#really the fringe on the second one doesnt make any sense with the rest of his hair...

[hostilemuppet]

Also against all that, Glitz DOES have a really cool design! I really like the use of a color gradient!

aww ty :) glitz gave me a lot of trouble, i wanted his design to be flashy but not eye searing, but if i didnt do Enough for him hed just be boring, which definitely didnt fit his personality at all! this also wasnt helped by how at the beginning we only knew One of his parents! but designing him was a process... i got a lot of feedback from his co owner (@/8biteyesight) and misc friends and im very happy with the result :) i always like seeing concept art and design processes so if you do to its under the cut

this was the first batch and it was... okay. and obviously the base was still there: we kept the hair, the necklace and the eye star. but he was so BORING, especially his outfit, and he looked too much like nova and, other than the gold glitter, not enough like sky. so then i revisited him:

i looked up ways to better incorporate the star theme (he wants to be a star you know, and he has a thing with a moon themed character ive shown off once or twice before so it works thematically) and he INSTANTLY came together way better. the problem was still with the colour palette, and there were a lot of minor tweaks that are really funny looking back on it 😭

i really liked the gradient, it made it way less harsh, and i think the purple on his suit turning gold closer to the face helps lead your eye, while the purple in his blond hair adds a nicer contrast.

giving him dimples was a last minute decision i did not consult anyone on but im standing by it i think its a really good choice. it adds to the cuteness he banked on as a child actor, and how hes such an innocent, nice boy, hed never do anything to hurt anyone! honest! especially not a woman. definitely not

[sanstropfremir]

it’s the episode 8 review!!! how many episodes is this show supposed to even be?

the stages from the episode feel like such a grab bag.... i still don’t understand why they didn’t put all the skill stages together, and then did the normal two episodes of the third round. i guess it makes sense that they didn’t want to have six stages in one episode and then three in the other two, but eh. 

feeling kinda average on these as a whole, there’s a lot of good elements going on here but probably because of my own preferences (i don’t listen to ballads or blackpink) none of them really hit all the buttons. hopefully this will be a shorter review because i'm only going to do a quick rundown of the vocal stages; i dont really have that much to say about them because they are (intentionally) not very stage picture focused. i'll do the normal stage breakdowns for the other two though, even though i won’t rank them because we still need to see the other four!

vocal stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

not much to say here other than wow, that’s RED. glad to see some more specific use of spotlighting and i always love when they light things on fire. i do wish they had fill lit with a brighter amber so we could actually get a bit more detail on their faces, especially because there’s six of them. i appreciated the simple blocking and only using one of the ‘stages,’ this stage didn’t need to be anything complicated and it wasn’t. i don’t love spinning camera shots because they make me a bit ill, and i'll forgive the constant cutting because it's a vocal stage and there isn’t any other real movement that we should be paying attention to. not my favourite of the two, i found it visually a bit too repetitive and complex at the same time. always love a crushed velvet suit though, so bonus points for that.

atz + skz + btob

i was braced for the worst and i dont know what kind of miracle happened but it was listenable! like i said, not a ballad fan but i could listen to eunkwang all day. i love a good plinth for a ballad stage, they’re one of my favourite devices in kpop design and i especially love it with a good groundlevel fog. glad they kept it black and white for the first half of the stage, it was in line with the blooming flower projections, and it made a very clear colour arc. they kept the visuals clean and simple with very little blocking at all, a very smart choice for this stage. not sure why they decided it would be the chanel time stage, which i disapprove of because i don’t like chanel, but i do love eunkwang’s shirt with the cameo buttons and the massive turnback cuffs, very 17th and also 19th century. i know they never do it because they dont read on stage normally but yes absolutely more thin chain pendant chokers on men, thank you! i also liked that there was emphasis on a more traditional lighting scheme, there weren't any crazy concert effects, just some good directional beam spotlights and the rear stacks in the climax. 

third round stages

ikon

costume

the first look for them is definitely my fabourite of theirs so far. there’s enough variation in the jackets that the base layer of tshirt and jeans don’t look too repetitive. and i do love a good statement jacket. my favourite is probably donghyuk’s because i'm a sucker for fringe always.

