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tutuandscoot · 2 years

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17/18 Season Costume Appreciation

I don’t think we have appreciated enough what a fucking power move it was that Tessa had essentially the same dress design for both the SD and FD for the 2017/18 season..

So the first time I truly watched them and took notice and was invested in their results was the 2018 PYC individual event. (I had seen The Seasons in Sochi and I have a vague recollection of seeing the worlds 2010 CD). I can’t remember why I hadn’t seen the team event which is when everything about them blew up. But I just remember them skating out to start the SD and even before they started I was like ‘holy shit, they haven’t skated yet and already they had such a presence’.

When I watched the free dance- before they skated obviously, one of my first thoughts were how much I loved their costumes. To be fair, their SD costumes are probably my fave *matching costumes they ever wore. And I was so excited to see what they would be in for the FD. I LOVED what Scott wore, but my first thought on Tessa’s was how cool it was that it was essentially the same style dress as the SD. \

I know that “packaging” is a big deal in figure skating. I can’t say I totally understand the nuances and how it can affect momentum, judging and overall impression for a season in regards to FS specifically, but I understand enough about merchandising and cohesion within ‘looks’ and you are trying to make an impression. VM’s packaging this season was just so amazing.

From costumes to the fact that they went all out on having both programs being incredibly sensual and adult. I honestly don’t think this was a conscious intention for the Olympic year considering there is a huge increase in audience and visibility at this particular event over regular FS competitions - I just don’t think they care about that stuff and the idea that “sex sells”. They didn’t do anything different to what they had always done- they we’re always themselves and just told their stories together while exhibiting their unbelievable chemistry. It was just a feeling artistically that they wanted to push that sensuality to the extreme. As was seen through social media, the SD made enough people pretty hot and bothered to the point where it was being referred to as ‘sex on ice’ and then they came out with MR.. and apparently everyone was pregnant after that.

Going back now on a deep dive watching every piece of footage of them that exists.. it’s so cool to see that the whole season (apart from the first MR dress (that became the LTR dress) and the TE SD dress that her dresses were all the same style for both short and free all season. Then add onto that she had 2 practice dresses made so they didn’t have to wear their costumes at every practice was such a good move that only the GOATs could make 😌.

I think a lot of people think that the practice dress is just for Tessa to practice in- but it’s actually just as if not more for Scott. It’s because when they are training and are in exercise clothes and she’s in a leotard, for these dresses specifically there’s a lot of skin on her torso/back exposed. When ballet dancers are rehearsing they will almost always wear a practice tutu or skirt- depending on the role. This for her but also her partner to be able to practice turns and lifts with a tulle/long skirt in the way. Also the long sleeves on Tessa’s dress can have small affects on partnering. In relation to these dresses this season, it’s not so much the skirt that he has to get use to partnering with (say for example Farrucas they mentioned using a practice skirt) it’s more the back of the dress and the cut that comes round to the front on the MR one. It’s so Tessa can feel and get comfortable with the constant handling on her bare skin (not that she wouldn’t be already but for this specific choreography) and for Scott to practice with the different feel- if he has to change his grip, slight positions, with fabric his hand would slide a bit but with bare skin hardly at all. I would also like to think it helps with the characterisation with the specific nature of the program and chore (go look at some hansy gifs then come back😜).

They could just wear their costumes everytime, but it’s so cool how because both costumes were the same style, with only a small difference in the back cut-out, that she can wear the same practice dress for both programs. As I got further into this I often found it odd that FS in general practice in their costumes so much. As stage dancers we would have a run through in the studios in costume, then one or sometimes two on stage. If we are touring probably just the principal (lead) dancers would rehearse in costume, but not the corps. I would’ve just thought they (FS) don’t want to wear the costumes more than they have to to keep them from wearing and getting damaged, considering how expensive they can be. I’ve come to learn it’s for the damn judges that they have to be seen in costumes for the whole ‘impression’ thing, which is stupid. But I really love how TS, especially in the 17/18 season would only wear their costumes for the final practice before competing, and would wear just exercise gear for the first, then the practice dress and Scott in tight blacks for the others.. even in the 16/17 season at words (and possibly others) Tessa had a practice jumpsuit that was the same as the costume but in all black. It’s so professional of them and kinda just sets them apart in yet another way. It shows how proud they are of their technique, lines and physicality that they want to show that off as much as possible, and also I guess have a bit of wow factor, both for the audience and feeling wise for them that they arn’t in their costumes all the time.

Tessa talks in this video about the requirements in FS and it so interesting to hear her break that down and her response to it, and how it came to a point where she really resented that strictness and decided to fuck the system a bit cause she wanted to feel comfortable and proud of their physicality in practices and not be overwhelmed with costumes constantly (she says it wasn’t her doing that changed the strictness of that (T being humble again, always dismissing the impact her and Scott had on the sport, bless her precious heart). But that’s another thing that makes them so brave, willing to push the boundaries and even in subtle ways shine a light on how and where the sport should change for the better (unfortunately other people/teams don’t have the same positive impact..)

Now let’s talk about my love for the actual costumes (both Tessa’s and Scott’s coz I freaking love all of them).

I definitely prefer both T’s IE dresses over the TE ones.

SD:

The TE SD dress I found leaned into the more ‘rock’n’roll side of the theme than the Latin. I’m not a huge fan of one-arm costumes, but of course T pulls it off beautifully. And the gold adornment on it kinda reminded me of bullet magazines you see soldiers draped over their shoulders. (Maybe if they were dancing to CCR it would have worked better 😄) Like I said, my first impression was the IE dress and while it is not at all my personal taste, I fucking love/d it! It was so, so perfect for the music. The black and gold with the leopard print was so perfect for the era- I just kept thinking Almost Famous. The fact she was dripping in gold sparkles, just enough to make T look like a bazillion dollars 💸). The fact that it was essentially just a bra- not even a bra just solid fabric covering that area, and how low the cut on the undies were with sheer leopard print covering a lot of her body- the skirt when you consider the tassels is actually quite long but it seems so skimpy coz of how high the cut on the left hip is but skimpy without being slutty- it’s that perfect balance. Initially I thought how it was so smart of them (VM, their designer) to have the long side be on her right side- with the SD, specifically cause that’s the side Scott partners her in the rhumba and if the gold adornment were on the right side it would get in the way (he stands on her left but his right hand on her right hip) but later I thought how just them standing together- visually it balances out because she is always on his right side- so the longer side on the dress on the outside of them standing together. I like how it didn’t have the pointy-finger sleeves (is that the proper name? Idk) The back cut out was stunning. I love how in some pics you can see her belly ring.. the high neck with all the gold around it was beautiful. And the slick black pony to finish if off.. chefs kiss 💋

I mean.. what a fucking goddess! Like who else could pull this off! Fuck, she’s amazing.

MR:

The TE dress is a work of art. The detail in it is astounding. But I much prefer the IE dress. Their aesthetic has always been simple and clean, and I just thought there was maybe a bit much going on, and it didn’t really match Scott’s costume the way the IE dress did. The IE dress is spectacular in detail in it’s own way. These close up pics show just how much stone work has gone into it:

I love the gradient of the rhinestones. How it’s heavier at the edges on the top and on the edges of the skirt, then spreads out into the centre. I don’t know if it’s this particular dress cut, or the more minimalist design compared to the TE one, but the back cut out seemed to show even more skin. I didn’t really realise till recently, but not only is the neck solid rhinestones, but the way it drips down kind of looks like blood, and the ‘bra’ part is like flames.. it might be kind of obvious that’s what it looks like, but the symbolism of that, not literally but figuratively with the ‘fire’ of the chemistry between them and the passion, then with her ultimately dying at the end. It’s so perfect. Her hair was stunning too. For ballet dancers, when they feel like they’re really ‘made it’ we will stop using bun nets for our hair and just use pins for a more natural/messy but controlled look. The way T did her hair for this one is exactly like how I did my buns heaps. Just enough whispy bits, the twist. Love it.

I’ll talk about Scott’s costumes briefly before I discuss how they match and work together.

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but the sparkly mesh cut outs on his SD costume mirror the design on the legs of T’s Prince jumpsuit. The large gold sparklers on T’s dress also match the cut outs on his shirt (just a cool running design theme to subtly connect all their comeback programs).

I love this look for him so, so much. He doesn’t need anything loud and flamboyant because he shines as a performer whatever he wears. But for this particular SD, the style, music and animalistic influence it worked so well. The V neck was the perfect cut. So many guys that season wore these tight, ultra deep V’s and they just looked like tits (idiots). I loathe chest hair- especially on guys that skinny but Scott is so freaking smooth and the way the collar popped open a bit to expose his pecks at times was beautiful.

Another thing I don’t know if anyone has given much though to, but Scott didn’t wear anything sparkly for a SD till the 16/17 season (there was that one snake print grey shirt at 2012 nationals, the open bow tie from their Charleston OD (2009), some sparkles on the Dark Eyes (russian folk) costume, but not much and i don’t really count that), and never once wore anything sparkly for the FD till the TE and IE in PYC (a few sparkles on his velvet Pink Floyd costume but again, not much at all). I don’t think he is particularly opposed to wearing sparkly stuff- it’s not like, from the footage and evidence available, he’s been particularly embarrassed or insecure about the whole ‘costume and make up’ of it all. There’s one video of his saying that he just ‘takes his face off straight away and his friends don’t even know he wears makeup’.. but that felt like more of a joke (and he’s been very open about what a supportive group of friends and close family he had growing up that never gave him any shit for what he did).. I’m sure at times he would have been insecure when he was younger but I really believe he just embraces and loves all of it. It’s a side of himself that he really loves but then is also just this country boy who likes beer and hockey and is straight as fuck. I think it’s more a matter of him feeling comfortable in what he wears- especially in competitions- shows are a whole different thing where you don’t really get a say. And I’m assuming, considering Tessa’s love of fashion that she had a deeper interest in that side of things- and all she wanted was for Scott to feel comfortable. Almost everything early on (in senior) was simply a blouse and trousers. PF he had that crushed velvet, psychedelic top (which I love) and apart from that some tight black/dark stuff for the Latin, Carmen and Latch.

For a lot of stage dancers, when they get to the more senior level (15 over) you generally, at least the ones going for a professional career, switch to very simple costumes. When you’re young it’s all about colours and sparkles, but in teens- for contemporary pieces you go very simple- I wore a nude Leo for my last two solos, and it really feels so much better and you feel so much more like a true dancer when its just about your body and not all the fabric and sparkles. So I think TS found that from a young age (late junior/early senior career). That simple aesthetic. Of course Tessa had these stunning dresses and usually had quite a lot of sparkle, but they were simple designs and didn’t distract from their dancing and I feel like for Scott as well, he believed that was his job to wear what would distract from Tessa the least- he’s just that kind of partner- puts his woman first, makes it all about her. (Bless his heart).

Back to the oly costumes- not that these ones go against my above point of simple and less is better- they are still very minimalist costumes. Don’t get all freaky on me now but I love how “naked” they seem in their FD costumes. Ok let me explain. There’s this moment in the FD event when they introduce all the teams in the final group, and of course our dancing bbys are last. And there’s this beautiful moment when they are just staring at each other, waiting to be announced. Not to compare costumes too much to what everyone else is wearing, but they are just wearing so much less and captures their energy and their presence- there is so much less in their bubble. It’s such a quietly confident presence they have rather then a ‘hey look at us!’

Without getting too off topic. The energy they have between them in this moment, really all the time but specifically this one, they are so in their bubble. All they see is each other. Their souls are so connected and literally nothing or anyone else exists. That energy they create between the two of them here, and if you go back and watch this whole warm up when they cut to them, they seem very exposed. Symbolically very naked- not literally. It’s just the aura they create. These particular costumes accentuate that. In the above pic with T facing away from the camera with her exposed back and mesh on the arms. And Scott in that tight black, mostly just mesh top. They look so small and delicate, but also with this powerful confidence. Even though they are in these character/theme-centric costumes, they are very minimalist, contemporary, and raw and make it about them as dancers and athletes rather than what they are wearing doing the talking for them.

The costumes are perfect because of the very sensual theme and content of the program, the costumes are very simple and leave them very exposed without being sleazy and overtly sexy. What’s that quote? They do ‘dirty with class’. I think that was in relation to Prince. But they create this rawness through their dancing and connection together, not through their costumes, they just add to it. So many other teams try so hard to capture this adult, intimate, raw energy, and none of them can. They try and do it through facial expressions and the guys this pompous attitude, and some who just have no personality do it though these ultra ‘sexy’ BDM style costumes and I’m just sitting there thinking ‘omg get over yourself’ And it’s both the woman and the guys, trying to ‘sell’ some connection and force some intention or desire that is very ease to see as fake when you have VM standing right there who are able to say everything with nothing. It’s so rare that, in this case TS- a team can together have this equal energy and confidence that can make these ‘adult’ themes feel so real and not at all ‘put on’ and they don’t need costumes to help them do it. You see it if they are just in all blacks, a practice dress, or in costume.

I don’t mean to say costumes aren’t important- they are incredibly important. But the way TS have always approached their costumes shows they truly understand the role costumes play and that they shouldn’t take away from the dancing- only enhance it. Costumes shouldn’t be used to hide flaws- ideally, the best teams don’t have any- in TS case- they don’t. They don’t have to cover or distract from bent knees or bad posture. The costumes they had for the Olympics compared to earlier in the season were simply to create the special moment. The costumes in the GP season were stunning. I loved how simple they were- they didn’t need to be sparkly. They were perfect for where the program was that that point in it’s development. The program originally started so intimate and dark in it’s context. Especially the CWM half, it’s like throughout that you could feel the colour leaving Tessa as she starts to die. The muted colours were perfect where as the oly ones suited the drama the uplifting music.

I’ve always viewed Scott’s character in the first half (Roxanne) of being more this embodiment of T’s character situation rather then a specific character. If one dancer out of the two completely switch the people they are playing mid-way though a program is just too much- too pantomime/y to much like an improv show. I prefer to think of it as he’s playing through the voices in the music and as Christian’s voice starts to over take thats when he transitions into that character as Come What May starts. Therefore, what i love with this very simple costume is that it plays into this dark, shadowy, lurking, manipulative, predatory, aggressor ‘representation’ (rather then specific character). It plays into her sexuality and makes that the thing that is being played with like a game through out the first half. Then without changing costume, they can portray this tumultuous love story that ends with her demise. Something else that is probably just a thing I’ve completely construed for my own amusement (not haha amusement, artistic appreciation amusement) is i love both their costumes in the pre season had high necks. I think that type of style can be really elegant and powerful and just since there’s definitely a thing with their love for each others necks the fact they didn’t have access to them just added to the sick and twisted nature with which I view the deeper levels of MR. Kinda this forbidden intimacy..

So that takes us back to the very beginning of the season with the first costumes. I’ve already done a post with my theory behind these costumes which were obviously a very different direction then they ultimately went, so i won’t waste time repeating it. Those costumes were very much more character centric rather then movement centric- they were to serve the purpose of identifying their characters as recognisable figures. As i outlined previously i feel like there was purpose and reasoning behind those costumes and their brief appearance, but imagining had they kept them (which i know they wouldn’t have) TS are so much better then needing character centric costumes to identify as their characters. A more minimalist approach allowed them to strip down the characters to their pure intentions and motivations, rather then simply play off the visual. With a character centric costume you don’t get Scott’s absolutely exquisite acting on a level so deep you understand what is happening so clearly without him playing a certain character. This visual character representation is a move made by far lesser teams not capable of bringing such a deep and nuance acting approach to ice dancing. Choreographically, because the movement is so athletic, there needed to be so much less. The rotational lift and the cartwheel lifts are prime examples of T being in a dress that at times resembles more of a leotard because of the way the slant hem on the skirt manages to get out of it’s own way for these moves that not only for the physicality but intention of the movements need to be out of the way so they can perform the movements effectively in a way we can fully understand what is going on. Both these previous points, the character visualisation and portrayal and the physically and athleticism, was the exact same approach taken with Carmen.

That concludes this analysis.if theres anything I haven’t covered let me know I’m always happy to continue to elaborate.

#I totally used that first MR pic coz of Scott’s eyes..#could have used any number of pic for that dress but those eyes man..#appologies i cant find that post about the ACI costumes rn ☹️#(for thsoe whoe haven’t read it essentially i thought they intentially had those costumes for the first comp #to throw people off th scent a bit #cos T alread had her blue practice dress so why did the design of that dress match the subsequent MR dresses #if they hadnt already descided on the open back dress #thats the gist of that its in my archives somewhere it will pop up again #yeh i just really love the inital point of this post about the same desing for SD adnd FD #*design #17/18 costume apreciation post

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mndvx · 3 years

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IMMORTALS (2011) dir. Tarsem Singh ››› Daniel Sharman as Ares

#daniel sharman #immortals #danielsharmanedit #movieedit #filmedit #my gifs #lots of incredibly good points were made about his costume design specifically

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musclesandhammering · 3 years

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Loki (2021) Positivity from an Anti

Ok so all of my mutuals know I’m extremely anti-Loki (2021), anti-sylki, and anti-sylvie. But at a certain point, even we antis get tired of all the negativity. So! Here’s some Loki series commentary in the opposite direction! This is a list of all the things about the show that I loved :)

Also adding a disclaimer that all of this is just my opinion and some of my fellow antis (or even people who liked the show) might disagree, and that’s fine! I’ve been planning this post for awhile. I always say in my other posts that I don’t entirely hate the show and I wanted to be a little more specific about what I think are its good aspects. Feel free to leave your thoughts!

• Mobius is a gem (Owen Wilson owns my whole heart) and his relationship with Loki is so so great. He’s not one-dimensional at all, he has conflicted loyalty and is morally complex, and he has the tragic backstory- which makes him a perfect choice for eventually becoming Loki’s first genuine friend.

• The casting was really really great. Lots of women and people of color. Most of the female actresses (as well as the males) are over 30, which isn’t very common and is fantastic!

