Skibbies

Very late but wanted to comment anyways. I have no idea what's up with Golden Eagle but their nominations have been fairly questionable lately tbh (there's some nice nominations mixed in too), JoL wasn't the only popular drama missing from even the initial voting stage.

It was never going to get nominated for Flying Apsara due to it being historical + technical transmigration and such, Flying Apsara likes down to earth realistic dramas, and rarely give to historical dramas. Not only does it have bunch of dramas nobody has ever heard of cos they aired on CCTV, which most netizens don't watch, they also have some rather questionable ones that's likely there just due to themes. The only two historical there spanning two years and three months are Longest Day of Chang'an (meticulous in recreating Tang + supberb production), and Ming Dynasty (decent depiction of early Ming empeors, despite questionable otp).

I'm fairly happy it got nominated for Magnolia, since they changed the rule this year to include all the webdramas, otherwise it would have missed out.

Both series were likely inspired by Criminal Minds, let's be real. They were both novels before, I've been told Snail's novel is better than the drama but I still haven't read her books oops.

I've been watching early webdramas lately. Finally tackled Moral Peanuts 毛骗, which is about group of con artists? I'm not sure I'd rec it mhmm. The first season feels very hustle-like apparently but I've never watched that, and more importantly feels very low budget (cos it is) since it came out 10 years ago and clearly by bunch of students. The second season improves a fair bit, and the main plot is introduced while still doing episodic-ish cons every ep, then last season wraps it up fairly nicely. Good if you like plot twists I guess? Early episodes are like 30ish mins, later are one hour, three season together should be bit less than 50 ep.

I'm in the middle of Ferryman, protagonists can see ghosts and such. The scariest thing is actually the op that always gives me heart attacks, and there's jump scare here and there, but it's surprisingly not that scary. Maybe cos everyone are kind of over the top and the music doesn't play up horror. Anyways, it's one of those stories that ends sort of heartwarming every ep. The episodes are like half an hour so extremely easy to binge.

Recent drama that looks interesting, the Hikaru no Go adaptation is apparently decent? So I'll probably watch it eventually. I spent too much time watching and discussing the US election lately lol.

Evil Minds came out before this one hahaha. The Light On series likely started from Day & Night being successful.

I actually liked this drama fair bit, but maybe cos I was scarred by Love Me if You Dare before this, and this just look so much better in comparison (same director, same author's work it's based on, different scriptwriter though). Agreed on the lackluster chemistry, I liked the otp in Ode to Joy but it did not work for me in this drama, hell I barely liked Wang Ziwen's character here....

How's your listening for Chinese? since I think the novel has audiobook, it's officially on ximalaya. The book is really long though. 1mil characters, so like 5 times your regular fluff novel modern dramas are usually based on.

Ahhh they actually fleshed out Ning Yi and everyone around him. Well ok, Ning Yi in the book is fairly developed but emperor and all his brothers aren't (I remember none of the princes from the novel lmao), his mother mostly exist as a memory. I wish they cut down on the focus on the other princes and kept more scenes of characters around Zhiwei, it'd feel more balanced.

Oh yeah, the army that Hua Qiong led that swept through half of Tiansheng were remnants left behind by Zhiwei's mum. She prepped Zhiwei for taking back the throne, it's pretty different dynamic. It sort of sucked to be novel Zhiwei because she didn't want to have anything to do with it but she had no choice and was thrust into it and she can't back out, because bloody pagoda, her mum, her shifu, all these people sacrificed so much for the goal, a goal she doesn't care for, but one she has to get to so it wouldn't be for naught. The same goes for Ning Yi. This sense of tragedy is played down in the drama, and towards the end there's more sacrificing themselves for their shared ambition.

They kept the drama "realistic" for like 50ish episode and just went splat, I guess someone was overconfident their ability of wrapping up the story nicely without a base. It's definitely a shame, the highs were better than NiF for me but the lows, oof. NIF is just all around spectacular, only criticism could be how overpowered Mei Changsu is and how defeating antagonist can seem like child's play, but it had convincing argument of lots of preparation, and antagonists had enough charm to hold on their own. The central theme/ideals propped it up a lot for me.

