Reviews

Flipping the court’s request and returning to capital

The hair pinning finally happens. The setting is beautiful. JinZhao and costume are absolutely stunning. The children’s choir and released doves add to ambiance. The looks of admiration from the 4 gents acquainted with her speaks volumes. I don’t think there was a person present that did not want to smack the smug face off the father as JinZhao bowed to respect her Gma’s wishes. She didn’t bother looking at the gift because it wasn’t from him anyways. The concubine presenting her mother’s gift was beyond tasteless. JinZhao finds a way to verbally put her in her place and amuse the noble who laughs and comments. The father is going to retaliate when JinZhao is more than happy to tell him who the noble is. Of course he turns into a simpering sycophant begging forgiveness. She reminds him that his superior Lord Chen is also present and could bring him up on charges. He knows he’s been an absentee father and those actions have now become a chargeable offense, thus his presence there. She is officially introduced to the noble who taunts her by making her call him uncle. JinZhao then decides to request a gift to get even. He hands her an encased dagger but with the point towards her. He then explains himself and hands her the handle. As she examines the blade he cautions her that the blade is poisoned. She assures him that’s not an issue and taunts him with it. Gma and Lord Chen note more bodies as assassinations continue. She is told to exercise her own judgment about whether to keep JinZhao there or send to the capital with her father. But no matter her choice, Tongzhou was going to be the first location for land equalization no matter what. Failure was not an option. Chen then reads a note with a name and location and he rides fast to the gate. While he is talking to a colleague he learns his friend Nie Fengming is with the protesters at the emperor’s court. Not only was he with them, but he directly antagonized the emperor causing him to decree that the entire nation would be land equalized within the year. The friend shrewdly flipped the court and paved the way for Chen’s tax land reform. The downside is he has sacrificed himself to make this happen. Gma lovingly bullied JinZhao into returning with her father to look after her ill mother. She is requesting this as a personal favor and JinZhao can’t refuse her tho desperately wants to. She resigns herself to the trip and comforts herself that since she has borne the blame of ruining his career, she may as well go home and actually do it. There is a touching farewell and she is off for the capital. She runs into the noble who uses a mini crossbow to scare the horse. She is forced to use her poisoned dagger to stop it. When her guard reaches the scene she is ready to toss all the blame at the noble but her cousin discovers needles put in the horse so that it would be crazed and bolt in agony to throw them over a cliff. It was suspected that this tactic was used to pressure Ji family for their stance on the land equalization reform. Even the noble was surprised at this degree of cruelty to assassinate an enemy. There is a fun scene at her father’s gate where he bows to her😂🤣 The noble is amused and plays her game for a bit but warns her to not make every Gu an enemy and that it was not so easy to win his favor. Here I think he chose to recompense her for the horse and let her ride back with him. The concubine’s daughter likes him and whether or not true, she believes he is kind to her. JinZhao is sorry her fun ended so soon and she is officially ‘home’ at the Gu house. The daughter wants to know how she knows the noble and JinZhao’s mother enters. JinZhao addressed her as ma’am and would not make physical contact. I can’t blame her. The dad has poisoned an easy reunion for them. I am not sure if she will be able to understand or forgive her mother, that remains to be seen. The dad is capitalizing on a bday celebration to prove to his colleagues he is not guilty of child abandonment. JinZhao’s attitude says quite bluntly—good luck with that.😂 The maid makes it look like the concubine injured herself decocting the wife’s meds personally. The maid stirs up by mentioning the ride home in the noble’s carriage and the dad berates her mom for her miscreant daughter. JinZhao overhears the maid saying how she should be put in her place and to know who’s in charge. JinZhao’s maid thrusts the doors open and JinZhao gives the servant a direct challenge when the episode ends. The story continues to be well paced and the cast meshes smoothly. I was unfamiliar with the hair pinning ceremony and the entire thing was so beautifully done. The segue from family to politics is smoothly done and the characters are introduced and interact well. 👏🏻

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The hair pinning ceremony that included flames and imperial edict