• Superb acting all around. I can’t think of a single scene where the actors under or oversold it.

• Beautiful set design, incredible cgi, and gorgeous cinematography overall. It looked more like a movie than a tv show, which is really good.

• Kang being the big bad was a huge plus for me. Johnathan Majors was perfect in the role, his vibes were immaculate, and I was honestly pretty worried that the man behind the curtain would end up being another Loki variant, which imo would’ve been boring and predictable and counter-productive, so it was a big relief when that didn’t happen.

• I like that it sets up a bunch of future marvel movies, rather than being contained to its own little world. It gives it more importance and (hopefully) will encourage writers to not just toss Loki’s character aside in future projects.

• All the Loki variants were delightful. All of them except Sylvie. Kid Loki has my heart. Boastful Loki is a fashion icon. Alligator Loki is a savage. President Loki is the superior variant. Classic Loki became my fav character in less than half an episode.

• It showed some more variety in Loki’s magic. A lot of his powers we’ve seen before, but it feels like they were portrayed a bit more blatantly in the show. The energy blasts, the telekinesis, the teleportation… Outstanding.

• It also implied that Loki has the potential to be waaaay more powerful than he knows he is right now, which? Yes.

• Some of the quotes- and the themes behind them- are just profound as hell. Such as:

“I think we’re stronger than we realise.”

“It’s never too late to change.”

“You can be whoever you wanna be, even someone good.”

“We’re Lokis. We survive. It’s what we do.”

“Loki, God of Outcasts.”

“The universe wants to break free, that’s why it manifests chaos.”

• Technically Loki was Marvel’s first canon lgbt (bi) character, which is a win. His genderfluidity is also technically canon, even if it wasn’t really acknowledged on-screen.

• There were a lot of throwback references to Thor 1, Avengers, and Thor The Dark World. Which I loved.

• Sylvie’s so pretty. Her hair and makeup and costume were all perfect.

• Big fan of Loki finally getting Laevateinn.

• Sufficiently slutty imagery, courtesy of a female director (Loki in a collar, kneeling to Sif, President Loki looking down into the bunker, the hair flips)

• The music was Excellent Wonderful and Superb.

• I love that Loki being a good singer is now canon.

• I love that Asgardians having their own language is now canon (even if it’s basically just Icelandic).

• I also love that they disproved all of those “Loki was a shy nerdy wallflower pre-canon” theories in Episode 3. The drinking/eating/singing scene was fun, if a bit wacky.

• There’s a million different reasons why Loki does what he does, especially in regards to the New York attack (I’m literally writing a huge meta on them), but somehow I never considered that Loki being desperate for control was one of them. It makes a lot of sense, and I always love getting new insights into his motivations.

• I love that Loki finally outright acknowledged that he doesn’t enjoy hurting people. We Been Knew™️ but it’s still nice to hear it out loud from his own mouth.

• The TVA outfit wasn’t as hideous as some people make it out to be. It could’ve been A Look, even. You know, if he’d just accessorised a little better. And kept the jacket on. And not gotten sweaty. And not gotten dirty. And maybe had at least one other costume change… But it had potential, though!!

• Even though I despise the Obvious One, I did actually like some of the other romance crumbs they tossed us (sifki, Loki x the flight attendant).

• The whole DB Cooper thing was iconic idc idc.

• Loki’s hyper sort of overly excited puppy attitude in episode 2 was actually pretty refreshing and funny (for awhile). And now I can headcanon him as adhd, yeehaw.

• “We’re all villains here.” That quote was iconic, my favourite one in the show. And the entire theme that it summarised was really great as well. When you think about it, every single main character in this series has been the villain at one point or another. I mean, I know all marvel characters do bad things etc, but none of the Heroes are ever narratively categorised as Bad. This show did just that with all of them, though. . Loki was framed as the psychopath that attacked New York. Sylvie was framed as the murderous fugitive. The TVA/Ravonna/Mobius were framed as the murderous fascists. Kang was framed as the crazy totalitarian. It’s made clear that all the Loki variants were the villains of their stories.

However, every single main character in the series is also framed as the Hero at a certain point. Loki is framed as the main protagonist who throws a wrench in the TVA’s dastardly plans. Sylvie is framed as the persevering freedom fighter who wants to take down the fascists. The TVA/Mobius/Ravonna are framed as the ones who maintain order for the greater good. Kang is framed as the weird but ultimately benevolent wise man who’s just trying to prevent something worse from happening. The Loki variants are framed as generous allies who befriend the main character and help him on his journey.

Everyone in this equation is openly acknowledged by the narrative to be morally corrupt, but not entirely morally bankrupt. There are no Straightforward Hero Figures (like the Avengers) in this entire scenario at all, and that makes for a super interesting dynamic that marvel has never done before. So yes: “We’re all villains here.” But also: “No one bad is ever truly bad, and no one good is ever truly good.” I loved that.

• Even if it wasn’t really enough imo, I still treasure the crumbs we got of Loki being competent and capable (him putting the collar on B-15, him figuring out Sylvie’s hiding place, him teaching himself to enchant on the fly while fighting a giant cloud beast of eldritch proportions).

• I love that B-15 was the one who stepped in and saved the day in Episode 4, when we all thought it was gonna be Mobius. What a queen.

• Marvel usually has a bit of a problem with creating compelling and memorable side characters. But aside from Sylvie, I genuinely got attached to every single character in this show. Like Casey, C-20? I was seriously emotionally invested in them and they were only in like 2 episodes. Wtf.

• Introducing the TVA storyline in the Loki series specifically was a really good move. I’m not saying they executed it well, just that it had a ton of potential. A lot of people have wondered why marvel even thought to put those two (the TVA and Loki) together, when they had literally nothing to do with each other, nothing in common, and essentially no connection at all. But when you think about it, it’s a really interesting twist on both of those stories. Forcing the embodiment of destructive chaos and the pillar of rigid order to interact could make for some seriously entertaining and compelling television. And as far as meshing these two completely unrelated entities together goes, I thought they did it pretty well- at least just the bare bones of the story (loki being arrested by the TVA and being one of their most common variants).

So that’s it! If you guys (fellow antis) wanna add stuff you liked, feel free. If anyone wants to discuss (or debate) my list, feel free to do that too!

#loki series 2021 #loki laufeyson #anti sylvie #loki meta #loki odinson #loki #loki series

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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kingdom episode 5 review!!! lets fucking go!!!!!

look. was i insanely hyped for this episode? yes. was my hype justified? also yes. holy FUCKING SHIT. you’ll have to forgive me for going off the rails at some points because ateez and btob directly tapped into something primal in my brain and i am obsessed. i'm obsessed. there’s no other word for it I’m obsessed.

ok ok ok i'll focus. i'm focused. i'll do the stage breakdown first and then do my personal ranking at the end. i might do a quick runup comparison of the self and expert rankings for funsies but i'll see how i feel when i get there. instead of going in airing order i’m gonna reverse it, since that was the order i actually watched them in and also i will run out of brains if i talk about rhythm ta first.

skz

i feel for skz. i don't think this show is going to be as much of learning curve as it needs to be for them because the fan voting skews the rankings so much. I’ve said it so many times before, but letting something flop or getting a bad ranking is actually good, because it shows you that you need to improve. because skz keeps getting validated by the fan rankings and placing first in the last two stages, they aren't actually taking the time to evaluate what about their stages is or isn't working. and besides, we’ve now seen two very similar concepts in a row from them, just one is on a grander scale than the other. what they should be doing is what both ateez and btob did for this round, which was scale up production value, but scale down concept. i know this sounds weird but i'll explain. skz has done two very abstract and ‘grand’ concepts. first round we had ghosts/good self vs evil self, and this stage they just went straight for the throat with a deal with the devil type stage. now when you combine these very abstract concepts with an unclear narrative arc, you lose clarity of intent in the performance because there are no specifics that you’re playing off of. there’s a lot more places left up to personal interpretation and this is where people can get lost. btob and ateez both narrowed down their concepts to hyperspecific scenarios where they very clearly showing the audience the arc the stage is taking. audiences can be smart but also if you can lead them by the hand they like not thinking about highly conceptual ideas, and especially not so much in a pop song competition show.

costume

this is so rare because generally stylists are pretty careful about this, but i genuinely think they got outshone by the backup dancers, especially in the ‘heaven’ sequence. those sash and skirt combos with the strapped white tops that look like straitjackets? the fucking angel wings?! these are some thematically fun costume designs and because they’re white they stand out so much more when skz are wearing black. i also think i've seen these tops on backup dancers before? i thought it was on the last stage but i might be going insane.

i am a sucker for beaded embroidery and the combined dyework on some of their sashes is beautiful. but again, thematically irrelevant? at least you can see the greco-roman inspiration in the backup dancers’ costumes. all this is telling me is that whoever the stitchers are at jype, they are fucking incredible, but they don’t actually have a good designer because the main costumes for all their stages have been both aesthetically similar and thematically irrelevant.

again, i applaud skz for trying more experimental makeup, but boys you have to go bigger, it has no impact right now.

set

well, i did ask for them to commit to the western art bit and they sort of delivered? the first space is not planned very well and combined with the wide wide camera shots instead of making the space seem grand and sweeping it just seems bare. the ‘heaven’ side was excellent though, there was much better control of the camera and the columns and altar scaled the space down so it was more believable. also the breakable columns were fun and corny and i love it when stuff gets destroyed onstage.

the child statue transformation into actual child was a neat trick that i think landed really well. i wish they had given that concept a little more grounding other than the flashback bit but it was still very readable.

i know using rodin's gates of hell is the easiest way to shortcut saying that like, “you are now entering hell,” but them being used SO literally feels a bit blunt when the last time we saw them used in kpop was by original blasphemous catholic lee taemin, who used them with such nuance and intelligence that i'm a bit put off by skz’s literalism.

on that note, i find it very interesting the conflation that happens between greco-roman/”classical” aesthetics and catholicism, because ideologically the two are opposed (see: the bible) and historically, they didn't exist at the same time. now i'm not going to go off on a tangent about neoclassicism because you are not here for an art history lecture but i thought i would make the observation about how catholics continued appropriation of greco-roman aesthetics without complete understanding or context of those aesthetics is as pervasive as it ever has been in the last several hundred years.

lighting

generally the lighting is pretty good, but there’s an over-reliance on projections that cheapens the look of the stage but also devalues the intentions as well. at the core of it there’s a profound statement being made about trading away your innocence, but when you underscore that with like, clock graphics and a WoW looking demon, it loses that simplicity of message.

the thing about using this particular type of projection, which are actually screens and not typical projectors, is that screens always throw light. and due to where they are situated, this basically means that if you're using the screens at full capacity with a cool colour range, we are going to be able to see everything. this is another contributing factor to why the stage looks so empty; they’re lighting up everything and it exposes where the gaps are.

now i fully acknowledge that this possibly could have been a deliberate choice, since they do actually use some spot lighting at the beginning and end. however, if it was it did not land for me.

i loved the intro of demon felix done in blue, that was a nice switchup from what we would usually see, but i wish there was more of a coherent colour arc. like the narrative it stutters around a bit.

sound

the arrangement was a miss for me. i found it a bit dissonant again, like their last stage, since the original i'll be your man has obvious lyrics about a good christian boy being sad about a girl. this gets a bit wonky conceptually as soon as you add a child self into it. i don’t know if they changed any of the lyrics in the singing to match this a little more because i don't speak korean, so i'll have to wait for episode subs for verification.

i really applaud them for trying, and overall they didn't actually do that bad, but skz is not a vocal group. the most i'm going to say about it is that these boys don’t have the breath support. this is likely because they're trying to do choreographically complex movements, but also it's a training thing. you can hear the difference even just between eunkwang’s ‘vocal warmup’ at the beginning of back door, he’s not projecting full voice but he still has the breath support for his voice to sound full, whereas all skz boys sound thin in comparison, even when at full volume, because they’re trying to project from the throat and not the chest. that's all i'm gonna say about that. i don't think the cracked note was bad, i didn’t really clock it on first listen.

staging

thematically they could have had something really interesting here if they stuck to a more simple narrative arc. the genesis (i’m very funny) of the idea here is good, the whole mephistopheles deal with a devil + regret/loss of innocence is clear, but the arc isn't really an arc, and the colour story doesn't help. it kind of goes earth (green/blue) -> the gates of hell are opening (red) -> oh it's heaven now (blue) -> oh just kidding it's hell/lets destroy heaven (red) -> back to earth (blue). not necessarily a bad arc, just a bit complex for four minutes.

the choreo was a lot better this time, there was a lot more intention and relevance to theme and i didn’t feel like they were flailing for the sake of flailing as much as i have in their other stages. there was also a clarity in the overall blocking and movement patterns that was missing from their other stages. this stage has a really great handoff of each member playing the ‘main’ character, especially in the beginning. i especially liked the cut from falling off the stairs to laying centre stage.

i think I’m right in assuming that it was a choice that the members were all playing the same character and demon felix was that character possessed rather than the actual devil, but personally i think it would have been a lot more fun if they had straight up just made him be the actual devil. there’s a bit of dissonance when you have a performer with such a specialized skillset that gets used in very specific instances, but then he shows up in the regular group choreo like any ol’ guy. they always put such emphasis on felix (as they should, he’s their most charismatic performer), but they never go the distance. i would have loved it if they had committed to the bit like TOO did in their magnolia stage from rtk, where they had a member just be blinded justice. that was literally the only thing he did and it worked so well. could have done the same here with felix and it would have been fun. that being said the felix parts were SO good. love love love him getting dragging in chains.

btob

this hit every little one of the buttons in my tiny backstage crew brain. i'm in love with this stage. there’s so many true to life little details here that on repeat viewings you're still finding new things. i know i rag on and on about narrative every week but here is a good example of what i've been trying to get at this whole time: the stage needs a shape. an a to b. you don't need a whole pirates spiel or a game of thrones theme extended universe; all you need is a clear setting and a point a to point b. this stage has both those things perfectly. we have a hyperspecific setting, (american rockstars) and a basic arc (getting ready to perform -> performing). even though back door is outside of btob’s wheelhouse, they spun it in a way that played to their strengths and did a bit braggadocio, which is rightfully earned. i'm gonna be saying it every time but the experience shows!!!

costume

good contemporary costume is SO difficult, i want to impress that here. because it's the the time period that we are currently living and seeing every day it's so easy for the audience to spot mistakes. although yes it's easier to source/shop for, to get it good enough that it doesn't pull people out of the immersion is surprisingly more difficult than you think. their stylists did an excellent job here. the backup dancers and btob are all in monochrome plus one and it adds a very clean unity to everything without visual clutter.

each of btob’s costumes have enough to give indication of character, along with the member’s acting, which i'll get more into in the staging section. regardless, never underestimate the power of a good fitting shirt and statement belt. oh and minhyuk in the stirrup motorcycle boots with the skinny jeans and the supreme boxers and the red satin robe? good bye.

i love love love a dyed buzz this was such a good aesthetic choice for peniel, 10/10 i have no complaints about the costumes.

set

oh my god i’m gonna french kiss this set designer. this is such a simple set but it’s executed so well. there’s the ‘backstage’ area, the corridor with four dressing rooms, and then the ‘stage’ that’s pretty much just velvet ropes. so simple, but all the detail is in the set decoration and props. the road cases, the monitor, the subtle flex of the posters of them on the walls, the clothing racks, all the booze. although this is not the actual layout of any theatre (they're normally much weirder than this), there’s so many little details here that really make the experience.

there’s a very straightforward path here and it works so well. i think this might be the best use of the gates so far? it appropriately suited the drama of the moment and they didn't have to do anything to them because they're already in a theatre. bada bing bada boom.

lighting

love the setup and continuation through the amber ‘BRRRMM.’ like with sf9 it gives a smooth transition into the stage. also loved no blackout. it's a general rule in current theatrical practice that you only use blackouts when they are absolutely necessary, because they can stop the pacing of a play dead in the water. so the lack of one here at the start of the stage was a really smart choice and makes the transition feel less jarring.

i will say that actual backstage areas are very rarely lit with amber because it travels far and it's bright. it's much more common to see running lights (the lights on during a performance) to be deep red or blue.

those blasting wash lights as the gates open? the DRAMA. such a seemingly innocuous choice that really cements the atmosphere of ‘we are about to perform.’

really smart use of the projections to accentuate the already existing stage facilities. it's pretty much unnoticable because it's very well done but i appreciate it.

sound

this ARRANGEMENT!!!! it's so good!!! back door has this premise essentially built into the song so it was so smart of them to put this gimmicky spin on it. loved the literal interpretation of the knocks into the structure of the stage, it makes the blend between the sound design and the staging that much more effective.

more rock versions of everything please and thank you.

btob is just stunting at this point and i love it. i'll have to wait for subs but judging by the hands in front of the camera bit and the ‘your super high note’ i’m pretty confident the added rap lyrics are full of shots at the other groups and honestly? valid.

staging

there's some really sharp camera control here with the one take first half. It’s up very close and personal because there’s a lack of space but it really works for the ‘intimacy’ of seeing backstage at a venue. also this is such a simple movement track but it’s so effective. it backs over a couple spots but it doesn't feel repetitive because there’s a sense of urgency and drive.

there are so many good little details in here that are true to life and unnecessary to include but sell the performance as a whole. peniel flinging water onstage, minhyuk stripping down twice and flinging his clothes around, minhyuk closing the door on the standby’s face, the backup dancer as a dresser with the laundry basket, peniel stealing the hat off her but then not going on stage with it these are all things that I’ve either had directly happen to me or something very similar has happened. but the best one and the one that sets off the tone amazingly for the whole stage is eunkwang’s intro. that ‘vocal warmup’ with the quiet okay at the end? with the little jump? i see that moment of vulnerability before the transition between person and actor every time i watch someone go onstage for the first time and there’s no way to describe it other than magic.

