#jun yong

[teashh]

One of the things I love about kdramas is that it really subverts what masculinity is supposed to be. You see the loser who's down bad for the female lead (Lovely runner, queen of tears, Love Next Door, Strong Girl Do Bong Soon, the Judge from Hell), you see the soft masculinity in hometown cha cha cha, summer strike and Doctor Slump and extraordinary attorney woo, the protective kind of masculinity in any of Ji Chang Wook's and Ahn Bo Hyun's works, the reassured and confident masculinity of Seo Kang Joon in Undercover High school and Lee Jun Hyuk in Love scout, the playful masculinity in Twinkling Watermelon and Crash Course in Romance, the stoic but gentle masculinity in Doctor Romantic and Hierarchy, and the "I care about you and only you" kind of masculinity in Vincenzo to name a few.

This is progress from the old kdramas and I get that it's fictional and in real life, some of these actors are assholes. But in the era where Toxic masculinity is rampant, I think we can turn towards kdrama to have some inkling of what kind of man we should strive to be and what kind of man we should want. This should not something we see only in fiction. We should raise our sons (I'm 21) to be like this so that one day it's not just a concept for fictional love stories.

[midnight--sadness]

‼️ NEW OFFICIAL PHOTOS OF SQUID GAME SEASON 3 ‼️

PREMIERING 27 JUNE

the poster

[activatethis]

✨Squid Game Charms are here!✨ 2 inch: 8.50 USD 2.5 inch Gihun + Inho charm : 10.50 USD

[18-2024]

Mother:

Her Children:

[ruemxu]

the king and his most loyal subjects

[toastinthegrass]

[koreanss501-kpop]

Alert alert 💚💚💚

SS501 comeback?

New album?

Our boys are back...💚💚

[midnight--sadness]

squid game characters' s3 fate

90% they'll die:

daeho - unfortunately, i think he will die, he has tragedy written all over him, especially since he probably will believe he "failed" his team for not delivering the magazines to them and blaming himself for jungbae's death.

minsu - will probably die defending someone, to parallel how he didn't defend semi.

namgyu - i dont think i need to explain.

myunggi - either he or junhee will live; he is much more likely than her to die tho.

yongsik - either he or geumja will live; after the mingle game, i think he will sacrifice himself for his mama.

gyeongseok - if he's not dead already. if he's still alive, i think they will have him bond with noeul and hyunju, maybe hinting at a romance with hyunju before he dies and noeul will promise to take care of nayeon.

most of junho's team, including wooseok and captain park and kim (the leader of the mercenaries).

not sure:

junhee - either her or myunggi will live; i was sure it was her but then seonnyeo (the shaman lady) freaked me out during the mingle game and made me wonder if she'll die. her baby def won't die tho.

geumja - either her or yongsik will live; since she said that she wouldnt have a life if he died, i'm betting she lives just to make everyone suffer more.

inho - i think he'll sacrifice himself to end the games and kind of earn gihun's forgiveness. if he dies, it will be in gihun's arms tho.

junho - he's the character im most divided over. he will def forgive inho for shooting him and such, and inho will show him how he loves him, perhaps saving him from death, or junho will die protecting inho and dying in his older brother's arms (a nice callback to sangwoo and gihun in s1).

90% they'll live:

gihun - he's gonna suffer more than jesus, but he won't die (he'll just wish he had); also, i need him to reunite with gayeong. he'll probably end up taking care of junhee's baby if she and her terrible ex both die-

noeul - i really want her to get her baby back but i wonder if it's even possible at this point; maybe she will end up taking care of nayeon when gyeongseok dies.

hyunju - i really dont believe she will die, i think we will see her move to thailand to fully begin her life.

[activatethis]

Charms currently in production!

✨ Interest Check Here! ✨

(Charms are double-sided clear acrylic, between $8 - $10 a piece)

[lostinmac]

My Sassy Girl (2001)

Dir. Kwak Jae-yong

[gyeongseok]

thoughts on the stills released 📸

I can't lie, my heart beat a little faster at the thought of player 246 (park gyeong-seok) being in the coffin but I'm hoping it's not him 🥲

some have guessed it may be jung-bae's corpse in the coffin :(

there's a possibility that the cliffhanger won't lead to anything and that it may just be over for 246 but I'm optimistic it's not the last we'll see of him yet. otherwise it would be a complete waste of the narrative they've built and the (admittedly meagre) screen time spent on doing so.

others have speculated that 011 seemingly being outside would lead to her smuggling 246 out of there. hopefully they pull it off, but that's one thing I'm not optimistic about. I don't think all of the characters will go home safe and sound but a girl can dream. that aside, I'd love to see no-eul have more to do this following series. I understand it's a tall order to fit every character's story in the span of a half-series but no-eul and gyeong-seok were the two of the first character introductions made and it seemed like they had significant storytelling arcs but those sort of fell to the wayside as the games went on. I know that the nature of the mid-series cut affected the storytelling as a whole, but I just wanted to talk about it a little bit :)

[ruemxu]

Wow, it's really been a year already! 👀 Both issues of my 2024 sketchbook are out now on my Patreon + Ko-fi! :3 Lots of Status Royale concepts/illustrations and my fandom spiral into Honkai Star Rail, LOL.

🍊 www.patreon.com/ruxu ☕ ko-fi.com/ruemxu

Snippets from previous years~

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

Original title: Gyeouryeon-ga | 겨울연가.

