A (scary) Fairytale About Love For Adults  —  "The Mistress Of The Copper Mountain" musical

How to fight your doom (Pt.2)

Episode 8 I think this and the next one episode are most important for development of Devil’s and Girl’s relationships. The story is filled with fateful accidents as well as interesting parallels and some of them we can see in this episode too. It’s funny that at the beginning of the story Girl IS in love with God of War and he IS in love with her. You may think: if their feelings are mutual, what can go wrong? But God of War is too afraid to go against his brother (although he is more powerful than all of the fairies together, as we can see in ep. 26) and too fixated on his duty to get this mutual love. He lies to his brother that he doesn’t like and even despises Girl. And Devil shows this scene to her. I love that it happens by accident: Devil sincerely doesn’t know about GoW’s affection, so he doesn’t have any intention to disrupt their relationships, he just forces her to face the truth (and he also believes it’s true), but it will matter to romantic feelings of hers for GoW later. At the same time it parallels with the future situation when Devil himself tells the same lie to her face and it breaks hers as well as his life. A lie destroys any relationships.

Devil starts to feel something other than Girl’s emotions and I love how he tries to find some rational explanations why it happens. If Devil’s heart hurts when he sees Girl as GoW’s bride, it’s because of Girl’s physical state. Not because Devil cares. No way! If he is angry when Girl praises GoW, it’s because of wicked effects of the curse. Not because Devil is jealous, no. And Dragon boy watches it all with the poker face: «Master, when are you going to force her to fix Destiny Book? Not today? She needs to sleep? Hmmm… OK».

Then there comes this ICONIC scene:

Girl tries to refrain from tears and Devil says that she shouldn’t pretend to be strong in front of him because he knows how she feels. He knows it, obviously, thanks to the curse, but Girl doesn’t know about it, so she thinks he is very empathic. Knowing how another feels is very intimate thing, only our nearest and dearest ones can say how do we feel just by looking at us and only in front of them we can be ourselves and don’t have to hide our weaknesses and pain. Devil doesn’t get even medium level of emotional intelligence by now but he is a VERY good learner, so he does some very empathetic and important for their relationships things: when she asks him, if he looks down on her like others do, he squats. He SQUATS to be on the SAME LEVEL with her! He is ben zuo, the higher God of Demons, he doesn’t need to do it at all, but he does.

And then he wipes her tears. This movement is raw and quite not gentle but, as we will see later, he even doesn’t know how to smile and how to show his affection to his relatives. Tears wiping is a big deal for him. And again: he doesn’t have to but he does.

And after that we can see EVEN MORE ICONIC SCENE:

Girl knows that he is a criminal who has broken free from the Fairy Prison and is a demon from the enemy tribe. But she has no prejudice against «enemy» tribe. Devil has done to her mostly good deeds (let’s put aside that attempt to strangle her at their «first date»). She is very compassionate and doesn’t want him to die because of other’s prejudice, so she grabs him and hides him beneath the Arbiter Hall, in the sea.

Devil is almighty and doesn’t need to be saved, so maybe in this moment he thinks that she tries to save her precious GoW from his Hellfire. When she is out of breath and slowly falls to the bottom of the sea, we can see another parallel, which shows us Devil’s changes.

Devil high above looks like in his battle against Fairy Realm 30 thousand years ago: we can see only his silhouette, he is very afar and out of reach, indifferent to lives and deaths of those who beneath him. I find this scene a little bit funny because we all know: he can’t be indifferent to Girl’s life anyway, he is cursed and if she suffocated so did he. So Mighty Demon God sighs and comes down to breathe life into Girl.

What I love in this story the most – we can think about «point of no return» when their affection starts, but, exactly like it goes in the real life, we can`t find the certain moment. Forging affection is a process, not a flash that pierced one’s heart right away. So, even forced to save her life, he is truly embarrassed when they are at the Arbiter Hall again, he touches his lips trying to understand his current emotions and the Spring starts in his Sea of Heart with the first tiny green leaf of feelings. He is quite affected. But his affection is fragile and ghostly by now.

And then this BEAUTIFUL scene comes:

"Little flower demon?!"

