#i remember this took forever to transcribe lol

[velvet-games]

I finally finished the piece for @prince-liest's OC, Tzafael! this really reminded me of how fun character design is (and also that I've completely forgotten how to make digital art, but that's besides the point...) <3

credit to @hogbogglerspirits for the umbrella design! I kind of butchered it so please look at the original and throw lots of love at them

LOTS of notes, draft sketches, brainstorming, etc. below the cut. enjoy!

(note: a lot of what I'm talking about is based on posts prince made under their #tzafael tag, so take a look at those if you haven't yet!)

thanks for joining me below the cut! here's the sketch without the colors as a treat (in case you want to color it yourself or something, idk).

notes about making the digital drawing:

holy shit this took me forever -- I was not kidding about forgetting how to make digital art lmao. I forgot how much less forgiving digital lines are and genuinely lost the spoons to even attempt lineart, hence just a sketch below the colors.

some of you might've seen the original sketch I sent to prince, which the digital version diverges from just a little. it's mostly the halo which I'll explain later, and I finally caved and drew the sixth eye (you can tell I drew and erased it multiple times in the sketch lmao -- still don't know if I prefer it with or without)

here's the original color ref by the lovely @gendermeh! my color scheme ended up looking really different, so some notes about that:

I was looking at references for magpies like this

and I wanted to basically follow that color scheme while also being somewhat similar to the original -- dark head/shoulders --> dark top of the jacket, bright blue wings --> bright blue bottom of the jacket, greenish tailfeathers --> green pants, hints of purple --> purplish sleeve and pant ends

I also tried (and mostly failed, let's be real) to capture the iridescence of the feathers -- they look like oil spilled on the pavement or iridescent hematite to me! I think the key ended up being adding bright greens/purples and roughly blending them into the blues or vice versa but I didn't really figure that out until I got to the pants lol.

I'm gonna be honest; I don't remember why I went with this shape for the tailcoat. I just remember being unhappy with the sketch and then trying a bunch of different shapes that mostly looked worse lol -- I think I landed on this because a split tail kind of looks like wings?

KEPT the shoes -- absolutely magnifique. I wish I knew how to color gold better.

added lots of jewelry! they like shiny things :)

ALSO PLEASE LOOK AND APPLAUD ME. I FINALLY REMEMBERED TO LABEL MY LAYERS!! NO I DON'T REMEMBER WHY THE HALO HAS ITS OWN LAYER.

alright, time for some more design notes/explanations + draft sketches!

but first, a couple disclaimers:

I want to make it very clear that I LOVE everything about the original design. I made a lot of changes based on personal preference/the way I interpreted the character. I was actually planning on making a digital piece that was more faithful to the original design too, but I was just out of spoons for it cause of life stuff.

you probably shouldn't try to read the notes I made in the sketches I'm about to show you unless I say otherwise. most of it is incoherent brain vomit in illegible artist handwriting and I'll transcribe/explain the stuff I think is important :) (the stuff in quotes are direct transcriptions of my notes)

I know my sketches are very messy lol. I only draw for fun, so I usually don't force myself to make stuff any neater than necessary unless it's supposed to be a formal piece. try to bear with me.

1:

my first few sketches of them! (I think?) this was before I sent prince a laundry list of questions so I was still trying to get a vibe

"magpie -- beak lips?" -- you'll see this in a few sketches; I considered giving them the lipstick design that velvette has since it looks like a beak. I still kind of think it's cute, but 1) I'm pretty sure velvette is the only character that has them, so I didn't want to make it seem like they were related somehow and 2) I thought it might be distracting with how much other crazy stuff I ended up including in their head/face

also, sidenote since it's relevant to what I said about vel: something I realized was important is how one character's design relates to the designs of the rest of the cast. I wasn't sure how much I should've gone for what looked good in a vacuum, how much should be based on what other characters looked like canonically, or what other characters would look like if I also designed them. it ended up being mostly the second option, but it was honestly still a struggle. should I take away some of the tumblr-sexyman-ness (no shade to tumblr sexymen; I love them) because there are other characters that already have it? should I relate their design to sera's and emily's in the show or should I think about how I would've designed sera and emily? should I follow some of the design philosophy of the original show and just throw stuff on there because it looks cool (the answer is yes btw)? decisions, decisions ...

I don't think this showed up really well in most of the drawings, but they actually have a black line down their nose! let's take a look at sera:

since they're siblings, I wanted to include some similar facial markings. the nose line ended up being the only thing I kept though -- I was going to include freckles, but I have a compulsive need to give every character giant bottom lashes so there ended up being no room T.T I like that the magpie's hints of purple kind of match hers tho!

the wingification of the hair begins! I was still unsure of it at this point, but it was an idea I had since I was kind of struggling with how straight the feathers were in the original.

"maybe the ones on their head count as wings (so only one main pair)" -- I originally just had the 2 pairs of wings on their head, so I was thinking of just giving them 1 pair on their back so there would be still be 6 total. also this middle drawing of them is meant to be their exorcist outfit (I wanted it to be a cross between what the other exorcists wear and sera's outfit)

at this stage, I was thinking of giving them more magpie-like characteristics, so I looked at some references and tried to emulate them in a more human design. this ended up being really awkward so I scrapped it, but I still like the idea that their exorcist mask looks like a bird (kind of like a plague doctor's)

2:

peekaboo! I love the idea of them using the wing hair to cover their eyes lol. (ended up using that idea for my own seraph OC since that's their biblically accurate purpose: to cover their eyes/faces in reverence/humility -- doesn't really fit with tzafael tho lol, so they show their face most of the time)

an eyeball in the bowtie -- pretty self-explanatory. the eyeball motif is important.

the one in the middle is just me practicing drawing the original design, and the one on the right is another exorcist outfit I think. I wanted to include the diamond motif/points that sera has on her dress (the diamonds on the bottom turn into eyeballs, which is why the final design also has eyeballs on tzafael's sleeves/pants)

3:

lots of notes on the side based on what prince said in response to my ask

"localized omniscience (power of sight) -- cool + ironic that their sight was supposed to serve God but made them see Heaven for what it really is instead"

another exorcist outfit, this time including the feathers

I was also experimenting with the halo; I was trying to make it look sort of like sera's crown, but that didn't feel right ...

some practice with eyes -- my style is pretty flexible with eye shapes, so I try to make them suit the character. I drew lute's eye and also an actual magpie's as references -- lute's because of the exorcist background and also because they looked appropriately sharp, magpie's for obvious reasons. once again, my compulsive need for giant bottom lashes strikes

there was honestly a lot to balance with the eyes -- I wanted them to look condescending/bored (lowered top lid) but also amused (raised bottom lid) and like a magpie (round) but also harsh/mischievous (sharp, maybe slit pupils like a snake) and similar to sera's (but not too decorated -- also does it make sense for them to look like sera's if emily's don't even look like sera's?)

considered having wings on the shoulders -- the magpie pattern is super cool, so it would've been nice to have that somewhere more explicitly in the design. I still think that might fit in an outfit they would wear in heaven (maybe for formal occasions)

the introduction of the sweatervest! honestly I kind of love this for the way it captures more of the preppy, spoiled old-money upper-class vibe some heaven residents have, but it was scrapped since I couldn't imagine them wearing that while trying to scare the denizens of hell. maybe something they wear casually though.

"yes nictating membrane (on every eye!)" -- AHH I'm so sad I didn't end up putting this to use. I just feel like the whole effect is based on actually seeing them blink, and I don't animate lol.

4:

ugh, the nefarious laughter one ... don't worry I tried harder on a sketch later on lol.

"like the diamonds on Sera + Em" + "diamonds turn into eyes?" -- I draw the diamonds on the sweatervest turning into eyes later.

tried an actual bow instead of a bowtie -- very cute but didn't fit the vibe.

a skirt! I think they would wear a skirt sometimes.

5:

"FUCK ASS BOB" -- asghdk the wingification of the hair continues. unfortunately, I'm realizing at this point that the silhouette of the hair is starting to look a lot like alastor's. I gave a very half-hearted attempt at mitigating this, but it goes back to the thing of how much I am obligated to the original show's designs and what looks cool to me -- I think the wing hair fits them and I didn't want to change it because of alastor, plus my alastor design actually has completely different hair anyway. I did add a third pair to the back to look like a ponytail though.

introduction of the scarf! I was actually going to include this in the final design but uh,,, I forgor. are you starting to see a pattern.

the reason for the scarf is that the "tzafael going to places they know they'll draw attention/can incite chaos" reminded me of that scene in avengers where loki walks into a fancy building looking pretentious af and just casually stabs a guy's eye out. not really the same thing but I felt like the vibe matched. hence, loki's funny little scarf fit.

6:

uaoughdfjh it was SO FUN to draw the wing hair, and it was at this point that I realized they had to stay even though I wasn't sure if it was too different from the original.

gossiping with rosie cause that's the first person I thought of -- tzafael also summoned a pearl necklace to clutch because of the sheer drama of it all (your ex-husband did what??)

also started drawing the rings on their hands. magpie like shiny.

7:

lots of notes cause I was trying to compile the things I still needed to think about/incorporate into the final (I thought this was gonna be the last draft ... haha)

trying to include more bird/eye motifs

"fish ... purse?" -- ha! I forgot I was gonna give them a fish purse. I think I drew that in a later sketch, but not them wearing it.

"picked up Hellish traits bc of extended stay -- existential crisis?" -- I asked prince about the sharp teeth, and their answer implied that they became sharp as they stayed in hell longer, which got me thinking ... I feel like that's actually a great body horror concept. lucifer falling and looking like a normal angel at first, eventually waking up to more and more devilish features and feeling more and more like he's lost his home and his past self ... spooky.

another exorcist outfit -- I actually really like the eyes on the ribs! I never made a final draft for the exorcist uniform, but it would probably look close to what I drew here.

the one on the bottom was meant to be similar to the feathered shoulder pad idea, but this time with the whole magpie (with giant eyes). tried putting the "freckles" (really just dots in this case) over their brows, but that ended up looking kinda weird.

the eye is pretty close to the final design

the one on the right was supposed to be the full final design, but I was totally off lol -- the long trench coat really doesn't give off the right vibe at all

8:

playing around more with the loki vibes of the scarf, also added an eyeball to the chest

I never got happy with the design of the back of the coat -- I think it should probably just be blank at this point. but the sketch here is meant to look like wings/tailfeathers.

yet another exorcist outfit, this time with more magpie motifs. I actually like this one a lot, but I probably should've added the eyes on the ribs from the last sketch. I think I also considered giving them actual tailfeathers at this point.