I read the novel, this bit is from the novel but bit adapted. XZY is much colder and goal oriented in the novel and it made sense in that, he wanted to take Zhiwei out of the equation, because she was the uncertainty/obstacle to Ning Yi getting the throne. Drama-wise, it's much more innocent (but I'm sure he'd be happy if Zhiwei was out of the equation) and series of people working on limited information.

Minhai is indeed where Zhiwei shines (it's the only time otp properly cooperates in the novel and sort of in the drama too), she was fairly spectacular in Jinshi and Dayue too (without Ning Yi for the most part), but they were harder to adapt and it's lot less interesting judging by the drama. There's another arc + final standoff between otp that's completely discarded in the drama, which is where Dacheng comes in. The otp split Tiansheng in half, Zhiwei had an alliance with Jinshi + Dayue + third kingdom (love how the drama just completely dropped this plot thread by the way, the arcs served no purpose besides step towards a lofty dream you don't see the result of). Anyways, drama Zhiwei wouldn't have been able to do it, since her characterisation was overhauled (novel otp are both very shrewd, manipulative and fairly ruthless) and it wouldn't work in drama world since it function closer to history rather than make up world.

There's no proper evidence for the ending arc to be last minute edit but it sure felt like it, it just had too little built up and it looked like they pulled in some intern to write it. Sprinkling bits and pieces of Bloody Pagoda's shadow throughout earlier episode would at least made it less jarring.

The flood in ep 63? I think it was a way for them to escape or something, it's one of those things they shoddily adapted. Oh yeah Ning Yi kind of loses his mind when it comes to his mother, it's like his weak spot. I hated those string of misunderstandings because we avoided most of that for so long! Everyone should have been smarter than that, but everyone seemed really desperate for various reasons (they make sense if you squint really hard) but it's just ????? what are you doing.

I actually personally like ep 48 to 51 or 52, largely for the acting and because it's when the major secret is all out and everyone are in pretty dire situation. I was definitely mad at XZY but I could follow his logic and agenda. As for her brother, he's a dumb kid who wants to be in the know and help, but ultimately screwed up, and Zhiwei does everything she can to fix it.

You can safely drop the drama after 63, because the last arc is absolutely abysmal, with almost no redeemable value and plenty to dislike. I can sort of follow logic for fair amount of events, but there's no build up and the writing is just terrible and lot of things shouldn't have happened. They definitely could have reach the same character ending with substantially better plotting but alas.

Helian Zheng's characterisation was the writer trying to make him more "realistic' by making him more misogynstic. He believe he knew Zhiwei better and he could make her happy but that's not what she wanted, so he got mad and risked her life for a chance to kill Ning Yi, it's super stupid and ruin his characterisation. They could have made it he considered it but decide not to and get the same effects. Unlike the main otp, he didn't actually have much political ambition, so his lack of focus on his kingdom isn't really out of character. His original/base characterisation is fairly love sick puppy, the novel shows more of him, and he does try to do right by his people and is reasonably competent but he still mostly function as a forever waiting second male lead.

The drama is based on a novel by Yi Shu, born in Shanghai and grew up in HK. Her most well known works were written in 1980s, the movie is an adaptation of it and they changed quite a bit I think, as will this version, since 45 ep is way too long. The First Half of My Life was also based on a novel by this author, adapted by this scriptwriter (fair amount of changes I believe) and directed by this director.

The book is a tragedy so is the drama.

What if he turns around and said he lied about the pictures showing the kids? Oh well, the drama should have made it that questioning this wasn't an issue. Mhmm, I got the impression stockholm syndrome was just casually glossed over for NRTA reasons, but lol yeah AB didn't do that well recounting her story either. The directing and music saved her there I think.

Yeah there's just fair bit of plot holes and it's all omg why did like ALL OF YOU just go with this dumb plan! LOL well talking about how to kill someone better is the point of thrillers!

Meibao have stockholm syndrome I think, as well as utterly terrified after years of abuse, both her and her brother holds normality extremely carefully and is super afraid anything would ruin it. I'm actually not sure the photos would work as evidence for child abuse, since you have to prove the photos are the kids themselves + stepfather caused the injuries, sexual abuse would probably be almost impossible to prove after so many years, which yikes.

