I swear if someone comes to work for me and has the audacity to immediately change everything about my lifestyle from makeup to bedding to flowerpots and daily meals, I might actually go insane and hallucinate again if I was Ye Li.
Okay I like this Ye Ying. and I love to see Ye Li getting support from her own family besides MXY. She needs more people in her corner to care for her. Get this girl her village!
MYX is giving rich man who throws money at his hobbies and isn't good at it but thinks he is. And everyone in his household knows but lets him be delulu lmao
I know they get back together. I've seen a lot of the spoilers because I can't handle the angst and need to prepare myself. But I still can't bring myself to watch the divorce arc so now I'm stuck at ep 29.
I really like that even thought she has feelings for him, she doesn't excuse his actions at all and want to make sure he is held accountable. More female characters like her please!! I hate when women overlook the awful things men do just because he is good to her or because she likes him.
Girl you is very naive and dumb, so I don't want to be too hard on you. But I also don't want to see you be childish and annoying. like pls leave us alone and go have yourself a young hot widow life.
Bullshit! I would never claim that asshole as my father. BUT I do think it must have made the Marquis feel some semblance of sorrow and regret to hear his son respond to malice with sincerity, and I'm all in favor of making him feel emotionally fucked up.
i think, in a twisted way, ye li's mother's debt to prince ding and his family ended up saving ye li's life.. because she still had a promise to keep. and that kept her going until she finally found her way down the mountain..
Okay, there is something big about like, the past, and facing/not facing the past and burning the past...
Mo Xiuyao is stuck in the past, so Ye Li burns his Trauma Collection so he's able to move forward
Mo Xiuyao burns the symbol of his love for Ye Li when he thinks that his past love is holding her back
Mo Xiuyao was spending too much time facing the past, but Ye Li isn't facing it at all. She rewrote it. So they have like, opposite and equal problems.
(Is the solution setting fire to Lishan? More arson is always the solution)
Good writing, good directing, good costuming and set, solid to really good performances, good STORY good characters!!
Everyone in this drama is a full and complete person. Even if we don’t see the rest of their lives, every single person in this drama has lived a whole life, with pain and suffering and irritation and joy. People don’t need to have complicated characters or personalities in order to be rich and full characters, and I think this drama really highlights this. This is all done with incredible economy as well.
RIP Ling Yun. Qin Cang is apparently okay?? Can we see him again? Can he reunite with his heroine?? Can we please get just ONE nice supporting character romance that ends well????
Okay time for me to ramble about portrayals of disability:
I still have complicated feelings about it, but I do really appreciate that Mo Xiuyao’s disability is treated completely seriously. There is nothing glamorous or romantic or sensationalist about it; his disability causes him tangible, practical, and logistical, REAL problems. In every scene, the characters and the show runners have to navigate the Ancient Chinese Aesthetic TM coming up against the practical reality of a person who can’t walk. He has rings to get in and out of bed, a modified carriage, extendable sedan poles for his chair, and ramps all through his home and work. For eight years of his life, this young man had a severe physical disability and chronic pain, and I BELIEVE it. He suffered a grave injury, he has a disability as a result, and his life has kept on going, despite the stasis he was stuck in at the beginning of the drama.
Likewise, the cure. while, yes, Ye Li’s treatment seems to heal him in a very short period, they do show it taking time, effort, and patience. Nobody but Ye Li or possibly her teacher could have healed MXY’s injuries. And the thing is, if Ye Li had failed, I think at that point MXY would have been okay with that, and he and Ye Li could’ve been happy together. Ye Li would’ve been personally devastated and demoralized, but they’re in love and they would’ve figured it out. But, like, plot! So, cure.
Maybe someday a good drama will be done where the disabled ML prince character is neither faking it nor magically cured and he’s just as disabled at the end of the drama as he was at the beginning, only with a wife he’s madly in love with now, and yes he’s played by a hot young idol the whole time, or even an actually disabled actor. Not yet, tho.
SIMILARLY. Ye Li’s obvious mental illness is portrayed as, by turns, oddly funny, weird, and occasionally truly creepy, but mostly it is treated as something that is a product of something incredibly sad happening to her. Ye Li is never blamed, never babied (MXY’s fussing not withstanding; he calms down) and never shown to be deranged or dangerous outside of ordinary bounds. Her hallucinations are consistent, specific, and the clear and obvious result of a lot of repressed trauma. They’re a symptom of an actual problem, and are only treated as problematic in themselves in cases where they 1) make Ye Li an unreliable witness (i.e., Qing Shuang, sword master delusion confusion, etc.) or 2) cause Ye Li acute distress (i.e., monkey incident). Ye Li’s husband finds out his wife is hallucinating a person who isn’t there, and his reaction is a normal one. He’s afraid for her, not of her, and he tries to address the root cause (deep personal loneliness and trauma) rather than seeking to medicate or institutionalize her inappropriately. Overall, it’s a very careful and nuanced approach to something that’s typically treated sensationally, and I appreciate that.
