#there are too many trainees

[foodsies4me]

The Fearsome Four

Alright so it seems that more than one person wants a list so here we go with the first four trainees. (I will be splitting this up because like some people aptly remarked there are Too Many Trainees and writing them all down in one post is going to make for an infinitely long post. (Cries in, these were supposed to be one of characters that were just supposed to make the institute feel more lived-in. Not menaces that take over half of the story)

Maxwell Joseph Lightwood (He/Him, 9 years and a half - Not an OC though I HC him looking differently than in the series in my head)

Nicknames: Max, Maxie, Little Clover, Cricket, Little Caramel, Menace, Little Terror

Physical description: looks like a mini Alec – black hair, hazels eyes and mischief in his blood. He’s smaller than the other trainees his age, standing somewhere between 3ft 11 and 4ft (120,2 cm) Has three long gashes on his torso that span most of his chest as well as two smaller but just as thick scars on his right upper thigh, a thick scar on his left ankle and one on the inside of his right arm. (This only applies for AWG Max. Golden Words Alec is 4ft 3 (130,5 centimeters) and has no such scars.)

Personality: He’s the Menace Supreme what more do you want me to say? Culprit number 1 of the Mumbai Incident.

Extra info: co- owner of Bubbles and has a batman backpack with cartoon characters and sharks on it

2. Arjun Jaskaran Bhasin (He/Him, 9 years old)

Nicknames: Arji, Jun-Jun, Marshmallow, Chotu (nickname only his older siblings call him)

Physical description: thick dark-brown hair that’s mostly straight, dark brown nearly black eyes. He’s about 4ft2 (128,5 centimeters) and the only one of the fearsome four that doesn’t look like a mess most of the time.

Personality and tidbits: He’s quieter than his three best friends, but no less of a menace for it. He’s the youngest in his family and is close with his parents/older siblings despite not living in the same institute. He loves everything dragons and, even though he misses his family a lot, he also loves being at the NYI. Now if only Alec could get the rest of his family to work there as well…Culprit Number 2 of the Mumbai Incident.

Extra info: has a dragon backpack, yes the dragon can breathe fire.

3. Barika Fahari (He/Him, almost 10)

Nickname: Barii, Riri, Gumdrop

Physical description: short, black curly hair. Light brown eyes. 4ft 5 (134 cm) which makes him the tallest of the foursome fear.

Personality and tidbits: Barika was originally supposed to be a female character because I didn’t want Max to only have male best friends, but then Barika decided he was trans without any care as to what I had planned (hence the female name which he decided he was keeping). Like Max, he’s a menace and adores comics. His absolute BFF is Leo and those two will probably end up as parabatai in the future. Culprit number 3 of the Mumbai Incident.

Extra info: Has a The Flash backpack with a little Green Lantern keychain and ever-changing cartoon/Manga-characters on the sides. Robin, Batman and Cyborg logos are embroidered on the straps.

4. Leonard Benjamin Knightvale (He/him, two days older than Max and will never let him live it down)

Nickname: Leo, Lenny, corn chip, little lion

Physical description: light brown hair that tends to get in his eyes, green-brown eyes and 4ft3 (130 centimeters – yes, Golden Words Max teases him back for being older but shorter)

Personality and tidbits: If someone enabled Max to do one of his stunts, Leo is the most likely culprit. If nobody enabled Max to do one of his stunts than Leo was likely in a coma because he WILL enable Max’s shenanigans just to see the chaos happen. BFF’s with Barika and thinks Alec is the coolest person ever. He lacks any kind of impulse control and is currently in the lead in the “Get Ragnor to turn them into a frog” competition much to Max’s displeasure. He hates being called Leonard about as much as Max hates being called Maxwell. Culprit number 4 of the Mumbai Incident.

Extra info: Green Lantern backpack with a The Flash keychain, a Batman keychain as well as a Cyborg and Robin sticker. The Green Lantern logo in the middle lights up and can turn into different colors if Leo wants to.

Part two

[maybe-boys-do-love]

no thoughts. just the make-up and hair styling they did for 5-years-later Ryan:

[stormyoceans]

no because the things i'm reading about it are actually insane, i've learned my lesson and i barely go into the tags anymore or am in tumblr that much for that matter but the things some people are saying about tae are so mean lol... people are just so entitled my god. i don't know if you agree but finding joy outside of fandom is easier and easier every day, for some shows specifically you're better off enjoying it on your own ANYWAY just wanted to let you know that i feel the same way

honestly i always expected this storyline to bring up a fair amount of questionable comments because unfortunately a very big part of fandom (and im talking about any fandom) has a very black and white kind of mentality, which most of the times means that when something like this happens in a show they try to fully put the blame on one character while lifting others from all responsibility, but that's not how it works, in life first of all, but also when it comes to stories

people saying tae deserved to be cheated on are wild to me, but tbh also are those who keep demonizing bahmee, a 21 years old girl who is coming to terms with the fact that maybe her relationship doesn't work while realizing that maybe she also wasn't as straight as she thought she was AND was drunk when she kissed judy. and like don't get me wrong, im not excusing her for what she did (although i don't like people calling her names), but what caused all this was the complete lack of communication between her and tae, and they're BOTH at fault for this

and while i usually HATE cheating storylines, i personally find this one very well written in the way the miscommunication and mistakes is built on are actually very human. this is why i want to wait before judging the storyline as a whole, because i do think there's something worth telling here, about falling in love young and eventually growing up and apart and learning about oneself and hurting people and finding a new way to care about each other (whether romantically or platonically) and becoming better (especially since they're paralleling them with janeryan where jane is the king of communication and maturity)

and i can understand people judging judy because she definitely should have known better, but idk it's just hard for me not to sympathize with both tae and bahmee, and the narrative is also obviously working hard on trying to make us see where they're both coming from, so i do find some comments kinda out of place tbh ;;;;;;;;;

anyway. sorry this got way too long and im not sure i was able to properly explain my thoughts on this matter, and i also don't know if you're actually going to agree with them, but still. thank you for letting me know im not alone in this!!!!!!!!

[dropthedemiurge]

I must admit something... I can't help it, I love First and Khao dearly but I'm finding myself not being even as 1/10 hyped for The Hearts Killer as I was for Not Me, Eclipse or even Only Friends. Like, idk what's that, the casting actors are good, the premise is interesting, some good effort put by prop department - and yet when I see bts pics, I just feel nothing (beside general Omg First with Tattoos, hot)

I guess I've been way too burned by GMM and specificslly Jojo stories D: Like, I want something good! But good and tight until the very end. And it most likely won't be, we all know what a mess OF was.

And it's another rom-com :') Like, all bts pics are just so obviously rom com with a sprinkle of action just for cool points, and there's nothing wrong with it, Jojo deserves to make the guys play out his AU fantasies and fans deserve to have fun and see firstkhao be all hearty eyes at each other, but...

I was raised with Not Me and Eclipse, both of which had really meaningful, strong political and society messages, morally gray characters fighting for freedom and equal rights, having emotional and strong chatacter growth with nice landing, and the execution held us all clenched until the very end ㅠㅠ I miss that experimental and bold era, and kinda afraid FirstKhao are gonna just get stuck into that cute-and-high-heat branded pair limbo...

You know, I secretly hope one day they'll have a project with P'Aof (but yeah he needs to rest so he can come back with a blast) and P'Waa (I only saw one-two series dorected by him and I almost have no questions, I need more amazingly executed BL projects by him). And imagine them working again with P'Golf 🥺

Anyway. Just a rant. I really miss watching Thai BL shows but I can't seem to find what I love anymore.

[marymekpop]

⟢ highlight of the hour: daily dose of sunshine [3/12] ⟣

staying afloat

[orcelito]

I just desperately miss being able to be silly at work y'all my boss has been so staunch about no downtime ever and it's really cramping my style 😭😭😭

[yardsards]

therapists will be like "what do you think we could do in here that would help you with these struggles?" like bestie if i knew how to fix my problems i wouldn't be in here rn

[brazilian-whalien52]

Next week will be the first time I am doing this, but definitely about to skip bahmee scenes in the trainee (let's wonder if there is any of the drama left)

[antihibikase-archive]

> [ What did you eat today? ] > [ What author is your fav? ] > [ Where do you go on weekends when you wanna get away? ]

> I didn't eat a thing. > But that's how it should be. > No matter what they ask me, > I won't tell them anything!

[dutybcrne]

No thoughts only knight trainees trailing after Kaeya like little ducklings

[seithr]

vaults over you

[foodsies4me]

Also not seven sentences also not a Sunday

I said I was going to post both snippets on Monday? Tuesday? (not sure) and then I forgot because of an impromptu naptime. Regardless, I remembered now so here is a snippet from the Alec birthday fic that I tried to write for Alec's birthday last year and still haven't managed to finish!

