ep 6 // ep 19
Love Between Fairy and Devil (ep 3, part 1, I guess)
When I heard the sound of Dongfang slicing through the literal sky, cutting the shape of a moon waxing from crescent to full because of course! We must remain on brand, darlings!! When this happened I ceased to be a person but a seal, with all the clapping and wild animal noises I was making.
This show, these here assholes... They're like, we know these two are just Red Shirt No. 1 and Red Shirt No. 2 but damn it, we will flex our awesome visuals anytime we like and you will appreciate and bow down! Is it wrong that I rewatched Dongfang's non-entrance entrance and the subsequent immolation of the Red Shirts an ungodly amount of times? Considering all the goodness to come, perhaps I should be judged but I couldn't help myself!
He is so regal, so impassive, so untouchable. Did I mind the on-the-nose imagery of a dark angel? No. No, I did not. It strikes me how uninvolved he is even as his presence, his very intentions warp the area and influence responses. He is as engaged as someone absently picking lint off their sleeve.
The reveal that he is ginormous stole my breath! All my anime loves brought to stunning life. Really, the arrogance of it! But it's not unjustified - the breadth of his power outweighs them, outsizes them! That he rescues Orchid for the first time with the pact of a god should be no surprise - after all, he's still not a man (yet).
*whispers* I'm only 4 minutes in, y'all. Buckle up.
Okay, I not at all into this kind of stuff but... Dongfang is making me feel things as he draws his armored finger across her cheek. *Shivers* It is an evil sexy; I must repent. His manner the entire conversation with Orchid is just... I don't have the words to nail down how unsettled and excited it made me. Lol as he expounds n how badly he wants to kill her only to end on a disappointed, "I can't," only to have her respond with sincere sympathy, "why?" Is this real? Is this the real life?
I am always a sucker for the insincere romantic speech, romantic gesture given in the early episodes becoming sincere in layer episodes. The extra layer here is, with the way they are currently bonded her pain, her breath, her blood, her body are literal equivalents to his. So initially we are watching him protect himself, so the first to thing he gains back is vulnerability. He has to become aware of that vulnerability in a way that's deeper than just, ah, weakness! Which probably makes him aware of himself in a way he hasn't been a hasn't needed to be in a very long time.
I wonder when's the last time someone mistook anything he said or done as kindness, lol. Watching him pegging her as an idiot while being suspicious she's some sort of savant is bringing me such joy 😹.
I love love love your point that the spell makes him aware of himself as a person (even if in a sense he can be vulnerable and feel emotion rebound) the way he hasn’t been in a crazy long time. Much later he mentions his father wanted a tool and tools don’t have feelings and honestly you get the sense that as immensely powerful as he is (and I love how OP he is, it is so rare to have a protagonist truly be so), that is all he really was. A tool following a pre-set course (defeat fairies protect moon tribe) that his daddy as well as programmed into him the same way a coffee maker or a dishwasher follow the sequence of steps to get you that cup of coffee or those clean dishes, with as much free will or emotion or initiative - it’s just because it’s a preset sequence they are supposed to do.
Honestly, watching him slowly become a person is the biggest delight of this drama and I love that it happens the way it does for babies - first simple feelings then imitating others and play acting real world scenarios. And honestly, feeling first through feedback from her feelings (so both being able to feel and having the reassurance they are not his) is a great safe baby step before eventually having confront his own actual feelings.
But also the CGI in this drama!!! Amazing!!! That entrance is tied with ep 9 entrance as my favorite DFQC entrance as being so insane and glorious.
somebody help him
#You are trying my patience #Not again #Really? #You cannot be serious #And yet here we are
LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL 苍兰诀 (2022) | quote
[ID: Four gifs from Love Between Fairy and Devil, each with an overlay of two scenes and text. The first is red and shows Dongfang Qingcang and Xiao Lanhua standing on opposite sides of a room and the overlay is a close up of her lifting his sleeve to show the flower bracelet she gave him; the text reads: 'grieving, grieving, constantly grieving'. The second is blue and show them standing on a bridge in the moonlight, not facing each other, with the overlay of them kissing on the same bridge; the text: 'i mourn what could have been,'. The third shows Dongfang Qingcang holding the dream version of Xiao Lanhua close while debris flies around them, with the overlay of her sitting and looking over her shoulder with a sword through her; the text: 'what will not be,'. The fourth is blue and red, showing his hands slipping out of hers, overlayed with a shot of them leaning their foreheads against each other, surrounded by glazed fire; the text: 'what i can't save.'. /End ID]
local man sees nothing wrong with confessing his undying love via promising to invade and conquer his crush’s hometown so she can go home, and laying the bones of those who have wronged her at her feet so she can enjoy the sunrise from the best spot in town
more to follow at seven
Okay, so a lot of people have taken up this quote to comment on Love Between Fairy and Devil and I have THOUGHTS:
(spoilers for the entire show)
A hero would sacrifice you to save the world but a villain would sacrifice the world to save you.
