Deep Black Space And Mortal Solitude

Thoughts on TtEotM

Well... I didn't like it. LYX was marvelous, CGI, too, plot elements were pretty good changed to tie the story up (and the part with Ming Ye was better tied to the main plot than in the book), but still... I didn't like it. In the book it was the story about man without abilities to feel something, his "love" in the first part of the story was wicked and twisted, so the contrast with the second part was huge and palpable. TTJ was a monster and became a man, he turned from egoist who only wanted to survive no matter what to person who was ready to give away the most precious thing for him (his life) to make his beloved happy (it happened that saving the world was the thing that could make his beloved happy, so he sacrificed himself to do it). And his heroic deed was rewarded with resurrection and a normal life with his family and new-found home. The story in the drama has nothing to do with that. There is a poor boy (no monster at all!!!) who constantly suffers and wants to die, falls in love with the first person who treated him well and sacrifices himself for the world that was so unkind to him. It`s awful! I know that Chinese people love the idea that you should die for the greater good, but this philosophy is as far from my heart as Jupiter from the Earth. Maybe DFQC will remain the only one drama "villain" who's got the happy end. And that drama will stay my favorite.

Li Xiang Yi and Di Fei Sheng being each other's nemesis: a brief summary.

Li Lun, a villain I feel for (Pt. 2/4)

So, by the beginning of the drama LL says that he wants to kill all of ZYZ’s new friends. In fact, he just likes talking. He says: “Let’s kill ZYZ’s friends starting with Baize Goddess, like the previous time” so the viewer thinks he killed previous goddess off, but later we learn that he didn't do it. Even if he has a perfect opportunity to kill someone of ZYZ’s new friends without ruining his own schemings, he does pretty nothing to achieve it. He just stands and talks. Because he doesn’t really want to kill anyone, including ZYZ. He wants to attract ZYZ’s attention and to make ZYZ stop ghosting him.

Li Lun speaks to Big Bad in Mask while possessing a courtesan. Meanwhile, he lends Truth Eye to Ao Ying so she could see his true self.

LL joins hands with Big Bad in Mask, not knowing he was the one who tortured demons in that bloody dungeon (yeah, LL is not the smartest guy of the Universe). By doing it he tries to achieve his own goals. First, he wants to break free from his custody, and second, he wants to get attention from ZYZ, who ignores him.

In order to break his chains LL works as matchmaker for ZYZ and his girlfriend, so they could fall in love with each other and find and unite pieces of Baize token, because only if the token is intact, it can be broken and its spells can be dissipated. He is not a saint, so he kills some folks (by possessing them or just because) and tricks other demons into helping him, although he is said to value his own kind more than anything. It means he goes through break-up with ZYZ so badly, that even his principles fade into the background for his anger and pain. Or it’s just another script flaw.

Li Lun behaves himself very much as a ghosted ex-boyfriend (in fact, he is), and I understand him well. He goes through stages of acceptance: throws himself from denial (ZYZ is no better than me, why don't you treat him the way he treated me?) through anger (ZYZ, I’ll kill your friends and make you suffer!) to bargaining (Why does he find you better than me? What if you would be like me, would he still love you?).

To talk about his feelings with someone, he uses the only way to leave his dark lifeless place of imprisonment, which is possessing others. At first, this ability and an omnipotence of it looks intimidating, but later we learn that he cuts his lifespan by a half each time he does it, so his need to talk to someone is very desperate. (Later, LL says that it was his way to enjoy the world and freedom but GJM never showed us such a use of this LL's ability). ZYZ knows that destroying LL’s leaves (through which he possesses bodies) will hurt Li Lun, yet he does it anyway, and LL kinda... enjoys it bitterly. As if the fact of him being not ignored by ZYZ is more important that his wellbeing. It's miserable and pathetic, but understandable.

And anytime LL tries to get some answers for his questions, ZYZ and his friends say something like “You don’t understand a thing, I won’t bother to explain, though.” or “We have friends and ZYZ is our boyfriend, and you are a lonely loser!”. How it supposes to help LL understand his wrongs? I have no idea.

Ghosting your ex is the sure way to make him a villain.

LL breaks free from his jail and destroys a “support beam” of the “wall” around demon ghetto. An accent on “I’m destroying the wall” is strange, because I can’t understand the gain demons will have when they aren't in their ghetto anymore (and it obviously should be). Would Great Demons even the scores of victims if not only humans would catch and torture demons but demons would also catch and torture humans, or what? However, it sounds pretty fair, as long as said Baize Goddess’ and ZYZ’s protection of demons consist in only preventing them from going outside their ghetto without passport, LOL.

