Aesthetics Of Grief

It is time for my friend Nastya to suffer from my drawing skills =) 

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

How to be a more interesting character than the Main Hero (Pt.1)

Introduction

I think the best cdrama of 2023 for me is MJTY. It has got a perfect picture, a very unusual and catching atmosphere and a plenty of handsome men and beautiful women. And some problems with the male lead. Although the main hero of MJTY is formally Gong Ziyu, his character falls apart if you look at him a little bit closer: he is extremely naïve but at the end is unbelievable sly, he needs to grow up but everyone around indulges him his childish behavior and helps him like deus ex machina, so he is some kind of Marty Stu and his story is quite boring. But MJTY contains the secondary male lead, Gong Shangjue, and I have watched MJTY only because of him.

First of all, his entering the story looks like one of someone important: a viewer can`t see him firstly, but through some dialogues we already know that: • he is a great warrior who is in charge of Gong clan affairs outside the mansion;

• his arrogant didi admires him (unlike he is towards their other cousin, the Main Hero);

• and a higher rank assassin aims him as her target.

When he arrives, his appearance is arrogant and cold, and a viewer understands: there is a Main Hero`s rival.

But the second impression of him is totally different: he is obedient to the elders, values his didi as much as didi values him and is hard-working.

And at this moment I felt strongly related to him. Everyone fools around instead of work and the only one character who cares for clan affairs is shown to the viewers as some kind of villain! WTF?

Just look at his reaction to Clan Leader`s praise: he is obviously pleased, but the next moment he says that praise is not deserved. During my first watch of the drama I doubted that he is honest in his denying of (even verbal) rewards, but it appeared to be true – he is selfless and does everything to bring wealth and glory to his clan, not to himself. An ideal Chinese drama main hero (even for Chinese censorship), isn`t he?

After a sudden Clan Leader’s death the Main Hero becomes a new Clan Leader which makes Shangjue get frustrated (because MH is really unqualified for this position) and, as a true rival should do in the plot, Shangjue tries to overthrow him. Being a rival, he could use some dirty tricks to achieve his goal, but he does it strictly according to the rules. He searches for evidence, not falsifies it. I paid attention to this fact almost immediately as Shangjue took action and because of that liked him even more.

As a secondary male lead he has got very interesting relationships with his didi (sworn brother/cousin Gong Yuanzhi) and his assassin fiancée (Shangguan Qian), which I would like to analyze in following parts. Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 1 Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 2 Shangjue and his fiancee

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

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

♥️♥️♥️♥️

A (scary) fairytale about love for adults  —  "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" musical

It's a relatively new Russian musical by Gleb Matveychuk (premiered in 2024), I watched it in flesh this week and felt the urge to tell someone about it. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (Хозяйка медной горы) is a character of Ural folklore (made up by a writer Pavel Bazhov, though). She is a spirit of Ural Mountains, and, as any other spirit, a trickster rather than a main character of the stories, who is kind to some people and cruel to the other. The base of the musical are three stories of Pavel Bazhov: "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain", "The Malachite Casket" and "The Stone Flower", but the stories are fused and rewritten in a more suitable for a musical way: The Mistress is not a trickster anymore but a tragic character of a story, two other main heroes are a jewelry mason Danila and a daughter of the Mistress, Tanya. The plot of the Bazhov's stories exists only as some homages in the musical's plot, so I'll recap only musical's story:

Stone masons' dance The 19th century, Ural, Russian Empire. The peasants (read: slaves) have to work at copper mines that belong to a cruel and ruthless feudalist. But there appears a problem: an evil spirit that guards the mountains has killed almost all of young mine workers.

The Mistress of the Copper Mountain kills unlucky peasants because they have come to rob her mines. There is an insanely beautiful aria of the Mistress but for some reasons unknown the director of this musical doesn't want to record audio versions of songs, so I've found her aria sung by some other artist (not the one from this musical). I don't like it, but it's better than nothing: Youtube till 3:05.

To help people, a jewelry mason Danila volunteers to go to the mines and to meet an evil spirit. When they meet, Danila asks her to stop massacring peasants because they are slaves and can't do as they please. She asks him in return to spread her warnings to feudalists: they have to leave the mountain be or they will be killed.

Danila keeps his word and gets punishment for his audacity. While getting healed by a forest witch, he learns a story of the Mistress: she was born as a result of non-consensual sex of Slavic Hades and Persephone, unloved and cursed to be unloved till the end of her days. Besides, she has got the Stone Flower, an artefact, one glance on which can reveal all the secrets of the mason craft.

