nephie

I don't find it boring at all. I think it's very well executed so far. I think it would hurt the story if it had been just all done at once. To me it seems like the flashbacks are building up and the audience is only supposed to know the full picture once either the characters get together or at least start communicating.

I have not seen go back lover so I cannot compare to how it's executed there.

Sure it would "work" to see every scene in complete chronological order, but the point of the flashbacks is not to tell a chronological story. It's to show the scenes that add the most context for the present day events.

Storytelling isn't always supposed to be completely linear.

I disagree with people saying the "past" scenes should have been done all in one go like Lighter & Princess. It worked for the way L&P was told, but it's clear here they are being very precise with when they reveal certain information to the audience. As Yifan slowly warms up we are also slowly told how she ended up so cold and distant in the first place.

I think what made this drama stand out to me is that while Li Xun is a jerk, he doesn't feel like a "typical" jerk male lead. He has a lot of depth. I don't think that excuses any of his hurtful actions, but it's easy to understand his perspective and more to the point it's easy to get how Zhu Yun comes to understand him. And that's why despite everything and sometimes to her own detriment, she still sticks it out.

I think their dynamic makes a lot of sense too. The typical "jerk male lead vs nice and naive female lead" dynamic is usually the ML is wealthy and/or is in a significant position of power over the FL who typically would come from a poor family and would be way more naive than is realistic.
Li Xun and Zhu Yun on other hand feel a lot more like real people. Li Xun has faced the devastating loss of both his parents, and his older sister is much older and is dealing with her own shit and their family was never wealthy. So combine that with the ego of being extremely gifted at Computer Stuff now surrounded by people trying to do the same thing, his actions have a lot of motivation (again tho this doesn't excuse when he's a jerk).
And by contrast Zhu Yun's naivety makes sense. She was raised in an affluent and well-connected family with a mother who plans everything out for her.

I will say sometimes her stubbornness is a little hard for me to empathize with personally (like when Li Xun puts that virus on her computer and they all spend a ton of time trying to figure it out themselves lol in my position I would have been like ok i get it you're a genius now either fix my computer now or compensate me because you literally just fucked up my property LOL) and I wish they had hinted at the loss of her friend earlier than when she saw the guy who caused it at the competition.
Then again you can argue the point was for Li Xun to truly see her shaken for the first time, and that her life isn't the complete fairytale he projected when he first saw her.

Anyway, this was a very long winded and rambly comment that will probably end up buried in a month. I totally get if Li Xun's behavior is too much of a turn off for some people but I just really appreciate the dynamic of the leads.

Personally I felt they got more forgiveness than they deserved, but I think it made sense considering the personality of the leads and the vibe of the show.

The 4th prince was genuinely remorseful (his wife ehh not so much but they accepted their position in the end)

Dropping at ep 17. Just not feeling the FL at all and the other characters aren't much better, everyone annoys me. shame

Ep 14 //

What I find most frustrating about this whole "born sexy yesterday" thing the FL has going on is that the ML should realize by this point she does NOT share his feelings. Maybe he's blinded by his own feelings but like she's very clearly got her head in the clouds and says she "likes" everyone.
He was literally right there when she said she liked him, the SML, the water snake guy, the flower boss lady.
It's supposed to be sad at this point isn't it? like bro looks devastated meanwhile she's just walking around with a question mark above her head 24/7

For the SML, i can't tell if he can tell or not, I think he does know but is using her words to say to the others that they share mutual affection? He was pretty scheme-y right before with her father & knew saying that he would only ever marry her would get on the water deity's good side. he could also be a little delusional like the ML tho hard to say at the point the episode ended.

