Welp, prepare yourselves for a wall of feels, because I watched Desperate Checkmate and now I'm consumed by them. Holy shit. As always, enstage knocked it out of the fucking park and I'll be thinking about this for awhile.

Anyway. Lemme start by saying that I am not a KnightsP and mostly just love Leo, so I'm a fake fan who hadn't read Checkmate before watching the play. I'd seen the web anime like a year ago, but that's it. However, Desperate Checkmate was so fucking good that I immediately started reading shivalries's translation of Checkmate as soon as the play ended (which was around 3 am) and just. Okay. I'm starting to see the Knights appeal and even give Izumi fucking Sena rights, so...let's fuckin goooooooooooo!!!!

I'm not doing a scene by scene analysis because my understanding of Japanese is shaky, especially for long monologues and Leo's manic energy/breakdowns. So we're going by a lot of vibes + knowing the vague story beats from the anime, which means it comes down to the stage actors to get things across...and holy shit, they did. Sena's the POV character for most of the play and it opens with him alone on stage- before we cut to Leo in his throne.


Leo on the throne is sooooo good and ominous at first...

( click click for more of the opening shots )

And then we have the opening theme, Desperate Checkmate, which is honestly quite catchy and I'm looking forward to getting the soundtrack for this play whenever it comes out. Because like. Look. Some of the enstage-only music is really good, actually!!! And I need it.

We have a new Eichi for this place, which is like...fine? This is number three??? He honestly does a really good job, but he's noticeably shorter than Tsumugi (which makes for some creative staging to try to hide that). Kinda makes me wonder what they're gonna do next time fine is in a play, because I think the new Eichi is around the same height as Tori...

ANYWAY. Little John was a puppet, which was honestly such a good choice since she had to move around the stage. But holy shittttt. The scene with Leo rescuing her and getting the shit beat out of him was so fucking intense, thx to the really good lighting.


like HELLO!!!!!!!!! sir you are in peril

( more from this scene!!!! )

I liked the cuts between present day (Sena and Eichi playing chess/mind games) and the past (Leo being dragged to the hospital and meeting Eichi)...idk I'm not smart enough to describe it properly, but it's like...well executed. The set changes were all really solid; I always love the stairs/levels in Japanese stage plays, and Desperate Checkmate made great use of them.

Honestly, fuck going in order the whole time, I have ADHD- lemme talk about the staging choices. The set looked perfect: it was just like the Checkmate stage but had enough moving parts that it could be seamlessly changed for different settings/scenes/etc. And the fucking lighting in this one fucking killed me over and over.

Example 1:

when Eichi is talking about the Eccentrics and they're all represented by lights in their colors... *chef's kiss*

Example 2:

Madara's stage play actor had a scheduling conflict - he's in the Blue Lock stage play that's running at the same time - so this was the solution. One of the ensemble cast played him while his regular actor recorded his lines, and they used intense lighting to obscure the details of his face & such to make it seem like it's still our regular Madara. But god, while working within the limitations, it made him so much more menacing in every scene he was in. Fucking stellar, 10/10 solution, honestly drove home what a dangerous and sketchy dude he is SO WELL, I love it.


like- even if this guy is bringing you good(ish) news, he's clearly someone who's frequently up to no good. FANTASTIC. I love him *w*

WHICH IS ALL SO FUCKING COOL. Just. There's clearly a lot of love and care put into adapting the stories for the stage, and it shines through. But getting back to those stairs...Leo enters a scene through a central arch and gets into a conversation with Eichi. This conversation fairly quickly turns into emotional warfare - thx Eichi - and Leo tries to escape- only to find that his exit has been blocked by the stairs.


LIKE!!!!!!!! THESE WEREN'T HERE BEFORE!!!!! THE SYMBOLISM OF HOW BLOCKED IN HE IS JUST SENDS ME SOMEWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then later on there's a part where the IzuLeo divorce/love confession is happening and they're back to back on the stairs and I want to chew fucking glass over these idiots. Eichi and Tsumugi were in top form, which is to say Tsumugi had an obvious and desperate crush while Eichi missed all the parts where he was supposed to reciprocate it in a healthy way. So like. Very good XD And Sena and Leo were......codependent and shitty at communicating and Leo kept saying "I love you" and it kills me. EXPRESS YOURSELF BETTER, SENAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

sorry not sorry about how long this is I can't contain myself

Leo's breakdown at the climax killed me. It killed me in the anime and Leo's actor is so fucking incredible at capturing the angst, the desperation, the mania, the everything that makes Leo Leo. And it was everything in this. Crying and laughing at the same time about how everyone loves his music, not him, broke my fucking heart again; when will this not destroy me???? The part where he blames Sena for all of it is not in the anime, so I got to have my heart ripped out again for these fuckers ;w;

It took over a year, but I think I've finally been worn down: Izumi Sena does in fact have more depth and worth than I've given him, and he can tentatively join the characters that I care about the most. The stage play + reading Checkmate in full gave me an appreciation for his dynamic with Leo, but also him on his own and how he interacts with the rest of Knights. Cannot believe I've ended up here, since I did NOT originally click with Knights.......

