Kim Yoonmi 김윤미 金潤美

I did not use caps in my post at all. I get you are passionate and all of that, but I didn't disparage or say anything personal about you in the post. I said a general statement. Maybe take a step back and breathe? It's a drama and a commentary on the state of Korean marriages and the pressures on women in an allegorical sense. It's also a commentary on how things have changed over time and how things used to be and now are. She literally says in the first episode asking for support from extended family members from her husband, who then ignored her.

Adding cultural notes are things to reflect on. It shouldn't make you that upset.

People have a sub/dom kink in every culture... but in this case, it's not particularly man/woman thing or a particular cultural thing. There is a K-movie about subs and doms. The attachment of certain traits to masculinity isn't true or consistent across cultures, but pulling out my anthropology hat since I have a degree in it.

The idea that masculine is strong, independent, earns a lot of cash and is dominant isn't always true.

All I know is that the husband isn't reading asexual.

Some men like that... but that's more of a kink. She should have gotten a sub as a husband.

The description says he's asexual, but he's not clocking asexual to me, since he seems to have sexual attraction. ED=/=asexuality, though. *sighs* Korea bungled it again. libido and sexual attraction are also not the same thing. Koisenu Futari (Japanese drama) got the Black stripe part of the spectrum right and represented it fairly well in that range. Though both were also aro as well.

Statistically, in general, women are more likely in a het marriage stand to lose more than a man in marriage, with the man's life more than likely to vastly improve. So men are more likely to lose more in divorce—not through alimony, but because they lose resources the woman provides. The only way around this is to set clear boundaries around chores and find a man that can actually do them decently and communicate well. That or go for a straight woman's commune and swear to raise children together without men... I've heard those exist too. (Commune, not cult).

Korean moms/parents might sleep in the same room as their children up to the age of 5. There's a crib designed to sit next to the bed for that. It's not that unusual. Separate rooms for the kids is a luxury of usually the US, not as much in all of Europe. Because independence isn't emphasized as much as warmth (social and physical) for Koreans. Also, generally, the whole lock a baby in a room by themselves thing in US socialization is an invention of mostly industrialization. (Also the rhesus monkey experiments split the US in half along if you should isolate like that.) Even so, swerving that husband makes a lot of sense. (Yoon Park is excellent at playing oblivious AH types. I understand why they hired him, even though he's 10 years her junior in RL.)

But people often judge socialization from other nations as "wrong". Even with that, I think she's still indulging her kids a bit too much but I agree it's due to her being burnt a lot with her husband not taking the slack up and also the dissolving of the extended family unit in Korea where Aunties, grandmothers, etc would take up the slack before, but now it's gone more *cough* nuclear*.

Thanks. Was able to watch with a VPN. And now I'm about 95% sure I watched it as a kid. Probably with my Aunties. Wild.

Black don't crack, Asians don't raisin? There was a medical study about how white people age faster, actually. BTW, I'm Asian.

The award is that's not the worst part of the drama... it gets steadily worse. Haha. Even the characters you semi-like turn into WTH--that action made no sense.

Animal lifetime came first in the drama. Then prime Minister's daughter, then the Sect lifetime, The demon lifetime (added to the drama) is near the end. But really, I preferred the book... The Princess and General lifetime I found super frustrating. I LOVED that one in the book because it had a body swap and some silliness with him? giving birth. I knew it wasn't going to survive to TV, but I thought they'd keep it going for longer... but I suppose too many trans questions came up for the CCP.

You can mostly skip-watch the Mulou tribe stuff and still get it. Felt like Nepotism adds. Some people liked the romance on that side, but I wasn't one of them.

Are there Japanese Closed captions? My Chinese isn't that good. It'll make it easier to translate. But I do understand the Japanese, but I want to not have to do the timing. ^^

Super cute though. lol "She's going to be a work slave to the end."

The plot summary is pretty simple too. lol No kiss at the end.

In New Life Begins they pitched him as ignorant, rather than straight up abusive. and took him to task constantly. Here, they are like, OMG, this abusive behavior is so hot--you know, him secretly and in her face sabotaging her. And that's where I cut out. There isn't any pointing out that his behavior is odd and out of place. This is the opposite of the majority of male leads in stories--they are supposed to be secretly helping the female lead secretly, so I don't get the framing.

BTW, to be clear, I don't mind harems either, like a man being with multiple women, it's the women backstabbing each other part plus him being an AH I dislike. Why are these women fighting for an objectively terrible person?

I mean I fully enjoyed Oh My General with the cooperative wives. But here, it's like... he's not that great, and so there doesn't seem to be a point in fighting for him. If anything, they should be helping her escape the harem so there is no threat of competition.

BTW, the abusive husband take down in New Life Begins was also great. I enjoyed that.

Occasionally in c-dramas you have... well, last night you were very energetic. Also they've flipped the trope, such as with the Eternal Love (Not the ten miles of Peach Blossoms one.)

Occasionally, they also put in, see you again tonight. lol

After all, she said, "I'm sorry, I won't bring it up again." And if they had done it, then the clothes would have been across the floor, instead of neatly hung up, and she'd have said something like, "I enjoyed last night, Do you want to do it again sometime?"

BTW, I stan a man that can hold off for better reasons.

I agree on that count. And she tried to make it up to him. They also showed she had feelings for him by was slow on the uptake. Though she really should have sat down and talked to him, and made it absolutely clear why, and how she felt about things, instead of trying to poison him.

But yes, I do think the whole deserves to get her family killed while ignoring the rest of the plot is an odd choice given what was established about her family and the general plot.

Because they didn't do anything, but she tried to convince him into doing it when he didn't want to. He valiantly held off and won.

Applying critical thinking skills here...

So, she was immature on *how* she rejected Rong Yu. I've seen comments that her rejecting Rong Yu when he's so hot, or whatever is so wrong, but that's shallow. She stated her reasons why she didn't want to marry *anyone* she wanted to stay with her family and become a general like her father, loyal to the crown.

That's a fair want. Not everyone wants to have "a man" (nor is straight, BTW.... She's allowed to say no.

But how she rejected Rong Yu and her back and forth was unfair to him. She should have been straight with him, sat him down, communicated clearly she had no romantic interest in anyone. But I have to admit when I was 16, I also was not that great at rejecting people. I didn't know how to do it. I had no model. Think about someone who had a crush on you, but you didn't have a crush on them? Did you have the same ability to gently reject them without help of other people?

So this line is shaky.

However, poisoning him, is over the line. 100% wrong. And she should have been appropriately punished for that. The story got back at her by disabling her hand. The death of her family shouldn't be tied to it.

Her beating the Song Boys up in the alley, 100% justified. They were picking on her and her friends who could not defend themselves. They have more power, and in basic Confucius, they should have some sort of check on them. She's allowed to check people above her who are doing wrong, and by the basic old Chinese laws, they were doing wrong. Some people were here, saying she deserved for her family to DIE because she beat up the Song Boys, but she didn't know who they were at the time. And objectively, the Song Boys were wrong.

I don't get the whole, she should have done nothing in that case and she deserved her family being killed because she's a woman that beat up boys. So what? So if a woman beats up boys picking on weaker people than her, her family deserves to be killed? What? That makes no sense to me. What kind of pro-women statements are that?

Yes, this might have led to their father being angry at her, specifically, but I don't think it's enough to want to kill her family--rather the He family already had a lot of political power, which was demonstrated in the Snow man scene. This is why he wanted to take them down. He wanted more power.

As for the Uncle. I hated him when I saw him. He's a control freak from the first. I don't know if it's intentional on the writing, but he didn't come off that protective of Rong Yu. Instead, he's controlling. So his justification for the whole, "But, but she poisoned my nephew" feels hollow in the story. I'm not sure if something was cut... but his whole writing feels like a power grab away from Rong Yu.

The evidence are these events around the uncle:
- When Rong Yu wanted to marry her, he was against it from the beginning.
- When Rong Yu was humiliated, he insisted on stepping in.
- When Rong Yu said he'd settle it, the Uncle wanted revenge *already* on this.
- When Rong Yu wouldn't eat the pancake the Uncle wanted him to eat, he got upset at him and yelled at him, rather than asking calmly what it looked like.
- When Rong Yu was intellectually disabled, the Uncle saw how close Rong Yu felt towards Jiuling, and instead of simply asking her which pancake he ate, even if he *hated* her, he immaturely forced Rong Yu to eat things he didn't want to eat and locked her out.
- When Rong Yu *got better* when he had contact with Jiuling, and there was evidence of this fact, and Rong Yu's attendants said as much, the Uncle *ignored* them, instead of trying to figure out what he was doing wrong, almost as if he didn't want Rong Yu to recover.
- There weren't that many doctors that visited Rong Yu via the Uncle, nor did he try that hard to find a cure.

To me, story-wise this points to the fact that the Uncle didn't care about Rong Yu at all, has a short temper, and likes being the head of the Astrology department again. I totally disbelieve he wanted to have revenge on Jiuling, because there were a ton of better ways to do that prior. What he wanted was a power grab above all else. The Uncle knows her foolish actions soon after led her hand to being disabled in order to protect Rong Yu. So I don't buy his excuse. She also guided Rong Yu home, and generally has been helping him out. He's way too cold toward Rong Yu prior to justify that reasoning.

Also, I really hate the reasoning, but the actor is so hot, so she's a terrible person for not accepting him. C'mon, look at the characters and their actions.

I'm going to go into some plot details about the female main character below and what I feel is fair and not fair to judge her on... also maybe weaknesses of the writing.

I also think the Uncle character is weak in the drama and needs fleshing out in a few directions.

BTW, I'm not the type that goes with "Everyone agrees." I make judgements based on the contents of the story.

You can edit the comment and put a spoiler tag in, I believe.

I agree and I don't really have primary sexual attraction (ace spec). He's an AH, tbh, not going into too many details, but I skipped out after episode 4 and he became a major AH in that episode. It's not about his looks, it's about his actions and the promise they'll end up together and fall in love after that. If the pacing was slightly better on the drama so one felt it was say, Ruyi's palace, I might forgive the drama, but the events are stacked too fast and close together for the female lead to get anywhere--like prove her innocence (in that incident).

The SML and the female lead feel like the better romantic pair, but the drama doesn't promise that. There was a stronger promise in dramas like Ooku (the old Taiga drama, not the newer ones with the gender switch) and in that the promise was fulfilled elegantly.

I can survive bad subs, well enough, but abusive Male lead characters aren't my thing unless there is a take down promised, such as in New Life Begins. But there is no strong promise here and the writing is making the female character seem less capable than she's meant to be.

I feel like if she had gone through the whole trial thing, and lost, we'd be more invested than her having an empty rescue.