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serendipitybutterfly · 4 years

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BTS Tarot Valentines Day Special:

BTS' Future Marriages...

I know... Unusual for me since I tend to focus more on advice than predictions for the most part... But, as it's this lovey dovey season, I decided to do a marriage themed reading as a special treat as I've gotten asks surrounding this kind of question before... This is going to be a mammoth post... Omg..

This is my Valentines Day present for you guys who follow and like my readings! Thank you!!!! I 💜 you!

So, without further ado... Let's get it!

*Disclaimer- the way i see it, although this is a prediction reading, I'm only working with the energies of the present moment. If one of the boys wakes up tomorrow and firmly decides he never wants to get married, then his path will change and future readings would reflect that. For the most part, the future is in flux and can be changed... If something is a huge, fateful, set in stone kind of event then the cards will let me know. Also, in this particular reading, rather than focusing on the physical appearance of their future partners, I'm intending to focus more on personality and only mention physical appearance if something strongly comes to mind or their looks come forward as a major message of the reading. Ok done! Let's really get it! 💜

Oh wait... before anything else, I was going to call this future Marriages or life partners (because, obviously, not everyone gets married) but I just decided to ask first off if they'd all get married for the sake of clarity and got a resounding yes for them all so... Yeah... As of now, all of the boys are likely to actually get married in the future. Although... Some are closer to that future than others. Also, I was going to put all of the readings into one big post but then I realised how ridiculously long that would be and decided to split the hyung line and maknae line up into two separate posts. I'm starting with the maknae line and hopefully the hyung line post will follow soon...

Maknae line:

Starting with Park Jimin...

Character profile - The archetype cards that popped out gave me an interesting message... I'm getting the image of someone that had quite a hard life, possibly even a somehow traumatic past (cards like bully and victim in particular stood out to me as being indicative of a troubled past), but managed to retain a sweetness and childlike innocence despite it... I'm also definitely getting the image of an introvert. Someone quite soft spoken, gentle and who comes across as a bit shy. She might feel more comfortable with animals and young children than with most people. Physically I feel like she will be younger than him, and somewhat innocent and fragile looking but at the same time there's something kind of edgy and / or sexy in her style... She might wear a lot of dark colours. Yeah... I know I said I wouldn't focus on looks... But I'm definitely also getting East Asian features coming through visually... I'm also seeing long, straight, black hair and fair skin. This is the kind of person who tends to inspire protective feelings in others... But at the same time has a lot of inner strength that they can use to heal and bolster other people's confidence in themselves.

Relationship- With the Dawn card, I feel like she will give Jimin a whole new fresh perspective on life... I'm hearing 'clean slate' and 'washing away'... I'm just feeling a lovely, pure, soothing, watery kind of energy to this connection overall. I mean, the romance angels oracle deck threw out 'True Love' to describe this connection so... I mean, if Jimin still has those romantic dreams of meeting his one true love like he used to... He can definitely have that wish granted! It's just... Going to take some time... With the Chariot in reverse here, I feel like he will have to wait quite some time before they meet...hmm... How old will he be in another 7 years? About 32? Could be around then or after... But, at this point, it's unlikely to be before...

The tarot here couldn't paint a rosier picture tbh... I really hope Jimin does meet this person in the future because it looks like this marriage could genuinely be the making of true and lasting happiness for him. Just look at these beautiful cards! 10 of cups... Happy family with a loving home environment and playing children! The star because this really is a dream come true, a wish answered. Then you have a reversed queen of wands (👀 omg why does Queen of wands energy always come up with anything to do with romance with Jimin??). However... Interestingly enough, here I'm seeing her as a soft spoken young woman who comes across as quite shy and introverted but who possesses a great deal of inner strength and power... (which is why context matters in tarot guys... Cards mean something different to me basically every time!). This is next to the knight of swords who I see as our lovely libra boy Jimin himself... I'm literally see this as a Knight in shining armor rushing in to the rescue. That's how he'll feel in this relationship. Not at all in a burdensome way... But like that feeling gives him this great deal of strength and confidence in himself. She makes him feel strong and capable and in control... Like a hero. Why is this making me emo? ...

Anyway, then the high priestess is here to sum this connection up and I feel strongly that this is an extremely deep, intuitive connection... The meeting of souls... They can look at each other and just... Know what the other is feeling... Could even be a soul mate / past life connection I think... Wow.

All in all... This is great news for Jimin's future in terms of marriage at this point. Although I do think it'll be a while before they meet and longer before actually getting married... It looks pretty rosy from then on! I'm not saying there will be no bumps in the road at all (I can sense that there are certainly some deep personal issues on both sides that actually need to be dealt with through this union... Which is some soul journey stuff... ) however overall this seems like it will be an amazing match! I'm so glad! 💜 💜 💜

Kim Taehyung:

Character profile:... Uh... Haha... You just had to be different huh Tae... Lol... Ok... So here's the thing... Where marriage is concerned, Tae has that interesting fate where he actually has a choice (I mean, everyone has a choice... But most people don't actually recognise it as a choice... It just kinda happens because it's their fate. Tae has the opportunity to make a conscious choice here regarding his fate because it's like either way he can learn important lessons and grow... Both are fated partners for him. Like a real diverging path kind of thing. He will get to a point where he can choose one path or another with basically full awareness of this as a choice... This is really interesting actually. I mean, either way, he will get married and he can be happy either way too... Although in different ways for different reasons... It's very interesting...

As far as personality goes... I see two distinct personalities coming through... On one side you have someone quite mature, serious, artistic, intellectual, quiet and spiritual and on the other side I see someone very young, pretty, flirty, fun loving, popular and witty... Also very wealthy and a little bit haughty... But kinda 'cute' and funny with it?? Idk why I'm getting that... Like a kind of sly sense of humour...

Unfortunately... This is weirdly up in the air because of this aspect of choice. I can see that both will appeal greatly to different sides of him... If only they could be one person... But alas...

Relationship: Again... The tarot shows how up in the air this is because there is not yet a set path. Tae hasn't even met them yet. He's not thinking seriously of marriage at all yet. However, with the Wheel of Fortune reversed here we can see that though this is not yet set in motion, it is fated either way. Death in reverse and the Hanged Man are also giving me that up in the air, 'paused', kind of feeling... Like this fate is just waiting, biding its time to be set in motion... Right now he's on a solo path, pursuing his career and furthering his goals... It's when he's ready to let some of that go that this will be set in motion... It feels like a few years into the future to me... Not too far but not too close either... I'm not getting a definite time frame. It could be within two to three years or around him going into his early 30s...

You'll notice on one side of the 'up in the air fate' cards we've got the 4 of wands and on the other side we've got the 10 of pentacles representing the two different connections. Both are really auspicious cards for marriage. Both connections are also signified by the two of cups... Both are deep love connections... Again because this is up the air, I'm not getting specifics about the outcomes of either choice, but it does seem atleast like he has the potential to be happy in either marriage. However it looks like in one he can have the big family and legacy (in terms of children and grandchildren and leaving a home and inheritance to them) he desires, while the other relationship seems more quiet and more just about them as a couple being happy together.

I feel like the card Solitude: Island speaks of that connection (them being alone and peaceful together... Perhaps travelling to faraway countries together... And that calmer more serious vibe in that connection) while the card Playfulness is speaking of the other connection (way more youthful, energetic, playful, and flirty energy... And also literal children- and puppies!- incoming!).

So yeah *shrug*... Decisions decisions Tae... He can only make the right choice when the time comes at the end of the day (and he has a lot of spiritual guidance on his side if he chooses to tune in). It's quite likely that by then his priorities and desires for what he really wants out of life will become clearer to him and that will make the decision easier... At this point, it seems like neither of them are a particularly bad choice... Though neither is necessarily perfect either... That's what makes this such a big, fateful decision I suppose... Good luck Tae! 💜 🙏

Now for Jungkook:

Character profile: Wow... Whatta boss... Lol. I'm kinda blown away by this energy to be honest. This is like... The best way I can describe it after looking at all the cards is... This is the kind of woman that both men and women are really attracted to and tend to like (regardless of sexuality). Like... Total 'girl crush', role model, material but also super attractive and sexy... Especially to men who like strong, capable women who have that 'boss' energy... Which is apparently future Jungkook I guess...

Actually these cards really make sense just based on what kind of people Jungkook seems to like to associate with anyway... I feel a sense that she will be older than him by at least a few years (if not, extremely mature and successful for her age). This is someone wise beyond their years who actively seeks knowledge and also goes further to implement what they've learnt to help others who are vulnerable. Something else that's coming through strongly is that this person is extremely creative and artistic... They have to be involved in the arts in some way, even if it isn't their main job. Actually, what I think is that she may work in one creative field (like say, a writer cause Scribe is there) but also does alot of other artistic and creative things as hobbies, like painting, drawing, dancing, singing... This is someone who delights in expressing her creativity so it doesn't have to make her money... She just loves it. Actually there's a kind of free spirited, bohemian, hippyish vibe here which is an interesting contrast to the boss energy... (I honestly want to be her best friend??).

Again, I know I said i wasn't focusing on looks but here looks are coming through really strongly... Like her attractiveness is really a major thing people notice about her so it has to be mentioned. I'm seeing long, wavy or curly black or dark brown hair (although she might also sometimes colour it... Especially red or reddish brown). She has a really great body... Like really fit and toned but also curvy (look at that goddess card! like I said... She's sexy). Also, probably a bit above average height. I'm also seeing that this is someone who's likely to have tanned or darker skin or who tans really easily in the sun... Like in the winter she might get quite pale but then in the summer sun gets a lot darker. She's definitely someone really natural, active and outdoorsy who's likely to get out in the sun as much as possible... I think she probably doesn't wear a lot of makeup... I'm just seeing a really natural beauty... Wow.

Relationship- With the Dreamtime: Creation card I'm getting two things coming through strongly. One is that I really think these two (certainly Jungkook) will actively be manifesting each other before they meet and will (or have already) dreamt about each other. Two is that, once again, I'm getting really highly charged creative energy. These are two extremely talented artists getting together and their relationship and home will reflect that. They encourage and push each other to improve. Really unique and quirky relationship actually... In fact, you'll notice that these cards aren't exactly overtly romantic... And yet... I'm still feeling the love?? Theirs isn't exactly a mushy kind of love but it's still very strong and extremely confident and secure. It's based firmly in actions that show love in a more practical way...

With the Sun shining on this marriage it's clear that they'll be really happy with one another (I see happy children here too... Another aspect of their mutual creativity... 😏 ) but there's also a lot of freedom and space. I see a lot of travelling and a lot of respect and understanding between them. That they are forgiving and don't hold grudges is coming through. This isnt a 'tit for tat' kind of relationship where they hold things over one another or only are nice to each other if the other person is nice first... It feels like they work through arguments maturely, quickly forgive everything and move on to being loving again.

With the page and 8 of Pentacles I see that they learn and grow together as people and work hard to make their relationship and bond extremely strong and they're successful in that. With the engagement card, I'm seeing two things, both strong commitment and loyalty to each other and also that they'll probably get married surprisingly quickly after they start dating. This is another case where I think it'll be a long wait for Jungkook... With the king of swords here... I feel like he'll be a definite MAN when he gets married... Like fully grown, probably rocking both longer hair and a beard... Lol... Older and wiser... Like around his mid 30's or even a little later... However, because he'll have been manifesting and dreaming of her for years (probably even already started guys) he'll just know from the time they meet that she's the one... So why hang about?

Conclusion... I kinda want to be bestfriends with Jungkook's future wife... She's really cool... 😭

OK... This has been the maknae line future marriages reading... I will try to drop the hyung line's readings before, on or just after valentines day so stay tuned! Hope you guys enjoyed!!! 💜 💜 💜

#So... This was interesting...#Here's to me doing the hyung line readings before valentines!#This is my Valentines pressie to my followers so i hope you like it... I purple you!#Bts tarot reading #Maknae line future marriages reading #Bts marriage reading #bts tarot reading #tarot reading #Tarot #Bts #maknae line #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook

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your-brilliant-lady-m · 3 years

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South Korean music industry at a glance: an outsider perspective

I watched one particular AMV last week. The song used for the video was “I’m afraid” by Korean rock band DAY6. I was pleasantly surprised as someone who values lyrics in song first and foremost. The music itself was great. I’ll listen to their songs again. It’s a nice fit for my music taste. Naturally, YouTube’s algorithm decided that I’m a fan of everything Korean after 1 video and started spamming my recommendations with k-pop songs, documentaries and everything in-between.

I watched a couple of videos, listened to some songs and discovered fascinating patterns. So, I went down to the comment section. And it was rather interesting experience, should I say? The concept of entertainment industry in South Korea simply begged to be explored more after this. I dug deeper and visited Tumblr k-pop tags and briefly glanced upon Instagram and Twitter. And, oh...

I am a big picture person and I enjoy both studying and creating systems. This one was particularly fun to explore. I discovered a lot of new things for myself. Perhaps, you can discover something new for yourself too or take a step back and look at this from a new angle.

Disclaimer: it’s impossible not to offend someone on Tumblr, so keep that in mind. That being said, I do NOT intend to insult of offend anyone. It’s just a little research done for fun, because I love research with a purpose. This post is NOT A HATE post. No hate intended for fans, artists or other people involved. It’s meant to be a discussion, nothing more and nothing less. If it sounds like hate, it’s just my sarcastic sense of humour.

Content Warning: I mention suicide, death, depression, rape in a couple of sentences. There’s nothing major or graphic, but it’s there.

In this long post I decided to share with you my opinion, a so-called outsider perspective, on the world of music entertainment industry in South Korea and people involved in it on different levels. I use the word “outsider” mainly because, that’s exactly what I am in this case, as someone who is in no way involved in k-pop community. I can’t name you a single band or their members. I don’t know any solo artist and can’t neither sing nor name you any song.

And to be completely honest, I don’t think I will set my foot into k-pop fan-circles ever again after everything I saw.

Think of this as “In this essay I will...” meme, except there’s an actual essay.

As far as I know, in South Korea “k-pop” refers to all music produced in SK, including solo artists, various bands, singers-songwriters. It doesn’t even have to be pop music. Koreans include in this definition all genres of music. However, around the world “k-pop” means primarily music made by idol groups and bands marketed for children, teenagers and younger people. In this post I use the latter definition, because that’s how most people understand “k-pop” in other countries. Therefore, my statements, opinions and conclusions here would concern only idol music.

The music industry in South Korea is heavily influenced by culture and traditions of the country, just like all things are. And there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, different backgrounds are what makes people so interesting and unique. However, when combined with consumer mindset, desire to generate profit at any cost and fast-paced nature of modern life these neutral cultural elements could produce something concerning, and it can lead to disastrous consequences.

1. Idol

These people are called artists, musicians, singers, bands, groups, performers. In South Korea and in Japan, however, people call them Idols or Stars. I’ve also seen Muses, Princes and Queens. Interesting, isn’t it? The terminology used to describe these musicians in South Korea is one of the key elements in this whole entertainment system. You’ll see why.

But who or what is an idol exactly? Let’s take a basic definition from Wikipedia.

“In the practice of religion, a cult image or devotional image is a human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, person, spirit or daemon ... that it embodies or represents. In several traditions, including the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and modern Hinduism, cult images in a temple may undergo a daily routine of being washed, dressed, and having food left for them. Processions outside the temple on special feast days are often a feature. Religious images cover a wider range of all types of images made with a religious purpose, subject, or connection. In many contexts "cult image" specifically means the most important image in a temple, kept in an inner space, as opposed to what may be many other images decorating the temple.

The term idol is often synonymous with worship cult image. In cultures where idolatry is not viewed negatively, the word idol is not generally seen as pejorative, such as in Indian English.”

Cambridge Dictionary defines idol as follows:

And here’s the definition from Oxford Dictionary:

This is a centrepiece of this tapestry. Surely, you have noticed by now what these definitions have in common.

