Musings of the Obsessive Kind

1. Respond to everyone...

2. Catch up on The King 2 Hearts eps 13-14, Love Rain 11-14 (bliss!!!) and Queen In Hyun's Man eps 5-6. I am putting aside The Equator Man to binge when it's done.

3. Clear up and post caps of eps 3-4 of QIHM - such a perfect, shippy, gorgeous drama. And Bung Do is such an amazing hero - smart, good, laid-back. Yoo Inna's heroine is wonderful and loveable too.

4. Read Cassandra Clare's latest in Mortal Instruments series, "City of Lost Souls." I eat up that series and the angsty angsty lurve between Clary and Jace with a big spoon. Though I think the premise of CoLS, in which Clary's used-to-think-he-was-her-brother-but-he-wasn't boyfriend gets possessed by her demonic-real-life-brother and there might be make-outs, reaches the levels of insanity not seen since CLAMP or Vampire Knight. Bring it on, people!

4. Start Sherrilyn Kenyon's "Born of Night," the first one in her League series. Love me some space opera, love me some romance, loved the other book in the series I read, and also met the protagonists of this one in the other book and thought they were awesome. The super-tall, super-strong invincible half-human former assassin and tiny dancer gal/daughter of a president that he rescues and who can wind him around her finger is a scenario made for me. Plus, I know Kenyon, h/c is going to be out of this world.

5. Finish Lauren Kate's "Fallen" quartet, at least the three books that are out. I am a sucker for paranormal romance YA (ummm, paranormal romance in general) and got 2/3 through this on my plane ride. Addiction! In Fallen, Luce, our teenage, sent-to-reform-school, seeing creepy visions heroine, finds out that she is one half of a super-doomed, super-punished couple - she keeps reincarnating over and over and over through the centuries only to die at the moment she and her equally punished OTP get together (he is a powerful sort-of-fallen angel and his punishment is to stay alive and remember everything only for it to happen over and over again no matter what he does). They are in their own cdrama! Only this time, she's not been baptized or brought up in any religion, so if she dies, that is the end, no reincarnation or anything. And a lot of supernatural bad guys are interested in that. On plus side, she also didn't die when they got together. Now, if she can only keep staying alive! Anyway, I love it to bits and ship the OTP. The whole thing would make a fun CW show but I am glad it's been left alone because you just know the makers would stick her with bad-boy Cam and not her OTP (see Vampire Diaries, adaptation of...).

6. Sleep. I am so jetlagged.

1. Respond to everyone...

2. Catch up on The King 2 Hearts eps 13-14, Love Rain 11-14 (bliss!!!) and Queen In Hyun's Man eps 5-6. I am putting aside The Equator Man to binge when it's done.

3. Clear up and post caps of eps 3-4 of QIHM - such a perfect, shippy, gorgeous drama. And Bung Do is such an amazing hero - smart, good, laid-back. Yoo Inna's heroine is wonderful and loveable too.

4. Read Cassandra Clare's latest in Mortal Instruments series, "City of Lost Souls." I eat up that series and the angsty angsty lurve between Clary and Jace with a big spoon. Though I think the premise of CoLS, in which Clary's used-to-think-he-was-her-brother-but-he-wasn't boyfriend gets possessed by her demonic-real-life-brother and there might be make-outs, reaches the levels of insanity not seen since CLAMP or Vampire Knight. Bring it on, people!

4. Start Sherrilyn Kenyon's "Born of Night," the first one in her League series. Love me some space opera, love me some romance, loved the other book in the series I read, and also met the protagonists of this one in the other book and thought they were awesome. The super-tall, super-strong invincible half-human former assassin and tiny dancer gal/daughter of a president that he rescues and who can wind him around her finger is a scenario made for me. Plus, I know Kenyon, h/c is going to be out of this world.

5. Finish Lauren Kate's "Fallen" quartet, at least the three books that are out. I am a sucker for paranormal romance YA (ummm, paranormal romance in general) and got 2/3 through this on my plane ride. Addiction! In Fallen, Luce, our teenage, sent-to-reform-school, seeing creepy visions heroine, finds out that she is one half of a super-doomed, super-punished couple - she keeps reincarnating over and over and over through the centuries only to die at the moment she and her equally punished OTP get together (he is a powerful sort-of-fallen angel and his punishment is to stay alive and remember everything only for it to happen over and over again no matter what he does). They are in their own cdrama! Only this time, she's not been baptized or brought up in any religion, so if she dies, that is the end, no reincarnation or anything. And a lot of supernatural bad guys are interested in that. On plus side, she also didn't die when they got together. Now, if she can only keep staying alive! Anyway, I love it to bits and ship the OTP. The whole thing would make a fun CW show but I am glad it's been left alone because you just know the makers would stick her with bad-boy Cam and not her OTP (see Vampire Diaries, adaptation of...).

