We Appreciate QL Dramas!

Juyeong’s parents who threw him out when he didn’t conform to their perfect Christian ideology.

Dohoe’s physically abusive father.

I am glad that we are all having a normal one in reaction to Hwang Da Seul's latest project (@chicademartinica, @dropthedemiurge, @shortpplfedup, @lurkingshan). I'm still meditating on the whole affair, but for now want to get into how Hwang Da Seul feels so compassionate to closeted men, and how I also am stuck on the removal of the cross (@my-rose-tinted-glasses).

Shan already linked back to The Knowing, and I keep thinking about how rare it is to see two boys who've already come to an understanding of themselves meeting each other, and also including a bully who knows himself. What stands out for me with Hwang Da Seul is how old the pains weighing on her characters feel each time.

Dohee has suffered the abuse of his father, abandonment of his mother, and dissolution of his closest friendship, and he's just pushing through to leave all of this. His pain is obvious and lived in. He doesn't have to sit around moping exclusively about how he feels, because it's ever present. Like anyone else living with chronic pain, you just have to do stuff while hurting a lot of the time.

Juyeong is so fascinating to me because his exuberance and passion makes it almost impossible to hide who he is, and I will always be a sucker for the characters who love so loudly that you can't turn it off. I also keep thinking about how he has been communicating his attraction through his eyes so often, and how he's made desire known through all of his careful flirting.

The building romance between them hits for me most because they're paying attention to each other. Dohee made food that he realized Juyeong would like, is careful about hurting him in their sparring matches, and went for the ice cream that Juyeong said he wanted. Juyeong heard Dohee say he wanted to see snow, and so he made snow for him!

Now, back to that cross. Rose's post and one @benkaben posted have been rattling around in my head for hours. We know that Juyeong's mom is a pastor, and that he's being sent here as essentially conversion therapy (as Shan already pointed out). It's not just that he takes the cross off before confessing, which clearly shows that he's setting everything associated with that aside. It's that he's also confessing through a wall. It's such a small detail in how you can set aside the weight of responsibility and guilt associated with your queerness, but you don't lose the cultural touchstones: for some Christians (I was raised Catholic) you confess your signs through a mild layer of anonymity by putting some sort of wall or separation between you and the priest. There's something so subversive about having Juyeong set down his cross but still confess his feelings like a Christian.

I am also curious where Hyeonho will feature in the rest of this story. It's clear that he and Dohee felt something between each other at some point, and that Hyeonho ran from it. He doesn't want Dohee to get hurt too badly, and he's observing the growing relationship between Dohee and Juyeong. I'm so happy this character exists, because it gives us three characters struggling with the pressures on them to be a certain way. If we had to have a character who will make ugly choices around that, it helps for it not to be part of the main pair, and it also shows that these boys have not been the only queers around that they knew of.

Finally, let me just thank Hwang Da Seul for not being precious about the kissing. I like that their first proper kiss was their second kiss, and I like that it was awkward. I loved them false starting multiple times, trying to make sure they weren't observed too closely (considering their history), and I like that they built back to it. I know that kissing early means we're in for much pain, but it's so nice to have a show not dance around the kissing, or have it be especially mild. I like when two boys like each other and go for it.

It doesn't always have to be the kisses with minute-long slow-motion approaches and dramatic music. It's these little everyday ones that make relationships seem realistic. (Part 3/?)

ThamePo

Let Free The Curse Of Taekwondo

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Life: Love On The Line

Last Twilight

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Century Of Love

Living With Him

Our Skyy 2

TopForm

Do you think parents can change? What I'm sure of is... minors can't do anything on their own. Go to sleep. You didn't get much sleep. Get some sleep and then think about it. I'm sleepy, but I can't sleep. I don't think I've ever slept properly.

If things had gotten better, if things had gotten easier, if I'd gotten into my dream university... I'd have looked for you with a smile on my face. But you came to me first in the end. But... I think I unconsciously knew. If I go to where Shin Juyeong is, I can go back to the moment I stopped living. I think that's why I had to go there... to meet you.

LET FREE THE CURSE OF TAEKWONDO (2024)

It’s beautifully shot, superbly acted, and has real storytelling depth that a lot of “BL” dramas lack. This is not a fluffy, romance-driven drama. It’s very much a story about flawed people trying to be better than the people who hurt them.

A boy grows up under the oppressive, violent influence of his father, an influential taekwondo instructor in a small town. A new student arrives after being expelled from his high school, hoping to train and get into college through a sports program. They do their best to survive and protect their relationship as two minors with no support system, but eventually are unable to hold onto their fragile happiness. 12 years later they meet again and begin to heal the scars left by that experience.

One of the most beautiful sequences in the show is the first time they sleep together as adults, intercut with scenes from their from their teenage romance. As adults with unresolved guilt and trauma, there’s an emotional wall between them. They’re affirming their relationship, but there’s no joy in the intimacy. As teens, even though they were both being abused regularly and only had vague hopes of escaping through college, they’re sweet and tender, giggling their way through the awkwardness of figuring out what to do. There’s no sense of fanservice or romance for romance’s sake.

Here’s the thing y’all- hurt people hurt people. Trauma makes a lot of us into assholes on the surface, especially when we are in survival and reaction mode.

The whole framework of this series is generational trauma live and in action. Do Hoe’s is the most obvious- because physical abuse is easily visible. We can see how he has been abused, both at home, and by his peers as they take out their anger on him. We see his avoidant attachment clear as day, and how for him survival means leaving and never looking back.

Ju Yeong is a case study in complex trauma as well. He’s been abandoned, thrown away, and is desperate for connection and love. Where as Do Hoe’s trauma response is to leave/avoid/disconnect- Ju Yeong’s is to cling to connection, to make it work at any cost, to suffer and endure whatever hardships are necessary in service to the relationship. Ju Yeong hides his pain under his smile and bubbly personality. He knows what it is like to be cast aside, and he’s willing to suffer beatings in order to not lose Do Hoe, and he will do so while smiling and laughing and reassuring Do Hoe that he is fine.

Nobody’s trauma response is more valid than another’s. And in the case of Do Hoe and Ju Yeong we can see how their trauma responses run counter to the other’s. Blaming Ju Yeong for ruining Do Hoe’s life does a disservice to both of these characters, and completely ignores the fact that Ju Yeong is suffering from his own “curse” of trauma just as much as Do Hoe.

it's funny because it's the same director, hwang daseul.

KIM NURIM as LEE DOHOE and LEE SEON as SIN JUYEONG episode 2 of LET FREE THE CURSE OF TAEKWONDO