maggie33

I’m still coughing, though thankfully less than before. I’m well enough to work and I did work from home last week. But that stupid cough is exhausting. I don’t have enough energy for anything serious, so I’m cleaning all the bookmarks I acquired in the last two months and using a few of them to make a rec post.


Two recs for Queen Seondeok:

A review on Subtitledreams - well, I say a review, but it’s more a love letter to Bidam, that’s why I like it so much. :)

And a rec for a Mishil & Bidam fanvid - Secret Door


A few more fanvid recs:


The Veil – Unstoppable


Kei x Yaku – Killing Me


Semantic Error – Fever


The Devil Judge – No Light, No Light


Under the Skin:

Grind Me Down (Du Cheng)

Crush 2 (Shen Yi)



And one more thing: Thai Names & Honorifics (for the casual BL fan)

It's a funny and educational 14 minutes long vid about Thai names and honorifics made by BL actor Perth Nakhun, using examples from Thai BL dramas.

First I learned Chinese honorifics, then Korean honorifics, then Thai. It seems now I have to learn Japanese ones. And it all started with corvidology’s post about the Japanese drama Kei×Yaku: Abunai Aibou. I read it on Saturday and thought “ok it sounds good, let’s watch the 1st episode”. That 1st episode turned into three more episodes on Saturday, four episodes on Sunday and the last two on Monday. As you can guess I fell in love hard. :)


Two main characters are the young yakuza leader Hanabusa Shiro and Kunishita Ichiro from the Public Security Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

Ichiro is investigating the disappearance and probable death of his partner and mentor Nakaba Rion, a cold case that was considered closed three years ago. But he’s ordered by his superior to drop that case and he is assigned to investigate Hanabusa Shiro. They soon discover that they are trying to solve the same case. Nakaba Rion is Shiro’s older sister - they were both in the same orphanage and grew so close that they consider themselves to be siblings.

Shiro and Ichiro join forces in secret to investigate the case, which also means them starting to live together in episode 2. And that means a lot of domestic fluff. Here is the example of said domestic fluff – a few gifs from episode 6 I found on tumblr.

There are always short post-credit scenes in each episode, which are pure domestic fluff. And there is also a lot of delicious hurt/comfort in this drama.

More below with minor spoilers

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This drama is on dailmotion with English subs – there are links in corvidology’s post. And here are the links to the official version with English subs on Bilibili, but it’s available only in some South East Asian countries.

Another hard week at work, but in personal life things are a bit better. So yay for that.


Ok, maybe in another 5 years or so I will be able to re-watch Through the Darkness. :) Because the last episode actually was very optimistic for a dark show like this one.

Minor spoilers behind the cut

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Racket Boys is my happy place right now. It’s so heart-warming, even when it makes me sob with emotions and it does it at least once an episode.

I don’t need a big plot or big conflict. Just watching everyday life of these people, and their everyday problems, watching them grow and change is enough for me. Watching these teenagers becoming friends, learn about life and fall in love makes me smile. Usually I don’t like an awkward teenage romance, here I have two awkward teenage romances and my reaction is “aww, they are the cutest, I could watch this forever”. :)



And now for something completely different – here are two teasers for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

One

Two

More about them below with spoilers

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This drama is so adorable. I made a lot of delighted aww noises while watching these two episodes. And then the ending of episode 6 gave me this:

( See more with spoilers )


I can’t wait for the last two episodes.

My first Chocolate Box Exchange was a resounding success. I got two wonderful Chief Kim fics that made me very happy, because china_shop spoils me. :)


Base Camp, morning (1137 words) by china_shop
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Kim Sung Ryong/Seo Yool
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Episode 19, waking up together, Enemies to Lovers, Pre-Relationship
Summary: Yul woke slowly. He felt great—rested, comfortable, warm. He opened his eyes and for a moment he thought he was still dreaming. Kim Sungryong was right there, his peaceful face only a few inches away. Had they slept like this?! No! (Missing scene from episode 19.)


Kindred Spirits (2473 words) by china_shop
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Kim Sung Ryong/Seo Yool
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, First Kiss, Ghosts
Summary: “There’s a ghost,” hissed Yul. “An actual ghost in your club!”

