#last edited: 16.02.2025 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

philodendrontrait · 2 months ago

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|˶˙ᵕ˙ )ﾉﾞHello there, and welcome to my simblr!

This is where I document my rotational legacy gameplay (ongoing since 2018)! No goals, just exploring what the game has to offer and having fun with my sims ✧･ﾟ: *✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ* sim stories Just some stories / gameplays that deserved their own little category.

A San Myshuno based band of three working towards achieving their big breakthrough but they get sidetracked by life, love, and friendship. My first try at more story-focused gameplay! 🌻 Teo Fowler Cruz⁹ • Erin Cox⁹ • Sora Fowler⁹ 🌻 chronological | latest

Some scrap-book style life updates from Hana because I love her. 🌸 Hana Shibutani⁹ • Ezekiel Hayes⁹ • Malakai Hayes¹⁰ 🌸 chronological | latest

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ* neighbourhood stories Random gameplay snippets and updates outside of the households above.

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🌵 August Fowler⁸ • Masuyo Shibutani⁸ • Milo Fowler⁹ 🌵 Matilda Fowler Cruz⁹ • Ryutaro Shibutani⁹

🌼 Felix Akiyama-Lee⁸ • Vivienne Everett⁸ • Juniper Akiyama-Lee⁹ • Maisie Akiyama-Lee⁹ • Willow Akiyama-Lee⁹ 🌼 Eliot Akiyama-Lee⁹ • Saori Tamura⁹ 🌼 Wren Shibutani⁸ • Makoto Kaneko⁸ 🌼 Monet Fowler⁸ • Darcy Moreau⁸ 🌼 Kai Shibutani⁹ • Stacy Feng⁹ • Oakley Feng¹⁰

🍁 Eunice Shibutani⁹ 🍁 Ryota Shibutani⁸ • Kayleigh Shibutani⁸ • Yuma Shibutani⁹

🍃 Nathan Shibutani⁸ • Raj Rasoya⁸ 🍃 Ada Valentine Birdwell⁸ 🍃 Margot Anand⁸ • Vihaan Anand⁸ • Imogen Birdwell⁹ • Rahul Anand⁹

legacy overview • builds • cas • resources • inspiring simblrs • cc finds • all my posts

nani (she/her) • late 90s baby • from europe • traits: perfectionist; creative; unflirty • playing ts4 since 2018 • simblr since 05.2024

#mobile navigation #last edited: 16.02.2025

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thekatea · 5 days ago

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The White Olive Tree - finished 16.02.2025

In hell we’ll meet, tortured by the past. I have such conflicting feelings about this drama. I loved and hated exactly the same aspects of the writing.

This is not a fun romance with excitement and angst delivered by the war context. This is not “Descendants of the Sun” with no real stakes. People die here, painful and tragic deaths. There are real consequences the characters need to face, the traumas are not magically healed. It’s heavy, it's painful. It’s real.

As much as it is a love story, I think the central part of it is the trauma. From a psychological point of view, they did a lot of this right, starting from the diagnosis and ending on the conclusion. Traumatic experiences do not always only lead to PTSD. Sometimes you might end up with anxiety, depression, OCD. So not labeling every character with PTSD was great. Different people will react to situations differently.

Song Ran became depressed, Li Zan who was by all means no cut for the job in the military, ended up with severe PTSD. Benjamin who from a young age led a rather hard life was able to require a lot of emotional resilience and handled the emotional pain in the most healthy way. Sa Xin who lost his mother spiraled into anger and need for justice and revenge.

What's more, I do appreciate how with Li Zan case, they show psychological issues can heavily impact your recovery from physical injuries too. How scary the process of recovery is. How, while taking the first step is the key, it's not the end of it all. Even after seeing the psychiatrist he was still hesitant. He did not follow up. He claims to be better. He kept lying to himself and to others. So sometimes it's easier to convince yourself you are getting better and you can push through it by yourself. Fooling yourself you are stronger than you truly are.

Then we had Song Ran - what a great portrayal of depression and anxiety. How from the outside she might have seemed fine, but we as viewers saw how she was not, how she was honestly barely holding up at times. I love how they didn’t show depression as this 1:0 idea - you are either completely dysfunctional, or fine. With depression you can also have good days, you can be happy, smile.

What’s so tragic for me is - this is a love story that should have not happened for Song Ran’s sake. She could have healed from her depression, she could have gotten better, if it was not for Li Zan constantly re-traumatizing her with his actions. Li Zan was such a great and complex character.

I could write a whole essay just about him. A man that had skill that could save many people, but also no psychological advantages and strengths required to do the job. I love how this drama shows good intentions do not mean good results. How traits we see as good: empathy, selflessness, compassion, in extreme situations can be a person's biggest flaws. Li Zan has a savior complex and there was no good way out of the situation he was in. Not going to Easter Country would eat him alive from the grief and guilt of not helping when he can. Going back to Easter Country means getting more traumas on top of the ones he did not heal from. He hurt himself, he hurt people he loved, but he also saved so many lives. But no matter the choice, he would be feeling guilty and that feeling would slowly kill him. It’s a tragic story that could not have a happy ending.

