allthatjazz17

[allthatjazz17]

Xiao Heng: I care, I clothe.

Also Xiao Heng: I will not sully my hand by touching your ex-husband's ugly clothes.

(Can't help thinking he must've smelled nice, judging from Jiang Li's reaction ><)

[allthatjazz17]

Snowy Night Timeless Love | Can I pay with my body?

[allthatjazz17]

I have my king, I'm his only consort. I'm willing to do anything and I'm willing to fight for him.   

+

Lighter & Princess 点燃我，温暖你 (2022) — Episode. 09 | 27 | 35   

[allthatjazz17]

Detective Su, my dude, I know you want to catch the bad guys, but fucking with a literally suicidal woman for that is kinda scummy and by kinda I mean "what the fuck is wrong with you!"

[allthatjazz17]

excuse me for a sec

[allthatjazz17]

Yesterday, you mutilated yourself. Today, you ask to be tied up. You are a bold one. Are you intimidated, Duke?

THE DOUBLE 墨雨云间 · 2024

[allthatjazz17]

The Double 墨雨云间 (2024) Dir. Bai Yun Mo, Lu Hao Ji Ji, Ma Shi Ge – Ep. 1

[allthatjazz17]

I love her conveniently fainting into his arms. This woman has SKILL.

Also, he's not shoving her off which is pretty telling.

And then one of his underlings notices the blood on her back - from the beating she had her servant inflict as part of her set up AAAA I love her!

Look at that face. He's horrified/enraged already and he's just met her aaaaaa

Honestly, their chemistry is insane throughout. As I was telling @aysekira, I keep wondering if they are just gonna go drag each other off to fuck in a closet in the middle of any of their scenes.

PS He's got the delicious Kunning vibe of a terrifying dude who secretly, even from himself, yearns to have a beautiful woman put him on his knees and give him orders. Man's a psycho who wants someone even more psycho to domme him and who can object to that set up?

[allthatjazz17]

wasn’t the dream beautiful? the nightmare is when you think it’s over, it’s just the beginning. the grand dream will end, only the feelings will be remembered forever.

fangs of fortune, 大梦归离. [ TRAILER ]

[allthatjazz17]

The man hesitates too long, so YZ just grabs the nearest sword and kills him. And then:

Only thing that comes to mind is the Russian word "зверюга."

How anyone expected a happy ending or a man changed for love with YZ being consistently like this, someone who sees no value in human life except insofar as that person makes him happy/their existence pleases him - ie nobody else truly being real for him - is beyond me.

[allthatjazz17]

I love when period dramas have in universe conventions and rules around propriety but only uses it when it is relevant to the plot because every episode I am scandalized

[allthatjazz17]

The Double  墨雨云间 Duke Su + dramatically using a fan

[allthatjazz17]

How's duke Su different in the books from the show?

Short answer: perhaps we can consider novel!ML as the person drama!ML has liked to imagine he is

Long answer:

original flavor novel Duke Su is not gonna be caught crying a single perfect poignant tear for NOBODY

the man is cold as a chinese celebrity's career who hasn't paid taxes in 10 years

infamously gave a lukewarm review on novel FL's original self, the city's Most Beautiful (3 1/2 stars: attractive enough but no X factor)

(note: novel!FL was a calamitous beauty in Life 1, not the Most Talented. She was super talented but was conforming to convention and hiding her brilliance to fit the role of a proper official's wife)

(this bland review is not actually a point of resentment for FL, whose POV is, 'yeah fair enough, you could call me overrated')

(the Jiang Li's body is not Shockingly Most Beautiful like in Life 1; she doesn't miss being outrageously hot, as it was mostly a nuisance)

Duke Su is still dramatic af and lives for theatre

Still loves fans & gorgeous clothes (the man wears butterflies on his cloak) (he loves beauty so much he only staffs exceptionally attractive servants and has elite gardeners to ensure THE MOST GLORIOUS FLOWERS IN THE DUKE SU MANSION ONLY THE BEST FOR THIS LORD)

(like I really must emphasize how little chill novel!ML has: at one point FL notes that a new resident rented down the street from the Ye family, with hot ass servants and blaring opera non-stop, it's clearly Duke Su for some godforsaken reason)(and she's right)

