First I'll review Butter lol. It was terrible. The MV was cringe af and Suga, as usual, had 8 seconds. I'm not even sure Hobi had lines???? I saw him once dancing and that's it. The English was barely understandable, it wasn't catchy at ALL.  Ugly song that doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Dynamite. I liked the latter immediately even with the MV, which was honestly nice and summery and I watched it a few times.  This was annoying candy pop crap. And it made me depressed to think about good their old stuff was and this is what they put out now all to get kudos from the West. Gross. 

Second, I finished You Are My Hero.  Overall, I loved it. One of the best romcom or romance dramas whatever you want to call them, that I've seen. I'm somewhat surprised to see people always saying that Chinese dramas are too long and like, IDTS???  I mean, i can finish a 40-ep drama with ease bc they never drag. YAMH went through so many twists and turns and the only part that was a tiny bit dull was the earthquake stuff. The ending, let me get the cons out of the way first, was also a bit weak and dull, which I find is the weak spot of Chinese drams. They never seem to know how to make a real strong satisfying ending. Forward Forever was the best in that area I've seen recently.  The ending wasn't sad or anything like that, it was just kinda weak and did nothing with the strong chemistry between the leads. 

Now for the good stuff. It was genuinely funny and very little of the comedy was derived from cringe-y things and second-hand embarrassment. They did a good job mixing in the SWAT scenes with the medical stuff (which isn't at ALL gripping to me, but maybe for others), and they also did a good job finding plausible scenarios to mesh the two, i.e. to have Mi Ka and Kelei work on something together. Which reminds me, the climax event before the actual ending was fantastic. 

Here's the other thing that amazed me about this show though. The main couple was actually a good example of a healthy relationship. Wow!  There are so many toxic and irritating relationships in dramas where one or both of the FL and ML are constantly misunderstanding each other and playing games of manipulation. It's the most frustrating fucking thing and after i saw several of those, it turned me off from trying many more romance dramas bc i hate that shit.  But these two actually talked about things and admitted when they wrong!  Le GASP.  The place where this really comes out is when these two sisters from Kelei's childhood show up and try to drive a wedge between him and Mi Ka bc the older one wants to marry him, and nothing they did worked bc neither Kelei nor Mi Ka overreacted to things or got mad at each other.


Lol like I seriously kept expecting one of the stupid typical misunderstandings in romcoms and there were none!  At least, not between the lead couple. Between the second couple, yes, and they were annoying to me most of the time, but fortunately, they didn't get a ton of screentime so it was ignorable. I skipped a few of their scenes lol. 

Acting was also really good. Nothing too OTT. And ye gods I am SO impressed with Bai Jingting. His acting is so steady and in character and he's never over dramatic. I'm probably gonna watch that new one with him too even though i have no idea if it's my type of thing or not just bc he's so entertaining.  He was absolutely perfect as Kelei. 

Now i have to wallow in my show hole feels for a bit. I assume I'll work on finishing Lost in 49 next bc that's the closest one. That one sucks bc it means i will be running out of Chen Kun things to watch. TAT

 Lol i'm back. But I'm done with Kpop so anyone happening upon this journal, just forget everything that comes before this post bc i don't care anymore. I'm still a fan of some random solo artists and sorta girl groups, but I really don't care about boygroups any longer. EXO is ruined for me thanks to the traitors who joined another group and all the stupid fans who supported them so bye bye lah. I briefly considered going back to BTS since I love Suga still, but nah, that group is ruined for me too bc they no longer make the music that made me listen to them. Now, rapline gets hardly any lines, esp Sope, and their vocalists are still trash af. I liked BE for the most part and I guess it's good that they're not pots and pans like most boygroups out there but nah, I only like Suga and Hobi. 

Anyway.

Decided more or less to go back to an older fandom: Cpop and Chinese entertainment in general. Of course, the ifandom for it is as dumb as ever but just in a different way. The landscape has massively shifted from being focused on Taiwan and Hong Kong to the mainland, but that's not all that surprising when you consider the political situation. The CCP has way more power than it did 10-12 years ago, which is when I first got into it. HK is basically irrelevant now on their own. And Taiwan is not much better. Stars in both places have to work in the Mainland in order to have work at all.

