radiantst4r

[radiantst4r]

happy late nol day maybe if we manifest hard enough he’ll come back to us

[radiantst4r]

This is a very weird summary to be honest..I wouldn't say it's about a friend group. And honestly, a lot of the important plot points only reveal themselves later. I think it's more accurate to just say it's about these people who all have their own individual issues with others and themselves. Everyone handles their trauma differently, some aren't even aware of what is going on with themselves, others wrong other people constantly and harm them mentally.

One thing that was always theme was abuse and the consequences of it. Later on, it gets revealed there's some systematic and generational sexual assault going on and the higher ups are able to cover it up with their money.

(spoilers ahead)

Shin-ae, the main character, gets tangled up in this mess, especially because of the evil mother who's basically like Cersei from Game of Thrones. She hates the partiarchy (because it's the reason why she wasn't considered a heir for the family company) but also harms other women. She covers a sex offender and also gives them date rape drugs, on top of abusing her son and stepson.

Shin-ae is resilient and manages to not get manipulated by the evil mother who (as the OP mentioned) plays mind tricks with her, but one character in particular foils her and is being lured into the toxic environment where women's bodies are being exploited. She's craving love and older people from the high society take advantage of that.

At the beginning of I Love Yoo, a guy tries to drug Shin-ae but thankfully, his plans get altered. This happens again at another party, except it's revealed to be all planned. So this was from the very beginning on a reoccuring theme but it was difficult to see how the company higher ups are behind it because they hide it so well. Just like the abuse inflicted on relatives etc.

Something similar happened in the past and the girl who got sexually assaulted killed herself, the culprits never paid for their crime.

If you're familiar with the Burning Sun Scandal, some people have said it's pretty similar to that. The Burning Sun was a bar in South Korea and several women were drugged and sexually assaulted by some men who were from the company that started this bar. Police officials were bribed and so it took long until the women were finally heard and the crimes were uncovered. In I Love Yoo there's a character who works towards exposing the 2 companies that drug, abuse people and prep young girls for sexual assault/sa them. Sex trafficking is a huge theme basically. On top of several years of child abuse (one of which happened in a mental health facility).

The story is pretty much about these cycles and crimes not repeating on our existing cast. They're all wounded, naive, some full of hatred for themselves and others...it's hard to find common ground and fight against all the injustice. Let alone even find out about it. Just overall a complex story with complex characters. And we all hope to see our favorite characters get out unharmed (or not even more harmed), get some therapy and a good life but I Love Yoo has a knack for breaking our hearts.

what is I love Yoo about? it seems to be among your favourites

OK so. It's a bit hard to sum up. But basically it's about a group of friends (Shin-Ae mainly, but also all her friends, their own friends, cousins, ex-girlfriends, etc) and a coming-of-age story. Kinda.

Like, Shin-Ae's father is an alcoholic single father who's trying his best to quit drinking but his job is very stressful, and he mainly works nightshifts which means sleeping during the day, so she had basically no support during her formative years and she had to keep the house clean and all by herself. Her friends have evolved to become quite the extroverts and drag her to a party, during which she headbutts with a guy, spills food on another, and gets to meet the second half of the future friend group. Thanks to the upperclass members of the friend group, she then gets an internship at a place where one of the friends is basically the heir, but there's a whole sibling rivalry thing with his half brother who is very badly treated by the whole family. One of the friends tries to ask her out and she's like very awkwardly saying nope but he takes it well and there's no bad blood. She constantly fears she's going to ruin her relationship with everyone in the group.

And then there's also the fact that the mother/step-mother of the two half-brothers is toying with Shin-Ae in a mind game with her sons, and recently we learned some pretty horrible things about what she did to her own son, but anyway there's the whole storyline with Shin-Ae getting to know people better and half the time it's more a cautionary tale than anything.

I'm doing a very bad job at describing it because I don't, myself, know what it's about, honestly. And what I do know about I don't want to spoil. Let's just mention that at some point one of her friends puts on a bear mascot costume and freaks out a creep so much he faints (said creep we know is awful from another chapter but at that point i'm pretty sure he was just arguing with a vending machine)

And the Ivan killing his son look-alike panel obviously.