I am trying really hard to avoid doing some writing/admin this weekend and any excuse for procrastination will do… so I’ve written some pages-long comments on my current favorite on screen couple (yes, I know that also counts as writing, but it’s neither serious nor high stakes), made a fan mv, spent some time on DB (despite saying I’d take the summer off), and finally organized my thought on the shows I’ve seen so far this year, as a mid-year review of sorts. I’m sharing it below should anyone be interested.

In chronological order:
Encounter fell in love with the mains, but overanalyzed it as it went; the one show where discussing it with DB people worsened, rather than improved, my viewing experience; in retrospect, the SongSong divorce news puts her choice of return drama in a very different perspective…
Children of nobody aka Red moon, blue sun cleverly constructed, though the way it wrapped up was not quite as satisfying as I would have liked; amazing acting from Kim SunAh
Her private life swoon worthy; beyond that I had very little to say about it, KJW as Ryan Gold was memorable; his off-screen chemistry with PMY was even more convincing than on screen
The secret life of my secretary cuties being cute (but also kind of dumb). Veronika Park was a definite highlight
Dan, only love several things drive me nuts, but LYS is enough for me to hang on ’til the bitter end
*I’ve picked the first 2 because of the synopsis, the last 3 because of comments shared by beanies.

Overall, none of the k-dramas I’ve watched this year hit the right spot. Very unusually for me, this year I managed to finish several romcoms. Less unusually, I did not completely love any of them. Turns out that nice, healthy, respectful relationships, though the only kind I look for irl, are kind of boring on screen; I was happy to cheer for the couples, but could not get all that emotionally involved in their journey. In need something darker, more layered and edgier than kdramas can offer.

Further musings on Charlie’s weird drama tastes:
What makes me obsessively love a show is the ability to get into the head of characters and live in their skin for a bit. I love making sense of the complex mess of their motivations and how it reflects in their actions. Unhealthy, ethically gray and conflicting characters are a lot more fun for me, for that reason. This is a tricky request because I also need to be able to like them despite their faults (individually and together); also I absolutely can’t handle some faults, e.g. stupidity or lack of self esteem. The only pair that satisfied my weird set of requirements for 2019 were the Badz-Smile couple in Thai youth drama Boy for rent (as evidenced by the deluge of BS posts on my tumblr blog). I guess this makes me weird and getting weirder.

Back in summer off mode.