It’s official, you guys. I am officially very much taken with Park Bo Gum.
Which, if I’m being honest, is a sentence I never thought I’d write.
I mean, I’d always found him pleasant enough, and on the extreme end of pretty, with his perfect skin and beautiful features, but to be officially, undeniably, strongly, hearts-in-my-eyes smitten with him?
Now that’s something I never saw coming.
So I’ve been meaning to do a k-love post for Joo Won for more than a year, ever since blog reader sarahlantz made a request (or several đ ) last year, for some Joo Won lovin’ on the site.
Honestly, I did a bunch of preliminary, er, research for this post as early as May 2014. Heh. And by research I mean spending hours and hours trawling the interwebs for Joo Won pretty. Oh, the hardship – not! XD It’s just only now that inspiration has struck in full force, for me to actually top off that research with one last burst of goodies, and put the post together. Coz yes, k-love posts need inspiration too – you guys are looking at an inspired piece of research, I swears!
Come admire, melt & swoon with me, y’all. đ
If there’s one thing that everyone seems to be able to agree on, it’s that time is flying. Like, seriously. Where has 2014 gone?
I can hardly believe that 2015 is almost here, promising/threatening gifts of dramas chock-full of vampires, multiple personalities, and other psychological disorders goodies.
Before 2014 makes her exit, though, I wanted to come out and give credit where it’s due. Coz as much as so many of my friends in dramaland have been talking about a meh drama year, I feel like I had a pretty good drama year, actually.
I know. How did that happen, right?
I can hardly believe it, you guys.. Today the blog turns one year old. ONE YEAR OLD!!
Wow.
How surreal. From being a long-term, persistent lurker around the dramaverse, it’s now been a full year since I’ve been running this blog. Which, really, is the exact opposite of being a lurker.
What a turnaround. And I never even saw it coming, even.
So, so many thoughts, y’all.
I’m excited, y’all!! I hereby bring you the first joint post this blog has ever hosted! Woot!
Most of you know by now that I’ve fallen into the habit (trap? heh.) of taking a show apart for its review, and examining each little gear and piston, and writing up a storm in the process. Although I never specifically set out to write epic reviews, it’s become a bit of a trend on this blog now, and I’m grateful to those of you who actually enjoy coming on these epic journeys with me. Thanks y’all. It means a lot, really. â¤
In the midst of all you wonderful peeps who put in the time to read my reviews and share your thoughts with me, I discovered a particular sort of connection with the lovely Betsy Hp who hosts Creating Volumes. If you’ve been following the comments threads in some of my reviews, you might have noticed that Betsy Hp and I sometimes exchange (very) large chunks of thoughts. It’s like her thoughts inspire me to more thoughts, which then inspire her to more thoughts. It’s often a cycle that evolves and grows and gives birth to new and completely unexpected thoughts and ideas, which, Too Cool.
I then said (only) half in jest to Betsy Hp, that we should try joint-posting, just to see what these thought babies might look like, given the room to grow. And so – ta-dah! – here we are! *blows noisemaker*
Join us as we dive – with our thinking caps firmly on! –Â into the twisty world of Nine!
THE SHORT VERDICT:
Grand. Sweeping. Lush. And jaw-droppingly magnificent.
In every way, from every aspect, Chuno is a literal feast for the senses, and a sumptuous one at that.
From the glorious cinematography, to the pulsing, evocative OST, to the (mostly) well-drawn, (mostly) well-acted characters and their stories, Chuno is a complete experience; one that engulfs you and takes over your very faculties.
Yes, it’s not perfect by any means. But boy, does it have a lot to offer.
Best consumed in large, generous, HD servings. Sink in and let this sexy beast blow you away. I mean the show, of course. Mostly. *cough*
So this morning I woke up to a comment on the blog, from fellow blogger Indigo that read, “Hi! I nominated you for Liebster Award” and I hafta confess, my first thought was, “Uh. This is spam, right?”
Coz up till today, I’d never even heard of the Liebster Award, but had made acquaintance with enough spam to make me immediately suspicious. I mean, sure, I follow Indigo’s (very nice) blog Between Wor(L)ds & she’s definitely legit. But I thought spiders had impersonated her by hijacking her identity or something, and posted something spammy on my blog. For serious, yo.
I’m usually a pretty trusting person. Unless it has to do with suspicious spammy spiders on the world wide web. (Ooh, did’ja see what I did there? That’s technically triple – ok, fine, double – alliteration, twice in a row!)
THE SHORT VERDICT:
A show that’s really good right away, and – gasp! – actually stays that way throughout its 28 episodes. That’s a rare, rare feat in dramaland, as we know all too well.
Gaksital is a show that manages to take a political context and ground it in the personal experience and emotion of our characters, and then by extension, help us to care about that political context in a way more visceral that I expected.
I found Gaksital intense, gripping, and gut-wrenching in some of the best ways. And I don’t even usually like shows with political contexts.
Celebrate with me! This is a double first for me: my first Year-In-Review, AND, my first guest post too! đ
This guest post is especially close to my heart because how it came about is actually the origin story of this blog.
THE ORIGIN STORY
Up to about 2 months ago, I had been a persistent lurker in the kdrama-verse. For most of my six kdrama-watching years, I visited lots of blogs regularly and kept up with the k-entertainment news and lapped up other people’s views and reviews, but I almost never commented on anything. Once in a long while, I would leave a comment somewhere, but mostly only if I had something that IÂ was just burning to say.
I’m an introvert at heart, though most people who know me in real life wouldn’t guess it, and this was my inner introvert acting out.
