it physically hurts me when jian bin is like so obviously (to us) trying to show qzk how much he needs him n wants him to stay n qzk is just like “ah. 😐 hes going to ruin himself in order to thank me bc hes so kind i cant let him do this bc i care abt him.” meanwhile jian bin sees qzk pushing away from his affection n thinks “oh so he hates being here actually how do i make this not torturing for him bc hes too nice n rigid w his values to leave” like when he promotes him bc he trusts him THAT MUCH but qzk is like noooo i cant IM GONNA KILL BOTH OF THEM
STOPPP ugh ur literally so right like i wish they wpuld just communicate openly!!! but noo 😒 they gotta suffer in silence cuz theyre gay. meanwhilw they just wanna run off into mountains with each other and relive that little domestic life they had when qzk was nurturing jian bin back to health 🥺 CRIES
a o e i i er ai ei ao ou an en ang eng ong i ia iao ie iu ian in iang ing iong u ua uo uai ui uan un uang ueng ü üe üan ün a o e er ai ao ou an en ang eng yi ya yao ye you yan yin yang ying yong wu wa wo wai wei wan wen wang weng yu yue yuan yun b ba bo bai bei bao ban ben bang beng bi biao bie bian bin bing bu p pa po pai pei pao pou pan pen pang peng pi piao pie pian pin ping pu m ma mo me mai mei mao mou man men mang meng mi miao mie miu mian min ming mu f fa fo fei fou fan fen fang feng fu d da de dai dei dao dou dan den dang deng dong di diao die diu dian ding du duo dui duan dun t ta te tai tei tao tou tan tang teng tong ti tiao tie tian ting tu tuo tui tuan tun n na ne nai nei nao nou nan nen nang neng nong ni niao nie niu nian nin niang ning nu nuo nuan nü nüe l la le lai lei lao lou lan lang leng long li lia liao lie liu lian lin liang ling lu luo luan lun lü lüe g ga ge gai gei gao gou gan gen gang geng gong gu gua guo guai gui guan gun guang k ka ke kai kei kao kou kan ken kang keng kong ku kua kuo kuai kui kuan kun kuang h ha he hai hei hao hou han hen hang heng hong hu hua huo huai hui huan hun huang z za ze zi zai zei zao zou zan zen zang zeng zong zu zuo zui zuan zun c ca ce ci cai cao cou can cen cang ceng cong cu cuo cui cuan cun s sa se si sai sao sou san sen sang seng song su suo sui suan sun zh zha zhe zhi zhai zhei zhao zhou zhan zhen zhang zheng zhong zhu zhua zhuo zhuai zhui zhuan zhun zhuang ch cha che chi chai chao chou chan chen chang cheng chong chu chua chuo chuai chui chuan chun chuang sh sha she shi shai shei shao shou shan shen shang sheng shu shua shuo shuai shui shuan shun shuang r re ri rao rou ran ren rang reng rong ru rua ruo rui ruan run j ji jia jiao jie jiu jian jin jiang jing jiong ju jue juan jun q qi qia qiao qie qiu qian qin qiang qing qiong qu que quan qun x xi xia xiao xie xiu xian xin xiang xing xiong xu xue xuan xun
@witchy-weve-monbebe ok I wasn’t going to post it cause I know there’s more but this is all I have so far. I have no idea what to do with the list I wanted a visual guide lol but idk what to do with it hehe I have pics from Pinterest I can use but yeah idk
I would be lying if I said I’m watching for the plot because I’m totally here for Xiao Zhan.
Spoilers for episodes 1-3.
Christ on bike, it’s been only five minutes, I know, but I have no idea of what’s happening here. Like, why is this girl wearing full bangs in one scene and a middle part immediately after, then back to full bangs? Do you know how hard is to make full bangs look good after you part your hair? Those things are stubborn.
(Also, fakest hairpiece in the history of cdrama 👇)
Ren Min has a very unique face but this hair does her no favors, she looks a thousand times better with the middle part.
