#he had the whole bar going doo ra doo when he did do you want to know a secret

[aquarianshift]

performed some beatles and carole king songs at a bar tonight and im starting to see why they uprooted their lives for this.

[popsiclemania]

My 2020 in K dramas (+1 J drama)

I began watching k-dramas in 2018 but I’ve never watched as many shows, Korean or otherwise, as I have in this one. 2020 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think what helps me really enjoy this over Bollywood+Malayalam+ American pop culture I grew up with is that a smirk on the wrong character’s face doesn’t make me seethe with rage and want to burn everything down. It’s not like growing up with SRK on screen and then having SRK wannabes leave you with lifelong trauma in reality. I can just move on. It’s removed enough from my everyday life but still familiar in a generic Asian family way. Does that make sense? It’s not perfect and it’s not free of its own harmful stereotypes and narratives, but there’s enough of the good stuff to make you stick around. This year I fell in love with Nana, Kim Hye Soo, Han Yeri, Park Eun bin, Ahn Eun jin, Kim Bum, Kim Yong ji, Flower Boy’s Go Dok Mi and Search:WWW’s Bae Tami. Cancelled Ji Chang wook (bye). Desperately missed Kim Jae Wook. Had thoughts on Hwang In Yeop, which were mostly heart eyes. Discovered J dramas and fell in love with Cherry Magic’s Adachi.

My year-in-review below:

LOVED

Into The Ring - I am so glad I saved this for a rainy day because it’s exactly the kind of upright citizen shenanigans my unemployed ass needed at the end of the year.

Goo Se Ra thinks the govt should work for the people but that doesn’t mean her own moral compass always points north. Her purpose is to make steady money, and I love seeing her go hard to survive and cobble together what she needs. The thing that really works for me is that she wants to be good, but she isn’t always. And you get to see her be disappointed, upset, embarrassed and hurt from being publicly kicked in the gut as she navigates a job where she appears, on the surface, to be a supremely confident, self-serving, accidental politician. What you see as her naiveté is mostly just her being a regular person in an environment dictated by backhand deals and rich people politics. She gets hit again and again, and you see what it does to her sense of worth to get back up again, how she grapples with her self. And through all this the show is funny?! Se Ra is what writers of manic pixie characters think they are doing and not doing at all. Love her friends, and Jang Hye-jin is *chef’s kiss*!

Hyena - Kim Hye Soo’s Jung Geum Ja is perhaps Se Ra’s older and darker contemporary.  Geum Ja is a survivor and will get what she wants and where she wants to, however many hells she has to cross. She’s single-minded about her success, ruthless and has no qualms about bending morals to get the outcome she needs. She’ll never compromise on who she is or justify how she lives, can build people up and also tear them down, but she also knows care and kindness.

I turned to Signal for more Kim Hye Soo but was disappointed in how the first few episodes seemed to shortchange her. May try again in 2021.

(Highly recommend @saltr0se​’s  fic series which just GETS Geum Ja so well. Fic writers are the best)

Search: WWW (Finished in 2020) - It took me half a year to finish this. I started watching Search in Oct 2019 and raced through the first 6 episodes because I couldn’t take my eyes off the rollercoaster of Bae Tami’s life. And then I had to take a break because it was a little too close to the frenetic pace of my own industry. As @drivingsideways wrote, a lot of Search is premised around ‘patriarchy? who dat?’, which is why watching its politics play out is so fascinating.  It’s also deliciously turmoil-y to watch a very clear-sighted, weathered Tami put on rose-tinted glasses for her romance and then frequently peer over them to evaluate whether it could actually meld into her life.

Catch The Ghost - Kim Seonho oozes charm and perhaps Startup was a showcase of how effectively he can be a typical male lead. But Catch is exactly not that. Go Jiseok and Yoo Ryeong have moulded their lives around to meet their most desperate wishes in life and in the process also left parts of themselves untended. There is guilt, pain and need. Now guess who will tend to whose wounds? Their dynamic is electric even when the central mystery flags towards the last few episodes of the show. I really hope Moon Geun Young is doing well and gets more amazing roles soon. She is so good here.