He wakes up. Somewhere. He was unconscious. He was knocked out by little, harmless and suspiciously nervous Girl. And he wakes up. He wasn’t poisoned to death. He wasn’t imprisoned. Everyone in this world wants him dead, he was short-sighted and could be already dead but he is still here. And Girl says that she knows he is enemy of her tribe, she knows how risky it is to send him away now, but she CARES about his safety, well-being, warmth and food and wants him to go back to the Demon Realm so no one could kill him.

Later, when he comes back, he learns that this 10% of soul recuperation couldn`t be proceeded not because of Girl`s unrequited love for GoW but because she really was worried about him.

This realization is very important for him as we can see later in this story. In his life Devil always was an enemy to be hated or a weapon to be relied on. But even almighty evil lords are just human beings deep in their hearts. If you are strong it doesn’t mean you don’t need to be cared, supported and loved. So this situation pushes him to rethink his life and his father’s teachings about affections. And in this scene he also learns how to show his attachment: later in Human Realm he will give to Girl food on the go as she in this boat scene does.

Btw there are plenty of stories when people fall in love with nice attitude towards them (and GoW is one of them), and I find it much healthier than to fall in love at first sight or with someone’s appearance. So, although Devil’s Tree of Seven Emotions will bloom far later, I think in this episode him falling in love with Girl starts to be inevitable.

Episodes 1-7 Episodes 9-13 Episodes 13-19 Episodes 20-26 Episodes 27-34

FANGS OF FORTUNE (2024)

– What's this? It looks pretty. – This is not a hairpin.

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.

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.

Li Lun, a villain I feel for (Pt. 1/4)

Li Lun was the only character of FoF who stole my heart. From the very beginning it was obvious that Li Lun supposed to be a scapegoat of the narrative. The final plot twist was supposed to be a cherry on the top of the final battle, so GJM needed to bring LL there no matter what. LL's fate is in his very name: 离仑 (lí lún). The character 离 means “to be separated”, “to stay apart”; “to keep distance”; “to be alone”, “to break up”, “to become in opposition”; “to turn away” and also “to break into pairs”.  The character 仑 is used only in the name of the mountain Kunlun (昆仑), which is, as we know, a cradle of demons and a gate to the Great Wilderness. All of these meanings match Li Lun perfectly: he is deeply tied to his demonic homeland, yet is separated from the man who used to be his soulmate and opposites him now in loneliness.

Li Lun also was the only character whose story was shown to us not  as a strange flashback after the main events happened (as it was with any other story-within-a-story in this drama) but was fed to us with small portions (as it should actually have been worked out for each of side stories). It was, firstly, the main reason I was emotionally involved in Li Lun’s story – I genuinely tried to guess what happened between LL and the main hero in the past, it caught my attention. And secondly – reshuffling the pieces of LL’s backstory and spreading them across the narrative were the only ways to conjure the illusion that LL’s part of the plot works at all.

"Zhao Yuanzhou, do you still remember your old friend? Whom of your new friends should I kill first?"

When we see Li Lun for the first time in ep 3, he seems like a real villain of the story: he is in chains, looks insanely hot and hotly insane. We find out very quickly that he is absolutely obsessed with his former friend, the main hero, and wants to take revenge on him so badly as if the main hero killed the whole LL’s family and ate LL’s cutie puppy for breakfast. In the first part of the story he looks really intimidating: it is scary when your enemy could literary be anyone around you because Li Lun can possess any body. (And later we find out that there is absolutely no villain in this story, because LL is a Byronic hero and Big Bad in Mask is just a piece of furniture, because no one of the mains remembers of him and gives a single flying heck about him for the most of the story.)

But to look through their story soberly, let me recap it for you in the chronological order.

Once upon a time, something like 30 000+ years ago, two demons were born in Great Wilderness, a sophora tree spirit and a white ape spirit. They were equals in their powers, were friends for many millennias and finally became Great Demons. Hundreds of years ago they anonymously saved the Great Wilderness from destruction and swore to protect their homeland at any cost.

You all know what a hairpin means in Chinese dramas , don't you? 🌚

LL works his magic to make ZYZ happy. Although they had different mindsets, they genuinely care for each other: the main hero (ZYZ) tried to show his rigid wooden friend things he never even thought about, and LL, in return, tried to learn from ZYZ and to make him happy, too.

