media round-up + thoughts (june 2021)

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i didn't even do that much this month but yes.. hello... hi.

CONTENTS
watching
reading
listening
writing
reflections

WATCHING ▲
tv: i promised you the moon (2021) ★★★★
this is like... like it's not good except it is. i already wrote a whole dreamwidth post on how much i liked it (mostly because the last episode saved the entire show, and also because i had such a fun fannish experience with it) but i'm not sure if i would recommend it to anyone wholeheartedly the way i did with itsay... honestly i'm accepting that itsay/ipytm are both pretty flawed but like... at least the cinematography and the acting is good?!? i think i'll always have a soft spot for tehoh and their crazy tumultuous relationship tbh. and the takeaways that i got from ipytm really resonated with me, i just think the execution in the middle was a little questionable at times. i just don't want people watching this on my recommendation and then telling me that it's bad hence i will not be recommending this to anyone!!! lol.

tv: 3 will be free (2019) ★★★★.5
THE PERFECT SHOW EXISTS??? i actually think everyone should watch this show... like out of everything i've consumed in this round-up i would recommend THIS first and foremost. like yes this is a gmmtv show and it has crazy product placement and the youtube comments are full of insane stupid fujoshis BUT LIKE... this show is so good! the writing was stellar, the plot was really tight, the development of the three leads + their eventual romance was so sweet, and i just loved how deeply human every character was... no one was a truly evil person or a truly "good"/innocent person (except for maybe shin???) and it was so lovely. i don't think i've ever cried as much during an episode of tv before... IT ENDS HAPPILY THOUGH DON'T WORRY <3 unless you're miss geminiseas. [watch here]

archiving my more in-depth / spoilery thoughts right here

trying to explain why 3wbf is good but like… it just IS. it’s good. it’s definitely the best GMMTV drama AND IDK I FELT A SPECTRUM OF EMOTIONS WHILE WATCHING IT… literally going from [smiling at the screen] bcs shin is b^bie to sobbing through the finale. it’s fine though. BUT IS IT?

• i think a lot of BLs (especially gmmtv shows) falter in like… not having good female characters or literally any female characters at all? like even ipytm barely has one (1) female character and she sort of disappears halfway through and we all know what happened to TARN… don’t even get me started on the mess of 2gether or the fact that in 1000 stars… yeah. so it’s really nice to see a gmmtv show with queer themes and multiple (!!) interesting female characters
• i mean you know me i’m literally BL_SIDE_COUPLE_HATEUR… but in this show i genuinely liked all of the main 5/6 characters T___T one thing that i rlly enjoyed about the show was just how each character is soo.. human? like even if someone is sort of evil and has done terrible things they still have shreds of decency within them (ahem shin’s dad) and the show is like “yeah even if you’ve done bad things YOU STILL HAVE CHANCES TO LIVE A BETTER LIFE” which is always one of my favorite messages ever. we love it when people fuck up and make mistakes and then redeem themselves!!! anyways
• also i really liked the music and cinematography. like the music was sometimes a little “sudden” a la itsay but the actual choices made were soo pretty and i’m kind of obsessed with the theme song of the show… and then re: cinematography a lot of the shots were sooo pretty and moody and the nightclub settings were used so well ___
• THE ICONIC BISEXUALITY?? THE POLYAMORY??? THE OT3 ENDGAME?? idk it was such a good depiction of those topics imo and neo’s “i love you both, equally and at the same time” is literally like… I THINK IT’S MY FAVORITE CONFESSION EVER???? I DON’T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN it literally. i reacted so viscerally it’s not okay
• idk it’s like: every character had their own flaws and strengths and there wasn’t a single character that was like “flawless” or “vilified” … even shin (probably the audience favorite based on the comments) was sort of naive/sheltered from being RICH and lacked empathy at first / miw seeming like this perfect badass female lead but then having HIDDEN DEPTHS / neo being kind of a disaster/self-sacrificing but needing to rely on his friends in the end…
• also the ter/phon/mae triangulation is so perfect and subtle actually? like i love triangulations where two ppl become closer after the death of the shared_person that they care abt… and the way their relationship progressed and the subtle_romantic_undertones were sooo perfect. also i’m so glad that mae didn’t DIE i totally thought she was going to die …
• btw the ending is really open and ambiguous BUT LIKE I INTERPRET IT AS A HAPPY ENDING???? i hope u do the same… unless you enjoy suffering which is fine too <3
• also everyone is hot. like obviously mild & joss are hot but have you considered TAY TAWAN… sometimes a rich little gayboy can be so personal. but yeah they’re all hot. no this isn’t really relevant except it also is
• because no shows don’t have flaws, to me there are like two major flaws…
  • gmmtv PRODUCT PLACEMENT ruining my enjoyment of a cinematic masterpiece. like no it’s not that deep except it is
  • mae’s ending was reaaally ambiguous and i wish we saw more of what happened with her </3 i hope she’s ok

oh and need something bigger than the sky is basically the perfect post-canon epilogue fic!!! [read here]

movie: us and them (2018) ★★★★.5
i followed leni on letterboxd and then saw her list of favorite films and was like oooh us and them looks interesting... and i loved it!! i think i watched it pretty soon after finishing up just like another season and this movie has a lot of the same themes to me i.e. IT'S OKAY IF YOUR LOVE DOESN'T LAST <3 THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT WAYS TO LOVE SOMEONE <3 YOU CAN'T PONDER OVER WHAT-IFS YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT WHAT IS... etc. it was just nostalgic and beautiful and there were some moments that made me tear up a little, especially at the end. i also just liked how there were really nice lighthearted moments interspersed within the story too!? idk T__T i just liked this movie <3

movie: in the heights (2021) ★★★★
went to the movie theater to go see this with a friend and... the theater was COMPLETELY EMPTY except for us. so yes that was a really enjoyable experience <3 idk like i get why it had similar criticisms to crazy rich asians and LMM stuff is like... like i think this movie would hit more if i was thirteen when i watched it. but that's also because i was thirteen when all of my friends were obsessed with hamilton!? anyone else think the powerless "metaphor" was a bit too overt or anything... btw melissa barrera is So Hot. TLDR this was fun and colorful and the music was nice but like. it's also just a LMM musical that is a musical.

movie: spirited away (2001)
i feel like i didn't Get this movie so i'm not even sure if i should assign it a rating... like the animation is beautiful and so is the music but half the time i was like :D??? what is going on ??? why is there a random TWIN SISTER OUT OF NOWHERE??? etc. but it's fine i still enjoyed watching it, kind of...

kpop: i don't even know???
i'm not even going to separate this section by group this month because genuinely my kpop consumption tapered off SO MUCH... send help please.

• enhypen: i have like 14 videos (50% vlives, 50% youtube content) that are just There on my to-watch list and i've only watched en-o-clock up till episode 2... nothing much to say here i think
• cravity: slowly watching more and more vitypark... maybe i'll be luvity by the end of july, just in time for their AUGUST COMEBACK? idk, i don't have much thoughts while watching but i love jungmo (he's just... like he's a loser and i LOVE HIM?) and moguham are the best cravity ship ever, etc. also yes i think seongmin is cute but lets not talk about that
• epex: i watched one (1) random youtube video where they guessed song lyrics and then the first episode of welcome 2 house at the behest of girlrock... yeah idk either. KWAK DAWIT is kinda cute though and then keum is legitimately cute (he gives me keeho vibes appearance-wise. yes i think keeho is cute. don't inbox me) and then JEFF IS MY B^BIE... 😓

READING ▲
i genuinely did not enjoy reading this month... um... but also i think that reading books is one of my "depression activities" so the fact that i'm no longer reading exorbitant amounts of books per month is actually a Good thing? but yeah i didn't really like anything i read this month that much, and i can't tell if it's because i wasn't in the "mood" to read or if it's because like... well these books weren't super good. oops!!

• crying in h mart by michelle zauner ★★★★ — read this bcs girlrock mentioned it in her round-up last month. okay ngl since i read it at the beginning of the month and it's been a while, i sort of feel like maybe i should lower the initial rating. but i remember the parts about like missing_her_mom and also fighting with her mom a lot really resonated with me?? also the book made me so hungry like the descriptions of food were so good. <3
• enter title here by rahul kanakia ★★.5 — recommended by a cc anon. i don't think they'll ever know the extent to which this book feels like... horrifyingly relatable? i don't want anyone to read this because 1) it's a terrible book 2) finding the evil psychopathic hypercompetitive main lead relatable is like :D??? r u ok?? but umm yeah i think this is why people should stop writing books about indian nerds actually like our lives are BORING. that being said this book was actually really entertaining/hard to put down unlike some other stuff i read this month...
• my most excellent year by steve kluger ★★★.5 — this was just super cute and fun! i really like social media/mixed media/epistolary fics so it was interesting to see a ya novel in this format. also sometimes a little gay chinese theater nerd can be so personal... and i love it when books are set in boston... but also like this is just a wholesome ya novel with not much to it. etc
• the namesake by jhumpa lahiri ★★★ — mannn idk. i liked interpreter of maladies so i thought i'd check out a novel from her, but i really think her strength lies in short stories — her style gets sort of tiring in a longer format. i also just didn't really get the point of this novel like it was just a summary of this dude's life but it didn't really reach much of a conclusion to me... that being said i feel like jhumpa lahiri's strength lies in her specific details and there were definitely a lot of parts of the second-gen indian experience that resonated with me. also i just think jhumpa lahiri is slightly irritating for making every character live in new england and attend a prestigious university like Not All Indians... but whatever
• the song of achilles by madeline miller ★★★.5 — almost dnf'd this halfway through reading but then i was stuck in cape cod so i just forced myself to finish it then. i think it's a decent book and the prose is pretty lovely (a little purple prose to me at times but like... i guess it suits the time period/"classics" or whatever). it's just that i've seen this book recommended by literally every ficwriter ever and it's always cited as a formative work and JKSHDKJAG. i just think i would've gotten the hype a lot more if i was like fifteen. unfortunately three years ago i was reading the raven cycle series instead

as for fics... well idk. as usual check my bookmarks for FRIENDFIC but also...

• guys another fic i MANIFESTED now exists in the world. everyone should go read this love isn't crazy like it's actually so facking good. a masterpiece. never been done before. etc [read here]
• beat of your drum [haikyuu, kyoutani/yahaba] — AO3 USER DARKMAGICALGIRL COMEBACK?????? ngl the fact that this fic exists improved my day so much when i first found out... thank you strayion for sending it to me <3 [read here]
• it'll always be us [ateez, seonghwa/hongjoong] — did i mention that i love social media fics... like i just think they're so fun when they're done well. this excludes 99% of twitter aus though... anyways what was i saying. this fic has its fair share of westernisms but like IT'S JUST SO FUN and the formatting is GENIUS and i love seongjoong. so that's that [read here]

LISTENING ▲
total scrobbles: 1864
average scrobbles per day: 60
top artists:

1. tomorrow x together (243)
2. lorde (110)
3. between friends (108)
4. carwash (87)
5. isaac dunbar (86)
6. ethel cain (66)
7. epex (56)
8. nct dream (53)
9. tinashe (51)
10. seventeen (50)

top tracks:

1. carwash — striptease (87)
2. tomorrow x together — anti-romantic (81)
3. tomorrow x together — what if i had been that puma (69)
4. lorde — perfect places (66)
5. ethel cain — crush (64)
6. epex — lock down (44)
7. isaac dunbar — comme des garçons (like the boys) (40)
8. tinashe — pasadena (33)
9. fromis_9 — airplane mode (31)
10. seventeen — anyone (30)

okay, normally i don't talk a lot about my music consumption because it's like... i'm just a stupid kpop fan. and i have basicterrible tastes and i'm bad at listening to "objectively good" music and i don't like rina sawayama or japanese breakfast or whatever the cool kids listen to!!!! i just listen to bad noise music instead!!!!!!! but reading this post on lastfm stats made me want to reflect a little... i think my lastfm stats are also a little inaccurate in some ways. first of all, i have two last.fm profiles linked to the same spotify account yet the scrobbles were slightly off :D??? but the numbers are similar enough that i don't mind i guess. second of all, if i run on the treadmill i often "listen" to music via watching kpop comeback stages... but i only have youtube scrobbles set up on my mac... so yes this means that my epex stats should probably be higher. same for nct dream, txt, aespa, kpop_groups_who_make_bangers, etc.

my listening habits are a little different than the past months mostly because i got my license!!! and not to umm promote car culture but some songs sound really good in the car... like i think every time i drove somewhere for the first two weeks of getting my license, i'd always play striptease by carwash. hence the excessive number of scrobbles T__T also i've been driving friends around, and not that many of my irls listen to kpop (although some of them were like omg i saw ANTI-ROMANTIC on TIKTOK??!!) so that's why there are more western artists on my round-up. the normification of shakti predebut permutative... it's happening...

btw while i was finding more western music to listen to, i checked out my spotify discover weekly for the first time in literal months and then ISAAC DUNBAR — COMME DES GARCONS was the #2 song on that playlist and then i just never listened to the rest of my discover weekly... but anyways i'm obsessed with his music atm. sometimes an eighteen yr old gayboy from massachusetts can be That personal <3

one last thing: before anyone comes at me for my EPEXING...

i had to withstand this ^. and i'm honestly really susceptible to propaganda... it took me like five half-listens for me to think that lock down was a decent song but then once i stockholmed myself into it I STARTED BLASTING IT EVERYWHERE? so yeah none of this is my fault. okay? okay. btw kwak dawit is kinda h^t... but you didn't hear it from me!

WRITING ▲
well, i finished writing my jaywon summer romance fic just like another season, which is basically the ONLY THING THAT MATTERS EVER!!! just kidding. but also i haven't had much interest in fic-writing recently and i suspect that except for ficmix this might be one of my last fics for the year... i might be wrong though!!! like who knows. [read here] [fic reflection]

in terms of dreamwidth posting, i feel like i didn't do much? a lot of my posts were sort of rough/i didn't put a lot of effort into them but 1) i'm glad i started the non_kpop_ship_trend and 2) my jaywon fanmix is sort of cute and 3) my sunjay / yeonbin "thesis" is really stupid but i had fun with it!

REFLECTIONS ▲
so much happened this month!! i graduated high school, i went to "prom" (held in my school's parking lot), i got my license, i finally finished a fic i've been working on for months... i'm starting to settle into the rhythms of a summer routine and my sleep schedule is a lot better than it has been :D i've also been socializing with people more than i was able to during the school year, probably due to a combination of everyone getting vaccinated + school ending + me getting my license :')).

i kind of haven't been in the mood for consuming kpop stuff though... i think it's because stuff like vlives is like. what i used to watch when i was severely lonely and sad during jan/feb and now i'm more well-adjusted!? but idk, i kind of want to get back into kpop content just because i think i've exhausted most of the "good" BLs and umm i'm not sure if i'll like the remaining ones... (yes i'm making a judgment off of two episodes of we best love: no. 1 for you) (sorry but also :D???)

speaking of thai BLs i sort of want to write an itsay/ipytm fic just to get the show Out Of My System but i'm a little hesitant just because I'VE LITERALLY NEVER WRITTEN ANY FIC OUTSIDE OF KPOP FANNED FICTION... also there isn't a lot of thai BL fic out there for me to model stuff off of but we'll see. >__< any QBAS shipper here?

also i got my ficmix assignment and i'm pretty sure whatever i write will not be able to do the og author justice. i'm sorry i'm just not that flexible of a writer... but i'm excited to "push myself" as a writer i guess?? and i don't want to leave enha ficdom on that fic so hopefully i can do another jaywon by the end of the summer too :'))) as for why i want to Leave Enha Ficdom... well that should be obvious. i feel like it's hard to speak my opinion and i'm not even sure what the purpose of my public twitter is sometimes... LOL

oh, and i also visited cape cod briefly for the first time in my life... i didn't enjoy it but i think that's because the weather wasn't super good (too cold for the beach) and also like ummm sometimes traveling with family can be so harrowing!!! but it's fine. i hope everyone else is doing well ^^ :D