i always just want to write "dear santa" tbqh
Dearest Yuletide author,
This is, I am pretty sure, the longest yuletide letter ever written. I am so sorry. I hope you are the kind of person who gets inspiration from wordiness, but if not you totally don't have to read this! You can go off what I said in my prompts and nothing else! I am fine with that! This is basically just a grossly expanded version of what I said there anyway.
First I just want to say thank you so much for taking time and writing me a story!!! I promise I am pretty easily pleased. As it happens, all four of my requests are for pretty obvious, canonical het couples this year, so hopefully we didn't get mismatched and those are things you are also into! But if not, I just feel like I should always note that I am one of those weirdos who genuinely enjoys gen fic as much (...sometimes more) than 'shippy fic, so if that's the best way to go for you, please go that way!! It will not disappoint me. The other thing I wanted to say, is that even though everyone knows optional prompts are... optional, to be honest it is more important to me to get fic with these characters than it is to get fic that specifically adheres to my prompts. Believe me, the prompts came second. So if you have a really vivid idea for one of these fandoms that doesn't match with what I said in my prompt, you should feel free to ignore me and go wild with that!
My journal is semi-unlocked, if you're the stalking type. I doubt I'll post anything that interesting or helpful before December but you never know! You can check out previous yuletide letters here if that sounds like it would help at all, and if you're interested in fic I have loved in the past, there's my delicious (plus a tag for my very favorites), and also my much-neglected fic tag (which is mostly recs, since I don't post what little fic I write in this journal). I once made a post about some tropes I like which also might help you. I think, ultimately, in romance, I just like people being dumb about their feelings, and acting prickly towards each other because they are dumb about their feelings. That... is pretty much why I ship all of the things in this post.
I was going to write a paragraph about my dislikes but I'm lazy so I think I am just going to steal this from last year's letter: I do not like manpain. I kind of wish you'd stay clear of the heavier things-- dubcon, rape, incest, character death, but the truth is if those things are handled well I can pretty much take it. I hate thinly veiled character bashing in pretty much all cases, but especially with girls, since my tendency in pretty much every fandom is to... like all the girls. IT IS JUST KIND OF HOW I AM.
Anyway that is all, thank you again!!! Except that I'd lastly like to say that I am super enthusiastic about the idea of getting ANY of these stories, please don't think you are offering me my least wanted request for any reason, BECAUSE I WANT ALL OF THEM. So much!
(1) Homefront - Jeff Metcalf/Ginger Szabo
I would love any kind of story about these two, but an au story about Ginger making it in Hollywood or, alternately, a slightly less rushed ending that acknowledges all that went on between them in season 2.
If you haven't heard of Homefront, it is this amazing little drama about American soldiers returning home after World War 2 that aired for two seasons in the early 90s. It hasn't been released on dvd, and the only place it's available is youtube (the first episode begins here, this is the uploader's youtube account). It stars, among others, bb Kyle Chandler, Ken Jenkins, and Kelly Rutherford (those are the people I recognize, at least). Maybe you've already seen it and that is why we got matched!! But if that is not the case I just want to say I highly recommend it, the characters are really interesting and well-rounded, they do a really excellent job humanizing their more villainous characters, and it does an incredible job (in my opinion) of portraying the plight of women and African-Americans in the late 1940s. They really weren't afraid to embody and tackle ignorance in characters that were otherwise, I think, supposed to be sympathetic. And in Linda and Robert they did such a good job with the idea of being shown what it is to have more during the war, and wanting so much, to have that back, but not being able to get it because of the way society works. (I got sucked back into the show when I re-found that youtube link, and I also want to say that I love the contrast we see between Robert and Abe!! That and Caroline's plight, even though she is a maniulative twit, were the two things I found particularly compelling the second time that I didn't notice as much the first time). But even though it tackles a lot of topical issues (polio and worker's unions, to name two more), it's... not all that preachy? It's mostly just a really funny, sweet little show with a lot of heart.
