#DING YUXI YOU AMAZING MAN

[shijiujun]

Mu Sheng: (♡´𓋰`♡)

— Love Game in Eastern Fantasy 永夜星河 (2024) | EP. 12

I AM UNWELL HE IS FALLING SO DAMN HARD THEY MAKE ME SO SICK WITH SWEETS AND EVERYTHING NICE HE IS SO FOND OF HER WTF

[dangermousie]

Finished Love Game in Eastern Fantasy.

What a MESS!!!

The second half of the drama didn't click for me much to start with (the moment they got to the capital, a lot of my interest went away and after the bracelet storyline was done, the bulk of the remaining interest disappeared) but even by those standards, holy fuck this was bad.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the story started losing steam for me when it started deviating more and more from the novel (ie second half) and that ending was...well. I don't know what the fuck it was. I was just kinda glad it was over tbh.

It has nothing to do with the standard endings of the "you are in the past/dream/novel/game/whatever" genre - those often end in iffy ways due to censorship or other reasons but even by those standards? Yikes. For every Kunning or BBJX or Jade Palace Lock Heart or The Myth, or Love Better than Immortality or even Lost Track of Time which stick with the ending and its consequences, I can name a lot of others where they largely negate the past story - The Romance of Tiger and Rose or Different Princess or My Dear Brothers or Lovesickness - that I still enjoyed. This wasn't even the whole "oh she woke up and it was all a dream she doesn't remember" that was annoying (though it was!!!) but all the nonsense beforehand.

A MESS.

It's funny, out of the fall dramas - this, Fangs, KMLM, Pearl Girl - the only one that stuck the landing for me is Fangs which I least expected to do so both due to its story being so very complicated and its maker's known tendency to go off the rails with the ending. I ditched Pearl Girl halfway thru due to boredom and this I finished but it fell apart and KMLM I lost a lot of interest once crown prince died and I found the story limped to its ending.

This said, it's already better than I expected from all the terrible promos and I am glad it boosted Ding Yuxi's career because he's hardworking and good and deserves it. But if you want to watch a fun drama with someone from this cast transmigrating into a story, I'd recommend The Romance of Tiger and Rose over it. If you want to watch Esther fall for a demon, I rec LBFAD over it. Hell, if you want to watch a 2024 Esther drama, Sword and Fairy 6 (where she also needs to save the world and die with her man but...) is so so very much better!

And now I don't have any airing dramas at all except for kdrama weekender Iron Family. Honestly, it's pretty restful and will give me time to catch up on other stuff. And if anything good airs for the rest of the year great, but I don't even care if not since 2024 has given me so many amazing dramas so far.

[fairytaehl]

lgief rewatch ep. 6

yayyyyyy the gomoku episode <3 AH this is so precious to me. esther yu and ding yuxi seemed like they had so much fun doing this, and i had so much fun watching it over and over again!

if youd like to discuss lgief, feel free to send me asks, chats, or reply to any of these posts.

ep 1 / ep 2 / ep 3 / ep 4 pre-festival / ep 4 festival / ep 5, 5 part 2 / ep 6

so we start the ep with all the workers leaving bc theyre not an official's residence anymore, and oh man, i love the side of miaomiao we get to see because of it.

her bargaining nature… her knowledge of how to get the best prices, what are cheaper but similar alternatives, when the best time to go is, etc. miaomiao, how often do you do this in your world? you are so funny for this. queen. im obsessed with her.

and i love her little pathetic fake stepping in place to make it seem like she was leaving, LOL. as well as how cute she is hopping on her two feet while her dad is amazed. like yaaaaah i did thattttt i know my stuff.

screencap for her pretty hair design. i wonder if her maids did it for her one last time before leaving.

ziqi listening to this convo goes down had me wondering why, esp with his solemn-type expression. are you just spying on her? did u have intentions on talking to her, but overheard all this so you stayed and listened? like i actually wonder if he kinda wanted to follow up on his 0% feelings from the festival? idk! but hearing this caused a fork in the road and he chose a different approach to her from what he couldve been planning.

miaomiao blaming herself for her dads death is so so sad. it must be a bit difficult at this moment to believe that the man next to her is some version of her father while thinking of her real one, and it is a little jarring to hear them both talk about him as some Other Person, instead of "no, i wouldnt have blamed you, dear," but the feeling is there all the same. at the end of the day, that is like her dad, but shes definitely trying to detach a little bit because its Not, and goes as far as calling him "old lin" to create a boundary for herself, i imagine. otherwise, she would absolutely get too attached, and thats why she also warns him if she suddenly goes back to being mean she hopes he isnt upset.

playing with his chain, mysteriously in the darkness...

