I’m up at 0130 watching Find Yourself and I have so many issues right now!!! But can’t stop watching…@saya and @missvictrix definitely have some ‘splaining to do. (Good thing they already did!)

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    I really liked FY! It handled some real world issues really well while remaining entertaining. All the characters were also very likeable!

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      Me too!!! As the show progressed, I liked pretty much all characters. They all felt mostly real.
      Ally, which episode are you at?? hope you get your explanations from them. Haven’t read their blog yet.

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        I finished ep 7 before finally making myself go to sleep—it took every ounce of will power I had though! I’m always acutely aware of inappropriate relationships at work and struggled with the boss-insubordinate set up here. I kept watching to see how it would be handled. Apart from not liking that—and how Yuan Song basically threatened her for rape if she didn’t agree to date him (doesn’t matter if it was supposed to be a joke that’s the elephant in the room, right?), I do really like the couple here, and they are selling it, hook, line, and sinker! I keep wondering where I’ve seen this guy—does he look familiar to anyone else? Looked up his filmography and I don’t think I’ve watched anything else he’s been in. Oh!!! I just figured it out. He looks like the kpop idol on Her Private Life! That was bothering me! Glad I got it settled. Lol. So, forbidden secret relationship ups the ante for me and adds the conflict that I can’t say no to. So it’s like I’m totally against the set up, but like it anyway. Kind of like the main FL. Lol.

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          Initially it did bother many of us. The way I understand is that they have a relationship outside work (even before he joins the company). Even though they are not close, they know each other and there is a blur. And technically he doesn’t report to her. From what I remember he is part of the design team while she is administrative head. It’s up to his manager to get him to do his work and report on time.
          I completely missed the threat part. 😱. Have to rewatch. I think they both have a playful teasing side that comes out when they are together. As a couple they both were flawed and have a long way to go.
          And personally I liked the drama a lot more after mid point. (I can’t spoil it for you). You will know when you get there.
          Btw, some of us call our ML ‘Little Fox’ :))

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          I also thought he looked familiar but thought he looked like a young Jerry Yan. But now that you said the kpop idol, he does! But with better posture and while both scrawny, he looks more fit for some reason lol.

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    I have extreme mixed feelings about that show 😂 I agree re: the realistic issues and relatable characters; the dialogues were well written too and most characters are likeable, no evil SL here – just a very annoying one. But the FL took a really long time to mature, and every scene and overall conflict drag 4 more episodes than they need to. Would love to hear your thoughts after you finish! My favorite character is the psychology professor friend!

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      She was also my favorite. I loved the scene when they were eating dinner at the FL house and she was explaining her thoughts about marriage and women’s roles to the mother who has a very classical/archaic thought on the matter.

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      I’m so surprised that everyone is so charitable of the SL, to me he was evil and the fact that everyone basically thought what he was doing was appropriate was actually the biggest gripe I have with the show.

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        Haha I would agree even if my terminology is different lol he is so manipulative!!!

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        **ALLY DONT READ**

        I agree he was manipulative but don’t think he is evil. He believed he is the right choice for her and that she would eventually choose him. He was confident about his choices and actions because the society aligned with him( I think that’s what the show was highlighting). He would never hurt her and make her miserable for his own sake. You could see that he was not happy when he eventually found out they both cannot be happy.
        She was not an object that he wanted to possess. He wanted her to love him. His methods were clearly questionable but I never thought he was evil.
        Towards the end you can see how good of a friend he became to her, with his quirks et al. He made mistakes and he grew. He annoyed me but I never hated him.

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          **SPOILER**

          OK, I agree evil is not quite the right word. But he is one detestable MF of a character if I ever saw one. He isn’t any better to me than any of the archetypical 2nd leads. He undermined the main couple from the get go (he was the one who suggested a secret relationship) under the guise of being helpful. Sure, he believed himself to be the better fit for the FL and others also let him get away with his dirty tricks because they also believed that (another gripe of the show tho I think it also stemmed from the fact that FL never actually bothered explaining her own feelings so people just piled assumptions on her), but it doesn’t actually excuse his manipulative behavior and his actions indicate his fundamental belief that the FL is incapable of making the best decision for herself and he needed to save her. GOD THE MISOGYNY. Sure he realized in the end, she couldn’t be happy with him and he chose to let go, but that’s both for himself and for her and he never really apologized for his manipulation. I can’t forgive the fact that no one held him accountable for his dirty tricks. And in the end, the FL still didn’t realize she had been treated with such disrespect and still defended him as a good person. Gahhh, he makes me so mad! The level of patronizing is so unbelievable. If he wasn’t such a good uncle, I don’t know that I could have finished the series.

