Monsta X 'All In' MV and my 'Blue Moon': notes and explanations

[wakinghyde]

Ok so the MV for ‘Stuck’ isn’t out at I’m writing this, but the first stage came out a couple of hours ago. If you haven’t seen it yet, get your ass over there. It’s too much for my poor soul, they’ve got like chokers and rings and shit, it’s like VIXX with ripped pants.

These are my speculations about the MV in general, and my fanfic adaptation 'Blue Moon' in particular. If there is anything else about the fanfic you find unclear or would like me to specify, do let me know! Obviously I'm masterminding it, so to speak (though there are no rocket science or particularly clever literary tools involved), so I kind of forget what's not obvious. soz

Feel free to skip to the sections relevant to your enquiries.



About the MV:

• I think most people have come up with their own interpretations by now, and on the whole, my general understanding of the MV is similar to the fandom consensus
• Like Hyungwon’s dad beats him
• These guys are great friends
• ….
• Yeah I think those are the only parts that aren’t open to interpretation actually
• Ok so much backstory in the fic is a bit more elaborate than what’s revealed in the MV. First of all, while there is obvious that there is some militant stuff going on, but exactly what it is remains somewhat ambiguous. But these guys are obviously not local thugs, and there is no obvious reason why someone would take over this small, inconspicuous village, so I went ahead and assumed it was a nationwide totalitarianism thing, which I think is a fair assumption. Again, they gave us no hints regarding the motives of these people, but I think that’s largely irrelevant to the boys anyway.
• I think the whole white army thing is about them contrasting the black soldiers (remember kids, colours are important), and also blending into the landscape once winter hits. This, along with the muted tones, is why I set the fic in the fall, because that’s genuinely what it looks like (also bleak times). It looks like the boys eventually becomes a part of a bigger resistance, which is why they suddenly get resources, organized raids, etc. And though the timeline in the MV is a bit screwed, this probably happens after the abuse, fire, etc.
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• About the orphanage: not sure how adamant I want to be about this, but they are always together. Always. And there are no adults or parents ever seen, apart from Hyungwon’s father and this old man related to Hyunwoo (and even this relationship can be interpreted in different ways). They have no restrictions and seem to kind of take care of themselves, and the only actual house we ever see them at is the greenhouse and that place Hyungwon goes when he is sad - and that seems very personal, removed from the group. An orphanage would also explain the closeness despite their various ages. The exact backgrounds for each individual character is up for debate (especially stuff like Minhyuk’s parents dying, which is obviously something I pulled out of nowhere.
• As far as I am concerned, my  interpretations of Jooheon are pretty much canon. There isn’t that much to support this, but he is the one getting Hyunwoo a gun when everyone else seems pretty helpless, he leads the whole shebang with the flowers, and he generally seems to be the boldest one when dealing with the soldiers/guards/whatever.
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• From what I can tell, and I think that a lot of people agree, the boys turned to this flower-ritual-drug thing to escape their oppression and sort of create a spiritual, if not an actual rebellion. Their behaviour, appearance and the camera angles also makes me think of drugs, because this is pretty much life when you are high.
• No actual demonstrations of magic until that fucking blob in the sky, which is why I just jfc what why would you do this you just thrashed the MV you fucking sod.
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• Arguably Minhyuk revived Hyungwon twice. No, I disagree. This is why I gave the bath tub scene a more symbolic effect, rather than like, look, I am pouring magic in your tub and now I’m lying down next to you and suddenly you’re fine. The second (first? Chronology) I think Hyungwon is genuinely dying and this is just another symbolic display of their friendship. I didn’t think any of this was magic at all until that fucking blob stared me in the face and I’m just like, ??? What, you had a great premise about oppressed teens suffering from shit and then there is this odd element?? No
• Anyway
• Hyunwoo, Minhyuk and Hyungwon’s storylines are pretty much out there. Minhyuk is upset with Hyungwon’s abusive dad, Hyungwon isn’t very receptive about his concerns, and Hyunwoo is just trying to deal with his dying father/grandfather/uncle. I chose uncle simply because I didn’t want the parallel with Hyungwon’s dad to be too obvious
• I put pretty much everything I believe about Hyungwon's character in the MV in the fic. His mother isn’t around, and there is something very private about that house he hides around in, which appears to be on the outskirts or at least somewhere close to vegetation, and I initially assumed that this was a broken home. And yet both he and his dad are in town when that other house burns down, and it’s obviously not the same, because Hyungwon then runs to hide away in the bath tub of a worn, but standing house, and his father isn’t there anymore. My guess is that they used to live in that other house when Hyungwon’s mother was still around, and they were probably a happy family, but then she died (or otherwise disappeared) and they abandoned the house and become distant. How this looks to me, anyway. You might disagree about this interpretation, I think some people have guessed that the house they burned down was an official office of some sort, but I don’t see why anyone would be there in the middle of the night, especially not Hyungwon??
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• Anyway
• In my opinion, Kihyun just broke his legs shortly before the MV and is recovering alright. I just took it all out for narrative purposes (see below). Especially since he appears to be walking alright in some parts, most notably just before they see the huge blob thing (fuck the blob)
• Changkyun and Hoseok’s gimmick in this MV is basically being great friends to everyone else but isn’t that too boring
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• The tattoos: again, as far as I am concerned, canon. While not explicitly shown, there are some tools at the tables, and they have these painted on during the scenes in the greenhouse. Granted, you don’t really see them much in the scenes out in the village - however, once they have made their stand and takes up their weapons, you can see the tattoos as they run around in the darkness. I don’t see why they would paint those elaborate designs on for just running around and hiding. They are most visible on Kihyun and Changkyun, which is why I sort of made a deal out of them in particular, but otherwise, everyone's tattoos are quite significant to them in different ways.
• 
  I love Changkyun's little acne scar it's the most adorable thing ever
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• The bath tub scene: Minhyuk is more defeated and sad than upset and thrashing things, and as I said before, I don’t buy the magic stuff. It looks like the scene of a suicide, but Hyungwon isn’t dead (yet?) and his presence during the militant operation later kind of eradicates any value this scene has beyond emotional turbulence, imho, but it’s still one of my favourites in the MV because it's just so powerful
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General notes on 'Blue Moon':

• This took me about a month or so while I was also working full-time and writing a dissertation so if it’s kind of inconsistent, soz.
• Also I had to go back and write a shitload last night because I desperately wanted to get it out before the ‘Stuck’ MV, since that is a sequel to ‘All In’. Though at this point, I think we’ll get the same thing as with ‘Hero’, a pure dance MV to follow a more elaborate title track. Which is a shame, because knowing the kpop industry, I have no faith in ‘The Clan - pt. 2’ and if ‘Stuck’ doesn’t give us anything more from this universe, I don’t think we’ll ever get it
• Editing and keeping track of the timeline was a bITCH
• Working title ‘All or Nothing’, and at some point ‘Now or Never’, but they are both too similar to ‘All In’, so that was scrapped in favour of ‘Blue Moon’. Still not entirely on board, but I cannot do summaries and titles, unfortunately, so this will have to do. ‘Blue Moon’ references several things, including the rare, spontaneous and unpredictable nature of certain events that might end up changing lives, blue as an obvious reference to the blue flowers, and this obscure meaning of blue moons as treacherous, because there are a lot of points about trust, relationships, and courage to stand up for one another in this fic
• Relatively heavy on the symbolism because the MV is heavy on symbolism, and I wanted to cut out a few of them just to make it more comprehensible, but I couldn’t decide what would be the best element to remove without inhibiting the story from the MV too much, so please excuse all of this.
• As far as I know, there is no official name for this flower that I assume is supposed to be fictional? A big part of my deal with the blue flowers is that they are super common and basically a weed. Well, weeds tend to have very basic names, often compounds from other species and whatnot, and I know a lot of flower bird names, or at least names derivated from birds, and I thought the bluebird was a simple, fitting name for this small, crowded plant. Particularly because the blue bird has become an image of happiness and ease, which is what the flower brings to the boys in this story, so that's sort of an easter egg if you know your birds.
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• I didn’t read the other All In!AUs around because I wanted to avoid being influenced by anything happening there, so if there are too many similarities (besides the obvious premise and some scenes depicted in the MV) I apologize.
• On the topic of houses. I debated whether to go with hanok or modern houses, because the MV kinda showed both styles a little bit, and I can't decide if they tried to go for one or the other and it just came out weird?? Basically I just decided to tone down my description of houses and use other mood indicators (though they are still very much there, soz)
• As mentioned during my interpretation of the MV, the magic aspect didn’t really sit with me, I wanted to create a more realist approach to this AU, as opposed to the magical angle that the MV hinted at towards the end. The thing is, apart from the big blob in the sky, there are no explicitly magical elements in the MV, especially since the entire thing about the flowers always screamed symbolism and drugs to me. I also think the story is more powerful if it is grounded in a more real world like ours, particularly since the events depicted echo a lot of conditions from both today’s society and past ones. Honestly, I didn’t like the magical aspect because it just felt too out of place and took a lot away from the more heartfelt sides of the story.

About the stylistic choices:

• Fragmentation. Two main reasons: I like the style, and also it allowed me to cover a lot despite having limited time to write and edit. I say this, but look at that fucking 25k monster
• However, the fragmentation also meant I spent a lot of time trying to deal with the logistics around the timeline, order of sequences, backgrounds, etc. Some scenes have been moved around too many times and a few scenes were deleted, which is why it probably doesn’t flow as well across every transition
• I hate, hate, hate the expositional prologue, but in this case, it couldn’t really be avoided. With such short snippets, it would take too long to insert different pieces of the background until it made sense, but at the same time I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make this a sensible story without some of it. Also, it was not specifically related to one character more than any other, so shoehorning it into ex Jooheon’s story line as a political thing (which was my original idea) could have been feasible, but not so much in the beginning. If I had more time and could spend bigger parts of the text just building the world gradually, I would’ve done that, but again, time constraints. I wanted to focus on the boys, their personal challenges, and the relationships between them, so even if the world fascinates me, priorities is a thing.
• You might know me from ‘A Strange and Magical Place’. If you do, you know I have basically two writing styles: this angsty, chopped thing ‘Blue Moon’ has got going for it, and ship to ship snark. It probably shows in some parts, but I hope the mood of the scenes blended them in nice enough (and I had to hold back so many comments about Minhyuk and Hyunwoo, you don’t even know)

About the characters:

• Firstly, the point of this fic was that I wanted to write an interpretation that gives all the members a storyline; the MV really only focused on Minhyuk, Hyungwon and Hyunwoo, and I haven’t seen anyone really expand on Hyunwoo’s storyline in headcanons or fanfictions either. I took some liberties, but tried to pull them from elements in the actual MV.
• I have some ‘themes’ and musical suggestions for this story, in addition to the obvious ‘All In’ and ‘Stuck’:
  ‘Born to Survive’ by Lee Richardson (also used in No Mercy, jfc powerful tune)
  ‘Sing Me to Sleep’ by Alan Walker
  ‘Battle Scars’ by Paradise Fear
  ‘Dreams’ by Imagine Dragons (I think I must have said that things are a mess five hundred times in this fic)
  ‘Save Me’ by BTS
  ‘Sound the Bugle’ by Bryan Adams
  ‘It’s Okay’ by Younha
  ‘Railroad Track’ by Willy Moon
  ‘No Matter What’ by BoA and Beenzino
  ‘Soldier' by Cocoa Otoko
  'Kids in the Dark' by All Time Low
  'Foot of the Mountain' by A-HA
  ‘Shine’ by Kim Bo Kyung
  ‘Lies’ by Big Bang
  ‘Some Die Young’ by Laleh
  ‘Like Toy Soldiers' by Eminem
  ‘Dear World’ by Boy Epic
  ‘Trials’ by Shady Bard
  ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ by Tiger JK and Yoon Mirae
• Again, I believe the orphanage thing could be seen as canon, so look at my explanation for that in the section about the MV.

• Hyungwon and Minhyuk:
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• honestly the story that bored me the most, because I felt like there was nothing to explore, and I almost felt like it was overdone, so many other writers have approached this aspect of the MV, etc. Hyungwon in particular was difficult for me to write because his character in this MV is so removed from his usual stage (offstage) persona, although a lot of it is situational, I suppose. I wanted to illustrate why he never fought back against his dad, and why he was driven towards suicide towards the end. Also, why he didn’t make it and why Minhyuk just seemed resigned instead of angry and hysterical. A lot of nuances that needed to be rooted in actual events and a shared background, but also not much I could get creative with.
• I wanted to give Minhyuk a solid background, because his character in this MV seems so different than the Minhyuk we are used to seeing that I wanted to provide a justification or story to explain all of it. I mean, he is still goofy and loud, but with more dimensions, bitterness and aggression. Furthermore, living with his parents for most of his childhood tied him closer to Hyungwon and removed him a little bit from the other orphanage boys, who seemed more close-knit and like, doing their own thing
• Like I said above, Hyungwon's mother's death is alluded to but never quite mentioned, and in my opinion what drives his father to behave as he does. Hyungwon is a very strong, independent character, but also very vulnerable.
• I've given the two of them the song ‘Icebreaker’ by Agnete, since she wrote it as a promise to her best friend to always help her through any challenges.

​

• Hyunwoo:
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• Hyunwoo’s story was also pretty much out there, it just had to be typed out, and since I feel like he is a character that doesn’t necessarily work well in a vacuum, he was also kind of difficult. The prison is obviously something I made up from ok nothing apart from the fact that arson is a crime, but I felt like it increased his sense of distance and age separation from the others - like he had to be an adult and face adult consequences even when the others kept running around. Also explains where the fuck he was that night since I already fucked up the timeline. Anyway. I made the dying character his uncle rather than dad because I felt like it would be too parallel to Hyungwon’s situation. Hyunwoo gets a personal theme, 'Hurricane' by 30 Seconds to Mars.

• Jooheon:
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• Jooheon’s story, like I said before, was one that I felt was sort of hinted, but never explicitly shown. He was obviously a rogue, being the boldest when they teased the soldiers and bringing Shownu the gun used to rob the bank. He also seemed to take the lead when it came to the flowers and the sessions in the shed. I like the fact that even though he's one of the youngest, he's also a figure that takes charge and does whatever he wants whenever he wants to, because he's determined like that. He’s got his own theme for this story, ‘You Can’t Take Me’ by Bryan Adams.

• Hoseok
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• Hoseok’s was the one where I had the least to work with. I mean he does literally nothing in the MV besides joining the arson (at least Changkyun has a couple of scenes with Kihyun). Basically he is just an invisible, but omnipresent character - which is where the guardian concept came from. BUT I had a lot of inspiration from his behaviour during stressful times in No Mercy, and along with his generally lowkey concerned disposition, so I made his shtick an overarching worry and used his fictional brother as a way of fuelling his insecurities and tie him better to the traumatizing events prior to the fic. I had a lot of fun creating Hoseok’s character in this, and although it could certainly have been fleshed out more if I had the time, I tried to input subtle hints in sections where he remained out of focus. Hopefully it’s still better than complete disregard… Don't have a great theme for Hoseok, but I did listen to Alexander Denstad With's 'The Other Side' a few times when I wrote this, and I remember Linkin Park's 'Numb' having relevant themes (I was a young teen ten years ago ok)

• Kihyun:
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• my picture game is so on point jfc
• As far as Kihyun goes, I fucked with him wayyyy too much compared to how I actually interpreted the MV. It seems universally accepted that he has troubles with his legs in this story, however, the insane trauma I put him through is a little bit over the top compared to what we actually see. But I wanted his story to have more impact, for there to be a solid reminder in the group about their fucked up society, and it also served as a counterpart to Hyungwon’s issues with his dad. It would be easier for Hyungwon to claim that what his father is doing isn’t so bad if he didn’t have to look at Kihyun’s struggles every day. Also this is purely self-indulgent. I realize that his presence in the story is pretty much defined by his physical impairments, but time constraints didn’t really allow me to explore him too much. However, it also gave Changkyun a storyline and an opportunity to illustrate the horror of the church fire.
• Kihyun’s muteness: another thing that I did not pull from the MV whatsoever and that I did not believe was a thing (I mean we never see Kihyun speak or like any indications that he speaks, but we only do that with like Jooheon, Hyungwon and Minhyuk anyway) but again, I wanted it in the story because reasons. Another illustration of the shit of the church fire, because (in case this wasn’t obvious in the story) my idea was that Kihyun was singing when the soldiers torched the place. He got scared of using his voice afterwards because he sort of feared experiencing a similar thing and bringing more pain unto other people. I imagine his throat was very sore for the first few days, meaning that he couldn’t, in fact, talk for a while after he woke up, and then he never dared to. The muteness was also a replacement for another ailment I originally wanted Kihyun to have, which is that he never smiled. I wanted to have the blue flower “cure” Kihyun in a way (not like his legs, but just mentally) and so I was originally going to have him smile for the first time since the accident, in order to give the flower some meaning to the boys and to explain that god-fucking head-bump thing between Changkyun and Kihyun. But then I realized that not smiling for two years is way too much, so I gave him the muteness instead and I think it works with some later plot points I was able to incorporate later (i.e. that he can’t call out to people when he is walking through the city. I can’t remember how he was originally supposed to go out into the woods)

• Changkyun:
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• Almost in the same boat as Hoseok, because this MV gave us nothing on his motivations, actions or problems. Ok cool. There is his suspicious intimacy with Kihyun during the blue flower shed scenes (not just one. Not just two. Like all the fucking time) and also I like ChangKi so sue me. The fact that his character seemed to only have some individuality in his relations to Kihyun is what ultimately made me give them this sort of couple-dependent-dynamic thing. I also feel like it fits them, as they are - Kihyun with his motherly tendencies, and Changkyun picking things up with his big heart after that shit event. Changkyun is a weird, but very melancholic guy, and I think he would latch onto Kihyun like this if something were to happen. Is it a cop-out to build his story arc around another character and their problems? Not really, because Changkyun’s problem, like Hoseok, is that he cares too much, and he was a lot younger than the other boys when shit hit the fan - of course he was going to feel it, and after Hoseok’s brother, Kihyun was the closest thing he had to safety. The two of them get a song together as well: 'Promise' by EXO.

• Some highlights from my notes about the characters prior to writing:
• Changkyun: caught up in Kihyun’s shit.
• Hyungwon: pls make a joke about his pretty face that's all I need
• Jooheon: orphanage trickster who just got too much shit. Raddest street child ever. The Artful Dodger of this Oliver Twist.
• Minhyuk: alpha kid at the orphanage (????)

Timeline

• I imagine that the soldiers came into the village roughly seven-six years ago, and that Minhyuk lost his parents soon after because they fought back. This is when he was sent to the orphanage, though he knew the other boys before that. I realize the ambiguous nature of this explanation in the fic might make it seem like they died in the fire, but I wanted to put this event earlier, because Minhyuk seems to have mostly recovered from this (apart from a lingering bitterness, but what can you do) and focuses on other issues these days
• The infamous fire, which indirectly killed Hyunwoo’s uncle, killed Hoseok’s brother and crippled Kihyun (again, they are just a few of the victim’s - pretty much everyone in the village were hit in some way or another) was a bit of an issue timewise for me. I originally imagined it to be a year or two after the soldiers came, because I wanted Hoseok to be really young at the time he lost his brother, but that would be too long for Kihyun and Hyunwoo’s uncle to live like they did - about four years. So I started to imagine it as two years, which is slightly more viable. I didn’t want it to be a recent thing either, because I wanted all the consequences to be old, bitter wounds rather than recent traumas. Think it gives the story a different tone. More or less, I wanted these actions to be a result of frustration built up over time, until the boys were old and brave enough to act, but still young enough to be children and definite victims of a fucked up situation.
• As far as the timeline goes, I know that the MV implied that Hyunwoo set fire to the hospital room on the same night as the robbery, at the same time as Minhyuk & Co burned down Hyungwon’s dad’s house, but I just didn’t find this very logical for these friends to conveniently do all of this at the same time. Instead, I wanted Hyunwoo’s incarceration to be another source of anger for the other boys, and to avoid this apparent split in the group between Minyuk, Hoseok and Changkyun vs Hyunwoo and Jooheon, with Kihyun and Hyungwon oblivious on the side.