It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
How much of the success of IVE and Le Sserafim do you think was helped by having members in Iz*one?
I’m reading about this girl Han Chowon, from Lightsum and she seems to been screwed over her whole career. She was supposed to be have been part of Iz*one but the Mnet voting manipulation kept her out of the group. (The other girl who got cheated was Gaeun from After School, but that probably made Pledis happy, since they hate women.) All of the girls from Iz*one who remained in Korea seem to have had pretty significant careers.
Right now Lightsum seems to have been such a huge flop that Cube minimised their further investment in the group significantly.
It’s significant, and that’s 100% of the reason why Iz*one existed. Have a big TV show that makes people fall in love with the idols, start a group up from it and have them release a few songs to solidify that feeling, then disband the group and farm each girl out back to their respective agencies to do other stuff, retaining that history and parasocial connection. When Iz*one disbanded everyone loudly complained that it was too soon, but disbanding them earlier than people wanted while they still had top-tier fame was always the point. You were supposed to be upset, and then think “well, at least she’ll do something with her agency soon let’s keep an eye on her” so when IVE debuts or whatever, you’re paying extra attention and already have a reason to be invested and slightly teary-eyed in the new group. Worked like a charm.
The way Qri throws her head to the side, where Yena does not, reminds me of how T-ara talked about being assigned to watch porn as homework for onstage facial expressions+angles.
Here’s another instance where Lee Boram from Seeya {from 1:19} looks pretty out of place compared to the others, who aren’t 2nd gen idols or idols at all.
Have you noticed if post-2nd gen idols still do this head move? And are there other widespread things today in performances that have definitely carried over from porn? I’d imagine with changing sensibilities, the type of source material being pulled from would change.
I watched both videos a few times each and I’m still not sure what head movement you’re referring to. Maybe this means I’ve watched too much porn and I’m totally desensitised, or maybe it means I haven’t watched enough porn and I need to update my porn collection.
I think that if I were to pick something that really makes me think it was dragged from porn movies, it’s the “bedroom eyes” that we get from a lot of k-pop idols. Jennie is really good at it, which is why she gets so much hate. This relates to the “good sexy vs bad sexy” conversation from the previous month’s QRIMOLE, which I thought was a fantastic observation actually.
what overlaps do you share with her?
“TWICE’s JIHYO shares long list of her food preferences with her fans, ranking 50+ foods in her recent bubble update”
Okay let’s take a look.
LIKES
· Abalone Porridge – anything porridge is a dislike for me
· Budae Jjigae – not into ham or sausages, this is a no as well
. Bukchang Dong Soft Tofu Stew – haven’t tried but I do like tofu in most contexts, giving this a cautious like
· Butter Rice Cakes – rice cakes are a nope, aside from T-ara scandal PTSD I just don’t like the texture of them
· Chapaghetti – never tried
. Fried Rice – like
· Garaetteok – haven’t tried, reminds me of Cheungfun, which I don’t like because of the texture once again
· Gamjatang – dislike, not a big pork eater
· Gopchang – never tried
· Hamburger – depends how it’s done, when hamburgers are bad it’s usually because the buns or condiments are cheap McDonalds tier rubbish, the meat is usually fine so I’ll give this a like
· Honey Combo – don’t know what this is
. Hot Pot – depends what you put in it but generally like because why would you put in there something you hated
. Japanese Curry – dislike
· Kalguksu – never tried
· Kimchi Jjigae – dislike
. Marinated Pork Stir Fried – dislike
· Matcha – dislike, I mean it’s not terrible but WAY overhyped, an ordinary peach oolong or jasmine tea kicks its ass
· Neoguri – never tried
. Old School Korean Style Fried Chicken – not sure what is meant by this but I like fried chicken in all its forms except the Colonel, you can check out my own Korean Fried Chicken recipe here
. Pad Thai – like
· Pasta – like, eating it right now while answering this
· Pho – not my go-to from Vietnamese restaurants, prefer the Bun Bowl, but still like
. Raw Spotted Shrimp – this is an Australian site, we don’t use the s-word here at kpopalypse.com
. Sandwiches from Door to Door – I don’t know what Door to Door is but I dislike sandwiches in general so this is a nope
· Samgyeopsal (with salted seafood) – like, although I’d skip the salted seafood
· Sausage – dislike
· Seaweed Porridge – dislike
· Shabu Shabu – like
. Soy Sauce Marinated Crab – never tried
· Sukiyaki – like
· Sushi – generally like although sushi can be great or dogshit depending on where you get it
· Uni – unsure what this is
· Xiaolongbao – like
DISLIKES
· Avocado – like, I’m convinced most people who dislike avocado just got served overripe or underripe ones and that turned them off. Avocado has to be at a very specific ripeness level or it tastes like crap
· Bulgogi – like
· Cilantro – dislike
· Coke – dislike
· Crustaceans – like
· Dubai Choco Cookies – dislike, another overhyped food. Anyone curious about Dubai chocolate, don’t bother. Go for the superior Turkish version “Angel Hair” which combines Dubai Chocolate techniques with Turkish Delight, it’s a winner even if you don’t like Turkish Delight normally.
· Dumplings – generally like
· Dwaeji Gukbap – never tried but sounds terrible
· King Crab – I don’t know if I’ve had king crab or not, how do I know if it was a king crab?
· Mackerel Sushi – dislike
· Oysters – dislike
· Pizza – depends what type of pizza we’re talking about but veering towards dislike as I never eat this except for socially
· Samgyetang – never tried
· Sansho Pepper – dislike
· Seasoned Chicken – like
· Shiso – never tried
· Snow Crab – don’t know what this is
. Spicy Stir Fried Squid – dislike
· Tteok Galbi – like
· Yuzu – never had in raw form, it’s okay in drinks, cautious like
Conclusion – Jihyo’s culinary taste is as sketchy as her music taste.
Your thoughts on his claim, that big label USA music designed to be inoffensive muzak to be streamed, so no actually goes to their concerts?
Agreed. One reason why I talk about how I like music that’s very ‘extreme’ in a certain direction is that extremity tends to generate a more extreme response. Stuff like Post Malone is the opposite of that, but if course if you can get your song into a location where it’s streamed a lot you’ll do well with royalties even if it’s bland crap nobody cares about.
in theory wouldn’t it be far easier for homosexuals to covertly date in the kpop idol world? like maybe parasocial fans are far less likely to question people of the same sex hanging with each other?
Yes.
Lots of gay in my books for a reason. I never set out to be an “LGBT writer”, the reason why there’s so much gay in the books isn’t personal branding, it’s because LGBT in k-pop is very common behind closed doors and so not having the gay in there simply wouldn’t feel realistic to me.
Why are people so up in arms about how sexual Katseye are? One of the reasons I hear is that they’re marketed towards children and it’s not right but like shouldn’t parents be doing their jobs?? It was the same shit people threw at Britney Spears. I can understand if underage members in the group ar being sexualised and people have a problem with that (I have a problem with that too). But why does it seem like everyone is playing moral police for Katseye?
