Fazarck

Listen, I get it. I only know a lot about the novel because I read it over and over again. It is my no.1 favorite book lol And having learning literature helped immensely in understanding this.

and I agree with all of your point. the 2nd point tho, it is pretty much Lanlin's style of writing to just constantly making the reader's emotial state ebb and flow like the waves. She is famously known for making you really happy in one sentence then sad literally the next sentence. I was BETRAYED when YC decided to give LF a chance and going back with him during their office year and then he saw LF had sex with a prostitute (The show retconned it by making LF drugged and they didn't had sex. I hate the drugged part and then LF being like, "It's my fault that I didn't watch my drink properly" later in the show. Like no, it's not your fault you got drugged, but the screenwriters had to make LF to be blame here because that how it is in the book. This is probably one of my most hated changed other than the removal of Qinlang & YC's relationship)

as for your third point, I agree, but I actually like the ending because that's the actual proof of why Lanlin's books didn't romanticize toxicity. LF actions has consequences and it's not just they fight and they made up. YC was scarred physically and mentally from LF's abuses, and that's honest. You don't get SAed and then moved on without any scars even when it was done by someone you love.

And yes, you are correct about the last part. that's why YC bookstore was bought back after LF sold it.

P.S. Pretty sure the mental health was in the book but it is one of the extra. Personally, I don't like it that much because it seems they are blaming it on LF bipolarity, but it did humanize LF and gave him a lot more complexity to his action.

Again, back to your point about the show accountability in this, it's back to my main point that RL was based on the author's past behaviour of romanticizing toxic stuffs that doesn't necessarily had to be there. again, RL being a romcom genre didn't actually excused the toxic stuffs, but actually is the reason why the toxic stuffs are bad. But again, backto my main point, the main plot in RL is a romcom so the fans didn't really felt the toxicity and focused a lot more on the romcom stuffs which is more light-hearted, and then when they came to DH which is an actual dark romance, either by false being recommended that this is the same show or their own volition, they were surprised as to how toxicity is done in a genre that actually talked about toxicity as its main topic. The problem here is 1) false advertisement from the fans who recommended this show after RL, and 2) people who can't stomach dark romance stories and refused to understand the story but still have the audacity to give their opinion on the discourse without having any understanding of the story.

You can't fixed the 2nd problem, but the 1st problem is why I always say RL is not the same genre as DH whenever I saw someone recommending one to each other.

I think you're mistaken my stance here.
I wasn't talking about the snake-outwitting scene in the show. I was talking about a scene in the novel where CC insert a snake into a woman's sex. That scene in the novel doesn't have to happen. And to make it easier to understand my point, compared it to the first SA that happened in DH/ARTTL where it happened to point out how young and naive LF and YC was. LF thought everyone want to do it with the one they love so he was upset that YC didn't want to do it with him while YC only want time that LF didn't give him to prepare. They talked, they understand each other, they made up, and the novel also showed you that LF have the capability of being a good guy who knows how to apologize.

and it was the same with the sharing scene. It serves no purpose whatsoever, and doesn't have to happen.
Again, I am not opposing your point at all, I am agreeing with you by saying, "Yes it is bad, and it is a recurring problem in both the book and in the shows."

I guess the problem is people who clumped together both in the same spot because they have "similar" things that happened, not recognizing the difference in the genres. In the famous words of my lecturer, "You can't judge a cheesecake in a cheesecake competition by comparing it to a carrot cake."

I agree with a lot that you said, but I will make a few points.

1st. they didn't show that LF didn't have a problem. It does. You hate LF and that means the book shows that he had a problem so much that you as the audience hated him. What th e book didn't do was an obvious literal direct quotation to show LF has a problem because 1, it's through YC pov who loved him and has a blindspot for him, and 2. that's like things your lecturer warns you about in writing 101. This is why I genuinely believe that LanLin actually had a creative writing knowledge because ARTTL had a lot of techniques that I now recognize after I learned about literature in higher education.

2nd, volume 2 was hard to read, especially since the content is full of SA that really serves it purpose to tell you what a monster LF had become as opposed to how sweet he was in the beginning of the book. It makes sense that people missed some stuffs when reading through hard things to stomach. The book was also from YC perspective and not from LF, the only thing you know about how hard LF's life was was from what he told YC in volume 3. It is an exposition talk so it is not as "intense" or "vivid" as the show since the show can show it.

3rd. LF didn't necessarily has a redemption arc more than it is he was eating the consequences of his action. The state of his relationship with YC, especially YC's psyche, non-existent self-esteem, and health issues were all LF's fault from how he kept telling YC ugly and had sex with other men to prove his point to the gun wound. YC at the end literally believed LF would one day leave him and always had a distance with LF. That being said, it is only portrayed in the extras and the sequel Pandora's Box.

4th, again, the book end actually showed you that it wasn't all fine. They had sex yes, but YC made numerous self-deprecating jokes at himself. This could also miss in some translation issue because I remember reading translation from Shaoye who was more literal, YC literally describing himself being LF secretary as a useless person and, basically a good sex doll for LF. Unlike in the show, everyone was gossiping harshly at YC being secretary too. The other translation I read wasn't going as harsh with Shaoye as with the words, but man the literal translation really giving you an insight at what YC's mental was like after LF.

