#dkz stuff

[sailorjisunq]

<재찬3

[blinkstay4life]

*Felix, trying to get Hyunjin to learn english*

Hyunjin: English is such a difficult language. Felix: Youre right. Like, it can be understood through, tough, thorough, thought, though

Hyunjin: You need to stop.

Felix: Is it tough for Hyunjin to thoroughly understand English through thoughts?

[sanstropfremir]

I might just go on a huge tangent on here so I sincerely apologize, but I think this is something you've slightly touched on before, so maybe it's interesting to you? About the fact that literally Nobody on the staff/people who work behind the scenes of everything in the kpop industry are credited, mentioned or acknowledged for their work (other than, for example, the surface level “the designer deserves a raise!!!” that i so often see in mv comments :/). What I wanted to talk about specifically though is the company’s complete lack of crediting of these people?? I wanted to look into who directed this new mv that just dropped that I really liked the artistry, editing, and general composition of, but I found absolutely nothing across the group’s yt videos or their pages of who the director is, perhaps the set designer, editor, etc. Utterly taken aback, I checked the descriptions of other kpop music videos, from the most popular to more unknown groups (Twice, Dongkiz, to name a few), and again, nothing. I thought I was going insane, so I looked at mvs for like Amercian bands, and their video details are completely filled with the information of the producer, the recording studio, mixer, master, etc. etc, my point is: so much more than just the group’s twitter or merch page??? I’m like what is going on?? I noticed the kpop mv's only list licensing info at least, but so did the american ones? Idk. It’s either me not knowing where to look, or maybe I’m late to the fact that that is just how things work with kpop group companies or the industry as whole, just giving you no details as to who the hell else worked on this mv or song. I love my biases and appreciate their contributions, but I do not buy for a second that, more often than not, they wrote or produced or mixed absolutely nothing. I think it’s a huge shame that this is done because it reinforces the false idea that the idols are the ones responsible for everything we’re seeing and listening to. Maybe that’s the point, and that’s exactly what the industry wants you to believe, which that just makes it really sad. (Wait also maybe it all gets hidden because its work for hire or the companies buy ownership copyright...)

so i want to clarify some things for you, from the perspective of someone who works in the arts industry. firstly, and most importantly: visible credits exist in western filmic media because of unions. and there are still a LOT of fields that are not unionized. for thousands of years it was fundamentally understood that no performance based art form was done singularly by an individual, so there was often not a reason for there to be 'credits' in the first place. the whole assuming the face of the project is the person who did the most work thing? that's a very new phenomenon in the history of art, and it's capitalism's fault.

secondly: um. you are definitely not looking in the right places bc people are ABSOLUTELY credited? especially music production staff? i guess if you only look at a music video then sure yea there's not always credits there, but companies literally release tracklists and highlight medleys on their main social medias AS PROMOTION that have LISTS of their arrangers and composers. hell, tan's most recent tracklist has their fucking midi programmer on it????

also..............the fucking ALBUMS HAVE CREDITS IN THEM. i can't believe i have to say this but THE ALBUMS ARE THE MAIN PRODUCT AND THEY HAVE PAGES OF CREDITS IN THEM. i...????

like???

i got addy (@hoforwonho) to send these to me, these are from a lucy album and nayeon's album, and they literally have pages of credits???

lastly, and most importantly: the only people who are being 'fooled' into thinking that idols are 'producing' most of the content are western fans. because that is the stereotype promoted BY THE WESTERN MUSIC INDUSTRY. so that is the lens through which you view the korean music industry. koreans and korean fans are well aware that idols do not produce their own artistic content, there is quite literally a stigma around idols in sk about how they are not viewed as artists SPECIFICALLY because of this. gdragon and jonghyun were HUGE deals for being some of the first idol producers + songwriters. music is a huge part of the korean entertainment industry and people who make music are very much a visible part of it. kim eana is a very famous lyricist and she has a popular radio show. kbs just did a whole competition show featuring producers as the contestants. companies are not required to put credits in music videos because music videos are only one part of a kpop cb, and they are also not obligated to put those credits in english. just because you can't find something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and the whole industry is at fault for it.

[mizugucci]

hiii everyone im finally posting this after ignoring all my tags for two weeks lmao. i love these kind of games though its fun to look back, so thank you for tagging me:

@floweruna / @hongberries @gnanii @yangsminho and @honeydewtual

rules: link your favorite and/or most popular post from each month this year <3 (it’s totally fine to skip months!) and tag some CCs you love!

im sure most people have already done it, but ill tag some people just to say hi @taegyunie @ambivartence @awek-s @flops @strhwaberries @hwichanis

i added way too much commentary, so this will go under a readmore lmao. also i included ALL gifs including from my gg and fandom sideblogs, not just bgs.

january

favorite: obviously my favorite was my magazine/gif thing i made for kenta's birthday (6th year in a row, this year will be 7) unfortunately it doesnt load very well lol

most popular: these txt gifs (sugar rush ride) and taehyun+stickers

february

favorite: i cant deny i still think about this set of sebin during snuper's rain of mind era... the sparkles will always have a chokehold on me. ps check out my pixy wings set

most popular: this joshua set (for whatever reason lol)

march

favorite: i have several but im rly happy at how the wjsn + butterflies set turned out, its so nice. also my two harry june sets have a soft spot in my heart

most popular: this set of svt aju nice, its not a surprise that when i post svt it gets way more notes lol. i do like it a lot though

april

favorite: by FAR my fav (excluding macarena) is my loona as witches gifset. its one ofmy best im not gonna lie but also.... yuma sunshine...

most popular: actually i had a couple that were fairly popular but uh another joshua gifset has the most but ALSO this blitzers macarena post is nearing 200 notes??? i would consider that a fave too. and apparently tumblr loves big yuto/little yuto the same i do

may

favorite: i outdid myself in my dkz 9 to 5 set here. like idk how it ended up looking good but i love it sm.

most popular: ANOTHER joshua set??? im not even joshua biased. hes just so pretty LOL this is boring ill mention the 2nd most popular too. which is also another boring svt set. NEXT is big yuto/little yuto again <3

june

favorite: i made a gifset pretending fly me to the moon had a m/v and it flopped SO HARD i forget that i actually made it. also not to sneak this one but bitsaeon is SOOOO beautiful

most popular: campus crush junseo was my most popular this month, AS IT SHOULD BE. everyone should love that teddy bear

july

favorite: mmm two horror-adjacent gifsets!!! a set for dreamcatcher's chase me and an au that set kino (ptg) as a horror protag. lol it was so niche but i enjoyed it

most popular: omg i didnt think it would be but junghwan in the move m/v... as it SHOULD BE (again) i was let down a lot by trsr this year but this song kept me interested

august

favorite: mmm probably changsun in heartbeat. i LOVE that song and also it brought me back to 2017. nostalgia is.. very strong lol

most popular: im ignoring yet another joshua set. sorry josh but lets let others have a spot lmao. actually after that, a gifset of jaechan in his pre-release solo has the most notes. thats crazy!

september

favorite: my fav is OBVIOUSLY the set of snuper + sparkles. supposedly i was going to turn it into a series of boys+sparkles but we'll see.

most popular: its kind of funny, it seems like there arent a lot of ptg stans on tumblr but they always crawl out of the woodwork to rb my ptg stuff. i love u guys. and i miss yanan.

october

favorite: another installment in my women+horror series was my fav for this month. girlies gotta love vampires

most popular: i am SO glad. if it is any of my sets to be popular, i would never be disappointed if its omega x. they deserve the WORLD and ill personally give it to them. btw my pics with jaehan and taedong turned out soo well but i look AWFUL with sebin lmaooo

november

favorite: ahhh definitely anthonny in magic hour jacket behind. hes an ICON and i really liked him in bp

most popular: ohhh this was a surprise, i guess bc i only did 4 gifsets in november, but this seowon in wonderland m/v has the most notes. totally valid, hes beautiful

december

favorite: baby... yuma... sunshine loml obviously is my fav. hes sooo cute in that beret. and his smile. oh im gonna cry hes so cute LOOK AT MY SON!!!!!

most popular: i guess kpop has less of a reach on tumblr now because my one and only fandom post has the most notes lol. anyway if you havent seen a journey to love, you really should

a few thoughts:

well, its not a surprise that my most popular were seventeen and txt but it was interesting to see the variety of groups that i did gif besides them

peak time really had (has) a chokehold on me lmaoooo so many sets spawned from that show.

i also giffed more than i thought i had, so that was very neat to discover. although it was funny i posted 4 gifsets in the entirety of november

i talked so much and i apologize but thank you to anyone who even scrolled down this far, thanks for bearing with me!!

