Beanie level: Rooftop room dweller

Couples walking by that wall seem to be my new thing
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I just finished Nothing but Thirty and I loved it. It goes on the very short list of Chinese dramas that I’ve finished and that had great story-telling from start to finish. If you’re looking for a cutesy romance about ever-lasting love, this ain’t it. It’s got quite an indie feel (and great music) and looks at what it’s like to hit 30 for three different women. It’s a drama about female friendship and realistic relationships. It seemed very different from other contemporary Chinese dramas I’ve seen and I was gripped for all of the 43 episodes.



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    I should add that the ending was really good. Maybe not what I would have wanted for each of the characters at the start of the drama but very satisfying nonetheless.

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    Oh I’m glad you finally finished it. It wasn’t a perfect ending – but it was certainly realistic. But what was great was how all three women went through their own traumas and obstacles and learned and grew from it. But they had each other through it all.
    I LOVED this drama from beginning to end. The music stuck with me for the longest time too.
    Can’t recommend this show enough to all of you beanies!!!

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      I binged through the first 20 eps and then had to take a little break from it when it all got a bit ‘real’. Then I binged the last 10 eps in two days.

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    I saw an article about this drama and was intrigued! You’ve got me putting it on my list.

    “If you’re looking for a cutesy romance about ever-lasting love, this ain’t it”

    These are the most convincing words you could’ve used. My complete lack of interest in cdramas is partially due to the fact that the only ones I ever hear cdrama fans here and on Discord talk about are historical/wuxia (my least favorite genre) and fluffy cotton candy romances (my second least favorite genre). Yeah, there are a handful of fluffy romcoms I like, like WFKBJ, but for the most part I just find them to be absolute snoozefests. If I’m gonna do romcom, I need one with substance.

    This, though, sounds exactly like the kind of show I love! Thanks, cloggie!

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      Mindy, you’ve must have missed the time we were all talking about a contemporary mystery-crime cdrama (The Bad Kids is phenomenal) for a solid two weeks or that weirdly-fast-paced-slice-of-life-yet-not modern drama (If There Is No Tomorrow, personally, is not recommended though.)
      A couple of us on Discord actually started Nothing But Thirty but have put it on hold because like cloggie said, “it got a bit real.”
      Thanks for the motivation to continue, cloggie!

      Oh, and there’s another female-friendship-centric cdrama that started aired a while back called, Love Yourself, by the way. It also focuses on females in their 30s and I’ve watched the first four episodes and am enjoying it for the most part.

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    Wow – I just saw that The Economist has an article about this drama. 🤯🤯

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    This isn’t avaialble anywhere legally right? Like iqiyi or tencent because maybe it was only airing on TV and not online? That has been the only reason why I still haven’t watched it. I have watched the 20s counterpart (Twenty your life on) by the same production company Linmon and I loved it and that too had an unconventional but slightly more realistic ending. I’m hoping just like TYLO this one also focused on the women more than anything else.

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      It’s on Viki

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        Oh I meant a chinese drama site or app because it isn’t available on viki in my region sadly.

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Because face blindness popped up in a lot of kdramas recently, I found this account of what it\’s really like absolutely fascinating (and devastatingly sad)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53192821

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    Because of kdramas I discovered that I have a mild type of face blindness. Until before Girl Who Sees Smells I only thought I’m just forgetful, and had known for a few years that if I want to remember someone I have to stare at their face for several minutes and find key points about it to keep in my memory. I never even dreamed such a condition actually exists. GWSS was a revelation.

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    WOW thanks for that article. That must have been so hard to live through for so many years.

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The chairman dating the secretary never was my favourite type of romance. Goo Se-ra and Gong-myung have made me change my mind.
#intothering

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    Am guessing it’s because they really put Gong-myung’s #1 rule to work ^^

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I’m on slide 4: my (hopefully soon to be) first ever kdrama convert is on ep 7 of Stranger

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    Ill tell you what just burns my baguettes. When your friend already watches subtitled stuff but refuses to watch a kdrama (because they secretly hate you and want to watch your head explode?)
    Or they FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY agree to watch something and spend less than 5 minutes on it because “the background music is too loud” and it a. was NOT and b. it wasnt even ear grating background music like Pretty Noona. Maybe shes dead inside?

