#office settting ql

[gillianthecat]

GAP — episode 2

It seems like my GAP reactions have become the space in which I wax philosophical about various matters political and personal. But it's an excellent show nonetheless, I'm starting to really like it!

below the cut are my thoughts while watching:

- So does Sam know that she has a crush and is flirting like mad? I honestly can't tell how self-aware she is.

- Sam's friends! I love them all already. I appreciate that this show is populating Sam's world with interesting queer women. It feels like they've studied the boys' shows and are applying all the lessons carefully and skipping over a lot of the growing pains. So if Sam already knows she's queer, maybe she does realize she has a crush, she's certainly waiting by the phone anxiously. Then again, she seems not very in touch with her feelings in general.

- Ok. I hate grandmother. I love both the sisters. And Freen is great at portraying the two versions of Sam—young, open and vulnerable, and grown up, hard and walled off.

- On the one hand, I’m guessing that Sam just wants an excuse to keep bringing Mon into her office. Which is adorable. On the other hand, I’m having to actively work to not get annoyed at how bad a boss Sam is being. Not so much the meanness, that I can handle, but at how unskillful she is at it. Just telling your employee (who is brand new to the office and to the working world in general!) "change it" and "it doesn’t wow me" without giving any specifics? That is not the way to get the results you want with any efficiency. On the third hand, I am relieved not to hear them rambling on about "influencers" and marketing." So possibly a win overall. And their dynamic is great.

- And Mon called her out for it it! Bless you, darling. Sam tried to pull that boss bullshit are you just lazy? thing, but at least I know the show isn't ignoring it. And that is enough for me to be content, I think.

- I think I may actually really like this show? I was going to watch it regardless as long as it wasn't completely terrible (and I made it all the way through fahlanruk, so clearly my tolerance for terrible is high) just to a) support Thai GL, and b) see what they would do, but it's turning out to be very good. A solid story, good characters, lots of really good details, and it feels genuinely queer. I'm so pleased.

- The one sticking point for me is the whole influencer social media thing, but thinking about it, I can see how that was the best choice. If they want to make a billionaire romance with a cruel boss and and an ingenue employee, which I fully support because it's a genre with a lot of delicious potential, especially when made lesbian (I have no interest billionaire romance when done straight á la Fifty Shades of Gray, but love it when it's played with in some way) then they need a company for the billionaire to run. And they need to find something that a) could realistically become profitable in this day and age, b) Lady Sam could plausibly be passionate about, because the tension between her love for running a business and grandmother's pressure on her to live a traditional heterosexual life is crucial to the story they're telling, and c) feels cool and hip to fit the aesthetic of the show. So it can't be a paper company or something boring, and advertisers have always been the sexy creatives of the business world. "Content Creators" aren't as interesting, but they are more modern and more plausible as a start up business. And so while social media marketing still makes me recoil, and I honestly think is responsible for a lot of ills in this world,* I do understand their reasoning and I think that will allow me to tolerate and ignore it. I just hope Sam learns how to be an effective boss at some point along the way too!

*I didn't find Mad Men's ad agency setting off-putting in the same way. Perhaps because the creativity is more obvious in what they were doing, perhaps because it was all set in the past so it had that nostalgic fascination rather than watching people work at something that is actively making the world and my own life worse today. Not that advertising in the 60's didn't do a shit ton of harm to the world that continues to fuck over the planet. But I don't personally feel it as viscerally. Plus I think there is less creativity in the sort of content creation that Lady Sam's company seems to be doing, although to be honest the whole show is keeping it all pretty vague for now.

- Tangent over. I love how full of queer women this show is! It's not just the main couple, it's both of Sam's sisters, probably all of her friends, and even the villain and/or faen fatale! The only heterosexual couple (besides the parents) were kicked off the show in the first half an hour, in a loss for workers' rights but a victory for gay rights. And the only confirmed straight guy is Mon's creepy friendzoned neighbor, who is all but discarded. (Kirk may be straight, but it's not confirmed yet.)

- Speaking of which, I'm kind of excited to see what this villainous woman is going to do.

