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actualbird · 2 years

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rosa | main character: a playlist with a character analysis rationale on why i chose each song

because i saw a post that was like "spotify should have a feature that allows you to add a full essay explaining why that song is in the playlist" and im not waiting for spotify to integrate that in, imma do it myself, HAHA

obligatory disclaimer that these r just my own thoughts and interpretations. spoilers for up to main story 6.2 and other stories here and there

wc: 1.7k (2k if u add all the lyrics i quote lmao)

here is the link to the playlist. now let me walk u through my choices.

part 1: the pre-story arc of oh, im nothing special

we dont get to see much of mc before the story's game officially Starts, but what we do get to see is through flashbacks in retrospect, and a lot of the time, mc does mention or express this sentiment of like

ah well. im not really anything special at all.

this sentiment comes in in a bunch of cards/stories with the boys (usually vyn or artem) when she sees their achievements and compares herself to them. but even sans the comparison, pre-story, i can see her under the assumption that shes completely run of the mill and nothing of note.

6/10 by dodie illustrates the "not very much" aspect of this

I feel like a six out of ten I've gotta get up early tomorrow again What goes on behind the words? Is there pity for the plain girl?

and Waiting in the Wings from Tangled Adventure is the reaction to this sentiment, in a sense. mc doesnt feel like shes much, but she does still believe in making a change, but god

when will her time come?

When you have the passion and the drive You expect your moment center stage to arrive I show up with heart a blazing Ready to achieve amazing things But I'm left waiting in the wings

this song in particular is fun, meta-narratively. it's the song of somebody wanting to the main character, and i think pre-story mc wishes for this moment, unaware that she indeed is the Main Character. like girl, sit tight, ur gonna be the protag.

pre-story mc doesnt think much of herself and is awaiting the moment she can have her chance. and when she does, thats when the story starts.

part 2: he butterflies and frustrations of falling in love

this portion of the playlist is wholly mc just going "aaAAAAA FEELINGS IM HAVING FEELINGS (?)" and the experience is a Lot.

it's novel and sweet and exciting (The Show by Lenka). but it also can make her feel off kilter, unsure, and helpless (Helpless by Rico Blanco). it's a nice experience, but it's also frustrating because she's constantly second guessing her own feelings and the feelings of the other (I Go Crazy by Orla Gartland) aaaaaand eventually once mc finally finally realizes her feelings, i just see it as character for her to be have this....not really impatience, but a certain restlessness on how exactly to get the show on the road, get the relationship moving forward (Make A Move by Lawrence)

part 3: Enneagram Type 1. "I believe that we can fix this over time."

swerve. from the cute delights and frustrations of love, i now wanna talk about what i interpret to be among mc's really important character beliefs: hope

and im also gonna assign her an enneagram type as well: Type 1

Type 1s are titled as The Reformer. this is somebody who is idealistic, believes in integrity, and desires the improvement of the world around them and their own self as well.

the song One by Sleeping At Last illustrates the gist of a Type 1 immensely well (while also making me cry)

Hold on for a minute 'Cause I believe that we can fix this over time That every imperfection is a lie Or at least an interruption Now hold on, let me finish No, I'm not saying perfect exists in this life But we'll only know for certain if we try

this is something apparent in the broad strokes choices of what mc does. in main story 5.3, the last trial, she thinks the line "Justice may not come as swiftly as we'd like, but evil shall never go unpunished. This is why I became an attorney. My conviction will not waver."

mc knows the world is flawed, she knows people do bad things and other people get hurt. perfection is not possible, but she is going to roll up her sleeves and work on it anyway.

this is what matters to her: trying to make things better

this isnt just in her career as a lawyer, it's also in her role as a character in the nxx boys' stories. for each and every one of them, being with her and experiencing events with her and building their relationship with her, all of that causes a shift in their beliefs/tendencies. on a narrative level, she is quite literally pushing the character development of the others

and on a "her as a person interacting with other people" level, she is a catalyst for change.

not just for them, but for her herself. as she pushes towards change, she grows and learns and the insecurity from pre-story slowly changes as well

another lyric in One is

The price of this so called perfection is everything I've spent my whole life searching desperately To find out that grace requires nothing of me

perfection isnt possible in real life and it isnt possible in herself as well. but thats alright. because who she is evidently enough to make things better and thats what she wants

however

this doesnt mean she is immune to doubt

part 4: what am i doing, who am i becoming, what can i do?

this portion of the playlist is part of mc's journey SPECIFICALLY in the aftermath of main story 6.2

once artem and mc are in the hospital, artem goes on his nice speech about justice which is great and did help mc feel a bit better. however, there mc's thought process still betrayed a newfound doubt.

in my main story 6.2 reaction post, i mention this but i'll summarize it: this is the first case thus far in global that doesnt end with a court trial. it's the first case where honestly, justice arguably wasnt served. desperation, cruelty, and anguish led to ava and jerry dead. the cruelty that ava had perpetuated ran so damn deep into so many people, spread to countless lives, and was just so bad that the only way it couldve ended was the cruelty collapsing in on itself. it's over.

but not over in the way mc sees as right or just. thus, she is now doubting certain beliefs and convictions she has, like her belief in justice and good and if that can make a difference

the sheer magnitude of this case...well, since we're not getting main story 7 for a bunch more months (hyv pls feel free to prove me wrong here lol, i'd happily accept THIS schedule deviation), i can only speculate that this doubt is something thatll weigh on her mind.

and with doubt, comes questions

Where Am I Now? from Lysistrata Jones is a great song that illustrates the doubt after a failure. all that effort gone to nothing, the first questions are going to be along the lines of where do we go from here?

Maybe just some more time, just a little more fight, Like they say, no guts, no glory. All and all I did fine or maybe I'm like a hundred miles off course, Well, maybe that was too much, maybe not enough. Maybe I should just turn back now. Cuz' how do I go on When everything's so wrong. Where am I now? How am I here? Which way do I turn When it's all so unclear? I'm standing alone With nothing but fear.

Flesh & Bone by Sammy Rae is a song that continues the questions that sprout from doubt. moving on from questioning the situation, mc now begins questioning herself, how shes changed

But I need to know I don’t need to be shown I've gotta see it for myself I've gotta learn it on my own I need to know if I am flesh & bone And am I still growing or full grown?

Green & Gold by Lianne La Havas is similar to the previous song but, since im a hopeful bastard at heart, the tone starts changing. still questioning but the answer is going to lie in the fact that mc is not going at all of this alone. shes got the rest of the nxx with her, supporting her and each other. this is the way out from doubt: looking through other people's eyes

Six years old Staring at my nose in the mirror Trying to get my toes in the mirror Thinking 'Who's that girl?' And 'Does the mirror world go on forever?' Carve me a road Sharpening the knives in the attic Trying to watch cartoons through the static Thinking where am I gonna be If I'm ever twenty three? I'm looking at a life unfold Dreaming of the green and gold Just like the ancient stone Every sun rise I know Those eyes you gave to me That let me see Where I come from

Last Hope by Paramore is the acceptance that things are going to be rocky, it's not always going to be clear cut, but damn it, if she's gotta believe in something anyway

It's just a spark but it's enough to keep me going And when it's dark out and no one's around it keeps glowing

and City Lights by December Avenue represents the convergence of the questions and the conviction to keep on going anyway. the pre-chorus includes the lyrics:

Where am I going now? I need a light to shine on me

while the chorus answers it

City lights they're all with me They fill me with serenity They're coming one by one Until I separate my mind into the light And I've got my chance to look

part 5: what love really means, how love can really help

if part 2 was about the surface level beginnings of love, this section is absolutely about the deeper benefits of love

Lost Stars from Begin Again is love still tinged with doubt, but an acceptance of that doubt. mc is never going to have a completely sure life, what with NXX stuff and also just the usual imperfections of how people work (gonna be true for all love interest routes, our boys are wonderfully flawed as hell, each w their own baggage and issues), but thats okay

because What You Mean To Me from Finding Neverland represents the uncertainty of love and how a leap of faith is what can get people through.

I won't lie I'm a little bit frightend Of my imagination Swear I'll try I'm feeling enlightened You're my inspiration We can fly if we want to I promise that faith will give you wings

and Look Up by Stars is a song that i put here not to represent a romantic love between mc and anybody

this song is a love towards herself

the chorus goes:

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun You fall, feeling like its just begun So far, keeping it together's been enough Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

and the bridge goes:

(And still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose And still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose)

back when i was making the boys' playlists, i wanted to add this song in like. every single one of them JHAVKJHFAJKSFHA, cuz it fits all of them. they all have their moments of hopelessness or fear and they have to make the conscious choice to see better is out there, and a part of that better is our beloved rose-coded main character. back then, i took the bridge to be representing that it takes hard work (toil) and vulnerability (heart) to love her (rose)

but now i see it's a perfect song for mc herself. after all her doubts, every time shes fallen, every time it wasnt enough (toil), she gets back up. the heart she needs to love the rose, herself, is akin to her conviction in goodness. she has to believe in it (heart).

she has to believe in herself, the rose.

part 6: this story is going to be a good one, i will work to make make it a good one

all of these songs now are on the same general theme of Making Things Better, the joy of a brighter day ahead, and hope. but the one i do wanna focus on is Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

aside from being an absolute banger and also being in line with this part's theme, it's also a song that fits mc meta-narratively

she is Literally the main character. as the catalyst for the story's beginning and the other characters' development, she is the driving force pushing the story forward. to loop this back to the beginning, mc had seen herself as nothing special or of note. yet there are many many things that does set her out as a good person, and one of which the keeps the story going is the fact that she does not give up.

so while she'll have her low points, she gets back on track cuz and Keeps Going because this is something she believes in. through this, the story continues and she's definitely got opinions on what kind of story she wants to be making. the rest is unwritten, and shes determined to make this a good story for the herself and the people she cares about

#tears of themis #tot rosa #tot main character #tears of themis analysis #idk i just needed 2 more tags to fulfill my odd arbitrary rule of exactly 5 tags per post jhkjjkVKJH hope somebody can enjoy this

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captain-aralias · 3 years

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Life stuff

this feels kind of weird, because i’ve never used my tumblr like this, but i would have written something on my livejournal, and i want people to know - i just dont want to have to tell people about it, or really talk about it at all.

but i also wanted to write this, idk.

(TW: impending death of a parent)

my mum has cancer.

it’s a rare form of cancer, called peritoneal cancer, which is similar to but different from ovarian cancer - i think it mostly gets diagnosed (like my mum’s) when it’s too late to do anything about it. all the treatment has been palliative only i.e. letting her live as long and as comfortably as possible.

she was diagnosed in september last year - about a year ago, a few months after running the ‘virtual’ london marathon on the isle of wight, where she lives, and obviously deep in lockdown.

as someone undergoing chemo, she was deemed extremely vulnerable to covid, and so she spent most of the early pandemic isolating. she also said she didn’t see any point in my brother and i visitng her, particularly given the risks, because we could talk via facetime - which is fair enough - all of which meant my brother and i didn’t go to visit her until May this year, after she’d done the first lot of chemo and was already doing much better again.

a few months after that, we found out that while she’d responded really well to the chemo, her cancer wasn’t responding at all to the maintenance drugs that were suposed to stop it coming back, so she came off the drugs completely. medical advice was basically chemo is as effective whenever you do it, so you might as well enjoy your life for a while, we’ll monitor it every month, and when things start to get too bad, we’ll put you back in chemo.

it’s friday tomorrow - so two fridays ago, i saw my mum in london after she’d just seen hamilton with her partner, graham. both of them loved hamilton. her hair had grown back, she seemed pretty normal. about a week later, she was in A&E - and she’s been in the hospital all week. she’s got a total bowel obstruction, which means she can’t eat and hasn’t eaten since last week.

now in a weird situation where there are a few tricky, difficult options (including being moved off the island back onto the mainland to a bigger hospital) that will mean that she stays alive long enough to get the chemo, which will probably get her back to hamilton-watching strength, or ... she could die really soon. like, in a few days.

we can’t visit. her partner can’t visit because covid - there’s this really sad-making photo of him looking happy on the phone through a window to my mum, also on the phone, inside the hospital.

i feel...

???? :( :( :( ....

i guess this is the main point of the post. i’m not writing this crying, i’m writing it pretty neutrally - because my brain isn’t really processing it right now, and mostly doesn’t process it.

i did cry earlier today while on the phone to various people, and then i went back to work. i hate crying, i hate being sad, and i dont like people comforting me, because it makes me realise that i have something to be sad about.

i’ve known she had cancer for a year. i haven’t been able to hang out with her most of that time. i would say, we are fairly close, although not nearly as close as some families. we don’t talk every week, but we talk regularly, and have seen each other regularly.

i’m so incredibly privileged that nothing that bad has ever happened to me, even though i’m 35. i’ve never been to a funeral, which seemed like a major life win and now i think was a mistake, i should have gone to funerals for people i card about less to help get used to it.

the literal only comparison i have to how i feel is when my cat Anton died suddenly about 3 years ago - i handled it with a mix of not thinking about it, being intensely sad for as brief a period as i could, and probably by thinking about how sad my girlfriend was about it, and sort of sidestepping my own feelings in comparison.

i remember when my last remaining grandparent died - and i was about 14 or something - i wasn’t sad for myself, i was only sad for her my dad being sad. for ages, i worried that i was not going to be sad enough about this - and i still sort of am.

but i also passionately hate the idea of being sad and i know i’ll look to avoid it as much as possible, and try and get on with my life.

i know my mum dying isn’t about me - when people write after death it’s about the person who died, obviously. that makes sense. but this post isn’t about my mum, who is a very cool person, much cooler than me - it’s about me. because i am self-obsessed and this is going to wreck my life for a while.

it’s weird, because i can see it on the horizon but it’s not happening yet. and i dont know whether that’s good or bad - i feel like it’s good, in a way. someone ages ago told me that the grieving period starts when you get the news. that seems very true to me - but also, i know that it’s going to ramp up, and so i’m like in the expectation of true grief right now.

it’s sort of like she died, but also is still going to die, but also i can magically still talk to her. which is really nice, in a way, it’s like a second chance, because i know i didn’t reach out enough before she had cancer. and i’m aware enough of my own actions that i know this is what’s been going on in my head the past year - i should reach out more, because she has cancer, but i dont want to make it seem like i’m reaching out because she has cancer, even though she knows i know she has cancer....... and also, i’m busy writing this fic. /o\

the fact that she seemed to recover (even though my mum insisted on saying ‘i am not recovered, i’m going to die soon’ like several time as a day as a disclaimer) also totally messed with my head, because i knew logically - ok, it’s happening. but also, things seemed so normal when we speak. even when i called her today, and she hasn’t eaten for a week, it seemed normal.

btw - i realised this week i had no idea how cancer killed people. my mum is a scientist and has looked up all kinds of things about what’s killing her; i’m clearly a simon snow and didn’t want to think about things i can’t help. if you’d asked me, i’d have said like... it poisons you or something, or blocks bloodflow to your brain. not what i think will actually do it which is.... starvation. or being too weak to survive being pumped full of the poison that is intended to kill the cancer. (that one i guess i could have predicted.) man - cancer sucks. i mean, we all knew it.

