#atti

3rd Voice: 148th Scene: Mapworker

Welcome to the semifinals, folks!  I’ve got my favorites picked out to win!  And in this episode, I’m pretty sure the show is going to eliminate at least half of them!  I don’t know why I bother!  Let’s do this!

We start in the dorms, where all 24 contestants are packing their suitcases.  They’re getting a chance to go home and take a break before the last two episodes.  We follow different semifinalists as they go to a dog park and scold their dog for peeing everywhere, watch baseball and stuff their faces at the snack bar, and try to forget that their dreams of debuting may die when they return to the show.  Fun!

I sit up straight when I recognize some of the friends Chuei Liyu is hanging out with.  It’s Kamden, Jiho, and Brian from AMPERS&ONE!  All three were on the first Boys Planet, and Kamden and Jiho were also on Wild Idol. 

After filming all their vlogs, it’s time for our boys to come back and face the next round of eliminations.  We’re cutting eight people.  Sixteen will advance to the final.  Everyone enters the pyramid room in their Boys II Planet suits and waits nervously for our host.  It’s Baekho, the dance coach we met earlier in the series.  I was kind of hoping we’d get a new host, like maybe someone from ENHYPEN, but okay. 

Baekho tells us there have been dramatic changes in the rankings.  He also says that the sixteen survivors will have a final mission.  They will split into two groups to perform a new hip-hop/EDM song called “Brat Attitude” and a dance/pop song called “Never Been 2 Heaven.”  I like the second one a lot. 

Baekho then gives the contestants a hint about the final group name.  Because the first Boys Planet group was called ZeroBaseOne, they figure it must have the number one in the name.  This is the clue:

Yeah, I have no idea what that’s supposed to be, and I think the producers are just messing with us.  We’ll find out the name at the finale.  For now, let’s get these eliminations over with.

We’re starting with 15th place.  It’s Jun Lee Jeong.  From Planet K and WHIB, he’s dropped three places.  That’s surprising after his 11-spot leap last time.  If it weren’t for the benefit points he got from being on the winning Chains team, he wouldn’t have survived this round.

In 14th place, it’s Park Dong Gyu, one of my picks!  And what a leap.  This Planet K guy was in the final 24th seat last time. 

The 13th ranking goes to Kim Jun Min from Planet K and WHIB.  He’s dropped two spots from last time.

Planet C’s Chen Kaiwen is in 12th place, a jump of six spots. 

Jun Lee Jeong, Park Dong Gyu, Kim Jun Min, and Chen Kaiwen

The 11th spot goes to Planet K’s Yoo Kang Min from the group VERIVERY.  He’s dropped three spots and is no longer in the top eight, so there’s still a chance he won’t be in the final group I’M VERY HAPPY FOR HIM. 

Now for 10th place.  It goes to Planet K’s Chuei Liyu, the show’s poster boy and friend of AMPERS&ONE.  He looks absolutely stunned to hear his name. 

The 9th place ranking goes to … holy crap, it’s Yumeki.  He’s jumped thirteen spots.  Could he actually wind up winning this thing?  I thought for sure he’d be eliminated in this round.  I just don’t see him as part of a boy group. 

In 8th place, the first debut group seat, it’s my pick Chung Sang Hyeon from Planet K!  He keeps dropping in the ranks, but he’s still in debut range. 

Yoo Kang Min, Chuei Liyu, Yumeki, and Chung Sang Hyeon

Now for the rest of these debut seats.  In 7th place, it’s another one of my picks, our Planet K and BL drama actor Kim Jun Seo!  He’s dropped two spots but is still in debut range.  I really want him to win this.

The 6th place seat goes to … BOY STORY’s He Xinlong!  Another one of my picks.  He’s also dropped two spots but stayed in debut range.

In 5th place, it’s Zhang Jiahao, another one of my picks, and he’s jumped fourteen spots to get here!  He was starting to look very worried.  I’m so relieved he made it.  After everything he went through on Make Mate 1, I didn’t want to see him lose again.

The 4th place ranking goes to Kim Geon Woo.  We already know he’s going to win this, so it’s no surprise.  He’s gone up three spots.

Kim Jun Seo, He Xinlong, Zhang, Jiahao, and Kim Geon Woo

The 3rd place seat goes to Lee Leo, my Aussie pick from Planet K and Trainee A.

In second place, it’s still my pick Zhou Anxin from Planet C.

First place, at the top of the pyramid, once again goes to my pick Lee Sang Won.  It blows my mind that his friend Lee Leo had to convince him to come back to the industry to try again, and he’s been in the top spot for every ranking ceremony. 

And just as I’d hoped, both friend pairings have made it into the top eight.  Maybe they can get into the final group.

Lee Leo, Zhou Anxin, and Lee Sang Won

Now it’s time for the final, 16th seat, and I am so anxious for Masato.  He’s the only one of my picks that hasn’t been called yet, and I can’t imagine him not debuting.  Please please please call him next.

The 16th seat goes to Kang Woo Jin from Planet K in a 5-spot drop.  I can’t be happy for him because I can’t believe Masato’s getting eliminated.  The other contestants react the same way.  Some are too stunned to clap, and the ones who are clapping look very confused.   A few are crying.  They whisper to each other that this makes no sense.  I think Kang Woo Jin agrees, because he doesn’t look happy.  This is weird.

Kang Woo Jin and Masato

I had to Google Masato to see if he’s okay, and happily, he is going to debut soon as a member of the boy group VAYONN.  The group is debuting on July 6th with the EP Youth Today. 

VAYONN and their debut album

Masato struggles through a tearful goodbye while I try to tell him telepathically through the screen that it’s not over for him. 

We cut to the next day.  The boys are doing confessional interviews and playing pranks on each other, including a staged fight in the dorm.  Then everyone gathers in a studio to choose teams for the next mission, and in walk Ha Seong Woon and Lee Dae Hwi of Wanna One. 

Our hosts announce the Final Debut Battle.  The boys will split into two teams of eight, each one taking one of the songs we heard earlier.  Of course they play a game to find out who gets what team, and eventually we get the following two groups:

Chen Kaiwen, Park Dong Gyu, Chuei Liyu, Kim Jun Seo, Zhang Jiahao, He Xinlong, Chung San Hyeon, and Yumeki

Zhou Anxin, Lee Leo, Lee Sang Won, Kim Geon Woo, Jun Lee Jeong, Kang Woo Jin, Yoo Kang Min, Kim Jun Min

The boys go to their practice studios and find little mascot dolls on their group signs.  Team Brat Attitude names theirs “Atti,” (why not just “Brat?”) and Team Never Been 2 Heaven names theirs … Efing.  Because it has eight fingers.  They could have named it “Angel,” but okay.

“Ha ha, your name is Efing!  It sounds like effing!”  “Shut up, Brat.”

Each team chooses a leader and starts learning the choreography.  They battle it out for the Killing Parts.  And that’s where we wrap up the episode. 

The Finale is next!  It will be exciting.  It will be fun.  And according to my Rakuten Viki screen, it will be four and a half hours long.  I’m only hitting the highlights.  See you then.

When Reach of the Roach God, a large hardcover installment in the Thousand Thousand Islands line, arrived at my house a couple weeks ago, I was bowled over. I had to write about it right away for y’all. This is easily one of the best RPG books of the decade. An instant classic.

Like the ATTI zines, Reach is still systemless, but it has a lot more RPG framework built in. There’s a clear string of adventures, a narrative arc, a section that feels like a sourcebook. I could run a game out of the zine material, but I feel much more supported in that effort here. The structure helps and guides, but the book retains the freedom that comes with system neutrality.

This is a high water mark for the series and, I think, for systemless campaign material in general. It is soooo good, folks. Odoyoq, the roach god, senses new ways it can insinuate itself into the lives of non-roach kind (in temperament, the roaches remind me a lot of the Skaven from WFRP). These three schemes are presented as collections of facts — about the setting, about the people living there and their motivations, about the desires of the god and the machinations of its agents. These facts are static until the players quicken them, at which point the causes and effects that occur in their wake are clear (which, don’t mistake this for a statement of simplicity — there is great complexity here, and philosophical nuance, even if the tools are easy to use). Events will quickly throw a small village, a monastery and a necropolis into chaos. Two gazetteers and a sourcebook on the roaches follow, giving the GM ample material to expand the campaign.