative to each other. I can say that Chisato is probably at the upper end of it by the process of tiebreakers: BanG Dream! Livestream and events involving their seiyuus. Uesaka Sumire is always fun to watch on the screen and has made me warm up to Chisato in the process.

23. Matsubara Kanon Pretty much exact same reasoning as above, with Kanon being slightly lower simply because I tend to like serious characters more than those that fumble around. I will say, though, that the few times when we get to see a confident and determined Kanon on the screen, it was a lot of fun to see.

24. Hikawa Hina So remember my point with Ako about characters who are focused on their relationship and interactions with one specific character? Hina serves as this unreachable goal for Sayo to reach, and with a lot of the scenes that are being shown use Sayo’s perspective to do so... Hina’s innate genius is also somewhat of a double-edged sword for her ranking here, because while scenes involving Hina are anything but dull, I... prefer characters who work hard to get where they are above someone who is “born” with the ability to stand out.

25. Wakana “LAYER” Rei I feel kind of bad putting LAYER all the way down here, but as a character, she is rather... static and uninspiring, at least at this point in time. As a vocalist, however, LAYER is probably my second favorite in terms of the singing voice, so I am hoping that the third season can catapult LAYER up a couple places.

Neutral

26. Toyama Kasumi The “face” of BanG Dream!, so to say. I will say that, for a typical happy-go-lucky energetic female lead, Kasumi has a lot more depth to her than others. Unfortunately, being the character we see the world through, I’ve never managed to really relate to her. So while she is almost in the next tier, she barely misses it.

27. Yamato Maya Maya is, actually, a really interesting character with a lot of room to grow and become her own person. Unfortunately for Maya, she did not catch my eye early enough so by the time I got used to characters like Moca and Ran running around, Maya... kind of faded into the background.

28. Ushigome Rimi I don’t know how to say this without being too mean to Rimi, but... Rimi has been really static. Rimi interactions and scenes, more often than not, either consist of her love for Choco Cornets and/or her relationship with her older sister. A lot of potential, a lot of possibilities, but none that have really been taken advantage of...

29. Kitazawa Hagumi Hagumi suffers a really horrible fate, and I think that she would have been a lot higher on the list if she wasn’t in Hello, Happy World. Hagumi’s character and personality traits overlap with Kokoro’s a lot, and with Kokoro being the vocalist of the band Hagumi has really been living in her shadow... which isn’t doing her a lot of favors.

So, that’s my list. Oh, I missed somebody? Right right, let’s fix that~

Unsalvageable/Very Bottom

30. Seta Kaoru Where do I begin to properly explain how I feel about this character? For starters, Bang Dream is a gacha game where we grind up resources, save for weeks, sometimes even months, for that one card we want (unless we’re spending money on the game i.e. whaling). So what do you think will happen to the character who keeps dropping in a banner she is not even a rate-up in while you really wanted a limited card you have saved eight months for? Or if she keeps arriving as the guaranteed 3* in like 80% of all your pulls for over a year? For reference, I managed to get the skill level of her Phantom Thief 3* to level 5 by using duplicate copies of her Initial 3*. And vice versa.

The gacha side of my reasonings aside, the actual reason why she is and always will be at the bottom is for a reason that cannot be removed without changing who she is. Her over-the-top, flirtatious attitude really, there is no going around this, annoys me, and even if it is just a front... I’ve already associated at least three people I know irl to her, and since I despise those three for how they behave irl... I can never see myself saying that Kaoru is not my least favorite of the franchise.

The only way for Kaoru to no longer be at the bottom is for BanG Dream! to introduce a character I despise more. Which, to be fair, is a possibility with Argonavis, but not only am I just not interested enough to properly invest time in checking them out, they are also in an alternate universe or something if I remember correctly... so comparing the girls to the boys in Argonavis is like comparing... Railgun characters to Index characters, in a way, which isn’t really “fair”. I probably will if I decide to check out Argonavis, but don’t be surprised to see this one at the bottom still.

[manjuhitorie]

HOWLS Digest - Hitorie Skream! Interview

Interview by Hata Riee! Translated by Manju!

With evolution upon them, Hitorie show their fangs with confidence.

Summary: HOWLS

[First section: ygarshy fanboys over HOWLS. Discussions about the impressions and mindsets which went into the album. “Many of the songs on HOWLS are the result of my battles with painful, excruciating, frustrated feelings.” “Though in reality it was the most fun I've ever had, in regards to the music. We tried out things, we challenged new things... These bandmates right here, their ideas and curiosity were like saviors to me.”] [Second section: ygarshy fanboys over Ao and how liberating for his heart it is. Ao’s “We got shit-faced” backstory. Disclosure that Sappukei, Garandou Mae Zero Machi, Coyote and Ghost all were the result of unrestrained integrated jam sessions. Diligence in musically thrashing, all hail guitar cuddling! Members are glad that leader is getting nice and lax.] [Third section: The reasons those jams were able to cause such a bang. What values they had to throw away and which they had to adopt, such as simple melodies or not. Synopsis on the journeys they took to hone their new conjurations, to solve their frustrations and stagnations they felt with the band. wowaka being stupid and selfish by not sharing his problems per usual. STUPID. Band confesses to being socially awkward but still trying to understand each other subliminally.... Plus Idol Junkfeed lore/jokes, also SLEEPWALK]. [Fourth section: Overall the writer equates HOWLS lyrics to a discussion, with simple human language that is easy to convey. The power of words is more than just as a tool for expression, but music can help unlock those shackles of perception so don’t worry leader.... Balance, desires, future pavement laid - The “I think we’re so revved up that we could even explode right in this moment!” quote. It, it matches up with their new year’s resolution which was about living in the moment!]

Your new album blew my mind. Each song alone even has the power to strike into the minds of old and new listeners alike.

     wowaka: Happy to hear it.          Shinoda: It feels like we’ve created something really amazing.      wowaka: Even after many years of finishing countless pieces and thinking “This is good I did good.”... This time I’m especially smiley and giddy about this piece.      Yumao: We covered a way more broad scope of genre.      ygarshy: It feels like the people’s album.      wowaka: The people’s (laughing)?!      ygarshy: Up until now, as an honest listener I couldn't consider our pieces an object of interest, but this time I could listen forever and ever I like it so much.

In our 2016 interview for the release of IKI, ygarshy you had also exclaimed “I’ve been listening to it forever”. 

    Everyone: Ahahaha!     wowaka: Effort makes confidence.     ygarshy: Though the undertones are different. With IKI I had the perspective of a musician looking back upon their work with pride, but this time I’m uninterested in that sense. I’m akin to an uninvolved consumer, honestly enjoying my favorite album.     Shinoda: We ourselves barely understand this phenomenon.

Then let’s use this interview as a chance to divulge the mystery.

    Shinoda: Let’s do it.

In between your most recent full album IKI, there was the release of the mini album ai/SOlate (2017) and the single Polaris (2018), but when did you first start considering the possibilities of an album?

   wowaka: We had been on tour for ai/SOlate, The UNKNOWN-TOUR 2018 “Loveless", spanning over about four months... so it was directly after that. Our single Polaris was used as an ending theme for the anime Boruto (NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS), which helped ease us into our next full album.

So you had been working on this album during the later months of last year.

    wowaka: Yes. Between about July and October.     Yumao: Though SLEEPWALK was an older song.     wowaka: Ah, that’s true.     Yumao: Windmill or Sappuukei even also, we had about one chorus in tow of each even before we began the hard-core production of HOWLS.

With IKI, wowaka said he went into a “I can’t stop writing songs” beast mode, but how did the pace pan out this time?

    wowaka: I struggled a lot. Writing the songs of IKI had been prompting revelations within me, for the first time I was finding the meaning behind being human and the fact that I’m alive. It was like the first time I properly stood on two legs. Positive vibes were popping songs out of me. But in contrast, many of the songs on HOWLS are the result of my battles with painful, excruciating, frustrated feelings.

I do see the subject of solitude shows up frequently. 

    wowaka: Yes. Though in reality it was the most fun I've ever had, in regards to the music. We tried out things, we challenged new things... These bandmates right here, their ideas and curiosity were like saviors to me.

Were you able to pinpoint the album’s direction during the prototype stages?

　wowaka: “What am I to do with these feelings?” was my only sense of direction (laughing).    Yumao: Though as we proceeded further and further, we did realize “We can add a bunch of different types of songs into this next one”.

   ygarshy: The demo for Ao was made fairly early in the scheme of HOWLS production, and it was so good I wanted to cry. You can interpret it as a so-called breakup song, but it’s the first time we’ve ever done such. So no matter the circumstances, I want to show this song to the world, I want to show our band’s becomings to the world. That was my impression. It was then when I let go of any ego I had as a musician. And I'm now able to see the full picture, to figure out what elements may match up with what song… Which not only brought the album into broader territories, but also freed me from so many restrictions.

So Ao has had those lyrics ever since the demo version.

    wowaka: Well it’s my first heartbreak song ever.     ygarshy: It’s such a good song that, I had contemplated long and hard as to how best turn these emotions into something universally understandable.     wowaka: My extremely personal experiences and universal concepts alike, they're both contacting by a hair’s breadth. As a result of me always spilling out my personal experiences in goops, I somehow truly am hoping that the band, our audience, and others alike will be able to take a plunge into the core of the person and the world within.

Was Ao a pivotal piece for any one else in the band also?

     wowaka: I’m pretty positive that when I was recording my guitar, Ao was the most emotional. I felt "Ahh, this is what I’ve always wanted to do”. This is probably the extremity I’ve always been aiming for. The singing and the melody are in the dead center. Yet, at the antipode is…. something else also. Effort went into incorporating an almost elaborate aesthetic. If I could only say one thing about this song, I want to tell you about how the recording all began with us saying something like “What if we turned the volume up really crazy loud?”. I have an amp which normally never sees any action it’s so gargantuan, but I turned the knobs up all the way from the get-go.     Shinoda: We got shit-faced.

It’s a ballad and yet you chose to start with the instruments loud, that idea is interesting.

    wowaka: Because it's a ballad, that's exactly the reason why I wanted to have the intensity to equate it. Then through the process of trial and error, were we able to create a sound unlike ever before. I feel like we stumbled into a strange trance almost.

   Shinoda: Up until now, I’ve always been the one who yearned to do the extreme. He (wowaka) has always been the one who acted as my safety net, but this time, his screws came loose too.     wowaka: No matter as to how elaborately we made it, no matter as to how we may have thrashed open our gates, the message still managed to hold “We are who we are.”    ygarshy: For me, I felt that as long as we have this song, everything we turn out okay. I was no longer questioning myself over trying to be this or that. During recording I pondered the question “What is my own ultimate talent, that only I have as a bassist?” and, the answer is that my bandmates and their skill. It makes no difference what I do: the bandmates around me are skilled so everything will turn out fine. That's why I'm no longer putting much time and worry into my bass playing. The song Sappuukei uses my first take, simply as was. And with Windmill I decided not to practice at all.    wowaka: Is that so (laughing).     ygarshy: I realized it works out well if I don’t think much and just return fire back directly at the moment. I think that’s all thanks to the existence of the song Ao.

I see. The mood which develops over the span of this album, it may be just as ygarshy says, it may be because you as Hitorie you discovered new methods and means.

    Shinoda: Well basically, we had pitted ideas against each other and cherry-picked from there. Like the guitar in the background of Coyote and Ghost’s chorus is something which would’ve definitely never ever been OK-ed before. I was permitted to have a go at throwing myself into spontaneousness.     Yumao: Hence, we’ve gained a lot more freedom bit by bit. 

So I’m guessing you set your guitars loud for Coyote and Ghost also (laughing).

    Shinoda: Yeah yeah (laughing).     Yumao: It didn’t even have a prototype either, we just huddled together to say “Ready… Go!” and played from there. I’m positive that Sappuukei and Garandou Mae Zero Machi both took the same route also. I remember discussing “We need some fast songs huh”.. So that was when Shinoda went and cuddled up with his guitar at home.     Shinoda: Though working from home comes with too many problems. After I come up with one phrase, the temperature of it won't match with the one before it, then I’ll jump into my own advancement, and before I know it it'll turn into an unsalvageable mess. The phrase I play behind the choruses all the time are already unique melodies in themselves after all. I’m amazed Leader is able to make vocals to fit on top of them.      wowaka: Cause it’s not vocals behind the guitar, it’s the guitar that goes behind the vocals.      Everyone: Ahahahaha!     Shinoda: With this song especially, I didn’t know what the vocals were until the designated vocal day. So when I saw the lyrics, the mass of words on the page was astounding. “Is this guy serious!?” I thought.

Yumao claiming an 8-beat time on this sort of aggressive song was yet another surprise for me.

     Yumao: If it were 3 or 4 years ago, I’m sure I would’ve played in the typical rock song 4/4 time. That idea also occurred to me but, my core values seemed to have changed.

Though you said you were ailed by how playing simple beats for the sake of the vocals unsettles your reputation as a drummer? During our interview for Polaris.

    Yumao: That was true. But with this album I think I was able to find an answer or something.      ygarshy: As we were writing, we often had moments where we’d agree that a simple phrase is best. Even if we have to tear away ourselves and our ideas, if it’s to conjure the melody conspicuous, in the end it still becomes one of Hitorie’s songs.

I’m starting to perceive how this album was able to evolve into such a masterpiece. It’s evident that each of your priorities and wants for the band have changed over the last 2-3 years.

      wowaka: I just remembered now but, after our designated ai/SOlate tour, after trekking over oceans and roads, we had found a concrete resolution in regards to our progress as a band. Which ironically made us feel frustration over ourselves as music creators. The songs we make made us think “Ah, we’re kinda always trying to do the same thing huh...” We felt we had to change that, or else we’re headed down a slippy slope. 

Ahh, I see how it is.

    wowaka: Then something struck me like lightning, so I took a sudden solo trip all the way to India. “What will happen to my mind if I throw myself into a place completely unknown to me, where even my language is rendered ineffective?” I thought... So specifically what did happen to that mind, you ask? Well, nothing really actually. They say that your perspective on the world will change right. Nothing that powerful came to me. Yet that's very reason I realized “Ahh, I’m simply the human called me.” That sentiment is seeping into the album this time I think. The album is somewhat nomadic, it feels a bit pessimistic, it’s dry and arid… and overall just so fuzzy.

Back then, did you discuss that stale stagnated feeling with any of the other members?

    wowaka: I didn’t. It was my own selfish inner implosion, like gaaah. So after the tour it was almost as if I went into shock therapy: going to India, going out drinking with people I don’t usually hang with, etc. Thinking back, I may have been in a bit of a daring phase.

Could that solve Shinoda’s initial puzzle of "We ourselves barely understand this phenomenon”? You each subconsciously clicked with a need to revitalize the band, and your hunt for more funk became your spunk.

    wowaka: It’s true that after spending 5 whole years taking various shots together, our collective conscience was “What are we gonna do next?”    Shinoda: It’s not as if we sat down and discussed it though, we each felt it in our soul.    wowaka: We all suck at sitting down and talking to each other though. So even choosing a theme and sticking to it itself is impossible for us, instead we’ve taken to each doing whatever we like, and that’s the kind of band we are.    Yumao: The bits and pieces we notice about each other, and the bits we don't, are half-and-half both in this album… That's why song-wise, there’s opening up and shutting up, both merging together as one. When we were writing we ourselves even saw where it was headed. And so the hope that “Maybe listeners will change their view on Hitorie after they hear this.” was hammered in.

—Onward. Shinoda participated in the production for Idol Junkfeed right?

   Shinoda: When production was in a slump, I chimed in “I’ll make a song”. I was told “Just make it a high-spirited one” and so I went.    Yumao: It has a Shinoda taste to it, but it also sounds as if it's parodying Hitorie.     wowaka: It’s like a song written by a Hitorie fan (laughing).     Everyone: Ahahahaha!    wowaka: I don’t know if I said that right but….    Shinoda: Naw, you’re right. 'Cause I did lean towards that. I definitely did want to make it a Hitorie-sounding song.    Yumao: These two handling the director job together was a refreshing sight to behold. The leadership was half-and-half but, the brains were slightly more on Shinoda’s side with it. Him going “This is good, but this is good too, I can’t choose what to do!” was hilarious.    Shinoda: I did something I’m not used to after all (laughing). Yet, in the end it still became Hitorie.     wowaka: If we put our strengths together, then it becomes our's. That fact was proven yet again by this song. Even if I’m not in the middle pulling the strings, this song gave me the confidence that “Ahh this band is capable of so so much”.

