Some Thoughts About DFQC After Ep. 30

Fun facts about MJTY

The surnames of those who are in the Back Hill build together an idiom 风花雪月, «four opposites of love». Although hieroglyph 锋 in word "Wufeng" is different from one in this idiom (​风), they are homophones that equally sound fēng (and as we all remember, Wufeng is the mastermind of the last three saber techniques out of twelve used by the Back Hill, sooooo...🐱‍👤).

2. The names of Wufeng ranks build together an idiom 魑魅魍魉, «demons and monsters of the Martial World». These hieroglyphs actually mean three types of mythological Chinese monsters, not four: chī, mèi, and wǎngliǎng. In the last word a syllable wǎng (魍) sounds like wáng (王), which means "prince", so there are four princes of cardinal directions in Wufeng. The hieroglyph 魉 (liǎng) includes the phonetic key 两 (liǎng) as one of its elements, which means "a pair". And, as we know, Wufeng has got two bosses of the highest rank 🐱‍👤.

3. The names of those who live in the Front Hill are 宫商角徵羽, the pre-Tang dynasty names of tones in the pentatonic musical scale. The pentatonic scale is famous among musicians as something good for improvisation because all of these tones sound harmonically in any combination. Also, in the Confucian tradition these five tones were credited with a magical effect on society, at which gōng corresponded to the emperor, shāng - to ministers, jué - to the people, zhǐ - to affairs, and yǔ to material resources.

Maybe it all supposed to have a deep meaning and to symbolize something. Maybe it didn`t. Anyway, there are just fun facts.

Deep black space and mortal solitude

Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt.1)

There are my favorite relationship dynamics as a list. Opposites attract + power couple

Drama: I Am Nobody /  异人之下 Characters: Zhuge Qing & Wang Ye Screentime: Minor I like it when characters are different in a way they could complement one another, but at the same time they are similar in terms of what is important for people to stay stuck together. Zhuge Qing is public, easy-going and wants to be friends with Wang Ye. Wang Ye is mysterious, reflexive and doesn't want to be bothered by other people. But no one can beat extrovert if he decided to be friends with you =) Plus, they are united by their superpowers: they are both powerful sorcerers and their sorcery is very similar in its nature. So they can compete and learn from each other and, if necessary, kick enemy's ass together. ̶A̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶d̶y̶n̶a̶m̶i̶c̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶B̶L̶ ̶v̶i̶b̶e̶s.̶ By the end of season 1 they are OK and together.

Drama: Mysterious Lotus Casebook / 莲花楼 Characters: Di Feisheng & Li Lianhua Screentime: Secondary Di Feisheng is a leader of a demonic sect, a former slave and a very straightforward man. Li Lianhua is a former leader of a righteous sect and an extremely sly man with not-so-bad background. But both of them are the best martial artists in Jianghu and went through a lot together. One wants everyone to leave him alone, another wants to be with him together forever. Both of them don't give a damn about everything that happens in the world but they care for each other. B̶L̶-̶v̶i̶b̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶a̶c̶h̶e̶d̶.̶ The ending of the drama is obscure but I'd like to think they both are alive and happy together.

Drama: The Blood of Youth / 少年歌行 Characters: Xiao Se & Ye Anshi Screentime: Secondary A leader of a demonic sect who has an ultimate martial knowledge and a former best righteous martial artist, who is suffering from decease and can't fight anymore. What can unite them? The answer is: the similar mindset. They both had a great power and lost it, they both are shouldering great responsibilities which don't make them happy. Despite the fact that they should be on the opposite sides in Jianghu world, they are still good friends. M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶B̶L̶-̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶l̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶X̶i̶a̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶i̶r̶l̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶.̶ There is a small extra ep at the end of drama, when they meet each other again in a very romantic way. Just search for it.

Drama: The Legends / 招摇 Characters: Lu Shiqi & Qin Qianxian Screentime: Minor She is from a demonic sect. He is from a righteous one. She is immune to the impact of spiritual power. He is the one of the most powerful people in terms of spiritual power. She is dumb, straightforward and pure-hearted. He is blissed yet sensible and burdened with difficult moral choices. They could be an ideal Yin-Yang couple. But they have BE, because it's "The Legends", everyone should die in here Т_Т.