"youre so powerful" the sarcasm is hilarioussssss. she thinks bc she reached 0% shes got some leeway. its true, she does.

i like how she uses something similar to his lines from the map burning on him. it was not lost on me.

whys he lowkey look unhappy when he asks if hes not welcome. like "i thought you were being nice to me. wdym we cant randomly hang out late in the evening?"

and miaomiao realizes how wonderful of an opportunity this is to get some positivity from him! she really treats him like a quest for so long... and he goes "uh huh, right. im welcome now, i see."

miaomiao im sorry his bitch ass eavesdropped and isnt even apologetic about it. he didnt seem so sinister when he was listening, but now hes cornering her! and she is so surprised at it too! you can see how shes processing what hes saying and what that means. oh shes so offended, even though in the imperial capital shes so for it. i love that scene there lol.

from the moment i first watched this moment, i knew ziqi had some connection to the real world. i was like, why does he care so much about this? he cares a lot. this is kinda sus. and after the Go game they definitely make it more obvious.

i wonder whats going on in his head when he asks this tho? is he thinking that she is some type of demon who can time/universe travel or something? because hes linking that to her being weird/sneaky, and i cant imagine how else he would make it make sense in his head given the universe.

fully reblogged version linked here

[missfinemess]

Now that I'm finally done with Love You Seven Times, these are my thoughts:

I LOVE DING YUXI

proceed only if you have completed watching or just skip to the last part if you want my review, includes spoilers.

What happened to Immortal Li???? I was waiting till the end for him to show up again or at least for then to tie up that loose plot thread but absolutely nothing? My funny charming just there for the plots sake Li js gone? Ah I miss this guy

I love and absolutely adore their costumes during the demon arc cause chu kong's hair is to die for and xiangyun's eyeshadow is a masterpiece. Their entire costumes are just top tier.

The colors of this drama OMG. each and every scene has such freaking pretty colors and no scene is bland as such like just amazing

Even the power thing like each character has their own power color and the colors looks so awesome good plus the scenery the background the entire set deserves appreciation on it's own!!!

Not gonna talk about the obvious xianxia problems that occurs in these drama iykyk

Thank god xiangyun's friend cum colleague showed up in the last ep cause otherwise idk it would've just been weird

Can we talk about how all the characters have such good accessories and then haoxuan is just dressed up in simple one or compartively simpler one's? Serves him right.

Their first arc about the boar/pig with the tiger is the cutest and will be the cutest out of all, you can't change my mind. Plus the way they jeep hinting at it even in the last ep>>>>

I wanted to see ming yue get some closure girl just existed for the plot I feel so bad for her she just wanted to spend time with her sister TT

The mortal arcs were super fun esp the 2nd where xiangyun is just playing around with chu kong and the 4th one with the body swap

Is it just me or is it that the cast for this drama is small? Like other dramas have a super long cast with drawn out side plots but I think that aspect was kinda missing in this drama I didn't find a good amount if side characters it was just the same ones repeating again and again

BUT the entire story is so cute and lovely even with all the plot holes.

It just makes you feel warm

Ding yuxi has done it again, that man has carried the entire show in his shoulders and has done it amazingly well.

If I were to rate it out of 10 I would give it a 8? Mainly and mainly for the amazing colors which you would NOT find in other dramas and the costumes I love the costumes.

Would I recommend you to watch it? Yes but don't take it as serious drama. It's a lighthearted xianxia with amazing costumes and colors💫

[dangermousie]

Yes!

I mean the acting is better than in Seven (poor Ding Yuxi carried that all alone and here most of them are fine if not amazing, at least compared to YCY) and the story is more my thing than Seven was (purely due to personal preferences) but what’s missing in both is intensity. Actually I think Seven had more of that (I remember DYX’s scenes when his family was killed in first life or the red wedding; I felt more there than here.)

I like all the stories (minus Princess Slaveholder) well enough in theory but the execution just is somehow lacking. And I can’t place my finger on why either. The actors are OK enough if not on fire but I loved the first four eps and then it’s been downhill. Xianxia is always hit or miss for me but if you compare it with Shen Li, the last xianxia out before this one, I was insanely invested in it - it was a cottagecore slice of life for a long stretch - normally not my thing - and I still loved it to bits. Watching a man and his chicken shouldn’t be more engrossing than watching a fox ruler and her human protege but there we are.

And I think the directing really is a big culprit - you could film the same story and the same actors differently and I’d be watching agog (see any drama directed by Li Muge or Guo Jinming. Even when their stories are lacking or actors are not normally incredible, I watch with mouth ajar.) I mean, yes, you can overcome mediocre directing with an amazing unusual script but most xianxias don’t have those (LBFAD was pretty unique that way.) Or perhaps a leading couple with such insane chemistry that you won’t care about narrative or directing flaws but that’s even rarer and I am not sure would help here where they don’t get a ton of together screen time.

