ATEEZ: Happy Birthday San!

Promotional image of Choi San. Copyright goes to ATEEZ and KQ Entertainment.

Hi! It’s Annie!

As usual this is a little late, but I really do want to say the absolute warmest happy birthday to San right now! San is the most biased member of ATEEZ and that is certainly because he is one of the most eye catching members of any group ever. It’s really difficult to not notice San in just about anything. But I also know that this comes at a time where I know I’m going to have to address something recent. I will address it as a notice below because I don’t want to make the entire post about that. Really, it’s not my place to judge how harmful or not harmful it was. But I do think it’s important to remember that, as I have always said, idols are human beings. That means they both deserve to be respected and to have boundaries and it also means that they mess up sometimes. I think that San is one of the most positive and caring members of ATEEZ and I can’t imagine that he’s not feeling remorseful right now. But that aside, his caring nature and positive energy have helped many people see the light on particularly dark days. I know that he’s always been a big part of the comfort that I get from ATEEZ. So I’m just going to get into how amazing this man is! One of our primary vocalists and the man you physically cannot look way from.

NOTICE: If you are at all triggered by racism or already know what went down and don’t want to see it again, that’s understandable. SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH and keep going on with the birthday post! Recently a behind the scenes video was posted of San singing and dancing to the curry song. A little while before then Seonghwa had mentioned the curry song on a variety show that they did. This song is incredibly racist and KQ Entertainment has since issued an apology. I think it’s important to know that idols are human beings and that means we are going to see them make mistakes and learn and grow from them. Every person is flawed. But that doesn’t take away from the pain that this song has instilled and continues to do so when idol groups keep singing it. We definitely need to spread the word so that incidents like this can stop. But flinging blame everywhere doesn’t help anyone.

The Entertainer:

I think everybody can agree that San is a massive entertainer. Many Atiny have joined the fandom because they saw one of his fancams and couldn’t look away. From the beginning San has been noticed for his facial expressions and acting during stages as well as his impressive dance skills. Though San has been teased by his members multiple times for adding his own twist to specific dance moves, you can’t deny that Atiny go crazy for them. For a long while, and still to this day, San has received hate for being overly “dramatic” with his performance style. I honestly believe that all of those comments are made out of some form of jealousy. Yes, his members have teased him for it before. But they also have talked about how eye-catching he is. I think his performance style is a huge factor in the worldwide interest that we see around San and that’s because he completely draws you in. He makes you feel the emotions or absolutely swoon and there’s no in between. It’s intense and so addictive at the same time. And we’ve seen in any part of the music industry that big performers like San are always incredibly successful. There’s a reason why San was originally given the opening chair choreography in all of their performances of ‘Cyberpunk’. And his pain and anguish almost made me cry when watching his ‘INCEPTION’ fancams. He is the entertainer of the fourth generation and you can’t convince me differently.

The Cutie:

One of my comfort videos is one of the pre-debut trainee videos that ATEEZ and KQ released when they were still going by KQ FELLAZ. It’s a video of all of the members going to Universal Studios Hollywood. Theme parks are something that I grew up with living in California and have always been safe places for me. After my family stopped being able to comfortably afford Disneyland because they were driving up their prices so much, we started going to Universal Studios Hollywood instead. We would have had annual passes around the time of ATEEZ going there for this video. It always kills me that we could have seen ATEEZ before their debut and we just wouldn’t have realized. But somehow knowing that we share a similar comfort place makes me feel so much better. One of my absolute favorite parts of the video is actually San though. San is someone I relate to immensely because I also find a lot of comfort in plushies. And seeing that San found so much comfort that he brought around his plushie Shiber, makes me feel less alone. Especially because I also used to do the same thing. Watching him coo over Shiber is always the cutest part of the video for me and one of the parts that, funnily enough, makes me feel seen. San has always given off that energy though. He has the extreme duality of being devilishly attractive on stage and then getting off stage and being so devastatingly sweet and adorable.

The Caretaker:

To not talk about how San is with the other members would be like skipping an entire portion of his personality. San very much acts like a caretaker of the group and is one of the members most likely to initiate skinship. You can often find San cuddling with other members. Most often those other members will be Wooyoung, Yunho, and an unwilling Yeosang. Lately San has been snuggling the most with Yeosang. In a most recent ATEEZ-centric episode of Idol Radio, all of the members of ATEEZ were asked to choose a member that they feel a particular current affinity to. Yeosang and San ended up choosing each other and were asked to play the ‘I love you’ game along with Wooyoung and Yunho who also chose each other. A lot of adorable hugs ensued. San has been saying more and more often over the past few years that Yeosang is his. During their most recent video chat fan signs an Atiny told San that Yeosang belonged to himself and not to anyone else. San dismissed this. When the fan pointed out that Yeosang was actually living with Yunho, San defended himself by saying that some married couples don’t live together. San has also talked about being roommates with Yunho for a long time and how he would play games with Yunho whenever he pouted because he just wanted to make the large puppy happy. San is always about including people and making sure that everyone is happy and well taken care of. San seems to be one of the members that works like glue for the other members. He keeps everyone tightly wound together. That is not something that we should take for granted!

The Dynamic Duo:

San and Wooyoung have always been close and have very often been paired together for MVs or promotional content. I would say that them being paired together has only gotten more frequent with the passing years. In recent tours we’ve seen San and Wooyoung get amazing dance breaks together that make all Atiny go crazy seeing live. In the MV for ‘BOUNCY’ their characters were linked together as San was a boxer or street fighter and Wooyoung was his manager. And their move in ‘Deja Vu’ towards the end made everyone who saw it fight to continue to breathe afterwards. While these two go together very well, one of the reasons they do is because of how different they are. Wooyoung has a clean cut style and playfulness that matches San’s more dramatic dance style and almost devilish stage nature. I don’t think many other groups could boast having a duo quite like this, which is one of the reasons why KQ knows to put them front and center whenever they can. Their dance breaks break time. You just want to live in a loop of seeing them over and over again.

The Smolder:

It would be a crime to go through this entire birthday post without mentioning San’s smolder. Can we talk about that eyebrow quirk, please? He does that every time during his spoken part in ‘The Real’ and I always feel like I’m not going to survive it. This can kind of go back to San’s facial expressions, but I can honestly say that I never thought I was going to see a guy successfully smolder. I know that we’ve seen Flynn Rider do it in ‘Tangled’, but I also think that not even he was really successful at it. San with his quirked eyebrow and the way he holds his lips? Now that’s a successful smolder! And yes, I did have to include this exact facial expression from San as the main photo for this post. I mean, how could I talk about it and then just not include it!

I could go on and on about this man and his performance skill. I mean, he wasn’t originally part of the dance line until fans forced KQ to realize that he really needed to be. Though I can’t imagine any member of ATEEZ not being a part of their dance line. They are the best and most advanced fourth generation dancers! And I could also go on and on about how incredibly sweet he is and how much he takes care of the other members. I really don’t think we’d see as many cute member moments without San. He really has the biggest heart and the way he treats each Atiny who meets him like they are his entire world makes me tear up. It’s seriously difficult for me to get through a video of an in person fan sign without San making me tear up at some point or another during it. I really do hope that he gets the opportunity to apologize after recent events, but knowing KQ I don’t think that he’s going to be allowed to. I guess we’ll see what happens. But knowing that this man exists gives me a little more comfort and makes me feel a little lighter. I hope he knows how much his Atiny love him. Happy Birthday, San!!!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Book Adaptations: ‘Good Omens’ Season 2 Expectations

Poster for ‘Good Omens’ Season 2 featuring Nina Sosanya as Nina, Maggie Service as Maggie, Michael Sheen as Aziraphale, Jon Hamm as Gabriel, and David Tennant as Crowley. Copyright goes to Amazon Studios and BBC Studios.

Hey! Hallie here!

I’ve been surprisingly quiet about ‘Good Omens’ season 2, which is very strange for me because this is by far my most anticipated project of this year. ‘Good Omens’ is one of my favorite books and likely my favorite television show of all time, so there’s very little that could keep me from wanting to see this next season. And the more hints and trailers we get, the more excited I am! I haven’t really talked about any of it since the New York Comic Con panel last year but there’s a lot to catch up on and speculate about. So if you don’t want any information on season 2 or its plot, I would recommend looking elsewhere. I’m going to be putting everything together that I know about the season, including deep dives into the trailer and details given in interviews. We even have the entire intro of the show to look at! Let’s try to figure out what we’ll see on July 28th!

Gabriel: When season 2 was first mentioned Neil Gaiman told us the story would start with an angel wandering into Aziraphale’s bookshop without their memories. From all the promotional material we now know the angel is Gabriel, which doesn’t bode well for heaven. In fact, the entire tagline for the season has been “Something’s going down in the up,” which REALLY doesn’t bode well for heaven. Other posters have invited viewers to “unravel the mystery”. Amongst clues as to what happened to Gabriel, we have a poster of three cups forming three different images. A teacup has a halo hovering above it in steam, a wineglass spills out in the pattern of horns, and a mug’s steam forms the shape of a heart. Though some have been confused by the presence of the mug, which was Aziraphale’s mug in season one, we’ve seen other posters with Aziraphale holding the teacup and Crowley holding the wine glass. It is Gabriel we see holding the mug in the trailer. So what could that mean? Is Gabriel turning into a cupid-like angel? Well, Gabriel seems to know just as much about that as the audience. The full clip we saw released for the new season consists of Aziraphale in a panic while trying to figure out what’s going on with Gabriel. In the scene a clueless and naked Gabriel mentions that he has a feeling something terrible happened to him, but his lack of memory and short attention span ruin Aziraphale’s attempts to get answers out of him. He does say that he knows it’s the reason why he had to come to Aziraphale’s bookshop and give him a delivery, but he hasn’t given Aziraphale any delivery and doesn’t remember anything about it. In other posters we’ve seen Gabriel appear in human clothing with a duster, apparently helping out in Aziraphale’s bookshop. So it looks like Gabriel is going to spend a lot of the season under Aziraphale’s wing, so to speak, until Aziraphale can figure out what’s happening with him.