I'm not a fan of how this went down necessarily, but at the same time, I won't lie that dramas and movies being higher quality and more available means that I get to watch more of them. Bc I'm not just done with Kpop, I'm done with Korean dramas as well. I watched a buttload in 2016 and 2017 and just got sick of how a lot of them were the same stupid romcoms.  Japanese dramas I will still watch occasionally if I find an interesting one that's been subbed. Bc Japan has the problem of wanting to keep all their shit out of gaijin hands. 

Reopening this so i can rant about things that are too annoying to rant about on TWitter. And Cpop Twitter is really stupid and annoying bc they're all newbs who got into it through either Yixing or other Chinese EXO members, or survival shows, OR that stupid Untamed drama. Don't get me started on the faux BL in Cdramas that fujoshis are ridiculously obsessed with lmao. They're such misogynists bc the only thing they want is no women. The dramas themselves could EASILY be construed as simple friendship only. Censors won't allow anything else so that's literally all they are. There's more "romance" in American buddy cop movies. But yeah, it gives MALE actors an easy way to get coin and popularity as they then move onto bigger and better things lmao. They even have a slang for it: going out to sea. That's all it is to them.

Dumb girlies.

My other rant is how much i fucking hate Yixing stans. I don't dislike him personally. But his STANS seem to think he's God's gift to Cpop and his music is showstopping never been done before when it is literally NOT. There are several Cpop artists who have been doing what he's doing for longer. Like Gong for example. They think mixing hiphop and electro beats with Chinese traditional music is new. They also think he can rap. I can't stand they asses. I have to refrain from dragging Yixing bc he doesn't really deserve it but ye gods his fans are insufferable. 

 I lowkey feel like EXOL won't ever forgive THAT fandom for trying to put out our "light". Maybe I'm falling into it too, but i didn't even appreciate Soompi putting out that thing about BTS and EXO having contact or whatever.  Like, that's nice and all, that's not the fucking point. BTS fandom is VILE and they don't deserve anything.  And don't try to tell me it's just a minority, no it clearly is not.  It's both ifans AND Kfans.  If anything, they're calling down karma on their own group.  Which isn't fair to them as I bear them no ill will, but you know, as one of my mutuals put it, it's really hard to separate the two at this point.  It's sad that they've brought it to that.  But you made that bed.

In any case, some random Hyunseung news.  Yet again, one of his Japan things was canceled, same random vague reason.  Then it turns out he's dating some gymnast girl, which that's cool.  At least he has something to do lmao.  How did she find him in the dungeon though?  Also on the Cube front, Idk if I said it here, but Pentagon's Japan album appears to be almost all original this time, only one rehash with Violet.  Tempted to put it in with my EXO order. 

I'm soooooo pressed that there's like four weeks until that album comes out.  Because I already know it's awesome.  The remaining songs, I heard a preview and they all sound amazing.  No real ballads except Cosmic Railway, which is like the quintessential Jpop ballad, so not much of a ballad honestly.

Oh yeah, I watched all of EXO's eoy stuff.  Took me forever lmao. Yo nice skirt.  Anyway ahhh it was all good.  Camerawork, mostly bad, except for the last one, which might have been MBC Idek, the one in the bar, that was good.  Universe perf was good and I see they already got their first win on it too.

Ok, I know Baek has the edge in my stanning, but sometimes I'm seriously not sure because Chen is so fluffing hot and talented.  ALl I know is that SM better give them the duet they've been asking for for basically ever. :<  Even if it's just Chen guesting on Baek's solo (a few times).  SOMETHING.

 I have TWO hilarious BTS fandom things to enjoy of late.  The first is that they lost a shitton of votes in MAMA when illegal votes were checked so now EXO's winning everything lmao.  LIke, I don't even care much, I've only voted a few times, but it's still hilarious whenever they get taken down.  And no Idc about them appearing on some American TV thing, I literally could not care less about American entertainment so that means nothing to me.

