Orithian

The ways most drama's, Especially Palace drama's, go out of their way to infantilse/handicap the women. Even when they're supposedly a "strong" FL...just so they can constantly be "rescued" by the ML's...Ugh!

I love Merxat, but I had to keep fast forwarding through all the contrived melodramatic plot.
The ending didn't feel organic, because I could see it coming 10 miiles away. It's hard to miss the massive clanging sound made each time a metaphorical gate dropped down to keep the plot running full steam on that railroad. No chances of a happy ending here. To be fair, I don't think the characters deserved a happy ending, they were all that suicidally incompetent, or uncertain, cowardly, criminally naive or just plain stupid.
This is a good way for me to blacklist the writers/directors for having written truly terrible characters. The actors don't deserve this, and Merxat certainly didn't deserve such a cliche and trite plot, even if I really wanted to keep smacking his character for such poor decisions.

This is genuine the most gentle revenge story I've yet seen in an Asian drama.
All the people we care about live and even have happy endings. Not just the two leads!
Also fucking Yay for a consistantly competent, capable and determined FL, who never once needed to be weak to soothe a male ego!!!

Better things than simple marriage scenes. There was the found family unit all having dinner together, laughing, cheering and being happy. People getting to go home safely with their loved ones, and the two mains getting to run off into their sunset/ field of flowers together!

I don't mind tragic endings, if it's forecast enough in the rest of the story, that you kinda of suspect its coming. Its worst when you watch 30 eps of something that you think is light n fluffy, then the last 10 eps suddenly go all grim dark andpeople start dropping like flies... That hurts!

His acting is pretty damn good, but I have to admit, right now watching WuXin, I keep getting distracted by the warmth of his voice. Even more than his looks...😍

I think it depends on when a show was released and what the prevailing accepted party notions of morality where in that "year"... Also what gets censored doesn't always correlate with any western/christian idea of what should be censored. Rebel Princess is on my "ever growning" watch list, but I think i'm waiting for it to...No wait. It's available again... It was the 68 eps that put me off last time I went to watch it. I'm stll about 10 or so eps from finishing The Rise of Pheonixes...That seemed to miss most of the worst tropes from memory. I really should get around to finishing it one day.. Given what else I've seen Ni Ni in, makes me wander if she also has a limit on the amount of crap she's willing to put up with in a script.

Yeah. This blindsided me again. I've done fairly well over the past two years... Just *siiiigh*

It's absolutely ok to be critical and still enjoy things...I'm a nerd, so being crititical and disecting everything I consume is pretty much the only way I know how to do things. And you're right, the "evil" characters tend to be portrayed on equal footing occassionally with men. Which again says so much.
When "good" women are weak and defenseless, and only "evil" women can stand head to head with men, it all comes down to defense of the patriarchy and mens role as unquestionable position of authority.
Modern dramas seem to be much better, but so many of the costume drama's, especially Palace dramas seem to use history as an excuse to indulge in the worse tropes possible.

This is a romance in the same way Romeo & Juliet is, as in its a complete Tragedy!!!
Li Cheng Yin utterly ends up as brutally destroyed as his father. He even ends up utterly destroyed in exactly the same way. A fragile, powerless woman with a sword, who had *nothing* left to loose.
I loved in the bts interview, everyone talked about CXX like he was the baby on the set, then I looked up his age and realised he *was*! He seriously bought his A game to this role. I don't think I've ever been so conflicted over a character. I thoroughly enjoyed LCY's anguish and despair, even as I feel deeply sorry for him....

Mmmhmmmmm!!!
I have hit delete on far more posts than I'd like to admit.
Especially on costume dramas where the prevailing sterotypes for women are so appalling.

It seems worse in CDrama's than in Korean. China has ....issues, when it comes to what women especially, are allowed to look like.
Petite, borderline anorexic, 5ft nothing in heels and skin paler than Snow White.
Also the personality tropes that go along with that. I hate that women are so often portayed as stupid, naive, childish and incompetent, and often criminally incapable of learning from experience.
Not that its much better for men. Borderline anorexic still seems to be an ideal, not a health warning.

Chinese culture places *alot* more importance on familial respect. Respect in general is far more important than in the West, and respect towards your elders, esp towards your familial elders.
tl:dr of it is, Parents can and will decide things for their chilren and demand obdience. More so in historical, less so in modern...but yeah, even half chinese partially brought up in this culture, it *still* bugs the fuck out of me.

I thought the same about Wang YiBo, even saw him in a few bts scenes and he still looked stiff and subdued... Then I saw him in Legend of Fei and was blown away, and I still suspect he temporarily swapped personalities with Xiao Zhan.
Yu Meng Long might just need a different role and director willing to push him. Actors *can* get typecast, despite their best intentions.

Nope, that's exactly true. And I think poor CP said something to the degree that it was all what he'd learnt from his father...
I just remembered something else someone said at some point. No one ever taught the CP how to be a good husband. He has plenty of examples of how to be a scheming power player, but nothing showing him how to protect the people he loves. Only how to sacrifice them as pawns.
So in the end CP ended up even worse off than his father. He lost everyone he ever loved, at an even younger age, and apparently never even had any children, probably because he never married again. One consort dead and the other mad.

Whelp, just read the damn description on iQiyi and completely spoilt myself...
Just....Really?!!?!?!

So ... Do you actually understand the whole trope of the cold male lead?
Its a thing. The actor is deliberately doing this as it's his damn job. It's not bad acting, it's acting quite deliberately to character.
The incredibly reserved, emotionless, highly intellectual "Ice Block" has very specific character tropes and if you look at the related tags, you'll see a whole bunch of characters with these exact mannerisms.
Either just admit you don't like the actor, or don't like this type of character.
The most I will say is that he does seem to be type cast a bit in more reserved roles in fantasy drama's. I like his roles in Eternal Love and Moon Brightens for You. Those are a bit more relaxed.

Husband was travelling around the world doing good deeds on his wife's behalf. Basically earning good merits on her behalf to get her early parole. Which then inspired their son to join the court and do the same at a higher level.
But yeah, "Get the family back together!!!" but we never actually see them all on screen at the same time. Really shitty CDrama ambigious endings strike again.
I basically FF through the last 6 eps just to get it over with... meh!

Oh no. this has plenty of romance, its just that romance isn't a selling point for me. This has an actual decent plot, and even better decent characters.

I *really* need Tsuge to tone down the shouting...actually, I really need him to just tone it *all* down.
Its like, what he's saying is incredibly cute and support, but *how* he's saying it makes me want to take a step back...possibly to another city, just to be safe.