[boysplanetrecaps]

Recap of Boys Planet Episode 1 (Part 1)

It’s time for another giant MNET show! Are you excited, fellow Star Creator? Woo!

This is Boys Planet, also called Boys Planet 999 by random incorrect people, including me. And this thing you’re reading is a “watch along” guide/recap to the show. You can read it as you watch the show to get the behind the scenes dirt, or to keep track of who is who and what is going on, or after you watch, or whenever. I don’t spoil anything with respect to who gets kicked off, but I will help you connect the dots with respect to who is who. I’ll use helpful pictures and stuff, too.

All time stamps will correspond to the version on Viki. When I list ages, I’ll use international ages (Korean ages have historically always been 1 more than the way the rest of the world accounts ages). 

Who am I? 

An internet rando. I live somewhere in the United States and am over 21 years of age. I used to sing acapella and have a strong sense of pitch, but for dancing I just know what I like. I can read/understand a bit of Korean and a bit of Japanese as well, and can tell the difference between spoken Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, so at times I might be able to shed a little light as to what’s going on. When it comes to evaluating performances,  I’m not likely to be mean, and I try to understand what might be going on with people but I will be snarky and honest, especially about the editing. Cool? Cool! 🙂To the recap!

Feel free to skip past the drama-teaser to 1:25 for an earnest promise that the show’s producers have paid other people to watch them so that they can’t possibly cheat, before the show can begin and of course, immediately begin to cheat. Yay!

The show’s host, I’m sorry, “Star Master”, Hwang Minhyun, talks earnestly and dully about how there are stars in the sky and foreign members of kpop groups. Hilariously, he appears to be in a futuristic room looking out into a starry sky, perhaps aboard an orbiting space station with a really good gravity system in place. His desk, a cheap Ikea looking affair, is bedecked with a model of the main seating area for the show -- The Space Council Chambers  --  a name plate that says “Star Creator”, an unusually huge yellow desk lamp, and an old fashioned globe. This is the shit I live for. 

Minhyun is known for his appearance on Produce 101 Season 2 (aka, Broduce 101) as well as for being a popular member of both Wanna One and NU’EST. I’m more of a Baekho girl, but I like Minhyun just fine. There’s something about his face that I never, ever, ever recognize him when I see him, which I find is often the case for Korean “visuals.” He is nice looking, if a bit… personality free? But that could be the directing. 

Anyway, Minhyun gets up and pushes a button that says start…

And then we see a (computer generated) room which has been set aside to house a large…. gumball… machine... thing (that is computer generated). Large plastic balls fall from the two parts of the machine to meet in the center. None of this is necessary, or real, and I find that delightful. 

Minhyun tells us that now, we are all Star Creators and we’re going to make the next Kpop boy group that the world wants. You know, in case you’re not happy with A.C.E, Astro, Ateez, The Boys, BTS, Ciipher, CIX, Day6, DKZ, Drippin, Enhypen, E’last, Exo, FTIsland, GOT7, Golden Child, Highlight, IKON, JustB, Kingdom, Lucy, Monsta X, NCT, Oneus, ONF, OnlyoneOf, Pentagon, The Rose, Seventeen, SF9, SHINee, Stray Kids, TO1, Treasure, Trendz, TXT, TVXQ, Up10tion, Vav, Verivery, Victon, Vixx, WEi, Winner, Xdinary Heroes, Younite, or Z-Stars. But yes, we need more groups. Bring ‘em on. 

Minhyun goes on to talk about how there are two groups of trainees -- K group (Korean) and G group (Global), represented by blue and pink respectively, as well as two heavily mic’d flags. 

“Please vote for the boy shining brightest!” the shiny boys chant in unison.

You can vote for whoever you want, whether K or G, though the editors do strongly suggest you vote K, and the votes will again be weighted the way they were in GP999 -- ie, Korean votes will be weighted as 50% of the votes, and Global votes will be weighted as the other 50%. If you want to skip past the voting instructions, skip to 5:20. 

So, we look down at what looks kind of like one of those rolling-marble puzzles, 

but it turns out to be the hallway through which all the trainees have to walk on their way to the Space Council Chambers.

Lee Da Eul (18) and Lim Jun Seo (17) from 143 Entertainment,  the first to enter, are offered sparkly star stickers, and they decide to give themselves 1 star each, adding that they aren’t totally sure if they even deserve those one stars. Ok, politeness is sweet, but why go on this show if you don’t believe in your abilities? Anyway, these chosen two get to say “woah” and “eego buyo?” as the lights turn on loudly. They explore the Council seating, feel the soft seats for the top 9, then decide to sit in seats 4 and 5. (Later on, they’ll perform “Replay” by SHINee as their audition.) 

Next to enter are the trainees from Wakeone, who, we see in a flashback, had a pre-show meeting with their sunbae, Kim Chae Hyun from Kep1er, who did really well on GP999. Chaehyun encouraged them to be confident on the show, saying, “If someone is very good but has no confidence then there’s no charm to them.” The five Korean trainees from Wakeone gave themselves 7 stars each -- these are Kim Taerae, Park Hanbin, Lee Jung Hyun, Mun Junghyun, and Park Minseok. Their confidence spurs Lim Jun Seo to go move to seat 9. Wakeone’s maknae, Mun Jung Hyun (17), sits in the chair for #1. (Later on, these 5 will perform “The Real” by ATEEZ.)

From here there’s going to be a lot of fighting as to who gets to sit in that chair, and I’ll be honest, I don’t care that much. 

Next to enter is: Canada! One of the Wakeone trainees says “I would’ve never imagined someone from Canada” as the on-screen words say, “What will this Canadian trainee look like?” The combined impression from those two sentences is that people from Canada are unimaginably weird looking. Mun Jung Hyun wonders, “Will people with blonde hair and blue eyes show up?” Which, again, hilarious. Do they not know that Somi (IOI/soloist/future Star Master this season), Wendy from Red Velvet, Mark Lee from NCT, and a bunch of other k-idols are from Canada? Why do I know that, come to think of it? Why do I know that, and not where my keys are? 

Also, whenever Koreans talk about Canada, all I can think about is the k-drama, Goblin, in which they talk about “Canada” as if it is a single city with maybe two restaurants, and where it is always the beginning of autumn, encased in a gentle fluttering of orange maple leaves.

We meet Seok Matthew (20), who is independant, and has given himself three stars. He looks a tiny winy bit like Xiumin from Exo to me. In an interview, we can see that he speaks Korean reasonably well. His sister got him into dancing and now he really likes it, and he came to Korean to reach his dream. 

Then we meet Japanese trainee Takuto, born November of 2007, dressed for… boxing? He has boxing gloves hanging from a string around his neck and has a sweat band around his head. In his intro package, he speaks in sort of halting Korean -- hey, it’s a lot better than my own Korean -- and poses in power poses to show he’s a “manly man” (they translate it as “tough guy” but google translate says “manly man” and I think that’s funnier). 

An up close shot reveals he has actually stenciled “Takuto” in English letters on his cheek with blush. 

As the MNET editors mercilessly play the clip of him saying he’s a manly man ( “상 남… 상 남 자” /“Sang nam… sang namja…”) over and over and over again as if to teach us the proper pronunciation, Takuto looks around at the older bigger guys and makes a big heart over his head with his hands. All the other guys react by laughing and clapping, charmed. 

MNET obviously isn’t showing everyone who comes in, as eagle eyed viewer will spot additional trainees in the Space Council who were not shown entering, but hey, I mean, whatever, it’s MNET. This has been edited so much it’s basically fiction.

In comes Wumuti (23), who has such a unique look to him that I was curious as to his background. My internet roving tells me that he was also on the MNET show Under 19, and that he’s an ethnic Uyghur from China. I was like, ok, what is a Uyghur? Turns out they’re a sort of Turkish ethnic group but mostly they live in Northwest china, and oh…. It’s really sad and awful, guys. The Chinese government is doing things like work camps and forced sterilization and stuff to try to wipe them out. I can’t help but root for anyone who comes from a background like that. Also, his name written in Korean characters looks cute: 우무티. Later on he’ll perform UN Village by Baekhyun.

