Beanie level: Rooftop room dweller

Drama – I’m trying to get off the Psychopath Ship and you’re not helping!!!

In all seriousness, I’m amused by the fact that the Psychopath thinks uri Doormat is a genius because he uses his methods

11
5

    Or I should say: tries to use his methods. And thinks that not killing someone is all part of some dastardly and ultra-cunning plan.

    4
    0

    Is there a BL psychopath mystery novel in Cloggie’s future?

    4
    1

      I think there’s a BL psychopath drama going on in my head only.

      But whenever these two are on screen, it’s mesmerising because it feels you’re watching a mouse prod a cat with a stick and the cat looking on in utter fascination at the mouse’s daring. Ready to pounce at any moment.

      6
      2

        And it really doesn’t help that apparently neither of them has any interest in women.

        3
        0

        Ok.
        That’s it.
        I have to watch this.

        This reminds me a bit of The Smile Has Left Your Eyes. That first part was so fascinating watching him fall for her.

        3
        0

Ship!

Oh no, wait I really shouldn’t. One of them is a psychopath serial killer. Still, that was a sizzling elevator scene.

8
4

    So yes – ep 3 of Psychopath Diary still had me glued to the screen. Possibly for all the wrong reasons.

    1
    0

    that ship was so wrong, how do we get out of it

    3
    1

    Uh 뜨거워요.
    I can feel the sizzle & I chuckle squealed & I’m not even watching this. Now I want to.

    1
    0

Never Twice is currently my happy pill.

(also available: cute images of Kwak Dong Yeon holding a baby)

11
8

    The synchronised head-bob just cracks me up.

    4
    0

    Ohhhhh what is it about? I was hesitant to pick it up because it seems like a 50+ episode show?

    1
    1

      I have no idea how long it is! It’s a weekend drama, so definitely long. MyDramalist says 60 x 30-min episodes, AsiaWiki says 38 x 30-min episodes. But I think it could so easily be 100 x 30-min episodes. Aren’t those weekend dramas normally 50?

      What is it about… well, how long have you got? Basically it’s a make-shift family living in an inn vs a chaebol family in a hotel. With hilarious consequences. Kwak Dong Yeon is so funny as the chaebol heir great at jumping to the wrong conclusions.

      But his mum is part responsible for killing Park Se-wan’s husband. Park Se-wan is great as the feisty young widow (with a baby) looking for answers to why her husband died as she’s certain it wasn’t suicide.

      What I like is that it’s full of actors who have previously played second leads, or small parts, or ‘mums’, who all have quite a different role here. Normally with family dramas, one story-line draws you more than others but I’m actually interested in every character at the moment – even the spoiled chaebol daughter.

      0
      0

    Is it free to watch via viu?

    0
    1

      Yes it is. With the free version, you just have to wait 3 days for the latest episodes

      0
      1

Camellia ep 17/18 (I tried to write this as spoiler free as possible)

I know that many people didn’t like those episodes but I loved the writing of them (even though I might not have loved watching it play out on my screen). After the episode that said: mothers know when their children are in danger (which annoyed me to no end: this isn’t how that works) this one spelt out the danger of overprotective love. It showed that in mother/son triple mirroring which I really liked (and that makes me trust this writer for the final week).

First, we have Yong-Sik’s mum who loves him and wants the best for him, and thereby destroys his relationship with Dong-Baek. Dong-Baek loves Pil-gu and wants to keep him safe and tries to keep him out of the serial killer’s reach by suggesting he should live with his father for a bit. She doesn’t tell him why because she knows how protective he is. All those loving actions hurt the sons.

And finally we have uri lawyer (I think she’s the writer’s favourite too) who gets to explain it to her mother-in-law: you love your son and that’s why you were horrible to me, but this totally backfired and you ended up hurting him. This possessive, protective love is utterly damaging for the exact people you’re trying to help.

It wasn’t an easy one to watch but I thought it was a very interesting message to present to the audience. It’s not only abandoning children that harms them. It’s being overly protective and thinking that you know best, that’s harming too.

