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recent read was the last thing he told me by laura dave. a woman and her stepdaughter go on a ~search for answers~ after their husband/father disappears. is he responsible for white collar crime? did he abduct his daughter? is he in witsec? who knows! (the answer is none of these things.) it's a trashy white lady living room thriller and i knew that when i picked it up and read it anyway. the most distracting thing in this book is not its fascination with carpentry (or "woodturning"?), not the so totally bland main character, not even the totally out of left field resolution to the plot (that does, per the title, involve the mafia. Can You Believe a forty year old suburban furniture maker walks into the mansion of a mob lawyer and walks away unscathed and with what she wants because I Can't.).... no. the most distracting thing in this book is its total inability to tolerate present progressive contractions. there is no such thing as "he's" or "i'm" it's always "he is" or "i am". i genuinely became concerned that i was reading an AI book for a second there at the beginning and had to google some things. the editor also left out some commas in places that weren't, like, totally necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence, but it was just annoying. 

btw, i keep meaning to write up a post about my experience at the big choir contest in july, and i just had another big choir day today too, so maybe i'll find the time to sit down and type that up soon. no promises. 

anyway speaking of the mafia i'm smack in the middle of the baroque works/alabasta arc in one piece. luffy's brother is kinda hot and i don't know how i feel about that... this anime thing is so funny because i get cognitive dissonance whenever i think about the fact that i'm actually enjoying it and am watching it For Me and not for the person i'm TOTALLY not holding out for, cmon guys im DEFINITELY being well adjusted and realistic about that whole situation, PROMISE. because like, it's anime. it's not even that it's anime it's that it's CARTOONS. i explained to my roommate that the show is equivalent to like idk phineas and ferb and she was like "ohhhh that makes so much sense" (she catches bits and pieces of it when i watch in the living room and she has another close friend who's very into it). 
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so remember how back at the beginning of june i decided to watch one piece the anime for a guy? yeah. i'm about 60 episodes in now (by episode number, i skipped ten because i got given the filler list by a different friend) and a weird thing has happened. I Actually Kind Of Enjoy It. 

i'm not sure what it is. if it's the ensemble cast everyone has childhood trauma of it all. if it's the honestly pretty intriguing worldbuilding of "world that is mostly ocean and sometimes people get superpowers". if it's just that i really needed something to watch and i happened to get told to watch this at the right time. or what. but like. actually i am enjoying it. i'd watched the live-action on netflix already and really enjoyed it, but i don't really watch animated tv generally and the anime is. okay. if anyone is reading this who isn't familiar with one piece as a concept. it's a thousand episodes long and has been running longer than i've been alive and it's STILL GOING. so obviously i was originally like "im not watching all that" and then later, like, "i will watch a few episodes because This Guy likes it and then probably stop once i get bored" but the thing is, dear reader(s), is that i'm not bored yet. i got to a natural stopping point recently (the point up to which the live action adaptation stops, ish) and was like hmm i'll watch something else for a few days so i don't totally burn myself out. 

and then what did i watch? treasure planet. YES it just happened to be on hulu but YES i picked it because it was also pirates. (space pirates this time.)

my latest nefarious plot is to find the wherewithal to, like, run a tabletop game again and set it in a world that's mostly water and has a thriving pirate culture. and then invite The Guy to play the game (explicitly pitching it as "yeah i watched this anime you said you liked and it would make good tabletop") and like some of my friends i guess--i have other friends who really like this anime so like--and then, idk? i hate running games though, it stresses me out and i feel like i'm not very good at it, but maybe that just means i need practice, iunno. anyways did you know that The Ocean

actually this post is NOT "all pirates" because i also want to add that the past week i've been really good about cooking meals for myself that don't come out of a cardboard box and yield leftovers that i can take to work. i made risotto last week. and pancakes. and iirc TWO pasta dishes and those even had VEGETABLES in them. i bought FROZEN PEAS at the grocery store like an ADULT. how fucked up is that (i'm very proud of myself for this actually this is a life goal i've had for several months)

microdosing

Jun. 4th, 2025 05:42 pm
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so, in late march/early april i started seeing this guy. 

i've alluded to him before, i think, sometimes vaguely and once giving a whole rundown of the situation as it was in, like, january. it's been going really well! the more i talk to him, the more i like him and the more i think we work well together, and i know he's been enjoying spending time with me. but without going too much into it, we're stopping, at least for now, with the option of picking it back up in a few months if that's what we feel is the right thing. 

one of the things that came out of that conversation was that i basically asked him to give me homework. "what are tv shows or movies that you like," i said. "it'll be like microdosing getting to know you," i said. i am now going to be embarking on the grand adventure of Watching Anime. (i have watched anime before but it was yuri on ice and fma brotherhood. i am not an Anime Watcher, habitually.) expect some posts about one piece. 

all of this to say, the book i just finished - the starless sea by erin morgenstern of night circus fame - is one that i wonder if he'd enjoy. as far as i know, he leans very sci-fi fantasy, which this book is not NOT, it is solidly fantasy--okay, let me just explain the book and why i liked it. it's this nested mobius loop of a fairy tale about time falling in love with fate and the generations-long journey they have to take to reunite and a mysterious extradimensional library. i love stories about stories and metafiction and this certainly is that! it for sure has the same dreamlike quality that i loved about night circus too, and it's very gay and the character design is cool and the worldbuilding is like... not a lot actually gets Explained. there's a lot of Just Rolling With It. but i'm down for that. the reason why i think my guy would like it is because he's a gamer and there's this thread that gets dropped near the beginning of the book and picked up near the end about the storytelling potential of video games, and structured choices, and so on. and also just i liked it. 

i didn't particularly give him any recommendations to microdose ME, mostly because he didn't ask and the point of the break is really more for him than it is for me - like, it is for me but also it's not and i think i have licence to go on dates with other people and get really into his favourite television shows but that is not really what i suspect he is going to be doing with his time. again i don't want to air the personal business of a guy who is not my boyfriend and who doesn't know i'm blogging about him and also nobody reads this but if you are reading this: just trust me, i'm not actually going to give him a reading list. i am gonna write one here, though. 

because internet, by gretchen mcculloch
the starless sea by erin morgenstern, see above, lol
friends at the table's COUNTER/weight and Twilight Mirage seasons
Leverage
Infinity Train (which i rewatched recently at work because i found a working link and fuck, i forgot how good that show is)

i was gonna put some songs here but i feel like everything i listen to that's his taste he's already heard and a lot of the ones i'd want to put are songs that have lyrics that i have made About Him slightly and frankly he doesn't need to know what's on the spotify playlist because there Is One. 