I know there are different opinions about the ending, but for me it’s rather clear him and Song committed suicide. He understood she would never leave him alone. She understood he will never get better. They decided to be together till the end. And they decided when the end will happen. From the scene of them talking about reincarnation, to the narrated goodbye letter to the parents, not once showing them interact with anyone after it was written. Even the oversaturated editing that made them glow in the last scene - that’s the tragic ending I think the majority of us knew will happen, even if we wanted to live in denial till the end.

At the same time at some point I was getting tired with how "realistic" the drama was. Yes, the recovery from any psychological issue is a whole journey, but this is a show... it has to be presented in a way that reflects reality WHILE keeping the viewers engaged and not exhausted. We are running in circles with little to no development. The message was clear, but they still hammered it over and over again.

The repetitiveness at some point crossed the line from - that's how life works, to - well now I don;’t feel as emotionally impacted by what I’m seeing, because I saw more or less the exact same scene in this show five times already.

It kind of starts to feel like a trauma porn... no balance of anything. There are no ups and downs. It's just down, down.... and a bit more down until we are in a fucking hell of traumas and mental disorders and bad news and no happiness and no rays of hope. Especially on Zan’s part. Song at least vented her sadness to him, and he just took it all in, when he couldn’t even handle his own feelings, not to mention help others dealing with theirs. He was emotionally overworked and it's exhausting to watch.

I am aware that the drama truly showed just glimpses of how bad a real war is. This is nothing compared to reality. But this is not reality. This is not a documentary. I do think that it’s a valid criticism of how far they tried to make the audience feel sad and bad. A Perfect example was Ben’s death which was extremely unnecessary. What was the point of killing Ben? What did it bring to the story? To the message? Other than dumping more trauma onto the viewers? Especially with how they set it up with Ben’s talks about how he found a new family in his friends, how he felt more grounded and alive than ever before. Scenes of his plans to start over and get a degree in journalism. They did everything they could to make Ben’s death feel as tragic and painful as it could get, and I do not understand why. It’s just dumping trauma for the sake of trauma alone.

Moving on from the sadness into more happy/good aspects: I cannot ignore the bromance between Ben and Sa Xin. I honestly went crazy for these two. By all means they followed so many dynamics of a typical straight secondary couple. They shared such a profound connection and care for each other, it was hard not to want something more from them. The writing team did all they could to include as much of them as possible, by passing the censorship by giving Ben a “romantic interest” that got barely any screen time or depth. I will die on this hill - Dr. Pei existed just to pass the censorship.

Now, I need to talk about the performances. I want to be clear - the whole main cast did a stellar job with their portrayal, but Chen Zhe Yuan delivered probaby the best performance of his life and everyone else just faded into background. I am speechless. I knew he was good, I did not know he was this good. I don’t even know how to express how impressed I am by each and every scene he delivered. How much Li Zan changed as the character, how well Zhe Yuan was able to transition from this confident man to a shell of his past self. How you could feel the silent pain when he was trying to hold it all in, and the raging despair when he was breaking down thinking Song was hurt and dead. Be it subtle representation of extreme emotions, or completely uncontrolled misery - he did not waste one second of his screen time.

On the other hand… the way the poor dubbing and acting of the majority of foreigners often completely took me out of the scene I was watching was simply disappointing. such a high quality of drama and production, with such a low quality of casting for guest and bits parts.

Then we have the soundtrack. I am not a person that pays that much attention to the music in dramas and music unless it’s extremely good, or extremely bad. Here the extremely good fits perfectly. Some of my favorite songs were: Ignite Me On Fire, Into the Pieces, Find My Way Back to Life, Home. As a whole the OST is an easy 10/10 (except for that do re mi fa sol la song, I cannot with that chorus, it should not exist).

For the production - impressive. The fighting scenes were well choreographed and it made sense there were not that many of them - no one has hand to hand combat during wars, they use guns. The explosions were surprisingly well produced too. We know how off Chinese dramas can get with their CGI and special effects, so I’m glad they put quite a lot of effort to make it good here. What’s more? Really well done prosthetic make up for Zan’s fingers. I was curious if they would just cleverly use angles or make him hide in hand all the time, and I was surprised they actually made the effort to show us how it looks, and also make it look realistic.

Overall, this was for sure a journey. Emotional and tragic one. Maybe a bit too tragic on the delivery. At some point I felt like the tragic scenes were not even said, because they did not make much sense plot wise. Maybe if the show was a little bit shorter - 30 episodes would probably be enough to present the same story with the same impact, but less repetitiveness. As human beings we get desensitized after being exposed to the same thing over and over again, and the writers did not take that into consideration when planning how to present the plot.

#the white olive tree #cdrama #chinese drama #chinese drama review #i had more thoughts but i was too exhausted to write them down...

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