#I watched this for Wang Zhuocheng only and it was worth it

[ajaxbell]

I finished The Journey of Chong Zi, and I hated it.

Why did I finish it? Out of pure stubbornness, I guess. And my endless desire to watch Deng Wei? The only good character was Qin Ke. Not just because, well Deng Wei, but he was truly the only actually good one of the good guys.

Everyone else was selfish, terrible, and absolutely unsuited for their position on the six worlds. I really hated almost everyone. Well okay some of the demons were okay too.

I am utterly sick of plucky heroines who whine, refuse to do anything they are supposed to, run headlong into trouble, and drag others down. Like why be a cultivator if you never practice, never listen to your shifu, and absolutely refuse to learn from your mistakes? 60% of this show was sullen whining from Chong Zi about mostly how she didn't like the consequences of her own impetuous actions. Was she badly treated? Sometimes, but almost all of it could have been avoided if she'd just considered any action for two seconds or more and just listened, once or twice, to anyone with more knowledge and experience than her.

Early on I liked her shifu, Luo Yinfan, but by the end he seemed insanely stupid and kind of creepy for being in love with her, partly because of the power dynamic, and partly because she was so awful that it was frankly embarrassing that he'd think he was in love with her.

It had great aesthetics though. And some decent acting. Too bad about the script and the directing. And the main character and her voice over artist. I'd be maybe interested in watching Jeremy Tsui in something else, as I thought he had a kind old Hollywood charm and subtlety to his expressions. But his face also looked sort of puffy toward the end, like he'd started drinking heavily by the last few episodes. And given the script and his love interest, who could blame him?

Anyway probably not even worth watching for Deng Wei even if he was absolutely best thing about the whole show. Though shout out to Asher Ma, Wang Zhuocheng, and, of course Li Daikun. But they all deserved to look this good, and be this great, in a much better show.

Despite all my complaints, truly the aesthetics were immaculate. Can't argue with the glittery goth demon realm.

Ultimately this had a decent concept with great potential, excellent visuals and was so wildly disappointing, mostly because the unmet potential was so obvious and it had so many good actors given nothing to work with and abysmal direction. There were also very few decent female characters. The way most the female characters were written and their petty in-fighting felt like deep misogyny on the part of the writers. So deep that I'm actually annoyed at how much it made me hate the titular character. Alas. On to the next show.

[ao3tageverything]

Legend of Two Sisters In the Chaos - AO3tagged

Rating Teen And Up Audiences Warnings -> under the “read more” line for spoiler reasons Categories F/M Relationsships -> under the “read more” line for spoiler reasons Additional Tags Chinese historical drama, sisters, drama at the emperor’s court, intrigues, fake wedding, sibling relationships, secret illegitimate child, bromance, everyone is in love with someone they can’t have, arranged marriage, Fu YuZhan is cleverer than anybody else, romantic light festival, not so secret pining, chaotic disaster couple, temporary blindness, possessive!Xue Rong, PTSD, love letters, Fu YuZhan saves the day (repeatedly), hostage situations, Jiang Shao is a precious cinnamon roll and has to be protected at all cost, sneaking around in disguise, pretending to be someone else, faked major character death, it seemed like a good idea at the time - only it really wasn’t, jealous quarrels, when the emperor behaves rudely no-one can call him out on it, mentioned suicide, the sweetest proposal ever, jealousy, dubious consent/drunk sex, shotgun wedding, falsely framed as a murderer, bailing on the wedding, supporting character death, sudden acquired family, impulsive!Jiang Shao, emperor with anger management issues, nice supporting characters turning into villains, conspiracies, references to things that happened in the first couple of episodes, poisoning, fooling the viewer (several times), suicide, reckless!Fu JinZhan, behaving like a married couple though not actually being married, secret identities, deceiving the enemies, much chaos would have been avoided if just everyone was a little more honest with their loved ones, second lead couple is much better than main couple, not a completely happy ending

Warnings Major Character Death (for real this time) Rape/Non-Con (as mentioned in the tags: dubious consent because drunk)

Relationsships Xue Rong/Fu YuZhan, Jiang Shao/Fu JinZhan, Xue Rong & Jiang Shao, Fu JinZhan & Li HuaJin,