An eternity eight minutes into the episode we finally see Xiao Zhan’s beautiful face, aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh (me and mom fangirled so hard).
Sorry, I see no chemistry between them, I don’t buy them as lovers, only friends. I hope I’m made wrong later.
We are treated to an episode long flashback to Xiao Zhan Shi Ying’s childhood where he meets Ren Min Zhu Yan, but she doesn’t know he’s the prince, palace drama ensues, he’s accused of murdering his father’s concubine (mind it: he’s a child here). His mother creates a copy of him, sends him away with some guy and sets herself and the copy on fire. He’s presumed dead (his mother somehow survived this??)
Zhu Yan is mourning Shi Ying when this fella gives her a rose that’s clearly not a rose. I thought he looked familiar, then I thought he looked like the snake guy from Ashes of Love. Turns out Fang Yilun was in cpop/kpop boygroup M4M with Yu Bin aka Wen Ning. Listen to Sadness btw, it’s really good, very BEAST (both were in Cube).
(PS: Netflix subs are wrong, his name is Zhi Yuan)
Makeup on point.
I love him already.
The little kid playing young Shi Ying, Jian Yuxi, is killing it. A face to watch for.
The plot here is very complicated but apparently Shi Ying will be sent to cultivate in the mountains and he can’t see women because his destiny says he’ll be killed by a girl (idk if it’s specified it’s Zhu Yan or any girl will do) so he must kill her on sight, how romantic.
Five years later Shi Ying is now Xiao Zhan and is somehow still underage. Now, Xiao Zhan does look younger than 32 but he can’t play 17. Anyway, he’s gorgeous and I’m drooling.
I really want to like Chong Ming because he’s cute and reminds of that guy from Ashes of Love (again) but he’s oh so insufferable. I’m against animal cruelty but I want to kick this bird.
Xiao Zhan finally smiles, I love him so much.
Bad CGI bird (it’s Chong Ming btw) but I’ll forgive it because it’s cute and reminds me of my cat Yuki.
Subplot about sister drama and magical dancing competitions, who cares. Wang Churan, who plays the bitchy sister, was in Guo Jingming’s Painted Skin, 100% recommend this short film. Nice sister is better at dancing than bitchy sister so bitchy sister throws her special dress down a forbidden valley and of course Zhu Yan will retrieve the dress.
She meets Shi Ying down there but he can’t speak to her because of his celibacy vow prophecy. He recognizes her as the girl he met in childhood. Chong Ming shows up and is all like “omg a girl kill her now!!” Shi Ying bends his fingers and prepares to kill Zhu Yan when bad guys with Wolverine claws arrive and tries to kill both of them, lol. A fight ensues, Shi Ying breaks his vow and hides Zhu Yan inside his magical head space (???) when his master arrives. She touches an illusion of him inappropriately. Fuck, I’m jealous.
Back in their shared house, Shi Ying tells Chong Ming that he has no time for pussy, all he wants is to rescue his mother and avenge her.
Bitchy sister also went down the valley to search for something but Chong Ming stops her. She happens to be Shi Ying’s cousin and he asks about his mother. The news are not good. Shi Ying decides to help his mother immediately only to learn she just killed herself. Xiao Zhan gives a performance to rival Nightless City.
I forgot to say earlier but Xiao Zhan’s voice is markedly different from CQL. I don’t know if he’s using his real voice here or if it’s a different voice actor but it’s jarring, to the point where I can’t concentrate during his scenes. I watched CQL five times, Wei Wuxian’s voice is burned into my brain.
Shi Ying’s master is a master of psychological torture. He brings Shi Ying to listen to some officials disrespect his mother in order to strengthen him???? Btw, I thought this guy
and Shi Ying’s father
were the same person until now, lol.
This scene was probably done using this chemistry trick (trigger warning: fake blood, fake cutting) as you can see his hand is wet before.
