Poppyfortea

Incredibly messy. I loved it. At times it felt ridiculous and then I remember what my friends and acquaintances in university were like and I'm like actually yeah. I think the fact I'm a decade past this era of my youth it took me a second, or maybe because I was more of a Chueam at that age than any of the incredibly horny and irresponsible leads. 😂
SandRay are perfect. I love that Ray was just chaos personified start to finish, with or without foreign substances. Sand was the perfect counterbalance to him, and I love that Ray was basically like "you can't get rid of your own baggage so I'm doing it for you" with the airplane ex. 😂
He was never believable with Mew for me, but I like that they gave it a go anyway to shake off any what ifs, and that they came to a mutual agreement that it wasn't going anywhere. It set a solid foundation for the final pairings, and no chance of being misunderstood as anyone's rebounds or second choice.
Looooove Sand and Nick's friendship, they were so nice together, and I'm delighted Nick chose himself. Ton I guess also chose himself, but only because noone else chose him. That is a messy messy boy, and I wish him personal growth and regular STD checks.
Top grew on me. He seemed really cold for over half the show, like I couldn't see how he was wooing anyone, but eventually after they got back together he started to grow on me. I'm still not fully on his side. Mew could do better, but I'm no longer rooting for his downfall either.

I've seen a few people who gave this a high rating based on one couple and ignoring the other, or saying they wish they could give two separate ratings...yeah me too.
Li Cheng and Mu Ren were funny and cute to watch develop into the messy couple they became. But I wish I could scrub my brain of the Xing Si / rapist stepbrother. It's so gross. I've seen the rape/date rape/SA plot a lot before in dramas and especially BLs (too many times), and sometimes if the perpetrator shows remorse or growth, acknowledges their fault it can be redeemable. But the step brother assaults Xing Si as a birthday gift to himself? That's an actual nightmare. It made me physically recoil watching it. And sorry he drew the at kissing him? So it's totally fine then? He got him drunk to the point he couldn't resist, knowing that he would never consent sober, so that he could have sex with him. Then he just acts like it's fine because he's obsessed with him. And if anyone thinks it's not rape because he didn't force him off or fight or seemed into it... you need to reeducate yourself on coercion using alcohol, and what is and is not consent. Xing Si was traumatised, even blaming himself. It was a believable reaction of someone who'd just been assaulted, and then they just gloss over it. Like poor Xing Si's options are to be in a relationship with his rapist, or tear his family apart. Dude threatens suicide too, as if assaulting him wasn't bad enough. Jail. And the mother being like, damn son you really shouldn't have raped your older brother, but it's too late now so lets just move on... No. Jail. Therapy, then jail.

No. It's just to mess with the husband / ex-husband.

I really liked this, but I wish the husband suffered more. Like Yeah he lost literally everything, but they way they showed it onscreen wasn't satisfying for some reason.

It came back! Yaaaaay! Thanks, someone had replied to me and when I went to view the reply, both it and my original comment had vanished, and it made me irrationally angry. 😅

I'm a compulsive show finisher, and can usually rage finish shows I don't really like. But I'm dropping this at ep11 after barely skimming since like ep6. It's not engaging enough to annoy me into rage watching, or have enough plot to be actually enjoyable.
The couple have no chemistry, and I'd sooner ship ML with his second in command dude. I think I liked the grandmother...and FLs little brother is okay... but it's just boring, and I don't like anyone enough to keep watching. I like FL in other things, but she's just so 2D here.
Maybe they end up together in one place, maybe they'll just perpetually flip flop between worlds because she simply has to pursue her dream despite her complete lack of qualifications or unique ideas (she was way too confident in her design ability considering her "unique" idea in her world was just borrowed from someone else's work in his...), and he has several actual lives depending on him in his...maybe they don't. I don't care.

I left a massive rant about all the things I disliked about the show and the single thing I liked (the animals)... and it's disappeared. Now I'm even madder because my comment disappeared and I refuse to rewrite it. 😂🙈
Edit: Never mind it came back...but I'm still annoyed.😅

Yeah I felt the same way, considering how the other pairs were I was scared they'd go too far with an child actor, but thankfully Jeff vetoed that.

I got incredibly bored early on and really struggled with this. I finished it, but only because I finish everything.

Things I liked:
The animals.