- I suspect most people associate Heng with Sky and expect him to be good, but my strongest association is with his character from War of Y so I keep waiting for him to be at least mildly evil.

- I actually really appreciate that this migraine is a situation in which taking medicine actually makes sense to me. Characters in Thai shows keep taking medicines for ailments that don't seem fixable with medicine and it always slightly annoys me. I don't know if that's part of the general Thai approach to health, or if it's just a shorthand for caretaking that dramas have developed, but it is so different from my approach.

- Oh how tender. Her head on her lap. I like this rendition of the caretaking trope. It uses the tropes, but puts its own spin on it to make it feel interesting and real.

- (I feel like I had that shirt pattern as wallpaper as a child. I'm not knocking Mon's outfit, I love her workwear style! But it definitely has a late eighties/early nineties vibe, especially combined with the oversized blazer in that shade of pink.)

- I love how even half asleep and knocked out with pain and drugs Sam (pardon me, Hon. Lady Sam) is still bossy and prickly and rude.

- Sleepy taxi head to shoulder slide my beloved! (I don't know what to call this trope, but it's always a good one.)

- I don't think I've ever seen That Fucking House 1.0 from the street before. I always pictured it somewhere more suburban and quiet.

- I love their dynamic so much! And I'm glad that Mon is getting the stars knocked out of her eyes—it makes for a much more interesting story (and a healthier relationship) if she has to fall back in love with the real Sam, rather than coasting on hero worship.

- Omg, I adore prickly bossy Sam. She is so cat coded. Be polite. Why are you so formal. Text me. Why are you texting me, you should call. Why are you calling me. 😸 I thought maybe it was because I'd just watched Choco Milk Shake so I'm imagining cats everywhere. But no. Mon really is another cat. I love her. And just like Milk, she is totally confused by her feelings and has no idea how to act around her crush. She sure sat up quick though 😹

- Oh Mon baby. My darling. How heartbreaking to find out that your idol, your forever crush, is not the person you thought she was. That she's actually mean and rude and confusing and is a terrible boss. And you're just trying to be a good employee but you have no idea what she wants from you. Oh my darling.

- Oh my god, Sam has zero social skills. I mean, it makes sense why, but she is a disaster. Mon is doing a great job of telling her when she's being hurtful or confusing, and every time Sam doubles down on acting like an asshole. Sigh. I still love her though.

- I am glad that Mon has the spine to keep standing up to her. Otherwise their relationship would be doomed and hard to root for. She does it kindly, but clearly and with a strong sense of her own rights and needs as a person. That's hard to do for any brand new intern to their powerful asshole boss, let alone one who's been nursing a hero worship crush for over a decade.

- Oof this scene! Mon kneeling as Sam walks by glammed up with sunglasses on, and completely ignores her.

- I do like this accountant. And I'm inclined toward Kirk. No matter what his role ends up being. I appreciate his rich boy charm here.

- Omg. Of course she hand delivers the snack to Mon. In the rudest, most awkward manner possible. My favorite feral cat. And yes. The battle of wills has begun. ngl, I was nervous about the whole hero worship angle last week, but they're crushing that underfoot quite nicely.

- Does Kirk know about her crush? Maybe even before she does, lol. Also I'm so relieved that Sam has all these friends who tease her when she's got a stick up her ass and treat her like a human being and also genuinely care for her.

- What a spiky kitty cat. Calm your fur, girl.

- This courtship is going to be amazing. I'm so excited to watch Sam flailing around trying and failing to act like a human around Mon. Kirk is all of us in his reactions. 😹

- Date date date! Wingmanned by the fiancé! Which, honestly is necessary at this point. They cannot handle being alone together yet.

- Jesus Christ Sam. You are the embodiment of that Get out of my school meme. I cannot believe the things coming out of your mouth.

- Oh no. Kitty cat, sweetheart, you're going to burn off the roof of your mouth. Stop trying to act cool in front of your crush. Mon's face 😂

- Lol. Well she fooled all of us. I guess she really is cool after all.

- Look at them! Managing to have an almost civil conversation! I'm liking this Kirk-Mon allyship that's developing. I don't know if it will withstand the pressure of the angst to come, but it's something Mon, and their developing relationship, need right now.