19
3

    same Hi Fi

    1
    0

    I give Mom some slack because she has been there for DB and Pil gu and while looking out for a kid is what you do, there is no excuse for DB.

    Sometimes you just get tired of helping adults who don’t want to help themselves. If Mom is doing this herself, of course she does not want her son to live the rest of his life doing it either.

    1
    0

    You put into words what I felt about these episodes.

    2
    0

The lawyer is easily my favourite character in #Camellia. And then I remembered that the same actress also played one of my favourite characters in #Life.

18
0

Whenever I see one character in a car take out another on a crossroad, I can\’t help but think that it must be so hard to get the timing on that absolutely right.

#mustswitchoffmybrain

10
3

    The logistics must be tricky, but then dramaworld people seem quite slow when crossing the road so that helps.

    Psst, congratulations on the new book. My copy should be arriving soon.

    1
    1

      Woo hoo! You got it! I hope you’ll enjoy reading it…

      The logistics must be impossible. First of all, you need to know where exactly the other person is. This can be done with GPS tracking. But, then you need to start at precisely the right moment. And what if that other person has to stop for a traffic light? Or suddenly turns?

      1
      1

SHIP!

#TheLiesWithin

3
0

I just love actors (m/f) who are hardly recognisable from one project to the next. Ji E-suu is one of the ones on my radar at the moment – kickass as Detective Na in My Fellow Citizens, and pretty and pathetic as Jessica in When the Camellia Blooms

14
5

The first episode of The Lies Within dropped on Netflix and all I can say is: wow show\’s darker than I thought it was going to be. Love it.

Ep 1 spoiler in comments

6
1

    Didn’t expect it to end with Dr Ye’s hand in a box. Also, he’s not on the Asianwiki cast list. Is that because there are two Lee Joon-Hyuks acting in the drama (Lee Min-ki’s boss is played by another Lee Joon-Hyuk) and the site got confused? Or is Weasel purely a cameo and … we can safely assume he’s now dead?

    2
    0

OMG @yyishere – is this your cameo appearance on #BeMelodramatic?

16
2

Part of me dreads @yyishere making it to the Rooftop before we find out whether Hot Cold CEO makes it out alive.

7
13

    He has a fighting chance at this point in the story.

    2
    2

    I hope he makes it out alive! I don’t understand why he has to suffer so much, especially these days she’s been a lot meaner to him, she’s losing her temper!

    2
    2

      She’s losing her last thread of sanity.

      Poor Hot Cold CEO, I hope when this is all over he will trip and fall on the lips of some soft hearted but plucky genius doctor who can help him heal.

      6
      1

      Do you want him to fall in love with her? Is it plausible?

      4
      2

        The only way it’s plausible, is if it’s all elaborate cosplay and they have a safeword.

        4
        0

        No! Not after all she’s done to him!
        I want him to be a secret agent sent to you by DB to see how far you’re willing to go for that rooftop room!

        Like a test all Errand Boy/Girls go through for reaching the next level!

        Do you think him just suddenly almost running you over was a coincidence, nope, something bigger, larger than anything you could imagine is underway!

        3
        0

    The last chapter ended with : He closes his eyes.

    I assume the worst and hot CEO is not going to wake up 😥.

    And errand boy girl goes into hiding, since she’s now a murder suspect. She decides to run away from Korea and paraglide into North Korea but ended up in Mongolia. There she’ll find a hot army officer victim who looks similar to Hyun Bin. EBG and HB-lookalike goes on a journey together on a scooter and they will go to Switzerland. The story continues from there.

    Hahaha

    What do you think @yyishere 😂

    2
    1

    I think the only way Hot Cold CEO makes it out alive is to become mentally unstable and end up in a locked ward somehow.
    But then many Errand Boy Girl gets a job at said institution – oh nononononono

    0
    0

Someone pointed out that this week is palindrome week. I couldn\’t figure it out, but then realised that they used American date formats. Today is 9.11.19.

Happy Palindrome Week math-loving beanies!

31
0

#MondayMakjang Take Two – this time without any inappropriate words

I’m fascinated by family secrets, by what people choose to tell to others and what they choose to keep silent. But what if it’s not a secret but purely knowledge that hasn’t been shared?