Things I disliked:
Every single strand of MLs stupid hair. I've seen it in various styles with EXO and elsewhere, but I was irrationally angry with it here. It was okay when it was down flat, but the upstyle. Ugh.😅
FL flipflop-ing between a competent vet to a bumbling fool depending on what the plot required of her.
The absolute non-story that was the secret identity of ML. We all saw where that was going, and you're telling me they all just accepted a random child after being missing for 8 years? That kid could've been anyone. The logical assumption should've been that Shen Mi was dead in the first place. And why did he need to drop that bombshell on FL in the boardroom? Surely he could've picked a better time and place.
2FLs obsession with her childhood love interest. I'm roughly guessing ages based on the dates on the rock, and the backstory from 2FL and ML. Shen Mi was about 8 when he disappeared (though the actor looked about 6), was missing 8 years, and had been back a little over 10 years. 2FL being a little younger only knew Shen Mi for like 6 years. He was missing longer than she knew him, and she sulked for 10 years that the teenager who came back wasn't the same as the 8 year old she remembered? Yeah no shit he's not. Even if Shen Mi had come back he'd have been a homeless child fending for himself half his life, he's gonna be a little different. And why if he was missing 8 years did the child actresses they got for 2FL look the same age when the child actors for Shen Mi had at least grown a bit? Did they forget she was also supposed to be a teenager if he was 15? The reunion was supposed to be a 15/16 year old boy and a 13/14 year old girl, but it looked like a 7 year old girl hugging a 10 year old boy. Was it really that hard to cast the right ages?
The plot got so boring I eventually stopped even caring about the animals, which is wild for me.

Side note:
Why would anyone be angry with ML for playing the role of Shen Mi? He was an orphaned child, who just lost his only friend/family. Then this strange man comes and offers him a future, a family, a home... and the only remaining connection to Shen Mi. Of course he'll agree. And again, he was a child. There's a reason he spoke about that 8 years being his happiest memories, because before that he was totally alone on the street with nothing. He and Shen Mi had only eachother for as long as he'd been alive at that point, and then he lost him tragically and was faced with being alone again.

If you're looking for a fast paced romcom with lots of excitement and drama, conflicts and resolutions, this is not for you. But if you want a really relaxing gentle show about family, love and loss, grief and healing, with a really calm slow burn romance that is never the main focus of the show, then this is for you.
This just sort of drifted along over 40 episodes in a really calm manner, meandering through all the different plot lines . The sets and locations were really lovely, and all the characters had a backstory and their own worries and goals. The child actors were brilliant, all the cast were wonderful. I'd only seen ML play cold and aloof love interests before, so it was nice to see him play a really gentle, soft, smiling lead. The emotions were always just right. And the grandmother was my absolute favourite character. She was amazing! There were a few characters I didn't really get too attached to or care for, but it never dwelled on them long enough to annoy me.

Yeah I think if I remember right the photos were of him out at clubs drinking, or maybe just with alcohol visible in the pictures, and photos of him at a party/parties with a girl who was an adult actress at the time, and was apparently his gf then. But fans of theirs said all this was known at the time, noone cared then because they weren't popular.
Your comment reminded me to go check how they're doing and they seem to have picked themselves up and have been doing fan meetings and stuff outside of Korea, and are doing their first Korean fan meeting next week. So all isn't lost yet!🤞

I loved this. I'm normally heartless, but I was just the right level of hormonal mess that I basically sobbed through this whole thing. I binged it in two days, and I had to reapply my moisturiser to my cheeks several times because I sobbed it off. I can't risk rewatching it in case it doesn't hit right the second time, but this was exactly what I needed for a good therapy cry.
Definitely melodrama. It's a romance, a very very slow burn one, friends to lovers. But more importantly it's about the family, all their broken relationships with eachother and others, all their lies small and large. The show was pretty much trauma dump after trauma dump, and then slowly slowly there's healing, and resolutions, and the mum finally finds happiness. The acting was phenomenal. This level of heartbreak scene after scene could easily be to much, but the balance was there. There was enough gentle happy little bits in between. The mother was amazingly acted, and the older sister had me absolutely distraught for her when she finally started to break down. Actually everyone was amazing.
I hated the dad for a lot of episodes, and he still didn't fully win me over, but I did soften up to him a bit. He was as shit dad and a shitter husband. But he showed some real growth and the actor was also brilliant.
I saw a comment of someone angry with the mother for leaving, and fair enough, I'd be mad at first too. But she is a person first. She devoted her entire life and sacrificed her happiness for her awful husband and their children. She finally felt at a place to be on her own with the initial separation and was mocked for it. She was an intelligent college student before getting pregnant, and raised three (mostly functioning) children with only a shred of an income, and they saw her only as a helpless housewife. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to just be a person outside of her role within the family unit, for as long as she wanted or needed.
I think they touched on that a bit in earlier episodes when 22 yr old husband was asking what they call eachotehr, and it cut to him just calling her the kids mum, or hey you. She'd been reduced to that role in his eyes (and it went both ways). I've seen that shown a few times in kdramas, where the culture is to refer to people as XYZs mum instead of their name, as if the single act of having a child has reduced you to that single thing. It must be incredibly dehumanising. You were your own person before, but now all you are is a mother. Which is definitely a dream for some parents, but can also be stifling.

