bee

Just normal pens and pencils. I don't have any specific preferences when it comes to pens (any decent ballpoint or gel pen will do) but I really like the Kurotoga mechanical pencils that rotate the lead on each stroke. One of my friends is also really into fountain pens, but I haven't tried them for myself.

Chinese is tough, even for native speakers so don't give up! I wouldn't worry too much about aesthetics at this point, learning the correct stroke order is much more important. Your handwriting will naturally improve as you get more practice. If it doesn't, well, don't worry because there are tons of Chinese out there with chicken scratch writing LOL

You can also search for grid paper 田字格 or 米字格 (basically the same thing but with extra diagonal guide lines) or copybooks 字帖 if you'd like a template, that's what I used as a kid

I'm tired of always pitting women against each other. They're completely different dramas with different tones and storylines. As viewers, shouldn't we just be happy that we have some choice between two solid dramas? Especially after the poor year it's been for cdramas.

Yes, best thing to do is to report and not engage since they're clearly looking for attention. Valid criticisms are great and start meaningful discussions but man I'm tired of seeing this bullshit clogging up the comments.

Oh, then yes I agree lol

I don't know, I don't really consider the FL to be a Mary Sue at this point in the show. Having two love interests is just a pretty standard thing across the genre.

I mean, one of the main selling points of romance dramas is the good looking people, no matter the industry really. I'd recommend checking out other genres if you'd like to see actors with more "everyday" looks, for a lack of better words.

Youku is aiming for an October release based on their upcoming schedule iirc. ZLS hasn't dubbed her lines yet so I'm thinking early to mid October?

I remember seeing her actually swim in the trailer so I'm looking forward to the pearl diving! Now I'm just hoping for decent CGI for the boat scenes. I've been haunted by past Youku dramas lol

You clearly have no problem with the older woman-younger man trope though? I clicked through your dramas page at random and The Double (12), Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol (12), Rational Life (20) all have large age gaps but you seemed to enjoy them regardless. Her co-stars in her most popular dramas like LLTG, Hidden Love, TROTAR etc are similar in age to her so I wouldn't really consider her being type casted.

Also why are we calling men in their 30s old now this just makes you sound immature

It's an FL centric drama so naturally ZLS was going to get a solo cover at one point. The posters for Tale of Rose and Legend of Zanghai both feature LYF and XZ exclusively because their respective dramas are centered around Rose and Zanghai. This is even common practice in Western shows like Euphoria, Queen's Gambit, The Boys, etc so I don't understand where these "prop eye candy" "background extras" "male lead syndrome" comments are originating from. This isn't the first solo poster to ever come out.

From an objective standpoint, I think it's better than the previous poster. It gives you an idea of what the FL's growth and transformation is going to be, which is really the premise of the entire show. Once the air date is closer and the marketing ramps up we'll get more couple posters anyways.

If we're talking MLs, my dream pairings would be Zhang Wanyi or Wu Lei again. Tan Jianci is a close second. Otherwise, I'd be happy to see her with Chen Xingxu, Cheng Lei, or Liu Xueyi.

FL wise, I'd love to see her with more experienced actresses like Ni Ni or Zhang Ziyi. I think it'd be a great learning opportunity for Lusi, but the chances seem low unfortunately. I'm very excited about seeing her next to Wan Peng in Love's Ambition though (moreso than the ML lol), thankfully their characters seem supportive of each other in that drama.

I don't think that's entirely true, there's always the possibility of equal billing if she's working with another big traffic actor. I believe Dilreba and Yang Yang had equal billing in YAMG for example. Regardless, I think she'll be fine no matter who she works with.

I think they're talking about the wrap up video the production team released? I haven't seen an official trailer yet.

https://twitter.com/YoukuOfficial/status/1770749522521546769

You should take melons with a VERY large grain of salt, especially when we're still months away from her next drama being announced. YXH (gossip accounts) love to bring Lusi's name into drama rumours since they know it'll draw attention and traffic, usually to the detriment of Lusi herself. More often than not, they don't have any truth to them.

There's occasionally a more reliable rumour floating around (like with Lusi's casting in LLTG and TLOJ) but those were reported by multiple reliable melon accounts. Nothing similar has come up recently so it's better to ignore these unfounded rumours and wait for an official announcement.

Didn't filming start on Nov 21, 2023 though? If filming has to be completed by the end of February (let's say Feb 29, 2024 as an estimate) then we only have a shooting period of ~100 days. Wasn't TLOJ slated for 130 days? That would mean filming ends at the end of March.

If LYN has something lined up for March then I guess they're going to film all of the scenes with LYN first and then have Lusi do all of her solo scenes in March? That should be fine but I hope they don't rush through anything.

I knew what to expect from this director after watching The Long Ballad and The Starry Love but some of these shots are truly terrible. I can get past some odd camera work but WHY does he keep using these back lit shots with light coming from nowhere?

Like in episode 14 at 29:25, I just laughed at how BL and ZLH were just frozen for a good 5 seconds (seemed much longer than that when I was watching) with random light filtering in from the back. Then, we immediately cut back to a scene with normal lighting. How does the director not find this random change jarring? I don't know if he's trying to create suspense but it just takes me out of the moment and looks unnatural.

I can't remember which episode it's in but the absolute worst offender is when Fang Miao is explaining the story of the 300 loyal souls. How am I supposed to take this seriously with the room disappearing, the random lighting, the zooming in, the spinning, the wind when she's inside? This is a major plot point and this is how you choose to set it up? It's actually laughable.

Sorry, just needed to rant a bit. It's just a shame because I've been enjoying the drama so far and the directing during critical moments is terrible and distracting. Someone needs to take these studio lights away from the main director.

Which movie poster are you talking about? I'm not able to find SOKP on Viki

I completely agree with you in terms of BL and ZLH's voice dubbing. I'm glad that they're using their own voices but I don't think their line delivery or diction is strong enough for the characters they're playing. ZLH's especially is very flat and as you said, almost forced sounding to my ears. I'm otherwise enjoying the story though and looking forward to seeing how things unfold.

And for fans reading this: no, I'm not hating on BL or ZLH. I'm giving my opinion on their voice acting as someone who actually speaks and understands Chinese lol. I think they'll only improve from here.

anyone know if the OST has been released anywere? I'd love to find the full version of the ending song by Zhou Shen

Of course, but I just think back to when I first started watching kdramas and didn't understand the significance between different honorifics or speech levels. I'm not Korean so I definitely couldn't recognize them by ear yet either. I figure non-Chinese speakers will have a similar experience when they first start watching cdramas. I think ensuring that these little details make it into the English translation would help with the audience's overall understanding of the relationships between the FL and the different MLs.