#MESSY MESSY LAST MIN CATALYST

[siegfaerie]

Hoping he comes come,,,,,

[blu-joons]

Cuddling Each Other After An Argument ~ Min Yoongi

It had been days since the two of you had talked, the house was awkward, neither of you wanted to be the one to cave in and admit that you were wrong, you had your pride to keep and your stubborn nature stopping you.

The argument itself was one you could barely remember, insults had been thrown which amounted in the two of you walking away, the cause of it all was a distant, hazy memory for you.

The two of you had still been sharing the same bed, neither of you wanted to give up your bed to sleep in the spare room, which led to many strange nights, rather than speak to each other, you would simply slip into bed, turn your backs to each other and that would be it for the night.

You laid in bed on the fifth night of not talking, Yoongi was already in bed when you got in, with a baggy shirt the only thing around your figure you got in, as usual, turning your back against him, wrapping your hand around your pillow as your means of a cuddled.

He was fast asleep beside you by this point, in his dream he heard the sound of you shuffling around, smiling to himself knowing that you were there.

“Y/N,” he whispered making you jump. Your eyes quickly opened, slowly turning so that you could look back at him. He was still fast asleep, obviously talking in his sleep that wasn’t too unusual as Yoongi was concerned. You didn’t want to talk to him now, you weren’t in the mood for him to finally give in and admit he was in the wrong all along.

He settled back down soon after, you turned your back to him once more, closing your eyes. There was the usual silence behind you once again, he fell back into his dream, unaware of anything that he had just done.

You thought that was it, until ten minutes later, you felt an arm wrap around your waist, pulling you close. Your eyes opened again, turning around to see Yoongi right beside you, his head resting against your back, tickling your hips.

He was still fast asleep, he was just acting on instinct, but you weren’t prepared for him to wake up like this. You took his hand, slowly peeling it from around your waist, placing it back by his side, only for him to move it back around again.

You didn’t want to wake him knowing how early he had to get up for work, but you were still mad with him, the last thing you wanted was to cuddle his dream.

After three more attempts to get rid of him, nothing changed, causing you to let go of a sigh. This time you decided to try with a little more force, placing his arm back beside him, slamming it down against his waist, making him jump. His eyes slowly opened, looking at you in confusion, wondering why the two of you were so close again.

“Stop cuddling me,” you scolded, moving further up the bed. “I want to sleep.”

“Oh, sorry,” he whispered, surprised to even hear your voice. He moved back, placing his arm by his side, watching you turn away from him. “I didn’t realise what I was doing, must just have been in a dream when I held you.”

You hummed in response, as cold as you had been for the last few days. Yoongi hated it, you’d never denied a cuddle from him before, hearing your voice again was hard on him, hearing the bitter tone of anger, knowing it was towards him.

“Do you think now we can talk and make things right?” He asked you. “We can’t carry on living like this Y/N, it’s not normal in the slightest.”

You sighed, reaching across to put your lamp on, turning back around to face him. He was tucked sweetly under the duvet, his hair was messy in front of his face, usually you would be quick to brush it away, but now you had to fight the urge.

“Talk to me then.”

Your tone was more vicious than you anticipated, but at this time of night, the last thing you wanted to do was talk to him. The both of you had a lot of pent up frustrations with each other, each had your own take on everything that had happened.

You thought he was wrong, and he thought you were wrong, finding the middle ground was going to be a struggle. Both of you remembered different things, but what he remembered best of all, he was the catalyst that triggered this out of proportion blow up.

He remained silent for a few moments, trying to figure out what it was that he wanted to say to try and make things right, so much emotion had been put into this argument.

“I’ll just go back to sleep,” you sighed.

He reached over quickly, stopping you from turning the lamp off, loosening his grip when your eyes widened at his quick response. He frowned, smiling as an apology, clearing his throat to finally speak to you properly.

His eyes met yours, “I’m sorry for everything I’ve said and done over the past few days, all of this has just been stupid, and I just want to make things right between us again.”

“I’m sorry too.”

He smiled, moving his hand from around your wrist, into his hand, locking yours tightly in with your own, squeezing it tightly.

