ramblingromantic

I liked the show, I really did, but I also hated, *like really hated*, the age gap set up, especially when the “secondary lead” was the male lead’s *nephew*. Lord Ding looks older than Zhuo Hua and kept being presented as “a sickly old man about to die” and I just was not a fan of it at all. It was the *main* thing that held this show back. Every time I “forgot” about it or accepted it, they would make some comment or other about his age and how he’s at death’s door or her age and how she has so much life to live. They are both *grown* so it wasn’t creepy, but the gap just served no more purpose than him being sickly.

I also loathed the empress dowager. I can respect the use of a straight-forward antagonist but every time her face was on screen I wanted to throw my phone. The complexity of the first princess really made up for the pain of listening to the empress dowager.

Lastly, I originally kind of liked the monotone baseline personality they gave to both Lord Ding and the first princess. However, since the show was on the longer side, it did start to get frustrating as they did the same ish over and over again. I guess they were solid foils with tragic childhoods that shaped their defensive/offensive personalities.

While Zhuo Hua and Lord Ding’s romance was very slow and *subtle*, I thoroughly enjoyed Zhi Mo & Ju Li’s romance. Just two sweet cuties that deserve nothing but good things. I also enjoyed how Zhi Jian interacted with them.

I wouldn’t rewatch this show just because it is on the longer end and most of the plot is more political than romantic. The show was just barely entertaining to me at first (the FML was an actress I liked and her character as Zhuo Hua was fun) *but* it ramped up once we get the “reveal” *but then* gets a tad repetitive near the end.