DefyingDestiny

I'm most looking forward to the scene when the invading army comes to their camp and she kills 3 of their top fighters during the "sparring" contest. It's such a specific scene in my mind, I'll likely be disappointed no matter what and they might not do the scene at all😭.
But I love the casting choice: Ryan Cheng in MJTY and Zhou Ye in BFTB fit my mental pictures of the main leads.

Exactly this. Scream is satire of the slasher genre while Scary Movie is a parody of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
A parody is typically a comedy that targets a particular work while a satire has comedic elements that clash with the main theme of a genre.

In their time, it was only frowned upon if they lived together in the same house as "brother and sister" like Jiang Li and Jiang Rui.
In Story Of Kunning Palace, they tried to set the crown prince up with his cousin and then they also considered matching the crown princess up with the other cousin.
In Sory Of Minglan, Dr. He was being forced to marry his cousin which affected his engagement with Ming Lan.

🤣 In the novel, he appeared to be asleep for most of the guqin performances and only woke up for Jiang Li's.
He just does it to annoy everyone. He likes being ever so slightly offensive: the red clothes, ornate fans and sleeping; slightly rude but if you take the bait and be offended he'll double down and insult you directly.

Being noble is not common. Not every official is titled. Like in the Jiang house only Jiang Yuanbai is titled (and may be the grand mother, I'm not sure). Many officials are just officials and their prestige is based on their court levels: it starts from 8 to 3. I think only the royal family can be 1 or 2 because I've never heard it before. The top officials on 3 usually have titles. 4 and 5s have very high prestige but don'tneed to be titled. Ye She Jie was appointed as a 5 while Yu'E's father had been languishing in an 8 position for years. I can't remember clearly but I think Magistrate Xue was also a 5 but 5 in the capital has more prestige than an outside post's 5.

Cai Nue, top talented lady. If there is an exam its easily awarded. If not it from being seen at musical parties, poetry meetings, tea houses and such.
First you need good family reputation: that is why being the Jiang Family's Di Daughter (eldest legitimate daughter) was worth fighting for. Also why it would go to Xue Fang Fei in her home town as the Magistrate's daughter. Both father's had "righteous" reputations.

Looks and Poise: you need to be seen and you would have an image and make a name for yourself. Like in TSOML, different people at different times described Ming Lan as "pretty as a fairy". In LLTG, her cousin got the reputation of being the most virtuous young lady. So usually the more you go out, people make up tags for you. So getting invited to the right events was also important and this often cuts out concubine born children.

Talents: Either in schools or parties, the ladies are pushed to show off their talent and any one exhibiting expertise in a particular area would be considered a talent. The sporty girls usually become best in archery or horse riding; the softies- in calligraphy, embroidery, poetry or guqin; and it usually causes a stir when a lady has expertise across these lines. Because even if you had the money, who has the time, or interest. Not to mention most of the talents are done to curate an image: once you are talented in one you leave the rest. For example Ruyao chose guqin and didn't care about the other talents; in TSOML Ru Lan chose poetry.

With the exception of places that have specific exams like in the capital, female reputation often arise from popular opinion. This is why as Jiang Li, she made sure to appear at Ruyao's hairpin day so people could see her poise and beauty.
Her father is a brilliant scholar and a magistrate, he had the resources and personal knowledge so she learns under him. I speculated and assumed that those resources were exactly what drew SYR to their house in the first place. She is talented in the guqin and is a natural beauty.
Studying anything: scholarly or musical arts, was expensive and in a small town without the competitiveness due to desire for "learned/ talented wives", very few women would be invested in to learn all that.
So of the few educated she was the best but her talent's happen to out perform the capital's finest. This is actually a very big feat because even Jiang Yu'E was lamenting about her poor chances of being the best because of lack of resources to get the best teachers, compared with Ruyao.

She's not noble. The father as a magistrate is an official; which automatically puts them in upper middle class. She's an official's daughter and if her father had a good political network or the will, she could be expected to marry well: rich merchant or poor noble or since she was pretty and talented, the none key son of a good noble house. She could have done better than SYR, but as a scholar with good prospects it would be considered an "equal match" favouring SYR's side.

There aren't alot of highly rated historical cdramas because so many are extremely chopping and sometimes completely incoherent. I never understood how or why the dramas were so poor till I watched The Double and I finally saw what they have likely been trying to achieve.
I don't know much about chinese opera as well but I notice patterns in storytelling and sort of "machine learn" genres and styles; so I'm making educated guesses.
I think the chopping storytelling is part of the genre because they favour flash forwards and flashbacks that sometimes are indistinguishable from the actual timeline. The audience is expected to make up their minds on what is happening; which is why (I'm assuming) they also favour open endings.
However, I think TD was able to bring this storytelling style to a modern audience.
If you want to see just how wacky it could be you can check out:
Go Princess Go
The Legends
The General's Lady (I dropped this one)
Love of Tiger and Rose

TD vs LLTG is like "Sin City" vs "The Departed"

The Story of Ming Lan used realistic storytelling while TD used surrealism. LLTG is in the middle, closer to the realistic than the surreal.