Although LL is free from the seal, he is still dying from the fatal wound causing by ZYZ 8 years ago. His true body is smoldering slowly, so he has got not so much time left.

For plot purposes, the main heroes need to visit LL’s birthplace to get the last cup of magic water to fix Baize token and to restore a “support beam” of ghetto’s wall. What would a normal villain do, knowing about it? Yes, he would spill it. What does LL do? He, in fact, hands it over to the main heroes. Yes, stained, but LL was a student of Mountain God, too, so he could know that there is a way to restore the pureness of magic water, and the best way to destroy the token for good is to spill this water.

During their visit LL kidnaps ZYZ’s girlfriend (it is funny that the main heroes don’t notice it for something like first five minutes 😅) and has a phycologist session with her (in which she is a psychologist). They have a superstrange conversation, something like: LL: “ZYZ supposed to be my friend but ghosted me for no obvious for me reason and I’m hurt!”. WX: “Oh, it’s because you are a loser with no friends, ZYZ did everything right!”.

Then ZYZ and his current boyfriend come and LL tries once more to tell ZYZ that he is hurt, but ZYZ has absolutely no desire to talk to him or to explain to him something and acts like they were never boyfriends and LL is his archenemy.

So, they fight and ZYZ hurts LL with Everburning Wood once more, now deliberately. LL dies, and although ZYZ has red eyes at this moment he never thinks of LL again. So, LL is right: ZYZ is a hypocrite with double standards. It is such a contrast with the stories of the main heroes and ancient dragon gods, in which killing your friend for Higher Goals is a tragedy.

But there is a plot twist ahead!

Here is Part 1 Here is Part 3 Here is Part 4

Thoughts on Moonlight Mystique

It was my most anticipated drama: demon x goddess relationship is absolutely my jam, Bai Lu is my favorite c-actress and I find Ao Ruipeng super handsome. What could possibly go wrong? Everything 😞 It turned out to be the biggest drama-disappointment ever! I honestly tried to watch it properly, but a plot bunny-like lazy screenwriting, an eye-bleeding color adjustment and theatrical-flat set designs were too much for me. The only things I liked were costumes, make ups and Fu Ling x Chong Zhao pairing.

Ao Ruipeng's looks are amazing, but I couldn't care less about his pristine-white "demon" character, and his main activity throughout the drama was like this (I am a whump lover, but the amount of his attempts to die was too much even for me):

I liked Bai Lu's looks, too, and her character was a little bit more interesting, but still...

But I didn't drop it and even did finish it because of Dai Luwa's and Chang Huasen's characters.

Dai Luwa is sooooooo hot in there! At first, I was just slightly interested by their dynamics because it was almost what I wanted to see of the main characters. But then it turned out to be much more interesting than I thought: a medley of everything that can happen to a pair of characters within the trope "enemies to lovers": Good guy x bad girl? Yeah, sure. Bad guy x bad girl? Yeah, why not? Good guy x good girl? Sure, for variety. Bad guy x good girl? Of course, as soon as you were here from the start precisely for it... It's insanity, but it IS how their relationship unfolds! Relationship of the same two characters! In the same drama! I wish Chinese men stop bleaching main characters to pristine whiteness, so they would remain as interesting and deep as secondary leads... Anyway, I was so impressed by Fu Ling x Chong Zhao dynamics, that it was the first fast-forwarded by me drama that was cut into plenty of GIFs. Two posts about them are coming soon, stay tuned =)

Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt.2)

There are my favorite familial and (supposedly) non-romantical dynamics as a list.

Brotherly love

Drama: The Untamed / 陈情令 Characters: Wei Wuxian & Jiang Wanyin Screentime: Secondary

My favorite brother couple! They tore my heart into million pieces and it's still broken. There is jealousy and love and difficult moral choices between them. Wei Wuxian is an extraordinary man, as the main hero should be. He is brave enough to go against the rules if he feels it's right thing to do, also he is ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good and hides all of his pain tightly inside. Jiang Cheng is a mere person. He is not strong (or insane) enough to put everything on the line, because he shoulders responsibilities for his sect. Although they love each other, Wei Wuxian is ready to die for the truth and chooses to fight if fight is inevitable. Jiang Cheng tries to go the path of "minor evil" and sacrifice his sense of justice in order to save as much as possible. The both views are OK and each goes the chosen by himself path and bears consequences of this choice. Consequences are awful. They are traumatizing. And, what is the biggest pain of mine, they never discussed it. They never found out about sacrifices they both made for each other. They never found out that they still love each other as brothers.