SLEEPWALK has a similar vibe to current trendy foreign pop music, that sound is by virtue of ai/SOlate isn’t it.

    wowaka: It’s a direct descendant of ai/SOlate. It’s a song that exposes how much of a music fiend and too avid of a listener I am. Before we started album productions I had trained by making about a singular chorus. At that time I would never believe I would be showing that chorus to the band, rather off completing it as a one-off. In the sea of all the various styles in this album, I came to realize “If I write a whole song solo then it will truly seal the deal, that this has become Hitorie”. In the end I really did write it all by myself.        Yumao: I had nothing to do with it.     Shinoda: I didn’t do anything officer.

As his bandmates, did you want to do it as a band?

    ygarshy: It was more along the lines of “We want to hear how it would sound, so please do it”. We typically play our instruments strictly based on wowaka’s demos, but no matter how much effort we put into being loyal to his original, there's parts which will alter. That's why we wanted him to make it exactly as he saw fit.          wowaka: Even if I produce it alone, there's also the saving grace in playing it together during concerts.

So you're planning on performing this song together in upcoming concerts?  

   wowaka: I sense that we must.

Was there anything you kept in mind as you wrote the lyrics for the album?

    wowaka: I feel it’s all a discussion. I've mentioned this in many interviews before but, confining words only to mean only their meaning - there's a me who holds utter abhorrence for the basic functionality of words. I feel like this world is wrong, handling words as nothing but tools and merely getting controlled by them. They don't really believe in the power of words. I'm still staunch on that idea but... Even so I know I have to face the reality of being understood by people. By the audience, staff, friends, lovers, parents, family alike. I had also talked about this in our past Polaris interview didn’t I, about how at the concert in Fukuoka I received a revelation from the heavens almost.

Ah, you said there was a moment when you figured out “This is exactly what I want to tell people!”

   wowaka: Retrospectively that was huge for me. That’s why I aimed to tell people things this time, I poured special consideration into how to share word through song.

The lyrics of the final track Windmill, “I’m here where I belong/We are here where we belong”: it seems cohesive that you want to tell people this, now that it’s the 5 year anniversary of Hitorie’s debut.

   wowaka: Yep. After all these years I have new stories to tell, and now that I’ve figured out how to write lyrics like those, I want a lot of people to see them, I want people who have never heard us to hear them. That’s how I’ve come to see it.

I see. After finishing this album, has it laid down the pavement for Hitorie’s future in any way?

   wowaka: This year will mark seven years since we originally banded up, and after spending this much time together.. at this point our moments are human, our perceptions are human, our emotions are human. Hence we have no clue what lies ahead. That's why each member will surely figure out how best to push the band, and they'll show me the way forward. I think we’re so revved up that we could even explode right in this moment.      ygarshy: Leader (wowaka) has learned how to say “It’s actually the best when you’re each going all-out on your own accords”. There were still times when he wanted us to play parallel to his image, but ultimately the times when we're playing freely, do turn out to be the best, he says. That’s ridiculously rivetingly huge. So we took that exact method with Coyote and Ghost and it turned out so good. If we continue just like this, I think the balance of our band will change exponentially. SLEEPWALK, the songs we are bursting out in, and Shinoda’s song alike, they all became one of Hitorie’s songs. So It gives me so much confidence to hear you say “It might just reach new listeners”.

~~END~~

Bonus video at the bottom!

To all viewers of Skream, we’re Hitorie! I’m the vocal/guitarist wowaka. - I’m the guitarist Shinoda. - The bassist ygarshy. - The drummer Yumao. wowaka: Us, Hitorie, in this 2019th… century…? Shinoda: Yes. wowaka: Are, this February, Shinoda: That’s it. wowaka: on the 27th, Shinoda: That’s right. wowaka: We're releasing our new album HOWLS! Shinoda: So give it a listen. (All members clap) wowaka: With 10 songs, that are all itchy…. Irritated.. Hairy? Fuzzy? Shinoda: Fuzzy. wowaka: Hmm, that’s still not right.. It’s more… animalish? Outlawish? ...Anyway, it’s fast-paced with sadness looming over, yet despite that, there’s still a bit of love and-. Shinoda: (Snickers). wowaka: My explanation is starting to make less and less sense (laughing). It’s thick, it’s good, we have confidence in how this album turned out. So we’d be happy if you could acquire it and give it a listen, please. All members: Please (bow). wowaka: Furthermore, starting on March 1st at Osaka’s Big Cat, and heading on and on to the final destination on June 1st at Shinkiba’s Studio COAST, we’ll be touring the country on Hitorie’s "Coyote Howling” tour. It’s our first tour in a damn while. So dear the people who will follow us anywhere- Or the people who may hate us- Shinoda: People who hate us? wowaka: There’s the chance they’ll come too right? Yumao: I think so. wowaka: For example when someone drags a friend along, who may not have much interest, Yumao: They think “It might be fun” and just tag along, wowaka: Yeah yeah, you might be able to have an experience like that! So by all means, come and play with us. Bye-bye~

[independentartistbuzz]

The Normal Living Unveil Solid New Single

Beginning with an incredibly rocker sound, listeners immediately want to jump in their pickup truck and take a drive on the highway with their windows down. “How it All Went Down” is one of The Normal Living’s most catchy, sing a long tracks we have ever heard, not to mention one of the most “head- bang-able” tracks as well.

Coming off of their 2017 album release, Signals, which had softer tones and smoother vocals, this new era of this Jersey City band has gotten all of their fans extremely pumped. Not only has The Normal Living mastered their new, modern production, but their lyrics are growing as well.  “There’s a shadow on the wall, in a room of ghosts… and all these memories haunt me now, and everybody’s thinking ‘bout trying to figure it out.” Each lyric is just as relatable as the next.

But our all time favorite part of the track comes at the 1:13 mark, when the band gives nod to a mini piano solo, that breaks the song in half and leads us into the latter end of the track, with a new verse and the catchy chorus. 

With a touch of old school rock, indie rock, and soft pop, The Normal Living prove once again that there really is strength in numbers. And we are even more excited for their next release.

Connect Via:

https://www.thenormalliving.com/ https://www.facebook.com/thenormalliving/ https://www.instagram.com/the_normal_living/ https://twitter.com/thenormalliving

[nugudols]

hii can that amazing admin that helped the other anon with the content help me out too? i'm looking for weki meki content to watch and i've been around since their debut but i have no idea what has been released

hi there anon! i started this at 1am last night and was almost finished and accidentally closed the tab and lost everything!! so second time lucky!! i hope this helps!!!

Music Videos / Collabs / Solos:

i don’t like your girlfriend - weki meki (debut) [weme mini album]

la la la - weki meki [lucky mini album]

crush - weki meki (perf. ver.) [kiss kicks mini album] 

butterfly - weki meki

strong - wjmk (doyeon + yoojung [with luda + seola of wjsn])

all i want - weki meki (with astro + hello venus)

like today - lucy + astro’s mj

language test - suyeon + astro’s moonbin

rose smile - elly (ost)

love diamond - elly + suyeon (ost)

flower, wind and you - yoojung, chungha, somi + heehyun

all night - long:d ft doyeon

rise and fall - yoojung (with yoo se-yoon, shim hyungtak, jo kwon)

Reality Shows:

weki meki what’s up (eng sub)

dodaengs diary in l.a (eng sub)

produce 101 

full series eng sub

fantagio audition - glass bead

broduce 101 yoojung + doyeon cameo

pick me

produce 101 doyeon

at the same place [solo] [full]

bang bang [solo] [full]

la cha ta [solo] [full]

doyeon ostrich

produce 101 yoojung

bang bang [solo] [full]

hot issue [solo] [full]

yum yum [solo] [full]

struggle to sing high notes

yoojung’s journey

hit the stage - chungha + yoojung

law of the jungle (doyeon) [eps 334-343]

golden tambourine [no eng sub] - yoojung

Variety Shows:

weekly idol (with golden child) eng sub

weekly idol (with fromis 9) eng sub

super junior tv ep. 5 (eng sub)

after school club ep. 305 (no eng sub)

after mom’s asleep (yoojung, doyeon + elly)

king of masked singer [suyeon] [doyeon] [yoojung]

battle trip - yoojung + gugudan’s mina

nct night night 170814 eng sub

nct night night 181026 (no eng sub)

secret unnie (yoojung with exid’s hani)

IOI (Yoojung + Doyeon):

crush - ioi

dream girls - ioi

whatta man - ioi

very very very - ioi

downpour - ioi

hold on comeback stage

into the new world special stage

girl’s present stage (with gfriend, twice + red velvet)

remix special stage

very very very with lee seowon special stage

doo wap + dream girls stage

hip in 2016 stage

morning in the dorm clip

weekly idol eng sub

the return of superman

Other:

dance practice [idlyg] [la la la] [crush] [true valentine]

relay dance [idlyg + mnet] [la la la] [crush]

wtf (where they from) dance practice

say my name + rude boy dance practice

yoojung + ellen boy group dance cover

keke cam (eng sub)

crush mv making

school of 樂 (eng sub)

crushing the mission - dingo

aegyo relay

4k performance group fancam

2017 mama in japan (with chungha + pristin)

be mine stage (yoojung with momo, seulgi, sinb, chungha)

hot summer special stage

stay with me stage

true valentine stage

a song for you request song #5

yoojung + doyeon sistar medley

i dont like your girlfriend asmr lyric live (yoojung)

isac [bowling doyeon + lucy] [suyeon + yoojung anthem / doyeon throw]

idol fever [ep.1 eng sub] yoojung + doyeon

[youtube] [vlive]

[singminibang]

Blind Date

Author: Bitsy83 (tumblr: @bitsy83)

Artist: stevetwisp (tumblr: @stevetwisp)

Summary: Ash has been set up on a blind date that is quickly going wrong. Can the night be salvaged by the unexpected help of a good friend?

There were a lot of things Ash had put up with over the years.  She’d put up with rude subway passengers complaining about her quills.  She had dealt with hecklers at her shows.  And Lance had supplied her with more than enough headaches that she could care to remember.  She even had been promised the chance of winning 100,000 dollars only to find out it was a scam, followed by a near death experience with almost drowning inside of the Moon theater.  

All of that was nothing compared to what she was going through tonight.

Ever since Mr. Moon announced to the audience that she had been dumped by her boyfriend, her Aunt Ruth - a loving, but rather nosy porcupine who lived in the suburbs - made it her sole mission to get her niece back into the dating game by finding her a proper boyfriend.  Ruth was part of a large knitting group that met every week.  During one meeting, she had shared with her fellow knitters that her poor niece was nursing a broken heart and needed to find a knight in shinning armor to help her recover from her recent bout with depression.  Ruth’s friends were more than happy to ask their many nephews, neighbors, and whomever they felt eligible to court the lovely porcupine…despite Ash’s numerous attempts to tell them it wasn’t necessary and she’d rather not get back into the dating game at this point.

Ash knew from the start this date was going to be a disaster.  First off, the mother of Ash’s “date” had already gone ahead and made the reservations for a Tex-Mex restaurant and she hated Tex-Mex.  She loved spicy food, but for some reason anything south of the border (or close to it) always left her feeling nauseated and would haunt her for the remainder of the evening. Second, her date’s name was Stewart and was not the most charming porcupine on the planet. In fact, she swore he was some sort of beaver with really strong hair gel.  He dressed a bit like a stereotypical hipster, complete with black-rimmed glasses, flannel shirt covering a tee that had a T-rex playing guitar, and a stocking cap that fit surprisingly well over his quilled head.  This was due to the fact that he suffered from chronic quill loss and every now and then, a few would quills would pop out and fall to the floor.  But the absolute worse thing about this date is that Stewart hated anything mainstream, confirming Ash’s suspicious of his hipster appearance.  Ash appreciated indie rock and even went to some underground bands while she was dating Lance, but she still liked current bands and singers.  While trying to break the ice with Stewart, she had let it slip that Fur-Out Boy was one of her favorite bands, which sent him on a rant for ten minutes of how they became the biggest sellouts in all music history.

She was ready to bail before they had even ordered their food.  

Ash just gripped her menu, pretending to look at the entrees when really she was trying to figure out what to do to get out of this.  She was hating every second and knew it was only going to get worse the longer she stayed there.  She tried to be friendly with Stewart for her aunt’s sake, but he was making it impossible.  She silently scolded herself for not telling Meena or Rosita she had a date that night and to plan an emergency text or phone call to give her an excuse to leave.  She thought of faking an illness, but she had a feeling that Stewart would see right though that.  Still, looking at the entrees the menu had to offer, she probably didn’t have to do much faking.  

“Ash?  Ash!”

“What?”  She quickly put down the menu to see that Stewart had been addressing her.  

“I asked if you found anything good,” he said, pulling a few stray quill from under his cap and letting them drop on the floor.  

“Oh, um, I was thinking of going light tonight.  You know, just a salad or something.”

Stewart scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “Typical girl.  Always worried about your figure; too afraid to try anything bold or exciting.”

“What’s wrong with salads?”

“I’m just saying you girls are always freaking out if you eat a sugar cube or something and think you’ll explode into some blimp.  Hate to break this to you, but if you thinking eating ‘low fat’ foods is saving you calories, they stuff those things with sugar to make up for the fat loss, so you’ve probably already been suckered.”

Ironically, Ash already knew about the controversy with “low-fat” foods and was well aware of this.  “I don’t actually…” she started to say, but Stewart wasn’t done.  

“Who cares what diet snobs and conglomerate organizations think of your food choices?” he continued, closing his menu.  “Just eat what you want.”

“Ok…I want to eat a salad.”  

Stewart looked at Ash as if she had grown an extra head.  “Did you hear what I just said?”

“Really wish I didn’t,” Ash muttered, putting her face behind the menu again.

Stewart then reached over and lowered the menu.  “Hey, maybe you should let me order for you, huh?  You seem a bit confused on what you want.”  

“I already told you want I wanted,” she said, trying to hide her annoyance.  

“Like I said: confused.  But, hey, you want a salad, go ahead and get a salad.  You probably don’t want to to be too bloated for later anyway.”

Ash looked up, cocking an eyebrow.  “What’s going on later?  You wanted to go see a movie or something?”  Ash almost hoped that’s what he meant.  Seeing a movie would mean they wouldn’t have to talk to each other, unless he liked to nitpick every mistake on the screen.  She could tell this was the type of guy who’d watch a trailer halfway through, then flood the comment section with critiques complete with bad spelling.  

Stewart leaned forward and wiggled his eyebrows.  “I was thinking something more…private.”

Ash leaned back, trying to create as much space between them sitting down.  She really did not like where this was going.  “How private are we talking here?”

“Maybe your place?  I’d suggest mine, but the walls are pretty thin in my parent’s basement and…”

“Ok, stop!”  Ash snapped, throwing up her paws to silence the forward porcupine.  “Dude, are you serious?  We just met!  I barely remember your last name.”

“So?  Why should we let society tell when we can or can’t?  We’re animals, remember?  We gotta do as nature commands.  Besides, I thought you rocker chicks were kinda, ya know, ready and willing?”

Ash felt her face go red.  Not even Lance went this far, this fast on their first date.  She wanted to strangle this weirdo, but there were security cameras around and she was pretty sure there was a cop in the booth next to them.  The last thing she needed was to be tried with murder in the first degree.  Still, what could she do?  If she stormed out, then someone was bound to record it and she’d be on every social media page on the Internet.  Then people would be stretching the truth and Stewart would probably twist the situation around.  And what would her aunt Ruth say?  Obviously, staying there wasn’t an option.  She could try to get out through the fire exit near the bathroom, but what if it was alarmed?  She needed some way to escape before…

“Ash?”

