#idk sometimes I don't even completely disagree with the expressed opinion
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Cinema Studies Minor Gets Super Into Analyzing K-Pop Videos 2.1
Disclaimer: I'm still a student, no where near an expert, I will be wrong in some technical aspects. Also my interpretations are my opinion which means you may disagree and that's okay. Awesome even! Just be normal about it fr. This is also very out of order bc that's how my brain works. Also I am but a baby loretiny, which means my interpretations are shaky at best compared to what's been established. But the lore is confusing anyway so....
The World EP.FIN: Trailer Analysis pt 1: Sections
Why Not Film?
K-Pop's Obsession with Wong Kar-Wai
Ateez and Metropolis
Why Not Film?
I mean like filming on film stock. Because there is a film grain/noise... (overlay? mask? idk man i'm not an editor I forgot my terms) texture to parts of the video that I think is supposed to evoke the idea of a security camera (I would have LOVED some high-angle shots to drive this home but oh well) BUT could also just be representing that it's old/in the past because it is also in black and white.

the texture is especially evident on San's face. I think they just put a noise filter over this part, which creates grain that you'd find on old film
So why not just film on film stock? It's expensive and cumbersome my guy. they filmed this between schedules like.... digital editing and stuff is just so much easier.
Which leads me to the next section:
K-Pop's Obsession with Wong Kar-Wai
STEP PRINTING!!!! 8/10FPS!!!!! STREAKS!!!! WE! LOVE! IT!


I fucking love this effect which WKW first did by filming (on stock) at 8 frames per second (fps) and then repeating the same frame 3 times to create that streakiness. Filming at a low frame rate then playing it at a higher one (usually 24 fps, which I'm guessing is also what they used for this trailer, 24-32(ish) fps is the cinematic standard) creates fast motion. This process is called step-printing.
The subject(s) would stay still/ move very slowly while filming to give the effect that everything is moving fast around them while they're normal speed. Super cool, gives sense that time is passing around them and/or isolation from others, which is what I think is intended here since HJ and the teezers are isolated from society as they're trying to fight against the government. sweet sweet storytelling through style. OBSESSED!
Here is an example from Chungking Express:

But also: K-Pop in general is OBSESSED with WKW's style. I will make a list of MVs that rep that eventually, but off the top my head, Mamamoo's mv for wind flower is inspired by Fallen Angels. The color grading, cinematography, the scene references etc.
Ateez and Metropolis
Now for something completely different: Before I get into it I really want to emphasize how fucking instrumental cinema was in globalization, because when cinema first became an industry it TRAVELED like TRAVELED. and resulted in a mix of styles since the fucking like 1920s. AMAZING
Okay so speaking of 1920s, let's get into IT! German Expressionism was a film movement that was born out of post-WW1 Germany and society's need to express (ha) the horrors of war they went through and since hyperinflation fucked up the economy so much, film companies were like "spend whatever" and blew budget on super elaborate film sets and facilities.
Expressionism is focused on the physical and really emphasizing features and such. It's hyperbolic as show in the screen shot from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari:

The subject's face is deepened by the make-up and lighting and shows their state of mind, a mindless corpse being controlled by another power (think Master/Puppet, but we don't have time to rly get into post WW1 Ger's anxieties)
It's also hyperbolic, as I said, which sometimes takes form in the sets. Specifically the establishing shots. These would traditionally be miniatures or painted, as they are easy and you can see how they're similar:


1- Metropolis & 2- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Notice anything? The lines maybe? Perspective? Symmetry? These are all qualities seen in German Expressionism which I will get into in a momement but first. Let me explain why I use Metropolis as an example. In short, they already referenced it in Guerrilla:

click to get the whole picture! Guerrilla MV and the film poster for Metropolis, the book cover is similar.
See the lines and perspective? The establishing shot at the beginning is the same, let's compare it to Metropolis again:

THE WORLD: EP.FIN Trailer & Metropolis
German expressionism is alive and well in film style and I'm so in love with how the director utilizes it.
Next, we're going to talk about structure and lines, along with style and how it helps the narrative.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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*tired sigh* every day I get one step closer to unfollowing the Murderbot diaries tag.
#wild that the fandom had gotten big enough to put so many annoying takes on my dash#or just like...whining idk#using the filtered tags and filtered post content has served me well so far#but today's Hot Take came from someone whose username is a common fandom word so like...block time#idk sometimes I don't even completely disagree with the expressed opinion#but the way of expressing the thought as 'the whole fandom is terrible because xyz' just doesn't work for me#just let people do what they want and use the block function liberally#and idk maybe don't tag your rant with the fandom tag#like I am deliberately not doing here
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I'd like to begin by saying that I may have gotten a bit heated in my original response. This reaction was caused by seeing a nb blogger getting attacked left and right and sent death threats and constant harassment for saying that transwomen were not the only victim of radfems, and that radfems are deeply harmful even in their non-transmisogynistic rhetorics. Just admitting that TERFs also affect tme people got violent reactions. And personally, I have seen plenty of leftists reblog radfem or even outright TERF rhetoric completely uncritically because it wasn't specifically about trans women.
Second, I'd like to admit that my own circle has perhaps biased me. I just don't follow transphobes. In the circle I built for myself, transfemme positivity is the norm, and transmasc maybe sometimes. I saw the addition as an attempt to say that TERFs only hurt trans women because they only care about undermining trans women. (Maybe it's a false assumption, but I've seen an epidemic rise of this exact sentiment.) I see people talking about TERFs targeting trans women in the the UK, but I don't see many posts about the "Lost Girls" rhetoric, started by UK TERFs as well, against trans men. They are both used to hurt trans people as a whole, but the first got more attention. This might be a general trend or an unfortunate quirk of the tiny corner I occupied. Idk, but it irked me. TERF violence against one group absolutely affects the other, and the idea that TERFs only target trans women exclusively is becoming A Thing.
Third, I didn't just say infantilization, but also a complete denial of their existence. The denial of a trans identity is violence. I'm not saying it compares, but to deny that trans men are men is transphobia and violent. Not physically though. That's true.
Fourth, I am Asian. Anti-Asian racism has been mocked for not being a big deal both by other ethnic minorities and white people (and sometimes even by Asian people themselves). It's not a big deal because it's not like my home gets raided for no reason, because I don't get shot in the street, because I don't know what it feels like to be stopped while driving just for being Asian. And that's true. These stuff don't happen to me. I've met anti-racist activists who have told me that anti-black racism is a higher priority because anti-Asian racism isn't as bad. I've never known how to feel about it.
I've been told that my opinion about white supremacy is less valuable because I'm not black or indigenous. I've been told that I'm White Lite. Of course, not all activist groups are like this, thank God, but enough of them are that I actually feel inadequate and unsafe to talk about anti-Asian racism to people I don't know. Maybe I'm projecting but some trans men I follow also expressed something similar. I can't speak for them, but my experiences are written above.
And I'll say one thing: I don't think trans men should hijack posts specifically about trans women. Crying "but what about me!!!" on a post specifically about transfeminine issues is just generally shitty behavior and transmisogynistic. Trans men not getting representation (both irl and in fiction) basically ever is a legitimate grievance, just not one to be directed against trans women. It's unfair to blame trans women for "hogging representation" (????? Strangest fucking sentiment ever). I just didn't think the original post is specifically for trans women and I thought the addition was not only unnecessary (since I thought most people already associate TERFs with transmisogyny), but a deliberate attempt to push trans men out. I now realize I probably read it overly maliciously, but I still disagree with them.