I lost interest and left this playing while I did housework, and wasn't following along because I wasn't reading the subs and I don't know Chinese... but I didn't miss anything anyway. It was that draggy that I missed nothing. The cat was great, and ML was the least annoying he's ever been in a drama, which is great for him! He's usually cast as an annoying ML, so this is career progress for him at least. But FL more than made up for the annoyingness he lacked. I was shocked at how she was dressed for an interview in ep 1, and the wardrobe stayed just as bad throughout. They did eventually put some generic work attire on her. But why was she dressed for the gym for most of the episodes? None of the working athletes in the show wore a tracksuit the whole time, so why did she?
Love the cat.
And it was really refreshing to see a lesbian character, even if her role was quite minor. I want to call it progress even though it's less than the bare minimum. At least she wasn't a caricature of a queer person (she was just a real shit stirrer 😅 ).
I kept getting all the tertiary male characters mixed up too. Maybe if I was actually reading the subs and paying full attention I wouldn't have.🤷‍♀️

The real life 10 year age gap makes me uncomfortable, considering the 18 year old had to have been underage filming. I get that there's just one close mouthed kiss right at the end so it's not too inappropriate, but still 10 years is a lot. And there's no need to get a kid that young.
And then for the characters... did none of the friends or family have any issue with one lead almost graduating college and the other being a child who still has like two years of school left? Because that's weird. Like one of them is a child who hasn't finished puberty yet. Even if they made it a final year of school kid and a first /second year of uni kid that would've been mostly fine.
I'm glad the chemistry wasn't there between the leads because I think I'd dislike it more if there was chemistry tbh. The humour was there, but a bit more slapstick/goofy than I like.

So several people taking part in what's effectively corporate espionage...and all is fine because they resigned? One of them even felt bad, it's all good then. Are those not jailable offenses?
That other girl just moves to another job and emigrates...no consequences.
Overall this was quite cute. There's no major blocks or misunderstandings, no believable second leads, and any separations are so brief I've already forgotten them. All the parents (except the competitors dad) are decent and pretty chill once they get past the shock that their kids are adults.
The leads are super cute together.

Basically everyone needs therapy, and noone is parenting the right offspring.
The leads were really good looking so that's good. I mean FL is actually stunning.
The acting was as you would expect from this type of short mini drama. Average to decent, with the exception of the stepmother who was comically bad, but part of me wants to believe that was a choice rather than skill based.

This was fine, until it went totally doolally in the last like 10 episodes. It was good to start, and seemed a little different to the usual CEO meets pleb, falls in love, conflict, resolution, blah blah blah. But then the premise that seemed unique became the exact same as every other. From them on it just chugged along and the various couples were just different shades of beige. The was very little chemistry. Yi Ling and Zheng Li were by far the most believable, but they were incredibly boring. Zi Yue and Tang Cheng felt more like an enemies to lovers that forgot to develop the lovers angle. Our leads were cute at times, and mostly fine, but the development of this ML who spent 20 years alone in the forest, who stopped school at 7, and he's suddenly enrolled in college, reading and writing at college level, driving... I was really trying to believe it, but then the mature young man would go doe eyed and clueless, and it can't be both. I get that he's a grown man in his late 20s, and it would've been weird if he was acting like a 7 year old still. But his education and adaptation shouldn't have been that smooth. The last couple Ling Yu and Chu Shi just felt like scheming CEO adopts a puppy and learns what love is. But the romance wasn't there for me. It felt like he adopted her, not like he was in love with her. And she was so childlike that it felt weird.
I didn't really care about the murder/poaching plot, but I'm happy the uncle got punished with jail and HIV. It felt deserved.
And I really don't understand why they threw in a surprise chemical brain poisoning for the last like 10 minutes. That was out of nowhere and did nothing for the plot. I almost missed it because I'd mentally checked out and was waiting for it to be over. They could've just had him emigrate with the parents for a bit. A secret illness was just unnecessary.