the luxury of only having four members, there was actually time in this stage to establish character. it also speaks to the performing strength of btob that they can establish clear character in this short amount of time. obviously it’s pretty one dimensional; there’s serious eunkwang, typical rocker minhyuk, fuckboy peniel (how many licks does it take to make your tootsie pop, anyone?), and comedian changsub. i’ve seen and met and worked with these exact dudes many, many times. ugh i love this stage

ateez

the utter euphoria i felt at the proof that last round’s stage wasn't a fluke. this stage is so good. it's so good. i'm obsessed with how good this stage. as an unreformed pop punk teen who played a LOT of latin jazz i am LIVING. if you’ve only seen the episode cut and not the full version here i'll make it easy and link it for you because oh my GOD mnet destroyed the pacing by cutting in a full minute and a half of reaction shots. actually mnet fucked up the pacing for all of these stages but this one was the worst. and look. i know this is the closest these boys are going to get to being real punks and this is a carefully curated and artificial facade for narrative purposes only but oh the pandering tastes so sweet. regardless of that, i am IN AWE of the level of storytelling happening here. the narrative is so clear on just the first viewing even though there is so much going on and they use every possible element they can to further enhance that narrative. repeat viewings just add more and more little details. i’ll probably miss some things because there's so much but i'll try my best.

costume

look, hanya and i were joking that my notes for this stage were just gonna be ‘san dog collar’ for a thousand words and i was so tempted to just leave it at that because.....woof. so here is a short list of things i am the most obsessed with:

san dog collar

san smeared lipstick

wooyoung cruella deville ponytail

hongjoong terrible blond crewcut

san crushed velvet cargo pants?!

seonghwa cropped fur jacket

yunho arm sleeve

hongjoong sockless in red derbys

but in all seriousness the costumes are so good. none of these are truly authentic punk looks but they capture the spirit right and that's what matters. all the right trappings are there; safety pins, patches, plaid, leather, and a lot of diy type looks. i love the painted masks, especially as a callback to the comedy/tragedy theatre masks. it was a thematic choice to have the backup dancers in black and the tac vests are a super simple contextual device.

also hongjoong’s quickchange hat/jacket combo is super fun and i hope that’s intentionally a preview of the next stage.

set

if you weren't convinced before that whoever is designing the ateez stages is a stage designer, i don't know what to tell you. it's hard to tell because there is so much environmental storytelling happening, but there is NO large scale set here. like with their last stage, kq smartly put money into two highlight pieces; the anarchist blimp and the van/wall, and the rest of the stage atmosphere is established solely through propwork and lighting. just think about that for a bit. every other group has some kind of large scale room or wall build. ateez has a bunch of tables, flyers, and a podium. i don’t know if i can accurately communicate just how difficult this kind of coordination is to pull off but holy fucking shit this is so hard to pull off. these are theatre people i see you and i see your work and i love you!!!

they fully used the gilt mnet stage as their pseudo government building and it works. everything about this (lack of) set is so smart i wish i could be more articulate about it but there’s so only so many ways i can say the same thing over and over again.

lighting

the laser scopes. the LASER SCOPES!!! god this lighting designer is so good. whoever you are, i'm acknowledging your effort because you deserve it. there’s some really wonderful contrast and directional lighting: the van light, the pinlights/lasers/smoke as searchlights. a lot of atmospheric red lighting but it makes sense for the theme (alarm lights) and they offset it well (unlike in the other two predominantly red stages we’ve seen) by fill lighting the faces with blue or amber; this is what actually makes us able to see what’s happening on stage

the projections are used to augment the stage action in without being overpowering, they're at relatively low tonal value so they aren't lighting up the stage at full brightness like in the skz stage.

the big brother eye on the tv screens (it's just a projection, not actual screens) combined with the government ban notice and the broadcast has to be the record for fastest visual explanation of fascist totalitarian state.

sound

i love it. they really successfully made rhythm ta into an ateez song and it’s cool as fuck. i love that it isn't sonically very loud. a lot of the chorus is actually quite level tone and quiet, which is a bold choice and they pull it off. this is very comfortably in their range (excluding jongho) and they went more for style than range and that's exactly what every group should be doing. singing high does not equal singing good. yes i am looking at you jongho you should have stopped at that penultimate note, it was fine!!

using rhythm ta as a pseudo protest song against a fascist government that’s banned all music and art? galaxy brain. that intro of hongjoong whispering “hey hey hey hey, this is just a song so get on the rhythm” after gunning down military police/guards? king fucking shit.

staging

i will eat all five pairs of my fluevog boots if kq hasn't hired a bunch of theatre professionals to direct and design these stages because now it's been proven that last stage wasn't a fluke. the level of execution at work here is absolutely incredible. oh the gesamtkunstwerk of it all!!! there is SO much happening so quickly in this four minute stage and it still manages to convey exactly the correct amount of information that it needs to on the first go round, and it only gets better on repeat viewings.

they use a really classic theatre perspective trick with san climbing the rope, and they absolutely didn’t have to do that. san probably could have actually climbed that himself, but here they made a choice for aesthetic artistry over tricking/other feats of skills we’ve seen the 4th gen groups do. instead of going with the more technically difficult and ‘impressive’ option, they chose the simple way that allows for more character to shine through. there’s actually very little tricking in this stage as whole, they're putting trust in the design of the stage and the raw performance abilities of the members to carry the stage and they stick the landing again. san has some breakdancing and so do the backup dancers, but it’s window dressing in the same way that the flyers are window dressing.

there’s a lot of really good little moments of acting that really sell the performance and dedication of the group as a whole to giving their all. hongjoong overall in his cocky aspirational leader role, seonghwa’s first verse and malfunctioning earpiece bit, san’s falsetto hostage interrogation bit. also i'm obsessed with how far yunho just hucks that mask. he gets like fifteen feet of air with that thing. also props to hongjoong barehanding that glass break.

the paper props are impeccable. the first notice sets up the situation right away, and then we get some further exposition with the newspaper wooyoung is holding (which says ‘the central government has defined the black pirates as a terrorist’ but honestly you don't really need to know what it says to get the point), and then we have raining anarchist flyers from the anarchist blimp. great atmospheric touches.

the blackout crash-to-mask transition is just so good. this is an example of a good use of a blackout. nothing else to add i just thought i would point it out because it's dope.

like with btob there's some really tight camera control here, that along with the lighting and the way they've laid out the space make it easy to follow the trajectory of where they're going and also make the space seem smaller than it is. this is a really big stage and if you don't control how you want it to be seen you end up like with what happened to the first part of skz’s stage. i wish they had tracked some of the one takes a bit better, but the end of that take where the camera followed the group movement laterally and then the formation swung around to face front? sexy. surprisingly the editing is pretty ok.

there’s probably still so much i could talk about but this is already so long so if i missed something just let me know.

ok finally lets do some rankings

personal ranking

this round wasn't as tough to rank because there were two clear top tier stages for me. i actually went back and looked at my ranking from last round and this is identical except the top two spots are switched, which i find extremely funny. however in contrast to last round, these stages were all leagues better than their predecessors. all the groups are improving, just some at greater speed than others.

ateez - i'm not even gonna explain this one.

btob - i won't explain this one either since i just did that.

sf9 - this would have been first if ateez and btob hadnt blow everyone out of the water.i still think they made all the right choices and played to their strengths.

ikon - this stage is so fun to watch but the others offer me more. that’s it.

skz - i like the idea behind it and i loved felix; i'm always down for some good catholic fuckery but like last round it just wasn't played out far enough.

tbz - double ding on the moulin rouge and the continued game of thrones references for me. there were a lot of strong elements here but when compared to every other stage it just doesn't have the same gravitas.

the self rankings i thought were fairly accurate, but again, what the fuck is up with these expert rankings? who are these experts? what stages are they watching?? i won't go more into it than that because then you'll be here even longer but i don't trust these experts who consistently rank btob at the bottom, do you have eyes??? ears????

ok i'm done for real now im so sorry this 4.6k words......if you make it this far do something nice for yourself like eat a cookie or something. this is way too long you deserve a reward for making it through my nonsense. as always if you’ve got questions or want to share your opinions feel free to send me an ask!

#kingdom #kingdom review #should i risk it and tag the groups this time? i kinda wanna bait some weirdos #kpop analysis #ok im gonna do it #ateez #btob #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #ikon #im pretty sure i missed so much here but this is so long im so sorry #at least next week i wont be doing this kind of writeup #text

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theravennest · 3 years

Text

Let’s Talk: The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion

I finished all 40 eps about two weeks ago, actually. I enjoyed it for the most part, the 1st half especially, but there were several things near the end that took me out.

But first some of the good bits...

The cast chemistry was immaculate. Our four main lead actors were a lot of fun together. Not just Zhang Zhehan and Ju Jing Yi, but also Wang You Shuo and Xu Jiaqi (Loved them!). The four of them have such obvious ease with each other after their previous work together in Legend of Yun Xi and it made scenes with any combination of the main four really pop.

I was especially drawn to the sisters’ relationship and the Prince-Vassal bond going on between Prince Su and Little Marquis. (Y’all know I’m a sucker for both sibling stories and stories about fictional royals and their loyal vassals.)

Most of the ancillary characters were interesting, actually. As y’all know from my last post about this one, I was crack shipping like crazy all the side characters. 😂 This cast made it easy for me.

Except for Prince An. (Sorry to hit the bad so early.) Good god, I hated that man. His character was poorly drawn in pretty much every way, which is unfortunate cuz he’s the main antagonist. Any story with a main antagonist that just doesn’t work is always gonna be weaker.

Also, no offense to people who like that actor but he was the only cast member who did absolutely nothing for me in terms of performance. So much of the story was focused on his weaksauce motivation and dry acting like, my god, put me out of my misery I do not care.

Anyway, the set design and costuming was top notch and I even enjoyed the broader story ideas the show was trying to put forth. The sitcom vibe of the first 20 eps or so was SOOO good. Our four mains’ comedic timings were pitch perfect.

Unfortunately, the writing took a sharp nosedive in the back 3rd or so and it had a rough ending. (The lightning strike on the tower scene, the fight in the underground temple, the return of Prince An’s mom...all of that was trash. let’s be real.)

I mostly blame this on three things: the missteps with the Prince An character, the lack of development of Rong’s prophetic dreams even though that was the main premise of the show, and the jump-the-shark moment that was the wedding night and its subsequently underwritten fallout.

Now to clarify, I don’t mean to say the wedding night event shouldn’t have happened at all but rather the execution of it within the story was poor and it negatively impacted 90% of the other character motivations/progressions and the overall pacing.

You know, it felt like that thing you do as a writer where you wake up and have a specific scene in your mind. It’s evocative, impactful, fun, or otherwise intense. But you just have that scene and it’s something that would have to happen in the middle of your story. So you work your way backwards to try to get to that scene and you do your best to get the characters to make decisions to get there but when you sit down to write nothing works out. It’s clunky or OOC for the scene to still happen so you end up having to either scrap the evocative scene or keep the clunky lead up and hope no one notices. That’s what that wedding scene and everything that happened after felt like. They wrote themselves into a corner and just struggled to recover until the bitter end.

The main pairing suffered the most because of the poor writing choices. No matter how much chemistry ZZH and JJY have together, even they could not completely salvage Rong’s yo-yoing behavior with Prince Su. They started off so wholesome and then dove into such toxicity and miscommunication for no reason.

Don’t get me wrong. I can very easily enjoy angst. But Fu Rong consistently broke this man down. After ep 25-26, it stopped being good angst and became so awful to watch all the emotional manipulation and turmoil. There’s something broken in the writing if 9 out of 10 times Prince Su cried or fell into depression it was because of something Rong did or said to him after jumping to a conclusion with only part of the puzzle pieces gathered.

I could forgive some stuff because Prince An was manipulating things but some stuff was just all Rong not giving Prince Su the benefit of the doubt or plain old not doing her due diligence in investigating. She is supposed to have inherited the most prolific and successful spy organization in the show and she still got 90% of her conclusions wrong. It was like she was determined to always think the worst of Prince Su no matter what despite how often he went above and beyond to help her. Despite the fact that he literally had a reputation as a general for being a harsh taskmaster but fair and just.

I think what broke me was when she did the bare minimum investigation into her own father’s death and just fully blamed Prince Su without confronting him honestly or even considering his personality or their relationship up until that point. She really believed a single street seller’s entire testimony over the man she lived with and supposedly loved for months. Girl...

And this is after she’d previously mistakenly accused him of killing her mentor with very few facts to the point where she stabbed him on their wedding night.

There came a point where I actually wanted Prince Su to finally, truly divorce Rong and settle down with someone who could love him right. Maybe give him time to heal from the repeated heartbreaks, betrayals, and the literal stab wound in his chest but he was so fucking in love with Rong, he just couldn’t escape.

(If there were behind the scenes production reasons for the clunky-ness of the back half, I would not be surprised at all but ultimately they don’t matter cuz the story we got was the story we got.)

Imagine if we had gotten a Rong who used her prophetic dreams to navigate the cut throat world of royal politics. Or imagine if we’d gotten Rong as a true apprentice to Ruyi who learned both metalsmithing and spycraft in the first half and took over the pavilion as a competent leader in the second half. As it stands, it just felt like wasted potential.

I’m glad they had the modern day special AU eps tho cuz those were great. Zhang Zhehan and Ju Jing Yi had the opportunity to really showcase their incredible chemistry but in a modern setting and with better writing than the back 3rd of BRYP.

Now let’s talk Zhang Zhehan since he was the reason I started this in the first place. I loved him in this. I truly did. He was stern and serious but also playful and sweet. He was romantic but awkward, badass but vulnerable. He really delivered a nuanced and charming performance. I loved every second.

I think my favorite moment wasn’t some badass fight or even a super romantic moment. No, it was when he got drunk and started crying like a little baby cuz Rong was constantly doubting him no matter what he did. It was simultaneously sad and hilarious. Like gut busting funny. Y’all can watch it here:

youtube

I laughed so fucking hard at this. Oh my god, guys! This shit was too much.

Random Thoughts:

The romance between the 2nd leads was A+. Truly an adorable affair. Though I think they should’ve gotten together officially earlier around ep 25 or so and we should’ve seen the rest with them as a couple.

The costuming was so good y’all. For all the main four characters but I was especially drawn to Prince Su’s outfits.

The ghostly pale look with the bright red lips and eyeshadow makeup for Rong did not bother me at all. I actually liked it for her though I think it would’ve worked better if she’d had more explicit prophetic abilities.

I could’ve used more actual war scenes with Prince Su and Little Marquis.

The OST for the show SLAPPED!

That one kid spy in Ruyi Pavilion was voiced by the same actor as Chengling from WOH and I have never double-taked harder. lmao

Even though there were things I didn’t like in this show, I appreciated how gay I could make it in my last post. Truly it was a bisexual’s dream aesthetically.

#the blooms at ruyi pavilion #cdrama #zhang zhehan #ju jingyi #liveblogging #meta #reviews #long post

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caandlelit · 3 years

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Tokoyami takes full advantage of the darker parts of his quirk when he threatens you. You feel trapped in an eternal darkness, like the air was being stolen out of your lungs. He speaks simply, but full of venom. He's shrouded by this aura of calm vexation. He feels toxic to even be around and his apparent apathy makes it more scary. He feels no guilt when he's reached that point. He's one of the slowest to get angry, and when he does, there's no stopping him. You'd never been scared of the dark until that day.

Momo says how she can buy everything you own. How she could take everything that gives you happiness until you're a shell of what you once were. How she has connections, and could ruin your life with a simple phone call. She radiates pure, controlled rage and you want to get away as fast as possible. You feel as if you're going to die at any moment and from that day forward you'll always look over your shoulder, too scared to sleep.

Uraraka is right next to Shoto in scary, and beside Izuku in surprising. She threatens in smiles. Her usual cheery attitude and excitement don't fade as she happily tells you how she'll make your life a living hell. She laughs as she says how she'll make you watch everyone you care about die before you, knowing you could have avoided it. She doesn't raise her hand, but she leaves you trembling and wetting your pants. You'll have nightmares. Sounds like Toga? It's because they're girlfriends.

Shoto is incredibly blunt with his threats. He somehow corners you alone, and calmly tells you how he could kill you, make it look like an accident, get rid of the body, and get away with it. In excruciating detail. He'll leave you sacred for your life, and regretting the day you got on his bad side.

Tsu will stare into the depths or your soul, daring you to piss her off. Being incredibly blunt, she will, just to make sure you get the message, just walk up to you and threaten to slit your throat or something.

Izuku has, after the first year, gotten into the habit of outright threatening pro heroes. It's blackmail more times than not, he has the info to ruin them. It started with Endeavor, then slowly All Might, after he got sick of beings pushed too hard, and extended until all pro heroes that weren't Aizawa, Present Mic, or Fatgum were doing his bidding.

Tenya regularly subtly threatens to call Japanese CPS on Endeavor to knock him down some rankings on the hero list. Nothing he can be charged with, and nothing that anyone out of 1A can trace back to him, but threats to keep him in-line. Have to make him know his place every now and then.

Izuku and Shoto would be the heroes parents want their kids to look up to. Momo and Mina would be the heroes parents want their female kids to look up to, specifically.

You know how 1A all want to be like All Might (mostly)? When they find out what being a 'Symbol Of Peace' really entails, I don't think they'd want to be on anymore. So they'd become beacons of hope, with Izuku shining the brightest out of all of them.

I know they don't technically have to live together if they're all part of one big hero agency. But like. It would be so fun if they did. And with the local rich kids (Momo, Tenya and Shoto), God knows it's gonna be some big-ass mansion. And it'd be sort of a throwback of sorts to the dorms. And I feel as if they'd the be glad for that familiarity, with how much change is occurring. And also, Bakugo and Monoma under the same roof would be fucking hilarious.

