#thumping spike

Is this a common trope in non-BL Asian dramas? Maybe I’m missing some cultural aspect but it makes me feel a bit weird… I’m fine when they both meet as children but when one’s a child and one’s an adult it feels off to me!

We Met As Kids, Therefore I Love You

Yes, it's a super common trope in ALL Asian romances.

There's a human cross-cultural claim-to-care around having met someone "first" giving one person priority to another's affection and in their life.

For example, think about how many fans (of say a Kpop group or band or actor) will claim to be "better" or morally superior to other fans of that same talent, because they have have liked that group/person "since the beginning" or "before they were famous." How about those who claim superiority because they read the book before the TV series became popular?

To have loved something FIRST is often allied with being better at loving it, there is a value judgement to longevity of association. (This is also true around disliking someone/something first.)

There isn't a name for this logical fallacy, although there should be. I would say something like appeal to tradition argumentum ad antiquitatem (which is a red herring fallacy). So appeal to time, argumentum ad tempus?

(The 8th Sense is doing some VERY interesting things to philosophically battle this concept right NOW, actually.)

Narratively speaking, if you have only a short amount of time to unfold the story (for example We Best Love) this trope gives writers a quick way to justify pining and affection (usually from the seme character). So backstory can be cribbed for character development. That character is already in love, so we don't have to show him falling in love, only one character is in play for that.

In longer narratives (like Word of Honor, Lovely Writer) this is a secret that gets to be slowly uncovered and explored as a plot point. If you have them meet as children, or when one is a child then it justifies one character not remembering the other (because peoples appearances change from childhood to adulthood).

I think the popularity in Asian dramas in particular has to do with collectivist cultures and family obligation/intimacy priority. To have known (or met) someone as a kid adds a level of intimate connection that justifies any affection that much more than meeting later in life.

There's a very funny scene in Kdrama (noona romance) Thumping Spike (recommended) that directly mocks this trope. Near the end the main couple openly together and they are in the car with the (former) love triangle dude. He lost, even though he's the one with the childhood crush. He directly combats this concept by saying (basically): If longevity guaranteed romance, I should be married to the grandma who runs my local convenience store.

Another well known Kdrama that combats this trope is Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (recommended) which goes out of its way to have the love triangle character who would normally lose the girl, actual win her this time. (So the one who loses is the moot crush from childhood.)

In BL, I tracked this one for a while:

Also here are a few BLs that DO NOT use this trope:

🫥Anonymously yours🫥,

💜Purplehanfu😈💜🍇👾

dear complete stranger (<3),

man i love badgood dramas so much!!! i chose ones that are flatout objectively not good, but i was glued for them all. here's a few that are jumping out

triad princess (taiwan). it ends on a cliffhanger that will never be continued, the relationship building is non-existent, jasper liu basically plays himself yet still acts like he's doing a community service project, but omg it's cute and hit all the right notes for me. fave bonus is that one of the gangster henchmen falls in love with the FL's best friend, a shy boy who works at a mart and makes youtube covers

hold on, my lady (chinese). a bandit is offered a choice when she's caught during a heist: be executed or marry this aloof but beautiful but delicate son of the general. she chooses the latter, and hijinks ensue. made on a budget of pocket lint and just wacky, im going to rewatch this today, actually. fave bonus moment: the FL falls dramatically down and the ML breaks both his arms instantly when he tries to catch her

thumping spike & thumping spike 2 (korean). the two are barely related, but both deal with a competitive men's volleyball team! thumping spike 1 is about a washed up competitive female player going to coach a high school team to glory (just dont...think too critically about the age difference, there) and the second is COLLEGE EDITION with a love quadrangle between two identical twins, one of whom is a cheerleader for the team, the ace volleyball player who's too cool for school, and the WILDCARD volleyball player who gets mad when people call him gorilla. the second one is definitely worse than the first one, but neither are bringing home awards. i still watched them both in one sitting.

my heart twinkle twinkle (korean). this show is actually insane and a parade of toxic that i can never, in good conscience, ever rec to anyone. but gd did i watch the whole fucking thing. look at this fucking poster. this fucking poster looks like it was doused by a fake snow machine.

premise: Noble But Poor family has 3 daughters: the eldest, who is the caretaker; the middle who is Aloof and Ambitious; and the youngest who is A Fucking Menace. they are lead by their single father, who owns a fried chicken store

Rich but Dysfunctional family also has 3 children: the eldest, who is the only son and a fucking piece of work, the middle who is school colleagues with the other family's middle daughter and a hot mess who loves Da Club, and the youngest, who is clingy and gets into a ton of fights with the other family's youngest but is otherwise ok. they run AN EVIL FRIED CHICKEN FRANCHISE that is poisoning people through subpar ingredients!!