(Highly recommend @melonatures​‘s fic for putting that sizzling on-screen chemistry into words. HOW?!) Cherry Magic - Stories about painfully awkward people are my jam and Eiji Akaso gets Adachi’s shy, nervy energy so right. Cherry Magic is straight up just 12 hours of 🥺🥺🥺. 

Stranger/Secret Forest - I’ve been devouring the entirety of Agatha Christie’s work this year after Stranger reminded me how comforting murder mysteries can be. I love Bae Doona. I also love characters who don’t get social norms, not always because they are out to flout them but because that’s just not how their mind/brain works. (have to watch S2)

Flower Boy Next Door -  Honestly, the opening scene introducing Park Shin Hye’s character Go Deok Mi sold me on this immediately. An introverted, penny pinching copy editor living alone and working from home thanks to extreme social anxiety? Love. All the side characters are a lot of fun and I’ve never loved Kim Seulgi and Go Kyung Pyo more. It’s a warm show, slowly rounding off the sharp edges of every character.

JUST FUN

The Spies Who Loved Me -  It’s been a year of disappointing rom-coms and Spies kind of quietly turned it around for me. I want to be the fly on Yoo In Na’s wall as she figures how to play her characters. I’ve only seen her in 3 roles but somehow she always manages to be in character arcs that don’t short change her. Spies could’ve been and sometimes is the regular heterosexual fare, but In Na ups the ante over and over again, coming out on top as the smartest person in the room.

ENJOYED WITH *RESERVATIONS*

I have to watch A Piece Of Your Mind again because I don’t understand how Jung Hae In and Chae Soo bin built SO MUCH warmth and crackling chemistry with barely a kiss. I was iffy about how the whole AI thing started off and the tortured musician plotline (angsty male artists will forever be an eyeroll for me).

Park Min Young is a queen who never disappoints and When The Weather Is Nice is everything you want in a winter romance. My reservation was in how they explore so much of domestic abuse and the complex ways its traumatised the women in this family. I’m ok with the characters having imperfect ways of processing and understanding the violence, I welcome it. I’m not ok with the show dancing around whether the pivotal crime was justified/ self defence (it was).

A lot of dramas did this. I loved Han Yeri and Choo Ja Hyun in My Unfamiliar Family, I didn’t like the free pass the show gave their dad’s abusive character. 

Hwang Jung Eum’s comedy style is generally not my thing but she was pretty great in Mystic Pop-UP Bar. But I’m side-eyeing the sanctity surrounding motherhood. Maybe I should read more about babies and Korean folklore.

Hospital Playlist was my comfort watch through June and July. I think its wholesomeness and non-plot writing came at a good time for me. But I noticed then that the throughline for all main characters was moral superiority and hence what I then saw as *wholesomeness*. It’s kind of what makes it a grating rewatch in parts. Plus the real life of misogyny of Yoo Yeon Seok makes me want to push his angelic catholic character off a cliff. (For context, i was raised catholic). I want to continue loving Chae Song Hwa, and for that the showrunners need to stop cornering her with overbearing romantic interests (let that woman breathe! she literally ran away to another city!) 

Hospital is good at creating moments of comfort, so much so that I went to watch Reply 1988 after it, but had to drop it coz I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll come back to it next year.

Once Again is what I call joint family propaganda. What it does well is lay bare the mechanics of living in a society that prizes the heterosexual family structure, the loops you have to jump through to hide when you break its rules and what happens when you are found out. I love the characters, their fights, their frustrations. I just don’t love the validation of joint families. (context: i grew up in an oppressive joint family lol). In my au, Nahee and Gyujin don’t get married again or immediately have children, but take the long route to figuring out how to love the person the other is. Gahee is openly dating Hyo shin and her parents have to figure out how to process her success and her romance. Young dal and Ok boon have to learn to stop dictating their children’s lives.  Joon sun runs his company from home, so his wife Hyun kyung can work on what she wants. Choyeon, Joori and Ga-yeon go back to being flamboyant AF and the market learns to not judge. Gyujin and Jaesok have to actually work on the relationship with their mother and what sent her into depression. Just a lot of learning involved.

