Kat

If anyone sees it from beginning to end, please come poke me if it doesn't end up in tears and tragedy. You know what I mean. I want a non-half-assed happy ending BL story.

The new king, however, didn't get what he wanted. He got what he earned himself: A spot in society where he'll be very lonely, constantly at risk and mot likely without a single soul to trust. Him getting the throne is NO reward. It's more of a curse, really. Although it ofcourse depends on how he handles it.

The thing about the King position is, that the King or Queen are the most powerless people and greatest servants having to give up their everything to do their job efficiently. That's particularly true for past time kings and queens. They may look pwerful, but they're actually at everyone's mercy. When rulers didn't understand that while clever people amongst their people did, that was when Kings and Queens got killed off for not knowing their place.

I always wonder about people striving for positions "high up". X'D That's usually not where "power" lies. The power is to be found elsewhere. Either right in the shadows at their feet, or far far far below. When people get all the way "up" the usually start to understand how little can be done from "up there". It's the irony of life!

Yeah, he was but I think it was more him feelng relief of being set free from himself. And the one to take his position, and taking over a place of lonely suffering was in a sense, the exactly right person, too.

Ending of which one and "he" referring to whom?

After "Ashes of Love" and "Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" I thought I wouldn't watch any historical drama for another very very long time. Because the frustration of seeing great romantic chemistry and amazing scenery being drowned in excessive, pointless, glorified cruelty and toxic actions, was too much. The idiotic power struggles were killing me.

And then I started this. And though there's idiotic power struggles, and some cruuelty and tragedy, it was really no problem to watch. Due to depth and sense! There's no black and white at all. Everythhing is shades of grey and everyone is shown at their best and worst. You can relate to the "villians", you can relate to "heros" not being any yet being exactly that. And the end seems like things have not turned out right yet exactly that is the case. The irony and grace of life. People's decision making is shown in detail. Cruel actions will bring internal suffering of understanding the falsness of them, even if characters may not admit it.

I can highly recommend it. The commedy parts, the cross-dressing parts are so so so fun. And the things that are hard to stomach are by no means one-dimensional. You will need courage and empathy to make it through the second half. But the amount of upright unconditional love you will find (within the conditional striving of relationship building and maintaining) is mazing.

I feel blessed for being able to feel really content with challenging dramas.
They've not left a shallow state regardless of the difficulties and imperfections.

I put this to my treasure chest next to productions like:
- The Untamed
- Goblin (2016)
- Guardian

Oh hey, I just finished "The Tale of Nokdu" drama. Have you watched this one yet?

I happened to watch two dramas dealing with very heavy traumas and crazy lost people and toxic behaviour, while featuring commedy. I can highly recommend it. It's my personal perspective of really impressive story telling. It shows the complexity of each type of character, the balance is right, the folly fits the historical context and social structures. People hurt each other, too, and the couple has communication issues, too, but the balance is overall different. :) The couple's integrity is very high. They allow themselves to be hateful yet ultimately noone - particularly not the "villians" (="victims of themselves and circumstances") getting to their answrs and course of actions simply! Nothing and noone is gloriefied or painted as pure black. Every action is followed by very complex consequences.

Both dramas feature similar elements. But for various reasons their messages, conclusions and qualities differ greatly. Because the TharnType actors created a great atmosphere, I would have loved for them to be placed into a story setting equally well balanced. But ofcourse I'm aware of real life issues like budget and differences in talent and so on. Each work can serve for something. A not-so-good example is only a chance for growth in future. It's just that pinpointing the problematic parts comes before making improvements, right?! :D

Sorry, but I'm a very positive person. and obe that puts a lot of thought before forming an opinion. I also look through all good sides and count those in. Sometimes the good poins will be enough to outweigh the negative ones. "The Untamed" is a good example. Or "Guardian", s well as "Close-Knit".
I can very well appreciate the good sides of this drama, however, this time around they are going under in an initially good plot that has been sacrificed for the sake of excessive drama.

So please do not be the one who twists everything into a negative direction. Doing so by assuming I'm one of those negative people easily putting down a drama just because it's being difficult. I am upset exactly because they abandoned the complexity and went for the simple "The jealous outsider is ruining the whole relationship(s)" solution instead. Type's trauma, for example, that was well made complexity. Putting rapists and maniacs around every corner as an excuse for non-stop problems, is lazy writing! Particularly, because its set in modern times, not the middleage!!

Anyways, I wanted to set that part straight. Asides of that I can very well accept that we both maight not agree on this. I'm sure there are viewers who'll share your as well as my preferences. Our discussion might help them to decide if they'd like to give it a try or not. Both is fine. :)

There we go. Exactly as I said. (-_-#) It's a pathtic mess.
Duh, at least now I know it's not going to become much worse than it already is. Which is enough to give me a reason to finish watching at least. So thank you for the link.

