13 Fireflies

to be fair, I've seen accusations leveled at Reba fans saying they got him booted off the drama, but the backlash against CZY came from book fans as well, and they were extremely vocal in saying he did not fit the character whatsoever. I agree that no one was using him to boost the dramas popularity. Maybe a better theory would be to say they were testing the waters to figure out the audience's reaction, but Reba is so big she genuinely doesn't need anyone else to help her boost a project, especially when the original IP is so popular already.

That isn't the latest rumor. The latest information is the launch date on March 15. The gossip regarding budgeting issues is something a random yxh made up and for some reason i-fans took it and ran with it.

A lot of dramas only publish the official announcement the same day of the launch. Hell, some don't even publish any announcements at all and people only realize they're filming when pictures of the set are leaked. And then there's dramas that start shooting before the official booting ceremony happens.

Okay so word on Weibo is March 15, everyone. I'm crossing my fingers. There's a picture of the hair styling section's sign posted up on a wall and reliable Ningbo bloggers have it scheduled for that day.

Zhang Li

The rumored 2FL posted on her March itinerary that she'll start filming in late March so that sounds about right.

ying xiao hao = entertainment tabloid gossip accounts that tend to be very unreliable

CXX as male lead is now almost a certainty. All top melon accounts have come forward. Still, waiting for the official announcement but Reba and CXX fans are super excited. The booting date is said to be potentially March 17 but most are saying sometime between mid to late March.

agree...it's worth noting this drama has a very good rating on Douban (7.0) which is high for an idol drama of any kind.

the rating is always official. There's no amount of ratings a drama needs to have for the score to be considered official.

you have every right to your (wrong) opinion.

It's fine if you personally don't judge a drama based on its Douban score. It's also fine if you don't understand Chinese people's tastes (though I find that comment kind of condescending...these dramas are made for them, not for you). But I'm talking about the industry overall. I'm tired of this rhetoric wherein international fans always dismiss Douban as some haters den with zero importance when the score doesn't fit their opinions. It isn't the only thing that matters, but it definitely matters a lot to the industry overall.

producers, actors, directors and platforms in China care about Douban, actually. Every time they get a score above 7, they celebrate it.

WRC has really only had two ML roles that I can remember: Fall in Love and A River Runs Through It. If the BL ban hadn't happened he'd have Dreamcatcher too but that's never airing. He was actually my first Cdrama crush but it's a pity his career has gone nowhere since he first got some heat thanks to The Eternal Love. I don't see many prospects ahead for him being ML again.

A lot of words keep getting repeated in English titles because they're good keywords, creativity is really the least of the platform's concerns. Words such as : love, boss, fight, fighting, journey, palace, princess. I see this complaint a lot, and I get where it comes from...but there's actually a method to the madness. Sometimes names are even intentionally similar to other popular releases to confuse people or to make people think they're similar stories. You see this with romance novels all the time.

you're the one who's coming off "sophomoric" (and condescending) by basically telling OP to eff off.

It gets a lot better around episode 6-7, when the insomnia plot takes a backseat

reframing escaping from the shadow of just being seen as the boss's girlfriend as weak and just "running away" is regressive af but you do you.

they probably mean "feminist propaganda", which is of course a ridiculous assertion lol. But hey, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. If some people can't understand why Cheng Yao needed to leave Jun Heng and make sure she didn't just lean on her super successful, rich, respected boyfriend and find her own footing on her own terms, then...what can I say?

Same goes for the FL but that's just what I've been able to see from discussions on Chinese internet, but everyone's different.