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      One of my friends said ‘how many episodes? 16? That’s longer than I thought’ and refused to even start the first one. This is the same person who watched all seasons of GoT!

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This is what DB looks like a lot of the time now. I hope that @db-staff appreciates it’s only my love for this community that still makes me come here



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Of course she said her heart skipped a beat – my heart skipped a beat, just watching this scene!
Maybe even more than one beat

#unfamiliarfamily
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My Unfamiliar Family is really Bridget Jones: the Makjang Years

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Of course she fell for her boss. Look at the size of his… bookshelves!

Loving My Unfamiliar Family. Not really knowing your family – or what’s going on in your parents’ life – is so relatable to me
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    This show is such a breath of fresh air. I do think it went slightly into makjang territory (what with the ending of ep 2) but well it is by all means a weekender family drama, airing on the weekend with lesser episodes so tropes should fit.

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    I want that library 😍😍

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    Mindy was saying how good episode one was, but those bookshelves might be the biggest incentive for me to watch. I do love a man with a sizable… book collection.

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    Episode 2 was as good as the first one. A bit surprising with that makjang bit BUT I LOVE MAKJANGS. This might be my favorite family drama this year.

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    What show is this?

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The perfect depiction of how watching Once Again makes me feel.

It\’s my happy pill for the week

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Ahn Eun-ji (Min-ha in HP) is becoming my new Kim Seul-gi: an actress who makes me pay attention when she’s in a drama because her characters are always awesome! Evidence: Possessed, My Fellow Citizens, Prosecutor’s Diary and now Hospital Playlist
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    She has a very lovable face. Like a friend you can be comfortable with. She looks warm if that makes sense lol.

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    I LOVED her in MFC. Unpopular opinion here, although MFC is one of my favorite shows but I never got the beanies’ love for Park Hoo Ja. To me she was incredibly dumb and gullible. Everything she acheived was because of her little sister, who was smart, educated and fantastically quick-witted. I sometimes think what would the show be like if SHE was the villain! Probably much much darker!

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The Aunt and the Butcher scenes in Once Again make me laugh so much! This drama is exactly what I needed!!😂😂😂
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    OMG this screencap alone is enough to make me burst into laughter 😂

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    I had thought about watching this when it first started as the premise sounded interesting, but then I thought the initial Beanie reaction was lukewarm.

    But you are liking it?

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      It took a few episodes to get going but by the end of ep 4 (counting in half-hour episodes) it became clear that the show wasn’t going along the normal stereotypical plot-lines & character tropes, now I’m really loving it.

      In the beginning, some of the arguing seems irritating and annoying but you soon find out a) what the arguing is really about and b) that the siblings & parents look out for each other, and suddenly you end up caring for all of them (apart from the mother-in-law).

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Just saw Hyena ep 8 and after ep7 lulled me into a false sense of security, ep 8 just ripped my heart out, stuck it through the shredder and handed me a little bit of sticky tape to make it all better

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    oh no, i haven’t started on this week’s episodes and now i’m like both nervous and excited?

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    But it was soooooo goooooood!

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    Episodes 7 and 8 were the best so far! I haven’t been this satisfied with a drama in a while.

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    Man Guem Ja was so strong even as a teenager. It takes an enormous amount to strength to even consider stabbing yourself. Also the low five in episode 7 was so adorable. I feel so sorry for Hee Jae. Poor guy is carrying a wounded heart and no matter how much Guem Ja tells him to go for someone else, he can’t

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      The reason why it hit me so hard, is because it showed that no matter how strong you are, you carry the childhood damage with you. Especially the contrast between how she could stand up against the gangsters, but was afraid of her father.

      That she actually told Hee Jae was huge.