The storytelling style of The Double might be jarring for some people but it was a deliberate choice and allowed them to really play on the high drama and emotions of revenge, war, attraction, obsession and murder.
In LLTG when they try to explore those themes the story losses some of its "realistic" vibe becoming slightly surreal; unlike in TSOML that maintained its realistic vibe even in the most dramatic scenes.
Different storytelling styles, all great dramas but different enjoyment levels depending on the watcher.
My rating:
TSOML: 10/10
LLTG 9.5/10
TD 9.5/10

The Untamed Word of Honor and Blood of Youth have a massive following and I'm tempted to watch The Untamed..but it's not my flavour. And it's a problem when watching the quest dramas because people will keep shipping the guys in the group.

Also most quest dramas are "pure wuxia" which should be martial arts stories: different fighting styles, elaborate fight choreography and storytelling and lore for different clans. The popular young cdrama actors don't put in the work to be martial arts actors, so it's visual effects fighting and that gets boring.

Most of the characters start with black hair. After some death or reincarnation they sometimes come back with white hair. They are rarely originally or permanently white haired

😅 they never really go all the way but you'll notice that "these two men are in love"🧐. 🤣😅
The Quest centric dramas are mostly multiple male cast and they are often censored adaptation of BL novels. Sometimes you still sense the BL relationships; sometimes you find out in the comment section.
Handsome Siblings- they are brothers (so no BL).

The Double is theatrical, and artistic drama full of pantomime and colour while LLTG is more realistic yet idol/dramatic historical drama. Yanxi Palace, Story of Minglan are mature very well-made historical dramas focusing on historical accuracy and realism.

The Double does something I imagine the cdrama industry has been trying to do and failing at for sometime: make a credible drama using the Chinese theatre style. If you notice the plays within cdramas with the white face, high pitched singing and stiff spooky dancing: that is classical chinese theatre: the comedy is slapstick, the stories are usually tragedies and the costumes and makeup are colourful and dramatic. One of the directors of The Double attempted this in Go Princess Go, and it was chaotic but visually stunning and emotionally poignant.
The Double is a unique artistic experience and not just a simple adaptation or historical drama like the others

Romance Guide:
1. Handsome Siblings- the MLs have female love interest
2. Immortal Samsara- romance centric with quest theme
3. Starry Love, Back From The Brink, The Legend Of Shen Li- Romance-Quest Balanced
4. Untamed, Word of Honor, Blood of Youth, Tiger and Crane- Quest with suggestive bromance

I suppose this genre can be broadly divided into romance centric and quest centric. I favour the romance so I might not be the best "recommender" but popular quest centric (non ml-fl, many of them are converted BL): Word Of Honor, Untamed, Blood of Youth.
I watched and can recommend Handsome Siblings- the world building is fair but it involves only the mortal realm.
Immortal Samsara (I hated it), Starry Night (I liked it) and Back From The Brink (I loved it)- are romance and quest balanced, and you get to see immortal and mortal realm storyline.
The more you watch in this genre the easier but it's very easy to find ones you hate. If you are finding LBFAD difficult 🤭 I don't have much hope for you in this genre but definitely try some of the popular quest ones before you give up.

Ming Lan has a bunch of people tortured.

You are misusing the word "parody" and having similar scenes does not a parady make. The scenes you describe are using a literary device called simile or more precisely Ironic simile: "a holy place filled with unholy acts".

Go Princess Go was directed by one of the directors of The Double and the artistic style is the same: theatrical, dramatic and colourful. If you have watched any of the dramas by the other 2 directors you'll also notice their style inserts into The Double.

You firmly believe The Double is a parody and I firmly disagree and we have both given reasons why. I don't think we can continue this conversation without getting a little carried away.

So long and happy watching.

Also speed watching won't help with understanding what is going on, if you are new to the genre.
In the immortal realm time is longer than mortal realm, so a full mortal lifetime can occur in immortal realm months while in immortal minutes you can miss a few mortal months.

Anyway are you still watching? How is it going?

It would absolutely be traumatising because I'm sure they would have excellent sibling chemistry as well and it would mess the f with my head🤣🫢

They aren’t time travelling in this one and most xinxia dramas don't involve time travel. For this drama you have to watch a few to understand standard rules of Xinxia and then pay attention to each new drama to understand their specific world building rules:
The immortals and gods generally don't die and have "immortal bones" allowing reincarnation under different rules based on their kind and "power level". The demon in LBFAD is sooo powerful he couldn't be killed by any other living thing and is only "imprisoned" by someone super powerful as well.

I usually enjoy Xinxia because I like world building stories in science fiction or fantasy. You're not really expected to suspend logic but more like delve into a new world with new rules, physics and civilizations. Most stories in specific genres follow general rules like how most vampire based stories are about blood-sucking, night-walking, immortal men but you could have variations in different films. So when you start a new film although you have an expectation you still have to be sure: are their vampires immortal? Affected by garlic, crosses, holy water or the sun?
It's the same with this genre: it's a fun ride and Love between Fairy and Demon, is a good introduction.