ASmith

Right? At the least if the writers were going to stick in some silly seed she didn't even have in canon and kill off someone who didn't even die in canon, they should have made her rip it out and send it to him with a letter about how she trusted him in the fight and knew he wouldn't have the heart to kill her/didn't want to make him live with doing it, and she'd always be waiting for him in their next lives or smth. And she even picked his parent's special Pavilion to make him kill her in too. At this point I don't know what the writers were thinking either lol.

Agree, TJOL was fast-paced and an engaging run the whole way through for me despite its flaws, unlike poor old S&B where I was FFWDing bits in the second half.

As you say, QC is to blame. After a certain point, the number of times QC held an unconscious QT and monologued about how she was his alone while Black Fox complimented him for being so clever/horrible/handsome/ruthless was just so draining and annoying, lol, especially when QT's response when she found out about his lies and murders was basically always just "I'm telling you in a very firm voice for the nth time to stop being evil now, QC," while doing nothing to enforce, discipline, or check that she was being listened to, despite this having not worked every previous time she said it. And then the Bangle Episode, where she was like "Must hide that I'm meeting ML and lie about it/pretend not to know him, because I wouldn't want to hurt QC's feelings." Lol. So lacking in IQ and agency, poor QT.

Ah well. At least the bashing The Journey of Legend got resulted in CY getting one extra fan outta it, which is me. The way he went through all that and handled it was such a gentlemen. Hope he gets more projects, he's a brilliant actor 🥰

To quote your own post yesterday, without evidence, all this is speculation.

https://kisskh.at/60463-fox-spirit-matchmaker#comment-24107078

We don't know why these scenes were changed, or even if they were changed. To my knowledge, all filming was completed before the first FSMM title even aired. To speculate that the ML would be responsible for the editing choices and writing choices and not the studio is no more fair to him than the speculation that it's the studio's fault is to the studio.

At the end of the day, the producer, editor, and director chose to output the final product like this. We will never know why.

But it's slightly ironic that you are promoting objectivity to the studio, saying they may not have reshot or changed the script at all, while at the same time pinning the editing choices (that you don't even agree happened) on the actor. Blocked.

It is, as long as you keep your expectations nice and low.

Expect gorgeous aesthetics, beautiful music, and a principled lead who can fight well and doesn't waver from his determination to first find and then be true to his reason for cultivating and drawing his sword, and is willing to rebel against what he's told is right if his common sense is telling him otherwise. (For eps 1-17 also expect a beautiful, plucky spider who supports her person all the way and-- as the more vivacious of the two-- truly sells the romance between them, making you feel her devotion and love for him.)

Despite the above, however: Do not expect an epic, swoon-worthy romance between the male and female lead, fleshed out bad guys with nuanced reasons to be evil, or character consistency in anyone but the lead. Also do not expect a plot that makes sense.

Run with the vibe and appreciate the aesthetics, embrace the power of the FF button when side-arcs (or main arcs, depending who you're watching for) get too draggy is the way to appreciate this drama from start to end. Whichever of the couples you are watching for, they all get plenty of eps and screentime, so while that's a double-edged sword if you're not enjoying any, it also gives you multiple options for favorites and picking who in the show you want to watch.

1) Sad ending.
2) Side romance only. (No kisses and stuff between main leads.)

I think there’s a bunch of alternative realities and timelines established at the end of RMP as I remember reading something about how “in an alternate universe some version of us got a happy ending” happened. Maybe in this one Fugui beat the black fox so the couple in RMP will get their happy ending in this timeline, while Fugui and canon!QT will get their 50 years of happiness in RMP’s timeline. 👀

He's so charming, good or bad.
Only trouble would be I would be cheering for the villain, lol.

Strange Tales of the Tang Dynasty I think

She always planned to give him her fire as the Soldier program was before he was even conceived, but because of some battles and stuff she was really low on power when he was born so she ended up having to give her life to do it (I think). So it wasn’t initially planned to be lethal but did end up being so to her.

Love and Redemption

plural. Cuz this should also be about 19-30, lol.

His mom passed on her own power to him, giving him the last of her inner energy & flame before dying. That's why his dad always reminds him that his mom gave her life so that he could walk that path and he's ungrateful for that sacrifice if he doesn't live up to it.

And re. the other, it indeed does, he is filial and has never known any other values than Soldier ones since his dad never lets him interact with other people, so he never really questions stuff like "is it fair I'm raised on a frozen lake like this" but from the cricket he befriends as a kid to anyone who sneaks in to hang out with him, he embraces any kind of connection with anyone who reaches out to him (and isn't evil-- he can tell who's evil based on their inner energy + swordplay path) all while having no real idea how to reach out and actually form them himself since his dad is quick to step on any kind of attachment he detects. His dad is lucky his kid grew up so well given this crappy parenting.

It is the path of the Soldier, basically. Anyone who's training up to have enough power that they can literally take on any opponent they face and win can't be allowed to have ambitions of their own or their own thoughts (or how could that crappy alliance control them if they went rogue?). So both his mom and his dad's idea, though his Mom does say "But if he wants to quit, let him" and his dad does express regret that he raised him this way when he sees that his kid isn't corrupted by the bonds he forges with other people (once he actually does that.)

Basically, ML is a eugenics experiment.

They took the strongest member of his dad's family + the strongest member of his mom's family to breed an heir with great fighting ability. (His mom's idea, but her and his dad did love each other, this wasn't the only reason they were together.)

