#the eighth sense meta

[heretherebedork]

One of the biggest and most interesting parts about JaeWon is that EunJi obviously knows he's attracted to JiHyun and everyone has already begun to assume their relationship and that their biggest problem with JaeWon's sexuality is that it reveals to them that he's wearing a mask around them. That so many of them, who assumed that he was straight and that they knew everything about him, are realizing that the JaeWon they know is a mask and how most of them cannot accept that and will fight at every turn to force the mask to stay on even as it cracks, even as it destroys him, because it makes them more comfortable.

JiHyun's friends take him coming out as him trusting them and as part of him while JaeWon's friends see any change to himself as a threat to their image of him.

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense the series #the 8th sense #jaewon x jihyun #ji hyun x jae won #bl drama #bl series #korean bl drama #korean drama #kdrama #korean series #koreanbl #korean bl #the eighth sense meta #the 8th sense meta #korean drama meta #like this hit me like a asteriod ahahaha

[ranchthoughts]

The Eight Sense and missing pieces

(this is going to be long. I apologize in advance)

The Eighth Sense, from the cinematography to the narrative, is about what is missing, what isn’t shown, what we don’t see. The whole show feels like peering at the edges of a jigsaw puzzle: the uneven margin of tabs and blanks hinting that there is something missing, a broader picture, just beyond our line of sight.

I’ve talked about this before, but the filming style of The Eighth Sense leaves so much out. The backgrounds of shots are often so blurry we can’t see what is lurking out there, though sometimes we know there is something we are missing out on, something we can’t fully see. Other times, the shots are shaky and tight, leaving pieces we would generally consider important out of frame, like the filming of their ocean kiss in ep. 6.

And then in the narrative, like @chaoticfandomthot and @asianmade mention in their posts (1, 2), there are so many things we don’t see or know.

There are large parts of Jaewon’s backstory missing to us (and to Jihyun) which are filled in a bit as the show continues, but not all the way. We never see Jaewon’s brother’s accident, or Jaewon’s dad. We don’t see the incident where the camera is broken, just flashes of it smashing on the ground and the aftermath. These are things Jaewon doesn’t even share with his friends - they don’t know about his home life, or his brother’s death, as @lurkingshan points out. Jaewon hides things from the people in his life just as the show hides them from us.

Though, like Jihyun, we the audience get closer than anyone has before. We step into Jaewon’s life, we see his therapist, we catch those occasional flashes like with the camera incident, we watch him open up to Jihyun, and like Jihyun we get many of the pieces of Jaewon and his story he hides from everyone else.

There are other scenes in the story missing from the show too. We never see Jihyun’s accident, or Jihyun in the hospital. We never even really hear what happens. We don’t see Jaewon reuniting with Eun Ji after the accident, or much of their relationship before the first breakup or the second. We do hear about what precipitated their first breakup in a rare moment of explicit explanation, but this comes after much of the show has gone by and we don’t see it, we just hear about it.

"the hole they left inhabits the narrative more than their presence ever would have" - the show is about what we don't see. It’s about the trauma that haunts Jaewon, his home life, what he hides from others. It’s about Jaewon’s brother, who isn’t in the show except briefly in flashbacks, but has shaped Jaewon’s life and his relationships with others in innumerable ways. It’s about the trauma that Jihyun and Jaewon experience at the beach that isn’t shown, even to the audience.

@respectthepetty writes about how The Eighth Sense is all about tradition: Tae Hyung wants to continue the traditions of their seniors even though it caused him pain, Ae Ri wants to break with traditions she finds are stifling, much of Jaewon’s trauma comes from his family and familial expectations (the death of his brother, his desire to pursue a career in photography, etc.), and so on. But this “tradition” is in many ways curiously missing from the show. We don’t see the forces and people imposing tradition on Jaewon, like his time in the military, or his father, or his home life. We don’t see the club seniors or hazing Tae Hyung references, even in flashbacks. “Tradition” structures the characters and therefore the events of the show, but it is also more of a looming spectre, blurry in the background, just out of frame.

Half the show we have to piece together - what happened on the beach? Is Jihyun really dead? What happened to the camera? Who did that? Things are missing, told out of order, fragmented... and the cinematography echoes that.

This style of storytelling and filming works so well for the characters. Many people, like @emotionallychargedtowel, have talked about how Jaewon is a survivor of trauma and how that affects how he acts and sees the world. He is depressed, he has been through horrible events, he hides from others - and the narrative and camera work of The Eighth Sense reflects that. The backgrounds are blurry and unfocused, the shots are shaky, the framing shows flashes but not always the full picture, sometimes the chronology of shots is unusual.

@emotionallychargedtowel and @jjsanguine and many others offer (1, 2) that the filming style of The Eighth Sense, particularly at the end of ep.6 reflects/is caused by Jaewon’s mental state. He has just been through another traumatic event, which greatly resembles the one from his past, so consequently his recollection of events will be blurry, shaky, incomplete. Even the colouring gets darker and greyer. Jaewon’s mental state and emotions are so strong they are altering the form and the filming of the narrative. He is responsible for many of the conspicious absences in the show. We don’t see his brother’s accident or Jihyun’s accident or confrontations with his dad because we can’t - Jaewon can’t or won’t let himself remember them, at least not in their entirety.

The show also feels so queer because of this style. I talked about this in my other post, and @talistheintrovert​ talked about it in this post too, but the way the cinematography is fragmented into close up shots, shaky camera work, montages... the tension of being queer, not knowing if you crush likes you or could ever like you or if them knowing you like them is a threat to your safety, the dream-like safe bubble of two people loving one another amongst the outside world... Being queer, sizing up another person, it’s all about looking closely but not lingering, searching carefully for details that are hidden to most others. Like @jemmo​ says, “queerness can often hide in plain sight” - it’s the things broader society doesn’t see that hold the most significance for queer people. Of course a queer narrative wouldn’t be able to show things clearly, of course they must be hidden and hinted at but never explicitly said, never fully or clearly shown - eyes lingering in the shower, hands held for a moment and then released in the next shot, montages of an evening at the beach together.

We see the edges of the pieces, and from that we can understand most of the picture. The Eighth Sense is about the holes, the absences, the lingering presences of characters and scenes and moments we don’t see. It is about what isn’t shown explicitly, what the character’s can’t remember clearly, what the characters are avoiding remembering, what the characters hide from themselves and others and even us, the audience. It is about paying attention to what isn’t there and why it isn’t there and how we know what is missing.

#is it possible for me to make meta without referencing 253256 other posts? no #the eight sense #the eighth sense meta #thank you wonderful gif makers of tumblr for helping me illustrate my point #and thank you wonderful meta writers of tumblr for giving me so many things to reference #ranch thoughts

[shannankle]

Queer and Crip Temporality in the Eighth Sense and Giovanni's Room

I've been thinking the last week about how The Eighth Sense represents mental health and queerness through a fractured sense of time. It got me thinking about the concepts of queer and crip time which I think the show is depicting. I've also been thinking about how the parallels between how the The Eighth Sense captures experiences of fracture and abjection in a similar way to the novel Giovanni's Room.

For reference:

Part 1: Queer and Crip Time explained

Part 2: Giovanni's Room

Part 3: The Eighth Sense

Queer time and Crip Time

Queer time is a concept that touches on the way that queer lives don't progress in the normative way that non-queer lives tend to. It's a temporal displacement from the norm that queers expectations of heteronormative progress. As a small example, think of the way that many queer folks don't experience many traditional coming of age milestones in the same form or pace as is often expected; things such as dating or going through one's desired puberty may often come much later in life.

Notions of crip time build on the notion of queer time while thinking about disability. This captures in part the way that many disabled lives run on a different time scale, much like with queerness. From the way that a flare or doctor's visits can run a person ragged, taking up their time. To the way that lying in bed, isolated from society, time expands in ways ablebodied folks rarely experience. Crip time, like forms of queer time, however, also refers to a resistant mode of thinking about disabled futures. It interrogates the ableist impulse to envision the future without disability, while opening up for thinking about what a crip future might look like.

In an important way queer and crip time, and representations of them, are both about capturing a lived experience and about imagining otherwise.

2. Queer Time and Abjection in Giovanni's Room

I want to start first by thinking about Giovanni's Room because I think both this novel and The Eighth Sense use queer time in similar ways, but are striving towards different conclusions. So I think it's useful to use Giovanni's Room as a base.

The novel by James Baldwin follows David, an American man who moves to Paris where he begins to navigate his bisexuality and internalized homophobia when he begins a relationship with an Italian bartender Giovanni. The story is told primarily as a flashback, moving between a telling of David and Giovanni's relationship and fallout and the present moment (what David calls "the night which is leading to the most terrible morning of my life") where David is passing the evening before Giovanni's execution.

While the novel structurally plays with time to tell it's story, it also embeds time into the narrative in more symbolic ways as well. Throughout the novel, Giovanni is associated with atemporality, constantly out of step with the flow of Paris life due to his poverty and queerness which require him to work the night shift at a bar. Giovanni is placed both in opposition to normative time but also dependent on it for his financial survival. He gets off work just before dawn as the rest of the city begins it's day. As a shift laborer (he works as a bartender at a gay bar) he must work within a specific schedule for survival, and his poverty and queerness force him out of step with the rhythms of normative society. In this way, atemporality is a form of abjection or social death.

At the same time, Giovanni also turns to atemporality as a form of queer refuge when he is not working particularly within the space of his room where David spends time with him. David recalls that "life in that room seemed to be occuring beneath the sea. Time flowed past indifferently above us; hours and days had no meaning." Giovanni's room becomes a space where time has no meaning, making it free from social constructs of time. All of this, importantly, is carried by the metaphor of the sea, which on the surface marks time by the movement of the tides and the moon, but deep below the surface these tides become imperceptible. And after Giovanni loses his job, David notes how he feels as if he is sinking deeper.

Unfortunately, in Giovanni's Room Baldwin depicts this queer refuge as unsustainable. Temporal norms demand that the body must labor and do so on a specific schedule or social death turns into literal death. After losing his job when his boss tries to exploit him sexually Giovanni sinks further into poverty before killing his former boss and facing execution. At the same time, conformity is also framed as death. David ultimately struggles with his attraction to men. At one point he sleeps with a woman to test his manhood noting afterwards that at this point "I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine." Baldwin sets up a tension, where the characters can neither escape the norm nor conform since both bring death.

3. Queer and Crip Time in The Eighth Sense

Like Giovanni's Room, The Eighth Sense relies on a fractured and displacement of time to convey the abject nature of queer experience, particularly through the editing style and the way this conveys JaeWon's experience. Of course, I would argue that The Eighth Sense leans towards a more optimistic resolution (at least so far) while interweaving an exploration of trauma, mental illness, and disability with queerness (in comparison to Giovanni's Room which primarily interweaves social class).

