I would say one of the biggest downfalls of dramas (possibly of most entertainment) is that they think having a woman talk back once or twice in the first episode counts as being sufficiently "spunky" and that the audience won't notice that the woman stops making any decisions and loses all spunk halfway through the series.
because i needed this reply from @practicallyasleep to exist in its entirety
@floatingdownthemoonriver said: hmm i've still to catch up on this show! but i'm glad you've addressed this :'(( and i've not seen you're posts on wfkbj but i'm also glad you pointed that forced kiss out too! i feel like it's very derogating to kiss someone as a "punishment" unless they were trying to put a romantic spin on it???? :/// like he's just trying to find some kind of excuse to kiss her?? i'm not sure :/// but kissing someone as a "punishment" is just... assault and rape culture
There was a forced kiss in WFKBJ?! I only wrote one post on it, and it was about the female lead casting. But, yes, I agree with you. Forced kisses are not crucial to show how bad a person is, and I don’t understand why Chae Kyung has to go through it to show how bad Yeok is now. Meh.
@practicallyasleep said: 100% with you on this one. I wasn't happy with either forced kiss, and I really don't care for Yeok as a romantic partner. I keep watching because the story is interesting, but I really doubt they can get me back on the pro-Yeok train. It's sad, because I was on it when they were kids.
This is my problem, too. The forced kiss wasn’t treated as force, and so it ends up normalising it as a correct punishment, and even as a means for character and romantic development. They should’ve stayed kids forever :/
practicallyasleep replied to your post “When dramamakers will acknowledge Lee Jun Ki’s romantic hero potential...”
I continue to vote for a romcom where he's a single dad. I need to see him in a show where he gets to actually raise a kid, because he's so damn cute with kids.
Omg yeeees, Why would you do that to me, @wyndrider already filled my head with lots of amazing plots for imaginable LJK’S dramas and it’s so hard to accept the fact that they will never come to life.
LJK indeed always have the cutest scenes with child actors.
Imagine his character having a daughter Seeeeouuulll and making her braids, helping her with homework. Awww.
But let’s not forget that if it’s LJK’ character there must be a tragedy in his past - he’s widower. Also, mother issues are mandatory, it’s tradition even if it’s a romcom.
practicallyasleep replied to your post: fyi I’m using up the last of my weekend by...
I think this every single time I start Goblin. It’s like they think I have all the time in the damn world. Exercise some restraint, editors!
I’ve heard ep 12 is pretty good but I’ve really run out of patience for this show. We’ll see. I might let it run in the background and pretend to watch it while I do other things and just let the gifsets on tumblr tell me the important things.
@practicallyasleep as much as i loved reply 1988 some of the eps hit the two hour mark. i was procrastinating what became one of my fave dramas bc of the ep length which is ridiculousness
What was your overall feeling about Shirbert in S3? From your recaps I got the impression that you liked the ending but felt a bit frustrated with it overall (I'll admit I wouldn't have dragged it out and I wished the writers had better explained Gilbert's thinking AND had him do more to indicate that he understood how he had really messed some stuff up).
I liked about 85-90% of their content, actually! spoilery talk under the cut :)
the biggest drawback for me was that we didn’t get them fully on track with being friends until around maaaybe 3x05? and there was a lot of 2 steps forward, 1 step back (e.g. they seem to be on the friendship track by the S2 finale, which I know was in case of cancellation, but then by 3x02 we got jerked all the way back to the start and *sighs* that was a repeating theme this season) I love their friendship; it’s foundational to their romantic relationship; and I think less time spent on gilbert’s “will I won’t I marry winifred and go to the sorbonne” arc, and more of - as much as I enjoy cole + anne content - letting anne and gilbert go on adventures like that together would have been a lot more up my alley.
one of gilbert’s major defining characteristics in the books is that he’s in love with anne, his dreams are very focused around how he can make a beautiful life for anne, and also being a doctor. I like that the show decided to give him more conflict on his career (country doctor vs research doctor) but honestly gilbert was this close to proposing to anne in 3x01 and uh, watching him waffle back and forth for 8 episodes after that was not high on my list. I feel like, 3 episodes of that total would have been my max out point. also - and this is starting to sound like I really didn’t like stuff but while I have notes for the show these are not condemnations - I didn’t like how the back-and-forth between anne and winifred made gilbert…emotionally unreliable. it worked out in the end in that he didn’t propose, that he recognized what he was doing, I just wish it wasn’t as much at it ended up being. eek.
it did also mean that gilbert basically got the rich fiance (roy gardner) arc while anne got the pining arc, and that seems to have worked out but it’s definitely a major flip from the book (and for their character identities).
but even with those qualification and quibbles, I really enjoyed their scenes and content this season, and am very glad they ended where they did!
especially with cancellation; come meet me in a burned out schoolhouse, netflix
