Just ranting

FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸 🍉 A bit of everything; kdramas, kpop, books, movies & whatnot.

[sosrantings]

Another thing that bothered me about this drama is its handling of spiteful spirits. The concept of a malicious soul trapped in limbo isn't new to K-dramas, other series generally treat these entities with compassion, resolving their underlying trauma through a gentler narrative lens. In this drama, however, the opposite occurs. The aggrieved spirits are framed entirely as villains while the instigator of their suffering is the one granted redemption. This inversion ultimately made the resolution feel hollow and meaningless to me.

[sosrantings]

The writing for The East Palace is an absolute trainwreck.

[ariellesney]

me watching The East Palace because this creature.

[tinyevilgremlin]

the creacher ever. so small. just a little entity

AND THEN GUCHEON SAVES THE CUTE LITTLE CREACHER IN RETURN AAAHH. this was so cute. cries

(just look at the way it leans against him. my heart😭😭😭😭)

[mentallyunstablebaddie]

Friends this, friends that, other people this, other people that, power of friendship this, friends are important that, humans are social this, you need friends that.

I do not "make friends", I do not let people "get close", I do not "socialize". I isolate myself, and if someone manages to get close to me, I RUIN IT by malevolence because I know the person was planning to abandon me anyway!

[sosrantings]

I don't even know why I'm typing this here, but I need to get it out of my system. I’m in my early thirties, I've never been in a relationship, and I have no desire to change that. I’m avoidant, and I know it. When you're barely carrying your own weight, a relationship just feels like an added burden. People around me think that's a twisted mindset, but they haven't walked in my shoes or lived the history that made me this way. I only have enough energy for myself, and that has to be okay.

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

May I just express my absolute love and adoration for the way Ahn Pan Seok directs his shows?

How he creates sets that are very lived in and just sets his actors loose to just BE in them? So there's no real blocking to speak of and actions take time? Like that scene in One Spring Night where a character is waiting for extras to exit the elevator, but it closes on her as she pushes the cart in and her coworker has to push the door open button. Or the moment in The Midnight Romance in Hagwon when a character is fumbling her way through her house at night to turn on a light. Or that moment in One Spring Night where characters are talking while eating and one of them grabs tissues to wipe his mouth as he keeps up the conversation. Those aren't scripted moments, they're just actors being told to treat the set like real life. AND THEY DO. And then he does not edit those moments away in post! It creates a very atmospheric, lived in style.

And how he insists on getting scenes done in single takes with multiple cameras rolling rather than recording all character A's lines, then all of character B's lines? It just makes it feel very organic and real because the actors can really play off each other, build tension, and develop tangible chemistry that's not reliant on camera tricks. It's why they're all very explosive onscreen, regardless of the subject matter. I mean, Secret Love Affair had me rooting for adultery and sympathizing with a criminal. Because they felt real.

People bandy around the phrase "slice of life" to describe genre conventions, but Ahn Pan Seok has mastered the art of making dramas feel like actual slices of actual lives.

[romchat]

Dude, she wouldn't even move in with you. How do you expect her to quit her job so she can move out of the country with you?

Something in the Rain is one of those rare dramas where it's a bit too true to life with its maladjusted characters operating purely on trauma responses and the refusal to communicate. The realism is almost triggering lol

[depsidase]

[amrv-5]

Does anyone know what to do about the temperature and also the prices

[depsidase]

[sosrantings]

Capitalism really ate y'all's brains, because why on earth does anyone need two Kindles?

[toastsogwich]

[toastsogwich]

The Brothers Make Friends

[sosrantings]

No one understands when I say I love Dostoevsky as if he were my own kin.

[sosrantings]

In all my life, I have never encountered novels as epic as Dostoevsky’s. At times, I cannot help but wish that the man had been immortal, sparing us the profound loss of all the masterpieces he might have gone on to write.

[sosrantings]

I just finished rereading The Brothers Karamazov on a random Saturday, after being completely consumed by it for the last two months.