I want to see Shoto deck a fellow UA student for saying the wrong thing. Like maybe they'd say "Bakugo acts like a such a villain, no wonder everyone is scared of him." And Shoto would just look around to see Ochaco holding Izuku back with identical looks of rage on their faces. He'd see Bakugo looking down at his feet, trying his best to look unbothered, but his frown is more sad than his usual one. He'd see the Bakusquad trying to convince him it's not true. He'd see Tsu with her fist clenched, and Tenya glaring daggers at the person, and just deck the guy. Incases his fist in ice, to make the blow harder. Kick him a few times too. And would look up at their shocked faces and shrug, "No one fucks with my family. And Bakugo? He's family. All of you are." Deku just starts bawling there and then.

There's no UA traitor, and they just forgot to remove Touya from the family group chat.

After Monoma realizes that no one stops Bakugo from coming after him when he says dumb shit, learns to control his mouth by their first year of working/living together. Interviewers would ask him, "How do you manage with number 2 (tied with Shoto) pro hero DynaMite trying to 'kill you the time?" And Monoma would just answer, with deep tiredness in his voice "Speed, self control, and not sleeping."

HC that Uraraka's quirk isn't zero gravity. It's gravity manipulation, so zero gravity is just a subsection of that. Her quirk exceeds the rules of zero gravity, and it's plausible that because she didn't have much money growing up, she wasn't able to get it properly tested, which should have been free, but we've established hero society is fucked up. This means, essentially, that she should be able to create a black hole. It'd take a lot of training, and a crap ton of effort, and she'd never do it, but she could.

The heroes should be glad 1A (Shinsou and Izuku especially) are good people. Because they could ruin them. They could take down hero society by themselves, and they all have been given reason too! They're just good people, and the heroes should appreciate that. Because the moment they stop being good people? It's all over.

HC that Aoyama is one of those kids that has known he was gay since birth, and never had to come out because people just knew.

Just realized something, feeling sad so you must too. Shigaraki could have been Touya's Izuku in another world. In a less fucked up universe, they could've been friends. Shigaraki- Tenko could have saved him.

Monoma is trying to start an enemies to lovers with all of 1A, Shinsou included. He obviously knows nothing about social interactions, maybe the poor boy is just trying to flirt the only way he knows how: being a prick.

In the Combined Hero Agency, fans and other heroes wonder how Mei keeps up. She's the only support hero, makes (though her interns help) and designs hero costumes AND support items for everyone in the agency, while also making them for her interns when asked, AND has time to participate in family game night every other week.

She really has no secret, just a love for what she does, hard work, dedication plus a lot of time and patience. That doesn't mean she doesn't endorse the rumors she has some secondary quirk or something, she actually enjoys fuelling the fire and watching it unfold. Fucking with the media is her favorite pastime.

At some point, Class 1A convinced Shinsou to make Endeavor to say "I'm a giant piece of shit" live on TV. And that was only after they swore up and down that he wouldn't be kicked out of the hero course, and promised to take the fall if anything goes wrong. The worst thing that happened was All Might trying to say what he did was wrong but he was told to fuck off.

The boys in class 1A like lending their jackets/sweaters/hoodies/jumpers to the girls. And the girls don't return them a lot, and only Mei, who feels bad if she keeps them, returns them, surprising the boys. You leave yours in the common room, don't expect it to be there in 30 minutes. And it didn't stop there. The boys also take each others' cover-ups (Shoto started this by asking to borrow Tokoyami's), and take the girls'. They find them comfortable and soft, and they nice-smelling. Basically everyone's wardrobes (private stuff is kept separately) is up for grabs by second year.

1A and (most of) 1B (+ Mei) are just like so, physical affectionate with each other. So much that even when they're pro heroes, the media isn't sure which relationships are which. Even when they clarify, they don't do anything to stop the rumors and even revel in it, fuelling them from time to time. Like, Ochaco would show up to an interview wearing Izuku's gloves, and the next she'll be in Tokoyami's sweater. Not to mention that her and Tsu are dating a (former) VILLAIN.

What if Momo like, buys a house. But not just a house. Like when they're still UA students, she buy a house for all her friends that don't want to go home over the holidays/weekends. It's (surprisingly) a lot of them.

Katsuki because he doesn't want to get yelled at after almost dying a crap ton. Denki because his parents will be mad about his grades, and he's trying, but it's so hard, and he can't focus. Ashido because she gets made fun of back home for her looks. Shoto because Enji. Tenya because he wants some time away from the pressure of his family to "live up to the Ingenium name", and don't get him wrong, he wants to be the new Ingenium, but he also when he just wants to be Tenya for a bit. Ochaco because she's tired, and wants a break. She loves her parents, but it's so much stress. Tsu because she'd rather be with her friends. Shinsou because he doesn't have a home. And much, much, more.

I think Dabi would've turned out more like Shoto if he had an Izuku. They were incredibly similar, in mentality and around the same backgrounds. The main difference is that Shoto has people to support him now, Dabi didn't. If Dabi had someone like Izuku to help him, help break down his walls, to make him feel validated, and seen (which, as I stan Shiggy and Izuku being siblings because AFO, could have been Tenko in a different world) he wouldn't be a villain.

Kids that are worried that they'd lose their friends when they become heroes would be So happy too. Like "I want to become a hero, but what if my friends and I lose touch? I don't wanna leave them behind, even if we're pros!" While they'd just be there like "we've been with each other since high school bro. they don't have to go nowhere lol"

HC that their fans would start to believe God is a woman, because Momo.

And like, they would be regular visitors at schools and orphanages. None of them ever got to be kids, and very few of them had good experiences with school, so they would want to inspire more kids. That they can become heroes, too. They'd definitely keep all the gifts they got, plus Momo and Izuku seem like the type to pin up every drawing they get from their kid fans in their offices, no matter how good/bad. It'd be good morale, and the kids of the next generation of heroes would have perfect role models to look up to.

It'd be cute if 1A didn't go on to start their own hero agencies. I mean, they'd have to figure something out with Tenya and Shoto, but I feel as if they would go on to make one, big hero agency instead. They have the perfect selection of quirks and personalities, from rescue heroes to support ones! With a bit of help from their friends, of course. (Yes, Mei is included. I love her too much not too)

Sero and Denki seem like the type to get (platonically) married, though Sero is aroace (personal HC) and Denki is dating Shinsou. No one even blinks an eye anymore, too used to their BS.

I HC that Shoto was previously very closed off with his siblings, even after he was allowed to spend time with them. I want to see, after spending time with 1A, him open up. Slight things at first, like offering to go for a run with Natsuo, or giving Fuyumi a kiss on the cheek, to going to amusement parks with Natsuo, and talking about his day and friends with Fuyumi. They not sure what caused this change at first. But then they meet Izuku, and the rest of the IzuCrew, and 1A, and suddenly it all makes sense, and God do they love these kids.

I want to see 1A actively antagonize Endeavor, but only when there's no one that would tell around. Like, anything they can get away with legally, and somethings they can't, but they make sure to not get caught. Natsuo loves it.

I have this HC that around the middle of the year, 1A just gave up on sleeping separately, or the "everyone sleep in your room" rule. After the horrific bullshit they'd been through together, they figured out that sleeping in the same room as each other helped the (inevitable) night terrors that came. And setting a time that everyone should be in their rooms was disastrous. So now it's common to see Shoto or Izuku in Tenya's room, or Mina and Kirishima in Bakugo's, or some nights they all just sleep in whoever has the most space at the time.

I want to see 1A when they're in 2A move into the dorms again. Like, Enji would go "Shoto I don't want you in the dorms this year." And Shoto, who's been waiting to go back since the dorms closed and has already packed all his shit goes ". . . You've gotta be shitting me, old man. I'm gonna go see my friends, who I value more than you. Fuck you." Then freeze him, grab his bags and run to the spot where the rest of the class agreed to meet, to get food then got to the dorms.

Shoto is constantly being used as the class portable heater, and has learnt to accept it, not without making the occasional "I went through years of abuse and trauma for this" comment though

Hatsume and Izuku should be friends. I feel like they'd understand each other. The others try, but they're the only ones who can keep up with how fast each other's brains go.

I want to see 1A visit Rei in the hospital. It started as Shoto introducing his friends to his mom, but they grew fond of her, and now visit her regularly to talk, and update her on what's going on with like Shoto, or school

Imagine if there was no UA traitor, and they just forgot to remove Touya from the family group chat.

Rei should be introduced to Izuku as "my best friend", Tenya as "the friend who stops me from doing bad things", and Kastuki as "my other best friend, though he denies it". Shoto with his lack of social skills would just go "Oh Bakugo? We're friends. He's like that with everyone."

Rei doesn't need to know about the murder, what she doesn't know can't hurt her. And whenever Shoto tries to mention it to her, Tenya just slaps his hand on his mouth to shut him up, or nudges him aggressively until he (after a long time) gets the message .

After a while, when Izuku is asked what hero he wants to be like, he responds All Might. Why wouldn't he? All Might is bold, courageous, strong, and always saves people with a smile. The perfect hero.

But in his mind, he only has one true answer. Eraserhead. Mr. Aizawa is the perfect hero, maybe not to the public, but to his problem children. He's always there for them, and hasn't failed them like a lot of heroes and the society at large has.

Aizawa-sensei is the epitome of everything they strive to be, and though they'll always give different answers: All Might, Hawks, Powerloader, Cementoss, Lunch Rush, there'll always be one true answer. Something only they know. Mr. Aizawa is the ideal hero.

Dark Shadow uses they/them or it/its pronouns. Just makes sense, considering Dark Shadow isn't human, and likely doesn't conform to the same rules of gender we do

Considering Shoto (canonically) trauma dumps to make best friends (Izuku and Katsuki), it's only a matter of time until he does the same for Tenya. Especially after the Stain arc. And I feel like it'd just SHATTER his world view of heroes and hero society. He sees it through even more rose-tinted glasses than Izuku, so the realization that someone wildly viewed as a hero could so such things and get away with it would be totally new to him. Especially because the only experience he had was with Tensei, who is the ideal hero.

Back on my 1A and 1B hero agency bullshit, all their interns love them. They're always so kind to their interns and treat them really well, despite how they normally are or treat their fellow heroes. They remember what it felt like during their own internships, being scared and on their toes. They don't want their interns to feel like that around them.

In their shared agency, Kota and Eri intern there of course, but so do a bunch of other hero students. Some from Gen Ed too, anyone they feel like have potential, application or not.

The Combined Hero Agency (I don't have a name yet) most definitely teach their interns quirkless self defense, for all the times their quirks have failed them or made things more difficult. Hand to hand and using a variety of weapons.

1A is used to Mei and Izuku (Sometimes Tenya tags along. Very rarely, Denki) meeting up to talk costumes and mad genius shit, with Izuku's quirk analysis and Mei's skill in building, 1A would have the best costumes.

these are all so extensive and thought out .......... i love this anon uve put work into these they're so excellent .......... i love 1a family dynamics :( godddd i love them theyre lovely i love this AHHHHH MAN

#long post #anon #ask #bnha #1a

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blackaquokat · 5 years

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Reasons You Should Listen to All the Episode Commentaries for Leverage

--John Rogers is always drinking some kind of alcoholic beverage while doing so. He introduces himself at the beginning, pops the can/bottle open, and it begins.

--The writers/directors/producers freaking LOVED just about every part of the show. They are always heaping love onto the actors/the crew/the writers/the locations they filmed.

--Aldis Hodge starts joining in during Season 3 and always introduces himself as either, “DJ Chocolate Skittles,” “Cookie,” or, with a very specific vocal inflection that I don’t know how to describe, “SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!!” He also always has very interesting tidbits about approaching moments he’s improvised (which is almost all the best moments on the show) and about how he views Hardison.

--The creators also always talk about the Portland actors they worked with, because that’s where they filmed just about the whole show, and how talented those actors were. Very rarely did they bring up L.A. actors because they kept finding incredible talent in Portland, such as Detective Bonanno, Peggy, the Irish Mob actors in Boy’s Night Out, almost all of the clients and security guards, etc.

--Speaking of, they also keep talking about how they could imagine entirely other shows surrounding various characters they didn’t have enough time to dedicate to, such Sophie and Tara grifting together or the FBI Agent in the Radio Job having his own story. They wanted to bring back SO MANY different actors and characters who only appeared for brief times during the show.

--They talk about lots of lore that they couldn’t fit into the show. They say that the assassins from the Reunion Job and the Morning After Job are married, that the cop lady (they named her Officer Rose, specifically for fanfic references, because they hadn’t given her a name in the script and greatly regretted that because they loved this actor) that Eliot flirted with/distracted in Boy’s Night Out dated Rizzoli in the past (John Rogers was apparently very bitter that the writers hadn’t committed to Rizzolie and Isles being lesbians, he talks about it in the commentary twice), John Rogers even outright says that he believes that Maggie and Sophie were involved with each other in canon at one point.

--They encourage so much fanfiction ideas, both about the main cast and about minor characters. John says, and I quote, about the Girl’s Night Out scene where Sophie and Tara are searching that hotel bedroom together, “If this scene does not inspire some very raunchy fanfiction, we have failed our audience.”

--They respect their actors and characters. So much. They made a rule during the first two seasons to NOT sexualize Parker’s character unless she was on the grift and in control of the situation. They realized that the way Sophie and Nate were in S1, they hadn’t developed enough as characters be together during that season, so they changed it up because it was what the characters needed. They were very adamant about giving Parker and Hardison the lovely, slowburn romance they deserved, especially with how broken Parker was. So often, the writers said that the actors were so in-tune with their characters that all the directors did was point the camera at the actors and let them do their thing, because often the actors ad-libbed something in-character that ended up in the show., like Eliot and Sophie’s conversation about what’s under Nate’s bed in the Beantown Bailout Job.

--The big reason Aldis Hodge was casted to be Hardison was because he was the only actor who made about eight pages worth of story exposition sound fun and interesting and enjoyable, and most of Hardison’s dialogue involves exposition. Also, his improv game was STRONG.

--One of my favorite lines in the entire commentary involves John Rogers talking about the Girl’s Night Out Job: “DON’T DISEMPOWER YOUR FEMALE LEADS.”

--They talk about HILARIOUS scenes they wanted to include in the show but couldn’t: Parker’s first introduction to chocolate involving her almost eating through the table, Eliot’s flashback scene in the beginning of S5 involving him coming through Stargate, or Eliot appearing covered in green goo in a flashback in the First-Contact Job.

--There’s also a LOT of really good lessons and ideas about camerawork and set design and costume design and how they write the episodes which I imagine will be very helpful for burgeoning filmmakers.

--Another big rule was to treat every season like it would be the last one, because Dean and John HATED when show pulled that awful cliffhanger trick to get people to come back and watch more, both for Season Finales and from episode to episode. To quote John, “GIVE THE FANS THEIR F***ING ENDING!!”

--Competence Porn. The creators’ favorite term to use, because they know all fans have a competence kink, and Leverage is a show FULL of Competence Porn. They know what the fans want and they deliver.

--Basically, if you’re looking to write Leverage fanfiction and want to enjoy hearing from creators who actually respected and loved the show they created along with the actors and crews who helped make it happen, I highly recommend the Leverage commentary, it’s so enjoyable, they are all so animated the entire time they talk about it, it makes you excited just listening.

#leverage #kat rants

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redantsunderneath · 4 years

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DC COMICS: Incoherence as Not-a-Bug-but-a-Feature (Spoilers for Batman 89-100)

Due to the emergence of the new Batman villain character Punchline, I wound up buying the last 12 issues of Batman and reading them in a single sitting. I’ve had trouble following DC comics for a while, constantly feeling that they were in trouble since back in the mid 2000s (with a glimmer of hope here and there). The act of reading DC comics has been a frustrating experience, where individual good stories and runs were laying around in the context of a lot of things that didn’t make sense while the company’s thrust felt chaotic and ideas not well blended. Every status quo change seemed hard to figure out the rules of enough to parse the context. We’ll get into the background of this, but my reading today of this extended stretch of comics that keeps losing the plot in favor of a fever dream of what’s happening at the moment with specific characters that refuse to cohere, it became obvious that what I had been looking at as subtext or critique was actually the text. I could see the messed up trees but was missing the the forest the universe was trying to describe.

What happens in these issues (Batman current series 89-100, I missed the beginning of the first of 2 arcs) is rolling war between the major Batman villains and the heroes (plus Harley Quinn and Catwoman), which shifts into a Joker and Joker adjacent vs. all as the Joker double crosses everyone then manages to steal Bruce Wayne’s fortune. We meet 3 new baddies – Underbroker, whose schtick is putting ill-gotten gains beyond the reach of the legal system (with an explicit line to rich globalists drawn), the Designer, who back in the day offered the four A list Batman villains plans to achieve what they most wanted, and Punchline, who is your toxic ex’s new millennial GF who really has it in for you (there is also a new good guy Clownhunter, which is a whole different thing, and a new costumed detective that predates Batman). This doesn’t convey the chaotic nature of what is happening issue to issue, but there’s more than one Batman hallucinogenic spirit quest, dead characters ostensibly walking around, a plan revolving around the Bat’s origin story that tells some version of it several times, and a no-nonsense declaration that the Joker, as the Devil of the Batman spiritual system, cannot die. The whole thing has the effect of convincing you there is no definitive sequence of events, only versions.

Alan Moore’s Killing Joke is not a favorite of mine, for a number of reasons. But the ending holds up. The Joker has done terrible things there is no antecedent for, and Batman wonders aloud if this never-ending dance they do ends in anything but both of their deaths; can they uncouple from the unhealthy duality the cycle of which simply repeats. The Joker responds, well, with a joke about two lunatics trying to escape an asylum. ��One jumps the roof to the next building, while the other is too scared to try. The escapee offers to hold a light while the other crosses on a beam but he says no, no you’ll just cut the light while I’m half way across. This not very funny joke nonetheless has a bunch of resonances – BM and Joker as conspiring co inmates, BM wanting to break out, a commentary about their natures (almost a reversal of the frog and scorpion story where the scorpion won’t go because he knows how this ends), but mostly it implicates BM as the one who is enabling the cycle, the reason why it won’t end. They both laugh uproariously, and the ambiguous final panels can be read as the fundamental realization of his complicity causing BM to kill J. A lethal joke indeed… except, next month, we see the both of them again. In broader context, the ceaseless cycle of the diad is reaffirmed. This has been hellaciously sticky as an idea in the Batmen universe.