Trailer: The entire trailer for season 2 also focuses on Gabriel. In the trailer we see Crowley get intel from the new demon stationed on earth, Shax, that Gabriel’s gone missing and the angels are trying to find him. We even see Liz Carr as Saraquel using the replica of the globe Aziraphale uses in the first season to look for him. From the trailer it looks like the new angel stationed on earth, Muriel, is sent down specifically to find Gabriel. Very much like Gabriel in the first season, she comes down to Aziraphale’s bookshop with no knowledge of humans and accidentally forces Aziraphale to pretend everything’s normal while she plays the role of an old timey police officer. Because of the scene only attendees of New York Comic Con were shown, we know that her meet up with Aziraphale gets quickly interrupted by Crowley’s sudden appearance. But when she reports back to Uriel and Michael (Left in charge while Gabriel’s gone?) as seen in the trailer, she mentions seeing Aziraphale, Crowley, and Aziraphale’s bookshop “assistant” who she doesn’t recognize but is clearly Gabriel. As is implied in the next scene, where Aziraphale closes all his windows and reveals Gabriel to Crowley, who screams in surprise when he sees him. The rest of the trailer sets up Aziraphale and Crowley as the protectors of Gabriel while they try to figure out what happened to him and return him to the way that he was. Amongst a few very interesting shots of Gabriel’s eyes turning back to the deep purple color he has as an angel and a statue of Gabriel as an angel, we see Crowley actually go up to heaven disguised as an angel with Muriel evidently in on the plan and helping him out. In the NYCC panel Muriel was talked about quite a bit, and given the brief scene in the trailer where we see her looking very uncomfortable in an elevator alongside Michael and Uriel, it makes sense that she would join Aziraphale and Crowley’s side.

Heaven vs Hell: Though this has been a smaller theme in the promotional content we’ve seen for the upcoming season, this does seem like it will play a major role in the new season. Shax, played by returning actress Miranda Richardson, appears to be friendly with Crowley. She delivers him his mail, attempts to sign off on his bills for him, and acts as his informant concerning whatever’s going on in Hell. But in posters we see her amongst other demons in what appears to be armor. Meanwhile, Aziraphale has a message thrown through his window in the trailer that amusingly reads “surrender the angle”. He even states in the trailer that he thinks his actions, presumably on behalf of Gabriel, may have started a war. And on top of all of that, the beginning of the released opening credits see Aziraphale and Crowley walking directly into what appears to be Hell. It does make sense that Hell would try to take the opportunity to take power while Heaven is at their weakest, and given how much Hell and Beelzebub are featured in promotional content, I think it would be unwise to think the only problems Aziraphale and Crowley will be facing this season are internal affairs in Heaven.

Aziraphale and Crowley: Now let’s get to what we all are really excited for. The Ineffable Husbands. Firstly, there has been a leak regarding the storyline of these two. I wouldn’t recommend seeking it out. I was half-spoiled in that I know what the leak was but I didn’t see the screenshot that was circulating. Neil Gaiman was very upset by this leak and I completely understand why. I think it’s important to leave this to your first viewing experience and let it play out as it was meant to be played out. All that said, I won’t be discussing what that leak was here. I will say that their story for this season surrounds romance, something Neil has pointed out himself. And I think we all know who the romance is between. First there’s the trailer, where Gabriel explains the instinct he has to be near Aziraphale because he feels safe with him without knowing why, a feeling Aziraphale immediately ties to Crowley. Then there’s the opening credits that seem to hint at their future relationship with the two seen sitting on top of Aziraphale’s bookshop while hearts are raining down around them. We also know famous romance novelist Jane Austen will be brought into the story in some way. Maybe playing into the portions of the story that take place in the past? Regardless, I do think Gabriel will be playing a role in all this, mostly because of the heart-shaped steam we saw coming out of his mug earlier.

As for the two characters individually, Crowley looks to be experiencing the most changes after facing the repercussions of last season. In a few moments in the trailer and in one recent image of Crowley, we see his belongings, particularly his plants, shoved in his car. We also know from the scene we were given between him and Shax that Shax expects his mail to now be delivered to his car. I think it’s fair to assume that Crowley, now no longer being provided money from Hell, is living out of his car. But in the scene NYCC fans saw, his plants were being moved into Aziraphale’s bookshop. And we also have confirmation from Neil Gaiman that we’ll be seeing more of Aziraphale’s living quarters in the bookshop this season. There’s not a lot of doubt in my mind that Crowley’s going to be moving in with Aziraphale, and I think that’s going to make their dynamic very interesting. As for Aziraphale, most of the promotional content concerning him has to do with Gabriel, though we do know that magician Aziraphale is coming back at least. What I’m most interested in when it comes to Aziraphale are the promotional images of Aziraphale presumably around the time he bought and began to run the bookshop. In the very least we know we’ll be getting Aziraphale in the past as he explores the Soho street he winds up living on. I’m very interested to see if Aziraphale’s motivations for running a bookshop are revealed.

Other Important Things: First, there’s the box. Along with the angel without memories, Neil Gaiman has been telling us about the importance of a cardboard box since the announcement of season 2. My guess is the box is the same box we saw in a poster released a couple months ago, which happens to be a shipping box with Aziraphale’s, Crowley’s, And Gabriel’s feathers floating out of it. What that means I have no idea, but I am suspicious that this box is the same box that holds Gabriel’s delivery for Aziraphale. What’s inside it is clearly very important, but I don’t think we’ve seen many hints for what that could be yet. Then we haven’t talked much about Nina and Maggie, two characters who are now partially responsible for giving the Soho street Aziraphale lives on some new life. We’ll be seeing the entire street and establishments on both ends of it this season, including a coffee shop, owned by Nina, and a record store that Aziraphale acts as landlord of, owned by Maggie. These characters are heavily featured together in posters, but only appear briefly in the trailer to react to strange weather patterns. All we know is that Nina’s love life will play a major role in both of their stories. Maybe more romance is in the air? Last but certainly not least, let’s talk time and space travel. Neil has talked about both in interviews, and we already know we’ll be seeing more of Crowley and Aziraphale in the past like in the cold open for episode three of the first season. We also know based on a few images of Gabriel in posters and the historical paintings the Good Omens Instagram account has been editing Aziraphale, Crowley, and Gabriel into, that we will be seeing Gabriel in the past as well. As for space, in the opening credits for the new season we see a lot of planets and stars shifting around. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing Crowley and Aziraphale running away to Alpha Centauri this season, so we’ll have to see what role space plays in all this.

There are many, many more details I could get into, and possibly will before the start of the show, but I have to put an end to this post for now. I’m unbelievably excited for July 28th! We should be getting the entire season on the same day just like the first season, but I haven’t been able to find an official announcement about the way they’re releasing episodes. I’ve even seen larger websites reporting that episodes are coming out weekly, though there doesn’t seem to be any agreement between larger geek sites on this either. For now I think it’s safest to go by the posters and expect the entire season on the same day. I know my plan is to binge watch the whole thing as soon as it drops. I’m dying to see Crowley yell at people to stop feeding ducks bread in context. We only have three more weeks to go but it feels like it can’t come soon enough!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

ATEEZ: The ATINY Wars

Promotional image of Choi Jongho. Copyright goes to KQ Entertainment and ATEEZ.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I think we can all agree that this most recent comeback is one of the best and most successful from ATEEZ. Not only was all of the music on the album breathtakingly amazing; but ATEEZ hasn’t stopped the hype since the promotion of this comeback began. It is absolutely impossible to become tired of any of the music here no matter how many times they perform it and they have also been on a streak of winning awards and breaking records. I can’t even begin to say how proud I am (and really all Atiny are) of them! This promotional tour for this comeback has given them some recognition that we all knew they always deserved. And while I could go on and on about how much they are owning this comeback; there’s been some problematic behavior to say the least when it comes to several parties in the way they’re treating ATEEZ. For a lot of Atiny, this comeback has been a constant struggle. And this has nothing to do with the boys. This has been all about protecting the boys. So if you’re not in the Atiny loop and wonder what I’m talking about when I say “Atiny Wars”, I’m going to go into the different things Atiny have been fighting for and against this comeback. And why they are entirely justified.

I-tiny vs. K-tiny:

This is probably the most problematic and prevalent Atiny war going on right now. And frankly, it is absolutely disheartening. If you don’t know what those two terms mean; I-tiny is international Atiny while K-tiny refers to the Atiny located in South Korea. And right now a lot of International Atiny are extremely angry at Korean Atiny. This has been a battle that’s been gearing up for a while and before this comeback I couldn’t have told you where I fell when it came to this. Some of the issues brought up by international Atiny seemed important while others, like the fact that most fan signs happen in South Korea, seemed superficial and entirely impossible to control. Like BTS; ATEEZ was a group that gained international fame before they got much fame nationally. I know that I-tiny have felt that they had to pick up the slack for K-tiny for several years. I have always been a fan that has voted and streamed, though probably not nearly to the extent of some other Atiny. I always make sure to give ATEEZ several votes and to stream their songs and MV whenever I get the chance; but I know part of me having the time for this is that I live comfortably and ATEEZ are my ult group. There are absolutely K-Pop fans who are multi-stans who are always working. And so I understand why some people say that they don’t necessarily have the time to vote and stream. I’ve talked in a different post how different fans interact with and support works in different ways. I’ve never really known where to draw the line between what’s the bare minimum and what’s something that takes a little more effort. Something that seems like a very little amount of effort for one person could easily be crushing to somebody else.

