june media round-up
Jun. 29th, 2021 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lackingdaze
well let's get into it, shall we?
📽 tv shows
nevertheless (2021)
i am song kang "paen". just kidding i know literally nothing about this man but sometimes seeing your current favorite kdrama dude show off his #range as the ultimate fuckboy male lead of all time can be so personal!!! one thing i like about the show is the realism of the setting—i think this is the first time i've seen a vape pen in a kdrama which um. anyways this show is kind of giving me nothing new but i guess the premise [fwb] is sensational in terms of kdramas. oh also if they don't follow through on the one potential wlw relationship in the show i am actually going to be so mad. how can you dangle art school gfs in front of me IN THE MONTH OF JUNE and then not commit?
hospital playlist s2 (2021)
don't have much thoughts but like it's cute?? i sort of care?? i love friendships??
elite s4 (2021)
occasionally watch an ep or so with my friend when she wants to inflict pain upon me and like. this show is fucking terrible god awful HBO PORNO and it's made worse by the fact that it has one of the best soundtracks ever. literally having forever by chvrches on your ridiculous high school soap opera soundtrack can make it bearable for 3 seasons or whatever [but definitely not this season bc ester exposita is no longer on this show]
i promised you the moon (2021)
warning: SPOILERS! SAHJDBASJ. well i said i was going to make a whole dw post about my itsay/ipytm thoughts and i drafted up an outline and then i got kind of lazy so like...sorry i get bored of my own tasks so easily. anyways WHAT AN EXPERIENCE THIS SHOW WAS. i really appreciated having something to look forward to every thursday [which used to be like the second worst day of the week to me bc it was so busy]. i'm going to echo a lot of shakti's thoughts on this, which is basically that um well the ending was as good as it could be considering what an absolute mess the infidelity arc was? i feel like thematically, the story followed through, but this was one of the cases where the intended structure / allotted space of five episode interfered with the organic development of the story. idk it's a fun thought experiment to think about how the story could have been presented nonlinearly, which i personally feel would have been more effective for such a tight space. i also still definitely hate teh and think oh-aew deserves better but like!! it's fine!! i enjoyed what we got of oh-aew's character growth and how he learned to practice self-love and is climbing the ladder at his little marketing gig!! we are all entitled to our bad decisions ! lol but i also enjoyed the tidbit at the end about how...sometimes love isn't really rational and people might not necessarily choose who is the "best" choice for them [aka q rip to that man] but who makes them feel the most [teh]. and that relationships are about work and staying in a relationship/going back to relationships is a conscious decision? cue this_love_isn't_crazy.mp3
⭐️k-pop content
cravity park
ok so maybe this should be its own section/post but also i'm LAZY. big shoutout to girlrock for inducting me into luvity-isms by encouraging me to watch vitypark and feeding me crabity_lore <3
i don't really have the ability rn to explain how much of a grip this show has on me other than to say that i'm literally on ep 25 and i started watching it a week ago. tbh usually i find idol variety shows to be pretty bland but i sit through them anyways for the groups i like out of the kindness of my heart / interest in sifting through interactions but like. WHEN YOU ARE IDOLS WHO ARE ACTUALLY GOOD AT VARIETY? WHEN YOUR GROUP DYNAMIC IS ACTUALLY SO COMPELLING? WHEN YOUR SHOW IS ACTUALLY ENTERTAINING??? this is actually all it takes for me to become a fan, even when you have a discography with songs like MY TURN. it's fine i already stockholm syndrome'd myself into liking it.
also not to say i watched this through a minizsong lens but i watched this through a minizsong lens, which sort of informed my opinions about all the members etc etc. [have you read the life changing magnum opus that is girlrock's minizsong thesis?] AHN SEONGMIN IS THE MOST COMPELLING KPOP IDOL IN THE WORLD. i literally can't believe someone like this is an idol [same goes for jungmo]. then again that's what makes them perfect to me.
lifted from my priv:
i think idols who make no sense as idols are actually the perfect idols. like it could be camp, basically
aside from that, i really enjoy taeyoung and the shenanigans he brings to the table. also moguham real. also why do i feel bad for woobin. also why is allen ma like that.
2pm comeback showcase, "must"
their new album is sooo good. like sorry that they're actually the best bg jyp has ever produced. sorry that junho is still really hot. sorry that ADTOY is still the only song ever and that i'm actively manifesting a heeseung cover. they are kind of the only comphet men idols ever even if they're fossils now! also you know you're old when your MAKNAE can actually drive a van.
📚 books
for some reason, i thought i would be reading way more now that i'm on summer break but i'm not? maybe i'm burnt out or something. idk i'm going to try borrowing more books from the library and consuming content that stimulates my pretentious little brain <3 but here is what i have read this month:
crying in h-mart
this book definitely took a toll on me while i was reading it. i don't have much thoughts on memoirs [as in, does it really get any better craft-wise than in the the dream house?] but as one might be able to tell from my previous round-up, i'm very interested in the way food plays a part in asam identity. which also extends to my one big criticism of the book — i kind of wish zauner leaned more into those politics? but understandably there was already a lot of material at hand so. maybe less is more. my friend brought up that she did a great job of exploring her complicated relationship with her dad, which i also thought was a great part of the book!
how much of these hills is gold
tfw u put off reading a book until the last two days before your hold expires and now ur halfway thru but waiting on the 9 people in front of you in line. i'm fine except it says i have to wait 10 weeks ASDHJABSJ so i'm not fine [i think i'll just go buy the book tbh]. also i told my friend that this book is NOTY and she was like "a friend of mine said that it was too literary and hard to understand" which %$&^$^&?? i'm just a person with pretentious tastes??? but also c pam zhang's prose is everything modern literature should aspire to be etc etc. it's about the ECONOMY and CUTTING VERB USAGE and MANIPULATION OF GRAMMAR TO CREATE RHYTHMS. i'm someone who values craft and style over plot and content so this def hits the spot. so far i do think there are some parts where zhang could have cut back on the style, but also, can there be too much of a good thing? idk i haven't finished the book.