That cough wasn't to prove his point, that cough was him trying what his character, Gao, like that he, Zhang, as a person didn't do. again, the scene was not as direct as it seems, it is pretty much a sneaky senior-junior bullying scene.

I see. It doesn't rub me the wrong way because WSW's cry is supposed to be weird, which CC found it cute.

Girl, there are TONS of Chinese Danmei that genre is happy and sweet, you literally can search by the tag in novelupdates. they are a lot better and had a lot more variation to thai bls, you just need to look. It's giving when Brettman Rock said Filipino watched white shows and complain why only white people is there.

Again, Being a Karen on the internet is a choice, not a necessicity.

Again, I think the problem is people treat the story as "if you like it, you romanticize it", where it is not the case. The story, referring to the book is very complicated. You said the ending was happy in the book, but again, as with every single Lanlin's works (other than maybe Uncontrolled Love), if you read it again, then you know the ending never "happy".
"Together" yes, but "happy"? read again. And this is before adding the sequel to the equation.

And yes, you are meant to hate LF in the novel, Lanlin herself, if you read Lu Feng in her entire universe, then you'd know she also "hate" him. But for me, it is what make me more conflicted, and more dillematic when YC chose Lu Feng despite how bad he is. Because you have to delve into his thought processes and emotional feelings and everything, which after you do that, you realize that he stayed not as simple as he loved LF, there was monetary reason in the book, health reason as well, and this feelings of complication is the purpose of the genre itself, dark romance. It supposed to be hurting you even when it is comforting you.

I guess we have to disagree here because I don't feel a lot of the strong emotion I felt when I read (AND REREAD) the book when I watch the shows. That scene when LF fought little bro and then begged YC to be with him, to be back to the way they are, literally the name drop of the story a round trip to love, didn't hit the same as the book. The scene when YC got shot was more heartbreaking in the book, how he told him how much he hated him yet, as he faded, he felt something stronger than hate. The scene where they talked about stuffs that happened to them,

"I wept for his wasted youth, his bruised heart, and for the love that he was bereft of that I took for granted"

The showed didn't, and can't, give me that, because YC and LF didn't do what they did in the book.

Let's start with the romcom as a genre thing and how it is not dark romance. I guess the easiest way to talk about this without getting into Genre theory is that there were certain things that you look for in a genre within a PLOT. And plot, in a novel specifically, can be branching and had a lot of it, which is why usually you're looking at the main plot, which is to say, the problem overlaying the story. In here, it's WSW revenge but ending up falling in love to CC, that's the main plot, that's the whole premise of the story, it didn't change from the book or the two film adaptation. Now, this doesn't decide the genre to be romcom, what makes it romcom is the combination of what's happening to THAT plot (the main plot) and the characterization helped too. You said it yourselve, the convo in partner sharing felt comical, and I remember it was comical for a lot of things (I can't really point out specific scenes in the book because it's been years since I read it) and WSW character was specifically design for comedic relieve too, like how he smile, how he act, his way of thought, etc. Now, let's talk about the branching plots, this is the plot that related to the main plot in someway, but it doesn't have to involve the main plot, e.g. WSW name being unlucky or as you point it out, the partner sharing. Repetitive branching plots could influence the genre, or rather how you objectively perceive a genre of a work, IF they influence the main plot. This is the thing about Chai Jidan, most of dark stuffs she added doesn't involve or added to anything to the plot, and is that problematic? yes, this is my main criticism of Chai Jidan's work, she is romanticizing the problem in her story because she just adding it for the sake of adding stuffs as opposed to DH/ARTTL where it does serves a purpose to the story or part of the main plot. Literally, the opening scene for CC in Counterattack book with that snake serves nothing than telling you CC is a cruel person, which could've told in myriad ways that more in line with the plot.

Mind you, this is not only CA, but most of Chai Jidan's works who herselves repeatedly told the audience to not read or take the "bad" things seriously. I think she also mentioned about a rewrite (of addicted or Counterattack, I am not sure) but I don't know how's that going.

Have you read the sequel to ARTTL(DH)? I doubt they will adapt it cause the main character in that book is Lin Jing which show removed. It is pretty much the continuation of the story with FengChen family dynamic through Lin Jing's POV

I literally always scratching my head when I look at someone comparing DH to RL or even saying they are the same theme, like where? Especially not RL.
Counterattack dark stuffs was only there because Chai Jidan loves to romanticized that stuffs back then, but she ultimately cut a lot of the stuffs from her recent adaptation (CA to RL and Addicted to Stay With Me).

ARTTL was a proper angsty dark romance, and DH cut down on a lot of that stuffs, so much that they are sacrificing the intensity of the story. This is why I generally against cutting down on a theme to appease the masses because it will never be enough.

is it like not enough or too much? cause if it's the former, you definitely should read the book. A lot was cut to make it more palatable for the mainstream and, honestly, it sacrificed a lot that make the story good.

