yongzheng emperor count your fucking days

grook | 21 | she/her

[zhen-huan]

empresses in the palace sideblog whoaaa!! i first binged the condensed netflix version back in 2020, then watched the full show on yt and am currently abt 3/4s through a rewatch! this blog probably wont be super active but i like organising my blogs so :3

i might want to watch ruyi's royal love after my rewatch and that will probably also end up here lmao

update: i am not watching ruyi, but i am watching story of yanxi palace right now!

[zhen-huan]

consort dowager yu threatening yingluo by threatening her father is so funny. girl i think she doesn't give a fuck, she'd kill him herself in a heartbeat

[zhen-huan]

i have to respect consort dowager yu hearing her son be accused of rape and not hesitating for a second to beat his ass

[zhen-huan]

i am retracting this statement. what the hell man

[zhen-huan]

"i believe god has already delivered my fated match to me :)" fuheng sweetie i love you but she has heavily considered killing you several times at this point

[zhen-huan]

despite how i hate her, watching noble consort gao's opera supplies be destroyed in front of her did make me cry for her

[zhen-huan]

watching story of yanxi palace so far has been a constant journey of yelling "what is WRONG with you" at yingluo

[zhen-huan]

noble consort gao they could never make me form a solid opinion on you

[zhen-huan]

YINGLUO YOU CAN'T GO AROUND STABBING PEOPLE IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY??

[daisy-mooon]

Thinking about how despite how neither Zhen Huan or Huanbi were maliciously jealous over Yunli, like Yinzhen was with Yunli over Zhen Huan, or Yixiu was with Chunyuan over Yinzhen, Zhen Huan was still forced to essentially kill Huanbi when she had to kill Yunli. All Zhen Huan wanted was to protect Huanbi and give her a good life, yet she was forced to become just like her greatest enemies for her and her children's survival. The palace destroys every loving relationship, romantic or platonic, whether you wanted too or not, whether you had a choice in it or not.

[moltensoultraveler]

Yongzheng's death is perfect because Zhenhuan and Lanyi would have never been able to kill him if it hadn't been for his arrogant confidence in his control over his consorts and lack of respect for their agency.

1. Yongzheng is a highly intelligent and paranoid man who survived an infamous battle for the throne and spent his life obsessively pruning his inner circle for any traitors.

2. Yongzheng has watched his consorts murder royals and get away with it. He knows what they're capable of. He just didn't think they'd turn the very same tactics on him.

3. Before they started collabing to murder him, both Zhenhuan and Lanyi had made it abundantly clear that they hated him. Zhenhuan despised him after Yunli's death and initially made no effort to hide it, Lanyi consistently acted proud and apathetic towards Yongzheng's interest towards her for her whole existence in his harem.

4. Lanyi's sudden change of attitude towards him should have raised especially giant red flags if Yongzheng didn't assume that she had just accepted her fate as being his consort forever.

[zhen-huan]

I finished Road to Empress 1 just now and I cried all throughout the part with Gaoyang and Bianji

[moltensoultraveler]

after watching Zhen Huan, Ruyi and Yanxi I get Ruyi's exhaustion on such a fundamental level because what the fuck is the point of protecting yourself from schemers and accusers? As soon as one of them loses influence/dies another crops up again. The emperor is guilt tripped into having basic trust in you for a blissful 1 month before he's back to his usual bullshit. Rinse and repeat until the dude kicks the bucket or get killed by one of you. You desperately wrangle you or your ally's kid onto the throne to make sure the new emperor isn't someone out to make your life hell as a result of generational grudges. You then watch the new emperor become a piece of shit reminiscent of your toxic husband as every human weakness gets exacerbated into a moral failing by his environment. You spend the rest of your days trapped in the forbidden city surveying the dozens of new gen harem women with a watchful eye while your relationship with your children potentially falls apart around you. you die of old age in a harem that's by this time became a train wreck, half a dozen grandkids prematurely in the grave, man on the throne completely unrecognisable to you

[daisy-mooon]

[daisy-mooon]

An Lingrong moodboard

[daisy-mooon]

[redxluna]

There's a rather "blink and you'll miss it" parallel made within An Lingrong's character arc that I've always wound up liking.

All the way back toward the start of the show, when Lingrong is still friends with both Zhen Huan and Meizhuang, she enters the Cold Palace to prove herself able to be of use when Yu refuses to commit suicide as ordered without seeing the emperor one last time and plead her case.

Ultimately, Yu winds up doomed not only for her loss of status, but also from how the palace eunuchs, tired of her continual disrespect, have no interest in extending kindness to her either.

Then, much later on in the show, a now very different Lingrong winds up speaking with Su Peisheng on the cusp of her own downfall and...

It's as if, now higher in status, she's forgotten the tools she used when she had less and just how efficient they can be. (Although, to be fair, I think another factor is how, at this point, Lingrong knows she's approaching the end and so no longer cares to censor her words.)

[daisy-mooon]

Something so sad about the Zhen Huan, Yunli and Huanbi dynamic is that obviously Zhen Huan's twins can't know that Yunli is their father, but neither the twins nor Longyue can know that Huanbi is their maternal aunt. There's several moments when Huanbi is looking at Longyue with clear adoration on her face, and Longyue isn't looking at her at all... :(