Britney was popular, Katseye are popular. I think that’s really all there is to it. Katseye’s sexualisation levels are pretty normal by the standards of western pop, in fact I’d even say they’re slightly on the tame side. But most of your ultra racy artists are not as popular as Katseye are.
i’m a bit confused about what the difference between playing sounds in the middle vs on the sides here. since most setups just have two speakers, a sound in the middle will be produced equally from a left and right speaker anyway, which is the same as playing those instruments on the side but not the middle? i do hear a difference in the vocals in the chorus of the blackpink example, but it sounds more like a depth difference than a side-to-side difference to me
This is a great question. The answer is, when you’re doubling tracks and panning them, how you do it determines where the result sounds like it sits. Let’s say that I record a guitar track into a DAW, and decide that I want a second track of guitar, so I can pan them hard left and right, but the band has only one guitar player. If I copy-paste the guitar track into a second empty track so now I have two tracks, and pan one hard left and the other hard right, when I play them back, they’ll just sound like one track in the center, just a little louder than before. However if instead of copy-pasting, I get the guitarist to record all his parts again, and pan the two parts hard left and right, now they will sound like they occupy the sides of the mix. That’s because in the first case the frequencies are literally identical, but in the second case there’s subtle differences as the waveform of a human playing an instrument doesn’t come out the same way twice. You can even add a third track in the center for extra fatness, but that often isn’t done because it can obscure the vocal and that’s usually where you want the vocal to sit.
(This doesn’t work quite the same way with a DI (direct input) electronic instrument, as in those cases the computer often will give you exactly the same waveforms every time. So in those cases to get the same effect you need to change one of the two signals a little somehow, so there’s some difference there. Changing the effects processing slightly can work, as can recording one pass DI and the other through a microphone, there’s other ways too. Just know that’s a thing.)
Hello Kpopalypse, I have 5 questions for you.
1. Could you please rank all of Taylor Swift’s discography according to your personal preference? It’s around 280 songs. I’m really curious for your opinions.
2. I’ve really got into JPOP recently and I think I like it a lot more than kpop. I don’t understand why JPOP isn’t bigger all around the world. Can you please review this particular song?
3. I read the first page of your first book but I became really confused. In the first scene, Hana has a paper airplane behind her ear, and she says, “this teacher is so dumb, she doesn’t instantly recognise harassment when she sees it and she’s possibly going to think that’s my plane.’ How did the air plane get there, though? I think Hana is lying about not putting it there herself, but then your writing is kind of bad because that doesn’t make sense, because she’s also annoyed at the teacher… Why do you keep writing books if you’re not very good at it?
4. Why are you Australian? These days people move to different countries so I’m not sure what your excuse is. I think it’s a bit cringe to be Australian.
5. I’m a massive BTS fan and I don’t like the way you write about their music. SWIM is SOTY, and my most played song of all time is BUTTER.
- they’re all great I love Taylor how can I choose
- I give it ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n] [Σj∈C[i]Fji[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]] / 10
- Don’t trust that Hana
- You’re right it is totally cringe to be Australian, we even have a term for that – “cultural cringe”, which is how Australians tend to feel when they see examples of their own culture in the media
- Oh well, cup of milk let’s rock and roll
1. have u worked with those clear wedge monitors before? anything special?
2. what’s the rectangular part on the left half of the face of the wedges?
- I’ve worked with plenty of wedge monitors but I’ve never worked with or even seen clear ones before. I don’t see why they’d work differently to any other wedge monitors, the clear body is probably just for aesthetics. Although perhaps they would also make troubleshooting easier when they fail, but I’m not sure if that’s the main reason why they’re clear. This is certainly not industry standard at this point.
- That’s the speaker port, basically a funnel to let sound out from behind the speaker. A speaker emits sound from the front and the rear, by having a port in the enclosure the rear sound has somewhere to escape instead of being absorbed by the cabinet. The result is usually a slightly fuller bass response. If you look at any random speakers that you have in your house you may notice that there’s sometimes a random hole in the speaker box somewhere, it’s the same thing.
Do you hear some similarities between this and ASEPA’s Whiplash?
Not particularly. They’re both upbeat dance/pop songs with an electronic synthesised sound and female pop vocals. So yes they’re similar on that sense, but they don’t sound any more similar than any other two upbeat dance/pop songs with an electronic synthesised sound and female pop vocals.
please rank the cats from your least to most fave, thank you.
I only detected two cats. Orange > Grey but both mrcs
This is Minami from Rescene. Would you consider asking a Japanese kpop to sing an anime theme song to be low key racism?
No. There’s a point where looking for racism in every little thing is racism itself, because if people are that racially obsessed that they filter everything through the lens of race, than that in itself is sometimes far more racist than just not worrying about it.
Example: Avril Lavigne got huge racism accusations for her song “Hello Kitty” and if you’re the kind of person who sees everything through the lens of race when you should just take a step back and touch some grass, then yes this probably does seem racist. But she made the song in collaboration with lots of Japanese people (many visible in the video) and the Japanese loved this thing when it came out, they considered it flattering that she would even bother (I personally think it’s balls but that’s another conversation). People who are not involved in something injecting racism into a situation that’s not inherently racist is one of the worst and most insidious kinds of racism, because it takes people who were previously just getting along fine and doing totally fine non-racist stuff and living their happy non-racist utopia and uses their actions as a totem to create and spread needless racial division. It’s literally sending humanity backwards into more racism, and all under the cover of “oh I just care because I’m so anti-racist”.
Any of these clips gen AI? Bird seems like something out of a fantasy novel.
All real. I’ve seen some of the source videos of these clips before. Kookaburras are real, they even come to Kpopalypse’s house sometimes to throw down on various content.
Do you also think the way that I think in that 4Minute’s earlier songs were plagued by being absolute autotune jerkoffs. Autotune is gonna be used regardless it’s kpop but I mean when they did that stylistic thing and just cranked the meter up to “let’s just fuck around and see what sticks”. The biggest example of this to me is Muzik
The answer to the next question will clarify my stance on Autotune more:
I don’t ask this to be like “uhhmm actually
”, I’m just curious. What exactly makes hard autotune so annoying to you? Sure it isn’t about “ruining the vocals” or “concealing the lack of vocal ability”, I’ve been reading your blog long enough to know you dgaf about any of these, but somehow it only makes it more confusing to me. If bad vocals don’t matter, then why bad autotuned vocals do? Have a good day / night oppar!
Actually a great question. The reason isn’t the “cheating” aspect, as you point out I don’t really care about vocal ability all that much. My issue is the homogenising effect. One person with the hard Autotune robot voice sounds pretty much the same as another person with the hard Autotune voice, it strips something very important out of the vocal which isn’t the skill but the individual character of the voice. Everyone who uses it sounds more or less the same. Tom Waits and Celine Dion sound pretty different normally, but slap hard Autotune on them and now the only real meaningful audible difference is their different pitch range.
The other issue that annoys me about hard Autotune is that there was a time in k-pop (around 2010) where literally every single group with an upbeat dance song was smothering everything with the robot voice, and it just became annoying in the same way that anything becomes annoying when it’s a trend and literally every k-pop group has their own version of it because you just get sick of hearing it. It’s slightly less annoying these days in pop music as it’s used less, but the trend has weirdly stuck in the rapping/R&B world so it’s still annoying in that context.
Sometimes a very well written vocal melody is enough to overcome the annoyance of the robot voice (examples: T-ara’s “Bo Peep”, Jvcki Wai’s “Enchanted Propaganda”) but usually it isn’t, and even when the song does work anyway, it would still work even better if the Autotune was removed or at least softened.
