#also can we all appreciate cha joo wan's acting here

[justafriend-ql]

Let's break up. LOVE FOR LOVE'S SAKE Episode 7

[wen-kexing-apologist]

WKA Recaps QL 2024: Favorite Characters

Thanks for the tag @my-rose-tinted-glasses and thank you to @abstractelysium for the prompts! Since I have watched 60 QL (or adjacent) shows this year, I am going to keep this specifically to my favorite characters of the queer shows that came out this year, and exclude older shows that I watched this year. (Which is for the best because it would just be Namgoong all the way down). 

So here are my Top Ten in no Particular Order:

Akafuji Yuchiro- I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama 

I love me a little freak. 

This boy is such a loser idiot boy and I appreciate how unapologetic he is in his unrepentant, overflowing love for Aoyagi Hajime. I love that one of the barriers between him and Aoyagi getting together is that Aoyagi thinks that Akafuji is cold and detached simply because Akafuji is trying so fucking hard not to McFreaking Lose It over the fact he’s working with Aoyagi. And I mentioned this in another post before, but I think one of the most important things we got from Akafuji is his ability to set clear boundaries between fandom and reality. He can love Aoyagi as his fan, but he knows he needs to stop considering himself Aoyagi’s fan the second he realizes his feelings have moved into something deeper. 

Kasuga- She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat 

This is kind of unfair because I love all the women in this show. But Kasuga will hold the special place in my heart for standing up to her father and choosing herself and her found family over societal expectations and demands of the patriarchy. This feels especially important in a character like Kasuga who is so quiet, reserved, and relatively passive. We have seen other places where she hasn’t spoken up for herself, even in settings with people she loves and trusts (like when she wanted to go strawberry picking) and it is huge for her to actually make the choices she makes as they relate to her bio family. And I also think that it doesn’t feel like character growth that comes out of nowhere either, because she has been engaging in acts of resistance since the moment we meet her. As a child she was not allowed to eat as much as she wanted, but she allowed herself to eat as much as she wanted when she became an adult. Sure, it’s more a quiet act of rebellion, but I love it as an indication that Kasuga has always been strong, despite her more reserved nature.

Go Yeong- Love in the Big City

THIS IS MY FUCKING GUY! It is incredibly important to me and not only important but downright vital that I read this book before I watched the show. I remember discussing during book club that in the first couple chapters I was really struggling with Young as a character. Mostly because I had intense insight into his inner thoughts that I would not and did not get when watching the show. I knew, or at least sincerely hoped, that by the end of the book I would love Young as a character, and I was correct. And it was really important to me to see a performance of Go Yeong that would honor the book character, and I do sincerely believe that Nam Yoon So did just that. I do believe that Go Yeong appeared like I would expect Young from the book to have appeared had I not been inside his head. I really appreciated seeing his growth as a person throughout both the book and the show, and he will stick with me for quite some time. 

Cha Yeo Woon- Love for Love’s Sake

Another show where I love almost all of the main characters in it. But I want to talk about Cha Yeo Woon who cannot hate anyone as much as he hates himself. The -100 floating over his head was a major fucking blow, and I just love how readily he falls in to loving Myung Ha once he starts to have a little bit more faith in himself and the people around him. When that boy smiled for the first time the entire world got brighter. He is such a great character, and one of my favorites, because everything that character does and is and everything Cha Joo Wan gives to breathe life into that character means you can absolutely understand why Myung Ha goes through hell to save Yeo Woon. 

Wei Qian- Unknown

This man has been through so much, he has lost so much, he has gained so much, and he has fought tooth and nail for everything and everyone he loves. He is such a good character, desperately trying to hold his family together, as much as it sucks for him I do appreciate that we got a character with a chronic illness/chronic pain. It feels so rare when characters have been through shit that there are actually serious physical consequences for the abuse they have gone through. And again, a major reason why he is one of my favorite characters this year comes down to the absolutely killer performance from Chris Chu. 

Venice Barros- Marahuyo Project 

VENICE!!! WE GOT A TRANS GIRL IN A SHOW THIS YEAR!!!!!! AND SHE IS BEAUTIFUL AND OUTSPOKEN AND SO SO SO FUCKING EMPATHETIC TOWARDS PEOPLE SHE LOVES WHO HAVE HURT HER BECAUSE THEY ARE SCARED AND GRIEVING AND TRYING DESPERATELY TO CLUTCH TO THE ONLY THINGS THEY FEEL WILL PROTECT THEM. God I love her, and her incessant rambutan eating, so fucking much, I am so glad that she exists and I am so glad she has people like King and Lorena and Lili and yes even Archie in her life, and I am even more glad that they (and Archie especially) have people like her in theirs.

