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moononmyfloor · 6 months ago

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Dashing Youth Ep 11-16 Commentary

Ep 1-10, Ep 17-21, Ep 22-25, Ep 26-32, Ep 33-35, Ep 36-40

Ep 11

More flirting

We meet Xiao Se's nasty Emperor dad in his youth, played by the lovely Fan Jinwei, whose Prince Chong I loved in BoY. Not sure if I'm prepared to hate him this time. He looks good tho!

We also meet Wu Xin' mom, who looks like a fractured wistful early-morning dream which is about to float away and dissappear with the slightest breath, never to be found again.

And Luo Qingyang, (not to be confused with everyone's favorite girl crush Mianmian from The Untamed), the angry repressed big finale martial artist from BoY

Ep 12

I love the super powerful but easily spooked wooden sword wielding Mt. Wangcheng disciple, kid you *really* don't need to try study under Master Li, just because he's "the" shifu doesn't mean he's better. He will teach you nothing and isn't batting an eye at his exam candidates dying right under his eyes. Srsly, Mt. Wangcheng, the Lei family and Changfeng's Medicine Shifu's Valley seem to be the only places suitable to bring up well-adjusted, grounded kids in this universe.

Dual cultivating right in front of future wife's salad

Damn his gaze is somehow piercing but indifferent at the same time

(He's gonna explode and die in the future isn't he) Also see, this is what I mean. Most of the shifus in this universe are no good at teaching and guidance. These kids in their youthful vigor and angst are extremely volatile and you all just let them run rampant. They are easily suspectible to being used by bad forces and eventually create massive tragedies for themselves and everyone else.

Well I suppose Dongjun's first shifu was a great guy but 1. He didn't have enough time 2. Even if he did he was dying and sustaining himself in a contained bubble and what he could teach Dongjun about the world was quite limited.

Ahaha I have the exact same pouch! It's a cheap Aliexpress delivery pouch I got a ring sent in

Ep 13

Omg she's TOO CUTE! This young lady and Baba from JoL2 are the prettiet babies I've seen this year!

Local playboy realises his boyfriend from alt universe is happily married and has chosen to live a stress free life, the new boyfriend has ditched him for his future child's mom, his old boyfriend is away in a Detox Vacation and realises his carefree childhood has come to its end 😔

Dongjun:

Also I'm actually kinda surprised to find myself shipping this tragic pair of Dingzhi/Wenjun, and shipping HARD at that. I don't know what I expected but by the the time of BoY, all that remains about their relationship is a sordid gossip but they actually turn out to be two broken lil kids🥺 They don't even have like, a hot and hormonal romance but a one built on sweet childhood promises of protecting his little meimei and caring for her Yun gege. Poor babies😭

Ep 14

Liu Yue thinks he hides it well behind his hat but dude is practically bursting at seams for having gotten a disciple, and he's basically teaching Yue Yao how to flex well and never embarrass herself, which in addition would embarrass himself lol. He also seems to be kinda lonely and bored despite his quirky lil maid and broody bf. It's like he was born to be a social butterfly but with his current social status he cannot.

Inaccurately accurate MTL 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

(Also this is so funny to me with the context that I've read the "lifting the hijab" mtl line in lots of Chinese fics where the couple gets married and that red veil lifting thing happens on the marrige bed lol.)

Dingzhi's master seems to be just as traumatised by life as Dingzhi is. Huang Yi lasohi is actually so good in roles like this. Also can we have an applause for the first genderqueer character in the show woohoo

And then the two shifus have a date about their duel, lol

Ep 15

Baili Dongjun gotta be the naivest ML I've encountered in a while, and by naive I mean beyond the levels of your average innocent, inexperienced teen full of sunlight and getting jaded overtime such as Fang Duobing, Wu Xie, Zhang Chulan etc.

Dongjun has grown up so sheltered and full of positivity, he doesn't seem to register the gravity of things even when they are right in front of his face almost to the point of stupidity.

He provides a stark contrast against his friends, Sikong Changfeng who's been the sweetest but also most down-to-earth kid to begin with and Ye Dingzhi who's been dealing with the weight of the whole world since childhood.

That part where Dongjun saw the arrest warrant for Dingzhi who also turned out to be his long lost bff, was told by his elders that they'll take care of the matter and will bring Dingzhi to him, Dongjun was just like "Ok cool! That's settled then! I'm gonna just chill and have a drink with my new girlfriend then!" was almost funny but sad because,

Kid, you are going to be in a WORLD of hurt VERY soon. You trust strangers way too much!

