Would that this hoodie were a time hoodie!

( But first, work angst. Or complaining, really. )

In happier news, I watched the 2011 release of Jane Eyre, and I loved it like crazy. The tension between the leads was AMAZING, and everything about it just worked for me. I have to admit, I'm not much of a fan of the BBC miniseries from a few years ago that everyone adores so much. Not sure why, but something about it just doesn't click with me, and I've never been able to get past the second episode (I even tried again not too long ago). The 1983 miniseries version has always been my favorite adaption, which is weird because it's kind of cheap looking, but I love the performances in that one so very much, and I particularly loved the chemistry between the leads. But the 2011 movie? Good lord, the chemistry between the leads was smoking hot. I could feel their connection and their passion so vividly, even though they had considerably less interaction than the characters do in the miniseries adaptions. And I loved how the movie presented Jane's early years, interspersing them with the present and keeping them fairly brief, but still powerful. And the mood of the movie was perfection. I loved it.

Also, I finally got around to watching the last two eps of Game of Thrones, and I actually think I enjoyed those the most out of the entire season. Episode 9 actually made me cry. I didn't even know that I was emotionally involved enough with these characters to cry over one of their deaths, but I did. The scene was just executed so brilliantly that it broke my heart. And I highly enjoyed the Sansa that was reborn from that whole experience. I loved it when her eyes were finally opened to Joffrey's awfulness, and how her cattiness came out (and how she almost pushed him off the bridge. Damn it, Sandor, why did you stop her?) Speaking of, I really, really love what they've done with Sandor/Sansa. I know that they've barely interacted, but what they have had has been so subtle and so oddly sweet that I can't help but fall even harder for the ship. I know that they have a whole storyline together in the books, but from the little snippets that I've read, Sandor kind of seems like a whiny emo jerk. So I like that he is more composed in the show. Older, less emotionally unhinged, but still a killer. The show hasn't explored him as much as I would have liked, but I love that every time he does get something to do, it usually affects Sansa in some way. The handkerchief bit especially got me. How he's kind of swooping in and fulfilling her romantic hero dreams in his bumbling way without meaning to, and how the fact that it's him is throwing Sansa off. She's in this terrible situation and surrounded by so many terrible people, and here's this big, gruff, scary guy showing her some kindness. So far his care for her seems almost fatherly, so I'm interested to see where the show goes with that, because in the books it's entirely not fatherly. Also, the show seems to be skirting around his joy in killing people. In fact, had I not read snippets from the books, I would have never known that he was a psychotic killer, since they've only shown him defending people and not killing anyone (though I suppose it was implied that he killed the butcher boy, but we didn't see it, and I didn't even realize he did it till I read my f-list after that episode). Anyway, I find it interesting that the show is cutting out the seedier aspects of his personality (though maybe they'll get to that in the second season. I don't even know how much of him there is in the first book), and I honestly don't feel like Sansa is scared of him. She seems more intrigued by him than anything, and I can easily them connecting in the future. Also, as much as I detest Joffrey, I can't help but enjoy the crap out of his scenes. He's so awful, but he's so damn fun to watch. Particularly when people insult him.

MEME TIME!

30 Day Kdrama Challenge
Day 14: Your Favorite Kiss

I think we all know the answer to this one.



Yeah, it was calculated on Miri's part, but damn was it hot. These two had smoking hot chemistry from the first episode, and it just felt SO GOOD to see it come to fruition. I honestly didn't expect it, at least not so soon in the series, but it was brilliant on the part of the writers, because Miri and Myung Hoon needed the more mature relationship and she needed to take things that far for us to be totally scandalized when she starts going after Yoo Hyun, and it's just a great contrast to the innocence of her relationship with Yoo Hyun (although, I'm pretty certain that had Myung Hoon not shown up in Jeju, she would have slept with Yoo Hyun too. But Yoo Hyun thinks she's as pure and virginal as he is). Anyway, Miri and Myung Hoon were smoldering up the screen for four episodes, and it was just such a wonderful release to see it actually amount to something.


Day 15: Your Favorite Ending

You know, if there's one thing that is always disappointing about k-dramas, it's the endings. I have trouble thinking of any drama that ended in a completely satisfying or entertaining way. They spend all of their energy on the penultimate episode and then have nothing left for the very last one. I... seriously don't know. Bad Family? Maybe? Yeah, I'll go with Bad Family.

Day 16: A Kdrama you started but can’t finish
Tamra the Island, My Princess, Athena, Lie to Me, 49 Days, 19 vs 30, My Country Calls. I'm sure there are more.

Day 17: A Kdrama you’ve watched more than once

I AM SAM. I've watched that one at least 7 times. I love it. It is like crack to me. Also, Beethoven Virus, which I have watched 4 times so far.

