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written very tragically in the novel

the novel has SO MANY funny bits about the spring paintings. it comes up repeatedly. she's coming at this from the POV of a long time soldier and is thinking, spring paintings are BONDING!!! this is VALUABLE CURRENCY!!! Commander, sharing spring paintings MAKE US CLOSER :D :D while he is all too proper and embarrassed. there is this one moment she's trying to pitch to him that they're friends now. and he's like, no! her: we looked at spring paintings together! we are bros! 🤗 Him: we didn't !! 😠 Her: we did! 😄 Him: Didn't!!! 😡

no he definitely had no idea during academy days. it's only near the end when it's revealed to him that his old schoolmate was actually a girl that he finally starts putting the pieces together and suspecting He Yan could somehow be the flying phonenix general

Yeah I knew what you were talking about with Lost Track of Time, just a typo on my part. :) I started that one but didn't finish it. I hated her scum original love interest and he got too much screen time for me so I dropped it. I can't recall it clear enough to remember what devices they used to excuse the time travel. but whatever, it clearly passed the review board so everything worked out!

hmmm?? not mad, my mdl friend! I was just explaining the situation. Certainly I agree it seems the guidlines are shifting, perhaps the review board has become more lax in this area. But the main thing I was trying to communicate is that you and I have no way to know what they are thinking and we also don't really need to know either. We see this variance in how drama producers address the rebirth and time travel themes because of personal taste in the type of stories they want to tell and also their own interpretation of the guidelines and their risk tolerance. It's just something I accept and don't feel the need to overthink :)

Blossom didn't have a special opener but there was ambiguity they added with a storybook. I'll be honest, I watched Lost in Time but can't recall. But basically the bottom line is that it isn't important if you or I agree! It's not up to us and they can't care about our opinions. For whatever complicated reason, these dramas passed the review board. We must simply accept that there is a review process, some story elements are allowed and disallowed. And dramas MUST pass review to obtain a distribution license (not mini dramas on random websites but the major entertainment companies). The review board isn't unchanging. Guidelines shift and evolve. Also, what you should expect to observe is that entertainment companies want to do less editing and get approval quickly. This means they will self-censor. They will create dramas and edit them in a way that they expect it to pass. This means different drama producers will have different risk tolerance. Some will push boundaries and try to wiggle around the rules. Some would rather play it safe and make complete 100% changes to be SURE the drama can release with little extra editing. The result is some dramas totally skip the rebirth concept all together and some add big obvious wrappers, while others try to add very subtle elements and hope the review board let it go through.

If you do inspect them carefully, then all have some sort of excuse built in. Though sometimes it is subtle. Blossom does use the dream/story device. Story of Kunning Palace has a wrapper around it where it's a story being written on her computer - same trick they use for Joy of Life.

It truly is very different than her other revenge novels but I personally found it refreshing and enjoyed the full cast of characters. It felt like the author was investing more in character studies in this tale and less on plots, schemes, and soap opera fun. (nothing wrong with any of that stuff, she just decided to try a different flavor). Novels thay are more internal-focused and about character growth and relationships tend to struggle to be adapted to live action. And admittedly I think LOTFG is a mixed bag. But I'm still enjoying seeing it on the screen and I'm really happy it was released!

The way he read them as exes was INCREDIBLE 🤣🤣🤣 Like he picked up on all this weird baggage and history there even better than Xiao Jue did tbh. He just came to the wrong conclusions about it.

Yes, I feel like he did love her in the novel but it was mostly just private feelings. In the end he never truly goes thru with any serious plot to separate them and intervene BECAUSE he developed real feelings. Sincerely loving someone means you won't hurt them. He is still on the side with the bad guys but he is somewhat restrained because of how he admires He Yan. (a lot of times in these dramas the SML or SFL gets deranged and does all sorts of destructive stuff to the person they CLAIM to love and I call it nonsense. That's not love! you're just obsessed. In contrast, I'd argue that Chu Zao ... for all his many faults and ruthlessness, his love for He Yan in the novel is sincere and his feelings are about her and for her... not just obsession and damaged pride. because he does want her to be happy more than he wants to possess her.)

He symbolizes the moon to her because she sees him as pure, clean, beautiful but untouchable and out of reach. something to be admired from afar.

there's this hilarious line in the novel where Xiao Jue is says something like, your role is someone who's gentle, elegant, a calligrapher, a zither player, a painter.. Which of these 16 words apply to you?? and He Yan just says, "...being a person". 🤣🤣

This is a rebirth novel. The drama adaptation removed that element. In the novel she literally dies and then wakes up in the body of a 16 year old commoner girl also named He Yan who is beautiful but delicate and weak. (the supernatural explanation for this stuff is generally that 2 ladies named He Yan were on the verge of death at the same time but one body survived and the other didn't... but the wrong soul came back. Like the underworld god made a mistake or the spirits took a wrong turn lol.) So in the novel, she literally is 16 again and has to join the army again and train up her body from scratch. In the drama, the writers changed the beginning so she didn't die and has the same body. Only injured and then she healed. That's why the timeline goes faster in the drama.

He doesn't realize how she sees him, how far of a distance she perceives between them. It's not just about unrequited feelings. Part of this is he doesn't realize their history as schoolmates when she was the worst student and unpopular and he was the natural talent and most popular cool kid. But it started from then and carried into today, where she perceives herself as rough and easy going, uncultured, and without status vs seeing Xiao Jue as pristine, elegant, wealthy, high status. Clean, pure, and untouchable as the moon. To be admired from afar but never in reach.

I believe mid 20s? They joined miltary at 15 or 16 after the academy. (in the novel, He Yan is reborn again at 16 and has to start over in training her body again. but in the drama she doesn't have that issue.)

Yes!! I loved the Cui concubines sisterhood in the novel. And the drama kept the line of Cui crossing the lover's bridge 4 times LMAO. (which is impressive in the novel, because it's much scarier). I agree that it's nice to see some happy families, not only toxic ones.

the challenge for Xiao Jue (and He Yan) is that not caring about politics doesn't mean it won't care about you. what I mean is, the only people who can afford to say --oh I'm not political-- are the people so privileged that whatever laws are passed won't affect them. Xiao Jue and He Yan have to keep winning battles and being SO AWESOME that they cannot be touched. And even then, if a truly awful prince ends up being the one who becomes the next emperor... can they afford not to care? I'm curious to see how the drama handles the storyline with the prime minister and chu zhao's schemes. It might change a lot. Should be interesting :)

In the novel context it makes more sense - she was a heavy drinker like many soliders after years in the military but then reborn in a gently raised girl's body, she no longer has the same alcohol tolerance but has her old habits. Rebirth censorship problem

He's not a good person lol. He's not gonna make ethical choices.

She also has an agenda that we can see in the drama - she hopes to gain info about her brother and current news from the capital. She doesn't want to probe people in the camp or Xiao Jue because she is paranoid about Xiao Jue connecting her to her former identity