inspired by the middle ages

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( About me. )

kestrel (she/her)
Eastern Timezone
whosdriving (Discord) ❇ medievalism (Dreamwidth)
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ENHYPEN debuted the title track from their upcoming EP The Sin: Bliss at the Blood Saga concert in Busan. Bloody Paradise is a funk carioca (which I had to learn about because I was baffled by people describing this as funk) song with high energy. I can see why it's been selected to be the title. It will definitely get attention when the members promote it.

It's hard to hear since all the videos are fancams and, therefore, not great sound quality. I like the pace, the beat, and the elements I hear in the instrumental. The vocals sound nice live. I can't wait to hear the studio recorded version. I'm holding on to a tiny spark of hope that this is a truncated version since the performance is just over 2 minutes long.

Watch on YouTube

I'm pretty happy that here's finally a kpop release this summer I'll enjoy. ATEEZ's Golden Hour Pt. 5 was a no for me and Stray Kid's This & That is pretty unremarkable. Can ENHYPEN save my kpop summer? We'll know on August 21st when The Sin: Bliss drops!

I've been listening to it for about 4 hours straight now and here are my initial impressions.

Overall, it's a decent EP. For me, it's nothing spectacular.

The EP opens with Run It, which I still find absolutely and completely underwhelming for what it's trying to be (a hype song).

This & That is my favorite on the EP, but it's a far cry from reaching even my top 10 SKZ songs. It's definitely the most immediately interesting in a way my brain doesn't have to sort out song on the album.

Farming has a chance to grow on me. It will probably be promoted along with the title track. It does some interesting things with the sounds (both vocal and instrumental) but it's a little discordant (not jarringly so). I can't tell whether the "you got plenty of time" and "you should draw that line" lines are a sample or another vocal effect on one of the members' voices (a la "no one, nobody can stop me" in Ceremony) but it really feels like nails on a chalkboard to my brain. It could grow on me as other songs with samples and unusual vocal effects have in the past (I'm looking at almost every song from The Sin: Vanish)

The B-sides are very average and fade into background music. After You, I Do, Way Out, and Back Then all have a similar sort of pop-rock feel. I Do stands out a bit more in feeling similar in tone to In My Head from Karma.

I keep laughing at the tonal whiplash between After You and Way Out. "I had to catch my breath, saw you walking past / Didn't know someone could turn my world around like that / You took a piece of me, it all happened so fast" versus "I don't wanna see you again in my life / Final words you'll hear from me, "Get lost, goodbye" / Sayonara, adiós, jal ga, au revoir." LMAO in big, bold font.

I've never been fond of any of their "festival version" songs, and This & That (Festival Version) is no exception.

Overall, C+/B-.

I'm just going to post this essay here rather than in a 276 part thread on Bsky. I'm probably safer saying it here where I have literally no audience vs there where I have like maybe 70 people following me who might see it. I feel like a certain fandom I'm going to name in passing won't hunt me for sport if I stay over here.

( This is seven pages long in my word processor. )

I saw Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey over the weekend. I've been seeing a lot of very polar reactions to it, so I just wanted to get my thoughts on it written down. Firstly, I've read translations of it in academic settings but I am by no means any kind of expert on the Classics. Secondly, I am not a film critic. I have no expertise there either, so this is basically a layman's thoughts.

What I do have some expertise in is adaptation. It was a major part of my independent research as an undergrad (not very impressive, I know, but I think it gives me some credit on the topic). I'll keep my thoughts under a cut so as not to spoil anything from the story for those who may not be familiar with it even at its big age.

( The Odyssey )

Watch on YouTube

I know I can't make a judgement from a short clip of a song. It could be the catchiest part of of a song or a melody. There could be elements in other parts of the song that don't vibe, whatever. Based solely on this preview, I'm pretty excited to hear each song in full. This album sounds cohesive and in a style I enjoy a lot. The visual bring The Lost Boys to mind.

1. Two Fools
First things first, I did not recognize Sunghoon's face in the video for a solid four seconds. WOOPS! I wonder if this bit is a chorus. It has very chorus-y vibes to me and I would enjoy hearing it repeated in the full song.

