listen... im the kind of person who knows what kind of show i will like and what i won't and generally try to avoid what i already know i won't enjoy. the concept of master/disciple romantic relationships is one of these things, i'm sorry but i'm on the side of the orthodox sects w this one - it's a gross power imbalance, may as well be parent/child incest, and literally disgusts me. despite the fact that shen diao xia lu is one of the most formative stories of my childhood, as an adult i have my values and much more perspective. it is basically a relationship between an adult and the child they raise and i will never enjoy this in any piece of fiction. i watched the entirety of hua qiangu at 2x the speed in a fit of masochism while isolating after getting covid just because i wanted to understand modern xianxia as we know it and i knew that this show had a big impact at the time. i wanted to understand the context that would precede 3l3w and the xianxia wave, so basically i did this for research and i don't regret that.

anyway, upon finishing this absolute dumpster trash fire of chaos and senseless tragedy porn, i didn't feel empty, or upset, i just felt blown away by the deep spite that created this. like wow, the pettiness, the immaturity, the deep desire to cause as much emotional pain and regret as possible. i was almost impressed, i have never seen something with such a clear emotional impact, w the emotion being vindictiveness. this was the definition of the childish fantasy 'my parents are so unfair im gonna run away and something horrible will happen to me and THEN they'll be so sorry and so sad that they EVER hurt me!!!!' it's like when you start fantasizing about your man neglecting you while other people are bullying you or hurting you and you are this victim who never did anything wrong and you sacrificed everything for your man but the world is against you and you indulge yourself and get lost in this brain hole where the fantasy has extended to the point where all your friends and family died for you and the man you love still didn't believe in you and killed you and then you were DEAD and he spent the rest of his life feeling sorry and regretting it and devoted himself to you and there you go you've made the whole drama. like 3l3w has that vindictiveness in it but jeez this show takes the cake, they literally have bai zihua's final lines be like 'i'm giving up my sect, im giving up the world, i'm giving up my values, i will live for her and be whatever she wants me to be.' like what the fuck????? in what universe is this anything other than a ridiculous, childish, spiteful fantasy of making ur bf who hurt u live for u because he feels so bad??? esp when the writer CLEARLy has deep daddy issues stemming from her dad neglecting her for his job??? like.....i cant really respect this work, but i really am almost impressed by the ability to be fueled by spite for so long that you write a whole novel motivated by it.

ok so the plot is really quite bad. i actually was really enjoying the first half of the show, it wasn't well written, but it was entertaining. it had a lot of genre elements i love, i love all the kids testing to get into the sect, being disciples together, going to investigate cases, martial competitions, etc. i thought it was cute that qiangu, who had never had friends before suddenly had a big bunch of sweet and silly friends, and i LOVED ni mantian.... i love my arrogant prideful girls who only care abt winning but are actually sympathetic, so it was sweet to see her be friends with hua qiangu. (i do not ship in general but IF i did then yes i would ship this) of course the show destroyed that after like 10 episodes and ground mantian's character into the dust because they are allergic to complex characters. it was still shoddily written but i was able to compartmentalize and pretend it wan't gonna be a master/disciple romance and just a nice story about a hero's journey story and her cold but caring shifu who is her new dad. anyway it all went to shit as soon as bai zihua got poisoned and the rest of the show flew into a torrent of absolute senselessness. im not someone who can't take pain and angst and darkness in shows, in fact i love it- but it has to be well written and meaningful. Pain in stories has to exist for a reason- sometimes, the writer is trying to communicate that pain IS senseless, that horrible things happen to good people, and situations can happen where no one does anything wrong but it all goes to shit. and that is a way of talking about and processing the reality of life, because pain IS senseless, and it's a way to understand and make peace w that grief. i respect that. and that is 1000% not what hua qiangu is trying to communicate.

hua qiangu very successfully created a story where a bunch of characters are involved, and no one person technically did anything wrong, but everything horrible still happened anyway, and everyone died, and the reason for this is so that specifically qiangu and zihua can remain above blame for whatever reason. like it literally feels like nothing matters, no character matters, everyone is already simple enough but they reduce everyone to be even more flat and exist only to serve the writers goal of causing qiangu as much pain as possible so as to cause zihua as much pain as possible. what happened to mantian who was ambitious and competitive but also under a lot of familial pressure and needed a friend? why is shuo feng a rock and suddenly relevant and has to sacrifice himself?? why is qingshui suddenly stabbing qiangu in the back after being a stable friend for the entire series?? why is shiyi tricking and trapping tangbao??? why is there a sudden RANDOM new character who didn't need to exist who is now qiangu's little brother after 3 days of interacting??? why the fuck did the guy who killed jiejie's sister here too???? no reason for any of this other than to set qiangu on the path to her jokerfication. what is the point of the jokerfication? to make zihua feel bad and regret forever. it's literally just senselessness for the most stupid, petty and childish message, for that satisfaction of having zihua finally realize after he killed qiangu how wrong he was for caring about a single thing other than her. like she literally TESTED him to see how much he loved her at the end and the test was her LIFE like?? jesus the spite... grow up...

