bao____haus
Love When the Stars Fall
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the BEST cold duty bound high god male lead EVER!!!!!!
listen..... my xianxia hater street cred is going to be in a lot of trouble if they keep makin shows like this and canglanjue....another show that makes its mark with some fun and refreshing twists on tired old xianxia tropes! it's so fun that in the beginning I would say it felt very much like a parody. it's especially strong after shaodian youqin is unalived and yetan has to romance three completely different men who are all him. it's just SO fun and has such a sweet message too. generally the storytelling isn't anything reinventing the wheel, but it's quite consistent thematically and doesn't do anything too crazy. The last arc is definitely weakest and the most serious the show gets, which imo the plot dramatics just aren't done well and aren't particularly interesting
mainly i absolutely adore shaodian youqin and his relationship with yetan. even tho yetan is the main character i think youqin's character is the one that truly shines throughout the show and gets the most amount of love and character development from the writers. after all they literally put him through like 5 different character arcs as 5 different people and yet it's still all him!!!! like, wow, what a wonderful and fresh take on his character archetype!! i have HAD IT with the super powered, cold, unfeeling, 100% dedicated to his duty to the immortals war god/sect leader/crown prince who slowly warms up to innocent/kind/stupid fl but just Cant give up his duty because he is so Good and Filial and Just and can't put love above reasoning.... but it fills him with PAIN u see!!! he will take 50000 lighting bolts for his beloved but he won't tell her!!! and then he will still betray her so that he can fulfill his duty because he can't be w her!!! he is a MAN in PAIN... so beautiful... so cool... so tortured!!!🤮🤮🤮 and then the starry love comes around and is like, he is like that because he is Literally so abused and traumatized and he repressed all of his emotions and humanity in order to single mindedly devote himself to his suicide self sacrifice mission... it's not cool or good to be like that, it's literally BAD and INHUMAN. like the very first time we meet him, he's immediately shown to be awkward and rude, his cold proper stick in the mud ways are lame, rather than cool, and chen xingxu's actual voice is PERFECT for the role, thick and stuffy! the first arc is him learning to embrace his emotions and his fear, and he's rewarded because in this universe character growth actually correlates with a cultivation power up and the ability to then do the stupid fantasy thing. and then we MEET the parts of him that he repressed and they're all full and complete humans who are all flawed and deeply lovable. even though I missed the shards, esp xiao mei, it was such a joy to meet youqin 2.0- the sweet, fun and mischievous person he was always meant to be. they really had something to say, and it's directly opposed to what most xianxias have said. ugh the messaging is just truly so sweet and positive. i better literally never see a yehua or zhihua ever again because THIS is what you can do with the character type and now that we've done it we can never go back... give us more men who would actually turn their back on duty and responsibility to do the actual RIGHT thing and stand by their love!!!!!!
yetan i think is done well too, and she has more of a classic hero arc, starting out othered and outcasted and learning to use that villain persona as a shield to protect herself, but learning the value of the world over time from care, love and friendship. i have quite some affection for her but everything kind of pales in comparison to youqin for me lol but she is also very sweet and her relationship w qingkui is very sweet and pure, though pretty much devoid of complexity. i think the choice to remove any ill feelings between the sisters to be understandable, since the show clearly wants to go against the typical jealous, scheming fighting betrayal shit which is admirable. however this relationship is supposed to be central to the show, and taking out any negativity doesn't mean it's a stronger or more well written relationship. if the writers were more skilled they would be able to add depth and dimension to their relationship without resorting to overused cheap tropes. qingkui and chaofeng as characters are also pretty mid for me, with pretty straight forward arcs and little depth. They were the most fun in the beginning when he was still deceiving her, but after a while their story really couldn't match up to the main couple's imo. which sucks because i think they have a lot of potential to tell a really good and interesting story! just very straightforward bad guy falls for good girl and stops being bad eventually.
many plot points are just pretty weak, ESPECIALLY yetan and her dad's relationship which is done SO poorly, and i thought they were doing p well w youqin and his dad until the Last episode when they decided to make him redeem himself even though he's the WORST meanwhile the actual hottest character in the show void tyrant had to DIE. not a fan of many choices honestly, many of the side characters are just complete blank slates, totally boring, and don't even get me started on the dongqiu plot.... it's so bad, handled horribly, suzhi is so poorly written.... like if they truly wanted to talk about genocide it wouldve been woven into the story and felt from beginning to end, but it's literally all shoehorned into the last 4 episodes. to me the true end of the show is after they leave the tianzhu and the couples and their friends all live together happily and chaofeng has an armed guard business. that's the end. everything after that i do not accept- not because it's sad, but because it was poorly written and added very little to the characters who had pretty much all completed their arcs already.
honestly pretty mid show in many ways but it is extraordinary for shaodian youqin and his storyline which is very fresh, fun, and sweet!
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Hei Yue Guang Wen Na BE Ju Ben
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the luo yunxi juice is strong and the only reason this show is so popular
Ok this show... I dont even know where to begin. Not all of it was this god awful, most of the time it was entertaining and mid, but when it was bad, it was SHOCKINGLY TERRIBLE. And at its best, this show entered the Marvel cinematic hell zone, where everything thats happening is on such a massively large apocalyptic world ending stakes so high that it just ends up becoming boring and meaningless. Tantai Jin is basically a total saint by the end, just a victim of cruel fate and Susu is literally a god, none of the main characters feel like they are being lead by any sort of complexity or humanity, they are just wholeheartedly devoted to the cause of saving the world from evil. Tbh not once were we really shown why it’s worth fighting for, they just say it is because it’s the world and that’s enough for them and most viewers I guess… but like a good writer would really make me FEEL the urgency. I’m not saying that world ending massive epic high stakes will always be boring or unrelatable- all it takes is characters that are well written and the addition of themes that have something important or new to say, but this show absolutely doesn't have that. I'm not even really sure what the theme is other than a generic people can change for the better and you really can love a bad boy into being a good boy LOL.Okay I will start w the only truly good thing I will say about the show. The costume design for the gods is actually the best I've seen in a xianxia, which isnt saying much because it's usually absolute shit. And while I wouldn't say the gods had Good costume design, it was at least Better than what I've seen. Like they ACTUALLY referenced Chinese Buddhist imagery of gods/flying apsaras/feitian which gives it a feeling of both historical reference, as well as a more retro vibe from older C-dramas and their depiction of gods and immortals. Truly a balm for the eyes in the sea of pale ass transparent gauzy layers of hanfu with drop earrings. I will NEVER forgive 3L3W for the shit costume design that has become the standard in xianxia!! Thank you cyjm for doing something different!!! Not even that good it's just different!!! HOWEVER other than the gods the styling was absolutely terrible.
Onto character + relationship writing... Tantai Jin is of course the beloved darling of the show, (and of the internet... and of my mom) who gets so much time and attention and yet his character makes so little impact for me. It's quite funny to me that he is supposed to be 'evil' and yet the writers are so precious w him he cannot be blamed or disliked for even a second. He truly does nothing that is actually morally contemptible and the writers have gone in circles and circles with ridiculous plot shit and other eviler evildoer characters to make sure that he is essentially completely blame free by the narrative. Even in the beginning, when he was at his most interesting and basically whatever the writer's flawed perception of a psychopath is, he literally only ever hurt his abusers and people who betrayed him. And while those people were sympathetic, it also meant that TTJ never does anything that would truly make the audience question their support of him or of what's right and wrong. He never hurts the truly innocent. There's no villain who you can't help but root for, just a bullied and abused man who also happens to look like a beautiful manhua character come to life who never does anything wrong!!! It's simply cowardly to only make characters that are perfectly likable and do not do anything genuinely morally reprehensible and then CLAIM that he is some morally ambiguous ML. And do not tell me this is the fault of censorship when there are plenty MLs in cdramaland who are pretty bad and do bad things. Even when he takes his place as ruler in Jing country he does it as peacefully as possible and treats all citizens as his own and provides aid to refugees and everyone loves and respects him LIKE??? COME ONNNN LMAOOOOO he is literally FAULTLESS.
He's at his most flawed in the grand disaster of his relationship w Ye Xiwu but even then his obsession and possessiveness remained firmly in the land of fantasy of beautiful powerful deranged man who is obsessed w u, and wasn't really pushed That far into gross and creepy. It gets closer after she dies, I was actually genuinely hopeful that he was going to learn when Ye Qingyu yells at him but the final note is still that TTJ loved her so much he wanted to die with her, fuck the country and everyone else! And when he couldn't die he suffered endless torment for 500 years for her! Isn't that romantic instead of absolutely INSANE. Again this is what I mean by Marvel factor, like the 500 years of suffering is SO meaningless to me and it's truly just some peak crazy dog blood cringe writing!!! Like hmm, how can we up the stakes and make it as clear as possible that this love is so powerful and extreme? LETS PICK A BIG INCOMPREHENSIBLE NUMBER YEARS OF TORTURE. This is a middle school idea of devotion, hardship and love. All the writing does is take shortcuts to make manipulative emotional impacts instead of actually writing a good character and relationship arc lmao. China has always been prone to these very annoyingly dramatic epic you die I die self sacrificing portrayals of love which I absolutely hate and cyjm is just a classic example of this that is possibly even worse than those that have come before it.
There was potential for TTJ but so much of the show is just griefporn and him being relentlessly abused and betrayed whether it's by the people around him or by some kind of inescapable fate. And its all so that Susu can save him over and over and he can fall deeper and deeper in love with the only person who cared for him, which is also just more of the tropey Chinese fantasy view of what the deepest form of love is- one that is formed when you only know abuse and pain and One person is nice to you. It's how they keep making desperate unhinged trauma bonding instead of love. Like, if you think about it it's not even that romantic because he didn't fall in love and choose Susu for her character, or her strengths, but because she was the only person who was good to him and she kept saving him over and over... which she only did because she didnt have a choice anyway and it was for the fate of humanity!! It's not like their relationship has nothing going for it, its just not convincing enough. I wish that LSS could've inspired care for others in him beyond that scene with the fireworks granny, and the show showed through actions how she has inspired him, instead of just telling us over and over that shes the reason he has feelings now when all I saw was one measly fireworks scene, and many fluffy meaningless cutesy acts of service and gift giving scenes on top of a random ass dream where they lived as totally different people so the writers could take another lazy shortcut and make him become a better person by experiencing SOMEONE ELSE's LIFE and LOVE instead of HIS OWN. There are things in his story that genuinely have potential, his relationship w Xiao Lin is interesting, he has Nian Baiyu and an entire clan of people who are devoted to him, he also has fun relationships w Pian Ran and Ye Qingyu with decent basis for further development. I really wanted these parts to be explored more and it doesnt take that much time honestly, like it literally just couldve been a few extra scenes (and it wouldnt hurt to throw in some scenes of him with the common people too and learning their struggle!!!) so it wouldnt feel like such a massive jump between the abused and amoral hostage prince TTJ and the Genuinely Good Ruler TTJ. I barely even want to touch on the massive leap between him being relentlessly tormented for 500 years, unhinged don’t care abt anything but YXW to becoming a good boy cultivator who then spends the rest of the show impossibly pure and morally just. It's ridiculous, and you cannot blame this on the story being cut when plenty of other shows have less time and make much better characters and usage of the time that they have. It actually makes ZERO sense, the writers just need his character to be at a different place so they force it to happen.
Li Susu is more or less a blank slate of a character who only exists to be the hero and antithesis to the devil god. She doesn’t have much of any internal logic or core, no depth, she just exists to be whatever the writers need her to be in that moment. She oscillates constantly between forgetting her duty and remembering depending on which will create the most conflict, and then spending the 2nd half the show knocked out unconscious, or running around LOST while TTJ is spitting blood getting the shit beaten out of him ahgjkakjkfjkd tbh u kno the writers are like we need to make Luo Yunxi spit out more blood dramatically and beautifully for all the freaky fans who want to see beautiful men in pain, so LSS will have ZERO SENSE OF DIRECTION…… EVEN THO THEY ARE IN THE SAME PLACE AND SHE CANT BE MORE THAN A BLOCK AWAY!!!
And despite supposedly being smart the writers decide to disrespect her character and make her lose all sense just so they can continue to protect their precious baby TTJ so he remains a Good Boy. It was so genuinely frustrating to watch all of the events that lead to Xiao Lin’s death and subsequently YXW's that basically absolved TTJ of any blame, put all of the blame on Ye Bingchang, who is just evil because misogyny, and made LSS believe stupid shit at the drop of a hat like that TTJ killed her grandma, who isn’t even really her grandma, based on ZERO EVIDENCE. The writing was truly SO FUCKING BADDDDD and for WHAT!!! You LAZY writers!! Just so that neither FL or ML are bad people??? So instead they just made them STUPID??? Was it THAT hard to write a genuine conflict between these two extremely morally opposed people?? They literally went out of their way making an annoying multi step plot with useless branches like grandma dying to AVOID creating complex characters! Imagine if the writers were capable of writing two characters who are both flawed and naturally have conflict AND still love each other!!