Black for birth to celebrate the future shadowhunter. Gold for weddings - the color the wedded rune will burn. And white for funerals, for the soul that will rise. That's how the poem goes. Or, that's how Magnus believed the poem goes. Unlike the seelies, who celebrated earth and magic, and anything that fell in between; unlike the warlocks, who revered time and space and partied for centuries; unlike the werewolves who praised the moon's changing shapes and unlike the vampires, who everything they could, did celebrate; the Nephilim's life seemed rather...boring. Outside the three stages of life, they didn't appear to celebrate anything - unless you counted their even more fervent Raziel-worship around wintertime. Birthdays had never been mentioned. Though looking back on it, that wasn't accurate either. Izzy and Jace had both celebrated their birthday at Pandemonium, but Magnus had merely attributed that to their party-loving natures and hadn't looked deeper. Similarly, the institute had thrown a party to celebrate the trainees' birthdays, but Magnus had easily dismissed that as Alexander's desire to change the Nephilim mantra of "live, train, fight, and die". All to say, he'd attributed Alexander's indifference vis-à-vis his birthday to Nephilim culture and not to something that was uniquely Alexander.

I have no idea who to tag this time around, so I'm tagging (without pressure) @echo-bleu back as well as tagging @moonlight-breeze-44 and @abyssal-hellcat and anyone else who wants to participate and sees this from me.

(I never know who to tag, halp.)

[nyasialiveshere]

Concerning the exo one direction cold war that is apparently still going on in 2024. With exol allies tagging into the fight

kpop fans pls stop insulting 1d with the passive aggressive group bullying thing, yes harry is now older and wears fashion that's extra and he's an easy target but those who live in glass houses shall not throw rocks--when he was in 1d in their prime he was unproblematic, naturally beautiful, nice, kind and would literally cry for other people if they were crying he's so empathetic and sweet. I would assume all the bad karma that hits kpop every blue moon would inspire some deep thought, y'all faves aren't perfect I promise you. No member of 1d has ever spoken on kpop ever I've only seen them react to stuff if people beg them and it's usually just wow this is good. No bitterness or weirdness. Literally probably don't even think kpo like at all. Yet don't matter what kpop fandom or how old the person I've just seen so many genuinely mean things come from even 'nice' kpop fans about 1d or harry...like they don't know y'all or y'all faves like that for this type of weird disrespect. 'He dresses weird'..................are y'all projecting, like he dresses weird but kpop idols don't?

"It's feminine but not in a way I can sensualize it so I'm gonna make fun of him yet lift up my fave cause they dress seductive"

Maybe learn from the 1d fandom in its old age instead of being mean to them just stay neutral and peaceful you don't know who they might work with in the future..cause everybody can bring up real life stuff but the beef has never been reciprocated by directioners like why y'all still going at it.

People keep saying nobody care about them, they irrelevant...but I see like so many comments about them on kpop spaces almost all negative. The only words should said concerning 1d should be thank you for love shot

and the blueprint of the preppy era of kpop then keep it moving.

I'm just saying like all 1d stuff out in the open, why pick fights with people who are known to dig and investigate til they find something. Luckily most directioners just don't do that anymore. All they care about is the boys that's it..why can't kpop fans do that they always wanna be in the mix..like no y'all don't.. luckily other fandoms haven't been checking you..many have mostly left y'all alone cause they see kpop as innocent but stop picking with people it'll only be your fave to get hurt in the end. Cause rocks are thrown but y'all have hidden hands and identities, why use somebody else's name and face as a profile pic to say you don't like somebody I'm sick of it tbh.

[mikkouille]

BOYS PLANET 1212

From the get go, Boys Planet looked to be a disaster: postponement, changes of plans, and the legacy of Girls Planet 999′s already lukewarm reception and results, plethora of scandals, on top of the history of Mnet survivals not being quite reassuring as for what this one would be. They didn’t even have Yeo Jingoo as their MC anymore so what even was the point for me to watch, right? Well I like bad reality TV, and if the show forewent it’s predecessor’s clunky numbers, it was not merely because they cleaned themselves off the unpromised implication that ‘999′ offered, that being of parity in it’s final lineup’s nationalities- but because had they to pick one to represent the cast of 98 boys (95 by the time of announcement and 93 when the first episode released, once more, a good sign that this was going to be a Very Well Made Show), it’d have to be 1212, for Dozens of Dozens.

A bit of context for newcomers and unknowers as I’ll be mentioning the title a surprisingly low but still relevant amount of time.

