ammmz

ok good luck to you on your future endeavors

it's weird that the very thing used on women that seeps into every societal ill is completely ignored because sexual formation is STILL based on passive/active. queerness does not evade patriarchal structures at all and it cannot. so the wife/husband thing is not only stupid, fetishizing, it is misogynist and that comes /with/ heteronormativity. i don't complain about wife/husband only because they're two boys— there's the basic assumption that it is only that it makes them women (transphobia as well) but also because a woman is intrinsically supposed to be receiving and we are stamping patriarchy on it but there's no such queer exceptionalism where we evade it. we are tied to shackles of femininity that men created and continue to create. we have to come to terms with the complicity in subjugation if we talk about this and that includes queer people, particularly [cis] men who like men. this is something audiences cannot divorce because the reference point is women otherwise it wouldn't be an issue. it's not simply heteronormativity

a fundamental issue is removing a woman and that not being loaded with gender roles and misogyny. you can't do that without acknowledging the woman as the object. the baggage is intrinsic to its presentation/formation in e v e r y t h i n g and in this case the japanese woman in particular.

idk what you mean about being objectified because objectification must come with subjugation to exploit, commodify, degrade in character. so you can't love someone if you see them as a commodity and the issue with people is that many do see others as commodities—most of us do—which is why we can easily isolate but misconstrue objectification AND practice it.

your last sentence (and i am sorry you went through that btw, that shit is traumatic) is the real meaning of it on a personal level. that is not in a sexual nature and it isn't about sex. objectifying is about exploitation in a power dynamic that permeates everything. that's what we mean about objectification of women. me wanting to be called a slut in bed, thus being faux-objectified, isnt the same as being the literal object (although i have to wonder why i want that.) i am not a fuckpuppet on other people's terms; that would be objection. there is an allure of someone thinking too highly of another and that person being bogged down by it but still wanting power but that isn't objectifying. it's always fun (to me) when they are taken down as well and their insecurities come to the forefront.

there is no partial beneficial objectification. we're people. it's all about the interpersonal experiences in a larger world. but there is no way to examine the perils of objectification without women and therein lies a huge problem if we believe so. it's hegemonic masculinity that cannot be avoided unless it is intentionally looked at with care and it fails almost always since women are removed from the equation entirely when it rests on the very formation that men created and indulge which, in turn, is why these female writers do it. i'm not sure how femininity became a common denominator esp when used to shield critique from other gender and sexual minorities (i am sure actually) but it's really myopic and frustrating when talked about in PARTICULAR with BL.

no i can but you are contradicting yourself a lot. i think you could summarize it by saying that it hurts your feelings when someone says stuff like that instead of needing to defend yourself for what you enjoy and to explain it away.

you say people throw the word toxic around—which sure but who cares? or talk about it ? it's not gonna kill anyone and a lot of people exaggerate or overstate; it's the internet—and you also throw the word around whether in willful obtuseness or a genuine impression. this was over innocuous comments from a person stating their feelings and opinions, one of which is supported by many and not just a baseless accusation as people seem to think, and a whole show with faulty structures. on top of that, you say that the person is blaming you when they did no such thing.

so the only thing i can think is that the issue must be that your feelings are hurt about dissent because you value the show. yet you seem to be unconcerned about the real things this person brought up /while they said they enjoy it/ and defended what doesn't need to be defended which was the point of their comment. what are they blaming you for when there's nothing to blame someone for? over what, your enjoyment of the show? you're missing their point entirely.

on top of that you are comparing apple/orange situations which leads me to believe, again, it isnt about the content at all that people dislike they just dont want the show to be criticized and equate it to a personal affront. there is not a person on earth who has claimed that you saying something to your friends is toxic but that's not what this is about, is it? that's on you though and your interpretation notice how i said nothing about your value as a human being or what watching this show says about you.

idk if i made this clear but i am emphasizing a difference between jong woo and the tenants. him having a mental break is not the same as people being evil for one reason or another. to me the point was there was a massive difference and his spirit had to be broken and his mind controlled exacerbated by other things (something like schizophrenia not psychopathy or anything) so they never won in showing who they believed he "truly was" or could carve out of him to prove intrinsic evilness because he wasn't his own human anymore. lead poisoning leads to higher violence in a population; as things with lead and lead poisoning etc go down so does crime. CTE's can give you a distorted perception and trigger violence. alcohol and drugs can skew your mind, psychotic breaks, etc so /those/ were made but not his nature if you get me? i also think this is highlighted by the literal "criminal" character (how he looks/acts) and the true criminals . he was violent but it rests on survival and his job but we wouldnt put him in the same category.