Just Between Lovers was a nice watch, i just don’t get how Kang doo and Ha Moon So’s relationship will survive his constantly simmering anger. 

Crash Landing on You was so much fun until the main romance turned angsty, but it gave us North Korean soldier shenanigans and the epic romance of Seo Dan and Alberto Gu that we needed more of.

Tale of The Nine Tailed is probably what Goblin wished it was. I, however, will never be over Lee Rang. (Also, when can gods stop meeting their love interests as babies? Asking for my sanity)

I literally ignored everything in Oh My Ghost except Park Bo Young and Kim Seulgi and it was amazing. 

NOPE

Goblin, Dinner Mate, Oh My Baby and My Secret Romance were a whole lot of NO, NAHI, ILLAAA. 

I loved hate-watching The King:Eternal Monarch with the rest of k drama tumblr but someone please take away Kim Eun-sook’s access to gigantic budgets and all-star casts.

It was painful to watch Do You Like Brahms squander away its potential but I’m glad to be introduced to Park Eun bin. Age of Youth is next on watchlist.

More than Friends to me is only Ahn Eun jin. Someone give her amazing lead roles asap.

Why did Record of Youth do that to Park So Dam and her clothes? Just why

WANTED TO WATCH, BUT COULDN’T BECAUSE *INTENSE* 

World Of The Married, It’s Okay Not To Be Okay, Sweet Home, Extracurricular, Penthouse, Flower of Evil, Lie After Lie

WILL WATCH NEXT YEAR

SF8, Stove League, Birth Care Centre but I’ll start the new year with School Nurse Files coz it looks very good.

[renaroo]

Wednesday Roundup

So I complained before that I had a lot of comics to go through. I stand corrected. THIS week I have a monstrous number of comics to go through. Like, you have no idea how much I am patting myself on the back right now for the simple fact that I got this out before midnight. 

But was it worth the effort I put into it?

Well, hell, with the money comics cost these days let’s sure hope so!

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, DC’s Detective Comics, DC’s Gotham Academy: Second Semester, DC’s Superwoman, DC’s Titans, IDW’s Transformers: Lost Light, DC’s Wonder Woman

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #20 Tom Taylor, Leonard Kirk, Cory Hamsher, Michael Garland, Chris Sotomayor

One of the genuine missed opportunities at Marvel right now while they seem positively dedicated toward digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole, is that Laura and Gabby’s adventures are not being used in the greater X-Men books at large.

Sincerely, my interests in picking up any of the other X-books or the Avengers or anything else is at an absolute Zero because of the fact that Marvel is doing everything it can to use any machination of Wolverine other than the one that is already, inherently awesome.

I think this issue actually helped me realize what makes the relationship between Laura and Gabby work in ways that Logan and Laura’s own relationship in the comics was never allowed to. While we could have had the amazing bonding between them that we got in the recent Logan (2017) movie, comic writers agains and again chose the route of the tried and true combination of Logan with Spunky Teen Girl Sidekick rather than digging into the uncomfortable nature of Logan dealing with a daughter he never knew he had and a kid whose own outlook and demeanor was a harsher reflection of his own.

That’d require, like, actual character growth or something. That thing Marvel was afraid to do with Logan for something like 30 years.

In any case, while I maintain my critiques of that dynamic, what’s interesting to me is that it would seem like Laura and Gabby would all right into that criticism as well -- Laura taking on the more Logan-like role and Gabby being the Kitty/Rogue/Jubilee/Armor/et.all of the dynamic.

But this series, and really this issue, provided the insight for me of what made this work. Laura’s allowed to have that growth Logan never was, sure, but also the fact that Laura seems infinitely more willing to nurture Gabby’s desires to get in the thick of it while reinforcing or even celebrating her brighter demeanor shows that Laura’s learned from Logan’s mishandling of herself. She can’t stop Gabby -- her sister, her clone -- from sharing her traits or history, but she absolutely can allow for Gabby to have someone in her life who understands and comforts those parts of her while encouraging her to find her own way. The sort of personalization that would let Gabby decorate her combat armor with a pink flower, or wear a beret she’s attached to.