i don’t like the backup dancers costumes, but given the way i’ve reacted to every other all black outfit for this entire show i don’t think anyone was surprised about that. these ones particularly irk me because they’re very matte; there's pretty much no texture or pattern differentials to define the shape of the limb, which makes them disappear when theyre all grouped together (mostly on the women). i think they probably were intending to make a statement/emphasis on the hands because of the sleeve cutoff point, but there were so many arm movements that were just totally missed because the costumes were just black voids. most egregious parts are here, with the female dancers up center. i can barely tell what the movements are unless i’m paying specific attention to them because there's so many black shapes. maybe it was the point for it to be an indiscernable writhing mass, but it wasn’t my vibe.

don’t love this styling on lisa. i hate peeptoe shoes in general but peeptoe boots are the worst offenders. they make you look like you have duck feet, no matter who you are. especially with a flat cutout like that. a universally unflattering shoe, and i would know, i worked in a shoe store for two years. this whole look is just pg-13 rihanna cfda awards 2014 and really nobody should try to run up against rihanna.

also i have to mention this because it’s actually really bothering me, but lisa’s backup dancers are serving very allgemeine ss looks and i do not like it. generally when we see ‘military’ uniforms in kpop theyre usually modelled off older styles (pre wwii) of western uniforms that usually aren’t in circulation, and they’re usually non-matching and embellished in ways that are deliberately not military. i know logically that it's a budget constraint+they’re backup dancers+current trend thing but the clean lines with only button detailing and the all black and that specific harness shape? it hit my brain the wrong way. i mean, technically those uniforms are designer because hugo boss did them, but the uh..... girlboss move didn’t land for me.

this is my PERSONAL OPINION please for the love of all that is holy do not come yelling at me about this. it’s all under a cut, you chose to read the post.

set

very glad to see some busy kitschy sets! this is a massive build, since there’s essentially three full sets here: the temple, the jungle, and the first tiny room. and all of them are very heavily decorated. 

the starting room is just five walls on casters (wheels), that have been set into place with the cameraman and ikon inside at the start, and then once they exit the walls can be easily struck and rolled off set. simple, smart, and convenient!

i missed it the first couple times around but glitching out the projections in the temple for a split second was a neat little trick.

the silver and polygonal nature of the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a bit disconnected from the gold and the aesthetic of the rest of the stage for me. the difference between the original room set and the jungle tracks, but the cat head isnt able to make the same leap for me. i'm also not a fan of mixing metals so maybe that’s why.

the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a fun physical transitional device; i'm a big fan of tunnels and small transitory spaces like that and if they’re well dressed like this one they do so much for establishing place and mood.

i'm very sure i’ve seen this style of polygonal animal head with laser eyes before....i cannot for the life of me remember where or for what. i know wang yibo did a panther stage for sdc3 that had a human formation panther with green laser eyes, i wonder if i'm just crossing wires.

OH nevermind it’s because it looks like the witcher medallion. wires were definitely crossed.

lighting

using purple/teal lighting for the jungle was a smart choice because purple is the direct compliment to the gold and also is much more flattering on humans than green. green is one of the colours that humans can see the most variations in, so when something is green when it's not supposed to be (like human skin), we register that very quickly and associate it with unease and sickness. you know how old fluorescent lights have that greenish tinge that kinda makes you feel ill? it's your cone cells and your brain recognizing that you’re looking at things that are not supposed to be green.

very clean colour arc, i love to see it.

sound

it’s.....fine? i don’t listen to blackpink and have no opinions on their music other than it's not my type. i dont really know what the thematic connection to the visuals is, which is not strictly necessary in a lot of cases, but i don’t particularly care for the conflation of ‘savage’ and a (presumably) precolonial religion that’s assembled from stereotypes of real colonized cultures. you can come at me about how ‘it's not that deep’ all you want but i am here specifically doing an in depth analysis, and i gotta point it out. i'm not here to pass judgement on you if you didn’t realize or don’t care or whatever, i'm just saying that it's important to consume content with a critical eye. what you do with that information is your own personal choice, but you should be aware of it at least. 

staging

they took a big risk eating popcorn right before singing, and we definitely got some residual mouth noises of them trying to clean out their teeth. eating on stage is difficult in general because you have to make sure it's not going to dry out the performers mouths, because they dont have access to water and it takes WAY longer to chew and swallow something than you would expect. there’s a LOT of testing that goes into making stage food and guaranteed it’s not made out of what it looks like or what its supposed to be; i worked on a production of amadeus were we did literal weeks of testing amalgams of different desserts to make sure that salieri could actually eat the ones onstage without totally drying him out, because fun fact about that show, salieri doesnt leave stage like, at all, so there was no way to get him water. poor bloke.