Throughout the show JaeWon faces the strain of normative time and a lingering feeling of too-lateness. He is on the cusp of graduation, like many of the seniors he is expected to take the next step soon of finding a job and entering the rhythms of the workforce. We can feel the strain of this in many ways. For example, the fact that he would like to try out a different career path (photography) but tells his therapist that he feels it is too late.

This too-lateness, of course, also ties into both his queerness and his experience with trauma. Experiencing his brother's death and feeling that he was to blame, that he was in every way too late to save a life that meant so much to him. This affects his relationship with JiHyun after the accident. Once again he failed someone close to him. And in his eyes we can see how he has given up, that in his mind it is all too late. Too late to choose the happiness JiHyun brings him, too late to remove the mask he wears around others, too late to trace a future that doesn't just repeat the past.

The stylistic way in which the show edits and chops up time shows this fracturing well, capturing the way trauma can crip time and the way non-normativity can lead to an internal sense of abjection. Much like Giovanni's Room we see the pressure of normativity and the way this fractures JeaWon, and of course the show subtly gestures to one potential end point when his therapist asks if he has been considering extreme options.

In another similarity to Giovanni's Room, the strain of normative time is contrasted with spaces that offer queer escape, where time expands and normative progression is cast aside. The ocean for him is in some ways that space. We see this most in how JiHyun becomes a safe space for JaeWon. He tells his therapist that he is "happy with him" to which she responds "I can tell that he offers you a place to rest." As @respectthepetty and others have noted, this is shown visually as JiHYun brings light to JaeWon's world.

It is also captured on their beach trip in episode 6. The dreamlike quality and temporal jumping can be read as a way of conveying the refuge of queer and crip space that throws of the shackles of normativity through a sense of atemporality. I think we might also consider the therapists office as a quasi space of crip refuge. While these scenes are still darkly lit and not so dreamlike, they similarly serve as a space where JaeWon's trauma is not fully hidden behind a mask or himself in shadow.

It is largely the ocean which centrally stands in symbolically as this space of refuge for JaeWon and of course as JiHyun comes further into his life, the two merge as JaeWon brings him to the ocean for their trip. Yet, as episode 6 closes, we see this space of refuge, much like in Giovanni's Room prove unsustainable, marked by the threat of death and loss when JiHyun is hurt and this refuge slips away in JaeWon's eyes. He is sinking deeper.

Once again we are faced with both paths leading to abjection and death. However, while the last few episodes have not aired yet, I do believe that The Eighth Sense pushes for a different conclusion than Giovanni's Room and we see this in JiHyun. Like David in Giovanni's Room he comes to find himself in the big city, but instead of internalizing homophobia, he challenges himself to be brave. He is building a network of caring people, many of whom are themselves outcasts in some way, finding new ways to think about queer futures. Even his choice to work sidesteps the grueling constraints of capitalist labor by finding a place where he is valued by his boss (note how often she assures him he doesn't have to work, it's a choice). Again, the final episodes aren't out yet, but I believe the show is building to an alternate conclusion, one where JiHyun and JaeWon can both find it in themselves to choose a future, a future that is crip and queer and not too late, but rather infinite.

#the eighth sense #meta #my posts #my analysis on giovanni is from a term paper from years ago so citing myself i guess #i love the layers in this show #I also feel like the line #to cause you trauma #takes on more nuance in this context #but that's probably for another post #i might update this after the final episodes drop #giovanni's room #the eighth sense the series #bl series #korean bl #the eighth sense meta #my meta

[wen-kexing-apologist]

*lies down for a nap*

*thinks about The Eighth Sense post by @starsickkk and @lurkingshan*

*jolts violently upright from bed*

"OH MY GOD, EIGHT SENSES"

Okay so most of us are familiar with the five senses, right?

Touch

Sound

Sight

Taste

Smell

But there are three other senses as well, at least according to this website on the sensory processing system, and this one on autism, and this one from the STAR institute, and this website on neurodiversity as well. So what are the other three senses?

6: Vestibular- This is your balance and orientation in space (x)

7: Proprioception- This is your perception of position, location, and movement of your muscles. Essentially your ability to process where your body physically is. (x)

According to Wikipedia (this is a fictional show and as such I will not be spending time looking for the original, actual, scientific journal articles) your body uses information from both proprioception and the vestibular system to understand your body's position and movement. Now the internet has not been specific/completely in agreement about whether vestibular or proprioception is 6 or 7, but multiple sites I've cited on here do list the following as the eighth sense:

8: Interoception- Internal perception. The eighth sense is what allows us to feel if we are hungry or thirsty. But it also said to be tied to how you experience/feel your emotions.

According to these website you can either be hypo-sensitive (meaning low awareness) or hyper-sensitive (meaning high awareness). People with low interoception might not be aware of pain and temperature, might not feel hungry or thirsty, and may have trouble identifying their emotions. People with high interoception may have heightened awareness of their hunger or thirst signals, might experience emotions more strongly, and might feel pain even after an injury has healed.

And it's making me think about this post from @chicademartinica about JaeWon's relationship to food. I don't think these are entirely related but, I don't know I guess I'm just thinking about whether or not there is a reason this show is named The Eighth Sense. Whether or not this show will explain the meaning of The Eighth Sense. Whether or not what we are seeing before us is real or imagined.

And because I sometimes have difficulty pointing things out and then letting it hang open for interpretation and speculation, I started digging into the idea of PTSD playing with interoception. I found this study from Frontiers in Psychology that found "the more childhood trauma participants reported, the more difficult it was for them to perceive their heartbeat after the stressor" where heartbeat was being used to define interoception. And something I do know to have a current evidence basis is that prolonged exposure to stress, particularly in childhood, is associated with greater HPA axis dysregulation (For those of you who don't know, the HPA axis controls stress) that can cause both physical and mental health problems long term.

Prolonged exposure to stress like, say, having to abandon your dreams and your passions to take over the family business?

Prolonged exposure to stress like, say, having an aggressive father?

Prolonged exposure to stress like, say, witnessing the death of your baby brother and being powerless to stop it? Living with the guilt of that for over a decade?

What I really want to know is the name of the medication JaeWon is taking because that can help narrow down the type of mental health problem he is struggling with.

Any way you play it though, I am really just curious if the name of this show is The Eighth Sense because JaeWon is missing his. Because he's numb, because he's not eating, because he's has outbursts of aggression, because he's feeling detached from people who aren't JiHyun (many of these are symptoms of PTSD by the way), because he wants people to like him and he wants to be nice, but you can see him just spend so much of his time folded in on himself. But JiHyun is lighting that spark, JiHyun is getting him back in touch with his emotions. JiHyun is making him feel happy again.

Note: Usually I would want to be more responsible about sharing science like this (ie I would be checking sources for accuracy, trying to find studies or at least looking at the studies these articles may have been inspired by, making sure these studies are published in peer reviewed journals or whatnot. But as I said before, this is a fictional piece of media and so I will not hold it to the height of scientific feasibility because this is what you find on the internet when you google this stuff so if the writers were at all informed by this concept this is probably far more likely what they would have found)

#the eighth sense #t8s #the eighth sense theories #TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS PEOPLE I WANT TO KNOW #the eighth sense meta #jaewon #jaewon x jihyun #I need the next episodes now so I can know whether or not this show is real #i honestly have no idea how we got here

[emotionallychargedtowel]

The Eighth Sense episodes 9 and 10: All we can do is try

Wow! I think for the most part the showrunners of T8S did really well with the final two episodes. I have a few quibbles, but they managed to tie up most of the loose ends convincingly and do something worthwhile with the therapy part of the story, so I’m calling it a win.

These episodes don’t include a lot of further development of the psychological themes of the show, and for good reason. They’re too busy resolving everything that has already been brought up. But they do portray some shifts and make some statements about the characters and the larger themes they’re engaged with. Some fall a bit flat, most are good, and a few are really outstanding.

Below are the subject headings I’ll be getting into under the cut:

The final therapy scene

Being selfish

A shift for Jae Won

When it’s OK to expect “too much”

All we can do is try

Miscellaneous lingering thoughts

Tagging you again, @waitmyturtles!

The final therapy scene

Jae Won’s therapist has always had a style that is informal and blunt, plays around with boundaries, and uses humor. I would have expected her to be willing and able to use confrontation in therapy as well, because that strategy really goes along with that overall style. Well, in this episode she confronted Jae Won quite directly. She definitely didn’t pull any punches but I think she stayed within the range of reasonable therapy strategies. One thing I can say for this show’s portrayal of therapy: they have created a three-dimensional therapist character who has a specific, consistent style that is cohesive and realistic. So, a little background about therapists directly sharing their unvarnished perspective with clients. In most types of therapy work and in most styles of doing therapy, the therapist develops a conceptualization of a client early on in their time together, then revises or adds to it as they learn more. Often, certain things seem very clear to the therapist that are hard for the person themselves to see. (Of course, if you’re doing your job well, you kind of keep a mental asterisk next to any and all of these conclusions and don’t consider them confirmed until the client agrees.) The conceptualization includes not only diagnoses (which may be provisional) but also thoughts about how the client’s difficulties probably came about (a.k.a. their etiology) and thoughts about what sort of changes are needed in order for them to feel better and function in a more adaptive way.

Most of the time it’s not a good idea to just blurt those things out to the client. They usually need to come to certain conclusions on their own. There are ways of helping them toward those conclusions or feeding them small bits of them in a way that helps them to cobble together their own version of that insight on their own. But to a great extent, they have to figure it out themselves.

Still, there are some times when it makes sense to directly hand a piece of your conceptualization over to the client, even if it’s challenging for them to hear. This is what Jae Won’s therapist does. At a point where some therapists would be keeping their ideas to themselves, she comes right out and tells Jae Won he’s being selfish. In real life, this degree of confrontation would only work if the therapist was leveraging both a strong rapport and a strong base of knowledge about the client (preferably, these would have been built up over the course of years). This would be hard to show specifically in a tv series, but I’m assuming that Jae Won’s therapist has those resources in hand and is using them in this way.

And she doesn’t pull any punches! If anything, she might be intentionally putting things in a way that’s critical toward Jae Won. Why would she do that? Well, I think what she’s after isn’t just a chance to be direct with Jae Won about her viewpoint on his situation. I think she’s also hoping to give him a kind of jolt that will wake him up, so to speak. It’s related to something I wrote about in my last T8S post. There’s a theory that in order to go from a depressive, dissociated type of PTSD expression (associated with an acute “freeze” response to trauma) to a more healthy engagement with life, you have to pass through a more activating kind of PTSD symptoms (associated with a fight and/or flight acute response). This is a great example of that. Jae Won’s PTSD is very much of the freeze-y, depressive type. Getting irritated with his therapist helps him to start connecting with his emotions again, and that sort of snowballs into him getting increasingly un-frozen.

