[Staff Spotlight] Get to know mary

159 June 27, 2017June 26, 2017

by mary

Explain your username (and/or avatar).

It’s my real name! Fellow mary beanies will know the struggle of registering this username without having to add 3 letters, 25 special characters, and the square root of your high school crush’s phone number divided by the birthdate of your pet hamster. So I love this username and I’m not giving it up! (Sorry to the other mary beanies!) My avatar is nothing special. Just a picture of some Random Guy sending a cheesy heart out to the world.

What is the first drama that you watched (or the first drama that made an impression)?

Lovers in Paris was my first marathon but it was Delightful Girl Chun-hyang that really hooked me. Before Chun-hyang, most of the dramas I’ve seen were set in haciendas where the poor girl gets chased by a lecherous landlord while she falls in love with a rich guy from the city whose parents hate her for being poor (basically, every Thalia show ever). So a K-drama where scholarships were important and some adults are prejudiced against underachieving kids seemed groundbreaking to me. Who knew you can use the teenage phase of a drama for anything other than setting up Tragic Separations and Fauxcest?

Tell us about a job or two that you’ve had in the past.

Outside of web development, I’ve never had another job. But the first one (a student assistant role) was memorable because I coded as a hobby and never met anyone in real life who knew HTML/CSS before that. I expected to be interviewed by a strict, senior professor who will throw me out with “We only take Computer Science students, how dare you step foot in our office?” So I was gobsmacked when the door was answered by a cute “student” who turned out to be the teacher in-charge of the web team. Five minutes into the interview, he cracked a joke about CSS and laughed this nerdy laugh… and I was a goner. I credit that first job for teaching me “dedication.”

Have you ever lived a moment that you thought belonged in a drama?

Very often! Our family life resembles loud, sprawling weekenders. I want to swap it for a rom-com but I’m scared I’ll get a daily makjang instead.

What drama genres do you especially like?

Something with comedy in it and/or an opportunity for shipping of any kind, regardless of whether it floats or sinks.

What drama genres do you especially dislike?

Occasionally, I’ll make fun of some shows for being craptastic, but I don’t really have a specific genre I hate, I just avoid shows where the main character is an absolute doormat. I also used to avoid shows that advertise themselves as “smart” from the get-go because it puts me in the poke-holes-at-everything mindset, and most shows won’t stand up to that level of scrutiny. Later on, I learned to accept that dramaland is on a different plane of logic, and I learned to love the good parts if they weigh more than the bad. *cough*Mystery Queen*cough*W…

Is there a drama character you’ve ever strongly identified with, and why?

Not to sound like a broken record but… Chun-hyang! She could handle her fights. She had okay grades but wasn’t a stickler for rules. She even got in occasional trouble at school. Heh. She also worked on her dream job even if she couldn’t go to college for it, and at the end of the show, she didn’t forget about that dream!

What drama character would you want to be?

Girl friends. They’re funny and awesome. They have a less stressful life compared to the heroine AND they get their own cute happy ending without 15 episodes of angst.

What was your major in school?

“Just” Chemical Engineering (I didn’t try for my license and I never practiced it).

What’s a random skill you have?

Average pen-spinning. Both hands. At the same time.

I say average because when I looked up what it’s called, there’s a whole ‘nuther level of pen-spinning out there, complete with special pens for balance. O___O After an ego-crushing hunt on Youtube, I learned that my favorite ~~party~~ school trick is called a Harmonic thumbaround.

Favorite non-Korean movie and/or TV show?

Ever After and The Walking Dead. But I hurt my back last week and was stuck watching HGTV so my sister thinks I’m getting a tiiiiiny bit too invested in Love It or List It (Team Hillary!) and Brother vs. Brother (Team Jonathan!)

Which Hallyu celebrity would you actually want to meet and spend an hour with?

Random Guy from #1.

Which of the 7 deadly sins would be your undoing? (Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, or sloth.)

I’m an infinite ball of wrath. I get ragey about lots of things like the way people cross the street, the energy people waste on fandom wars, and the shortsightedness of blanket bans on plastic bags, to name a few. If not for the internet training me to think twice and keep my rants to myself, I’d be murdered in an intersection by an enraged fan wielding a “Paper Bag Oppa ♥” sign because I told them off for not waiting for the green walk signal.