From the day the fancams for the ‘Here I Am’ Signal song were uploaded, the word bounced around my brain, with cruel glee: these guys were just not good. At the same time, knowledge of how things were handled with Produce and “Not Produce we swear it’s different” shows did keep me back from immediatly dismissing about 85 boys from being of any respectable skill: if Boys Planet was anything like it’s elders, these guys likely had at most a week to learn a choreography and song, on their own, with little group rehearsals. The mere inability to judge what some steps were meant to look like given how varied the executions were across contestants said it all: they were given no teacher, likely the dance “teacher” and judge responsible for that atrocity of a dance routine showed up once, stayed an hour, and then left them to their own device (and watching episode 2, it is indeed basically what happened. When most of the rehearsal footage is just the kids by themselves teaching each other, the title of “Master” is to put into question: you’re not their masters so much as their executioner).

So I awaited the actual episodes, to see the surprises, or even just the bad dancers who were here as vocalists.

Which to be honest, was a mistake on my part, expecting vocalists was to lobotomise myself, out of the knowledge of the sad state of this industry, the one that we could nearly say this show satirises: Boys Planet isn’t a survival as much as it is a long winded performance art piece meant to criticise 4,5th gen Kpop. And so it was with equality little and great surprise that the Auditions were the same as the Fancams, only this time both eyes AND ears got to suffer the same pains.

(I ran out of embed spots- you only get 5??- so you’ll unfortunately have to click links for most of the video evidence of my claims. Very sorry about that. Prommy I didn’t intend for only the Worse- and Hui’s feast- to be visible but it IS funny).

Where are the standards of casting?

But Signal song fancams aren’t meant to be good. As stated before, they’re a bad metric of talent, or of potential even, as both song and dance are learnt in a hurry, with hardly any mentoring outside of Lim Han Byul disregarding all decency as a human being to instead have his “bullying children” segment. Moreso, a dance focused fancam does not help display the skills of vocalists, so while I did rank all of the Here I Am videos, I was waiting for the audition performances, or Star Level to truly pick out who were the trainees deserving of my attention. Still, the combination of how little candidates truly shone through their fancams, the lukewarm interest sparked by the 1mn PR videos and the trainee profiles, with their citations of way too many symbols of kpop’s downfall as for the standards of performance- not citing names as I do like the state of my life and witness protection would take all of that fun away from me- I had little hopes for what was to come, which did protect me: I was at least not disappointed in expecting nothing.

The performances aired for the first episode were highly enjoyable, in a Schadenfreude kind of way: the ones that were bad were Bad bad, to the point of hilarity: I had legitimate tears in my eyes watching some of these, and couldn’t help share them ahead of our group watching to my co-watcher friend. Things needed to be spoilt; joy to be shared.

Portrayed here, Yang Jun’s most iconic opening of Seventeen’s worst song: mathematically a masterpiece as two negatives make a positive. Also, do know that upon watching Yang Jun’s fancam back before the show started, I claimed him as one of my favourite as I thought dancing that awful must hide incredible singing talents, why else would he be there, right? I’ve had to reassess that statement, but I will not stop my support. He reached public infamy, legend status, and did so much for the show with just these few words.Similarly, team Hyogo gave us a SPLENDID rendition of MANIAC that I view with just as much affection as I do see team Sichuan’s HOT: an enemy of my enemy is my friend, desecrate songs I don’t like and we’ll get along (this is just what the songs sound like to me on regular after all, I think they did amazing).

Many such cases. The full cam footage of the first episode’s performance are overall a feast, a gathering of comically bad stages, put back to back for the heartless public to tear to shreds, only to further humiliate it’s most iconic suckers a week later, in front of Sunmi no less… There is nothing crueler when it comes to reality TV than an Mnet survival.

While a few stages did still look significantly better, and the second week packed overall better performances, the truth is still that the vast majority was mediocre at best, funnily enough, probably would rank 12/20 in my french fashion of rating: not awful enough to be failed but just toeing that line.

And that overall does make sense: why would a company send their best most promising trainees to a shitshow where they can hardly monitor their progress anymore, all for them to get eliminated after two weeks of airtime, but months of recording, alongside half the contestant, and after a combined screen time of about 10 seconds. The investment isn’t good when the winners are already pre-decided, might as well send your newbies, your bottom of the class lineup, avoiding the silent blacklisting of a large TV channel without wasting the time of your talents. As for the viewer, it only makes the experience more entertaining: the mind’s much more rested when all the decent guys are relatively safe for a few episodes when the network first has to weed out the ones who are simply way too incompetent to even get a single pity vote. Instead, you get to laugh at poor youngsters that still probably are doing much better than you would, only they have a roomful of witnesses and large audience to witness them.  I cannot truly cast the stone of ‘this is cruel and uncivilised’ when I myself go back to the Canton China’s team rendition of God’s Menu daily, for reasons that are anything but amazement.