My realization of what DC has been doing is pretty banal in its pieces. Marvel has “ground level” heroes while DC has a mythos, a pantheon. Their archetypal makeup is strong, the seven JLA members lining up with the pantheon of Greek gods and the Chakras weirdly closely. DC has big characters that are somewhat flat which they can use tell big bold individual stories that are cool the way legends and fables are cool. But these stories require bold strokes that a bit incompatible with each other. People get attached to these iterations. Meanwhile, Marvel trucks in soap operas where the characters give you an empathetic stand in and are narratively flexible. Marvel events are usually about the writer vs. the company, asking you to sympathize or deconstruct the creative impulse amid efforts to impose control or order. DC’s events are about editorial vs. the audience, the shapers vs. the forces of the world. It may seem obvious, given this description, that DC’s focus is on an archetypal tableau though it may be less obvious that this tableau is under extreme pressure from expectations when trying to tell ongoing tales month in, month out (or semi-monthly in some cases). The stories are constantly compared against the big stories that have gone before, and the audience’s ideas of the characters exert pressure to push them in directions that capture “the” version they believe in. This circle is not possible to square.

DC and Marvel both have a multiverse of sorts. DC used to tell “Elseworlds” stories which were later tucked into pocket universes. DC invented crossing over between “realities.” DC’s continuity is heavy baggage and they began to have “Crises” to resolve the narrative incompatibilities. These only made things worse as you can’t get rid of the past people have a relationship with – it will come back. Now you have to explain that away too. Marvel just lets it lay – forget about the iffy stories, they count, sure, just no one is ever going to talk about them unless they have an angle. Marvel continuity is all angles and amnesia. This is just easier to do with dating and rent and your ancient aunt’s medical bills than with Gods. Marvel’s multiverse is about sandboxes that you can always dump into the mainframe if they work (and never really mention the sandbox again).

There is a shift that occurred in the industry in the 2004 to 2005 era that is less remarked upon than many upheavals in comic’s history. Marvel had gone through a period of incredible new idea generation in the early 2000s after a late 90s creative cratering but had just fired the pro wrestling inflected soul of that moment (Bill Jemas). DC was coming off of a period of trying to do moderately updated versions of what they basically been doing all along. The attitude was “yeah we’re under stress from the combined history of these characters, but we got to keep telling the stories.” Geoff Johns was one voice of DC over the 99-04 period that showed potential - he seemed to get how to find the core of characters and push them into a new in sync directions if they over the years have lost a clear identity. But mostly he had internalized a basic schism between something mean that the audience wanted, and something good and wholesome about the characters themselves, and figured out how to mess around with this in a equilibrating fashion.

Interestingly, the ignition point of the main forces that were going to blow DC over the next decade and a half was a comic that had virtually nothing to do with any of those main forces. Brad Meltzer, a novelist, was hired to do a comic called Infinity Crisis, which sold extremely well and was, justifiably or not, recognized as an event. At the same time, everyone also kind of hated it because the dark desires of some DC fans were pushed forward just a bit too much for comfort and for a comic with Crisis in the name it didn’t do a whole lot other than “darken” things. Nonetheless, this lit an “event” fire at both companies. Marvel chose a shake up the status quo for a year, then do it again, pattern and was off to the races (I have written about this, and more, here) while continuing its Randian framing of beleaguered do-gooders opposed by rule making freedom haters.

As this was playing out, Dan Didio quietly took power in DC Editorial. His outlook was more Bloomian – he seemed to spark off of writers who exhibited anxiety of influence. He recognized Johns was the one person they had could be promoted into something of a universe architect, starting work on two key projects from which the rest would evolve. The first, was bringing back Hal Jordan as Green Lantern and diffracting the GL universe into its own symbolic system, with parts frisson-ing other parts, and almost a Magic the Gathering color scheme of ideas. The other was to build up to Infinite Crisis, which would become the model for most of their universe changing events until the present day.

The basic frame is this: DC heroes want to be good (in a sense of their inherent nature) but forces outside form a context that makes them fall. It’s a very gnostic universe, DC. They examine reflections of the concepts, invent scapegoats for certain tendencies (see Superboy Prime as entitled fanboy, Dr. Manhattan as editors that try and fail to mend things, etc), make characters violate principles, rehabilitate them, then show that the world if anything is more broken than before. This is kind of Johns’ thing and it fits Didio’s narrative as historicval tension fetish. But then came Scott Snyder (not to be confused with Zack) who began to work on Batman in 2011. Since then, as much as Justice League is pushed as the central title and Lex Luthor has been pimped, Batman has been the core of the universe and the Joker the core villain.

Snyder had the same continuity conflict wavelength but was significantly more meta and able to contain multitudes than Johns. He was the first to make an explicit mystery of how there could be several Jokers around at one time (who are the same but not, he posited 3 – man, Christians!) that seems prescient given the near future coexistence of filmic Jokers that are not able to be resolved. I believe he was the first to begin to tease out an idea – that different versions of things in comics are not a diffraction or filter effect, a using the set of things that work best for that story and leaving the rest, but are a matter of the archetypal system of the audience coming apart. From an in story perspective what appears to happen is that multiple versions of incompatible things exist in the collective unconscious of the continuing narrative, and this is something that the characters may become conscious of.

The run I just read is written by James Tynion IV building on the above trends. The trick seems to be going all in on the Jungian aspect (at Jung’s most religiously epiphanic). The Designer was a progenitor and adversary to Batman’s predecessor and his intellectual approach eventually defeated the detective… broke him. At some point in early Batman history, the Designer brought the top four Bat-baddies together and offered each, in turn, a plan to achieve what they most desired: the Riddler, a way to achieve an empire of the mind; the Penguin, power; and Catwoman, money. They are all elated as they await the Joker to come out. The Joker emerges with a furious Designer on his heals and promptly shoots him dead. He explains that he didn’t like his joke in the form of a fable – the devil offered four people the path to their greatest desire: the three chose earthly things, but the Joker’s wish was to be him, to become the devil. The story proceeds to suggest that the Joker just exists, he is present as a necessary component in the system. You can kill him, yet he is alive.

DC has been using physics metaphors for the nature of their reality since Flash of Two Worlds in 1963. The multiverse as a continuity concept was their idea and the holographic universe of the hypertime was a thing. It seems like since Dan Didio took over, they’ve been heading towards a concept of broad superimposition, of measurement effect being weak, of the universe being like a quantum computer with all possibilities coexisting and the story instantiating not one reality but a path through all the possible ones. By making Batman trip balls through quite a few issues and relive his origin from different angles, the story is one of its own instability and the heroic task that confronts our hero is attempting to actualize the world. The Joker is the Devil in the sense of lack of fixed meaning, of relativistic chaos, of the world not making sense because it’s unmoored nature with ultimately no knowability. Batman, in this story, functions as a postmodern knight crusading against the impossibility of epistemological grounding.

There’s more going on, sure. One plot is, literally, defund Batman. There is rioting, people brainwashed by being exposed to toxic ether, people paid to go to theaters even though they will die as a result, and questions about neoliberalism similar to that one Joker movie. Punchline has no personality yet (Tynion’s not the best at that) but she serves well as a generational foil for Harley – a rudderless ideological vacuum susceptible to Joker-as-idea-virus rather than an unfulfilled MD who felt alienated due to the structures of her life and was seeking escape into structureless possibility. The Designer stuff is both continuity play (See why they changed from goofy villains to more “realistic” ones! Look how pulp heroes informed superheroes!), a comment on the nature of a longstanding narrative (strong intentions die out as Brownian motion overwhelms momentum), and a lawful evil/chaotic evil setup of the dualism of apocalypses (overdetermined authoritarian vs. center does not hold barbarism). But the thing that ties this to the past decade and a half of DC is the sense that the reality is fluid and susceptible to change or outright s’cool incompatibility.

This is different than other flavors of meta in superhero comics. Grant Morrison believes the archetypes are stronger than the forces that seek to bend them. Alan Moore wants you to deconstruct your sacred cows and probably hates you personally. Marvel might play with self-awareness, but effortlessly resolves inconsistencies after it’s finished playing. DC, at this point, allows you to watch the waves solidfy into symbols and dissolve, and the constant confusion and lack of grounding is more of a choice then I thought this time yesterday. The conflict theory of DC reality has been in full swing but this looks to be turning towards a kind of Zen historicism, holding contradictory things in your mind at once. Warren Ellis’ JLA/Authority book is the nearest comparable text I can think of. I need to call this, but I didn’t even talk about Death Metal, DC character multiplicity as meta-psychosis event extraordinaire. Comics just keep getting weirder.

#DC comics #batman #joker #punchline

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project-paranoia · 3 years

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Live Watch: Guardian Episode One, Part One

It's Guardian! The show that got me interested in this genre! I love spooky things and I love mysteries and fantasy! I simply adore it so much! When I can't sleep I just put on a playlist of Guardian in the background. I was aware of censorship before - every country has some version of it, but to some degree this was my first deep dive into how it might effect a piece of media. Guardian is exceptionally acted and incredibly written, as well as suffering from obvious dubs where the dubbing voice actor sounds nothing like the previous actor and odd cuts that are disrupted. In some ways it's the little drama that could fighting its way past their studio going bankrupt while they were filming, reshoots, and being taken down and altered several times.

In some ways Guardian's struggle fits the spirit and aesthetic of the show. Worn in like an old pair of jeans but still making an effort. Putting emphasis where things count and hoping the kindness of the universe will make allowances for the rest. Attention to detail where the story really matters. It has the charm of a community production put on out of love with actors and crew who would not be anywhere else in the world for any amount of money. That feeling of love comes through, and whether or not I'm barely literate I have so many words to share.

Part of why I love it as well is it has that feeling of 80s and 90s fantasy, like Moomin, Xena or Condor Heroes. Everything feels lived in, nothing's been spit shined except for Shen Wei's suits. It's an old city street of a show, it has history and character built in.

*After all that I don't know that I have a tonne to say about the intro. It's very good but it's also full of spoilers. I think having the intro song be in English does make a difference in making it appealing to English speaking audiences as well as standing out as different and interesting, which the show is. Speaking of Spoilers! Spoilers below!

* The obligatory beginning narration is beautifully animated, I have another post that will be done some time before the heat-death of the universe talking about the fascinating world building options. Unlike some Make It SciFi plots, this one has legs and implications.

* Remakes rarely are able to meet the original on equal ground - and I struggle to believe the actors would Fit as well - but part of me really wants to have a chance to have the Dixingren worldbuilding really leaned into. The writing is good enough we get implication but no real follow through. I want fifty episodes of how Dixing functions, give me more pseudo-science behind the mutations, what are the biological differences. I'm hungry for more!

* I love the cameos of later characters, and the way there was some effort to be discrete with spoilers.

* It's Ya Boy! I love Shen Wei. With that music cue and that sinister turn around they really set him up as dubious. I wish they went with something a little different with the intro so his character wasn't spoiled. The writing, directing, and acting was so good and spoiling who Shen Wei is kind of took the teeth out of that.

* Also cheers to the costume designer who outfitted Zhu Yilong so well and made him look jacked with the fit of those clothes.

* Also you can tell this is a real university because the staff has to sit in tiny student chairs. I'm not joking, please be warned if you're going into academia. Unless you have tenure life is An Adventure - and even then.

* Also shout out to Shen Wei's Prized Cabbage and the Queen of our hearts, Li Qian. Why is this actress not in more things? She has such an expressive and lovely face and she really goes all the way in with her acting. I respect an artist that acts from their chest. Also that windbreaker, white skirt combo is chic and fun all at once, it draws the eye and makes her melt into the background all at once - perfect for the character. I love her so much.

* Here's another one of Shen Wei's coats, it's a lovely color for him but it also is so thin that it looks like it crinkled up just from being worn.

* I'm being distracted by details and missing plot stuff.

* Story of my life.

* I love Li Qian hovering along behind Shen Wei like a duckling following their mother. A) Mood and B) it quietly informs their dynamic. Shen Wei has like one person he can trust but no one he can really confide in and it's the same for Li Qian. A ship will find a port in a storm and Shen Wei has Big Da-ge Energy. My fanfic heart hopes they found comfort in the pseudo familial relationship with each other while it lasted.

* Even in episode one we receive foreshadowing, we love and respect some excellent writing. For those of you who missed it - Professor Ouyang is talking about Lin Jing who I love partially because he's so outrageous large but has the total opposite of intimidating energy.

* What did they feed you Lin Jing? He is so tall and wide, but they do a lot with camera work to try to make him not quite as big. Side note, I would really love to see the actor who plays Lin Jing (Liu Minting) both in more dramas but more specifically in a role where he was like a minister or scholar - someone intellectual. I think the combination of being such a big gentleman and also someone who like plots or plans would be really dynamic if it was written well.

* Also I like the exchange where without a word Professor Ouyang indicates he has one last thing to say, it's private and that he would like Shen Wei to ask Li Qian to leave. That's What You Can Do With Good Actors!

* Li Qian is just so pretty and the actress emotes so well!

* Shen Wei totally understanding what's going on with this shady research immediately and wanting to stay as far away as possible. We see one of the first examples of him being aggressively polite to remove himself from a situation.

* "i'M jUST aN oRDINARY sCHOLAR." No one buys it Shen Wei.

* Angy Thinking Face

* One thing the show is really good at is using establishing shots really well so you always know where everything is and everything is going

* Guo Changcheng, all around good boy and angel. We stan a nervous legend

* Zhou Yunlan Arriving. Why is everyone on this show an Absolute Legend

* Guo Changcheng protecting himself with his certificate is too cute. This young man is trying his best and I support him.

* Also that coat is Young, Pure, Stylish; I love it

* Zhao Yunlan, what's wrong with you? You are amazing!

* His irreverent style and disregard of usual policy makes him fit in really well with his band of misfits and special cases

* Guo Changcheng's OO face is too good, elastic face

* Da Qing my love!

* Jin Ling, I think he has an all seeing eye on his hoodie thing. Illuminati Confirmed.

* Also they filmed the shots so well, so you always know where everyone is in relation to everyone else

* Our Prized Cabbage! I love her!

* Great handheld work: shaky and unhinged, but not migraine inducing

* Foreshadowing in the form of a shadow and reaching for the necklace

* Da Qing's cat behaviours. I really want behind the scenes of the actor discussing how cat was he going to cat

* We get our first real example of how Zhao Yunlan doesn't feel safe emoting negatively and so he uses a super sunny mask to hide his feelings, except with Da Qing who he lets his anger show with because he trusts him.

* I'm not even halfway through and I've written so much, peace and blessings to the readers of this.

* Zhao Yunlan's swagger, after his childhood having a little power must feel comforting and good

* I love how Da Qing is talking as a cat less than a meter from the medical examiner. Does the examiner not care or does he know? Is he deaf?

* Harassing Guo Changcheng is the new team sport

* Zhao Yunlan Realises Something Music

* Also, Lollipop Measurement

* It's nice to see Zhao Yunlan just being himself with Da Qing, he's able to really be honest and genuine with him

* Slow Look Moment

* This moment is so fascinating! Shen Wei doesn't know what's going on yet. He just sees an old friend who winces when he sees him and disappears. We mostly see things from Zhao Yunlan's point of view, but from Shen Wei's perspective this is a first part of just some Odd and Confusing Happenings

* This cat though! I love him!

* The delicate way they’re both feeling each other out. This must be so confusing and startling for Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan is trying to figure out if this teacher is going to bust him or what.

* He forgot to let go, way to set off Zhao Yunlan’s suspicions

* “Mark Stewart” Is he though? Who picked out that English name?

* Li Qian! I love her and I love that striped blouse. Fashion. Got to look good when you’re resisting a mental break. *Also she hears a meow and looks around at eye level, I love that for her.

* Zhao Yunlan! You can’t take pictures of young ladies without their permission. What is wrong with you!

* I love Da Qing’s very cat attitude of I Will Have Vengeance for These Wrongs

* Two for one! Shen Wei meets two faces from his past.

* Also, I get a little frustrated about people making a big deal about the 10,000 years versus 1,000 years age thing with Da Qing. a) He has amnesia and b) the thousand years refers to the amount of time needed to cultivate to a certain stage in Chinese mythology - usually by absorbing energy from the sun, moon, or depending on the animal other sources.

* I feel so bad for Shen Wei, who knows what he thinks. Were his friends brainwashed? Did they forget? Can they not say for some reason? What is happening?

This review is getting a little long, so join in tomorrow for Part Two~~!

#Guardian #watchthrough

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clive-owen-and-the-knick · 3 years

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Rock n Roll Thack

Spoilers ahead for the season-one finale of The Knick.

As The Knick kicked off this past summer, Dr. John Thackery (Clive Owen) reminded those around him that “We live in a time of endless possibility.” Unfortunately for this brilliantly unhinged surgeon, that potential boundlessness got him sentenced to a hospital bed on this weekend’s season finale. Turns out shooting liquid cocaine into your veins before surgery is bad for both you and the health of your patient! Thankfully, Thack will get himself cured with a new drug called, uh … heroin, which was considered safe at the time. “It’s from the Bayer Aspirin Company,” says the prescribing doctor.

My Week In New YorkA week-in-review newsletter from the people who make New York Magazine.

A fitting way to end the poetically harrowing first season of Steven Soderbergh’s 1900s medical drama — with its antihero hitting rock-bottom. What will Soderbergh and the rest of The Knick team have in store for us in season two? Vulture spoke with Owen to discuss those possibilities, the finale, and the unlimited energy it takes to play a cocaine addict.

So let’s start right at the end. Thackery is finally able to get the help he needs … [Laughs.]

