L13

Yeah, initially I thought that WJ's life was very tragic because of everything she's had to go through—being abandoned by her father, giving up on university to care for her sick mother, living paycheck to paycheck, etc.—but over the course of these 4 episodes it's DJ who's emerged as the more miserable person. WJ has a loyal best friend and siblings who love her, and she hasn't allowed life's hits to get her down but has become strong even though she's hurting. On the other hand, DJ is a very sensitive person who finds it difficult to connect with people because of his bad relationship with his mother, and he totally shut down after his longterm girlfriend (and presumably the one person in the world he felt he could count on) betrayed him in such a painful way. WJ has people who love and uplift her, while DJ only gets hurt by other people, or so he feels. (Except for his friend and co-president, I suppose.)

In fact it comes up constantly and yes, you’re getting the plot wrong. They don’t share a parent. See OneAjhussi’s explanation below.

Jesus Christ, they’re not lmao

I haven't watched this episode yet, but your thoughts echo my thoughts on previous episodes. The crown prince has behaved really illogically toward Min Jaeyi several times before, like the time he covered for her and summoned her in private after the hunt thing JUST to tell her she was the suspected criminal and imprison her (when if he really believed she was the criminal he should have just let the investigation take its course instead of protecting her from the investigators, and conversely if he had any doubts about her guilt he should have asked her some questions when he decided to have a private audience with her instead of raging at her and not letting her speak), and also the drama has done the forced cuteness in the last minutes of the episode thing at least twice already and it always feels really fake and banal.

I wish the drama had infused the leads' relationship with more depth from the start and built up their romance slowly instead of trying to manufacture conflicts in such a dumb way. Like, if Yi Hwan had been cautiously suspicious of Jaeyi from the start and continued to investigate her in secret while also relying on her crime-solving skills to solve some problems for him as a crown prince, and gradually gained respect for her talent without being entirely certain of whether she's a murderer or not, and later on became aware of his feelings but decided not to act on them because there was no future for their relationship while she remained an outlaw, that would have been one route to take. But instead he's been blowing hot and cold since the beginning and acts really immaturely all the time. The whole Scholar Park thing, the jealousy, the small gifts, etc. vs the angry outbursts and bouts of stupidity is really hard to take.

I have no idea if the writers meant for him to be so annoying... Like, maybe they're doing it on purpose to show character development later? But if you want me to be invested in a romance, the two characters need to have some charm that makes me invested in their happiness even if they're flawed people! And so far I'm not particularly invested in this story because Yi Hwan is unlikeable, and the relationship dynamics between him and Jaeyi seem boring and superficial.

There are no legal documents tying them together either because neither of them was ever adopted by the other's parent and their parents are no longer married now that WJ's father is dead. They were never step-siblings in the eyes of the law, and the only people who even knew both of them were their parents, who cut off all contact with WJ and her siblings, so they were never step-siblings in any other meaningful sense either.

So... a young woman can become a top model AND fashion designer at the same time... but also she can infiltrate her ex's house as a nanny without being recognised as either his ex or a top model and fashion designer... My head hurts from trying to understand what's going on in the synopsis.

They have a connection through their parents, but if your mother’s husband is not your stepfather, his children aren’t your step-siblings either.

Parental roles are very clearly defined in Korea, which is still quite patriarchal, and someone is your father or adoptive father only if you share his family name. Dongjin doesn’t because Woojoo’s father came into his life when he was already in university.

You may find the connection yucky if you want, but Woojoo clearly doesn’t consider Dongjin her step-brother and only connects him to his mother in her mind, nor her father, and there’s a reason for that.

He is not Woojoo’s half-brother lmao. A half-sibling is related to you by blood, which he’s not.

He’s also not her step-brother, who would be related to her by marriage. Dongjin was already an adult when his mother married Woojoo’s father and was never adopted by her father, who was just his mother’s new husband to him and didn’t raise him. Woojoo’s father wasn’t raising Woojoo either, seeing as he’d abandoned his children and they never met his new family. They’re not related in any meaningful sense.

They *could* have been step-siblings if their parents had gotten together early enough for WJ’s father to raise DJ, but that’s not what happened. Not every person your single parent dates or marries becomes your step-parent once you’re an adult and have control over your relationships with people.

What gets me about the editing is that it's all over the place. In some scenes everything is so pink even the whites of people's eyes and their teeth and the sun in the sky are pink, which is just bad colour grading no matter what. In other scenes there's almost no colour adjustment and everything looks fine. I wish the whole drama was like that. In other scenes there's a blue filter, and in some flashbacks to the FL's childhood with her parents there's actually a green filter. And when she was talking to the ML in front of his rival's company, there was a flashback scene that was in monochrome??? It's like every shot was edited by a different GIF maker on Tumblr!

Other than that, though, I'm really enjoying the drama and can't wait for next week's episodes. I'll have to put up with the colour grading.

Given that the FL hadn't seen her father's second wife in 13 years, I think it's safe to say the second wife never legally adopted the FL and her siblings.

Also the FL and the ML have different family names. In Korea it's extremely rare for a child to be legally adopted without assuming their adoptive father's name, so the fact the FL and ML have different family names indicates the FL's father never adopted his second wife's son, who was probably already a legal adult or close to it at the time his mother and the FL's father got together (since the ML entered university in 2008 and the storyline begins in 2021 and then skips to 2022).

All this is to say that legally speaking, they're probably not related at all because the ML is listed under his birth father's name.

They also never met in all the time their parents were together, so, like, they're not step-siblings in any other meaningful sense either.

Is this real? Zhou Yutong and Liu Xueyi will look great together IMO... if the cast is confirmed, that is. Also does anyone know what the novel is about?

4 years is not "so much older" lol. With an age difference like that, it's usually impossible to tell two people are not the same age. A 29-year-old could easily pass for 31, and so could a 33-year old.

In any case, historical cdramas love to pretend their protagonists are in their late teens, but the actors are almost always much older than that. Liu Xueyi is 32, but he played a 17-year-old character in The Blood of Youth. And Song Yi played a young newlywed in Luoyang and was totally convincing. I thought she looked quite youthful too.

People on MDL really need to stop hating female actresses and saying they're not good enough to share the screen with the fans' male crushes. It's really sad to see.

She’s perfectly fine and doing a good job. I’ve never once noticed her acting ‘unnaturally’ or whatever. You seem biased against the actress for some reason.

Yeah, I think episode 5 had a couple of moments where the crown prince was shown to be too uptight and unbending for his own good: when he showed zero understanding for his friend's situation even though it was an inconsequential and very human mistake that Sergeant Han admitted to, and also when he acted all judgy in the tavern.

I assume the point of establishing this trait of being unable to sympathise with other people so clearly this episode was to set him up for character development later, but I really hope he'll grow up before his paranoid and pitiless attitude pushes Sergeant Han to commit actual treason because you're right, the crown prince is very much alienating his best friend and ally himself right now. I'm afraid by the time he recognises the effect of his actions it might be too late to salvage their relationship.

I don’t care that he lied to his fans about how many people he’s slept with lmao. The fuck? That’s none of your business, or mine.

I'm ready for the Proi-Trai Romeo and Juliet subplot to kick off. Also I can sense we're getting close to Lin learning about Nammon, which will hopefully bring her and Pi closer together. They need to admit they like each other! There are too many annoying secondary characters buzzing around them like flies for them to keep having communication issues.

Kim Youngkwang is at least as famous in Korea as Lee Sungkyung if not more lol. Just because you don't know who he is doesn't mean he's some kind of hidden gem who's trying to break out.

Just read about this "controversy" and I'm amazed it exists at all...? He slept with someone once? OK...?

The fact he's been blackmailed and is now in trouble over the mere fact he had sex with someone once is insane to me. I hope everyone involved in manufacturing this scandal, from the person who took pictures of him in bed for blackmail to her husband to the media company that decided to release them suffers consequences. I'm not even a huge CFY fan (I did like him in Ever Night and L&P, but I'm too old to stan actors or follow their personal lives), but this is a completely unacceptable way to treat people just because they're famous. Chinese celebrity culture is so toxic.

lol wait, do you think Our Blooming Youth is an enemies-to-lovers romance? If some initial tension/distrust between the leads is your definition of enemies to lovers, there are very very few dramas without it, especially if you also want the protagonists to be star-crossed lovers who are not supposed to be together.

I know this is a minority opinion, but if there has to be a remake of a royalty romcom, I wish it was My Princess and not Goong. Goong's plot and the relationship dynamics between the leads are so dated; unless the writer majorly updates some stuff I expect it to be bland and annoying like the dozens of Boys Over Flowers remakes they keep pumping out.