Other thoughts: Meimei as Fengxian’s kamuro and Luomen as Lakan’s uncle are both huge backstory revelations, and there’s no way they don’t play in to how both people became such big parts of Maomao’s life. (We also know Pairin was Maomao’s wet nurse, but Joka is still a big question mark.) I love how Meimei’s history with both Fengxian and Lakan fits with how we learned in ep13 that board games are her specialty. It’s long seemed clear to me that Fengxian wasn’t capable of loving Maomao, and only saw her as a tool to get Lakan… but it only just occurred to me to think about what it implies that _she’s_ the one who first says a courtesan can never be a mother. Where does that belief come from? Is it really just part of the culture of the pleasure district, or is it rooted in her own trauma? Did Fengxian _choose_ to act on that belief, to shut off the part of herself that could’ve been a true mother to Maomao? On that note, I like to imagine what would’ve happened in an AU where Ah-Duo and the then-empress didn’t go into labor on the same day. It gets wild if you think about it enough - Luomen stays in the rear palace? Lakan stays in the capital, gets Fengxian’s letters, and buys her out? Maomao raised as nobility? Baby Jinshi dying from Fengming’s honey and the emperor’s real brother growing up instead? Ah-Duo having more children, maybe even becoming empress? But a more modest AU to imagine might be just… what if Fengxian had loved Maomao? How would Maomao’s personality have developed if Fengxian had been as much a mother figure to her as Pairin? (Your observations have especially made me wonder about that part. Would she still test drugs on herself? Would her feelings about _koi_ be different?) I can imagine that visit to the annex in episode 8 - instead of huddling up in the corner, we see a somber shot of Maomao sitting quietly in a chair by the bed. In episode 18’s visit, there’s no mention of Fengxian ever chasing Maomao out - her mind is still decayed, but when she registers Maomao’s presence, her eyes move toward her and she smiles weakly. After being given the medicine, she tugs at Maomao’s sleeve and, with some difficulty, pulls the go stones from their shelf. “What, again?” Maomao says. “You know I’m no good at that game…” But she eventually relents, as she always does. A lot of female characters in this show have signature flowers. Gyokuyou’s is the peony, for example. I’ve seen a KZfaq video or two breaking them down; it adds a neat layer to things like the flower shots in the first OP. Balsam is Fengxian’s flower, and woodsorrel is Maomao’s. (There’s a shot of a flower vase toward the end of ep12, I think, with a single woodsorrel flower cradled by the Three Princesses’ flowers. It’s cute.) There’s things I prefer about the Square Enix manga’s take on “Balsam and Woodsorrel”, but that rain at the anime episode’s climax is just incredible.

No, maomao is granny's blood. Maomaos mom was granny's blood daughter. Which is why she hated lakan so much.

@@ArlanKels She realized that if one of her girls wanted to be with a certain man who couldn't afford her, she could drop her price literally to zero if she was desperate enough, and there was no way to prevent that. So better to get some money and keep a good relationship with her than to lose one of her princesses and get a bad reputation. It's a business model that works. But she hated Lacan and didn't want to sell him either Maomao or Fengxian at any price.

Odd Taxi would be so good! Not sure it can win a poll though.

Doesn’t work on the iOS 😢