Hey Kpopalypse! I’ve been reading your blog for years, and as a busy adult now I find your weekly releases posts to be a breath of fresh air. Your tastes in music are usually aligned with what I like in kpop, and so your posts make it easy for me to keep up with Kpop. Do you know if there are any blogs like yours but about western pop? With non sugarcoated reviews and weekly releases posts
No idea. I don’t follow western pop so I don’t seek out this kind of content. Perhaps other readers know and can suggest some below? If you have the knowledge please help a caonima in need.
Have you heard about this? Flat Earth conspiracy theories say that the atmosphere is kept intact by an ice dome (so yes, like a snow globe!). They think NASA’s job to guard the secret of the ice dome and protect the integrity of it, like the Night Watch in Game of Thrones.
They say that NASA gets it’s name from Hebrew words, that can translate “to carry”, “to bear”, to lift”. It can also mean “to deceive”.
I remember watching a video about a Flat Earth Convention a while back, and one of the interesting things about their experience talking to different people was that they discovered there’s no actual unified theory of what a Flat Earther actually believes, beyond the world being flat. For instance, they all have different ideas of the true layout of the planet and where the “edge” of the world is located, as well as what happens if you should traverse to that edge, what it looks like, what happens if you go over, etc. This has then created further divisions within these conspiracy theorists, with the “you just drift off into space” people disagreeing with the “you get knocked out by strange chemicals during your intercontinental flight and wake up on the edge at the other end” people, and different people all advocating for different versions of the world map and so on.
Hey, is the popularity of Katseye legitimate, or have they been astroturfed by Mossad/etc Israeli intelligence agencies? Their record label is Geffen Records, which was founded by David Geffen, a New York-Polish jew.
The idea of “astroturfing” doesn’t really mean much in the pop music industry, companies don’t need to do such things in an environment where fans already run artificial mass-streaming campaigns and essentially lay the astroturf themselves. Jewish conspiracy theories relating to the music industry like this are just racism, nothing else. Yes there are successful executives in the music industry and yes some of them are Jewish, but there’s no “conspiracy”, Jewish executives try to maximise profits and screw over artists along the way in exactly the same way that non-Jewish executives do. Don’t boil things down to race in situations where the race itself isn’t even the real issue, because it can actually distract and prevent people from identifying and dealing with the real problems. David Geffen isn’t greedy because he’s a jew, he’s greedy because he’s a record executive. Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t a bad person because he was a jew, Jeffrey Epstein was a bad person because he was Jeffrey Epstein.
1. your thoughts on her solo? {Olivia Rodrigo}
2. your thoughts on quote retweeter’s thoughts?
Agree. She’s obviously at beginner guitar level and that’s fine. I support any move in this direction. I was incredibly grateful for Taylor Swift as a guitar teacher even though she just did basic chord playing because I gained a lot of new students thanks to her early guitar-based songs. Love her, hate her, or just don’t care about her, Taylor Swift inspired more people to pick up and play the guitar than anybody else in the 2000s and 2010s just thanks to being seen with an acoustic guitar a lot and being an attractive person that millions of young people around the world looked up to and wanted to be like. Olivia Rodrigo will also inspire more people to rock, and if this is what it takes that’s fine.
Have you ever tried a chick fil a veggie wrap? They’re pretty good even though I wasn’t expecting much when I first tried one. Also girlsnboys by Seventeen V8 is the most bisexual shit I’ve ever heard I hope you can eee what I mean
It took me a while to work out what this question meant, at first I just thought you mean putting chicken filling inside a homemade veggie wrap, the question makes no sense at all of you’re not familiar with the brand. Eventually I figured it out. I live in Australia, we don’t have Chick-Fil-A here, but if we did I wouldn’t eat it anyway when there’s about 100 places I can get a banh mi. K-pop is the most bisexual shit ever, in general.
Have you ever dabbled in or looked at any Thai/tpop groups? I know that you obviously enjoy music outside kpop if you didn’t have some type of variety you’d be just as empty headed as the kpoppies you’re constantly harping on for being idiots so I wanted to know if that extended to Thai music. It’s honestly just what I’m focused on right now because I at least feel it fixes the small issues I’ve had with kpop industry wise and also musically
Never really looked into it closely and probably won’t ever simply just because of time constraints. If something amazing sticks out I might notice it but generally speaking I don’t give too many fucks about pop music outside of Korea because it’s outside the scope of what I do. I have people begging me to cover dozens of songs each and every week so I prioritise the k-pop stuff. Can’t comment on the Thai industry as I have no specific knowledge of it, but if they’re doing it better thank Korea that’s great. I guess it would be hard to do it worse.
Where do you personally sit on the execution of song remakes? Is there a “sweet spot” for much risk they should take with changing things? On one hand you get ones which are identical to the originals (eg Rescene doing Kara’s Pretty Girl), on the other there’s ones that totally stuff it up (eg Stayc doing Twice’s Fancy).
and
What ruins remakes/covers for you? I feel like I hate most remakes of older kpop songs because they just whisper the idea of singing into the recording room and sound like they’re gonna get sold off to a random remote island if they get any louder. Like damn your throat is wide for a reason USE ALL OF IT TO FUCKING SING.
K-pop idols mostly can’t sing so don’t worry, weak non-committal vocal performances are not going to change. But this factor doesn’t make any difference to me. Especially in k-pop where everyone gets the same vocal training and vocal production – one girl group sounds much like another, so if all you’re doing is swapping out one group of singers for another group of singers, you’re changing nothing of value. I think a remake is honestly a complete waste of time if it’s exactly the same as the original, just with a different voice over it. Sometimes better production is nice if the old song had really bad production, as is the case with a lot of k-pop before about 2005 or so. But that’s the only value in an identical remake. The better remakes are the ones that take the song in a new direction, or enhance a direction that could have been explored more in the original song. There’s also no point in remaking an absolute classic song, because you’re not going to improve it. Instead, remake something that was flawed in the first instance so you can do better.
You can think about it like movies if you like. Good example of a remake is Cape Fear. The original 1960s film was solid but restricted by the filmmaking rules of its day which meant that it couldn’t lean very hard into the horror aspects. This was fixed in the 1990s remake which had more gore and violence, more creepiness and a much more evil antagonist. A bad example of a remake is Psycho. The original is widely considered a classic, one of the masterpieces of cinema. The 1990s remake was virtually a shot-for-shot remake that added almost nothing new, and the few new things that were added weren’t an improvement because the bar was already set so high.
What are some kpop music videos you think are absolute bullshit visual assault on the eyes or just overly weird for no reason. I would say in the former category virtual angel by artms and the latter I don’t know by fiestar though this second one is far more offensive and I hate having to say that because I love fiestar. If you have time to look at both which would you say is worse in general
Virtual Angel was definitely worse. A lot of T-ara videos are also awful in this regard, I wrote a whole post about the worst offenders here.