Anyway, the other thing is ok, probably not exclusive to BTS fans bc I can fully imagine other fandoms doing the same thing, but so basically some American indie rapper tweeted how much she wanted Jungkook's D and the fans lost their shit and drove her off Twitter.  But what's funny about this is how fucking hypocritical these fans are.  Like don't pretend you're not sitting on  your ass writing smutty gay fanfics or smutty reaction thirst posts on Tumblr about this guy. 

I mean, for the record, I don't really think posting that kind of thing in a public forum is classy at all.  Imagine, for example, if it were a guy posting about how much he wanted to fuck some girl group member.  So I'm not on her side at all, but I've said it a million times, I hate hypocrisy and I have no sympathy on any level for these stupid ifans who both sexualize and infantilize idols.  It's weird and gross and if she made them uncomfortable, then I'm rolling in it bc they deserve it.

Idk I'm not here for making idols in any way out to be more than or less than human.  They're not objects and they're not gods.  I'm not holding them to any different standard so like, if I wouldn't @ some random  person with thirsty statements, I wouldn't say them in public while mentioning the idol by name.  It's just crass. Like, keep that shit to yourself.

Istg all these losers just want attention and validation these days.

 Only I don't like hot cocoa just like I don't like BTS vocal line's insistence on freaking using falsetto.  I admit I'm going into this with high levels of annoyance but I'll try to be objective.  I kinda like DNA, parts of it, but it seems to go nowhere.  Best of Me continues with the falsetto to the point where i'm like....are they incapable of using anything else?  I mean, it didn't used to bug me as much bc there was more rapping, but lately it seems they've given more lines to the vocalists and it's just....not working for me.

The frickin falsetto is honestly hurting my ears.  Wings was hella disappointing, but this is just...

I feel like...Bye BTS I hardly knew ye lol.  Ok, not hardly as I've been listening to them for a little while now, but they're going in a different direction and I don't like it.  I mean, for starters, are they really going to lean lines towards their vocalists when they're so freakin' weak?  That actually makes me kinda mad.  I'll just wait patiently for more mixtapes from Suga. 

Even Mic Drop is boring compared to their usual.  Ugh.

Final word: repetitive, autotuned, shrill 1/5 would not repeat

 I think the Chinese tension is doing some interesting things to groups with Chinese members. First, JYPE took Jackson out of all further GOT7 promotions in Japan.  He's also getting a shitton of hate from Chinese fans, but I would bet money that's related to him calling out shippers.  Either way, his position in GOT7 suddenly seems really tenuous.

Then there's Lay.  His situation seems a little more obvious to me.  My guess is that SM is going to keep him solo.  He's not gonna bail on his contract and stuff like the other ones did, but I bet SM sees that he can make them money promoting solo in the Chinese market so he's probably going to de facto leave EXO.  I think it's funny the people who are burying their heads in the sand about it too like, shouldn't you be prepared?  The writing is kinda on the wall lol.

I mean, he's freaking filming an MV in Korea apparently and yet he obviously did not promote with EXO on the repackage.  Idk it seems so obvious to me lol.

All my top bias groups have Chinese members so it's interesting how this is playing out.

Oh yeah and my gosh BTS is really starting to annoy me.  Now they're working with some douchebro Western group for their new album and it's just like...srsly.  And their fans keep acting like this is something to brag about.  Well, some fans, not all fans.  Like Omona for example.  They need to quit being so reasonable lately lol it's interrupting my hate.

 Since I haven't kept up with EXO (lol no shit) I just realized last night that the K-version of Transformer obviously doesn't have Xiumin or Chen so I'm just listening to the Chinese versions of that one album right now.  I might like the Chinese version of Transformer better lol.  I just...really like Xiumin ok lol.  Especially when he gets that really rough-sounding voice tone.  Hnnnng.  He seems to have it more often in Chinese.  Also, Tao and Lay's lines, lol it's easy to tell the difference between their lines and the other two.  Xiumin sounds slightly better than Chen though.  I keep trying to explain my attraction to Xiumin but I really can't.  I keep thinking Baek is my fave but I don't think he isssssssssssssss.

