2024

respectfully, i would just die

okay but like what about all the atrocities ppl committed in borderland, the ppl who died there died irl but irl it would've just been bc they succumbed to the meteorite incident?? and not bc they were liTERALLY culled in an in-between world?? like is that a metaphor for willpower?? bc if it is, the mcs survived on their own without actively killing off the others so what would that represent? is that not also having the determination to survive? idk that's kinda weak yall.

BESIDES, that would completely negate aguni's guilt and his whole killing his bff thing like i feel a little cheated :/

anyway

1. cannot stress how loudly i yelled when niragi declined to stay in borderland like what happened to the me too movement

2. speaking of, there was way too much implied and/or attempted SA here girls its icky!!

3. chishiya's hair is fried as hell you'd think the sulphuric acid would just slide right off even if he lost

4. ngl id take mira's "you're in a VR game" explanation lmfaooo

5. ann waking up in the middle of her suRGERY?? miSS MA'AM WE CAN STILL SEE YOUR INTESTINES CLOSE UR EYES

6. so the friends we made along the way isn't the real treasure huh

7. respectfully, the last game was underwhelming as hell all we kno is narcissists are going to LOVE arisu it seems

8. if they were gonna pull the whole life after death trope i'd rather the charas were already dead and just in purgatory. somn like in bleach when (hella powerful, but i digress) ppl in SS die they go to hell even if they were (arguably) morally good ppl, the idea that being sent to hell doesn't have anything to do with your morals

9. every single woman in this show can like, [tucks hair behind ear]

10. how tf did no one else bleed out from their wounds but ann and tatta did??? LMAO

11. anime characters will bring Anything but a gun to a gun fight damn

anyway thats all here's to more jdramas/movies this year

watching this as an anti-war pacifist

i, too, wonder why i am back here.

this is like, a war movie. no literally. like its just 2hrs of war. and shin doing whatever the fuck he wants and all the hotshots let him lmfaooooo. this is just three kids being like "im gonna change the world!!" and then going "yessssssss queen (king)" at each other.

just two silly kids being silly and in love what else is there to say i feel old and decrepit :((

my favourite thing about this movie is ma dongseok. my second favourite thing is the 27yo they made play an 18yo. like that's a grown ass man

was this long as hell? yes. did it need to be long as hell? absolutely not. did the emotions and poignancy hit anyway? absolutely.

i think there was also a sense of nostalgia here. i remember reading this wayyy back, like ten years ago when i was 12, and i can still distinctly recall the sense of heaviness it left me at the time. i never finished it even though i knew what would happen and i remember all those details to this day.

sure the movie had its cinematic flaws but i think it does more than just its part as a tearjerker. also there's just something about yamaken that rlly makes these roles perfect for him LMAO like he's good at playing tortured souls what can i say, what can i say

even back when i was 12, i am certain i had the exact same thoughts as i do now: boy wouldn't it be nice to have friends who give a fuck about you the way kakeru's friends cared about him? this is something i'll always sigh about, even to my deathbed, i reckon.

admittedly, tiktok's art community hooked me onto this movie. i genuinely just wanted to see the gorgeous stills in a narrative and—well.

its doomed yandere yuri.

dont bury your gays, make them kill each other instead.

no one is normal and everyone is obsessed with nozaki. nozaki exacts revenge and finds everything she needs in the snow. straight men are a cancer to society. this is the type of movie where you Do question if actions have consequences bc where the fuck are the authorities lmfaooo. like nozaki didnt even hide her bodies she just lEFT them in the snow and she's nEVER FOUND OUT

the reason why japanese movies are so long is bc there are mINUTES long scenes of characters just staring blankly into the distance and saying NoTHING. the gore was kinda camp tho if its cgi, boo, if its special xf make up yall SLAYED the house down.

the movie is called liverleaf bc nozaki is the liverleaf: goes through a rigorous winter (her family getting murdered) and then blooming in spring (she dies).