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        I agree. Even if she decided to embrace that moment of vulnerability, it was a huge deal that she trusted him enough to the him about her childhood. I think she realises that smart though he may be, Hee Jae is a pretty straight forward guy

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I got 6 episodes of Kingdom Season 2 this morning!

I can\’t think of anything better to watch than a drama about a zombie apocalypse…

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I had no interest whatsoever in Find me in your memory until I saw that Kim Seul-Gi is going to be in it!
She’s in the fourth picture of the IG post

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Whatever you want to say about Que Sera Sera, I loved this track from the OST. They used it so often (hint: whenever something exciting was about to happen) that I expected RL life-changing moments every time this came up on shuffle play. You know – something throwing their employee badge in the bin. That kind of thing…

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    March Music #2

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    Call me crazy but I love “Que Sera Sera” and I don’t care if I’m the only one lol.

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      I love it too. It’s a love that’s wrong – which is pretty much in keeping with the drama lol

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    Didn’t know this one, but the 80’s cheesy feel is totally up my lane 😋

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Music March
I love the OST from Heart to Heart. It’s as if you’re drinking a cup of hot chocolate on a winter’s evening. Perfect for this drama.

(apologies for not finding a better video)

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My new favourite chaebol girl – UEE in High Society.

I’m continuing to love dramas that other people hate. I watched High Society and think it’s a brilliantly written exploration of class and privilege that the (admittedly young) cast just about carry off. What’s so great about it, is that the writer actually makes the viewer implicit in how we judge people from a certain background, by having two couples who are the mirror opposites of each other (always a good writers trick).

On the one hand, we have the rich chaebol guy and the candy part-time worker. They are the second couple. They’re cute. They are what we’ve seen a gazillion times before and well, you know what you’re going to get.

But on the other hand, we have the rich chaebol girl and the smart guy from a poor background looking to marry his way up.

And what the drama is asking all the way through is: why are we okay with scenario one, but get Mr Ripley vibes from scenario two. Oh, and to make it all more interesting, chaebol girl’s family is considerably richer than chaebol guy’s family. The drama makes this clear because the girl’s family own a private jet and the guy’s family doesn’t.

The drama starts off with the two chaebols on an arranged date. The guy is pretty clear that he wants to marry her for her money and power. So, when then poor guy dates her, and gets called out by the chaebol for that, he asks the question: why is it okay for you to marry for money, but not for me.

It’s really cleverly done and asks these kinds of questions of the viewer all the time. Why do we think it’s okay for the chaebol girl to lie about her wealth (she pretends to be poor) to her best friend for two years, but it’s not okay for the poor guy to pretend he doesn’t know she’s lying. By having the different characters ask those questions of each other, it really makes you think.

On top of that, I absolutely adored the FL. She’s been physically and emotionally abused by her mother all her life and just wants out. The way the drama deals with the damage that family can do (or the strength that you can get from a supportive family) is also great. She doesn’t want to have her background – but of course still uses it. Her self-awareness is utterly satisfying, especially when she realises that even when she was a part-timer, she was only holding onto that job because of her connections – getting her brother to bail her out of tough situations. Again, these are moments that are really fun for the viewer (because nasty customers get their come-uppance) but that later on take meaning. Also, I was looking forward to the angst episodes (not a feeling I have very often) because I knew that she was strong enough to deal with it.

Anyway, I thought it was great. Probably better to binge-watch than to watch when it was airing live, as some of the annoying bits (like the plot line with the brother) pass really quickly.



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These are my new cats. They love each other. I’m dreading the heart-breaking moment when they find out they’re siblings

#lifeisonebigkdrama
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OMG that epilogue of Diary of a Prosecutor ep 15! I haven\’t been so excited for a final episode of a drama in ages!!!!!

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    And if that was what I think it was, I’m going to be exceedingly smug.

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      Okay, so it wasn’t. I was trolled and totally fell for it.

      Still thought it was good because the show absolutely knew what it was doing.

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