i thought the blocking of this was really smart. the long take from the ‘normal’ room and transition into the jungle was super slick, even if that weird circle the camera did while pointed up at the ceiling was unnecessary and pointless.

bobby’s ‘acting’ was extremely funny and that’s the only way people are allowed to act surprised now. edvard munsch scream style only.

the pacing is a bit off and this time it wasn’t mnet’s editing that fucked it up. as fun as it is to have a feature, clearly she wasn’t allowed within proximity of the rest of them for covid or other yg related reasons, but it made for some extremely long transitions, especially the one out of her verse. it kills the momentum of the stage in that beat, even though they manage to pick it up after.

this is a very simple little narrative arc that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require any extra explaining. which is exactly the kind of arc that groups should be doing at this stage in the game. this is a good formic step up for ikon!

i thought the turning off of the monitor at the end was fun and a good callback to them watching the videos at the beginning of the stage. a nice clean way to make it circular.

skz

costume

FINALLY something different on the skz boys! these were mostly fun eboy looks for them, and i like it on the basis that it's not the same as the last set of costumes.

bang chan out there with his thigh OUT and a (fake) bridge piercing? LOVE to see it. great work.

(copy-paste every thing i’ve said about backup dancers wearing all black)

the backup dancers that were dressed as bystanders/extras were great! they should have kept that with all of them because it would have given a little more shape to the choreography and establishing what function the backup dancers were supposed to have.

set

that is meant to be a giant rice cooker on stage, right? i think so because it's a god’s menu mashup? if that's not a rice cooker i have NO idea what its supposed to be

there’s only two large setpieces here, which was a smart way to go. i LOVE the subway car doubling as the truck, even if the truck itself makes no narrative sense. what a fun way to double the use of a single big piece. you’ll be able to see the way it moves in the full cam but it splits down the centre and there entrance doors at the back with attached stairs that bang chan and the dancers use to climb up.

lighting

not a whole lot happening here. i like the cool white leds in the subway car and the contrast with the more warm tones of the outside, which is good atmospheric establishment, but i can't discern a visible arc. 

not a fan of these projections; they’re in line with what we’ve seen from skz so far, which is: extremely literal. i dont think they’re that distracting, but they’re not to my personal taste. they really should have kept the comic panel theme that they did for changbin’s first verse, because that was inventive and fun to watch! and a great atmospheric indicator! i would love to see a bit more experimental projection use but it's hard when they don’t have a lot of time to build these stages and the lighting team is definitely working remotely.

sound

i love that they made the choice to do some actual talking, it’s a good gimmick and it works for the deadpool/comic book/fourth wall break theme, but australian accents take me the fuck out i am so sorry i cannot listen to either felix or bang chan speak english without laughing uncontrollably. 

i don’t like this arrangement but i'm not surprised about that, given my predilections. i'm also tired of skz shouting STRAY KIDS in every performance they do. i know on music shows it's probably more relevant and yea producers tags are a thing but we’ve been watching this show for nearly two months at this point. we know who you are, you can stop yelling. be more creative with it!

staging

my biggest issue with this stage is that it doesn’t have a payoff. there is an arc here: they’re stealing the truck, but why are they stealing the truck? who are they stealing it from? who are they fighting against? it's kind of important in a stage where the theme is stealing and fighting someone that you tell us who that is. in both of ateez’s previous stages were they were both stealing (rhythm ta) and fighting (wonderland), they made sure to show us who the villain was. there needs to be tension for a big blowup climax to actually pay off. whether it be against a a balloon arm kraken or a fascist government. this stage could have reached that next step if they’d just done a little bit more exposition. 

there were a lot of fun choreo moments here, and this is probably my favourite choreo of theirs so far. i thought the whole first bit in the subway car was excellent and a very fun play on those viral videos that we used to see roll around every so often of dancers doing routines in subway cars.

did it need the guns? not in the slightest. more on this point later. i could talk more about weapons and weight here, but i’ve done that several times already.

like with the tbz game of thrones stages, theyre relying a little too much on the audience's preconceptions of the source material in order to carry the theme. the guns are there because deadpool likes guns, but they don’t actually use the guns for anything? the most we get of the stealing segment is felix and the safe, which admittedly is a great bit with him leaping over and under the ‘laser’ lines (theyre likely led strips). because comic books are by nature procedural and deeply tied to narrative, it's unsatisfying when there’s no tension and no payoff.

