Asian Dramas And Relationship Dynamics (Pt.1)

Derailment thoughts

The first 2/3 of Derailment were marvelous. I truly enjoyed the part when Qi Lian couldn`t understand why Jiang Xiaoyuan treated him like a stranger and attempted to be just friends with her:

And the next coil of a spiral, when he learned she was a transmigrator who possessed the body of his teenage sweetheart. It`s a very interesting question: who are we if we are stripped of our memories? Are we still the same person or another one? What if your lover is gone and replaced by other personality, but this other personality has the same appearance, temper, habits and gestures? Could you fall in love with this new personality again as you previously did? This topic started to unfold when Qi Lian came the whole path back from being scary and mean to her to mutual pining, but never was unfolded till the final point, because screenwriters went to other topics (and came to nothing at the end).

The last point I liked here was a drama inside a drama about their relationships at school. There is my second favorite trope "us vs the world" so I naturally enjoyed it and would like to watch the whole drama about it (but obligatorily with Lin Yi as a main):

Do you think I don't know what's on your mind?

The end of drama was ill-conceived though, so I can`t say that I like it as a whole thing.

New moon, would you open the gates

And take me away, away from this night... 

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

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.

Fangs of Fortune and Li Lun

GJM is really great in terms of visuals: young and beautiful actors and actresses, their acting, decorations, frame building, coloring, costumes – I’ve never seen such a beautiful thing in whole my drama-viewing career! But GJM is like Chinese J.J. Abrams: everything in his work should impress viewer with visuals and plot twists, even if it harms the plot and the link between viewers and characters, and I can’t say that it’s something good (although FoF was VERY good looking). If I need to explain to someone what to expect from FoF in one GIF, it would be this one 😅:

"WTF is going on?" you may ask. "I don't know either" I will answer.

And these are closing credits. They were different almost each next ep, strange, but somewhat comforting. At least actors had fun filming it. Yan An is so nice here. I need to feel related to the characters and to understand the rules of the fictional world to dive fully into the story, but I gave up on my pathetic attempts to understand how this world works very quickly, because the whole story was the one huge Deus Ex Machina. I swear, I have never seen such a series in my life, in which you can meet deus ex machina not just a couple of times per story, but the couple of times per EPISODE. EACH EPISODE. The logic of main heroes’ actions also remained a mystery for me (maybe their mindset was too divine for me, I’m an earthly person after all), so I couldn’t feel related to any of the mains, and their problems were absolutely uninteresting for me.

But suddenly I felt related to Li Lun. He was the only one in this story who didn’t have a plot twist up his sleeve, and his actions were pretty understandable (unlike ones of the mains).

BTS. Yan An and Hou Minghao are having fun. There are two ways to tell the story: either you create characters and let them tell the story by themselves, or you create a story and bend your characters to fit it in. Unfortunately, FoF is the second variant: I understood what type of a story GJM wanted to tell through Li Lun’s character, but he chose two tropes (getting over an obsession and prejudice overcoming) and didn’t work out any of them in a valid way. However, I’m a professional in loving characters whose stories weren’t constructed in a satisfying way and am fond of LL anyway (I cut something like 80 GIFs, so I will post 3-part-recap with my thoughts on LL soon).

BTS. Yan An with Hou Minghao, Tian Jiarui and Lin Ziye. Btw, I ‘ve never heard of Yan An before this drama, but he acted so good in FoF, I would like to see more of his actor works.

Yan An is shivering from cold. How this man was supposed to play a villain? Look at him, he is a cinnamon roll! However, he did it well 💙

Aesthetics of grief

Wilhelm Kotarbiński (1848 – 1921) "Angel of Sadness", "The Grave of a Suicide"

Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942) "Myrrh-bearing Women"

Pavel Ryzhenko (1970-2014) "Sergiy"/ Sergey Andiyaka (1958-2024) "New Year's Night"

Giuseppe Benetti (1825-1914) "Piaggio Tomb" / an epitaph on a tombstone / William Story (1819 - 1895) "The Weeping Angel"

an epitaph on a tombstone / a tombstone of Alfred Schnittke, a composer. The symbol 𝄐, fermata, means "to stop, to hold till the sound disappears", the long thick line in the music staff, semibreve, means "whole rest" and fff, forte fortissimo, means "super loud". So, since the creator of the music is no longer there, there is only an everlasting, deafeningly loud silence.

Horace Vernet (1789 - 1863) "Angel of Death"

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.

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 =)

Meet Sima, a biblical Seraph. I proud of this handmade angel because everything from concept art and chose of materials to building was made by myself and the result is perfectly nice.

How to fight your doom (Pt. 6)

Episodes 27-36 From now on the fearsome and almighty Demon Lord turns to be extremely gentle and soft and it causes in some viewers cognitive dissonance. But is his defence I could say that he is in love for the first time in his life, his love is finally requited so his teenage delight is understandable. Besides, he is like that only when he is tête à tête with the Girl.

The great awkwardness of the moment when you are jealous and at the same time fragile in terms of your love. I like Girl's face expression here. The most part of Silent Moon Palace story arch Girl tries to be worthy of Demon tribe as if she already decided to turn to their side (which is strange) and still tries to persuade Devil not to kill demon and fairy people on the battlefield (which is a really good idea). She even agrees to be tortured if it can ease demons' hatred. At the same time Devil takes his punishment as an atonement for losing opportunity to return his people from stone captivity.

