listen..... my xianxia hater street cred is going to be in a lot of trouble if they keep makin shows like this and canglanjue....

another show that makes its mark with some fun and refreshing twists on tired old xianxia tropes! it's so fun that in the beginning I would say it felt very much like a parody. it's especially strong after shaodian youqin is unalived and yetan has to romance three completely different men who are all him. it's just SO fun and has such a sweet message too. generally the storytelling isn't anything reinventing the wheel, but it's quite consistent thematically and doesn't do anything too crazy. The last arc is definitely weakest and the most serious the show gets, which imo the plot dramatics just aren't done well and aren't particularly interesting

mainly i absolutely adore shaodian youqin and his relationship with yetan. even tho yetan is the main character i think youqin's character is the one that truly shines throughout the show and gets the most amount of love and character development from the writers. after all they literally put him through like 5 different character arcs as 5 different people and yet it's still all him!!!! like, wow, what a wonderful and fresh take on his character archetype!! i have HAD IT with the super powered, cold, unfeeling, 100% dedicated to his duty to the immortals war god/sect leader/crown prince who slowly warms up to innocent/kind/stupid fl but just Cant give up his duty because he is so Good and Filial and Just and can't put love above reasoning.... but it fills him with PAIN u see!!! he will take 50000 lighting bolts for his beloved but he won't tell her!!! and then he will still betray her so that he can fulfill his duty because he can't be w her!!! he is a MAN in PAIN... so beautiful... so cool... so tortured!!!??? and then the starry love comes around and is like, he is like that because he is Literally so abused and traumatized and he repressed all of his emotions and humanity in order to single mindedly devote himself to his suicide self sacrifice mission... it's not cool or good to be like that, it's literally BAD and INHUMAN. like the very first time we meet him, he's immediately shown to be awkward and rude, his cold proper stick in the mud ways are lame, rather than cool, and chen xingxu's actual voice is PERFECT for the role, thick and stuffy! the first arc is him learning to embrace his emotions and his fear, and he's rewarded because in this universe character growth actually correlates with a cultivation power up and the ability to then do the stupid fantasy thing. and then we MEET the parts of him that he repressed and they're all full and complete humans who are all flawed and deeply lovable. even though I missed the shards, esp xiao mei, it was such a joy to meet youqin 2.0- the sweet, fun and mischievous person he was always meant to be. they really had something to say, and it's directly opposed to what most xianxias have said. ugh the messaging is just truly so sweet and positive. i better literally never see a yehua or zhihua ever again because THIS is what you can do with the character type and now that we've done it we can never go back... give us more men who would actually turn their back on duty and responsibility to do the actual RIGHT thing and stand by their love!!!!!!

yetan i think is done well too, and she has more of a classic hero arc, starting out othered and outcasted and learning to use that villain persona as a shield to protect herself, but learning the value of the world over time from care, love and friendship. i have quite some affection for her but everything kind of pales in comparison to youqin for me lol but she is also very sweet and her relationship w qingkui is very sweet and pure, though pretty much devoid of complexity. i think the choice to remove any ill feelings between the sisters to be understandable, since the show clearly wants to go against the typical jealous, scheming fighting betrayal shit which is admirable. however this relationship is supposed to be central to the show, and taking out any negativity doesn't mean it's a stronger or more well written relationship. if the writers were more skilled they would be able to add depth and dimension to their relationship without resorting to overused cheap tropes. qingkui and chaofeng as characters are also pretty mid for me, with pretty straight forward arcs and little depth. They were the most fun in the beginning when he was still deceiving her, but after a while their story really couldn't match up to the main couple's imo. which sucks because i think they have a lot of potential to tell a really good and interesting story! just very straightforward bad guy falls for good girl and stops being bad eventually.

many plot points are just pretty weak, ESPECIALLY yetan and her dad's relationship which is done SO poorly, and i thought they were doing p well w youqin and his dad until the Last episode when they decided to make him redeem himself even though he's the WORST meanwhile the actual hottest character in the show void tyrant had to DIE. not a fan of many choices honestly, many of the side characters are just complete blank slates, totally boring, and don't even get me started on the dongqiu plot.... it's so bad, handled horribly, suzhi is so poorly written.... like if they truly wanted to talk about genocide it wouldve been woven into the story and felt from beginning to end, but it's literally all shoehorned into the last 4 episodes. to me the true end of the show is after they leave the tianzhu and the couples and their friends all live together happily and chaofeng has an armed guard business. that's the end. everything after that i do not accept- not because it's sad, but because it was poorly written and added very little to the characters who had pretty much all completed their arcs already.

honestly pretty mid show in many ways but it is extraordinary for shaodian youqin and his storyline which is very fresh, fun, and sweet!