The familiar voice snapped Ash out of her panic attack.  She looked up to see the most beautiful sight she had ever laid eyes on: Johnny.  He was approaching their table, carrying a plastic bag filled with various items she couldn’t identify.  

“Johnny!” she proclaimed, grateful for the distraction.  “What are you doing here?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he said.  “Why aren’t you at the theater?  Mr. Moon wanted us there at six for warm-ups.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Stewart said, clearly upset at being interrupted.  “Ash, who is this guy?”

Before Ash could answer, Johnny was already extending his hand.  “Oh, sorry mate.  Name’s Johnny; I’m a friend of Ash here.  We both work at the Moon Theater.”

Stewart reluctantly shook Johnny’s hand, which practically covered half his arm, then looked back at Ash.  “Oh, I see.  This is a, uh, ‘buddy’ of yours, Ashy?”  Even without the air quotes, Ash knew what Stewart meant and was about to grab the knife in front of her when she felt Johnny’s hand on her shoulder, calming her instantly.  

“So, yeah, Mr. Moon sent out a group text to everyone this morning about tomorrow’s rehearsal being changed to tonight.  Something about last minute plans or whatever.  Anyway, I was just getting some tucker for later and I just happened to see you from the street.  I figured you probably didn’t get the memo.”

Ash just stared at Johnny.  She knew he was lying since Mr. Moon rarely texted anyone.  He was an old-fashioned phone call kind of marsupial.  Besides, he just recently got a flip phone that made texting close to impossible.

Then Johnny sent a subtle hint by darting his eyes to the door, then back to her.  Catching on, she played along.  

“Oh, right!” Ash said, giving her forehead a light smack.  “I totally blanked on that.  I’m sorry, Stewart, but I’m gonna have to bail - I mean, go.  Come on, Johnny!  Let’s hurry before you get a ticket for being double-parked. Bye!”

“Cheers, mate,” said Johnny, following Ash.  

“W-wait a second!” exclaimed Stewart.  “Who’s gonna pay for dinner?”  

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Ash called back.  

Before Stewart could try anything else, Johnny and Ash were already clear out of the restaurant.  Ash wasted no time in searching for Johnny’s truck.  “Where are you parked?” she asked.

“’Round the corner.  This way,” he said, leading her down the street.

Once they found the truck and were both securely inside, they took a minute to breathe, then busted out laughing.  “Oh man, that was close!” said Ash.  

“Yeah,” said Johnny putting the bag on the seat between them.  “So, what was that?  A bad blind date or something?”

“Bad is putting it lightly,” said Ash.  “My aunt set me up with him. She figured I needed help moving on from Lance.  I swear, if you hadn’t come in…hey, why are you here, anyway?”

Johnny blushed slightly and scratched the back of his neck.  “Yeah, well, I was actually just stopping off at the store to get some groceries and I happened to see you from the sidewalk.  From the look on your face, you needed some backup.  Hope I wasn’t intruding.  I mean, I know how independent you are and…”

Ash raised her paws, hushing Johnny.  “No, no!  You were great.  I knew this date was going to bomb from the first second I laid eyes on that loser.  So…yeah, you were awesome.  Thank you.”  Ash reached over and gave Johnny’s arm a gentle squeeze.  She felt his muscles tighten up a bit, possibly due to nerves.  Sensing the awkwardness, she quickly removed her paw.  “Sorry…” she muttered.  

“It’s alright…” he muttered back.  For awhile, they just sat there, trying figure out what to do next.    

“So…” Johnny said, finally breaking the tension.  “You planning anything else tonight?  It’s still pretty early.”

Ash shrugged.  “Go home, I guess.  I think I still got some leftover mac and cheese in the fridge I could heat up.”

“You haven’t eaten yet?”

“Nah.  Apparently, ordering salads is frowned upon from whatever planet that jerk was from.  That, and I can’t stand Tex-Mex so I doubt I would’ve found anything edible.”

“Well…what’re your thoughts on Asian?”

Ash cocked an eyebrow as she looked up at the gorilla.  “I’m rather partial to it.  What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I was heading for this place that has really good Dim-Sum.  If you want, we could get a table and just…you know, hang.  Would…you like to get some Dim-Sum?”

It was obvious Johnny was trying to make a little rhyme joke.  Normally, Ash would roll her eyes at what she would consider a “dad joke,” but she smiled.  This was Johnny; he was too adorable to chastise.  

“I’d love some,” she said, trying to continue the pun.

Johnny immediately brightened. “Great!  Then let’s go get some.”

“Johnny…”

“Right. Last one.  Promise.”  

Johnny was not kidding about the restaurant.  It was called The Lotus Garden and was located next to the boardwalk.  It had a lovely interior with paintings of ancient China and even paper lanterns hanging over the tables.  The waitress - a slender grey cat - seemed to recognize Johnny and when he introduced Ash to her, she couldn’t help but giggle with a broad grin on her face.  Clearly, she didn’t know this was just an impromptu dinner with a friend.  Johnny took the liberty of ordering, since Ash had never been there before.  Normally, whenever she got Chinese, it was always lo mein or some kind of wanton soup.  He had ordered a couple of lettuce wraps with a rice-and-vegetable filling, followed by some soup steamed buns.  They were the most delicious thing Ash had ever tasted.  The moist buns were filled with a steamy savory broth that melted in her mouth.  It was flavorful without being overwhelming.  The lettuce wraps gave her a bit of trouble since she wasn’t sure what to do with them.  Thanks to Johnny’s guidance, using lettuce leaves as a makeshift burrito made the meal strangely enjoyable.    

“Got to hand it to you, Johnny,” said Ash as she was finishing the last bun.  “That really hit the spot.”  

Johnny chuckled, using the napkin to wipe the corners of his mouth.  “Figured you’d like it.”  

“Pouchong?”

Ash looked up to see the waitress had returned and was carrying an iron tea pot with two small cups without handles.  

“Oh yes, please,” said Johnny, clearing a space for the platter.  The waitress nodded and set the tea set in front of them, then collected their dishes.  She gave them a small nod and took the plates back to the kitchen.  

“What exactly is this?” Ash asked.  

“Pouchong,” said Johnny, pouring the steaming liquid into the cups.  “It’s a type of oolong tea.  I normally get a cup after dinner; helps with digestion, you know?  Here.”  Johnny delicately picked up the cup and handed it to Ash.  Taking it with both paws, she sniffed it before taking a small sip.  It had a sweet, flowery taste.  Ash was never one for tea since coffee was her drink of choice, but she found herself enjoying it.    

“This is pretty good,” said Ash, taking another sip.  

“They sell it at the front counter, if you want to take some home,” Johnny suggested.

“Yeah, don’t really own any teapots, but thanks.”  It didn’t take long for Ash to finish her first cup and motioned for Johnny to pour her some more.  “I take it you’re a regular here?”

Johnny shrugged while setting the pot down.  “Yeah.  Dad and I found it after we moved here.  We always just ordered from the takeout menu.  He never liked eating in the restaurant because…well, he didn’t want people spotting him.”  And then Johnny’s face fell and went silent.  

Ash knew why.  It was hard for Johnny to bring up his dad.  When she first found out that Marcus “Big Daddy” Greystone was Johnny’s father, she had a hard time making connection.  Sure they were both gorillas who happened to be from England, but she couldn’t imagine a sweet guy like Johnny being the son of a gang leader.  Proof that fruit can fall far from the tree, she suspected.  It wasn’t long before the rest of the theater family found out, but they still loved Johnny and treated him with the same dignity and respect they always had.

“Are…are you ok?”  she asked, reaching over and squeezing his hand.  “I didn’t mean to…”

“No no, it’s fine.  Really,” said Johnny, patting her hand.  “I mean, it’s not like it’s a big secret.  But, yeah, I started actually having dinners here after my dad went to…well, went away.  Beats going back to an empty garage, doesn’t it?”

Ash nodded, knowing all too well.  Going back to an empty apartment that still had memories of Lance wasn’t easy after the breakup.  Still, the apartment had to be a much cozier home than a big empty garage and she always had the option to get a new roommate.  Johnny couldn’t get another father…

“But it’s not so bad,” said Johnny, suddenly perking up a bit.  “I visit him every other day and we’re really starting to work things out.  He’s agreed to finish his sentence, he’s actually getting along well with the other inmates.  He’s even participating in one of those “ “scared straight” programs for teens to stay on the right track.  Trust me, he’s perfect for that.  When my dad talks, you listen.  No exceptions.”

“Any word of when his parole is?”  

Johnny did a rough calculation in his head before answering.  “I think the last I heard was about eight months from now?  So by September, maybe?”  

Ash nodded, then lifted her cup.  “Then, best luck to your dad and here’s hoping for an early parole.”

Johnny smiled and lightly clinked his tea cup with hers.  “Cheers.”

“Well, I had a wonderful time tonight,” said Ash, finishing her tea.  “Thanks again for…you know, everything.”  

“My pleasure.”

It was a strange moment.  They both sat there, staring into each others eyes, all the while Ash trying to make sense of what was happening.  She knew it wasn’t a date.  At least, not an official one.  Then why did she want it to be?  They were just friends.  Weren’t they?  She was about to say something when the waitress returned with a couple of fortune cookies.  Johnny was expecting the receipt when cat just shook her head.  “On top of house,” she said with her heavy Chinese accent.  

“Oh no, please,” said Johnny pulling out wallet.  “I can pay.”

But the cat shook her head.  “On house.  Photo?”

Johnny glanced over at Ash and chuckled nervously.  “I, uh, think she wants to know if we want our picture taken.  You know, to…”

“Commemorate the moment?” Ash asked with a grin.  She then pulled out her phone.  “Sure, why not?  Kinda want a memento, anyway.”      

After setting the phone to camera mode and handing it to the waitress, Ash brought her chair closer to Johnny and they leaned in to pose.  Ash had to stand on the chair to be the same height as Johnny and placed her arm on his shoulder.  After the picture was taken, Ash took the phone back to see the results.  It looked pretty good: Johnny wore a handsome smile and Ash, much to her surprise, looked pretty happy too.  Normally, she had to force her smile since she hated having her picture taken.  Here, it looked natural.  Probably because it was.  

After the cat left, Johnny decided to break open his fortune cookie.  “Let’s see. Today is the day to show someone you care.”

“Well, I guess that one already came true,” said Ash, breaking open her cookie.  “Don’t let past mistakes keep you from making future discoveries.”  Ash thought about that for a moment.  She had made a lot of mistakes, especially in regards to Lance.  Obviously, the breakup gave her the freedom to write her own song and go solo.  But what if it also meant…

“So, you ready to go?”  Johnny was standing next to her, offering his hand.  

She quickly shook away the thought and took his hand.  “Yeah, sure.”  

Once they got out of the restaurant, Johnny and  Ash headed to the train station which was just around the corner.  He offered to drive her home, but since she had a yearly train pass and lived on the other side of town, she was ok with going by her usual route.  As they walked to the station, Ash looked up at the night sky.  The moon was full and stars twinkled like diamonds, signifying a beautiful evening.

They sat together on the bench, awaiting the next train, which would be by in a few minutes.  “This night certainly turned out better  than I expected,” she said, swinging her feet back and forth.  

“Glad to hear that,” said Johnny.  “You know, if you’re aunt decides to play matchmaker again, you can put me down as an emergency contact.  I don’t mind.”

Ash laughed.  “Nah, I think I’m good with just one blind date; I’ll just have to be straight when I tell that to Ruth.”

“Do you…do you want to start dating again?”  

Ash fiddled with her purse strap.  “Honestly, I don’t think my heart’s made a full recovery yet, you know?  I only did this so my aunt would get off my back.  Right now, I’d rather just focus on my music; maybe even start a band.  I already know a bassist and a drummer wouldn’t be too hard to find.”  

Johnny nodded, kicking a small pebble onto the tracks.  “Well, whatever you decide, I hope it works out for you.  I really do.”

“Appreciate that.  You know, if you want, I could come by the garage some time and keep you company.  I’ll bring my guitar and we could jam out or whatever.”  

Johnny’s face instantly lit up.  Apparently, he liked the idea of having any kind of company on days he wasn’t needed at the theater.  “I’d love that, actually.  It’s got plenty of space, so the acoustics would sound amazing.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.  So, would Wednesday be ok?”

“Sure!  Uh, maybe after one?  I tend to hit the gym in the morning.”

Ash smiled.  “It’s a date.”  

She then stood upon the bench and, once she was eye level with Johnny, put her arms around his neck and hugged him.  His neck was so thick, she could barely make her fingers touch.  She felt him return the hug, making sure to be careful of her quills.  Ash never felt so secure in someone’s arms before.  Lance was always so half-hearted with his hugs, being that he hated public displays of affection.  Even when they were alone, he thought cuddling was stupid.  Then again, Johnny wasn’t Lance, so of course it was better.  Much better.  

She pulled away took to look into his eyes.  They were such a warm, chestnut brown and Johnny was so handsome.  Why hadn’t she noticed it before?  Without stopping to think, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, causing Johnny to let out a small gasp.  His cheeks turned a subtle red before he looked down at his shoes, a small grin spreading on his face.   

 Just then, a loud whistle broke the silence as the train pulled into the station.

Ash once again smiled at Johnny and patted his shoulder.  “Night, Johnny,” she said and hopped off the bench.  

“Y-yeah, night.”  

When she boarded the train, she took one last look at Johnny as he gave her a small wave goodbye.  The image was ruined as the doors closed, blocking him from view.  The train took a sudden lurch and started moving again.  It wasn’t hard finding a place to sit since there were barely any passengers riding the train at that hour.  Once she was comfortable, she thought about what she had gone through tonight.  

There was no doubt that the night started horribly.  She knew it would, even before she met Stewart.  And yet, had it not been for that nightmarish blind date, she’d had never had met up with Johnny.  She would never have discovered how much she loved his company.  

Discovery. She pulled out her phone and called up the photo from the Lotus Garden.  The porcupine and the gorilla in the picture certainly looked happy together. Then she thought about her fortune: Don’t let past mistakes stop you from making future discoveries.  

Ash didn’t want to think too much about the future or look too far in the past.  She was perfectly fine in the present.  As she listened to the hum of the train taking her home, she closed her eyes and sighed happily, inadvertently pressing her phone against her heart.  

