#rains of a new age

[keeper-of-magic]

and now, for a new age, a new rain, to fall once again.

(face close ups under cut, because tumblr compression)

Five pebbles, Lord of Decay. (individual class iterator)

Big Sis Moon, Mistress of Water. (amorphous class iterator)

No Significant Harassment, Nexus of Gateways (omnipresent class iterator)

@fivepebbles

@no-significantharassment

@angeliteonfridgeduty

@monarchtonone (you and @restart-the-cycle will get your ascendant image soon)

@escortsrubicon

[angelofchaos001]

(ooc) hey so the art of nine drops is going quite well!

are you a project moon fan, by the way? just wondering.

Ooh the murder goblin

I don't know if I've heard of Project Moon, but I might of seen it without knowing it. I would love to hear about it, probably!

[lionofchaeronea]

Broadway on a Rainy Evening, Everett Warner, 1901

[whataduck]

when you see the snow in bitter aerie and it feels so silent...and then you realize that this is a view into how this world will be in the future. Obscured and laid to rest in the snow.

and here's the imo kinda ugly first version because. i am bad at background

[foreverephemeral-art]

bounce =)

[little-pup-pip]

I rlly love your stuff!! I was wondering if I could good get a watching cartoons (ghibli or bluey) while its raining moodboard?

Yes!!

[rosyfingered-moon]

2023 drama roundup

Unchained Love: I still hum the unhinged flute intro on a regular basis, easily my fave intro of 2023! I didn't actually finish the show due to dwindling interest, but for the first 14 episodes or so I took a keen pleasure in it (and it made me go on a eunuch webnovel spree, expertly curated by @mercipourleslivres). I love it when heroines are allowed to be truly funny, rather than just quirky or ditzy. Also appreciate the goofy Lamp Prince turning into a brutal incel tyrant the moment he got power.

Six Flying Dragons: I don't think I can write anything succinct enough for the roundup format so I direct you to my "my sfd tag" if you want to access my enthused livetweeting. Show of all times, lives were changed.

Tree with Deep Roots: I literally can't think of a better topic for a tv show than Sejong the Great constructing hangul together with his band of nerds, one of whom he has a weirdly intense, vaguely erotic relationship with. Han Suk-kyu carried this entire show on his trembling shoulders. What an actor! What range!!! It was such a treat to watch him smugly debate his ministers, roleplay a farmer, and hiss half-mad soliloquies to himself in the dark. It took nuance and depth to portray the kind of inner conflicts and generational trauma that Sejong battles in the background of this drama. To be honest I didn't always enjoy the Milbon subplot which I felt got repetitive, and often found myself wanting to fast-forward the wuxia scenes. In a better world the show would have centered the whip-smart palace maids and their alphabet workshops. But I will definitely rewatch this soon. And maybe also write a fix-it where Sejong and Soo-yi fuck idk.

Quartet: Cute little murder mystery about a found family of freaks, liked it a lot.

My Country: The New Age: As entertaining as ever. Very fun to rewatch this back to back with Tree with Deep Roots, since Jang Hyuk plays diametrically opposite characters with the same vigor and commitment.

Gone with the Rain: Sometimes you watch something which you understand is technically a masterpiece but it doesn't do anything for you, and sometimes you watch a piece of campy silly fun and it makes you tingle with joy. This was the latter category for me. I liked the first and middle parts enough to make up for the lukewarm fizzle of an ending.

The Autumn Ballad: Has some fucked up elements that are difficult to stomach, but the parts that are good are really good.

Not Others: Bingeable! But imo they could have cut out the stalker/murder cases and just focused on the excellent family drama.

The Matchmakers: This surprisingly swooped in towards the end of the year as my favorite comedy of 2023, all thanks to a rec by @haraxvati. I adore Cho Yi-hyun in this role!!! She is so hot as a shrewd matchmaker with a fake mole and a twinkle in her eye. Love the virgin prince with his yearning-induced panic attacks (Rowoon didn't work for me in The King's Affection in a quite similar role, but he's so much weirder and lamer here, which is something I like in a man). I am obsessed with the side plot of the crossdressing romance novelist and the solemn police officer who is trying to capture her and ends up giving her free home renovations and smouldering looks instead. Also, Park Ji-Young and Lee Hae-Young are two of my favorite villain actors on their own, and here they are married!! Still have a few episodes to go, but I intend to binge them as soon as I post this.