Until now. This comeback has shown us what the bare minimum looks like. And we know that because K-tiny haven’t been doing it. Bare minimum is the difference between streaming the song every once in a while when you get the chance and seeing the faces of your favorite idols fall on live television because nobody in their country was streaming their music. And now I feel like I’ve landed on the side of International Atiny, which I am, because the results at these award shows were beyond ridiculous. There are plenty of Atiny internationally who are busy, who are multi-stans, who can’t find the time to stream as much as they would like. And ATEEZ has still been charting in several international countries and has gotten countless streams from them. When the numbers at the award shows showed results that indicated that I-tiny were trying and that K-tiny couldn’t even be bothered to listen to the album more than once, I got angry. And maybe I wouldn’t have been so angry if we didn’t get to see ATEEZ’s reactions live. If we didn’t see our boys have the initial shocked and stricken reaction before they smiled again to accept their award. But we did. And yeah, it does make me a little angry that before one of the shows where national streaming markings were the lowest, they were outside doing a meet and greet in hot and humid weather. And that, at said meet and greet, there were several K-tiny breaking boundaries and touching their faces even though they weren’t supposed to. ATEEZ are human beings, they aren’t your dolls. It makes me a little angrier every time I have to say something like that on this blog. K-tiny have been railing back at this criticism by saying that I-tiny are racist and that we’re just jealous that we don’t get meet and greets. Do we want meet and greets? Yes. But that’s not the problem. Firstly, you don’t get to call a group of people racist that includes several races, cultures, and backgrounds (Including Koreans who live in other countries). Secondly, nobody is saying these things because we’re jealous. We’re saying these things because so many K-tiny didn’t stream or vote at all. Even a little bit would have been fine. We’re not asking for you to do something impossible. We’re asking for you to stream occasionally so that we don’t see our boys’ faces fall again. There’s literally nothing we get out of this other than to see them happy.

Where’s Jongho, KQ?/ KQ Treatment:

Now we come to the next battle going on; the battle to get Jongho screen time in literally anything. If you noticed, which I hope you did, Jongho didn’t get much screen time in their most recent MV. In fact, he definitely got the least and the amount of lines he had was also pretty scarce. The line distribution seems to be KQ attempting to test ways to even them out for some songs. For a long time they were accused of relying too much on Jongho and barely giving anything to Yeosang, so it felt a little like they were trying to balance that out this album. But too much. And Jongho should have at least gotten more screen time than that. Getting KQ to treat Jongho like the other members has also been a bit of a battle. We constantly see his merch sell out last or KQ cut down his time in videos. In a most recent behind the scenes, Jongho was pretty much just not in it. This happened once before when Jongho was sick. I addressed that then because it’s important for us to make idols feel like they don’t have to show up in every piece of media, especially when they’re sick. But, as far as we know, this has not been the case this time. Yunho has also suffered from this as the second to least biased. In this comeback there was a huge advertisement in South Korea that depicted all of their character posters; except it had San’s poster twice and no Yunho. But Yunho has been getting some more fans since ‘Imitation’ and ‘Idol Radio’ and so most of this behavior is directed at Jongho. I still have no idea why maknae, golden voice, sweet, and gentle Jongho doesn’t have more people who bias him. But seriously this has to stop. Jongho deserves so much more than what he’s getting right now. And the previous complaints about a lack of Yeosang did not mean that we wanted another member to be treated like that. All eight of them should be treated equally. This lack of Jongho is beyond disheartening and I hope that we get to see more of him soon.

Because KQ honestly hasn’t been doing the best lately when it comes to looking after ATEEZ. I know we’ve been told by Hongjoong that we shouldn’t worry because they like to work and prefer to work. But they don’t get any breaks. KQ just keeps adding tour dates and while I’m so so happy for the Atiny who get to see them live, having them tour all year can’t be healthy. Especially because we know they’re probably just going to start this touring circuit again come Fall. I really hope that they get breaks when they need them or that some sort of break is coming soon for them. All of the fourth generation groups have been constantly working with absolutely no breaks and this is not the kind of work culture I approve of or want for any of them. As much as I can’t wait to see them tour this new album, at this rate I think I would be even happier if they announced a break for a few months. Either way, I just hope that all of them are doing well. And that KQ actually treats them better in the future considering the fact that ATEEZ basically shot their company to recognition. But that seems like too much to ask for from KQ.

M-Net/Award Show Treatment:

It’s no surprise that award shows have been treating ATEEZ badly. I made an entire post about the grievances committed against ATEEZ by M-Net alone. And they only just seem to continue. M-Net not only sabotaged a show ATEEZ was supposed to get a major award on; but they have also been releasing horrible fan-cams for ATEEZ this comeback. And so have a bunch of other companies. Would you like to have a full fan-cam just for a camera man’s back? No! Especially not when it’s one of Yunho’s best fits for this comeback! The grievances just continue with award shows downplaying their achievements or, as I referenced before, the complete cancellation of a show ATEEZ was supposed to win on. Many Atiny had been voting for that show for weeks. And while they still won the award, they don’t get any of the streaming or publicity from the show. And I think it’s pretty clear why ATEEZ is being targeted in this way. For years, K-Pop was the big three. They were untouchable and they rather liked it that way. And then BigHit stepped in and we had problems because suddenly it went from the big three to the big four and then YG started losing money to the point where we’re pretty much at the big three again with HYBE taking the last slot. We also have the whole mess at SM happening right now with artists attempting to flee from them, for good reason, which leaves the entire K-Pop industry changed and shaking in their boots. I personally think that the reason why ATEEZ is being targeted is the same reason why JYP recently went on an unhinged rant about how listening to K-Pop when you aren’t Korean is a form of cultural appropriation. With worldwide interest in K-Pop, the game has suddenly become so much less predictable. They can’t seem to predict who international fans will like and many of the groups becoming popular are from smaller companies. Instead of having to deal with and predict several countries full of people, they suddenly find themselves tasked to try and predict an entire world’s worth of people. While I can’t say if eyes around the world is a good or bad thing for the industry, I personally feel like we’re seeing a bunch of huge conglomerates getting scared and lashing out in whatever way they can to keep things under control. And I definitely think we’re going to see groups from smaller companies, like ATEEZ, pay for that. I just hope that this change in K-Pop will shake things up enough to get groups from smaller companies the recognition they deserve and broaden the game. It would be nice to not just have three companies anymore. But this is all complete speculation.

I know it’s really easy to look at all of this and get discouraged. But I don’t think there’s a reason to completely despair here. While some people might not be giving ATEEZ and their accomplishments the recognition they deserve, we certainly can! We can celebrate with them and support them! We can keep fighting these battles and standing next to them. We can show them that we are here for them and that they have a community that will back them. And there’s a lot of good and a lot of hope in that. So let’s keep this going for our boys!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Sci-Fi: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Ep 1-3 Review

Screenshot of Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk and Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh in ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’. Copyright goes to Roddenberry Entertainment and Paramount+.

Hey! Hallie here!

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ came back with season 2 about two weeks ago, and I have obviously been keeping up with it. Season 1 was so incredible that I couldn’t miss the newest season, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to talk about it. But now that three episodes are out I have a lot to catch up on! I’m going to go through all of my thoughts on all of the episodes so far, but I’m not going to separate this review by episodes. Instead, I’m going to discuss all of my likes and dislikes of the entire season so far. Knowing me I’m probably going to stick mostly to what we’ve seen of the characters, but I’ll definitely be getting into plot as well so SPOILERS AHEAD! Let’s look at what this season is bringing to the Star Trek universe!

The Good:

La’an: La’an is one of the few characters who didn’t completely win me over last season. I didn’t love the over emphasis on her being “tough” during her introduction, and the rest of the episodes cementing her as one of the more boring members of the crew according to her own peers didn’t help the situation much. However, La’an’s already more than making up for it this season. I thought opening the season with some closure for the victims of the Gorn she was aiding and bringing her back to the crew was an excellent move. Then she got a really interesting role in the second episode, where both her closeness to Una as well as her Noonien-Singh related self hatred were played on in order to seamlessly integrate more character development for her into an episode that wasn’t otherwise about her. And then we have this week’s episode. Though I wouldn’t say a time travel episode that primarily asks the question “Would you go back and kill a mass murderer when they were a child?” is anything new, I did appreciate that the series is finally having La’an deal with her feelings about Khan. The scene where she came face to face with child Khan was surprisingly heartwarming, and I do think the badass acceptance of who she is by the end of the episode felt earned. Surprisingly, I also liked her relationship with Kirk. No offense to fans who love Kirk, but Kirk gets on my nerves easily. But somehow La’an played off of him so well that I actually did care about their budding relationship and felt horrible when La’an attempted to reach out to her own universe’s Kirk and wound up heartbroken. ‘Strange New Worlds’ is doing some amazing writing for La’an this season. I can’t wait to see what’s next for her.

Spock: Spock took the spotlight in the first episode of this season, and while I wasn’t expecting it, it was a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed the takeover of the Enterprise he led, mostly because it reminded me of the crew rebellion in ‘The Search For Spock’ and this time we actually got to see Spock in on the action. I especially loved his awkward interactions with newcomer Pelia, played by the lovely Carol Kane. The way she absolutely confuses him makes me excited to see more of their interactions as the season goes on. The first episode also dealt with Spock’s recent problems controlling his emotions, the focus of that being on Christine Chapel. Though I have no idea where they’re going with this storyline given Spock’s original storyline in TOS, I still felt for Spock when he almost broke down on the bridge as a result of thinking he had killed Christine. Spock actually crying over Christine after she nearly died out in space made me want to cry. I also like this season’s goofier approach to Spock. I enjoyed his adorable enthusiasm when drinking with the Klingons, his brief but hilarious “argument” with the Vulcan Star Fleet prosecutor, and even his handling of the Vulcan lute-related noise complaint. Though his issues controlling his emotions is a serious problem that will likely have to get resolved soon, I’m very much enjoying the light-hearted Spock we’ve gotten so far this season.

Other Crew: Within the first three episodes I can’t say the rest of the series regulars have gotten much time, but I do really enjoy their presences as usual. M’Benga and Christine were given several kick-ass fight scenes in episode one, and though it was interesting to see Christine wrestle with her mortality in that episode, M’Benga has been the star doctor of the season so far. I thought his PTSD related to the Klingon war was the most interesting storyline in the first episode and I kind of want more. We have to address that he nearly killed a Klingon with his bare hands at one point, right? I’m also loving his position as advice-giver this season. Between his sparring scene with La’an (Babs Olusanmokun actually teaches Jiu Jitsu!), and the scene with Ortegas where he stops to read Spock’s body language, I feel like he’s been keeping a closer watch of the crew this season than Pike has. I’ll get to that later, but go M’Benga! Ortegas is another joy to watch. She never fails to be absolutely hilarious, and yes, I cheered during her piloting scene in the first episode. I adore every moment Ortegas is on screen. Speaking of, give me more Uhura please. She’s still my favorite character in this series, and though she hasn’t gotten any storylines for herself yet, she steals every moment she’s on screen. The amount of confidence and snark that comes from her is more than enough to win me over each episode, but she deserves even more. I know there’s going to be an episode for her in this season somewhere, but I’m so impatient to get to it!

