A swirling cascade of violet bolts and gales. Thoughts, dreams, ideas and memories all jumbled together. Welcome to the Amethyst Storm. A slice of my thoughts, tinged with purple. Feel free to look through them.
So...Twice has this on-going little thing they have called the Melody Project, and the latest video from it features Twice's main rapper and sub-vocalist, Son Chaeyoung. It is damned good. I've been listening to it everyday for the past few days since it was released. It's ridiculous, how much I love it. Now anyone reading this, you watch/listen to this too, damn it.
Chilling while listening to Chaeyoung
The Violet Serene
December is my favourite month, because of Christmas. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Magical. I celebrated Christmas in Seoul last year, and experienced snow for the first time in my life in Seoul on Christmas night. Will never forget that. Winter and snow are heavily associated with Christmas, but I live in a country which does not have the four seasons, so I had to wait till last year to feel the joy of snow on Christmas night. Happy holidays to all.
On a different note, if anyone has read this blog before, they'll probably notice the new music player. I haven't talked about K-pop here before (I think), but you'll notice that every song on that playlist is Korean (if you listen to them). Have been a fan since 2009, so more than seven years now. Considered an old-timer fan, and I know many songs and singers that newer fans don't know about, even if those singers are considered legends.
I'll probably be including introductions to K-pop/Korean songs and music videos on this blog going forward. These might be newer songs, or older songs, from a variety of solo singers and groups, and also across various genres that everyone lumps into K-pop. I might also cover other non-Korean songs that strike my fancy, old and new alike (but more likely to be older tracks I'd like to introduce whoever might be reading this to). I will also post a ton of whatever I want as well. This is still a very personal blog, just with a ton of stuff mixed in, including a lot of K-pop.
I should probably note that I'm a multi-fandom person, and that I have an active dislike for fans of any fandom to hate on other groups (because it's exceedingly rare for anyone to actually have done something to deserve it).
And so I'll start right away. A lot of great songs, but for this post, ladies and gentlemen...especially the ladies...I'd like to introduce to you to 피 땀 눈물 (Blood Sweat & Tears) by 방탄소년단 (BTS/ Bangtan Boys/Bulletproof Boys). Enjoy.
It came out in October this year, so not exactly new. But the first thing that strikes me is how incredibly sensual the vocals are. I would have melted if I wasn't a straight male. Might have melted a little anyway. Now combine the singing with some of that also very sensual but very cool and tight choreography and damn. I'm sold.
The music video is also great, filled with everything from "the gaze" (see feminist film theory) to a quote of Nietzsche's. A lot of symbolism here, but I'm not here to break down the meaning for you. That's for someone else to do.
Great visuals, great music and singing, great dancing, and a great music video. It's also pretty darn popular. Figured this would be a good one to start off with.
On a final note, the 2016 Mnet Asian Music Awards are today, and I have a pretty good guess on where quite a few of the awards will go to. So looking forward to watching!
I've a pretty strong streak of stubborn rationality, although I do sometimes wish I didn't. I don't believe in wishes coming true due to a star streaking through the night sky, a meteor shower or because the time is 11:11. Or because you're blowing the candles on your birthday cake. Or because you've a coin tossed into some lucky fountain or pool.
I do it anyway. I make a wish when I blow out the candles, when it's 11:11, when I toss a coin, and more. I don't really believe they'll come true because of that. All "scientific" thinking aside, too many people on this planet wish for things that would be in conflict with one another, so they cancel each other. Nature of the world we live in.
But I feel that wishes have meaning. So long as there is sincerity behind a wish, that wish has meaning. At least to that person, if no one else. The act of wishing is meaningful. It is a brief period of time, where a person thinks about what is important to them, and what they really want out of their lives. I feel that wishes are born out of those thoughts. And so they have meaning.
So wish I do, and I encourage all to do so, and throw all logical thinking out the window. There is magic behind every wish, most of us just don't recognise it.
On a different note, I've let this blog stagnate for too long. Have some time now after graduating from university, so will probably post more for a while now.
So before anything else, I watched Captain America: Civil War and it was amazing. No spoilers here, but great show all around. Directed by the same guys who did Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Russo brothers, who will be directing the two-part Avengers: Infinity War film as well. Looking forward to Dr Strange later this year now, but that's in November, I think.