can't fucking believe she forgave taeko??? lesbeans.

but real talk what i found interesting is when one of the bullies talked about how there's no entertainment in such a rundown fuckass town like theirs that even tho they literally muRDERED ppl they felt excitement for the first time. and even in death there was an insanity to their reactions (comically childish, sometimes even under-reactions). even tho i felt the movie was a little clunky and fever-dreamish, it did evoke in me a funky collection of emotions (disbelief, disgust, intrigue, excitement), almost akin to those described by the bullies.

okay  speedrunning this

1. whoever wrote the script for jihyuk did Not want him to prosper and slay bc what is half of That. "im a good person. a really good person". girl...also not him dress-coding her bc he was too stunned by her glow-up

2. choi gyuri is the CUTEST actress ever dATE ME

3. so i found out boa's character existed in the webnovel but she didn't exist in the wtoon for a reason and that was bc she was silly as fuck like ik they tried to make her evil and badass but she just came off as a petulant rich kid throwing a tantrum. which was ick

4. ngl i hated so many changes that diverted from the wtoon bc it was so chill and easy brain food LOL like them making the gramps being difficult at first?? he was SUCH a girl's girl in the wtoon :(

5. AND they made the guy that ended up w ms yang some dUDE he was a dorky sunshine in the wtoon and it was a noona romance lmaoo doesnt ms yang deserve a chirpier guy after her wanker of a husband

6. something i did appreciate tho is how much more deep/fleshed out they made jiwon and sumin's rls. sumin was both resentful of and In Need of jiwon like she was obsessed with her in a crazy AND desperate "you're the only one i have" way. sumin was so silly to push away a friend like jiwon

7. jihyuk's car accident was Silly!!! like it is never that srs!! btw he killed himself in the wtoon so his fate was never an issue bc he just didnt need to do that

8. the casting is immaculate bc how did they find so many actors w such slap-able faces lol kinda sad sumin didnt murder minhwans mom tho

9. sumin is still my favourite villain of the show everyone else sucked but i enjoyed her tenacity

10. i like na inwoo so yall are unnecessarily mean to him ok he was given the short end of the stick here

11. jiwon and jihyuk are cute like did yall see how happy she looked to see him that one time he parked in front of her place her face LIT UP

my love mix up is my current favourite BL manga and honestly this was a solid little adaptation even tho it clearly did not have a very big budget lmaoo. i think it managed to capture the silly quirky cutesy fluffy corny little love story between a bunch of high schoolers pretty well! and the cast looked just like their characters too and they were able to reflect a lot of the humour from the manga. super easy brain food yall!!

everyone did well given that (im assuming) most of them are pretty green actors(??), and so knowing that, id say the chemistry was solid. still a huge fan of the aoki/hashimoto friendship, they were super cute in the manga and they were super cute in this show. we were shortchanged hashimoto and aida's rocky love story but they do get their happy ending which is good enough for me!!

im not fussed that they weren't able to include the conflicts cropping up towards the end of the manga lmfao even if i wanted to see what the amnesia plot would've looked like onscreen (super silly probably yoink).

also this is irrelevant but finding out both of the main leads are part of relatively new boy bands actually made so much sense to me how this adaptation came about lmfaooo looks like the nugu boy band to rookie BL actor pipeline for marketing purposes is a universal experience LMAO.

anyway, this show made me want to reread the manga, how nostalgic. i really!!! liked that they ended the show full circle, the call back to the eraser ordeal was!!! :( uber cute. knowing the manga ending, it just never crossed my mind but it made so much sense and it was soooooo cute i ate that up!!!!! idc that youre happy it should've been me!!

also ida's actor acting the house down in his last scene was so funny, he rlly pumped the gas knowing this was the end.

sorry to the mentally sane bitches who have never wanted to kill themselves before but i very much enjoyed this drama actually!!

was it slow? yea. could it have been shorter? yea. was it mostly 90% of nothing happening? also yea. bUT was it healing, heartwarming, feel good, and handled its themes well? abSOLUTELY THE FUCK YES. i soBBED through episodes 13-14. there was something so good to the soul seeing jeongwoo get parented and loved by haneul's family—especially when the one person who acted as family for him had hurt him Tremendously and then fucked off and died before he could process any of those feelings. i liked the astute and sensitive portrayal that each of the characters' actions were tied to somn in their childhood, which is very much often the hotspot for certain coping mechanisms and unhelpful beliefs to arise and that we bring into adulthood.

i liked that this wasn't just a healing story about two adults who hit a roadblock in their life but also the connection to their childhood selves who—in their own ways—weren't truly happy either. and the message that healing as an adult is letting your inner child heal with you. and the idea that getting better isn't being forever happy but knowing that you have the strength to get up and move forward even when you fall down again. that is true!! and they are right!!!

the love story was cute i'm sorry y'all are bitter bitches like it was one of the greenest flag'd, healthiest coupling in kdrama to date. not only are they both in LOVE with each other but the effort they both put in to help the other is muTUAL and EQUAL. they care about each other so much and they're so mature and they began as friends first—it's everything i love. both phs and psh did SO well, im so happy for them. phs seemed to have coined his own wife-man role and for psh, it's baby's first good onscreen kiss!!

love to see it.

i've never seen the original parasyte so i've no clue if the mc's parasite was on amicable terms with the mc or not so with that said: "jjk if kishimoto wrote it"?? but...well, parastye. obvs. LOL. white ppl will say call this korean venom but [vague hand gestures].

ANYWAY. this was cute i enjoyed it! just a cute little easy alien joins human's side and fights their own kind typa thing. classic trope. to sum:

1. suin and kangwoo's partnership was cute. he had no reason crying over her the way he did at the end bc he damn well knows she would always be unconscious after heidi takes over but  ? we love teamwork. 

2. everyone taking on kangwoo's nickname for suin's parasite and calling her heidi is unironically hilarious

3. love the call back to the original live action via hiring the main actor (not that i would know without seeing ppl mention it first lmfaoo)

4. i enjoyed the flashback w the police lady and her husband!! i felt rlly bad for her, they had such a good rls. and it made the alien that took over him being killed so much worse bc even if she knew her husband was long dead, it was still heartbreaking to see his face on the body

5. whAT HAPPENED TO UNCLE CHULMIN WAS FUCKED UP!!! he loved suin so much im devastated

6. kyunghee's parasite apologising to kangwoo also got a lil KICk to it. the ""humanisation"" of some of these parasites so to speak was brief given the pacing but still packed a punch. i liked that hers was being acquainted with human empathy while church-parasite represented human greed.

7. despite the short episode count, i thot the storytelling was done well! it was easy to digest and even though it wasnt anything new or original, it still came across pre sincere with its messages? at least to me. the brief relationships the characters developed w each other was nice to see.

8. loved the two main actors.

it was just boring. LOL. like most if not all of the cases were a yawn. most of the recurring characters had nothing to do. there were little stakes and intrigue and suspense. honestly characters were flat as hell, as they were in the first season but like . they got worse.

i absolutely hated alex fong's character and it has nothing to do with him being a villain he was just fucking annoying and pretentious and wouldn't shut the fuck up. you know how fucking annoying it is to talk to a mfker who keeps pulling out evolutionary explanations for every fucking thing that happens???? i dont CARE that he was forced to live like an incel all his childhood, i have little sympathy for the tomfoolery of Men. the only thing he did right was kill his dad. his little character switch up bc he "fell in love" was cheesy and meaningless.

the random ass convoluted pointless plot where they put sum sir in jail just so win jie would take him back made me want to lop my head off with a butter knife. idc that he got depressed and stopped taking care of himself after she fucking broke up with him bc he chEATED on her like hes a grown ass fucking man, this was a breath's away from man children acting pitiful and victimising themselves to guilt trip their partners, yall just tried to cover it up bc hes the mc.

