#character: ye liuxi

[heymeowmao]

西出玉门 | West out of Yumen / Parallel World, E6 ° Chang Dong, do you know how you'll die in the future?

[nemainofthewater]

Best character surnamed : Ye

Come and vote for the best characters with the same surname!*

What does best mean? It's up to you! Whether you love them, are intrigued by their characters, love to hate them, or they're your '2 second blorbos whose personality you made up wholesale', these are all reasons for you to vote for your favs!

*note, the surnames are not exactly the same in all the cases, as often there will be a different character. I am, however, grouping them all together otherwise things got more complicated.

Propaganda is very welcome! If I’ve forgot anyone, let me know in the notes.

This is part of a larger series of ‘best character with X surname’ polls’. The overview with ongoing polls, winners, and future polls can be found here

[sarah-yyy]

what: modern cdrama // completed // 38 eps, roughly 35 mins each where: wetv (also on the app) // viki why: desert supernatural adventure with ni ni and bai yu, this had "sarah is going to lose it over this show" written all over it right from the start tbh, zero percent of people are surprised i enjoyed it. the characters are all well done and ni ni and bygg were great in their roles, the worldbuilding for the society inside yumen was interesting, and the cgi is well done for the genre (i mean...this is basing it off cdrama cgi standards okay!!)

meet my girl ye liuxi:

GOD... xi-jie... �� where do we even start

brains: 10 brawns: 100 memory: -300

xi-jie woke up in the middle of the desert, hung on a tree, with no idea who she is, v fragmented memories of the past, and a satchel with some v vague clues. she spends about a year working odd jobs in a town nearby to survive and to work out a plan to find out about her past.

her investigations lead her to chang dong:

dong-ge!! 😍🤤

brains: 10 brawns: 10 memory: 10 (but like 95% of it is tragic)

dong-ge is a desert guide, used to be one of the best (and certainly one of the most famous) in the region until he led an expedition (which consisted of his fiancée and their friends) into the desert and all eighteen of them except him died during a freak sandstorm. major survivor guilt on this boy. ultimate goal is to find the remains of his friends so that their families can move on in peace.

anyway, xi-jie ropes dong-ge into taking her into the desert. it's heavily implied that pre-memory lost her knows where the remains of his dead fiancée is, so the deal is: help me find my memory, and i'll help you find your friends.

they travel to the Yumen Pass together with three others - fei tang (who tags along for an opportunity to steal this priceless artefact he saw on xi-jie), and xiaoliu & gao shen (xiaoliu's godfather is sponsoring the trip for ~reasons, gao shen is her bodyguard with a crush on her), but soon realise that the pass leads to a parallel world where xi-jie is originally from.

in that world, there are spiritual beasts and monsters and all that jazz. the parallel world is governed by three ruling families who fight against a rebel organisation the Scorpion Eye. the gang navigates through the parallel world trying to solve the mystery behind xi-jie's past and the Yumen Pass prophecy. that's p much the gist of it.

the cons: this show moves a little slowly at times, but once you get invested, everything is all good. i'd say the first 2-4 eps needed a bit of getting into, but it does pick up. meng ziyi is in this as well, but i was a bit :/ about her performance - her character needed a bit more nuance and would've benefitted from a better portrayal than what mzy delivered. not something that really put me off the show, tho!!

the pros: ye liuxi is such an excellent character!! she is super fight fight fight and has Minimal impulse control. if a fight can solve problems, that's the way she's going. she starts off a bit "stick close, because if y'all die in the desert i'm not going to care" but just...grows so invested in everyone's wellbeing. chang dong is a nice contrast to ye liuxi - he's level-headed and is more focused on plans and trying to get everyone in and out of the Pass alive. the chemistry between them is great, like i didn't think i would be into this for the romance but GOD DAMN look at my dongxi couple

ni ni and bai yu aside, the rest of the gang were great also - they provided a lot of laughs to cut through the seriousness of the show, and the growing friendship between them was really fun to watch.

the plot was decent!! you can sort of guess the direction it's going, but it doesn't stop it from being a super fun show to watch. i binged like the last 10 eps in one sitting. i also really did appreciate the show giving me the finale i wanted: everything wraps up nicely (*stares at mlc*), there're no loose ends for me to lose my shit over (*stares at my journey to you*).

all in all, a p strong 9/10 for me!! would enjoy if y'all are into those desert adventure cdramas. would enjoy if y'all are bygg fans.