[kpopmultifan]

CLASS of 2018 - MARCH

AZM

Debut Date: March 2, 2018 Agency: Innok Entertainment Members: Eunjin (Leader/Vocal) Youkyung (Main Vocal) Suhyun (Maknae/Vocal) Seoyeon (Main Rapper - left post-debut) Yejin (Lead Rapper - joined/left post-debut) Sowon (joined in October 2018) Simlok (joined in October 2018) Discography: Edge (Debut Digital Single) [MV] Released: March 3, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Our Story (2nd Digital Single) [AUD] Released: July 7, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music]

MINSEO (Soloist)

Debut Date: March 6, 2018 Agency: APOP Entertainment Former Superstar K7 contestant Discography: The Grand Dreams (Debut Digital Single) [MV] Released: March 6, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Growing Up (2nd Digital Single) [MV] Released: April 19, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Is Who (3rd Digital Single) [MV] Released: June 20, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Zero (Promotional Digital Single) [MV] Released: July 23, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music]

W24

Debut Date: March 8, 2018 Agency: JARMY Entertainment Members: Kim Jonggil (Drums/Leader) Chung Howon (Vocals) Park Aaron (Keyboard) Kim Yoonsoo (Guitar) Park Jiwon (Bass/Maknae) Discography: Love Me (Pre-Debut Digital Single) [LIVE] Released: February 5, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Singing Dancing (Debut Mini-Album) Title Track: Always Missing You [MV] Released: March 8, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Sosime (2nd Digital Single) [MV] Released: October 29, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music]

JUNG IL HOON (Soloist)

(Solo) Debut: March 8, 2018 Agency: CUBE Entertainment Member of BTOB (2018 to present) Discography: Fancy Shoes (Piece of BTOB Vol.2) (Pre-Solo Debut Digital Single) [Choreo MV] Released: May 30, 2017 [iTunes/Apple Music] Baesisi (with Jisook of RAINBOW) (Pre-Solo Debut Digital Single) [MV] Released: August 24, 2017 [iTunes/Apple Music] Big Wave (Solo Debut Mini-Album) Title Track: She’s Gone [MV] Released: March 8, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Numerous features

HONEY POPCORN

Debut Date: March 21, 2018 Agency: Kyun Create All members are Japanese and former j-pop girl group members & JVN actresses. Members: Moki Sakura (aka Ito Yuu) Miko Matsuda (aka Okada Risako) Yua Mikami (aka Kito Momona) Discography: Bibidi Babidi Boo (Debut Mini-Album) Title Track: Bibidi Babidi Boo [MV] Released: March 21, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music]

STRAY KIDS

Debut Date: March 25, 2018 Agency: JYP Entertainment Members: Bang Chan (Leader/Lead Vocal/Rap) Woojin (Main vocal) Lee Know (Main Dancer/Vocal/Rap) Changbin (Main Rapper/Vocal) Hyunjin (Main Dancer/Lead Rapper) Han (Main Rapper/Lead Vocal) Felix (Lead Dancer/Lead Rapper) Seungmin (Lead Vocal) I.N (Vocal/Maknae) Discography: Hellevator (Pre-Debut Digital Single) [MV] Released: November 1, 2017 [iTunes/Apple Music] Mixtape (Pre-Debut Mini-Album) Track: Beware [MV] Track: Spread My Wings [MV] Released: January 8, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] I am NOT (Debut Mini-Album) Title Track: District 9 [MV] Released: March 26, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] I am WHO (2nd Mini-Album) Title Track: My Pace [MV] Released: August 6, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] I am YOU (3rd Mini-Album) Title Track: I am YOU [MV] Released: October 22, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music]

HOYA (Soloist)

(Solo) Debut: March 28, 2018 Agency: Glorious Entertainment Formerly a member of INFINITE (2010-2017) Discography: Angel (Solo Pre-Debut Digital Digital Single) [MV] Released: March 14, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Shower (Solo Debut Mini-Album) Title Track: All Eyes on Me [MV] Released: March 28, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music] Baby U (feat. Hanhae) (Digital Single) [MV] Released: September 12, 2018 [iTunes/Apple Music]

[k-hiphop-trash]

1llionaire Records facts

It was founded on January 1st 2011, by Dok2 and The Quiett. This is the reason their symbol is 11:11 and is written as 1lli; they event try to release songs at 11:11 pm.

The label only has one employee.

None of the rappers are bound by contracts.

Ambition Musik was created under Illionaire Records as a sub label.

The label was closed down on the 6th July 2020.

DOK2

He is one of the founders and owners of Illionaire Records.

Nickname: Dok2 (도끼) or Gonzo.

Real name: Lee JoonKyung (이준경).

He was born on March 28th 1990, he is from Seoul.

He is 165 cm or 161 cm.

He debuted when he was 13 by making a collaboration with rapper Cho PD and later on he joined his label Future Flow Entertainment.

At 16, he was part of the hiphop group Like Child Rapper alongside Microdot.

His stage name “Dok2″ means “axe” in Korean.

He is half Corean, a quarter Spanish and a quarter Philippine, because his mother is Korean but his father is Philippine and Spanish.

He made a cameo in 2016 drama “Entourage”.

Gonzo refers to his Philippine mother whose last name is González. However, he is also called “The Dirty South Korean” by some of his fans and “Young Boss” by himself.

He said he is very romantic and falls in love easily.

He is attracted by a woman’s strength and character rather than physical appearance.

He is close with Jay Park, Epik High, CL, Wooram, GD and Taeyang.

He collaborated with GD and Tablo on GD’s album “One Of A Kind”.

He admires 2pac, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Zeebra and Nas.

He is really close with all YG artists and has a lot of collaborations with many of them.

He was a producer in Show Me The Money 3 with The Quiett.

Team Dok2-TheQuiett won SMTM3 with Bobby.

He was in Show Me The Money 5 as a producer with The Quiett.

He appeared in Show Me The Money 6 with Jay Park as a producer team.

His father is famous guitarist Willy Lee.

In November 2018 his car was broken into and a few things stolen.

On the 6th February 2020 it was announced that he had left 1llionaire Records.

He produced SMTM collaboration stage for rappers that were eliminated: S.M.T.M (Show Me The Money).

He currently lives in Los Angeles.

In October 2019 he was accused by a jewellery brand of not having paid over 34,000 USD and filed a complaint against him. Finally, the trial took place on July 22nd 2020 and Dok2 won the lawsuit and the complaint was dropped.

THE QUIETT

He is one of the founders and owners of Illionaire Records.

Real name:  Shin Dong Gab (신동갑).

Nickname: The Quiett (더콰이엇).

He was born January 29th 1985 in Gwangmyeong, South Korea.

He started rapping at 16, in 2003.

He is 171 cm.

He went to SungKongHoe University.

His blood type is B.

He met Dok2 in 2005 when they participated in Dynamic Duo’s second album.

He said he would be a nice and kind boyfriend since it comes naturally to him, he isn’t a “bad guy” type of partner. He also said that he is the kind of person that never fights with women. Regarding this topic, he’s mentioned that he wouldn’t make the relationship public since chaos would ensue.

Some of his many hobbies are small action figures, audio, furniture and toys.

He knows how to overcome loneliness.

He would like to try skydiving.

He plays basketball since he was a young kid.

He doesn’t like vegetables and he doesn’t really know how to cook. In fact, for about 11 years he did not pay the gas bill because he didn’t cook at home; he’s said to have a working stove nowadays.

He has collected a lot of tazos in the past.

He debuted in 2005 with his first mixtape, which was Christian music.

He used to be the co-founder and one of the main producers in Soul Company.

He was a producer in Show Me The Money 3 with Dok2.

Team Dok2-TheQuiett won SMTM3 with contestant Bobby.

He appeared as a producer in SMTM4 with Dok2.

He is considered as one of the best rappers in Korea and one of the best producers in the world.

His album “Q-Train” won the Hiphop Album of the Year in the fourth Korean Pop Music Awards.

He already went to the military service.

The South Korean law says that during the military service you can’t do any other work related activities without a special permit. However, The Quiett still released an album and performed shows to promote it. Due to this, he was sanctioned to two extra weeks in the service.

He was a producer in Show Me The Money 777 with Changmo.

He was a mentor in HSR3 with Code Kunst.

He appeared in many episodes of Dingo’s mini series “Bition Boyz” with Ash Island, Changmo, Way Ched, Leellamarz, Hash SwN and Keem Hyoeun.

He came up with his stage name after listening to Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm”.

He learned English through music, by listening to Western artists.

“Rap House” is a small concert that happens once a month and he is in charge of managing and casting rookie artists to perform.

The members of 1llionaire and Ambition Musik often meet at his place.

He doesn’t cook a lit, in fact, he has not paid gas bills for about 11 years since he doesn’t use the kitchen.

He really likes Coogie and was one of his favourite rappers of SMTM777 along Nafla and Kid Milli.

He met Leellamarz before he was signed under Ambition Musik to record the violin for some of his songs. They later met again in New York after Leellamarz (who was living there at the time) contacted him weh he learned that both of them were in the city. Afterwards Leellamarz was contacted by The Quiett to sing with his company.

He discovered producer Way Ched through Leellamarz, who was friends with him and recommended him to sign in Ambition as well.

He is very calm and doesn’t get angry often, so in one episode of Bition Boyz Ash Island and Leellamarz hat to try and anger him (they failed). Leellamarz said this is because he just goes with the flow of the situation.

He lives without planning anything because he likes to be faithful to the everyday life and live as it is.

According to pH-1, his strength is being able to control his emotions.

In 2018 he was officially a full member of KOMCA (Korea Music Copyright Assotiation).

On September 29th 2016 he co-founded Ambition Musik with Dok2.

He is the maknae among the members of DAMOIM (excluding NoiseMasterMinsu).

During his appearances in Dingo’s channel he’s fallen many times and other artists say he has a natural talent for this type of shows.

He doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings.

He doesn’t smoke.

He eats whatever he can find at any time he is hungry, doesn’t really follow a schedule or diet.

The Quiett’s answer to what’s his ideal type was: “It’s a really difficult question because there isn’t just one”.

He has a Shiba Inu named Torry and has it’s own instagram account: @torrystory

He co-founded Daytona Entertainment with fellow DAMOIM rapper Yumdda on November 25th 2020.

BEENZINO

He joined Illionaire Records on 2011.

Nickname: Beenzino (빈지노).

Real name: Lim Seong Bin (임성빈).

He was born on September 12th 1987.

He is 187cm or 180 cm.

His blood type is AB.

He is dating german model Stefanie Michova since 2015.

He started in the Korean hip hop scene in 2004, at 17.

He released his first work, “Daily Apartment”, in 2009 with Dok2.

He debuted with Illionaire Records during the concert HUSTLE REAL HARD Concert, held in 2011.

He used to be a member of the group JAZZYFACT with producer Shimmy Twice.

He went to Seoul Arts High School (not sure if this is the correct name in English).

He went to the Korean National University of Arts and got a bachelor in sculpture.

He spent part of his childhood in Christchurch, New Zealand and moved to Korea before middle school.

He can speak English fluently.

He is good at beatbox, drawing and sculpting.

He was part of “IABstudio", a very famous art studio.

He admires B.o.B, Drake, Nas, 2Pac and Frank Ocean.

He is close with Simon D, Zico, Tablo, Zion.T and Yong JunHyung.

He said in an interview that his girlfriend called him “Lim-sugar”.

His nickname “Beenzino”, is a parody of American rappers name Benzino. He used to use parody names with his university colleagues. He never expected to use it for a long time. It was created by combining the Boston rappers name with hos birth name “빈”.

When asked who they would like to collab with, many Korean artists mention Beenzino claiming that is really hard to get a feature from him.

He made his debut as a solo MC in Primary’s album “P’Skool’s Daily Apartment” in July 28th 2009.

He released his first album in 2012, “24:26”.

He was offered to be a part of BTS by CEO Bang Si Hyuk.

After a long time, JAZZYFACT released new material in 2017, on the day Beenzino joined the military service.

He concluded his military service on February 16th 2019.

After finishing his military service he apeared in one episode of Dingo’s mini series”Bition Boyz” with Changmo, Hyoeun and Hash Swan.

He often travels to Germany with his girlfriend.

He is learning German.

He is engaged to Stefania Michova.

We are not sure wether the facts in italics are true/correct or not. 

If you have any more information or notice something wrong don’t hesitate to let us know!

Credits to: https://kprofiles.com/beenzino-profile/; https://kprofiles.com/quiett-profile-facts/

[btsrabbithole]

The latest album from the masters of the K-pop formula is a slick, loosely thematic album about love and loss, with a stronger focus on rapping than ever before.

The latest album from the masters of the K-pop formula is a slick, loosely thematic album about love and loss, with a stronger focus on rapping than ever before.

K-pop has long been poised for a breakthrough in the U.S., and the stars have aligned for the Korean boy band BTS. It doesn’t hurt that it is easier now than ever to be a K-pop fan on this side of the world, with the genre being tailor-made for our current algorithm-fed content chain. BTS has seized the opportunity, building a ravenous fanbase, not just at home and stateside but in South America and Europe as well. Bangtan Boys (their full name, Bangtan Sonyeondan, translates to “bulletproof boy scouts” in English), are designed for this moment, highly curated, aesthetically optimized for Western consumption.

BTS have been presented as the art-house alternative to K-pop’s manic energy: a modish, dilettantish, act whose music is a vehicle for larger artistic choices and statements. After debuting as a swag rap outfit, they evolved from rap-sung mashups to posh electro-pop pageantry. The concept for their 2016 album, Wings, was inspired by Hermann Hesse’s 1919 book Demian. The visuals for one of the best BTS songs, “Blood Sweat & Tears,” were picturesque stills framed in a pop-up museum featuring “The Fall of the Rebel Angels,” Michelangelo’s “Pietà,” and Nietzsche quotes etched in stone, which all produced dramatic fan readings of the video’s symbolism. The members co-write and co-produce their songs, some of which delve into mental wellness and social responsibility, a process that has led many to dub their songs more “personal,” a word sometimes used as a dog whistle for music appealing to be taken more seriously. Their tactics have been emulated by boy bands who have followed, but in many ways, BTS are simply the K-pop model maximized for efficiency.

Love Yourself: 轉 ‘Tear’, which follows the 2017 mini album Love Yourself: ‘Her’ and the Japanese full-length Face Yourself released earlier this year, is a kaleidoscopic mark of that efficiency, observing the finely tuned formula BTS have been perfecting since 2015. ‘Tear’, like ‘Her’, is a concept album of sorts. Roughly half the songs adhere to the album’s subhead. If ‘Her’ was an assortment of heart-professing love songs, then ‘Tear’ is the inverse. It deals primarily, though not exclusively, with the cycle of grief that lingers through a separation. But all of the songs generally find their way back around to self-love at some point. The album’s opener, “Intro: Singularity,” provides its thesis. “Even in my momentary dreams/The illusions that torture me are still the same,” V sings. “Did I lose myself, or did I gain you?”

Written and arranged with longtime producer and frequent collaborator Pdogg and Big Hit label CEO Hitman Bang along with a team of collaborators (Steve Aoki, MNEK, Chainsmokers co-producer DJ Swivel), ‘Tear’ aims for cohesion and produces fun, prismatic songs in the process. There is some level of thematic consistency on ‘Tear’ with at least a semblance of an emotional arc being teased out across the 11 tracks: navigating a dream world and the real one in search of a personal paradise (which at times reads like an analog for being a pop star, especially on “Airplane Pt. 2”), losing love and facing the requisite anxieties and loneliness. These all come to a head on the foreboding lead single “Fake Love,” characterized in full by a lyric that roughly translates to: “I grew a flower that couldn’t bloom/In a dream that can’t come true.”

K-pop is often experimental in form and function, which produces full-lengths that can be spasmodic in tone and quality. BTS aren’t immune to this, but the rappers—RM (or Rap Monster), J-Hope, and Suga—anchor the group, not only keeping it moored to a unified aesthetic amid constant stylistic shifts but dictating much of what happens in the music. On the bruising, all-rap closer “Outro: Tear,” the three take turns ripping through the track with punchy cadences, at times suddenly swapping places. The group’s vocalists trade off short, sweet passages that revolve around and often pivot off of rapped verses. Where rap verses are often stopgaps for other K-pop groups, obligatory aspects of pop roleplaying, they are essential to structure and composition here. Whispered, breathy raps slingshot into the supple hook on the flute-powered “134340.” On “Love Maze,” RM balances elastic syllabics with singsong musings while Suga dashes into a tightly twisting flow. Between them, the other members let loose mellow, honeyed coos. The sequencing of the vocal routines is as carefully synchronized as the choreography in their videos.

‘Tear’ isn’t as ambitious or stunning or tragic as Wings, which gave each of the seven members a solo turn ranging from lounge-ready piano balladry and symphonic, single-spotlight melodrama to brooding alt-rap with “Blood Sweat & Tears” as its ideological and aesthetic centerpiece. But there are moments here when BTS seem more poised and more in sync than ever. The Aoki-produced “The Truth Untold” is an epic misdirection; instead of leaning into their EDM-flavored pop or the blitzing trap of Aoki’s “Mic Drop” remix, they opt for a seamless piano serenade wherein the group’s four singers weave in and out of each stanza. “Paradise” is largely propelled by graceful exchanges from Jungkook, V, and Jimin, who surface and retreat gently. Across Love Yourself: 轉 ‘Tear’, BTS are at their best when they feel for and support one another.

Sheldon Pearce x Pitchfork

[inseobts]

Guide to WINNER (위너)

In 2013, YG launched the survival show “WIN: WHO IS NEXT” (you can watch it on youtube: link here) with two teams: Team A (now WINNER) and Team B (now iKON). They competed for the chance to debut as the first YG boy group in eight years, since the debut of Big Bang.

After 3 rounds of public voting Team A won and became WINNER.