Complex Magazine has named the best kpop songs of 2026:
1. KiiiKiii – 404 (New Era)
2. Hearts2Hearts – Rude!
3. LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT, KATSEYE – Iconic By Mistake
4. ZEROBASEONE – Top 5
5. aespa – Switchblade
6. ILLIT – It’s Me
7. Lisa – SaWaDiKa
8. Taemin – Float
9. BTS – Swim
10. Yena – Catch Catch
11. TXT – Stick With You
12. ENHYPEN – Bloody Paradise
13. IVE – Bang Bang
14. KATSEYE – Hootie Frutti
15. BLACKPINK – Go
16. XLOV – Serve
17. CORTIS – REDRED
18. ATEEZ – Bad
19. NCT JNJM – Both Sides
20. NMIXX – Crescendoyour thoughts on their song list?
Don’t they realise 2026 has three months to go? Oh well, whatever, they gotta farm those clicks for advertisers I suppose. A pretty mixed bag of songs I like, songs I hate, and songs I don’t care about. No need for me to throw down on each one individually as it’s all in the roundups. What I mainly notice here is that almost every single pick is from the big labels, this to me just feels like “here’s a list of 20 songs that were popular so you’ll click on it”. Don’t expect such pandering when the Kpopalypse favourites list comes out at the end of this year.
thoughts on article? (archived full version)
seems pretty misandrist. article author is definitely infantilising men. sounds more like to me that maybe some wives are being moral busybody karens. so what if someone sitting on the couch for 6 hours of watching netflix on a weekend day? sounds like these women should actually talk to their spouses and find out their feelings on the topic. maybe they’re happy with their current predicament?
if someone is milling about a party or other social function, maybe there’s a reason? maybe these women should find out if their husbands even want to go to these parties?
For decades we’ve absorbed the negative stereotype via movies and TV shows of the thoughtless uncaring man who neglects his wife or girlfriend to hang out with his buddies all the time, and how that’s a terrible thing and men have noted the not very subtle messaging of “tsk tsk men, you should really spend more time with your partner”. Now it seems that the men who took on board that feedback and are more interested in their partner than socialising with random guys are getting shat on too because they’re not as social as they should be or something? Oh well. Women are generally just better at social stuff than men are, on average. I know I personally hate socialising, even if it’s with people I like I can only do it in extremely small doses. Hanging out with a friend for hours is an eternity for me, even if I genuinely like them. Parties are an absolute torturous ordeal as soon as the food and/or entertainment runs out and I have to make conversation, I’d rather be anywhere else. Perhaps the author of this article has an extremely introverted partner and they’re just having trouble understanding them. Anyway I’d ignore stuff like this, it’s just social control.
did you ever watch dramas which had Lisa Ann cosplaying as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin? if so, were they any good?
I like Lisa Ann, she’s someone with a good attitude to life. Like me she’s an advocate for people working in the sector of the entertainment industry that she’s focused on, and also an advocate of highlighting issues within it, helping people see through the fantasy and managing expectations of their own reality. Those are all good things.
I’m less interested in her “work”. The mainstream US porn industry leaves me pretty cold as far as fap material goes. Japan surpassed it long ago.
(context: stand up comedian teacher, who’s routine is discussing bogan children he’s taught. He polled his viewers over bogan children names they’ve encountered.)
Supposedly names of bogan children. Does these pass your sniff test?
Yeah I think some people were just sending him stuff they made up. None of these names are what I’d call common.
1. Is this {video of a wombat} a gen AI video? 2. Do you have furry neighbours like this in your geographical area?
1. Real 2. These folks don’t tend to be in urban areas, and where I live it’s pretty urban, so no. Go out to the hills near where I live though and they exist although sightings are rare as wombats are reclusive and also the population numbers aren’t that high (kangaroos are much more common).
How often is it that trainees will roughly know their debut concept going in, or the company puts out a casting call with specifics on concept/music? My understanding is that it’s good to have “blank” idols that can accept whatever the company judges will make the group succeed. On the other hand, it’s also a bummer for the trainee + company when they find out last moment it won’t be a good fit, in stories that idols tell of feeling duped and staying (Wonder Girls Yubin) or dropping out last moment (XLOV Wumuti with previous companies, Spica’s Jiwon dropping out of the T-ara lineup).
Trainees usually don’t even know if they’re getting in a group at all, let alone what that group’s concept might be. The stories of people training for years upon years at an agency with no idea if there are any plans for them at all, let alone what those plans are, are many. With smaller labels the plans are more likely to be shared upfront, but probably still long after the selection process, and that doesn’t mean that those plans won’t change or be scrapped anyway.
What do you think of Faouzia’s ‘Unethical‘? I think you might like it precisely because it’s relatively restrained for a ballad by a VERY talented vocalist…. and because all the covers on tiktok are garbage because they keep adding random vocal wank.
The attempts to make me westernpopalypse continue. A boring song, honestly. I can definitely see how a cover would be even worse.
thoughts?
A 2024 paper titled **“The Role of Breast Morphology in Women’s Rival Derogation Tactics”** examined whether women were more likely to derogate other women based on breast size. The researchers showed **114 Hispanic women** digitally manipulated images representing A-, B-, C-, and D-cup breast sizes and measured willingness to engage in forms of **“rival derogation,”** including verbal and indirect aggression.
The key finding was:
> Women were **more likely to report derogating women with larger breasts**, particularly C- and D-cup breasts, than women with smaller breasts.
Importantly, the researchers **didn’t establish that the women literally “hated” larger-breasted women**. They interpreted the effect in terms of **intrasexual competition**—negative reactions toward another woman perceived as possessing an attractive trait that could potentially make her a competitor.
There was also a related 2023 study involving **189 Hispanic women**. Women viewing larger-breasted women were more likely to report:
* perceiving the other woman as a **sexual threat**
* wanting to enhance their own appearance
* considering more revealing clothing
* dieting/exercising as appearance-enhancement strategiesWomen with higher dispositional intrasexual competitiveness showed a stronger relationship between larger breasts and appearance-enhancement intentions.
### But there’s an important distinction
The research **doesn’t show that women generally dislike or hate women with large breasts**.
In fact, the broader literature is more complicated. A huge 2020 international study of **18,541 women from 40 countries** found that **47.5% wanted larger breasts**, while 23.2% wanted smaller breasts and 29.3% were satisfied with their current size.
So there appear to be **two related phenomena**:
**1. Self-comparison:**
“Her breasts are larger than mine → I feel worse about my own appearance.”**2. Interpersonal competition:**
“Her breasts are larger/attractive → I perceive her as a potential rival → I may react negatively toward her.”Research on appearance comparison more generally supports the first mechanism: upward comparisons with women perceived as more attractive are associated with poorer appearance satisfaction and mood.
{deleted the references because this word salad is already long enough}
Imagine doing a long-ass study like this just to prove that jealousy and sexual competitiveness exists. They could have saved themselves a ton of time and just asked literally anyone at all.
Since you are someone who is a bit older than I am, I have two related questions. Sorry if I am being bleak.
How do you personally deal with your own mortality? Yes, trying to live by your own rules and making the most of it (whatever that means for any individual) helps and so does joking about death. However, in the moments where it may get scary or whatever to think about it, how do you deal with it?
As for the second question, what tips do you have for dealing with grief over losing a loved one? I know you’ve mentioned being unfortunately very familiar with it so I guess you may have quite a bit of experience in that department.
If you choose to answer this thank you in anticipation. Reading your blog has already helped me in a lot of areas.
