1% of Something

So, I finished off (finally) Revenge Note (if I'd realised I only had one episode left, I'd have finished it months ago) and Triad Princess. Was going back and forth on what to do next and settled on 1% of Something (also known as Something About 1%) because I've heard good things about it, it's got the forced cohabitation/contract marriage-y thing (which I sometimes enjoy) and, perhaps most importantly right now, the episodes are about 40 minutes each and I wanted to work out for about 80 minutes. Watched the first two today while on the elliptical for a total of 88 minutes (got interrupted a few times, hence the few extra minutes when I paused it but kept going with the cross trainer). 894 calories.

But I suppose I should talk about the show, right? Not about my effort to whittle myself away to nothing. Ok. I knew going in that he's some rich chaebol grouchy pants and she was supposed to be sweet and kind and that the grandfather is trying to force them to get married. I know, I know, this is an old, old, old oft used plot. I don't know much more now, other than that the grandfather found the pretty little school teacher when she saved him and took him to hospital when he had some kind of unexplained accident on the way to see his wife's grave. Why this rich chairman dude looked like a homeless guy at the time, I have no idea.

The important thing about that is that he changes his will and wants one of his grandsons -- preferably the favourite one Lee Jae-In -- to marry her and inherit. But at this point, all the poor lady knows is that this chaebol jerk (and he most definitely is a total ass -- he thinks she wound up in the will because she seduced his grandfather or something) and a lawyer show up with a crazy story. She has no idea who grandpa is and keeps telling them that. And grandfather refuses to meet with them (which would reveal the story) because he wants jerk face grandson to learn something. At her expense. Which at least an underling that knows the story has told him.

By the end of episode 2, she has made a deal with chaebol grandson that he helps out her favourite young singer (who calls her teacher? so maybe he's either somehow related or was a student or...?) and her school (nothing for herself) and she'll pretend to date him for six months (what he had negotiated his grandfather down to). Next up, I'm sure, will be the other grandson finding out what's up with the will and going after her too.

I'm going to be too lazy to write out who everyone is, so I stole this from the AsianWiki page:

Min Tae-Ha is the other grandson. No idea if he's a good guy or a bad guy, just know that Lee Jae-In hates him. But he hates everyone. Lee Lyoo-Chul is the meddling grandpa. Park Hyung-Joon is the ever suffering lawyer who is inexplicably friends with Lee Jae-In but works for Grandpa. Kang Dong-Suk is the underling/grandpa's spy.

One bonus is that these are all new actors to me. I really haven't seen any of the leads in anything else and all the others the most I've seen them in is as a bit part. So that's kinda fun. I've seen so many of these things now that it's hard to find a show with no one I know.

So far, I really like the female lead. She's feisty. Though, honestly, even for what she agreed with, I have no idea why she'd help out Lee Jae-In at all, because he has been a complete asshole to absolutely everyone so far. This show is going to have to do a LOT of work to get me around to his side and root for them to be together. I don't even see an excuse like he had a sad childhood or anything. All of his family seems nice, if meddlesome. He's just a money-grubbing jerk so far. 

But I've heard enough times that this is a great show, so I'll stick with it for now. It's got a 9.5 rating on Viki. There are only 16 episodes too, so that'll be 8 days worth of exercise time. 

Edit: Eh, so I'm through 2 more episodes (87 minutes, 869 calories) and...well...there's not been much that's actually moved the plot forward as yet. He's still a total dick. She's still feisty, but now they are bringing out her clumsy/always losing things/always getting lost thing...which is kind of a pain in the ass. They couldn't have just made her competent? And the other grandson hasn't done anything (and doesn't know anything). Neither has grandpa. 

The only forward progress is there were two flashbacks for Lee Jae-In and his very confusing family background. So...his mother is not his mother though she seems to love/protect him like she is? And she had lost her own son when he was young? But Jae-In was at the funeral to comfort her? And the woman he calls his aunt is actually his birth mother? And she re-married some English speaking guy and has another family now? Very unclear on how they are all related to grandpa now. 