Drama: My Journey to You /云之羽 Characters: Gong Shangjue & Gong Yuanzhi Screentime: Secondary About these two I wrote two posts here and here . In a nutshell: one is carrying the responsibilities for everything and anything, strictly follows the rules and teaches his younger cousin how to live this life. The little cousin is yandere, who is obsessed with his older cousin, has no conscience and does his best to make his cousin's life better. I like this unusual dynamics: they both love each other and care for each other on the same level, even if one of them is yandere.

Master-servant relationship

Drama: Word of Honor / 山河令 Characters: Gu Xiang & Wen Kexing Screentime: Secondary I like this type of dynamics when servants become someone more than just servants to their masters. Chinese drama makers love it and use it a lot, but this scene was so powerful that made me cry. Beautiful transformation from a servant to a family member (unfortunately, post mortem).

Seeking out love

Drama: Fangs of Fortune / 大梦归离 Characters: Li Lun & Zhao Yuanzhou Screentime: Secondary

Once Li Lun and Zhao Yuanzhou used to be boyfriends. Then they broke up for reason not really understandable (at least for Li Lun), but Li Lun can't get over it and tries to get attention of his ex friend back with pretty villainous means. Him not being able to leave this situation and to move on will be the main reason he will die in the end.

Drama: Word of Honor / 山河令 Characters: Xie Wang & Zhao Jing Screentime: Secondary

Zhao Jing adopted a very skillful and absolutely ruthless killer as his son. The killer is self-confident and does his job playfully, but his weakness is his passionate desire to be loved by his adoptive father. He feels that Zhao Jing just uses him for his skills and will throw him away as soon as his adoptive father will not need his skills anymore, so he even paralyze his adoptive father to force him being always near. He ends up not being capable to choose his life over his father's and dies with him. A very sad type of addiction with "A little mermaid" type of moral: you can bring the whole world upside down, but if one doesn't love you, one will not, no matter what.

Drama: Painted Skin 2020 /画皮 Characters: Wang Sheng & Xiao Wei Screentime: Main In this B̶L̶ version of Painted Skin Chinese legend the fox demon is male and wants to get one of the humans that brought him home. But humans love each other, no one is interested in a fox demon, so he makes them pay for their previous kindness with blood, sweat and tears. In the end the demon gets a human heart, feels something (e.g. how hard it is to be a human) and makes up one more lie, giving to the soul of the man he wanted for himself a strand of his own hair instead of human's wife's hair in order to meet him in another life. The same moral as in the previous drama. The same sadness.

Also you can see: Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt. 1) Asian dramas and my favorite types of characters Asian dramas and Love tropes Enemies to Rivals/Lovers recipe

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

Mixed media doll out of air-dry clay. Made with the help of tutorial by Chertoh.

I just watched ep. 13 and I have a bad feeling that Gong Yuanzhi is dead for real and Gong Shangjue just went insane out of grief.

Firstly, everyone kneeled when GYZ trailed off his speech and dropped a herb. As servants did in other dramas when Emperor died.

Secondly, there were some mourning lanterns in the air and Gong Shangjue watched them in his clothes from the date with an assassin (so it belongs not to the flashback).

Thirdly, YWS saw the light on the tower was lighten up. The previous time it was lighten up when the previous leader of Yu-lineage died. Gong Yuanzhi is the leader of Zhi-lineage. God, I hope I think too much and went to the wrong conclusions, and director didn`t treat my favorite characters of this drama like that...

How to fight your doom (Pt. 4)

Episodes 13-19 To fix the situation the story needs deus ex machina, and because the power of accidents is very huge in this story, it`s not a problem to have one represented by Shop girl Jieli. She brings to Girl a simple thought: it always matters only what you DO for each other, not what you SAY. Words can be a lie or can be misunderstood, but deeds are always deeds. Girl thinks carefully and finds out that Devil is in fact very caring even if he said he was pretending. So, just a monster turns back into a caring criminal AND a monster. And then she finds out that he was so heartless in ancient times because of his dead Feelings Tree and is willing to revive it for him.

 There is the hint to the main plot of a story we don`t know fully yet: he says that even ancient gods can`t fix someone`s primordial spirit or Tree of Feelings, but later we will learn that she IS an ancient goddess and she can fix primordial spirits as well as Trees of Feelings.

