Blossom 九重紫 (2024) Dir. Zeng Qing Jie – Ep. 1

Previous year my biggest crush canon was "The Silmarillion" by J.R.R. Tolkien, specifically the story of Fёanor's sons. So here I am. Before and After All that they had before turned into ashes, only bloody Silmaril burnt Maglor`s hand in the end.

Cenotaph Cenotaph is some kind of symbolical grave where is no one to be buried. In my mind one is ready to let their deceased ones go when it seems that their grave has become empty. Maybe before it was a real grave of Maedhros' and Maglor's brothers but life goes on and now it feels empty indeed.

Beyond Sorrow Maglor plays Noldolantë and his kantele laments about all the loses and regrets of his with quenya word nainië (lament). But his heart still hopes for the reunion of all Eldar and forgiveness from Valar and Eru in Arda Envinyanta and sings with quenya word estel (hope).

How to fight your doom (Pt. 3)

Episodes 9-13 From now on, Devil is interested in Girl not only because of the curse. Нe likes that Girl likes him and, as a result, he likes Girl back. And it changes his behavior, making his attitude more obvious. He could protect her just as before, by forcing her to stay always within his eyesight, but instead of it he secretly gives her an amulet so he could protect her from afar (because she didn`t want him to be here). This amulet is made of Blood of Devil`s Heart, that is very xianxia thing too (In c-dramas I have watched this is the most powerful magic of immortal beings, which is used to save and to protect the most important people. Extracting it out of one`s heart is very painful and destroys part of one`s cultivation. Maybe it doesn`t work this way in this story, but I like to think of it so). And then he says that he doesn`t want to disappoint her, so he would wait until the most important for her meeting is over to ask her again to fix the Destiny Book.

So, they like each other and they are equal for now: some ordinary fairy and some ordinary demon. But as we know, she thinks he is an ordinary demon only by accident (the power of accident in this story is HUGE): she sneezed while he was introducing himself so she didn`t hear his true name. And sooner or later she should face the truth and cope it somehow.

Btw, it`s funny, that in this story Heavenly Emperor says many times, that God of War is the only equal to Devil, but we repeatedly can see that he is not. Even with the help of his hypocritical friend he can`t beat Devil. The situation in Emperor`s Hall brings Devil`s and Girl`s relationships on the next level by revealing their misalliance: he is not just ordinary demon.

"So, you are Dongfang Qingcang".

She cries because this level of caring she saw only from her long gone Mistress. And he fights all the Fairy Realm forces including Heavenly Emperor himself to take her back! First of all, of course, he protects his life, but he doesn`t destroy Emperor`s Hall ONLY because Girl asks him not to do so. He does as she said because her opinion is important to him. He hopes to win her heart.

This scene is beautiful too: he doesn`t kill God of War because of Girl`s plea but also he tries to show her that people like GoW never choose her over their duty. Unlike Devil himself (and Devil will choose her over his duties plenty many of times). She is in love with GoW and Devil wants to win her heart over him, so he tries to show her what he can do for her everything that her dream beloved can`t. It`s the right way to impress the girl.

"Do you want to save her or your Shuiyuntian?"

But now their relationships change a lot. She knew him before like a caring criminal who is in love with her. And now she knows that he is also the most fearsome monster in the world, covered with blood of fairies as well as his own father`s, a man, who was hated by everyone in the Fairy Realm so much, that his death date has been celebrated each year for 30 000 years. She is afraid of him. She thought she knew him, but she understands now that she doesn`t know him at all.

And the great tragedy of this moment is that he can`t understand it. For him everything is left the same. He treats her as well as before and thinks that she likes him as before.

He shows her his power out of petty jealousy (Devil is obvious more powerful than GoW and any fairy in Fairy Realm, in the Demon Realm everyone respects power, so why is Girl not impressed and still dreams of GoW?). But he still wants to win her heart so he makes very romantic thing and rides with her a dragon (it`s Chinese romantic trope and I like it a lot).

This is my favorite visual moment in this drama: a young and beautiful goth prince holds his beloved girl while her emotions swing from horror to excitement.

When they are in his realm, he wants her to treat him like before and proceeds to do things to please her. He even proclaims his feelings (not «I love you», but very straightforward anyways): I`ll do everything for you and indulge everything to you. But she irrationally wants to go back, wants to see God of War and that pisses Devil off. He is used to take whatever he wants, to conquer everything he needs (and he says it directly when they talk about home), but human`s heart can`t be conquered. Angry Devil tells Girl he was pretending all the time and even orders Dragon boy to find a sword pieces to kill Girl safely off. It`s very understandable but it ruins their previous relationships to the ground: before Girl thought that he treated her well AND a monster, but now only monster in her eyes left.

But he is really fluffy and nice guy in his soul and the only way to show it to Girl is to force her to know more about him and his usual life. So here we have another body swap.

"I think Shangque is very loyal to you and would never betray you. You don`t know human heart so you don`t know about it".