The BTS album was finally announced and amg it sounds so pretentious already.  I hated like half of Wings so Idk.  I don't have a good feeling.  They need to stick to rap-heavy stuff bc their vocal line is shrill and annoying.  I mean, I'm interested in their comeback, but only on a very shallow level lol.  I never follow their stages and rarely watch their MVs.  There's been absolutely nothing about Pentagon's album though other than the showcase announcement so Idek what's going on there, but omg it's CUBE.  That's pretty much what they do.  They didn't announce CLC's comeback until like the last minute and then took forever, like right before release, for the details.  You'd think they'd treat Pentagon better, but apparently not.

And I've pretty much given up on Hyunseung getting a comeback le sigh.  HE's probably just gonna end up in the military. =/

In drama things, I finished Bad Guys and Bride of Habaek and I really want to get back to Sparrow, but now I'm interested in Task Force 38 and Prince's drama is on Viki and there was something else I saved on Viki too the last time I was there.  Plus I still want to go back to Mystic Nine besides, and there's a few J-dramas too that I wanted to watch before the end of the year.  Ugh dramas lol.  There's too many. It's no wonder I never get around to watching movies anymore.  My plan to watch list is so huge I'll never get to the end of it.

ETA - the new Victon mini is kinda boring, no real bops.  Otoh, I listened to the new Will Pan album yesterday and honestly thought it was pretty good, despite the weird plagiarism controversy from one of his songwriters.

 Ok, so I really do believe that Hyunseung's comeback is out there somewhere.  Idk why they're taking so long or why they're not updating anyone, but there's bits and bobs of hints in places, including HS's own Insta.  So I do think it's coming.  I'm just super hoping it's a real full album.  I don't like reading about all these 89-liners getting their draft notices lately.

So I watched a few Exo Ko Ko Bop stages and honestly the choreo is not gripping at all.  But one of the shows had translated lyrics and omo I had no idea they were all fully of sexin like that lol.  I mean, the song definitely has that feel, but there's plenty of Kpop songs that have that feel and then the lyrics are super ambiguous or tame.  It's weird that no one talked about it vs Vixx's Black Out, but I kinda bet that the translation has something to do with it.  Like, it maybe sounds way more explicit to someone who knows Korean vs how it got translated.  Kinda like when people kept translating Agust D as literally going to Hong Kong when that line was slang for being turned on.  The subs by Big Hit were actually accurate vs all the fan translators.

Speaking of BTS though.  I'm always conflicted on them you know bc of how annoying their fans are and plus all these recent fans who obviously just saw them when they appeared on the stupid American awards show.  For the most part I just like Suga bc of what a little shit he is lol.  Well and I love his rapping too.  The one thing I do like I guess is that they seem to make a lot of old KPop fans salty due to their unstoppable popularity.  Old Kpop fans are always annoying me bc they act like their era was better and that the new era needs to have respect for the old.  Yeah, no.  I'm very aware of the old era of Kpop, but I didn't like it.  Even some of the groups I like now that were on the fringe then like 2PM, SHINee, B2ST, etc. I still don't like their oldest albums.  Plus the rapping in all three of those groups is largely awful.  

Tbh aside from all the electro, bassy, dance-oriented stuff now, it's the emphasis on rapping that made me a fan of this newer era.  Apparently that bugs some people.  I've seen threads where people were whining about how there's too much rapping in new groups.

In unrelated crack speculation...lol, today I was thinking WHAT IF, as in plot twist!  What if Hyuna decided not to comeback solo and instead wanted to do more Triple H?  I remember she did that with Trouble Maker one year.  I would actually really love that though.  I've played the heck out of that mini.  And besides, in terms of their sound, Edawn and Hui are my favorites in Pentagon and in Triple H, you get to hear way more of them.  I just thought they meshed really well.  Hui with his strong, soaring voice and Edawn and Hyuna with their really unconventional chipmunk voices lol.  So yus, gimme mo of dat.

 Finally watched the last episode of Tunnel and ok, so it was a pretty fun ride, but honestly, it really was't THAT amazing.  Not like certain tools on MDL think anyway lol.  First of all, the ending.  They never show whether he catches the killer in the past and it's like...how is everything going to turn out the same?  I mean, presumably it would turn out better because the girl wouldn't end up being adopted and all that and she grows up knowing Sunjae, but on the other hand, how likely is she to get interested in....ok, nevermind I solved my own conundrum.  It's easy enough to assume that the killer gets caught back then and then nothing else really matters.  The future events won't happen and only Kwang Ho will remember that they happened at all.