AND JEFF AND GINGER ARE THE GREATEST and this is the third time I have requested them and I will probably request them every year until it actually happens, ugh I just love what a little boy he is and how straightforward/earnest/dumb he is and how that sort of turns her off at first because he's her BEST FRIEND'S LITTLE BROTHER but then it just doesn't matter? And ugh he just... loves her, so much. AND HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE GINGER SZABO, omg her friendship with Linda (OTHER PEOPLE I LOVE SO MUCH: LINDA!!!) and all her weird-wrong but very 40s opinions about love and marriage that Linda is always "GIRL"ing her about, and the way she's constantly setting up these weird demands in her relationship with him (I really like demanding women in relationships, idk) and sometimes he protests with logic but mostly he just goes along with it because he loves her. And her sudden all-encompassing ambition to be an actress, and the way it seems so implausible but she actually achieves it on a small scale? I am so bad at coming up with actual prompts for them because I would read anything about them, but I do think the way they ended up together at the end was (understandably, since they were trying to tie up loose ends for a cancelled show) rushed and I think I'd love to see that re-toyed. I think my favorite Jeff/Ginger era is and will always be when they first get together, and do you know what would be great? A HOLLYWOOD AU WHERE SHE LIKE, does make it big when she stays behind, and she maybe falls out of contact with him but not Linda, and then he gets into the majors and they meet again at a party or something and
I don't even know what I am saying
Basically I just love them SO MUCH and would probably keel over with joy if you wrote me a story about them!
(2) Free Agents (TV US) - Alex/Helen
With so little canon I feel like there's just so much you COULD do, and I am almost okay with any of it! But I would especially like a story about Helen or Alex actually attempting to ~move on~ and start a relationship (with someone else), and that ensuing in a lot of jealousy and weirdness, thanks to their v odd relationship.
Oh man, santa, if this is not what we got matched on you are probably like "what?! people watched that?!". IT SURPRISED ME TOO. I had no interest in watching it all, it was just on after Up All Night and I was too lazy to change the channel!! And then suddenly all I wanted to talk about was how there was this show and it was unexpectedly delightful. Luckily for my friends (unluckily for me) it was cancelled like two weeks later, so they didn't have to hear about it anymore. The thing that was so unexpectedly delightful, to me, about Free Agents, was first of all how easily they slipped into this perfect, comfortable work-family dynamic where everyone was up in each other's business and always ready to make fun of each other. But also just, straight-up, everything about the dynamic between Alex and Helen -- the constant mockery, all the weird little jealous moments, that moment in the second episode where they were both like "well you should be the one to be in charge of keeping boundaries", the secret sex, the pretending-that-didn't-mean anything, seriously blerf I could have watched SEASONS AND SEASONS of them being dumb about their feelings. (There was also something about the dialogue that I just loved-- it was funny in a really odd/off-the-wall kind of way, and if you come even a little bit close to replicating that I will love you foreverrrrr.)
BUT IT WAS CRUELLY TORN AWAY FROM ME
But life goes on. Um in my prompt I said basically to focus on the jealousy aspect of their relationship -- I think the fourth episode was a really good example of how that... worked (oh yeah by the way if you are in the US you can watch all of the aired episodes here!!! And you should because it was delightful). I don't know how set I am on that thing in my prompt, btw, although I think it could be interesting (it doesn't even have to end Alex/Helen if that doesn't feel right to you?!), I just really want something that plays with the dynamic they have. Also okay I seriously only just now realized that the American series is a based off a British series which lasted longer (NOT HARD, since we got what, four episodes of the American version? MAYBE I SHOULD CHECK THIS THING OUT) and I just want to add that if you are a person for me for whom things like... plots... are difficult to come by, I would be totally happy with you reinterpreting something that actually happened on that show into a story for the American characters?!?
But you're probably perfectly good at plot things without having to leech it from somewhere so
This is embarrassing and I'm going to stop talking.
AND NOW FOR THE KDRAMA PORTION OF MY REQUESTS!