That’s what happened in my family.

19
23

    During the second world war my grandfather (my mother’s father) was in the resistance and he distributed newspapers that were sharing news of the Allied victories. Clearly illegal at the time. A year before the war ended, he was arrested but he miraculously survived and made it back home. When I wrote my second novel, I dedicated it to my grandfather’s memory, mentioning what he’d done. I sent a copy to my mother and waited for her to call me to thank me for doing that.

    The call never came.

    I thought the book must have been delayed in the post and she just hadn’t seen it. When I talked to her the next week, I asked if the book had arrived and if she’d liked the dedication. She told me she’d seen it, but that she had no idea what I was talking about. She said that they never knew why my grandfather had been arrested, he’d never told anybody why, and so she had no idea why I would have written that he’d worked for an illegal newspaper.

    To say that I was shocked would have been an understatement. For a horrible two days, I wondered if I’d made it all up (which was of course possible).

    Then I spoke to my father, who at first had loathed to disagree with my mother but at last admitted that he knew about the newspaper too. As did my brother. By this stage, my mother was getting quite upset: if everybody knew, then why didn’t she? We were talking about her father, telling her things that she, as his child, had never been told.

    She didn’t believe us.

    Finally, she picked up the phone to her cousin, who was a decade older than her. During the war, my mother had only been a child but her cousin had been eighteen when the war ended and far more aware of what was happening. The cousin confirmed that yes, this was what my grandfather had been doing and yes, this was why they had arrested him.

    My mother is left with the question of why she was the only person in the family who didn’t know this ‘secret’. All we could think of was that after it happened, when my grandfather first returned after a year, it was too horrifying for him to talk about it, but when the grandchildren arrived he could tell it as an exciting heroic story of survival. A therapist friend of mine suggested another answer: my mother had been in the house when my grandfather was arrested and for her it might have been so traumatic that she repressed that memory and everything to do with it. Yup, amnesia.

    I think my mother is happy that she now knows, especially as her cousin died a month after this all happened. Still, it’s tinged with sadness that it’s too late to have asked her father about it.

    42
    9

      I am racking my brain to think of a Theme of the Month this can be submitted to. It was beautiful. I loved reading it so much.

      7
      1

        There should be a Theme of theme Month titled, “That [trope] happened to me!” I’m sure most of these soon to be posted stories would make it.

        5
        1

      This is fascinating, and very makjang if indeed your mother had selective amnesia!!!
      May I ask what country are you from?

      5
      1

      Wow. How interesting! Glad your mum is in a happy place now?

      4
      2

      I can imagine a drama plot from your story. It is so beautiful.

      4
      0

      It’s weird how selective amnesia really does happen to young children… Over the past several years I have found out many non secret facts about my family that I never knew. I think baby Cocoa was almost willfully oblivious? Like, my brother had childhood cancer. I found this out a couple of years ago and suddenly I recalled all the time I spent in hospital waiting rooms that I never questioned as a child.

      Hmm, maybe that will be my next makjang story.

      5
      0

      Ohhhh that was nice! I’m glad you got to post it. I could see it as a drama with Mr. Sunshine kind of budget. I’d watch that.

      3
      0

      That was a beautiful story, thanks for sharing Cloggie! What your grandfather did is incredible and this really sounds like it could be a drama.

      2
      0

      I’m always so interested in WWII stories of bravery and survival. I can’t imagine what its like. So glad your grandfather made it out okay and that your mom now knows of what he did!

      1
      0

      That’s truly amazing. So amnesia isn’t such an unbelievable trope after all. The stories out of war times are usually stranger and more harrowing than fiction. Thank you for sharing this!

      1
      0

#MondayMakjang
I’m fascinated by family secrets, by what people choose to tell to others and what they choose to keep silent. But what if it’s not a secret but purely knowledge that hasn’t been shared?

That’s what happened in my family.

14
31

    Blast, my long story has an inappropriate word.

