Would that this hoodie were a time hoodie!

So, I have fallen very, very in love with Answer Me 1997 in the past couple weeks. It's like all the coming of age stories that I watched in the 90s, except it's taking me back to my own teenage years and making me look at them fondly (whereas when I was actually in my teenage years I hated everything about it and related to the aaaaaaangst). Even though I didn't grow up in Korea and don't get the pop culture references, I do understand being so obsessed with something that it becomes your entire life. While for other girls it was boybands, for me it was Garth Brooks (or whatever actor I was into at the time. Garth was a steadfast obsession in my life, whereas I seemed to have a new actor to obsess over every year or so). My family didn't get it and what they saw as insignificant meant the world to me, and yes, I did throw tantrums when they accidentally taped over a Garth interview, or when they didn't understand my desperate need to buy Garth's new album, or when they rolled their eyes at me when I cried over not being able to see him in concert when he FINALLY came near to where we lived. Just... I loved him SO MUCH, so yes, I can relate to Shi Won's love for H.O.T, even though I despised boybands when I was growing up. The mass stalking like it's normal part I don't understand, but that's very specific to Korean fan culture (and is even worse in this day and age when they can hire taxis to follow idols around and hack into the idols' cell phones and prevent them from having any kind of social life whatsoever). Anyway, aside from all that, I just love how it captures those heightened feelings of your teenage years, how the most insignificant things rule your life until something truly serious happens that alters your perception of things and makes you grow up a little. I love how the parents fight but love each other dearly, I love how the daughter and father are in a constant battle but come through for each other when it really matters, I love that there is a story about a boy in love with another boy who is in love with a girl, I love the story between the brothers, I love the story of the older brother's heartbreaking loss and how it ties in with the main family, I love love love the story of the boy and girl who are best friends and the boy is pining madly after her while she is completely oblivious, I love that we have no idea who ends up with who (well, except for the couple that they revealed in ep 5/6), I love how the show makes me laugh out loud one minute and then makes me bawl the next. I love everything.

I really wish that America would make a throwback show like this for our generation, one that moves us and makes us laugh at ourselves and helps us to remember the good old days (and I'd actually understand the pop culture references). Hopefully it'll come along soon. I mean, The Wonder Years was amazing, but that was for the teenagers of the 60s. My So-Called Life was excellent and pretty much captures what Answer Me 1997 does, but it was actually made in that time and doesn't have that light-hearted, reminiscent factor to it (plus, I was a little too young to catch this one when it was originally on). IDK, since America is so fond of making adaptions of shows, they should most definitely adapt this one.

Anyway, with my love for this show, naturally I had to check out the group that the lead girl is obsessed with, H.O.T. They actually kind of remind me of TVXQ (the one with the high voice def. reminds me of JaeJoong, and Tony reminds me of Yoochun). Plus, you know, this:



VS



And then there's this, which is very much like modern k-pop:



It's funny how K-pop went from super baggy T-shirts and jeans and floppy hair to leather and lipstick and guyliner and neon-colored long hair. Also, I had to check out their rival band, Sechskies, and as I was watching them I was like, "OMG, that one dude looks so familiar! He looks like a young version of somebody! Where have I seen him? Isn't he an actor?" and then I realized that he's playing a character on Answer Me 1997 (the one from Seoul that is always looking at porn). And now I just find it hilarious that the show is constantly ragging on his old band. But, I'm sorry, H.O.T was way better than Sechskies, as this video can attest:

Okay, I know that when it comes to New Girl that I am a slightly insane Jess/Nick shipper, but uh... I'm pretty sure that I am going to fall hopelessly in love with Jess/Older Dude tonight. I suspected it before I even saw the preview clips, but now? Oh, I'm sure of it. Not only is it young perky girl/gruff older guy, but they start out fighting and it's AWESOME and then Jess has to humiliate herself but refuses to and then humiliates herself in a totally unintentional way and it's adorable and you know he's going to fall for her and OMG, I ALREADY LOVE THEM SO VERY MUCH. I'm sorry, Nick. You know that I will forever love you, but, well, Older Hot Dude wins every time. IDK, IDK, we'll see if this ship manages to unconvince me of Jess and Nick's true love even though I know it'll only last for a couple of episodes. But it is already epic, so...

Anyway, I have reached a new level of fangirl in that I am desperately yearning for fic of certain kpop music videos. Is this normal? Who the heck wishes for music video fanfic??? But seriously, watch this vid and tell me that you don't want to explore every facet of that story:



The cold husband, the miserable sister, the young/naive blind sister falling hopelessly in love with her sister's husband, the blind sister wanting so desperately to be just like her older sister, the miserable sister seeing herself mirrored on the blind sister, the miserable sister being jealous of the blind sister's innocent happiness, the cold husband ignoring both sisters and yet the young one is happy with the little things while the miserable sister resents everything. Just... SO MUCH TO EXPLORE. I want fic. So much fic. Preferably ones where the cold husband's heart starts to thaw as he spends more time with the blind sister, and he starts to realize his faults in his marriage and starts to open his heart to his wife, but the wife is scared to be vulnerable towards him again, so it's slow going but eventually it all works out and Blind Sister is happy because her sister and the man she loves is happy.

