Meese

I totally understand your anger. I too went through all those thoughts and it was offputting. After learning more about the novel, I think this is one area that didn't get adapted very well tbh.

I think some of JZ's background and personality at this point was missed in terms of it being clearer. He grew up as someone who was fearful of being abandoned and someone who believes in self sacrifice for a loved one. In the novel, instead of just nerve damage, he also lost a leg. I think his feeling of unworthiness post accident and not wanting to burden his loved ones gets a bit lost, especially with the cut off all contact from JM's POV and having friends and family lie to her. It definitely wouldn't be easy on his end to watch JM sacrifice her early 20's taking care of him or have to choose to be with him vs be with her mother who was also undergoing serious surgery. I think you see a bit more of this aspect of JZ in a couple more episodes should you choose to continue, but yeah, it didn't come across great. I think the "noble idiocy" trope also plays a role in terms of JM's character and how she helps JZ to grow when they do reunite. It's annoying, but big picture, it's much more palatable looking back.

I think the other place they dropped the ball is that in the novel, he wanted to reach back out, but the dad made him also promise to not contact JM. The dad also didn't want JM to be burdened taking care of JZ and wanted her to have a fully able partner. Wanting to respect your father figure's wishes that align with your own fears in reuniting with your loved one softens the separation too but for whatever reason, they chose not to add that to the show, and instead, it was all because of JZ.

I also love the gray hair scene!

I have two more:

1) The scene with Lin Sui and San Lai where birds keep landing on Lin Sui and he keeps trying to ask about getting them off until eventually, he has three birds pirched on him.
2) When JM is trying to get JZ to give her a ride to school after sleeping in. She keeps coming up with excuses for why she shouldn't take the bus and JZ keeps giving reasonable answers to have her take the bus and then she runs by and makes the "tch" noise. Her face during that "tch" just cracks me up.

I think it was supposed to be a Russian professor. I've seen a lot of comments where the Canada scenes don't make a lot sense language/accent wise.

Do you know if that was the plan for SAL from the beginning or if that was a more recent decision?

It just seems odd for a platform who might not have the best presence overseas (since I'm in NA, I'm thinking NA specifically) to not go ahead and use an exisiting platform to get their name out there, especially with how it seems to be resonating internationally.

I actually really enjoyed discovering Mike too through SAL. He just seems like a fun guy and a good friend and I appreciated that even if his Chinese isn't the best, he was there for 2/3 of the livestreams supporting them. That plus all the cat ear moments I laughed at a lot during those livestreams being thanks to Mike.

I saw SOM on Netflix and was also sad.

I did see MJTY (IQIYI) is on Amazon Prime who also has Culpa Mia and TSITP which I can see the parallels to both. I would take that too for SAL to get it out there.

I'm glad it seems to translate pretty well to others.

I'm enjoying following along with her SAL journey on her IG stories 🤣. Last I saw she was on episode 21.

That's good to hear :)

I also saw a drama where they casted someone underaged and paired them with someone else definitely NOT underaged and was like 🥴. I don't know how when it's time to promote the drama what those interactions would be like because that's walking a bit of fine line there if you're trying to sell a romance drama.

ETA: With this drama specifically, HY is 29. NGL, I can see where it could have been weird to have paired him with a late teens and even potentially early 20's actress in this show where one of the attractions is the spicy scenes. That could have just invited mess.

I also was pulled in by the visual pairing of these two lol. I ate up all the Rueters videos that came across my TT during filming and I always just thought they just looked good together.

I also think visually they represent their characters well. To your point, Esther can pull off JM's bubbly character (which yes, can be excessively exaggerated at times) which pairs well with her feminine appearance while He Yu's more masculine appearance pairs up with JZ's more broody/serious character. It just works

I also don't know for people when they are recasting JM if they also consider the actress has to play the more childish younger JM and then the more matured 26 year old JM. I can see where it would be hard to pull off those two different arcs visually paired with the acting.

Yeah, when it comes to those sort of comments, you can say whoever might have done better at X, Y, Z, but in the end, who knows what the actual final product would have been. This is definitely a show that relied on chemistry in the end, so yeah, maybe you would have been more please JM looked more serious in so and so scene, but the overall vibes of the show could have shifted in such a way it doesn't come out as well overall.

I've seen the YSX x ZLH friendship in a couple different clips and think it's really cute! I saw some clips that also pointed out the cute interaction where they each show each other watching each other's shows (LGIEF/TBT) that YSX's photos were during the SAL shooting which is also sweet (and relevant to this thread lol).

But yeah, it's just sad that in CPs, the female tends to get the brunt of the hate. That's why seeing the comments that just hate on YSX and put are all praise for HY for SAL that pop up in here is sad. It also straight up discredits that YSX was the 1st billing in this project and why there was a decent amount of interest in this project from the get go. I think it's ok to think maybe someone else could have done X, Y, Z better, but in the end, who knows what the final product would have actually been or how much attention the drama would have gotten if things were different so it's rude to the people who actually put in the work to discredit and dismiss them. There is definitely a line between legit criticism and excessively putting women down which is why I have my fingers crossed this fandom doesn't get toxic because so far it does seem nice.

Yeah, I didn't even have to do much of a dive into CDramas to hear about how the YSX and Dylan Wang LBFAD CP fans as well as their individual fans grew very toxic and they don't really interact in public. That's just sad.

I really do hope whatever relationship YSX and HY have can remain positive BTS if nothing else and people can not be super weird to them. I really want that second pairing but can understand if it doesn't happen if it attracts a lot of toxic people.

I do think one of the positives to YSX having had various CPs since LBFAD is that it has let her get a better feel towards how to "end" a CP for both of their careers. While all the goodbye posts feel sad, I do think they are good to try to help people move on and not get weirder.

I have my fingers crossed the return on investment was good for this show especially when you consider the lack of promotion and producers/investors will really look at casting Esther and He Yu together again in the future. And yeah, may their friendship continue for a lifetime and fans don't get weird and turn things awkward for future collabs.

Oh, I like that analysis too! I definitely think upon first watch, JM's playful and childish nature can make a lot of people annoyed at her, and I honestly think part of it is the lack of development for her in the show (I think showing more of her relationship with her mom and dad as well as some more moments when she acts colder without JZ could have helped a lot with this), but when you take in JM's arc as a whole, you can appreciate her growth a lot more.

I think I commented this before, but I do like how even the viewer can dismiss JM in the beginning, but in the end, she is really the reason JM and JZ ended up together. She also had the awareness and forethought to point out to JZ that pushing her away could actually hurt her if she were to end up with someone else who turns out to be toxic.

I genuinely want to know what they were doing during that scene. It's so weird to me they filmed that elopement scene AND filmed a wedding.

I think EP 29 comes out soon for non fast pass IQIYI viewers. Could they still release the wedding as bonus content like with the BTS clips they have been doing?

I'm assuming they wanted something more overt than just staring at one another even if I thought their looks at one another early on had a lot of chemistry. If they get to the apple scene and still don't see anything idk.

I think JM’s character, especially in the beginning, wasn’t great in terms of depth, but you do see her grow more as the story progresses. The story itself I do think centers more around JZ as it does in the novel, but JM is definitely important to the story thankfully in the end. But yeah, if you’re a YSX fan, I can see where her character is disappointing in the beginning. One of my biggest gripes with the show is that they could have done more with JM, but it mostly comes together in the end and you can appreciate her role in the story even in the beginning looking back.

To answer your question, I do think the chemistry starts picking up if you think it's just stares right now. The plot also starts to come together more too.

With a name like Speed and Love, the adopted sibling premise, us immediatetly getting JZ taking out a guy like 1.5x his size, and car and motorcycle chases in episodes 1/2, I don't think this is trying to be some grand masterpiece for all to enjoy it's not. It's meant for a specific target audience and even with the flaws, it just hits home with those who get what it was going for. And if you just focus on the production, at the very least, I think it's hard to argue they didn't capture a lot of amazing shots and had some great OST/BGM choices.

My kicker is you can dislike a show/actor/actress for whatever reason you want, but when you start throwing insults at the people who do like it like I've been seeing, that's when it goes too far. Or when you start throwing attacks generalizing the show/cast for superficial reasons just to hate. The show resonated with people and is something some people genuinely love which is why there is hype. People would be so much happier if they could just focus on what they enjoy and not get so bent out of shape over things that bring other people joy.