#zuo qingluan

[alienwlw]

Challenge: make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favourite.

tagged by @silverraes and @sherrymagic

thank you both so much! going gremlins only on this one, let's go--

tagging @clairedaring @taeminie @magicaldreamfox1 @davinciae and @veliseraptor

[dreamingsushi]

The Longest Promise - Episode 11

Well hello and welcome back to this drama. We have already been through a quarter of all of this story, so I guess it's about time things start moving right? Hopefully, it won't go too bad from now on, but I expect still a lot of drama. After all, this is a Chinese one, it's bound to happen sometime.

Zhu Yan uses her wish to brush Shi Ying's hair. While doing so, she plucks a strand of his, to fulfill her promise to Qing Gang. Obviously, Shi Ying noticed and tells her to hand back the hair. However, for once, she's rather smart and tricks him into giving back a different comb than the one she used to brush his hair, so it's probably a strand of hers. Then Qing Gang comes to ask for the hair and she gives it to him. And THEN she realizes that a dude unfamiliar with poison, asking for a strand of hair to increase his power is definitely sus. Was kind of about time you doubted him. She sneaks upon him and notices that he's comparing the hair with a paint brush, meant for calligraphy. She confronts him for using her and takes the brush away to tell Shi Ying. Upon learning that she was acting like this only to get his hair for Qing Gang, Shi Ying gets mad. He almost slips and let her know that he cares for her, but smoothly passes it as since it's his first becoming a master, he wants to do well and cares for all of his disciples. He reassures her that this won't harm him. Yeah no. It's too late. The Qing will know he's still alive.

Shi Ying confronts Qing Gang and they fight. He's definitely not a match for him though and is defeated. Then we learn that he bears the bad poison from the Qing clan and if he doesn't fulfill his mission to transfer it to Shi Ying, he'll die. Shi Ying takes it on himself willfully. He pretends that he's fine and can suppress the poison with his cultivation. Qing Gang thanks him for his mercy and promise not to leak away his real identity.

However, Shi Ying isn't faring well. Zhu Yan comes back and sees how bad of a state he's in. Shi Ying lies that Qing Gang didn't have any ill intentions and that he took the poison from him, but he's not aware that he's not doing well. Zhu Yan has an idea to suppress the poison and save Shi Ying. She has him grab onto the lamp like she did a while ago and the butterflies attacking solve the problem. And I see you, Xuelu, lurking around. This is going to be again the tragic story of a too ambitious lady. She reminds me of Zuo Qingluan in Dance of the Phoenix.

Xuelu manages to figure out Shi Ying's real identity and she reports to Da Siming that everything's alright with Qing Gang now and that Shi Ying vanquished the poison. She doesn't mention that Zhu Yan was there to help. I don't know if she wants to help her or not... I don't think she's evil, it's more that she's not the official daughter so she might have had a lot of resentment.

In class, they have to make bracelets with some spiritual flowers. The next day, Shi Ying will elect which one's the best, to give them a reward. He decides to go along with Zhu Yan's one, because even though he was so cold and mean towards her, she still kept believing in him. Chongming fears she has too much power over him, even though he says he won't keep her in Jiuyi mountain once the month is over. So he feeds him a fruit that is supposed to prevent him to be attracted to women. There was a warning on the spell, but I couldn't completely read it, it went too fast. I guess we'll know soon enough. The next morning, everybody is extremely shocked to see that Shi Ying's wearing Zhu Yan's bracelet.

And that completes this episode. I guess the main lead is slowly getting a little smarter. She's still dumb, but it's better. I can't believe how naive she is though. Hopefully the trope of the naive female lead is going to die someday soon.