ana's random ptsd lasted like half an ep lmao what the fuck was that about. her and daniel and moon lau's new character brought nothing to the table, why were we here.

joman is still gorgeous. and she still hasn't anything to do lmaoo. her love story with ben wong was boring as fuck.

none of the relationships in this show were developed well s1 only pulled thru bc the cases were more interesting and jonathan-moon villain couple ate down. in this, you spend the entire show wondering what the fuck jonathan was scheming but turns out he was genuinely brain damaged the whole time. wtf

"this show is so underrated! why is no one watching this!" bc it was bad why tf do you think.

suppose it makes valid commentary on capitalism n entertainment n amorality in rich privileged ppl—so??? it's not anything anyone didnt already know? like yes, this society was built to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, we KNOW.  we LIVE HERE.  nothing new was brought to the table but never-ending sadism—and that's not fuckin new either. i didn't find this smart or witty or meaningful. it was dull, maddening,  obNOxious.

quickly:

1. the only consistently likeable character is 2nd. she was a fucking g. and genuinely kindhearted. but the way her character was the only one subjected to obscene violence, especially by a man, was gratuitous. not a fan.

2.  im sure yall found this to be such an eye opener for Human Psychology but respectfully this was just the stanford prison experiment but worse. at least zimbardo had a fucking rationale.

3. the only thing this show did right was cut off 6th's dick. do it again.

4. 8th is lucky she's beautiful and i like the actress bc for such an intriguing villain-adjacent, she rlly gave us nothing

5. idk how yall forgot 4th was literally part of the scheme to abuse the lower floors like good for you but im dont forgive Or forget. she's lucky it was only her teeth that were pulled out

6.  idk what ryu junyeol thought he was doing w this show but it must've made Bank bc aint no fucking way.

7. i quite enjoyed the camera destroying scenes even tho ive been fucking SAYING. slow ass mfkers. i liked that whenever junyeol shot the cameras it was like he was pointing the gun at me (the audience). pre meta. but that's about it for how well they did that.

8. so that was the end. and??? what is the point of all this?? what's the payoff? the takeaway?? "if ur poor, rip, good luck??" spell it out for me, son, what's cooking in that noggin of yours?

unfortunately the mdl ppl were right this was Nawt good lmfaoo. quickly:

1. that was a positive covid RAT test. ya girl is sick. she is not pregnant.

2. kang ha had so much bravado for dude who did Nothing. after he admitted to being kang inha's brother, he was essentially booted from the spotlight to make way for rian and jaeyi's reconciliation. which also gave me absolutely Nothing.

3. the mdl ppl weren't right for long bc kim rian was an obnoxious, spoiled, elitist bully. idk why he acted like he was only simply a "bystander" to the violence when he literally ordered his goons to destroy kang ha. the only thing he did right was beat the fuck out of jaeyi's bro

4. i kept thinking the friendship between the rich kids was similar to the rich kids in tempted—unsurprisingly, mky, kmj and wdh did all of that better despite spending very little time being actually friends.

5. the switch up these charas be doing were Crazy. jaeyi was supposedly against all the school violence but??? never spoke out. her bf was behind the whole thing, she could've just . said somn LOL. rian tottered back and forth from being shit bf to very loving bf and i just did not care for all that. him crying over their baby icked me tho, thanks. hera acting like she gaf about jaeyi was insane when she tried to come onto her bff's bf before they even broke up???

6. woojin was... a victim. irresponsible fucking adults.

7. overall plot and character motives were All over the place and no one turned out likeable in the end, INCLUDING kang ha. also special FUCK YOU to jaeyi's brother, he had so much to say for someone who looks like a bicycle seat. 

