allie

overall, a fun and entertaining watch!

i ended up really falling in love with all three couples. i think all the main male leads did such a good job and each pair had their own charm and connection. this plot was not anything new or innovative whatsoever, but i don’t think that made it any less enjoyable for me! it is definitely a typical thai romcom, which is why my rating isn’t perfect, but that will not change the fact that i did genuinely enjoy this show and i would definitely rewatch it.

i will say, i could not vibe with sandpond though…. i just really couldn’t connect with their story or pond as a character. i think sand naturally had more personality because he was arm’s friend, but pond was kinda just there for me. and klao got on my nerves sooooo bad at first, but after his lobotomy i was able to enjoy klaowa much more! i think the main couples are, naturally, the strongest point in this show, but i do wish that they would’ve either tried to dedicate a littleeee more time to flesh out the side couples or opted to not give us their stories (like jetpun or even po and his partner). i think getting a taste, but not the full thing removed being able to connect with those couples and actually understand them which made the final episode feel a little …. because you get so invested in the 3 main couples, then the main premise of the last two episodes is klaowa proposal/marriage and i felt like their story wasn’t hard hitting enough for me to feel emotionally about it 😭 it was cute and i think they still tied up the end sweetly! i guess you can say that giving them an event that caused them all to come together in the end was a good full circle moment, but something about it just wasn’t my favorite. and i do understand that since this was an ensemble show, gmmtv also wanted to include additional pairings as a little treat, but how they did it just fell flat for me.

other than that, i did really enjoy the show overall and i think all 3 of the main couples make the show a worthwhile watch!! i’ve missed gunyotha everyday since finishing their arc….. i also loved arcarm, i felt like they were such a strong start, and ending with winefaifa!!!!! they are too cute, and i honestly felt like their story was a little rushed compared to the other two (which goes back to my point about the ending being about klaowa… i could just be a hater though). our other mains had their stories soooo fleshed out, but i just felt like they kinda sped through winefaifa a little.

overall rating: 8.5/10

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a beautiful, heartwarming watch that exceeding my expectations!

I am not sure entirely what I expected when I went into this show, but I didn't expect to love it as much as I do. I think I felt worried about the topic of age regression and trauma as it can be very difficult to explore, but I think that Santa did such a great job in his role, and I think Solar and Sun's stories were handled with care. This show was an exploration of love, contention, trauma, mental health, life, self acceptance, and learning to adapt to those around you. There were so many beautiful lessons here and take aways that would stick with anyone.

I think if you are going into this expecting a 100% serious depiction of mental health issues, you would probably feel a little disappointed by this show because I think it can be easy to nitpick. While I do think they did a great job at handling the characters mental and emotional struggles, this show is overall meant to be more of an upbeat watch and it's definitely reflected in the characterization. I did feel like up until episode 8, Solar's trauma was a little bit downplayed? But I think the intention with that was them trying to show Pobmek's struggle with teaching and learning to accept and handle both Sun and himself vs the entire show being about Solar's recovery. I honestly loved that both sides of the couple were explored, and you could feel them learn more about each other and the people around them the entire time. I really enjoyed the decision to not focus on Solar entirely because I think it gave the plot a lot more dimension for something that could have easily fallen very flat, very quick. Watching Pobmek go from trying absolutely anything and everything to get rid of Sun to the last episode where he was making Sun's breakfast, completely forgetting that Sun was finally resting and wouldn't be coming back, was such a sweet full circle moment.

And getting to know Pobmek as a character was so important and really helped to understand why his development felt so fulfilling to see. Him being able to forgive his mom after what she put him through, and work through those issues to not only be a better version of himself, but also be better for Solar showed how strong he was! Seeing him slowly crack until he could put down his walls to let his friends support him broke my heart. I loved that this didn't feel romanticized at all, and you could see how difficult the entire situation was for Pobmek. Seeing someone you love suffer and wanting to do anything to help them is already tough, but also being able to admit that the situation is paining you is so difficult to admit without feeling guilty. I think I just loved how open everyone in this show was, and no one was ever made to feel bad about their emotions at any point. Even if Pobmek made a lot of mistakes, he was able to overcome them and you can see how hard he worked to change his ways. When Solar broke down because he was trying to hide his distress, I felt so pained for him. He knew he was putting his partner through a lot, so he didn't want to make it worse for him, and unfortunately it led to him breaking down. There were so many points of contention for both characters, but knowing that no matter what they would be there for each other, always made me feel relieved. Sometimes I cannot stand when characters break up or give up on each other over the smallest things, so knowing that that would never be a worry for Solar and Pobmek made watching this show that much better for me.

I really enjoyed how the kids were directly apart of the conflicts, and not just there because it was a show about teachers. Seeing the kids accept Sun and Solar, and how much effort they put into helping him was so heartwarming. You could really feel how eyeopening this situation was for everyone involved, and the openness of the children and their ability to see things from Sun's perspective that Pobmek could not understand, helped to give him courage and insight that I think he would've missed out on otherwise.

And when we finally got to see Solar figure out his past and what actually happened, I really felt for him. I can only imagine how much pain he was dealing with, both with his own and Sun's pain. I was worried when he went to meet his dad at first, but I felt so relieved to know that his dad didn't blame him for anything, and even though he can't be forgiven for running away, every single character in this show made choices that you could understand. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I felt like the writers wanted to show as many perspectives as they could in so many different people, and there was never actually a true villain here because at the end of the day, everyone is human and makes decisions they regret. Whether it was Solar's parents, Pobmek's mom, Pang, the students, the students' parents, etc. Everyone had a reason to act how they did, but what they did after to change or handle it, was more important part in the end.

I honestly fell in love with this show, everything from the characters to the styling was just so good!!! I can understand anyone who watches this and doesn't love it, but I'm really so happy I decided to watch this show because I ended up with a new favorite. It's not perfect, but it was such a heartwarming story of growth and love, and I felt like I could really understand all the characters deeply.

I can't wait to see Santa and Perth's next project, they have such wonderful chemistry and I love seeing them together!

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had such high expectations….

i will start off by saying that i did have fun watching this show and it was entertaining. there were parts that had me stressed out and gripping my chest, but there were also more parts that had me wanting to just skip through them….

this show has very high reviews, and i think it’s mostly from the casting. the main couple had such good chemistry and i really did enjoy watching them together! my issue with this show was genuinely the plot. i personally felt like this show absolutely did not need 24 episodes. i had to watch 14-17 on 2x speed because i genuinely felt like i was going to lose my mind. there was so much back and forth, miscommunication over literally nothing, bad advice given/taken and just so much nonsense happening i almost dropped it. i loveeee some theatrical drama, but it got to a point where i was just like ??? are we done yet? like how long could they possibly drag this out for?

and also the kidnapping arc, the tax evasion arc, and honestly the entirety on the wang shuo arc were so nothingburger to me, and i feel like they were just trying to invent stuff to keep the show interesting, but it was boring me to death. i felt like everything was just very predictable, so i think that took the joy out of the roller coaster for me. for example, the minute chi cheng was presented with the tax papers to be signed, i smelt the tax evasion dilemma coming from a mile away… maybe i just read too much BL, but this show was like every single trope you could think of thrown into a bowl without mixing it together and then throwing it all over the table. i applaud anyone who genuinely enjoyed this, i honestly envy you.

also, a lot of these reviews discuss the dubbing, but i think i just haven’t watched enough cdramas because i honestly didn’t notice it most of the time. i think i thought about some things being weird, but i didn’t process that it was from dubbing in the moment, so i don’t think it made this show unwatchable.

note: i didn’t touch on the blatant romanticization of sexual assault throughout the show, but it definitely bothered me up until the end! i was rooting for a guy who literally enabled a gang rape to happen in the first episode….. that was genuinely crazy… i do understand that it’s not real, and this type of thing is common when it comes to these types of plots, but it doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. there are definitely ways to write a dominant, forceful top without making him an abuser, but i digress…

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