ibisfeather

ep36
QianQian almost says yes to the kneeling would-be mad emperor's proposal.
If there is one truth in this illusion-palace show, it is that even Imperial China bends to love.
That rock in the river?
JiuHeng and ChangYu vow their love before his parents' spirit tablets. Wei Yan can only watch.
Refraction?
QiMin begs QianQian to marry him and rule.
The river which closes in behind all of them.
history.

ep36
open
THERE IT IS!!!
The source of all the macho clips of ZhangLingHe in uniform looking proud and cool, waving his feather properly and expressively.
And we had to endure all those bot-like repetitious complaints about screen time/characterization etc by EXCESSIVELY IMPATIENT people.

AND NOW the show literally POKES FUN AT THE COMPLAINERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whose face is red now?

At the time of the very different reentry into his own army camp I remarked that he looked wan and tired, in character bec he was not healed. Now I want to go back and see what he did with the feather-opera sign language there.

Now he is in full glory.

ep8
suddenly the previews are in the opening credits

ep7
a really adorable new years wedding
All by themselves dressed in red and green with crown ornaments.
They exchange marriage certificates (?).

ep7
in ep6 she bit him and then was inspired to do a My Fair Ladty makeover by his reaction.
Now she gets him drunk.
"Lord I have a secret I want to tell you. I really want to bite you"

ep6
literacy brought her to s**y romances.

ep4-5
It doesnt work as love between a mentally deficient girl and an elegant cultured Marquis, unless he also is missing some piece of himself. Otherwise the power imbalance will read as abusive love?

What a strange story. The FL is a 'natural', an old southern term for innocents whose mental development is a problem.
She burns money. Over and over again. Are we meant to see this as a sign that she is a pure soul?
She falls in love with the ML but it doesnt make her become human very quickly. She is still a stray, lost in the world of humans.

I guess there is an art to subtitling placement and judicious choices to be made about TMI. Who knew. Maybe there are still jobs left for humans to do after all.

It was a similiar role, a vulnerable survivor of abuse.

I wish this had aired on viki -- they usually translate the lyrics especially the really apropos ones.

Are the people doing mud-wrestling here over character development of the ML vs, the FL the same as the partisans of each actor who fought over their billing spot?

It seems like the same thing, but not the same thing. The first seems clearly a sideline struggle working out real anti-feminist resentment in the hearts of many. The second seemed like people clearly with nothing better to do with their lives.

The writers of c-and-kdrama romance absolutely want to hear the former discussion go on. As boring as it may seem, in retrospect change happens when people talk, but also for the writers, the audience's diverse emotional needs emerge more clearly from these fights.

It is called the view of Mount Fuji review.

"I went to japan and i saw Mount Fuji. I got the same view as a thousand others. It was fantastic. About Japan, oh I rushed through that to get the right spot for my photo!"

What does the Mount Fuji review do about a complicated long show with lots of nuance. "oh, the kiss was hawttt! The rest was draggy. Not enough scenes of the Marquis in armor."

I also have this feeling that tomoroow or the next day we are going to find out EXACTLY what the Marquis was up to since he got'overpowered' (*!!!!!!!for pitysake!!!!). And it will turn out to be thrilling and exciting.

My opinion, the clips and previews leaned heavily on ZLH in armor. Then the viewers criticize the actual show for not enough scenes with ZLH in armor!!!!!!
It is the fault of the epiphenomenic life of the show. It gets criticized for 'cutting scenes' which were never there to begin with.

Have you all watched Deng Kai in director ZQJ's Butterflied Lover? He is rumbling around bullying the emperor all over again, but called Lord Wu'An!!!!!

I repeat my thesis, its politics. Politics today and then, and like sageuk, costume cdrama is the best place for this..

Actual hostility against the neo-confucian scholar-bureaucrat class is a throughline in this story.

The Song is the origin point for the neo-Confucian project. Designed to produce a well-informed and skilled ruling class and thus to curtail corruption, one cannot really criticize the aim.

Even if, of course, the chance to codify the power of the old, the male and the elites via literature and education was immediately seized in a centuries-long propaganda triumph. There is no need to glorify the actual realities of these creepy bureaucrats.

Song Yan's innocent entitlement is enough to make a red-blooded modern woman want to kick him in the behind. Let alone a jealous Marquis from the military nobility.

ep35
the entrance of the latelymassively more beauteous Marquis into his house, all thundery and proud....
SongYan just keels over along with comical music!
TMI for him! (He really is a little slow on the uptake!)
maybe its just me b ut I felt such graitude to see his idiocy one more time!
Live long and prosper in drama-fiction land, Song Yan!

ep35
not [possible -- the author is even poking fun at character development?
'See, I can change for love!" Qimin?

It was me, I said he was used to having his underwear on display because his first job in a drama was at the age of two (b.2005)