LL wanted to silent a kid with magic, but ZYZ taught him that no magic needed to chase someone's megrim away. The kid's as well as LL's. ZYZ loved humans and their world and LL was irritated by them and cautious about them, so ZYZ was teaching him how to treat humans right.

They exchanged gifts, a rattle drum and an umbrella. And it was so important for both LL and ZYZ that each turned mate’s gift into a spiritual weapon.

But they exchanged even more valuable gifts, too: ZYZ gifted LL his unique magic ability – Truth Eye, the ability to see the true essence of everything. Not having it anymore, he could rely now only on his heart to see LL’s heart, so giving it away was the brightest expression of his trust and love for LL. And LL gifted him a root of sophora  – a part of his true body, which was… pretty much the same expression of love and trust.

ZYZ gifts LL his Truth Eye. But one day, 8 years ago, when they both were on a date in the mortal world, they accidently found a dungeon where their fellow demons were kept captive and tortured by humans. Li Lun, who swore to protect his homeland and its habitants and was prejudiced against humans, went to berserk rage and killed not only those who tortured demons, but also everyone in a building where this dungeon was located.

He also set free all the demons in the dungeon, included Ao Ying, the demoness who can change her appearance and will serve him later.

Trying to stop LL from killing even more people, ZYZ accidently mortally wounded LL with the power of Everburning Wood he just got. It was unintentional but fatal anyway.

For his crimes LL was immediately caught and sealed in the place of his birth (a dark and lifeless cave). Although the seal could stop him from dying, it took his freedom away for eternity, which was very painful for a creature who cultivated really hard to get ability to move (he is a tree, after all). ZYZ was somewhat upset with it. OK, being upset because of your former friend’s loss of freedom is a good thing, but what happened between the sealing of LL and the current events of the drama?

So, you were friends for literally millenias, you were very close, maybe in BL way, so close, that each of you literally gave a part of his body to other. One of you flew into a rage (fairly speaking, he had a reason to be enraged) and killed people in the heat of passion. And you accidently killed him trying to stop him. Is he a criminal? Yes, obviously. Should you be surprised by your mate’s behavior and not think of it as of something typical for him? Yes, otherwise why were you still friends for so many thousands of years? Would you try to persuade him or to bring him back into his sanity? Yeah, I think. Would you feel guilt because of unintentional killing him off? Yes, of course. But ZYZ didn’t do and feel any of that.

OK, maybe he is too righteous and any unjustified deed put his relationship with a sinner to its and. Oh, no? He eagerly forgives a spy who works for Big Bad in Mask, he forgives a man who hurt him badly and intentionally sent him into diabolic rage which could lead to numerous victims. He even understands and is nice to other demons who kill people. (And, as I remember, in ep 1 ZYZ killed by himself one of demon hunter’s bureau warriors in order to intimidate ZYC. I watched it only once, so I’m not sure if I didn’t notice some trick there, but still). He only despises LL. Also, he didn’t give a flying heck about who tortured all these demons and why (spoiler: it was Big Bad in Mask, and everything would be much easier, if ZYZ cared about it). And later, he regrets that he unintentionally killed his friend and a family of his current boyfriend, but he never regretted he killed Li Lun.

In the beginning of the drama ZYZ obviously despises him and calls him "a scumbag who has to stay in shadows", although LL has to stay in shadows partly because of a mortal wound caused by ZYZ, and can't be counted as scumbag because all the wrongs he did were caused by desire to protect people of his own kind and not because he liked human sufferings or such evil stuff. LL obviously tries to speak to ZYZ and to find out what happened between them (and honestly, I still want to get this answer, too), and ZYZ, for reason unknown, has absolutely no desire to talk about their problems with LL.

It all feels strange. And not fair to LL. Here is Part 2 Here is Part 3 Here is Part 4

Fu Ling and Chong Zhao: all in one. Part 2 of 2

But all good things come to an end, and the evil demon master (who tried to kill Chong Zhao off so many times, LOL) finds out that Chong Zhao is the shell of the Devil deity he wanted to resurrect all this time, so he accomplishes his mission, and resurrected Devil deity occupies Chong Zhao's body.