Ritsu is still canceled for gacha crimes tho

So, this had sorta the same problem/conundrum as Meteor Lights in that it's a serious story without a lot of room for inserting musical numbers - save for We'll be "Knights" - so...the last half hour or so was just a Knights Live XD Probably to fill time + make use of Tsukasa, since they had him there for the small bit of plot he was in...but literally the story wraps up and then it cuts to Knights backstage announcing that they're doing a Live next and they hope we'll all stay!

OKAY THEN XD

But part of the way through the Live, Knights has to do a costume change, so someone else has to sing to fill that time...and it's none other than these fuckers:


nothing could have prepared me for the EiMugi duet called Never Over of all fucking things. who did this. Liz and I screamed so fucking loudly we couldn't believe it!!!!!!

( I have so many screencaps of this song specifically... )

Also, for a lot of the Live, Tsukasa was equally if not more central in the blocking. Since this is a !-era story, which technically takes place before Leo has returned to school, he's still the newbie of Knights. But since it's a play being performed in 2025, we know that he eventually takes over as leader, and it's a nice bit of foreshadowing~

OH GOD ALSO THE BEST PART!!!! It seemed like there was a new ending song for enstage, which like....okay Checkmate and Human Comedy are more serious stories, I guess Singin'☆Shine! isn't the best closing song, you know, for the mood...but it was still disappointing. Liz and I had resigned ourselves to no more Singin'☆Shine!, but then.......

EVERYONE CAME BACK ON FOR IT AND IT WAS SO GOOD AND WE SCREAMED SO LOUDLY THAT LUMOS HAD TO LEAVE XD Lumos watched the entire stage play with us because she loves Leo, but our excitement over Singin'☆Shine! was too much for her XD

I swear I could say a million more things and I probably will later, but I'm hungry and thirsty and I have to walk away before I go insane~

also I do have a download of the stream but I don't want HappyEle to nuke me so just PM me if you want it thx!!!

I changed my laptop wallpaper today, because I got lost on pixiv + I wanted something summery~


art by 芦 ♥
Love how the only major change since the last time I posted my laptop bg is that I've added more versions of enstars to it XD I have good taste, I swear! Also finally remembered to include a shortcut to the control panel for mewdragon's online reader...since it's a weird url that I can never remember :T

Other than that, I've been fussy about the new enstars UI but not for major reasons, just more that I have muscle memory and only one of the versions I play has changed. I still play in ENG + CN and they won't be getting the UI change for yearssssss so I'm just struggling. And it's partially glitchy from being a massive change, so I have to be patient...something I'm bad at XD

I usually try to make the maximum amount of icons for challenges/contests I enter, but I'm still feeling burnt out ;w; I managed to pull together the minimum 5 for monthlyinspo, but most of them I'd made earlier in the month...bluh. I'm not happy with most of what I made, either.

BAD CREATIVITY BRAIN SUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!

I did get the 5* from Sena's event today, at least!!! I don't even like him that much, but 1) the song slaps, 2) the aesthetic slaps, and 3) I'm trying to get as many copies of Leo's 4* from it as possible, which means I'm potentially getting two copies of the 5* XD


Senaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~~~~~~ real talk tho I've been looking forward to this event for over a year; Or the Beautiful Golden Drop is hands down my favorite Knights song *w*
okay back to the jp event~ I'm not gonna get Hokuto from sitting on my ass ;D

I FINISHED KOHAKU'S BIG BOW TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So clearly it was time to take the nuis on an ~adventure~
Also, Pat and I had avoided going to the new Ebisu yesterday and could not pull that off again XD We wanted to see the (relatively) new Japanese store!!!

....but first we went to Chili's for dinner. It had a wait and I was really hungry and I had to work very hard not to throw a tantrum in the Chili's entryway, because I'm the strongest. It ended up being fine and the food was good and I survived waiting XD I was feeling particularly whiny and difficult earlier, which suuuuucked.

BUT EBISU WAS REALLY GOOD!!!! It has its own parking lot in Towson, which is a big plus! Also if this place had been there when I was in college, I would have been even more broke than I already was XD Pat I both kept marveling at how much it would have destroyed our finances back then, lmao.

Honestly, I was having a bad pain day so didn't stay as long as I would have liked...which was maybe a good thing? XD They had a lot of tasty looking snacks that I don't usually see at H Mart or Lotte Market, so I will definitely be going back to peruse more of those.