[eigwayne]

Finished Dance of the Phoenix! Here's my overall review and final thoughts:

A clumsily done show, only memorable for the femslashy vibes and how forgettable the rest of it was- except for the ending, which tried to be poignant and just came across as crapping on the viewer. Infodump right at the beginning, main romance was weak, couldn't hold attention and didn't feel like I missed anything when I came back after looking away. Chemistry between female characters was much better than any MF pair (Zhaoge and Xuan Yi made an attempt but compared to Zuo Qingluan's affection for Zhaoge? Weak). Male lead looks too old for character age and for the female lead and it throws off the vibe (gets better as the show goes on but still).

So the ending. Tried to be deep and poignant and open, but the set up for the first life was cut out of the drama (I assume it was in the novel but whatever, it wasn't in the show), and there was no third life at all, so the commentary on "this was my second life" fell flat and just felt like it was being deep for the sake of being deep- very unsatisfying for the viewer.

The score was 2.75 because the visual effects and CG were satisfactory but everything else was middling or below. This ties it with Legend of Two Sisters in the Chaos (kind of bad with a crap ending), Princess Weiyoung (repetitive and too long), Eternal Love (ditto, with an inconsistent lead character), and Chongzi (another clumsily executed show starring Yang Chaoyue, with a better soundtrack but worse CG and characters).

[evcryopeneye]

@battleguqin asked: #2 for song

Blackpink - How You Like That 

She could feel him. 

Somewhere. 

Somewhere among the trees and the winter snow, in this vast forest, so close and yet so far away.

Feng Wu could have sworn that her soul shook and cried out for him. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t handle this on her own. She was good at fighting, she was a good cultivator even if she had to repeatedly explain that to herself over and over again. She had a real chance of winning this fight, and yet it didn’t feel like it. Fighting a monster, or a demon, ridding the land of ghosts, they were all easy compared to fighting other people. 

No this time she was frightened. 

Frightened that she wouldn’t get to say the things she wanted to him. Frightened that her selfishness to want to see him one last time would scar him. Frightened that the life she’d always dreamed of was about to be torn away by someone driven mad by jealousy. Frightened that if she had to do the unthinkable, that Lan Sizhui would look at her differently. Like a murderer. Like someone unforgivable and cruel. 

Rage at the fact she had even been put in this situation. 

Her own thoughts right now were a distraction. Gave Zuo Qingluan just enough time to get a shot in. Feng Wu felt the sharp edge of a blade slide across flesh, cut through pale white and blue robes like they were simply tissue paper. The pain was enough to jolt her out of her intrusive and demanding thoughts. 

This was going to be a fight to the death…and she didn't want it to be. Feng Wu didn’t want to kill anyone despite her hatred for the other women, but she knew as well as Zuo, that this wasn’t going to end until one of them was dead. Reality snapped back into view, metal clashed with metal, locked into place as both women fought for control over the fight. 

“You know, that day I fell without my wings…those dark days where I was trapped.” Feng Wu emerged the winner of the spat, pushing metal aside and managing to channel energy to her palm and slam it to her chest. Fire and rage spun through the blow, Zuo flung into the snow spitting blood as someone called her name, though in the moment she couldn’t pull herself away from this. 

“You should have ended me when you had the chance.” 

[tokumusume]

[incorrectdanceofthephoenix]

Dance of the Phoenix as Text Posts Part 1

[sinistercakes]

The Ladies of Dance of the Phoenix (featuring Jun Linyuan and Yu Mingye).

Lyrics: Song of Women by The HU ft Lzzy Hale (I highly recommend giving it a listen as well as Wolf Totem).

I’m very new to gif making so bear with me. This is all just practice. But advice and constructive criticism is welcome. I’m a blank slate when it comes to anything like this.

I think I should’ve used different fonts for each line.

[yesdramas]

[his-catness-tchalla]

has it been done yet

[dreamingsushi]

Dance of the Phœnix - Overall review

Now that I finally completed the series Dance of the phœnix, here’s my general review. For those who don’t know about this drama, it is the story of Feng Wu, a prodigious cultivator that lost all of her memories when someone stole her phœnix blood, which made her special. As she tries to regain her spiritual powers to awaken her sleeping master so she can return where she comes from, she makes friends, allies, but also many ennemies.

