New Moon, Would You Open The Gates

“Hyunjin loves…. Felix.”

It has thick vibes of Scandinavian films: nothing is said to you by words, but you understand it anyways and it hits you hard. The whole drama is amazing, but this scene is the best of the best.

She was woken up by the sound of something scattering and came to check.

I don`t know the cultural context of scattering salt and earth (?) but it obviously meant that their son is dead and what they just saw was his way to pay his last respect and to say "goodbye" to them from the other side. Powerful.

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Longreads, meta-analyses, recaps, lists: #SDaboutLBFAD - about c-drama "Love Between Fairy and Devil" #SDaboutMJTY - about c-drama "My Journey to You" #SDaboutFoF - about c-drama "Fangs of Fortune" #SDabout100dmp - about k-drama "100 Days My Prince" #SDaboutMM - about c-drama "Moonlight Mystique" #SDabouttropes - about tropes, favorite types of characters etc. #SDaboutFilms - about Western (non-Asian) movies and series Impressions of stuff: #SDaboutSpirealm - about c-drama "The Spirealm" #SDaboutBlossom - about c-drama "Blossom" #SDaboutTTEOTM - about c-drama "Till the End of the Moon" #SDaboutDerailment - about с-drama "Derailment" #SDaboutONHCT - about tw-drama "Oh no! Here comes trouble" #SDaboutSL - about c-drama "The Legend of Shen Li" #SDaboutDark - about German Netflix series "Dark" #SDaboutSW - about "Star Wars" Reblogs and picspam: #SDaboutpicspam - picspam, collected by me for no fandom topic #SDaboutSKZ - about Stray Kids K-pop band (mostly Lee Felix) #SDaboutMLC - about c-drama "Mysterious Lotus Casebook" #SDaboutMDZS - about c-drama "the Untamed"

My art and handmade stuff: #SDaboutstuff - my handmade, arts and poems #SDaboutTGCF - about "Heaven Official's Blessing" #SDaboutTolkien - about J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion"

The video is a fic trailer to a canon complained AO3-story about requited unrequited hyunlix love. Beware: the fic is E-rated, the video is M-rated for some еrотiс elements.

I should say that I absolutely in love with the voice of the actor, who has dubbed Wang Hedi in this drama. Wang Hedi speaks Mandarin with a Sichuan accent, that's why he hasn't got "proper" for Chinese state TV pronounciation and should be dubbed by some actor who has. At the same time, Wang Hedi's voice pitched higher than dubbed actor's one and would be not so harmonious with the image of fearsome lord (it suits better to Xiao Lanhua in Devil's body). So I like the dubbing a lot!

BROTHER...WAKE UP...

E23 : My Journey to You | 云之羽 (2023) dir.Edward Guo

I love how here his subtle embarrassment is shown. Btw in the next ep his mom covers him with the cloak the same way. So he could recognize this gesture as some sign of affection.

Blossom 九重紫 (2024) Dir. Zeng Qing Jie – Ep. 8

Li Lun, a villain I feel for (Pt. 4/4)

Since we know that LL’s redemption is not the point, and the main purpose of him being in this story is a̶ b̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶v̶i̶s̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶b̶a̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ a bunch of plot twists to be sacrificed, everything what happens next is pretty logical. After that conversation with ZYZ’s boyfriend LL moves to the last two stages of acceptance: depression and, actually, acceptance. He got his answer to the question “why do you treat me like this?” but he can’t turn back time and be of superior attitude as current ZYZ’s boyfriend is, so he understands that he will never be able to get ZYZ back. And since he is insanely obsessed with ZYZ, losing hope to reunite means for him losing the meaning of his existence. So, he doesn’t try to possess any other healthy body. He doesn’t even try to find a remedy for the current one, or to notify ZYZ’s squad that their friend’s body is dying in hope they will save Little Traitor (as far as he knows they can do literally impossible things). Of course they can! GJM’s sleeves are full of aces for them! He just waits for his body to die.

This scene in the cave is very beautiful yet meaningless. Li Lun’s lifeless and dark birthplace is now in intense blooming! It’s so beautiful, it means… What is it supposed to mean?🤷🏻‍♀️ There is no redemption, no reason to bloom if only sophoras aren’t trees that bloom only before their death. The only thing that changed in LL’s mind is his acceptance, both of irreversibility of their break-up with ZYZ and of his inevitable death.

Then we have a super strange monologue, in which LL says that he has no place in this world and no home (But darling, why? In this drama there wasn't a single scene where LL was denied by someone except for ZYZ and his friends, they are not the whole world! He is still a part of demon society, no one can take it away from him!). Throughout the drama there was also no sign of him searching for his place in this world! Not a single scene about it! He just wanted to talk to his ex and that’s it! Hearing him speaking of an absence of home while watching his home all over blossoming was really weird.