So, Wumuti comes in and we see he’s given himself 6 stars. He makes a beeline for Chair 1, where he loses Rock Paper Scissors. Come on, can’t the guy catch a break? 

Then we see a montage of trainees fighting for Chair 1, and again, I don’t care. They plank for it, thumb war, etc. Kum Jun Hyeon, 19, who has absolutely covered his nametag in stars to the point you can barely see even his name, is cheered on by his Redstart ENM labelmates as he nabs the chair. They have also gone completely HAM on those stars. (Later on, he’ll do Nunu Nana by Jessi.) I feel worse and worse for our initial two guys, giving themselves just one star. 

Apparently, MNET isn’t interested in spending time watching each trainee come in this time, and that’s possibly for the best, but it does make it a bit sketchy that we see certain trainees. 

For example, we meet the trainees from Taipei, who come in like this: 

Left to right, this is Chen Kuan Jui, Qiu Sheng Yang, Chen Ren You, and Dong Dong. Kuan Jui, holding that bejeweled stick, has given himself 5 stars, while the others have given themselves 2 or 3 each. Mun Jung Hyun and Kim Tae Rae wonder to each other, is that a magic staff? Like the kind that Sun Wukong carries? (Sun Wukong, aka the Monkey King, is a famous character from Chinese mythology.) (Later on they’ll do Tiger Inside by SuperM.)

Kuan Jui marches up to Chair 1 and does a full standing split that would actually put Le Sserafim’s Kazuha to shame

And thus, he earns the seat. 

I don’t know if the ability to put one’s ankle behind one’s neck is a something I need from a kpop idol. But I mean, good for him? I guess? 

In come the trainees from Jellyfish, and Lee Ye Dam reacts as if someone has splashed him in the face with cold water, which, given that this is MNET, is not impossible. Someone says, “no way!” which is very odd, because Jellyfish always sends trainees to shows like this. I mean, Mina and Sejong came out of PD 101. And it’s not as if Jellyfish is doing all that well. They squandered Sejong, they murdered Gugudan, and their most successful group is Verivery, who are very sweet, talented, and hardworking but not exactly smashing sales records. So yeah, not sure what Yedam is so excited about.

We get a bit of a slow-mo to take in what we might reasonably be excited about: sexy Park Gun Wook (18).

To be clear: I don’t personally find him sexy; he’s way too young to seem sexy to me personally. I’m saying that that is obviously what he’s going for. He gives off big time Kang Daniel vibes to me, not really in looks but in terms of what he’s aspiring to. He and his fellow Jellyfish trainees are tall and manly, and Gun Wook already may have a fan following since he did pretty well on another survival show called Wild Idol.  Gun Wook goes straight for Chair 1, and the other trainees comment on how muscular he is. He challenges the current seat sitter, a Japanese trainee named Riku, to a thigh wrestling game (??).  Poor Riku -- we didn’t see him take the seat, but we sure see him lose the seat.  

Time for an American trainee! I love that the Korean word for USA is “MiGuk” (or Bi-Goo, as it’s usually pronounced). Apparently it translates to Beautiful Country, which is so kind of them to say. I hope that the USA will do more things to earn that name going forward. 

Out come Jay and Na Kamden. Jay, lovey, there are already enough Jays in Kpop --you have to think of a different name. It seems like Jay strongly prefers speaking English, but understands some Korean, while Kamden understands Jay’s English but prefers to speak Korean. Kamden appeared on Wild Idol as well. 

Then we get a montage of tall global trainees, mostly Chinese. For people like me who don’t readily understand heights in cm, it’s good to know that 183 cm is 6 feet. So someone 188 cm is like, 6’2. 

We also meet Cong and Dang Hong Hai from Vietnam, who later on will perform View by SHINee. Hong Hai speaks Korean, even if it’s with a really thick accent. It has to be so hard for the global contestants. 

Then we meet the group from Osaka, Japan, and it turns out one of them is Keita, who the whole Space Council recognizes. He was on YG’s TreasureBox, the show that made the group Treasure, and then later on debuted with Ciipher. It’s not too weird he’d come on this show, as Ciipher is still, alas, in semi-nugu territory. 

Ah, here is Yuehua, who are sending in 4 Korean trainees and 4 Global trainees, each entering via their respective doorway, which is so charmingly unnecessary. The Korean trainees come out in all black, while the “global” team is a bit more colorful in faded denim. If you’re not familiar, Yuehua is a Chinese company with branches in Korea. They co-manage WJSN with Starship, and manage Everglow outright. They also manage new boy band Tempest. 

Anyway, then there’s a montage of the trainees finding each other handsome and saying they look like other famous people, capped off by the entrance of Sung Han Bin to the strains of tender piano music that presumably plays in his wake naturally due to his extreme handsomeness. 

Even I can tell that he is in fact, quite good looking in that classic kpop way. He looks like he should be with SM entertainment, but he’s from STUDIO GL1DE, which doesn’t bode well for his skills. A guy who looks like that who could do a nice step-touch and could at least carry a tune in a bucket would get picked up by a more prestigious agency. But maybe I’ll be proven wrong on that…. Hmmm…. 

Cube’s trainees are announced, and we’re treated to a brief montage of Cube’s top artists, including BtoB, Pentagon and G-Idle. The camera pauses for a moment on Hui from Pentagon as the group performs Shine. The trainees talk about how talented the Cube sunbaes are -- how talented would their hoobaes be? Out comes Bak Do Ha, looking like a figure skater. (Later on he’ll be performing My House by 2PM.) 

There’s still one more empty chair, and the Space Council wonders: what agency could sending the last trainee? It turns out it’s also… Cube?!? Bak Do Ha smiles and laughs to himself as the other trainees are wondering why this last trainee is being announced last and separately. They all immediately recognize him as Hui-sunbaenim from Pentagon, a group that debuted in 2016, has had some serious ups and some serious downs, and won a bunch of music shows as recently as a few months ago. This 29-year-old man who has already done his military service bows to the 15 year olds and introduces himself as Lee Hoe Taek from Cube, politely saying “I look forward to working with you.” 

Guys. GUYS. I have a lot of feelings about Hui from Pentagon being on this show. I could talk endlessly about it, but the upshot is: negative. I have negative feelings about this. When Pentagon went on Kingdom, they actually kind of… fell in my esteem. Hui seemed so sad, like the group was just so sad, and Hui was pushing so hard to make his song remixes cool that he forgot to make them… pleasant to listen to, or fun to see performed. I think Hui is a genuine, top-tier talent when it comes to songwriting, producing, and singing. I love a lot of Pentagon songs, including ones people don’t talk about but should, like Can You Feel It and Sha La La. I am still angry that E-Dawn got kicked out over being a human being with a love life, and angry that it hurt Pentagon a lot, and heartbroken that a lot of that probably landed on Hui’s head.I get it that he’s doing this to get people to notice Pentagon. After all, their contracts are up in 2023, and no doubt they’ll want to leave that awful agency. Maybe they’ll pull a GOT7 and all leave together and stay together. So I get it that he wants to promote. But the thing is, I don’t believe that “all publicity is good publicity.” I think having people feel sorry for you will make them not feel impressed by you, or attracted to you, and I think that will hurt you. I think this was a big mistake and it makes me feel second-hand-humiliation. I hope I’m wrong. Sincerely, I do. 

Anyway, this award winning songwriter and top-tier vocalist has rated himself 3 stars. Thinking about it, that was kind of the only move he could make -- he has to pretend to have a reason to be on the show, and that reason can only be to “work on myself and continue to improve to be the best Lee Hoe Taek I can be”, or something along those lines. To be Hui and give himself 4 (or more) stars would feel like an NBA star who came to dunk on a bunch of high school kids. 

We cut to his first interview with the staff, in which he said that he had only gotten discharged from the military a week ago and feels shy in front of the camera. We get a brief montage of trainees saying they’re not sure why he’s here, some of them seeming a little irritated. Others say that it’s a honor to be on the same show with Hui. 