The story starts with an angry girl (Gu Jin Zhao) hearing her father make demands of her grandmother concerning gifts for her hair pinning ceremony. When she reached her limit of hearing his snideness, she stomps off, grabs a lantern from a passerby and torches the storeroom holding the gifts. There is a deal being made to bribe the dad, but all she remembers is being turned away and choked by a servant. She wants nothing to do with him and has no regrets of the destruction she’s caused. The one she took the lantern from stops to see who set the fire and what was set ablaze and then continues on his way. The next day she is told the ceremony will still take place and her father must be invited. She and her cousin (Ji Yao)have a bickering sibling like relationship and during their antics down the hallway they meet up with Lord Chen. She does not recognize him as the lantern bearer from previous night but he recognizes her. She boldly studies him and when Yao moves her along Lord Chen gives a glance back at her. Yao warns that politics are perilous with much intrigue, assassinations and discord. Lord Chen would be dangerous to know because most of the court wanted him dead. His tax land reform was far from being popular. She decides to bury her sorrows in wine on a boat when she becomes an accidental witness to a political revolt where the crown prince and guard were assassinated. She is shocked and falls into the water where she is rescued. She finds herself at home and is told Chen XuanQing rescued her. He departs shortly after the matriarchs come on the scene. The Gma and Yao know what happened on the hill and have taken care of it. Lord Chen is the rescuer but he is having XuanQing take the credit and sending warming wine as a recuperating gift. Jin Zhao is wanting nothing to do with anything that will recognize her father. When XuanQing arrives with the wine, she matches with an antique ink stone; the perfect gift for a scholar. He has a story memorized to tell her of why he was there, but it doesn’t ring true because he can’t even look at her while he is speaking. He is very glad to move along as quickly as possible. JinZhao runs into Lord Chen again and studies him. I am pretty sure she thinks he is actually her rescuer. He diverts her attention to the lantern rather than the rescue to misdirect her. He has a chat with the gma who pleads for JinZhao to be spared. He doesn’t directly respond to this request but says she is to be moved to the capital which was not wonderful news to the gma. He is then seen in a chamber guarded by mutes where 1500 documents are gathered with intel on all the court members. This is how they knew the crown prince was against their cause and corrupt. Chen learns he has been given a seneschal position and he is going to use JinZhao’s hair pinning ceremony to have it made public and initiate the tax land reform. A Gu cousin with the Marquis heir talks the bored noble into checking out the celebration and see what his cousin looks like and he agrees. While the guests are getting assembled to go in, the imperial edict arrives and Lord Chen gets his promotion. JinZhao is put out that he takes over her celebration and says so. The young noble is amused and will come back to see celebration with the cousin, while Lord Chen is most curious about why he is there. Not only has the father arrived but he has come with concubine in tow rather than her mother. JinZhao decides to return Lord Chen’s favor by having him be made witness to an altercation with her father. This lets her tell her dad off without repercussions. She bumps into the noble who wants to rebuke her for not acknowledging him. She told him if Lord Chen couldn’t make her flinch, there was no way she was bowing to him.😂🤣 He is both annoyed and intrigued. The actual hair pinning is finally getting started when the episode ends. The costumes are gorgeous and the filming beautifully done. The cast interactions are spot on and the pacing is good. This was a very nice intro to story.

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this is fun & am really liking Su's…

this is fun & am really liking Su's mother & "butler" or rather the actors playing them - they r really fun - not that the others weren't fun in their own ways - just these two r such a vibe. also liking the chemistry that's building between the mains, Phop isn't as big of a pushover as he was at the start & slowly he is pushing back & not letting Su dictate everything. ******************btw before Phop died, when he went to deliver food, Su was the one that entered the building he was bard from entering cause he was wet & would get the floor dirty/muddy - that means that while he was alive & living a pretty misfortunate life, Apo was living a lavish life & yet they not connected? doppelganger's? twins that were separated at birth? weird coincidence? what gives?

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OMG WATARAI CONFESSED

so they’re all at the beach and they’re having fun and watarai’s treating Hioki extra well as usual, and later on during the night, Hioki accidentally drinks alcohol at a bar since some annoying elder guys came to their table and asked the boys to drink with them but left when they found out the boys were underage, but one of them probably left their glasses on the table and Hioki drank it causing him to become drunk and lie down on watarai’s shoulder, and Hioki goes on about how he always feels comfortable around waratai and waratai confesses that he’ll always cherish Hioki and Hioki clocks that it’s a confession from waratai and waratai admits that he likes Hioki FINALLYY.

