ButterflyBones

KOI finally restocked Mel's collab, and a bunch of fans spent good money with them(a single pair of their shoes can be fairly expensive) only to get emails that their orders wouldn't be shipped if they used discount codes.. codes worth less than $15 off, that the website literally asks you if want to enter, with no notice that your order will be denied if you do. The emails were confirmed to have come directly from the owner too, saying at the end "You should not reproduce, distribute, store, re-transmit, use or disclose this email to anyone(this is not legal). The views expressed in this communication may not be official policy of Koi Footwear, but the personal views of the originator(neither is this lol).” It's really shitty and weird, and I feel bad for all the people who shopped with them and either don't get their order at all, or get nickle-and-dime'd by this scammy owner over a discount worth an average of $6-$10 in order to complete their shipment. Doesn't seem like a business worth supporting, IMO.

Mestre Ensinador, now known as "Mestre Martinez"

Whoops, I don't keep up with him at all(and I'm sure all of us here know why) so I thought it was more recent than that when it came up. And I'm not surprised if it is edited, but a ton of people were claiming to have seen it live themselves so I believed it at first, lol. This one is still funny if it's fake tbh

Holy shit, guys. Somebody hacked the speakers at Oliver Tree's concert and played Moon Cycle, lmao. The way he RAN off stage

I typed a reply to this a few days ago and decided not to post it, but now this is BLOWING UP and exaggerated articles are being written about it and pushed all over SM, so it's back on my brain.. I get that PORTALS has become her passion project and she wants funding really badly. But that shouldn't mean using her(mostly teenage) fans for money, pushing them cheaply made jewelry(for $700), NFTs, hologram "meet and greets", etc. Next thing you know they'll be paying for a M&G with a her cardboard cutout for $300/ticket, and it'll be "okay" because "she told you that's what it'd be, didn't you read?". Like, just open a GoFundMe. We'd probably all pitch in. Besides, if she'd used more of the leaks for the final tracklist, set aside more promo budget, and put out less but higher quality merch, she'd have made so much more money off initial sales. She's intentionally put herself in a corner and I wonder if it'll be worth it in the end, let alone what she envisioned.. Especially after we've seen her waste opportunities on the music videos to save ideas for the movie almost no one wants. All in all I guess I'm just confused and have no idea how to feel other than being exhausted by the constant controversy chewing on this fandom ever since 2017.

Don't worry, we'll find out in about 5 more years

So she's saying in a recent interview that she has "scars all over her body now" from the "intense stunt work" in VOID.. what stunts is she referring to? 90% of the video is just her thrash-dancing and running around in front of green screens.

I actually prefer this one over most of the others, but I think that's just because it's so simple yet effective, and I've been struggling to get used to a lot of the wardrobe we've seen so far. Like, I LOVE the concept of fairy clothing and earth themes, but the execution with all the torn fabric, grunge elements and randomly sewn patchwork pieces just hasn't been my thing. I'd love to see more detailed costumes and changes like we got in the K-12/AS era, or at least get more outfits like the mossy 2 piece instead of these Depop fairycore dresses. Some of them look more like streetwear to me than anything. Doesn't really fit the "fairy from another world" vibe.

Before PORTALS released, I genuinely thought this was going to be her best era yet, and draw a ton of new fans and followers to her. Now, I'm not so sure what to think. If anything, she seems to be losing more original fans than gaining new ones. It just feels like she's pushing herself even further into a corner here, even lowering the quality of her art to pull off certain ideas, and the aesthetic(mostly the costume) is even more divisive than Cry Baby/K-12 which says a lot.. it makes me doubt that the movie all of this effort is going towards is even going to be worth it for her in the end. This is a metric fuckton of effort for what might amount to a huge, extremely expensive misstep.

Respectfully, fuck that.. send her the link to Mrs. Potato Head and tell her to get a grip

Probably because she(and every TikToker, apparently) uses it for almost every single video and "teased" more than half of it before it even released. It's a great song, even better that she did it all herself, but the fact that it already feels overplayed and it's only been out for like 3 months says a lot, lol..