“I hate this,” he admitted, “we both said some things we didn’t mean to, we both just had a lot going on and took it out on each other, but we’ve both been too stubborn to do anything about it, making things a lot worse.”

“I don’t even remember what we fought about,” you chuckled, watching him do the same. “I wish we nipped it in the bud rather than not talking, acting like children, it’s pathetic, and not like us in the slightest.”

He nodded in agreement, luckily the two of you appeared to be on the same page, wanting to just make everything right again.

“I never meant the things I said to you, it was all just the heat of the moment, I love you, I never intentionally mean to hurt you.”

“I know you didn’t mean it.”

Your other hand reached across, finally brushing his hair out of his face. His heart skipped a beat as you did so, this was the first part of normality that he had craved for so long. You chuckled as he revealed his dimples, giggling nervously at your touch.

It was like any other argument, the two of you quickly made up, how and why it took you the best part of a week to make up though, neither of you would never know.

“Can we say that things are alright again? I just want to go back to normal.”

You nodded, bringing his arm around you so that you could move closer towards him, cuddling into his chest, draping an arm over his waist.

His head rested on top of yours, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head. Your legs tangled together, battling for space as you so usually did, it was something you’d always done, and would always continue to do.

“I always thought your front was prettier than your back,” he teased, watching you turn up and glance at him.

You shook your head at him, poking out your tongue. “You’re lucky your cute otherwise you’d be in big trouble again.”

He smiled, kissing against your forehead, “get some sleep, it’ll be nice for the two of us to go back to sleep properly again.”

“I agree, goodnight Yoongi.”

---

Masterlist

[selestial-princess]

In case someone asks for the full story

I recently joined a Pokemon Go Facebook group chat for raids and to make friends and be social because its hard for me to do that without a catalyst. At first it was just a few adults in town some of which I knew but after the big Moltres day thing a bunch of college kids joined the group. Pokemon Go Guy being one of them. At first I only saw him occasionally at raids and I needed friends so when he chatted with me after one I thought it was no big deal. Then when I warned the group I was going XP farming by taking all the gyms on campus he asked if he could join me and I said sure. It was broad daylight and there was a football game so there were a lot of people around so I figured I was safe. He starts saying he's single and I tell him that I have a boyfriend who I've been with 5+ years. It was a little awkward but I told him Logan doesn't mind because I need to make friends (which is completely true). I let him give me rides to raids downtown (a 20 min walk if I wouldn't have gotten a ride). As we hung out more he began to ask me about my relationship with Logan and would comment about the length of time between dates, asked me why we weren't married yet, why didn't Logan play Pokemon Go etc. throughout the whole time he also kept inviting me up to his room to drink (on a dry campus) or to watch movies. Tonight I decided to go to an on campus raid last minute because it seemed like he wouldnt be coming (ive been avoiding going to raids when i know he will be there or will attempt to give me a ride) Turns out he was drunk and after the double raid he walked with me back to the dorms and followed me all the way up to my room. I stopped on my floor and told him my room was really messy trying to hint that I wasn't up for company without being blunt and rude. He proceeded to say that he didn't care and continued to follow me down the hall until we got to my room.

[tranquildr3ams]

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018)

Director: Yui Bun Chu

Cast: Andy Yang, Allen Deng, Leo Luo, Adonis Liao, Zhi Yuan Xia, Faye Wang, Ting Wei Zhou, Yukee Chen, Kathy Chow, Bella Du, Yang Peng, Run Jun Wang, Zhong Hua He

In ancient times, the Flower Goddess dies after giving birth to a daughter. Before she passed, she fed her daughter the Unfeeling Pill, ordered her subordinates to keep the girl’s birth story a secret and to imprison her within Shui Jing for 10,000 years. The girl’s name is Jin Mi. 4,000 years later, the Heavenly Emperor’s second son, Xu Feng, was entrapped by someone and mistakenly entered Shui Jing. He was saved by the ignorant Jin Mi. After living together for 100 years, Xu Feng gradually developed feelings for Jin Mi. Someone close to them wants to use those feelings for their own benefit. – MyDramaList