"The Deity is back, bitches!" I don't like that the former dweller of deity's shell in this drama is another person, not a part of deity's soul, because I'm against reproducing by budding while having genitals it cuts off deity's potential of broadening their mental horizons: while fusing their main soul with the "mortal" part of it, they could learn something that can be experienced only by mortals/humans. Although I find this plot decision strange, both in the main heroes' as well as in Mo Li's cases, I understand that otherwise it would be probably impossible to kill Mo Li the way he was killed: it would requite to study Mo Li's character and to remove focus from the main heroes to Mo Li's inner processes, and the luxury of it is affordable only for the main characters. The mechanics of interactions between Chong Zhao and Mo Li looks like the one of the different parts of the same consciousness, though. So, Mo Li is back. He regains control over his shell, and the first thing he sees when he wakes up is a lover of his "mortal" consciousness, lying unconscious on the floor. If I would be a deity, who absolutely doesn't care about the previous life of his "mortal" part of the soul, I would overstep her unconscious body and go further, but look what did this deity do:

Bridal carry [3], as a deity. He says that he didn't kill her because it would upset his future wife Bai Shuo (the main heroine, Fu Ling's mortal sister), but the truth is, he doesn't give a damn about Bai Shuo's unhappiness, Fu Ling doesn't matter in their "let's marry or I'll destroy the whole planet" thing. So, there is something else.

"He is still here, in the furthest corner of my mind. I know everything he knows". Btw, the Devil deity Mo Li is absolutely adorable (in a devilish way). He has nothing in common with Chong Zhao: he is charismatic in a way, infinitely bored with his unlimited power and full of crazy thoughts: for example, to kill everyone (but dude, why? you are the most powerful creature in the world anyways, no one is a threat to you!) or to have a forced wedding with a girl who doesn't like him (and, moreover, he doesn't like her either! What a crazy man!).

"You? Will kill me?"

The situation is desperate: Fu Ling is imprisoned in Mo Li's palace, her lover is a tiny part of Mo Li's consciousness now, and Mo Li himself is invincible to the killing attempts of mere humans/demons/whoever. Yet Fu Ling stupidly proceeds attacking him:

"Keep trying to kill me, I like it".

"Why wouldn't you kill immortals and humans for me, as you did it previously, when you were Fu Ling?"

It feels so painfully delicious: she knows her lover is gone, but, at the same time, he is somewhere there, inside of this ethereal, inhuman being. And the deity, in his turn, is slightly interested in her, not romantically, but still. If Mo Li and Chong Zhao were two parts of one consciousness, I would say it is the echoing of Mo Li's other self who loved her. Their feelings could be fused. A deity is too ethereal to fall in love with someone (Xing Yue laughs hysterically at this statement), but his mortal part isn't, so, when Chong Zhao would mingle into Mo Li's soul, he would bring this shade of unfamiliar for deities feelings with him, and it would look like this slightly different attitude towards her.

They look at the starry sky [2], Mo Li x Bai Xi version. "This purple moon won't protect any of them".

"Tomorrow it all will be over".

And now it's time for their story to be over. She was attracted to him since they had met each other for the first time as children, and he was touched by her attitude towards him, too. She wanted to keep him safe when they met each other anew, and he wanted to keep her safe, too. And later, as he became the Devil deity, he didn't plan to kill her either (can't say the same about her, but her attempts were hopeless and her goal was to free her lover's body from being possessed by the deity). But it happened that he did kill her. Unintentionally. She has shielded her sister from his spear with her own body and died.

The next scene is the most powerful moment of this drama for me. A heartless deity doesn't even understand at first what happened to him: a little piece of his consciousness takes over the body for a moment, fueled by the power of his grief over his deceased lover, and the deity starts crying:

And it is here where the destiny plays out: if Fu Ling would stay alive, no one could ever defeat Mo Li, because the only weapon that can kill him is the long lost Divine Bow of Xing Yue deity. And this bow is Fu Ling's soul.

This plot twist was so beautiful! It broke my heart, but, at the same time, left me highly in awe. I like it, when the only reason for a villain to get defeated is his own decisions. The unintentional killing of his lover that allowed his enemies to get the only effective weapon against him is truly marvelous plot decision. She could be the person, who would care about him the most, but became his death. Their fates were intertwined long ago, but it was still up to him: was it "destined to love" or "destined to kill" fate, - and he chose the latter.