Totally aware that anyone who is familiar with kdramas is probably completely judging me for watching these two dramas -- they are universally reviled by people who know what they are talking about. And also the fact that I liked both of them makes me look like a crazy DBSK stan I think?!?! Which I don't think I really am?! AT ALL?! That said, if you matched with me on one of these you clearly have the same (wonderfully!) bad taste as me, so! We are as one, dear author. I don't know, every time I've tried to watch a "good" drama (like City Hunter or whatever, oh my GOD I loved Nana but Lee Minho was SUCH A DICK I COULDN'T TAKE IT) (if you replaced the title and the character names that is basically my opinion on every drama, since almost every drama has the EXACT SAME "I like her and I will express that by being an asshole towards her so she won't know!" dynamic between the two leads) I end up hating it. Honestly I find it kind of weird that discourse on kdramas never turns to this -- I've seen a lot of "I can't watch kdramas because the girls are too spineless/annoying/aegyo-y" (which hasn't been my experience at all but cambridge says that there's been a turn towards a brattier female kdrama lead, which I LOVE, FOR THE RECORD, and most of the kdramas I've watched have been pretty recent so I guess that explains that maybe) but people rarely complain about how the male leads are THE WORST. BEING AN ASSHOLE IS NOT THE WAY TO EXPRESS LOVE!!! THAT IS NOT THE KIND OF EMOTIONAL STUPIDITY I AM INTO (and I am really into emotional stupidity!!!). Anyway to be fair I think I've only seen parts of maybe 6 or 7 kdramas so I'm sure there are outliers but I've had a really hard time finding them. I guess I'm just saying that ultimately I liked these two dramas despite horrible acting and mockable writing because they subverted that stereotypical dynamic in some way (Heading to the Ground moreso), and... I guess I will get into that more individually.
(3) Maentange Heding | Heading To The Ground - Cha Bonggoon/Kang Haebin (or Cha Bong-gun or Kang Hae-bin, or however you like to romanize these things)
I would really love to see a story about these two as newlyweds, with him getting a spot on Man U and the two of them trying to navigate whatever weirdnesses come with with that.
When I was in the middle of watching Heading to the Ground, I wrote this post about it, which I think really accurately describes why I loved it so much. And I loved it! So much!!! If it isn't a thing that we matched on and you are kind of considering trying it, I also think that post is a pretty good measuring stick as to whether or not you would enjoy it. Like, for real, it is super lame. But I also genuinely enjoyed every second I spent watching it (except I guess for the Seungwoo scenes, wow he is the worst). If you're only interested in complex, multi-faceted characters and themes... yeah, not for you. But it's on dramafever (seriously crying with laughter at the realization that Heading to the Ground has one star and Paradise Ranch has one and a half, god what is taste), which I think is maybe only available for Americans? You should be able to find fansubbed links that work in other countries at dramacrazy. Only 16 episodes!
Anyway I am CRAZY INTO Bonggoon/Haebin, you don't even know!!! THEY JUST REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER!!!! Feelings everywhere!!! And as I mentioned in my prompt I would love a story about them as newlyweds in England (I don't know why I am stuck on England for them!), with him as a soccer player for Manchester United and her still as his agent and them having to adjust to the language/cultural differences and forming weird friendships with their neighbors and... I don't know. It'd be especially great if it were Haebin-focused (OVERFLOWING WITH LOVE FOR HER, TO BE HONEST), but either way. Here is a conversation I had with goldenmelisande about it awhile ago that could possibly jog your brain?
Her: [Bonggoon] is super adorably o.o about them being in england for the first like, three months they're there at least,he's always like TRY THIS!!!! IT'S DIFFERENT BECAUSE IT'S BRITISH CHOCOLATE MILK!!
Me: CRYING OMG THAT IS EXACTLY HOW HE IS. She feels weird/out of sorts and part of the problem is it's kind of hard when your career and personal life are both 100% centered around one guy, but then he'll be his retired self and she will feel a little better
Her: yeah i think she feels like she doesn't have her own life? like, in korea she had her family and her friends and other interests and even if her job was focused around him then too it wasn't really the same...she always felt like she had other things going on. but once they move she doesn't have anyone else she's close with, and she doesn't really have anyone else that she even knows, so she feels kind of uncomfortably dependent on him for a while...and like he's a doof and she loves him more than anything, and she doesn't hold it against him, but it's still weird for her. once she makes her own friends/has a social life that isn't centered around him, and starts doing more with her job it gets easier
Me: Yeah if it were one or the other it wouldn't be weird but it's both and that makes it hard. And she has a hard time talking to him about it because..... he's an idiot, and he would just feel needlessly sad/guilty and maybe even say they should go back and that's not it, she just needs to find her center. It's kind of weird though, he wants BABIES asap and that's the absolute last thing she wants when they first get to england
Um if that helps I am glad! But if you are like "I CAN'T DO THIS" please don't feel pressured to, I like everything about them so if you write anything about them I will be very happy, pinky swear. Maybe something set right after the end of the series and right at the beginning of their relationship, I really love the idea of people having to ~deal with~ personality clashes when they first get together, I don't know. HELL, I would also love a story about pining, one of my favorite things about the series was how hilariously NOT into Seungwoo Haebin was, like, GIRL, WHY ARE YOU DATING HIM IF YOU CARE THAT LITTLE ABOUT HIM!!!