(i failed to get into cambridge university at interview stage, many years ago. the man who interviewed me gave me some extremely memorable feedback, which is that i needed to dial back the ‘defensive irony’ - which i thnk in that context meant i put myself down and tried to make a joke of everything. i remember when i got the phonecall to say Anton, my cat, was dead, i literally did not know what to do with my voice - because my instinct was to try and make the vet feel better, and also to present myself as bright and capable, and yet this unexpected and devasting news had just come through. rainbow wrote something sort of similar because she’s a good writer, for shepard as he tells penny about his curse. i feel like that.)

what else did i want to say?

i thought i had more time. ‘hamilton’ will probably always be tied to this moment in my mind, because of how much i’ve spoken to my mum about it in the past few weeks (i sent her the remix - she liked it, she listened to it in hospital while trying to drink more than 100ml of fluids) but yeah - this is basically a line from hamilton here. whatever. don’t make me feel my own feelings, let me just quote things. i dont like my own feelings. (no, i dont want to go to therapy - they’d make me talk about my feelings all the time, i’m british for god’s sake.)

i’m 35 - my mum is 68. i didn’t think she’d die this early or that i’d have to deal with this yet. but then i also don’t think bad things are ever going to happen to me - because mostly they haven’t, see above. i wear a mask and am double vaccinated because i’m not an asshole, but i dont really believe i’ll get covid because bad things don’t happen to me. i didn’t think my mum would die - maybe ever, but definitely not yet. she’s been retired a decade after teaching (science) and has enjoyed it.

i thought i had time to not have kids yet - which is the other thing (like hamilton) that this moment is really tied up with for me. i feel like 35 is getting quite old, but also not that old to still not have kids, but intend to maybe have them. my feelings about kids were basically like - up until like 25, i thought, yes, definitely. i mean, before i had a realtiosnhip (22-ish), i just assumed i would probably have a het marriage and have kids etc, like people do, but after that we were still talking, yes, children at some point.

didn’t prioritise it for a few reasons - none of my close friends had children until quite recently, so it just didn’t seem like an urgent thing in the way that it probably does for people with different friendship groups. waiting to be settled enough in a job to be able to take maternity leave without it feeling like a rip off for my employer. waiting for a good time in erin’s PhD writing cycle. and then pandemic. and then a few years ago, maybe as i turned 30, i thought - maybe we won’ have kids, because we still haven’t - and i vocalised that to erin.

also, i know a lot of people are gay and have children, so it’s not like it’s a thing that is impossible at all, but it’s much much harder if you have to leave your home and your relationship in order to get a child. it has to be a very very conscious decisions. i have friend who are men who have good genes, but we’re not so close i want to ask them for their sperm/to be involved however remotely in making a child - and (i was surprised to discover) (what a lot of things i dont know anything about) you an’t really just buy sperm, it’s not truly legal except through a clinic. and it’s extremely expensive to get inseminated in a clinic, and the NHS don’t really do that, so you do have to pay it. i thought kids would be expensive after they were born, but not before. and i REALLY wanted a house, much much more than - i think even today - i’ve ever wanted a child. i REALLY wanted a house - and now we have a house, and it’s pretty good. but - that’s where the money went, until the pandemic - thanks pandemic - so now we do have some disposable cash at last, because i didn’t commute.

but now erin is worried about climate change - and wheher it’s right to bring more children into the world, and other things. and.... i think i do want to be pregnant, it’s what i’m planning for - don’t leave this job (which admittedly i also really like, and pays me well - i dont thin i need to leave) because next stop maternity leave, but.....

i don’t know whether i am thinking, time ot have kids because my best friend just had a baby (the baby’s name is horatio - for real, i actually love this name) (i also haven’t seen her or the baby except over skype, because anna - my friend - is, like my mother, also scared of pandemic) and my brain is like - ok, well, if anna is doing it, i guess the time is here

AND - i know there’s a large part of me that was like, gotta be pregnant and ideally have the baby before my mum dies so she gets to see that she had a grandchild. my brother and i are both queer, btw, in case you were wondering - he’s considering whether he wants to transition right now (but is still happy with he/him pronouns) and - you may find this astonishing, but i genuinely don’t know whether he’d consider himself ace, or has been in relationships. he’s very private, he has OCD and is in therapy - but anyway, he’s probably not having kids anytime soon (i think!) and graham - my mum’s boyfriend/partner of 10+ years. -has grandchildren, but my extremely middleclass white (but definitely not conservative voters, always 100% not-tory) parents ended up with me and my brother.... and i don’t know, as i say, i don’t know whether my brain is saying ‘have kids before it’s too late’ - although i know by now that it will be too late. even if my mum recovers from this, this time, i don’t think i can produce a child before she dies - and she isn’t asking me too, she’s not like that, but i would have liked her to be there. i thought she would be.

so - i’m thinking about that. also, about getting a dog. i really want a dog - although i don’t want to upset the three cats (one we’ve had for eight years or so, the other two we got after Anton died). it’s ALSO really hard and expensive to get a dog. you’d think with all these ‘a dog isn’t just for the pandemic, a dog is for life’ type adverts around, that it would be easy to adcidentally get a dog - i’ve looked! you ccan’t get a dog unless you have no cats and you’re super experienced and can take a dog with lots of trauma or medical problems, or you’re willing to pay thousands of pounds. like - even for a regular not even pedigree dog - at least a thousand. pedigree dog - several thousand. i dont want a puppy either - i want a dog.

and - this is embarrassing to admit, but i’ve alrady told erin - i genuinely had a phase of being super annoyed when i’d read fics where someone just ‘got a dog’. it’s not that simple!!! it’s fiction, it doesn’t matter - chill out. the baby thing too - although weirdly not fics where magic meant it was possible to get a baby, weirdly it was smut. i had a brief week or so of crazy (and i don’t think i am that crazy) where i’d read about fictional semen and just be like - wtf, it’s so hard to get hold of that shit. (it’s not real, this isn’t real semen being wasted, calm down - and i dont even really know if i want kids, i might just think i do.)

the other thing about the bad thing being soon but not yet (but also being all the time, but not if you dnt think about it) is that i’m thinking - should i prioritise writing my remix now, in case my mum dies and i’m too sad to do it, and then i didn’t do my remix? i was definitely thinking this while writing classroom politics (i hope my mum doesn’t die becaue i dont want to be too sad to miss the deadline) and in the run up to AWTWB .....

today i wrote a list of things for work that would need to be picked up if i have to unexpectedly stop working, either because i’m too sad, or because i have to do funeral stuff, or .... i guess legal stuff about settling the estate. (i guess this happens to a lot of people, too, but it’s also a bit of a mindfuck that my brother and i will inherit her house and a bunch of cash when she dies - i’m pretty well off, my brotehr does virtual reality theatre stuff so really isn’t - we’ve talked about how much easier both of our lives will be with a huge injection of cash, and how we dont know what to feel about that) (great news, dogs and kids are really expensive! time to find out whether i really wanted to spend my money on those.) told people i like at work that it’s coming, and that i dont want to talk about it. and mostly just... carrying on with life, really. until it happens.

it’s so weird how easy it is to carry on most of the time.i know my mum’s partner is not doing nearly so well - he has to cope with an empty house and he’s retired. i’ve had periods - including right now - where i wake up every morning and check my phone to see whehter someone called me or texted me to tell me it’s over. but most of the day i’m actually really fine. i even had an ok day today. and i don’t know whether i want that to be the case, or whether i shouldn’t let myself do that. i dont know what i should prepare for in terms of where i’ll be - will i want lots of stuff to distract me (this is my guess) and work is very good for that, or i will want to clear time and space because i can’t operate and dont want people to offer me comfort. (FYI - this post isn’t written to make people say anything to me, i definitely dont want to talk about it, so please don’t feel you either have to comment or check in on me - i don’t really want you to. it’s enough to have written it, in my own time, in my own space.)

i think i wanted to write this post in a way because i thought i probably wouldnt want to write it after my mum died - because i probably wouldn’t want to say anything about it at all, for a few years.

my mum keeps telling me about the show ‘jane the virgin’ - which she’s half way through. shhe asked me to give it a try, so i did (she often tells me about shows on radio 4, which i rarely listen to. i thouht i had more time.) i’ve watched an episode (because she has cancer, i should listen to her recommendations)(but i dont want her to know that’s why i did it) and i do quite like - it’s light and frothy and well cut together (although about kids and artificial insemination, of course). i guess in a worse case scenario where i’m too sad to work or write, i will probably watch a lot of this show - which is incredibly not sad - and feel sad about how my mum never finished it.

BUT ALSO SHE MIGHT BE OK. for a while.

i dont know how i feel, blargh. anyway. this was a long post. i think i wrote it mostly for me. feelings are weird. covid really sucks and so does cancer.

going to order some chicken and watch inuyasha.

#my content #tw: death #tw: death of a parent #tw: death of a loved one #personal #tw: cancer

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baeddel · 3 years

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reply to @dialectrician, long

Well for starter it probably has to do with the fact it was Irish vanguards when this really would have been the job of a British socialist party ( since NI is part of the UK) to formulate an analysis of British society and a strategy to unite the struggle of workers and opressed people in the UK.

I dont know about this... It does not seem to me right that there should be, in a colony, an ‘indigenous communist party’ and ‘settler communist party’. Why can’t the party move in both neighbourhoods? I feel like that would be a precondition for overcoming sectionalism, anyway.

In terms of the history of NI communist parties, generally they were ‘cross-community’ and contained both protestants and catholics. These days they are not very welcome anywhere because they have poor relations with both republican and loyalist paramilitaries (who have authority over who gets in and out of the housing estates). I have no idea how anyone organizes here, I have never seen it and I know that if I tried it in this estate I would be killed. This is probably the biggest hurlde post-70s. An organization capable of movement in Northern Ireland has to arrive already fanged and armoured, but also be capable of avoiding becoming a paramilitary authority itself; no one has thus far been capable of this (it may be impossible and ‘the lever must be pulled elsewhere’).

Anyway, the other thing is that, there are protestant parties... A number of former UVF guys formed an organization known as the PUP (which has a relationship to the UVF on the order of the relationship Bahamas have to K-Group) which is a socialist organisation (if not a revolutionary one), and the BICO (British & Irish Communist Party) infamously became a sort of loyalist communist party (that supported the occupation as a progressive force, etc.) & were denounced by all international leninist parties as ‘revisionist’.

One thing I’ve learned since our last conversation is that there is kind of a nuance to the ethnic situation; the protestant settlers were once divided into two sorts, mainstream protestants and Presbyterians. The Presbyterians were generally renters and labourers & were specifically excluded from the Protestant Ascendancy (1691-somewhere in the 20thc). By the late 1700s it was everywhere forgotten that presbyterians were settlers; they believed themselves to be Irishmen as did Irish catholics; everyone believed this until somewhere in the 20th century where the facts were uncovered by mature historical research. In the 1700s and early 1800s, Presbyterians (ie. settler proletarians and small peasants) were active in the movement against the British occupation; they made up the majority of the United Irishmen. At this time they actually seemed to see themselves as somewhat oppressed by Catholics (perhaps they even were?).

There was, obviously, a transformation of society during the 1800s when Ireland became a big farm for potato exports and then a pile of wreckage; then the land war, etc. By the partition protestants were hegemonic and it was no longer possible to speak of big landowning protestants and presbyterian irishmen. Thus, I think we have to consider things a little differently than we have been up to now. While protestants are settlers, they were at one stage enemies of the occupation and fought against it alongside the others. [As a child of the troubles, learning this blew my fucking mind, js]. So, 1. what happened that made their interests sectional? and 2. I’m not sure its possible to really talk about protestants in Northern Ireland as British, who the British communist parties have ethnic jurisdiction over. The extent to which protestants actually consider themselves British varies a lot; there are many situations where they will consider themselves Irish instead, and most will self-identify as ‘Ulsterman’ or whatever instead of British if given the option. Also, ethnically the situation is kind of complicated; there is some nontrivial degree of French ancestry because many settlers to Ulster were refugee Haguenots! If we regard nationality in ‘material’ rather than genetic terms, it’s not clear to me why the British communist parties should be involved with Ulstermen and not Irishmen in Northern Ireland; the civil rights movement was after all demanding ‘british rights for british citizens’, etc. The Republic and its citizens have never shown any responsibility for those of us asphyxiating up here and most catholics don’t even support a united Ireland. In this way, strictly Irish communist parties have never really been involved in the North.

But to my understanding, Official Leninists largely stopped paying attention to the national question in the UK in the early cold war (don’t quote me on this, this is from second-hand sources). This in turn probably has to do with the international communist movement increasingly serving the diplomacy of the Soviet Union instead of the opposite, which led to Western communist parties getting increasingly conciliatories with capitalist states. And unofficial revolutionary parties probably had trouble emerging in the meantime because USSR-affiliated parties got the brand-recognition and funding so wannabe activists tended to gravitate toward them.

huh thats interesting, yeah that makes sense. A lot of communist parties in the North split from the ‘official’ ones. In fact, the Trotskyist parties are probably the most successful (although that isn’t saying much). But in the North the paramilitaries absorbed a lot of the energy that would normally go into labour organizing; emigration is also enormous, the population is actively declining and almost everyone leaves the country to work in England at some point. Because it is so easy to leave (it’s practically expected) the radical intellectuals who, “unable to rise within the system, rise against it”, as the cynical Sam Moss put it, generally leave Northern Ireland before they give up on finding satisfaction. The only people who remain here are those of us too lumpenized to leave (I dropped out of my cooking class at tech due to disability; if I could have completed it I’d be anywhere else but here right now).

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purple-ktj · 3 years

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1 - Do you think the taejin spring day moment in mots on:e where tae literally scurried into jin's arms and standing and swinging in their own world are like them taking a revenge for making them stand at the opposite sides of the stage at bangbangcon+++ given up all the hopes of seeing anymore taejin moments in on:e. but then during no more dream tae didnt let go of jin's hand. then spring day happened again and when tae went or jin's belly >_< I cant just contain myself. pretty much when i thought ok thats it for us we arent getting more then tae melted into jin's arms, this literally made me cry. and then finally during the last bow they stood side by side...ahh my tj heart finds its peace now... what was your reaction of mots on:e

Me - Nope. Don’t think it’s that deep. They were a lot more relaxed and playful on day 2 to have skinship with each other on stage. As usual, Taejin’s moments tend to hit us like a truck when we least expect it. Time and time again, they’ve showed us how significant and special Spring Day is for the both of them. I watched both days, absolutely loved it. Although I’m just waiting for a proper offline concert soon :(

2 - My Mom too is an Army. JK is her bias. Jin & Yoongi took the longest to impress her. She knows that Tae is my fav. She has watched all BTS MVs, stage performances, some run episodes (I watched all), full Soop series, interviews, etc but not any Exclusive ship videos. She could tell about Jikook very early. Last night, she was praising all but forgot Jin. When I got offended, the most unexpected thing happened. She said " Jin is talented & Tae can even Die for him". She could tell🤤 Taejin? When my Mom said those words " Tae can even Die or Give away His Life for Jin", I couldn't respond for a while. I was so emotionally surprised. There are times when I doubt Taejin ( till mid 2019, I used to get confused with Jin's gay panic) then Jin became bolder & more expressive & Tae became subtle only around Jin While he continued to show open affection to JK & others. I doubted Tae's feelings towards Jin. I guess married people know better. My Mom's words truly surprised me.

Me - Jin gay panicking hahaha. It’s vice versa, both of them love each other so much that they’d protect each other with their lives. And we’ve seen it plenty of times. Personally I can’t tell with Jikook at all, they confuse me a lot. Perhaps she knows more since JK is her bias?

3 - As much as frustrated we taejinnies are that taejin never get to share a room do you think anything will happen even if they are together? like throughout the nights every room has cameras set up and they are recorded so probably except sleep-hugging i dont think they would be able to/allowed to do anything right? The closest time they can have in private is the tent where there is no camera inside. luckily BV3 already gave us that moment and tae also said it was spcl for him. what do you think?

Me - Well… I don’t expect anything except some cute interactions and maybe some cuddling? They’re all adults and know better. As for the tent, that is one special unusual exception. Namjoon sitting outside, the other tent wide open, Taejin’s tent zipped shut tight, the odd movements of the tent, and “I’ll never forget that night. It was special”... I have my guesses but the truth remains a big fat “?”.

4 - I am totally in love with your blog. What a waste I dint find it earlier!! I have two things to ask...1. I have read that you write slowly but eventually you are going to complete the 2018 19 20 chronology too right? I just cant wait after seeing the previous years compilation.

Me - Eventually I will, hehe. There’s just… so much to archive in chronological order. Don’t worry, my blog isn’t going anywhere!

5 - Srry fr asking ths late I ws jst going through ur posts nd suddenly one qs striked me. I fully agree on the taejin chronology u posted so it is most likely they hv definitely grown a lot intimate by 2017 fr sure. BV3 took place in 2018. During tht chat wth hobi jin seemed to be aware of whn T will be arriving so they must hv been in cntct. Even they went fr tht water activity together. They got plenty of chances fr J to let T know his room as J knew how T's room will be decided so why didnt he?

Me - I’m not sure either. I think they all just played by the rules. If Tae knew and marched straight into his room, it might have been obvious and the others might have been able to tell that he snitched? Their arrangement in BV3 is a game meant to make the show interesting so there are rules in place. Probably.

6 - In one of your post you said you visited bts concert at jamsil stadium where the so what chest bump happened and it just finished off in a whiff. Apart from so what did you notice any other taejin moment during the show cz the concert videos we see only focuses on the one who is speaking while the rest are not shown specifically. So when they were not on main screen did you notice any cute or subtle moments live?

Me - I saw Tae or Jin hovering around the other a couple of times near my area but besides that nothing much. Also it was my first BTS concert. I was focused on just enjoying it as a whole. There was just so much going on and it all happened so fast I didn’t really have time to pause and think about Taejin except during So What.

7 - While going though your posts I found out your bias was yoongi at first. But judging by your elaborate blog how you dont miss out taejin moments I would like to ask has your bias changed or is it still yoongi?

