dangermousie @ 2011-08-16T23:29:00

2011-08-17T03:30:14Z

This is my favorite scene so far and nothing really happens in it, just Kang Suk and Dan Ah waiting for sunrise and talking. This writer does dialogues so well, as I discovered with Gloria.

KS: Have you ever watched a sunrise?
DA: A few times.
KS: Which was the most memorable?
DA: I think the one I saw when I was on a school trip. It was on Mt. Tonghak in Gyeongju. I was surprised to see the big red sun that filled the entire sky. At that moment, it felt like life was wonderful. I haven't had that feeling since then.
KS: I went to Gyeongju on a school trip too.
DA: But you didn't see the sunrise?
KS: I got into a fight with my classmates. My father had come along to treat my teachers to a meal. He wanted me to be the class rep, and he thought a food bribe would help.
DA: Did it?
KS: The day before the election, I got into a fight and almost got suspended. Thanks to that,
I was disqualified.
DA: You sure got into a lot of fights.
KS: I could've become a gangster if I wanted to. They even tried to recruit me.
DA: You were lucky to have a rich family. Otherwise, I'd be talking with a mob boss right now.

KS: I don't think you're the sexy type that mob bosses like.

DA: You never know. I have "Innocence of a Dancer" up my sleeve.
[they both laugh]
KS: I spoiled you. [pause] It wasn't because I had a rich family. I didn't want people pointing their fingers at my father for having a gangster son. The thought of living up to
my father's expectations, and not being able to do what I wanted sometimes frustrated me.
DA: Is that why you fought so hard?
KS: I liked being on the receiving end. I knew I was untouchable after high school graduation. So I let them beat me while they could.
DA: Why...are you so cruel to yourself?

KS: That's a first. People ask me why I'm a cruel person, but not why I'm cruel to myself.
DA: You once told me to love myself more. Take your own advice. Then your life won't be as frustrating.
[KS steps out of the car and talks to himself]

KS: Are you even aware of how cruel I am to you? You stupid woman.

I loooove character development through dialogue but even more do I love knowing what makes these people tick through dialogue and that conversation explains so much about both DA and KS. ~~Therapy!!!~~

( Some delicious shippy caps from recent eps )

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Booooooks. Mainly.

2011-08-15T21:25:13Z

I am not even going to talk about the sheer LUNACY of what is going on behind the scenes with Myung Wol because it is making me want to pummel something. Figures that the first kdrama romcom that I have genuinely loved in years has self-destructed bigger than the Titanic. It might be a divine hint! For the record, with the new actress, she better be playing Myung Wol past plastic surgery. I don't care who plays her, I frelling LOVE Myung Wol as a character and to bring in an entirely new love interest would make no sense storywise (well, even less sense that what will have to go on to explain the new actress). I also think Han Ye Seul has just on-purpose murdered her own career. I don't even know what to think! Why???? Never in all my years of drama-watching have I ever seen anything like this!

To distract self, I am going to talk about three wonderful books, two of them recs from flisties!

1. gurlygirl10, I totally owe you! When I asked for romance novel recs, one of the books recced was Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire. I had no interest in conteporaries, but I know gurlygirl is the one flistie I know who is as dedicated as I am to the whole 'dysfunctional alpha hero who is beyond obsessed with heroine and incapable of living without her' trope, so when she told me "I felt like this book showed how much the hero loved the heroine more adequately than any book I've ever read- it is such a train wreck- I really though the hero would die if he didn't have the heroine" I decided to take a chance. And I loved it! The protagonists are college students, Abby and Travis. Abby is a cardican-wearing, no-nonsense, poker-playing freshman with some interesting history. Travis is a tattooed, shaven-headed junior who makes extra $$$ through underground fighting. Sparks fly, things get out of control and they enter a confused, passionate, utterly dysfunctional, codependent, overwhelming relationship which is delicious to read about (though in RL, I'd call for an intervention). This book left me in a state of permanent swoon and reminded me in some ways of my own college romance with Mr. Mousie (who is neither tattooed nor an underground fighter, thankfully :P)

Plus, this quote, from heroine's roomie, cracked me up forever and summed up why I love this trope so much:

Do you know what co-dependency is, Abby? Your boyfriend is a prime example, which is creepy considering he went from having no respect for women at all to thinking he needs you to breathe.

I mean, if this doesn't encapsulate why I am currently obsessed with Family Honor, nothing does.

2. Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale has been recced by a number of flisties and I am loving it. Aristocratic stroke victim and a quaker as an OTP? Somehow it works. The whole 'stuck in asylum' plot is reminding me of one of my favorite Victorian novels, Hard Cash by Charles Reade. It was a huge sensation when it came out and resulted in asylum reform. Its brilliant but high-strung Oxonian protagonist, Alfred, is confined in an asylum by his evil father who is afraid his son will reveal his crime to the police. Did I mention this happens on Alfred's wedding day to his OTP, Julia? (Alfred/Julia Forever!!!!) Even though Alfred is perfectly sane, he cannot prove it in any way and nobody is interested. Eventually, after a couple of years of torment, he manages to escape and take his father to court to prove his sanity, with the help of awesome Julia of course. Apparently it was based on a real case.

3. Not recced but stumbled on by myself - Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake, about two damaged and shut-off people - a mural painter and a brilliant biology student, who slowly navigate falling in love and opening up. It's a brilliant novel, even if some of the stuff in it made me viscerally uncomfortable (the male half the the couple, Nakajima, is pretty much permanently and irreparably damaged).

So here is my book report.

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Musings of the Obsessive Kind

dangermousie @ 2011-08-16T23:29:00

Booooooks. Mainly.