Where to watch with English subtitles (as at March 25, 2020): Netflix Canada & Youtube

QUOTE/SCENE

Jing Mi: That one’s so ugly. Why did you bring it here also? Phoenix: I feel that one is the most beautiful of all the Phoenix lanterns, because it contains our memory. Jing Mi: This is the memory of Saint Girl and King Yi. [pause] What a beautiful view!  It’ll be great if we can drink some self-made osmanthus wine. In fact, before I descended to the mortal world, I buried some osmanthus wine I made here. Phoenix: I dug it out several days ago. Let’s try  your wine today. [next scene] The wine you made is indeed savory and mellow. Jing Mi: I must have some skills amongst the six realms. Why are you staring at me like that? Phoenix: Its great that I don’t have to look at you through the veil. Jing Mi: Isn’t it beautiful?

STORY

Ashes of Love is essentially a love story and its where it thrives at its best. Much like the structure of 2017’s Eternal Love (review) and background, this one is set a little different  in the actual fairy world where this one has six realms however, the Sky realm is still the highest one (as it usually is) and the story resides in these different deity/fairy ranging from flowers to nocturnal creatures to celestial creatures and all kinds of animals and even inanimate objects. In terms of creativity, the story is full of them and that is one of the many highlights of this one and can bring so much fun to this as it makes for some leaps of beliefs but in a fantasy world like this one, its more about learning about it first. And that is a lot of the charm especially as it starts off fairly light-hearted and fun.

The realms here are really where the many past dilemmas have ignited from the past generation between the Floral Goddess, Heavenly Emperor, Water Immortal and all the other people linked to them. Its created essentially what happens to Jing Mi to have been given the Unfeeling Pill when she was born to prevent her from meeting her curse of love with the first 10,000 years of her life, which ends up being the catalyst of all the events that end up happening as misunderstandings happen as the truth unfolds. But that said, each of these realms of the three focused on among the six is different in its own way and has its own traits reflective of the place but yet still has their own good and evil characters.

At the end of all this, between war and feuds and misunderstandings and realm battles for power, it all dials down to the romance and the love triangle between Jing Mi, Phoenix and Runyu instigated by jealousy and unfairness on one end and then creating revenge and hatred, making things worsen. Its all a story of the basic philosophy and belief in Chinese that what is meant to happen will happen regardless of how you plan on changing its course, that act alone is also destined to happen. Also goes along with you reap what you sow at the end of the day especially as what is given off from one generation can affect its next. Its all very common plot points and themes in ancient Chinese fantasy TV series as Eternal Love has about the same kind of plot point (as an example since its the other one in the same genre). What does work here is that once you get past those similar plot points and embrace what they do different in building this new world and its characters, Ashes of Love has a stronger bond with its love story and leads (for myself) whereas in comparison, Eternal Love is entertaining well-rounded but perhaps didn’t quite connect as much in terms of the main leads and their love story. I don’t mean to compare but I did watch them almost back to back.

Before we jump to pacing, I need to mention that the costume designs here are really nice. There’s a lot of thought of each one from the Birds Realm to the colorful Flower Realm to the dark Demon realms outfits as as well as the gold and white and more royalty colors in the Heavenly Realm. Its one of the elements that make me love watching Chinese Fantasy TV series. The costumes and the hair ornaments and hair styles are just so beautiful! While I’m talking about this, I do have to mention that when they do close-ups of the props, fake flowers and such, it is pretty apparent, maybe one of the lesser elements of this series. But then, I guarantee you that there is one “sex” scene in this (its public TV so nothing explicit) and its filmed so poetically and beautiful that I was really impressed by the whole thing especially when you remember the true forms of the leads on hand.

LENGTH/PACING

Episodes: 63 Episode length: 40-45 mins approx.

Its incredible how long Chinese TV series are sometimes especially these big production Chinese fantasy ones. Ashes of Love is surprisingly long at 63 episodes and yet, the script is done so well that the story progresses in phases that gives time for each stage of these characters to grow and develop individually and together in their different relationships, friendships, family, brothers, etc. It doesn’t take a break from this other than maybe the secondary couple from the demon realm which ends up being a rather touching story as well by the end.

