#li chengyin

[suzannahnatters]

Trope Talk: Villain Romance

So, I was watching a villain romance cdrama again lately (GOODBYE MY PRINCESS) and it has been forcing me to think about what makes some villain romances work for me so well, and others…not so much.

First of all, a lot of my comments on romance at large, and on enemies-to-lovers as the broader trope to villain romance, apply here. For me, GOODBYE MY PRINCESS failed on a few different levels. It failed as a romance because the male lead so rarely, if ever, allowed himself to be vulnerable to the female lead that I couldn't believe either of them could genuinely be falling for each other. It failed as an enemies-to-lovers story because the female lead didn't feel like a match for the male lead in terms either of power or of morals: he was irredeemably awful and held all the power in the relationship, while she was unquenchably pure and naive, holding no power at all. But then, it also failed for me as a villain romance, and because I eat up villain romance with a spoon (WUTHERING HEIGHTS? THE LAST JEDI? LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL? TILL THE END OF THE MOON? That ONE SCENE in RICHARD III? yess?) I've spent a lot of time thinking about different kinds of villain romance, how some are easier to "sell" to an audience than others - as a convincing HEA, I mean - and how each of them can and can't be made to work.

So far, I think a lot of it has to do with how the villain is built. First off, how does the villain present himself to the audience and other characters? Second, does the villain get a character arc, and is it for the better, or for the worse? Finally, does the villain have genuine feelings for the heroine, and does he achieve a happily ever after with her? Or, in other words: where does your villain come from, where is he going, and how does he get there?

There are a few different choices awaiting the author here, and some of them are, I believe, easier to sell an audience than others. Let's begin with the villain's character arc over the course of the story.

POSITIVE CHANGE VILLAIN This one is the classic: your villain love interest starts out bad, but gets better. See: Erik from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Kylo Ren/Ben Solo in the STAR WARS sequels, Nux in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, Dongfang Qingcang in LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL, Thyme in F4: THAILAND.

Redemption arcs are honestly not easy to write, because they need to satisfy both justice and mercy; and authors, like everyone else, tend to want to prioritise one over the other. It's interesting that of the five examples of this trope I listed above, not one of the three the Western examples end in a HEA; two out of three equate redemption with death. Meanwhile, I could also note how the Asian examples pull their punches when it comes to facing the villain with the consequences of his actions, and these are some of the BEST examples.

Still, audiences can pull for a character who's clearly capable of learning from his mistakes, and we all want to inhabit a fantasy where a terrible man learns better and earns his happy ending. I've written this kind of villain romance a couple of times, notably with Vasily in my gaslamp books. Basically, if you plan to have a HEA as an endgame in your villain romance, a positive arc is the best way to make a longterm relationship convincing.

ANTIHERO WITH IMAGE PROBLEMS This one is a bit more complicated. The love interest starts out well and gets better, but along the way he struggles with a dark side and an unfortunate predilection for angry black clothing and eyeliner. He isn't so much as a villain, as a well-meaning antagonist desperately trying not to live up to his dark reputation. See: Tantai Jin from TILL THE END OF THE MOON, but also Galadriel Higgins from THE SCHOLOMANCE books by Naomi Novik, who is in a very similar predicament though not part of a villain romance.

This one is tricky to write, because there aren't a lot of ways a genuinely well-meaning person is going to convincingly pose as an existential threat to the universe. Both TTEOTM and the SCHOLOMANCE books pull it off by invoking the future, either through time travel or through prophecy: the antihero is going to become the Dark Lord/Lady and destroy the world. This makes them a target in the present, and gives them a threatening dark side to struggle against. In TTEOTM, Tantai Jin is torn between his vindictive impulses to revenge himself on those who have wronged him, and his natural longing for the love of others. In this case, it's not so much that he's a villain intrinsically, as that he plays that role in the heroine's head.

I've never written one of these, except as a stage in a positive change arc, but it's a really fun character type that I'd genuinely love to see more of.