My own mortality – I don’t know, not very well. I’m jealous of religious people in this regard, they believe something cool is going to happen when they die, whereas I know that nothing happens which isn’t a great thing to know. AustralianSana mentioned that she feared death until she had a near-death experience and after that she wasn’t scared of it anymore before she found the fading into non-existence to be peaceful or calming… I can’t remember exactly how she put it, but it was a positive experience for her and not painful (unlike the events which brought on the NDE which were extremely painful). I have difficulty comprehending my soul not existing any longer (as do others, which is why we invent all these religions) but of course, that’s what happens and we all have to face it. I guess I just try to not think about it too much and just try to make the most of the life I have.
With losing a loved one just try to be grateful for the good times you had with them. It’s a gift that you got to spend the time with them that you did. There’s no magic trick that makes it easier to deal with them being gone though. Time will soften the blows eventually, you just need to let grief run its course.
I remember you previously mentioned that only big companies give their artists days off (aka working 6 days a week vs. 7) -> what do small companies even fill the time with? If the group isn’t popular what are they working 7 days a week on? Also is this more of a thing re: big companies because they can afford to try not to burn their artists out? (well for Korea I guess).
The other question is I’m so confused why idols spend 12+ hour days in the dance studio, even trainees?. At some point the gains have to be marginal, right? You can’t do well on a test on 2 hours sleep. Is this a Korean cultural thing? A “prove you’ll work yourself to the bone for the company” thing to identify who’s exploitable?
There’s always exceptions to everything and it’s definitely not the case that every big company gives employees time off and all the smaller ones don’t. This is just the generalised pattern that I’ve observed from talking to different people in different agency situations. It’s often like that because a smaller company usually isn’t making a profit so there’s more pressure, which is passed down the chain. Different companies are different though, there are probably small companies that are in fact very lenient.
The trainee thing is partly cultural, it’s also just the nature of the competitive environment. If someone is training 8 hours a day, by training 10 or 12 hours a day you can gain an edge, at least in theory. In reality diminishing returns probably apply, and also some people just have more aptitude than others due to lucky genetics, plus there’s favouritism and other factors.
what are some albums/songs, in any genre, that you believe have been amazingly produced?
Just going to go with albums here.
Mobb Deep’s “Hell On Earth” has the best production that I’ve heard on a hip-hop record, in terms of building an atmosphere that complements the songs.
Slayer’s “Reign In Blood” paved the way for modern metal by having a very dry sound which wasn’t fashionable at the time but quickly caught on afterward. Thrash metal albums before this time were caked in reverb that mainly just obscured the guitar playing.
Van Halen’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” is a pretty average album musically but has easily the best drum sound I’ve heard on a rock record.
All the Led Zeppelin albums and all the 1970s Pink Floyd albums are astonishingly well produced for their time, the main reason I think why those groups still have new younger fans while many other groups who hit their stride in the 70s and were equally big back then have been since long forgotten.
Darkthrone’s “A Blaze In The Northern Sky” got drums in metal right at a time when literally everyone else was getting it wrong.
Public Enemy’s “It Takes A Nation Of Millions…” was so forward-thinking for the time that the knock-on effects of this album completely changed the way all popular music was produced (and not just talking about samples here, although that’s part of it). The most influential group since The Beatles in terms of shaping the sound of popular music, it’s crazy how they don’t get more credit for it.
American Psycho is hilarious, but I do get why people can read or view it as misogynistic. The degree of detail is the satire, but the line between parody and unironic example can be thin. That said, Ellis is a homosexual, and the film’s director and screenwriter are both women. Their endorsement makes it clearer that the intent is satire. Still, I do think the sheer exaggeration of Bateman makes him obviously ridiculous, so the context isn’t strictly necessary. When do you think the line *is* too thin, where something claimed to be parody is too mean-spirited and similar to unironic portrayals?
American Psycho isn’t misogynistic, but it’s certainly set in a misogynistic environment, and the satire includes the satire of that environment. Readings of it as misogynistic to me just show that people are losing the ability to be media-literate. The film director absolutely understood the book, and downplayed the violence a little while bringing the satirical and social commentary elements of the book more forward, which I think was the right decision.
In terms of a mean-spirited parody that is literally just unironically misogynist, nothing really springs to mind in cinema. I mean yes there are misogynist film directors (Lars Von Trier ahem) but they don’t tend to do parody. I’ve sure I’ve seen a few YouTubes that fit this bill though, although I couldn’t name them.
(Comedy sketch where tri lingual siblings have a conversation with sentences randomly from all three.)
1. Do multilingual people actually talk like this?
2. Jumy sister = fap?
1. No
2. Jumy > her sister
Does Ryu Sujeong – ‘Friendly Fire copy riffs from The Beatles – Across the Universe?
I refuse to subject myself to The Beatles in order to check. There are limits. (Yes I know I said they were influential earlier but “influential” does not always mean “I would actually spend time listening to that shit”)
Would you happen to know how big those red recording lights on music show cameras are? I recently went to a kpop event where they had big ol lights the size of a person’s head, but those were on stationary cameras on a riser behind the audience, as opposed to cameras that are constantly moving across a huge area.
It varies, but usually big and obvious. Such a system is called “tally lights”, and the lights need to be big enough so that a performer or presenter can easily notice them. The lights also can’t be too strong (or they could change the colour of the scene) so it’s important that they are of a certain size so they can be seen.
Is there a word or concept for enjoying a piece of music that is just… so satisfying to listen to? I don’t think I’m talking about frisson, but maybe I am. There are certain songs I listen to that I just find so aesthetically pleasing and I could listen to them all day every day and never get tired of them. Some examples are (please don’t judge, or do, I never said I had good taste): Winter Flower by Younha (up until RM comes in); After School by Weeekly; BEcause by Dreamcatcher; Love Poem by IU. I don’t know if it’s the melody or the emotion, but I can only describe it as finally getting the itch scratched in that place you can’t reach.
“Frisson” refers to a very specific physical sensation and that’s not quite the same thing as just being satisfied by listening to music. Although it can be possible to experience both at once, there may be some overlap here for some people. I don’t think there’s a word for what you’re describing.
I feel like I’m doing something wrong when it comes to dating men. And you’re a straight man so maybe you can help. I guess this is kind of an incel post lol.
I don’t think I’m particularly unattractive because I get hit on in public even without makeup, and sometimes toxic women are jealous of me. Like their boyfriends or husbands will hit on me and they’ll blame me. i’ve been called pretty before, I’m not in bad shape or anything, I don’t smell bad lol.
But I’ve never really dated. I’ve never gotten to the place where we both confess feelings and start seeing each other officially. I’ve been on plenty of dates, sure, but nothing more.
Either someone likes me more than I like them, or I like them more than they like me, or in many cases some guys later on tell me they liked me but were “intimidated” or whatever nonsensical excuse. Like no one ever just openly says “hey, I want you to be my girlfriend.” Or, “this seems special, I want to be exclusive.”
And I want that a lot.
I’m just very very sad. Maybe my personality isn’t feminine enough? I can be direct and people say I come across as quite intelligent. I know some insecure straight men don’t like openly smart girls who have their own opinions.
But it shouldn’t be all of them?
When I asked my dad he was just like “wait for someone who likes you the way you are, don’t worry about it.”
But I’m fucking 24 now. Like…I just don’t know what to do.
I’ve gone without dating for periods of time. I know how to be fine on my own. So this isn’t a thing where I don’t know how to handle being by myself. I have good friends and family around me. I go out often, I get along well with people
It’s not like I chase down toxic men or end up in abusive relationships.But I wish I could just have some normal, pleasant experiences for once.
