well,

infp

[scatter-brain-at-work]

In usual horror stories, there's a ghost haunting the humans in a house. In The First Jasmine's Lishan Academy, theres a human haunting all the ghosts in the mountain.

[tytangfei]

Where this drama shines is the focus on characters (and not whatever disastrous assassination plot we had 3 episodes ago). The camerawork following her from behind from her room to the front gate where she's floating like a ghost and her expression is unseen?? And then only revealing her face when we saw that her hallucinated master and maid friend were waiting for her?? Mo xiuyao drowning in drinking with his peers, completely dead inside in slow-mo? Him looking for ye li drunkenly, talking to nothing but air--looking very much like how ye li looked when talking to nobody? Him discovering the letters and feeling so much pain--his hunched shadow!--his hair turned white???? Incredible.

[king-carnivore]

what really fucks me up about watching the truman show in 2025 is how it's not fictional. truman is fictional, but the truman show isn't.

there's thousands of truman shows. you find them on youtube, tiktok, instagram... family and mommy vloggers, sad beige moms and now the trend of neglectful moms showing the "reality" of parenting. all of them using their kids for entertainment. each child their own truman; living a life manufactured by their parents, a camera watching their every moment, broadcasted for the entire world to see.

[king-carnivore]

tbh, i didn't even think about that when i made my post and holy shit you're so fucking right

[blabberingabout]

also i love the decision of not showing Ye Li's face after she made up her mind up until she reaches the door and then not showing Mo Xiu Yao right away either so we can see the hair reveal after

[blabberingabout]

the scene where Ye Li's child-self answers that she is just too lonely after she asks "i shouldn't be seeing you, am i crazy?".....

yeah i have nothing else to say

[blabberingabout]

The First Jasmine might be the best cdrama, hell, drama in terms of storytelling I have watched in a long while.

Everything in the story is woven so beautifully and every beat hits so soundly that all feels earned. As if the pain portrayed is tangible.

Ye Li's fear of abandonment is tangible (her loneliness is the hardest slap I have gotten from this drama, to be honest.)

Mo Xiu Yao's hurt is tangible, and yet, so is his love. His love actually shines through his hurt and at the end of episode 31 the story even paints him in the colour of his pain.

And what a soundtrack!

It holds everything together, it also dissolves it in the best way!

[dangermousie]

Ep 31 was so much pain and I loved it.

Highlight was Prince Ding’s face when he learned just how mentally ill his wife is (with the letters.)

But you know what I find fascinating? Even by the end when he desperately begs for permission to go to Lishan, resigning his career and all, I don’t think he has some revelation she loves him. He probably still thinks she came to him out of guilt and duty. But it no longer matters because the situation has flipped from what he thought - a young woman sacrificing herself for him with divorce being freedom for her to young woman who desperately needs to be cared for and not to be alone.

It’s not that he knows she loves him. It’s that he knows she needs him. And that comes first before any other consideration and shows that the divorce was not about hurt feelings for him but about care of her.

I love that for both of them guilt/duty/caretaking and love now entwine so much that I don’t think even they can tell where one ends and other begins. And I think he now can understand why care/guilt/pity does not preclude love in any way. If she told him she loved him - now he’d believe her.

[seashoreatnight]

today's episode of the first jasmine was one of the most devastating things i have watched in a while.

[how-are-you-migraine-thank-you]

[spicyvampire]

The way all the 2020s have done so far have been making me categorically against every new generation of tech that comes out is insane. Like I'm from a technological boom generation, saw the first portable phones, nokias & blackberries & flipphones etc, and the first smartphones, and the first ipods & ipads & tablets in general while still having cassettes & DVD & MP3 players around so I know how all of it work, I had computer classes in high school, I did the transition between home desktop computers to laptops and back to gaming computers. But then they started to put internet in your printer & microwave, everything has ads & AI now and every update is worst than the last. I literally loved technology and they ruined it

[dreamingsnowflake2013]

INJECT THIS INTO MY VEINS!!!!!

I'm being FED!

More, give me MORE!!!!

"As long as I'm here, you won't die."

The Shangguan Qian vibes and Tan Jianci hot tormented general perfection!!

I needed this yesterday! It's everything I ever wanted or needed.

[cannibalchicken]

[zluty-spendlik]

[geeseareassholes]

[sleepingblades]

Mo Li 莫离 (2026) ; dir. Lam Yuk Fan, Leung Sing Kuen Ep 18 ; Do you still feel lonely?

[irtbat]

Halfway through ep 18 and MXY is like, winning my wife's No. 1 Companion spot against the hallucination of her dead maid is something that's normal to want and possible to achieve

[blabberingabout]

also can we talk about their first kiss?!?!?!

Ye Li was trying to surprise Mo Xiu Yao with a kiss but then he met her halfway and kissed back so she was the one surprised?

i love that their casual intimacy grows over time!

they actually feel like a couple who are getting to know each other slowly (in terms of intimacy)

[cdramasource]

The First Jasmine (2026)

[deokmis]

The First Jasmine (dir. Lam Yuk Fan, Leung Sing Kuen)