A Gay Girl's Guide to Korean Musicals (with English subtitles!)
People often associate musicals with male gayness (both onstage and off) but there's stuff out there for female-oriented queers too! It's just harder to find, which is why I put this video together despite not knowing Korean.
This list isn't comprehensive and I deliberately chose musicals with either queer female characters or gender-free casting (i.e. female actors playing male roles), except for Bernarda Alba, which is special as it’s by far the largest-scale all-female production with 10 characters. Obviously there are many Korean musicals out there which don't meet these criteria and are still of interest to the queers, but I wanted to highlight these in particular as they are, apart from Rebecca, not as well-known. I highly recommend checking out @koreanmusicals for more information on Korean musicals generally!
Note: Again, I don’t understand Korean and relied heavily on machine translation and the original lyrics for licenced productions, so any errors in the subtitles or explanations are mine. Corrections are very welcome!
At-a-glance list:
1. Lizze (리지)
2. Midnight (미드나잇)
3. Rebecca (레베카)
4. Pirate (해적)
5. V Ever After (V 에버 애프터)
6. Frida (프리다)
7. Red Cliff (적벽)
8. Bernarda Alba (베르나르다 알바)
More details, including links to the sources, under the cut!
1. LIZZIE (리지)
Photo source: NewsCulture
A. “If You Knew” (네가 안다면)
Actor: J-Min/제이민 (Alice)
Video source: Oh! J-Min 오! 제이민
B. “Will You Stay?” (있어줄래?)
Actors: J-Min/제이민 (Alice – main vocal), Yuria/유리아 (Lizzie)
Video sources: 서울문화투데이TV, OSEN TV, 톱데일리 Top Daily, 더인터 (clip 1, clip 2), PlayDB, TongTongCulture
C. “Sweet Little Sister” (소중한 내 동생)
Actors: Kim Ryeowon/김려원 (Emma – main vocal), Jeon Sung-min/전성민 (Lizzie), Lee Youngmi/이영미 (Bridget), Kim Suyeon/김수연 (Alice)
Video sources: PlayDB, TongTongCulture
2. MIDNIGHT (미드나잇)
Photo source: 666PICTURE
A. “The Future Comes A-Knocking” (그날이 찾아왔어)
Actor: Yuria/유리아 (Visitor)
Video source: 정숲
B. “Everyone’s A Devil, Now and Then” (누구나 악마죠 때로는)
Actors: Jang Bo-ram/장보람 (Visitor), Ju Da-on/주다온 (Woman), Jang Yoo-sang/장유상 (Man), Park Seon-young/박선영 (Player 1), Jina Esther Baek/백지나에스더 (Player 2), Kang Daewoon/강대운 (Player 3), Hwang Ji-sung/황지성 (Player 4)
Video sources: 빚, 라디우스, 탄수화물 섭취량과 행복도의 상관관계
3. REBECCA (레베카)
Photo source: EMK Musical’s official Facebook page
“Rebecca” (레베카)
Actors: Ock Joo Hyun/옥주현 (Mrs. Danvers - main vocal), Lee Ji Hye/이지혜(Protagonist)
Video source: EMK MUSICAL
4. PIRATE (해적)
Photo source: comet7423_PIC
A. “I Won't Let You Go” (가만 안 둬)
Actors: Kim Ee-hoo/김이후 (Anne Bonny), Kim Ryeowon/김려원 (Mary Read)
Video source: KONTENTZ PLANNING
B. “All of us and the dreams we don’t remember” (우리 모두의, 기억나지 않는 꿈)
Actors: Kim Ee-hoo/김이후 (Anne Bonny), Kim Ryeowon/김려원 (Mary Read)
Video source: MN CAM
5. V EVER AFTER (V 에버 애프터)
Photo source: Amor_pic
“Hunt” (사냥)
Actors: Kim Ee-hoo/김이후 (Lehwig – main vocal), Hwang Hannah/황한나 (Frantzschez)
Video source: 컷콜 찍는 먼지
6. FRIDA (프리다)
Photo source: NewsCulture
“Hummingbird” (허밍버드)
Actors: Jeon Su-mi/전수미 (Diego/Reflejar), Kim So-hyang/김소향 (Frida)
Video source: PlayDB
7. RED CLIFF (적벽)
Photo source: L0VE_pearl
“Southeastern Wind” (동남풍)
Actors: Lim Ji-soo (Kong Ming, aka. Zhuge Liang), Lee Geum-mi/이금미 (Zhou Yu), Kim Su-in 김수인 (Lu Su), Choi Ha-neul/최하늘 (Xu Sheng), Lee Yongjeong/이용전 (Zhao Yun, aka. Zhao Zilong), others
Video source: KBS 11’s 국악 한마당, episode 1256 (aired 27 Apr 2019)
8. BERNARDA ALBA (베르나르다 알바)
Photo source: Screencap from livestream
“Prologue” (프롤로그)
Actors: Jung Young-joo/정영주 (Bernarda Alba), Lee Youngmi/이영미 (Foncia – main vocal), Hwang Seok-jeong/황석정 (Maria Josefa), Jung In-ji/정인지 (Angustias), Kim Hwan-Hee/김국희 (Amelia), Oh So-yeon/오소연 (Adela), Baek Eun-hye/백은혜 (Magdalena), Jeong Sung-min/전성민 (Martirio), Kim Hieora/김히어라 (Young Handmaid), Kim Koo-hee/김환희 (Handmaid, Prudence)
Video source: THE MUSICAL
OTHERS
Amadeus (아마데우스)
El crítico (비평가)
Unchain (언체인)
Jane (제인)
Orphans (오펀스)
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hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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☆ words better left unsaid
{☆} characters zhongli
{☆} notes cult au, yandere, drabble, gender neutral reader
{☆} warnings yandere
{☆} word count 0.4k
He sits as still as a marble statue, a moment in time – of power, of the singing of metal against metal that fills his ears, of the smell of blood so heavy he can still vividly remember it, even now – he had long since left behind, carved into stone.
You, on the contrary, are not so still. Your hands caress his body like you are a painter creating stroke after stroke with your brush – up the curve of his horns, mindful of the sharp point, down to the scales of his cheeks and the sharp, jagged edges of his teeth that barely fit in a jaw not made for them.
And he let's you – oh how he lets you. He does not think there is anything in the world he could deny you.
He dares not breathe, fearing it will shatter this moment in such a way that he will never get it back. He is not meant to be a living being, in this moment – he is no Archon, nor even the mortal Zhongli. He is the canvas of which you paint your masterpiece with wandering hands that leave goosebumps on his skin.
And what a feeling it is. Euphoria, he thinks, is an apt description – yet at the same time nothing can truly put a word to the feeling of the Creators gaze falling upon him and him alone, to know your touch and to hear your voice.
His body cramps and aches at holding the position for so long, but it is so easy to ignore, so easily drowned out by the waves of adoration that swells in his chest. It is so very easy to ignore the way his body protests when your hands cup his face, and he feels like he must be the luckiest man in the world.
It is so very easy to forget everything when you are so close he can feel your breath against his lips – so easy to forget that he should stay still when he coils his tail around your waist, his arms encircling your back – mindful of his claws.
There is no word to describe the feeling of your lips, the warmth and softness with which you look at him in the moments before your eyes close, the feeling of your body and his entwined like you were never meant to be apart. He does not even try to put it into words – his actions will do it instead.
And perhaps you will not recognize the possessiveness with which he holds you, but that's alright.
He has all the time in the world.
And so will you.
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