I GUESS that's fine lol, but Idk, I can't help thinking it would have been better if he'd stayed in the future, present, whatever.  Time travel is so confusing lmao.  But see that's the thing, it honestly didn't factor a whole lot into the plot and that's why it's just a pretty good crime drama with a fantasy twist that allowed for those a-ha moments throughout.  Idk, I rated it good, but there were a lot of things that annoyed me about it ultimately.  I really liked the lead actors though, they were both really good and "bromantic" without being ridiculous.

Anyway, on to Lookout.  Or at least, I will be on to Lookout just as soon as DF puts out the new eps.  They really dropped the ball on bothering to sub Tunnel there at the end.  I watched like the last four episodes on Viki.

I've said before that I honestly don't give a crap about Kpop or Jrock or any other Asian groups getting awards here because I don't care about the American music industry and therefore I don't care about its awards either.  But I was completely unsurprised to see BTS get dragged by American music fans for winning whatever it is they won.  That same thing happened when Psy was at some award show.  People were all, who are these fucking Asians?  Isn't that the most interesting part of it though?  The vitriol is really aimed at Asians specifically.  Because I remember European artists, even ones who could barely speak English being at these shows (back when I gave a crap) and no one gave them shit.  Even Latin artists, same thing.  But Asians, OMG THIS CAN'T HAPPEN.

I see you America.

I think my favorite thing about this site is the random icon option when you post, otherwise it's frankly quite shitty in every way.  People loved to complain about every new thing Livejournal did all the time, but this site is essentially what an old, unupdated LIvejournal looks like.  It seemed like there used to be more icon slots too, but now you have to pay and it's like hahah yeah right.  Oh the other thing I love is this skull mood theme and the one where it has a coffee.

So I'm almost done with Goblin, one more episode to go.  I honestly can't believe people were complaining about the girl's acting, like seriously?  She was absolutely great.  You really felt the weight of her emotions in every scene.  And since i'm one of those jerks who largely ignores the female characters, that coming from me is very rare.  The last few episodes I was seriously getting confused on who remembered what lol.  But probably my favorite part, other than that hilariously gay scene where the Reaper tries to hide the Goblin from Duk Hwa, is where he tells Sunny his name is Wang Yeo.  It was subtle, but it felt like the hardest thing he'd ever had to say.  There's some fine acting in this show, honestly.  All the mains are truly fantastic and I can rarely seriously say that about any show.  There's always someone overacting like fuck.

Still pressing on with Wu Xin.  That commander cracks me up bc he makes the most ridiculous faces.  Speaking of overacting...lool.  Main guy though has some abs damn.  I feel like I've seen the Yue Ya girl in something before.  Waiting for Mike D'Angelo to show up, I haven't seen him in a minute.

Saw an article about fans hating Junno from KAT-TUN for I guess leaving and going solo and ugh that whole thing frustrates me so much.  On one hand, I can understand bc it's like, wow, you knew KT was hanging by a thread and then you just bailed anyway.  PLUS, not even to change your path, but to release solo music.  And honestly, his solo music so far has been really sub-par.  I thought when he had solos with KT that his voice was pretty strong, but his solos have shown so far that it's not.  I like Junno a lot and lowkey want him to succeed, but I'm not pretending these singles have been good and honestly, leaving and then making a U-turn on music was kinda shitty.

Was perusing AKP yesterday and saw some article about D-list celebs namedropping BTS or whatever and their fans eating it up.  Tbh, in all my years of following Asian music, I have NEVER understood why other fans are so jonesing for them to get recognition here.  Like, just stop.  It won't happen.  They'll get recognition as a curiosity, nothing more.   Americans have no tolerance for foreign acts and they especially seem to have something against Asians.  Plus the celebrity culture is totally different here.  If the choice is being recognize as a curiosity or not recognized at all, I'd choose the latter.