And in return, Laura for the first time has someone as fiercely devoted to her and protecting her as Laura has been with the people in her own life. Laura’s past among the X-Men has been dogged with a certain reluctance or plain inability to approach teamwork, but with Gabby she’s overcoming that in strides. 

And that’s just part of what makes this series and especially this issue so novel and enjoyable for me. Laura is my Wolverine, in every way I have ever wanted Wolverine to be. And if Marvel used her properly and exposed her more then I might have once been willing to give a larger number of the X-books my patronage. Something I defs won’t do for Laura’s sake and defs won’t do because Secret Empire makes me feel bad enough already for what I am buying. 

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (2016-present) #7 Gerry Conway, Ryan Stegman, Jesus Aburtov

I tell you one thing for certain, this storyline was not conceived for X-fans and we’re spiraling further and further down the Emma Frost and Magneto are the Evilest Evils Evar road that Marvel seems so intent to take us down. Which is weird and feels unnecessary, but at the very least we did not have the mutants of the world all die due to Regent like apparently 95% of the superhero population according to the original Renew Your Vows mini. 

Don’t worry, Gerry Conway, I for one am entirely supportive of you retconning as much of anything Dan Slott’s touched as you personally deem necessary. 

Regardless, Annie continues to be adorable, and I actually am onboard for adorkable over protective dad Logan with Kate, even if her mutant ability feels completely and utterly beyond me at the moment (she shines a bright light? Is it psychic energy? I have no idea what happened or why Annie and herself weren’t effected by it.)

It’s one of the rare times a Jean/Logan comic also didn’t become a Scott hate fest, which as a Cyclops fan genuinely shocked and impressed me because that’s apparently how low my bar for these things has fallen. And it’s honestly refreshing to see everyone back in the 90s costumes that I’m most familiar with them in. 

That being said, yeah this is not a story for X-fans. Jubilee’s characterization in particular just... seems to be built around this shocking reveal from last issue more than any practical understanding of her character or desires and loyalties. 

And it’s nice to see that Xavier and the others are reaching out to invite Annie to join the school as a non-mutant but still super powered kid who could benefit from their special curriculum. 

And I love how awesome Mary Jane gets to be, on awesome footing with Peter and Annie herself. 

So I’m still liking this book, just the X-fan in me was a little mer on this two-parter. But you know what? Credit where credit is due: it’s a two-parter. And it didn’t drag and we’re moving on to the next storyline. That’s such an astonishing thing in this age in comics, honestly. I almost did a double take. 

DC’s Detective Comics (2016-present) #956 James Tynion IV, Marcio Takara, Marcelo Maiolo

We finally come to the conclusion of the League of Shadows arc and, honestly, considering the opinions I’ve very strongly held throughout this series, I am very happy with... Okay, very is overselling it. I’m content with this conclusion. 

There are definite homages throughout this issue to Cass and Shiva’s ultimate battle in Batgirl (2000-2006) #25, and while there’s nothing that can really live up to that 2 year build up and steady tension between them, there’s also the matter that you feel Cassandra’s stakes in this battle are more than the validity of her own life here. 

Part of that is that Cassandra’s angst in this new version of her character ultimately doesn’t have nearly the death wish that her Preboot self did, but there’s also a lot to be said for the fact that this Cassandra’s longing for relating to humanity, to live as more than just a shadow, is a unique perspective on ehr to take, and shows more insight and direction for her than she received at any point from about 2003 forward in her own series and after. 

This is not a competition with the Batgirl #25 fight with Shiva, but holy shit it’s leagues better in my book than anything that went on between them in the Assassin’s Daughter arc and that final battle that got real gross real quick. Mostly because it doesn’t have Cassandra killing her mother, mutilating her corpse, and leave her to fall into a Lazarus Pit.

We just leave that for Ra’s al Ghul to tend to.

The art is beautiful and fantastic, and I loved the conclusion with Kate at least keeping her promise to Cassandra and going to the ballet, the fact that Cass and Christine are friends and meeting again, I’m so happy with all these things. Also Kate’s suit? Ballin’. But it ... looks like Bruce isn’t going to keep his promise and go to the ballet with them which like BRUCE DON’T GO DOWN THIS ROAD. IT ENDS WITH ME SMACKING YOU.

