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cere-mon-ials · 1 year

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2022 in kdramas

*that I finished

I spent my January nursing all that The Red Sleeve broke (my heart), nourishing what it gave me (provocation to write, notes here), cursing what it did for my overall k-drama viewing expectations. I am still mad that Lee Se-young wasn’t recognised for what she did in TRS, a show that belongs to Deok-im and her alone. I had finished Good Manager a day before, a long-winded bromance between Namkoong Min and Lee Jun-ho. I didn’t think much and truth be told, I don’t remember much either. Happiness fell flat after three episodes; stayed for the remaining episodes because of the excellent chemistry between the main characters. I evidently watched Coffee Prince many years too late but I saw every reason why I might have never finished school if I had seen it earlier.

Run On kept me thrilled on occasion, became white noise otherwise. I loved seeing my two joys, running and translation, woven into the show, loved the miracle of found friendships and homes, and a defiant writing philosophy that healthy relationships are worthy of being probed. Despite how unbearable Our Beloved Summer was about Ji-woong’s unrequited love, I could see the good-naturedness of the story writer-nim was trying to tell. I loved watching why the two leads fell apart and what brought them together. I loved that this had something to do with communication but I loved even more, that it just had to do with having grown up and realising you can love something you’re not and that’s one way to experience life. Kairos is the most underappreciated show that tackles time-travel. Great writing with exceptional attention to detail.

February was spent with the duology of the Ahn Pan-seok—Kim Eun—Jung Hae-in universe, the k-drama equivalent of Austenian bliss. Both shows benefit from Kim Eun’s thesis that romance may be intimate but love, in a patriarchy, demands a public that must accept it. Ahn Pan-seok is the finest orchestrator of moments that feel like the time lapse that falling in love is, that thing that people often reduce to soulmatism or violins at first glance. In One Spring Night, it works. In Something in the Rain, it fails because Kim Eun was still finding her voice as a writer who is stumped by what makes for the ‘right’ kind of conflicts in a 16-episode arc. I don’t think that’s the only problem with SITR but it’s the one she solved with marvelous elegance in OSN. In both shows, the main leads are charmingly, refreshingly communicative with each other. But it is in OSN, where Kim Eun figures out that being vulnerable is not the same as talking about vulnerable things, and how to make it count for all relationships that matter. Son Ye-jin and Han Ji-min, I love you both equally.

In March, I began paying an honorarium to the guard of my Jang Hyuk horny jail. Deep-rooted Tree made me cry in at least 14/24 episodes. A Joseon murder mystery wrapped in a drama about accessible language as the beginning to breaking down class barriers and nation-building, with nerdy love for character interiority? I ate that up. Han Seok-kyu is the only reel King Sejong ever. Just like Jang Hyuk is the only reel Bang Won ever. My Country: The New Age is a shallow show with hilarously lofty dialogues and masterful action sequences. In my most generous reading, MCTNA attempted to ask if Bang Won’s modernity could have come at a lesser price; is modernity not equivalent to audacity? Woo Do-hwan is almost as good at portraying audacity as Jang Hyuk.

Having Park Eun-bin and Kim Min-jae play Brahms in a riveting duet is exactly what Do You Like Brahms? set out to do. Introverts are rarely done well on the screen and getting it right with not one, but two leads is an achievement too. If you are a person fuelled by that mystical "passion," the creative arts industry can be a cruel place. Chae Song-ah is, by all accounts, not as talented as the others around her, and this is not a story of stick-with-it-till-you-rise-from-the-ashes. Even the hope that it might be is wonderful writing because Song-ah is far more assertive than anybody gives her credit for, like a baby who holds onto your finger with shocking strength. In classical music especially, there is no such thing: you are good or you are out. Park Joon-young is great and yet, he is begging for an out, because being good is just the beginning. These two and the other characters are deeply in love with music and they want to protect that love. They all find out that in the end that love needs sustenance, not protection.