    You’re going to have to wait until I figure out which one it is

    6
    1

      Oh God, I bet I know which one it is. This is a problem.

      5
      0

    Comment was deleted

    0
    0

    Nope – I’ve taken out that word and it’s still has an inappropriate word.

    Maybe this is the fan wall’s way of telling me that I shouldn’t share this story.

    Sorry guys, Story Time with Cloggie has been…. postponed until I figure out which word I can’t use

    6
    0

    Admit it – this is just performance art about secrets that aren’t shared…

    11
    1

      It’s because it’s hard to write a story about the second world war that’s not full of words that you shouldn’t use on internet forums

      But I like your interpretation a lot more.

      7
      1

        On the plus side, you did remind me that my family has some very juicy makjang of the historical kind.

        Juicy might not have been the best word choice. Oh well.

        8
        1

          You would have liked the story @egads. It was about what happened after my second book got published.

          4
          0

    *crying*

    Even though I took out all the words that I thought were problematic, it still won’t let me post my story. At this rate I’m getting so many -1 points that I’ll end up being an Errand Boy again if I’m not careful.

    Sorry guys – my story was clearly too Makjang.

    9
    2

    I’m not going to bother tagging people for what turned out to be an epic fail

    4
    1

      awww you can also just take a screenshot of the whole thing & post it here! That’s what I did once when I was in a similar bind haha

      4
      0

    Comment was deleted

    3
    3

      Comment was deleted

      1
      0

      1. I am really happy you were finally able to post this. Following your posting-fail saga has been fun. 😀
      2. Whoa whoa whoa, that’s quite makjang. Right there.

      4
      1

      Whoa, your Grandfather was amazing, @cloggie! In war, people tend to shut themselves up for their own survival, or put their all into a patriotic effort – to have distributed uncensored newspapers is seriously cool!

      2
      0

    Okay – figured out which word it was and will repost

    2
    1

    So where is the story??? I see a lot of deleted comments! Did I miss it?

    2
    1

Trailer: Makjang Mondays
Title: Family Secrets
Release date: 09/09/19
Where? Cloggie’s fan wall.
Totally Inspired by True Events

Disclaimer: this screenshot is a total red herring to draw you in

33
13

TOTM non-published post:

Oh My God! They killed Cloggie!

Whenever I see a character on the screen that reminds me of myself, I’m immediately filled with dread. Not that there’s something terrible about me, I have to say, but because of what’s likely to happen to this character in the upcoming episodes of the drama. Yes, you guessed it: it’s death.

Now, I totally understand that from a story’s point of view. After all, what kind of story could you tell about a happy, content, artistic middle-aged woman who lives by herself? There is no challenge in that, no drama, no need for character growth because I’ve already done all of that. In fact, you could argue that maybe dramas should treat middle-aged women the way society describes us: as someone who’s largely invisible.

However, what none of these stories tell you is that there’s a flipside to invisibility and that’s this: nobody watches you anymore and therefore you’re granted the ultimate freedom from societal norms. You can do whatever you want! Beanies: this is something to look forward to! Freed from cultural restraints, a lot of women of a certain age tap in to a rich seam of creativity or spirituality. For example, a good friend of mine has just published her first poetry collection at the age of sixty.

So why do dramas see the need to kill us off? I fully appreciate that someone has to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to keep the local serial killer employed but, in most cases, the older creative woman’s death seems to serve a different purpose. It’s to give a jolt to the other characters in the story. It could be to remind a female lead that unless she dates some guy, she could end up like the single woman next door who choked to death on a chicken bone. I would like to point out that a quick chicken-bone death would be preferable over having to spend decades with some of the male characters that dramas like to serve up. Yes, there’s a reason why I live by myself.


Selfish unmarried aunt dies in My Contracted Husband Mr Oh.

Alternatively, the single aunt can die to leave a niece a mountain in her will (local gayageum manufacturer optional) or the female knot-maker can die so that another character is distraught, leading to skinship between the OTP in the form of a comforting hug and now EVERYBODY KNOWS. You can see how that’s really worth a creative genius’s death. Alternatively, there’s always suicide after being possessed by an evil spirit, just so that the Important Evidence is hidden.