- Cat cat cat! She is such a cat. She refuses to look at Mon even though 100% of her attention is focused on her right now 😸 ooh and the boyfriend comment made her gruum-py!

- I can't tell what Kirk knows (I can't even tell what Sam and Mon know about themselves at this point) but I love him for playfully calling out Sam about posing on her car 😸

- Damn! Sam is already asking who Mon is sleeping with. My beloved ill mannered alley cat. And she's so proud of her little joke 😸

- Aw. Mon's crush is back and she is giddy with it. And what an ending moment.

I'm excited about this show now. They're doing so many things right! The story seems solid and well structured, a good base to carry the relationship through to the end. And I feel like they're hitting the right balance for Mon and Sam's dynamic. Sam is spiking and mean and awkward, and a terrible boss, but we also see her with her friends so we know that she can take teasing and be human sometimes, and that she has people in her life that love her. She's mean enough to build that delicious tension, but vulnerable enough that I can see why Mon likes her, and I don't feel like I need to yell at her to run away. And Mon has a good balance between being open and awestruck, while still having the backbone to stand up to her hero. It reassures me that their relationship is going to feel equal, not like a creepy boss taking advantage of her employee. Those sorts of extreme power dynamics are not what I'm looking for in a story; what I like about subverted billionaire romance is seeing how the characters manage the power dynamics in order to have a real relationship.

Based on the trailer and the grandmother's everything, I'm pretty sure this series is going to get angsty and sad. But given the nuance with which they've been treating the characters so far, I trust them to handle it well.

[gillianthecat]

My favorite thing about The New Employee so far is the way Jong Chan looks at Seung Hyun. And grabs his wrist or takes his hand. Or leans his head on Seung Hyun’s shoulder. Or can’t stop touching him as he shows him off to their advertising clients. Plus I love his soft morning casual look with his hair down. Overall, I don’t think the show is quite for me, for a variety of reasons, but WOW can Kwon Hyuk convey desire. The pure want dripping off of him when he allows himself to let his mask drop. (And there are no dead fish kisses here, no sirree! I think we were worried suspicious last week because it looked like they were using fancy camera angles to hide bad kisses, but, uh, they do not need to do that.)

I am excited about the new complications introduced at the end though! Was the logo on the pen a connection to Seung Hyun’s college crush, Yoo Seong? (Would I recognize it if I’d been paying more attention?) What is Jong Chan’s relationship with Yoo Seung’s anyway? And who is the mysterious person Yoo Seung is in love with? (You can see I have a bit of second lead syndrome going on. He’s just so pretty.)

Needless to say, I’m going to keep watching despite my reservations, because I want to find out all the answers! And because I suspect that Seung Hyun and Jong Chan will change quite a bit over the course of the story, and I’m curious to see who they become.

My other favorite thing is continues to be how explicitly queer this show is, as @heretherebedork says here (and other places).

I had decided to keep this post positive, but I can’t resist complaining. Or at least talking about the parts that aren’t working for me. Besides my general struggles with the ad agency office setting, which I’ve complained about anytime anything like it comes up, I’m just not that into a smiley eager puppy of a protagonist. It’s why I didn’t connect as much with Choco/Jungwoo in Choco Milk Shake, it’s probably part of the reason PayuRain never worked for me. And Seung Hyun is more complex than just an eager intern, but I’m still not really connecting with him. And part of that is that it feels like his eagerness and shyness compounds the already sizable power difference between the two. Which, given the ending, I suspect that dynamic will be upended soon, but it did make watching this episode less interesting to me because I wasn’t really feeling their connection. Which I realize is a me thing, and other people enjoy that kind of power dynamic much more. I felt Jong Chan’s physical attraction for sure, and Seung Hyun’s admiration (hero worship perhaps?) but I’m not really sure what they like about each other. I guess it just feels like they don’t actually know each other yet. Which I suppose might be the point, at this moment of their arc. Lee Boem even said basically as much, that this awkward getting to know each other stage is fun. So I think I’ve talked myself around to appreciating how their courtship is being depicted, at least intellectually. If this is just the calm before the storm, if it’s actually setting them up for a crisis that deepens their relationship, then it works.