I'm sure it was supposed to humanise him but he's now turned into a super possessive jerk face (kissing her without permission, kabedon galore, demanding she not even talk to other guys while reiterating over and over that he doesn't want to marry her and hasn't fallen for her). All while grinning to himself whenever he thinks on his time with her. So...eh, I'm kinda meh on this so far. He's still just an asshole. Maybe an asshole with some childhood tragedy of weird chaebol proportions, but an asshole nonetheless. The leads do have chemistry together but I really just want her to tell him to f-off at this point. That doesn't bode well. I mean, how many wrist grabs can one show have?

Edit: After Episode 6 (82 minutes, 906 calories). For a relatively short show, things are really moving pretty slow. Jae-In has slightly improved but I'm really still wanting her to wipe the smirk off his face. Da-Hyeon is falling for him a bit now and I think it's too soon (even though, at the same time, more really needs to have happened by this point in the show...I know that doesn't make sense). The small bits of yielding / kindness he's shown really don't make up for his asshole-ness. Am I being too harsh? Eh, I dunno. 

They've introduced Da-Hyeon's best friend's older brother as someone who's interested in her (maybe) but it doesn't look like a serious second lead threat. And they haven't developed Number 2 Grandson as any kind of competition either -- he's just done a little bit of spying, but there's no way to get a handle on him yet. He's said, like, four words so far. His dad and mother are definitely schemers, but there's no way to know what he's up to. And, honestly, Jae-In needs some competition.

I'm going to keep watching, but I don't think so far that this'll be going on my list of favourites.

Edit: After Episode 8 (78 minutes, 708 calories). Jae-In is finally softening up, but now they've gone and given her a drunken love confession. I feel like it needed to be him making first moves. But, eh, oh well. Things still moving v-e-r-y slowly from other grandson (though, there's hints at least that he's not a bad guy but maybe his parents are the crap ones?) and non-existent from the best friend's brother. The show is half over and I feel like not a lot has actually happened. Nothing from grandpa either.

Edit: After Episodes 9 & 10 (83 minutes, 790 calories) Eh, so. They've introduced the evil ex-fiancé that now (of course) wants to marry Jae-In even though they apparently hate each other and haven't seen each other in 3 years. And Tae-ha has finally had a conversation or two with Da-Da. Honestly, so far it really looks like he's a decent guy with horrible parents. Jae-In has been better, but they've made our poor female lead be all jealous. I really wish they'd kept her as strong as in the first episodes. She's the one who has to do all the bending. I guess, at least some things are finally starting to brew. Hopefully in the next few episodes he gets to be on the receiving end and has a chance to step up. Though, seriously, I feel like she took her house being broken into a little easy, especially when it seems like it was someone after info on her because she's dating Jae-In. Why wouldn't any reasonable person just say, yo, dude, shove off with you and all your chaebol craziness. It's not like he's confessed any heartfelt feelings to her...

Edit: After Episodes 11 and 12: (84 minutes, 1119 calories, obviously the harder program) The female lead is WAY too forgiving. I am glad that 2nd grandson wasn't evil and now he's sort of working with Jae In. They teased meeting grandpa, but didn't do it. Annoyed at that. Let's get that on with! Why are you waiting?! What's the point? The Evil Ex-Fiancé is unbelievable in her motivation and execution. And annoying. I'd peg my enjoyment at this point at somewhere between 60 to 75%. Jumin would be better at this, and he's slightly cuckoo-pants.

Edit: After Episodes 13 and 14 (83 minutes, 1099 calories) So. Just two more episodes left. FL is seriously way WAY WAY too nice and confusing. Evil Ex kidnaps her and basically offers her up to Tae-ha (no one says sexual assault was on the table, but, eh, obviously it was if he hadn't been a nice guy) and at first FL is mad when Evil Ex comes to "apologise" (i.e. in that rich bitch way that blames other people and isn't an apology at all) and says she won't forgive her and then literally 5 seconds later when Jae-In shows up, says she forgives her. WTH? 

