My newest piece of fanart for Chapter 19 of Amalgamate!!
Lot's of love to the author @jamieprimack <3
This is the first pair of feathered wings I've ever drawn and I'm super proud of them! I have complaints about the rest of it but I don't know how I would go about fixing it so I guess it's done
Funnily enough I didn't learn to draw wings from wing drawing tutorials. It was articulated cosplay wing videos that gave me the best idea of how to draw them. Maybe it's because building the wings puts a better image of how they work in my head or something, I'm not sure.
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a personalized hard sell
To explain: when I got on Tumblr nine years ago it was because I was lonely and needed to yell about Infinite. And I was exceedingly blessed to grab a scattered group of lovely people who would listen to me. And now we are in 2022, and the gentlemen of Infinite have (hopefully) mostly made it through the worst of idol life and emerged relatively comfortable, and we are two weeks away from Myungsoo completing his military service, and when Jamie, one of those aforementioned lovely people, reached out to me the other day I was like, I have Tumblr back now! and it felt like a hug.
but as y’all know I’ve been prone to yelling about a different group for a while, ad nauseam. I’ve been using this tag for years. And anybody who so much as even vaguely hints that they might be willing to hear me out about Ninety One is at risk of getting the OH BOY OH BOY LET ME TELL YOU A FEW THINGS treatment.
so the following is extremely self-indulgent. and may not make sense, or be particularly effective, outside a specific context. but you are welcome to eavesdrop on my tailored yelling.
why you should take affectionate interest in Ninety One (where “you” = primarily, but not limited to, @berestweys):
they are very charming
“Okay, fine,” you’re thinking, “but it’s not that hard to pretend to be very charming, especially if you have a whole infrastructure of charm built up around you, and nevertheless end up acting like a rotten human being.” I hear you; I have kept that in mind for five years. suffice to say I cannot prove to you that the members of Ninety One are not jerks, never will be able to, but I have been looking for evidence of their jerkiness for over five years now (up to and including flat-out asking people who’ve met them if they’re jerks) and not found it.
the entire split from Juz Entertainment at the beginning of this year stands as evidence in the not-jerks column. admittedly it stands as more evidence that their boss is not a jerk, since he had less to lose from jerkiness, but he showed up to sing at ZaQ’s wedding and then ZaQ and Bala were at an Orda concert (boss’s band) a week or so later. but presumably the not-jerkiness went both ways
also when Ninety One left Juz presumably staffers had an option to leave with them or stay, and some amount of financial calculation must have been in play, but a good many of them decided to go with the guys, including constantly helpful behind-the-scenes dude The Other Other Azamat, extremely adorable director Nurs, thoughtful producer Beka (who also just got married, July is apparently a popular time for weddings in Almaty), and of course Zhadra
speaking of Zhadra: now that they’re married ZaQ is being less shy about showing her (their) cats on Instagram, Ninety One now 25% more cat stepdaddy enabled
but also the guys have always taken (and been able to take) a pretty healthy attitude towards dating. AZ was public about having a girlfriend in 2017-18, then later fans asked Alem if he was dating Veronika (who was working in some capacity for Juz at the time) and he said, “Well, yeah,” and they’ve been a public joy ever since. as someone who remembers the utter shitstorm that was dumped on Myungsoo’s head for dating in late 2013, let me tell you, this feels so much saner
btw Infinite and Ninety One have next to nothing in common besides being male idol groups but: the supposed “visual” is a giant weeb who is forever randomly taking naps (and/or playing way too much Dota 2) and gives every impression of not actually believing this whole nonsense about him being attractive and just wants everybody to be happy and also he has the strangest sneeze noise imaginable and a nonzero percentage of Q-Eaglez think he might be from another planet, does any of this sound familiar
also “maknae on top” I swear Bala is on a barely concealed quest to dominate the entire group, if you break music and lyrics credits out separately he might have more than anyone else now
related: Bala’s face. Sadly I can’t spend all day giving you additional evidence in GIF form but BALA’S FACE
their staged scripted reality shows include episodes where they confront their haters with love and win them over by playing paintball (and Alem was concerned that paintball was too violent)
their unstaged unscripted reality shows consist of a great deal of bilingual yelling
oh yeah do you like linguistic rabbit holes? HOO BOY. these guys (ZaQ especially, but not exclusively) have done a lot of thinking about what it means to speak/sing in Kazakh instead of Russian, and the implications not just for them and their sales/careers but for their country. like there is an entire documentary on the Kazakh language just released in which they appear and I haven’t even seen it yet because I want to finish going through the subs of the interview with the documentary maker in which they switch between Russian and Kazakh and discuss the implications of switching
their latest video, which a fellow Eaglez described as “what in the shinee hell”
I haven’t brought up the actual music yet because I’m not sure what your tastes lean towards; this is the song I consider their best but you might prefer this or this. this is the best song they’ve released this year and here is their most recent We Shall Don Suits and Then Take Over the World effort.
but if you have time for only one MV make it this one, for its combination of resilience + refusal of self-pity + goofiness + social commentary.
but keep in mind this is the group which, when faced with the pandemic and the damage it wrecked on their country’s economy and the departure of the member who was everyone’s default bias, responded with, well clearly this is when we do the epic party jam whose chorus turns entirely on Kazakh-Spanish punning!
I have also not brought up the lore (where “lore” = roughly a century and a half worth of Kazakhstani history) because it’s not strictly necessary, you have a ways to travel before you need to concern yourself with questions such as Who Was Premier Kunaev and Why Did the Dudes Feel the Need to Tell Everyone They’d Borrowed His Car. but suffice to say if you like the idea of learning about a country and a culture through a pop group this one’s pretty damn rich
if wading into the ocean of nonmusical content I would recommend this video, which is 60% them struggling with trivia questions (+ AZ knowing his solar system) and 40% them waxing philosophical about education and finding your own career path
one more thing that won’t be immediately apparent: they’re simultaneously one of the biggest pop groups in Kazakhstan right now and... underdogs? but when they got started they were accused of being Satanic and too effeminate, to the point that they were regularly being dragged into fistfights. (there’s an entire docudrama about this, which is actually grim and not terribly enjoyable, I only recommend it to completists) also their concerts were getting cancelled under mysterious circumstances. that was 2016; it is now 2022 and their concerts are still getting messed with under mysterious circumstances, as I write this they’re having trouble with bureaucrats in Atyrau
and back to the are-they-jerks question: the opposition has definitely been fueled by homophobia, which is much more standard in Kazakhstan than it is in the US/Canada/Australia/western Europe, and under such circumstances it would be understandable (if regrettable) if they joined in on the gay-bashing, but as far as I know (and there’s a lot I don’t know!) they never have. when reading homophobic hate comments after debut they laughed them off. while they themselves are all straight (occasionally going to the trouble of posting “We’re straight!!!” on Telegram, I don’t know what prompted that) and tend to act as if their fanboys universally are too, they have never shied away from including said fanboys in their Eaglez spotlights
and I will stop here, this has gone on long enough, here’s all the song reviews if you need them, suffice to say they are entertaining dudes who I do believe are trying to do good in the world with their work. yell back any time
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Maroon, periwinkle, blush, fuchsia, tangerine, viridian. 😊
MAROON = You taught me something new.
PERIWINKLE = You make me laugh
BLUSH = Seeing you on my dash makes my day a little better.
FUCHSIA = Your blog content is gold
TANGERINE = I love your aesthetic
VIRIDIAN = I wanna hang out on your blog
See what your followers think
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