Looking at the phase, the first part (as I mentioned) before is about the meeting between Phoenix and Jing Mi and her introduction from the Flower Realm to the Heaven Realm and gradually the reveal of her true identity as well as her growing relationship in their few hundred years as the helper and disciple of Phoenix. As her true identity gets revealed, it jumps into the next phase of the story where it shares about the past and the characters involved and what actually happened, throwing the hatred of the Heavenly Empress and her desire to split up Jing Mi and Phoenix while Phoenix’s brother, Runyu gets pulled into the mix and he learns about his mother and it builds on his revenge and his plot slowly conspire. Things gets more messy here as this also get intermitted with Jing Mi’s mission to become an immortal by going to the Mortal Realm to experience the suffering of mortal life to gain knowledge where she ends up connecting with her feelings more as a turn of events takes Phoenix to have a rather intense romance. Finally, the third phase appears after all the plots of phase 2 unravels and Jing Mi unexpectedly breaks the Unfeeling Pill’s effects and realizes her real feelings and makes up for her mistakes to Phoenix. That turns into the most painful, emotional and heartbreaking moments of search and hopelessness and this last part is just such a ode of how the beginning builds up its characters and relationships so well that this part ends up working a lot. (I mean, I bawled my eyes out a ton in the last 8-10 episodes or something)

CHARACTERS/CHEMISTRY

Leads: Jing Mi & Phoenix

Ashes of Love takes a lot of time and attention on building these two characters. Its great because the focus never quite leaves them even when they are apart and doing their own thing. There’s a lot of factors that work here. The first is that its not dubbed voices and the actual actors are voicing these characters because both Andy Yang and Allen Deng are really talented actors and in their respective roles as Jing Mi and Xu Feng (aka Phoenix, as I keep referring to him), they are incredibly convincing and hard to not ship them, to be honest. These two characters are strong individually as they both have their own family, relationship and realm issues to deal with and consider in all their choices and their own secrets to uncover. Its what makes their love story so heartbreaking and bittersweet altogether because each of their own issues and it all comes down to Jing Mi and the Unfeeling Pill that stops her from realizing her own feelings until its too late which makes their relationship take a very heartbreaking turn of events. The chemistry between these two characters are fantastic especially in some scenes of how the director uses close-ups to the dialogue around them where they both are able to act with their eyes and interpret some genuine feelings without saying anything.

Brothers & Family Feud: Phoenix & Run Yu

All royalty has their own conflicts and Phoenix’s family is the Heaven realm’s family which creates all kinds of crazy as the Heaven Emperor reveals to be a rather unloyal man where his past creates the Empress’s hate and jealousy making a lot of issues become unfair to the older son, Runyu the Night Immortal. What starts off as a rather good brother relationship despite the parent issues ends up turning sour as Runyu’s character ends up having a subtle villain type of change full of plot and schemes, creating this character that flips from the nice guy at the beginning.

Love Interests, Villains & Other Characters of Interest

Love Interests for Jing Mi is mostly Runyu as well as some other characters that don’t really have too much to mention however the main villains of the series is one, the Heaven Empress, aka Phoenix’s mother (as mentioned before because of jealousy) and the second is Phoenix’s “cousin”/crush who likes him a lot and believes she is the one destined for him and does increasingly evil acts. The two villains in the end are the main cause of Phoenix’s “demise”. Everything comes in full circle in Chinese philosophy and nothing proves it quite like how TV series stories work. You can’t say these two villains don’t do a great job. Empress is portrayed by 90s Hong Kong TV actress Kathy Chow who does a fantastic job that its hard to not dislike the character much like Faye Wang as the love interest who plays on the more annoying side of things.

Of course, the more fun additions do go to the Green Snake and the other colorful character of the Flower Realm just like the Moon Immortal (Phoenix’s uncle) who are comedic but in desperate times, knowledgeable and contribute to the dilemma in their own ways. There’s a lot of characters in Ashes of Love so its hard to talk about all of it.

OVERALL

Ashes of Love is a really great series. Its one that takes its sweet time to move through its different story levels to gradually connect with each of these characters as they develop and learn about the different secrete in their life, especially with the main female character, Jing Mi. The magical elements and this new world and the possibilities gives it the space to believe in all the twists and turns and thats because its already given it such a creativity to begin with which also sparks some deeper thoughts on how certain plot points would work but never quite doubt its possibility, leaving space for the audience to draw their own conclusions. The different worlds have beautiful CG effects that make them unique as well as their own kingdom and rules as well as different worlds and their feuds with each other.

Aside from all that is crafting these characters that work so well on their own in complexity. Having 63 episodes to do it definitely feels like it would be a drag but it isn’t most of the time because these characters need it and its because of that, it makes especially Jing Mi and Phoenix’s story so much more emotional to watch whether its happy moments to the extremely heartbreaking moments. Fantastic series that makes me want to watch and rewatch and notice those little story plot details more.

MAIN THEME

TV Binge: Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018) #AshesofLove #香蜜沉沉烬如霜 #CDrama #Fantasy #Romance #TV #Review

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018) Director: Yui Bun Chu Cast: Andy Yang, Allen Deng, Leo Luo, Adonis Liao, Zhi Yuan Xia, Faye Wang, Ting Wei Zhou, Yukee Chen, Kathy Chow, Bella Du, Yang Peng, Run Jun Wang, Zhong Hua He…

TV Binge: Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018) #AshesofLove #香蜜沉沉烬如霜 #CDrama #Fantasy #Romance #TV #Review Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018) Director: Yui Bun Chu Cast: Andy Yang, Allen Deng, Leo Luo, Adonis Liao, Zhi Yuan Xia, Faye Wang, Ting Wei Zhou, Yukee Chen, Kathy Chow, Bella Du, Yang Peng, Run Jun Wang, Zhong Hua He…

[tranquildr3ams]

Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018)

Director: Yui Bun Chu

Cast: Andy Yang, Allen Deng, Leo Luo, Adonis Liao, Zhi Yuan Xia, Faye Wang, Ting Wei Zhou, Yukee Chen, Kathy Chow, Bella Du, Yang Peng, Run Jun Wang, Zhong Hua He

In ancient times, the Flower Goddess dies after giving birth to a daughter. Before she passed, she fed her daughter the Unfeeling Pill, ordered her subordinates to keep the girl’s birth story a secret and to imprison her within Shui Jing for 10,000 years. The girl’s name is Jin Mi. 4,000 years later, the Heavenly Emperor’s second son, Xu Feng, was entrapped by someone and mistakenly entered Shui Jing. He was saved by the ignorant Jin Mi. After living together for 100 years, Xu Feng gradually developed feelings for Jin Mi. Someone close to them wants to use those feelings for their own benefit. – MyDramaList

Where to watch with English subtitles (as at March 25, 2020): Netflix Canada & Youtube

QUOTE/SCENE

Jing Mi: That one’s so ugly. Why did you bring it here also? Phoenix: I feel that one is the most beautiful of all the Phoenix lanterns, because it contains our memory. Jing Mi: This is the memory of Saint Girl and King Yi. [pause] What a beautiful view!  It’ll be great if we can drink some self-made osmanthus wine. In fact, before I descended to the mortal world, I buried some osmanthus wine I made here. Phoenix: I dug it out several days ago. Let’s try  your wine today. [next scene] The wine you made is indeed savory and mellow. Jing Mi: I must have some skills amongst the six realms. Why are you staring at me like that? Phoenix: Its great that I don’t have to look at you through the veil. Jing Mi: Isn’t it beautiful?

STORY

Ashes of Love is essentially a love story and its where it thrives at its best. Much like the structure of 2017’s Eternal Love (review) and background, this one is set a little different  in the actual fairy world where this one has six realms however, the Sky realm is still the highest one (as it usually is) and the story resides in these different deity/fairy ranging from flowers to nocturnal creatures to celestial creatures and all kinds of animals and even inanimate objects. In terms of creativity, the story is full of them and that is one of the many highlights of this one and can bring so much fun to this as it makes for some leaps of beliefs but in a fantasy world like this one, its more about learning about it first. And that is a lot of the charm especially as it starts off fairly light-hearted and fun.

The realms here are really where the many past dilemmas have ignited from the past generation between the Floral Goddess, Heavenly Emperor, Water Immortal and all the other people linked to them. Its created essentially what happens to Jing Mi to have been given the Unfeeling Pill when she was born to prevent her from meeting her curse of love with the first 10,000 years of her life, which ends up being the catalyst of all the events that end up happening as misunderstandings happen as the truth unfolds. But that said, each of these realms of the three focused on among the six is different in its own way and has its own traits reflective of the place but yet still has their own good and evil characters.

At the end of all this, between war and feuds and misunderstandings and realm battles for power, it all dials down to the romance and the love triangle between Jing Mi, Phoenix and Runyu instigated by jealousy and unfairness on one end and then creating revenge and hatred, making things worsen. Its all a story of the basic philosophy and belief in Chinese that what is meant to happen will happen regardless of how you plan on changing its course, that act alone is also destined to happen. Also goes along with you reap what you sow at the end of the day especially as what is given off from one generation can affect its next. Its all very common plot points and themes in ancient Chinese fantasy TV series as Eternal Love has about the same kind of plot point (as an example since its the other one in the same genre). What does work here is that once you get past those similar plot points and embrace what they do different in building this new world and its characters, Ashes of Love has a stronger bond with its love story and leads (for myself) whereas in comparison, Eternal Love is entertaining well-rounded but perhaps didn’t quite connect as much in terms of the main leads and their love story. I don’t mean to compare but I did watch them almost back to back.

Before we jump to pacing, I need to mention that the costume designs here are really nice. There’s a lot of thought of each one from the Birds Realm to the colorful Flower Realm to the dark Demon realms outfits as as well as the gold and white and more royalty colors in the Heavenly Realm. Its one of the elements that make me love watching Chinese Fantasy TV series. The costumes and the hair ornaments and hair styles are just so beautiful! While I’m talking about this, I do have to mention that when they do close-ups of the props, fake flowers and such, it is pretty apparent, maybe one of the lesser elements of this series. But then, I guarantee you that there is one “sex” scene in this (its public TV so nothing explicit) and its filmed so poetically and beautiful that I was really impressed by the whole thing especially when you remember the true forms of the leads on hand.

LENGTH/PACING

Episodes: 63 Episode length: 40-45 mins approx.

Its incredible how long Chinese TV series are sometimes especially these big production Chinese fantasy ones. Ashes of Love is surprisingly long at 63 episodes and yet, the script is done so well that the story progresses in phases that gives time for each stage of these characters to grow and develop individually and together in their different relationships, friendships, family, brothers, etc. It doesn’t take a break from this other than maybe the secondary couple from the demon realm which ends up being a rather touching story as well by the end.

Looking at the phase, the first part (as I mentioned) before is about the meeting between Phoenix and Jing Mi and her introduction from the Flower Realm to the Heaven Realm and gradually the reveal of her true identity as well as her growing relationship in their few hundred years as the helper and disciple of Phoenix. As her true identity gets revealed, it jumps into the next phase of the story where it shares about the past and the characters involved and what actually happened, throwing the hatred of the Heavenly Empress and her desire to split up Jing Mi and Phoenix while Phoenix’s brother, Runyu gets pulled into the mix and he learns about his mother and it builds on his revenge and his plot slowly conspire. Things gets more messy here as this also get intermitted with Jing Mi’s mission to become an immortal by going to the Mortal Realm to experience the suffering of mortal life to gain knowledge where she ends up connecting with her feelings more as a turn of events takes Phoenix to have a rather intense romance. Finally, the third phase appears after all the plots of phase 2 unravels and Jing Mi unexpectedly breaks the Unfeeling Pill’s effects and realizes her real feelings and makes up for her mistakes to Phoenix. That turns into the most painful, emotional and heartbreaking moments of search and hopelessness and this last part is just such a ode of how the beginning builds up its characters and relationships so well that this part ends up working a lot. (I mean, I bawled my eyes out a ton in the last 8-10 episodes or something)

