#hyperfeminity and punk rock

[earl-grey-love]

The urge to redesign my s/i is omnipresent. I've yet to be fully satisfied with it.

[baenxietydad]

Swynrp WriMo Task #15 - NPC Playlist!

[playlist]

[tracker]

Concept: Playlist of songs So-yeon painstakingly recorded onto mixtapes (literal cassettes) to put into her Walkman to rollerskate by the Han River in her sparkly pink rollerskates.

Pierrot Laughs At Us - Kim Wan Sun

Even when you look at the shabby me and laugh I think I look so beautiful

Kim Wan Sun was one of the 'It Girls' of Korean pop music of the 80s and 90s. So-yeon's fashion sense at the time was inspired largely by the small Korean ska punk and punk rock subculture that she and Mu-yeol were involved in in the late 90's-early 2000's, as well as the kinderwhore look popularized by Courtney Love, the bright patterned clothing of the 90's. Some personal style guides for her from East Asia included Hong Kong singer Faye Wong, and, of course Kim Wan Sun (here, here). Additionally, as pixie's in Korean pixie hollows typically wear clothing more similar to Korean hanbok than Western clothing, So-yeon was a bit ahead of the current movement to modernize traditional Korean clothing for modern every day wear and would sew her own skirts in a modernized hanbok style to wear. Her two looks were badass alternative chick or fairy princess, and she could charm you or kick your ass in either look. She loved flitting between two incredibly different but equally eye-catching visual concepts. So! Including Kim Wan Sun on here was a must, she was very important to So-yeon.

Dreams - The Cranberries

Oh, my life is changing everyday In every possible way And oh, my dreams It's never quite as it seems

So-yeon LOVED The Cranberries. She thought Dolores O'Riordan's signature yodel sounded a little like the vocal techniques used in pansori singing and that drew her to them. Most singing in Korean pixie hollows is pansori singing! Fairies who then go into the human world have to learn how to sing pop or rock songs! So that itself was really cool to So-yeon. The way Mu-yeol learned English from The Mountain Goats and Oingo Boingo, she learned from The Cranberries.

The Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Have you ever had the odds stacked up so high You need a strength most don't possess? Or has it ever come down to do or die? You've got to rise above the rest No, well

I've never had to knock on wood But I know someone who has Which makes me wonder if I could

So-yeon got into ska music via a Korean-American classmate at Seoul National University who first showed her two-tone ska from the UK like The Specials before delving into ska punk like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. She got Mu-yeol into the genre and they were very early fans of South Korean ska punk band Lazybone, active in Korea since the mid-90's. They saw them perform at underground shows for dirt cheap before they become iconic.

Celebrity Skin - Hole

Oh, look at my face My name is might have been My name is never was My name's forgotten

Bands like Hole, Bikini Kill, and Babes In Toyland out of the USA really tapped into her feminine rage. And, as mentioned above Courtney Love's aesthetic really appealed to her. She loved to dress almost cartoonishly feminine while in a male-dominated major and career field in a patriarchal country. In a way, hyperfeminizing herself at times was a way to rub it in mens' faces that she was just as (if not more) capable than any one of them.

Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode

Words like violence Break the silence Come crashing in Into my little world

So-yeon got into Depeche Mode sometimes around 1992 when an older half-human half-pixie cousin played her a cassette with Personal Jesus on it at her house in human Daegu. She subsequently got Mu-yeol into them after they Promised and he joined her in Seoul. They both enjoyed post-punk and new wave type music a lot.

For So-yeon, post-punk was good music to kind of zone out to that wouldn't put you to sleep.

10 Minute - Lee Hyori

Just want ten minutes, the time when you become mine The men crying because they’ve been deceived by my innocent tricks Baby you’re being shaken by a different charm

For all of her most off-the-wall tastes, So-yeon was still a woman in her twenties in Korea in the early 2000s. She loved Lee Hyori! 10 Minute was one of her go-to noreabang songs. It's also a perfect song to rollersakte to!

