#character: ren ruyi

[heymeowmao]

nyz: that's my wife!!

[be-bi-do-crime]

characters who were raised on blood like it was water. characters who lost their hearts too early, forced to bury them six feet underground, and turned to using their hands. characters who make others into ghosts, who maybe aren’t much better than the ones who made them into ghosts, but they cannot stop. you cannot stop a haunting, after all, not until you leave the grave behind. characters who are decades old but all it takes is one slip and you can see that child in them again, the one crying desperately for the grave to take them too. characters who wish so badly to be able to let go but cannot ever let go. characters who will never forget. characters who have no regard for their own life and death. characters who need to be reminded that they’re human. characters who don’t know anything but how to bleed.

[danmeigirl]

The best thing they gave each other was a life time of adventures 🌸❤.

[ultimateshixiongfuckertournament]

Canonicals Tournament Round 1, Match 3

Match 3 is between Luo Binghe from The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (shizun: Shen Qingqiu) and Li Tongguang from A Journey to Love (shifu: Ren Xin / Ren Ruyi)

Propaganda under the cut! (Warning: Propaganda may include spoilers about the characters and their media)

Luo Binghe:

Luo Binghe's shizun Shen Qingqiu caused his sexual awakening and they lived together with Luo Binghe acting similar to a housewife.

Even after being betayed, stabbed, and pushed into the Endless Abyss, Luo Binghe still loved Shen Qingqiu and wanted answers instead of revenge. Instead he had to repeatedly suffer his shizun dying in his arms and assumed abandonment. Which makes him absolutely lose it, made even worse by his evil sword Xin Mo which worsens all of his negative emotions and destroys its hosts, along with additional trauma over the course of the story.

He reused the sword that his shizun sacrificed himself to free him from, cuddles the corpse every night for five years to preserve it, he creates dreams of their happy years together but never made a Shen Qingqiu that would speak to him, he kidnapped and destroyed cultivators' cores so he could feed xin mo and preserve sqq's corpse, he rebuilds their house in his demonic palace, he spent years fixing sqq's destroyed cultivation and trying to revive him, he forces Shen Qingqiu live in that new house, he rescues and repeatedly puts himself in harms way to protect sqq, he tries to destroy the world so Shen Qingqiu can only love him (due to being driven mad by Xin Mo and his believed abandonment by sqq). He tries to kill himself after Shen Qingqiu dies for him again. He would do absolutely ANYTHING for Shen Qingqiu! He's increadibly jealous of everyone Shen Qingqiu gives attention to, including stairsweeps he smiles at. Luo Binghe has sooo much wrong with him and it makes him so lovable. He's so incredibly traumatized, driven by love and desperation for a majority of the story. He loves Shen Qingqiu so much and can't bear to live without him.

After everything? He lets Shen Qingqiu go, wanting him to be happy even if it means sqq won't stay with him. But sqq wanted to stay together! He gets his man! There is in world porn written about them, they have weird kinky sex inspired by the porn, they get married! Luo Binghe cries regularly for sqq, so sqq can dote on him despite his thin face. Luo Binghe is shameless and adores sqq. Lbh got so nervous that he fell flat on his face when proposing! Lbh loves sqq so much and wants him to be happy more than anything else!

More on disciple era:

Luo Binghe's sexual awakening was his shizun tied up and shirtless. He fell in love after Shen Qingqiu got poisoned protecting him. He moved into his shizun's house and handled all of the cooking and cleaning, would regularly fake fall into Shen Qingqiu during training to get hugs. He got a boner from being forcibly cuddled to heal his injuries. And ran to jump into a lake after being spanked for struggling too much during the forced cuddling. Sqq still never noticed lbh's affections.

--

It took him like 3(three) interactions with nice shizun (transmigrator who replaced his old one) to fall irrevocably in love. baby boy was ready he had mommy issues daddy issues and honestly by that time shizun issues too... luckily his new shizun can fill all those roles and more!

Li Tongguang:

- built a whole secret room in his house to the shifu he thought was dead - this room has... so many portraits, a whole statue of his shifu, and even some of her old clothes - loses all rational thought when he thinks that there's a chance his shifu is still alive and is hiding under a secret identity; literally risks his whole political position to seek her out and take her away from her boyfriend - promised he would do anything his shifu asked if she just stayed by his side - claimed that even though he's only 22 years old, he could still be mature enough for her - is constantly kneeling to his shifu and is very subservient toward her - he often gets humiliated by his shifu (having tea poured on his face, verbally reprimanded/insulted in front of everyone) and is still adoring/infatuated with her and thinks it's deserved - god i just think getting dommed by his shifu would solve 99% of his problems. damn

[astarlightmonbebe]

it's easy to read the situation between li tongguang, ruyi, and yuanzhou as a love triangle on a superficial level, but looking even one step further, it's clear that there's no triangle about it. li tongguang is obsessed with ren xin; ning yuanzhou is devoted to ren ruyi. ltg's obsession is fervent and all consuming, but it's not devotion. like ruyi herself notes, his feelings to her are on the basis of her as a mother figure in his life, as a replacement for what he never received from his mother. is there an element of romantic/sexual love/desire to it? maybe. more likely he's deluded himself into thinking that, because the truth is, it's doubtful that ltg even understands what love is (platonic, filial, familial, romantic, all of the above, etc), because he has no basis for understanding. ruyi's teachings and actions towards him are the closest thing he has to hold up as an example. what he wants is ren xin, is a replica of the master he had. he doesn't want ruyi, because he doesn't actually care about ruyi. therefore, he doesn't care if she's sad, angry, mad; he just can't bear her 'abandoning' him. we saw this way back when she first meet and left him, both at thirteen and seventeen. although he distrusts her first, she saves his life and cares for him in the way no one else has, hence her first being raised on a platform in his mind. when she leaves for good, ending their master-disciple relationship/training, even though it's for official business and she's not abandoning him, in his mind that's exactly what it is. so now that she's in his life again, he won't let her leave again. he was powerless before, a child with no proper name, but now he's a recognized member of the imperial family, a man who can meet her as 'equals' (even when that's far from the truth). as a child, he could only cling to her legs and beg her, but now he has the power to keep her by his side. it's telling that when he finally gets confirmation of her identity, it's not ning yuanzhou he seeks to harm (even though he detests him and their relationship), but yang ying. yang ying is ruyi's new disciple, and as ltg doesn't know she's a woman, he only sees her as his direct replacement.

ning yuanzhou, on the other hand, is devoted to ruyi. he wants to build a new life and future with her, instead of slotting her into a spot in the life he already has. he's someone who accompanies her on walks and makes her midnight snacks, who holds her when she needs to be held and lets her go when she needs to do things on her own. when she speaks her mind, he listens, even when it makes him discontent/it's not what he wanted/wants to hear. he sees her unabashedly as his equal, and though he acknowledges her skills and abilities, or points out her naivety, he never does it to belittle her; to him, she is his peer, deserving of the highest honor and respect. he trusts her to have his back, and she has come to trust him to have her. he did what she might have thought no man would ever do: he proved himself reliable, so she came to rely on him. yuanzhou gives her freedom and autonomy as both ren ruyi and ren xin. of course they run into problems, but they both learn and grow from them, as individuals and as a couple. yuanzhou's belief in her is unwavering, but adaptable, whereas ltg's is unwavering, but frozen in time, disallowing for any new information to be presented. yuanzhou works with ruyi to accept the changes thrown her way; he seeks the core behind her actions in order to better understand her. li tongguang cannot accept the changes in ruyi's character, because they run contrary to the master he has on a pedestal in his mind.

what li tongguang wants is to return to the past, but yuanzhou offers ruyi the promise of a future, even one that might never come to fruition. there's no triangle about it.

[pi-ying-xi]

This guy? This Li Tongguang? Has it bad, bad, bad for his shifu Ren Xin/Ren Ruyi. Look at him, his pathetic yearning, his puppy devotion to the person who saved him and made him.

I have such a soft spot for his brand of sharp-tongued arrogance.

And I can kinda tolerate his jealous alertness to anyone else's closeness to Ruyi - such as, Yuanzhou:

or "Li wang dianxia":

But - regardless of the craziness that followed his shifu's 'death' or whatever other reason - this is the unforgivable character flaw:

And Yuanzhou saying in the very next scene that he respects Ruyi's choices is exactly the difference between the two that we're meant to see.

Ruyi isn't presented with a choice between two men that she needs to make in the present, because she chose Yuanzhou a long time ago. It's a choice we, the audience, are invited to make between a tropey shifu-tudi romance, and one where two people are equal in ability, experience, expectations of each other, their peers and the world; and where they treat each other with respect and acknowledge when they've crossed boundaries they shouldn't have.

The crux is that, having been pawns in other peoples' games, they're their own person now. Anyone who wants them to be a possession, someone's to the exclusion of all else, to be used and deployed, is Wrong!

Look at how hot Yuanzhou is, telling Du daren that.

The couple that they are! 😍

Still hoping that Tongguang can redeem himself without necessarily dying. The stupid boy.

(Dammit I forgot to have sound on!)

[dangermousie]

10 Characters That Make Me Feel Things

tagged by @imlivingformyselfdontmindme

Since I am tagged by a cdrama buddy, I am gonna limit it to cdramas.

Wolfie/Chu Youwen, The Wolf (2020). I enjoy drama characters often, but I never lust over them. Meet close to the sole exception. Anyone who was following me when this drama aired, remembers the insanity. I finally understood what groupies are on about.

Xiao Qi, The Rebel Princess (2021) - the ur drama general, as far as I am concerned.

Awu, The Rebel Princess (2021) - I would fight through insurmountable odds to get to her also.

Jiang Xiao Yuan, Derailment (2023) - I am with @imlivingformyselfdontmindme she is everything and I am totally a JXY defender!

Xiao Yao, Lost You Forever Part 1 (2023) - my FL of the year. She would be terrible as a partner and insurmountable amount of work but I can totally get why all these people chase her, I would too.

Tushan Jing, LYF 1 (2023) - I want to make him sandwiches, give him a number of a great therapist and a genetics counselor and also some paper so he can scheme to help his girl's cousin take over the world as some sort of valentine's day present.

Ji Ye, Novoland Eagle Flag (2019) - murder more people in the streets, I love you pls!

Fan Xian, Joy of Life (2019) - mmmm

Yi Xiao Chuan, The Myth (2019) - let me weep in peace. The power of overwhelming will and brain and decency. Being not enough to save a damn thing.

Eighth Prince, Gong (2011) - the terrifying start of my finding queues sexy!

Xiao Yi Qing, Listening Snow Tower (2019) and Su Mengzhen, Heroes (2022) - nobody's ever coughed this beautifully while slaughtering as these two.

Yu Sifeng, Love and Redemption (2020) - duh

Ren Ruyi and Ning Yuanzhou, A Journey to Love (2023) - of course.

Shen Minglan and Gu Tingye, The Story of Minglan (2018) - my n1 drama and my n1 couple.

Ning Que, Ever Night 1 (2019) - young killer with infinite softness for one tiny world-destroying servant. I loved this character.

Ning Yi, The Rise of Phoenixes (2018) and Ye Hua, Three Lives (2017) - long hair obsessions.

Tantai Jin, Till the End of the Moon (2023) - I've already talked war and peace amounts about this man.

Yuan Hong in any drama.

This is way more than 10 so gonna stop.

[thefeastandthefast]

Since I promised Mr. Feast I wouldn't watch ahead of him and he's slowly catching up, I've taken a pause in my gleeful binge of 一念关山 A Journey to Love to jot down a few of the disorganized thoughts I have about my best beloved favorite girl Yang Ying in the wonderful first eighteen episodes of this drama.

MILD SPOILERS BEYOND.

I cannot wait to see little pocket sized wolf cub Princess Yang Ying do her thing in the next half of the show. Honestly feel so blessed to have this character; there’s no one else like her in cdrama or American TV for that matter!

One of the themes I enjoy in stories about royal power struggles are narrative arcs for female characters who transition from naive to knowing, usually borne out of experiencing the inescapability of their femaleness in a treacherous sexist environment and consequently the limited array of tarnished tools at their disposal and the ways these tools are then deployed. I enjoy that type of story- Book Sansa Stark, my nostalgic fave! Zhen Huan! Minglan, even, in a way. As for historical examples, Empress Matilda! Isabella of France!

But I'm also absolutely relishing this twist on the familiar theme in A Journey to Love.

Because Yang Ying is a royal woman being explicitly trained to grasp the duties and wield the power of a prince, not the oblique power of a princess. The success of the mission, and the lives/fates of the Wu emperor, her subjects, and her now beloved friends in the delegation, depend on her ability to convincingly wear the mantle of princely responsibility, power, and prerogative and to physically and mentally embody this role. And for a child who is as malleable as she is in the beginning of the show, this incredibly formative AND transformative extended roleplay will inevitably become forever entrenched in her conception of self and her sense of possibility.

The kind of limited power she might have been able to achieve as an impoverished minor princess requires a very different skillset from the one she's acquiring. It would only be a contingent and conditional power, a la her sister-in-law the Empress of Wu or the Noble Consort Chu or Chuyue, the tomboy princess from the state of An, who perfectly demonstrates how a clever, capable, wealthy, beautiful royal woman with a powerful family is still a blunted sword.

What would be fascinating to explore, beyond her triumph as Prince Li of Wu (which, to reiterate, I'm SO EXCITED FOR), is the inevitable friction of what she would feel and do after mastering and embodying princely power but then must contend with the expectations and limitations of the identity she has long outgrown but will still be expected to perform once the mission is complete.

I don't think the drama will have time to cover this- after all, she is a supporting character and it would be a thematic tangent. But I suppose that's what fic is for! Maybe I will once again be inspired to write fic, depending on how they end Yang Ying's story...

Stories and characters that reveal emotional truth through pretense will always be my jam. In addition to the unexpectedly delightful Ren Ruyi/Ning Yuanzhou, I love this show so much for giving me Yang Ying.

[silviakundera]

Journey to Love: Thinking about how Yuan Lu finds out that his Ruyi is the feared Ren Xin and cheerfully proclaims, "this is great!!"

I love his relationship with her SO MUCH.

Like, I do super ship the main couple and they're sexy and fun and strangely soft together. But though sweet teen characters normally leave me feeling bland to neutral, I am feeling some kinda way about this golden retriever boy just adopting an enemy country's assassin and being the only (living) character in the show who is always delighted to see her and who she never has to prove herself to. She never has to earn his regard, he just gives it to her freely. When she turns back in Ep3 and exposes her skills for the rescue, it's because she hears HIM in peril. That's who she drops in to rescue. I truly think she didn't return that 1st time for Ning Yuanzhou.

She doesn't owe Yuan Lu anything and he doesn't owe her, no deals or obligations. He's just always good to her because he wants to be. Every time he shouts her name I'm 😍 That's her emotional support human.

[tansu-bomb]

Ren Ruyi is QUEEN.

QUEEN ! QUEEN !! QUEEN !!!!!!!!!

Oh how she is capable of physically or mentally shredding arrogant, powerful men into little little pieces is just … 🔥🔥🔥🔥

She begins by casually issuing commands to her former disciple…

Then circles around him like a tiger would its prey; it’s physical & emotional intimidation at its finest, really!

She is quite disappointed with him & how he has mindlessly festered his obsession all these years. She knows the only way to deal with him & the situations he’s creating is to pluck it by the roots and lay it all out — forcing him to face his demons.

So she bares open his darkest self, his deepest secrets…slaps the nonsense off him…and puts the fear of Shifu back in him.

And she finishes by packaging this incident into a learning lesson for her current disciple.

I literally watched this entire scene like Mr. Du — with my mouth hanging open, sitting at the edge of my seat, and a range of exhilarating emotions coursing through me.

This character…and this scene is EVERYTHING!

[nemainofthewater]

Best Character surnamed: Ren

Come and vote for the best characters with the same surname!*

What does best mean? It's up to you! Whether you love them, are intrigued by their characters, love to hate them, or they're your '2 second blorbos whose personality you made up wholesale', these are all reasons for you to vote for your favs!

*note, the surnames are not exactly the same in all the cases, as often there will be a different character. I am, however, grouping them all together otherwise things got more complicated.

Propaganda is very welcome! If I’ve forgotten anyone, let me know in the notes.

This is part of a larger series of ‘best character with X surname’ polls’. The overview with ongoing polls, winners, and future polls can be found here

[heymeowmao]

一念关山 | A Journey to Love (2023)

[vyther16]

wip wednesday!

it's been a while since i've done one of these, but i have been churning out ideas for A Journey to Love fic nonstop since before the show ended (as @myhamartiaishubris can attest)

this snippet was written around like, eps 25-28-ish. (basically before everyone started dying). it was going to be the start to a Yu Shisan-centric time-travel fixit, but then the show finished and it made this whole thing irrelevant.

Basically, AU where the second prince isn't a dipshit, An Di isn't as terrible, and there's no real issues with getting our of the Wu capital.

CW for major character death under the cut

Yu Shisan does not die in a dramatic blaze of glory, nor does he die to protect a beautiful and virtuous young lady. He dies halfway home from the An kingdom when a stray arrow from a bandit hits him in the lung. Ning Yuanzhou makes a truly animalistic sound, and Ren Ruyi and Sun Lang both viciously fight off any bandits who come near him and Lao Qian. Lao Qian looks stoic as ever, hands perfectly steady as he tries to bandage the wound. Shisan already knows it's no use, but Lao Qian's eyes flash beautifully when he tries to say that. "Ah, Lao Qian," he tries, "You shouldn't worry; you'll get wrinkles, and then where would your good looks go." "I'm not one of your ladies, brought to my knees with pretty words and fluttered eyelashes," Lao Qian snaps, stripping Shisan of his armor to better reach his wound. Oh, Shisan thinks. "I know that," he says aloud. He intends to keep talking, but instead he coughs, sending blood splattering over Qian Zhao’s robes. Qian Zhao’s lips purse, but he doesn’t pause in his ministrations. Yuan Lu has come to kneel by his side, hands shaking as he reaches for Shisan’s hand. “You can’t die,” Yuan Lu says, voice choked with tears. “Yang Ying will be so upset if you die.” “I didn’t mean to,” Shisan says, and coughs again.  “Stop talking,” Lao Qian snaps. “You’re aggravating it.” Shisan chokes on a laugh. “Ah, Lao Qian,” he says, ignoring the way his whole body lights up in a flare of pain. “I must maintain my image.” “You can’t do that if you’re dead,” Ning Yuanzhou says. Shisan didn’t realize he’d knelt down next to him. That must mean the bandits are gone. He says as much, or at least he tries to, breaking off into another blood-soaked cough. He thinks everyone else has gathered around him, like they did that time Ning Yuanzhou was dying after the fight to protect Beauty’s dumb disciple. Someone moves his head, and then he’s looking up into Beauty’s worried eyes. He can die happily if he’s looking at a beautiful woman, Shisan decides, but then she lets go of his face, letting it loll back to look at Qian Zhao. There are more hands on his chest, and then a tear slips down Qian Zhao’s face. “That’s not right,” Shisan tries to say, attempting to reach up to wipe away Lao Qian’s tears, but he can’t do either. It’s getting harder to keep his eyes open. He hears a desperate conversation happening above him, multiple voices overlapping, but he can’t focus on it. Instead he keeps his eyes on Lao Qian’s face and the tears tracing down his cheeks until he can’t force them open any longer. Yu Shisan dies surrounded by his brothers, barely half a li from his own country.

so i wrote this before everyone died and had to scrap it, but rest assured that the au is still being written (alongside @myhamartiaishubris who is writing all the parts i can't, namely the flirting)

[danmeigirl]

I was so freaking lazy to draw a background T_T

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

ajtl/yngs x hello saturday

after watching the actual hello saturday episode that the cast attended I got inspired and decided to write a version with the characters from ajtl because i'm missing them and why not. you can watch the full episode here with english subs but I've also summarized the main points in the post in case you don't want to watch the full 1.5 hour show (though imo it's worth it because it with very fun)

The episode basically follows the games/structure of the actual one that the cast of ajtl appeared on: the antidote carrier trying to create a team of non-poisoned swordsmen through hints acquired by winning various mini-games to successfully draw the six-sided sword from Malan Mountain

The games include an action version of "radish squat" to choose their identities as one of the antidote carrier (1), a poisoned swordsman (4), a non-poisoned swordsman (3); pop culture pictionary, except using up to 5 emojis instead of drawing; 3, 2, 1, look here!; group pose description game; some action-based game to replace the don't sing, move game because I didn't find this segment very interesting

Instead of only having four characters guest star on the show, I'm replacing the usual hello saturday cast members with four more characters

In total, there are two teams consisting of: Ren Ruyi, Ning Yuanzhou, Yu Shisan, Yang Ying AND Li Tongguang, Qian Zhao, Yuan Lu, and Sun Lang

In the first game, Ren Ruyi picks up Yang Ying for one of her actions and flusters her

Li Tongguang has to do the same thing thrice with Sun Lang, who gets very flustered and giggly over it suddenly I have a new rare pair ig

Yang Ying chooses to sajiao and ask for a kiss from Ruyi for one of her actions, which forces someone from the opposing team to do it towards their other three team members

I can't decide whether that someone should be Li Tongguang or Qian Zhao because both feel like equally amusing options

Also someone makes Ning Yuanzhou pout cutely during this game

Following a loss during the emoji pictionary game, Ren Ruyi is the only one not to be frightened by the balloon popping while Yang Ying flinches at the sound

Ren Ruyi trades away Yang Ying after this game, much to Li Tongguang's smug satisfaction ("It seems that shifu doesn't want you either")

Ren Ruyi doesn't understand the rules to 3, 2, 1, look here! and splashing Li Tongguang when he won

Yang Ying gets flustered and splashing Ning Yuanzhou when he won instead of protecting Li Tongguang (who also gets splashed) and profusely apologizing to him (不好意思，远舟哥哥!)

"Shouldn't you also be apologizing to your partner?" He laoshi (the host) jokes. "He's far more soaked thanks to Ren Ruyi"

At some point Ren Ruyi and Ning Yuanzhou switch so it's master vs disciple, which of course ends with Ren Ruyi winning

There's an occurrence where Ren Ruyi chooses Li Tongguang to come to her team which has him ecstatic, but she immediately trades him away the following round when she suspects he's been "poisoned" (the others on his team make fun of him for this)

Qian Zhao's stoic face during the group pose game makes everyone laugh

After the final game Ren Ruyi has to choose between Ning Yuanzhou and Yu Shisan to leave her team, with the former giving a very serious appeal before it dissolves into petty accusations between the two of them

Ning Yuanzhou: "Ruyi, I promise it's not me. You know me and that the clue in the last round is definitely about me. So please, trust me once again."

"As if you didn't break your promise to her! Beauty, listen to me, I'm a much better choice than Ning Yuanzhou. Who else is as handsome and reliable as me?" "Ruyi has never chosen you before, so why would she start now?" "You also lied about being poisoned to all of us for several months!" "For the sake of the mission! I didn't want to hurt morale" "Do you really think you can trust the guy like that? I worked hard this entire episode!" "Yu Shisan—"

In the end Ruyi chooses to keep Ning Yuanzhou and send away Yu Shisan ("Beauty! How could you?") and this proves to be the right choice

if someone wants to write a fic based on my hc please ask first

[dragoncharming]

The problem with the final arc of A Journey to Love is that it steps on the face of the previous 85% of the show. They make it explicitly clear that they're in this mess because emperor made 3 critical errors:

not properly utitlizing intelligence assests.

casualities should be avoided wherever possible. when not possible, exchange each drop of blood for maximum results.

don't let commanding officers run around in the middle of the battlefield bc they want to.

And then guess what the last few episodes consists of? Did we follow any of our own instructions.* How many strategy meetings and information reports are there? The main characters are spies, agents, assassins, and guards. They are not rank-and-file soldiers so the show should not be about slamming a block of soldiers against the other guy's block of soldiers and seeing who dies faster.

Starting from when they arrive in He County, the initial confrontation, yes, should be messy. The command doesn't fully believe them yet and they are scrambling to get prepared. But that encounted lasted three days. So after the first night, a scene where they are debating how many of the few Liudao hall members they have to send out to gather information and sabotage vs. how many to keep to guard the emperor. Second day goes a little differently. Yuan Lu had time to build things and Sun Lang advised the local commanders on rearranging some of their formations. Then when we get to the third day's strike on the prince, it follows from the build up they've been working towards.

The finale should be a microcosm of the show. We have hostages and we have a king for Ruyi to put a sword to. This is a greatest hits concert, bangers only, with the whole gang working together. War table with everyone around it. They get intelligence from their field agents there are hostages. Li Tongguan does immediately try to rush out of the room calling for troops, but he's stopped by Ning Yuanzhou before he can leave with a "Then what? So you can watch them get slaughtered?" and a laugh. This confrontation and relationship growth happens here.

Everyone working together towards a singular goal. Li Tongguan does lead the army out to ensure that suspicions aren't raised. Yang Ying comes over before he heads to make sure his acting is on point. The Crimson Guard follow Ren Ruyi to slip behind enemy lines. Liudao Hall gets the hostages out. It's still cool badass battle scenes, but just change it to half the artillery hitting the wall and half blowig themselves up because they've already been spiked.

I'm not saying it needs to be a flawless victory. It's a story about the serious cost that war and even peace has on the people in charge of protecting that peace. Great, love that, but that doesn't have to mean everyone dies. Their happy ending, retired and disabled, not silent and "remembered" as heroes but messy and real. There is poety in that.

Yu Shisan, the archer and lover of beauty, going through the rest of his life blind. Qian Zhao, unbending, rolling around the Imperial Palace in a wheelchair because his spine is not going to recover. Sun Lang, everyone else's defense, not able to hold a shield again because when he threw his shield to cover Yu Shisan he could only catch the arrows aimed for him in his own arm. Not to mention, an emperor they so badly needed to write an edict not able to write again for years or even ever due to the burns on his hands.

Ning Yuanzhou was introduced pretending to be dead on a battlefield. How else is his arc supposed to end, other than him hiding among the dead again, except this time he is found by people hoping he is alive.

*Li Tongguan caveat. It is, in fact, good characterization for him to lose rationality over sentimentality. However, we can simply do that in a different frame.