#what a daoming si thing to say

[characterxreaderimagine]

"She's mine " huaze lei x reader

Imagine you as huaze lei's girlfriend that comes back from Paris France and daoming si fell in love with you.

Author pov: in this jing already moved on as well as lei and ah si and shancai are not dating yet. And the reader is a famous model

Huaze lei's POV :

I was very excited because my lovely girlfriend is coming back from her fashion week suddenly Ximen called out to me

"hey lei whats up with you you've been smiling like 1 hour already " he said.

I did not realize i was smiling

That was then i got a notification

I opened my phone and smiled even more

You: hey my sweets

Lei: hello darling , what time will you be back home?

You: i just landed

Lei : oh im at school when will you be coming?

You : hehehe did you really miss me that much my sweet leilei

I smile at that comment and replied

Lei: haha maybe but dont act like you dont miss me to

You : hehe i did not say nor act like i did not miss you

Lei: hehe

You : hehe ok i have to go now ill see you soon my love

You: love you 💖

Lei : ill be looking forward to it as well darling and i love you too

Third person POV :

The four ( ah si , Ximen , Meizuo and shancai ) looked at lei very confuse to why is he smiling . They never seen him this happy

Dong shancai POV :

I was hanging out with the F4 when suddenly i saw lei smiling

i never seen him smiling this much?

I thought and when Ximen ask lei why he was smiling he then got a notification i think? Then he smiled even more

The others looked at eachother confuse and i do the same

Then we heard Qing he yelled

" guys you theres a new student you have to take a look at this"

Y/n Pov :

I was outside the school in my outfit

I am so excited to see leilei again. i walk inside and then all eyes on me now as i walk a crowd started to surround me asking me questions

Daoming si POV :

We where walking following shancai and Qing he

I hate it when they are together

That was then we saw a crowd walking backwards towards us

The we saw a beautiful girl

"wow who's that " said Meizou

"she looks hot " said Ximen

"she's so pretty" said Qing he

While i just stared at her in awe she even tho i cant see properly due to the crowd but i saw her eyes its so beautiful .

No wait i like shancai damn ah si stop thinking about that

My thoughts were interrupted by a yell

"LEILEI"

I saw the girl ran towards lei and hugged him

Everyone gasp at her movement

Then lei just hugged her back and kissed her forehead

Wth is happening

Dong shancai POV:

I saw the incident in front of me and i can feel a pit of jealously and anger started to rise

Who is this girl?

Why is she hugging him?

What is her relationship with him?

I have a million questions in my mind right now

that was then Ximen said

" you know her lei?"

Huaze lei Pov:

When y/n ran to hugged me i was so happy that she is back and i kissed her forehead

Until Ximen interrupted i groan while y/n just giggled which made me smile

god i love her so much

" i missed you so much leilei " she said while smiling

"i missed you to y/n" i replied as i was to hugged again but got interrupted again

"lei you did not answer my question " Ximen said and i replied

"everyone this is my girlfriend Y/n L/n " And everyone was so shocked and i heard them whispering things like

"Omg thats his girlfriend"

"He is so lucky shes so prettty ''

yeah i am

TO BE COUNTINUED

Author: this is my first time using tumblr and this is my first post. and I'm so sorry for the wrong vocabulary English is not my first language

[seokwoosmole]

F4 Thailand Thoughts Ep. 5 [Pt. 3 & 4]

Okay, now about Hana. I have so many thoughts about her and everything that happened with her subplot. First of all, I'm not justifying the things she did, but I understand how she got to where she is. To be bullied and made to feel so terrible about yourself at that young an age is very traumatizing and damaging to your well-being, especially if it came from someone you cared about or admired. And while Thyme was in the wrong for treating her that way, he was also a child at the time (one who wasn't raised to treat people with compassion). I'm not saying that he shouldn't take responsibility for his wrongdoings because in all honesty, what he did to Hana when he was a child is on par with his treatment of other people as an adult, so it can't all be blamed on his young age, but a child at that age can't possibly comprehend that his behavior towards others would come back to bite him so harshly in the future. And it's very clear that Hana is not just angry or obsessed, she clearly has major insecurity issues that worsened her mental health after going through that incident as a kid. So this really isn't a matter of "oh she's a terrible person", but more "someone did something terrible to her and how she decided to cope made her a terrible person". Which is why I found her character so interesting to watch because she's a great example of what happens when a victim unleashes their anger tenfold as a result of the harm done to them. That being said, she's so pitiful, but she doesn't garner too much sympathy from me. The one who hurt her was Thyme. And like Thyme said, she should hate him, but her feelings are twisted with an obsessive love for him, so the end result is taking the anger she should have for Thyme out on Gorya because she has something Hana never had, which is Thyme's love. And that is what erases the sympathy I might have for her. If someone hurts you, it makes sense to want to hurt them back, but dragging an innocent person into it, especially one that has treated you kindly and gone through hard times for you, is especially wrong and cruel. Yeah and also, Thyme was (and still is in a lot of ways) a bully and it was not right of him to call Hana ugly, but that still doesn't make roofying his drink, taking him to a hotel against his will, trying to kiss him while unconscious, and doing things on his phone pretending to be him or anything else she did okay. Second of all, I'm extremely impressed with the development of Thyme's character during the Hana scene. Especially when he said that Hana should hate him for what he did, he really acknowledged that what he did was terrible. For someone who has a long track record of bad behavior that he doesn't take accountability for, this said a lot. And then when Hana threatened to harm herself, he was genuinely concerned. Not because he feared for his reputation or the consequences he might face, but he seemed sincerely sorry and scared that he had harmed someone so badly that they'd resort to these kind of drastic actions. And he ultimately grabbed the shard from her, hurting himself instead of her, and said "I'm sorry. But the person you should love the most is yourself." What?? I'm sorry, Daoming Si or Gu Jun Pyo would never. The way Hana has treated the girl he loves so terribly and admitted to going so far out of this obsessive love and hatred for him, yet Thyme still shows her compassion in this moment? In this scene, he said that he understands Hana in terms of what its like to dislike and love someone, but I feel like he empathizes with her on more than that. He knows how a bad childhood can lead you to become a bad person later in life, and that you'll probably regret impulsive decisions made out of anger or being hurt, so he stops Hana from doing so. And even though his immediate thought was to go after Gorya, he still told the server coming into the room to tend to Hana before he left.

Thirdly, even though Hana admitted to sabotaging Gorya, Thyme still doesn't know the whole story behind the pictures he saw her in, but after realizing that his misplaced anger

was a shield for his admiration for her, he made the decision to believe her – to blindly trust with the only reassurance being his love for her.

[yyxgin]

dunnae worrae bestie ❣️ life gets in the way sometimes (and responsibilities)

okay so i just liked the kind of air to love alarm? idk it just made me feel like i was somewhere else bc i felt the production quality was that high. some of it was questionable i do agree w that but also song kang is total heart-eyes 😍 and meteor garden was sweet for like a minute each episode and the rest was me groaning in agony just wishing dong shancai would snipe daoming si’s mother. shancai did so much too?? like four episodes in she won a cooking competition against a girl who had literally been professionally training to impress one of the boys ✋ but shancai literally came from almost nothing. also — i’ve never been more frustrated w a drama than meteor garden like sis was literally dirt poor, came close to being evicted twice and her parents moved back to their fisherman hometown leaving her in shanghai (i think?) to make money bc they couldn’t afford the city but she had the newest phone 🛑✋

very early on in my kpop days i had no idea who to bias or however that worked and i was like ‘well i like stray kids i’ll just buy an album’ anyway one of the pc’s i pulled was a polaroid type thing for changbin and i said to my friend wow that’s such a boyfriend picture and that’s the story of how i ulted changbin. im so blasé about so much it’s worrying sometimes 🙀🙄✌️✌️ im not too bad about watching things. i used to struggle a lot but bc i’ve trained myself to read fast enough to see the subs and then flicker to the scene on screen so i don’t get bored. i do feel sometimes as if i am following when i’m looking at my phone but realistically i shouldn’t be this bold 😬

noice!! i’m still new to adulting but i’m p sure ive been at it for longer than i think. when i was fifteen and working in a hotel i was asked if when i was finished for the summer i was going back to uni 🤡 all i keep thinking about is finally having a job again and being able to spend an entire pay check on albums ngl i haven’t impulsively bought anything recently and i’m itching to be irresponsible w my money again 🤠 i know some girls who have preordered all the versions of dream and MAN am i tempted 😭😭😭 this is getting so out of hand at this point i’m going to have to strap myself to my bed until june this is not it ☹️

i have read for nct members certain members are more popular in like eastern us? i imagine it’s to encourage trading or to buy more albums so i could only guess that’s what’s happened to me w mamamoo 😭 theyre thé only gg i am properly into. i didn’t want to be thirsting over boys all the time bc... idk i just wanted some variation so mamamoo it was! twice is too many people for now (don’t even say but nct has 23, ik ik but i was only on my second group and i refused to acknowledge more than one unit for like 7 months bc i was scared) and blackpink has like 2 songs 🤡🤡 i added this bot called zephyr to my discord server and me and my friend roll for collectible kpop cards (it’s p neat and i’ve found groups i wouldn’t have been able to find myself otherwise) and she’s helped me discover so many groups! i think i was enjoying a fromis_9 song earlier <3

i’m always having good days these days 🥺 so i hope yours was good too!! also i don’t expect you to reply to these straight away (bc they’re unnecessarily long) i just try my best to reply straight away otherwise i’ll forget i even sent sumn in the first place! ~🌻

the production quality was definitely very high with love alarm, it looked so nice and aesthetic :(( but like,,the storyline ?? when they kissed in the first ep?? i- that was it for me. i couldnt watch it any longer. my best friend  finished it tho and i think she liked it,,so like-- fair.