I mean in BoY you see how severely Dongjun has crashed to the point of wanting to create a broth of oblivion..... I can totally see how that happened.

Also that poster is a severe injustice to Dingzhi's GORGEOUS face lmao

Ep 16

I mostly have opinions about Master Li in this ep, which I compiled in a seperate post linked above

Also my bb Changfeng is back! And straight away he also joined the baby making game, and Dongjun has no choice but to be a good wingman to his bros at this point lmao

Changfeng chose the most comparatively normal and mundane romance arc too. She's the top courtesan for sure but still, for many young gentry she wouldn't have been anymore worth than a fling, but Changfeng just went ahead and offered her the most genuine, authentic companionship ever without a second of hesitation. And walked out head held high, with ZERO idea about how suave and sexy it made him and I'm like:

5/5 Stars No Drama

#dashing youth #Ye Dingzhi #baili dongjun #sikong changfeng #cdrama #chinese drama #my ramblings

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finalfantasyx · 1 month ago

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Yue Yao (because I need to scream about her awesomeness and the dangers of retconning), Yue Qing, and How NOT to Write Women - A Rant(TM) about Dashing Youth & The Blood of Youth

Spoilers ahead for Dashing Youth and The Blood of Youth if you have not seen either live action drama, since we haven't gotten there in the donghua yet. You have been duly warned. Now come scream with me. I've been wanting to scream about this for a while.

Okay, what the hell??? Prefacing this again with the fact that I watched Dashing Youth before TBOY and I'm just...floored? Yue Yao was so interesting. She was up against some major political issues where the repercussions of her choices and the choices made by the people around her would impact and probably, most likely, cause the deaths of thousands. She was dealing with a missing father who, for all they knew, could have been dead, a clingy sister-turned-annoying-character-trope, the fate of her people, and also the fate of all of Beili and Beique (I mean, seriously, you want to talk about Yi Wenjun being at fault for instigating the three-way war between Nanjue, Tianwaitian, and Beili, AND SHE WASN'T ACTUALLY AT FAULT ASIDE FROM NOT COMMUNICATING WITH HER HUSBAND BEFORE MAKING A HUGE DECISION THAT WOULD IMPACT THEM ALL and leaving her infant son in the house BY HIMSELF, PLEASE Yue Yao would have been directly responsible for all the deaths resulting from any move she made), all the while trying to find a way to do what was best for everyone AND getting to know the prodigy and dumbass with a heart that was Baili Dongjun, whose grandfather Baili Luochen helped Beili in the war with Beique that resulted in her people being killed and displaced to the unforgiving north.

/breathe

And oh, does she ever find a way. Baby girl decides to just DIY this whole shebang when she finds the natural-born martial arts prodigies with the special meridians or whatever the hell the drama said it was that set Baili Dongjun and Ye Dingzhi apart from alllll the other martial arts practitioners and just takes her sworn sister's identity, gets a makeover, and BAM joins the Jixia Academy...audition.

Not only that, but we see that she is more than her pretty clothes and her miss-fairy-in-a-carriage persona that we've seen up until this point in the drama. SHE CAN FIGHT! SHE CAN BEAT SOMEONE'S ASS! SHE CAN CHEAT AND GAMBLE! SHE STRAIGHT UP APPROACHES BAILI DONGJUN AND CHALLENGES HIM. SHE. APPROACHES. HIM. FIRST. Also it's really freakin' cute.

SHE STANDS UP FOR HERSELF AND HER TEAMMATES AND PROTECTS THEM. SHE SAVES BAILI DONGJUN'S TAIL. SHE'S GOT HER OWN WAY OF THINKING AND SHE'S FUNNY AS HELL. SHE SLAPS HIM CLEAN ACROSS THE FACE FOR GOING TO A BROTHEL.

We see her enter Jixia Academy, we see her train under Liu Yue (which I am still salty about because we could have used a lot more scenes of her and Liu Yue training and just being master/apprentice, see her having a hard time with really just using Liu Yue to stay near Baili Dongjun for her own/Beique's ends, especially with Liu Yue declaring that he doesn't care about her true identity, just that she is now his apprentice and that means that he's always on her side please Liu Yue was the best and he got fking nuked at the end, even if he got to retire from jianghu with Mo Xiaohei lol), WE SEE HER STRUGGLE. This entire time, Yue Yao is absolutely torn between a) doing what is best for her people, b) doing what is best for everyone and not causing the deaths of thousands, and c) not falling for the guy whose grandfather is a war hero because he killed her people.

