Caleb McLaughlin the man that you are. My guy is just out here sayin âyeah stranger things was never meant to be mainstream or for a general audience and itâs always been about the weirdos freaks and outcastsâ âyeah no mike and el just felt pressured to be together because everyone around them romanticized themâ like I wouldnât be surprised if heâs roaming around here on tumblr with us. Heâs out here spittin his shitđŁď¸đŁď¸
Fourever You Book 4 (West : The Sun From Another Star) spoilers ahead
I aspire to be like Arthit's father. He is the coolest dad ever. What a savage person he is đ
Johan being fed up of North and Arthit is my favourite thing in the world. And I would riot if they don't add their scenes in Part 2.
I would also riot if they don't include the wedding chapters. I find it funny how Arthit was the first one to marry among the four doctors. They kept making fun of him for three (and a half) books and he pulled the marriage card first đ No wonder Johan was so pissed.
I find it heartwarming how North danced in Arthit's place during the wedding. Even though he was initially worried that North would ask him to dance, it turned out to be Typhoon's demand. And North substituted for Arthit. That's a real brother thing đ¤
Johan and Arthit's bickering is so fun
But I love how these two decided to quit medical school together. Yeah it was funny but it also showed how important it is to have someone during such times. And Johan is that friend to Arthit. They were both able to make that decision because they had each other.
When I first saw the pilot trailer, I kinda assumed that Daotok had a crush on Arthit. I thought it was one sided love for him but boy was I in for a surprise. I couldn't be more wrong đ
Just focus only on yourself, okay? Donât make such a decision just for me. Please? Just give yourself an answer on whether you still want to be with me or not. Iâll go through the rest on my own. Let me handle it myself. Let me feel tired myself.
Queer and Crip Temporality in the Eighth Sense and Giovanni's Room
I've been thinking the last week about how The Eighth Sense represents mental health and queerness through a fractured sense of time. It got me thinking about the concepts of queer and crip time which I think the show is depicting. I've also been thinking about how the parallels between how the The Eighth Sense captures experiences of fracture and abjection in a similar way to the novel Giovanni's Room.
For reference:
Part 1: Queer and Crip Time explained
Part 2: Giovanni's Room
Part 3: The Eighth Sense
Queer time and Crip Time
Queer time is a concept that touches on the way that queer lives don't progress in the normative way that non-queer lives tend to. It's a temporal displacement from the norm that queers expectations of heteronormative progress. As a small example, think of the way that many queer folks don't experience many traditional coming of age milestones in the same form or pace as is often expected; things such as dating or going through one's desired puberty may often come much later in life.
Notions of crip time build on the notion of queer time while thinking about disability. This captures in part the way that many disabled lives run on a different time scale, much like with queerness. From the way that a flare or doctor's visits can run a person ragged, taking up their time. To the way that lying in bed, isolated from society, time expands in ways ablebodied folks rarely experience. Crip time, like forms of queer time, however, also refers to a resistant mode of thinking about disabled futures. It interrogates the ableist impulse to envision the future without disability, while opening up for thinking about what a crip future might look like.
In an important way queer and crip time, and representations of them, are both about capturing a lived experience and about imagining otherwise.
2. Queer Time and Abjection in Giovanni's Room
I want to start first by thinking about Giovanni's Room because I think both this novel and The Eighth Sense use queer time in similar ways, but are striving towards different conclusions. So I think it's useful to use Giovanni's Room as a base.
The novel by James Baldwin follows David, an American man who moves to Paris where he begins to navigate his bisexuality and internalized homophobia when he begins a relationship with an Italian bartender Giovanni. The story is told primarily as a flashback, moving between a telling of David and Giovanni's relationship and fallout and the present moment (what David calls "the night which is leading to the most terrible morning of my life") where David is passing the evening before Giovanni's execution.
While the novel structurally plays with time to tell it's story, it also embeds time into the narrative in more symbolic ways as well. Throughout the novel, Giovanni is associated with atemporality, constantly out of step with the flow of Paris life due to his poverty and queerness which require him to work the night shift at a bar. Giovanni is placed both in opposition to normative time but also dependent on it for his financial survival. He gets off work just before dawn as the rest of the city begins it's day. As a shift laborer (he works as a bartender at a gay bar) he must work within a specific schedule for survival, and his poverty and queerness force him out of step with the rhythms of normative society. In this way, atemporality is a form of abjection or social death.
At the same time, Giovanni also turns to atemporality as a form of queer refuge when he is not working particularly within the space of his room where David spends time with him. David recalls that "life in that room seemed to be occuring beneath the sea. Time flowed past indifferently above us; hours and days had no meaning." Giovanni's room becomes a space where time has no meaning, making it free from social constructs of time. All of this, importantly, is carried by the metaphor of the sea, which on the surface marks time by the movement of the tides and the moon, but deep below the surface these tides become imperceptible. And after Giovanni loses his job, David notes how he feels as if he is sinking deeper.
Unfortunately, in Giovanni's Room Baldwin depicts this queer refuge as unsustainable. Temporal norms demand that the body must labor and do so on a specific schedule or social death turns into literal death. After losing his job when his boss tries to exploit him sexually Giovanni sinks further into poverty before killing his former boss and facing execution. At the same time, conformity is also framed as death. David ultimately struggles with his attraction to men. At one point he sleeps with a woman to test his manhood noting afterwards that at this point "I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine." Baldwin sets up a tension, where the characters can neither escape the norm nor conform since both bring death.
3. Queer and Crip Time in The Eighth Sense
Like Giovanni's Room, The Eighth Sense relies on a fractured and displacement of time to convey the abject nature of queer experience, particularly through the editing style and the way this conveys JaeWon's experience. Of course, I would argue that The Eighth Sense leans towards a more optimistic resolution (at least so far) while interweaving an exploration of trauma, mental illness, and disability with queerness (in comparison to Giovanni's Room which primarily interweaves social class).
Throughout the show JaeWon faces the strain of normative time and a lingering feeling of too-lateness. He is on the cusp of graduation, like many of the seniors he is expected to take the next step soon of finding a job and entering the rhythms of the workforce. We can feel the strain of this in many ways. For example, the fact that he would like to try out a different career path (photography) but tells his therapist that he feels it is too late.
This too-lateness, of course, also ties into both his queerness and his experience with trauma. Experiencing his brother's death and feeling that he was to blame, that he was in every way too late to save a life that meant so much to him. This affects his relationship with JiHyun after the accident. Once again he failed someone close to him. And in his eyes we can see how he has given up, that in his mind it is all too late. Too late to choose the happiness JiHyun brings him, too late to remove the mask he wears around others, too late to trace a future that doesn't just repeat the past.
The stylistic way in which the show edits and chops up time shows this fracturing well, capturing the way trauma can crip time and the way non-normativity can lead to an internal sense of abjection. Much like Giovanni's Room we see the pressure of normativity and the way this fractures JeaWon, and of course the show subtly gestures to one potential end point when his therapist asks if he has been considering extreme options.
In another similarity to Giovanni's Room, the strain of normative time is contrasted with spaces that offer queer escape, where time expands and normative progression is cast aside. The ocean for him is in some ways that space. We see this most in how JiHyun becomes a safe space for JaeWon. He tells his therapist that he is "happy with him" to which she responds "I can tell that he offers you a place to rest." As @respectthepetty and others have noted, this is shown visually as JiHYun brings light to JaeWon's world.
It is also captured on their beach trip in episode 6. The dreamlike quality and temporal jumping can be read as a way of conveying the refuge of queer and crip space that throws of the shackles of normativity through a sense of atemporality. I think we might also consider the therapists office as a quasi space of crip refuge. While these scenes are still darkly lit and not so dreamlike, they similarly serve as a space where JaeWon's trauma is not fully hidden behind a mask or himself in shadow.
It is largely the ocean which centrally stands in symbolically as this space of refuge for JaeWon and of course as JiHyun comes further into his life, the two merge as JaeWon brings him to the ocean for their trip. Yet, as episode 6 closes, we see this space of refuge, much like in Giovanni's Room prove unsustainable, marked by the threat of death and loss when JiHyun is hurt and this refuge slips away in JaeWon's eyes. He is sinking deeper.
Once again we are faced with both paths leading to abjection and death. However, while the last few episodes have not aired yet, I do believe that The Eighth Sense pushes for a different conclusion than Giovanni's Room and we see this in JiHyun. Like David in Giovanni's Room he comes to find himself in the big city, but instead of internalizing homophobia, he challenges himself to be brave. He is building a network of caring people, many of whom are themselves outcasts in some way, finding new ways to think about queer futures. Even his choice to work sidesteps the grueling constraints of capitalist labor by finding a place where he is valued by his boss (note how often she assures him he doesn't have to work, it's a choice). Again, the final episodes aren't out yet, but I believe the show is building to an alternate conclusion, one where JiHyun and JaeWon can both find it in themselves to choose a future, a future that is crip and queer and not too late, but rather infinite.
Ok, listen. Am I watching this show and playing video games at the same time? Yes. Does that mean I am missing a lot? Yes.
But! The facial blurs when it comes to JaeWon seem very intentional and is especially evident when they are in the water:
Now, okay, there is 200% room for argument here that all the blurriness is because the cameraman is most likely filming in the water with a go-pro and has little to no control over the video quality. And that is totally something that can be true. And that is also totally something that would disguise any intentional, purposeful point of the blurriness in this moment.
And there is something else I noticed, the colors in this scene. Thanks, as always to @respectthepetty for turning me into a color monster.
The way the light refracts off of JiHyun's wetsuit makes the colors seem distorted.
Camera issue? Sure! But could it be another indication of JaeWon's altered mental status? Why the fuck not! I mean, we don't know how his brother died yet. Personally, my theory is that he drowned. Because so much of this show is water centric, because of the fish tank and the fact that our title card for Episode 2 is literally JaeWon surrounded by a fish tank as if he is under water.
I think it would be extra super spicy sad if it was when JaeWon was teaching his brother to surf. Just for the ~trauma~, and cause if that is true, then the blurriness and the distorted colors here once again is intentional, and is brilliantly capable of being written off by the audience as just difficult filming conditions.
So again, if that is the case, the blurriness is the altered mental status. And we can take that however we want, medically induced alteration, cognitive dissonance, anxiety, dissociation, all of them.
If the water killed JaeWon's brother, then being in the water would make him feel close to his brother and also be a great punishment for JaeWon. If his brother died learning to surf, then to teach a person the same age as his brother would have been would remind him of all that he had lost but give him that moment of soft remembrance to the person he loved most in the world.
And GOD we see this blurriness, much less obviously, but very rapidly cutting back and forth in the shower scene in Episode 3.
Out of focus
In focus.
Back and forth and back and forth every couple seconds like the camera isn't quite able to stick on his face. JaeWon wants to be present in this moment, JaeWon is fighting to remain in his body, tied to his emotions, tied to this person, so he is slipping in and out of focus because he's trying to fight the numbness and the brain fog.
And again, you cannot tell me this man is not dissociating. I'm sorry but those are some dead fucking eyes. This man is shut down, this man is not present in this conversation with his ex. Why would he be? Why would he try to be? He has no reason to fight the numbness he feels.
And we're back on the color train for JaeWon with JiHyun, with this soft pink light around his head when he joins JiHyun on the beach for their late night kiss conversation about fear.
Methinks JaeWon fears feeling anything, hence the hint towards drug dependence in Episode 6. I think it is so much easier for him to just be numb to the world so he doesn't have to feel the pain of the loss he suffered.
Anyway, the more I watch this show through the lens of mental illness, the more the camerawork is standing out to me with how and when they blur faces, and how it really only is JaeWon whose face is blurred when he's supposed to be in frame. Obviously there are instances where character's faces are going to be blurred because they are in the foreground or background, or they are not the focal point of the conversation. But JaeWon goes blurry far more often than anyone else does.
A little post for @cupcakeeditor and the anon who asked me to elaborate on fatphobia, body dysmorphia and ED in The Eighth Sense. TRIGGER WARNING ED talk/societal fatphobia/beauty standards.
-Jae Wonâs relationship with food is fraught. It is subtle but its there. He cooks a lot but doesnât eat that much. In episode 2 he is clearly as famished as baby mouse (17:25) but drinks a diet soda WHILE talking about how good food is.Jae Won is slim but watches his weight. He binge drinks and once trashed indulges in junk food. One of the signs of Ji Hyunâs effect on him is visible in ep4 (6:24) when he eats with joy. Without drinking.
-Yoon Won is fat by Korean standards. Her existence on screen is very rare. It shows in her âfriendshipsâ with others (thin women)and her choice of clothes. She does not wear make up.She doesnât talk about it but she slips once in ep2 (19:11) when she said Ji Hyun made her body look goodâ in his drawings. Homegirl is in pain and she is existing outside of K beauty standards
-The pressure around appearance is always on. In retouched pictures and snappy comments about âcutenessâ. People constantly complimenting Baby Mouse on his appearance or Jae Won good looks. Jae Won is considered tan ( remember the sunblock talk ?)but since he is rich he escapes scrutiny. The ageism is always on ( the fight between the boss vs the ex was classist and generational)THE PRESSURE IS ALWAYS ON in this show.
the therapy scenes always start off with a cut to a black screen.
as others have established already, both jaewon and the therapist are wearing the same clothes in all the therapy clips thus far, so they're all from the same session. i've also not seen jaewon in the exact same outfit so far in the series but i'm happy to stand corrected. (i've upped the brightness so his outfit his easier to see)
i'm a little confused about how he first started going to therapy. in episode 3, the therapist states that he's been coming since high school and jaewon says it's because he was stressed about exams and his parents forced him to go:
but then in episode 5, the therapist mentions something about a hospital. my initial thought was that the hospital they took his little brother to after the accident, sent jaewon to therapy because he quite literally witnessed his little brother die in front of him, but this doesn't seem to line up with what he said in episode 3.
another thought that crossed my mind was maybe he ended up in hospital when he was in high school because preparing for college entrance exams exacerbated his trauma and grief, leading to some kind of mental-health incident.
the constant call back to drugs, from the episode 3 and 5 clips and the special release video are also concerning to say the least:
especially now with all the theories about jaewon potentially being in a drug-induced state, hence the odd lighting and filters. it would also make him an unreliable narrator throughout episode 6, explaining some of the strange things that happened.
Iâve been assuming he started therapy in high school because thatâs when his little brother died, and as you theorize, the hospital mentioned is where his brother was treated. Itâs supposed to have been about 10 years since then, and he is now in his mid-20s after returning to college following his military service. So if that happened when he was around 15 or 16, that tracks.
Of course, @waitmyturtles has theorized that the hospital mention could be a reference to hospitalization and that Jae Won did not actually go into the military but rather was institutionalized.
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