Still suspecting FL's identity and amused at her bravado

But has zero inclination to ease her pains or preserve her life

Before FL gets to the mines subplot to come rescue her dad, he has been just sipping tea and enjoying the show (despite her fucking up a couple of his plans - he loves a good public play and tbh he is confident enough not to be pressed about some minor deviations)

he doesn't reach out to lend a hand until she FORCES him to act

By loudly exposing to a group of assassins that Duke Su has obviously been plotting a long game in the shadows for years to destabilize and split the court, raising Wang Chang, the Princess, Li family, Jiang family et al to gain power & fight each other and trouble the throne - so Duke Su becomes the 1 most powerful & trusted councilor to the emperor.

(Yes we have a Story of Kunning Palace situation here, where the drama adaption tweaks the ML's motives and aims so he's going in the same direction but is pro-emperor instead of scheming & manipulating for his own personal interests)

Duke Su was ready to literally watch FL be horribly violated & murdered, but then she spilled the tea and he had to drop bodies to destroy the evidence

He's gonna kill her too but like in a quick & polite manner, he's a gentleman

But she was super understanding about the whole situation and so he ended up hearing her out: how about just let me get my revenge first? Very convenient to you, here's a suicide voucher, could we come back to this at a later date? 2 to 3 good plays included. xoxo

Now he's got a voucher for 1 (one) strange teenage girl

Who doesn't appear to be a teenage girl.

She's also completely won over his sidekicks.

This is gonna take a lot of fans.

[allthatjazz17]

WANG XINGYUE as XIAO HENG The Double 墨雨云间 (2024) – Ep. 40

[allthatjazz17]

Xiao Heng: I care, I clothe.

Also Xiao Heng: I will not sully my hand by touching your ex-husband's ugly clothes.

(Can't help thinking he must've smelled nice, judging from Jiang Li's reaction ><)

[allthatjazz17]

What if your romantic male lead is a monster? - a bit of a love letter post to Goodbye My Princess and The King's Woman

I've been thinking about these two dramas, and how much I love them. Now that a lot of airing cdramas I was loving finished, I have room and might end up rewatching either of them.

Goodbye My Princess is set in a fictional kingdom and has fictional protagonists and The King's Woman follows the very real founder of the Qin Dynasty and a fictional woman he loves but what both of them do so so so well is posit "what if our romantic male lead was a monster. A monster in love" and take that to its logical conclusion.

A little backtrack - there are of course plenty of narratives that have monstrous male leads, but the thing is - usually the narrative has them redeemed by love or, infuriatingly, does not agree with the viewer/reader's assessment of the male lead's monstrosity. Here, GMP and TKW confront the monstrosity head on - it is real and the love they feel is also real but there is no happy ending or redemption. A monster can love, but he (or she) is much more likely to destroy the object of their affection or drag them down to monstrosity with them; best case scenario, the other person leaves. But few narratives have the nerve to go that way - to portray that love as epic, as real, as everything - and yet end in destruction.

I confess I am very fond of any narrative of how one of the couple being ruthless/bad/whatever and not redeeming themselves has an impact on their relationship. Other dramas that do different variations of that flavor (Empress Ki, where both of them do not start out as monsters and both end up monsters together, or Princess Agents and The Outsiders, where ML starts out as a wonderful person who becomes monstrous for totally understanding/sympathetic reasons etc etc, or even politically ruthless men who save their softness for their personal life because it's safe to do so (The Advisors Alliance or one of the couples in Eternal Brotherhood) are all faves.) But nothing does it for me as much as "he was a monster from the moment FL met him, and he loved her more than his life, but it didn't fix anything and made it worse."

It's so beautifully bleak and I love it so much!

The King's Woman was the last Dilraba drama I truly loved:

And GMP the only drama of these leads I enjoyed:

But it was all so very worth it.

[allthatjazz17]

the double's guide to having a secret identity

miscellaneous official, royal, or servant: omg it's xue fang fei! xue fang fei: fuck you no im not miscellaneous official, royal, or servant: you're right im sorry ma'am