6. Sleep. I am so jetlagged.

I confess my interest in Rooftop Prince is beginning to wane. I am currently managing to keep up with 4 airing dramas (all three W/Th dramas and Love Rain) but I am about to add Hero to the list and try to catch up on God of War and if I will find that I need to drop one, RP will probably be the one. It's a cute, sweet drama but it's darling fluff and I am constitutionally unable to be fully invested in a fluffy drama to the extent I prefer other kinds.

This said, the sequence at the end of ep 5 was adorable.

( Sequence in question )

Also, Yoochun looks about 200x hotter with that modern haircut and a smile (though he looked fine in Joseon garb) and I am excited Park Ha finally remembered the truth about Sena. Now if only she conveys said truth to Princey.

Episodes 5 and 6 of TEM gave me shivers. This drama's cat-and-mouse game is more overt than that of Mawang but not any less tense, smart and satisfying. Jang Il is such an utter black hole of moral failure. I'd almost say that his being the way he is would be sufficient punishment, except the hell that he plunged Sun Woo into deserves a more bloody repayment.




Luckily Sun Woo agrees with me. The scene above was perfect. I love that he remembers every bit of what happened but is pretending not to - his cat and mouse with Jang Il keeps me on the edge of my seat (JI, btw, still clearly manifests that he'd have no second thoughts about committing another murder if he had to. In trying to kill Sun Woo, he also killed any hope of a worthy future for himself).



Ji Wan and Sun Woo are the sole ray of sunshine in the story and I ship them in part because of that, but also because I know how much it would devastate Jang Il. In your face, soulless psycho!

I haven't yet seen this week's ep but last week's ep 4 was brilliant. The large amount of time devoted to Jang Il's fear and almost a sociopath way of overcoming it (practicing his 'surprised face at friend's murder,' saying that he'll have everything he wants but will feel guilty for Sun Woo's death so that sound be enough) was wonderful - it felt organic to the story and fleshed out JI's character (even if that meant I know loathe every second I see him).




I am going to miss Lee Hyun Woo who did a marvelous job and I hope this is the start of a great career for him. But UTW took over as grown-up Sun Woo almost seamlessly - I can believe him the continuation of his teenage self - the hot-headedness, the fear under the bravado, the temper, the grit.



I still hate grown-up Jang Il but watching his suffer the torments of the damned as he tries to wriggle out of the evil act of his past will be fascinating.



Bring it on, drama!

I haven't yet seen this week's ep but last week's ep 4 was brilliant. The large amount of time devoted to Jang Il's fear and almost a sociopath way of overcoming it (practicing his 'surprised face at friend's murder,' saying that he'll have everything he wants but will feel guilty for Sun Woo's death so that sound be enough) was wonderful - it felt organic to the story and fleshed out JI's character (even if that meant I know loathe every second I see him).




I am going to miss Lee Hyun Woo who did a marvelous job and I hope this is the start of a great career for him. But UTW took over as grown-up Sun Woo almost seamlessly - I can believe him the continuation of his teenage self - the hot-headedness, the fear under the bravado, the temper, the grit.



I still hate grown-up Jang Il but watching his suffer the torments of the damned as he tries to wriggle out of the evil act of his past will be fascinating.



Bring it on, drama!

Die, monster!



Take your crocodile tears with you!

Ep 3 of The Equator Man was one of the darkest things out there and I loved it. (K2H may get my fangirl heart going more, but TEM is the best airing drama right now).



It's all the more interesting because I love Sun Woo and like Ji Won but hate hate HATE the rest of the characters - every time I see Jang Il, I feel visceral hate I haven't felt since Bali. But all those monstrous people are complex and fascinating and I want Sun Woo to grind (most of) them into dirt but, until then, I cannot take my eyes away from them.

( More thoughts and caps )

In my not-so-humble opinion, TEM is the best drama airing right now (of the ones I've seen). Sure, I love K2H and enjoy Rooftop Prince, but TEM is just pretty much perfect (except for the soundtrack, which is toned down in ep 2 but still should be cut in half).

The performances are top-notch (especially from Lee Hyun Woo, who plays the younger version of Sun Woo, Uhm Tae Woong's character. That kid is going places) but even more interesting are the characters. I adore Sun Woo the way I don't often adore a character but I find Jang Il even more interesting, even if I don't like him much - take his crush on Ji Won - it is indubitable he's sincerely smitten, but he's smitten, in very large part, because she's an aspirational model - a rich young woman impeccably dressed and singing a song in English. It's not her, it's her status.

I am probably pushing similarities where they aren't, but in a way, Sun Woo and Jang Il remind me a bit of the protagonists of Mawang (my favorite drama of all time) - one is warm-hearted, immediate, prone to violence in just cause, and one a whip-smart, cold, calculating one who finds it hard to open up.

