#baym

Lmao this 2 are soo unserious!!

IT'S BEEN THREE WEEKS SINCE THE FINALE BUT IM STILL NOT OVER IT AND THIS HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY DRAFTS SINCE THEN.

so let me preface this by saying that i absolutely loved the ending. i mean sure, it was rushed, and i have a feeling it was a last minute change because it felt... off. but that's a conversation for another day. i love the ending in the sense that it could've been worse LOL and it had everything i wanted so i won't complain. it was cute and cheesy, you bet i ate that up! i say that it's fan service but i'm a fan who definitely got serviced :p

with that said, these are questions i have that i was hoping they can answer:

Time loop questions:

what did the flashback Jiyoung have at the beginning of ep 1, when it occurred to her to cook her dish over the open flame, mean? she thought about the ancient way of cooking - does this mean she was already in a time loop (like she already went to the past) or was it something she "saw" because it's something she remembered from like, reading about it?

was this a closed time loop? honestly just getting an explanation regarding the mechanism of the time loop would be nice. bc we saw on the first ep that the last page is already torn so the events of the coup/purge/jiyoung dying already took place. so jiyoung going to the past didn't affect the future bc the past already took place. EXCEPT WHEN IT DID...?

considering the two points above, re: Jiyoung already going to the past -- had the events already happened, but she gets killed and then just gets sent back to the future with her memory wiped?

in the last ep, in current-day, Jiyoung researches Yeonhuigun and she realized that history was rewritten. meaning the "future"/current day Jiyoung is at isn't the same one she left in the first ep? this implies that a new timeline branched out, right?

Mangunrok power questions:

what "activates" the Mangunrok? like yeah it was implied that the moon has something to do with it but how?

does the Mangunrok itself have the powers or is it the moon? how did it get time travel abilities omg

how did Yi Heon use just one page of the Mangunrok to travel to the future?

the most important question here is how the heck did Yi Heon travel to the future???? although i feel like that can be answered had they just explained the mechanisms of the time travel + Mangunrok's abilities. idrc how he managed to find her when he made it to the present bc she's a public figure and all he needs to do is ask for her name + the fact that she's a chef and he could easily find her.

anyways, them pulling this move is the funniest thing:

Premise: Yeon Ji-yeong is a modern day chef (who seems to specialize in historical cooking practices??) and she wins a big French cooking competition and is going to run a 3 Michelin star restaurant!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!! Except then a magical cookbook sucks her 500 years into the past to early Joseon-dynasty Korea, where she immediately runs into Yi Heon, the current king, who Ji-yeong knows all about because he was famously a tyrant who got deposed for being too tyrannical. He is also—and this is crucial!— a big-time foodie. They do not necessarily hit it off, but she impresses him with her cooking. Also being fed hits him right in the mommy feelings. CLEARLY THEY ARE GOING TO BE IN LOVE. Oh yeah also everyone is scheming (because wheee palace drama!!) except Ji-yeong, who would like to go home now please.

[Please note: this king guy is violent, a petty asshole, basically all-powerful, mentally unbalanced, and has extreme debilitating mommy issues. His 4th concubine is a significant antagonist. He’s rounding up random women for his harem left and right. Bland he is not!! But Ji-yeong’s appellation of “crazy bastard” for him IS accurate.]