Finally we see the return of the evil black smoke as Shi Ying screams that the world doesn’t deserve saving (I agree with him on that) and looks gorgeous.
I hope this is a sign that Shi Ying will go bad and mad and sexy in his quest to avenge his mother.
Boys Planet Dual Position Battle, final bits and thoughts
This recap will cover the final point reveals from the end of episode 7, as well as my final thoughts on the performances, including my own ranking and my analysis of MNET screentime allocation (I have the numbers, my loves).
Ranking announcement from the end of ep 6
Ok, here’s the ranking announcement from the end of episode 6. At this point, ep 8 is probably out, so this is out of date, but it’s still kind of interesting.
What I did is, I put the votes in my spreadsheet and found the average number of votes per trainee, which turned out to be 818,005. Then I had the spreadsheet calculate what percent of the average vote each person’s vote was. I think that helps put the number of votes in perspective. For example, international sweetheart Sung Hanbin’s 3.3 million votes represented 404% of the average (in other words, more than four times the average!). Meanwhile, poor Feel Special member Lee Donggun’s 81,739 votes represents about 10% of the average. Ouch.
What’s kind of interesting is that the top 15 were all 123% or more of the average or higher, while from 16 to 51, they were all 89% or lower of the average. It’s really a kind of haves and have-nots situation here.
People who were on a team that got the 100,000 benefit will be marked in blue. People who also got the 150,000 personal benefit will be marked in purple. Members of Zoom are marked in green (because I think they should have won.)
Sung Han Bin 3,307,923 404%
Han Yujin 2,909,883 356%
Seok Matthew 2,825,146 345%
Zhang Hao 2,673,322 327%
Kim JiWoong 2,529,910 309%
Kim Gyuvin 2,283,675 279%
Kim TaeRae 2,172,772 265%
Keita 1,881,172 230%
Jay 1,376,663 168%
Hui 1,338,595 163%
Park Gunwook 1,327,449 162%
Kum Jun Hyeon 1,315,229 160%
Park Hanbin 1,138,119 139%
Ricky 1,131,856 138%
Haruto 1,002,517 123%
Yoon Jong Woo 728,860 89%
Wang Zi Hao 654,985 80%
Zhang Shuai Bo 645,683 79%
Yoo Seung Eon 627,720 77%
Seo Won 609,101 74%
Takuto 573,842 70.15%
Na Kamden 573,627 70.13%
Chen Kuan Jui 570,537 69.75%
Lee Seung Hwan 550,610 67%
Cai Jin Xin 453,496 55%
Ollie 439,284 54%
Hiroto 425,135 52%
Ma Jing Xiang 397,838 49%
Lee Jeong Hyeon 382,238 46%
Mun Jung Hyun 366,626 45%
Anthonny 309,114 38%
Jung Mingyu 290,220 35%
Brian 285,579 34%
Cha Woongki 282,786 34%
Chen Jian Yu 266,785 33%
Lim Jun Seo 265,140 32.4%
Dang Hong Hai 257,333 31.5%
Lee Yedam 248,293 20%
Park JiHoo 238,539 29%
Cong 238,039 29%
Ji Yun Seo 230,839 28%
Wumuti 219,507 27%
Bak Doha 204,607 25%
Oh Sungmin 198,846 24.3%
Krystian 196,543 24%
Lee Da Eul 177,458 21.7%
Lee Dong Yeol 172,206 21%
Park Hyun Been 123,848 15%
Jeong IChan 113,935 14%
Choi Woojin 103,062 12.6%
Lee Donggun 81,739 10%
The Performances, the votes, and the rankings
In the last ten minutes or so of episode 7, they gather the trainees together in what might be the space where the audience usually stands, and torture them for a bit before finally revealing how many votes each team got. The winner within each category gets to perform on MNET countdown, each member gets 100,000 extra points, and the number one ranked team member on that team gets an extra 150,000 extra points.