[convenientalias]

West Out of Yu Men/Parallel World Review

Bc I just finished watching it yesterday!

I really liked it :D

I think it had a very unique aesthetic. It's set in the desert or in cities located near the desert for the most part, and you really feel it. The characters don't always look like they're hot, but there's always a dry, gritty feeling to the air. The fashion, tooo, was pretty unique. Ye Liuxi is very rough and tumble action girl with a little bit of sexy thrown in; Chang Dong mostly dresses kind of generic, practical and understated; Ding Liu dresses kind of cutesy-garish, loosening up both in attitude and in fashion as the show progresses; and then everyone in the parallel world dresses like they're in some historical fantasy with a touch of apocalyptic. So that's all just fun to watch. I love when a show has a unique visual feel to it.

In terms of plot, the show is a little wandering and not super tight, but that makes sense for a show about two characters both investigating a mystery and traveling through a different world. It's about discovery, meeting people and seeing wonders--eventually with some political intrigue as well. I honestly wish it could have been a little longer. Give it another five episodes, and I think we could have tied up some loose ends and gotten a more satisfying ending for a couple characters (specifically I'm thinking of Gao Shen and Jiang Zhan, but even Liuxi... well, I could watch several hours more of just Liuxi lols).

The acting was all pretty good. I have to admit I was not equally invested in all characters. This is definitely the Ye Liuxi show. Everyone else can be as cool and complex as they want, but we're all here to watch Ni Ni beat people up, open up portals, drive through the desert, cut melons, flirt obnoxiously, make threats, and so on and so forth. Previously I had only seen Ni Ni in The Rise of Phoenixes, and she's good in that but more of a trickster character, clever but not exactly intimidating. I love seeing an actress in a role where she's really allowed to dominate everyone around her, and I hadn't known Ni Ni would be so good at that. Now I want to finish watching The Rise of Phoenixes at some point but I don't know if I'll feel disappointed seeing her in a role that's less absolutely tyrannical.

The other lead actor is of course Bai Yu.

Tumblrites probably know him as Guardian's Zhao Yunlan, which is also where I first saw him. In this show he's much more subdued and serious, which I think is necessary to counter such a powerful presence as Ni Ni's Liuxi. He and Ni Ni have great chemistry. It's less sexy and flirty, and more familiar and comfortable, though slow-won. There's one scene where Liuxi pokes a brooding Chang Dong with a stick until he takes the end of it, and when he lets go of it she pokes him until he holds it again, and they just sit together in silence. For me, that's kind of what their relationship is about. They understand each other and offer each other comfort and support. At the same time, they have a strong sense of physicality for a cdrama. Again, not necessarily in a sexual way, but Liuxi is the kind of person who will just drape herself on someone, hook an arm over their shoulder, rub legs like an obnoxious and kind of sexy cat... it adds to the warmth of their relationship. (Though I would also have been fine seeing the two remain platonic, but as ships go, it's rather nice.)

That said. This show also had a couple ships it did not need! Gao Shen/Ding Liu is okay but underdeveloped and kind of just background noise; Fei Tang/A He is where I enter "okay, so now you just need to pair up EVERYONE" territory. None of the ships were annoying exactly, but apart from Liuxi/Chang Dong, I just feel like you could have left them out and you wouldn't lose much. If you're going to include them, give them some damn development! That's all I can say on the matter.

I enjoyed the villains a lot. There's a variety here: Some typical shady bureaucrats, a scheming woman to serve as Liuxi's foil and rival, and a man from Liuxi's past who has a complicated relationship with her. My favorite was the last of these three, Jiang Zhan! And I won't give more spoilers than that but can I just say: Jiang Zhan deserved better!!! Will someone please write hurt-comfort fic for my boy!!

Anyway! I recommend West Out of Yu Men if:

-You like Ni Ni or Bai Yu and want to see them doing something a bit different.

-You would be interested in an atmosphere of urban fantasy meets desert epic.

-You want to see a woman playing the amnesiac "chosen one" warrior trope (and with flair).

-You like to see an ensemble go on a road trip, gathering members along the way and getting into magical shenanigans. (If you HATE road trips, though--not a reason to skip. Travel is an aspect but there's still plenty of plot to go around.)