… only to find out he’s getting weaned off of cocaine and onto heroin. Exactly! I always thought that was a pretty brilliant ending. And apparently it was true. There were a lot of people getting addicted to cocaine at that time, because it was a new wonder drug and they didn’t realize its addictiveness. So they prescribed heroin as a kind of antidote. Out of the frying pan, into the fire …

It feels like you need a tremendous amount of energy to play a cocaine addict. It’s true. It was very exhausting, simply for that reason. It was exhausting anyway because it was a very intense shoot and Steven [Soderbergh] worked so fast and we were doing a lot, but you do realize that every single scene takes a lot of energy. Especially those episodes towards the end because there’s the [cocaine] shortage, and then when it comes back, he’s taking more than ever. [Laughs.]

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And you guys shot the scenes out of order, almost like a movie. Yeah, [Soderbergh] boarded it like a ten-hour movie, so when we were in [Thackery’s home], we shot everything, from the first episode to the last episode, in just two days. So that was quite a challenge. I made a visual white board on my wall, which just plotted through all the episodes and all the scenes in the episodes, and part of that was to graph my drug intake. That this was a period where you need more drugs, or this is where you were on too many. In some ways, that needed to be charted throughout the whole ten hours.

So you were filming those scenes where Thackery is self-destructing early in the shoot? Exactly. It was all location-based. At first I thought, That’s fine. You always shoot anything out of sequence. But it wasn’t until we started that I realized what a challenge that was. It’s a big undertaking, especially with a part like that.

One of my favorite — though certainly horrifying — aspects of the show is to see all the medical procedures and techniques that are shunned now. Obviously there’s the cocaine, but then there’s the fact that doctors aren’t wearing gloves or that people need to stand in front of an X-ray machine for like 45 minutes. The great thing is, not only were the operations really well-researched — when we did them, they were incredibly faithful to how they were being done at the time — we go into discoveries that were made. But also there were a number of crazy ideas and crazy notions that they were exploring. I am sure in 20 or 40 years from now, we’ll look back and think, Did we really believe that?

I understand you went through a brief medical-school crash course with the show’s medical adviser, Dr. Stanley Burns, before you began production. Yeah, he was an unbelievable source of research and information. It’s almost like this show was his fantasy come to life, because his place, he has hundreds of thousands of photographs from this period, he had medical instruments from the period, he had booklets that were handed to doctors at the turn of the century. He was just an unbelievable resource to have.

What was the hardest procedure for you to do onscreen? Really, the first one was in some ways the most shocking, because we did everything we could, but we had never seen it with all the blood and everything. We had rehearsed it thoroughly, we shot everything up until the point where we make the first incision, and then the blood was pumped through and we just did everything in real time, and Steven kept his shot going. The blood just kept coming, and by the end, when he shouted “Cut!,” we were all covered. It was all over the place. It was a real moment of “Welcome to 1900!” [Laughs.] That was quite shocking. So we knew from then on that this was the direction we were going in.

I read Steven was looking for that “David Fincher” level of blood. Yeah, and again, Dr. Burns was there for every single procedure … He would be like, “More blood,” “Less blood” — that was what he asked for.

I assume you’re not too squeamish in general, right? It would probably be pretty difficult to play the role to begin with. Um, no, and also the scenes were so technically challenging. They work on such a number of levels. You’ve got the technical side of the operation, you’ve got to know what you’re doing, you’ve got the dialogue with the other doctors, and the whole element of performing it in front of an audience. So they were just very challenging scenes generally, and there was no real time to get squeamish. You just wanted to look like you knew what you were doing.

There’s a pretty brutal scene in the finale where you’re doing a blood transfusion and cutting your wrist open. Could you walk me through that? Well, first I thought, throughout the whole show, but specifically that one, the prosthetics guy did such an incredible job. Even to the naked eye, just as an actor standing there, some of the stuff that we were looking down and working on, it was so convincing. And that’s without doing any CGI. But I do remember that one, with the little girl lying on the bed, and wondering if the veins are connecting, and looking at Steven and saying, “How are we ever going to come back for the second season? How are we ever going to bring this guy back? He’s irredeemable!” [Laughs.] So that felt like a scene where we pushed him as far as it was possible to push him.

We don’t know much of Thackery’s background. He made a brief speech about his father slaughtering Indians, but that was about it. Had you and Steven come up with a backstory? There was actually, in earlier drafts, there was an element of him going back to see his father. So there was some stuff there that in the end Steven took out, which I think was a wise thing to do. So there was kind of a rough outline there, but we may find out more about that in the second season.

You’ve mentioned before that there’s something that strikes you as very rock and roll about Thackery. That came out of a conversation with the costume designer, who did such an excellent job. I went to a fitting and she pitched me the idea of these white boots. It was such a strange arrogance about it. And as we were looking at clothes — I have done period things before, and very often, a costume designer will say, “Oh, no, you can’t wear that because they never did that.” But Ellen would say to me, “Well, you can do what you like. You’re Thackery.” He’s the 1900 version of rock and roll. He can wear anything. There’s something about the way he carries himself, and his attitude, and the fact that he’s brilliant also helps him get away with it. There’s something so edgy and visceral about him.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of him is that he’s able to transition seamlessly from an uptown lifestyle to a more downtown decadence, where he goes to these opium dens. Yeah. And it’s also a lovely flavor of what New York must have been at that time. You get the broad spectrum. You get the real rough areas, where disease has taken a grip; you get the wealthy areas, where people are funding the hospital. It gives you such an opportunity to experience a broad palate of life at that time.

Did filming the first season feel more like a movie than a TV show, since Steven directed every episode? For sure. It didn’t feel any different. It felt longer, obviously — though I say longer, we shot the thing in 73 days. It was like the length of a really big movie. Apart from the amount we were getting through each day, which was an awful lot. We moved so quickly. I think our record was 13 pages of dialogue in one day. Apart from that, the pace of it felt absolutely no different from doing a movie. At the end of the day, Steven Soderbergh is a movie animal. And also the fact that we didn’t shoot it episodically. He did board it like a movie. It didn’t feel like television.

Is 13 pages a day a lot? That seems like a lot. It’s a hell of a lot. You try learning that and knowing you need to get up the next day and do another one. [Laughs.]

That’s what’s so great about the show and how insane it must have been to shoot. You’re not only playing an interesting character, but you have to learn all these medical terms that you’re not that familiar with. They are hard to learn, those scenes. And we did occasionally shoot one operation after another, but you have to really put time into them. You’ve got to look and sound completely convincing. I really thought so highly of the writers — the rhythms were often good. Oftentimes when the writing is good, even if it’s technical stuff around the operation, the rhythm is easier to learn. And it’s really difficult to learn if it’s stilted.

How much rehearsal was involved in shooting the actual scenes? There are some really long takes during those surgery sequences. He’s very, very quick, Steven. Those operation days, I’d say yes, the first hour or two of that day were crucial, because that’s where you’d dictate how everything plays — the technical side of it, the rhythm of the dialogue. But genuinely, we’d go and rehearse the scene a number of times, and Steven would have a look at it from a number of perspectives and make a very clear decision and take a very strong perspective on where he wants to shoot the scene from, and then shoot it fairly quickly.

Have you and Steven talked about what’s in store for season two? Yeah, I’ve got five scripts in front of me here. It’s just very exciting because it was such a bold take on a period genre in a way. I thought it was so visceral and edgy. It’s brilliant to be able to come this far. The exciting thing is we can hit the ground running. We’ve already done so much work in taking it to very interesting, unusual and dangerous places. It’s really exciting.

Are you worried about being able to top the first season? No, we’ve got such a wealth of opportunity. It just goes to really interesting and crazy places, and there is still so much there. We are lucky [the writers] literally immersed themselves in the time. There was stuff they were trying to cram in the first season that they can go to. It’s just really great stuff. There’s an awful lot still.

#Clive Owen #the knick

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chaos-of-my-mind · 4 years

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Mini rant below, you’ve been warned

I’m going to try and keep spoilers out of this so I don’t ruin anything for you if you have not finished the show yet as I am wont to forget to put the spoilers tag (or any tags) on a post. I might make very specific references but keep them as vague as I can but spoiler warning just in case. But also, apologies if my ranting sounds nonsensical or vague.

I don’t wish to offend anyone, I just want to voice my thoughts. Overall, I enjoy the show and likely will watch a second season if they make one but there’s just some things I want to get off my chest.

Okay, so I just watched The Letter for the King and I have a lot of thoughts.

I’m just gonna talk about the first four episodes because I have a lot of thoughts on these episodes and it gonna be reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyy long as is.

First of all, right off the bat, this is a seriously loose adaption of a Dutch novel that I looked at the wiki page for and sounds a fair sight better than this show.

The show as a concept is fascinating and the diversity is a welcome change from the usual primarily white cast we tend to see. Certain plot lines were wonderful.

Tiuri is an amazing and refreshing main character. I was kind of expecting him to be angsty or something but he wasn’t. He has a good heart and caring spirit. He believes strongly in doing what is right and is unwavering in his belief. He is also... just about the only character I like.

I liked the Abbott and Ristridin and Ardanwen but Tiuri was really the only character I cared what happened to them.

Costume design is absolutely incredible, I’ve always had a soft spot for this style, especially the dresses. The intricate details of the clothing is fascinating to me, especially now after having taken a class in costume design.

Sets and locations? Wonderful. Some of the locations they shot at for these first four episodes are beautiful. The monastery in the third episode is almost delightfully unsettling with its flickering shadows and the raging storm outside.

Out of the first four episodes, third is my favorite. Mostly because of the scenes in the monastery, particularly the one with Tiuri and the Abbott.

I don’t have much to say regarding the Queen, I appreciate that she rules on her own without question but she didn’t really have much of a presence (at least IMO) in the first few episodes.

The score is absolutely beautiful. I love the score for this show. I really wish it was on Spotify. Anyone else listen to movie and TV scores while studying or is that just a me thing?

No offense to anyone else, this is simply my opinion and since none of my friends watch the show and ranting to my wall offers little catharsis, I’m venting here. We’re getting into my issues now.

Anyway, I CANNOT stand Lavinia. She’s absolutely, one hundred percent my least favorite character. Yes I understand and acknowledge that this is a loose adaptation from the book but though she shows up in the book, she is nowhere near as prominent a character.

I don’t want to be mean and I am all for powerful female roles but Lavinia, in my mind at least, really didn’t add much to the story.

She kind of felt like when shows add a character just for comic relief and they offer nothing else to the show, you know?

I think it’s her greed that bothers me the most. Yes, I understand her not wanting to be forced to marry but her plans and actions feel a little too selfish for me.

Tiuri is trying to fulfill the Black Knight’s last request even when it means great personal loss for him and all Lavinia talks about money. Maybe this changes in later episodes, but right now she’s wearing on my last nerve.

I get being cautious and skeptical but then there’s being obnoxious. She’s introduced as someone who will do whatever to get what they want with little regard for what happens to others. There are six episodes in the season, I’m 3/4s of the way done and I still can’t stand this character.

The other would be knights have their faults but they’ve still grown on me to some degree. Except Arman, he’s a snot. But I still like him better than Lavinia.

I feel like I need to say this has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with the way she is written.

I get that by taking the basic plot of the book and the character names from the book means you have to say it’s an adaptation but seriously? I don’t really understand why they chose to take a (from what I gathered from the wiki page as this is based off a Dutch novel I have no access to) very minor character and have them be a main character.

Honestly, I feel like all she does so far is complain, talk about money and snark. She has some interesting storylines that are brought up briefly but none of them have been fleshed out or furthered yet. Maybe if they went into these plot points, I’d be more okay with her but as it stands, she just doesn’t seem essential to the plot.

Now onto the would be soldiers. I don’t really understand why Piak is with them or how he managed to get away to follow them (not really a spoiler, happens within like the first or second episode). I know it’s medieval or middle ages but you’re telling me no one is at all watching this ten year old boy even slightly? Also, why isn’t anyone concerned about whether his parents know where he is?

This may seem nitpicky but other shows, movies or books have been based on the plot of a kid going missing.

I don’t find their plot wholely necessary, feels kinda like filler fodder to me but I also have ADHD and get distracted/bored rather fast. Foldo, I like. Jussipo, I like. Piak, I like. Arman, meh. Iona, definitely the most competent of the group, don’t know if I trust her.

She feels like she’d be an interesting villain. She has that vibe, especially when they were with the Red Riders, kind of reminded me of that seagull meme/picture:

this one? She seems very cutthroat, tough. She’s a really interesting character but I don’t feel like she’s being given the time or character development she deserves (again only four episodes in but six episodes total so I’m not optimistic).

She’s clever and I like her fine, I just think they’re wasting time that could be spent on giving her more depth on filler scenes or Lavinia talking about money (again). I really don’t like Lavinia. Sorry.

Also, is Viridian the villain? I don’t think saying that’s a spoiler (it’s mentioned in the trailer or the first episode I think) but sorry if it is. He literally does nothing.

He does something horrible in maybe the first ten minutes of the show and then nothing. He stands in a tent and talks about prophecy and whatever, his soldiers are better villains than he is, at least they’re actively doing something!

Also, he looks just enough like some other actor that it’s all I can think about when he’s onscreen, it’s very distracting. I think it’s Max Lloyd-Jones he looks like but I’m not completely sure.

Hopefully he actually does something in the next two episodes because so far, I don’t see the point in showing him onscreen at all.

The thing that bugs me most is that while I know the plot is progressing and things are happening, it feels like nothing’s happening. The plot feels kinda aimless and vague and it’s just slower than I would prefer it to be progressing. The trailer I watched made it seem action packed and all that but it really... isn’t.

It gets so close to something happening and then the show’s like ‘Just kidding, they’re an ally’ or ‘Nevermind, it’s someone else’ or ‘Ooo, coincidental thing happened and we got away!’

It’s super annoying. That’s about everything I can think of. *sigh* I feel better now.

Thanks for reading.

#the letter for the king #letter for the king #tlftk #netflix

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cbspams · 3 years

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iKON - Love Scenario + Killing Me

I'll specifically be referring to each member by the name they're using in Kingdom subtitles, so like Jinhwan instead of Jay, Donghyuk instead of DK etc.

Damn these are long lol, thank god for read more cuts

Sarangeul haetdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 🎶🎶🎶

I'm honestly so happy they did Love Scenario. I mean it's one of their most famous songs for sure but like, I would've been really sad if it wasn't performed at least once on Kingdom I think, just because I was so curious how they would spin it.

I will say that I would not consider this performance as a "mash up". Now in Round 2 the only groups who do mashups are iKON and SKZ as far as I'm aware, so I'm also taking some of the mash ups used in RTK (Pentagon - Shine/Spring Snow, ONF - We Must Love/Moscow Moscow, It's Raining) as reference to why I would personally call this a "set" rather than a "mash up".

So Love Scenario is a pretty classic mellow song, one which is beloved for obvious reasons of being fun and cheerful but in a quieter, soft vibes way. I loved that they took the melody and made it even more cheerful, adding in those trumpet/saxophone tones and bumping it up to a musical tone song. I especially appreciate that they made it so bright because the other performances are so dark (ATEEZ included, though theirs was more forceful and powerful than dark). It's just really refreshing to hear.

Going back to mash ups though, I'm not sure if I could consider this a mash up in my mind? Here's the thing, I don't actually consider Shine/Spring Snow (Pentagon) or We Must Love/Moscow Moscow (ONF) as mash ups wither. To me, those are more like "sets", in which the songs have similar vibes or transition really well into each other. Shine/Spring Snow being a special stage to send of Jinho, the transition wasn't just a musical flow through but a small "cut". I can't really judge this one as a mash up because it's not a performance for the stage but for the heart but if you watch it, you can clearly see where Shine ends and where Spring Snow begins right? Even if the songs bled into each other though, the way they arranged Shine and Spring Snow, I think it would've been a flawless transition in.

Separately, consider ONF's spliced set in which they do nearly all of We Must Love and then tag Moscow Moscow in towards the end lyrically. Because both songs carry different vibes originally, the arrangement became really important in order to splice the songs together and make the transition seamless. And that arrangement did a wonderful job! If I didn't watch those songs beforehand, I wouldn't even have been able to tell that there were two songs in the performance.

So then what's a mash up? A mash up in my mind is more similar to SKZ's Jasin or ONF's It's Raining. It's where the songs and melodies are arranged together, splicing together lyrics and melodies to become one song completely. There's no telling where one song ends and another begins because they're integrated together. ONF's It's Raining is actually a really cool example of this, where they mashed up It's Raining (Rain) with their own song Complete. They keep all the lyrics of It's Raining but add in their own jaunty vibe with the fun saxophone, changing the song entirely. Similarly, SKZ's Jasin (which I will also analyze later), has God's Menu and Side Effects spliced together to become a new song. Obviously SKZ's is different from ONF as SKZ produce and arrange their own songs already, but the end result is the same: a completely new song despite carrying lyrics and melodies from the components.

In this way, I would define iKON's performance as a "set" over a "mash up". The songs align together to tell a story and have a relatively seamless transition, but they do not incorporate each other to become a new song. I think that as far as arrangements go, this is decent and like in Shine/Spring Snow or We Must Love/Moscow Moscow, it's not a bad idea but it feels "weaker" because it's more like just lining the songs up together instead of actually "mashing" the songs together.

Wow that's a lot of talk on something that's not even actually the performance kdjfhk

BACK TO IT.

Because their theme is a breakup and dealing with what comes after, I think their intro is incredibly strong. Like the others said in the episode itself, Bobby's opening shot captures attention immediately. I love that they used a sort of, older black and white movie set with and actual The End card. I think the kind of jazzy vibes go right with that opening shot, the set designer and costumer definitely knew what kind of image they were going for. The movie end card as well as the girl disappearing clearly defines the performance as a breakup illustration, and the mellow vibes perfectly fit the kind of nostalgia that Love Scenario talks about. For anyone who doesn't know, Love Scenario is actually a post-breakup song that reminisces on the good times they had in the relationship. Bobby's verse in particular mentions that it's good they cut it off when they did, even though it hurts.

I also want to mention that I love how individual Bobby is. It's clear in every performance that he's a quirky one and I'm really impressed how he carries it in each performance, because this performance requires more cohesion as a story and yet he still adds little flairs of his own to make the performance more engaging and also more representative of iKON's hip hop style.