Although I found it very nice to see Li Lun treating Ao Ying well (It’s so rare for villains, especially obsessed ones, to treat their servants well!), I didn’t understand what this scene was for. To show us that LL is good now and is able to do good deeds? But I already had no doubt he is, because he saved those demons from the dungeon, and saved Great Wilderness centuries ago together with ZYZ, and all that jazz. He never treated Ao Ying bad in frame, so this scene doesn’t work as a contrast to his previous behavior neither. It’s here just to show us dying, miserable LL and to prepare us for feeling for him a little bit more while he will be sacrificed.

In the end of his monologue LL says that he is ready to die but wants to have a great stage to die on and someone to take with him into nothingness, and goes to… ZYZ! So, since he has no hope to get him back, he wants to die trying to take ZYZ with him, I suppose. It’s so within his obsession plot line, although is hella pathetic.

But Ao Ying disturbs his plans and shows him what end should meet every obsessed person in a Chinese drama. She transfers the poison out of Little Traitor’s body into herself and dies for a person she was obsessed with. So now Li Lun knows what to do.

He passes out at the threshold of ZYZ’s residence, and no one of the main characters uses this opportunity to pull his soul out of Little Traitor’s body! Not dying anymore, he talks to ZYZ again and says that he regrets they broke up and wants to return those times. And ZYZ says once more that LL should leave Little Traitor’s body and die. Why doesn’t ZYZ say by this very conversation that he doesn’t want Li Lun to die and has a way to keep his soul alive? Just because. LL is not convinced by ZYZ’s generous offer, so he fights the whole bunch of ZYZ’s friends, loses this fight and gets expelled from Little Traitor’s body. But SUDDENLY ZYZ asks his friends to spare LL’s life and to return his primordial spirit into his own sophora root that once was a love token between them. So LL could chill in his birthplace for a hundred years cultivating himself a new body and would stay alive. Why didn’t ZYZ offer it to LL before, when LL asked him multiple times to spare him? 🤷🏻‍♀️ No idea!

LL’s behavior oddly swings from his willingness to die to his willingness to survive, but Ao Ying paved him the only way obsessed characters could follow, so if he can’t be with ZYZ anyway, he dies saving him. His act of dying is the last part of break-up acceptance: he regifts ex’s gift to his current boyfriend and symbolically hands him over the burden of caring about ZYZ. And lastly has a tantric threesome sex with both ZYZ and his new boyfriend.

"Zhao Yuanzhou, I can't bear seeing you this weak."

I discussed my unhappiness with LL’s plot with my fellow @i-selina and she voiced the thought that there is some sort of Chinese cultural pattern in dramas saying: “your misery is your own weakness and a reason others will try to make you even more miserable”. My cultural pattern says that one should be merciful to other’s misery, that’s why I would like to see Li Lun’s inner fracture get healed and his true redemption arch happen, letting him stay alive. But GJM didn’t seem to bother even developing the main characters, so I shouldn’t expect that much of him here. He was busy making FoF insanely beautiful. No one can be equally good at each aspect of cinematography. Still love Li Lun, though.

Here is Part 1 Here is Part 2 Here is Part 3

Swooning over a secondary character (again), Pt. 1/3

This is Moo-yeon, the best assassin of the wicked vice-prime minister Kim Cha-eon, the most powerful man in Joseon. He is VERY good at archery.

And not really good at anything else.

His servitude for Kim Cha-eon has a very heartbreaking background, though. Originally he was of a noble bloodline and was named Yoon Seok-ha. He and his younger sister Yoon Yi-seo were children of an official. But once there was a take-over and their father was accused of treason felony. The official and the whole his family were sentenced to be executed. The children managed to escape, but they were being cruelly hunted down as animals.

In the end Seok-ha hid his sister and led the chase away from her. Tired, scared and desperate, he sneaked into the residence of the murderer of his father, Kim Cha-eon, and tried to threaten him, promising he would kill off Kim Cha-eon's daughter, Kim So-hye, if that evil guy would continue to hunt down Seok-ha's sister.

Spoiler: there was a love from the first blade pressed to one's throat. Mmmmm, delicious. And no, I`m not about Seok-ha and a vise-prime minister 😄 Naturally, Seok-ha failed because Kim Cha-eon had no heart and his daughter was not really of value for him, so there's nothing left to do for Seok-ha but to beg for death for himself and for mercy for his sister. But Kim Cha-eon had other plans for this stupidly brave boy. He made a deal with the boy and forced him to do everything Kim Cha-eon wanted him to do in trade for sister‘s life and freedom.

So here he is, professionally doing disgusting and honourless stuff for the murderer of his father. Here is Part 2 Here is Part 3

they're like the sun and the moon 🥺☀️🌑