PLEAAASE METEOR GARDEN SOUNDS SO MESSY i lowkey wanna watch it just for the shits and giggles now,,i can’t,,, like the cooking competition? that sounds like a fucking disney channel plot to a movie. i am all here for it tho

YOU HAVE A CHANGBIN POLAROID OKAY BESTIE I AM ON MY WAY TO ROB YOU NOW. DROP YOUR ADDRESS,,,DEADASS. AAAAH also i am bad at watching things to the point when i forget to turn on the subtitles sometimes and then get surprised when i dont understand a shit anD THATS when i realise somethings wrong. 

i am so new to adulting pls,, this is my first part time job and i also didn’t have a bank account until literally today. i am a babie,, i couldn’t even do things by myself like i can’t fucking order for myself in the restaurant because i am socially anxious hihi. bUT i figured working with people might help me get rid of that and i am also fullfiling my childhood dream of working behind the cash register now, so that’s cool. the only thing i need now is to graduate, go to uni and do my driver’s licence and then i’ll be adulting for real imo

i am really good with money surprisingly?? i dont spend much, because i dont have money lmao and when i do i keep it because i just like the thought of having money and not the actual spending. YOUR FRIEND BOUGHT ALL THE VERSIONS OF THE DREAM ALBUM??? LOWKEY ME FDKAJ no but fr i think i’m just gonna order the boring version once i start working because it fits my aesthetic the most and i love the concept photos. also if i pull that one specific renjun photocard i might just cry my eyes out but i’ll be happy with anyone bc i literally ult the entirity of dream at this point. 

ooh i dont really enjoy the sound of girlgroups i think ?? i need some noise if you know what i mean :( im not into like chill songs that much. bUT uhh i like itzy and i am gay for them pls. i also havent listened to their comeback yet so i am a fake fan i guess but i’ll fix that soon i prOMISE

i am doing well and i am also glad you are doing well !! <3 your asks make me so happy dfjka i finally dont feel as invisible on this stupid site lmao. also thanks for understanding that i dont reply that quick, but i tend to just uhh leave things be for a while ?? like i get a message and i dont always reply straight away for some reason. but yea. thank you !! <3

[divasarchive]

F4 sex on first date?

sorry i didn’t see this ahead of time but here you go! now, this question sort of stung me a bit because i dont know if you meant what would their reaction be to sex on the first date like a suggestion to them or if you have sex with them on the first date but i’ll actually do two parts for you so dw!! also i did not go over this yet so sorry for incompletion or mistakes.

daoming si - if you ask about sex on the first date, this man might be too flustered to speak. i know, this doesn’t sound like the grumpy and cold daoming si that you all know and love but it’s true. sure, he might make some sexual jokes on the date but he doesn’t think about actual doing it with you yet. would he be all for it? it depends. he would probably only go as far as making out with you but i feel like he would have some limits before going straight there. honestly though, out of all f4 members, i could see him having sex with you on the first date the second most.

ximen yan - here is the first most guy. now, this man does have some trust issues and you may know that so maybe you’re like huh???? but i feel like he would take a while before going on a first date with you so honestly you might already know each other a bit more and the first date is kind of where he puts a test on you. he might play a game and do some sort of “let’s see if you know me” type thing and ask questions. he might even say something remotely sexual because he seems like the type to ask you if he is a top or bottom. of course, you didn’t know how to answer that so he would hit you with the “you wanna find out?” and that’s how that starts.

feng meizuo - poor baby. you scared him with the question and now he looks traumatized. of course there is some moments where it can lead to something sexual but it usually doesn’t and you are both fine with that. meizuo thinks sex is some sort of special thing. we all know that meizuo probably isn’t a virgin but i feel like out of f4, he could be the one who is most likely to wait a while. he might wait to have sex if you two end up getting married, i dont think he is ready for that on the first date.

huaze lei — oh boy. now he’s getting cocky, thanks a lot. huaze lei is a bit shy on the topic but once he thinks about it more, he is now a bit teasing. he will say things like - “you want me to have my way with you already on the first date?” - LIKE SIR. excuse me?!?!?! shut up. if you two continue the little conversation, it will turn into something more but it depends on what is going on. he has big duality so you won’t know how he will react to sex on the first date. he can also react like - “huh? you want to do it?” - and you’re like dumbfounded because he’s staring at you like you have three heads.

send requests <3

[sifeng]

Love Triangles

I was thinking the other day, about what determines the second male/female and what determines the main male/female lead. And then I was thinking about which romantic dramas don’t involve love triangles and I... couldn’t think of any. So today I will analyze one, love triangle tropes, and two why dramas always include love triangles.

The love triangle in A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好)

Types of Love Triangles

There are three main types of love triangles:

A - when the male/female lead has loved both persons in the love triangle

B - when both members of the love triangle have their moments with the male/female lead

C - when its obvious that one member of the love triangle is seen only as a “friend” or “sister” or “brother” (aka has no chance)

Some dramas feature love triangle B and love triangle C at the same time, here are some examples:

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜)

Love triangle B: Xu Feng (旭凤) - Jin Mi (锦觅) - Run Yu (润玉）

Love triangle C: Sui He (穗禾) - Xu Feng (旭凤) - Jin Mi (锦觅)

Blossom in Heart (海棠经雨胭脂透)

Love triangle B: Lang Yuexuan (朗月轩) - Gu Haitang (顾海棠) - Lang Yueming (朗月明)

Love triangle C: Long Mohua (龙莫婳) - Lang Yuexuan (朗月轩) - Gu Haitang (顾海棠)

Legend of Yunxi (芸汐传)

Love triangle B: Long Feiye (龙非夜) - Han Yunxi (韩芸汐) - Gu Qishao (顾七少)

Love triangle C: Baili Mingxiang (百里茗香) - Long Feiye (龙非夜) - Han Yunxi (韩芸汐)

Some feature both love triangle A and love triangle C as well:

Put Your Head on My Shoulder (致我们暖暖的小时光)

Love triangle A: Gu Weiyi (顾未易) - Situ Mo (司徒末) - Fu Pei (傅沛)

Love triangle C: Xie Yuyin (谢雨吟) - Gu Weiyi (顾未易) - Situ Mo (司徒末)

Princess Agents (楚乔传)

Love triangle A: Yuwen Yue (宇文玥) - Chu Qiao (楚乔) - Yan Xun (燕洵)

Love triangle C: Yuan Chun (元淳) - Yan Xun (燕洵) - Chu Qiao (楚乔)

The Story of Yanxi Palace (延禧攻略)

Love triangle A: Qian Long (乾隆) - Wei Yingluo (魏璎珞) - Fucha Fuheng (富察傅恒)

Love triangle C: Chun Fei (纯妃) - Fucha Fuheng (富察傅恒) - Wei Yingluo (魏璎珞)

Rookie Agent Rouge (胭脂)

Love triangle A: Zhou Yuhao (周宇浩) - Lan Yanzhi (蓝胭脂) - Song Mian (宋勉)

Love triangle C: Feng Manna (冯曼娜) - Zhou Yuhao (周宇浩) - Lan Yanzhi (蓝胭脂)

As you can see through these seven shows, commonly the main love triangle is composed of two guys one girl, while the secondary “love triangle C” is composed of two girls and one guy. 

The love triangle in Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre (倚天屠龙记) and one of the few love triangles not to follow the two guys fighting for one girl triangle. 

Characteristics of Love Triangles

Almost always, the two members vying for the affection in the triangle are foils to each other. Examples:

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好)

Jiang Chen (江辰) - mature, cold and extremely smart

Wu Bosong (吴柏松) - careless, kind and bad grades

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜)

Xu Feng (旭凤) - arrogant and proud

Run Yu (润玉) - quiet and calm

Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre (倚天屠龙记)

Zhao Min (赵敏) - clever, manipulative

Zhou Zhiruo (周芷若) - “innocent, selfless” (I mean she technically is worse than Zhao Min, but that’s not the mask she puts on)

In school dramas you typically have the smart guy and the dumb girl pairing that eventually wins out:

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好)

Jiang Chen (江辰) and Chen Xiaoxi (陈晓希)

When We Were Young (人不彪悍枉少年)

Hua Biao (花彪) and Yang Xi (杨夕)

With You (最好的我们)

Yu Huai (余淮) and Geng Geng (耿耿)

Le Coup de Foudre (我只喜欢你)

Yan Mo (言默) and Zhao Qiaoyi (赵乔一)

The love triangle in Meteor Garden 2019 (流星花园) - can you guess (if you’ve never watched this show) who the winning couple is?

You may also have the celebrity/popular/rich kid with a poor/hardworking person pairing:

Meteor Garden (流星花园) - Daoming Si (道明寺) and Shan Cai (杉菜)

Accidentally in Love (惹上冷殿下) - Situ Feng (司徒枫) and Chen Qingqing (陈青青)

My Little Princess (亲爱的, 公主病) - Lin Xingchen (林星辰) and Jiang Nianyu (江念雨)

Boss and Me (杉杉来了) - Feng Teng (封腾) and Xue Shanshan (薛杉杉)

Blossom in Heart (海棠经雨胭脂透) - Lang Yuexuan (朗月轩) and Gu Haitang (顾海棠)

In most dramas you also have the “cold” second/main male lead:

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好) - Jiang Chen (江辰)

Princess Agents (楚乔传) - Yuwen Yue (宇文玥）

Goodbye My Princess (东宫) - Gu Jian (顾剑)

Often there’s also the “childhood friend” aspect, and while that particular trope usually looses out there are some exceptions:

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好) - Jiang Chen (江辰) - main lead

When We Were Young (人不彪悍枉少年) - Li Yu (李漁) - second lead

Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber (倚天屠龙记) - Zhou Zhiruo (周芷若） - second lead

Goodbye My Princess (东宫) - Gu Jian (顾剑) - second lead

Put Your Head on My Shoulder (致我们暖暖的小时光) - Fu Pei (傅沛) - second lead

In some dramas, almost any male character that appears is in love with the female lead:

Princess Agents (楚乔传) - female lead gets the love of:

Yuwen Yue (宇文玥)

Yan Xun (燕洵)

Yuan Song (元嵩)

Xiao Ce (萧策)

Journey of Flower (花千骨) - female lead gets the love of:

Bai Zihua (白子画)

Dongfang Yuqing (东方彧卿)

Meng Xuanlang (孟玄朗)

Startling With Each Step (步步惊心)

Yin Zhen (胤禛)

Yin Si (胤禩)

Yin Ti (胤禵)

Yin E (胤䄉)

The male leads in Startling With Each Step/Scarlet Heart were lucky! They all got something with the female lead:

Male lead: Yin Zhen (胤禛) - is the true love/soulmate

Second male lead: Yin Si (胤禩) - gets her love in the first half

Third male lead: Yin Ti (胤禵) - gets to marry her

So What Differentiates the First and Second Male Leads?

