ShortCircuit

Did you notice how Chang'er has to ask her how to breathe, from time to time, LOL? That guy is oblivious. IF they're still childless after this time ( I mean, it could have been a bit of a leeway in costs for the producers not to include side charas' kids), it definitely isn't TaoZi who is the problem.

Maybe Chang'er is still a virgin after all this time :D

PS I obviously meant the missing 10 when Li Ni was couting down A'Ying's lifeless body in Wonderland, asking her to wake up at 10 - that she obviously wasn't going to, so that he left off the 10 in despair (and maybe unwilling to accept it even then).

I wanted SO MUCH that his first word toward her when she revived would be "ten", just so he could win THAT bet :D (But then we got his plans and timeline for following her, and got my heart broken again...)

In the end, he DID get to go to LaoLan Pass, and that's the biggest happy ending payoff ever!

YES! Good work Li Ni!!!

Though now I think about it, neither of them can count, can they? He first said he wanted 8 kids, then reduced the ask to only 4 and in the end there's just the two LOL. But then he also can't count to ten either LOL (dammit that heartbreak part really does serious damage).

What's the best in this drama (in this specific order):

1. Xu Kai's acting. Those eyes. He practically carried most of the drama himself. I think this is his best drama I've ever watched.

2. The cinematography (particularly the fighting scenes). But the cinematography in general. Yes, I like it when I get so caught up in it I am just,.. watching the scenery because it's so beautiful.

3. The chemistry. Sizzling. I could FEEL Li Ni being in love with A'Ying. The teasing is just - perfect.

4. The BGM. I love it, I hope they release it sometime (as soon as possible).

5. FINALLY A HEA!!! I'm so glad we did get a HEA. I keep watching dramas that end in a mysterious cue, is-it-a-HEA-or-not, or outright a BE. But not this one. They got all they wanted, all of them (the surviving ones at least), and there's a happy, peaceful, uneventful future for them out there. Yes. More happy endings, please!

I hope the novel gets TLed and that it has that magic feeling the actors brought to it :D

PS I still don't care the trash is gone, and A'Shu's a fool.

Nobody said ”10!” LOL. I got so hung up on that. So I'm saying it for him - TEN!!! TEN!!!! Freaking TENNN!! :D

This man's heartbreak broke my heart.

Thank you!! (But I still will do chores rather than watch the latter half. I need to build up some strength for that, LOL).

Don't tell me they're going to kill Pei Yuan!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

If it happens, I'll go smash Minister Gu into goo!!

Mid ep37.... OMG I can see where this is heading... I can't watch that!!!

Anyway, let's go do chores, I've postponed them a few times already.

LOL @ep36... you know that meme? ”I'm washing me and mah clothes"? That's what it looked like :D

PS This new chara, Mr Mu. I like him, I wanna take him home, LOL, but I can't cook. This is a tragedy :D

MokHa had just given him the speech about her own poor dad - the one who beat her up whenever he got drunk, and he drank a lot. She's always an optimist - I guess he wanted to believe it could be true, that his father WOULD have a shred of love for them in his heart.

But yeah, going from second one - OMG you're here KiHo, to second two - Are you RECORDING this?! in one breath did put that hope away. And then what followed.

But that's on dad. KiHo might've held on to that hope against hope. I totally get why he's crying over it. He can't hang on to that faint hope now, at all, since dad never ever changed and even got worse over the years.

There was a theory in here somewhere that the title, Castaway Diva, could also apply to RanJoo, too - she's been adrift for a while, since she lost her conviction and courage to sing. (And lately she's surely been acting like a diva, too, LOL).

And then there's obviously MokHa. And KiHo is the most important person in MokHa's life. Why wouldn't his story be HER story? Or better yet, THEIR story?

He set up a trap, he knew what was waiting for him. Even so - I guess there's a child inside him who still wants his daddy to truly love him. Of course he was hurt. Hope dies last, and all that...

Too bad it was wasted on Cui Lin's tantrum. So many beautiful colours. I loved it!

Why is Cui Lin so stubborn right now? She GOT what she wanted. She wanted Li Ni Crown Prince and she wanted to marry him. And when HER EX-BROTHER accused her father, Li Ni did everything he could, up to placing himself in danger, to save them both, at the price of the army.