Ok onto plot… I’ve already touched on the Marvel vibe which is a definite issue… but also the plot writing is just SO nonsensical and absolutely purposeless at so many points. Like they have such limited time and they are just WASTING it… if something isn’t working just cut it entirely!! Just fill it w parts that actually do matter! And I really do have to talk about the spinning flaming wheel of a train wreck disaster that is the dream arc…. like bro….. BRO…….. WHAT THE FUCK….. because of this arc I actually STOPPED watching for a good month (and would’ve dropped it for good had real life not presented itself w so many stresses i had to escape by binge watching the most fast paced candy at 2x the speed). They wrote the worst love story I’ve seen since Hua Qiangu, with the flattest, most insipid characters with the stupidest motivations and expected not only the Actual Main characters of the show to feel something for them much less the audience who are living in reality. You expect me to believe TTJ and LSS LEARNED smth from this?? Had I gone through this it just would’ve jokerfied me immediately, I would’ve spit blood and qi deviated, not been like wow their love is so sad and beautiful. Sang Jiu and Ming Ye have even LESS basis for loving each other than the main couple, they make LSS and TTJ look like they have substance, my god. And then we have to spend not one or two episodes just to establish lore here, we spend like WELL OVER 8 if not TEN episodes… I’m not counting, that’s just how it FELT… like an ETERNITY!!!! Good lord TIAN HUAN….. I FELT LIKE I WAS LAUNCHED INTO 2001…. and then they had YBC be like I’m not her because she’s pathetic and she sucks LIKE??? So the writers know that she’s nothing but a pure misogynistic lazy and stupid writer’s trope?? Then why force your viewers to watch ten unBEARABLE episodes with her singlehandedly being the cause of everything wrong and bad in the story, including commit GENOCIDE so that Sang Jiu is jokerfied?? Why purposefully make BAD writing that you KNOW is bad and expect viewers to still enjoy it?? The miscommunications… the whole scene where Ming Ye divorces her…. I have never felt so insulted that I was expected to watch this and feel anything other than pure offense. This makes YBC indirectly causing XL’s death look like HIGH ART.
cw sexual assault
And THEN oh my god… something that NO ONE seems to want to talk about but HELLO??? The CONSENT ISSUES???? Did everyone’s morals FLY OUT THE WINDOW??? And I don’t just mean Sang Jiu and the writers I mean the AUDIENCE??? I don’t care if the narrative is saying it’s okay and it’s romantic actually because Ming Ye loves her and was into it… the point is that he could not consent in that state!! AND THEN…. they had the GALL to make SJ take care of him while he’s blind SECRETLY so that he doesn’t know it’s her, and she licherally says ‘he would never forgive me if he knew it was me’ ??!!!! So they KNOW that it’s wrong and they STILL WROTE IT?? Imagine if the genders were reversed and a woman’s rapist is taking the opportunity while she’s blind and injured to get close to her, lying and pretending to be Not her rapist ex husband…. it is literally just so emotionally violent, the grossest violation of a human being’s basic boundaries, respect and ability to make any kind of informed decision. Literally just imagine if she wasn’t a cute girl and picture the most cringe, pathetic incel stalker LMAOOOO. It doesn’t matter WHO it is when the action itself is the grossest violation!!! This show was always doomed to fail at portraying LSS and TTJ’s relationship in the first place since the entire core of their relationship is a struggle of good vs evil, but the writers have no concept or understanding of what that even means. They only know ‘bad people hurt people and by hurt we only know to mean cause physical pain or kill.’ Like I honest to god felt sick watching these episodes... Anyway even if the rest of the show was just mid-bad this arc puts it into atrocity territory, and it would’ve been SO easy to cut out because it was sooo inconsequential, out of character, RANDOM, and didn’t need to happen for any reason other than to set up some lore. They could’ve made TTJ and YBC change through CHARACTER WRITING…. this DID NOT need to happen.
Otherwise the plot is choppy, many pacing issues, general stupidity that is only good for un-critical mindless viewing. You just really can't take it seriously. Many people had issues w the ending and said it was terribly edited but I honestly didn't even really see much of a difference. I don't give a shit abt TTJ or LSS because they are poorly written and I'm not convinced by them or rooting for them, so I felt nothing by the end. The fact that TTJ dies and it's a BE after pretending to be evil to get LSS to kill him is simply just proof that the show is continuing its road of straightforward plot led thoughtless storytelling. They just followed their own rules and didn't try to do anything different, just the boring usual shit.
Anyway, that’s it for all my gripes. Sorry y’all like so much but it’s so stupid and mid/bad, only worth watching if you can put aside your brain fully (which I kind of needed since Real Life is Hard) for the pure entertainment of many dramatic things happening, and tbh the real reason people like it and TTJ so much is because of Luo Yunxi’s extremely expensive and unnatural face and they get off on him getting tortured to varying capacities. This show is just beautiful manhua man torture fetish hours, endless epic drama w no substance and the ppl who like it THIS much had their brains rotted by Luo Yunxi juice.
Ok that’s it, don’t @ me I don’t care.
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a cut above your typical run of the mill boys over flowers reverse harem story
If you had told me that i would genuinely enjoy a reverse harem drama w four suitors, one of whom is basically a vampire, i would've never believed you.on principle i don't particularly enjoy love triangles unless like, there is a clear endgame and one of the options just exists for the main character to learn from (for ex. fuheng in yanxi palace). this is because usually they exist in dramas for melodrama and fantasy scenarios of what if these two different hot boys were into you lol. maybe i just haven't seen that many but i've just always written them off as understandably popular for a reason but generally silly and cringey dog blood.
lost you forever/chang xiang si was very immersive because it offered a similar reverse harem formula or structure, but the basis and core of WHY there are multiple options is a cut above the typical boys over flowers reverse harem story. it is not simply that xiaoyao is a stand in for the audience, and her options are a good boy and a bad boy please choose which one u like more, y'know? xiaoyao is a multi faceted character who has been deeply traumatized and has a host of abandonment issues that affect her relationships as an adult. her two main options, tushan jing and xiang liu, represent two different pathways for her to progress- and the reasons why she likes them are also informed by her trauma and experiences. tsj offers her kindness, softness and gentleness, unquestioned support and care, he represents way for her to truly heal and learn to trust other people again, to grow in a positive manner. while xl’s coldness, darkness and danger are attractive to her because he is a kindred spirit, and also what she knows and understands. xiang liu's love on the other hand doesn't push her personal growth, but rather supports who she is in the present. he abandons her, pushes her away, never allows her to know how he loves her, and puts the bigger political picture above her. he teaches her archery so that she can continue to stand alone without relying on others to protect her. but tsj will come to prove that she CAN rely on others (or should at least in s2). it makes complete sense why narratively tsj is endgame, but her storyline with xl is equally, if not more compelling exactly because it makes complete sense why they love each other, but ultimately won't be together. not even gonna touch on cx because he’s a non-option whose relationship with her represents the worst possible route you can go post trauma. congrats y’all actually got me to enjoy a love triangle!!!! sort of pentagonal!!
the strengths of the story are the character and relationship writing. the doomed trauma bonded siblings, xiaoyao and cangxuan are the core relationship of the story and both characters are nicely done. i particularly like cx, what an ambitious little freak who got his wires crossed and is too weird about his sister! zhang wanyi is really excellent, i enjoyed watching his acting SO much... his tight little smile that never reaches his eyes…LOL yang zi is also great and particularly committed, especially as wen xiaoliu. xl and tsj are generally well written too, as is chenrong xinyue, and even the minor support character sang tian'er was well written and so memorable (honestly her role as a former sex worker was more progressive than the entirely of a dream of splendor). However you can really tell the writer only cared about Some characters while others only exist to cause conflict, namely fangfeng yiying is just Evil for like no good reason, and tushan hou is similarly just senselessly evil. i think the writer definitely struggles with villains and they are pretty one dimensional. generally however, the characters are pretty good, and good character writing can really drive home the themes and take a story so far! AND YET......
the plot........ my absolute biggest gripe with cxs is the PLOT. i find the plot so incredibly inept at supporting its characters, and unable to push the narrative forward. the story is extremely character lead, to the point where most of the show is just conversations, with very little Events Happening. why does cx achieve the throne at the end? HOW does he even achieve the throne at the end? because grandpa said so. thats why. as an avid lover of political court dramas and little plots and schemes, this show was so disappointingly short of that. and like, i'm not asking for nirvana in fire or rise of phoenixes, because that would just be a different show, but like.... just a little bit of plotting please.... just more sense as to HOW cx is power hungry and ambitious, cunning and calculating instead of just telling us over and over again. mainly all i saw was him getting hooked on drugs and building good relationships with the right people. i wanted him to take down his uncles and enemies one by one!!! doing more and more dastardly things to do so!! it just felt like the crown was given to him instead of him having worked to achieve it. i get that the author seems to mainly just want cx to represent this kind of classic cold, ruthless, power hungry character, and doesn't actually care for politics itself but like i can't help but feel kind of cheated out of what was promised in the first episode and the premise of his character. china's political drama genre is very popular and there are plenty of sources to pull from!! the princes’ struggle for power is a classic! as a result the story feels flat and like the characters are just existing in a blurry aesthetic background. these parts are just SO weak. like i don’t know who cx is as a ruler, i don’t know what his relationship is like with the common people, has he done anything for them? a ruler doesn’t exist without citizens, idg why we aren’t shown the ways cx built up power and support from the people. literally it’s just him interacting w the same ass two nobles who are already committed to him. similarly, tsj’s family is literally CARTOONISHLY evil, from torture to rape they’ve fuckin done it all!! they exist to purely just be evil and it doesn’t even make sense, why are they forcing him to be clan leader and marry ffyy when tsh and ffyy want to KILL him so she can openly be w tsh and he can be clan leader. idk maybe it will be explained next season but so far it’s just weak and lazy story telling. there are ways to tell a story about an abusive family that uses confucian values like filial piety and duty to manipulate its members and make it resonate in a real way- the same way that xy’s fear of abandonment resonates. if the writing was stronger they would be able to explore how they keep tsj trapped in this toxic family without resorting to the most outlandishly evil dog blood tropes. and xl too!!! his relationship w the chenrong army is SO WEAK and poorly written. like everything is for his adopted dad, but it just doesn’t feel enough, esp when the army others him for being a yao. if they had more scenes that developed his relationship with them, his devotion would be so much more believable. a scene of them singing around some burning bodies does not communicate the strength of their bond or conviction. nobody in the army is even NAMED. like if we actually got to know them and hear their stories, see how xl came to bond with them, it would just be so much more believable. in general this is the issue with the scriptwriting. cx, tsj and xl are all pretty well written by themselves, but they don’t have support from the plot to make it all make sense.
Not only is the plot writing weak, at times it is pure dog blood trash. for example, the entire plot abt xy getting tortured and killed by some complete RANDOM. clearly this random guy who we have basically NEVER met or heard of was being influenced by 5 wang and 7 wang who wanted to get rid of xy to get at cx, but there was so little build up, so little development. when it happens it feels like it's out of nowhere, and just happens in order to plant the seed that she's chi chen's daughter and to compare how our three leading men will react. i wanted it to be much more clearer why xy is a target politically, instead of like, just this random guy's revenge. just felt SOOO out of nowhere, shitty writing, poor development, and really took the quality of the story down sooo much. even worse tsj’s rape and forced marriage.... i have too many frustrations, the way they handled the rape was so abysmal i don’t even wanna talk about it lmao.
i found everything more successful and enjoyable in the first arc when they were still in qingshui town and xy was wxl. honestly i am also just a sucker for stories about the common people with common every day problems so that also contributed, but it truly felt so much stronger. i think that when the stakes are lower, more grounded, the writer is much more adept at creating a plot that can support its characters. the little political things that happened felt reasonable and believable, rather than later on when the stage is bigger and stakes are higher. i loved wxl’s found family, his everyday problems, and his relationship with xl and tsj was already well developed and fully communicated the themes and messages of the story. once wxl becomes xy and we are now in princesses and nobility and palace world it loses so much of the heart and charm it had originally. also all of the gender stuff! i appreciate that tsj often takes a narratively feminine role, but nothin’s gonna come close to how fun and queer and trans the first arc was.
on the whole this show boasts some strong characters in a weak plot. a reverse harem being used to examine the different paths one can take after trauma gives this show substance that most reverse harems don’t have, if only everything could be backed up by a carefully cared for plot. excited to see how things develop season 2!
