05 Linear Notes

I wonder if I made Mark’s “crush” on Skorpios too overt. If the story ends up developing in a different direction, I’ll revisit this chapter and tone it down. My aim was to capture the kind of overwhelming instinctual attraction a spectator might feel when hit full force with a powerful performer’s presence and charisma for the first time. I don’t believe this kind of attraction necessarily has to be romantic or sexual in nature, but it does momentarily transport you to a different mindset.

Skorpios draws inspiration from several different artists. In the videos Mark is watching, he’s very much working off the blueprint of a suave ’90s R&B singer like Usher. I included Rain and Andy Lau because not only were they also inspirations, but they also hold personal significance in my developing awareness of Asian pop music. My first exposure to the Hallyu wave was through soloists Rain and BoA in the early 2000s. Even though I was only vaguely familiar with his music, I remember thinking how cool it was to hear that Rain was performing at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 2006 and appearing on The Colbert Report in 2008. I don’t know if his successful shows at Caesars Palace kicked off the trend of the hotel inviting other famous East Asian artists to perform there, but I’ll bet it definitely played a deciding factor.

Andy Lau is much less known to American audiences, but he was a huge star in Hong Kong during the 1990s. While I was growing up, he seemed like the epitome of “cool” to me. The pop culture ecosystem in Hong Kong during that time seemed to have several elements that we’d see later on reoccur in K-pop, like multi-hyphenate stars who were actors, singers, and tv show hosts or over-the-top fan nicknames. Andy was known as one of the “Four Heavenly Kings” of Cantopop, which is an appellation that goes pretty hard. The song I’ve included in the playlist may not be to everyone’s taste since it’s a slightly old-fashioned ballad, but it was a staple of my childhood and I’m the one writing the story so it gets to be included.