Role Reversal (RR) Drama Lovers Club

Arclei:

Will update once I finish it tomorrow.

Did not in fact finish it a few days ago but finished it last night. It was... not good 😭

Jiao Fu Zai Xia | 娇夫在下

No MDL page yet, if someone wants to add it, please do since I exceeded my 20 title request limit.

👑 First things first, the matriarchy: Ughhhh, where to even start? Like, I've seen worse, but... that's not saying much. It's the kind of matriarchy where women are allegedly in power but 90% of the world still functions like a patriarchy and the entire military consists of men. The women also cherry pick when and when not to be misandrist which is very confusing. I could argue that it's a vertical, who cares, but Fu Ma Mei Tian Du Xiang He Li exists so I gave it NO excuses.

Also female eunuchs were hilarious to see, what does this even entail??? 😂 Most matriarchy dramas I've seen either remove the eunuchs entirely or just keep them as they are.

Edit: As I was writing this I kept thinking about those Tang dynasty dresses all the women were wearing and how much I hate them 💀 and then I realized... this might be a matriarchy stemming from Wu Ze Tian's rule (only female emperor of China) and this... would explain why everyone and everything was kinda trad despite the empress being pretty legit... I still take issue with it even if so, but if that's the case then it's not as egregious. Tho this still doesn't make much sense since all the ministers were women

🙅 The characters: Oh goooodddddd 😭😭😭 ML, despite being the one raised in a patriarchy was somehow the most adapted to a matriarchy (though for having gone through all the physical damage he did... bro not nearly sick and weak enough!! Why even bother with that plot point if it isn't actually gonna impact his character?)... FL did NOT seem like she was a born and raised powerful general princess from a matriarchy. I will give them credit for at least not making her the most pathetic and offensive caricature of a woman, but... the bar is in hell. I especially hated how she seemed almost upset that ML wasn't more misogynistic towards her... I genuinely don't understand what her deal was. Idk if she wanted him to be meaner so she could justify torturing him or if she had some weird... interest that made her crave his aggression but regardless, it wasn't handled well.

Supporting characters were not much better. I hated how they handled FL's sisters, though her mom was decent.

💋 The romance: I expected a certain amount of equality/egalitariansim due to how they even presented ML, but idk, they were egalitarian with more trad-leaning than RR-leaning and only ever seemed to lean RR due to the world around them, lol. Like I said, FL wanted to be 'the woman' in a patriarchal sense so bad, they weren't even trying!!! So it's only slightly better then The Romance of Tiger and Rose. It also is just a mess overall. FL hates him but also wants him to be 'himself' and mean and all that shit, then she falls in love with him super quickly and they're deathly devoted to each other by the end (this happens in like maybe a month in-universe). Like yeeeess, give us noothiiiinng

📘 The plot: My expectations with verticals are on the ground but this one still somehow managed to surprise me. The plot reaches its climax and gets resolved off-screen, things only happen because ML is the only semi-competent person in the room and like that the list goes on. I would probably be more generous if it didn't suck with everything else too, lol. I will say that at least it had interesting ideas. Like the concept of ML being a stand-in for his evil brother in an arranged marriage to an enemy matriarchal kingdom and their blood curse thing was interesting. Basically ML was interesting.

✅ What I actually liked: Well, there's way more whump than I was expecting. Like ML is always either stabbed, poisoned, drugged, beaten, otherwise bleeding, in chains, etc and he faints dramatically into FL's arms a couple of times and looks pretty doing it. The beginning also had some nice enough RR-esque moments like ML being forced to dance and FL manhandles him a bit early on which is nice. ML is also stunning and his styling was very pretty and like I said, I like certain concepts they presented like the twin brother groom replacement thing and ML being perpetually mistreated.

Rating: 3.5/10
RR rating: Somewhat RR (low tier)
Matriarchy rating: ▲△△△△

Arclei:

Jiao Fu Zai Xia | 娇夫在下

Wow....so basically all my hang-ups about "matriarchy" dramas in a nutshell. Thanks 😂 Won't be watching.

I always appreciate your reviews because I either know what to jump on or skip.

Gimme Di Que!!! (😏)

Arclei:

I'm glad someone else watched this drama and liked it! I really enjoyed it despite shortcomings here and there, lol.

Honestly, same. It had so much gooood RR stuff that I loved, and the zillion twists and turns in the plot kept me hooked. I was definitely willing to overlook its shortcomings because of how much I enjoyed the dynamic and chemistry of FL and ML😁He was sooo cute haha.

Hi!! I think I chanced upon a GL rec list here a few days ago but I can't find it rn 😭 If there's any, pls link it, also is there anyway to bookmark rec list? Aside from bookmarking the webpage?

Arclei:

Noooooooo, I wanted you to discover that on your oowwwnnn 😭

This is how I feel when I tell you about a juicy scene in a vertical, but then you start it earlier/watch longer than the timestamp and see another juicy scene that I wanted to be a surprise 😂

Arclei:

You watched the best scene already anyway 😂

That's comforting, actually.

jay:

Excited to hear what you think!! 😁

I'll be taking notes hahaha.

Arclei:

potatocouch:

This is how I feel when I tell you about a juicy scene in a vertical, but then you start it earlier/watch longer than the timestamp and see another juicy scene that I wanted to be a surprise 😂

😩😭 we do this to eachother

We do 🥹

Watching Di Que as we speak!

potatocouch:

Watching Di Que as we speak!

Wait omg really??? Did you find good subs and/or audio???

How are you liking it so far? XD

new vertical drama. the synopsis doesn't sound rr at all but the poster is nice.