Pride and Prejudice + power couple

Drama: The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity / 晴雅集 Characters: Bo Ya & Qing Ming Screentime: Main This dynanics is similar with the previous one, but here we are focused on how they ended up together. Bo Ya has prejudice against demons-yao and believes all of them should be executed. He meets half-demon-sorcerer Qing Ming who helps him to overcome his prejudice. Finally, they become friends (or̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶) and together they win over the evil forces. At the end they are separated but there is a hope they meet again.

Drama: Wuliang / 无量 Characters: Po Xiao & Feng Ren Screentime: Main People of different social status both seek to get a magical sutra. During a road trip they exchange opinions on the sutra and how to use it and change each other's mind. In the end it turns out that they together saved the world and can be finally together. As friends, of course.

Drama: Oh No! Here Comes Trouble / 不良執念清除師 Characters: Pu Yiyong & Cao Guangyan Screentime: Main Pu Yiyong looks like lowlife, studies very bad and hates Cao Guangyan, who is self-confident, smart and thinks low of Pu Yiyong. But a mysterious case with ghosts forces them to interact and they find out, that together they are a perfect team. Honestly speaking, this little series couldn't develop this topic as good as I hoped, but it's a really interesting story, so you can watch it for the ghost detective plot and get this type of relationship in addition. It's a Taiwanese drama, so BL-jokes and dalliance with a viewer were huge, but it didn`t help much. Still a nice dynamics and a good drama. Us vs the World

Drama: The Untamed / 陈情令 Characters: Wei Wuxian & Lan Wangji Screentime: Main I don`t like the novel, but I like drama exactly because here I can see this dynamics. In the past life of Wei Wuxiang Lan Wangji was not strong enough to go against the whole world to protect his friend (well, in the novel they are lovers, but it kills the main idea of this dynamics by turning it into "I do it all just to get into your bed", which is meh), and his friend died. Suddenly, 16 years later, he gets a chance to choose once more: to be a part of society and watch once more his friend dying or to be with him against everyone this time. The moment he chooses to be with Wei Wuxian against the whole world I felt cathartic pleasure. The drama ends up on a little bit obscure but positive note.

Drama: Word of Honor / 山河令 Characters: Zhou Zishu & Wen Kexing Screentime: Main A former king's assassin who is at the brink of death and just wants to live the time left in silence and a birdy master of the most skillful criminals find each other, find out that they are brothers-in-teachings and decide to fight against the world together just to live in silence and enjoy each other's company. When one thinks it's his last second of life, the other comes to help him even if they both can't beat the greater number of enemies and will die for sure. Catharsis! The drama has a small extra ep where they are together and all right.

Drama: The Legends / 招摇 Characters: Li Chenlan & Lu Zhaoyao Screentime: Main Them, again! The first half of the drama they have enemies-to-lovers dynamics, but then, when they find out the truth about Zhao Yao's death and about feelings for each other, they turn into Bonny and Clyde and go annihilate the righteous guys who are in fact not-so-righteous. And it makes me feel cathartic, too. A very catharsis-causing dynamics, indeed! It's little obscure, but they will be fine at the end of the drama.

Drama: Dong Lan Xue / 东栏雪 Characters: Shen Yan & Chu Ningyuan Screentime: Main Two bad guys work together to get power in the palace. And get involved in romantic relationship during their power gaining. Nice story with an open ending.

Drama: Derailment /脱轨 Characters: Qi Lian & Jiang Xiaoyuan Screentime: Main It's a little story inside a big one about transmigrators that you can read in another of my posts. It lasts something like 1,5 eps of the drama but is a nice story itself. A lonely bellicose boy from a rich family runs away from home where no one cares for him and lives on the street. A lonely girl from an extremely poor family and being bullied by classmates tries to survive in this world. They meet each other and understand that it's easier to fight their fate together. Nice story, it's a pity that this one is too short and not a main plot of the drama.