As usual, it’s hard to situate the therapy session shown at the beginning of episode 9 at a precise point in relation to other events in the story. But wherever its exact chronological position is, it definitely seems to inform the choices Jae Won makes  from that point on. It’s funny how human beings can defend ourselves against the things others say to us and seem so sure of ourselves but then, perhaps after more thought, can still take in what they said. Jae Won protested that this was how things had to be, at least for now, when his therapist pushed him. But he wound up taking what she had to say to heart. 

One of the things I appreciated most about this therapy scene was the fact that it seems to have actually made an impact on Jae Won and on the story more broadly. I’ve been worried pretty much from the start of this series that even if therapy was portrayed in a complex, realistic, but positive way, it still wasn’t likely to be shown as an agent for change. But this portion of this session seems like it at least made a significant impact. I found it really encouraging to see that.

The next part of episode 9 is the conversation Ji Hyun has with Joon Pyo and then, once she arrives, with Ae Ri. I found this scene a little bit clunky. Suddenly it’s as if Ae Ri is Ji Hyun’s therapist and not a fellow college freshman. It didn’t really seem realistic as a discussion between people their age. But it served its purpose. Ji Hyun needed a nudge to consider how Jae Won’s trauma history played into his reaction to the accident and his treatment of Ji Hyun, and this conversation got him there.

Ae Ri also exhorts Ji Hyun to be patient and careful and not try to rush things with Jae Won. Events in the story seem to show that her advice was correct. But I have some quibbles with it, which I’ll explain further below.

Being selfish

In both Jae Won’s conversation with his therapist and Ji Jyun’s conversation with Ae Ri and Joon Pyo, there’s a theme of selfishness. I want to dig a little deeper on that. Jae Won’s therapist tells him he’s being selfish. A lot of what she mentions is more along the lines of being self-absorbed. He simply isn’t considering how Ji Hyun might feel. Trauma often causes people to be more self-absorbed, so this stands to reason. But there is also an element of actual selfishness at work. Jae Won frames his avoidance of Ji Hyun as protecting his friend, and he does sincerely think he’s doing that. But he’s also trying to protect himself--in fact, I’d say that is a bigger factor for him. Avoiding Ji Hyun allows him to avoid his memories of the accident (and the reminders of his brother’s death that come with them). He thinks it will allow him to avoid suffering another loss and feeling the pain that comes with that (though in fact, for the period where he pushes him away, he’s actually causing himself to lose Ji Hyun). He doesn’t want to feel all of the difficult emotions that come with everything that has happened, and he makes that a priority over being there for someone who loves him and who has also just experienced something traumatic.

(By the way, does this dynamic--saying you’re putting another person first but not really considering their perspective, staying in your safe zone within your own head and abdicating your responsibility to someone who loves you--sound like another BL character you know? Yep, it’s a different version of the Hira Kazunari maneuver. It has a very different spin on it but there’s also a good deal of overlap. Thanks to @jemmo for pointing out this and other parallels between T8S and Utsukare, though it’s possible I’m taking this in a different direction than they would.) 

At the same time, Jae Won is a survivor of trauma. And I’d bet dollars to donuts he also experienced  complex trauma in the form of physical abuse by his dad. He just got out of the military and is still adjusting to that transition. Meeting Ji Hyun and facing the feelings he has for him is a mostly positive thing, but at the same time, it shakes up his whole world and his way of relating to others. He’s going through a lot and has a limited amount of insight into his own situation. Personally, I’d hesitate to simply label him as selfish. But his therapist’s interpretation is valid, and may have been intentionally expressed in a simple and confrontational way in order to get through to Jae Won.

What about Ji Hyun? Ae Ri doesn’t say he’s selfish, but he says during they’re conversation that he thinks he’s been selfish and she says, “What’s done is done,” seeming to tacitly agree with him. It’s true that he has been focused on what’s happening between him and Jae Won and hadn’t considered how Jae Won’s prior trauma history might be playing a role in his behavior until that point. But he’s just a kid, he just went through a traumatic experience himself, and it’s totally legitimate for him to be preoccupied with the Jae Won situation under the circumstances. 

So, are they both being selfish? Kinda. Is it that simple? No. Did they come by their self-absorption honestly? You bet they did. But they both benefit from getting a wake-up call, so it seems there’s no harm done even though that label is rather reductive.

While I’m talking about Ae Ri’s sudden turn toward sounding like a therapist, there’s another big thread in her discussion, and that is the need to approach Jae Won very carefully and gently. Honestly, I don’t really get this. It’s not a bad idea. It’s often a good idea when dealing with anyone who’s experiencing a lot of distress. But it’s also not some kind of well-known principle of relating to or repairing with a trauma survivor. I would say that it depends on the survivor and the situation. Ji Hyun has already struck out while being more overt in his pursuit of Jae Won at this point, so changing his tack makes sense. But Jae Won’s therapist got some mileage out of confronting him. I guess I just find this kind of random. Well, it figures that a freshman fine arts major might not have the most flawless psychological insights. But this, along with Ae Ri’s abrupt shift in tone, ends up feeling like another way in which this scene seems kind of half-baked.

A shift for Jae Won

Throughout episode 9, Jae Won seems to be “thawing out.” His affect starts to be less blunted from the start of the episode. I think he comes back to himself a bit more after Eun Ji tricks him into kissing her in front of Ji Hyun. I had said before these episodes dropped that his protective feelings toward Ji Hyun could get him out of freeze mode, and although I was picturing something more clear and dramatic, I think some degree of that may have played a role once he saw what seeing them did to Ji Hyun. 

For a second, when Yoon Won meets with Ji Hyun and Jae Won to talk about writing a report for the university on how the accident happened, I thought they were actually going to sit down and hash out what happened and try to sort through the roles they played. Honestly, I think it could have been great. It could have functioned as a form of exposure, which counteracts the temptation to avoid that fuels PTSD. It could have been an opportunity to expose the cognitive distortions that Jae Won was harboring in his attempt to blame himself for the accident. They had a neutral, but kind, third party present that could have kept them from being so reactive toward each other that they couldn’t accomplish their task. But they the story went another route. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was a missed opportunity. There was still an important moment here, though--Ji Hyun reaching for Jae Won’s hand and persevering even after Jae Won initially shrugs him off. The way it was filmed was so evocative.

I loved that Ji Hyun bought Jae Won a new camera. I don’t particularly think he knew the connection between Jae Won’s old camera and his younger brother, though it’s possible. It seems like he was more motivated by wanting to, as he put it in his card, “support [Jae Won’s] dream.” Then he ended up re-enacting Jae Won’s brother’s gift in a way. I wouldn’t have assumed that would be helpful in real life, but it could be, and in this instance it seems that it was. There was definitely a nice full-circle aspect to it, narratively speaking.

All of this, together, made for a pretty convincing progression leading to Jae Won opening back up to and finally responding to Ji Hyun. Pretty convincing, within the realm of fiction. And I desperately wanted a happy ending for this show, so I’m definitely not complaining there. But relative to the can of worms the showrunners had opened up in the last two episodes, I felt like the change in Jae Won that was needed for a happy ending wasn’t quite earned. Maybe I have a little too much background knowledge of trauma for my own good? I’ve seen, and experienced, how much time and work it takes to come back from the state Jae Won was in during episodes 8 and 9, but if I knew a little less maybe I wouldn’t perceive a disconnect here. I guess if I could change something I would either have made things a bit less extreme when Jae Won hit bottom or I would have included a more dramatic plot twist to get to the resolution, one that could have balanced out the intensity by giving him some sort of huge motivation to get out of his rut. Which probably would have involved torturing both him and Ji Hyun even more, which of course I didn’t want. But I guess I’d still prefer something that seemed more realistic to me.

In the end I’m reminded of Utsukushii Kare again (”what doesn’t remind you of Utsukushii Kare, Towel?” you may ask, and you’d have a point). At the end of season 1, UK led the audience down a path toward a well-composed ending. But when I rewatched it and looked at it more closely, it seemed a little convenient, and more than a little bit sudden, that Hira finally got his head out of his ass when he did. And then what happened when we got to season 2? He’d reverted to form in a lot of ways. It was frustrating to an extent, but I was glad. Because it made more sense for that character to have to put in more time and work to earn that degree of change. If we get more of The Eighth Sense--and I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened, since the showrunners have already dropped hints--I think we might see them doubling back a bit into those pieces that don’t seem fully resolved here.

When it’s OK to expect “too much”

I wrote in my last T8S post about Ji Hyun’s comment about wanting to help Jae Won heal. Basically, I said that there was likely some degree of naïveté on display there, but at the same time, I think that those of us watching the show from the United States and other places where individualism is the rule have a bias against the idea of wanting, asking for, or expecting a certain level of care from the important people in our lives--a level of care that is actually quite reasonable. One of my favorite things about the last two episodes of T8S is that there are moments when the show makes a strong case for normalizing expecting a lot from--and being willing to offer a lot to--one’s partner. 

This gets shown metaphorically in the “game” Ji Hyun introduces to Jae Won toward the end of episode 10. Here’s how I wrote it down in my notes:

JH: Hyung.

JW: Yes?

JH: Do you know that game?

JW: What game?

JH: Take two steps back. (JW's hesitant.) Come on.

(JW steps back, looking just a little bit forlorn.)

JH: If you take two steps away from me, I'll...take three steps towards you.

(He does, then steps back to his former position again.)

JH: Take two steps forward.

(JW does.)

JH: If you take two steps forward, I will be here waiting.

This was without a doubt my favorite moment in the last two episodes, possibly of the series as a whole. It’s a really meaningful statement of commitment. I’ve written about the pursuer-distancer dynamic in BLs in the past. I didn’t see a lot of it in this series. I think that’s because we just barely get to see Jae Won and Ji Hyun’s relationship get off the ground and there are so many other obstacles they have to overcome that they don’t get that many chances to run into challenges in that area. But i think that framework is useful for talking about the “game.” In a very real sense, Ji Hyun is saying, “if you distance yourself from me, I’ll pursue you. If you pursue me, I won’t distance myself.” The healthiest way to handle pursuer-distancer roles in a relationship isn’t to avoid ever pursuing or distancing. It’s to stay flexible enough that either partner can pursue or distance at different points when it’s needed without getting calcified into one habitual, exaggerated role. That’s part of what Ji Hyun describes here. He’s also describing a determination to stay steadfastly emotionally available even in the face of the kind of circumstances that drive both pursuing and distancing. It’s beautiful.

