Manga as Penguin Classics

a message from Rahul Kohli 

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@userdramas event 04: love ❤ the 5 love languages in kdramas

CRASH COURSE IN ROMANCE (2023) dir. Yoo Je Won

CRASH COURSE IN ROMANCE (2023) dir. Yoo Je Won Episode 11 “The Functional Relationship of our Love”

CRASH COURSE IN ROMANCE (2023) dir. Yoo Je Won Episode 13 “How We Approach an Unsolvable Conjecture”

KDRAMAS OVER FLOWERS DAY 2: my unfamiliar family 🏡 (celebrating familial bonds) — chi-yeol + haeng-seon + jae-woo + hae-yi*:･ﾟ✧

CRASH COURSE IN ROMANCE 일타 스캔들 2023, dir. Yoo Je Won.

JUNG KYUNG-HO as CHOI CHI-YEOL Crash Course in Romance (2023)

for me it's the forbidden love, the bodyguard trope, the childhood friends trope, the war comrades trope, it's the "everyone can see it," the "I know you better than anyone else," the "they're married™," it's the "we're both fucked up and I know it's hard to live, but you can't give up on living because I can't afford to lose you", it's the "he's an idiot, but he is my idiot" trope, it's the "I believed in your vision and entrusted you with my secret and you betrayed me", it's the "please, burn my secret from this world, you owe me at least that much", it's the "I haven't stopped believing in you despite everything you've done", it's the "I hate what we've done, I hate what we have become, but I will keep protecting you, I will keep pulling the trigger of my gun for you and for you only" and it's the "I trust you more than I trust myself and I want you by my side, but I want you to shoot me if I ever lose myself again", it's the "I have caused you pain again, please forgive me if you can", it's the "losing you is the worst thing I can imagine, but I am willing to let you die rather than betray you again", it's the "I've lost my sight, but if you are by my side I'm not blind", it's the -

What makes me insane about royai is that Roy and Riza worked well even before their backstory was revealed.

Two soldiers who fought together in a war, who protect each other, and who are devoted to each other and to a common cause. That works, right? That was enough.

But then. Then.

Then it turns out that they actually knew each other long before Ishval. They knew each other when Hawkeye was just Riza and Roy just her father's apprentice. It turns out that they are not only bound by their job or their cause or the mutual esteem and respect, nor even just by the shared trauma of war. It turns out that Riza is literally the person who put the flame alchemy in Roy's hands. That the alchemical circles on his gloves are tattooed on her skin. That it was Riza who gave him that power and for that she feels just as responsible for every person he has killed with his flames as she does for those she has shot with her rifle. And the reason she did it is because she trusted him and she trusted his naive dreams. And when the war is over he is well aware that he has broken her trust and that is the reason why he agrees to burn her back and trusting her his own back in return, thus explicitly giving her the power to stab him in the back.

And yet she decides to stand by him, despite the fact that he has already disappointed her once, because she has not stopped believing in those dreams he confided in her when they were still two naive kids untouched by the sins of war.

And while it is true that she stays by his side because she, too, wants to seek some sort of atonement and seek justice for the horrors they both committed, it is also true that, by her own admission, the reason she still wears a uniform and is ready to pull the trigger is that she wants to protect him.

I fucking love the "the Colonel calls me Riza when we're alone" scene for a lot of reasons because come on but I need to specify that one of them is that this is Roy and Riza we're talking about, they probably have thousands of secret codes and passwords that they could use on eachother that no one else would know and yet Riza decided to try with this particular method that insinuates she's getting it on with her boss which makes me believe she just thought it would be funny and wanted to fuck with Envy, like, "aw, you know what would be hilarious, actually? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)" and it totally worked

One of the biggest “I love you”s in Fullmetal Alchemist are all the ways people respect each other’s bodily autonomy. There are two scenes that carry this theme to its fullest potential, and I love them so, so much.

The first one is quite iconic: Riza’s throat was slit and Roy has a chance to save her - by dooming their country and committing human transmutation. And Roy would do it. He would throw it all away just to save her, even though he knows that human transmutation is an unforgivable sin. But she looks at him and signals him to Not Do It. And he doesn’t. He wants to, but he doesn’t do it. Because only minutes earlier, he hurt her again by dooming himself (and potentially the country) with his fury.  And if there is one thing Roy Mustang doesn’t want to do, it’s hurt Riza Hawkeye any more than he already has. Even if that means watching her die. Even if that means letting her go.

He respects her and their goals enough to say no.

He loves her enough to let her die.

The second one is just as heart-wrenching: after Al sacrificed himself, basically dying in the process, Ed tries to think of a way to save him. Both Hohenheim and Ling offer him a Philosopher’s Stone to bring Al back - and Ed says No. Even though he wants nothing more in life than to save his little brother. Even though there is nothing he wants more desperately than the safety of Al. He says no for many reasons - Hohenheim is his father after all, Ling needs the stone to become Emperor - but mostly he says no because he and Al promised to never use a Stone for themselves. And he respects that. He puts Al’s wish above his own desire to see his little brother again. He respects Al’s decision (his own conviction) enough to break the rules of the world to find another way.

Because he loves Al - he loves him enough not to break the fundamentals of their principles. He loves him enough to respect the integrity of their believes.

And the narrative rewards both Roy and Edward for their choice to respect the agency and bodily autonomy of their loved ones - they survive, are saved, are brought back… and neither Ed nor Roy had to force their own desire for them to live on clearly stated last wishes.

So often we see media portray the disregard for bodily autonomy (especially in medical contexts) as a sign of love, the breaking of patient-doctor confidentiality as a sign of care, the violation of a living will as a sign of family - I like to think that Fullmetal Alchemist shows us that there’s strength in respecting it instead.

CHRISTINA RICCI as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (1991)

JENNA ORTEGA as Wednesday Addams in Wednesday (2022)

bonus:

I'm gonna need a spin off show with these two as a team asap. Think of the possibilities. Think of the chaos.

EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO (2022) dir. Yoo In Shik

if you wish upon me really said here’s our main male lead, his name is yoon kyeo re, he’s incredibly emotionally damaged and he doesn’t trust basic human kindness because he thinks people always want something in return, but he has a dog that he named sonny to try and build a family for himself and he has an emotional breakdown when a sick old man is nice to him

and i, being the clown that i am, said ‘thank you this is exactly what i wanted’

WATCH QUEER EYES

Because:

Go watch Queer eye on Netflix, seriously.