Stone Pony

Hi - I loved your translations but it ends at ep 17? What about the others? PLEASE!

On ep 12 and I really want to like this as I can get into an older ML but gosh how many times does he have to warn her and she dumbly gets into trouble again and again because of being naive? Not sure why she wanted a royal post when she was going to ignore court politics and do what she wanted to do.

Agree!

WOW.

Agree. That act kinda showed her as someone out for herself by any means necessary and not in a good way. I found that relationship boring and uneven overall.

CGH was very well written. He's the guy who says everything he is doing is out of righteousness and its someone else's fault. But in the end it's Me-Me-Me and you realize later that he's always been like that. The root of his villainy was there all along and was ignored because people wanted to believe he was upright and good.

IF the ending was the storybook NH coming to her world you have room for a whole 'nother story. How would he adjust there? What job would he have? How many other storybook characters would have transmigrated also? That makes for some very rich fan-fic stories.

Both die, and are reincarnated as fated lovers, or return to modern world with a new meet cute but the other partner doesn't remember anything about their past love, is not what I would have wanted (to others, this didn't happen with this drama but has in others).

As a writer of fiction, and being friends with other fiction writers, it's often mentioned among writing circles how characters take control and make the writer go a different direction than they intended. I really do see this entire drama as being a huge nod to this idea. The characters seized control and became someone else because they wanted that direction. NH and SYM created a parallel story that became "real" like the Velveteen Rabbit.

I have to commend the actor who is playing Mr. S. because when he appears he does act like a silly young guy who just wants to write a hackneyed drama filled with tropes and tragedy, and is frustrated that the characters won't let him.

Keep going! Ep 37 is pretty intense but things will go the way of our hero/heroine in the end.

Agree. I'm a writer and I actually prefer it being a little open-ended so we can fill in details with our fan ideas. I wouldn't have been happy if the storybook world was wiped away for modern love which is something a lot of transmigration stories seem to do.

for me personally I'm fine with it being ambiguous because it leans towards the storybook love being real regardless in some way or another.

Just wanted to say something about the costumes. Those were amazing and so carefully chosen throughout. I want all of those fabrics. They blew me away in every scene. I don't think I've ever seen a tie-dyed outfit in a historical drama before? So many that I liked: the Emperor's robes near the end, NHs alter ego outfit; SYM's red cape etc...

In the scene where SYM goes into the water. When she crawls out, after saying no thank you to NH's rescue, her white and orange dress makes her look like a koi. LOL

Another scene, one of the final face offs between NH and CGH, CGH wears black; NH white. The roles have reversed.

Huang Wei did a wonderful job! From MDL it looks like she also did Fangs of Fortune, The Rise of Ning, and Love of Nirvana among others.

it was a fantastic ending and JMO I think it set the bar very very high for other transmigration stories.

NH who stepped through the doorway - look a that the background behind him. It is the storybook world. I don't think this is the actor NF who she hugs at the end. JMO. The storybook character NH transmigrated to the modern world because of course he would never leave her.

About 1/3 through on watching it, I started thinking that this is going to really re-write what these type of dramas can be with its self-mockery, yet with heartfelt characters, blended with tragedy and humor. Now that I'm at the end, I believe that more than ever. This whole arc from start to finish blew these other stories out of the water and really delivered to the fans up to the very end.

Agree. Most of the endings to the transmigration stories rush things at the ending with a hurried epilogue that doesn't give enough room for the other characters who existed in the plot.

Yes. I stopped TPOB at ep 30 because I wanted to end it romantically happy.

and I'm okay with that. The storybook world showed they could gain their own autonomy. As long as you can eat eight buns a day, it's okay :D

Ep 37 was intense! Glad it wasn't ep 40! They really gave a satisfying wrap up to everyone with enough episodes to do it.