Why do you have to manage everything by yourself?

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
KIROKAZE

@theartofmadeline
wallacepolsom
RMH
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
h

JVL

blake kathryn
🪼
occasionally subtle

⁂

Product Placement
Jules of Nature
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
taylor price
Three Goblin Art
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Claire Keane

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@oatmealuv
Why do you have to manage everything by yourself?
i'm scrapbooking my blorbos again 🥰
Yeo Woon when he's especially cute:
+ bonus: confused Yeo Woon doing that cute little trot on the crosswalk 😄
My friends i watched love for love's sake and I swear i don't have a fckin clue where even to start.
I know a lot has been said about the show already and i know a LOT more would be said about in the future, but i just can't help adding my own two cents to one of the most thought-provoking, moving and brilliantly executed pieces of art i have ever seen.
I'm not gonna go on about just how much I loved Tae Myungha's character and how he is one of the most interesting people I've seen on screen in a long time. I'm not gonna talk about how unbelievably squishable Yeowoon is and how his duality totally ruined me that I need him to get into my pocket and NEVER leave. And oh I need him to put Myungha in his pocket while at it. I'm also not gonna talk about precious 'of course i'm gay, i've always liked girls, you don't know how to be loved' Sangwon is to me, cos if i start I can promise you I will most certainly never stop.
So for the sake of the rest of this post, I'm moving on. (NOT REALLY THO)
I just LOVE LOVE LOVE all the interpretations that people are coming up with, LOVE LOVE LOVE the show for filling in the gaps but LOVE it more for still leaving room for pretty thought-flowers to bloom around.
You know those artworks or puzzles that have something obvious hidden in a maze of confusion and haze until somebody points out the pattern, you zoom out and realize wow it was this clear all along?? That's a LOT of what watching the show felt like to me. The pattern being how inexplicably inter-connected Myungha and Yeowoon are. Not because they are each other's blorbos, but because why they are eo's blorbos. Why they don't care for each other from a sense of sympathy, but from empathy, despite not knowing the depth of their connections explicitly.
Eventhough we do see glimpses of it from the start, it only gets more clear later how Myungha and Yeowoon really are mirror versions of eo. How the first time Myungha sees Yeowoon he's stopping him from killing himself, and then we later find out that Myungha ends up killing himself. How both of it was triggered by a series of disappointments in life, starting with a troubling family and ending with a grandmother who passes away. Of how both of them seem to really have no one else to call their own in the world. Of leading very lonely depressing lives, that seem to never have a glimpse of hope. How both of them seem closed off, but inside they really are so fragile it hurts to perceive the depth of their feelings. It all comes and hits you once you've taken the whole show in and have gotten a few 1000 seconds to think about it.
We start off with myungha's character wanting to make his blorbo's character happy, and he's in it cos he cares about him, he doesn't have to think about himself. A 'pathetic' character experiencing a lot of pain, what's not to love, Myungha thinks, not realizing that it's his own mirror self that he is feeling so much for. Myungha sees Yeowoon's problems as someone from outside and is therefore able to objectively look at it, and approach it proactively, taking so many steps to help him, my favourite (and arguably most important) of which is the effort he puts in to help form yeowoon a friend circle. Something that he couldn't do for himself cos he never even considered a possibility of that. Why would anybody want to be around him? He ruins everything right?
And then to go on despite believing that, to falling in love, to deciding to choose to save both his grandma and yeowoon, finally FINALLY taking control into his hands even if for a bit to say what he wants, to spending the last few days together, to breaking up cos he just thinks the worst of himself, cos he doesn't know better. And then to the eternal darkness, where moments before leaving, just like in his real life, he realizes he wants in, he wants to live, he wants to love, but more importantly this time, he wants to try being loved. Even if it's difficult, he wants to try.
I love how eventhough the show is heavily Myungha focused, we get meaningful dynamics with multiple characters. Round eyed gasp inducing moments dont just belong to the two mains but also to sangwon whose line to myungha post the stalker incident just ruined me and really set the tone for whatever the show was later revealed to be all about.
I love how complicated the narrative got while still telling a more or less coherent story, how in hindsight, a lot of it makes even more sense now. How as Myungha gets closer to yeowoon his self-hating tendencies manifest in the form of debuffs and errors, because of his own brain's inability to perceive himself as somebody deserving love. His childhood trauma and the numerous rejections life has given him, because of the kind of person he turned out to be because of those rejections, all appear to stand in his way of happiness, as if he can't help being a bundle of sadness and a harbinger of problems. Even as he says he doesn't believe in destiny or fate. Or as we initially are made to believe in the game as, yeowoon's happiness, when in reality this was never about yeowoon at all. Yeowoon never existed in the first place and in "real" life, he never does.
I was blown away by how Myungha is in fact no longer in the mortal world but that fact doesn't hurt as much as that he would have to leave a world where he could finally feel happiness, feel loved, feel cared for, even if he consciously tried avoiding them. They still came to him, they still cared for him, they still fiercely wanted to protect him, (Cos he is just a tiny meow meow, who has been hurt a lot in his life, who wouldn't wanna caress and nurse him back to health HUH) just as much as he wanted to protect them.
And coming to the question of what's the game, where is it happening and who orchestrated it? It's definitely set in the afterlife or the limbo between life and the life after. It could be the author friend doing it, or the author friend has given myungha's brain the power to control the game OR of course the possibility that this has all been happening in myungha's head the whole time.
