galactics

...when Beauty and her parents showed up at her dad's boyfriends' house. The way I see it: Beauty's parents are in a loving platonic marriage, where her mom is fully supportive of her dad's gay polycule, and they are committed to raising Beauty to see the joyous and loving potential of consensual, expansive queer relationships. And the smile on Beauty's face because her parents sat her down and were honest with her, and she understands and is happy for her family! No one can tell me different. More stories about these types of relationships, front and center please.

the main couple's story was weird and mostly unlikeable, while the BL couple was cute, but i started crying almost instantly at that scene in the last episode when Beauty and her parents (spoiler below)...

I was confused by this too

I'm on ep 5 and what I can say so far is that the main character of this show is definitely the music. It's giving 90s teen detective sitcom + soap opera + a dash of Seinfeld, and some other stuff I don't have a name for at the moment. Would love to hear other interpretations, please do share if you have music thoughts.

What do you mean?

@ Da Bajan Review These days been feeling real long lol. We are getting closer tho. One more day!

I think this is all right sadly, and agree that it will take a lot for YY and SS to see each other's intentions beyond the anger they feel toward each other. Its not what I want to see, but appreciate this as a story given how true it is to so many parent-child relationships out there. Very curious to see how this part of the story unfolds. I wonder what it would be like to see YY be accountable for how she has hurt SS. That may be an unlikely outcome unfortunately, but we need more stories about parents taking responsibility for the harm they have caused.

Right tho?! Wishing us all strength to get through these dark episode-less days lol

This is valid too. Sometimes we need to see how people who have been abused make the choice to walk away from those who have hurt them.

I also think the mom will change and am looking forward to that storyline. There is good promise for some real deep character growth, for Shaoshang and all the people around her. Drama patterns of tragic endings got me nervous and I'm a lil worried about bad things happening to beloved characters (haven't read the book), but I'm holding out hope that we will get to see this family love up on each other.

nah this is too much lol. I haven't really rewatched episodes of airing dramas in the past but I'm over here rewatching scenes all over the place. Same eps as you mentioned, plus CSS's victory laugh after the bridge collaps has been a fave. the struggle is real out here waiting for Tuesday to come.

@Lily Lam this is a very good way of describing the mom's approach. I think it's also coming from the mom's feelings of shame for leaving SS behind and letting her experience the abuse that she did. Fixing SS's flaws like you said is the mom's way of rectifying her own mistakes as well. A very sad way of parenting. I worry about what we will see for Yuan Yi in the future. Dramas love their tales of karma and sacrifice. I hope instead we get to see SS and YY coming to love and care for each other openly, and for a long time to come.

Deeply agree. I very much enjoyed the first few episodes in that it established a complicated, fleshed out family dynamic that gave meaningful insight into the various characters and their personalities. Also very much agree that Niaoniao's mom's (Yuan Yi) actions are heavily influenced with guilt. As someone who is extremely disciplined and strategic, leaving Niaoniao behind, and Nianioa then being abused, seems to have causeed Yuan Yi deep shame, so she seeks to fix Niaoniao as way of rectifying what Yuan Yi may consider to be her own biggest mistake. It is so sad and angering to watch, and also feels real to so many mother-daughter dynamics. Although I do suspect that there is more than meets the eye with some of the theories floating around that Niaonioa may have some other identity. I also worry about what may happen to Yuan Yi in the future.

yea, LBY likes to observe from high, distant vantage points. I read it as a visualization of his military inclinations, but also of how disconnected he is from everyone and anything that's not his job and whatever personal history he is investigating.

I think you hit it on the nail. I truly believe the mom loves and cares for SS, and worries about what SS will experience as she gets older and is more exposed to the world. I also think that the mom believes in following orders and just doesn't like the way SS disobeys/acts out. A bigger part of the mom's displicining is out of care, but its not in small part out of anger and the need to dominate.

Haven't watched the previews but that seems very promising!

That surprised me as well. I had assumed the soldiers chosen for the trip would be used to taking action themselves. Niao Niao's commanding presence perhaps, lol

not sure why the tagging function doesn't seem to be working on my end for some reason

Ok so just rewatched the scene in ep 9 at 40 min mark where Ling Buyi and co are looking at the map and talking about heading west to get ahead of the Shu rebellion, so you're def onto something @Levitate14. I also think you're right @Cutenobita, since they say in that same scene that there might be some people who will not be sufficiently discouraged by the show of Lu Bingyi's military force to stop rebelling, so they wanted to flush out and catch the ones who might attack first (by raiding whatshisface Prince Xiao's place). Tragically, I think Lu Bingy miscalculated the cost of that initial Shu attack. Or he thought it was a necessary cost, but I'm hoping against that version of the story. It would make for good story development to explore this choice but I don't think we're going to get that.

Also Niaoniao shifts into general mode real quick. Very much looking forward to future developments in this area, but nervous about the tragedy we might have to go through to get there