No. 1 - BoA

I’ll search for words to say My sadness will become cloudy and you will shut out the light This path won’t know any of my tears

BoA, our beloved. Often called the Britney Spears of Korea, they're not wrong. She was Korea's pop princess of the early 2000s and is the queen of K-pop today. Again, perfect rollerskating music!

A Little Respect - Erasure

Soul, I hear you calling Oh baby, please, give a little respect to me And if I should falter Would you open you arms out to me? We can make love not war And live at peace with our hearts

So-yeon and Mu-yeol first heard this song at the gay clubs in Itaewon, which were really the only clubs that they went to as they were also the clubs most welcoming of fairies in the late nineties and early 2000s. So-yeon could dance without being harassed and flirt with women if she felt like it that night, and if he felt like it Mu-yeol could flirt with men as she encouraged him to do after the Promised, insisting that being life partners didn't mean they shouldn't explore their sexualities since they Promised so young. This is quite a normal arrangement for fairies, but their human friends all thought they were either on the fritz or incredibly saintlike in their ability to not be raging jealous.

This was one of their favorite songs that they first heard at the gay clubs and So-yeon of course recorded it from a CD onto her rollerskating cassettes. The sound quality was horrendous but it was #2001.

Extraordinary - Liz Phair

Yeah, I drive naked through the park And run the stop sign in the dark Stand in the street, yell out my heart To make, to make you love me I am extraordinary If you'd ever get to know me I am extraordinary, I am just your ordinary Average, everyday, sane, psycho, super-goddess Average, everyday, sane, psycho

Something about Liz Phair just scratched So-yeon's brain right since the mid-nineties. This song made her feel like the main character in an American movie, rollerskating in the sun with her eye closed to the sky.

flying duck - Cherry Filter

I had a dream. The moon told me, Come up here and lets play together.

As I awoke from my deep sleep my wings shook. My mother can’t fly either. Today I was scolded again.

Now I want to fly up to the sky. I want to become the great moon in the sky.

Flying up high, I want to be the great moon up in the sky. I’m going to be a star in the night sky and dance.

Flying up high, I want to tightly hug the night sky. As I spread my great wings like this, I dream. I fly up high.

Cherry Filter is a female-fronted Korean alt rock band. flying duck altered So-yeon's brain chemistry.

Supernova - Liz Phair

You walk in clouds of glitter And the sun reflects your eyes And every time the wind blows I can smell you in the sky

Your kisses are as wicked as an M-16 And you fuck like a volcano And you're everything to me

Supernova is the first Liz Phair song that So-yeon made Mu-yeol listen to, it remains his favorite to this day. So-yeon would be rollerskating to this song and kinda dancing, making everyone around her worried she'd fall on her ass!

She went feral for that delayed hit of the drum in the chorus, where it comes like a moment after you expect it to come in:

'Cause you're a (and you expect the drum hit to be along with this syllable) hu ( but it actually hits after) man supernova A (expected) so (actual) lar superman You're an (expected) an (actual) gel with wings of fire

So-yeon would get so mad if she showed you the song and you didn't pick up on it because it was what made it so good in her opinion.

사망가 (Death Song) - Crying Nut

나는 가리라 절망 끝까지 내 육신의 속박 멍에 벗고서 생의 끝까지 질주하리라 저주받은 내 운명을 죽이리라

I don't have an English translation yet for this song lol

But! I wanted to highlight a Korean punk band that become a thing while So-yeon and Mu-yeol were in that scene in Seoul. Punk rock is excellent roller skating music!

Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo

I was struck by lightning, walkin' down the street I was hit by something last night in my sleep It's a dead man's party, who could ask for more? Everybody's comin', leave your body at the door Leave your body and soul at the door

Oingo Boingo was brought to So-yeon and Mu-yeol by an American English teacher who lived in their apartment building. They both listened to a copious amount of this band, Dead Man's Party being So-yeon's favorite. Top tier rollerskating song.