there's so much that's so wrong with this, im going to bullet point it from another post i made:

the entire premise is that there’s a fried chicken restaurant rivalry between two families but somehow there’s murder and slush funds and this guy who owns a string of fried chicken franchises named after himself (yeah) has direct access to seoul’s police commissioner at any given moment

one of the main actresses was involved in a scandal a little over halfway through production so they just….vanish her character/entire plotline like it never happened

the main male lead is toxic personified. him and li chengyin from goodbye my princess could co-author a dating strategy/forced-marriage-after-you-kill-your-girlfriend’s-head-of-household book because jesus christ. he literally screams that he hates women and he ends the drama (rightfully!!) in fucking prison

the second female lead disappears/creates a new identity and becomes a chicken chef student of the world. shes later in a love triangle between a single dad chicken shop interior designer and another vanilla guy

that's right, one guy’s job is he’s an architect for chicken restaurant interiors i cant

the main male lead leaves the main female lead’s father to die in a chicken-coop-themed arsony and then cha-cha slides into the son-in-law’s role during the father’s funeral and later MARRIES the female lead

the main male lead tells the female lead’s father’s grave that HE WON AND DAD LOST because the male lead is standing and the father’s in the dirt?!

a friend/almost!love interest of the second female lead dies tragically in a chicken delivery motorcycle chase????

it's the worst drama i've ever seen. i watched all of it.

kakafukaka (japanese)

this one is so gd weird and unappealing it somehow circled back around and became off-puttingly charming to me? so the premise is that there's a 20something year old woman whose life has gone to shit and she ends up in a sharehome with the most sexually dysfunctional bunch of people in the world. one of these is her ex, who tells her that she's the only one he can get a boner with (yeah) and asks her to help him get over his impotence in order to write his novel (yeah). if you read the whole show as kind of an exploration into sex without romance/love, it's as not bad, and there's something weirdly endearing about everyone--i really love the second female lead akari in particular. but it's not a good show, not by a long shot (MDL rating? 6.6), and the ship is dysfunctional at the very best. the ost somehow is great though?

speaking of trash dramas with great OSTs, love in sadness has some of my favorite songs:

Hello, hello!

How is everyone? I hope you are all great! :)

Lately I’ve been watching k-dramas non-stop so I though it would be a good idea to share some of them. For this post I will be sharing with you 8 short dramas to binge watch that I’m sure you will enjoy. By the way, a good thing about some of this shows is that you can finish them in a day this way you can watch many more and I promise you won’t regret it hehe.

Also, I’m going to try to not do any spoilers so you can have the whole experience hehe. So let’s begin:

1. Best Mistake 1 & 2

To start we have ‘Best Mistake’, in this show we meet Kim Yeon Do, a nice girl that has been stressing out for a while because she has a ver persistent admire who is basically a stalker. Because of this, she decides to set as her profile picture a photo of a random guy from social media. Little did she know that this guy is no other than Ji Hyun Ho, one of the popular kids at her school so, as you may expect things star to get interesting from this point because little by little the get to know each other.

As for the second season of this drama, the story continues into a new school year. Here, they will try to overcome the many challenges that will be presented to them, starting with a new guy who is determine to be with Yeon Do so, the question is: can love conquer all obstacles? well you can find out with this drama hehe

Fun fact: this drama was based on a mobile story game.

2. Revenge note 1 & 2

For season 1 we have Ho Goo Hee a quite but nice girl who is constantly having a hard time at school that one day received a mysterious message from an app that allows here to get revenge on the classmates who bullied her and along the way she finds friendship and love. Also if you are an Aroha this drama is for you since Cha Eunwoo is part of the main cast and Astro members also apppear now and then.

Season 2 we have Oh Jina who is the next person the app helps when her school life gets complicated. Also she gets involved in a love triangle after twin brothers Seo Robin and Seo Jae Yi fall for her. But not everything is bad because she will find love and true friendships.

3. Café Kilimanjaro

Is a story of 4 best friends (San Ha, Ji Ho, Jae Young and Chan) who want to become a successful band but they haven’t been so lucky. One day they decide to rent a place to practice so they go to a retailer that shows them a really nice place that is being used as a coffee shop and everything seems fine. However the owner of the place doesn’t think the same, Song Tami is a nice girl who’s dream was to open a coffee shop and be her own boss yet she lacks of abilities to make desserts and even a basic black coffee. But still she is very optimistic that everything will get better. When she encounters Sanha and his friends, they decide to have an agreement, they willl work part time and they can practice as much as they want. After some obstacles, they realize that it doesn’t matter where they are as long as they are together and grow as a band too. You can discover the whole story in this short drama.

4. Thumping spike 1 & 2

If you like k-dramas and volleyball, well, this is the perfect show for you (Also if you don’t like volleyball it doesn’t matter because you might start to like it after watching the show lol). So for season 1 we have Kang Se Ra a professional volleyball player who is know as “the volleyball goddess”, suddenly she gets involved in a scandal and the way to fix it is if she coaches a high school team. The problem is, they are know as the worst team in the league. However there is a slice of hope when Hwang Jae Woon, the last team captain, comes back to school. What will happen to the team? Will Kang Se Ra be able to find love along the way? You can find out in the drama!