Actually, why didn't she just murder the guy during the year when he scream and scream in her room while she takes care of him?????? Obviously her brother's normal life > her own mental health, and I suppose stockholm syndrome and she's used to being terrified of him and his abuse mean immediate killing isn't really feasible. But he'd be pretty weak after even a month of being locked up, and murdering would solve the problem once and for all.

You might want to rewatch the second half (I think?) of the arc, ep 8. The guy makes a passing comment to the girl that he forced her brother to "meet his guests" because she refused to. She was sitting on the bed and he was standing there after he forced her to stay. So I took that to imply that he assaulted her brother as well. (I thought of child prostitution when I saw that, but I don't think that was the case and it was just an allegory) I do believe they were both assaulted, since Meibao recounts the sexual assault to Wu Mingyue. She also mention that she fell in love with her step father, which correspond to the animated story as well.

They are in Chinese unfortunately. I didn't love the couple I did read, should have pulled some recs instead of clicking on random ones oops.

19 & 20 next monday, 21 & 22 next tuesday, 23 & 24 the following monday on WeTV.

no, the script is original, there's a novel being updated the same time as the drama. It does use lots of common tropes from various dramas and novels, the matriarch system is a subgenre in chinese web novels but I think this is the first time I've seen it in a drama?

and this one https://mydramalist.com/23862-my-girlfriends-boyfriend according to douban. Looking forward to her future works :)

eng subs are ripped from wetv or it's subbed by viki volunteers, so 18 will come out today, 22 will come out next week and 24 the week after. Unless someone take the raws and sub them before next week.

Tencent China (so they don't have eng subs) started a buy last few episodes thing mid-last year, it went big with Joy of Life when they dropped vvip unannounced half way through the drama and was heavily criticised for it. That didn't stop all the webdramas airing this year all adopting it, regardless of popularity, rip. So it's ep 16 today for vip, and the rest you buy 3 yuan/ep (so 18? that's alrightish. JoL was about 50 for I think 20 episodes? and you still had to wait every week for three weeks lol)

1. she thought it was a dream, and it only fully sank in after she woke up from wedding night.
2. ? what, she did it for her sister, Yuanyuan? She wanted to prove to herself and to her sister that they aren't useless just because of their circumstances. It's frustrating that she's physically weak, but she's persistent.
3. she lost all her martial arts, she couldn't even throw a punch properly, weapons for her might just make it more dangerous for her.
4. she's in denial, she literally brushed aside all the accidental kisses and flirty interactions they had, because he's a FICTIONAL character to her, she even says it in the drama. In her views, he conquered third princess' country, it's not a good idea to fall in love. On top of that, she think she has to finish her original plot for her to wake up, so falling in love with him is like dooming yourself (and stealing him away thus dooming the mission).
5. he has bit of rose tint glasses when he couldn't figure out why she saved him from jail, so he assume she likes him. That strip away the initial antagonism, then she kept trying to get dragon bone for him, and he was incredibly touched. I think he fell in love through interacting with her, but yeah saving him helps a lot.

I understand being ticked up or frustrated by plot elements, but I think it's been pretty reasonable, and she never came across as stupid to me. e.g. she came up with the fake poison plot and manage to get: Han Shuo's guilt/sympathy (to ensure he want murder her), explanation for her weakness/lost of martial arts, avoid competing for Crown Princess, and little bit payback to HS, that's not stupid. She's naive, impulsive and fairly average in intelligence, but a lot of her actions come down to her trying fix the story, so it actively goes against what Han Shuo does, and that's fine, they all have their own agendas.

Maybe try Young Blood? Not really romance centric (although there's a bit), more friendship adventure-y, full of plot twists.
If romance isn't a priority, Joy of Life is a fantastic watch too for schemes and world building. (there's romance, but lots of people don't like female lead since everyone else is more interesting, but she's not the focus of the story anyways)

You are better off reading the wiki or something. Wen Yanbo made it to Chancellor in 104x and 105x. He died way later, in 1097, three emperors later.