qiangu as a character i don't even necessarily hate or think she has nothing going for her. i think the idea of a 'pure' girl who is motivated purely by emotion and is capable of ditching all moral values when anything threatens her shifu to be fine enough by itself. it could be interesting to see someone who is previously only kind and naive, literally try to kill her classmate because she wanted to reveal the pinup drawing she did of her master. like i don't have a problem with that desperation and sudden abandonment of moral values, and it would've been cool if the point of it was to express how deeply she depended on her shifu, who is the first real figure of family, authority and care after her father died, and how desperate she was to stay in changliu- the first place she belonged after suffering a childhood of isolation and ostracization. but like no, it's nothing interesting about her character, it's about romantic love. it's literally just about how much she would sacrifice for love and literally lose her morals and not care about anything and almost enable the apocalypse and plunge the world into chaos..... because of love... and it's ok and you can't blame her because she did it for LOve. i hate this childish romanticization of sacrifice for love... truly i do.....

zihua on the other hand, i also actually don't hate either. he's pretty annoying at times, but honestly compared to 3l3w's yehua i actually don't hate him. like yehua did wrong by susu because he was bound by his role in his sect and his responsibilities, but his love for susu and their relationship isn't wrong or immoral, and susu is entirely innocent. it's his sect who is wrong for forbidding love between immortals and mortals. whereas zihua is completely different in that he stands by his moral values of righteousness. while im generally raring to go hating on the orthodox taoist sects, the rules of changliu are not wrong. it IS wrong to try to assemble the 10 fantasy objects for the fantasy apocalypse and literally put all of humanity in danger for ONE man, and it IS wrong to have a romantic relationship between master and disciple. like??? zihua isn't wrong for standing by his values on this one because qiangu isn't innocent?? and while of course i disagree w punishing qiangu for loving her teacher and the torture and all that, etc. etc. zihua didn't do anything wrong by repeatedly rejecting her, and in fact that was what he SHOULD do??? every time he's like 'even if you don't see me as a master, you will always be my disciple' 'even if i love you i will never be with you because you're my disciple' i am like YES. Good. that is Correct. but of course my opinion is the exact opposite of what the show wants you to feel. the show wants you to think he is wrong and horrible for putting his morals and values above love, because love should be more important than anything else even when his love is wrong. like this isn't love between a mortal and an immortal, or two people of separate fantasy races, or a god and a demon. this isn't love that is wrong in their universe based on the rules of said universe, but doesn't matter to us in reality because it is fictional. this love is wrong in REALITY also!!!!

their relationship itself......... like god i already went off on why it's wrong to sacrifice everything for love and devote yourself to one person but god......................... my god........... the degree to which this writer wants to be both a baby daughter and a lover who is the center of this man's world is deeply concerning. like she is literally a child for most of the series and acts like one, their relationship LITERALLy feels like a father/daughter relationship, the love and care and gentle guidance that zihua shows her again and again, is not that of a lover, but of a father?? like although ofc i have problems w shen diao xiao lu, at least i didn't feel like i was watching INceST. they took all the necessary steps to make the relationship feel equal, and like it was happening between partners, and master/disciple was just the initial stage or a meaningless label, xiao long nu was only four years older, and was incredibly naive and childish, deeply socially inept and isolated. it made it FEEL more equal. whereas zihua is 1000s of years old and has the vibe of a 40 year old, he's lived through so much already, is sect leader and has the highest position of authority, power and responsibility over qiangu as well as their sect and the entire cultivation world. and he meets qiangu when she is a 16 year old baby who doesn't know anything, doesn't have any family or friends, and had a devastating and traumatic childhood. like she is so incredibly vulnerable and dependent on him, and what she needs is essentially a parent and a teacher. their relationship never has a marked change to that of equals, except possibly the literal last two episodes, there isn't a time skip where she's grown up now or smth and things are different, and they develop a relationship as adults, they never feel like partners. everything he does for her is perfectly valid and what a master SHOULD do for a disciple. a master SHOULD sacrifice themselves for their disciple, and they SHOULD take punishments for them because they are their responsibility. the way he teaches her, tries to give her life advice, admonishes her.... it is literally all in the exact way that a father would. so it genuinely makes me feel sick and sad to see them have romantic feelings for each other, ESpecially on his part because it is just wrong?? a child having a crush on a teacher is far more acceptable but whenever he admits to his feelings i want to throw up!!!!

ok only pros i wanna give this show is for jiejie aka sha qianmo!! unexpected gender nonconforming ICON!! they might be the head of an 'evil' sect but they never really do anything reprehensible on screen, we mostly see their devotion and sisterly care for qiangu. they have such a sweet found family siblingship also that was like a balm in the disgusting sickness that was qianguxzihua. major trans vibes, very rare to see gender nonconforming 'villain' not have their gender presentation be a homophobic and transphobic shorthand for disgusting perversity. they are very powerful and in control, but not 'scary' or 'gross.' so i really appreciated that, and also the pleasant surprise of their subordinate being clearly in love with them. so the trans/queer vibes were actually nice to see here!

anyway that's absolutely it for pros there is literally nothing else good about this show. i feel like i understand xianxia better now so this was a worthy 36 hours of my time even if it brought me pain it helped me get through my covid isolation so im chill w that. i don't love xianxia but im glad that so many better titles have come out after this.... hoping for the continued development and betterment of this shit genre.