📄 articles
for some reason i feel the need to clarify that i read more articles than this, these are just the ones that left an ""impact"" on me!
the rise of the crypto writer? on what literary nfts might mean for the book world
i'm not familiar with nfts [aside from seeing some tweets about how its bad for the environment] so i thought this was a really informative article, especially regarding who is buying NFT writing and their intentions with it. fave quote: "null_radix has never resold an NFT. He doesn’t even think of his NFT acquisitions as investments: 'NFTs don’t seem to me to have value that can be defined as easily as ‘owning a piece of art.’ It’s more some sort of collective geist. The draw is the insanity of it all.'"
"a$ap rocky: testing" review
why did i read this in the year 2021 you might ask. confession: i ironically and unironically listen to distorted records [+ a$ap forever remix but that's less embarrassing] often, to the point where if i had downloaded last.fm a few months earlier during finals week you would have seen me play that every day. i don't have anything to say to defend myself, it literally sounds like baja blast in a song. so anyways, after being deservedly clowned on by my friend, i wanted to see what the "critics" said about this album. just like every other basic bitch who won't let go of music from 2016-2018 frank ocean is one of my favorite artists of all time and i thought it was so funny that this review basically called this album a bad attempt at recreating blonde's soundscape. which like, yeah!
khaite's buzzy rise fuelled by luxury's old and new playbooks
i'm trying to catch up on fashion these days and i hadn't heard of this brand before, so i looked it up and found this article! aside from like #themoreyouknow or whatever, i found it pretty intriguing how the designer openly acknowledges how accessibility is tied to ideas of luxury and being "too accessible" is bad, despite being a brand that essentially sells luxury, "every day" wear. ummm once again i think the luxury fashion industry is so fucked / reminded me of why i have a love-hate relationship with it etc etc but ig their pieces are cute? its complicated
🎵 music
i made a last.fm so i can accurately report my music consumption like the cool kids! except this is actually so embarrassing.
total scrobbles: 1,211
avg scrobbles per day: 48
top tracks:
1. i&credible — i-land (53)
2. frost — txt (24)
3. all time low — patent pending (22)
4. antiromantic — txt (22)
5. 0x1=lovesong — txt (21)
6. everybody talks — neon trees (18)
7. magic — txt (17)
top artists:
1. txt (161)
2. enhypen (86)
3. carly rae jepsen (57)
4. i-land (53) <-- does this even count it's all i&credible
5. nct dream (53)
6. cravity (52)
7. 2pm (48)
top albums:
1. the chaos chapter: freeze — txt (117)
2. border: carnival — enhypen (49)
3. hideout: be our voice — cravity (38)
4. dedicated — carly rae jepsen (37)
6. border: day one — enhypen (37)
7. hello future — nct dream (31)
like i guess i'm an engine or whatever ? also frost is my favorite song on the txt album, as you can tell. and i&credible is the best song in enhypen's discography even if its not even in their discography.
in terms of hello future, i was actually so surprised that i liked it! bc i really did not like hot sauce! i have to listen to it a bit more carefully to have solid opinions but i think life is still going on and bungee are actually sooooo good.
also i need to sit down and actually listen to the japanese breakfast album, but i'm kind of not in the mood/headspace for it rn? i'm just enjoying my brainrot from listening to MYTURN_BADHABITS.mp3 on repeat. overall i don't think these monthly stats really reflect where i am currently at in my music listening habits [i also tend to leave songs to play when i drive and i've been driving around a lot lately], but maybe next month's will!
✏️ writing
i posted this love is crazy and to rehash my commentary i'm super happy about it + the reception it got! i'm pretty uninspired right now but i guess uh ficmix is happening so i'll figure something out for that . . . and also i am woodshedding a miniz fic that i will work on soon once i get my shit together <3
💌 life thoughts
i'm mostly enjoying being back at home even if i'm going a little crazy. like i had a whole crisis about "well i don't think i'm doing enough" despite the fact that i've gone through a lot this year and deserve a good break, which i think is just a side effect of coming back home / being in the same environment that i grew up in. but i'm working to change the way i think about things? making new associations? it's a process......
as always, dw pretty credits to
girlrock !!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-03 01:32 am (UTC)definitely planning to read crying in h-mart at some point after seeing everyone else talk about it and also because i too cried in h-mart when calling my mom to ask what brand of [INSERT] we buy. and it’s so nice to see that im not the only one with super pretentious lit taste who cares about the writing style over the actual content <333
looking forward to consuming tlic soon and ur impending MINIZ FIC DEBUT!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-08 08:22 pm (UTC)i'd love to hear your thoughts on crying in h-mart ++ literally that is so relatable like are u really going through the woes of living away from home if u haven't gotten emotional over food.....thanks for reading <3