Hui decides to challenge the current number-1 chair sitter (16 year old Park Ji Hoo, who says “I just got here!”) to a contest to win the chair, and bowing deeply and speaking politely, says he’d like to have a singing contest. Of course. He lets out a delightful musical phrase, and Ji Hoo stands there listening, then scurries away without singing a note. 

There’s something so poignant about Ji Hoo saying, “I just got here” to Hui. He just got here in the show, he just got here in this industry -- he just got here on this PLANET compared to Hui. And here comes Hui to take the chair. I like Hui, I do, I just…. Ugh. 

Ollie, who is representing China but seems quite comfortable speaking English, notices that the two sides of the room are really different, with K-group mostly wearing suits or leather, and G-group more varied and colorful. Yes, that is obvious. Can we have another season of Youth With You that doesn’t end with a milk scandal, please? Anyway… 

Interestingly, Ollie can also speak a decently pronounced, if slightly halting, Korean in his interview. Zhang Hao can also speak a bit of Korean -- it sounds to me like he has a Chinese accent on his Korean, but it’s not like I would really know. But they’re both Yuehua trainees and it wouldn’t surprise me if their agency gave them intensive Korean language training. Love that. It’s really smart of Yuehua, and so truly helpful to their trainees. 

0:23:00  The Judges Come Out

The room darkens and the trainees watch a short video about how they’re on Boys Planet now and are trying to become shining stars or whatever the shit. Turns out this year, there will be multiple hosts, and the viewers will be called Star Creators. The boys are nervous in general and in specific. 

Time to meet the vocal master: Lee Seok Hoon. The trainees recognize him, and while they clearly respect him, they’re scared of him after his time on Produce101. He’s known for turning his head to the side and looking disgusted when someone hits a sour note, or for nodding appreciatively with his eyebrows raised when someone hits a good note.

Solji is the female vocal master and their enthusiasm seems bigger -- it’s Solji from Exid! Who doesn’t love her? Wrong people, that’s who. A trainee says that she’s been teaching at a University, and like, I hope so. I just want Solji’s life to be full of respect and comfort. She just seems like such a class act. I bet she’s an excellent teacher. And then Onestar comes out, who we might recognize from GP999. The trainees cheer for him and he makes them cheer more. 

Then the rap master: pH-1 from H1ghr music, who introduces himself in rapid English. Several of the trainees claim to be big fans. I’ll be honest and say I’ve never heard of him. And I actually do listen to some k-rap. Per Wikipedia, he was born in Korea but moved to New York when he was 12. I guess he chose English as the lingua franca, but in that case, talk more slowly, dude. Anyway. Wikipedia adds,  “As the three keywords he pursues in his music are truth, positivity, and experience, his work contains positive or honest messages, generally excluding references to drugs, money bragging and excessive "flexing", and explicit sexual content.” So, look forward to that. Or not. I don’t know what you’re into. 

Dance Masters: From 1Million, Back Koo Young and Choi Young Joon. Look I don’t know much about much but I *do* know that 1Million is top tier when it comes to dance. So these guys are good. The trainees are psyched to see them. Also, Lip J, who is “the living legend of waacking.” The trainees say their judges/trainers are like the Avengers. 

The judges immediately move into intimidation mode. It’s time to find out how the trainees rated themselves, star wise. The Korean group was more confident, overall. 

What’s sort of interesting about this is that during GP999, the Chinese girls were far more confident than the Korean girls. That’s because Chinese culture isn’t as self-effacing as Korean culture is, in general. Kind of interesting, too, that they had the boys do this, but not the girls. With the girls it would have been such a mine field because it’s “unfeminine” to have faith in yourself. Anyway. 

Japanese trainee Haruto interviews, in Korean, “Only a maximum of four stars were allowed, but almost everyone did whatever they wanted.” Yep.

The judges explain that their first performance will be the “Style Level Test”, during which their self-assessed star levels will be replaced by judge-assessed stars. Also, we learn that K-group and G-group are being pitted against each other; the team that wins more stars overall will get access to the next song that they have to practice a day earlier. Kind of cruel -- my assumption, without having seen the whole episode, is that the K-group will win, and the G-group will be at a further disadvantage, having one day fewer to practice and needing even more time due to language barriers. Why do I watch these shows? Am I mentally well?  

Auditions Begin: 0:32:58

Finally, we get our first audition -- Team Jellyfish, who gave themselves all 4 stars. The trainees are suitably cowed; after all, Kim Dayeon from Kep1er is from Jellyfish. Kim Gyu Vin (who is a serious talent in his own right, and will later on perform Kick It) calls Park Gun Wook “Park Gun-Wook -nim” even though, as he notes, Gyu Vin is actually a bit older than Gun Wook. It’s just that Gun Wook looks so big and mature. Little boxer Takuto met team Jellyfish backstage and backed away from them as if scared, his hands in a fig leaf position, and they encouraged him to come closer and were nice to him and called him cute. Gun Wook is the leader, the all rounder, and is also apparently pretty nice. See? Kang Daniel vibes? 

They’re going to be performing GBTB (Go Beyond the Barrier) by their sunbaes, Verivery.  One of the dance masters actually choreographed this, but the boys seem confident to perform it in front of the choreographer. Fighting!

Left to right: Jang Yeo Jun, Park Hyun Been, Han Yu Seop, Park Gun Woo 

My thoughts:

I’ll be honest, this is my first time hearing this song, and I’m ok not hearing it again after this. Just sort of… like what if you took all the NCT songs and threw them in a blender with an electric guitar? Sorry, VERRER. I still think Verivery are very cute and charming and my bias is Dongheon.

As for the performance: I have not a ton to say, because it was fine. All four of them did fine dance wise. Gun Wook stood out with his charisma and his big nice face. (I know the Korean ideal is small faces, but I like big faces.) I think Jang Yeo Jun danced a little bit better than the others, doing those weird leg kicks a little bit better, and Park Hyun Been rapped really fast and pretty well. Their singing was on key, too. I think Han Yu Seop was the main vocalist, but I actually think his singing was among the weakest -- there were times that I couldn’t even hear him sing. But they were dancing really hard. So for an audition for one of these shows, he was ok. 

They ask GunWook to dance by himself, and he chooses a song by Seventeen. The dance masters warn him that it’s hard, but he’s unbothered. He has good charisma, great facial expressions, and sharp movements. As far as I can tell, he’s good. 

The judges give them all the same score -- 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐ . They took away a star because the boys didn’t sing loud enough. The boys do their best to accept their fate. 

WakeOne doing Glitch Mode. 

The team comes out in a choo choo train formation -- sorry for that extremely technical term --  then introduce themselves (and I’ll tell you a little more): 

Super Charming Anthonny! (He’s almost 19, from Japan, and got all A’s on Produce 101 Japan) 

Refreshing energy Min! (He’s 22, from Thailand, and also went on Under Nineteen)

Powerful Dance Haruto! (He’s 18, from Japan, specializes in dance, and went semi-viral for complaining that his profile picture didn’t look like him, even tho it kinda does….)

After they introduce themselves, Haruto asks if they can have a moment to check their formation -- basically, they want to rehearse on stage during the audition? The judges let them, sighing about kids today, but everyone is mildly impressed that these foreigners are talking to each other in Korean. Min’s profile says he speaks Thai, Korean, Chinese, and English, but not Japanese, so maybe that’s why they’ve settled on Korean to talk to each other -- plus it looks better to the judges that they know enough Korean to communicate. 

My thoughts: 

I have to note that Glitch Mode is the kind of song I’m a bit over. I really like Cherry Bomb and Firetruck and even got on board with Kick It but this sort of shouting-in-unison, wandering base line, jazzy-melodic-SM-bridge when the singers can sing… I just am a bit past it. Sorry, folks. (Update: But I do love Ayo, so who knows anymore?) So I don’t know this song super well. I listened to it twice before watching the performance trying to figure out what the melody is and kind of failed. So. There’s that. 

This was a really cute performance, though. I watched the full version on youtube before I watched the show version. All three of them danced well, with a lot of energy and great facial expressions. 

Haruto obviously stood out for dancing, doing aerials and backflips and splits. He rolled with the fact that his mic pack fell out of his pocket right at the beginning, and didn’t let it show on his face. But his singing was egregious. He’s not a singer, and this song is incredibly difficult to sing even when you’re standing still. Also, his rapping wasn’t too bad. 

