bao____haus

First 20 episodes were goated, almost a chef's kiss in terms of the romance, and the last 12 were a total disappointing mess.... Xian Yu captured 'falling in love' but couldn't actually write a relationship. In other words, the three lifecycles genre has outlived whatever novelty it had in 2017 and needs to be taken out back and put down ASAP.

As an adult, I've been waffling over whether or not I enjoy romance- with a lot of shows/movies/books, etc. I dread every scene the main couple have together, and only a select few have me obsessed, crying, etc. I settled on, 'I like a well written romance' where the main characters are both complex, have serious growth and you can see that they have changed each other for the better and why they belong together (better yet I love a story about why they make each other worse and should break up). This drama, Xian Yu, was only really able to satisfy this sort of....... but it still had me smiling at all of their couple moments, thinking to myself, 'wow they're so cute'... like a TEENAGER!!!!! I got got!! They got me bad!!!!!! I thought they were adorable!!!!!!!!!

Sima Jiao and Liao Tingyan were super likable and easy to root for. SMJ's entire almost comically cartoonish abuse-torture-cannibalism backstory + extremely goated Bking level 99999 ultimate power made him the exact sort of typical male lead in a fantasy idol drama that is easy to root for. A Dream Within a Dream said it best, "Beautiful, tragic, strong." He was an imprisoned underdog I was rooting for to kill literally everyone in the 8 Palaces and raze it to the ground with spirit fire!! One of the most impactful and unforgettable scenes of the entire series is the one where he breaks free, chains everyone up and kills his oppressors. His character is great for the most part, but ultimately falls short in some ways that are personally unsatisfying to me. Falling in love with LTY was well sold and makes perfect sense. Of course this person who has been imprisoned his whole life, who has only ever been used, abused, lied to for power, would need someone who has 0 ambitions whatsoever LOL. LTY fits into what SMJ needs like a puzzle piece. She doesn't want power, or high cultivation, has no ulterior motives, and lives life for the pleasure of it- for eating good food, sleeping a good sleep, resting and playing. LTY makes him feel safe, shows him he deserves kindness and care rather than flattery and inspires him to enjoy the pleasure of living.

Ultimately though, I'm disappointed with where his character went. There were moments where it felt like he could come out of his doomed suicidal mindset because he had grown so much. Like sending LTY to her tribulation with every single defense imaginable and distancing himself from her so she could have the best chance, but ultimately owning that they were in a relationship, and ride or die, they were in this together. But at the end of the day???? Bro was so tortured he was chill with just dying. And like, tbh I get it, they dont have therapists in Xianxia world, what happened to him is so far in the realm of fantasy horrific that it's kind of unthinkable by real life standards. But like, idk, isn't the point of fantasy also that it should just be an escapist way to process a human experience/emotion? It's not like, befittingly tragic, for our hero to hate himself and his own existence so much that he is in a depressing doomer mindset and thinks his only value is dying for his lover. It's just immature emo bs. I already hate self sacrifice, and it's doubly un-romantic when the person sacrificing is already fully suicidal and has only just started to barely enjoy life. It feels like the writers want to make a message like, SMJ ISN'T that other guy w the Fengshan blood who killed himself, and he ISN'T his parents and he has the power to determine his own life and he can defy heaven and fate!! But it ultimately wasn't as great of a goal as making him tragically sad and romantic by sacrificing himself for LTY. At least by the very, very, end, he seems to have understood that doing that and hiding his plans from her was wrong, but more for the lying part. He also says things like, "We have more time" and "We've only just started" which give me hope that he's changed. But ultimately, this development isn't given enough emphasis or time. And maybe if his sacrifice happened in like, episode 20 there would've been enough time!!! But it happened in like episode 30 or something and then he had to live a whole ass lifetime with a loving mother in 2 episodes to get him there. Character growth doesn't happen naturally in the narrative, but through death and rebirth and just becoming a completely different character. That's why it's annoying!!! Wouldn't it have made more impact for SMJ to have gone through what he did, and ultimately come to believe that life was worth living without being a different person?

Liao Tingyan is super adorable and easy to root for! She is genuinely refreshing as a FL who doesn't fall prey to miscommunications, manipulative machinations, etc. etc. and pretty much always stands by and trusts SMJ. Unfortunately, something that I've found quite often now with transmigration dramas, is that the FL's character writing pales in comparison to ML's and it's true here as well. By the end of 33 episodes, I still don't really understand super deeply who she is, where she's from, why SMJ should matter SO much to her, and how exactly did he impact her life. SMJ focuses almost every ounce of his energy on making her comfortable, happy, getting her what she wants to eat, and going on vacation, is protected from harm, etc. etc. but this is all very different from seeing how he has changed her character for the better. Being nice and taking care of someone isn't really enough to warrant love. Like I said, it's easy to see why SMJ fell in love with her, the reverse is harder. And I don't think it would've taken too much??? Like even just a couple more scenes of LTY's life in the modern world, where she is expected to constantly grind and work would've helped. Like I have no idea what her family life was like, if she has friends, if she grew up poor, what hs/college were like. If she had experienced a lot of pressure in her life to be productive and be a contributing member of society, to work for survival, then it would make so much sense to fall in love w this ultra powerful guy who is just like hey slack off all you want, in fact I love that about you and that makes you valuable/important/an inspiration rather than a burden upon society. Like, okay, cool, LTY would be that much more fleshed out of a character. But they didn't do that!!!! And it would've been so easy!!! They could've even just changed her voiceover thoughts and it would've been enough!! ORRR they could've gone a diff route and had SMJ be her inspiration to no longer be a slacker, which feels a little closer to what the series was kind of going for. Like when they're in class and she starts practicing because she wants to protect him. It would've been great if they just pushed this further, and had her really commit to becoming more ambitious for SMJ. Maybe seeing that ambition/work wasn't a bad thing, because it could give her more purpose. Like that could've been another angle that made her feelings for him make more sense, idk. Instead it just feels like the writers wanted to preserve something precious about her (which is fine by itself if well written) but simultaneously make her powerful by the end so it's just plot things happening to her rather than character growth. Like it's some stupid dog blood shit that she just became a good fighter who was groomed and forced to kill by SQL. Or that she awakened the frost fish or absorbed the demon lord core or w/e and now she HAS to be powerful. None of that is real character writing, just forced change from the narrative!