Neera: Though I’m not the biggest fan of Una Chin-Riley, especially when she’s put up against some of the more interesting crew on the Enterprise, I do want to highlight her episode. But I mostly want to do it for Yetide Badaki and her spectacular performance as Neera. The ideals about discrimination and respecting the cultures of others felt well timed in this episode, but it was Neera who sold those ideas. It was bold to come to a trial episode like this from the perspective of a guest character, but Neera’s position, not only as Una’s betrayed friend but as an Illyrian who was cast out because she refused to hide her identity, made her the perfect person to follow. She establishes herself as a good lawyer immediately, making her easy to root for, but her character development makes everything more complicated. At first she uses her amazing lawyer skills to try to take down Star Fleet for upholding a discrimination law while being known to break various other laws. She takes the case to enact vengeance, not caring who gets taken down as long as Star Fleet looks the worst it could possibly look by the time the process is over. The plot doesn’t fault her for this, but it does make clear that it isn’t ultimately helpful to Illyrians in Star Fleet at the present moment. So we get to see her slowly come to terms with why Una joined Star Fleet and start to care about that as well. Though she can only really help Una out on a technicality, her cleverness ultimately makes it still feel like a win and they sprinkle in some hope for the future as well. Una’s episode was basically just about Neera, but I’m ok with that.

The Bad:

Pike: Why has Pike been practically gone for three episodes now? I love Pike. I love him as a captain. I have never had a Star Trek season go so long without bringing their captain to the forefront and I don’t think I like it. He gets some role in the second episode, but his only purpose is to worry about Una and his only scenes consist of various people telling him that he needs to sit on the sidelines and wait her case out. Which he does. In the other episodes he’s had about two lines per episode. I think we’ve gotten to the point where every member of the crew has played a more important role than him in the season, and that includes Kirk. This is a really odd choice and I hope it ends soon.

Prequel Problems: The first two episodes of this season deal with storylines that heavily suffer from relevance issues. I don’t mean that the two episodes are irrelevant to the season. The opposite in fact. But because a show that is a prequel to everything else we’ve seen in Star Trek is doing these storylines, it suddenly feels like these major events have no major impact on Star Trek’s story at all. Take the first episode, where we’re primarily dealing with Spock’s new inability to control his emotions and his conflicting feelings for Christine. We know that in TOS Spock is probably too good at keeping his emotions in check. He doesn’t really start opening up until Kirk and Bones encourage him to do so. We also know that Christine pines for Spock in TOS, but Spock apparently doesn’t return those feelings. So how is Spock and Christine’s current storyline relevant if they don’t end up together by TOS and if Spock goes right back to being great at dealing with his emotions? No idea. How is Una’s trial relevant if augments in every other series of Star Trek get heavily discriminated against by Star Fleet? No idea. I appreciate what the writers are trying to do here, but their hands are a bit tied because ‘Strange New Worlds’ is a prequel, and I’m not sure they can always find their way around that.

Spirk: This isn’t as much a critique as it is a defense of the fanbase, but I have been noticing that between the Spock/Christine pairing and now the La’an/Kirk pairing, ‘Strange New Worlds’ has been keeping Spock and Kirk in very straight relationships. Spock and Kirk haven’t even interacted in the show yet. But Spock/Kirk is one of the most famous fan pairings in fandom ever, to the point that fans of this pairing basically created fanfiction. All I’m saying is at least a nod in the direction of these fans would be nice. They’ve been waiting for something, anything, for so damn long and Star Trek is more progressive than it’s ever been before.

That’s all I have for the series so far. I jumped around a little bit but I tried to make this as coherent as possible. I’m really liking this season so far! Though I won’t say that it started out as strong as the first season did, it’s still one of the most engaging (yes, that was a pun) Star Trek series I’ve ever watched. I can’t wait for next week’s episode, and I’m especially anticipating the appearance of Mariner and Boimler from ‘Lower Decks’ soon. There’s so many crazy things from this season that we haven’t seen yet and I’m impatient to watch them!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Superheroes: Why Spider Gwen’s Story Arc is Perfect

Screenshot of Gwen and Miles in ‘Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse’. Copyright goes to Sony and Marvel.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I’ve recently watched ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ twice. I think it’s safe to say that this is one of my favorite superhero movies right now…if not my absolute favorite. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such amazing storytelling for so many characters all packed into one movie. But the character that really struck a chord with me personally here was Gwen. There was so much about her that I really related to and it was done so perfectly that it really felt like she was real. She felt like a real flawed person to relate to. Because all relatable characters are flawed. Human beings aren’t perfect, so how are we supposed to relate to a character that’s written to be completely perfect? How are we supposed to truly connect to a character that makes no mistakes when humans make mistakes and learn from them all the time? There’s been an influx of people talking about Gwen in this movie because her arc, for the most part, is her messing up. Some fans have talked about how difficult it’ll be for her to come back from this and how her mistakes in this movie lessened her character in their eyes, while another group came out to defend Gwen by saying that she did nothing wrong in this film. And I disagree hardcore with both sides. I loved Gwen’s arc in the movie and I’m going to go into why this character is so important and so relatable. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL SPIDERVERSE MOVIES COMING UP!!!

Gwen and her Dad:

We all know from the last movie that Gwen is a bit of a loner. In her universe, because she got bit by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker, she becomes best friends with Peter who is now a completely normal person. Somehow Peter eventually puts the pieces together that his best friend is the Ghost-Spider, or Spider-Woman, and decides that he wants to be special just like she is. His scientific prowess is the same in every universe, which leads this Peter to create a liquid that he hopes will make him special and more like Gwen. But this causes that universe’s Peter Parker to become the Lizard and Gwen accidentally ends up dropping some building debris on him before realizing that it’s actually Peter. Her Dad is still the police chief in this universe, so he swears to find the person responsible for the murder of his daughter’s best friend. All very complicated and it makes Gwen feel like she can’t have anyone close to her. She can’t tell her Dad that his manhunt is for her and she feels like everyone close to her gets hurt. This is where her first mistake in this movie comes up. Gwen’s inability to do anything but push the people closest to her away causes a rift that everyone feels. She quits her band at the beginning of the movie and she has even kept her Dad at arm’s length because she’s worried he’s directly at odds with her. Though you understand where she’s coming from because her father is threatening to arrest her; she does ultimately run away from her issues when Miguel gives her a watch to enter the Spider Society. Gwen doesn’t correct this until the end of the movie when she learns the importance of your loved ones from Miles. When she finally opens herself up to have a conversation with her Dad, everything becomes much better for everyone involved. Struggling with having a different expectation for your future than your parents is something that I relate to, especially since I’m at such a transitional point in my life right now. It was important for me to see Gwen make a mistake in that process and then go back to fix it and have such strong support there for her. It’s the hope and comfort that those who truly love you, do so unconditionally. And I think everyone needs to hear at some point or another that the people closest to us aren’t going to leave us just because we make a mistake. Gwen learning to communicate with her Dad would not have happened if she didn’t mess up first. This kind of lesson is an important one and one that we don’t get without a character fumbling their relationships with others in some way.

Gwen and Miles:

Now this is probably where we see the most mistakes and relationship breakdown in the movie. Gwen selfishly visits Miles when she’s told not to because he’s one of the only people she has left and she misses him. This leads Miles into several unsafe situations and she becomes more deceptive towards him as the film goes on. Gwen at first doesn’t tell Miles exactly why she’s in his dimension and then lies to him about the Spider Society because she doesn’t want to tell him that he’s an anomaly. Later she even helps Miguel chase down Miles in the hopes that he will act according to the “canon” and let his father die. Gwen sees how much she hurts Miles by the end of the movie and finally stands up to the Spider Society despite not wanting to go back to life without it; but it doesn’t quite make up for how much she really hurts Miles and how she uses her position of privilege in the Spider Society to justify her actions. Hobie, who barely knows Miles, stands with him while Gwen doesn’t know what the right thing to do is. Gwen really has a lot to make up for here and we see her start by the end of it. She’s already made her own group to help find and rescue Miles and she completely drops out of the Spider Society; rightfully accusing the others of blindly following Miguel as she does it. I think we can all agree that her redemption has a great start. But Gwen also admits at the very beginning of the movie that she messed up. Gwen herself doesn’t think she handled the situation well. So I don’t quite understand the people arguing that Gwen did nothing wrong in this movie. She’s still an excellent character though. I think the movie does a great job of showing how selfish and misguided she can be; as most teenagers and young adults are. And we see her beginning to learn from it. She acknowledges her mistake and uses it to become a better friend. She recognizes that Miles handled the situation much better than she did and follows his example because she knows that’s what he would do for her. Gwen has had extremely bad luck with friends and relationships, but by the end of this movie we see her put her selfishness aside and actually start to embrace them. Again, all lessons we wouldn’t have gotten if Gwen hadn’t made the mistake. I’ve always been a bit closed off and unsure of how to really embrace my friendships and keep them going. Seeing Gwen do this simply by embracing the people around her and being herself around them felt a little like a revelation to me.

Gwen and Hobie:

There’s been some debate on this. Though we only have some information about their relationship to each other, I personally think it’s safe to say that it’s platonic. There’s something very sweet about the way that Gwen and Hobie take care of each other throughout the movie and I think the knowledge that Gwen crashes at his place and even has a toothbrush there is just an extension of that. I think the two of them are just abandoned young people who have learned to take care of each other and have a strong friendship because of that. There are a few people who seem to think that Gwen and Hobie are further proof of Gwen’s betrayal towards Miles. I think that is very wrong for several reasons. This idea that men can absolutely date around when they aren’t official yet while women can’t has continued to be an issue for women. The double standards there are gross. Miles and Gwen were never dating and Gwen honestly thought she wouldn’t see Miles again. But, unless this is clarified to be incorrect in the next movie, I really don’t see any romantic connection between the two and I don’t think there’s supposed to be one. I personally love the platonic relationship between Hobie and Gwen. Because, for the thousandth time, men and women can be just platonic friends. And it’s really nice to see that Gwen has somebody she can fall back on during the most difficult parts of her life.

