ShortCircuit

But she never came online LOL. It's like - his love interest lives in Canada and goes to school there, you wouldn't know her, LOL.

He's been in bike and car racing last I've heard. And he had a bit of a trouble re: cultured remarks last year IIRC, I guess he can pick and choose what he wants to do and maybe even has some extra reasons not to pick a drama and/or other entertainment. TBH, I don't really follow their work unless it gets public that they're doing whatever - so if they slow down a bit, it'll eventually come up, what they're doing. Myself though, I'm more of a character fan than an actor fan :D

In this drama... I think they'll try LOL.

Or he got mad his wine was cold. I've seen some characters spit blood because they were enraged or surprised. The equivalent of smashing everything off a table in rage for Western movies, LOL.

That part - especially the hiding place... irks me. I commented below already. She's been stupid with it, if it's as important as we're meant to believe.

And anyway - let's pretend she does present the edict and can prove it's real and not a fake. What does she actually expect?! The Dowager put the freaking army - including a Prince - under the sword. She had the Ding Mansion punished. She had her underling - Muyang - try to get the edict, so it's obvious SHE planned most of it, so that her own son got the throne.

And now what?! Does Ye Li expect either the Emperor - the SON she put on the throne - to turn on his mother and punish her or the Dowager to just... meekly go away to the Cold Palace or something? What is the actual expectation of them all?! They have no allies other than the old Hua Duke.

Wangfei (王妃) - it's pronounced exactly as written, LOL, King's Wife (or for simplicity, Princess). The W translated to an "oo" sound in English. The "Fei" just means Consort. :D

TLs are tricky - I've seen Wang TLed as Duke from time to time (never as "King", LOL) and also hóu (侯) TLed as "Marquis" as in here, but in other dramas was "Count". It's all in the adaptation, what can you do...

If you have an ear for it, you could catch the actual titles (not for the women, it's way more complicated outside NiangNiang (Empress/Noble Consort, from a person of lower status) for example).

1. Huangdi (皇帝) - Emperor
2. Wang” (王) - Prince/Duke (actual TL: King)
3. Gong (公) - Duke. (Not to be confused for 公公 (gōnggong) which was a title usually given to Imperial Eunuchs of some status, LOL).
4. Hou (侯) - Marquis/Count
5. Bo (伯) - Count/Earl
6. Zi (子) - Viscount
7. Nan (男) - Barron.

And so on, and so forth, LOL.

Actually, no, the Ye dad was made to take the edict from his wife, forcefully, by Marquis Muyang (presumably at the order of the Dowager Empress or at least in the interest of her party). The astronomer - another of the Dowager's pawns - learned about it and was made an accessory to treason either because she was afraid he'd tell the people the edict was real, or because the Dowager had no use for him any more and found a good way to silence him forever on any secret he might know. So he told the Dowager Consort to go get it, which she did, despite being a witness to how much danger that caused to her childhood friend, Ye Li's mother.

The DC was in love with the astronomer, who was completely dedicated to the DE, so that they both swindled DC's trust into helping the DE all these past 10 years (that's the trick with the dragon bringing rain and the poetry book written and read in public while the astronomer was supposedly in seclusion, LOL. That's what's hit the DC really hard, enough so that she gave up an edict. The real one? I don't know. We'll see.

Su whatever, the standard stupid villain.

There are a lot of noble titles, some inherited, some conferred. A "Wang" translates directly to "King", but in Western TLs, it's made into "Prince" because we didn't usually have a hierarchy that ended in an Emperor over all the smaller feudals lords, like China used to have.

So his title is "King" (over his domain, which involved his own standing army he had to pay for, if he was allowed to keep it - I don't know if OUR Ding Wang would be allowed, given the whole treason thing way back). It doesn't IMMEDIATELY lead to him being royalty (as in the direct line to the Imperial Throne), because that's a lot more trickier. Some people in his family ARE Imperial family, he's not in any way in the running for the Imperial Throne himself, despite blood ties. (The closest rival to the actual Emperor is Mo JingLi, who is the former CP's legitimate son.)

