Dylan Wang - Blog Posts

Noooo guys. I started watching cdramas after seeing Love between a Fairy and Devil edits all over my tiktok. I'm at episode 32 and I'm shattered. Please tell me this isn't the end for them.

Almost done watching LBFAD and I’m kinda sad. Decided to make some fanart to cope (& also did some skin painting art studies bc I’m struggling. 🫠)

I started watching Love Between Fairy and Devil on Netflix and ended up loving it. Here’s my WIP of this digital painting.

~ Meteor Garden (2018) ~ 

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Credits | GIF 1: Bookwyrming Thoughts | GIF 2: Guidie Dyshen | GIF 3: We Heart It | GIF 4, 5, 6: Tumblr | GIF 7: Tenor | GIF 8: @optimisticgirl

~ I Found A Long-Lost Part Of Myself While Watching 'Meteor Garden' ~

Here's a fact: you can never get over the first drama you've watched. 

Every drama-lover I know confesses this lovingly. So, as I waited for being lovestruck yet one more time, I was drama-struck by Cupid instead.

My very first drama happened to be 'Meteor Garden’ (2018) a Chinese remake of the popular K-drama 'Boys Over Flowers'. Like the blink of an eye, I didn’t realize when I was already forty minutes into the first episode. 

That's how the drama bug got me.

The Story:

Meteor Garden revolves around the story of two Ming De university students, Daoming Si (Dylan Wang) and Dong Shancai (Shen Yue). While a typical rich brat meets a poor but badass girl, the story also pans out to accommodate a great cast of secondary characters. 

Beginning with the 'F4', Ming De's most popular boy-group starring its leader Ah Si (fierce, smart heir to the Daoming Group of industries), Huaze Lei (musical genius), Ximen Yan (tea god) and Feng Meizuo (art lover with an unbeatable memory).

There’s Dong Shancai's adorable mother and father, her best friends, Chen Qing (banana expert) and Xiao You (bubble-tea partner).

Over a span of 49 episodes, we watch Shancai and Si's unexpected love bloom, we celebrate the spirit of 'family' -- both in blood and otherwise, we cherish friendship as true as the color of a clear sky and we come face to face with a bounty of life-lessons as we fall deeper and deeper for the characters that make the show.

My favorite learnings from the drama:

1. Dong Shancai's character is a far cry from your typical C-drama heroine. She's strong, confident, boisterous and unafraid of speaking her mind. I absolutely love the way she teaches you to own who you are. To own your whole person --- your strengths, your weaknesses and to keep going exactly when you want to give up.

2. Meteor Garden celebrates love in different forms. The love between a mother and daughter, that between between two lovers, two friends, two almost-lovers-but-now-lifetime-BFFs, the kind of love that hurts because it isn't yours to claim, the kind of love that teaches you how to love with a big heart and then, the kind of love that you must let go of so that you can meet a love you deserve.

3. The F4 sum up the following sentence: find your tribe and love them hard. Their lifelong kinship reminds you that 'family' goes way past DNA and some of the best people in your life today, could have once-upon-a-time been complete strangers. They support, encourage, guide and hold each other up.

4. As a typical C-drama lead, you'd expect Daoming Se to totally own his privilege without acknowledging its side-effects. But Si's transformation from exactly this sort of person to someone who is open to changing for the better is refreshing. What blows my mind is how Si shows courage to write his own story, not the one that's expected of him.

5. While we're used to 'voicing' our opinions, Shancai taught me it's better to let your actions and virtues do the talking. Because, a pure heart may not always be a loud one but it will be seen nonetheless, since it is true to itself.

6. And then you have my favorite learning of all time: LOVE IS WORTH IT ALL.

It is worth growing into, growing for and fighting with every ounce of your soul. 

I've watched many love stories and read quite a few too, but I am unabashedly biased towards Si's pure, magical love for Shancai and vice versa.

