reinie

It's funny/ironic how XZ's struggles IRL reflects Wei Wuxian's.... The parallels are uncanny.

I have no doubt his star will continue to rise. XZ is an excellent actor and seems like a very decent human being.

Lol, random thoughts while on my 3rd rewatch, didn't know where to put it so here it is.

Observations about the drama:

A) Xiao Yan is THE GOODEST OF BOIS! He is made of starlight and all that is good in the world. I love him.

B) Pretty much the emotional arcs can be divided into 4 which makes for great character development
1. Fengjiu falls in love and we see it mature from adolescent hero worship, to real enduring love (to the point that she was prepared to not have him as long as he is happy and fulfilled
2. Dong Hua falls in love and we see it mature from curiosity to deep (Possessive - but then again he is a known conqueror, what do we really expect?) love. We see the consequence of him loosing her (Chen Ye anyone?) and despite threats to the contrary he never kills anyone out of jealousy in the end so I count that as real growth.
3. They test the boundaries and roles of their relationship. He treats her like a kid (despite the handy 'weak fate' excuse, he does!) and she runs away from her problems (guys it's really not about Jiheng)
4. They find an equilibrium. He starts treating her like a partner, she faces the problem head on. And they live happily ever after.

C) I like that the drama went linear with the timeline. Judging by Viki comments, people were confused enough as is!

D) Speaking of Aranya's dream. I actually like that she knew the Xize was Donghua early on. Neatly avoided the whole 'icky consent' thing from the book. I personally didn't like that part.

E) Kudos to Vengo Gao, his acting is amazing. I honestly found it difficult to reconcile Donghua and Chen Ye together. I found it super hard to even look at Chen Ye. He constantly felt like he was in the very edge of madness. He literally exuded crazy and it was painful to even look him in the eyes.

F) The Biyinao queen (in the dream) is cruel but she was shaped by her experiences. She had a large capacity to love but an even larger capacity to hate. The king is an asshole. He wanted the kingdom and the queen so he rebelled committed fratricide and took what he wanted. Neither of them would win any Parenting trophies.

G) Probably obvious, but only occurred to me on the 2nd watch that Aranya is a child borne from rape. And this is why the queen hated her so much that she threw her in a snake pit and why the king, after her reinstatement keeps 'indulging' her (Highness Qing etc)

H) The queen loved her 1st husband and this transferred to Ju'nuo, the only child they had together. She hated the fact that Donghua's version of Xize is suddenly close to Fenjiu/Aranya because she knew that Xize had enough power and influence to challenge her claimant to the throne. No matter how inappropriate her other daughters were with Xize she turned a blind eye because it suited her. She probably hated the fact that the king even got Xize and Aranya together (I suspect the king gave Aranya to a powerful but disinterested husband so she has the backing and the freedom to do what she wants; his warped way of caring for her)

I) Su Moye loves Aranya, but he is NOT in love with her, I'm convinced. He loves her like a father/teacher/brother but not as a man. He found her love misplaced with Chen Ye, felt sorry for her and I think he went away from her all those years to sort out his feelings, to see if he can give her that romantic love that was missing. In the book he cultivated a reputation of being a charmer, probably testing the waters, and by the time he had convinced himself he could love her romantically it was too late. After all that effort, of course he would be obsessed with what happened.

J) All you Furries out there probably liked the baby fox part early on, but I literally could not stand the juxtaposition of overwrought romantic music and scenes with Donghua and babyfox!Fengjiu. That part was a bit cringe to me.

K) In fact if I had to rate the 'arcs'
1. Biyiniao/training/competition arc
2. Aranya's Dream
3. Pre-wedding arc
4. Human Trial Arc
6. Bai Qian's wedding arc
5. Maid/Baby fox arc

L) I really like eternal wingman Liansong. I loved him in TMoPB and I love him here. His interactions with Donghua is hilarious.

M) People kept comparing the actor for Ah-Li, but come on, this Ah-Li is super adorable, people just have to get used to it.

N) I love Fengjiu's character a lot more here than in TMoPB. Here she's whimsical but mature, feisty but soft, clever and capable (not as much as Donghua but who is in this world) beautiful and brave and I literally had no issues with this pairing despite the age-gap. She is what he needs, and he is what she needs. They balance each other out.

O) Donghua is too good looking. He is unbelievably easy on the eyes. Rewatching is easy just for him alone.

P)I laughed so hard every single time someone fell into the hole trap. The comedy in this drama is ON POINT. In fact kudos to all who worked on this; the cinematography and editing, costume, sets, choreography. Amazingly well done. This is a beautifully made drama.

Q) People complaining about the ending, this it LITERALLY HOW IT ENDS IN THE BOOK! That's what fanfiction is for!

This got a bit long, but I really just wrote it for myself because it's the end and I am still obsessed ?❤️?❤️?

I can now justify my £9.99 Netlix subscription, yes!!!
Netflix does love FMA, then again what's not to love...honestly FMA has been the best manga/anime to come out of Japan in the last 20 yrs that's accessible to even the most casual viewer. Always my go to anime primer and its great that aside from the manga, all the adaptations are available for the entire world to digest. As it should be :)

OMG Yusss!!!!

:D :D I don't really know what you mean? I attribute those hickeys to an affectionate night-time Ye Hua. Besides she was it wasn't her Mortal trial, as far as it was made clear she was still Immortal just with her powers intentionally bound to avoid her using her powers and accruing bad Karma.

I attributed Ye Hua's miraculous recovery to two things. One, mortal trials (like the one Bai Qian and Dong Hua went through can change an Immortal depending on how much suffering/happiness they go through ie. Bai Qian's level up to High Immortal and Dong Hua's loss of cultivation. Two, at that point Ye Hua had the completed powers of the Father Immortal (half from himself as he was created from half of his Father's powers and the other half from the Beasts that he slew who were also created by his Father) I think this definitely gave him the leg up in terms of leveling up, hence when he refreshed as an immortal he was definitely more powerful. I think this is the most the accepted explanation by most netizens and fans I've come across.

The Disguiser is also quite good and very well received. It's even got Hu Ge and Wang Kai in it. Mind its not ancient though, just period Pre-WWII era

Yeah, no... Don't bother if you're after action drama. Watch The Disguiser instead.

Wow, this is so unfortunate....it's getting such a bashing by the Chinese media. And fans too it looks like (Yang Yang and Liu Yi Fei's fans are apparently doing crazy things to avoid this being a flop) T_T so sad.

@Shi I'm really really hoping they go for the HE because there's little enough of that in the CDrama world. It's almost a novelty. I am so glad I waited until the end of PA to watch it...I was checking the comments every few days and was mildly alarmed to see the explosion of WTFs in the last couple of days :D

@Dawnscent So far so good... I'm waiting for more episodes to come out because I'm greedy but from the little I've seen its very promising

Guys, guys who's checking out Lost Love in Times? Same adorable lady Director as 33lw...and I've researched the novel its based on...apparently its a HE, don't know yet if they'll change it in the drama though

It's making me sad that we have no news as of yet. I've taken to stalking the Director instead. The hope is that she'd be asked to get involved in any sequel/alternative production. Keeping my eye on Soompi for news.

I loved this so much...thank you for making my life that much brighter. I play this all the time when I'm getting ready for work :)

Looking forward to binge watching this... apparently the director of Eternal Love is also involved/directing this project...

I know its still early days...but has anyone heard anything about the Pillow Book adaptation? Rumours and speculations? I know that it was bought by the different Production company but shouldn't there be more movement by now...they should be riding EL's popularity like a cowboy!

@Pinocchio unfortunately in life 'haterz gonna hate'...what I want to know is how people think this stacks up against General & I or Journey of Flower.
In all honesty I don't know either, I had a vague hope that I left the flame wars behind me in my misspent youth but I see they'll follow me to my grave. We should all just stop adding wood to the fire or alternatively give it more rope to hang itself. I don't know which I prefer...

@Elix Cool story bro...please move on along, I'd really appreciate that thanks...
I like how you're getting so riled up about this, maybe you should take up Copyright Law in the future and maybe move to China to help combat this huge issue, it might improve your terminology too...'fan brats' doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
Love,
A 'fan brat' XOXO

Elix I don't want to make this into a thing but when you used the terms 'fad' and 'bandwagoning' you realise you can say the same about to NIF as its also pretty much universally acclaimed? Just because its popular doesn't mean its not good. Gosh, this reminds me of my teenage Potter books phase, where its 'cool' to not like it. I hated that then and I hate it now. Like what you like... Also if you're going to make comparisons at least finish the drama and not base it on 16 episodes. Its completely biased to compare 2 things where you've watched one entirely and not even gone through a third of the other.