And then they go into a montage of happy dating moments for awhile. And then the end date of their contract is there and neither of them go hey, I love you, should we try and make this work and they just go their separate ways, all Noble Idiot-y. Not that I actually think, honestly, that she should stay with him. Probably the nicest thing he's done in this whole damn show is let her go knowing that if she stays with him her life would be kinda miserable as he knows he'll be working insane hours and she'll get bullied. But geez. The level of chaebol idiocy is high in this one, yo. And you know they're going to wind up together, so how does that work if his situation doesn't change? Eh, I'll be glad when I'm done with this one tomorrow. 

I'm not saying that it's horrible. It's not. It's probably that this is a storyline that has been done to the death and I guess I was hoping for a little something more or different. The only thing I can agree with from the reviews I'd seen from people going on and on about how good this was is that the two leads do at least have pretty good chemistry together. 

Edit: Finished episodes 15 and 16 (88 minutes, 920 calories + 20 minutes of yoga) Okay, it ended well enough. The split up with the whole "I'm miserable without you" from both of them, then the reunion when he finally goes to her (mostly because he's jealous and can't stand to think of her with another man...which...ugh), then the "but only if our families are okay" thing. Then a brief glimpse into their married life wherein she's herself but the journalists love her because she's the same as she always was -- kind and generous. Though now it's seen as noblesse oblige so...yeah.

And I wonder why they bothered making his mom be...not his birth mom. It never really came up as an important plot point. What was the purpose in that? Just to be...different? Different is fine, but there has to be a point or a reason or, I dunno, something. Maybe it was a red herring? 

I feel like I'm being too hard on it. Really, it's not bad. The actors were all good. Most things were wrapped up -- though they left the "how grandpa met DaDa" until the very last freaking episode where Jae-In still expresses surprise when she doesn't know who grandpa is until the dude shows her the medical bill from when she took him to the hospital. After all, why would she remember? It was over 6 months before (probably more like 8? If we count the breakup) and she's the kind of person that's, well, kind. She helps people. How does Jae-In still not trust/believe her at this point? And they never really wrapped up Jisu (the musician / idol she supports) so we still don't know how / why they are connected or find out what happened with him and Jae-In's little half-sister who likes him. At least they did give a hint of closure to Tae-ha, who fell hard for DaDa's best friend. Which is unlikely, but sweet. 

So...to sum up. Am I glad I watched it? Sure. Not overjoyed and I didn't totally love it, but it was okay. If I'd watched this months ago or when I first started watching Kdramas, I probably would have liked it more. The leads did have great chemistry together and there wasn't any of those fishy no-movement kisses. Plot was pretty typical and contained no shockers. Would I watch it again? Eh, probably not. If a clip shows up in my Facebook feed, I might pause to watch it. And I wouldn't avoid any of the actors. They were all good. 

Now I gotta figure out what I'm going to watch next. No idea. Something without any chaebol stuff, I suspect.

Obey Me

Huh, not sure how I managed to not blog about this one as I've been playing it for some months now. Two? Three? So I guess we can say right off the bat that it's been engaging enough to play long term-ish. It's an NTT Solmare title (i.e. the Shall We Date people) which was, let's be honest, a bit of a strike against it. They're very hit and miss. But this one is quite a departure from their other titles. It's also another one that isn't an otome in the strictest sense, though it has a lot of the elements of one.

So. Let's see. In this one, you are magically kidnapped to the Devildom because you have been chosen to be one of two human students at a school. The leader of, er. hell, I suppose...Diavolo, has a plan to improve relations between humans, demons, and angels. So there are also two angel students (Simeon and Luke). The other human is Solomon, who has become quite a wizard.

Everyone else is a demon. In particular, there are seven demon "brothers" who are fallen angels and represent the Seven Deadly Sins. There's Lucifer, the Avatar of Pride, then Mammon (Greed), Satan (Anger), Beelzebub "Beel" (Gluttony), Belphegor "Belphie" (Sloth), Leviathan (Envy), Asmodeus "Asmo" (Lust). I probably didn't get them in the right order, but the only important part to remember there is that Lucifer is the oldest and the one in charge (and he's Diavolo's right hand man). You might sense a theme with the names...

