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So relieved this trailer for Legend of the Female General looks better than all the other ones that have been released. Zhou Ye seems more alive, there's a pulse of energy and a bit of welcomed darkness, and they've fixed some of the coloring issues.

Please come through, drama. It's been almost a year since I've had a Cheng Lei drama and I need to bask in that sexy side-eye as much as possible to get me by until the next one.

Will be taking a break from Cdramas with the exception of Revenged Love until August 6 so I can be fresh and approach this drama with open eyes and an even more open heart lol

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A CENSORED KISS BUT IT'S THE UNDERWATER KISS SCENE NONETHELESS!!!!! MY LORD!!!! HUA CHENG'S APPROACH REFLECTED IN XIE LIAN'S EYES!!!

— TGCF 天官赐福 Special Film | EP. 03 Trailer (Full episode shows in Shanghai at a special event from today onwards, online release TBA)

+ UNDERWATER BEAUTY DIANXIA

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social contract is all fucked now, nobody wears ear buds on the train anymore and almost nobody will assassinate a politician for the greater good

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JITD MEMES:P-2

( He is a baby and no one can convince me otherwise.)

👀

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An Zhe would have done numbers on tumblr he'd be like "looking for my spore #myspore" and it would get 40k notes

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joy of life | princess of beiqi

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Have some cake, Happy Bastille Day

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Imagine being make up and costume and being that close to a guy you've made beautiful and watching him up close be indifferent to the process and, specifically, you.

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That filter tho. Every time this crosses my eyes, they water in protest.

I need him to sing the whole song!

Everybody's probably seen this already, but here's a clip of Zhang Xincheng singing You Raise Me Up as a final treat in last week's livestream. I've included the context so you know why he looks like... that.

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Am I the only one utterly entranced by his ankles 👀👀

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Look I love unconditional devotion love stories as much as the next person, but there's really something so deliciously raw about conditional devotion.

I have served you and I have loved you for decades, but I will not give up my principles for you. You cut out part of my heart and took it with you down that path that you insist on walking, but you walk it alone. Even when the bleeding, gaping hole you left in my chest kills me, I will not follow you.

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The way Fan Xian feels more and more rage because none of it even registered for Second Prince, none of the deaths gave him a second's thought. (It's interesting that he can't even fathom why FX would care, unlike Crown Prince who does fathom that FX cares and weaponizes it and more people end up dead.)

And the way it comes back into play at the end of the ep where FX reveals he poisoned the prince's wine (or did he?) and gives him the antidote (or does he?) and parrots the prince's words back and it's a whole different ballgame when it's his own life on the line, isn't it?

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Wallace Huo!?!

Also, the woman on the right, at the back, looks uncannily like Song Zuer?

Bwahahahaha! Did I mention they are having this discussion while Fuya and Qi You are clutching each other for dear life in the background?

I never shipped Fuya with Lian Cheng but you gotta love the guy and his…attitude about his wife’s other entanglements :P

Love him, seriously.

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It's actually fascinating watching the latest eps of A Dream Within a Dream and The Princess's Gambit side by side because it's like a masterclass in how to make a trope work versus fuck it up.

In both the narratives in this point, ML is in love and wants to treat FL well but FL does not trust ML and treats him unpleasantly. Yet, Gambit has me in love and Dream the opposite.

In any fictional romantic relationship, there are two questions both of which must be answered satisfactorily for me ship it. One is "does it make sense for this character to love that character in light of personalities, treatment etc" and the other "does it feel fair to me as a viewer."

TTEOTM is a great example of the duality - because it utterly and completely makes sense for Tantai Jin to love Susu despite her treatment of him - with his personality, background, life etc it totally fits. But the reason my main emotional involvement was with him and him getting what he wants instead of even involvement is because while it makes sense for the character(s), it did not feel fair to me as a viewer the man went through all that for little compensation/reciprocity. Or take Feud, neither prong was answered satisfactorily for me and the drama fell apart. To get a "yes" - it does not have to be a couple with equal degree of ride or die - I adore 17 x XY in LYF and it took her a LONG time to commit - but it has to be both make sense for characters' feelings but also to see how it could work for them and for them both to give the most they can (even if in XY's case, for a long time the most she can give is damaged and locked under conditions - she does her best and she's as open as her damage allows her to be. It feels fair.) The other person may not get the same devotion out of the person for me to love it but they have to get something they need differently but as much (once again LYF comes to mind; 17's very sense of self and being able to exist as not a mad cripple is because of XY.)

And Dream is failing the test while Gambit is passing it.

Dream FL is not using any of her brain, not that she has much. Her constant lack of thinking things through or seeing others as people or her utter lack of concern for ML feels disproportionate even if we remove everything he's done for her as Masked Man and only stick to what he's done as himself. But while I get why he fell for her because he's so love-starved, it's becoming harder and harder to even go with that part of the two parter because she's hardly done epic things for him as masked persona and it's so outweighed by the rest that one can't help but wonder if he's an idiot himself.

Meanwhile in Gambit - first of all, FL literally does not remember ML (or at best has vague fragments that indicate he may have sexually assaulted her) so it is eminently reasonable for her to be a bitch to him. But it also feels fair as a viewer watching this because frankly, he's been awful to her - he's tried to have her killed thrice (!!!), he didn't trust her and threw her into a dungeon (it makes sense why he did but fact remains) and she got whipped (and yeah he did not order it but taking a woman to a dungeon and telling workers there to get info from her is - he's not an idiot - he was just t0o angry to think), he risked her life on that mountain etc etc etc. He also loves her madly, he's since realized he was wrong about her and repented but basically her putting him through his paces does not feel unfair so I am watching and enjoying...

Anyway, fix it Dream!

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@xiakeponz okay also realized that Darcy is very much 有车有房父母双亡

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Oooh! Love this.

There's a book that we had in our house growing up that I was obsessed with as a kid. It was just called "PAKISTAN: PAINTINGS BY LIN YONG AND SU HUA" and it was an art book of 100+ paintings/sketches by two Chinese artists who travelled thru Pakistan in 1978 and 1981, a sort of travelogue of their trip, and to little-kid me, it was some of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I have no idea why we had that book, but I would stare at it for hours, and it made me wish I could draw/paint/do whatever it was that these artists had managed to do.

Anyway, we've moved house a bunch of times and I lost track of the book and haven't seen it for probably two decades now. But I think about it now and again, and had struggled to find it over the years, but I finally, finally got my hands on a copy of my own and i want to cry haha

I was afraid that maybe the art isn't as good as I remembered, being just a kid and all, but I cracked it open and nope, it hits me just the way it used to. Maybe even more now. It's so fucking pretty. Have some random pages: