Kate

I'm more and more convinced that Lan Xiang is not really a central character, but rather a central storyteller. None of her personal stories are truly explored, but she is there to convey what other people struggle with, bring solutions, empathize. And all the things that development wise would be important for her character happen in the "time skips" or are presented with one scene solution.

She was not in love with ML, then she started to appreciate his good qualities - sure, but that was not love. But then she was in love with him, they went from sleeping in separated beds to having children and all these important steps in between were never shown. They always show turning points, but never the actual development.

She was not accepted by Lin family elders, and now she is accepted by Lin family elders. On paper with all her contribution, it makes sense, but on personal relations level I wanted to see that change on screen. Hell, just show me when she returned just the reaction of the elders. Her not expecting warm welcome, but Lin Madame actually welcoming her with a soft, yet accepting smile. I want to see that turning point, that development.

She confessed her "radical" views to her husband and when all that's important is the aftermath, not the confession itself - we get time jump.

Her goal is to write plays - it's not really a plot that happens in the drama. It's a thing that was talked about 2 times, that did not really generate any conflict nor true development.

Her role in the drama is not necessarily a bad thing, but because her situation is in fact so complex - both internally and externally, I just crave for more focus on her as an individual.

Sidenote for episode 40: love how they blame Xiuru for all the girls, when it's all on the man and his sperm whenever they have girl or boy 🙃If he is shooting all them girl, she won't produce any boys 🤡 Also, a man who values his mother over his wife is useless and needs to go. Glad he got his sense back at the end.

Makes perfect sense 👍

I do believe Han Gi U might have separated from his wife because of the rumor about his relationship with the student, but I think because it led to him admitting he is in fact gay? it was not the rumor, but what the rumor brought t light between them?

I am sold on so many levels.

🙂 First of all the leads are 90% angst and pain and regret and I love it. Even though the two episodes mostly focused on Han Gi U, I think his background is so much more of a mystery than Lee Hyeon Jae. What exactly made him separate from his wife? (more on that in the comment under spoiler) How awful is his mother exactly? Why is he "ok" with being contract teacher and does not try to take teacher certification examination (yes, I know it's vaguely explained in the synopsis, but not really). On the other hand we kind of see Lee Hyeon Jae is the way he is. And I need him free tbh 😭

🥲 Lee Hyeon Jae already kind of developing feelings for Han Gi U makes perfect sense. But I also love that Han Gi U is 100% teacher mode, there is nothing from his side - and it also makes perfect sense.

🔥Park Seong Won and Kim Jeong Ha? I AM SO EXCITED! Omg... oh Seong Won cares and worries, how Jeong Ha knows, but he feels like there is nothing he can do since he has to risk it all for the money 😭 Honestly, the scene where Kim Jeong Ha takes the cap from Seong Won? I gasped at Seong Won's reaction - the sadness 😭

🎥 And I honestly like the visuals. The intro gives me Grey Shelter vibes, which is a good sign 🤣

Think on it. Age does not equate to experience and maturity ONCE the person is of legal age AND out of a school uniform. < this is not quite true. Maturity is a result of both lived experience and biological factors and there are some things your brain cannot just magically mature about just because you had a lot of life experience. There are stages in development and a lot of "maturity" stuff is related to areas of the brain that develops the longest. Also, legal age is a made up line tbh that does not correlate to anything - neither social nor biological development and is different around the world 🥲

For me it's quite simple: the younger the younger partner is, the smaller should be the age gap be. Do I have specific numbers? No. Because it is something that has to be judged looking at specific people/couples and not in general.

At the same time, in fiction I am far more fine with exploring bigger age gaps, since they present interesting dilemmas that can be engaged with and addressed without actually harming real people.