“I know that,” replied Sung-ryong, mournfully. “She blew the electricity and frightened the clientele—well, all except for some who were frightening in their own right.” He shuddered.

And I wrote an SCI fic for my assignment and my second OW fic as a treat.


Touch me like you do (2046 words)
Fandom: S.C.I.谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (TV)
Rating: Mature
Relationships: Bai Yutong/Zhan Yao
Characters: Zhan Yao, Bai Yutong
Additional Tag: Resolved Pining, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Mild Smut
Summary: Zhan Yao thought that he had left those feelings behind him, when he went abroad. He had tried very hard to convince himself that they were gone, but he had never really believed in the lie he told himself.


How to be a dream girl to your demon lover (1492 words)
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Additional Tags: Angels and Demons, Inept Demoness, Supportive Angel Girlfriend, Fluff, Kissing, Humor, Chocolate Box Treat
Summary: Three scenes from the life of one inept demoness and her loving and patient angel girlfriend. :)

Kdramas

The Great Queen Seondeok

Since I have to wait for more episodes of Through the Darkness I decided to check the role that made Kim Nam Gil famous – Bidam in sageuk The Great Queen Seondeok.

It’s a long drama – 62 one hour long episodes and he first appears in episode 21. Yes, I did start with that episode and fast-forwarded through the scenes he was not in. And that’s how I plan to watch the rest of the drama. I read a bit about the plot so I wouldn’t be completely lost and that is enough for me to enjoy Kim Nam Gil’s scenes.

I’m not surprised that this was his breakthrough role and that everybody fell in love with him. He’s so charismatic and charming and beautiful, and his acting is excellent.

He sees Seondeok (who is not yet queen) for the first time when she pretends to be a boy while she’s on the run from people who want to kill her (apparently almost everybody wants to kill her at that time, yes, it’s all very OTT and melodramatic :)). So he thinks she’s just a pretty young man and he still winks flirtatiously at her.

Here is one of Bidam’s first scenes where he saves the future queen’s life and shows what a badass he is.


This drama is on VIKI, but it’s not available in Poland. But I found the official version with English subtitles on YouTube, too, just bizarrely chopped into over 500 short vids, instead of 62 long episodes. But the quality is very good, so I don’t mind. I watch only Bidam’s scenes anyway. :) It’s here if someone would like to check it out.


The Veil

I finished it yesterday and to my pleasant surprise the last two episodes were pretty good. I even kinda want to re-watch it now, if not the entire drama then just the best Nam Goong Min’s scenes.

Nam Goong Min received Daesang (The Grand Award) for The Veil at MBC 2021 Drama Awards. At the same awards his Chief Kim costar Junho received Top Excellence Award (Actor in a Miniseries) for The Red Sleeve. And thanks to that we now have two super cute scenes between them.

First when Nam Goong Min was walking to the stage to receive the award Juhno got up from his chair and gave him a congratulatory hug. Then Juhno posted a vlog post when Nam Goon Min gives him a congratulatory kiss on the cheek.

You can see the hug in the beginning of this vid. And the kiss here.


And I have a few fanvid recs for The Veil:

Angel with the Shotgun


Play with fire


Animals


Reason



Cdramas

Reset

I loved this drama, I’m very satisfied with the ending and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

A bit more with spoilers below.

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BL dramas

Tinted With You

It was disappointing – boring and badly acted. I watched 5 episodes and got so bored that I never watched the rest despite the drama having only 8 short episodes.


Kissable Lips

It’s a Korean BL drama about a romance between a vampire who is about to die and a human, whose pure blood can save a vampire and turn him into a human, too. I watched the first episode and it’s ok, I guess, but for now nothing special.

I decided to check it out because I love vampires, and because of one of the main actors Kim Ji Woong. He plays a vampire here and he also played a vampire in The Sweet Blood – another short Kdrama, but not BL. I tried to watch The Sweet Blood and he was the only good thing about it. He was sexy and decadent and canonically bisexual, and he had very nice chemistry full of banter and flirting with a werewolf guy, but unfortunately this subtext didn’t get turned into text. Instead they inserted him into a boring het love triangle. VIKI tells me that I watched 10 episodes out of 15, but I really can’t remember anything about it apart from a few entertaining scenes with Kim Ji Woong. That’s how bad it was.