I binged Fated to Love You in April, in a private experiment to see how much Jang Hyuk brainrot I can take. (Let’s remember this is a summary of the shows I finished.) I came out of it with brainrot for one more Jang. Outrageous show, outrageous star power. Soundtrack No. 1 was a forgettable experience save for the fact that I am now a person who looks up Park Hyung-sik’s MDL page on the reg. I think everybody is right about Twenty-Five Twenty-One: (a) Baek Ye-jin and Na Hee-do were always going to break up (b) It was a terribly-conceived finale. Two other opinions I am going to leave here: (c) Ji Seung-wan, darling of my heart, should have been the lead for the show that writer-nim actually wanted to do. (d) More people would see this, and also may have responded with thoughts beyond ship discourse, if Na Hee-do was played by anyone other than Kim Tae-ri.

I think people were right about criticising Lee Soo-yeon’s Grid too. The science of time-travel took some leniency. I get why the finale would have been unsatisfying, even as a setup for a potential second season. But I offer that the thesis of LSY’s shows is never in how they end, because they are not moral science lessons for the future. Grid’s deeply introspective themes of time-travel and the greater good begins with the the sun, the most reliable force in a human's life, turning against mankind. This immediately takes away a human as ultimate antagonist, when it easily could have been. For LSY, the future is the darkest place with unknowable power and we have the task of paving a path of light towards it. Time-travel is not the science-fiction component with which to imagine our behaviour in an unrecognisable, but possible, place. It’s the fucking fantasy. Even if we got the chance to change the past, we really couldn't. The future is what we have got to change and the present to make the first move. Those dreams of going back, repenting hard enough, flirting with what ifs? Not going to cut it. LSY's meta elegance is in bringing the intensely personal version of this theme in parallel to the big one: divorce. FWIW, she had all these threads tie together by Episode 7. I get why she said Grid is the next iteration of her life's work—an exceptional mind.

Park Min-young could have chemistry with a rock, and thank god, Seo Kang-joon isn’t one. When The Weather Is Fine is the rightest show about life in the countryside. It nails the fine line of a tight-knit community that shows up for you and also, how easily they can be the first source of judgement, as people who know your secrets. Best book club in a k-drama. Very well done pining. Imo is my favourite character and she should publish that novel because “Hey. Who do you think killed my brother-in-law?” is a banger opening line. I first saw Lee Jae-wook in this show.

During the weekends of April and May, there was My Liberation Notes. I watched it like a scheduled therapy session, although I do not think Park Hae-young is aiming for catharsis with her works (despite it seeming like the most common outcome). I didn’t have the word “healing” in my everyday vocabulary so often before k-dramas. It’s a genre of k-drama that is meant to be comforting, to inject slowness into everyday life as an antidote for the ills of modern society. Bullshit. There are multiple wide shots of the Yeom family tending their farms, eating in peace amid the greenery, and they are claustrophobic. It might feel like complaints, and you’re free to think that. But PHY knows, as most people my generation do, finding an escape is actually really easy. That’s not the point. The point is to be less sad about being who you are; to know that who you are is enough to make a living, find love if you want it, make peace with your family. This show is about siblings as the real loves of your lives.

I don’t remember what I was doing in June.

Pachinko is not a k-drama strictly speaking, but let’s do it. I adore Min Jin Lee and I am afraid to admit how emotionally attached I am to the world of Kogonada’s eyes. In MJL's book, the linear structure is meant to make you feel like the history of a family can also be a history of the other themes that consume intellectual space. In the show, there is no such thing as a past, or a history. Nothing is done, nothing is over and under the rug. You see Sun-ja’s and Solomon’s stories at the same time because there's no distance that makes what happened then far enough from what's happening now. For this alone, Pachinko is a superior adaptation. I have a shrine for every woman in this show. Watching Yumi’s Cells 2 has been among the happiest experiences of my TV viewing life. Bloody Heart could have been bloodier. I respected that it reached a conclusion without feeling the need to give a neat answer to its central question of assertive power as driver of both unity and chaos—there’s humility in realising that the answer need not be determined in one generation. Jang Hyuk thirst got me into the show, Kang Hanna’s outstanding face and smarts kept me there. Lee Joon’s Lee Tae nearly made me quit. Park Ji-yeon, muah. I watched the back half of Signal in July. It is no fault of the show that I was zapped out of will to see women being killed. There were two scenes of Kim Hye-soo’s that wrecked me bad, I had to quit watching for couple of days. Thank you to the makers for giving a genre-defining template. (Kairos did do it better.)