It's still really really really sad. Everything is poisoned and the message of the drama stays the same: "Being the good, trusting, loving person is a suicide mission".

Think about it: Just how much sense does it truly make to break up just for a "real reaction". Leaving your lover to suffer instead of at least plotting WITH him. How about simply telling him? (~_~#) And the abuse is not resolved, the toxic person is still going around and is likely to cause more harm in future. The drama is an assortment of massive human failure. (T~T) I might have to correct my rating further downwards when it's finished. ////orz////

We'll see. Now, the thing is, that looking at Type's reaction and words, I think he might have left on purpose to reveal who's complicating things for them. It's just a gut feeling.

The problem is, that at this point, even if they "resolve" things, it will not change that there has been a lot of really ugly behaviour and stress and tears and either way: "outside" issues going over the top and killing the mood throughout the second half of the series.

I don't mind revising my opinion and I've gone through my share of dramas of all comlexities and toxic levels. I'm able to stomach some high level of toxic behaviour in favor of a really good greater picture, life lesson or otherwise amazing couple setting. I'll be glad if episode 12 can at least save something for me, really. But at the moment, playing through any possible reasoning and outcomes from what we've seen, does not make me hopeful. Regardless of my blooming fantasy, things look really bad. I can't say "if xyz happened, then that'd save it for me". Even a "Type wakes up from a terrible dream" setting wouldn't fix it for me and that's like....THE situation saver No.1 X'D

Maybe I should mention that my standards as to what I consider a good or bad relationship story are very specific due to being an empath.

You're really welcome to spoil me on the brilliance and complexity. When things are like this I'd rather find closure now and watch it calmly later than dreading if it's going to be "bad" or "worse". (=.=)

It started as a mess, that did make some sense, though. Which made it good, especially because they were actually going through growth together and challenging internal issues.

And then, regardless of their good chemistry, it became one of those victims to absolutely disproportional sick outside toxic. And it's like there are no helpful adults, friends, authorities and no to mention no known effective mature solution patterns to the main couple. (=_=)

It's really frustrating enough when the overall story is a mess. It's reallly unspeakably frustrating when you have a production with really ALL the necessary things to be awesome, and then the story writers slap on one ridiculous toxic action after another. Until the only concllusion can be "being a loving, caring person is nothing short of a suicidal attempt". Because guess what, making it through one insanity will only have you clash into the next. Characters give absolutely impssible promises like idiots and question their goddamn whole relationship again reanimating old patterns upon every disturbance instead of using their brains and standing together.

My rating has dropped from 8.5 to 5 and only, becauese the actors have a really great chemistry. (-_-'''''')

I'm going to rewatch some "Until we meet again" for healing purposes. Which is pure sugar BL so far although it started off a tragedy (show me those two BLs having none. No don't, Im sure I've seen them already.)

I loved him as secetary in Goblin! He can pull a straigh face in odd situations and then put on a very elegantly loving expression, too.

It's a Happy Ending, it just takes a whole while.

You should watch this if you're interested in life cycles and love throughout ages.
If you require, you'll find a spoiler comment below this pointing out what type of ending is awaiting you.

At this point I'd like to address a few issues I saw people struggling with:

- Some people said the lead female is annoying. From my point of view either both females are, due to a somewhat typical Korian female charcter setup. Or none of them is. It's true that the lead actress is being rather noisy as a character at the beginning, but that's human psychology. Consider her situation. It's a self-protective mechanism to be pro-active and smile through pain.

- Some people were annoyed with the god(s) in this drama. I highly suggest you approach it with a philosophy of:
"Whatever you see, the driving force to everything god(s) do(es) is love". And...
"Human freedom is the choice to abstain from it in order to be able to see."

You will see painful situations, but that's a limited human perspective. And it's absolutely OK to take that perspective. It's just that understanding the "higher" perspective, requires for you to look at the greater scale beyond human limitations. This is just my personal opinion based on my own experience, but it's a very good "school" or very good "repetition", if you've encountered that perspective already. It's also one of those things that you can explain and take in logically, but not troughly understand until you actually go there. Everyone goes there. It's a matter of life's flow. :3

- Thanks to the internet you can skip long opening re-cap scenes or repeated flashbacks. Those were a little too much, yet I liked them at times, too. I'd take time to look at what happens in detail or in the background. The scene cuts and music cuts were a bit odd at times.

- There's logic to everything in this drama as far as I see. If you find yourself misssing a connection, feel free to discuss it.


Now to the very positive side:

- This drama has bromance that is really really really bromantic and it's not on the "cover romance under bromance, hello censorship"-type. It's the state you want to have reached with at least one friend or sibling in life, really. The type of accepting relationship that is love and simply abstains from the sexual level to some degree or another. So close to overcome really difficult conflicts, yet far away enough to not get into other types of very difficult conflicts.

