#abrupt realization of Poor Coping Mechanisms through seeing someone you love do the same thing. or smth

[lycankeyy]

This is a random dark thing but I was looping Too Young again which is like The "fc!bf's negative emotions" song so idk why I'm surprised BFJQHDJ ANYWAY. A thing w fc!Pico is that he makes a lot of offhand jokes abt how like he Should be dead or making rly dark jokes about his near-death experiences just bc of the amount of shit he's been through and he doesn't really see a problem with it but I feel like after The Hanzou Incident BF starts saying similar shit and Pico's like woah hey wait a minute that's illegal you can't do that

[emergingsentiments]

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha: Episode 10 (Repost)

Loneliness must have drawn you back here, says Hwajung to Chohui. But these could have been words for Dusik and Hyejin, too. The past and current entanglements of Gongjin’s love affairs, after all, run parallel to each other. For Chohui, her mother’s death and her brother’s migration left her solitary, so it only seemed natural to return to somewhere familiar. Hyejin, on the other hand, visited the seaside town to reclaim the memory of happier times, when her mother was still alive. Dusik’s reasons are still obscured but the glimpses into the wakes he’s stood vigil by are compelling reasons behind his return.

Home, as I observed in the first episode of Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, is where the heart is and the hurts are.

Episode 10 unfolded like the turning point that it is. As the previous chapters tackled the inner workings of all our characters, especially the progress of Hyejin and Dusik both as individuals and in their romantic engagements, we saw how people began to confront their fears. Whether it’s Cheonjae’s anxieties as a has-been singer and as a single father to a rebellious Juri or Gamri’s quiet suffering in her empty nest, the melancholy that undergirds the town’s surface pushed each one to face their scars and losses. For all the comic relief she brings, even Miseon had to brave confusion and rejection.

In this page of Gongjin’s tale, however, the theme of battling life’s greatest antagonist is truest among Dusik, Hyejin, and Seonghyun.

Poor Seonghyun, so new to the town yet so quick to have been thrown into the maelstrom of Gongjin’s charms and tragedies. His greatest fear was being late. He missed opportunities before, including in the postcard-perfect moments of his youth. Always an observer but never the one observed; always watching over Hyejin but always a step behind others in the line. If he were dancing, he’d be out of rhythm, too busy trying to memorize the choreography.

He has rehearsed his lines a thousand times. Will they come out right? Here, Lee Sang-yi gives Seonghyun his most graceful and yet graceless moment. Making an abrupt u-turn on his way to Seoul, he returns to Gongjin — late once again. Hyejin, attacked by a wandering sexual predator in town, has been saved by Dusik. If the shock of the night’s crime were not enough, he confesses the next evening to a Hyejin that had just mistakenly implied her growing affections for Dusik. She’s just had dinner, too.

Full and formal, Hyejin listens to Seonghyun’s lonely and tense confession. Sangyi delivers the lines Seonghyun has held onto for years. It’s a speech marked by jitters, fretful glances, and a slowly growing blush. Once out, he tries to stop the tension by marking the scene as a take. But the clapperboard humor isn’t enough. Hyejin watches him eat alone. She has no appetite.

Hyejin, for her part, couldn’t be blamed. She never really saw Seonghyun other than a senior to be admired. Yes, he’s saved her from a jerk before. But years of absence have made the heart grow duller instead of fonder. She’s also just come from an equally awkward dinner with Dusik, who is celebrating his grandfather’s death anniversary. There is no room for another meal. The night before — the night of the attack — she had slept in Dusik’s home for the third time as well.

At the first visit to his home, she kissed Mr. Hong on impulse and alcohol. On the second, she carried the weight and fears of an inebriated Dusik. On the third visit, she is traumatized from the night’s break-in, so now slips in to Mr. Hong’s clothes and stays over, unable to sleep unless Dusik’s around with poetry. He reads to her...It is my job to fall in love with you while waiting for you the next day. The antidote to Hyejin’s fear, after all, is Gongjin’s son.