What took a lot of time to come across is that the leading family (of the Lishan Academy - "shan" just means mountain) is related to the Imperial family, that Ye Li's mother and the Dowager Empress and Consort respectively were all students at that academy, that a lot of people in the army and other nobles around also went there to be educated until it closed its gates 8 years back.

Other than blood relations, there were also a lot of given titles that are TLed as "Prince" or "Princess" but aren't related - like the title of Commandery Princess to another character from another drama. The Chinese have all different titles for everybody, BUT Western audiences do not have and never had rquivalents for them so the translators adapt as much as they can so everybody gets the gist of it all...

I am EXTREMELY disappointed in the quality of villains in this drama. Doesn't anyone manage to plan another Meng Yao? Can't we have another old fox villain Emperor like in NiF? At this point I'll even take ML's BF turned villain... though I bet he won't.

So - another lame duck assassination attempt that lead nowhere. I bet the ex-convict doing stuff for Marquis Muyang dies (un)expectedly on the road to the capital, so that he manages to move around a few more eps. The final villain is obviously the Dowager Empress now, but since Dowager Consort Qin left (and hasn't been assassinated on her way yet), she's alone and with basically no left and right secret hands to do her bidding.

We have 13 more eps. there was to be some more plot to fill up the last quarter of the drama. I hope a lot of it is spent on their relationship, it's obvious the original writer or the scriptwriters can't write palace political games to save their lives.

PS I bet that the Cangbei princess isn't dead either - at this point, it feels almost like Miss Su "killed" her to give her a chance to disappear legally so that she goes and secretly marries ML's BF. Or something.

YO!! I forgot about Mo JingLi. Is he still alive somewhere? (Though nevermind, he started stupid from the startline. There's no way he grew a brain while hiding.)

PPS Where's the FL's family now? And by family I mean her non step-sister. Our house-bound hubby material assassin needs his alternative love interest!

PPPS (however many Ps it takes) When she hid that all-important decree under the freaking pillow I literally facepalmed. Like for real. 8 years, 70k+ people's reputations, including the whole ML's manor's personnel and family... and you hide it THERE?! Dammit Ye Li, you caught the stupid germs!

Was that... the whole plan?! That's all she managed to imagine would happen were she to assassinate the princess?!

I mean... this is the second time in this drama where the villains are basically stupid as all getout. Like - WHY?? What did she manage to do in the end?? Is she freaking STUPID??? (Yes she is, I don't need anyone to confirm).

Anyway. I feel like the ML was away too much in the last 3-4 eps, give him back and let some smart people do stuff.

In my country... they have laws against illegal drugs. But they're only making the use of them punishable - you can "have" them, if you don't use them. Kind of mind-boggling, but oh well.

It's like that in the mainland too. You CAN film anything you want, BUT you can't air it without the license given by the censorship bureaus, and they will NEVER allow official danmei with kisses and all to be released. Still, as I said, it appears you can film it in the Chinese sets however you want, if you can afford it, just as long as you never release the product somewhere the Chinese public can officially access it. And outside danmei, there are a LOT of Chinese-made dramas that would totally fail to get licensed. Youtube is chock-full of them - rebirth-revenge, ghosts, criticising the regime, defying authority etc abound in mini-dramas. Most of them never make it on the mainland, just the outside of China, LOL, even if they're straight and involve no BL.

These small-time production might not even have used mainland sets, though, even if it wasn't forbidden (or not yet, keeping fingers crossed). The sets aren't so ample they couldn't make them in Taiwan or Thailand, like they did with Meet You at the Blossom or others. It's just that even if they have the money for it, they won't be able to make known actors act in them, so they rely on newcomers or people who will try to make a career outside China. Even those who were in one, won't go back if they can get out of the contract. That's why we're very likely never to see 2ha - I imagine even if the producers are dying to air it, LYX and CFY's respective studios would join the censors to stop the release. Danmei is considered toxic lately, given the latest rules.

But at least they're allowing the small outside productions, and other countries have managed to make a few adaptations already. We can only hope something changes in the future...

