luckz

There's worse unnecessary anxiety stuff in E26.
Quite makjang really.

It's suddenly a bit angsty with a "new season" ish setting after something major happens in the plot, but the ending itself isn't a catastrophe or anything.
Start from the beginning again, try a few episodes... the leads interact a lot, see if you like it, and if you like it just watch it. 🤗

Going with that, I prefer the ones where they encounter each other in both realms somewhat simultaneously and also have a spark in both.
Not being on screen together is lame, who's got lifetime for that...

For me Dai Xu's performance of Pei Zhen was very similar Gao Han Yu as Du Lei in Love is Sweet (https://mydramalist.com/49871-love-is-sweet).
I'm of course not talking about the character, but the way he expresses himself down to pressing on his glasses (for the glasses, Gao Han Yu has a masterful A+++ technique that is hard to execute).
Did anyone else feel it's familiar, or am I dying alone on this hill?

dw, the extra anxiety doesn't violate the constraints of fluffy rom coms

It's a fluffy rom-com, barely a gaming drama. The game is used for an initial 'dual identities' spark, but like most dual identity show that part isn't super satisfactory anyway. (I believe it was quite good in Love Scenery?)
=> If you're looking for video game immersion or competitive eSports, those ain't to be found here. More some game-ish 1920s roleplay really, and it's not a permanent fixture in the way the description above makes it sound.

Watch this if you like simple rom-com tropes, want believable couple interaction & I suppose a larger than average amount of kisses, and/or enjoy LYX very much.

(MDL summaries are generally written long before drama release.)

What I mean in https://mydramalist.com/761021-xiao-yao#comment-24899598

If this is conventional time travel the way you describe, then:
- An actual XY1 (dragon) presumably had a relationship with an actual HY1 (human), sparking everything.
- An actual XY2 (Ning'an, half-demon) had a relationship with an actual HY2 (demon? human demon?). XM witnesses that HY2 dies and saves his soul, and that XY2 kills herself.
- A fresh XY3 (half-demon), the protagonist, meets a reborn HY3 (other protagonist, still demon or human-demon or something), who is actually still HY2 and maybe HY1.
- This XY3 travels into XY2 (= Ning'an), which for all purposes kills XY2, and has a new relationship with HY2, which changes the timeline in whatever ways and overwrites the memories of HY3/HY2.
- Then this XY3 travels into XY1, which might also kill XY1, and has a new relationship with HY1, after which she painstakingly re-creates the HY2 we know (setting up demon valley, demon lord status, and maybe altering his racial identity). This changes the timeline, and later on at the very end of the show, the HY3 we know (protagonist) obtains memories from that timeline.

XY3 seems to think she experienced the lives of XY1 and XY2, but she actually created new XY1 and XY2 lives/deaths, and outside of her own memory of told history she presumably erased those periods of the original lives of XY1 and XY2.


We have no idea what the initial first two couples did, and if this was a more serious sci-fi time travel story, you could add that we don't know if XY3 is the real (first) XY3. Besides a generic "fate forces events to play out the same way", 95% of what the viewer supposedly saw of XY1 and XY2 was instead influenced by XY3.

You're correct in that I can't say it's a chicken and egg problem because of insufficient information about those first two. It might or might not be.



I never realized the 'princess bed' had that sort of implication, thanks.
Though even if I view this HY as a different HY from the start, it could just as well be the HY who had a relationship with XY3 in XY2's time, and only knows that the XY2 he knew was the XY3 in front of him.
That is already the implication of "XY3 travels into XY2 (= Ning'an), which for all purposes kills XY2, and has a new relationship with HY2, which changes the timeline in whatever ways and overwrites the memories of HY3/HY2."
At least if you believe in "fate forces events to play out the same way", that can easily include "fate makes them have a nearly identical conversation here", as opposed to remembering the exact words from your own life. They're effectively overwritten in his memory anyway from XY3's first time travel, so his words and actions might already have gone exactly that way (for him).

Is that distinction what you mean with empty slate HY vs HY who himself time-traveled from a 'not alive not dead' state?

*y'all are gonna walk away w/o much of that :c

If you like nothing about what's at the end of E02, you probably also won't enjoy the "actually good" (sweet & fluffy) episodes that come a fair bit later. :(

It's not just one, the last two do awful "let's resolve this in 30 seconds" stuff.

Maybe they just never watched older dramas at all. Or they watched too many and forgot it all.

Those are rookie numbers.

When Destiny Brings the Demon already has a kiss count to compete with the Till the End of the Moon blood spits count. Maybe I'm exaggerating a tiny bit, but...

While you're of course free to think that any three dramas are better than any three others, it virtually never makes sense to compare the ratings of dramas.

Especially "This recent drama with completely different actors and non-identical plot is rated a few decimals higher than the other one I like, so I'll go complain on that one's page." Of course you actually watched this, so it's not like you're just coming here to hate, but I'm sure a lot of people will read your comment like "SOM good, LBL not that much".

A long, long time ago IMDb ratings were pretty accurate as to movie quality, and I suppose for some top (American) TV shows.
I'm not sure if Douban ratings were ever accurate, but right now they're absolutely not (heavily affected by shit storms, fan wars, etc).
In my few years on MDL, MDL ratings have never been representative of anything.


(I actually snagged Shine On Me before this one, but since then I've been afraid it's too much SML to enjoy. LBL had nothing dangerous/offensive to it. Until I actually watch SOM, I can't say if I agree or disagree with your view.)

P.S.: Before writing this, I was planning to next head to TUS and post a comment like "LBL good, TUS less so".

The angsty stuff wasn't necessary but overall quite tame (and without lasting consequences), and yeah said people were maybe a 1.5/10 or at most 2.5/10 on the drama scale of how bad they could have been. Very mild.

This show made me seriously consider looking for a subtitle plugin that allows putting song lyrics to the top of the screen or changing their color or something.. 😏

Your completed are still about a hundred ahead of the droppeds, it could always get worse 🙃

If you like sweet fluffy romcoms you surely won't regret this one afterwards. 😸

In ~2025 it's even a thing with xanxia and non-fantasy costume shows to have a couple-only private wedding. I don't get it.

If you like the SML performance that much I recommend you FF to https://mydramalist.com/49871-love-is-sweet , for me the role and acting style are copy-pasted from there. (Especially pay attention to how that SML handles the "playing with his glasses" part, it's A++. I was forced to practice doing that IRL as/after we watched it.)

This actor, Dai Xu, was popular in The Unclouded Soul too, but he doesn't have much screen time or relevance in it.

https://mydramalist.com/693413-xian-yu almost has more kissing than non-kissing.

Admittedly, this one's got a fair bit too.

There's so many of these double identity shows where they mess up (~= don't do) the reveal :(