Your favorite drama has an unholy alliance with your most hated drama and produces a mutant baby drama. Describe the plot.

Mermaid Girl enters the human world and steals apple wine from the set of a Famous Chef’s cooking show. She gets drunk on the stolen wine and grabs his butt thinking it’s another apple before passing out. The next day, Thispatch News releases exclusive footage of the scene and calls it a dating scandal, so Famous Chef signs a marriage contract with Mermaid Girl to save his career. They move in together and bicker endlessly before bonding over their love of cheesetastic puns. In episode seven, we find out that Famous Chef is the second lead. In episode eight, the show gets cut because of the low ratings, but the producers make vague excuses about having a second season so as not to disappoint the show’s dozen fans.

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Tags: Staff Spotlight

159

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51 Madkdr

June 27, 2017 at 10:14 PM

Ahhhh Ever After. My feel good picker upper.

And I loved Random Guy in CS3 - he could be permanent in CS4!!! He was great!!!

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52 maryxiah

June 28, 2017 at 12:02 AM

It's not just the registering name under Mary, but the fact that when my friends and I discuss DB and the name Mary comes up, I get a jerk reaction thinking it's about me, but turns out we're talking about YOU, @mary. LOL. Nice to read about you anyway, Mary.

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53 QueenM19

June 28, 2017 at 12:26 AM

Hi @mary I didn't know who you were even though now that I think about it, I've read some of your recaps but it wasn't until I read about what is fondly called "The Legend of Mary" that I made the connection between Mary the recapper and Mary in the comments section! Nice to meet you Mary!

Your pen trick seems really cool and I could probably watch you do that all day mesmerized and your first job story sounds straight out of a drama so much so that I want to know what happened next. :)

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mary

June 28, 2017 at 5:52 AM

You've read my recaps? I don't have any on DB! Hihi are you a PotUP regular too?

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QueenM19

June 28, 2017 at 12:07 PM

Not a regular. I really didn't comment or respond until recently but yes I do frequent PotUP ^.^

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54 Nana

June 28, 2017 at 3:07 AM

hello mary! <3

i finally registered - just to comment on this post, kekeke.. why? cos i don't quite like the new site (woww, did i just wrote that? pls don't mind me but gad, it sure does feel good to say it out loud).

anyhow, glad to know you from way back then. followed you on twitter and i absolutely love kdramalaws. for a while i thought you're a real law student, kekeke..

your devotion to SJR still amazes me.. i've so many Wooks and some in my oppa list that i sometimes have to do a mental spring cleaning and pass them to my kdrama dongseng, LOL

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mary

June 28, 2017 at 5:59 AM

Waaah~ I'm doubly touched that you registered despite not liking the new stuff. Don't feel bad about saying it! Feedback is always cool. And I know you mean well. :D

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55 michykdrama

June 28, 2017 at 6:07 AM

Oooh!! HGTV Love it or List it! I never ever thought I'd see that here! Haha. And 100% team Hilary! Definitely Love it! I love to see them make over and renovate those houses! ❤️

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mary

June 28, 2017 at 6:13 AM

I like David's humor but it's so unfair when the couple gives Hillary a teeny-tiny budget then proceed to rage on her when THEIR house turns out to have shitty foundation or plumbing or whatever, so I'm always pulling for her to shut them up with a good renovation. Haha

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michykdrama

June 28, 2017 at 8:01 AM

Love them sassing at each other at the end! Lol.
And yeah I always feel so bad for her when she seems to always get bad news from her contractor and she always seems to have to cut something out of her list. But I always love the reveals of the makeover!
I do wonder though if the family doesn't Reno some of the rooms.... won't those rooms have room envy when they see how gorgeous the others turn out to be? ?

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mary

June 28, 2017 at 8:08 AM

IKR?! It'll feel weird to have this gorgeous kitchen and then go downstairs and there's a creepy, flooded basement! Maybe after a year or so when they've saved up money again?

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56 inna

June 28, 2017 at 8:20 AM

A Random Guy who wore bumblebee pants and gave a mental-breakdown about his craziness of bidet? I just wonder if he's still using that smile-braces Lol. He's one of kind! My bias ruiner!

Anyway... Nice to meet you, Mary.