Short Kdramas/Drama Special/Web Drama
Part 1
From time to time I go through the well-known "drama hangover". Even if I try to balance my backlog, don't start too many dramas with diversified stories at the same time, even if I choose only one favorite to follow... it doesn't matter, the routine will run over all my plans and I end up not having the courage or the will to watch anything. Usually when this kind of thing happens, I look for short dramas, with plots that I don't need to think too much, just watch, smile, fall in love and that's it, move on. So I remembered to list these short dramas I've seen and give my recommendations.
Part 2 here
Part 3 here
Splash Splash Love
Splash Splash Love, the 2015 minidrama with only 2 episodes made me so immensely happy. The story is about a high school student Jang Dan-bi (Kim Seul Gi). Running away from a maths test she finds herself in a playground. Unconsciously, she goes into a puddle and is suddenly transported to the Joseon period. There she meets King Lee-do (Yoon Doo-joon). My review here.
After the Rain
Kim Kang Woo is my soft spot and this 2 episode drama special seemed to call to me. And good thing too because this show is excellent. This is a comedic human drama about Bong Gil who is forty years old, single and tired of taking care of his 90 year old father. My review here.
The Reason I'm Getting Married
Two very good reasons to check out this drama - Song Jun Ho and Hong Jong Hyun. 😍 The story is about a woman (Park Hee Bon) who is about to marry her long-time boyfriend and meets a friend from the past who has a crush on her. My review here.
Came to me and Became a Star
This story is about Gang Seok (Kim Ji Suk) and Ha Jin (Jung So Min). Both are struggling to stay afloat in life when they meet and fall in love. Review here.
Review Notebook of My Embarrassing Days
Another KBS Drama Special starring Jeon So-min and Park Sung-hoon. Do Do-Hye (Jeon So-Min) is a mathematics teacher and has an overly honest personality, which makes her face embarrassing moments. She keeps a diary where she writes down all these embarrassing moments and reflects on herself. My review here.
Handmade Love
Because this web drama has Lee Soo Hyuk as the lead actor, I had to go see what it was all about. This is about Woven (Lee Soo Hyuk) who is a god who sinned by touching the coat of a goddess and his punishment is to live on Earth and make clothes that cure humans of their sadness.
I think Lee Soo Hyuk is perfect for the role of a god with that perfect elegance and ethereal looks. And I want to thank whoever thought he should wear high collars and fluffy pullovers. ❤️
The first thing that struck me was the luxurious appearance of the small shop. The clothes were beautiful and the furniture looked wonderful and magical.
I liked the stories of the humans he had to heal as they seemed solid and with good messages but I also felt they were rushed, maybe because it was only 8 episodes. So the concept was very cute but the execution was not very efficient.
The Universe's Star
"The Universe's Star" is written and directed by Kim Ji Hyun, known for "Splash Splash Love". That, and having my beloved Suho/Kim Jun Myeon in the cast made me want to watch this drama. This is the love story between a talented singer-songwriter Woo Joo (Kim Jun Myeon) and Byul (Ji Woo), a 19-year-old student who turned into a grim reaper after dying in an accident.
This show has stayed in my heart forever because although it only has 6 half hour episodes, it has more depth than some regular length dramas. Each episode had the ability to make me think and feel, and themes such as the meaning of life, self-worth or appreciating the present came up regularly in my thoughts.
While I can't say that the acting of the main actors was excellent I really enjoyed the OTP arc. The ending is quite emotional and moving and although it left me crying it also left my heart full.
I also have to mention the friendship between Byul and Gakshi (ghost). Though they should be "enemies" a friendship is formed and it is a pleasure to see them together.
Queen of the Ring
It's a cute and romantic mini-series of only 6 half-hour episodes. It's perfect for those who don't have time to devote to an entire series of 16 episodes or more and the content is light and heartfully.
