battleaxe

i don't care for this, too many concubines, and they're all loud and screechy. ml seems like a side character so far, no notes on him. don't care about the fl either or the murder mystery, she died quite foolishly in her 1st life, and the only thing keeping her alive in her 2nd life is plot armor .
its giving much ado for nothing

i like how unserious and sincere the ml is, he paused chasing her to offer her a job, then resumed his nonsense once he saw she was in a better position to handle her business. a true loverboi

🤣🤣 that is all just so absurd! thanks for the explanation friend

the two main cps were sweet, and the fl's relationship with her work family was nice, but overall this was quite bland. the only memorable thing was the ml's sensory quirk

i dropped this drama bc i got story fatigue, but for the first 16 eps i kept thinking it really has some of the best time/drama loop writing i've seen in the past year. the story just keep fitting into itself in a way that was very smooth, logical and interesting . a dream within a dream definitely could have used a hit of that. but then these writers hit a wall, and started dragging us around in circles - i skipped to the end and at least they got a HE, i'm not sure how that happened though and i don't rlly care to sit through the remaining eps to find out. if anyone reads this and is in a generous enough mood to tell me, pls do.
the characters were very one dimensional which is expected, but yan zi xian and his perfectly applied lipgloss gobbled up his role, he was a delight to watch. i think the fl was the princess' right hand in princess royal? i'm not familiar with her but she held her own too. i recommend if you have the stamina, i didn't.

they're actually really cute. the ml is very obviously 22 but he's doing really well for his debut, i haven't seen the fl since rising feather its nice to see her. mayb its the seaside location but the drama is also relaxing so far

i can't believe this is coming out so soon, i was thinking it was gonna be more towards the end of the year. what a lovely surprise

the fl and mls tried their best, but this was still very underwhelming. i shall forget i ever watched it all in three business days

yes, but they got a divorce in ep 10/11

the comments disparaging the fl are really odd, so far all her actions and reactions have been very sensible, at least up until ep 11, i don't see what the issue is. but that ml...he has the memory and knowledge of ten lifetimes but stay making the simplest mistakes, lame

on a side note - zhao yi qin is more of a director's actor, he needs firm directors like the hard to find or butterflied lover director to really make him pop onscreen.
hu yi yao's rich madam vibe is always so funny to me, esp as she's still young. gotta be a producer somewhere that doesn't play about her

i like the idea of this cp, let me get in there and see what's going on

i consider this drama as pure fiction based on some historical events and people, but even in a fictional drama no one is cajoling these hardened warriors and politicians into taking the throne bruh that is just ridiculous. they've shown slaughtered kids and women being assaulted and hanging dead in the street, but a coup is where they draw the line? 😕

i can't even be amused at guo wei being 'forced' to take the throne the same way he 'forced' the dead liu king, bc those scenarios are just too silly

thanks for linking that discussion! i wish i'd started this earlier and could have participated.
🤣 i always say top 5 but I can't actually name five off the top of my head, if its really bad it just makes sense to put in the top5. i'm sure i have a list somewhere if i really think about it. there's actually one in rise of phoenixes (i only remembered that bc i just wrote you about it)

very true, the last 10/15 episodes were terrible. but all the episodes before that were really good

he had a prominent role as the father emperor in rise of pheonixes and was equally awesome there

ion like it when they linger on the deaths of innocent people like shuiqui and guo wei's families, but then just zoom past the punishments for their perpetrators. its very unsatisfying. like that foolish liu zhengyou, we only got to see him falling for like five seconds and that was it, and he chengxu? he was dead before he even understood that his reckoning had come. cheng zhaoyue? went out drinking and playing on his own terms. hu jinsi and his shitty son? still alive as of epi 32. none of them got to experience the terror and devastation they inflicted, even that cannibal zhang yan ze looked like he was already half dead by the time they dragged him out for public execution.

also its puzzling how the rest of the country's pillars just turn into statues whenever the king is about to do something diabolically evil. like they were slaughtering the guo women and kids right there in the market place, in broad daylight and they all just watched on.

shuiqiu zhaoquan's death just climbed into my top 5 most devastating cdrama character deaths. nothing, absolutely nothing can make up for it, and yet he didn't get any justice. not only that, not one person spoke up for him, despite how universally respected he was. he did not deserve that, and they did not deserve him. and i blame that fuckass prince 7 more than hu jinsi the actual murderer.

speaking of prince 7, the writing for his arc was too absurd to be believable, we've been watching him for 25 episodes and while he was slow and timid, he wasn't THAT stupid, his decline was too abrupt. although if the real dude could only hold the throne for 7 months irl, he could have been that stupid.

ep 25 - hu jinsi annoys me soooo much, but when you look at things from his pov, he's not wrong. even his arrogance is necessary.
wu hao chen, the prince 6/zhongxian king actor did a phenomenal job! give him all the awards. also he's actually a few years younger than bai yu, but you never see even a hint of that in any of their scenes bc of how dominated he was by his character
not looking fwd to prince 7's reign. he slow af.

the politics in this drama is so excellently written, i thought after they returned to wuyue once the first arc ended things would become boring but no, it did not. look at this mr shen in ep 18 for example, i remember how they were torturing him for nothing in the early eps and how everyone just watched on, now look who's a prefect now? and all the silent logic behind his re-instatement? i like watching the great king settle into his role and grow wise, but he's getting weaker though the throne is literally killing him. i also like how hottie sun prince #3 was advocating for ml back in ep 15, and just the general relationship between all the brothers. that quiet intelligence they all possess is very attractive. i also really like all the scenes between daddy hu and his sixty year old...son, their conversations really tie everything together. finally i like watching a govt that works, even fictionally. oh its so pleasing

the two dramas have totally different themes, the politics aren't the same either. they both have some really great performances though