You wind up living with the 7 brothers (of course) in the House of Lamentation. Another important thing to know is that you can form a pact with a demon (which is one way that Solomon has accrued power). Through reasons, you wind up in a pact with Mammon almost immediately. He may be greed incarnate, but he's also not the sharpest tool in the shed. And it's a case of He doth protest too much -- he's obviously got a crush on you pretty much immediately.

Anyway, I don't want to give away the storyline, as it's interesting and fairly engaging. So let's talk about the mechanics a bit.

There are story missions and "dance off" missions during wish you earn items in order to rank up your cards. Yes, this is another card collecting game similar to Mr. Love. There are also phone calls and chats/texts that get unlocked as you play along. The Japanese voice actors are all good. You can also unlock little side stories by collecting the cards.

You also earn affection/hearts with the boys in various ways -- working jobs (that also earn you in-game gold), making correct choices in the story sections, etc. There are a LOT of special events which are usually extra stories that have nothing to do with the main storyline and wherein your choices don't make a difference, so you can be as crazy as you want. Those are actually a problem; sometimes they overlap and they don't leave enough time in between them. On the one hand, they're nice in that it gives anyone caught up in the chapters extra content. But I do wish they'd space them out a little more.

The best part is that the MC is feisty as heck and very funny. I don't think you could play this as the typical wilting violet even if you wanted to. I adore that about it. And the boys, while stereotypes...I mean, hey, they are the avatars of the Seven Deadly Sins...all have a lot of personality. I surprisingly quite like the gluttonous Beel, who is super sweet (but also not terribly smart) and loyal as well as Satan, who is mostly only ever angry at Lucifer and is the most intelligent/bookish of them all. Asmo is a bit too over the top for me, but he's good comic relief. Lucifer himself is also quite charming and smitten, though he has a hard time showing anything "nice" in front of any other character. Even Mammon, as stupid as he is, is charming in his own way. Levi is the otaku, and I have a soft spot for that. Belphie is probably my least fav, even though I like his character design, but that's probably more to do with the storyline/plot than the character.

Plot/story-wise...I'm currently through chapter 17 out of 20. So I'm going slowly through it and mostly doing events at the moment because I hate to be all caught up. It's fairly predictable (I guessed the "twist" a LONG time ago) but very engaging. And compared to most of Solmare's other stuff, it's really good. Actually, I'd venture to say it's the best thing I've seen from them.

Not sure how much long term playability it has yet. There are daily missions, etc. but if you're all caught up, it's easy to see slacking off and not bothering to open it daily. And the side stories have been hit and miss; some good, some meh. And, as there's really no way so far to "choose" a character, the romance is minimal. It's more funny than anything. But, still, I'm enjoying it.

My Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom

Ha! An anime featuring otome + a plucky heroine (villainess!). I was bound to love this one.

Little dude and I are only 3 episodes in, as it's still being released (new episodes out on Saturdays on Crunchyroll), so it's still early days but so far I love this one and he does too. It's an isekai with an otome-loving girl reborn into the world of the game. Catarina regains her former life's memories when she's about 8 and realises a) that she's in that world and b) that she's *gasp* the villainess.

She immediately tries to mitigate this by practicing her earth magic (by farming...which doesn't work, but is adorable and very out of character for who she was *supposed* to be), learning the sword (also ooc) and by acting differently towards the other "characters" from the game. She's also just a joy, even if she isn't the smartest tool in the shed. So this one is obviously going to be a harem-type show...in fact, she'd already enraptured pretty much everyone with her kindness and enthusiasm by the end of the 3rd show...when they finally show her at 15 and about to enter the magic school where she's destined to meet the protagonist.

For the otome love interests, there's Prince Geordo (who she's been engaged to since age 8 and probably my least favourite and who she tells things like "if you meet someone else, I'm fine! Just tell me and I'll back off!" because she knows that if the heroine winds up in his route, she'll wind up either exiled or dead), the younger/weaker/angstier twin brother of the prince (Alan, the silver haired one, who is the fiancé of her friend Mary and in his routes she knows she's relatively safe...but she winds up befriending him after she befriends poor Mary), Keith Claes (her adopted younger twin brother, who in the original game was bullied by her and became a womaniser...so the "new" Catarina instead dotes on him), and Nicol Ascart (the dark haired beauty who dotes on his silver haired younger sister...who is bullied for her albino-like looks...except by Catarina, thus putting him now on her good side).

