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I'm rewatching The Expanse and I am yet again in awe of the insane roster of female characters. Possibly the best female ensemble I've ever seen in anything, this is how you write women, this is how you write complicated, messy, badass, interesting, smart, capable, fallible women who are so incredibly competent with so much agency and relevancy to the plot and it feels SO organic, and it's not just 1 or 2 or 3, it's 7 of them. They also never feel the need to dumb down their male characters or give us artificial moments, the women are allowed to be emotional and make mistakes and fuck up and love with everything they have and it doesn't diminish them in the slightest. We still get the smartest politician, the most competent soldier, the genius engineer, the woman who is on the road to redemption, the compassionate minister who can sway millions with her words, the lost child who fights for what's right, the woman who becomes her people's leader. All of this in the middle of one of the best written scifi pieces of fiction to ever grace our screens. I truly hope we get to see the last trilogy of this story because there is no story that deserves it more.

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the juxtaposition of koreans turning bl into bromance cause this genre “doesn’t guarantee financial success” and chinese doing everything they can to bypass censorship in order to produce bl is so funny to me

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Xiaobao + his tall wife

Meet You At The Blossom 花开有时颓靡无声 | Episode 1

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"A young lord of a marriageable age meets a cold-blooded assassin."

First uncensored wuxia BL show Meet You At The Blossom starts tomorrow July 11th at 8PM GMT+8 on:

YouTube / iQIYI / GagaOOLala / Viki / WeTV / Heavenly / Loklok (check your streaming regions here)

First 2 episodes on July 11th, then 1 episode every Wednesday and Thursday. 12 episodes, 40 minutes each. Has an option of thai dubbing and thai subtitles on iQIYI, WeTV, Loklok and YouTube.

Filming location, styling team, source danmei novel: China. Production/distribution by Thailand. Director from Taiwan. Chinese and thai actors.

Lead actors confirmed that they will have kisses and 18+ scenes in the show.

Synopsis: "Jin Xiaobao, the cheerful heir of the wealthiest family in Jiangnan, meets an enigmatic young woman and falls in love with her at first sight. This “woman,” however, turns out to be a disguised young man named Huaien. When Huaien learns who Xiaobao is, he hatches a plot – hoping to use Xiaobao’s feelings for him to access the Jin family’s riches. But this vile plan backfires when Huaien starts to develop real feelings for Xiaobao." (trailer 1 and 2)

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modern cdramas are so funny because you can never just have a romance show, most of the time, half of it is a work for the good of the country in *add your specific field here* PSA. One of my favorite contemporary romances which is You are my glory had so much of this but it was balanced with a lot of OTP goodness you could forgive them, it's taking the good with the bad, Hidden love also managed to do this in a very minimal way, Falling into you had Olympic sports and they were so intrinsically linked with the otp I loved it, Fake it till you make it also did a great job of this where their professions had such an impact on who they were and it didn't glamorize the grind mentality and also highlighted a lot of complex women in the FL's job. So it can work and be done very well, but imo it's the exception rather than the rule.

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I will take the smile in your eyes ending over that of 2521 any day, anytime. While 2521's ending felt entirely manufactured and completely disregarded everything that's been shown in the drama for 14 episodes, in terms of the characters and the relationships.TSHLYE's felt like a train hurtling towards its heartbreaking inevitable finale. Not to mention the fact that one was a finale scene of two people protecting each other and professing their love with their last breaths and the other was two people who have been shown to be each other's homes and safeties give up after their first fight when everything about them tells us that it is not who and what they are.

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i've had time to think about and process the 2521 ending and i'm finally ready to talk about it. first, i'd just like to say: WOW. i'm so happy i randomly decided to click "play" on episode 1 one day because watching this show was truly such a satisfying journey. the cast was phenomenal, seeing nam joo-hyuk and kim tae-ri together on screen was such a treat. the cinematography, the soundtrack, the writing, the feeling of nostalgia that this show provokes... 2521 is definitely one of my favorite kdramas of all time.

with that said, i don't claim the ending. a lot of people have said, "if you're not happy with the 2521 ending just because baekdo weren't endgame you clearly missed the whole point of the show," but i'd have to disagree. it's not just the lack of a baekdo endgame that didn't sit right with me, it's the ending that all of the characters got in their adulthood that turned me off.