Below, I list the songs, the audience votes they received, and the total screen time (adding up the episode 6 segment and the longer segment in episode 6 or 7). I list them in order of audience vote.
Vocal and Rap
Tomboy 860 votes, 27 minutes of screentime
Man in love 752 votes, 14.5 minutes of screentime
Limousine 719 votes, 13.5 minutes of screentime
Not Spring… 617 votes, 15 minutes of screentime
Winner: Tomboy; Zhang Hao gets the extra benefit
My thoughts:
My favorite is easily Limousine. I just loved this performance. Man in Love and Not Spring were about tied for me; each had one singer I quite enjoy and a few singers I don’t enjoy as much, and neither was a song that I exactly want to listen to over and over. I guess Tomboy actually came in last for me -- I would rather listen to any of the other three again than listen to Tomboy again. If I’m watching the performances, then I’d rather watch Limousine the most -- the performance is so emotional and so good -- but after, that I’d obviously choose to watch Man in Love to see TaeRae’s weird elf face that I like so much. So, putting all that together, my rank is:
Limousine
Man in Love
Not Spring…
Tomboy
Vocal and Dance
Love Killa 840 votes, 20.5 minutes minutes of screentime
Home 716 votes, 19 minutes of screentime
Feel Special 677 votes, 19 minutes of screentime
Butterfly 664 votes, 19 minutes of screentime
Winner: Love Killa; Kim Gyuvin gets the extra votes
My thoughts:
None of these performances exactly floated my boat. Love Killa was marred by sort of blank performances, in my opinion (though it’s cool with me if you liked it, hope I’m not yucking your yum). Home was lovely at times but marred by tight, strained vocals here and there. Feel Special was a mess, brightened by Woongki's cuteness and, honestly, Z-bo's cheerful performance (I'm not his biggest fan, but it's not like the audience vote came out of completely nowhere). And Butterfly just sort of fell apart, as beautiful as Chen Kuan Jui's dancing was. I don’t really want to watch any of these performances again, or listen to them either.
I tried thinking, ok, which one would I want to watch a fancam of? For example, if it was a fancam of Gyuvin from Love Killa vs. a fancam of Woongki from Feel Special vs. a fancam of Chen Kuan Jui from Butterfly vs. a fancam of Yoon Jong Woo from Home, which would I prefer? And I found myself just ranking them based on how much I like the song itself. So my ranking is meaningless. They're all tied for 2nd place. No one is in first. First place is held in reserve for how good Love Killa would have been if Yoon Jong Woo and/or Ricky had been in the group instead of Matthew and/or Seo Won. (Sorry! I love Seo Won and want to get fro-yo with him, but the song didn't really suit him.)
Rap and Dance
Law 846 votes, 19 minutes of screentime
Zoom 813 votes, 14 minutes of screentime
Gang 798 votes, 12 minutes of screentime
Rush Hour 742 votes, 20.5 minutes of screentime
Winner: Law; Park Hanbin gets the extra votes
My thoughts:
This one is easy. Zoom. Zoom is my winner, hands down.
I can see why Law won. It was exciting and sexy and the boys looked good. I like all five of these trainees a lot and think they're great performers. But here’s the thing about Law -- it’s so fucking good the first few times you watch it, but then it gets kind of dull. It’s just all kind of monotonous dancing, you know? Yeah, there’s the stupid flag wave, but there’s nothing else to break it up.
In contrast, I keep noticing more cool things about Zoom as I watch it over and over. Like, the detail of how, when Wumuti does that kind of lifted leg butt wiggle on the line, “Wumumutiti!,” the other trainees do a far scaled down version of the move, so that they’re supporting him but your eye still stays on Wumuti. It’s so subtle, but it’s cool because it controls where your focus is. I like being led around visually as I watch a dance -- tell me where I should look, choreography! Also, and I’m aware that this isn’t a unique take, but I love the way that the end of each rap section connects to the beginning of the next one. It makes it all feel like this is a real team, not just trainees who got stuck with each other. And I get so excited when I hear Wumuti’s awesome screech “Lights Camera Action baby!” and I know it’s Haruto’s dance break. YES!!!! Haruto, hit that breakdance pose and hold it for the camera click sound! It’s also so fun to watch Haruto’s fan cam and see him cheerfully clowning around with the other trainees when they were on the sidelines, during the performance. Ollie's cute rap, Hyunbeen saying "braggadocious," it's all so charming. They’re just all having so much fun. They’re IN the performance.
