#had a lot to process with this one

[dramalove247]

Favorite Things:

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo

Wow. This show was so good. Painful, but so worth it. Gave us a lot to process and unpack with complex and real characters. One of us has already rewatched it. Really beautifully done series.

❤ Sharing some of our favorite posts about the show below (spoilers ahead):

Great post about Ju Yeong by @badsassitude. The characters are both dealing with trauma in their own way and we love how the series showed this and the conflicts it caused between the two characters.

Ouch. This scene hurt. Beautiful GIFS by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Mind blown. This is why I love the internet!!! If I wasn't already in love with @my-rose-tinted-glasses, I am now!

We loved the contrast between the intimate scenes from their youth and then later. The second one felt layered with sadness and weight. Enjoyed this take on the scenes by @biochemjess

Reasons to love the ending by @twig-tea

Way to twist the knife @dengswei!

Just so much to unpack with this story. Great post by @biochemjess

We could keep sharing posts for days, but we will make ourselves stop. Thanks for all the great posts everyone!

[inkskinned]

having good & true friends will literally save and protect you in a million unfathomable ways. like okay we have written so many times about lovers. but the way a platonic friend laughs and cries with you. the way they hold your hand at 14 years old and at 34. the way they keep a little silver tie to you, touching base over and over and over. how you can go years without talking, only to re-meet and discover: oh shit! you're still cool!

there are people who have been in my life for more than half of it, and i have loved every version of them. do you know how fucking beautiful that is. yeah love will save the world. but the way friends love you is gonna save the you.

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[keferon]

Heeey Transformers fandom. Will you accept my humble offering?

[slfcare]

the most difficult thing about growing as a person socially, as in getting out of your shell and noticing that you are, is that there will still be times when it doesn’t feel like you’ve grown at all! times when you can’t really connect with anyone around you, times when you fail to enter into an existing conversation, times when you say the wrong thing (or nothing at all when in hindsight you probably should’ve). but that’s also kind of the best thing, because that’s the thing that helps you realize that sometimes, it’s not you or your lack of skills or any shortcoming. sometimes certain environments just aren’t for you and certain people aren’t your people, and that’s okay. that’s human. it’s okay to not feel the progress you have made all the time.

[ashleys-doodle-corner]

ACT 2 "You're... me?" "That's right, stardust!"

You know I've been drawing Loop as their Siffrin form so much that it's got me thinking. I've read and seen so many fics and artworks of Loop eventually getting back to looking like their old self, but I don't think I've seen any so far of Loop already being a mirror copy of Siffrin. So uh, yoink?

ISAT AU where the game plays out the same way (plot-wise at least) but Loop looks like Siffrin the whole time and while Siffrin is extremely perplexed that there's another him, he's still gotta accept their help because how else are they supposed to escape the loops? Good ol' Loop is here to help, helpful friendly Loop!

Siffrin is going through it still but Differently.

[obsob]

one small step for. kitties

[doctorsiren]

wips + no effects under the cut ^^

[shhroomer]

Oh, help me God, this hellboy got me coming back for more

reblogs super appreciated !!! close-ups under the cut !

[iliothermia]

I'm really struggling with communication right now, so I'm gonna be a bit distant for a bit. I really appreciate the patience n kindness 💗

[dramalove247]

At A Glance:

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo

Korean - Romantic Drama

Staring: Kim Nu-rim & Lee Seon

Do Hoe is a high school student trapped in an abusive home that wants nothing more than to get into college and escape this life. After embarrassing his family, Ju Yeong is sent away and works to pursue his dreams of going to college for Taekwondo. Ju Yeong's bright and cheerful personality brings momentary joy to Do Hoe's painful life before the realities of life rip them apart. Many years pass before they meet again, but wounds remain.

This series is AMAZING. The story and characters are complex and real and it takes some reflection and time to digest. Painful, yet beautiful and so worth it. Highly recommend.

Ending: 😍 Beautifully real and happy and perfect

Tears: Ouch. Definitely painful

Main Couple: Queer

Romance Scenes: On screen scenes add to the character and relationship development and are integral to the plot. Awkward and real and sweet and conveyed emotions.

Flavor of Scenes: Vanilla

Heads up: Toxic parents, physical and emotional abuse, child abuse, bullying, violence

[whetstonefires]

Underrated element of where Jiang Cheng is re: wwx after everything is that they always had a sort of dual relationship. Two different relationship premises, superimposed on one another.