The love triangle in Goodbye My Princess (东宫) - can you guess (if you’ve never watched this show) who the winning couple is?

Typically the female lead just likes one of them and you can’t really give a reason for why the first male lead is better than the second one. However, some dramas do a good job of creating a jerk second male lead that makes the decision sufficiently easier for our female lead:

Princess Agents (楚乔传)

Second male lead Yan Xun (燕洵) kind of goes insane after his entire family is slaughtered and becomes obsessed over revenge. He looses all the qualities our female lead fell in love with him for.

Put Your Head on My Shoulder (致我们暖暖的小时光)

Second male lead Fu Pei (傅沛) is a literal jerk. He takes our female lead’s love for granted and constantly abandons her when she needs help.

Bloody Romance (媚者无疆)

Second male lead Gong Zi (公子) treats people like chess pieces instead of real humans, and is willing to kill or manipulate anyone. Our female lead, being kind and unwilling to kill anyone, obviously would never fall for him.

My Little Princess (亲爱的，公主病)

Second male lead Zheng Chuyao (郑楚曜) is childish and immature. He is unwilling to confess his love for the female lead and constantly embarrasses her instead. 

However, in most other cases, there is never a clear difference between who wins out in a love triangle. One similarity most share is that the first one to speak with the female lead wins out:

Bloody Romance (媚者无疆)

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好)

Accidentally in Love (惹上冷殿下)

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜)

Blossom in Heart (海棠经雨胭脂透）

My Little Princess (亲爱的，公主病)

Love O2O (微微一笑很倾城）

The Princess Weiyoung (锦绣未央)

The Story of Minglan (知否知否应是绿肥红瘦)

Lucky’s First Love (世界欠我一个初恋)

The love triangle in Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜) - can you guess (if you’ve never watched this show) who the winning couple is?

Usually, the second male lead is the type of person who will forever watch over the female lead, caring for them are a subtle way. They are kinder, calmer, and perhaps more down to earth and human:

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好) - Wu Bosong (吴柏松)

Meteor Garden (流星花园) - Hua Zelei (花泽类)

Goodbye My Princess (东宫) - Gu Jian (顾剑)

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜) - Run Yu (润玉)

Accidentally in Love (惹上冷殿下) - Gu Nanxi (顾南锡)

When We Were Young (人不彪悍枉少年) - Li Yu (李漁)

Legend of Yunxi (芸汐传) - Gu Qishao (顾七少)

In cases of the above, the male lead is usually more cold or immature:

A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好) - Jiang Chen (江辰)

Meteor Garden (流星花园) - Daoming Si (道明寺)

Goodbye My Princess (东宫) - Li Chengyin (李承鄞)

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜) 

Accidentally in Love (惹上冷殿下) - Situ Feng (司徒枫)

When We Were Young (人不彪悍枉少年) 

Legend of Yunxi (芸汐传) - Long Feiye (龙非夜)

With second female leads, the similarities are rather obvious. They think they “deserve” the love of the male lead because they either grew up together or they have the same social standing:

Goodbye My Princess (东宫) - Zhao Sese (赵瑟瑟）

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜) - Sui He (穗禾)

Legend of Yunxi (芸汐传) - Baili Mingxiang (百里茗香)

Love O2O (微微一笑很倾城) - Meng Yiran (孟逸然)

Blossom in Heart (海棠经雨胭脂透) - Long Mohua (龙莫婳)

Boss and Me (杉杉来了) - Yuan Lishu (元丽抒)

While the male lead often sees his excess admirers as “sisters” the female lead simply friend zones them. 

Often, the male lead is also somewhat of a foil to the female lead:

Boss and Me (杉杉来了)

Xue Shanshan (薛杉杉) is innocent, a little stupid and cute

Feng Teng (封腾) is mature, intelligent and cold

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜)

Jin Mi (锦觅) is unaware of love and a little stupid

Xu Feng (旭凤) is fully aware of his feelings and smarter

Goodbye My Princess (东宫)

Qu Xiaofeng (曲小枫) is innocent, kind and longs to go home

Li Chengyin (李承鄞) is cold, cruel and willing to do anything to keep Xiaofeng by his side

If you really just want to tell who’s the male lead, I’ll tell you an easy way to find out: he’s going to be played by the guy who’s more famous. 

The love triangle in Startling With Each Step (步步惊心) - can you guess who’s the first, second, and third male leads are?

So Why do Dramas Love Love Triangles?

Not to say TV shows have lazy writing or anything, but I feel like love triangles are an easy way to make both male and female leads realize their feelings. For instance, in Boss and Me, when our female lead (Shan Shan), sees our male lead (Feng Teng) dancing with another girl, she gets jealous. That makes her realize her feelings. Love triangles can also stretch out a TV show longer. A show that might only have 24 episodes can probably be stretched to more than 30 just due to love triangles. 

On a level of characterization, when a character has many admirers, we, as watchers, can infer various things about them. Either they are one, amazingly beautiful or successful, or two, amazingly unique. For example, Chu Qiao in Princess Agents is strong and intelligent and for that reason, almost every guy she comes in contact with falls head over heels for her. This can show you that she is one of a kind in this world. Very few women in Princess Agents are as straightforward of their power, and so she really is unique. Xiaofeng in Goodbye My Princess has admirers because she is kind, innocent and selfless. Her bright and cheerful personality contrasts heavily with the political and dark atmosphere of the palace. So, when a character is entangled in many love triangles, you can infer there’s something special about them, and use that hypothesis to further infer something about the world in which the television show takes place. 

Love triangles can also lead to more character development. In trying to get girl (or very rarely guy), the admirers must rise to become a better version of themselves. For example, in Meteor Garden, Daoming Si goes from being bratty and immature to being (relatively more) mature and understanding. In A Love So Beautiful, Jiang Chen goes from being a guy that’s cold and pushes people away to a guy who is more open about his feelings and love. 

So, while in some shows, love triangles exist purely to elongate the show, in other shows we can use love triangles as a way to investigate the society we are plunged into at the start of the show. 

Notes:

Would you say Go Go Squid (亲爱的, 热爱的) has a love triangle. That weird press lady likes the male lead, but she has like four scenes in total. 

Here’s another thought I had about love: the ability of a character to admit their feelings often reflects upon how they’ve lived up til that point. Characters that do not understand their feelings could either have grown up isolated, never been in a relationship or have been fed a pill by their mother that takes away their ability to love. Characters who confess more easily were probably raised with loving parents in a loving household with loving friends surrounding them. Characters that understand their feelings at once know themselves well, and they can understand love. They either were raised in a loving family, or have been in love before. Love is a strange concept, sometimes we can’t handle it, and a lot of times we can’t understand it. TV shows feature humans (or at least things that look like humans) and so they deal with that aforementioned problem too. 

[atlaskat]

Criticisms for Meteor Garden (2018)

I’m watching episode 27 right now and I've got some things on my mind. I just need to rant for a bit.

So I don't really like this show? I've got problems with several of the characters, and with the plot, and especially with Shancai herself. The only saving grace is Daoming Si, whom I absolutely adore.

I enjoy romance, don't get me wrong. But there are tropes I'm tired of. I especially hate the tropes "I won't communicate my feelings ever" and "I'll lie to make the breakup nastier and therefore 'easier'". This show is like the embodiment of these two.

Qinghe is an annoying, boring comic relief that relies way too much on second hand embarrassment. I don't care about him. I don't give a shit about Zhou Caina or Meizuo. Not enough has been done to flesh out Ximen and Meizuo, which is bad already, but it also means that any plot line with them as central will feel boring because there's nothing the audience cares about there.

Shancai is frustratingly slow to even think about her own feelings, which so obviously is done to stretch out the story and contribute to a lot of unnecessary drama. She is also really annoying at times, I really hate how she is made out to be this strong independent says-what-she-thinks type of person, but she will never confront people or be honest in situations when it's actually important just so there will be some sense of drama or tension in the show. The story is so painfully character-driven that a lot of it is maddening to watch. I also don't like the face Shancai makes 90% of the show. Slightly sad/shocked for no apparent reason... close your mouth, girl.

Look, my love life might not be the most active at the moment, but I'm also a female teenager and I sort of know the ropes. Yes, teenagers are stupid and make stupid mistakes in dating. But there's so much more that can be done with a story than what Meteor Garden does. Relationships are already hard, I really don't understand why tension needs to be created from such idiotic conflicts. Is romance really such a dead genre that it's just a boring regurgitation of the same few tropes?

I love Si though. I'm watching mostly to see Wang He Di's face. (Should I call him Dylan or He Di though? Maybe I'll just stick to Wang lol).

I think when I've watched the entire show I'll write a proper essay on it just because it frustrates me so much. There are so many weak points it's hard to believe it's still functioning. Damn, I can't believe Daoming Si hasn't broken his back yet from carrying the entire show.

[ihadafeeling]

a stupid mistake?

Shancai: What is the principle of the Schumpeter theory of creative destruction?

Si: In an entrepreneurial life cycle, one doesn't always remain an entrepreneur. Unless he continues to evolve and create new formations, which means to destroy the old, creating the new. [sic] Because with every depression, there is a possibility to gain new skills. It becomes a new skill, product, or business model, to bring the most benefit.

At the close of Meteor Garden (2018), Si credits a revolutionary business plan for his family's once powerful conglomerate, the Daoming Group, to his above conversation with Shancai. As they are studying and he answers her question by rote, she tells him that she admires him -- and Si realizes that memorizing this theory, and understanding it, are different. In creating this plan, a plan that he believes to exemplify this principle, he hopes to always be the person that Shancai admires.

That tension -- between embracing transformation and maintaining a particular feeling -- is at the heart of the show. You could argue it's at the center of all romance, really; love stories are often stories of how a feeling relates to change, be it a story of choosing your beloved, come-what-may, or a story of how affection deepens as you and the object of your affection grow.

And, in a different, meta-way, I think romance is often turned to as a comfort-food kind of entertainment in times of transformation, of uncertainty, because you can be certain that you know how it ends, in two senses. First: somebody's gonna love somebody. Romance is often a story about a person valuing their love for someone else, and in telling that story, it advocates for the audience to hold love as valuable, too. That's the second sense of certainty: romance is going to advocate for the power of love, somehow.

I want to talk about audience expectations and how Meteor Garden ends.