[radashes]

Kdrama Series Review: Squid Game Season 3

I just finished Squid Game Season 3—the final season—and I have a lot to get off my chest. If you haven’t watched it yet, just pause here. Go finish. Come back emotionally wrecked. We’ll talk.

Spoilers ahead, obviously.

🟢Let’s start with the good stuff:

007 & 149’s bond wrecked me: The bonding between the son and mother was so good. I cried. We knew one of them wasn’t making it, but the execution was brutal. And so well done.

Kim Jun-hee (222) giving birth: I was expecting this plotline, but her child entering the game? I didn't expect that. It actually weirdly worked. Wild choice, but I respect the boldness.

Seong Gi-hun (456) giving death glares at Kang Dae-ho (388): It was just hilarious. I loved it.

Hwang In-ho (001) was actually a pretty cool and calm-headed character: Honestly, I was way more interested in what he was doing than half the main players.

Cho Hyun-ju dying was actually so sad to watch: Something about it felt so familiar, and then I realized—it echoed Ali’s death from Season 1. The scenes were completely different, but Cho was actually a good person and a good player, just like Ali was. And if you know, you know. It wasn’t just sad—it was gut-wrenching in that familiar Squid Game way.

🔴What Didn't Work:

The games this season felt… underwhelming. After how intense Season 1 and 2 were, these challenges didn’t have the same creativity or pressure. At times, it almost felt like they ran out of ideas and just went with the same formula: climb something → fall off → die. It was like they took the mirror bridge game from Season 1 and copy-pasted it over and over.

The final game was straight-up disappointing. It wasn’t clever. It wasn’t thrilling. It was basically “stand there and push someone.” That’s not a game—that’s a middle school hallway fight. I got bored halfway through watching it.

The ending didn’t hit like it should’ve. The moment that baby entered the game, I had a sinking feeling they were about to give us a forced, “innocence wins” type of finale—and yeah, that’s what happened. No stakes. No real surprise. Just a safe, obvious choice.

The FBI/undercover storyline added nothing. It took up so much time and yet went nowhere. You could cut all of Hwang Junho’s scenes, and the plot would be exactly the same.

VIP scenes were a drag. I don’t know who told them we needed more of those slow, awkward conversations, but it wasn’t me. Every time they popped up, the pacing crashed.

And then they hit us with “the game continues…” scene, like it’s supposed to be dramatic. Bro, what do you mean it continues? 456 is dead for no actual good reason, no one's fighting the system, and the cycle just goes on? That's not an ending—that's just giving up.

🎀What I Wished We Got Instead:

The Front Man joining the game again—maybe as some twisted redemption arc—and dying to end the cycle.

Gi-hun (456) stepping up as the new Front Man and reshaping the system. Give the man a legacy.

The baby and her father, Lee Myung-gi (333), surviving and winning. Or better yet—Gi-hun surviving with the baby and becoming the father he couldn’t be to his own daughter.

OR… if they were going full dark—blast the whole thing down. No survivors, no trace, no continuation. Just closure. That would’ve been cruel, but it would've made a point.

🎀Final Verdict: 🌟 3.5/5 stars

There are things this season did right—mostly the emotional beats—but it lost the tension, the cleverness, and honestly, the heart of what made Season 1 so good. It tried to go big with themes but ended up playing it safe.

🎀Watch it for:

That mother-son arc (you’ll cry)

Kim Jun-hee’s birth plot

You want to add this series in your 'Watched' list

🎀Skip it if:

You’re tired of every “game” being a variation of push-and-fall-to-your-death

You want a finale that actually feels earned, not handed out with baby tears and slow music

You’re not emotionally prepared to watch a literal baby in a death match (yes, that actually happens)

⭕️🔼⏹️💰💀 Will I rewatch season 3? No. ⭕️🔼⏹️💰💀 Am I glad I finished it? Barely. ⭕️🔼⏹️💰💀 Do I still recommend Season 1? Absolutely. That one made sense.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go rewatch Season 1 and pretend this was all a bad dream.

[midnight--sadness]

‼️SQUID GAME SEASON 3 TEASER IS COMING OUT TOMORROW ‼️

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[peridot-tears]

I know Ubisoft put zero research into this and has no idea what they've done, but Shao Jun having short hair is kind of a Big Deal, actually.

During Ye Olde China times, cutting your hair was often seen as a sign of disrespect or disgrace, because you were expected to keep it long and maintain it, as every part of your body was a gift from your parents.

This would have been an especially big deal during the Ming Dynasty, as the dynasty preceding it was ruled by Mongols, who braided their hair. Their customs were long viewed by Han Chinese as "barbaric," and so keeping their hair long and in Han styles would have been an act of cultural pride.

Ubisoft probably just felt like making a short-haired character! They couldn't even bother to give her a Chinese voice actress, so zero thought was put into her! But now I have all these in-universe headcanons about why she has short hair!!!!!!

Maybe she cut her hair when she joined the Brotherhood to signify that she didn't belong to anyone anymore, and besides, people couldn't see it from under the hood anyway.

My biggest headcanon is that she cut it when she went into exile, to signify that she had been severed from the motherland, and refused to let it grow back until she had come back and killed Zhang Yong!

I like to think that after she had come back and restored the Brotherhood, she grew her hair back out again, and that she grew into a wise old Mentor with hair longer and more well-kept than anyone's.