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do i dare give nirvana in fire a less than perfect score? yes i do.
since 2015 nirvana in fire has been known in dramaland as the BEST C-DRAMA EVER!!!! to both dads and bl fans alike... i struggled for many years to get past the first two episodes and have watched the beginning over ten times with various different people. i literally can repeat verbatim the exact sequence of events in episode 1 because i've seen it so many times. THATS how much i struggle with political intrigue in media res many old dudes talking and plotting...anyway this time i sat down by myself and finally forced myself to binge the whole thing, and though i find the show slow to start, once it gets the ball rolling, it sucks you in quite easily. i think the absolute best thing about this show is specifically the schemes and plots. while i personally prefer the iconic zhen huan zhuan, which is also heavy on the scheming, this show has it beat in how well written and cared for the little plots are. each game/scheme is meticulously designed with a lot of detail, intricacy, and complexity and yet still gives the viewer enough clues to follow along with and even figure it out themselves! it manages to do all of this, keeping the viewer engaged and entertained, without becoming too smart, or taking on some kind of condescending tone (like bbc sherlock which actively mocks its viewers) and getting too elaborate or convoluted. it is smart enough to be impressive, and simple enough to be easily understood, which is what makes it really good writing! this is the kind of writing that can really draw viewers in and immerse them in the plot!
the show does a very good job at very wholly telling the story and themes in a way that perfectly accomplishes what their goals are. not a lot of shows are able to do this successfully. nirvana in fire is a very complete product that wraps up perfectly. unfortunately, though i can recognize this as well thought out writing...... the themes and goals of the series are just not it for me. this is where i have to knock the score down.
first of all in regards to the political system, nirvana in fire is extremely optimistic. this is not inherently a bad thing, but this show specifically seeks to express that positive change is possible WITHIN the system. and that the system can be changed by replacing all the bad guys with good guys. sorry but this is just unrealistic and frankly irresponsible- the oppressive systems that govern us are inherently flawed from their roots. to say that the answer is as simple as just weeding out the corrupt and replacing them with just and righteous people is just..... not right.... don't get me wrong, like i think that it is Good to hope! to write an ending in which you CAN create positive change!! but to say that the system CAN work and does work and you just have to get the right people on the throne.... i just don't agree with that, at all. even at the end of the series the emperor says to mei changsu (paraphrased) "you think that jing wang is different, but he isn't, i wasn't always corrupt either, once you sit on the throne... over time you will change" and i was like 'dang he has a point' and mei changsu is like 'no you're wrong' IAHJKDJDLFKD LMFAO like the thesis of the show is literally the antithesis to my beliefs. i know that the story is a story, but the POINT of stories and narratives is that they speak to the struggles and experiences of human beings, and if this was made in the modern era then it is meant to speak to modern day people. im sure that watching this was satisfying to a chinese audience in many ways that i, an abc, cannot understand, but based on my own values i just can't agree.
next up is both mei changsu's character arc as well as the themes associated with it. i'm gonna go ahead and say that mei changsu's character arc is specifically tied to masculinity. the person who lin shu was, was the chinese vision of ideal young manhood: noble, righteous, loyal, honest, brave, a warrior. not only was he a hero, he was also a talented genius. they literally wrote him to be like a storybook character, the picture of upright heroism. with the fall of the chiyan army, lin shu not only lost his clan and almost everyone he loved, he lost something even more important- his masculinity, and in turn, he lost his identity, and was forced to become mei changsu. he lost all of his strength and vitality, he became weak and frail and delicate, losing his martial arts and all of the traditionally masculine traits he had. no longer bright, forthright and honest, he now works from the shadows, he schemes and manipulates, sacrifices people as pawns and is the definition of cold, calculating and deceptive. it is extremely clear from the beginning that mei changsu hates himself, and is ashamed of what he has become. single mindedly dedicated to his goal, he views all of his schemes as sacrifices of his good character in order to attain his end goal. in particular a scene that really struck me was specifically when he had to hurt innocent people in order to expose some bad guy's plots, and one of the women died from the stress and pain. the narrative focuses on HIS pain, as if this was a sacrifice that Had to be made, and that he had to be cold and heartless to attain his goals. the narrative did not accuse him or blame him, instead it asked us to Sympathize with him??? it really rubbed me the wrong way, i hate this manpain kind of shit esp when women are just seen as collateral damage and their deaths are just used for HIS character development.
anyway, the narrative very much says that in order to attain his righteous goal of filling the court with good people, mei changsu had to be the LAST bad guy, and that was his ultimate sacrifice- his own goodness. he will be bad to get the job done so that jing wang doesn't have to sacrifice his character and morals, and can remain good and untainted. when jing wang asks him to be a part of his court when he's emperor, mei changsu actively refuses because he does not want a calculating and scheming person such as himself there. when jing wang tells him he should come out as lin shu and reclaim his former identity, mei changsu resolutely refuses, because he believes that the mei changsu he is now would taint the good memory of lin shu, and that he would rather lin shu have DIED a hero on the battlefield, than become what he has. like???? jfc talk about idealization of the past, and specifically traditional chinese righteous masculinity. the thing is, this is all actually really interesting to me as a character?? the way that both jing wang and nihuang repeatedly still refer to him as 'lin shu gege' and 'xiao shu,' the way that they still see him as lin shu and maintain that he IS lin shu and want him to continue to live as lin shu, much to mei changsu's reluctance, is really interesting. esp when compared to his doctor friend who says 'i don't know who lin shu is, i ONLY know mei changsu.' the show also shows that he does have so much value AS mei changsu, not lin shu, and is lovable, and kind, someone who is a good leader to his sect and has many loyal followers who admire him. they showed that he was a good brother to fei liu, and that he could be playful too. jing wang specifically came to care and love him for who he was even before he found out he was lin shu. literally everyone loves him SO much, everyone goes to bat for him and would do anything for him, jing wang, nihuang and meng zhi are ready to start a rebellion and sacrifice hundreds of lives for him at the drop of a HAT. to me, all of this seemed to be pointing at a thesis that goes something like "the past that which is romanticized can never be returned to- the dream of idyllic heroic masculinity does not exist, but it is okay to accept yourself for not living up to it, and who you are now is valuable and deserves life and love" which could've been cool...................................... jokes on me i am the clown... INSTEAD, mei changsu literally decides that he doesn't want the rest of his life, and goes back to being a soldier on the battlefield and DIES as lin shu the way that he always wanted to. not only did they say that you CAN reclaim your heroic masculinity, they also said that it is worth DYING for!!!! and that his literal reward for all of his pain, his sacrifices, and his efforts, was the honorable and glorious death in battle!! literally, wtf!!!!!!! mei changsu didn't learn ANYTHING!! and then jing wang names an army after him to honorably commemorate him forever and this is all shown as a great thing! like mei changsu's doctor and everyone else was begging him to live the rest of his life in peace and go on fucking vacation which is what he actually deserved! just like.... imagine if the storyline was actually kind to who mei changsu had become, and allowed him a character arc of self acceptance, that said, ok you can do this one last thing for who you once were 13 years ago, and afterwards you can be free, and live as the real life person that you are, not as a romanticized idea.............. what a disappointment and what a shitty final message.
i find pretty much none of the other characters are well written, nor do they even have character arcs or much depth at all. rather they generally tend to just be very one note symbols of righteousness, or corruption, or whatever. The emperor was generally pretty interesting and a good character and I think that Princess Liyang also had the potential to be interesting too if she was given more time. that's pretty much it?? yu wang also was pretty interesting in his storyline as a prince who was extremely favored and yet still held at a distance and never given the throne.... couldve been an interesting father-son relationship but then that devolves into lazy information reveal about his backstory and heritage that was also quite disappointing. and jing wang and nihuang who are also supposed to be main characters get pretty much nothing??? extremely simple and one note?? in fact nihuang literally is not in 3/4 of the show???
this show has also been sold to me as extremely emotional and tear jerking and i gotta say..... it was really good at Doing the technical storytelling thing of making emotional moments, but it really failed at deliver depth, if that makes sense. a good example of what i'm talking about is how mei changsu works very hard to keep all of his emotions repressed under a mask. in all of his scenes w jing wang there is a brutal cold and technical formality where he is holding back every single bit of warmth and genuine personality. smiles are rare, any talk that isn't politics doesn't happen either, it's 'jing wang this' and 'dianxia that' all very formal speech. and then jing wang is being stupid and about to get himself killed and ruin all their plans, mei changsu finally screams his real name at him and berates him for being an idiot. the emotional release of this scene... super effective!!!! very compelling and engaging!! mei changsu finally lets down his formal walls and allows himself to be human for a second! very well done at making the audience really feel his frustration, fear, desperation, and how deeply he actually feels! mei changsu is actually super emotional and by depriving us of this emotion, it allows for the moment to hit so much harder when they finally give it to us. unfortunately........ all of this happened...... not because of some careful writing of mei changsu and jing wang's characters, not because they wrote a genuine conflict between the two of them, which they have a wealth of a basis for......... but because of..... misinformation...... that the enemy laid ....... as a trap to sow discord................ do u all see what i mean by the writer being technically proficient at making the audience feel things, but didn't bother to give them real character arcs and complex relationship arcs, beyond jing wang eventually trusts mei changsu, and a conflict that would actually develop the characters instead of just being like jing wang is a fucking idiot??? there's depth but it feels really shallow, and just doesn't go very far.
plus most of the emotional moments are just the work of some sad glances and a mumbled 'you remind me of someone i used to know' combined with a swell in the musical score....... i'm sorry it's just not cutting it for me when the very excellent soundtrack is carrying the emotional work of the show. it's that and sentimental objects like the egg sized pearl! all of it just feels like cheap shortcuts. even though mei changsu and jing wang's relationship is supposed to be the emotional core of the show, there really just wasn't nearly enough depth, complexity and development considering what they're set up as... don't even get me started on nihuang she is literally just not even there... this is literally mei changsu's love interest and there is nothing happening beyond her continuously seeing him as lin shu, which is not explored at all. so disappointing!! also fucked up that banruo is villainized for wanting to avenge her people and country but mei changsu is a hero for working within the system instead of destroying it LMFAOO
tldr: the show IS technically very good in many ways, well written plots, successful in their goals and in conveying their themes in a whole and complete manner. unfortunately it falls short on the character and relationship writing, and i also just personally don't agree with any of their themes. i understand why ppl see it as an impressive introductory cdrama, but ultimately its aesthetics of being a high budget, very serious, very political, high quality drama can't be backed up by enough actual depth. i have seen a LOT of frankly, very low budget, very trashy shows, that were a lot more fun than this and ultimately had something better to say.
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this show DID IT!!!!!!
when i first heard of this show i was extremely skeptical- okay girlboss and a boss-employee relationship w a 12 year age gap ??? there's no fucking way they can make this work in a way that is also healthy, appropriate and doesn't cross boundaries, it's impossible................... and then i watched it....it proved me wrong.... SOOOO wrong. to be fair i also was hot off the heels of watching 'use for my talent' which was basically just constant workplace sexual harassment and abuse and was unbearable. i have some level of just turning my brain off and being able to watch toxic stupid shit in dramas if some other factor is making me continue (shen yue is just tooooo cute) but it was truly impossible to watch after a certain point. so i just didn't believe that any c-drama could make it work....