It's go beyond taste lol Thai fans has the same culture as KPop idol fans they treated the rating like a competition. They would review bombed any series that's above their favorite actors' shows

I don't know why you'd consider the crying scenes are bad. WSW supposed to be an ugly crier, both in RL and earlier adaptation of Counterattack depicted this perfectly. It's supposed to be a RomCom, not Angsty dark romance. (In the case of Counterattack and the book tho, the problem was just Chai JiDan loved to add unnecessary dark stuff like SA for nothing, but that still doesn't change the core of the story, which was romcom)

It's also Chai Jidan's work whose fans was notoriously loud even back in the day, to the point causing China criminalize BL in 2016 (Mind you I am not saying it negatively, but that was how big Chai Jidan's works like Addicted and Counterattack a.k.a RL were). This is like the new period of resurgence of Chai Jidan's works, with addicted readapted into a bromance while Counterattack being properly readapted into BL called Revenged Love.

there are literally a lot of those in BL industry already, you just have to look. Thai literally produced nothing but sweet high school romance or university romance from 2015-2020, go watch those and don't yuck someone else's yum. Being a Karen on the internet is a choice, not a necessicity.

You are attacking "HER", the author, the one who wrote the novel, but you don't even know she wasn't the one writing the scenes in the show. Sit down.

I think what's missing is your understanding of how casting works. I guess what you are more aware to is an open audition casting, which is how it was commonly done and shown in media, and even then, there is no a specific way to cast, sometimes they do readings, sometimes they let you "offer" a scene for which character you are casting for, and sometimes, like in the show, the director chose your scenes. Most of the times tho, it is up to the casting directors.

The one in the show, I forget what this one is called, close casting or something like that, where it's invitee only and usually it was because they already had a fix actor playing an important role (and yes, it is often riddled with nepotism just as the show shown in ep 2). It is pretty much how you see in this show, albeit less dramaticize obviously, where a certain people were invited for role casting and thrown in a specific scenes that the director AND the fixed actor wants to see.

As for your last point, I think you msiread what's happening in the scene. He already knew the character as shown how he knew it is bl, it's not that he didn't know the character has to smoke, but they hadn't started casting yet, so he mistakenly took that Chen was offering him a cigarrete, which he didn't smoke. It is not necessarily a "mistake" tho because Chen was obviously playing/bullying him in that scene.

Yes, which is after everything settled after the gunshot, they all TIRED, and that's like the very main reason why Yi Chen stayed with Lu Feng, he felt gulty he had wasted away 20 years of Lu Feng life alone.

I think the shows pretty much showed it with how tired he was in the show, I saw some comments wondering why he was that listless in the show, but knowing the context of the book, that's how Lu Feng was in mid-forties AFTER Yi Chen hospitalized.

I think if we're talking about the moment Lu Feng ended up regretting what he has done, it's not really a specific moment, but during/after YC hospitalized, Lu Feng demeanor pretty much changed. The fight with his brother pretty much was the scene where Lu Feng was like, you can do anything as long as don't leave. They changed the details, like the fight happened at Yi Chen's apartement and Lu feng basically turned everything inside out in that house from searching for Yi Chen, he looked WAY WORSE, and there is one line that they removed, where Lu Feng said if Yi Chen is going to leave might as well kill him first because there would be no different.

I think one other things that kind of my pet peeve that they removed was the scene where Yi Chen said when he got shot and was in Lu Feng arms, Yi Chen said he hate Lu Feng, and Lu Feng was like, I know don't talk anymore (cause he's bleeding), and Yi Chen continued in his monologue, that he hated him, but there is something deeper than hate in his heart.

Anyway, I kept rambling lol, but yeah, there is a couple of details that doesn't exist int he show. Sure Lu Feng was worse in the book, but it made their retribution/settling down scene very very bittersweet.

ALSO, to answer you last question, Lu Feng didn't marry, but he did have a child of a one night fling I believe, that child is Ke Luo, the show changed it to Lu Feng's nephew.

Definitely, Schizophrenia isn't just disconnected from reality in a rich people are disconnected from the working class sense or paranoia, it's really, they can't "diffferentiate" between reality and imagination, (and not the kind of "he likes me or not" but more on the line of "I can levitate", or to make it more in theme "he love it if I torture him" which mind you, Lu Feng have full awareness of what he did and the effect) which Lu Feng doesn't have the symtomp of.

If I really have to "diagnose" what Lu Feng have, I'd say it is simply separation trauma from the first time he was forced to leave Yi Chen and Obsessiveness on top of that. There is also just a simple what Lu Feng had experienced, the book, the kidnapping was after 20 years of living and suffering, building his business from being disowned by his family to founding his own company in Chinese notoriously cutthroat business industry, he resented Yi Chen for that.

again, if we're going by the book, the author never tried to justify what Lu Feng did. I think even in the extra where they take this scene, the scene was not to justify what Lu Feng did but moreso to notify the readers that LuFeng and YiCheng were trying to mend their relationship and move it from the trauma Lu Feng cause him. Mind you, even after that, their relationship wasn't perfect in the book, and LuFeng knew and admit he was the cause of it.