And the army had to go, anyway - it was a private army with great merits, granted, but not controlled by the (already unstable) emperor. There was NO WAY to keep the army. Too bad that had to make Cui Yi into King Lear and Cui Lin into Cordelia.

It went kind of like:

Cui Lin: You WILL be Crown Prince and like it. And we love each other so I'll be Crown Princess.
Li Ni: *eventually finds a way to make it happen*
Cui Lin: No, not like that!!

Girl!! Make up your mind already! The wedding night went well, LOL, all things considered - from frantic sword play to the scramble the next morning, hahaha, Li Ni was kind of sweet, still trying hard to keep appeareances :D

I did like how Mr. Gu and his daughter were put in their respective places. I still wonder how Minister Gu didn't still find a way to make Cui Yi the guilty party. I guess even the useless emperor can't afford to lose Li Ni too, since there are no other options (except for the other grandson.)

And I don't know about others... I am kind of warming toward the present Empress. She does send spies to the Crown Princess (but she's responsible for everything going on in the Eastern Palace, it's basically her duty to spy on all the women there) but she seems WAY more smarter than her husband, and not obviously evil-inclined. She doesn't have a son of her own yet, though, so that's why she might be friendlier to Li Ni and his wife.

I am of two minds what to do now... Keep on and finish the drama, or wait it out a bit. I don't want it to end too soon! T_T (And I still have been careful not to be spoiled on the ending, LOL).

At 34 right now: Well, that was a beautiful ceremony. Everybody looked like they were having fun (not, LOL).

Did YOU speak up for them in those cases, too, or just noticed it was happening, though? That is the whole point.

I have no idea what denomination of Christianity you belong to, and only talked about the easily found examples of bad Catholics within the ranks of the Church (not people just going to that church) because you mentioned The Fiery Priest, and AFAIK, that one involves a Catholic priest (haven't watched it, despite how it may look, I am not really bothered by religion portrayal in dramas, and would actually particularly go around one that pretends to be really really involved in religion, since it's not a subject terribly interesting to me.)

I keep trying to put this through: they're not using bad religious people as TROPES. They're using this kind of plot because there IS so much proof in actual SK society (and other SEA countries) about the corruption and backdoor dealings of such types of cults. Frankly, it does definitely NOT look cool. I think that's the worst kind of inference you can make from this type of plots. (And it's not restricted to Christianity - it hasn't been too long since one of the previous SK presidents got sentenced to prison for corruption that involved her own personal friend who also acted as her spiritual / faith counsellor. The church she belonged to was another cult so strange they mixed up elements from three different religions to get to their own brand of pretend-righteousness. Don't worry though - that president got a 25 years sentence and she was pardoned less than three years into serving it. So you see - no corruption at all /sarcasm.)

I still wonder if you find the topic of religion portrayal still as sensitive if it involves a different religion at all. Like, are you bothered with dramas/movies that mock or support Islam, for example? Or Buddhism? Or Shintoism? Those religions too probably have their own requirements and teachings and "spiritual leaders" and whatnot, and there are so, so many movies/dramas where no respect is shown whatsoever. I am not on a fence here - IMHO, if you defend one, you defend all. Or if you do not defend all in a similar way, you don't get to be offended for only one of them. What, the beliefs of people who have different convictions aren't just as valid as yours? (You see, I'm telling you again - FAITH is one thing, religion... another, altogether.)

I hate to break it to you, but these things HAPPEN. Some of them are extremely fictional, obviously, but nobody, not even priests/nuns/whoever important in the church are not exempt from them, despite the teachings.

And it's not even so rare in the Western society. I mean, Catholic priests (mainly in the US, but I'm kind of willing to place bets it's just as prevailing in Europe) have basically become almost a synonym for pedophiles. And in way too many cases, it's earned. Nobody was accusing them for nothing. (And it's STILL happening, despite thousands of cases brought to light throughout the world). Or take the case last week - a Catholic priest from Alabama ran away to Italy and married his underage mistress and then returned to the US with her, where he was about to be indicted for corrupting a minor (his now wife). And now he's basically protected from law (probably going to get thrown out of the church, but still. You get the idea). That is not normal, and doesn't respect the teachings, but it happens.

So why should people and organisations that are corrupt or lie to their congregants NOT be accused, if they do these things? Saying they're from one religion (or any other) is not an umbrella covering them and protecting them from the consequences of their own actions.

