#Men Boong Time

[kdramalands]

Binge Craze September

This month has been quite busy for me regarding my kdrama addiction, and I thought that a little update on what has been going in my life would be nice... I haven’t had a good sleep in a while, and my health-sleep tracking app is acting accordingly to prepare for my soon-to-take-place funeral.

I’m going to include a rating for the dramas regarding their bingeability according to my fucked up sleep schedule, which is very accurate and just rating system, excuse you.

REM? More like RAM one more episode in the 3 a.m. time slot.

Do not try at home.

Her Private Life (2019) [10/10]

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

The source of the paintings and the source of Kim Jae Wook’s handsomeness kept me from closing my eyes till 6 a.m. Dramas that light and effortless will be the death of me. It was a nice romantic drama, but it had some heavy emotional moments as well. My friend who also got around to finally watching this drama actually thought we’re going to enjoy it together for a while and discuss every detail. YOU FOOL. I’m a heartless binger, and once I finished this one, I didn’t even blink before I started watching another.

The Guest (2018) [8/10]

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂

I had it on my “golden dramas” list for a long while. I noticed I have tendency to leave out the best dramas for later as safe bets. I have no idea what happened, maybe I was worn off after Her Private Life, but I only stayed up till 3 a.m. to watch it. And it kinda wasn’t the best idea to watch it at night... I mean, I guess it has a horror tag for a reason. However, this one was truly a mild one, so no harm done. Whatever was left of my sanity is still intact. And I got my stolen watch time back during the day. I couldn’t possibly be stopped with that little nap, especially when actors did such a great job and the plot was very unique.

Signal (2016) [9/10]

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

I really went all the way with treating myself this month with good dramas. I’m sure you can understand why it got rating this high. The secrets in this one are laid in a thick layer, so I was watching it without blinking, not to mention sleeping. I finally got my beauty sleep at 5 a.m. Yay health. The best part of Signal was definitely Lee Jae Han fighting workplace discrimination single-handedly. Woke men are sexy. Signal is also a brilliant commentary on the biggest cold cases in Korea. It is clear the research that went into making this drama was intense, and you can really learn a lot from it.

P.S. Where is the second season?????

Life on Mars (2018) [7/10]

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂

We didn’t have a good start. Life on Mars isn’t that fast paced at the beginning, and my WiFi connection started acting up at that time. I’m pretty sure it was a serious case of an assassination of my internet provider on the binge status of these series. My mood went down, and honestly, the action at that point didn’t pick up the pace, so we had a hard time. The biggest mystery wasn’t actually a mystery, and the writers put all important cards on the table indicating where the plot is going. But all things worthy sometimes need that effort, and I’m glad I found my pace again. Life on Mars hit me hard, and like the big masochist I am, I really enjoyed the ending.

The Undateables/ Handsome Guy and Jung Eum (2018) [6/10]

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

I got hooked within the first 10 minutes of this drama. It was very smooth and easy to watch. I enjoyed these little gestures and facial expressions that appeared here and there, making it 10 times more silly and 10 times more bubbly. It was very addictive and very much appreciated after that row of brilliant, but heavy dramas I went through on my own accord. It’s not a big piece of art, but I searched for some sweet sweet couple moments and I got them, so the winner is probably still me. I took it easy with this one though. It wasn’t action packed or that gripping to pull an all-nighter, but definitely a good way to spend my time.

When The Devil Calls Your Name (2019) [7/10]

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂

I added this title to the list, but it was actually binged in 75%. Math queen right here! Staying up all night doesn’t fry all of your cells, see? From the day episode 1 was uploaded I did a serious stake out on this title. Observing and calculating. I knew I wanted to binge it all, but it took sooooo long to end. I snapped right before episodes 13 & 14 came out. This drama is a gold mine of really good OST songs. The plot was literally flowing, and I didn’t even notice how I got from episode 1 to episode 12. I agree that it became a little draggy around episode 13, that’s why I lowered the rating a little bit. However, the ending totally got me, and I still can’t get it out of my head, it was so wholesome.

Bring It On, Ghost/ Hey Ghost, Let’s Fight (2016) [5/10]

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

This drama could be described as a “classic beauty”. It definitely follows the basic form of a good drama, and it is addictive to the point of no return. It was fun, but took me a while to finish, I have no idea why. I noticed that even though I lost my pace after 5th episode, I picked it up back again when I got neat the end. Bring It On, Ghost is full of action scenes, and it has a very consistent and interesting plot, and supernatural elements in it, so I’m very surprised I didn’t finish it faster. Guess it wasn’t the right time and place.

Queen In Hyun’s Man/ Queen and I (2012) [10/10]

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂

I went full old-school with this drama, didn’t I? It was overloaded with typical couple drama like amnesia, big inheritance, and politics. Do you smell that? It’s the good stuff. I was smitten with the chemistry of the main couple here, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. Very thick chemistry, very nice to look at. We can fawn over how good Yoo In Na and Lee Dong Wook look together in Goblin, but Yoo In Na and Ji Hyun Woo were the OG couple back in the day. I just couldn’t wait till Kim Boong Do finally admits that he, in fact, is a player so I barely stopped to drink and eat. I have no idea how long did I stay up, but the morning sun greeted me through the window alongside In Na’s bright smile through my computer screen.

Laughter In Waikiki 2/ Welcome to Waikiki 2 (2018) [6/10]

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

It is a tricky one, because one does not simply laugh at 4 a.m. in a house full of sleeping fussy people.The beginning and ending kept the class of the first Waikiki, but I guess the A-class humour got lost in the middle. Don’t get me wrong, it was really funny, but I found myself laugh out loud less than I did during the first one. However, the romantic aspect got me good. If I were to mention one big reason why you should watch it, it’s the Romance in Waikiki. The romantic element of the plot was written well, and it was very neat that they referenced past characters too. The episodic skit format is not perfect to binge, it’s more of a watch two episodes this week, and next two probably next week. At least for me.

Be Melodramatic/ Melo Suits Me (2019) [9/10]

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂

There was no way for me to stop watching this after I hit a play button. Not only the drama is damn interesting, taking the form of an ultimate meta-drama, it has some nice winks to all kdrama manias like me. You can see them in small things, e.g. when Reply series were mentioned, PDs added the goat sound effect, or when Jin Joo said that Director Son kind of reminds her of Jung Bong from Reply 88, and bigger ones, when a lot of kdrama hits were put as a background music, e.g. ALMOST PAAAAARAAAAADISE from BOF, She is from My name is Kim Sam Soon or Appear from Secret Garden. It took me by surprise that even though the general atmosphere of Be Melo is kind of serious, they easily went over that fourth wall with light steps, and overall this drama keeps a nice balance between humour and sadness. And that song... every time I wash my hair... among the swaying flowers I can smell your shampoo’s scent... Play it at my funeral, I beg you.

It was a fun month of escapism and running away from my responsibilities. I had a little break at the beginning of this year, so I’m glad I caught up with some dramas I’ve been planning on watching for a while now and new ones I couldn’t wait to watch. I feel happy with the outcome. I hope you’re happy with my rating as well. See you in the next one.

[asiandramastoke]

Drama Rating: 9/10

Choi Hee Jin is a struggling actress in the modern society of Seoul but despite her hardships she keeps up an optimistic attitude in life. When a big break finally comes in her career, one in which she has to act as Queen In Hyun in a TV drama, she is aslo spiraled into a romance like no other when she accidentally meets Kim Boong Do – an actual scholar who has supported the reinstatement of the real Queen In Hyun during the Joseon era. Unexpectedly, he was able to traveled through time from 300 years ago while on the run from his pursuers who was trying to kill him because of his alliances.

When I think of a drama theme regarding love in different time lines, Queen In Hyun’s Man is my most memorable series for so many reasons.

I like the fact that this drama had the setting of modern day and sageuk at the same time.It was a good drama and the story line was very much my cup of tea. I love how it began and I love how it ended. I’m not going to dwell much into the story since I don’t want to go spoiling people around… but what I would like to share about this drama is that it has a very unlikely finale. I rarely find this kind of ending in a time loop kind of drama. Maybe in a movie, yes… but not much in dramas. They usually end up weird and unsatisfying for me, but this drama has deviated from an expected bitter ending.

The characters where solid and the actors/actresses in it were really good in portraying them. The main actress which was portrayed by Yoo In Ah, had an initially annoying character but I did find her cute at some extent. I like the way she was able to hold a steadfast attitude when the situation needed it, though most of the time she is as clueless and as naive as she could be. Then there is the main actor from Joseon era acted by Ji Hyun Woo who can skip time from present to future. He had this aristocratic aura around him and I find it weird that he was able to easily fit into the modern time instead of freaking out. It was so logical of him. I usually ask myself why do I like such men from sageuk compared to the modern day? I think it’s the hanbok or something. Heh.

As for the music, it wasn’t something that grabbed my interest but it was able to convey the feelings on each characters emotion which was good enough for me. As for re-watch value, I’m not sure I would re-watch it due that the mystery was already over for me but I would definitely recommend it to people who are into time jumping themes and all those lovey-dovey shiznits. I’m sure this drama will hook them up.

PHOTOS ARE NOT MINE. CREDITS TO THE OWNER.

Queen In Hyun’s Man (Korean Drama 2012) Drama Rating: 9/10 Choi Hee Jin is a struggling actress in the modern society of Seoul but despite her hardships she keeps up an optimistic attitude in life.

[bygosscarmine]

Things Clear As Writing, Things Left Unsaid

a canon-divergent Queen In-Hyun’s Man fic - PG Choi Hee Jin/Kim Boong Do

I love Queen In-Hyun's Man wholeheartedly. On a rewatch recently, however I realized that it really bothered me that Yoon Wol was killed--in a flashback, no less. That Boong-Do had no chance to save her. That was a writing choice I think was unnecessary. So here is an alternative:

PART ONE: Unsaid

In his hand, the talisman was blackening. Kim Boong Do glanced across the square at Choi Hee Jin. Her puzzlement over his momentary disappearance was clear on her face, the way she wore all her feelings. He looked down again, the fractions of a moment slowing as if he were in a battle. The fabric-like paper, which had weathered so much, was turning to ash. Yoon Wol, he thought suddenly--the monk had told him the talisman was made powerful because of her faith and loyalty. Something must be happening to Yoon Wol.

He muttered the words written on it under his breath, not sure if the clearly degrading talisman would work or not--and then he was in the quiet forest of Joseon again. The world went quiet, traffic of cars in nearby streets replaced by whispering flights of leaves. The talisman continued to blacken, invisible flame eating its benediction.

He raced for his cached clothing, not anywhere as close to it as he needed to be.

He had no horse. Instead he raced on foot, pushing his body like the punishing early days of training with the monks. Days when he had been in so much pain of spirit that feeling pain in his body made him at least remember he was real.

It had been a while since he needed pain to feel he was real. But now the stitch in his side told him that he was still in Joseon, and running. He did not like to think of what might happen if he stopped feeling real.

If the talisman was dead, would he become a shade here? Or would he stay very real, trapped in a world he had given up? Would he be forgotten by Hee Jin, or would she be left wondering? Would she go again, to read bald words about him in the annals of the court of Joseon?

There were many things he hadn't said aloud to Hee Jin, things she had probably read in those bland records. After all, some of them were truths easier to know as flat facts--his marriage, his disgrace, his reinstatement. The murder of his family.

But he had never said it--that he was a widower. That once he had a wife and a child, the expectation that he had created the next generation of his family. That once his heart had been so thoroughly broken all that was left of it was a charred lump.

Saving his queen had become the only reason to live--so that she would not suffer the same pain. So that he would not suffer the pain of failing her, too.

But now he had run from the pain he had caused Yoon Wol, and was paying the consequences.

He reached the gibang too late. When he asked after Yoon Wol, the gisaeng who told him which room to find her in gave him a slightly curious look. He heard her scream as he approached, and broke into the room to see her bleeding from the neck, crumpled on the ground. Ja Soo, the hired muscle for the Noron Minister, was standing over her. Seeing Boong Do he crowed, "You!"

Boong Do ran and laid his hands on Yoon Wol, holding the wound closed as it gurgled with blood. In his hand he still clutched the black, formless talisman, now drenched in Yoon Wol's blood just as it had once been splattered with his. He looked up just as Ja Soo realized it was in his power to kill them both, and braced himself.

They clattered to the ground together in the middle of busy Seoul, and the first thing he did was shout for help. The street around them has scattered with people about their business, but after his scream the blood was enough to make everyone stop.

"Call the ambulance, please," he said, still applying pressure. Yoon Wol was not dead, her heart pumping blood more and more weakly against his fingers. The stroke must have struck across her hands first, put up in alarm, before striking her throat.

He couldn't think beyond clasping her skin together, beyond breathing and holding her still, and murmuring to her that it was all right, that he had her.

The moment the ambulance screamed up, and the medics took over, looking frightened themselves of her state, Boong Do stepped back. He was just reaching into his pocket to call Hee Jin, then realized that his hands were covered in blood, with the talisman soggy in his fingers when he felt that strange pull--and was back in the room with Ja Soo.

The man's intent glare turned to triumph as his prey reappeared to him. Boong Do had to crash himself into a wall to evade the man's strike. Unsure if Yoon Wol would survive, but sure this man had meant to kill her only to hurt him, rage and fear turned to a solid, deadly thing. This time, the blade struck him. Boong Do, recognizing in some depth of his mind from this that there was no being saved from this place and its bloody ends anymore, allowed himself to be skewered--to then seize Ja Soo's weapon from him, grabbing it with his hands as well as in his own flesh.

Once he had the man's sword, it was quick work to kill him. It was quick to kill, when you did not want to leave a man a chance to escape. Then the men had come to support Ja Soo, at the sound of their raised voices, came after him, and he turned them into so many still bodies, too.

He had to flee.

After a stop in one of the disreputable districts where a man might find help with a wound without too many questions, and shelter for a day or two out of the sight of the king's men, he ran. First, to the mountains to see if the Master who had made the talisman could answer his questions about its end--but the man was beyond helping him. Buried honorably, he was beyond the impertinence of a man who had lost a world he had never belonged to, and a woman who he had never valued enough, and inquiries he probably could not have answered anyway.

Boong Do roamed the country, staying far from towns when officials who might know him were in residence. He could not, however, run forever from the harsh truth: he knew of no way to get back to Hee Jin. He would never know if Yoon Wol had died for him, just like his wife and unborn child, cut down like dishonorable mountain bandits.

