#Love in the Desert

[dangermousie]

Top Dozen cdramas - 2024

This can obviously change but nothing truly exciting looks to air for the rest of the year so that's unlikely. My Top Dozen for the year are likely be set in stone.

It's a very idiosyncratic list which has two mini dramas, three moderns (!!! for me that's insane) and a lot of vibes dramas.

12 Hard to Find - all vibes all the times. A tragic romance that feels like a Gothic fairytale, this is what minidramas could be.

11 Love In the Desert - out of all the dramas on this list, this is the one that screams most "a good time." It's a romance and visual feast and webnovel madness and sexy good time and it made me cry.

10 Fortune Writer - a mini that is so smart and meta and fun about narratives and fate and villainy and fighting the story itself. So clever.

9 Derailment - a puzzle and a love story, telling most anything about it would be a spoiler but this story about a rich girl from 2025 who seemingly wakes up in a parallel universe in 2023 in body of a poor doppelganger, and the young man who was in love with the original has everything including addressing what it must feel to people to have a transmigrator possess a loved one.

8 Tender Light - the ending was just - it's the reason it's not n1. But the rest of this drama about an abused wife and an idealistic young man refusing to bow to societal pressure was just exquisite. It addresses morality and loneliness and complicity and sacrifice. Just incredible. Poetry in motion.

7 Will Love In Spring - a modern romance cdrama? In my list? Is the world ending? But seriously, this is such a gorgeous, realistic yet intense exploration of love and loss and trauma. It made me utterly reevaluate Li Xian to boot.

6 Snowfall - this is such a fever dream of a mood piece of a vampire romance, with seriously BDSM and gay vibes, as well as utterly incredible canon age gap ride or die OTP with Ouyang Nana bothering to act for the first time in her life and Vengo Gao embodying a gentleman vampire to perfection. Li Muge remains one of my favorite directors for a reason.

5 Heroes - the story of three very different men all consigned to the dustheap of history by changing times (the best swordsman in the era of guns, a former imperial guard of a regime about to be overthrown, a constable obedient to obsolete code who studied for imperial exams which got abolished) as the Qing dynasty is about to fall, this has fights, humor, three (!) separate love stories, philosophy and utter and complete heartbreak. The performances, the ideas, the filming and the writing all combine to make a bleak masterpiece with a 99% death rate (I am not kidding, only tertiaries make it out.) If I were in charge, it would get all the awards.

4 The Legend of Shen Li - the one truly mainstream idol costume hit on the list. It's an adult, passionate xianxia that reunites Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin as deities and battle powerhouses in a love story that is so full of yearning and passion and intensity I feel like peeking through my fingers. This is everything xianxia romance tries to be and almost never is. This just might be my favorite xianxia of all time, tbh.

3 Eternal Brotherhood - a dark horse whose existence I didn't even know about before it aired. Visually stunning despite its tiny budget, this narrative about three sworn brothers in a kingdom and world in crisis, is pitch perfect in its humor, its intensity, its tragedy and its themes (also THREE!!!! amazing love stories despite not being a romance-centric show.) The battles, the friendships, the traumas, the darkness at the heart of it all!

2 Fangs of Fortune - the sole drama that can rival JoL2 for me (only caveat is it's still airing), this is visually the most jaw dropping drama I've ever seen, but it's also high fantasy the way it should be - making me feel so immersed that stopping feels like coming up from a deep dive or waking up from a hypervivid dream. It has impeccable performances (many from actors who I don't normally even like), and its plot and relationships and themes - fate and sacrifice and choice and found family bonds and trauma and so many other things - make it feel as if it was made just for me.

1 Joy of Life 2 - THE drama of 2024 for me. It's somehow better than the incredible first installment. It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it has insane performances, a narrative that hits all my personally favorite themes (a person trying to remain human in an inhuman world, righteousness not being weak), a large cast of fascinating characters who feel like they live in front of me (there are no throwaway roles in this), my favorite ship of the year (though it's not even a ship-centric show) and above all, Zhang Ruoyun's live wire of a performance as Fan Xian, arguably my favorite cdrama character of all time. It should not work yet it does. Brilliantly.

[nunafilms]

Love in the Desert | Episode 2 漠风吟 dir. He Jia Nan

[bebemoon]

love in the desert | ep. o1

[barananduen-blog]

Listen, CDrama networks:

If you're all going to dump everything on us all at once, and you still expect us to watch stuff, you're going to have to arrange it so that all cdrama fans all over the world have 4-day weekends.

Cuz the hours aren't mathing.

