Poppyfortea

I'm only on ep 9 but I'm getting so annoyed by FLs footwear. 😅🙈
As a person who has studied and worked in labs before... Her shoes are the biggest failure of everything so far. She has some audacity to criticize that coworkers fluffy shoes, when she herself is wearing strappy stilettos in A LAB. Unsteady heel, zero foot protection... I always allow for obscene levels of inaccuracy in tv shows, because I know the actors and the writers are usually not familiar with the work, but they make a point of her telling the coworker to tie her hair up, wear appropriate shoes, skip the perfume etc., and then have her in dangerous shoes for a lab.

This was fine. FL was a bit of a stalker who was lucky the person who rescued her was a good looking young man. Can't picture it if her rescuer had been some middle aged dude back then.
I couldn't muster up a bit of sympathy for 2ML or his friend. If I found out my best friend of 13 years had just been biding his time to date me I'd be heartbroken. I'm glad he finally found reality and realised she was only ever going to be his friend. But the fake gf deserved better. She did what I always want someone to do in these dramas. Spill all the secrets so people can start to have actual conversations instead of piles or misunderstandings.
It would've been nice to see a few more people getting therapy. I know the chief mentioned it for all the firefighters, but FL and the doctor could use some too.
Also can anyone explain how the fire service works in China? I can't fathom why there only seemed to be one shift with all of them working 24/7 always on call. Did they ever have days off? I don't get it. If they could plan ahead for dates and taking the dog to the beach (way too far away to respond to a fire), why couldn't they book their wedding day off? They aren't the only firefighters in the city...
I want to assume they just had all those important events suddenly interrupted by a fire for dramatic effect... but it just felt like overkill.
Also the work antagonist... what? How was she just suspended and the police take her away with no indication of if she was actually punished? Aside from the attempted murder, she leaked false news so many times, stole from colleagues (in an open plan office with cameras), tanked the reputation of her employer several times. She should've been fired and sued multiple times before it got to the freezer thing. FL was targeted and framed so many times and her bosses didn't even try to find out what happened. I thought they were a news station?
Also, FL is supposed to be smart. You're telling me the first time that snake accessed her PC and does her harm wouldn't make FL immediately put a password on it and lock her materials in her desk? How can she not have a password to begin with?

I took it as she was in shock and was too afraid to leave her daughter because he could've called it abandonment if he was actually the bad guy, but she also had no right to take the son, and he could've accused her of kidnapping. She didn't seem to be thinking clearly at all, or actually want to break up, just needed space to think while being heartbroken and afraid someone would take her child.
The scene with the kiddo running after the car was brutal, the babies did so well.

Agreed. I had to keep telling myself he was playing a grown man. FL has a really youthful look but by comparison he still managed to look like he'd run away from school and borrowed his dads suit. I think even if they tailored his suits that would've helped, because he somehow looked younger in the suits than in normal clothes.

For real, that's all I was thinking about. Surely if it happens once that's bad enough. But tighten your security not to let it happen a second time. 😂 Just anyone at all can walk past the security guards and take multiple children from this very expensive gated kindergarten?

Yeah there are several plot holes for sure. It seemed like she was trying to blackmail the grandad and leading him to believe there was just one kid, while lying to the dad and to Qin Tian about what was happening. Qin Tian was the one who sent the baby girl home, maybe that was after she died already, and he couldn't afford to take both kids then. But it could also mean she sent one kid home with him while they were still alive, and then maybe the recorded argument in the car had to do with that. Grandpa didn't know there were two babies so they got the boy and didn't know the rest until later.
It seemed like ML only figured out the twin thing when he saw the very generic pin on FL and joined dots that no normal person would've joined. Pretty sure FL and the sister had matching pins, rather than the babies, but when the sister died her pin went with the baby boy. Maybe baby boy was sent back before they died as well and she sent the pin on purpose. TBH we can fill in the massive plot holes however we want, noone can tell us we're wrong.😅

THE KIDS! They were brilliant. It's hard enough for a kid to act in scenes with adults and get the right dialogue, but the fact they were doing whole scenes just the two of them and knocking it out of the park every time. Even the tears. They were so so good.
Our leads were very cute. The antagonist was pitiful but I couldn't muster up any sympathy for him. I get wanting revenge against the family you think wronged your only loved one, but it makes no sense for him to seek to destroy the happiness of the littles. Like no sense. Sitian the little blackmailer showed him what love was when he hadn't been loved by his family, so he grew up with that. Why would it have to go that far just to for him to find his morality again. Okay I felt a bit bad for Sitian too, for her childhood trauma, but what an awful adult she turned out to be. MLs brother, that poor soft bean, oh I feel bad for him. He finds out their whole relationship was a lie and then he dies horribly. And grandpa?! Oh that poor old man hiding all this hurt to keep everyone else from hurting. I'm so glad they didn't make him a bad guy. And LouQi was phenomenal. She was funny, and badass, and an absolute weapon start to finish.