The final three episodes conclude with the protagonists choosing to make a hunger and water strike together, protesting Si's mother's insistence that he marry Xiaozi as part of a larger business deal to save the Daoming Group. Initially, Shancai attempts to convince Si that she does not care for him, so that he will eat; he sees through this, and reminds her that his love has never wavered, convincing Shancai that they must be together.

His mother relents only after their friends raid his computer and uncover his revolutionary business plans, able to save the conglomerate without a wedding. When the lovers are reunited, a weak Shancai crumples to the floor, her head lolling on to Si's bandaged palm.

I could bore you with a description of each of the scenes to follow, but it is essentially this: Shancai faints when Ximen tells her that Si has gone to London to marry Xiaozi, that they really broke up; she wakes up in a wedding dress in a strange place; as Shancai tries to find Si in this unfamiliar location, a black room with just a stage, she is confronted first by his sister Zhuang, who dances sexily to Si's fight song with two backup dancers; who then tells her she will magically summon Si; who then tells her she cannot because Shancai isn't devoted enough; the members of F4 come out and each propose and are rejected in turn; cue Si's entrance, flanked by Shancai's would-be love interests, each of whom gives his blessing to her union with Si; several side characters, many not particularly close to the bride and groom, compliment Shancai's appearance and offer free babysitting; Si is then kicked to the floor impatiently by his sister; Shancai asks if this is real, and is laughed at for being stupid; Zhuang, in the same thigh-high boots from her choreographed dance scene, performs the marriage vows; husband and wife dance to Gareth Gate's 'Any One of Us (Stupid Mistake)':

It can happen to anyone of us Anyone you think of Anyone can fall Anyone can hurt someone they love Hearts will break 'cause I made a stupid mistake

Cut to a series of endearing scenes, showing how various side character's lived are unfolding. There is gratuitous product placement shown as part of Si and Shancai's new married life, and Si's mother says that she wants to discover herself as a person independent from the business, and learn how to cook and take selfies. (Yes, really.) The penultimate scene is of Si with his arms wrapped around Shancai, watching a meteor shower together with Lei... and the very last features Shancai, Si, and the remainder of F4 singing with the musician Harlem Yu, performing the very song that appears so frequently on the sound track, waving at the camera as the screen darkens.

If you take anything away from the above summary, take this: the ending of the show was quite aware of its audience.

I think it was that same awareness that made the ending so unsatisfying to me. As I hope my description above conveyed, the entire wedding was fucking surreal. Meteor Garden, like several of the asian dramas I have seen, was quite clear on its conclusion from the credits of the first episode, being a gratuitous spatter of interactions between Shancai and Si, followed by a notably shorter mixture of interactions with Lei. Though Lei was going to appear to be a viable option, he would never be endgame, the credits told me. That was probably why it appealed to me so much, as a person currently thick in transitions and changes; it was so nice to be sure of something. The narrative took something I was sure about, the wedding between the central couple, and showed it to me in the least certain terms as a last possible twist. Followed by naked product placements. Followed by the cast singing from the sound track and waving at the camera.

I had followed this show for forty prior episodes, confident that it would show me that love is something worth fighting for. I wanted to hear that message. I wanted the happily-ever-after. And what I got was a series of scenes so unlikely, so transparently wish-fulfillment where everyone ended up happy, so focused on the viewer who wants a certain thing from this show and who can buy things, that I cannot take it seriously as part of the story, really, because none of those scenes felt like something that a person would do. There is a part of me that wonders if the wedding and following scenes are anything but afterlife dreams, Shancai and Si having each died from their hunger strike shortly after being reunited. That would be cruel, but better writing.

Similarly, I found myself hoping that Daoming Si would turn his back on his incredible wealth and privilege. As it stands, though he undergoes emotional growth (the most of any character in the show), he never ... seems to face real risk, where he might change in some way previously fundamental to his identity. He never stops being the chosen son of Daoming Group. Even when he shouted out his intention to never give Shancai up to waves, it was never a vow to choose her over wealth; it was to choose both. Both is good.

I've decided that, no matter what happens, I have to be with Dong Shancai! I won't give up on Shancai or Daoming Group! I'm going back to London, I'll take care of everything, because I'm Daoming Si! Because I'm Daoming Si, I'll never give up on Shancai!

Even if Si never went through the material transformation I wanted, I strongly suspect that the choice of wedding first-dance song, the one meant to be symbolic of a love story between the bride and groom, was intended to reference the many mistakes that they had learned from and so become changed people, leading them to choose one another; it was not supposed to be directed towards the audience, for foolishly believing that this surreal scene was actually happening. But as an English viewer, it was quite a suckerpunch to have that song, of all songs from the limited soundtrack, play at the critical moment.

Was it a stupid mistake to watch this show?

Dong Shancai. I like you. I don't know why. Even I'm surprised by how much I like you. ... I know I'm annoying. If you want to run away I'll chase after you. If you go to Mars, I'll go there too.

Sometimes Meteor Garden seemed like nothing but an elaborate game of tag, where each lover would take turns pursuing and resisting one another. I think that is because the satisfying part of a love story is to see feeling calibrated by action and risk. They always end, and the point where they end is supposed to be the point when you believe that these people have settled the question of the value of their love. But that's the funny thing about intrinsic values, things like righteousness or love or protecting others -- you never stop coming to that crossroad. When I think about what I wanted from this episode, a realistic depiction of the question of their love being settled, it's true I didn't get it, but what I want from this story, an assurance that certain things are worth fighting for, I was never going to get. Not for long.

In that way, I've found deciding the value of this show to replicate the pitfalls of deciding to hold values generally, even love. Yes, I think it was worth watching a series of distilled yearning that never paid off, if only because it made me think so much about why I was unhappy with what I got. Occasionally I wonder if the final arc was a brilliant, intentional choice, referencing the artificialness of endings by being so exaggeratedly unreal.

And along the way, I got to observe Dylan Wang's excellent eyebrows make an entire character.

[hzlmrgoalsk]

I have two things about the hug in the rain thing.

Thing one. That hug was pure relief. It was relief partially because she actually showed up. And partially because she was safe. He was worried that she was actually going to stand him up and not show, this showing him that she doesn’t care. But we all know she does. Which is why she shows up. The other half of the relief comes from the fact the he gets extremely anxious when he doesn’t know if she is ok or not. He had been calling her nonstop for four hours and she never answered. This probably made him think that something must have happened to her. And that set off his protective instincts and he couldn’t leave not knowing. So. He waited. And when she did finally show up, his first reaction was to hug her. And damn. It’s a cute ass hug.

Thing two. The song being played over this scene is “I don’t have to think about it”. Dylan’s song. Before this rewatch, I had no clue how adorable this song was. It’s basically saying that she is the reason he is brave and can endure anything. The chorus in particular I love, yes I know it’s not an exact translation, but it gets the gist across. The chorus says, “I don’t even have to think about it. Love is Love no matter what. Cause true love can see it’s you who makes me feel so brave. Please be there for me to hate and to love. All bad will be thrown away. Hold you in my heart, I won’t ever let go.” It’s begging her not to leave and that he never has to think about the fact that he loves her. It’s as natural as breathing. And it’s an instrumental version that’s played. So I didn’t really pay attention to it before. But now... I’m paying close attention to the song choice and fuck I’m happy that I did. This song literally says exactly what Daoming Si is thinking and feeling in this moment and I’m a puddle.

[thebyunhip]

I've never fully understood the concept for parents meedling in their kids lives. I don't understand how Daoming Si's mom sees what she is doing as protecting her son, surely she is only thinking about her business - which to some extend is a good thing but not when you hurt your child in the process. She has to be blind to not see how much her son changed. And since she only thinks about her business then she should know that someone in charge shouldn't want to punch whoever is he having a meeting with.

What I'm trying to say is that this b**** of a woman can get lost, give me more of Ah Si's sister and Mrs. Yu and and all the happiness for my two babies

[namjhyun]

Meteor Garden 2018 Episode 22 Review

Yes, I am skipping reviewing episode 20 and 21 because I refuse to go through that pain all over again by writing about it. It was terrible to watch and that’s all I’m going to say about it. Episode 22, it’s an entire different matter. This hour was full of amazing moments between our characters and some others that were epic.

Let’s start with Lei lending his shoulder, understanding and quiet companionship to Shancai through her heartbreak over everything what she was going through. He’s too precious for this world and deserves happiness of his own, I hope by the end of the show he gets everything he wishes for.

How many more scammers is Shancai’s family going to meet before they can live without worries?? I can’t believe they were rob of their money once again, so of course now they are force to leave Shancai alone in Shanghai. Just when she needs the confort of home more than ever.

I know the show is making a point by demonstrating how strong and resilient Shancai is but, can it give her a break? She deserves to be happy, and allow herself to rest and feel vulnerable once in a while.

Bravo for Si ! Standing up against his Mother and cancelling the marriage arrangement, making clear Shancai is the only one for him. It was damn time they had this fight, since she’s doing nothing but hurt her son, herself and the family business’s future by trying to keep them apart.

I’m glad the Xiaozi’s storyline was finished fast, and I’m even more happy she personally went to talk to Shancai and apologized for getting between her and Si when she knew they had feelings for each other. Especially because she seems to honestly like them both, maybe now she will become a good friend, for real this time. I dare say might even become an ally to them against Daoming Feng. This is the last we will see of her as Si’s fiancé but I have a feeling it’s not the last we will see of her overall.

I dare you guys to name a more iconic moment than the one that came next: Shancai vs. Daoming Feng. Mommie Dearest came into the house not missing a minute and calling Shancai a gold digger and giving weak reasoning as to why she’s against her.

Woman, yes. Shancai doesn’t have the same upbringing as your son, nor the proper knowledge of etiquette and protocol. So what? She’s honest and it’s willing to work hard. Has it occur to you she can learn all those things?

Shancai standing up against Daoming Fen and telling her everything she was thinking to her face was amazing. The equivalent of when she fly kicked Si to get some sense into this head, remember? It seems like Shancai has to go against the Daoming family members one by one to prove herself. Except for Big Sis, she recognized Shancai’s true worth the second they met.

That’s right! Shancai has more class in her pinky finger than Daoming Feng in her entire being. Mommie Dearest was spewing nonsense through the entire interaction. She deserved to be kicked out.

YES, F3. APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE FOR OUR GIRL ALL AROUND!!

