soTreeD

I think it says alot when a drama audience like yourself who didn't know the original novel can feel that S2 was really badly done...

I promise you, the novel is waay better. I loved the novel Xiangliu, the drama one, not so much.
I cried so much when Xiaoyao reunited with her parents in the burning desert. In the drama all I can do is not cringe at the horrible and cheap set just to let Yangzi cry so hard at what kind of awful set up they made for her... sigh...

To add on to this viewer's notes about Jing

His involvement was very impactful because he was the one who realized Xiaoyao was not okay after her birth secret came out, and he was the one who actually brought her secretly to meet the Haoling King to get her the closure she needed.
That was why the King risked it all and went into the burning desert ( not some small room in a cottage ) to look for Ah Heng, who had turned into a horrifying monster that burned everything and she had been suffering for the past 300 years waiting for Xiaoyao. The drama just made it so lame!! Like why did the King not tell Xiaoyao sooner? Would she have been able to spend more time with her mother? Its like her mother can't even wait 5 more minutes for her before she 'had to go', when she was living in that house for centuries already...
Jing managed to get the blessings from Ah Heng to marry Xiaoyao and he was the only one who accompanied Xiaoyao to Jiuli/Bailli to scatter the ashes of her parents and pay their respects in the house they used to live in - NOT Cangxuan and NOT Xiangliu.

In the novel, Jing also succeeded in his beautiful proposal - not screwed up like how the drama did it.
He later left for Qingshui town just weeks before their wedding, Xiaoyao did not follow along but Hu Zhen. By that time, they were about to get married after nearly 40 years after the Haoling war and for her to finish revising her medical project.
Which was why Xiaoyao still went ahead with the wedding - not the forced drama version that made no sense for her to just randomly give him a deadline of a week to return to marry her.

Xinyue tried to kill Xiaoyao not once but twice, and first time Xiangliu saved her and second time Zuo er and Xiaoyao survived on their own capabilities. I am very annoyed we didn't see this strong and clever Xiaoyao.

Cangxuan was the one who killed Jing, not Xinyue - who had actually been happy Xiaoyao was going to marry Jing. She was not some stupid maniac the drama made her out to be.

Jing would also return in time to stop Xiaoyao from becoming the Queen Mother at the ceremony... but all these were gone since they changed the main plotline into a dream sequence. Xiaoyao ended up mentioning that she planned to become Queen Mother after killing Xinyue to avenge Jing, which made no sense, would the Mount Jade harbour a murderer???

All these really ruined the LYF story and yes I can't stand how they made Xiangliu into such a pathetic mopey loser. In the novel he was really there for his army in all his decisions, but in the drama he just shows up randomly everywhere like he has nothing better to do at his camp.
Same can be said for Cangxuan. In the novel he was a hardworking king who had to unfortunately miss out on meeting his aunt for the last time, because he had to be King and do his Kingly duties but in the drama, he sure has alot of time to lurk around yaojing, and we see the back of his head way too much...

LYF S1 was already changed but it was within acceptable limits but S2 really went off the rails.

Yes I also have no issues with that... alot of stories the ml are using the fl and later on it progresses to love and also regret later when she realize what he did and later he will have to woo her back + make it up to her etc lol
Most plots have to be this way, the man has to 'do something wrong' otherwise I guess we get no drama to watch...

I was being ironic because of those people who said really mean things about Tushan Jing and even Xiaoyao just because they were having underground romance while he was still engaged to FFYY

LOL I was complaining to my friend about that first 5min TT
It was such an impossible shot, at night, in heavy rain, that arrow could still travel and aim for a narrow target such as a neck....
But just now I saw weibo post a photo and suddenly it could make sense because the one who shot the arrow is not who I had thought it was..*hahahaha*

I am still watching this! I think Ep7 and 8 finally picked up the pacing...

The way the male lead's elaborate setup is also very sloppily executed... how do they fail at even setting up this 'fake set' for his big ploy to lure out his 'enemy'? Its like his people really have questionable capabilities... and even now by Ep6... all we saw was 'she suspects - he puts out yet another small fire' ... hmmmm...

Wait I have another question about Xiangliu esp after I saw the drama added the line "Xiangliu is a genius" lool
In the novel he is praised as a great war strategist but genius?

