MadelineMaureen

wouldn't be shocked to find out she was the one who started the dating rumor. that way both sisters would be off the table for him. as it was clear that he had feelings for Mi Ji & Ji Yun would have seen that if she was looking at him all the time.

The sisters' gaslighting worked a bit too well on HoSu. He feels like he's crazy or a horrible person. Either way Mi Ji needs to apologize to him when he finds out.

I like how good people are drawn to both Mi Rae & Mi Ji. Yes, they have their struggles, but they are both so hard working in different ways. Props to the writers & Park Bo Young/Lee Jae In for making each sister unique but similar. I like that they get to see each other's struggles & that they are slow to understand each other but eventually bit by bit seeing the world through their sister's eyes they are opening themselves back up.
Still struggling in epiosde 5 but progress is being made on both fronts.

crying like a Lil bitch ever episode. too relatable to be unmoved by their stories.

I hope that Lusi is able to participate in promotions & fan events for this one once they start releasing/promoting in full. I know that her co-stars for this one will look out for her so I hope she does as much as she can without over taxing herself.

The cast alone will have me checking in to see if I vibe with the show. As it's pretty much everyone from the same few agencies again. I think the cross over for The Double and Perfect Match reached like the 40s so this one will probably be in the 20-30 actor cross over range.

The genre isn't my go to so I have to really enjoy the cinematography and all aspects to stay invested. I couldn't vibe with the styling of Moonlight Mystique & I couldn't do the inevitable sad ending of Love in Pavilion. I'm hoping for a Love of the Divine Tree pleasant surprise. Hoping for a more definitive ending than we got for The Demon Hunter's Romance.

I just need some grounding that makes me believe the world they inhabit is real...do you know what I mean?

Nah, Sister Shoulder Pads should have died in the invasion and just let it end. Her husband is too kind and in 2 business weeks she'll be back to her old ways.

There are a lot of scenes were they are in rooms that are actually more outside than inside. And depending on season can be quite cold. In older homes they stay quite cold. So anytime they are at his family's home I let it pass as they are up in the mountains. But anytime they are at her apartment or their home I side-eye a bit.

I about lost my mind. I woke up from a nap to check to see what episode count was left and saw 10 days. I thought that I was still asleep for a second. Like how you can't really read in a dream that kind of thing.

yes, they went around the censorship rules in an interesting way. There are a lot of parallels & callbacks to One & Only.
There is only one plot point toward the end that made me side eye production but other than that one storyline toward the end great show.

by the by, the monk plays Bi Zhi in The Prisoner of Beauty. Loyal & loving to his wife, innocent horse groom with the streght of a god. If you havent started it already highly recommend to all.

I all of a sudden felt like rewatching this one. There are no kisses or happily ever after, but oh boy are the performances from everyone top tier.
This show captured longing in a way that is difficult to find in shows lately. The writing, directing, and choices by the actors make you feel how connected they are. The way their eyes track each other around a room. The way they hold themselves back & can express that the character wants nothing more than to be closer to the other.
It's not just the ML & FL who experience the unrequited love that epics are written about. There are so many versions of love, interest, respect, obsession, throughout the drama.
Still highly recommend this show, but it needs to quickly be followed by Forever & Ever.
I'm not being dramatic when I say almost everyone dies. And these are not peaceful deaths...only 1 was truely a natural death. I'm only to episode 19 in my rewatch & we have a named character body count of at least 7.
Watch this show when you need to cry. If you want to pretend they get a happy ending in this one stop the show about midway through episode 19. After that, shit, once again, hits the fan.

How the hell does that girl still have her stupid whip. That would have been the first thing to get yeeted if she was entering my family. For someone with no power of her own she sure does make a lot of noise.

She shows up in episode 23 not interacting with any of the leads and she'll be back in episode 25 just in time to blow FL's cover very loudly to everyone.

That last death was the fastest delivered "oh btw so & so is the lord now" I have ever seen. Though Wei Yan's arch was one of the better ones in the whole show.
I just wish that the show could have been 40 episodes to flesh some side things out. I understand why it was 36, but there was definitely enough story told in dialog that could have been shown to pad some runtime. But the story didn't overstay it's welcome so a win is a win in my book.

you have awoken the tism side of me so apologies for the essay below.

'Are You the One' was a good one. They could have fleshed out a bit more with her time in the mountains but smallest of nitpicks.
I swear they better give us a season 2 or movie length finale for 'The Demon Hunter's Romance' we were robbed I tell you ROBBED. But I still loved it to bits.

I liked 'Blossom' s use of how an Emperor can get his hands tied and still move in the shadows with commands. How imperial eunuchs did actually have a lot of power like depicted in the show. The FL was logical and still hesitant to fully trust the ML as she had only heard rumors and then knew him for less than 12 hours prior to dying together and waking up in her 9 year old body. I liked that because she didn't know specifics she could only influence so much ahead of time. And the river/water analogies when it came to changing the past. As this was a second chance at life situation that was edited to pass censorship. Also the fact both the ML and FL have a pair of identical twins as their bodyguards....cherry on top. But the royal/court dynamics and coverups made sense and were later explained in a way that didn't have me going "huh?"