seung-wan had stated in episode 10 that she found life to be boring, which is a sentiment that a lot of teenagers share. their lives are micromanaged by the schools they attend, the parents they live with, and all of their time is taken up by studying and trying to climb the step-ladder to adulthood. but even ten years later, seung-wan does not seem happy. she still finds life boring, she shows no satisfaction or attachment to the job she has chosen and she says herself that she is only able to see her friends during events like funerals. they may have hinted at a change in her love life with the return of yijin's brother, but considering how much emphasis was placed on having a "rEaLiStIc EnDiNg," his return just seemed very random and fanfiction-like.

yurim's ending also didn't satisfy me. don't get me wrong, i am so ridiculously happy that her relationship with jiwoong survived time and distance, and i'm also glad that she was finally able to gain the financial stability that she had always craved. but again, the emphasis was placed on what she chose as a profession following her retirement from fencing. we can't forget WHY yurim was so determined to make money, and the reason was her love for her family. she wanted to lessen their burden, pay off their debts, and provide them with a better life. i think seeing her with her parents in the present day would have been a lot more fulfilling in terms of a "happy ending."

and heedo... oh heedo. i can understand the baekdo breakup given the context of episodes 15 and 16, but i also think that a huge disservice was done to heedo's character in the name of being "realistic." because what were we shown? heedo lived her childhood alone until she was finally granted a short span of time to enjoy passionate love and friendship before it was ripped away from her. at the end of the day, heedo begins her journey alone and ends it alone. not only does she lose the friends that made her youth so memorable and the love of her life, but she also loses the sport that she lived and breathed for. in adulthood, she no longer finds fencing to be fun. she gets bored of winning. the girl who went through so much effort to transfer schools, worked so hard to join the national team, won three gold medals, and wanted nothing more to fence... quit. all athletes retire at some point but what she chose to do with her life afterwards had no relation to fencing whatsoever. i find that to be TRAGIC.

she shows no attachment to her husband in the present day, he's barely a part of her day-to-day life and she doesn't even mention him in passing. this nameless, faceless man that our best girl heedo spends her life with has no presence in her home, in her life, or even in her thoughts. she doesn't even have a ring on her finger. her reaction to yijin (his face during the 2009 interview, his words found in her diary in 2022) even years after their breakup is visceral, instinctual... and that's why she returns to the tunnel, erases the beach day from her mind, and just seems to have no trace of happiness in her. from where i'm sitting, her story seems like a tragedy full of regret, loneliness, and a bitterness for the direction her life took in the name of "growing up."

yijin also seems to be alone in the present day. it's a shame that he dedicated his life to a career that caused him to begin smoking, drinking, losing sleep, and sucked the hope out of his very being. it's also a shame that his "happy ending" consists of bringing the family together that provided him no form of support during the hardest time of his life. his parents may be his blood, but heedo was his family. and he lost her in a breakup that wasn't even reciprocal. they didn't part ways mutually, he was abandoned yet again during a time when he was struggling with issues completely out of his control. his ptsd and depression were never addressed and, just like heedo, he began and ended his journey completely alone.

why was a rookie reporter sent to the other side of the world indefinitely to cover a foreign story in the first place? why was jae-kyung only able to establish a close relationship with her daughter after ending her career? why did she have to choose? why did baekdo break up after their first and only fight? why did heedo say she would make sure her support always reached yijin when she made no effort in episodes 15 and 16 to help him in any way? were all of their words JUST WORDS? why were there so many remnants of yijin in heedo's present day home if they have no relationship at all? why did yijin and heedo have to lose their friendship, their love, their understanding, the very essence of their bond, just to become strangers with no tie to each other's lives after they broke up because "that's how real life is"? why did minchae even pick up that diary in the first place?

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Forget P0lin, this season is the Mondrich season! All rejoice!

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Se Ryung is truly one my favorite heroines of all time, her sense of morality, her strength, her kindness but most of all the way she loved SY so utterly, he says later he will tell his father "there was a woman who loved me more than I loved myself". Like you said he never would've been able to come back from everything if she didn't love him more than life itself. Especially the way she PHYSICALLY protected him even if she was a regular girl without martial arts training or additional strength, she put a sword to her throat, she took an arrow for him, she physically stood between him and her father and shielded him when he tried to kill him. The fact that she was sheltered and spoiled makes it so much better and speaks both to the solidity of her character as well as the absolute force of her love for him. We get a lot of male leads who love this completely and fiercely but it is rare in female leads and I wish we had more women like her in dramaland.

