mooc

Not same,

FL knows TQ all her life since she was a toddler.
Feelings can be toxic. At some point some one chases & it can get sticky.

but that's not the root of the problem here.
TQ can chase the FL all he wants, it can be toxic as hell if needed, a trope well used in drama. That is also not a problem since it's a plot devise to move the drama.

The problem here is the nature of their relationship and how the FL sees him. Even after that TQ continuing to pursue here - he comes across as scum.

yes, if she said she sees him as a friend, this would have been so much better.

Pursuing a girl who is in love with someone else & sees the guy as Elder Brother felt awkward.
It might have been better is the FL did not know TQ since she was a toddler. She knew & her feelings for him were probably set from a very young age. That adds to the ikkyness.

Rejection + Elder brother and him still pursuing her felt awkward.

Thank god I don't watch Thai dramas, don't think I will survive those kinds of plots.

Nothing wrong with growing up as brother-sister relationship and then finding true feelings. In fact when you are really young, romantic feelings are not what would keep a boy and girl together. So, there is nothing in that trope.

Here it's different. Characters are tens of thousands of years old.
The FL knows she stands with respect to each character. To continuously hit on a girl who thinks of you as elder brother felt really awkward - may be it's just me who felt that way.

FL lead never called the ML as elder brother.

FL told TQ that he is like elder brother to her and she has no other feelings for him.

Simply ignoring this fact and try and compare what QM did to chase FL to what TQ is doing is not right.

People pursue each other, thats fact of life.
Brother pursuing sister is messed up - trying to justify that by comparing to other guys pursuing her is simply wrong comparison.

Don't want to poke fun..

But imagine if a guy brings a girl home to introduce to his family and the girl looks exactly like his sister...:)

It's a bit of a head scratcher.

Brother, sister, father, mother - these words have a purity and an absolutely safety in them. You don't need to second guess the love and affection in these words.

Anyway, this is better than another drama Dr Cutie.
In that the FL stabs the ML, runs away with his brother, has a fling with the brother and gets back with ML.
It was shocker.
Is it common in some Asian countries that brothers of boyfriend are potential romantic interest & Vice Versa...
I would think the GF of your brother is absolutely the last girl you would go out with even if they are broken up...

What is a man who is related to you but you have no romantic feelings for?
Father or brother.
We need to take the FL words for it & not twist it to suit our narrative. A brother sister relationship is not always by blood, it can happen due to circumstances - in this case the FL knew him right since she was a toddler. in some cases it can be cohabitation since childhood etc etc.

QM falling for HC and his chasing her does not compare to this.
Their prior history is different and HC does not view QM as sibling.

May be it's a cultural thing and I am reading it wrong but when a girl tells a guy she views as an elder brother - the chasing should stop.
I can understand if she treats him as a friend and thats a window open for a future romance but elder brother/father figure....thats a complete stop at that point.

Somehow it does not come across that way,

There are many internal thoughts of his in present timeline where he is lamenting on why Hou Chi did not choose him.

Take his romantic feelings for the FL, he comes across as a wonderful character to root for.
Or the authors could have decided to make him as friend to Fl, it would not have felt creepy.

Fl explicitly tells in Episode 9 that she sees him as an elder brother and hugs him as she would an elder brother who would be there for her.

Re-watch that episode and let me know if you still think the same :)

It's not intentional to make it feel perverted,
it comes across as such since the FL explicitly defines how she sees him.

Tian Qi character is wonderful & funny if not for his hots for a girl who thinks of him as a brother. That single flaw turned him into a creep.

It's not that he is chasing that is bothering me.
You need such kind of characters to spice up the drama & we can all hate those characters as it's intended.

What bothered me here was the existing nature of their relationship. The FL sees him as a brother and him just keeping at it feels perverse.

This sly incest trope is very common in Cdramas. It does not add depth to the drama except make it feel creepy.
This incidentally is the 4th or 5th Cdrama this year where the FL treats a guy as brother, calls his as brother and the idiot confesses. And when you look at the physical interactions with them - it feels wrong since FL thinks as brother & the brother has hots for his sister.

Define forced?

At this point he is forcing it. She already rejected him and chose some one else.
Anything this guy is doing after that is forcing himself.

And that's not my main objection to this.
If he was a normal friend and is there for her and in the process she starts liking him, that's a different trope and acceptable..
BUT
She treats him as brother & he does not treat her as sister.
She lost her memories, he is looking to take advantage of that and lure her. Imagine sister loosing memories and her brother trying to get into her pants.

Him being there for her at this point does not come from a good intention, unlike Hou Chi's father who is there for the FL just as a father.
just as an example, Imagine Hou Chi father after revealing that she is is not his daughter, starts hitting on her romantically - creepy, isn't it?
That's exactly how it feels when Tian Qi is trying to score on a girl who thinks of him as brother.

These kinds of tropes leave a bad taste in the mouth & come across as border line incest, especially when you consider Tian Qi would have held FL as a baby.
In Cdramas, these kinds of trope's are common & it's very uncomfortable watching it.

Tian Qi's obsession with FL is irritating.

FL looks at him as her brother. Imagine thinking of a girl who thinks of you as her brother in such perverse manner.
That he would not stop that line of thinking even after the FL made it clear how sees him is a fatal flaw in him.

At this point his affection towards the FL comes across as perverse.

Agreed, both the ML and FL in Eternal love were seasoned actors.

That does not reflect what happened,
he could not protect her always & he takes lot of punishment for her as well.

Missing the main point here - FL had to go through that misery & it was her choice to go through that misery to become a goddess and not the ML's

Lets not confuse the cause and effect.

the cause of FL misery is because she chooses to become more powerful,
the effect of FL choosing to become powerful not only put her through misery but also dragged in ML and caused him misery.
All the horrible things happened to her stems from her choice to go through the misery to gain more power.
What exactly did ML gain? broken heart?

Once she gains power, she chooses to forget the misery and leaves the ML high and dry.
She is a goddess and she knew what ever happened is NOT because ML did but because she CHOSE to become a goddess.

Well, she because a goddess, threw her husband and child and in dustbin and carried on with her life.

FL wanting to become powerful dragged in ML into her misery - that is central point which the ML mother hammers into FL after the death of ML.

What exactly did FL gain after the misery? - yeah, LOT of power.
What exactly did ML gain after the misery FL choices put him through?

have not read it,
is it better than the drama?

Thats the whole point, it was what she HAD to go through, whether the ML was there or not.
She chose to go through that tribulation, let's not forget that. What happened to her was not what the ML did but what would happen to her anyway. It was destiny as part of her process to become a goddess.

After the ML dies, his mother has a talk with the FL when she refuses to hand over the body. That scene explains how horribly FL treated the ML.

Well, the story goes as below.
- FL undergoes tribulation to become godess
- As part of that she has to suffer
- ML accompanies her in her tribulation and even protects her a lot of times during her tribulation
- Her tribulation ends when she kills her self, the ML tries to accompany her
- Then FL becomes goddess and chooses to forget her husband and child and removes those memories as part of becoming a goddess (first shitty thing the FL does)
- ML does not know FL has become a goddess and is alive (at least thats how I remember it)
- After seeing her, he realizes who she is but does not tell her straight away (should he have? may be but it was FL choice to forget it not ML)
- During this whole process, she is using ML love her to make him dance to her tunes to do things important to her, which incidentally have nothing to do with ML
- When she regains her memory, she gets angry at the ML, not sure why & it was pathetic to see a grown man begging her on her knees when she was the one who abandoned him and their child

After he dies, then suddenly she remembers how much she loved him, as if the viewers believe that.

In a love story, the main thing to look for is who is willing to go to the lengths to protect that love. In Eternal love it was only the ML willing to walk that journey. The Fl abandoned and abused the love of ML.
Just because she regrets his death and drinks herself silly for few years after his death should not change the fact she treated him like dirt when he was alive.

they should rename the dramas as 'seduction of smiling'

between keeping secrets and abandoning loved one, which one is worse?
Understand your point but remember, it was what the FL had to go through to become a goddess. She got what she wanted and evolved into a Goddess, what did the ML get? And to make it worse, the last arc where she remembers and somehow holds ML accountable for what she went through in her tribulation to become a goddess - it was just shitty.

That's why mua opinion that Eternal Love did not the right spot for me.