Only the roles have been somewhat reversed - in Mawang, it was the seemingly cold lawyer who was a wreck irreparably damaged by the horrific wrongs done to him and his family (and, in turn, made things only worse when he went for vengeance) and the warm-hearted cop was the perpetrator of the wrongs who has spent his life trying to right the past. Here, this is not the case - clearly, Sun Woo is the victim of the situation, doing everything, even some things that may damn his soul (the bargain offered by the Mob at the end of ep 2 was chilling) for a person whose father killed his (on orders of possibly SW's birth father? Eeeep, this is dark). And Jang Il's ambition and moral ambivalence are not a result of repeated horrific trauma as was the case with Joo Ji Hoon's character in Mawang - no, it's his hatred of poverty and desire for power, understandable but much less sympathetic.

Maybe it is more like Resurrection - I foresee Sun Woo going much darker once he finds out the truth - in Resurrection, Uhm Tae Woong's character morphed from a warm and loving man into a ruthless, ice-cold, terrifying carrier of vengeance who knew he was turning into a monster but could not stop. I wonder if his character here will experience the same trajectory.

Anyway, this is amazing, you should watch!

In my not-so-humble opinion, TEM is the best drama airing right now (of the ones I've seen). Sure, I love K2H and enjoy Rooftop Prince, but TEM is just pretty much perfect (except for the soundtrack, which is toned down in ep 2 but still should be cut in half).

The performances are top-notch (especially from Lee Hyun Woo, who plays the younger version of Sun Woo, Uhm Tae Woong's character. That kid is going places) but even more interesting are the characters. I adore Sun Woo the way I don't often adore a character but I find Jang Il even more interesting, even if I don't like him much - take his crush on Ji Won - it is indubitable he's sincerely smitten, but he's smitten, in very large part, because she's an aspirational model - a rich young woman impeccably dressed and singing a song in English. It's not her, it's her status.

I am probably pushing similarities where they aren't, but in a way, Sun Woo and Jang Il remind me a bit of the protagonists of Mawang (my favorite drama of all time) - one is warm-hearted, immediate, prone to violence in just cause, and one a whip-smart, cold, calculating one who finds it hard to open up.

Only the roles have been somewhat reversed - in Mawang, it was the seemingly cold lawyer who was a wreck irreparably damaged by the horrific wrongs done to him and his family (and, in turn, made things only worse when he went for vengeance) and the warm-hearted cop was the perpetrator of the wrongs who has spent his life trying to right the past. Here, this is not the case - clearly, Sun Woo is the victim of the situation, doing everything, even some things that may damn his soul (the bargain offered by the Mob at the end of ep 2 was chilling) for a person whose father killed his (on orders of possibly SW's birth father? Eeeep, this is dark). And Jang Il's ambition and moral ambivalence are not a result of repeated horrific trauma as was the case with Joo Ji Hoon's character in Mawang - no, it's his hatred of poverty and desire for power, understandable but much less sympathetic.

Maybe it is more like Resurrection - I foresee Sun Woo going much darker once he finds out the truth - in Resurrection, Uhm Tae Woong's character morphed from a warm and loving man into a ruthless, ice-cold, terrifying carrier of vengeance who knew he was turning into a monster but could not stop. I wonder if his character here will experience the same trajectory.

Anyway, this is amazing, you should watch!

I apologize for not checking the flist and/or not replying. I swear I will get to it asap, but today has been insane.

Before I go off to bed, a proper trailer for Uhm Tae Woong's The Equator Man:



I think I have a new 'most anticipated' drama. I love the darkness and the cinematography and the vibe. Please please be good! If this is one-tenth as good as UTW's previous forays into the revenge genre, Resurrection and Mawang, the best drama of 2012 will be upon us.

Apparently, MBC has cancelled the showing of the final two episodes of The Moon That Embraces The Sun this week, replacing them with specials, due to a network-wide strike by pretty much everybody (see clairiere for more details. Short version - they have good cause).

Now, I couldn't care less about Moon/Sun because my view of that drama is pretty much 95% all negative (the only reasons I don't go into rants about that drama is because a number of flisties love it and because I dumped it episodes ago), but that means that the upcoming King 2 Hearts is also getting delayed as it was supposed to start after M/S. ARGH!!!! I need want crave my K2H fix! I suppose that could be good news to K2H's competitors - Rooftop Prince and The Equator Man, because I think K2H was always supposed to be a ratings heavyweight. (Though RP and TEM might also be delayed, per clairiere, not wanting to go head-to-head with M/S' last ep, which strikes me as mildly idiotic as who knows how this will be resolved and they should take advantage).

I guess the good news is the most K2H (and possibly its competitors) can be delayed to is one week, because the lead of M/S is not available after this week, and neither is Han Ga In, I believe. Hmmmm. That's even more of a disaster than Myung Wol, because MWtS had single-digit ratings (much as I adored it) and M/S is (God help us) a national drama, with its 40%+ ratings.

Anyway, freedom of the press is more important than even my upcoming drama fix (especially since I still have my SUFBB :P), so go strikers! But I hope you get your way soon!