#seriously one of the best kdramas I've watched so far

[minty-marshmallow]

Novoland: Pearl Eclipse (Ep 1)

Starting a new drama and I must say I really do enjoy a good fantasy Cdrama. I think this is one of the best ones I could have pulled out from my list.

The beginning has already really captured my attention. I hope it stays good. It's a bit long but usually, Cdramas are much longer than Kdramas.

Man, the army in Chinese dramas is always ruthless. They're really trying to kill this kid. Okay, to be fair though she did kill the general or whatever....surprisingly.

Okay as much as I like the beginning, why does it always have to be a girl pretending to be a guy?

[I must make note that I'm really enjoying the cinematics of this drama. The shots have been really good and pretty so far.]

You always know what kind of drama it will be based on how young the emperor is haha. Anyway, why is he so mean though? Why is he bugging his eyes out so much?

[No horses were harmed in the filming of this were they?]

I'm enjoying the fight scenes here. I must say though, it's quite strange for them to "pause" the battle and let them say a few lines. Kinda dumb but I shall move on.

Okay, so obviously I don't know all the details yet but I thought that it was strange that those enemies' bodies were randomly dumped off. It was Fang Zhu's plan. So, now I'm curious what his agenda is? He works for the secret guard but is that just an overall plan to try and take down the Emperor?

Okay, so I honestly really hate it when they cast pretty female actresses to play a character pretending to be a guy. No one would actually for this, seriously! I'll ignore it and press on watching but it just irks my nerves so badly.

I must admit, I think Yang Mi is a good actress. I've seen her be serious and also playful like this character Haishi. It's weird for her to be playing such a young character though. I mean she's in her late 30s isn't she?

[mayohr]

hi! i was just wondering if you had any pointers for someone wanting to learn korean? i've wanted to for so long but i'm having so much trouble ; o ;

Hey there! Thank you for asking. Of course, I’d be glad to share a few tips with you. First, I must tell you a bit of my journey learning it, because I believe it is important to consider the environment surrounding any person learning a foreign language. Long post warning, I’ve put it all for you Anony.

I do not reside in Korea, but I have been two months last year. However, I barely practiced there because I was constantly surrounded by english speakers. 

- Lesson 1: If you go to Korea, do not hang out only with english speakers...or with one Korean and english speakers, because people will all switch to english. - Lesson 2: Whenever you meet Korean people, they will 99.99% of the time try to speak English to you. Do not give up, and continue speaking Korean to them. Even if it’s broken. Even if you’re shy. Speak Korean even if they reply in English. 

My main language is French. I have learned English mostly by myself while playing video games (therefore Korean is not the first language I’ve self-studied). I’ve been learning Korean for three years now mostly by myself, and I’m far from fluent. I’m an intermediate, and I’m planning to do TOPIK2 this year and I’m reaching for level 4/6. I must warn you however that I have been Italian and Chinese at the same time with my university, so I don’t spend 100% of my time learning Korean, but I’ve been spending minimum 30 minutes a day learning it in various ways:

Learn the alphabet 한글. No only it will be much easier to learn new words, but your pronunciation will be much better.  Try this order.

Learn the “soft consonants” ㅂㅈㄷㄱㅅㅁㄴㅇㄹㅎ

Learn the “hard consonants” ㅋㅌㅊㅍㅋ

Learn the “double consonants” ㅃㅉㄸㄲㅆ

Learn the “basic vowels” ㅗㅓㅏㅣㅐㅔㅡㅜ

Learn the “complex vowels” ㅛㅕㅒㅖㅠㅑ

Learn the differences between polite speeches, especially the -요. 

NEVER use Google Translate (it doesn’t do the difference between the polite and impolite speechs). Use Papago translator with moderation. 

Never ever translate literally, it’s hyper unnatural and I’m guilty to have done it. Especially expressions like: “It depends.” or even “How are you?”. 

Learn vocabulary with Anki, which I recommend HIGHLY (it’s free) and I still use it now even after 3 years!

I have Korean friends (I also met some on hellotalk, no need to go to Korea, even though I must say it’s quite crucial at some point to try to understand the culture and practice!), and I still write a lot in Korean to them, so I practice writing and reading with them. 

Writing a diary is super effective as well! Because you learn the words that you’d actually use! It doesn’t have to be a paper diary. What I do is every time I post on instagram, I write in Korean, English and French.

I talk to myself a lot in Korean and read aloud. So if you’re like me and you basically have no one to practice your speaking abilities with, don’t worry.

Listen to music in Korean. Find the lyrics. Make a file or print them. Highlight the words you don’t know. The grammar you don’t know. (It’s especially hard because there are a lot of abbreviations.) EXAMPLE I DID A YEAR AGO WITH JIMIN “PROMISE”.