8. respectfully, i couldnt take any of this srsly theyre literally all just kids thinking theyre hot shit. rich ppl make me laugh, everything is a Super Big Deal to them. you think i can sympathise for hera being upset she has to take the fucking bUS??? i dont.

that's all thanks.

the part of me that is relieved this finally ended is unfortunately much larger than the part of me that enjoyed this show LOL not that it was Bad it just began to drag in the latter half?

giving kagura Lore inevitably started to make the show about her and yashiro and while this allowed more room for the sexuality discourse, i dont think they actually did that very well anyway. it sacrificed the rls between yashiro and kenta and rin, and also between their moms. everyone ended up feeling a little flat and two dimensional. they didn't even rlly flesh kagura all that much, you still dk who kagura rlly is n why she disliked herself so much. her ostracisation bc she was "weird" had no substance bc they never showed how she was diff from her peers. the last 4 eps just had us watch kagura and yashiro have the same convo over and over.

i think the drama does a better job at differentiating between sexual/physical attraction and loving someone despite that than the manga but changing god's backstory took away why everything happened to begin with? he favoured yashiro bc he had been "cursing" his descendants to continuous unrequited queer love. yaken getting together and "lifting" that curse was kinda symbolic of breaking generational trauma? and that showcases how times are changing and ppl are becoming more accepting of others. it was also important that god was the one who had these feelings in the past and was able to personally understand it as opposed to being the rejector, who only did everything out of guilt! it completely changes the story to compensating and making amends rather than a person seeing the world change and becoming liberated.

lastly UH—i guess its obvious that the actors are quite green but i am not too fond of yashiro's actor's depiction of being a girl. it was a bit Too clear he was Putting on a performance. rin is my girl tho <3 am glad she stayed SINGLE.

they need to put me back in school so i can write a comprehensive essay on this lET ME IN.

i thot it was such an insightful and beautiful study on grief and loss. for a 2hr movie, it managed to touch on a lot of differences and nuances in how ppl cope and process their sadness when it comes to losing their loved ones. there were characters who were conscious they were talking to an AI and do not fully embrace the technology and those who are conscious but embrace it anyway bc they miss their loved ones so much and those who just use it to run from their grief altogether. we see how this technology changes ppl's attitudes to loss bc the advanced tech creates the fantasy that the person is 'still around'.  it has its own thoughts and personalities, and better yet—the thots and personalities of the dead users—and they can initiate calls on their own.

the movie followed two major perspectives, one w bai li who is the dead one and we get to see the story through the "AI's perspective" and the other with jungin, whose bf has been in an indefinite coma, and her perspective shows another kind of loss where it is not the death of a person but that they have simply changed. when jungin's bf regains consciousness, he is understandably different (distant, etc) and this negatively affects jungin and we see her—at times—rely instead on the AI ver of her bf, who was created on the ver of her bf before his accident.

bai li's perspective, on the other hand, touches on the conspiracies/ideas that AI/robots can gain sentience if you feed it enough information, as AI-bai li seems to act on her own when she is told that her daughter has gone missing irl. its an incredibly relevant discussion in our time rn.

i doNT HAVE SPACE LEFT but this shit was good. recommend. i refuse to see any of the judgement and scorn this movie got from the lot of yall as anything but the product of no media literacy and no fucking empathy.

hate that you could see one million terminal illness films and it will still work on you every. single. time

three gerberas for ayaka, who had to go thru that TWICE.  her saying she knew what three gerberas mean reading akito's reply to haruna's post while holding two three gerberas bouquets for both akito and haruna got a lil KICK to it. 

everyone in here is really good at crying

honestly idk if this was actually not bad or if i only feel that way bc i let it play in the bg while i did other shit. but can definitely say this was better(?) writing-wise overall compared to FH4 bc the character dynamics/rls are better(?) interweaved alongside the police and forensic procedural stuffs i suppose. it still isn't as good as the first three FH's bc each character ??? had more going for them?? there was better character writing i think whereas the cast after were all just kinda . dry. lmao. the overall ensemble chemistry is also...not very good they're sort of just ?? existing in a vacuum almost.