(And there are so many Christians in SK - it's one of the prevailing religions. Almost a third of the population belongs to one or another Christian denomination, the other more significant religion being Buddhism - half the numbers - and many of the rest are non-religious people. In a pot that large, there are bound to be bad actors.)

I'm simply going to repeat myself: look up the Unification Church of South Korea (or the Moonies, as you might have heard them called.) That IS the type of Christian-pretend denomination that happens in SEA a lot. They (the South Koreans) have grounds NOT to respect fundies/zealots/cultists even if they're pretending to be Christians.

I might also point out the numerous (and terrifying) childrens' asylums run by more prominent Christian churches, also in SK, well into the 90s, beginning of the 2000s. It hasn't even been a generation. The survivors still battle their problems - problems caused by the treatment they got in those "Christian-run homes for children".

Examples (in case you think I'm inventing these things):

https://apnews.com/article/adoption-asia-pacific-south-korea-international-news-busan-736590a2b96340c4aac66616d94eea33

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church (there is too much to link, read the notes for more info).

The point is - even IF the original manhwa creator and/or the producing team of this drama DID have something bad to say about cults, they (the South Koreans, that is) HAVE enough proof that Christian churches/denominations/sects are rife with corruption and abuse.

It's not an attack on FAITH. It's an attack on the organisations that come talking about safety and validation and inclusion and then in the back stage are doing what those people have been CAUGHT doing. Also, just because they're calling themselves Christians, it doesn't mean they act in good faith and will follow words with actions of that type.

Or even shorter (a kind of TL;DR): don't take it personally, There ARE people out there pretending to be normal and moral and even righteous - and they're not. They don't deserve your immediate support just because they claim to be like you.

1. He didn't survive the fall. He was dead for 16 years, and since he fell into (basically) lava, not even his bones or ashes survived. ***

2. Nobody - not even himself - knows where he was for that time period. His spirit probably roamed the Earth or he was stuck somewhere as a ghost, but unaware of his own existence.

3. Err... this is a xianxia cultivation story. Cultivators (or rather, "daoists", are people who "cultivate" or "follow the way" to gain a) an inner energy core - qi to allow them to be more powerful, and eventually, b) gain immortality (yes that should be the ultimate goal of a cultivator). For that purpose, they either are following their own clan/sect's sword path / teachings, or join a sect / clan as outsiders becoming apprentices to masters from that sect/clan.

One of the immediate results when gaining enough cultivation is that one should stop aging, at least in appearances. That's why, when you see someone VERY old in xianxia/wuxia, and they're a cultivator, they are supposed to be ANCIENT (hundreds or thousands of years old, or even immortals already).

So yeah - all of them age, but it's not apparent at all. *****

*** Actually, this is the drama version of how WWX met his demise. The novel version and the donghua version are different, BUT he still doesn't know where he was for that time he was dead, and he WAS actually dead, not just fell and forgot who he was until he was brought back.

***** The body WWX is brought back in doesn't LOOK like his original body either, except in the drama (because they lucked out on the perfect actor to portray WWX, and didn't want to change him for the resurrected part). The donghua has him looking different, and in the novel it's clear he doesn't look like his original self at all.

I won't be reading any previous comments, in case of careless spoilers, but did they REALLY release all the rest of the eps in the express package or are they stringing them out? Thanks!

He hasn't yet (haven't watched the trailers for the last two eps). He also might have a plan about Jo Cheon and doesn't want it spoiled. Particularly since nothing would have stopped the killers to putting the blame on the Vigilante, either.

Yeah, I bet you go and complain about every movie or series that portrays OTHER religions not in the rosiest light too, right? Right? Like, turning off every movie that has muslim terrorists in it (because it puts the whole faith in a bad light), or every movie about the NI conflict (because it's protestants against Catholics, we can't have that), or basically every other Bollywood movie about any religious strife in the peninsula, modern or ancient world either, right?

Religious figureheads can be corrupt and it has absolutely ZERO to do with FAITH. With religion, particularly in the way these supposedly Christian sects are acting in the SEA, you can totally bet there is a lot of corruption. Just research a bit about the Unification Church of South Korea. You'll definitely find some interesting info on how totally un-Christian they've been behaving for a long time.