Finally, I got really angry at the addition there because TERFs hate trans identities in general. They're definitely more violent against trans women, but TERF violence against trans men is more insidious and less likely to be recognized. They don't like transness, and they'll stuff every single trans man back into the closet if they could. The reaction Elliot Page got from radfems is proof. He's a traitor, a lost sister, and the evil corrupter of young girls all at once. Idk where I'm going with this anymore. I'm sorry this is so long.
I saw someone the other day call being against the military “terfy” and now someone is calling the idea that we should be nice to children “terfy” so I think we need to go over how terf isn’t some throw away term for “person whose argument I disagree with that also reminds me of this amorphous group of bad people that exist in my head” and very explicitly refers to a coherent group of radical feminists who advocate for transphobic violence -__-
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Why don't you ship Captain Canary?
That’s a complicated question with a complicated answer.
It’s hard because I’m compelled to be honest because I respect my anons enough to give a serious, honest answer to pretty much every ask I actually take the energy to respond to, but I feel like any person who would ask this doesn’t actually want my honest answer from it. Last time I answered a question about CC, I was accused of attacking the anon because I summarily disagreed with the points they were making and explained why.
So, if I say this question feels a bit like an accusation, I hope you understand that it’s because it makes me nervous to go into negative detail about another ship and to know that it can ruffle feathers even with the best intentions. I’ve always been 100% disinterested in bullshit like ship wars and I don’t consider CC as in any way counter to anything else. I just… don’t ship it.
But I’ll answer my reasons for why honestly, leave it out of the ship tags, and hopefully you respect my answer.
The reason I don’t ship CC is a mix of on-screen chemistry, characterization, Sara’s seeming genuine dislike of Len at the outset and lack of attraction to him throughout, and… the shippers.
To go into detail on those. Their on-screen chemistry is amazing, and to a certain extent, I do ship them. I ship roguecanary (len x mick x sara), or Len and Sara for a fling, a dirty make-out in a dark corner sometime, a quickie in a supply closet sometime. I also ship them in the sense that they could, in theory, be a much much slower burn. I genuinely thought they might have a slow progression across two seasons or so, back when it first looked like there might be something between them, that they had some mild flirting. I think I might of liked that, and I certainly wasn’t against it. Killing off Len kind of accelerated that timeline though, if it existed.
But what I don’t ‘ship’ about their on-screen chemistry is that it feels so much more like friendship to me than romance. And that’s fine for some people. But the same way I don’t ship sn*wb*rry because I literally cannot see them as anything other than friends, and simply do not see romantic chemistry there at all, I also don’t see any genuine romantic chemistry between Len and Sara. That they become friends is sort of undeniable and I loved to see them playing cards and having insight into one another, but I didn’t feel that needed to be romantic and I thought it was better off being what it was, simply.
Characterization-wise? Well, this isn’t anyone’s fault, but I was a pretty hard Nyssara shipper, so Sara’s prior characterization made me not want to ship her with anyone other than Nyssa for a while. I’ve finally relaxed off that after it became clear I’d never get to see them together again, but it was hard letting go of that canon ship. I also found the logical ship for Len to be with Mick, because of their amazing dynamic. I found their chemistry to veer more toward romantic than Len and Sara’s did half the time. Moving in sync, the angsty break up, literally willing to die for each other, having a little memento ring, inside words, Mick being the only one Len seemed to initiate contact with.
So none of that helped. But none of that made CC a nOTP either? I mean, it’s not really a nOTP across the board. like i said, i do ship roguecanary or len and sara for a fling or an open thing, a casual understanding.
But Sara disliking Len at the outset did make give me an anti-romance sense. And throughout the entire season, she seems disinterested in him romantically.