Also makeouts, all I wanted was makeouts and that was not really a thing that happened
So yeah. Run wild!
(4) Paradise Mokjang | Paradise Ranch - Han Dongjoo/Lee Daji
Basically either a) sexy shenanigans from their (first) honeymoon, or a b) something dumb and delicious and fluffy from either the gap year or their life together.
Hm, I'm not sure I recommend Paradise Ranch as strongly as I recommend Heading to the Ground -- I'm honestly still not sure how I got through the six through episodes and like, wanted to keep watching. Dongjoo/Daji is a LOT closer to a typical kdrama dynamic than Bonggoon/Haebin is, in my opinion: Dongjoo is an asshole a lot of the time! And sometimes Daji was irritating too, because it was hard to wrap your head around her motivations, at first, because he would be yelling at her and she would just take it! LIKE, GIRL, STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!! I think it worked better as it went along because they started revealing why their relationship was that way. I wanted to murder Dongjoo at various points along the way because he yelled at Daji for stupid reasons a lot, but I ultimately I found his asshole moments more tolerable than most male lead asshole moments because he had, to some degree, a reason to be angry with her. I mean, they actually knew each other. they were married, and it ended badly. Was he completely justified? NOPE, DEFINITELY NOT. But by the end of the drama I guess I had this built up story in my head (I think it was like 60% from the drama and 40% personal canon made up by me and a friend) where he was just completely emotionally incapacitated when she left him, and just as he was getting over it/growing up, there she was, back in his life. Um check out this fanmix??? I think those songs do a really good job of articulating my feelings about them (AND I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THEM), especially this one.
The thing I hated second most about Paradise Ranch: the drama (first being Dongjoo's assiness) was the way it treated Daji as ~virginal~ and ~pure~. Like, ya'll, she was a married woman. Why the hell would two v smitten eighteen-year-olds get married in order to not have sex?!?!?! MARRIED PEOPLE HAVE SEX. And I just really like the idea of Daji being a person who enjoys (enjoyed) that and misses it and having that color her relationship with both Dongjoo and the Ajusshi (like, not that she is sleeping with him, just that she is a person with a sex drive who thinks about these things while she's dating someone!). SO IDK, PORN COULD BE NICE. Either back-when-they-were-married or tbh I kind of like the idea of them (Dongjoo and Daji) sleeping together somewhere in the last couple of episodes and that coloring their later interactions (this is a story I would love to hear told with or without porn). But again, please feel free to do what you want with them if what I say doesn't work for you, because I will probably be happy with anything you might do. I loved the one-year-later scenes at the end of the drama so much, I'd be super happy if you picked up from there. Or tbh I would be all over curtainfic where Daji is a fancy veternarian and Dongjoo is her stay-at-home dad who ~maintains his masculinity~ by "taking care of the farm" but really just coos at babies (god Yuletide letters do a better job of revealing what a horribly lame person I am than ANYTHING ELSE, don't they?). Or, seriously, whatever you come up with. And um Paradise Ranch is on the same two sites as Heading to the Ground (dramafever and dramacrazy) if you haven't seen it and are interested, although I definitely recommend some fastforwarding (but again, only 16 episodes!). Heading to the Ground is perfect to me (seriously it's actually pretty sad how much I loved that stupid drama), Paradise Ranch is like... super feelingsy under the circumstances I've created but definitely actually kind of bad.
ANYWAY DO WHAT YOU WANT, but I just want to add that I fucking loved Daeun (SHE WAS THE VOICE OF REASON THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING, like when I said earlier that I don't know why I kept watching that was actually a lie: I kept watching because Daeun was perfect and everything that came out of her mouth made the whole drama better because it felt like through her they acknowledged all the weird shit) (except for the sex part) and if you want to throw her in there I will probably cry tears of happiness, but sometimes you can't make cameos work and I know she wasn't on my character list. So do what you will!