Also the fact that this dumbass she is falling in love with has been pining after her miss-fairy-in-a-carriage persona for so long he has no clue she's right in front of him. Good job, Dongjun /pat pat

Let's play this out.

If Yue Yao a) does what is best for her people, which everyone thinks is reclaiming Beili, a warmer and far more fertile land, and creating better lives for themselves, that would incite another war and cause many, many deaths. Also, there's a very, very high possibility that Beique might lose anyway!

If Yue Yao b) does what is best for everyone and not cause another war and the deaths of thousands, she is condemning her own people to a harsh life in the cold, icy, desolate north.

If Yue Yao c) falls for the guy whose grandfather is a war hero because he killed her people, she will be seen as a traitor and will be turned on because they'll think she turned on them first, especially since she is basically their princess.

What's a girl to do.

SHE FREAKIN' OWNS UP TO IT AND COMES CLEAN with Baili Dongjun and her followers, Mo Qixuan and Zi Yuji. She does not lie to them and is up front about her vision and what she wants to do for her people and for herself, because they don't have to be mutually exclusive things. She follows her heart; she knows that while she wants a better life for her people, it cannot be found in a new war with Beili to settle old grudges and claim old land. She wants to find a new home for them.

Yue 👏 Yao 👏 is 👏 so 👏 great.

...Only for all of that buildup in the first half of the drama to go absolutely nowhere as her vision is never recognized. She returns to Tianwaitian only to be locked up for betraying Beique with zero timeline as to how long she was locked up for and how she actually got out of the cage. There were no repercussions for her escaping or leaving. In fact, as soon as she leaves Tianwaitian, Yue Yao's character basically stops caring for Beique, and she literally did not matter to the plot going forward. Her people in Tianwaitian never find a better home for themselves. They never get to leave the far north, never reclaim their old kingdom, and never get to rebuild, even before Ye Dingzhi establishes the Demon Sect. Ergo, even if we disregard the events of TBOY, Yue Yao still doesn't get to help her people and all of that development was useless.

Instead, after all that talk about wanting to find a better home and do better by her people, after all the character development and establishment, after all the scenes where we get to see that Yue Yao has a backbone and the fighting skills to prove it, she ends up as arm candy for Baili Dongjun for the next like seven years while the two of them remained unmarried. Um??????????

Why build up all that character and her skills and her relationships with Liu Yue, Baili Dongjun, her freakin' sister, and Mo Qixuan/Zi Yuji only for all of them to basically go kaput? Even with Baili Dongjun, most of the time, she's...just there. Just...looking pretty. Not doing anything.

No one waits seven years to get married, especially when they're in such close quarters like Yue Yao and Baili Dongjun were pre-war and during the war. This makes zero sense, and honestly just cheapens their already-sad relationship even more because it shows a lack of respect on his part. There's no denying that he does love her, but the respect, which is based off of the values of the people in their time, is not there, whether for her honor, virtue, or just the progression of their relationship. Seven years is a long time, especially in period Chinese dramas (and reality, back in those times) when two people are hanging out in an established relationship.

Yue Yao is displeased.

And then we come to the problem of her sister, Yue Qing, who has decided to play a self-insert victim and villain, somehow both at the same time by not actually being relevant to the plot and generally not actually being good at anything at all.

Her motivation: Yue Yao is her older sister, the one she has always looked up to, and she sucks at being the eldest princess and has essentially abandoned them to chase after the sweet, sweet tail that is Neo Hou in a period drama. Ergo, Yue Qing needs to leave Beique to find the other special person martial arts prodigy, Ye Dingzhi, and homegirl does her best to manipulate the hell out of this poor, traumatized kid in order to get him back to Beique and free her father so that they can march on Beili and reclaim their kingdom. He sees right through her though, and because there is no way in the eighteen levels of hell she can beat him in a fight, and she tries, she goes back to his doorway like a kicked puppy every time he throws her out because it's clear she has no idea what on earth she's doing except that she thinks she's all that and has every reason to condemn thousands of people to their deaths so that she can incite a new war for a better life for the people of Tianwaitian.

In the same way that Yue Yao was SO great in the first half of Dashing Youth, we do not give two shakes about Yue Qing and how she is barely even relevant to the plot, because if you stuck Mo Qixuan or Zi Yuji in there to manipulate this poor bastard, the result would have ended up the same way and she does not impact the story whatsoever.

And then Ye Dingzhi saves Yue Qing's life, and all of a sudden, she understands why her sister decided to go with Baili Dongjun instead of staying in Beique, according to the story lore. It also doesn't hurt that he's pretty and he's feeding her medicine and didn't just...let her die.

PFFFFFFFFFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yue Qing, the bar is on the floor. Also girl, you manipulated him and used him and he does not care for or about you. In fact, the only reason he saved your life was because he lashed out at you and almost killed you and felt guilty for it before he proceeded to throw you out again.

Because Ye Dingzhi is untouchable at this point, Yue Qing proceeds to then manipulate his wife, Yi Wenjun (which is another convoluted story point because she's already married and is a secondary consort to Xiao Ruojin who is an absolute monster in the actual worst way, which is why I did not feel a lick of empathy or sympathy for him in TBOY--I mean, he put her under using some drugs and it was HEAVILY IMPLIED that he gr@ped her while she was completely unconscious and everyone just kind of breezes over this plot point in the dramas), and sends her back to Tianqi by spreading false news of Xiao Yu being really, really sick (causing problems even at a young age, I see). Because of this, Ye Dingzhi is then manipulated into going to Beique to free Yue Qing and Yue Yao's father so that he can be number one in the world and take his wife back, blahhhh blah blah.

AND THEN THEIR FATHER DIES after a confrontation between him, Baili Dongjun, and Ye Dingzhi, and it's almost like Yue Qing and Yue Yao are pitting their respective special martial arts person against each other because they're both natural-born wumai which is NOT actually a thing, and I don't even understand what it is and do not care to actually translate this; IT'S SUPER DUMB.

And because the official leader of Beique, Yue Yao and Yue Qing's father, dies, Ye Dingzhi goes full demon mode and takes over the people of Tianwaitian and establishes the Demon Sect by uniting all 30-something sects in the outer regions of Beili, which was supposedly impossible until this point. He then begins the infamous three-way war between Beili, Nanjue, and Tianwaitian which Yi Wenjun then gets blamed for instigating.

UMMMM??? DOES THIS NOT SOUND FAMILIAR??? DO WE NOT ALSO KNOW OF A WOMAN WHO WAS SAID TO BE SO BEAUTIFUL THAT MEN WENT TO WAR FOR HER AND LAID SIEGE TO AN ENTIRE FREAKIN' CITY WHICH IS NOW A FAMOUS TRAGEDY? DID THE DIRECTORS OF THIS DRAMA WANT A CDRAMA VERSION?

(in case anyone is lost, the answer is Troy. It's Helen of Troy.)

Also, RUDE that her "instigating" this war is what she is known for, even in The Blood of Youth. Yi Wenjun gets blamed for this massive, awful historical event when the only thing she did was be manipulated by Yue Qing using her child. Like, what on earth /eye roll

It was also never talked about how she was coerced into this marriage by her father in TBOY (which we find out in DY) and that this was never something she wanted anyway. Also the gr@pe because that was completely unnecessary and again, breezed over by every single character in Dashing Youth, which, also, WHY did it have to happen that way? Xiao Yu's existence in TBOY could literally be explained by "marital duties" or "wedding night" or something even if the spouses hated each other, did y'all really have to sink to gr@pe????? Especially since I watch dramas for escapism and fantasy and not historical accuracy because of course this has happened probably many times over the course of history. I am angry.

We find out later that Yue Qing is locked up by Ye Dingzhi and then just dies via suicide in prison at the end of the three-way war while Yue Yao rides off into the sunset with Baili Dongjun in her fairy carriage, intent on marrying her at last after SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS TOGETHER, YES I DID THE FREAKING MATH (let me know if anyone needs an approximate timeline).

Following this trainwreck and what Dashing Youth has established, we get to the canon in The Blood of Youth, which takes place twelve years after the prequel. Now that the twelve-year pact between Tianwaitian and Beili where Ye Anshi, the son of Ye Dingzhi and Yi Wenjun, is a hostage in Beili is over, the story picks up where we see our heroes in the following places:

Baili Dongjun: Master of Xueyue City and a depressed drunk after (we learn later) mistakenly killing his wife because he was manipulated into doing so, making this the biggest regret of his life

Yue Yao: dead. Was dead before Tang Lian stepped foot into Xueyue City, and was dead because someone manipulated Baili Dongjun into thinking Yue Yao was Yue Qing and he kills her.

...wait what? But...but I thought Yue Qing died in the prison even before Baili Dongjun and Yue Yao got married in canon? I think we're told in TBOY that Yue Yao blocked an attack for her sister or died for her sister or something via her husband attacking her thinking she was her sister or I DON'T KNOW it's not really clear. The point is, the events of both dramas can't both be true or canon at the same time.