I do love that Catarina is proactive. She's funny. She is loyal to her friends, both male and female (it's bound to be a total harem...everyone loves her). She's also determined, even if she has to go into exile, to be okay once she gets there. And she'll do anything she can to avoid death!

Anyway, it's great fun and combines two of my favourite things. Looking forward to next Saturday to see what happens next. Also, for an isekai, so far it has been perfectly okay for little dude to watch. We'll see how that goes as they've now gone into the part of the story where the characters are teenagers, but hopefully it'll stay fairly tame. It seems like that kind of story.

Another Oh Hae Young

After I finished up My Secret Terrius, I wasn't sure what to watch next. I wasn't quite up to the silly shenanigans of finishing up Triad Princess. I needed something at least 45 minutes or longer. I wanted something that was supposed to be fairly light and romantic. I thought I should pick something that's been on my list for a while. And that's how I wound up settling on Another Oh Hae Young (some Soompi list had it as a good light, romantic pick) and the episodes were at an hour. And I'd seen clips of it that looked on the ridiculous side. It's also known as Another Miss Oh.

Sigh. Yeah.

So, yes, it does have funny moments but DAMN there's a lot of crying in this one. Let me start at the beginning (I'm roughly half way through right now).

Actually, I'm gonna use the plot summary from AsianWiki as it's actually pretty accurate this time:

Oh Hae-Young (Seo Hyun-Jin) is dumped by Han Tae-Jin (Lee Jae-Yoon) on the day before their wedding. She is unable to tell the truth about what happened and lies to others about what happened. She works as an assistant manager for a company's restaurant division. She pretends that nothing happened. 

Meanwhile, Park Do-Kyung (Eric) is a popular sound engineer. One year ago, he was supposed to marry Oh Hae-Young (Jeon Hye-Bin), but she did not appear at their wedding. He became desperate. Later, he hears from his friend Lee Jin-Sang (Kim Ji-Suk) that Oh Hae-Young is about to marry Han Tae-Jin. Park Do-Kyung gets drunk and places her fiancé in a difficult predicament. Park Do-Kyung is unaware that the fiancé is about to marry another woman named Oh Hae-Young. The fiancé is soon imprisoned and right before his imprisonment he lies to Oh Hae-Young. He tells her that he does not love her anymore, but he also vows to take revenge on Park Do-Kyung. For his part, Park Do-Kyung soon has visions of a woman he has never met. He soon realizes the woman is another Oh Hae-Young.

Seo Hyun-Jin I know from The Beauty Inside and I liked her in that. So that was another plus. I've never seen Eric (aka Moon Jung-Hyuk) in anything, but he's in a few on my list. Bonus that he's only slightly younger than me. Man, these dramas make me feel so freaking old sometimes.

Anyway, the thing that the synopsis doesn't mention is that there's a huge whole history with the "pretty" Oh Hae Young having gone to high school with the "ordinary" / "another" Oh Hae Young (which is how Park Do-Kyung got confused to begin with). And that ordinary Hae Young's life was made absolutely miserable by the association and has a pretty understandable complex about it -- everything from being beaten by jealous girls who thought she was the other "pretty" Hae Young to having rocks thrown through her window by disappointed boys to constantly being belittled and bullied. And "pretty" Hae Young smiles through it all.

Honestly, even though "pretty" Hae Young has her own tragic backstory and an almost reasonable reason for ditching Do-Kyung at the altar (his mom is a serious bitch...but still, she should have actually TALKED to him, not just disappeared with no explanation on the day), I have no sympathy for her. She's trash. She knew all those years ago what was happening to "ordinary" Hae Young and never did anything about it. And now that she's run into her again, she's just as bad, if not worse. She's the ultimate selfish person. Well, along with Do-Kyung's mom.