What happened to Jin Xi is what my brain convinces me will happen if I lie to get out of something. Say I don't really want to go out like I said I would, fake and illness and then become super paranoid that I'm actually getting sick. This dude pretends to have a disability and then ends up actually disabled. Yes. Karma in action. I skipped most of that couple, he made me too angry. The idea that he would fake a disability and defraud her into unpaid labour because SHE GAVE HIM AN UMBRELLA, while she has an actual disability and a family business that needs her. I'd never get over it. I'd prolly try to report him to the police for defrauding me too.

I'm still laughing at the ending. The shootout in the church with all three dead would've been fine. But they time jump to somehow show ML fine after multiple gunshots and FL fine after shooting herself in the head? Reminds me of Maids Revenge when ML definitely died, time jump and there's some dude with his face (no complaints, it's a great face) back in FLs life. 😂😂 When the shows do this I can't even get mad anymore because how is it any more ridiculous than the rest of the plot? Honestly there were so many blank bullets on the show them all shooting blanks at eachother in the church is fine plotwise. Given how many head injuries FL sustained I'd believe it if they said her head is mostly scar tissue now and it's a lot more bullet resistant. Why not. 🙈😂

This started out so promising, really fast paced and fun and then just spiralled into a massive depress-fest full of professional victims all sabotaging eachother for mediocre reasons. Booooooo.
Look I know forgiveness is supposed to be a gift to yourself or whatever. Forgive those who wrong you and heal your own pain...blah blah blah. Fuck that. MLs mother, Chen, Neckbeard, Neckbeards Dad, FLs dad. None of them deserved a redemption. I love a happy ending and I love that the leads got theirs, but I'm a bitter bitch and I hate that the awful awful people also ended up happy. If I started the show at a 10/10, I knocked a point off for every asshole who got a happy ending. 5/10 by the end. Maybe 5.5 just because they let that girl escape to the UK and didn't force pair her with Chen. I would've taken another point off for Yu Shi being forgiven, but I'm letting that one slide because they broke his leg. Not nearly enough broken legs on this show, and would it kill them to get a truck of doom to just plow through all the parents except MLs dad?
Like all these professional business people are just throwing problems at eachother and fighting over who has it worse, meanwhile dozens if not hundreds of staff, business partners, and customers are all suffering.

I usually love a ridiculously long cdrama, but this one could've benefitted from about 39 fewer episodes, and about 95% less blood spitting. Can't fathom how anyone was still alive considering the amount of blood they were spitting in every episode. 😂
I liked the general plot, and the acting was great. ML is the greenest flag I've seen in a cdrama even though he suffers from the "keep everything to myself and suffer alone" trope. But after a while I started getting really annoyed at the supposed good guys declaring all demons evil and trying to eradicate them. Like everyone got super mad at ML for misleading FL and just being a demon, but FL's unconsciously committing mass murder on the regular and noone is concerned. Like how many crowds of people does she have to eviscerate before you start to question if something is a bit sus? All the secondary characters like her sister were full of shit too. Every one of them was morally grey at best, while judging ML for just existing.
I had to laugh at Hao Chen at the end suddenly realising that he in fact was the villain...like yeah no shit babe, you've committed several genocides, butchered, brainwashed, and then tortured your only friend for a thousand years. Those are not good guy moves.

Just a smidge of fairness, a crumb at this point. 🙏🙏

Wow, it just gets worse and worse. K-Soul is doing his hardest to clean up his assholery from the first 5 episodes, but he's only been half successful. You can see he's trying so hard not to be the worst, and I can only hope that the acting becomes real growth. The in person and korean viewers obviously love his self-serving and bitchy persona so he's likely to debut. I just feel awful for the people who will have to form a group with him if he stays this way. He's not a child, and he's been a trainee for a while, but his attitude is not that of someone who wants to debut in a group.
I'm still just watching for Santa, not voting at all because what's the point, the voting system is a sham, counts the few in person voters as way too much and lets you vote for people who aren't even in the running anymore. Hoping he leaves because he doesn't need to get tied into a contract with these people. I'd seen spoilers weeks ago of him sitting to the side of the KoKoBop stage and was hoping he was okay but would take that opportunity to leave the show.