Idol = a cult image of a god, a deity

By calling these musicians “idols” industry makes society and audience treat them in certain way, namely as gods. What characteristics do gods possess? They are beautiful, talented, funny, confident and graceful, blessed by eternal youth of immortality. Gods have no flaws, they do not bleed, they are above human concerns. They are an embodiment of perfection. They are stars, you could not reach.

But real people are not like that. They can be sad and angry, insecure. People don’t have perfectly symmetrical faces. They can’t dance in sync without preparation. They can’t sing like angels at any given moment throughout the day.

What happens when idols accidentally reveal their humanity? What happens when people see, that they make mistakes and do stupid things, that they need to train hard to appear graceful on stage?

I will tell you. And it’s not pretty. But, first, let’s look at other elements of this system.

2. Y/N and Self-insert fantasy

Aside from the music, K-pop sells the self-insert fantasy to the audience. It’s carefully arranged to appear real, where the cracks are masked and every word is scripted. The reality is so vivid that one doesn’t even have to use imagination all that much, because all scenarios and decorations already exist. Countless interviews for TV and magazines, fan meetings, talk shows, reality shows made sure people are privy to all juicy details of personal lives and opinions of musicians. And also one word - merchandise. Some of that merch made me question my life choices. Some of it is, ah, creepy or has weird vibes. All of this provides plenty of material for people to work with. Fans can effortlessly imagine themselves beside their idols or even in their place.

In a highly competitive society, where people throw themselves into studying and work since young age, forming deep and lasting connections with others is very hard, sometimes impossible. As a result, people long to have a group of close friends with similar interests, a loving partner who would cherish them endlessly. People want to be rewarded for their backbreaking efforts to succeed by the carefree life of fame and music, everlasting friendships and love. And in a way you can’t really blame them for his.

Does this dream life sound familiar? We are looking at K-pop bands here. It doesn’t really matter if their members don’t always get along or that they can live in debt, that fame is fickle and adoring fans can tear your self-confidence to shreds. Audience wants the glamour of fantasy and the industry is more than happy to cater to these desires.

Perhaps, knowing that even for idols this fantasy is sometimes unattainable makes the whole set up feel just a little cruel.

3. Fans, stans and fandom culture

We’ve already established earlier that idols are gods in the eyes of people and listed traits they must possess. So, what else do gods need to exist? Worshippers. Because a cult is worth nothing without its followers. Gods need a group of people to worship them and spread their beliefs. The role of worshippers is performed by a fans in this case.

Apparently, there is a running joke that girl groups need to win a general public popularity and boy bands need a big passionate fandom. It seems to be true according to my observations.

In k-pop fandom people use the word “stan” to state that they like or support particular group. Now, I am sure everyone here knows that in other fandoms, dedicated to movies, shows, books and games there’s an important distinction between being a “fan” and a “stan”. What is it?

A fan is someone who likes a ship or character, creates and/or consumes fandom content, supports certain ideas, discusses things they enjoyed and disliked, criticises canon. Stans, however, are a different breed. They engage in all typical fandom activities, but their support and enjoyment becomes obsession. Stans believe their favourite characters and ships are immune to criticism, that they are superior no matter what others say. Stans start shipping wars, send anon hate, death threats over fictional characters and hurt real people. Stans are considered toxic fans. And majority of normal civilised people don’t like them and try their best to let stans hang out in their echo chamber by themselves.

In other fandoms and communities, to be a fan means to love, support and enjoy something, while to stan means to obsess over and hyperfixate on these same things. Words “I stan” rarely mean “I support” for most people, and if they do mean that, it’s only used in a joking manner (”We stan procrastination legend!”, “I stan our miscommunication kings”).

Everywhere else “stan” has only negative connotations, except in k-pop. But what has changed? What’s the difference? Why do international fans scoff at “shipper stans” and then turn around calling themselves “stans of X k-pop group” at the same time? Does it make you wonder?

And this is another core theme of k-pop, in my opinion. In fandom where stan = obsession = support, you can see interesting patterns.

Fandom loves their flawless gods. But watching them from afar is not enough for some people, because unlike deities in different religions, these gods live among us. People are very much aware of that. Industry has created a cult and laid the groundwork for worshippers to express their adoration in every way including personal contact. And who wouldn’t want to meet their god? Who wouldn’t want to know more about them or tell them how much you love them? In talk shows and fan meetings there is only so much one can do after all.

People desire to know more, to have more so much that their obsession transforms into concerning stalker tendencies. These crazy individuals follow idols, stalk them on social media, in hotels, research flight numbers, bribe security. Musicians were attacked and poisoned. I strongly suspect there were cases of rape that no one knows about. There is even a special term for these fans - “sasaeng”.

Is there a definition for stalkers of actors or musicians in western world? No, I’m pretty sure there isn’t. They are just called “invasive/obsessive fans” or “stalkers”.

Also, there are sasaeng memes. Yeah, you heard that right. I enjoy some classy dark humour as much as the next person, but there is a fine line between normal and questionable.

Back to the topic of stalkers. Do you realise how disturbing that is? Such behaviour is so common that there is a term for it. You create a fandom-cult, encourage people to worship k-pop idols as gods and then act surprised when members of said cult become fanatics and their adoration becomes obsession.

And it’s so easy to step on this slippery road. The system makes it ridiculously easy. Lines begin to blur. How much is too much? Where do you draw the line?

While sasaeng fans engage in extreme real-life obsession, people online aren’t that far off, to be honest. I’ve seen it all: imagines, headcanons, fanfiction, real-person shipping, reactions. Real person shipping is a controversial topic. Some people support it, others don’t. I suppose I’m among those who don’t get it. I’m not exactly against it, but I find it strange. Mainly because it’s based on assumptions made by fans about personalities and behaviour of real people.

Assumptions. Dear me! K-pop fandom has this thing with video compilations. I’ve never seen this phenomenon being so widespread in any other community or fandom. Basically people edit together a collection of short clips from talk-shows, interviews, Instagram stories, some YouTube videos, etc and then proceed to analyse every gesture, word, facial expression of idols and provide both audio and on-screen commentary. These videos and many other forms of similar analysis allow people to imagine what kind of personalities idols have, what kind of life do they live. It’s the source material for fanfiction, imagines and headcanons.

But it’s not real. It’ll never be real. It’s an illusion, an image, a stage persona. They fall in love with a face and made up personality. And I think that when people create this content they can forget this. Fans can develop certain emotional dependence and unhealthy attitudes in the long run. In some YouTube comments even supportive and encouraging words sound whiny and obsessive. And semantics of being a “stan” of certain group or individual doesn’t help.

4. Industry, companies and liars

At last we arrive at the most important aspect of music entertainment industry - its creators.

Have you seen “The Road to El Dorado”? It’s one of my all time favourites. It has iconic characters, adult jokes that I didn’t get as a child and iconic soundtrack. I’ll quote “It’s Tough To Be A God” a lot here.

In South Korea music industry is a factory, the production line to be exact. This kind of set up affects everything in the grand scheme of things. Companies and agencies play the role of training centres and record labels. And there are so many of them that a whole new scamming system developed based around fake idol agencies. It implies that there are people who fall for offers of these agencies and continue to do so. I suspect that victims must pay a fortune upfront before they realise their mistake. Are there any kind of legal protection against such scams? How can people verify the authenticity? Because a well masked scam can exist for a long time before someone discovers it and calls them out on their nonsense.

As far as I understand legal companies work like this. After high school, which is often focused on performing arts (and private schools can get away with using talents of students for personal gain, which is totally not surprising), young people can audition for an agency and become an idol in training or idol-trainee. And passing audition is hard. But good recommendations can help, connections too.

During training you don’t get paid. Only a few companies pay aspiring musicians. People can spend years in training and don’t debut. But rent, necessities, clothing and food (not that you need much of it, but more on that later) cost a lot. Where do you get the money to live then? Support from parents, one or two part time jobs at most and bank loans. Surprise! We found an unexpected (just kidding, it’s very obvious) party, who reaps benefits from the system.

You need skill to be an idol. Natural talent helps too. The more skills you have, the cheaper and faster your training is. To level up your game you attend classes every month offered by your agency, which are not cheap (dance classes range from 400$ to 1000$ per month, sometimes more). There are four main categories in evaluation process: vocals, rapping, dancing and visuals. Idols are multitaskers, to have a chance on stage one must be perfect at everything. And people are ready to invest thousands of dollars into their kids training so that they could have a chance in entertainment industry. South Korea thrives on revenue k-pop industry generates every day.

Let’s pause here for a second and think about what kind of people come to these agencies. The answer is easy. People who have a dream, a desire, a real goal. You don’t wake up one day and decide to become a k-pop idol. Sometimes people get invited by agencies (after prior acting, modelling career or any other form of exposure). These people are usually very young. Some start straight after high school, some after university, but 25 years old is considered a late start. Compare that to western musicians who start singing at any age and still become famous.

But why this age limit? Because idols are eternally young. So that in public eye musicians are remembered as 20 year old gods. People would listen to their music and imagine a young attractive face. Career in k-pop is short, it lasts 5-7 years, rarely longer than that. It’s even less than modelling or acting can offer. And professional sportsmen retire in their late 30′s. Some play longer, but usually, that’s it.

If you live in Los Angeles and say that you want to be an actor or performer, no one would bat an eye. It’s like saying that you want to be an engineer or accountant. Similarly, in South Korea becoming an k-pop musician is a real career. Because part of the self insert fantasy that the industry sells is the idea that anyone can be an idol. It’s easy after all. Anyone can pass auditions and become a trainee. A trainee with no guarantee of debut. But one should never underestimate the power of idol-dream. After all, idea is the most resilient parasite.

“My friends started training in kindergarten. They have wanted to become idols since young”

“A lot of young kids get interested in Korean music”

A 6-year old child sees the performance of k-pop group for the first time on TV. Let’s say it’s a girl. She is enraptured and decides that she will be like that too someday. She grows up, while being part of the fandom, just like all idols are in one way or another and whose fan-obsession transforms into desire to succeed. Her parents spend time and money to find her tutors, to fund dancing and singing classes. Perhaps in high school this girl decides to fix the shape of her eyes and make nose straighter. She trains hard and passes the auditions in her dream agency. And during training this girl faces the reality of behind the scenes life in music industry.

“Why are you crying? I’m not even pushing you”

“How many times have I told you? The rest are doing it perfectly”

“She is dancing like an elementary school student“

“I watched your performance as a spectator who bought a ticket to your concert. I want a refund“

“You make my ears hurt. I don’t want to listen at all”

“Listening to you was tiring”

“I’ll kick you out instead. You won’t debut”

“I thought I was going to die. That’s how determined I was”

While I do understand that keeping a high quality standards in media industry is important, there are more productive and healthy ways to motivate someone to improve and be more passionate, you know? Constantly insulting people with sadistic glee and putting them down at every opportunity or calling them ugly to their face doesn’t do much.

Do you think that children know about this? Do they know about soulless teachers and belittling managers? Do they know about friends who are really your competition, so you shouldn’t get attached? Do they know about living in debt? Do they know any of this? No, I don’t think they do.

Children dream about the stage, about the sea of lights and crowds who chant your names. They want adoring fans and photoshoots. They want to appear on TV and magazine covers. Teenagers want the thrill of performance, they want to share their music and dancing with others.

“I don’t know how many times I cried alone”

The truth is cruel. But they won’t give up easily even if it means sleeping 4-5 hours and consuming no more than 500 calories per day. Because giving up means that your whole life was a lie. One can’t afford not to be good enough. Giving up means admitting that all efforts and money your family invested into your dream were in vain. It means losing face before your family and friends - a fate worse than death. Imagine living this idol dream and building your whole future around it and then being told that you’ll never debut because of the circumstances outside of your control or something minor, like face shape or 1 kg of weight that your body refuses to lose. It can break you. Especially if you are like 18 or something.

5. “And who am I to bridle if I'm forced to be an idol If they say that I'm a God, that's what I am”

“I don’t think there’s anything a tough as being a trainee in Korea”

Once you are a trainee at the agency your personal life does not belong to you anymore. You can’t go out without permission of the agency. You phone is taken away. Your diet and weight are monitored. Bad habits are not allowed (no smoking, drinking or drugs). Oh! I think I found the good thing in the system! Unfortunately, it won’t last. Trainees can’t date or meet with family without permission of agency. Dating is very taboo. Even established idols can’t openly date.

Why is that? Because gods can’t belong to anyone. Their lives are property of the fandom. Because openly dating idols destroy the self-insert fantasy. There was a former idol girl who dated another musician. She was called a whore by her fans, her loving and adoring stans. You might know who I am talking about. Would you call an American actor or singer a prostitute for dating someone?

Trainees sign the contract. And how can a young person straight out of school or university know much about what makes a good contract in entertainment industry or what makes a good contract in general? Even if you do understand the terms fully you would still sign it because if you have come so far, you can’t let your dream slip this easily. There isn’t a choice. Not really. If you want to debut, you will agree to anything.

What about life after debut? You have to pay off your loans. And company takes 60-70% of your group’s earnings. Artists themselves get 30-40% and split it between themselves. K-pop groups have from 5 to 10 members or more than that. Each person gets less than 6%. Idols are not filthy rich. They are not. These earnings are practically nothing compared to the work you have put into this.

Idols are musicians, who often don’t even write their own songs, music or create choreography. But if public doesn’t like the song and musical number the company created, they blame idols for the failure. Such an amazing logic we see right here. But people say that sharing music is the best part of idol life. But whose music?

Models on catwalk are not there to demonstrate their physical beauty, they are blank canvas for works of clothing designers. Same with k-pop musicians. They act like puppets in a way, whose faces and voices are used to show audience someone’s music and songs. Some groups do write their own music and lyrics and it’s nice to know that. But those, who don’t are rather unfortunate. It’s a nice tool of psychological control and pressure for an agency. They can hold it over group and use the following rhetoric: “We gave you everything! Why can’t you follow the simple instructions” or “Where would you be without us? It’s not even your music!”

I called k-pop industry a factory. That’s true. Dozens of people become trainees every year. These talented young people are fully prepared to do anything to achieve their goal. They are ready to practice until they collapse, starve themselves and pour themselves into every song. Companies know that. Tell me why would they value their idols as individuals, as people, as human beings if they always have a replacement? Why bother with mental health of their artists if next year they could have a fresh set of people, who are younger and prettier? Why try to improve relationships inside groups if you could fire any member and replace them within a month or two?

In western countries famous bands have different stories. Some were friends since high school, who played in bars and during festivals and then they were noticed by some representative of label company, who offered them a contract. Some groups were formed by like-minded people who bonded and decided to share their music with the world. There are many stories, but ultimately the have one thing in common. Bands in the West often form themselves. These people had time to bond, connect, discover each other, solve some disagreements and learn to work around their differences.

K-pop groups are formed by their agencies. They are their property in a way. Company selects the best and puts together these total strangers, appoints the leader with marketable face and personality and then expects them to work together like a well-oiled machine. No one has time to bond during training, because other people are you competition, not friends. And then you must learn to work as a team and be best friends on camera for the audience to support the self-insert fantasy. It’s no wonder that k-pop groups don’t get along sometimes. And every member knows that they are replaceable. It doesn’t help in forming connections. Groups can’t just terminate contract and go to work with another agency. I heard it happens sometimes, but it’s not a done thing. Unlike in other countries where bands just sign the deal with a different label and release their music under their name if they don’t like the old conditions.

“It's tough to be a God But if you get the people's nod Count your blessings, keep them sweet, that's our advice Be a symbol of perfection Be a legend, be a cult Take their praise, take a collection As the multitudes exalt Don a supernatural habit We'd be crazy not to grab it So sign up two new Gods for paradise”

But is it really a paradise?

