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That scene of Yan Chi running after Qin Wan to explain his side ASAP and Qin Wan recognizing she judged the situation too quickly and apologized... wow, would you look at that, an actual mature back and forth.

Those rant videos definitely contributed to the popularity. 😂 Negative attention is still attention and people were hate watching it too in order to be able to make their rant videos. Literally couldn't escape discussions on that drama when it aired back then which was "good" for the drama since it all adds up to the stats at the end of the day. A drama being dissed is still better than a drama no one cares about for profit purposes.

For sure, people are tired of certain tropes. Sometimes scriptwriters just get lazy and know the fans will defend the drama anyway or they themselves have those values and impose those values onto the characters.

Haha I just want this drama to remain at least an 8 on MDL since it does deserve it with the character set up and cases which will progress the plot and leaves no room for fillers (plus the acting is great).

If you are talking about the C-side, both of their characters were dragged to filth. 😭 For her character, it was more like she should have killed him from the get go (but of course we know that can't happen because the romance needs to happen).

But truly, all of the characters were criticized a ton (even the 3rd leads) because of the issue with the 2nd FL. People at that point didn't really focus on the relationship between the mains because they were more focused on the issue of gods VS humans and the god characters looking down on human characters, being hypocrites, etc. which is on the scriptwriter a lot. The script writer wanted to write a typical 2nd FL villain that viewers should root against, but it ended up backfiring because the 2nd FL's background was too "human" compared to the other characters.

I had a lot of problems with TTEOTM. 🤣 But just mainly how the 2nd FL was treated by the characters in general (due to the script writing) and the type of message it was giving to the viewers. The amount of discussion on classism, sexism, etc. that drama generated though was something else for sure.

Btw, if you guys have the time and want to, do rate the episodes on the episode guide, there are people rating the episodes with 1 star (which I guess is typical with some MDL trolls).

No, but his dad is part of the royal family, and his dad tried to usurped the throne. 💀 It is also why Yan Li is the way he is when he is introduced later on.

Oh boy, Feud was one of those that had script/directing issues for sure. Especially because the characters are gods and gods fighting about love/betrayal are just seen as petty in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, the script kind of failed in making the reason for the feud more legitimate. So, you got people going back and forth between the two and it was going nowhere. Especially because it could have been resolved with communication. If the reason for the feud was something even communication couldn't solve, then the support/understanding from viewers would have been more balance.

Different platforms have different heat index measurement (and they can change every year). iQiyi is for example 10K, Tencent is 30K, etc.

For Tencent, pretty sure it was "Joy of Life 2". It hit like 34K on Tencent.

But you also have to consider the level of these dramas such as B, A, S, S+, etc. A S+ drama for example would be expected to hit 10K on iQiyi just to make a return and those dramas usually have traffic actors/actresses, so they are expected to hit those numbers with fans alone shelling out money.

If a drama doesn't have those types of traffic actors/actresses, they are not really expected to hit those numbers.

The novel is different because dead!Shen Wan's soul ended up in dead!Qin Wan's body. So, it wasn't just having a new identity, it was straight up transmigration. In the novel, SW told him the truth later and he was surprised (if I remember correctly), but it didn't cause conflicts as he understood why she hid that information.

The drama seems to already imply Yan Chi is already figuring things out (which does make sense since it is not transmigration).

I know exactly what you are talking about. 💀 ADWAD is popular for sure but on the C-side, it has definitely been analyzed as the FL ending up like a camera lens for the ML's development. There were not enough introspections spent on the FL and we didn't get to know much about her compared to the ML. And because the scenes of her getting killed were played off as comedy, viewers ended up not taking those scenes seriously. When I see a FL-centric drama where a FL gets hated on for not caring/understanding the ML, I know the scriptwriter has failed in allowing the viewers to see FL as sympathetic. It is very easy for viewers to feel bad for the male characters but so much harder for the female characters especially if the scriptwriter doesn't put extra care into showing why the FLs don't return the MLs' affection right away.

And now you brought it up, I hardly see any dramas when FLs are the ones torturing MLs at first and then having "character development" + pining after the MLs (while MLs are trying to get away). I wonder if this trope gets reversed, if viewers would get mad at the MLs for not returning FLs' affection quickly.