She likes that he cares for her and because of that she likes him too. She really wants to repay his kindness by doing something important to him but she also thinks that she can fix him and turn him into an ordinary demon (whom it will be easier to like). It`s an illusion that lovers often have: if there is something disturbing in people we like, we often think that we can fix it with the power of our love, our fairy power or whatsoever. We like not a person that in front of us but an image of this person in our mind.

Then he saves her from Haishi city and their mutual care starts to be very obvious to each other.  On their way home Girl takes a chance to look into daily routine of demon village and she learns that war and hatred took from them too much. Demon people are in pain, their wish to take revenge is understandable, although she can`t support them at this point. And Devil demonstrates that he is an EXELLENT LEARNER once more: he doesn`t force Girl to take off the hairpin to bare her feelings nor will he do it later even as he will be badly in need to know about them, because she asks him to respect her private mind space (she likes him at this moment already, obviously, and doesn`t want him to know it).

Devil`s father is really a jerk. Like God of War before, he represents that type of people who sacrifice their love according to fulfill their duty. Maybe it was the right way in those circumstances (it`s a popular moral dilemma IRL), but it unbearable hurts those who are sacrificed. To be sacrificed by the most beloved person in the world, to be called a patricide and to be hated by only left relative so much that he gave up on the whole realm to kill him hurts Devil a lot.

He was a very sensitive child and now, returning to his real self, he is in huge pain. He wants to be free of it by any means because there is no chance to calm it (as he thinks).

Before, he told Girl that he is Moon Supreme and doesn`t need someone to love him, but the whole story is about him craving love (from his father and from Girl later) and willing to give much more in return if someone will be willing to love him first.

Girl is very eager to help him to be the man from her fantasies about how he should be, so she makes huge effords to recover his feelings, to reconcile him with his dead father and his almost dead brother. And she moves from these legends about how awful Devil is to the thought that he is something other than stories she has been told in Fairy realm. A little bit better that that.

Sometimes external pain is much bearable that internal, so here Devil`s punishment of himself starts. He saves his brother but also punishes himself for all of these years when he didn`t care of what he has done.

And then he shows us that he is a really GOOD LEARNER: he simulates his illness to get attention of the girl he likes the same as she faked her illness before to lure him into Fake Arbiter Hall and to swap their bodies.

And when life gives him a chance to learn how to express his affection to his nearest, he embraces this opportunity fully. He embraces his ability to be merciful, in love and empathic even if he knows that it means to him being in pain or losing his great power. He knows he will lose it as his Feelings Tree will recover so he is terrified when he finds out Girl really has cured it but then he chooses by himself to feel good things as well as bad things. There is no use in great power if you are a living corpse without everything that makes you a living being.

Knowing that Girl likes him back (according to her care and eagerness to help him in recovering his soul and body no matter what) he thinks they can be together and he can make her happy by making the biggest wish of her come true. There is no lack in his way of thinking: his goal as Demon lord is to avenge his people and to wipe away their enemies and her wish is to have an opportunity to go back to Fairy realm. He can kill two birds with one stone. And she is terrified of his words because her rose-tinted glasses have broken. He can`t be just an ordinary demon and live with her happily ever after because it is in his power to wipe her nearest and dearest people away just by flicking his fingers and, what is even more awful, it`s his duty to do so. It is the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in a nutshell.

He confesses his love for her once more («I don`t care who you are, I only want you to be by my side forever») but she refuses him. Although she is in love, she finally understands their misalliance and pushes him away. It hurts her as well as him and he can`t understand the reason. «You took so much care of me, you did so much for me, was I wrong thinking you liked me?» he asks her in another words. Although her explanation of a problem is pretty clear («Can you give up on your home and friends for me?» «And you? Can you give up on your duty for me?»), he doubts that she refuses him only because of that  (and this is so HUMAN – to be in complex, hopeless situation, to suffer from it, not knowing if you should leave it for later or let it go completely). So he doesn`t give up on his plans although he is in pain and loves her and she also decides to disturb his plans although she is in pain and loves him too. No one chooses love over their duties by now (just as Devil`s father and God of War did), but love is still an option and neither Devil nor Girl wants to give this option up.

The Romeo and Juliet problem has got two ways to be solved: either the conflict is not huge and could be resolved (or someone turns side), or you just broke up (and someone optionally dies in process). This story orders us it`s variant of the Romeo and Juliet problem salvation, which is not death (at some point of view).

Episode 1-7 Episode 8 Episodes 9-13 Episodes 20-26 Episodes 27-34

Once I believed that everything and everyone drawn by me would dissapear from my life. But I am still here. Am I?