xparrot: Donna: OMG! (DW Donna OMG)

It feels like we've been waiting for this show forever, but last week it finally dropped, and guys...guys, it is so good???? Ten episodes in (yes we signed up for VIP access) it's fun and funny and has already had more h/c scenarios than many shows manage in three seasons. I have no idea how they're going to escalate from here and I can't wait to find out. Whatever else the show had going for it, I was assuming Zhu Yilong would look gorgeous and act wonderfully, and I was hoping for some whump -- and it's got all that and then some; but I wasn't expecting it to be THIS friendshippy, I was not prepared.

I'd recommend this to any fans of the Stargate series -- in particular, if you enjoy the parts of Stargate that are "a team of huge dorks run around poking at alien things that they should know better than to touch and getting in trouble and surviving by the skin of their teeth." It's basically Chinese Indiana Jones, about a trio of guys raiding ancient tombs that are filled with priceless treasure and magic artifacts and also the usual assortment of diabolical traps, animate mummies, and creepy supernatural monsters.

Wu Xie (trying to buck up his friends after they land in like the 5th life-threatening peril in as many hours): We have two things to rely on: luck, and our tacit understanding!

Pangzi: Do we really have a tacit understanding? Didn't we just get by so far on luck?

The chemistry between the Iron Triangle is fantastic -- they feel like guys who have been friends forever, they've got their own secret language and everything. Still, how they've survived their job/hobby is anyone's guess because they're complete idiots (okay, two idiots, one wildly skilled immortal badass who is constantly getting in trouble too because he has to save his idiot BFFs). The show is pretty much all action-adventure all the time -- action-adventure as written by a fanfic writer. Ten episodes in we've already had: spoilers for tropes )

For the record, while like other cdramas I've talked about, this show is adapted from Chinese webnovels, in this case it's not a danmei (m/m romance) book but a straight action/horror series. ...That being said, Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling is apparently one of the more popular slash ships in China. Though honestly I'm not even shipping them that hard, because I am enjoying the friendship of their trio so much. I love how for both Pangzi and Qiling, Wu Xie is probably their most important person, but this doesn't engender any jealousy between them; instead they're completely united in Team Wu Xie Is Precious And Must Be Protected, And Seriously He Is So Challenging To Keep Alive, Like an Orchid Or Something, Our Lives Are Very Hard.

The show does come with a few caveats: cut for mildly spoilery warnings and squee-harshing )

There's only 10 episodes out so far (out of 30+ this season and another 30+ to come, all already filmed) so I don't know where it will be going from here, but I'm definitely looking forward to it (is it Wednesday yet???)

You can watch it (legally, for free, with English subs) on Iqiyi's site. (the first four eps are available to everyone, with 4 new ones a week).

(Ahh I need an icon!)

xparrot: WeiLan hearteyesing from naye! <3 (Guardian heart)
No Sunday snippet but I wrote a bit of Guardian fluff last week:

turn the lights off, carry me home (2867 words)

"I don't need to be indulged," Zhao Yunlan told him.

"Naturally not," Shen Wei said.

Zhao Yunlan grinned back at him. "I like it when you do, though."


It felt good to be putting words down, and hanging out with the characters wondering what they were going to say next, I hope I can manage it again soon! (I signed up for Camp NaNo this month but it hasn't been happening, I've decided to just let it go for now and relax and write when I can...)

The sister and I have been watching The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty -- we're a little less than halfway through and loving it so far. It's got a big enough budget to look great, with good pacing and fun comedy while knowing how to bring the melodrama at the right time, and the characters are all a lovable mess.

It's the classic "talented misfits meet up, team up and then they solve crime!" set in the Ming Dynasty (late 1400s China). The two leads are both marvelous badass squishes with hearts of gold, and then the third of their trio is...kind of terrifying, like Mei Changsu with less of a conscience. But then the other two have consciences working overtime -- one is a soft-spoken, wildly honorable ex-soldier imperial guard with PTSD, amazing cooking skills, and a big empty house that quickly gets filled up with lunatics in need of a home; the other is a broke and brilliant, idealistic young government official who is a total brat and kind of a hedonistic glutton, up until the point someone he cares about gets in trouble and then he stops eating or sleeping and pulls out all the stops to help. And he starts caring about people in about ten minutes. So yeah, they're adorable. And they get an adopted daughter who is basically a sweets-eating super-computer, plus a mad scientist doctor, a Mongol princess (chief?) and her loyal retainer, a baby goat...

It's like Nirvana in Fire in that it's mostly Imperial court drama with wuxia elements tossed in to keep things exciting, though it's lighter in tone than NiF. And like Guardian and The Untamed, it's an adaptation of a danmei novel that they turned the major relationship from a romance into "brotherhood," though so far this one isn't exploiting the romance angle so much, as the emphasis is more on the found family overall. Plus there's been some bits of nice h/c so far and Tumblr gifs have promised more to come, so we're looking forward to that! (Want to see bad things happen to Tang Fan because he's got so many people who are going to be Not Happy with anyone who hurts him...!)

(Also Sui Zhou's actor (Fu Mengbo) is like a Chinese version of Kris Holden-Ried, who played Dyson on Lost Girl -- he's got the exact same low calm voice, it's spooky to me how similar they sound, even speaking in completely different languages?)
xparrot: WeiLan in the taxi in ep 8 (Guardian)
A couple days ago the sister and I finished watching the cdrama Chen Qing Ling/The Untamed (an adaptation of the danmei (BL) novel Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation). This was after we'd watched the first season of the donghua of MDZS and then read the translated novel last autumn, so I'm coming at this story from all sides. So! have a bunch of disorganized thoughts about it.

Random spoilers for all of the show; also warnings for both squee and possible squee-harshing? There were things I liked and things I didn't and also things I'm cranky about that aren't the show's fault at all )

In conclusion -- The Untamed is worth checking out if you're in the mood for Chinese fantasy featuring the world's fluffiest necromancer and melodrama and an m/m love story that hovers in subtext just a hairline under the actual text; and if you did enjoy the drama I definitely recommend both the novel and the donghua -- the former has a decent English translation that's actually finished, and the latter is lavishly and epically animated (and ongoing, so no one knows yet how far it's going to go with the relationship...)

June 2024

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