Perhaps the problem is that everything about their date seemed stressful to me. Watching them sitting alone in a dark, cold (it looked like the kind of place that would be over air conditioned) fancy restaurant, too nervous to have a real conversation, made me want to walk out of there on Seung Hyun’s behalf. Not that he wanted to leave, I was just projecting. And if we count the ad pitch as a second date, which I think we can since it was clearly part of their courting, well, that seems even more miserable. But again, very much a me thing, the characters were clearly thrilled by it.

The other thing I struggle with is the interjections in of the manwha comic that’s telling Seung Hyun’s story as he’s living it? I don’t understand the purpose of these fourth wall breaks, or fantasy elements, or whatever it’s supposed to be, and so I just find them annoying. Like, it doesn’t feel so far like it’s connected to anything else in the story, or helping Seung Hyun learn something, or otherwise is meaningful, just like they’re trying to be cute. It doesn’t help that I don’t like most manwha/comic/manga drawing styles, including thus one, and I’d rather spend the time on the actors’ faces.

And, like many Korean BL, the run time is just too short for the story they’re trying to tell, so it leaves things feeling rushed and unfinished. Alas.

Despite all my criticisms, I am very curious to see where this goes, so I will keep watching. And, as I said above, there are many things I like, I just needed to get my complaints off my chest.

(oh, and the sound effects! (one last complaint and then I'll stop for real.) I continue to not be a fan of comedic sound effects, although these at least are well matched and timed. I think its part of the same issue as the vaguely supernatural manwha; the show is going for a comedic slapstick one when I want a bit more seriousness from it. I'm very particular about slapstick, I love it when well executed, but it annoys me when not, and I have a high threshold for well executed. Kabe Koji is the only thing I can remember recently succeeding for me in that regard.)

[gillianthecat]

Scattered* thoughts on GAP episode 1

*I'm serious about the scattered thing, I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense.

I liked it! I will keep watching it! I didn’t watch the trailer and mostly filtered the tags, so I went into the episode pretty ignorant of the plot.

I'm going to get my complaints/concerns out of the way first. 

- I think my biggest obstacle is going to be the business setting, especially a social media/marketing/influencer type business. That was the thing that... didn't ruin, but certainly lessened my enjoyment of Roommates of Poongduck 304. It’s just something I find inherently both boring and annoying. I kept zoning out or pausing and getting distracted during the business parts.

- on a related note, Lady Sam seems like a terrible boss, in a way that also makes it seem like she's bad at running a business. Now, there is a long tradition of terrible bosses in romance, and it doesn't make her irredeemable for me. Already I really like what I've seen of her outside of work! But it is a big obstacle to overcome in liking her and wanting to see her with Mon.

- The third obstacle is very much a me thing, and something I wish I could change. For the past three or so years I've really struggled with reading about or watching women as characters in romance. A lifetime of misogynistic and objectifying depictions of women suddenly caught up to me, and has made it difficult to enjoy even well written non-misogynistic portrayals, especially in romance settings. Unfortunately, this seems to extend to queer women in romance, not just straight stories. There's a very narrow range of women characters (in romance, this is mostly about romance contexts) that get past that these days, and Mon and Sam don't quite fit. That's not to say I dislike them! They do intrigue me. It's just that in order to enjoy them I have to keep pushing aside all that baggage that has accumulated.

Onward to the rest of my scattered thoughts:

- I love that so many of the cast from Secret Crush on You is in this. Perhaps it’s just another job for them, but it feels supportive. I think I did a little scream when I saw Seng & Billy's cameo. And when Sam asked, "who is the other plate for?" I just knew it would be Heng. And a second later he appeared, so I felt very proud of myself. (I only saw him in the opening credits; remember I haven't watched the trailer.) I mostly skipped Sky’s storyline in SCOY, so my strongest association with him is as Phoenix in War of Y, which means that my initial reaction is not to trust him. But I hope he does turn out to be an ally, even if I’m getting the vibes that he really does want to marry Sam.