Flawed Characters:

I feel like this movie in particular really drove home to me just how much people in general still have an aversion to flawed characters. I’ve seen several people condemn Gwen Stacy in this movie and say that she can’t be redeemed in the next one. That her betrayal of Miles proves that she’s a bad person. I think this condemnation of Gwen is extremely misguided. I used to be a person who had a certain amount of skepticism when it came to flawed characters. When a character would make a mistake in media, I used to get annoyed with it and add it to a list of reasons why the character just “didn’t work”. Going through my twenties and having a rough time figuring out myself and wondering which decisions in my life would come to be mistakes and which wouldn’t, has been a harsh slap in the face. Protecting yourself from making the mistake is often what leads you to make more mistakes. Being human is about falling and getting back up. What really determines who you are is what you do after the mistake is made. How you decide to get back up. As I said before, Gwen acknowledges her mistake at the beginning of the movie and by the end of it is already turning it around. I don’t see how that is unredeemable. If characters were never flawed, we would never see ourselves in them when we truly needed to be seen the most. I am so glad that this movie took a risk with Gwen’s character here in this way, and I think the storytelling was so beautiful that they pulled it off perfectly. Let’s be honest here, Miles idolized Gwen so much in the first movie that I think she needed to be knocked off the pedestal and seen as a kid who’s only a year older than Miles is.

I am absolutely in love with this depiction of Spider Gwen now. I’ve always been in the Spider-Man fandom and I’ve always wanted to be a Spider Gwen fan. I mean, look at her, the Spider Gwen suit is my exact aesthetic. I was never expecting to get into this character in such a personal way. This last movie made this character mean so much to me. And while I understand where the confusion over her character is coming from; I don’t think condemning her helps anybody or really grasps the points that the writers were trying to make here. I personally can’t wait to see how her relationship builds again with Miles in the next movie, and how she uses her strength and newfound support to prove herself again. I can’t wait for the next one! Though I really do hope they take their time and treat their artists better. We don’t need to rush the next one, especially if slowing it down means better working conditions.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Marvel: ‘Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse’ Character Arcs

Screenshot of Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) in ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’. Copyright goes to Sony Pictures Animation, Marvel Entertainment, and Arad Productions.

Hey! Hallie here!

At this point pretty much everyone’s seen ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’. It’s by far one of the best movies of the century and one of the best animated projects I’ve ever seen in my life, so if you haven’t seen it, you need to go out and see it immediately. I was skeptical when others said this was better than the first movie, but it really is. Plus, the art in this movie alone is worth the price of admission. Moving past all that though, it’s long past time that I do a deep dive on this movie. This won’t be a review because, let’s be real, I have only positive things to say here and I think I would run out of compliments, but I really want to talk about the characters in ‘Across the Spider-Verse’. We have a lot of them this time around, even more than we had in the first movie, and there’s surprisingly deep storylines for each of the characters we get the most focus on. There’s also a lot of imagery and theming within each of the main characters. So let’s look at their motivations and where that leads them from the beginning to the end of the film. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Miles Morales: Miles probably has the most obvious imagery in his character arc. On the surface we see a fifteen-year-old kid who, despite his age, is a very capable Spider-Man. But with both his parents and the main group of Spider-People in this movie, Miles never feels like he’s being taken seriously. He doesn’t feel like his parents have enough faith in him to pursue the things he wants to pursue, and he feels even more frustrated when Gwen reveals that he’s one of the only Spider-Men who hasn’t been invited into Miguel’s task force. But though Miles proves himself as one of the most skilled Spider-People by the end of the movie, there’s much more to his story. Most importantly, the cake metaphor. At the beginning of the movie, when Miles is meeting up with his college counselor, she mentions that he can’t have his cake and eat it too. His response is a quippy “not if you have two cakes”, but later we see him juggling two literal cakes for his dad’s party. By stopping to be Spider-Man while trying to deliver the cakes to his family, he winds up ruining them both. This one is a pretty obvious metaphor for the way Miles is attempting to unsuccessfully juggle his personal life with his Spider-Man life. You could argue this theme makes Miguel right when he tries to take Miles down. Miles must make more sacrifices in his personal life if he’s meant to be a good Spider-Man. But I don’t think that’s what the movie’s saying at all. After all, a large emphasis is also put on Rio Morales telling Miles that while he can go out and explore the world, at the end of the day he has an obligation to take care of his personal responsibilities. In other words, Miles’ obligation to his family, and ultimately his obligation to save his father, is too important to be sacrificed for Miles’ superhero work. So what is the solution? Well, given the amount of Spider-People he’s befriended, maybe it’s not putting so much pressure on yourself and asking for help. But I think the resolution for this will have to wait until the next movie.

Miguel O’Hara: Let’s take a look at Miguel because his character arc seems to be mostly used in order to complete Miles’ arc. Miguel has taken it upon himself to fix every single anomaly he sees in the multiverse, maintaining a “canon” for Spider-Man specifically so that various universes don’t disappear like the universe he attempted to inhabit. First off, I do think it’s important to note that the canon Miguel is attempting to maintain is broken by Miles Morales’ existence, which is a very important acknowledgment of the awful fans who attempt to discredit Miles for not being enough like a classic Spider-Man. That aside, Miguel’s ideas on universes disappearing forever due to anomalies is constantly disproven in front of his face. While the Spot was created due to the events that happened after Miles was bitten, Miles is not responsible for the Spot’s actions, and Miles existing as Spider-Man has not lead to any disappearances like what Miguel experienced. There’s also Mayday, a direct consequence of Peter B. Parker training Miles, which wasn’t supposed to happen. Mayday, similarly, has not lead to any disappearing events. So what could have caused the tragedy that happened to Miguel? Most likely the fact that Miguel chose to stay in a different universe and permanently infringe upon it. And if we look at Miles’s storyline hinging on Rio’s idea that ultimately it’s your responsibility to come back home and take care of your personal life, it does seem like Miguel’s mistake was not going back home and taking care of his personal problems. I also think that Miguel’s insistence on being solitary could be a big hint that having other people to rely on solves the big cake problem in Miles’ character arc, but we’ll have to see.

Pavitr Prabhakar: Quick shout out to Pavitr for his short character arc being more possible proof that my “relying on other people” theory is correct. Pavitr has a heartbreaking moment where he actually says the words “I can do both” when he’s trying to save Gayatri and Inspector Singh at the same time. This is supposed to be his canon event, where Inspector Singh dies and carries on a tradition of majorly traumatic and impactful deaths in Spider-Man’s storyline. Except Miles prevents this by taking some of the pressure off of Pavitr’s shoulders and saving Inspector Singh himself. So thanks Pavitr, and also thank you for being adorable and having the most gorgeous Spider-Man design I could have possibly imagined.

Gwen Stacy: The discussion of this character arc has lead to a lot of in-fighting amongst ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ fans, meaning there’s a lot more work that needs to be done to fully understand this one. The first step to understanding this storyline is knowing that it’s a story of failure. Gwen tells us this herself. She failed Miles and she knows it. Gwen starts out the movie missing Miles a whole lot, and it’s because she isolates herself due to trauma. She had to kill her universe’s Peter Parker, her best friend, because in an endeavor to be as “special” as her, he turned himself into the Lizard. As a result she’s hostile towards her band and then quits, is short with her father, and has made no friends since Miles. The only thing she really cares about is being Spider-Woman, and her dad rejecting her once he realizes she’s Spider-Woman only further pushes her in that direction. Which is why meeting Miguel and Jessica so immediately impacts her. Suddenly she has a mentor in Jessica, and a whole group of Spider-People she can befriend without having to care at all about her personal life. But she essentially has to sacrifice Miles in order to have all of this. She knows that Miles is considered an anomaly, an enemy of everything Miguel’s working for. She also knowingly supports a system that would see Miles’ father dead, and does not support Miles when he rejects that system until it’s too late. So yes, she’s understandable, but she also made the selfish decision to let Miles suffer for an escape from her personal life. She even selfishly decided to reunite with him so she could have her friend back, and then attempted to distance herself from him again so she wouldn’t have to be the one to hurt him. But she’s learning, and that’s also important. At the end of the movie she goes back to her universe and reconciles with her father, no longer avoiding her personal life. She’s also actively leading a group with the sole intention of helping Miles. But she does have a lot to make up for in the next movie.

Hobie Brown: Hobie’s the big wild card in ‘Across the Spiderverse’. While his status as an anti-capitalist, anti-conforming, anarchist punk is used jokingly in some scenes, the narrative tends to agree with him. Which is why Hobie Brown ends up being one of the best characters in the entire movie. He’s the first person to warn Miles that he should be cautious of Miguel and his task force, and is openly disapproving that Gwen hasn’t told Miles that his mere existence is a problem to Miguel. He also stands by Miles throughout his entire time on screen. He gives him advice on his new energy blasting trick when he first meets him, reminds him that he has good parents, helps Miles escape Miguel, and then quits immediately after Miles gets away. Hobie is praised by the narrative both for questioning authority and for being loyal not to establishments, but to individuals like Miles. Even his thievery of Miguel’s tech is supported by the plot when he manages to replicate a universe hopping watch for Gwen in the hopes that she’ll quit like he did. And, naturally, he’s part of Gwen’s team at the end of the movie. Hobie’s such a badass and I’m really glad the movie praises his ability to point out problematic systems.