Changheng is that first one. He puts his duty above his heart which is admirable if more than a bit sad (but he also puts his piety to his clearly corrupt brother above his heart, which is not, and he learns this lesson too late).
Ronghao is that second one and this makes him truly a monster. It is not beautiful, it's ugly and awful and no matter how satisfying it sounds to imagine that a villain would burn down the world for you, the reality of it is horrific.
(in fact, we even KNOW that because our universal reaction to the 'I will destroy your home and kill everyone you know for you' rather made us all slap our own foreheads at the sheer stupidity)
But Dongfang Qingcang and Xiao Lanhua? They're the third kind. The ones who would sacrifices themselves so that the one they love would not need to be the one who falls in their duty to save the world.
(at least by the end, in the beginning... there was the before mentioned stupidity)
First she does it for him (as well as for both her own people and his). Because if she had not he would have died.
In fact this is exactly what she tries to do again once she comes back.
And then he does it for her because he does not want her to sacrifice herself for him and the world a second time. And so he takes her place.
Really it's Xiao Lanhua who says it best herself.
I love all the people. I also love one person.
They do not place the world above their love for each other, but they also by the end have come to respect each other's sense of duty and loyalty and so she cannot hate him for his need to defend the Moon Tribe (or to seek vengeance even). And he does not try to whisk her away once he realizes that she plans to give her life to stop the Evil God Tai Sui.
They would not burn down the world for each other. But they would burn down themselves for each other without thought.
dfqc paying his respects to one god of war by disrespecting the other
+ bonus: live changheng reaction
Lighting Up The Stars ~ You can’t adopt her because you’re single.
I HAVE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS SCENE. SO MANY THINGS TO SAY.
OK, so I need you all to know that the way this part of the scene is cut, it kind of makes it looks like Mo Sanmei and Xiaowen are sad. THEY ARE NOT SAD. THAT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY ARE HERE AND I NEED TO YELL ABOUT IT.
But it’s kind of all spoilers, so I’m going to do it behind a cut. ^_^
Anonymous asked:
re: your tags: would it be terribly gauche of me to ask you to get started on how bad fantasy churches suck? i would love to hear it
yeah that's super fair.
Fantasy Catholic Church analogues (FCCAs) tend to suck for a couple of reasons. Most of them boil down to working with the vague concept that The Church Was Really Important In The Middle Ages and not going any farther than that.
Disclaimer: The medieval church was very powerful & absolutely asserted control over almost every aspect of life. The church was often more tolerant of minority opinions and of queer people than the common stereotype, but only in that things would be used against you as a political move rather than, for the most part, hunted out.
So: I think some of my problem is how few characters of real faith there are. I get it. I'm an agnostic: it's hard for me to get deep in the mindset of someone who has the hard certainty of faith, or the belief that whether you take communion standing or kneeling has an impact on whether you get into heaven. But I think you have to try, because I get the feeling from a lot of FCCAs that the writer believes that the church structure was imposed by a few fanatics on a less fervent population. But that means that main characters, and "good characters" in general, tend to go through the motions of their faith rather than really believing in their gods. What I get from reading medieval primary sources is that people - ordinary people - really cared about their beliefs. Maybe not always the really fine distinctions in heresies, but definitely in the core tenets of the faith. I feel like the FCCAs I've liked least have fanatical priests terrorizing a mostly apathetic populace, which is, to me, a boring simplification.
The Church is a political entity as well as a spiritual one, and that tension runs through the whole period. Many cardinals are corrupt and venal and don't keep to their oaths (especially that of chastity); when they call emperors to do homage to them or submit to their authority, it's not necessarily because they have a strong religious justification for it: sometimes it's because the Pope wants the Holy Roman Empire out of Italy, or to stop appointing cardinals who owe more to the emperor than the Pope. But it's also because it's the Pope's duty to guide the Emperor in faith. So many of these questions of "politics or religion?" in the middle ages are definitely both, and both in different mixtures depending on the specific people involved.* So when your FCCA is all cynics, or all witch-hunting fanatics, it's just less fun for me.