All we can do is try

There’s one thing The Eighth Sense has over Utsukushii Kare (season 2, specifically), and that is that Jae Won and Ji Hyun openly acknowledge something that Hira and Kiyoi never state directly (and maybe haven’t even figured out yet at the end of season 2). In the last scene, Ji Hyun asks Jae Won if he thinks they’ll be OK, and he replies, “All we can do is try.” He’s echoing both Ji Hyun’s boss and Yoon Won here, as both have made this point in different ways. (It reminds me of the old-fashioned screenwriting convention of having any really important piece of information repeated three times.) There are no guarantees and there’s no ironclad way to make sure things will work out. In fact, things are bound to not work out in some respects. The trick is to be able to sit with that and keep going anyway. I have a few last unwritten Utsukare posts living in my brain and one of them is about the “contradictory” or “bittersweet” feeling both Hira and Kiyoi talk about in their voiceovers during season 2 and how I think what they’re describing is just the inherent contradictory nature of loving someone. Loving someone means being drawn to them, wanting to be with them, feeling willing to put yourself out there for them, but it also involves a risk that can be deeply scary (even scarier if you have as much baggage as Hira and Kiyoi). But this never gets stated--it’s like neither of them quite figures it out. But by the end of The Eighth Sense, Jae Won understands this. He may still need some more time to fully take it in, but at least he’s aware of it on an intellectual level. Love is risk and there’s no way to avoid that aspect of it, but it can be more than worth it. “Let's try it together,” Jae Won tells Ji Hyun, “even if we're afraid.”

Miscellaneous lingering thoughts

I’m not entirely happy with the way Dae Hyung and Eun Ji were redeemed. Jae Won’s discussion of Dae Hyung’s genuineness took me by surprise and made a degree of sense. I’m not entirely sold on it, but I’m more sold on it than I would have expected. But Eun Ji? It’s like by the end of episode 10, she’s had a complete personality transplant. And then she makes that nonsensical comment about the five senses? I found it all a bit ham-fisted.

I loved the “don’t just treat me cute” scene. It was (sorry, Ji Hyun) cute as hell, and it introduced some additional complexity to the characters and their relationship. But I think it was also a deliberate response to BL tropes, especially tropes that many have noted are particularly widespread in Korean BLs. Jae Won is pretty clearly a seme figure in the story. He does most of the pursuing. He also has some of the more stereotypical seme qualities. He’s older, he’s a bit taller, and he has a broader build than Ji Hyun. He’s the “hyung” in more ways than one. But whereas we might expect Ji Hyun, the younger, somewhat smaller uke, to become like a “blushing maiden” type in the bedroom, he shows a completely different side here. “Don't just treat me cute,” he says. “You don't know what's coming.” He smiles during that last part, and it’s at least partially lighthearted. But that line is also sincere. And it acts as a kind of commentary from the showrunners. “You don’t know what’s coming,” they tell us. “The seme/uke role split, age, and relative size of these characters doesn’t predict how they’ll relate to each other sexually.” Good for them! More BLs should include gestures like this one.

I love that Yoon Won and Joon Pyo hooked up. They’re both such straightforward sweeties that it makes sense that they didn’t waste any time wondering if the other was into them or worrying about the implications and instead just skipped ahead to hardcore making out. Also, heaven forbid an older woman take an interest in a younger man! That aspect seemed like another way of pushing against conventions.

I’ve made quite a few critical comments about the final two episodes here, but I want to make it clear: I thought these episodes, as well as the series overall, were really well done. I enjoyed the series a lot. It stumbled in places, mostly because it’s so ambitious. But the result is really admirable.

#The Eighth Sense #the eighth sense meta #the eighth sense discussion #the eighth sense analysis #psychology of bl #jae won x ji hyun

[waitmyturtles]

Alright. I’m all caught up on The Eighth Sense. WHOA. Whoa. WHOA. Good. Lord. 

First off, before all the theories: this is obviously a really fantastic show, by way of the soundtrack; the use of silence; the cinematography and very varied filming styles; the use of LIGHT and lighting; the film editing and smart, sharp editing cuts (more on this in a sec), and the utterly, UTTERLY amazing acting. CHOPS, we are seeing CHOPS in a show that’s just reducing the usual K-drama tropes to DUST. WOW, KOREA. KOREA SHOWED THE HELLLLLLL UP for this one. This is like zeitgeist-level stuff.

And, oh my god. The kissing scene in the waves. The scene in bed. My heart was taken away. The last scenes, the storm coming in, the waves getting higher and higher, Jae Won yelling Ji Hyun’s name. WHOA.

I know from what I’ve reblogged so far that these points are all being discussed, and I have yet to really dig into the tag because I need to process all of this out in writing first, so I’ll do tag and conversation-digging over the rest of today and tomorrow and re-group with the fam. But working in part from my last post after episode 5, I’ll offer a couple thoughts and theories now, because I just need to get them down, whoa. 

I want to set some macro context for myself first, to kind of do a journey map on my understanding of Jae Won. From the start, his friends talk about how Jae Won’s dad is a big shot. Jae Won’s life is supposedly set: if you know about chaebol, you’ll know how controversial it is in Korea (many, MANY K-dramas feature chaebol, including Crash Landing On You and the much more recent Why Her?). It’s controversial because, of course, you always wonder if the "right” people are taking over a business, not by way of merit or talent, but only by way of inheritance (peep the “nutgate” incident with Korean Air as an example) (it’s INSANE) (chaebol is INSANE).

So Jae Won’s friends are, in my view, seething with jealousy that Jae Won has his life set. His dad is prepping Jae Won to take over. Jae Won is rich, good-looking, smart, and the ladies love him. 

That’s a lot of pressure for Jae Won. Putting together that his younger brother died, and he’s seeing a therapist, and that it was his parents that had originally sent him to therapy, and it’s indicated that he’s drug-dependent: I do believe, as many of the fam does, that what we’re watching in many of these scenes are dissociations and/or hallucinations. I do believe that, particularly by way of how the show is edited, with REALLY sharp cuts, scenes ending awkwardly and jumpily, scenes filmed in really fuzzy and weirdly lit ways, and threading pieces of scenes together in inconsistently-told ways. The hand-holding scene on the outdoor steps earlier in the series, and how it’s changed by a quick edit when the guys are shown NOT holding hands while walking on the sidewalk right after. I feel like the editing of the show serves as a correction for the jumps happening in Jae Won’s mind and memory.

I offered a theory in my last post that Jae Won might not have gone to the military at all while he was out of school -- that he was instead institutionalized. I set that theory in part on his therapist referencing a previous hospital stint, and on something he said in episode 4: “I just came back from the army. My sense is not on point.” When I first heard him say that, it didn’t smell right to me, as I thought that acclimating back to society after the military was more common for Korean men as almost all Korean men have to get drafted. But I’ve changed my mind somewhat after convos with the wonderful @emotionallychargedtowel and @stl29tide in the comments of that post, with ECT mentioning in part that it’s very common for returning soldiers to experience difficulties while re-acclimating back to society.

So I’m now caught between two theories here, and I wonder if either can be applicable.

Theory 1) I do still think it’s plausible that Jae Won didn’t go to the military while he was away from school -- I think it’s plausible that he could have been institutionalized, but I’m less sure about that now, after the convos with ECT and S2T (thank you BOTH for your insights!). 

Theory 2) Jae Won DID indeed go to the military, but his difficulties re-acclimating -- VERY MUCH ALONG with his other present issues -- have contributed to a serious dissociation episode in episode 6. This is likely more plausible.

Both theories are linked by yet another opinion. I believe that when Jae Won woke up after his bender in episode 5, he dissociated after his dad began knocking on his door and yelling. I’m not sure if the camera breaking was in the dissociation or in reality, but I believe the entire beach trip in episode 6 was part of the dissociation triggered by Jae Won’s dad and the pressures that Jae Won’s dad represents. I believe the utterly gorgeous filming style, the lighting, the weird jump to sleeping inside on a bed from the beach, the inconsistent scenes from morning on the beach, to surfing, to sex, to surfing again, to possible drowning -- I believe all of that is meant to be representative of dissociation.

Whew. Okay. Another theory. I do believe that Jae Won’s dad/family sent Jae Won to therapy in high school, possibly after his little brother’s death. I also still believe, as I posited in my last post, that Jae Won’s therapy could be a form of conversion therapy. Why do I think this?

(I just want to say that I keep repeating “I believe” because, y’all -- I totally think this entire series could be one big dissociation. Fight Club-like. So I’m trying to grasp at what I think is real-ish by indicating those factors as such.)

I can’t find it.... damn it, I can’t find it, but someone posted about the bed scene, and how Ji Hyun seemed more comfortable than Jae Won in bed. How Ji Hyun actually seemed/seems more comfortable in his queerness than Jae Won. (If anyone can link me to that post, I would be forever grateful!)

That REALLY got me thinking. I thought that was SO SMART, and I rewatched the scene to confirm that I agree there, which I do. 

Another piece of evidence to this theory, as I mentioned in the comments of that last post, is when the therapist says in episode 5: as Jae Won talks about Ji Hyun (or....at least....we *think* he’s talking about Ji Hyun), the therapist says “I hope you can build a good relationship without crossing the line.”

Now. BEFORE episode 6, where Jae Won talked about his little brother, I wondered why Jae Won was in therapy. It was STATED that he was there because of high school pressures. But the ways in which that therapist has been presented have been so weird. Like in episode 1 -- in only the SECOND scene of the entire series -- we see the therapist joking around, saying “For God’s sake, just tell me what your worries are!” and then giggling. I mean -- um, maybe they have a good rapport, but that’s definitely not how *I* learned how a therapist should act in grad school, ha. (I’d LOVE @emotionallychargedtowel‘s thoughts on the therapist’s bedside manner if you’re up to it -- no pressure at all.)

After putting together the chaebol deal with Jae Won’s dad, and that his family sent him to therapy in high school, and that the therapist talked about him being in a hospital in episode 5, AND that line about “[not] crossing a line” -- all of this screams to me of Jae Won’s family trying to “set him straight,” if you will. I seriously wonder.... if Jae Won became drug dependent vis à vis his therapist because his family needs him to be “normal” to take over the family business. I wonder if Jae Won, with EVERYTHING he might be holding -- from his queerness, to potential guilt related to his little brother, to the PRESSURES of being the family heir -- was either PUSHED to be drug dependent to fall in line, or has fallen into addiction as a result of those pressures.

I... would not put either of these theories past a domineering chaebol family.

Finally. After re-watching the very first scene of the series, and the very last scene of episode 6, and seeing how they’re the same, it all seriously makes me wonder if everything that we’ve seen so far is one big dream sequence. 

IN OTHER WORDS, Y’ALL. HOLY SHIT. Anything and everything is possible in this absolute MASTERPIECE of a show.

Other quick notes before I stop:

1) I stan Joon Pyo and Ae Ri -- MVPs. They care for our boy! (....if Ji Hyun even exists.)

2) Jung Seo In, who plays Ji Hyun’s boss, was also in Where Your Eyes Linger (I knew I recognized her!).