For the record, I assume it was Keita behind most of what’s good here. From what I’ve heard, he did basically everything for this song, and did a lot in previous challenges, too. Keita’s so good that even MNET’s editing can’t hide him. The judges won’t shut up about him and every single other trainee respects him. I’m so glad that the audience sees it too.
So, Law won over Zoom in part (in my opinion) because Law was sexier -- I have a whole other post about how I think that Zoom’s styling really brought them down. But it may also have been the scheduling. I saw someone talking (in the comments section of The Bias List) about how she was in the audience for the taping of these performances! Jealous. According to her, it took ages and ages, with lots of time in between performances. She says Zoom was the last performance and by then, it was midnight and the audience was exhausted by then. But the team started performing and it was so energetic and fun that everyone in the audience jumped into life again. This is all according to a person on the internet, I can’t substantiate it, but I don’t know, it kind of rings true.
It would be like MNET to try to sabotage Keita. Production had to know how good Zoom was and that it was likely to win, which would give 100,000 points to Ollie, Wumuti, Haruto, and Park Hyunbeen, and almost certainly would mean 250,000 points for Keita. If you look at the vote list above, you can see how much 100,000 points would mean for most members on this team. Yes this is just an interim vote and the final tally would be bigger overall, but even so, 100,000 points would help lock Haruto into safe territory, it would probably ensure Ollie's survival, and it would give Wumuti and Hyunbeen a fighting chance. 250,000 more votes might also move Keita up one space in the top 9. Scheduling Zoom last meant that it was an exhausted, cranky crowd who were voting, and that probably hurt it.
Anyway, enough about Zoom and Law. What about the other two groups?
As for Ggang, I think it was never going to appeal to me much because the song itself isn’t really my style. It’s not the trainees’ fault at all -- they did a decent job. But nothing about this performance specifically grabbed my attention to where I’d want to watch it over and over, and my little cousin Kum Jun Hyeon's shirt lift joke didn’t strike my fancy.
And of course, Rush Hour just drags my spirit down when I try to watch it. I don’t know if I’d feel differently if I didn’t know the back story, but I do know the backstory, and I can’t turn that part of my brain off.
So in the end, I guess my rank is:
Zoom
Zoom
Zoom
The other teams
Oh, and here’s my pie chart of the number of minutes devoted to each team. It’s kind of wild to see how little time was devoted to Zoom compared to Tomboy, isn’t it?
As for the new songs that they’re going to be performing for the “Artist Battle”...
Oriental Pop “Switch” - sounds like a lost NCT Dream song
Sentimental Hip Hop “SuperCharger” - fast paced, kind of like Law
R&B Pop “Over Me” is sexy and charismatic
New-tro synth pop “Say My Name” is cute and lighthearted
Funk Pop “En garde” is sort of weirdly forgettable.
Based on my theory on how important sexiness is, I think most of them will want #3, whether it suits them or not. Dancer types like Wang Zi Hao will probably want #2, and cutie pies like Woongki will probably want #4. It’ll be fun to see who ends up in which group, and whether it was the song they wanted or not. I’ll especially be interested in where the fans put Matthew, because he keeps trying to do sexy concepts and I think he’d be much better suited for something more like #4.
Ok! We're finally done! And episode 8 is out. In fact, it's been out for a week if you knew where to look, and I did know where to look, but I have held back and didn't spoil myself.
Hope you're having a lovely day, hope that good things happen to you, and hope that all your pants are real sparkly. See you in the next one!