I was really tempted to get this really expensive Gold Class dinner and movie package that cost around 80-90 bucks, and included steak, cheesecake and more. The movie was obviously Captain America: Civil War. I was tempted to splurge on that for myself, but decided against it in the end, in part because of...a new hobby I've recently fallen in love with, though was aware of before and have wanted to try before.
Now on to the main topic of the post. Imagination. If only people could see with more than just their eyes,..they would see the magic and wonder that is imagination. Kids are lucky in that sense. See the above picture for my thoughts on this. Well and the rest of this post. You'll understand soon.
I wanna talk about something that I really want to get into, provided I can find some folks to do so with. Let's talk about tabletop/pen-and-paper RPGs. The most well-known is of course, Dungeons & Dragons. It's something I've known about for a long time, and had the inclination to learn, but never really had the chance to try. I've played video games based on Dungeons & Dragons, and that has helped with my knowledge of it. And I've done a lot of roleplaying (RP) on the Internet, sometimes with system games (roleplaying online with rules and structure like stats and such).
And as for why I now suddenly want to play this genre of games? Well, I can't remember exactly when or how, but not too long ago, I stumbled across Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana on YouTube. That show is produced by Geek & Sundry, a YouTube and Twitch based studio that focuses on games and geeky/nerdy content. I watch Spellslingers, a series that focuses on the trading card game Magic: The Gathering, and that was probably how I ended up watching Titansgrave. Probably.
Anyway, Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana is a sci-fi and fantasy (elves shooting laser blasters) RPG show (based on the Fantasy Adventure Game Engine or Fantasy AGE, a pen and paper RPG), on YouTube and Geek & Sundry's website. They had 11 episodes for their first seasons, and it's great entertainment with a lot of slick production value. The first two or three episodes are mostly fun humour, jokes and adventure, while the emotional stuff and heavier acting/roleplaying mostly sets in from episode 4 onward. Each episode is about 40-50 minutes long, give or take around 2-3 minutes, save for the finale, which is about an hour long. Not too difficult to binge through at all, and I've left a link to episode 0 below, which sets the story, the world, the characters and cast (brother of author John Green and vlogger Hank Green, voice actor Yuri Lowenthal, voice actress Laura Bailey, and actress Alison Haislip), and the fairly simple rules.
Anyway, Titansgrave was just the start. After I was done with Titansgrave, there were a bunch of other scattered videos I watched before I came across my current obsession...Critical Role. Critical Role, like Titansgrave, can be found on Twitch, YouTube, and Geek & Sundry's website. Similarly to Ttansgrave, it is an RPG show. In it, a bunch of voice actors roll dice and play the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). What sets it apart is that there is a lot less production value, because this is broadcast first on a live Twitch stream. And it is much, much longer. One episode of Critical Role can go from 3 hours to almost 5 hours.
Where Critical Role shines, is truly in the power of words, imagination, improv acting, roleplaying, voice acting, and improv comedy. And really, by those same virtues, I really want to try D&D, but more on that later. I've cried and laughed so much over the characters of Critical Role, and they are played very well by the cast. It helps that as actors, directors and voice actors, and given that most of them have improv training, they're really, really good at bringing their characters to life. Matthew Mercer, the Dungeon Master/DM (guy who tells the story and plays all the characters of the world excluding the players) of the show, is brilliant at improvisation and storytelling. But the cast of characters do a fantastic job roleplaying their characters too, flaws and all. Their characters, for the most part, are not actually human in race or species, but their personalities and their flaws are very much so.
Critical Role is something amazing to me. Look at the two articles I've included below.
Watching a bunch of people play Dungeons & Dragons is good TV? Anyone can get into it? Oh yeah, anyone. Critical Role is currently 8 strong, with one member only appearing infrequently though. Out of the eight of them, 3 are women. And one of the guys is a large musclebound giant. Jocks can be nerds too. And girls can be nerds too. Heck, everyone should be a nerd. Well, maybe not, but I digress.
Instead of linking to an episode of Critical Role here, I will instead link to a special short one-off episode that is 20+ mins long, and not 3-4 hours long. In this one, Vin Diesel, probably the most famous D&D fan in the world, plays a short adventure with two of the members of Critical Role, husband and wife voice actor couple Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham. Matthew Mercer, the DM of Critical Role is also the DM for this one. Rounding out the cast are a couple of people from Nerdist, a website that deals with nerd related news and videos. Dan Casey from Nerdist is a great roleplayer and pretty funny. Anyway, enough rambling.