Most recently I got into the talking stages with this nice guy. He’s still friendly and we talk every day but I can tell he’s kind of cooling off. I feel like I make him nervous like I’m too much. We aren’t progressing forward anymore, and he isn’t going out of his way to like appeal to me like he did in the beginning.
Like when we first started talking if I said I wanted him to watch something or do something he’d jump and do it. Now…not so much.
And it hurts because I obviously can’t like call him out or be clingy, like ask what I did wrong. I just have to accept that. I am neurodivergent, like I have ADHD. So I know that makes me kind of weird to people. But again…I feel like there should be someone. I’m tired of getting my hopes up and being vulnerable with someone only for it to fade.
Maybe there’s something wrong? Something I’m missing about myself that’s turning people off?
Any help or advice would be great.
Well, you’re doing better than I was at your age. I was in my 30s before I managed to have even half this amount of insight.
Guys who cool off probably weren’t all that into you to begin with, in that maybe they thought you might be fun or whatever but they’re worried about leading you on and giving you the impression that you want to do something long-term as they’re not interested in that. A lot of guys will have the bar for whatever standards they deem to be important (whether they be personality, looks, sense of humour, life goals, financial security, depth and breadth of T-ara physical album collection etc) set at one level for “just casual dating” and at another level for “get serious time”. What’s happening is you’re meeting the first bar but not the second. There’s all sorts of reasons why they might feel that way so don’t drive yourself crazy trying to second-guess it, just know that for some guys you will clear both bars but for many you might only clear the first one, and when those guys start to sense that you’re wanting to get serious that’s when they cool off. Of course the guy who you clear both bars for is definitely out there, and in fact it sounds like you’ve probably met a fair few of them already and just didn’t like them. So in those cases the tables were turned and they might have cleared your first bar but not the second.
I find that when things have really worked for me, this sort of stuff wasn’t even a consideration. It just “clicked” naturally. I’d urge you not to overthink it because you can drive yourself crazy doing that, and certainly don’t become self-conscious. The right person is the one who is going to like you for you, not the one who likes you for whatever you think you should be in order to attract the right guy, because if you do put up that facade and it does attract the right guy then you have to maintain it if you want to keep him – how exhausting, fuck that. Just do you.
Why does SM get away with the 10 year contracts but no one else seems to do them and just does the 7 year contracts? Is SM just that much more powerful? Or do other companies care more about optics?
Actually a lot of them do the 10 year contracts too. Every time you see one of those press releases “all 236 members of veteran group x renew their contract with agency y” ask yourself why that might be.
Heads up, a bunch of questions coming, in 3 groups:
First group, process: You sometimes mention readers sending you songs or Kpop related stuff. Is that through QRIMOLE? If I think there’s a kpopalypse-appropriate song released that didn’t get into the weekly roundup, does it go to QRIMOLE, or somewhere else?
Second group, existential: You’ve posted that you answer everything submitted on QRIMOLE. I’ve sent you some really stupid shit through QRIMOLE, and you’ve always answered. I don’t want to abuse the system. The roundup is my go-to for new drops. If a song isn’t in the roundup, maybe you didn’t want to comment on it. I feel like sending it here is presumptive, like saying “Why didn’t you comment on this? Comment on this, bitch.” It’s your system, and you can ignore a QRIMOLE submission if you want, but responding to everything here is also your code. Can you absolve me of this angst? Should I get therapy? Since I’m over 50, should I just grow the fuck up already and not worry about what some guy who doesn’t know me thinks about my questions,, and just be grateful that he’s turning out tons of content for free? Did I just answer my own question?
Third group, content: Did you see Jennie’s live performance of “Heaven” at Governor’s Ball a few weeks back?
I thought it it was great, esp. the live guitar solo coda. BP has often toured with a live rock band, which usually makes their songs sound much better to me. Did you see the Japanese live version of Kill This Love, backed by The Band Six?
Also, what’s your take on Lisa’s hair? I think the feathered look is hot as fuck on her.
1. Usually not QRIMOLE. Sometimes ask.oppar, but most songs are suggested on the livestreams by one person who sends a pretty exhaustive list each week, most weeks. Only about 50% of songs submitted by them or other readers even make it into the roundup at all, time constraints mean that there’s no way I can cover everything, even in a quiet week. Roundup is not meant to be “complete” because that’s impossible, I trim it down to just the stuff people might realistically give a shit about. More music that you couldn’t care less about is released each week than you could possibly imagine!
2. I don’t answer absolutely everything on QRIMOLE but I try to, certainly the vast majority of questions get answered most months, over 98%. Whether this information contains the absolution you’re looking for, I’m not sure.
3. The Band Six are great musicians but they tend to overplay the material a bit for my taste, I actually wish they’d try to stick closer to the original songs. Having said that the songs do still benefit from a rock treatment and their version of “Kill This Love” is particularly good. All Blackpink members hair mrs here, not that I’m in any position to be picky about hair…
how would one achieve the “distorted” sound in songs like this?
is it purely a digital thing or can you do it with traditional instruments
I don’t know which sound you mean specifically, as there’s more than one sound in this song which uses distortion. But distortion in general pre-dates digital audio technology. The simplest way to achieve distortion is just to drive more signal into a circuit than what that circuit can handle, and that’s how the earliest distortion sounds were achieved, by overloading mixing desk channels or speakers with “too much” volume. For a while it was trendy to slash speaker cones with razors, so they were capable of producing less sound, that way the breakup point where they could no longer handle increased volume but would overload and distort instead would be reached sooner. Later on adjustable self-overloading circuits were shrunk into transistor-based pedals, and people stopped vandalising their equipment as much. The modern distortions of today all work on the same principle as this, except that the effect can now also be digitally simulated… although a lot of people prefer the analog version.
How do you know that you wouldn’t like sucking schlong if you haven’t tried it?
Comedian Des Bishop explains that having pineapple on pizza in New York was seen as sacrilegious. When he was living in Ireland he finally tried it and quite liked it. He overcame a lifetime of prejudiced programming from being a NYC native. All of this was an analogy about confronting prejudices from homophobia.
Deleted the YouTube link as I couldn’t make it work for some reason. Not needed anyway. I answered this question more or less last month.
how the hell do you even rank the songs? i tried doing it once after rewriting my 2025 list and FUCK it’s hard. do you start from the top 30 then slowly build your way to top 1? or do you start from the top and slowly manage your way to the bottom of the favorites list? my mind’s been bugging me because i feel your pain now in ranking these songs cause holy fuck it’s hard.
Once I have all the songs in the shortlist I just try sorting them. Rather than look at the big picture I just look at any two songs and think “do I like song A more or song B more” and then repeat that process for different combinations of two songs. Do it about 30 times and there you have a top 30.
Hello, Mr. Kpopalypse! I apologise in advance- my English may not be perfect, as I’m Czech and it’s my third language.
I wanted to ask: which bass amp would you recommend? I’ve tried searching the internet, YouTube, etc., however everyone seems to have a different opinion on basically… everything. So far, I’ve been playing through my guitar amp (I know I shouldn’t do that.. but my broke 16-year-old student self can’t afford two amps). Recently, I’ve got a part-time job and have saved a bit of money, so I thought I’d ask you for advice on which one’s good.
Side note: PLEASE make more of your bass covers! It’s so hard to find K-pop bass tabs online, and your videos have helped me SO much. Thank you, Mr. Kpopalypse!