- I really like Mon's family, especially her stepdad. The family dinner where he and Mon are conspiring about how she can apologize to her mom was adorable. And I liked the nuances and the obvious love in Mon’s subsequent conversation with her mom.

- I found it both weird and sweet how encouraging they were of her decade-long obsession with a stranger. It’s sweet that they were so supportive of her as a general principle (and of course a huge contrast to Sam's grandmother). But also it just seems very weird to encourage your child to plan out her life based on her obsession with a stranger and be so sure that she’s a good person to model based on one interaction over a decade ago. It makes sense for teenage Mon to do that, but for her parents to join in less so. Perhaps it's related to Sam being royalty? I don’t have enough understanding of Thai culture to interpret that.

- Despite the absurdity of Mon planning her life around her obsession, I enjoy it. At first I wasn’t sure if she realized it was a romantic/sexual crush, or thought it was just idol worship, but it now seems like she does. I was never a queer teenager, but I appreciate everyone on here saying that it feels like a very queer experience.

- I really liked both crash-into-you scenes. And the first time we got the trope doubled up! Mon is very good at looking up at Sam with adoration in her eyes. I like Sam's annoyance with her that is starting to be replaced by interest, or curiosity at least. And the bit with the hair caught in the bracelet was very entertaining.

- My favorite moments were any time Sam and Mar were in a scene together–their chemistry is great! So I have hopes for enjoying this series over all. That moment in the bathroom especially - the tension! Plus Sam’s incredibly awkward flirtation with Mon at dinner. Does she even know that she’s flirting? I can’t tell yet what she’s thinking.

- I like the coworkers as a group and as a Greek chorus, even though watching the terrible working environment stresses me out.

- As @thequeenofsastiel says, despite her being a terrible boss, the rest of her life makes that understandable and sympathetic. (I have no insight to add to that right now.) I really felt for her in that dinner with the grandmother - the pressure that she’s under to make the company work. I think mostly I will be frustrated if the show tries to tell me that she’s actually good at running this company despite all the onscreen evidence to the contrary.

- I did appreciate the parallel of Sam saving Mon from being run over from a car again at the end. And a second crash-into-you with even more sexual tension.

- I thought I had more thoughts about this episode on Sunday, but I can’t remember them now/don't feel like writing them out at the moment.

[gillianthecat]

I am feeling oddly perfectionist about posting after not posting for so long? To counteract that, I will share my (mostly) unedited responses to The New Employee.

Episode 1 (and the very beginning of two)

I was skeptical at the beginning, given my general aversion to office romance, especially featuring an intern, especially in advertising (although it's still better than "content creation"). And I was feeling a bit over shows based in webtoons after Oh My Assistant (which I realize is a lot of the Korean and Japanese shows and therefore a diverse genre, many of which I’ve liked), or maybe just didn't like the drawing style of the cartoons used. But the rest of the episode won me over. The characters are growing on me. I do enjoy people being good at their jobs. I was worried that the lead was going to be way too chipper, but he seems like he'll be interestingly complex. The scene in the elevator was so good!

And it's so queer! There's a queer student group! His best friend is a queer woman!

I've also realized I'm a person who actually likes love triangles in my stories. I feel like that makes me very basic or something, but I like the tension it creates, and I like it when the protagonist is forced to make choices and figure out what they really want. Obviously, it's easy to do them badly, but when they're good, or even just ok, I eat that stuff up.

Episode 2

-the wrist grab in the meeting! I knew they were going to do it and yet it still made me so happy. and Jong Chan held on for a long time after 😍 and looked slightly flustered when he realized that he was still holding Seung Hyun’s wrist 🥰 (I just went back and timed it, he held his wrist for 47 seconds! which is a long time in 20 minute episode.)

-i would love an office romance that isn’t set in an advertizing/marketing/content creation industry. why not the power company or something? I know I complain about it every time, but every time they start talking about marketing I am tempted just to quit the show altogether. It would be fine if it was just the background, but when they talk about how to convince people to buy things it’s either bullshit, which annoys me, or it’s accurate, which also annoys me. I realized my objection isn’t to office romance in general, just to the specifics of the companies where they’re so often set. At least this one isn’t completely staffed by 22 year olds.