There's the one where they grew up together, as close as brothers, beating each other up and complaining and being one another's closest companions, sharing a bedroom as kids and eating at the same family dinner table, actively encouraged by Jiang Fengmian to interact as equals.

And then there's the one where Wei Wuxian was in service to Jiang Cheng's family. Not as a servant--Jiang Fengmian absolutely refused to do that, even if he couldn't adopt him. But as a disciple of Jiang Cheng's father and recipient of his charity, as Jiang Cheng's future right hand and most trusted subordinate.

It's a vertical relationship, intimate in its own way but with very strict expectations about what obligations flow in what directions; they are not identical and reciprocal as between friends and equals.

(It's my opinion that Jiang Fengmian's core deal was a deep-seated discontent with the hierarchies he was at the top of, without access to any way to actually deconstruct them or even coherently articulate his opposition. Wei Changze was his dear friend, and no one thinks that's a good enough reason for him to treat Wei Changze's son like his own, because Wei Changze was also his servant, and you can't make that circle square. That's not a way you're allowed to love.)

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were like brothers; Wei Wuxian served Jiang Cheng.

The personal relationship was always the most important one. To them, in their hearts. But it was the other one that was real, that had weight in the world.

And it's important to understand that neither can be held up as more factual than the other, even though they conflict. Both relationships existed, and had power.

So then when Jiang Cheng chose to hate Wei Wuxian and articulate his grudge against him, he chose to do it in the language of fealty. Because as far as he knew, his case there was secure, watertight, and it wouldn't expose him emotionally or politically.

And those are the terms in which he's been condemning him all this time: for abandoning the Sect, for ingratitude, for lack of loyalty.

For fuckups, too, and poor judgment, but some of that now turns out to have been justified and some of it was mostly the fault of enemies behaving badly, or even Jiang Cheng himself allowing himself to be pushed into making unworthy choices.

And it was all for his sake.

The thing, the thing in my opinion, about what Wei Wuxian did, about the core transfer and his silent self-destruction around keeping it secret, is that that is a hideous thing to have done between two people who love each other, as an act of love. Beautiful, but awful. As the man who was like a brother to him, Jiang Cheng has a great deal of standing to object to it.

But as an act of vassalage, it's basically perfect.

If Wei Wuxian were only what he formally was to Jiang Cheng, if he is interpreted through a lens of fealty and obligation, he did exactly what he should have done, and went beyond what duty actually required. And went to his death silently, allowing himself to be judged, taking all the burden on himself rather than let harm come to his lord.

Like, obviously Jiang Cheng was harmed by the part where Jin Zixuan got manslaughtered and Jiang Yanli walked into the line of fire in situations where Wei Wuxian was resorting to violence and probably shouldn't have, but those are one step removed from the core issue. In terms of Wei Wuxian's intentional choices around Jiang Cheng himself, at the times he was feeling betrayed and abandoned Wei Wuxian was in fact being impossibly, poetically loyal, an absolute cliche about it.

But only in terms of the hierarchical form of their relationship.

Which means that even though Jiang Cheng has a lot of reasons to still be mad at Wei Wuxian, his actual complaints that he's centered for thirteen years are basically wiped out by the revelation of Wei Wuxian's sacrifice.

Wei Wuxian was in fact doing the tragic hero loyal vassal thing, which very much includes being misunderstood and slandered by the world. (Chenqing as a name choice absolutely references this expectation, and the idea that Jiang Cheng specifically will never understand that Wei Wuxian was trying to help him first and foremost all along; he is not subtle.)

The debts Jiang Cheng has been spitefully calling in and considering defaulted were already long paid.

So if at this point Jiang Cheng keeps pursuing that same line of rhetorical attack, now that he knows, he'll be putting himself morally in the wrong, and he knows it. But if he pivots to something else, he'll both be signalling the shape of that secret to the entire world and looking like a prize idiot.

Which is already how he feels.

To actually address the remaining grievances between them, which are considerable, would require releasing those safe, open grudges to Wei Wuxian's face and then reclaiming him as a loved one. Which is, one could fairly say, more than anyone could expect.

Which is why Wei Wuxian told him he didn't have to.

Which leaves Jiang Cheng at something of an impasse.

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[premamelody]

derg

[dizzybevvie]

You're the sunflower/I think your love would be too much

[mazken]

brush test slash rendering practice with ayem