3) I’ve seen so many posts referencing the AMAZZZZINNNGGG music of this show, placed and edited SO WELL, and I just want to say that I am loving all the analyses.

Okay, phew, that’s all I got. I’m on the train with y’all for the rest of this ride. 

(@lurkingshan, tag tag!)

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense meta #jae won x ji hyun #ji hyun x jae won #WOW AM I EVER GLAD I PICKED THIS UP BUT IT IS CONFUSING AS HELL #thankfully not in like a midnight museum way #more in like a fight club way #my heart bleeds for jae won

[twig-tea]

Top 5 moments of yearning in 2023 bl (no cheating you can only pick 5)

WOW. wowowowowowow. Wow. It's almost as though you saw my other answers before asking this (which I know you didn't because this came in first and I am Slow). Rude.

First, I need to establish a very important distinction: Pining (my beloved) is when you think or are determined that it will never happen; yearning (also my beloved) is when you think it could and are really struggling to hold yourself back from just going for it right now for Reasons. The possibility of fulfillment is the main difference.

Second distinction: Yearning is not necessarily sexual tension. It can be an element of it, but yearning is about wanting something, whether that's sex, closeness, acceptance, or something else. It's about wanting existing barriers to drop that are preventing you from having the thing you want most in that moment, whether they're internal or external, physical or metaphysical.

Finally, as much as I would love to talk about only my favourite shows exclusively forever, you did ask for my top five moments rather than top 5 shows that contain yearning, so I stuck to the rules. All that is to say, there are a couple of series on this list that I don't actually recommend lol

With that out of the way:

Top [For Real Only] 5 Moments of Yearning in 2023 BLs Because Shan Hates Me

1. Jae Won yanking and then patting down Ji Hyun before putting him in a cab, The Eighth Sense

Basically this whole show is yearning (except for the brief interlude for pining). I chose this moment because this was the first moment I was certain they both actually knew what was going on and it was clear to them both that they could have this, at least in theory; the tension felt palpable, and I really wasn't sure whether they were going to hold back or not. Jae Won is supposed to be saying goodbye, but he can't keep it in to the point where he just can't stop touching Ji Hyun (that backpack pull that happens immediately before this, guh), and Ji Hyun is also so clearly soaking it up. When the cab pulls up and they just keep staring, there was a real question in my mind about whether they were going to break and just go for it or not. For these two it's not just about sex; they yearn for version of one another they are when they're together, and they don't want the spell to end.

2. Khun Lu and Ken almost kiss while naked in bed, Chains of Heart

I'm still not entirely sure I know what happened in that show, but the yearning between these two was palpable the whole time. In this particular scene, Ken has just seen a hint the previous night that Lu is in fact Din, his missing-presumed-dead lover, and he's already previously rejected Lu on the premise that Din is still alive and is the only man he'll ever love, even though he feels drawn to Lu. Up until then, his yearning was for Din, though he also felt something for Lu. Now suddenly he's presented with the possibility that he's already reunited with his lover, which is all he wants, though he's unsure that's what's happening. On the other side of this equation, Lu has been wanting as much of Ken as he can charm, trick, or beg for. He just wants him now, here, under the pretense of this new body, because he knows Ken will never be safe if Din is thought to still be alive. At the same time, he is torn between wanting to be near Ken to keep him safe and wanting to stay away to keep him safe. Yearning barely covers it.

3. The post-sex breakdown of Yai and Jom in I Feel You Linger In The Air

This scene was particularly painful because the yearning only hits harder after his orgasm, rather than the catharsis Jom was probably expecting. In this scene they weren't just yearning for one another physically like in earlier parts of the show; they are yearning for a future they can't have together but both want and in this moment feels like it should be possible. Yai really looks like he wants to meld into Jom's skin. The way that sex does not break the yearning is quietly devastating. Is there anything worse than having everything you want in your arms but knowing you can't keep it?

4. Patts desperate to get through to Saengai on the other side of the door, La Pluie

@liyazaki the tumblr gif search is not crediting you properly so adding a tag to you here!

Listen, Patts has been yearning for reciprocation from his soulmate for years before he meets Saengtai, and it did not at all stop once they met, it just changed in quality. He's always yearned rather than pined because with soulmates comes the expectation that it will work, because of 'destiny'. We saw him say in a flashback that he thought his soulmate could be platonic, and I do believe him when he says to Nara that he'd be fine with that, because what he really yearns for is to be understood and wanted for himself (hence the heartbreaking line "is it that hard to choose me?" that comes before this). The fact that someone had a "destined" connection to him and rejected him for years took a real toll on this man. The way he claws at the door in this scene will stay with me into 2024.

5. Minato and Shin at the Onsen, Minato's Laundromat s2

As much as I dislike where this season went, a yearning list would not be complete without Shin and Minato. We spend a lot of time with Shin's yearning in this show, but we get glimpses that Minato is actually yearning too throughout the season and especially at the onsen. In this scene, he tries to get drunk to get past his own insecurities, but it doesn't work as well as he wanted. This scene was all about Minato articulating all the ways he also yearns, and how it's overwhelming for him--and how that overwhelm is frustrating. I love this outpouring of Minato's frustration around his own internal blockers to what he wants. Also Shin swallowing in this gif makes it perfectly clear he is also Suffering. Perfection.

Bonus and it doesn't count as cheating because it's not a BL SO THERE:

Sam and Mon comforting one another after Sam's grandmother found out about their relationship, GAP

This show was such a mess but my god these two women wanted one another so badly, and I appreciated the hell out of that. It felt like yearning rather than pining until near the end, because all through their getting together phase they insisted on such an intense level of denial that they didn't even seem to worry about what they wanted being impossible, they just knew they didn't have it yet. So they did things like bite one another and pretend it was platonic and wonder why they weren't satisfied. I was thinking about going with an early scene where they barely resist the urge to make out, but instead I went with this one because I think it's a double-whammy. in this scene, Sam is trying to get Mon to tell her what's wrong, and Mon confesses that Sam's grandmother saw her at her house and asked her to leave Sam. Instead of pulling away, Mon clings to Sam, and Sam apologizes to her for not being there for her. Sam thinks she can talk her around to accepting Mon. "Don't worry; I'll talk to her. We'll get through this". The yearning here is for them to be together and safe; accepted by their families and happy, and not feeling this pain. I don't recommend this show, but there is something to be said for the way it showed the impact of intergenerational trauma and the very real yearning so many of us feel to just be accepted as we are.

#2023 round-ups #bl meta #multi bl #thank you for the ask! #also I hate you #this was so hard #the eighth sense #chains of heart #i feel you linger in the air #ifylita #la pluie #minato's laundromat #gap the series #i really struggled with this all day damn #the two i most hated to cut are actually from shows I recommend over chains of heart or minato's laundromat s2 #which were from Love in Translation and My Beautiful Man Eternal #but this was a moments list not a series list #I had to be honest #anyone reading these lists for recs #take note of these tags lol

[indigostarfire]

A very long post of me rambling so I could connect the dots and map out the factors that led Jae Won to shift out of his deep depression and isolation from Ji Hyun. The script gives us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

Jae Won’s therapist points out that Jae Won is locked into his own perspective which ultimately is guilting and beating him up inside. She also tells him, “You’re really selfish,” and Jae Won is shocked. “Because you’re so focused on your own trauma, you’re ignoring others.” This is a completely different perspective, one that Jae Won has never even considered. It’s a key truth that will ultimately help him move forward.

The therapist tells him to overcome his own trauma first, but that’s easier said than done. So what events catalyze his shift?

Well we first see Jae Won break out of his depressive mood when he witnesses Yoon Won in distress and crying about her life. And for the first time since the accident Jae Won is displaying empathy rather than the “totally shutdown, I’m dead on the inside” expression he normally has.

So we now know he is capable of feeling another person’s pain and can respond with compassion.

Next is the kiss scene with Eun Ji which I feel is pivotal in Jae Won being able to break through his depressive, blaming mindset.

Oh the irony! Eun Ji thinks she flaunting and flexing her relationship with Jae Won in front of Ji Hyun’s crushed face BUT this is ultimately the undoing of their relationship. In reality this was the moment where Jae Won sees Ji Hyun’s absolute pain. Jae Won was indeed so focused on his own trauma that he didn’t realize how much his relationship with Eun Ji was hurting and stabbing Ji Hyun right through the heart.

Witnessing Ji Hyun’s pain (because we now know he can actually see another’s pain) Jae Won RESPONDS by pushing Eun Ji away.

In Jae Won’s walk back to Ji Hyun’s workplace, my guess is that Jae Won is thinking about what his therapist said; how he has ignored Ji Hyun’s feelings and only focused on his trauma and trying to “protect” him. And is Jae Won ok with being someone who just dished out pain to Ji Hyun? No, I don’t think so.

Perhaps Jae Won can even recall that moment when Ji Hyun reaches out and lovingly holds Jae Won’s hands (prior to the meeting about the surfing incident). Jae Won initially recoils but Ji Hyun persists and Jae Won allows himself to let a bit of love in even though he feels he doesn’t deserve it. And is he ok with how he returns Ji Hyun’s love and concern with pain from that kiss with Eun Ji? I don’t think so.

Next when Ji Hyun calls out to Jae Won, we see Jae Won approaching Ji Hyun. He no longer ignores or avoids Ji Hyun. This is a definite change and a seemingly small but huge step forward.

Ji Hyun is a trooper. He will continue to love and support Jae Won without pressuring him. And he buys his hyung a camera, and tells him “the past is just the past.” “You can’t erase or forget about the past.”

Yes the past holds the tragic death of Jae Won’s brother and the almost-death of Ji Hyun but the past also holds the bright, beautiful, and loving moments with Ji Hyun. Someone who he could be himself with, someone he didn’t have to wear a mask with, someone who was his sanctuary and place to rest. The past holds both the darkness and the light. So what will Jae Won choose to focus on?

We finally see Jae Won break up with Eun Ji, and I think it largely had to do with Jae Won seeing Ji Hyun’s pain due to the kiss.

Next we have sajangnim giving Jae Won the final installment of advice and perspectives. She basically tells him since it’s not a health or money problem, he’s good! People will always be stressed out and worried so don’t be discouraged just live how you want to.

I feel that all of Ji Hyun’s actions and the perspectives from the therapist and sajangnim finally lands so that by the Han river, we see Jae Won able to focus and reminisce about the bright and beautiful moments he’s had with Ji Hyun.

And finally, those song lyrics! Ji Hyun sending that song to Jae Won delivers his feelings through its lyrics. It’s about two best friends who loved each other and wished they could be more but there was too much fear in the way. The song continues: “but I think it could work for you and me…it’s not the end of the story, just wait and see.” Then we see Jae Won moving forward. He’s actually walking to see Ji Hyun. His mood has changed. Jae Won now is allowing himself to want the happy ending too.

