《Debut or Die (MTL)》112
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When the music video for “BETTER ME” was played, the first thing that could be seen was Park MoonDae staring into the camera.
He had the same appearance he was seen with in the “Bonus Book” music video, his black hooded jacket on his head and the irises of his eyes glowing a purple hue.
MoonDae quietly approached the camera and manipulated it.
Dalgak.
Jijijijijijik.
As the video rewound, the scenes seen in the trailer began to rewind.
Water reservoirs, sewers, mannequins, a falling weapon, the biohazard symbols.
And the screen finally showed a worn cloth doll with cogwheels.
The doll was in Cha YooJin's hand. The video rewind stopped at the opening scene of the trailer.
At that point, the song started.
At that moment, the cutaway changed and showed YooJin holding the doll, but not the old worn out doll, but the same one, but it was so clean that it looked brand new.
The camera panned to the side and panned, showing the entire area.
It was an ordinary classroom where students took classes. TeSTAR members were sitting at different desks.
The everyday expressions and behaviors of students attending classes were caught on camera.
However, as soon as the moombahton-style musical accompaniment began to play, the atmosphere in the classroom changed completely.
Jijijik.
The students, except for the TeSTAR members, disappeared and, in classic graffiti glow paint, large “X's” appeared on each student-less desk.
And with the dark classroom in the background, an intense cut of group choreography began.
Between the scenes of the choreography, solo cuts were inserted in characteristic locations such as the school's music room and the gymnasium.
However, these spaces had taken on a strange atmosphere related to each of TeSTAR's abilities that were revealed since the “Magical Boy” music video.
It seemed that the boys, who wore techwear-style suits, were the heads of their own kingdoms created in those places.
They sang the song separately, each in their respective space, which made it seem boring.
But the moment the thunderous melody of the riff heard in the trailer dropped, the mood changed.
DDVViiiiii-!!
A cut of TeSTAR, wearing their school uniforms and running away from the monsters, flashed past and then some words were shown on the classroom blackboard.
Rough red graffiti was superimposed over black-letter clichés.
A bloodstain had splattered the English word for "goodbye."
The chorus began to flow.
A desperate game of survival continued that did not match the melancholy chorus, but thanks to the video, the lyrics began to have a specific meaning.
And as the song progressed, TeSTAR's actions became more and more radical.
Instead of acting together, the fights between them became more frequent and the tension reached its peak when they defeated the last monster.
As soon as Kim RaeBin looked back and raised the awl, Ryu CheongWoo shot him from behind.
From that moment on, the music video changed and showed more intense cuts in which the boys tried to destroy each other in indirect and cruel ways.
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When the song hit her bridge, Bae Sejin, who didn't get many cuts in the second part of it, got the limelight on camera.
As he sang his part, Sejin came out of his space, the front door of the school.
Bae Sejin ran down the hall and stood in front of the door at the end.
When he opened the door, an untouched classroom appeared, but when the camera panned, red graffiti and splattered blood dripped from the blackboard.
The boy forcefully threw something he was carrying in his hand and, at that very moment, the last chorus broke out.
What Sejin had in his hand was a heavy metal padlock, which he suddenly flung towards the board. In slow motion, the slate was seen breaking into pieces, and as the pieces hit the ground, the moombahton began to flow.
Sejin gave a big smile.
Along with the difficult choreography, the timeline in the video started to get fixed.
As the youths defeated the last monster and RaeBin attempted to raise his awl, he stopped at the sound of Park MoonDae's phone camera shutter, causing the angry TeSTAR members to retreat without harm being done.
However, their faces still looked gloomy.
Then, the screen cut back to where YooJin was holding the old cloth doll.
But this time, he didn't turn the gear.
Rather, he tossed the doll into a corner and, whistling, walked down the shattered hallway.
The joyous walk was caught on a still camera from behind, and "BETTER ME" emerged as a white title on the screen.
The video ended with that last scene...
And the TeSTAR fandom started an unexpected era of analysis and theories of each music video.
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—What are you watching, hyung?
—The theories of our music video.
—Are they making theories?
—...Yes. You want to see them?
—Yes!
It was better to show Cha YooJin than to get stuck in an endless loop of questions and answers.
I streamed the WeTube video I was watching on the TV in the living room.
A drawing of a spiral potato appeared on the screen.
NT: Photo of that sandwich in the images of the chapter. The name is translated as “Spiral Potato”, but since it is very long, I chose the name that the Argentines gave to the dish (Spiropapa).
Spiropapa introduced the plot of the “BETTER ME” music video and explained the entire story, unraveling it.
Mainly it was like that.
"Spiropapa has observed in detail."
I listened to the potato with quite interest, but as soon as he finished narrating the content of the music video, he suddenly spoke in a rough and stern voice.
—Fuhuk.
Bae Sejin, who came out of the kitchen drinking coffee, choked on hearing the video. YooJin was surprised, but waited silently to hear Spiropapa's words.
—What did she say about "person"?
—She said that we are the same person because we are on the same line.
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NT: “Being in the same line” means having the same tendency, trajectory, direction, be it of thought, argument, attitude, style..
Bae Sejin answered and sat down on the sofa next to me. He seems to be interested in the interpretation and theory video.
A cut was shown on the screen where I covered the camera with my hand, also when I extended my hand to the front door of the school.
Another cut was then seen in which I also raised my hand to turn the front door knob and ran down a school hallway.
It was a scene from the “Airplane” music video.
Sejin could be seen running down the same corridor, stopping at the door of the hall. It was definitely the same composition.
We had put that detail to see if the fans noticed it.
She went on to present the other evidence for that hypothesis.
The boys were amazed.
—Ooooh.
—...Makes sense.
What she said was correct, she had understood everything even though there was a little misunderstanding.
It was true that what Sejin threw was the padlock on the front door. In fact, Sejin was filmed removing it from the front door, but that scene had to be deleted because it was over the time limit of the music video. As for the composition of the corridor… he just did it because the Director liked it.
The reason I didn't talk to the other guys was… no, not even Seon AhHyun was available at the time of filming my segments.
However, the number of opinions and comments from fans was excellent as this theory was quite interesting for them.
“…On the next album, should I suggest that we try to keep these image compositions alive so that they relate to each other?”
We should give something that the buyer likes, not the seller.
In any case, the analysis concluded that "Bae Sejin and Park MoonDae are the same person" and further explained the worldview connection.
The screen showed the cut where YooJin turned the cloth doll's gears and then another where he didn't.
"Her hunch about him was spot on."
We had created that narrative so as not to get too involved with the game.
We didn't want to be dragged into the game's story, and the game developers didn't want their work to be appropriated by us and included in our worldview in an “official” way.
"That's why we made our version to be considered as 'What if...'."
Looking at people's current reactions to the game, I think we made a good choice... I know there could be a number of people freaking out over the deaths of the characters we play, but I don't think it's an extremely shocking surprise.
A subtitle appeared on the analysis video that read "Spiropapa cried inconsolably at the moment B11 died."
—...
Okay. She seems to have had more influence than she thought.
—See you~
—Spiropapa is smart.
I handed over the TV remote to YooJin and checked the comments on the video on my phone.
Wow, TeSTAR is amazing, its worldview has developed and changed
The fact that they are both the same person gives me goosebumps.
Spiropapa, thank you for your high-quality review~ Thanks to you, I can comfortably watch the music video without using my head trying to make sense of every detail!
Since I saw the matches, I thought it was like a Battle Royale, but it's more interesting to see it from your point of view. Let's have fun watching the MV ^^
Apparently, it seems that everything Spiropapa says is considered orthodox. Although he orders the comments in different ways, I do not find any who disagree or criticize him negatively, everyone believes that his opinion is true.
"It's fun."
It was interesting to see that one person's analysis fit perfectly and helped understand other people.
And game fans, who happened to come across this video, were also commenting enthusiastically.
So what should I do to see more of B11?
L You can follow TeSTAR official account, MoonDae posts there often hehe
L No, I don't follow idol accounts, I was just wondering if MoonDae did something else with B11. Anyway thanks for your answer ㅠㅠ
L Oh, it's alrightㅠㅠ
—Hmm.
That made me remember something. These days, we will publish something as a thank you to our fans and shareholders.
It will be fanservice type content, but surprisingly, I didn't know that fans of the game would also respond with interest.
"It might be embarrassing to watch."
I turned off my phone while touching the back of my neck.
At 10:31 PM the next day, another new video was uploaded to TeSTAR's official WeTube channel.
It was a video showing the choreography of that song, in which TeSTAR wears the costumes of the initial partners of the game “127 Section” as if they were their Halloween costumes.
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Music and MV references for BETTER ME
1. WayV - Turn back time
Musically, it's the song whose style I* see the most similar to Better Me, although it might sound a bit heavier. Even so, it shares a dystopian vision, spray graffiti, the choruses shared between two people and the repetitive phrase at the end.
(1) *the edited mtl translator who gave the link of her mtl to me. (yes, she's the one who's giving these and in other chapter mv references as well)
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2. ONF - Why
This MV shows precisely a dystopian future in which the boys end up separating and threatening each other. It contains some elements that also appear in the game "127 Section".
Just watch the video and it may help you imagine a little more what the MV of "BETTER ME", "Bonus Book" would be like or what the atmosphere of the game would be like.
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