Kate

I think the longer we watch, the more obvious it is whom Mnet wants to debut and whom they are trying to push to the sidelines from the popular trainees:

Want to debut:
1. Sung Han Bin as the golden perfect idol, for obvious reasons. I think we all can agree he has this prefect idol image + the actual skills. There is literally no reason why ment would not want him as the center, when he is literally perfect for the role.
2. Zhang Hao as the "token" Chinese member. Don't get me wrong, even tho he is high in rankings I think he is criminally underrated in how they present him in the show. If he got the same level of positive editing as Han Bin, he could easily fight for that center position. But it feels like mnet wants him in the group, but not in a truly high ranking.
3. Han Yu Jin. He has a massive screen time and the perfect storyline. They try to present him as an underdog that has to constantly prove himself to mentors, when in fact he was criticized like 2 times and they play these clips as if he was tormented 24/7 😅 But it works - it makes his performances feel more impressive because they tell us he had to overcome a lot of get to that level.

Does not want to debut 🤡
1. Kim Gyu Vin - ma dude has little to no screen time and the editing makes him truly not memorable at all. And i highly doubt mnet wants 3/9 trainees to be from one company in the debut lineup, so they need to push to the side at least one of them. And with editing it's obvious they prefer Yu Jin over Gyu Vin.
2. Jay - okay this I legit don't quite get. But after Love Me Right the focus he initially received kind of died. you can just feel how mnet is not pushing for him to get more popular anymore, hence his drop in rankings.
3. Hui - I love the dude, I truly do and for his benefit I want him to debut, but I also don't see him debuting. He gets less and less screentime. They stopped using him for the cloud too (the dramatic will he won't he be able to hit the notes), the mentors don't really talk much about him. He is there, you cannot ignore him because of his skill, but that's it. I don't feel any positive push for him from mnet.

There are also some trainees I am not sure about, and what mnet wants to do with them:
1. Keita - mnet wants him. That's obvious. He gets nothing but positive screentime and compliments from mentors (deserved). They might want to make him the leader of the group. Like yes, he would be another "foreign" members because gLoBaL lol, but at the same time, dude has been in Korea so long unless one tells you he is not Korean, no one would even assume he ain't lol
2. Park Gun Wook - on one hand they highlight how amazing he performs, on the other they kind of show him in a bit aggressive way? Not as much anymore, with the newest episode, but they really tried to push how "manipulative" he can be and intimidating, which are not exactly a perfect traits for a trainee. He obviously ain't that tho.
3. Park Han Bin - They've been showing more and more of him (which makes me happy lol) so it makes me think maybe they want to make him the dark horse who got from low rankings to debut with his hard work and practice. Mnet loves the "dramatic" stories lol

He did fine in Enchante. He was not amazing, but I was also not mad about his acting. But here the directing for his character is just all over the place. One character being extra and eccentric can work, if it's literally part of the plot and characterization that is acknowledged by other characters - stuff like Legal High.

Yu jin being the reason they won would make sense if he got the most votes - then yeah, one could say his popularity made them win. But he did not even get the first place in the team so.

Oh I'd love to see more gay characters in not romance driven shows Or at least shows where other genre is just as important, because so far the few attempts were often questionable in the quality of the writing, romance excluded.

Park Hanbin is a perfect leader tbh. While he is extremely strict and does not allow anyone in the team to be lazy, he also himself works his ass off. He never expect from trainees more than he himself is willing to put. It's given that in any group trainees would have a different level of skills. Sometimes some people need to work harder to achieve the same result, but what's great about him is the fact that even if he already learned choreo or the parts, he still practiced with everyone no matter what.

I honestly feel like they did not take time to think if all the ideas they had created a logical story. Was it just a cult that exploited desperate women? What were the relations between everyone in it? The lover of the instructor was also raping the members in the fancy yoga way, the husband was also raping the girls, but was not living in the fancy house? They were all drugging them to have control over them, but then why did they have to drug them if the supernatural element was actually true, as the ending suggests? If the supernatural was real, then the additional cult-like behavior was dumb. If it was just the cult drugging them, then the ending makes no sense. It’s like they could not settle on one ending, and tried to deliver both as twists, but they simply contradict each other…

If it was up to me, I would never put Gun and Off in a project together again. Honestly dislike this "acting partners" in BLs, because they are painfully limiting for the actors and their growth. If you keep acting with the same person, how can you truly improve?
Not to mention, they may lead to miscasts (Moonlight Chicken being great example), where keeping the pair it more important then making sure the actors actually fit the roles 🙂

That said, I do believe this is not a BL, solid bromance at best, but not because Gun has Off as his "true acting BL partner". I just don't think they would deliver BL without actually marketing it as BL, since this is one of the best ways to promote the show. It would be like them saying: We don't want money 🙂

Am I enjoying it? Sure.
But I have an issue with how they directed the actors to portray the roles. Or rather how they made Book overdo Cher in such a painful manner. This over the top cartoonish behavior just does not fit everything else in the show. Since he is the only one this animated in his behavior, it just seems unnatural. His best scenes are the ones when he tones down the facial expressions. And it's obviously not Book's fault since he was not like that in the previous projects, it's a stylistic choice they made for the character in the show and I'm just not really on board with it.

Tags are present if there are elements of said genre, but the show itself does not completely fall under it. It does have elements of horror, especially in episode 2. Hence the tag.

The way Sung Han Bin has the class president image on this show when in fact he is the queen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjQjA22Mko
😂 dude is hiding his real shine. I cannot with his proper school boy image. I mean I love it, but I wish we would see more of the Han Bin from the past videos.

The:
1. Delusion
2. Disrespect
that dude who said the production team will help them and not let them just stand on stage. First of all, it's mnet, they will gladly make a joke out of you and let you completely fuck up because it means views and views mean money. Second, all the teams working their ass off and you like: well, at worst production team will help us (WHICH WOULD BE CHEATING).
oh for fuck sake then even say that Woongki created the whole choreography and did not explain what it was all about and that's why they failed THE FUCKING AUDACITY 🤣. The whole team dumped all the hard parts on Woongki , then gave up fucking everything so he had to create the whole performance alone and then these assholes were like: we failed because of him 🤡 I know mnet and evil editing is a thing, but there is literally no context in which what was said would be right.

FUCK THIS PROGRAM I NEED SOME CHILL PILL HOW THE FUCK DID WOONG KI NOT GET 1ST PLACE! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

I'm honestly too annoyed with Feel Special team to even write anything about other teams.
Just want to say that yet again Park Han Bin proved how he is the best leader ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

🎤 Vocal A - Time Of Our Life
For the practice, I have to say I really love Yoon Hyeok.
For the performance - I loved even the small mistakes. The whole stage just felt so warm. And that's what I look for in vocal performances. Sometimes when I watch technically perfect stage, but that makes me feel nothing, I'm just bored. But if a group is able to tap into these emotions, even if they make some mistakes, it's memorable and enjoyable performance. What Jay Park said was perfect: it was a bit chaotic but it made you feel good. I saw the mistakes and the things Jay Park pointed out, but somehow it did not affect my experience watching in a negative way.

🎤 Vocal B - Behind You
TEAM FUCKING B EACH FUCKING TIME MAKES ME LOVE THEM MORE AND MORE. Just can they all debut as a whole with sub-units for rap, vocal and dance? NCT can have like 398573u340634 members, they can manage too 🤣 I just really love how they work so well together.

Performance wise - vocally so solid. I don't mind that one crack. It happens to all singers, he obviously can hit it clean as we heard in the practice, probably just nervous. Karam tho... this dude 😭😍 Not gonna lie, the narration was my fav part 🤡

🎤 Vocal D - My Sea
Team A had the emotions, but lacked the skill. Team B had the skill, but lacked the emotions. TEAM D HAD FUCKING EVERYTHING I HAD GOOSEBUMPS FROM THE START TO FINISHED I CRIED OMG I CANNOT. Jun's vocals are exactly the type I just adore, love and always look for.

_____________________________________________

🪩 Dance B - Bang!
I don't even know what to say. I feel like I need to watch it like 1000 times to catch all the awesome moments, bits, facial expressions, vibes etc. Like... FUCK THEY WERE INTO IT AND MADE ME ENJOY THE STAGE AND GET HYPED AS FUCK. Hee Chan was probably my fav I just adore how much fun he had on stage and the energy was just 10000%. Truly felt like a solid dance crew.

🪩 Dance A - Gimmie Gimmie
First of all what a trolls the editors are. Showing the "original part" for the choreo and then switching right away to the other teams' reactions NOT SHOWING THE ACTUAL DANCE 🤡 Overall, SOOOOOOOOOO DETAILED . Again, I feel like I need to watch it quite a few times to truly get it all. While B felt like a dance crew performance, A felt like a special dance stage with all best idol dancers - it was jusy truly a complete and whole performance that kept you focus from start to the end.

🪩 Dance C - Bad
Han Gyeol is so adorable with his soft "화이팅 여러분" right before the performance started.

