absurd

This went downhill for me after they broke up. Not because of the breakup, I was actually looking forward to them getting back together and how the drama would play it out. But then ML resorted to such a childish behavior. After treating he like dirt, he then did 180 because she handed him divorce papers. So instead of acting like an adult, he decided that spoiled teenager was the way to go. Him suddenly changing his feelings gave me whiplash, but his methods of "getting her back" just made me realize that I don't want them to end up together, so I dropped it.

I liked some of the choises in the last episode. Wei Yan not being the villain, which they kind of hinted at with how he was behaving in some situations, he just did not fit the power hungry a-hole image and it turned out he was not.
Qi Min not dying from the fall. It's so annoying when characters are completely fine after falling from the cliff, but die after falling from the ten meter wall.
The return to the village full of dead people was confusing af, for a moment I thought she died.
Them going back to live in that village at all after being named the closest people to the emperor after his mother was also kinda weird. How is that ok? Do they commute to the palace for work or something?
But all in all I really liked this drama. Finally something good to watch

Really interesting. Keeps you engaged from start to finish, which is rare in c-dramas. A lot of them get too dragged out in the middle, picking up closer to the end. This one had me interested most of the time, very little skipping. I liked that ML while soft and not overly focused on his male ego, could also be pretty ruthless when necessary (and sometimes when unnecessary too). Also nice that FL did actually learn at least from some of her mistakes. Like that discipline in the army is very important. Some shows that I watched really twisted situations like these, as if being lucky makes it right. Politics are there, but only become central in the end, it doesn't have a lot of the palace games that usually have me bored to death.
Some weird editing here and there, but that's a standard for c-dramas because of the censorship. I'll put the rest under the spoiler

Wow, this is the first xianxia after Untamed that I can watch without cringing. It's probably FL. No cutesy baby voices or acting like a child, she's funny and relatable, sensible too. This has a bit of an anime vibe because of the set up and characters and is so far pretty good.
Here's hoping they don't ruin it

I tried, but can't get through this.
So, I knew the premise before starting to watch, but the level of stalking is so bad, it unhealthy. And it's literally everything that's usually SFL/ML characters do, but because it's the main FL somehow it works! She inserts herself into his life even after countless rejections and. Boom! he's in love. Sure.
But what killed this for me is the cheap and forced surrounding story. The dog training looked like kids playing with puppies and the drowning person was so unconvincing it killed any emotion that scene was supposed to invoke.
All of it looks like no one actually bothered with backdrop or storyline. They could not come up with any believable way for these characters to be together, so they drummed out some cheap cliche after cheap cliche without even trying to make it look realistic.

Oh, no. I'm right at that part right now. Listening to her (mother) talk and I just want to slap her. What does she think a child is, a toy? Give him up and get him back as you please? What happens next time she gets scared? That's so annoying. I would have understood visitation or something like that, but they just gave him back? That has childhood trauma written all over it.
I was planning to watch up to episode 30, like people said, but now I'm not sure...

I understand why they are like this, in ML's place I wouldn't give her the time of the day either. His family though, a bit too dramatic and hateful for "teenage girl obeing her controlling mother" situation.
That being said, she's just too bland for me and from the comments it seems she continues to be that way. So, no thank you, I'll be dropping this, no patience

I can't get past ep 3. FL is acting like a stalker, but when given chance to talk does anything but get to the point.
Also with all the melodrama I was expecting the backstory to be something about betrayal or whatnot and it turns out... she broke up with him. That was kinda anticlimactic.
The whole thing is just weird, no one is acting like an adult

Ok, I'm a little behind ( only on ep 19) and very confused. She was in town when bandits attacked, passed out, somehow ended up with some nomads, the whole town was in ruins with injured people, but they took only her away. Then instead of recuperating or at least asking for directions she went wondering in the desert and ended up in the snow. No provisions, no water. How in the world? Am I missing something?

And also just because he's not parading his personal life all over social media, doesn't mean it's not there. It's just non of our business :)

Lights, angles and make up can change a lot, making conclusions because of one pic is impossible, and at this point you're just basically saying you don't like how he looks in this picture, but that's... just don't look then? Whatever he does with his face and body is his business only, if he suddenly wants to buff up and go blond (maybe, idk) and someone doesn't like it, then they should move on, he doesn't owe anyone an explanation

If you think those videos don't have filters on them, you're really naive. Other than that, I have no idea what you're talking about, in all the recent pictures and videos that I've seen of him he looks healthy and happy. Just because he does not look like a teenager anymore, doesn't mean he looks bad, the man is 31 for God's sake, you can't expect him to always look 20.
Imho, he looks amazing and actually much better, than before when he was actually starving himself and working 24/7

You are comparing two photoshopped pictures with different lighting out of context. As far as I see by what XZ studio and he posted, what he did this year was take on exercising, finally took a full on vacation and was able to go home and spend time with his family. How is any of that a bad thing? He put on some muscle mass and looks ten times healthier now, than like Untamed days where he was so thin it was painful to watch. If you know anything about exercise and macros, it actually means he eats more now, than he did before

Yes, you're right, in Asia it's pretty scary how much celebrities depend on their fans, especially considering how fickle they are. That's the thing I hate about it the most, because no matter how much you work your a** off, one misstep and they can basically erase your whole career. And it's not even that you have to actually do something bad, the mindless crowd decides if it's bad or not.
TBH, I'm scared of BTS fans LOL If I have to choose, I'd say Black pink and SKZ are more my preference, I actually bothered to learn their names LOL

I would like to disagree with one point you made, not the whole post, what you said about doing and watching what you like and letting others do whatever they like is 100% my attitude also.

But the part where you're saying that the "reason why all these celebrities are on TV it’s mostly because they have fans" really bugs me. I think a lot of people immersed in the Asian idol fan culture forget that there's a big chunk of audience that just enjoys watching movies or listening to music without being a fan. Like, I have a long kpop playlist half of which is BTS, but I don't know a name of a single bandmember or what they look like, because I just don't care to look it up. Most Hollywood actors don't actually have "fandoms" in the same sense as Idols, but there are still millions of people who watch their movies without knowing anything about them except their name and maybe the name of their spouse. I can understand that kind of attitude about people like Kardashians, who don't really produce anything but controversies, but actors and singers should first and foremost be valued for their work, regardless of the name attached to it. And I think that's what XZ is actually trying to achieve now: to stop being labeled as an idol, and be valued for his acting (and maybe singing, if he decides to go back to that).

All of that being said, there's nothing wrong with being a fan as long as it's done without bringing harm to yourself or others.
Sorry, went on a tangent there)))

It's not just him though, everyone who's somewhat famous got a piece of that trash. Half of c-ent is filing complaints and official statements. This wave had nothing to do with him "having no protection", it's like they just took the "most popular" list and copy pasted the same bs with different names

Why people are so histerical about the wait? It finished filming last year, with all the cgi, editing, voice recording and getting the license it hasn't been that long (3 hour Hollywood movies take a year to release and they don't even have the censorship hassle). And it was never officialy stated that it will air in the summer, just that it will be 2022. They will air when it's ready, I think people at Tencent know how to arrange thier schedule much better than the audience, just chill.

Oh, great. I really wanted something else with Chen Xiao after Dream of splendor, but his older dramas were not my thing.
So, is youku better at modern dramas than it is at costume ones?

It basically lists a name, director, actors and broadcasting platform and says that release will be in August. There is, however, nothing on Tencent's or official Yu Gu Yao weibo account, so this is not official information.

But how am I supposed to tolerate him as a knight after all of this? lol