Aaaaaand we've hit one of the biggest retcon snags between the two dramas. Shifting the focus over to the problem with retcons, my first question is this: DY directors and producers, you guys had the perfect template and formula since The Blood of Youth exists and had such incredible ratings. Y'all already have a world and a story and storyline and characters to work with and are able to entirely and completely plan ahead. How did y'all come up with this dumpster fire???? And it's not even a good dumpster fire?? How could Yue Qing cause Yue Yao's death, which we are told is what happens in Baili Dongjun's dream in TBOY, if she's dead??

Other honorable problematic retcon mentions:

There's a specific voiceover at the end of DY telling us what happened to the main characters at the end of the war, and though in TBOY the story said that Lei Mengsha died fighting against Nanjue, we are shown that he and Xiao Ruofeng are both fine and victorious. WHAT???

In TBOY, we are told by Li Suwang of the Sword Heart Tomb that his daughter, Li Xinyue first met Lei Mengsha at the Sword Heart Tomb when he and his buddy his pal Baili Dongjun stopped by and convinced her to duel and then roam jianghu with them. We see that at the beginning of Dashing Youth, Lei Mengsha actually meets Baili Dongjun a LOT later in the narrative, and by then, Li Hanyi is already about five years old and Lei Mengsha and Li Xinyue have been married for A While.

Yin Luoxia and Yue Yao are shown to be sworn sisters who met and became extremely close even before the events of DY, even closer than Yue Qing and Yue Yao at their absolute tightest. Luoxia lives in Xueyue City in TBOY. She knows Baili Dongjun personally. THEY DID NOT INTERACT. SHE DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT YUE YAO ONCE IN ALL THE SCREENTIME THAT SHE HAD.

Sikong Changfeng says in TBOY that Li Hanyi is four years younger than him, but started studying under their master first and this is also why she is the Second City Master and he is the Third. This is only half true; while Li Changsheng took Li Hanyi in as an apprentice, she was literally like five or six at the time. Nangong Chunshui then proceeded to take on Sikong Changfeng not long after, but Sikong Changfeng by then was already a teenager headed into his adult years. Like, he's at least eighteen when Dashing Youth starts.

Speaking of Sikong Changfeng, TBOY says that the healer Hua Jin is his shimei, his younger martial sister from their master, the number one healer in the world, Xin Baicao. DY shows us that they met the one time where Xin Baicao was told by Baili Dongjun's uncle (who was a top poison user and the two of them got into competitions all the time wink wink cough cough) to save Sikong Changfeng's life. Sikong Changfeng stayed in the Medicine Valley for something like six months, all the while studiously not learning medicine from Xin Baicao and instead focuses on his spearwork and fighting skills. Also, Hua Jin isn't in DY at all.

This one is less of a retcon issue and more of a gripe, Baili Dongjun was literal childhood friends and best buds with Ye Dingzhi. Wuxin/Ye Anshi would literally be the equivalent of his nephew/godson. Do we get to see them interact at all aside from like 5 seconds in DY???? No. We do not. WE WERE CHEATED.

Another gripe, Sikong Changfeng and Baili Dongjun were bros in Dashing Youth, and have been for many years (according to my math, it's 21 years between the beginning of Dashing Youth and The Blood of Youth) and did we get to see them actually interact in TBOY??? NO.

Oh, with all this talk of Sikong Changfeng, another gripe about HOW TO NOT WRITE WOMEN--Feng Qiuyu (who is she, you may ask???).

She is, my friends, the mother of Sikong Qianluo.

BUT DO WE REALLY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER? No. WE BARELY REMEMBER HER NAME. SHE WAS LITERALLY WRITTEN INTO DASHING YOUTH SO THAT SIKONG CHANGFENG COULD MEET HER AND SIKONG QIANLUO COULD BE BORN. SHE WAS ON SCREEN FOR A MAX OF 5 MINUTES DURING THE DRAMA AND WAS NEVER REALLY SEEN OR TALKED ABOUT AGAIN EXCEPT FOR LIKE A MINUTE AT THE END. WE DON'T EVEN HAVE THE COURTESY OF KNOWING SHE DIED BEFORE TBOY; WE HAVE TO PUT IT TOGETHER USING CONTEXT CLUES.

I AM YELLING.

Man, I started this rant really just wanting to talk about how best girl Yue Yao was done super dirty by the producers/writers of DY, but the more I thought about it and analyzed and wrote it all down, the more I got to the underlying issue of just the less-than-lackluster way this already-awfully-written drama treated their women, the angrier I got.

All this to say, Dashing Youth does not write or treat their women very well and that, my dears, is bullshit.

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