this was what it exactly promised to be, not too dramatic, and not too unrealistic, I loved the characters, and their friendship
the bullying wasn't shown as too severe, the game was like The Genius/The Devils Plan, the girls made alliances, there were betrayals and there were great plot twists that warmed my heart

I really loved the cast and characters, each one had their charms and the friend group easily became a friendship everyone envied enough to want to join, not to break xD

the backstory of harin and jauen was predictable, I knew it from harin's first words "do you know the orphanage", and that story was too flat to explain why harin went crazy.. so the main problem was the teacher, I wish they dived deeper there, like yeah adults do effect kids, and yeah orphans are easily miss treated cuz the adults think they're teaching them survival skills
what confused me was, was that teacher the orphanage teacher or the schools? and why were they different
I also wanted more about her adoptive family, her grandma loved to play games, and the parents never treated her as their real daughter, especially since the dad/son was put in a coparision game against young harin

sooji always lived by a pattern, she never made any deep connections and always played a social game to fit in, and that's why in ways, she enjoyed breaking the pyramid game as much as harin enjoyed making it

jauennie was too precious, she was genuine, she was awkward and she had a heart of gold, I loved how her first impression seemed like the outcasted bully, I loved how sooji was sucked into that game
I wanted more of those things, more misunderstanding and more "mind" bullying, they didn't want it to be too graphic, so overall the atmosphere of the drama was youtful, though I do hate too much extreme gore, but still she was the daughter of an army guy, he should've taught her how to fight xD

so I wanted more tension, more side games, games they lost and games they won, and I really wanted more screentime for their friendships, I was lowkey waiting for that amusement park date

this became my "March" fav drama and easily joined my best of 2024
the ost was great, makjang drama lvl quality, and I wouldn't mind fast binging this again, I LOVE female centered plots, i feel like in the last year they became more scarce, especially diverse and well layered female characters
I'm also interested in the webtoon a bit, I read that many things were different, maybe it'll give the heavy angst this was missing, though I wouldn't change a thing