BUT RATIONAL LIFE!!!! DID IT!!!!! their relationship really feels like it does and can work by the end, and they treat each other with such respect and care and learn together. the show honestly in general is just really lovely in tone- able to show real life issues and genuine conflicts without feeling like cheap dramatics or feeling too 'dark and gritty reality.' instead the tone is able to keep this lightness and positivity that's rooted in the reality of the show. serious issues are treated with severity, but it never drags you down, the slice of life aspect also never really gets boring, and is still engaging. Conflicts never feel senseless, like you understand where everyone is coming from, and how all people are affected by patriarchy and societal pressure, even when there is a right and wrong. the villains are treated sympathetically, but aren't forgiven and are rightfully punished. but there's no gleeful vengeance either and just feels a little sad, like the realities of life and the cost of their actions. it really feels like the writers really care about talking about these issues and creating a really positive impact.
i really loved the way they talk about modern issues, especially on what women face in the workplace. they have an extremely clear stance and message against misogyny and yet even though ruoxin is technically a girlboss, there's no lame over the top girl boss WINS!!! type of tasteless vibe that you often get in many other shows, especially US ones, which ends up just feeling like cheap pandering to be relevant. it's never shown as the greatest achievement, ruoxin isn't incredible because she's a boss and a girl, but because of her skills and abilities- we admire her the most when she's problem solving and getting herself out of sticky situations with so much finesse. she starts the show incredibly ambitious and seemingly cold and rational, fully fixated on work, but is also clearly depressed and lonely and living unhealthily. throughout the show her actions are based in surviving in the company, not mindlessly valuing career achievement. full dedication to work is shown as a clear flaw, and they do such a wonderful job showing us her learning slowly and naturally throughout the series. in the end she does attain the highest position at their branch, and obvi in universe it's her moving up in her career, but NArratively, the writers are rewarding her with a high position and career achievement not BECAUSE of her being hard working, but because she learned balance! how to appreciate her life fully and enjoy it outside of work!!!!!!! it's a reward that feels earned because she finally took the right steps to be happy!!!
and the relationship!!! is so good!! so sweet!! it's super super slow burn which is the only way to do a big age gap boss employee relationship imo. they spend most of the show as a very proper and healthy boss-employee relationship. she's a really good boss who never acts inappropriately towards him and respects him fully. while he gets a crush on her pretty early, their feelings develop and deepen slowly over time, from being together everyday, understanding each other, admiring each other, making it through all their obstacles together as a team, and just making each other happy!! while the very clear boss/employee, mentor/mentee dynamic is still in effect for most of the show, it's only at the very end that it develops to a point where the romance feels clear and real- the time this takes is necessary! it really comes in the form of qi xiao taking care of her, teaching her to take care of herself and about what really matters in life, which is so necessary in making the relationship feel like that amongst equals. and then as soon as they get together he resigns and they end their boss employee relationship to be partners.... i know the bar is low but thank GOD for this show. and then after they get together i really liked them working through their issues together too, there's not much time, maybe about 10 episodes of this? but it's still nice that the show was able to at least introduce some conflicts they would have based on their age gap, former power imbalance, and both their personalities, as well as how they would work through it together. truly it shows how far they've come when we see her taking a day off work to be his assistant at the end..... that got me so bad.....
ok onto all the side plots!! i love how they dealt with ruoxin and xu zong's relationship a lot actually! it's so good to see them fully show us that her young and attractive boss pulling all the typical things in dramas (buying her fancy things, manipulating and lying to her to get her to go on dates, etc) was clearly inappropriate and wrong- when this is the norm and considered super romantic in other shows. and yet xu zong also wasn't shown to be some evil monster either, and could still be a good boss outside of those actions. i like seeing that a 'good' man who can respect ruoxin and values her first and foremost as his right hand, can still cross boundaries and be in the wrong. they end the show with a healthy boss-employee relationship and maintained really clear boundaries, which i really appreciate and enjoyed seeing.
i really loved ziyan and zou cheng's storyline too, it's rare to see a show give us such deep issues that feel fully unresolvable, as in they are different people who want different things in life, and yet still show us that they were both able to learn while they were separated, and come back together. ziyan's full journey was such a joy to see! i really enjoyed su yang's storyline too, especially since i'm also an illustrator and they got his struggles down SO accurately. i like what they used his character to say a lot, but i also found him unbearable at times because i hate his attitude and how much work you sijia had to constantly put into their relationship, when he rarely did anything at all for her! i truly could not understand why she would like him at all.... makes no sense.... my only real critique of the show is their relationship. i also don't love how things with ruoxin's mom are resolved in terms of ruoxin learning how much she sacrificed and then being willing to try more. i wish her mom was already a much better mom than how she was in the beginning at that point. tbh god bless qi xiao's mom basically single handedly making ruoxin's mom change for the better.
all in all, this is my perfect comfort show and i highly recommend it! engaging and real, yet still hopeful and positive, with so much love and kindness between the characters, and real care given by the writers. modern dramas aren't my thing and i've seen like, 10, but this is 10000% the best one that i've seen.
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this show is SOOOO BAD LMFAOOOO
oh my god it is literally so funny how terrible this show is i am just here to add another bad review to even out this score because it is baffling to me why anyone would rate this show a 10/10 unless of course their brains are fully rotted by the bl juice.u cannot say this show is like cql/the untamed because truly the only thing they have in common besides being bl adaptations is the god awful cg. for me, cql is like a nutritious protein that also tastes good. word of honor is like if they force fed you the most saccharine cloyingly sweet candy until u threw up. it is literally just forcing constant flirting, romantic/cute moments that often have NO basis or development so everything just feels so completely cheap. like they have no interaction beyond flirting and they're already using the big Z J words (zhiji) in the very beginning. all the romantic and cute moments feel unearned and worthless, pure fanservice for bl brainrot fangirls so that they can make more bank off of them. i can feel that the writer DOES care about the story and the characters but she does an absolute shit job of showing it for a majority of the series.
i'll start with what i did like. i think the premise is really fun, i like the IDEA of a retired assassin and the leader of the ghost sect, neither of them are good people but they find each other and connect. the story had so much potential. it is VERYYY wuxia in a way that can be really really fun and nostalgic for anyone who grew up watching classic campy wuxia. chengling the classic tropey protagonist, the corruption of the righteous sects, the beggar gang, the scorpion gang, the big heroes conference, the old guy chained up in a cave for like 80 years, the big revenge plot?? all very fun. the ghost sect members designs are soooo fun, i mean come on the green lipstick?? so good please give me more shows with this degree of campy fun designs!!!!
i also like sooome bits of the relationship between the two main characters. there IS some level of substance, i think the scene where wen kexing is just happily calling his name is good and reflects where both characters are, happy to be able to find each other after everything they've been through. i like that even tho it appears that wen kexing is the one relentlessly chasing zhou zhishu, the reality is that zhou zhishu is into it p much from the beginning, and flirts back/teases him in his own way. zhou zhishu is then the one who is emotionally vulnerable w wen kexing first in an attempt to get him to also open up with him and build a real relationship. he actually pushes the most in the emotional/real way beyond just flirting to understand and connect with wen kexing. i also actually like that the key to the armory was the hairpin that wen kexing is always wearing and gives to zhou zhishu because he trusted him and knew with absolute certainty that he would take care of it.
ok thats it for pros. the rest is pretty much a giant mess that is truly a dumpster fire. despite zhou zhishu being the main character it feels like the writers gave him absolutely NO attention or development whatsoever... he is just guilty and hell bent on punishing himself until he gets himself a bf and a son and is like jk. like why not write a narrative in which they actually explore his inaction and self punishment as actually only harmful to not only himself but those who love him? punishing oneself as retribution for past wrongdoing doesn't undo anything or make up for it, the only thing that helps is productive action. i'm not saying he has to be redeemed for what he did, he doesn't have to become a good person, but if that's the case, then why is he so sad and guilty that he has to punish himself to such a degree and kill himself in the worst way? he spends the entire series with so little focus on his storyline, instead he is single mindedly devoted to wen kexing for reasons i absolutely cannot fathom. i genuinely cannot understand why he loves him so much and is SO patient every time wen kexing flies off the handle and does bad shit or runs away and violently pushes everyone away again, when frankly wen kexing does not deserve it LMFAOO. other than pure pity because wen kexing is an absolute traumatized trainwreck and zhou zhishu wants to help him because he feels bad? but needless to say that is not love... that means that something is going on with zhou zhishu's own character where maybe he wants to fix other people to redeem himself or some shit (though that would've actually been interesting but is 100% not the writer's intention because they were going for romantic, loving, supportive partner.)
as a clarification, i think that sticking with and supporting your partner through their trauma, mental illness, and even some toxic behavior is good, and that it's important to be what they need (obviously not at the expense of one's own needs and boundaries), but i need to be able to see that there is something reciprocal here?? all they have to do is show me why wen kexing means so much to him, and it CAN'T be that he's his long lost shidi because that's plot information reveal and does not count. show me that wen kexing was anything at all to zhou zhishu other than just a relentless and annoying flirt and an evenly matched partner in martial arts. like wen kexing has not given zhou zhishu a single reason to love him or warrant his devotion, like he never encouraged zhou zhishu to forgive himself for his past actions, or to move on and become a better person?? he never taught him anything, or gave him something he had never had before, or changed his life other than just physically always being there. everything wen kexing does for him is fanservice shit like sucking out his poisoned blood, instead of something meaningful. even when he found out about the nails wen kexing doesnt stick w zhou zhishu and try to help him emotionally, instead he loses his shit, throws a tantrum, runs away and screams at gu xiang whilst ppl in HIS sect are being murdered.... literally WHYY does zhou zhishu love this guy WHYY LFMAO. it's like the writers are so focused on showing us that they DO love each other, instead of building the character arcs and relationship arc that explain why and how, this is what gives the show a 'cheap' feeling. (like... compare this to cql where lan zhan's devotion to wei wuxian had a clear REASON, where he loved him because wei wuxian changed his entire life and viewpoint, and even then lan zhan's way of caring for the very traumatized wwx was flawed and only pushed him away further, and he had to Learn how to love him the way he needed..... compare them.... you CANT!!! you just CANT!!!)
wen kexing, despite getting all the love and care and attention from the writer has an absolute mess of a character arc. like i like the idea of a chaotic guy who is just super hell bent on revenge, hates the righteous sects and has a shit ton of trauma, who views himself as unlovable and plays the role of the 'bad guy' and slowly learns to let people in, and reclaim who he really is. instead wen kexing is just not really evil or bad from the beginning? he's just inconsistent?? the whole thing w gao chong was just him feeling bad for being schemed against more than anything else. he shows immediate remorse once the polycule zhiji die, but also kills people indiscriminately, he feels bad about misjudging who his enemy is, he clearly cares for chengling, but also none of the other women in his sect who are all there because they have been rejected by society?? he literally doesnt give a fuck abt his sect and is happily able to leave them all to be w zhou zhishu and chengling and not take responsibility for any of them. literally why cant he get a consistent arc that allows him to heal and work on his issues instead of him just realizing he hurt more 'good' people because he was shortsighted and ignorant, not a BAD person!! (like he learned that already w the polycule deaths why do they have to kill han ying too and drive him into absolute hysterics).... why can't his relationship w the righteous sects and his own ghost sect be informed by his past and his trauma in a way that might eventually become productive?? like that he specifically cares for his sect of outcasts as a reaction to the corruption and oppression of righteous sects? the writer just doesnt seem to be able to commit and instead is waffling around on the trajectory of his character arc. gu xiang basically has a very similar character arc as him, she's also stubborn, violent, traumatized and pushes people away and refuses to show vulnerability, but her storyline is soooo much more straightforward and follows a trajectory that actually makes sense?? this shows me that it is possible they were just an absolute mess when it came to the main characters.
the plot of the entire show is a bit of a mess, but the ending........... the last like 5 episodes..... i dont think i've ever felt such a clear fever dream where i was literally fighting for my life while i was a watching. it goes OFF THE RAILS. the closest experience was watching bubujinxin 2... like the editing and pacing make NO SENSE whatsoever, the show has absolutely no semblance of a rational structure, like are we living in wen kexing's chaos trauma mind??? it flies through a bunch of BIG CLIMACTIC events, wen kexing flies off a cliff and is dead for HALF an episode but not before this results in zhou zhishu and him romeoing and julieting themselves by the finale??? random fluff scenes when bad shit is still happening?? AND gu xiang and cao weining and their sect get MASSACRED by basically a rando after they were like some righteous ppl are ok actually JK thEY ARE STILL BAD AND the armory shit is still going on?? AND then theyre IMMORTAL??? it's batshit, ive never seen a more senseless and near incomprehensible ending that had no semblance of adhering to character arcs and themes that have been set up from the beginning. the fact that the main issue between zhou zhishu and wen kexing that literally causes them both to DIE if not for some deux ex machina shit is a MISCOMMUNICATION...because wen kexing just DIDNT TELL him his plan??? this is the laziest fucking writing ever. like instead of writing a genuine conflict between the main leads they had to resort to fucking miscommunication to up the stakes.... absolute garbage writing. also just the whole armory bit.... like isnt the point that all these ppl fighting over it and ruining each other and their own lives are senseless in their greed for power??? and whats in the armory doesnt matter??? why is it now PIVOTAL to both main character's survival.. and now they are both immortal and STUCK w each other for eternity eating only ice and snow on a mountain forever.... im sorry but i cant think of a more horrible ending. i literally wish they just died and just got reincarnated or smth. this is fucking bleak idc how much u love someone it is deeply unhealthy to only be with one person and interact w no one else and be isolated like that forever. it is the kind of unrealistic i cant live without you, we live together forever that is the ultimate romance that i absolutely HATE.
other notes and final thoughts: also the whole uh... weird grooming thing between xie wang and zhao jing....i dont even know what to make of it other than that they did a pretty bad job of talking abt grooming and incestuous familial abuse if that was their intention. im also crying at having the two leads sing a romantic song and playing it during all their romantic moments but the guy who plays wen kexing can NOT sing for the life of him so we just have to listen to this horrible out of tune warbling during EVERY serious romantic moment. basically this show is an absolute embarrassing mess with shit writing but it's so bad to a level that it became really funny for me and was generally still fun to watch. the main couple are at the very least not the same level of toxicity ive come to expect from bl and there's no clear gong/shou situation so that's a plus. basically i dont think the show is evil but it is absolutely very bad.
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ngl they had me going in the first half
for some years now i've been feeling quite burnt out from modern xianxia/wuxia (not enough to stop watching lol), one of the main reasons being that so many shows seemed to be following a set of exhausting tropes. main character has mysterious origins and tuns out to be reincarnated/reborn/memory sealed ultimate goddess/princess/savior/demon/apocalypse bringer, her love interest is a super powered ultimate high god/war god/crown prince/demon lord. if the stakes are not high from the outset, they become THE HIGHEST WORLD IS ENDING STAKES EVER, the ultimate battle of good and evil, dark and light (which is also a concerningly judeo-christian western value found in western fantasy (lotr, harry potter, star wars) but maybe there is chinese precedent for this and i just dont know enough but idk), the entire world Will Be Destroyed unless one of the main characters sacrifices their life!!!! sometimes they even go back and forth sacrificing their lives for each other/the world REPEATEDLY!!!!! then one character dies and the other waits for them to come back/regenerate/reincarnate and then they DO for one last brief appearance/reunion in the last two minutes!!! because no one dies and actually suffers the consequences of self sacrifice!!! nothing matters!! what is the meaning of self sacrifice when they are gods and deities and will just come back???? the stakes are so high and yet there are no real stakes!!!! instead everyone is just rewarded over and over with a happy ending for sacrificing themselves!!! its EXHAUSTING!!!!!!! it's like writers don't know how to get people invested and care about stories anymore unless the stake is their LIFE or the WORLD!!! and more often than not the 'world' is such an abstract concept where they don't even truly express why this world is precious, valuable or worth saving. i've been calling this the the marvel cinematic hell zone because the stakes are SO high that the story loses humanity, relatability and empathy from the audience (me at least) and just becomes meaningless.what made huxin so special in the beginning was that it was very clearly NOT this. it was SO refreshing, a true breath of fresh air that felt nostalgic of older wuxia in so many ways. the stakes were simple and lower, it was about adventures and fights and collecting all the body parts and gaining powers! fighting injustice! the main characters were special not because of their birthright or their destiny, but because they were just skilled fighters or spirits. yanhui is a normal girl part of a normal sect and even though tianyao is powerful, he's also just a yao dragon. like thank you for giving us HUMANITY!! RELATABILITY!!!! charm and sweetness they had it all!!!!! i truly LOVED this show in the beginning and binged it so quickly, it felt like i was watching my fav childhood wuxias, but still new and fresh! zhou ye and hou minghao are perfect as the main leads, they're both so cute and have great chemistry and charisma! the villains were hateable and HUMAN! the taoists and suying were lead by human constructs and emotions- racism and prejudice, obsession, desire for power and control! NOT an indescribable incomprehensible innate EVIL. the lower stakes adventures, the themes of oppression and inequality, the relatable heroes and villains, and the character and relationship development too all made this show an amazing standout that allowed me to truly care about the story and characters.
sadly, and inevitably, this did not last, and the show eventually became everything it wasn't, everything that i hate abt modern xianxias and wuxias. it lost everything that set it apart from the others. listen, unlike many other viewers, i was okay w many things, i was ok w tianyao stabbing yanhui, i was ok w them having communication issues, i was ok w their relationship being set back and tested, and them having to work and expend time and energy to gain yanhui's trust again. that was all fine and i thought it made sense for both of their characters and i don't think it was terrible writing. what i am NOT okay with was the new ULTIMATE EVIL DARK LORD with the WORST NOSE CONTOUR I'VE SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!! why the terrible drag make up???? WHY???? why did he have to show up and ruin literally everything??? why can't the villains just be the taoists?? why can't the stakes just be that tianyao needs to retrieve his body parts and get revenge and yanhui wants to survive?? that was a wonderful story i was enjoying that story!!!!! now it's no longer a fight against systemic oppression, a battle to settle personal vengeances!! now it's saving the world from apocalypse... AGAIN....!!! the taoists aren't just shitty actually they are being POSSESSED and MANIPULATED by the evil dark lord!!!!!! actually every single thing that has happened from the beginning wasn't driven by human motivations, greed and cruelty, but by the EVIL INCOMPREHENSIBLE DARK THING!! pulling the strings from the beginning for the big dark master plan of apocalypse!!!!!!!!!!!!! like come on!!!!!! can we not?????? can we please not do this it is literally ruining all of the villains and shifu!!!!!!! shifu whips and tortures yanhui not because he is a shitty but complex man who values adherance to taoist sect traditions and orthodoxy over his own daughter, but because he's a goddamn idiot who got TRICKED by the evil darkness into thinking it was yanhui's life or the WORLD. like this kind of writing RUINS characters! they damn near got suying too by saying the idea to manipulate and kill tianyao was evil dark lords idea instead of her own. at least she stayed terrible and obsessed w lu musheng till the end but still!!! don't even get me started on lingfei!!! truly abysmal writing for the story and characters, a great way to get me to stop caring because nothing matters anymore, everything is about the great evil big bad who also has no character writing and is just a psycho and manifestation of everything bad in the world. i didn't even care about yanhui and tianyao and their relationship anymore and i had loved them so much in the beginning. everything and everyone just loses their charm, bai xiaosheng is destroyed once they turn him into a love rival, and then the show just completely forgets about his existence for the latter half. i never cared for the side characters but they get even more grating. at a certain point i was just finishing it to finish it.
all too often we have main characters in cdrama who give up EVERYTHING and sacrifice themselves for the greater good, for the world, for their lover, etc. etc. and for once we got a main character who didn't do that. who believed in self preservation, and was still a good person. yanhui was a normal human being who valued her life like normal humans, who wanted to live and wasn't willing to give up EVERYTHING for other people. that isn't a bad thing lmao, human beings should not be taught self sacrifice as the ultimate marker for goodness and moral purity. in fact it's really unhealthy to live your life for other people. so it was extremely disappointing to have her character go down that road like all the rest... like does anyone have anything new to say???
all in all.... the beginning was a 10/10 and the ending was a 0/10 generic boring meaningless pointless garbage.... final score
5/10.
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when ur dad neglected u for his job and u put all of ur spite into making this drama
listen... im the kind of person who knows what kind of show i will like and what i won't and generally try to avoid what i already know i won't enjoy. the concept of master/disciple romantic relationships is one of these things, i'm sorry but i'm on the side of the orthodox sects w this one - it's a gross power imbalance, may as well be parent/child incest, and literally disgusts me. despite the fact that shen diao xia lu is one of the most formative stories of my childhood, as an adult i have my values and much more perspective. it is basically a relationship between an adult and the child they raise and i will never enjoy this in any piece of fiction. i watched the entirety of hua qiangu at 2x the speed in a fit of masochism while isolating after getting covid just because i wanted to understand modern xianxia as we know it and i knew that this show had a big impact at the time. i wanted to understand the context that would precede 3l3w and the xianxia wave, so basically i did this for research and i don't regret that.anyway, upon finishing this absolute dumpster trash fire of chaos and senseless tragedy porn, i didn't feel empty, or upset, i just felt blown away by the deep spite that created this. like wow, the pettiness, the immaturity, the deep desire to cause as much emotional pain and regret as possible. i was almost impressed, i have never seen something with such a clear emotional impact, w the emotion being vindictiveness. this was the definition of the childish fantasy 'my parents are so unfair im gonna run away and something horrible will happen to me and THEN they'll be so sorry and so sad that they EVER hurt me!!!!' it's like when you start fantasizing about your man neglecting you while other people are bullying you or hurting you and you are this victim who never did anything wrong and you sacrificed everything for your man but the world is against you and you indulge yourself and get lost in this brain hole where the fantasy has extended to the point where all your friends and family died for you and the man you love still didn't believe in you and killed you and then you were DEAD and he spent the rest of his life feeling sorry and regretting it and devoted himself to you and there you go you've made the whole drama. like 3l3w has that vindictiveness in it but jeez this show takes the cake, they literally have bai zihua's final lines be like 'i'm giving up my sect, im giving up the world, i'm giving up my values, i will live for her and be whatever she wants me to be.' like what the fuck????? in what universe is this anything other than a ridiculous, childish, spiteful fantasy of making ur bf who hurt u live for u because he feels so bad??? esp when the writer CLEARLy has deep daddy issues stemming from her dad neglecting her for his job??? like.....i cant really respect this work, but i really am almost impressed by the ability to be fueled by spite for so long that you write a whole novel motivated by it.
ok so the plot is really quite bad. i actually was really enjoying the first half of the show, it wasn't well written, but it was entertaining. it had a lot of genre elements i love, i love all the kids testing to get into the sect, being disciples together, going to investigate cases, martial competitions, etc. i thought it was cute that qiangu, who had never had friends before suddenly had a big bunch of sweet and silly friends, and i LOVED ni mantian.... i love my arrogant prideful girls who only care abt winning but are actually sympathetic, so it was sweet to see her be friends with hua qiangu. (i do not ship in general but IF i did then yes i would ship this) of course the show destroyed that after like 10 episodes and ground mantian's character into the dust because they are allergic to complex characters. it was still shoddily written but i was able to compartmentalize and pretend it wan't gonna be a master/disciple romance and just a nice story about a hero's journey story and her cold but caring shifu who is her new dad. anyway it all went to shit as soon as bai zihua got poisoned and the rest of the show flew into a torrent of absolute senselessness. im not someone who can't take pain and angst and darkness in shows, in fact i love it- but it has to be well written and meaningful. Pain in stories has to exist for a reason- sometimes, the writer is trying to communicate that pain IS senseless, that horrible things happen to good people, and situations can happen where no one does anything wrong but it all goes to shit. and that is a way of talking about and processing the reality of life, because pain IS senseless, and it's a way to understand and make peace w that grief. i respect that. and that is 1000% not what hua qiangu is trying to communicate.
hua qiangu very successfully created a story where a bunch of characters are involved, and no one person technically did anything wrong, but everything horrible still happened anyway, and everyone died, and the reason for this is so that specifically qiangu and zihua can remain above blame for whatever reason. like it literally feels like nothing matters, no character matters, everyone is already simple enough but they reduce everyone to be even more flat and exist only to serve the writers goal of causing qiangu as much pain as possible so as to cause zihua as much pain as possible. what happened to mantian who was ambitious and competitive but also under a lot of familial pressure and needed a friend? why is shuo feng a rock and suddenly relevant and has to sacrifice himself?? why is qingshui suddenly stabbing qiangu in the back after being a stable friend for the entire series?? why is shiyi tricking and trapping tangbao??? why is there a sudden RANDOM new character who didn't need to exist who is now qiangu's little brother after 3 days of interacting??? why the fuck did the guy who killed jiejie's sister here too???? no reason for any of this other than to set qiangu on the path to her jokerfication. what is the point of the jokerfication? to make zihua feel bad and regret forever. it's literally just senselessness for the most stupid, petty and childish message, for that satisfaction of having zihua finally realize after he killed qiangu how wrong he was for caring about a single thing other than her. like she literally TESTED him to see how much he loved her at the end and the test was her LIFE like?? jesus the spite... grow up...
qiangu as a character i don't even necessarily hate or think she has nothing going for her. i think the idea of a 'pure' girl who is motivated purely by emotion and is capable of ditching all moral values when anything threatens her shifu to be fine enough by itself. it could be interesting to see someone who is previously only kind and naive, literally try to kill her classmate because she wanted to reveal the pinup drawing she did of her master. like i don't have a problem with that desperation and sudden abandonment of moral values, and it would've been cool if the point of it was to express how deeply she depended on her shifu, who is the first real figure of family, authority and care after her father died, and how desperate she was to stay in changliu- the first place she belonged after suffering a childhood of isolation and ostracization. but like no, it's nothing interesting about her character, it's about romantic love. it's literally just about how much she would sacrifice for love and literally lose her morals and not care about anything and almost enable the apocalypse and plunge the world into chaos..... because of love... and it's ok and you can't blame her because she did it for LOve. i hate this childish romanticization of sacrifice for love... truly i do.....
zihua on the other hand, i also actually don't hate either. he's pretty annoying at times, but honestly compared to 3l3w's yehua i actually don't hate him. like yehua did wrong by susu because he was bound by his role in his sect and his responsibilities, but his love for susu and their relationship isn't wrong or immoral, and susu is entirely innocent. it's his sect who is wrong for forbidding love between immortals and mortals. whereas zihua is completely different in that he stands by his moral values of righteousness. while im generally raring to go hating on the orthodox taoist sects, the rules of changliu are not wrong. it IS wrong to try to assemble the 10 fantasy objects for the fantasy apocalypse and literally put all of humanity in danger for ONE man, and it IS wrong to have a romantic relationship between master and disciple. like??? zihua isn't wrong for standing by his values on this one because qiangu isn't innocent?? and while of course i disagree w punishing qiangu for loving her teacher and the torture and all that, etc. etc. zihua didn't do anything wrong by repeatedly rejecting her, and in fact that was what he SHOULD do??? every time he's like 'even if you don't see me as a master, you will always be my disciple' 'even if i love you i will never be with you because you're my disciple' i am like YES. Good. that is Correct. but of course my opinion is the exact opposite of what the show wants you to feel. the show wants you to think he is wrong and horrible for putting his morals and values above love, because love should be more important than anything else even when his love is wrong. like this isn't love between a mortal and an immortal, or two people of separate fantasy races, or a god and a demon. this isn't love that is wrong in their universe based on the rules of said universe, but doesn't matter to us in reality because it is fictional. this love is wrong in REALITY also!!!!
their relationship itself......... like god i already went off on why it's wrong to sacrifice everything for love and devote yourself to one person but god......................... my god........... the degree to which this writer wants to be both a baby daughter and a lover who is the center of this man's world is deeply concerning. like she is literally a child for most of the series and acts like one, their relationship LITERALLy feels like a father/daughter relationship, the love and care and gentle guidance that zihua shows her again and again, is not that of a lover, but of a father?? like although ofc i have problems w shen diao xiao lu, at least i didn't feel like i was watching INceST. they took all the necessary steps to make the relationship feel equal, and like it was happening between partners, and master/disciple was just the initial stage or a meaningless label, xiao long nu was only four years older, and was incredibly naive and childish, deeply socially inept and isolated. it made it FEEL more equal. whereas zihua is 1000s of years old and has the vibe of a 40 year old, he's lived through so much already, is sect leader and has the highest position of authority, power and responsibility over qiangu as well as their sect and the entire cultivation world. and he meets qiangu when she is a 16 year old baby who doesn't know anything, doesn't have any family or friends, and had a devastating and traumatic childhood. like she is so incredibly vulnerable and dependent on him, and what she needs is essentially a parent and a teacher. their relationship never has a marked change to that of equals, except possibly the literal last two episodes, there isn't a time skip where she's grown up now or smth and things are different, and they develop a relationship as adults, they never feel like partners. everything he does for her is perfectly valid and what a master SHOULD do for a disciple. a master SHOULD sacrifice themselves for their disciple, and they SHOULD take punishments for them because they are their responsibility. the way he teaches her, tries to give her life advice, admonishes her.... it is literally all in the exact way that a father would. so it genuinely makes me feel sick and sad to see them have romantic feelings for each other, ESpecially on his part because it is just wrong?? a child having a crush on a teacher is far more acceptable but whenever he admits to his feelings i want to throw up!!!!
ok only pros i wanna give this show is for jiejie aka sha qianmo!! unexpected gender nonconforming ICON!! they might be the head of an 'evil' sect but they never really do anything reprehensible on screen, we mostly see their devotion and sisterly care for qiangu. they have such a sweet found family siblingship also that was like a balm in the disgusting sickness that was qianguxzihua. major trans vibes, very rare to see gender nonconforming 'villain' not have their gender presentation be a homophobic and transphobic shorthand for disgusting perversity. they are very powerful and in control, but not 'scary' or 'gross.' so i really appreciated that, and also the pleasant surprise of their subordinate being clearly in love with them. so the trans/queer vibes were actually nice to see here!
anyway that's absolutely it for pros there is literally nothing else good about this show. i feel like i understand xianxia better now so this was a worthy 36 hours of my time even if it brought me pain it helped me get through my covid isolation so im chill w that. i don't love xianxia but im glad that so many better titles have come out after this.... hoping for the continued development and betterment of this shit genre.
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the purest candy you can feel good about!!
cang lan jue is 10000% the best xianxia of this specific celestials branch (gods + immortals + 100000s of years, etc.) that i have ever seen. This show did it and made a genre that i thought i would despise forever actually watchable and ENJOYABLE. yes it’s silly and cringe, i spend as much time laughing AT the show as i do with it, but xianxia is p inherently cringe. it’s exactly as good as it needs to be and sometimes we deserve to indulge in candy!For many years I’ve watched xianxia, always in SPITE of the genre and storytelling, never because I actually enjoyed it. (why would I watch something I dislike? I guess it’s part of my chinese american complex of needing to understand what is popular in mainland right now. C-dramas are something I have easy access to, compared to books and web content since I can’t read Chinese v well.) I thought this whole genre was stupid and goofy as hell. like hello, i’ve lived 70000 years and loved you for 50000 years but had to forget you and reincarnate for 10000 years and it was all because of a miscommunication or something stupid and toxic and now we hate each other!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE BE SERIOUS??? y’all are 100000s of years old and you are suffering whatever fantasy torments of hell because of a miscommunication or patriarchal ideas of ‘strong, noble man’???? seeing the repeated relationship dynamic of an idiot weak innocent emotional baby girl x MOST powerful COLD aloof and uncaring sect leader/war god/whatever over, and over, and over could only be described as a punishing slog to watch. it’s not that i had no hope for this genre whatsoever, but i didn’t think that it could offer anything very great if all we saw was meaningless suffering, male leads who were too cowardly to stand up against authority/orthodoxy/hierarchical order/oppressive ruling class, female leads who are given no logical reasoning and believe lies and miscommunications at the drop of a hat, etc. etc.
cang lan jue took all of these tropes, these character types and plot lines we know so well and they made it meaningful and actually contribute to the story they want to tell. for ex. dongfang qingcang is not just a Powerful Controlling Villain Lord type for the romantic fantasy. he's like that because it's his story the script writer wanted to tell, and every part of his backstory, his arc, his motives and his progress are well thought out in terms of how they inform the themes of the story... AND he's a romantic fantasy! it's a very simple story with simple characters and messages but it does every single aspect near perfectly. its ambitions are not high in terms of storytelling, but what it accomplishes are the absolute best in terms of what it is and what the genre is. the plot is generally agreeable, the pacing is great and easily gets you addicted to what's gonna happen next as the stakes and problems keep growing higher and higher, though it never feels overly convoluted. i of course have problems with it, but that's more in terms of general problems i have w xianxia and a lot of chinese media. i think the issue is that the writing for the show has these glimmering moments that are genuinely really good, smart storytelling, which made me think it could be better than the conventions of the genre but these hopes were dashed by the end. in particular they wrote dfqc and xlh to be a couple whose relationship is built on communication, respect, trust and working together to solve the problems they face. by the end this is all turned to dust in favor of endless self sacrifice as proof of love. they also had a nice theme of defying fate by positing love and identity as a CHOICE built by your experiences and values.... they are still defying fate by the end but only through self sacrifice. i just think self sacrifice is a very cheap and easy writing tactic to show the depth of love, rather than actual work or other ways that build upon character arcs and relationship arcs. AND it's extremely unhealthy and just a pain to see! all that said, i DID cry my heart out though all those scenes because they made me love xlh and dfqc SO much throughout the series, even tho my rational brain was disappointed. ultimately clj is exactly the kind of silly but addicting fun trash that i originally thought it was- and i STILL LOVE IT.
i absolutely adore our main leads, and i was already a fan of yu shuxin from seeing her on youth with you. she’s PERFECT for this role. tbh i never would’ve watched this show had i not heard she would be the female lead. not many actresses can do the silly innocent baby well, in fact i would say i have never in my life seen it done as well as yu shuxin. She is incredibly talented at making it look effortless, charming, and natural. She’s genuinely just adorable instead of annoying. Like i’ve seen many many amazing, highly skilled actresses make their attempts, but at the end of the day, playing the baby is its own thing that is incredibly difficult and out of their comfort zone. yu shuxin embraces and embodies it without reservation, she’s a cutesy idol, like, this is her THING. and i was worried she wouldn’t have the range to play dfqc during the body switching scenes, (as well as the duty bound xilan goddess) but she did it SO well, and she’s surprisingly great in all the serious angst scenes too. xiao lanhua is so wonderfully lovable, if she were only kind and pure she wouldn’t stand out, but because of her resolute bravery and her quick thinking, her emotional wisdom, it absolutely sets her apart and makes her an admirable protagonist. she has so much basic human logic and reasoning that many female xianxia leads completely lack. while i miss her silliness in the beginning, it’s also nice to see her grow and learn from dfqc, as well as from her experiences in Canyan Sea and the mortal realm, to become so confident and self assured, no longer caring about her identity and status background. i was extremely happy with her character arc, so i was of course quite disappointed with her return being full Goddess time even though i know it's still her. in a lot of ways it felt like we lost what a wonderful fate defying, blood and birthright defying, shuiyuntian-familial-class-based system defying, i- choose-who-i-love-and-who-my-people-are-based-on-my-values-and-my-experiences Xiao Lanhua we had!!! idk i think i still need to process the ending more, i just loved our heroine so much.
As for dfqc, i would say not only am i not attracted to his character type, i find it abhorrent. but i guess that completely changes when he’s in the hands of competent writers because i LOVE dfqc. The set up is PERFECT because by making him suffer, by making him the butt of most of the jokes, and making us laugh AT him, it takes away his power because it doesn’t take him seriously. his seriousness, threats, violent intent, domineering presence and murderous energy all become THE JOKE when you make him have to serve xiao lanhua's every whim. i would never have grown affection for him unless they stripped him of his weapons metaphorically as they have done in this show. he is still cruel and powerful, but he can’t do anything to hurt you. because of this set up we get to have our classic toxic relationship dynamic, AND have it all be bearable. there were absolutely times after the first arc where his behavior made me feel uncomfortable, after all at the end of the day, this is still a narrative that sells possessive, controlling and aggressive powerful men as a romantic fantasy. I understood that, but it was never bad enough where it felt like it crossed a line and made me want to stop watching (like every other show). i like him so much to the point that when they played the cringe ass goofy electric guitar during his ‘’’cool’’’ scenes and literally made his eyes glow with goofy blue fire and covered the screen w more goofy blue fire in the most embarrassing shameless final fantasy anime nerd way i literally cheered for him out loud without even realizing it…. i would not do that for any other reason other than genuinely liking a character and it also helps that he’s super hot LMAOO. i like how his general character arc is written too, and i came to actually love his character when he dealt with his father and how he grew. like i know he is a fictional character but i weirdly felt proud of him. seriously kudos to the script writer for allowing dfqc to accept and understand his father, while still standing his ground, and not forgiving or making up with him. seeing every step he takes to become a better person felt difficult and genuinely deserved.
also!! changheng was quite nicely written, with a very clear arc. this guy is basically the ye hua archetype of all these xianxias and yet he surpassed them all by doing what all of them were too cowardly to do - he stood up for the girl he loves and for what’s right in the face of authority and his own social position and duty in the oppressive ruling class!!!!! he even LEFT shuiyuntian and gave up his position and escaped from his brother's oppressive thumb to find his own happiness!!! literally who the fuck else actually did that??? ye hua could NEVER!!!!! AND changheng still wasn’t even as good as dfqc??? the standards for all the main characters in this drama are higher and i just can’t thank the script writer enough. i actually thought it would’ve made for an interesting character if changheng was a straight ye hua type who never goes against heaven, but it’s also SOOOOOOO nice to have a better man than that lmfao. changheng best boy 2 award!!
All in all, it’s not the smartest, or the most complex show with the most groundbreaking things to say. it’s not perfect but it never strived to be nor does it have to be. it’s just incredibly fun, created beloved characters and doesn’t resort to unbearable miscommunications or evil jealous women or other hell tropes to up the stakes or drive meaningless conflict. i haven’t had this much fun or been so consumed by a drama in years (literally have only been eat sleep breathing this show for 3 weeks and kneeling doing the moon ppl's hand clap salute when dfqc shows up on screen) and it made me believe that xianxia is a genre with space and possibilities for good and interesting storytelling and characters!
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girlbossing their way into being considered a feminist show lmao
this show definitely received a lot of hype and was often recommended to me as well for being a 'feminist' show, though i think it ultimately fell quite flat for me in regards to that. i wouldn't even be able to say that i felt it explored the plight of 'jianji' in the song dynasty particularly well, much less feminism. what it IS is fluffy, generally light hearted, cute romances and sisterly bonding, which is also p good and enjoyable.one of the strong points of this show is how it presents the lives of common people in the song dynasty, the beauty and art in every day life is extremely nice and refreshing. As opposed to how most shows tend to focus on the lives of the imperial family, or on nobility, it's very nice to be amongst normal business people and scholars. the sets, design, costuming and specific little details about every day life feel very rich and enjoyable. i love the slide of life vibe, and seeing the tea house and then the restaurant, i LOVE chi pan and i think he's absolutely adorable and SO funny. this show shines when it's about the average every day trials and tribulations of common people, such as the squabbles with chi pan, the competition the tea house has to enter with the other tea shops, creating the flower moon banquet, etc. etc. and this show is at its worst when trying to talk about the political issues and frankly anything to do w gu qianfan's storyline. i've seen countless palace intrigue and court drama that get all of the plotting down to an art... what's the point of even trying if you can't follow through with it and create an intriguing plot? the court drama stuff honestly just didn't really make that much sense with the rest of the show and ultimately didn't really amount to anything? like im not sure why any of it mattered, because none of it really even had anything to do with gu qianfan's character anyway. he starts out a good but hard man who hates and doesn't trust his dad and ends basically exactly the same. not sure what was the point of all of this other than to make him seem complex, but there was no complexity actually written. his dad is shitty and can't be trusted, even if he loves qianfan, so nothing matters, these relationship dynamics don't change? qianfan still hates him and doesn't want anything to do with him by the end? honestly it all just feels v pointless and everything hard that qianfan goes through seems to be for the purpose of creating the aesthetic of a brutal, hard man who tortures others without batting an eye, while not actually giving a shit about him as a character, or caring about the story of this kind of violent brutal man? you can always tell when the writers care or not and i find it overwhelmingly clear that the writers did not give a shit about him. what matters is the dichotomy of how cruel and brutal he can be, how much pain he can endure, and then how sweet and cute he is with pan'er. they just wanted a man who can kill his best friend in one scene, and in the next he can bashfully blush and flirt w pan'er. im totally good w this duality, i just wish that the writing could actually back it up and make me feel anything for him and his storyline!
it's extremely clear that the only characters the writer actually cares abt are zhao pan'er, song yinzhang, and sun sanniang. and there's nothing wrong w that! i just wish we didn't have to waste any time at all on qianfan and his absolutely pointless storyline that goes nowhere!! the most stand out scenes in the whole show to me are the ones that focus on pan'er's character and how she's been shaped by being a jianji, and how she's been hurt, in particular the convo she has w sanniang about worrying about whether or not qianfan likes her, as well as the one about how much of a workaholic she is (which i found extremely relatable hahaha). pan'er is definitely the most well developed character of the series, but even so i still wanted more? i feel like more could've been said with this character and her arc could've been better developed. like she spends so much energy trying to prove herself as an outstanding person worthy of value who can't be bullied or hurt and by the end i still don't know how much she actually has truly accepted herself?
the relationship between pan'er and qianfan is also one of the highlights of the show! liu yifei is great and breathes a specific natural, easy life into the character, and the banter and flirting between the two of them is *chefs kiss* it's rare that i like something specifically for the way the romance is portrayed, but they just have wonderful chemistry! their relationship feels very fresh, very cute, without a lot of the usual silly tropes in romantic dramas, and it's absolutely very modern lmao. i like that chen xiao isn't the usual type of idol beauty, and in fact i wouldn't consider him particularly handsome at all LMAO but that's a good thing! i also think their very first conflict as an official couple was really well done. i was already annoyed at pan'er assuming the worst of qianfan after overhearing him and i thought it was going to be bad writing, but then qianfan called her out on it!! and it made sense why she would react that way once they discussed it and they solved it like adults. this is the sort of relationship writing that i really enjoy and want to see. i had high hopes after seeing that scene, however all was dashed when their major conflict appeared like 3/4 of the way thru the show which was based NOT on any sort of real conflict between their characters, like a clashing of values or personalities, but because of a stupid ass information reveal that doesn't hold any weight and qianfan RUNNING AWAY for like 8 episodes because he 'couldn't face her'??? this is some lazy ass writing if i've ever seen it. give me a real fight, don't give me information reveals that have to do w characters who dont reflect the actions and decisions of the main couple!! don't give me misunderstandings and lack of communication!! honestly why the hell is qianfan doing this to her when he knows how much she's been hurt by shitty men tossing her aside!! just write her a letter or get chen lian to tell her he cant talk rn he's processing or smth MY GOD. i hate this sort of meaningless conflict more than anything else in this series, it's conflict for the sake of conflict, made by lazy writers forcing it to happen. very lame and disappointing typical c-drama shit, ESPECIALLY the whole 'my dad killed your dad so we can't be together.' like that is simply not a real reason you can't work out especially when gu qianfan hates his dad lol and it's especially not a reason that the audience would find any stakes in, any real side to take, with 0 complexity for either of the characters.
ok onto the 'feminism'.......... i think that personally i just do not consider girlboss narratives the height of feminism, nor do they say anything interesting or transgressive. like okay women can succeed and be business owners? obviously? for me to respect a work as feminist is if they actually do something transgressive, but this show is LESS progressive than the work it's adapted from where pan'er and yinzhang are actually sex workers. it's extremely easy to make a show with agreeable politics if its characters are just talented dancers and musicians who are pariahs for it. like, pan'er, yinzhang, and sanniang are all remarkable, talented, hard working women who are smart, beautiful, morally pure, capable and basically nothing short of perfect. pan'er isn't even born a jianji, she's the daughter of a military official and comes from a noble and distinguished background that values the arts! and they have to constantly remind you of this to say that the system is fucked, not that it's wrong for just existing anyway! nothing about them actually challenges audience perception of who is deserving of being treated with value by society, which is also disappointing because it's such a modern show. and even in a historical context i don't think the show truly explores the plight of the jianji and the way they are oppressed in society, other than how it has affected yinzhang and pan'er's characters. like?? i don't feel like i actually know how hard it is to be a jianji, other than generally being looked down upon. give me actual beggars and prostitutes? society is still fucked for treating them like shit, it doesn't only matter if it's beautiful, perfect and talented women like pan'er. the amount of times the main characters have to say they're better than sex workers and that 'they're treated like prostitutes and beggars'... girl guess what they should be treated with respect too!!! give me girls who are ugly or fat or disabled or actually gender nonconforming(EXTREMELY disappointed that zhaodi ends the series in girl clothes) or even just girls who aren't perfectly talented and capable! show me that they have value and deserve respect too! but no china isn't ready for that!!!!! it's just very frustrating after a certain point to see such a focus on selling the show as feminist, to see pan'er and co. fighting SO hard against and SO obsessed w their caste and patriarchy when it can only deliver the most tepid girl power girlboss message. it's an extremely modern show w modern characters and relationships with an aesthetic historical background, so it's very frustrating that instead of having modern day struggles against patriarchy, they have historical struggles against the historical caste system that put musicians and performers and craftspeople as the lowest class. all of these people are easily given respect in modern day times! i think shen ruzhuo was the most interesting part in the show in terms of showing misogyny, and his nonstop 'nice guy' act while continuously guilting, pressuring and overriding yinzhang's boundaries was well done. i really wish that if the show is here to talk about feminism that there was more of this! show me more of how insidious patriarchy is in the average everyday, it doesn't have to just be tying a girl up to a tree and beating her! i guess i do have v high expectations of the media i consider feminist, and sometimes when i'm reminded of just how bad patriarchy is, and how for some people, even this show is still doing something good or changing the way they think, im more able to accept it. it's just hard for me personally to enjoy any of those aspects of this show. i will say though, that female friendship and solidarity were really nice throughout the show, and the real strength of these feminist values. like there basically isn't a single Real female villain, and especially none who are acting in the interest of their love for a man. which is ACTUALLY new and revolutionary for c-drama. i love that gao hui was set up to be a conniving scheming villain, and then she turned out to be totally normal and becomes friends with pan'er. zhang haohao is jealous of yinzhang, but she still puts that aside to warn her against the rapist. gao hui's nainiang is scheming and murderous but because she loves gao hui. and one of the times that did actually kind of get me emotionally was at the end when the empress comes in, and she learns that pan'er deceived the emperor for her, just because she's a woman like her who was once a jianji. that was a really nice moment of solidarity, between an average, everyday woman and the most powerful woman in the nation, and it really drives home the show's message about the power of friendship and solidarity between women.
ultimately this show is quite mid to good for me. it's enjoyable and fluffy, the romances are sweet and the characters are all pretty cute and funny. some moments are quite well written and striking. but ultimately it still falls flat in terms of any sort of complex character writing, nor does it say anything that would be particularly transgressive to modern society as a 'feminist' show.
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wow look what happens when production actually cares about a story!
honestly if you're looking for a painful romantic time THIS IS IT!!!short, to the point, and developed quite successfully in terms of the scope of it's own goals. very refreshing to not see the usual 40 - 70 episode meandering show with high budget and aspirations combined with low level of care and story writing ability. aals benefits from a tightly written story that truly HAS a beginning and an end that can be watched in any direction. very unique and interesting love story that also has a decent general plot that's developed well enough.
acting is very good!! fl is truly a star who flawlessly played lu yuan at every age. her character was also written well enough and was compelling. my main gripe w the show is shen buyan's character. i feel like at the end we still don't know who he is, and everything about him seems to just be in relation to lu yuan. i think the only thing he ever shares about himself is when he talks about how he used to only be concerned with making money. truly not enough imo, he's a very empty blank slate kind of character- kind of a general isekai self insert male lead while lu yuan is the true central character of the show.
the ending was weird for me!!! idk i rly don't like when ppl meet their lover as a child!! it's weird and skeeves me out even if nothing inappropriate is happening! idk i was sobbing buckets at the scene in the museum and then my tears stopped cold in their tracks when he met child lu yuan. it was weird, idk, i wish it just ended with the scene at the museum!! i am really glad that they didn't have a happy ending though, i feel like time travel shows usually somehow try to bring that in with reincarnation and im glad they just let it be what it was. there is no continuation and the story truly is like that of the jade pendant, where the beginning and ending are one and the same.
very happy that this show was a hit! gives me hope for the future of c-drama that more shows with this level of care will be made. it truly is incredible what amazing, high quality, considered and compelling shows can be made with a small budget. clearly the most important thing behind every production is how much the team cares about the story, rather than how much money they have. we the viewers are sick of the trash shows that come out every month that are completely senseless!! more shows like this PLEASE!!!!
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they're really doing it for the wlws huh!!!!!
wow when i first started watching this show the bar was literally on the ground!!! like literally nothing could convince me that this was republican era... the costuming, the sets, the technology, the language??? all felt incredibly modern, like youyi literally was wearing a modern prom dress in like ep 1?? i was ready for this to be absolute garbage w terrible senseless writing and barely any romance.but actually... once the plot gets going, the setting and costuming is no longer a distraction and im able to be fully immersed in the show! is the writing the best i've ever seen? certainly not, especially not for the fraught w political tension/societal upheaval republican era dramas, but it's at least compelling enough to get me invested in the story and the characters.
i really do like both of our girls, yan wei is absolutely a hot girl for us sapphics and i really appreciated that, they just delivered on a lot of things - little character moments, relationship dynamics, super cute chemistry etc. that really sold them and their relationship. it all just made me very happy, and it was all things i wanted to see. sure there isnt nearly much money in gl as there is in all the bl dramas that have come out the past several years (where they can basically push censorship laws as far as possible because they know they can count on the fujo coin) but!!! anyway!!! it still made me very happy!!!! of course i wish it couldve been pushed a little more, or we could get a nice long series where the feelings develop slowly over time, but oh well. hoping that if this did well then there will be more gl adaptations to come.
generally character stuff is fine and nice. youyi is a very fun main character and it's a joy to see her many sides, the parts that are more sly and manipulative, as well as her pouty 撒娇 and teasing side that only come out around yan wei. like they just made it work and it was convincing that this is the only person who gets to see this side of her!! similarly w yan wei's coldness... all her little smiles when it comes to youyi.... just gets me.................
i liked zhou heng as a villain too! he was well written enough to be a compelling villain who was also fun to watch. i didn't really care for detective jiang who's only character trait is being a good cop but i am also allergic to any positive portrayal of cops in any media.
the plot absolutely goes off the rails by the end and stops making sense and it's one crazy thing after funny cutesy moment after crazy moment while not giving us time to process anything (although still not as bad as word of honor) but like whatever, it was always fun, even if not well written or not believable. and as i understand they are setting up for another season so??
anyway they show is cool and for the gays.
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The Romance of Tiger and Rose
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often cute and funny, but certainly not very well written
cw: mentions of sexual assaultthe premise of this show is exactly the kind of transmigration trash i look for- screenwriter transmigrates into her own tv show, but it's the body of the domineering evil slut who dies in episode 3??? YES PLS. the meta commentary!! references to all the stupid tropes and characters and plot holes in c drama!! having to figure out ways to make the plot work despite unexpected developments!! give it all to me!!! an example of where the show really shines is when qianqian has to get back han shuo's trust and also give a reasonable explanation for the loss of her kung fu, so she has to stage this overdramatic death scene. it's genuinely SO fun and funny! that said, there's not nearly enough fun meta moments like this, it's pretty few and far in between, and is mostly regular plot problems that keep arising.
i love the two main leads, this drama has definitely turned me into a fan of zhao lusi, she's absolutely adorable and charming. she plays the modern girl stuck in ancient times so well, with a refreshing and realistic air. a lot of her specific speech patterns and slurring of words are so funny and when she smiles w her whole face..... so cute. ding yuxi also..... i am not usually got by these idol pretty boys so idk why but... he has me by the throat.... wtf!!! he is so cute!!!?? why am i got by this?? the way that he is a cutesy lovesick puppy..... didn't think it would get me but it did. these two leads have excellent chemistry and their cute scenes are some of the sweetest i have seen in a good and not overbearing way.
that said..... the writing for their relationship truly falls into the gutter after they get together. none of the characters are like, well written, but thats okay because i'm watching trashy c drama for a reason. the problem is when the quality falls past a point of no return with the lying and hiding and misunderstandings. han shuo falls into absolute irredeemable territory when he goes evil, takes over huayuan, imprisons qianqian, threatens the lives of qianqian's entire family and the citizens of her city, and literally attempts to sexually assault her???? it's a horrifying scene and is not treated with any level of care. none of this is even a longterm plan of huan shuo's to take down chuchu. it's just him punishing qianqian for hurting him (even tho she did it for his own good which is just more stupid bad writing)and being like oh well im not ACTUALLY physically hurting her im just mentally tormenting and terrorizing her... threat of sexual assault is ALSO terrible and not okay in any circumstance??? we even saw earlier signs of it when she was trying to set him up w chuchu and he scared her by saying the mountain bandits were gonna rape her. like i'm all for bad main characters but like u don't easily come back from the attempted sexual assault as punishment. i'm sorry this is absolutely unforgivable, and they dont even like, talk about all of the bad stuff between them, they just have sex in the prison cell and then they're on the same side again?? it's a mess, the writing is an absolute mess, and maybe it can be explained as qianqian is the bad writer who made han shuo and chuchu like this- so EASILY falling down the slippery slope to evil but like.... also isnt the point of the show that qianqian doesnt actually have full control over the fate of her characters and that they make choices for themselves?? idk anyway, truly 乱成一锅粥了。。。
chuchu is actually not a horribly written character and shes still p sympathetic by the end imo, but it's still really really hamfisted, and i wish there was more nuance in her character arc. pei heng on the other hand is just an eyesore i fuckin hate that guy get him off screen, i watch all his scenes at 2x the speed. yuanyuan and su mu's relationship is also... okay..... i... find it questionable for sure. as an able bodied person im not entiiirely equipped to discuss their depiction of her disability, but i'm gonna go ahead and say that it was quite lacking and fell into some negative stereotypes for sure, although i am endeared to her as a character.
final notes.... the feminism....... oh my god......... it's just absolutely beyond clear that the screenwriters are completely ill equipped to talk about gender dynamics, but they think they are?? so much so that the entire setting is based around the subject of gender equality. like there is only a vague vision that everyone should be equal, but no understanding of the history of the feminist movement within China, and how gender dynamics historically and systemically work. frankly, it's just not the place to talk about gender equality if they can't do it well, instead it's just a poorly written distraction from everything. like qianqian wrote the story in the first place because she was interested in the issues between men and women, and wanted representation of women in power by setting it in a matriarchy. if the show is meant to be about gender equality then do that, it needs to fully be the focus and qianqian needs to seriously learn what systemic gender oppression looks like, it's not, 'oh shit it's bad if boys cant go to school either.' but most of the show just isn't about the rules of the setting, its about all the transmigration hijinks, regular plotting.... like ok so then just make the show that!!! dont bother w the gender equality stuff!!! if you want to ACTUALLY watch a show about patriarchy, gender equality and feminism, then watch zhen huan, ju zi hong le, or for something more casual- even the first half of yanxi palace where the issues are woven into the main cast and their character arcs.... this show is crap at it.
ANYWAY, all in all, fun transmigration show w charming leads that gets quite disappointing and is ultimately rough to get through by the end.
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a cute feel good show 85% of the time!!
my friends and i have been talking about smth we would like to describe as the 'rare minimum.' as in this is the bare minimum bar is on the ground expectation for quality, and yet it happens so rarely that we are still surprised by it. this show is kind of it for light hearted romcoms! while not exactly a particularly smart show, it doesn't fall into senseless stupidity. all i ask is that the female lead be written with enough care and consideration that allows her to stand on her own, and isn't held down by the usual misogynistic tropes, and that she and the male lead can have a relationship that isn't plagued by stupid miscommunications and misunderstandings.... or worse the male lead being sweet and then suddenly becoming a raging abuser to 'protect her' or some shit which is the trope that sends me towards an early death.the only real time su ci has issues w pei zhao/qi wang is when she becomes suddenly triggered and flies into trauma lizard brain for an episode but it's easily forgivable and understandable considering what she's been through, and the way that the couple actually communicate makes up for it, with them becoming stronger by the end. there's also a part where pei zhao has to marry a princess to save su ci, and she doesn't lose her head and devolve into 'he's betraying me' she ultimately still trusts him and knows that he did it for good reasons, but the narrative still allows her to be rightfully angry, which is nice. they have such a straightforward progression of becoming close, inspiring each other, being vulnerable with each other, and supporting each other that is just refreshing and comfortable to watch. i don't feel like im constantly under attack like how i feel having seen so many romantic dramas, where there is just toxic behavior that isn't developed or worked through and angst over misunderstandings.
the group dynamic/scooby gang investigating generally low stakes mysteries is so the vibe that i was looking for! every member of the friend group is so cute and each person has their chance to shine and offer their skills to the mystery at hand. well, maybe xie beiming a little less, but he's so lovable and supportive and important just for his presence alone! it's just nice to watch a show about a whole friend group too, which also feels like something of a rarity. usually the b couple is off having a whole separate plot. the secondary couple in this show is also.... really cute..... they really get me.... the supportive himbo king x smart/capable spunky girl ALWAYS gets me.... giving me guo jing x huang rong from condor heroes vibes. that said while they were super cute for most of the series i was disappointed in how their relationship arc went by the end, they really established that xie beiming was the overprotective will-just-hide-the-truth-from-his-girl type, which is fine as long as he grows from it and he never does?? pei zhao is literally like u should trust and believe in ur smart and strong gf and he still doesnt learn?? he literally goes into the finale still having not told her his past and she has to learn due to circumstance. very disappointed, he could have had a really fulfilling character arc in which he learns how to actually respect rushuang, and women in general by extension, by trusting and believing in her strength, and willing to be share himself and his troubles with her as a partner. sighhhhhh..
other problems w the show include the absolute flagrant and violent transphobia of the first episode and also sprinkled throughout the rest of the show. it's like reeeallly bad and reeeaaally gross. there's also some tropes in the beginning that are quite shitty, such as the aphrodisiac shit, the threat of sexual violence, it's all p upsetting and is what knocks the score down for me. i kno she's not trans by any means, but there's just something really violent about a gender nonconforming person getting drugged, and non consensually stuffed into the clothing and make up of their assigned gender, and then put under the threat of sexual violence, and then having to be saved by the male love interest.... and this happens TWICE.
but OTHERWISE, i've seen many a 'strong female character' but usually they are girl bosses because they are royalty or just powerful in social status, or they're exceptional fighters/warriors/generals.... it felt nice to watch su ci be accepted and respected based on her ability as a detective. also a lot of the characters come under the assumption that pei zhao and su ci are gay because she was dressed as a man for a lot of the series.... for a show with no gay leads or gay relationships, it somehow still felt like the kindest treatment of lgb people i've seen in a c-drama?? pei zhao is clearly interested and kisses su ci before he finds out she's a girl, and even afterwards every time someone is like u guys are gay, he is super accepting and goes along with it, he doesn't protest even a little, being gay just isn't treated like it's shameful.... which is more than i can say for some literal bl novels/shows. based on this i'm willing to just go ahead w my bi king headcanon. himbo king xie meiming is also super supportive when he thinks they're gay, he doesn't 'out' them at any point and is just generally caring?? the only one who is mad about it is pei zhao's clearly gay servant kid who also wrote their names together in a marriage wish so i'm willing to chalk it up to him being young and suffering from internalized homophobia.
another note why are we STILL under the yoke of the ten miles peach blossoms styling chokehold.... su ci resembles bai qian in her styling very much, very sick of the light near white robes with the middle parted hair that softly curls around the head and the drop earrings.... even when dressed as a guy she looks like bai qian's young cross dressing form. come on c dramas let's move onnnNNN!!!
ultimately, this is a great feel good comfort show! lighthearted but still engaging, with a lot of simple plots and storytelling, nothing new exactly, but it doesn't aspire to ever be more than it is. just comforting, safe, and cute.
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never in a million years did i imagine myself simping for a cat girl
after watching this and ding yuxi's han shuo from romance of tiger and rose, i am realizing that i am not immune to the charms of idol types............ge xinyi's xiao xiu is literally the cutest girl i've ever seen and her as a cat! so good!!!! i imagined it would be some kind of cringe baby nyannyan shit but she just like,,, had the personality of what an actual cat might have??? and acted it so well down to all the details, really great physical acting, and her line delivery was so natural and realistic..... i love her im obsessed!!!!!!! i was so scared that she would be baby and annoying and overly dependent on chi yan for everything but i srlsy am so thankful that she had her own thing, made friends on her own, got a job, and was moreso curious and excitable abt exploring the human world- the independence and ability to take care of herself all felt like cared for decisions in making a real character and not a thing or idea of a cutesy cat.
ren youlun's chi yan was also quite good and very natural feeling, he didn't feel like...the drama version of an antisocial loner, but like, a real guy who is just like that. i liked also that he didn't have like, idol type good looks, and was just very plain, but the more i watched him the more fond of him i felt. his character growth is genuinely quite nice to see, it feels so relaxing to have him become a much more open and caring person. their relationship is adorable and sweet, they are just good to each other and good for each other which is somehow a rarity in c drama rom coms!!!!
the story itself is whatever tbh, i mean i have literally the lowest of expectations when the plot is my girlfriend is a cat alien, but it met all of them. main leads are written to at least feel natural, real and respectable enough, no crazy motivations out of left field, no wild problematics, just genuinely sweet and supportive relationship. it's really the parts outside of it that start not making sense. there's plenty of plot and logic holes in the fantasy they made but im just choosing to ignore it because i can. the amnesia plot towards the end is kinda annoying but honestly wasnt as bad as i thought it would be, it felt more natural as a progression, though i would have preferred a different way of solving it- which tbh would've meant xiao xiu actually returning to cat planet for a time (and then lin mo wouldnt have to disappear for the last quarter and we could've progressed the cat smuggling plot instead of having everyone re-meet each other and re-get together) but there's no way that they would ever have the budget to hire an animator to depict any more scenes on cat planet lmfao.
the secondary characters are p meh and lin mo is especially poorly written and purely for plot purposes of needing villain he has absolutely shit for brains common sense and somehow is delusional for 10 years out of grief. actual villain idgaf that hes poorly written because im not expecting anythin more out of him. the secondary couple im also not a fan of, though i like qin mingming quite a bit and i actually really like her friendship w chi yan. xu zihao is unbearable in the first half of the drama and im genuinely just not sold on his and mingming's relationship working out but whatever.
all in all, i had a really great time watching this sweet and wholesome drama! i realize the script writer is the same writer as rational life which is my fav modern c drama so i look forward to her future projects, as well as to both lead actors but especially ge xinyi!
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