Deirdre19

This drama is a goldmine of quirky little details that might be easily missed. The acting for of all characters is pretty decent and the chemistry between the two leads is spot on.
Also, it so far managed to avoid quite a few of the usual c-drama tropes and for once there is a clever and reasonable FL. The story is interesting with a good pacing.
So based on this alone, it more than deserves the 8.3 rating.

That was a wonderful scene! Especially because what the Empress Dowager told him (to look out for the little things that could show a person's heart) exactly matched Hua Liuli's actions.
There are a lot of such subtleties in this drama, but not everybody seems to notice them.

It really depends on who the actors are. Anything with some pretty idol boys will easily go beyond 8 without being any good whereas some quite good dramas with "normal" actors will fall in the 7 range for no reason. There are also some dramas in the 6-range.

Hmh, we seem to have different ideas of what a robot acts like... 🤣

Oh, and yes, good choice, Jeremy, the dark red is definitely your colour!

I just love the way the script-writers are playing with the gender stereotypes in this drama. Here the FL gets to grill meat (usually the epitomy of blokish behaviour) while the ML has trouble chosing a pretty outfit to meet his girl 🤣
This is just wonderful, creative writing! I hope these guys will get to work on many big projects in the future!!

Quite honestly, if a drama is well produced, with good acting and a decent script, I really don't care whether it's BG or BL. True equality will be reached when BL or BG will no longer matter.
I guess one of the reasons that BL dramas are so popular is that C-drama scriptwriters just cannot seem write any decent female roles. Even if the character was ok in the underlying novel, they have to dumb down every single role take away any independent thinking or rationality until they all behave like five-year olds.

Yeheee! It's nice to have goals in life 😂
So what's next on our 🤡 to-do list?

Hahaha, sadly that type of guy does not only exists in C-dramas.

BTW the cat-thing seems to be completely made up by the scriptwriters, but I love it!!!
I wonder, after this drama, how many kitties will have the misfortune of being called FaFa ... 😾😿😾

Based on what I ready in the novel I think there is some conspiracy around this. His mother died when he was young and he was a sickly child, but as soon as the emperor brought him to live in his palace (looking after him and feeding him) he got better very quickly.
It's also something that the Crown Prince and Hua Liuli have in common, they were both sick as children (in the novel it's not all pretense, she really was a weak child because she was born prematurely).
There is a nice anecdote that Hua Liuli recalls regarding the Crown Prince. When she was a child he had heard that the country's top general's daughter was sick and sent her a wooden horse as a gift. Every time she didn't want to take her medicine, her mother would mention the sickly prince who had sent her the wooden horse and who had to take ten bowls of bitter medicine per day. It was only later that she worked out that nobody could take ten bowls of bitter medicine per day and this was just her mother's exaggeration.
In the novel there seem to be a different relationship (other than the wooden horse, none) between them as children. So far I have not come across the mention of any poisonous letters that she may have sent.

She died when he was young.

No, you haven't missed him, he only turned up now. Before there was only a brief shot of General Awa being captured by Hua Liuli's father (I think it was right at the start of the first episode).

Kick-ass FL in the opening scene... I'm in!

I was very surprised this turned out to be a wolf... to me it looked like a fox every time I saw it in the closing credits. Also, a fox being the symbol of cunning would suit him better in my opinion.

I don't know... I'm so far only up to chapter 20 of the novel and I haven't come across anyone with this name yet. But, there are another 120 chapters to read, so it will take me a while...

Actually, she doesn't. Towards the end of ep. 8 the Empress Dowager clearly says that Hua Liuli and the Crown Prince would make a good couple as "they are both troublemakers".
Afterwards she asked Liuli about Yuanhao to test her reaction.

It seems so, there is a scene in the closing credits that seems to point this way. Also in ep. 7 he was shown as the one giving orders to the assassins (the real ones, not the three inept clowns). I think the Crown Prince already suspects him, there was a strange exchange between them when they were drinking tea (I think it was also in ep. 7) and the Crown Prince said something along the line of "I want to trust her (Hua Liuli) like I trust you" and Yun Han had a strange reaction.

Ah, I absolutely HATE the transmigration trope (both in drama and in novels), so now I have to watch this to see how they make fun of it!

Or you could just move over to Royal Rumours. It also has Jeremy Tsui and in a (so far) much better written story.

Yes, quite horrible for all of them. I just picked out the ML because someone came up with the plastic surgery question.
Given that the actors usually check the takes right after filming the scene, I don't quite understand why they all accepted looking like a group of clowns.