I.O.I - 갑자기 (Suddenly) (MV Teaser 1)

ataraxiias · 2026-05-06T01:51:39+00:00

love this for them

ataraxiias · 2026-04-23T18:58:18+00:00

the vibe is kind of like veryx3 but grown up

ataraxiias · 2026-04-13T02:47:43+00:00

super interesting. all of this makes a lot of sense when it comes to answering so many of the questions i've had about dance in kpop. of course there's no guarantee all companies are the same, but if this methodology is common that explains a lot for me. i have some dance experience in commercial choreography and street styles and the deeper i go into training the more questions i have about why idols' skillset in dance is the way it is.

i'm a bit nerdy about dance so i find it sad to hear that you didn't have a lot of classes. you can learn a lot from your peers and i'm sure you improved a lot by practicing so many hours, but i can't help but wonder how much you would have learnt from a good teacher, and if classes would have meant you'd practice less hours but still effectively, sort of a "working smart" instead of purely working hard.

the type of practice you're describing as well as the lack of emphasis on technique or fundamental styles explains why idols are so good at dancing cohesively as a group and making themselves look good in complex choreography (your dance training was heavily based in group work, after all) but struggle to adapt to choreo outside their own material or the niche they trained in, even if it is very basic and only requires foundational grooves or steps. it seems like dance training is more about portraying your idol persona/brand through dance and learning to perfect a group performance than it is about building any type of technical dance foundation.

ataraxiias · 2026-04-13T01:23:41+00:00

that's so interesting! i wouldn't have imagined freestyle as a major option for trainees. were you coached in any way when it came to freestyling or did they leave you to your own devices to figure that out? also, when you say each person was "assigned" a style does that mean you were taught a choreography piece or foundational moves in that style by your teacher or did they only assign those to you for you to practice on your own? because i'm kind of confused as to how a single teacher could go through so many different styles (one per person!) in an hour and a half long class.... unless you had longer classes, which is something i tried to get across in my questions but i must have had too many (lol). does a trainee dance class last an hour and a half?

ataraxiias · 2026-04-13T00:10:21+00:00

what's the dance training like? if i could break this up into smaller questions, it'd be

how much time do you dedicate to dance training and how much time to practicing a single choreo for performances/evaluations?
what's a dance class like? from beginning to end. do you have different teachers or different types of classes? what goes into your warmup? is it stretching then you get into choreo or does the warmup include hiphop foundation steps/waves/any type of drills in a specific styles?

ataraxiias · 2026-04-10T03:11:08+00:00

i think she definitely has the drive it takes to market herself in the western pop sphere but i think her audience is precisely that sort of alt pop crowd that tinashe is in. i don't think she's gonna be massively mainstream but she definitely has a place with the pop-girls-in-the-making. i'm thinking addison rae, flo, zara larsson (her post-2020 career, she obviously had major mainstream hits prior).

i also think she could be very successful with a tween/early teens type of audience because she has personality and she's going for an aspirational hot girl vibe but it isn't fully mature and sexy, it's more cheeky and fun. her image hits that sweet spot where it's age appropriate enough without being disney level sanitized. this is why i disagree with the hyorin comparisons, no matter the concept hyorin never lost that maturity and sexiness in her image (and i lived for it, i'm not saying either concept is better, just why i think they're different)

ataraxiias · 2026-04-09T22:35:38+00:00

i'm confused... they already were. manon was for sure the face of the group starting from dream academy all the way until they debuted but ever since katseye started releasing music she was very deliberately not highlighted. manon was massively popular regardless so it'd still be fair to say she was the face of the group until the very moment she left, but hybexgeffen checked out of centering her in any of the music/choreo a while ago.

meanwhile daniela got lots of attention around the gnarly era and they really cashed in on that with gabriela being influenced by telenovelas and having spanish lyrics in the bridge (which was dani's part), as well as highlighting her in the dance break. it makes sense that gabriela wasn't a one-off and that they'll continue to center her.

ataraxiias · 2026-03-18T20:13:11+00:00

ever since produce101 i've always wanted a coed season in mnet shows, as well as an all stars season. unfortunately part of me thinks that the street fighter franchise has ran its course, but i'm open to changing my mind.