If you liked that, Critical Role is better by about a magnitude of at least ten or more. I'll be honest, I have a lot to say on Critical Role, but this would really just be like my posts on Ori where I just fanboy over it. I can't begin to list the number of great moments in this show (that I haven't finished watching).
I would like to happily say that I managed to find some people to play D&D with, and we're doing that tomorrow night. They're all strangers, but I hope to have fun trying D&D. Not many people play it here in Singapore and most people have their own groups already, so I feel quite lucky to have found some people so fast. ^^
I was gonna talk more about other matters too, but never mind, I'll leave the stuff about how I feel connected to the paladin and who I am as a person for another post. This is probably the first of a three part related series.
Rolling a natural 20 (props if you get the reference),
The Violet Serene
So before anything else, my previous post referenced a personality test, which I have apparently misunderstood a fair bit. I scored highly on 'complexity', but unlike what the name suggests, it's not about being a complex person. Rather, the test describes people with the following list of character traits: Open to change, experimental, liberal, analytical, critical, free thinking, flexibility.
Odd, but okay. It's not the only thing that's misleading, however. I said I scored most poorly on 'friendliness'. And that apparently consists of the following traits: "Socially bold, venturesome, thick skinned, uninhibited."
Slightly different from what I had thought, to say the least. And apparently, 'warmth', my highest scoring trait, is the following: Warm, outgoing, attentive to others, kindly, easy-going, participating, likes people. The opposite for people who score low here reads as such: Impersonal, distant, cool, reserved, detached, formal, aloof.
So...let's take in all that for a moment. So complexity is about how open-minded you are, and how much of a critical and flexible thinker you are. Great, I love being told I'm all of those things. Although I would have thought most of this stuff would have fallen under "intellect", which I also scored highly in. Intellect in this case apparently refers to the person's ability to handle abstract thinking, general mental capacity and how quick of a learner they are.
Moving on, so I still stand by what I said about me quite possibly being hard to read in a way. It's just that I got some of this personality stuff wrong. So interestingly, I mentioned how I had read my results as me being a warm person who wasn't so friendly. That seems to be quite wrong now. I'm just not thick-skinned and uninhibited, apparently. Which suits me just fine. However, that brings us to an interesting dilemma. So I am apparently warm and outgoing, and I think you'll find a fair few people who will say that I'm distant, cool, reserved and all the other stuff that is opposite of what this test takes to mean by a warm person. Oh well. I can live with this; don't need an answer for now.
Eh...dunno what else to add to this. mainly because this has been sitting here for weeks (almost a month, in fact) as I have been too busy to write much. Now that I have a little time though (term break combined with the fact that I can deal with my current magazine workload), I have a little more time to write, and I hope to write about some more stuff in the very near future while I have time. For this particular post though, I've long forgotten what else I might have wanted to say. So this will have to do.
This is a post that is long in the making. I've worked over what I wanted to write for this post for quite a while. I guess I'll start with a little personal anecdote that details one little way I do something for another person. Unselfishly, or so I hope.
My younger sister (by two years) has a deathly fear of cockroaches and lizards. Heck, just the words 'lizard' or 'gecko' make her feel uncomfortable. So every night, without fail, she comes over to me and taps me on the shoulder, or pokes me with a finger or something to that effect. This might happen several times a night too. And then I instinctively know to get up, open the bedroom door, and turn on the lights to ensure that the route from the bedroom to the bathroom is free of the aforementioned pests. I walk, and check. Sometimes at 11 at night, sometimes at 2 am. It all depends on when and how often she wants to use the bathroom. If I encounter any of the creepy-crawlies she's scared of, I go back and warn her before dealing with it. Typically this is a cockroach, so out comes the bug spray.
Now, the one thing my sister doesn't know, is that my skin is actually sensitive to bug spray. You should see how red my skin is after I kill roaches in my house. I always try to wash my hands and arms and feet after using the bug spray, but there's limited effectiveness in that. It'd probably take a good shower to wash the spray off me. Heck, I went and did all the checking and all even while my skin was sunburnt after some outdoor filming. So not the best treatment of my skin, but I never complained to my younger sister. As I said, she doesn't know, and I'm happy with that. At least, if she's ever spotted it, and I don't think so, she's never commented on it. That should count as doing something for someone, although perhaps whether it is unselfish is less clear. I don't expect anything from my sister in return; she has never thanked me, apologised or whatever, but I don't care for that. I'm doing it because I want to do it for her.