9:

thanks for sticking with me! I promise we're almost done. have a trans dinosaur I saw while I was travelling as a treat <3

10:

this is after I finished the sketch for the final piece and realized I didn't like the halo design. I drew lute's, sera's, em's, and adam's as refs. (honestly I love the show's idea that each person/people of each rank have a different kind of halo -- I wonder if they can switch them out?)

my main inspiration ended up being the exorcist halo, but I made it look more like an eyeball -- since it always points toward heaven, we can say it's always "looking" at heaven.

(also sera's feather lashes! they're so cute)

11:

EVEN MORE EXORCIST DOODLES

12:

tzafael shooing away my fox demon OC

13:

these are actually sketches for my own seraph OC (raguel), but I wanted to include it since it has even more wing/feather hair variations. I also think the idea of the eyelashes being feather-like could've been cool for tzafael.

14:

some more OG design doodles

tzafael and raguel together because self-indulgence is the name of the game babey (also wanted to draw tzafael freaked out with their wings flared)

(raguel's blind btw, hence asking for eyes -- tzafael has so many!)

you can probably read the dialogue here so give it a shot. I believe in you.

15:

you know what? the fish purse deserves some doodles

16:

putting them in Situations! I was reading over prince's posts again and I realized there were some funny things I could draw them doing/saying

again you can probably read the words here

angel dust also loves fish (but is apparently bad at taking care of them, hence the suffocating blobfish), so tzafael shows him their aquarium (complete with live fish and flora ofc)

I thought alastor was 8 ft but apparently he's 7.3 ft? so tzafael is enjoying the .2 ft they have on him

trying and failing again to come up with a design for the back of the jacket lol

THE crowley quote

apparently the halo still sends signals from the exorcists -- thought their reaction to the battle at the hotel would be funny

the nefarious laughter (take 2) that I promised -- based on a doodle of alastor viv did that I found

them being sad and curling up in a pile of shiny things like a dragon

OKAY I'M DONE. huge, huge thank you to prince for sharing their OC! this was a lot of fun and clearly inspired me a lot haha. please check out their writing; it's literally so good that I can't read anything else these days. I am chewing on their thoughts constantly.

this was an absolute monster of a post, so if you're still reading, I am both impressed and bewildered at your patience. I hope you enjoyed! (I certainly did!)

#prince (because they are very sweet): I'm excited to see your thoughts! #my thoughts: magpie like shiny hehe #hazbin hotel oc #prince-liest #hazbin hotel #my art #character design #sera hazbin hotel #em hazbin hotel

[planesofduality]

Full Transcript edition:

“The Story Behind Solas with Dragon Age Lead Writer Patrick Weekes” by Dialogue Wheel/Video Game Sophistry

Reblog of one of my first posts ever. I didn’t understand how tumblr worked back then really, and long story short, I split the transcript of this interview  into 3 parts :) I’d probably do things differently now. Reblogging it as a single transcript for my own convenience, as I still refer to some of the things Weekes said here from time to time!

Interview is from before Trespasser DLC; posted to YouTube 12/20/2019 

Note: pseudo-reblog

“Interview with lead writer for Dragon Age Patrick Weekes years ago about how the enigmatic character Solas was created, here is what that magic elf could have up his sleeve for us in Dragon Age 4.” Not my interview, just wrote transcript of questions and answers for reference. 

Full video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFx1nCdZFjw&t=1s

Time: 2:54

Solas, tell us about little old Solas. Talking about your other characters you created we always start at the beginning. Pen to paper - How did the idea of Solas first start? What was that first iteration?

So actually Dave and Mike both, you know, we - everyone knew who Solas was - everyone knew what the ending was going to be with him. And, you know, Dave and Mike said, “Well Dave is writing a ton of the crit path, the main part of the game. Dave really wants to do Dorian, that’s very important to him, and are you comfortable writing this guy? Are you comfortable writing someone who is going to be, in some respects, deceiving the Inquisitor for the entirety of the game?” And, honestly, how do you turn that down?

Time: 4:02

So really it was that simple then - from there, in the way you described it, they already had some ideas and some concepts about what Solas needed to bring?

Oh, yeah. Originally, one of the most difficult parts of writing him - and, you know, I said Iron Bull was the one closest to how I originally planned him - Solas and Cole are probably tied for least like how I originally wrote them. And, really, it was getting past the secret. It was getting past Fen’Harel.

Iron Bull: badass former spy, the opposite of Sten.

Blackwall: awesome Grey Warden who is not actually a Grey Warden.

Solas: He’s Fen’Harel…

Okay, can he tell you he’s Fen’Harel? No.

Okay, well what are we going to talk about?

[Pretending to be Solas:] “Hey Inquisitor, I’m still not Fen’Harel, do you have any questions?”,  “I will not take any questions about whether I am Fen’Harel.” That was the big stumbling block of writing him.

I remember the first draft… the first draft all we talked about was elves. It was elves all the time. Every conversation went “Elves, elves… Elves were awesome back in the old days.. Everything was great with the elves.” And then you’d go, “You really like elves huh?” “No, shut up - I’m not Fen’Harel.” And we all kind of looked at that and went, that’s not really much of a character hook. You cannot have a character hook built on something that you only reveal after the play has watched the credits. That is how we got to Fade expert. That is something where, if something had gone terribly wrong, if we were six months from shipped and we decided not to do anything with elves in the future, we could have taken the Dread Wolf out of the equation entirely and a mage named Solas who loves the Fade, is an apostate but without all of the fear and anger that you think of when you think of an apostate, but is just this guy who wants to travel through dreams and find mysteries and explore… that was a good enough character to stand by itself. That is what it took us a couple of drafts to get to.

Time: 7:04

You mentioned the first two phases of Solas - share with us a little more of that journey, when you finally go to this character that could stand on its own. If you don’t mind, a little more of that journey- was it just those first two and now everything’s cool?

First draft was “ ‘Elves, elves’ but ‘I don’t like elves’”. Second draft was about how much to tell. I think in the next draft it was significantly closer. Anyone who looked at that draft - and, you know, I apologize to anyone who looked at that draft - but, anyone who looked at that draft you would find places where “Oh okay that’s the Solas I know and love. There he is. He likes the Fade.” That’s something that’s actually interesting. But, he lied a lot more. And it actually really weakened his character. We played it so close with both Blackwall and Solas - both characters are the liars who don’t actually lie. They will tell you almost truths. With Blackwall - he never actually flat-out says “I am a Grey Warden.” If you ask him what it’s like being a Grey Warden he will say "Well  a warden embodies this and a warden embodies that… I’ve been blessed in my travels.” You know, he never actually quite says “I’m a Warden.” With Solas it’s the same way with the hand wave of ‘in the Fade’. I would start putting ‘in the Fade’ at the end of a lot of sentences.  “Yeah turns out that all of the stuff you thought was true in history was wrong… because I saw it…. in the Fade.”

In revision 2, he lied a lot more. On the one hand it worked, on the other hand it made him less tragic, more of jerk when we got to the reveal. So that is how we got to what we made him into: this character who is intelligent, wise… Solas will think very carefully before he tells you anything and anything he tells you is exactly as much as he wants you to know. That actually led to one of the funny little game moments - one of the last things we do is add the places where characters will approve or disapprove. I think what I want Solas to approve us is you actually asking questions . He’s kind of unique in that regard -  What Solas approves us is people who are interested in finding out knowledge. Whether they are finding it out from him or they’re talking with other people, Solas wants people to explore, he wants people to find information, he wants people to learn. What he disapproves of, honestly, more than what you do, is in many ways how you do it. You can do the thing that he wants you to do, but if you do it in a knee-jerk way, Solas hates that. He wants to know that you are carefully considering your options and taking a measured approach.

Time: 12:16

When it comes the characterization of a character that you’ve already been give at least some sort of name to. We know that this character is some sort of trickster god - when you were trying to develop and make him some a stand-alone character, did you ever have to rely on what the mythos already established of this particular kind of eighth-seat god that maybe a lot people hadn’t heard a lot about?

Well, I think, like we talked about before, one of the great things about the Dragon Age universe is everything that you learn in a codex entry is something that someone else heard in a story and wrote it down somewhere and you’re reading half of the book. So the good news on that is anything we wanted to do with Fen’Harel, there was so little and what was in there was already so sketchy that we had all the freedom we needed to play with him.

That turned out to be a nice thing because I think if we had someone that was completely by-the-books, already established, their character already given, it would feel like more of a letdown to write that as a character or you would have to play against type, you’d have to do something completely different to show he wasn’t just what the stories wrote about him. And, you know, in some ways that is both liberating but also disappointing to people who might have liked  the original stories. This was a fun experience of getting to fill in some of the gaps.

The only thing I think we had to struggle against is that anyone who hears “trickster” or anyone who hears “oh, he’s chaotic and unpredictable” it feels like there is a natural urge to go to “He’s Loki in the Avengers. He’s the guy who’s gonna make large grand-standing plans.” Or, you know, “He’s the Riddler, who’s gonna leave clues to test you.” We had to get away from that: “Let’s tone that back a little bit, let’s not have him be the Jack Nicholson Joker version of the Dread Wolf.”

That’s quite a quote.

You got Dorian as a large, grandiose , extravagant figure and it would have been easy to have him go that way. It was fortunate that we had Dorian as the mage who had the larger-than-life persona already to make Solas be the quiet one.

Time: 15:21

Was there ever an instance where you were really pushed with giving some indicators to the player that Solas may have some connection to this going through the gameplay? Because you do see a lot statues of Fen’Harel. There’s many instances of where you’re discussing it, you’re traveling through those lands. Where do you walk that line, how do you walk that line, or do you just completely disregard it whatsoever?

The goal we had is we wanted the very careful players, the very sensitive players, who were playing attention and watching every scene with Solas to know that something was up and to want more answers and then go to “OH MAN” as soon as the stinger after the credits rolled. But we wanted most players to just go “Oh, okay, he’s like ‘Fade nerd.’ He’s like ‘hippie guy.’”

The other thing we wanted was everyone on their second playthrough, as soon as they talked to Solas to be like “Oh, man, he’s just saying it. He just flat-out said it right there and I missed it completely the first time!” I think we called it the “inevitable in retrospect”- or the “slap the forehead on the second playthrough” style of writing, where we wanted people to see that the most interesting thing about the trickster god is he’s not actually that great of a liar - He is almost telling you a lot of the time. And, you know, some of the tragedy is it that you never had the chance to actually ask, “Wait -are you Fen’harel?”

Time: 17:13

We talked about leaving breadcrumbs, what that meant. Now the big turn, the big scene at the ending:  How did this come about, were you really involved in that sort of process and are you happy with it?

Oh, I’m absolutely happy with it. It went through several iterations,. Mike was hugely involved. The writing was definitely done by Dave; it was a huge crit path moment. He had me give a look at the Solas voice, I think I looked at it, I don’t think I actually changed a single word in the final one.

We had versions where after the main plot it was actually going to be a full plot where you the player went and were actually present when Solas confronts Mythal. We had a part where we said, “Wow that’s too big, a lot of players are gonna miss that, we’ll make it a DLC.” So it was gonna be a separate DLC where that happened. At one point we said “No, this is too big, we actually - let’s cut it and address it next game.” So it was going to be this thing that we pushed off into some future content.

I am really happy with what we went with, because, I think, you know, for my money, that short, little Marvel-style, after-the-credits stinger is what we needed. We needed something so that everyone who was paying attention and everyone who was really invested could go “oh my god!” And go, “Okay, so, just in case you were wondering, we’re not done, we have more stories to tell, and we are confident enough in what we are doing that we are willing to throw that ball.” That stinger is essentially us throwing a football to future us, trusting that we are going to catch it. Because, you know, at the end, we had that level of confidence. We felt that we had that level of confidence, we felt we made a really good game. Dave led an amazing team of writers, and I’m really touched that he has the confidence to believe that I’ll be able to carry that on for him.

Time: 19:49

When we spoke to Dave, one of the big moments that he mentioned, was when he created kind of a long-term idea for what’s going to happen in the Dragon Age universe. And to hear him say it, he mentioned that what he originally wanted for Dragon Age: Inquisition couldn’t happen - it was far too big - it wouldn’t work. And you guys had talked about  taking that concept, finishing Inquisition somewhere in the middle of that concept arc, and then using at least an influence or something like that to affect the franchise going forward.  Speaking with you now, as someone who has taken up the reins, do you know what I’m talking about? Am I talking crazy? Where do you see it going?

Um…

Reasonably - of what you can say on this.

So here’s the last scene of the next game… (laughs). I think there’s an extent to which no plan really survives contact with the audience when it comes to video games. We look at how fans react, we look at what hit, what rang true with everyone. You know, it’s funny, having people react angrily actually isn’t as bad as having people ignore things sometimes. Having people react angrily  means they were definitely emotionally engaged, so you know you hit something there. Whereas having fans go, “I don’t know, fine, I guess, whatever” and move on means, “Okay, I don’t know if that’s what we want to go back to. We didn’t actually get anything from them there, they didn’t actually remember that later.” So that’s a phase that comes after every game we ship. We look at what hit, what missed, and where we want to go from there.

Now that said, Dave’s future plan is, I think, fantastic, epic, and heartbreaking. Our plan is to use that as our starting point. To look at where we want to go, what we want to do, and it will not be - and I, you know, Dave and I have talked about this - it will not be the story that Dave would tell if he were still here as lead writer. Because it could never be that. We can get into that when we talk about Cole a little bit, but if I tried to do that I would just be doing a bad impersonation of Dave Gaider and no one is ever going to be as good at that as Dave is. My goal going forward is to, as lead, put my own spin on that process, put my own spin on the plots going forward, on the thematic elements, while keeping those same thematic elements that we had. Because, I think, what Dave has set in motion in three games, countless DLCs and expansions, is something that can endure: The idea that no choice is ever really that easy and that the great events always stem from human-understandable motivations.

So, that is where I think where we are going to go, as vaguely as I can say.

Time: 23:30

Speaking of specifically to Solas: His continuation of the story. Adding that little “Marvel moment” at the end - what do you think that did for the crit path and the overall arc of the story that players experienced in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Do you think they would have been more satisfied if there was  a DLC or is that just us gamers complaining because we can’t get everything we want right away?

Well, I think you want to leave people wanting more. “Man I wish you guys had done more” is a better problem to have than “Man I wish you guys had done less.” So, I think, looking at it from inside the studio, we didn’t have the resources to do much more than we did. So it was never going to be the big moment right then anyway. From my perspective, the reason I’m really happy we have it is, like I said, I thought it was a vote of confidence. The team is still the Dragon Age team and it is still the writers and designers who did everything else, who made such wonderful characters and were responsible for such fantastic plots.

Time 25:10

Well, again, looking at that in its completion, it’s good to see that even a character that needed to give you a stinger in your estimation didn’t take away, I guess, from the overall story you were trying to tell.

Well, thank you. Yeah it was obviously the moment we were building toward, but again, the goal was even if we didn’t have that stringer, he was still an interesting enough character that people would have not felt cheated that he was in the party.

Time: 25:35

One of the most beautiful scenes I think in Dragon Age Inquisition is the scene that you get with Solas if you play as a female elf Inquisitor. Talk a little bit about that choice to have this romance option very, very specific. It’s race- and gender- specific. Why that scene - what that scene meant and a lot of the subtext, because it is a very rich sequence of scenes, not just one. And, I think it’s really one of the most interesting romances in the game.

I love that scene because that scene for me shows how far we’ve gone past - not the make myself irrelevant anymore - but how far we’ve gone with the digital acting. Jonathan Epp the cine-designer for that scene put it together and when you take everything that Gareth David Lloyd - the voice actor - everything he did on his lines. And just putting so much tragedy, and making it clear in every line that he wants to say more than he can. And with Jon Epp the cine-designer, just in the wordless scenes: showing the tragedy, showing the heartbreak, showing how much he does genuinely care against his better judgement, and how he finally forces himself to step away.,

You know how I said when we were talking about the Iron Bull - everything, every major moment we do, is there for a specific type of player fantasy fulfillment. And you know, not all types of fantasies are the happy ones. There’s a reason why The Phantom of the Opera was on Broadway for so many years and it’s not because it has a happy ending.

The Phantom of the Opera isn’t exactly the theme for the romance -  the razor was something closer to almost professor and student in some ways. He definitely comes across as a mentor in some ways. When he finally steps back it is him beating himself up, not you, saying “Wow what I have done here is actually really unfair to you, and you, player, at the time don’t know that I’m beating myself up because I’m actually  1000s of years old and not the person you think I am and it’s disrespectful to you for me to continue this relationship.” So it’s a very moral perspective for our ancient, quasi-evil, trickster god to come with.

Time: 28:41

And it’s amazing because it’s another instance of content that so few players would actually get an opportunity to see. When it comes to making it that specific, I guess, why was that choice made? Because usually a lot of your content - most of the Dragon Age content - it’s very easy to get really rich, wonderful characters right in your face and have those wonderful “eat-em-up” experiences, why for this one was it such a steep price to get in?

You know, I won’t lie, a lot of it came from some of our designers. Some of the women in the design department really, really loving his voice and saying, “You are absolutely fools if you do not make him romance-able in some capacity.” And, really, his story overall is - and, you know, I think we’ve only hinted at that but I think we have hinted at it enough that I can at least say this part of it - his story isn’t a happy one. His story is one, where, if you look at him and Mythal, there is clearly some grief, there is clearly some tragedy. And, adding in the option - even for players who don’t take it - on my end as a writer,  knowing that some players will have this as a star-crossed, forbidden romance, you know, it makes him more sympathetic. It’s important to me as a writer because when you’re writing about someone who, according to Flemeth, is at least somewhat responsible for the bad guy getting the magical item that he used to blow up half a mountain in the prologue, it’s important to have something in there that you can always have, as a writer, look at as your touchstone and go “This is a real person. This is someone who experiences sadness. This is someone who falls in love.” Even if he doesn’t do it with that Inquisitor on that playthrough, this is always someone who can be like that.

Time: 30:58

Where do you see a character like Solas ending up?

(Big sigh) Musical theater.

(laughs) Right when we reach those beautiful moments, Patrick!

I think that it is fantastic that people have emotionally engaged with Solas and I hope we get a chance to explore that in some future content.

Alright and that’s the most that we’re getting right now.

Time: 31:37

Oh, and here’s a little tie in: Here Lies the Abyss, the demon that spoke to Solas - what was all that about, what was that going on?

Oh yes - the demon who speaks perfect Elven!

Yes perfectly to him, and if you remember any of that - did you have anything to do with that?

Yes, Here Lies the Abyss was mine. It was a fun plot. It was a terrifyingly difficult plot, because - I’m not sure how clear this is to players that have one done one playthrough or with one import state - but your key characters throughout the events at Adamant Fortress and then the events of the Fade, it’s a customizable Hawke. Which means it could be a male Hawke or a female Hawke and within that, Hawke from Dragon Age 2 is characterized by one of three different attitudes: friendly, grim, or sarcastic. So, that’s three attitudes times two genders, that’s six different Hawkes and three different possible Grey Wardens: Alistair, Loghain, or Stroud.  So, the process of going through Adamant Fortress and then going through the Fade was a crazy juggling act of trying to keep track of “Okay, now one of these five people, these five Schrodinger’s cat quantum people, will say this line, and then another of these five Schrodinger’s cat quantum people will respond with this line.”

It’s important to remember that as we went through everything in Adamant Fortress and the Fade was taking place in that contest. There was a long period time when we were looking at that really going, “Okay, I just have to hope this actually makes sense when it’s nothing but Alistair and my sarcastic female Hawke.”

But, to actually answer your question. As I recall, the Nightmare, who as a friendly, chipper guy was basically - I do basically two types of villains: I do the villain who thinks he or she is the hero, and is misguided and has opposed goals, and is kind of tragic and tortured in that way. And then I do the mean-girl villain who says snotty high school insults.

That’s it - that’s the gambit.

Well, just about, yes. I’m looking forward to see who writes the villain in the future Dragon Age games - so get ready for either tragic pathos or really, really good high school mean-girl zingers.

As I recall, he was speaking Elven to Solas and if I remember right, he said, “Your pride is responsible for everything that has gone wrong” and I think he said “You will die alone.” And then Solas said something that translates to either “Nothing is known for certain” or “Not necessarily.”

And what does all that mean?

Well I think it’s fascinating that people are emotionally engaged, and I hope we have the chance -

It was a very asked question - it was a question that was asked a lot. Specific to that.

Oh, I’m not surprised, and I hope one day that we can tell you. But, obviously, that demon knows that Solas is hurting and Solas feels guilty about some stuff and really wanted to dig in there, and Solas was shouting back.

Literally just describing what happened (laughs). All right, so something that will clearly be talked about in other games.

TIme: 36:22

Dealing with this particular quest I really think that this was one opportunity to involve the Grey Wardens in a story, and a world, that kind of progressingly, after the first game had less and less of a need to exist - let alone in the world - but in the main characters arc. Talking to David I remember initially there was some idea for this particular mission they would just fall into the hole and be hanging out in the Deep Roads, and having out with the dwarves, so tell us a little bit about this creation.

A lot of the process of writing these large plots, like I talked about the razor, you figure out what the core concept is, you always start with a lot of things, and in most cases what you then end up having to do is cut. And if you’re not someone in the studio, talking about having to cut things sounds like you’re losing awesome content, you’re ruining what would have been clearly the best part of the plot. Inside the studio though, most cases what you’re cutting is the stuff that didn’t actually help tell the story you wanted to tell.

So yes in the original version, in a very early draft, actually this was before I was actually on the plot - this predates me - there was, yes, going into the Deep Roads, and when you fell in instead of ending up in the Fade you ended up down in the dark. And finding out what the Grey Wardens in this version of the story had been involved with the Architect from Dragon Age: Awakening. It was an interesting direction, and it was, I think, a very cool direction, but it did not help tell the story of the Inquisition. It was more a story of “Hey, if we wanted to do more with the Hero of Fereldan, here is an interesting place we could go” and it did not help tell the story of “What is the Inquisition doing?” “What is Corypheus doing?”, “How do these two organizations bounce off each other and who’s caught in the middle?” So trying to come to terms with the Grey Wardens in this game not being the protagonists, not being the group that is in the center of the action but being the group that is caught in the middle of this power struggle was something that led to us having to eventually do the re-jiggering that got us to the plot you saw.

#i remember this took forever to transcribe lol #much respect to the people and computers who do this for a living #dragon age #patrick weekes #solas #reblog

[wedreamedlove]

Xu Mo and Loneliness [Character Study]

Surprise! It's essay time again ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ! Disclaimer: I use CN translations because Elex...

One (of the many) things I love about Xu Mo's character is his juxtapositions [Character Study]. He is one of the loneliest men in the world due to his archetype and nature [Into Your World] but also the most susceptible to loneliness.

Throughout the game, he's dropped hints about his fear of being left behind:

"... But the sensitive artist was also afraid the butterfly would one day grow tired of being beside him, and so he thought about catching the butterfly and putting it in a glass jar. Like this, the butterfly would never be able to leave him." [Drowning in Love SSR - Artist and Butterfly Call]

"... But if I really did encounter the one and only color in my life, then I certainly wouldn't let them go." [Drowning in Love SSR - The Only Color Call]

"... No matter what the truth may be, I'll always be with you. Until the very moment it arrives... I just hope that, at that time, you won't want to push me away." [CH12 - Truth and False Call]

MC: Don't worry, I'll be alright on my own. Xu Mo: But I'm not alright alone. [CH13.4]

But, at the same time, he's accepted the adage that "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all":

"The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat." [CH9.14]

Just to expand on this for those who are unfamiliar with The Little Prince story, when the Little Prince is going to leave the fox, the fox says that it is going to cry. The Little Prince feels that his taming of the fox has done it no good at all, because now it's hurt, but the fox denies this because now it has the color of the wheat fields.

"Since she was willing to gently embrace all that he was, then why not accept this pain in his heart that was caused by her alone." [Overseas Date]

"Forget it, he'll just be foolish once more with this foolish girl." [True Love Date]

One other aspect of his juxtapositions is how his wants and needs are in conflict and I think people are naturally picking up on this, which is why he's viewed as having a really intense relationship with the MC.

I'm just going to define my words in this context to make things clearer but a "want" is your desire in life, while a "need" is your raison d'etre, essentially your reason for living and your goal in life. It's not necessary for all stories or characters to have this, but they're certainly more captivating with this. (As an aside, Zhou Qiluo has this going for him too while Li Zeyan and Bai Qi do not... and maybe why Bai Qi keeps getting hit with the vanilla and boring label LOL).

So, what does Xu Mo want? To love the MC and, as a byproduct, never be alone again. What does he need? The continuing survival (and evolution) of humankind, even if that means walking a path that will leave people behind him and end with him being alone.

This internal conflict is something we see again and again in the game:

[CH13] He reveals his identity to her as Ares, but lets her go. He even sacrifices his eye and the ability to see her color.

[CH16] They're "enemies" and they draw a clear line between them at the news conference, but he then saves her and returns her home. He sacrifices their experience together in the dream world and his answer to her question about whether or not he'd even offer up the person important to him for his goals.

”Before I met you, I would be annoyed at the pace of the people with me. Everyone has their own destination and a person walking by themselves would be quicker. Mm, this isn't a good custom. But on my path, whenever I turn my head back, I would always find that you had already caught up to my side. This time as well. Perhaps, in this world, you're the only person who can make me unable to resist looking back. Or perhaps you're the only person who can reach my side again and again. So, in the future, I won't let go anymore. On this day, next year, you'll be at my side too.“ [2019 (2nd) Birthday Call]

Now, the entire reason I wrote up this post—LOL. I'm actually half-serious because his [Endless Path Date] is amazing in how they distilled his character to one of his core themes and represented that facet entirely in this AU date.

I'm going to be jumping around chronologically in the date to show how he was in the past, to the present before MC regained her memories, to after she regained her memories.

PAST

Xu Mo: I hope you don't regret the choice you made this day.

MC: ... I admit I hate them, but I don't wish to be the same as them because of this.

MC: I don't want to become a murderous demon.

Xu Mo seemed to be a bit surprised and then, after a few seconds, the crimson in his eyes faded and became a calm purple, scrutinizing me.

Xu Mo: A murderous demon... Do you believe that I am one as well?

His voice carried a smile, but I felt a formless pressure and sense of terror surround me and I shuddered.

MC: You aren't. You saved me.

Although the way was to turn me into a vampire... in a sense, he gave me a "new life".

Xu Mo: Save? It appears that, in your understanding, when vampires are hunting for food they are saving people.

MC: I'm just being factual. Also, the word "hunting"...

The corner of Xu Mo's lips pulled up.

Xu Mo: There's no rush. In the future, you will experience for yourself whether or not the word I used is accurate.

I was stunned and suddenly remembered the thirst towards fresh blood in that hut earlier which had dominated me.

Xu Mo seemed to have no intention of bothering himself with me again and turned around, preparing to leave.

MC: Um... please wait a moment.

He silently looked back, his expression indifferent and cold under the moonlight.

I summoned up my courage and looked straight at Xu Mo.

MC: Can... can you give me your blood?

MC: I heard that this was the only way to become a true vampire; they won't have to drink blood and they won't lose their reasoning, so...

Xu Mo: So I have to answer your request?

Xu Mo interrupted me, as if he heard something laughable.

Xu Mo: Vampires are not gods who never refuse a request. Or is it that all humans are such selfish creatures?

MC: N-not at all! In exchange, I can...

The wind blew through, rustling the leaves of the trees. Xu Mo calmly listened to my words and was silent for a long while before he lightly sighed, but it also seemed like a laugh.

Xu Mo: Alright, I agree.

Under the moonlight, the hand that was held out to me was pale and slender. I took a step forward and also stretched out my hand—

PRESENT

Xu Mo blinked, slowly without hurry, and swept his eyes over in my direction.

He saw me and didn't appear to be surprised at all; instead, it was like he knew I was there all along, witnessing everything.

His smile wasn't anything different from usual and even the way he set down his glass and held out his hand to me was like that day, two years ago.

Xu Mo: [MC], you came.

The color of crimson blurred my vision and the smell of blood was like a wave threatening to engulf me.

I felt like breathing was difficult and my legs were unsteady; I could only lean against the wall.

Xu Mo saw that I didn't move and walked directly over to me. It was as if everything around him had no effect on him and those two crimson eyes reflected only my figure.

He came to me like this, step by step, and the strange thing was... that I actually didn't feel any fear.

He raised a hand to support me and this let me see his eyes clearly. There seemed to be a faint worry in them.

FUTURE

Xu Mo: Do you remember everything?

A gentle voice landed beside my ear and, as I recalled the scenes of that night, I looked at Xu Mo and mumbled.

MC: I promised you that, no matter how long, I would always...

He blinked and those crimson eyes crumbled into purple, a faint smile appearing in them.

Xu Mo: Mm, you said you would be at my side forever.

The reason I transcribed these three scenes is because they're so good at showing his assumed indifference, to how fast he caved into the temptation of not being alone, to how he continues to hold this hope despite MC having "broken their promise", to the future where they get to walk in an endless night together forever.

IT'S SO GOOD. I'm a sucker for immortality concepts and PG nailed this vampire version so well; his ancientness in the past, the longing for companionship, and then the sharing of a life.

Anyway, I was actually going to post this essay after I read his newest Halloween card because, after seeing he was an exiled prince with Snow White themes, my guess was that it was going to have a heavy and explicit theme about loneliness again.

But I got impatient seeing as how I have to wait until the end of the event to redeem him. So, I guess I'm throwing it out there that this is my prediction??? For those who have read that date, you can tell me if I'm hot or cold LOL. I'm going to look like a fool yelling about loneliness themes if that isn't the case this time though.

MIMICRY

Semi-switching gears and bringing back my [Into Your World] post, I just want to add that in addition to being so intensely curious about the MC's world and trying to understand her, I've noticed that MC and Xu Mo share something pretty unique to them that's less obvious with the others.

This is the mimicry that they do to each other.

There's been psychological studies that looked into the social aspects of mimicry (Baaren et al 2009) and mimicry and attraction in romantic relationships (Nicolas Gueguen 2009). In short, mimicking someone appears to promote social harmony, comfort, and trust in the other person; it can also make you more attractive to them LOL.

I really don't think Xu Mo is doing this intentionally and that, instead, this supports his (alienated) scholar archetype, his hobby of people watching, and trying to understand the MC's world. The same goes for MC, she wants to understand his world and a part of that is experiencing things in his way.

The reason I believe this is less obvious (if at all apparent) with the others is because, when I compare Xu Mo's dates to Bai Qi dates, all of Bai Qi’s dates are more like experiencing activities together, which Xu Mo has as well, ex. [Winery Date], [Sunrise Date], [Hot Spring Date], etc.

But Xu Mo has dates where they specifically mimic each other, such as:

[Blossom Date] He covers her eyes, she then covers his eyes.