Something that was evident throughout all the stages, including the good and passable ones though, was how little singers were present on set. The show even makes a point of highlighting it: if there is a handful of good performers and dancers, the singing is truly subpar. Only, for the jury to point it out is a bit hypocritical. Comparing the performances and the gradings assigned to each participant show that while the jury- and mainly professional hater Lim Han Byul- lament the lack of good voices, they do not support what little good ones they do have on their hand. Abysmal singers who can dance consistently get better star rankings than good singers with lacklustre dancing. The message is clear: we shall address the issue in words, but only participate in it with our actions.

For Choi Yujin to get four stars with that mid at most line being the only piece of singing we heard from him, while Park Gunwook got assigned three for not being heard singing enough was already quite frustrating. But Gunwook isn’t really a singer either, so the real rage was to see Kim Taerae also get only three stars AFTER the assessment that the show desperately needed SINGERS. If Yujin deserved four stars, then so did Taerae, because his dancing is nowhere near just middle-ground, he’s good enough to blend in the ensemble while carrying a vocal position. But the show does not care for this: they want flashy performers, no matter what their empty claim. But then, it seems Choi Yujin was actually a victim more than an undeserved win, as the show’s true focus seems to now do MY job and use every opportunity to belittle him and call him undeserving of his rank, as if they weren’t the ones putting him there in the first place.

But in all fairness, bad singing makes sense when a good portion of your candidates aren’t done going through puberty: the amount of 2006 to 2008ers present in the lineup should be an indicator as to why we hear so many unstable shaky creaky breaky voices: these are teenagers who should be in school, not in Public Shamings - The Show, no budget edition (because we spent all of it making a Roblox dupe, something the public for certain asked for).

Speaking of things no one asked for: Pentagon Hui’s presence. As enjoyable as it is to get an actual serve in the midst of… Whatever it is others are doing, there’s nothing pleasant about seeing him sit in the middle of all those teens, right out of the army and all out of tears to cry. The misery of every episode 1 reaction shot on him, free this man. At every round, we will have to pretend to carefully examine who exactly is most skilled, as if there wasn’t a guy among the participants who should have been mentoring them, not playing with them. Unlike CLC’s Yujin on Girls Planet, his situation is also nowhere near as dire: while Pentagon hasn’t been in its Shine heydays for a moment, they do not seem to be on the brink of disbandment the way CLC was when Girl’s Planet aired: Hui himself was speaking of comeback plans months before the start of Boys Planet. It seems CUBE ENT just wants to torture a poor guy who only probably wants to go back to his writing studio with his actual group rather than being under the threat of having to spend god knows how long Kep1er’s babybrother group will be active for. At least he provides respite whenever on stage I suppose, but I so desperately want him to get the Produce Camp Lelush treatment: a full time exposure then freedom on the last episode. Make it worth it at least!

Have a little palate cleanser before we carry on.

Sabotage

I love to talk badly about corporations too much to blame only the trainees for their bad performances though. Particularly, Mnet isn’t truly known for either fairness or transparency, and so a lot of what the show displays doesn’t reflect individual potential. When that many stages are bad, the fault is on the network, not only through their casting, but their sabotage. That’s right: here come the delicious speculations of foul play.

Just like fancams of a performance learnt in a few days- with foreign trainees being given one day less to train, by the way- aren’t really indicative of who is talented, the Star Level stages are to be put into question: the showrunners claim that the songs were picked by the teams, but it takes extreme gullibility to take their word when watching some of the stage choices: either those trainees are stupid on top of untalented, or someone isn’t telling the truth.

When I mentioned Canton China’s performance earlier, they are one of the most questionable matchup: why would foreigners who aren’t fluent pick a song as rap-heavy and dense in pronunciation as God’s Menu? Would they really have expected anything but this?

It’s still funny though sorry Canton China. KKAMA HH HH KKAJI.

And how come there just so happens to be such a high percentage of songs that members of the jury worked on, even with their extensive workography, when half the songs are their work, it becomes a tad suspicious, there isn’t just one writer and one choreographer in this industry. The numbers don’t add up. And as iconic as Shine is as a song, it’s still eyebrow-raise worthy to have Just the song to activate the competition’s most famous “trainee”’s backstory and tears. The songs are just too suspicious: fitting neither the skills or style or announced preferences of the participants. In a round where they have to best portray themselves, it’s hard to believe that so many contestants would pick so far out of their comfort zone, just to appeal to one member of the jury. Not to mention the coincidental stage repeats: the two tall and handsome but inexperienced guys just happened to both decide to do My House, in matching outfits too? At least try to be subtle about your script.

And all of those network picks only serve to push forward their favourites, and mostly, the premises of narratives they want to build. As the writers aren’t too original and love to rehash the same storylines, they are pretty easy to spot: the talented guy who did not charm the jury at first but will then sweep them off their feet with one day of practice, great but mean guy who’ll likely be lost by his “oversized ego”, the one who did So Good at first and then never lived up to it… It is much easier to make entertaining situations yourself than to expect them from a crowd of kids who likely wouldn’t start fights with how little time they have to do anything but practice and sleep. Hence, manufactured rivalries- between the Korean and Foreign group notably, something so out of pocket when within those you can find people who belong to one same debuted group split into blue and pink team, and definitely hilarious whenever they prompt a foreigner to say anything negative on the Korean team, taking it to their nationality as root of the issue, when some members of the Global team are themselves part of the Korean diaspora. The choice of Nationalistic War as a plotline is certainly a choice, but only works way less when instead of GP999’s three teams of more or less strictly region locked participants you have one country against the whole rest of the world. But I’d rather pretend this entire decision does not exist, there’s just something uncomfortable about the show trying to become ‘war on Kpop: these foreigners are trying to steal our job’. As if Mnet was even going to pick more than 3 Global trainees for their line up.

Then come my most detested, as I am a hater, the ones who take the limelight when being hardly better than MY picks who are objectively better naturally as I am the voice of truth. I mentioned Choi Yujin, but there are other worsties in the show, some who may get the same sad treatment as their fellow (of being shamed for not living up to expectation built out of nothing), I’m thinking most notably KuanJui from team Taipei whom the show will not manage to convince me is good as an Idol, no matter how much they repeat it: his traditional dancing is very good, but he neither could dance or sing Tiger Inside in a way that I could stomach, and it was neither a matter of awkward lack of confidence nor an issue of assignment that didn’t match his tastes. He may have done better indeed on an elegant song, but when it’s likely the final group will be performing Hip-Hop leaning choreographies, what use is there in lying that he can carry them out? Why are we pretending that he did not just disrespect Ten’s legacy etc etc? As he also carries the fatal flaw of not being a Korean trainee, which, to the Mnet writers’ eyes might as well mean you attempted murder on their families, I am expecting him to be this season’s Cai Bing, suddenly villainized by the community whenever the show needs some drama that doesn’t involve collateral damage for their plan of debutees to be.

Is there no main Slayer?

And how are they even going to make that lineup, you could ask, if everyone is mediocre, if there’s no talent but the 30 years old hag who already has a group at home and enlistment under his belt?

Thankfully, in the mass of Nothing, there still are a few attention grabbers, some I have already shouted out before, some that I keep for this more entertaining section of “lets see some good food”.

Well, good food…

I first want to give a shout-out to my little pity boys, the ones so clearly set up and so thoroughly mocked that you can only feel bad for them. I’d want them in the group just to spite the network. The Houses, as I’ve already mentioned before, have this incredible charm to them (they’re good looking) that makes it hard not to root for their progress (and they’re tall too) especially when the show bestows a montage of them working so hard day and night to escape their reputation (pretty boys should never be sad). Red House Jung Min Gyu is probably the funnier of the two, his awkwardness is in how brazenly he tries, while Blue House Bak Do Ha is the more tragic one, the one desperate with tears, the one who has to carry the burden of being Labelmate with Hui. Neither of them are good, but both seem untrained as hell, and the odds aren’t in their favour when the show cannot acknowledge that even with years of vocal lessons they’d hardly be able to sing Here I Am given their natural pitch. There’s something wholesome in the trauma-bound solidarity between the two as well, my favourite manufactured narrative is the show’s insistence on sliding a reaction shot of one House whenever the other does badly. They are brothers in martyrdom.

The one thing the jury did get right is how much we did need to see them perform together. Power duo.

Another Martyr would be Lee Da Eul: as soon as the fancams dropped he was already the most mocked online, for his sloppy and odd dancing. Just like the Houses, his voice is unfit for the Soprano-ranged songs, and just like them, he has that weirdly endearing thing to him. Unlike the houses though, his bad performance secured him a spot for at least a round, if votes remain the main factor of survival: the hate-views of his fancam alone landed him in the top 9 for two episodes in a row. He’s everyone’s favourite underskilled little guy. And perhaps mine as well. Daeul sweep etc… I hope he makes it to the finale.

He’s hypnotic to be perfectly honest, I’m obsessed with him he’s so woobly he’s so real.

Then come My Dozens. The ones that may not be deserving of the support compared to others, but that I still will support, because it’s my ranking, I get to choose the pretty boys who get in on face alone. Naturally, as the rest of the viewers, I devote myself to the Chiu SweetBlood- sorry I mean Jiwoong Sweep. Is he here and winning just because Bro is Beautiful? Maybe. But if the mass is not good might as well have pretty faces, and the thing is that he’s not completely void of talent, to my surprise and also disappointment, as there was something much funnier in supporting a guy who can legit do nothing but serve face and cleavage. From the get go I could never tell if I thought he was a good dancer or not. His fancam was… Not very good. His footage from his previous group endeavours were not too remarkable but not too bad. But Mirotic seemed to be just the style that best showcased his ability, and he can sustain vocals on top of the dancing, although not the most stunning ones. Still, that’s more than a Dozen needs to be doing, so shoutout to his pretty eyes and bosoms. Was he my favourite of his team? Not even. Did he still kind of Give? To me, certainly. But then I’m not objective towards the one truly handsome guy of the whole competition. Any lacks of his that would get anyone else thwarted from my list of faves is filled out by his mere blinks.

Good dancers who cannot hold a note were aplenty, and if I’m sensitive to guys who can shake it and willing to close my ears for them, I could not just adopt all of them. Some that did still vow me would be, and we’ll do quick name drops, Haruto, whose iconic voice break- cut off at broadcast because Mnet and I sometimes agree on who deserve the Ws- and iconic-er pre-show online presence carry him into my heart at all times, Wang Zi Hao who danced way better in his rehearsal than final stage but did not sound pleasant in either, Cha Woongki, yes he sounds awful no I don’t care he can shake it and threw a fish, and Na Kamden who hasn’t actually shown any singing so who knows maybe he’s good. All of these make it far in my excel sheet only because they aren’t Good dancers but Great ones. In this economy, it’s equivalent to having a minimum of singing skills.

As for singers, they get an automatic pass for me. We have to support what little voices we get.

The first Good singer I heard watching the performances was Jay, Kamden’s singing teammate, and he’s one I have to support double as it seems the public refuses to acknowledge him due to his cringeboy swag. Or perhaps he did something I’m not aware of, but his High School Musical type vocals deserve the acknowledgement: there’s not a lot of other candidates who can do what he does. So what if he’s cringe? What if he has the aura of a guy who posts tiktok thirst traps? What if he’s American? We have a shortage of singers. We need him now more than ever.

I mentioned Kim Taerae earlier, he alongside Lee Hwanhee are the two trainees who give the more Classic Kpop vocals. The former got to have a segment on how ‘he sounds so good but dances so bad’ and the latter is nowhere to be found on the screen. A damn shame, he sounds amazing, but what can we do against the editor’s favouritism except watch the full cam performance and sigh in hopes for a change to come when more group performances happen and they cannot skip him anymore.

Yoo Seungeon mainly, but also Krystian (with a very unique vocal colour, whose uncle possessed him, idk but i fuck with it), Park Gwanyoung (who sounded strained but way tolerable considering) and Winnie (who was mad good given the moves he was doing) aren’t just as good but still have nice vocal potential, and can probably do more, with time or more fitting songs.

Then come the ones that actually caught real attention, to different levels.

My favourite flop with no hopes of surviving, Kim Minhyuk, teammate of Park Gwanyoung, is being snubbed of screen time, of votes, of stars, of everything. Most tortured babygirl. Every day I dump a vote to the trash by giving it to him as if he could make it. First elimination and I know I’ll have to bid him goodbye, but our time together was lovely regardless. I made my peace, I don’t love him to the point of outrage, just to the point of disappointment. 

Lee Ye Dam gave mediocre vocals on his live, but his practice sounded much better, so I do believe he can sing. And mainly, boy he can dance, and he can Slay. Moves AND attitude, it’s maddening given how his PR video had me on the fence about supporting him (made him drop all the way from my top ranks after the fancam, to the Thin Ice section). For my own public image, let’s all look into a spinning spiral and erase it from our minds, and focus on his gambler performance.

