Moonstruck

Some are saying XiZheng-BaoEr will be the same as WeiYan-QiSheng. But I don't think so.
QiSheng being dumb is also one reason why WeiYan holds a lot more power. BaoEr already shows how smart and capable he is. Plus with his Mama's influence (Qianqian who is a modern woman), and Ning (future Empress), I don't think he will entertain any power struggle conspiracy.
Although realistically, XiZheng and ChangYu should probably relinquish some of their military and regency power. History shows conflict always comes with power imbalance.

So iirc, DengKai also became an unwilling father here 😆

Why is Miles always playing 2ndML 🥲
Can he not get high budget drama roles where he is ML 😩

Recent shows I've seen that in my opinion self-imploded.
I start with saying these are already overall above average shows that have such high potential and such good start but couldn't sustain it.
1) Prisoner of Beauty - deviated from the plot that logic no longer made sense towards the end.
2) When Destiny Brings the Demon - the 3rd life arc lost the show's spark
3) Feud - so many clues hinted for an epic wrap-up with many 'Aha' moments, but ended up with a lame closure
4) Pursuit of Jade - sadly the tv version changes they did after ep27 didn't work out for me. Shame, this was almost perfect early on. Still hoping to see some good scenes for the remaining episodes

Hopefully I do not have to add Love Beyond the Grave on this list 🥲🙏🙏

Likewise. And I think it's because QiMin's character arc and storyline remained faithful to the novel.
All others sadly got butchered after ep27.

Exactly. It's like saying if you enjoy horror or crime movies, you also enjoy violence in real life. It's such a narrow way of thinking. On the contrary, it's people who actually has this mindset who probably needs help. Because how fragile your mind is and how easily influenced you are that you believe everything you consume must manifest in real life. Fiction has always been an instrument of creativity and imagination for people to explore diverse ideas and concepts that doesn't necessarily have to transcend in real life.

There is something extra alluring with silver haired characters 😆

Most readers can separate fiction from real life.

To those who likes QiMin's pyschopathic obsessive love.
Go read 'The Silver Devil' by Teresa Denys. Coincidentally, the 'ML' also has silver hair 😆

I felt the same way.😆 without the bangs, she looks like Park Bo Young to me.

I was even cringing on the court scene where she tries to smart ass WeiYan and Li. They ruined Lin'An town Changyu 🥲

Yes, killing the ShiHu is canon for novel ChangYu. But for Prince CX, iirc, XZ shot an the fatal arrow from afar. But they kept it a secret and let CY take credit.
Another change is that the puppet Emperor is also not that stupid, he was also pretending to be a puppet but made big moves later on. Many things got toned down in the drama, specially Xie Zheng.

Yeah, I kept hoping we see a some amount of battle scene for the ML too, but he almost appears lame to me now.
I get it ZhangLinghe is handsome with the zoom-in, slowmo, halo effect that the directors loves to do, but give the man some cool actions scenes too 😩😆

I know they are one and the same, but I find Yang Zheng a lot more handsome than Xie Zheng 😆

I agree. It was perfect until around ep27.
The main issue is they stopped following the original story. I know tv version tend to deviate at times and that is acceptable. But here, what they changed just didn't quite work for the overall plot, consistency of the characters and just basic logic in general.
There is also an obvious push to make it femalecentric. I don't understand why they had to overdo it. I was honestly praising it at the beginning because I felt it's rare for a tv drama to portray a strong independent woman without being cringey or have the feeling that it is being shoved down the audiences' throat. It was already established that CY is one amazing girl, all the other war scenes are overkill ( in the novel it was XZ who actually inflicted the death blow to Prince ChangXin ).
This show self imploded. Had they followed the original story, it would have been perfect.

Tbh, it was a fair assessment for Pillowbook. Had I not read the novel, I guess I would dislike it too as it gets confusing. It's probably because I'm already too attached to the characters so I'm partially biased there.

Yep, very true.

I still enjoy it. It's just that when you start and set the bar too high, the audience have a certain expectation. That's why sometimes we can sound overly critical on picking on details because we are sincerely hoping it lives to its full potential.
I actually enjoy reading critical comments (but only from matured viewers and novel readers).
I've mentally accepted how it's going and set the bar lower now, so I may just turn off my brain on the future episodes to just simply enjoy it 😆

Who said this again? I missed it

Are you talking about ep32? I think they purposely let him go.
But I do agree, Xie army looks like a ragtag team to me 😆