Me - After a lengthy discussion with my army friend, we came to the conclusion that Yoongi is still the closest to my heart. His lyrics make me cry the hardest. And also keeps me going and moving forward.

8 - Would love to read about a compilation of all taejin spring day and dna moments like the one you made of so what!!

Me - I would love to stop procrastinating and do that too…

9 - What are your top ten bts songs? I mean for me it happened many times after a special moment happens in any song during their performance automatically that song sticks into my head more and thus it climbs up towards the top my favourite bts songs list. This may be just only my heavily taejin biased mind but dis this ever happen to you also?

Me - Top ten… is really hard. Impossible to choose. Hmmm I fell in love with Spring Day and So What before I knew about Taejin.

10 - What's your take on taejin frequently matching clothes on stage during concerts? Yes all of them get similar outfits but I find taejin clothes to be almost giving out couple vibes on stage even. Lol. Probably I am at highest level of delulu.

Me - Yeah, recently they all match more so it’s harder to say but of course my Taejin bias self would say they have a couple vibe too hahaha.

11 - Do you ever daydream like maybe BH is cutting off all the taejin videos not to expose them now but all are actually aware of them even officially and someday when they come out maybe BH will release all these cut moments or make it into a lovely dvd? Yeah just like taejin live in their own bubble world amidst thousands watching them I am going to think about this in my bubble world now.

Me - Lol I shall not pop your Taejin bubble. Have fun xD

12 - Hey, I was wondering what exactly you meant when Taejin got physically involved with each other before labeling their relationship?? I’ve seen a few times on your blog and I was wondering what that meant.

Me - I meant they may have been friends with benefits before they decided to be exclusive- boyfriends/lovers. (Again please take this with a grain of salt, this is only my view/perspective based on what I’ve observed)

13 - Was rewatching BV3 and noticed something what do you think about this please tell-When V arrived in malta he was wearing a black tee and he also had no money to buy anything. When he went for the water skiing he wore 'I love malta' tee which was the same as jin and suga bought before. Since suga left maybe he gave his tee to V but considering how he had an emergency and V never went to the accomodation till night it doesnt seem plausible. Can it be jin who bought the tee for V and gave it to him? Secondly it always seems V and Jin keep in touch via texting during these shoots(jin knowing when V will arrive, V losing his bag, etc) why didnt just Jin let V know the room jinmin were sharing since even after discussing so much about it over lunch taejin even went together for the water ski so there must have been plenty chances. This pretty much makes me think the room arrangements are always scripted, What do you say?

Me - Never thought of that before. Could be? Yoon/jin could have given him the shirt to change into since he was going to do water activities. I don’t think it’s scripted (or maybe to a minor extent to keep the entertainment value) but the boys themselves choose not to interfere with the game?

14 - What are your thoughts about YoonJin? They really vibe well together imo. Ofc, I love Taejin; otherwise, I wouldn't be here. I was just wondering because I saw you say YoonJin had a special place in your heart on Curious Cat.

Me - Yoonjin’s soulmate-ry is something I related to on a personal level. Also because my MBTI type is the same as theirs, INTP. They silently but fiercely protect and appreciate each other. They love each other like old married couples do, I feel. A lot of trust, admiration, can easily fall back and rely on one another. They have a really good spiritual and mature connection? A very stable and compatible pair. And also love the fact that Yoongi becomes babier around Jin.

15 - "what are we going to do taehyung-ah? do you want me to tell them to interview you?" this is one of the softest taejin moments ever. seokjin wanted to cheer taehyung up so bad and he was willing to go to the interviewers and ask them to interview taehyung just so he could say the ment he prepared. he then proceeded to interview him himself just to make him smile and it worked and taehyung stopped sulking and seokjin had the sweetest smile and proudest face. he loves his taehyungie so much 😭

Me - And he has constantly been doing so throughout the years. It’s so soft, Jin is that sort of boyfriend who would jump through hoops to make sure Tae’s happy. I love them so much.

16 - seokjin asking taehyung to look pretty for the camera and tae doesnt want to at first but when seokjin counts down he does it with no second thoughts.. and seokjin's fond smile.. theyre in love

Me - They’re very in love. Also Tae said a lot so why was the sound muted when he was ‘arguing’ with Jin?

17 - something about the way taehyung called seokjin jwan 😭 he said it in such a soft way with the biggest smile and he is just the babiest at this point.. and the way he said that instead of boo because it sound like voo and he was so happy with his little joke PLEASE this was so so so cute and jwan is such a cute nickname

Me - Biggest baby with his puppy round eyes. If they ever go on vlive and start calling each other Voo and Jwan consider me dead.

18 - i love how seokjin always makes sure taehyung gets to say what he wanted to no matter what, and he does it so naturally.. he will urge him during interviews, during lives, etc, he will practice with him, hype him, pretend to interview him and will turn the whole world around just so taehyung will get to say his words. and he is so proud when he does.. i also love how taehyung practices with seokjin, he knows he is both rooting for him and pretty fluent in english. i love these moments so much 🥺

Me - Me too. They make sure they express how much they love and support each other no matter what and going the extra mile to show it. They’re so incredibly soft.

19 - i do believe taejin are dating at this point but even if theyre not theres no doubt in me that taehyung is head over hills in love with seokjin, and seokjin has the biggest soft spot ever for taehyung and his eyes are dripping with fondness. either way, taejin is beautiful.

Me - Either way, Taejin is so in love. Beautiful couple in and out.

20 - I do think BH treats taejin differently compared to other ships,but I feel the more they cut taejin scenes, the more obvious they’re making it. Yoongi can hold Tae’s belt but Jin can’t and the abrupt cut is way too obvious. I wonder how their editing goes like how they decide which scenes to include and all, it still amuses me how they cut off the scene where Jin was abt to hold Tae’s belt but included the scene where tae calls Jin husband, btw love ur work, stay happy and safe

Me - I wonder how their editing works too. It could be something or could be nothing deep. Thank you <3

21 - Before the Run ep got aired, i was like Tae would be happy cuz Jin is the teacher instead of being in opposite team. And i was right 😁 Even in behind the scenes, even when he's wrong, his smile never leaves and he keeps doing stuff to get Jin's attention. Who is also enjoying having his Tae in the front~ 🤭 This run ep was a treat to all senses really, especially with Jin being the handsome teacher we all want and their hilarious bickering like real students 🤭~ 😁

Me - Tae was happy to be looking straight at his teacher the entire class sitting in front hahaha. He was so eager and excited and they were all so cute. I lost it when Jin cheated him of the correct answer while they were making eye contact but he was still so happily bragging about it. “The teacher gave me the wrong answer while we flirted!! :DD”

22 - I've been wondering this question for a while, sorry if u already mentioned it, my memory's not great. Do you think Taejin will ever come out, like properly? They've been so domestic and confident in 2020. Don't you think, if anyone would bring change to the taboo around LGBT in Korea, it would be BTS? They're so big and influential now I feel like they could change things. Maybe I've got my head in the clouds, but … I hope so. One day.

Me - Their boldness and domesticity to me is because their relationship seems more or less stable, as compared to before. They’re happier now and it shows. BTS is big and influential and broke barriers and created history, but the sad fact is that they’re still very much subjected to xenophobia, racism and all sorts of prejudice. There will always be antis awaiting their downfall. Granted if there’s anyone to ‘break’ this taboo surrounding LGBT, it could be them, but probably not now? After winning the Grammys and after they hold another world tour maybe? Idk. Even if they don’t, they still have impacted and saved millions of lives across the world. Let’s see what the future holds for BTSARMY.

23 - Hi I'm new to this app. I recently discovered it from reading your analysis which I love by the way and decided to become a member of this app thanks to you. I had watched a taejin video concerning who's more possessive V or Jin? Personally could you please explain to me who do you think is the most possessive out of Taejin?

Me - Hi! I think both are equally so? Tae may be more obvious and direct about it while Jin is more subtle but both of them seem to be on the same page regarding this matter.

24 - Hi. I love your blog so much & i myself have no doubt that Taejin are in a relationship, but i am curious about when you first had suspicions towards Taejin, did you also observe all other BTS ships? Or did you just observe Taejin exclusively?

Me - When I saw that SMA hug in 2018 after watching Burn the Stage I thought something was off. I didn’t observe any particular pairings but I saw the popular pairing compilation and crack videos. Sope, Namjin, Taekook, Jikook, Vmin and Yoonjin? And HopexML. Didn’t watch Taejin at all.

Do you think Taejin is the only romantic ship in BTS? Or are there any other ships that you have suspicions of as well?

Me - Just Taejin. I am curious about Jikook but not curious enough to observe them closer.

Because i have some questions regarding Yoonmin, Jikook, & Sope. And since your bias is/was Yoongi, i wanted to hear your opinion on this since you always try to be as objective as possible. I've always thought all other BTS ships besides Taejin was platonic, but i can't be too sure about Yoonmin. I see Sope as best friends with extremely good chemistry, & eventhough i see tension & romantic potential btwn Jikook, for me Jikook seems like they haven't cross the platonic line yet. Jikook to me seems like either it's one-sided pining, mutual pining, or they are just friends who are extremely comfortable with flirting with eachother. But...i'm not too sure about Yoonmin? What are your thoughts about them? Have you ever been suspicious of them or you just don't feel there's anything to be suspicious about btwn them? How would you describe Yoonmin's relationship?

Me - I agree with you that Sope is 100% platonic best friends with amazing chemistry.

Jikook confuses me a lot. When I think about lack of boundaries, I think Vmin, Jinkook and Taekook. These are platonic-lack-of-boundaries pairs. Jikook is kind of one level above this category? They’re very free and don’t restrict themselves but they also don’t have that “nervousness” or “awkwardness” like Taejin does. I don’t know where they belong. Rather than being comfortable with flirting, it’s like flirting is their “default” mode? Yeah I don’t know, it’s confusing. I have never been suspicious of Yoonmin… don’t think there’s anything suspicious between them? They tease each other a lot?

Another question (i'm so sorry), what are your thoughts about Jungkook? To me i find him the hardest to understand since he's not my bias & because he's just so talented in almost anything he does that it makes me unable to relate to him at all. His behavior towards Jin, Jimin & Taehyung makes me go ???????? sometimes because they are pretty questionable. Like... it's impossible for him to harbour some sort of feelings towards all of his three hyungs right???? So my head just hurts sometimes thinking what Jungkook is doing. His tattoos; with purple heart & crown near "V", "J" being on his ring finger and yet "JM" is also near his ring finger, him eating the ramen Taehyung spat out during eatJin, him kissing Jin's ankle (though he maybe did it just as a joke), his whole GCF in Tokyo with Jimin....i could go on and on about the weird things Jungkook does. Jungkook is absolutely bizarre to me & I have no idea how his brain works.

Me - If you say it like that, then I’ll have to say he’s “questionable” towards all of his hyungs. Take the tattoo out of this equation, his tattoo is meant for BTSARMY. JK is probably the one and only one who has zero boundaries with all his hyungs? Because he’s their baby, all of them. Don't forget that he's lived with them since he was 15. I don't think he's bizarre at all, it's just the way he's extremely comfortable around all of them. As an elaboration of my opinion above, the fact that JK seeks out Jimin and spends their time a lot together off camera is special to Jikook in the way Taejin is special because you can see Tae wants to "EatJin". They're impossibly close, in many aspects. Again, I'm going to emphasise that this does not mean I'm implying Jikook is exclusively romantic. They have a special bond, I don’t know what it could be, they confuse me but I think that the amount of time they spend together, not just as BTS is special.

I apologise for sending this type of ask here instead of your Tumblr but because your Tumblr is a Taejin centric blog i didn't know if it would be appropriate to ask there so i sent it here instead. If possible i would love to hear your opinion on this. Sorry for such a lengthy ask, but if you're unable to answer this i totally understand as well. It's just that you're one of those few people in the fandom that i really trust with having a clear thought since you observe BTS dynamic as a whole.

Thanks in advance 💜💜💜🥺

Me - Yeah I kind of broke my own rule lol but it was interesting to think about. No problem I had fun with your question 😄 I am rather intrigued about the Yoonmin part? It never crossed my mind.

25 - You know, i've seen some ARMYs who are genuinely confused about which ship to believe in.

For example, the sleeping arrangements in the SOOP, they watched the Namjin analysis video and then they watched the Taejin analysis video & they say they don't know which one to believe in.

Do you have any tips for these poor souls so that they can find the answers themselves?

Thanks in advance. Also if this ask belongs in the Tumblr compilation more than this place then feel free to paste this ask there instead.

Me - I'm just an anon ranting about Taejin here 😅 ... Errr, there's no rule you need to ship anyone? We're here for BTS and their music after all. YouTube analysis videos mess with my brain more than anything, I'd rather watch the actual video. Otherwise it's totally cool to casually ship any pairings you like. If I wasn't into Taejin I'd probably casually be into Yoonjin and Jinkook.

26 - Hello! In response to anon's ask about JK's influence on Taejin's relationship, I think despite all of them alr being in their 20s, Jk will always be treated as the maknae by Jin and Tae (and other members). Both will coddle him and give him a free pass for many things simply because he is their "baby" brother. I think because of JK's maknae status and Taejin's innate affection for him, taejin aren't opposed to showing PDA with him (and in front of each other no less). I think Tae is less jealous about Jinkook PDA as compared to Namjin or any other pairing. Similarly, beside with Tae, Jin doesn't seem that outwardly affectionate (e.g. back hugs) to other members except Jk. In defence of taekook's friendship, I don't think they are "not close" but their friendship is certainly different. Older members like Tae might not confide about their troubles and inner thoughts with Jk simply because he has less life experiences and seemingly less wise. Their relationship is probably less deep, but they get along v well on more light hearted things and that's great as well.

Sorry my comment is so damn long, but I guess this brings me the point where Taejin's relationship is definitely not brotherly especially when Jin treats Tae so differently/partially compared to the other dongsaengs. If Tae was just a brother figure to Jin like the others, putting myself in the shoes of say Jimin and Jk, I would feel quite jealous and upset that Jin showers Tae with much more attention and affection.

Me - I think you explained it really nicely 😄 thank you! Also because JK has been through a lot and matured so much faster than his peers did at a young age, his hyungs would want to ensure that he’s taken care of and loved at all times instead of unloading their worries on him.

27 - I am a new taejinnie and I was reading your blog in the past few days, I have to say the amount of info is a bit overwhelming even if you do make a really good job at posting stuff in chronological order, so it becomes truly helpful. But I have seen a bit of misinformation by you, and many other taejinnies have done it in the past, which is a bit concerning to me. I am not going to name all of them, but I am curious about one in particular, tae's wallpaper in that paris vhope vlive. Why do you say with such conviction that it's Jin in the photo? Other shippers claim to be someone else and I even saw others saying that it's tae himself. I see no resemblance to the jin photo by naver, since jin's sleeve is much looser and the person in tae's pic seems to be holding smth like a camera and also has a watch on his wrist. I have noticed that taejinnies tend to hype some moments that we don't have proof of and get spread around but then are proven to be wrong. Some of those are the blanket kick "kiss", the "saranghe" from the so what moment, the bon voyage "matching" tattoos, this jin wallpaper, to name just a few. I don't like us to be like taekookers, so I'd love to only take into account the things that are solid proof and not stuff we wish for it to be there. Maybe some would say that this is not that deep and I shouldn't take it so seriously, but if we are to say that taejin really are a hidden gay couple, then we need to back this up with info that can be proven and not just by our wishful thinking.

Me - I’ll be honest, your message rubs me off the wrong way. I do not care what other shippers say or think, if you have watched the VHope vlive and think it’s not true, that’s fine. If you haven’t watched it, please do so and form your own conclusions. I do not assert that my opinion is correct, and I have said plenty of times to take my content with a large pinch of salt, read at your own discretion. This is a blog where I free my thoughts and fangirl Taejin and put up some topics for discussion. Not a place for people to verify facts about Taejin. Tae’s wallpaper in Vhope’s vlive has a strong resemblance to Jin in the White Day photoshoot by Dispatch, but it is likely not a photo taken by Dispatch but his own camera phone. In other words it’s his own photo of Jin in that same setting during the actual photoshoot.

28 - One of the moments which made me a taejininie was the ending of dimple at 5th muster magic shop but after watching the performances of all 4 days I realised that moment may be a fanservice as it was enacted on 2nd day of both busan and seoul. Also if you follow jin's fancam on seoul 2nd day as the lights went out he winked at tae which might indicate this was all planned maybe? My bubble has burst. Help me!!!😭😭😭😭😭

Me - I think perhaps you should look more into their stage and concert performances and concert DVDs to have a better understanding of their bold and loud moments on stage. At one glance, any of their on stage moments can look like mere fanservice. This is one thing I find difficult to explain, it’s easier once you have a better grasp of their dynamics on and off stage. Take a look at my So What post, that might help. If you’ve observed Taejin enough you’ll know they don’t do stuff just to please others.