the looks v. the nature. people kept trying to tell jong woo who he was while the others readily accepted. i think his need to be his own person is antithetical. people confused his desire to self-regulate with a desire to conceal and they kept saying show us who you truly are——but he has been.

in contrast the rest were broken from the doorstep including ki hyuk and even more so that they talked about making him a new person and he /stayed/ but i think i also fundamentally disagree on moon jo wanting people's differences because there must be a dominant figure and when modeling people in the image he wants (moon jo) he effectively wants them to become him but not usurp his seat. that's what the nature of these people are all about and hegemony must be enforced. to be the god in the way that it is viewed in repressive terms means you must fear him and be controlled. and lack of self worth is intrinsic to these people, again, because no sense of self and a haughty inflated ego and lying about the management of your feelings is exactly what these people do.

jong woo is a perfect representation i think of that push and pull and what happens when you have a true individual who doesn't lie. he may repress but he is absolutely a human being in the way that the others aren't nor can enjoy life which is why we stick with him til the end and why the end is (kinda in the diff interpretations) confounding. the whole show is a massive conundrum but ki hyuk made a misstep somewhere and he had to be thrown away. moon jo wants jong woo to be the new ki hyuk but jong woo isnt pulled to that and it was also shown he very much despised groupthink. i would also say killing everyone is the only way out and had to happen. the only way to escape the abuser is being cut off and they wouldnt let go. unfortunately in that desire to escape he fragmented. that is another thing that shows that this is, actually, abnormal to people and to him.

i think knowledge of the webtoon and king eyes really was a great choice to shake up the knowlege that poeple have with the webtoon and introduce the struggle. his limited time was very profound

i really recommend trap if no one has seen it. it's part of this dramatic series for OCN and is also bonkers insane and a question of humanity and peoples clash with it and hegemony. it has an incredibly gruesome end though but idk. i do find the question of born/made evil to be trite so i am glad when it isnt so easy to find an answer. also another question i think the show posed: what is justified for survival and protection? any action taken on jong woo's part would be the desperation and just how much they needed him to crack and he couldnt and eventually outsmarted them all. ki hyuk believed himself to be too high, as did the rest, so did he ever erally change? not that i think moon jo thnks about that, i think moon jo first and foremost thinks about himself and his control which was ultimately his downfall too

he had a psychological break

holy shit i ok i finished reading this is a well-done analysis!

i cannot say i think about him that often but yes he made an impression! his importance is crafted perfectly as an intermediary between the first and second half of the show (even if it was like only 1/3 in but whatever) particularly as an influence and second-tier of moon jo. or whatever that seems to be. a fundamental part of the insanity of these characters is their lack of sense of self and their entitlement which is why jong woo is a foil even to the end. it's a masterclass in sadistic narcissists or whatever and their NEED for dominance and it's interesting to see how they all fail but so desperately want to climb to drain more people of worth and prove their point which, i then argue, wasn't proven at all outside of a complete overhaul of jong woo's perception of reality.

they all knocked it out of the park but even as his character was in a shorter time-span he certainly was memorable. as a prototype for crazy jong woo is a really great assessment i never totally connected/realized this!!! there's a clash in jong woo's tenacity and his normally constructed anger v. what they wanted to do to him (and eventually sorta did) and if ki hyuk as a character had been up to the task would he have been able to fulfill any ultimate project of the tenants?

"He also reflects Jong Woo’s final form, the insanity and violence driven by self-satisfaction and repressed emotion"

i think these two ideas clash which is why jong woo was human and they weren't. the nature of who they were, and there's complexity to that which they didnt give us and it was a good choice, was always meant for a blood end and constant discarding. jong woo's efforts to be discarded were exactly what made him have to stay and for them to leech off of. that is to say without an insane mental break as evidenced i don't think jong woo could have ever succeeded like ki hyuk did and that is exactly why it was so easy to discard him when he displeased moon jo. also i think we were surprised at his death? i dont remember but i do remember thinkng while they were in the car "omg is he gonna die??!?" and it seemed like he got away right? but didnt? lmao

i may have a diff impression of jong woo than others but he was the healthy person and the rest were only trying for destruction contained solely in that house and there was bound to be a melee. i don't think jong woo likes that destruction it was his mental fortitude against insanity and [potential since the end is open to so many different strings] and maybe that challenge wasn't good enough for moon jo. idk where i'm going with this but was kihyuk too bad? but the tenants were underestimating just how normal jong woo's behavior was in the real world and his personal desires outside of the group.