-But I love the love triangle-esque dynamic. And Yoo Seong is so pretty, I do not blame college Seung Hyun one bit for falling for him. Even though his friend Lee Beom is right, Yoo Seong does seem like bad news, manipulative and selfish. But he’s listed as a main role, so hopefully we will still get lots of him.

-And the show is so delightfully, explicitly queer! I think the part that brings me joy is it’s featuring queer community, and happy queer friendships, not just gay boys pining (like Roommates of Poongduck 304, for example.)

-I just went to MDL to get the spellings of everyone names and learned that the main character is supposed to be a “late bloomer” and a “virgin.” This is why I don’t read summaries, I prefer to find things out about the characters as the show tells me. Is his virginity a plot point or a major concern of his? Perhaps it will be, but if not, why are you telling me this. (Ok, fine, after watching the rest of the episode, apparently it will be important to the show.)

- “Because it’s you, Seung Hyun.” What does it mean?! I understand Seung Hyun thinking that it feels like a love confession, because it doesn’t really make sense any other way. Who are you, Jong Chan? You are a mystery man so far. I do appreciate you making sure your intern gets credit for his ideas though.

-ooh the crush is definitely mutual already! But what is Yoo Seong’s game? Is he just a shitstirrer? Is he good hearted and wants to help them get together? My initial assumption was that he wanted to keep Seung Hyun in his thrall, without ever actually dating him, so I was surprised that he would point him out as dateable to his (friend? rival?) coworker. It’s probably because I too am swayed by his pretty face, but so far he’s the character I’m most curious about.

- i’m not sure what I’m going to think about this series. Overall I feel neutral about the main characters so far. They neither grab me nor annoy me; their have been moments I’ve liked but overall neither of them have one my heart so far. Seong Hyun is definitely a puppy, and while he is adorable I tend to prefer the cat romances. Jong Chan is making me mull over my general thoughts about cold stoic boss-type romance figures. GAP is doing interesting things with that archetype (I’m way behind), and I’m also thinking about Alexis Hall’s take on the billionaire romance genre How To Bang a Billionaire, which very self-consciously plays with this tropes. My understanding is het Korean dramas love this dynamic; I haven’t watched that many, but have seen the first episodes of Business Proposal. I think it’s a dynamic I can either love or hate depending on how it’s treated. We need to get enough insight into the cold stoic boss for me to care about them. And it generally doesn’t work if they treat the love interest like shit (GAP treads this line very well as far as I’ve seen). Perhaps I will write more on these thoughts later.

-the protect-him-by-drinking-his-alcohol-for-him maneuver! I love it so 😻I mean, it’s the kind of thing that if someone did that to me in real life I’d probably be tempted to through the drink in their face, but for some reason I love it on screen. And sweet Seong Yoon so earnestly trying to fit in he’s letting people trample all over his boundaries. Good thing Jong Chan is there to protect him.

-ok. my parents came home and I took a long break to watch and think about The Apartment. I wonder if that other office romance will change my thoughts on this one.

-oh! I didn’t realize that his friend from university worked for the same company. Her drunken lack of boundaries is troubling, but I don’t mind because I’m sure that this information about Seung Hyun’s virginity is only going to make Jong Chan fall harder. I do love the way that they look at each other and burst into laughter when Jong Chan asks if they’re dating. And that he’s jealous enough to ask.

-this car ride is confusing me. Is there another man in the backseat, are we sometimes somehow seeing Seung Hyun in a mirror, or did they fuck up the editing and reverse some of the shots?

-However, drunken Seung Hyun is adorable! And clearly Jong Chan agrees. His daring little cheek kiss! Will Seung Hyun remember the next day? What will be the fallout from this? I will find out in one day.

-And of course Korea can’t resist ending on fall-into-his arms

[gillianthecat]

I finished Roommates of Poongduck 304 (which, according to Ho Jun/Ho Joon's sign, should be transliterated as Pungdeok). I loved the romance aspect of it: Ho Jun and Jae Yun are adorable. The first part of episode 7 was a delight - the simultaneous split screen collapsing onto their beds, the love confession in the street, the delicate way the show dealt with Jae Yun's shame about being gay. I loved seeing Ho Jun becoming absolutely gaga for his boyfriend, trying to warn the world off from him ("I heard a rumor that he's seeing someone." "He's dating someone!") even though they couldn't be public. I was delighted to see them even more dorky while dating than they had been when flirting.