And that’s all I have for ‘Across The Spider-Verse’. There’s a lot going on in this movie, but the depth to all of it is one of the things that makes it such a masterpiece. And the depth to the animation is also a major player here. The animation isn’t just gorgeous, but the little details like the guiding lines on Miguel’s face, or the onomatopoeia bubbles being in different languages, really prove how much love and devotion went into each frame. Which is why I’m happy the next movie will likely get pushed back a year or so. The animators are excellent, but they were worked way too hard on this movie. I can’t wait for the next one, but I really want them to take their time with it so the animators can enjoy making it just as much as we enjoy watching it.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

ATEEZ:’THE WORLD EP.2: OUTLAW’

Promotional photo of (from left) Kang Yeosang, Park Seonghwa, Choi San, Jeong Yunho, Kim Hongjoong, Jung Wooyoung, Song Mingi, and Choi Jongho. Copyright goes to ATEEZ and KQ Entertainment.

Hi! It’s Annie!

The new album has officially dropped and I can say right off the bat that this album is like all of their other albums in one very important way. It also contains some of the best music I’ve ever heard in my life. There’s something about the way that they create music and beats that scratches my brain in just the right way. But this album comes with a whole other level of hype just from the marketing strategies involved with this alone. Just for this album we got a wanted poster of ATEEZ that was the next day torn down with a flag stuck in the middle of the debris, a truck advertising chili peppers spotted at several locations, and mysterious character specific trailers set in a brand new setting for the story they’ve been weaving for years. Not many other groups are so dedicated to their storylines that they’ll release character trailers for their upcoming MV. With all of this hype there is the big question of if it lived up to all of that. We all knew that the music was going to be good; but is it that good? I mean; what do you think? It’s ATEEZ.

‘BOUNCY (K-HOT CHILI PEPPERS)’:

I’m going to start out with this one because this is the main track. Admittedly, this wasn’t originally one of my favorites on the album. And it’s still not my absolute favorite, there are a couple other songs that take that title. But I absolutely love this song! I think it just speaks to the quality of the album that there are songs that I like better than this one. This is such an amazing and upbeat song, and I love it more with each time that I listen to it. It shot up on my list quickly and I don’t get tired of it. One of my favorite parts of the song is the very beginning, because I freaking love the rapper taunts that the song starts out with. And this includes Seonghwa because in this particular song, the track has three rappers. I absolutely love this turn of events and I really wonder if this means they’ll use Seonghwa in the rapper line more often. He’s an amazing rapper and he did such a great job while Mingi was taking a much needed break; I would die if rapper Seonghwa becomes a regular thing! But hearing Hongjoong say “I got time but it’s not for you bro” made my entire life. The song itself is actually about their music itself! They talk about being young and hungry and how their music is something different that they put out into the world. I completely agree considering their music is nothing like anything else I’ve ever heard and my first reaction to hearing it was wondering where it had been all my life. Mingi even included a section in his own rap about how their music is welcoming to everyone. Considering the fact that ATEEZ has made it clear that they are a safe space to so many communities who need that, I loved this inclusion. Though, let’s be honest here, there’s an implication (or more than) in this song that has a completely different meaning. I am also pleasantly amazed that they listened to Atiny after ‘HALAZIA’ by giving the pre-chorus to Yeosang. His voice and deep register is amazing and he deserves to be heard more! They also gave a huge section of the song to Yunho and I’m loving how versatile they’ve been discovering his voice is. Because his voice is one of my favorites in all of K-Pop. But, you know, I’m biased. (Pun intended.)

‘BOUNCY” MV:

There were SO many trailers for this MV and it definitely stirred up the amount of interest they wanted by having so many. In the character trailer we saw the members of ATEEZ all separated into groups of two. Hongjoong and Mingi had a more western vibe (goat included) where they were watching the city from a rooftop, we also saw a wanted poster of Mingi being tossed around. We saw San and Wooyoung hiding out in a van with San as a boxer and Wooyoung as his manager. Yunho and Jongho were in a mechanic shop but also seemed to be moonlighting as undercover cops; or are undercover cops. And Seonghwa and Yeosang were heading a motorcycle gang making their way through the city. There were a lot of theories as to what this could mean right off the bat. Some people thought that this took place after the break out in ‘HALAZIA’ and that they were now hiding out. Others thought that this could be a past look at HALATEEZ. Everything was thrown into even more confusion when other trailers came out depicting the members in school uniforms at the academy we’ve seen in past MVs. Well this MV has now dropped…and I can’t stay that I have any more answers. I think I need to watch it at least another half a dozen times so that I can start understanding it a little more. Mingi seems to shoot up a saloon, which I’m sure isn’t really helping his poster status. My favorite pieces in this MV actually came from San and Wooyoung as the boxer and boxing manager. Wooyoung’s facial expressions were amazing and made me laugh! The other members we see in their concepts from the trailers, but they don’t seem to have much of a story going on more than what we’ve already seen. They don’t really get to the school until the end, but it feels more like a setting than a plot point. At least for now. It could be that this is ATEEZ and before we were seeing HALATEEZ? My guess is that this will come back later. They all get back together and blow up the town by the end of it. But I have so many questions! Is this ATEEZ or HALATEEZ? What was that town? Does the town being blown up help their cause in the revolution? Despite my confusion, this has to be one of my favorite ATEEZ MVs. There’s so much going on in the very best way and the concept is completely impeccable. Also new iconic choreography complete with a new iconic walk! What’s not to love? (Except for the fact that Jongho needed way more screen time than he got.)

‘This World’:

I have to say, this album gives off very HALATEEZ vibes, but perhaps nothing so much as this song. This song is about the corruption of the world that they’re living in, asks what they are prepared to sacrifice, and declares that sometimes you need a little darkness to get out of the darkness. One of my favorite elements of this song is that it includes the PSA from the last album as part of the song. The repeated words add a chilling effect that fits it so perfectly. There is a willingness to fight in this song, but the song is also a little about them sacrificing themselves for the cause. Considering the position they currently have in the K-Pop world, it does really make me wonder if they take a little inspiration from that business. But who knows! I mean, these are the pirates of the K-Pop industry. But that aside, we do know that HALATEEZ were committing violent acts for the sake of restoring emotion from their performance of ‘Rhythm Ta’ on Kingdom as well as a few other things. Though needed in the world they’ve created, it does absolutely play off this theme of needing darkness to defeat the darkness. Maybe this is a clue for this being a more HALATEEZ album? But Hongjoong has been pretty agile about clearing up the storyline lately, so he could come out and completely put all of my theories to shame. That is what usually happens.

‘Dune’:

This was one of my two favorite songs on the album. There’s another possible hint here for this being a HALATEEZ album. ‘HALA HALA’ actually comes up in this track at the very beginning, but very briefly. This song has a really great beat and is very energetic despite the somber tone of the lyrics. The lyrics are despairing wondering why this is happening to them and wondering how much more they’ll have to sacrifice. This also talks about the loss of passion for the war and wanting to give it all up. Understandable for anyone fighting in a war or leading a rebellion. But the tempo of the song is so different, the depth of the lyrics come as an amazing surprise for what you’re initially expecting. I also have to say that the chanting in this song is one of my absolute favorite things. It gets stuck in my head all the time to an insane degree. All the combined features here made me feel like I wish I had a song like this earlier in my life. It’s so transportive!

‘DJANGO’:

This was the song I listened to at first that made me really feel like the album was going to blow me away. The small clip that we had of this was too addicting and the song was already getting stuck in my head before it even came out. The song criticizes society’s tendency to live for the future instead of living for the present. The song boasts that living for the present means that you make the life everyone else is attempting to predict. It’s a really good message and a reminder that I’m sure many of us need frequently. I also really like this song because Yunho growls and has this really low register bit that makes me want to pass out every time I hear it. This song completely lived up to all of the hype. It was also the one that most other people seemed to like the sound clip of the most, and the full version is even better.

‘Wake Up’:

One of the reasons why I like this song so much is the double meaning of it. The song lyrics follow the plot of a brainwashed society that’s having their emotions taken away from them. The song acts as the rebellion’s attempt to get through to the public by waking them up. But the song also can be read as ATEEZ themselves getting through to fans who are having difficult times. The lyrics instruct the listener to listen to their voice and to let them lead them out of whatever dark place that they are in. It also comforts the listener by saying that they’ll be with them even in the dark. It’s so clever that the song can be read both ways and it also is so heart warming. As someone who has used ATEEZ to help myself out of dark places, the lyrics of this song are so touching to me. Hongjoong’s fast rap in this song also makes one of the best pieces of it and Jongho’s soaring vocals on some of the most emotional lyrics feel perfect.

‘Outlaw’:

This song has the title of the entire album and like everything else, it packs a punch. The song is a little simpler lyrically in that it talks about being an outlaw and someone to be afraid of. It feels a little more like an anthem for HALATEEZ. Especially because it talks about having the nature of an outlaw rather than becoming it, which does fit HALATEEZ more than it fits the plot ATEEZ themselves have been going through. It’s another addicting song and just like the rest of the album, I’m very impressed with the line distribution here. This album is really great for line distribution and they completely answered our requests about Yeosang getting more since ‘HALAZIA’. This is a good song to highlight this in.

So, yes, if you were to ask me whether this album lives up to the hype I would answer very very positively! Not only does this album live up to the hype; but I would even say that it surpasses it! ATEEZ has once again come out with an album that I wish I had my entire life. And like their other albums, it’s an album that is meant to be blasted out of speakers. If I ever doubted; ATEEZ would slap me in the face with how much I can’t stray from my ults. If you haven’t yet, go stream this album and all of their performances of ‘BOUNCY’! This album is yet another immersive music experience and I will be listening to it for months and months on end. Ugh, it’s just so good!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

K-Pop: Happy Birthday Yeosang!

Promotional photo of Kang Yeosang. Copyright goes to KQ Entertainment and ATEEZ.

Hey! Hallie here!

Today Ateez’s new album comes out, “THE WORLD EP.2: OUTLAW”! Unfortunately I’m writing this post in advance, so I will absolutely be enjoying the album by the time you read this post, but I have nothing to say about it now other than I’m extremely excited to hear it and you should go stream it right now! For this post, I’m celebrating Yeosang and his birthday! This might be a day late, but I can’t let this amazing man’s birthday pass by without a post dedicated to all of the things I love and appreciate about him. From performances to variety shows, Yeosang is completely captivating. He’s kind, hilarious, and born to perform on stage. There’s so much to obsess over, so let’s get into it!

