#idk I was thinking about heartbreak and aging and youth and ghosts and haunting and nature and beauty. florida!!

[my-chemical-rot]

Florida!!! by Florence + the Machine and Taylor Swift, Daytona Sand by Orville Peck, Spanish Moss by Against Me!, White Crosses by Against Me! //Pictures: map, surfers, post card, fountain of youth; plus my own photography // The Truman Show (1998) // Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm // Wikipedia

[hils79]

2023 Dramas Watched

I watched a lot of dramas last year, but not as many as I did in 2022. It was mostly a good bunch, which is generally why my to watch list is mostly things people have recommended to me (or I've seen gifs on Tumblr that look revlevant to my interests.

I'll put the list under a cut. It's mostly for my reference anyway

1. Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama - My housemate wanted to watch this because Michael Sheen is in it. I don't even have that excuse, although it's always nice to see him in things. IDK I wasn't obsessively following the court case when it happened, but my boss kept giving us updates because she found it highly entertaining. I think it was just something silly to focus on to distract us all from the shit that's going on in the world. Anyway, the cast were great and it was highly entertaining. I don't think we were supposed to laugh as much as we did but it was kind of ridiculous.

2. Ghost Doctor - This is one I've been group watching with friends over the past few months. It was a lot of fun. A rather silly concept (brilliant surgeon is in a coma after an accident and haunts the hospital where his body is) with a surprising amount of heart to it. I enjoyed it.

3. Dragon Age: Absolution - I loved this! I don't know how well this would stand up if you haven't played the games. It's mostly a stand alone story with a few nods to previous canon. I, however, have played the games and they are pretty much my favourite game franchsise. So, yep, this was great. Very much in the vein of the games. Everyone is gay and it's delightful.

4. The Eclipse - This was okay. It was in a similar vein as Not Me in terms of being a BL drama about social justice, but it lacked the maturity and tight storyline that Not Me had. The two main leads were both excellent it just lost its way a bit towards the end. Still very enjoyable.

5. Welcome to Chippendales - Honestly this show wasn't even on my radar until Jacqui was looking for something to watch and saw it on Disney+. She told me she'd watched a documentary about the founder of Chippendales a while back and gave me a brief synopsis. It was such a wild story that I had to watch this. It was really good! The cast did a phenomenal job

6. About Youth - I'd had this recced to me a while back so when my Saturday group watch gang suggested we watch it I was all in. It was great! Incredibly sweet, occasionally heartbreaking. We all really enjoyed it.

7. Hotel del Luna - I enjoyed this a lot even though I cried WAY more than I was expecting to. I thought it was going to be a wacky comedy about ghosts, and there are lots of funny bits, but there's also a lot about death, grief and making peace with your life. I think I cried at least once in just about every episode. Do rec though. It was good.

8. Roommates of Poongduck 304 - This is one I started group watching before Christmas with some friends and never got around to finishing. It was cute. Nothing amazing, and not one I'd particularly want to watch again but it was fine.

9. Choco Milk Shake - I did enjoy this. It was very cute and funny in places. It was also WAY sadder than I was expecting and I ended up crying a lot. I wish they'd spent a little more time explaining the mechanics of everything (basic premise is a guy's childhood dog and cat come back in human form because he's lonely) and the ending was a little bittersweet. But overall I think I did enjoy it.

10. The Blood of Youth - I absolutely loved this! It had a lot of of the classic wuxia tropes in it, but an interesting enough story that I was hooked. The cast were great, the characters all had fantastic chemistry. I definitely want to check out some of the other dramas the lead has done because he was great.

11. Until We Meet Again - This has been on my to watch list more or less since I started watching East Asian dramas back in 2020. I've been avoiding it because it deals with some quite heavy topics (the premise is two male lovers in the 80s take their own lives because their fathers disapprove of their relationship and in present day they meet again having been reincarnated into two students at the same college) but I'm glad I bit the bullet and finally watched it. It was very sweet, and was all about healing and forgiveness. I liked it a lot. I think Not Me still holds the top spot for my favourite Thai drama but this is a close second

12. The Guest - I really wasn't sure about this one when I watch the first episode. I don't mind TV horror generally but the first episode was a lot and I had to mute it a couple of times because it was freaking me out. Luckily they toned it down a fair amount after that and the rest of it was fantastic! Really enjoyed it. Definitely one of the better dramas that I've watched this year so far. If you're looking for a k-drama that's in the same vein as The Exorcist/The Omen/Supernatural then you'll like this one.

13. Overworking Man - This was a genuinely pleasant surprise. I watched it because the lead is one of my tomb show actors and I had pretty low expectations. I was expecting some sort of cringe sitcom in the same vein as The Office. What I got was a bonkers little web drama full of queer subtext where there's actual character development and life lessons. I really enjoyed it!

14. Midnight Museum - This was a very odd little drama. It was made by GMM who makes a lot of my favourite BL dramas. This one is not a BL, but it uses all of the BL tropes. The two male leads keep talking about how they want to be together forever and they keep risking their lives to save each other. I guess as bros? It starts off as a horror drama (premise is a barista ends up getting a job at a museum that houses cursed objects, which then get stolen, and they have to recover them all) but then halfway through it turns into this weird religious cult thing where they examine the nature of free will vs God's plan. I think I enjoyed it? But it was definitely a bit weird.