Exactly. These videos were probably intended to be placeholders that are nice to look at, but have little to no plot or substance because she's "saving that for the movie"(that most of her fans don't even want now that she's cutting quality elsewhere to make room for it). I get that this is her vision, and to an extent I was willing to sit back, shut up, and appreciate that. But now it just feels like she's more or less given up on her art outside of the film medium, which isn't giving me much hope. Even K-12 was more fun than this.. like, right off the bat. I'm just confused I guess. This era feels like it should be so much more fun than it has been, but something's so off.

I am feeling so gaslit right now by all of the people on IG and Twitter saying this is her best video ever made...

I'm not sure she's trying to look insane so much as desperate, but I know what you mean. It'd be nice to see her do more actual dancing than all of the violent thrashing and head-whipping. And I wonder what Cry Baby era Melanie would've done with these songs.. She would've killed it with the budget that these videos must be getting. Even when she hardly had a budget, she still created some of the best, most creative videos I've ever seen. Just compare the clean CGI and set design in Mad Hatter to VOID, for instance.. it's probably just me, but I feel something missing here.

The opening WAS really good, pretty much up until the first chorus for me. After that it just felt kind of messy and fell a little flat. I'm hoping she's going to give it a much better treatment in the movie(if it even gets approved), but I really don't see the point in having both when she could've just put out some really great, high budget music videos and left it at that.

I can appreciate what she's going for but I'm not really into these visuals. It's just missing the immersive feeling and "magic" of her past work. VOID was 90% violent dance-thrashing and blurry CG IMO, particularly the scene where she's being chased by herself, which looked a little.. low budget? I just expected something completely different I guess. I'm glad we at least got to see her again outside of the costume again, though. For that alone, 10/10

Well that looks... Interesting

VOID thumbnail is up, what are y'alls thoughts? It's certainly not what I expected it to look like.

Mrs. Potato Head is my personal favorite Cry Baby video, but I'm really into both of the Soap videos too. Wish she hadn't taken down the original! It really fit the song. I love that she had it playing on the TV in the second one though.

She also said in the latest interview that she's looking to produce most of her songs by herself in the future. I'm happy for her, but I'm also not sure how I feel about that. Her best work has been with K+OL in my opinion and it'll be sad if we never hear more from them. I get why she was upset about the mass leaks, but I still think they were really robbed of their spot on the PORTALS album.

There is NO WAY all of that will be done on time if it's done right. I don't even think anyone wants both at this point.. not unless they're looking forward to 5 more years of video and film production. It took enough time just to produce and release the Cry Baby videos and those weren't nearly on the level of what she's trying to do now(extensive CGI, full body costuming, etc). Why does she put so much on her plate all the time, all at once? An album release, a whole tour in costume, press and interviews, music videos, and a movie? I just do not get it. She's really pushing her boundaries with this era and she'll burn out eventually if she's not careful.

If some of y'all keep logging in with the hot takes like these, I'm going to have to divorce this thread. It's getting sad here, guys.

I think everyone just needs to stop asking for her to release more Cry Baby material/videos/concert performances at this point. She's expressed openly how tired she is of it and I don't blame her considering how much her style has changed since then. And is the costume really that bad to some of y'all? Honestly asking, not trying to be rude. She's always been an experimental artist. We shouldn't be surprised that she's stepped in the direction of full body costumes now. I did notice this time around that she had the prosthetics done differently for her face, leaving her lower jaw open to sing more easily, and probably also to keep her cooler with less material sitting on her bare skin. I think that's a good idea if she's really going to keep up with the prosthetics for the whole tour since it's so hot everywhere. Definitely agree that I'm going to miss seeing her face, though.

It's Teddy Bear for me. It hardly gets talked about, and a lot of people here just don't like it at all! I'm not really sure why. There are similar songs she's put out lyrically/beat-wise that everyone seems to love.