#mdls

[renatosicoob]

[renatohonorioo]

[mrlamarsworld]

Just Took The Biggest Swig Of UNSWEETENED Iced Tea ! Why Lawd Why ?! Label That Sh*t Man !~#MDLS 👑 https://www.instagram.com/p/CplZs0ALn9l/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[kit-teung]

EVRYONE DON'T MOVE THERE'S FINALLY A BUTCHFEMME THAI GL SERIES COMING

[pharawee]

God, you're warm. Can I stay like this for a little longer?

[gunsatthaphan]

also currently losing it over MDL listing Shakespeare as the creator of THK ksldjnf 😭

[pigglepiephi]

Takara finally said Taishin’s name and I cried!

I wondered here if part of the reason Takara had never said Taishin’s name, even in his own POV, was because he was too scared about what using it meant. After opening up about how much his feelings scared him, and being reassured by Taishin that he wanted to be with Takara and he wanted him to tell him everything, Takara finally freed himself of the anxiety he’d been carrying and said ‘Taishin’ out loud for the first time! He opened himself up fully to loving Taishin totally and without fear.

Urgh, that moment got me right in the feels 💕

I know using first names holds a lot of weight culturally but it always felt like not using Taishin’s was another way Takara was restraining himself… until now!

[hyog-blog]

Can we just talk a little about this unholy unity of Li Lun and Zhuo Yichen? Just look at him :D Why does he look so hot)) And those bare arms, in a show where everyone is so deliberately clothed in multi-layers (apart from demons who are veeeery bad, hence, they can show their sexiness as much as they want).

Anyway, that's it, that's all I have to say XD

And while we're on this bad-demons-look-so-good topic, let's throw in a few of them sizzling hot baddies to the mix. Because no one pulls the bad demon look quite like Zhao Yuanzhou's Inner Demon :3

And I enjoyed the whole dark!Wen Xiao sequence a little too much :D

[byemambo]

LEE SEON AS JUYEONG

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (2024) | 1.01

The way he moved so quickly, my face was just like Dohoe's: oh, he's a protector... Nothing compares to a guy that keeps you safe and out of harm's reach :)

[lazzarella]

Via Leejern Natchanit's insta (the director of Memoir of Rati) / caption auto translated by Instagram

Edited to add: Seems like this was from back in October (around the 18th) when these selfies were posted on Inn and Aou's stories respectively:

[renatosicoob]

[djeterg19]

There are still people saying Leng is bad at acting and honestly stop watching if you can't appreciate his performance. Because honestly for a rookie, this is a difficult role and he's been doing a fine to excellent job in my opinion. If he's the worst actor you've ever seen...why are you still watching episode 8?

[mrlamarsworld]

“Somebody Knows Something About #You, That You Don’t Know About Urself !” 🤔~#MDLS 👑 https://www.instagram.com/p/CpfiZq3r8rN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[dramadramallama]

not really analyzing much, just making a few notes of the things that stood out to me in the first 4 eps of light shop. i haven't read the webtoon so it's more like i'm blindly pointing at things like a child hahaha

NAMES

All (?) the names called out when the teacher does attendance in the first episode have a (direct) translation (to something positive.) I noticed because 1. some of them are really unusual, and 2. they ALL are words, like no one's just named Ji-soo or something in this class lol:

Ip-sae (입새) - entrance/beginning

Nu-ri (누리) - (old fashioned) world/universe

Ha-neul (하늘) - sky/heaven

Gi-ppeum (기쁨) - joy

Eu-tteum (으뜸) - fundamental/basic (possibly: "the first")

Ga-eul (가을) - fall/autumn

Chuk-bok (축복) - wishing happiness/blessed

Bo-bae (보배) - treasure/priceless

Mi-rae (미래) - future

Do-dam (도담) - (possibly from 도담하다) be bold/stand out/accomplished (?)

Haet-sal (햇살) - sunlight

Now you're gonna say, well Hyun-ju (who keeps going to the light shop as an errand for her mom) is also in that class! She's seemingly the only one with a "normal" sounding name. Out of curiosity I did search hers, and interestingly, I found a few meanings too: 1. address of residence, 2. water used in ancestral rites (!) 3. stay in the present, live life (!!)

Side note: Haet-sal is also the name of the Detective's (unborn?) child. He chooses the name himself out of the ones his wife wrote down. It could be a coincidence, except most of the first names she pre-selected are the exact names of the students in that class.

I can't read all of them, but there are a few I recognize: Gi-ppeum, Ha-neul, Chuk-bok, Eu-tteum, Bo-bae... (there's also Sa-rang "love", or Haeng-bok "happiness" in the list)

HYUN-JU AND HER MOM

We're not shown Hyun-ju unconscious in the hospital, like all the other main players who are trying/failing to find a way out (the will to live/the will to move on)... But she clearly also is at the threshold between life and death. Maybe she is living, but able to unknowingly go between worlds?

The light shop seems to be the doorway to "home" or maybe "heaven" (as evidenced by Mr Twisty Legs, who keeps trying to "reach" the shop, and when he does get there, he doesn't cross the threshold and loops back to his solitary karaoke session in the dark rainy alleyway.

Dead or alive, Hyun-ju is basically invisible. She hangs out with her friends but she is not interacted with. It's really fun, if you go back and watch the scenes, no one directly talks to her, looks at her, or touches her. When she speaks, she's not acknowledged by the three friends. It's really clever: something's off, but it can be attributed to the girls being chaotic, not purposefully ignoring her. Eu-tteum is the only one who, barely awake, at the frontier between dream and reality, finally "sees" her. It's directly after that event that she sees the other ghost/spirit, whose body is missing (and whom the Detective is still looking for)

Hyun-ju's mom is revealed to be the body being embalmed. Her spirit (soul?) has a conversation with the Funeral Director and when she asks, "am I alone?" she surprisingly sounds relieved when he replies that she is. Is she relieved her daughter is not with her (meaning not dead yet?) She also cries and is worried about being left in the dark, which parallels painfully with the fact that she keeps seeking light, apparently asking her daughter to get her light bulbs over and over. The Funeral Director reassures her that she'll go to a place where it's very bright (=the Light Shop being very allegorical here)

Hyun-ju and her mom also live on the 8th floor of that apartment building, while the Intensive Care Unit is also on the 8th floor at the hospital. Bus Stop Guy also lives on the 8th floor of Hyun-ju's apartment building.

BUT... maybe Hyun-ju is the one keeping her mom from passing on, stubbornly buying her light bulbs that bring no light, and inevitably end up in the trash. Or is she helping...? Has she been dead ever since she was little (she still has that necklace she had as a kid, with her info on it in case she gets lost) and has been waiting for her mom all this time? The Shop Keeper even emphasizes that he sees her as a small child, unwrapping the candy for her.

When offered, Hyun-ju always picks the yellow (=light/sun) candies. The whole show feels like a giant allegory about Light and Dark, Life and Death.

SYMBOLISM/FOLKLORE

I don't know much, but I do remember that a common horror trope in Asian legends/stories is that ghosts can be recognized because they "clap with the back of their hands". I immediately thought of that when they show the Lady in White's weird hands (the inside of her hands is actually the back of it. The nails are all wrong, I FLINCHED) She's strangely interested in whether people are "alone" or "together", and who "knows" each other. She also needs to be invited inside explicitly to step into Bus Stop Guy's house, like creatures in a lot of folk tales.

The Shop Keeper never welcomes his customers inside... but greets them by asking a question: "how did you get there/what brings you here/how can I help?" The lights in his shop are not to be touched.

The Detective has a defective lamp on his desk, and cannot seem to light up his lighter anymore. He also sees people/things he shouldn't. The Nurse says "if you see people who are on the border of life and death, doesn't that mean you are too?" which obviously, he is now, since we see him in a hospital bed in the ICU. Maybe his wife and child are waiting for him to wake up...?

Lots of imagery with mirrors, which are common symbols for doorways, a limit between two worlds.

I know it's not, but New Tenant's outfit is also very reminiscent of a hospital gown (first image). When she settles in the new house, she puts away her shoes and does not seem to notice the bright red heels (the same ones the Very Tall Extremely Scary Woman wears, indicating she is inside the house with her).

The song my guy Mr Twisted Legs sings (badly) to give himself courage is the same one the Nurse makes her patients listen to (and the same one she was listening to when she was in a coma herself, "wandering aimlessly," "almost giving up" before she found her way back to the living). The characters on life support can all interact with each other in the alleyway, but are also completely isolated from each other: New Tenant does not hear Twisted Legs' cries over her own, and vice versa, even when they cry out for the same thing, "to get out of there."

They all share the same space in the ICU, but are locked in their own world. Do their collective consciousness populate that "other" world, mixing up elements of their life and memories?

Clearly, the theme of the deceased, unable pass on peacefully, who remain behind (due to something unresolved?) is prevalent. Does it create--not ghosts exactly--but an energy, an entity embodying the "regret," the "mourning [of] something they lost"?

Now, what I find interesting is: what does "I want to leave, I want to go home" mean for each of them? To peacefully pass on, accept death, move on, and forget? Or does it mean to fight, to find the will to live, thanks to those who wish us well? Is the Light (shop) the way back to life, or the way to the after-life? Or both?

[pharawee]

Are you thinking about me now?

[gunsatthaphan]

they got their silly romcom 🥹