Anyway, after Hae Young is dumped and miserable, Do-Kyung begins having visions of her that causes him to place great weight (plus the guilt he's already feeling once he figures out he ruined the wrong woman's wedding) on their incidental encounters. They keep getting thrown together, including some accidental co-habitation. And, despite himself, he's falling for her. How much of that is guilt? I don't know. It's hard to say.

As for Hae Young, she falls for him pretty fast. He helps her recover from her break up -- a very harsh break up where Tae-Jin (played by Lee Jae-Yoon, the charming older brother in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo) literally told her he doesn't love her enough to marry her and can't stand to see her eat...because he's trying to protect her from the fallout of him being arrested. You do have to feel sorry for him, though you have to also think he's a total IDIOT for the method he used. He should have just been honest. He actually gets acquitted pretty quickly and very much regrets what he did. Basically, none of this would have happened if he'd been honest. She'd have waited for him.

If I had to guess at why she's so quick to love again after being dumped at the altar...it's probably two-fold. One, Tae-Jin is ridiculous pretty and she's always had her complex. I get the feeling she probably never thought she was good enough for him and then, when he broke it off that way, it was confirmed (to her). So she probably always loved him with part of her held in reserve. And two, at that point in the story, she's getting grief from everyone (especially her parents, who kick her out, thinking it will be for her own good) and Do-Kyung is the only one listening to her (out of guilt mostly, but she doesn't know that).

I don't know that the mystical future visions plot thread was absolutely necessary. I can see why they did it. It gives every one of their meetings more weight to him when he might have ignored her otherwise or kept his distance. And, at this point in the story, he and his doctor think it's because he's going to get into a car accident and die in the near future. And I suppose it adds some structure. But. I dunno. Not convinced it couldn't have just been a more straightforward "comedy" of errors. Maybe it's because I hate the whole "noble idiot" thing and he's got that whole "I should not really explain and let her go because I'm going to die anyway). I imagine they're going to solve the car wreck thing by having him actually get hit, but then survive. At which point he'll be like "Doh!" Though, if I were him, I'd throw away the outfit that he "sees" himself get hit in. I mean, dude, seriously. Fate is a crap roll.

At 18 episodes, it's a little too long, especially as the episodes are mostly slightly over an hour. I see that it was extended from the original 16 episodes to two more. WHY?? I'm currently at episode 12. And...I don't see how they're going to draw it out to that without a lot of extra stuff the story doesn't need. I'm going to finish it though.

It's not the light, fluffy romantic romp that I was hoping for, but I'm overall enjoying it. It does help that Ye Ji-Won (who played Jennifer in Still 17) plays Do-Kyung's absolutely ridiculous sister. She's so over the top that I love her. And there's also Kim Ji-Suk (most recently the baby daddy from When the Camellia Blooms) as a womanising best friend that's bound to wind up with the sister...even if they are the odd couple.

And Hae-Young's parents are surprisingly a joy after a rocky start. It's Kim Mi-Kyung as her mother (I swear I've seen her a bunch of times in this role) and Lee Han-Wi as her dad. He might be my current fav dad character. Though mom seriously needs to cut out the physical violence. I mean, geez.

So, will edit this when I finish it. The acting is good. I really do enjoy Seo Hyun-Jin's acting in particular. I'm pretty sure it will all end happy, though I think Tae-Jin deserves a happy ending too...honestly, I know Oh Hae-Young is going to end up with Do-Kyung because it's that kind of story, but they've just had the big reveal and now everyone knows everything (other than the fact that Do-Kyung is having visions) and...why does she go with the guy she's known so briefly and who has lied to her all along and was the cause of one of the most mortifying situations EVER and also has, up until the last two days in the timeline, been totally running both hot and very COLD to her compared...to someone she was with for years and was going to marry?

Yeah, I know, Kdrama logic. Not real world logic.

Edit: After episode 15. Ha. Yeah. Ok, I'll lead with that overall I do really like this one. But I swear, I don't think there's a single episode where someone doesn't cry. These people just CAN'T BE HAPPY for more than a hot minute.

And maybe it's that I've been trained by the fact that 16 episodes is the norm, but I really just want it to wrap up already. There's been some nice moments (and they're finally moving on with the sister side story) but they really didn't need to tack on the extra two episodes and prolong the agony.

