rena

i just came here to post it ahah. my god what is going on?!?

that’s fair. i do think they’re really green and lack nuance in some key scenes, although the male lead improved over time. the script, their role setup and the directing have been key in filling in for their lack.

their acting?

i don’t agree it should be looked at as .40/month because my whole issue is about paying customers (each already paying 4/month) having to pay even more for advanced episodes. im glad they’re slowing fixing top-level issues and i agree with your last points - all valid ways of gaining their rightful income without impacting good paying subscribers.

my general point has been why it’s unfair for chinese audiences to pay for advanced viewership so the last paragraph of your reply is pretty moot.

even with comparison to netflix’s $18 model, the calculations in my last reply shows the money they’re charging is, relatively speaking vis a vis a chinese audience’s earnings, more than netflix.

i agree their model is unsustainable but i don’t think it’s right to push on chinese consumers. they need to do something about the greed at the top - ridiculous situations like zheng shuang’s $24mm usd payment for her drama, 3x more than the entire budget of word of honor. i’m sure there are others similar situations behind the scenes.

eh i think the percentage of bad dramas on chinese platforms is much higher - i can barely count the number of tight well-plotted scripts from beginning to end each year.
idk about the other international platforms because i don’t peruse them but netflix for sure tries to invest in a good percentage of quality products.

but ignoring that (since i suppose it can be subjective) the relative living cost i mentioned above makes it ridiculous what they’re doing - for example, an average person in china paying $4 per month (average disposable income of $5k usd) is akin to someone in the united states (average disposable income of $48k usd) paying $38.4 per month. each episode tencent is asking viewers to pay for advanced viewership, adjusted to us income, would be around $4.47, almost $5 dollars. so to catch up last week, it would be the same as paying an additional $26.82 in the us. netflix is only $9 per month for everything to the same us audience.

not sure what you mean by the later comment. they’re already paying for vip, which on other platforms gets them everything. even though it’s called ‘advanced access’ in reality it’s just delayed access for the part of the audience that don’t pay and can’t be caught up on the latest episodes and share in the fun discussion that makes drama watching more exciting. netflix doesn’t do that for the part of their programming that’s good.


[edit: putting my comment as spoiler since this is going way off topic lol]

right. their parent-son relationship is literally the cutest. i’m sure if jingyi whines a bit more at his father he’ll give up easily lol

last year china’s per capita income was only ~$5,000 (i.e., that’s what the average person makes in a year). i’m guessing this is part of the reason why the pricing is more outrageous to them.

also don’t pity the platforms for losing money. they invest in tons of bad projects to outcompete each other based on volume rather than quality. and they make up for the loss because their parent companies invest in other profitable areas. their strategy is bad, and they don’t respect their customers so it’s all yikes to me.

ohh i think it won’t be too hard. their qualms were that they believed general leng was hiding his illness and planning an uprising before his end, and they didn’t want to consolidate mr. jing’s power with general leng’s military power which might disrupt the balance of the court. they wanted to marry jinli to lengyue so that lengyue would basically serve as a hostage to control general leng.

but we know now he has no such plans and duke chang acted behind the scenes to frame him for mutiny. once the emperor and mr. jing understands this, and that he’s really not much longer for the world (so jinli would naturally take over his position), the block to lengyue/jing yi’s relationship is gone.

i’m watching without subs sorry! check out the comment below - they seem to have more info

happy to help :)

nope, nothing of that sort so far, and i don’t think it’s likely in the last 6 episodes either.

at the end of episode 21!

none of the episodes that are out (up to 30) involve breakup. none of the previews for upcoming episodes (31 & 32) indicate a breakup. and from everything i’ve seen, including the summary that is part of the broadcast licensing, it’s a happy ending.

this might contain spoilers depending where you are!!!

—-

chengyin was the general that was framed for rebellion by the head eunuch. you can see him in the first episode, where a flashback revealed the head eunuch framed him, and then used the same rebellion to try to kill xiao heng. in reality, chengyin protected xiao heng from the head eunuch’s army and died buying xiao heng time to escape.

chengyin’s right hand man is yunyi, which you find out is chu chu’s father. he also died in the same ‘rebellion’ and is also considered a traitor.

so if jinyu is chengyin’s son and chuchu is yunyi’s daughter they would have grown up together.

from episode 31 preview:

[general leng peishan and jingyi are at a table]

general: “i only have this one granddaughter, i’m entrusting her to you.”
我就这一个孙女，就托付给你了

jingyi [visibly moved, stands up]:

“general leng, rest assured.”
冷大将军 请您放心。

”i have no high ambition, i don’t seek fame. this life lengyue has been my only aspiration.“
晚辈不求工业 不求声名 一生志向唯有冷月一人.

“general leng places great trust in me. i will not fail.”
冷大将军委以重托 晚辈定不会辜负。

[clinks bowl of wine and downs it]

tn: cryinggggggggggggg

yes not just you. it’s a huge issue in the china fandom. not only is it greedy it also has a chilling effect on a drama’s popularity, especially smaller ones, because it creates a split between ppl who don’t buy the new episodes and who do - so less discussion can be had (after all a part of enjoying a drama is discussing it with others). really atrocious behavior on part of the platform just for a bit more money :-/

i don’t know if princess xiping’s behavior is indicative because there are those who treat their adopted child better bc of guilt or to make it up to them for their sad background. jinyu seems to take after xiao heng in their detective abilities but jinli is also like xiping in their martial abilities. there’s also a theory that the elder should be the adopted one because he has to be born already so that xiping can fake the birth of twins under the court’s watchful eyes - it would be harder to her to take in an adopted child after the birth of her own. but who knows if jinli is actually the elder one. i think at this point it’s all up in the air.

agree the connection between jinyu/chuchu/ xiao heng would be cute too. basically i think this drama would really have to mess up to disappoint me now during the last stretch. i’m so excited to see how it plays out!

my guess is jinyu is the chengyin’s son. it was mentioned his wife was pregnant at the same time princess xiping was but she lost the child before it was born.

i think after the ‘rebellion’ chengyin’s wife knew she would be executed for being a traitor’s wife (like chu chu’s mother) and ran away to the princess to appeal for her child’s life. so the princess learned the truth of the ‘rebellion’, albeit not about whether xiao heng ended up dead or alive since it wouldn’t have been known to anyone except himself. she was in a weak political position at the time vis a vis the eunuch and could not have push on the eunuch’s version of the truth (this was hinted at in an earlier episode when she spoke with jinyu). so in last effort, she adopted chengyin’s son to save his bloodline.

between jinyu and jinli being the adopted one, my guess is jinyu just because of the narrative possibility. it would also leads the tragic possibility that if the ‘rebellion’ never occurred jinyu and chuchu would have met as children and grew up together, but also a beautiful conclusion that despite everything they still ended up together because they’re simply fated.

(if this all ends up inaccurate my cat wrote it)

right omg. i have an inkling about jinyu’s birth story and if it’s true it’s going to be so tragic/epic/amazing