DEBUT

They released their S/S 2014 album digitally, on 12 August 2014.

They debuted October 28, 2014 with Color Ring and Empty.

Their debut concept was Model/Runway. Yang Hyunsuk (YG) said: “winner members are taller than other YG singers, we set concept to present them as fashion models.”

They got their first win with Empty (link here) just 6 days after album released and on their stage debut, becoming the faster group to get their first win after debut (record yet to be broken).

COMEBACK 2016

In 2015, the group went on hiatus while the members pursued solo activities.

They had their comeback after 17 months, in february 2016 with the mini album Exit:E.

On November 25, Nam Taehyun's departure from the group was announced.

COMEBACK 2017

After the hiatus and a lot of dibandment rumors, YG annunced their comeback as a four-member group, without any addition of new members even if it was rumored about the debut of ONE as a member of WINNER.

New music on April 4 with the single album Fate Number For with two tracks, Really Really and Fool. "Really Really" debuted at N.3 on Billboard World Digital Song Sales, marking the group's best position to date; while "Fool" debuted at N.4. It was also chosen as one of the songs on Apple Music's “Best of the Week” list.

On August 4, Winner made a comeback with the single album Our Twenty For with two singles, "Love Me Love Me" and "Island". "Love Me Love Me" was chosen by Dazed Digital as one of the 20 best K-Pop songs of 2017.

COMEBACK 2018

On October 5, Winner announced that they will hold their 4th Japan Concert Tour in February 2018.

On April 4, they released their second full album EVERYD4Y after 4 years with a mix of different genres as trap, tropical house, pop rock, ballad and r&b. Everyday is the title track.

On July 4, YG announced their first world tour but that honestly included Asia only so American ics requested some dates and succeeded.

On November 26, Mino made his solo debut with full album XX and title track Fiancé. He topped the charts of December and became the faster soloist to have his first win after debut.

On December 19, they released the single track Millions as a fan song, aka a gift for the fans. They got six wins and topped the charts.

COMEBACK 2019

On May 15, they released the mini album WE with Ah Yeah as title track, topping the charts.

On August 14, Jinwoo made his solo debut with the single album Jinu’s Heyday and lead single Call Anytime featuring Mino.

On October 23, they released another mini album called CROSS with title track SOSO, experimenting a new concept. In the MV we can see Seunghoon naked and a dancer stepping on Mino’s face and those scene were actually ideas of the members themselves.

COMEBACK 2020

Since Covid made them cancel the tour, winner were the first group to do an online concert which also was free on vlive and also on Valentine’s Day, February 14.

On March 26, they released the pre-single Hold, topping the charts. In the MV there’s AKMU Lee Suhyun playing the role of winner’s little sister.

In March, Seungyoon participated in King of Mask Singer, for the second time and became the first and only YG artist to win, earning the title as the "122nd Mask King”. He was able to pull off six consecutive wins and making records as "The First 6-Time Idol Champion" and “The Youngest Champion”.

On May 20, Seungyoon was confirmed to make his comeback as an actor after 3 years in Kairos as the character "Im Gun-wook". His role earned him a nomination at the 2020 MBC Drama Awards for "Best New Actor".

Jinwoo enlisted in April 2nd, before the release of their third full album REMEMBER released in April 9. The album has 8 new songs (including pre-single Hold and lead single Remember, Jinwoo’s solo song and Seunghoon’s Serenade which was a song he used to performed on tour) and then 4 songs (Empty, Different, Color Ring and Don’t flirt) from their debut album 2014 S/S re-recorded as OT4.

Seunghoon enlisted on April 16.

On October 30, Mino released his second self-produced solo album Take, with the lead single "Run Away". This album includes the first track called “Love and a Boy” which Mino wrote, composed, and arranged entirely by himself.

COMEBACK 2021

After 8 years, Seungyoon made his solo comeback with his first studio album entitled Page and its lead single "Iyah", released on March 29. The album was a success and has sold 122,202 copies in South Korea as of May 2021 becoming the best selling yg male soloist.

Seungyoon was confirmed to join the drama Voice 4 and will make a cameo in drama Racket Boys.

Seungyoon and Mino will both take part at the London START Art Fair in October 2021 under the names Yoo Yeon and Ohnim with their photos and paintings.

THE FANDOM

Fandom Name: INNER CIRCLE, also known as Incle, IC or Park Inseo (Inseo).

“INNERCIRCLE is essentially the core members, the heart of the group. Literally, ‘inner circle’”

and that’s our logo ↴

Official Fan Color: Nebula Blue

We are WINNER's 'galaxy' and they are our 'star'.  ↴

Official Accounts:

Twitter: yginnercircle

Instagram: winnercity 

vLive channel: WINNER channel

Facebook: OfficialYGWINNER

Youtube: Winner Channel

MEMBERS

Kang Seungyoon (강승윤) ↴

❥ Stage name: Yoon

❥ He’s the leader and main vocalist

❥ Our maknae (January 21, 1994)

❥ Instagram: w_n_r00 (so aesthetic)

❥ He’s an only child and was raised by his mom and grandma. That’s why he considers winner as brothers

❥ He’s the best YG artists at ping pong (said by treasure members and Mino)

❥ He’s a photographer

❥ He cried when Mino and Jinwoo were fighting, making them stop

❥ He’s a judge in New Singer

❥ He’s close with Got7’s JB, iKON’s DK, Krystal and Apink’s Eunji.

❥ Lots of idols are his fans or called him role model: loona’s chuu and kimlip, stray kids’ changbin, 1team lee Rubin

❥ 4th place on the popular TV show Superstar K2 (2010)

❥ Before winner, in 2013, he debuted as a solo artist and released multiple tracks, including "It Rains".

❥ He has a dog named Thor

❥ Seungyoon acted in “High Kick! 3” (2011), “The Producers” (2015), “Prison Playbook” (2017), “Kairos” (2020), “Voice 4” (2021/upcoming)

❥ He conducted kpop lyrics helper on YouTube

❥ He then starred in the web drama Love For A Thousand More with Jinwoo

❥ He shares the house with Seunghoon

❥ You see his white hair? IT HURTS (see here why)

❥ HE HAS AN AMAZING VOICE, in fact he is the first and youngest idol to win 6 times on koms.

❥ He loves WINNER and he choose the group instead of his solo career

❥ He won several awards whe he was only 16

❥ He adopter two kids in Africa sending money to help them

❥ He’s the 12th member of Wanna One

❥ He takes care of his mamber

SONG MINHO (송민호) ↴

❥ Stage name: MINO

❥ He’s the Main Rapper, Vocalist and Face of the Group

❥ March 30, 1993

❥ He paints, takes photos, sculpture, makes clothes, model, act, play ping pong, write, compose, rap and sing.

❥ His mom made everyone, included his own son, believe for months that Mino was actually born in 1992. He also stopped calling Hoony hyung bc of that

❥ He has a sister named Dana who was once in a girl group and he said he would never let Jinwoo date her bc “he’s prettier than her”

❥ First and only idol to walk the runway at the Paris fashion week for Louis Vuitton

❥ He started out as an underground rapper by the name “Hugeboy Mino”

❥ In 2013, YGE rap trainer said that Mino was so good that he had nothing to teach him, in fact he only trained in yg for a few months before debut

❥ He’s close with Block B’s Zico and P.O, Blackpink’s Jennie, iKON’s Bobby, Monsta x Jooheon and GOT7′s Jackson.

❥ He was supposed to be the leader

❥ He loves sunflowers and blue roses so much that he has them tattooed in the middle of more than 50 tattoos

❥ He owns a cafe called Osechill where young artists/painters can put their works next to Mino’s

❥ He is part of the hip hop duo MOBB wih iKON’s Bobby

❥ He’s a judge in Sing Again

❥ Lot’s of idols takes him as role model: cix’s BX, kwon hyunbin, varsity’s junwoo, IM’s taeuun, spectrum’s hwarang, vanner’s lee wonseo, 24k’s xiwoo, treasure’s yoshi and hyunsuk

❥ He was a member of B.o.M, who debuted in 2011, but disbanded. He was also supposed to debut with Block B.

❥ He is in the travel reality show “New Journey To The West” since season 3 [WATCH IT IS FUNNY AS HELL], Kang’s Kitchen, Mapo hipster (YouTube)

❥ He loves is ducks

❥ He was really cool with green hair but his drunk self wanted to do a bet. It was about pingpong so he obviously lost it

❥ He sucks at sports but doesn’t admit it

❥ He likes to eat

❥ He has Munchkin cat, named Johnny, the only girl in the dorm and a bird named Chippy

❥ Instagram: realllllmino

❥ He shared his house with Jinwoo

LEE SEUNGHOON (이승훈) ↴

❥ Stage name: Hoony

❥ He’s the Main Dancer, Lead Rapper, Vocalist

❥ January 11, 1992

❥ enlisted in 2020

❥ He said his english name is Jessica

❥ He auditioned for ‘Korea’s Got Talent’ as part of the dance group ‘Honest Boys’

❥  4th place on Kpop Star

❥ He has an inner circle tattoo on his neck and it’s also the first photo he ever posted on instagram

❥ After a kpop event he randomly gave his mic to a fan. Another time he thrown his shoes to two fans

❥ He said he dated an A-list celebrity

❥ He said he doesn’t have a daughter

❥ He’s the first YG artist to ask the company to open his own YouTube channel but the company rejected it and closed his account. Now almost all groups in the company have a personal YouTube channel except winner’s members…

❥ He was a mentor/judge in Dancing High

❥ His rooftop room was right by YG Entertainment’s building so “at night he would stare at it and dream of making it big there”

❥ He once went to Japan bc Mino was there promoting MOBB and was feeling lonely. Then they went together at Universal Studio

❥ He dances freestyle

❥ He really loves food

❥ HE HAS A SON, an Italian Greyhound dog, named Haute

❥ Instagram: maetamong and maetamongisdad (Haute)

❥ Fashion icon and boyfriend material

❥ He received an offer to be a professional model in London [we can understand why]

❥ He will always make you smile

❥ HE ALWAYS TAKES CARE OF EVERYONE

❥ He shared his house with Seungyoon

KIM JINWOO (김진우) ↴

❥ Stage name: Jinu

❥ He’s the Lead Vocalist, Visual

❥ September 26, 1991

❥ He’s the oldest but he’s the FAKE MAKNAE

❥ His face is considered natural and perfect from sk plastic surgeons

❥ He played the little Prince in theatres

❥ He’s so cute but he can be savage as hell

❥ He was a backup dancer at the YG Family Concert in 2011 with Taehyun.

❥ He’s close friend with 2ne1’s Dara and iKON’s Jinhwan

❥ He is allergic to cat fur but lives with 3 cats: his 2 Sphynx cats, Bay and Ray and Johnny (Mino’s cat)

❥ He once wrote YG ceo name on his death note because he gave him hard time as a trainee

❥ He likes video games

❥ He has a chemical engineering degree and a drone license

❥ He made his acting debut in the web-drama Magic Cellphone (2016)

❥ He is in the travel reality show “Wizard of Nowhere”

❥ He then starred in the web drama Love For A Thousand More with Seungyoon

❥ He had a fansite even before debut, when he was just a backup dancer.

❥ He’s also known by non-fans as “Princess in bathtub”

or “Denim Jacket Guy”

or “Thumbnail guy”

or “Neol Johahae guy”

or “the guy with red hair”

❥ He’s GD’s biggest fan

❥ He’s always LOST

❥ Instagram: xxjjjwww

❥ He shared his house with Mino

❥ He enlisted in 2020 and will be back in January 2022

SHIPS

❥Jinyoon (Jinwoo + Seungyoon)

❥Minhoon (Mino + Seunghoon) ↴

❥Minyoon (Mino + Seungyoon) ↴

❥Minwoo/Songkim (Mino + Jinwoo) ↴

❥2seung (Seunghoon + Seungyoon)

❥Jinhoon (Jinwoo + Seunghoon)

[thesinglesjukebox]

LOONA / ODD EYE CIRCLE - GIRL FRONT [8.12] Next up, a frenzied, fizzy mystery...

Mo Kim: As it nears the end of its eighteen-month rollout, the LOONA project has grown from a series of self-contained solo releases into a universe-bending mythos which grows more complex by the second, left for fans to piece together via close analysis of meticulously-arranged videos (often with cameos), promotional graphics, press releases, and cryptic URLs referencing Mobius strips. It's to the credit of the group, however, that the music has remained its foundation: whether revealing Choerry's ability to jump between dimensions via a well-placed drop in "Love Cherry Motion" or making a 180 from the sweeter concepts of the first few members with KimLip's sultry "Eclipse," Blockberry Creative has been just as ambitious with their songs as they have with every other dimension of their unfolding multimedia narrative. Even if you didn't know anything about LOONA or Odd Eye Circle (its second subunit), "Girl Front" would still knock you off your feet like a late-summer breeze. Its Max Martin-esque melange of synthlines and sticky beats (with a generous sampling of contemporary sonic trends, especially the ominous trap-tinged coda following each chorus) distills driving down the 101 in Los Angeles with your windows down into as perfect a road trip song as I've heard. Yet there's something about the surrounding context that takes the drama of a budding romance and blows it up to inter-dimensional proportions. As the girls trade lines on the chorus about a budding romance that "makes things hotter" and "makes them draw closer," a massive mix of beat-em-up synths and hard-hitting beats wallops you with the force of an asteroid: one feels as if they could be singing about their own impact. The verses filter in bits of plucky guitar and sunny piano chords that the production leaves sounding just a touch haunted, like the cassette player which opens and closes the video. Even the one moment the song lets up, in a bridge that registers with the clarity of a daybreak, turns its wistful gaze back on us in what may be my favorite musical moment of 2017: the three members of Odd Eye Circle, finally united after four months of twists and teasers, stare lovingly into a tri-colored moon in the sky, tinged with each of their representative colors (red, blue, and purple). Composers Ollipop and Hayley Aitken cruelly let the swelling synth melody that's been looping in the background for the entire song step to the forefront for just three measures before killing it with a well-placed record scratch. On screen, the girls turn in unison and break the fourth wall, staring right into your souls: if you think this is the end, think again. Instead of easy resolution, they leave us in their final chorus with a promise: "I'll say I love you first." I'm always left wondering, at the end, what is really there. I question the irony of becoming infatuated with a song about infatuation, about how the "love" in "love song" can work like gravity, pulling you towards becoming the person you've fallen for. Maybe I spent most of 2017 buried in LOONA because, in the simplest terms, it tells a story of possibility: a girl can become any concept she puts on; can find her place in the music and the mythology; can stitch together the worlds she occupies. Return to the title of "Girl Front"; "Front" because, as the theory goes, Mobius strips enchant you in loops you circle with purpose but without end; "Front" because an empowered girl makes it happen herself. The cassette player, a signpost for our nostalgia, refuses to give us an answer, rewinding instead, and in an year that constantly challenged me to think through my place in the world, the message feels clear: you're getting closer. Keep listening.    [10]

Maxwell Cavaseno: As the LOONAverse proceeds far off into its cosmic spiral, their seemingly esoteric design evolves against tunes that feel more and more plunging away from the preceding singles and their reaches for star power into something more star-struck. "Girl Front" is a galloping rush of enthusiasm and excitement as Choerry, Kim Lip and JinSoul eagerly manage to pitch infatuation like fastballs offset by those real clunker 'drops' aiming for I guess some sort of 'hipness' that ever since "Eclipse" the poor girls have been burdened with having to appeal to (which is ever overwhelmingly pointed on fellow LOONAffiliate Yves' "new" but that's another tale), and tend to detract from the record. But the winding melody on the chorus' "woo" or the sudden shift into the dubstep-stomp along for Kim Lip on the second verse are the moments when "Girl Front" can not only sound urgent but utterly world-departing. [8]

Ryo Miyauchi: For a single not-so-slickly tucking in self-reference, it makes sense the production also picks the the best bits from each of the summer LOONAs' solo singles: the devilish sweetness of "Love Cherry Motion," the zigzagging of "Singing in the Rain," the breathtaking grace of "Eclipse." The trio get upstaged by the production despite their best efforts to introduce their individual personalities, but really, what a dazzling beat to get lost in. [6]