Danila feels pity for the Mistress but also wants to know the secrets of the mason craft. He tries to create his best work but feels that he lacks this sacred knowledge that only the Mistress has:

Danila laments on his lack of knowledge while making a sculpture of the Mistress.

There is a beautiful aria sung by Kirill Gordeev, but I have only a pirate audio: Bilibili, timecode 48:30

As soon as Danila fulfills his promise, the Mistress allows him to ask for reward. Danila asks her to show him the Stone Flower - the secret of the mason craft:

Unexpectant, the mysteries of the Universe reveal to him the perfectness of the Mistress and he falls in love with her:

She isn't happy about it because after one night of love he will turn into stone, but he is eager to sacrifice himself in order to give the unloved semi-goddess a spark of love, so they spend night together:

The Mistress gives birth to a girl and gives her away to people because she thinks her stone heart can't give her daughter enough love. One peasant woman becomes girl's stepmother, names her Tanya and gives her all her love:

Meanwhile, the Mistress lives all alone in her mountains and suffers from lovesickness to her deceased lover:

The aria of the Mistress in this part is here, in amateur version on YouTube, timecode 3:06. It's melodically the same as the duet of Danila and the Mistress before they spend night together, you can hear it in the pirate version on Bilibili, timecode 56:15. Although Tanya is loved by her stepmother, peasants find her strange and avoid her, and even want to hurt her, thinking she is an evil spirit herself. So her mother gives her magical dowry that wakes up her semi-goddess powers:

Then the Mistress punishes feudalists and their servants who tortured slaves, partly herself, partly with her daughter's hands.

This guy was eager to kill and torture peasants by feudalist's orders, so it was a pure pleasure to see this maniac get killed.

Tanya is extremely not happy about being used for the bloodshed, so she blames her mum for being a monster and herself for being a monster's daughter. I like this song a lot. And again, only pirate version: bilibili, timecodes 1:14:55 and 1:44:15. But the Mistress explains her about the curse and her stepmother says she has got a kind human heart of her father, so Tanya decides to take mother's curse to herself. Her kind heart will allow her to be benevolent and generous mistress of Ural mountains.

Tanya puts mother's cursed crown on. The dissipated curse releases the Mistress of the Copper Mountain and brings Danila to life. Now they can finally be together. The only one official audio from this musical is the final duet of the Mistress and Danila (Vera Sveshnikova and Kirill Gordeev are singers from the musical):

I liked that it was a pretty feministic story: "the lady in the fridge" is a man, the one who finds something beautiful in the monster and sacrifices himself in the name of love is man as well. It's pretty fresh. The main idea "love defeats everything" is not from Bazhov's stories but it's an immortal idea. And the plot of returning an evil creature to the light side by the power of love is typical Russian and sometimes Asian, so it can be something unusual for a Western viewer (for the sake of variety). At last, let me show you some pirate medley of video scenes from the musical:

bilibili.com

【Kirill Gordeev】铜山女王03.05.2024_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

vk, 视频播放量 147、弹幕量 0、点赞数 8、投硬币枚数 0、收藏人数 0、转发人数 2, 视频作者 怎样逃离平地摔的阴影, 作者简介 872561660 牙粉丝群 投稿很杂 什么都有 俄音乐剧相关基本都是在ins/tg/vk/yt捡的 侵删 音乐剧和手语相关整理在置顶，相

bilibili.com

【Kirill Gordeev】铜山女王03.05.2024_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

https://www.instagram.com/stories/spowaste/3360011542841583730?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igsh=MXV5dHppOW5vcWpmdQ==, 视频播放量 86、弹幕量 0、

bilibili.com

【Kirill Gordeev】铜山女王2024.11.14_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

怎么又被绑被揍了这人果然是m吧如果你好奇的话，此人在基督山伯爵 铜山女王 弗兰肯斯坦 龙枪 船长的女儿 康康舞等剧里，通通被绑, 视频播放量 103、弹幕量 0、点赞数 7、投硬币枚数 0、收藏人数 2、转发人数 1, 视频作者 怎样逃离平地摔的阴影, 作者简介 87256166

P.S.: I also like the aria of the feudalist "Equality is a myth", but even pirate version is of almost unbearable quality. But it's here, Bilibili, timecode 31:00.

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.

BROTHER...WAKE UP...

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