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Musings of the Obsessive Kind

@dangermousie / dangermousie.tumblr.com

Fangirling over pretty fictional people 25/8 Currently Turkish and Spanish shows, Asian dramas, period novels and other assorted obsessions
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What you may find on this tumblr at this moment

Pictured: Not Me.

I am watching/posting enough stuff for this to become necessary again.

First, I read a ton of “traditional” and web novels, mainly period, and watch American, European, and Turkish shows as well as Indian movies, Asian dramas and telenovelas.

Second, if you can’t find what I am watching with English subs (less likely for dramas than other stuff I watch), I don’t have secret subs, I am just trilingual (English/Ukrainian/Russian) and am probably watching with Russian subs since Russian lang sub comm for eg Turkish shows is huge.

Third, as I am sure anyone following this tumblr for more than a hot minute figured out, my main interest is in period stuff. It doesn’t mean I don’t watch/read things with a modern setting but I am usually more into period stuff.

Fourth, shows I am watching atm are:

The Atypical Family (Korea) - an off kilter tale about superpowers, scams and trauma.

The Blood of Youth (China) - wuxia fun.

Destiny (Japan) - my first jdrama in years and what a treat!

The King's Woman (China) - one of the best examples of "bad guy in love" narratives.

Legend of Fuyao (China) - rewatch of this awesomeness.

Love Like the Galaxy (China) - rewatch.

Lovely Runner (Korea) - a story of second chances.

My Stand In (Thailand) - a delightfully melo adaptation of a danmei.

Princess Agents (China) - Zhao Liying as a force of nature with dudes pining for her as they should.

The Princess’ Man (Korea) - rewatch of my favorite sageuk of all time.

Tender Love (China) - a rare modern cdrama I am obsessed with.

Yabani (Turkey) - my Turkish soap obsession.

Fifth, I am reading a lot (largely fantasy, adult and YA, and also period romance) so there will be a lot of that on this tumblr.

#pinned post#housekeeping
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dangermousie
  1. It is so realistic the cops can't comprehend that he'd protect her for nothing, that he's accepted she won't love him back like THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PSYCHOS.
  2. The way his most private, vulnerable love confession has been played by and for a gazillion strangers dissecting it and making it dirty - and he's such a private person but even if it wasn't - this must be just soul killing.
  3. The cops going "oh, he isn't breaking, he must know how to pace, even career criminals aren't this good" as if he's some sort of criminal mastermind. The fact that he's like that because he's telling the truth and because he has a calm personality and is buoyed by belief in the justness of his actions never enters into it. Everyone who passes their doors is guilty of something, to them.
  4. My eyed rolled into the back of my head and then on the floor when the cop took issue with his calling it "self-defense" because he isn't the law. Well, he may not be the law but he's entitled to an opinion especially since he saw it.
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aysekira

It is so telling on their part that their strategy in trying to breakdown their 'relationship' by telling him about XY-NY (and based on the trailers for upcoming epi)-step bro dynamic and hammered in on: look how much XY did for her and look where he ended up. on top of just brushing his question of why didn't you step in when it's basically public knowledge that he abuses her all this time.

At best it's selective justice (which in itself is messed up) and at worst, well......

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dangermousie

The way they are implying that XY ended up with a knife in his chest because he helped an ungrateful femme fatale and not because he was abusing and raping her THE FUCK THE FUCK THE FUCK RAAAAAAGE!

#tender light
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Fucking drag them!!!!

And the way the cops try over and over to make it quid pro quo omg.

He says this and he means it and that is what I think breaks all their brains.

And then the cops tell him he's like Xu Yi who killed her abusive stepbro for her and are all do you want to end like XY? EXCUSE ME?! XY was an abuser; ZL may or may not end up with Nan Ya but she is not going to knife him or anyone if she is not being abused by them wtf.

PS I choked when cop said that to Nan Ya:

AHAHAHAHA WHAT!

Drop dead, pls.

(The fact that he says it as part of his manipulation to get her to confess is extra bonus.)

And then the epic loser goes to brood over his past relationship and compares it to death and sunset and other inevitable things. HELLO YOU WEREN'T KIDNAPPED AND HELD IN A BASEMENT FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS!!! The reason your relationship ended is because you chose material benefits over being with her. Own it. You are a fucking adult, own your decisions!!!

