still dont understand how someone can look at yeo jeong woo, the literal definition of babygirl, and think "this man did medical malpractice"

what do you mean by “shall we date?” when you can say “love is not enough. worship me.”

Queen of Tears Text posts 1/? (Part 2, 3, 4)

god i love when actors make desire feel physically PRESENT on screen. make their feelings tangible. shaky exhales. foggy eye contact. magnetism so strong it feels irresistible. THAT’S CHEMISTRY BABYYYY

the appeal of yeojeong as a normal guy who’s just a little bit off. not enough that you would notice when talking to him, of course, but it’s just there, under the surface. a disturbance. and i think it’s interesting because typically you have two types of guys somewhat adjacent to this: guy who seems totally normal but is secretly sadistic/a psychopath, and then guy haunted by a traumatic/troubled past, who has that secret layer of torment running beneath the surface of their image. but yeojeong breaks through these archetypes, and i think part of it is because he’s just so...calm. it’s not that he’s living a double life (kind doctor by day, killer by night) or hiding part of his past (everyone he worked with knew about what happened to his father, and watched his downward spiral during his college days). he’s not the typical male character who is, at every attempt, trying to outrun his tragic past (even though he does run once or twice); he’s not haunted by flashbacks, or suffer from PTSD in the way that is usually portrayed in dramas. and i think part of that is because the glory is a story about victims. it’s dongeun’s story, first and foremost, even though it is also yeojeong’s story, and hyeonnam’s story, and sohee’s story. but it’s a story about dongeun’s pain, and when it’s not about her pain, it’s just about the pain of victimhood - unlike other dramas, this isn’t a show where male pain outweighs the rest.

so yeojeong is just a normal guy. he’s handsome. he has a good career. he’s a plastic surgeon, an interesting choice when both his parents were/are hospital directors, and his father seemed to have worked in the er or something of the sort prior to his death (or at the very least wasn’t a plastic surgeon). something could be said here of yeojeong choosing the ‘safe’ path as a doctor, a path where he cures pain and makes people happy without the added risk of being attacked by one of his patients. there’s no proof of that in the show - why he chose to be a plastic surgeon - but it’s an interesting thought path to travel. 

dongeun says he must have lived a good life. that he’s never had to worry about the path that he’s on. and that’s true, to a certain extent. to everyone, including her in the beginning, yeojeong is perfectly friendly. he’s perfect, but not the perfect that people perceive as too perfect (i.e. the guy who’s hiding things); he has his moments where he spazzes out, gets into fights, goes crazy over dongeun texting him back, teases his mom. he’s perfectly well adjusted (a perfect contrast to dongeun’s ‘maladjustment’). he wears flip flops to work and gets the same coffee order daily. he plays go with old men in the park.

he likes to listen to the fizzing of vitamin tablets in water because it calms him down. is this a strange thing? only because he thinks it’s important enough to mention to his therapist. he does it at work too - drops the tablet in, closes his eyes, rests his head. he does it at home - drops the tablet in, opens the drawer, draws a knife. it’s about the noise. bubbles rising to the surface, like bubbles rising from underwater. he stays underwater until the last possible moment, when he has to break the surface in order to breath. dongeun makes him feel like he’s at the eye of a storm - a deceptively calm center, while everything else rages outside. and i think it’s kind of important that he makes that comparison, when he’s someone always seeking that calm. the soothing noise, that makes him feel lonely.

so he’s just a normal guy. a normal guy who receives letters on a regular basis from the prisoner who brutally murdered his father. he doesn’t like letters, he tells dongeun. who knows what he does with the letters - does he keep them? does he throw them away as soon as he sees them? he must have read some of them; maybe you only need to read one to know what is in the rest. maybe he’s still reading them; maybe he keeps them without reading, an invisible torment. it’s not what he does with the letters that matters, but that he receives letters at all. 

can you still call it a haunting if you’ve almost made your peace with it? if you’re living with it? 

he’s just a normal guy, who looks his therapist right in the eyes and tells her that she couldn’t fix him. he diligently attends therapy for years on a regular basis, even though it doesn’t work. he finally abandons it when he moves to semyeong, because he chooses to embrace dongeun’s revenge. he chooses his own revenge, too, in a way. the dark part of him that he can’t escape. the one that makes him pick up the knife, who asks dongeun who to kill before she even tells him she wants any of them dead, even when he’s a doctor from a family of doctors, and doctors don’t kill - they save lives instead. 

you couldn’t fix me, he tells his therapist calmly. so calmly. as if there’s not a bloodied man sitting next to him, a man he dreams of killing. the man is just life to him, just like the letters are life to him to. a dulled numbness. an acceptance of it. 

is your son going through hell? can you even tell it’s hell, if it’s what you’ve become used to? is it hell when you’re a doctor dreaming of murder? is it hell to no longer be tormented by dead men and living murderers who send you letters? is it?