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            **SPOILER**

            And how do many of his actions is also a huge disrespect to the ML, like him buying the necklace for the FL to pretending to be the actual boyfriend in front of her college friends. Maybe this is something personal to my own preferences, but I HATE and cannot condone people whose treatment of others is so arbitrary. Who cares if you treat those you like nicely? Anybody is capable of that. It’s how you treat others outside of that circle that speaks volumes about your character and his character is rotten.

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            wow I guess I ff-ed too much and erased much of this from my memory haha but agree with you. His kind of scheming is not confrontational, maybe that’s why I didn’t associate him with the evil SL archetypes at first, but the consequences are the same!!

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            You definitely had a different response to the 2ML compared to me. I am with @mayhemf on this one that he was not evil but a very flawed character that grew and learned as the drama progressed. He made huge mistakes and did some very wrong things but by the end he realized his errors and matured. One of the themes of the drama was learning and maturing and that’s what I liked about the drama. All the characters were quite flawed (some more than others) but each character developed and grew and matured as the drama progressed. I loved that he gracefully bowed out at the end because he realized he couldn’t make her happy and them being friends was the best for her and himself. That alone showed how much he had matured and developed from the beginning of the series to the end.

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            @trinpie @mayhemf I admit I could be overly critical of 2nd ML, and I also do appreciate that all the characters are flawed and a huge theme of the show was growth. It is true that in the end, he bowed out because he realized he couldn’t make her happy, but is it really growth if he still doesn’t believe (or at least this was never made explicit) that he did anything wrong ? That he believes the only thing wrong with his approach was that he was barking up the wrong tree? And not how underhanded his tactics were or how misogynistic his intentions were (eg. believing the FL can’t think for herself)?

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            I think you have to decode motive – in drama and in life – before writing people off as definitely bad or even definitely good. In reality, we’re all inconsistent mixes of our good and bad qualities, and some things are very bound to personality traits, as I think is the case with LM. Apparently one of the benefits of age (lol) is that I’ve learned to accept that people are super complicated, and so my feelings about them are allowed to be, too.

            I can understand how you feel though – I initially had a really strong reaction to him as well, and I am still O_O about some of the drama’s moments, but after talking it out for a long time and being shown other sides of it, my attitude to LM has mellowed and I can appreciate that he’s a really well-drawn character, even if I was yelling at him for half the show.

            I think it’s also worth keeping in the back of your mind that these various relationships emerge from a prevailing cultural paradigm (and one that is distinctly non-western) – one the show openly sets out to challenge. I think that it’s very difficult for a drama to 100% get it right, but FY did a great job and I found it very personally relatable!

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            Oh you can definitely be critical @myriver as that’s the joy of drama watching, we all have different opinions and experiences as we watch. You just have a different opinion and there is nothing wrong with that!

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            @saya thanks for sharing your thoughts. i never said he is a bad person, i just find him detestable and manipulative and lament the fact that no one really held him accountable for his behavior. i do agree that this particular character trait is something i am especially sensitive to. is LM as a character realistic? 100%! if i knew him in real life, i would cut him out because his actions would be a deal breaker especially because he never once thought what he did was wrong (he just gave up because he realized he couldn’t make the FL happy). i guess i just wished someone on the show at least shared my view point (well, i guess technically YS and stepmom do, though it was never very explicitly stated).

            to be fair, i binged watched this show in like 2 days, so clearly other parts of the show made up for my dislike for LM’s actions towards the OTP. i understand everyone has their own perspectives of the show. tbh, i loved the brother and niece relationship and wished the drama developed their story more but i know it’s not a popular opinion lol.

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            @myriver it’s okay, we can all like what we like, and every drama pushes different buttons for different people. I acknowledge I’m an outlier with these kinds of dramas, because I relate to them from weird and obscure angles.

            I’m more shocked you did this in 2 days!!1?! I watched non-stop and it still took me 5 days!!!

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        I agree, although my husband says this is totally in line with what most men would do if they REALLY liked someone.😆 I was interested in someone else when I met him and he spent his time basically stalking who the guy was, what he did, and then seeing if he stacked up. He thought he had a chance and so asked me out, knowing this. Turns out, he did! The big difference is that he didn’t masquerade as a friend, he was honest and said he was interested from the start.

        My laugh out loud moments so far are all because of the second ML though. Like when he’s doing tai chi in the face mask certainly jealous of of the FL. I was rolling.

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    personal taste cannot be explained XD

    …even if you use 10K words

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      Folks ’round here still curse Temp of Love, yet I will defend it to my dying breath!

      (actually I won’t, because I don’t think subjective things need ‘defending’, but you know what I mean!)

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        I couldn’t continue TOL. Sorry! Lol. I loved it at first and if they didn’t shoe horn the mom’s in there, I would have been fine with it.

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          haha, exactly – taste is inexplicable and subjective!

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