Story is about an ugly girl, Nan Hee (Kim Seul Gi) who one day receives a ring that holds a family secret. Due to the magic ring, she dates Se Gun (Ahn Hyo Seop) who is a handsome guy but has a cold-blooded personality and struggles to see her as his ideal type.
I have a crush on Kim Seul Gi and I thought she gave Nan Hee a spunky personality even though she's so insecure about her physical appearance. And, as always, the emotional moments of this drama were delivered by her in a touching way.
I didn't feel very good about the premise of this drama and the idea of the "ugly girl" liking a boy who was only interested in physical appearances was not winning me over. However, the drama showed me that it had a message behind the original idea that left me quite satisfied with the end result.
Romance Full of Life
It's about In-Sung (Yoon Si Yoon) who is preparing for the exam to become a police officer for 4 years. He fails the exam 8 times, but he still has a positive personality. He then applies for the high paying part-time job which is titled "Full Life Experience". And then his life changes.
Of the Three Colors of Fantasies trilogy, this was the weakest for me. What I liked: I loved Yoon Si Yoon in this drama. I thought he looked adorable as a geek with those chrome glasses and that ruffled hair.
I liked that he turned into some sort of superhero and stopped being a weakling but I hated some of his actions and the way it changed him for the worse.
The OTP was okay.
Two Lights: Relumino
For three years Seo In-Soo (Park Hyung-sik) has been facing partial blindness. Looking for a new leisure activity, he joins a photography club for people with visual limitations. That's when he meets Ahn Soo-Young (Han Ji-min) - a young woman who is part of the group of students.
The story shows the daily struggles each has to go through due to their physical limitations, as well as the bond that is developed between them as they get to know each other better.
This short film is to make people aware of Samsung's Relumino device so the running time of the film is only 30 minutes, so the story is developed quickly but manages to be sweet, sensitive and beautiful.
And I liked the message of hope, inner strength and independence in the midst of darkness.
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To all the new, young MCR fans out there who are just finding them during this tour - you will never know what it was like to be a fan back before and during the hiatus.
And that's a good thing.
I have been following My Chemical Romance since I was ten years old. MCR was the band that the freaks liked. The band that young queer kids were called fags and dykes for liking. Someone once called them the "poster child for suicidal depression," and they aren't wrong. We watched the band struggle with drugs and drinking and idolized how much they were able to do while blackout on tour, because if they could do something so powerful at such a disadvantage, then maybe we could, too. We watched the popularization of "guyliner," because having a term for men wearing makeup could make it an ironic fashion statement instead of a deliberate choice that would get you left bloody and unconscious on the floor of a gas station bathroom. We watched these guys destroy themselves, and we saw ourselves in them because we were destroyed, too. We wanted to believe that we could be just as important, no matter how broken we were, and we found shared experiences at concerts and cafeterias and skate parks and libraries, with other fucked up kids that wanted to listen to the guys that didn't care if people called them gay. The guys that made out on stage to the jeers of thousands of people and got bottles of piss thrown at them but kept doing it anyway. The guys that played with gender and sexuality and everything on the fringes of acceptability, in their lyrics and their performance and the way they treated each other.
This was important. It was life-saving. It provided a comparatively safe space in an unsafe cultural environment for the freaks to find comfort in. It was also hugely and dangerously unhealthy.
I've talked at length to my friends about how healing and lifechanging this tour has been for me, and I want to illuminate that for these young fans that are falling in love with MCR like I did when I was their age. When we were kids, most of our heroes were already dead. They died young, had tragic lives, and we saw ourselves in them. I fully believed MCR would end up the same way. It would have been so easy to be martyrs - to die young and beautiful. Gerard said it himself, back in the day, that MCR was destined to die young in a car crash and stay beautiful forever, and I think he truly believed that.
So they broke up. And, like a miracle, things started to change. They got clean. Got married. Had kids. Not just Gee, but the lot of them. They aged out of the 27 club, and then out of their 30s, and they only seemed to continue to thrive. Today, in 2022, Gerard Way is 45 years old. He has wrinkles. He has a daughter who is older now than I was when she was born. And they are touring again.
The cultural change from when I was a teenager to now, when you guys are, is monumental. It's insane. It's fantastic. Back in the day, Gerard made some occasional comments about playing with gender presentation (that all us trans people, including those of us that didn't even know yet, hunted down and cherished and kept in our chests for safekeeping), but the idea of doing something so flagrant as headlining Riot Fest in a dress was ludicrous. It would have gotten him booed (still did, even now). It could have gotten him killed. The fact that Gerard Way has stepped on stage three separate times this tour in a dress (so far! it's not over!) is such an incredible, monumental change from when I was a kid and I am so, so happy for you to be experiencing it as kids.
I had a cry about this at a P!ATD concert in 2018, after seeing preteens running down the halls in pride flags, and I feel even more strongly about it now than I did then. That you're able to talk openly about Gerard's gender performance without fear, that you're able to hear them go by he/they pronouns, that you're able to interact with other young fans in the wake of MCR's revival in a safe environment and take in the messages that are at the core of what they stand for? These are beautiful fucking things.
You can't know what it was like, growing up with MCR back in the day. But you get to know what it's like to grow up with them now. Cherish that. In Detroit, Gerard told us to take our meds, and reminded us that we made it. They made it. They fought through the hard parts, fought the demons, and came out the other side better for it. As you watch them put those demons to rest from concert to concert, know that there are older fans cheering you on, so fucking happy to see you sharing this experience with us, and so excited to see what way this changes you. We know it changed us.
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Sort of a distant tangent off my post about Ashton, but I'm growing more and more suspicious of the fandom claim that there's no time for small RP moments in Campaign 3. I do think that it's been challenging to get deeper party bonding or serious conversations that aren't about the big philosophical questions they're facing, since those do take much more time; but then I think about Calamity, or Candela Obscura. I can genuinely give you at least a couple paragraphs about pretty much every relationship in the two Circles, or in the Ring of Brass. I can also point to no shortage of small moments between characters in the Mighty Nein Aeor or Vox Machina Vecna endgame episodes, which were all extremely plot-heavy and fast-paced, and D20 consistently nails character relationships in a fraction of the time.
I think it really does come down to, as Brennan Lee Mulligan always says, the character creation phase. Laying down a solid groundwork in which everyone has a detailed, rich backstory and sense of personality and relationship history (in the case of characters who knew each other prior to the start of the series) is absolutely crucial, and even in the case of characters who don't know each other before going in, a good amount of time spent in character creation ensures that it's easier for them to develop those interpersonal relationships on the fly. I know in actual play there's some degree of finding the character as you play, but there are games for which there is a very short runway, and I don't think it ever hurts to do more extensive character prep than the bare minimum. And if there are gaps, I think it also helps to go back and fill those in mid-way, away from the table - Travis clarifying Chetney's backstory being a great example that allowed the history of Chetney and Deanna to feel realized and full, despite only a few episodes.
I'll also be blunt: most of the time when people complain that there aren't moments because the plot keeps moving...they're mad about shipping. Which has always rung hollow to me. It was a common complaint in C2, that no time was taken for character relationships, despite them taking an entire half of an episode for the Beauyasha date and despite no shortage of moments for all three of the other couples (and plenty of platonic moments between friends). The issue was never a lack of time; it was that the characters they wanted to talk to each other didn't actually have the relationship in canon that the fans had dreamed up, and so, when the chips were down, they went to other people.
It takes two seconds to say something like "I hold their hand", even in the middle of plot-heavy adventuring. If someone doesn't say it, it's rarely the GM rushing them; it's the player either choosing not to do so, or not remembering to do so, and either of those is quite revealing regarding how the player feels about that relationship and where it stands in their priorities.
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