MadelineMaureen

One second Do Han is happily living his life with a loving mother and father...the next thing he knows both his parents are dead, they were never married, and the family he has left that he JUST met hates his guts. This also would have been around the age that he is discovering his sexual orientation. So rejection and self-hatred at that pivotal time will mess with anyone. He is forced to change schools and leave his friends he did have. He went internal when dealing with his struggles of rejection of those around him. So he will leave any situation that is too much for him. Too much love, too much worry, too much pressure.

Ji Han went the opposite. He worked even harder to be liked by others, a people pleaser. He made himself the best possible version so that there could be no fault found in him.
Needs to graduate...okay top of his class
Needs to serve in the military...you got it...Marines
Needs to join the company...blind interview for interns/lower employees, so he can never be accused of nepotism by those in the company.

Ji Han and Ah Jeong are very similar. She has her "Just in case" training for her acting jobs. Ji Han has his "can't find fault vault" of awards and achievements.

I would hope that Do Han and Ji Han would, but they might not actually know where he is buried. As their parents weren't married her family might not have had anything to do with Do Han and Ji Han's father's funeral/burial rites.

Oh yeah it's definitely becoming clearer as to why the grandfather doesn't like/show interest in Ji Han....he sees how he failed his daughter when he looks at him....he sees himself.

I'm not sure what you mean by funnier. I find the pacing and humor to be good in the first 5 episodes. There's a nice balance of levity and seriousness needed for the subject matter. There a lot of high jinks with the FL and ML as well as with the older half brother and sister-in-law.

But we are dealing with a closeted character, orphans, failing in ones profession/dream, failing to receive love from family, etc I haven't not enjoyed it yet, so it just might not be your cuppa, and that's totally valid. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The humor is mixed throughout, but they're not treating everything as a joke.

Hidden Love changed the age difference between the ML(bestie who is a year older than Sang Yan in the stories) and FL(little sister, who I believe is like 7-9 years younger than her older brother)
Sang Zhi is still in elementary school when her brother is in his last year of high school.

Why would there be a rivalry between HL fandom and WIFTY fandom? They are the same author's ip and were both very well done adaptations of the characters.
As Sang Zhi and Su Zai Zai are similar in personality I think it's quite fitting that she take on the role if she was available. I'm sad that we wont get a ZiaZia and RangRang crossover(even though I know the characters don't meet each other in the stories)

I think the fist thing that needs to be remembered is that Sang Yan has an extremely high IQ and an equally as high EQ(though he doesn't really use this on anyone but Yifan).
He doesn't like people who waste his time or energy. He truly is our unbothered king. College Sang Yan is POST YiFan "leaving" him without getting a full explanation. This causing him to go even deeper into his shell when it comes to relationships outside of his roommates and family.
Because of his name, I always thought of him kind of like a tree...Tall, quiet, protective, patient, and observing.
He is playful and teasing to those he loves like his little sister and he teases the HELL out of YiFan in his own quiet double meaning way. The knowing smirks/looks. He quietly observed her in school and teased her out of her shell protecting her from anyone who got too close for his liking.
He's heartbroken in college and relies on his friendships more. He lets the rumors about him and Duan Jia Xu persist, because he would rather all the girls at school think he likes men than have to deal with them bothering him for attention.

He seems cold to those he doesn't deem worthy of his energy, because he doesn't put effort into making people like him. But anyone close to him knows he has a gooey center. He's just a chocolate covered marshmallow.
The untouchable god/idol of depraved street. Style of a grim reaper...personality of a house cat.

In Hidden Love we see glimpses of his harder outside shell, but for her most part we are seeing him from his sister and friend's pov...aka the gooey center bits.

Well, lets hope SJT can help lead her. Or that the director does their job and helps the actress in the scene.

It's been a minute since I read the novel.
Can you help me remember timeline things?
I thought that YiFan meets Sang Yan their first day of last year of senior high school(though I guess it could be their first day of first year of senior high school).
Maybe the way I read the translated version I got made me think it was their final year when they meet in the hallway.....I know she was a transfer.

She doesn't stay very long at the school...like maybe a semester or so before she has to move again. He takes the bullet train to her every weekend or once a month?

OMG...I'm an idiot...memory unlocked. She mistakes him for her senior their first day...she can't also be a senior if she mistakes him as OLDER than her. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️
Okay okay...so new question. Do you remember how long they went to school together before she moves and he starts his monthly/weekend journey to her town? My saved translation link was deleted out of existence so I've been looking for a good translation.

I watched 'A New Life Begins' to see how I would like Bai JingTing's acting, and I have to say, I am 10000% on board with him taking on the role of Sang Yan. He has that effortlessly cool vibe and playfulness that the character needs. Sang Yan is cold to outsiders, but has a snarky internal sense of humor that he lets out around his friends. He's very playful with his little sister, who was always able to see his soft gooey center. And watching Jing Ting in 'A New Life Begins' I was able to see how he could play those various sides subtly.
I dropped the show I was watching with Zhang RouNan, but that was because the writing was horrible NOT the acting. I think they both have the experience/freshness to portray our leads well.
Now all I have to be worried about is how the writers/director will put it to page/screen.

Confession very end of episode 6. Aftermath and realization Ep 7.

SAME! I'm like, FINALLY a ML who has to work to get back the almost blind admiration of the FL. Yes she always liked his talent, but now she's getting to know him more without those rose colored glasses.
And he NEVER only liked the FL for her appearance, which can't be said about the other men/boys in her life. ML always liked the truest version of the FL's personality and didn't even look twice at the beautiful popular girl....aka the FL in real life. He truly likes her for HER. Her brain, talent, and sense of humor and tenacity.
She's always liked him for his beauty first, and then got to know how talented he was in game making. Once he rejected her that beauty didn't matter and so, she gets to experience his unfiltered self too.
I love me an instant attraction, slow burn, just as much as the next person(if not more), but this is honestly refreshing in the rom-com area. Having them work through their misunderstandings instead of instant forgiveness. Because he did manipulate Dough Twist...and THAT is what the real issue is imo. Not the rejection, which was brutal, but the fact she thought she was speaking to a friend and that friend betrayed her with lies and omissions.

It's going to resolve soon, but their banter bickering is, at this point, how they flirt.

IDK, I kind of like the fact she doesn't just roll over and accept the fact that not only did Campus Hunk give her purposely horrible advise, but once Gu Xun KNEW who they were to each other he remained silent. She's starting to finally realize that he DID try to tell her, and that he might actually have genuine feelings for her in ep 15. She put a very big wall around her heart after that public rejection from him at graduation. She's just been focusing on improving her artwork and impressing her seniors.

The show is letting his actions speak louder than words. He can apologize till he's blue in the face, but until he can show that he understands how badly he hurt her and show that he wont repeat it....yeah, no. Boy needed to stew.

Ep 12 she finds out he's Campus Hunk. We are currently on episode 15 and she is finally starting to believe/understand that he might have feelings for her. All she could see in the moment of finding out he's Campus Hunk is the manipulation and continued withholding of the truth. So she's needing time to sort everything out, as she is currently working on multiple projects and trying to succeed in her work.

Karma is going to hit him in the face so hard he'll be spinning for weeks. But on the bright side, because this shows he doesn't like fake people or show interest in more than one person at a time...it could be seen as a positive trait. But he'll be paying for that manipulation of Dough Twist for a good long while.

It was somewhat vague in the editing styles. But they met in person for the first time playing outdoor laser tag with their department. Looks like it could have been freshman year. He saw he shoot her friends/teammates, but not them asking to be shot. So from then on he disliked her because in his mind she betrayed her friends/teammates to try and win the game.
This was the first time she saw him and started to like/pay attention to him.
It's unclear when they started playing games together exactly, but it seems to have been over a year prior to graduation. I'm going to have to replay that first episode again it looks like.

He was the only actor in the entire show who fit the body proportions of the rabbit masked guy. I'm still not sure WHY he did it, as he seems to have genuine feelings for her. Unless he saw the kiss and got jealous kind of thing.

The thing is, I'm not sure exactly what Jungwoo was intending to do to her. He honestly looked shocked when she went over. I just don't really understand his intentions behind it. Did his love for her go bad? Because, I think that at one point he truly did have genuine feelings for her.
I just hate how everyone that she trusted and called friend five years ago turned on her when she thought theft of IP was morally wrong. Mind you, Na Eon obviously never talked with her former bestie about what happened, causing Yoo Mi to completely misunderstand her. That's just so said. Moral of the story so far is, communication is key, and don't let others speak for you.

It's going to be hilarious because she's going to sound like a crazy person.

But the way he keeps reminding them of the little sister thing was like okay dude...we get it you're older...makes it more creepy not less.