I liked all the similarities and differences to s1, and liked being able to make those comparisons. Neither was a perfect relationship. S1 fell apart because of his pride and her stubbornness /anxiety/fear of rejection. Which I totally get. Sitting across from eachother, both saying lets break up while neither actually wants it is sadly realistic. I 100% would've agreed to break-up too because my pride would never allow me to admit wanting to stay together if the other person suggests splitting.
I appreciate that she was understanding when she learned the truth about why he broke up with her, but I would've been angry too, because the show is blaming pride, but there's also elements of not having faith in the relationship too. Like part of him thought they couldn't last if he wasn't successful. He needed the success in order to be with her. What happens if they got back together and years down the line he fails again? Does he dump her again? But s2 showed enough growth and maturity in him that I don't think that would happen.
With Babi her intuition was right on the nose, and the first break up was warranted even if she couldn't express why. We all (Babi included) knew as soon as she probed into whether he already liked her when he gave her the jacket. He did nothing wrong on the surface. It was just a jacket, and seems trivial. But he liked her then, which gives it meaning when he gives the intern the jacket too. He only approached her romantically when she was single, and the level of honesty they had with eachother was lovely, and exactly what she needed after s1. I feel like a lot of people do that with relationships, you like your new partner because of the ways they are different to the last. Pride and lies ended the first pair, and Babi is like a bulldozer with his directness and honesty. Perfect for her then. But the intern got him confused, and that would've also been a deal breaker for me. Again he never cheated, and I don't believe he would, ever. But the fleeting "what if" would shatter my faith in the relationship. It doesn't matter that he rejected her, it was the pause, and then hiding it. I'm pretty sure it was the first time he was dishonest.
I found their break up sadder than Woongs, because it felt sharp and sudden, compared to the sort of slow inevitable feeling in s1. I liked the differences there too.
The getting back together briefly was fine, and mostly cute. I wish she hadn't met his dad though because I'm so sad thinking about this cold expressionless dad who gave her spending money, and then they're done. Like I got weirdly sad thinking about it. 😅😅
The marriage proposal gave me whiplash tbh because it felt liek a break up, and I get that it was just to set up the awkward misunderstanding at the end with Woong. But I don't think they needed it. Even in the moment if felt like desperate grasping at a relationship that was over when he lied again for no good reason. But they dragged it out slightly longer which felt weird, and I was just wanting them to break up again, even though I adored Babi.
I love that she was comfortable with both s1 and s2 MLs at the end and was able to rebuild friendships with both. I could sort of see her getting back with Woong given enough time, but I can't picture it either. The issues that separated them are gone, so maybe... but she's seen what happens when you try again, and I think it would hurt too much. Like if you try on an old coat that doesn't fit anymore. Sure it may be comfy, but there's a reason you stopped wearing it.
The hand at the party is endgame based on the original story, which is nice for s3 if they ever chose to make one. Better to start fresh when she's in a good place mentally and not rebounding or healing. She seems genuinely happy alone, which is all I want for her. She's a bit of a mess, but there's nothing more satisfying than seeing a lead realise she's a complete person on her own. Sure a spouse is nice, but she doesn't need it.
I loved in s1 when she's talking to her cells and talking about how she thought Woong was her ML, and the cell is like no, there's only one lead here and it's you. YES. She is the main character, and I loved seeing her learn that, and then start to believe it over the two seasons.
Anyway, I loved it. It was funny, sad, sweet, cringey... and overall really enjoyable.👏👏

I don't think I've watched a drama before that was over half flashbacks. I tried not to keep track and just skipped through them after the first time they were shown, but one episode had the first 8.5 minutes of just flashbacks we'd seen several times already, about a minute of new dialogue and then more flashbacks right up to like 13 minutes in. That's a quarter of the episode just repeated flashbacks.
There was only like 20 episodes of footage, max.
I didn't even notice the lack of kissing because I was so tuned out to the entire show. Around episode 25 I begged them note to redeem 2ML...but we all knew it was coming. I hate that. Sure give FL cancer, that's totally fine, so long as we redeem the awful awful 2ML who ruined multiple peoples careers, and did actual illegal things.
They should've just called this Flashback: Daddy Issues. Tells you everything you need to know.
I watched this for FL because I loved her in other stuff, and all I can say is I'm glad this wasn't the first thing I'd seen of her.
None of the couples seemed believable to me. FL and ML were slightly cute at times. 2FL and 2ML were badly in need of therapy, and se deserved way better. And bestie and the ponytail... I mistook them for siblings in the first few episodes and I just couldn't shake that for the rest of the show. They didn't make sense as a pair anyway, but I kept being like eww no that's weird. Ponytail and the receptionist had better chemistry than any of the leads, and bestie lacked chemistry with anyone, and needs to grow up before getting a partner.

This is not a romance at all, and should not have that in the tags. It's abuse and trauma and a dash of revenge.