29 - I want to say something to taejinnies who keep worrying about them, so this won't be an ask, but my pov.

So a while back I used to get really insecure about them whenever they had their more quiet moments. But actually, there's something that most of us have noticed and it's very important when talking about taejin as a couple: that we rarely have "in-between" moments, it's mostly just hot or cold with them. And you talked about it too before, but I just think we need to repeat this thing to taejinnies who lose faith, at least once in a while. There's a reason taejin was the first ship, but also a reason why other armys really can't see them. It's always tkk, vmin, jinkook and lately vhope, but it's always been taejin. If armys would pay attention to the important things, taejin would definitely stand out. From singing a love ost together, to always being side by side behind the scenes, sharing the two seats of a couch or riding a bus, always together, sometimes even stuck shoulder to shoulder. They don't need to do loud things to prove anything to anyone, it should be obvious by now how biased they are for each other. If this doesn't prove that they're romantically involved, it at least proves that they are the closest members in bts. They've been so constant during all these years, basically the only bts ship to actually be this visibly close, but annoyingly for us, invisible to others, for some weird reason. Why do you guys think that most of the questionable thing tae has done are with jin? And how come Jin is soft only with tae, out of all the boys in the group? He compares him with flowers, his touches are gentle, his eyes speak volumes. Tae on the other hand takes care of Jin like he does no other, he loses the formalities with jin the most, and he doesn't shy away to always declare his fondness and love for jin. I have no idea why all this just evaporates whenever taejin become more quiet, but it should be logical to every taejinnie that if these things have lasted for 8+ years, they will last even more. They're at the age where friendships and bonds don't break that easily.

So please trust our taejin and don't expect them to always have moments just to please us, and please don't go around saying that taejin "broke up". At the end of the day, I trust that their bond is forever.

Me - I agree with you so much :) there are so many loud and subtle moments caught on camera but we forget that we don’t see the “in between” or them just alone together being themselves. There is just so much more to them that we haven’t seen and don’t know about. Yet time and time again, they have always shown how tight knit they really are. I trust that their bond is forever too.

30 - To this day, I cannot convince myself that the Burn The Stage fight was just that. They were not arguing over the choreography, no. The choreography seemed to trivial of a reason for what happened and what was said. There had to be more to it, some context from the past. It seemed like a bottle up over a long period which then poured out with the choreography as an excuse. Not to forget, the clip was, of course, edited. I am also not convinced that the "make-up" they had on camera was it. They probably talked for sometime by themselves later and may or may not have taken sometime to get back to their regular dynamics. I also feel that Jimin came to retrieve them because he knew or at lease felt like their was more to this fiasco and did not want things to be said on camera.

Me - Bits of the fight was cut and some parts didn’t really match, it was edited to show only the choreography issue for the documentary. I wrote a whole post about it, do read it!

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houseki-no-suffering · 5 years

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on ch 82 and what the hell is the deal with phos

super long wall of words ahead, you've been warned. also, im not qualified to discuss the emotional effects of trauma, so please correct me where im wrong and don’t hesitate to add on this post

contains an analysis of phos’ character arc, explanation on why and how they snapped and what might happen to our child next:

1. genki phos 2. post winter phos 3. laphos 4. on trauma 5. on snapping 6. speculations about the future

so, first things first, I could not help but notice the sheer number of parallels between this chapter and other significant points of the story. it seems to me that parallels are becoming more and more frequent as the moon arc goes on, and that’s not just because there are simply more chapters to draw parallels from as the story grows in size.

I believe that we’re at a turning point in the story, or even that the turning point has been reached, (aechmea telling barbata to fix phos for the umpteenth time is most likely going to give phos the last treasure, but ill get to it).

so, to try and understand what in the seven hells is going on with our baby at this point (the fandom collectively adopted phos since chapter 2, sign the papers if you haven’t already and donate to the fund to send phos to therapy) let’s retrace phos’ character journey.

1: genki phos

the phos who is too good for this world, too pure, the cinnamon roll who has no idea what the hell is gonna happen to them. oh joy.

hnk sets off as a coming of age story. phos is the youngest, they’re seemingly useless in a society that values usefulness above anything else so genki phos is initially driven by lack of purpose.

i’ve speculated already on the characteristics of the lustrous society, a society that emphasizes sameness over difference and that has no place for outcasts like phos and cinnabar. your value, in lustrous society, is dictated by how much and in which way you can contribute to the survival of the species, with elite fighters (the diamonds) being at the apex of the social pyramid and everyone else coming after.

additionally, while gems live in a highly interdependent and close-knitted society, such interdependence never takes into account emotions, loss, imagination, introspection and free-thinking. the society is extremely practical, apathetic, immobile, and everyone is expected to conform to that.

think about antarc: they’re the poster child of lustrous society: a 3 mohs hardness gem who managed to become an elite fighter out of sheer willpower, who’s blindly loyal to sensei, who sacrifices themselves for the greater good (the group’s interests > the individual’s interests), that does little if any introspection and that is happy about all of this and wants to leave it this way.

phos isn’t like this at all.

since the very beginning of the series we learn that phos is an anomaly. and that’s okay, other gems have been anomalies, like padparadscha, cinnabar, even antarcticite, but while those gems found a way to tip toe to the margins of lustrous society to remain unobtrusive exceptions, or forge themselves into proper, useful members of the group, phos cannot do that. which is ironic, because we know that one of phos’ core characteristics is that they’re able to change and to bring about change in a world that is as immobile and still and stiff as… well.. rock.

like @ruddy-rutile pointed out in a past analysis, phos’ problem wasn’t so much that they didn’t fit in, but that they didn’t fit in the appropriate way: they’re emotional, they’re loud, they’re unreliable, they’re not apathetic. they’re kind. compassionate. imaginative. and imagination is something the other gems lack.

this fuels a deep sense of self-hatred that even at this early stages of the story is lying just beneath the surface and oozes out quite easily, like when phos wants to help ventricosus and mumbles that it’s no problem if they die in the attempt, they’re a good for nothing after all, what difference would it make if they dont come back. at least they were able to help someone, contrary to how they were unable to help cinnabar.

this is the leitmotif of the series: phos is a kind, selfless gem who cultivates a deep sense of self-hatred. the internalized pressure and need to feel useful turns into a necessity for change. they need to save cinnabar, they need to save ventricosus, they need to become a fighter, they need to help sensei.

contrary to most of the other gems, phos loves and loves openly and unconditionally, they’re self-less by nature and that selflessness is a barrier that hides the real reason theyre so ready to put their life on the line for other people: the fact that phos thinks that their own life isnt wort a scrap.

as someone who believes to be worthless, guided by shame and guilt just for being alive and fueled by a deep desire to feel loved and accepted (just like a child), phos is unable to cope with grief and emotion if not by guilt tripping themselves even further.

the fact that the amethysts were almost taken is their fault, the fact that cinnabar is suicidal is their fault, the fact that antarc was taken is their fault, same with ghost’s abduction. the only way phos knows to cope with this guilt is by doing what every other gem does: bury these feelings deep inside their head and throw themselves into work. be useful, like alexandrite, rutile or red beryl.

2. post winter phos

what was a story about purpose, about phos’ coming of age, reaches an end at this very point, with antarc’s death. phos has become stronger at this point of the story, they have agathe legs and gold arms and they have grief to cope with, trauma.

just like alex’s job is studying the enemy and red’s job is making clothes, phos’ job is the one they originally desired for themselves: to fight. because there is nothing as valued as a good fighter in gem society and probably young phos unconsciously hoped to overcome self-hatred by taking on the most useful job there is.

post winter antarc is a skilled soldier, so skilled that bort wants to pair up with them. phos has reached their old goal: through loss and maturity, now they have a place within their society, they’re accepted and appreciated, valued but not loved. because these gems are so, so bad at emotions.

and this is where ms ichikawa begins to fool us all. she had us think that this story would be simple, but now hnk starts its steep and unrelenting detour toward existentialism and phos begins their dance toward madness and bottomless grief.

post winter phos is a soldier, they can fight off lunarians, but theyre still blaming themselves for antarc’s death.

we already said that phos is a very emotional gem and they possess a fervid imagination (probably just like lapis). so what do they do? they start thinking. “maybe i can retrieve antarc if we collect enough pieces. if i can communicate with the lunarians. if i can understand why we’re fighting.”

thinking quickly turns into questioning: why are we fighting? why are we so weak? why am i different? what changed me? is it the new additions, is it just life experiences? can we change? how can we change? antarc told me i shouldnt shy away from life, so im gonna push myself further and further.

that’s when shiro’s arc happens and sensei seems to know something about it, something he won’t tell the gems. phos’ questions suddenly turn to him.

phos is pretty much paranoid at this point of the narrative: they have experienced loss for the first time. consumed by guilt and grief for antarc’s recent abduction (even if phos still doesnt know what death means, we’ll get to that in a while), phos cannot think straight. they can’t be questioning the one authority every gem recognizes, the person phos and everyone else wants to protect, their leader, father, teacher.

phos feels like scum just for even thinking about it, as loyal and young as they are. and yet once you start questioning one minuscule thing about the way you have always lived your life, more and more will follow. it’s a cascade effect and it becomes faster the higher the number of questions, until you’re left with nothing but doubts and you must take into your hands the responsibility to find out for yourself.

this is more or less what happens to phos. they feel awful for doubting sensei the first time, in chapter 27, so they spill their guts to cinnabar, confessing their sins. but what cinnabar says does anything but put phos at ease: of course phos is doubting sensei: he’s shady, everyone knows.

however, while cinnabar is a quiet outcast, extremely prudent (and cowardly if you want) in the way they decide to face life, phos is the total opposite. they just needed a little nudge, they were already on the edge of a cliff of doubts and existential fears. cinnabar’s words are the second, big step that sets phos off on their path to the moon.

chapter 28 is when we see phos self-destructing because of this inner conflict for the first time, a pattern that will be repeated again and again the more phos loses sight of the truth, of a reliable something, a goal to cling onto and find direction.

it is ironic, because phos becomes a direction, a goal, the gems and the moon people’s hope (ch 59 and 72), but in doing so they have no hope left for themselves. let’s not forget that phos is very young by gems’ standards, not to mention in comparison to the moon people. how fair is to expect from a traumatized child to save the world and find answers to questions that run thousands of years deep and give phos nothing in return?

the pressure is enough to break phos and it does, quite literally, over and over and over again.

3. Laphos

lapis’ head comes at a time when phos was literally no longer able to manage this pressure.

it brings a waft of fresh air, it brings what emotional, kind phos needed to detach themselves from grief: coldness, rationality. and yet, it takes something away from phos as well: laphos is the phos that can no longer talk with cinnabar, the phos that brings cairn to reject the gems altogether and launch themselves into their kin’s killer’s arms. laphos is the gems and lunarians’ hope for a brief time, then it becomes the enemy.

i find it interesting how phos feels responsible for goshe and morga’s abduction too, even if phos was unconscious when it happened. phos has no clear boundaries between themselves and the rest of the world. they feel responsible for everything and guilty for everything. whatever they do will never be enough neither to make up for their past mistakes nor to find everyone a clear sense of purpose, safety, truth.

ichikawa plays with truth a lot. truth is that the lunarians are bad people and the gems must defend themselves, truth is that sensei is shady, truth is that the moon people are actually good, truth is that death is real, truth is that sensei is evil, truth is that cinnabar hates phos, truth is that the gems are evil, truth is that sensei is the only one that loves phos. who knows what the next truth will be, but can you call it truth, at this point?

if there is one point, i believe, that ichikawa is trying to make clear is that truth is subjective and that it changes, just like phos’ goal, the more knowledge you acquire and the more mistakes you make. truth is subjective but it must be sought after: you gotta keep fighting, you gotta move on even if you keep making mistakes, even if you cant undo your actions.

and another thing i think she’s trying to say is that you cannot make it alone. the moment phos tried to take it all on their shoulders, they moment they acquired lapis’ head, is the moment everything came crumbling down ten times faster than before.

and the most ironic part is that phos is still kind, even underneath that mantle of aloofness: they tried to do everything by themselves because they didn’t want to put anyone in danger, but in doing so they manipulated the gems just like aechmea. and aechmea knows and he’s been using phos for this.

4. Even more trauma

running after truth and after newer and more nuanced goals, phos has completely lost sight of themselves.

where do their alliances lie? what about their history? phos wakes up in ch 72 after the night raid and immediately breaks into pieces because they’re reminded of how cinnabar attacked them, the one gem they thought was their friend. one of the few truths phos had been clinging to.

phos wakes up after the night raid and asks the enemy “to the lunarians i look like a gem and to the gems i look like a lunarian. what am i?”

they break into pieces because they still believe they’re useless. they couldn't save cinnabar, they couldn't save antarc, they couldn't communicate with the earth gems, they couldn't even see adamant.

this is reminiscent of the very beginning of the manga: phos needs to feel useful, they need a goal, they need to be good at something. and just like they were ready to get lost at sea forever to help ventricosus they’re ready to die for someone else’s cause (not even phos’ own because they have no idea what to believe in at this point) just to be of use. after all, to phos, phos is nothing more than a scrap.

euc disagrees. ch 71 “we need you in our future” is a sentence that phos has probably ached to hear for centuries. “we need you. you are loved, you mean something, you are enough. you belong. we cannot build a future where you aren’t part of the equation. you matter”

and look at the way phos looks at euc. they can barely believe them and in fact they don’t. phos expresses some concern about dying (”after all, those less than 5 includes me”) but they still throw themselves into danger, they still take no care of themselves.

Phos’ self hatred and self-destructive tendencies run deeper than euc’s words could ever cut. those words meant well, but they were too little too late. phos thinks they don’t deserve this kind of hope, they cannot understand it, cannot fathom a world in which they are true and so they will go on believing that they are alone and worthless. next time they go on earth, they’ll go alone and unharmed

it is ironic. they did so much, they went to the moon and back multiple times, put their life on the line multiple times, made more progress toward unveiling the truth about the lunarians and finding a way for them to be free of samsara than anyone else did in hundreds (presumably) of thousands of years. they did it by themselves. in barely three hundred years. that’s impressive. and yet it’s not enough for phos. in their mind, they just keep failing.

so what’s the big deal? they can sacrifice themselves, it’s the least they can do and no one will miss them after all. unfortunately, this is true, at least to some extent.

im appalled by how little even the moon gems care about phos. they’re so self-centered it’s almost funny.

even alex, who has gone through loss and grief if not as much at least in a way similar to phos cannot find enough compassion in themselves to be concerned about phos’ wellbeing after a few months on the moon.

ive heard people mention how this could be a result of the moon people injecting who knows what into the gems or manipulating them someway or another, but i believe that there was no need to. phos is an anomaly after all, their kindness is an anomaly. the lustrous are little more than self-centered children: they are able of little if no introspection and they cannot process complex emotions like grief if not by shutting off those emotions altogether.

the moon gems are still vaguely concerned about phos. in ch 76, when phos departs for earth for the last time, they do tell them to be careful and come back if things get bad, but they do little more than that. it’s little comfort and too little emotional closeness and by no means close to the huge amount of support and (emotional) assistance that phos needs at this point.

phos tries to make do with what they have: a will to end this war and the superficial words of what should be their family, but it’s not even remotely enough. and yet phos, just like any other lustrous, is very bad at introspection: they don’t notice or if they notice they repress it. what’s one more thing down the subconscious after all? it’s fine. phos can take it, until they can no more and they snap without having any idea that they will snap.

phos’ journey, which has made them increasingly more emotional, fragile and human (the last one quite literally) has also made phos even more alone than they were at the beginning of the story. more alone, with the same sense of worthlessness, the same urgency to be good for something or self-destroy, and so much more grief, trauma, guilt and repressed emotions.

5. snapping

“I mustn’t think of anything” phos reminds themselves in ch 76. because thinking never brought anything good and because euc would see right through it.

once again, phos is repressing emotions. here they go, trying to be a cold blooded killer, ready to betray sensei again, the one person who has been good to them and that phos tried to hate with all their heart but just couldnt.

as ive written in a previous analysis, one of aechmea’s lowest blows was to tell the gems he was exploiting and manipulating to reach a salvation he doesnt deserve that if the gems want to acquire freedom they must do so by themselves. talk about coherence.

but that isnt all, he sinks even lower than this: he makes phos and the others question sensei’s affection for them. he says that sensei’s love is fake, it’s synthetic, the gems should totally make him pray or destroy him, no remorse, no strings attached. it’s such a dirty move.

no wonder it confuses phos even more. phos believes it, or tries to, they say they want to break sensei into pieces, but after the night raid they realize that it cant be that simple. sensei never attacked them. he has always been good to phos. and phos feels even more worthless, more of a traitor for daring believe in love, in sensei’s affection, when here they are, on the lunarians’ side, ready to betray him again.

how dare phos hope for anything? they dont deserve love, they dont deserve hope, they dont deserve happiness. they can try to give it to other people, they’ll kill themselves in order to do so, but they have no more hope and no love left for themselves, and they had so little to begin with.

as ive said, phos has little self-awareness and little introspection. i do believe that they had no idea they were going to snap until they did. even in ch 77, when sensei tells them he cannot pray, phos spends their last seconds of consciousness (before being attacked by all of the gems) to kindly ask him to pray. they dont care about themselves, but they dont reflect long enough to consider that reaching out to sensei like that could be interpreted as hostile by the paranoid earth gems. i think this is the first sign that phos is about to snap: they’re quite literally desperate.

tired beyond measure and forced to spend 220 more years in isolation, broken into pieces scattered all over the island, when phos comes to their senses again once kongo reassembles them they’re beyond despair. this war is taking the last toll on them and phos has no more energy to go on.

“please,” they say “pray. do it for no one else but me. grant me mercy,” from one bodhisattva to the other. they’re still somewhat normal, but when sensei fails to pray again phos can’t take it anymore. desperation and rage, fueled by hopelessness, worthlessness, grief and exhaustion make phos launch themselves against sensei, which, ironically, it’s exactly what the story needs.

apparently, phos is human enough to activate sensei but not human enough to make him pray. however, when the two of them join hands, sensei can actually pray. maybe it’s because both phos and sensei are intended to be bodhisattva? maybe because human voice commands are not as strong as contact? i have no idea.

phos has snapped by the way, and it’s weird how they go from “If only you weren’t here” to “sensei actually loves me” in a couple of chapters. in a certain way, we’re seeing phos going back to their roots: they love sensei and trust in sensei’s love, they’re once again openly emotional and impulsive, they’re once again ostracized by the gems (of course, much more violently this time).

i have written about how, after ‘fusing’ with sensei for a brief second, phos doesnt speak for the entirety of ch 81. they look and act like a literal monster, a scared animal, which is ironic since we know that they’re now human. i hypothesized that they might be reborn and that’s why they don’t speak, they’re a literal infant, but in light of ch 82, i think they’re simply hurt beyond measure.

they reversed to their old emotional persona, vomiting out all the emotions and pain and rage and hate they repressed during these 300 years. and yet they still don’t hurt anyone, not as much and as deliberately as they could at least.

they’re conscious enough to recognize the notebook and be reminded of their lost friends, realize how little the earth gems care for phos and for what they’re doing. and, i believe, when phos is rescued and comes back to the moon, they are, for the first time in the whole manga, enraged by the earth gems’ stupidity and sheer ungratefulness.

phos has been fighting for the wellbeing of everyone for centuries, putting their life on the line, never asking for anything in return and always believing that they were doing the right thing. and yet it’s not enough.

aechmea is a clever politician, and like every good politician he’s good at picking up changes and turning them in his favor.

he notices that there’s something wrong with phos and with the way they feel about the gems. maybe he doesnt yet realize that phos is angry at them for being ungrateful, but he senses something so he provokes phos: “you said to leave you on earth last time. did you change your mind?” that is “i’m not your enemy. see? im doing what you want me to do. not quite like those people down there on earth. oh, wait, were those your friends? aw, such a pity. to think they attacked you after everything you’ve done for them. but they’re your family, right? i’ll send you back to them if this is what you want. see? i’ll listen to your wishes. i am grateful.”

look how intently he looks at phos as phos incoherently and obsessively repeats the same thing over and over: “he would have prayed. he would have prayed for me. he loves me. he would have prayed.” if you want, this is also a syìubtle way for phos to apologize: they still feel responsible for their failure, but aechmea must understand: phos did everything they could, it would have worked, it was the gems’ fault.

adamant put phos back together, showing phos that he still cares. he is the only one that loves phos, while the gems (all gems, phos doesnt care much for differences at this point) keep hurting phos even if phos is only trying to help. so they must be killed. to hell with them all. and, notice, phos doesnt include themselves in the ‘gem’ category: they’re no longer a lustrous. they’re a monster, a liminal creature.

with nothing left to believe in if not sensei’s love and a promise to make him pray and then die in peace, phos wants to destroy the only thing that they believe stands between them and finally being useful, but also between them and freedom (freedom from suffering, from guilt, from existing, from their pain, from being): the gems.

this isn’t the first time that phos wants to kill something: in ch 68 they spoke about crushing sensei to pieces. it’s heartbreaking how phos went from “if only the moon people weren’t here” to “if only sensei weren’t here” to “if only the gems weren’t here.” will it turn into: “if only i weren’t here?” who are phos’ allies? who does phos feel kinship with? who is phos? they no longer know, and they’ve not known for a long time.

aechmea has noticed and he’s quick to turn the situation to his advantage. he shakes phos’ hand, he’ll grant them freedom just like phos will grant the lunarians’ freedom. he’ll forgive phos for failing, for their sins, for the bottomless despair and guilt that phos has been living with for centuries. salvation, hope, that is all phos needs.

as @rinboz pointed out, phos’ gold in ch 82 takes the shape of a lotus seed pod, a direct reference to when antarc was abducted and the gold had turned into a lotus flower.

through pain, phos had blossomed into a new character that day, marking the beginning of their long journey toward truth and toward discovering that there is no truth. the day the story changed from a coming of age manga to something much, much more intricate.

phos’ pod is empty, they have nothing left to lose, it’s a dead flower. this is the end of the journey that started with antarc’s abduction. when phos wakes up again, it will probably be with new memories and a new addition to their body, possibly red diamond.

phos’ self destruction has reached its apex because it finally became so intense to extend outwards, to other people that, in their immense grief, phos wants to bring down with them. this might be a minuscule form of progress: anger is better than repressing emotions at least, but phos’ problems are far from being solved.

6. on the future

what will be of phos then? it really depends.

the fact that they’re finally showing all that sufferance and those emotions they tried so hard to repress is good, but aechmea is still there to take advantage of it.

phos will never be free as long as they dont associate themselves with someone that truly loves them and as long as they cant find someone that can help them deal with their emotions. aechmea is just using them and only ichikawa knows what he meant when he told barbata to be careful with those 200 years emotions.

theoretically, phos was unconscious during the timelapse, but if there are emotions to treat carefully maybe they weren’t? maybe the change we’ve seen in phos this chapter depends on what they had to endure during that time. or maybe aechmea simply wants to make sure that his pet is easy to use.

i do believe we’re close to the end. i dont know if it will be the end of the series or just the end of phos as we know them. i could hope for something good to finally happen to them and for them to heal, but it would take a therapist or someone that loves phos.

maybe euclase could side up with sensei, they seemed the most concerned about phos’ status and the most prone to believe them. maybe goshe and cicada could do something again, maybe rutile will fix padpa once more and padpa will talk with the earth gems (not very likely, but im throwing theories left and right at this point), or maybe barbata will refuse to follow aechmea’s instructions, at least in part, and try to help phos.

as always, im afraid we’ll have to wait. in the meantime, please hug phos. if you read up to this point hug phos. hug them now and shower them with love, because no one else will

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #hnk #phosphophyllite #meta #best

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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remember how i said i was gonna make kingdom posts? well here we are, it's special stage time! this is mostly for @changdyke, but other people can read it too i guess.

mixed bag overall, some good and some meh. tragic there's no vocals but it's still nice to see the dancers be given some spotlight without the added pressure of another element. would have loved if they had longer than 30sec, but choreographing takes time and i think these probably had to be produced with a quick turnaround.

i'll put ranks + opinions under the cut because it's probably gonna get long.

1. taeyang/sf9

love this stage, easily one of the most aesthetically integrated solo stages i’ve seen in a while. excellent set design and attention to detail, really great choice of carpets as a slippage between floor/wall and ceiling via the connection of the drapes. really excellent example of how to draw a line through all three dimensions of a space. costume is not necessarily the most dramatic moment ever, but fits well within the aesthetic of the stage as a variation on a commonly seen contemporary hanbok styling. bonus points for croptop and cutouts, always superior choices.

also excellent choreo, strong influence of contemp/modern dance makes the movements stand out from the rest. also excellent use of that first slip/split as a hook to keep the viewer invested.

2. minhyuk/btob

the experience shows!!! also double extra bonus points for open back jackets, those are always sexy, 10/10. tbh the only reason i’m ranking him above dk is that this stage is slightly more to my personal tastes, but i’m essentially ranking them on the same plane. love the intergration of the 2nd/early 3rd gen music stage aesthetic, no pretending here that they are anything other than a kpop group and i appreciate that honesty. playing to their strengths, as expected.

3. dk/ikon

another good use of cohesive aesthetic. clear through line between the traditional wall screens and the hanbok, and also strong use of colour as an tie between the traditional elements and the more modern ones (music + lighting). fun kind of retro club vibes. also, boy looks like he’s having fun! one thing that a lot of dancers miss is the fact that the face is huge element of performance! a lot of younger performers get sucked into ‘concentration’ face and sometimes the only way to get out of that is experience. dk has a real flare that uses all the elements at his disposal: face, body, and costume.

4. san/ateez juyeon/tbz lee know/skz

i suspect this is going to be how my opinions are going to be over the course of the show, but i will gladly change my mind according to whatever happens. but all three of these groups have very similar aesthetics and group experience, so its unsurprising that at least for these stages i’m feeling the same way about all three of them. each stage is fine as a whole, but only has one real standout element as opposed to having a unified vision. if anything i’d rank san slighly higher because i think he’s a more compelling performer and has a stronger stage presence than the other two, but there was a lack of interesting costume and staging for him. do love the continued devotion to the tit sling though.

love juyeon’s costume, very interesting accessory detailing and cut, but not a fan of the music. set leaves a lot to be desired also, since there was not a clear connection between all the elements. looks pretty, but too loose for me to really be invested.

and opposite for lee know: thought the costume was mostly bland but the set was interesting enough and connected to the theme. i have strong opionions on all black costumes against black backdrops, because they make your performers look like disembodied heads, which is only made worse if the performer has black hair. although this can be used to very specific effect, i dont think it was used here, or if it was intentional it was too vague. liked the trees + smoke machine combo, although the dripping led strings were a bit too blunt. the wolf on the hand was a fun gimmick, but i’m 90% sure ive seen skz do wolf related gimmicks before and i dont really care for it.

tbh this is kind of what i expected my conclusions to be based off of the previous special stages that we saw, but i’m still hoping to see some interesting surprises.

#i have no idea what to tag this as #kingdom #i need a specific kingdom opinions tag #whatever ill think of one later #its not like there isnt gonna be more of these lol #kpop analysis #text #kingdom review

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patientfocusly · 3 years

Text

major canon divergences

( i don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s a lot lmao. this is more so for me to have a reference because i forget things about my own muse / canon rip. if we’re rping together we’re probably also talking ooc so anything important from this post will be mentioned to you at some point. )

( please note that by canon, i’m referring to my general main verse which includes no interactions with other muses. each interaction with a muse is put into its own verse. new interactions can come into the main verse at any point of the timeline and then diverge from that point. )

does not marry curtis. they noticed each other because they worked closely as part of the atlas crew and maybe if the time and place were different there might’ve been a chance for them to get to know each other and form something but for shiro, there is a lot weighing on his mind that he needs to wade through

( a ) shiro has been thru Sum shit and he has an endless list of reasons to be sad but i just want to make it known that shiro’s no. 1 source of guilt and just general mind-anguish is the fact that he is living in a borrowed body, that he took from someone who had to die for him to live.

( b ) at this stage he is also coming in touch with his feeling for keith which have been with him for a while, so even if he was aware of other potential interests . . . he’s not actually interested back.

adam is alive. he was critically injured in the first wave of attack by sendak and recovered enough only to provide ground support for the second wave. he remains an officer of the garrison and heads training and recruitment. he does not fly again. he’s happily married and reaches out to shiro. they’re amicable, but not close friends. maybe eventually they will be. ( this will obviously not be the case if i’m writing with an adam. )

allura is alive – i need to rewatch the end of season 8 to figure out how, but she’s alive.

after a year or so of captaining the atlas, the need for atlas to be an offensive military ship decreases and shiro consults sam and pidge for their thoughts on deweaponising his prosthesis. The new arm is still powered by allura’s crystal but looks more similar to the galra arm ( except it starts at the shoulder since his bicep??? disappeared magically ), but it’s coloured white and light grey, and the lit up areas are aqua ( same as the crystal. )

speaking of the crystal . . . the original arm was designed to operate via a balmera crystal, because that’s what most of altean designs are based off of. however they didn’t have a crystal to use, and sam says the remaining energy required for the armto work would be drawn from shiro’s own electromagnetic field. he tries it for the first time and . . . his body rejects it, in what looks like an incredibly painful and potentially fatal way, if it hadn’t been for allura stepping in and replacing the original energy source for the arm with the crystal from her tiara. we don’t ever find out why shiro’s body rejected the first energy source but here are 2 theories:

( a ) shiro’s body is actually kuron’s body, a clone, manufactured by haggar, using ~space science~ and likely some form of quintessence. the electro magnetic field coming off of the clone’s body would vary to that of a human’s, which is what sam would’ve based his calculations on. balmera crystals have incredible properties that aren’t really explained in great detail but we know how powerful they can be, regardless of size.

( b ) because it’s kuron’s body, maybe the connection to haggar didn’t completely shut off when keith cut off the arm. that flash that happens when the arm connects and shiro’s body starts rejecting it is very similar to the flash that happens when haggar starts controlling kuron earlier ( better explained in this headcanon piece. ) my only issue with this headcanon is that it implies haggar may still have some degree of control over shiro, and I just………….it’s been so overused, i just don’t want that for shiro anymore, so i’m most likely sticking to theory a !!!!!

still on the subject of the crystal, let’s talk about what shiro says after allura places the balmera crystal in his arm ; “i feel strange . . . i feel – great !” strange, as in he’s feeling something he’s never quite felt before. this is in contrast to what he feels when the first energy source is used in his arm ; “i feel . . . good,” but he sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t feel good at all, and obviously we see why moments afterwards. the great part is emphasised. he almost seems excited, like he really does feel great, and the scene cuts off with him trialling his arm by making a fist, and smiling. again, the properties of the crystals are pretty much undefined, but they are an immense source of power – what allura’s tiara contains is likely more than enough required to power shiro’s arm, and going back to how allura operated the castleship, and how shiro is able to operate the atlas, i’m loosely headcanoning that the crystal acts as a link between “captain” and “ship”, though obviously, allura herself channels quintessence and has so much more capabilities as a “captain.”

what does the crystal providing an energy source for not only the new prosthesis, but also shiro’s body mean for shiro? an external boost of energy and human-compatible quintessence is probably the first dose of anything resembling treatment shiro has had since the kerberos mission. i don’t see the balmera crystal nor altean healing pods having the power to edit genes but as far as healing goes, it must have some effect in alleviating pain and / or fatigue for shiro to exclaim, “i feel great !”