But what does Hyejin fear? Well, it’s simple. She fears what she lost — her childhood, to be who she is. As a young girl who lost her mother, she had to grow up fast given her father’s alcohol-tinged coping mechanism. As a young woman, she had to build walls after a harsh rebuke of her lowly appearance. So she covers her scars with pretenses — and fancy shoes. Her clothes are her walls. Her life has been planned out. She steers this career with distinct professionalism and ambition. But it’s never ruthless. A woman-child, her core reveals a soft, compassionate heart.

This is what Dusik brings out in her. It’s not something Dusik necessarily gives. The two, after all, have their losses but they are whole persons, too. Dusik’s unconventional lifestyle and ways have eroded the surface of Hyejin’s fortress. Like salted sea slowly breaking down cliffs. With Dusik, she regains the lost child, the one who laughs when pieces of crab meat are flung to Dusik’s face. If that was Seonghyun, Hyejin would have been profusely apologetic and formal. But Mr. Hong is different. Around him, Hyejin can be unguarded, vulnerable.

Dusik, on the other hand, always saw her in a different light. Carrying the weight of unexplained grief, Dusik knows exactly what’s hidden behind Hyejin’s front. But for all his bravado, he’s afraid, too. The people he loved the most have left him, leaving him with an unimaginable sense of guilt. It’s what keeps him tethered to the idea of boundaries. He only likes Hyejin as a friend. But his eyes, his actions — they speak otherwise. If he admits to loving Hyejin, then the prospect of fresh losses cripple him. He’s an engineering graduate, so he has made the calculations. And yet, this strange woman who has returned from a childhood memory is urging him to take those risks and forget those probabilities.

He took a stab on the shoulder, one that nearly cost his life. Isn’t that love — or even the semblance of it? Why does Dusik need to certify his affections with assurance? Gamri, Gonjin’s wisest daughter, sees through Dusik’s barricades. Life’s brevity, she says, demands risks but most of all, honesty with oneself.

These are words worth ruminating in the evening breeze at the town’s breakwater.

It’s the same place where Hyejin finds him.

After a trip to Seoul to forget the town’s powers over her and Miseon, she realizes the city’s offerings were no longer attractive. Everything reminds her of Gongjin. She can’t stop thinking of Dusik. As a grown-up, Hyejin had sought security. Her instinct of self-preservation made her hard. Drenched in a sudden downpour in Seoul, she remembers her rain-soaked self with Dusik at the beach. It is enough for her to understand.

These realizations surge from Hyejin’s adrenaline-filled confession. Unable to deny her growing affections any further, she takes the plunge.

The child faces reality with simple acceptance. In the presence of a vulnerable Hyejin, things freely move and are themselves. The effects are immediately clear. Like any sensible woman, Hyejin knows Dusik could all but reject him, too. Who drives back from Seoul to rant about love, right? But Dusik understands. The hours waiting for her return were sooner than he had anticipated. But the man had made his calculations. The formulas are no longer useful.

True to himself, Dusik fulfills his new duty. It is my job to fall in love with you while waiting for you the next day. So he returns the confession with the most reasonable declaration: a kiss, first tender, one that leaves Hyejin breathless. He speaks but yearns for more. So he lets his lips touch hers for a second time. A kiss now free from all the tentativeness of the night.

A few weeks ago I read several criticisms about Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. It’s cliched. People only watch it because the actors are popular. There’s nothing exceptional about a love story.

Cliched, true. But there is a reason why there are cliches because they are true. Do people only watch because the actors are popular? Perhaps. Perhaps not. A love story doesn’t hold a candle to the more intellectual and uncomfortable narratives available for consumption, right? You know, the stories that deal with war and violence, politics and its lack of virtue, the more profound tales that explore humanity or its degradation. But I fear this is an effort to leave the commonplace, the domestic, and the personal materials unattended for the sake of what seems profound. Yet, the production of these “better” and more profound stories does not offer any solace from suffering.

For over a year now, we’ve been fighting the wrath of an invisible virus. It might even be true to say that for many of us, we’ve lost someone dear, someone deeply loved. If not, we know someone who has dealt with these losses. Given the lockdowns and restrictions, even grieving has been abbreviated. Our reality is sobering. We fear many things. So while I don’t hold it against people to choose the more elevated tales, it would be a shame to dismiss those who gush over a love story as uncritical and frivolous.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha resonates with and appeals to many because it reminds us of the things we’ve lost to the pandemic. Face-to-face conversations. The stability of a job. Family. Friendship. The pat on the back. Our grandparents. Our first love. A hand to hold. Dinner with friends under the warmth of incandescent light. Office conversations. Senseless chatter. The thrill of falling in love. The smell of the sea, and the sand on our feet. Our best friend. The normalcy of a leisurely walk. Dancing in the rain. People. Our community. The words we wanted to say. A kiss.

In a world where physical intimacy and closeness are dangerous, we feel our lips with our fingers watching Hyejun and Dusik kiss. And we remember the way we were. Kim Seon Ho was right in saying Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is a healing drama. To love and be loved, after all, remains the ultimate catharsis.

[musicallisto]

hello there, love! can i request to be shipped from a male character in the sophomore, ilitw, and high school story? I'm a female with dark brown eyes (almost black) and jet black hair. I'm slightly tan. I like listening to music especially indie and bands (coldplay, imagine dragons, bastille), movies, eating at fast foods alone, can appreciate dry and self deprecating humor. i hardly open up but i like listening to others. i get attach to fictional characters, d eEP CONVERSATIONS && theories!!

we have the same music taste vkvkvkvkvk

I Ship You With…

Z I G   O R T E G A

(faceclaim: Santiago Segura)• You would introduce him to soooo much good music. Actually, it would be an exchange, because you both know some excellent artists and tracks and you’re dying to share them with someone, stan them and bingewatch their concerts and interviews. When you first meet and eventually start dating, you have very different musical tastes but as days pass and you begin to show each other your favorite songs, they evolve into a perfect mixture of the best of your favorite genres! You end up creating a collaborative Spotify playlist - you know, those kinds of playlists that you can both freely add songs to and when you’re not sleeping with each other, it’s a tradition to send the other the link to your favorite song at the moment. That way, you discover tons of new bands to stan and Zig becomes this huge Imagine Dragons and Muse fan (also he develops a slight admirative crush on Chris Martin but like who doesn’t have a crush on this man honestly, a true hero)

• Okay you like eating at fast foods alone and he’s very concerned about his diet, his well-being and his health since he must remain in perfect shape for his ballet, so it’s not that often that you eat pizza or burgers together. (actually, close to never.) so instead, you have these homecooked, delicious meals where you just invite each other, cook together and end up tasting your, ahem, culinary invention. Neither of you are gifted cookers so it usually ends up in a huge food fight in the kitchen, tainting poor, passing-through Becca’s blouse and terrified-yet-mildly-amused Aaron’s T-shirt. There’s cake preparation on every single wall and on the floor as well, strawberries dead on the countertops and eggshells laying wounded next to the bowl, so it’s safe to say that cookery speaking, it’s a disaster, but neither of you really mind after the absolutely amazing reenactment of a medieval battle you’ve just made, and when Zig leans in to “wipe from flour off your face” (it quickly turns into a heated make-out session on the worktop until a traumatized Zack walks in and yells he’ll need to “sluice his eyes with acid to forget the obsecenity he just witnessed”.