Alchemy of Souls was super fun as a weekly watch. Daeho is boring to me as a setting and the plot ventures into territories worthy of critical thought once in a blue moon. But I admire the ambition, and the storytelling does have its moments. Lee Jae-wook is a menace. Inhaled Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung over four days; I enjoyed it. Extraordinary Attorney Woo tried. I also binged Reply 1997. Reply 1988 is always going to be my favourite and I am not going to watch R1994 for a conclusive test of veracity.

Between these shows, their endearing efforts at being fulfilling shows about love of different kinds, I nibbled on episodes of My Mister. I couldn’t watch two episodes together; it was so potent, so unbelievably demanding of my attention in every way imaginable, and I gave it willingly. I wrote about the show here.

October brought the best mystery/thriller show of the year: May It Please The Court. It was written with a clear idea of how much to bite, knew how to chew on it, and that’s why it also landed the best conclusion of the year. The show is astute about forgiveness and justice, and well, forgiveness in justice. I think the show’s success is in how it trusted both its characters and the audience to process what this means to them. Jung Ryeo-won and Lee Kyu-hyung have impeccable married energy from first scene. Lee Sang-hee is the best, the hottest, the finest.

Little Women is the mystery/thriller show with the most potential of the year. It wasn’t until episode 11 that the show lost me but I do think the flaws began revealing themselves a lot earlier. I didn’t appreciate the show’s insistence that the central crime of the show was Sang-ah’s murders and not the patriarchal cult that pretends to be a meritocracy. I thought the Vietnam War references were in conversation for a whole different reason: I viewed it as a nod to the first war where losing means more than winning. That war is the blueprint for the 21st century exertion of control for the right to capital and target audience, rather than mere territory and pride. But this symbolism wasn’t what came through and I understand those who pushed back on how the war's references, along with an exotic flower, rang hollow. LW did get characterisation right, particularly the way poverty alters how intelligence is perceived and valued. It’s ambitious premise—that Louisa May Alcott was wrong in deciding these sisters would taper their poverty with unusual politeness—is radical.

I will rewatch the first 11 episodes of May I Help You in several trying days of my future. Baek Dong-joo and Kim Tae-hee, butlers to the dead and the alive respectively, are companions, friends and lovers, in that order. What's not to love? The acts asked of them are rarely grand but they are delivered with emotional heft. I forgive all the detours taken from episode 12. I tend to find it dull when everybody and everything is connected to each other. In this one's ending, it's quite lovely. I see the vision in saying that we only know Dong-joo’s story because that’s the story we have tuned into. The miracles could be happening to anyone at all. I wish writer-nim wasn’t so Christian throughout—the throwaway line about suicide put me off. Best piggy-backing scenes in a rom-com and also, favourite kiss, I am going to say.

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girderednerve · 3 months

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The AP found that U.S. prison labor is in the supply chains of goods being shipped all over the world via multinational companies, including to countries that have been slapped with import bans by Washington in recent years. For instance, the U.S. has blocked shipments of cotton coming from China, a top manufacturer of popular clothing brands, because it was produced by forced or prison labor. But crops harvested by U.S. prisoners have entered the supply chains of companies that export to China.

While prison labor seeps into the supply chains of some companies through third-party suppliers without them knowing, others buy direct. Mammoth commodity traders that are essential to feeding the globe like Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Archer Daniels Midland and Consolidated Grain and Barge – which together post annual revenues of more than $400 billion – have in recent years scooped up millions of dollars’ worth of soy, corn and wheat straight from prisons, which compete with local farmers.

...Incarceration was used not just for punishment or rehabilitation but for profit. A law passed a few years [after the formal end of the convict-leasing system in 1928] made it illegal to knowingly transport or sell goods made by incarcerated workers across state lines, though an exception was made for agricultural products. Today, after years of efforts by lawmakers and businesses, corporations are setting up joint ventures with corrections agencies, enabling them to sell almost anything nationwide.

Civilian workers are guaranteed basic rights and protections by OSHA and laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act, but prisoners, who are often not legally considered employees, are denied many of those entitlements and cannot protest or form unions.

“They may be doing the exact same work as people who are not incarcerated, but they don’t have the training, they don’t have the experience, they don’t have the protective equipment,” said Jennifer Turner, lead author of a 2022 American Civil Liberties Union report on prison labor.