Donghyuk's acting and dance sequence flows so well! It's smooth, tells a small story of how they were close but drifting apart and I think his flair with the trench coat works wonderfully as far as visual effects go. There's just something so satisfying about watching the coat go whoosh hehe

THE CHORUS!!! Yo this totally reminds me of like, old broadway in the 1920's. The gold lights, jazzy tone, even the trench coats which I believe are iconic of old movie detectives and gentlemen-esque figures. Kinda reminds me of like black and white detective movies? The thing is, even if you don't know exactly what the outfits and such remind you of, the fact that they invoke that memory is awesome. I love costume design specifically because you don't always have to be detail for detail. It's enough if you can invoke a specific image in the mind of the audience. Junhoe really rocks the look in particular.

The choreography is also very reminiscent of musical theater! Obviously all of kpop is coordinated to be group based and there's always been formations that are similar to what iKON did, however the slide and arms out movement is very much so a musical theater thing. The flashing hands thing is as well! They really nailed down the idea of musical theater, and I love that so much! It's a sort of genre bend you might not expect from kpop but iKON's out here showing you that it is possible.

I love the lighting sequence. The blue and purple are so good, and once again it just invokes that older musical theater style because even as there's color, there's also a lot of clear white/yellow light. Choosing just two colors can be really impactful as the fewer colors there are, the more concentrated the stage looks. Consider for example, Pentagon's Follow stage in RTK. Choosing to only go with gold light and then using other lights as accents really enhanced the theme as well as made the stage easier to follow. Humans are designed to track movement and flashing, so having fewer things to distract us means we focus more on iKON's performance and less on the entire set.

I'll skip to the transition here just because the rest of the muscial theater sequence is very similar to what I've already said.

The transition is a bit jarring if I'm being honest. I think the fact that everyone else reacted like ?! as well means that the transition isn't as smooth as it could have been, especially considering the next song is Killing me. I mean it's pretty straight forward story wise: you fall in love, you undergo the break up and you're hurt but you're happy that you loved. But then still you feel regret and pain because you broke up. I think what would've made this smoother was if DK had one more dance sequence with the female dancer from the beginning. If she walks away from him and then he falls to the floor and has that heartbeat moment, I think that would've helped ease into the next song much easier.

The fact that they end on the line You’re too precious to just leave in the past though is a good transition point. It then bleeds into how in Killing Me, the lingering memories stick deeply. So lyrically it makes a lot of sense. I just don't like how the arrangement just switches off so suddenly, from cheerful jazz to then a rain fall heart beat thing. There's just something missing in between, visually or auditorily.

Something I've noticed about iKON is that they really like using their arms. In Rhythm Ta (intro stage), this stage and later in Inception (Round 2), iKON always has a dance sequence that involves moving arms, kind of like snakes? But as trees? Tree branches as snakes? Yeah. But I literally adore this kind of consistency. It's really cool to watch especially because as the rounds go on, they do it with more people so like obv the 100 sec intro was just the members of iKON but then round 1 had more and then round 2 was literally so many people!! It creates such a cool visual effect! For this performance, I do wish the lighting wasn't as dark as it was. I think some flashing black light would've made this awesome but it's still cool as it is.

PLEASE THE DANCE BREAK IS SO CLEAN. The move where Yunhyeong moves his arms in a circle and the members mirror that (screen left goes from low to high while screen right goes from high to low) is really pleasing to see. I could already tell from the 100 sec intro performance but iKON is has really good bounce to their movement. They pull off the isolation and popping that everyone else does but they do it so smoothly.

I think part of what gives iKON their bounce and flow is that when they stop for a second, it's very clean. There's no extra wobbling that happens with others. And again I really do think their dedicating to using their arms in wide gestures helps contribute to that contrast, because when you go wide movement to stop to wide movement again, your eyes get tricked into thinking the stop is a lot smoother than it could actually be.

I already could tell from before but Donghyuk and Jinhwan really are amazing dancers. Donghyuk is a master of more technical aspects but Jinhwan is really elegant in his moves? That little body roll he does just before Chanwoo's part is so good.

Chanwoo's acting!! Specifically his lines go "Why did I meet her? / Why did I choose this break up?" And then the next part that they all sing in is "I loved her to death / The extinguished fire is burning up again" which makes the fire lighting up so much more obvious. I also think that the fire stand area kind of looks like a coffin so lighting it on fire is a way of mourning the relationship? It visually looks awesome and connects really well to the story line itself, especially since it's a very intense moment to a soft drop in the song. Contrast creates focus!!

And then we have the literally name brand stuff iKON is made out of: bouncing hip hop. It fits them so well, it really does!

Gosh okay I know iKON hasn't been ranking very high and on initial impact, they honestly rank about mid to low for me as well but the more I watch their performances, the more I recognize bits and pieces of artistry they put into their performances. I really start to think like, no wonder they have so many award winning songs. I'm not really sure if they're suited to the way that this competition show works? Because I think first impressions are everything, and although obviously the kingdom judges will understand the lyricism and view the set designs and such more clearly, iKON's performances are still better suited to being watched repeatedly. Their first impression is always good but curiously not enough as far as initial impact goes. It's kind of like it just sticks to you so you want to see it over and over again. Which is really not great for competition shows like this where first impression and impact are everything, which I get but also it lowkey sucks because you miss a lot of details and it sort of forces everyone into the highly impactful performances rather than nuanced ones.

I've mentioned this before but because Kingdom has so much more for set design, costumes, lighting, it can be really distracting from the groups themselves. I think iKON actually does really well with having "still" sets, in which they're the focus, but I feel like that leads to more people picking out their flaws? I dunno, I really like iKON's performances so much and yet I can't find it in my heart to rank them higher than 3rd at any given point. I do just think it's the style of competition.

STILL, it means so much that they stick to their own identity rather than conform to Kingdom's standards. And clearly as they rise through the ranks, more people are recognizing that. So iKON! Fighting!!

#admin talk #kingdom commentary #kingdom performance comments

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davidmann95 · 4 years

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Thoughts on the leaked Superman TV suit redesign?

Assuming this is real - and I’m inclined to say so, that’s a real assistant costume designer on Arrow and a concept artist credited, both people who would be assigned to do this sort of thing but finding their names would take more work than I imagine the typical dude with photoshop would put in for this - while probably not final I actually like it a lot! It’s not the truly correct answer of putting the classic s-shield on Routh’s Crisis suit, but next to that it addresses all my issues with what Hoechlin’s had so far: the belt’s better (and visibly functions as a belt) and does the missing trunks’ job of breaking up the colors, the boots are streamlined, the texture of the cape is better, and the cape clips are placed so that the cape drapes over him as it should while still providing the apparent comfort of that compared to tucking it in. Not wild about the red cuffs or the two-tone on the bodysuit, and if the lighting isn’t deceptive it needs to be more colorful, but as if nothing else a representation of where the creators’ heads are at I find it very encouraging, and the suits have always been tweaked over subsequent seasons on the CW shows anyway.

The truly big thing however is that this is hot on the heels of Superman & Lois being officially picked up as a series rather than waiting for the pilot to be judged - obvious as it seemed, it would have also seemed obvious that they’d pull the trigger on this 3 years ago, and also there was always the worry that the movie division would either pull themselves together or simply chicken out and pull the plug on this at the last minute. But now it’s official, and having been 3 years since I first gave thought to how a Hoechlin Superman series could work (Tulloch and Cryer weren’t even in the mix yet), many of my assumptions as to what would be in play have been dashed, and it’s ended up with distinguishing features going in I never would have guessed. So as is, my primary hopes for the series:

* For the first couple years, keep things relatively simple and streamlined in terms of season arcs. Todd Helbing’s in charge, and from what I’ve seen of his past work as showrunner of Seasons 4 and 5 of The Flash (where I jumped on, which is a shame since it sure seems like there was a drop in quality compared to what I’d been seeing before) he had a really hard time juggling the substantial cast of characters it had built up by that point alongside a season-spanning threat…but he also wrote or cowrote excellent individual episodes, including easily the best episode of the entire CWverse to my knowledge “Enter Flashtime”, and it’s arguable those seasons were generally casualties of having used up the obvious threats and buying time until Crisis. Going into this I don’t see much need for a sprawling supporting cast from jump, so if the overarching villain can be managed appropriately I don’t see him being a poor choice for shepherding the first season or two.

* Keep the soap operatics largely confined to the sons. Whether it’s Chris or Conner or Damian joining Jon, I’d imagine half the point of bringing in a pair of teenagers to a show with a pair of leads who have moved past the figuring-out-life-and-love travails of your average CW protagonist is so that *they* can do that stuff instead. Let Lois and Clark focus on reporting and superheroics and as advertised “the stress, pressures and complexities that come with being working parents in today’s society”, along with assorted character journeys and challenges tailored to them that fall outside the typical arc of CW series leads. Meanwhile, the teens can contend with burgeoning love lives and deciding who they want to be alongside figuring out how to become heroes.

* Maybe break it up across multiple timelines? I know they did a lot of this sort of thing with Arrow with the flashbacks and flash-forwards as series-spanning anchors; maybe there’d be something to be mined here with present-day sections, past sections of Superman’s earlier years in Metropolis before he and Lois got together or Lex turned on him, and future events. Heck, the latter could get the super sons as teens without any need to age them up in the present, and permit easy crossovers with Legends or the upcoming apparently future-set Green Arrow and the Canaries.

* Lex obviously has to be in the mix, but shouldn’t be the sole villain of the first season when he was already the bad guy for the last season of Supergirl. Given his amazing new status quo of being Silver/Bronze/Modern-Age Lex masquerading as Byrne’s Luthor, taking him down would be the obvious centerpiece of the Daily Planet chunk of the series, especially for Lois since that’s presumably going to be her primary domain. Once he’s exposed though totally go all-out supervillain with him.

* Can’t believe I’m saying this, especially on the heels of that last note, but maybe don’t get too political. I know Supergirl has made efforts, but everything I’ve heard about the execution sounds incredibly mixed, between a black Machester Black being told not to kill Nazi stand-ins, and the first preview for the current season basically opening with Supergirl narrating “We deposed our corrupt Trump analogue, so I thought people would be committed to fighting for social justice…but they’re obsessed with their Facebook gizmos instead!”, a truly bizarre instance of trying to appease all sides. Totally have instances of Superman taking some lefty or at least liberal stances as is tradition, but it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to try and build a season around a given message given both the track record and that all the extra eyes on this will mean it being subject to even more extensive pressures.

* Speaking of the number of eyes on it, god I hope this is allowed to get weird even given it’s probably going to be the flagship for the network and therefore will definitely have higher-ups wanting to make sure it isn’t alienatingly off-beat. They put Beebo and Sargon the Sorcerer in the Crisis finale for Christ’s sake! The least they could do is let Hoechlin fight Krull or go on an adventure with Calvin Ellis, and let Tulloch get witch powers and tame Titano; the last live-action Superman show in Lois & Clark was made in a pre-Morrison world and aired on ABC, and it still had a time-travelling H.G. Wells as a recurring character and an episode where he gets shrunk down to a teeny-tiny little Superman (which also just happened with this guy!). The clear All-Star influence so far is a good sign along with how odd The Flash has frequently gotten as the current center to their shared universe - including under Helbing - but this is still probably my primary concern. Give us at least a few truly high concepts per season even if I suspect the goofiness will be toned down relative to its older siblings.

* I’m not that concerned with the villains: he’s got a few established already between Lex, Metallo, Mongul, Reactron, Zod (maybe the inexplicable decision to have had Superman kill him off-screen can be undone by Crisis), Maxima, and Doomsday, it’s implied by Elseworlds he got his own Bizarro, Brainiac’s easy to introduce, and the villains introduced as specifically Supergirl’s enemies such as Parasite, Silver Banshee, and Mxyzptlk could easily roll into Metropolis. And there’s plenty of other possibilities with the likes of Solaris, Prankster, Subjekt-17, Terra Man, Magog, Ultraman, Riot, or Atomic Skull who either have tons of potential to unearth, or don’t but as a simple visual or gimmick could easily carry an episode or two. I’d still prefer the more exploration/mystery-driven angle suggested in my original pitch up above, but I recognize that’s not too likely.

* Finally, if he’s truly committed to being done after getting the little epilogue and sendoff he deserved he’s got all the right in the world, but if Routh would have any interest absolutely make him the shows’ equivalent to John Shipp on Flash as Uncle Kal from Earth 96, popping by every now and then to be the fun uncle to the boys and give Clark life advice.

#Superman & Lois #Superman #Lois Lane #Superman's Suit #Tyler Hoechlin #Elizabeth Tulloch #DCTV #Todd Helbing #Lex Luthor #Brandon Routh #Superhero Costumes #Opinion

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

Text

episode 9 baby!!! dear lord that was a lot!!

frankly, i'm still in shock that i full on manifested an opera stage, AND it was a rock opera stage at that! plus i got a jazz stage AND a taemin stage??? if they’re pulling out all my favourites now then what on earth are they gonna do in the finale??? this was a very overwhelming crop of stages, i thought i was going to be prepared, but oh no i was not prepared. i'm just going to get right into it because this one is gonna be long and i have many words. i'll discuss in airing order first, and then put my personal rankings for this round at the end.

btob

costume

changsub, you absolute king. spectacular. stunning. incredible. zoot suit riot playing in my brain on repeat. will i finally get the zoot suit revival of my fucking dreams instead of this current drab ill-fitting suit trend? for those who are wondering why in the fuck changsub is dressed like that and what on earth i’m talking about, the specific cut of suit that he’s wearing is called a zoot suit, which were popular in mexican, black and italian american communities in the 30s and 40s, until they were outlawed by the united states war production board as a fabric rationing method as part of the war effort in 1942. there was a huge amount of mob violence surrrounding the wearing of them (there were actual zoot suit riots) as they were direct counter culture fashion to the predominant drab trends of white americans at the time. i'm actually very impressed they got a proper (modernized) cut of zoot suit instead of just putting him in an oversized one; there are actually specific structural differences. the pegged trouser legs, large should pads, and knee length single breasted jacket are key features, and they were often in much more flashy fabrics than a pinstripe, but they get points for effort. i wish they had put all of them in zoot suits but he’s playing the ‘lead’ actor so i will begrudgingly forgive them.

eunkwang those are the stupidest sleeve garters ive ever seen i love them never take them off. they’re like someone decided to repurpose a suspender in the worst way. excellent. i do love that they’ve got three of them in oxford saddle shoes, another great touch.

love the three piece and the fedora* on peniel. it's also in a relatively close period cut; waistcoasts (vests) were generally cut much higher in the neck pre-war, we only start seeing the neckline slide down in the 60s (i think? i don’t remember when exactly). also love to see a proper sleeve and jacket length, it's good practice to have at least a finger’s width of sleeve cuff visible ahead of the jacket sleeve when hanging at rest. also looks like there’s french cuffs on everyone, which is also great.

minhyuk in his slutty lowneck shirt....thank you. in addition to the zoot suit revival i would also like a revival of those ultra low necklines on mens’ shirts from like 2010-2011. i don’t think those are the same boots from the backdoor stage but those are some beautifully cut boots. i also loved the little details of his crewmember look, especially the chunky watch and the string bracelets; those are super realistic, i know so many crew with them and i had several for many years. and who doesn’t love a visible button fly?

none of any of the other costumes are period in any way shape or form but i’m forgiving it because there’s several layers of meta in this stage, and they explicitly based it on la la land, even though we don’t respect la la land in this house. do i wish they had gone more strictly period with at least the jazz club ‘actors’ a little more? absolutely, but i'm not mad about it.

set

again we’ve got a good delineation of the two different ‘stages,’ there’s the club itself in the smaller stage and the soundstage set in the larger space. you can pretty clearly see all the ‘pieces’ of the set on the soundstage, especially the obvious set painting techniques on false prosc frame and the window facade from that first little scene. also the you can see the castors (wheels) on all the setpieces too, which is another nice little versimilitudinous** (triple word score!) touch, as old hollywood movies were made still using theatre stagecraft techniques.

i love how the visual shorthand for ‘this is a set wink wonk’ is just...leaving a ladder on stage. i see it all the time and it's so funny. it doesn’t always make sense because as soon as there’s actors on set the ladders are the first thing cleared because actors cannot be trusted, but yes there are always ladders, so. also psa ladder safety is no joke, please be careful on ladders.

nice streamline of the mnet deco into the club. i’m consistently surprised at how well the designers have been able to mask it or use it to their advantage, because in the normal kingdom stage lighting it is SO obvious and stylistic that it always sticks out.

i'm going to ignore the fact that they implied changsub and miyeon were drinking wine out of martini glasses.

lighting

no complaints, it does its job. everything is visible and super clear. love that the ‘scene’ changes are made through the lighting, it's a really simple and effective device to change atmosphere. purple/blue/amber are the most flattering colours on human skin and that’s why you see it so commonly in stage lighting. also blue/lavendar is the best way to show nighttime/moonlight.

really nice and subtle projection work, especially with the billboard bit and the blue moon sign in the club. despite being obviously meta/’world breaking’ it’s actually very seamless and fits well into the flow of the stage.

sound

i love love love the big band feel in the intro, combined with the piano lead. very duke ellington, as all things should be.

no complaints. i love big band. i love eunkwang’s voice. i have nothing else to say.

staging

i LOVE this movie within a movie within a performance meta nonsense! it's such a fun concept and it is exactly what i wanted ikon’s first round stage to be! i also love to see btob consistently coming up with concepts that are inventive and fun and allow them to showcase their technical performance skills without the aerobics the younger groups are putting themselves through. it provides a really lovely variety and it just goes to show that you can make impressive, dramatic stages without having to be serious or ‘dark.’

i do wish they had leaned into the band director/lead singer with eunkwang a bit more; this could have been a really excellent place for a tap number a la the nicholas brothers or an homage to cab calloway. i know i know this was meant to be la la land themed but la la land is a cheap and whitewashed version of jazz and look me right in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the greatest tap routine of all time. i know i’ve typed this out somewhere before but la la land is just a conglomeration of old hollywood tropes and so stylistically cheap that this would have such a better visual core if they had actually looked back at the real old hollywood musicals like stormy weather. even singing in the rain and an american in paris have such phenomenal visuals and are really beautiful examples of the scope you can pull off with a limited technical capacity and sticking to these old techniques.

now that i'm thinking about it, oh my GOD i would DIE for a lindy hop routine in kpop PLEASE. i know it would never happen because kpop doesn’t like partner dancing and not a single kpop boy has the chops but oh you think fourth gen has too many acrobatics?

this got off track but i think you see my point.

