Carm's corner

Here's this week's update

 

Currently reading

• La transmigración de los cuerpos [The transmigration of bodies] (novel) - Chapter 1/5

Finished watching

• Love is better the second time around (Japanese BL drama) - 6 episodes
• How to make millions before grandma dies (Thai film)

Currently watching

• Winter Begonia (Chinese drama) - Weekly, weekends - 20/49 episodes
• Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung (Korean drama) - No schedule - 12/20 episodes
• El Secreto del Río (Mexican drama) - No schedule - 4/8 episodes
• Dakaichi: I'm Being Harassed By the Sexiest Man of the Year (BL anime) - No schedule - 8/13 episodes
• Top Form (Thai BL drama) - Thursdays - 5/11 episodes
• Perfect 10 Liners (Thai BL drama) - No schedule - 3/24 episodes

Last Monday, I started The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera. But I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish it. We’ll see. I wrote a separate post about it because I apparently had a lot to say and didn’t want to clutter this one with so much text about it.

During the week (specifically between Tuesday and Thursday), I watched Love is Better the Second Time Around. I liked it. It’s short, with protagonists in their 30s. I want to watch more Japanese BLs, and it’s perfect that most of them have few episodes. Plus, I don’t know, something about their style makes me really enjoy them (yes, even though I’m currently watching a lot of Thai series).

Last night, I watched the movie How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, and I liked it a lot. It made me cry, because the story moved me. It deals with the complexities of family relationships, but also explores a bond of affection and care that starts from purely financial interest. There were some details that hit close to home, maybe because they resembled circumstances from my own life. Visually, I also really liked it. I’m drawn to that melancholic style, which makes me feel like I’m being transported to Thailand’s warm climate. I also liked that it doesn’t portray the fancy, extremely luxurious settings some series do, which I find a bit annoying (because they end up reminding me of Mexican telenovelas where everyone is rich and lives in mansions or super-luxury apartments). Here, for example, the hospital scenes felt very close to the reality I’ve experienced (except for the part of taking off the shoes to mark your place in the queue). I’m kind of glad I didn’t get to watch it in theaters because I think I would’ve been a little embarrassed to cry the way I did yesterday in the privacy of my room.

This week, we continued with episodes 19 and 20 of Winter Begonia in the watch party, and I’m falling more in love with Shang Xirui. What a character. Honestly, I really like many of the characters in the series. The women, for example, are interesting, and I’m intrigued to learn more about them. One thing I love is how funny some scenes can be without feeling out of place in the show’s overall dramatic tone. There are moments that make my heart ache or leave me nervous about what might happen… I can’t deny that sometimes I have shippy thoughts about certain characters, like Du Luocheng, Cheng Fengtai, and Shang Xirui. Cheng Fengtai and Du Luocheng could kiss to smooth things over, and then both kiss Shang Xirui because he’s their diva, their star. They wouldn’t have to compete to be his favorite… they could share. The more, the merrier.

I also made progress with Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung. I love seeing the bonds of camaraderie forming between the male and female historians. I’m also growing fond of certain characters I didn’t love at first, like Min U Won. I think, as with Winter Begonia, I like that there are moments that are extremely silly and funny, and others that are very dramatic and sad, or politically tense, and they balance well. Maybe the least important part so far for me is the romance, but it’s sweet and doesn’t bother me at all. In that sense, I like that the prince is the one who’s head over heels, while Hae Ryung (who initially wasn’t interested in marriage and ran away from her own wedding) is discovering someone with whom she shares a sense of complicity, despite their differences. But beyond that, it always makes me think about history, about what’s considered worthy of being recorded for posterity. It reminds me of my school days when, in certain classes, teachers would briefly mention microhistory and other approaches (though not in depth, since I ended up studying literature, not history) and it was very interesting. I’m so glad I decided to watch this drama, because I’m enjoying it a lot.

I only watched one more episode of Dakaichi this week.

And, because I needed to test if my credit card would work for buying the fanmeeting ticket, I ended up paying for a month’s subscription to WeTV and got to watch episode 5 of Top Form without having to wait for a week. This drama is funny because the first episode seemed very meh to me, but the second was better than the first; then the third was better than the second, and so on with each new episode. It still doesn’t make me feel feral or anything like that, but at least it makes me want to keep watching the upcoming episodes. I’s like to finish Dakaichi before all 11 episodes of this drama air. I want to see the differences and similarities. The drama kept the honey scene and the photoshoot with the cigarettes, and I always find it interesting to see different adaptations of a work. Maybe soon I’ll also try reading the manga.

Ah, yes, I added Perfect 10 Liners to my list.

And that’s all for this week. I want to start working on the freebies for the fanmeeting. I also want to think of ways to save up for when the upgrades go on sale (polaroid photos with each couple).