Dramas I dropped or paused:

Our Blossoming Youth: I shipped the heroine and her cute maidservant a little too much to bear the dull prince they stuck her with. But I might rewatch it some day bc I want to write a Sherlock Holmes fic for the girls.

Little Women: A real disappointment, because I love Louisa May Alcott and I love Jeong Seo-kyeong. Once again, letting the women kiss might have solved much of it.

Island: Casting Kim Nam-gil as an expressionless cool-guy action hero offends me personally. (Yes Song of the Bandits I'm giving you the stinky eye also.) But Lee Da-hee and Cha Eun-woo were delightful!

See you in my 19th life: I couldn't, even for my most darling Shin Hye-sun, go beyond episode 1. There's something about a kid dating another kid even though she's a literal adult inside her brain that I can't really vibe with.

My Dearest: I do intend to finish this, but I lost the thread after the first half. It got a little too dark for me I think.

[timbeon]

Rain Code has been living rent-free in my head since I finished it, especially my short purple gremlin husband Makoto. The horrors persist, stay silly.

[nyaskitten]

Idk if I ever posted these, but here are some old drawings for one of my OCs LOL

[crooked-hourglass]

Work in Progress - 1 down, two to go

More Artwork | Socials and Prints

[cere-mon-ials]

2022 in kdramas

*that I finished

I spent my January nursing all that The Red Sleeve broke (my heart), nourishing what it gave me (provocation to write, notes here), cursing what it did for my overall k-drama viewing expectations. I am still mad that Lee Se-young wasn’t recognised for what she did in TRS, a show that belongs to Deok-im and her alone. I had finished Good Manager a day before, a long-winded bromance between Namkoong Min and Lee Jun-ho. I didn’t think much and truth be told, I don’t remember much either. Happiness fell flat after three episodes; stayed for the remaining episodes because of the excellent chemistry between the main characters. I evidently watched Coffee Prince many years too late but I saw every reason why I might have never finished school if I had seen it earlier.

Run On kept me thrilled on occasion, became white noise otherwise. I loved seeing my two joys, running and translation, woven into the show, loved the miracle of found friendships and homes, and a defiant writing philosophy that healthy relationships are worthy of being probed. Despite how unbearable Our Beloved Summer was about Ji-woong’s unrequited love, I could see the good-naturedness of the story writer-nim was trying to tell. I loved watching why the two leads fell apart and what brought them together. I loved that this had something to do with communication but I loved even more, that it just had to do with having grown up and realising you can love something you’re not and that’s one way to experience life. Kairos is the most underappreciated show that tackles time-travel. Great writing with exceptional attention to detail.

February was spent with the duology of the Ahn Pan-seok—Kim Eun—Jung Hae-in universe, the k-drama equivalent of Austenian bliss. Both shows benefit from Kim Eun’s thesis that romance may be intimate but love, in a patriarchy, demands a public that must accept it. Ahn Pan-seok is the finest orchestrator of moments that feel like the time lapse that falling in love is, that thing that people often reduce to soulmatism or violins at first glance. In One Spring Night, it works. In Something in the Rain, it fails because Kim Eun was still finding her voice as a writer who is stumped by what makes for the ‘right’ kind of conflicts in a 16-episode arc. I don’t think that’s the only problem with SITR but it’s the one she solved with marvelous elegance in OSN. In both shows, the main leads are charmingly, refreshingly communicative with each other. But it is in OSN, where Kim Eun figures out that being vulnerable is not the same as talking about vulnerable things, and how to make it count for all relationships that matter. Son Ye-jin and Han Ji-min, I love you both equally.

In March, I began paying an honorarium to the guard of my Jang Hyuk horny jail. Deep-rooted Tree made me cry in at least 14/24 episodes. A Joseon murder mystery wrapped in a drama about accessible language as the beginning to breaking down class barriers and nation-building, with nerdy love for character interiority? I ate that up. Han Seok-kyu is the only reel King Sejong ever. Just like Jang Hyuk is the only reel Bang Won ever. My Country: The New Age is a shallow show with hilarously lofty dialogues and masterful action sequences. In my most generous reading, MCTNA attempted to ask if Bang Won’s modernity could have come at a lesser price; is modernity not equivalent to audacity? Woo Do-hwan is almost as good at portraying audacity as Jang Hyuk.

Having Park Eun-bin and Kim Min-jae play Brahms in a riveting duet is exactly what Do You Like Brahms? set out to do. Introverts are rarely done well on the screen and getting it right with not one, but two leads is an achievement too. If you are a person fuelled by that mystical "passion," the creative arts industry can be a cruel place. Chae Song-ah is, by all accounts, not as talented as the others around her, and this is not a story of stick-with-it-till-you-rise-from-the-ashes. Even the hope that it might be is wonderful writing because Song-ah is far more assertive than anybody gives her credit for, like a baby who holds onto your finger with shocking strength. In classical music especially, there is no such thing: you are good or you are out. Park Joon-young is great and yet, he is begging for an out, because being good is just the beginning. These two and the other characters are deeply in love with music and they want to protect that love. They all find out that in the end that love needs sustenance, not protection.

I binged Fated to Love You in April, in a private experiment to see how much Jang Hyuk brainrot I can take. (Let’s remember this is a summary of the shows I finished.) I came out of it with brainrot for one more Jang. Outrageous show, outrageous star power. Soundtrack No. 1 was a forgettable experience save for the fact that I am now a person who looks up Park Hyung-sik’s MDL page on the reg. I think everybody is right about Twenty-Five Twenty-One: (a) Baek Ye-jin and Na Hee-do were always going to break up (b) It was a terribly-conceived finale. Two other opinions I am going to leave here: (c) Ji Seung-wan, darling of my heart, should have been the lead for the show that writer-nim actually wanted to do. (d) More people would see this, and also may have responded with thoughts beyond ship discourse, if Na Hee-do was played by anyone other than Kim Tae-ri.

I think people were right about criticising Lee Soo-yeon’s Grid too. The science of time-travel took some leniency. I get why the finale would have been unsatisfying, even as a setup for a potential second season. But I offer that the thesis of LSY’s shows is never in how they end, because they are not moral science lessons for the future. Grid’s deeply introspective themes of time-travel and the greater good begins with the the sun, the most reliable force in a human's life, turning against mankind. This immediately takes away a human as ultimate antagonist, when it easily could have been. For LSY, the future is the darkest place with unknowable power and we have the task of paving a path of light towards it. Time-travel is not the science-fiction component with which to imagine our behaviour in an unrecognisable, but possible, place. It’s the fucking fantasy. Even if we got the chance to change the past, we really couldn't. The future is what we have got to change and the present to make the first move. Those dreams of going back, repenting hard enough, flirting with what ifs? Not going to cut it. LSY's meta elegance is in bringing the intensely personal version of this theme in parallel to the big one: divorce. FWIW, she had all these threads tie together by Episode 7. I get why she said Grid is the next iteration of her life's work—an exceptional mind.

Park Min-young could have chemistry with a rock, and thank god, Seo Kang-joon isn’t one. When The Weather Is Fine is the rightest show about life in the countryside. It nails the fine line of a tight-knit community that shows up for you and also, how easily they can be the first source of judgement, as people who know your secrets. Best book club in a k-drama. Very well done pining. Imo is my favourite character and she should publish that novel because “Hey. Who do you think killed my brother-in-law?” is a banger opening line. I first saw Lee Jae-wook in this show.

During the weekends of April and May, there was My Liberation Notes. I watched it like a scheduled therapy session, although I do not think Park Hae-young is aiming for catharsis with her works (despite it seeming like the most common outcome). I didn’t have the word “healing” in my everyday vocabulary so often before k-dramas. It’s a genre of k-drama that is meant to be comforting, to inject slowness into everyday life as an antidote for the ills of modern society. Bullshit. There are multiple wide shots of the Yeom family tending their farms, eating in peace amid the greenery, and they are claustrophobic. It might feel like complaints, and you’re free to think that. But PHY knows, as most people my generation do, finding an escape is actually really easy. That’s not the point. The point is to be less sad about being who you are; to know that who you are is enough to make a living, find love if you want it, make peace with your family. This show is about siblings as the real loves of your lives.

I don’t remember what I was doing in June.

Pachinko is not a k-drama strictly speaking, but let’s do it. I adore Min Jin Lee and I am afraid to admit how emotionally attached I am to the world of Kogonada’s eyes. In MJL's book, the linear structure is meant to make you feel like the history of a family can also be a history of the other themes that consume intellectual space. In the show, there is no such thing as a past, or a history. Nothing is done, nothing is over and under the rug. You see Sun-ja’s and Solomon’s stories at the same time because there's no distance that makes what happened then far enough from what's happening now. For this alone, Pachinko is a superior adaptation. I have a shrine for every woman in this show. Watching Yumi’s Cells 2 has been among the happiest experiences of my TV viewing life. Bloody Heart could have been bloodier. I respected that it reached a conclusion without feeling the need to give a neat answer to its central question of assertive power as driver of both unity and chaos—there’s humility in realising that the answer need not be determined in one generation. Jang Hyuk thirst got me into the show, Kang Hanna’s outstanding face and smarts kept me there. Lee Joon’s Lee Tae nearly made me quit. Park Ji-yeon, muah. I watched the back half of Signal in July. It is no fault of the show that I was zapped out of will to see women being killed. There were two scenes of Kim Hye-soo’s that wrecked me bad, I had to quit watching for couple of days. Thank you to the makers for giving a genre-defining template. (Kairos did do it better.)