It sounds like I am bashing Fox and I don’t mean to - it’s a pleasant way to pass the time. But I am not obsessed and I wanted to be. I do hope the other two grab me more if only because I like the cast for them better in terms of actors who are my faves (and I liked the trailers for them better too tho that’s not a great measure) but seeing it’s the same team on the same three I am not particularly certain my hopes will get carried out.

I am gonna say though… iQIYI cannot maintain an entire Fox Spirit Matchmaker drama franchise with this level of quality. They’ve finished filming three of these shows, but I feel like it’s going to end up a huge money sink if the standard doesn’t raise.

To me this show also does not look quite as good as even Love You Seven Times? The directing feels very amateur at times. Immaculate costuming though, of course.

Like I’m still watching for sure because I am interested in the overall plot, but this last arc had me literally yelling at the tv multiple times, like a guy watching sports when the ref makes a terrible call.

At this point it is becoming obvious that the magic of LBFAD was in the specific crew of the series, and not in Stellar’s name being on it.

[dangermousie]

Let’s do a Goofus OR Gallant verdict for filming dramas because why not. I might make it a regular thing actually because I love being a judgy bitch.

Take a look at these photos of Victoria Song and Ding Yuxi in the currently filming Fight for Love, the adaptation of Mo Shu Bai’s amazing Mountain and River Pillow:

Verdict: Goofus!!! Oh God.

They are both so unutterably (but I will try to utter anyway!) wrong for the roles! The sole drama I liked Victoria in was Ice Fantasy directed by (surprise surprise) Guo Jinming, who has an almost Li Muge level of getting actors who usually can’t act to act. Ice Fantasy came out in 2016. It’s 2024 now. But also her usual vibe is all wrong for the FL and she ain’t exactly an actress of any range so…

And Ding Yuxi. First and before discussing his suitability for the role, what the FUCK has the man done to his face? The amount of fillers in those cheeks makes me wonder if they can be classified as organic matter any more. I used to find his looks very appealing because he did not look cookie cutter like so many celebs but I guess the pressure got to him. And now he’s like a male version of Peng Xiaoran - a formerly stunning and unique looking star who had work to look as forgettable as possible.

But also, he’s so wrong for the role. He is (was?) a better actor than Victoria but this role needs someone a hell of a lot younger looking (the whole point of the arc and the tragedy is that his whole family is killed in battle when he’s not even an adult - it hits because he takes on everything when he’s on that cusp and has to grow up in a trice. He has little experience and is the baby of the family. No, I am not saying to cast a 15 year old but DYX, especially this new plasticized DYX who looks like he’s on his second wife, is just all wrong - especially since there is a certain intense/vulnerable duality which is vvvv internalized and he lacks - if you want to think what this role would need is someone like Liu Haoran or Wu Lei or if they couldn’t afford them, Zhang Yao.

Anyway, my favorite web novels continue to get awful adaptations. About the only one of my faves that looked good was The Prisoner of Beauty and we all know what happened there.

[dangermousie]

If there ever was my personal bete noire in drama form, the horrifying abomination that is Romance of Twin Flower is it.

Even taken in isolation, the shrill, dumb, fake-cutesy trailer would set my teeth on edge. But this barftastic travesty is supposed to be an adaptation (!!!!) of Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir, in my not so humble opinion the best non-danmei web novel I’ve ever read - cynical, smart, dark and complicated tale about two ruthless smart individuals where romance of ANY kind doesn’t even kick off until the last third of the novel.

This is a rare novel where the hero is a believable period aristo politician, i.e., a monster who deliberately kills an unborn child, sacrifices one concubine to protect another, views his wives as chattel (but coldly uses himself as a chattel too), deposes princes as convenient etc etc and you don’t like him but you get what makes him tick, you get that it’s that or his whole clan going down. His arc was one of the best ones I’ve read because I hated him as I started (nicknamed him Trash Man in fact) and the wonder of it is that he is not a better kinder person at the end, but he’s opened his heart to the FL and you also get what makes him tick and you see his slow growth into considering one other person and it’s delightful. And the FL! The FL is amazing. Fully adult, cold as fuck, competent, self-sufficient and emotionally aloof (it takes her almost until the end of the novel to love ML.) These are two smart, ruthless forces of nature colliding.

And in that trailer, they are giggly brain-dead morons, with a girlish giggle (her) and cutesy face wrinkle (him.)

Honestly, Peng Xiao Ran is poison in terms of dramas - the sole good one she was in was GMP and everything since has been a horror. This is the last straw and after this I will avoid anything she is in, because you know it will be a trainwreck. I’ve only seen Ding Yuxi in Tiger/Rose where I like him, but not only is he utterly wrong for this role, the way it’s written nobody could save this. I might give him another chance in another drama, but he’s on thin ice.

THE EXISTENCE OF THIS DRAMA GIVES ME FUCKING ULCERS.

This drama is my villain origin story.