Leonel Manzanares: K-Pop that sounds like it takes serious cues from the #weirdsoundcloud scene. The post-chorus breaks could feel at home on a de-constructed club mix, and the synth risers, in the transition from the bridge to the final hook, could make Myles Dunhill green with envy. LOONA was the most interesting Korean project of 2017, and their brilliance lies not only in their versatility but in the quality of the execution. They've given each of their members their own sonic and visual little universe, and each release has been scarily consistent. I have big expectations for them in 2018.  [8]

Edward Okulicz: How this song turns on a dime so frequently from amazing K-pop banger, to different kind of amazing K-pop banger, to a part that convinces you the whole thing is going to turn into a god damned trap song suggests a complete mastery and love of pop as an artform. I don't think listening to it could possibly be as fun as it was making it, but it's probably pretty close. [9]

Nortey Dowuona: Glittering, shiny synths and light, puffy eyed bass spread out with blank droning synths and flat drums that become rigid and stuffy around the side. Plus the singing by Loona and the Odd Eye Circle seems both too light and yet too heavy. [6]

Alex Clifton: The best bubblegum pop feels innocuous at first, but comes out of nowhere to hit you square in the brain. "Girl Front" is sparkling and light overall, but that chorus is a knockout and is definitely going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. It's the kind of song I know I would have played to death when I was fifteen and unable to talk to most people I liked, but I also like it at twenty-five because it gives me the sugary rush that I need from pop music. I've not been following LOONA's formation entirely, but if this is how good their subunits are, I'm ready to be wowed by the whole band in 2018. [8]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Shortly after the release of Odd Eye Circle's "Sweet Crazy Love," Digipedi director Seong Wonmo noted that he had intentionally included Korean-language signs in its music video. K-pop always looked to the pop culture of the West, he said, studying and imitating it in numerous ways. As a director, there was a sense that he shouldn't let Hangul appear in any frame--it would, after all, only make the content seem more "foreign." But it's 2017, and with K-pop's ever-expanding global presence, Seong finally felt comfortable with doing just that (note that this was ten years into the career of an already-legendary figure of the industry). When I read his comments, I thought about where I was ten years ago, and how much I related to what he was saying. As one of five Asians in an otherwise all-White high school, I had made subconscious efforts to be "just one of the (White) guys." But as I started learning about K-pop, I also started to take some pride in being Korean. I wouldn't dare tell my White friends about Wonder Girls or Big Bang, but I would tell them about some Korean music that seemed less embarrassing to mention. I will never forget, for example, how excited I was to show off my copy of Seo Taiji's 7th Issue to a friend--as we sat in class, I watched as he examined the album's unique packaging, and I eagerly awaited his opinions on the album's pop punk/emo songs. Years later, I'm constantly gushing about Korean music to non-Koreans, and K-pop has played an enormous role in helping me come to terms with--and eventually love--my Korean-American identity. That Seong specifically decided to show Hangul in a LOONA video is appropriate. More than any other group this year, they represented the best of what the K-pop industry had to offer in terms of engaging pop songs and their promotion. Subunit Odd Eye Circle's music was especially noteworthy; their mini album featured the incredible Art Angels-indebted "Loonatic" and an R&B song that most boy bands would kill for. The best of the bunch was "Girl Front," the lead single that took everything good about the members' solo tracks and morphed it into something more ambitious. At its core, it's a chipper pop song about being infatuated with someone, but what sets it apart is the degree to which every bit of instrumentation captures the manic frenzy of wanting to tell someone you love them. Producer Ollipop was wise to bury the arpeggiating synths low in the mix, allowing them to mimic the fluttering hearts that characterize such situations. What ties everything together, though, is the chorus. The girls initially state that they're "cool," emphasizing it with a wavering vocal melody that hops along briskly. It's immediately followed by a sultry coo that's meant to resemble the sound of their heart--an admittance of how they're actually feeling. It's considerably smoother than what preceded it, and shamelessly long. But they're not denying how they feel anymore, and they'll happily let their crush consume their thoughts. What makes "Girl Front" so heartening is that it isn't content with things ending there; this is a song that's about mustering up the strength to confess to someone that you love them. And as the song progresses, there's an "opening up" of sounds to reflect this. The first verse has flickering synths that are halted by a bass guitar, as well as a vocal melody akin to those in the chorus that abruptly ends. But in the second verse, relatively "natural"-sounding keys stand in place of their punchy counterparts. There's also a sleek mid-verse shift that registers as sensual, and it all leads into the girls shouting "woo!" before entering the chorus again. By the time "Girl Front" ends, they declare their intent to express their feelings to this person directly. We don't know if they actually will, but things look hopeful. Sometimes, the best thing you can do to keep moving forward--to get yourself to do things that seem impossible--is to constantly remind yourself of the things that make you happy. In "Girl Front," it's an overflow of desire for this person that helps them reach a point where they can say "I Love You." It turns out that listening to K-pop was a way for me to eventually say the same thing to myself. [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[because-its-important]

2017: a year of courage 🦄

If 2016 was a year of opening doors, 2017 was a year of walking through them. This year demanded a lot of courage.

First, the fun things!

Programming.

I’ve been talking about this quite a bit already, so I don’t want to linger too much. This was my first year working as a programmer (heyo) and I learned a whole lot very, very quickly. Building a data-heavy webapp for bar associations and their member lawyers from scratch is no joke! I’m also real proud to be capping the year off in the midst of a batch at Recurse Center. About a year ago I kept thinking about how good it would feel to be “ready” for something like RC, and it does, it feels good.

“what are u doing rn?” selfie circa mid May.

Zines and indie book sellers.

I encountered a lot of zines this year, exponentially more than all the years of my life prior. I went to a zine reading, multiple zine fairs (including one I volunteered at), I assembled a zine at the Bushwick Print Lab, I brought friends to Quimby’s. And, ofc, I bought a bunch too.

I purchased all the zines above at Pete’s Mini Zine Fest.  From top left to bottom right, they include: a parody science zine about “fracking”; a zine about a woman’s experiences riding the subway when she was pregnant; a zine about the history of animals that have been sent to space; a holographic bookmark that isn’t a zine but reminded me of a femme version of the robot in FLCL; a zine someone made about remembering her recently deceased father and how they’d go mushroom hunting; an art zine full of sketches of demons. I also asked every artist to sign the copy I bought, because I am a huge dork. 🤓

A beautiful zine I found in the library at the Recurse Center. Zines are everywhere! Keep an eye out. 👀

I also spent a lot of time browsing and buying books (often used, sometimes not) from independent bookstores and sellers. I picked up books from BookPeople in Austin, from the Oakland Book Festival, from a library sale in Syracuse, from Unnameable Books in Prospect Heights 1, from Autumn Leaves in Ithaca, from the Verso loft in DUMBO, from Borderlands in the Mission, from Powell’s in Portland. I even scored Invisible Cities and Frankenstein from a stack left outside my neighborhood coffee shop.

These were all purchased for like $3 from a library sale held in the garage of a old fire station in Syracuse, NY. Includes: a book about stream of consciousness novels; a book about how to make poisons written by this dude; a book of poetry about the devil. Must’ve been a real moody day.

Interference Archive and Church Night.

I visited a lot of new places in 2017, so I wanna talk about two places that I found myself coming back to again and again.

I first visited Interference Archive or went to events where they tabled roughly a dozen or so times this year. I remember spending snowy days in winter doing a bit of cataloging for a big archive they’d received of counter culture newspapers from the 70s. I participated in two reading groups hosted by IA, one on different social movements from the 60s to today and another on race and mass incarceration following The New Jim Crow2. Interference Archives annual block party was also killer, with free screen printing, radical button-making, a used book sale 😏, free tamales served out of a trash bag (they were so good!!), and a live Yiddish queer punk band.

I blew up and tied these balloons for IA’s block party all by myself! Very important work! 

One of the issues of The Berkeley Barb that I cataloged. I also cataloged about half of The Black Panther newspapers in their collection. You can check out Interference Archive’s catalog here.

I also went to church service four times! 😋 Church Night is a comedy show that features three standup sets, a burlesque show, and a 90s rock sing-a-long, all rolled up into a evangelical sketch. Each service is also topped off by a real-ass sermon, with positive messages that have made me cry multiple times. It is a really perverse good time and the folks who run it are extremely friendly and hardworking. They travel to Brooklyn every couple months or so and are based in Washington DC, so if you near live in either of those areas, I fucken implore you to check them out.

Another great service at Church Night!

Puppet shows and films.

I attended two puppet shows this year, which is two more than any year in adult memory and certainly two more than I could have expected! The first puppet show played after a few live bands on a rooftop in Bushwick on a hot summer night - I drank cold canned beer and graciously accepted when some generous stranger passed around a bowl.

The second puppet show was a performance at a banging housewarming party in a living room in Bed Stuy, and a friend was one of the central performers. At one point during the show an iMac in the living room fell four feet to the hardwood floor below and the audience - a room full of friends and friendly faces - gasped. THE SPECTRE OF FAILURE!3 I thought very loudly in my head while my face contorted into rapt, waiting concern. Of course the show Went On, the moment of danger transformed, transcended. Holy shit! This is real! This is real life! I thought over a swelling-swooning heart, and it set the tone for the best night of my year.

I managed to catch a bunch of rad shorts including the IFC’s showing of Academy Award-nominated animated shorts, Rooftop Films’ non-animated “uncanny” shorts as well as their animation block party, and a round of alternative horror shorts presented by the Bushwick Film Festival. Respectively, my favorite shorts from each of these collections were: Blind Vaysha, about a girl with an eye that sees the past and an eye that sees the future4, See A Dog, Hear A Dog which explores how we train non-humans (particularly 🐶 and 🤖) to respond to us as if they understand us, My Man (octopus) about the stickiness of a toxic relationship (or, from the same night, Pittari, about a v cute demon), and GREAT CHOICE, which is a hilarious horror short about being stuck in an infinitely looping Olive Garden commercial from the 90s.

If you enjoy films and live experiences generally, I can’t recommend Rooftop Films enough. They’re a long-running NYC nonprofit that supports diverse, independent filmmaking and their summer series is truly unique and wonderful; each screening is hosted in a dope outdoor location in NYC and is preceded by a musical act fit to the theme of the film. I saw films on the roof of the Old American Can Factory and backlit by the eponymous sunset of Sunset Park. The ticket-price also includes an open bar after each screening, and you can chat with the folks who worked on the films. These are the kind of events that make living in a city so special, so take a friend, take two, and go!

It was a chilly the night at the Old American Can Factory where we saw Rat Film, a documentary about Baltimore told through the measures taken to control the rat population. Eugene (left) is wearing a towel I bought in LA. Bailey (right) is wearing a NASA sweatshirt.

Big music, living room music, radio music, discos Good and Bad.

Unlike last year, I didn’t go to any music festivals, but I did hit up a couple biggish shows. I saw Chastity Belt at Williamsburg Hall of Music (what a great venue 💚) and Yaeji at Elsewhere.

In a surprise display of social aptitude and luck, I managed to pull together folks from no less than four disparate friend groups to go see Chastity Belt with me in June.

I’ve been getting good at identifying proper communal experiences and boy, AcouticQ really hits the nail on the head. It’s such a friendly, intimate setting that you can’t help but wonder, is this not the perfect what to share tunes about heartache and triumph? If that compelling to you and you’re a good person who enjoys folky music and supporting queer artists, starting following AcoustiQ and hit up one of their events! Bring snacks, bring booze, bring a cash donation. 💵

I saw Julia Weldon first at AcoustiQ in September…

…and then again in November at PIANOS. 😊🎸

I started listened to radio programs - I think perhaps when looking for tunes for my daily bike commute? Anyway, I found myself tuning in pretty regularly to Radio Free Brooklyn. Bushwick Garage is probably my most listened to station, and I haven’t really tried any of the more talk show stuff. I suspect there’s something for everyone, especially if you live in NYC. You can check out their schedule here, though I’ve been relying on their Mixcloud channel for the most part.

Continued to do a fair bit of dancing in 2017 and saw a few new-to-me venues. I’ve decided that I really hate most any dance club on a Friday or Saturday past midnight; the situation nearly always devolves into Basic Dance Beat while straights get sloppy all over the place. There is nothing more distracting and vibe-killing than pretending not to notice some baseball cap bro who keeps desperately dancing at you in a crowded space, especially when you know he’s “working up the courage” to say something that will inevitably be heinously stupid. Like, I did not come here to build empathy for mediocre dudes hoping to ~get lucky~ at the club, I came here to dance myself clean!!! 😤

So when I tell you that I’ve had nothing but positive, glowing experiences the last two times I’ve been to weekend events at Magick City, let me tell you, this is high praise! What a great DIY music venue. The first event I went to there was a record listening party, where a roomful of people laid on blanket on the floor and quietly listened to an album - had a break to talk about it, pee, get another beer - and then listened to another. The second event was a set by these folks in a thick fog with a great light show and yet room to dance and breathe! The drinks were cheap and there was a whole table of delicious free snacks that had been prepared onsite.

Look at this rad setup by Drippy Eye Projections!

A communal fifth of whiskey left in the bathroom at Magick City. Just in case you needed a lil, y’know? What a phenomenal discotheque!🕺✨

Biking.

Through 2017, biking has been my main form of commuting. I spent winter and spring using Citibike5 until finally buying my own in early June. Deciding to own a bike for the first time in the city, let alone picking what to buy, was a pretty challenging experience. I went with a lightweight matte-black hybrid with an internal hub for its 3 gears. 

My bb is decked out with cleated neon-chartreuse pedals, green and yellow spoke beads (not pictured), and a purple-teal bluetooth speaker. 💜💚

And a word, if we might, about my speaker: this speaker is tough as shit! I’ve dropped it off my bike multiple times, and once I looked back only to watch it get run over by a car, twice. It’s also survived rain, sailing, and being dumped roughly into airport bins.6

I have plenty more to say about biking, but to cut to the chase: biking is clearly a superior mode of urban transit if you are able-bodied, have the nerves to deal with cars, and don’t mind arriving at your destination kinda gross. In the last 18 months or so I’ve gone from someone who Never Goes Out to someone who Goes Out More Than Your Average Bear and I’m prepared to credit biking as a major enabler. If you want to learn more about your city, see your friends more often, and make new ones - start biking!

This is a video I shot while riding my bike home from a 4th of July party. I nearly got nailed with a Roman Candle, lol.

Traveling.

I also did a greater-than-expected bit of traveling again this year, again all within the United States. I went to Austin in April, visited Oakland and Berkeley for the first time in May, visited both Ithaca and Vermont for the first times in July, drove to Kentucky to see the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE with my cousin in August, drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles for Indiecade in October, and capped off with a half-work half-play visit to Portland, OR in November. I suspect this isn’t a sustainable amount of traveling, but it’s incredibly hard to regret - especially when it allows you to see friends who live far away or experience unique bonding moments with friends who live nearby - so who knows what next year will look like.

One of the most special places I’ve been this year was Lothlorien, a student coop at Berkeley where a friend lived in undergrad. It was an inspiring intentional community - so much art on the walls, a tree house with a perfect view of the sunset, a dream library. So magical! 💖

The cabin trip in Vermont was also really special. We did so many appropriate summer camp activities, like sailing, tubing, visiting cows, taking walks under a sky full of stars, building a blanket fort, putting together puzzles, and playing with fire.

We made this at the beginning of the day and boy oh boy did it come in handy for organizing ourselves! And gee, look at how well hydrated we were. 💦🌈💦

Now, the less easy stuff.

Sex.