There were things Boong Do had not gotten say, things he should have put into words for her. He had far too long to think of all the things he should not have left unsaid.

Maybe it was losing belief that he would make his way back to Hee Jin. Maybe it was losing faith he had done the right thing after all. Maybe it was just another foolish risk like the others that had ruined him, over and over. He had decided to go to his cache of clothes, though it was close to a road on the way to the King's palace. Just once more, he wanted to turn on the phone with Hee Jin's picture in it, to imagine her voice by reading the messages she had sent him--perhaps copying down the strange new syllabary to make sure he understood her perfectly.

He took the risk, and ended up in jail. He had underestimated how eager others were to punish him for surviving against the odds for far too long. Not even necessarily enemies--just people unsure of him and sure he could be up to no good. And he deservedit. Who could pretend, if he were living, that he was not the killer of Ja Soo and his men? He was. He knew it was a crime that made him unworthy of his country. He had done it in anger, not just in self-defense.

He wished he were glad he had done it--then he might face his death as a proud man. Instead, he just thought of how much blood there had been. What a waste it was, that men would cut each other down for some perceived slight between clans and factions and the dignity of the throne.

What last measures were left for him, he had already considered as he wandered. Rotting in jail was not among them. The talisman, black as if soaked in ink that cancelled out its previous virtues, was still on him. More an accusation, now, than a memento.

Perhaps there was one person he could free from pain. Could he take himself from her memory by burning the talisman?

He couldn't be sure, so first he wrote a letter.

Even having written the letter, there were so many things that he had not said to Hee Jin.

When did he fall in love with her? He wasn't sure. It had always been clear what Hee Jin felt--she was transparent, as easily readable as hanja. He knew that he had not been in love with her the first time they met, though her warm smile--unexpected from a complete stranger, especially a woman--had reassured him. Not the second time they met, though her familiar face had sent a warm feeling of relief and affection through him, despite not understanding every third word she said.

But it hadn't taken him as long to fall in love as he made it seem. He had told her that he finally saw her as a beauty, when she was dressed as a queen of his time--mirroring her playfulness by saying it aloud. What that meant, though, was he finally saw how to the world she was considered a beautiful woman--a person was formed by their society, and such clothing seemed more natural to him.

A man could love a woman who was not his definition of beauty. Especially if she looked at him with such open affection, and easily gave him the warm gestures of love that he was unused to even in marriage.

How could he write a love letter that told her that though he had not honored her with any formal status, she was more than a wife to him?

A letter could be found. That's why he wrote this one. He had to keep some decorum, or it might be burned for indecency. Such things would have to go unsaid.

Continue here to: Part Two - Unwritten 

[gwynne-fics]

wei50-blog replied to your post “31 Days of AUs: Enemies to Lovers”

Ah! Dong-Wook is the boss of Zeus! Doesn’t seem like he is related to Young-Do’s, who seems to be from a poor family and pushed into a life he chose because he felt like he had to, not because he wanted to. Young-Do learns how to be ruthless early. Not only does he take care of the ones working for the Enforcer, but the actual Enforcer! Are there multiple Enforcers in a gang? Love the respect Rachel garners from the opposing gang!

Dong-Wook and Young-Do aren’t related. And let’s go with multiple Enforcers with people under them, but there is kind of a head Enforcer and that’s what Young-Do and Rachel are.

What is Rachel’s background and how did she end up as Enforcer for Jeguk? Rachel protecting Eun-Sang because they are friends? How did Eun-Sang end up at this club (but not as a prostitute)? Haha Rachel doesn’t pull any punches and lets Young-Do know exactly what the rules are. Boy, he is so into her he doesn’t even know it! So the accountant made a bad decision re Eun-Sang and so was dead! Rachels is not kidding about Eun-Sang.

>.>

And so it starts, enemies who are starting to have … something for each other. But too much at stake for it to really become real? 7 years is a long time for stasis! How will this non-relationship be tested? Rachel makes the first move, Young-Do does choose Rachel over his boss, and set a boundary for Hyo-Shin. What about Rachel? Will she also protect Young-Do? Love Rachel and Young-Do in this Gang AU!

>.>

Ooo, Young-Do takes out his boss! Then, wow, former second lieutenant Hyo-Shin becomes the new Zeus boss! Hm, what did he know about the situation with Rachel, Eun-Sang and Jeguk? Rachel does the same, killing her boss too! Who is going to be in charge of Jeguk now, after Won and Tan? (hm was Won’s accident planned?) Ah! This connects to QIHM AU! The crash and scream at the end is Boong-Do?!?

That was Boong-Do ^^;;

>.>

Haha answers to questions posed in last comments! Wonder how far/ if Hyo-Shin can be trusted? Well, as much as a gang boss can be, since a certain ruthlessness and ultimately being most loyal to yourself is necessary. Yes, be freaked out that (maybe, if you become the boss) your Enforcer is compromised with ‘feelings’ for the enemy gang…

Hyo-Shin is so freaked out >.>

(don’t know suffb!) Gang kids have feelings and want to be in meaningful relationships too! Does Young-Do crack just a bit? Hard to come down on someone for something that he himself is guilty of? Hm, was it Tan that wants Ye-Rim? And why is Hyo-Shin concerned about Won throwing a fit? And yes, why is it Hyo-Shin and not Young-Do?

I am establishing a pattern for Tan before he gets to Eun-Sang. He stalks escorts and goes after the men who purchase their time. Hyo-Shin is concerned because gang leaders have a habit of going after rival gang members who hurt their family. It doesn’t matter that Tan started it. It matters that Hyun-Soo and Ji-Hyuk finished it.

What is going on with Hyo-Shin? (keeping my eye on that one)

So, so much. It really is a race to see if something with him gets requested or if I write it first.

Eun-Sang and Rachel are sisters so loyal to each other!!! Oh, so curious about their family? Background? How did they end up here? Definitely makes sense now how protective Rachel is. Very much feel Rachel makes the best of being in the gang, makes sure she is the best at what she does, but also not a choice she would have made if she had one?

>.>

Shows because Rachel forbids Eun-Sang from getting involved in this world, wants her to get out of possible involvement as soon as possible… Rachel has to be the best out there, because Eun-Sang is a point of weakness and Rachel needs to be the scariest and most lethal predator in order to protect her sister. Wow, so Rachel makes this club neutral territory just so Eun-Sang can have a place there?

She doesn’t want Eun-Sang in the gang culture so she used her power to orchestrate keeping a normal little pocket for her sister. But the club might as well be under Jeguk’s control anyway because of how much the gang respects Rachel.

Was Won grooming Rachel to be his successor? Is that why Tan (maybe) arranged the accident? Yea, bad vibes re Tan from the beginning… and we know Rachel does kill him for hurting Eun-Sang. Hm have a feeling Eun-Sang is going to fall in love with a gangster. This boyfriend of hers… doesn’t know she is an escort, is there something she doesn’t know about him?

Won is grooming Rachel, she just didn’t really realize it. Tan was very jealous.

Oh, Eun-Sang...>.>

Rachel’s standards are so high she’s never had sex before! Mutual attraction, or at least respect drew them together in the beginning? Will be interesting to see after 7 years, and now, with Young-Do pretty much declaring himself, what will happen to this non couple! Can't wait to see what's next in this complicated web you are weaving! (and, wait, Nam-Il has ties to Rachel here, and not Young-Do!?)

I decided to switch up Nam-Il’s loyalty >.>

Oh! Also, Young-Do didn’t seem to know Rachel was a virgin? Well, he seemed to do well by her regardless. Putting together timeline, is Eun-Sang still with this same guy in the most current snapshot, where both Rachel and Young-Do killed their respective bosses? Does Rachel know who this boyfriend is yet?

Young-Do didn’t know. He aroused her enough and gave her a couple of orgasms first before he put on the condom and had traditional sex with her. He was really mindful and gentle with her and she was very relaxed from being so drunk.

I might have placed Eun-Sang’s boyfriend too early because as of the killing of Kim Tan Rachel still doesn’t know and it has been probably three years since Rachel and Young-Do first had sex and that’s way too long to go without meeting Eun-Sang’s boyfriend. Oops.

They could do better (running their respective gangs?)? Hm… (well we do know Young-Do doesn’t want it) So ironic Rachel kills everyone in there warehouse that is part of her gang but lowers her gun for Young-Do? And it’s pretty big Rachel lets Young-Do into her apartment! Do they become exclusive, in practice if not by intent? Not that they would talk about that with each other. Would they care if the other was exclusive?

>.> <.< >.>

[idiosyncreant]

QUEEN IN-HYUN’S MAN - A Rewatch Review

This is not the post I was expecting to write, when I went into this rewatch. Despite the dramatic potential of saving it for the end to reveal why, I’m actually going to lead with it: I really enjoyed this drama, but the last two episodes had some choices I strongly disagreed with.

Takeaway? Writer Song Jae Jung actually didn’t go that off the rails in W: Two Worlds; this has been the way she plays it all along.

[spoilers throughout - if you haven’t watched yet scroll on by. Review for those who wanna watch: this is worth looking into tho an older drama, come back and read my critique afterward. XP]

FIRST, THE GOOD STUFF

The great bulk of this show held up to rewatching. If you do not already know, I cannot explain to you how sexy it is to watch Kim Boong Do navigate modern day Korea with his Confucian scholar logic. I had forgotten how quickly he starts evaluating the clothes surrounding him--and figures out a situation in which he can obtain them. Unlike most heroes, he mugs no one for clothing?

(It helps he’s on a set.)

And then, there’s the fact that we get this set up that Choi Hee Jin is an ordinary girl. However, through the whole drama she is supported by the narrative, rather than undermined. It’s made clear that her acting has improved from the past because of her effort, and she gets the role on her own terms (despite what her ex wants her to think). 

She has been studying how to pronounce archaic Korean and does it well. And then... there’s this beautiful exchange. She’s claiming to have destroyed the talisman to trap him in the modern world, and he argues she knows what having it get cut did to them. “I’m stupid, so I totally forgot about that, and did it,” she lies.

Because here’s the thing: Kim Boong Do deduces a lot of what is going on around him, and he learns and memorizes information fast. But if it weren’t for Choi Hee Jin catching on when he wasn’t understanding something, he wouldn’t have gotten far.

The other thing I loved in their relationship (that is rare in any media, never mind trendy rom-com k-drama) is how they teased each other. Choi Hee Jin kept pulling Kim Boong Do’s leg, and because he’s clever, he reads through it. And he responds in kind.

In most writers’ hands the way they lie to each other would be taken dead serious and be a communication killer--but she’s a kidder, and he’s got a sense of humor.

Even when she uses lying to cover for her feelings, he never makes it about calling her out--instead he plays along until she can be truthful.

They’re a great improv duo, is I guess what I’m saying here.

I also love that Choi Hee Jin never gets shamed for being totally into him. Even if she gets busted for being impulsive about this kind of thing. Kim Boong Do is hugely amused when her manager says she finds ways to kiss boys she likes:

The thing is--Kim Boong Do totally digs it. The next opportunity he makes his own “modern goodbye” move.

NOW, THE TROUBLING STUFF

In Episode 14 I started to get uneasy. It seemed like the drama, as I remembered it, was wrapped. Why were there two episodes left?

Because. The writer wanted to cause Kim Boong Do more pain. This would have been enough, the fact that he did leave his whole life and purpose and legacy behind in Joseon:

I LOVE THAT HE GETS TO CRY ABOUT THIS.

However, he gets yanked back into his old world with a new rule added to the talisman’s effects at the eleventh hour: Yoon Wol, the gisaeng who created it, is killed and he is brought back as the talisman turns black.

Apparently her intent to have it save him boomerangs if she dies so instead his life is put in even more danger. Her murder without compunction feels a little off-tone for a drama in which lives were risked many times but our hero was always able to come through--in fact, when he would have been declared dead in Joseon, he is saved. Yoon Wol is given no such grace.

And so Kim Boong Do ends up disgraced, in prison, and believes himself doomed. So he commits suicide.

Wait. What? Yep. But now Choi Hee Jin’s phone works across the centuries, and becomes his new talisman. First it causes him to fight his way out of the noose he’s made for himself, then when he answers it pulls him into her timeline.

The one thing I liked in this rather digressive plotline was how quickly they let Choi Hee Jin put it together, even thought she had forgotten him. (I much prefer, though, the earlier way they handled her remembering Kim Boong Do when no one else did--that she accepted she was hallucinating and was in therapy about these false memories. Because that is what a real person would do!)

There were other things that could have been done in the two episodes to add some tension or resolve some themes--there could have been a strategy save Yoon Wol from unhappiness and bring her to a place where Kim Boong Do noted she could be respected as an entertainer. We could have seen the couple having to actually go public with their relationship so her ex would finally get off her back, and deal with fallout.

Like, there is so much scope for fun with all the denial the other boy is in...

But instead we got a cheap hit with a woman, vulnerable because she is in a job where men consider her fair game, killed just to make the hero miserable and cause him to fall from grace. 

Without him getting to redeem himself--he just escapes. It’s out of character and frankly puts too much importance on his romance over his actual life. It’s one thing to take arrows because there is no other way to vindicate the queen, and there’s a strong chance he’ll get the care to survive once he time-travels. It’s another thing altogether to try to hang himself with the tie that stands for their relationship’s intimacy.

But the fun of their relationship was its strongest appeal. I mean, watch this man run a scam:

We could have had at least a half an episode more of this kind of thing.

THE BIG TAKEAWAY

First, I don’t regret my passionate love of this story. I still think all the things that this drama did well were actually intentional and not just what I wanted to see.

My main sadness is seeing that there is a writer out there who does so many things I really enjoy, who has a creativity with SFnal concepts that go well beyond what most shows do--who has a pattern of letting her own themes and characters down.

(I didn’t watch Nine: Nine Time Travels but from what I did catch while it was releasing makes me think it also follows this trend.)

And while I definitely do not need to fix this drama with a sprawling rewrite--there may be a short story to revise those last two episodes in my future.

[maiasolaire]

KDramas I Wanna Watch

Dramas recommended to me by friends and/or internet posts.

(Summaries aren’t mine)

1. She Was Pretty

Can you over-romanticize a cherished memory from childhood? Ji Sung Joon (Park Seo Joon) was a shy, porky kid who was constantly teased by the other kids for his rotund shape. When he transfers to a new school in fifth grade and meets Kim Hye Jin (Hwang Jung Eum), the prettiest, most popular girl in school, his life turns around. The kind-hearted Hye Jin becomes his only friend and protector — and they become each other’s first love. But then everything changes when Sung Joon’s family immigrates to the United States and then Hye Jin’s father’s business goes downhill, plunging her family from their previous wealthy lifestyle. But that’s not all! Hye Jin’s beautiful looks initially took after her mother. But as soon as Hye Jin hits puberty, her father’s genetic skin condition takes hold and leaves her with reddish facial scars that makes her resemble a raccoon. Fifteen years later, Sung Joon is a whole new person — dashing and handsome and a successful art director — who is transferred from New York to the Seoul office of “The Most” fashion magazine to work as the deputy chief editor. He tries to find his childhood friend, Hye Jin, again. But embarrassed by her current unglamorous appearance, Hye Jin passes off her best friend, the stunning Min Ha Ri (Go Jun Hee), as herself. But when Hye Jin is suddenly transferred to the magazine department at her new job to work as in intern under Sung Joon, how much longer can she keep her true identity a secret?

2. Descendants of the Sun

Some relationships are fated, despite the challenges of time and place.

Yoo Shi Jin (Song Joong Ki), the leader of a Special Forces unit, meets trauma surgeon Kang Mo Yeon (Song Hye Kyo) in a hospital emergency room after Shi Jin and his second-in-command, Seo Dae Young (Jin Goo), chase down a thief on their day off.

Shi Jin is immediately smitten with Mo Yeon, and he asks her out on a date. But Shi Jin keeps getting called to duty when he is with Mo Yeon, and the two also realize that they have conflicting views about human life (he will kill to protect his country and she has to save lives at all costs). They decide to break off their budding relationship as a result.

Dae Young also tries to break off his relationship with Army doctor Yoon Myeong Ju (Kim Ji Won) because her father, Lt. General Yoon (Kang Shin Il), thinks Shi Jin is a better match for his daughter.

Shi Jin and Dae Young are then deployed to the fictional war-torn country of Urk on a long-term assignment of helping the United Nations keep peace in the area. After repeatedly being passed over for a promotion because of her lack of connections, Mo Yeon gives up performing surgeries, loosening her principles somewhat to become a celebrity TV doctor and caring for VIP patients at the hospital. But when she refuses the sexual advances of the hospital chairman, Mo Yeon is picked to lead a medical team to staff a clinic in Urk! There, Mo Yeon unexpectedly reconnects with Shi Jin.

3. Strong Woman Do Bong Soon

Do Bong Soon (Park Bo Young) comes from a long line of women possessing Herculean strength. But Bong Soon can only use her strength for good; if she uses it for her own personal gain or to mistreat others, she can lose her strength forever like her mother, Hwang Jin Yi (Shim Hye Jin). Bong Soon’s twin brother, Do Bong Ki (An Woo Yeon) did not inherit the unusual family strength and is a doctor, but Bong Soon has trouble finding gainful employment as an aspiring game developer.

When Ahn Min Hyuk (Park Hyung Sik), the young CEO of AIN Software, a gaming company, witnesses Bong Soon’s amazing strength against a group of gangsters one day, he hires her to be his personal bodyguard to help him catch a man who has been making death threats against him. Bong Soon has a secret crush on her childhood friend, In Guk Doo (Ji Soo), a police detective who is trying to capture a dangerous kidnapper in Bong Soon’s neighborhood. Can Bong Soon help both men track down the culprits?

4. While You Were Sleeping

A young woman with bad premonition dreams meets two people who suddenly develop the same ability.

Nam Hong Joo (Suzy) lives with her mother, Yoon Moon Sun (Hwang Young Hee), a widow who runs a small restaurant. Jung Jae Chan (Lee Jong Suk), a rookie prosecutor, and his younger brother, Seung Won (Shin Jae Ha), move in across the street. Since she was young, Hong Joo has had the ability to see bad events before they happen, but she is often unable to do anything about it.

One day, Jae Chan has a strange premonition dream about an accident involving Hong Joo and Lee Yoo Beom (Lee Sang Yeob), a ruthless attorney who used to be Jae Chan’s tutor. Jae Chan decides to interfere in the course of events and ends up saving the lives of Hong Joo and Han Woo Tak (Jung Hae In), a young police officer. When Jae Chan, Hong Joo and Woo Tak then start having dreams about one another, they realize that their lives are now somehow entwined.

But can the three discover the reason that they were brought together, and can they prevent the people closest to them from getting hurt?

5. Just Between Lovers (Rain or Shine)

A building collapse ties the fates of three young people years later. Ten years ago, the S Mall collapsed due to shoddy construction, killing 48 people inside.

Ha Moon Soo (Won Jin Ah) was there with her younger sister, who perished in the accident. Lee Kang Doo (Junho) was there waiting for his father, who was an electrician doing work on the building. Seo Joo Won (Lee Ki Woo) was helping out his father, who was the head engineer of the building. Moon Soo, Kang Doo and Joo Won survived the horrible accident, but their loved ones did not.

Years later, Joo Won is an architect who is working on a new project to replace the former S Mall. With her keen eye for detail and sturdy building construction, Moon Soo ends up working for Joo Won on the project. Kang Doo works odd jobs to get by and ends up working at the new construction site.

How will they each deal with their respective pains as they are reminded of the event that changed all of their lives so profoundly?

6. Father Is Strange

This is one of those things that can disrupt a seemingly normal family. Byun Han Soo (Kim Young Chul) lives on the outskirts of Seoul with his selfless wife, Na Young Sil (Kim Hae Sook). Their bustling lives center around his small diner, “Daddy’s Snack Shop,” and their four adult children, Joon Young (Min Jin Woong), Hye Young (Lee Yoo Ri), Mi Young (Jung So Min) and Ra Young (Ryu Hwayoung).

Joon Young tries not to disappoint his parents as he has been unable to pass the civil service exam for five years. Hye Young is the most accomplished as a successful attorney who has an on-again, off-again relationship with Cha Jung Hwan (Ryu Soo Young), a television producer-director. After years of trying to land a job, Mi Young finally lands her dream job as an intern for Gabi Entertainment, only to discover that her high school bully, Kim Yoo Joo (Lee Mi Do), works there as a team leader. Ra Young works a yoga instructor and falls for Park Cheol Soo (Ahn Hyo Seop), who has absolutely no interest in returning her attention.

The close-knit Byun family is thrown into turmoil when Ahn Joong Hee (Lee Joon), an idol-turned-actor, shows up one day and claims that Han Soo is his father. Joong Hee is widely ridiculed by netizens as a robotic actor, but he is determined to earn respect by landing a role in a highly anticipated miniseries about a father-son relationship. But in order to conjure the emotions needed for the role, Joong Hee decides he needs to get to know the father he believes abandoned him and his mother 35 years ago.

Will Joong Hee’s appearance threaten to reveal a deeply buried secret and otherwise disrupt Han Soo’s happy family life?

7. Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo

What else could there be to life than barbells and heavy weights?

Kim Bok Joo (Lee Sung Kyung) is a weightlifting phenom who has only focused on barbells her entire life while growing up with her father, Kim Chang Gul (Ahn Gil Kang), is a former weightlifter. She attends Hanwool College of Physical Education, a university full of top-notch athletes who are driven to succeed in the hopes of representing their country in national and international competitions.

Bok Joo went to the same elementary school as Jung Joon Hyung (Nam Joo Hyuk) but reunites with him in college. He is now a competitive swimmer who is having trouble recovering from the trauma of being disqualified for a false start in his first international swim competition.

Song Shi Ho (Kyung Soo Jin) is a fiercely competitive rhythmic gymnast who won a silver medal at the Asian Games when she was 18, but the pressures of her sport drive her to break up with Joon Hyung. Bok Joo’s tunnel-vision life starts to change when she falls in love with Joon Hyung’s older cousin, Jung Jae Yi (Lee Jae Yoon), a former athlete who became an obesity doctor after suffering a career-ending injury.

Will Bok Joo learn that there is more to life than weightlifting?

8. Queen In Hyun’s Man

Every actress hopes that an opportunity will come along to play an iconic role that could bring her out of obscurity and make her a star.

For Choi Hee Jin (Yoo In Na), that opportunity is in a television drama playing the role of Queen In Hyun (Kim Hae In), who was deposed during the Joseon Dynasty as King Suk Jong’s (Seo Woo Jin) consort by the scheming actions of Lady Jang (Choi Woo Ri). But Hee Jin’s modern-day world collides with that of her character in ways she doesn’t fully understand.

Kim Boong Do (Ji Hyun Woo), a scholar from the Joseon era, is mysteriously transported 300 years into the future to modern-day Seoul and comes into Hee Jin’s life as she is preparing for her career-making role. Boong Do not only knew the real queen but also supported her reinstatement.

Was Boong Do brought to the future to help Hee Jin bring some authenticity to her role as the queen?

9. Madame Antoine

Can a very observant woman outwit a psychotherapist? Go Hye Rim (Han Ye Seul) operates the Madame Antoine cafe on the first floor of a building that also houses a famous psychotherapy clinic on the top floor. Hye Rim uses her keen intellect and heightened senses to also work as an adviser to psychotherapist Choi Soo Hyun (Sung Joon). But unknown to Hye Rim, Soo Hyun is running a top-secret experiment on her “ideal type of man” with the help of his younger half-brother, Choi Seung Chan (Jung Jin Woon), and clinic employee Won Ji Ho (Lee Joo Hyung). But unknown to Soo Hyun, Hye Rim also is being paid by a mysterious man to get a hold of Soo Hyun’s valuable experiment files. What is Soo Hyun’s true experiment, and will Hye Rim help him or hurt him in his research goals?

10. The Guardians (Lookout)

The Guardians tells the story of a group of people who team up to serve justice themselves after losing their loved ones to criminals. The group consists of a detective, prosecutor, hacker, and an extremely shy person. They want to give these criminals the punishment that they deserve, and take matters into their own hands as the corrupt justice system in South Korea fails to capture the culprits.

11. Circle (Circle: Two Worlds Connected)

A sci-fi mystery drama that takes place in both the year 2017 and the year 2037. In 2007, twin brothers, Kim Woo-jin and Kim Bum-gyun, witness an alien arrival that brings about a huge change in their lives. In 2017, Kim Woo-jin (Yeo Jin-goo), now a college student, notices that a series of suicides in his university is somehow linked to his brother, Kim Bum-gyun (An Woo-yeon). While in pursuit of the case, he meets Han Jung-yeon (Gong Seung-yeon), another college student who is investigating the serial suicides. In 2037, South Korea is now divided into General Earth, a heavily polluted place where crimes are rampant, and Smart Earth, a clean and peaceful city free from crimes. Kim Joon-hyuk (Kim Kang-woo) is a crime detective who tries to get into Smart Earth to investigate a case of twin brothers who went missing in 2017. Each episode contains two parts, the first part is set in 2017 called “Beta Project,” while the second part is set in 2037 called “Brave New World.”

12. The Heirs

The series follows a group of rich, privileged, and high school students as they are about to take over their families' business empires, overcoming difficulties and growing every step of the way.

Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) is a wealthy heir to a large Korean conglomerate called Jeguk Group.[9] He was exiled to the U.S. by his brother Kim Won (Choi Jin-hyuk), who tries to take control of the family business.[10] While in the States, he meets Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye), who went there to look for her sister.[11] Despite being engaged to Yoo Rachel (Kim Ji-won), a fellow heiress, Kim Tan soon falls in love with Eun-sang. When Kim Tan returns to Korea, his former best friend turned enemy Choi Young-do (Kim Woo-bin) begins picking on Eun-sang to irritate Tan. Tension ensues when Young-do also falls in love with Eun-sang, and Kim Tan is forced to choose between responsibility of pursuing the family business or love.

13. Laughter in Waikiki (Welcome to Waikiki)

The story of three men who come to run a failing guesthouse called Waikiki. Complications spark when their guesthouse is visited by a single mother and her baby.

14. I’m Not a Robot

Kim Min-kyu (Yoo Seung-ho) lives an isolated life due to a severe allergy to other people. He develops extreme rashes that rapidly spread throughout his body once he makes any form of skin contact. Jo Ji-ah (Chae Soo-bin) is a woman who is trying to make it in life by creating her own businesses. However, after an encounter with Min-kyu, she ends up pretending to be a robot in place of the supposed Aji 3 robot. The Aji 3 robot was developed by Ji-ah's ex-boyfriend, professor Hong Baek-kyun (Um Ki-joon) and his team. The robot was meant to be tested by genius Min-kyu, however an accident caused the robot's battery to malfunction. As Baek-kyun modeled the robot after Ji-ah, the team ends up recruiting her to take the place of Aji 3.

15. Because This Is My First Life

House-poor Nam Se-hee (Lee Min-ki) and homeless Yoon Ji-ho (Jung So-min), both unmarried in their thirties, start living together as housemates.

[francisjireh22]

Kuya jireh grabe nagpapasalamat ako dahil nagkaroon ako ng descipler na aktulad mo, kung siguro hindi si kuya jireh naging descipler ko siguro matagal na ako nagfall away okaya hindi kona natuloy yung study, bro nagpapasalamat ako dahil nakiiita nila nanay yung mga pagbabago sakin, dati hindi nila tanggap na humiwalay ako sakanila dahil catholic kame pero sinubukn kong labanan yun para makita ko yung pagmamahal ni lord na hinahanap ko, and hindi rin ako nagkamali dahil nahanap ko rin sya sa simpleng family  time natin nahahanap ko si lord. Sa pagiging mabuting descipler mo bro nakikita ko kung gaano ka buti si lord, napakarami kong nagawang kasalanan kay lord pero binigyan nya parin ako ng mga kaibigan na katulad mo. Marami rin naiinis saking tao sa school dahil sa pagiging compitent ko at sa pagiging confident ko salamat dahil sinabi mo sakin na walang mali sapagiging confident at sa pag sheshare ng faith ngayon nasasanay na ako na maraming naiinis sakin not from being badboy but for being a real men. Bro wag ka sana magfall away bro hindi rin ako magfafall away bro promise yan. Magkakasama tayo nila johnrey bro tas yung boong kingdom bro. Bro sangayon nag fafail pa ako bro pero hindi ko akalain na nakaabot ako ng 27days bro pero ngayon alam ko na kung pano ko malalampasan and alam ko pag hindi ako nagfail hindi ako matututo bro salamat na tinulungan mo ako itama ang mga pagkakamali bro. #salamat kuya jireh bandiola #iloveyou10000xaday #bromapagmahal #heavenwithjireh #mabutingdescipler #mabutinganak #mabutingkaibigan #mabutingbrother #mayshoesnakyrie

[notesbeforewesleep]

SELAMAT MALAM, SAHABAT-SAHABAT GUE!

Hi, apa kabar?

Jawabnya dalam hati aja, karena pasti kalo enggak lagi sibuk, pasti lo semua baik-baik aja kan? semoga, atau mungkin udah tidur hehehe.

Malam ini gue menyapa kalian dengan senyuman lebar gue seperti biasa. Gue mau cerita, kemaren, iya kemaren banget, gue nonton film imperfect di bioskop. Enggak tau kenapa, itu film ngena aja, mungkin karena gue pernah kurus mendadak dulu pas kuliah sampe turun 17 kg dan pasca diet gue berhasil, gue sempet insecure luar biasa gitu kalo berat badan gue naik dikit, bahkan hampir setiap abis makan gue selalu tanya orang-orang yang sedang bersama gue saat itu , “makan gue banyak ya? udah keliatan gendutan ya?”, sedahsyat itu. Ada satu sahabat gue yang sering gue teror dengan pertanyaan itu setiap harinya, namanya Rosana. Sampe dia udah apal banget sama pertanyaan yang akan gue tanyakan setiap abis makan bareng di kampus atau setiap ngaca di toilet teknik sipil, karena kacanya full body .

But, anyway, yang mau gue omongin sebetulnya bukan gimana tentang film itu selanjutnya. Cuma berawal dari film itulah enggak tau kenapa gue pengen nulis ini. Khusus buat orang-orang spesial gue yang sering gue ramein notifikasi instagramnya sama DM-DM gue hehehehe. Mungkin bikin kalian geer ya, mengira awalnya notif tersebut adalah hal yang mungkin akan bikin kalian tersipu malu, karena dari seseorang mungkin kalian ngiranya, eh tapi ternyata gue lagi gue lagi hahahaha.

Gue sebenernya sadar selama ini gue sering banget mungkin memberisiki notif kalian, bahkan mungkin hampir setiap hari dan bahkan enggak cuma satu kiriman dalam sehari, bisa aja dalam satu hari itu gue ngirimnya beberapa kali dengan pesan yang berbeda. Enggak perlu gue sebutin disini ya, apa aja sih pesan yang terkandung di dalam share-an gue, kalian bisa inget-inget sendiri.

Honestly, kadang gue merasa takut dan insecure (cieeelah … baru nemu nih konteks penggunaan kata itu, jadi alay gitu gue selalu make kata itu terus sekarang wkwkwk), gue kadang takut salah satu dari kalian ada yang risih dengan aksi gue dan ternyata kalian mute gue, bahkan males sama  gue :( . Pernah gue merasa gue harus berhenti kayanya, atau minimal gue sharenya ya sekali aja dalam satu hari , atau sekali dalam seminggu. Bahkan, gue pernah off ig (meskipun alasan gue off ig bukan sepenuhnya karena mau menahan untuk enggak share sih, tapi ada alasan lain yang bikin gue kaya give up sama instagram, ya semacam “i’m enough with ya! i’m givin’ up, want to chillin’ life!” i was literally too addicted with ig, mungkin kalian pernah merasakan ini, at that time i was feeling like toxic part of social media for our life is real men, then i decided to get offline for a few months). But, i don’t know, setiap kali gue melihat postingan yang menurut gue bermakna untuk gue dan orang lain, rasanya gatal sekali ingin share, serius enggak boong. Rasanya kaya ada yang kurang kalo gue harus baca atau nikmati semua itu sendiri, jadi makanya gue share ke beberapa orang yang gue anggap spesial dalam hidup gue.

So, by this time. Gue mau minta maaf kalo selama ini gue menyebalkan dan membuat kalian risih bin risih, bahkan kadang suka sotoy tiba-tiba ngajak diskusi secara enggak langsung, atau gue sering ogah-ogahan kalo diminta video call or telponan (karena jujur gue paling males video call dan telpon, engga tau mati gaya aja, chat is still the best). Semua itu tidak lain tidak bukan adalah bentuk kasih sayang gue buat kalian. Gue sadar dan paham bahwa gue bukan tipe yang bisa romantis kaya sahabat di tv-tv or film-film, selalu inget ulang tahun kalian, kemudian making you surprised and giving you a gift, atau yang selalu inget moment spesial kalian, because … gue bukan orang yang pandai mengingat tanggal-tanggal spesial, that’s why gue sebel banget sejarah yang harus ngapalin tanggal or tahun tertentu, if you ask me to understand the way and the concept, conclusion of the history, i will be in the first line! . Jadi itu semua adalah bentuk rasa cinta dan sayang gue ke kalian, dengan mengingatkan apa yang gue bisa ingatkan. Karena apa yang gue share insyaAllah bermanfaat untuk kehidupan gue dan kalian di masa kini dan kehidupan kita di masa nanti. Karena, gue juga mau kalian mengingatkan gue saat apapun, bahkan saat gue salah sekalipun. Karena gue enggak mau temenan sama kalian di dunia aja, tapi di akhirat juga.

Ada suatu postingan yang pernah nulis kaya gini :

Ibnul Jauzi (Ahli Fiqih) pernah berpesan kepada sahabat-sahabatnya sambil menangis, “JIka kalian tidak menemukan aku nanti di syurga bersama kalian, maka tolonglah bertanya kepada Allah tentang aku, “wahai Rabb kami … hambamu Fulan sewaktu di dunia selalu mengingatkan kami tentang engkau. Maka masukanlah ia bersama kami di syurgamu”

or

“Aku pengen bertetanggan sama kamu di surga, aamiin”

Maaf juga, kalau selama ini gue selalu lupa hal-hal terindah dalam hidup kalian, selalu lupa hal-hal yang menurut kalian penting, selalu lupa apapun yang kalian suka, selalu lupa hal kecil about you guys, but honestly i love you, but i think it’s just not the way. Mungkin gue cuma bisa mencintai dan menyayangi kalian dengan cara gue #eeeaaa , dengan engga lupa bawa kalian di setiap doa gue (insyaAllah).

Gue pengen banget persahabatan kita, kaya Abu Bakar Ash Shiddiq dan Umar Bin Khattab, buat gue pribadi enggak ada yang lebih sweet dari persahabatannya mereka (Kalian bisa baca gambar yang jadi cover tulisan gue ini). Karena kita sama-sama tau hidup kita enggak cuma sekali, akan ada masa lagi kita punya kehidupan selanjutnya. Kalian percaya kan? :)

Satu hal yang harus kalian ingat, gue sering ngirim ini dan itu semua bukan karena gue sempurna dan sudah baik, justru itu semua pun pengingat buat gue, gue mau kalian pun tau hal yg baru gue tau lalu kita sama-sama jalan ke arah yg lebih baik dan gue berharap banget kalian akan mengingatkan gue juga kapanpun. Mungkin juga gue sering ujug-ujug secara engga langsung ngajak diskusi atas suatu topik, entah gue komen story kalian lah or apa kek, itu juga bukan karena gue pintar dan lebih tau, tapi justru gue bodoh karena gue ingin tau apa yang belum gue tau dari kalian.

Terimakasih sudah mau berteman dekat dengan gue dan atas pengingat, pengertian serta kepedulian kalian selama ini buat gue. Semoga gue bisa menjadi teman baik kalian dan begitupun kalian bisa menjadi teman baik gue dan semoga Allah selalu melindungi kalian. Jangan bosen ya sama notif-notif selanjutnya di instagram or sosmed kalian yg lain dr gue wkwkwkwk.

“Sesungguhnya Allah pada Hari Kiamat berseru, di mana orang-orang yang saling mencintai karena keagungan-Ku? Pada hari ini akan Aku lindungi mereka dalam lindungan-Ku, pada hari yang tidak ada perlindungan, kecuali perlindungan-Ku.” (HR. Muslim)

Maaf ya panjang, semoga kalian baca ini sampe abis hehehe.

With Love,

Suci

[mst3kproject]

K18: The Million Eyes of Su-Muru

I've never seen this one as an episode, mostly because I can't find the damn thing, even on YouTube.  The Wiki has a capture of the title card, but it looks terrible – I did my best to clean it up in photoshop, but the result was still so ugly that I didn't want it on my blog.  Instead of the MST3K version with the English title and the silhouettes, you guys get this one captured from a bootleg copy with the German title: Sumuru – die Tochter des Satans.

The dastardly Su-Muru has a plan!  I'm... not totally sure what that plan is.  It might involve having her agents marry the most powerful men in the world so they can run everything behind the scenes, or she might just plan to kill all the men and continue the human race by cloning.  I guess one could be a stop on the way to the other.  Her plan does not appear to involve freezing the world's oceans, so at least she's more practical than Fu Manchu.  However she gets there, the desired end result will be “a world of peace and beauty, ruled by women.”  Given that men have had thousands of years to rule the world and this place is still a fucking mess, she might actually have something there.

However, she has reckoned without smug jerk Nick West and his idiot friend Tommy Carter.  They are drawn into Su-Muru's web of deceit through a ridiculously convoluted series of events that end in West being taken to her private island near Hong Kong and blackmailed into facilitating the assassination of the lecherous Boong, President of Sino-Asia – I didn't write the movie, okay?  The assassin chickens out and escapes, leaving West to take the blame for her failure.  His only hope is that Carter can bring the military in for an all-out assault on Su-Muru's fortress of evil.  Or for one of the women to decide she'd rather fuck him before she kills him.  Or for a volcanic eruption.  How about all three? All three is good!

The tone of this movie is really weird.  Su-Muru and her followers seem to behave as if they're in a serious movie, even if some of what's going on – like their petrification guns – is ridiculous. West and Carter, on the other hand, apear to think they're in a comedy, even when they're finding a corpse in their hotel room.  Both men crack jokes that occasionally poke at the fourth wall, to the point where the Wiki claims Joel had to chastise the film for riffing itself.  It all feels like the guys aren't taking the threat to world security very seriously, and makes it very hard to be interested in their fates when they're so flippant about everything.  The Million Eyes of Su-Muru really needed to pick a genre, either spy thriller or self-aware comedy, and stick to it.

It also needed to pick a plot.  It was quite difficult to write that summary, because most of the time I had very little idea what was going on.  The movie was written by Sax Rohmer and produced by Harry Allen Towers, just like The Castle of Fu Manchu... was confusion just a feature of one or the other's work, or of both in concert?  The entire first half of the story seems completely irrelevant to what eventually turns out to be the main conflict, and a lot of it has nothing to do even with anything else in the first half.  Take the opening, for example, in which the heirs of the 'richest man in the world' are killed at their father's funeral.  What's that got to do with anything?  Nothing at all.

What about the bikini girl who gets drowned on the beach?  She must be the one Su-Muru was talking about in the previous scene, who has been blacklisted by the sisterhood for falling in love with a man. Is she the same person as Colonel Medika's murdered secretary? Neither he nor President Boong seem particularly upset about her death – Medika talks about it mostly in terms of the threat he believes it represents to Boong himself.  If either of them had been her lover, surely they'd show more grief.  Maybe she wasn't the same person... but in that case, why were we shown her murder if it's not related to what we see later?

Then we finally get something reasonably relevant, as West follows the ambulance that has kidnapped Colonel Medika.  Su-Muru's agents at the hospital try to drug and kidnap West as well, but he gets rescued off-screen and we learn almost nothing from the entire incident. There's no sense of this all figuring into somebody's master plan. It's more as if the movie has two or three false starts before it finally figures out that it's going to be about the assassination attempt on Boong.

But who, exactly, is President Boong?  Su-Muru wants him dead because he's a womanizer who goes through girls like he goes through cigarettes, never keeping a single one around long enough to let her influence him.  That actually makes more sense than most things in this movie, but we don't know anything much about Boong or his imaginary country, so his life or death don't mean anything to us.  You'd think we would at least find out what his policies are, since that's what would matter to Su-Muru, but we don’t.  I'm honestly not even sure if we're supposed to like him – I think he's supposed to be 'charmingly eccentric in a foreigny kind of way' but the way Klaus Kinski plays him teeters on the edge of 'camp gay'.

I'm also somewhat confused about whether Boong and Su-Maru are supposed to be East Asian.  Boong is played by a German actor in some kind of unflattering brown makeup, while Su-Muru is blue-eyed Shirley Eaton without even that.  I started to write something here about how 'Su-Muru' is probably not her real name anyway, but then I realized I was thinking about this way harder than the stupid movie deserves. As in Castle of Fu Manchu, the plot would have been racist regardless of the casting, so it's probably not worth the headache.

If we're gonna talk about actors and characters, we have to come eventually to our so-called hero, Nick West.  Apparently no matter what movie George Nader was in, he always played the same oily misogynist.  Roy in Robot Monster?  “You're so bossy you ought to be milked before you go home at night!”  Glenn in The Human Duplicators? “Here's one I wouldn't mind having under surveillance!”  And now here he is in The Million Eyes of Su-Muru. “I'll take twelve of each!”  Was he just typecast that way, or was he actually a smarmy asshole in real life?

While Boong is played kind of gay, George Nader actually was gay, which you'd think would be an advantage when trying to take down a female supervillain who works by seduction.  Too bad The Million Eyes of Su-Muru portrays a world in which heterosexuality is the only option.  In a movie so steeped in the male gaze you might expect there to be a few hints of lesbianism even if only for eye candy, but there's nothing.  Su-Muru monologues about how woman's only weakness is her susceptibility to falling in love with men.  Another woman claims she cannot resist 'the physical presence of a man' and apparently she means it, because despite the fact that she caught West sneaking into Su-Muru's compound, she makes out with him rather than shooting him or turning him in.  I think that's supposed to be a joke, but I'm not so certain about the bit where Su-Muru also has sex with West, and claims that as a woman she needs to be dominated.

All this implies that a woman's instinct is to bow to male authority, at least sexually, and that they are incapable of resisting the temptation to do so when it is offered.  On more than one occasion West or Carter's life is saved when a woman who hasn't seen a man in months just can't keep herself from jumping his bones before killing him.  Imagine the trouble Su-Muru could have saved herself if she'd just issued vibrators to her all-woman army! This also, of course, makes the women out to be indiscriminate, willing to sleep with any man they come across – but I'm gonna give the movie a pass on that because all the men are the same way. West, Carter, and Boong each have multiple partners over the course of the story, and all are willing to sleep with women they know are their enemies, because boobies.

I have to say, for living on an island where there are no men, Su-Muru's agents sure wear a lot of sexy miniskirts and midriff-baring blouses, and devote an awful lot of time to sultry smoking and lounging around.  Their initiation ritual requires the new recruit to be topless, and the traits that make one eligible to join include youth, beauty, and health, which are all listed before a vague reference to 'giftedness'.  Some of the women must be brilliant scientists, to create things like those petrification darts, but even they appear to have had their looks taken into consideration.  That's why I described this movie as 'steeped in the male gaze'.  Sax Rohmer did not bother to think about how women would conduct themselves as they plotted to take over the world in an environment with no men (I'm guessing there would be way more pajama pants and way less shaving), only how they could look totally hot while doing it.

I guess this movie isn't quite as bad as The Castle of Fu Manchu.  I still don't know what the characters want or what's going on, really, but I'm not actually angry at it for wasting my time... maybe that's just because my standards are getting lower. The Castle of Fu Manchu kind of felt like somebody wrote an outline and they just made the details up as they went along.  The Million Eyes of Su-Muru comes across as slightly more polished, as if it got to the 'first draft' stage but nobody ever went back and made sure the beginning fit in with the rest; it still sucks, but at least it did more preparation.  I guess that's gotta count for something.

[cosofsin]

Wings Tour In Jakarta; Chi Ase Namida yang Sesungguhnya (pt.1)

Nggak. Gue ga lebay. Karena memang inilah yang gue rasakan selama periode dua bulan gue siap-siap sampe akhirnya gue nonton ketujuh makhluk yang bikin dompet gue kembang kempis tapi hati bahagia tak terkira.

Just be warned; gue ga akan nyensor apapun. Bahasanya sama kayak gue ngomong di sosmed lain: cablak (meski ga secablak tapi ngga ngotak yang di CNN itu heheheh #ups). 

So, cuss. Kita mulai curhat ini. Kali habis gue nulis ini, gue kagak kangen2 amat sama Hobi + Joon (muri)

Pengumuman yang Datang Kala Boker

Ga boong. Gue lagi di kamar mandi waktu account officialnya BigHit dropped the bomb. Tepatnya tanggal 15 Februari 2017. Yes, gue inget tanggalnya karena itu kesimpen di LINE gue dan gue histeris capslock all the way. Dengan najisnya bilang ini kado Valentine dari BigHit buat ARMY #prethuek

Rasa syukur karena ga usah keluar duit buat keluar negeri demi Bangtan pun terbit. Karena gue sama sobi-sobi gue sebenernya udah honest to God, siap nggelontorin duit buat ngikutin mereka ke Singapore, Bangkok ataupun neighboring countries lain. Iya kami seekstrem itu (THE LENGTH WE GO FOR YOU, OUR CHILDREN)

But just when we thought everything’s gonna be okay… muncul pertanyaan besar: Ini yang bawa mereka siapa, njir.

Promoter, where art thou?

Pertanyaan ini adalah awal dari semuanya. Sebelum diannounce kalau promotor konser ini adalah IME, semua orang (gue yakin ini berlaku ke semua orang sih) pada was-was. Karena lu orang taulah gimana sejarahnya konser koreyah di negeri ini. Dari mulai promotor bawa kabur duit sampe yang ciciknya baper ehe #EAK. 

Kemudian pas di-announce kalau ternyata yang bawa IME Asia, kita lega dan bingung dong. Karena ini nampaknya promotor luar. Dan sama sekali belum pernah terbit namanya di Indonesia. Dare desuka? Omae wa?

Tapi kelegaannya nggak awet gaes. Karena habis itu… kokoro aing habis buat marah-marah. Jujur, yang berikutnya ini bakalan penuh omelan yang udah gue lampiasin tapi ga juga abis. Fiuh.

Social Media Admin Bego tuh Musim Ya?

Before we get started, gue mau ingetin; dari awal Bighit ngedrop pengumuman, sampai dengan tanggal konsernya, kita cuma waktu sekitar 2 bulan untuk mempersiapkan diri. Dan seperti yang kita semua tahu, time is crucial. Dan inilah yang bikin urat keluar ketika dari pihak promotor TIBA-TIBA BISU DAN NGGA NGASIH KONFIRMASI APAPUN.

Di saat tiket Bangkok dan Jepang udah mulai sold out susul menyusul, konser Wings Tour in Jakarta seakan cuma mitos, gaes. Ngga ada komunikasi apa-apa dari pihak promotor. Dan yang begonya lagi… admin Yes24 tiba-tiba memutuskan untuk ngelucu, dong. 

Ketika ada orang yang nanyain perihal konser, doi enak aja jawabin pake meme Not Today. Tapi begitu orang-orang udah mulai emosi, jawabannya itu loooooh. Nadanya ngga enak dan nyolot. Wei, lo perwakilan brand wei! Brief lo gimana njing. Gue tau elo CUMA TICKETING PARTNER. Tapi stance lo dari awal itu udah kayak channel infonya konser. Ya jelas banyak yang rely on you. Tapi terus lo becandain. Giliran orang marah, lo baper. Apa susahnya ngomong “Maaf saat ini kami masih belum bisa memberikan konfirmasi. Dimohon kesabarannya ya.”

Otak. Dikasi kagak dipake. Mubazir. #HEH

Dan jujur, gue dan sobi gue udah hopeless ketika sampe H-34 pun masih belum ada kepastian. Kita bahkan udah membulatkan tekad untuk ke Manilla. Worst Airport be damned. Yang penting nonton.

Kesangkut Regulasi Pemerintah?

Nah, usut punya usut nih. Dari accountnya yang punya Mecimapro, IME Asia ini rupanya kesandung aturan pemerintah. Aturan ini kurang lebih mengharuskan perusahaan luar negeri yang mau punya hajat di sini, harus punya cabang di Indonesia. And guess what? IME Asia ngga punya HAHAHAHAHAH.

Makanya mereka bisu. Tebakan gue sih, mereka sibuk kebut bikin cabang di sini. Dan kalau gue ngga salah inget, channel resmi IME Indonesia itu go public pertengahan Maret 2017. Blunder? Banget. 

Datangnya Price List! Dan Berlanjutnya Drama

Dan ketika price list rilis H-28. Gue sama sobi gue udah langsung bersyukur dan lemas. Harga sesuai dengan prediksi. Itu dulu yang disyukuri. Meski habis itu gue ragu. Ini promotor baru (baru in a sense, ini event perdana mereka di sini). Gue takut rugi jujur aja.

Tapi terus sobi gue dengan “setia” mengingatkan kalau ini yolo-yoloan. Mari beri tiket Red Zone. Kali dinotis sama dedek-dedek kesayangan.

Teng! Tanggal 4 April 2017 penjualan tiket dimulai. Dan lo tau? Dahsyat banget keroyokannya, man. Dua channel tiket langsung crash ga nanggung. Gue udah pasrah aja tapi kemudian sobi gue nge-LINE dengan sebuah message terindah yang bisa gue baca saat itu

Sejauh ini, semuanya smooth sailing. Tiket di kantung, kami tinggal bersiap (hotel pun udah booked meski kami sebenernya juga tinggal ngesot juga ke venue konsernya). Tapi kemudian, gue dan sobi gue jadi penonton betapa manusia itu bisa jadi busuk banget kalo udah urusan sama duit.

CALO!!

Calo dimana2 memanfaatkan keputusasaan mereka yang ingin nonton konser dan jual tiket dengan harga selangit. Hati lo di mana, men? Tiket lo jual dengan harga 3 kali lipat aslinya. Kan anjing. Dan yang bikin ngga habis pikir, masih ada aja yang ketipu. 

No to sound gimana gitu (meski sebenernya ya gimana gitu), tolong biasakan untuk melakukan background check seteliti mungkin saat akan bertransaksi online di media online. Minta KTP lalu masukin foto KTPnya ke reverse google image. Kalau nongol, block.

Gue liat sendiri ada orang yang H-8 konser, kelimpungan di twitter karena ketipu belasan juta. 

So please next time, be smart! 

Btw, biar ga kecapean scroll, lanjut ke part berikutnya yaaaa~

[mysmess-seol-blog]

The Ju and L Rule Explanation - Korean vs. English Comparison

Hi there♡

Thanks so much for the kind words~ you are just too sweet! And no worries! You aren’t dumb at all! I will gladly explain to you what this means! ^^

But omg. This. I totally forgot the amount of cringe I went through from this one!! Probably because the English language does not use this kind of word play. I hope I am able to make it easy to understand!

Please join me under the cut to go through an explanation of what MM translation meant by “Ju and L Rule.”

Please note that although this is an analysis, there may be opinions that may differ or be consistent with mine! While I can give some sort of Korean background, for debatable topics, I do not represent all of the Korean minds for respective topics. Also, please excuse any errors or let me know if clarifications are needed, for English is not my first language! Thank you and enjoy!

So before we start with the the text messages in question, let me explain why this does not sound as natural in English, and that is because it is 줄임말 or also known as shortened speech. This kind of thing is very common in Korea, and used all the time.

To give an example before getting into the actual stuff, for those that have seen my prologue “error” post which I will link here for those who have not seen it yet, Unknown/Saeran uses this kind of word play with the word, 존잘남.

To review, 존잘남 is a combination of three words: 존나: fucking 잘생긴: good lucking 남자: guy

See the pattern, right?

For those who are learning Korean, here are just a little more tips in terms of learning the language with a couple more examples of 줄임말.

☆깜놀 (ggam-nol): it is short for 깜짝놀랐어요. It means you, you scared me.

☆멘붕 (men-boong): it is short for 멘탈붕괴. It means, mental collapse.

☆ 카톡 (ka-talk): it is short for 카카오톡. It means, Kakao Talk, a popular messaging app in Korea.

☆ 프사 (p-sa): it is short for 프로필 사진. It means, profile picture.

☆ 페북 (pe-book): it is short for 페이스북. It means, facebook.

☆ 템 (tem): it is short for 아이템. It means, item. A word that Yoosung uses a lot when talking about lolol.

That is just a small percentage of 줄임말 that I provided that is used a lot just for the sake of having some examples to help you understand the following concept ^^

Let’s go to the chatroom between Jumin, 707, and MC that started this all.

I’ll go ahead and put down the translations below.

707: 꺄 Seol’s translation: Kya MM translation: >_

707: 네엡~ Seol's translation: Yes/Okay~ (formal) MM translation: Okay~

707: 허니봤다칩은 칼질할 필요도 없음. Seol's translation: You don't need a knife for Honey Buddha Chips. MM translation: No need to use a knife for Honey Buddha Chips.

707: 짭조름하다가 달아지는 Seol's translation: First salty then sweet MM translation: It's salty but becomes sweet later on

☆☆ 707: 짠단의 법칙을 준수한다. MM translation: following the Law of Sweet and Salty.

Alright. So this is where we stop for a moment. "The Law of Sweet and Salty."

법칙 definitely does mean law. The reason why it is the Law of Sweet and Salty is because of the combination of 짜다 (salty) and 달다 (sweet).

So in truth, 짠단 is not an actual word in the Korean language. Just a play on words, so to speak.

Like above, I mentioned through there that Unknown/Saeran uses the term "존잘남." It is not a real word in the Korean language, but a combination of three separate Korean words, (존나: fucking, 잘생긴: good looking, 남자: guy).

Thus the birth of the word, 존잘남.

In the case of this conversation with 707 and Jumin, 707 says, 짠단의 법칙. With the same pattern, we can see 짜다/짠음식 (salty) being combined with 달다/단음식 (sweet) to create the 짠단 combination that 707 thought of.

I think I explained that one as thoroughly as I can ^^ let’s move on to the text message conversation in question!

Jumin: 세븐이가 도가 지나쳐서 채팅방에서 나왔지만, 재미있는 이야기를 많이 들었어. Seol’s translation: I left the chat room because Seven was going overboard, but I still heard lots of fun stories. MM translation: Seven was going overboard so I left the chat room, but I heard a lot of funny stories.

Jumin: 짠단의 법칙 말고도 알고 있는 게 있다면 알려주면 좋겠어. Seol’s and MM translation: If you know something other than the sweet and salty rule, then please let me know.

☆☆ MC: 주사의 법칙! 힌트! 주는 주민이에요, 사는 뭘까요~ ☆☆ Seol’s translation: The Ju-Sa rule! Hint! Ju stands for Jumin, what does Sa stand for~ ☆☆ MM translation: The Ju and L rule! Ju stands for Jumin, what does L stand for~?

☆☆ Jumin: 주민 사무실, 주민 사과, 주민 사람… ☆☆ MM translation: Jumin leaving, Jumin list, Jumin left…

My translation for the above is a little more complicated. So, I said above that instead of Ju and L rule, I said “Ju-Sa rule.” You guys noticed like I explained way before this the pattern of how 줄임말 works?? It has to start with the 주 (ju) character and the next word has to start with 사 (sa) character.

Let’s break it down by character.

주민 사무실: (Ju)(Min) (Sa)(Mu)(Shil) - this means Jumin Office.

주민 사과: (Ju)(Min) (Sa)(Gwa) - this means Jumin Apple.

주민 사람: (Ju)(Min) (Sa)(Ram) - this means Jumin Person.

You see the, “Ju-Sa” pattern right? ^^

Since all of those are obvs not the right answer, let’s go one with the next translation.

Jumin: 감이 안 오는군… Seol’s translation: I have no idea… (Jumin’s way of speech) MM translation: I don’t know…

Jumin: 설마… Seol’s and MM translation: No way…

Jumin: 주민 사랑의 법칙…이건…아니겠지? MM translation: Jumin and Love…this…this isn’t it, right?

Yay! Good job, Jumin! You got it buddy!

Ju-Sa stands for 주민 사랑의 법칙!

주민 사랑: (Ju)(Min) (Sa)(Rang) - this means Jumin Love.

So in the end, I do definitely see how this can be confusing for you, nonny! I totally brushed aside this at first because this kind of word play is very very very common in Korea. I didn’t even think about how they would translate this (or even translate at all) in the English version, but fundamentally it is the same or right idea! Just a difference in the fact that there isn’t this kind of word play in English, but there is in Korean ^^

I found this to be personally relatable. These days, 줄임말 is becoming very overused. Sometimes I don’t understand what some of them mean and like what 707 was doing, making 짠단 at the spot, there are many times my friends would pull the same exact shit and expect me to know what that means like omg ^^;;;

Anyways, I hope this made sense to you, anon and everyone else that made it this far~!! This was really fun to type up because I love explaining about the differences in culture ^^

Before I leave, upcoming news! I am leaving for Japan in a couple days, whaaaaat! Yes. I am going for things related to employment though so no time for fun, unfortunately =w= and then uni starts again and I can already feel the depression coming ^^;;;

For the ones that are either prepping for classes like me or are already going through the pain, good luck to you all! Even if you think no one is rooting for you, Seol is~ so keep believing in yourselves because you CAN do it, and no one can say you can’t ^^

Keep smiling and see you next post~

- 류설♡

[anadimana]

10 April 2017

Again, it was a busy weekend, jadi baru bisa nulis di hari Senin yang indah ini.

Kemarin lagi inget, waktu itu malam Minggu, a Juju jemput gue di Grage, tapi gue lupa abis dari mana. *stupid* Hujan di sepanjang jalan menuju Ramen Saga maupun menuju rumah, dia bilang, “Jadi inget dulu waktu jomlo tiap malam Minggu suka doa minta hujan hahaha.” Lah, gue jomlo ga jomlo Sabtu malam pasti keluar, tapi ke Gereja hahaha anak soleha mah gitu :p

Sabtu pagi, udah tanggal 8 aja, waktunya master class sama kakak oncom Poza Zahari!!! Sabtu pagi jam 8 berangkat dari rumah ke rumah teh Isnen, rencana lanjut nyimpen baju ke teh Lala baru ke stasiun jemput kak Poza sama kak Damar.

Sejak kemarin si aa ga semangat, entah nular ke gue atau apa, jadi ga fokus, hari Jumat aja segala ketinggalan di NK kan, malah hari Sabtu pas perjalanan ke rumah teh Isnen, saking penuhnya otak, gue sampe mikir, “Lah, tadi gue pake baju ga sih?” trus nginget-nginget kalo tadi gue abis sarapan di rumah dan udah pake baju, abis itu baru mikir, “Oia, pake.” Makin dodol ni otak.

Pas berangkat bermobil sama teh Isnen, gue ga ngabarin si aa dulu karena blom mau cabs ke stasiun tapi ke rumah teh Lala dulu, tapi teh Isnen bikin video & post di Instagram, gue pikir si aa pasti liat, dan ternyata bener, dia chat, “Jadi sekarang teh mau jemput dulu zin Poza Zahari?”

It was a really great day, jadi shadow bentar di master class di Karangampel, di NK juga ngikut bentar. Dapet temen baru pula, kak Damar, yang gue pikir dia adalah shadow tapi ternyata zumba nya jelek banget hahaha, dan dapet tips juga dari dia. Dia lagi cutting lemak katanya, sebelum olahraga minum campuran air, teh hijau, kopi, dan cabe. Awalnya gue mikir itu rasanya kayak apa, dan pas nyobain punya dia emang aneh rasanya, kopi tapi pedes. Mau gue cobain sih tiap sebelum olahraga, hope it will help.

Acara di NK si aa dateng karena diminta video-in, banyak yang cie-cie’in, terutama pas liat gue dandan hahaha. Penasaran aja sih gimana didandanin teh Yunita, leh uga.

Yang bikin gue heran sampe sekarang adalah, teh Dian nanya, “Itu kamu diiket 1 kayak gitu trus make up nanti ga dimarahin sama si aa?”

I was like, “Huh? Pertanyaan macam apa itu?”

Emang ada yang salah sama make up gue? Ada yang salah sama rambut gue? Banyak sih, jelek pula *eh. Ya maksud gue, itu wajar loh, trus bukan suatu hal yang bisa dijadikan perdebatan, ya paling bilang jelek atau lebih bagus gini, lebih bagus gitu, bukannya marahin. Kecuali kalo gue nempel terus sama kak Damar atau Cecep atau cowo lain, nah itu baru bisa jadi bahan amarah. Pertanyaan ga mutu dari seorang istri yang bisanya dandan & nyari pria idaman lain. *ups

AY: Aa cuma dikasih 50rb gapapa? Tadi teh pesertanya ternyata dikit, cuma dapet 1,6jt sedangkan bayar kak Poza aja 4jt. Ana dikasih 100rb sih, mau diambil?

DJ: Nombok dong? Kok nanya ke aa? Ya kalau itu hak ana, ambil aja lumayan.

AY: Ya siapatau aa nya lagi butuh duit, abis kemarin sampe bete gitu. Kata teh Isnen maaf cuma bisa kasih ‘uang rokok’.

DJ: Kaleeeem.

AY: Makasih ya, maaf direpotin terus.

DJ: Iya Yang, apa sih yang ngga buat si dodol hehe.

Dan gue berakhir di rumah teh Lala jam 12.30 malam. What a tiring yet fun day.

Baru kali ini gue Minggu Palma ga misa, cuma ‘titip absen’ sama a Juju hahaha. Maafkan aku Tuhan, ga soleha banget.

DJ: Baru pulang dari Gereja

AY: Diabsenin ga?

DJ: Sudah, katanya lain kali ga boleh diwakilkan :D

Dese hari ini motoin anak-anak misdinar di HKY, dan pacarnya ini hampir ditilang di tol. Polisi-polisi iseng ya gitu, tau mobil isinya cewe semua, dikerjain, somplak.

Kata-kata si aa yang gue inget cuma, “Duh kasihan kamu...kecapean ya...ngantuk ya, ngopi gih sekali-kali mah,” pas gue bilang abis tidur di emperan hahaha. Well, it’s not literally emperan, itu tempat duduk sekaligus tempat orang lewat, tempat nonton di pinggir lapangan futsal, mirip emperan kalo menurut gue hahaha. Lumayan nikmat lah tidur setengah jam, suka kebangun bentar gitu sih, ga nyenyak, tapi lumayan melepas lelah.

Ada satu lagi, ngomongin temen-temen yang dapet piala semua, gue bilang, “Yaa kebanggaan tersendiri sih piala mah, aku dulu ngejar piala, trus ngejar aa *eh* sekarang ngejar rejeki,” dan dibales dengan emoticon bermata love hahaha.

DJ: Pagi Yang :*

AY: Pagi Cinta :* akhirnya mens.

DJ: Wowwwww selamat ya.

AY: Tiap mens diselametin -,-

DJ: Iya, siklus kewanitaannya lancar.

AY: Lemes Yang, butuh doping.

DJ: Doping apa? Sarapan telur aja, teh hijau & madu. Apa doping aku? :D

AY: Doping aa.

DJ: Kaleeeemmm.

Entah apa maksudnya ngomong kalem hahaha.

Sore ke NK bareng, aa mau nyoba fitness katanya, nah kan jadi pacaran yang bermanfaat, olahraga bareng, ya walaupun ga bareng, beda ruangan, tapi setidaknya sama-sama sehat, sama-sama berjuang menuju berat badan yang ideal, karena gue juga lagi banyak makan jadi dia ngikut hahaha. Sama-sama berjuang Yang, semoga barokah, amin.

Beres olahraga beli mi ayam *sama aja boong hahaha* karena mau bikin kejutan buat Anna yang hari ini ulangtahun. We had a great time together, seneng banget liat dia bercanda sama temen-temen gue tuh, jadi deket semuanya, jadi kenal, ga canggung lagi. Walau sepertinya a Juju agak sedikit bete liat kita bertiga selfie terus ga beres-beres, dan dia nya ada kerjaan nungguin di rumah, tapi bahagia sih liat dia ketawa lepas gara-gara motor oleng pas bonceng tiga sama Ria.

Maaf Sayang, nungguin wanita selfie emang ga beres-beres, dan makasih udah mau bonceng tiga nganterin Ria ke rumahnya. Love you :*

.AY.

[bygosscarmine]

Things Clear As Writing, Things Left Unsaid

a canon-divergent Queen In-Hyun’s Man fic - PG Choi Hee Jin/Kim Boong Do

I love Queen In-Hyun's Man wholeheartedly. On a rewatch recently, however I realized that it really bothered me that Yoon Wol was killed--in a flashback, no less. That Boong-Do had no chance to save her. That was a writing choice I think was unnecessary. So here is an alternative... (Continued from this post)

PART TWO: Unwritten

The talisman that had brought him to Hee Jin burned slowly, reluctantly. His hands shook as he held it over the brazier in his cell, but he couldn't make himself show disrespect toward it by shoving it in among the embers until it had turned to ash. The heat of flames near his hands was nearly as hard to bear as the heat of the tears in his eyes.

He didn't know what would happen if he tried to die, talisman gone. And so he finally allowed himself to turn on the phone. As a nobleman, one of his few dignities in prison was to be allowed his belongings--the very ones he had risked arrest to retrieve. At least it had not died--instead, it became bright as a moonstone, then showed him the different symbols of inner places he could open. He presed one of the few he actually had memorized--looked at the photo of himself with the love of his life. He set it gently down, then put his hat beside it as he removed that. He took up the tie, silky and instantly warm in his hands. So one last time he attempted to discover if there still was a gate to Hee Jin's Seoul fo him--or if there was only the moment of joining his ancestors.

Boong Do did not know if gods answered prayers. He did not know if fate cared at all about the feelings of people. He was certain, however, that whatever good power may be in the world was what heard his dying breaths and connected him to Hee Jin one last time. He heard the phone ringing, saw it on the floor by his gat and every shred of will that had held him still to die was freed to instead save his life.

He broke free, and the instant he answered the phone, he felt that familiar shudder of being torn from one place, and taken to another.

And at first he could not speak, partly from pain in his throat, but also because he was waiting. Would he be torn away again? Was it a last cruel twist?

Or had he finally become free?

There are still things that Boong Do has never said aloud to Hee Jin. She learned, without directly hearing, that losing his family would haunt him all his life. That there are times when he is sad and there is nothing to fix it, because what he lost was irreplaceable.

But there are other things he has made the effort to say.

Warm, skin-close in bed together with legs mingled and breath slowing, he does not say what she must know: that she knows a lot more about love-making than he does. He's a fast learner, though, and willing to ask questions there as much as anywhere.

But at breakfast, he tells her a little bit about his wife. "We were not friends. That was not what we expected. We were civil, a little affectionate in private. But I never thought of romance," (he said the new word carefully,) "and neither did she."

"Was she a pretty girl?" asked Hee Jin, her endless curiosity making it easy. It was a kindness, for her to not be jealous. To not doubt his word on this. "Was she very young?"

"She was not young for a bride. She was pretty to me, and very graceful."

"You are such a player," Hee Jin said "pulling on my heartstrings about your first wife. But I bet you guys didn't even kiss properly."

He had been surprised by kissing. Perhaps he had been more amused by it at first than he would have been if he had understood the intimacy it signified--even for modern Korean girls.

"No. Probably not."

His wife had conceived early in their marriage, and proudly gone about the business of being a new mother. Perhaps they would have discovered something of proper kissing later. Or maybe, if his life had been very different, he would have eventually had a concubine who was less reserved.

But instead he had gotten a second chance he had not truly deserved.

"Poor Yoon Wol, by the way, has a fanclub in the sageuk crews," Hee Jin said, perhaps changing topic on purpose. Perhaps just prompted by thinking of his Joseon background. "I'm not sure if I need to take her aside and give her some tips or let her gisaeng expertise lead her."

Yoon Wol had lived, though he had found her very thin after her near-death experience, in housing for North Korean defectors. Manager Soo Kyung had taken to her immediately, setting her up with jobs as an extra and bit-parts on as many sageuks as were shooting--and getting her superior plastic surgery to lessen the scarring of her neck. She was a much better client than Hee Jin, Soo Kyung often said, and would (once she found it easier to speak in the modern Seoul dialect) be a great success on variety shows with all her accomplishments.

"I like her, but she languishes over you still, and hates my guts," Hee Jin had complained once. "You are such a playboy, keeping two women even in modern Seoul. I refuse to let you be a polygamist."

Then she had looked back over her shoulder coyly, and said, "Unless you'd like to share me, too?"

The thing that astonished him about Hee Jin's flirtatious way was that he genuinely enjoyed it.

Kim Boong Do was a scholar, tested in his Confucian rhetoric, and a master of records. He had always considered himself a traditional man. He supposed some things had fundamentally changed when his whole family had been killed, and all the laws of men and nature did not help him.

Then again, maybe he had not been the man he thought he was. It was difficult to tell. Instead of bowing to fate and being crippled by losing his good name, his loved ones and unborn child, he had chosen striving. He had looked at the shards of a life, so many pieces like crockery dropped on stone, and decide to become stronger, defter, and more clever. To save a queen. And then to love another. So. Some part of him, perhaps from the beginning, was a rebel against fate.

Hee Jin loved him in a way that was as clear on her face as writing in a letter. He loved her in a way that he could not have put into the letter he wrote before trying to die. It was wonderful to live in a world where there were so few things he needed to leave unsaid.

[brodie-483]

I feel like these days, I'm filled with so much fucking anger, frustration, stress and rage. I see so much fucking ignorance in the world. So much ignorance and racism, lack of understanding and lack of education. I'm so tired, so fucking tired of being made the blame. My people being blamed. And for what? FOR WHAT? We can't just sit down anymore and let racism, depression, mental illness, death, injustice, abuse, harassment and oppression continue on in our lives while the Government sweep us underneath the carpet anymore either. So many people, so so many just don't understand what torture we have gone through because of our skin colour and where we're from.

I went through most of my childhood witnessing firsthand how the corruption in the police and government would go on and on and on and on. That all came from seeing my own brother and father go through that level of abuse on a regular basis, especially my own father. He copped a lot of abuse, racism, torture, attacks, harassment, humilation, embarrassment and violation from those who swore a sacred oath to protect and serve the community. I do admit, yes, he suffered his own demons. He was an alcoholic, a serial drug addict, homeless quite a lot, living in the streets.... but he also suffered mental illness. He was officially diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and estranged delusions disorder. He did time in one of the toughest prisons in Australia, where they practically made him a slave. They would make him work to the bone, til sweat and blood would pour out for very little wage. And meanwhile, the guards would give beating sessions and take him into private rooms to take turns in beating him. He became used to an institutionalised lifestyle, even at home, on the streets, anywhere.

He copped just as much on the outside, even worse than he did inside:

Now imagine you're 7 years old, your dad picks you up from school and you're both walking home, talking, asking how the day was, how studying is going, what you've been learning. And while all this is happening, we see police drive pass us slowly, real slow down the street. Then they come back around and do it again, they drive slowly as they death stare at my father and I. They do this a few more times until eventually, they stop in front of us. They hop out, ordering my dad to put his hands on the hood of the car. He asks "what did i do? I'm just taking my son home officer." Then they yell "shut the fuck up, coon dog and put your disgusting hands on the car NOW." Meanwhile, they have their hands on their holsters either on a taser or their gun preparing for the worst. So my dad cooperates, he does what they say. They then slam his head down hitting the car when they cuff him up. He's trying to say "what the fuck is this? I'm just taking my son home." They just tell him to shut the fuck up and they look at me, telling me to stand on the fence where they would rub and rough up my hair. Then they start to search him, checking and feeling every inch of his body. Trying to find anything, any excuse or reason to lock him up or worse, give him a beating.

He too had copped quite a lot of beatings from the police. They would randomly pick him up, throw him in the back and they would take him out to the bush. There, they would use him as "practice" or "punching bag", a disgraceful way of letting out their frustrations onto a man who did not matter to them one bit because he and his family were victims of the Stolen Generations. Him and his brothers were taken away by police and placed into disgusting foster homes for the Half-Caste Indigenous Youth.

I grew at such a very young age knowing just how cruel and disgusting the world really is. Because of his mental illness and drug habits, sometimes he would have psychotic breakdowns. Therefore my family would have no choice but to call an ambulance to take him to get support and help. That was the main plan, but what we got was not right nor expected. Police coming to our door, telling the ambulance that they have the situation under control. Then from there, they would order us all outside to the back yard. Where they tackled my dad, threw him down onto the ground. They would then pound, beat, stomp, strangle, choke and even spit onto my father. Calling him "filthy black dog, ape, coon, abo, creamy, animal." Even using Yellow Pages phone books, cuffing him and making him sit on his hands and knees while they would whack into his arms and back. They did this so there wouldn't show any signs of bruising or blood drawn but brutal enough for bones to be broken and sprained. So that way if we ever tried to take it to the courts, there would appear to be no physical evidence of brutality. While they would do this, they would point a gun at my older brother and mother and even a taser at me, an 8 year old boy.

Now, I got so used to seeing my father get abused and attacked but every time I saw it, it was a nightmare come to life. Watching my own dad get beaten and broken down at the hands of Authority. I remember one time they tried to do it, and I ran in front of them telling them to leave my daddy alone. I cuddled into him, hoping that they would stop. But you know what they did? They ordered my mum to grab me and pull me off or they would "give a proper fatherly discipline to the little creamy half breed mutt." So, she and my brother would have to pull me away. Even they would turn to my mother, calling her "ape fucker, boong lover, coon sucker." Such disgusting terms to insult to a woman trying to protect her family. They would order us to watch as they would bash into him, but my mum tried to cover my eyes as much as possible so I wouldn't have to see that. But I did see it, I heard it and I felt it. And that level of trauma was not imprinted into my mind, it was Burned.

My dad was meant to appear on TV, where he would have an interview with Derryn Hinch in discussion of police brutality, corruption and racism. But my dad refused to go on because he feared for the lives of his family, of his 2 sons. We received a few threats, some were more subtle than others. Even to the point where they would slowly drive past our home, real slow and look at us like we're animals to them. Hoping they would get that chance to put us down. As much as he wanted to fight back against the police, he did what he thought was right.... to protect his family. But however, he was NEVER ever afraid of them!! One thing he always taught us was that they are nothing more than thugs with a gun and a badge to say that they're allowed to do what they want and get away with it.

Next part would concern my very own brother. So back when he was a teen, he and other Koorie boys got a chance to go to Alice Springs on a cultural young mens trip. It would turn out to be an amazing extravaganza for them, but for my brother.... he copped what he didn't deserve. They were all eating up, but some of the boys left some mess behind instead of putting it into the bin. A local redneck officer saw and ordered my brother to pick it all up. He refused because he didn't need to feel responsible for other people's mess. But the cop didn't care. He ordered "YOU BETTER PICK UP THAT RUBBISH NOW, YOU BLACK DOG. YOU BETTER DO WHAT THE FUCK I SAY." Then he pushed my brother onto the wall where from there, he grabbed him by the collar and began lifting him up. My brother was dangling in the air while being choked by the officer. The other boys tried to tell him to stop and pull away. For a while, it went on but eventually it came to a stop.

Now this part would concern me, growing up I was always filled with pride for my culture. Having the Aboriginal flag pin on my shirt or having face paint on. But many people would see that intimidating, they would see the pin and immediately walk the other way or try to get as much distance away from me as possible. And whenever I was in the shops, security or the owner would follow me around. Always assuming that I was going to steal something. Now.... to start with High School. Ahh, for fucks sakes!! I hated High school, I hated going and I hated everyone in there. Mainly because a majority of people never even gave two shits about me. From my first day at Year 7 up til Year 10, I copped racism and bullying almost on a daily basis. Mainly by this small group who thought they were all tough cunts, trying to cause trouble and pick on the less fortunate and those who couldn't stand up for themselves. I used to get laughed at so bad for being fat, being overweight. And then the racism would start. Getting called "creamy, abo, coon, boong, what percent am i?, ape, gorilla, half breed, dole bludger, black bastard, village idiot, savage, creep, half caste, freak and etc." Imagine being called all that in your life. Imagine being ridiculed, attacked and humiliated like that. And in front of the class as well, the teacher didn't even care enough to stop it. And I was scared to even talk back or stand up for myself because everyone was on their side, laughing with them, laughing at me, pointing at me and talking about me like i was nothing but a fucking juggling circus monkey to them. And the teachers were just as helpless. My mum nearly went up to the school every day to tell them how I was getting attacked, laughed at and abused. All they would do is give detentions or tell them off for a bit, but that did absolutely Nothing. I copped all that and so much more within a 3-4 year period. After copping so much of that, I started to hate myself, I hated my family, my culture, my origins, my everything. I would argue with mum trying to stay home from school, because I knew that I was going to get bullied. I had so much anxiety, fast heartbeats and butterflies in my stomach whenever I head into class. Sometimes the bullies wouldn't be there, and that would be the best feeling ever. A feeling of peace and quiet. But when they were there, it became fucking Hell for me. Tearing me down, tripping me over, sticking signs on my back, throwing stuff at me.

So I copped that and more up until Year 10, when one day I was getting ready for school. Then just having such a massive breakdown, collapsing on my bedroom floor. My mum sees and asks whats wrong. I turn and say if I go to school today, I'm going to the Eastlink bridge up the road and I'm gonna kill myself. Then I ended up in the psychiatric hospital, the same one they would put my father in. So imagine being the only Aboriginal kid in your year level, the only one. I felt so alone, no one would understand. No one to turn to, no one to help me. I would sometimes cry walking home from school and self harm when i got home. Thats how much I hated myself.

I spend many months in and out of the psych wards, many treatments and therapies. Doctor after doctor, worker after worker. But nothing was working for me. But that was til I was able to learn about my own tribe, about my own language and where I'm from. To find my own sense of belonging and rediscover my life and passion for my culture. It wasn't all these medical treatments, sessions and 1 hour a month bullshit. It was reconnecting back to my origins, to my dreaming and to nature.

But still to this day, I have never even received an apology from anyone who did me wrong, who bullied and attacked me. Just like when i was a kid, not one cop ever took responsibility for excessive force, racial profiling and brutality on multiple occasions against my family. My story and my family's story is but one of thousands in Australia and millions around the world.

For over 300+ years, we have copped so much. Lives killed and taken away, men enslaved and forced to work til they would have no strength and then shot DEAD. Women raped multiple times, forced to live as home nurses, maids and even pleasure escorts. And the children, especially half-caste children kidnapped by our own Australian government and placed into foster homes, their goal to exterminate us all by breeding us all out. The English would wipe out tribes, civilisations, traditions, homes, families, cultures and sacred sites. They are the reasons why our connection to nature, to the land was severed. Yet White Australia still like to complain, about the ANZACS. Yes, the ANZACs is very important and they fought for the country, died for the country.... a noble cause. But what did us black fellas die for? Why were we killed? In our own homes, our own lands, either protecting our families, our homes or ourselves. Where's the honour in that? You tell me that, white australia. At least the war soldiers had a chance to fight, live and die in defense of the country. But the country was built on the backs, blood, sweat, tears and corpses of my people.

This all comes to show that the entire system MUST improve and change for the better. Not just the police, but the government, traditional acknowledgements, mental health system, education in schools especially. Why do we still learn all these languages and information from different countries yet we still know NOTHING from our own. Why?

So until this all changes for the better, I along with my brothers and sisters who choose to stand up with me and raise their fist high swear to keep fighting for justice, for peace, for equality, for opportunities, for acceptance, for love and for closure for so many people who have been in so much inter-generational pain.

Also, if anyone appears to have an issue with what I just said.... you can unfriend me right now and FUCK OFF back to NAZI Hell because you are not welcome if you are filled with judgement, racism, prejudice and bullshit.

Yes, All Lives do matter but until we in our own homes accept that people of Colours Blacks, Asians, Indigenous, Africans, Muslim, Gay, Straight, Trans-gender, non-binary, poor, mentally ill are accepted and equally treated and helped in this society NOW, All Lives Do Not Matter.... not to the government, to the rich, to the white suits, to the White Superiority. WE MUST MAKE A CHANGE, not for profit, not for jokes, not for favouring, but for the Future.

[peek-a-kookie-blog]

FRAGILE - 03 Wandering

The main entrance at the school was crowded signalizing that another day of school came to its end. Some people made their way home while others went to hang out with their friends in one of the nearby cafés. Hye-in and Hoseok both fell under the first category.

Hye-in had to get home as quickly as possible; her aunt was coming to stay for the week and her mum had her hands full with assignments at work. Though she hadn't asked her daughter to help around, the teenage girl could see the amount of stress her mum was under as she ran around the house that morning. Helping a little wouldn't hurt anyone and it was her favourite aunt so there's that for motivation.

She got to the gates, turned left and went on with her life.

Hoseok stood against the school's wall, patiently waiting for his friend Yoongi. Who takes 10 minutes to get from the music room to the school's entrance? Jisoos Christ!

As he had nothing else to do while waiting for his friend's arrival he looked around trying to take off his mind from the girl under the tree he had seen earlier. As if on cue, that exact moment she passed right in front of his eyes. She never dared to look up and made her way with her head hanging low and her hands hiding in her pockets. It was almost like she didn't want to be seen. Too bad he had noticed her or else her undercover mission would have been a success.

She quickly looked up before crossing the street and Hoseok took the chance to take a real glance at her. The light way her feet made contact with the ground beneath her contrasted deeply with the heavy expression adorning her features and he couldn't help but wonder what made her face life with such an exhausted expression. It was almost like it pained her to simply breathe.

"There you are staring off into space again! What's wrong with you today man? You spent more time daydreaming than Jin talking about how perfect his side profile is."

Yoongi had to stay back for a little so he could discuss a few details about the song he was working on with the teacher and was honestly quite surprised J-hope had waited for him all this time. The boy had been staring into nowhere and he probably didn't even notice time passing by.

"You were completely out of it today. Is everything alright? Are you having nightmares again?"

Yoongi was the only one that knew about Hoseok's past. They had met when the boy was at his lowest point, barely making it day by day, and it was his understanding and support that helped him get back on his feet. Maybe it was because Yoongi had saved him from himself back then or justthe fact he knew about everything he had been through, all Hoseok knew was thathe treasured their friendship above anything else. They had each other's back and that would never change.    

"Ohh it's not about that, I've been good for about 4 months now. It is just one of those days you know..."

"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but I'll be here whenever you need someone to listen to you."

Yoongi was somewhat relieved his best friend wasn't experiencing those twisted realities again. Now onto the real conversation, Yoongi thought as a smirk made his way to his face.

"By the way, I saw you staring at that girl earlier. You really gotta become less obvious."

Hoseok was obviously startled with the comment that had left Yoongi's mouth. Had he been that noticeable? Well, there's no way he would let his hyung think that he was, indeed, staring at the girl.

"What? Pfff nah. I was j-just –ehh- looking at the –uh- tree behind her. Did you know it does photosynthesis?"

Dodged a bullet right now. Good cover up, he won't notice right?

As if the weird answer hadn't been evidence enough, Hoseok was nervously looking around, stating a wide variety of random facts to try and change the topic.

"I'm just saying, next time you look at someone try not to stare right at her soul forever. You need to have swag like I do."

Yoongi thought it was funny seeing Hoseok stumbling over his words, definitely a contrast to his usual confident self. As for the other, he didn't even know why did he get nervous when asked about her. However, he did have to admit that something in her awoke his curiosity.

"Swag? You wish! Go jjang jjang boong boong back to your house you smol bean."

That being said, the two young men bid a quick goodbye and made their way to their own houses.

· · · ·

The moment she got home Hye-in didn't hesitate on plopping down on her bed. She had quite a few things to do, but her eyes betrayed her as they closed and she fell in a peaceful state of unconsciousness.

She jolted awake as a more-than-familiar face made his way into her mind. She couldn't believe she had dreamed about him again. And what troubled her the most was the fact that she would only relive the happy moments over and over again.

How could she hate somebody who, at the time, made her the happiest she had ever been to this day? Even her mind was making fun of her, making her believe all the lies he had told her before. She didn't want the happy reminders, she wanted to remember the pain she had been in. That was the only solution for her to try and move past the situation. There was nothing she could or wanted to do to change the situation, she had moved on from that long ago, but clinging onto the past wasn't doing her any good either.

If only she could choose to erase those said memories! She was better now and she wanted to remember the reasons she truthfully believed in that. The way to do it was to remember all of the bad things, no matter how much it hurt. And she was determined to do that... just not right now. She was tired and crying herself to sleep once more wasn't the world's most pleasing idea. Those days were long gone.

Shaking the unpleasing thoughts aside, Hye-in plugged in her ear buds and started  (making her way downtown, walking fast - sorry haha) helping around the house. Two hours later and she had tidied every single room in the house. The girl had just taken a seat down on the sofa when her parents opened the front door.

"My daughtah, are my eyes playing tricks on me or did you actually clean the house by yourself?"

The mother couldn't help but tear up a bit at the sight. Her beloved daughter had taken time from her busy live to help around because she knew how much she had to do before her sister's arrival.

She's not my little girl anymore. When I look at her now, I see a young woman, kind to others and always doing her best to please the ones she love. We raised such a beautiful person.

"Oh honey, thank you so much! I'll cook your favourite meal tonight. It's my turn to make your frown turn upside down."

The girl giggled at her mother's loving behaviour and shouted she was going out for a bit. A walk was all she needed to set her mind off this business. She didn't want to admit but the short dream had perturbed her profoundly.

Her house was near an open forest and whenever she went on these little walks her feet ended up doing the same path every time. It was like nature was her ultimate destination, whether she liked it or not.

She made her way while quietly humming to her favourite song, 'Paper Hearts', it's not like any one would listen; usually she found no soul in the mediations of the place.

That's why she almost jumped a meter in the air when a loud voice interrupted her lonely existence.

"Hey, aren't you the girl that was sitting under the tree at lunch?"

[that-cuttle]

Ở MỘT GÓC BANGKOK (2)

Đọc từ cột trái hết rồi mới qua cột phải nhé.

ĐỊA CHỈ Ở BANGKOK

Quá xá rối, có thể tham khảo vài thông tin từ Wiki nè. Sơ sơ túm lại vầy:

Ở Bangkok những đường lớn như Silom hay Sukhumvit được gọi là Thanon (viết tắt Th) hoặc là Road.

Những nhánh nhỏ từ đường chính sẽ gọi là Soi. Soi có thể đặt theo số, ví dụ Soi 9 hay Soi 11. Hoặc đôi khi cũng có “Soi Cowboy”, “Soi Nana Nuea” cho những đường nhỏ mà “có võ”.

Soi cũng có Soi “con” nữa, tức là đường nhánh của đường nhánh, “hẻm trong hẻm” giống Xì Gòn (đoán vậy haha).

Ví dụ địa chỉ “25 Sukhumvit Soi 3” có nghĩa là đi tới đường Sukhumvit, quẹo qua đường nhánh số 3, rồi đi tới số nhà 25.

Nói chung muôn hình vạn trạng, tốt nhất tìm Google Map và hỏi lễ tân khách sạn.

Thêm nữa, tiếng Thái khi phiên âm ra chữ Latinh sẽ có nhiều phiên bản khác nhau. Vậy nên đưa bác tài địa chỉ tiếng Anh là coi như “tèn ten, chúc bạn may mắn lần sau”. 

Bài học xương máu: nhất định “bắt” lễ tân viết giùm địa chỉ hostel bằng tiếng Thái “xịn” nha.

HOFT HOSTEL Ở SILOM

Khu Silom cách sân bay khoảng nửa tiếng đi taxi. Đây là khu tài chính của Bangkok vào ban ngày, đường sá cực kì gọn gàng sạch đẹp. Không kẹt xe, ít hàng quán lề đường (trừ chỗ gần chợ đêm). Thích nhất là xe cộ hầu như luôn nhường đường cho người đi bộ.

Khu này nằm gần 1 trong 2 trục tàu điện trên cao (BTS) của Bangkok là Silom (trục kia là Sukhumvit). Bằng BTS có thể tới Siam Square, malls, chợ cuối tuần Chatuchak… rất dễ dàng. Cũng khá gần những chỗ như Phố người hoa, Phố Tây Khao San, khu tổ hợp quán xá The Commons,...

Ban đêm Silom có nhiều khu đèn đỏ nổi tiếng như chợ Patpong hay phố Nhật. Ngoài ra 7-11 bao phủ khắp các mặt trận hehe.

Hoft Hostel: nằm trong hẻm ngay trên đường lớn Surawong. Nói hẻm cũng chưa chính xác, chỗ đó giống như một khoảng sân thụt vô phía trong vậy đó. Khá yên tĩnh và vintage. Hên quá đi đúng 6 người, quất luôn một phòng dorm. Cảm ơn Linh đã đi để chia tiền phòng và taxi ahahaha.

IN THIS OLD CORNER OF BANGKOK (On Thursday)

THE JAM FACTORY

Nghe tên là thấy cưng rồi. Thật ra giữa hai tổ hợp quán xá gần Hoft Hostel là The Commons và Jam Factory thì đi The Commons bằng taxi tiện hơn nhiều. Nhưng do bạn nhỏ lên plan (LÀ TAO!) muốn tiết kiệm tiền nên chọn Jam. Gần hostel, “chỉ cần” đi bộ kết hợp đi phà là tới thuiii.

Quỳnh Thư - Mistress of the Google Map - đã dẫn cả bọn qua mấy con hẻm, một con chợ, cả chục hàng quán thèm nhỏ dãi, lội vô lội ra hai ba bến phà để băng sông lội suối… (à nhầm, có đi qua mấy cái mương thôi chứ hông lội) để tới Jam.

The Jam Factory cũng không rộng lắm, hơi giống giống 3A Station của bên mình hồi đó, cũng gần gần sông cả nè.

Điểm thú vị của Jam là nó được kiến trúc sư Duangrit Bunnag “hô biến” từ bãi hoang ven sông thành nơi làm việc - uống cà phê - mua sắm - đọc sách - tham quan blah blah chất phát ngất!

THE OLD SIAM PLAZA

Nằm trong khu China Town (Google Map kêu chỗ này cuối khu China rồi mấy cháu). Từ Jam Factory, tụi mình bắt taxi thẳng qua The Old Siam để ăn trưa, sau đó tính đi bộ ngược lại dạo China Town tới chiều.

6 người nên vẫn bắt 2 chiếc taxi như cũ. Ôi không, cả <Di Lâm với đồng nửa bạc may mắn> và <Quỳnh Thư cô gái đi bất chấp> đều lọt qua xe kia huhu. Xe đó tới trước cả nửa tiếng, uống trà sữa ngon lành cành đào (ngon nhứt chuyến này chứ không giỡn). Còn chụp hình khu Old Siam hỗ trợ đồng bọn nữa.

Vì đồng bọn lạc mất tiêu rồi...

“Fun” fact: Thái Lan từng có tên là “Siam” nên bất cứ chỗ nào cũng có thể mang tên Siam được hết. Bác taxi nghe từ khóa Siam liền chạy vèo vèo qua tuốt khu malls (ngày mai tụi con mới tính đi chỗ này lận uhuhu). Bác nào ngờ tụi nhỏ muốn THE OLD SIAM PLAZA IN CHINA TOWNNNN.

Lần đó Kaylan đã phải “cống” điện thoại dò đường, chỉ từng ngã rẽ cho bác. Lúc bác dừng lại hỏi tuk tuk còn được chỉ quẹo qua “museum” nào nữa chớ. Quá sợ. Và, tới được Siam, à quên The Old Siam, là quá trưa mợ nó rồi. Cũng may còn có đồ ăn cứu cánh!

CHINA TOWN

Nhớ nhất trong mấy khu chợ là đồ điện tử và sex toys được bán rất nhiều. Kế đến là bình uống nước siêu bự chảng. Nước lựu khá ngon, 40-50 baht.

Buổi tối về lại khu Silom, ăn uống rồi dạo chợ Patpong thôi. Được mời gọi vô Go go bar nhưng em không thèm, em không thèm (chủ yếu do nghèo huhu).

IN THIS BUSTLING CORNER OF BANGKOK (On Friday Yayy)

BANGKOK ART & CULTURE CENTER (BACC)

Hôm nay thì đi khu Siam hiện đại “hại điện” thiệt nè.

Đầu tiên BACC - cực cool mà miễn phí nữa hehe. Khu bên ngoài bán đồ lưu niệm nhìn nghệ lắm: nữ trang, tranh, sách, sổ tay (giá từ 20-30 baht)...

Tầng hầm là thư viện. Mấy tầng trên là phòng trưng bày, cầu thang bộ xoắn não bao đẹp.

P/s: Sáng đó xui hay sao mà lượn qua bên nào thì bên đó taxi dạt ra hết trơn, phải băng qua băng lại hai ba bận.

PLATINUM FASHION MALL & BIG C

Từ BACC với sự dẫn đường (lại là) của Quỳnh Thư, chúng tôi đi lên/xuống 696 bậc thang và hang cùng ngõ hẻm, luồn qua mall siêu đẹp & đắt đỏ Siam Paragon, hoang mang “đi cầu” qua sông, lách vào nhà dân, men theo biển chỉ đường fancy, tạt qua chỗ bán Pad Thai, chen chúc trong thang máy (lố quá trời) để tới… e hèm, khu food court của Platinum Fashion Mall!!!

“Cũng tương tự Saigon Square mà” - những con dân không theo đạo shopping cho hay. Sau đúng boong tiếng đồng hồ, chúng tôi xúng xính qua Big C - nghe nói là khu tập trung đông người Việt nhất kaka.

Mua gì?

Sầu riêng sấy khô - Khô luôn ví của bạn! (siêu đắt)

Snack khô mực & cá - Chỉ có tại Big C, 7-11, chợ, tiệm và nhiều nơi khác (*quỳ*)

Các loại mứt quả khô (mứt vỏ cam ngọt lịm nên ăn kèm P/S để tránh sâu răng hehe)

Kẹo dừa hay mứt dừa gì đó (ngon nè)

Cherry mua 1 hộp tặng 1 hộp (Lâm chỉ đạo “hốt” như chưa hề có sự liên quan, có ai ngờ đi Thái mua cherry hụ hụ)

Sashimi giá rẻ, tiếp tục hốt (chấm nước tương trong tiếc nuối, ăn xong mới phát hiện ra gói mù tạc chúng ta cùng theo đuổi năm nào huhu)

Thẳng tiến food court Big C:

Thư dòm qua bàn “hàng xóm” thấy món gì ngon quá, mạnh bạo lại hỏi “Người lạ ơi anh mua chỗ nao?”. Người anh lạ cầm tay Thư (hư cấu thôi) chỉ tận quầy bán. Kết quả là: “Lỡ hỏi, ảnh chỉ nhiệt tình quá đi theo chứ anh đó chỉ nhầm món rồi. Chị muốn ăn gỏi kìa”. Á đù, vậy sao không hỏi người ta luôn ba TT.TT Còn có một bạn người Việt chạy ra khều khều: “Chị ơi muốn hỏi gì em chỉ cho!”. Quả là đen bạc đỏ tình, chả trách Thư thua liên miên trong những vòng UNO nghiệt ngã.

Ăn ở Big C phải mua thẻ, xài không hết thì đổi lại tiền thừa. Sau món chính, chúng tôi quyết định đầu tư vô Bingsu 99 baht. Một phần đá bào năm nhà đầu tư xúc. Thật lãng mợn trong màu tuyết trắng nhiệt đới.

P/s: Đi về mới biết, muốn đổi tiền Việt sang baht Thái thì ở đâu lời nhất? Big C - nơi người Việt hành hương chứ đâu.

Lúc về gặp một bác taxi biết tiếng Việt, xe 7 chỗ nên nguyên đám nhảy lên hết. Hình như ảnh khoái chị Thư lắm. Hai bên hàn huyên tiếng Việt - Thái - Anh thật sành điệu.

“Hello là Xin chào hả?”

“Củm ơn củm ơn”

“Kẹt xe = traffic jam”

“Do you call lady boy “pê đê” in Vietnamese?”, chú hỏi.

“Yes”, Thư đáp.

“So, many pê đê are called what…?”, hỏi tiếp (trong tiếng Thái có từ để chỉ như vậy).

<Im lặng, bối rối>

“ĐỘNG PÊ ĐÊ” - tiếng nói vọt từ băng ghế sau.

...

Tụi mình còn hỏi cách trả giá trong tiếng Thái. Đứa nào cũng lẩm nhẩm học như thần chú rồi sáng hôm sau quên sạch bách. Kết quả là bị chém (nhè nhẹ) như thường, quá đắng!

KHAO SAN ROAD

Sau khi nghe nhạc dập ầm ầm, tham quan các cửa hàng bóng cười, côn trùng các loại (chụp hình 10 baht - không trả bị làm dữ - tất nhiên là hông trả), tụi mình quẹo vô một quán bar hơi khuất xíu.

Phát hiện chị Linh không uống được đồ có cồn nhưng mạnh tay kêu luôn một ly rượu pha sữa gì đó bao dị huhu. Món đó khó uống nhất bàn, siêu đắng siêu ngọt siêu gắt không liên quan gì hết trơn. “Linh không xỉn. Xỉn là chuyện nhỏ. Linh uống rượu có thể trúng gió, ói không ngừng nghỉ”. Ok fine, đừng như Linh.

Gần hai ba giờ sáng về, Khao San Road xỉn thật rồi. {16+, cắt, chuyển cảnh}

IN THIS SUPER CROWDED CORNER OF BANGKOK (On Saturday)

CHATUCHAK - CHỢ CUỐI TUẦN TRONG TRUYỀN THUYẾT

Trả giá. Trả giá nào. Quần áo. Quần áo, xà bông nào.

Nếu bạn đi sáu người, mỗi người thích thú một khu hay một cửa hàng khác nhau, và bạn phải đi chung với nhau cho tình cảm mà (cùng nhau trả, trả, trả giá thôi mà), vậy nên bạn chờ nhau thôi thôi mà, thì, bạn sẽ thấy cái chợ này cũng không rộng lắm đâu. Đi hết từ trưa tới tối mịt thôi hà.

IN THIS RAINY/SUNNY CORNER OF THE YOUTH

Mấy bữa mình đi, mấy bữa mình về, Sài Gòn đều mưa liên tiếp. Hôm về đón xe bus 152 nghe bolero suốt cả tiếng não nuột mới tới...

Nếu có tiếc, mình chỉ tiếc nhiều lúc đã đi một cách hời hợt. Người ta qua Bangkok mòn chân thì sao? Bangkok dưới bước chân của tụi mình vẫn rất khác, từng góc từng góc đều làm lâng lâng cả tuần sau đó.

Không phải buổi tiệc tưng bừng, Bangkok của tụi mình như vài ly mojito có chút cồn nhẹ ở một góc nào đó của Khao San road.

You know, when Charlie Puth covered We Can’t Stop by Miley, somebody commented: “LMAO this looks like a kinder garden party in comparison of Miley's video hahahaha”, but what really matters is, that innocence killed us softly.

If you're not ready to go home Can I get a "Hell, no!"? 'Cause we're gonna go all night 'Til we see the sunlight, alright

P/s: As for music, Lâm’s always turning on Lana Del Rey in our room and Kaylan and Thư’re talking all the times about their One Ok Rock! And this’s the end. Byee.