( a ) sometimes it’s difficult to write in a universe set in the future because things of our current reality ( social injustices, shit politics, technological limitations etc. ) may not be a reality say 100 years in the future, and add space and alien technology to the mix and you’re sort of left with a lot of potential for creation and imagination and progression but also hindered by the reality of present day and representing present day. i wouldn’t want to “magic” away shiro’s disease or magically come up with a cure, but at the same time i don’t want to take away the possibility for him to be potentially cured ( which is what the “i feel great !” line hints towards ) just because of the limitations of today ???????? i’m just having an inner conflict over this - i will update what i decide when i decide !!

major fanon divergences

does not qualify as space dad. it simultaneously infantilises the other paladins and takes away from their own journeys of being forced to grow up too quickly and take on the responsibility of fighting in a war, and puts undue stress on shiro who is only ~25 himself responsible for his team only in the role of their commanding officer at best

his prosthetic arm is not a sex toy, it’s a prosthesis ( refer to this post on arm related bed time activities )

shiro did not have a romantic connection with keith pre-kerberos. if anything the earliest signs of anything resembling a romantic connection would be late into season 2, but that is pending heavy plotting

shiro came from a happy family . . . he just lost almost all of it very early on. he grew up loved even though he learnt about loss too quickly ( please refer to this headcanon. )

shiro cannot sing lol . . . i dont know where this headcanon came from, but it’s sticking

i think it’s popular headcanon for shiro to have a little sister, or a big family; i wrote his backstory with his older sister before i came across this, so i’m sticking to my original headcanon because his bond with his sister is so strongly formed in my head

shiro is not afraid of death . . . but he doesn’t want to die. i feel like his relationship with death needs its own post but the tl;dr version of it is that he had a timer put on his life when he was around 17 years old. life goes from seemingly endless to suddenly very very short ( not just in the sense that his lifespan is predicted to be shorter, but that his body will soon restrict him in movement and opportunity. ) and then kerberos happens, and the arena happens, and voltron and zarkon and he’s reminded that life is short regardless of whether they give you a timer at 17. any moment could be his last and shiro has had a long time to come to terms with this. it makes him incredibly grateful for the present, and of what he’s had in the past. it also is potentially why he prioritises a mission that will take him to see the stars, over a relationship with adam ten years down the track.

if anyone makes it this far . . . ur the real mvp, thank u for reading my brain ramblings <3

#━━ ⋅ ✰ ⋆ merry crisis ! ⋮ ❛ headcanon ❜#( headcanon. )#━━ ⋅ ✰ ⋆ aw fuck ! i can’t believe you’ve done this ! ⋮ ❛ ooc ❜

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itsnicamagno · 4 years

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LINK FOR ONLINE BLOG

Journal entry # 1

Iam Nica Veron M. Magno

THEN

NOW

Journal entry # 3

MY MOST EMBARRASING MOMENT

In my 17 years of existence here there are more embarrasing moments happened in my life like when i was a child, i stumble and also approaching stranger that i guess it was my friend or mom, when i was stalking something i untentionally like an old social media post or to backread chats and i untentionally tap it and like it was so embarrass for me. And next when i join modeling like you are the on to wear of the designers gown and like what i am wearing is see trough fit gown like an 90's style and yeah it was transparent and i was not inform for the reason that it is see through and if i could i prepare some color nude underwear and that time my underwear is yellow like summer design and when i was walking through the audience stage i feel so awkward and not comfortable and like i am not interested but nochoice it was part of my experiences again. (HAHAHAHAHA) and now when it flashbacks i smile and like ashamed but nvm. Also actually i am not good at speaking english and i am ashamed of that especially when there is a performance to do like infront of people, i am not confident and i have no choice because it is for compliance. And that was the moment i remember that i feel embarass.

Journal entry # 4

MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER

Dear significant others to my parents, thankyou so much for raising me as a good person as your child, I'm on my step to face challenges as an adolescence stage to meet some responsibilities and as i grow up i am thinking if what is my purpose or plans so i am going to addressed an open letter for you my future plans in life because I am now in my mid-junior high school life. In these days of mine I have some plans and goals in my life, I know since then I love to modeling, have some photoshoots where I can express myself and be confident where I can be able to share in you now in my grade 11 days I am sorry because I have no honor that youve expected from me but Ill make sure to dont give you a failure grade and I wanted to have an honor by grade 12 and I will do my very best so that I can make you happy and proud for that matter to go to stage and get me a medal. In college days Im choosing between teacher or flight attendant but for now I havent decided yet and I hope whenever what course may I take still you are there to support and guide me all the way and I know it that no matter what happen you are there for me especially in the things that it can makes me happy. At the age of 22 by that time Im graduated college and I want to find as early as possible a job so that I can be able to feed myself where I can buy the things that I need and I want and next to save money for my future cause I want to have a car while Im working and have savings also for my coming house of course I want to settle first myself before I can help everyone. Next is to help and sustain my family needs and also to payback in your perseverance and hard work for me to send to school to have a good life. After that I am planning to have a trip where we can travel in every country to spend money and have the best memories that we can take it and be happy. And Ma and Pa I am expecting that you will accept me whenever I enter relationship. I am so thankful, blessed and happy that you are my parents even though sometimes there are things that you cant buy for me its because our money is for needs in house or the things that we really need to get a life and I understand it. Still keep going to achieve my dreams and goals in life by your help and also to the things that I want. Thankyou for everything iloveyou with all my heart.

Journal entry # 4

My life Guide to become a Responsible and Capable Adolescent

1. Teach life skills- means to be more careful on how you act in a society, know your freedom and learn new things, like passion and knowing strengths.

2. Be clear about Consequences- Doing the things that will make you happy is good but knowing you limitations in a good way is important always think for better decisions that you take because you are an adult so you are responsible for consequences.

3. Time management- Schedule is very important it can help you to be more productive also engaging to your chores, homeworks and other activities.

4. Caring for your health and hygiene- It is also important to be more responsible about yourself to start practicing good habits like eat healthy foods, exercise often, practice proper hygiene.

5. Avoid bad doings- avoid involving bad doings such as drugs and alcohol to prevent some bad happenings in your life.

6. Focus on schoolwork - finish your homework doing your best in school is a motivation for future in for your parents perseverance.

7. Get a job- accomplish your goals in life, achieve your dreams encourage to help your community as a good influence to the teens and payback to your parents.

8. Building the right attitude - apply good manners as you exist in a society be good to others and treat them good back.

Journal entry # 5

https://itsnicamagno.tumblr.com/post/631866374946537472/journal-entry-5-how-i-cope-with-stress-a-day

Journal entry # 6

https://itsnicamagno.tumblr.com/post/632403721634119680/journal-entry-6-powers-of-my-mind-how-my-brain

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storywriting · 4 years

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[ Bc yall have foolishly greenlit my Nirvash Headcanon production, here is a general discussion of who I think Nirvash is and I’ll thank you to give me excuses to be more specific. ]

First things first. The Nirvash is the first creature Eureka ever had a conversation with or considered her friend. While Eureka had to learn to speak to people, the ability to communicate with her own kind is one of the few things she was born knowing, so she took to Nirvash right away. The Nirvash is unfortunately one of the main factors that ended up landing her as an emotionally stunted military dog instead of having a normal life where she is nurtured and fully educated by humans. I honestly think if the folks in the lab hadn’t realized her piloting potential, Eureka would have been raised as a completely different person. Since science had never been able to crack the Nirvash typeZERO, she was very valuable to have. They didn’t waste their budget on anything else once they knew that.

I also think the Nirvash had never been called Nirvash by people prior to the discovery of Eureka. Nirvash was exclusively called the typeZERO until Eureka was able to communicate enough to tell humans the name.

Vaguely related, Eureka’s name is also not human given because she is named after an event experienced by the scub coral and it doesn’t make sense to me that humans in 11005 or whatever would think to name her after something that happened in like 2005. Eureka’s name comes from the very first time Scub Coral entered Earth’s atmosphere, where it crashed into a satellite and was forced to make a home in the Earth’s oceans. Based on what Sakuya says, it’s likely that the whole of the coralian system became aware when it was decided Eureka would be born. Nirvash likely told Eureka her own name if she didn’t already know it herself.

Archetypes are sexless, so as one might expect, Nirvash doesn’t have a particular concept or interest in gender identity. Eureka calls Nirvash “he” in the original series dub and “she” in all future adaptations. I suspect that using “he” might have originally been a mistake by the localization team since Nirvash isn’t voiced until the very end and the Japanese language doesn't really ever require a speaker to designate a gendered pronoun. Whether it was a mistake or on purpose, I tend to explain this by just saying that Eureka copied the words other people used whenever she would personify the Nirvash to them. That would be in line with her character.

Eureka also speaks about Nirvash like a child quite often even though Nirvash is most certainly an older life form than she is. I suspect this is to do with a difference in experience and the higher barriers of understanding for a creature like Nirvash. Put simply, Nirvash is a less developed creature than Eureka is.

In the AU movie archetypes arent the same type of creature as in the main series--they were made or evolved differently. In the film, the Larval Nirvash is somewhat intelligent. Larval Nirvash pays attention to people and tries to participate in conversations despite being unable speak. 10/10 very tiny and cute and runs around, always doing their best.

I honestly believe that main series Nirvash has a similar temperament and level of intelligence to this AU iteration. Also, the way Eureka speaks about Nirvash, like a child, in my mind supports the idea that the Nirvash is capable only of very simple thoughts and ideas early on. Nirvash isn't enlightened, per se. At least not at the beginning. Nirvash is a failed attempt at making a person. It makes sense that Nirvash would be less advanced. If we could hear Nirvash's early conversations with Eureka, I suspect Nirvash's interests and concerns would sound pretty simplistic. I hesitate to compare Nirvash to any stage of human development tbh, mostly because it seems like Nirvash is very intelligent about certain things (like in battle, Nirvash makes very strategic choices), but probably couldn't even match a toddler on other things. Emotional intelligence, for example, is probably something that takes a while for Nirvash to pick up even the tiniest shred of. Still, Nirvash's wants and feelings do seem to become slightly less simplistic over time. Still simple compared to a person, but the feedback Eureka gives originally is like "nirvash is happy" and by the end it's more like "nirvash feels x complex way because of what they did when x happened and how it turned out". Put simply, Nirvash knows what Nirvash knows, but not much else. Nirvash is maybe like Eureka in that regard. They're in their own weird stage of development where some of their stats are maxed and some of them are like...what are you even doing. I also pretty strongly headcanon that, like Eureka, Nirvash's understanding of the world and of humans is growing as the series progresses, which I think is fairly substantiated but rarely addressed directly.

As the audience we don't get to see the way Nirvash communicates very often, especially not in any direct easy-to-be-understood-by-people fashion. If you want to learn anything about Nirvash as a viewer you have to speculate based on the few times Nirvash displays some will of her own, or go by the very little information Eureka gives about what Nirvash is thinking. Eureka is somewhat private about her relationship with Nirvash at times, which I find interesting, but that’s a topic for another post.

I pretty strongly headcanon that Nirvash sort of dislikes people, or at the very least, mistrusts the ones she doesn’t know. I believe this because Nirvash outright refuses to be piloted, even by people with compac drives. Compac drives are the "keys" humans use to communicate with LFOs, but LFOs cant really communicate back. We know that Nirvash for whatever reason really didnt want to be piloted, but then Nirvash met Eureka and felt willing to activate for her because they could converse and agree on things. No compac drive required for that. Nirvash will fly for Eureka because they can have a relationship that is a two way street. It doesn’t require the kind of faith Nirvash would need to let a human do whatever they wanted.

I suspect when Eureka is piloting there is a lot of give and take. They're discussing what they should do. They compromise on a course of action by combining their understanding. The trouble any time there is something going on between the Nirvash and Eureka is that it's not a conversation the audience gets to hear. We just have to watch and do our best to interpret

I think that over time Nirvash comes to appreciate and even like some humans and seeks methods of communication with ones she vibes with. Ultimately the Nirvash does become more able to understand and commune with people because Eureka acts as a cultural bridge between them. I really like the idea that Nirvash becomes interested in communicating with humans in the limited ways available to her, but only after spending a lot of time with Eureka and taking a shine to Renton. I also know the show gives Nirvash a clear human sounding voice that makes understandable words but I honestly hc that Nirvash sounds more abstract than that in most situation. Like idk, machine noises, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites™ or something like that. I think if a human was able to hear Nirvash in any passive sort of way, it probably wouldn’t really sound like language. Eureka can always understand Nirvash but if you're Renton or maybe Ao just hanging around and are somehow catching bits and pieces of that consciousness floating in the air it's gonna feel weird and garbled in your brain unless you're able to make that more direct connection with the Nirvash somehow. It's just not natural to humans, it's not their first language.

On the subject of Nirvash getting on with humans, there is eventually a situation where Renton has to pilot the Nirvash himself. This is on the tail end of Eureka being really down and not really explaining why. Sometimes when she touches the Nirvash she starts to bleed and it becomes clear that The Girls Are Fighting™️. When Eureka sees Renton piloting she is taken aback by the fact that Nirvash would allow somebody other than her to pilot alone. Also, she comments on how that's 'not Nirvash's style'. It's left ambiguous what exactly her meaning is there, but she becomes pretty upset. There are a few ways I've interpreted it, though it's hard to pin down exactly. One possibility is that she’s upset because Renton and Nirvash Did A Violence. Alternatively it could be because the fighting Eureka saw from them was obviously more of Renton's own will than the give and take she prefers with the Nirvash. Another option is that Renton is not imposing his will, but rather bringing out something in Nirvash Eureka doesn't recognize and isn't comfortable with being a stranger to. Eureka is at this point very stressed that the Nirvash wont talk to her. She seems to go from very excited that Renton makes the Nirvash happy to very distressed that Renton is changing her relationship with the Nirvash. Nirvash is probably one of the only relationships Eureka has where she is comfortable and feels she is on the same page nearly all the time, so it's jarring for that to be challenged or changed.

A lot of the conflict with nirvash is never clarified in stone, but we know for sure that Renton causes Eureka to change and that's a big deal for everybody involved. Nirvash and Eureka don't really know change before this. In terms of Nirvash’s opinion, we know mostly about the parts Eureka reacts to, but if you think about it we dont really find out why Nirvash likes Renton in the first place or what initially caused Nirvash to becomes less open with Eureka. It's hard to place exactly what the conflict is. Just that it involves Renton and it involves this change. Despite Eureka being the best creature humanty has for communicating with Archetypes there are still certain barriers between them. They are the same creature, but theyre vastly different versions of the same creature with vastly different capabilities and experiences. Nirvash and Eureka will inevitably end up in situations where they don’t see eye to eye if for no other reason than their mental and sensory experience is vastly different from one another. I suspect that Nirvash is at times jealous of Eureka going off and having experiences and relationships with others, in the same way Eureka gets jealous when Nirvash seems to prefer Renton over her.

That all said, I do think Nirvash does have some sense of right and wrong even without Eureka’s guidance, but Eureka shows evidence of chiding or suggesting morality to the Nirvash throughout. Things like compassion and a moral compass seem to be way more pronounced for Nirvash later on in the series, after like 40 episodes of bonding and getting into and out of trouble together. Again, we can’t know all the details because the audience doesn’t get any unfiltered version of Nirvash’s perspective, but we know for sure that Eureka (and eventually Renton) is very very important to her even when the they are in conflict. In turn, Eureka regularly demonstrates that she trusts Nirvash implicitly and seems to respect Nirvash's judgement in many kinds of situations. The Nirvash is a member of the family through and through. She’s always down to help the cause, and she appreciates the great privilege involved in having a front row seat to Eureka’s experience. The Nivash has had an unprecedented opportunity to become enlightened about other creatures in ways the rest of the Scub Coral could not. In another life Nirvash could have had any number of destinies, possibly even safer ones with less strife and less change. She was never essential to the plan of putting yet another humanoid coralian into the world and could have moved for anybody else and had a completely different life. Maybe in times of conflict Nirvash thinks about that, but if there’s one thing that’s canon as hell I know that Nirvash would never trade away being loved by the Storywriter.

We stan a queen.

#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹Tabula Rasa⊹ — 「 Headcanon 」#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹To Be Continued⊹ — 「 OOC 」#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹Little One⊹ — 「 Nirvash 」#cut bc #long post

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putschki1969 · 5 years

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Hello, Sara. My name is Claire and I am also a huge fan of Kalafina. In the light of their disband (I dont wanna use this word this makes me sad :( ), I still listen their music every single day. With all my Kalafina enthusiasm, your detail information about Kalafina was really helpful and cleared few things up in my mind. While I have been reading your posts, there are a lot of your thoughts and feelings toward Kalafina that I agree with. So I do appreciate your effort and kindness.

Okay, this is my first time I am using tumblr. didnt know they have limited number of words. So my question is that I know you posted that why Yuki Kajiura left Space Craft due the change of her manager if I remember correctly. And the manager did not allow Kajiura to make music in her own preferences. Do you think this intervention affected Kajiura’s work afterwards. Because when far on the water was released, I thought the way she composes music was a lot different than before.

Hello Claire!

Yes, disbandment does sound very final so it’s really not a word I enjoy hearing in relation to Kalafina. However, I understand why Space Craft decided to use that term. It was time for them to make a clear cut so they could move forward.

No matter what, I am positive that one day they will stand on stage together (even if it is just for a single reunion-live). It will probably take years but it’s definitely going to happen.

Just like you I still listen to Kalafina and their solo projects regularly. I know some people find it painful to relive the old days but I personally find nothing but joy diving into Kalafina’s world again and again.

I am really glad my posts have been helpful. After all, spreading Kalafina-love is the sole purpose of this blog.

Yeah, sorry, Tumblr has quite a lot of character-limits when it comes to asks/messages/replies. Unlike many other social media platforms, Tumblr has not been designed with a focus on interaction (which is probably one of the reasons I chose to create my blog here XD).

Yes, Yuki’s long-time manager Mori ended up leaving Space Craft which in turn led to Yuki ending her contract as well. He had always given her some measure of free rein to do what she wanted. Generally speaking they have always been pretty close. In many of her old and new interviews Yuki talks a lot about wanting to have full control over what she creates. Which is why she was super excited to get the Kalafina project for Kara no Kyoukai. Space Craft put their faith in her and as we know, Yuki spun them gold. That’s not to say that she had control over everything. Creatively speaking, yes, I think she was allowed to make whatever she felt was best. However, the concept of Kalafina as we know them is almost entirely Space Craft’s brainchild. Yuki never meant to form a group with steady members and she definitely did not intend for the singers themselves to have so much spotlight. Let’s not forget, for Yuki, vocalists are really nothing more than human instruments. That’s totally fine of course but Space Craft knew that Kalafina wouldn’t have had a long life expectancy if things had gone according to Yuki’s vision. As a business-minded agency they naturally decided to use typical idol marketing strategies to promote Kalafina. It started with little things but gradually Kalafina became more and more “commercial” if you will. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing. Good music alone unfortunately isn’t enough to survive in the Japanese music industry, you have to cater to the masses. And that’s what they did. Endless photo-heavy merch, lots of mainstream anime tie-ins, more elaborate stage productions, tons of appearances in popular events/TV programs etc…It’s those things that made their fanbase grow considerably which eventually led to them being able to perform THREE times at Nippon Budokan.

So yeah, what I am trying to say is that while Yuki gradually lost control over Kalafina as a “product” I don’t believe she ever yielded an inch when it came to her creative process. All the music she wrote was written because she wanted to write it, I am convinced of that. She doesn’t strike me as the type of person to phone in her work. Yes, her style has undergone some changes throughout the years (which weren’t always met with appreciation by fans) but for the most part I would say she has stayed faithful to her unique style (which most gifted composers do).

When “far on the water” was produced and released back in 2015 Mori was still Yuki’s manager and everything was perfectly fine. Any changes you might have noticed were absolutely on purpose. No one made Yuki do anything or guided her in a particular direction. This album is entirely her own vision and she loved making it, she has talked a lot about that in various interviews. She was also brimming over with further ideas for a new album which she was eager to produce (but alas, that never happened).

Things didn’t start falling apart until early 2017 when Mori left Space Craft (things didn’t seem to be perfectly peachy in late 2016 either but that’s reaching a bit too far). The changes from then onwards were very visible. Mori stopped being featured in the FictionJunction Club newsletters, the launch of Kalafina’s very own fan club Harmony was announced, all sorts of YK Lives went on hiatus, Kalafina’s 6th studio album which technically would have been due that year was never made, all focus went into increasing Kalafina’s live activities. I cannot say if at that point everyone had already predicted Kalafina’s fate and Space Craft were just milking the cow for all it’s worth or if that was a genuine effort to keep Kalafina alive as long as possible. I am leaning towards something in the middle of these two options. I think everyone involved had hoped for a better ending (or rather - no ending at all) but along the way (autumn 2017 I would say) it became clear to them that it wouldn’t work out.

I never outright said that the new management didn’t allow Yuki to do her own thing. Honestly, I have no idea if whoever replaced Mori was planning to take control of Yuki’s music. I suspect however that the new management might have wanted to take more of a lead which definitely would have put off Yuki… While tabloid articles have talked about creative differences between Yuki and the new manager, Yuki herself has never confirmed that that was the reason for her leaving (not that she ever would even if it were true). Yuki did however confirm in one of her FictionJunction Station newsletters that she no longer felt comfortable going on tour since she didn’t have the people around that she could trust. Maybe for a similar reason she didn’t feel like making a new Kalafina album which is why they had to focus so heavily on live activities that year.We are all creatures of habit. Yuki seems to only feel comfortable with Mori around. That’s fine. The only logical thing to do for her was follow his lead and leave Space Craft. Unfortunately she couldn’t take Kalafina with her so they ended up being collateral damage…*sighs*

And here we have another essay, sorry about that. it wasn’t my intention to write so much. My point is that I believe that in her time with Space Craft nothing/no one affected Yuki’s creative work, from the very first song “oblivious” right up until “Tombo” all songs are 100% Yuki and they were written/composed with much love, effort and dedication. Fans may not like everything she has created throughout the years but that’s just how life works. They have a hard time computing the fact that their favourite composer might have changed to an extent that they can’t appreciate anymore or that they themselves have developed different preferences. In such cases fans are eager to find someone to blame for that. Since they would rather not blame their idol Yuki they resort to blaming Space Craft. Space Craft have certainly done a lot of shitty stuff throughout the years but it would never cross my mind to make them responsible for Yuki’s music because that has always been under her control.

Really, you shouldn’t be blaming anyone. These things happen, people change, people fall out of love with something. It’s easy to complain and lament the old days but what you have to do is just accept it, move forward and find something else.

#kalafina #reply #yuki kajiura #long text post #random talking #space craft #clairea1009 #sunday musings

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ladysophiebeckett · 4 years

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my brief review on what i watched on netflix this xmas season:

virgin river: i skimmed watched this as in , like, I watched the first episode all the way through and then skipped ahead to different scenes bc it was so slow. it takes forever for this show to get to the point. the main character runs away to the middle of nowhere, north california (fm los angeles) bc of some mysterious trauma they only show in brief flashbacks. did her husband leave her? did he die? was it bc she couldn’t have a baby? did he not want a baby? I dont know. im still not sure. she’s a nurse but the doctor she’s supposed to work for is old and sexist and doesnt let her do her job. and this goes on for like, maybe the whole 10 episode season. the mayor is his ex wife??? i found that out by luck and also she’s super nosy. they keep saying every body knows every body in virgin river, i have to believe it bc only 5 ppl are ever shown. this show sucked 2\10 bc the scenery is nice.

three days of christmas\dias de navidad: netflix this year is really into foreign language xmas mini series. this one is fm spain. it is three episodes long, about 4 sisters and the different stages of their life. the first episode is really good. an entire family kinda commits murder by not saving this really terrible officer’s and by doing so they save a girl’s life. she becomes the 4th sister by adoption. after that, it becomes kind of...i dont like what happens to these women afterwards. I dont like their idea of sisterhood. it’s not badly acted. i watched it all the way through bc i wanted to know what was gonna happen. if anything that first episode is really good. 7\10 bc a family that commits murder, should stay together.

home for christmas\Norwegian mini series: six 30 min episodes of a nurse who’s single and made to feel bad by her family bc she’s alone so she lies at a family dinner and says she has boyfriend to bring for xmas dinner. the premise is solid. she goes on dates but theyre all terrible. one guy tells her that her favorite movie ‘love actually’ sucks. another, loses it at an escape room and then causes a fight at xmas party bc she rejected him, another is really into sports and fitness. i expect these things but the series loses me when they have her, a 30 yr old, date a 19 year old for most of these episodes. and then get dumped by him and then have her cry about it. an older female nurse shows interest in her and almost goes down on her on a bus but the show doesn’t let them progress further. they even have the character go a bad spa date with a much older polititian who was her patient, but again it doesnt go further than that bad date (in which she runs into parents--at a nude spa). there is a male doctor who you can tell is interested in her but is shy but they never let that develop either. they only have him tell her his feelings for her at the very end. on top of that she has roomate\’best’ friend who doesn’t respect her privacy, messes with her dating profile, burns all her presents down and somehow at the end gets rewarded with a boyfriend. everybody has somebody by the end except the main character. it ends with the doorbell ringing and her answering the door and then roll credits. absolutley not worth ur time. 1\10.

holiday secrets\german mini series: this is like spain’s \three days of christmas but also like mamma mia?? bc of a missing dad?? there’s a character fm the past named ‘alma’ which i thought was nice. and also two sisters instead of four. the younger sister is kind of annoying. and that’s all i can tell you bc i feel asleep while watching and i didnt have the energy to try again. 5\10 bc my name is in it and there’s nice beach scenery.

falling inn love: this isnt a xmas movie as it came out in the early fall i just feel the need to vouch that it is a very good little romcom. christina millian is so charming and the male lead is very good looking. and its very rare for these types of movies to have two attractive leads. 9\10

holly holiday: this is not on netflix, its on hulu. and its misleading. its about a male mannequin coming to life but he isnt the male lead. it’s some photographer who works with the female lead who is an ad exec. the photographer guy is really annoying hipster dude who thinks he’s knows things. anyway the female lead gets hit in the head and gets rescued by the mannequin and im gonna tell u rn that this plays into the ‘it was all dream’. she only dreamt the mannequin came to life and instead she was in the hospital with a head injury for 3 days. she ends up with the annoying photographer. the writers of this movie were legit cowards for not letting her fall in love with a mannequin who becomes human via the power of christmas. 0\10.

the knight before christmas: i wanted to love this. i admire how they allowed things to happen with no explanation. but there were no stakes in this. and its sadly, kinda forgettable. 7\10 bc hudgens is too charming for her own good and i had some good laughs.

the christmas prince: a royal baby--i did watch this and it will be getting its own post. however...for ratings sake...and perhaps i am sentimental but...8\10

the spirit of christmas: if you watched ‘last christmas’ this season , like i did, and you hated it--well the spirit of christmas is for you. it delivers what you need out of the romcom\ghost genre. i watch it every year. 10\10. is that biased? maybe. idc.

#alma watches xmas movies

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sentofighta · 4 years

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on the previous post note; muses’ affection expression (if they have partner or not)

Einar

he will let you pet and feed his cat. make his food because he HATES homemade food. compromise and let you hug him whenever you want. fix his clothes or touch his head. now to harder level. comfortable with you seeing his right magetik arm. comfortable with you seeing his bare chest with the scar and tattoo. sleep next to him and hug him while sleeping. will hug back because he will definitely want to hug you back (no sniff your hair shut up.) will use cat to talk to you because he is embarrassed to ask if you want to do something or go out. let you kiss him whenever you want. starts headbutting your back whenever he wants attention because he is a literal cat. pURRS when he is given attention. will start hugging you from the back maybe even carry you so he can sit you on his lap because he wanna hug all of you. he is tall sonvabinch he probably think of you as his cat. is it bad? idk. talk to him not me. excuse him to stop being shy about his fetish and sniff your hair because u definitely have nice smell mm yes.

Eight

redirects. innocent af. ok but shows up to ask if you wanna join his training. jogs nearby where you are/sit so he can see you. does the oh coincidence thing but it is not. will climb a tree to pick up an apple for you if you looked at it. stares into your general direction but has the cool calm poker face to cover it up at first. blushes a little whenever he sees you because you make his heart go boom boom and he did not feel like this before. the i might be sick because i feel weird whenever i see this person. sudden realization because he actually has good amount of smart braincells that he is in love. it could either go i am going to forget this because we are at war and i cant get distracted OR this is new for me and i am interested in knowing more about this route. whichever route you are bound to hyper active tiny boyfriend who will punch people for you. and has like the purest smile ever. have you seen my son smile that he obliterated the sun and the moons? yeah.

Machina

actually knows how to flirt when he wants to. generally nice and caring to all but extra for his crush. will show up magically whenever you need help because he has the sixth sense (thanks to his fear lol) will help you study and train if you wished for it! hey wanna.....talk about chocobos? wiggle eyebrows. do you believe in collecting chocobo feathers? because my wish was granted; talking to you. will confess at the right time because he cant hide his feelings anymore. will hug and kiss you every time he sees you if you allowed him--well, hugs mostly because he likes being around you. obligatory nap around the chocobos. brushing your hair and playing with it definitely. h*ND h*LDING !!!!!!! EXTREME! carries you like the princess you are because he loves you to bits. high affection when he carries u, sits u on his lap then wraps his dracula cape around you both. just the cape wrapping is his thing because now you are so close to him and chu when no one is looking. ok the final stage could be you see him crying because lets face it he fucked up a lot haha~~~ u know ~~ usual machina dumb onagiri kyun stuff.

Zack

EXTREME FLIRTING WHAT IS GOOD BOY? are you an angel? can i offer my services for you?? stronk boy and soldier impressed or what? head pats. h*nd h*ldong god at an early stage because he means it. will make your wishes come true even if you wanna go to the moon. will make stuff for you. smiles brightly shinra uses him to generate electricity. tells u a lot that he is proud of you. tells u a lot he likes you. tells you a lot that he will protect you (and if u fight bonus that you willhave his back too) treasures everything you do and call you cute. doting boyfo. actually very softy will cry if you put on a sad movie. carries you a lot because he has the stronk to do it. are you impressed x2?????? i love you~~~ hey hey do you know what? i love you~ listens to you and to your rambling. will beat up anyone who hurts you. excuse him to nap on you because this is his best spot. a lot of hugs. expect a lot of them hugs. hugs. hUGS. hes more of cheek and forehead chus because they are more playful but will give lip kiss if it was more serious and important situation.

Sohrab

. . . .if he allowed you to be near him when he is synthesizing that is the first step. initiate a conversation himself EVEN if he does not have anything to ask out of you. actually keep an eye on your vitals because you are...important test subject. makes things for you but calls them test items and he does not need them so take them. maybe he can slip a gift or two because he felt like it. does not nap around strangers but around you he is...fine. actually tells you he might see you in a different light but unsure how so dont expect much. gradually he will let you be close to him maybe touch his face or hair. no hugs or sudden kisses yet but if he prepared himself..it might be allowed. he is good at pip talk. also expect some sewing because mommy taught him how! count on him to fix things for you. gets tiny upset if you dont give him your broken things to fix or mend them. rely...on me ok? i may not be a strong fighter but....i can do other things. rare moment of a smile will definitely melt your heart. once he make up his mind, he will ask if you are willing to stick with a madman who probably likes science and alchemy maybe a little bit than you?

Lucina

hey. wanna spar? compliment you a lot. smiles!!!!!!!!! more spar please. actually make effort to find you around many people but does not approach. just seeing you makes her happy for some reason. smile and wave. spar???????? talk to you more! compliment you for doing good job! now you have her watch your back and be a little bit reckless to protect you. apologize but she is not sorry to protect you. b-because you are an important friend . . . . . friend ? ? ? ? lucina exe crush down. goes to read books about this explosion in her chest every time she sees you. books say to act natural. time to ignore you for a bit because it is said in the book play hard to get. regret decision when you mention if you did something wrong she will aPOLOGIZE ALOTALOTALOT! NO YOU DIDNT DO ANYTHING WRONG IMSRRRYYYYY. new tactic. spar??????????????????????????????? please notice me. more effort in cooking things you like for the lunch break. you might die of poisoning but it is made with love!!!!! spar. . . . realize she cant confess, she cant express herself but in a spar. uses spar to tell you that she might be perhaps like you!!!!!!!! that is why she wanna be stronger!!!!!!!!!!!! blushing princess lucina of ylisse you will be executed by her dad if you make her cry. but actually cries if you say you like her back. cue her sudden doubts because not fit enough to be a ‘woman’ since she knows next to nothing about how to be a good partner. will promise to trust you and her heart. NAGA ALLOWS FOR AND HOLDING !!!!!!!!!!!!!! then she can be comfortable with hugs after tiny bit. you could for chus and she wouldnt mind but have mercy on her kokoro. expect her to chus your cheek every time she sees you because my S-support for life~

Roland

does not beat around the bushes. if he likes someone and is sure will confess. easy. got the ok he will start with whatever they are comfortable with. naga has blessed this and allowed hand holding. lets go for a picnic in the forest or anywhere. animals come because he is their friend! now you are animals friend because you are his girlfriend. very gentleman. does not do anything 18+. plus he probably cant due to his OCD so you are the only one after lucina he can hold her hand no problem. dont worry he may like his sister but he does not speak about her when you are around. leans against you and you can too! tells u he trust you so much. lets climb a tree and enjoy the scenery. or we can ride on Vesperus, his horse! listens to you and actually try to give you advice if he can. a courtesy kiss to your cheek~! he is trying his best! smiles from his heart it has been a long time someone made him feel loved like this.

Aiden

go home she is a narcissist. but if someone managed she is just a dumb who will make your life miserable because she will prank the shit out of you at first. slowly warms up to the idea she likes someone. has a pretty good idea about where you were what were you doing ect because she was watching. she is watching you. make sure you have eaten. have you slept? compliment you if you impressed her. be more comfortable to rehearse her lines around you. asks you to help her rehearse. wanna play something together lets say walk on a tight rope??????? lol wuss. no hugs or touching till now. admits she might have something for you but....you may not like to be with an orphan of no lineage. pass that? well, then are you ready to accept she is criminal? pass that then are you ready to accept she is going to make you regret this choice??? because she will make every day of your life like a circus! excuse her to sweep your hand to hold it and tug you somewhere only for the two of you. let her hold your hand for a bit it is ...nice. leans against you.