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ateez

costume

these are really sharply cut suits. and the detail work on the beading??? so beautiful. i'm disappointed that they gave me a rock opera stage without the true ridiculousness of rock opera costuming, because they could have pushed this a lot farther if they really wanted. a tragic lack of gay little outfits, seonghwa’s lace choker is just not enough! two favourite suits: hongjoong’s and yunho’s.

that being said i do actually really like these. this stage is actually very modern opera with a kpop twist and i'm a little surprised by that? i continue to be impressed by the ateez team who are clearly doing their research.

i'm absolutely not going back through their stages to check all the choreography but i wonder if you can track all the ‘wound’ placements to places they’ve been ‘hit.’ i wouldn’t put it past them to have put that thought in but also i’m not expecting that much either.

who is this white grim reaper bdsm executioner chain arm man. where did he come from. i have no idea and i love it.

why is honjoong blindfolded. it was such a fast beat, if youre gonna blindfold someone give it a little longer and some more obvious narrative weight!

seonghwa does that quickchange, runs across that massive stage to the smaller set, and gets into places in like 45 seconds. it's not the hardest quickchange in the world but still, under a minute is fast for any quickchange, especially when there’s travel time involved. i think the fastest, most complex quickchange i ever did was in university which was a 50s cocktail dress into a flannel and culottes with a shoe, hair, and jewelry change in 35 seconds. and that took three dressers. quickchanges are always impressive. the added bonus of this review being later is that i can specifically reference that you can see him book it the fuck off stage in the full cam!

cute moment with the backup dancers dressed in costumes from the previous stages. i'm assuming this is a time travel reference? i'll get more into my thoughts on this in the staging section. regardless, love to see that iconic seonghwa moment again.

set

this is such a restricted space! they really pared down their dancing space with those staircases and ....arms? honestly i have NO clue what these are supposed to be. the only thing i can maybe think of is flying buttresses??? but why?? i mean, i'm 90% sure theyre just there for drama and i agree but i do still have questions.

there’s a lot of moving parts in this set? the buttresses, and the upstage centre staircase. i don’t think the staircase is totally automated because i spotted some dancers securing it in place, but it’s still a moving part. i do really like that we get that expanding upwards energy, because it's really tough to get functional level movement in this kind of a performance, mostly because of its length and because it moves so quickly. so seeing the downward vertical movement and then the upward movement was actually a really nice visual contrast that made use of how tall those fucking ceilings are, and the fact that they had less horizontal space. in sort of similar way to sf9’s jealousy stage, using long, narrow vertical lines really makes it feel like a castle space. the interiors of castles, especially the really old ones, are a lot smaller than you think they would be.

i’ve actually seen that type of small house/tent/thing several times in various types of performances before, but i think this is the first time i’ve seen it used as a time travel device (other than in the say my name mv). aesthetically it's a bit incongruent but i dont really mind because i'm used to watching rock operas that look a lot weirder than this.

lighting

there is so much happening. i have NO clue what the projections are doing. i dont hate it though, so that’s a plus? there’s a clear-ish colour arc even if it does get a bit funky in the middle, which is why the projections dont feel as insanely distracting as some of the other stages we’ve seen.

the climax is a perfect example of how to light a busy stage with primarily red but still maintain clarity on the performers. a little bit of red goes a long way; the spark stage from last week would have looked so much better if they had done what the ateez designers did here.

sound

i know it's only ode to joy, but answer already gets my motor running and then i get so gassed by the guitars and then by the time those vocals come in i'm inconsolable. i don’t know why i wasn’t expecting a rock opera stage but i'm so glad i got that surprise because i genuinely love rock operas so much. it's two of the most dramatic genres in music, what more could you possibly want?

staging

the choreo for answer is so goofy that I'm kinda glad this was mostly terrible mnet boom shots. i love it, but you can't deny that it's goofy. i spotted a couple of moves from their other choreos as well?

choreographing dance fights is just as difficult as choreographing real fights and i think they did a fairly good job here. i think it was a solid mix of dance and conflict that erred on the side of dramatic rather than accurate and i prefer that over trying to be ‘realistic.’ i’ve only ever seen one truly realistic fight scene on stage and that was for a deeply naturalist play (boring and a waste of the medium), but the best fight scene i’ve ever seen was in the prague national ballet’s adaptation of kafka’s the trial where three ballet dancers beat the absolute snot out of the main character with the most beautiful leg extensions. that whole show was probably one of the best pieces of dance i’ve ever seen, holy fuck it was so good.

despite how insane the music and the visuals were going, i actually really liked how sedate this was, on the part of ateez’s performance. there was a really sophisticated and resigned energy from them that is very different from what we’ve previously seen and i think that was a pretty admirable risk to take. reaching the top and then throwing away the crown? especially in a competition where every other stage has involved stealing crowns or royalty and there’s a group competing that got here through that very concept? that shows a real maturity, peace of mind, and foresight that i did not at all expect from a bunch of 22 year olds.

here we come to a very interesting comparison. both ateez and tbz are very heavily leaning on previously established group lore. we all know my thoughts on why it isn’t working for tbz, but here’s why i think it is working for ateez: it's because it doesn’t matter to the audience’s understanding of the stage. i had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on the first time i watched this, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the music and all the weird shit they were doing. i totally believed that they understood what was going on. there’s a loose enough established conflict right at the beginning that draws us in, and really it doesn’t matter who they're fighting because they win in the end. the key here is that they’re so earnest. they believe 100% in every move they make on that stage. there’s no winks to camera, there’s not a drop of irony. they really deeply care about the ridiculousness of it all and that’s what makes it work. i sure as fuck dont know what’s going on, but i can see that they do, and i trust that. this is what i meant when i talked about convincing the audience you belong on stage in my stage presence post. i’ve never once believed that juyeon was anything other than an idol. he’s talented and very beautiful and he may occasionally stand on that stage like he owns it but it's always as juyeon. as an idol. but when hongjoong flaps around in that gigantic fur coat i 100% believe he’s a pirate captain. I believe he’s a punk rebel leader. i believe him a resigned king. there’s always a level of irony you have to fight as a performer because we all start from a place of disbelief. acting is not just lying to the audience, it's lying to yourself too. and if you succeed in convincing yourself? well, you’re already halfway to convincing us.

i checked it out because i wanted to see if they did the blindfold how i expected them to and was genuinely surprised by hongjoong’s fancam. the boy is EMOTING even when he knew the camera wasn’t on him; that’s a real dedication to craft.

ok i'm finished talking about this stage, this is over two pages in my document, there’s so many things i have not covered here but that’s fine, i'm quite sure any further thoughts will end up out there at some point.

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sf9

costume

let’s get it out of the way......crop top. crop top? crop top. crop top.

ok, besides the crop top, i think i might actually like the backup dancer outfits more...? i find mannequin adjacent looks really fascinating and i thought there was a lot more they could have done here in connecting the two thematically. i actually think a change of costume on the boys would have been very interesting, especially because there was a lot of inference and direct reference to changes of colour.

ALL the backup dancers are wearing the same wig and i LOVE that.

special mention zuho’s.....jacket? the right idea but it absolutely should have been one of those extreme french cut bodysuits, you COWARDS. don’t come at me with this ‘male version of venus’ if you don’t have your whole torso out! come on!

set

not sure if this is meant to be a department store, a factory, or a white cube gallery. honestly you could make the case that they’re all the same place anyways. more on this later.

i loved the movator and wish they had used it more! that sequence was so good and they could have done some more interesting repetition sequences to further highlight the ‘sameness’/the breaking of that sameness.

i feel like the set could have been used more as a whole? i would have loved to see some mannequin interactions with those boxes, because all they did was dump colour everywhere.

....why did they feel the need to include the rain bit? i know it's likely because it's in the mv and at the 2018 dream concert taemin does perform move in the rain, but with the standing still and the box walls with the words it just looks like a department store ad. which i...dont think is what they were intending?

lighting

nothing really to say here. it has a similar feel to the mayfly rap stage, which is fine because the lighting for that was good. i could tell what was going on all the time and that’s the most important part. notable standouts are the lips sequence, that's fun use of pop iconography and very effective, and the scanning lasers at the beginning.

the repeating sequence in the edm dance break is actually done pretty simply, it's just what happens when you point a camera that’s livestreaming to a monitor directly at that monitor. it's a very cool effect and it was neat to see it used intentionally, especially with the handheld leds.

actually i also really liked the lightbox tables, those were cool.

sound

the remix was fine for the most part, it was about what i expected it to sound like. i did however greatly dislike that unnecessary edm break in the middle. what was the point of that? it didn’t add anything to the overall sound or arc of the stage because it was SO out of place. there was no connective tissue around it.

oh i was also not a fan of the effect on zuho’s mic. no one else had a discernible vocal effect so it felt a little out of place. also for some reason his cadence and tone right at the end made me think of some of the voices that bo burnam uses for his vocal masque sketches/songs, especially repeat stuff, weirdly? took me right the fuck out of it. i listened to it again after i slept and i’m still getting it, so maybe i’m just going insane so best ignore this part.

staging

loved the mannequin tree, not a clue why it was there.

do actually think this is a successful cover because it does what i was hoping it would, which is take move completely out of the taemin context and put it into an entirely new one. however, i’m really struggling to figure out what exactly that new context is? and what theyre trying to say with it?

obviously they went for a ‘show your own colours/individuality’ vibe, like i said in the set section, where exactly is this supposed to be? from the start i get factory/mechanized environment, which is fine and grand because mannequins and making repetitive motions and products and all that, makes sense. but then there’s stacked shelving type units happening and curtains and that combined with the mannequins give me pretty big department store vibes, which is also fine, because that’s still a comment on commercialization and the mass production of product. but then we get to the movator and the repetitive movements of the dancers say pretty clearly factory, but the lighting and projections are very pop art referential, plus combining that with the white set, just makes me think of an art gallery. so now is this a comment on the commercialization and commidification of contemporary art? are they making a statement about being ‘real’ artists among the others who have lost the critical understanding of why pop art was even a thing in the first place? and then the rain bit at the end literally looks like a department store ad, so are they then making another statement that they still are that packaged product? maybe the episode has more clarity in it but i’m genuinely a bit baffled by what the underlying statement is here.

i suspect it is not as deep as i'm making it, but i did say that i was likely to be hyper critical of this stage AND i am a grad student, so here we are.

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tbz

costume

ok of all the ‘fourth gen’ style costumes we’ve seen, i actually like these ones more than most. i'm not entirely clear on the theme but i'm assuming it's meant to be post apocalyptic, and i'll take that.

backup dancers in black!!! we’re beyond this!!!

this will be a running theme with this stage, but i’m disappointed these don’t have more depth.

set

compared to every other stage, the set here seems especially plain. there’s so little set dec that it's disappointing. i do like the movement of the pieces themselves combined with the blocking; that first slide underneath the arches was slick and i would have liked to have seen more of that.

yea ok the big snake was cool and also a fairly complex build, but the transitions around it were a bit awkward for my tastes. especially the turn around, why did they even show that at all? you have control over what the audience sees, you can totally not show scenic transitions. skz were super smart about hiding theirs in last week’s episode.

also if you have a bigass puppet like that, i wanna see some more movement from it! it doesn’t have to be complex, we literally just saw a kraken balloon arm wave around aimlessly, but at least there was movement! that snake had a long ass body, why didn’t they at least take a pseudo dragon dance movement with it, that would have been such fun to watch with the iridescent scales. there was a lot of opportunity here!

lighting

i don’t hate it but also.... not a lot to say about it on the whole.

there were two really smart ideas here, the first being the front projection section, which i was SO glad to see! i explained in a previous review, but the projections in kingdom are not actually projections per se, because they’re actually massive led screens. there are two common types of projections in performance, rear projection and front projection. rear projection is when the projector is behind the screen, and front projection is ‘normal’ projection. rear projection can produce a crisper image because you have full control of the light values, because the projector is in a separate room from the performance space. but the downsides are that the projector has to be in a separate room from the performance space. so if you’re short on real estate, it's not ideal. front projection is much more common, because the tech is a lot cheaper and easier to access, especially now, and it requires less real estate because you can ceiling mount about the audience (you can move a projector wherever, this is just the most common spot in commercial theatres). but! in order to get an actually crisp image, you have to be really careful with your light bounce. it’s exactly the same principle as how you kinda can't see a projected screen when you have all the lights turned on, but when you turn them off it's a lot clearer. front projection works best in pitch dark, so when you use it in a theatre you gotta be smart about it. i use front projection a lot in my personal art practice as a singular light source, and that’s what tbz did here in that traveling/snake intro sequence. it’s a really fun technique that they used as a good gimmick because it’s not something we’ve seen before, and you get some great shadow effects because the projector is throwing light directionally at the performers (they have it set up close to the floor, it’s probably on a wheeled cart of some kind). however i did not like the snake intro. a bit too cheesy and out of place, especially because the asset quality didn’t match the rest of landscapes that we have been seeing.

the second smart idea, which is partially also a set and blocking thing but whatever, was that final image of the eclipse within the circle architecture with all the members standing in front of it. it was a great shot and a great ending pose, but it felt like a concept photo. like someone had that image as the idea that they then built the stage around, instead of a narrative first and then imagery after.

sound

this remix had SO much promise! those first two minutes were SO GOOD. i love that dirty discordant strings bit, it's gross and right up my alley. but it really fell off in the back half and i'm sad about that.

staging

i'm sorry tbz but.....what did you actually do differently than exo here? with the exception of the continual game of thrones references? nothing here felt transcendentally different from the original monster. and especially coming RIGHT after sf9’s move, which did go beyond its original context. this feels more like an awards show stage cover than a stage at the level of the others we’ve seen just this episode.

again like with the skz stage, there’s no conflict here. no tension. yes they do a great job covering the dance but it just isn’t enough! this is obviously personal preference and i'm sure lots of people liked the fact that it was uncomplicated, but even just a hint of narrative tension could have pushed this into more engaging territory. and if they didn’t want to do that, i would have loved to see them make up for that with extra visual spectacle. this is the no limits round! ikon is putting a full jungle on stage and these are grey cubes!

i think this is a perfect example of what i talked about at the end of my tbz section in my episode four review; this is a good performance, there are good elements at play and good ideas at their genesis, but the core of the issue is that nothing about this is transformative. all of the ideas here are just exaggerations of the original song. fuck, the snake was even IN the mv! and they didn’t even include the best part which is the lip chains! ive said before and i'll say it again; being a good artist has two steps, the first is understanding the material and its context, and the second is elevating the material from that context and synthesizing something new. tbz are really good at the first step, but terrible at the second.

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ranking

btob - the cleanest and the most fun of the round. everything i wanted.

sf9 - fun and a good cover, despite being conceptually baffling.

ateez - very extra dramatic nonsense with an unexpected dose of sincerity. and it’s rock opera, of course i love it.

skz - fun, with some good thematic devices but generally lacking in arc. also australian accents, that’s an automatic ding.

tbz - honestly the first two minutes of the remix and the costume are holding this above 6th. it just wasn’t fully formed.

ikon - aesthetically this is a great set design and although i do love the opening and closing moments, everything else scrapes me the wrong way. super personal preference here, i’m not expecting anyone else to agree with me.

i feel like my rankings were probably pretty easy to guess if you’ve been around reading the reviews for long enough. i do have very specific tastes after all. i know sf9 ranked first in the episode but i have no idea what the other slots are. i’ll find out when i watch the episode in a couple of days, but i think yea a first for sf9 is fair. i do think its mostly because it’s a taemin song and you have to do something horrendous in order to fuck up a taemin song, but there is a lot of thought and work that went into that stage.

ok i'm done now, sorry this was later than usual, but i was busier and there were four stages that i had to review. also technical difficulties because tumblr is a garbage platform and nothing works properly. comments/questions/opinions always welcome, i know i didn't expand on a couple of points that i could have so hopefully y'all have some thoughts too!

* the type of hat that ~society~ has told you is a fedora is actually a trilby. what peniel is wearing is a real fedora, i felt the need to correct this unjust hat malignment.

** meaning ‘the appearance of being true or real.’ you do sometimes hear it used by normal people, but it’s more commonly used as a descriptor in film and theatre. it’s also one of the five rules of neoclassical theatre, which are: versimilitude, purity of form, five act structure, decorum, and purpose. the most prominent playwrights from that era are moliere and racine if youre interested in what those look like in an actual text.

#kingdom #kingdom review #btob #ateez #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #tumblr is so broken it would NOT let me save this as a draft #does my constant hyperlinking make you angry tumblr? too bad im gonna keep doing it #i played in a jazz band in school for seven years #which is another indicator as to why i am like this #one of the first songs i remember learning was zoot suit riot #i have very strong memories of yelling RIOT during performances #i will however forever question the logic of our band teacher making us learn a song written by 'the cherry poppin daddies'#christ on a bicycle this is TEN pages #and it took a full eight hours last night and then i did like two hours of editing after i woke up #maybe i should go back to bed #ah i forgot to tag ikon again lmao #ikon #kpop analysis #text #if there are any spelling errrors do not tell me im tired of reading this #im pretty sure this is my longest review so far i decided to hate myself and did a wordcount #its 5.2K you're welcome you better get a snack for this one #i hope this is an interesting read for people ive lost all objectivity at this point #pls enjoy my semi-comprehensible word vomit!

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