Idols are expected to act cute, to match personalities created for them by fans or media. They have to act according to the concept of their group. They have to be a symbol of perfection: skinny, single and with a face perfected by surgery. They are allowed to mess up, but only in a cute way. They can break down and cry, but only if it’s “aesthetic”.

Weight issues are a separate topic. Sometimes I wonder whether managers in companies understand how weight loss or human body in general works. To be honest, I think that scales in agencies are rigged. And only managers know that. I know it can be done from personal experience. Some beach resorts tweak their scales and make them show 4-6 kg less than actual weight, so people wouldn’t get upset if they gain some. There is no way a girl as tall as I am (173 cm) could weigh like 47-50 kg and be able to perform complex choreography on stage and sing without being out of breath, visit the gym on a regular basis and generally function as a normal human without fainting every other day.

“I developed a lot of eating disorders”

“I think I consumed about 300 calories today“

“Someone, please, trim the fat off her arms”

If you grow up thinking of idols as gods and then, when you become one of them you think that you must act as one too. But being an easily replaceable god is a heavy burden. The industry, companies and audience want you to be perfect, to always be on your best behaviour. And the thought of not being good enough or divine enough terrifies you, because stans have no mercy (black ocean concept is the most stupid thing ever by the way). This kind of pressure can destroy even the most resilient. And it does.

Almost everyone knows that situation with mental health in South Korea is not the best to put it lightly. In many ways it’s a cultural thing. But in k-pop mental health issues are treated with even less care. Gods are not supposed to be depressed or suicidal. They are not supposed to have fears or insecurities, can’t be upset or angry. They try hard to be this deity, this image. So, even when they realise they need professional help or even a friend to talk to, they either won’t seek said help or reach out only to be met with silence. Some agencies disapprove or forbid therapy altogether.

Sometimes fandom becomes self-aware.

“Don’t forget that idols are people too!”

“Your favourite idols are running out of breath just to keep you entertained“

“They are humans, who have feelings!”

Oh, but here’s the thing, my friend. The industry doesn’t want you to think of them as people. Companies and media repeatedly reinforce the idea that they are not people, they are your idols. And strangely enough, the audience supports this idea. People continue to call them idols, developing worshiping tendencies in the process, imitate them, scrutinise their flaws and triumphs. Because, you know, only “real and ordinary humans” can have flaws, not “idols”.

So people who say “they are human too” and people who say “wow, this concert was amazing, but vocals in the beginning were so off-key, I simply can’t” are one and the same.

This thought process would have been funny if it wasn’t so disappointing. But that’s just my observation.

And here’s another thing about sexualisation. I said before how appearances are everything, marketable face and body could drastically improve your chances to succeed. Companies know about this too and concepts and aesthetics of groups are designed accordingly. Girls are dressed in skimpy outfits, their dances are unnecessary suggestive, they wear heavy make up and try to have “mature” vibes. Boys don’t avoid such objectification either: suits, tight pants and dress shirts along with make up and hairstyle to give audience a promise of the things to come. Grown adults are not supposed to lust after 15-17 year olds. You can’t just create a sexy stage persona for teenagers. Do you remember my earlier words about creepy merch? Yeah. All of it neatly plays into the self-insert fantasy and encourages obsessive behaviour.

This happens in western countries too. In some way that’s understandable. Beautiful and sexy image with a hint of innocence attracts more people and sells, because it caters to one of the base human instincts. But some things make your skin crawl.

Sponsorships are another topic. Some k-pop bands seek out sponsors to provide financial aid and cover expenses, when earnings are not enough. Sometimes these sponsorships are fine, perfectly civil. But sometimes it’s a prostitution. Girl groups receive money and provide sexual favours to their patrons. It’s a way for the group to gain financial support and even find new opportunities in the industry. Companies can encourage such deals. Let that sink in for a moment.

6. “Any advice to those who want to become a k-pop idol?”

A lot of former idols and trainees have similar responses to this question.

“I don’t want to discourage anyone, but think twice”

“You only see the glamorous side, but don’t see all the hard work that goes into it”

“It’s not what you think”

“They think ‘Since I am good looking and can sing and dance really well, maybe I should become an idol?’, but there is much more to it“

“They think it’s something that is easy and will keep their family set for life financially”

And this implies that most people don’t know what kind of lifestyle k-pop stars truly have, despite the amount of information available online about “behind the scenes” proceedings.

7. Moving on

I am a practical person and every decision I make is subjected to scrutiny. And after seeing everything I can't help but wonder whether idols believe it's truly worth it. What keeps the industry alive is the idol-dream, the wilful ignorance of its reality and youthful idealism, the beautiful naïve belief that it'll get better, even if it never does in the end.

Sure no one would ever admit it out loud, because it's one of those things you never say on camera, no matter how sincere you have to be. It's the matter of professionalism after all, and idols have it spades. And also, because admitting this would equal admitting that you spent your best years doing something you both loved and hated, admitting that this was a mistake.

When you grow up in a society where appearances matter the most, where saving face and being polite is more important than staying true to yourself, where individuality is tolerated only to a certain point, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you need a break. I greatly respect those who decided that idol lifestyle is not for them and moved on.

8. Conclusion

To sum up, I hope you enjoyed my small research and this perspective, since you have read it all the way to the end.

You have noticed that entertainment industry is an intricate system and its every component makes sure nothing changes. Companies have power over idols and audience, fandom has power over idols and their careers, and musicians themselves have fame and their music, but not always the promised fortune or happiness.

It’s important to understand the big picture to draw your own conclusions and encourage positive and heathy attitudes in fandoms. Being open minded and allowing people to make mistakes and live their lives the way they want to is a part of being a decent person. People don’t owe anything to others. Art is about sharing your thoughts and feelings, promoting ideas and spreading beauty. It’s not always about money. And I think that this is what k-pop lacks as an industry. It turned dreams and human need for self-expression into business. Here everything is turned into a product. Everything idols touch can be sold, sometimes literally. Industry created problems, which can’t be solved anymore, because doing so would topple the system. And I find it tragic. Trapped in an endless chase after perfection creators of k-pop forgot that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

If you take a look at comment sections and posts on different platforms, what will you see? What kind of things resonate with audience? What makes people laugh and cry? When people start to appreciate the substance?

“Everyone needs to hear this song in their darkest moments”

“Thank you for your music!”

“They always deliver! These guys can’t make a bad song!”

“It inspired me to write again!”

“Their songs brought me and my sister together once again”

“This is what happens when you let groups write their own music - they make incredible things”

“They really are legends of k-pop! I love that they are not afraid to show their inner strength”

“Stay strong! You rock!”

I believe that the answer is quite simple: when it’s real, sincere. It’s all about the message you choose to send to your audience, because only superficial things cause obsession. When you say that the sparkly façade is all that matters, then that’s the only thing people will ever care about. Your audience will never give a damn about the meaning behind dancing, music or lyrics, if you tell them that performance is more important. No one would praise WHAT k-pop idols sing, instead they would prefer wasting breath to criticize HOW they sing or look or move.

I dare the k-pop industry to prove people that it’s not just about looks or perfection, or laser shows, or being a branding machine. Prove to your fans that k-pop artists are also passionate people with big dreams and talent, who love every moment of their job, who live and inspire, who are human just like us and whose humanity is real!

Do it, you cowards!

And now, I’m finished. I can hear the raging crowd of k-pop fandom in the distance, which means it’s time to hide. See you some other time!

#k-pop #korean music #k-rock #k-pop idol #k-pop meta #k-pop discussion #k-pop fandom criticism

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ofieugogyshz · 4 years

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i cant have brain to write with tonight so instead have bullet points of ideas of things bc i got accosted by ideas when i finally got to lilycove again after like fifteen years and now i want a revisit trip but it’d be like several years ago not anything in current time lol. a lot of it is selfish/one-sided trip but you know what it’s whatever okay there’s a reason why it’s bullet points and not a whole ass fic lol. [along with brain. brainstorming but without a brain]

i promise there’s a read more but sometimes tumblr says fuck you when you try to make some

Going to the cove lily motel a year or two after marriage idk

walking around the city, holding hands, going around with maybe a few people nodding/greeting us as we walk by

going towards the beach and lighthouse, watching the waves and people play in the water from the land/cliff overlooking the sea/beach

watching the wailmer play/do tricks in the sea by the cove

the old couple who've been married for 60 years nearby, noticing us and commenting/greeting us.

Old man asks how long we've been married, we admit just a few years' anniversary trip;

“But we've known each other for a lot longer than that!”

the wife (and husband?) chuckles, and “I'll let you two in on a little secret, [if you want to listen/hear it]” look at each other confused/uncertain, but nod at them. “It was 60 years ago that my husband proposed to me.” she turns to look at the sea. “The sea remains as beautiful as ever, [as it did back then]”

awe by me and “you guys look young/not that old!” “Even as we grow old and wrinkled, the sea remains forever young with the vivid brilliance of life” by the husband, whose gaze followed his wife's. He turns to look at us. “You two look as in love as we did at that age. Shoot, we still feel that way about each other, after all these years! The youthfulness that love makes you feel.... if you've got the right partner, that feeling will never fade.”

cue both of us blushing even though the feelings/observation is spot on for us.

Burying face/boring hole into ground bc i'm so embarrassed

husband takes note of this and politely offers an escape (“Thank you for your time. Sarah, didn't you say that there was a contest hall nearby? Did you want to take a look?”)

passing by the contest fan club; mentions of lisia/”lissi” and “ari” and looking at who the current contest stars are.

“Ah! I remember back when Wallace was the big name for contests. I think the new girl is his... cousin? Niece? I remember hearing that he had a younger relative that he was tutoring before I left Hoenn.”

watching recordings at the fan club of the new contest stars. Stars in eyes and a desire to participate all over again. Look at husband for permission/if we can go check the contest hall and see when there is one again.

Contest hall

“wow, they really have changed the design of them since I was travelling. I remember that they were changing up how the halls work-- or that they were changing them to battle halls. I noticed slateport's changed first when I was taking a ship out of the region, and I went to try it out and...” makes face “I didn't really like it. I missed seeing it as a contest hall. I'm hoping the public or at least the contest community got them to change it back, even if that sounds bad...”

The lilycove art museum

“oh nooo, they took down the pieces someone made of my pokemon back when we were doing contests!! I wonder if I can ask them if they're in storage somewhere so we can take them...”

talk to the curator, he explains that they gave them back to the original artist, but if I wanted, I could contact them to see if they were interested in giving them to me.

Dept store

the different levels, loto id

lance half-jokingly pondering if they sell capes [me; no! No capes him: okay, no tarot decks or plush dolls me: ….fine but only an eye for an eye. Him: you have a weird way of saying things, you know this yes? Me: and who made that decision to marry me, hmmmmmmm?

“this is like celadon's, but I always liked their selection more. Now I remember why”

secret base dolls aaaaaaa the secret base stuff in general

“oh!!! I wonder if my secret base is still here.... Probably not. Oh, right, I made sure I took everything out before I left, but I still wonder what it looks like now. It was a pretty popular spot.”

squealing over all the cute plushies and themed cushions and carpets/mats and tables

“I miss having a secret base ;~; “

being told to come back on saturday for the sale extravaganza.

Us both looking thru the tm shop, looking to see what the local tm collection is now, what we might need/are missing (esp since most of our collection is from before technology created more stable/unbreakable TMs, so finding modern replicas of the rarer stuff is hard still)

me; thinks about buying one for him as a gift, but not sure which one yet

go to the lighthouse, idk why, it just became tradition to check out a region's lighthouse after visiting olivine's

check out the beach/nearby cave and see what's become of it since destruction of local gang's base

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whitherliliesbloom · 4 years

Text

An Order of Dandelions

He could never forget the scent of caramel coffee in the air, or the sight of the gentle smile that graced her expression as she waved him goodbye. It was a call for him to visit again, an urge and temptation he would never refuse.

Modern AU ✿ Illya/Alphinaud ✿ 3,464 words

"A new cafe again, young master?"

He's used to hearing that question asked to him as the scenic view of the city passes him by, his hand idly stroking a length of fur upon his lap as he answers with nothing more than a firm nod.

His chauffeur may not understand it, but Alphinaud was a firm believer of expanding your horizons, trying something new, or some variation of the saying.

He could most certainly not hurt to afford spending his money on the same few chain coffee stores near the campus or his home, and just a few years back he'd even expressed his disbelief at his twin sister's insistence on eating out at those rustic fast food joints rather than the far more trustworthy alternative of five star french cuisine. A disbelief that prompted him to visit a rustic cafe for coffee once, and ever since that first visit, he'd become a devoted convert.

He was enamored by the modest settings of cafe, the more often than not extraordinary decor that put even the fanciest of restaurants he's seen throughout his life to shame. The prices for the food and drinks were extraordinary too - extraordinarily low for quality he'd consider no different from alternatives 5 times the price.

He'd gone from curiosity of a naive rich man's son to a full fledged cafe hopping addict now.

This time, his sights were set on a quaint little cafe he's heard his classmates mentioned once in passing during their lunch time conversations. They said nothing more than the bare minimum to get him curious - that the coffee was delicious, the decorations were pretty and that the barista was apparently nice.

A purr snatches his attention, and the boy turns his head to smile down at the cat that laid belly up upon his lap.

"I shall watch over Romeo as usual, young master."

"My thanks."

Brief words of thanks are punctuated by the sound of the tires braking against the asphalt as the car stops gracefully outside of the quiet little building.

Rows of potted flowers hung just above the window that would give passerby a glimpse into the seating area within. White wooden tables and chairs neatly lined up against the wall where even more potted plants decorated the rustic white planks, green vines taking the place of the ever popular fairy lights he's seen a good number of cafes use. And though the window gave a good view of the handful of customers already seated within, and the sheer amount of plant life that shared that space, the counter is obscured from view behind the wall. He’d assume there would be a short line of people waiting for their orders to be taken.

A small sign was parked right above the window, framed by what else but a wreath of leaves and flowers of every colour of the rainbow.

The Lavender Brew

A suitable name for one so obsessed with plants, Alphinaud thought to himself. Not that it was a bad thing, of course. He hasn't even stepped foot outside the car and he's already sold on the concept.

"Let me know if there's anything else you need, young master." The bearded man in the driver’s seat finally turns to speak to him, and Alphinaud flashes a smile of gratitude in return.

"I will, Pierre. I shall return shortly."

Much to the dismay of the blonde cat that had just been resting so blissfully upon his master's lap, he's quickly scooped up and dropped onto the back seat, evidently less than pleased as it let out a low pitched meow.

Alphinaud is used to the demands of his cat however, and has no regrets with opening the car door and closing it behind him without even a second glance back.

A bell chime greets his entrance into the cafe, and he's immediately hit by the familiar scent of coffee intermingled with floral notes he was less accustomed to. He notes with a low hum that he was right about there not being too many people waiting by the counter.

A display refrigerator he hadn't been able to see from the outside stood proudly next to the counter, housing a myriad of palm sized cakes and pastries along with handwritten cards noting the name of each dessert and their respective prices.

Eye catching as the desserts were, his attention is drawn to the chalk board on the wall behind the counter, where more of the same handwriting now listed a menu of drink items with their prices. Espresso, mocha and lattes he's very much used to.. a subset list of both floral and fruit juices less so, but it further adds to the naturalistic theme this cafe seemed so adamant to follow.

His line of sight breaks upon catching a flash of white at the corner of his eye and he turns his head back down to finally look at the barista.

Long straight white hair fluttered to and fro after the girl as she rushed from one end of the station behind the counter to the other, frantically preparing the orders of the patiently waiting customers who were far more interested in whatever was being displayed on their smart phones. A pink ribbon broke the monotone of her pure white hair behind her head, and he notes to himself with a small amount of amusement that the white patterns on the ribbon were of lilies.

When the lady finally turns around to hand the customer a take away cup of their order, a timid little 'thank you so much!' breathlessly leaving her lips, Alphinaud's eyes widen slightly in surprise.

