Deirdre19

Should be renamed Flavourless Bunny...

Haha, channelling his inner Wen Kexing. We had to wait so long for this!!!!

Could be... I just see three indicated on the MDL page. It goes to prove once again that many cooks spoil the broth. 😂

There are three directors and it appears that they didn't work simultaneously, but one after the other.

Account created this June, no friends, no followers, no interests... What did you expect?? Just block the troll.

Maybe seek help... looks like you need it 😉

I think it was mentioned in one of the early episodes that it was a congenital disease, but without giving us any details.

I think part of his motivation for treating HY like this is not his over-protectiveness of DZY but his jealousy toward a love-rival. If he drives a wedge between the two, the chances of him keeping DZY to himself for the rest of his (limited) days will be much higher than if they manage to reconcile.

Episode 25 was excellent! The layered revelations maintained the suspense throughout the episode and the acting by all the main figures was absolutely on point. Especially the emperor gave a very impressive performance! The Empress Dowager was wonderful in her stubborn denial of any wrongdoing. She certainly isn't a nice person, but I always enjoy her scenes because she is so intense.

The way episode 26 deals with the aftermath of the revelations, showing how DZY is torn between celebrating her achievement and feeling empty because of the loss of purpose (and using the people she care about). I though it was nicely done. The meeting between the Empress Dowager and DST finally manage to add a bit of context to the bits and pieces that had been revealed about the past relationship between the Di and the Han clan.
The undercover prince lurking around princess Anning is now firmly in scumbag territory. I really hope she gets to kill him herself (once she wakes up...)
The only totally unnecessary scene was seeing the Fake again wallowing in self-pity and blaming the rest of the world for "stealing her future". She came from nothing and probably would've died by now if she had continued living as a beggar on the street - yet nobody seems to have the guts to tell her. The scene between her and the dumb bodyguard was utterly pointless and contributed absolutely nothing to the story. Did the writers seriously expect anyone to feel sorry for her??

Catching up on episodes 25 + 26...

The introduction of her character was probably one of the bits that got edited out (and replaced by a bathing scene).
Bad editing would be one explanation why some things suddenly appear out of thin air, whereas others are mentioned ad nausatum.

i'm sure they could've squeezed everything into the 39 episodes and kept the essence of the characters, if they had dropped some of the totally pointless (bathing) scenes and trivial dialogue. A few brief flashbacks could have helped to provide more context (instead of relying on novel readers to explain things).
It's again the Chinese obsession with whitewashing the main leads that ruins much of this drama. To quote a famous French comedian: when you wash whiter than white, it becomes transparent. For me, this is one of the reasons why the HY character comes across as so bland, especially when compared to LMX.

Yeah, the Anning character is disappointing, very one-dimensional by now.
When she first appeared, sparring with Anle was such a firework! I had high hopes for a drama filled with strong female figures, but I guess I was expecting too much 🥲

Welcome to the club! If you read up a bit further down you will see that people have been mocking her ever since she's turned up.

I had the same problem with Di Shengtian and when I asked the question somewhere further down, someone explained that she had left (or was made to leave) the empire because the previous emperor had the hots for her and thus she escaped the extermination of her clan.

They must have heard us... that purple gown is 😍😍😍

Same here - I'm always looking forward to new episodes for this one, whereas for the other dramas I can very easily not watch all available episodes.😁 It must be that I'm addicted to bathing scenes...😂😂😂

Overall, Destined probably has a better production and writing (even though there were also some cringe-worthy plot turns and scenes). The acting here is on equal level with Destined, I would say and the story really is captivating.
I know I rant a lot about the ridiculous writing etc., but comparing LoA with better produced recent dramas that I'm also watching (like Destined or Mysterious Lotus Casebook) I still find it more compelling despite all its flaws.

It's not fully translated yet!

Yes, what would do without the novel readers to help us understand this drama? I think the production team (who did such a lousy job) should give them half their salary!