I love the "oh" bit right before the chorus drops, that one specific move when they slightly push their heads with open palm. I love how smooth and not aggressive it is, when they technically could hit it harder. Han Gyeol tho, each time he comes to the center I die a little bit. Was that striptease bit too much? Sure. Am I complaining it was there? Fuck no.
All that said, I am not that impressed with it. It fit PERFECTLY with some members, but as a team is was... fine? Like... realistically speaking, will I rewatch it? Probably no. I might watch fancams of 2-3 members that caught my attention, but as a full performance...
Also sorry, but saying they showed it with just dance is a bullshit, coz they relied on abs quite a lot lol literally everyone got the most hyped when they showed more skin 🙂

🪩 Dance D - Power
I mean, this is the only team that truly did it all with just dance and no abs and props lol Sure, it felt basic at moments, but I did have fun. I honestly think them saying most of them are not actually dancers, but vocals made me look at the team a bit differently, and I would probably enjoy it less if I did not know about it. I also wish some members were more into it... Honestly, It's impossible to judge this stage for what it was, since we all get influenced by the whole journey, whenever we like it or not.

When they said the score difference between 1st and 4th place was just 16 points and D-1 stood up and screamed
Not gonna lie, when I saw Moonbyul and Tiffany gave 100 I knew team C won 🤡

I don't know... I liked Team B dance the most. It had so many great moments, but as a whole it was also solid. The members stood out individually, but they made a perfect team too. I had literally no complains with it.

about the webtoon

So I read the whole webtoon after episode 1 (because I was this annoyed with Jo Tae Hyun and wanted to find out if I even want to watch the rest of the show), and while I do think it's rather good coming of age type of a story, I'm not on board with the romance of it all for two reasons (does not make the whole story bad, planty good stories with questionable romances, not everything has to be sweet). I'm also curious if the drama will stick to what was shown in webtoon or change a few aspects.

1. While Jo Tae Hyun got a fair explanation of his behavior, Lee Da Yeol was basically: this guy is good looking hence I fell in love with him even tho initially he treated me poorly. He then started to care about him when he found out TH is dealing with many things, but when and why it turned into love? I don't think it was conveyed in a proper way.

2. That bonus chapter is basically internal narration from TH about his insecurities and fears and him concluding he will not share them with DY, and will just act as a good boy to not lose him, and they trying to distract DY with sex when he is honestly asked about his feelings, likes and dislikes. And I just cannot see any future in this relationship. It's not even a bitter sweet ending.

That said, I think I actually appreciate the writer ending the webtoon on that note, as it's more realistic. It shows that no, love cannot heal you. It can be great source of strength and support, but it's not the solution. Sometimes love can even hold you back from healing, since it makes you focus on the other person more, instead of first dealing with your own issues.

So I'm curious if the webtoon with go this way, or make it more happy by the end. As of now, the drama is far more chill and cheerful, they toned down the "bullying" and the potential consequences, they made them friendly faster - it's overall more light.

your desire for young men to remove their facial and body hair as a sign of masculinity < I never said I have a desire for young men to remove their facial and body hair (I never talked about overall body hair at all in the first place). I find clean shaved men more attractive, does not mean I desire young men to remove their hair. To be honest, I could not give less fucks what teens do (since this whole discussion is about teenagers) with their facial hair, since I do not view them as potential partners. Their facial hair could not be of a less concern for me.

but you want them to look "cute and pretty," < I said I find this specific actors cute and pretty, I never said I want men to look cute and pretty.

So the one lying is you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You purposefully pick and choose specific fragments of what I said to misrepresent my points.

I could not care less whenever you believe I have masters in psychology or not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do teens turn into adults at the stroke of midnight on their 18th birthday < never said they did

your desire for young men to remove their facial and body hair as a sign of masculinity < never said it

but you want them to look "cute and pretty," < never said it

And that would conclude the "discussion" because you reply to statements I never made, so it's a massive waste of time.

"Kate" just stated in a message to me that she likes her BL actors to be "cute and pretty." Case closed. < no i did not. learn how to read. I specified I am not attracted to these specific actors in this specific BL, and that I find these specific actors cute. People can literally read my reply, why lie and look dumb? 🤡

I'm sorry if you find me, a grown up woman not being attracted to teens (since that's the age of the characters) weird. I will take it as a compliment 👍🏻

Yes, tell me more. i guess I need to put my clinical and neuropsychology diploma in trash and just sign for your lectures explaining developing in humans 👍🏻

What teens do with teens is one thing. What adults do with teens is another. That's what age of consent is about. OP complaining about how sexless BLs are under a high school show which was never even made with her as a middle age woman as a target audience in mind is just weird.

But you both do you, be pressed about lack of hair follicle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Did I even say I am attracted to them? 😅 I find them cute and pretty, but they are not my type. I am not attracted to any of the actors in this show. Don't put shit in my mouth.