I might get back to bass covers one day. Time is a factor.
When I play on stage I don’t even use an amp anymore, I just DI straight from my floor effects into the sound system, which works great if you are playing a theatre or stadium sized venue where the PA is beefy. For smaller applications like a small pub gig or a practice room, I really like the Fender Rumble series of amplifiers. They sound great, are very light, all models from the Rumble 40 upward have a DI output, and they are not ridiculously expensive. I used a Rumble 100 for the newer bass covers and I also use it for band practices. (The Rumble 40 is very popular but just a little too quiet to be easily heard over a heavy-hitting rock band drummer.) There are other good options out there but that’s what I’d buy personally if I was shopping new.
What was f(x)’s biggest musical fumble throughout their career in your opinion? Like not something that was simply bad something that didn’t make sense and wasn’t really fit for f(x) at all
4 Walls. Before then they had a reputation for very unique sonics that were nothing like what other groups were doing at the time. Then “4 Walls” came out and it’s just “let’s write a track exactly like SHINee’s “View” but change the melody and chords a bit and have girls sing it.” Ho hum.
It’s certainly not a terrible song, just a hugely disappointing one given the exciting trajectory that f(x) were on prior to that point. It’s where f(x)’s entire concept essentially died – the project served no further purpose after “4 walls” came out, because the things that made f(x) special and unique were thrown away, they became “just another girl group”. Little wonder that they didn’t last long from there.
I got torn apart by kpoppies for saying I didn’t like 8-Bit Heart by ITZY. please validate me and say you also agree that it’s kinda shit. I already know I’m entitled to my opinion and that a majority of kpop fans are cow feces for brains but I wanna consult the person I know will be unfiltered and honest
I’ll get to it in album reviews at some point.
Lypse oppar I know you’re kpopalypse and not bangkokalypse and you’re very likely to be annoyed by this but I’m being more annoying by being self aware and still submitting this bs but I really wanna know if you’ve ever heard about 4EVE and what you think of them if you have
Never heard of, but Bangkokalypse does have a certain ring to i so I checked them out, thought they were pretty mid. Average-ass rapping for sure, XG where are you…
I miss Dreamcatcher nowadays, which is strange since this is the first time in ~7 years of following kpop where there’s not an artist where I’m consistently excited to hear what their next project sounds like (bsides included in Dreamcatcher’s case, which is icing on the cake and applied to only them and fx for me.)
I’m wondering if you know any songs similar to “Demian” or what genre it falls under. It wasn’t one of my favorites ever but I just feel hungry for the sound of it. Same applies with “Wind Blows”—weird rap segments + fairly high-flying chorus?
It’s a pop song.
Dreamcatcher is pop with somewhat of a metal veneer, rather than anything else. The verses in “Demian” remind me of something Prince might have done in the 80s, the rest is just the usual Dreamcatcher thing where they apply a thin metal coating to some pretty standard pop song hooks.
BOOK QUESTIONS (SPOILERY)
How is writing about a survival show held by major label XF Entertainment, where the winning team [spoiler removed as this happens in the last 10% of the book], not way too much winking and nudging? And what made you want to wink and nudge in that specific direction, rather than to survival shows in general?
All Kpopalypse books are works of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, or places and persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, even if such resemblances might take certain well-informed individuals down memory lane…
But really though, I wasn’t trying to make a comment on any specific well-known Korean labels in particular, or insinuate that because certain details of the book may coincidentally match some agencies, that other details of the book may also match to those specific agencies. I guess someone could infer that if they wanted to, but they would be wrong. It’s more a book about how media representation is filtered through the public lens than it is about trying to say anything specific about a certain company.
Currently reading the second book of the Shin Hana series with my friend; It’s a well written lesbian love story but isnt Hana killing the music producer in the first book way too unrealistic? Seems out of place of a otherwise “realistic” kpop fiction.
Yes murder is completely unrealistic and definitely never happens in the entertainment world. There have been no mysterious unsolved deaths in the music industry, in Korea or elsewhere. Clearly a flaw of the book, everyone should rest assured that these events are very unrealistic and could never happen in real life.
The next book I write, or the one after that, might have some isekai scenes. I’ll try to write them as realistically as possible.
You asked for feedback on the Girls 909 book from a Christian perspective so here you go-
I don’t think Eunice thought about God enough. She kind of treats God as a pen pal? I feel like she’d probably be doing a lot more praying/worrying about behaving correctly. (I know you probably are thinking that she does do that – if she’s some sort of evangelical you really need to dial up the guilt to 11). This is assuming she’s an evangelical Christian. More organized mainline congregations are chiller so it’s possible she’s part of one of those. Could have used more Christianese as well, churchy folks have their own dialect and speech patterns basically.
Unrelated to religion- I thought it was an interesting premise and I liked the characters but I feel like it was building towards a pay-off that didn’t happen. It’s just sort of a series of horrible things that happen to her and I thought there would be more of a character arc or growth. Doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but would have liked to see more of a through-line if that makes sense? The second assault at the end also felt like it was mainly tacked on, I think you could have made your point without it.
Question so you don’t link JAV: You’ve removed interviews due to “external forces” -> did the subjects reach out to you and ask for them to be pulled? Did they ever say what sort of “external forces” were pressuring them?
Eunice isn’t an evangelical. I deliberately wanted to stay away from the popular online strawman of what a Christian is and write her as a more “normal” Christian in a more moderate church, someone who does believe in God and goes to church on Sunday and wants to do good things but who is not a crazy cult member who thinks about God and only God each and every second. A lot of her points of view are inspired by Christians who I know or have known. The book does use Christianity to drive some humour but the aim of the book isn’t to shit on Christianity or portray a caricature, I wanted it to be a fairly grounded portrayal that wouldn’t feel too alien to people who are/were Christian or have Christian peers that are just normally Christian like the majority of Christians actually are. The weird creepy cult-like evangelical Christians may get all the press but they’re actually a slim minority in my experience.
The way I approach character growth in stories is probably pretty different to how a lot of authors do it. I generally tell a story within a short timeframe, each book I write covers maybe six months to a year of events at the very most (excluding epilogues), Girls909 is the shortest one of them all, it only really covers the lead up to and broadcast of one series of one television show, so maybe that’s four months tops. How much does someone’s character really even grow during four months of their life? Even the most tumultuous four months of anyone’s life would only result in gradual shifts and changes. People’s personalities are formed in childhood, and points of view and beliefs are often slow to shift, even through traumatic experiences. So Eunice at the end isn’t wildly different to Eunice at the start. Certainly not exactly the same, the change is there but it isn’t huge. She doesn’t even completely dump Christianity, which might have been expected by some readers. It’s still a quicker change than Hana (where the very slow shift was even slower as it was spread out over four books) but it’s definitely not of the traditional hyper-transformative character arc that every book writing YouTube channel will tell you that you absolutely must have in your book, or else. There’s a deliberate amount of bleakness and listlessness in the book. If you think it was building towards a payoff that didn’t happen, just think about how Eunice felt. Thanks for reading it and giving feedback, your perspective is interesting and much appreciated!
Your question – yes in cases where I have pulled interviews or other content at the request of third parties, the subjects in each case did reach out to me personally regarding this. They were extremely specific about what the external forces were! I can’t comment further, other than to say that truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction… or at least my fiction…
GAMING QUESTIONS
Video showcasing the Nvidia DLSS 5 gen AI paint over tech, doing 2x pass overs. What do you think of the end results?
Starfield is a 2023 game, so it’s new enough that you kind of have the animation work to go along with the ultra realistic looks. (I say “kind of” because you only get so much mileage in that department, cuz it’s a Bethesda game.
) As soon as you see an NPC walk past during the dialogue exchange it fell into the Uncanny Valley for me.
Wow, games are just as ugly as real life now!
Actually I think it works well enough, until the conversations start. The traditional Bethesda-style squared-off head movement and direct-to-camera fixed stare that’s exactly like every other game of theirs certainly kills any naturalistic vibe that all that extra rendering might have produced.
Have you ever played a game on the coding website scratch. I know I sound like an absolute pants shitting nerd saying this and I’ll take whatever insults or JAV codes you respond to this with as a gentle reminder that you don’t give a damn about the actual content of what I’ve asked. I personally really like word attack and super scratch bros (because I’m too poor to buy the real thing, and they have peppa as a playable character). It’s for kids yes but I get a lot of enjoyment out of it
No, never played or even heard of this. I don’t even know enough about it to be able to insult you for being into it. 
NOT QUESTIONS
Justice for QWER boobs
I know, right? I really wanted to see them voted higher in the Objectification Survey this year but it was not to be. Boob-friendly JAV of the month is SNOS-405.
I haven’t agreed with everything you’ve said lypse but I have to say a good chunk of people just don’t give critical thinking a chance first. I’m not telling you anything new by saying that yeah but the amount of people who see the TikTok lissa caonima reuploads of your reviews and just immediately jump to comment “of course he’s saying this he’s big old mean ugly Kpopalypse let’s all kill him now”. In my personal evaluation you have had questionable takes but a lot of the things you say about kpop songs are just you being a mature adult and not using a bunch of unnecessary internet jargon, which Kpop stans can’t handle because both concepts are foreign to them
I agree. My “hot takes” are only hot for people who lack critical thinking because they are either deep in the idol industry cult or very young. Normal people who read my stuff just react like normal people. Idol industry JAV of the month is RLMP-014.
That quote you sent of frank zappa. Well it really hit. I have never really felt so uncertain before. I question my judgement all the time. But I decided I am really going to try to do something I want to do. I can vent but I am trying to come to a conclusion or decision by myself. So just wanted to thank you.
Thank you! Happy to be of service. High service quality JAV of the month is SNOS-280.
I took a bit of your advice for my blog and also realized that I don’t always have to add an essay into the text portion of my review and also thought about branching out into other stuff on my blog. I’ve taken your criticisms and honestly i had a period of trying to be safer because I didnt want people who knew I ran the blog to see me negatively when reading my writings but then I realized honestly screw them and have since went back to that type of writing style for my reviews or at least actually saying what feels natural to me. You probably have very little to comment on in this regard but even though I don’t agree with everything you say and wouldn’t even say I’m necessarily a fan rather than an occasional reader of kpopalypse I feel your critique touched right on the core issues I’d been ignoring for a while and I thank you for doing that.
Thanks! Yes, if you write in this space, people are going to hate you and cancel you a thousand times over regardless of how you approach things, so you may as well just do what makes sense for you personally. At the end of the day you have to be pleased with yourself first and foremost. Pleasurable JAV of the month is MIDA-735.
My heavy cock belongs in your ass. Slamming into you until you’re unable to walk
{and various other thirst comments all sent by the same person}
Promises, promises. I bet it’s not even that thick. Don’t even @ me unless your cock has the girth of the one in MIMK-188.
BEST QUESTION
Hi oppar! How are you doing?
I have a two decades thing that annoys me.
When I was still in my teenage years (2005), a younger brother of a friend used to say in friendly masculine circles that his future girlfriend would have to always suck his arsehole (in sexual relations, literally). While most people in the friend circle laughed a lot, there were always a common, non-verbal understandment that what he told was valid, somehow. I have always found this proposal uncanny, so I couldn’t even find the fun on the sentence at the time to laugh, much less accept as something normal (assuming we would be thinking about 2 grown persons having sex with each other that is). This bugged me for quite some time. Now that I’m clearly an adult, I am seeing quite a lot of men, that view themselves as straight, to confess that they would like to be fucked in the ass by their feminine partners. While I consider myself to be progressive now and celebrate the courage they have to pursue what they wish for, I still can’t understand how someone would want a woman to enter your orifice.
I’m kinda of a weirdo, so, maybe your answer might be more helpful if you know some details about me first:
Clarification 1: I play with my asshole eventually and like to stimulate it, but only when I imagine a man entering it (I’m Bi)
Clarification 2: I still hadn’t made receptive anal sex with a man (anus cleaning issues don’t let me relax enough for it) but has extensive use of dildos while fantasizing being sexually dominated by another man (preferentially with bigger muscles than mine)
Clarification 3: Extensively had sex with women, and only like dominating them or having vanilla-standard sex (no one dominates no one). Never liked anything close to submit to a female or even to a trans woman
Clarification 4: When a trans woman has a dick instead of a pussy, my brain can’t process it really well and don’t know how to have a erection (much less starts feeling good in the asshole like with masculine men). Can’t get it up even to dominate her and fuck her ass as I would with a man
Clarification 5: HUGELY attracted to trans men (man who have a bussy and a pussy). Having a trans man to forcefully make me suck his clit is a totally turn-on for me. A shame they are rarer than an unicorn
Clarification 6: nowadays I also love sucking cock (from cis men only, sadly)
Clarification 7 (summary): can fuck everyone, but not trans girls nor being fucked/dominated by womenQuestion 1: Am I gay to not wanting a woman to touch my asshole? Or am I just a bigoted person who is afraid of being penetrated by a woman and liking being “emasculated” by her?
Question 2: Why the fuck I can’t like girl dick? Am I a bad bi person to like trans men but not trans women sexually?
Question 3: Maybe all of this could have to do with the fact that so many woman seems to fear men having pleasure from a place other than their cock?
1. Men wanting to be anally fucked makes sense, as the male G-spot is the prostate which is only accessible via the rear entrance. Completely unsurprised that a lot of straight men as well as gay men want this. You probably do have some gay in you if you’re more okay with the thought of a man entering you than a woman, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Also if you’re not into “submission” that’s not a bad thing either – some folks are, some aren’t, nothing to do with bigotry, we’re just all wired differently.
2. No idea. I don’t mind girl dick personally, as long as everything else presents as female and meeting required standards then it wouldn’t kill my boner. Secondary sexual characteristics are always more important than primary sexual characteristics. I’m definitely open to the idea, so to speak, however in practice women with dicks don’t tend to have enough female secondary sexual characteristics to be interesting to my boring heterosexual ass once the clothes come off (sometimes pass quite well with them on, though).
3. Never encountered this fear from any women I’ve met, the ones I’ve talked about these issues with have all been quite open-minded. Maybe it’s a narrative in some online spaces or something, I don’t know, but I’m yet to encounter a woman in the real world who I’ve been to bed with who has had this point of view. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be that interesting in the bedroom anyway, as there’s definitely more to pleasure than just the genitals alone and anyone with significant bedroom skill realises this.
That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month!
Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!
0 Comments