Doctor Slump as Text posts

Jinman didn't leave Jian to fend for herself for no reason, that man came back bloodied and needing to be carried to walk, he was not taking a nap and eating popcorn while watching her get wrecked. He also prepared a defense system for her (that didn't work and I hope those 18 code reds that didn't follow the rule get fucked), he also made the house and the shop fortresses he also knew his closest friends would be there to protect her. He did what he could.

how mihyeon and dooshik got me acting

"Let's go home. I thought I'd find it here. A miraculous way to live. Or a place of no sadness. But there was none. All I wanted was to go home with you." it's pretty but "I heard this somewhere. When you're about to die, the person who loved you the most picks you up in the form of an angel [...] let's say a lot of time passed, and you died. Then I'll become an angel and pick you up. If I show up, it'll be less scary for you." IT'S PRETTIER 😭❤️

guys we're only on episode 6 of this kdrama and we've already received these two beautiful love declarations. idk how we'll survive this whole kdrama 😭❤️❤️😭, send help pls.

Underwater: a Jae Won rambling

There’s a scene in the trailer in which Jae Won says he’s tired of wearing a mask while being with other people.

As @heesulovebot pointed out in another post, we seldom see Jae Won without it. The only time we saw him without it was when Ji Hyun came to see him after noticing that he had left in a hurry to smoke. In that scene, Jae Won avoids looking directly at Ji Hyun and it’s only when he’s about to leave that he finally meets his eyes. He only does so because Ji Hyun stood in front of him and made him look at him. Ji Hyun’s decision to tell his name right this instant is a way to tell Jae Won that he genuinely wants to get to know him no matter which side of him he decides to present himself with, no matter if he stays true or lie to himself. By telling his name, Ji Hyun strived to keep Jae Won grounded because he noticed how weary he was.

Jae Won uses gentle touches to keep Ji Hyun grounded and to make sure he feels at ease, whereas Ji Hyun’s way of caring feels very much like him: he gives his full attention. Ji Hyun’s eyes speak volumes and he has this very steady gaze when looking at Jae Won which seems to anchor him when his thoughts are overwhelming.

Jae Won’s mask is highly emphasised by the use of shallow focus. Soon after the opening scene, Jae Won is seen from behind but the camera keeps the fish tank in focus instead of him. In the same vein, in the beginning of episode 2, Jae Won is not out-of-focus but he is seen from behind the fish tank.

The use of out-of-focus shots implies how Jae Won is someone hard to grasp. Again, as @heesulovebot accurately pointed out, he goes with the flow and to do so he doesn’t need to be himself. The camera doesn’t show us a clear image of his face because we, as viewers, have yet to see it. The fact that the first images we see of him are from behind is also quite relevant and in keeping with the fact that he rarely shows his true self.  

The fish tank is also an object I wanted to comment on. In episode 1, when Jae Won and his “friends” are arguing, the music and the background noises fade out and nothing can be heard except for their own voices. It’s only when Jae Won is pushed onto the ground by Tae Hyung that the music comes back again along with the familiar background noises of a restaurant during an evening shift. The abrupt interruption of the music playing is reminiscent of when you’re under water and that all noise is muffled. That’s exactly how Jae Won feels. Whenever people envy him, tell him how “worry-free” he is, he starts dissociating in an effort to control his feelings. By doing so, he forces himself to brush off these words which he knows are not true. But these misconceptions still hurt. They hurt him but he cannot say anything back because he is aware of the image he has created for himself. He didn’t choose to create this image for himself but people kept on assuming the kind of person he was (because of his family situation, his physical appearance, his rigour etc.) and so he eventually let his true self hide behind this shallow mask so he could appear and act exactly like how people saw him. People just didn’t see him, no matter what he did.

Jae Won is stuck underwater: his true self is almost impossible to grasp for it is as changing as the shimmer of the light on the water.

Looking at him through the fish tank is like seeing a distorted image (version) of himself. The directors precisely chose this angle to highlight the fact that Jae Won does wear a mask whenever he is surrounded with other people. The scene in which Ji Hyun tells him his name is all the more touching because at that moment, his mask was cracking and through the cracks his pain and emptiness could be seen. He would have never allowed himself to look so vulnerable if Ji Hyun had been someone else. But no one was there except for Ji Hyun. That freshman he knows nothing about but around whom he feels strangely at ease.

my fatal flaw is that i watch edits of the couple and ruin their moments for me before watching the series

Doctor Slump text posts 1/?

My Demon Ep 8

I'm loving the pace of My Demon, I thought that they'll drag out their misunderstandings for 2-3 episodes, but they made it short with enough emotional impact to feel sad for them before the misunderstanding is cleared. Not to mention, what Guwon said about doing what's best for themselves and their kiss 🥰

The gang protecting them shows that they're not doing it in fear but out of loyalty when they found out that Guwon was hurt and vulnerable. The name "Wild dogs" really suit them because dogs are fiercely loyal to their masters 🐶. They're too funny with the measuring tape and all. They really do take their orders seriously 🤣

my dearest has got me in a chokehold! like literally each episode is more magnificent than the other and the stellar performance by the cast has me enthralled. You can literally feel all the war scenes and the dilemma that each character faces...

This is the end for you, you asshole. THE UNCANNY COUNTER 2: COUNTER PUNCH (2023)