My criticisms for this arc overall still hold, with quite a bit of zeal, but like I’ve recounted before, Tynion is in top form when he has multiple characters and can focus on their relationships more than plot. And that held true here, even Jacob Kane got some relief from Tynion’s awful OOCness. but for once we have like... actual planting before payoff? 

Also Bruce lol His hatred of magic continues even into this canon and ngl I love Bruce hating magic. And I look forward to having Zatanna meet up with the gang.  AT THE SAME TIME AS HER SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP APPEARANCE, COINCIDENCE? probably.

DC’s Gotham Academy: Second Semester (2016-2017) #9 Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl, MASSYK, Adam Archer, Sandra Hope

We’re barreling toward the ending of Gotham Academy as we know it Olive seems to have lost her battle with the ghosts of her past, the Detective Club has broken into pieces, and the friendships of our favorite kids have never been more in danger. 

And then Two-Face is teaming up with Calamity/Olive. 

With Gotham Academy coming toward its close, I put it back on the Roundups rotation both because I hope to give the two series a reflection as a whole afterward, but also because I feel that my thoughts on the stories themselves wrapping up at last will five some fellow fans some insight as to where I think GA perhaps wandered away from the high standard it set for itself.

Issues like this, however, are reminders of everything right that Gotham Academy offered so uniquely compared to practically all other books out right now at DC. The character drama is at its finest, there’s a thin veil of mystery and intrigue hiding behind mysticism and Gotham lore, and everything feels as though it has a definitive direction. 

DC’s Superwoman (2016-present) #10 K. Perkins, Stephen Segovia, Art Thibert, HI-FI

I was extremely critical of this book’s resolution of the Who Killed Superwoman? arc and was pretty loud about it. It felt like a betrayal of the premise of the book, the marketing, and of the trust I had placed in the creative team under Phil Jimenez, who remains one of my favorite writers in comics period. But there is a love I have of the Super Family and of these characters that I still feel deserve more attention, and my worry over this book being dropped without ever really finding its audience has been real in recent months.

Fortunately it seems like the solution was always as simple as it appeared: what we needed was a woman’s touch in the writing room.

K. Perkins hits a stride in this issue that was severely lacking before. There is a concentration on the relationships with this family we have come to know as the Superwoman family, and the love between them is refreshing considering that the other Superman comics are focused on a more traditional, nuclear family built up.

And while we still haven’t seen Perkins tackle Lana’s mental illness directly, and I’m worried there’s a chance that her sudden resolve to be Superwoman and a hero again will come off as a “I just needed to get over myself and stop taking medication” story, it didn’t feel that way in this issue. 

There were signs of depression in Lana’s present day that I was familiar with on an uncomfortable front, and there’s a lingering self-blame to her situation that I more than know.

But she has powers still without continuing to endanger her life. And she has resolve that didn’t come from diminishing her illness in text. And that’s a leap in the right direction. 

DC’s Titans (2016-present) #11 Dan Abnett, Benjamin Percy, Christopher Priest, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse

.... Okay funny story, I had actually meant to suspend my subscription to Titans this week because I’m not interested in the “Lazarus Contract” story arc and am definitely not going to force myself to pick up the other books being crossed over with for this event. But I forgot because I apparently work at 0% brain capacity on Monday nights and as soon as I remembered to do that for the Image comic Lazarus, which was going to be coming out with another ancillary issue I didn’t feel like picking up this week, I was like “yep those are the only things I didn’t want to subscribe to.” And forgot to take Titans off, even though Comixology is actually really good for constantly reminding you of your subscriptions in the days leading up to them.

So. Because I bought and read this ridiculously enough...

What do I think?

...

Well it was definitely a middle issue of a story I haven’t read and have no idea what’s going on! I’m just glad it’ll be resolved before next month’s issue and I can get back to enjoying my Titans. 

Also like. Dick and Damian are... brothers. And one’s friends with Wally West on the Titans and one’s friends with Wally West on the Teen Titans. And... this hasn’t... come up yet? ummmmm kay. I’m not reading the Flash books or Teen Titans so wtf do I do I know

I dislike Slade. His motivations for hating the Titans still makes no sense, especially since every time he comes back they remind him that HIVE killed Grant not them. But whatever.

Dick’s lying to his team and keeping secrets. The other members of the team are disturbed by this. Looks like they’ll catch him in a lie and learn that things probably would’ve been better for everyone if he hadn’t lied like he did! Sure haven’t had that happen to Dick Grayson in a Teen Titans book have we. 

Oh wait it happens all the time.

I’m ragging on this story big time but again, I have no idea what’s going on and haven’t read the crossover with the other books so that’s my bad. Absolutely. No doubts. I’m just grumpy bc that’s money I intended on saving. I mean. 2.99, but still money.

IDW’s Transformers: Lost Light (2016-present) #5 James Roberts, Jack Lawrence, Joana Lafuente

OH. MY. GOD. 

Okay so Lost Light has had a near impossible act to follow what with More Than Meets the Eye genuinely being one of the greatest comics I had to pleasure of following the publication of, but I am genuinely shocked how well this story is tying together and how all the themes of war, of depression, of love, of ingenuity, of anti-colonization, of questioning religion, of separating church and state -- I cannot believe how everything that James Roberts’ take on Transformers has been about, is coming together in a storyline that involves an alternate timeline where our favorite characters not only lost but never had the chance to fight. 

It’s more than a darkest timeline, it’s about a timeline where the accountability for everyone’s actions has been extremely lacking, and that puts right in the face of all of our favorite characters that their own sins and questions must be accounted for. 

Megatron was not just speaking for himself when he declared that Minimus and Rodimus were his conscience, he was speaking for the Lost Light’s crew as a whole.

They have grown each other and made each other better versions of themselves in all their crudeness and selfishness, in all their mistakes and flaws, they have created this unity between them where their sacrifices count because they count on each other. And it’s just the epitome of what I want and love out of stories. I could not be happier right now. 

And we still have places to go with this storyline. Just. This is such a celebration of how uniquely Transformers this franchise is while still reaching us how to be uniquely better at being human. I love it.

DC’s Wonder Woman (2016-present) #22 Greg Rucka, Mirka Andolfo, Romulo Fajardo Jr.

So, basically, Greg Rucka got the job he wanted of writing Wonder Woman again and he said in that moment “I am going to make it as clear as humanly possible that this queer icon is queer, everyone around her is queer, and there is nothing gained by denying as much.

And thank the gods for it.

In all seriousness, this was by no means a standout issue, it builds on the relationship of Veronica Cale and Diana which helps cement more understanding for their interactions in the last issue, but it is mostly also stuck in the middle of the big finales for both storylines so it was going to lack on that front almost without fail. 

However I do want to shout out to the art team for the image I posted above in particular. Having Diana kiss Veronica in thanks while she quite literally clutches her pearls might be the single greatest “fuck you” to any people who have tried to make the argument that Wonder Woman with her lesbian themes and her feminism and her clay baby origins were somehow ruining the youth of America.

I love that Bruce and Lex both got rebuffed, how freaking amazing was that.

Anyway, there wasn’t a whole lot to this issue, but there was a fair amount to enjoy and it was nice to see these two fleshed out some more before our real finales come up. 

It’s a tough call because Detective Comics had a lot more satisfying of a conclusion than I originally thought, even giving me a few more iconic Cass quotes to add to my collection, and we all know how that’s a direct line to my heart. But for my pick of the week I have to go with Transformers: Lost Light. It is genuinely one of the best comics around period. And beyond that, the way it balances its own mythos, the crushing weight of the greater Transformers lore, and the large cast of characters who all get character arcs and development even in something as simple as two panels showing our married mechs hanging off each other in a moment of weariness and peril after everything they’ve been through together? It’s just an amazing comic book. And I will always pick gay robots over just about anything else if you give me the option.

But those are just my picks and opinions for the week. What do you all think? Any comics I didn’t pick up that you enjoyed? I’d love to hear from you!