Moonshine

kdramas + cdramas, old books and tea. french films, bollywood, poetry,

[odetoalibrary]

I think Cai Pingshu would have been better off with Mu Qingyan’s boring dad after all

I was so sure that the reveal would be that these two had a star crossed romance that ended in tragedy and misunderstandings but no this guy was a complete dickhead.

Also gosh this reveal is darrrrrk. Mu Qingyan’s said several episodes ago that he didn’t like his uncle but I thought he was just being petty. Like Miss Marple, he has a nose for evil.

In comparison to all these gripping character dynamics (including the coup in the Song family) it is SO obvious who the main villain is and it has been since the first ten episodes. They could have put in a bit more effort!

[shamster]

Me reading another Agatha Christie novel: I wonder what will happen in THIS one 👀

Agatha Christie: A murder

Me: Ooooh 👀👀👀

[odetoalibrary]

Yuzhi is proof that he’s so much better than the previous generation. Rejected multiple times by his crush and still manages to treat his love rival like a human being.

Oh and it’s established that he’s smart too so he’s clocked what Mu Qingyan is doing. As Shang Guan said, he’d be a formidable opponent as a sect leader.

You crazy bitch

This is hitting my crazy male lead button that so many other cdramas have failed to do. Their leads show this madness to an extent then seem to draw back but this guy just abandoned his whole sect on a wild mission to get his girlfriend to admit she wants him.

On another note, kind of disappointed that it wasn’t his dad who had a doomed romantic relationship with girl of my dreams, Cai Ping Shu. It would have made him slightly more interesting.

[f247kdrama]

My Royal Nemesis: Lim Ji-yeon and Heo Nam-jun’s Time-Transcending Duo Poster Revealed

NEW POSTER ALERT! LimJiYeon and HeoNamJun are serving elite visuals in MyRoyalNemesis. A Joseon villainess meets a 21st-century chaebol? May 8th can't come soon enough!

My Royal Nemesis: Lim Ji-yeon & Heo Nam-jun Duo Poster Out

Lim Ji-yeon and Heo Nam-jun spark chemistry in the new My Royal Nemesis poster. Discover the plot, release date of this 2026 SBS K-drama her

[odetoalibrary]

I need this nowwwww

[trans-pickles]

you don't need to write a dark deconstruction of Peter Pan where he's willing to kill people and his state of eternal childhood makes him morally ambiguous, JM Barrie already wrote one and it's called Peter Pan

[odetoalibrary]

It’s been a while since they’ve let a male lead be this creepy and I thank whoever let this happen. He’s unhinged and the show wants to make it plain he is unhinged without sugar coating it.

I actually like this guy. He’s not made a nuisance of himself despite catching them both in compromising positions and having ambiguous feelings. He also respects Cai Zhao’s intelligence!!

And of course she does because our girl is an absolute boss. That memory of her aunt dying was utterly brutal. And so was this break up scene. Confess I rewatched it a couple of times.

Cackling over the fact she says even your more politically powerful ancestor wasn’t able to marry mine so what makes you think you can? Mu Donglie catching stray bullets beyond the grave.

[dangermousie]

The original:

The remake:

OK, here we go:

the originals all look adult. So much of the remake is kids playing dress up.

Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin had insane chemistry; it was insane to such a degree that it gave their ship a huge following despite being, objectively, kind of a mess writing wise. Here, there is none between LYR and HYTT (also that forehead kiss omg. I was Team Yan Xun on my rewatch but even I melted completely there. Here...yeah whatever.) It's giving peak "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. No, you can't have my number, there is no maybe."

Let's talk acting. Or lack of the same. Li Yunrui acts as well as Lin Gengxin did (or at least I am not cringing watching him.) I have already ranted about ZKL's frozen model face so let's talk about HYTT. Now, Zhao Liying is a big deal but even when we compare HYTT to your average decent performance, I am going ???? because she seems to think bugging eyes means emotion.

This scene was the culmination of the entire drama in PA and the reason it worked was because we watched these characters make choices and have the world deprive them of choices, all to lead to this confrontation where love and friendship and damage and enmity merged. Here, we open with this so other than PA nostalgia, I should care...why? Maybe if it was more emotional but as is...