ML is strong because of constant cultivation training, he's been training 16 hours a day since he was a little kid and being sent out into the field to fight demons since he was 12. But on top of being strong he has his mother's fire bloodline inside him, which if he can activate it would also let him access his mom's fire abilities, granting him powers like poison immunity and purging evil influences and controlling flames, etc.

The "Soldier" path they refer to is a particular training method and career. A "Soldier" is someone whose only purpose in life is to be a blade pointed at demons, and the goal is to have them be the strongest swordsman so they can kill every demon effectively, and not be tricked or swayed by them. But you don't want your strongest swordsman suffering from inner demons and going demonic themselves (because they're way better at fighting than you) so you need to make sure they have no inner demons, AKA no hate, jealousy, rage, fear, and greed, and the way to make sure they don't have those is to give them nothing and no one to be attached to, and teach them that the purpose of their life is sacrifice so that they accept that their own feelings and pain do not matter at all.

^is what I understood.

Prisoner of Beauty has good chemistry between the leads.
Starry Love also had good chemistry & a good plot through to the end.
Story of Kunning Palace is another one that stayed good to the end.

yeah the blood spitting is an absolute must for that list XD

The writing should indeed be.

I'm gonna purge it from my system with a rewatch of Mysterious Lotus Casebook, lol.

Chang Hua Sen enters around Ep23 and lives through to the end, along with his general love interest. He is a cute and pure fox puppy who just wants to marry his girl and live with her happily while being devoted to his friends and teachers.

In terms of hate/disappointed viewers, it's as the trouble is that you basically go from focusing on a high-fantasy high-stakes romance in which there's overt racism against demons, people are being tortured and taking swords for their loved ones, and being forced to leave the sects if they want to even hang out with them and not murder them....

To fluffy filler arcs where the plot slows to a crawl, we see all 101 "Marry me?" "Not interested." "Please?" *female punts suitor into the sky with a spear* "I'll be back tomorrow." < romance attempts, plus "My dad murdered your mum torturously slowly and in agony, I've brought him here so you can finally kill him and get justice." "...I actually feel too bad to do that b/c he fed me an unconvincing sob story about how bad he feels." "...Cool. How about a cute date then, you did promise me you'd always make snowflakes for my birthday." arcs plus < "I think that the lady boss whose base we're infiltrating might be planning on pressing unwanted advances against us, hmm. Hey lady, my friend would be so much better at bedtime duties than me." "No no, I'm totally incapable, you should definitely choose him." Meanwhile, the female lead has dialog like "I'll forever be by your side, Fugui, because you gave 10 years of your life." (without me even asking you to, and which you have already told me you would have done for anyone.) << then, come ep18 she is kidnapped by her little bro who'd like to marry her, but who she continues to think only sees her as a sister despite dialogues like "Do you only love him? Can't you spare a little love for me?" She spends 3 episodes saying "I'd like to go back to the ML, but I can't because I'm trapped." Then she spends 2 episodes saying, "I now have enough power to beat Bro and I'd like to go back to the ML, but my bro has told me he's dead and some other people did too so I guess I'll accept it rather than, say, asking Rumu where he lives and going to visit." Then she takes another 3 episodes saying "I do know the ML is alive, but I won't rejoin him because I might put him in danger by doing that because I have an evil seed I'm refining in me." And a final 2 episodes saying, "All right, we're literally working together, but I'll hide it and pretend not to know you because I wouldn't want to hurt my brother's feelings when he's so sensitive about me being with you." << After which her bro finally FINALLY after these 12 episodes and some mass murder and attempted world annihilation dies, after which she spends approx. 1.5 eps mourning him, and then sends misty eyes at Fugui again and says "Just like we promised back in Ep13, I'll always stay by your side and support you." (And by the way, all racism against demons is magically gone now. We're now chill and friendly with them.)

^so basically the actors do well with what they are given, the hate is that for 18.5-30 what they are given is inconsistent or not a lot. By the end only Fugui is spared character OOC-ness, in that his actions are at least consistent with his beliefs and goals through to the end, and he's efficient enough that he manages to achieve them. Everyone else has episodes or moments of "Cute, but pls writers, whyyyy am I watching this instead actual plot? Couldn't this have been 1 ep not 4?" or else "MANNNN you are going to spare that villain AGAINNN so he can get out AGAIN and kill people AGAIN???? Come onnnnnnn." (Compounded by the fact that the ML, the Soldier, does by default go for killing his enemies if they're evil, so they actively /stop/ him from dealing with the villains who then go out and re-offend.)

(Despite the ranting, it wasn't a bad show by the way. It's just it promised to be SO MUCH more after ep12 and just.... never delivered.)

Fox Prince isn't guilty of that and gets no hate though. He's cute and fluffy for his whole arc, just sometimes sacrifices his in-character points for laughs and some scenes are filler.

Hehe my problem was I started with the anime LBFAD and went to the live action version because I wanted to see the story continue and missed the leads.

But they chopped off all meaningful relationships with the female lead so that she only had the male lead, no attachment to her master for example, added an obsessive SML who wasn't in the anime, and removed the plucky determination with which the FL viewed life and her perpetual positive outlook in favor of angst.

Was all right till ep14, then I dropped ;-;

But it probably wasn't the show's fault, mine for watching the anime first so different expectations.

I dropped that one, so yeah that producer is out for me. May he never work with CY again. 🙏

I’m not sure he did? I thought the point was to lure the black fox into thinking he had succumbed to hate so she would try to possess him at which point he would dual suicide with her, as once she possesses you she also dies with you if she can’t get out of you before you die (was my reading?)