T Y L E R

(faceclaim: Harry Shum Jr.)• MOVIES AND TV SHOWS MARATHONS, ohmygod, so many of them. The funny thing is neither of you actually have a Netflix account. You’re just constantly stealing your friends’ codes, especially Becca’s and Chris’s, because they’re too busy working or… doing undefined presidential stuff to notice and also to even use their Netflix. So you’re basically the hugest moochers the world has ever known but none of you mind because what’s the point of having Netflix if you’re not gonna use it, that shit’s expensive plus they’re technically just doing a friend favor amirite? So you regularly have The Crown And The Flame marathons, you know how much Tyler loves that show and even if at first you only agreed to watch it so he would stop talking about it 25/8, you ended up adoring the story and the characters, so you watch the three seasons every once in a while and can basically recite all the script by heart. You even dressed up as Annelyse for Halloween so you would match with Tyler and Abbie! Your personal guilty pleasure, however, are Cassandra Leigh movies, that woman is just so talented and beautiful, and her acting is always on point! Tyler wasn’t a huge fan of it at first but eventually liked her movies more and more (and also, he just loves to see his best friend happy and fangirling over her movies, because it’s cute and rewarding and also it can always be useful for blackmailing so be warned)

• You are King and Queen of self-deprecating humor and dark references and memes that literally no one else understands. Sometimes you’ll just look at each other and literally say or do NOTHING and burst out laughing like a bunch of kids. You just have so many private jokes and memories with Tyler that are simply impossible to understand for someone who doesn’t have a brain and a sense of humor wired like yours. Also there’s literally no boundaries in your self-mockery, like you’ll just point at a trash can in the street and simply say “same” and the rest of the gang will ask you why you say that, telling you it’s not true, you’re beautiful and worth it etc., but Tyler will randomly laugh because he knows. And at this point it’s become a competition between you. You have yet to decide the prize but whoever comes up with the best self-deprecating punchline wins… something. Between the “you know they made a day dedicated to me? It’s garbage day!” and the “my personality in a nutshell is the loser character trait from the Sims”, it’s a concerto of mockery and the others don’t understand how you can possibly laugh at somethiing so sad?? but intellectuals (Tyler and you) know it’s the best form of humor and the tournament still goes on day by day

N O A H   M A R S H A L L

(faceclaim: Nick Robinson)• Before anyone comes @ me, I KNOW HE’S NOT A LI AND HE’S A TRAITOR BUT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WHEN YOU LIVE IN AN ESCAPIST FANTASY CREATED AS A SELF-DEFENCE MECHANISM TO COPE WITH THE HARDSHIPS OF LIFE so yeah I ship you with Noah. You would help him after Jane’s death, being the most comprehensive and supportive friend ever. Despite your young age, you knew what Noah wanted in those troubled times what a lot of space and quiet, and every now and then a friend to talk to, to distract himself.That’s what you became for him. When all the others children were circling around him like vultures, asking for stories, all the juicy and gruesome details about her death, about that supposed thing that thing that supposedly killed her, you were the one who scared them away, protecting your best friend and telling them how inconsiderate and heartless they were being. You easily were one of the most mature and friendly people he’d ever known, also giving him support and sometimes advice to face his mother and the abrupt departure of his father. When you grew up, you always helped him stay focused on what really mattered to him, reminding him of the diner he wanted to open, of his plans for the future. It was only a matter of years until he realized he was in love with his childhood best friend, who had been there for him through the good and the bad.

• Since you started dating Noah, a few years after the end of high school because he was not feeling ready to be involved romantically with anyone then, you realized that your attachment to fictional characters started to evolve. You could almost always see a pattern in the characters you prefered in books: it was often the lonely, tortured and sarcastic character, withdrawn because of his dark past, and you were quick to determine that it was because of how much they reminded you of Noah after all the shit happened. He was feeling a lot better now, and you could see how radiant he was in his culinary major, but you always remembered all the hardships you had to face and all the self-esteem issues you had to fight from both sides. Also, Noah understood perfectly what it was like to be completely fucked up by a book or a TV show, and to get attached to a character to the point that you can’t stop thinking about them and feel like a own member of your family died when the sadistic author decides to put an end to their suffering. (can u tell this is personal experience) He never judges you and always comforts you when your favorite character died or is having a hard time or your OTP became canon or you’re just hyperventilating/ugly crying because of fictional universes.