Descent

Drama: The Spirealm / 致命游戏 Characters: Ruan Lanzhu & Ling Jiushi Screentime: Main

It's a really rare but interesting dynamics (and it is a huge spoiler to this drama itself, so beware): the god-like creature (a monster of the 12th door in the novel "Kaleidoscope of death" and a VR-virus in its adaptation, "The Spirealm") has to keep company to a mere person. During their journey, a god-like creature finds out that said mere person is not really mere, and unexpectantly develops feelings for him, which cause his "descent" and allow him to be a little bit less ethereal and a little bit more human. I like the drama more than the novel, but the lore and the story are great in both of them. The novel has HE and the drama ending is controversial: you can consider it as BE or as delayed HE, but it's heart-wrenching, powerful and logical. Also you can see: Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt. 2) Asian dramas and my favorite types of characters Asian dramas and Love tropes Enemies to Rivals/Lovers recipe

Living & Dead Whose 墓碑 is there?

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

Enemies/Rivals to Lovers recipe

(with the mild version aka Pride and Prejudice and the tragic version aka Romeo and Juliet) Step 1: The main heroes are on the opposite sides of any scale (the grumpy one vs a cheerful one, a kind and stupid one vs a cunning and vile one, a demon vs a god, a master vs a servant, people of enemy states or absolutely different cultures etc.).

A cheerful and funny little bird demon-yao Qing Qing and a grumpy and stone-faced deity of Netherworld Xue Qianxun Step 2: They are forced to communicate with each other without a chance to avoid it (e.g. an arranged marriage, being trapped somewhere together, working as a mole in the enemy camp etc.).

Asura King Xuan Ye plays out damsel in distress to get undercover into Heavenly Realm and his future lover Ran Qing is the one who "rescues" him.

Step 3: One party get impressed by unique character features of other (e.g. the person is the only one who isn't terrified by other's scary reputation, the only one who treats other party well etc.).

Even kings and princes are in absolute terror seeing Gwi - an immortal all-powerful vampire, and only Hye Ryung hates him so much that dares to bicker, scold and deny him. Step 4: One of the parties takes the first step towards another and that melts another`s heart.

Even if Hou Ling Changjin hurt Princess Bao Zhu for her miraculous blood, she still cares for him and doesn`t hold a grudge.

"You are injured!"

Step 5: Here come mutual pining, UST and moral sufferings "what is more important: to fulfil the mission / to be accepted by the society / whatsoever or to love?"

Gong Shangjue doubts if he can indulge himself being gentle with the girl he likes if she is an assassin from the enemy clan.

Shangguan Qian adds Shangjue`s favorite flowers into her tea and thinks about her mission of taking him down.

Step 6: It`s time to confess the feelings.

Leader of a diabolic sect Li Chenlan comes to save his beloved who hated him and tried to kill him and promises her to be her sword and shield. So romantic!

Step 7: The parties try to solve the problem that keeps them apart. If the problem is internal (it has something to do with beliefs and prejudice of a person), here it will be solved and «happily ever after» begins.

Despite of his low social status Hao Du ventures to participate in the competition, wins the right to marry the princess (who he is in love with) and dares to be honest explaining that he did it not only in order to save her from a Barbarian prince but because he truly wants to be with her. Step 8: If the problem is external (there is a large-scale conflict and the parties are just some insignificant participants of it), one of the parties sacrifices themselves to solve the problem.

Before saving the world by the cost of his life Demon God Tantai Jin engraves his name on his own tombstone placed next to his beloved wife's one, so in the future she could mourn him in a suitable place.

Step 9: In a satisfying story there is a magical reward of party's brave deed, which is a happy end.

Demon Lord Dongfang Qingcang sacrificed himself in order to save the girl he loved and died but his girlfriend (who happens to be a Goddess with abilities to resurrect the dead) nurtured a piece of his primordial spirit for 500 years and brought him back to life. Side note: If you want to add some chili pepper into your story, you can break this scheme any step from Step 4 on: pining could be one-sided, UST could never ever be resolved, characters could prefer their goals to love or maybe death or other circumstances would do them apart against their will.

The Wolf and Ma Zhaixing finally got together but the cruel world couldn`t allow it to last anytime long.

Bon Appétit! Your Enemies to Lovers story is well-baked!

Also you can see: Asian dramas and Love tropes Asian dramas and my favorite types of characters Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt. 1) Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt. 2)

This is an English translation of my Russian poem, which you can read here.

