#c-drama

[aishiteru-kenshin]

Love Between Fairy and Devil | 苍兰诀 | Cāng Lán Jué

[wisesnail]

It's finally here: my new art book 💙

As you can see, it's "MXTX & friends edition", as it includes works about tgcf and The Untamed, and many more!

It's 100+ pages, and will go on sale in August! More info to follow 📝

I hope you are as excited as I am 😁

[avaantares]

Wait, Zhao Yunlan's gun is actually a...?!

(I've never claimed production meta for @guardianbingo before, but after the amount of time and research I put in on this, I feel like I've earned the "Zhao Yunlan's Gun or Whip" square, haha)

SO. GUYS.

Maybe this is something fandom as a whole figured out back in 2018, but I, who didn't hear of Guardian until 2020, did not realize until now and I need to share the knowledge because when I finally noticed, I made an unholy sound.

I've tracked down where Zhao Yunlan's gun came from -- or at least, what it most likely started as. Not the in-universe dark-energy-maybe-uses-bullets-maybe-doesn't-device-that's-best-not-thought-about-too-long, but rather the actual fake-steampunk-revolver-that-is-best-not-looked-at-too-long-because-it's-awful prop.

Y'know, this disaster:

I was actually working on a different Guardian Bingo fill and needed to look something up for continuity, so I'd flipped through a couple of episodes at super high speed trying to find a scene. As luck would have it, one of my skips forward happened to land on the scene I screencapped above, when ZYL confronts Zhang Shi.

Normally we don't get this clear (or this stationary) a shot of the godawful gun prop. I'd assumed all along they had just taken a plastic gun, glued some extra bits and bobs on it to make it look fancy, and hit it with some dry brushing (fun fact: you can watch the paint flake throughout the series; check out the top of the barrel and the side of the cylinder in the above screenshot!) to make it look #steampunk like the abandoned aesthetic of 25% of the show (as I've said before, I have theories about what happened in preproduction, but that's another post). This sort of thing is exactly what I've done for cheap cosplay weapons or background props for film work that aren't going to be seen at HD detail range.

Anyway, since the detail showed up better here than in other shots, I paused the video to look at the random screws and hex bolts (why??) they'd glued on it, since I recalled that I had the aforementioned gun/whip bingo square to fill.

That's when I noticed a detail that had eluded me before: An inverted V shape at the bottom of the grip.

Only looking more closely, that's not an inverted V. It's a symbol that I've seen a whole series of variations of over the past 15+ years... every time there's a new installment of the Assassin's Creed video game series:

So I started hunting. The principal weapons in each game turned up no matches, but eventually I found a gun that looks almost exactly like ZYL's:

It's not a perfect replica, but the details are certainly all there: The stylized logo; the leaves and swirls on the grip; the feathers up the back; even the Victorian scrollwork beneath the barrel.

Now, what's really interesting is that this gun isn't actually from the AC game series. It's part of an elaborate fan project by artist David Paget that started as a class assignment back in 2014. Even though it gathered a bit of steam in the AC fandom and generated a couple of forum role-play groups, OCs and the like, nothing about this artwork was ever connected to a real Assassin's Creed title. So why would there be a physical version of a gun that was only someone's fanart?

This is where the smoking gun (*rimshot*) goes missing, because I can't prove any of this, and it's been long enough that digging through the archives of the internet to find answers is going to take way more time than I can afford to spend on a project I'm not getting paid for. But there are two likely possibilities:

Scenario A: Some employee in a toy factory somewhere in China got told, "This Assassin's Creed franchise is really big, so we need to be producing replicas from those games to sell. Work up some designs." So the employee Googles "assassin's creed gun," finds David Paget's very professional-looking art, and whips up a replica to mass-injection-mold without realizing it's not actually from a game. Later, someone on the cash-strapped Guardian production team needs a gun to mod, and finds a cheap toy revolver on clearance after several years of sitting in storage because there was little demand for a replica of a gun that was never in a game. They buy several, glue hex bolts on the cylinder for reasons unknown, and poof! Instant pseudo-steampunk!

Scenario B: Other fans were involved in the design. Someone did build a 3D model of David Paget's design that's still available on Sketchfab (screenshot below), and it's not unreasonable to assume that other fans could have thought it looked cool and built 3D printable models. Later, someone on the cash-strapped Guardian production team needs a gun to mod, and acquires the 3D print file of one of those models from the interwebs. They mod the file a bit, print some, glue hex bolts on the cylinder for reasons unknown, and poof! Instant pseudo-steampunk!

Personally, I find Scenario A far more likely than Scenario B, for two reasons: First, the hero prop looks more injection molded than 3D printed, especially given the technical state of 3D printing back in 2017-8. And second... Budget-challenged dramas do have a history of picking up bulk video game replicas and using them as cheap props. I made a post back in 2019 about the WoW Horde shields we spotted in a different drama...

Anyway, no firm answers about the source of the hero prop -- the world may never know! -- but we have now confirmed that in some alternate universe (possibly one of the first eighty?), Zhao Yunlan and/or Zhao Xinci is an Assassin.

Wait, wait, wait... *recalls mechanics of how the whole Assassin's Creed frame story is supposed to work* Uh... so... who wants to write a genetic memory explanation for the whole Kunlun -> [lots of lifetimes] -> Zhao Yunlan thing?

.

(I did actually check the catalogue of a friend of mine who makes replicas of props from various media franchises to see if he'd done a commission of the David Paget design, since a surprising number of his custom pieces actually do end up on film and television, but while he has a gorgeous replica of a revolver that actually appears in an AC game, it appears he has not done the Zhao Yunlan gun. I didn't really think it likely, since he's in the U.S., but you never know.)

[feii1effect]

[junemermaid]

I finished the Lotus Casebook show! What a delightful thing it is!

I have more thoughts and maybe I'll put them in a tumblr post but it was Simply Nice to watch a show all the way through and have it hold up (I mean, the pacing dissolves a little towards the end, and did we need so many sudden side plots in the last episode, but) its themes and characters faithfully.

It's such a fun and warm story at its heart, even with its great silliness and occasional strains of melancholia, and it's been a long time since I've been so positively surprised by a show I just started watching on a lark.

And the characters. Oh, the characters. For me a story lives or dies by the strength of the people in it, and I'll forgive every plot hiccup and occasional annoyance because the acting and character writing in this show are just. Everything.

[trickybonmot]

For anyone in smaller C-drama and C-novel fandoms, you might want to check out these FTH auctions:

Sunlava has three auctions for Nirvana in Fire fanfiction, with no bids yet!! AirgiodSLV is offering Nirvana in Fire podfic and fic, as well as Mysterious Lotus Casebook and Word of Honor! Nary has fic for Mysterious Lotus Casebook and so do Ilgaksu and Stratisphyre! Erha has several creators making offers, all currently at low bid amounts! Don't miss Sootsies's offer for Word of Honor fic!

Bidding closes in just about two hours, so get in there while you can.

[blackwatervial]

the reason there is no couple therapy in the heavenly realm is bc the therapist would go crazy withing 2 days considering immortals have the communication skills of 5 yr olds

[iosaku]

𖦹 like or reblog

[peterpumpkinhead]

just recently saw a couple of tweets implying that the director of wang yibo's latest drama has confirmed that there is no romance plot in it.

couldn't find any source, any video, any article indicating that that's the case.

which is fine, I guess, as long as the story holds up and the acting is good, romance or not, a strong series is gripping regardless.

but what I found particularly disturbing was a few people celebrating the fact that there was no romance, insulting the actress and wang yibo's co-star and then proceeding to ship wang yibo's character with wang yang's character.

first of all - leave that woman alone, I don't even know what she's done or didn't do to get this heat, but what the hell?

but also - no particular issue with the shipping part in it of itself. shipping is a fan practice that is morally neutral (it just becomes problematic when the fan in question acts unreasonably) and queerness, even if just in subtext, is more than welcome in media, especially in such a conservative landscape as east asian media. I'm all for it!

what puzzles me is - do you crave a romantic plot or not? or is it something you're only comfortable with if it happens between the lines? but most importantly: is the love interest's gender the thing that makes or breaks a couple for the audience?

what is it that makes it so hard for some of the audience to watch women on screen? especially when a significant part of that same audience is comprised of women?

again - I understand not wanting women characters to be reduced to simple accessories and romantic plot devices with little to no personality. but is that *really* the case when it comes to this particular drama?

what is this about?

[penguinsnoot]

East Asian Dramas You Should Watch

1) Put Your Head on My Shoulder {China} (1 season, 24 episodes) [Romance, Comedy, Coming-of-age]

Close to graduating and unsure of her future, Situ Mo ends up living with a genius physics student and finds love along the way. 