i do like jacky cai i think she's Gorgeous. there's not a lot about acting i can comment on but it's actually kinda goofy they decided to delete the one chara who has been w this series FROM the beginning i.e., fred cheng, rip dude, what happened to his family??? he just offs himself and ?? ???

the pairings are whatever i do liked the implied pairing between jacky cai and tony hung's characters idk they kinda grew on me over the series,, on the other hand, ben yuen and sisley's chara's rls ups and downs were so silly like idk why they tried to equate an unintentional car accident caused by Choking On Bread w LITERAL FUCKING MURDER but ok. venus and bosco are eh

the cases themselves weren't that great but i did like the "flashback" storytelling where they kinda show somn happening and then go back and fill in the gaps. idk i thought it worked well bc it gave the illusion of the audience being giving clues out of order and working it back together. idk. anyway.

as much as i liked that they did a better job at interweaving cases and characters and multiple povs together bc i feel this makes the show Feel more like a show (as opposed to like idk an anthology) it was so convoluted bc there was so much exposition that most of the time the case itself was lost on me. LMAO

ok we're trying again.

1) i think this is one of my fav kdramas. sure it has its flaws but it also has a lot of heart and i fuck w that!! this was an immensely sincere story about love and family and healing.

2) love the contrast btwn the 2 main families and how they are as diff as they are similar. loved that dahae didnt feel belonged in her family bc their rls was transactional and loved that ilhong realised she loved dahae like a daughter after almost losing her.

3) evry1 got their own stories which is great! but i wanted to see how grace and uncle's story :(

4) maybe it's not immediately obvious but gwiju's power is sO well written. i rlly liked the concept of "returning to a happy moment in the past". gwiju losing his powers to depression bc it consumed his entire life and all his happy memories were tainted. him regaining those moments after making peace w his past, that maybe losses aren't always permanent. him bringing those moments to his loved ones so they could also be happy :')

5) i like donghee. i dont think the fat suit was okay and i cant say whether the experiences were depicted well but i thot the chara was sincere. i Love her speech about her mom's dreams ruining hers and how it was killing gwiju. "dream" referring to both the mom's greed and her literal precognitive dreams. donghee frames the dreams as the cause of the tragic events rather than a warning and she's right.

6) i love her rls w grace. i love their enemies And friends schtick. i wish they were also lovers.

7) idk why this needs to be said but this is one of those loopy "time travel"s where past and future affect each other bidirectionally in a cycle so there wont be "time effects" bc its not based on the idea that time is linear. so no, dahae isnt a random nobody gwiju decided to save. he saved her bc he fucking loves her, bc when he fell in love w her, he had already grieved his wife for 13 years. 

its a manic pixie romance but the dream girl is a boy.

i actually watched this days ago but completely forgot about writing a review for it lmfao the movie is kinda...forgettable? not bc the story itself is poor or didn't have substance it was more like the execution was kinda flat for me. honestly my biggest takeaway is that michieda shunsuke and fukumoto riko ARENT meant to be in any of the things they star in together ? LOL

i mean i still cried a little but that's only bc im an empath. kamiya toru is a sweetie but he also had zero character depth and was literally oFF SCREENED.

quickly:

1) this was fun and silly park shinhye i never doubted you!! the final confrontation scenes weRe underwhelming tho lol.

2) the lack of dissonance for justitia between her real look and kang bitna's look is so funny like she genuinely doesnt care that she will no longer look like herself?? ik she said she's happy with kbn's looks but even when she "died" and returned to hell she STILL looked like kbn LOL isn't she supposed to revert to her original body in hell?? ? idk i always think abt it bc even daon never seems to be bothered that he loves a demon in someone else's body and he . never rlly asks either LMAO??

