Neinnonay

The prosecutor's proposal ft. textposts (1)

All men do is lie

It can also be found on Google Drive here and on Bluesky here.

A special thanks to all of the amazing gif makers who have been working on this show.

I'm greatly enjoying this search for truth, and I'm enamored with Taeseon's tsundere bite...

And the guileless nature of Lee Chaeha.

But beyond the endearing characters, this show has hit a lot of nostalgic buttons for me. Because while it thankfully has all of the trappings and tropes of a modern BL...

This show is using a ton of long-standing kdrama tropes. Scenes like this one....

Are immediately causing all kinds of older scenes, like this one from Coffee Prince, to flood in to my brain.

It feels like seeing old friends. (Note: Gifs from older shows I made myself.)

Even the setup of the relationship is nostalgic: Your parent (might have) killed my parent!

Like other fated childhood connections, it's a classic kdrama setup. When I realized that's where this story was going, I named three older shows with that setup before I blinked. And that list only got longer the more I thought about it...especially if you expand it to family members instead of just parents.

It's a delicious setup, because the fact that the leads share this tragic historical connection always causes angst. Tragedies involving family, particularly parents, carry heavy cultural weight.

The angst monster in me howled with delight when this popped up.

If their relationship wasn't always known to one (or both) of the leads, "the reveal" is a big deal, and typically a stumbling block for the relationship. Example - this scene from He Is Psychometric.

They've been investigating the truth about the fire that killed his parents, and he just found out her dad was the one arrested for it. He's incredibly upset and leaves her behind. Note - she insists he was framed, and...she became a cop. Sound somewhat familiar?

So while I saw some posts surprised that Lee Chaeha had such a strong reaction to the reveal, I was gleefully anticipating it.

And it hit me just right...like taking a sip from a perfectly brewed cup of tea. (Ehh...ok, I wouldn't have minded if we had a few more episodes with these characters to build even more depth, but the flavor was good.)

Even the hand gesture Taeseon used in this moment...

Is a hallmark of protecting your partner from things that will hurt them.

That gif is from the het show Come and Hug Me where his father DID brutally murder her parents and tried to kill her too. And maybe you guessed it...but he became a cop.

Long story short - we may often make fun of tropes and cliches, but they exist for a reason. When they are used well? We get to sit down and enjoy a really good show.

carrie is almost explicitly about the cycles of abuse. it is almost explicitly about how women and girls are taught to reproduce the patriarchy. it cannot be isolated from either message.

it shows cruel teenagers not as a random whacky plot point but instead to highlight that we are taught to mock other girls for not being fuckable; lest we ourselves be considered not-fuckable. we will eat our own kind to survive. nobody helps her because to help carrie would be to turn against the patriarchy.

carrie's mother has experienced abuse at the hands of her husband and religion not as a "sad backstory" but instead because it lampshades her behavior when she then turns and abuses her daughter while citing that same religion. we are forced to ask the question: what is the difference between the patriarchy and religion? aren't they both systems of control? we often see mothers as being the "ultimate" in innocence and kindness - but this book challenges that narrative. abusive mothers exist, and and always have. abusive women exist and always have. white women, after all, love voting for donald trump.

men are almost absent from the book, but their presence lingers. it feels almost like the red mark made after a slap - the men do not have to be there; the women will continue to abide by the rules without question. it is a devastating, haunting condemnation of the notion of feminine fragility. it accurately asserts that women are cruel, are capable, are power-hungry - and often are hiding behind perceived innocence to mask that cruelty. the abuse carrie experiences rests in a doubled betrayal: it is because of another woman. the supposed "sisterhood" is revealed to be thin, a guise of equanimity that is only offered to the "right" type of girl/woman.

many of us were not the right type of girl.

to go back on these main and obvious themes of the book - to rewrite the mother as some caring and sad creature is... a curious choice. i can't explain it, but it feels almost like censorship to me. it refuses a deeper meaning of the book (and one that questions the patriarchy) in favor of the incredibly thin plot of "what if scary girl had scary powers." i literally don't even know what level of misogyny it is that we have to defang everyone around her in order to tell her story. i'm baffled by it.

in the era of trad wives endlessly posting abusive content of their children online - the adaptation had plenty of meat to modernize her mother. in the era of AI and revenge porn and social media - there's a huge amount of space for a competent writer to play around in. after all, if the abuse is recorded and posted to media - and as the audience we're watching it without interfering - the story is now about us. it asks us who we are comfortable bullying.

it's okay if you feel like you don't have the writing chops to talk about how many religions are abusive and tacitly enable domestic violence. it's okay if you feel like you couldn't write a believable teenage bully. it's okay if you're just interested in "scary girl has scary powers."

do you think any of the patrons looked at zukos scarred face - obviously done by a firebender - and immediately think jet was an asshole? like

jet: hes a firebender!!!!

patrons, thinking about the backstory they concocted for zuko and iroh where their home was invaded by firebenders and they barely survived with their lifes so they could come and have a peaceful life selling tea in a city the war doesnt touch:

Lee Chaeha, you're the one who started this.

Every action betrays his own conflicted and fractured desires and wants...

It makes me sick. Say it again. I highly respect you, Prosecutor. How dare a murderer's son say he admires me?