They're Like The Sun And The Moon 🥺☀️🌑

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

Deep black space and mortal solitude

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.

♥️♥️♥️♥️

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)

Because love no matter what overpowers death

"In this world people hate me, fear me, rely on me, admire me. But she is the only one that loves me. I`m full of thorns and only make her sad. I`m a jerk. But she is a fool, she knows I`m that bad but she makes excuse to forgive me and holds me tight even if it hurts." " Everything in the world is fate except love."

“New moon, lay your mercy on me tonight...” (с) Swallow the Sun I wanted to draw this a long time. The font is designed by Taras Makar. 

Once we watched russian movie “He is a Dragon”, so I drew this.

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.