Yidenia

Have you watched Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl?

I’m fluent in Mandarin. I watch on iyf tv. I guess I must have been watching the leaked episodes but I don’t keep track. I use that site for all of my watching because there would be an annoying lag between when a show airs in China and when English subs are ready, and it wasn’t necessary for me to wait. The site doesn’t have exclusive shows such as Love of the Divine Tree or Fated Hearts so I had figured it should be legit. Oh well. Not that many days until the rest of you will see what I mean 🤷🏻‍♀️ This business was the result of greed anyway, they were supposed to finish airing on the 19th and reneged on that schedule, plus the cast and crew were already paid, so the leak seemed to be more of karma rather than anything.

I agree with you. Furthermore it was kind of unrealistic for Xie Zheng to assume that the Emperor had any agency in his decrees. He could have been coerced into pressuring XZ to marry his sister. That's a bit of a flawed narrative. XZ's reaction only made sense if he felt the Emperor was personally overreaching, but we've already established that the Emperor rarely did anything of his own volition, so his reaction was both an overreaction and didn't make a ton of sense. Usually when you have a puppet emperor, the reaction is toward whoever is controlling him, not the emperor himself. I don't expect XZ to like the emperor or even respect him, but to take offense personally is just stupid.

I saw it on iyf.tv because I don't need English subtitles. I don't keep track of the english ones 🤷🏻‍♀️

He doesn't know anything else or any other way of living. Furthermore even if he did, in his situation if he lost the throne it generally means he'd be killed. The guy naturally didn't want to die. So it's not really so much that he's so ambitious, the throne is the only reason he's alive right now and it's the only way he can stay alive.

I was actually annoyed with his sister for being such an apathetic brat. She acts like him screwing up wouldn't affect her at all and he was just being an annoying wimp. The truth is, the Emperor has every reason to be scared. If he missteps, he's not the only one who might lose his head; she could be killed as well, or worse. It's sort of funny to watch him be a coward as a viewer, because he truly is quite pathetic, but at the same time, this guy was groomed from an early age to be a mere puppet. He definitely didn't have the most courage to begin with, but he was also deliberately deprived of all the things that would allow him to actually function as a good leader. The sort of trauma he faced was actually no less than Qi Min, because the sword of Damocles was always over his head and unlike Qi Min, who could hide and had access to resources that would allow him to grow into his potential, the Emperor could not escape from scrutiny and had no way of obtaining what he needed to become a capable man. The princess's position would have been similar, so this was an oversight by the writers. Her privilege was entirely dependent on her brother quelling his court, and it was actually both her duty and in her best interests to assist him however she can. Instead, she viewed his behavior with contempt and a complete lack of empathy. It's both stupid of her as a person and unbecoming of her as a sister.

The title of this show is literally "Pursuit of Jade", Jade being the girl…

Plot seems a little more contrived in these later episodes, logic isn't quite there. Things just aren't moving as organically as they were earlier in the series, I'm having to suspend my disbelief quite a bit more often. Not sure if it was this way in the books?

Author of this article doesn’t know the difference between “matchmaker” and “suitor”. Matchmaker is someone who helps arrange for a match and consults with the parents of both sides to determine who is a good fit. A suitor is the actual man who is looking to marry a specific girl, one who seeks to suit. In this case the meaning is literally in the names themselves, so this is frankly a ridiculous mistake. It was really funny reading that section of the article.

Second this!

I found it kind of annoying that the old teacher's argument for Changyu staying in the army is that otherwise she'd only be performing "small acts of good".

I get it's to direct her for plot arc and character arc reasons, but there's a saying in Chinese: Good metals do not become nails, good men do not become soldiers. （好铁不当丁，好汉不当兵。）Not that I agree with the notion that soldiers aren't good men, but the point is, the Chinese consider war to be necessary, but still evil. This rhetoric that choosing NOT to enlist in the army to commit bloodshed full time makes you less good of a person is kind of absurd to me. It rings of the same rhetoric they used on recruits during the world wars and Vietnam, glorifying the heroics involved in warfare and completely dismissing the horror of it. It would have been more accurate to say that this idyllic life she prefers isn't actually a real option for anyone because war is already here and her village literally just got massacred, and she'd actually have a better chance of it if she enlisted to help end this war than if she withdrew right now. The conversation would have been done in 30 seconds. But noooo, they had to give this guy these romantic lines like wow such valor and honor if you're a hero fighting for your kingdom so the episode can drag on to the full 45 minutes.

It's cuz the actor himself is likely a sweetie-pie lol he's got a face to match his own personality but a script to match a psycho's.

I can see what you're talking about, but I actually didn't find episode 29 choppy, while Episode 30 felt too slow. Too much introspection when episode 29 already involved a lot of introspection. I do agree with the cut to the girls friends talking; I would have switched them around so the person on the left was on the right, to make that cut look more deliberate rather than an accident, the way it kind of felt as it is. I didn't mind the cut itself, just how it was done. I agree with the scene in the forest after Qian Qian escaped, but I didn't like the way Qian Qian ran away in the first place. It seemed too easy, and didn't justify why she waited that long and played along with him after the two kids were already gone. Before, it made sense that she had to wait because she needed to be able to follow through once she made her dash for it, but clearly she didn't think that far when she finally made her break. Also where did she get the sedative? Did she just conjure it? It's so stupid. The problem isn't the editing, I feel. It's actually the writing; things didn't flow well because they didn't actually make sense. The director had no choice but to cut scenes without showing the in between, because there was just no way for the two scenes to connect naturally. For this reason when the squad caught up to her, I also felt it was a little contrived that they were just conveniently right behind her and ready to rock and roll, but I thought that was less egregious than the escape itself. Overall I found both episodes lacking in their own ways, but I actually enjoyed Episode 29 more than Episode 30 because at least more stuff happened in Episode 29.

It won’t, though they usually post the last four all at once.

I feel like he might be more preoccupied with variety shows, it says he's a regular for one and he might just be taking it easy for now? The dramas involve a ton of work with makeup and stunts, it could just be that he's less interested in such things at the moment

On the contrary, I think FL would never have struck out on her own this way if she knew she could rely on her husband to have the full picture. Right now to her Marquis Wu'An is just another official that is prioritizing other things over common soldiers like her husband. She's forced into a position where she's expected to just wait around without any explanation, and ML knows she's not the kind of damsel that just waits for someone else to fix things. Just how would revealing his identity, allowing her to personally understand that the Marquis Wu'An is not like the officials back home, jeopardize any of his plans anyway? She'd have been more confident about staying put because she'd have the insider perspective and would actually know enough to ask the right questions. No, the reason he hid his identity was so that he could ensure she continues to treat him casually and isn't scared off by the status difference and he can have these little sweet moments with her without anything between them changing. It was NOT because he in any way doubted her ability to behave herself while in the know. I get it, but it's selfish, she has every right to protect herself by distancing herself from him if she chooses, and he even acknowledged that earlier; what he's doing is hypocritical and completely disrespects her autonomy. I do still ship the main leads, I don't think ML is a bad person for doing this, but good people can still make wrong, hurtful choices, and this segment of the story is just really hard for me to enjoy, that's all.

Yeah he's now the one with all the control. If this were me, it wouldn't matter how pretty his face is, I'd have divorced him for real (though I'm obv not as nice as FL as a person). More than chemistry or affection, a marriage requires respect. Chemistry and affection can fluctuate; you can be mad at someone and find them the ugliest human being in the moment, but respect is what carries a marriage even when either side isn't at their best. What he's doing now is so condescending 😒.

I gotta say, him still lying about who he is makes their affectionate scenes just a bit sour to me, like he's enjoying her trust and earnest care, meanwhile she's totally being exploited by him and doesn't even know. I find it really hard to enjoy when they are together right now. At least back at the village there's a matter of national security at play, he couldn't risk exposing himself while he was recuperating and in hiding from his post, so to speak, but now within his own camp where he's resumed command…I've had to skip those scenes.

She's also used to relying on herself. Sitting around hoping for the best didn't get her anywhere when she was in her village. I think it's fair to say she's used to being more competent than others anticipate and maybe more competent than most of the folks around her. However, because of her being a woman and from a humble background, her abilities often get overlooked and she's now accustomed to just taking matters into her own hands rather than waiting for the permission that would never come.

Yeah I mean when you don't know the big picture it's a perfectly reasonable plan. Risky, yes, but so was sneaking food past an enemy blockade and she succeeded in that, so why not this? How was she supposed to know the big picture if no one told her? It wasn't that she was stupid or incompetent, she had no reason to hallucinate variables she hasn't heard of, and people were sabotaging her attempts to get more information by lying to her. There's a difference between being truly stupid and simply not knowing things. People tend to get frustrated when there's a bad outcome due to a character simply not knowing things and attribute this to them being dumb. You're not dumb when you don't know things. You're dumb when you know everything you should know and yet still make the wrong decision.