ShortCircuit

"Taiwan do has a thing for step brother trope"

No they don't. As a matter of fact, Unknown is also based on a mainland danmei novel by Priest, Da Ge, just as The Only One/A Certain Someone is based on MuSuLi's A Certain Someone.

The producers are working with the original as much as possible and it so happens both these novels use the cohabitation-into-love trope (it's not even siblings. nobody's parents are married in either of these two novels).

Using the Taiwan (and Thailand) loop to make dramas based on danmei novels is pretty smart, IMHO, though I wonder how much til the Chinese censors put in new rules to stop this too (maybe block selling rights to danmei novels, who knows what they'll cook up). So far there have been precisely 5 novels that used this (My Stand In for Professional Body Double, Meet You at the Blossom for Blooming Flowers, Silent Sorrow, by the same author, Addicted Heroin the Thai version and Priest's Da Ge and this one). All other licensed ones were either watered down into bromances by mainland production companies that did what they could (TU, WOH, TSOMD, Guardian, The Spirealm/KoD) or completely blocked even if finished (2ha, Winner is King, Eternal Faith/HOB/TGCF, Seizing Dreams or any others). Anyway, out of the 5, only one really has the stepbro dynamics and that's Addicted Heroin. The other two who use cohabitation never have them as brothers, legally or not. And for the last two - TBH Shui QianCheng's novels both are abusive as heck and even with no stepbro routines, they have their eeck moments.

So it's not a "Taiwan thing" - it's just what they could license so far. Hopefully they'll be able to license more of the actually sweet and non-abusive novels, too.

PS TBH all the danmei I've read comes from the mainland and I have no idea if there are any known (and translated) Taiwan danmei novels. There are bound to be some, I just never heard of them. So assuming all danmei novels that dramas are using come from the mainland IS generally correct...

That's the second best scene in the drama, the first best scene is the one in the Silence Room, in the snowy night (you must've already watched it :D)

They totally did not. Read the novel, after the drama - you'll get all the explanations there. I mean, even to the scar on LWJ's chest. *wink*

His brother has 1. drawn the Wen Clan on the Jiang Clan with his antics (obviously the Wens would have come eventually but Jiang Leader was on his way trying to raise up help and build a resisting alliance, or at least find some allies to wait it out), 2. caused his mother and father and his whole Clan's deaths (not directly, but served the Wens a perfect excuse to attack), 3. revived one of the death enemies of whatever was left of the Jiang Clan (Wen Ning), 4. forsake all his promises of working with Jiang Cheng and rebuild the Clan where he was raised, to go and live with the remnants of their death enemies, the Wens, 5. DIRECTLY caused the death of Jin ZiXuan, the husband and only man JiangLi ever loved and the father of their child, 6. caused the death of JiangLi on the battlefield, when he lost control of his shadow-spirits.

I don't mean to excuse JC's actions completely, but don't deny he has good cause to not trust WWX ever again, and to not be enchanted by him as everyone else is. Because of WWX, JC lost his whole blood family and his clan and his only remaining blood relative now is a child of another clan.

This will be addressed in the final few eps. but pay attention to JC's POV too. He's not entirely wrong. (And the novel is a lot more clear on WWX's shortcomings).

Only 14 eps planned but I feel it moves a bit too slow. I know the novel isn't long either, but we're a quarter in and the main culprits are barely appearing right now, a lot of time is wasted on secondary characters just wailing and talking and it's not adding to the slow building up of a case, not any time soon.

Maybe they're trying to be a little cryptic for the sake of the suspense but somehow it's still not gelling well. Maybe some more details could be added here and there, the sooner the better, to link everything together. As is, so far we're getting extremely little pieces (and if you don't know the story in the novel they're almost all irrelevant because of the lack of context) and very little movement.

The only good thing in ep4 is Noh SangCheol catching a scent - and it's not even exactly clear WHY is he getting the scent, since he didn't seem to trust GJW at all. I really hope they try to move at a more alert pace, or this is start feeling like pulling teeth.

I don't really care, in the end, about what strangers want or insist on gatekeeping. But since it's a free place to exchange opinions, I might as well, too. So there's no need to talk about keeping calm, LOL, nobody on this site knows each other from Adam, so what does it even matter in the end? :D

I'm just calling out trolls because they are trolls already based on their behaviour, but they can keep trolling as far as I care. So don't get too worked out over this, LOL.

I did give Mouse 1/10 after loving it for more than half its run. You know why? Because it turned stupid - switchbaiting all over the place for the sake of shocking the audience, pieces of plot coming undone by the scene, watchers being treated like they're stupid and unable to follow a plot line (that later also got changed) and all the other shenanigans. If you WANT to be made into a fool and like that drama, why not, enjoy it. Who cares? You don't seem to recognize what a good drama is anyway, but that's you and I don't judge, LOL.

And what does that have to do with the price of rice in China? This isn't about Mouse.

Oh and btw, why aren't you watching the Thai remake of Addicted? I thought that was your golden standard of stepsiblings drama!! And it being Thai they're probably going to have the rape displayed in all its glory so you're going to probably love it. Have fun with that! :D

No, you don't see, n2m isn't pleased with it because they're not raping each other by episode 2 like the charas in their most beloved drama ever.

I think they're just trolling by now, because that's what people like that usually do.

I seriously love it is not and it CAN NEVER BE Addicted Heroin because that is a whole can of worms. Wanna talk about the first rape, sorry, the first "love" scene? Wanna talk about all the psychological and physical blackmail and how Stokholm Syndrome that whole "romance" is? Wanna talk about the toxic families?

Are you REALLY sure you want to see your favourite drama/novel discussed in the open? Get the f over it, you're not that precious as you think you are.

You're welcome for the wake up call.

LOL, get over yourself. If you want to pick and chose, go invest your own money and buy the rights to the novels you think are the most important or the best in your view, and then you'll get precisely what you want.

Until then, it'll be take it or leave it. You don't seem to really enjoy most of the BL dramas you're watching, why are you doing this to yourself? Drop whatever you don't like, it's easy.

That thread of Jiang Tian ALWAYS keeping his suitcase ready to bolt JUST IN CASE... When he's willing to just settle down and unpack it, for Sheng Wang's sake and presence in this place means he sees this house as home and then the parents freak out and rip it from him yet again...

I really really hope they let it in and play on that, because it was the most memorable part of the story for me, and I might not be the only one.

No. Pretty soon after they get together, when the parents find out, they freak out and they also separate in order to make them stay away from each other.

So they just wait until they're legally adults and then they meet again, like reasonable people (looking over to the AH fan crowd spewing nonsense about it being the OG stepbrothers story, LOL).

I don't know how much of the drama will be taken up with the reunion - after all, it's an adaptation, they might change some things, but I don't think they'll change something this important to the plot.

"Amen", on a BL drama's page, LOL. Okay.

So you don't like the trope - which is NOT even the trope you're dissing, as the parents never even marry and they're NOT ever stepbrothers, even just legally. But you're so lazy and uninformed (and seriously, if you don't like the premise, just don't watch, what's so hard to understand??!) and still you want to "warn" others against the drama you don't personally prefer?!

Why the heck would you do that? Who appointed you gatekeeper?!

This is freaking ridiculous, LOL. Get a life, guys, you're wasting time better spent watching what you like to tell us, who DO like this kind of drama, not to watch? Why?! It makes no sense.

The novel is mainland China though so why put this on Taiwanese dramas, LOL?

So don't get excited and don't watch, kthxbye.

Might be SSE too, since the JJWC notice is so recent. I'll be looking forward to it, thanks for the heads-up!

Who got the license?! It's not Seven Seas, they don't have it on their website (they got Sa Ye and some FeiTian novels, and You've Got Mail! :D but this one isn't there...)

So in Addicted Heroin they're actually legally brothers (their parents DO marry before the two of them meet each other), one of them basically bullies the other into sex (I'm not calling it rape but it had that flavour the first time), the same one forces cohabitation with the unwilling brother. Classic or not it's as abusive as they come. But those were a bit different times, so it gets a hall pass.

In A Certain Someone (this drama), they're never even legally brothers, because their respective parents get freaked out by their sons falling in love and separate in order to force them apart, too. Both teens are VERY sensible about falling in love (no rapey scenes here), both are WAY deeper as characters than the two in AH (ever wondered why that freaking suitcase is so damned important to Jiang Tian?), and when they are reunited, they both want to continue where they left off, it's amazingly natural for them to just be together again as adults.

Now if we're going to pick and choose how the stories are similar... Let's add Unknown (Priest's Da Ge) to the discussion. Also (unofficial) brothers, made worse by the fact that one of them is actually a father figure for the other one, obviously they live together, the conflict is about how different they perceive their bond, etc.

These are already three different danmei novels, by three different authors, who just happen to have some similar set-ins. They are not in any other way similar (not in the novels anyway.)

And hey, it's not just damnei - just look at Go Ahead. (Unofficial) brothers (and sister), cohabitation, love, conflict based on perceived relationships. They didn't take it from AH either. It's a pretty common setting - kids growing up together for reasons would fall in love eventually.

Seriously, it's like saying that all wuxia have qing gong scenes, LOL. Or all xianxia dealing with the Immortal Realm have a Jade Emperor. And so on, and so forth.

What can you do, tropes are gone be tropes and there are good reasons for that.

He looks like water, barbers and combs weren't invented at the time. I guess - based on these stills - he's a bad guy. Only bad guys manage to not comb their hair or wash their faces while being evil in kdramas.

PS Dammit now Paramount is getting in the action, too. Soon we would have to pay 11 streaming apps to watch what we'd want to watch. Makes for an easier choice of what not to watch, though, for now.

But how did Tonkla know who did it? The detective hadn't told him yet. Or had he?

I guess for the sake of making the timelines more convoluted, a lot of interlinking scenes are just thrown about at random *sigh*. Or I might not be paying enough attention.

Thanks for explaining!