I love the guys didn’t waste any time blabbing everything that happened to Si. They also tried to make him understand he needs to be prepare to go against his mother and how difficult things could get for Shancai from now on.

Of course, Si is a stubborn fool in love, who right now can only see what’s in front of him. Yes, he wishes to protect Shancai but it seems like he still fails to understand the position she’s been put on. He needs to start thinking long term strategies if he truly wants to be with his girl. This isn’t a battle, it’s war and they need to go through it together. An united front.

[apkrich-blog]

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[yyxgin]

as quick as love alarm was progressing compared to other dramas i’ve seen (usually wait ten eps for the first kiss and that’s it) it still seemed,, idk important for the story? n e way.

meteor garden is insanely messy like in the final episode daoming si just mentions everything dong shancai did that makes her so amazing and i honestly forgot they even did some of their things 😳 at one point they went to london and filmed in china town and i was just like ‘oh. i know that place’ and didn’t clock after that 😭

I GOT PEN ON THE BACK OF IT IM SO MAD AT MYSELF ✋✋✋✋✋ but come find me anyway lmao i got a changbin & minho film strip 🤪 can’t have anything nice around here and i learned my lesson the hard way.

i went through a phase when whenever i watched english tv i was like ‘why does this make sense without subs..’ and would be like squinting at the screen until it occurred to me that it was in english.

oh bruh i remember making a bank account the second summer bc my employer was like why tf do you not have a bank account ,, yeesh people had been paying by card for meals and stuff and not cash like the year before. so i made one and then she paid me in cash bc people started paying w cash 😐😑😐😑 i waitress so even though i get anxious about other things, i’m comfortable about waitressing so i am super nice to everyone. i am the designated person who orders for everyone (as long as you point at what you want in case i can’t remember everything i will say it). i know how important it is to be articulated to your server bc if they f up you get mad and they get mad bc ur mad and the chef gets mad bc the server f-ed up and the chef has to cook again and it’s a never ending circle of wishing you’d just gone somewhere else and i hate that. i also get mad at my fam when we go out bc the last time we went out (literally like two years ago now bc covid) there was a guy serving at this place we’re fairly frequent at and i was like maybe he’s training don’t be so mad at him for forgetting things just gently remind him! don’t cuss him out behind his back! there’s so much pressure about not pissing off your colleagues bc there’s a groove they’ve got and you’re just there not wanting to ruin it whilst also meeting customers needs!!

ive been waiting to pass my drivers test for over a year now bc covid has pushed it back and back and back again 😐 i finally get my next test date and i have to ask a different instructor for their car bc my instructor is on annual leave when my test is scheduled. i’m holding it together so i can ask an instructor, buy a car and yeet. the bus is okay but i need my own space sometimes.

i am good w my money im the jungkook of the working class. if there are pots and pans on the go i will take them. free food? count me in. i do have that broke b*tch mindset. although i don’t buy $300 white tshirts i will spend $200 on a day out 😃 and sis,, buy whichever one you like bc of the concept!! it’s always fun seeing the posters (personally i don’t put them up bc how am i gonna have sir johnny suh STARING at me while i get changed,, no THANK YOU) i’ll cry if i ever pull a yuta card bc he looks ✨spicy✨ in all of them.

i think i get what you’re saying about gg’s! boy groups have a wider range. eg, haechan hits those high notes and jeno/mark rap/sing quite low but girl groups can’t. unfortunately i feel like they rely on visuals heavier bc they don’t have the same range bg’s do. itzy are good!! i personally haven’t listen to a lot/watched a lot of their mv’s. i’m more into red velvet for their mv’s. im terrible at watching content so i am slowly working through bts’ content, monsta x’s content and ocassionally nct’s content. im gonna work on mamamoo next 🤞fake fans unite 😔✊✨

it’s so easy to feel invisible here. don’t worry. i’m here to brighten your day! much like a sunflower ~ 🌻

I cant really speak about the importance of the kiss in love alarm since i didnt watch more than the first ep, but i will trust you if you really say so ?? 😳 I WANNA WATCH METEOR GARDEN JUST FOR THE DRAMA DHSNSK

dude dont fucking test me i WILL find your address and i WILL visit you in your sleep and steal all your kpop stuff. MINHO FILM STRIP ??????? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

i still watch english things w eng subtitles sometimes bc my first language isn't english so just in case i dont hear something i can always read it you know djsksk

this is my first job so i didnt have to have bank account before but now that i have it i feel very adult😩✋i am so old. i dont like it.

oh no i hate people that arent polite to waitresses like they are just doing their job and its so hard and stressful and i dont want to make their life harder so im just really anxious abt everything in my life ever.

i'm rooting for you on your driving test !! lets hope you make it after such a long time <3

JUNGKOOK OF THE WORKING CLASS NO- thats actually me. also free samples. give me all of them. also i think its completely justified to spend so much on a night out since its for the memories !! #yolo am i right

I AM SO TEMPTED TO ORDER THE ALBUM NOW 😭💔😭 i actually have my posters on my closet and i change inside the actual closet at all times bc me and my brother share a room, so no one's looking at me thankfully haha. well, i do have bts pics on the warderobe next to my bed as well so they watch me sleep every night but we dont talk about that. YUTA CARD i would cry. he for sure does look spicy half the time of his life.

i dont know that many rv songs (the audacity, i know) but seulgi... ah. i watched the sm new years concert and when she appeared i couldnt keep my eyes off her. i should really listen to more of their songs so if u have any recs i am all ears

thank you for brightening up my day sunflower ily mwah😔❤

[divasarchive]

f4 engagement proposals?

daoming si ::: nervous as FUCK. doesn’t know what the hell to do at first but he’s gonna go to his friends and family, freaking tf out over it. well, first brag about him getting the most expensive ring for his precious person and then scream when he realize he gotta propose. they would have to calm him down and persuade him to propose to you in the first place because he will back out. not because he doesn’t love you anymore, he thinks he isn’t good enough for you and his doubts will come in quick. he may start acting strange and asking questions or say random things.

examples: “do you promise to love me forever?”, “you know i love you, right?”

si will eventually take you out to dinner (help from ximen and meizuo, of course with lei adding to some of it) and will propose to you in front of everyone. after this, he will automatically start calling you his wife/husband. kinda wants to have a wedding immediately just so y’all can get straight to the honeymoon-

ximen yan ::: damn homie, how long is it gonna take for you to pull the ring out? he would’ve already brought the ring ahead of time, when he realizes you’re the one. he just neglects to finally ask you the question and the boys will question him on it (since they found out he brought it). again, mans kinda got trust issues and they sort of come to play here when he finally sees he is taking too long.

he will think, “what if they found someone else?”. he would take you out for dinner as well but i doubt he would propose in front of everyone. maybe somewhere quiet and when you two are alone because he’s gonna want to have a deep conversation with you to lead up to what he’s doing. after he finally proposes, he would probably explain why he took so long to do it and you need to give him comfort afterwards. he doubts himself whether you see it or not.

feng meizuo ::: EXCITED! he’s gonna be so cute about it and never will stop talking about it. he is so in love with you and wants to show you that. will bring ximen to the ring shopping only since it would be early in the morning and most likely, si and lei are sleep. meizuo will be picky over the wedding ring because he wants the best for you— the whole reason why ximen is there is solely because of that. he will propose at an amusement park. after all the rides and the food, there is where the question will pop up.

have you seen one of those creative proposals? something like that because this boy is extra and i can see him going all out. you would be shocked (i hope in happiness) and wonder what?? when?? how?? why?? and then suddenly, he has this gorgeous ring out and now tears are everywhere for the both of you. definitely will go home and be showered with cuddles. lots of talk about the wedding too.

huaze lei ::: i can see him being the calmest one. like, he’s nervous deep down and freaking out so much as well but he doesn’t wanna show that. the other members would be concerned but not surprised. every questioned asked about it, you will earn a shrug. he wants his proposal to be secret... like the way it’s done because he wants everyone to be surprised. nobody would know when he proposes because he is that good at keeping it secret.

now i can see him as being cute and recording him proposing to you. i think he would propose at a picnic date??? he seems like such a cute picnic boyfriend and i cant stop thinking about that concept. it would be around the time the sun is setting so it’ll look really beautiful when he does it. he will be extra flirty on the date like way more than he normally is and you’re kinda like.... is he okay?? you dont mind— but you cant help but wonder. and he’s just so chill and flirty, not giving out one hint. he would put the wedding box somewhere subtle like maybe give you the box and when you open it, there is nothing but when you look at him, he is on one knee with the ring in his hand. doesn’t that sound cute??? CAUSE IT IS!!

note ::: this is so cute. time to cry ): and i will get to other requests soon, sorry for being late!

[hydtrash-blog]

Meteor Garden 2018 Episode 1 Recap

As promised, here I am, recapping Meteor Garden 2018 (arriving ever so slightly late to the game…by 25 episodes).

Since I’m starting halfway through the drama’s run, I’ll try to churn these late recaps out as quickly as possible, and then peter off if/when we catch up to the current episodes. This is the plan… I’ll try my best to stick to it.

I mentioned before that, in an ideal world, I would have recapped both Hana Yori Dango (Japan, 2005) and Meteor Garden (Taiwan, 2001) first, in order to contextualize the story, particularly the changes that have been made to the premise. However, since the story seems not to deviate too much from the source material once we’re out of the gates, this is probably not necessary. Suffice to say that the story has been updated for a new generation, but is largely untouched once we get into the thick of it.

I’ll be referring to this drama as Meteor Garden 2018 in order to differentiate it from the earlier Taiwanese drama. Please also note that any quotes are being taken from subtitles, as I do not speak Mandarin! If anything is incorrect, please let me know, and I’ll be sure to make it right!

And with all those notes out of the way…onward, to the recap!

Episode 1

A black screen. A narrator asks the audience, “Have you ever wondered what will happen to you in the future?”

Fade in on a freeze frame: a girl, launched fully in the air, legs outstretched, foot making contact with a boy full on in the face. We’re treated to an extended 360 degree shot of the scene, taking in the boy’s horrified face, the bystanders behind the girl, and the floating debris from their bags, including a transparent Joker card.

The narration continues: “At least the 18-year-old me never thought something like this would happen in real life.”

The narrator is Dong Shancai, who introduces herself as an ordinary 18 year old girl. We backtrack a little in order to properly meet Shancai and her family. Mrs. Dong runs her own catering business, making specialty meals at home, while Mr. Dong is a logistics manager at a company. They are a close, loving family who scold and support each other. Awww.

It’s because of her mother’s catering business that Shancai has decided to get into the Nutrition Department at Ming De University, a prestigious school. She works all summer at a tea shop with her high school best friend Xiaoyou, and they adorably check each other’s college entrance exams results, cheering that they both got into their chosen schools and departments. Shancai is indeed off to Ming De, and Xiaoyou goes to another university to study tea culture.

Soon enough it’s Shancai’s first day at school, and we get beautiful shots of the campus, and of Shancai walking around, taking it all in. She’s soon joined by Chen Qing He, another classmate of hers from high school. Qing He expresses his excitement at being able to attend the same university as Shancai, saying it’s better than winning the lottery. Oooh, boy’s got it bad for Shancai, but she remains blissfully unaware, saying she’s happy to be his classmate once more as well.

Someone calls her name, and a girl runs up to the pair. Shancai identifies her as Li Zhen, another one of their high school classmates, although she was in a different classroom from them. They’re all studying nutrition together, and Li Zhen tells Shancai she’s grateful to know someone in her class. The three agree that they’ll all be best friends for the next four years.

It’s all off to a perfect start, and Shancai tells us in voiceover that she’s now ready to start this new chapter in her life. The next shot is of her, running across campus dressed in a formal skirt and blouse to attend a special lecture. She makes it to the classroom just in time, tripping into Qing He. Two girls snark at her to sit down quickly just as the lecture begins. The guest lecturer, a professor from the University of Pennsylvania, takes the stage. Apparently he’s quite well-known, and after the lecture, Shancai shows Li Zhen and Qing He the photos she took of him. Li Zhen requests that Shancai send her one of them so she can make birthday emojis. The other two are quick to wish her a happy birthday, but Li Zhen corrects them: her birthday is two days from now.

As they walk away from the lecture, still looking through Shancai’s photos, cries of admiration can be heard down the hall, and other students rush past them, their own phones withdrawn to snap some pictures. But it’s not the guest lecturer that they’re running to see. Instead, the students flock around a group of four boys, who stride down the halls, bringing their entourage of squealing fangirls with them. As the group collides with Shancai and her friends, her phone flies out of her hand and lands amongst the clamouring admirers. She drops on hand and knee, crawling after her phone as it’s kicked about the mass of students. She pops up, trying to get a better vantage point to see where her phone’s gone, and one of the girls from the lecture grabs her arm, squealing that “It’s F4!” She shoves past Shancai, who dives back down and crawls towards her phone. There’s a break in the swarm of legs, and Shancai spots her chance, reaching her hand out to grab ahold of her phone…

Which is when an expensive green man’s shoe comes stomping down on the poor phone, leaving the screen cracked.

The group passes, and Shancai swipes up her damaged phone, which now won’t turn back on. Outraged, she follows the group down the escalator and out of the building, determined to confront the owner of the green shoes. She finally catches up to the group, shoving her way to the centre. But the arm she grabs is that of the guest lecturer, and she is immediately pulled off of him by his security detail, who twist her arm and pin her to the ground. Realizing her mistake, Shancai glances around, only to see the expensive green shoes standing right behind her.

Cut to: Shancai being dismissed from an office, having been told to go home and think about what she’s done. She goes to gather her things from her locker; around her, students are whispering about how she tried to assault the special lecturer. Li Zhen and Qing He run up, asking if she’s okay and why she attacked the lecturer. Shancai explains that she didn’t mean to attack him, but that she was trying to find the owner of the green shoes, one of those F4 boys. Li Zhen asks, “Who’s F4?”, and Qing He notes that they seemed very popular.

A voice behind them pipes up, “The F4 members are very popular seniors.” Another student, Guo Caijie, a junior journalism student, approaches them, identifying them as new students. Shancai asks her about F4, and Caijie is only too happy to give them the rundown.

F4 is made up of four senior students, all incredibly handsome, talented, and among the best in their respective fields. They are Daoming Si; Huaze Lei; Fang Meizuo; and Yan Ximen. Lei is a music student, and the other three all study business administration. They have been close friends since childhood, and are so close knit that others have a hard time getting close to them, so they are also something of a mystery at Ming De. Basically, all the girls want them, and all the boys want to be them… or prove that they’re better than them. As a result, F4 issues challenges to prove that they are the top dogs ‘round these parts.

Shancai asks what the challenge is, and Caijie answers simply, “Bridge.” As in, the card game.

In fact, F4 are world-renowned bridge players, and founded the Bridge Club on campus…made up entirely of F4 members, and no one else. So far, no one has beat them. Caijie explains that they each have strengths that they use to their advantage.

Meizuo, for example, is artistic and good at design. He has a good sense of humour that he uses to lower the guard of his opponent, so that they take the game less seriously. He also has an incredible memory for which cards have been played.

Ximen is described as “subtle and cautious”, and comes from tea-loving family. His strength is strategy; he’s good at mind games to distract his opponents, and has earned the nickname “Battle God.”

Lei is a musical genius, with perfect pitch and a mastery of several instruments. He is described as being poised and calm, with a fantastic poker face and the ability to see through other’s attempts at trickery.

And finally, Daoming Si, the leader of F4. He’s primary interest is finance, and is said to have made a million yuan by trading on the stock market. He’s an aggressive bridge player, intimidating his opponents into making mistakes.

(He also has the wildest hair of the bunch, twisted and spiky... and maybe culturally appropriative? It’s meant to be an homage to Domyouji’s curly hair, but jeez… it’s kind of a lot.)

The four of them have won many awards for Bridge, and are a source of pride for the school as a result. But Shancai points out that they still ought to apologize for having broken her phone, regardless of how popular and talented they are. Qing He quickly agrees, and says they ought to go challenge them to a game of bridge right here and now, if they won’t apologize. But Caijie cuts in that it’s not as simple as all that to challenge F4; you have to be issued a Joker card first. It’s their official invitation; due to a large volume of challenges they receive, F4 only issues a Joker card to those they deem qualified enough to play against. They also require a wager to be set prior to the game.

Caijie explains that there are many rumours about what is wagered at the card table: having to clean up the school campus for an entire semester; squatting in the school fountain for half a day; spending a night in the biology lab; and, most ridiculous of all, being made to eat a pair of slippers. “So? Do you still want to challenge them?” Caijie asks, coming to a stop in front of F4’s club room. Shancai, Li Zhen, and Qing He all look on in shock at the story they’ve just heard. With that, Caijie leaves them standing outside of the classroom.

Shancai is not cowed for long; she tells the other two that the guy with the green shoes is in the wrong, and that she’s not afraid. So they march up to the door, and Shancai begins calling for F4 to come out and buy her a new phone. Qing He, her loyal hype man, repeats her demands loudly. Li Zhen looks on, slightly horrified.

There’s no answer, and Li Zhen stutters that they’re probably not in. Qing He suggests that they go off to find them; they shouldn’t be that difficult to find, if they’re surrounded by fangirls, right? “That’s right. If we see some long-legged arrogantly handsome boys, that should be them, right?” Shancai says. Qing He cringes as he catches sight of something over Shancai’s shoulder. “Is that them?” he asks. “I think so. I can feel their presence,” Li Zhen whispers. They turn to find F4 striding towards them, in all their arrogantly handsome glory.

Shancai, for one, does not look impressed, and she steps out in front of Daoming Si, who she sees is the owner of the expensive green shoes. “Hey. Green shoe guy.” She holds up her phone. “What’s this?”

“A broken phone,” he says, unfazed. The other F4 members snicker.

“Do you know why it’s broken?” Shancai asks.

Daoming Si replies that it’s none of his business, to which Shancai responds that actually, yeah it is, as he’s the one that broke it. She explains that he stepped on it when he was swarmed by his fangirls after the lecture.

There’s silence for a moment, in which Li Zhen looks embarrassed, Ximen and Meizuo look amused, and Daoming Si looks bored. Then, without a word, he steps forward and brushes past her, shouldering her on the way by. Shancai goes to storm after them, and is barely held back by Qing He.

The three freshmen head to their first lecture, where the professor warns the class that most of them won’t pass, and he won’t go easy on them. He then asks them to form groups of four. Shancai and Li Zhen join up with the two snotty girls from the special lecture earlier, while Qing He gets stuck in a group with three other guys. Poor boy.

At home, Shancai bakes a cake for Li Zhen’s birthday the next day. When she presents it to Li Zhen the next morning, her friend is touched, and suggests that they take a picture with the cake. They determine that the area they’re in is too crowded, so they head up an outdoor stairwell to take the picture in peace. They snap a selfie together, and then Shancai offers to take a picture of Li Zhen holding the cake. Li Zhen goes to stand by the stairs, but steps back to far and almost slips. The cake flies from her hands as Shancai rushes forward to save her friend. And just their luck: the cake explodes spectacularly over the curley, twisty head of none other than Daoming Si.

The two girls turn to see Si glaring at them. He recognizes them immediately, and grits out a furious, “You!”

Li Zhen immediately apologizes, but Si spits back, “If apologies worked, we wouldn’t need the police!” Ahh, that famous line. Li Zhen attempts to wipe some of the cake off of him, but he shoves her away, and she lands on the ground.

Shancai picks her friend up, and then immediately gets in Si’s face, telling him it was an accident, that Li Zhen apologized, so why does he have to be so mean?

She continues:

You’re an arrogant, green-shoe wearing pineapple head. You think you’re popular at school so you can do whatever you want. You didn’t apologize for breaking my phone. You’re just a jerk!

Si reaches out and pulls her in close, eyes blazing. Quietly, he tells her, “You. You’ve got guts.” And just like that, he pushes away from her again and walks away. Meizuo and Ximen follow without a word. Lei, however, bends to pick up the card that Shancai had written for Li Zhen, and silently hands it to her, before he also follows the rest of F4.

Later that day, Shancai opens her locker to find a Joker card, curtesy of F4. Qing He and Li Zhen are both worried, but Shancai quickly recovers, saying that she doesn’t have time to play card games. She slams the locker door shut and storms away, ending up on a rooftop. Once there, she unleashes a cry of frustration, and then immediately launches into a rant about F4.

Those stupid people. All I want to do is study! I didn’t want a Joker card! They broke my phone and embarrassed me in front of everyone! F4. You’re all jerks. I hope that from tomorrow, your phone signals will be blocked by aliens. No calls, no texts, no games, no internet! No phone in your life. You’ll step on your own foot and fall. You’ll dream of zombies that eat your faces. Your nostril hair will grow until it penetrates your head and becomes your hair!

And just as she finishes her rant, a quiet voice pipes up from behind her, “And then?”

She turns to find Huaze Lei sitting on a bench behind her, having heard her entire rant. He comes up to her and repeats the question: what happens to them next? Will she be happy then?

Shancai asks if he’s also trying to bully her, but Lei asks why he would do that. Isn’t he a member of F4? Shancai replies. Lei confirms that he is, but says that he isn’t interested in other people’s business. And with that, he turns and walks away, leaving Shancai staring after him.

On a basketball court, Daoming Si plays with some other boys, dominating the game. Girls cheer from the sidelines. One of the mean girls from Shancai’s class spots her walking across the court and calls her over. Pointing out Si, she confides in Shancai that he’s the boy that she likes, and asks Shancai to film her giving him a drink. Shancai demures, but her classmate insists, so she reluctantly takes the phone and begins filming as the other girl approaches her crush.

Except that Si notices Shancai first, and he walks by the girl, grabbing the drink without sparing her a glance as he walks right up to Shancai. He asks if she’s filming him, and then takes the phone away from her, not caring (or realizing) that it’s her classmate’s phone. Whoops.

We jump to a new day. Shancai is studying at home when her mother asks her to make a food delivery. Loading up her bike, she sets out to the address given. But when she arrives with an armload of food, she encounters one very familiar hairstyle. Daoming Si turns around, surprising Shancai: he orders takeout? He smirks and says that she should be grateful that he’s supporting her family by giving them the business.

Shancai is already sick of his shit, so she tells him to enjoy the food and makes to leave. Unfortunately, Si isn’t having it. He tells her to wait while he checks over the delivery to make sure the order is right. When he opens up one of the takeout boxes, he sniffs disparagingly at the food inside. This is what her family serves to their customers?

But Shancai merely tells him not to eat it then, and snatches the box out of his hands, offering to take it back. He grabs the box back, saying that he’s paid for the order, so he’ll do what he pleases with them. This irks Shancai. She tells him that she knows he’s trying to bully her, but that he shouldn’t be wasting food, and adding that her mother spent a great deal of time preparing the order.

But that’s not Si’s problem, he retorts, and admonishes her for being rude to her customers. Shancai replies that she’s nice to customers who are nice to her; he doesn’t deserve it. She continues that she understands that only elite students get into Ming De, but looking at him, she feels ashamed for him. He doesn’t understand how hard other people work, and finishes by calling him a parasite on society.

That does it for Si. He yells at her to shut up and swings the takeout box at her. It explodes over her, staining her clothes and flying all over the place. Shancai stumbles back a step, and looks up at him with anger and hurt.

For his part, Si has the grace to look ashamed of himself. Unable to meet her eyes, he looks away and tells her that it’s what she deserves for insulting him. Without a word, Shancai turns and runs out of the building; Si turns to watch her go, his expression regretful.

Shancai pushes her bike up to an outdoor tap and begins to try and wash away the food that still clings to her clothes. As she washes herself off, two boys approach her from behind, crowding her and preventing her from fleeing. Shancai is already pretty shaken up, and she tries to push them off, but they latch on, refusing to leave her alone.

Then, a voice offscreen asks, “What are you doing?” All three turn to see Huaze Lei standing there, watching the whole thing. He tells the boys to get lost, and the scram, leaving Shancai shaken and close to tears. She sits for a while and tries to hold back tears while Lei stands nearby, a silent presence. Tearfully, Shancai asks why Si acted the way he did, but Lei has no answer. Instead, he holds out a handkerchief, instructing her gently to use it to clean herself up a bit. And then, without warning, he goes into handstand against a wall. He tells her that when she’s sad, she should do a handstand so that her tears won’t fall down. They stay that way for a while, without speaking again.

That night, Shancai dreams of F4 telling her to eat slippers, and she wakes up gasping. At breakfast, she is quiet and contemplative, thinking over her encounters with F4, and Daoming Si in particular, over the last few days. With every memory, every bite, she becomes more enraged, more focused, more determined. Slamming down her empty bowl, she stands up from the table and announces that she’s going to fight back. She dresses with purpose and strides to campus, passing Qing He without a word, laser focused on only one person: Daoming Si. She calls his name, and he looks up. Their eyes lock.

Tossing her bag over her shoulder, Shancai takes off running right at him at full speed. She leaps into the air, leg outstretched, and her sole connects with his cheek. And with that, we find ourselves back where we started, in a freeze-frame of Shancai kicking Daoming Si right in his perfect face.

We watch the culmination of the scene in slow-motion: Si flies through the air with the force of the kick, past the rest of F4 (who watch the scene unfold with shock) and lands facedown on the ground, out cold. Shancai comes to stand over him. The rest of F4 look back at her, a definite note of fear in their eyes.

Brandishing the Joker card, Shancai says, “Who wants to play cards with you? I, Dong Shancai, won’t be bullied by anyone.” And she tosses the card down beside Si’s prone figure, before turning around and striding away without a single glance backwards.

What a badass.

After Thoughts:

For a 40 minute episode, we managed to fit a lot in, both plot-wise and character-wise. There’s a great sense of energy in this episode: the plot moves along briskly, and though there is a fair bit of exposition, it doesn’t feel like it bogs the story down (maybe because all of the F4 expo is paired with shots of four rather pretty boys showing off card shuffling. I dunno. It kept my attention).

The premise, as mentioned before, is a pretty big departure from the original HYD story. We’ve dropped the red card game in favour of the bridge competitions, which I think is a smart move: it keeps F4 generally inaccessible to the rest of the student body without making them into complete monsters. Daoming Si is still a jerk, obviously, but at least he’s not a psychopathic jerk.

I also like that Shancai and F4 are given more to do school-wise. The Makino character has never been a particularly studious character, and is pretty aimless throughout her education, at least for the first bit. I love that Shancai has a tangible goal that’s connected to her reason for choosing an elite school, instead of just going to the school because it’s an elite one. Similarly, I like that F4, and in particular, Daoming Si, are being set up as hardworking and intelligent students. It’s not to say that other adaptations of F4 have been unintelligent, per se, but rather that their futures are secured by their families, so it never seems like they particularly care about their education. I’m sure that this will still be the case in this version, but I like that school matters to them. The fact that Daoming Si isn’t being portrayed as a complete idiot who mixes up idioms is refreshing as well. They’re all still fundamentally the same characters, but this added layer makes them more interesting to me.

I’d like to end all of my reviews with three final thoughts: who I think was the shining star of the episode (or the episode MVP); who I thought was the absolute worst in this episode (or LVP — least valuable player, natch); and which scene I rewatched over and over. There’s always one.

Episode MVP:

Without a doubt, Shancai. I have a feeling that I’ll probably say Shancai a lot, because I love her. She’s spunky, fearless, and loyal. Her willingness to walk up to F4 and challenge Si to replace her phone, even after she’s heard that she might end up eating slippers, is fantastic. This character is a huge reason for why I continue to be a fan of this story, and can really make or break the adaptation in question. I’m rooting for her to achieve all her dreams and win all the boys’ hearts. You go girl!

Episode LVP:

If you thought I was gonna say Daoming Si, you’d be wrong. He’s a jerk, obviously, but I’ll save him for another day (I’m sure). Out of the gate, it’s hard to pick an LVP, but I’m gonna have to choose Qing He, if only because he’s not terribly interesting to me. His loyalty to Shancai is admirable, but I know that I would personally find his clinginess overbearing if he were my friend. That being said, I’m looking forward to watching him grow up a little and gain a bit of independence. Hopefully.

Most Rewatched Scene:

In an episode of introductions and set-ups, it’s hard to pick a scene that I want to keep watching over and over again. In future episodes, this spot will likely be reserved for super cute moments, but since we’re not there yet, I’ll go for the next best thing: Shancai and Si’s encounter on the stairwell with the cake. I love this moment for so many reasons, but mostly Shancai standing up for her friend and telling Si exactly what she thinks of him. I like that they’ve already had one encounter prior to this (unlike other versions, where the Makino character has watched F4 from afar and seethed, but never spoken to them directly). We also get the first mention of “pineapple head”, which holds a special place in my heart (even though I’m pretty sure that Si’s hairstyle is culturally appropriative…but that’s another gripe for another time).

[ihadafeeling]

heroines are proportionate to their villains

Don Jon: Most people eat that shit up. The pretty woman. The pretty man. Love at first sight. The first kiss. The break up. The make up. The expensive wedding. They drive off into the sunset. Everyone knows it’s fake, but they watch it like it’s real fucking life. Barbara: She was the most important thing to him. He gave up everything for her. It was just meant to be. I love movies like that.

You've heard this before: boy meets girl; boy loves the girl before the girl loves the boy; girl is poorer than boy; girl is less powerful than the boy. It's an old story, and old stories accumulate endings with retellings. Sometimes the girl changes the boy by loving him. Sometimes the boy's love for the girl changes him, a subtly different story. At worst, the change is a conversion of a girl's no into a yes, though the means of conversion vary; in my very favorite incarnation, the girl converts a beast into a man by taking the magic out of him.

What I've always loved about Beauty and the Beast is that it is a story about the transformative power of love in conflict. When Beauty faces the beast, she proves her ferocity. When the Beast yields to her needs above his own, he demonstrates his gentleness. Even so: a dark story. The Beast's gentleness comes down to failing to compel Beauty, even when he could — and only when he shows that willingness does Beauty offer her love, at the first point when it could be freely done. Still, 'failure to compel' is not a ringing endorsement of the Beast's kindness, though usually pitched as putting her agency above his own survival. It is a distinctly different fairy tale ending when contrasted with the usual upward class mobility of pauper-to-princess stories, where the prince remains exactly as he was, while the princess-to-be bargains or endures magic to meet him.

This is supposed to be the story of Meteor Garden 2018.

