jabofi

I'm so glad I saw this article! I didn't know the series had started since the timer isn't working. We all owe you one! 🥰

Lets see if this series can help me with my Guardians of the Dafeng withdrawal? 😉

I loved the novel, but warning, it is a completely different story! I wish I would have waited for the series to be over before I read it cause I keep being disappointed. Here's where I read it: https://mydramanovel.com/flourished-peony/
That site has a lot of great novels!

Now that is a great question! I know that in the novel the ex is very jealous of the cousin and thinks she left him to hook up with the cousin. (very distant cousin!)🤔

🤣I love the way you think! I thought the same: "Mudan conveniently finds this out and sets a trap for her somewhere in the whole wide forest, which she with amazing accuracy falls in? "🤣

I wouldn't mind if this series was nothing more than the 2 of them sitting around grilling at night and chatting! With some fun subtle (and not so subtle) flirting. 🥰

🤣 That is too funny! Whoever pays me... thanks for sharing that! 💐

Episode 24. Look Mudan, I know you love flowers and all but WTF are you thinking saving that awful ex's life like that?
Wait, wasn't that way too easy? Boom, I have my shop back and everything is back to normal? Since she's not divorced won't her ex and his evil family come and steal it all away again? Unless everything is under the ML's name? 🤔
Woah, this is very out of character for the FL. Digging a huge pit for the princess and steaking (lol) it out? Then coldly standing there watching? Color me surprised!
The ML is a hoot! Handing her a slingshot to distract from the spy, then the 'Do you have poor eyesight?' with the way he's looking at her! 🤣
Of course, given what she has just been through as a slave being used as target practice, with arrows, this might not be the best activity for her?😏
Ok, cool, moldy corn? Maybe we can get away from the torturing women theme and get into some detective work? Politics? Overthrowing despotic rulers? 😉

Episode 23. Oh hells no! She betrayed everyone once and made them lose everything, had the FL beaten and enslaved. There is no coming back from that! Damn it all, quit having FLs being doormats and let them grow a pair. 🤬Sheng Yi is not to be trusted ever again! Even now she is playing the victim card. 🙄I knew this was going to happen but I had hoped I was wrong. 😤
Hey, at least the ML bought her so she doesn't have to stay in a slave camp anymore. And even though she's supposed to be a maid it looks like she is going to keep living like she used to. (If I was one of the other dozens of maids working at his place I think I would be kinda pissed! 🤣)
Delusional ex wants to buy the FL from the ML? Yeah, good luck with that! 😂 He is completely un-self-aware!
😈setting up the other ex for failure! omg, he just picked the flowers and put them on a wagon? 🤣 He deserves failure.
Oh that's rich, since I don't know what I'm doing you help me with this banquet and I'll sell your shop back to you. The shop I stole. When I had your beaten and enslaved. But hey, I'll give you a good deal on it!😏
But damn it all, don't help the traitor. Let her rot with her abusive ex. 🤬

I read the english translation from here: https://mydramanovel.com/flourished-peony/
This is my favorite place to read the english translation of novels that have been or are going to be made into series.

Well said! And part of me wishes I hadn't read the novel first cause it is coloring my view I know. But darn, it is such a wonderful world the author created I would have loved to have seen it come to life. I will say that the opening credits are perfect. The painting I think really shows the vision of the novel
And this: "I believe that both the drama and novel can be great standalone. But it feels like to me that the drama just use her name, nickname, love of peonies and the ML’s name , and the name of the novel, and that was it. The drama left out all of the charming parts of the novel." I agree with 100%. And even though I am ranting about the series, I still am enjoying (parts) of it. The ML and FL are well cast and have good chemistry. I want to see where they are going to take this story.

Thank you! You have put into words my thoughts exactly. But much more to the point!
"One of the most frustrating things about the drama is how good it could've been, and instead it's . . . this."
💯

I wanted to watch this after seeing recommendations from some of my fellow watchers of Guardians of the Dafeng. I started watching and can't help but think it's a damn shame the ML isn't Zhang Ruo Yun instead of this pudgy little whiny guy with really bad hair!! Right now he's not funny or heroic, he's just really irritating! Does he get any better? I'm about 30 minutes into episode 1 and I don't know, I think I'll bail. Bummer.