#if you made it to the end I’m amazed #and thank you for reading it #the eighth sense #t8s ep. 9 meta #thoughts on what made Jae Won change #mlite reflections

[jojotichakorn]

the eighth sense is the most gentle mixture of two messages that are usually delivered as contradictory. your self-hatred does impact your loved ones negatively, and yet you do deserve patience and understanding from them.

life is already hard enough and it is even harder when you are mentally ill. unfortunately your mental illness isn't pretty or quirky - it is going to hurt you and it is going to hurt those who care about you. in fact, you are going to hurt people who care about you because of it. and that fucking sucks.

but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't build connections with people, that no one should care about you. it doesn't mean that you should fix your self-esteem and be completely mentally healthy before you can even dare to think of letting someone in. and not just because that's a hard and lengthy process that is impossible to go through alone and not just because some people will just never get to that point. but because you deserve to be loved, even when it's not easy.

#the eighth sense #archer speaks #archer's meta

[jemmo]

Don't ask he why but I feel like Choi Yuna from Semantic Error and and Yoon Won from T8S would probably be best friends

oh anon you are so smart, they would absolutely be besties. i mean… they’re both used to having messy, emotionally confused bisexuals in their lives and having to watch them pine after their respective cuties. plus I think they could do a great good cop bad cop, bc yoonwon is so sweet and comforting and like the mom friend we all want and need, and yuna is just that bitch that will tell it to you straight in the most sarcastic and blunt way possible. I think together, they could get jaewon and jaeyoung through a lot

#the eighth sense #semantic error #now I just need a whole kbl meta verse

[fierrochase-falafel]

Reasons I love Xie Lian's character

Maybe this is more of a personal post, but I really appreciate Xie Lian's characterisation and his character arc because of his humanity. He's grown up being seen as special and different, and he really was special and different, and yet is shown at his lowest, falling all the way down from his position to rockbottom and he STILL makes it out alive. Not even alive by choice, but he makes it out nonetheless. And everyday he has to make the choice to see the good in humanity, after having been exposed to the worst human responses and knowing the extent of the damage he and others can do under certain circumstances. Even when he seemed perfect, he never was, and when he seemed despicable, he wasn't that either. He's jaded but not inconsiderate, angry but not vengeful or brash, guilty but slowly learning to love himself. He has the potential to be the most fearsome calamity or the most powerful god, but he decides to spend his time in a little shrine he built himself with his ghost king boyfriend. He can be cold, he can be cunning, he can be naive, he can be reckless, he can be clumsy and he can be stubborn. He can have so many flaws that may go under the radar, so many virtues that go unappreciated by the people around him. He can be the kindest or most scary person you would ever meet, and the only thing stopping him from being the latter is his will to choose to be kind. He is complicated, like a walking oxymoron. And he is traumatised, and he is repressed, and he is trying- he is still trying after everything. He is one of the most human characters I have read despite being an immortal, and gives you the hope that in the face of everything in all its complexity, our choices matter and we as people matter too, no matter how awful our position may be. Maybe the compassion of even 1 other person we meet could be the thing that saves us after all, and maybe no matter what, we're never too far gone.

#xie lian #tgcf #tgcf meta #if you can even call it that #just-- the crux of what I love about what Xie Lian represents as a man who's essentially a paradox yet completely makes sense #and don't even get me started on his internal sarcasm I've already got like 10 posts on that #Xie Lian's complexity feels like a genuine insight into a human being...something often hard to get from talking to people in real life #because he's fictional and all #there's something beautiful about getting to see the best and the worst of him because we accept him as having the capacity for both #hope #nighttime thoughts perhaps #in the face of nihilism I'm out here using Xie Lian as a shield- #if he can find something worth trying for at the literal end of book 4 then yk what so can I...I can try #also see: me when I rewatch the eighth sense and then reflect on what I get out tgcf and t8s #shoutout to the eighth sense and jihyun and jaewon and who they are to each other and also ofc shoutout to kiki #posts originating from my brain

[heretherebedork]

What a parallels, selfishness and love and the pain of trying to make space but trying to find a place for yourself at someone's side and trying to find a safe place for yourself and to protect others and to protect yourself and to be who you want to be but also who you fear you truly are.

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense meta #the eighth sense the series #the 8th sense #jae won x ji hyun #ji hyun x jae won #jaewon x jihyun #the eighth sense series #bl series #bl drama #korean bl drama #korean drama #korean series #kdrama #koreanbl #korean bl #these moments are so good #and jihyun specifically avoiding talking about their shared trauma so jaewon wouldn't have to relive it #and jaewon seeing other people struggling and comforting them

[ranchthoughts]

The Eighth Sense has this way of filming where the background of shots are SO hazy and out of focus, and I love it

It increases the tension in the scenes because you don’t know if someone is lurking out there. There have been moments where the focus has gone in and out and revealed something hidden in the blur, so we know that the technique doesn’t always mean there is nothing of note in the background; in fact, it seems to be more often used when there is something important back there. @asianmade​ talks in this post about the sense of impending doom in the show as we (and Jihyun) know there is so much backstory for Jaewon we are just getting glimpses of. This filming style is like the visual representation of that: there’s so many shots where we can’t see what is going on in the background; or times where we just get glimpses, enough to tell us there is something with nothing there, but we don’t get to see it in its entirety/in focus; or moments when we the audience knows who’s there but the characters do not, cannot seem to see what’s right in front (or rather, behind) them.

It also works so well for the characters - Jihyun and especially Jaewon are so wrapped up in each other and themselves that everything else in the world is reduced to a blur. A couple of people ( @asianmade​ again with that post and @talistheintrovert with this post ) have talked about how queer and meaningful the very close-up, shaky camera work is and I think the blurred background filming style has the same effect. Paired with the extreme closeups, the world is reduced to one or maybe two subjects, just like the world is for Jihyun and Jaewon.

I am thinking of the scene at the end of ep. 9, when Jaewon is approaching Jihyun’s dorm and he moves out of the blur into focus as he comes closer - that is what Jihyun is seeing: a big world that doesn’t matter focusing and coalescing on one singular point of importance (Jaewon, emerging from the murky, indistinct surroundings).

And the scene in the library where we realize Jihyun is sitting across the library behind Jaewon’s shoulder and as he realizes too the focus of the camera switches and it’s like we are Jaewon: the rest of the world is blurry because the only thing that matters and catches his attention is Jihyun. Or the scene at the beach, where Eunji is talking to Jaewon but he sees Jihyun and immediately all his attention is there.

I think it works especially well for Jaewon because it reflects his mental state. He is depressed, masking all the time and unable to show his real self and concerns to anyone (except Jihyun), and the camera reflects that. The world is blurry, out of focus, claustrophobic almost in the way it films tightly and we don’t know what is lurking out of focus or out of shot. The world to Jaewon is a haze. There are so many things he wants to keep hidden, to keep pushed down and repressed, that of course to him his surroundings would be reduced to a shallow depth of field, mostly obscured in mist-like blur. Everything except Jihyun.

The visuals of the show feel soft and close, reduced to the space between two people who love each other, but also dense and maybe threatening. What aren’t they showing? What lingers out of shot? What do they want to keep unclear?

They also feel so queer, like @talistheintrovert says - fragments, glimpses, glances. Montages, flashes, close-ups, shots that linger on eyes and shoulders and cut parts of the subject out, those omnipresent blurred backgrounds... The tension of existing and flirting and being out and visible in a homophobic society as a queer person (expectations, homophobia, judgement filling your surroundings like a cloud). The dream-like quality of being in love and finding a safe place in a world that has given so much pain. And the other type of tension, between you and someone else, as you try to figure out if they are also queer, if they are also interested in you. The fear to linger, to look too long or too closely or too clearly because what if the other person isn’t queer?

Emotions and people that can’t be summed up in one crystal clear picture but instead can only be shown shakily, fractured, half in focus, obscured, just out of frame.

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense meta #the eighth sense gifs #ranch thoughts #thank you wonderful gif makers of tumblr for helping me illustrate my point

[itsanidiom]

I dunno if it’s because I marathoned the last 4 episodes last night at midnight while high but through all of the drama of the show this was the moment that had me in tears:

I don’t know if its:

a) the way Yoon Won realizes what she did in asking two people who’d just experienced something extremely traumatic to come in and spell it out for her for the sake of the surf club (a thing that is mainly her own personal investment at this point)

b) the way she breaks down afterwards about everything going wrong in her life (student loans, job rejections) I assume she thinks she deserves it for being so awful as to ask people to recount their trauma for her benefit

c) the way Jae Won, who up until this point has been spiralling, snaps out of it for just a second to comfort her

anyway it was a great scene.

#the eighth sense #I don't think this counts as meta #Jae Won #Yoon Won

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Was chatting with @waitmyturtles last night and she sent me this screenshot from the Instagram story of The Eighth Sense director

And I'm reading too much in to the choice of My Strange Addiction being the song here, and like yes granted "addicted" is part of the original post but between this and the post from @starsickkk with the Insta story about how this specific poster is the only one the production team wanted to run and they said there is meaning behind it all, and because @frietesmetmaajoo asked someone to overanalyze it, I took it upon myself in my COVID-ridden state to start looking at psych meds that are pink.

And God, I feel like I am causing problems for myself at this point because I said I was going to stop speculating about this show before we maybe get some fucking answers in Episode 7 but man oh man is it fun to speculate about this show. While in real like I do not think someone asking for an extension of their prescription is automatic grounds in any case for assuming they have a drug addiction, this is fiction. They have limited time to say what they want to say and so it is much more likely they had JaeWon ask for more drugs because he is misusing them.

So anyway without further ado, a list of psych medications that can pink according to the WebMD Pill Identifier website:

Amytriptyline: anti-depressant

Buproprion: anti-depressant and smoking cessation

Citalopram: anti-depressant

Clonazepam: treats anxiety and panic disorders

Vyvanse: Treats ADHD and severe binge eating disorders

Aripriprazole: Anti-psychotic for schizophrenia and bipolar

Dextro-amphetamine: Treats ADHD and narcolepsy

What medication JaeWon has been taking has been plaguing me, I don't think that he has ADHD or narcolepsy so we can cut out Vyvanse and dextro-amphet. I don't think he's psychotic, so I'm going to cut out Aripiprazole. I think it is more likely that JaeWon has depression than anxiety so let's cut out Clonazepam as well. Leaving us with the anti-depressants amytriptyline, buproprion, and citalopram. JaeWon is still smoking so let's cut out buproprion.

Citalopram is used to treat major depressive disorder, and has been shown to be a potential treatment for PTSD when in combination with other medications.

Amytriptyline which can be used to treat major depressive disorder and which is a tricyclic antidepressant and can therefore ALSO be used to treat PTSD (x)(x)(x)

Both citalopram and amytriptyline can be addictive, and both say not to mix with alcohol, but when I think about the stark contrast in color between the Episode 6 title card and all the others, all I can think about is how pink it is.