Whatever it is, the whole point has been to take Myungha from a person not wanting to live his life, feeling so devoid of love and happiness, to a journey of love and friendship, of the importance of fostering connections, of making efforts, of helping others, but equally of letting others help you, of putting your hand out and asking for that help. And in my head I love it most when I think of it as entirely Myungha orchestrated. Of it being a desperate cry of pain to himself, from himself, to save himself. Yeowoon and the game and the missions and all of it was for him to see himself in ways he never allowed himself to be seen as, to take care of himself in ways he never has, to love himself like he has never known to. To finally run towards himself, even if pathetic and sad, the Cha Yeowoon of the game, the person waiting at the end of the finishing line was the Tae Myungha in him all along.
You know that tumblr quote 'do it for her' but its about your future self, right? Myungha rooting for Yeowoon is sort of like that? When he's protecing him, he's protecting himself? When he's cheering for him, he's actually cheering and rooting for himself? When he's loving him, he makes space and place to love himself?
I just love the idea of a (self) love story.
Eitherway Yeowoon x Myungha supremacy.
Extreme(ly accurate?) Interpretations apart, Love for Love's Sake is truly one of the, if not THE finest (self) love story I might have ever seen.
As a person who avoids fics/books with mcd or shows with tragic endings, it felt absolutely revolutionary to me that my biggest joy and relief came from the fact that the main character is dead (the thought of myungha having to leave the game was too much to handle) and he gets to live in this game where he has a cute boyfriend, a supportive, caring friend group and his grandma back. it wasn't the game that was temporary or non-existent, it was actually his life outside. And that's not bad? Cos this is a story and Myungha isn't real, but as real as he is, he got his happy ending.
The show taught us to love, to see love, to be loved and to share that love. It told us that maybe the afterlife is a videogame simulation where we all get to live in friendship and love forever, with our blorbo and our friends. There are a lot worse lives to live. And I'm glad he found it in himself, enough love, courage and hope to write himself a better one :')
Something about Myungha giving love so freely to Yeowoon, his own mirror image, and yet being unable to view himself as worthy of love.
Something about Myungha erasing himself from all their lives and Yeowoon still hearing the echoes of his voice because of the imprint we leave on the people we love.
Something about learning that part of loving someone is also receiving love from them and that second chances are worth fighting for.
Something about Love for Love’s Sake that is so raw and honest and also muddled and confusing because that’s what love is.
as somebody who has been (and remains) suicidal, I think Love For Love's Sake was written for me specifically, in the same way The Eighth Sense was.
I have no desire to speculate over the game mechanisms or what was real and what wasn't and who his sunbae *really* was because that's not the point. It's not about that, it's about the fact that suicidal people deserve compassion. It's about the fact that small acts of kindness can change everything. It's about the crushing pain of feeling left behind by everybody in your life and rejected by the people you want love from the most.
Being a human being is hard. It's harder when you have trauma. When you're mentally ill. When you're neurodivergent. When you're queer. All of those things separate you from the people around you in small, indefinable ways, and it can and will ruin your life if you let it (and even if you don't let it, sometimes it will do it anyway). I don't know about the rest of y'all but I'm in constant danger of becoming Tae Myungha. So I have no interest in exploring whether or not the ending is "real" or what made it happen, because that's not the point.
Tae Myungha entered the game broken and alone and was given a chance to make somebody else feel less like he did and he took it because he CARED. Because he had that capacity for love and strength for other people, but he couldn't find it for himself. The game made him confront that fact until he reached a point where he could actually allow himself to want things again. To want love and companionship and to feel like he *deserved* those things, because even though it's not about whether you deserve it or not, it's difficult not to feel that way. The game, and his sunbae, over and over again just wanted him to open himself up to being taken care of after leaving a life where nobody took care of him. It's tragic and beautiful and full of hope despite it all, and yeah it's morbid, but as somebody who has been where Myungha is, it also just feels very... normal. Struggling like that. Drowning under the weight of it all. The hard part is continuing even when all you want to do is give up, but this story is trying to tell us that it's worth looking for one more bright spot, trusting one more person, believing in yourself one more time.
Learning to receive love is just as important as your willingness to give it.
THAT is the point.
My dance partner is here.
↳ I FEEL YOU LINGER IN THE AIR
the absolutely babiescopic sunbae 🥺 when cha yeo woon's coach calls him away after the race: fatal to me
Myungha falling in love with and treating Yeowoon so tenderly, so lovingly. Finding everything about him so dear. Being sympathetic to him in a way he always needed for himself. Working everyday to make him happy just to find out that they are more or less the same. It really takes that idea from the Greek myths of soulmates being the same person split (four arms, legs and one head) and makes it almost literal. They are two people who were always meant to be one, literally breaking the fabric of their universe to be together.
“You and Wansarut are destined to meet in every life but never be able to be together.“
The Sign (2023)
When Mum told me about what you did, I forgot all about the competition, the club, everything. What was left was how I wanted to sing this song for you. I really want to thank you. Sing for me then. I’m waiting to hear it.
I'm near your house. How long will it take you to get home.
Bonus:
Why must you always manage everything alone? Why won't you tell me things? Why am I the only one doing this? Whenever I see you, I feel both good and want to cry. I feel so much about every little thing. But I'm not happy at all right now.
LOVE FOR LOVE’S SAKE 연애 지상주의 구역 (2024) - EPISODE 7
AFFECTION LEVEL
Love for Love’s Sake (2024)
That is an arrow straight to the heart. Myungha is struggling so much and he really doesn't know how to be loved or cared for, he only knows how to give and to protect and to help but not how to accept anything in return, how to share himself or his fears or his dreams, only how to work for other people's.
And to have it reversed in the real life version? To have her tell him he doesn't know how to love and to have Sangweon tell him he doesn't know how to be loved? Oh, my heart.
[Anyway, what do you think about when you run?] I imagine a huge crocodile chasing me.
Cha Joo Wan as Cha Yeo Woon in Love For Love's Sake episode 4