Min did some high kicking and acrobatics as well, and his rapping was actually good. I won’t say his singing was good but it was on key as far as I could tell, which is an achievement. 

Anthonny was the vocalist of the team and as such didn’t do any flipping around, but he sang the best. Like I said, overall, pretty charming. I have a soft spot for Anthonny for no darn reason. He’s just a cutie. 

Interestingly, the version that aired on the show had most of the bad singing edited out. I think the show wanted Haruto to look better. The judges ask him about his dancing ability and he says he used to do ballet and proceeds to do a sort of crazy 30 consecutive ballet turns. Haruto is obviously a really good dancer, but so was Min, who also rapped well. And Haruto’s singing was very, very bad -- did I mention that? But they still gave him an All Star rating  ⭐ ⭐⭐⭐ , which strikes me as objectively incorrect. I like him, you guys. I do. He’s charming and cute and a great dancer. He didn't sing well in his audition. That isn’t an opinion; it’s a fact. I think maybe 2 or 3 stars would have been fairer. Or maybe Haruto sang a separate song and did a lot better in it, but we didn't see...?

Min and Anthonny both get 3 stars 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐ , though the show doesn’t care enough to bother to show it. 

Next up, at 49:00, is Team Taipei. I’ll put their photo back up so you don’t have to scroll back and forth.

Again, left to right, that’s Chen Kuan Jui, Qui Sheng Yang, Chen Ren You, and Dong Dong. 

The judges immediately ask about the big stick and he explains he needs it for performance. 

My thoughts:   They perform Tiger Inside by SuperM. As always, I checked out the Youtube version first, before I watched the MNET edited version. I like this song just fine, if you’re wondering. 

The flexible Chen Kuan Jui is 22. His online profile mentions he does ballet and that one of his hobbies is “stretching.” Yeah, that checks out. His dancing is very good -- little details like how he bends his fingers, stuff like that. You just know his toes are pointed inside those boots. That said, his vocal color is unpleasant, and his choice to retrieve and spin that dumb stick was…. You know…. A choice. A wrong choice, but a choice. Sorry if you liked it, but I found it really unimpressive. I’d rather just watch this talented dancer dance.

The blonde Qiu Sheng Yang is 21. He also was on Atom Boyz with Ren You, on the same team but eliminated much sooner than Ren You was. His performance here is not fabulous but not awful. He seemed uncomfortable to me, like he was overdancing a bit. 

The distinctive looking Chen Ren You is 19. His online profile states that he’s a singer; he was on a Taiwanese reality show called Atom Boyz that sounds like a frickin’ hoot, but doesn’t seem available in full with English subtitles, anywhere. Ren You has one of those faces -- like GunWook on this show, or Sehun from EXO, or that one guy from Drippin, Junho. Like a face that’s just like HI, I AM A FACE. I dig it, don’t get me wrong. Anyway, his performance was good. I thought his dancing was purposeful, but sort of calm, and his singing was really good. On key, on rhythm, pleasant, all that good stuff. I’m rooting for him.

The delightfully monikered Dong Dong is 22 and represents Stardust Entertainment. I’m old as shit but I am still apparently 12 years old on the inside because I can’t. He apparently was on a Chinese reality show called The Coming One 2. Anyway, he does fine, I guess. On key, dancing is decent, it’s not awful. Bring it on, bringenon, brigggedon! 

So yeah, I say Chen Kuan Jui was the best dancer in the group, and Renyou is the best singer in the group, but they were all basically ok. Of course, the MNET editing focuses almost entirely on the stupid stick, and Renyou’s excellent singing is edited out. They give Renyou 2 stars ⭐⭐ . Are we watching the same thing? Maybe his dancing was bad and I just can’t tell because I know nothing about dancing.  

The judges focus on flexy Chen Kuan Jui and give him time to dance, and of course, he’s genuinely a very very good ballet dancer. He can get up with his toes and flip around and do all sorts of crazy stuff. But I really dislike his singing voice and I don’t know, I find him off-putting for no good reason. That’s not fair of me, but yeah, it’s where I’m at. Regardless, the judges give him 4 stars.  ⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ We don’t see it, but Dong Dong gets 1 star  ⭐ and Sheng Yang gets 2 stars ⭐⭐ . 

Now we have a montage of G group groups: team Vietnam doing View, team Thailand doing Kokobop, and a Chinese group doing God’s Menu.  The editing here is brought to you by MNET’s editing team, shown here at their most recent staff meeting.

We barely see any of these teams, so I watched their full performances on Youtube and will let tell you about it! 

Team Kokobop:

A Thai duo who greet everyone with a sawadee ka. Zhang Hao from Yuehua (good looking guy with auburn hair -- we’ll meet him soon) tells Ricky from Yuehua (distinctive blonde guy, giving us Keifer Sutherland in Lost Boys vibes) that he wants to be friends with the Thai guys because he likes Thai food.

Winnie, from FirstOne Entertainment, claims his specialty is freestyle dance. He’s 24. I’ve seen his name spelled Winne, but more official sources spell it  Winnie. He’s a member of nugu group NINE.i -- two other members of that group are on the show, but they’re Korean, so we’ll meet them later. 

Nice is an individual trainee. He’s 22. He seems scared to look up or into camera lenses. 

My Thoughts:

They perform Kokobop, and I watched the whole performance on Youtube. I’m a huge EXO-L (my bias is ALL OF THEM) and I really love this song, so I know it well. Winnie was actually pretty decent, singing a really difficult song. He was a little sharp here and there but really not that bad. He also looked pretty comfortable and hit the dance moves reasonably well. I never know what the Korean public thinks looks good, but I think his styling isn’t working for him. He’s wearing way too much foundation, that shade of hair color doesn’t suit his skin, and his contact lenses just give him an unearthly, fake look. He looks better in some photos I’ve seen of him online, like this one: 

Winnie, I hope for good things for you going forward. 

Nice was terrible vocally; the dancing was ok but the vocals were unacceptable. He also looked really, really shy -- like he can’t even make eye contact with the camera. I think he is way out of his league, bless him. You’re very cute, Nice. I assume you’re rich or you wouldn’t be here, so I hope your personal wealth cushions the blow when you are rightfully kicked off. (Smash cut to Nice making the final line up because he’s cute….???)

MNET editing was pretty kind, honestly. Nice can only benefit by being edited down. He’s like the shark in Jaws -- looks great as long as you don’t see him for long. The judges give Nice 0 stars, and give Winnie 1 star ⭐ .

Next up is a G-group team: Team God’s Menu

Oh, these poor guys. They look good in their outfits, to be fair, but poor guys. Non-native speakers of Korean, trying to do this song? As someone said online, “Their souls probably left their bodies when they found out they had to do this song.” I’m trying to think of a group who could cover this song and do it justice. Monsta X probably could. And I mean, of course BTS could. Probably Hui or Jeon Soyeon could do a cool remix that would suit their own teams. Regardless, this is not an ideal song for a rookie group of non-native Korean speakers. 

I watched the whole performance on Youtube. I’m not obsessed with Stray Kids but I do like them (my bias is Changbin!), and I love love LOVE this song. Here’s my take: 

Xuan Hao also appeared on Youth With You 3, which I didn’t watch. He ended in 62nd place and apparently also uses the name “Swen.” He says on his initial profile worksheet that God’s Menu is his favorite song, and maybe that’s one of the reasons that he did a great job here. His dancing was sharp when it had to be sharp and fluid when it had to be fluid, and his singing was on key and on the beat. He’s a better singer than I.N. anyway. Yes I said it: I.N. is not a good singer. Come find me and kill me for it, I guess? That’s the kind of thing you should end a human life for, right? Anyway, I like Xuan Hao. 

Lin Shiyuan was apparently once a Cube trainee, but is now independent. He has the job of rapping Changbin’s intro rap. He doesn’t do very well. He very noticeably rushes the beat pretty much every time it’s his turn to vocalize in any way, maybe because he’s nervous, and his pronunciation is not great. He had definitely learned these complicated dance steps, but he wasn’t dancing them, just doing them. I could see the fear in his face, and when he wasn’t singing or rapping, you could almost see him counting the steps. When they were flipping the pancake, he didn’t look up to wait for it to come back down, which is 90% of the fun of that move. I can’t blame him and I’m not blaming him. Poor guy. 