This is, I am pretty sure, the longest yuletide letter ever written. I am so sorry. I hope you are the kind of person who gets inspiration from wordiness, but if not you totally don't have to read this! You can go off what I said in my prompts and nothing else! I am fine with that! This is basically just a grossly expanded version of what I said there anyway.
First I just want to say thank you so much for taking time and writing me a story!!! I promise I am pretty easily pleased. As it happens, all four of my requests are for pretty obvious, canonical het couples this year, so hopefully we didn't get mismatched and those are things you are also into! But if not, I just feel like I should always note that I am one of those weirdos who genuinely enjoys gen fic as much (...sometimes more) than 'shippy fic, so if that's the best way to go for you, please go that way!! It will not disappoint me. The other thing I wanted to say, is that even though everyone knows optional prompts are... optional, to be honest it is more important to me to get fic with these characters than it is to get fic that specifically adheres to my prompts. Believe me, the prompts came second. So if you have a really vivid idea for one of these fandoms that doesn't match with what I said in my prompt, you should feel free to ignore me and go wild with that!
My journal is semi-unlocked, if you're the stalking type. I doubt I'll post anything that interesting or helpful before December but you never know! You can check out previous yuletide letters here if that sounds like it would help at all, and if you're interested in fic I have loved in the past, there's my delicious (plus a tag for my very favorites), and also my much-neglected fic tag (which is mostly recs, since I don't post what little fic I write in this journal). I once made a post about some tropes I like which also might help you. I think, ultimately, in romance, I just like people being dumb about their feelings, and acting prickly towards each other because they are dumb about their feelings. That... is pretty much why I ship all of the things in this post.
I was going to write a paragraph about my dislikes but I'm lazy so I think I am just going to steal this from last year's letter: I do not like manpain. I kind of wish you'd stay clear of the heavier things-- dubcon, rape, incest, character death, but the truth is if those things are handled well I can pretty much take it. I hate thinly veiled character bashing in pretty much all cases, but especially with girls, since my tendency in pretty much every fandom is to... like all the girls. IT IS JUST KIND OF HOW I AM.
Anyway that is all, thank you again!!! Except that I'd lastly like to say that I am super enthusiastic about the idea of getting ANY of these stories, please don't think you are offering me my least wanted request for any reason, BECAUSE I WANT ALL OF THEM. So much!
(1) Homefront - Jeff Metcalf/Ginger Szabo
I would love any kind of story about these two, but an au story about Ginger making it in Hollywood or, alternately, a slightly less rushed ending that acknowledges all that went on between them in season 2.
If you haven't heard of Homefront, it is this amazing little drama about American soldiers returning home after World War 2 that aired for two seasons in the early 90s. It hasn't been released on dvd, and the only place it's available is youtube (the first episode begins here, this is the uploader's youtube account). It stars, among others, bb Kyle Chandler, Ken Jenkins, and Kelly Rutherford (those are the people I recognize, at least). Maybe you've already seen it and that is why we got matched!! But if that is not the case I just want to say I highly recommend it, the characters are really interesting and well-rounded, they do a really excellent job humanizing their more villainous characters, and it does an incredible job (in my opinion) of portraying the plight of women and African-Americans in the late 1940s. They really weren't afraid to embody and tackle ignorance in characters that were otherwise, I think, supposed to be sympathetic. And in Linda and Robert they did such a good job with the idea of being shown what it is to have more during the war, and wanting so much, to have that back, but not being able to get it because of the way society works. (I got sucked back into the show when I re-found that youtube link, and I also want to say that I love the contrast we see between Robert and Abe!! That and Caroline's plight, even though she is a maniulative twit, were the two things I found particularly compelling the second time that I didn't notice as much the first time). But even though it tackles a lot of topical issues (polio and worker's unions, to name two more), it's... not all that preachy? It's mostly just a really funny, sweet little show with a lot of heart.
