#darthvaporwave replies

[darthvaporwave]

I'm new to c-dramas. Should I watch The Untamed or Mysterious Lotus Casebook first

i have been asked about the obsession!! what a wonderful day :D

When it comes to decision making, I find it helps to determine your preferences!

Do you want a sad show with a happy ending or a fun show with a sad ending?

The Untamed is full of tragic events and like half the characters die, but it ends happily.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is silly in a lot of places and a fairly light shade throughout, but it has a sad ending. Whiplash!

If that's not enough to decide... I have a lot more behind the cut! I love to overdo it

Do you want romance or This Other Thing?

The Untamed was adapted from the BL novel, Mo Dao Zu Shi. Although censorship laws make the romance non explicit, this is still a love story. It's so very obviously a love story. Just, they don't kiss on screen.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook... how do I characterize this?? It's a wuxia (martial arts story) that takes up, in my opinion, rather too much time solving mysteries that are kind of hmm. But it's in the title, so I can't say I wasn't warned. It has an overarching plot that involves world domination on one side and personal grief and loss on the other. It's also really gay. Apparently they dialed this up when making the show.

Do you want a slower show or something faster paced?

The Untamed has 50 episodes and was made when there were no strictures imposed on the number of episodes a show could produce. As a result, some scenes get kind of dilated. I didn't have a problem with this, but it has a much slower feel.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook has only 40 episodes and was made when 40 was the cap. It moves at a good clip. The mysteries are solved at a breakneck pace; the character element (and the plot I actually cared about) moves at a good rate.

Do you want to watch one of the best cdramas of all time, or my personal best of 2023?

The Untamed is, of course, what brought Chinese media to international attention. It was my gateway drug. It's also just a really well done show -- beautiful in its scenes and shots, with an incredible story and wonderful characters. Wei Wuxian's outfits are absolutely killer. The fight scenes are terrible. I would argue that with the increasing strictures of Chinese censorship laws, we are unlikely to get another character like Wei Wuxian for a long time.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook came out last year, and for me, it was the best cdrama I watched in 2023. Some of this is because Cheng Yi is a great actor - he has the ability to make things matter. The story has a lot of frankly absurd elements that it still manages to pull off because it puts the right emotions in the right places. The fight scenes in this one are actually good. It's also got a cast of great secondary characters, and the interplay between the three main characters is delightful.

If you like to read fanfic and participate in fandoms. . .

I spent several months of 2020 doing literally nothing except reading The Untamed fanfiction. I think I finished all of the available Mysterious Lotus Casebook fics in a single evening.

And if all that still doesn't decide it...

Nothing beats giving the first episode a try. See what clicks! If you do, just keep in mind the cardinal rule of watching The Untamed: the first episode makes absolutely no sense. You just keep going and wait to fall in love.

[darthvaporwave]

absolutely obviously completely and clearly yes! this was never and can never be in dispute :)

i see a lot of posts “blaming” characters for their actions, which is just not anything that holds my interest at all. how did those actions affect the characters around them and themselves? how did it affect the story? these are by far the more interesting questions to ask. so this is why i said the personal extent of his “failure” didn’t interest me, but textually he is absolutely the one everyone put all their hopes on, and he is the one they blame when he can’t actually do the impossible.

Rereading the start of Book 2 is fucking fascinating because 1. how Mu Qing is treated by everyone but Xie Lian boils my blood, but also 2. I cannot believe there are people who think Xie Lian is naive and ignorant of the world after reading what he says and thinks during those first few chapters alone. He is so persistently considerate and sensitive to power imbalances and the abuse of power even before he """stops being naive""".