Forced to spend her time with the monster and to be in his shoes for a couple of days, Girl learns a lot: spooky demons are not so spooky as fairies have said – they are just another immortal race; it`s hard to be the demon lord – everyone is afraid of you or hates you, you can`t trust anyone, even your relatives; Devil is really a jerk, although is more like human being jerk, not this faceless monster from the fairy legends.

He feels that she treats him in different way and even questions himself if it is because he is the legendary demon lord, but in his mind there can only be two options in girl`s heart: either she likes him (and not GoW at the same time)  or she doesn`t like him.

He knows he is already dead because she obviously likes GoW and wants to go with him.

So when Girl saves his life instead of going back with GoW he thinks she chooses him over GoW, so this is partly the reason why he kisses her for the second time (but mostly because he wants to mock GoW with her choice), but she rejects him again and leaves him not understanding anything.

Then he realizes that he really doesn`t understand human heart: he thinks about her words and actions (she likes GoW and wants to be with him in the Fairy Realm, she plead for GoW`s life so many times when Devil fought him, so why would she save Devil?) and even asks Dragon boy what`s going on (He has HUGE potential to know humans hearts in all of their subtlety and it was a real crime to take this potential away from him in his past). But the most important thing in Dragon boy`s life is loyalty, so he thinks it was it (and from now on he starts to like Girl). Was it something more than Girl`s merciful nature in that moment? I don`t think so. But it tells Devil that he is on the right path. So he proceeds to make nice things to her. He is very solid in his feelings towards her.

I like this moment not only because of his will to make her happy (because he knows she likes flower showers) but also because she looks for him too when it happens. As if she thinks that he did not tell her the truth when he said that there is no love between them.

Episodes 1-7 Episode 8 Episodes 13-19 Episodes 20-26 Episodes 27-34

FANGS OF FORTUNE (2024)

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

The portrait of my colleague Andrey

Hot GIFs to get your attention

I still can't cope with the ending of TtEotM, so I want to read something similar to "Black Moonlight holds the BE script": a bad guy, a good girl, love and then the happy end. (Or maybe watch something like LbFaD). Can you guys advice me something? It`s not necessary should be something Chinese, I enjoyed "Cruel Prince" by Holly Black although the dynamics was quite different.

Li Lun, a villain I feel for (Pt. 3/4)

While no one remembers of Li Lun anymore, he is still here. His body is destroyed but he can possess other people, so he secretly possesses a little traitor from the main heroes’ camp. Little Traitor is ½ wood, so his body suits LL well (LL is a sophora, after all).

He dramatically reveals himself as Li Lun to the main heroes and says that he can destroy Little Traitor’s soul wholly and make this body his forever, but he doesn’t do it. If we think of it not as of another script flaw, he needs this body not to live happily ever after in his new healthy shell far far away from any dull exes, but to talk to ZYZ!

Poor Ao Ying, I like her, too! She is LL's mirror: death is the price of loyalty and not having your own private life.

He is hurt and angry, so he vents his anger on ZYZ’s new boyfriend (His behavior here is realistic!). The fight looks very raw and feral, and you can see LL’s feelings seeping through it.

He doesn’t really need to keep ZYZ’s boyfriend alive. You may say that ZYZ’s boyfriend is the only one who can kill ZYZ with his magical sword, and LL wants ZYZ dead, but he obviously doesn’t: he breaks the magical sword of ZYZ’s boyfriend by himself and doesn’t want it to be restored, in order to not to be expelled from Little Traitor’s body. What is the best way to leave that sword not restored ever again? Yeah, right, to kill its owner! LL has an opportunity, a lot of them, during this fight, but he wants to humiliate ZYZ’s boyfriend, not to kill him.

It’s very important for LL that other people can see his true self, so he lends Truth Eye to almost everyone except for ZYZ. Because ZYZ promised LL to see his heart with his own heart.

But the triumph of LL’s pettiness is short: the main heroes gather together to tell LL that he is stupid because he helped the killer of those dungeon demons with his own hands.

LL goes to dungeons to kill Big Bad in Mask, but the guy says that LL’s current body is poisoned and he will die if Big Bad in Mask dies. How Little Traitor’s body’s death relates to Big Bad in Mask’s death I don’t understand even now. But LL leaves his attempts to kill Big Bad in Mask, which is strange, and focuses fully on attempts to leave Little Traitor’s body for himself, although it’s dying from poison and of no much use anymore. OK, the main heroes don’t give a flying heck about Big Bad in Mask, his zombies and demon tortures, but LL? (But at least he tried to kill him, unlike ZYZ, who wholeheartedly didn’t give a damn).

Why wouldn’t he possess any other healthy body that could contain his fierce spirit? Maybe possessing this very boy is his twisted attempt to be a part of ZYZ’s life as far as he doesn’t understand what’s the difference between him and new ZYZ’s friends and why can’t he be a part of ZYZ’s life anymore. It’s pathetic, yet still understandable.