If you have not gotten around to watching Marahuyo Project please take this as a sign to do so. 

Makoto- No One Cares for an Old Man’s Underwear

DAD OF THE YEAR! I loved watching his growth arc, knowing how much he loves his family and how that love is what really causes him to start re-evaluating his worldview. Yet again there are so many incredible characters in here that I will carry in my heart as favorites. But I think Makoto especially deserves a shout out because he is still allowed to fuck up sometimes, and he’s still allowed to learn, and despite the fact that sometimes he stumbles and falls and ruins things, he makes me cry because he is devastated to have hurt the people that he loves, and he doesn’t give up. That is so goddamn important in a character like him. It would be so easy for him to hit his first roadblock and to simply throw up his hands in defeat and decide that it was all too hard and instead he just keeps trying and trying until he’s found his way back to his family, to friends, to a love and connection that he has not had with people in a very long time (or possibly ever). 

Shiba Ryoma- Love is Like a Poison

I cannot express how important it feels to me to have a character like Ryo, who is so serious and generally reserved have a queer awakening and just immediately lean in to it. He does not run from the idea of intimacy, and he does not back down in his love and support for Haruto. Which was such a refreshing surprise. This is a man who has until this point valued his career and his ability to win cases above pretty much everything else in his life. And it really felt like a moment of triumph for me to see him stand in front of his boss and be like “this is my boyfriend,” and to be faced with a choice between his career and his lover and to choose his lover. I’m glad Haruto and Ryo have each other and I am glad that his coworker has another queer person in the office (though I kind of suspect that he clocked Ryo before Ryo clocked himself). Also, he is responsible for one of my favorite scenes of the year. Squaring up only to immediately get his ass beat into the ground because why the hell would he know how to fight? Also, he is the plant dad of all time.

Lee Doe Hoe- Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo

Doe Hoe is such a good example of what the behavior of an abused child looks like. He is a really interesting and complex character that I appreciate having in my life. I kinda loved that despite how good he is at taekwondo he doesn’t fight with people. The great tragedy of not understanding why people would want to hit each other because he has grown up being physically abused by his father. I really liked (from a narrative perspective) that he was an incredibly successful student and that he continuously failed the college entrance exam, the way he falls as a student because of the anger and sadness and guilt that he carries for calling the police that day. This man is fucking frustrating in so many ways and yet I completely understand why he is the way he is and, similarly to Kasuga, I really appreciate the where and how he bucks convention and stands up for himself. He does not care about the optics around the way he handles himself at his father’s funeral, he does not grieve that man, so why should he pretend to appease the judgement of others? I’m really glad that having Ju Yeong back in his life gives him the inspiration he needs to try again to go to college, and while we do not get to know the results I truly believe that he will finally succeed. 

Sin Ju Yeong- Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo 

Y’all know I love myself a happy!sad and there are few people who so strongly represent the things I love about a happy!sad as much a Ju Yeong. That boy has been through so fucking much, and he hides a lot of his pain behind what I do believe is a genuine love and joy for life. But I think that joy for life, and the desire to spread joy to Dohoe really manifests in the recognition he has of himself in Dohoe’s sadness, and the knowledge that there are things he can do to help change that. I love Ju Yeong because he does not back down, he still carries shame around his sexuality (I see you cross necklace) but he will stand up for himself and he will not shy away from intimacy and desire. From a narrative perspective I love that that mask of brightness he had that was so blinding and attractive to Dohoe when they were kids is shattered when he loses Dohoe. Who we see when he’s in college and when he’s working a job is who he really is, and I love how much Dohoe tries to twist the knife in Ju Yeong by pretending like Ju Yeong wasn’t as lost and alone and hurting as he was just because he would make himself smile. I love how much of Ju Yeong’s character makes sense because his entire life has just been abandonment after abandonment from people that he loves and cares for. That he takes punishment to spare Dohoe, that he does not let Dohoe push him away when they reunite as adults, that he tolerates a lot more of the nasty shit that Dohoe tries to say to and about him because he cares and he knows that Dohoe scares. I love that Dohoe’s hatred of violence is what causes Ju Yeong to lose his control and kiss Dohoe for the first time, and that it is violence that Ju Yeong resorts to both to protect Dohoe and then later to help Dohoe set himself free by trashing the dojo.

tagging @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @solitaryandwandering, and @emotionallychargedtowel, @happypotato48