[winterofherdiscontent]

saw your post about love between fairy and devil and yesssss i’m watching that now too ✨💕 will reblog your art immediately come time 💪

thank you so much, lovely 😊

[darthvaporwave]

Hello! What is the best/your most loved piece of fiction you've watched/read/discovered lately if you could only pick one? Also what is the best summer vegetable❔

hi! c:

HMMM if i could only pick one….let’s go with things that are completed because i’ve been reading some BL novels but the translations aren’t complete —

the cdrama mysterious lotus casebook! it was my personal top rated media of 2023 and hasn’t been unseated in the first third of 2024. it’s pretty wacky in places but it had real pathos and i was finally able to watch cheng yi in a show i could actually sit through

on summer vegetables i live somewhere very hot so i don’t know what vegetables grow in what season skdjfj they’re just always there 😭 do cucumbers count? lol.. i like cucumbers!

[darthvaporwave]

hiya! what is your favorite Jane Austen work? for me it's hard to pick but if i *had* to choose it would probably be Emma (as for adaptations, i absolutely adore the '95 P&P miniseries, imo it's a perfect adaptation) BUT i have yet to read Persuasion and Mansfield Park x

well hello! :3

(i just finished re-reading persuasion the other day, in fact! always recommend)

i love all of her books extremely, but overall the one that delivers to me the most unalloyed happiness from start to finish is pride and prejudice.

emma is really masterful. i don’t like emma herself very much as a “person” but as a character she’s brilliant.

i’ve just started rereading sense & sensibility, which is….sort of mixed, lots of love but lots of hmmm.

me to myself: i don’t even like this one very much, i’ll just read a chapter before bed

also me: reads 5 chapters

so much for that!

(the 1995 adaptation is SO GOOD, sorry 2005 but you can’t touch this)

my favorite adaptation is the 1995 sense & sensibility. 95 was a banner year for austen adaptations, it seems!

[darthvaporwave]

enjoy more crab

[darthvaporwave]

:333333

[darthvaporwave]

Bit of a delayed message, but wishing you a speedy recovery! Please have plenty of rest and good food.💜

thank you sweetie 💕

[darthvaporwave]

you should definitely give Killing Eve a chance because the first 2 seasons are simply amazing, i dont know anything else like it! (the 4th season does not exist; there is no 4th season. just like there is no season 7 and 8 game of thrones.)

just like there's no eighth season of dexter! or 7th....or 6th....

[darthvaporwave]

inquisitive beep!

01101000 01101001 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100001

[darthvaporwave]

Hello ms Vaporwave, have you ever played the Portal series? Or any other type of video games that you enjoy(ed)? :D

hello hello!

i don't play video games, i am afraid -- not since spyro the dragon when i was, hmmm 13? i'm bad at games and they literally got too complicated for me!

as a kid i played mario, donkey kong, a little bit of sonic the hedgehog, like everybody else in the 90's :)

[darthvaporwave]

⁂✺✻⭐🌟 ~ sending you good vibes from across the ocean ~🌟⭐✻✺⁂

[darthvaporwave]

Hello! How are you today?

i am not too shabby!! i have gone down to the beach in fact! thanks for saying hi 💓💓💓

how are YOU today?

[darthvaporwave]

Where do you watch C-dramas

this is where i started watching them, and they’re a good repository in my experience, although they don’t have every show (i’m guessing it’s something to do with licensing).

all the cdramas i’ve watched in 2023 have been through the iqiyi international app:

which is very easy to subscribe to with an iphone/apple ID. i am not sure about android — if anyone else knows?

sometimes you can find things through youtube (it really depends; i don’t find it reliable) and netflix as well. there are other apps (youku, bilibili) but these are the two that have had most of what i want.

for full disclosure, i have memberships to both because i hate 1) waiting and 2) ads lol

i am not super knowledgeable but i hope this helps!

[darthvaporwave]

Have you seen My Mister on Netflix? It's my favorite series I've seen in years, it really warmed my heart. I think you might like it :thumbsup:

i don't have netflix anymore, sadly! but i see it's on rakuten viki so i've added it to my watchlist <3

[darthvaporwave]

And now after this latest episode I don’t know what to think! That one at least seems real, but it also had more foreshadowing/set up.

I’m being vague cuz spoilers 💀

OK but we’re thinking the dad and brother aren’t actually dead, right? They took their sect’s fake death potion Juliet style and are just pretending to be dead so they can figure out the real culprit behind everything and lure out the assassins, yes??