SY in jail, close to catatonic, until he just starts freaking out and screaming - I am not sure if it's the lowest he gets (when he comes back for vengeance, he's a not sleeping wreck) but it's definitely up there. He saw so many people he knew and liked murdered in fron of him, his family is dead, his best friend helped in the butchery, the woman he loves is his enemy and he failed in vengeance. Nothing in his loving, sunny life has prepared him for this - how could it?

She finds out he is about to be executed and bargains with the only thing she has left - her life. She tells Sejo that if he executes Seung Yoo, she will slit her own throat. I found it telling that despite the fact that she is his favorite person in the whole world, that is still not enough to procure SY's freedom - sure, it bothers Sejo, but not enough to stop - if his favorite daughter dies, oh well. The only way SY escapes with his life is that the King finally gets fed up with the slaughter and gets some backing and orders a stop to the executions. Points to Sejo turning 'King ordered me to stop' into 'I didn't kill him for love of you, daughter.' Lying liar who lies.

The thing that is so horrific about this scene is that he is too numb to care he is about to be executed and when he hears he is to be reprieved, he is so numb and grief-stricken he doesn't care either - he is almost disappointed. Not that it is much of a reprieve - he and the other 'traitors' are turned into slaves and exiled to an island and Sejo plans to have them murdered on the way.

When she visits him in prison, he sees her just as an extension of Sejo, the one part of Sejo he can reach for vengeance (I am sure self-loathing for loving an enemy enters into it - especially since he still loves her) but the fact that gets me is that she just stands there and lets him go for her throat - because she realizes her family owes him some measure of reparation and vengeance (and the amazing thing is she loves him, yes, but she'd feel that way even if she did not. She is just.)

She can call for help and be rescued asap but she won't.

The thing is that they eventually come back from this nadir - the fact that he manages to eventually claw his way back to sanity and functionality and find happiness with her despite the fact that his father murdered his whole family is a testament not just to how much they love each other or his strength of will. Above all, it's a testament to how unswerving, morally healthy, strong and loving and functional she is. She LOVES him into sanity.

The thing with her (and SY tho it's not relevant to this particular interaction) is that she never takes the easy path or shirk responsibility for things. She's a total contrast to Myun. I don't necessarily blame Myun for picking his family over his friend - it's his attitude during the whole thing. Anyone who acts as if the biggest victim in this situation is him and not the guy whose family got murdered and who is about to be killed, is not someone I can stand. And he doesn't even try to ameliorate things (For example, what would it cost him to reassure SY that he'd help his sis-in-law and teeny niece?) I think it's because unlike the OTP, Myun is a weak person. That is why stronger people around him (SY, SR, his father, Sejo) are always able to bend him this way and that. He's a void morally but also spine-wise.

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Watching Zhen Huan, 8 months pregnant and on her knees being dealt blow after blow and begging the Emperor for her father's life is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. It honestly broke my heart and it makes me even more confused as to why people call her ruthless later and sympathise with Lingrong, the absolute horrifying shit she and the empress have put this woman through? When she did absolutely nothing to them and even helped LR so many times. Vile doesn't even begin to cover it.

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The absolute evil of Lingrong is just... astonishing. She caused ZH to loose one child and is trying her hardest to do it a second time, she even gave her father the plague. How much of a monster do you have to be. I see a lot of opinions that are sympathetic to her but she's rotten to the core, I don't feel sorry for her one bit, even hua fei was more sympathetic, I hope ZH impacts the human swine punishment on her, she deserves no less.

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The contrast of Hua fei who is the ～evil one and she is to some extent. But she has the perfect opportunity to harm Zhen huan's baby with the empreror and empress gone and she doesn't even entertain it, what she wants to do is maker her submit to her. On the other side you have Lingrong with her woe is me attitude who not only caused Fuca's miscarriage but is also doing it to ZH who is someone who helped her so many times when she didn't have to and didn't even know her at first. Her moral fiber was rotten from the start and I hope ZH gets her back 100 times over.