Okay now for speculation times:
With just 12 episodes to go, we’ve got to get rid of Prince Li, finish dealing with Marquis Muyang and the dowager empress, plus figure out what the FUCK exactly happened on Li Shan.
FUCK Mo Jingli for reallllllll. Kill him I want him DEAD.
Marquis Muyang is whatever i literally dgaf. He killed his own son and he sucks. GOODBYE. Possibly his son will be a pinch hitter in this??
Although we see the dowager empress nearly every episode and know quite a bit about her rise to power, her patterns of thought, and her personal life, I expect we’ll dig into everything more. As much damage as she’s done, she’s portrayed with remarkable sympathy, and I think we might have to see some more cracks in her benevolent steamroller facade before her inevitable fall from grace can really happen.
WHAT HAPPENED ON DEATH MOUNTAIN?
Qing Shuang in Ye Li’s hallucinations is the same age as she was when Ye Li first returned to the mountain for the final time, which makes me think Qing Shuang either died en route to the mountain or very early on during their exile. If she died later, it contrasts with Ye Li’s flashbacks of running around Monkey Cult Death Mountain primarily portrayed by adult Ye Li (Bai Lu) and not her teen actress. There miiiiight be one scene of teen!Ye Li running around?? But at least the majority of the time, it’s definitely Bai Lu.
The mountain is clearly abandoned now, but we didn’t actually get to see bodies when Ye Li’s shixiong stopped by. Everyone is definitely dead, but probably either congregated in one place (see death cult speculation) or spread out widely.
Several flashbacks show fog or smoke, but the bamboo is fine and the buildings seem okay. Conclusion: occasional smoke, possibly from attack, but primarily fog. It’s not a case where, like, somebody burned the mountain down and Ye Li got thrown in a reflecting pool. Poison fog is a definite possibility tho.
I am not completely convinced that the monkeys are actually monkeys. I think that Ye Li’s descriptions of the monkeys’ behavior aligns much more with soldiers or people, but hey it could actually be fucking monkeys. Maybe the monkeys really did go crazy and kill everyone but Ye Li. Why not! Why not. Alternatively: everyone dies, the monkeys eat the bodies, start to crave human flesh, and that’s why they attack Ye Li.
Ye Li is scared of telling MXY. Unclear if this is because she actually did something, she blames herself, or she’s just scared of what happened and telling the truth. We’ll see.
Biggest questions: Was it a weird cult thing or was the mountain attacked? How and why did Ye Li end up the only survivor? How long has Ye Li been hallucinating Qing Shuang? What’s the fucking deal with the monkeys!!!!!
Super excited to see how this ends!! If we can make it to the finish line without going off the rails, we can put this up on the wall of all-time great dramas.
Ummmm Ye Li, you know what else is good for stress relief? Doing your husband 😜 I'm sure the medical books would agree, but you may have mentally blocked out that piece of information lol
This is a small but a sweet nod to her growing sense of emotional safety with MXY. Earlier in the show, she turned down his suggestion of getting a pet because she did not want to get attached and watch it leave. Now she's the one suggesting to bring it home.
This makes a lot of sense due to his mobility issues but ngl I really thought wallowing in self-pity was MXY's all consuming full time job AND personal hobby during those 8 years lol that and bathing in the hot springs 😂
Yall he's literally right there within earshot. Jin, have some faith in your master!
I actually LOLéd at both of their faces when he actually did catch a fish LMAOOO they had NO confidence in his fishing skills
Not him wearing Cangbei clothes to their meetup to make their relationship official. It's gotta be a big deal considering the two nations had been fighting, and we didn't see any of the Dachu officials wear Cangbei clothing even for diplomatic purposes when they were hosting the princess.
Saw the preview for episode 36 and I am so confused/intrigued by this part. Like what is happening??? Lowkey I hate the aphrodisiac stuff in cdramas. It works for specific situations but it just feels contrived and icky most of the time. In Ye Li and MXY’s case, they’ve already consummated and they clearly like each other so idk why they would need an aphrodisiac.
the soundtrack for this show is killing me 😭 the whole refrain of "love is more than romance" as we watch mo xiuyao do the kinds of acts of service that ye li has been doing for him all along - that he thought were charity rather than "real" love - but now he realizes that this was her sincerity all along......
i keep remembering his lamenting that he's never been as good to ye li as she's been to him. she fought him tooth and nail on fixing his legs, burnt the symbols of his perceived failures - basically forced her way into his comfort zone and then back out the other side with him in tow. now xiuyao's not just repaying her kindness, but also her honesty and determination. he's loving her in the ways she needs, not necessarily just the ways either of them want.
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
origamiaround