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most of my tv-watching lately has been "consuming episodes of the great british bakeoff at speeds previously unknown to man", but i remembered recently that a) i don't want to use up the gbbo episodes too quickly and b) i... fell off the torchwood train after muscling my way through season two. i liked tosh and owen and i deeply disliked the Much Drama Very Adult writing that got in the way of the interesting parts of their characters (i don't know how else to explain it, but if you've watched the show you probably know what i mean). therefore: children of earth. it's a five episode miniseason, ianto dies at the end of it and i am at least a little emotionally prepared for that (no point in warning for spoilers this was released 15 years ago), should be, tonally, about what i expected from the first two seasons.

i was not expecting the extremely self-aware commentary about the surveillance state and middle management. i've watched 3/5 episodes at this point (on track to finish before i go home for the holidays on monday! torchwood is solidly dinnertime tv) so i'm not DONE, but like. the constant use of security cameras? alice's phone getting tracked? everyone's personal history getting dug up? everyone is leverage and no one is deserving of privacy? and then frobisher, the middleman (let me tell you i was not really expecting capaldi lol but it was nice to see him), Just Doing His Job and knowing full well he's putting his OWN life, his OWN privacy, his OWN safety on the line, and trying to protect his wife and daughters all the while, and trying to do his best and trying to do things for the good of the world, and it fucks him! it fucks him over! i don't know, i just. eyes the news cycle. eyes recent united states news items. you know the one. tonally appropriate. you know? anyway it's good i might or might not report back

totally unrelated but sometimes i consider wiping all my voice recordings from tumblr or not appearing in my friends' eurovision site videos anymore or keeping my bsky EITHER personal OR online but not both. online privacy is kind of hard. i really, really need to get into the habit.

another television-related interest i've been having lately (well, technically a webdrama, i don't know if these things are ever broadcast on television): peaceful property. this is another thai BL. i've blogged about moonlight chicken on here, right? so for the unfamiliar, this one is made by the same studio (i don't fully understand how it all works) and follows a medium-comma-ex-chef, us-educated spoiled real estate heir, the chef's clueless influencer sister, and the heir's ice queen lawyer as they exorcise ghosts from haunted properties. it's funny in a sort of stupid way, i'm not OPPOSED to enemies to lovers although it isn't my go-to, and these shows are very much made to be consumed quickly rather than nurture a forever fandom and that's fine. the story as it is is fine. compelling enough. i'm interested in seeing these two guys eventually open up to each other and in uncovering the mystery behind all the ghosts on this one specific family's property holdings. HOWEVER. the thing that is REALLY consuming me is how much better this show (again. i've seen three episodes) would be if the ghost thing was a scam.

think about it with me for a minute. [i'm going to get into has-seen-the-show parlance here, sorry readers.] peach's anxiety when seeing ghosts being closer to, i don't know, mental health issues than literal ghosts (there is some kind of restaurant-related trauma in this man i can sense it. so, related to that); pang not being literally clueless and ditzy but, like, twenty-one and desperate and fishing the clothes she's selling online out of rich people's dumpsters; that viral video happening by accident but one or both siblings seeing an opportunity to dig themselves out of their financial hole; kan TOTALLY being onto them but home believes it hook line and sinker, leading up to a big reveal at some point late-series i haven't gotten that far; essentially, making pang a three-dimensional character like the other three, giving her some wits, and adding this new slapstick comedy plot of the two of them trying to solve the actual workplace hazard issue that caused the "haunting" (kan actually figures that out. every time.) while also trying to fool home (and sort of kan) into believing the ruse. and slowly realizing oh shit the vimarnsukman company really DID NOT treat its workers right all the while home and peach are falling for each other. with a healthy side of pang/kan, i don't KNOW if the show is going there although i do suspect. in this au that lives in my head pang is the central character and therefore she gets to hook up with the hot lawyer. i think she deserves it.

there's also a drama coming out in 2025 called ticket to heaven that looks like it's going to tick several of my boxes AND the main couple is played by the guys who played heart and liming in moonlight chicken so this will not be the last of my thai bl posting. sorry.

finally: merry fikmas! it's officially eurovision preselection/national final season, like FOR REAL because we are currently in the middle of albania's multi-night live performance extravaganza (that is traditionally one of the first NFs and always falls right around christmas, hence, it's a eurofan holiday). had to sit through the second of four shows tonight to live-tweet (live-skeet? we're on bluesky) it for the aforementioned blog. i don't know how much i've talked about the blog here, actually. quality of the performances wasn't actually so bad--they do these shows with a live orchestra so that always fucks--but my god did that show take forever. i finished it and felt like i needed to detox. i took a shower and vegetated on the couch for like an hour before i could convince myself to eat dinner. bonus - the netherlands announced their pick, a guy who sings in french of all things like who are you belgium? and so i'm currently listening to this guy's album, parler francais.

s'all for now youll be hearing from me soon
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ya so remember how last time i said i was getting really into doctor who? the writing project i mentioned was intentionally crafted to be "what is the most self-indulgent thing i could possibly write" (it has whump, friends at the table aliens, barbershop quartets, outsider art, and mythology that i've heard of through a game of YA telephone) and it's going to live on my google drive forever and i love it dearly and i'm never going to finish it. yall know how it is. i've hit season two of torchwood, i'm maybe 1/3 through it, and like. damn i wish they would give jack harkness consistent characterization. damn i wish jack/ianto had literally any kind of buildup instead of being thrown together for the sake of having a gay relationship onscreen (don't get me wrong i do love jack/ianto as a ship but i think fanon jack/ianto is superior to what we got in at least the early seasons of the show i have not watched coe yet). but you know what this show does well? RHYS AND GWEN. rhys isn't comic relief, he's perceptive and brave and while he's loyal he is, yknow, capable of getting mad at gwen in ways that matter and make you think oh god what if he leaves her (because there are definitely moments where gwen would deserve it... eyes her retconning him in season one). he finds out aliens exist and after the whole "getting shot" situation he says "i'll never see the sky the same way again" and is ultimately happy and full of wonder and not all that scared. the writers were going to kill him off but they decided they liked him too much. and like, he's just some guy? there's that tumblr post about how unapologetically working class rose tyler is but like, same for rhys williams? he manages truck drivers for a living and likes to go to the bar with his buddies and he's such a sweet love interest anyway. also mad props to the writing team for, as in poor taste as most of their jokes are, like, kai owen is a more heavyset dude than anyone else in the main cast and NOT ONCE does anyone take a shot at rhys' weight. he's built like my best friend. i love him.