-You want to see Ni Ni cut a melon with a big knife (you can get this in episode one. Just one episode to appreciate the glorious THUNK of a melon being cut with a large knife).

You can also watch it if you want to write fanfic for it to satisfy my current cravings for 1) femslash and 2) anything about Jiang Zhan. (I haven't talked about the possible femslash ships bc they are pretty much my imagination but Ding Liu is very cutesy and friendly with Liuxi and also that female villain I was talking about above HATES Liuxi in a way that is quite fun, so. There's that.)

Now I have to find another badass woman show to satisfy that particular mood. If you have any recs along those lines, let me know ;)

[forerussake]

10 characters, 10 fandoms, 10 tags

i was tagged by @hideyseek hiiiiiiiii <33333

look i tried very hard not to turn this into trivia question party mode name all the characters zhu yilong has every played in backwards chronological order… but it was a challenge, bc i tried to think of anything i had ever watched/read/read fanfiction of that wasn’t something he was in and my mind just blanked. i needed to scroll through my list on netflix to remember and then swap out like 6 z1l characters for others xD

Shen Wei (Guardian)

Lin Nansheng (The Rebel)

Finarfin (Tolkien)

Wang Jiexi (QZGS)

Lan Xichen (MDZS)

Wu Xie (DMBJ)

Aaravos (The Dragon Prince)

Ye Liuxi (Parallel World)

Luo Fei (Detective L)

Han Juwon (Beyond evil)

Tagging: @pangzi @programmedradly @the-marron @lucientelrunya @kalgalen @scaredysap @mjsakurea @dual-domination @baiyubai @aredhel-of-doylkien if you want to <333

[tinypinkmouse]

For the Behind the Scenes fic ask game, 12, 13, and 14 (if and only if you want to).

12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

No, or at least I can't think of any off the top of my head. Generally if I want to write something I just start writing it. I mean, sometimes I'm trying to avoid more WIPs because I already have so many, but I'm very bad at avoiding new WIPs actually. There might be something I haven't finished yet, I suppose, but I'm also very bad at remembering which stories are all done and posted and which are still half finished so I'm not sure about that.

13. Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth?

No. There are some I'm more unlikely to write than others, but none that I might not give a try at some point. I enjoy the challenge of writing new things, including things that are not my personal favourite tropes. I want to see how it turns out and if I can write it and do it justice.

14. If you were stuck on a desert island with only two characters, which would you pick?

Oh, I had to give this some thought because I had a first very immediate answer and then wasn't quite sure if that's what I should go with. So then I also considered...

Weilan seems like an easy answer, because Shen Wei could probably just get us off there anyway, or at least keep us alive if that's not a possibility. Zhao Yunlan is kind of redundant at that point (he has some surviving in the wilderness skills yeah but with Shen Wei around you don't even need more, I feel) but obviously I couldn't put Shen Wei on an island without Zhao Yunlan. But really they deserve a deserted island all of their own, without me there. So not them.

I also considered Chang Dong and Ye Liuxi. They'd surely be able to keep all three of us alive, so I wouldn't have anything to worry about. But they are so blatantly in love that while it'd be nice to see for a while, I feel after a time I'd be very bored as they just keep being very in love and content spending time with each other (this would also apply for weilan).

So, I'm actually going with what my first instinct was, and saying Han Chen and Luo Fusheng. There's some ridiculous levels of competence there so I'm sure survival will not be that much of an issue, and I think they'd both be prepared to keep me alive too. And no matter how they end up feeling about each other I can't help but think it'd be... eventful. So survival and free entertainment as I watch the two of them!

(Free bonus: stuck on a deserted island with two people speaking another language, maybe I'd finally actually learn said language.)

[eigwayne]

I ended up fiddling with the scoring. I bumped Characters and Rewatchability up to 5, because Ye Liuxi is fantastic and all the characters were very clearly themselves, and I definitely could watch this again. With the other adjustments, all of which were greater than the initial thoughts, this brings the total to 4.250. This is the same score as The Untamed (which I obviously loved), Love Like the Galaxy (which I have rewatched recently), and Scarlet Heart (which deserves all the hype it gets on rec lists).

