L13

Xie Wei’s whole deal is that he’s a ruthless backstabbing snake, so obviously he’s a less worthy man than the honourable ZZ by the standards of Confucian morality? That doesn’t mean I hate him or that I’m not rooting for him, though. I’m not a baby, so when I pick what relationships to root for, I go by chemistry, personality fit and dramatic potential, not by how nice the male character is. Also XW has a compelling backstory that ‘justifies’ his nastiness narratively.

He really is such a dreamboat, and his fate is quite sad. He was quietly devoted to a heartless woman who married another man to advance her fortunes, exploited ZZ and led him to his downfall, but his goodness of character still touched her so deeply that in the last moments of her life she sacrificed herself for him—and if that wasn’t tragic enough, in her next life she resolves to treat him right and give him the dignified life he deserves, but this time she falls in love with an even more ‘unworthy’/unsuitable man whom she used to hate. ZZ and Ning really just aren’t meant to be no matter how many lifetimes they get, it seems.

I’d say the same applies even more to Yan Lin (loved his sweetheart dearly, almost married her, everything went wrong at the last moment, then in her next life the woman he loved decides to live a quiet life that might allow her to be with him—but then she falls for his asshole teacher who’s also a maniac traitor? talk about adding insult to injury!), but let’s not forget this freak sexually assaulted her in her past life, or tried to, and treated her as a mortal enemy after she dumped him. I have NO idea why she’s still friends with him, let alone trying to save his stupid family, when his possessive and manipulative tendencies are already starting to interfere with her happiness and safety in this life too.

Yan Lin is so hateable it’s unreal. Bro, get a job!

I agree that she's a terrible teacher. She's way too familiar with his nephew and the way she got scared in front of those losers who were smoking in front of the school and needed another teacher to come in and beat them up for her was pathetic. I get that the scene was supposed to show that gender dynamics still apply between adult women and younger men and female teachers can feel unsafe at school, but like, seriously. It's not actually that hard to handle three annoying teenagers (without resorting to violence, WTF!) if you're an experienced teacher and I've had plenty of female teachers who could intimidate an entire classroom with a single glance. Women aren't all wilting damsels in distress by default, even if the world is a scary place! The vast majority of us know how to navigate society even if it's unpleasant! But for some reason Korean and Japanese dramas LOOOOOVE young female teachers who get bullied by their students like they were dropped into a classroom for the first time in their lives yesterday. In reality deflating arrogant boys' egos is the first skill you develop as a high-school teacher!

And I'm not even gonna get into her discussing her love life and drinking habits with her student and asking him if she should date his uncle and seriously expecting him to give her sensible advice. That's just insanely inappropriate lol.

I just ignore all that stuff as typical webtoon nonsense. At least when they adapted the webtoon they cut out the part where the nephew was in love with her and she was letting him act even more inappropriately with her for some reason.

They’ve got to be mocking us at this point.

Thank you!

Is that ZLH’s real voice? I seem to remember it being less deep in other dramas.

His “worthy opponent” is reality itself, though. There’s no evil mastermind countering his plots from the shadows.

I'm very entertained so far and like the main couple a lot, but how come Li Ni is always playing 12-dimensional chess yet somehow the provisions he's trying to steal for his army slip further and further away from him with each episode and the problems he needs to solve keep multiplying? Is he REALLY that smart if none of his schemes works out as intended?

You do realise that's all just your opinion and not confirmed information, right?

I think people may not understand from the synopsis that the main lead is the groom’s brother. She falls in love with her prospective brother-in-law, who investigates her out of suspicion that she’s a gold-digger who’s after his family’s money (without realising that his brother is gay and offered to pay her to marry him because he needed a beard).

Perfectly paced romance with a charismatic heroine whose rough edges only make her more sympathetic, some hilarious set pieces (Yeongju’s expert performance as a jilted woman and Heecheol’s betrayed reaction every time his family sided with her were hilarious to me, with one such scene in particular being a masterpiece) and just enough sentimental moments for the viewer to sigh and say, “ah, this is where he falls in love. . . oh, so she’s in love with him too.” No sagging in the third act and a nice satisfactory ending too. Basically a perfect romcom.

The opening act was fine, even fun in its humorous exploration of the psychology of teenage girls, but the film forgot what it was about halfway through and didn’t have anything to say afterwards. The storyline was painfully banal after the premise was dropped and the love story was very poorly executed IMO.

I don't think I insulted anyone.

What I like about this drama is that it treats class issues openly, like kdramas used to do years ago. You've got poor people thinking about money, and having their lives and personalities shaped by it and by their desire to better their circumstances, and you've got rich people likewise warped by their greed or stunted by their comfortable lifestyle, and you've got the lives of rich and poor intersecting in unexpected ways. All Korean soap operas used to follow this recipe, and it made for more intense storytelling, but in recent years weekend family dramas have gotten blander; they either depict the lives of the middle and upper classes exclusively or, if they're about poverty, they treat it as inspiration for the plucky hard-working protagonist to hustle harder, without ever descending into bitterness, and not as a real limitation on one’s life. But Live Your Own Life allows itself to get a little ugly and nasty at times. Again, it treats these themes with honesty approaching the mood of retro kdramas. You can see this in the SML too, who's clearly a creep. The characters seem more human and interesting to me, without sugarcoating.

I like both our main leads a lot and their dynamic is subtly engaging... I just want to fast forward to the part where they become more interested in each other and have more scenes together.

The FL's older brother's storyline seems promising too.

Where are the fansubbers when you need them! I promise I'd kofi someone 5 euro if they subbed this movie. It looks so fun.

We got a crumb of romance in episode 6. I'm so excited lol. I think Kurusu-san and Hitsujitani complement each other really well.

Thank you for the links!

Could you please link the previews? Are they on YouTube?

OK, Minhyuk may not be not the most well-adjusted ML out there (though I loved every trashy second of him being trash), but when he got mad at Yoojeong for pouring that other douche a drink and told her he couldn't allow her to lower herself like that. she should never ever kneel in front of another person again, and if someone had to kneel, he would do it for both of them, well, that was cool of him. Coming from such a proud person, the declaration that no matter the circumstances, he would gladly humiliate himself so that Yoojeong could keep her dignity was pretty romantic.