For season two we have some of the same cast but in a different story. Here we now are at college and we meet, Han Da Woon a student of excellence that on the first day meets Go Yi Ra and just like that she thinks it’s the love of her life. Sadly the only thing Go Yi Ra cares about is volleyball and he is only focus to get his college team a win so Han Da Woon needs to come up with a plan. Then she meets Dong Hae Sung a volleyball star who agrees to be her love counselor if she helps him study. This is where everything beings, will Han Da Woon find love? Will Go Yi Ra lead the team to victory?

5. Wednesday at 3:30 pm

This is the story of Seon Eun Woo a girl who has a long time boyfriend that suddenly decides to break up. The problem is that she still loves him so she decides she wants to win him back. Suddenly she reunites with childhood friend Yoon Jae Won and he sets up a plan where she will pretend she is having the best life single so that her old boyfriend will come running. However things get complicated because Eun Woo and Jae Won might start having feelings for each other. Want to know what happens next? Go watch this mini drama!

6. The world of my 17

This story follows 4 high school students: Oh Na Ri, Im Yu Na, Seo Mi Rae and Im Seon Ji. We see how their friendship starts growing little by little as they found new friends, love, break ups and life lessons. This drama is based on a webtoon and even though is a short show I think is very entertaining.

7. Love revolution

Gong Joo Young is a hopeless romantic boy that after moving houses meets the love of his life on the street, a very nice but quite and a little cold girl named Wang Ja Rim. Later he finds out that they are in the same school so Joo Young decides to do whatever it takes to win Ja Rim’s heart. Follow Joo Young on his quest to be with Ja Rim while you also meet all of their friends having great moments together. This drama is also based on a webtoon. I highly recommend it, it’s a very funny and cute drama that you really enjoy watching, plus if you like it you can get more excited because there will be a season 2. Yay!

8. Special mention to: Be my boyfriend

Finally we will talk about ‘Be my boyfriend’ this drama just premiered a month ago so its just started. It is a spin off of ‘Best Mistake’ so if you liked this show, just like me you will have a lot of fun watching this new one. The story is about Lee Seung Min a nice student who just like every boy at his school is in love with Oh Ji Na a very popular and talented girl. One day she breaks up with her boyfriend but he keeps following her to make up so she panics and she says she has a new boyfriend, this “boyfriend” happens to be Lee Seung Min. Since she has to prove to her ex that she is actually dating someone else, she decides to make a contract with Seung Amin to fake their relationship and although he was hesitant at first, Seung Min agrees because he is determined to win her heart. What will happen next? Well, we will have to wait and see. Right now it only has 3 episodes but I encourage you to watch it, it’s very funny. Also, since it’s a spin off it’s very nice to see familiar faces from time to time.

If you came up to here, you might be thinking: this are a lot of dramas! but, since they are really short and fun, I promise you can finish fast hehe. This is everything for today’s post. If you watch one of this and/or you know some more, feel free to comment so I can also watch more shows hehe.

Guardian: The lonely and great God(also known as Goblin): OMGGGGGG! I think it's the best one of all the Dramas I've seen. It's got everything, comedy, drama, historical, etc. So basically he's a warrior that because of the way he dies, turns into a Goblin(or which would literally translate as a Goblin but it's actually an immortal being with human form) and the only way he can finally rest in peace is when he finds the one destined to be his girlfriend. The main lead is Gong Yoo the guy from Coffee Prince. It also makes you love the second leads and their stories.

Touch your heart: It's good and the main reason I decided to watch it's because the main leads are the second leads from Goblin(and may I say I just love their chemistry). It's about an actress who gets a role on a law drama and in order to do so she has to be trained and starts working as an assistant on a law firm.

What's wrong with secretary Kim: Same old who doesn’t know what he’s got until it’s gone. He’s a CEO who is unable to accept it when his secretary for the last 9 years decides to quit. You know like Main lead is Park Seo Joon.

Fight for my way: It’s a story about 4 friends trying to achieve their dreams, but along the way they encounter a lot of obstacles. Baby Park Seo Joon again and Miss Kim Ji Won a.k.a. The Heirs’ infamous Rachel Yoo.

Something about 1%: The lead’s grandpa makes him marry an elementary school teacher in order to inherit everything. I feel like it’s a story kinda repetitive in Dramas but still good.

I am not a robot: The lead is apparently allergic to human interaction, so when he finds a startup that has designed a hyper realistic android that does everything a human does he gives it a go. When the robot suddenly fails and with his job on the line the inventor has to ask his ex girlfriend, on whom the robot’s appearance and personality is based, to play the role of the robot while he can fix the actual robot. I laughed a lot and I think it’s super cute.

W: It's about interdimensional traveling. The lead is the main character of a comic written by the leading lady's dad.

Noble, My Love: It's super short, like seven episodes of about 45 minutes each short. The lead is a veterinarian who saves the life of a man and somehow finds herself tangled up with him in a fake relationship so he can get rid of his mom always pressuring him into marriage. It's with Sung Hoon, same guy of My secret romance.

Thumping spike: So I ended up watching this one because volleyball has always been one of my favorite things. She's a super famous volleyball player who ends up coaching a high school team. It has 20 chapters of about 15-20 minutes each.