L13

That's not how investigations work.

Well, I agree that Mango TV turns every drama to unwatchable shit with their subtitles and they've prevented me from watching many shows I was interested in, including this one.

Teacher Kang should have gotten run over by a truck in the first 3 episodes instead of inserting himself into Da-hyun's life uninvited, kissing up to her parents, making digs at her boyfriend, etc. all behind her back and ultimately creating all the obstacles to Da-hyun's happiness that he hypocritically blamed Jae-in for failing to overcome. What a delusional, creepy, patronizing, unattractive, DISRESPECTFUL little toerag. The fact Da-hyun never stood up to him and her parents even though she didn't like him and they all kept going on about how much more suitable he was for her when he didn’t even see her as a human being pissed me off even more. If she had just told him and her parents clearly that she had no feelings for him, at least 6 of these insane 26 episodes could have been cut.

This is a perfect casting and the drama premise sounds charming and a bit old-school. I really hope this is good!

I don’t think she should be more mature necessarily, but becoming less comfortable in social situations, more morose, less expressive, more prone to solitude, territorial behaviour and fits of irritability, having a more troubled relationship with food and crowds (including concert audiences), being less verbal, etc.—these would all be normal developments for someone in her situation, and they would give her something real and meaningful to work on (herself) instead of her stupid childhood dream about her favourite singer.

Well, that’s probably the explanation the show runners want us to go with, but it’s not realistic. 15 years of solitude would change most people a lot instead of freezing their personalities in time. Plus she was already annoyingly childish as a teenager. And I know people will say that’s because of trauma, but that really only explains her fixation on her interest, which allowed her to escape her miserable daily life, and not her actual personality, which was that of an 11-year-old.

This was enjoyable but very problematic. The main takeaways are basically that a good secretary is the same thing as a girlfriend (which, in turn, is the same thing as a caretaker) and that being a good manager is the same thing as being a real man/good boyfriend. The drama collapses the boundaries between professional and private life in all sorts of unhealthy (and rigidly gendered) ways.

"Flawed character" and "weak character" are two totally different things. No one claimed Xu Si doesn't know what he's doing. Stop attacking people over your own misunderstanding of what they said.

Xu Si is indeed calculating and well aware of what he's doing, but he is causing pain to the person he loves and sabotaging his own personal happiness because he's got his priorities wrong and resorts to hypocritical self-justifications and tricks he learned on the job to manage his private life instead of respecting his partner and growing as a person.

These are personal flaws. His determination to pursue Jiang Hu in the first place was a flaw because it was unprofessional and she told him multiple times she wanted to keep their relationship professional, but he thought he was so great he could get his dick wet and make money at the same time despite the blatant conflict of interest. He's a flawed character. The fact you don't like him right now means he's a flawed character. That's what the other person meant.

At the same time, flawed characters can be well-written, thought-provoking, interesting, relatable, sympathetic, complex, etc. and they can even make you root for them. Some people are happy that Xu Si is a flawed character because they're tired of two-dimensional white knight MLs who don't have their own interests and motivations separate from the FL.

Eh, I think it was pretty obvious. He spoiled his daughter, but he didn't seem like a good guy otherwise.

Agree with everything you said about the main couple’s chemistry and both of them being romance royalty, just two super likable people maximizing their joint slay, LGBTQ rep and how fun and normal that whole gang was, and OMG, TRAI/RIRI! I wanted more scenes with them too! If you watch the closing scene in the garden carefully, you’ll notice Trai touching her shoulder and looking at her while everyone else is looking at Mata and Purim, OMG! But I still needed to see him grovel for Riri’s attention (though she’ll fold like a napkin, I think), come on.

I’ll add that Daddy Grace was one of my all-time favorite parents. Normally when there’s a “wise” parental figure in a drama, their wisdom sounds preachy and cliched to me, and often hypocritical, but Daddy Grace really is that girl. He’s so wise and compassionate and thoughtful, and every once in a while you could see his influence on Mata, like when she paychoanalysed Penneung’s family at the birthday party.

I'm on episode 9 and Phaeng and Trai are absolutely hilarious to me. They think they're having some tragic forbidden love affair while in reality the person they're cheating on gives zero shits about them and is just praying for Phaeng to find another man and leave him alone.

I agree and I hate that what's most likely going to happen is that the Jiang family will get into trouble and JXN will use her wits to save them and that's how her mother will realise she was wrong about her daughter and they'll reconcile.

She shouldn't be forgiven for being so biased against her own child and belittling her at every opportunity for years.

JXN's mother is absolutely awful and I hope she gets her comeuppance, but Jiang Xue Hui is her child too. Just because they're not biologically related doesn't change the fact Madam Jiang raised JXH.

So the Yan patriarch (I forgot his title and his name lol) basically knows Xie Wei is his nephew for sure, no? The previews for eps. 15-16 show him asking XW to take on the role of family elder in Yan Lin’s coming-of-age ceremony and give him his ceremonial name. He has to know, right?

Xie Wei’s whole deal is that he’s a ruthless backstabbing snake, so obviously he’s a less worthy man than the honourable ZZ by the standards of Confucian morality? That doesn’t mean I hate him or that I’m not rooting for him, though. I’m not a baby, so when I pick what relationships to root for, I go by chemistry, personality fit and dramatic potential, not by how nice the male character is. Also XW has a compelling backstory that ‘justifies’ his nastiness narratively.

He really is such a dreamboat, and his fate is quite sad. He was quietly devoted to a heartless woman who married another man to advance her fortunes, exploited ZZ and led him to his downfall, but his goodness of character still touched her so deeply that in the last moments of her life she sacrificed herself for him—and if that wasn’t tragic enough, in her next life she resolves to treat him right and give him the dignified life he deserves, but this time she falls in love with an even more ‘unworthy’/unsuitable man whom she used to hate. ZZ and Ning really just aren’t meant to be no matter how many lifetimes they get, it seems.

I’d say the same applies even more to Yan Lin (loved his sweetheart dearly, almost married her, everything went wrong at the last moment, then in her next life the woman he loved decides to live a quiet life that might allow her to be with him—but then she falls for his asshole teacher who’s also a maniac traitor? talk about adding insult to injury!), but let’s not forget this freak sexually assaulted her in her past life, or tried to, and treated her as a mortal enemy after she dumped him. I have NO idea why she’s still friends with him, let alone trying to save his stupid family, when his possessive and manipulative tendencies are already starting to interfere with her happiness and safety in this life too.

Yan Lin is so hateable it’s unreal. Bro, get a job!

I agree that she's a terrible teacher. She's way too familiar with his nephew and the way she got scared in front of those losers who were smoking in front of the school and needed another teacher to come in and beat them up for her was pathetic. I get that the scene was supposed to show that gender dynamics still apply between adult women and younger men and female teachers can feel unsafe at school, but like, seriously. It's not actually that hard to handle three annoying teenagers (without resorting to violence, WTF!) if you're an experienced teacher and I've had plenty of female teachers who could intimidate an entire classroom with a single glance. Women aren't all wilting damsels in distress by default, even if the world is a scary place! The vast majority of us know how to navigate society even if it's unpleasant! But for some reason Korean and Japanese dramas LOOOOOVE young female teachers who get bullied by their students like they were dropped into a classroom for the first time in their lives yesterday. In reality deflating arrogant boys' egos is the first skill you develop as a high-school teacher!

And I'm not even gonna get into her discussing her love life and drinking habits with her student and asking him if she should date his uncle and seriously expecting him to give her sensible advice. That's just insanely inappropriate lol.

I just ignore all that stuff as typical webtoon nonsense. At least when they adapted the webtoon they cut out the part where the nephew was in love with her and she was letting him act even more inappropriately with her for some reason.

They’ve got to be mocking us at this point.

Thank you!