Yeosang’s Thoughtfulness:

Yeosang is undoubtedly extremely kind to those around him, especially Atiny. I mean, this man can’t look angry during a photoshoot to save his life, are we really surprised? He famously created a long note for Atiny during a period where he was receiving a lot of hate that stuck with people purely for how kind it was. In it he focused specifically on Atiny, telling them how much he appreciated them and reassuring them that he was alright and that they didn’t have to worry. His only words towards the people attacking him were that he hoped they would find happiness writing good things in the future rather than tearing other people down. His selflessness has extended to fan meets as well, where he has been known to not only focus conversations on Atiny, but even to prepare questions for them. He also has joined in with other members to ensure Atiny safety at such events, including taking steps to cool down overheated Atiny. He’s very sweet towards his members as well. Seonghwa has called him out for not voicing his problems to ensure other people don’t get hurt by his grievances. He also avoids conflict as much as possible and attempts to show frequent affection towards all the members, often through teasing. He’s stated before that coming into the group, he attempted to show as little favoritism as possible towards any one specific member so all the members knew they could rely on him. And after all these years, he’s become a member who both ATEEZ and Atiny can still consider extremely reliable and thoughtful.

Yeosang’s Thoughtlessness:

Yes, the title for this section is a joke. Yeosang is absolutely hilarious and I really want to talk about how much he makes me laugh, but as a fan, I have to start with this man’s cluelessness. Yeosang is a very intelligent, dumb man. He’s, of course, really smart and has said many things that could be considered wise. But he also has turned a fan towards a sweating Atiny while he and the fan were behind glass due to COVID restrictions. Which, as you could imagine, didn’t work out the best. Yeosang recently was given a concept for an episode of ATEEZ’s variety show, and the minute the show started he completely forgot the concept. He once confused himself into silence while trying to remember his showering routine. I adore his moments of “brain empty” because I find them so relatable. We all have moments where all thoughts completely fly out of our heads, but Yeosang manages to make his so funny. But while we’re on the topic of how funny Yeosang is, I do want to highlight how good he is at deadpan, teasing comedy as well. He once gave Jongho a birthday gift that appeared to be AirPods but when opened, turned out to be a giant AirPod shaped bubble machine. He also responded to Mingi jokingly yelling in his face by turning around and taking a sip of alcohol. He’s just naturally so funny, ready with a funny comeback to most things without a single change of expression. It’s hard not to laugh after watching Yeosang interact with his members.

Yeosang’s Talent:

While I have always really appreciated Yeosang’s contributions to ATEEZ, I wasn’t truly swept away by him until I saw him live. His stage presence is unmatched. Not only are his interactions with Atiny both hilarious and adorable, but his facial expressions and dance skills are no joke. When I saw him perform the intro to “Inception”, looking both regal and mysterious, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. He’s the perfect visual, managing to look elegant no matter what he’s doing. Whenever he’s center during a performance you can’t help but stare. When it comes to dancing, he executes each dance with practiced grace, making even complicated and highly energetic stages like “Cyberpunk” look absolutely effortless. And, of course, he looks really attractive doing all of it. Have you seen his birthmark? And none of that even mentions his deep voice, which we’ve heard for years in songs like “Answer” but now we finally have on full display in “HALAZIA”. His voice is not only impressive, but one of the deepest I’ve heard in K-Pop. It’s incredibly satisfying to listen to how deep his voice can get after years of only hearing hints. Yeosang is one of those people who I hope everyone can see live at least once. I walked in to my first ATEEZ concert with a completely different bias wrecker than what I walked out of the concert with, and that’s thanks to Yeosang absolutely wrecking me during the concert. Everyone should be able to experience the power of Yeosang’s stage presence in person.

Well that’s it for now. I could ramble forever about how much I adore Yeosang, but I think I’m going to leave it here. I honestly can’t believe how much this man has changed my life. He isn’t just someone who I find impressive or entertaining. He’s someone who inspires me. He leads with example through his determination, hard work, and kindness. He inspires me to embrace the unique things about me and to keep trying when things get tough. I really relate to his awkward moments and his moments of forgetfulness, and I take comfort in his quiet moments of consideration and wisdom. I honestly can’t imagine my life without cheering him on from the Atiny crowd. I’m so happy to be spending another birthday celebrating him, and I hope to continue doing so for many more years. Happy Birthday, Yeosang!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

K-Pop: Twice at So-Fi

Promotional image of (from left) Minatozaki Sana, Kim Dahyun, Yoo Jeongyeon, Myoui Mina, Im Nayeon, Son Chaeyoung, Hirai Momo, Park Jihyo, and Chou Tzuyu. Copyright goes to Twice and JYP.

Hi! It’s Annie!

It’s been a while but we’re back and now with unexpected experiences! I have been following Twice very very loosely for a little while because of a few songs that I’ve liked but, because I was completely unaware of how versatile they were, I never got completely into them. I’ve been on the precipice a few times and now I wish that I would have gotten into them sooner. A family member of mine only two days before the concert in LA entered a raffle and randomly won suite tickets to the Twice concert at So-Fi stadium. Because she isn’t really interested in K-Pop, she offered the tickets to my sister and I who immediately spent the next couple of days doing a complete deep dive into Twice. A couple of days ago was the concert and I can honestly say I am definitely a Once now. Not only was the concert an absolutely amazing time, suite or not, but I am now so utterly obsessed with so many of their songs that it’s like I’m constantly listening to a Twice playlist in my head. This was my second time at So-Fi, my first was for BTS’s PTD concert. This just seems to be one of the perfect venues for filling all of LA with the energy of a K-Pop concert. And Twice is a group that really knows how to put on a show and interact with the crowd!

Suite:

Just because I know some people might be interested in this, I wanted to explain what our experience in the suite was like! These were some of the middling level suites, so they were the suites right under the nosebleeds and not the ones close to the stage. I’ve heard rumors that suites get their own viewing screens, but they really aren’t worth it because they’re further into the suite and why would you go there when you’re watching the concert? What was worth it were the comfortable seats right in the first row of a private balcony and a private quarters with a private bathroom. The private bathroom is probably what makes it all worth it; if you’ve ever been to a concert you know what the women’s bathroom lines are like. With barely anyone in front of you from the seats, it’s a very excellent view! My only issues with it were the lack of a community feeling. When you’re so isolated from the rest of the crowd you don’t hear everyone around you singing along and you also don’t really get to stand up to dance. You can’t really participate in the lightstick wave either because it’s hard to see it coming. So overall, I wouldn’t sneeze at doing it again! But I did miss a lot of the community and energetic feelings of a more general seat.

Group Performances:

The concert started out with some of their most energetic songs; ‘Set Me Free’ and ‘I Can’t Stop Me’. Starting out with a bang seems to be the trend in concerts right now and I love it every time! Their entrance was nothing short of iconic. Before the concert we were treated to a commercial level reel of all of the girls with their eyes closed and right when the concert started their eyes opened and we saw all of them in silhouette on the screen before they were lit up. After the first songs we had their introduction where Jihyo practically punched you in the face with how charismatic she is as the leader of the group. Then we got ‘Go Hard’ which did perfectly in showing how energetic the concert was going to be. ‘More and More’, ‘Moonlight Sunrise’, and ‘Brave’ came next and absolutely blew me away. Especially with the set pieces. ‘More and More’ had them all on these triangular structures at first which they all looked so good on. Seriously, all of them are so charismatic. I challenge you to go to one of the concerts and not come out completely in love with all nine members. The concert did really well in giving them all time to shine within the group performances and outside of them, which I’ll get to in a minute. For the next part of their group performances they actually had a live band including a woman on lead guitar! They started their section with the live band with ‘Feel Special’ and then they did ‘Cry for Me’ which people know as more of a B-Side but was one of my favorite songs all night. Their vocals were so good I nearly cried during this song which doesn’t have en emotional melody, and the live band fit it so perfectly! Then they continued with ‘Fancy’ and ‘The Feels’ which everyone went crazy for. You could barely hear the girls with how many people were singing along to these ones. They did the next group segment starting with ‘Queen of Hearts’ which was another song that surprised me. They did a medley of favorites which was ‘Yes or Yes/ What is Love/Cheer Up/ Likey/Knock Knock/Scientist/ Heart Shaker’ which was almost exhausting to watch them do. I have no idea how they got through such energetic songs right after each other, but they made it look effortless. Then they did ‘Alcohol Free’, ‘Dance the Night Away’ (I lost my mind at this one because this is probably my favorite Twice song right now), and ‘Talk that Talk’. Those three together gave off such fun and summery vibes! A little later they did ‘When We Were Kids’ complete with pictures of them as kids and ‘Crazy Stupid Love’. Before the encore they watched a video LA Once prepared for them that was emotional for everyone involved. For the encore they spun a wheel and partly listened to fans to determine which songs they would perform. They ended up with ‘Doughnut’ which I fell in love with despite it being a slower melody, something I’m usually not as much into, ‘Basics’, and ‘Signal’. I didn’t realize that most girl groups don’t do as much of ending ments and speeches. It felt surprising to me to have them leave so suddenly! But they were so adorable about leaving and Dahyun stuck her head out from the side of the stage to say goodbye to all of us a little longer!