2. Stuck
This clip sounds more like a close of a song. There's an urgency to it, a forward sort of momentum that I like. Since this album follows the lovers who ran away to be together, I think that's a fitting feeling.

3. Bad For You
Without a doubt, this is going to be a standout song for Sunoo. His vocals are so emotive just in this brief clip. I can tell from his Weverse comments that he's proud of his work on this song, so I'm eager to hear the rest of it. It sounds like a nice break from the urgency of Stuck and the hyper and chaotic tone of Checkmate that follows.

4. Checkmate
Breakneck pace with undertones of EDM and a smidge of industrial. Jay's vocals in the preview suit this perfectly, versatile rockstar that he is. I can imagine a bunch of people jumping around to this at the right kind of club.

5. Highlight
This one dials back the intensity for a more pop-rock sort of sound that isn't too bubblegum. It doesn't feel like tonal whiplash, but a relief with it's steady melody and "so we made it this far" lyrics.

6. Bloody Paradise (title track)
I'm not sure why people have been saying "funk" when the first teasers of this song were played. Based on this, it follows more closely to the EDM and industrial leanings of Checkmate without the breakneck, urgent pace. I can see why this was chosen for a title track to promote, I think it will have amazing choreo. I have reserve judgement on the song until I've heard more clear vocals on it.

If that doesn't sound like I was at some kind of cult sacrament all weekend, I don't know what does.

I was too tired after D2 to put down my thoughts here, so I'm going to go over the whole weekend.

( Travel to Dallas )

( Blood Saga in Dallas D1 )

( Blood Saga in Dallas D2 )

( The Setlist )

( The Return )

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First and foremost, I have too many characters.

Second, it's now April and I have a not insignificant number of characters I've had little or no activity with. I feel like if I haven't done even a single tag with a character (who isn't brand new) by Q2, I should probably let them go. (Here comes the "but...") But almost all of them were made specifically to play with one or two other characters, so I feel like if I get rid of them, my friends might feel a way about it. We're not all the fastest. However, is it worth holding onto a character or CR that we only touch twice a year?

Third, I might cut back on some of the "cool ideas" I had because I already have a full roster and my flavor of OCs don't do well on memes. So, I'm going to compile a list for myself of my least active characters to consider saying goodbye to in the next couple of months.

( The list )

Since I recently caught up on a decade of a podcast I like, I needed to find something new to listen to on my commutes. Over on Bluesky someone mentioned Worldbuilding for Masochists, which as someone who finds worldbuilding fun, I started on yesterday. since each episode is about an hour, I can get in about three a day while I'm driving to and from work.

I am enjoying it immensely but something in the second episode stuck in my craw. I write fantasy mostly and my understanding is the three hosts are also fantasy writers. So I sort of turned my nose up at the idea that your world cosmology has to be based 100% in our modern known sciences. Yes, a lot of laymen know that the star a planet orbits dictates its day-night cycles and seasons, and that moons and tides are interlinked. But when it comes down to it, I don't think general readers are going to call an author out if their seasons don't much up with some realistic axial tilt or other orbital sciences.

Can I not have the mythology be true? The land is the physical body of some being the characters would think of as a god? Can there not be two suns whose unstable energy exchanges can't be shielded by some other god-like entity? I'm not knocking using real modern science but I also don't want to have to be an astrophysicist, geologist, and biologist just to write my book.

(Author's note: This is very non-serious "complaint.")

Fate truly is messing with me in the silliest way. Before Christmas, I ordered all six published volumes of Ennead. Volume 6 arrived first, on xmas eve. Okay, no biggie. I'll wait for the rest then binge read it.

Hahaha, no. Volumes 4 and 5 were scheduled to arrive on arrive on Sunday, December 28th. And volumes 1-3 were originally to arrive today (Tuesday, December 30th). I guess I’m supposed to read them backward? Start with Volume 6 and work back and try to parse the story?

In reality, volumes 2-5 arrived on Sunday, so I'm just waiting for volume one, which is supposed to arrive today. I'm worried because it isn't out for delivery yet. My sanity may very well depend on this book's arrival today. I need it to be waiting on my porch when I get home from work!