AND JEFF AND GINGER ARE THE GREATEST and this is the third time I have requested them and I will probably request them every year until it actually happens, ugh I just love what a little boy he is and how straightforward/earnest/dumb he is and how that sort of turns her off at first because he's her BEST FRIEND'S LITTLE BROTHER but then it just doesn't matter? And ugh he just... loves her, so much. AND HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE GINGER SZABO, omg her friendship with Linda (OTHER PEOPLE I LOVE SO MUCH: LINDA!!!) and all her weird-wrong but very 40s opinions about love and marriage that Linda is always "GIRL"ing her about, and the way she's constantly setting up these weird demands in her relationship with him (I really like demanding women in relationships, idk) and sometimes he protests with logic but mostly he just goes along with it because he loves her. And her sudden all-encompassing ambition to be an actress, and the way it seems so implausible but she actually achieves it on a small scale? I am so bad at coming up with actual prompts for them because I would read anything about them, but I do think the way they ended up together at the end was (understandably, since they were trying to tie up loose ends for a cancelled show) rushed and I think I'd love to see that re-toyed. I think my favorite Jeff/Ginger era is and will always be when they first get together, and do you know what would be great? A HOLLYWOOD AU WHERE SHE LIKE, does make it big when she stays behind, and she maybe falls out of contact with him but not Linda, and then he gets into the majors and they meet again at a party or something and
I don't even know what I am saying
Basically I just love them SO MUCH and would probably keel over with joy if you wrote me a story about them!
(2) Free Agents (TV US) - Alex/Helen
With so little canon I feel like there's just so much you COULD do, and I am almost okay with any of it! But I would especially like a story about Helen or Alex actually attempting to ~move on~ and start a relationship (with someone else), and that ensuing in a lot of jealousy and weirdness, thanks to their v odd relationship.
Oh man, santa, if this is not what we got matched on you are probably like "what?! people watched that?!". IT SURPRISED ME TOO. I had no interest in watching it all, it was just on after Up All Night and I was too lazy to change the channel!! And then suddenly all I wanted to talk about was how there was this show and it was unexpectedly delightful. Luckily for my friends (unluckily for me) it was cancelled like two weeks later, so they didn't have to hear about it anymore. The thing that was so unexpectedly delightful, to me, about Free Agents, was first of all how easily they slipped into this perfect, comfortable work-family dynamic where everyone was up in each other's business and always ready to make fun of each other. But also just, straight-up, everything about the dynamic between Alex and Helen -- the constant mockery, all the weird little jealous moments, that moment in the second episode where they were both like "well you should be the one to be in charge of keeping boundaries", the secret sex, the pretending-that-didn't-mean anything, seriously blerf I could have watched SEASONS AND SEASONS of them being dumb about their feelings. (There was also something about the dialogue that I just loved-- it was funny in a really odd/off-the-wall kind of way, and if you come even a little bit close to replicating that I will love you foreverrrrr.)
BUT IT WAS CRUELLY TORN AWAY FROM ME
But life goes on. Um in my prompt I said basically to focus on the jealousy aspect of their relationship -- I think the fourth episode was a really good example of how that... worked (oh yeah by the way if you are in the US you can watch all of the aired episodes here!!! And you should because it was delightful). I don't know how set I am on that thing in my prompt, btw, although I think it could be interesting (it doesn't even have to end Alex/Helen if that doesn't feel right to you?!), I just really want something that plays with the dynamic they have. Also okay I seriously only just now realized that the American series is a based off a British series which lasted longer (NOT HARD, since we got what, four episodes of the American version? MAYBE I SHOULD CHECK THIS THING OUT) and I just want to add that if you are a person for me for whom things like... plots... are difficult to come by, I would be totally happy with you reinterpreting something that actually happened on that show into a story for the American characters?!?
But you're probably perfectly good at plot things without having to leech it from somewhere so
This is embarrassing and I'm going to stop talking.
AND NOW FOR THE KDRAMA PORTION OF MY REQUESTS!
Totally aware that anyone who is familiar with kdramas is probably completely judging me for watching these two dramas -- they are universally reviled by people who know what they are talking about. And also the fact that I liked both of them makes me look like a crazy DBSK stan I think?!?! Which I don't think I really am?! AT ALL?! That said, if you matched with me on one of these you clearly have the same (wonderfully!) bad taste as me, so! We are as one, dear author. I don't know, every time I've tried to watch a "good" drama (like City Hunter or whatever, oh my GOD I loved Nana but Lee Minho was SUCH A DICK I COULDN'T TAKE IT) (if you replaced the title and the character names that is basically my opinion on every drama, since almost every drama has the EXACT SAME "I like her and I will express that by being an asshole towards her so she won't know!" dynamic between the two leads) I end up hating it. Honestly I find it kind of weird that discourse on kdramas never turns to this -- I've seen a lot of "I can't watch kdramas because the girls are too spineless/annoying/aegyo-y" (which hasn't been my experience at all but cambridge says that there's been a turn towards a brattier female kdrama lead, which I LOVE, FOR THE RECORD, and most of the kdramas I've watched have been pretty recent so I guess that explains that maybe) but people rarely complain about how the male leads are THE WORST. BEING AN ASSHOLE IS NOT THE WAY TO EXPRESS LOVE!!! THAT IS NOT THE KIND OF EMOTIONAL STUPIDITY I AM INTO (and I am really into emotional stupidity!!!). Anyway to be fair I think I've only seen parts of maybe 6 or 7 kdramas so I'm sure there are outliers but I've had a really hard time finding them. I guess I'm just saying that ultimately I liked these two dramas despite horrible acting and mockable writing because they subverted that stereotypical dynamic in some way (Heading to the Ground moreso), and... I guess I will get into that more individually.
(3) Maentange Heding | Heading To The Ground - Cha Bonggoon/Kang Haebin (or Cha Bong-gun or Kang Hae-bin, or however you like to romanize these things)
I would really love to see a story about these two as newlyweds, with him getting a spot on Man U and the two of them trying to navigate whatever weirdnesses come with with that.
When I was in the middle of watching Heading to the Ground, I wrote this post about it, which I think really accurately describes why I loved it so much. And I loved it! So much!!! If it isn't a thing that we matched on and you are kind of considering trying it, I also think that post is a pretty good measuring stick as to whether or not you would enjoy it. Like, for real, it is super lame. But I also genuinely enjoyed every second I spent watching it (except I guess for the Seungwoo scenes, wow he is the worst). If you're only interested in complex, multi-faceted characters and themes... yeah, not for you. But it's on dramafever (seriously crying with laughter at the realization that Heading to the Ground has one star and Paradise Ranch has one and a half, god what is taste), which I think is maybe only available for Americans? You should be able to find fansubbed links that work in other countries at dramacrazy. Only 16 episodes!
Anyway I am CRAZY INTO Bonggoon/Haebin, you don't even know!!! THEY JUST REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER!!!! Feelings everywhere!!! And as I mentioned in my prompt I would love a story about them as newlyweds in England (I don't know why I am stuck on England for them!), with him as a soccer player for Manchester United and her still as his agent and them having to adjust to the language/cultural differences and forming weird friendships with their neighbors and... I don't know. It'd be especially great if it were Haebin-focused (OVERFLOWING WITH LOVE FOR HER, TO BE HONEST), but either way. Here is a conversation I had with goldenmelisande about it awhile ago that could possibly jog your brain?
Her: [Bonggoon] is super adorably o.o about them being in england for the first like, three months they're there at least,he's always like TRY THIS!!!! IT'S DIFFERENT BECAUSE IT'S BRITISH CHOCOLATE MILK!!
Me: CRYING OMG THAT IS EXACTLY HOW HE IS. She feels weird/out of sorts and part of the problem is it's kind of hard when your career and personal life are both 100% centered around one guy, but then he'll be his retired self and she will feel a little better
Her: yeah i think she feels like she doesn't have her own life? like, in korea she had her family and her friends and other interests and even if her job was focused around him then too it wasn't really the same...she always felt like she had other things going on. but once they move she doesn't have anyone else she's close with, and she doesn't really have anyone else that she even knows, so she feels kind of uncomfortably dependent on him for a while...and like he's a doof and she loves him more than anything, and she doesn't hold it against him, but it's still weird for her. once she makes her own friends/has a social life that isn't centered around him, and starts doing more with her job it gets easier
Me: Yeah if it were one or the other it wouldn't be weird but it's both and that makes it hard. And she has a hard time talking to him about it because..... he's an idiot, and he would just feel needlessly sad/guilty and maybe even say they should go back and that's not it, she just needs to find her center. It's kind of weird though, he wants BABIES asap and that's the absolute last thing she wants when they first get to england
Um if that helps I am glad! But if you are like "I CAN'T DO THIS" please don't feel pressured to, I like everything about them so if you write anything about them I will be very happy, pinky swear. Maybe something set right after the end of the series and right at the beginning of their relationship, I really love the idea of people having to ~deal with~ personality clashes when they first get together, I don't know. HELL, I would also love a story about pining, one of my favorite things about the series was how hilariously NOT into Seungwoo Haebin was, like, GIRL, WHY ARE YOU DATING HIM IF YOU CARE THAT LITTLE ABOUT HIM!!!
Also makeouts, all I wanted was makeouts and that was not really a thing that happened
So yeah. Run wild!
(4) Paradise Mokjang | Paradise Ranch - Han Dongjoo/Lee Daji
Basically either a) sexy shenanigans from their (first) honeymoon, or a b) something dumb and delicious and fluffy from either the gap year or their life together.
Hm, I'm not sure I recommend Paradise Ranch as strongly as I recommend Heading to the Ground -- I'm honestly still not sure how I got through the six through episodes and like, wanted to keep watching. Dongjoo/Daji is a LOT closer to a typical kdrama dynamic than Bonggoon/Haebin is, in my opinion: Dongjoo is an asshole a lot of the time! And sometimes Daji was irritating too, because it was hard to wrap your head around her motivations, at first, because he would be yelling at her and she would just take it! LIKE, GIRL, STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!! I think it worked better as it went along because they started revealing why their relationship was that way. I wanted to murder Dongjoo at various points along the way because he yelled at Daji for stupid reasons a lot, but I ultimately I found his asshole moments more tolerable than most male lead asshole moments because he had, to some degree, a reason to be angry with her. I mean, they actually knew each other. they were married, and it ended badly. Was he completely justified? NOPE, DEFINITELY NOT. But by the end of the drama I guess I had this built up story in my head (I think it was like 60% from the drama and 40% personal canon made up by me and a friend) where he was just completely emotionally incapacitated when she left him, and just as he was getting over it/growing up, there she was, back in his life. Um check out this fanmix??? I think those songs do a really good job of articulating my feelings about them (AND I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THEM), especially this one.
The thing I hated second most about Paradise Ranch: the drama (first being Dongjoo's assiness) was the way it treated Daji as ~virginal~ and ~pure~. Like, ya'll, she was a married woman. Why the hell would two v smitten eighteen-year-olds get married in order to not have sex?!?!?! MARRIED PEOPLE HAVE SEX. And I just really like the idea of Daji being a person who enjoys (enjoyed) that and misses it and having that color her relationship with both Dongjoo and the Ajusshi (like, not that she is sleeping with him, just that she is a person with a sex drive who thinks about these things while she's dating someone!). SO IDK, PORN COULD BE NICE. Either back-when-they-were-married or tbh I kind of like the idea of them (Dongjoo and Daji) sleeping together somewhere in the last couple of episodes and that coloring their later interactions (this is a story I would love to hear told with or without porn). But again, please feel free to do what you want with them if what I say doesn't work for you, because I will probably be happy with anything you might do. I loved the one-year-later scenes at the end of the drama so much, I'd be super happy if you picked up from there. Or tbh I would be all over curtainfic where Daji is a fancy veternarian and Dongjoo is her stay-at-home dad who ~maintains his masculinity~ by "taking care of the farm" but really just coos at babies (god Yuletide letters do a better job of revealing what a horribly lame person I am than ANYTHING ELSE, don't they?). Or, seriously, whatever you come up with. And um Paradise Ranch is on the same two sites as Heading to the Ground (dramafever and dramacrazy) if you haven't seen it and are interested, although I definitely recommend some fastforwarding (but again, only 16 episodes!). Heading to the Ground is perfect to me (seriously it's actually pretty sad how much I loved that stupid drama), Paradise Ranch is like... super feelingsy under the circumstances I've created but definitely actually kind of bad.
ANYWAY DO WHAT YOU WANT, but I just want to add that I fucking loved Daeun (SHE WAS THE VOICE OF REASON THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING, like when I said earlier that I don't know why I kept watching that was actually a lie: I kept watching because Daeun was perfect and everything that came out of her mouth made the whole drama better because it felt like through her they acknowledged all the weird shit) (except for the sex part) and if you want to throw her in there I will probably cry tears of happiness, but sometimes you can't make cameos work and I know she wasn't on my character list. So do what you will!