Wide violet eyes that practically glisten in the light, almost porcelain-like light skin and a button nose. The woman's sense of dress is simple, but most suited for her. Coupled with how she stood more than a foot shorter than even he and her youthful appearance, he'd garner a guess that she was no older than him, and perhaps even younger.

If this were the very same barista his classmate had been speaking about, he'd have to very much agree with their prognosis about her 'cuteness'.

Alphinaud may be rich, but he most certainly isn’t entitled. At least, he’d like to believe he isn’t, a claim so many others of his age had throw thoughtlessly his way with zero regards of his feelings. And so he has always made it a point to emulate the behavior of what his father titled ‘commoners’. From occasionally picking up groceries for himself, to the now comfortable routine of standing in line at a cafe as he takes in the sights around him.

He quickly scurries to the end of the queue and attempts to make full use of his time waiting by thinking on what he’d like to order until his train of thought was rudely disrupted by the rough rattle of the bell as the door to the cafe opened.

“Hey, lady! This isn’t what I ordered!”

A man stomps in, pushing past the first customer in front of the counter to slam his disposable coffee cup onto the table. It barely makes a sound, but the anger in his voice is enough to contort the barista’s expression into one of unbridled fear.

“U-um-- W-What was it that you ordered again, sir?”

“I ordered a goddamn Americano, not Macchiato, idiot!”

There isn’t a single pair of eyes in the cafe that wasn’t directed towards the bellowing man now. Though the gazes of the patrons within the cafe had ranged from mild curiosity to annoyance, the trembling barista behind the counter had been left alone with a wavering stare of terror.

“I-I’m so sorry! I’ll prepare a Macchiato for you right away, sir!”

“I ain’t got time to wait for you to make another shitty cup of your brew! You’ve already wasted enough of my time making me come back here to tell you this!”

Hushed whispers passed among the handful of customers that had been waiting in line, presumably badmouthing the audacity of the man to quite literally scream in the face of a woman who seemed about ready to fall to the floor. Inaction and idle gossip however, has never quite been Alphinaud’s style; it was never the Leveilleur style.

“There must certainly be a better way to express your dissatisfaction than to yell at a lady like that.” The boy’s words pierces through the air, and the man directs his narrowed glare towards him.

“What’s that gotta do with you, kid?! Stay out of it!”

“You’re making a scene, sir. You claim that she wasted your time, and yet are you not wasting the time of everybody waiting in line yourself?” Unwavered, Alphinaud folds his arms across his chest. “I’m certain the police would say the same if we were to call them here.”

The threat certainly seemed to get through to the man at least. His eyes almost spitting fire out at the insolent teen who seemed to have no intentions of backing off. The boy’s well dressed, probably well to do.. if he were to lay a hand on him, then surely no good would come of it.

Finally stepping back, the man hurriedly leaves the cafe, though not without leaving a final signal of his ire by slamming the door. The sound of the door smashing shut, and the echoes of the bell as it noisily chimed for the next several seconds was enough to cause the poor barista to jump in her skin.

“Don’t let jerks like him get to you.” one of the customers, a woman with a freckled face and curly brunette hair waved her hand to catch the young woman’s attention. “He probably won’t ever come back, anyway.”

The sentiment seemed to be shared by the other customers, who were quick to turn their attention back to their own business after sparing a final sympathetic glance at the woman behind the counter.

Alphinaud hadn’t expected anything out of the incident, really. Such actions was only natural, or at least something that should be expected out of the future heir of a corporation. He could not hope to lead others if he did not have the courage to stand up for what he believed to be right, or at the very least defend those with a lesser voice than he.

It was but a small unpleasant blight during an otherwise uneventful day.

“U-um... Thank you so much...”

It wasn’t until the other customers before him had been served and the line in front of the counter had dispersed that he heard her voice directed towards him. It was almost like a whisper, a single light chime in the wind. The girl’s hands clasped together in front of her chest as she stared up at Alphinaud with glossy violet eyes.

The sincerity in her words caught him unaware at first, but he was quick to shake his head and flash her a smile as a return.

“You needn’t thank me. I just did what was right.”

“B-but...” the girl stutters, fingers now fidgeting restlessly as her eyes darts to the planks of wood beneath her feet. “You...you protected me.. from that man and...”

Protected certainly is an unexpectedly huge word to be using for something so trivial, but Alphinaud could only imagine what such a valiant act would appear to be in the eyes of a woman who seemed barely capable of keeping eye contact with others.

“And I am certain many others would have done the same if they had the chance, miss.”

The girl averts her gaze, hands falling apart to allow one to brush strands of white over her ear. There’s no one behind him in line, but she still makes an attempt to recall her professionalism all the same.

“W-well,” she begins, her voice almost a whisper for a moment, before it becomes louder. “What would you like to order, sir?”

Alphinaud leans back slightly on one heel as he considers, glancing briefly at the blackboard menu decorated with small chalk drawings of flowers and leaves.

“How about you surprise me?” he asks pleasantly with a smile. He catches sight of her name tag as he looks back to her. Illya. “And call me ‘Alphinaud’, please.”

A light dusting of pink rises to the girl’s cheeks as she shuffles her feet nervously, still not quite looking at him. Pale pink lips tremble as she attempts to choke out his name as requested.

“Y-yes...S-si-.. Alphinaud.” Somehow, something twinges lightly in his chest as he hears her say his name. Perhaps the floral scent of the cafe is getting to him. “My name is...Illya.”

Her expression turns into one of consideration as she turns away from him slowly. He doesn’t think to tell her he’s already seen her name.

The light hiss of steaming milk fills the air as Illya begins preparing him her brew, evidently having decided upon something. Her movement is swift, evidently familiar with her station as she mixes a concoction of what he can tell to contain milk and some powder together. A minute later, she brings him the cup, lightly settles it upon the counter, and names the price.

“Ah...I sh-should have told you earlier...I’m sorry -- “

“No, no, it’s quite all right, nothing to worry about,” he reassures her, already pulling out his card to pay. The payment terminal makes a light beep as he taps it. He spares her another smile as he folds his wallet away. “What is it?”

“A-a...caramel latte.”

Oh -- he’s never had one of those. But he did ask her to surprise him, and she certainly did. He picks up the steaming cup and takes a sip.

It’s -- sweet. Almost cloyingly so.

Somehow, he manages to keep a grimace from rising to his features. Alphinaud has never been a big fan of overly sugary drinks. He’s used to the dark and bitter richness of his usual orders, but telling her he’s not fond of it, especially after what had happened earlier felt a tad cruel.

His panic spikes when she, hesitantly, asks him how it is, and he has to pray that he’s managed to remain composed.

“It’s...good.” Relief washes over him like a tidal wave as he sees her pretty violet eyes light up. “It’s certainly surprising! I’ve never had one of these before.”

“I’m so glad.” The sheer sincerity behind her words is near enough to take his breath away, though why, he’s not entirely sure.

“I-Illya,” he stammers a moment, internally cursing himself, as he nurses his cup and takes another small sip. “How did you come to own such a quaint cafe?” Ordinarily, he wouldn’t attempt to make such conversation, but it doesn’t feel right to simply leave, and there’s nobody else waiting either way.

“Oh...” Illya trails off, her gaze averting yet again. “I-it’s -- it used to be my parents’. My mother put me in charge of the cafe after I graduated high school.. A-And since I’ve always liked flowers, I t-turned it into a florist shop as well...”

One pale eyebrow quirking in surprise, Alphinaud turns slightly to glance at one of the many displays of flowers and plants festooning the establishment. Now that she mentions it, he can indeed see that some of them have price tags attached.

From an assortment of potted cactus plants and flower, to smaller trinkets that he assumes to be mini terrariums.. it’s plain to see much love and care was put into the array of plants that was put on sale.

“What a wonderful idea! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cafe quite like this before. I think it’s very unique.”

Dusts of red returns to the white-haired girl’s cheeks full-force, though this time a smile accompanies it.

“I’m...glad to hear that. I-it’s not that great though.”

Silence passes between them as the young man takes another sip of his drink. For some reason, he wants to say something else. Illya looks unoccupied, perhaps a little out of sorts, as she stands at the counter. The other shop patrons are sitting at their tables, some engaged in conversation, others nose-deep in their phones.

It wasn’t that he was exceptionally chatty. But something about the girl compels him to want to take an extra effort at conversation, somehow.

Come to think of it, Illya looks about his age, doesn’t she...? Does she man the cafe the entire day...?

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” he asks her suddenly. She startles, eyes wide as she looks up at him from beneath her fringe of pale hair.

“U-um...I’m...twenty...”

Ah, so only a few months older than he is.

“Is that so? I turn twenty in about another 6 months myself.” he offers, since it’s only polite. “Are you...” There’s a brief pause as he rethinks his words. “In school?”

Whilst it’s common to begin university or college at the age of nineteen or eighteen..he’d rather not fluster or embarrass her if perhaps she’d started late...or had any difficulty...that’s simply not his style. And she’s already nervous enough.

“I...If you mean college... I never went.” Her gaze is downcast, shoulders tense in something that might well be shame. “I...my parents...we didn’t have enough...”

The hitch in her voice was almost enough to cause his heart to ache, and he can already hear a nagging voice in his conscious chiding him for being so foolish as to bring up such a sensitive topic.

“Oh. I see.” She doesn’t need to continue for him to understand. The taste on his tongue is sour, and he takes a mouthful of latte to soothe it. “I’m sorry.”

“I-it’s okay!” Illya quickly waves a hand to placate him. “I’m...I’m happy here. I-it’s all right.” For a moment, Alphinaud has the sinking feeling she’s trying to justify herself to him. But then --

“I’m happy that I get to carry on my parents’ hard work.”

The sincerity in her voice and expression is nearly enough to floor him, and he can’t believe he had been so self-centered and patronizing as to assume she might be...ashamed of working at a small little cafe filled with flowers. That soft, gentle smile --

He has to swallow around the strange lump in his throat.

“It’s certainly very admirable. I’m...glad I got to meet you here, Illya.”

He’s glad he wandered into this quaint little shop of warm drinks and pastries and flowers. He’s glad -- to have defended her, to have allowed her to send his preconceived notions and beliefs flying with those tiny hands of hers, for the warmth rising in his chest like a steaming coffee.

Illya’s violet eyes dart up to meet his, shocked. Before she can say anything else, there’s a light ring at the door as someone else enters the shop. Clearing his throat, Alphinaud gives the white-haired girl a nod and a smile.

“Thank you for your time today, Illya. And thank you for the...latte.”

He hesitates a single moment, and the girl is too flustered to say anything. There was a moment of silence between the pair as he waits, hoping for a response. He could not help the hint of disappointment he felt as he watched Illya avert his gaze, a hand moving up to comb strands of silky hair back behind her ear.

“Goodbye.”

Alphinaud turns, and just as he was about to fully step out the door he’d opened however, he hears her squeak out a question.

“W-Will you be coming back someday, Alphinaud?”

Like a javelin through his chest, he nearly stumbles from the skipping of his heart beat. Color rises up his face, almost dark enough to match the red of the roses that stood proudly among the display the shelves.

“Of course.”

Alphinaud dares to cast a final glance back, and immediately regrets his decision when she sees the bright smile that graced Illya’s face. Her hand raised, waving sheepishly at him.

He finally steps outside, but not even a gulp of fresh air was enough to steady the racing of his heart, nor did the impatient meows of Romeo who had peeked his head out the opened car window. The cup in his hand still feels warm, and yet it paled in comparison to the heat that filled his head.

Alphinaud raises the beverage up to his chapped lips, gulping in the last of the brew that tingled his taste buds and lets out a low hum at the tender sweetness. He feels immense regret at the fact that his cup was now empty, but that was simply all the more reason to pay The Lavender Brew a second visit.

He may well just have found his new favorite drink.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #alphinaud leveilleur #illya skawi #we've come so far #fanfic #alphinaud #modern au #mine #THANK YOU TO LAURELISMUN FOR HELPING ME WITH A GOOD PORTION OF THIS FIC #WRITER'S BLOCK IS AWFUL YO #especially when you're like studying for exams difnioffasdaiod #this has been rotting in my drafts for several weeks #glad to finally be rid of this garbage #other verses

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oursexualexperiencesarewith-blog · 4 years

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The Evolution of Media And Porn

I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up in a sex positive household. No anatomical question was off limits, and as i’ve gotten older I am understanding why this topic was talked about more often than most families do. Being open to discussion about sex and sexuality comes with a bunch of pros for everyone. You feel more in tune with your body, better body acceptance, confidence in saying “no” to something you are uncomfortable doing sexually, safer sex, and a better sense of self love, etc. For most young women and men the idea of their sexuality and what sex is like is such a daunting, but exciting thing to tackle when the time comes. Typically, before most people experiment with sex they watch porn, read an erotic magazine, or go to the strip club. By doing this they are discovering what their preferences are; men or women, short or tall, athletic build or skinny, feet, butt, or breasts type of person. Are you a tattoo person or do you want the skin to be clear and smooth?

After watching a few episodes from the series Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (Season 1) it really made me realize how much media controls our consumption of porn, and the dangers of media crossing over to the adult industry. The adult film industry wasn’t always so reliant on media just like most things porn needed to grow with the times too. This made me think about the consumption of porn in each generation and how the media has helped us evolve into such a successful industry today.

Baby boomers had fewer resources to educate themselves on sex and sexuality. Things like Playboy magazines, strip clubs, call girls and VHS tapes were their only options. In an era where sex wasn’t an open topic for conversation it made it harder to learn and explore your seuality in privacy.

It’s not until the Gen X era that you see the internet as another accessible resource for sex. During this time, porn became more readily available to viewers in a much more discrete way, or so we’d like to think. The internet era made it a dream come true for people who were ashamed of what they found sexually arousing. You no longer needed to go to an adult store to buy or view (and steal???) porn. You had it all inside the comfort of your own home. Because of all these additional technological advancements there's more access, openness, and privacy about sexuality.

Gen Z is when technology, media, and peoples desires to stay more discrete created much more opportunities for people consuming porn and those working in the industry. The porn sites became more advanced to what people liked, the adult film industry started hiring more diverse women and men, and camming became a popular hobby for most young people who wanted to make some money without ever needing to leave their homes.

The millennial era is where you start seeing major changes to the adult industry and the connections to what we have learned in our Humanities class so far. The best way to describe the millennial generation in terms of sexuality and the sex industry is how customized it has become, and how sex has become a very common topic in media today. Your sexual experience could be customized to the point where it could replace an actual human. Vice’s show “Slutever” covered this idea in Slutever: Inside the World of VR Porn. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the media has completely taken over the porn industry in ways that it has never done before. With stripclubs and adult industry studios being shut down until further notice, creators are needing to use media to their fullest potential in order to lessen the financial blow. How The Porn Industry Is Being Affected By COVID

Have you ever noticed how sex scenes in films made in the boomer generation differ from those in the Gen X era? Or how those differ from the ones we see now? I’d say that the sex scenes that we see today are much more realistic and raw which is why it is so akward when they come on during family movie night. Media has evolved in showing sex, but it’s also evolved in how they show and portray same sex couples, trans, non-binary people, and more! I think we’ve almost seen it all people!!!

OnlyFans is a subscription-based platform that allows for creators, influencers, and business owners to sell their content. However, sex workers have accounted for most of their finnacial sucesses in the past year. For most adult film stars this is the site that they have migrated to while the adult film industry is on temporary shut down. If not on OnlyFans they are camming, or making their own amateur films. People who have never have experience in sex work are using the plartform to get into it, and making a lot of money by doing it! How OnlyFans Changed Sex Work Forever

So how does all of this relate to the things we are learning in class? I think this relates more to all of Week One’s materials because it had to do with social media and technology. The two articles on smartphones in our generation relates directly to what we are seeing in the adult industry now. We are in a time that has forced everyone to learn and use social media in order to stay connected to everyone. Now that work and school are mainly remote our human interaction is little to none. This has been weeding out the people who know how to use it and those who don’t. Same goes for the people in the adult film industry. Those who don’t have much experience in the technical/media side of porn are probably having a harder time adapting to the new way of the industry. Younger people who have grown up using technology are succeeding during this time and possibly making more money than they did before. You see kids who are freshly 18 partaking in camming and OnlyFans because of how similar the algorithms and platforms are to the social media we’ve been using for years. OnlyFans is what I would call a hybrid child of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

However, when you mix young adults, sexuality, and media together it isn’t always sunshines and rainbows. There are plenty of cons to this industry and just sexuality in general. For example, in this past week's readings on Dana Boyd's "It's Complicated" she studies teenagers behaviors and consumptions of social media. She covered topics like unhealthy sexual encounters and leaked nude images which ties into being harassed/bullied online. Most young people aren’t always aware of the trouble they can get if they are messing around with someone younger than the age of 18 or vice versa. Being young and having access to social media can be dangerous to both parties involved. Younger people can be easily tricked into believing that the person they are talking to is who they say they are. Most young people don’t find it sexy to ask if the other is at least 18, but it’s so important to do.

Boyd also discussed sexual solicitations which can be used to blackmail or harass someone.

“With the rise of social media, many safety advocates presumed that sexual solicitations would spike. Repeating their study in 2006 with an identical definition to allow for comparisons, CCRC found that one in seven minors had been sexually solicited online, a 5 percent decline from 2000. 32 Other scholars also found that youth were far more likely to be problematically solicited in online environments that were previously popular but were no longer considered cool.” (Boyd, p. 112)

This reminds me of an Episode from the Netflix show Sex Education in which a photo of Ruby’s genitalia gets sent around the whole school by an “unknown person” to “vagina shame” her. (Spoiler alert) the unknown suspect ends up being Olivia, her best friend who got a hold of the picture and began anonymously sending it around to everyone in the school to get back at her for being a bully. With the creation of phones, smartphones, and social media nudes have been a popular form of communication between young teens and adults. Especially so with the invention of Snapchat in which you can send media and it will go away within 20 seconds. If you screenshot or screen record the other person is notified which has deterred many from partaking in that action, but not everyone. Many people have had their nudes leaked that way which goes to show how social media can have a negative impact on teens and young adults' lives.

Emma Mackey On The Specific Episode

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Audrey Hepburn: The Secret WW2 History of a Dutch Resistance Spy

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In stories of doomed World War II gallantry, little is as romanticized as Operation Market Garden. A technical failure by the Allied Powers to defeat the Nazis in 1944, this invasion of the Netherlands left British paratroopers stranded around a bridge in Arnhem, far too removed from their tanks to hold the line. Nevertheless, the bravery of those Airborne “Red Devils” has lived on in pop culture, as have the Dutch resistance fighters who sheltered them. What has been largely forgotten is that among those courageous souls was… a teenaged Audrey Hepburn? For about a week, in fact, the future movie star kept a Red Devil hidden in the cellar.

This image, of wartorn tenacity, is hardly the type associated with Hepburn in the popular imagination. To this day, she’s remembered as the ultimate Givenchy girl, an ethereal presence who took her breakfasts at Tiffany’s, and always in a little black dress. Even when she was heartbreaking on screen, she was luminous—a woman who appeared to glide through a charmed, effervescent life.

That illusion had little to do with the real-life fires which forged her identity, or the experiences of a Second World War spent almost entirely under Nazi occupation. In the autumn of 1944, she and her family kept a British paratrooper in their basement, the latest act in a series of defiances (after initial appeasement). By the following winter, they too would be living down there, wary to even crawl out of “bed” as the bombs fell on their small Dutch village of Velp.

Remarkably, much of that story’s been omitted from history, not to mention the books written about Hepburn and mid-20th century Hollywood. Not until the recent publication of biographer Robert Matzen’s Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II did the Hepburn family lore about the Red Devil even become public knowledge. But then not many were asking.

“I was researching my book on Jimmy Stewart in the Eighth Air Force, and I was in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, and saw a couple of things about Audrey Hepburn spending the war there,” Matzen tells us. “And I thought, ‘Well, that’s very interesting.’ So when I came back here, I was poking around on the internet, trying to find things about that, investigating what happened to her during the war in Arnhem, and I couldn’t find anything. It had not been well-documented.” That’s now changed.

Audrey sits in the hilly Sonsbeek section of Arnhem in February 1942. Courtesy of Robert Matzen / Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection

Why Audrey Hepburn’s Past Stayed Hidden

Throughout the decades, biographers who wrote about Hepburn used what little she would tell the press of her childhood for background—about the horror of the day the Nazis arrived in the Netherlands, destroying a bridge she’d recently crossed, and the elation that came on the April morning when Canadian forces liberated Velp (it was the first time Audrey had a cigarette)—but other than the general knowledge that depravations in the “Hunger Winter” contributed to Hepburn’s thin frame, the events of World War II have gone largely overlooked. This included Hepburn’s contributions to the Dutch resistance as a message courier for downed British pilots, as well as the less romantic fact that while studying to be a ballerina in the early years of the occupation, she danced for fascists.

There are many reasons these details became lost, but most of them have to do with Hepburn’s own personal choice of what to share from those harrowing days.

“She would say certain things that were not controversial, and I mined every single word of hers about the war,” Matzen says. “But she wouldn’t go to certain places, because they were controversial. She spent the war in Arnhem, which is occupied by the Nazis, and she was a ballerina who danced, at times, for the Nazis. It wasn’t that she supported the Germans at all, but if you wanted to dance in public, there were going to be Germans in the audience. After the war, how do you justify that in the press? It could easily be spun.”

Perhaps, more importantly, there was the uncomfortable fact of her parents’ politics prior to the invasion.

Says Matzen, “Her mother and father were pro-German, pro-Nazi supporters up to and through the invasion of the Netherlands. Audrey could never reconcile herself to what her parents represented. It was her darkest secret, really, one that could contaminate the press about her. It could contaminate her career and kill it.”

That knowledge—as well as a lifelong modesty bred into her about never boasting or complaining—caused her to omit those sordid details, as well as stories of her dancing later in private gatherings to raise funds to hide and feed Jewish neighbors as the Holocaust marched on. Both aspects of her youth, her parents’ mistakes and her family’s later resistance, have thus become greatly diminished.

Her parents were indeed fascist sympathizers, with Matzen even calling Audrey’s mother, Ella van Heemstra, a fangirl and “Hitler-chaser” who managed to meet the Fuhrer face-to-face in the Nazis’ Munich headquarters in 1935. Not that Audrey was aware of any of this. In ‘35, Audrey (or Adriaantje as her family then called her) was six-years-old. A year later, the Brussels-born child would be sent to a boarding school in Kent, England, away from both parents. The only meaningful interaction she really had with her father was when he drove her to the last proverbial plane out of Britain before the war started. It was December 1939, and Audrey was a shy 10-year-old who didn’t speak Dutch. After arriving in Amsterdam, her mother had one immediate command: “Now be Dutch.”

The Execution of Uncle Otto

In those early years, what brought Audrey out of her shell were dance lessons; and what brought her mother back to reality was being around her decidedly anti-fascist family, including her father the Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, and her brother-in-law, Otto Ernst Gelder van Limburg Stirum. In fact, it was the fate of Otto which became a turning point for the entire family, not to mention Holland. Because when Uncle Otto, along with four other Dutchmen from prominent backgrounds, was driven to a forest and executed in a shallow grave, the Germans provoked the exact opposite reaction they intended: mass resistance.

It was April 17, 1942 when Otto was lined up before a firing squad. Audrey was 12.

“Otto van Limburg Stirum was a mysterious character that I had to go find out about, because he was lost to history, and he was lost to Audrey’s history,” Matzen says. “She would talk about this uncle who was shot, this uncle who was a judge, but he was really [more] like an assistant DA. The fact that she would not talk about him at all, except to say ‘my uncle was shot’ really strikes me as proof of how significant he was in her life as a father figure, because her father was gone. She had two replacement fathers, Uncle Otto, and her grandfather, the Baron. Suddenly, Otto is taken away. He’s imprisoned by the Germans and sort of held hostage in case something bad happened.”

When a then-fledgling resistance did invariably do something bad from the Germans’ perspective, Otto and other figures with anti-fascist sympathies were executed.

Says Matzen, “It was a national event, and I think it was highly traumatic for the core members of the van Heemstra family, of which Audrey was a member, and something that deeply affected her, because once again, just like when her father left, now another father figure has been taken away, and it deepened her insecurity, a lifelong insecurity.”

Matzen also describes it as the final straw for Ella van Heemstra’s fascist sympathies.

“She had already become disillusioned by 1942,” Matzen says, “but even as late as the holidays in 1941, she was still staging pro-German events in Arnhem. But when Otto was shot, Ella took Audrey and moved in with Otto’s wife, who was Ella’s sister, Meisje, in Velp… Meisje and Otto were supposed to move in with their grandfather. Otto never actually got to move there because he was arrested and detained, right before that. The house always felt empty because of this.”

Resistance

The war crime that left Aunt Meisje a widow also forced the van Heemstras to be more active in resisting their occupiers. Audrey would speak, on brief occasions, about dancing for the Dutch resistance and raising funds that contributed to sabotaging German operations. What she didn’t talk about was her acting as personal assistant and gopher to the local doctor who organized the operations. Indeed, one of the most intriguing elements of Dutch Girl is how Matzen does what the Nazis never could: reconstruct the resistance network in Velp and the larger Arnhem area.

“I was sitting with some contemporaries of Audrey’s,” Matzens says of his time on the ground in Velp, “and they were young girls during the war. In one case, one of the daughters of this man, who turned out to be the resistance leader [Dr. Hendrik Visser ‘t Hooft], was just a year younger than Audrey… and they casually mention, ‘Oh yeah, our father, the doctor, was the resistance leader in the town, and he used to say, ‘Oh, Audrey was my assistant.’ I almost spit out my lunch.”

Dr. Visser ‘t Hooft, was an enigmatic figure, brazen enough to personally steal a German officer’s motorcycle and talk his way out of it, and also shrewdly adept at rallying all the family doctors in the region into his underground efforts. Visser ‘t Hooft knew medical experts were a precious commodity in wartime, even to Nazi occupiers, just as he knew the Germans paid children no mind.

“The Dutch were crafty enough that they gave the children the messages to run from house to house,” Matzen says. “They gave children supplies, medicine, to take here, to take there. Audrey in particular was running messages and food to downed pilots, because Audrey had spent years in England and when she comes back she’s fluent in English, whereas the other children are not, generally.”

Throughout the war, Audrey would have a series of run-ins with fighters on both sides of the conflict. Some were positive, such as the time a German soldier shoved her under a tank in Velp as a British plane opened fire on the street, killing Germans and civilians alike. It saved Audrey’s life. But others were less ambiguous, such as when she was nearly captured by the German green police and dragged to Germany (a fate her brother did not escape).

“In retaliation for another act of resistance, Audrey was [randomly] rounded up with other girls, to be taken to Germany, to work in kitchens,” says Matzen. “She escaped from that and basically went into hiding after that, because it was too dangerous out on the street.”

Audrey at 13 in 1943. Courtesy of Robert Matzen / Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection

Liberation

By the time German V7 rockets were malfunctioning over Holland and falling from the sky on civilians, or Allied planes passed overhead with itchy trigger fingers, the van Heemstra family was in the same cellar that once housed their Red Devil guest. And slowly, Audrey began to starve. After what was left of their food was depleted, they ate tulip bulbs. When those were gone, they ate the weeds. Like so many Dutch children in this period, Audrey became anemic and edema set in.

The depravations would haunt Audrey the rest of her days, informing her svelte frame and, Matzen argues, possibly her early death from appendiceal cancer. Despite these hardships, she nor many other children living under occupation forgot the jubilation they felt for the Allies, even as stray bombs fell.

“That battle destroyed Central Arnhem, it destroyed the dance studio where she danced, it destroyed relatives’ home, it was a devastating battle,” Matzen says. “But it didn’t matter, because those were the liberators. They were the knights in shining armor, who came to free the Dutch…. and it was the Canadians who liberated Velp, and it was just pandemonium. They saved so many lives by bringing food, bringing relief.”

Given the recent need for historical reexamination of all war efforts, including the Allies, it might surprise some that the same Dutch girl who needed to be pushed under a German tank to avoid British air fire would delight in eating Canadian chocolate until she threw up. But modern eyes didn’t live through an occupation.

“I think history has lost the intensity of that experience, just because of time,” Matzen says. “Time heals all wounds, and we move on. But I thought it was important in the book to reconstruct what they went through, using diaries… It was such a vivid all-encompassing experience that if you talk to these people today, those who lived through it, their memories are undimmed.”

Audrey’s never were.

Audrey meets Fritzi and Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, in 1957. Courtesy of Robert Matzen / Anne Frank House

A Roman Holiday After the War

To Hepburn, Hollywood stardom was a fortuitous turn of events, almost a consolation prize for a dance career that never materialized after the war’s hardships derailed her plans and training. Luca Dotti, Hepburn’s second son by as many marriages, even related to Matzen that when his mother wished to impart wisdom to her children, it was always via the experiences she suffered through during the war—never her brief, glamorous Hollywood career. Yet some argue, including Matzen, that the role which brought her to Hollywood and made her an international star was directly informed by those wartime experiences.

Roman Holiday (1953), Hepburn’s first American movie for which she’d go on to win the Oscar, is very much a postwar fairy tale in which a beguiling princess named Ann goes rogue during a trip to Italy, escaping her royal escort and spending a whirlwind 24 hours in the still ravaged Italian capital. A sheltered princess who’s never lived without personal servants seems a far cry removed from the girl starving in a cellar, but they’re one in the same to her biographer.

Says Matzen, “Audrey does come from an aristocratic background, and she brought that to the princess role. But she was also at that time a young girl and, in some ways, very immature and sheltered from the world because of her upbringing and because of her focus on dance at the expense of really her social development. She was all about dance, then she was stuck in her cellar… so in those ways, she really was very Princess Ann-like when Ann escapes from the palace and starts to explore Rome. She’s a babe in the woods, just like Audrey was.”

He adds, “That ingenuous quality of Ann that Audrey brought to it made that performance so real, because Audrey didn’t have formal acting training at all, really. [She was] acting on instinct and bringing her own life experience to the part.”

It would also be the closest her on screen persona came to the war. Hepburn played a variety of women in her short career, from the ultimate good time girl Holly Golightly of Breakfast at Tiffany’s to the cockney Eliza Doolittle of My Fair Lady. But she never made World War II dramas. Most remarkably, she even reluctantly turned down Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank who personally wanted to meet with Hepburn in the 1950s to play his daughter on screen. Audrey related too much to the fellow Dutch girl, who was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp for her Jewish heritage, to ever be able to “play” Anne. It was a story Audrey had been deeply affected by well before Roman Holiday, too.

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“After the war, Audrey and her mother moved to Amsterdam so Audrey could resume her dance career,” Matzen says. “And they happened to move into an apartment [where] below them lived the editor who was working on Anne Frank’s Diary. And this editor knew of Audrey’s experiences, love of dance, how she had been caught by the green police at one point and said, ‘You know what? This story might really interest you.’ So Audrey read the galleys for the Frank diary before it was published.” It destroyed her.

“This girl was born six weeks after Audrey. Anne Frank came from Frankfurt, Germany; Audrey came from Brussels, Belgium. They both became Dutch girls, and they spent the war 60 miles apart in the Netherlands. They shared the same war being under occupation and fearing the Germans every day. Of course Anne Frank’s diary stops in the beginning of August 1944… Audrey survived, and she didn’t use the word ‘survivor’s guilt’ but she felt it.”

Hepburn politely refused Anne’s father. Hepburn never wanted to make money off the story. In fact, she didn’t openly discuss her kinship with the material until years after her Hollywood career as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. The new duties allowed Hepburn to do public readings of Anne Frank’s Diary at galas—and also travel into war-torn countries and raise awareness for starving children: a horror Hepburn knew too much about from her own youth.

The Princess and the Warrior

That story of Hepburn as the late-in-life UNICEF work is also the subject of Matzen’s next book, Warrior. And it was Hepburn’s son, Luca Dotti, who convinced him to write it.

“Luca said, ‘When UNICEF signed my mother they thought they were going to get a pretty princess to raise money at galas,’” Matzen recalls. “‘And what they really got was a badass soldier.’ I then got goosebumps.”

The images from Hepburn’s time in UNICEF were those of her in impoverished regions holding starving children. However, what was not shown were the struggles getting to these places, or the war zones she had to evade.

“The first night she spent in Ethiopia was in a hotel in a city under siege,” Matzen says. “There was no running water in the hotel. It had been knocked out by bombs. The only way she was safe with her contingent was because there were armed guards all around the lobby of the hotel. That’s not what you think about with Audrey.”

Indeed, much like her experiences with her own war in the 1940s, it’s a million miles away from the Hollywood fashion icon. Perhaps though the inability to fully reconcile these two sides of Audrey—the princess and what Matzen calls the warrior—is what informed a screen presence unlike any other.

“She was kind of a chameleon, which I find very interesting, because I don’t understand it in some ways,” Matzen says. “She went straight from Quito, Ecuador where she had just been in this incredibly poverty-ridden situation, straight to a Givenchy retrospective in Los Angeles where her dress was brought in by taxi with an hour to spare. Then she all of a sudden would be the princess again.”

When someone asked at the event how she could go from one world to the other, she responded, “I don’t consider it two different worlds. It’s all my life.”

Now fans are at last seeing the whole picture.

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chirrutimwe-rogueone-blog · 7 years

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Donnie Yen established his ass-kicking star power long before Rogue One

Kill Zone (2005)

Last year, when Rogue One came out, America learned something that much of the rest of the world already knew: Donnie Yen is, quite possibly, the single greatest movie star working on the planet right now. In that movie, Yen played the blind warrior Chirrut Imwe, who, at least from the hopelessly biased place where I’m sitting, walked away with the whole movie. In Rogue One, Yen had passion and gravity and grace. And more importantly, he got to do Donnie Yen things: a few quick, beautiful, thrilling fight scenes that established him as an absolute human weapon. It wasn’t a big role, but it was a role, and in last year’s biggest movie at that. And up until then, American audiences hadn’t really gotten a chance to see what Yen could do.

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It shouldn’t have taken that long. If you’ve seen many of Yen’s Hong Kong movies, the Ip Man series in particular, you’ve seen Yen do amazing things on screen. Yen’s a handsome and charming guy, one who looks at least 20 years younger than his age. (He’s 53, which seems impossible.) He’s got eyes that sparkle and a catlike way of moving that you can see just in the way he walks across a room. (It’s that Fred Astaire thing: You don’t have to see him dancing to know that he’s a great dancer.) He can be cold-blooded when he has to, but most of the time, he projects Tom Hanks levels of warmth in every direction.

And most importantly for the purposes of this column, Yen completely throws himself into his fights, training, and choreographing like a demon. Yen’s best fights—the beautifully cartoonish final Iron Monkey showdown, the brutal duel with Collin Chou in Flash Point, the karate-dojo brawl in the first Ip Man—are among the greatest in Hong Kong film history. Yen was a martial artist long before he was an actor, training first under his mother, a tai chi grandmaster, and then learning different disciplines as a kid. When he got his first shot in Hollywood in the early ’00s, it was as a fight choreographer, working on movies like Highlander: Endgame and Blade II. He’s in both movies, too, getting a couple of cool scenes in Highlander: Endgame and getting killed in Blade II before getting to say a single word. (It wasn’t a language-barrier thing. Yen spent much of his youth in Boston, and his English is impeccable.) Later, he got to do some fun stuff as the villain in the Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson sequel Shanghai Knights.

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But Yen, though already a star, turned into a transcendent action movie figure after he returned to Hong Kong and started working with the director Wilson Yip. Yip is the Scorsese to Yen’s De Niro. Together, they’ve made Dragon Tiger Gate, Flash Point, and the Ip Man trilogy—all classics, all featuring incredible fight scenes that Yen choreographed and essentially directed. (In Hong Kong, the fight choreographer generally takes over for the director whenever there’s a fight scene.) Yen and Yip first worked together on 2005’s SPL: Sha Po Lang (released as Kill Zone in the U.S. even though the killing isn’t confined to any particular zone). SPL’s particular claim to fame, and the reason it’s in this column (besides giving me an excuse to write about Donnie Yen), is that it’s the first martial arts movie to really figure out how to use MMA on screen.

The history of mixed martial arts in movies goes back a while. You could argue, as Yen has, that Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do style was an early variant of MMA. And in Lethal Weapon, Rorion Gracie, who would go on to help found the Ultimate Fighting Championship, served as a martial arts consultant, presumably teaching Mel Gibson the triangle choke that he did at the end of the movie. But by the mid-’00s, with the growing popularity of MMA, action choreographers had to deal with this new reality, where people knew how a real fight between experts might look, and how it didn’t have anything to do with flying kicks. With SPL, Yen cracked the code. His character in the movie, an edgy police detective who wants to win over his men and keep them safe, still does flying kicks, but he also throws arm-bars and triangle chokes and double-leg takedowns. The result is a thrilling hybrid, with the crisp, balletic beauty of classic kung fu movies but just enough realistic science and brutality to make it look new and, relatively speaking, real.

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As far as its story goes, SPL is one of those awesomely violent movies that does its best to condemn cycles of violence. The Chinese title is a reference to Chinese astrology, to stars that are capable of both good and evil. The martial arts legend Sammo Hung is the villain, and he’s a calculating monster, one who orders the death of a whole family in a hit-and-run car accident in the very first scene, but we also see him mooning over his pregnant wife and his baby. Meanwhile, Yen is a badass detective famous within the force for once punching a guy so hard that he lost half of his mental capacity. He certainly looks like a badass; this is the rare movie where Yen does a lot of yelling, and where he wears a black leather jacket with a halfway-unbuttoned shirt. But he’s also overcome with guilt, and we eventually learn that he takes that punching victim out to play video games every week.

This being a Hong Kong movie, SPL is heavy on the sentimentality to the point of mawkishness. In the first 10 minutes of the movie, before Yen’s character even shows up, we get an adorable little girl wailing from car-wreck injuries, a character suffering a miscarriage, and another character learning that he’s got a probably-fatal brain tumor. The one with the tumor is Simon Yam, the great veteran Hong Kong actor, playing an obsessed detective. He’s adopted the little girl after Hung ordered her informant father killed, and he’s determined to bring Hung down before his cancer forces him to retire and Yen takes over control of his team. There are some vast and deep plot holes; why, for instance, does Yam have to frame Hung for murder when he could easily jail him for assault? But if you’re going to watch Hong Kong action movies, you’re going to have to accept that stuff. It’s the admission price for watching a guy do this stuff with a knife:

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Because it has big things that it wants to say about humanity’s capacity for both good and evil, the movie is something other than a pretext for fight scenes, which is almost a shame. The acting is all good, and the ending is a genuine shock, but fights as good as the ones in SPL deserve to be the focus of the movie. As the central gangster, Hung is a revelation. In his ’70s and ’80s movies, with or without Jackie Chan, he was a rotund and bumbling goofball. But that’s all gone in SPL. Instead, Hung becomes a dark and intimidating figure, one willing and able to beat up a whole team of cops sent to arrest him. And his two fights with Yen are things of absolute brutal beauty.

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Those fights, plus Yen’s great one against blond assassin Wu Jing, are the movie’s real legacy. In the years after SPL, Yen would keep doing great work, both with and without Yip, incorporating MMA as often as not. He’d get in another classic fight against Hung in Ip Man 2. And more and more directors, on both sides of the world, would figure out how to use MMA techniques in action movie contexts. For that, a lot of the best action movies of the past decade—The Raid, Haywire, John Wick, way too many others to name here—owe a debt to Donnie Yen and SPL.

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This is absolutely fantastic article !!! ALSO Dear author! Welcome to the club! ^^

#i just do not have the words #donnie yen #incredible article #crying #lol

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sid71blog · 7 years

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Some upcoming films:

Apples are not the only fruit. I think that tomatoes are too, but I'm not sure; I'll look it up.

Swirly Fortescue (Bobby Ball) is an ageing gay fella living in San Francisco with his younger lover Busty Hamilton (Dean Gaffney). The local government has decided to bulldoze the entire area that these two live in so that a lucrative bingo and whist drive hall can be built, and, due to Swirly having bet all their savings on Sunderland staying in the Premier League, they are totally skint, and have no choice but to move in with Busty’s homophobic, beer-swilling older brother Bruck (John Goodman). What follows is a moving look at the breaking down of barriers and prejudices, as Bruck slowly begins to appreciate musicals, John Barrowman, washing his pits and genitals EVERY day, and arty black and white posters of blokes with their big cocks out dotted all over the walls of his home, whilst simultaneously teaching them about indoor plumbing (not a euphemism), the correct belt fitting on your jeans so that just the right amount of bum-cleavage shows on the building site when you bend over, and farting into your mate’s pint in the pub when he goes for a shit.

No-one came back alive; not even me.

Drudge Hanktankerson (Clint Eastwood), is an old-timey sort living in a retirement home in California. Over time this cantankerous old codger befriends the young nurse L’il Sue Sugarstick (you won’t know her; crackin’ tits though), and eventually he begins to regale her with the harrowing tales of his time during World War Two. You will cry with her as he tells of his eighteen year old friend Brank Guthammmer dying screaming alone in a shell-hole, after a Stuka blows both his earlobes off; you will laugh as Drudge regales her with lighter battlefield moments, such as the time the lads painted a hand-grenade to look like a tin of Skol, and gave it to “Simple Dave” to pull the ring-pull; you will cry again as the lads bury Simple Dave ten minutes later; and you will have uncomfortable feelings, and mutter “this bit’s shit” to your girlfriend, during the bit where the young soldiers skinny dip in a French river.

Cropper.

In this long-overdue Hollywood blockbuster based on the Coronation Street character, Channing Tatum is Roy Cropper, a man slightly flustered one reasonably busy Tuesday afternoon, when a minibus full of pensioners stops by and cleans him out of baps. In a performance already creating a strong Oscar buzz, Channing displays the full gamut of Roy’s emotional range, as we watch him ring Rita (Meryl Streep) to see if she has any baps in stock, and ask Gemma (Elizabeth Hurley) to mind the shop for a bit while he nips to the Cash and Carry.

Deaded to Death.

Steven Segal (no way!) is Bronson Masticator, a retired UFC bigbone-weight world champion, down on his luck after gambling and drinking away all of his fortune. He now ekes out a living as a human panda in a shit zoo in the rough part of a rough town in a rough, intentionally vague South American country. He also bounces for a share of the tips and all the Fray Bentos pies he can eat at a local titty bar, run by the shady gangster Fuego “the castrator” Del Monte. One night Bronson witnesses a couple of Fuego’s heavies manhandling Paula Shane, the massively-popular drag tribute to Hi-de-Hi actor Paul Shane, currently on a massive stadium tour of South America, into the back of the club. Upon waking up the next morning in his rusty old caravan, he turns on his cracked old black and white television to see that the news is devoted to a $50 million ransom demanded for the return of Paula, and he must decide whether to do the right thing and take on his boss and assorted henchmen and free Paula, or keep his mouth shut and keep the Fray Bentos flowing.

Paedon't you want Me?

Gareth Possibly is a shy, thirty-four year old hamster-herder from Wolverhampton, who forms an attachment to Samantha Alannsuger, who moves in next door with her mother. A sweet bond unfolds between the pair of them over one long, hot summer, with Gareth slowly emerging from his brittle shell in the company of this talkative giggler, but complications inevitably set in as feelings go unreciprocated, and the nursery threaten to call the authorities if he doesn’t back off.

Blood of the Chaffinch.

Even eighteen year olds are advised to watch this accompanied by an older adult, so frightening is it rumoured to be. In Argentina forty two women fainted just upon seeing a badly-bootlegged t-shirt bearing the lead chaffinch hanging on a washing line, and at the premiere in Los Angeles one woman went into labour in the cinema, despite not being pregnant when the film started. The baby came out covered in BLOOD. Due to these haunting stories, the film has gained notoriety even before its world-wide release, and many reckon that it will do for chaffinches what Jaws did for Great Whites.

Cold cold Heart.

This Inuit romance wowed the critics at the inaugural Macduff film festival, causing many of the film critics to pretend to shed a manly tear, in the hope of a sympathy tug in the bogs afterwards. Wee Beely Johnson is a lonely Inuit igloo salesman, doomed to a solitary life spent ploughing the snowwoman he has built most nights, or trying to convince himself that the three month old seal carcass in his front room is a comely mermaid. One night he finds a woman trapped by her leg in a bear trap he has set, and as she slowly recuperates in his igloo conservatory, feelings grow. It takes him four hours to feel his way through all the layers of fur, but eventually the relationship is consummated, and they live happily ever after. Well, until she starts to rot, being a fucking bear corpse that the mad old cunt has been shagging in the delusion that it’s a tidy bint.

The wrong Trousers.

Hollywood live-action remake of Wallace and Gromit, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Wallace, and Andy Serkis as a motion-capture CGI Gromit. In this slightly-tweaked story Wallace is a grizzled cop who doesn’t play by the rules, and Gromit is his loyal German Shepherd police dog. When investigating a drug deal the pair come to the attentions of the powerful drug lord “El Capitano”, who kills all of Gromit’s closest relatives, and blows up Wallace’s opulent beach-front property; that he can somehow afford on his policeman’s salary. The pair must hunt down El Capitano and put him out of business before he does the same to them, something not helped by Wallace’s alcohol problem. Also starring Charize Theron as the love interest. For Wallace, you sick bastard.

"Sorry Dad, you're breaking up, I'm just heading into a fudge tunnel".

This hilarious comedy stars Zac Efron as Billy Fronc, an eighteen year old who lives for partying with his friends. Mark Wahlberg is his seventeen year old buddy, “Stoner” Crud Mazzwick, and Adam Sandler is twenty year old layabout Freez Dirklange. After losing a bet with Crud’s older brothers Broxton and Steele, the three must spend a Saturday night at the city’s notorious gay club Oooooo, Get You! Initially reluctant to mingle in case they catch gay, after a few rounds of confidence-boosting and trouser-slackening tequila they are soon dancing up a storm on the dancefloor with their new friends. Well, apart from Wahlberg’s character of course; he had it written into the script that he won’t let any “bummer” near his meat and two meat (no girly veg for Mark), and in fact his character gets into a fight with three burly homosexual men after one of them gives a lascivious look in the vague direction of Mark’s ashtray.

Mark wins.

Obviously.

No room at the inn for Jar Jar.

This sombre, black and white documentary follows what happens to Jar Jar Binks, after his unpopular starring role in some shit prequel or other. A sobering look at the American dream gone wrong, we follow a desolate Jar Jar as he repeatedly auditions for further acting roles, only to be turned away time and time again. We watch his slow descent into alcoholism, every drink punctuated by his sobbed mutterings of “Meesa fuckwit”, as he tortures himself watching a worn-out DVD of his only major role over and over again.

No tulips in December.

Sally Algernon (Dot Cotton) has been living in the old people’s home of her quiet part of Boston for seven years now. Her husband long dead and her children busy washing their hair, besides exchanging pleasantries with the nurses she has little to fill her days, apart from an ongoing feud with Gertrude Begonia (Honor Blackman) over who gets to sit in the best chair in the TV room. All this changes when a new gardener, Bowl Funterton (Russ Abbott), begins tending the gardens of the home (again, not a euphemism). Seeing his shirtless exertions, with his darts-honed physique and rippling liver spots, awakens feelings in Sally that she had thought long dormant. Soon she is flirting suggestively over a plate of Hobnobs, and being “accidently” caught walking cardigan-less in front of her window, with its deliberately open curtains. Unfortunately, there is a spanner in the works in her attempts to attract his attentions: she is surrounded by young, attractive NURSES, so she could ride a unicorn whilst juggling the Arsenal youth team and farting the theme tune to EastEnders perfectly, and she still wouldn’t be able to drag Bowl’s eyes away from young Samantha’s shapely arse.

A banjo for Billy.

Cuthbert Faintlyaromatic and his wife Cynthia are dealt a crushing blow when, after seven years of trying, they finally have a child, only for young Billy to be born with the rare disease Kenny Loggins’ contraption. With knees for eyes, hairy teeth, a hunch-back AND a hunch-bum, continuous flatulence, an ingrown penis (on his tongue), and an allergy to his own nostrils, there is as yet no known cure for this horrible affliction, and those first few months tested their partnership to its limits. Just when things seemed totally desolate, a kindly doctor rescues them from despair, when he hands over an old banjo of his Grandads in exchange for Billy, as he needs something to lay on the floor in front of his living room door, to keep the draught out. Oh, did you think that maybe Billy would grow up and find meaning in his existence with the discovery of a musical gift or summat? Sorry.

#films #movies #new films #new movies

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scarybasementmedia · 5 years

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I am huge fan of Childs Play, ever since I was younger and I saw the movie I found him hilarious yet scary. As I am sure many of us in our generation did. To us Chucky was a icon, a doll that came to live to kill and threaten, destroy possess and maim. All of it was great, following its release in 1988 I am sure many people felt the same as me. Horrified yet they loved it, which I do believe is how horror is supposed to make you feel. The original Childs Play starred Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Brad Dourif and Alex Vincent. Everyone felt bad for poor little Andy Barclay and we somehow eerily enough LOVED Brad Dourif as Chucky. I questioned my sanity as to why I loved him that role so many times. I couldn’t ever come up with a answer it was always just BECAUSE HES AWESOME! And that laugh….oh that laugh!!! So that being said I am not going to do a review but rather a slight comparison on the good and bad of both the original and the remakes and the newest rendition. Its going to be a long ride so sit back and enjoy and maybe we can be “friends to the end”.

Childs Play- 1988

Starring Brad Dourif as Chucky, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon and Alex Vincent

In 1988 Childs Play was released and honestly I must say to this day it holds up. The original is a classic, filled with classic kills. Brad Dourif does a marvelous job as the voice of Charles Lee Ray, the former murderer trapped in a dolls body by some strange voodoo spell. Next we meet Karen Barclay single mom to a child named Andy who is celebrating his birthday. Through a string of strange events she ends up with the Good Guy Doll and gives it to her son.

Not to long after, at all a string of murders happen leading them straight to Andy. How sad! No one believes him and the usual story unfolds, mom founds out the truth, the doll tries to murder her they take him out with a bang, literally. Brad Dourif is pretty much epic in the role of chucky and I was beyond upset when I heard that they are making a new one BUT Brad Dourif would not be reprising his role as Charles Lee Ray aka Chucky.

I mean come on! There is no Chucky without Brad Dourif. So needless to say initially I boycotted this film heavily. I was setting myself up for disappointment, etc. You know the usual shpeel about no one can replace Brad Dourif. Then news hit the dramatic air waves about the one who would voicing the new Chucky and I was instantly thrilled to my core. I thought, “maybe now this movie may have a chance with me”. To avoid spoilers I wont say till we get to the end of the article. I digress, all acting was amazing and the roles were acted to full potential and it was a great horror film although for someone like me it makes me laugh especially when he swears so often its worse than Negan from walking dead.

Childs Play 2-1990

So low and behold as hollywood does with popular movies or characters, they made a second one. Now, this one wasn’t bad either, this one again focuses on Andy who is now in foster care because his mom is institutionalized. Chucky proceeds to again destroy his life and pass his soul into this living boy at all costs. Ruining Andy’s chance at any happy childhood. Still claiming hes your friend to the end etc. Now this is when the movie to me started taking a little more comical turn. Some of the lines that spew out of chucky’s mouth are beyond hilarious and I always laugh a couple times throughout the show. Its worth the watch I think. Especially if you LOVE Dourif as Charles Lee Ray. I always wondered what he would do once he took over this child, destroy everything? Kill people? I want to know!

Childs Play 3

This movie came out in 1991 and now shows a more mature Andy going to military school, or a school for troubled youth I cant remember all that great. Either way, he is there and chucky comes back. How surprising, not really. Its a little more action packed with more kills from Chucky and for some reason I find them highly amusing.

This time Chucky finds a new victim. A young boy named Tyler, who chucky proceeds to manipulate to crap and transfer his soul into instead of Andy. Once again Andy and his girlfriend…friend. Decide to destroy that killer doll once and for all. We all took a huge sigh of relief knowing that Chucky is destroyed for good. Yeah, NO! Eight years later we were then introduced to honestly one of my favorite installments,

Bride of Chucky

Bride of Chucky is so full of dark humor that it is hard to take it as a scary film. Starring Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany Valentine and Brad Dourif as Chucky once again, it centers around Tiffany. Bride of Chucky also stars, Katherine Heigle and some other well known actors and actresses. Basically Heigle is in love with a bad boy and her uncle doesn’t want her too be with so they take the two dolls thanks to a scheme set up by Tiffany and high tail it out of the town leaving a wake of murders behind them and getting blamed.

Tiffany we find out is Chucky’s murder obsessed, kick ass girlfriend/ fiance. Which doesn’t last long. Through another unfortunate event completed by a toaster in a bathtub Chucky sends her soul into the doll of a good guy female doll adorned in a wedding dress and veil. Tiffany wakes up pretty damn peeved at him and literally cuffs him in the face screaming and throwing a fit because I mean hey she turned into a doll!

kinopoisk.ru

The rest ensues quite hilariously with over the top lines about knives going out of style and how Chucky looks like Martha Stuart. It also shows the twisted relationship between Chucky and Tiffany. It was enjoyable and downright dark and funny. Not the best but not the worst…in the series. Up until this point they are enjoyable and have some direct appeal for some odd reason right? I thought so too. Then this happened…

Seed of Chucky-

Seed of chucky came out and it was one of those moments where after I viewed it I simply said “I cant even….” So it turns out the kid that Tiffany popped out at the end of the Bride of Chucky ends up getting found by some cop who then makes a puppet show out of the kid…puppet …whatever it is. He ends up being named Glen/ Glenda because of his …no gender issue by being a doll. So yeah a literal gender confused puppet basically. So its never clear if he is a boy or girl. Im just going by boy because in the end that is what he ends up choosing.

Eventually he escapes desperate to find chucky and tiffany. Meanwhile two recreation dolls used in a movie of chucky and Tiffany end up with the souls of chucky and Tiffany again because their son uses voodoo to bring them back…again. So now their main focus is to get Jennifer Tilly knocked up so that they can all pass their souls into Jennifer, her chauffeur and… ummm they want to impregnate her with chuckys baby …by a voodoo pregnancy. Basically a turkey baster….and you get the idea. So that succeeds and she has twins…. in the end one twin has glen and the other one i think is just normal. But Jennifer Tilly has Tiffanys soul and is just a murderous b****. Beats her maid to death and yeah…. thats that. Its just so full of ridiculousness that I actually enjoyed it.

So next we will take a look into the Chucky ….sequels that are more modern. The ones that came after. They aren’t bad movies they tried to fix a movie series that went from serious to comedic and even though the storylines were dark people didn’t approve of the new Childs Play movies. Such as Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky, that tried to make sense of a whole bunch of plot holes that just added way more questions than filled them in. The coolest part about the films was that Nica Peirce is played by Brad Dourifs daughter Fiona Dourif. And of course he reprises the Chucky role which was the best part. Chucky had a new updated look which…honestly didn’t do much. They just should have used the sewn up doll. The storylines are kind of simple but for these two films you just need to watch, they aren’t terrible at all. They are amusing and Chucky is creepy but for some reason they just didn’t seem to hold up as well as the others did. Oh and a surprise by the one and only Alex Vincent. That was a huge yay from me.

My favorite out of the two would probably be Cult of Chucky. It kind of brings it all together in the end and without ending it shows a somewhat conclusion to the utter chaos that these movie franchise seemed to raise. So they aren’t bad movies they just aren’t the best of all of them and still leaves major plot holes.

Childs Play-2019

Lets talk about Chucky himself, although I do admit he looks slightly….strange and different I do have to say that for what the movie is about it does work. I wanted Brad Dourif to be Chucky so bad but when I heard that it is going to be Mark Hamill my hopes sky rocketed. Mark Hamill is amazing in everything he is and never fails to make a impression on whoever plays. So Chucky himself was saved for now. At least there was that much. Mark Hamill was a definite great choice for the voice seeing as how Dourif wasn’t a option.

So now storyline? What was the storyline going to be? Voodoo and mysticism, dead serial killer possessing a doll. I was praying they would stick to the script of the original. Then i saw the preview and all I said was nope nope nope STUPID! So I sat myself down and decide to power through it and I came out pleasantly surprised. The Storyline itself is plausible in the world we live in. Less fake and more believable, technology becoming almost sentient and wanting to make you happy at all costs because that is what it is supposed to do. Its a recipe for disaster and I mean remember Furby’s? So there is no denying that this could be plausible for us in the future right? The acting from the young boy playing Andy was so well done, honestly the only complaint I have is Aubrey Plaza. Shes not a bad actress she just wasn’t right for the part I think.

As for kill count, I wasn’t keeping track I didn’t care because honestly the new unique ways of death were so awesome. I mean…come on you have to admit the saw part is quite ….. painful looking. I wont give away to much of the storyline because I know some still are waiting for the release. I was surprised by it and I was surprised that I did thoroughly enjoy it. It didn’t drag on and on, it jumped right in from the beginning with a huge WTF! A doll with a computer chip that has the limits erased so there is basically nothing he can and can’t do. So his mission to keep Andy happy means killing his cat and mutilating his mothers boyfriend (that one I didn’t blame him for). And honestly in some parts I felt sorry for Chucky. Weirdly…. Childs Play 2019 was win, because it wasn’t ridiculous trying to feed off old scripts that are way to overdone to the point where plot holes arent just holes they are now canals. This was something completely new and more reasonable and plausible because its something I could see happening. I think it is worth the watch and I will be watching it again when it comes to DVD.

Did you enjoy the Childs Play movies? Which ones are your favorites? Have you seen the new one ? Let us know! Like Share and spread the love of all things dark and horrific.

A Friend to the End- Childs Play vs Childs Play I am huge fan of Childs Play, ever since I was younger and I saw the movie I found him hilarious yet scary.

#Brad Dourif #Bride of Chucky #Child’s Play #Childs Play 2 #Childs Play 3 #horror #Jennifer Tilly #movie #Movies #Reviews #Seed of Chucky

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haidas-anxiety · 4 years

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Rap Music - The New Frontier? HipHopology 101

Move CALL

During the right on time to mid '70s, visionaries like Kool DJ Herc acquainted new thoughts with the manner in which music was played. Like some other music-adoring 'bredren and sistren' alongside myself, Kool DJ Herc was conceived in Kingston, Jamaica. Following the strides of Jamaicans that preceded him, he migrated to the Bronx, NYC and flourished. With a sound framework like no other, there was constantly a gathering when Herc spun records. People from all city districts appeared, and brought their companions. A large portion of them had encountered nothing like Herc's roar in the clubs or at 'square gatherings,' where he was an old neighborhood top choice. There'll be more on these special, parties somewhat later. Kool DJ Herc was one of those felines that was breaking new ground for quite a while, and propelled different DJs to go with the same pattern. Wherever Herc contacted down, he left an unmistakable imprint engraved in the psyches, bodies, and spirits of music darlings in and around the region dance playlist Afrika Bambaataa was homegrown in the Bronx. He is most popular for taking the radical, free groups of the Hip-Hop way of life and sorting out everything into a urban music society...and for being the principal rapper, ever. In 1984, he chipped away at the tune "Solidarity" with the as of late left Godfather of Soul, James Brown. (We're going to miss ya, 'Soul Brother #1.') By blending square gatherings with DJs and break-artists, he synergized all the fluctuating elements of Hip-Hop through his Zulu Nation. The Zulus taught downtown youth about their history and enabled them to be profitable residents. His ears were available to a wide range of music as he turned into an impetus for mixing cadenced styles from Africa with Funk, Go-Go, Jazz, Reggae, Rock, Salsa and Soca without precedent for music history.

Bambaataa's affiliations incorporated the Rock Steady Crew and Double Dutch Girls. There was additionally a shower painting spray painting craftsman who parlayed his affection for 'visual workmanship' into being the host of a well known show that drew in the psyches of America's Black and White youth. It wound up changing Rap music history everywhere throughout the world. Presently with a 'resigned' container of splash paint, Yo MTV Raps' Fab 5 Freddy was likewise a key player in the great film, "New Jack City." There'll be more on that caught minute in time somewhat later, after we wrap up with Afrika Bambaataa (and companions), and dive further into the part: there's some genuine meat in thar! That is what's up.

Afrika Bambaataa turned into a significant music maker in his own right. He invested a ton of energy signed in at Tommy Boy Records somewhere in the range of 1982 and 2005. While there, he created a colossal hit for the New York club and radio scene, 1982's "Out of control Sensation." To me, that melody characterized another period of music for both myself and the City of New York. "Crazy Sensation" assisted with setting up a way that many move music makers followed, well into the new thousand years. Another chronicled Rap name that Bambaataa put some time in with was Profile Records.

Profile was the home of a trio that made music history: Run-DMC and the late Jam Master Jay. Their narratives characterized the following influx of Hip-Hop and design by method for overflowed Fedoras, calfskin pants, blues pants, and loosened, Adidas tennis shoes. Throughout the winter, they brandished swims with hide around the hood. In New York winters of the 70s, we wore caps like Kangols (still well known) and 'Robin Hoods'(with side quills) on the vault. A few people preferred toboggins and ski tops for their 'veiling' highlight. Brooklyn later got a nom de plume Crooklyn. Our 70s design additionally comprised of beautiful silk shirts (Versace ancestors), polyester pants with sewed creases running down the sides called Swedish Knits, and ringer base Levis with zippers at the foot.

Squares (L-7's) wore no name 'rejects,' however our well known footwear included Converse All-Stars, red, dark and green Pro Keds, Pumas (my most loved were rust-shaded), PONY's, and shell-toe Adidas. We had intriguing abbreviations for the last two brands. "I could let you know, but..." you know the story. Thinking back now, I notice that Adidas kept a similar body style longer than the Ford Explorer! My New York winter-wear included snorkels, sheepskins, cowhides, 'Maxie' and 'Cortefiel' covers with delicate hide on the neckline; they were the anger. Individuals stalled out up (ganked) for them, as well. I once saw somebody snatch a companion's cap directly off his head - as the train entryways shut (this person was fast!)

A portion of my 'work of art' articles of clothing are as yet unblemished: a dark Robin Hood cap with a currently shriveled side plume, a beautiful, winged (large neckline) polyester shirt with a Disco topic on the front, my sky-blue secondary school graduation tuxedo, 'Mack' full-length Maxie coat (it looked great; mother made it), and dark Cortefiel coat are completely reserved some place around Area 51. Try not to ask me what I will do with them, however my jackets despite everything have hide around the neckline. Does "E.T.W." (Extra Terrestrial Wear) sound infectious to you? How about we check in with 'Surge' (Phat Farms), 'P-D' (Sean John), 'J to the Z' and 'Twofold D' (RocaWear), 'Fiddy' (G-Unit), and WTC (Wu Wear) for the last answer.

I'm being advised to nix the outing through a world of fond memories and adhere to the content, so it has returned to the first 'terrible young men's of 80s Rap. Run-DMC and Jam Master Jay opened up Pandora's crate with their great hit "Rock Box." I got a feeling of what was around the bend for Rock and Rap at an early stage: inspected 'guitar crunches' combined with 'dem phat Hip-Hop beats, boyee!' Then the precious stone ball uncovered another thing to me - up hopped Def Jam Recordings, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys, all utilizing overdriven guitar sounds riding alongside the large, profound 808 beat that caused vehicle trunks (and within your body) to vibrate.

Run-DMC and Jam Master Jay un-bound their Adidas and went on to re-make Rock bunch Aerosmith's great "Walk This Way," at that point welcomed the first rockers to get in on it. En route, Run-DMC sold 'two or three million' records. Out of sight was one Russell Simmons, pressing catches on his remote control. At that point he got a cellphone. Be that as it may, before bunches like Run-DMC made it to the game, there was one of the main significant alliance rappers- - Afrika Bambaataa. Goodness no doubt; alongside his gathering The Soulsonic Force, Bambaataa shot a weighty shot recognized as being 'most deliberately propelled' from the archives of New York's urban wilderness.

At the point when the exemplary "Planet Rock" hit Billboard's graphs (it hit the year 1982 out of a BIG as well), the melody extensively changed music history. It utilized a comparable mechanical, vocoder-like sound as the one found in Kraftwerk's crush "Trans-Europe Express." "Planet Rock" was a buffet of cool electronic sounds and Hip-Hop beats. Coincided together with tests from different records, it caught the consideration of music sweethearts found moving to the constant, out of control impression of this inconceivable new beat. Afrika Bambaataa's Electro-Funk style proceeded to impact the sound of music styles like Dance, Electronic, House, and Techno. On the off chance that a sound framework exists anyplace in the cosmic system, I anticipate that "Planet Rock" will shake it. Meanwhile, you can tune in out for this great hit on Internet radio, satellite radio, communicate radio, clubs and move parties all over the place. Nothing more needs to be said - next!

Imaginative personalities of amazing pioneers, for example, Russell "Surge" Simmons, Eddie Cheeba, Spoonie G, Lovebug Starski, The Juice Crew, Marley Marl, MC Shan and D.J. Hollywood are additionally among those credited as being key pioneers in the flood that brought Rap music and Hip-Hop culture to standard society. Numerous individuals may think the Sugar Hill Gang was one of a couple starting powers in Rap, however there were really numerous other hot carries on there pounding to acquire their levy

- like those partnered with Rush Productions. Surge was building a name for itself as a music advancement organization to be taken note. I'll clarify upon the transient ascent of the dynamic establishment which followed this occasion presently.

With affiliations all over the place and credits that incorporate the convenient presentation of Hip-Hop players like Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Scott La Rock, DJ Red Alert, and incalculable different countenances covered up in the channels, Rush was determined to vanquish the world. The original of Rap and Hip-Hop brought forth an adoptive parent, Russell Simmons, notwithstanding all these other imaginative abilities. All things considered and as one, they assisted with concentrating the social inceptions and sound of this music for a developing world. The second-age pioneers of this new development would incorporate Russell's younger sibling Joseph, who alongside Darryl McDaniels and the late Jason Mizell, made up Run-DMC: the principal craftsmen of their sort to go platinum by selling a million Rap records on Profile Records. This was only the start; Def Jam Recordings was in transit.

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newstfionline · 6 years

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Sochi, once a Winter Olympic host, is red-hot as the World Cup hits town

By Chuck Culpepper, Washington Post, June 14, 2018

ADLER, Russia--Greater Sochi looks strikingly pretty these days. Far from one of those post-Olympic ghost towns often seen in melancholy photos, it looks like the 2014 Winter Olympics might have stuck a key in some sort of ignition and revved up the place. There’s snow on the mountains but bustle along the boardwalk by the Black Sea, and only part of the credit goes to the World Cup. Could this be the same place?

It’s all shops by the hundreds; cafes by the tens; beach umbrellas by seemingly the tens of thousands; jugglers and singers and artists; those little fish therapy places where people stick their feet into fish tanks. You can pay to pose with peacocks or monkeys, or ride a mule brought around by a young man who said he doesn’t speak English but clearly takes nice care of the mule. “Despacito” echoes up and down the beach.

It’s all alive with activity, even more than during an Olympics. And the vast majority of the people enjoying the 85-degree weather Thursday were Russian, even though Spain will play Portugal here Friday night in a doozy of a first-weekend match at Fisht Stadium--which some of us last saw filled with ballerinas, giant mascots and murals of deceased Russian authors in the Winter Olympic Closing Ceremonies.

What makes this something else is that, to foreign visitors, those particular Olympics became known for a certain lack of zeal. It looks like Sochi’s neighbor Adler, which harbored the seaside Olympic hub, might have been just getting going. The boxy housing complex where many of the visiting media members stayed, with those famous stories about lacking shower curtains and so on? That’s called a “hotel city” nowadays, and while it’s not exactly Times Square, it does have a slew of businesses such as Beauty Workshop Russian Stylist, which appears to do some mighty hair. It remains by the border with the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the border fence sticking out into the sea as before.

“I think after the Olympic Games, Sochi became more popular because of sports,” said Igor Berezovscky, a 21-year-old tourist from Novosibirsk in Siberia. “People came here to go to the mountains, to go skiing. Before the Olympic Games, there are not so many sports centers here. People came here before the Olympic Games only to lie on their backs, only to have a rest, and after the Olympic Games, there’s so much more. After the Olympic Games, people who were interested in sports came here.”

One such young couple from Voronezh, a city of 1 million about 500 miles north, walked along the promenade Thursday with their 7-month-old son. They’re on their second visit to Sochi, lured by the soccer three years after being lured by the Formula One race that was first raced here in 2014. “We were here earlier, a couple of years ago,” said Konstantin Grobenhikov, the husband of the couple. “It was October, the middle of October. It’s a brilliant part of Russia, the big country.”

Muliakov Chernov, an artist who went to school to study oil and gas but has turned out to be quite a sketcher of soccer stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, movie stars such as Angelina Jolie and people coming down the way, said, “Before the Olympics, it was so-so, and now more like Europe, it has become.” He has noticed one of the unmistakable byproducts of the popularity: “Every year it becomes harder and harder for Russians,” he said through his phone translator, “because the prices keep going up.”

A Sochi-based stadium security guard said that sometimes, the changes in the city astonish her.

One edge of the beach feels noiseless: the Olympic area with its circle of six buildings--the stadium and two hockey arenas, plus one that held figure skating, one that held speedskating and one that held curling. These still get used on occasion for sporting events, and one is now marked as a tennis academy. Anyone who was here in February 2014 might remember the hockey arena as the place Alex Ovechkin skated off somberly after Russia’s ouster by Finland in the quarterfinals.

The cauldron for the Olympic flame still stands tall amid the Olympic park, and over to one side is a “Wall of Champions,” with the names of the participating countries and medal winners on “rhombic sign plates,” as the display describes. The rhombic sign plates include 13 gold medals, 22 silver and 33 bronze from Russians (counting members of teams). Around the park stand the empty grandstands ready for car racing, plus the fences with the familiar curled tops to protect spectators. A Russian hockey team plays in the hockey center, its ticket booths outside and quiet for summer.

What does ring familiar from 2014 is the Russian youth, back then so curious about the world and so keen to practice English. Those young remain, even if outnumbered by the still younger as the place teems with children riding in strollers or upon scooters.

As a World Cup began up in Moscow, each Russian goal met with sounds of cheering cafes and viewing areas along the coastline of Greater Sochi. Most others seemed only cursorily interested in the football and more interested in vacation. By nightfall, they stopped and made a clot along the promenade to view a water show, for which speakers played the song that has become perhaps the greatest unifying force in the history of Earth.

That would be, of course, “Dancing Queen.”

#Russia #Sochi #2018 World Cup

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jesusvasser · 6 years

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The State of the Collector Car Market: May 2018

It’s hard to believe, but 2018 is roughly halfway through. As we did at about this time last year, we’ve asked a panel of industry experts for their opinions on the state of the collector car market as they see it and their thoughts on what to expect in the near future.

Gord Duff, Global head of auctions, RM Sotheby’s

Jakob Greisen, Head of U.S. Motoring Department, Bonhams

Craig Jackson, Chairman and CEO, Barrett-Jackson

Dave Kinney, Publisher, Hagerty Price Guide

1970 FORD MUSTANG BOSS 302 • Current Avg Value: $68,900 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

Automobile Magazine: What are your general views on market performance since this time last year? Are you seeing any new trends emerge?

JG: I generally think the market is strong and solid. The interest we see in these old cars in terms of popularity and high attendance at collector car tours, rallies, racing events, concours d’elegance, and other lifestyle events is a sign that there is a strong passion and interest in collector cars, which is what the market is driven by for the most part. Today it is cool to own a vintage car, just like a vintage watch, for example.

CJ: The collector car market continues to be incredibly dynamic, including the demographic that made the ’60s and ’70s muscle cars so popular. We’re also seeing a surge in younger buyers who are gravitating toward vehicles from the ’80s and ’90s, both domestic and foreign. Vehicles from the 1980s, from the Fox-body Mustangs to Broncos, are becoming canvases for personal customization by more youthful collectors who want to add technology and drive the cars.

1955 PORSCHE 550 SPYDER • Current Avg Value: $5,000,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

GD: Overall, I feel the collector car market has remained stable since this time last year. Exceptional late-model Porsches continue to emerge with strong results, and then on the other end of the spectrum we’re seeing sustained and even growing interest in American classics; a Marmon Sixteen Coupe and an Auburn Boattail Speedster are now worth a million.

DK: Speaking in pure generalities, the under $100K market is booming, and that is where the majority of sales occur. “New” trends seem to be a continuation of trends that have started in the past few years. Early SUVs and exotic cars from the 1990s and early 2000s are on many buyers’ radar.

AM: We’ve seen many big-dollar “star” auction cars not reach reserve this year. Why do you think that is?

1974 FORD BRONCO • Current Avg Value: $24,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

JG: Timing and sellers’ expectations. Timing as the buyers might just not be ready for that purchase on that day, but I know for a fact that most could have found new homes at levels relatively close to the reserves, so sellers’ versus buyers’ expectations have just been a little off.

CJ: Those big-dollar cars are really in the smallest part of the market, which sees those cars as a safe haven during a recession. Now that the economy is strong, the smaller part of the market is slowing, and we’re seeing the biggest, broadest part of the market surging.

1993 GMC TYPHOON • Current Avg Value: $15,600 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

GD: We all know that the market has softened from where it was a couple of years ago, so the main reason for several of the “star cars” failing to meet reserve simply comes down to client expectations being greater than what today’s market is willing to bear. In a highly competitive auction market, it can be difficult to convince collectors to part with their blue-chip cars for less than what might have been.

DK: U.S. tax laws, particularly in light of the loss of the tax-free exchange as used in some high-dollar classic automobile sales, has had a dampening effect on the top end of the market, cars routinely selling above $1 million. All markets hate uncertainty, and this change has slowed down the high end quite dramatically.

AM: Porsches remain strong sellers and are making up a larger volume of auction inventories lately. How is the Porsche market evolving? Who’s doing most of the buying?

1993 BUGATTI EB110 SUPER SPORT • Current Avg Value: $535,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

JG: Porsche is a very strong brand—both for the new cars and the classic models. We sold a 550A Spyder in Scottsdale and had a lot of interest in it—some of the feedback I got was that a Porsche 550 was really the pinnacle of Porsche in the day, and compared to a Ferrari, Maserati, or Jaguar of the era, it really represents good value. They are hugely iconic, beautiful, interestingly engineered, and historically very important on the racetrack or road.

CJ: Porches have been very popular and are really following the broader market trend that we are seeing toward more contemporary cars. From the Slantnoses of the ’80s to the more recent Turbos, Porsches continue to be in demand with the broader part of the market. There has also been a rise among collectors who are using the 911s as a platform to build customized versions of the European sports cars from prominent builders.

1959 TRIUMPH TR3A • Current Avg Value: $19,500 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

GD: It’s a younger segment of collectors who are buying these special late-model Porsches. Of a dozen late-model examples sold at our Amelia Island sale, eight were purchased by collectors in their early 40s through mid-50s.

Because the Porsche market has been so hot, there’s a lot of average stuff on offer, i.e. specialty models but with higher mileage and paintwork issues—which is particularly important in the Porsche world. The collectors stepping up to pay top dollar are becoming very particular and bringing in the leading marque experts to examine any potential purchases. I’ve never seen us offer a marque—not even Ferrari—where collectors are doing such thorough, fine-tooth-comb inspections.

1973 PORSCHE 911 CARRERA RS 2.7 LIGHTWEIGHT • Current Avg Value: $844,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Hold

DK: The Porsche Party, that is, the rising values of Porsche brand collector cars, started late. Rising values attract interest from collectors, and a lot of people who thought of owning a collector Porsche but never quite did have become active in both buying and selling. If you think this is good news or bad, you’re right.

AM: Buy, Sell, Hold: What is at the top of each list, in your opinion?

JG: I believe all cars that make their mark on the era they were built in will be collectible. Think Duesenberg, Alfa Romeo 8C, Jaguar D-type, Ferrari 250 GT California Spider at the top and Triumph TR3, Austin-Healey 100, Mercedes-Benz 190SL, or Pagoda for example at a more affordable level.

1936 AUBURN EIGHT-SUPERCHARGED SPEEDSTER • Current Avg Value: $1,000,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Sell

CJ: Buy: Restomods, ’80s and ’90s imports, trucks/SUVs, rare muscle cars, sports cars with stick shifts. Sell: Prewar classics. Hold: Traditional muscle cars.

GD: Buy: A great Bugatti Veyron or EB110 for their investment potential. Sell: A great American classic—for example, a 1935 or 1936 Auburn Speedster. Hold: Ferrari 206 Dino or a 1973 Porsche 911 2.7 RS Lightweight.

DK: Buy: Bugatti EB110. Sell: Any Porsche 911 with a missing or bad history. Hold: European exotics from the 1960s and 1970s.

1958 MERCEDES-BENZ 190SL • Current Avg Value: $88,800 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Hold

AM: What traits are you seeing in the buying and selling habits of younger collectors? Are they using their cars differently than their parents did?

JG: I see the younger generation of car collectors being more into driving their cars as opposed to showing them at concours d’elegance events. Maybe a quick cars and coffee meet where a cool Instagram post can be made, and then out on the road.

1969 FERRARI DINO 206 GT • Current Avg Value: $650,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Hold

CJ: Like Gen Xers, young collectors gravitate to the vehicles they grew up with. For example, we’re seeing cars from the ’80s and ’90s, as well as SUVs, which many in the younger generations grew up in and are comfortable with, have increased in popularity among younger buyers. They’re also looking for unique cars with technology or that are easy to customize into restomods, giving the classic look with all the bells and whistles of a modern vehicle.

GD: Many younger collectors tend to buy cars that their friends also collect or are into simply because it means they can then participate in the same rallies and go to the same car shows and cars and coffee meets on Sundays. They seem to want to drive their cars more than show them, and consequently we’re seeing more and more tours and rallies pop up on the calendar.

1955 CHEVROLET BEL AIR NOMAD RESTOMOD • Current Avg Value: $50,000 • Buy, Sell, Hold: Buy

DK: Different cars, different people, but, remarkably, the car hobby continues. The cars and coffee movement has changed the way people use and display their cars. As the “show and shine” movement retreats, the simple formula of just showing up has taken hold. What’s cool and collectible to a 23-year-old might not appeal to a 63-year-old, but in reality, that’s the same as it ever was.

The post The State of the Collector Car Market: May 2018 appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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eddiejpoplar · 6 years