So, Devil and Girl try to find a compromise, that can solve the Romeo and Juliet problem, but at the end of a day there are only two opportunities – to be apart or to solve the main conflict. The story, though, chooses for them both variants at once, which is the sacrifice. If you can't bear your beloved as well as your folk suffering, you can protect them all at cost of your well-being, your life and your pain.

Devil sacrifices himself: if Girl would not love him anymore, she would be safe (because the bracelet could be removed) and his people would be saved as well (demons could use Chidi`s soul from the bracelet to break the spell over 100 000 soldiers). Girl would be sad, yes, but it would be more painful for him as he destroyed his love with his own hands. But this plan doesn`t work so he decides to sacrifice himself in more physical way and to hand himself in the claws of ancient Melkor in order to save his people without killing his beloved.

Girl sacrifices herself as well. She kills herself in order to save Devil`s life but it also miraculously solves the main conflict: resurrected demons and fairies all bow to her divine power and start truce.

«I promise you to stay with you forever». So they are truly heroes in this story. In the hero`s journey a true hero is a person, who is ready after all hardships and inner development to sacrifice everything, even his own life, for the greater good/well-being of all people/his country etc. In Chinese culture The Folk is much more important than one person, so self-sacrifice is the right way to portray the real hero in there.

Btw, patricide is an unforgivable sin in Chinese (as well as European) culture, but authors of this story craftily turned it into «father`s suicide for the greater good and out of parental love», so it was the hint that Devil will be alive in the end of the story).

I don't think Devil did to Girl so many bad deeds during the story that he needed to punish himself for that at the end(and to allow Siming to beat him up). Maybe it is something that is left from the novel, in which Devil was not so fluffy and nice. His misbehave at the beginning of the story couldn't shake Girl's good attitude towards him so it barely pained her. Kidnapping her can't handle as his bad deed – he saved her and she really couldn't go back without dying under the hand of Heavenly Emperor. A wish of destroying Fairy Realm was not a crime against Girl specifically and at the end Girl understood his reasons (although she didn't want it to happen). Her suffering in Fuju Cave was willingly. The only moment when he really hurted her was the moment he lied to her before war, but it wasn`t cause of her death. If he said to her the truth, she would sacrifice herself as well in order to save him. So I think that this huge bunch of sufferings and punishments for Devil is the part of his redemption. If you are a villain (even if you are soft and fluffy and empathic in your soul) you should die or atone.

I like that story coils itself like Ouroboros, biting its tail: at the beginning of the story Devil unwillingly made nice things to Girl and she liked it – at the end of it he pretty willingly makes the same nice things to her with no effect; before, he was disgusted thinking he can be Girl's servant and by the end he WANTS to serve for her but she doesn't need him anymore. It shows that nothing can be started over again. Love gives you only one chance to build it in a right way.

Then he is ready to let her go and confesses his love for the last time: «Everyone feared, hated, relied on or respected me and only you loved me with no reason and accepted me with all my thorns and dickery but I haven`t got an opportunity anymore to say to you that I`m no more that thorny jerk». And (the power of accidents!) it is the reason why resurrected Goddess gives him a hint that he was heard.

It`s funny but only because resurrected Girl is THE girl he wanted to get back he finally looks into her Book of Fate and decides to change her fate.

Farewell kiss feels bittersweet. Devil never prefers duty over love throughout the story. He chooses to punish himself and to kill himself instead. He makes impossible for Girl, goes against Heavenly rules and gets his punishment for that, which is death. And a really hard choice, hero's choice is up to Girl. She needs to shatter the primordial spirit of her beloved one in order to save the world (a shattered spirit can't reincarnate and can't be put together again, as it was in case of Chidi's and her Student's, who are gone for good). And she does it.

It`s funny: fairies say that Goddess` sealed abilities can be revealed only with marriage with GoW but we can see them in their full power when she protects her loved one Devil (in the Mortal Realm and in the Final Battle too).

Devil`s demon army coming to help in the name of Three Realms and his ability to get the Glazed Fire although he is a demon wraps the conflict between demons and fairies up for good. Even Heavenly Emperor admits that he was wrong thinking that demons (read: inferior, wicked and cruel beings) are not capable of doing something like that.

Our heroes are indeed cheaters (THE POWER OF ACCIDENT!): it turnes out that at their first meeting their souls were intertwined and Girl's primordial spirit filled everything inside of Devil. And it was the reason why he has an opportunity to resurrect her. And, honestly speaking, at these circumstances, did he ever have a chance NOT to fall in love with her? If it isn't a fate, what is it then?

And the main cheat is his comeback at the very end of a story (I read it on tumblr in someone else's meta, but I think it is pretty logical to be true): she places her curse on his body once more (the previous curse disapreared when she died), tying him to her and ORDERS him not to go when he starts dissipate. So his Blood of Heart, a piece of primordial spirit, can't disobey and puts itself into her arm.

An interesting thought: as I remember, the heart-hidden hairpin was used by the Moon Tribe Founder so her Fairy-ex-BF couldn't see her heart. Does it mean that the same curse connected them too? Could it be that Xishan curse had always something to do with love relationships? And then, if your Girlfriend IS the powerful Goddess, who can resurrect hundred of thousands people at once, it is only matter of time when she resurrects you.

It is a beautiful story which represents ideal «enemies to lovers» relationships development (but in a fairytale way, because, as you could see, THE POWER OF ACCIDENT reigns here). It has got everything that you need to believe in their relationships: unusual methods to get close, painful unresolved romantic tension, ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE salvation of this romantic tension, sufferings and parting that only build their final union more joyful for viewers. I`m under impression. Wow!

Episodes 1-7 Episode 8 Episodes 9-13 Episodes 13-19 Episodes 20-26