And then we came home and farted around for awhile, but tbh we had originally gone out for bubble tea - cuz a lot of bubble tea places are super cute for optimal nui photoshoot options - and then we didn't end up going. And I started working on this entry at like 9:45 pm, at which point I got disappointed that we never got bubble tea...

NEVER FEAR, GONG CHA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of their locations is open until 11 pm on the weekends, so we went back out~ However, they were out of boba...and a lot of other things.....but whatever, we had a nice time AND I got cute pictures ♥


they look so cute in the ita bag now!!!!!!!

( even more pics from the nui adventure! )

Anyway! I'm now very satisfied and exhausted. The JP enstars server is down for 24 hours of maintenance to roll out the new UI, so I'm sad it's and nervous about what it'll be like ;w; But the merge game has hit the ENG server + my favorite Knights event is happening, so it's not all bad.

ALSO I MAXED MY FIRST EVER GACHA CARD IN ENSTARS BY HAVING TWO COPIES OF REI'S FIRST FEATURE SCOUT COME HOME WITHIN 3 SCOUTS OF EACH OTHER??????


I was expecting it to be one of the multiple cards I have 4 copies of but nope!!!! Rei pulled ahead XD

( just more enstars squeeing and shit in here )

aaaaand I think I'm gonna play for FFVII~ baibai!

We had a really nice day with friends today!!!!! Mimi and Magenta came up from Virginia to hang, which is part of what inspired the manic house cleaning XD But now our downstairs looks a lot better and we got to hang with friends XD

So, after chatting and showing them around the house some - and letting them pet Lumos, which was great because people are always amazed by how soft she is!!! - we ended up going out to eat a late lunch at one of our fave places in Hampden. Pat came along too, since Mimi was like "you're coming too, come on" and I'm just happy whenever friends meet & get along. I DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD GO BADLY but I have anxiety like, all the time.

And then we somehow ended up joking about Knights for too long on the drive back to our house, and now we're maybe cosplaying Knights together at Otakon??? idk exactly how this happened XD But Pat's gonna be Leo, which I think will be fun, and Liz and I are still trying to decide which one of us is gonna be Sena and Naru-chan. We're both fine with either, so it's like...okay I guess we need to figure it out soon-ish.

I usually like making our cosplays, but Mimi found some actually good looking ones to buy on aliexpress and Pat wants to remake some of the accessories when they arrive, so they won't look like cheapo costumes that we put no effort into. And we'll look very consistent if we all buy the same costume, which helps.

ALSO I JUST LOVE MAKING PLANS WITH FRIENDS IDK IT'S JUST NICE!!!!!!! friendship good ;w;

They stayed way later than they meant to but we were having such a nice time together...thus is life XD It was just a really nice day!!!! :D

AND THEN!!!! LUMOS IS SO FUCKING CUTE I LOVE HER!!!! I know it's after 3 am, but Liz is still grinding out the last points they need to get a 3rd copy of Shinobu so here we are!!! It means I get to share Lumos (and also some other pictures from today).


but also why does my cat look AI generated XD

( a few more pics under here! )

Last night I did end up screenrecording demon Madara in Halloween Rendezvous...and then also a few other MVs in his two feature scouts, because I was in the zone I guess???? idk I had fun! And now I have a ton of screencaps to make icons from OwO

Also I'm super achy because I had a long day but it was worth it so who cares!!! I'd do it again in a heartbeat ;D

My entry titles suck XD

But I am quite tired. It's been a long weekend into the week and I am pushing through, the best I can. Next week is spring break and I cannot wait to get a chance to play catch up.

In better news, I've continue to enjoy enstars~ I've been playing engstars and jp simultaneously (because I have an extra phone) and having too much fucking fun with all the big plot stuff that's happening in jp right now...I'm learning to like Knights because so much is going on with them XD They're a fucking mess and I could not STAND Leo at first, but between his really good stage play actor + reading more stories with him in them, he's growing on me, like mold.

Also, writing music with his own fucking blood in Checkmate was raw as hell and also the angst is just *chef's kiss* so I guess I like him now. His obnoxious autistic swag has intrigued me ;D

ALSO ALSO excited for the official English subs for Element, aka staying up until 1 am to watch 12 minutes of anime every night is definitely not at all contributing to my fucked up sleep schedule XD So worth it. I will watch this story every single time it's adapted, which is why I'd also love to see it as a stage play OwO plz give me moooooooore I love the five eccentrics.

uhhhh I'm supposed to be critiquing someone's poetry in class but I'm lost in enstars I'm sorry to everyone who needs me to do responsible things I am the worrrssssttttttttttt