I also kind of want fic for this one:



This one is less nuanced than Cleansing Cream, so there's not as much to explore, but I still want to know how their love became so epic that she is so intensely clinging to him and does what she does in the end. The vid does give us backstory as to how they met, but I want all the stuff in between. Was he a gangster that pulled her into his life and made her his partner in crime? Were they like a Korean version of Bonnie and Clyde? Why did he decide to leave her, and in such a cold fashion? What the heck was the beginning about? Was that him leaving her with a bag full of money to start a new life? Had he planned to leave her all along? (in the flashback at the end he mentions that she can only find happiness on her own and not with someone else, and she says that's silly when she has someone that she can stay with forever)

I also want fic for the Cry, Cry/Lovey Dovey saga, mostly because those vids star Cha Seung Won in a love story with the mighty young girls from T-ARA. Apparently k-pop vids are full of ahjussi romances. WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME THIS? Now, you could argue that in the Cry, Cry vid he is just a father figure for Ji Yeon, but... that is so not the case when we see the continuation in Lovey Dovey. She loved him and only him, and while he may have been a makeshift father figure for her, he was also everything else to her. And she was basically his entire life. I want all the fic of him angsting and being lost after Ji Yeon was kidnapped (at the end of Cry, Cry), and him looking all over for her and getting mega depressed when he couldn't find her, so he opens up a soju stand and creates a new identity and tries to forget about his old life.

Oh, k-pop! Why must you torment me like this?

Also, I am contemplating yet another rewatch of Yo Soy Betty, La Fea. HOW MANY TIMES CAN I WATCH THAT DAMN SOAP OPERA? It consumes my life whenever I start watching it. But it's so magnificently good that I can't not watch it a billion times. And now I have subtitles for every single episode!!! So... Yeah, I'm probably going to rewatch it again, and ramble about all my favorite scenes again, and the posts will probably be identical to the ones that I wrote a couple years ago (and then wrote again last year). I think it's just become an annual thing to rewatch this wonderful telenovela when I am hankering for some epically dysfunctional yet totally adorable love stories.

I haven't done one of these in awhile, so I'm probably rusty, but I just have to say:

1. Thank god the Florida storyline on The Office is over. It's not that I didn't enjoy the storyline itself so much as I didn't enjoy the office being separated and there being such a ginormous focus on the characters in Florida. And, well, the story was fun in the beginning, but then it just kept going on and on and on and I just wanted them to go back to Scranton. So, yay, it's over! Sort of. Now it looks like they'll drag it out more with Andy/Erin, to which I say BLECH! BLECH BLECH BLECH!!!! Damn it, show, when will you learn that nobody is rooting for Erin/Andy? Well, I shouldn't say nobody, but the vast majority of the audience just does not care about their super awkward, chemistry-less romance. JUST STOP. What the show thinks is cute is just plain nauseating. I love Andy with all my heart, and I am quite fond of Erin, but when you put them together it is just too much obliviousness and goofballiness to handle. Blech. You would think that after three years of the show pushing the ship that they would grow on me, but it's just not happening. STOP IT, SHOW. There is far more chemistry between Erin and the old lady than there is between Erin and Andy.

2. 30 Rock. Jack and his teenage girl nemesis. WHY MUST THEIR BEAUTIFUL CHEMISTRY MAKE ME FEEL DIRTY? Seriously, dudes. It's messed up. They just jive with each other so magnificently that I wish the girl was in her 20s instead of her teens so that their tension could be explored upon. It's just... I love that his nemesis and business equal is a 14 (15?) year old girl that looks completely harmless but totally gets inside his head every time. The actress plays that character so perfectly that I kind of wish she was a series regular (or at least a semi-regular). But then that would just give me more scenes that make me feel dirty for misconstruing their tension. Also, I loved Tracy's Oscar the Grouch line (particularly the bit about Gordon. Only this show would be so detailed with a throwaway joke like that)

3. Parks was its usual stellar self. *shoulder shrug*

Now let's all enjoy this super awesome k-pop video, because I am currently in love with it:

So, you remember how the whole K-pop thing used to just plain baffle me and I was like, "Pfft, I'll never be into that"? Well, I find myself completely addicted to the classy stylings of 2NE1. I mean, the name alone is wondrous, but they also give us gems like this:



THE OUTFITS. THE HAIR. THE POODLE. THE ATTITUDE (they basically just keep saying "I am the best" over and over and over again). I WANT TO BE THEM. But, these girls aren't just wacky badasses, they also sing songs that make a statement:



Sometimes I wonder if the reason why this one's my favorite is because it's the only one where the entire chorus is in English, but it really is a wonderful song, and one that I think everyone can identify with (it's not even ironic that a group of teenage girls who have all probably had plastic surgery are singing it). I am also very in love with this one:



You can bet that I do that "I don't ca-a-a-a-a-are" dance right along with them. I am always massively jealous of Dara's crazy ponytails. I want so badly to fix my hair in such a way that my ponytail totally defies gravity, but I just don't think that I could pull that look off, unfortunately. *sigh*

Also, ever since Kim Hyun Joong got a haircut, I seem to be totally enchanted by him. Which is baffling, because pre-haircut he always reminded me of Michael Jackson circa the early to mid 90s, which is not attractive in the least, and yet all the girlies were still swooning over him, which made me scratch my head quite a lot. Especially during Playful Kiss, because I just did not understand how the girl could so faithfully follow him around her entire life and just completely ignore the fact that he was a total douche to her. But now? After the haircut? Oh man, I totally get it. He's like a different person! It's crazy! No, seriously, look:





Would you even assume that that's the same dude? Dayum.

( MORE VISUAL AIDS FOR YOU )