One question that was always nagging me was, Xiangliu clearly had the network of mer people who were helping him. In the novel they helped him find Tushan Jing ( since I doubt Xiangliu had the time to personally look for Jing himself in the vast sea) and in the drama, they even function as food delivery swimmers to deliver seafood bento set for Xiaoliu.

Xiangliu was also capable of finding many rare materials used to craft the legendary bow for Xiaoyao... so my question is: Why is he still so poor??
Is it just to provide some contrast because Tonghua didn't want all the men in Xiaoyao's lives to be well off?
Why is Chenrong army always short on supplies and lacking food? Xiangliu has said 'he has no money to pay Tushan Hou' but if he was a true genius, why wasn't he able to fund his own war better? Over the centuries, if he just invested a little time and effort to start some either seafood import/export or rare pearl/fishcore supply business in Dahuang, perhaps the Chenrong army would have been flourishing instead of dying due to lack of food and medicines...

Just saying... If the drama wanted to say he is that smart, at least show us just how smart in action... don't just write a line and make the characters praise him...

I guess I was hoping to see more of a contrast for when Cui Jiu is a Duke/王爷 but when he was hanging with his friend, he seemed to still be the same whiny person which was so odd... I will give this a few more episodes but its really not blowing me away...

I was feeling so disappointed! I don't know what is wrong with it...
So far all the previews seem to be a very bad idea because I found those to be the best parts of every episode... so it seemed like I was sitting through the bland parts and then the funny segment just pops up...
I am still wondering if is a chemistry problem, editing or directing thing...

How do we answer you this?
LOL its really not a question that can be handled even with an essay answer...
My short answer is yes the plot changes were detrimental to the drama and very damaging to many characters.

My question to you: as a drama viewer, would you feel curious about the original novel? Would you go read it for yourself?
Most of my friends prefer to watch drama and be done with it, very few will go read the source material.

S2 was super rushed, a huge mess with questionable plot changes...
Just wanted to tell you that you feeling that S2 is disappointing is pretty widely accepted viewpoint.

And where was I wrong in what I said?
As a pure drama viewer who did not read the novel, your mother has responded to the drama the way the drama production team intended.

So what is your point? I merely commented on the workings of the drama production team and responded to your usual slander that 'Jing is a servant' and 'meant to be a servant', when his character is definitely not supposed to be such in the original story at all.

For someone who has been vocal about how she doesn't like Tushan Jing, you certainly love to keep bringing him up all the time in your 'stomping' posts.

Isn't it time for you to head East soon instead of hanging around in LYF trying to milk more sympathy for Xiangliu, the now ruined character of the drama LYF?

Oh by the way I am also interested to know about the morally outraged people who said that Jing is a 'bad man' because he was dating Xiaoyao while he was engaged... how would you view Zhang Wanyi's new drama where he plays an engaged Duke who literally sleeps on the same bed with an amnesic woman who is not his wife but he tells her he is her husband? LOL

Questions for Lost You Forever that are left at the end of the story:
- was Cangxuan's wars to 'unite the world' necessary?
Cangxuan was a prince, born into a political power struggle. He wanted to climb to the top to avoid being killed by his uncles. He supposedly also wanted to 'protect Xiaoyao' but honestly she was already fine being the grand-daughter of the Xiyan King and the daughter of the Haoling King - nobody was trying to kill her except when she placed herself in danger to protect Cangxuan instead.

The story didn't really do him justice and made him look like he was literally 'sleeping his way to the top', with all his marriage alliances. No wonder some people have criticized Tonghua that she can't write this kind of political 权谋 arcs convincingly. I found that it was rather lacking to convince us he was the righteous leader that Jing or Fenglong 'saw', except just because we were told so.
Cangxuan was a character that was emphasized as someone who was 'working his way up from the bottom' in his youth, being on the ground level to see the sufferings of the normal people, kind of like training a CEO from the bottom up in a company. However, we didn't see the political acumen that would suggest he would actually be a good leader - he was stuck in Xiyan until Tushan Jing provided him the way out via Fenglong.

Haoling was a peaceful country. In the drama we saw that Cangxuan already had intentions of taking over the moment he became the emperor of Xiyan. I was at one point actually really angry with Cangxuan for backstabbing his mentor and savior ( he literally saved CX from being killed by his uncles by offering him refuge in Haoling ).