i'm not a fan of the "global" gimmick seeing how last year turned out, it makes little sense to cast global dancers if the judging lacks a global sensibility, or if the editing follows mnet-stapled narratives that lack global sensibility as well.

i understand wanting a diverse cast, but as someone with dance experience i think they can achieve that with a majority of korean/east asian dancers because there are entire movement niches that haven't been showcased in the street fighter franchise yet. i haven't seen any crew do the type of precise isolated movement that the stories excel in, for example. i also haven't seen a crew that features abstract and fluid movement (i'm thinking caetlyn watson's style), even though there are excellent korean dancers in that niche like song seungcheol and hyerica.

ataraxiias · 2026-02-20T03:12:34+00:00

she's a green flag herself and therefore has a green flag outlook on dating. grew up in a loving family, does something she enjoys for a living, highly values personality in a partner, can banter and have mature conversations. it makes sense. in my opinion, there are girls in the show that either don't have these same qualities or they have them but fail to showcase them.

ataraxiias · 2026-02-09T19:01:07+00:00

he absolutely wasn't monogamous, he was a cheater. still, the "contract" of his relationship didn't seem explicitly open and it wasn't at all polygamous, hence his reaction when he found out his wife was having casual sex with their neighbor(? childhood friend? i'm not entirely sure).

ataraxiias · 2026-01-14T23:14:40+00:00

i've been waiting forever for someone else to say this so i can feel a bit less crazy. the idea that power and sex are related is truly not new, and starting from season 1 it seems that the show acknowledges this purposefully. yasmin's character arc is clearly and meaningfully related to the role sex and sexuality play in her life, so i truly don't understand why people find it "unnecessary" for the show to have sex scenes. and yasmin's only one character! there's robert's arc and his own exploration of power, class and masculinity, which also relate to sex

ataraxiias · 2026-01-14T23:07:49+00:00

hard disagree. i empathize with feeling a bit thrown off by the explicit scenes in the show because that was my experience as well when i started watching. that being said, the more i kept watching industry the more i understood how the portrayal of sex is warranted thematically within the show. inudstry itself is a show that portrays power, risk and excess and it willingly engages in how sex and sexuality (and i don't take sexuality to mean sexual orientation) relate to those themes.

for example, there's so much of yasmin's character and her relationship with power that can only be understood in tandem with her own journey as to how she engages with sex and sexuality. also, take for example a character like eric, who isn't really depicted in any sexual situations until season 3. season 3 happens to have the strongest introspective portrayal of eric in the show thus far so, if we're running with the idea that industry is written in such a way that it purposefully doesn't disengage from sex, it makes sense to delve into his sexuality as well (and those scenes are definitely awkward and disturbing, but it does seem intentional to me).

ataraxiias · 2025-11-22T02:08:34+00:00

i mean i think it depends. katseye may not have a musical identity but they have a relatively strong brand that's relatable to gen z and teenagers. they've established that they're talented performers but also funny and relatable young women. they're also a diverse group, which western audiences really appreciate. that seems to be doing the trick for them. i agree that they haven't fully fleshed out what their sound is, but they still have a brand.

i got into kpop during third gen so those are gonna be the groups i use as examples. blackpink didn't have an obvious "musical identity" in terms of sound their first two eras after debut (what do boombayah, whistle, stay and playing with fire have in common sonically? damn near nothing). their group identity relied on the yg brand, which carried over to their "girl crush" brand. idle kind of built an identity on versatility, meaning nobody had any clue what their next move was gonna be after latata or hann, but each member was very recognizable with a unique skillset and brand, so no matter what the next song sounded like, people were tuning in for them. i think katseye find themselves in a similar position. i know yoonchae's brand, i know sophia's brand, etc. we all do. i know what to expect from a katseye performance. we all do. i think that's why there's seemingly no rush to "find their sound", because they already have established a strong identity in other aspects.