This was made for women, I thought, watching the first twenty minutes of the first episode. The powerful boy-clique at the heart of the show and at the center of its university setting, the F4, include someone with an eidetic memory; a master of the tea ceremony; a piano virtuoso; a business wunderkind who made his first million on the stock market at age 18; and yes, all of them wealthy beyond compare. But they are specifically introduced as trilingual 185 centimeter Bridge enthusiasts who excel in their respective fields of music and business administration and, "though they might look like players, they respect women." Verbatim. Such is their unbeaten skill at Bridge, and so numerous are their challengers, that only those that receive a red Joker card are invited to play them, where each team will place a bet on their victory. These bets vary, the scariest being the allegation that a losing team had to eat a pair of slippers. Expecting powerful men, I anticipated the usual machismo of wealthy brutal playboys who would gain attention because of their dominance over others. I was not expecting cute schoolboys who are showered with attention for ... well, for being just that, really.

To be fair, the most traditionally masculine of four is the main lead. Daoming Si is the aforementioned business wunderkind, the heir apparent to the most powerful conglomerate in China, who incidentally also beat up a mob boss in highschool. (I'm telling this to you now so you are less surprised than I was by some otherwise unexplained karate heroics of his in the show.) The story begins when he steps on Dong Shancai's phone by accident, breaking it, and does nothing to acknowledge it. As Shancai, unlike the F4 or the vast majority of Ming De University students, is not from a well-to-do family but instead a humble restaurant, the loss of a phone represents a significant hardship. Shenanigans ensue. A red Joker appears in Shancai's locker, indicating a challenge to play bridge from the F4. Si orders an incredible amount of take-out from her family and taunts her over its quality, prompting Shancai to admonish him for bullying her and for being an embarrassment among the otherwise polite and respectable elites at Ming De — and angered, Si smears a box over her head to silence her. After cleaning the noodles and sauces from her shirt, Shancai dreams of the F4 boys chanting EAT THE SLIPPERS over and over.

Her response?

To tell Daoming Si she's not interested in playing cards.

Then kick him in the face.

This refusal to surrender, even when desperately outclassed and outgunned, is supposed to be Dong Shancai's strong suit, where she is the 'undying weed' who refuses to give up against stronger foes. We understand, as the story goes on, that the independence of mind that Si finds so attractive in Shancai is also what causes many of their initial romantic troubles. He seems to not account for liking someone who does not like him back. In a particularly brutal scene, Si rushes to the rooftop to confront Shancai for her interest in Lei, something he interprets as playing them both. He strikes the wall next to her head, never fully explains the source of his anger beyond telling her to stop pretending, prevents her from leaving, pushes her against another wall ... and begins to kiss her, smearing the blood from his knuckles along her cheek and her jacket in the process. Bearing all this, Shancai begins to sob, and begs him to stop. "Stop crying. I won't hurt you any more." He smoothes back her hair as she curls back into herself, crying uncontrollably.

There is no apology for this interaction at any point in the show.

This is the scene that made me rescind my judgment that this was a show made about men generally far outside of toxic masculinity, and therefore the kind of show I think of as aimed at women rather than men. The same scene sat uncomfortably with me as the show pulled out the conventional stops to show love in the making, where Si demonstrates care for Shancai's wellbeing at the risk of his own life ... always followed by a scene where he called her his girlfriend (yes, that specific possessive term, never simply dating), a title she would explicitly deny. He would risk some loss, but never actually lost anything — immediately followed by his indignation to find that this hadn't entitled him to Shancai's affections. I thought again and again of that scene, and of how the things that I often took as demonstrations of love did not involve a change in the balance of power.

So why isn't this Beauty and the Beast?

What story is it, and who is it for?

Let me say one thing it is not: it's not a kind of wish fulfillment. I described to a friend how many side-characters fall in love with Shancai, to her general lack of notice and Si's enormous frustration, and that friend was taken aback. 'You're telling me that dude after dude falls in love with this average girl, while this unattainable boy remains solely interested in her?' Indeed. You could read this as a sort of women's fantasy: the totally unremarkable average girl, surrounded by a harem of unwavering admirers, one explicitly a remarkable boy. But the narrative addresses this concern fairly early on. Si has the opportunity to be with a very average girl, and his refusal of this girl demonstrates that his interest in Shancai isn't simply curiosity about how the other half lives, or the novelty of her poverty, but rather his interest in her as someone with a uniquely strong will. Though there are occasional random admirers without deep explanation, in general, Shancai is flattered by potential love interests for being someone who can persevere in the face of adversity. Which is to say that Shancai is not some fill-in-the-blank average girl. She is specific, and it is her specific moral quality that these men admire.

(And it should be noted she is not uniformly beloved. In her break up with the only other real rival love interest, he comments on how ugly she is, a fact commented on in literally every episode by every character except Si and literally unbelievable if you even glance at the actress Shen Yue.)

It is also not Beauty and the Beast, at least, not in my eyes — and I think that unfortunately has to do with some of the changes to gentle the differing presentations of masculinity in the show. It has much of the shape of that story, particularly as the early episodes alternate between Si trapping Shancai into being with him through his power and Si risking his life to show the value he places on hers. That's Beast's locked enchanted castle. That's Beast laying down his life. But the quality that Shancai is supposed to demonstrate, her unwavering, weedy perseverance, grows absent as the show continues. She is never strong armed into dating Si, but she is also unable to communicate her feelings to him, and the scenes in which she is unable to communicate read as her being cowed by him rather than withholding them deliberately. From what I've read of Hana Yori Dango and Meteor Garden 2001, her confrontations with F4, and with Si, are meant to be between someone relatively powerless confronting the powerful who abuse that power. (This is based on reading descriptions rather than actual viewings, so please forgive me if I've misunderstood.) Instead, the F4 are respectful bridge playing nerds. They are not villains. When Si and Shancai confront in the earlier arcs, regarding their romantic status, it does not read as a moral confrontation.

To me, Shancai feels like less than she might be, because her opposition is less.

Si begins Beastly, but goes through the transformation that his half of the fairy tale insists on. Rather than assuming Shancai's interest because of his own, he learns to state his feelings, vulnerably and honestly, and to seek frank discussions about their relationship. He does what he can to assimilate into her world, rather than assuming he can yank her into his.

In contrast, Shancai doesn't seem to be learning much at all, and in that, I find her less like Beauty than I would like. Beauty is supposed to learn that she has something inside her that she didn't know about, something strong, something not simply sweet or lovely. Something that can take on the Beast. She demonstrates this with her first flying kick, but insofar as her quality of perseverance appears in their relationship, it is in her refusal to date Daoming Si just because he says so.

And her refusal to discuss her feelings with him doesn't read as courage, or as a denial of that kind of intimacy because he doesn't deserve it, but as unwillingness to confront him. It's not that I don't get that, but it doesn't make me feel like this is a demonstration of an important moral quality. And insofar as the quality she discovers in herself is the ability to deny consent, well, that sucks for a moral quality, because what a terrible thing to remark on constantly as something that makes Shancai unique.

The only real villain in this show is Si's mother, the formidable Daoming Feng, leader of the Daoming Group, whose actions play out as cartoonishly evil. (One pleasing thing: she is unique in being unsupportive of Shancai. Every other female character who is introduced with the potential to be a rival or obstacle to Shancai appreciates her, even as they may go on to compete with her.) Shancai does talk back to Feng on a few occasions, but breaks up with Si at her first truly villainous act, and fears to confront her for the next 17 episodes. And I fret about this, because if this is supposed to be a love story with a point, the point should be the perseverance Shancai demonstrated in her love -- and it doesn't. She wavers too often.

I suppose consistent fortitude would make terrible television. There would be no surprise! But insofar as this show has involved growth, and therefore change, it has been the male lead's, and that always makes me nervous; when you read a heterosexual romance where the man does all the deeply existentially human things, fighting, changing, learning, growing, in his pursuit of a woman whose main choice is the change of her mind about him, you read a story simply about a man.

That makes me wonder about my question of who this is for. When I remarked earlier that seeing such sweet, soft, non-toxic men made me think that this was aimed for women, I didn't have a way to ground the claim, even as I felt it was true. I have even less of a basis of who the audience is if it reads as I think it does: as the taming of a very traditionally powerful man by his love for a woman, with a story centered on (but not explicit) on how the plot mainly centers on his choice to continue to pursue her. It's women, I know it is, but I don't know why I know that. I worry that it's some of the old existentialist bullshit, that women never fantasize about themselves as doers.

There's five hours left in the drama, and forty-three of it behind me -- enough that Shancai may surprise me, or that I may be deeply mistaken about previous episodes, because I just can't rewatch them all. I worry that that this last arc will involve Shancai holding tightly to Si, even as his mother does everything to destroy her life. That would it Tam Lin's fairy tale instead of Beauty's: a woman rescuing a man from fairies by clutching to him as he changes shape. Liz Lochead put it best:

It seemed earlier, you see, he’d been talking in symbols (like adder-snake, wild savage bear brand of bright iron red-hot from the fire) and as usual the plain unmythical truth was worse. At any rate you were good and brave, you did hang on, hang on tight. And in the end of course everything turned out conventionally right with the old witch banished to her corner lamenting, cursing his soft heart and the fact that she couldn’t keep him, and everyone sending out for booze for the wedding. So we’re all supposed to be happy? But how about you, my fallen fair maiden now the drama’s over, tell me how goes the glamourie? After twelve casks of good claret wine and the twelve and twelve of muskadine, tell me what about you? How do you think Tam Lin will take all the changes you go through?

[hzlmrgoalsk]

Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo was a ride.

I really did enjoy the show. I had already seen the Taiwanese version of this show, Miss in Kiss. And that one only covered the first season of Mischievous Kiss. So I was very excited to see what happened after they got married. And the second season did not disappoint. From having a canonically trans character, and not making a huge deal out of it and seeing it as a normal thing, to the way you see Naoki and Kotoko’s relationship really bloom, it was a great season.

Naoki may not be as expressive as Daoming Si or Xiao Nai, but his love for his girl runs just as deep. I really ended up loving him by the end of the show. Once he realized that he was jealous, he was able to get control and return the love to Kotoko that she was always giving him. I love the parallels between Naoki and Yuki in the ending few episodes. They both ended up choosing the girl that made them feel whole. And I love that.

Part of me is sad is over. I know there are a couple other versions out there I can watch whenever I miss them. And one of them has Ji-Hoo from Boys Over Flowers as the lead. So I will be watching that. Eventually. But for now, I think it’s time I say goodbye to the world of Itazura Na Kiss. It’s been amazing. And I’m happy I’ve watched them! If you like cute sappy stories, this one is for you.