Sung Han Bin has me very confused. He’s quite obviously Mnet’s favourite little guy, and he’s surely talented, but he’s got that crazy trait of becoming way less interesting as soon as he’s on stage. His rehearsals and freestyles are way more charming, they film him having a silly little fake competition and suddenly I get the hype, then he does his assignments and I am bored. But well, would I be mad if he won? Absolutely not, he’s solid, he’s safe. He’s just a mystery: how does a guy who look so confident about performing also loses his charisma when he does? A science subject. Perhaps that’ll bewitch me.

Funnily, because they’re besties, the show so badly wants a Sung Hanbin vs Seok Matthew rivalry. They do play it up a tiny bit, but never fully, instead, you get to see Canada boy rave over how good his friend is over and over again, while himself being honestly quite as good. It seems that a lot of people want them to debut together, friendship wins, but also talent wins, because Matthew is a great performer, good dancer, pleasant singer though with room to improve, and seems comfortable and happy on stage, so that’s just nice. Good vibes. Go Canada.

Next one will have people ask, wait, didn’t you have a section for good dancers who can’t sing? And yes, I did, but the thing is to me, Park Gunwook is more than a great dancer. He’s just way too nice to watch dance. Makes me insane levels of “I fuck with this guy’s dance”. So he’s allowed to not sing the best you see. I think he can learn. I think he can be dangerous if he does. Like give him vocals and it’s the end for everyone else because damn. He dance good. That’s it. Sometimes I just need a lil dance guy.

The one sin Jiwoong committed in entrancing everyone with his vampire spell was to take away attention from Jeong Ichan in his team. That guy is kind of crazy if you ask me, and gets no attention for it. Sad! Watch him shake it, hear him sing, he’s quite obviously talented in both aspects. I want him in the final lineup so desperately, but it seems the judges disagree with me. Well, they never had good taste anyway. All he can do now is steal Yoon Jongwoo’s strategy of gaybaiting through Jiwoong to secure his fujogirl’s votes through ship-sweep. I’m begging him to get on this grind. I need him to survive.

For a while I didn’t understand the Keita hype. Not that I thought he was bad: like Hanbin I just thought he was skilled but not that bewitching, at least from his fancam he seemed really skilled, but I just didn’t feel much. I can understand better with his appearances on the two episodes so far. His Conduct Zero stage was fun, and he also did well with Here I Am both in evaluation and in Good Conduct, so go short king! You caught me now, I’m adding you to the ones I look after now. If we have to have a kpop rapper on the team, he can be it.

Kum Junhyeon. That’s about it. I thought he was great in his fancam, I thought he was awesome in Nunu Nana too, like oh he can sing alright? Seems like a fun guy too, let’s twirl our hair and pat ourselves on the back for always knowing he was to look out for, I always knew but now I got the other watchers on my side too. Very satisfying.

Unlike the total disregard for Kim Minseoung. It was to the point I wondered if he was just a known public enemy, he was my favourite from the fancams, and by favourite I mean that Youtube started putting it in my automatic playlists because of how much I watched it-something about the clarity of his moves, so satisfying, so clean, so exactly what I look for, so I pledged allegiance to him forever, and I’m thankful that he did not embarrass me. He’s great. And he’s in the bottom twenty percent with a full four star ranking. Very frustrating. Gives me a superiority complex too: I know what’s up. No one else does. They only like him because he does a flip…

In Conclusion...

The show exactly meets its expectations: bad taste and bad faith from the judges. The public doesn’t know shit. We are short of talent in this industry nowadays. I’m the biggest martyr. Chiu sweep. Ten thousand likes and I drop my list of most hated candidates just to feel something.

[ferahntics]

Brainstorming more ideas for Quiver Knight, specifically her childhood and trainee days and I got an idea for her mentor and I’m just. I already have four characters that I have trouble keeping up with, and yet I keep coming up with more, brain I can only keep up with so many-

[seokmatthewz]

I totally get it!!! I watched pd101s2 after it finished and it was chill, but I watched pdx101 as it aired and the finale was so stressful it made me sick the next day ;; I think gonna try watching boys planet!!

omg yeah i watched both those seasons live and like my faves made it both times but like it was so serious i was so stressed BDKDKD this season in particular was so bad for me tho to the point that i was so worried leading up to matthew's announcement that i zoned out all the speeches before his because i was so stressed and had to rewatch the announcement LMAO i hope u enjoy and pls pls come talk to me abt it if you'd like anon dearest!!!! 💕💞💘💗💘💗💘💗💘💞💘💖💘