One of my goals this year was to “learn more about sex.”

me: when you said we were going to be learning about sex, i didn’t realize there’d be so much reading involved, i thought it might be less of a mental and more of a physical edu- also me: lol don’t front

When I first cracked open Bataille’s Erotism: Death and Sensuality, I remember being absolutely floored by how much it was not whatever I had expected it to be - and that that was a helpful starting place. Erotism is an examination of the function of taboos and their sites of transgression, how the act of transgressing is subject to its own social rules and tends to be ritualized7, and how as conscious mortal beings we’re compelled towards moments of transgression because they seem to imitate what we imagine the great continuity of death feels like without having to, y’know, die. I liked his analysis of de Sade’s writing and the irony of sadism - that the promise of transgression is greater self-awareness, but the violence it requires necessarily also erodes that same awareness. I both appreciate and am wary of how aggressively Bataille dislocates sex from a bodily endeavor to a psychological compulsion. He had also some real undercooked shit say about women and was clearly terrified of sex, so I’m kinda disinclined to treat his opinions as functionally valuable to lived experience.

The Persistent Desire, on the other hand, was easily the most personally important book I read this year. It’s an anthology of generations of lesbian femme-butch relationships, told through stories from women’s lives, interviews with queer scholars, and some extremely hot sex poems. My primary inner-dialogue with gender has been “ugh” and “this shit again” and “if I pitch my voice and play Nice Girl this unbearable interaction will be over faster.” I had never spent so much concentrated time thinking about the performance of gendered sexuality in queer relationships, and wow, I have been missing out on some much better thoughts!

Like, Q: Does gender performance ever feel sexy to me, not just hostile? Under what circumstances? A: Yes, but generally only so long as a) the performance is fluid, eg. you’re the boy, I’m the girl, now you’re the girl, now we’re both boys, and b) power, however gendered, doesn’t rest in one place for too long. Gender is fun to play with as long as it feels like playing, where the heteronormative script is really only referenced insofar as it’s being subverted, shredded up by contact with a reality that unequivocally de-legitimizes it.

Like, Q: how much better would my life be if I approached sexual relationships from a place of radical honesty and expected the same from my partners? A: PROBABLY A LOT.

Like, Q: how do I make space in my life to form romantic-sexual relationships with people who aren’t cishet dudes? A: idk bitch, but you’re apparently a pro at lifestyle changes! Keep going to queer events, keep reading, keep processing. I believe in you.

This is a cute fire safety map at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, which I visited for the first time on a very wet snowy day in November. The archives had been mentioned frequently in The Persistent Desire and I was so excited to find that they were still around (44 years!), located in Brooklyn, and having an annual book sale.

Depression, denial, and death.

At one point this year I remember having an entirely normal hang out with my sister and partner in our Bed-Stuy apartment. I turned to the both of them and said, “You know, I think I might be real sad. I think I might depressed.” I wasn’t worried when I said it, though I do remember the words feeling strange. My sister and my partner of 7 years looked at each other, something like ‘Uh, do you want to take this one?’ or ‘Does she really not know?’ and eventually someone said, “Yeah, Nicole, that sounds right.”

If you had told me last year that I’d be spending so much time with Freud and Camus I would have rolled my eyes very, very exaggeratedly.

The most frightening thing about mental unwellness, imo, is that a good personal quality which is otherwise healthy and worth cherishing can become catastrophically distorted. So, say, an extremely deep capacity for enduring pain and discomfort, especially in service of others, becomes proving your worth by how much you’re willing to suffer, how much energy you’re willing to give away without expecting reciprocation. Worse still, let’s say, is being trapped in a cycle of denial about your own nature.

Denial takes lazy, irrational, harmful patterns of thought and elevates them to Gospel. You can’t be a generous and giving person because you can so clearly recall all the moments when you could have given more. You can’t be getting taken advantage of because you obviously would not abide exploitation in your presence. A friend wouldn’t repeatedly use you, to your loss and their gain, so that’s impossible by definition. If what you’re doing was really that painful and exhausting, you would have stopped already. _If you were depressed, you’d know it._8

I took this photo in Austin on a night when I was feeling decidedly not good at all. In fact, I was feeling so not good and so ashamed of not feeling good that I went out and bought The Myth of Sisyphus.

Last month the opiate epidemic rose up and swallowed my estranged uncle. Though we weren’t personally close, I’d spent my childhood within a ten minute walk from his house and had lots of memories of him. Death leaves a vacuum, always. It’s also an effective invitation to re-examine your life and the people in it. My uncle was provided with endless love and support from his family - and yet. Self-delusion sure is captivating.9

This was a year where I decided that I valued truth over self-delusion, and more importantly, a year where I affirmed that decision with concerted effort. It is extraordinarily challenging to reckon with the blind-spots in your perception of reality, especially whenever those blind-spots were constructed By You to cope with past pain and avoid it again in the future. Maybe everyone doesn’t need to do this? Maybe most people live comfortably with the given state of their ego? But internal delusions are a barrier to conscious clarity, and to the extent that living consciously feels the most like Actually Living and not Waiting To Die, I am determined to clean that shit up.

Lessons, imperatives!

So it’s late afternoon on Dec 31st and if this is going to be a 2017 recap, I’m really coming down to the wire. Here are the most important lessons I learned this year.

I luv this demon, because they sure got the right idea. ❤️🖤 

AESTHETICS MATTER.

I’ve often caught myself feeling bad for identifying with a community or culture that I didn’t feel like I’d “earned” my place at yet. This happened with biking, it happened with programming, it happened in queer spaces. imo, the best way to handle impostor syndrome is to kill it where it sleeps. I sure am! I am a devious impostor! Let’s see how far I can get before someone reveals me, exiles me! Turns out you can get all the way to Being The Thing, especially if your intentions are true. Your attraction to the thing is the first signal of your belonging, so get busy belonging!

LOVE THYSELF, AND GET GOOD AT IT.

Most of the psychological friction I’ve come up against in my search for The Truth Please has been caused by a very stubborn refusal to see and accurately assess my own self-worth. Very classic, very boring. I have only just begun to internalize what it might mean to love myself, to care for myself with even a little of the generosity and kindness and specificity that I happily devote to other people. The psychic backbending I’ve had to do to accomplish this goes something like, what if we loved ourselves the way we wished someone else would, like, idk, as a joke or something? Wouldn’t that be funny, at least? 🙃

That worked pretty well, but when it didn’t, I used brute willpower: hating yourself is a coward’s game, and whatever I may be able to lie to myself about, I will not pretend that I’m a coward.

Ultimately, though, the best way to learn how to love yourself is to watch how your friends do it and to actively resist the urge to interrupt them.

SPEAK, BITCH 🗯

Earlier this year I was walking with a friend, and I was very ashamed of myself when I told her I was thinking about writing something. I immediately walked it back, waffled, recoiled from myself. She was bewildered. “You should! I feel like you have things to say!” My reaction to this was sharp, panicked fear.

Because she was right. Because self-articulation and knowledge-sharing are fundamental human endeavors and if I think I’m somehow exempt from that, that I somehow uniquely Haven’t Got Anything Worth Saying, then that is delusion. Because if the real thing holding me back is a fear that my skill won’t measure up to the things I want to express, then the brave and honest thing to do is to try anyway.

So when I went to Recurse Center, I started this blog. I named it Because Its Important just so that every time I started doubting myself and asking “Why oh why am I doing this?” I would have the answer right there. 🐙

👋 Thank you for reading! Here is a silly-glasses bathroom selfie.

I read Donna Haraway’s CYBORG MANIFESTO for an outdoor discussion group at Unnameable books this summer. It is so amazing. I could only barely keep pace with it and I can’t wait to read it again after some time. ↩︎

I consistently arrived late, but bearing coffee by way of apology. ☕️🙏 ↩︎

I read Theatre of the Unimpressed, a book recommended to me by a friend after we saw an indie play earlier this year. The book talks a lot about what makes theater captivating, about the necessity of the possibility of failure, about the tendency for people to see see one boring-ass play and decide that they Just Aren’t Into Theater. The play we saw together wasn’t memorable, save for the fact that it was performed in a loft that hosts semi-regular makeout parties, which I’ve attended on half a dozen occasions. They are largely terrible. ↩︎

In one of the scenes Vaysha is courted by suitors, but they appear as child in one eye and an old man in the other. Fucking chilling. ↩︎

I remember a conversation earlier this year where a guy said that he “couldn’t imagine what it takes” to ride a heavy Citibike over a bridge in NYC. “Willpower, mostly” I replied. He ignored me, repeated himself: “Gee, but I just don’t get it!” If someone doesn’t want to understand, they don’t want to understand. ↩︎

You can buy one here. ↩︎

In fact, a taboo ain’t even a taboo if it can’t be transgressed! ↩︎

A possibly less upsetting example of a denial! In September I was walking to brunch with my sister and her boyfriend the morning after a party at my bff's apartment. "Nicole, you really brought the party!" He said to me. My immediate emotional response was anger at how 100% wrong he was. The night before I had brought glowsticks, mini shark toys, and a Gingerhead House kit to the party. I was going to a party that night for which I'd purchased a tank of helium and large tropical balloons. But my desire to argue, my certainty that He Had Erred was complete. I've very rarely experienced moments where my subjective experience is so strongly misaligned with objective reality, but now that I'm in the business of noticing this crap, it happens pretty regularly whenever anyone says anything nice about me, to me. ↩︎

Drugs, too. ↩︎

[singminibang]

3 against 25

Author:  Yeahjusttrash (tumblr: @cartoonloverstuff)

Artist:  stevetwisp (tumblr: @stevetwisp)

Summary: Just a sweet one shot of Johnny, Ash, and Meena trying to watch Rosita’s kids together for a night. Johnny is natural great with the kids. Ash has some difficulty adjusting, but managed. Meena is used to babysitting, just not so many kids at once. Not much in the way of plot. Mostly just fun fluff.

"There's plenty of snacks in the fridge, help yourselves. First aid kit is in the upstairs bathroom cupboard. Bedtime is at 8pm for the kids.-" Rosita spoke quickly as she went over information Johnny already knew. He had been staying with Rosita and her family for the past few weeks and figured the she was saying all this for the other two teenagers present.

On Johnny's right was Ash looking completely out of place in the family house and on his left was Meena in her signature nervous stance. "We'll be back by 11:00 at the latest. Call if you need anything." Rosita said right before she disappeared out the door with her husband, leaving the three teens in a house with 25 children.

"3 to 25. We got this!" Johnny said with more confidence than he actually had.

Half an hour later, no less than three of the kids had picked themselves on Ash's quills and cried. Ash was currents sat on the kitchen counter glaring at the ground in frustration next to Meena who was tending to Micky, the latest victim of her quills. The porcupine was about to banish herself to clean up duty when something large and soft suddenly flopped on her. She struggled with a heavy, soft entrapment for a few moments before it settled more comfortably around her shoulders and a hood fitted on her head. Ash's vision was blocked by baby blue fabric and knew the entrapment was Meena's hoodie. Like magic, the elephant was suddenly in front of her tying the sleeve of the hoodie so it was secure around Ash and the sleeve would only drag on the ground a minimal amount.

"There. I-is that okay?" Meena stuttered slightly as she shuffled back a little to look at her handy work. The tiny piglet with a fresh bandage on his finger looked around Meena as Ash was still fixing the hood so she could see. Once adjusted, the large garment fit perfectly over the quills on her head and effectively covered the quills running down her back.

"Woooow, you have cape! You look like a super hero!" The Micky piped up from behind Meena. Ash smiled at that, even though she was sure she looked more like a pastel grim reaper than any caped hero. Still, she was just relieved she won't be spending the rest of the evening worrying about accidentally impaling someone.

"Heh, thanks Meens." Ash smiled as she hopped off her perch and followed the other two out to meet Johnny where they left him in the playroom with the rest of the kids.

The three walked into a scene of pure chaos. Art supplies had been scattered everywhere, toys littered the room, and the remaining piglets had occupied themselves by any activity they could find that was either loud or made a mess. Micky immediately took off to join his siblings in running around and screaming. Meena and Ash were both kind of struck dump by the sheer havoc and stood frozen taking it all in.

Johnny was in the midst of everything, completely unfazed by the disarray surrounding him. In fact, he was just adding to chaos by chasing the piglets around the room, seeming to be having just as much fun as they were. A few moments after the girls entered, Johnny looked up and realized they were back. He gave them a cheery smile from where he was a few feet away carrying three piglets he had 'captured'. "'Ey, ya back!" He chirped as he released the piglets and made his way closer to them. "Wot's with the new looks?" He cocked an eyebrow as he got closer and sized them up, seeing Ash looking very cozy in her new hoodie cover and and Meena looking slightly uncomfortable now that she was sans-hoodie, revealing a loose grey t-shirt with red sleeves.

"Uh, we found a way to cover Ash's quills!"

"I'm a superhero!"

The two answers overlapped and just amused Johnny. Shouting came from behind him as four piglets charged his legs, trying to bring him down. The gorilla stumbled slightly, threatening to fall on the girls, but manage to keep his balance and turned on the piglets. With a playful roar, the youngsters took off screaming with Johnny chasing behind them. Ash was quickly swept away by a majority of the piglets once Micky had spread the word that she was now a superhero. (She had a cape now, she had to be a super hero!) Meena entered the fray much more cautiously, going over to the building block area where she could keep an eye on the rest of the piglets.

Not long after Ash was deemed a superhero, Johnny declared himself a super villain and dove into their expansive costume chest for a villain costume. The best he could come up with was a pirate hat, which he proudly dawned. The room essentially became a play war zone of pirates versus heroes with Meena off to the side supervising the last subset of piglets as they built an impressively large fort.

The elephant marveled at the little ones' craftsmanship and thought they must have inherited some of their mother's engineering talent. She also found herself surprised by just how much she liked Rosita's children. Sure, they were loud, energetic, and even mischievous, but they weren't mean or cruel like the kids Meena had remembered growing up. Granted, not all children Meena knew as a child were mean, but enough were to make her lose hope on making friends with any of them. Seeing so many children playing and cooperating together, and siblings no less, without the mean spiritedness she had been somewhat expecting made Meena feel a warm happiness bloom inside her chest. She hoped the piglets stayed like this and didn't let schoolyard taunts and bullies sour them. She reasoned they had a good chance of staying kind and unharmed by the years to come. After all, they would have each other. The last thought calmed Meena and widen the soft smile on her face.

She was suddenly pulled from thoughts when she felt someone grab her arm and yanked her away from her post by the play fort. Confused and almost panicked, she turn to see Johnny dragging her behind him quickly. He turned suddenly with Meena behind him, putting himself between her and everyone else. Triumphantly, he raised the hand that was clasped around her wrist and proclaimed. "Ha! Na' I've kidnap ya babysitter! And you'll haf to go through me ta get 'er back!" Johnny grinned menacingly and crotched in a ready stance with a plastic sword in one hand in preparation to face off against Ash and her army of piglets. Johnny glanced behind him quickly and saw Meena's concerned and puzzled expression. Before she could ask anything, he shot her a crooked smile. "Just play along, yeah?" He whispered with a wink and turned back to face the others.

Ash successfully rounded all the piglets up in a huddle for a game plan, as even the ones in the fort had decided to join forces to save their damsel-in-distress babysitter. Meena just blinked and felt out of place, unsure as to how she should 'play along.' "Uh, help. Help meee." Meena croaked out awkwardly. "I'm being held hostage by a pirate. (Whose only like half my size.)" Meena couldn't help but chuckle as she said the last bit.

Johnny turned back to pout at her. "I am not!" He all but whined, which made Meena giggle out more. The gorilla smirked at her. "'Nd 'sides, hostages aren't suppose ta giggle. Ya not very good at thi-"

His teasing was cut short when an inflatable ball sailed through the air hit the side of his head. His attention swiftly switched back to the piglets just in time to see the onslaught of rubber balls, stuffies, and soft toys being hurled their way. Johnny quickly got in his stance and deflected a majority of the toys that came his way with the toy sword. Behind him, Meena held up her arms in defense of the soft objects, squealing with laughter.

Once the kids ran out of ammo, Johnny laughed triumphantly. "Hah hah! That the best ya got?" His question was answered when a wave of piglets all charge him at the same time. His face fell and he had just enough time to realize his mistake before being trampled by a sea of children.

Over the children's screaming and giggles, he heard Meena descend into a laughing fit and Ash give out mighty commands. "Yes, my adorable, pink army! Show him no mercy!"