And before someone snarks 'well why are you watching it then?' I love the novel! The series has enough of bits of DNA of the novel for me to want to know more. I want to see the series get back on track with the FL and ML. They get married and have an absolutely wonderful life and work together to outsmart all of the villains. It's a great story! It is disappointing to me that they have taken such a huge detour from the original novel. Plus I love the cast!
~fin~

And then we have the ML's family, who are truly awful! He's from a duke's family and should inherit the title. His father is an ass who hates his son for some reason and his stepmother is an evil scheming bitch who is trying her best to get him kicked out of the family tree so her spawn can be duke.
The ML's mother couldn't put up with the father so left him and divorced and became a wonderful character just like Mudan. She traveled the world, has her own shipping company, is wealthy in her own right, and just found a new guy to marry. Needless to say when those 2 met it was instant friendship!

In the novel there are lots of angsty things happening with the ex constantly trying to rape/ruin her, the ex and the princess and their cohorts trying, and almost succeeding, in ruining her entire family. the princess trying to kill her.

There are 368 main chapters in the novel, plus 9 extra bonus chapters. That's enough storyline to create an awesome series.

Except we keep having those storylines. Like Guardians of the Dafeng, which just finished. Wonderful story by the way! I highly recommend it!!! 🥰Or any of the half dozen 'blossom' series that came out recently. 🌸 Or the Rise of Ning (ok, they changed the storyline for that one but still...) Or Different Princess. Or Thousands of Years of Love. ...there are a bunch more but those are some I've watched recently.
So, if they have banned the storylines it's very selective!😂

The novel itself is not a simple story, it has a lot of complexity, including the positive (the FL's family) and the negative (the ML's family, the psycho princess, the psycho ex and family, and all of their cohorts.) The FL comes from a super wealthy merchant family. She was ill and they had an astrologer do a reading who said that the only way to save her and heal her was to marry into the ex's family. They are a noble family but broke so they are greedy bastards who just wanted her dowry. Her ex didn't want to marry her so the FL's family sweetened the deal by giving his family a shit-ton of money. The ex had tons of concubines and bed warmers. He never touched the FL cause to him she wasn't attractive. So marriage was never consummated. His entire family treated her like dirt. Even the concubines and bed warmers had a better life than her at that house. The original FL ended up dying of illness and neglect and the current FL transmigrated into her body. The current FL was a botanist who loves peonies so knows everything about growing and creating new varieties of peonies. And for some reason during this period of time peonies were all the rage so she transmigrated into the perfect place for her.
The novel goes into exquisite details on clothing and hair styles. The descriptions are lyrical! And the descriptions of the care and feeding of peonies are so well done you can almost see them in your mind's eye. All of this could have been used for this story. And that's just a little bit I can remember off the top of my head.

About the only good thing from this episode is it looks like, so far, that the FL has not been brutally gang raped by soldiers. Yet. So yeah, there's that positive?😮‍💨
Seriously, is the creator of this series a complete and total misogynistic asshole? I've read the novel and none of this brutal shit happens. None of this story. The FL's family is huge and they love her. They come to her in-law's house of horrors and rescue her, taking her, and her dowry, with them. And gets her divorce done. She moves home with all their love, and all her possessions. Including her bird. She has a huge chaotic family with tons of brothers and sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews and a great family life. And then she moves out on her own and creates a peony heaven in the country.🥰
She still has many run ins with the princess and her ex, who are both total psychos in the novel but never anything like the storylines here. Unless I'm reading a different Flourished Peony that just happens to have the same basic story outline and character names? 🤔
This means someone read the original novel, thought it was too positive and female empowering and decided to come up with 1001 ways to brutalize and/or kill the FL and her friends?🤬
And then in today's episode, to make it more fun (WTF?), they decide to kill off the harmless lovely little mute girl. In a horrible way?🥹And the ML comes to rescue her but then leaves her there?😲😤
Ok, rant over. For now.

You know, you are absolutely right! That was hella dark for this series and truthfully I am surprised they went that far. Glad they did, but still surprised! (one of the biggest complaints I have with 'revenge' themes in c-dramaland is that the bad guys always get away with it, or get some really lame punishment like banished to the cold palace or some such. I was glad to see that justice was served! But I'm a vindictive bitch sometimes so....)

🤞 I hope someone is listening! (I'm still waiting for Buckaroo Banzai against the World Crime League 🤣)