Skibbies

Um, this one is pretty kind and good, if anything, main character can't be overly dark. I think it's just writer failed at reconciling the novel AND history but still wanted to keep both.

mhmm you know I never thought gu niang was more equal in status but I guess comparatively it could be. Either way, I think in Song, it's 小娘子 'xiao niang zi' and 郎君 'lang jun' instead of gong zi (can't remember if they used this in the drama mhm)

Do check out Steven's other dramas My Huckleberry Friends & Young Blood, I loved them both a lot.

The baby is the princess from the novel yeah, adult Huairou is rumour to appear in ep 40. The story is about Song Renzong, so what you are watching IS the meat of the story.

I find the beginning slow, but it does get better. It's not just the pacing though, it's the editing that makes the story rather decentralised, it loses focus and sometimes tensions are dispelled, maybe it's trying to setup multiple relationships and hint at multiple characters, but I genuinely feel like there's better way to do that, the drama is very flat for the most part. The director excel at doing long shot and presumbly setting up atmosphere (I've seen him done it before and have loved those shots), but mostly I feel like it's wasting them away, maybe it's just me losing patience with him.

For the record, Minglan is more interesting because it introduces conflict rather early and had a strong novel base that could hold the slice of life pacing. Conflicts here just kind of simmer and dissipate so far. Historical dramas focused on emperors don't have to be this way, because I've been rewatching whole bunch of them lately, none of them are as long as this by the way, and most are far better at drumming up tension, but that's why those are classics I guess. The costumes are gorgeous though, and I'm interested in all the notable figures that's popping up left and right.

I find it better than Le Coup actually, that one had too much of will they won't they and the archetype was much more commonly found in dramas compared to this. PYHOMS is more slice of life than this, so there's more fluff and cute, but it had one of the most annoying second lead I've ever seen.

This one have some issues, and have a nosedive with one particular arc, but overall I found it pretty funny, and I liked almost all the cast. I don't care for the deviations other have mentioned, mostly because it could have been handled better, but I'll note that the drama does improve on novel with side character characterisations somewhat (where some of the additional time have been spent on), as cdramas often do. You could just....try an episode or two and decide for yourself, honestly.

He did! I think he was more buzzed than drunk? I think it was from behind the scene? Oops I still haven't finish those.

It's national mourning day today for all those that passed away due to COVID-19, so they cancelled all public entertainment (so no dramas or variety shows on TV) Tomorrow will also be only one episode due to scheduling. It should resume regularly on the 6th?

I explained what I understood from the situation as someone asked, it's true that it's difficult to know what of it true, and it's especially chaotic with so many other parties involved (antis, maybe other actors' teams, people who know half the story), it's why I typed so much out, to give context. Regardless, I hope Xiao Zhan weather this out, I was going to peek at Douluo Dalu after all.

????? i got what the weibo narrative is currently saying, I've tried to verify it as far as I could, have you? All chinese are well aware of what sites are blocked, and some know why they might be, ao3 have never been blocked, it doesn't operate in China so it doesn't need to comply to Chinese laws. What you are saying applies to Google (and only google).

wyb and xz real people shippers wrote some explicit fic of them two, dumped it on lofter (think tumblr), linked the ao3 version which has the explicit content. some xz fans got mad, reported lofter, and reported ao3. Lofter got some fics and tags (?) nuked, and some writers were spooked and deleted lots of fics. Since ao3 is not a chinese site but it DOES feature explicit content, it was subsequently blocked. AO3 have never been blocked before, so this essentially drew ire from anyone who is in ANY fandom, since a lot of people use the site (there's lot of people that just disapprove the behaviour too).

It really doesn't help that some xz fans didn't seem to think there's anything wrong with what they did, there's other parties involved (like weibo disabled comments for related topics and blocked one of the ao3 tags that was discussing this. it's unclear if it's xz's terrible PR team behind it or weibo being awful as usual). SO now the entire fandom space is downvoting his work and such. (it's common for antis to downvote someone else's work in a flame war, except this time it's half the young cnetizens) There's some people that's trying to boycott stuff he endorse so that XZ will lose his endorsement and stuff. I strongly disapprove of this, but I get the anger and I understand why other people will retaliate this way.

I have no idea why xz fans didn't just ignore the goddamn fic, and if they couldn't, start a fan war, the rps fans and actor fans have been flaming each other since the drama started. Reporting sites because you are pissed about fandom drama is over the top and unfair, so you end up with this. I don't really have issues with XZ but some of his fans are facepalming, and there's little backfiring from overzealous marketing too. To be fair, other idols/popular actors have had similar problems, just never to the extent of this, because usually it's contained in the idol fandom space.

yeah mostly. i mean haters don't generally dig up writer's weibo to yell at them, especially a fairly decent drama. He does read other comments not on his weibo (as shown in Joy of Life where there's more criticisms) but Young Blood's overall reception is pretty good, the negatives are about plot twists being forced and some logic issues + ending complaints.

That's awesome :D Hope you have fun with the drama!

Eh I think he needs it, he's incredibly lonely in the world and Wan'er understands him. As for her family, he needs them too since CPP and Emperor all have their own agendas. I don't ship the otp like most people, but I do get the logic behind it.

Yeah viki is more likely to pick well known actors dramas or contemporary romance since those have big audience and modern dramas are easier to translate. Joy of Life drew some audience for this drama (JoL was really popular so that helped), and so will Douluodalu once it release.

It broadcasted on Hunan TV, which is the best TV station excluding the national station rating-wise, so it was a really good platform and got decent ratings itself, and it got sold to other TV stations too. Oh actually, it did about the same or smidge better than Legend of Fuyao that broadcasted on the same station, same time slot and I think roughly same time period (Fuyao might be bit earlier, can't remember)

It did decently considering small budget and no super popular actors (ZXC made a small splash with My Huckleberry Friends), but it garnered fair amount of loyal fans with its story. It's sort of a scale thing, it's more popular than expected (and it's more popular than most webdramas, especially the fluff ones), but there's lot more bigger budget and IPs, which are the ones that's more likely to get translated too.

No worries, hope you like it as much as I did!

Wan'er's issuse is she's kind of boring, she's the nice and polite ideal girl you marry, I know the story made her that way partly because that's what some people's idealised girlfriend is and also FX could really use someone that's comfortable and understands him regardless. Duo duo is definitely more my type of girl, but I don't ship them because I think she deserves better LOL (also it would be nice for hetero friendship + cooperating without romance getting in the way)

Yeah.

I mean his initial outline includes a s2, which he hasn't written, but the drama did well enough that they could get one.