Less significantly, I think various medieval popes would give their eyeteeth for the level of control the FCCA has. The Church is important, yes, but it simply does not have complete control over a) the political actors or b) people's lives.
Even less significantly, I think the FCCA is more likely to welcome and promote magic users than to persecute them. I'd love to see a fantasy reformation that was about who was able to use magic and when - Fantasy Luther thinks anyone can learn to use magic while the Fantasy Pope believes only the priesthood can.
So: my problem is that FCCAs tend to be monolithic - either all cynics who use faith for their ends or all fanatics who only care about faith and not at all about politics. And they also tend to not really be important to the characters as anything other than an opposing force. I'd love a subtler, more nuanced take on a fantasy papacy.
i love how people have "their" lyrics when it comes to MCR... like i've seen someone with "awake and unafraid" as a tattoo, "sprawled on these cathedral steps, spitting out the blood and screaming" as a blog header...
mine is "defiant to the end", which i'm planning on painting onto my jacket. what is yours?
Male warriors in Redwall: I am going to stab you with this ancient sword forged by the greatest badger smiths in the land
Female warriors in Redwall: I am going to beat you to death with this actual piece of trash I found on the beach and you are going to thank me for it
OPs tags gotta stay:
Courtney Stapleton as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, 2022
Courtney Stapleton as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, 2022
you've always been my very best friend
am i my brother’s keeper?
#*screams*#god im always banging this drum#wwx looks so at peace when jc comes for him#he tried to die and lwj wouldn’t let him but jiang cheng#jiang cheng is here now#there is a constant theme of who does and does not have the right to judge you#like can you imagine if he was killed by jgs or sect leader yao#or if people believed it? he’d be OUTRAGED#but as much as it upsets him that he thinks jiang cheng doesn’t love him anymore he is willing to accept that judgment#compare to the second siege of the burial mounds where he’s all who r u??#jc considers this a private affair of the jiang and is offended that people think that they can comment#just because he ‘killed their brother’ or ‘slaughtered thousands’ or ‘is my soulmate’#jiang cheng is the only one who gets to kill him and so if he’s not going to no one else gets to#and i think wei wuxian basically agrees? he doesnt want to die and appreciates his second chance#but if he’s dying for his sins a second time its not going to be missing leg guy that gets vengeance thats for sure#if he’s doomed to death wangji can deliver judgment. jiang cheng can#jin ling is kind of young and revenge stabbing isn’t good for a middleschooler’s development#but wwx gets it#god and i’m thinking again about how ‘jiang cheng’ were his last words#is letting jc kill him also a bit of his version of ‘thank you and i’m sorry’#anyway this is going to be in my head all day ( @autumnslantern)
The funniest thing on my dash right now is folks who are familiar with The Untamed (i.e., the 2019 TV series) only via GIFsets reblogged by their mutuals honestly being under the impression that it’s, like, a period romantic comedy or something and going “wait, that guy is an evil wizard?”
Okay so the disconnect here is coming from the fact that as a chinese fantasy drama, as opposed to a western fantasy, their categories of ‘magic’ and ‘wizard’ start from a slightly different basis
do all of the main characters accomplish supernatural feats? yes! are they all wizards? no! they are just drawing heavily on elevated levels of masculine-coded life energy to perform said supernatural feats, TOTALLY DIFFERENT. The swords are very important. The swords are magic and also aid them in doing magic things. They are not, per se, sword wizards.
are there still actual wizards? YES! There is also a category of supernatural feats that is definitely, explicitly accomplished by magic! in this case, specifically daoist magic, using the written and spoken word to execute complicated magical effects. our goth farm boy hero in black is one of these. he is explicitly and specifically NOT doing the sword-assisted elevated-levels-of-masculine-coded-life-energy form of supernatural feats, due to Plot Reasons. he IS doing Actual Spells and he IS an Actual Wizard. hell, he creates new spells! he does not use a staff or an orb or a book, but he is specifically using his smarts to do codified feats of actual magic, so you’d need to have an unnecessarily narrow definition of ‘wizard’ to exclude it.
“okay, but evil wizard? he doesn’t look evil I thought he was just goth!” well, that depends entirely on your point of view. he is specifically and explicitly using dark magic to raise corpses, control monsters, speak to the dead, drive men mad, all that stuff. whether he, specifically, is evil is….. complicated. yes, he killed thousands of people. yes, he made that one guy eat his own legs. but he’s a nice guy okay
he’s more evil in the book, or at least more…It’s Complicated, which is also important to know. but no less nice!
he also is a sword wizard for a while, and then stops. this is very important to the plot and character arcs.