I definitely recommend this show- if you were on the fence about it, go for it! If you loved The Lost Tomb series, The Golden Eyes, or Candle in the Tomb and want something with even more sand and weird creatures and definitely more magic, watch this show. If you're a Guardian fan who wants to see Bai Yu in action, or an Untamed fan who want to see Meng Ziyi's progress as an actress, watch this show.

I finished Parallel World! I really enjoyed this one but I have some things to accomplish so no detailed review at the moment.

Here's the notes I wrote while watching:

The safety warnings dampen the mood but the story starts off pretty good. Ni Ni is fantastic, you get her charisma and skill right away. Very interesting story although the transition between 'mystery with mystical elements' to 'full-blown alternate world fantasy' was a little choppy. Theme and insert songs good but overused the suspenseful BGM a little. Did not like some of the lighting choices. CG was decent to good. Last episode felt a little choppy/sloppy but overall it was quite good.

It scores a 3.98 for now (tied with Blood of Youth) but I might tweak the scoring later because that doesn't feel quite right. The low scores were Lighting and BGM, as you can probably guess from my notes, but I liked most of the characters and the vibe a lot.

[heymeowmao]

西出玉门 | West out of Yumen / Parallel World ° Episode 1

[convenientalias]

2023 Dramas I Watched in 2023

Cdramas:

A League of Nobleman--Slashy historical mystery drama. I loved all the slashiness and all the intrigue and then in the last few episodes I fell even more in love with the villain. Worth a watch but not my favorite slashy historical mystery of the year.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook--My favorite slashy historical mystery drama of the year! Tho more wuxia than historical I suppose. Bromance and archnemeses and identity porn abound. The identity porn in particular was a special treat for me; a character wandering around all these ppl who care deeply about him or idolize him but all think he's dead is my catnip. (I technically have a few episodes left to go on this one but I'm still counting it bc I am very close.)

Parallel World--YE LIUXI. I did a review of this one here! The short version: urban fantasy and parallel worlds in a desert setting, with a badass amnesiac female protagonist.

The Lady and the Lies--Miniseries, one of those short-episode things that China's doing a lot of now. Involved a cheating husband and a wife out to get revenge. I'm sorry but I shipped the wife with almost every person doing her wrong. She should destroy their lives and also dom them. They're all kind of obsessed with her anyway, in their own way.

Under the Microscope--You ever sit down and say, "Okay, but what I REALLY want from all these historical dramas is to just dig into the tax fraud going on in the background"? Me too, my friend. This show and Long River, which I also watched this year, are all about logistics, bureaucracy, and corruption, and the small man's struggle against ppl in power. That makes them both kind of difficult watches in a way, but also fascinating. I have yet to finish Long River, but this one is an easy 14 episodes and not as emotionally draining, so it was much easier for me to binge through.

Ye Cheng--I must admit I watched this for the pretty people. It's set in a matriarchal fantasy wuxia setting, but the gender role reversal feels a little shallow when the strongest good guy and the strongest bad guy are both men, even tho in theory women are supposed to be the warriors in this setting. However, the role reversal can be quite interesting in some ways--watching the male MC run a brothel as the city's top entertainer, try to use his ~masculine wiles~ to charm the FMC in a way that would be more typically feminine, and deal with the power dynamics of joining the FMC's household. Also, the two leads are just a lot of fun and have a lot of chemistry. The plot is sometimes stupid, but it's still a lot of fun to watch. Also, this was one of just two dramas I managed to finish this year that were mostly romance focused. When you reach the "dropped" section you will see that this is an impressive feat.

Kdramas:

Bloodhounds--I love Woo Do-hwan and I love Park Sung-woong but you know I was here for the ACTION SCENES. PEOPLE PUNCHING EACH OTHER AND SLICING EACH OTHER WITH KNIVES. THATS WHAT ITS ABOUT. I've also written a lot of fanfic about the protagonist and villain at this point but honestly they should have interacted more, we were robbed.

Queen of Masks--The only rich woman thriller kdrama I completed this year. But honestly, when it comes to rich woman thriller kdramas, I've seen better and femslashier. Mine did a better job with the whole "your husband told you the mother of his child was dead, but guess what it's actually me and I'm still alive and here to cause problems" plotline, tho I still enjoyed it here. And the sexual assault aspect... eh. I don't love seeing that kind of plotline in a revenge story; it's such a serious issue (and so much more realistic than, say, "this businessman murdered my whole family to acquire our company" a la Eve) that it kind of makes it hard for me to enjoy the fun of the mystery. But I suppose the way they handled it at least had gravity. My favorite plotline was Hae-mi and her husband and the drama they got into, which is serious in its own way (addiction and lies) but extremely well acted and with so much romantic chemistry.