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Legend of zhen huan ep 29

So Zhen huan is being a little less careless than I thought, at least she's having Dr wen check all of Dr zhang's prescriptions, but she's not thinking about what he might NOT be saying, because he's the empress's person and he's 100% aware that she's slowly being poisoned with that cream. Also the way they're so slowly giving us glimpses of the incense Hua fei uses is so smart, just little comments here and there, the amount of effort the scriptwriters might have spent to make sure that every sentence and scene has multiple meanings is astounding... They never told us for example that Dr zhang is in the empress' hand but the way she calls for him whenever there is something important happening, like after fuca's miscarriage or her saying he checked the poison in the food empress qi gave zhen huan, brilliant writing. I might not be as attached to the characters as I would like after 30 episodes because I feel we don't have any deep relationships except for one so far, I like a few characters but by ths time in Ming lan I loved her as a character as well as the male lead, same for yanxi, I adored ying luo and the empress as characters this deep into the show but we still have 46 episodes to go so there is time. It feels like my brain is so much more engaged than my emotions.

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Zhen huan still needs to get a grip and wake the hell up. She saw Fuca loose her child, Duan warned her to be extremely careful but she seems to think she's in some sort of romantic fairytail. The betrayal from Lingrong and the empress might be something she can't foresee right now ( although she still should use her brain and be careful) but accepting random food from a concubine you were just having a fight with regarding her child and who has never sent you anything? She's still way too naive, it really is a case of you don't get it until it happens to you. She thinks she's special and that her only enemy is Hua fei ( who is horrifying in her own right and killed poor chun without any remorse) but is actually one of the only concubines so far who is not trying to harm her child. She's being incredibly frustrating right now because she's acting like she just joined the harem and not been here for years where she watched two of her closest friends lose/almost lose their lives and so many other terrible things. I know she needs to go through this for her development later but now they're just making her seem dumb.

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Meizhuang is so done with everyone's sh*t especially the emperor and she's not even trying to hide it and honestly

If it wasn't for Zhen Huan she would've been dead twice over, she's like "you're the son of heaven you can never be wrong" in the most monotone voice with a resting bitch face. The fact that she chooses not to play the game and pretend, not to get revenge and plot but just to do the absolute bare minimum is so interesting to me. She's not stupid but she does not have the desire nor frankly the level of manipulation and scheming needed to win this fight and she knows that.

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@silviakundera I'm watching the show too (ep 26) and this show so far is a masterclass in nuance and subtlety, so far every single conversation and uttered word that seemed to be unimportant is starting to feel very very deliberate and it's so delightful to watch something like this again after Ming lan and Nirvana in fire. This is the kind of show that needs detailed recaps and multiple viewings to pick up on all the foreshadowing and details.

Empresses in the Palace notes

ep 10-11

Finally our milquetoast protagonist's bestie is almost drowned in a pond and then she's poisoned, so they wake the fuck up and start making aggressive moves. Play the emperor like a fiddle and get! that! death! decree! 👏👏 Realizing that her attempted murder wouldn't be enough for a kill shot and "accidentally" revealing that Yu fooled the emperor - that's right baby, he's 200% ego, now you're ready for the hunger games!

lmao, I sentence her to suicide.

Concubine Yu's death was majestic, 5/5 stars. Truly unhinged, gonna MISS HER. ❤ Nice touch how that mistreatment of eunuchs came back to bite her. Ling Rong is a bad bitch and these girls don't appreciate her.

Hua Fei, absolute love of my life, the entire damn episode:

But is there ANYTHING that Zhan Huan's head eunuch Xiao Yunzi can't do? The true renaissance man.

As much as I'm loving all these shenanigans and Zhan Huan finally doing a thing... I have to admit that it was probably short-sighted and a misstep to take a shot at Hua Fei with her general brother this much in favor. If you come at the king, you best not miss. And in the current political situation, she could do just about anything except injure the emperor and she'll get away with it. So all you've done is (a) entertain yourself & give Xiao Yunzi a chance to do community theatre and (b) enrage a powerful, bloodthirsty enemy with great skin and captivating hair ornaments.

Zhen Huan is clever enough to not directly bad mouth Hua Fei to the emperor's face. She's very good with the elderly.

oh that's RIGHT. Our protagonist has a dark secret (cough) i mean, half-sister! who is her servant. Because... everything is awful for everyone. Nice to see them setting up half-sister's inevitable betrayal

Every cautious, calculated-not-to-offend conversation a concubine has with the emperor is like watching paint dry. This is why they say fear is the mind killer. Their fear of that man is anesthetizing brain cells and PUTTING ME TO SLEEP. How any of this ever gets him in the mood for sex, I'll never understand.

tee he he I said I'm not talented but obviously I am. What whimsy!