academyofbrokenhearts

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go listen to purify by placebo 🔥🔥🔥

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Jiang Qiaoxi and Lin Yingtao's second reunion though! You can see that he's happy to see her, and also tries his best to explain why he brushed her off earlier in the day, but she (understandably) rebuffs him. And then when they meet again later that night, she essentially lashes out completely and tells him that all the childhood memories he cherished were nothing special, that she did all that with her real friends, and that he was never a real friend to her - and I think even at that point she wants him to prove her wrong, but he shuts down completely, and coldly tells her to leave, and after she leaves in tears, we see his mother staring at him through the window!

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When I Fly Towards You (2023) dir. Mao De Shu Ep. 22 │ "I Have Someone Who Listens to My Problems"

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"doesn't this charater under insane stress going through extremely traumatic events realize how inconvenient their irrational emotional reactions are to the people around them?" well, see, you're not gonna believe this, but the thing is,

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It wouldn't be an actual C drama without an abusive parent, wouldn't it?

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OUR GENERATION 樱桃琥珀 (2025) dir. Zhang Kaizhou

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Me, starting a modern drama just because it features Zhang Linghe and Zhao Jinmai? More likely than you think.

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The Double 墨雨云间 (2024) Dir. Bai Yun Mo, Lu Hao Ji Ji, Ma Shi Ge – Ep. 2

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Emma Swan in every episode

2x01 Broken

365 days of Emma Swan ❀ Day 157

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Tamara Ralph | Fall/Winter 2025 Couture

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We've never discussed this. Because I thought this went without saying, but when I catch Red John, I'm gonna cut him open and watch him die slowly like he did with my wife and child. Now, if you have a problem with that, we should talk. Then let's talk.

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I am beside myself at this because this bleak bleak convo goes to the heart of it - maybe she can get her actual memories back but does she want to? Objective reality or her remembered reality, what does she pick? And is returning to the "actuality" erasing the current her? Never thought I'd see this in a cdrama...

And once again, he's pragmatic - he is trying to save her life as the specter of future madness and suicide covers all discussions, but the problem is, that is not enough for her - her very sense of self is at stake. Which self is she?

And the answer is not surprising - and so is their conversation because he says memories or not she is always her, and it's romantic and wonderful but it's both true and not - her basic traits are the same, and her little quirks (like the way she eats her sauce or plays with her ears) but so much of us ARE our memories....

Her answer! I knew his freakout back in ep 7 would come back to bite him. But it's an interesting philosophical question, isn't it? If JXY from a different universe and year 2025 was a different woman to him, not the one he loved, why is JXY from 2018 but with different memories the same? What makes a person a person?

That's what I mean...

She asks this and I get shivers because this drama doesn't really do throwaway comments unless it's to do with hairdressing :P Seriously - I still think his memories were tampered with somehow. (OK, wild theory time - what if HE were the first experiment and the phone he thinks is Xu's is actually his, the tracker expired because he made it past a year. He doesn't seem to have memory gaps but still. He does have a bunch of money; could be from his dad yes but it's kinda weird his fam was wealthy, then he was so broke he was literally homeless and now he's back to having lots of cash - once again, could have been daddy giving him stuff or w/e but could have been Lighthouse payment. I dunno, my brain is buzzing.)

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I love that nothing is magically fixed with the discovery of truth. She may know her memories are fake but they are still there, still feel real to her. And QL tries to put the best spin on it, and he's objectively right but you cannot deal like this with mental illness or delusions and he knows it but what else does he have? (And he's not a trained mental health specialist, either.)

This is so bitter and so true. It may have been fake and she knows it, but it was her reality and changed her and how can she change back and does she even want to?

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He hears the shattering glass and bolts into her room only to discover she accidentally broke a glass. Once again, this is all an evil org messing with her mind but it comes very much as dealing with a person in the grip of a mental illness (which it rather is, even if it was induced artificially.)

Awwwww

When she grabbed his hand because she didn't want him to leave, I ascended!

I am screaming, and not into my hands this time. But also it's such an echo when she wanted him to stay and hold her hand when she was drunk and he did all night. And here we are again...aaaaaaa!

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This scene made me gibber. The way he literally bolts to her...

And how she is so desperately terrified and yet tries to keep it together...

But the moment he touches her shoulder, she just crumples into his arms...

I am not in the least sane about them...

GUUUUHHHH! (And yet insidious question arises - sure she is broke in this world and with limited life prospects, but she has someone who loves and supports her this competently and utterly unconditionally - is that also a dream? Heck, I am so paranoid, I am beginning to wonder if maybe this is Qi Lian's dream because if the system is addressing biggest regrets, he's clearly haunted by not being there for her six years ago and he is remedying that so much in 2018. OK, taking paranoia hat off.)

I knew it!!!!!!

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God, the sheer horror of what she actually went through - her sense of self and reality slowly erased, and her knowing it and trying to fight it and not being able to!

And the fact that all the subjects end up going insane and dying within the year (now we know why the device had a year long chip) - and she knows it OMG.

This is such an interesting, horrifying question...

The thing is, she fought so hard to remain herself but she failed because the "now" her refuses to return to the "actual" her - the fake has her own life and does not want to disappear. But the last desperate attempt to survive and not be subsumed actually did give her a chance (whether the her is the OG JXY or the one with memories messed with) to live and to possibly break the one year thing as a result of her running away.

Only of course the question becomes whether she actually escaped or was allowed to do so because the lab wanted to monitor their subject in the wild so to speak.

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I am gonna enjoy all the lugging and the caretaking because the bulk of the ep is pretty damn grim...