How very sneaky of HAN to release a new song without any warning. Feels like an end-of-the-year gift to STAYs. Thank you, HAN!

Listen on YouTube

This morning when I fed Cleo, I discovered what looked like a piece of chewed up, plastic like string about two to three inches long in her dish. I'm fairly certain my mother once again lest her nasty used dental floss on the end table by the couch and that Cleo may have gotten to and maybe ingested part of it. Super worried because I can't just call off work because my cat may have ingested a linear foreign body.

Also feeling really angry because I have repeatedly asked my mom (as recently as four days ago) to be mindful of leaving her used floss lying around. Never mind how disgusting it is that she just flosses in the living room every night and just drops her used floss on the end table until she decides to throw it away (if she remembers to).

GetYourWordsOut: Year Eighteen!
Pledges & Requirements | getyourwordsout.net

I just made my word count pledge for the 2026 edition of Get Your Words Out! I discovered this community mid-2025, at which point I was too late to get involved. So I'm excited to give it a go this year. If you write and need a little external motivation, maybe you should give it a try, too.

After much consideration, I've decided I'm going to apply to grad school. There's a program that's 100% online that I've spoken to the admissions counselor about. I've prepped emails to two previous professors (complete with pulling out my old papers for them in case they want the refresher since it's been so long) to ask for letters of recommendation. I'm going to start working on my SOP tomorrow so I can send that, too, if either of them ask. Feeling pretty enthused about this.

I talked to my bestie last night who kindly offered to let me infodump so she could brainstorm with me and 'lo and behold! My plot problem has been addressed in a simple and elegant way. Thank you so much, bestie! I'm so much happier about this project and I feel a renewed sense of energy for it.

Hitting some stumbling blocks in a lot of my fiction writing lately. I realized recently that the MC in my longest on-going project has no motivation of their own. They go on the quest because everyone wants them to and, well, that's the plot. Moving them from Point A to Point B to Point C to reveal various plot points is the whole point. But they're boring because they don't want anything.

All this is making me sorely miss my old friend Lauren. We were very close after meeting in college until i left Ohio. She was so intimately versed with this novel I've been working on all this time that it was so easy to brainstorm with her without it turning into an info dump. I miss having someone who was that invested in my writing that I could have really deep conversations with them about it and work out problems in it with them.

Happy birthday to our ENHYPEN maknae, NI-KI!

( Birthday wishes from ENHYPEN members )

To be updated as more member's birthday wishes become available to me.

Happy birthday to our Ice Prince!

Like many, Sunghoon is the ENHYPEN member who piqued my interest in the group. From what I've read, it's not an uncommon phenomenon for people to see Sunghoon and be wowed by his visuals, thus sparking curiosity in the group he's part of. Not surprising when he really is one of the top 4th Gen visuals.

For me, it was realizing Sunghoon used to be a professional figure skater. I never followed Juniors skating as well as I probably should have, but my interest was aroused when I learned he'd not only retired from a decade long career as a figure skater (aged 18), but also was a kpop trainee for the last few years of his figure skating career. Both are very intensive pursuits and for a teenager to manage both really spoke volumes about Sunghoon's dedication.

For this reason, I started listening to ENHYPEN. Sunghoon is no longer my ult bias from the group, but he's still in my bias line (sorry, my dear, you've been replaced by Jungwon since I bias the Weird Little Guy^TM of every group and he's just a little weirder than you!).

Wishing Sunghoon health and happiness! May you continue to work hard and have your dreams come true.

( Birthday wishes from ENHYPEN members )

I'm not officially supposed to know that the execs of my company are trying to trim the fat to make us look more profitable for a future (1-2 years) sale to investors. Lately it feels like there's no more fat to trim, they're cutting flesh off the bone at this point. They won't fire or do layoffs. They're trying to make us attrition ourselves by cutting benefits, increasing workloads, freezing hiring, running too lean to be sustainable, all the usual tactics to get people to leave on their own.

( Read more... )