3) one of my fav scenes is when justitia finally makes a proper ruling and she hears the victims' families Thank her for the first time. that look of happiness and surprise on her face as she cries for daon and the victims. on the one hand, it's obviously an emotional scene. on the other hand, the fact that the public switched up on their view of her bc she finally did her damn job is so fuckin funny to me

4) i liked that justitia came to redefine her understanding of justice. that it isnt just about punishment but also closure for the victims and their families is very sensible. it does feel like she's rlly Become the judge of justice, Literally. i liked that she reaches a balance rather than becoming wholly humanised bc she still believes criminals deserve a beating

5) the romance is a little flat for me its not Bad its just...the story centres justitia and her shenanigans so there's not a lot of her and daon moments LOL. they are cute sometimes but they also never rlly leave the awkward getting to know each other stage for me.

6) i knew they werent gonna commit with the daon goes berserk plot LOL he keeps his humanity and his morals and he gets to bag a baddie ?

7) bael is kinda hot i kinda get it

8) justitia and gabriel becoming pals Is actually very cute. love it

9) satan is also kinda hot idk

im sorry you boring bitches dont like pain and misery and death but those are my three favourite things for fictional men and i gobbled that shit up like a decade-long starved bitch lETS GO

1) once again back to GLAZE my acting king even in a ""romcom"" he's delivering crying screaming sobbing throwing up covered in blood. im so sorry he's just sooo good at crying his beautiful expressive eyes, his tragic boy microexpressions, and his knack for homoerotic scenes w his male costars have captivated me.

2) hae jo is a silly lonely commitment-fearing, avoidant-attachment, flirty, mouthy, suave, unpredictable, reckless FLIGHT RISK but i liked it lmfaoo it really embodies the show's theme of finding yourself and how he's so afraid of abandonment he Literally runs away first. the shoe symbolism is just so simple but Fitting.

3) each of the mcs' rls are Great. all lonely and lost and touch-starved in some way, and all end up becoming each other's strength. i dont have space to wax poetic for every rls but hae jo and heung's ended up being quite?? soft? i liked that they balance each other out: heung yearning for hae jo's freedom and hae jo missing the one thing he's always wanted that heung has (a family). i liked that heung and hae jo ditched jaemi to have their own road trip and that was healing to both of them in a way. i liked that jae mi ended up being the "kidnapper"in that case LMAO. 

4) Loved the poetic irony of hae jo and jaemi accurately prophesying each other's fate. hae jo whimpering that he wants to live as hes dying is...very heart wrenching. 

5) i love the theme of "abandoned lonely orphans" finding each other and i Love hae jo's line about love being passed down and that they wouldnt be good parents bc they never received familial love (he's not wrong but he's also not right). 

6) everyone in here is just Very good at crying. hae jo's monologue to bongsook was...So Good. and jaemi crying when everyone had her back :(

the thing is, this was super fun the first ten eps and then it rLLY dragged its feet for the last 22 eps SO! i just found myself thinking "can this arc end already" evERY arc and i also found myself feeling Bored a lot of the time :/ its Not a bad show it was just not very exciting or intriguing. it was fun at times but just didnt . rlly do anything for me unfortunately. the worst arc was definitely miaomiao and that stupid love bracelet i cannot stress how much that irked me and it went on for loNG ENOUGH.

i enjoyed the main four + lil shoot and their little found family schtick! but like a rlly normal regular amount idk like i care them but i also didnt give a fuck when they died (and came back lol). i actually found liu fuyi dying and being revived TWICE and no one giving a fuck funny as hell like ??? what are the stakes. the resentful woman stuff was actually done reasonably well like i enjoyed the lore but the actual worldbuilding was kinda silly LMAO why did the characters power up so easily and why tf do they just automatically kno how to use their powers ? miaomiao becoming OP within five mins of a scene was insane.

the final ep being a speedrun of real ziqi's lore felt a little out of left field even tho they did enough foreshadowing for me to clock the author was ziqi. its just bc they crammed it all in that last ep, the pacing felt rushed and mu yao and liu fuyi had Zero "closure" w the main plot and even w the two mc's and it was just very . flat? the whole isekai thingo was also just a thing that happened lmfao i feel like this is pre typical of cdramas (kinda like hkdramas) but at the same time i wished they'd given me more for somn that was clearly so high budget.

oh yeah that's the thing: this drama was beautiful. costumes, hair, colours, cgi, animation, music. the production was gorgeous so there is that! my favourite costume is mu sheng's black and gold robes with the fire patterns at the bottom. good stuff.

once again tvb's OBSSESSION with rape <3 i hope every writer at that fuckass company loses their job <33

anyway. this was an awright revenge drama. as i like to repeat, no revenge drama has ever left me sated before, it just all feels so underwhelming, and this was kinda like that too lol. the final shutdown with vivian was anticlimactic but at lEAST it didn't feel rushed to me, so the ending was not as bad as 99% of tvb dramas. it just...fell kinda flat, esp after the first half where wilson allegedly died. i think it was obvious he was still alive and will come back for his own revenge but he kinda amounted to nothing and then got himself killed so... that was nothing either lmao.

and tbh the writing for this drama falls into a very cliche/old-fashioned way like having vivian be the final boss bc she was Jealous of moon garnering affection from everyone including wilson, who she liked, and deliberately drugging her and transporting her to wilson's door so she would be Brutally Raped!!!! was fuckin despicable ik a male writer when i see one. its just so fucking tired, the motivation for somn so heinous being Male Fucking Attention. i honestly wished she was written instead to be the genuine granddaughter of that tycoon who was treated like crap bc i mean, HE's a crappy person, and reuniting w moon kindered her own sense of vengeance whereby they both worked together to destroy all these ugly evil males instead. but! well.

i feel zero remorse for her and dislike anyone who thinks she's an innocent play in moon and her sister's rape. i do enjoy the irony that is her being nicknamed the luckiest woman while actually being unlucky to high hell.

i do support the killing and maiming of one's rapist. idc that it wasn't priscilla who killed that rapist, they shouldn't have arrested her period.

anyway. all rapists should die with their castrated dicks shoved down their throats. end

 i have a lot to say so dot points it'll be:

1. i feel like this was paced rlly weirdly like it was both too slow and too fast but it happens in chunkS? idk i saw that the show had to be cut down from 40eps so maybe thats why it felt so choppy at times. it just didnt retain my excitement or motivation and i find that a shame bc the premise seemed so intriguing.

2. the character writing was kinda ?loose? like there were missing bits? i think the events that brought down song mo were a little . contrived? it just didn't feel very natural, like in the context of storytelling, it just felt so clunky and random and "planted"—not bc it was a plot devised by the villains but more like the writers just inserted this arc here without brushing out the edges idk how to explain it it just kinda sprung up and was . underwhelming. i had all this anticipation that his "descent" was more grandeur as in Insanely Soap Opera (it was only medium).

3. behind every useless incompetent ugly good-for-nothing man is a talented beautiful intelligent wise woman. this is literally true across every fuckin couple except the main two LOL.

4. every single bg chara and rls was so bad they were SO boring and idc about them!! the villains weren't crazy enough for me and the political manoeuvres just felt silly. song han specifically was just a stupid poser, glad he fuckin croaked.

5. i did like the running theme of women empowerment and the explorations of different paths each of the women take in a sociopolitically misogynistic society: shude, who chooses to remain single; dou zhao, who is an intelligent businesswoman; the empress, who rightfully wants to kill her spouse; ansu, who Does kill her spouse, etc. etc. 

6. ik patriotism is a given in a historical drama but ? the king is a fuckin idiot

7. the crown princess was funny as fuck tho <3

8. it IS a shame that white-haired song mo was short lived :( i do like the actor even tho i think his crying may need some work?