It's very much that whole "we got McDonalds at home" meme in drama form.

PS The main thing it's making me want to do is to rewatch Shen Li.

[odetoalibrary]

I am actually shrieking because every man in this family is insane.

I thought I was getting peak enemies to lovers with a soft boy demon lord and a bad ass clan woman. Especially with how pathetic he looks here

And here

Abandonment issues and love at first sight obviously runs in the family. Look at him here! He’s just kidnapped her from her wedding day.

I ship them

[odetoalibrary]

Grandpa turns out to be a garden variety misogynist. A woman from an enemy clan must be a witch or seductress to fit into his worldview where he can avoid opposing a dangerous man.

And what cracks me up is that Mu Qingyan doesn’t even try diplomacy like his wily subordinate does. He just tells it as it is

Yes!!!! And love to see him speak of Cai Pingshu like this because every flashback has given me the biggest crush on her. And look at Cai Zhou hearing his true feelings about her aunt. Love it!

[odetoalibrary]

Oh yea things are not ok in their top storeys and I’m here for it!!

Look at his face!! The fear of abandonment is stamped all over it. And he just had to fall for a woman with a thirst for enjoying life and freedom.

[dangermousie]

You guys are not dressed for this expedition. None of you have hats, and the cloaks are fur-lined but not with enough fur. You need a literal fur coat and hat. Also, fur boots and fur-lined mittens.

Source - used to live in very cold climate. Also, common sense!

I mean, you don't even have scarves! Look at this bare skin:

I realize internal power can keep you warm but only up to a point, people!

[odetoalibrary]

He looks perfectly trustworthy to me

[odetoalibrary]

I started watching this for the….plot. Just kidding. I’ve no idea what this is about and I don’t usually go for wuxia style dramas but both leads are serving cunt so I had to.

[rain-sleet-snow]

I know it's a joke that Legolas doesn't really connect to the hobbits - and in the movies that does pretty much seem true - but I'm rereading, and, as the Three Hunters arrive at Fangorn, I've noticed something interesting. Legolas doesn’t bond with individual hobbits the way Gimli or Boromir do (Gimli taking Frodo to see Kheled-zaram, Boromir fishing Frodo out of a snowdrift on Caradhras before he can succumb to hypothermia) and he has not been generally adopted by the hobbits, the way Aragorn has become their certified dad friend and Gandalf is their collective weird grandpa. But throughout the hunt for Merry and Pippin and the meeting with Gandalf in his new guise as Gandalf the White, Legolas consistently pushes for the hunters to move faster, not to rest overnight but to keep going, dwelling on Merry and Pippin's safety and repeatedly asking Gandalf for news of them, if they are safe, whether they will see them again. He's really disappointed to go to Edoras instead of locating Merry and Pippin immediately!

Given that Legolas also says that Fangorn is so old a forest it makes him feel young again, young as he has not felt since travelling with "you children" - referring to Gimli and Aragorn, who I would argue are the most seasoned and reasonable people in the Fellowship - I suspect that Legolas likes the hobbits just fine. It’s just that he also sees them as kids. They're going around saying the Middle-earth equivalent of six-seven all the time and cracking jokes about celebrities he's never heard of (what is a Bullroarer when it's at home? Old Bandobras? That explains nothing, Gandalf) and Legolas is clueless. It's not that he's not attached to them, but what is there for him to say? Good for you, kids! Have fun! Do not get kidnapped by orcs! Oh my God, oh fuck, I let them cross the street unsupervised and now they're being kidnapped by orcs -

[shoujopowerscaling]

i want to rewatch so bad but i think putting myself through that again would actually kill me this time

[numerodixe]

Jeon Doyeon and Kim Goeun for Marie Claire - December 2025

[odetoalibrary]

NOOOOOO MY BABY

Watching Wanyin struggle to get that damn gun out while this poor girl was stabbed was soooo frustrating 😭💀

She realised it. She was too intelligent not to. It could have been Wanyin’s mention of Beijing, various pop culture references she didn’t get or hell, even noticing Xiahou Dan has the same dead eyed stare towards her as he does to the other fictional characters.

I like how Wanyin and the show treated her with empathy and dignity to the end.