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ITS TURNING BETTER

WE GOT MISLEADED BY THE PRODUCERS LAST EPISODE, IT WAS HIOKI THINKING THAT WATARAI WANTING TO ASK HIM OUT, WHEN ACTUALLY HE JUST WANTED TO BE FRIENDS WITH HIOKI, BUT HIOKI ALREADY CONSIDERED HUM A FRIEND, SO WATARAI WAS DOING SUCH CUTE STUFF FOR HIM LIKE TRYING HIS SHOELACES DURING PE. Now whilst they were watching the school trip’s highlights video, Hotta and Natasaki, grabbed Hioki and threw him to watarai and watarai wrapped his arms around Hioki saying he didn’t have to move and could get comfortable NO BCS I THINK HOTTA OR SOMEBODY FROM THEIR FRIEND GROUP KNOWS THAT WATARAI HAS A CRUSH ON HIOKI. Afterwards, Hioki gets called by his friends from the badminton club he attended and was asked about club souvenirs AND HOW HIOKI’S BEEN GETTING CLOSE WITH THE BOYS AND HOW HE’S PRACTICALLY A POPULAR KID FROM A LONER. Now watarai saw all this and got jealous that Hioki was getting close to somebody other than him, since back when watarai always wanted to get close to Hioki and finally got the chance during the school trip, so watarai suddenly hugged Hioki whilst they were cleaning up the second floor of the hall that they watched the school’s trip’s highlights together, and since watarai was taking so long with the hug, Hioki questioned whether or not friends do this, since he barely has any experience having a friend since he was a loner, AND THEN WATARAI SAID “WHAT ABOUT KISSING WITH A FRIEND?” LIKE DUDUEUUE JUST SAY YOU LIKE HIM ALREADY, AND THEN HE TOLD HIOKI TO NOT WORRY SINCE HE WONT DO IT. YET. LIKE WHAT. IS THIS AMBIGUITY. Now we flash forward into summer break and Hioki was getting late to go to the beach with everyone else, when some random dude who knew his name approached him and asked if he was Hioki and called him cute LIKE WHO THE HELL IS HE??

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It packs with a lot of emotions

Episode 6 of 《We Are All Trying Here》 brings the meat of the story to the front and center. If you ever felt that the story is slow, this is the episode you have been waiting for. The catch? If you skipped episodes and/or scenes and/or watched in higher speeds, you will definitely miss the emotional pact and of this episode and the entire story.You see, episodes 1 through 5 all leads to episode 6. It primes us to be "in the zone" once episode 6 hits. Without a solid foundation that can only come from watching episodes 1–5 at normal speed, the writer's message will not reach us.A good example is the "Unknown" emotion—which I believe to be the main plot. It will not make any sense or impact without the foundation from episodes 1–5—especially for people who never experienced that emotion. In fact, even for those who did or.are experiencing the "Unknown" emotion, most wouldn't be able to identify with it. It truly is rn "Unknown" emotion.And the way they named this emotion in episode 6 is how it finally connects to people who had similar experiences. But for those who have not experienced it, their only connection is if they watched episodes 1–5 properly.This is what episode 6 is all about. This is why it was set up this way. For me, that was brilliant writing. And I cannot say anything with the already brilliant acting by the lead actors. It was as if they too realized that they once felt the "Unknown" emotion. Viewers, with a similar experience and not alike, are drawn in with them.

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Five Stars

I thought this episode was gonna be just a cute one, all about Pobmek and Solar loving each other... but of course LYT isn't like other BLs, and I was surprised by crying rivers again. There were cute moments of them loving each other, but there was more than that. I find it amazing how much they love each other — I can actually feel it. Even though they don't say 'I love you' all the time, they show it through actions and support. They really support each other. Pobmek never even thought about letting go of Solar/Sun's hand, no matter the struggles, no matter how tired he was. And Solar always supported Pobmek. They're like home to each other. Seriously, beautiful... One day I wanna find a love like Pobmek and Solar's. Beautiful.

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Compelling start

This drama has been on my radar for a while, though I hesitated because of an ending spoiler I once accidentally saw. But the itch was there, so I finally decided to check it out! 🤪 Of course, the main reason has always been Hou Minghao, especially since he isn’t playing his usual type of character here. Instead, he’s a morally grey, somewhat villainous demon—which is quite an easy sell for me! 😏My first impression of the show is strong. The gothic atmosphere is perfectly created with a palette of greyish colors, and the rainy weather just adds to that vibe. It feels as if everything is happening at dusk, whether outdoors or in a dungeon. The sun was mentioned, but I either missed the rays or they just weren't there—and since the Deceptive Demon brought it up, I might have just fallen under that deception spell! 😂The music is amazing, especially the track during the combat between Zhu Yan and the guy with the sword. The rest of the music was just as good, and I finally discovered the source of the song in the outro! It’s been on my playlist for some time, yet I didn't know where it came from until now, lol. 🤭As for the characters, Zhu Yan is very intriguing. At first, he seemed kind of wicked, but then he turned on that signature Hou Minghao charm and became funny, flirtatious, and playful. 🦊😏 Wen Xiao counters his banter perfectly, making their dynamic so enjoyable.This story just pulled me in after only one episode and has compelled me to keep watching! 😉

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