I see the editors realised they showed KSoul as too much of an asshole and they tried to pare it back in ep 6. He did it too. He even said himself the previous episode had just aired the previous week, and suddenly he's a team player. It think it was a clear sign of his character when noone chose his team in the second round. It's not just evil editing when literally noone wants to work with you. That works great to get screentime, but he's trying to debut in a group, so that's not gonna work. If he continues to bring this same attitude I fear for whoever has to debut with him.
The onsite voters are a joke. As is always the case with these shows, when they do onsite voting the supportive and hard workers behind the scenes get robbed by the ones who can work a crowd for a few minutes, or who manage to flash their way through the stage after having been dead weight during all the prep work. Shiryus rank was a joke, and it seems it really shook him. I heard he's chosen to leave, and I think that's the best thing for him.
And yeah fine I only tuned in for Santa, because I thought it was wild he and Yaya were on this, and I was excited to see a more international show. But after the initial vote put him at the top (I assume international BL fans went wild because there was no real indicator of anyone's skill at that point and there's no way he was 1st place worthy) his rank went down a bit based on actual skill level, which is fine. He has a bunch of work to do to catch up to where some others are, like boys who've been industry trainees for a while. But to drop so far so fast is crazy. Even from an outside perspective he did really well in round 3, and anyone looking objectively would've put him in the teens. I hope he leaves because he really doesn't need this.
I remember when I watched i-land I got annoyed at the way the votes would flip flop between rounds when the viewers voted vs when the contestants voted. But honestly they could use some of that here, because if they went by only large scale online voting the entire ranking would change. Onsite votes are useless, because those few hundred people will not be the ones you want to sell albums to.

Someone tweeting spoilers said that Shiryu left voluntarily after these votes were revealed. I think he's better off because the voters are ridiculous. I hope Santa leaves too because it's not worth it.

I find it too annoying to watch survival shows in real time anymore, because they'll drag out the results over multiple episodes, or play the first few bars of the track everyone is hyped for right at the end of an episode, and then only play the full song ring at the end of the next one. It's too irritating to deal with that on a weekly basis. So I've watched all of this over the last 2 days, and I am ENRAGED at how they treated 23:00. Seriously.
Several minutes of public shaming from the show at ep10, their apologising over and over for something which literally needs no apology in the first place. Calling themselves bad influences as if they aren't men in their 30s who have not been active as idols for years. I know, the industry is a sham for this and yet it still surprised me how far they took it. Like this is way overboard. Old photos of him at an event, socialising, maybe evening smoking... How is that a scandal? How is that news?
Any other time I've seen a bullsh*t scandal on a show like this or anywhere, they'll pull the artist with no explanation and act like they were never there (like Stray Kids Hyunjin in Kingdom), maybe a written notice on screen, maybe just mention they are down a participant (like with the artist from 24:00). This reaction from the show is so far beyond reasonable it feels very deliberate. It seems like 23:00 were not intended to do so well by the producers and they took the opportunity to force them out. Whoever posted the photos really dredged their old camera rolls and defunct social media pages for this, and it has nothing to do with bad behaviour or accountability. It's just an attempt to make them fail.
I just skipped through ep 10 and 11 to see the songs and the winner. It's such a shame. I usually love all the bonding activity type filler these shows use to endear the participants to us, and I'm so happy for Vanner to win. But all that fun stuff and the final was just spoiled by what the show did. Like I'm here trying to cheer for the remaining (amazing) participants and all I can think about is that f*cking apology. Damn it they worked so hard, after so much mistreatment when they were working before, and they proved themselves consistently throughout. They didn't deserve this.