Day 18: The Worst Kdrama that you’ve watched until the end

Playful Kiss, probably (and I loved every minute of it!)

( The Days )

DAY OFF TOMORROW, WOOHOO! Uuuuugh, I am so tired. This was a busy (and mostly bad) week. I am so happy that it's finally over. Of course, this next work week has a lot of late nights, so... not happy about that. UGH. ( Work work work and more work )

So, now I'm going to do some memes, all stolen from dollsome, because she always finds the fun ones.

#1
MAKEOUT MEME: Pick a pairing from any fandom/rpf, and come up with a location and/or situation, and I will write you commentfic about the kiss that happened in that context.

#2
Ask me about a pairing I have written (or haven't and you think I should write) and I will give you five facts about them or a ficlet or a song that is CLEARLY THEIR SONG or what they order from the Chinese place down the street, etc, etc.

#3
Shipping Meme

Now, this one I've done a billion times, but as you all should know by now, my fleet of ships is constantly growing.

Six ships you are into right now:
1. Jeff/Annie (Community)
2. Will/Rachel (Glee)
3. Dan/Blair (Gossip Girl)
4. Betty/Armando (Betty la Fea. Yeah, I've been watching this again. I CAN'T HELP IT! At least this time it has some decent subs)
5. Spencer/Sam (iCarly)
6. Bill/Sookie (True Blood)

Three ships you liked but don't like fangirl anymore:
7. Uther/Morgana (Merlin)
8. Lassiter/Juliet (Psych)
9. Jack/Liz (30 Rock)

Four ships you never liked:
10. Shawn/Juliet (Psych) DON'T GET ME STARTED!
11. Will/Emma (Glee)
12. House/Cuddy (House)
13. Jeff/Britta (Community)

Two ships you're curious about but don't actually ship:
14. Sookie/Eric (True Blood)
15. Liz/Wesley (30 Rock)

( Read more... )

IU IS QUITE POSSIBLY THE MOST ADORABLE HUMAN BEING ON EARTH.



SEE? Also, one of the new songs off of her re-release of Real is totally kickass:



LOVE! And while we're on the subject of cute things:



LOOOOOOOOOOVE!!!! OMG, they are so adorable. ESPECIALLY AFTER CONFESSING THINGS.



♥ ♥ ♥

And just in case that was too much adorable for you, have some ANGST of the Sam Dong variety:



Oh, Sam Dong. *sniff* You know, I wasn't all that involved with the main love triangle at first because I thought it was pretty obvious that Hye Mi would end up with Jin Guk (which... blah), but after these last two eps? I feel like Hye Mi/Sam Dong isn't such a lost cause after all, and I find myself way more invested than I was before. Which kind of sucks, because I'm still pretty sure that Hye Mi will stay blindly in love with Jin Guk, but oh is the show giving me hope. ONE CAN DREAM. But luckily my OTP is Jason/Pilsuk, so if Sam Dong/Hye Mi doesn't happen, I won't be too heartbroken.

In other news, I've spent the last few days watching an anime called Toradora!, and, well, I loved it. A lot. I usually talk about how I can't get into animes, but apparently I totally can if the plot is reminiscent of a K-drama. It was just a beautiful story all around. I loved Taiga like crazy, and Amin (Ami?) was even lovable, and I think I maybe kind of shipped them (I don't usually do femslash, but anime makes it so easy). I also shipped Taiga/Minori (which is just a given when Taiga spends most of their scenes rubbing her head on Minori's boobs. Oh, anime, it never fails to be perverted, even when aimed at young girls!) Ryujji was probably the least fascinating character for me, but he was the glue that held everyone together, and he and Taiga's relationship was adorable and hilarious and sweet and deeply touching. God, in the latter half of the series they made me cry so much. I got so emotionally invested in these characters that it was crazy. So, yeah, definitely a well done anime. Usually I find animes too over the top, but this one treated its emotional moments in such a real/human way that it was just perfection. It wasn't too angsty, but it wasn't too cracky either. It had a lovely mix of humor, crazy, and drama that tugged on your heart strings. Also, I think this song was mainly what got my emotions going:



SO BEAUTIFUL.

In other other news, OMG I had no idea that Valentine's Day was such a busy time for retail. I worked my ass off this weekend. Was so ridiculously tired by the end of Monday night that I just collapsed into bed, and my feet were hurting so much that I could barely walk for two days. UGH. IT WAS AWFUL. Probably because they had me working the late shift every single night. Luckily I got two days off in a row to recuperate. Apparently I've gotten way too used to taking it easy since Christmas ended. I'm no longer used to these holiday crowds, gosh darn it!