Alchemy of Souls was super fun as a weekly watch. Daeho is boring to me as a setting and the plot ventures into territories worthy of critical thought once in a blue moon. But I admire the ambition, and the storytelling does have its moments. Lee Jae-wook is a menace. Inhaled Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung over four days; I enjoyed it. Extraordinary Attorney Woo tried. I also binged Reply 1997. Reply 1988 is always going to be my favourite and I am not going to watch R1994 for a conclusive test of veracity.

Between these shows, their endearing efforts at being fulfilling shows about love of different kinds, I nibbled on episodes of My Mister. I couldn’t watch two episodes together; it was so potent, so unbelievably demanding of my attention in every way imaginable, and I gave it willingly. I wrote about the show here.

October brought the best mystery/thriller show of the year: May It Please The Court. It was written with a clear idea of how much to bite, knew how to chew on it, and that’s why it also landed the best conclusion of the year. The show is astute about forgiveness and justice, and well, forgiveness in justice. I think the show’s success is in how it trusted both its characters and the audience to process what this means to them. Jung Ryeo-won and Lee Kyu-hyung have impeccable married energy from first scene. Lee Sang-hee is the best, the hottest, the finest.

Little Women is the mystery/thriller show with the most potential of the year. It wasn’t until episode 11 that the show lost me but I do think the flaws began revealing themselves a lot earlier. I didn’t appreciate the show’s insistence that the central crime of the show was Sang-ah’s murders and not the patriarchal cult that pretends to be a meritocracy. I thought the Vietnam War references were in conversation for a whole different reason: I viewed it as a nod to the first war where losing means more than winning. That war is the blueprint for the 21st century exertion of control for the right to capital and target audience, rather than mere territory and pride. But this symbolism wasn’t what came through and I understand those who pushed back on how the war's references, along with an exotic flower, rang hollow. LW did get characterisation right, particularly the way poverty alters how intelligence is perceived and valued. It’s ambitious premise—that Louisa May Alcott was wrong in deciding these sisters would taper their poverty with unusual politeness—is radical.

I will rewatch the first 11 episodes of May I Help You in several trying days of my future. Baek Dong-joo and Kim Tae-hee, butlers to the dead and the alive respectively, are companions, friends and lovers, in that order. What's not to love? The acts asked of them are rarely grand but they are delivered with emotional heft. I forgive all the detours taken from episode 12. I tend to find it dull when everybody and everything is connected to each other. In this one's ending, it's quite lovely. I see the vision in saying that we only know Dong-joo’s story because that’s the story we have tuned into. The miracles could be happening to anyone at all. I wish writer-nim wasn’t so Christian throughout—the throwaway line about suicide put me off. Best piggy-backing scenes in a rom-com and also, favourite kiss, I am going to say.

[keeper-of-magic]

oh my, what are these two, siblings wound up within the strings of fate!

Selentra (Survivor) and Mary (monk) two sisters fated to find both gods they worship, and learn things they did not wish to.

(tagging. if you have rp blogs, use them if you wish @voldkat @angelofchaos001 @doodlebug091 @universalldeergalaxy @sparkling-pendulum @fivepebbles)

[angelofchaos001]

hey man, what did you think of the starving flesh? (aka magical nine drops of iron) i based their powers and parts of their design off of one of my favorite monsters in all of media, the mountain of smiling bodies.

Dude I fucking love it

You don't know how feral I went when I first saw it, it took me a sec to reply properly.

Keep doing your thing, it's glorious and I can't wait to see more (I wanna know more about the solution in that world tbh)

[lionofchaeronea]

Rainy Day, New York, Childe Hassam, 1892

[rainydaygt]

had a little time, got some creative juices out of my system before i dive into commissions on my day off. pick your poison

[arolesbianism]

Working more on the local group of Synchronized Light and hoo boy. There's smth wrong with these guys.