Anne: …Another month has passed since my last post… And K Pop Demon Hunters became the number 1 album for a week. The phenomenon of this thing continues to amaze me. And the songs continue to invade my house and my ears. It’s not that it bothers me too much… I mean, it’s K pop… so… you know… I can always find a way to like it.
If you’re in the US, Halloween fell on a Friday this year…and we went out dancing at our usual spot. What I didn’t expect was how long the queue would be at 9:30 p.m. The line went around a block. We went to the same place for Halloween almost every year, not always on Halloween night obviously, but I’m pretty sure we went there on another Halloween when it was Friday night. I seriously don’t remember looking like that…
(The photo is blurry because I took this photo when we left a little after 12:30 a.m…. And the queue is only about a third of the way. You can’t see the club because the end of the building is on the right.)
The queue didn’t seem to have gotten any shorter after 3 hours.
Over the past few weeks, I haven’t really finished many series, except for short dramas. However, at the beginning of this article…guess what came out this week?
Strange Tales from the Third Tang Dynasty
I can’t believe there is a third season of this. But I’m pretty excited about it. And it’s wonderful that the main characters continue to be played by the same actors. So… our investigation team has returned to Chang’an.
There’s just one tiny problem.
I don’t even remember what happened in the second season. Well… I remember that Lu Ling Feng is the son of the Great Princess and the power struggle between her and the Emperor. And that’s all I remembered…
So…I’ll probably spend a few days rewatching seasons 1 and 2, just to remember what happened in the world. Although I don’t think it really matters… I can’t wait to continue the series!
The reason I started this article was actually to talk about an interesting observation I just encountered while watching a drama. The toxic character, and how the same “person” can be the ML in one and the bad guy in the other.
I know I’m choosing this topic from BL drama characters, partly because I just watched these two dramas back to back and the similarities between these two characters are so striking that even I could make a connection…
The one on the left is Hua Yong (Desire ABOOr Want the seriesdepending on where you get the English title) and the one on the right is Sin Jae Min (Secret relationships). If you read my last post, you will know that Hua Yong is the ML of his story, which would make Jae Min the villain. These two men are rich, powerful (in their own way, since we all know the ABO world has fantastic power beyond our normal reality), and the kindest, most helpful person the ML has ever met. Both were obsessed with the object of their desire. How obsessive have they become? Let’s take a look….
1. Both pretended to be something they’re not – Hua Yong transformed himself into a “person” that Shao You usually dates, pretending to be weak and meek, basically the damsel in distress that Sheng Shao You must “save”. When in reality, Hua Yong was more powerful than most of the population and certainly didn’t need to be “saved” by anyone. Jae Min played the exact opposite, he played the big brother/friend who is always “there” to help Jung Da On. When in reality he was acting like a friend because he believed he was the
only way to be forever in the presence of Da On.
2. Both created situations in order to manipulate their target – Hua Yong created situations for Shao You to save him, then created situations in which Shao You would feel indebted for certain sacrifices. (Hua Yong went so far as to make Shao You believe that he had sold himself to get the drugs Shao You’s father needed.) Jae Min created situations in order to save Da On or those around him, so that Da On would feel forever indebted to him for all his help. I guess the only difference between the ML and the villain at this point is that Hua Yong always puts himself in dangerous situations. While the villain deliberately put Da On’s sister in dangerous situations. I mean, he even put Da On himself in dangerous situations.
3. Both used their “friend” (and I use that term loosely because neither of them really have friends) to fabricate a reality – Hua Yong did it to inspire jealousy. Granted, he also did it as a trap to lure Shao You, making Shao You believe that the “friend” has the drugs Shao You needed for his father. Jae Min made a pact with his “friend”, who also had designs on Da On, to pretend to be in a relationship with Jae Min in order to force this “friend” into the same friend zone as Da On. And then Jae Min created situations to make this “friend” express his aggressive anger on purpose, making Da On afraid. (I have to say, Jae Min was a good manipulator. He told another man who also liked Da On to get him drunk and take advantage of him. At the same time, he lured the “friend” to witness it, knowing full well that the “friend” would beat the other guy half to death. Thus, Jae Min was able to forever portray the “friend” as someone Da On should avoid.)
I really enjoyed watching these two characters. Hua Yong because he has supernatural powers… who wouldn’t like that? And that he always spoke softly, even when he was very scary. Jae Min… this man was something else. I swear I never even suspected his character until it was revealed. And even though I knew I shouldn’t have believed that a man who had worked so hard for YEARS would just “let go”, I still believed it for a second until Da On was kidnapped. At this point, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who the kidnapper was.
Here’s something funny though, the two stick to one of the oldest plotlines in Asian dramas…the childhood encounter. From the last post, we all know that Hua Yong fell in love with Shao You because of an interaction they had during their childhood. For Jae Min, he was adamant that Da On should be with him because they met first… however, the person who ultimately ended up with Da On, Seong Hyeon, met Da On even earlier, in a similar situation that led to their meeting at the beginning of the drama.
And that’s the end of the post this time. Unfortunately, the only new drama that has caught my attention is Strange Tales. Sigh…I wonder when I’ll get out of this drama hole I’ve been in for a while.
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