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Image Credits | Netflix 

Image Art | Doodle Shape (Android App)

How to fight your doom (Pt.1)

Episodes 1-7 I LOVE how this story starts (because the beginning circles up with the end like Ouroboros)! The Girl breaks the Heavenly rules to save her beloved one and changes his fate, so he wouldn`t die from Devil`s shattered primordial spirit attack. Because of that she falls right into the arms (and onto the lips) of the Worst Monster in Three Realms. And CURES him.

She gathers his shattered in 7 pieces soul (it`s very Chinese thing, I often see in novels that immortal beings have 7 souls and 9 spirits or something like that), puts it back into his body and heals even those injuries that were caused by his father long before his "death". This beginning feels right. Their journey starts with curing and IS about curing each other in different ways.

Devil is allpowerful and fearsome but also feral and broken, so the only way for him to accept his chance to be cured is to put him into the situation when he is forced to behave in another, unfamiliar way. So there is a curse that helps him to understand feelings that he`s gonna be able to feel for the first time in 38 thousand years and prevents him from his standart way to solve problems (such as to kill the girl).

(Btw I LOVE how this show is accurate to the details: if she is injured, the same bruises we can see the whole day on her as on him.)

Forced to take care of Girl`s safety and mood, he (with the great killing intent) learns how to do nice things to others and to be empathic.

But he is not thrown out into the endless sea of feelings without lifebelt, Girl guides him, explains to him what`s going on with him (and he can`t even kill her for that, LOL). And some feelings he needs to learn by his own. (Later we will see that he is an exellent student and embraces his ability to feel and to love fully).

I like how entangled the most part of their relationship look like: he is forced to do nice things to Girl and in process starts to ask himself, why does she feel what she feels and why does he feel something about it. Why does he care if she is happy not to see him again ever in her life? Why does she blush when she speaks about her dream beloved? Why does she drink his flower soup when it tastes awful? We can see even tiny green sprouts of jelousy start to grow in his heart little by little (it`s not so much about romance, but about his warrior`s fame at first). Only by force he could begin to think about it and the curse helps him with that a lot.

On the other hand, Girl is very naïve, she doesn`t understand that Devil is Devil indeed and that he forced to be nice to her, so she supposes that he really likes her. Her soul is injured too: she has been bullied by other fairies, she lives all alone, no one takes her words seriosly, she is quite ordinary, quite invisible. And Devil gives her (against his will at first) opportunity to feel how it is when someone cares. It could be wicked cheating of fate if Devil would not be so fluffy and soft in his soul. But he is. Episode 8 Episodes 9-13 Episodes 13-19 Episodes 20-26 Episodes 27-34

Some thoughts about DFQC after ep. 30

It`s very very painful to see Dongfang Qingcang suffering. I adore this character so much. Despite his demon origin he is rightfull, noble and has a heart of gold. His whole life was unending sufferings: first his father tortured him in order to make a weapon out of him, then he and his tribe were defeated by "good guys" because of their race and his spirit was trying to destroy the seal during 30 000 years to break free and avenge his people. And now he is willingly going through Hell again and again. He punishes himself for those things, that shouldn`t be punishable. He is just a human (OK, demon, but in this universe it`s the same), humans are allowed to love and to make mistakes. He doesn`t need to bear all the weight of the world on his shoulders. Fighting against seduction of Ancient Evil he choses to sacrifice not the Moon Tribe or Xiao Lanhua, but himself. Poor, idiot cinnamon roll! With his feelings and loved one or without them, his life is horrible and I feel sorry for him so much! He doesn`t deserve this.

Two days till I will devour a bucket of broken glass.

I strongly dislike the trope when someone who is in love with one person is forced by fate or circumstances to be with another. Hate it so much. And I have to watch it for 12 series in a row.

I'm afraid that those romance pieces that we could see in OST trailer but havent seen in drama yet are from dreams of DFQC and never happen in reality. And I`m also afraid that one of them will die, because problem of Romeo and Juliette can hardly be solved in another way.

I know that novel has HE but the drama plot has plenty of differences by now and Chinese people like to film BEs. Besides, DFQC killed his father, it`s an unredeemable crime in Oriental cultures.

Please talk to me, I want to share my love and fear with someone.

*It`s me sitting under my tree of love for this drama and trying to brace myself*