Dunno what I'm gonna watch next but I am for damn sure going to make sure it doesn't have this level of will-he-won't-he-love-me-hate-me angst. We're in a freaking pandemic. Give me something happy.

Final Edit: Okay, I finished it yesterday. Overall, I did like it. They did some really predictable stuff in the end (like, he did wind up getting hit by a car, but didn't die). Glad they didn't make Tae-jin totally evil, though he could have wound up there. Dude's got some anger issues. Kinda understandable ones, but he likes solving his problems with his fists more than he should. Or with his car.

I think the one thing that really bugs me is that they shoehorned this one bit in that made no sense. Like, he "sees" that this particular singer dies on the same day he's supposed to be hit by the car and die. And on the day it was supposed to happen, that singer dude tries to commit suicide, but the psychiatrist saves him and Do-Kyung also doesn't die. Oh joy. But then, on the day when he does get hit by the car, the singer again has an almost brush with death, and they both live again. Why in the world did they tie these unrelated things together? Twice? The singer dude is older...what's gonna happen when some day he dies of old age or whatever? Do-Kyung's gonna have another car accident? It just seemed like a nonsensical thing to hook the two events together. And it wasn't necessary. They could have stuck with it being the cherry blossoms falling through the air or something.

But, anyway. I did really like the lead actors. She's always pretty good and not afraid to be over the top. And I appreciated Kim Ji-Suk and Ye Ji-Won in this and glad they got as much screen time as they did.

So, am I glad I watched it? Yeah. Would I watch it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it to people? Sure, yeah, I would.

It's a Lot

I haven't posted in ages. There's been too much. Way too much. I may have thought, at various times in my life, that it was too much. But I didn't know. Now...now, it's a lot. I don't even want to write about it all. Not now. Maybe someday, when I have some distance. For now, I guess, a brief recap.

For starters, the biggest thing. A global pandemic that started in China and has now spread around the world. We're all "sheltering in place" (i.e. quarantining ourselves in our houses, only going out for essentials).

It feels surreal to even write that. Like, is this real life? But it is. Rapidly approaching 2.5 million (known) cases of this virus and over 166,000 deaths so far and climbing every day. At least one friend is deathly ill, in an induced coma and on a ventilator.

And in the beginning of that, mom decided she couldn't take dialysis anymore and was ready to let go. So I traveled to see her. Didn't expect her to last the week, but she managed to last for nearly a month? I had to go back home after the week, as borders were shutting down. I made it back, but it was tense -- cancelled flights, re-routed flights, almost empty airports.

I am glad I got to see her again. Also glad that she's not in pain anymore.

So. Those are the two big things. The other things that have been burying me, in no particular order: the IRS still not having reviewed our documents and continuing to send us threatening bills for $5000, dealing with my sisters (mostly, to be fair, the older one, who never handles anything well and is not handling any of this at all), my laptop dying for no apparent reason (happily solved relatively quickly, as Apple already got it back to me, though with no explanation as to what made it die to begin with), all of us being/working at home on top of each other (and the hubby being his normal slightly asshole-ish self with no empathy or sympathy), writing on book 2 just creeping on (the book is half done and my original deadline is the end of May, so still kinda doable, but it is just so. damn. hard. to write funny kid fantasy right now), and another deadline for a short story about dinosaurs that I probably shouldn't have agreed to write but I didn't want to turn down work in the middle of a global pandemic.

Other things too. But that's enough, isn't it?

The only thing I've been good at lately is exercising. Thank heavens I bought myself the elliptical for my birthday. I've been using it every day lately. I'm up to 70 minutes a day. I've lost about 4 lbs. I'd gained a bunch after the car died and I couldn't go to the gym (and all the stuff with mom was going on). Got up past 146. Egad. Down now to 142. First goal is to get to under 140. But ultimately I'd like to get to 125. Even better would be 120.

Mostly, I want to slowly whittle myself away. A slow disappearance. A waning of my self.

Maybe I'll write some more about the craziness. There's a lot going on in my head.

But mostly I want to get back to writing about watching Korean dramas and anime with little dude. Pretend there's something normal.