#cdrama#zhang xincheng#tender light#this drama will give me a rage stroke
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  1. It is so realistic the cops can't comprehend that he'd protect her for nothing, that he's accepted she won't love him back like THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PSYCHOS.
  2. The way his most private, vulnerable love confession has been played by and for a gazillion strangers dissecting it and making it dirty - and he's such a private person but even if it wasn't - this must be just soul killing.
  3. The cops going "oh, he isn't breaking, he must know how to pace, even career criminals aren't this good" as if he's some sort of criminal mastermind. The fact that he's like that because he's telling the truth and because he has a calm personality and is buoyed by belief in the justness of his actions never enters into it. Everyone who passes their doors is guilty of something, to them.
  4. My eyed rolled into the back of my head and then on the floor when the cop took issue with his calling it "self-defense" because he isn't the law. Well, he may not be the law but he's entitled to an opinion especially since he saw it.
#cdrama#tender light#zhang xincheng
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God.

GOD.

Pls pls pls let it be the situation that what he told is the truth because this would fit the themes and be so perfect in terms of how stacked the deck is in that place where they just don't LISTEN, where they are all fixated on their preconceived notions.

Do they want him to have always gone everywhere with a jazz band to be available to back up his statements?

#cdrama#zhang xincheng#tender light
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Aaaaaa! She is being released and he's being arrested and the way he looks at her!!!! This is so NOT the man who feels guilty of anything.

But I find it interesting that while he looks almost serene, she looks distraught - is it because she dragged someone who was good to her into this mess?

Look at his beady eyes and shifty face. Where's a well-placed meteorite strike when you need it?

Btw the way the cops have handled this has basically ensured no witness to anything is ever going to voluntarily come forward in this town for the next twenty years. Good luck, boys!

#cdrama#tender light#tong yao#zhang xincheng
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Not that I had any doubts before, but this confirmed to me that what ZL said he saw, he saw. He is not the type to lie to his mother when asked point blank.

The scene between him and his mother made me sniffle - she actually is this rarity in the drama - a good parent.

BUT! Also, you know what it made me think of? How this drama shows the way society rewards noninterference and indifference. As I was discussing with @aysekira - if Zhou Luo kept to "his own business" and never interfered to protect Nan Ya but just stood as a bystander like the rest of the townspeople, he'd not be a suspect about to be taken by the cops. Hell, if he didn't come forward as a witness, but just ran away and told nobody, he'd not be in this situation. Even if during the interrogation Nan Ya said that yes, there is a witness and named him, it would be fine because, ironically, the cops would be less suspicious of him if he lied/hid the truth until pressed because then he'd just be a cowardly, self-interested, snivelly dude like the rest of them and they can understand inaction and lying to protect yourself because self-interest is something they get.

The cop has zeroed in on ZL in large part because of his jealousy, inadequacy and issues, but part of it is because he CANNOT believe that someone would help selflessly without expecting a return. So Zhou Luo is so stalwart because he and Nan Ya were lovers and/or because he's involved in the murder and so is covering up for himself. That's the only thing that makes sense in their brains. Nobody puts the other person first without getting something out of it (unless they are a parent, perhaps.)

This is a society that rewards inaction, not standing out - all those characters blather about reputation but the longer the drama goes on, the more you realize that it's not just because they care about perceptions of others on an abstract level - it's because reputation is all they have that protects them from getting in trouble with the law or their neighbors in a bad way (where they are genuinely harmed.) I think of that nightmare scene at the train station and the way ZL's friend drags him away asking him if he wants to throw away his reputation for a woman. I scoffed at the time because what's reputation when someone is being abused, but by now the question has taken a very different shade - yeah ZL didn't listen and threw away his reputation and it now led to his arrest. It's not the truth in this society that protects you, it's perception. Reality is meaningless but perception is everything.

#cdrama#zhang xincheng#tender light
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Modern Cdramas I Liked, a short list:

Because of how much I am adoring Tender Light and liking, let alone loving, modern cdramas is such a rarity for me, I decided to make a short and sweet list of all modern cdramas I’ve enjoyed since I started watching cdramas in 2007. (Btw I am defining modern as anything after the establishment of PRC in 1949.)

Alphabetical order:

Because of Love

Consummation

Derailment

Go Ahead

Gold Panning

Lighter and Princess

Love Me If You Dare

My Sunshine

New Face

Reset

Summer Bubbles

Tender Light

That’s it. Twelve total in 17 years. Out of them three have some bit of fantasy/scifi/speculative aspects (Consummation, Derailment, Reset), seven involve some degree of mystery/thriller/whodunit (Consummation, Derailment, Gold Panning, Love Me If You Dare, New Face, Reset, Tender Light), there are three melos (Because of Love, My Sunshine, Summer Bubbles, interestingly these three are all second chance romances and also my least fave of the 11), there is only one youth (aka largely set in high school) drama - Consummation.