Death leads to hugs in On The Way to the Airport

But this killing-spree isn’t necessary at all. There are better ways of getting women out of the way if that’s needed for the plot. And that brings me to one of my favourite dramas of last year: Twelve Nights. This is one of the more realistic dramas featuring people who have chosen to lead a creative life. It deals with the question of whether to pursue your creativity or make money; whether to sell-out or remain true to your creative vision and whether you should use your connections or do it all by yourself. A scene with the writer, who had turned out to be less commercially successful than she had hoped, nearly moved me to tears when another character ended up begging for her work to be published. Yes, this drama hit close to home.

And then of course there was an older, single, creative woman, happily running a photography studio. Death seemed inevitable. And indeed, she collapsed and was rushed to hospital for the pure plot purpose of having our central couple not meet. I was very annoyed until (*minor spoiler*) it became clear that she wasn’t going to die, but that she’d collapsed as a side effect of the vaccinations she’d needed for her trip to the Serengeti. I loved it, drama, I really did. Especially as she actually came back from the Serengeti alive as well! And, as a side note, I also approved of her dress style.

Many viewers watched Twelve Nights as a romance and hated it. I watched it as a depiction of (often female) creativity, I saw myself in a number of different characters in that drama, and I loved it.

So kdramaland, stop killing us! There are better solutions! We can go on the adventure of a lifetime to far-flung places instead.

In fact, that sounds pretty good – wait just one second while I book some travel…

34
16

    So so cute and relatable!😍 I can’t believe it didn’t get published!

    5
    0

    This was a great read! And thank you for shining some light on a forgotten character.

    4
    0

    Oh, I love this. I had Twelve Nights on my list and it just moved up it.

    4
    0

    As another middle-aged single woman living along quite comfortably thankyouverymuch I appreciate this and am embarrassed that I haven’t noticed that thread in all the dramas.
    Started Twelve Nights, but somehow didn’t finish it – but I’ll put it back on my list again.
    And I LOVE that actress who played the photographer. Well I love her in everything, except her role in WWW.

    4
    1

    I would like to point out that a quick chicken-bone death would be preferable over having to spend decades with some of the male characters that dramas like to serve up.

    High five, I agree …

    I put twelve nights on hold maybe I should pick it up again. Thanks for sharing this beautiful write up, we needed this!

    8
    0

    “Especially as she actually came back from the Serengeti alive as well!” —this made me laugh. Were you worried that she would die from an offscreen Rhino of Death?

    Hopefully they stop killing these women off , because that is so sad.

    I’d be dead.

    4
    2

      I thought there would be some off-screen death to explain why she wasn’t going to be in the last episode(s). But no! She came back!

      I was ridiculously happy about that.

      4
      0

      But I like the idea of the Rhino of Death…

      4
      0

    Excellent write up! Why it wasn’t published is beyond me! It’s a really unique point of view. I would travel more if I were single as well!

    2
    1

    The invisibility of middle age is wildly underrated. To be honest, I think most media doesn’t utilize this power correctly. Instead of sacrificing the middle aged women to the local serial killer, why not take advantage of that invisibility and have them be the serial killer.

    Oh dear, I suppose everyone is going to think I’m a serial killer again. I swear I’m not, mostly because it seems a bit messy and time consuming.

    Anyways, I love this Cloggie.

    4
    1

      I like your thinking! But yes, being a serial killer always seems like such hard work to me. I like petty revenge (like in revenge social club) much better. That would be putting invisibility to really good use…

      4
      0

Because Lawnie didn\’t want to play with me, I wrote something for Theme of the Month.

It\’s titled: Oh no! They killed Cloggie.

I\’ll probably stick it on my fanwall in a couple of weeks 😉

8
2

    Oh no! But since you are posting on the FW, I am assuming the attempt failed.
    And phew, I am glad it was “they” and not “it.” I need a brake job.

    7
    1

      I thought I could be a bit like Kenny, who was back again every new episode anyway. But you’re right, there was no ToD involved.