Feng Junlan actually did pretty well. His rapping was on the beat and sounded good, and his dancing was precise. He looked up when they flipped the pancake -- it makes such a difference. If the judges have any sense that have to have noticed how well he did. 

When I tried to watch it to focus on Chen Liang, Feng Junlan kept stealing my attention. Liang did fine dance wise, as far as I could tell (but didn’t look up when they flipped the pancake!), but his vocals were very off key (if at least more or less on the beat). 

The judges are kind in their manner, but not generous with their stars. 

Xuan Hao gets 1 star ⭐ , which seems too low to me. 

Lin Shiyuan gets 1 star ⭐ , which must be for the dancing.

Feng Junlan gets 2 stars ⭐⭐ , which seems low to me, but I’m glad it’s not 1 or 0. 

Chen Liang gets 2 stars ⭐⭐ , which seems high to me. 

Team View - Vietnam

My thoughts:

Obviously, like any sane person, I love this song. 

Basically, none of their performance gets shown, but you guys, they were pretty good! Honestly, they sang on key and tried to keep their energy up and yeah, I don’t speak Korean but I know this song well and it didn’t sound awful. Check it out on Youtube and see for yourself -- compare their singing to that of Haruto’s and you’ll see what I mean. 

The judges give 22-year-old Cong just 1 star ⭐ , which is cruelly low, and give 19 year old Dang Hong Hai 2 stars ⭐⭐ , which is ok, I’m on the fence between 2 and 3 for him. But it’s like the judges are watching these auditions from Minhyun’s space station. And maybe… I don’t know… is there a little racism? Just a little bit? Against these two Vietnamese trainees? 

From what we can tell from the editing, the judges really dinged them for their pronunciation, as if that matters the most? As if the ability to sing on key isn’t, perhaps, more important? 

In an interview, Cong says, in Korean, that he practices Korean every day.  His pronunciation is pretty bad, though. You probably wouldn’t guess from hearing it that that was Korean, but if you listen closely you hear the Korean verb endings. It must be so hard for someone coming from a tonal language, like Vietnamese or Chinese, to learn a non-tonal language like Korean.  I think it’s much easier for Japanese speakers to speak Korean -- they’re totally different languages but have similar sounds in them. (To be technical: Japanese and Korean are not related at all, but they have similar phonemes, which are the basic sounds you make when you speak. Korean has additional vowel sounds that Japanese doesn’t have, and there are other small differences, but if you can pronounce one language it wouldn’t be too hard to learn to pronounce the other.) 

Then we get a mini montage about how much global trainees want to be kpop idols. Thai trainee Winnie says (in what sounds like very good Korean) that he wanted to be an idol since he was a kid. He turned down an opportunity with a very prestigious university, Chulalongkorn University (it’s the highest rated university in Thailand) in order to come to Korea and pursue this dream. -- in the audience,  Kim Ji Woong, a 24-year-old individual trainee we haven’t met yet but who I assume is handsome,* mutters, “Can I go to that school in your place?” which strikes me as… super sad. Like, there’s stuff going on here we don’t know but can kind of guess.

*I have to say things like “I assume this person is handsome” because my standards of handsome/not aren’t always the same as everyone else’s. For example, I think that Chen is the best looking member of Exo. I think all of these boys are nice looking, and some of them are cute or charming, etc, but I can’t always tell who is going to be the “visual King” or whatever for a given season. 

At 55:36, we see Qiu Sheng Yang (who we met earlier, in Tiger Inside), then his teammate, the flexible Chen Kuan Jui, then Osuke, a Japanese trainee we haven’t met (he’s going to do Crown), then Min, the Thai trainee who did Glitch Mode, all talking about how much they admire Korean pop music, all to the tender strains of gentle piano, and Koreans everywhere smile in satisfaction, I guess.  

And that’s enough for one post! Part II will be linked here. 

[yisanged]

BABY'S FIRST KPOP ALBUM. onewe so it's kband but same difference. i was hoping for at least one harin or giuk because they're the only two i actually know and i got a harin yayy. and two yonghoons he loves me apparently. i'm going to be honest guys i kind of hate the photocards. not these specifically just in general. owning selfies of random people i technically don't really know at all is kind of discomforting to me. but it's okay because i like onewe's music a lot. i'm supporting them. i considered getting something from dkz or epex since i also like their music but the thing is i don't know the names of a single one of any of those men so it felt like it would've been weirder to get like photocards and stuff. i considered n.flying but chose onewe just cause n.f only had this huge ass book that i wasn't even sure had like a cd or anything. at least this is small although i'll be honest the design is kind of shit. there is nothing covering or protecting the cd at all and the binding of the photobook inside is just strange. but it's ok because music. listen to end of spring rock version

[sollucets]

@tiistirtipii said do a tag game! yes boss [salutes]

i have done this tag before, but it was a while ago, so fresh new information coming right up. and so much of it. this is ur warning again that i never shut the fuck up

Three ships

1) akkaye (theyre on the brain. no one is surprised)

2) heart & li ming (newest addition. favorite thing about mlc)

3) asoryuu (from dgs. around this time two years ago they were the only thought in my brain and i was rereading old journals and thinking about kazuma dreamily the other day)

First ever ship

the real answer is contestshipping, may/drew from pokemon, but as it pertains to ql shows the answer is semantic error jaeyoung/sangwoo (i got into bl because of dkz jaechan. it's his fault.)

Last Song

when i opened spotify it was playing MIRROR MIRROR by milli, f.hero and changbin

Last movie

i watched 'a knight's tale' with my brother when he came to visit me last month. it was for sure a movie, heath ledger was a pretty pretty boy, i liked the soundtrack gimmick

Currently Reading

i am not actively in the middle of anything right now., so i'll use this space to recommend some stuff >:) the last book i read was terry pratchett's 'i shall wear midnight' as i am still sort of, kind of, working on my full discworld re/read from 2021 lmao. it's so fucking good i've loved tiffany my whole life.

a fanfic i am patiently waiting for the next update of is the extremely excellent "sunrise, sunset" by otterlylost (akkayan time loop au fic, mind the tags but like. read it!!!! read it i'm begging). another small rec for "a shirt to make him shiver" by kiranokira (who uses tumblr at user broccolination) which is an Extremely Funny winteam fic about crop tops and unbridled lust

Currently Watching

each week i do my very best to keep up with my school president, never let me go, the warp effect, GAP, and now also moonlight chicken [cries] i do not always succeed

Currently Consuming

i have a weird strawberries & cream flavor of dr pepper given to me by my coworker. it's pretty good

Currently Craving

i want only friends. i want it now. p l e a s e.

i'd also be fine with like a chicken sandwich? yeah that sounds good

+

most of my rasmr mutuals have absolutely done this tag already, and my fledgling status as a person who has ql mutuals means that theyve either been tagged recently or i Fear To Interact, so i will (like a coward!) leave this untagged, but if you want to play i love and support you and will read it if you tag me

[wishheroes]

Weekly K-pop Round-Up (20240523-20240531) pt.1

hello and welcome to another weekly round-up! today we will be reviewing k-music releases from the last week of may which happens to be may 23rd until may 31st! due to this week being longer as it's the last week and there being a lot of new releases, i will skip some that i don't have many thoughts on. hope you enjoy!

MONA LISA - Soojin

this song is great! this release suits soojin way more than agassy did, although both are great fits for her. the sound this song has really takes me back to 3rd/4th gen which i absolutely love. the instrumental is well made, and there's a summer vibe to it which makes it a nice song to listen to in the summer season. another thing to mention is the music video, it's absolutely fantastic. the visuals, the set, the effects, i loved everything. and it looks very high quality too. such an amazing comeback from soojin.

ERROR 405 - JD1

this is a bit funny, but this song genuinely made me emotional. mainly because it reminds me SO much of dkz, and i have a strong emotional attachment to them. moving on though, as you can probably guess i enjoyed this song a lot. it's really fun and i can definitely imagine myself listening to this a lot. the music video is also fun. honestly the best way to describe this song is, well, fun! if you enjoyed this release i wholeheartedly recommend you to listen to also check out some older dkz songs like universe, all i need is you or crazy night.