"A notable scene that encapsulates this aspect of his character completely is in episode two, when he reprimands one of the Kiwi twins for leaving one of their victims unattended. Ki Hyuk simply sits in silence and stares the twin down, almost expectantly, which prompts the twin to start hitting and punishing himself for his transgression. Ki Hyuk shows no sign of stopping the twin until they are interrupted, not even when the man has poured a pot of boiling ramen on himself. "

this scene was bonkers because you sit there and you're like "WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN" and i think it subverted our expectations in its climax yet anticlimactic nature. i was expecting some sort of violence but not self-flagellation as urged by someone else. but i guess this whole show is, indeed, that.

i have to agree as well that the lack of background information is a huge plus to the show because the only character that we should have a connection with on a human level is jong woo and we are scared he will lose that—but how? and how did the others lose it? here is where i'd argue that the question of monsters being born or made is inconsequential since it's the outcome of it. since we don't know much it's hard to think that as the tenants came to the table there wasnt something sincerely off that jong woo was not bringing to the table until his perception and sense of self was so degraded that there's a break in reality and cntrol of self but that is different than the tenants which is how i see, personally, there is nothing he succumbed to but that these character brought massive vulnerability and an already eroded spirit/inflated sense of self/entitlement so it turns murderous when they dont get what they want as evidence by ki hyuk's acting until the end.

thank you so much for writing this!!!

i dislike sartre but this is an important quote he has to clarify to keep in mind:
"Hell is other people" has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because … when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves.

additionally, the metamorphosis (kafka) comparisons are adjacent to this interpretation because kafka was seeing himself in the abuser's eyes (his dad) for a majority of his life. it majorly effected his sense of self as it is wont to do. the open-endedness of life doesn't have to confound us but when people need answers and to dominate and do what they believe they should be able to (entitlement) what jong woo wanted most was a job, a place to stay, and his girlfriend. also the age gaps are important since he is young and susceptible but ki hyuk should have been at a better stage. the more i think of it the more i notice him in contract to ki hyuk and moon jo and how he was the break in the structure of the chain of command and self-understanding in the house.

ty for this review! well-rounded :) cos i can never get a good impression with shows like this unless u want to be yelled at lol. maybe i /will/ finish since ur honest about it

GOD FORBID

you call yourself a fujoshi....these comments are so bizarre...the hypocrisy

so you were triggered but don't want everyone to call things toxic? interesting.

so you were triggered but don't want everyone to call things toxic? interesting.

this is a cut ecomment lmao

this isnt to say i wont finish bc i am curious about how i will feel and if i feel their pain. not sure. an addendum: i have quit cherry magic and vanishing my first love because it's too saccharine and, while cute, it is sterile and the conflicts come up short and drag-y. so i'm not into that and am not asking for it lol.

great comment! and it doesnt have to be a personal front when people talk about it critically, or angrily, or in a joking manner...because these shows /are not who we are/ and that's the sad thing. bc of [c word] people derive the pleasure through the things they consume and that is intrinsically tied to its content but most overwhelmingly the reception of the content.

i've noticed that it's more people being scared about what potential word of mouth could do—people shying away from the show, potential judgement, not watching it—which is funny because 1. why are WE as viewers and audience people trying to convince other people whether it’s bad/good and thinking we are important enough to control viewership through individual actions particularly, if not especially, as foreigners. another thing is the assumption that people in these countries ALSO don’t have complaints when, i assure everyone, they do. women have existed for centuries being the loudest voices for change.

i’m not gonna get into capitalism and neoliberal stuff here but it’s not a competition of who can get people on “their side” because it does. not. matter. critiques are critiques and people are going to choose one way oro another—that is not up to us to control. but with the anger that comes with people saying something negative aboout something they hold so dear but is not their whole personage, it makes me think about how tied we are to these things...

re: your insistence (not in a rude way sorry cant find another word) about the fictionality of it and downplaying its role (real/fake). who we are as human beings iscomplex. there's a healthy boundary that people cross and the power structures matter. this rship is most certainly not a one-off or an "untrue" story. many of us are traumatized and unwell and have learned selfishness or victimhood. there's a certain desensitization as evidenced by the sheer amount of negotiation on what is healthy/unhealthy and it is not black and white. however it is a reflection of our society and it has to be otherwise where would these judgements come from? the issue grows deeper when you have to litigate what constitutes as harm or assault and that is, i think, the biggest detriment and the most disgusting. a huge issue here is, for example, the way people view parents roles in real life and in popular culture. lemme cap that here

i wonder with such tropes, esp geared towards girls and women and because they are a majority in the populations who watch/read romances (and horror cos we are cool), like this is so popular...why? why are we drawn to toxicity? and is there any value of upholding it? i'm not saying it goes or stays btw bc i don’t think it can or even should but i think that [the general] you must be okay with dissenting opinion; that’s the way this works. and while people do not look for these shows for advice they are still influential in some way. artists know that.

a lot of the times, people like me at least and i am 29 (old) and have a completely diff experience than most ppl in fandom(s) for several reasons, tend to find no merit in these “salacious” type of things because there is a lack of logic and consequences within the story, production isnt solid enough, some strange choices made etc and that’s….bc it is a piece of work going into our eyeballs.

because of the illicit nature and what it rouses in people, the story does take a backburner which is a constant thing i see across the board in romances. the question of its alluring nature is not an indictment of the spectator though…but it’s troubling that to feel better internally the idea that it could be wrong or off has to be justified because it /is/ you, you are what you consume and you would never do that, right? well yea that’s why it’s a show which people only seem to get when critique comes up. then we get into the dilemma of people hating that they feel bad that people judge them even if it's a select few or whatever. the overwhelming majority of people are never going to go against the grain if a show like this is as talked about/popular as it looks like in this post. that’s not ideal for someone wanting a review that is critical but it doesnt mean i am now convinced to not watch because /i am an adult/

i'm down for some insanity but insanity MUST have consequences or change. the fall is the part we wait for and we can't erase the history of how they got there.

there are for sure things i cannot fucking stand and stay away from but sometimes you get got. one of my fav dramas has an issue that they managed to get around but it is uhhhh still an issue if i use my logical brain. it’s not as bad as it sounds but it is actually lmao. and yet it's great.

im not gonna convince or try to convince peope it isnt weird when it is. or lie about the weirdness and how i think it fits into the story. what about shows with despicable characters that we don't want to see succeed but watch. a compelling show like that could be breaking bad, succession (?), stranger (kdrama) , sky castle (kdrama) stuff like that. there's characters i just wanna watch and with a good balls to the wall story it immerses you. this could be that for some people! valid. but why do we have to explain that every single time? besides immaturity as fandom culture. i will say that there's a language/cultural barrier because so many of us come from diff places and there's a lot of crossed wires as well. some ppl are way more sensitive than others too, younger, different, etc and most people on the internet are probably needing a distraction or downtime or even depressed or struggling so i get it, personalities clash. but my god.

there is no reason for it to be this much of an affront to the spirit. of course my knee-jerk reaction to something i love and another person may not or has a different critique and i dont agree or dont get what a person doesn’t see is to get a little annoyed and waant to defend it. but then i come back down to earth and realize that this person isn’t me and it means nothing to my enjoyment. and i’ll keep their critique in mind (or if they are mean about it but whatever who cares) and then laugh to myself as i watch bc theyre WRONG (to me) it’s a personal experience we want to talk about and share with other people and that means allowing dissent and absolutely normal critique.

btw a story not supposed to be fluffy = / = this story specifically. fandom is fickle and can never ever make up its own mind about what counts and doesn't count. it's so much more of a nuanced convo then is even capable on here . it's a shame but oh well

why do you care so much?

ty!!

probably regulations

the 0 char growth of these type of chars is the most frustrating. at least if it's going to be a mental slog there should be some modicum of change but i guess this trope relies on it...

it's more misogynist than heteronormative (or they are so linked) since it banks on women's subordination and formations of gender have been put in the active/passive role . extremely insulting to all women (cis and trans), gay/bi men and men who have sex with men, and, yes, heteronormative but something all too often indulged. but these things are built off of one another. it's not that they put it in the BL, it's that the world can barely move on from it and you can see with the manifestations and how heavily shows, and yes BLs in a stark way, use it. it's no coincidence that it hinges on woman's "inherent" subservience. i only say this because i think people forget that heteronormativity includes a [generally cis for ppl] woman who carries the burden but is altogether left out in her role as the intermediary as the passive role.