I found the concept where the author pushed the 'unified' land is best very propaganda-ish ( for a certain country cough cough ), but perhaps in history it has been proven that as a race, people / deities are probably truly selfish and will not share their own 'expertise' unless they are all 'under one'.
Tonghua used the revised 'Medical Herbal Guide' started by the Flame Emperor of Chenrong, as her 'reason' to illustrate that when the world was unified all information will be able to be combined and shared equally amongst all, rich and poor. I suppose in a way that is an idealistic idea and while I didn't like it, I could see where she was going.

- was Xiangliu's war necessary?

Xiangliu was more like a loyal mercenary who found himself driven from the sea where he had been wild and free onto land by the cruel hands of destiny. He got adopted by Hongjiang and subsequently seemed to find 'playing soldiers' to his liking.
When he joined Hongjiang, Chenrong had already lost the war. Most of the clans and tribes have conceded and accepted the loss. The world was settling into times of relative peace in the past centuries.

Tonghua's attempt to paint Xiangliu's war as something positive, really failed for me.
No matter who she tries to use as a mouthpiece - even using Jing in the drama to convince viewers and say its 忠义 - that Xiangliu's war was justified, I couldn't see it as anything other than his choice to keep fighting is bad for the times of new peace.
For some countries, especially like China which has seen so many dynasties come and go, its clear that when times change, there will be people hanging onto the previous dynasty and will attempt to 'restore' things to the way it was 'meant to be'.

However for Xiangliu, Chenrong was not even his country.
He was just fighting for the sake of fighting. Because his foster father wanted to.
We have seen alot of war orphans in the story - Pimply, Skinny, even Cangxuan and Xiaoyao... all of them suffered deeply in life due to wars.
To want to extend an unstable world just so the Chenrong army can live for a few more centuries, that seemed very selfish to me. Especially when at the end of that road, it was not as if Hongjiang was going to have anyone to restore to the throne - in fact, I think they literally killed the rightful heir to the Chenrong throne- Chishui Fenglong - in their stubborn war against Xiyan? It also did not appear as if Hongjiang wanted to rule himself. So exactly what were they fighting for/over?
For their brothers who have fought and died? Its literally dragging along other innocents to 'accompany' them. I could never understand this idea of 大义 Tonghua was trying to say.

That is my thoughts on the themes of war in LYF.
I know some people will be livid that I dare to criticize their 'main lead' Xiangliu, but I don't think even they can be convinced themselves that his war was righteous at all.

I am just glad that they removed Xiaoyao's very controversial line from the S2 leaked script where they wrote her wistfully saying she hoped the war will last longer so that Xiangliu may live a while longer, because that would really be ooc and a very bad thing for her to say. Of all the weird revisions to the script, this was a good one. War is serious and never a joke.

That is the general consensus for S2 and their douban score reflected this.
So nobody is going to hate you for hating LYF S2 hahah

Yes TSJ in the novel was more interesting and did alot of important things as well.
Xiaoyao was also way more into him than how the drama showed. You really had no reason to question why she fell for him. The question you may have might be, why isn't he the male lead?

Even in the novel he is the first male character to be introduced, as the Chapter 1 in LYF was a background setting chapter. The story introduced Jing, Xiangliu and then Cangxuan in this order, even though the author said in interviews that Cangxuan was the male lead - we are not sure if this came before her drama adaptations were out or after.

The drama just wanted to make Jing look worse than the other characters so that they can stand out... its so painful to watch S2 lol

All the ones telling you he is boring are Xiangliu fans lmao
Putting down a character just to boost your own is such a lame thing to do...

Again look at who is pushing the 'Jing is a servant' in LYF lol

The whole reason Jing comes off that way, is because of the unfair bias of the production team, who is so afraid that he will come off looking better than the male lead and a certain supporting lead Xiangliu who was truly just a background character in the novel.

Jing's lines and even his entire story arcs have been cruelly dismantled and donated away to other characters. The most hilarious change was how Jing and Xiaoyao were the ones to pay respects to her parents in Jiuli, but S2 made Cangxuan - who was not there in the novel - and even Xiangliu appear later to pay respects.

Look at how now people can even make claims that Xiangliu is the male lead lmao
"he was the only one that remained somewhat untainted by the many changes this adaptation made to the original novel"
Somewhat untainted? Make that given so much more airtime and story plots!