"love" is a strong word lol. The eldest Sui prince of the rebel faction. I forgot his full name - there are other things that are related to him that are big spoilers

[Filming Spoilers] https://x.com/FKShi/status/1890827883184111815?t=GA89vvgriHbmqxLQ5cZ0ow&s=19

(Big Novel Spoilers)
this is probably the flashback of QianQian rescuing her baby daddy 😔 wish i could jump in the screen and tell her to let that mf drown 💔

In the novel, from what I recall it doesn't really go into detail how Xie Zheng ends up injured before Changyu saves him. We're basically only told he was betrayed by his Uncle and the fight was lost so badly XZ is presumed dead.

I assume the drama team decided to expand on this fight and actually show it in detail. I wonder if it will be used as a "cold open" in the first episode or used as a flashback later.

S1 esstionally adapts the flashback in the webtoon, but is still very divergent. Even if S2 starts seeming a bit more similar to the webtoon, it will likely still be very different due to the divergences already made in S1 and there's just way too many characters and storylines for them to be able to adapt fully with the short drama format. Even a full 16 ep drama would probably need at least 2 seasons if they wanted to adapt the webtoon as a faithfully as possible.

As a super big fan of the webtoon I also felt very thrown off when this first came out, but eventually I grew to really appreciate it as it's own thing.
If you are able to readjust your expectations, I recommend giving this another shot because it is a good drama.

I think of it like a spin-off/AU sort of thing. Hopefully one day a fully faithful adaptation could be made.

I think the novel actually has more antagonists than "good guys" 🤣 there's the people on the rebel army side, but the imperial court is a huge mess too. It's our protagonists against the world lol

I don't remember the exact details- but I am pretty sure in the bonus chapters it mentions them going to fight against invaders from other countries later on or something like that??
She doesn't just quit her military career after getting married, but their focus is moreso on helping guide the emperor so they stay in the capital for a while (I don't want to give too many spoilers regarding that) and giving her younger sister some stability too.

If you are referring to the photos/videos of Fan Changyu in pretty clothes, it's just her getting done up all pretty while not in uniform since she has a higher status as a general.

Mixed feelings on this. I honestly feel like most of the family didn't deserve any of the forgiveness they were given. I know a lot of things were meant to be viewed more as a slapstick comedy type thing, but then so much was also played completely seriously. And none of them ever really truly apologized.

The ending was also so-so. From what I can tell this was based on a transmigration/reincarnation novel which is subject to censorship, so they took the route of saying it's a game in order to get around it, but then that means she has to leave the game at the end.

I think it could have been cool if they put more effort into showing ManEr's real life, maybe by having her think of her real family & realtionships while going through the game. And actually making the story feel more game-like.

Since the real life/game stuff was obviously just to get around censors and was very barebones, it's easier to just ignore that stuff and interpret it as the transmigration story it's supposed to be. Yay, happy ending.

[Novel Spoilers]

Honestly the reason why I don't really even view Xie Zheng as that much of a "red flag" is because the Sui brothers are straight up scary. (Especially the older one like omg my poor Qianqian)

Like Xie Zheng mainly just has some dark possessive thoughts but the Sui brothers? they're nuts.

I just noticed on the cast list, the actor playing Sui Yuanqing is really young (18) & kind of has a puppy-like vibe in his MDL photo. I hope he will be able to pull off Sui Yuanqing's craziness.
Though maybe he will be really different in the drama 🤔

[Novel Spoilers]

I just remembered the scene from the novel where Changyu & the fam are watching Xie Zheng and the army enter the capital from a 2nd story building and all those girls are throwing handkerchiefs (i think?) at him and the fam convinces Changyu to throw something and he catches her hairband 😭 gosh i hope they include that.

i ALSO hope they include at least one sparring scene between them

[Filming Spoilers] (photos)
Tian Xiwei is soo pretty, and this hairstyle is so good its nice to see her w/o (full) bangs
https://x.com/txwbb/status/1887693550550442169?t=r1lUwavi68AmdFiqzbEVqw&s=19

[Filming Spoilers] my generals 😭 https://x.com/precieuxlee/status/1887684635477647375?t=xPNqozCTaXebwAJIq4rmeg&s=19