Even though vocabulary is important, grammar is crucial. Learn a bit everyday. I recommend learning with Integrate Korean Grammar and howtostudykorean.com

Use Naver dictionary a lot to learn new words and it also has grammar!

Watch Netflix dramas with subtitles in Korean. It’s REALLY discouraging when you’ve just started, I would literally watch 5 minutes of the show in 30 minutes because I would pause all the time. You can also watch it with two subtitles using the app Ntflx multi-sub, but you have to be careful to not just look at the english subtitles. 

Watch every day life show. You know those cheesy high school love romances? They are the best to learn because the plots are simple. Do not do the mistake (like me) to watch Holo and cry because you can’t understand anything: AI and investors and scientific vocabulary is very advanced level. Hell, even cop dramas are hard. 

Please, do not get discouraged if you don’t understand what the actors say. EVEN KOREANS have to focus to understand them because they speak REALLY fast. I still can’t understand all and I watch with Korean subtitles. 

Play games in Korean: as you might have noticed my Animal Crossing: New Horizons game is in Korean. And god did this help me to learn vocabulary and grammar.

Listen to ASMR in Korean. I know people hide ASMR like it’s an addiction, but I swear, it’s SO GOOD to learn the pronunciation. They speak slow and say short sentences. I recommend: UNO ASMR, Veiled ASMR, Loadiy ASMR and Boyoong ASMR. 

The best for last: Motivate yourself. Learn anything about Korean culture. Watch videos. Watch movies. Read articles. Cook with Korean recipes. DIY in Korean. There is more than Kpop and Kdrama, and it saddens me that a lot of people stick only to that phase. (BUT REMEMBER THERE’S NO SHAME TO LIKE THOSE, I literally starting learning Korean because I wanted to understand more the lyrics of BTS’s songs so...)

Look, I know there are tons of people who say they’ve learned it in a ridiculous amount of time and it is extremely discouraging. Even Korean friends might discourage you at some points because they come from a culture where “productivity and effectiveness” is EXTREMELY HIGH. 

But, seriously, language learning is not a race, and I try to remind that to myself everyday. Also keep in mind that it’s one of the HARDEST languages in the world for English speakers to learn (and has been classified so by the United-States foreign office).  Two summers ago, I spent 5-7 hours a day studying in the biggest stress ever and I realized it lead me nowhere because stressing yourself to learn impacts your brain in a way that it just doesn’t want to retain information. So if I can give you a final tip is: Enjoy learning this amazing language and if you have any questions feel free to ask me. :)

[gabzilla-z]

I heard you mentioned that Adrien/Marinette went down the tubes. I stopped watching the show a while ago, and I've heard some vague misogynistic crap happened without knowing the details, but dare I ask what went wrong with the show?

where to start

well let’s just focus on the romance

So the show starts with a typical shojo love square. So far so good, you have four different angles to tackle the same relationship thanks to secret identities. Girl crushes on boy who crushes on her alter ego, she’s not romantically interested, while boy crushes on alter ego while he is not romantically interested in because he’s already crushin... you get the idea.

Season one has its flaws, the epìsodes are out of order and the “origins/first meeting” that kickstarts their feelings is aired at the end of the season. But nothing that can’t be ironed out.

At this point you have a pretty strong hero bond. Chat flirts with Ladybug, she playfully tells him no, he’s not overly pushy. They care about each other very much. On the civillian side, Marinette has difficulties acting normal in front of Adrien but she’s slowly loosening up, so they are moving towards a friendship. 

So what happens next? Well you’d expect them their relationship to progress. And in some episodes of season 2 and 3, it does. Sorta.

Until the show hits the reset button and Marinette acts more and more like a stalker and Chat gets more and more petty every time Ladybug rejects his advances. We are not back to square one, we are out of the board. 

To mantain the status quo, it cannot progress. Marinette needs to still have a comical crush on Adrien which sometimes borders on humilliating. Adrien needs to send her soft looks while being comically oblivious and insisting to anybody who listens that she’s just a friend. Ladybug needs to see Chat as nothing more than a friend and reject his advances. And Chat needs to be infatuated with Ladybug and constantly make a move no matter how many time he’s rejected. It doesn’t matter if there’s progress in one episode, it will go back to status quo by the next (the out of order episodes don’t help)

At first, the only “love rival” is Chloe, who is so cartoonishly mean she’s not even taken seriously. On the other side you have Nino crushing on Marinette for one episode. At the end of season 1 we get Lila, who is maybe even worse than Chloe.

