Hooked On the Kpop

Love Me - SHOWNU X HYUNGWON

Bill Nighy

Hugh Laurie

James McAvoy

John Lithgow

Katherine Parkinson

Keira Knightley

Kit Harrington

Leo Woodall

Mackenzie Crook

Mathew MacFadyen

Matt Berry

Nick Frost

Paul Whitehouse

Peter Serafinowicz

Riz Ahmed

Shirley Bassey

Simon Armitage

Simon Pegg

Stephen Fry

Stephen Mangan

So far, the series has a light, breezy feel to it, but it's grounded by more serious topics and rounded performances, while still being incredibly funny.

The characters are all a little quirky and very well defined imho. I ADORE Chia Kai and I did from the moment we meet him. He's a little hapless and awkward but he's incredibly kind and brave. (The moment where he confronts Hao Hao's father and you see him wince as he's accusing him, but he doesn't back down is a nice illustration of his bravery, as well as the whole being taken in by the police more than once because of misunderstandings, but not letting it stop him try to help people). And I love the way he moves? Just his funny little jog, almost, and I don't know how to describe it. Made me think of how Duang moved in Duang With You (not that it's exactly the same, but that it's a little out of the ordinary)

And Da Wei is a great character, too! He's dogged but also kind and he's scared of cockroaches and there is clearly some painful history with his family (I thought the actor did a very good job of conveying that in one particular scene)

The actors are lovely together, too! They have really nice chemistry, both in their bickering but also the scenes with some romantic tension

And the premise is soooooooo delicious to me:

Many people have the superpower of seeing something invisible. Chia Kai can't see ghosts, but he can see the different colored threads connecting people. The more threads, the more bonds a person has. Chia Kai has seen countless threads, but he hasn't been connected to anyone at all. He can't figure out why but has accepted himself as a loner. However, because of a chaotic incident, he meets a policeman named Ta Wei and realizes that one silver-grey thread has grown from him to him, connecting them together!

this was totally on purpose. This HAD to have been done on purpose right? The earbuds being RED like a RED THREAD ????

Next, their line changed colors when Da Wei suggested they move in together.

Then, Da Wei bought strawberries which Chia Kai thinks is just a coincidence even though he noticed at the beginning of episode four that Da Wei didn't have any fresh food.

Which gave us the very loud strawberry boxers.

So I like that we are visually seeing Da Wei fall in love with all these little red notes (and pink clothes) even if we can't see the same red lines as Chia Kai.

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.