0/10 for 30 episodes of toxicity and spousal abuse.
Hate finished this. FL swings wildly from idiot to super intuitive, to a f*cking idiot again, thinks she has martial arts skills but actually doesn't, somehow develops them while she has amnesia, and then seems to lose them again just when the plot requires. And that's assuming I had any clue what the plot was trying to do at all. ML was a lying, manipulative greedy scumbag who made her think they slept together while she was drunk (it's somehow painted as redeemable because he only PRETENDED to have sex with her while she was too drunk to consent). He lied to her, destroyed her family, kidnapped her, abused her, ruined her reputation, her family's reputation, stalked her, threatened her... The man is made of red flags.
2ML no better, but definitely not worse as the writers try to make us think. He did all the same things, for power as well. He was just as sneaky, but somehow at the end FL is like damn I should've trusted ML and seen through 2ML from the start, he's a terrible person. No babes they're both horrific people, just in slightly different ways. And I was annoyed at her taking the f*cking birds repetitions as proof of betrayal for a bit, but honestly fair enough. That bird was more honest than either ML or 2ML, and ML was betraying her, just not in the way the bird said. I did laugh at the fact she took the birds word again as proof of MLs innocence. Like babes didn't we JUST realise the bird is an unreliable narrator?
We were all mad at that vindictive Empress dowager at the start, she was your stereotypical baddie, but ML and 2ML were the real villians here, and they BOTH got happy endings. F*ck off. They should've both been killed, and FL allowed to just live in peace. Like her blood pressure must be through the roof with all the stress, and her life expectancy can't be great with all the drugging, poisoning, physical injury etc. And they're super vague throughout about how many times either of them may or may not have had sex with her while she was incapacitated. I mean we know for sure they BOTH pretended to have sex with her while she was unconscious, which is a really awful thing. But ML definitely has sex with her without her consent at least once (but you know the era is set in is basically a blanket permission for husbands to SA their wives), and 2ML is an absolute snake, I wouldn't trust him with an uncovered drink never mind falling asleep anywhere near him. Any time they hinted at one of them forcing intimacy on her it made my skin crawl (and I am including all the forced embraces where she's visibly uncomfortable and they're like it's fine because I love you)
She didn't need either of them and ML just gaslit her into giving him a redemption. Every time they were just stood there bickering over her like she was a prop and not the LEAD CHARACTER it made me enraged. I hated this. Like her single personality trait is that she's a person who hates liars. And yet ML lies to her for all 30 episodes, is shocked when she continually loses trust in him, promises to be honest in future and then lies immediately. Right up to the last few scenes he's STILL lying, just to trick her into coming to his room. God someone just kill him. If the Empress dowager had gotten him back at the start everything would've been great. I hate him. And I even like Zhao Lin as an actor, like he's one of the reasons I started to watch it, but I'm going to have to avoid the next thing I see him in for a bit because I need to let the rage dissipate. Riley too. Oof.

I'm so glad it's finally over. I started binging this garbage up to ep63 months ago and then left it to binge the second half over the last few days. It started terrible, and got worse, but I have a compulsion to keep watching shows even when they're garbage. Not enough of the bad guys died tbh. And I still can't fathom how they did at least 4 years in the grown up timeline yet the kid stayed the exact same age. It would've made such a difference if they could've gotten and actress slightly older when they did the 3 year time jump, or failing that at least change her hair. You're telling me the kid didn't grow, change her hair, or even her wardrobe in over 3 years...booooo. Even give her a fake set of braces or something so she looks at least a tiny bit different. I mean even FL got some awful extensions when she came back after the time jump.

This was great until the last two episodes when it just went off the rails, and the last 20 minutes of just the leads totally out of character fighting and breaking up and really annoying everyone around them. Hated that. And there was no need for it at all. I would've called it an 8 or 9/10 for me till then but the last two episodes knocked a point off and the last 20 minutes knocked off another. Why ruin it?

Thank god it's over. SY had basically no chemistry with either of the MLs, but if there was a choice between the two I would've killed the brother off and kept SD alive. This was a depressfest, and SD deserved a happy ending. He got stabbed then a death sentence where he spent his remaining time making everyone he loved hate him. Pointless. He didn't need the pretense at all. The sister was enough of a deranged nutbag to do whatever he asked her to, without faking a relationship. I wont lie I physically gagged when the "siblings" kissed at the end. Big nope from me. I know they spent longer as strangers than siblings. But he knew her as his sister from the day she was born till she was 11. And even when they reunited he was falling in love with her still thinking she might be his half sibling for a bit there, which is weird af. I know there's actual evidence that that sort of attraction exists IRL between adopted out siblings or whatever, but in dramas it always reads to me like weird pseudo incest.
On paper SY and SD were like childhood sweethearts who reunited and fell in love, even though their onscreen chemistry was middling, I could see it.
But SY and TP were so off to me. Blood doesn't make family so it's irrelevant to me that they weren't blood relatives. They spent 1/3 of their lives as siblings, and then he spent 20 yrs grieving his sister, and she spent 20 yrs grieving her whole family. They weren't in love with eachother, they were trauma bonded, and SD was selfish af for basically gifting the love of his life to his best friend. They treated her like a commodity, and she just went with it. Not for a second did I find her love for TP believable. Not in any way other than platonic. Like she agrees to marry him warning him she could only ever love SD, and then about a month later she's like oops I do actually love you. A little bit of therapy (or a lot), will have them overcoming their traumas and realising they aren't actually in love with eachother. It's nice the mum can see again, but it's awful that SY is gonna get whiplash every time she looks at her mother and sees her dead lovers eyes.
Honestly the best chemistry of the whole show was those two coworkers in Le Blanc.
The revenge was laggy and I feel like the grandmother and mother didn't deserve redemption. Especially the grandmother. The mother...maybe a little since we know she was abused by the CEO. But she was also a truly awful parent too. Before she knew anything about the CEOs crimes she was abusing her kids.
5.5/10