feb 2022 round-up

[mistydream]

💿 listening

artists	albums	tracks
epik high: 247 scrobbles taeyeon: 137 scrobbles shinee: 107 scrobbles stayc: 58 scrobbles tablo: 43 scrobbles	invu (taeyeon): 124 scrobbles epik high is here 下 (epik high): 88 scrobbles the shinee world - the first album (shinee): 67 scrobbles young-luv.com (stayc): 44 scrobbles epik high is here 上 (epik high): 36 scrobbles	invu (taeyeon): 55 scrobbles super rare (epik high feat. wonstein, pH-1): 44 scrobbles feelin’ like (pentagon) 15 scrobbles run2u (stayc): 13 scrobbles bop bop! (viviz): 12 scrobbles

the day the epik high, taeyeon and stayc albums dropped was so stressful because i only have two (2) ears to listen to three (3) albums. i've been enjoying stayc's albums, and wasn't surprised that liked young-luv.com. my favourite is definitely young luv, though i also loved the vibe of same same and 247. it’s really impressive that they’ve built such a distinctive sound for themselves as rookies.

i also would’ve looped invu more, had i not checked my last.fm stats mid-month and realised I Should Probably Go Outside and Touch Grass instead of doing the invu hand sign around the house…

📼 watching

once every 4 years my friends and I turn into curling experts, exchanging commentary over telegram like “just whack” “WHACK IT” “now is not the time for guard it is time for WHACK”. in the Great Before we had plans to see the beijing winter olympics irl, but now we have to settle for yelling at our screens. i was hoping for korea to go further in the competition, but they just lacked the same consistency and momentum that they had in 2018 ㅜㅜ it was still fun to watch though, because they love making difficult plays (even when they probably shouldn’t…)

i was also This Month Years Old when i realised that viu’s free service had a lot more content than nolto. all of which to say i inhaled high school mystery club, the girls’ high school-themed escape room/ LARP reality show of my dreams. sure, some of the ideas might be tropey - S1’s Elite Educational Institute With A Dark Secret didn’t reinvent the wheel, but S2’s storyline had a lot more twists and turns. the set design, production value and extensive cast of NPCs were all amazing, but my favourite part is the cast for sure:

• i love yena even if some of her biggest contributions were the mychews she handed out <3 jk duckie also has excellent intuition, spotting things just at the right time. i love that everyone dotes on her, looks out for her (jaejae: ‘cher she’s a kid who can’t even carry a single tangerine) and makes sure she isn’t at the back during the scary bits. also (rot13: s2 spoilers) bs PBHEFR fur jnf cvpxrq nf gur rnfl gnetrg sbe tnfyvtugvat yzsnb. WWL CQ gehyl tnynkl-oenvarq ol ratvarrevat vg fhpu gung fhajbb xlhat bayl vagrenpgrq jvgu lran, fb rirelbar ryfr unq ab erny vzcerffvba bs fjrrg yvggyr lrbatfrba.
• park jiyoon the Morally Upright Model Student who’s also street smart <3 i know it’s literally her job as an announcer but her presentation skills are impeccable wtf
• ms jaece i may have a cr*sh on you. park jiyoon is amazing but jaejae’s memory and reasoning skills AND her ability to read the room and her constant check ins with everyone. you can also tell she adores yena, which, same.
• speaking of cr*shes: jang doyeon… not to write fic here, but she 100% gives me the vibes of someone that everyone would have a crush on because they think she’s cool, but only her closest friends know she’s a dork flsakjdfl like yena, she also has good sense for when their investigation isn’t heading in the right direction (찝찌~입)
• bibi kuudere <3 that scene of her in s1 kicking the door yelling “ahjusshi. AHJUSSHI.” is going to be etched in my brain forever. also shout out to JJY PD for making 2022’s soty (smiley) happen

📚 reading

i’m already halfway through my entire year’s reading challenge?? turns out the easiest way to meet targets is to set the lowest possible one 🤪

convenience store woman felt like the right read at the right time, because i related to both keiko and shiraha. i obviously don’t agree with shiraha’s gender essentialism, but i understood why he rationalised that the easiest way forward is to simply go through the motions of living life the way everyone tells you to. as long as you look like you fit in from the outside, you’re free to do whatever you want within those boundaries.

but i also see myself in keiko and her ultimate meltdown at the end of the book. there’s something empty about acting out a script that only seems to get longer and more demanding (get into a heterosexual relationship, get married, buy a house, have children, raise them well, send them to a school).

i still think a lot about the line “Shiraha, we’re in the twenty-first century! Here in the convenience store we’re not men and women. We’re all store workers.” it points to the only two options we have to live as in late capitalism - as a man or woman in the heteropatriarchy™, and as a labourer in a capitalist economy. and while the latter might be depressing for some (read: me), i understand why keiko holds on to her job at the convenience store. there’s something comforting about an environment where the rules are defined (especially if you’re neurodivergent, which you could read her as). i find it sweet that keiko’s puts her best for the store, even if it also might be her way of desperately trying to fit in. she seems to have found meaning in her work, or at least her life seemed to fall apart without it. and if it keeps her going in an otherwise meaningless life, who am i to say she’s wrong?

shoko’s smile was a book i picked up on a whim, and i’m thankful that the cover spoke to me for some reason. i liked that all the short stories explored similar themes (less than ideal friendships, the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren), but didn’t feel repetitive. my favourite’s definitely the titular shoko’s smile, and its exploration of whether what we see in other people says more about ourselves and our own insecurities than about the other. i loved the way the story was told from the unreliable perspective of the protagonist - someone who was clearly jealous of shoko but too prideful to admit it, even though she knew she had no moral high ground to judge. big mood, sometimes self-awareness means shit.

💬 and other things

set a humble goal of trying to clock out of work around 7pm every day this month, but instead [clown music 10 hours].

i suppose that’s a very nice segue to say there’s nothing else to say in this section… still, i watched, read and enjoyed more things than i thought this month - i guess that's good enough.