If I had to pick top 3 out of that list, it would be Go Ahead, Tender Light and Lighter and Princess with Derailment as fourth.

Also a random note that the only actors with more than one drama on this list are Wallace Chung, Chen Feiyu and Zhang Xincheng with two each.

Anyway what does it say? It says that I am not much on modern cdramas and prefer them hella intense.

#cdrama
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This is the scene in ep 20 that made me go ZXC deserves all the awards! He doesn't say a word (just the voiceover of the tape he recorded a while back plays again) and it's like - nothing needs to be said. AAAAA!

(The bit where the cop confronts him earlier with the tape is also amazing but this is just the perfect coda to that whole raw scene.)

Honestly, the acting in this drama is across the board insane.

#cdrama#zhang xincheng#tender light
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ginnymoonbeam

I'll wait until the show's over before getting too into it, but Tender Light is reminding me of Beyond Evil specifically in how it shows a cop becoming obsessed with his own fantasies of catching a criminal mastermind, when said mastermind is really just a guy who's been through some shit and is handling it the best he can.

Before we go any further, let me just be clear that Tender Light is not sexy about it in the way Beyond Evil is, nor should it be. The story is about the hateful, destructive force of rumor and misinterpretation, and the obsessive cop is wielding his power in a truly sinister way. I love Han Joowon, for all his many (many, many) faults. I do not love Li Fanglu. I hate him, and not in the fun way.

But as a longtime lover of mystery stories, and of Great Detective narratives in particular, I'm really enjoying seeing this story of a person who fancies himself a Great Detective but has got it all wrong, is driven by obsession and craven need rather than a commitment to truth and justice.

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dangermousie

I think TL (haven’t watched Beyond Evil though it’s on my list) is very realistic about how even in real life, cops fixate on some particular theory of the case and then begin to pursue it to the exclusion of not just common sense but possibility.

Even if what Nan Ya and Zhou Luo claim happened that night is not 100% correct and/or does not cover everything (which we do not know at the moment though I do think what he says he saw is what he actually saw), LFL’s theory is patently absurd on its face. Sure, this small town college drop out barely out of his teens (or maybe not even out of them) who is studying to try to get back into college, committed a perfect murder with no discoverable evidence of any kind after weeks of police digging and is not only also a seducer good enough to make a 30 year old woman to cover for him and take the blame on herself out of love and a manipulator good enough to get his elderly timid parents in on it, but is also somehow talented enough to coach a four year old (!!!) to assist in the crime perfectly.

And then he proceeded with his reign as Napoleon of Crime to somehow get the cop dismissed from leading the case* and a bunch of other nefarious stuff. The cop is a step away from claiming that it’s raining because of ZL’s plotting.

And ZL learned all that by…occasionally reading detective novels?

That is completely and utterly insane. But the cop has seized on it and that’s it.

*The way the cop views it as evil audacity that he got recused from being the lead because he was romantically involved with NY back in high school. The hell!!! If he had any notion of fair play, he should have come clean about it and recused himself. Instead he’s outraged and scheming to be involved “in secret.” Gross. (And proof of how much he spiraled since the narrative started. It’s mentioned in the beginning he did ask for recusal even if he didn’t mention the dating. But by now he’s gone insane and he ain’t letting go no matter what.)

#tender light
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dangermousie

There is literally ONE man with balls in that entire cursed town.

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ginnymoonbeam

And this shows the bitter reality: even if he's telling the truth (which I still think he is), the fact that he loves her endangers them both. There's nothing to stop anyone from believing that he's lying to protect her. He can't help that he loves her, and he can't help that he's the only witness. People will believe what they want to believe, and we already know how much everyone in this town loves to make up hateful stories.

Also, can I just say, that camera was closed in on nothing but his face for a solid 53 seconds and he gave us an entire gripping mental journey. Incredible work.

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dangermousie

The scene after the cop left was utterly wordless on his part and extreme close up and it was incredible.

But yes, I think he’s telling the truth at least as insofar what he saw (there may be additional things going on but that’s a separate topic.)

The way the cop gloats at him saying loving her endangers NY - as if he can finally lord it over him and find some reason why ZL is inferior or bad for her or yet another person who failed her. Ugh.

#tender light