HOW did we manage to get two stages that are blackpink covers with remote/tv static gimmick and durags? i know the slot machine of kpop tropes is not very big but surely the probability of hitting triple sevens on this one was pretty low. i’m pretty meh on both of these stages overall. skz was unsatisfying but i loved the choreo in the subway bit so that bumped it up a little ahead of ikon’s in my personal preferences, but i'm reserving my actual rankings for next week. assuming we get the other four stages next week and they dont do something stupid and only show two. which they very well might. i’ve stopped trying to understand why mnet does things the way that they do. 

as always the ask box is open, drop your comments/questions/personal opinions, i love to hear ‘em! but don’t be rude just because some of this is touchier subject material.

[jordankennedy]

ok less flip phrasing but: why i think amherst was never an a avatar, per se, but rather smtg more like breekon & hope / the not-them / vampires / MR. SPIDER / etc. like a direct manifestation of an entity, not an individual human that got in too deep. (1/?)

“first: Name. THE most boring placeholder first name + bioweapon pioneer surname. its like a desolation avatar named jane fawkes or smtg. fake n badly made up sounding. (native genocide is not in jonnys lane so i dont think a connection between john and jeffery beyond just the surname will be confirmed so, uh, point to me?) (2/?)

second: Immortality. amhersts immortality is WEIRD. like hes not the only unnaturally long-lived character but every other avatar either ages v slowly, ages not at all, or body hops via eyes. the resurrection is limited to some end avatars (makes sense, end is all abt death n cheating it) and hunters but only for unHuntlike causes of death (trevor's lung cancer) (makes sense, hunt is all abt Not Stopping). (3/?)

every time theres a clear thematic connection between the patron entity n the not-dying, which isnt true for the corruption n amherst beyond perhaps the "can't stamp out infestation" approach, which makes more sense if amherst is HIMSELF the filth, not something that simply hosts it (eg the various flesh hives, beetle wife guy, maggie n gordie). (4/?)

GRANTED its extra weird how amherst survived getting set on fire, when fire is consistently presented as a way to "cleanse" the corruption (eg worm sex apt, wasp nest, janes body, ivy meadows, klanxbull). but i guess u could say it shows amherst is a more intense manifestation of the crawling rot. idk (5/?)

(fringe offshoot subtheory i dont fully subscribe to: amherst is literal brain fungus n hijacks ppl to eat most of and then use as organic scaffolding to build up typical appearance? hence massive height n form concealing outfit??? like i said im not sure abt this one. :/ like i think theres smtg there abt the clothing detail but ehhhh not too hot on on the rest) (6/?)

anyways, third: Timeline. chronologically, amherst first appears in 2003 and he doesnt even properly show up, hes just a character in a leitner. a leitner that gertrude burns. hey, u kno who canonically survived getting set on fire? yeah. ("what was he doing in the 8 yrs between 2003 n ivy meadows" uh obviously he was catching up w the 21st century. learning how to drive and buy property. next.) (7/?)

which brings us to fourth: Leitner. only 3 canon examples of lowercase-e entities tied to a leitner book, and theyre mr. spider (feeds via a guest for, and the jp book in mag 110), the lichtenberg figure (bound to ex altiora), and john amherst (features in evil papercut book). and the keay ghost book ig but imo that feels like a totally different kind of "being tied to" so im not counting it. (8/?)

the other 2 are definitely inhuman monsters so why not amherst? i think amherst was contained in the book somehow (not forcibly the way the lichtenberg figure was) n got released when gertrude burned it. i do feel like in that case gertrude arsonized him immediately (HENCE.... WHY MAG 68'S STATEMENT GOT SCORCHED AS WELL AS THE BOOK I JUST REALIZED) but You See, Doctor, He Is Such A Restless Man. (9/?)

the handshake fumble, the totally gutted ant house, and "saluted on the spot and died on the spot of typhoid" all have colossal anatomy student energy. extreme fake person vibes. i will not elaborate on this one (10/11)

finally, everything abt john amherst—the bank account, the medical fraud, the dinky little car—becomes approx at least 30x more hilarious if u imagine he was never even a person just an overgrown mushroom. purple drain fungus final evolution. i slammed this out on notes so forgive any typos, if jonny kills this theory itd be worth it for the amherst lore i guess. thank u for reading. (11/11)“

reading this genuinely was like getting hit over and over again with a sledgehammer. when you sent me the original ask i was like haha thats dumb but now after absorbing all of this is think youre completely right and unironically im really, really impressed by the level of analysis here. literally i did not even think about the idea of him being tied to the leitner book. can you come off of anon so i can follow you if i dont already