I really don't like the voice they used for him in Go Ahead (that was my first drama with him). Maybe it was his own voice, maybe it was a VA, but the thing is - it imprinted in my memory and I just... can't. And THEN I watched Young Blood (also, maybe it was his own voice, maybe the same VA - I cannot. There's something about it that hits all the wrong notes for me). And then there's his specific face contour. I don't know if you've watched Star Trek DS9. He reminds me of Odo, ALL. THE. FREAKING. TIME. Which is strange, 'cause I actually liked Odo. But he was one strange-looking alien, TBH.

I took a detour around Mo Du because he's a ML there. (I mean, I already don't like Priest's novels, and now I'm buying the SSE volumes at a kinda large price just to encourage them to publish more danmei in English official editions, having to watch it when I actively don't like a ML and I actively don't like the author's works... I wanted to give the novel a chance.)

DYX - him, I like. He's played childish characters and seems bouncy LOL, I like bouncy people. They bring up my mood.

But yeah... bro-cest only works in hentai. Or yaoi, rather, LOL. If "work" is even the right word for it.

Step-bros then. LOL, my mind went immediately to that hentai meme :D

(Myself, I won't go watch it though, I don't really like Zhang XinCheng, through no fault of his own. It's something I can't explain. I would go watch it for Ding YuXi, buuuuut... eh. Life is hard.)

I'd still stand with (drama) Tai.

Look at what they were (before Wayu decided he could go back to school). They were basically prostitutes - yeah, we didn't see it after the first ep, but I still remember the meet-cute was caused by Wayu having to go with a client to a room (that still exists somewhere in that club) to be raped with sex toys or something... and that his friendly (and now tuition-paying) boss sent him to that room, and that Wayu, who had worked there for a while already, was completely aware of what happens in it.

Then again, their whole job is to make clients spend money on them (I don't put any blame on what they're doing, we all do what we have to in order to make a living and survive). When their looks are gone, or their livers fail, what's left for them? Tai is just pragmatic/realistic. This is not something to recommend one for a long-time relationship, even if the other person isn't a rigid cop brought up in a conservative family with political intentions.

Even Wayu - who, while lovable, isn't the brightest bulb in the room at times - is aware of the optics of it. Love isn't enough to overpass something like this, so he puts his act together and goes back to school, in order to get a more "respectable" profession and be a good partner to Krit (who, for reasons of his own, decides it's the perfect time to dump him, in order to "protect" him - I hate the noble sacrifice trope, at times there's no excuse for it.)

If I were Wayu, I'd want my friends to be cruelly blunt with me when I'm into something way over my head and ready to dive deeper. At least to be aware of the dangers and prepare myself, even if I take the plunge.

In short, I think Tai isn't lying to himself that "this is fine", and is very much aware of how it looks to possible love interests. I wonder if there's no GF or BF for him (of if there were, how were they relating to him). Poor people who have to struggle for their money and status every second of their lives don't get easily over the crisis mentality, if ever. If they have some pride or self-consciousness, it hits doubly bad.

If there's any progress I'd totally suspend disbelief for in this series, it would be Rose getting together with Tai and him taking another way out of his now-place.

"Returned Master" maybe (officially not BL, they invented some girls there to keep it under the radar).

No, they still don't. With good or enough financing, these dramas CAN be filmed, but there's zero chance they will ever be airing on the mainland. And I seriously doubt they could ever get well-known (or at least established) actors to be in them. Some of these dramas are airing only under the condition the mainland never gets to them (they probably know how to use a VPN, but officially there's no way to get them), others are produced and aired outside China, some are made in Taiwan or Thailand, etc.

Since none of these would be allowed in the mainland, the actors would probably not consider having a career there either. Maybe in the future, if the censors liven up a little or the public policies change. (Small chance of that, though, what with the party trying so hard to make young people birth more children, 'cause they're facing the same demographic decline all first world countries do, only multiplied by a factor or ten or more.)

PS Not even the already filmed, TU-era danmei won't be airing, probably ever (unless some charitable soul "messes up" like they did with The Spirealm and leaks the whole 2ha or Seizing Dreams or Eternal Faith etc...

I haven't read the novel, so I don't have any impression on the characters as they should be to compare it with as they are shown in the drama, so I can't say anything on what the writers messed up about it...

But aren't those guys actually brothers?!