      2
      0

I\’m staying at a friend\’s place. She\’s got a robo lawnmower. I tried to make friends. It clearly ignored me.
*crying*

26
7

    Clearly, it’s holding out for Dusty, and wants nothing to do with inferior humans.

    7
    1

      I’ve narrowed it down to two options:
      1 – its sensors identify me as an obstacle that needs to be avoided
      2 – it doesn’t like people
      Or
      2a – it doesn’t like me

      I’ve called it Lawnie

      7
      0

    Kdramas giving us unrealistic expectations for boyfriends and robofriends.

    Also — that is so cool! Next time I have a lawn, I’m getting one.

    5
    0

    Try again, after work hours again. What do you take robo’s as? Without work ethics? Come on, that is its work place. Take it to a pub!

    3
    1

      My friend’s neighbours probably already think I’m crazy for saying ‘Hello Robo’ whenever I see Lawnie. If I took her to a pub, I’d be thrown out of town!

      1
      1

        LOL! Next time visit me, my robo will be excited to meet you, it loves to give bump hugs and crawl over peoples, it is very friendly and is always looking forward to visits!
        And the pubs here are very robo friendly, I swear, I am not making this up ( living at research institute strange benefits). ^^ My robo says hi!

        1
        0

    I want a Lawnie!

    1
    0

3 maybe less obvious (from ep15/16) reasons why I loved WWW
1) It gave the most realistic depiction ever of what happens after you’ve broken up with someone. You don’t cry so much that you have to be rushed to hospital. You don’t go running to your family, sobbing for your mummy. You still go to work. You still try to keep going. Yes, it feels like shit but you have to carry on because you’ve got bills to pay
2) The utter wish fulfilment that is… no, not dating your favourite actor, but having a boss like Brian. When you split up, he doesn’t come up with anything crass like: you’re pretty you’ll find someone else, or something embarrassing like: at your age you should learn to settle. No, he says: if you want to bury yourself in work, here’s more work. Especially the comparison with the creepy cheating ex, who brings personal comments like ‘you’re so pretty when you’re angry’ into every conversation, Brian’s trait of keeping discussions in the workplace caring but professional is such a breath of fresh air
3) And finally, the strategy team. Two men, two women, just working together normally. No love interests, no snogs or drunken confessions. Just four people getting on, having fun, working hard. I love it so much. This is what work teams should be like and I wished there were more of the groups on my screen.
Thank you WWW.

28
6

    I agree on all counts! The TF Team was indeed great. I liked their individual stories as much as their teamwork.

    5
    1

      I was worried that there will be something between Ellie and Joseph. I’ve watch too many Korean dramas that I forgot in real life man and woman can be friends and colleague without hiding their true feelings 😄
      But really who talk about getting Brazilian waxing to their female colleagues? 😐

      6
      1

        That was refreshing! Haha Ellie was even happy for him. 😂

        1
        0

    Thank you @cloggie you summed it up just right for me. There was romance in the show – but it didn’t overshadow the rest of the stories.
    That team was awesome!
    Ultimately it showed us that teamwork is possible without much drama – but respect is crucial.
    Finally I LOVED that each woman made her own decision about her life. Period.
    That scene at the end when the Masserati came squealing up and she got in with a smile- I was sure it was her ex. It was only on the road when the top was coming down that I wondered if – and it WAS all the three of them!
    What a fitting end – no matter what they were partners…
    All in all, I loved the ending and the fight to keep the internet portals from being used by the politicians.

    So I was a happy camper at the end of WWW.
    Thank you writers cast and crew.

    6
    0

    love. this. ♥ couldn’t agree more!

    2
    0

    So true cloggie! I’d love to work with a Barro and for a boss like Brian. That’s the wish fulfillment this show offered me. I did enjoy Scarlett and Seol Ji-hwan’s story but it never replaced the true story arc – a workplace drama with 3 female leads – for me.

    5
    0

I have a huge soft spot for actors (m/f) who you can hardly recognise from one drama to the next.

I mean, who’d have known that 30/17 Third Rower would make such an awesome HdL Captain of the Guard

18
9