He tries to put the crimp into the main heroes’ attempts to restore the sword because he doesn’t want to lose Little Traitor’s body and die, but, at the same time, he actually helps ZYZ’s boyfriend to stay alive without the sword (there was so many variants whose inner core could be given to ZYZ's boyfriend for that...).

And then this dialog happens:

I was in such a GREAT PAIN. The worse of their conversations ever. ZYZ tells the person who was his boyfriend and was killed by him twice that he will kill him for the third time to save people he knows a couple of millenias less than him. And when LL brings on for the last time the topic of what’s the difference between him and them, ZYZ says that he is the only reason of everything what happened to him. It’s such a hypocrisy! Yes, LL should leave the body that isn’t his, it’s right thing to do, but ZYZ knows the way how to keep him alive if he does it! Yet he doesn’t say a word about it. Moreover, he is the main reason why LL doesn’t have his own body anymore. Yet he prefers to say something like “only your voluntary death can atone your sins, anyone’s life is more precious that yours”, which hurts af considering their previous relationship and the way ZYZ cut LL out of his life.

Meanwhile, the current ZYZ’s boyfriend, who used to be a demon hunter and killed demons, turns himself into one.

His ancestor was an ancient water dragon demon, so when his demon blood takes over him, he goes to sleep onto the bottom of the pool in his residence.

Now, as ZYZ's boyfriend became a demon, people who praised him when he was a demon hunter start hating him for his new race. LL comes to him after him being humiliated by humans he used to protect and asks him his question for the last time.

And this conversation is strange af. LL asks if ZYZ’s boyfriend feels anger because he was unfairly accused of crimes and beaten just because he is of other species now (read as: does he feel like LL felt when that dungeon situation happened), and ZYZ’s boyfriend answers that he chooses not to hold a grudge against humans, and his superior attitude will destroy such an evil and hopeless thing as LL is. And throws humiliated LL into the puddle of mud.

It supposes to be a turning point after which LL understands all his wrongs and moves towards his redemption-through-death arch, but in fact it doesn’t work! When I saw it for the first time, I had a gut feeling that something is wrong here, somethings doesn’t work for me. Then I rewatched it to write this post and finally found out what is exactly wrong.

Originally, I thought that it doesn’t work because GJM takes two topics for redemption development and fails to work with them as far as they are intertwined and interfere with each other, but now I see that there is no redemption development topics at all! Let me explain.

Redemption should be driven not by external circumstances, but by inner processes inside a character with the help of external circumstances. For example, if the main problem of LL’s character were his prejudice against humans, his redemption arch could start like this: LL meets a human who is honest and treats demons nice, maybe does something selfless for LL (does all this stuff that LL thought impossible for humans); LL sees it, proceeds it inside himself and changes his mind. Or, if the main problem of LL were his obsession with ZYZ… Oh, it’s harder than the previous one. LL could release his obsession with ZYZ if ZYZ had an understandable reason why he ghosted LL (he, obviously, hasn’t) and they would talk about this reason in a proper way. Or if there were a reason why he is so obsessed with ZYZ, and some another person would show him that it’s possible to cover his needs without ZYZ (but it’s not a topic of a villain character development in a xianxia drama at all, as far as it’s used for the most part in modern romantic stories).

But here LL looks like an abuser’s wife: he literally asks new ZYZ’s boyfriend why ZYZ dumped him, and ZYZ’s boyfriend answers that LL was a bad wife and didn’t behave as ZYZ pleased. Does LL understand what exactly was wrong with his attitude towards humans? No, not at all. The only thing he understands now is that he needs to behave as ZYZ pleases if he wants his boyfriend back. He didn’t change his believes after this conversation. He didn’t overcome his obsession neither (otherwise, why would this absolutely stupid conversation work on him?). Because you can’t bring someone towards redemption by constantly humiliating him and gaslighting him into believing that he is all alone. He isn’t! He has got all the demons of Great Wilderness, he has got Ao Ying, he has got plenty of demons who share his believes. It’s just that he unhealthy obsessed with a guy who doesn’t care about him and can’t see any other good things around him.

Throughout all this scene I expected there to be some gesture of empathy from ZYZ’s boyfriend (because see the first redemption scheme I described), but it never happened. Li Lun also waits for something like that, as we can see in this scene with Ao Ying and an umbrella. The main heroes constantly talk about importance of patience and kindness towards those who don’t deserve it but never show it to LL with their own example.

LL is upset that this gesture of kindness (an umbrella) isn't from any of ZYZ’s squad, and here I feel sad for Ao Ying, too, because she is obsessed with serving LL the same way LL is obsessed with ZYZ, and an obsessed person has no value in the eyes of the object of their obsession. Just like in real life. Sad but true.

The only thing that changes in LL’s character during the story is his stage of acceptance.

Here is Part 1 Here is Part 2 Here is Part 4

A poem is written by me, a music is iday - moon , the picture is a set of collages which are made and animated by me. Русскоязычная версия - тут.

Love this book a lot, so I`m very excited to see the drama! Enemies to lovers is my jam, you know. Especially if there is a lot of sufferings and than the HE.