Be Ur Girl - B-OURS

to be completely honest, this just sucks. the mixing sounds atrocious on this, the vocals don't match the song at all and it's all over the place! i hoped their singing would save the song but being real, it only made it somehow.. worse? i feel bad. the girls have potential, it's just the song that's terrible and they need more practice. i feel bad criticising how low quality it is because they're obviously a nugu group, but i really have nothing positive to say about this song. i liked the summer-y vibe. that's it. hopefully before their next comeback they get some vocal lessons and a better producer.

How Sweet - NewJeans

endless plagiarism allegations aside, this has to be one of their best releases to date. the beat is simple but it works so well, and their vocals mix with the instrumental perfectly. it's addictive yet easy to listen to which makes it a perfect on-loop slash re-listen track. i could probably listen to this on loop for an hour straight and not even realize it's been so long. it's a cute song. personally i'm waiting for more songs like ditto and cool with you since those were my favourite releases from them but this one is solid too.

LOST! - RM

i like this a lot! i'm not a big rm or bts fan (or at least anymore) so i haven't really listened to any of namjoon's stuff after indigo but i was pleasantly surprised with this song. it's definitely very much my type of vibe and it immediately went onto my playlist. it's such a nice song. it's one of those songs that just feels like youth to me. honestly the more i listen to the more i like this song. maybe u could even say i love it. i hope he continues this sound in future releases as well.

Armageddon - aespa

language warning for anyone who needs it.. WHAT A FUCKING COMEBACK. aespa just never disappoints this shit is SO GOOD. that music video?? insane! the song is so addictive and SO well made i'm so unwell. i have no clue if i prefer armageddon or supernova from the double titles but girl at this point does it matter both are fucking crazy. everything about this comeback screams Q U A L I T Y! imma get it done~ oh ay oh ay oh - this release was crazy good.

KING KONG - TREASURE

huge step up from the disaster that was bona bona, we have treasure with their new single titled king kong. as someone who isn't a big fan of treasure i actually enjoyed this comeback a lot. i think it feels quite reminiscent of older yg releases which might be why i like it so much. i'm especially a fan of the chorus. i love the "here we go" part so much. it suits the song so well and it's extremely addictive. it's a solid comeback! thank you for not ruining my ears this time around, treasure.

Taxi Blurr - Jay Park (ft. Natty)

okay let him cook! this guy might be terrible but oh boy does he know how to make a solid track. this song KIND OF sounds like something jongin would release, and i ult jongin, so i like this a lot. natty's feature on this song was great too, her voice fits this song extremely well and she doesn't sound out of place at all which is great because a lot of songs with features suffer from that problem. honestly i did kind of almost fall asleep while listening to this but in this case it's a good thing. everything sounds good together and everything is mixed well into each other so it's a yes from me.

Empty - CHEN

chen serving vocals as usual. beautiful ballad, as expected from an exo member. did i fall asleep? yes. but if you fall asleep to a ballad, that just means it's really fucking good. feels like a lullaby that puts me right to sleep. the instrumental is beautiful too. i'm in love with this song i feel like i could truly listen to this on hours on end.

LOOP - Yves (ft. Lil Cherry)

mother. this song is definitely one of my top 2024 releases. serving pinkpantheress realness. i mention pink a lot these days, did u guys know i'm a huge fan of her? as expected from a queer individual. anyway, this song is outstanding. perfect concept for yves, she absolutely nailed it. nothing negative to say about it at all! oh actually though, remember when i said that a lot of songs suffer from a feature that is out of place and just sounds wrong? yeah. this is one of them. lil cherry, i'm sorry, but we need you out. this is like boys a liar pt2 with ice spice except the feature is even worse. dear me. thank god the song is so good that it just can't be ruined no matter what.

click here for part two of our weekly round-up!

[brainlessbeans]

Introduction, as I am new to Tumblr!

I go by Lias, I'm mostly going to ramble about Kpop, I think.

I stan:

♡ Xdinary Heroes [Gaon biased]

♡ BTS [J-Hope biased]

♡ TXT [Yeonjun biased]

♡ Ateez [Yunho biased]

& many more, including Stray Kids, DKZ, SHINee, (G)I-DLE, EXO, KARD, ...

My favourite songs currently are:

♡ Blue Side - j-hope

♡ Pretty Boy - Taemin & Kai

♡ Freddy - Xdinary Heroes

♡ Body Rythm - SHINee

♡ Love me or Leave me - Day6

I mostly own Stray Kids albums because they got me into Kpop, but my Ult-Group as of right now is Xdinary Heroes.

J-Hope is like my ultimate Bias tho. He got me into BTS, and all of their solo stuff!

[sailorjisunq]

기석 + 현석

[daisyeji]

cupid

[orangehair]

@racha

jaechan × deling

[sanstropfremir]

you know what it's time for? end of year wrap up posts! and the first one up is....

fave choreos!!

runners' up

villain - trendz

i'm only going to include one trendz choreo on this list because otherwise they'd take up like four slots, but their debut choreo really set the bar for just how impressive their choreography was going to be. i'd encourage you to check out their other choreos: tnt, trauma, who, and clique.

stupid cool - dawn

it's the right mix of casual playing around and some difficult technique, and everyone looks like they're having a blast while performing. i feel like people forget that dawn is an extremely talented dancer because the everything else about him is very distracting, but this choreo is a great marriage of the goofy and serious in a way that very few idols are capable of

pose - kino

there's always gonna be one taemin clone on this list, but that's ok because sometimes they get it right, which is how i feel about kino's solo debut. i like that he went for a less popular taeminprint (day and night) and i think there was enough there that made it his own; kino is a good dancer and choreographer so that much was unsurprising to me.

doom du doom - p1harmony

p1harmony are one of the few groups to have a dancer with real freestyle skills, and they finally put them to use in this choreo. soul has a fun lil freestyle solo dance break and he changed it up for every performance. i'm no gonna link them all here but here's a few: 220722, 220726, 220728. plus it seems to be a theme with their choreos to climb on stuff (or at least it was for this cb, you can see it also in the black hole choreo), and i find that fun.

suit dance - onlyoneof

unsurprising an ooo choreo made it on here, they're a very strong dance group and although we haven't had many choreos from them this year due to the solo projects, suit dance was still one of the best of the year. excellent thematic and prop work, which you can see better in this stage. a little bit peeved they never put out a dance practice of it.

bad at love - tempest

like with a lot of groups on this list, you're going to notice that i had to pick just one choreo from their 2022 releases, bc there was a LOT of consistently good work from groups this year. i went with this bside from tempest's debut because it captures how fun their choreography is, although this could have just as easily been can't stop shining or bad news.

uh heung - dkz

the unflopping of dkz has been the biggest kpop cinderella story of the last few years, and they deserve it because their choreography has been equal parts great and stupid the whole time. uh heung is such a fun time with some really interesting formations, my fave is kyoungyoon being 'scared' of the tiger at the bridge. runner up slot for them is cupid, which is more on the stupid side, but it's so charming.

bound - key

i said i wanted a senior artist to bring back vogueing and i got what i wanted, thank u kibum.

creature - e'last

no prop choreo from e'last this year, but we did get this spectacular and spooky choreo for creature. excellent use of stillness to accentuate the predatory nature of the song, plus a point choreo move that involved the back, an under-utilized feature in kpop.

eyes on you - kangta

it's so so rare to see a modernized first gen choreo because very few of them are still active, and the ones that are that still do serious choreography are boa and rain (although we did get a new shinhwa choreo this year too, somehow their second cb about guns?), who have exceptional skills for the generation. so the fact that we got a whole new kangta choreo in 2022? a true gift. in first gen tradition this is not particularly technically difficult and it has a lot of movements typical of that style of kpop dancing, but he makes everything look so fluid in a way that younger more technically skilled idols fail to do when covering older choreographies.

faster + 2 baddies - nct 127

this one is a bit of cheat, but the faster choreo is meant to lead directly into the 2 baddies choreo and it's often used as the intro, plus there's a couple of repeating motifs in them, so i'm bundling them together. in typical 127 tradition, these choreos are fuckin weird and inventive, and i like how they're so prescriptive to their car themes. the gear turning member switching in faster makes my brain go brrr and 2 baddies has a ton of really fun and unusual formation switching that you don't get to see thanks to music show camerawork.

dice - onew

for someone who's not a very strong dancer, he does a great jobwith this choreo and the choreographer did a great job making pictures around him, rather than relying on him to provide the technical clarity. also like with the stupid cool choreography, this one looks like it's fun to perform for everyone involved.

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top ten

bring it on - oneus

oneus choreos always make my list because they consistently have some of the best and most interesting choreographies in the biz, and they're some of the strongest performers in the biz as well. bring it on is so full of energy and big movements and even though i've seen it dozens of times at this point i still get surprised by it. the intro goes hard as well, like all oneus intros do.

+

sparkling - chungha

chungha always has gorgeous choreo and sparkling is no different. plus i am not immune to hair flips and also women.

+

walking on the moon - tan

to be completely honest, this choreo is on here for one specific move, and that is the moon phase sequence at the beginning of the final chorus (3:50 in this video). i don't know how many times i've watched just that move and i could keep watching it forever. it's perfect. you can see it with camerawork here. the rest of the choreo is good too, it's nice to see a return to second gen style simple and iconic point choreography.

+

louder - tan

next gen beastdols. that's it.

+

heartburn - sunmi

once again sunmi comes back with an amazing choreography. i love her versatility in how she chooses to illustrate the themes in her work; last year it was dark through tail and this year it's light and playful in aesthetics but still heavy on the man-killing. we love to see it.

+

devil - changmin

changmin was always one of the weaker tvxq dancers and was also never that interested in the technical aspects, so it makes sense that his solo choreography would focus less on being technically complex and more about emphasis on a character. the strength of the devil choreography relies on building this righteously corrupt preacher character and how the dancers move around him as congregants/demons that interact and mirror him. my favourite move is the mirrored windmill, especially when you see them in full costume where the backup dancers' faces are covered.

+

guerrilla + halazia - ateez

i'm gonna cheat again for this one, but in all fairness to myself, they dropped halazia on literally the last day of the year and i genuinely cannot decide if i like it more than guerrilla or not. so they can share third place. i was not that impressed with their choreo from 2021, but they really stepped up their game this year in almost every way.

+

parallel universe - nine.i

in the second year in a row, a rookie group is placing at second. but there were such strong turnouts from rookies this year, so it's unsurprising that more than one group made my list. i've talked many times about how much i love this choreography, so i won't expound too much on it again, but for this complex and unusual of a choreography to be for a debut and nothing nine.i has done since this has disappointed me so far. if you want to learn more about the details of the choreo, they talk about all the motifs in the performance commentary video!

+

birthday - ten

i hope you all guessed that this was going to be the top one because there was no other option. this choreo is fucking incredible and there's no other idol that can do what ten does with his body. in a year with no taemin and many taemin clones he brought something that was unique to him and something only he could do, which is exactly what you should be doing as an artist. i don't even have anything else to say about this, just that it's the kind of thing that i want to be seeing from solo artists and i'm very glad that ten stepped up the plate and swung for the fences in ambition and creativity and desire to make something that embodied him.

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that's a wrap on choreos for 2022! not a boring year at all even though both taemin and kai were absent. it's nice to see that the younger gens are starting to get creative with the types of choreography that we're seeing, there was a lot of variety this year and i'm hoping it continues into 2023!

[mizugucci]

3rd year in a row for jonghyeong’s birthday...

[absolutebl]

Do you have any theories/thoughts on why Semantic Error is blowing up so much and crossing into the mainstream? Don't get me wrong I am a huge fan, but I am a little surprised about stuff like the Elle photo spread, the DKZ presale numbers and the "average Korean YouTube reaction channels" reacting to it.

Also, do you think it will have a positive influence on future productions or was it just a one time fluke?

(There's obviously not one right answer, I'm just curious about your BL expertise take 🤗)

Why is Semantic Error so popular? 

It really is that good. Look, I have loved me some Korean BL, it has gotten the most 10/10 ratings out of me - Color Rush, Light On Me, and To My Star - but they're all flawed. CR had faulty chemistry, LOM had a difficult love triangle (and is high school set, almost always less popular than university), and TMS has a very wonky story arc (story, what story?).

Korea hit it entirely out of the Parks with Semantic Error by doing a university set BL featuring everything we expect from BL just done exactly right. It has Korea's signature quality executed perfectly, and added bonus good story, great pacing, stunning visuals, and fantastic chemistry. You cannot ask for more from a BL, let alone a KBL.

It is basically flawless. The attention to detail in this show was mind numbing. Their continuity supervisor should win MAD awards. 

ALSO

Enemies to lovers is one of the most popular romance tropes. And let’s be fair, these two actors are hypnotically beautiful both individually and together. Finally, they kissed well. Like actually kissed. In a Korean drama. 

That said, plenty of flawless shows over the years haven’t taken off.

So the next question is, why now? 

Not only are Kdramas but BL in general is still on the up swing. More and more new fans are being added every day. It’s constantly being discovered. 

A lot of those new fans are coming to BL via Kpop. As Korea casts more and more idols, KBL gets consistently new fans. Fans who specifically LIKE Korea’s clear precision style and attention to PRETTY. Because it’s the same style and approach they take with forming Kpop groups and filming Kpop MVs. 

I don’t know Viki’s true numbers, but I can take an educated guess that they at least doubled their subscriber base over the last year, possibly tripled. Hosting Kingdom, iLand and now Queendom has pulled in a LOT of Kpop stans and there’s huge BL crossover in this demographic, so a lot of them are moving into Kdramas and KBL. Initially many were following idols but now they’re delving fully into BL

In this instance we are also helped by Viki’s “Top 10″ algorithm which, unlike Netflix’s, is not filtered by user preferences. It literally just shows the Top 10 most watched stuff on the site. These days there’s always some BL in there. The more BL content Viki acquires, and the more BL fans are subscribers, the more BL shows in Top 10. Especially as BL watchers tend to be chronic rewatchers and last time I assessed it Viki’s count was based on runtime eyeballs, with no filter on IP/user. (Which means they don’t eliminate rewatches like YouTube does.) Semantic Error is still sitting there. Which means people are still recommending it and still rewatching it. 

Korea is now onboarding a new wave of fans, after Thailand brought in the first wave.

There’s about to be a bifurcated BL fandom. This is inevitable. There’s now too much content for anyone but the obsessives to keep track of and try to watch everything, so we will start to get BL camps: people who are fans of one country’s BL style more than another. I think the first tribalism will be around Thai BL vs Korean BL. In fact it’s already happening. 

This is not a weakness, this is human nature. 

(source)

[the-strange-world]

My favorite kpop groups right now

Group - Overrated, appropriately rated, or underrated - what I like most about them other than their songs - my favorite songs from them

The boyz - appropriately rated - I like their dynamic and they all bring something different. They are very versatile overall - Salty, Whiplash, Break Your Rules

Cix - underrated - They are all really talented dancers. Their choreography is so good - Cinema and Jungle

Purple kiss - underrated - I love their voices so much! Chaein, Sean, and go run are amazing vocalist. They are all talented dancers - Nerdy and Pretty Psycho

Dkz - underrated - they are just fun - Crazy Night and Cupid

Mamamoo - appropriately rated - They are all really talented singers. All 4 are pretty different.All their solo stuff is so good too - Egotistic and gogobebe

Weki Meki - underrated - They are all super talented and funny. I love their style - COOL, Moya Moya, Who am I, Tiki-Taka(99%)

Billlie - appropriately rated - They just have fun songs and choreography. They are good performers too - RING X RING, flipp!ng a coin, Gingamingayo, everybody’s got a $ECRET, the rumor

(G)I-dle - appropriately rated - All have great voices and are really talented. They are super confident - DUMDi DUMDi, Already, HANN (Alone)

Seventeen - appropriately rated - They are so fun and talented. I love choreography so much. They are so in-sync - Hug, IF you leave me, Anyone

P1harmony - underrated - Super talented singers, dancers, and rappers. I think they have a wide variety of songs - Doom Du Doom, Do It Like This, If You Call Me

E’last - criminally underrated - Such talented dancers and their choreography is amazing. Their styling is top tier. They are great singers too - Creature and Dangerous

I guess I wouldn’t really think my fav groups are overrated 😂 Please send me other groups to do as well! And what you think of those groups and/or these groups

Edit* THE BOYZ and Billlie are underrated