ok. /endrant. in other news, seems i've got the "undying character wants to die so bad" bug because i just finished the book of elsewhere by keanu reeves and china mieville. no hate to keanu reeves but this was a very difficult read. probably mieville's fault my ex was really into his work but i find him insufferable and unnecessarily wordy. by the end i did have a pretty good handle on what was going on but the lore drop at the end made me a bit lost and made me expect a little more resolution out of the ending. maybe it's because i didn't read the comics this is an au of? maybe because this is apparently about freud and the death drive (which is actually lacan)? idk i found it difficult to focus my attention and the words on the page just slid all over the place.
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recently had the pleasure of reading the prospects by kt hoffman which was a DELIGHTFUL romance novel about gay trans baseball. i was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to go along with the fiction. often in ownvoices rep like this--which really, tiktok diversity bingo is fine for YA but less so in books for adults--i get distracted by how unrealistic certain things are. not that diversity is unrealistic lol i live in a city on the east coast and live and work with almost entirely queer women, but there are times it just feels like the author is ticking boxes for social media points. not so here. the rep--deaf rep, service dog rep, lesbian rep, and of course the titular gay and trans baseball players--feels natural. he starts out by saying okay, this is a fantasy world first of all because there's a portland oregon major league team, work with me here. AND IT WORKS.

i think part of it is because gene's transness takes a backseat in the narrative. it's not ABOUT gene being the first trans baseball player in the major leagues, even though it is. yes there's institutional transphobia mentioned, but the bulk of the narrative is actually about the team changing around him and his boyfriend being in the closet. not sure i'm selling this well but the whole book flowed so naturally (even if i did only skim the sex scenes lol) and i cannot recommend it highly enough. also, i love the three kyles <3

and rather than finishing this book at work i finished it in my bedroom because guess what: after four and a half years i've tested positive for covid for the first time! i'm only a little bit miserable and mostly because i'm missing rehearsals, i'm in really minor discomfort and feel mostly fine. i've spent the week hiding from my roommate and, inexplicably, jumping back onto the doctor who bandwagon. i've got nearly 5k of self-indulgent torchwood post-canon oc fanfiction written on my phone that's about ella fitzgerald and grief and child soldiers and i think i might build it up into something sort of postable once i can sit down and plot out "gwen's canonical daughter's adventures as a doctor who companion" on my laptop in a few days. fucking surreal. it's been ten years (11?) since the summer i didn't have a camp to go to and i shut myself in my bedroom with my dad's laptop and binged the david tennant and matt smith series while literally every other room in our house was getting rewired. and here i am writing OC fanfiction in the year of our lord 2024.

because like the thing is it's actually sort of good and has themes and motifs. ok?
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my college roommate recommended me the house in the cerulean sea and i decently enjoyed it. it's like if the mysterious benedict society was for adults and also about the umbrella academy. and also it could still be a kids book. i don't love it and the tone took some time for me to settle in to but i don't hate that everyone's raving about it.

instead of watching 911 season 7 (which im shamefully putting off to try and reward system myself into actually working on my 911 longfic) i watched next goal wins and ponyo. both good.

and finally, my friend kira and i have been watching boys planet aka the unofficial korean produce 101 season 6. it's taken me six episodes, but i'm finally sort of invested. some faves so far: yoon jongwoo, both hanbins, jay chang, and cong. the first episodes i was really like UGH GOD I DONT WANT TO DO THIS IM BORED IM JUST DOING THIS TO SPEND TIME WITH MY FRIEND but watching position battles get started i am now somewhat interested. also, not to speculate on the sexualities of real people celebrities from another country, but some of these men are like, pretty gay.

oh, the other thing is that it's barbershop international contest this week. the current favorites to win, three and a half men, contain a guy for whom this would be his fifth first place medal. you're allowed to compete again if you win as long as only one other guy who was in a quartet with you is in that new quartet, otherwise it's legally the same quartet. like you can't just swap out your bass forever and say it's a new quartet and whatever. i'm getting some pretty major fomo if i'm being honest but hopefully my chorus makes it next year so i can go to denver or whatever.

anyway send me good vibes so i can actually get motivated to write my fic ok bye.
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my latest read was give me a sign by anna sortino. it's very much a ya #ownvoices book and as much as parts of it were interesting, sortino struggled with the pacing i think and just, it felt very juvenile to me? it felt written by a high schooler, not just for them, in terms of some of the grandiose statements in lilah's inner monologue and just the prose. idk. maybe i'm approaching the point in my life where i can't read books for high schoolers anymore. that's weird. i finished it several days ago but forgot to post and then i got suuuuper sick (still not covid -- how i've avoided covid so entirely over the past four and a half years is kind of a mystery because i've had some really close calls and i am actually responsible about testing when i'm sick lol) but i'm less sick and made myself sit down and write today.

other news: i only have one season left of 911 to watch and have now worked my way all the way through the fics i'd marked for later on ao3 to read once i'd caught up with the season prior to which they were published. i'm going to have to find new fics now. god. i am (with the exception of the past week bc again, sick) still working on a buck/eddie fic. i'll probably actually finish it; i'd say i'm about 1/3 of the way through and know what needs to happen for the next third. as for the last of it, idk, we'll figure it out when i get there. the fandom is fucking weird though. all this "canon gay relationship that isn't the main ship" has produced a weird cocktail of ship war. some people detest buck/tommy, some buck/tommy fans have decided to worship at the altar of tommy's (not actually all that hot) actor and/or the writers and are taking the "our ship is canon and yours isn't so we're better at fandom than you" tack, and there are fervent defenders of both. listen, with tommy's limited appearances in pre-s7 911 i can't say i'm a fan but i'm also not not intrigued. tbqh the bucktommy fans are so annoying i might just be hardcore buck/eddie out of pettiness. they're so - here's that word again - juvenile.
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item a: the fifth elephant, the next installment in the city watch books. i liked it. plot twists came out of nowhere again (evil dwarf was transgender all along? okay...) but i enjoyed it more than the last book, it was interesting to see angua and carrot's relationship tested and to see more of sybil. and to see some more new pratchett worldbuilding. i mean not new but for a different place not explained as though everyone knows it already--discovering it through vimes' eyes, you know?

item b: im so fucking tired im drowning in obligations for choir a and choir c and the quartet and work and the internship and the eurovision blog and family and other friends. i went to see my friend's choir concert today and all i could think about the whole time was how exhausted i was. i spent half my day off on my couch watching the firefighter tv show and avoiding my other obligations and im STILL tired at the end. when does it get to be over does anybody know

in nicer news, i watched back some of eurovision 2024. (on the german archived livestream, for language practice and not giving the ebu the view count in equal measure.) ultimately i'm satisfied with the final result. the songs i enjoyed mostly placed well (estonia not dead last? how???), That Country didn't win, and... a song about the trans experience won. the joy on nemo's face during the announcement legitimately made me cry and settled something in me regarding my gender confusion. i don't know what i am right now, but i'm definitely not a cis woman? so that's something ruled out. like, i watched that performance and i thought, this is someone like me, these lyrics resonate with me, and their success is shared with me. go switzerland trans rights.
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people, recently i heard that the TV show 911 had made one of the characters in its much-shipped homoerotic friendship canonically bisexual. i sat down on friday to start watching it and. well.

with a lot of shows like this, you assume that the fandom is making a lot of shit up. no, the hot single dad isn't really that hot. no, the homoerotic friendship isn't really that gay. no, the hot eventually-bisexual firefighter doesn't actually broadcast his emotional intimacy issues for miles and miles. i hate to inform you that on this show, they aren't making this shit up. (i mean, they do make some things up... a client initiating intercourse with his therapist and both of them consenting to it enthusiastically is like unethical and probably malpractice but i'm pretty confident that it's not rape.) it's like they made this show in a lab to capture the minds of millenial women.

there's just something for everyone, you know? there's hot guys. there's hot girls. there's canon gay, lesbian, and bi characters. there's a hilarious set of besties who pass the bechdel test. there's a lot of trauma. there's hurt/comfort. there's miscommunication. there's ALSO talking like they're all in therapy. there's high stakes and also there's some adorable fluff (hot single dad is prime real estate for this). there's even catholic guilt.

i mean there are also things i'm wary of. writing the child character like he's even younger than he is, for one. this is an issue in fic (because i was really irresponsible and spoiled myself) but, apparently, also in the show. so that's cool. i worked with preschoolers and i don't believe for a second that these writers know how a seven year old talks because they're writing him like he's four. also i get the vibe that the fandom maybe hates women a little bit. soon-to-be-bi firefighter has a hot older girlfriend in season one (hot older girlfriend is awesome in her own right btw) and they're just not right for each other and that's... fine? and i worry that she gets demonized. i'm worried carla is going to have no personality besides being a caretaker. that the eventual girlfriends that buck and eddie both get are going to get demonized as well. etc etc. and of course i'm a very anxious person who hates gore and now i know all about the bad things that can happen to me on escalators or in car repair shops or so on and so forth. but listen, there's just something electric about this show, the high stakes and the emotions just keep me hooked! i haven't binge-watched something on this scale since doctor who, and that's when i was probably fourteen or fifteen. (i started on friday and i'm about a quarter of the way into season two, i think?)

also evan buckley has adhd. i don't care if it's canon or not i've been diagnosed with adhd and i'm claiming him.

so i'm gonna write fic about this eventually and in the meantime i'm gonna see if there are any good dreamwidth accounts who watch :)
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so obvi as you all well know, a good 60% of what i post about on dreamwidth is idol survival show feelings. well let me tell yall, i am continuing with girls planet 999 and the fifth episode was a bit wild.

a little bit of context for you all, who do not have the produce 101 franchise constantly living rent free inside your brain: these shows are typically around 12 episodes long and begin with around 100 contestants (99 in this specific case). the group is eliminated down to ~55, ~35, ~20, and a final group of ~10, with elimination episodes being typically the 5th, 8th, penultimate, and final. the korean idol training system is a bit fucked up in that kids will start training often from pretty young ages (early teens, usually?) in both singing/dancing and also media training in order to try and make it as a pop idol group member. shit's difficult. idol survivals (where the selection process is televised and the audience gets a say in the results--as opposed to these decisions being made by execs behind closed doors) have ballooned in popularity over the past ten years. this is great for me because it means i have lots and lots of television to watch. it is, simultaneously, in my opinion a bad thing because these children do not need to be televised they do NOT need to have the world's eyes on an incredibly stressful time in their lives. these things can coexist

now with that disclaimer out of the way let's talk about the format of girls planet because i do need to give you a specific piece of background before i can explain one of the things that's giving me brainworms. this show in particular does something really interesting--it intentionally has an even number of contestants of korean, japanese, and chinese heritage. (a 2018 survival where korean girls competed alongside akb48 members sort of tried to do an even kr/jp split but then four japanese girls dropped out and the voting was skewed towards the korean girls the whole show.) how does gp99 do this? it's called cells. a "cell" is a voting unit of one girl from each group (k/c/j) and the girls are ranked by their cells, not individually. then the mentors on the show got to save one girl from each group from a cell that had been eliminated, basically. this was a really interesting idea and it kind of sucks that they totally abandoned it in the back half of the show and the sequel season.

sidenote rich text editor is still broken and this is such excellent html practice i haven't used this in ages

anyway so the first thing that's driving me wild is this chinese girl (the titular wen zhe) whose cell was almost the lowest-ranked allowed to survive, was eliminated, and was promptly brought back by the mentors. hope, disappointment, and survival alone. ON HER BIRTHDAY. this poor girl. and one of the higher-ranking chinese girls ended her thank-you speech with "happy birthday wen zhe" and i really did start to cry, ok? i really did cry.

the second thing is like. okay. so the cells are ranked and then the top 9 girls with individual votes get announced, right? and this one girl, youngeun. her cellmates, yurina and xiaoting, are both in contention for first place individually. these two 20something women on either side of her are so super nervous and this teenager, who's the one who put the cell together initially, is just sitting there vibing and feeling proud of herself, and i just think she's neat for that, ok?

ok hope you enjoyed my gp999 loredump hopefully i will post some more relatable content to my dreamwidth soon but don't expect too much of me. and also please pray that dw brings back rich text editor i miss her

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first off - tried to read through the book "real men knit", by kwana jackson, in pursuit of clearing out my bookshelf. readers, this book is BAD. first of all the editing is shoddy - the author mixed up "exacerbated" with "exasperated" and that's the point at which i put the book down because please, the EDITOR missed this???? but also the storyline was just meh. it's about a man whose mother dies and he inherits her knitting store and gets romantically entangled with a knitting store employee. jackson is very clearly a romance author and not a story author - if that distinction even makes sense. the plot is sort of vague. the knitting shop is sort of in financial trouble and the male lead has drama with his brothers and the female lead gets kicked out of her apartment building because it's a safety hazard but mostly it's the two leads arguing with each other in ways that belie any chemistry they have and then talking about how steaming hot the other is. i get the sense that jesse was supposed to have some kind of emotional depth where he slowly opens up to kerry and stops being a player or it's revealed that he's like that because of trauma from being a foster kid or something like that but it just never happens. you see his soft side throughout the whole book, there's no reveal, you're just expected to hold both realities in your head at once. so it was just bad and i put it down. so it goes.

hey, remember the post i made about a pjo longfic? yeah i put that down because an idea struck me for "game of thrones but it's the bear". like, stark siblings are dysfunctional and try to run a restaurant. i finished it--there's no plot, only a loose collection of vibes. and to keep myself in the mindset and force myself to finish it, i've been reading asoiaf fic. this is a familiar territory for me. some of the first fic i ever read was asoiaf fic, even though i only read maybe 3 of the books and watched the first season of the show. however, i almost exclusively read modern au, because i'm more interested in the character dynamics (specifically stark family shit, but i'm also into jaime lannister getting his act together) than the medieval brutalist setting. highlights include: rickon/shireen where rickon is an iraq vet and shireen's bodyguard; brienne and tyrion run a bar together; the one where they all work at a university library (this is a reread, and the reason behind my unsuccessful foray into a mlis program last spring).

finally, i've started girls planet 999. for those not in the know, it's a korean survival show loosely in the vein of the produce 101 series about which i've previously posted. the premise of the original season was that an equal number of korean, chinese, and japanese girls would compete with the girl group ultimately being wholly multinational. this, uh, isn't how it worked out, but i'm a fan of kep1er (the group that came out of it. pronounce it "kepler" like the astronomer), and my friend kira wants to watch the second season with me down the line, so this is what we're doing. it's interesting conceptually in that the girls are sorted into "cells" with one girl of each nationality, so groups of three, and they compete and survive together, at least for the first part of the show. i'm familiar with many of the contestants--some of them have since debuted into groups i like (kep1er members, kim suyeon), some were previously or have since been on other survival shows i've watched (kim dayeon, fujimoto ayaka, sakurai miu, kanno miyu), while others previously released music in groups that i followed before the show (doah and jiayi, yujin, the cherry bullet girls, seungeun). i've also seen a couple of the performances from the show. obviously i have a few favorites going in from my previous experience with the contestants, but i'm half an hour in and a completely unfamiliar contestant to me, lin chenhan, has been added to my list as well. we'll see how this goes and, like produce japan, i'm probably going to insufferably blog about it. sorry guys.

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so. remember like forever ago when i was like "once produce japan finishes, i'm going to post a comprehensive recap of all my survival show groups"? i finished watching the produce japan finale archive. today's the day.

none of you care but listen, /I/ care. and hopefully for those of you reading this it's a fascinating little r/hobbydrama or whatever insight into "wow, there's a fandom for that?".

season one: my ioi
  1. Ng Sze Kai (1994): center (first place is always this; gets special parts in the songs), lead rapper
  2. Kim Juna (1994): main vocal
  3. Kim Sejeong (1996): main vocal, visual (designated prettiest face)
  4. Hwang Insun (1987, i think? it's officially '89 but she maybe lied): leader, vocal
  5. Hwang Sooyeon (1992): lead rapper, main dancer, vocal
  6. Jeon Soyeon (1998): main rapper, lead dancer, vocal
  7. Kim Chungha (1996): main dancer, vocal
  8. An Yeseul (1995): lead vocal
  9. Kim Minkyung (1997): lead vocal
  10. Kim Sohye (1999): vocal, rapper, maknae (Korean term for the youngest, which is always officially designated in kpop groups for some reason)
  11. Ki Heehyun (1995): main rapper, lead dancer
my lineup skews much older and more heavily vocal-focused than we ended up having. i've also soured on jeon soyeon in recent years but this ranking is based on her show conduct only. regarding insun: you'll notice a trend that i'm really fond of the old person archetype on these shows. this was even before i was ""old"" myself.

season two: my wanna one
  1. Hong Eunki (1998): center, main dancer, vocal
  2. Kim Jonghyun (1995): leader, main rapper, lead dancer
  3. Yoon Jisung (1991): lead vocal
  4. Kang Dongho (1995): main vocal
  5. Takada Kenta (1995): lead vocal, rapper
  6. Noh Taehyun (1993): main dancer, vocal, rapper
  7. Zhu Zhengting (1996): lead dancer, vocal
  8. Lai Guanlin (2001): lead rapper, maknae
  9. Ha Sungwoon (1994): main vocal
  10. Kwon Hyunbin (1997): rapper
  11. Bae Jinyoung (2000): lead vocal
the fact that we were robbed of jonghyun leader AND eunki/zhengting interactions after skinny love is so criminal if i'm being honest. anyway, the funny thing about this lineup is that all the members are relatively close in age to each other and then jinyoung and guanlin are children by themselves.

idol producer: my nine percent
  1. Zhu Xingjie (1994): center, lead dancer, main rapper, lead vocal
  2. Chen Linong (2000): lead vocal
  3. Wang Ziyi (1996): main rapper, main dancer
  4. Li Quanzhe (2001): main vocal, maknae (this is less of a thing in china (and japan) than in korea, but whatever)
  5. Zhou Rui (1992): main vocal
  6. Ling Chao (2001): lead vocal, visual
  7. Jeffrey (Dong Youlin) (1995): lead vocal
  8. Qin Fen (1991): leader, lead rapper, vocal
  9. Dong Yanlei (1996): rapper
weird big age gap strikes again! also it should be noted that all of these rankings sort of take place in an extended universe with each other; zhu zhengting, who was my #7 pick on broduce, was my onepick for idol producer, which i watched while it was airing. he's excluded from my top list because, if i were in control of the universe, he would be in wanna one and wouldn't have gone back to china in the first place.
rest in peace to idol producer i remember absolutely nothing about most of these boys. i'm not really a cpop person.

season three: my iz*one
  1. Nakano Ikumi (2000): center, lead rapper, lead dancer
  2. Park Minji (1999): main vocal
  3. Honda Hitomi (2001): main dancer, vocal, maknae
  4. Bae Eunyoung (1997): main rapper, lead dancer
  5. Lee Chaeyeon (2000): main dancer, lead vocal
  6. Motomura Aoi (1997): main dancer, vocal
  7. Lee Kaeun (1994): leader, main dancer, lead rapper
  8. Kim Sihyun (1999): lead vocal, visual
  9. Choi Yena (1999): lead dancer, lead vocal, rapper
  10. Na Goeun (1999): main vocal
  11. Yabuki Nako (2001): lead vocal
  12. Goto Moe (2001): vocal
and this is the first time i have a contestant in my top 11 who didn't make it past the first elimination for real! god. ikumi was my onepick from the jump and she was one place away from making it into the top 58... seriously so tragic.

season four: my x1
  1. Ham Wonjin (2001): center, lead vocal
  2. Kim Yohan (1999): vocal, rapper
  3. Yoon Junghwan (2001): main vocal
  4. Kang Minhee (2002): main vocal, visual
  5. Cho Seungyeon (1996): leader, main rapper, lead vocal
  6. Kim Hyunbin (2002): lead rapper
  7. Kang Hyeonsu (1996): lead vocal, lead dancer
  8. Baek Jin (1995): main dancer, lead rapper
  9. Lee Jinhyuk (1996): main dancer, main rapper
  10. Song Hyungjun (2002): lead dancer, vocal, maknae
  11. Kim Dongbin (2001): rapper
the age distribution is once again SO WHACK! also this season was just so bad i'm kind of glad that the korean version of the produce franchise imploded after pdx because i don't think i could have made myself sit through another season like that one with like, so many ex-idols and preexisting fanbases competing with each other, weird editing, unfollowable storylines and largely unlikable trainees, just....... this season was so bad. yeah.

japan season three: my me_i
  1. Katou Kokoro (2000): center, lead rapper, vocal
  2. Koyama Mana (1998): leader, visual, vocal
  3. Abe Nagomi (2007): lead vocal, maknae
  4. Shimizu Keiko (2006): main rapper
  5. Sutani Yurara (2005): main dancer, rapper, vocal
  6. Kurokawa Honoka (2005): main vocal
  7. Ebihara Tsuzumi (2007): main vocal
  8. Kamio Ayano (2006): lead rapper, vocal
  9. Iida Shizuku (2004): lead vocal
  10. Matsushita Miyu (2000): main dancer, vocal
  11. Tanaka Yuuki (2004): lead dancer, main rapper
here we are! i'm not gonna make you sit through any more! i've been very lucky this season to have my one-pick make it into the final group; this is a rarity for me!!! generally, around 4 of my top eleven make it in, but of my one-picks, only zhengting (on ip) and kokoro have actually made it.

you may be getting more of these posts from me; a good friend of mine wants me to watch girls planet and boys planet, and then i might watch the first two japan seasons because i liked this most recent one so much.

i hope this was at all interesting to you guys lol
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waow 2 posts in one day!!1! (last night's doesn't really count. website coding be damned, i slept in between!) sup folks i am back with a post that is about a lot of different things so that there's something for everyone :)

so, firstly: i tore through daisy jones and the six in about 24 hours. i had really enjoyed 7 husbands of evelyn hugo and had seen the marketing for the amazon series, so i was curious about this one and it DIDN'T DISAPPOINT. i think tjr does the oral history style very well and it gave me some Thoughts about how to planning-stage an original story idea i have that's also about a band. i liked how the stories would contradict each other and the plot twist that julia dunne was the one doing the interviews all along was really nicely executed. (it does feel a little bit samey with the evelyn hugo story--the narrator is secretly not neutral and actually linked to a key part of the story!!!--but whatever.) i'm going to have to read this woman's other books, i've decided that i really like them.

secondly: i shopped around for more bl to watch before just landing on last twilight. which, in some ways, going from moonlight chicken (where i was mostly invested in liming/heart) to last twilight is a very natural progression because of the shared themes of class struggle, isolation, and disability. but while i'm going to keep watching last twilight, i'm kind of enjoying it less. i don't think these two actors are doing a very good job of acting like they're attracted to each other, so it's jarring to go in the youtube comments to see their fans all "wow the look in his eyes when his love interest said he liked someone else... he looks heartbroken..." no... he kind of doesn't. i'm not sure what the difference is between these stories but i'm just less on board for mhok/day than i was for liming/heart or even jim/wen! so maybe after last twilight finishes i'll watch the time loop one or something.

thirdly: produce japan finished airing and i promptly got spoiled by one of the former contestants posting the lineup on her instagram. (i'm trying to use instagram less anyway.) hooray for kokoro, keiko, and shizuku! and also for rinon, who, like... she went from seventeenth to third and then PLACED SECOND IN THE WHOLE DAMN THING.

and finally: while i've been between produce japan episodes, i've been rewatching the first season of how to get away with murder. partly because jack falahee is hot, partly out of nostalgia for coliver being one of baby's first gay ships back in the day, partly because i just like procedurals i think. i only watched the first two seasons (and i hear the plot really spun out of control after that) but i might keep watching it off and on. mostly because of connor/oliver. shh.
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baddie: rino and ayano SLAYED this it's really hard for me to pick a favorite between the two of them. yurara was a great center and keiko brought the hype energy as she always does. everyone else was good too, just didn't stand out AS much. god but those outfits were awful though.

a to z: this one felt a bit messy... i like hina and shizuku normally but they didn't stand out to me much here. rinon, on the other hand, did amazing. perfect addition to the team.

&me: tsuzumi's first place was well deserved. i had a whole rant prepared about how this team only won because they were all high ranking members, and like that's still true, but the center and main vocal parts were done well (tsuzumi honestly could have been center imo i know i'm a kokoro oshi but like, listen) and tanaka koto did GREAT. uh, i didn't really notice the other four. but it could have been a lot worse. definitely better than the previous song (even though a to z is more of my preferred genre, i don't think the performance came together as well)

popcorn: yeah so i did NOT know kitazume could sing like that!!!! definitely the standout of the performance for me although my girl nagomi did GREAT and serina was a good center she didn't let on that she was injured at all (girl pls get some rest). and tbh, this was the first performance where i felt positively towards hazuki as well. she's still not a fave of mine but she did a good job on this. sidenote kokona's english was so cute she was so excited!!

toxic: (watched separately... so i could have time to fill out the reddit poll... listen. i love a google form.) honestly none of these girls stood out to me. they were all just like fine and maybe that's because i'm not a big fan of this concept or none of my big faves were in this team or whatever. yuuki was good? momoka was good? i was surprised by kokona's vocal ability though i didn't expect that from her but she was quite good.
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ITEM THE FIRST: MOONLIGHT CHICKEN
got to the end of it!!!! as a newcomer to the bl genre, i'm fascinated by the chokehold alan/gaipa has on the ao3 tag because... it was sort of gestured at in canon but mostly because those actors are often paired up together? i want to watch more bl but don't really know how to shop around for another one i'll like (i've watched 2 so far! moonlight chicken and our dining table!). i joined a discord but there's so much going on in it and it's so... fandom-y, for lack of a better word. there's a stereotype about women who watch bl or whatever and i know that to some degree i fit that stereotype but it's a weird environment to be in and idk if i like it. someone in one of the channels recommended eclipse, triage, and a thousand stars. triage is apparently a time loop story, and i do love a time loop, so maybe i'll watch that? because my other options are to check out only friends and last twilight, which is what my tumblr mutual who turned me onto these 2 prior shows keeps putting on my dash (thanks, man?). i will say i watched the first 1/4th of an only friends episode and did sort of enjoy it but i just know the plot is going to devolve into a level of drama that'll be difficult for me to watch.

ITEM THE SECOND: SURVIVAL SHOW ROUNDUP
subsection a: i finished produce x. oh my god what a slog that final episode was. i've gotten my top 11 together (comprehensive survival show top post to come once pdjp finishes airing) and now i need to finish writing my weird little produce series retrospective to... post on dreamwidth, i guess. i guess this is the place i put my long-form ramblings now. yeah.
subsection b: pdjp had eliminations, and i lost one of my faves, koyama mana. i am, however, pleasantly surprised that iida shizuku and sutani yurara made it; they've definitely been sleeper faves for me. i didn't realize how much i was rooting for shizuku until her rank was announced.

ITEM THE THIRD: JUNIOR EUROVISION
i don't post about it much here, but i'm a big eurovision enjoyer, enough so that i'm with a fan newsblog called That Eurovision Site. yeah that's literally what it's called, none of the fansites have particularly creative names it's fine. i got to do the livetweet (which was way easier back when tweetdeck was still a thing, rip) and damn that voting sequence was a marathon!!!
i'm also going to take this moment to complain about the guy who runs the fansite. he's very passionate and very driven but he's also very prone to making decisions without consulting literally anyone and asking just a little bit too much of us. i'm not sure if he has a job or anything but like... the rest of us have lives, tim.

ITEM THE FOURTH (AND FINAL): SINGING WOES
it's almost december, which means we've entered concert hell! this week i had a rehearsal yesterday (i'm subbing in for my friend in his quartet), then ones tomorrow wednesday and thursday; then i get a little off week before an absolute gauntlet of monday rehearsal, tuesday gig, wednesday rehearsal, thursday dress/gig, friday gig, saturday gig. and also i work three days that week. it's gonna be fun. no, for real. stressful but fun. that week is spread across 2 ensembles and i've got a friend who's in both with me so uhh, we're going to be seeing a lot of each other.
one of my choirs (wednesday choir/mendelssohn) also got offered to do carmina burana with the orchestra this spring and i REALLY wanna do it, except it's the week right before i go to compete with both tuesday choir/boys and thursday choir/delaware, and both carmina and contest would require me to take at least three days off of work and i'm just not sure if i can afford the loss of pay. i'm probably going to say i can do carmina anyway and then pull out later if i have to.
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bijin: due to copyright issues i had to watch the performance via a keiko fancam on youtube. tsukushi killed this but that aside honestly why would you pick a song and then not be able to play it on the broadcast like wtf are they thinking???? pick a different song bro????

antifragile: damn rimika is never making it out from the sakura shadow rip. i think miyu did good, good pick for center.

shutdown: i think my pick here is actually momona. kotone did great but her tone isn't for me, kokona did great but she's rushing her beats a little, and ayano held her own but, yknow, she wasn't the focus here. (this performance did put her solidly back onto my picklist though.) i think momona has a really good low tone that would make her a great rapper with some more rap training.

omokage: good lord this one was so awkward like i love kokoro but damn . haruka's high note was really nice though and i thought momoka was the absolute standout of this performance. i mean her voice was really perfect for her parts of the song.

rocketeer: i don't think this team did a good job of allowing anyone who wasn't ran to stand out. sakura had a moment, yoshida hana had a moment, rio and rin had focus moments but i didn't really like them and they didn't really demonstrate skill. i kept watching kotone during the group stuff so i guess that means my vote goes to her.

first love: YOOOO! what beautiful and full harmonies this group had... they all did so well... obvi i am a nagomi fan but rino has a great voice and i mean... ayane. yall know i dont really like her but she is the undisputed vocal queen, i recognize her skill. this whole stage was just freakin' beautiful
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dear readers, if you look back to one of the earlier posts on my journal, i mention watching the japanese show "our dining table". i regret to inform you that i am now currently down the rabbit hole of a thai drama called "moonlight chicken".

this is not my usual tv of choice? i mean, i guess i watch a lot of asian television for a white guy, considering the whole [gestures at my produce series blogging]. i mean more the "gay romance drama" part.

how did i get here, you ask? well! i found both shows via the same person, a tumblr mutual of mine who i originally know because we overlapped for one (1) semester in college. (this mutual and i watched moomin and kamen rider fourze together so i guess there's a history of us liking the same shit???) i saw gifs of both on his tumblr, he's big into these shows, and they, uh, piqued my interest.

and i just wanna say that i'm absolutely blown away by the b-plot couple. they're these 2 high school boys and their romance is very pure and sweet (unlike the a-plot couple whose storyline involves, like, cheating and familial homophobia and gentrification) they are just SO CUTE and i have watched 3 episodes of this show--i'm not even halfway through--and i've already been through their ao3 tag. i guess this is media i consume now. i guess i might keep watching bl dramas. huh.
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hey remember how i said i'm not doing this again? turns out it's a useful way to keep track of faves for the... uh.... for the r/ProduceJapan user polls........ listen. shh. [updated later: the episode six survey CLOSED EARLY? bruh. some of us take our time watching the episode.]

wa da da: god, no one from this group really stood out to me bar mana, who i already liked (i loved her spin early on)! mikoto, who's been on my pick list along with her sister for a little bit, was absolutely invisible to me here; i get the impression i was supposed to be impressed by kawabata ranka, but it just didn't happen. idk, i think uchiyama rin did good? unrelatedly i'm floored by mana getting second. i'm happy, but floored. she got zero screentime elsewise so i'm really glad the audience saw something in her that day; she may not have ranked as high as ranka but she did well!!!!!!

hero: yui was absolutely the best choice for main vocal here, her style fits the song the best. i loved this performance because it had a lot of really excellently thought-out harmonies--i would have liked to hear more of those than the sections that just had all the girls singing in unison but it shows that shizuku knows what she's doing musically and it sounded really nice.

run run: ok im gonna be real with you guys... joa did not deserve that center spot or the first place. at all. she gives me bad vibes for some reason i don't really like her but even independently of that, she didn't have as much charisma as yuuki or yurara who i think would have suited the center more. yurara got a lot of really compelling center parts in the first half of the song and yuuki just has so much swagger and drive in this performance (the pair dance with koto also went really well for her)!!!

shine a light: not related to the performance but this edit confused the shit out of me. i truly don't understand why chiharu's entire team unionized against her with no context given by the editors, but i also don't think she reacted well. it kind of left me not really liking any of them tbh. but also, what was up with this stage? at least 2 of the girls messed up really obviously? like hazuki is not coming back from that...... my fave from this performance is hina though she has a really nice bright voice that suits a song like this
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basically i'm just gonna put 1. which team i liked better and 2. which trainee stood out to me the most in each team

how you like that: team 2 did good but it was obvious that they would have done better in a cute concept so it's team 1 for me.
team 1: nagomi is my favorite individually, but as a group, tsukushi CARRIED!!!! she really suits the song and handled the situation with her mic really well
team 2: mihaya has a GREAT voice, i'm a bit disappointed she only got one line
if i had been onsite, my vote probably would have gone to nagomi because i already liked her, but if not for that, would have been tsukushi

love dive: it's team 2 for me. overall, they seemed like they better fit the elegance of the concept, they were less nervous and more in sync, and they did better vocally.
team 1: HONOKA WAS SO GOOD i love her vocal tone and she seemed the most confident in her voice/lines and had the most strength. if she passes the first elimination i'm def keeping an eye on her
team 2: it's hard to pick! k. ayano did great, i'd had my eye on her before and this is really the first screentime she's had since the beginning of episode one so that's nice. she's very expressive and confident when dancing. rin was a great vocalist ofc and rio also did well! (also shoutout to matsushita miyu for the good leader edit <3 <3)
my onepick for this battle is probs honoka though... just because she stood out so starkly among her teammates.

seifuku no mannequin: yeah team 2 was clearly the winner. all of these matches have been so uneven so far!!!!
team 1: wow, ayaka and misaki really got put in unwinnable positions, huh. it's hard to pick a favorite on this team because they all did poorly vocally... their dance was good, they pulled that together, but the singing wasn't great. i liked the look of the center (kagura? i can't read japanese so i'm relying on face recognition for some and being able to recognize "ta" "yama" "naka" for others. it's not going great).
team 2: sae and mena being on my bias list aside... i honestly think my vote for this team (and my one-pick) goes to ayane here? which is weird. on broadcast she has no personality imo absolutely zero. but she's an incredible singer. sae and mena, while i like them, didn't really stand out in this performance. 
but i also might have picked sae for the one-pick, just strategically; she's low in the ranks and i want to see more of her. and she's a decent singer who looked like she was having a good time on stage.

hype boy: i choose team 1! team 2 struggled vocally and team 1 brought a slightly more mature vibe to the song that i really enjoyed. i'm annoyed by hype boy as a concept largely because of how... juvenile-ly newjeans performs it but team 1 here made it feel slightly more real.
team 1: despite the trainers saying tanaka yuuki didn't stand out i honestly thought she was the best here. this team was good but i definitely noticed when the other members were ahead of the beat, or the dance mistake that aki made. yuuki did everything right and contributed to the more mature vibe of this team.
team 2: their main vocal was good, shibagaki arisa. and natsuho's ballet move was also a really good choice that made her stand out! it fit the vibe of the song really well.
one-pick: tanaka yuuki. if she makes it through elims this week i'm keeping my eye on her.

fiesta: team 2. because i'm a singer, it's much easier for me to forgive bad dancing over bad singing, and team 1 just did such a bad job vocally.
team 1: wow wow wow this was so hard to listen to. i'm a singer yknow? but sutani yurara actually did pretty well considering her struggles in the edit. so i think she's my pick for this team. kataoka rio also did good and deserved more than 2 votes, just saying.
team 2: so, hina and ameli had been on my pick list previously, and yuka stood out to me during the edit. but nakayama honoka surprised me with how well she did, i hadn't known to look for her at all. hina did well as main vocal but she didn't have enough power and was a little too showy. (rimika also did good, but after that edit, i don't think i want to give her any credit... maybe i'll say she's my pick for this team but honoka is my one-pick for the battle.)

cheer up: this is hard to pick. team 2 had slightly weaker vocals and their dance felt low-energy but they also felt more sincere than team 1. honestly i'm going to give it to team 1 for fitting the concept better but team 2, like i said, felt more sincere and they did a really good job with the concept considering they're all girl crush members.
team 1: kitazume sakura was good, but i do feel like she fell into the trap of being cuter than this song is supposed to be. so my standout for this performance is actually otsubo karen, who was the second-best vocalist/performer and embodied the mood better.
team 2: hosoi ayaka was really good! she had this awesome low tone that i love love loved
one-pick is moro anon. her vocals were SOOO good

tokyo girl: team 2. obvi.
team 1: honestly there wasn't anyone on this team who stood out to me, so i'll just say that mana did good because she's on my pick list.
team 2: yeah shimizu keiko and her high energy was PERFECT for this stage that's my girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!

body & soul: team 1. what can i say, i love an underdog. like, this was just a nuclear killing... i do honestly believe that if team 1 was up against literally any other group of girls they would have won.
team 1: god this was actually so good! they embodied the vibe, rin made a great center, the rappers were awesome. but my pick here has to go to main vocal shizuku. yeah she sang everything in head voice but it was actually really attractive and made it stand out. but yeah im super attached to all of them now i want all of them to survive TT-TT
team 2: okay yes i'm a kokoro stan but also she bodied this. her stage presence is UNMATCHED. tsuzumi, yeah, her vocals were great but i stand by shizuku's falsetto being a better vibe.

also can i just say im sick of the avengers thing? it was old by, like, season 2. it wasn't even a good idea when ki heehyun did it. let it rest please dear god. i additionally hate the rule that let miu snipe members from other teams lmao it makes everything so unbalanced and less fair? i think they should go back to the s1 thing where you had 16 girls in a class and they all got to pick their teams so there was at least someone with good skill on each team because ever since s2 you get teams that are just unfairly stacked

i'm not doing this again btw trying to keep track of everything made it less enjoyable for me to watch the episode lmao.

elims drop tomorrow morning. moment of truth. h

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