[pippin-pippout]

Why does Rong Xiansheng always look like he wants to be painted like a French girl?

[zefile]

Love in the Desert

[natstarbuck]

[heymeowmao]

漠风吟 | Love in the Desert x TrendMo

[lunar-bunn]

I know security is apparently very lax in Yunpei, but to have one of the city lord's "favored" concubines go on a full blown date in broad daylight with a strange man and not even attempting to conceal her identity! Even (presumably) leaving city walls to have a romantic tryst!!!!

yunpei citizens:

[silviakundera]

Lust Love in the Desert, ep 4 liveblogging

We continue with sexual tension in the sand dunes as ML and FL clutch each other and almost kiss

sadly for us, they resist :(

2nd FL continues her chaotic spring break activities (ref. dangermousie) and is ready to fight everyone. Bandit bro truly may have bit off more than he can chew.

It's again canonically emphasized that the main FL is unusually beautiful. This is actually plot-useful info if it informs how characters treat her. (Here it's causing her to the center of attention while they're trying to be low key. Put a hat on her!)

This hotel they've chosen to stay at is very sus

aaaaaaand they empty the place and ML drugs FL, so he can have very secret meetings that I don't understand

Like truly I don't get it. There's some flashback of ML from before he ran into FL, talking about Rong Huo being sighted in the desert ??? then he fights a bunch of people because... it's good cardio?

These inn dudes clearly work for him in some capacity. good for them.

unless they helped kill FL's mom. then, bad minions!

They just kill a handful of people in town because... arterial spray is their art form? ??? ya'll I have no idea.

Bandit bro and the woman who has claimed ownership ALSO show up at the inn and inform us nice viewers it's owned by "Boa Agents".

2nd FL continues to be hilarious and too good for this dude. She's actually a far better scammer than him.

The princesses are SO CLOSE it's killing me

YES !!!!! They're together! !!!!!!!!!!! And still looking out for each other 🎉 🎉

My beloveds, it was over too soon.

For reasons that again passth my understanding, people are galloping around and trying to murder. whee!

FL: they're after me!

silvia: ... are u sure?

ML: aahhhrg (shot with an arrow)

'Just leave me to die.' ' No I won't leave u.' PASSION IN THE SUN

After the requisite promises & gestures, ML and FL ride off towards her marriage ceremony to some other lord.

LOL he cannot fathom that she didn't have an ulterior motive in saving him. He's just too sketchy.

The poison arrow isn't affecting him but she's sucking the blood from his wound anyway to be sexyyyyyyyy

Lots of warm light and close up faces and mutual desire to bang

FL getting a bit sick of his mystery sketchy bullshit and pushing for answers. She is clearly attracted to this guy and has affection for him but also she's not a sucker either. I appreciate that about her.

He passes out, mildly delirious, and she gets to pet his face a little. tbh it's fair play after the drugging incident.

[dangermousie]

A couple that slays together, stays together...

This is AMAZINGGGGG. The compliments!

I have read enough web novels to know what this is a euphemism for (and by her smirk, so does she) and I cannot believe censors let that through!

And then they continue to combine battle and foreplay...

I was thinking "if this wasn't cdrama, he'd totally drag her off to fuck on the throne table" and then...

The censors are def dead.

But then they get interrupted by his men who caught the fleeing ruler and he is SO annoyed ahahah

I love themmmmmm

[nunafilms]

Aren't you hungry? We only have one meal a day. If you miss this one, you'll have to wait until tomorrow night.

Love in the Desert | Episode 2 漠风吟 dir. He Jia Nan

[danmeigirl]

Love in the desert : epi 4

'If you lie, a donkey will kick your crotch and you won't be able to have babies' XD bwahahaha

These two are hilarious, is it just me who liked them more than the lead 🤣

[barananduen-blog]

This is Feita

and some guy who rides him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOVE IN THE DESERT ~ ep. 1 & 2

[gravitasmalfunction]

Na Zhan is really out here compensating for being the 4th or 5th hottest man in the show by spending as much time as possible lounging in his boudoir in nothing but his underthings.

This and the fact that people are constantly busting into his chambers to fall to their knees in front of him and beg for punishment makes me think he just doesn't have time to get dressed. None of these people are getting punished, which makes me think just offscreen after we cut away, Na Zhan is constantly getting head. I mean, how else can one explain General Wu's career?

[pippin-pippout]

Ruo Wen: You're so clingy. I don't like you. Leave me alone.

Also Ruo Wen: sure yeah I'll buy you the fish lantern you asked for on a whim and then immediately gave to a random child. As well as anything else you want. No reason.