In Love Gerbera

Took you long enough, Voltage...

It's not that I'm not interested anymore, but I'm certainly not as hyped up as i would be few months ago.

There will be also this:

And that:

And...

Story of the Ring Necklace

「こんなの贈るの···キミが初めてだから」

“This is the first time I give you something like this”

I don’t know if we’ll get this story translated. I hope so, cause this would be a nice complementary story. It’s only one episode long but it’s so cute and I am sorry that it took me a long time to finally done translating it (6 months or more 🙃). Here’s my attempt to translate and summarized the special story.

(Ps. I think you could access it for free on HLITF special story on 100恋+)

I’ve noticed a trend across the interwebs of people hating Ryeong… Why?

Well 1. She jumps into situations without thinking 2. She’s tenacious and doesn’t give up when she has an idea in her head 3. She doesn’t listen to her superiors 4. She’s hiding what happened to her sister from Jiseok 5. She keeps going down into the tunnel alone, knowing there’s a literal murder down there…

USUALLY this would be the make-up of the typical FL that haunts cop shows like this. The guy is prodigy, a genius, has some kind of special ability unique only to him, is an amazing fighter etc etc.

The girl is empathetic and compassionate and always determined to catch the bad-guy, but she’s also just… not very good at her job? Honestly the amount of shows I’ve watched where this cop needs saving more often than the actual victims: I wonder how they passed the police exams in the first place.

It’s an irritating trend that diminishes the woman in favour of the man (there will always be a hyper-competent foil for her as well, whose good at her job but a bitch HINT: THIS IS ALSO A SHITTY TROPE) and luckily it’s definitely something that I’ve seen less of in recent years. It’s not completely dead SADLY but it’s vanishing.

Now we have Yoo Ryeong.

Ryeong, seemingly ticking all of those boxes with those tropes no-one likes and naturally catching flack for it.  BUT YOU GUYS!

Ryeong is a red herring! Because yes, she doesn’t always think things through, but she’s tenacious enough that she gets the perp anyway. She follows her heart but not in a stupid way, she just would rather listen to her emotions than her logic - that’s not an incorrect approach, just a different one.

She feels for the victims deeply, she treats every case as if it’s personal to her and by doing it SHE GETS RESULTS.

PLUS in this dynamic duo, Ryeong is the one with the skills unique to her (her subway memorisation) and even better, it’s just more proof of how intelligent she is, to memorise all that with such detail and recall it at any given moment.

Objectively, maybe she should tell Chief about her sister. But it makes sense why she doesn’t. He’s been disciplined and close to suspension - she feels guilty for him about it and doesn’t want to drag him into more mess. Her sister is her responsibility and she feels guilty about losing her. Last time she sought police aid they ignored her so she feels she’s the only one looking at every option.

She’s hiding the truth about her sister for the same reason Jiseok is hiding the truth about his mother. Because they don’t want to be pitied or burdened by anyone. They want to save their family without it costing anyone but themselves. It’s dumb but it’s that hero complex they have going on. (Incidentally, no-one finds Jiseok annoying for carrying his burden alone, for dumping Ma Ri without telling the truth, for being a pretty lazy cop pre-Ryeong).

So:

We have a character who isn’t perfect, but isn’t incompetent either. She’s damn good at her job. As proven in the rape case, her pigheadedness actually makes her better than her superiors at times. As proven in the abuse case, her empathy saves literal lives. With the suicide case, her compassion can give a man another chance at life.

So why do people still hate her?

Easy. Because these kdramas have conditioned us into thinking the female cops (or characters in general) who use more feminine traits to get the job done, are less capable or even completely useless besides their logical, tough, smooth-talking, quick-thinking male counterparts.

Because we see a woman who is kind and compassionate and cries easily, and think ‘well, obviously she’s not any good. she’s annoying. she should open up more. she should give her partner a break. why doesn’t she listen?’

When even in the literal drama itself, it’s clear that of the two of them, Jiseok is the one listening to and getting better because of her. Because of her “feminine” traits, she get’s the job done. 

My Mushroom is so clingy. 5 Missed calls?

MSB updates!