CHARACTERS/CHEMISTRY

Leads: Jing Mi & Phoenix

Ashes of Love takes a lot of time and attention on building these two characters. Its great because the focus never quite leaves them even when they are apart and doing their own thing. There’s a lot of factors that work here. The first is that its not dubbed voices and the actual actors are voicing these characters because both Andy Yang and Allen Deng are really talented actors and in their respective roles as Jing Mi and Xu Feng (aka Phoenix, as I keep referring to him), they are incredibly convincing and hard to not ship them, to be honest. These two characters are strong individually as they both have their own family, relationship and realm issues to deal with and consider in all their choices and their own secrets to uncover. Its what makes their love story so heartbreaking and bittersweet altogether because each of their own issues and it all comes down to Jing Mi and the Unfeeling Pill that stops her from realizing her own feelings until its too late which makes their relationship take a very heartbreaking turn of events. The chemistry between these two characters are fantastic especially in some scenes of how the director uses close-ups to the dialogue around them where they both are able to act with their eyes and interpret some genuine feelings without saying anything.

Brothers & Family Feud: Phoenix & Run Yu

All royalty has their own conflicts and Phoenix’s family is the Heaven realm’s family which creates all kinds of crazy as the Heaven Emperor reveals to be a rather unloyal man where his past creates the Empress’s hate and jealousy making a lot of issues become unfair to the older son, Runyu the Night Immortal. What starts off as a rather good brother relationship despite the parent issues ends up turning sour as Runyu’s character ends up having a subtle villain type of change full of plot and schemes, creating this character that flips from the nice guy at the beginning.

Love Interests, Villains & Other Characters of Interest

Love Interests for Jing Mi is mostly Runyu as well as some other characters that don’t really have too much to mention however the main villains of the series is one, the Heaven Empress, aka Phoenix’s mother (as mentioned before because of jealousy) and the second is Phoenix’s “cousin”/crush who likes him a lot and believes she is the one destined for him and does increasingly evil acts. The two villains in the end are the main cause of Phoenix’s “demise”. Everything comes in full circle in Chinese philosophy and nothing proves it quite like how TV series stories work. You can’t say these two villains don’t do a great job. Empress is portrayed by 90s Hong Kong TV actress Kathy Chow who does a fantastic job that its hard to not dislike the character much like Faye Wang as the love interest who plays on the more annoying side of things.

Of course, the more fun additions do go to the Green Snake and the other colorful character of the Flower Realm just like the Moon Immortal (Phoenix’s uncle) who are comedic but in desperate times, knowledgeable and contribute to the dilemma in their own ways. There’s a lot of characters in Ashes of Love so its hard to talk about all of it.

OVERALL

Ashes of Love is a really great series. Its one that takes its sweet time to move through its different story levels to gradually connect with each of these characters as they develop and learn about the different secrete in their life, especially with the main female character, Jing Mi. The magical elements and this new world and the possibilities gives it the space to believe in all the twists and turns and thats because its already given it such a creativity to begin with which also sparks some deeper thoughts on how certain plot points would work but never quite doubt its possibility, leaving space for the audience to draw their own conclusions. The different worlds have beautiful CG effects that make them unique as well as their own kingdom and rules as well as different worlds and their feuds with each other.

Aside from all that is crafting these characters that work so well on their own in complexity. Having 63 episodes to do it definitely feels like it would be a drag but it isn’t most of the time because these characters need it and its because of that, it makes especially Jing Mi and Phoenix’s story so much more emotional to watch whether its happy moments to the extremely heartbreaking moments. Fantastic series that makes me want to watch and rewatch and notice those little story plot details more.

MAIN THEME

TV Binge: Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018) #AshesofLove #香蜜沉沉烬如霜 #CDrama #Fantasy #Romance #TV #Review Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜, 2018) Director: Yui Bun Chu Cast: Andy Yang, Allen Deng, Leo Luo, Adonis Liao, Zhi Yuan Xia, Faye Wang, Ting Wei Zhou, Yukee Chen, Kathy Chow, Bella Du, Yang Peng, Run Jun Wang, Zhong Hua He…