KIM SEUNG WOO IS STARRING IN ANOTHER DRAMA! *flails* I seriously cannot wait for this. It has been too long since I've drooled over KSW, and now I'll get to do it TWICE A WEEK. I've never watched a Korean police procedural, so, we'll see how that goes. This one sounds suspiciously like Law & Order with its ripped from the headlines plots, and I was never a fan of L&O (though occasionally I do watch and enjoy the old reruns of Criminal Intent). I don't know, all I know is that Kim Seung Woo is sexy and I'll watch him in anything. I've even suffered through his various godawful films, so, I think I'll be handle this show (of course, KSW seems to like the really artsy films, which I don't). I actually have faith that this drama will be awesome, because while KSW picks some truly (imho) pointless films, his dramas have always been top notch. AND HE IS SUPER SEXY, SO IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER. I just want to see him in something new. And hopefully he'll get the girl this time, BUT I WON'T COUNT ON IT. The poor dude never gets the girl. Actually, since he's the older character, he probably won't even have a romance story. *sadface* I'm sure I'll ship him with everybody though. That's just a given.

Oh, and now that I know that KSW is in Athena, I guess I'll have to hurry and catch up with that drama. I just haven't been motivated to. I am sad that I am not loving it like I loved IRIS. I think my expectations were too high. Just, I wish the main hero was more interesting. I think that is my main lack of enthusiasm issue with Athena. He is not motivated by anything except the girl. With IRIS, while the hero's main goal was getting the girl, she wasn't his motivation for everything that he did. In fact, the girl fell in love with him because he was amazing at his job and he was a loyal friend and he had a fearless quality about him that drew her (and the audience) to him. The hero in Athena is just kind of lifeless at this point. Augh, I need to watch more than two episodes before I judge him, I know, but it's hard to find the drive to watch the show with such a lackluster main character. Hopefully I will be eating my words after watching a few more eps.

Also, I've kind of lost my motivation for watching Secret Garden. It started off so light-hearted and hilarious! But now it's getting more and more depressing, and I really cannot freaking stand Joo Won's mother. I want to strangle her every time I see her. And Oska's story with his lady is so ridiculously angsty that it is getting really annoying. Their over the top drama used to crack me up, but now it's just annoyingly repetitive. I do keep watching this show every now and then, though, but I'm not anxiously awaiting new eps like I used to (in fact, I'm only on ep 13 at the moment). After seeing that it actually has 20 eps and not 16, I got even less enthused. HOW MUCH LONGER CAN IT BE DRAWN OUT? Both characters are already depressed over the fact that they'll never be together. I don't know, I don't know. This one was so promising! The characters still delight me, it's just that the story is really starting to drag.

In other news, apparently Gwyneth Paltrow is coming back to Glee. UGH. Once was enough, show! And you oversaturated us with her in that one episode alone, so I don't even want to know how much you will torture us with her presence as a recurring guest star. You've even made me sick of Kristin Chenoweth, who is also returning for multiple eps AGAIN. All these guest stars do is take time away from the characters that I actually care about, and they sing every damn song on the episode, and just... UGH, GLEE, ENOUGH WITH THE GUEST STARS. If you want viewers, just have Will and Rachel makeout with each other. IT'LL WORK, TRUST ME. People will come for the shock value, it'll get endless amounts of press for being controversial, and people will debate for ages whether the show has jumped the shark even though this show jumps that figurative shark every damn episode. COME ON GLEE, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO DO IT. Psh, I'd love this show forever if it actually capitalized on the wonderfulness that is Will/Rachel. But it never will. *another sadface*

Regarding work, I am back to a normal-ish schedule in a couple of weeks since I called the personnel lady and asked what was up. I am oddly (yet not surprisingly) depressed over this. I was enjoying my insane amount of time off from work. And after working both Saturday and Sunday, I remembered how utterly tired this job makes me. Last night I came home, ate dinner, and then collapsed into bed and slept all night long and well into the morning. And I didn't even really work that hard, considering the fact that the crowd is about half the size that it was at Christmas. But, I guess I'm moving faster than I used to, which means I get through more customers than I used to, which means much more bagging and lifting and whatnot, which means my body gets tired faster, I guess. And on Saturday morning I had to drive to work in the snow and I couldn't see a damn thing and my car was slipping and sliding all over the place. Luckily it was super early in the morning so there weren't many (or any, really) cars coming at me on the other side of the road, so I managed to get there in one piece (and of course it stopped snowing the very minute that I turned into the parking lot). I was only 15 minutes late, so, I guess that wasn't too bad. But, yeah, I never want to drive while it's snowing that hard ever again. And, what's weird is that it only snowed for like 45 minutes and we ended up getting 2 inches or so, and it was the entire 45 minutes that I was driving into work. The snow was completely melted by the afternoon. Had I been scheduled for one or two hours later, I would have missed it. The roads still would have been bad, but at least I would have been able to see what was in front of me. Oh, my luck. It is a good thing that I never gamble.