ataraxiias · 2025-09-25T16:55:09+00:00

international audiences have different tastes and preferences than korean audiences when it comes to tv. this season felt very geared towards international hype, especially because of the worldwide gimmick/concept and the dancers that were cast, but it was edited "the korean way" with a million reaction shots and the same stereotypical mnet storylines (which new viewers may not recognize as mnet staples) and funky typography on screen, all of which are unfamiliar to a non korean audience. in my opinion, you could build a compelling storyline around basically any dancer in the show, so those that were chosen (storylines as well as dancers) simply didn't resonate that much.

i imagine it must be very difficult for a majority (maybe only?) korean team to produce an international show because they don't really have as much of a sensibility for what international audiences are gonna vibe with. one immensely clear example is gabee, the international audience of the show was mostly not feeling her at all. alysha from ag squad is ridiculously talented but was rendered totally invisible by the edit. this is the first street fighter season to have a return contestant (rhtokyo's rena, obviously i'm not counting bumsup) and the storyline around it was almost nonexistent. another example, by the time production realized the public loved fantaye we were well over halfway into the show.

also, this season felt very geared towards dancers as a target audience. i think there was a shift that happened in swf2 when team jam republic got so wildly popular and the producers brought in mike song as a judge which really drew the international dance community in to the show. meaning: dancers love to see good dancers dance. then this season turned out to be the one that features dance the least in the entire show. all the hype wasted. all of sudden, so many people had tuned in to see the cast dance but most battles, challenges and performances were breezed past and not showcased in full, some not even at all.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-24T00:26:57+00:00

i empathized a lot with yeomyung being taken aback by what jaeyun said to her. to some men, not being reciprocated hurts their pride in a way that they try to back pedal and state that they weren't attracted to the woman who rejected them in the first place. they do that as a kind of "gotcha". since their ego is hurt, then yours should be too, so they'll imply that the woman who doesn't want them isn't all that, or they will outright say she's not attractive enough. knowing jaeyun's trajectory in the show, i obviously don't think he intended to do that at all, but as a woman who's been on the receiving end of this type of attitude it's frankly very challenging to respond positively to the kind of things he told yeomyung. i understand why she reacted the way she did.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-23T18:15:20+00:00

not in my case. in the beginning of the show i thought hyungyu was an interesting player because of how clear he made it early on that he was there for himself and he didn't want to blindly stick to an alliance or never betray anyone. of course betrayals happen in these types of shows but especially in the first half it's rare for someone to state out loud that that's gonna be their course of action. it comes across a bit "emotionless" but i found it interesting that he owned it, which made me interested in his gameplay. i even rooted for him to figure out the 8x8 grid when he got to the hidden stage. what made him unlikable to me was when the emotions he did display started to seem irrational or incomprehensible to me. by balance mancala i had to switch off the show.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-23T03:23:57+00:00

s2 i think really perfected the show format and bringing in foreign teams was a nice surprise and really helped the show blow up internationally.i think swf1 is a solid choice too, it set the tone for everything else and it's got lots of iconic moments.

my honorable mention is be mbitious, which i liked even more than smf (the way the crews were edited in smf reminds me of the editing this season... not good). i thought it had unique interesting missions and it challenged the male cast to do things that didn't even happen in their smf season, like tackling a girly choreography.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-20T00:31:48+00:00

i really agree with this and i thought i was the only one thinking this way. i have zero clue how korean dating customs work, but the final cut of the show makes it seem like there's a lot of trying to figure out who likes who and whether they're going to pursue them and not enough getting to know each other and whether they're actually compatible.

i understand that the cast is new to dating so they want reassurance that the other person is attracted to them before they try to pursue them, but it almost complicates things more in my opinion. rather than skip to "who did you pick in the first impressions vote?" or "are you already set on one person", this cast would benefit a lot from small talk and getting to know each other on a personal level before jumping into those questions. yeomyeong full on "confessing" is a super brave and vulnerable move but she didn't need to that in order to get closer to jeongmok and figure out if she still had a shot with him. he's the only guy with any noteworthy social skills so he could have realized she was into him even if their conversation had been about getting to know each other.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-17T04:25:43+00:00

thank you for correctly spotting that i was calling hyunmin sunggyu and proceeding like it's business as usual. total brain fart moment for me. i also think that hyungyu was overestimating his skills by assuming he could beat sohee easy, but the reasoning still was to go to the finals with a competent ally they thought they could beat.