Thank you! Because yes, Qin Wan having a golden finger is part of the "thrill genre" aka for viewers who like seeing a character overcoming their obstacles with their skills and intelligence. It just so happens that this type of characteristic is usually given to male characters, not female characters. Qin Wan is considered a prodigy in the medical field (even her father said if she was a man, she did be able to dominate the field easily).

And yes, Qin Wan was taught by her father since she was young, she has been surrounded by this kind of information since she was a child. In the novel, if I remember correctly, her dad even got other medical professionals to teach her medical skills because he didn't think it was good for her to only know forensic skills as a woman (since it is looked down upon and women was seen as bad omens in this field).

Right? It is always hyping MLs that have done FLs wrong in the beginning because the scriptwriter would add some sad little backstory for the MLs, and viewers start hating on the FLs for not caring or understanding the MLs.

Toxic MLs have a place in media, and it is fine to like them but to act like there aren't a ton of those dramas already especially with the recent releases too.

Here there is an actual balance relationship because Qin Wan recognizes she has to use whoever she can to gain access to the capital and Yan Chi is one of those people. While Yan Chi also sees Qin Wan's worth and wants to use her skills. For once we have a more relatively healthy relationship in a C-drama from the very start when it is more of a rare thing in these idol period dramas. Majority of them start off as enemies to lovers. Just because some of the tortures MLs inflicted onto the FLs are played off as comedy =/= it isn't actually torture. 💀

She has lost weight since Filter (she filmed this drama after Filter). She actually gained weight for Filter for her character while TJC had to lose weight for his character.

Faces can look different depending on the lighting and camera style used during the scenes. This production used multiple different cameras and they also filmed this drama for around 140 days during one of the hottest summers. This cast lost more weight as the drama continued filming because it was that hot. These scenes are also not filmed in order. The scene of Yue Ning and Qin Wan in the carriage seeing Yan Chi in episode 1 for example was actually one of the last scenes they filmed.

It is funny seeing comments like that because it is obvious these are the kind of dramas female viewers in China want to see now. They are sick of MLs torturing the FLs in the beginning of the dramas for whatever reasons and later having "character development". It is also why we will have an influx of female general type dramas airing soon.

I love how there are never complaints when the MLs are written as super intelligent, worldly, has tons of resources because it is seen as normal but FLs having any other agenda but romance is a problem. They probably see Yan Chi as useless because he is not going around killing people. 💤

Story of Pearl Girl has been completely dragged on the C-side as a FL prop drama. I am not going to get into it but there is a reason that a lot of C-netizens didn't like that drama on the C-side and how the FL was treated.

Flourished Peony S1 seemed to be career-oriented at first but S2 has been criticized too with the type of romance/jealousy arcs they focused on, and the type of character FL is becoming.

The type of dramas you are talking about is what we call "false FL-centric dramas" on the C-side. They are sold as these FLs who focus on their careers and revenge but most end up floundering in the middle/the end once the ML gets involved and the FL's narrative goes off the rails for the ML. "The Glory" was one recent example where C-netizens ended up not even wanting the FL to end up with the ML. There were video analyzes people made of how the scriptwriter had to slowly removed everything that the FL gained herself to make that relationship work in the end.

And believe me, I am Chinese and have been watching Chinese dramas since I was young. These current period idol dramas can't even be compared to classic FL-centric dramas like "My Fair Princess" where even with the romance, the female characters are their own established characters with blood and soul.

Nope, they don't use filters on her. There are too many actual cams of her in action especially the past few months with her filming dramas and she has been this size for awhile now. People say she sometimes look "bigger" on screen because she has a rounder face and because she has what we call a "pear-body", so she has to be around 85-90 pounds to fit the camera lens they used in C-drama production to look not "chubby". But she has been around this weight since around 2024 when she was filming for this drama.

Nope, she just lost weight. And it depends on when is the last drama you saw from Li Landi. She has been around this weight since around 2024.

In the drama, she has been ill since she was young, so she passed away a year ago in the beginning of the drama (SW and QW were friends, and their parents were also friends).

In the novel, she was murdered by someone and Shen Wan's soul went into her body s she was also murdered (they don't know each other).

Li Landi uses her own voice for her dramas (the ones she didn't were some dramas when she was super young). 🙌