Plot

I would say the story is overall promising at the beginning, but as we progress through the series, things start to go astray. Character development isn’t a strength, they are all mostly the same at the beginning of the drama and at the end, except for Yu Mingye and Zuo Qingluan, who are in my opinion the two solid strengths of this story. Without them, it would have rather boring. 

My biggest issue with Dance of the phœnix is the many plot holes. Some characters disappear sometimes without any explanation and then they come back without any details as to why they left in the first place. Maybe it has something to do with the actors being unavailable? But the writers could have done a better job than that to hide it. Also, when we read the official summaries everywhere, it says that Feng Wu’s name is Meng Yuan and that she’s a medical student. BUT NEVER EVER IN THE DRAMA IS THAT MENTIONNED! There are clues here and there about the fact that she would be from our world (blowing candles for a birthday, eating ramen but has the quick ones in a box, references to Liu Bei, etc). Mu Jiuzhou, her master, mentions that she’s from another world, but we never get to learn how she came and where is she from. It really bothered me. Also there were a few stories that were a little useless. Especially the one about the wolf lady. It was cute. Then it became extremely sad and I’m still very very mad about what happened. The whole motives behind the bad guys was very weak in my opinion. Overall, it had potential, but it was wasted.

Overall, plot wise this does not deserve more than a 6/10.

Acting

There was good acting and bad acting. It wasn’t so consistent for Yang Chaoyue. I’ve seen comments saying that she seemed emotionless, but that is not what bothered me so much. I feel sometimes she was going way over the top in her acting and it wasn’t matching the character. But at some point, her character wasn’t consistent in the script to begin with, so it must have been hard to keep up. Jun Linyuan did an okay job, like it didn’t strike me as exceptional, but it wasn’t bad. It’s hard to judge when they play an emotionless character. But there were definitely some nice scenes from him, especially after he got a little more comfortable around Feng Wu as Jun Linyuan and he started teasing her.

The two actors that really impressed me were Jinna Fu and Wang Haoxuan. Jinna Fu had to portray the so ever complicated Zuo Qingluan and she did very well. I could believe in every mood swings she had. She made me hate her character, to the point I couldn’t see any redemption for her. And at the same time, I loved Zuo Qingluan just for that. She was alive, albeit motivated by the wrong reasons. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her out of character, even when it seemed a little inconsistent to me (I blame more of the writing than anything else). And finally, Wang Haoxuan. Can we talk about how Yu Mingye was perfect at all times? It was such a complex character, thorn between the expectations of his father, but his gentle nature. He could be cheeky and arrogant without me falling out of it. He made me laugh and cry. I think it was the most relatable character and Wang Haoxuan did an excellent job at showing all the different sides of this tormented child.

For me, the acting in general deserves a 8/10, but that’s because Jinna Fu and Wang Haoxuan did a wonderful job, the average was around maybe 7/10 for me.

Visuals

Here, this is what drew me first to this drama. I really liked the soft look of scenes. The costumes were simple, yet elegant. I enjoyed the colours being consistent for each sect of cultivation. The hairstyles were really a joy to look at, especially for the disciples of the Biluo Palace. I was very impressed. For sure, I’ve seen much more intricate costumes watching historical/xianxia drama, but here it was just enough. The colouring of the scenes were always appeasing. The one thing I didn’t really like is that they made the empress go darker and darker to show that she was the villainess while I think it would have made more sense if she became brighter and brighter. But that’s just my opinion.

The CGI really wasn’t so bad to be honest. Some creatures weren’t that great, but the little bird was great. I just wish they didn’t give it a robotic voice, but oh well. Also they didn’t go overboard with the spells, it wasn’t all over the place and they kept it minimal in special effects, which I like better. Cool special effects are nice, but once it starts becoming overwhelming, I lose all interest.

This drama gets a 9/10, because nothing’s perfect, but they did very well in that aspect.

Soundtrack

I think the soundtrack was one of the strengths of this drama. I really liked both the opening and the ending songs, though I didn’t listen to them every time I watched an episode. I also feel that in general, the music was appropriate to what was happening and really set up the mood of the story.

Here again, it’s 9/10, even though I don’t have as much to say.

Should you watch this drama? I would say no. It has lots of good things and I was pretty excited since it was from the same director as the Untamed, but however it didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s a sweet love story, but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s worth the 30 episodes. Everything was resolved in a very unsatisfying way, a lot of questions were left unanswered and to me the writers didn’t do a very good job to make everything coherent. This drama gets a 7/10, and I’m generous because when I first started watching, I really liked it.

List of full recaps

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30

[a-force-dyad-in-space]

Since the original post thread is getting a bit long, I'll update with individual posts now. Anyway, I'm on ep18 of Dance of the Phoenix now and two things:

First of all, I love Feng Wu's and Jun Linyuan's relationship (even though there's some drama rolling on the horizon rn). For several episodes now they've already been like a married couple, standing next to each other in absolute familiarity and I'm loving it. ♥️

And second, I really hope karma bites Mu Yao in the ass soon, cuz I absolutely can not stand her 😒😒😒😒😒😒😒

UPDATE (31:19): FUCK YES, KARMA 😝😝😝😝

UPDATE 2 (EOE): Zuo Qingluan is a lesbian and has been in love with Zhao Ge since she was a little girl, I'll accept no criticism at this time 🏳️‍🌈

[novaficachi]

God I hate her.

[valley-of-the-lost]

aw fuck Zuo Qingluan from Dance of the Phoenix is kinda hot >.<

[incorrectdanceofthephoenix]

Dance of the Phoenix as Text Posts Part 7 | Part 6

[sinistercakes]

Dance of the Phoenix: A Character Guide*.

*by a biased and unreliable narrator.

Part One - The Youngsters**

**I have no idea how old these guys are supposed to be, but I’m guessing late teens/very early 20’s.

Feng Wu

Genius of the Capital. Possesses Phoenix Blood. Quickly has her Phoenix Blood stolen and then is killed by her rival within the first 5 minutes of episode 1.

Feng Wu #2

The protagonist. Is but isn’t Feng Wu. (I know - try not to think too deeply about it). Trickster. Determined, intelligent, kind and insightful. Has a cool fiery sword. Talented medic and brilliant cook. Gets possessed by Phoenix Blood whenever her life is in imminent danger. Everybody loves her except those who don’t.

Jun Linyuan

Male lead. Feng Wu’s love interest. Rarely smiles. Uptight like there’s a stick up his arse. Crown Prince of Junwu. Tends to use his status to get what he wants. Powerful cultivator. Has a minor myocardial infarction every time he has emotions due to eating poison as a kid. Funny bone appears to be broken. Gets the girl. Kind of a douchebag. Similar to MDZS’s Lan Wangji but minus the likeability. My friend refers to him as the Grinch. Is supposed to be in his late teens but actually looks like he’s 30 with a wife, two kids, and a mortgage.

Yu Mingye

Heir to the Darknight Court. Powerful cultivator, and Jun Linyuan’s rival in power and love. No one likes him, despite the fact that he’s actually a giant sweetheart underneath the villainous goth exterior. He’s in love with Feng Wu but boy is that a disaster. Terrible at flirting. Extremely gullible. Never enters via the door. Sucks at being stealthy. His father made him kill his best friend as a child. All he has left of his mother is her flute. Used and abused by his father and the protagonists. Loses everything, including an arm. Desperately needs hugs. Very attractive.

Zuo Qingluan

Feng Wu’s rival, main antagonist. Steals Feng Wu #1’s Phoenix Blood and then kills her. Would’ve been a nice person had her master not taught her she has to be the best otherwise she has no worth. Wants to marry Jun Linyuan for the power. Loves winning. Besties with Queen Sheng. An ice person (pun, not a typo). Loves her junior sisters, especially Zhao Ge. Bitch in sheep’s clothing. Goes mad with envy. Turns to the Dark Side. Has the title of “Goddess”, so like, pretentious much?

Feng Xun

One of Jun Linyuan’s two best friends. Endearing idiot. Actually really nice. Never stops talking, even when he should. Thinks he’s a Casanova but comes across as more of a Pepé le Pew. Snarky. Loves food, especially Feng Wu’s cooking. His mum makes his pyjamas. Wields a fan sharp enough to slit a throat and makes it look awesome, even if it’s main use is fanning lanterns so Jun Linyuan can impress Feng Wu. No relation to Feng Wu despite same surname. Was in love with Feng Wu as a child

Xuan Yi

Jun Linyuan’s other best friend. Grandson of Master Fang of Junwu Academy. Major bookworm. Comes across as serious and disapproving, but is actually just shy. Awkward around girls he likes. Hilarious when drunk. The smart one of the group. Falls in love with Zhao Ge but it takes him forever to voice even the slightest feeling for her. Makes an awesome battle couple with Zhao Ge in the finale. Dies but then doesn’t.

Zhao Ge

Feng Wu’s best friend. Daughter of the Celestial Palace’s Master but is exiled for being embarrassingly useless with cultivation. Beloved by Zuo Qingluan. Was fat but then was miraculously made slim overnight by a magic flower. Is terribly shy and timid, but very sweet and a loyal friend. Wields a slingshot and is awesome with it. Becomes better at cultivation with Xuan Yi’s help. Awful cook. Falls in love with Xuan Yi and actually makes the first move. Dies but then doesn’t. Can speak wolf, apparently.

Mu Yao

Alpha bitch of the Celestial Palace. Idolises Zuo Qingluan. Bullies Zhao Ge. Hates Feng Wu. She’s the captain of the Jun Linyuan/Zuo Qingluan ship. Starts to have some character development and then promptly dies.

Huang Li

Starts off as secondary alpha bitch in Zuo Qingluan’s gang, but goes through some major character development after apologising to Feng Wu for accusing her of murder. Takes a level in badass. Breaks the good guys out of jail. Rallies her peers to join Feng Wu. Leads part of the fight during the Battle for Junwu. Has a cute crush on Yu Mingye. Yu Mingye is painfully oblivious to this.

Part Two: The Adults (and a magic bird)

Part Three: The Rest

[evcryopeneye]

@zheheimao​​ asked: ❛ Fairy , i know what i saw . ❜ ( Feng Wu & Yu Mingye) 

Today had began so well. A glorious mood. The light breeze of the summer heralding cold air from the mountains, sweeping away the sweltering humidity of the summer, leaves and petals from trees scattered around the floor. It had been going so damn well, right up until the moment she’d got into an argument with Jun Linyuan.

It wasn’t like Feng Wu hated the man. She just thought him, and the whole royal family, was full of shit.

She had been stewing on it all night, pacing her room as she thought over and over and over again. It wasn’t healthy. Feng Wu knew that but right now she didn’t want healthy. She wanted to slap Zuo Qingluan across the face. Twice. No. Three times.

Zuo had her blood. While Feng Wu didn’t remember anything before waking up on that forest floor. She felt sick to her stomach each time the woman came into view. Feng Wu might have won the fight, fair and square, but Zuo had come out the victor. There was little Feng Wu disliked more than being humiliated, that was what it felt like. Humiliation. Being made into a laughing stock, or being made out to be the manipulative bully.

“What did you see?” There’s a bite to her question, laced with anger…before she caught herself, and the emotion quickly dissipated. “The part where it turned out the person who was apparently my bet friend betrayed me, or the part where she humiliated me?”