[Archery Date] Technically, he teaches her but after he gets bull's-eye, she copies the form he taught her and also gets bull's-eye.

[New Year's Eve] He gets taught and mimics the way she makes dumplings.

[Qixi 2018 Mini Story] He and the kids ended up copying the MC's flying fish.

[Rainy Night Date] The flashback about how she folded origami cranes and then taught him and they make strings of them.

They also—and this I swear is unique solely to Xu Mo—mimic each other's words or sentence structures and phrases:

[Blossom Date] Tao Yao poem and how they quoted it back at each other, essentially finishing each other's stanza.

[Endless Path Date] The beginning of the dates shows an inside joke between them where MC tries to ask Xu Mo difficult questions to stump him, because he can see through her. But he guesses the herbs she bought by the smell on her fingers. Later on, she guesses that he's going to a party based on his use of the cologne she made him and which he only uses for parties. She explicitly brings up the beginning and how she can deduce things about him too via scent.

[CH13.15] Xu Mo quotes 1 Corinthians 13:12 at MC and [CH16.12] MC quotes 1 Corinthians 13:2 at him.

[CH16.12] During the conference, MC literally quotes the words he said to her [CH13.17] back at him to go against him.

[Dumbstruck Date] Heck, this whole date was MC repeating words that the original Xu Mo said to her and making Winter!Xu Mo jealous as heck LOL.

Throughout the story, where MC draws her strength from how the other men are as people (Li Zeyan's stability and permanence, Bai Qi’s core of justice, etc.), she seems to draw extensively on the words Xu Mo has said to her, or references to the same body of literature.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, but IMO this is why he reacts the worst out of all the men to MC’s disappearance in Chapter 25+.

#love and producer #mlqc #mr love queen's choice #mlqc lucien #mlqc xu mo #love and produc(ing) meta

[piracytheorist]

I... started replying to these questions and only near the end did I realize that @spellcasterdouxie tagged me in their similar post, but not (directly) for me to answer these questions. But they did leave the tag open and by the time I realized it I had answered almost all the questions, so I’m going through with it, lol XD

rules: answer the questions and then tag 10+ other creators to answer the questions!

first creation and most recent creation of 2020: My first one is also my very first Grim Fandango ficlet titled Have You Forgotten Yours?, which I wrote pretty much after finishing the game at the beginning of the year. My most recent one is this Captain Amelia gifset :)

one of your favourite creations from 2020: I think I’ll go with this gifset and meta of that Douxie and Merlin scene. Making the gifset and writing the meta made me pretty emotional, and it meant so freaking much to me that tenyai replied to it too.

a creation you’re really proud of: Full context aside, this one from Gordo and Trudy doing the frickle frackle was a pain to make because the scene was not only super dark, it was also chokeful of noise, so with the content I had I’m quite happy with how I managed to make it look.

a new style you tried this year and a gifset that uses it: I don’t use greyscale a lot and I have used it before, but I am pretty happy with this one of Gordo having an angsty shower but this time in B&W, and totally because of the style and not what the gifset shows, of course, why would you think otherwise my good sir

your favourite colouring: I don’t do much colouring in my gifsets, I mostly fix brightness, contrast and the colour tone, so the difference is rarely discernible unless you compare the gif with the original. But this gifset of Detective Rogers was interesting to toy with :D (also how was it that I made it in APRIL it feels like I made it a year ago and tbh that feeling isn’t surprising with this year is it)

a creation that took you forever: Definitely my Douxie’s leitmotif video. I had to rewatch the whole show looking out for his leitmotif (and I still missed one or two moments, shame on me lol), then transcribe all of its appearances into sheet music, then edit the whole thing, scenes and sheet music, together. I don’t remember exactly but I’m pretty sure that organizing the whole thing took like, a week, until the video was ready. And then youtube took it down because of copyright and I had to downgrade its size so that I could upload it to vimeo, lol. It didn’t get a lot of popularity but I didn’t really expect it to, it was a bit too technical and was mostly made for my own entertainment.

your creation from 2020 that received the most notes: My gifset of Douxie and Claire high-fiving!

a creation you think deserved more notes: This one and like, I’m not one to beg for notes or complain but it was surprising it got so few notes considering a) it’s from a scene not many people have made a gifset from, b) said scene has great comedic timing and like, why not and c) pretty much every other Douxie gifset I made got more than 200 notes so this one stands out. Again, not complaining, it was just weird why this specific gifset flopped (in comparison to my other Douxie gifsets), lol.

a creation with a favorite scene/quote: Oh, fuzzbuckets!

a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it: The Douxie fandom (I haven’t watched the other ToA shows so I don’t consider myself a part of the whole series fandom), and here’s the very first gifset I made of him!

a creation you made that breaks your heart: Oh that’s definitely this gifset of Douxie in that scene with Charlemagne and the staff. I can’t even. My boy T_T

a ‘simple’ creation that you really love: This gifset of Douxie throwing some “Magic fire!” in a BoOksToRe because while it was quite simple to colour it and stuff, I really really enjoyed how well-timed the gifs are.

a creation that was inspired by another one: I guess the “[Character] + TV Tropes” is a common theme for gifsets and stuff here, so this one I made of Douxie + TV Tropes is probably fitting for this question :D

a favourite creation created by someone else: One??? Uh... This Grim Fandango fanart (skeleton alert)

some of your favourite content creators from the year: @carpedzem, @valentimmy, @dahliycia, @inhonoredglory, @spellcasterdouxie, @a-s-levynn​ and @nikibogwater​​.

and for good measure, another couple more creations of yours that you love: 1) Silver from Treasure Planet with the pirate flag waving behind him, 2) Gordo and Trudy having a quiet moment and giving the sweetest faces to each other what do you mean it didn’t end there, 3) Douxie fighting with Morgana 4) Douxie hating those twits, 5) Douxie being 919 and not knowing how to read (Ancient Draconic) and 6) Colin characters wearing Among Us hats.

I’m bad at tagging people so if you want to do it, or if you do the same mistake I did XD do it and tag me :D

.... And then I clicked “Save draft” again instead of “Post”. That’s why this comes like three days later XD

#lillpon rambles

[yaotomejr]

『アソシエイト』 (Associate) Lyricist: 坂井竜二 (Sakai Ryuuji) Composer: 宮崎まゆ (Miyazaki Mayu) Arranger: 賀佐泰洋 (Gasa Yasuhiro)

Translation and lyrics under the cut!

Born in the space between love Torn apart by love I was then saved by you I don't intend to reciprocate with cheap gratitude Let me show you, my own way of doing things

愛の狭間生まれ 愛に引き裂かれ そしてお前に救われた 安っぽい感謝をする気はない 見せてやるさ　俺だけのやり方で

Ai no hazama umare Ai ni hikizakare Soshite omae ni sukuwareta Yasuppoi kansha wo suru ki wa nai Misete yaru sa ore dake no yarikata de

Chilling nights highlight the significance of warmth If I use my fingers to express that (to express that) These feelings of resignation will disappear into thin air, forever and ever I'll stay by your side

震える夜が温もりの意味 指で伝えたら（伝えたら） 諦めの気持ちなど　消え去ってく　永遠に 俺がそばに居てやる

Furueru yoru ga nukumori no imi Yubi de tsutaetara (tsutaetara) Akirame no kimochi nado kiesatteku eien ni Ore ga soba ni ite yaru

Associate — the pleasure of being connected I'm remembering it from head to toe Softly, and look, tightly We are strongly drawn to each other With your honest heart Entrust yourself to me, all of you

アソシエイト　繋がる悦びを 身体中が思い出してゆく そっと　ほらぎゅっと 強く惹かれあう まっすぐな心で 委ねてみろ　すべてを

Associate tsunagaru yorokobi wo Karada juu ga omoi dashite yuku Sotto hora gyutto Tsuyoku hikareau Massugu na kokoro de Yudanete miro subete wo

If you choose to dive (Now) Into my arms (Yes) While leaving yourself bare I won't ever let you go

裸のまま（さぁ） 俺の胸に（そう） 飛び込むなら 離しはしない

Hadaka no mama (saa) Ore no mune ni (sou) Tobikomu nara Hanashi wa shinai

You should live as yourself Like how I'm going to live as myself Love will sometimes hurt people, but You should know that even its wounds can heal

お前はお前を生きてゆけばいい 俺が俺を生きるように 愛は時に人を傷つけるが その傷さえ癒せると知るはずさ

Omae wa omae wo ikite yukeba ii Ore ga ore wo ikiru you ni Ai wa toki ni hito wo kizu tsukeru ga Sono kizu sae iyaseru to shiru hazu sa

Light and shadow, shadow and light If they're a projection of each other (of each other) Suffering will someday draw forth happiness I'll prove that to you

光が影を　影が光を 映し出すのなら（出すのなら） 苦しみはいつの日か幸せを描くだろう 俺が証明してやる

Hikari ga kage wo kage ga hikari wo Utushi dasu no nara (dasu no nara) Kurushimi wa itsu no hi ka shiawase wo egaku darou Ore ga shoumei shite yaru

Associate — the miracle of our encounter Let's increase the speed to the point we forget it More, and look, always Further towards tomorrow Let's go meet us of the unforeseen future

アソシエイト　出会えた奇跡さえ 忘れるくらい　スピードを上げて もっと　ほらずっと 明日のその先へ まだ見ぬ未来の俺たちに会いに行こう

Associate deaeta kiseki sae Wasureru kurai supiido wo agete Motto hora zutto Asu no sono saki e Mada minu mirai no oretachi ni ai ni yukou

Chilling nights highlight the significance of warmth If I use my fingers to express that (to express that) These feelings of resignation will disappear into thin air, forever and ever I'll stay by your side

震える夜が温もりの意味 指で伝えたら（伝えたら） 諦めの気持ちなど　消え去ってく　永遠に 俺がそばに居てやる

Furueru yoru ga nukumori no imi Yubi de tsutaetara (tsutaetara) Akirame no kimochi nado kiesatteku eien ni Ore ga soba ni ite yaru

Associate — the happiness of being connected I'm remembering it from head to toe Softly, and look, tightly We are strongly drawn to each other With your honest heart Entrust yourself to me, all of you

アソシエイト　繋がる悦びを 身体中が思い出してゆく そっと　ほらぎゅっと 強く惹かれあう まっすぐな心で 委ねてみろ　すべてを

Associate tsunagaru yorokobi wo Karada juu ga omoi dashite yuku Sotto hora gyutto Tsuyoku hikareau Massugu na kokoro de Yudanete miro subete wo

Associate — the miracle of our encounter, now Let's increase the speed to the point we forget it More, and look, always Further towards tomorrow Let's go meet us of the unforeseen future

アソシエイト　出会えた奇跡さえ　今 忘れるくらい　スピードを上げて もっと　ほらずっと 明日のその先へ まだ見ぬ未来の俺たちに会いに行こう

Associate deaeta kiseki sae ima Wasureru kurai supiido wo agete Motto hora zutto Asu no sono saki e Mada minu mirai no oretachi ni ai ni yukou

If you choose to dive (Now) Into my arms (Yes) While leaving yourself bare I won't ever let you go

裸のまま（さぁ） 俺の胸に（そう） 飛び込むなら 離しはしない

Hadaka no mama (saa) Ore no mune ni (sou) Tobikomu nara Hanashi wa shinai

—

listen,

i’m gaku oshi,

Unlike my translation of Viva!, I decided to separate the lyrics, romaji & lyrics by verses, to make it easier for me when translating! It’s mostly because of the “裸のまま" verse screwing with sentence structure when converted to English lol

There are no official lyrics right now (at least until someone goes to karaoke and gets them, yes, someone did that for Tenn’s birthday song), so these are transcribed lyrics! I am Not good at transcribing, so I took mainly from this person’s transcript! There ARE some parts of the lyrics that are official, either taken from the game itself, or from Banban’s Twitter.

I wrote the Romaji lyrics myself though! This is my first time doing it, so I have no idea if I got the transliteration & pacing right :’D

*looks up at the image* god he’s so hot, i mean what

I put up a translation of the short preview on Twitter a few days ago, and the parts I translated are mostly carried over. I changed some of the wording though, because I really didn’t like how inelegant I made the lyrics sound lmao

For “震える夜が温もりの意味”, I COULD just translate this literally as “chilling nights are the meaning of warmth”, but it didn’t make much sense when I thought about it, so I went with a different approach? So I assumed it’s about how “because of the cold nights, the warmth is that much more important and significant”? I guess?

Have I mentioned I have no idea what I’m doing sometimes

“光が影を影が光を　映し出すのなら” is about how “if light casts shadow and shadow casts light”. The way the lyrics were constructed makes it hard to translate it just like that, which is why I used the idea that they’re a projection of each other! Is that. is that even scientifically accurate. I’m sorry

If you think he’s using innuendos, that’s exactly what he’s doing, yes (as i expected from the #1 Man People Wanted To Be [Redacted] By)

gaku’s “associate” in the final verse makes me hor

When the official lyrics with accurate kanji comes along, I’ll come back to edit this! But for now, yeah, that’s all from me ✨

#azumi translates things #アイドリッシュセブン #idolish7 #yaotome gaku #happy birthday you beautiful beautiful man i hope you and tsumugi get to call each other by first name again

[vacationcalendar]

8/7/21

Hi boyfriend~

Just took a weed gummie in honor of Bonnie’s birthday weekend. My present for my friend is that I’ll suck it up and be an active participant in their life for a change. I’ll be game for a whole weekend. I got up early today and tagged along to volunteer at a charity 5k. We grabbed some coffee and wandered to the halfway point of the course (thus walking an entire 5k in the process! Not too shabby ;D), and then camped out a water station that I’d say should be very grateful I actually showed up to work its sorry ass. Bonnie didn’t have to do any managing/delegating, they just got to post up and chatter at the runners-by. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t go, and I promise I am not tooting my own horn, that water stand would not have been the fun water stand that it was. They would have had 2 dunces making it go worse, and only 3 people managing 4 tables of water cups. Volunteers man, what are you gonna do? I’m sure that’s why they were looking for 8 people per water stand, just to statistically ensure that SOMEONE with half a brain would be around to help out.

Great morning though. JUST a little too hot, but that’s how you know you were doing solid work out there. The proof is in the pits, baby!

Ok, 40 minute bathroom break is over. Man, nothing like starting the blog to make me SO productive in the mornings! It’s such a cheat code. I did laundry, dishes, pooped; my whole day is bright and available now! But now I’m tired and I don’t want to write anymore. I had about a 6 minute where I wanted to do this today and I actually hit it for a second before I had to stop and do ANYTHING ELSE I guess. So, fuck. What do we write now?

I had to get up suuuuper early for this 5k thing, and I only got like 4 hours of sleep because I did not factor in the early wake up until like 6pm yesterday, and I had already slept like 14 hours that day :I That’s right, I woke up, immediately crushed the blog, went back to laying down, played League, and watched tv and shit until I felt tired enough to sleep and get ready for the 5k, which was 2am. So now I have a weed gummie digesting in me and I have a nap climbing up my priority list and this is why I don’t like weed. I feel like I have to plan my fucking shit around it, and I’m not good at that. Part of me thinks I can crash right now and wake up before the drugs make me sleep for 2 hours longer than I want, and give me weird, unpleasant dreams. I can’t possibly pull that off, I’m not sleepy, I’m just like sluggish. So basically what I have to do now is power through into the “trip” (maybe I’ll luck out and miss it and I can just pretend I’m high, which I won’t do, but hey we’re brainstorming here), and let that smoothly transition me into a nap. And THAT would mean that I have to entertain myself for the time being to get me into a good place to start being high...? And then I can like power up my activities WHILE high, and that would be fun. Playing video games, great. Playing video game high? That’s the whole point of it. I mean like, that’s the whole point of life, right? And then I can be like NAPTIME BITCH, and that would be fun also, in theory. And then I can go put a podcast on and go to the movies? Ugh, I don’t want to go the movies anymore. I’m to tired :( This sucks.

I’m trying to go see Green Knight. I’m sure that sentence won’t matter at all in even like 4 months from now, but I think it should be a fun time. So much more productive than anything I can do from the desk. And it’s not summertime like this forever. You gotta get that shit in so you don’t think you miss it when the weather turns. You want to be sitting inside on a cold autumn day thinking “good riddance, being outside is entirely overrated.” And I’m not there yet. Man I don’t know. Well how bout this? Let’s do a little more brainstorming while I’m trapped here writing to your dumb ass. If you ever read these again this part will be like a little prank on you lol. Ok: 1: Stay here, no movie. Let’s lock that in. that should make having to navigate being high so much easier. Let’s let the pipe dream of doing everyone’s favorite thing of being at a theater high wait just a little longer. Today can be a trial run. We’ll walk around today and think about what it would be like if I had biked 20 minutes to a movie theater and watched a 2 hour movie and biked home. And when we suss out that it would have been unenjoyable, we’ll feel like geniuses for making this call. So that’s out of the way. LOCK IT IN

2. I don’t know yet. Let’s just start simple. Food. What’s up? We have almost no groceries. We have no bread for a tuna salad sandwich, but let’s put that in the to-do list. We need more english muffins too. That was an A+ 10/10 move last month. Just muffins w/ strawberry jam, and egg McMuffins whenever the fuck I wanted, which was always. Frozen Veggies like Corn or Beans would be good. Bag Chop Salad kits. They weren’t on sale last week, and it’s goddamn highway robbery when they’re at full price. So this week would be the perfect time to check in on ‘em. And I’ll commit more to an equivalent substitute this time if I can’t find a good deal. Let’s see, what else? Oof my wpm and accuracy is starting to take a hit. The first and only symptom! Nice! Miku. Meat. Spaghetti and meat sauce? Gotta check out what ragu shit you have in the house before you do that. Consider this your reminder! I know you’ve never successfully pulled that off, but I have full confidence in you. Oh fuck, now I’m starting to worry a little bit the coherent quality of this is about to start dropping. Well, another fun little prank for ya bitch! Fruit leathers? I just have no fucking idea. Ok, so shopping can 100% wait for another day. This isn’t anywhere close to a cohesive trip. So we can eat out somewhere! Great, lock it bitch. I’m starting to swear more; it’s because I can’t find the right words anymore. Oh boy, the weed smelling burps are happening. This really is so gross and difficult. Beer is just a more bitter version of soda. It’s actively refreshing. Damn, if only I’d been a little more exposed to peer pressure at an earlier age. I’d have been past this awkward uncomfortable phase of weed, like how I (and basically everyone) was with alcohol. You slam Natty Lites with your nose closed until you start to realize life is little more pleasurable than the absolute Kelvin zero you had come to be familiar with. Uh, ok, I’m starting to let my mind wander. He’s daydreaming, chief! I suppose I could just transcribe the dialogue of the daydreams, but I can’t keep up. This is just break o’clock.

3. What do I fucking eat!? I had to make a whole nother numbered point, and I still don’t have the plan. Jesus H,. Ok here’s what AROUND. Chex Mix, unopened. 1 Grape Soda. Cookie Dough Ice Cream (w choc sauce). Raisins, PB, Ramen, meh. Reese Cups! I just looked behind and was like, “oh yeah! Nice”. If that’s not everything, that’s REALLY close. So what’s calling my name? Pizza? Chinese? Damn, I might just have to play this by ear. Nothing at all sounds interesting, and I’m not the slightest bit hungry (we got free Dim Sum after the 5k. It was called the Dim Sum and Then Some 5k). Ok, so other options to keep on the back burner for later would be: Kebab, Chicken Sandwich, go get Pizza Rolls and Chippies at the store. Ok that’s enough options, that fuckin really took it outta me, I can’t believe it. My hands are kinda feeling heavier now too. I better think of a #4 thing to write about quick or I may lose all my inertia.

4. UMmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Movie time? I watch arrival and turn off all the lights and pop popcorn and have my soda? Where sunglasses and pretend they’re 3-D glasses? Maybe. Ugh, I can tell right now my eyes are gonna get bloodshot, or dry out or whatever. They already kinda hurt :(. It’s fine. I feel more good than not. Like I’m wrapped up in a blanket, even though I’m not. Maybe OH- Maybe I lay out on the beach chair and read in the sun with an ice coffee? Oh fuck that might actually be perfect. Then I can go no shirt and just feel nature, and maybe bugs are less troublesome when you’re high. And then I can pop Doughboys on and shower! Shower high, seems like a guaranteed home-run. Ok, I like it a lot. I have to do SOMETHING away from Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum or I’ll go crazy this weekend, especially if I have to tag in on occasion and “participate” for Bonnie’s Birthday. Which, let’s be clear, is the least I can do. It’s a gimme. I owe Bonnie AT LEAST this much, even just as like backpay for holidays or yore. Like if I have the zhuzh to punch in for birthday shtuff, I better do it, right? I just looked it up, it might officially be zhoosh, not zhuzh, but zhuzh appears to me to be the best way to do it. And there’s like 5 accepted spellings of it. Stupid, not helpful. Just because it employs a sound that has no [conformed] applications in the english language? Poor excuse! Oh man, it’s so early I can’t believe it! That 5k feels like a day ago, wild. Well, hey! Point 4 is finished. Moving on!

5. What to do tonight? Who gives a fuck. Figure that part out when you get there, it does not matter at all. There, numbered list over.

Ok so, let’s just wrap this up I guess. I’m cracking an hour here, that’s plenty. Maybe tonight you do a little PRE-WRITING before bed, so this isn’t so “chore-y”. Let’s just remember you seriously considered letting yourself down completely and bailing on the blog earlier this morning. So we need to keep our expectations at appropriate levels still. It’s this NEXT week that should be very interesting. Just in terms of output. A little more practice, and little more muscle-memory. A little less crap to distract me (I have been burning through non-stop crap youtube/tv this last week since coming home, it’s fantastic. I was gonna say it was sucky, or disgusting or something, but that’s a lie I tell to myself to pretend I’m more diligent than I actually am. ACCEPT who you are and love yourself for it)

I accept you and love you Max. Ok, I have to go, I feel like I’m gonna puke... awesome 

bi

[tetsuya-komuro]

This is a very loose translation of a segment of Kine Naoto’s All Night Nippon from 1990. The transcript is from Chacha’s wonderful website (here), a goldmine for TMN/access fans. The conversation is about the RHYTHM RED tour.

–

Kine: And next is… What should I call him? Manipulator? TK: Not manipulator. Kine: Bass… TK: CM, CM producer? (CM as in commercial, ad) DA: Hahaha.

TK: So here it is, our CM producer, Mr Ei Rokusuke DA: Good evening, I’m Ei Rokusuke… Not! Kine: Well, you sound like him. DA: I don’t, do I? Kine: It was said earlier but this is Asakura Daisuke-kun. DA: Nice to meet you. Kine: This tour, is it your first tour? DA: It is. Before this I was only programming. TK: Yeah, like Daichan said but, (me and DA) we’ve known each other since forever, with the EOS and the YAMAHA thing, did you know this Kine-kun? Kine: I didn’t know anything. This is the first time I see him. TK: But some time ago he did some programming for a TMN tour. Kine: Well, I guess we couldn’t do without him now. TK: (To DA) When you met me, you were still really young right. How old were you at that time? DA: About 20. TK: Ah, really? Katsuragi: Haha, what? TK: But, I had the feeling that I met you in elementary school. (?!) Kine: Talking about ages, I forget, is it 30, Abe Kaoru-kun? Abe: Yes. Kine: I see. And Katsuragi-kun? Katsuragi: 29. Kine: 29… So (DA) he’s the youngest? DA: I’m 22. Kine: Daichan is 22! TK: So young~. Kine: So green. [DA talks about stuff with Kine…] TK: Hey, Daichan, Daichan, are you getting a cold? [Kine teases DA about his voice and DA complains]

–

In my defense, when I thought this was really funny it was probably 3 AM, I was probably 16 and I actually had access to the audio file so I could listen to their silly voices. But it is still cute at least, I think.

Edit: okay I found the audio cause it literally just took putting the name of the show on the search box: https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm818727. The transcribed part starts around halfway. It's such a throwback to listen to it, I remember it so vividly... TK saying: "you know Katsuragi and me have the same name?" This is some great radio content honestly lol.

#tetsuya komuro #daisuke asakura #tm network #mine #translation #tk x da #tk #da #kine

[sanguinesprout]

A little possibility of sunshine between rain showers (group therapy prep, updates n blah)

Hmm, sooo...! Last month has been quite dreary, much like my mood and I feel like not much interesting stuff happened, but let’s see...

The main thing was I had a small phone chat with the group therapy person, it was just for them to get an idea if the therapy would suit and be beneficial to me so I did one of those depression/anxiety scale things that I’ve done many times before and told them my ratings. They totalled it up and welp, severe depression and anxiety ahoy! As it’s always been, ugh. This was also done because after therapy they wanna see if my scores improve.

While on the phone I was kinda nervous and before that was just dreading having to do a phone call. What made it worse was my sis came in the room and was bustling about for the majority of the call, it felt really uncomfortable and I was kinda annoyed at my sis, because I told her about this appointment well in advance, but she said she was too busy doing her own stuff and didn’t hear any of the stuff that was said...

After they explained a bit more about the group therapy course they invited me in to talk even more about it the next week. Tbh it felt mostly ehhh and long-windedly unnecessary and repetitive but knowing some extra small details about the kinda stuff to go over and the person that will be there kinda makes me feel more prepared and at ease I guess? That probably sounded super ungrateful...

The basic gist is that there will be 8 weekly sessions in total that will go over some different thought pattern/behaviours that will hopefully lead to healthier and more positive ways of thinking. I was assured that it has been very effective for most and even saw some short testimonials of previous attendees on a print out that looked quite promising. I filled in some other small quiz sheets too.

Oh, before I forget, when on the phone I briefly got asked about my sort of worries and background and I remember mentioning the possibility of having AVPD and the reaction was kinda... hmm... well, they said something like that labelling isn’t such a good thing for most and diagnosis doesn’t actually lead very far in terms of resolving it, as it doesn’t have a special treatment specific to it. I already know this, but it’s more so just like the confirmation that something has been affecting me/has a name would put me at ease a little.

In the in-person talk this was kinda brung up again and they told me about what they kinda knew about it and the same sort of short discussion happened but they were very understanding about it and said that maybe I do have it, but in the case of any personality disorder to not let myself think it’s forever and that in studies they saw, people have actually been able to overcome them some years later. (Or maybe it’s something to do with age too, like I have heard that it can lessen over time before, who knows~) Either way, it’s always best to keep a positive outlook!

My initial impression of the therapy course and person running it is pretty alright so far. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much incase it doesn’t work out that well for me, but as I said in my last post, I’ve got to at least give it a try! 

Compared to the 1-on-1 therapy this actually sounds less stressful, like there’s no pressure to do things or say things or have written homework type stuff. I’m still worried about being around other people, talking in front and to them and about feelings/thoughts especially, but as said before and seen in the testimonials, we’re all pretty much in the same boat and we’re all just human the same.

When I mentioned this time’s therapy to my mum this time she didn’t really have much of a reaction, but I felt she didn’t mind it and had maybe some silent/respectful support kind of thing going on as she and my sis took me there and decided to shop til I was done. I know she cares and worries about me a lot and I did progress a little from last time’s counselling, maybe she changed her view on it since then, that’s great.

Talking about my mum, her health is still not great (though better than before) and I am worried the hospital has still not contacted for further examination or news like they said they would. She has mentioned this to the doctors and they are to write to them on her behalf though, I hope they have not forgotten about her :c Both my parents are so worrisome. My dad is still not making any changes to his lifestyle, sacrificing comfort things in the present for good health in the future just doesn’t seem to be on the table for him. I know it’s hard to do this but me and my sis are just still so concerned.

In job related news, nothing much has happened. I’ve applied to some things, mostly repeats of ones I never heard back from and got a few rejections for others. Job prospects is still looking bleak as ever. My sis ended up quitting her recent additional job because it just wasn’t worth the damage to her health and my family and me are glad she did. Her experience was not so great, but at least she tried it and knows what it’s like now (pretty trashy lol).

In my own health updates, ugh... more and more bad stuff just keeps piling on, but at least I’ve been getting it checked out. I need to make more changes to my own lifestyle too. I’m hoping that if a lot of my long term physical health are actually caused or exacerbated by my mental health that they’ll be alleviated somewhat when I get my mental health more on track. C’mon group therapy, do your magic! Kidding, it should be silly self, fight fight fight and toss those negative and unhealthy thoughts far out of orbit! Absorb and radiate all the positivity possible!

When talking on the phone to the group therapy person they did ask about any health problems and worries I had and as I’ve heard before, they have been linked to things like anxiety and depression, so it does make sense why both my mental and physical health seemed to get worse together, though it’s also kinda logical how one would affect the other. I just hope both improve soon!

In other news, I haven’t done much productive or creative/leisure stuff. I keep looking back on things I’ve already done and feeling a bit proud and motivated but then it just gets crushed again by my fears. Or I keep wanting to do something but feel it is a waste of time or I’m not in the mood/am lacking energy to do it. The first step to anything is always the most difficult, but overthinking before even doing that prevents it from happening at all. Don’t think just do! (Why is it so hard..?)

Well, I guess that’s all the updates I have for now. I was really considering stopping this blog again but it would just be bad and wasted effort. It was tough to get started but I wrote it! And I’ll keep writing and updating until I have gotten to the point where I really feel I don’t need to, ie. when things are really looking up and my troubles are gone lol. Who knows when that’ll be, but I gotta keep going!

The amount I write isn’t really all that much but it’s just so hard to get it out at first. But if I write exactly like how I do when I think to myself or as I think to myself it kinda feels more like transcribing rather than having to pull things outta thin air or maybe it’s my head full of air haha.

Anyways, the time to be more positive is always right now in the present! Doing anything is better than nothing at all! Overthinking is unnecessary! Believe in yourself and do all the stuff! Go go go!

Enjoy your summer!

#avpd #depression #social anxiety #anxiety #therapy #thoughts #don't overthink #just do it! #baby steps #nothing ventured nothing gained #look after yourself and your loved ones #mental health #physical health #lift yourself up with positivity #believing in yourself is the best way to grow

[v-le]

My Trip to S. Korea (5/25/16 - 6/2/16)

Hello, friends!! I am back! Ahaha I have several posts that I’ve been wanting to make, but this one in particular has been fueling my interest more than ever these days. Rather than a review or a rant, this post is simply.. a log? :)

On May 25th of last year, I had the opportunity to travel to Korea as a 16 year old junior. I left school a week and a half earlier than everyone else, but it wasn’t just for fun. I was a part of IVSBP, the Interact Vietnam Soccer Ball Project (s/o to my wonderful team: Rotarians Nick, Marriane, Avis, and Sue, Roteractor Oliver, & fellow Interactors Gina and Abdul), a service project that aimed to bring the power of play to less fortunate children in Vietnam. In 2016, the Rotary International Convention (RICON) was being held in Korea, and I was blessed enough to be a part of the team that represented IVSBP with its very own booth at RICON. In this place, over 45,000 Rotarians from all over the world would gather for several special days. 

Each and every day, I documented my journey by quickly (and messily) scribbling each entry onto a currency conversion diagram paper that was partially cut up for reasons I cannot recall. Here is my 7-day “diary”, as transcribed word for word from the paper itself, with extra commentary below each entry:

Day 1

Arrive in Seoul Incheon + struggle tremendously to find driver. Astounded/fascinated/freaked out by tons of tall apts. Notes smog. Eat funky dinner w/ ppl, walked late at night.

Yes, I was admittedly spooked by the massive apartments that stretched on and on for as long as the eye could see LOL. The drive from Incheon to Seoul was one that I will never forget. That foreign feeling of being in a country that I dreamed about so many times makes my heart bulge with longing excitement. Also, our lodging was an Airbnb located in the heart of Gangnam. And so, our first night-walk was one that I wished could last forever.

Day 2

Wake at 6:45 am. Go to convention to set up. Kintex was rly cool. Cooler empty. Ate lunch (self-service). slow business. Went home to rest. Took metro home b/c no shuttles running. Took a long ass time & struggled little bit but managed to get it down. Went to COEX. Good shops, not enough time. Son Hoyoung fansigning + mini stage. Ate kbbq alone + did well even though scary. Home @ 11:30. 1:30 am sleep.

RICON was not held in Seoul, but rather in Goyang, which is a city about an hour away from Seoul. Kintex is the convention center, a massive two-structure building, with its own restaurants inside. To this day, I have spotted several shows / dramas / music videos that were filmed at Kintex as well. The Korean metro system is hands down my favorite part about Korea. It is very affordable, convenient, & easy to use once you get the hang of it. My team and I struggled a little bit at first because we were confused by the questionable red/green colors for some stops & routes, but I quickly realized it simply meant express versus “all-stop”. Myself and two others managed to go to the COEX Mall by metro, which was about a mile from our own apartment. One of my goals for Korea was to see a celebrity randomly, and it just so happened on our first full day! I was shopping in Aland with my friend when she suddenly ran up to me and said “Vanessa, Vanessa come look over here, come with me, there is someone singing outside!!”. We hurried outside, and there was Son Hoyoung, promoting his solo album with a mini fansigning event! After shopping, we wandered the streets of Gangnam once again, settling on a random bbq place for dinner. We were just 3 measly American high schoolers in a foreign country, but we ordered, ate, and paid for everything with ease. It was quite an exhilarating experience.

Day 3

Wake 6:45 am. Preconvention. Slow business. (BTW saw Music Works notice about Song yoo bin busking the night before --> day goal: leave & get to COEX by 6 pm) Talked to lotsa ppl. Managed to rush to shuttle station 9 @ 5 pm. Very late bus out of all 20 stations. Eventually wound up @ COEX at 7:20 pm w/ a very distraught heart. Went & finished COEX shopping. Struggled to eat stew at place w/o menu. Abdul + soju = dafuq is wrong w/ you; gtfo. 1:30 am sleep.

Ah yes, this day will go down as one of the most frustrating/ stressful/ depressing days I have ever experienced. RICON offers 20 different shuttle stations, each w/ their own buses & unique routes that run all throughout Seoul. The one that was crucial for me that day was Station 9, specifically at 5 pm. I remember stressing out the entire day about how we could get permission to leave early enough, which route to use, and simply making it to Song Yubin’s event with ease. And yes, I was able to successfully figure all that out throughout the day’s activities. It was just up to the bus to take us there. Unfortunately, although each station should have had buses running every 15 minutes starting from 5 pm & onward, Station 9′s bus was late to begin with. In fact, there was just one bus at first, but it filled quickly, and with only 3 seats left, we didn’t want to separate our group of 4, so we decided to wait for the next bus that would come in “5″ minutes. Those “5″ minutes trickled into the longest hour of my life. I remember standing in the burning sun, looking towards the end of the street the entire time, keeping my eyes peeled, standing on my tippie toes, my forehead sweating, my face twisting into distress as each minute passed. We finally made it onto the bus around 6:10. Yubin’s event started at 6. I remember falling asleep on the bus ride there, but waking up every ten minutes or so, just to see if we could still make it. By the time we walked out into COEX’s exhibition hall (the same one that Son Hoyoung was at the day before), it was completely empty. I didn’t cry because I wasn’t that petty, but.... I definitely felt extremely down. I had completely missed a once in a lifetime opportunity. To see one of my favorite, young & talented vocalists before he became popular and ventured into the kpop-idol scene. There was just some terrible kinda fate happening that day, in which the world just really didn’t want me to see him. For dinner, us 4 wandered around Gangnam again, but settled for something closer to our apt. It had no English menus nor pictures at all. And so once again (the other time would be the metro debacle), my handy dandy Korean-reading skills helped us out, and we barely managed to order various ... ingredients?? (only ones that I understood, though) that all went together in some sort of soup... To this day, I’m not really sure what we ate, but I remember it tasted delicious nonetheless.

Day 4

Same wake. Opening ceremony cool = k-tigers + Lena Park. Sleep-inducing speeches. Arrived back to booth @ 1 pm. Mango six yucky bubble tea. Left to Namsan. Actually used diff shuttle route + taxi to end up @ Namsan cable car. Went to tower. Managed to wander into Myeongdong. V cool. Metro home.

RICON officially begins! Lena Park performed and I was awestruck. At the convention, there are hundreds of different kind of volunteers, and some of them aid convention-goers with travels going to and from Kintex. We asked about getting to COEX the day before, and this time, we came back to ask about getting to Namsan, because my friend especially wanted to go there. I remember hearing the girls behind the table whisper about how we were just using them for our own personal, mini adventures, and I started to feel a bit embarrassed ahah. Regardless, the shuttle we took didn’t take us directly to the cable car site; we had to take a taxi after it dropped us off. I remember we struggled immensely with flagging it down and relaying our destination, but the driver thankfully understood perfectly, and took us right to the cable cars. From there, it was smooth sailing to the tower. It was very dreamlike, arriving at the top as the sun was setting, and leaving when the night had settled in completely. I remember taking a panoramic picture of the view, which I later used (and still use) as my facebook cover photo LOL. Wandering to Myeongdong was also quite the adventure, for we tried asking a civilian about “Myeongdong market” or something, but could not receive any helpful advice. If anything, I think we simply wandered farther into the city around Namsan, and *poof* there we stood in the middle of all the stores. And of course, we conveniently used the metro to make our way back home from there.

Day 5

6 am wake WTF?!?! Still left @ 7:30 anyway. V tired today. Kept falling asleep + lightheaded. Ate 떡볶이 & fell asleep disgustingly. Waited excruciatingly long for Nick to decide to go home. Left @ 5:30. Got back to station @ 7:15. Ate expensive bbq. 쌈 so good. Ate the snow w/ signatures like 정유미, 인순이, 박서준, 유아인 etc. 100% milk! Very nice lady :) . Gong cha jumbo. cool. Night @ 12 am for once.

By this time, the long days were getting to us, and we were thoroughly exhausted. However, dinner was quite fun, we ate with other convention-goers from the Bay Area as well. To this day, whenever I eat 쌈(ssam), it never compares to the kind I ate in Korea, and I have immediate withdrawals. And im not sure why i decided to write those names in Korean, but yes, the bingsoo place we stopped by had various signatures of celebs plastered around the walls, like Jung Yoo Mi, Insooni, Park Seo Joon, Yoo Ah In, and more. The “ice” was made of 100% milk, which was the entire shop’s selling point, & it was delish. Also, I, of course, had to get my pmt fix at the gong cha located near our apt. too.

Day 6

STOP waking us @ 6!!! Went about the usual day. Learned about fire w/ DC advisers :( . Ate frozen sticky dog for lunch. Fell asleep a lot still. Oliver felt much better: Myeongdong! The travel/transportation ladies seemed to dislike us so we managed to find proper shuttle. Shopped for a while. Felt rly sad that I couldn’t find good stuff for EZ. Going broke. Ate 김치 볶음밥! Yummy! w/ cheeseee. So full; couldn’t finish. Store ppl are scary. Very late. Everyone exhausted except for me. Got home 12:30. Slept 2:15. *written on the side* Gina lost her phone :( . 

Not a super eventful day, but we went back to Myeongdong again because we felt like we didn’t have enough time to fully explore the first time we were there. Once again, whenever I eat some form of kimchi fried rice here in the states, it never ever ever compares to the kind we had that night. Literally the best fried rice I ever had. Cheap and generously filled, too. Our team was dead tired by the night, as in they kept falling asleep on the subway LOL. Except I stayed alert, out of duty, amusement, and just pure excitement for another deep night in Seoul.

Day 7

Leftovers for breakfast. Very slow day @ convention. Left later than usual. Fell asleep @ booth a lot. Closing ceremony PSY, but everyone else was p lame. Ravi’s speech was very sleep-inducing; I’m sorry :( . Went to shuttle + left @ 8 pm. Ate super expensive dinner beef 한우 w/ M & N. They r weird. Service 짬뽕! But too spicy. Large Gong cha @ 10 pm; only 5 bucks left :( . But Nick paid for the pmt. Its 1:30 am rn but we gotta wake at 3 am b/c flight @ 7:30 am. I GOT MY PERIOD, FUCK!!!

And that, is how I ended my last log in Korea LOL. The leftovers for breakfast refer to the kimchi fried rice leftovers ahaha. Getting to see PSY was also pretty cool. I’m not sure why I said “beef 한우(hanwoo)“, but yes, it was quite expensive, where like 1 of the slabs of meat costed about 50,000 won! But this restaurant was also where I finally got to experience the concept of “service” in which they gave us free food :’) Also,I’m not sure why I said 5 bucks, but I meant 5,000 won ahaha. Having a flight late at night was quite exciting, for the Seoul nights were my favorite kind of memory overall. Or rather, they were all I really had since I spent all my days at RICON.

Welp, this ended up wayyyy longer than i anticipated, but it was honestly really refreshing to go over some memories that happened over a year ago. Although this trip was mainly for RICON, I had the amazing opportunity to delve into the culture that I had only seen countless times through a computer screen. As Oliver had said, we were volunteers by day, & tourists by night. I enjoyed my time more than I ever expected, and I have promised myself that I will go back. Soon.

Thank you, sk, for treating us so well.

#south korea #travel log #trip #the food was to die for honestly #i will go back to read this each time i feel like im forgetting parts of this trip #i have to go back i swear