Contrary to people with shipper goggles on when they watch that deleted scene from the pilot, I see her being annoyed by him and like she finds him distasteful. they get along for a drink by the end of the episode and she’s teasing him, they get closer, but she also says that she literally doesn’t like him when they’re dying of the cold. teasing? maybe, idk, but it’s not really something you say to someone you’re crushing on. it just seems so very platonic and also like the notion of being with him makes her uncomfortable. it’s hard for me to read her otherwise. he alludes to his feelings about her when he’s deflecting talking about mick and she looks surprised then impassive, completely shutting it down. he mentions thinking of a future with her when she’s already upset and doesn’t want to talk to him and she… well she basically tells him to fuck off? but as a “soft” no instead of a hard no, because maybe she doesn’t have her feelings sorted out but now is obviously not the time and she’s not interested in pursuing things with him with how things stand.
but basically, she never demonstrates reciprocal interest in him at all. and we know that she’s not especially shy when it comes to expressing herself, her attractions, or her intentions. i know it would be more complicated with a teammate, but i don’t think she’d be dishonest about her feelings either; she values honesty far too much for that.
and this makes him a pursuant of a person who is totally uninterested in him, and that’s a place i’ve been? people uncomfortably trying to pursue their attraction to me when i’d shut them down already? it’s not a pleasant position to be in, after a while. and i trust that len’s not so much a creep that he’d push it after getting a clear answer from her, but it still wasn’t something i found… romantic? endearing? a little cute in the scene where he says “my feelings about you” when deflecting, but if he were pursuing it further after she gave him that “have to steal a kiss” line without getting a clear signal from her that she’d changed her stance, it would have actually pissed me off.
anyway… so there’s all that.
there’s also… if you look at that ask i linked above, that’s the type of thing that really pushes it into… i have the ship tag blacklisted because stuff like that annoys me. and look, it happens in the coldflash fandom too, and i ignore it then as well. i’m never a fan of reducing a character down to a ship, attributing their development to a single romantic relation, saying they’re “so in love” when they’re literally really not. and look, gifset edits for your fave ship are cute af, i get it. it’s fun to speculate how your ship’s characters are going to feel when they see each other again.
but i get asks about ‘don’t you think len would have died for sara as well as mick?’ and my answer is… literally no. i don’t. i don’t think that’s how they saw each other, or how deep they felt about each other. and given that the producers have literally said sara has basically moved on, posts making her arc this season about len, or about how him coming back is going to affect her, just make me sigh. but i’m a canon-compliant asshole with my meta even with shipper goggles on, most of the time.
and i’ve seen a lot of those shippers try to reduce len’s relationships with lisa, mick, and other characters (including, yes, barry, who was important to his arc preceding legends) to being lesser than his friendship with sara. that’s so discomfiting to me. and it’s even more discomfiting to me how they reduce all of sara’s best emotional moments to being about len? her overcoming the order to kill martin was aided by len but not about him. her decision to talk to mick in the brig and that awesome conversation and the emotional insight she had? i’m tired of seeing people make that about her feelings about len. that was a great moment for her. she has so many great moments like that. so many great relationships i wish the fandom would explore more, rather than focusing on just a single romance.
and… look, i’m a person who prefers things when they don’t go canon half the time. my canon vs. non-canon ships are radically different. i love WA in the flash and wanted it to be canon and it is, but i love CF just as much and would never want it to be canon. with CC, the ways i would’ve wanted it to be canon never happened, and the ways it’s romanticized and populized in the fandom tend to rub me the wrong way maybe because of that.
So… long answer there. but it’s really honest. i don’t hate CC, and i do respect the fandom and genuinely wish them all the best. these generalizations, as with any generalization, are obviously not going to apply to every shipper or every fic or every meta. but they’re trends i’ve personally encountered and opinions i’ve either seen in the tags or had to interact with and eventually, it slowly turned me off the ship as a major romantic pairing.
#long post#long post for ts#and no i'm not gonna go look up posts or sources to support any of this#or gifs or anything#this isn't a meta#it's a completely subjective and personal post#even if it is a long one#and i'm completely uninterested in arguing about it or in people trying to convince me otherwise#let me know if this needs more tags for anything#Anonymous#replies#anti captain canary
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