Episode 8 didn't do it for me as much because I wasn't very interested in the business part of the show and a lot of episode 8 was taken up with that. Previously it had mainly just bored me, but then Ho Jun idolizing Zuckerburg was the straw that broke the camel's back, and after that I was kind of pulled out of the BL fantasy world and back to our modern capitalistic hellscape reality and it became hard to enjoy the chaebol fantasy anymore. Chaebol/billionaire romance fantasies are fun when I can think of them as modern day fairy tale princes, but they don't work for me if they become too real. So while on the one hand I can appreciate the gesture of Ho Jun leaving the chaebol world for Jae Yun's sake, it was also hard for me to get excited about another obscenely rich kid deciding to become an"entrepreneur."

But the were still very cute together! The play fight turned to making out at the end was charming. And yes, they were very good at kissing.

I also have a lot of half formed thoughts about the contrast between "bad" multi-level marketing/pyramid schemes/scammers and the "good" kind of capitalism/business/marketing which is "of course not a scam, why would you ever think that." And of course the pyramid schemes are embodied by the "bad" Seung Soek (poor and desperate) and the chaebols are represented by the "good" Ho Jun (obscenely wealthy, with a million safety nets available to him). And of course within the framework of the show, Ho Jun IS good, and Seung Soek is mostly bad. But as soon as you step outside of that framework it kind of falls apart. And the show's focus on business and influencers and glorification of Zuckerberg kind of pushed me out of that framework. But I don't actually want to develop those thoughts more because a) I don't know enough about chaebols in South Korea to have anything useful to say, and b) and just want to enjoy the fantasy of Jae Yun and Ho Jun falling in love and being adorable together. Because they were so 🥰

I don't know if it was an intentional inspiration, or if this is just the natural plotline when a famous person dates someone non-famous, but the eleventh hour conflict reminded me a lot of To My Star 2. In fact, when Jae Yun broke up with Ho Jun by lying that he had grown sick of him my intial thought was, at least you're doing better than Ji woo, honey. At least you actually told him you were breaking up with him and didn't just leave without a word on his birthday. And indeed, Jae Yun was already better able to handle his emotions than Ji Woo; he just had a little panic. Helped along by the fact that Ho Jun did lie to him about his identity, or at the very least deliberately withheld important information. But Jae Yun was able to talk it out once he calmed down about it, and it took him much less time to get his brain back online.

But it wasn't just that Jae Yun broke up with Ho Jun because he was scared of the consequences of being in a relationship with a celebrity, there were other little things that reminded me. Jae Yun running away to a restaurant in his family hometown, Ho Jun's drunken message begging for him to come back, Ho Jun running away to a restaurant in his family hometown, even the way their passionate make-out session at the end was interrupted by a knock on the door. I don't think Roommates is ripping off TMS2 or anything like that, I just thought all the parallels were interesting. (And the drunken video message gave me the oddest sense of deja vu, like I'd not only seen it in TMS2, but that I'd seen it before that and had already wondered about it as a trope. But now I can't think where else that was.)

To My Star 2 did it better, I think, but that's not really a fair comparison. That was the whole purpose of that series, whereas here it was just the excuse for the eleventh hour conflict.

Anyways, to end my long rambling digressions, I still recommend people watch Roommates. The characters and their enemies to lovers arc are charming, and the actors are excellent, with crackling chemistry.

And they've inspired me to check them out in Kissable Lips.

(Yes, I've been warned about the ending.)

edit: I feel like one of those "tolerant" homophobes. I'm ok with these "businessmen" but do they have to shove it in my face so much? Can't they just keep it to themselves how much they love capitalism?But, honestly, that's how I feel. I can tolerate an implicit veneration of business and capitalism as long as it's kept to the background and doesn't intrude on the fantasy.