Individual Performances:

I am so glad that more groups are getting to do individual performances! I know that a few groups and members in K-Pop have talked about how the group mentality takes a toll on their mental health. A lot of them don’t feel as though they can express themselves individually and being in your twenties is really difficult in general because many of us are trying to figure out who we are as individuals. I wish more groups would look into individual stages for this reason and also because they are always so entertaining! At the beginning of the first one; Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and Chaeyoung came out as a unit to entertain the crowd by dancing to Stray Kids and introducing themselves as “girls who take showers together” accidentally before laughing for a long while and elaborating on what that meant. They laughed so much and it was so contagious! It was one of the most fun pieces of the concert! Dahyun came out first with her solo in a gorgeous dress with a long train draped over her seat as she played piano. She began with playing the melody of ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen before switching into a cover of ‘Try’ by Colbie Caillat; it was insanely gorgeous and she expressed how nostalgic she felt about playing piano. Tzuyu did a cover of ‘Done for Me’ by Charlie Puth where she really showed off her individual vocal and dancing skills and she talked about how proud she was of taking on the challenge. Sana then came out with a very sexy version of ‘New Rules’ by Dua Lipa and she talked about how she loved her new outfit. Momo did a sexy dance cover of ‘Move’ by Beyonce complete with pole dancing which she worked hard to learn more of! And Mina capped off that section with a mesmerizing version of ‘7 Rings’ by Ariana Grande which she said she loved hearing everyone sing along to. Then when the other four girls came out later we got Chayoung playing an acoustic version of an original song about her guitar that was adorable, Jihyo came out powerfully with ‘Nightmare’ which is a song from her solo album coming out soon, Jeongyeon did a cover of ‘Juice’ by Lizzo in all pink complete with a recorder solo, and Nayeon did her solo song ‘Pop!’ which I freaked out when I heard. It was nothing short of energetic and adorable, and I love the song! The solo stages really showed off their individual charms and I loved seeing how they each expressed themselves in a concert that was about their individual identities in concept!

Bias Wrecking:

I went into this concert really wondering if my assumptions about my bias and bias wrecker would be wrong because I was so new to the group. Weirdly, my bias and bias wrecker remained the same! Watching the concert only made me more sure of which members spoke to me the most. Nayeon is my bias and I love her sense of humor as well as performance. Her voice is gorgeous and she’s so effortless that it’s hard to take your eyes off of her. And I loved how much she laughed through the whole concert, she really made it her mission to make the other girls and the audience laugh! Dahyun is my bias wrecker and she was hilarious and so sweet to everyone on stage! My sister went in with her bias being Jeongyeon and she ended up being her bias wrecker at the end of the concert; she really knew how to hype up the crowd! But she ended with Jihyo being her bias because that girl has so much charisma! It was hard to not watch her during the concert and feel more energized by her presence. Mina almost wrecked me for how gorgeous and confident she came across in every stage. Momo almost wrecked my sister because of her performance ability that was really off the charts. But everyone almost got me at some point! Tzuyu was a such a fluid and versatile performer, Sana was so adorable and hilarious, and Chaeyoung knew exactly how skilled she was and it was infectious. But seriously, I’m such a huge Nayeon stan and such a huge Twice stan after this!

I am so glad that I got to go to this concert! And my sister and I are both officially part of Once! You can absolutely expect more posts about Twice in the future and I’m already so excited to write more about them. It is never too late to expand your multi-stan field! Just know that if you’re an Atiny, like I am, Hongjoong is always watching.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Books: ‘Star Wars: Thrawn’ Review

Promotional artwork of Grand Admiral Thrawn for the cover of ‘Star Wars: Thrawn’. Credit goes to Two Dots, and rights go to Del Rey, Lucasfilm, and Timothy Zahn.

Hey! Hallie here!

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was reading this book, so naturally now I have to review it! This is the first book of Timothy Zahn’s first canonical Thrawn trilogy. For those who aren’t aware of how beloved Timothy Zahn is in the Star Wars fandom, he also created a trilogy in the nineties titled ‘The Thrawn Trilogy’. These books were widely regarded as the best Star Wars books of their time and some of the best sci-fi books ever created. This trilogy introduced the character of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who found himself in control of Imperial forces after the demise of Palpatine, and followed his attempts to crush Luke, Leia, Han, and the Rebellion. But this trilogy is now considered one of the ‘Legends’ books, or the books that are no longer canon since Disney took ownership of Star Wars. Fortunately for us, Dave Filoni is just as big of a Star Wars fan as the rest of us and loved Thrawn well enough to introduce him into canon via ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ and now, ‘Ahsoka’. With Thrawn finally part of the official Star Wars timeline, Timothy Zahn was invited back to write for Thrawn again, this time without any caveats. But has Timothy Zahn’s writing, and the incredibly interesting mind of a character like Thrawn, held up over the years? Let’s talk about what I liked and disliked about this book! Minor spoilers ahead!

The Good:

Thrawn: Of course. The writing kind of needs to be good for this character in order for the book to hold up at all. But the writing for Thrawn isn’t just good. It’s incredible. This book reminded me why I adored Thrawn in the original ‘Legends’ trilogy. When we meet Thrawn in this book he’s been banished from his home world and sent to live in exile on a desolate planet. But we don’t necessarily see this from Thrawn’s perspective. Instead, we follow the Imperials on an investigative trip as they flail attempting to figure out who’s taking control of their technology and silently depleting their forces of Stormtroopers. Thrawn’s abilities to outsmart the Imperials get him a one way ticket to Palpatine, who regards him with vague interest, and then intense interest when Thrawn mentions that he once knew Anakin Skywalker. From there the book covers his successful military career and his immensely fast rise through Imperial ranks.

The book changes perspectives between three characters, but when you’re in Thrawn’s head you understand why so many people compare him to Sherlock Holmes. He reads body language with mind-blowing ease, notices small details no one else takes note of, and puts together strategies so quickly that he remains several steps ahead of the reader even when you’re reading his perspective. But it isn’t like he finds sudden solutions to impossible problems. The clues are always there for readers to look back on, it’s just that Thrawn can put them together faster than you can. I also really enjoyed exploring Thrawn’s motivations. He doesn’t side with the Empire because he agrees with them. In fact, he feels Palpatine is dangerous and unfit to lead. However, he is loyal to his people, the Chiss, and feels the Empire is the best way to keep them safe from their adversaries and create the order the Chiss desire for the galaxy. Thrawn also doesn’t like killing people. He sees it as a waste, though more a waste of assets than a waste of life, and frequently demonstrates extreme dislike and disgust for the Imperials who brush off major loss of life. Then there’s the fact that despite all of his admirable elements Thrawn is given one major flaw in the book. He’s really bad at politics, and other people often have to intervene for him in his career because he’s an alien working in the mostly pro-human Empire. All of these elements make for a really complicated character who’s just as enjoyable to read about as I remember. Seriously, if you don’t get the Thrawn hype, I really recommend reading this book.

Eli Vanto: This is the Watson to Thrawn’s Sherlock Holmes, and one of the other characters whose perspective is explored in the book. Just like with Watson, Thrawn takes an immediate interest in Eli despite the fact that Eli has no idea why. But unlike Watson, Eli has really complicated feelings about this that make his character extremely interesting. Eli first becomes close with Thrawn because Thrawn doesn’t speak Basic well and Eli speaks a language that Thrawn is more familiar with, so Eli acts as Thrawn’s translator and teacher. But before Thrawn was essentially pushed onto him, he was a country boy from Wild Space who joined the Empire for his parents. Those ideals both align him and alienate him from Thrawn. On the one hand, most Imperials look down on Eli for being from Wild Space, so Eli greatly empathizes with Thrawn for the way Imperials look down on him for being Chiss. But he also despises that his connection to Thrawn entirely changes his military career and prevents him from living the comfortable life he was envisioning for himself. Eli struggles a lot with his relationship with Thrawn, feeling both like he lives in his shadow and also that he’s privileged to be able to observe someone so brilliant. He also learns a lot from Thrawn and winds up smarter than most of his peers by the end of the book just for spending so much time with him. But despite all those mixed feelings, Eli is only ever kind and considerate towards everyone, especially Thrawn, and it’s easy to root for him.

Nightswan: Nightswan is the main mystery of ‘Star Wars: Thrawn’. Towards the beginning of the book, Thrawn hears word of a mysterious person named Nightswan who’s disrupting Imperial shipments of precious metals and whose strategy impresses him. Though I will say that it’s REALLY easy to figure out who Nightswan is, I still found the hunting down of Nightswan to be a fun thread to pull the plot forward. I enjoyed the back and forth of intelligent strategy and attempting to one up each other from both Thrawn and Nightswan. I also really loved the moment these two finally meet before the final battle of the book. The amount of respect and genuine curiosity that they greet each other with makes the conversation feel less antagonistic and more bittersweet. Though this was supposed to be more of a mystery, there are so many other mysteries to solve in the book that I was able to put that aside and just enjoy this for the entertaining battle of wits that it was.

The Bad:

Governor Pryce: If you’ve watched ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ you know who Governor Pryce is. She’s the governor of the planet Lothal and a pretty standard Imperial lackey. In this book Timothy Zahn decided to spend time fleshing her out, but I’m not sure he entirely succeeds. For one, she is another character whose perspective you follow in the book, but her storyline is completely different from Thrawn’s and Eli’s for most of the book. And her story is a lot less interesting. She gets less time than the other characters, but I couldn’t help but be irritated whenever the other storyline was put on pause for her. Then there’s her characterization. Zahn mainly focuses on her desire to get out into the world and become a more powerful figure. She feels stifled by Lothal and is tired of being pushed around by the politicians who want to get control of her family’s mine. But we don’t get much time to feel for her before she spends most of the book on Coruscant, kissing up to as many people as possible in order to get the power she wants. And when she realizes city life isn’t everything she hoped, you still don’t empathize with her because she’s well established as shady and untrustworthy by this point. The betrayals she experiences that you’re supposed to feel bad about, mean nothing when you’re already certain she would betray those people as well the moment she got the chance. And it all leads up to the end of the book, where it fully cements her villainous reputation. Which would be more powerful if I cared about her at any point before that. But I didn’t. She was the same, uncomplicated, classic villain at the end of the book as I assumed she was at the beginning of the book.

Overall, I really loved this book. I just really love Thrawn, you guys. He manages to be badass without being force sensitive, and the respect he shows for his enemies only makes me respect him more. I fully intend to read the rest of this trilogy and I might check out Timothy Zahn’s other canon trilogy too, which details more about Thrawn’s people. So look out for those reviews in the future! For now, if you want to brush up on Thrawn, or if you just don’t know much about him and want to know why everyone else freaked out when he showed up in the ‘Ahsoka’ trailer, I highly recommend this. Thrawn will in the very least ruin you for any other Imperial officer ever.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie