#what this collection is missing is like a quote about empire and efficiency but I couldn't find one

[ratuszarsenal]

the British empire's war on a mollusc: [1] x [2] x [3] Anthony Burton, "Mines and Miners of Cornwall and Devon : The Tin and Copper Industries" [4] x [5] x [6] x [7] Burton

[p101recaps]

Broduce 101: Episode 8 First Half (Quick Livestream Recap)

Since I missed the first half of the livestream, here’s a quick recap off the raw. I’ll link this to the second half recap too.

Before elimination heartbreaks, they’d served some fanservice to numb the pain with a bit from when BoA came to visit before position evals.

She brought them pizza! The boys had a collective breakdown of food appreciation, and we see a brilliantly photoshopped press picture of BoA holding up pizzas like an angel, like Kim Youjin clearly imagines.

Jung Jung, at the brink of tears: WHY IS IT SO DELICIOUS

They’re just happy to be around her, which is fully understandable. She does a little happy dance as they chant for her, and mingles with the trainees (there’s a nice shot of the Amazing Kiss group talking to her) before leaving them to their food.

Sidenote: the cameras always catch Noh Taehyun in the background, and he’s always unintentionally pulling the ugliest faces possible, unaware he’s in the shot.

Cube Chick Yoo Seonho is by far the happiest, putting away as much pizza as he could to compensate for only getting three meals a day at dorms. He’s obviously at that age where you eat everything in sight, it reminds me of my brother.

Cut to eliminations day and shots of tears. Okay, the warm and fuzzies have disappeared.

The trainees all do their entrance into the Ceremony Hall of Crowned Chairs.

Kim Donghan did a move from Shape of You, then a heart and wink combo.

Starship boys did something weird, ofc

Brand New trainees did the point choreo from Twice’s comeback song, Signal. Cute. 

My man Ong-ssi transitioned from a very stiff and formal bow to his high note meme face from Get Ugly

FNC Yoo Hwiseung did his lip-swipe

Cube chicks, whose backstage hwaiting needed to be redone three times for them to be in sync, did the Shugo Chara frame.

Pledis’ Nu’est boys did hearts and more Twice references.

Hashtag that Twice relevancy

Bae Jinyoung did the ear flapping move too

So did Maroo Park Jihoon. I suddenly miss Kwon Hyeob, seeing him up there alone.

ONO Moonbok, who looked ridiculously pretty btw - I hope they stick to styling him like this, did something that looked like Red Velvet’s Rookie or Lovelyz’s WoW, and held up his lovely hair in two pigtails. Adorable. The trainees were KO’d

Star Empire Takada Kenta looks more like a puppy than ever.

The Yuehua kids shot hearts and Ahn Hyungseob acted like he got hit by one

S.How trainees used their minimal screentime references - Namhyung did his finger to the lip with elevated pinky detail that had impressed Lee Seokhoon, while Dongsu did the plucking from the air bit from the Amazing Kiss stage.

MMO trainees, extra as always, integrated Auntie Jisung’s clapping move with Twice’s Signal. 

Baby maknae Lee Woojin did his meme face and finger heart from the Be Mine stage. A worldwide cutie.

C2K Kim Seonglee did finger hearts with the Very Very Very head bobbing

YGK+ Kwon Hyunbin tried a headstand before just rolling over like a cat in a blanket

Real Performers Ardor and Able Noh Taehyun and Ha Sungwoon did a finger point choreo before moonwalking off the stage in sync

RBW puppies referenced fallen trainee Dongmyung by doing his warm up flapping dance and hearts. 

Protect Them.

Tension building and then cut to concept evaluation song distributions.

They keep playing up the fact that Jihoon dropped ranks...are they egging the fangirls to have a flatout fight?

This way of arranging missions, with distributing trainees into teams and then shuffling after half of them leave is stupid and could be avoided if they split up the mission footage better. The show could fully have filler episodes between missions at this level of popularity so the vote timing and mission preparation could be allocated efficiently. 

Imagine working at a song and then having to start over a few days later. It’s ridiculous.

Songs are introduced by their producers. The viewers have been voting to match the songs to their favourite trainees for this mission. 

I’d said earlier that the idea was just going to incite some kind of fuckery, with fans not used to this amount of legitimate power. Sure enough, there was cheating involved so Kang Daniel, Lee Kiwon and Kim Dongbin were banned from their leaked song preferences.

Honestly, the cat emoji morse code was great. It’s one of my top controversies this season. 

First up is my personal favourite of the song concepts, I Know You Know, produced by heavyweight producer Joombas (who is famously responsible for Exo’s Growl, SHINee’s Dream Girl and also apparently worked with HOTSHOT). I’m all about the funky R&Bish vibe: not the kind of song that tops charts, but probably stays there a while. Watch this song be ignored though lol

Second is Oh Little Girl, a name even the producer draws quote marks around. This is the song for the hip-hop concept, and has a jazzy easy listening feel.

Next is Showtime, coming from a trio of newer or less popular producers. This seems catchy, but it sounds very familiar - not a song I’d remember. The choreo looks fun though, and they reference Dongmyung’s warm up! The trainees love it, cracking up as they mimic the move.