Citalopram:

Amytriptyline:

Title Card of Episode 6:

All of this to say, putting aside the reality/delusion discussion we've been having over the last week. I think that JaeWon is misusing his medication, and I think the medication he may be prescribed is amytriptyline (I know this is a Korean show and not a Thai show but as a fun fact, amytriptyline is what Aye was prescribed in The Eclipse). Amytriptyline which has side effects such as blurred vision, weight gain, and can cause drug dependence because it is a sedative and can cause feelings of euphoria (x) and which can be fatal if you overdose.

JaeWon has said in the show that he is trying to watch his weight, and I am constantly being haunted by the blurry camerawork especially around JaeWon. I think JaeWon is misusing his medication, and I think we are seeing a suicide attempt by JaeWon before the end of this series. Or at the very least an intentional or unintentional overdose.

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense theory #the eighth sense meta #t8s #tes #jaewon #jihyun #jaewon x jihyun #I need someone to come and cut off all my fingers so that i will stop posting about this show before the next episode airs #this is a joke i need my fingers please dont actually cut off my fingers #tl;dr i think jaewon is addicted to amytriptyline

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Following up on my post about episodes 5 and 6, here are my thoughts on the mental health side of episodes 7 and 8 of The Eighth Sense.

Hey, @waitmyturtles, it's finally finished!

As in my last T8S post, I'll start by talking about what I see going on with Jae Won (and this time, to a lesser extent, with Ji Hyun), then get into my thoughts about what his therapist is up to.

Here’s what I’ll be talking about below:

lowered affect and psychomotor symptoms

the "freeze" response and the depressive side of PTSD

"I want to heal his wounds"

Jae Won's therapist: dancing over the line

the portrayal of mental health interventions in The Eighth Sense so far

what's next?

lowered affect and psychomotor symptoms

When it comes to Jae Won, I think for the most part his deal is readily apparent to anyone with a reasonable amount of insight, whether they have mental health training or not (though I hope my perspective might help clarify some stuff). As others have pointed out, he's incredibly numb and shut down. It's clear that he feels responsible for Ji Hyun's accident even before he says so directly to his therapist, and that he has some kind of distorted thought process that is telling him that staying away from Ji Hyun will keep him safer than if he allowed himself to be close to him again. This also functions as a way of protecting himself from experiencing another loss--if he doesn't have anyone in his life that he actually cares about, he can't get hurt that way again.

By the way, just like the capacity for self-blame I talked about last time, it's remarkable how readily people who've experienced trauma can form strong beliefs that don't make rational sense (often involving magical thinking) while seeing no reason to doubt those beliefs. For example, it seems pretty certain that Jae Won is consciously telling himself, "Everyone I love dies or gets taken away from me in some way, so if I love someone I'm putting them in danger." There's no possible way this could be true, but it feels like the truth to him and he's unable to see how obviously false this belief is.

A couple of the things we're seeing with Jae Won have psychological terms that can be used to describe them more precisely. You know how Jae Won's face is super expressionless for most of episodes 7 and 8? In psychology, we use the term "affect" to mean the expression of emotion in someone's face (and to a lesser extent, other parts of their body). ("Affect" has a really different meaning in other disciplines.) Identifying the type of lowered affect Jae Won has sheds some light on his emotional state. There are standard descriptors that psychologists and others use in reports and notes to talk about people's affect. "Broad" or "full" affect means a person shows a typical amount of emotion in their expression. "Labile" affect means that the person is showing disproportionately strong emotions; often these emotions change abruptly as well (for example, if someone laughs one moment and cries the next and neither seem appropriate to the situation). Then you have descriptors for people who are showing less emotion than normal. "Restricted" affect is somewhat subdued compared to full affect. Just like it sounds, it's as if the person is (consciously or unconsciously) restricting the amount of emotion they allow others to see. A step down from restricted is "blunted" affect, which is a pretty intense symptom. Someone with blunted affect shows very little emotion, even when talking about or experiencing something upsetting. Another step down is "flat" affect. I often see people using "flat affect" to describe a person who actually has blunted or just restricted affect, but flat affect is a lot more marked than that. True flat affect means that the person shows absolutely no emotion. It's extremely rare. You're highly unlikely to meet a person with flat affect in your daily life, unless you work in an inpatient mental health facility. Where is Jae Won on this scale? His affect is blunted. This is a very big deal! When someone is experiencing mental health symptoms so marked that their affect is blunted, especially almost all of the time as we observe in Jae Won's case, there is a lot of cause for concern. As you might imagine, it's often reflective of the person being very disconnected from their own emotions. This symptom can be associated with a number of diagnoses. Some of these involve psychotic symptoms, which might interest proponents of the "everything after episode four is a hallucination" theory. But it's also associated with PTSD and depression, and I think it's pretty clear that's at the root of Jae Won's deal. After all, his affect became blunted right after he was retraumatized and massively triggered by Ji Hyun's accident.

A great example of Jae Won's blunted affect happens in the scene where Ji Hyun finally gets him to talk to him in private and he keeps insisting that everything that happened between them "was nothing." It's not normal for someone to have almost no affect when having a conversation like this, no matter how they feel about the other person or their history with them. If their relationship really meant nothing to him, we'd expect Jae Won to look flippant, irritated, contemptuous, guilty, maybe superficially sympathetic, but we'd expect him to have some degree of affect. The fact that he can sit there, dead-eyed, during this conversation speaks volumes. Another term that applies here is "psychomotor retardation." Sometimes people say "psychomotor slowing" instead to avoid the connotations of that second word there. Or you may just hear about "psychomotor symptoms." In severe depression, people's speech, movements--really, just about everything they do can become slowed. If you've ever been around someone who was severely depressed, you may have observed this. I had a friend in college whose psychomotor symptoms got so intense during a depressive episode that I misunderstood and thought she was drunk. The fact that this is coming up for Jae Won is another giant red flag that he is in a massive amount of distress.

the "freeze" response and the depressive side of PTSD

Given how much informed trauma discussion happens on tumbr, I'm guessing a lot of folks reading this may already know that contemporary trauma scholars have added to the well-known "flight or flight" set of trauma responses. The most common change is to add "freeze" to the list to make it "fight, flight, or freeze." Some also add "appease," or "fawn." We're all familiar with the fight response to trauma (go toward the feared object and try to fight it) and the flight response (run away from it). The freeze response is analogous to instinctively playing dead when attacked by a dangerous wild animal, except it's usually automatic, something our body does whether we want it to or not. People having a freeze response may dissociate, or they may find it difficult or impossible to get their body to move. The "appease" response refers to an instinctive impulse to do anything and everything to appease a person who poses a threat. It's a trauma response that frequently comes up in partner abuse situations. The "fawn" response, sometimes called a "collapse" response, is a kind of last ditch attempt by your brain to disconnect from your body so thoroughly that you'll feel less pain as a result of the trauma. I'd group it with the "freeze" response--they're kind of like different degrees of the same thing, with fawn/collapse being even more extreme than freeze. I had a mentor, Dr. S, in one of my training positions who had put together his own model of how trauma works, one he had cobbled together from a number of sources. Usually when a mental health person tells you they have this kind of homemade theory bricolage deal it turns out to be a hot mess. But Dr. S was incredibly smart and experienced and his theory was coherent and useful. I wish I knew where he got the various components from. I know he was into somatic experiencing therapy and it was part of the model but there were other traditions he had pulled from as well. But the gist, as it applies here, is this: he categorized the acute trauma responses (fight, flight, etc.) into two main groups, activating on the one hand and freeze-y/deactivating on the other. And those acute responses, the responses that a person has in the moment when the trauma is happening or soon afterward, are related to how their PTSD symptoms manifest, if they develop it. According to Dr. S, people with PTSD usually have a sort of predominant tendency where their PTSD symptoms lean more toward the freeze-y side, which is the more depressive and dissociative side, or the fight and/or flight side, which involves more overt dysregulation, anger, risk-taking, and so forth.

The thing that made me think about Dr. S's model of trauma when I watched episodes 7 and 8 was something he always said about these different ways trauma shows up as symptoms. I wish I could remember the rationale--like, what the supposed reason was that things work this way--but I remember that once he pointed it out I started seeing examples of it everywhere. He said that if you're stuck in a freeze-y, depressive state with your PTSD symptoms, you can't move directly from that into a more healthy, engaged relationship with your emotions, your memories, and the world around you. Instead of going straight from freeze mode into something healthier, he said, you have to spend some time in fight/flight mode. It's like, metaphorically speaking, there's no path out of the freeze zone without passing through fight/flight territory.

Jae Won's PTSD typically shows up in a very freeze-y way. His depressive symptoms were his most noticeable ones from the start of the series. He dissociates rather readily. He was numb even before what happened with Ji Hyun, then gets even more numb. Actually, I'd bet that when he resisted his connection with Ji Hyun before, and to an extent in 7 and 8, one of his main reasons was that Ji Hyun makes him feel alive and that scares him. Ji Hyun makes him "thaw out" in a way he doesn't feel prepared for. And then, of course, as soon as he dares to let his guard down with someone and experience real connection, what happens? A new trauma and massive triggers for his past trauma. So he goes back into freeze mode with a vengeance.

And he gets really passive. Just sort of floating along. Not kissing Eun Ji back when she kisses him, but not saying no or pushing her away either. (Well, there's one extremely gentle push after which he takes the tiniest step back, but that's it.) When we see him alone, he's just lying in bed with his eyes wide open staring into space. But there is one thing that makes him wake up, something that puts him squarely into fight mode: Tae Hyung making shitty comments about Ji Hyun. As audience members, it's natural to want to cheer this on in part because Tae Hyung is such a dick and that was incredibly below-the-belt. But I think another part of what makes us want to applaud is that Jae Won is finally thawing out again. It's fleeting. And the way the show is edited drives this home even more since there's an abrupt cut from Jae Won pummeling Tae Hyung to him talking with their professor in his office looking incredibly spaced out. But it happens.

"I want to heal his wounds"

One thing I've noticed in more than one response to episodes 7 and 8 is people being critical of Ji Hyun's words when he tells Joon Pyo, "He wants to be seen as a strong person, but has a lot of wounds. And I want to heal his wounds." Basically, I'm seeing people say that it's up to Joon Pyo to heal himself and that it's naive of Ji Hyun to think that he can "heal" him. And to an extent, they have a point. If Ji Hyun claimed he was going to singlehandedly heal Jae Won's pain and trauma, it would be extremely unrealistic. Especially if he claimed he'd do it whether or not Jae Won participates. But he says he wants to heal Jae Won's wounds, and I think that's more reasonable. I would expect that most of us, in his shoes, would at least want that on some level, even if we don't think it's possible. But more than that, I think this is an example of a certain cultural attitude, one that (in my experience) seems more prevalent in individualistic cultures like those of the U.S. and much of Europe. It's related to the idea that "no one can love you until you love yourself." I find this attitude just as unrealistic, and just as riddled with wishful thinking, as the idea that we can heal a partner by our force of will alone without their participation. Because individualism is a wishful fantasy in a way. It tells us that we can fix ourselves without having to worry about making connections with others or whether those others will be willing or able to give us the love we need. But we can't just wish away our relational needs.