Guess who is my fav in "The Legend of Shen Li"

I'll be honest: I couldn't break through "Shen Li" when it was ongoing because main heroes' dynamics and character traits are absolutely not my cup of tea, but tumblr sold me something like BL with this guy, so, in the drought period in c-dramaland, I decided to give it another try. And guess what? There were absolutely no BL vibes, but the guy turned out to be my type, so I kinda enjoyed watching.

But if I just enjoyed it, there will be no this post, of course. So, let's talk about Mo Fang.

The guy is a son of a bad guy, who was from his infancy raised with the thought that he is amongst enemies and has to avenge his father. Let's stick to this thought: he was groomed to avenge his father in extremely patriarchal society where filial piety is more important that one's life.

But still, even if he was groomed to hate them all as traitors, he was still able to pay attention to kindness and bravery of the main heroine and it made him like her.

So, he grew up with this inner conflict: on the one hand, he is here to avenge his father, it's a very important task in Ancient Chinese setting; on the other hand, to avenge his father he has to betray those around him, who are good people and nice to him.

And, more painfully, he has to betray the love of his life, the Princess he is serving under.

There are two types of unrequited love in cinematography: in Western culture, love turns a villain to the light side and makes them sacrifice themselves for the sake of their love as an act of repent; in Eastern culture, inability to let go of desires leads the character to their doom and everyone accuses them of this weakness post mortem. But this drama combines these two approaches.

Mo Fang's love for the Princess pushes the story forward - him saving his love ruin the bad guys' plan, and his final sacrifice helps the main heroes to win. As if he is a Western villain.

On the other hand, everyone - form the characters to the screen writer - accuses him of being weak and making the wrong choices as if he had free will and was one of those traditional Chinese xianxia villains who made their wrongdoings because of their obsessions. In reality, the guy was groomed for a thousand years to kill them all (and still was not eager to do it), he was possessed by the evil spirits for the half of drama, he wanted to die for the half of the drama in order not to be the weapon of the bad guys (but the bad guys didn't allow him to die). Through the comparison of Sheng Li & her Father and Mo Fang we see that a monster who was raised in love can be a good person, and a normal person who was raised by a villain can fall lowly. And the latter still tried to get out of this abyss.

The only free will he has is his choice to fight against teachings of his groomer, to take back the control over his possessed body in order to save the main heroine and to die in order not to make more troubles to the mains. Still, the main heroine says that he is unredeemable and other characters pay absolutely no attention to his fate and don't take into account the bad guy he is possessed with.

The mains consider his suicide as an act of setting himself free, which is meh. I find this philosophy of "if you are weak, no matter if this weakness is the result of circumstances or it's the prison of your own mind, it's better for you to die" awful. You need to fight your doom and to do impossible, to defy heavens and death itself (and then you become the main hero of the story) or to die trying (and then no one will shred a single tear for you, because only winners count). But I will. I will shred tears. Because everyone deserves the second chance. Thank you, all the dramas that allow it to happen.

My tribute to "The Silmarillion", part 2. Embroidery of Silmarils and their fate. To the Sea One Silmaril was thrown by Maglor in the depths of sea because it had burnt his hands unbearable. You can see here the ocean waves, the star of the House of Fёanor, Maglor's hair, Maglor's hands burnt to the flesh and the Everlasting light of Silmaril in them.

To the Earth The other Silmaril was buried in the core of the Earth with it's host, Maedhros, because of the pain that jewel caused. You can see here the red wave of magma swallowing Maedhros, two white lilies as a symbol of his death, the star of the House of Fёanor, Maedhros' hair, his golden hand instead of missing one, the left hand burnt to the flesh and the Everlasting light of Silmaril shining through his fist.

Arda Envinyanta The third Silmaril is in the hands of his creator, Fёanor. It`s told that at the end of times he will resurrect and break his jewels by himself in order to return the Everlasting Light to Arda Healed. You can see here some blooming flowers of Arda Healed, the star of the House of Fёanor, Fёanor's hair with the flower hairpin (each flower of which represents one of his seven sons), his hands adorned with rings and the Everlasting light of Silmaril above them.

For more entourage photos and close-ups you can visit my AO3: