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Cdrama: Shui Long Yin (2024?)

042724 罗云熙领衔主演玄侠电视剧 《水龙吟》一秒江湖宣传片: Fantasy wuxia Shui Long Yin starring Luo Yunxi as Tang Lici

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALpE5kJ32Zs

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Shui Long Yin

Original novel: Teng Ping (author of Auspicious Lotus House -> which Mysterious Lotus Casebook was adapted from)

Principal Lead: Luo Yunxi

Male Leads: Xiao Shunyao, Ao Ziyi, Fang Yilun

Female Leads (Ranked by Actor's First Letter): Bao Shangen, Chen Yao, Lin Yun

Guest stars: Xu Zhengxi, Wang Yilun, Xie Binbin Jiang Zhenyu

Special guest: Yang Shize

[X]

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Give me more morally gray characters ...

Let me interrupt my regular program for a brief rant about Downton Abbey and Thomas Barrow… well, not really regular as I've been too busy to watch anything with subtitles for the past few weeks. Instead, I passively binged on Downton Abbey while working.

I love morally gray characters, be it Tantai Jin from TTEOTM or Spike from Buffy. One of my favorite characters is Thomas Barrow from Downton Abbey. (Spoiler Alert, TW // suicide, homophobia, conversion therapy)

Thomas is everything I need in a character ... unhinged, angsty and gay.

I loved him from the first rude line to the last. He starts out as a delightful troublemaker with a cruel streak born of fear, hurt and the desire to be respected, fit in and belong. He is, as Baxter understands so well, his own worst enemy, having perfected self-sabotage over the years.

A supporting character for most of the show, the footman-turned-butler's story is usually prioritized over his character development - meaning the writers know where they want him to end up each season, even if it contradicts previous characterizations. This leaves the audience with a character who can be hard to follow at times.

The writing really got on my nerves at times. From conveniently forgetting his medical training when they want him to despair during his job hunt, to pulling any kind of cunning out of him when they want him to appear changed (and depressed), Thomas is always what the showrunners need him to be, but not necessary what would make sense for his character. I'm still annoyed that they made him go through medical torture in the form of conversion therapy and a suicide attempt, and then glossed over these traumatic incidents in favor of boring other storylines. Or how they portrayed his war injury as an act of cowardice rather than desperation.

What I love about him is that he was still a coherent character who remained a morally gray character (the last film aside, because they sort of forgot to give him any of his character traits back). Thomas would still lash out when he was angry or hurt, would still manipulate others for his own gain, and would still feel wronged by the world. Once the world has brought him to his knees, he understands that he has only himself to blame, and he tries to do better - which has its ups and downs. The Thomas we see in the final and in the films still wants to belong, is still a desperate romantic, but he is also so incredibly insecure in a rather endearing way.

Younger Thomas was rather stiff but dignified, trying to appear immaculate, trying to hide the fact that he felt he was anything but. Once the mask comes off, he goes from being a reluctant cat to being full of nervous puppy energy. As a neurodivergent person who has recently struggled with not being able to masks well, I can relate a little too much to this version of Thomas.

Most characters, that start out as villains, either change completely (like Tantai Jin), their behavior will be excused (like Mo Ran or Spike) or they sacrifice themselves for the greater good to redeem themselves (like Spike). Thomas stays more on less morally gray. We understand the reasons better, why he would lash out at others, and we can feel sorry for him. He had a harder life than most, but that still does not undo the harm he has done to others.

All in all, the last film was a bit of a disappointment for me, mainly because a lot of the characters felt a bit off. I had to watch the film twice to get behind the romance with Guy Dexter. What Guy meets is Thomas desire to be respected as a person, to be seen as worthwhile, to escape the life as decorative wallpaper and to finally have a romantic relationship with someone that is rather enthusiastic about him. A lot of their relationships seems to have developed off-screen, based on Guy knowing who Carson was during his proposal and understanding how uncertain Thomas still feels about his role in the household. I wish them well - but not at the expense of Thomas being excluded from the rumoured 3rd film. I hope it takes place in the USA and we get to see him again!

I really wish we would see more morally gray characters like this, even through a quick look into the fandom of Downton Abbey shows me, that not everybody can handle it.

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GOD!!! The world KNEELS under your feet!!! 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🫠🫠🫠

©️ 明朗少女Cynthia

Bjd!!! He’s unreal!!! SCREAM!!!

Please STEP on meeeee 🫠🫠🫠

©️ 村雨·罗云熙

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I’m thinking about Old Gays again, and Thomas coming to the somewhat obvious conclusion that Guy proposed based largely on the fact that Thomas is attractive—which makes him just a little nervous! Because he can of course remember when he tried to get Philip to sweep him away, and wasn’t successful even though he was trimmer and didn’t have as many scars or any gray in his hair. And sure he knows that he’s still an attractive man, but middle age is perilously close and there are attractive young men in Hollywood, too…

… so he’s kind of shocked to hear Guy say, eventually, that if there was one thing that cemented his decision, it was Thomas’s kindness. His kindness, and his quiet confidence, the kind that led him to talk to a film star like a person, not with the shyness or arrogance of youth, the kind that lets him brag a little or make self-deprecating jokes or be gracious as he felt like it, the kind of confidence it took Thomas years to really develop and settle into. And that definitely reorganizes Thomas’s thinking—the idea that his age and experience are a feature, not a bug, and that Guy is attracted to something that other people didn’t really believe he was capable of for so long. (Plus what it means coming from Guy, an older man in an age-and-appearance-obsessed industry who never really asked to be there!)

I love Old Gays.

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A collection of Xiao Shunyao in costume as Shen Langhun - in order of when the outfits were spotted on set 🫡

Also, we have a brand new black and burgundy ombre armor set!

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Is he real?!!! TOO BEAUTIFUL I AM ascending 🫠🫠🫠 the costume god has no ceiling, only BREAKTHROUGH!!! 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

The braids, the huadian, the diamonds, all these details!!! 😍😍😍🫠🫠🫠

©️ 孤月高悬

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Tantai Jin’s braids, a feature of his mother’s Yue tribe, and condensed power is in the shape of butterflies like his mom.

It took 20 years for him to reach his mother’s grave, only to lose her again. 😭

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I miss him ... maybe I need to rewatch the show soon! I'm just sooo busy lately :-/

he's just too pretty.

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Dress up doll 😍

©️ 你大雪姐

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Dragon God 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

©️ 有仙浮云兮

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A Li baby is so energetic 🥰😘!!!

©️ yinyin

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Who says Luo Yunxi only looks good in white? (Almost) Every Luo Yunxi Costume ever

Featuring 16x8=128 looks in total from 9 dramas, 4 games, and 1 photoshoot.

Additional looks from Yan Xin Ji and Shui Long Yin will be added as high quality official images become available.

We actually have more leaked photos from Immortality, but I've decided to exclude them in the end - the collage just doesn't look great with such a large gap in quality.

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Alright, folks, I rewatched the Bo’re Life arc this week, and I have thoughts and a newfound appreciation for it (what? Me? Liking the Bo’re arc?It’s more likely than you’d think). As my mom used to say at the start of road trips or our semi-annual family viewing of The Sound of Music: buckle up, chitlins. 

Okay, first off: this arc is a lot easier and more interesting to watch the second time around. I suspect that’s because I’m not chomping at the bit to just get back to Tantai Jin and Susu in the real world, since I already know what happens. This time, I can settle in and appreciate Bo’re Life without the urgency of “when is the actual story going to come back, fuck you writers”. It’s also very fun for me to draw parallels and find foreshadowing I didn’t notice before. And, having done so, I present the following thesis: the Bo’re Life arc strengthened the overall story both as a tragedy, and as a “happy” ending.

Addendum: I have a lot of thoughts about what constitutes a happy ending, and my thoughts on TTEOTM in this regard are complicated. Essentially, I would argue that the ending, while certainly sad, isn’t a “tragedy” in the narrative sense. While the individual happiness of the characters takes a real blow in the end, they do accomplish their ultimate goal. It’s a pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless, and it’s implied that they will get a much happier ending as individuals sometime in the future. That doesn’t mean it was as satisfying as it could have been (it seems clear that TTJ will come back but I'm pissed we didn't get to see it), and I know a lot of viewers will totally disagree with my opinion. But I digress! Let’s get into Bo’re Life.

Bo’re Life threw a LOT of information at both protagonists, and the roles they played in it didn’t correspond neatly with their own destinies, which kind of baffled me the first time around. Ming Ye represented both what Tantai Jin could aspire to be, and the mistakes Susu needed to avoid in neutralizing him. Sang Jiu represented both Susu’s traumas and doomed loveline, and Tantai Jin’s fate if Susu failed as Ming Ye had.

The parallels between Bo’re life and real life perfectly underline the tragedy of the story: both protagonists are shown beforehand the choices they must not make, but because of who they are, they make them anyway.

Susu was an idealistic and traumatized woman with a mission, so she was always going to fail like Ming Ye did by putting the greater good ahead of love and communication. Tantai Jin was a disempowered and naive man falling in love for the first time, so he was always going to be just like Sang Jiu and give his fragile heart too fully, then shatter under the weight of betrayal. Bo’re Life both foretold the tragedy, and failed to prevent it. 

It could be argued that Tantai Jin and Susu played the wrong roles in Bo’re Life to avoid tragedy in the Jing arc, but they played the right roles to avoid it in the cultivator arc. In the mortal world, Susu needed Ming Ye’s experience of losing everything because he neglected his heart. And Tantai Jin needed Sang Jiu’s experience of subsuming herself in another person so recklessly that she lost her soul to it. Neither of them got that, and so they repeated the tragedy of 10,000 years ago: Susu by loving and then betraying Tantai Jin, and Tantai Jin by allowing his obsessive love to run unchecked.

But as cultivators, 500 years later, they both ended up relying on the virtues of the roles they played in Bo’re Life. Susu channeled Sang Jiu’s optimistic love and staunch loyalty to repair her relationship with Tantai Jin and become someone he could genuinely rely on. And Tantai Jin needed Ming Ye’s sacrificial love and dedication to the greater good to understand and execute his subversion of destiny.

This time around, they were both where they needed to be, playing the roles fate assigned them… but drastically changing the lines. Susu became a goddess, just like her mother, the only being who could defeat the Devil Lord. And Tantai Jin became the Devil Lord, just as he was born to do. But there was no battle between them, no great war like 10,000 years ago. Just like during their dance at the Jing water festival, Tantai Jin played his part, then surrendered.

And, just as she removed his mask 500 years ago, Susu saw through his act to who he really was, who he’d always been.

They redeemed the very mistakes they made at the end of their story in Jing: Susu, who couldn’t trust him and destroyed him as a result, finally gave him her trust, even as he wore the image of her greatest fears. And Tantai Jin, who was so desperate for her love that he killed her trying to keep her, finally let her go to save the world. 

The Jing arc ended with both of them as the worst versions of themselves: Susu vengeful and traumatized, Tantai Jin obsessive and broken. As she died, Susu threw Tantai Jin’s destiny in his face, calling him the greatest curse and rejecting him in this life and the next. In his last days in Jing, Tantai Jin devolved into despair and denial, unable to cope with the grief and betrayal. They didn't learn the correct lessons in Bo're life, not this time around.

By contrast, the cultivator arc ended with both of them as the best versions of themselves: Susu capable of trust and forgiveness and elevated to godhood, Tantai Jin whole and loved and able to overturn his evil destiny. They learned, not just from their own mistakes, but from those of Ming Ye and Sang Jiu. And it helped them win.

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Shui Long Yin behind the scenes costume changes with Xiao Shunyao - video via Aero肖顺尧_APS

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till the end of the moon as text posts (3/?)

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till the end of the moon as text posts (4/?)