Johnny tried to raise from the mountain of children on top of him, but quickly learned was out matched and should tap out. "Ok-oof- okay, I surrender! Ow! Guys, ya won!" Johnny squeaked out in good humor. He was no longer being trampled, but a majority of the piglets were still amassed on top of him, playfully keeping him pinned. "Meena? Meena, I can't get up. Help?" His pleads were met with more uncomfortable giggle as Meena was trying (and failing) to regain her composure. Eventually, her breathing evened out enough for her to shoo the piglets off Johnny and help him to his feet. It was close to the kids' bedtime anyway.

"Attention!" Ash barked out in military famous. All eyes were immediately on her. "Company, line up!" She point to the door as she ordered the piglets. The mass of giggling children ran towards the door, forming a shape that was more line like than not. Ash took her spot at the lead and began marching to the children's bedroom with them in tow.

She was faced away from everyone, so no one saw the huge, giddy grin bloom across her face. She had never been good with kids before. Normally, she avoided them and found them annoying. And in turn, they would find her scary or boring. The porcupine glanced back to see a long line of little piglets goofily imitating her marching. Her smile grew impossibly wider. With how the evening had started, she assumed she would be spending it avoiding the kids like she often did, not be playing right along side them like Johnny did.

With a happy sigh, Ash schooled her face in mock sternness and turned around once they reached the bedroom. "Alright troops, you've got five minutes to change into uniforms. Go, go, go!" She ushered them in and the bedroom became a pandemonium of pajamas and screaming.

Twenty minutes later, the piglets teeth were brushed and they were settle in bed, intently listening to Johnny's dramatic reading of one of the picture books he found. Ash and Meena dismissed themselves to clean up detail and spend another twenty minutes picking up the playroom and trying to figure out where things went. Once the playroom room look relatively decent, the girls headed down stairs and plopped down on the living room furniture. Ash climbed into a comfy looking chair and Meena all but collapsed on the couch.

After a moment of peace, Meena turned her head to look at Ash. "Think we can consider tonight a success?" She chuckled a little. When the porcupine didn't make any response, Meena sat up and looked over at her. "Ash?" Ash was curled up in Meena's hoodie with back to the room. Soft snores escape from her baby blue wrapped form. Preoccupied with peering over her sleeping company, Meena didn't notice the approaching footsteps behind her.

"I don't think ya getting that back any time soon." Johnny spoke softly, but still made Meena jump. She squeaked and turned to just in time to see him vault himself over the back of the couch with one hand and land next to her. "Sorry, didn't mean t' scare ya." He said in a hushed voice as he gave an apologetic smile and leaned over to grab the TV remote. "Anyway, the rugrats are asleep so now all we've got to do is keep quiet enough not t' wake 'em." With that, he leaned back with one arm hanging on the back of the couch and his other hand operating the remote.

After going through what was available, Johnny settled on watching some game show while keeping the volume low. He cracked a yawn as the TV droned on and glanced at the clock. It was just past 8:45. Why was he so tired? Had the piglets really drained so much energy out of him? He had been staying with them for weeks and interacted with them daily and it hadn't fazed him. Then again, he had never been left in charge of the piglets before. It was different not having their always-on-top-of-things mother around. Johnny had been really nervous about being around the kids when he first started staying with Rosita and her family, scare that he might accidentally hurt one of them or that they won't like him. He learned quickly that kids were more durable than they seemed, and all it took was the promise of piggyback rides and funny story telling and he was suddenly their new best friend. In other words, Johnny took to the lot of children quickly, and they had taken to him immediately. The first time the gorilla had ever set foot in the house, he had children climbing on him and hanging off his arms asking him to come play with them within minutes.

Johnny smiled dreamily at the memory. He wondered if this was what it was like to have siblings, since had never had anything like this before. His family had pretty much always been his dad, a couple of 'uncles', and occasionally a woman would enter Big Daddy's life long enough to bother meeting Johnny. His family was far from nuclear.

His thoughts began to turn towards his father and that whole situation when they were interrupted by another yawn. He shook the thoughts from his head, he didn't really want to dwell on that right now anyway.

Shifting around in his seat, he tried to sit a little more up right to stay awake and glanced at his company. Ash was soundly sleeping and Meena's head was drooping dangerous low. "Oi," Johnny voice was hushed and he nudged Meena's side. "You falling asleep on me too?" He jabbed lightly.

Meena's head lulled up and words was barely audible. "'M awake." She murmured drowsily.

Johnny smirked fondly. "Yeah, that was convincing." He checked the clock again. "Listen, I figure at least one of us should be awake 'til Rosita gets back. Why don't I take the first shift 'n I'll wake ya in a bit?" Despite his tired body's protests, Johnny was too much of a gentleman to not offer to go first. Meena only gave a little nod in response, her eyes already sliding shut. Johnny turned back to the TV, determined to stay awake.

Half an hour later, all three were peaceful sleeping. The living room still and quiet save the low noise from the TV and soft snoring coming the three teens. It was a blissfully calm scene.

That is, until Ash's restless, sleeping form turned over and right off the chair she was curled up in. The other two were jolted awake by the porcupine yelp as she fell, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Meena groaned as rubbed at her eyes while Johnny sleepily sat up and looked around for what woke him. His gaze landed on Ash face down on the floor and his mind piece together the rest. He tried not to chuckle at her. "Not exactly a graceful way to wake up." He quipped, his voice still heavy with sleep. The porcupine sat up (eventually, after a bit of struggle with the hoodie still wrapped about her) and tried to glare at Johnny. This just made him snicker more. He couldn't take her stink eye seriously while swaddled in the baby blue pullover, looking more like a grumpy, little kid than a snarky teen. Johnny looked away, covering his mouth to try and conceal his chuckling, and checked the clock again. 9:24. He sighed tiredly as his body was already leaning back into its comfortable sleeping position. Unfortunately, he didn't realize the elephant he had been using as support wasn't there until it was too late. Johnny let out a small sound of surprise as he fell against the couch cushions, quickly propping himself back up and looking around in confusion.

"Yeah, she got up and left." Ash answered his unspoken question and nodding towards the stairs.

Upstairs, Meena walked softly through the hall. She was sure she had heard something, her ears didn't play tricks with her. Quietly, she strained her hearing and waited.

*sniff*

There it was. Meena hear soft sniffling and whimpering and followed it to its source. Her ears lead her to a linens closet near the kids' bedroom. Gently, she opened it and peered inside. Meena felt her heart ache at the sight of a little, frighten piglet curled up towards the back of the closet. The elephant crotched down and reached out.

"Hey there, can't sleep?" She spoke in a soft comforting tone. The piglet looked up at her with teary eyes and took Meena's hand, letting the elephant bring her out and pick her up. Kelly, the piglet currently being carried back to the bedroom, clung to her babysitter's shirt. Meena's brow furrowed in worry. "Did you have a bad dream?" Kelly nodded. "W-well, there's nothing to worry about! We're all downstairs keeping watch." Meena ignored the part her brain that reminded her they had fallen asleep. She briefly fretted over how long Kelly had been hidden away in there before forcing herself to refocus. "You've got a superhero and a pirate keeping guard! Remember?" She tried to get the piglet to smile, but Kelly just clung tighter.

"B-but... w-what if s-something is up h-here? They're d-down there." The piglet's voice was shaky and tired.

"Oh, well, I'll stay up here. With you!" Meena smiled down and this time Kelly smiled back.

Once in the bedroom, the piglet still had a death grip on Meena's shirt and the elephant wasn't really sure what to do. She sat down with the child cradled in her arms when an idea stuck her. Softly, she began to hum a gentle tone. Soon words followed, and Meena found herself singing Amazing Grace. That song always put her to sleep, or at least that was her excuse to her mother when she was caught sleeping at church.

Meena felt the grip on her shirt loosen and glanced down to see Kelly's eyes drooping. The elephant smiled triumphed, but kept singing. She continued without stop even when she was startled by shifting beside her and turned to see a sleepy Casper trudge over with a blanket in tow until he was just within reach of the elephant and fall against her leg, curling up next to her. More piglets migrated towards Meena's serenade, her smooth voice calming whatever restlessness that had be inside them. After singing thought the song twice, the elephant let her voice fade out, and the room drifting into a sleepy quiet.

"Dawwwww." Her peaceful moment was interrupted by the low drawl of a cockney accent. Her gaze flickered up and she saw Johnny in the doorway with his phone out, clearly taking some digital records of the scene. Meena's face heated slight and she tried to shoot him a stern look, but it morphed into a halfhearted pout.

"Whatever, at least it worked and got the kids to sleep." Meena rolled her eye and tried not the smile at her friend's antics.

"Not just them." Johnny added as he pushed the bedroom door open the rest of the way, revealing a sleeping Ash sat on the floor and leaning heavily on the doorframe.

Meena smile fondly, touched that Ash had also felt the need to come up and check on her, and that her song had lulled the teenager to sleep as well. Immediately, she felt the need to pickup her friend and carry her back, but that was also the moment Meena realized she had a half dozen or so piglets sleeping on her. Looking about herself, she knew she was trapped.

"Uh... Johnny?" Meena whispered with her eyes still in the piglets. "I, uh, I can't get up. ...help?" She giggled out faintly. Johnny cocked an eyebrow at the scene and took one more picture, in which Meena in hidden behind her eyes and glowering at him, before entering the room. After a few minutes of careful tucking piglets into bed, they crept out of the room and headed back downstairs. Meena stopped briefly to scoop up a still hoodie-wrapped Ash before following Johnny down the hall.

Johnny checked the clock again before sitting down, this time in a more alert posture. "Kay, this time, we should actually stay awake." He thought out loud as Meena gently placed Ash back in her chair.

"Right!" Meena straighten up where she was standing next to the chair, her blue eyes bright with determination. "They'll be back in a little over an hour. We can last til then!" Her encouraging words were more to convince her sleep-craving body than Johnny. Still, she felt confident in her ability to stay up as she returned to her seat on the couch. Within ten minutes, both Meena and Johnny were soundly dead to the world along with Ash.

Meena was the first awake, her sensitive hearing catching the sound of keys jiggling and the front door opening. Her eyes peeked opened just in time to see Rosita enter the room. Meena's eyes snapped open the rest on the way and she shot up from the couch. This caused Johnny, who had once again slouched against the elephant, to fall back against the couch cushions with a small oof. "Rosita! W-welcome back!" Meena's words jolted Johnny semi-conscious brain. His eyes popped open and he scrambled off the couch to a standing position next to Meena. Rosita watched the whole display with her hand in front of her mouth, trying to hide a very amused smile.

Both teens began to apologize for drifting off, their word overlapping each other's, but Rosita waved it off and offered them a grateful, beaming smile. "Were they any trouble?" She asked with such sincerity that both teens froze for a moment.

Johnny was the first to respond. "The kids? Naw, they were great!" He relaxed a bit while going over the evening events with Rosita as Meena shuffled back to wake up Ash. A few moments later, Norman walked in counting out some bills and started handing off payments to the three teens.

Johnny was preoccupied talking with Rosita and automatically accepted what was being handed to him. A moment later glanced down and gave the currency in his hand a puzzled look. Meena had an equally confused expression when payment was pushed into her hands. Ash was barely awake enough to process what was going on and didn't question the money that had somehow appeared in her grip.

Johnny tried to give his back as politely as possible. "Uh... Rosita, ya know ya don't have t'-"

"Don't be silly. You were all a big help tonight and definitely earned!" Rosita cut off the cockney teen, quickly brushing off his offer before he could even finish saying it.

"But-"

"It's getting late. Johnny, why don't you drive the girls home."

"But I-"

"No but's!"

Rosita gave the gorilla a silencing stern look and ushered all three teens out the front door before any of them had the chance to reject their payment. The door shut leaving the guilty looking gorilla, a slightly flustered elephant, and a semi-conscious porcupine on the front porch. They stood in the quiet night air for a few moments, each in their own thoughts. Johnny tried to wrap his head around how he was suppose to not feel bad about getting paid. Paying Meena and Ash made sense, but he had staying with the family ever since Rosita had learned of his situation. Watching the kids for her seemed like the least he could do.

"Johnny!" He was yanked from his thoughts when he heard his name called. He turned and saw Ash and Meena had already started towards the car. Meena stopped to get his attention and waited for him to catch up, while Ash continued her heavy-eyed trudge.

Johnny hurried over to walk with them down to his car. "Sorry, just thinkin'." He offered a quick explanation then looked down guiltily. "I'm already stayin' with 'me rent free.  What they go 'n pay me for?" The gorilla scuffed his shoe as he thought out loud.

Meena made a hum of agreement. She hadn't been expecting any kind of payment either and had intended to just chalk up the favor as payback for all the stuff Rosita did for them. Giving the mother pig a night off seemed like a reasonable task. Meena's thoughtful gaze shifted from Johnny to Ash, who had shown the least amount of resistance when receiving compensation. Meena wondered now if it was because her friend actually needed it. While she and Johnny were both living with families, Ash was living by herself, paying rent and everything.

As they reached the end of the walkway to the street, Meena quietly spoke up. "Um, Ash? Do... do you want my share? I mean you could probably use it more and-"

"Nope." The porcupine answered confidently as she walked by the pig family's mailbox. Once underneath it, she hopped up and grabbed the handle with one hand, her weight pulling it open. Dangling for a moment, she chucked her payment in with the other hand, then plopped down and went to wait by the car for Johnny to unlock it.

Her friends watched with interest. An amused grin spread on Johnny's face and he chuckled. "Works for me." He tossed his share in as well with Meena happily following suit and flicking the mailbox closed with her trunk.

As Johnny went around the car to unlock it, Meena spoke up hesitantly. "Sooooo... can I maybe have my hoodie back?"

Ash felt her grip on the fabric tighten. She found herself reluctant to give up her warm, sleep-provoking, cloth cocoon. "Nope. Still need it." She stated blankly, trying to fight off a yawn as she leaned heavily on the closed car door.

This took Meena surprise. "For what?" She puzzled. "Isn't it way too big to be useful to you?"

"Imma superhero..." The small mammal mumbled drowsily and lost her battle with a yawn that nearly cracked her jaw.

"She's got a point," Johnny chimed in once he got the car doors unlocked. "Can't go bein' a superhero without a cape. It's just unprofessional." He reasoned in a mock serious tone. This earned his an exasperated glare from Meena.

"You stay out of this." She pouted, her words lacking any harshness and only caused the gorilla to put his hands up in a halfhearted mock surrender.

With a bit of struggle (and maybe some assistance from Meena), Ash managed open the car door and heave herself up on the seat. "Besides," she huffed out. "I look cuter with this." The porcupine pulled the hoodie tighter around her and cocked an eyebrow at Meena. "And you look cuter without it."

Meena froze halfway in the car, her face turning pink. "Th-that's not true!" The elephant sat rigidly in her seat, sudden made aware how exposed she felt without her shapeless hoodie to hide in. Her arms gently wrapped around herself as if to conceal her bulky body.

"Sure it is! Right, Johnny?" Ash was unfazed by Meena's flustered behavior and casually turned to Johnny for support.

The gorilla looked up wide-eyed from the ignition, clearly confused as to why he was being called upon for this. He looked between an expectant Ash and shy Meena before giving them both a sheepish smile. "I thought I was suppose t' stay out of this."

"Wuss." Ash rolled her eyes and looked through the windshield.

"Okay, fine. Ya' both pretty always. Bette'?" Johnny smiled as he gunned the engine to life. "Cop out." Ash smirk as she watched the elephant out of the corner of her eye and saw her large friend's face grow deeper and deeper with color. She heard Johnny give a tired sigh and Meena cut in before he could continue his back and forth with Ash.

"You can hang on to the hoodie for a bit if you promise to stop talking and go to sleep!" Meena was too easily flustered to let this continue. She just wasn't use to or knew how to handle being called cute. And Ash knew it.

Ash's smirk grew. Score. She was happily curled up in warm, blue cloth and snoring within minutes.

"Toldja ya' wouldn't be gettin' it back anytime soon." Johnny gave a tired, knowing smile. Meena just shrugged and returned the smile, too sleepy to think of anything to say back.