Fourth are another famous producer group, Devine Channel, who I believe do a lot of SM’s songs. They’ve also done a lot of very trendy title songs, including BTS’ Fire and VIXX’s The Closer. I think the English title for this song is Open? Correct me if I’m wrong. It sounds great, oddly like something I might have heard from Nu’est. I’m looking forward to this too, the choreo looks great.

Fifth song is from the producers that get the most hype, Hyuna’s new charity project from Cube, Triple H’s Never. Auntie Jisung decides he wants the song because Hyuna is involved, which, honestly, same. The EDM structure also feels overdone but I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to be the song that gets maximum hype since there’s no ballad.

Trainees get allocated their songs in envelopes and have to go to wait in separate practice spaces for the rest of their team.

Jaehwan doesn’t want to be in same team as Hyunbin, which I understand, considering that he’s had to carry him twice already. Like the other trainees, he wants to work with GodJonghyun. 

Pretty boys Bae Jinyoung, Park Jihoon and Ahn Hyungseob get sorted together. Maybe their fans have been working in sync. They also get excited puppy Gunhee, which means their vocals will be taken care of. 

Once the trainees all gather, their songs are revealed. Byun Hyunmin decides to rip the sticker for his room and accidentally pulls off the whole thing. 

Byun Hyunmin: :O

Noh Taehyun: Everyone, we’re not singing.

Hyunmin retries.

All the trainees: cAREFULLY 

The group gets Showtime, which was Samuel’s pick. He’s ecstatic.

Minhyun’s room has their sticker peel by Emperor Hwang to reveal Never, which pleases most of them. 

Park Jihoon’s room has a breakdown before Dongbin peels the sticker to show Oh Little Girl, a song I can see Sewoon do well in. The Yuehua trainees are all in this team too.

Moonbok has a braid in his lovely hair this segment, it looks fire emoji.

Hyunbin’s room has I Know You Know. Taedong, who has a lower range than the song needs, is nervous.

Baekho’s group gets Open, which most of the trainees are excited about. Seunglee in particular is relieved, since it was one of his picks. 

We go into centre struggles for the killing part.

Oh Little Girl has Jihoon battling Euiwoong and Minki. They all demonstrate, and vote Jihoon and Minki as their preferred centres. 

Euiwoong is getting worried. He’s one of the only initial popular trainees that seems to be dropping down ranks every week. Kahi gives him a much needed confidence boost at dance check in, and Don Mills praises him at vocal check in too.

Product placement break.

Open team wants a dance focus trainee as leader because of the high level choreo and elect Daniel, who now probably understands what he needs to do to lead his group after faltering last mission. 

But the team has so many people that they split into two halves while leaning choreo and one team falls behind since Daniel doesn’t split his attention between the two initially

Kahi calls them out on the distinction, with one group lagging while the first one does great. The second half, which has Park Sungwoo, who we know needs a lot of focused help, starts to catch up after the whole team gets scolded.

There are so many trainees in this team that won’t survive eliminations, oh god. 

Kim Seunglee, you deserve better.

Showtime group has a lot of strong singers. Woodam wants to be main vocal, and Yoo Hwiseung needs that vocal hype boost since his rank is risky too. 

Auntie Jisung: I want to try to do it too.

They start talking about the need for facial expressions and singing, Samuel wants to lowkey be centre. They need to have impact to bring the concept across, they decide.

Auntie Jisung: I still want to try though!

They ask the trainees to sing and do some face expression to pick centre and main vocal. Jisung and Samuel share centre while Woodam and Hwiseung share main vocal.

Coach Shin Yumi likes Hwiseung’s control over the notes better. He’s a lot more stable than Woodam, maybe because his natural tone is stronger?

Yoo Hwiseung gets some screentime for the first time.

Far out, Mnet. You really annoy me.

Never team has Ha Sungwoon being worried about being in a team with high ranking trainees, most of who want to be centre. 

They all battle with facial expressions but the trainees vote for Guanlin and Minhyun as centre.

At dance check in with Dabbing Ajusshi Kwon Jaesung, however, Sungwoon is the first one to volunteer to dance. 

He gets some well deserved praise for it, which honestly, the kid needs. Being in a group of trainees that are all popular is awful enough, but he’s a true all rounder. Without enough screentime or helpful editing, he’s been fading despite being good looking and a consistent performer. 

More product placement.

I Know You Know team has the underdog feel straight up, with the lower ranking trainees. I called the song as not being the kind to be popular.

Appealing time for the centre spot. RBW Hwanwoong stands out. Ah, my heart. Donghan and Hwanwoong get centre.

Dance check in with Kahi has her appreciating their hard work. Hyunbin’s dancing seems to have improved, I guess being cyber bullied has that effect on you. She also thinks Hwanwoong is a good centre choice, which is some well deserved praise. 

Tears and mournful instrumentals are abound as the low ranking trainees recount their experience before for upcoming eliminations. We get flashbacks for some of them, which should prepare you for what’s coming.

We all know where this is heading. The rest of the recap can be found here.