This brings me to the idea that doing something for someone else, even if you don't expect anything from the other party, is still selfish, because then you're doing it for personal satisfaction, which is a selfish act, no? I first came across this theory in an episode of the Japanese live action 'Liar Game' drama. Season 2 of it, to be precise. It is one that has intrigued me, really.
So going back to my anecdote, it doesn't matter if it's only a small thing I'm doing for my sister (I'm not so arrogant as to say that it's really huge or important, even if my sister would argue that it's important for her peace of mind), it still is something. But since I expect nothing from her, would it be logical then to suggest that I'm doing things for her simply to make myself happy and thus it is a selfish act?
I do believe in unselfishness, in others, at least. With myself, it is a lot harder. I consider myself a pretty curious case, at least to myself, since I find it difficult to determine whether I am selfish or not in general as a person. You see, even my friends can't agree on it, so it's not easy even when you bring in the opinions of others.
Let me elaborate on what I mean by that. Not too long ago, I was known as a person who was kind, generous and unselfish, to the point that I was told that I was nicknamed 'Santa Claus' and 'the God of Fortune' for a few months. I was told that I was a perennial 'yes man', I didn't know how to say 'no' to others and I needed to learn how to do so, to stand up for myself and not be a pushover. I was even called a 'nice' person. For my part, I told myself and others that I thought that I was a selfish person, just like the vast majority of people in this world.
Fast forward to a while later, and now, I'm apparently self-centred and selfish, and that I only ever think of myself. I voice my opinion in a very pushy way and try to force my opinion on others. I'm just a jerk. That is almost the exact opposite to the previous interpretation of my character. I actually had thought previously that since people were saying good things about me, some of them were probably true, but now everything is all muddy again. Despite that, I will say that I feel like it was a learning experience. How was I to know of this confusion, were it not brought up to me. For as much as I examine my own actions, my ability to examine them from the perspective of others as they were being done, is limited. And also, it's a curious thing how easily and quickly perceptions change. I wonder how they changed. Is it the past? The recent past? The present? When did the opinions change? I would guess though, that it ultimately matters little how long that has gone on for, only that opinions have changed.
This is all made even more interesting by the fact that I did a personality test a few days before being told of the opinion changes. And this test told me that my most defining trait was my warmth as a person. Which is again, totally at odds with the more recent perception of me. My guess is that this perhaps may be why one of my other most defining traits is apparently my complexity as a person. I believe this to refer to having a complicated, complex and deep character. I am probably not easy to understand or get a grasp on. At least, that's what I gather from the results of the personality test, and to be honest, I don't understand myself sometimes, so even I feel that way too. I look back to the early days of my friendship with my friends from university, and I remember a comment on how I was difficult to get a read on and didn't show much emotion. Perhaps that was quite true.
It is also interesting to note that in that personality test, the trait I scored lowest in was friendliness. Now you'd think that might be linked to my most defining trait, my warmth, and I would agree that when most people think of a warm person, they also think of a very friendly, kind, hospitable and generous person. As for me, I'm socially awkward, even with my few friends, so that might contribute something to this. And that just makes the whole complex, complicated personality bit seem a bit more believable too. I will say that I've been told that I'm a warm person who just doesn't show it easily or often. Sounds somewhat at odds with itself, and maybe I'm just somewhat at odds with myself too. So yeah, apparently, I'm a very warm person but a very unfriendly person. Have fun with that.
So what is true, and what is not? My guess is that everything has some truth to some extent and everything is also incorrect to some extent. A personality test can really only test for so much, no matter how many questions are posed (and there were a lot for this one). And as for my friends, even they disagree with each other on what my personality is like. Some say I'm okay, others say I'm a jerk, and yet others say I'm something in between. And again, all have some truth to them for sure. No one person's version of me is entirely correct, nor entirely wrong, I should think.
I will admit that this leaves me still in the dark as to whether I am selfish or not, just that I clearly am in need of improvement, like all humans are. But I guess that's the most important takeaway here, no? Oh, and I guess that I didn't really answer whether unselfishness exists or not. I personally do believe it does, but I will admit that it would be hard to properly argue that.
Just in case, I'm gonna put a TRIGGER WARNING disclaimer here. I don't explicitly say anything, but just in case. It's a few paragraphs in. TW: Self-harm
I'm typing this out after a really long day. Long week, actually. Gosh, I'm so tired. And I'm hurt. From things other people aid or did to me. And also from things I said or did to myself. I've been in a poor mood the past three days or so. Nothing's helping. Nothing I do is making me feel better. Maybe the weekend 'break' will do me good. Maybe it won't. I have work to do over the weekend as well. And next week. And after.
Have a headache as I'm typing this. Tired of interacting with people really. Be it ignorance, hypocrisy, insensitivity, lies or for other reasons, I've had to deal with all of that and I really, really can't fucking be bothered anymore. I've been in a poor mood since the start of the term, really. Distractions came and went, making my moods fluctuate.
I wonder how much can you tell about a person from their social media accounts (assuming they're active, of course). I personally think that certain things do speak volumes. Pictures on Instagram, retweets on Twitter and who they follow on any of their accounts all speak to who they are and what they think. Sometimes that includes what they think of you.
A while back, I told someone that I wanted to tear someone apart, verbally. Rip them down and make them look at themselves in the mirror like I do to myself all the time. Still do.
And goodness, the workload this term hasn't helped one iota. My friends and I talked about going out at least once a month, and to be honest, I had planned various activities (not intending to do them all, just one), but then after a while I saw that we would be too busy for any of them. Too much work.
Sometimes I find it difficult to cry, to vent and release using tears and sobs when I have no one to talk to. Times like those really make me feel like doing stupid things. I know I'm stronger than that, but sometimes doubt creeps in, and I understand why others might do it. I really do and it is tempting to try. I also can't really cry that often anyway. I don't want anyone in my family to ask awkward questions, so I have to do it without them knowing. That normally means crying as I shower, the water hiding both my tears and my sobs. Even then I need to be quiet. I'm a pretty sorry sight normally, but that is probably me at my most pathetic.
Speaking of being pathetic, it's amazing how much of your self-worth is determined by other people. Other people are really good at making me hate myself, through their own unwitting and unknowing actions and words. Sometimes it's just making you feel that you're both invisible and mute, with no one seeming to hear your voice, or see you struggle with something. Sometimes it's an active put down from someone else, where you take their words to heart, truth be damned. Sometimes it's your own paranoia acting through other people, and you wonder if they stop smiling the moment you leave the room.
It's sad to say that the most warmth I normally feel is at one spot of my kitchen where the floor tiles feel heated, in a warm shower or when I'm giving/receiving hugs, which obviously isn't the most common occurrence. I'm mentioned my habit of being up at night in the dining room under the warm yellow lights. That is kinda because the yellow lights look warm, and it really is only an attempt to make myself feel some warmth while I'm in the room alone at night. I really like the feeling of warmth, and even though I love this habit of mine, it doesn't replicate that. Only my friends do, sometimes.
The worst part to all this is that I was not this emotionally insecure a couple years ago. Got myself into uni, got friends, and then suddenly I had to deal with social situations again. I don't have very many friends (think I've said this before), I'm not a nice person to deal with for most people, I think. I'm not great at conversations, excellent at silence. I speak my mind most of the time. I have trouble hiding my feelings for the most part. I guess the main reason why I'm so insecure again is because I didn't use to care what others thought of me. Now there's a small group of people who are important to me, so I don't want to disappoint them. Although I have done so before, and probably do so all the time. Which is something I'm sorry for.
If you've reached this far down this giant block of text, you know that this is just a post to vent and just get stuff on my mind down here. I know that it's okay to feel angry, to feel sorry, anxious, ugly, pathetic, sad, bad, like crap and all that. I know. But going through all that still sucks anyway.
Really wish I had a pet sometimes, someone who will really keep me company no matter what. Most people that say that they will keep you company and are there for you are normally telling the truth. But that comes with caveats, not least the fact that they can't actually be there for you all the time. And of course, some people say it but don't really mean it, or will only be there for you when it is convenient for them, which is a ridiculous notion, in my opinion. Don't make people promises you don't intend on keeping, don't say words that you don't mean. You will only hurt them when they realise you weren't telling the truth.
Just gonna end here.
The Amethyst Storm is in full force today.
Not having the best thoughts/dreams,
The Violet Serene