Here my issue would be less of the age gap, or even the teacher-student relationship, but more of the unhealthy attachment that might happen because of the trauma 🙃

Anyway, I loved first 2 episodes 🤣

Oh I am overanalyzing. Coz the review is one thing, but almost same length character analysis in the comment are another 😂😂

Glad you enjoyed it. Some movies truly don't need that much depth and just are supposed to be fun and it's all good 😂

The two years later ending was insane 🤣 It was such a dumb choice for the closure of the show 🤡

"Every character is important and each one of them have their own main story." by your logic there is NO main character, since every arc focuses on someone else. Hence your favorite dude is also no the main character. Let's relegate everyone to supporting cast 👍🏻

Also, link me one synopsis of any of the source materials that state ML is the main character that is the center of the story. oz that's the source that would allow the change in the cast. You can't do that tho, coz it does not exist. Coz all you name is the cast order on chinese webistes, as if him being the focus of promotion had nothing to do with simply marketing no matter what the plot is truly about.

If you do not understand official source and unofficial source for promotional materials, it's just nothing I can do to help you.

The same way if employee of a firm uploads shit on their social media is not official promotional material for the firm, the same way director posting stuff is not official promotional material.

The synopsis does not, but the original source material is. since synopsis does not direct either way, the staff goes by the 2nd most reliable source - the original novel the drama is based on. If the new official synopsis of the drama is posted by iqiyi that clearly states who is the story following mostly, the order will be changed.

FL is like there for dew sentences to start each arc. Like a camera pov. < that's is exactly what the center of narrative is. Literally.

Shit posted by iqiyi themselves. Pretty simple no?

I am not, I declined the offer to be one 🙂
But all the info I gave you is based on the official guidelines and info written already by the staff either in comment section, forum or feeds. I will ask one of the staff to confirm it if needed tho.

For the order of the cast - is there official drama synopsis? If yes, and it indicates the ML is the true center of the story, submit the edit of the order of the cast with the source of it. If not, until there is official synopsis, MDL will most likely keep the order that matches source material, since there is no official info otherwise. Deng Wei is far more established and popular actor than Ai Mi, so promotion now centering around him can be more about him being more marketable, not necessarily that he will be the main focus of the plot. Unless there is definite proof of the story of the drama, MDL staff have no reason to just guess and make changes that go against source material the drama is based of.

The director’s official account is NOT official promotional source. The same way a photo taken from official social media on actors if not official promotional material.

while others were screenshots from officially released video materials < screenshots are not official promotional material, since the media is different. The same way people cannot add screenshot from episodes, but only upload official promotional photos for the episodes posted by official accounts. screenshots by definition are not official photo material, the video is - different media. This is always to make sure the photo section is not spammed by 847657856 more or less same screenshots from same videos.

At the same time, similar content can still be found on the pages of many other Chinese dramas. < report it to the staff, they will gradually clean all the galleries. There are hundreds of thousand titles on mdl, there are limited number of people who deal with photo galleries - the process os cleaning up photo sections is going to take a long time. They will most likely prioritize the titles that someone pointed out to them. The photo sections are being cleaned, all the time.

Yes, as website grows and more users use it, the rules get updated. Also, did you even once actually read any of the guidelines? I think it's less about them not existing and you not caring enough to know them.

If you've been on this website long time you would know shit changes all the time. There was no feeds, then it got added. There were no episode reviews, now they exists, there were no on-going reviews now there are.

And with rules - more strict and better explained in guidelines because there are more people making edits and it becomes chaos with spam and no actual proper info to be found.

You want to post and write whatever you want? Make your own blog or something.

Honest question, are you even old enough to use this website? Coz you don't act that way.

What photo?

You do not understand. rules that apply to China do not apply to MDL. MDL has their own internal rules with what is the order of the cast on drama pages. They cannot follow one rules for Chinese dramas and different for any other country, hence they came out with rules that can be used for ALL countries that are on MDL.

MDL cannot have different rules for different countries because it would create literally editing chaos. There are other countries on mdl than Chine and they have to use universal rules for all the titles. None other country has any type of written or unwritten rules of the order of the cast and the order is by all means MEANINGLESS and long as the cast is in order of their involvement in the project aka main, supporting, guest.

I don't care what China is like or Chinese fans are like, MDL is not a Chinese website ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If someone does not like the rules here, they can use different website.

sure, it's a dumb choice to complain against people who had no say and you will achieve ZERO shit this way, but you do you 👍🏻

It's not entertainment industry standard, that's what I mean. It's not universal for all media and all production companies. Official titles are.