2) A Love So Beautiful {China} (1 season, 23 episodes) [Romance, Comedy, Coming-of-age]

Five friends endure high school life together and become closer at time goes on, with friends and neighbors Xiao Xi and Jiang Chen figuring out their relationship as they grow older. 

3) My ID is Gangnam Beauty {South Korea} (1 season, 16 episodes) [Romance, Comedy, Coming-of-age, Drama]

Bullied for her looks growing up, Mi-rae decides to get plastic surgery before starting college in the hopes of avoiding ridicule, but instead faces new challenges that wear at her self-esteem. 

4) My Secret Romance {South Korea} (1 season, 14 episodes) [Romance, Comedy]

Jin-wook and Yoo-mi, two people with drastically different personalities, fall in love amidst a series of misunderstandings and accidents.

5) Find Yourself {China} (1 season, 41 episodes) [Romance, Comedy]

Fanzing is caught in a love triangle between a young employee and an older executive, leading to tough decisions about love and life. 

6) Wait, My Youth {China} (1 season, 24 episodes) [Romance, Coming-of-age]

A group of friends experience the ups-and-downs of life together as they face hardships in love and life. 

7) Moonshine and Valentine {China} (1 season, 25 episodes) [Romance, Comedy, Fantasy, Drama]

An ancient deity helps his soulmate with an ancient curse believe in love.

8) Alice in Borderland {Japan} (2 seasons, 16 episodes) [Thriller, Drama, Sci-fi]

Arisu finds himself in a desolate Tokyo where he must compete in dangerous games to survive. 

9) Sweet Home {South Korea} (1 season, 10 episodes) [Drama, Horror]

As humans are turning into dangerous monsters, an apartment complex’s tenants fight to survive together. 

10) Mr. Heart {South Korea} (1 season, 8 episodes) [Romance]

A pacemaker and marathon runner find themselves falling in love despite a rocky start. 

[fandoestrans]

[ENG SUB] FULL MOVIE: Legend of Fahai 2018 (Bai Yu)

please follow link above if you have not yet seen and would like to see this film starring Bai Yu

[vvlin91]

Anime vs. Live action

A sneak peek of what is to come of web c-drama The Comic Bang/开画少女漫 based on Tsubaki Izumi’s manga series Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun.

Watch Trailer Here

Featuring:  Wang Ruoshan as Lu Dao (Kashima Yu) Zhao Yiqin as Gu Zhengxing (Hori Masayuki)

[bebemoon]

All possible dramas, I need to finally watch something good 🙏🏽

got it. i'll give the ones i think are really, truly worth watching then- in my own opinion, at least- and hopefully you'll find something good^^

c-dramas (modern setting)

love is sweet

please feel at ease mr. ling

unforgettable love

c-dramas (historical setting)

unchained love

love like the galaxy

my sassy princess

nothing gold can stay

jun jiu ling

and, i'm tentatively adding the king's woman here in spite of its final episode which was so much bullshit. if you're willing to go through it, vin zhang and dilraba dilmurat are so lovely together (fucked-up as their on-screen relationship is) and they make it worth the watch.

c-dramas (fantasy)

here

k-dramas (modern setting)

beating again (also called falling for innocence)

strong woman do bong soon

weightlifting fairy kim bok joo

kill me, heal me

healer

coffee prince

w (that's it, that's the whole title)

legend of the blue sea

my love from another star

cheese in the trap

extraordinary attorney woo

k-dramas (historical and fantasy settings)

alchemy of souls

mr. queen

moon lovers: scarlet heart ryeo

hwarang: the poet warrior youth

[feii1effect]

Jiaxu's totem 🦊

[park-king-lot]

chen zheyuan is literally the fusion of lee min ho, luhan and exo chanyeol 😍

[kittyparr]

not me watching The Untamed for the millionth time and automatically thinking about the parallels between Lan Wanji and Wei Wuxian and Geto and Gojo.

How Lan Wanji and Gojo lose the ones they love after going down a path of evil and dying because of it and then for them to come back in totally different bodies years later. And then the fact they recognize them despite being in a different body!!

And that Geto and Wei Wuxian were considered prodigies in their respective fields?? I am just losing my mind after the parallel. And that Lan Wanji and Gogo refused to move from the loss of their loves?? I am losing my mind over this.