#this whole article is good read the whole thing #it's extremely important that reporters & activists continue to bring to light the horrific abuses of prison labor #& that we all understand that none of this is new - angola / louisiana state prison is immense & has a vast bloody history #the largest agricultural producer in the state of texas in the 60s was the department of corrections #& as this article points out a rising reliance on incarcerated labor is one response #to the labor shortages caused by unchecked covid deaths + restrictive immigration policy #the whole of american incarceration & labor policy is evil. blood on the leaves & blood at the root

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x-heesy · 11 months

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Roots Bloody Roots:

Roots, bloody roots

I believe in our fate, we don't need to fake

It's all we wanna be, watch me freak

I say we're growing every day, getting stronger in every way

I'll take you to a place where we shall find our

Roots, bloody roots

Rain, bring me the strength to get to another day

And all I want to see, set us free

Why can't you see? Can't you feel?

This is real

I pray, we don't need to change our ways to be saved

That's all we wanna be, watch us freak @frenchpsychiatrymuderedmycnut

Roots Bloody Roots by Sepultura

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mistress-light · 3 months

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"I love you." Frey, has been dying to hear those words, and Cinta has been dying to say those words. Just freaking end me.

#forspoken #forspoken spoilers #mistress plays forspoken #i cannot freaking make gifs of THAT scene without feeling a rock in my throat and get tears #i'm a super sensitive sally i cry so fast lmao about stuff like that or emotional scenes #frey believed for years that she was unwanted and just thrown away her anger and grief are so deeply rooted #same goes for Cinta she bloody freaking had tears in her eyes when she transformed into that dragon ;-;#she had so much love to give and couldn't anymore #dofigjfaeiojg

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writinginthesecrettrees · 7 months

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So yeah.

Dean finds the porn Sam did to make ends meet in Stanford, and he doesn't say anything. But suddenly Centerfold is playing non-stop ("Driver picks the music, bitch.") and belting out "My blood runs cold, my memory has just been sold, my angel is the centerfold" and it doesn't take a pre-law genius long to figure out what's eating at him.

And maybe they never really broke up but that last time (furtive, angry, desperate, hurryhurryhurry before the bus pulls up) had been a goodbye and they both know that Dean's flings and Sam's almost-fiancee in those years weren't cheating. But this... getting money for getting fucked on film feels like a betrayal. If Sam would rather do porn than call Dean for help... Maybe the betrayal was his. He could have gone with Sam, could have kept him safe, could have gotten a job or hustled pool or, hell, he could have done the porn so Sammy could focus on school and stay his only. If Sam was doing porn, Dean had failed him. As a brother, as a lover--

Sam's voiice cuts through his thoughts. "I pretended they were you. I just... I was so empty without you."

And he wants to say he was too but instead he says "looked stuffed full to me," under his breath, half-hoping Sam won't hear and he doesn't look. Can't bear to see the kicked puppy hurt in Sam's eyes that he doesn't deserve because it was Dean's failing. Dean's fault.

And that's why he deserves the "Bet it took you all of an hour to fall into some bar slut's bed" Sam throws at him and the only time he's ever heard that venomous tone was aimed at Dad. Dean takes a breath, tries to pull his thoughts into some semblance of an argument and maybe if they get it all out, bleed out the poison, they can be them again, but Sam sighs before Dean can respond. "Dean, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean says, because he still wants that fight but if Sam's gonna be all mature. He glances over to see Sam with some wry smile and a bottomless sadness etched on his face, quickly hidden when he notices Dean looking.

"Yeah, whatever," Sam says and maybe it's his imagination, maybe wishful thinking, but Dean could swear there's longing there, some note that reminds him of years gone by. Back when they still tried to be just brothers.

And it's the way Sam chuckles as he calls Dean "Jerk" that has Dean changing the music, and he's not belting it out but he still sings along with "buckle up baby, it's a bumpy ride, we're two kids hitching down the road of life" and the ache in his heart eases just a little when Sam's hand slides over to brush against his leg.

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#the first fic i ever wrote for any fandom was a songfic #this is back to my roots in a big way #wincest #past weecest #music is fun #i meant this to be funny #but dean got in my head #with all his self-loathing and need #if only he could see himself through sam's eyes #my writing #oh the early seasons mess of them #before they got back together for real #somewhere between 'bloody mary' and 'bugs'#also 'born to be my baby' is their song i won't be taking arguments'#Youtube

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