Revenant--Spooky spooky ghosts and Kim Tae-ri, what's not to like? The possession aspects were creepy without being gory or too terrifying for a wimp like me to handle. The acting was great. And I actually shipped the sort-of-romantic subplot, though apparently a lot of ppl shipped the two MCs instead, which is understandable.

Song of the Bandits--A whole ton of gunfighting and other action scenes. One very badass assassin woman, a dude who is equally capable of taking out a whole squad of soldiers or bandits on his own, a villain with a complicated relationship with the dude above, and a woman spying on the Japanese government who's in a sort of spy love triangle with the MC and the villain. the plot was okay but again I was mostly here for the action!!

Thai dramas:

My Dear Gangster Oppa--This year I tried to watch a bunch of different BL dramas bc I was in that kind of mood but the truth is, it's not the het that gets me in m/f romcoms, it's unfortunately the romcom. Despite that! I persisted and did manage to finish this one. The lead couple was cute, and there was gangster intrigue and action etc to keep the fluff and comedy from driving me insane. still mostly a romance.

To Sir With Love--Also has a BL romance in it but not really a romance drama but a Family Drama with lots of familial plotting, the classic first wife vs. second wife scheming-for-their-children plotline along with what could have been a love triangle between brothers... except Tian is gay, which means the love triangle is null (except he's still engaged to his brother's love interest. which is awkward for all involved.). Also Tian being gay is a Deep Dark Secret. There's a lot of homophobia which might turn some viewers off but I loved seeing Tian's struggle between wanting to come out and having been forced to stay in the closet for so long that he freezes even at the thought of telling people he trusts. Also his mother commits a bunch of murders with terrible poison mushrooms so if THAT'S what you want out of a Thai drama, there is also that. Also he and his brother are. so sweet. and I love them. but also the central m/m romance is very good and involves assassination attempts and identity porn and pining and everything good. Also also this is actually a 2022 drama BUT IM STILL COUNTING IT bc it came out in October 2022 and am I really supposed to get around to watching dramas that fast??

Started and dropped:

Kiseki: Dear to Me--Even gangsters and intrigue could not save me from dropping this romcom.

Our Blooming Youth--This is also a romcom. You may see a pattern here. But to give it credit it is quite a plotty historical drama too. I just didn't really care about the two leads and dropped it halfway through.

Pandora: Beneath the Paradise--A thriller that was going places a bit too wild and frustrating for me.

Killing Vote--Can you believe I dropped this with only four episodes to go? I'm sorry Park Sung-woong, I love you but the plot is just so boring. And it plays at moral complexity while being just. not very complex. Like I swear the morality in this thing is "catching bad guys and punishing them is good, not catching them and not punishing them is bad." We could be talking about police corruption, our MC's terrible ethics, innocence until proven guilty, and so on and so forth, but we were just not going there. Also the twists were doing very little for me and the cops are just not very interesting characters. Again, Park Sung-woong, I'm sorry, you were a decent character but you could not save this show. Let's be real I needed either more Devil Judge here or more Death Note.

Legend of Anle--The romcom element was not helping this show's case but I still tried for 1) wuxia with identity porn and 2) Dilraba Dilmurat costarring with Gong Jun. Unfortunately those two had no chemistry and the plot was just very unsatisfying for me in the political intrigue area. One example: Gong Jun can't find the supplies needed to pacify a near-rioting mob. But that's okay bc Anle's subordinates found it. How did they find the super secret hidden storehouse?? we don't know and will never find out bc it was offscreen and never explained. They just did. this would be fine if it weren't, like, the climax of the episode and presented as a victory of the two MC's brilliance. I can't deal with this.

Naughty Babe--It's. A romcom. I'm so sorry I probably should just stop trying.

Other romcoms I quit too fast to give a fair opinion: You Are Mine, Extremely Perilous Love, My Lethal Man, Taikan Yoho.

Well, there you have it, 2023 dramas I watched in 2023.

Fun as it was, I think in 2024 I'm going to try to catch up more with older dramas lols.

Did y'all watch any of these dramas this year?