I rewatched S1, and now that I seen what they have done in S2, its now obvious how painfully the team were already shoving Xiangliu into places he has no business in before.
He is given so much emphasis that he will pop up randomly in S1 - when the female lead is dancing with Jing her sweetheart, Xiangliu will cut in suddenly showing his 'rebel' activities somewhere for no apparent reason other than clock in his screen time appearances.
Now in S2, the female lead is having her big kiss scene and suddenly Xiangliu's whole moping scene of feeling her being kissed is longer than her own kiss scene.

One of the most ridiculous plot additions was Xiangliu had 'Chichen's token' to take control of Jiuli's army but didn't do so in exchange for the way to kill the bugs?
Jiuli / Baili was a tribe that had been punished for being Chichen's tribe for centuries and all of them are now slaves. There is no way for them to even have an army so what is this stupid plot point? There was no way The Yellow Emperor would have allowed Chichen's tribe to even have military power.

I can only shake my head at this blatant lack of respect for the original IP and the not so transparent attempt to make a character look 'too good' and over extend himself, to the point of becoming ooc in the drama. The irony that the author herself sold out for money and allowed her own story to be butchered this way, isn't lost on me.

Perhaps in future, we will have a better adaptation of LYF down the road. It's got the potential to be a classic, but the first version is now Ruined You Forever.

LYF was an eye opener for me at how much having a backer in C Ent means, because stories can be changed according to your money and investments in a project. This seemed so different from a western or korean drama production - where story plot seems to comes first.

Why does being alone and single 'empower a woman'?
I don't know what kind of values you are promoting here, but saying a woman looking for companionship to rely on, is considered 'weak'; Don't you think something is wrong with your values here??

Also Xiaoyao herself said, she didn't want to wander around anymore. She long to settle down and have roots. What you turn a blind eye to, is she was NOT HAPPY and her 'free spirited' and 'wandering' life is NOT what she wanted. Stop forcing your own delusions onto what Xiaoyao wanted.

For someone who didn't read the novel and 'dropped S2' why are you hanging out at MDL LYFS2 page so much? KOL duties to help promote your fav? Don't be too obvious pls.

Many viewers become unfair and miss the point of Xiaoyao saying she had 'reverse growth' just because she did not choose XL - who was a very damaged man.
Xiaoyao had actually contributed greatly to the nation's medical studies, set her emotional baggage down and fall in love - achieving both love and career - and resumed the rest of her life's journey by the end of the story, which is a beautiful thing.

Xiaoyao and Xiangliu are people who were similarly damaged. In the novel its described as they are both facing the light or the darkness, but neither of them can move from where they are. ( loosely paraphrased )
Neither of them can trust to make the first step - and even when the author gave them the bug connection, it was not enough for two people to be linked when its only one-sided - Xiangliu never let Xiaoyao know anything. That was the lesson the author wanted people to realize - nothing can work if there is no two way open communication.

When you say Wen Xiaoliu was free spirited, self loving and self reliant, she was actually just looking fine on the surface. It was only a cover. She was only enjoying 'the moments' but she was not truly happy in life. She was merely drifting in life when she longed to set her roots down. She also had plenty of trauma that was not healed but just covered over, and the emotional baggage she carried over her birth secret was weighing heavily on her.

I can only blame the drama for not doing a good enough job of showing this and only used a few lines in S2 to try to bring it across.
If you have time, read the novel. Xiangliu was also way more cool in the book than drama.

Yes that is the attraction of this drama honestly. Most Xianxia the characters tend to be very 'typical' and boring. The characters in LYF feels like they really gone through somethings and are damaged in their own ways.
Too bad S2 really failed to finish telling the story properly.

Xiangliu is just an army man who goes to look for Xiaoyao when he books out of his camp, to go eat nice food, shop and gamble; or when he needs help with his army or when he needs her to heal him with her blood. He also tells her clearly he is just around for the short term and not going to commit to any future with her.

In real life if you see such a man, run far away.
Don't even think that he will be a good choice.
Men don't change who they are, they can't be 'fixed' by a woman's love.
The only people who can change them is themselves.

For those salty XL fans who say Xiaoyao is not good enough for him, Xiangliu is the one who needed to work on himself before he could deserve Xiaoyao.