And I want to say that it's so nice that VIKI has so many BL dramas now, and that more is on the way. When I made an account 2 years ago they had maybe 10 of them, if I remember correctly.

I finished the first draft of my Chocolate Box fic, yay. I was thinking about one treat, but it probably won’t happen on account of me being pretty tired and having problems with my lower back lately. I spend too much time sitting at the desk unfortunately, at work and after work, so I have to cut it down a bit and start moving more. I started with going swimming again after two year pandemic break. Twice a week for now, because wow is it hard after such a long break. :)



When it comes to drama watching my infatuation with Kim Nam Gil is in a full bloom, that’s why I will talk about his newest drama first - Through the Darkness.

At first I wanted to wait until all the episodes aired, but Kim Nam Gil looked really good in all the previews and my infatuation won, and I started watching as soon as the first two episodes were available on VIKI with English subs. And now I’m sorry that I did. Because it’s very good and I love it, and Kim Nam Gil is fantastic and beautiful. And not only waiting a week for new episodes is hard, but after episodes 5 and 6 air this weekend there will be three weeks break because of SBS airing the Winter Olympics. Gah...

I love this drama, but I have to warn that it is dark – literally and figuratively. Most of the scenes take place in the evenings or at night, and the subject matter is pretty gruesome. It’s a Korean drama, so they don’t show a lot, and what they do show is blurred, but still the murders are brutal and it’s yet another drama when all the victims are women and children, so I had to fast-forward a little a few times.



After watching Through the Darkness I was looking for something relatively light and uncomplicated to watch, and I decided to start the Chinese drama Reset, since I’ve seen a few comments saying that it’s good.

For a Cdrama it’s very short – only 15 episodes. It’s about two young people (a student and a game designer) who are caught in a time loop as they try to stop a bus with passengers from exploding. It’s available on VIKI. As of now there are 10 episodes there with English subtitles, and I’ve already watched 6. And I agree, it is surprisingly good and I really enjoy it.



I still have the last two episodes of The Veil to watch, but I keep putting it off, since the 10th episode was rather boring. I will finish it – Nam Goong Min is good and beautiful, and I do want to finish it for him, but it will probably take some time.



I also managed to watch My Name on Netflix, since it’s so short (just 8 episodes). I don’t have any strong feelings about it, but it was enjoyable and very well acted, even if all the plot twists were rather predictable for me.



And the next I want to check Bulgasal: Immortal Souls on Netflix. Reincarnation is not my thing usually, but I’ve read that this drama had a good villain, and I’m always on the lookout for good villains. :)

I had my vaccine booster shot on Wednesday and I was so happy because my arm hurt, but apart from that I felt fine on Thursday. I even managed to do my Chocolate Box sign-up then. But yesterday and today was much worse. I’m tired all the time and all I want to do is either sleep or watch something with Kim Nam Gil.

Because my infatuation with Kim Nam Gil continues. He will never steal the 1st place in my heart from my beloved Nam Goong Min, but for now he is firmly in the 2nd place on the list of my favorite Korean actors. :D

And he’s a good singer, too. I spent Wednesday at work listening to his songs on Youtube.

I have no idea what the title of this song is but I like it. And here’s another one from the same concert.

Here are two more songs: one and two.

And here is Kim Nam Gil signing Fighter – the theme song from The Fiery Priest


I also watched two more of his movies.

The Closet

It’s a horror with creepy ghost children and a few jump scares so I had to fast-forward a little bit. But it’s a good movie, very well acted and I enjoyed it a lot. Kim Nam Gil is great as an exorcist, who helps a grieving father look for his missing daughter. And his character provides a few very welcomed humorous scenes in this serious horror movie.

Spoilers with content warning behind the cut.

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No Regret

It is considered a seminal film in South Korean gay cinema. It was made in 2006 and it is the first South Korean feature to be written and directed by an openly gay Korean filmmaker.

The movie is available for free on Youtube here, but you have to be logged in and have your age confirmed to watch it, because there are a few very explicit sex scenes in it (or you can download it like I did :)). Which was really quite shocking to me considering it was made in 2006 in South Korea. Another shocking thing was that it had a happy, or at least a hopeful ending for the main couple.