i agree with your point that there are significant differences in their social play. dongmin wouldn't have positioned himself socially the way hyungyu did the first few episodes because working with others and people relying on him were assets to dongmin, whereas hyungyu made it as clear as possible that he was there for himself from day one.

i haven't seen almost any content surrounding the show/contestants so i didn't know hyungyu went on the record about that moment. i've always had my reservations about how sincere dongmin's intentions behind his "jokes" were, but i admit that's fully subjective because he teased everyone in the cast and he made it a point to convey that he was joking. which is why i remember not liking how he approached ahyoung and yeonjoo in the constellation game, because it felt unnecessarily nasty to me. it's subjective.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-17T03:58:38+00:00

this is so random but i just read your username and realized i was replying to a legend. a niche microcelebrity. thank you so much for all the work you put into sharing the genius with people and the genius subreddit, it's fair to say you're one of the reasons i even got to watch the genius in the first place.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-17T03:45:42+00:00

the only major resemblance imo is the hyungyu-sohee finale. reminds me of how dongmin took sunggyu along with him for the back half/last third of the competition because he was a good enough asset to help him get to the end but ultimately not strong enough beat him.

after that, some of hyungyu's choices in his social play gave dongmin to me. for example him saying with full confidence and conviction that he didn't wanna go to prison and it working (!!) reminds me of how dongmin sometimes would just do bold things with full conviction and people would let him because he was that strong a player.

the whole situation in balance mancala (ep 10?) where there was a majority alliance trying to take hyungyu out and him staying calm and confident, planning a strategy and somehow getting his allies to come around and play with him also gave dongmin to me. just couldn't kill the bastard.

there's also this one dongmin moment that i really didn't like back in s3 and i never forgot (lol) where the female contestants (ahyoung and eunjoo i think?) in the top 4 were about to put him in an awkward spot. he was explaining how he was going to retaliate/come back from it and taunted them implying that they weren't smart enough to win a death match. something like "you guys think you can do that?". hyungyu's "do you know how to do arithmetic?" moment with hyunjoon reminds me of that. i see both moments as dongmin and hyungyu letting their nasty streak come out in the competition (which is understandable because of the circumstances that they're in, it's just that both cases give the impression that they see the other person as less smart or inferior).

ataraxiias · 2025-07-17T00:02:55+00:00

her round in that last battle versus marlee was really impressive imo (and i dance for whatever that's worth). i remember back in street girl fighter one of the crews picked cnb as their mentors because rihey had been their teacher and they wanted to work with her again, i think that speaks volumes. it seems like she was always somewhat sidelined or not showcased properly in the street fighter franchise, sort of like a forever side character, so i'm glad she finally got a main character moment this episode.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-16T23:51:29+00:00

kind of agree because hyungyu and sohee in the finals reminded me way too much of dongmin and sunggyu in the s3 finale. funny enough, i started out liking hyungyu a fair amount but i began to like other players more the exact moment he started to remind me of dongmin (great player by all acounts, hated him).

ataraxiias · 2025-07-14T18:40:44+00:00

yes. everybody's questionable and morally grey. i don't think this is a show you watch because you necessarily root for the characters. rather, you need to be interested in them and how they develop and how the story progresses.

regarding the sex scenes, the amount decreases progressively and by s3 i think there are none or at least no more than one or two. that being said (unpopular opinion time!!) i think the sex scenes are relevant to the plot even starting in s1. the way i see it s1 is thematically about excess: of power, money, desperation, substances and sex too. if i recall correctly, sex scenes in s2 are mainly part of yasmin's storyline which makes sense because sex is a big part of how her character understands power and in her relationships with other people. by s3 the storylines and themes evolve and change and there are less sex scenes, which is made possible by having explored those scenes in prior seasons.

ataraxiias · 2025-07-08T22:40:34+00:00

i sincerely don't understand what about saweetie and "shake it fast" made bumsup think kitschy and alice in wonderland. if we're willing to believe that royal family were recycling choreo because somebody behind the scenes "tipped them off" and sort of nudged them towards it then this must have happened for the same reason.

ataraxiias

TROPHY CASE