Perhaps Cheng Yi’s brand of aesthetic bloody suffering is contagious like some sort of whump flu and LXY caught a delightfully bad case of it during filming L&R with him.
This is how I imagine Fang Xiaobao a few years after canon.
Pictures are of Zhi Liuhui from Legend of Rosy Clouds* but this is my visual for an older Fang Duobing, who wears his hair the way Li Lianhua does (did).
*who is bisexual in the Japanese canon, which I know will be censored in the cdrama, but I have faith in ZSX that he will be able to make him very bi regardless.
I come bearing all the sources I can find on English subs for The Spirealm, the live-action adaptation of the danmei novel Kaleidoscope of Death because I need more people to freak out with me over this. A lot of people (me included) have been suffering through the sometimes-unintelligible MTL subs on dramacool, but now that some time has passed, some wonderful people out there have done some amazing fansubs and I thought I'd share some links that @naughtynanzhu and I have found.
Pick your poison:
This google drive contains all 78 episodes, 23 of which have English subtitles (as of 3/21/2024). New episodes are being added but slowly. Video quality up to 1080p. (Note: there are some cute English subbed bts videos at the bottom!) Credit to twitter users @mwsdrama and @xianguang0104 who I believe are the fans behind these fansubs.
This google drive contains all 78 episodes, all of which have English subtitles. However the English subtitles overlap a little bit with the Chinese ones so it can be a little bit hard to read. Video quality up to 720p.
This google drive has all 78 episodes of English subtitles in the form of srt files. You can download them and play the video in your choice of player that allows you to load in srt files (VLC, KMPlayer, etc.).
I can't vouch for the quality of the subtitles for all 78 episodes across all three links, but I scanned through a few episodes in each drive and they're all quite good as far as I can tell, and definitely a million times better than the MTL ones.
Personally, I would download the video files from the first link and the srt files from the third and play them in KMPlayer together for the video quality and lack of overlapping subtitles.
Thank you to the wonderful fansubbers out there who worked hard on these. Please share and enjoy!
If you like Mysterious Lotus Casebook, why not try The Blood of Youth? We have...
Jaded protagonist who has lost all his martial arts and claims to just be a humble member of the jianghu, lying constantly about his prestigious background and the fact he's extremely famous:
(Here he is again but dressed like a woman this time for Plot Reasons):
His new sidekick: a puppy in the form of a teenager with floofy hair. Enjoyer of food, kicker of ass:
The leader of the demon sect who gets constantly nerfed by the narrative because if he was at full power all the time there wouldn't really be much of a plot:
The three of them eating together! Bonding! Bickering!:
Other key characters include:
Woman with chronic illness:
Women getting cool action shots:
This distinctive wig worn by the Purple Guy:
A man, I swear:
One actor who's in one of the tumblr famous cdramas that will make you go 'hey, isn't that that guy from the more tumblr famous cdrama!'
This actor playing a guy in love with an older woman:
These two actors playing Bros:
... hang on this is like half the supporting cast?? well anyway if you enjoying looking at actors and going 'hmmmm i swear i've seen them before' then This is the show for you:
This boat! I'm like 75% its the same boat but its difficult to tell with the lighting:
ANYWAY the acting is great the costumes are great the wigs are great I cried for two days straight please watch the blood of youth
notes: Spoilers! five Ever because for isn't long enough. Master list of all recaps
You know the part in almost every costume drama where the leads whoosh towards each other in slo-mo as they gaze deeply into each others eyes? I always think of that type of scene as a garnish, not a main course. This drama thinks otherwise.
Yes, so many setups and situations that can facilitate the personal-space-encroaching wide-eyed time-stopping petal-dropping surprised stare. There's so much of it in this drama. Well that and shirtlessness. The male lead's clothes keep falling off. I promise it's very necessary to the story.
He's giving "giant wall mural from the heyday of Abercrombie"
But let's get to the plot.
We meet Ling Xiao as he bursts into the City Master's mansion, cape swirling as the fog machine works overtime.
He's dark and brooding, with eyebrows so sharp he could probably dual wield them if he ever lost his sword.
Scenes of carnage are intercut with Su Wan'er putting on her party clothes. She opens the doors of the main hall just in time to see Ling Xiao kill her father the City Lord.
Ling Xiao thinks that marrying the City Lord's daughter will add legitimacy to his usurpation of that position. I don't know why he cares, the city contains maybe 20 people tops.
Fast forward to the wedding and Su Wan'er is tied to the bed.
Her father's sworn brother Mr. Zhao attempts a rescue but they caught immediately by Ling Xiao.
Su Wan'er promises to marry Ling Xiao willingly if he lets Mr. Zhao live.
They resume the wedding.
After drinking the wedding wine, Ling Xiao gets handsy. When he leans in to whisper menacing yet sexy threats to her, Su Wan'er takes the initiative and bites his ear (the sound effect for this was amazing).
Ling Xiao looks surprised, then taps an acupoint to make her pass out.
The episode ends as we learn that the jealous 2nd female lead has engineered a situation that is clearly intended to interrupt the wedding night.
a sudden case of Sworn Sister Syndrome
Bonus Round: Taking a Bath in a Koi Pond
the way his entire outfit fell off in a fraction of a second, I'm laughing for real guys.
I must create and share it, not for the note counts but for the love of it. Note counting is the joy-killer. Note counting is the little death of creativity that brings total burnout. I will create without care. I will share it online and let the notifications pass by without a sound. And when the hellsite hides my creation, I will let the disappointment pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn my eye to the inner truth: that my love for what I created will remain.
OMG, the trailer for Kimi to Yukite Saku: Shinsengumi Seishunroku is out - link (you have to set your VPN to Japan) - and, holy smokes, if this isn't an outright BL then it's the bromanciest bromance that's ever bromanced. Like...
Also, Maeda Kentaro swinging a sword and kicking butt? Finally! I so hope that someone picks it up for subbing! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
The amazing @vierran45 linked me to the trailer for the adaptation of SQC’s Professional Body Double and so excited!!! It looks pretty close to the novel tho they probably removed some of the dog blood stuff.
I binged this novel a couple of years ago and love SQC stuff in general so can’t wait! It has two things Chinese censors hate - transmigration and gay men - so it would never get adapted in China and I am so glad Thailand is doing it!
(I really hope this, the Taiwanese adaptation of Priest’s Da Ge and the Thai-Taiwanese coproduction of SQC’s period danmei all become mad hits so more companies outside of China get on the bandwagon of adapting danmei and some of my faves will actually get live actions that won’t forever moulder in the vault.)