The beginning of their relationship is what got me! As I said, watching them fall in love and be cute and kind and playful is so enjoyable and sweet. There's moments that really work to guide them towards a relationship like LTY telling SMJ off for using the truth spell on her all the time with SO much understanding, making space for him and his trauma while simultaneously centering her own feelings and right to privacy. She's so emotionally mature which is rare for any c-drama lead. Also! UM they actually kiss??? Which is so rare in these types of dramas like I'm so used to the main leads just gently pressing their lips and freezing while the cameral swirls around them and the romantic theme song plays. Them having more sensuality and physicality made such a huge difference and made them feel so much more like a real relationship. The problem is that the show is ultimately too weak to carry their relationship after the initial falling in love phase, meaning they fucked up their first real fight. SMJ forcing LTY to kill Zhenxu is honestly great for their relationship development and makes perfect sense for both of their characters. SMJ is ACTUALLY a morally grey ML who is a walking sea of red flags and it's so understandable that out of concern for LTY, he wants her to know how to kill so she can protect herself. In doing so, he grossly violated the one boundary she set with him since the start. This is not resolved well at all tbh, and was when I started to feel distant from the drama. Her initially asking for space was great, and then not answering when he asked how long was great too, and then he just fucking shows up anyway like a day later?! Without it being on her terms??? With a brief apology and promise to never do it again?? It makes absolutely no sense for LTY to forgive him so quickly. Like we know she's understanding, and she even says it when they argue, that she has been SO understanding of him, his backstory, his world and environment. But understanding does not mean you can forgive someone especially when that person is your PARTNER who just traumatized you for life by violating a crucial boundary. It should've taken a couple episodes at least??? Honestly would've made for so much great emotional tension if she died/they got separated while they were still fighting. It's really just not enough. She needed more time for herself to process and he needed to make it up to her in a way that showed he respected her autonomy by GIVING HER SPACE like she asked!!! Like he gave her a special pillow and now shes just not traumatized??? After that it's just like 12 more episodes of the stupid ass 3 lifecycles shit so we can't even focus on THIS relationship and it's just getting together-dying-getting together-dying again.

This is why I think the 3L3W bs is the ultimate romance killer. Just when you start to actually develop a real relationship, with real points of tension and conflict that could be worked through with character growth, someone fucking dies and they have to start over. Then the tension comes from something stupid like someone forgetting their memories, and they have to fall in love AGAIN but written worse than the first time. By the third time they don't give a shit at alllll anymore and it's like blasted through in 3 episodes. And it doesn't mean that ALL character/relationship growth is thrown out the window, but it means that this growth is severely stunted by stupid fuckery and flashbacks to the first time they fell in love. It's seriously lame as hell to force emotional reactions and sentimentality using amnesia and multiple lifetimes. And it's a serious way to make the audience no longer care when there are just NO stakes. It doesn't matter if they die because they'll just come back! It doesn't matter if they don't remember because they will eventually! SMJ and LTY honestly don't even seem that sad when they lose each other for the billionth time because death just isn't permanent in this world!!! The pacing sucks so much they'll see each other again in 20 minutes! So as a result I, as an avid watcher, who once giggled and coo'd when they did face masks together now feel NOTHING. But hey I chose to watch an idol xianxia 3L3W drama so I'm the clown I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other than the romance, the rest of the characters are completely uncompelling and uninteresting in every way without much logic, not worthy of being talked about. The villains are simple but kind of fun because they are so cartoonishly simple, in particular the 8 Palaces are a fun group of villains to hate. Hypocritical and cannibalistic, going off about righteous values while abusing, torturing, SA'ing, etc. feels very true to real life political villains, so it was cathartic to see. The plot for the first 20 episodes is honestly solid. Like it's bad and melodramatic and silly but honestly??? There's something here about how dark and twisted people can be for power and greed. In some ways it felt kinda old school wuxia. I gotta say... the Blood baby breeding mountain was actually the stuff of nightmares and they honestly did a really good job with that episode. I really felt SMJ's horrific discovery, helplessness, rage and despair. The imagery of everyone in chains in a cave and the forced breeding/pregnancy/incest was a level of darkness that I've actually never seen in an idol xianxia c-drama. It was so chilling and felt like commentary on the chained woman in China (if you don't know about this, look up with caution). So I really do have to give the writers some props for taking it somewhere quite dark, and giving it the impact, trauma, and horror it deserved. After the first 20 episodes, the plot is just.... so much worse and makes so little sense. Nothing goes completely off the rails like many other dramas, but it's definitely stupid, fast paced, and nothing really has any weight or severity to it.

All in all, it's a fun time for the most part, the falling in love part is cute, it's funny, the two main leads are likable!! There's some real moments of care and compelling plot!! It's highly watchable!! Is it good??? Absolutely NOT!!!!!! Honestly if you just watch the first 20 episodes and stop there it might be for the best.