• After several years of fighting and struggling, and many days of hopefulness, Noah’s dream of opening his own diner finally comes true and he’s more glowing than you’ve ever seen him. He’s incredibly thankful because not only have you been morally helpful, you’ve also helped him economically and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to repay you. You don’t want anything of course: just saying your boyfriend truly happy is fabulously rewarding. Baby Jane’s soon becomes a known spot for Westchester locals, who more or less all know Noah from the time he lived there, and it feels weird yet great to move back to your hometown after so many years. You sometimes help him when you have a day off work, cooking with him or, more usually, you work as a waitress because he playfully kisses you while saying “Listen, I love you a lot, but I’m better slaving over a hot stove.” You don’t mind, because it’s always a pleasure to work with him and since the customers remember you from your younger days, you get the chance to chat with them and reunite with your old group of friends, who come to visit you every once in a while. It’s a calm and placid life, but after everything you’ve been through, it’s everything you want and deserve.

A N D Y   K A N G

(faceclaim: Min Jun Qian)• Your best friend would be Andy, and this since childhood, just like Noah! He would be a rock for you, always there to cheer you up and listen to you when you’re down, and you would be equally comforting to him, especially when he’s going through figuring out his life and his identity. He would’ve been so lost without you during his childhood and adolescence, after the terrifying Jane drama and everything that came after. He quickly becomes you partner in crime and, being a little more extroverted than you, he’s often the one who introduces you to his friends, invites you to parties through mutual acquaintances, and sometimes even gives you ideas for uh… some not-so-authorized stuff in the school, but you only agree if you know it’s perfectly safe and you don’t risk anything (or at least, anything too important) because you have to admit the thrills and the adrenaline are what you live for in those little moments, especially with your best friend.

• He’s also the one you can have deep conversations with during high school. You know Noah is still too emotionally bruised to talk about things that he may consider “depressing” or “too big for children to understand”, and you respect that he doesn’t want to get involved in those kinds of heavy reflections. However, you really want to discuss about them with someone, and Andy is the perfect person for that. He’s very open-minded, intelligent and ressourceful. His goofy, funny side always adds a twist to the theories you already know and debate about - “maybe you are an Illuminati, how can I be sure I can trust you?” (to which you answer “you can’t” with a malicious smile). Sometimes it’s not even that deep, it’s just talking about what you think is going to happen next in your favorite TV shows or books, or discussing a character’s psychology - it often happens that Andy and you have drastically opposed points of view on the same character and you like to confront them and understand why the other likes them, or hates them.

• Your favorite spot to talk about those theories and have those philosophical conversations about the moon, the earth, society and reality is in his garden. When you were kids, you used to have sleepovers at his house and your parents never minded because they were friends with Andy’s; now that you’re older, you basically spend most of your free nights at his place, laying on the grass and watching the navy blue sky. You built a little wooden house in the trees in his backyard when you were twelve, with the help of your friends and his parents, and it has a perfect view of the sky and the trees below. At first, going up there is very difficult, especially surrounding yourselves with trees and the singing of the forest, but the more you went up in the tree house, the easier it was to go back to the forest. It’s so calm and placid up there, with only the birds chirping to disturb you, or rather soothe you, and you’ve lost count of the nights you’ve fallen asleep there. It’s the best place to have deep conversations and also silly dares, and it’s so peaceful that you can almost forget all the bad stuff that happened in your youth.

I’m sorry but I didn’t have time to write a long headcanon like those up there for HSS! Just know that I romantically ship you with Michael Harrison, someone you’d be able to talk to about anything, from the silliest things (“do crabs think fish are flying?”) to the deepest (”what do you think Area 51 is really?”), and he’d always be up for a good laugh. And your best friend would be Morgan Jennings, being one of Michael’s best friends, she became yours as well, and you would love the same kind of music and go to concerts together and collectively lose your shit. Everyone thinks Morgan is a little selfish, but you know better than that, and you want to prove everyone that she actually has a heart of gold!

Hope you don’t mind this, I didn’t want to make you wait any longer and it was getting a lot for me to write!

Moodboard

bigger version

Playlist

Oasis - Wonderwall (yES)Coldplay - Adventure of a LifetimeArctic Monkeys - R U Mine?Halsey - Ghost