AChaoticNeutralWriter

On this blog you’ll (eventually….maybe) find:

Random writing blurbs and drabbles

Occasional K-drama/show analysis

Some recommendations (shows, playlists, etc)

Quotes to dwell on

Other writing stuff

Mood boards(?) (we’ll see)

You can call me Kat (my nickname because I like cats and apparently act like one)

“Immortal Properties

By Thomas Pitt”

Because Esther’s gone now, and unless there’s some sort of rule involving witches and their familiars preventing him otherwise, I’m assuming he’s free to go anywhere he wants.

I like to imagine that Monty keeps flying and flying and flying until he ends up in a certain someone’s realm (don’t ask me the logic behind that there is none) and meets another supernatural bird who’d also spent some time as a human once.

Matthew is very happy to have another corvid friend.

It got me thinking about these dramas and the seasons. Even though 19th life takes place in spring story-wise, I think both dramas have a summer feel, just in different ways.

OBS has a more nostalgic feel to it. I thought 19th Life would be like that too considering Ji-eun’s past lives play an important role, but while OBS seems to portray summer -- their beloved summer of the past when they were kids -- as full of happy memories to look back on, 19th Life focuses on the summer of the present, one that is more focused on grief.

I’m very glad that the drama is airing in the summer at the very least though. It’s very fitting thematically.

Summer is a perfect setting to explore grief. Grief is lingering and a distortion of time. It may fade as the years go by and you can find yourself being happy again, but it never fully goes away and it affects our perception of time similar to how summer can be sunny and joyful, but there are also days that are slow and unending while summer nights often feel like liminal spaces where time doesn’t exist. This is even more perfect considering how living must feel so long for Ji-eun who has lived nearly 2 dozen lives so far. Grief is suffocating. Especially in the early days, it feels like there’s a hole in your chest similar to how summer heat can make the air feel heavy and the humidity can make you feel uncomfortable.

Like, we already see him trying to play it cool, like for example, the texting scene where he’s like, I’m busy after work, or when he sees her while she’s working and he’s like I can spare some of my precious time for you.

We can already see that this whole pretense thing kinda backfires on him and it’s kinda typical of ml (especially in powerful positions) to be kinda prideful, so I just want him to figure that this ain’t working and be so happy with his relationship that he drops all of this pretense, humbles himself before her and just be a complete dork in love.

This episode literally made me teary eyed because it was so, so relatable.

Children grow up hearing that they need to do well in school to have a good future, and that makes sense. It’s an understandable argument. Money may not buy happiness, but it can certainly help enable it. Education is an amazing opportunity that not everyone gets to have unfortunately, but it’s costly too, in every sense of the word.

For some reason, My Liberation Notes kind of reminds me of Hospital Playlist. They’re so different in terms of plot and vibes, but I think they’re almost like two sides of the same coin.

Both have a sort of slice of life aspect, where characters deal with their day to day lives. Hospital Playlist takes it more lightheartedly where you know everything will always work out in the end, and where joy is found in the little everyday moments. The characters all have their own issues, and while they often work it out on their own, all the character relationships are so interconnected and they’re all supporting each other. Meanwhile, My Liberation Notes is a lot more melancholic, where the characters try to cope with the monotonous workings of everyday life. The characters aren’t all loners, and they have some form of support, but it’s much more limited. The characters each have their own path, which is seen especially with the Liberation Club, who come together but still have individual issues. I thought this was shown really nicely in a symbolic way when they were at the coffee shop, sitting next to each other, but shown with the architecture separating them. I should point out though the that only exception to this idea would be Mi Jeong and Gu who interact a lot and seemingly will support each other a lot in the future, but it runs true for the rest of her relationships and for the rest of the characters so far.

To sum up, Hospital Playlist is a story about a group of friends. My Liberation Notes is about mainly 3 individuals who are related put into one story. Or in other words, I see Hospital Playlist being about a journey of life with friends and My Liberation Notes being a about having a solitary journey while being surrounded by others, if that makes sense.

Ok, so my analysis might be a bit out there this time, but ngl, in the beginning of the episode 11 when Choi-ung was talking about the puppy, jjong jjong, I thought the puppy was referring to Yeon-su at first. Of course, it was later revealed seconds later that he was referring to himself, and while I think there is a more prevelant connection between Choi-ung and the puppy, I think an argument could be made for a connection between Yeon-su and the puppy.

I think it's more than coincidental that last episode, it was revealed that Yeon-su’s nickname given to her by her grandma is “puppy”. In addition, someone on tumblr (link below) noted that in episode 2, the camera heavily focuses on a toy puppy that Mr. Jang holds up while he’s with Yeon-su. The use of a puppy has appeared three times in the story so far, two times relating to Yeon-su, and one time relating to Choi-ung. In other words, 2 > 1 or Yeon-su > Choi-ung. Yeon-su, in our minds, has a stronger connection to the word “puppy”, despite that Choi-ung uses it to refer to himself. I think this might be an intentional move from the writers.