Aramintai

When fantasy is presenting itself to be grounded in reality, but makes even non-fantasy things look unrealistic it is hard to enjoy.

It's another thing we don't have where I live - seniority system. No matter how much dumber you are than younger people, you'll get promoted before them according to seniority system. And even if your position is no longer required you'll still get transferred around and retain your job until retirement. Even if it's being a nightguard, like in famous Japanese case.
Western world looks at this and only sees two things - inefficiency and waste of resources. And nobody cares about your retirement plan either, if you're no longer needed - you get fired, government job or not, and that's that.

It's just rather unrealistic, ahjumma getting hired off the street, I mean. Civil servant exams being brutal I've heard about, I can only pity FL. And I'm glad we don't have this rank system where I live and anybody with a proper degree can apply for a job either in the private sector or public sector. Whether said degree is of any actual use in actual work is another question entirely. In FL's case looks like what she studied for wasn't worth a damn and ageism is rampant in hiring practices. She could have complained about discrimination, but I get that she just got so discouraged she just called it quits.

But ahjumma didn't have any credentials to work in the office of a prosecutor. She didn't present any sort of documents about her education. Even her ID is dubious, being from a missing person. I very much doubt random people off the street can get hired into said office without any vetting. Even as a cleaning lady, too many classified documents laying around.

It's kinda frustrating that FL couldn't get a civil servant job after studying for years, while being a halmeoni with no skills or credentials she not only got a job, but also got promoted to ML's assistant.
I'm not saying older people get preferrential treatment, or that it was through connections. But it does make one question life's choices and whether what young people waste years on to study is even worth a damn.

What sort of reuniting with your first love are you talking about here? They were kids!

Is this sort of like that supernatual kdrama about a vet who could see through the eyes of animals by touching their butts to find the killer? Some sort of supernatural possesion/transformation with killer plot?

I agree. Relying on these dumb childhood connection/reincarnation/destiny tropes is just lazy writing. Irl, people work on their relationships every day, but tropes like these just promote fairy tales for naive teens and establish unrealistic standarts.

That's not true, some rom-coms are packed with plot, with lots going on. Here it's just about FL living with gnomes like a Snow White in their house and getting reconnected with her childhood crush. There are seldom any jokes that land and it's all very repetitive.
Bandits aren't banditing, there are obligatory annoying third wheelers, as well as secondary couple nobody cares about, although they're struggling through the most realistic relatioship in the whole drama.

Sad to say but the last two episodes were boring. Probably because there's not much in terms of the plot. And lots of cringe was introduced as well.

Second hand embarrassment was the title of today's episode 🤣

A rather boring episode today, ML is still not budging. FL knows that he knows that she knows that he's her childhood crush or something like that and that's about it 🙄. At least SML has stopped being an ass, now he's just a sad third wheel. And where the hell are those ending teasers from the previous episodes? FL friend's pregnancy test, ML confessing, where is it? Tomorrow?

Alchemy of Souls & Touch Your Heart are one of my favorite kdramas. Highly recommend.
CLOY - lots of unrealistic soap in the later half.
It's Okay To No Be Okay - lots of soap and FL is really crazy.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha - sooooaap.
Vincenzo is pretty funny, but it's also really corny. There are some iconic hilarious scenes there, can watch even to just to be in the know.
Goblin - overrated af, a snoozefest about a sugar daddy and poor girl that wears $8K coats and goes to somehow public, but very fancy highschool. Second couple saves the day.
Tale of the Nine Tailed - also overrated. For LDW fans.
Her Private Life - meh. Better watch Crazy Love with the same actor. If you'r PMY's fan better watch What's Wrong with Secretary Kim - arguably her best attempt amongst samey wooden office rom-com performances, but that kdrama gets boring and repetitive after around 6 episodes.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo - pretty good, actors did a superb job. But there were lots of underdeveloped character arcs, some of which with 180 turns and court cases were pretty meh. There's gonna be a second season, allegedly.
Suspicious Partner - not enough plot for the format, too many episodes, but is occasionally funny. Ending is pretty meh.

P.S. Also, shoutout for this year's Flex X Cop. It was so good it's getting a second season.

I wish ML was a real bad guy gangster struggling to become a better person and going straight, could have been more dramatic. There sure is way more room here for bad habits making funny misunderstandings and for character growth arc. But misunderstanding jokes were mild and ended way too fast, now it's all about running around FL in circles. And his character development arc had ended even before the show's started. He never was into banditry in the first place, probably got dragged into it by his father. And he's way too nice of a person overall, it's doubtful one can stay that way living a thug's life among thugs.

Who cares about that? It's her friend's anyway. What a disastrous hook up there.

ML changing his name was basically because his mother ran away from his gangster father and was hiding his identity? That's why all these frequent relocations from place to place? But ML's father still did find him at the age of 16. Probably nothing good happened sinced ML ratted his father out later.
No mysteries left here, however mild they were. All that's left is to deal with all the bandits that are out there to get ML and get together with FL.

So, did the prosecutor tell FL that ML is the boy? I think he did. He's too righteous to lie and he should feel grateful for the drug deal tip. (Dunno why he keeps acting like a cop though, it's not his job to catch criminals, his job is to prosecute them).
And now we're in dumb angst phase. FL is acting up because ML told her doesn't care about her to keep her safe. ML doesn't know what to do with her, but is jealous.

So why ML would change his name?
Is he even the gang leader's real son?

Her parents were poor and owed those bandits whom ML belonged to money. She's from a poor family and is still poor. She doesn't even have enough money to rent an apartment.

I don't like what FL is doing here - blatantly flirting with both guys and acting oblivious to their affections. It makes her look really dumb. I mean, dumber than she already is. Also, when's she gonna ask about prosecutor's childhood properly already? He wasn't so young as to not remember a girl he used to play around with in a certain neighbourhood. But he's not gonna tell her anything, is he? Because he's not the guy and that's not beneficial since he already got elevated status with FL because of this dumb misunderstanding.
And what she's gonna do if the boy was one guy, but the man she likes is another? She's gonna follow that dumb childhood connection destiny? Of course she wouldn't, that's why it's so dumb in the first place.

And speaking of prosecutor, he's just getting on my nerves. So lawful good and so high on his horse, makes one want to retch from all that sugary unrealistic niceness and dumb justice.