Balan

listen....i dont want to joke about this but...he is...probably over the human interactions because he married his job but i assure you he is very loyal man. thats it.

Feiruz

yEEELLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! does not realize she loves you until one of her sisters point she mentions you like ten times in every conversation. is very kind and pure and diligent. will not force herself on you in any way just subtly gives you the things you like after going through the trial and error a couple of times! keeps notes of you in her ‘People journal’ because she is a scatterbrain. maybe draw a tiny heart around your name shhh love interest. is very happy and loud when she sees you!!!!! HE-LLLOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! asks about your health and if you had eaten properly and slept well. offers more gift from her own farm to impress you with her work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! smiles~~~~ smiles even more around you because you make her happy. does not confess. she is not the type to. more like i will just watch because deep inside believes she can be loved due to some bullying in school and only her fam likes her (who likes a scatterbrain who keeps messing things up???) if you confess expect waterfall and ugly crying because she cant believe it is happening ;;;;a;;;; promises to do her best to make you happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she will do her best to make you happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 you made her happy beyond words and now just she clings to you please dont be upset with her she will do her best to not cause any trouble! but she bounces back and runs to bake something for this occasion~ time to feed boyfo! say ah~ be ready for fatting sessions because she will cook and bake a lot of things!! well, when she has time after her farm work now she is super excited and motivated! is shy but will give cheek chus if she can reach. likes to tug your shirt from behind so you can lower yourself so she can properly give you a kiss to your cheek/forehead. wishes you best of luck in your job!!!!!!!!!!! good luck!!! come home h-h-h-h-h-h-h...eeeeh....h-h-h-..HONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;;;U;;;

#⌈⌈ooc. (faty speaks)#⌈⌈building up. (einar)#⌈⌈building up. (feiruz)#⌈⌈building up. (aiden)#⌈⌈building up. (eight)#⌈⌈building up. (machina)#⌈⌈building up. (zack)#⌈⌈building up. (sohrab)#⌈⌈building up. (lucina)#⌈⌈building up. (roland)#⌈⌈building up. (balan)#//i have no idea what does this do but ehre you go #//i cry....#//i love my children #//me: dont come if you are after look #//aslo me: mY MUSES ARE PRETTY AND SEXY AND JUST COME

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kanasmusings · 5 years

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[Translation] TsukiPro Special CD - Starry Sky Collection Track 2

Yay~! This time, it’s VAZZROCK!! Next one is Mamoru and Koki’s and then the rest of the Yaminabe series dramas ww

Thank you once again to Deea for the files~! Please don’t ask her as per her request, thank you!

Also, Sho briefly mentions the story behind Lyra the constellation so, please do give it a read to understand it completely ^^

※ Please don’t re-post these translations without permission. Instead of reposting, please just like/reblog instead ^^

Under the cut, enjoy~!

Track 02: [心揺さぶる音楽を -こと座ベガ-] “Music that Shakes the Heart – from the Constellation of Lyra – Vega”

Mamiya Takaaki, Kira Ouka, Onoda Sho, and Nadumi Ruka

[0:00]

MAMIYA: Everyone, thank you very much. We’ll leave the rest to you.

SHO: We’ll leave it in your care.

SHO: We’ll be taking our leave now.

OUKA: Thank you very much for today.

RUKA: Thank you~!

SHO: Now then, thank you for the hard work once again.

MAMIYA: Good work.

OUKA: Great job.

RUKA: Yay~! We all did well!

SHO: With this, VazzRaji’s first season recording is now finished.

SHO: Our party with the staff is over as well and now all we need to do is return to the dorms.

SHO: I heard that if we go straight home from here, it’s not that far but…

SHO: Takaaki, do you want to call a taxi?

MAMIYA: Ah, that’s right. Let’s call for one by the main street.

MAMIYA: But, uh… Can I ride a different one (from yours)?

OUKA: A different one? Where do you plan on going?

MAMIYA: Don’t look at me with such cold eyes~ I just feel like going for a little walk.

MAMIYA: If I walk from here to the dorm…

RUKA: If we’ll trust the map application, it’d take about 10 minutes!

MAMIYA: See? That’s what he said. It’s not really that far.

MAMIYA: I was just thinking of walking around to feel a bit refreshed.

MAMIYA: That much is fine, isn’t it?

RUKA: Ah! Then, I’ll do the same~! I don’t really like the smell of taxis and I try avoiding them as much as possible.

RUKA: Also, I ate a looooott of meat and rice so I wanna exercise a bit!

RUKA: And so~ Takaaki-kun, can I go with you~?

MAMIYA: Of course, you’re welcome to~! Let’s take it easy together, ‘kay?

RUKA: Alrighty~!

OUKA: (sighs) Ruka, if you walk back to the dorms from here, won’t it override your calorie intake?

RUKA: Non, non, non, Ouka-kun~ Doing things when you feel like doing them is important, too!

RUKA: In other words, there’d be no feelings of guilt lingering!

OUKA: Is it like that?

RUKA: Yes, it is! It’s kinda the same as when women go shopping.

RUKA: “Oh, I might find some use for this,” they say and then they end up buying more than intended~

RUKA: In my case, I say “I’ll lose it all in practice tomorrow” and then I eat as much as I can!

RUKA: If you say that, you won’t feel as guilty! Doing the things you love sometimes is important, too~

RUKA: It’s essential, right~?

OUKA: I see… That’s deep.

MAMIYA: By the way, I only want to walk, okay?

SHO: Yes~ I don’t really have any feelings of guilt but, can I join you for your night walk?

MAMIYA: Oh~ Sho, you wanna walk, too?

SHO: Yes, I’m the same as you, Takaaki.

SHO: Heading straight back to the dorms feels like a waste and somehow, I’m in the mood to walk, too.

SHO: I had so much fun a while ago that I feel like wanting to enjoy your company for a while longer.

MAMIYA: In Sho’s case, isn’t it just because you had too much to drink?

MAMIYA: You’re looking quite pale, y’know~? See? (Mamiya touches Sho’s hand) Your hand’s a bit warm, too.

SHO: (chuckles) Is that so? Well, maybe it is, since Takaaki’s hand feels cool and nice.

RUKA: Were you bad at handling your alcohol, Sho-kun?

RUKA: Like, your head feels floaty whenever you drink?

SHO: Hmm… I don’t think I’m particularly bad or good.

SHO: Though, it’s true that my head feels kind of floaty but, it doesn’t really go beyond that.

RUKA: Heh~ I’ll remember that~

SHO: Hm? Why would you want to remember that?

RUKA: When I know what my friends’ limits are, I can help them when they’re troubled about what to drink next or when they’re about to pass out, right~?

RUKA: I can handle my alcohol well so don’t hesitate to rely on me, ‘kay~

SHO: Thank you. Ruka’s very kind and reliable, huh?

MAMIYA: ROCK DOWN’s bonds are so dazzling~

MAMIYA: Alright! Then, Ouka will go home first in a taxi and then—

OUKA: Wait. Do you really think I’m that much of a loner to go home by taxi when you’re all walking?

MAMIYA: Yeah.

OUKA: (Ouka grabs Mamiya by the necktie) You should at least lie in a situation like this.

MAMIYA: (with a pained voice) O-O-Ouka-kun… Ouka-kun? Don’t pull my necktie…! My neck’s gonna fall off…!

MAMIYA: My neck’s gonna snap…!

RUKA: (smiles) VAZZY’s bonds are so tight, huh~!?

SHO: Ouka, calm down~

OUKA: Tch.

RUKA: So, that means~ Ouka-kun’s gonna walk with us?

OUKA: I am. Now that that’s decided, let’s get going.

OUKA: Let’s go. Hurry up and go.

RUKA: Yes sir~

MAMIYA: Y-yes…

[05:00]

RUKA: (singing) ♪ Let’s go on a walk, let’s go on a walk~! ♪

RUKA: (singing) ♪ I am the great Ruka-kun~! ♪

SHO: (chuckles) Ruka’s in a good mood, huh?

OUKA: I’d understand if that was his energy after drinking but, I’m surprised that he’s naturally like that.

OUKA: In a way, he’s pretty energetic.

MAMIYA: That’s to be expected. Ruka’s a stage actor after all.

MAMIYA: I think he’s got more energy than a certain someone here~ He’s got pretty great stamina.

OUKA: I see.

SHO: I’m so sorry, Ouka. We ended up going home by walking.

OUKA: Ah, no. If I’m being honest, I was the same as everyone else. I felt like going for a walk.

OUKA: That’s why you don’t have to mind it.

MAMIYA: Oh my~! You’re quite honest with Sho, aren’t you, Ouka?

OUKA: If someone tells me something directly, I answer as honestly as I can.

OUKA: That’s all there is to it.

MAMIYA: In other words, you’re rebellious when it comes to me?

RUKA: (smiles) Walking like this together with everyone feels kinda nice, huh~?

RUKA: The food and alcohol during the staff party was great, too! I’m extremely satisfied~

RUKA: I’m super happy!

OUKA: Ruka, your voice is too loud.

RUKA: (laughs) I’m sorry, Ouka-kun.

RUKA: I’m feeling good and the wind feels so nice~ I just got taken in by the atmosphere. (to Sho) Right~?

SHO: Hm? Yes~ (to Mamiya) Right?

MAMIYA: (to Ouka) Right~?

OUKA: Ruka and Sho aside, when Takaaki does it, it’s disgusting.

MAMIYA: So mean!

RUKA: Alright~! Sho-kun and I passed!

MAMIYA: Discrimination is not good, Ouka.

OUKA: Don’t hold on to me, you drunk.

MAMIYA: I didn’t drink any though~

MAMIYA: I only drank like, one beer and about two or three ciders.

RUKA: Me, too! Normally, I’d drink so much more but, I have to wake up early tomorrow.

RUKA: Hm… But, Takaaki-kun, Ouka-kun, Sho-kun, and I are kinda a rare combi so—

RUKA: Going home so early just kinda feels like a waste…

SHO: Even though you say that Ruka, Gaku asked me to take you home safely.

RUKA: Ack! That bastard…!

MAMIYA: As expected from his partner! He can read you like a book~

OUKA: You laugh at him and all that but, you need to wake up early for filming tomorrow, too.

OUKA: Walk properly, get home, and then go to sleep.

OUKA: Don’t tell me, “let me watch one video before going to sleep,” got it?

MAMIYA: (groans)

SHO: (laughs) Looks like he can read you well, too~

SHO: Although Takaaki takes his work seriously, there are times when he indulges himself, huh?

SHO: Just like me~

RUKA: I-I don’t think that’s something you should be smiling about, Sho-kun… (laughs nervously)

OUKA: Good grief… So, our leaders have the same weird tendencies.

SHO: Please don’t abandon me.

[08:19]

SHO: (gasps)

RUKA: Hm, what’s wrong, Sho-kun?

SHO: Look, Ruka. Since there are no buildings around, you can see the stars properly.

RUKA: Ah! It’s true!

RUKA: Woah~! Since when did I last see the stars like this~?

OUKA: We might have seen them but didn’t really notice them much.

MAMIYA: So, they can be seen properly even in the city, huh~!

OUKA: The stars I saw from my relative’s house when I was younger were even more amazing.

MAMIYA: Heh~ In the countryside?

OUKA: In Okayama Prefecture’s prefectural border.

OUKA: I was in elementary school back then probably. I went there about 2 or 3 times during summer vacation.

OUKA: In any case, the stars were so beautiful that I’d lay down and look up at them until my mother came to scold me.

OUKA: It’s such a vivid memory that when I close my eyes sometimes, I feel like I can still see them.

OUKA: The scent of incense, the squeaking of the wooden floorboards, the sound of the wind chimes, and the starry sky spreading from the night sky.

RUKA: When I imagine Ouka-kun with stars, it makes for such a perfect picture that I get scared~

RUKA: Ouka-kun, you really love stars, huh?

OUKA: I guess. I love them.

OUKA: Not just the stars but the universe in general. When it’s shown on T.V. I end up watching it completely.

MAMIYA: This is my first time hearing that~

OUKA: Have I not told you…?

OUKA: Don’t you generally prefer conversations where you can talk of anything compared to half-hearted ones that don’t fit your interests?

OUKA: It feels good to be able to talk about what you love, doesn’t it?

MAMIYA: I see~ That’s such a great reason that’s so fitting of you, Ouka.

RUKA: I love stars too but, not on a realistic scale, I guess.

RUKA: I love things with star designs! They can be cute or cool~!

RUKA: Oh, and they’re good luck~!

MAMIYA: Oh! Now that you mention it, I feel like a lot of your t-shirts and bags have star designs on them!

MAMIYA: Don’t you have shoes like that, too? Ya know, the ones designed with stars for buckles and stuff?

RUKA: As expected from Takaaki-kun! You’ve observed well, huh~? Those are my favorite~

RUKA: It’s the one I decorated with the make-up artist backstage! It’s the only one of its kind in the world~

RUKA: I wear them to feel in the mood before a play!

SHO: You really take acting seriously, huh~ Leaving it to luck is not manly, was it?

SHO: Though, you give me the impression that you would leave it to your own abilities.

RUKA: (laughs) That’s correct! That’s exactly it!

RUKA: Whether it’s luck or abilities, the one that wins in the end is the me who practiced a lot.

RUKA: The only superstition I believe are good luck charms, I guess.

RUKA: I usually feel like giving it my all when I’m acting since I can~

RUKA: Though, there are a lot of people on stage who believe in superstitions.

SHO: True. I think I have the same way of thinking. The world is not so simple that we can win on luck alone.

SHO: But, we can’t completely undermine luck and being lucky. That’s about it, I guess~

RUKA: Yep~! Samesies~

[11:43]

SHO: (chuckles) Hey, does everyone know the legend of Vega from the Lyra constellation? It’s one of the brightest stars in the Summer Triangle.

MAMIYA: That’s pretty sudden~ The Summer Triangle constellation is uh… Altair, Vega, and… Ah, Deneb! It’s that one, right?

MAMIYA: The only thing I know about it are the stars’ names.

OUKA: I’m the same.

RUKA: Wow, you’re amazing! I didn’t even know the stars’ names!

RUKA: I only know the words “Summer Triangle”.

SHO: (chuckles) That’s exactly it.

SHO: Lyra is the constellation that’s shaped like a musical instrument. It’s the lyre that appears in Greek mythology.

SHO: The story goes is that it’s Orpheus’s lyre up in the sky.

SHO: The legend says that Orpheus went to the Underworld to reclaim his departed wife.

SHO: He offered his music to the King of the Underworld and managed to charm him.

SHO: Though, it seems like he failed with his initial plans of bringing his beloved back.

SHO: I’ve been told this story when I was young and I remember admiring the music that was supposed to have swayed even the King of the Underworld’s heart.

SHO: I just remembered that suddenly.

RUKA: I feel like Sho-kun’s violin can shake the heart of the King of the Underworld, too~

SHO: No, no. I still have ways to go.

SHO: I think that the violin is something that I still have to learn for quite a long time.

SHO: It’s never-ending and it makes me feel a bit scared but, it has its own charm, too.

OUKA: It might be quite similar to the reason why I admire the universe.

OUKA: Something that we want to chase for an eternity.

RUKA: Ah, that kind of phrasing is perfect for my ideal stars!

RUKA: Something that we admire for eternity is something that we’d yearn for for a long time!

RUKA: Isn’t that cool~?

MAMIYA: I feel you. Though, it’d be a plus if I can make mine shorter.

MAMIYA: See? Just like those stars spreading above our heads right now.

MAMIYA: I can see them all the time and I feel like I can reach my hand out to them. They’re always watching over us.

MAMIYA: I was just thinking that it’d be nice if the fans thought of us like that, too.

OUKA: “Watching over” is so like you.

MAMIYA: Right?

SHO: Right now, we are the ones being watched over by the stars, huh?

SHO: Let’s continue to do our best so that we can become those kinds of admirable people~

RUKA: Yeah!

RUKA: (singing) ♪ Let’s go home, let’s go home~! I am the great Ruka-kun~! ♪

OUKA: Like I said, your voice is too loud.

MAMIYA: Alright, let’s sing together in a moderate tone then~

MAMIYA: Alright, Ouka, you too~!

OUKA: I won’t sing.

SHO: (chuckles) We’ll continue to make music that will shake your heart one day.

SHO: Beautiful and dazzling music just like the stars that’s dedicated for you.

==END==

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#tsukipro #vazzrock #rock down #vazzy #mamiya takaaki #kira ouka #onoda sho #nadumi ruka #drama cd #vazzrock translations #my translations #ouka and stars apparently make for a perfect image~!#if only i could draw i would draw it lol #queued post

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