'Love Like the Galaxy' had pretty rich world building and showed consequences of choices made earlier in the show much later. Also realistic and valid response from FL toward the end imo. Like she told him....she told him what her hard line was and he crossed it. She stood on business & I liked that. Also, the court and royal family dynamics were well done. One gripe that I will have with any show that does this....FL was a twin...her twin was a boy and they never really got close at all. Maybe it's more of a western thing to be close to your twin even if they aren't the same gender, but yeah twin hits different than just "sibling" and it wasn't focused on at all. So i think it just must not have been a thing.

'Flourished Peony' so far as there is a part 2 coming soon was really good. Layered and messy, but in a good way. Also the hair and make-up changing depending on her social statue and occupation was a nice change from the "beat to the gods" even though I'm poor FL make-up we usually get. The princess acting like how a spoiled princess would actually behave...no notes.

There were a few others that ended up falling a bit flat in the end.
'The Princess Royal' 2ML was given scenes that originally belonged to the ML in the story thus having him on screen with the FL more often than her ML. It through the whole story off kilter imo. The SML's logic just never made any sense.
'In Blossom' spent about 30minutes on the death of another character in the finally episode and 5minutes(I counted) on the main pairing in the final episode only for it to end on a cliffhanger. Oh, you thought the Leads would be able to ride off into their happily ever after, surprise bitch, the big baddy wasn't actually caught. 🙃
'Love of Nirvana'(he could have survived...damn you Allen and your tragic endings), speaking of Allen...'One and Only' was actually really good, but goddamn they did not pull a single punch....not one.
'Kill Me Love Me'....they literally set up a whole thing about a flower being able to grow and survive no matter what blah blah blah the FL was the flower in the allegory and then they just kill her....it was dumb. Some of the best shot fight scenes though.

3. The only logical reason I could come up with what the writers killed him is because they needed to show Bi Zhi becoming a weapon used by Liu Yan. Liu Yan literally takes his hand and thrusts Bi Zhi's sword into him breaking Bi Zhi's last bit of hope, and no way to truly and fully reconcile with the Weis. Because even though none of the Weis know Bi Zhi was the one holding the sword that killed Wei Liang, HE knows what happened.
But we all knew that with four sidekicks one had to die. I just didn't think it would be him. Also didn't love the fact that Wie Xiao was ready to just straight stab Qiao Ci to death the second he learn of Wei Liang's death. I get it, he still mistrusted the Qiaos, but after his time protecting ManMan, I wanted a bit more hesitation on his part.

4. I really wish she would have had all those flashbacks while trying to run still and gotten trampled by the horses or something. She killed her people and the one sent to protect her...I just think her character was too selfish and self-absorbed to kill herself.
Or been running away with a knife and trip and fall onto the blade. I wanted her death to be an accident because she's an idiot who constantly backstabbed people who loved and cared for her. I didn't want her to have any power left and that includes being able to take her own life on her own terms.

5. If you're talking about Zheng Chu Yu the cousin of Wei Shao....I just didn't like that she died off screen same with Zhen Shi(Xindu's mayor) because they were only present for cameos/guest roles they just didn't have the actors to shoot those scenes. So the whole time I'm waiting for them to pop back up like "surprise false information I'm actually alive!"

Yeah...It was the fact we were finding out he was arrested before we found out about any of the evidence that got him arrested. We were only given hearsay by random alleged refuges from that area, but no proof of who THEY are to back that up. That was why I wrote the comment.

The fact that no one even thought to combat what those people were saying with slander of an official was...odd. I don't mean lock the people up but at least interrogate them. But by that time there were people the bad guys had paid off to lie about how the volunteers were acquired.

I also find it extremely odd that her father had no trusted servants or seconds(commanders) that would have gotten back to the capital or to the FL to warn her. These type of generals generally have at least 5-10 men under them that then command different sections of the army. The fact he has no loyal men come with him to the capital with his family nor are any still living or mentioned with the exception of like 2 foot soldiers was just weird. The only person that was under his command that is given a name turns on him to work for the bad guys.

For someone who has been with this army for decades....it's just bad writing. There are a lot of "we need this person to be here so we are going to make it happen no matter how illogical it is that they would be able to get here." style writing. He was this big bad general that everyone wanted to be able to influence through the marriage of his daughter, but he was undone in like 2 weeks after the Emperor married his daughter off to the prince. He should have never sent the father in the first place. The Emperor KNEW people would be wanting to take him off the board, and he just let it happen.
The poor writing of logic when it comes to the characters' choices just constantly throws me out of the story. When it's the main couple being all cute and all Nancy Drew, it's fine, but the second the writers try to do politics or military anything my brain goes...."huh?"
I've seen so many of the period dramas at this point that the ones that do the "world building" poorly stick out a bit.
Everything else is enjoyable about the show, but the writing(and possibly editing) out of order doesn't work for the tone of the show imo.

He left on horseback with his son cradled in his arm. It is implied but not outright stated that he went back to Boya to raise their son and protect him. The remaining Qiao family members saw him off.

If you are coming to the comments now that the show is over and seeing how it's being received to decide whether or not to start it, this comment is for you.

Start the show already. What are you waiting for? I don't believe you'll be disappointed in anyone's performance. The director understood tension and the push and pull that is sooooo needed for this type of show.
Spoiler Liu Yu Ning makes it till the very very end....no violent/vague death for him this time. He wasn't even poisoned ONCE. Let us all collectively cheer our good fortune...and his.