The Divine Bow in use. To summarize: this story deserved to be the main plot line of some drama, and I see the potential of another ending for it if it would be the main plot line with more screen time for the last character arch. But alas, every main character in China should be bleached till they lose all their moral greyness and complexity, so I should accept my fate and proceed enjoying secondary characters, outliving their deaths, fixing their stories in my Mind Palace and not giving up on hope to see someday a good, heart-wrenching story again. Here is Part 1

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

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.

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

How to fight your doom (Pt. 5)

Devil's love is in full bloom and he meekly accepts it. I adore this scene very much, it is so heart-warming. Episodes 20-26

The Romeo and Juliet problem is acute, so everyone suffers and is with the long face. Girl, as well as Devil, decides to put the love problem aside and to focus on the higher goal. The problem seems to have no salvation, so they don`t even try to think about it. And here we have our deus ex machina Jieli, who forces them to talk to each other face to face.

While talking, Girl tries to catch on something that could bring the salvation, but only finds out that everything is hopeless. He IS in love with her and also he IS willing to crush Fairy Realm. And also he is proud (Am I not capable of pretending to be just a reach mortal? Ha! Watch me!), but empathic to sufferings of his folk and prefers fair fights to dirty wins. There is nothing in his personality that could count as disgusting character features. The conflict between Girl's love for him and her craving for peace between tribes is tearing her apart. So she rides him on emotional rollercoaster: she doesn't want to say «no» and can't say «yes».

Devil is very solid in his feelings for Girl (as always) and all the hopelessness of the situation makes him quiet and extremely sad. He even allows GoW and Dragon boy touching him! He also is an EXELLENT learner in terms of emotional intelligence stuff: he understands that his magic powers and status can't conquer Girl's heart and accepts that he can do nothing about it. He carefully analyses his previous behavior and finds out that he was rude to Girl and made her cry so it's natural that she doesn't like him and likes God of War instead. His love ability has bloomed fully and it makes him suffer from unrequited love.

Girl finally accepts her feelings for Devil (with the help of side characters) and there is a funny situation: three months ago it was her sweet dream to be God of War`s bride and now she feels only sadness about it.

Unresolved romantic tension of these two is palpable and it is the most beautiful part of this story arch: Devil is jealous (with a reason), sad and angry because of his unrequited (as he thinks) love and Girl is jealous (with no reason) and because of it fails to expose her feelings to him.

There is a Chinese legend that once Chinese Emperor loved his wife so much so he had been helping her to draw her brows, although it was stricktly female's thing to do. That's why drawing female lead's brows by a male lead is a lovely Chinese romantic trope.

«Wife, are you still mad at me?»

There is a nice moment when he enjoys pretending to be her husband (because he would like to be one) and she enjoys him enjoying acting (because she wants to be with him too).

Finally he proclaims his feelings for her for the third time and in the most beautiful way («I feel like I've known you forever. I have seen you in fairies', demons' and mortals' clothes but the most beautiful dress on you is tonight's wedding dress. Although tonight's wedding is a fake, I feel like I am really married [to you]») and lets her go: if she can`t bear to see him killing her friends, he will understand her hatred.

But it ends up them choosing to be together (in absolutely ADORABLE way! I love episodes 25-26 sooooo much) and delaying the salvation of the Romeo and Juliet problem for later. When the time comes, Devil chooses Girl over his duty and kills Chidi, and Girl chooses to be with Devil and to think about coming war later.

At last misalliance problem finds it`s salvation:  it turns out that he is Demon God and she is Fairy Goddess, they are equals in magic powers and status.

I LOVE mortal story arch because it has got the great emotional tension (I suffered from knowledge that Girl should marry GoW and because cinnamon rolls are in love but couldn't voice it) and delivers the HUGE catharsis feeling at the end of it (Hurray! They are finally together!). Unfortunately, the very end of the story doesn't have the same satisfying feeling (I will explain it later).

And then the Silent Moon Palace story arch begins.

Episodes 1-7 Episode 8 Episodes 9-13 Episodes 13-19 Episodes 27-34