That’s two girls with practically no redeeming qualities that hate our female protagonist vs one sweet boy that is bff with the male protagonist and IDK if it even counts cause his crush lasts for one episode.

Huh

Moving on...

Season 2 introduces the “serious” love rivals, who honestly feel like they came right out of a kdrama. We have the cold on the outside sweet on the inside, rich, kind, no-nonsense and beautiful Kagami who crushes on Adrien. At first she seems to not like Marinette at all but warms up to her eventually; and “came straight out of a perfect boyfriend catalogue” Luka, who crushes on Marinette and is totally cool with Adrien. Both Adrien and Marinette seem receptive to their advances, but their feelings for their respective crushes don’t let them act on it. That’s it, until the season finale of season three where they both seem to move on from Ladybug/Adrien.

So what’s the issue?

Well the main issue is that we were already told Marinette and Adrien end up together so Luka and Kagami are at best the path for our heroes to mature in their feelings, at worst tools for misunderstanding and jealousy shenanigans. 

But Gabz, you may say, Adrien and Marinette need to grow up before they can be with each other because at this point their crushes are more bad than good.

Well yeah, that’s the other issue. We wouldn’t be here if the show allowed our main characters to grow without hitting the reset button every three episodes. So it doesn’t feel like an honest progression and more like forcing the characters to accomodate a set ending while hitting the biggest amount of bad love tropes in the process.

You could have introduced Luka and Kagami back in season one, where you could argue that their feelings were “less developed” to allow them to explore other possibilities.

Or if your want the stakes to be highter, you could have introduced them after their feelings grew and became deeper but couldn’t progress because of good reasons (like the fact that they can’t know their identities, Adrien’s multiple family issues, etc). More dramatic that what I’d like, but still doable.

Instead you get a yo-yo development that wants to have its cake and eat it too. Where the show wants you to feel for the square and be saaaad about them going for other people while at the same time sabotaging their development and making it look like a joke because of lazy writing. Why should I root for them to get together when it doesn’t seem to be good for either of them? The well is already poisoned.

[likeaninjaoutofthedark]

Seriously, Romantic Doctor is one of the best kdramas I've watched so far. I'm not regretting a single bit having started watching it for the second time.

[sneezefiction]

i do really like mr. han and that scene where he mixes his noodles for her almost made me switch teams but i'm also rooting for nam do san. i feel like mr. han was the right person, wrong time kinda thing and he missed his chance :((( but nam do san has been so sweet to her since the beginning and is just a genuinely good guy?? he came up with that idea from meeting grandma once how can you not love him??

i really enjoyed crash landing on you! that's what got me back into kdramas in the first place. overall just a very romantic and charming drama.

i'm not sure if you're into crime thrillers but flower of evil was one of the best dramas i've watched so far. it's about a man that changes his identity because of his dark past and marries a homicide detective who takes on a case related to his past. it is darker but so well written and the acting is phenomenal! the suspense is unreal and i kind of regret starting it so early because waiting for episodes to come out every week was honestly torture.

my all-time favorite has to be thank you. it's an older drama that's more about life than romance so all the characters feel very real. it's about a single mom raising her sick daughter in a small village and let me tell you, the way i ugly cried watching this drama ;_; i'm a sucker for things about family and this was beautiful, touching, and tragic all in one.

sorry this ended up being a lot more detailed than i originally intended hahaha but if you end up watching any of these you'll have to let me know what you think!! and if there's dramas you enjoyed i'd love to hear about those too! my watchlist is long enough as it is but *shrug* what's a few more :')

hhh i’m so with you on mr. han😔✨ he’s so much more smooth and i was instantly charmed by his connection with her grandma :,,,) nam do san felt a little robotic at first, but then he warmed up and AH it clicked. i completely agree on it being a timing thing - but if it were me in that scenario? i’d choose mr. han ;v;

yess crash landing on you was cute & incredibly goofy. i had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. OH OH AND YEAH, crime thrillers/mystery focused dramas are some of my favorites!! i’ve never watched a kdrama with those themes, but it sounds exactly like something i’d be into🥴

AGH SWEET FAMILY STORIES my eyes are already filling with tears, Rin don’t do this to me. i will melt. secretly, i’ve never been into anything cheesy or super sweet, but kdramas are usually over the top enough that i can laugh and genuinely immerse myself in the storyline without taking things too seriously. they’re nothing at all like hallmark movies (i just... can’t bring myself to watch them. my body can’t handle it)

OH and have you watched inheritors?? i think it’s also referred to as “the heirs,” but same thing. my friend (the one who got me into kdramas) has an infatuation with Lee Min-ho and she dragged me into it with her. it’s so cute.