- The acting was great (considering the typical elements to Korean productions). The kissing scenes weren't the best but good enough.

I've not seen the show (yet), but let me say this: maturity is not quite a matter of age and love doesn't give a damn about age either. X'D

I'm talking from experience. Age is a nice little number but at the end of the day it say very little. I know old people so immature that I've been shaking my head in disbelief and frustration at the age of 11 over them. Now I'm 30 and I'm still often shaking my head with a sigh over people claiming to be adult seniors with "more experience". Especially those talking back to children who are at times by far more (emotionally, psychologically, socially) intelligent and mature in their values.

From a certain grade of maturity, even with the lack of experience you'll eventully be fully capable of asserting how you feel about another person. And if dedicating time and attention to them makes sense for you or not. Although extra caution is good when it comes to minors, their age as such is and should never be claimed being a valid argument against love. And age gap isn't either. Now, a big gap in maturity can be an issue if the more mature person doesn't understand what they can ask of the other and what not. That person can be the younger one within a relationship, mind you X'D

I like to put "age", next to "gender" and "skin color" amongst many others on my "things that have no saying in love"-list. Which partially is also my "Things barely telling you anything about a person"-list. And also "I wonder why people still bother like it's an issue (°_°)"-list.

(^_~)

Edit: I forgot to say: I do ofcourse understand personal preferences. It's just that this is a common odd one that tends to limit people unnecessarily. So I want to address it after having to hear out people judge my own (past) and other relationships for reasons that are not valid.

Shoot. Timeline just "fixed" itself for me X'D. I wrote another entry on the mechanics between time and that it does not exist in first place. But then I accidentally hit a key and seem to have closed down the tab.

I've had this before. It happens when I'm not supposed to say something OR there's a problem with the how/when.
So: dear future reader, if you are the one I'm supposed to directly discuss this with, then poke me about it. I will write to you about the concept of time when you ask. That'll open the opportunity to directly ask questions. And eventually I'll have gathered further insights by then. :P

Here's my theory on the dynamics:

When you travel back, then what you do is shifting the focus from one possible reality to another parallel timeline. However, JUST for that particular moment. Which means, that the changes are limited to that short meeting. After that, the timeline "fixes" itself by all means, in order to maintain an integrity.

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Example 1:

The older sister goes back. She actually changes the events of that meeting with her sister. She retains the memories of both experienced timelines. You could say both timelines are "active" next to each other at the same time.

Like these symbols: -----<>- -----

There's a linear time flow until it parts in two equally existing strings, before it returns back to one string. Time fixes itself by having the younger sister disregard her older sister's warning regarding her accident as a joke!!

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Example 2:

Kazu (future) sends back her daughter to her "past". Her daughter does NOT change anything. She simply pops up to do exactly what she is meant to do within the linear time flow.

Kazu (present) is sent back. She meets her mother (future). She does NOT change anything. She simply has the experience that she is meant to have within the time flow. You can say, that this action IS the result of the linear timelime repairing/maintaining itself in a loop type motion.

Kazu's mother (future) drinks her coffee, but there is no returning for her. And yet, in a sense there is. It's a combination of time splitting and going into a loop.

------<>------ In one timeline the mom does not make it in time. She does not return. In the other parallel version, she does make it in time. The timeline fixes itself, by validating both truths!!! In Kazu's present, her mother has returned but has not returned. She's a ghost.

We know that another woman of the family has been in the Ghost state before. And that the next person who does not return in time, will take the place of the previous person.

Why is that? The linear time requires a guardian in order to permit or deny access to it's travel function. Because you can only travel, when the ghost leaves the place!! The ghost also sets the timing of reclaiming their place and they serve as a warning for people attempting to change the time flow. Because they DO change time. They change their future (after gaining an alternative experience) and change the past (limited to the events of their tea session, for integrity reasons.)

Hence, I guess that the moment a new ghost is created, the old ghost runs into a "dead end". They are henceforth limited to the times they have previously existed in. Aka, they die, like everybody else.

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This movie has a tiny issue with it's timetravel dynamics. Though after through consideration, it's not like a contradiction or like its "wrong" in it's dynamics. It's just hard to understand if you're not common to all the possible rules that apply. I'll explain the dynamics below for people who are done watching!!!

Asides of that, it's absolutely fantastic. Bring tissues for all types of tears. Definitely watch it. This is one of those movies that gasp the essence of life very very well.

I saw a cover and a title of the new book shown by some fans somewhere after the title was announced and the style told be instantly it's no Untamed. It aactually didn't play into any of the previous visuals so I assume it's an entirely new story. I think I remember it looking more modern, but my memory of it is blurry and it's currently too late to look it up.

X'D Yes! Washing clothes.

Question: What exactly makes you think he isn't? (°_°)

And let's put any conversation on our viewpoints regarding this be hidden under spoiler tag, starting from here. Just in case.