15. Cupid's Last Wish - I've been group watching this with some friends over the past couple of months. I enjoyed both leads in A Tale of 1000 Stars which I watched last year. They were good in this too but the story didn't hit quite as hard. It was fine but the ending felt rushed and anticlimactic

16. Sell Your Haunted House - This was really fun. It reminded me a bit of Buffy just in terms of general vibes and ass-kicking female lead. There were some genuinely surprising plot twists and I had a blast watching it

17. Ghost Host, Ghost House - This had a nice twist to it that I didn't figure out until I was partway through. It was cute and interesting.

18. Stupid Boys, Stupid Love - This was cute. I haven't watched much Vietnamese TV and this was very diverse even for a BL drama. There were gay boys, gay girls, height differences (the tall biker girl and her small nerd boyfriend were my favourites), butch women, femme women, bisexuals. The characters were young and, as the title suggests, pretty stupid. But overall it was cute and fun and it was only an hour long in total

19. A League of Nobleman - This was fun. It was quite silly, buckets of queer subtext and some political intrigue thrown in for good measure. It wasn't particularly deep or heavy going but I enjoyed it a lot.

20. Between Us - This is a spinoff/sequel to Until We Meet again. It was very sweet, and I enjoyed my favourite character from UWMA being the main role in this. Didn't quite have the same emotional impact as UWMA but I very much enjoyed it

21. Reset - Finished this while I was at the treehouse last month. It was one we had been group watching and it was nice to get to finish it in person. It was an interesting drama. A lot of unexpected twists which I liked, and a timeloop story is always fun

22. Our Dining Table - Absolutely one of my favourite things that I have watched this year. It was so sweet and soft. Usually I'm not a fan of kidfic but this was really lovely and the kid in question was adorable

23. Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938 - I was a bit dubious when I heard they were doing a sequel to Tale of the Nine-Tailed but it was perfect. Time travel shenanigans, an awesome woman with a huge sword, brotherly bonding, an OT3 polycule. I had a great time.

24. The Eighth Sense - I liked parts of it. The main couple were cute, the two best friends were awesome. I did not care for the unnecessarily bitchy ex-girlfriend and her best friend who was equally awful. It went a little two hard on the 'everyone must have a happy ending' idea so a bunch of characters ended up getting apologised to who really didn't deserve it

25. Popular Indie Creator Nekoyashiki is Making His Yearning for Approval Worse - This was kind of weird, but also really fun. Everyone was so extra and dramatic but that just tied into the comic themes. I actually really enjoyed it.

26. The King's Avatar - This one got recommended to me literally years ago. Right back when I first started watching Chinese dramas and asked for recs. I definitely should have watched it sooner I absolutely adored it. Like I want to write fic levels of adored it. It had such a good group of characters, found family feels all over the place and was just generally soft and lovely.

27. My School President - A very sweet high school BL drama. I wasn't massively emotionally invtested in it but I enjoyed it

28. Love Tractor - Absolutely adorable! It's just very soft and I enjoyed this so much I watched it a second time so I could show it to one of my friends

29. The Director Who Buys Me Dinner - Got to love a drama where the premise is 'if we don't date you will die'. It was funny, but also kind of heavy with one of the protagonists being immortal and the the other being a reincarnation of his dead lover.

30. Oh No! Here Comes Trouble - I don't watch a lot of Taiwanese dramas but this was fantastic! Really funny, also really tragic, and full of really interesting folklore. I loved it!

31. Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Hands down one of my favourite dramas of this year. I keep toying with wanting to write fic for it but I haven't quite got there yet. I loved the cast, I loved the story. I was wonderful.

32. Moonlight Chicken - I really enjoyed that this was a BL drama about actual adults instead of the usual ones about high school or college students. I'd seen the two leads in a couple of other dramas and I really enjoyed them in this too

33. Goblin - This is one of those dramas that gets recommended to me all the time so I finally sat down and watched it. I enjoyed it, but probably not my favourite. I think the whole 'immortal being falls in love with high school student' would have resonated with me more in my Buffy fandom days.

34. Cross Fire - Apparently this year is the year I watch all the esports dramas. This was nothing at all like what I expected. It had loads of twists that I didn't see coming and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

35. Our Flag Means Death S2 - Loved it. Just what I wanted from a second series. No notes.

36. Good Omens S2 - It was fine. I enjoyed it. It's not one of those dramas that I go feral for but the two leads are fun and it had some nice surprises.

37. He's Coming to Me - A very sweet BL that doesn't entirely resolve the fact that one of the protagonists is dead but it's left with an openly hopeful ending.

38. Stay By My Side - Another sweet ghost related story but both protagonists are alive in this one. One of them can hear ghosts, and the voices only go away if he touches his roommate. Feelings happen. It's adorable.

39. Strong Woman Do Bong Soon - I think I expected to enjoy this more than I did, but I think my disatisfaction comes from me wanting the drama to be resolved with an OT3. Instead there was just a lot of queer baiting where the two men almost kissed but they were drunk so no homo.

40. Fairyland Lovers - I was way more invested in the side couple than I was in the main storyline. The main couple really didn't interest me at all even though one of them was Bai Yu.