The quality of that Youtube vid is rather poor, but the movie is good and I liked it a lot. It’s also available to buy or rent through Amazon Prime if you’re in the United States, in much better quality I imagine.

If you want to know more about the plot here is a very positive spoilery review with a lot of nice pics from the movie.


I also started Live Up to Your Name, a drama about a doctor from the Joseon Dynasty who travels in time to modern day Seoul, with Kim Nam Gil as the main lead. It’s available here on Netflix. Or rather I re-started it, since I watched the first three episodes maybe half a year ago and then dropped it when something else caught my attention. Now I’m up to episode 8 and I love it.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I wrote only one fic for Yuletide, but it’s a long one for me. And it’s my first Vincenzo fic.

Climbing an ice wall (6308 words)
Fandom: 빈센조 | Vincenzo (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jang Han Seo/Jang Joon Woo | Jang Han Seok, Choi Myung Hee & Jang Han Seok
Characters: Jang Han Seo, Jang Joon Woo | Jang Han Seok, Choi Myung Hee
Additional Tags: Unhealthy Relationships, Possessive Behavior, Dark Han Seo, Hybristophilia, Mild Smut, POV Alternating
Summary: Han Seok is back and Han Seo finally gets what he’s always wanted. And Choi Myung Hee tries not to fall down during her ice climbing.



I finished The Fiery Priest. I enjoyed it a lot and it made me fall in love with Kim Nam Gil. But now Vincenzo really looks to me like the result of screenwriter Park Jae Bum thinking “hmm, let’s write The Fiery Priest again, but darker”. :) There are so many similarities.

More with spoilers for both dramas behind the cut.

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I’m very glad I finally watched this drama, since there is supposed to be the 2nd season, although I couldn’t find any specific information yet.

And I found out while browsing Youtube for BTS stuff and fanvids that the whole drama is available there for free with English subtitles. The playlist is here.


And I have two recs for fanvids showing what a badass Kim Hae Il is:

Light Em Up

Believer


And because of my new found love for Kim Nam Gil yesterday I watched Memoir of a Murderer, which is available to buy on DVD in Poland – it’s a movie where he plays a psychopathic serial killer. And I started Pandora, also a movie, available on Netflix here, where he is again a good guy trying to save a small Korean town during the serious accident at a nuclear power plant. I enjoyed Memoir of a Murderer a lot, I like when pretty boys play psychopathic serial killers. :) Pandora is a bit boring, but I plan to finish it today.

Sad news first - Anne Rice passed away. Here is her son Christopher’s announcement on twitter.

Vampire Chronicles was my first fandom when I discovered the internet in 1999. I have such fond memories of that time. Not everything was perfect, sure, but in general I had a great time and found that fandom very welcoming when I finally decided to start talking to people after half a year of just lurking.


Kdramas

Secret Royal Inspector & Joy – I watched episode 5 and 6, it's still cute and amusing. And I love the height difference between Taecyeon and Kim Hye Yoon. She looks so tiny next to him. :)

Life on Mars – I watched UK original twice and I loved it. I started the Korean version two weeks ago and I watched 9 episodes for now. I like it a lot. It’s been a long time since I watched the original show, and I don’t remember the plot, I just recall a few vague scenes and the ending. I’m very curious how the Korean version will end.

The Silent Sea – it's a new sci-fi drama with Gong Yoo and Bae Doo Na. It will premiere on Netflix on December 24 and I can’t wait. Here is the official trailer.


And I have a fanvid rec:

Battle Royale - Vincenzo vs The Devil Judge

I recced the excellent Vincenzo fanvid made to the same song some time ago. And this one is wonderful, too.


BL dramas

Tinted With You teaser – it looks very pretty.

And here's the trailer for another new Thai drama that caught my attention titled Not Me.

It’s about twins named Black and White. One day White gets the message that Black, who was involved with some illegal business, was viciously beaten and is now in a coma. White suspects that the attacker was one of Black’s friends, so he pretends to be Black to find out the truth.

It looks like a lot of tropey fun, and I hope it will be entertaining. It has 14 episodes and the first episode airs today evening. I currently waffling between watching the first episode as soon as it becomes available with English subs, and waiting for all the episodes to air.