Human beings are relational creatures. We develop from birth through our relationships with others. These relationships can be damaging or they can be supportive and strengthening (or, of course, both). We don't have to wait until we are perfectly self-sufficient before we're capable of receiving love, deserving of love, or able to benefit from love. When someone loves us deeply and shows that to us, when they show their love through caring for us, it makes a difference in our lives. Of course it does! And if we are completely lacking in that kind of love, life is harder for us. I could go off for pages and pages about this and I may well do so here one of these days. For now I'll say that if you're interested in combating your individualistic bias and thinking in a new way about the fundamentally relational nature of humanity, I highly recommend the first section of Kenneth Gergen's book Relational Being--it's phenomenal. (I first read it on a long bus commute and I was gasping so much that people started giving me looks. And I normally never gasp aloud at a book.) Stan Tatkin's work on attachment dynamics in couples is also really instructive here. Tatkin talks about how we've been conditioned to think it's burdensome and excessive to ask for our partners to be there for us and take care of us in certain ways that are actually imminently reasonable and part of a healthy relationship. This isn't to say that there's no such thing as a burdensome demand or an onerous expectation of a partner. But there's a whole class of caring for others that gets stigmatized in our culture that's actually not only OK but healthy and beneficial.

What about Ji Hyun? I think it's not unlikely, given his age and lack of relationship history, that he's being a bit overly idealistic. But I also think it shows an admirable degree of self-awareness that he sees that he has a desire to heal Jae Won. And honestly? He already has healed him to an extent, even if subsequent events seem to have undone it. He can't heal Jae Won just by loving him. Jae Won would have to allow himself to be close to Ji Hyun again for that to happen, and he'd also have to open himself up enough emotionally to take in what Ji Hyun has to offer. And in order for him to heal in a substantial way--for example, to stop having an active case of PTSD--he'd also have to put in some independent effort. But it's also true that if Jae Won lets him, Ji Hyun actually could make a real difference in Jae Won's healing. And Jae Won could do the same for Ji Hyun.

Jae Won's therapist: dancing over the line

Jae Won's therapist/psychiatrist has been playing around with boundaries a bit since we first encountered her. Her "just tell me what your worries are!" joke ventured a bit close to a boundary line for me, but it stayed on the right side and made sense in context so I considered it pretty skillful. Sometimes getting close to those therapy boundaries is actually really powerful. I mean, it may sound like this would just be a lapse, and then we could debate whether or not it was forgivable. But actually, playing with therapy boundaries in a careful way that doesn't go too far can be an particularly good idea, depending on the situation and the client. Sometimes factors like the formality of therapy, clients' idealization of their therapist, their worries about seeming like a good person or being a "good client," and so forth can lead to the therapy process getting completely stuck. Calling some of these things into question can be really useful.

So initially, I thought Jae Won's therapist was handling this sort of thing well. At the same time, I was concerned that she might overdo it. I had a therapist once who played around with boundaries in a safe, careful way at first, and it really benefited me, but later, he was careless about some important boundaries and actually crossed the line to the point where I had to stop working with him. I didn't know if she'd do this, but I worried about it. Then episodes 7 and 8 happened.

Some folks have taken issue with her saying to Jae Won, "Why didn't you visit recently? I almost couldn't pay my rent because you stopped coming. You know every minute counts for the consultation fee, right?" I do think she's getting into risky territory here, but she ends up on the right side of the line by my standards (albeit barely). It should be completely obvious that Jae Won's attendance at their appointments doesn't make that huge of a difference in her bottom line. I actually see some reasons to believe she's likely an administrator or instructor/professor in addition to her clinical work (I'd be happy to explain my reasons but I'm trying not to get too far in the weeds). So she likely has other things to do besides see clients. And she's the kind of clinician that probably has plenty of clients. But no matter what her job entails, the fees from one client who sees her biweekly are not going to make or break her financially. She's trying to make light of her worry when Jae Won missed appointments (probably two, since a month has passed and that would mean two biweekly sessions). Then there's the exchange about her experiences with clients dying by suicide. There are aspects of it that seem OK to me, but she crosses the line in my estimation.

When she first raises the topic, she asks him, "Did you think about extreme decisions?" This set off alarm bells for me. It's important that therapists show that they're able to speak clearly and explicitly about suicidality. Using euphemisms or beating around the bush conveys a lack of confidence and comfort with the topic that could undermine clients' faith in the therapist or make the therapist seem like someone they have to protect from learning about their suicidal thoughts or intentions. Thankfully, she switched to more direct terms quickly, so I felt like that made up for her initial vagueness.

Then she talks about how "the hardest time" in her work is "when my patients commit suicide." But instead of talking about the loss she would feel in that situation, she quickly pivots to talking about how it's difficult to decide whether or not to attend these clients' funerals. It's a weird turn. It makes it sound as if the hard part is navigating this funeral question rather than the actual loss of the patient. I'm sure that's not how she really feels, but this topic shift makes it sound that way.

I know that @waitmyturtles took issue with the way the therapist hashed out conflicting ideas around ethics in a conversation with a client, and I do think that's almost always something that should be avoided. But I also think if she had done it in the right way, it could have been OK or even a good idea. Why? Because as I wrote above, one good reason to mess around with therapy boundaries sometimes is in order to undermine the idealization of the therapist when it gets out of hand. In other words, sometimes clients need to see firsthand that therapists are human beings too and that they make mistakes and have growth areas--and that they feel confused about how to navigate some professional situations, as she talks about here. It's demystifying in a way that can be beneficial. My biggest concern is actually the fact that she's doing this around the topic of client suicide.

Even though she plays it off somewhat by seguing into an ethical quandary about funerals, Jae Won's therapist is still raising the subject of how patients' suicides affect her. And this is where I think she's really playing with fire.

There's nothing wrong with a therapist acknowledging that when/if a client ends their life, they are/would be strongly affected. To pretend otherwise would not only be disingenuous, it would make the therapist seem unfeeling and cold. But it's risky to do anything that might center oneself in the conversation about a client's suicidality. Basically, saying you worry about a client, saying you would be very sad if they died, and so forth can be not only OK but advisable if done judiciously. But spending a substantial amount of time talking about yourself when you're sitting with a client who has a substantial suicide risk is insensitive and dangerous.

Of course, this is partly because centering oneself as a therapist is almost always counter-therapeutic (not to mention shitty and wrong). But if a therapist centers themselves around this specific topic, it could also lead to losing access to vital information about the client's thoughts, intentions, and risk level.

If I'm seeing a therapist who I have a good rapport with, I'm going to be concerned if it appears I might hurt them. I may even be highly motivated to try to protect them. If I'm having suicidal ideation but I think telling my therapist about it will upset, overwhelm or frighten them? If I'm being told right and left how distressing client suicide is for them? I now have a very good reason to keep my suicidal ideation a secret. Once a therapist loses a client's trust that they can safely disclose their suicidal thoughts and intentions to them, risks immediately go way up. Bottom line: if a client doesn't feel safe telling you about that stuff, you can't help them when they're in crisis. You're operating in the dark, without access to critical information.

I continue to believe that Jae Won is at a substantial risk of suicide and/or self-harm. And he has shown time and again that he tends not to disclose much in therapy even when he's at his best. This is no time to play around with this stuff. His therapist needs to show him that she's a steadfast, safe, concerned, but also reasonably neutral figure right now if she wants to have any hope of keeping him safe. And she failed to do that in episode 7.

the portrayal of mental health interventions in The Eighth Sense so far

As before, I think that the show has shown Jae Won's therapist in a mostly positive light in the latest episodes. And without a doubt, it's a good thing that therapy is being shown at all here. But one thing we haven't seen so far is an instance of therapy actually helping Jae Won in any observable way. And I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the series will end without any specific benefit from therapy being shown. I get that this is a love story and the emphasis is bound to be on the ways in which Ji Hyun and Jae Won can make a difference in each other's lives. But if you're going to portray therapy at all, you really ought to include at least some sort of potential benefit from it. Otherwise you run the risk of sending the message that while therapy might not be actively bad, it's also not something that will help someone in a meaningful way.

I'm also concerned about how psychoactive medication is being portrayed in this series. There's been a lot of talk of prescriptions. In the deleted scene that's been making the rounds, the camera pans down at Jae Won's pill bottles as if to call attention to them, emphasizing them at a time when Jae Won seems to be falling apart. Maybe these are hints that Jae Won is going to misuse his medication at some point, or maybe not. But currently, they function as a kind of commentary. The implication seems to be something like, "Look how fucked up Jae Won is right now. He even has to take medication for his mental health!" It makes it seem like someone taking psych meds is a sad or worrisome thing on its own. This is exploitative and supportive of mental health stigma. If it turns out these cues were foreshadowing Jae Won misusing his medication to self-harm, the generalized medication stigma aspect could be less of a concern, but it still wouldn’t exactly be a progressive portrayal of mental health care. I hope the show's creators pull back from this or find a way to make it all worthwhile, but I'm becoming less hopeful about that as well.

what's next?

I have some thoughts about what's coming next for the story based on what we've seen so far. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on that subject, but I'm going to confine myself to those I see as mental health-related here.

There's a chance that Jae Won could engage in some kind of self-harm or make a move to try to end his life. It's hardly certain this will happen, but it wouldn't be out of left field. Given the attention paid at various points to Jae Won's medications, the most likely avenue of self-harm seems to be misusing them.

One potential turning point could happen if events bring up Jae Won's protectiveness toward Ji Hyun. This could come up due to something really overt if he has reason to believe Ji Hyun is physically in danger, but it's at least as likely to come up if he sees other people mistreating him. If Eun Ji continues to try to bully Ji Hyun and Jae Won witnesses it, or if Tae Hyung lashes out at him, this could have a big effect on Jae Won. After all, even in his highly depressed and dissociated state after Ji Hyun's accident, the one thing that brought him back to himself was Tae Hyung's shitty comment. I would tie this back to the idea I mentioned above, that the path from long-term freeze mode to something healthier may need to involve passing through a more activated, aggressive state in the process. Jae Won's protectiveness toward Ji Hyun could be the catalyst that causes this type of shift for him.

#the eighth sense #the 8th sense #jae won x ji hyun #the eighth sense meta #the eighth sense discussion #the eighth sense analysis #psychology of BL #media portrayals of trauma #media portrayals of mental illness #TW suicide discussion regarding a fictional character