NEGATIVE CHANGE HERO This is another classic: the hero who lives long enough to see himself become the villain. See: Anakin Skywalker from the STAR WARS prequels, Heathcliff from WUTHERING HEIGHTS, or Wang So from SCARLET HEART RYEO. If the Antihero With Image Problems withstands the temptation to become a villain, then this character succumbs with more or less struggle. He ususally also doesn't get the girl. In face, the heroine often doesn't survive this sort of story at all.

Audiences have less trouble with this kind of story, because it can come across as properly cautionary. "If you fall in love with someone who gets a villain arc, you will die, and it is probably your fault." Everyone is happy, except the characters. Personally, I think this is realistic, because I don't think a thorough-going villain CAN be a stable longterm relationship; but just once, instead of dying, I really would like to see the heroine nope out and go to live her life in peace and quiet, as happens in the wonderful Daisy Ridley OPHELIA film.

I've actually never written one of these, either, mostly because I've never been able to bring myself to write a tragedy. But I do love reading them.

UNREPENTANT VILLAIN Or, Bad Man With a Crush. This is another really common iteration of the trope, but it's usually played from the point of view of the male hero, and the heroine usually doesn't reciprocate the villain's interest in any way. The great exception to this, of course, comes in Shakespeare's RICHARD III, where the unrepentant villain convinces the widow of one of his murder victims to marry him because he's THAT GOOD. Watching Laurence Olivier in this role at 13 may have been a formative moment of my life. Other examples are thick on the ground: Frollo from THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, Scarpia from TOSCA, the Darkling in SHADOW & BONE. Heck, I've written at least one of these myself.

Again, audiences expect this kind of villain either not to have his feelings returned or, if they are, to see either the heroine or the villain die by the end. In fact, this villain is the sort most likely not to have genuinely romantic feelings for the heroine at all; it's usually simply lust. The only example I mentioned where the villain arguably does have more complicated feelings for the heroine than a mere appetite for sex and power, and where she is tempted to reciprocate, is the one written by a woman, SHADOW & BONE - because a female writer is going to treat her heroine as a more fully orbed person, and insist on male characters treating her the same way.

-

The second question to ask when writing a villain romance is: how does the villain present himself to others, including the audience? Again, there are a few options here, but in any case I think one of the most important ingredients, if you're going to make the audience care about the villain, is a sense that the villain COULD be a better person than he is.

SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING The villain projects a terrifying image, but deep down he has a heart of gold. Note that this is not about character arc (for instance, this describes both Tantai Jin, who is an antihero on a positive arc, and Wang So, who is a hero on a fall arc). Rather, it's about how other characters, and the audience, view the character throughout most of the story.

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing is easier to "redeem" because half the work is done when you show that after all, the character is better than we thought, and doesn't need as much work to be redeemed. For this reason, it's a really good choice in any sort of villain romance, because you get someone who LOOKS bad but is in fact plausible as someone who IS capable of changing and learning.

Vasily from my Miss Dark series is definitely a sheep in wolf's clothing, which is extremely fun to write. Vasily's had a traumatic change of heart which has taken away his taste for blood, treachery, and power. His habits haven't quite caught up with his heart, yet, and his determination to hold onto a semblance of power and terror makes him desperate to playact as a villainous vampire prince even though he's none of those things any longer.

SHEEP IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING I was nearly not going to include this variant at all, because where's the villainy in that? But then I remembered Anakin Skywalker. Anakin has a dark side, like Tantai Jin, which he gives into on occasion, but the prophecy that he will bring balance to the Force seems to predict a bright future for him. And he genuinely is a well-meaning person, who only wants to protect the people he cares about. For most of the story, Anakin is a good person and an upstanding Jedi with a bright future. This only makes his eventual downfall more tragic.

While how the villain presents himself is not always linked to a particular arc, this one is, since it requires a genuine hero to begin with. As I mentioned above, this kind of fall usually spells death for the heroine. I think this particular villain romance tends to be underexplored, because the freaks who like villain romance aren't into the aesthetic of a genuinely good man being corrupted, while those who write the downfall arc usually aren't into the aesthetic of villain romance. Nobody has ever written a romance about the Macbeths, and this strikes me as a missed opportunity.

WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING This villain is exactly as bad as he appears on the outside, but if he's lucky, big changes are coming for him. In LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL, Dongfang Qingcang is about to have his cold dead heart magically melted. In FALLING FOR INNOCENCE, Kang Min-Ho is literally given a new one. As a Christian, I love seeing fantasy elements used to explain why the wolf in wolf's clothing is suddenly forced to trade a heart of stone for a heart of flesh, because in Christianity the only way this ever happens is through a literal miracle.

And I do think this kind of villain IS difficult to redeem for his HEA without some kind of miracle, because he's genuinely done some dreadful things, and he's determined not to repent for any of them. Kylo Ren from the STAR WARS sequels is a really excellent example of a Wolf in Wolf's Clothing: when Rey spits at him, "You're a monster!" he responds almost proudly, "Yes, I am." In a way, the Wolf in Wolf's Clothing's honesty is his one redeeming feature: he may be terrible in almost every way, but he never pretends to be a good man. This is something that the next option on the list lacks altogether.

WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING This villain looks like a good and upright person, but it's all a facade. In reality, he's conniving, ruthless, and manipulative, and whether he's a "hero" on a negative arc or a straight-up Unrepentant Villain, the story is about to unmask him as the bastard he is.

Western literature has a whole array of this type of character, and they're usually the smooth hypocrites of the canon: TOSCA's Scarpia, HUNCHBACK's Frollo, MEASURE FOR MEASURE's Angelo, KNIVES OUT's Ransom. There's just something particularly evil about someone who sees and experiences true goodness and sees it as his opportunity to mask his evil deeds, and that's why we recognise such people as irredeemable. This is why BLUEBEARD is one of the trickiest fairytales to retell, at least if you're interested in a HEA - because Bluebeard, unlike the Beast or Hades or any of the other dubious bridegrooms of fairytale literature, commits awful crimes while pretending to be an ordinary, upright businessman.

This is also where we find GOODBYE MY PRINCESS's Li Chengyin, who marries this with a corruption/fall arc. Very early on in the story, we see that although Chengyin has genuine feelings for the heroine, he's fully capable of betraying her and murdering her family for purely political motivations. At first, Chengyin is neither experienced nor hardened in evil, but he absolutely will betray anyone in his path if it will benefit his plans.

This sort of villain is particularly difficult to redeem, because he's someone who has approval and love already but chooses to destroy everyone around him anyway. He is also uniquely enraging, because we've all known people this terrible in real life - from high profile teachers and carers being caught in ongoing sexual predation, to that crumby ex-husband who traumatised your good friend. I don't think I've ever seen a character like this be convincingly redeemed, and while I think it COULD be done - I do have a Bluebeard retelling of my own up my sleeve - I do that, as with the Wolf in Wolf's Clothing, it would have to come with some kind of fantastical/miraculous explanation.

And in the end, let's face it, it's always most cathartic to see this sort of person get their comeuppance.

-

Third and finally, is your villain romance going to get a happily ever after? I'm one of those people who will get a lot of fun out of a romance that ends badly, like SCARLET HEART RYEO, or even something that isn't a romance at all, like RICHARD III and the ill-fated Anne Neville. But whatever you pick, I'm begging you, be very clear about whether the villain has genuine feelings for the heroine or not, and don't reward some horrible person who's never convincingly expressed care for another, with any kind of romantic validation.

HEA VARIATIONS Maybe your villain and heroine make a match of it. Most of the time this is because the villain undergoes a positive character arc to earn his happy ending, and I've got to say, this is a very sensible choice. I personally do not need to see an unrepentantly terrible person get any kind of longterm romantic relationship, either because he's trapped/deceived the heroine or because he's corrupted her to become as bad as himself; I honestly don't think that terrible people CAN have a successful longterm relationship. That said, I've written a relationship where the villain DOES make the love interest worse, but where ultimately the genuine love, empathy, and trust between them ultimately does drag both of them back to the light.

TRAGIC VARIATIONS There are a great many more options available here. The main thing I would say is that you have to give an ending that is justified by what comes before.

A common choice is to give the villain a positive arc culminating in a heroic death. I've seen this done well (FURY ROAD). I've seen it done terribly (RISE OF SKYWALKER). Personally I feel that unless the themes absolutely demand this, you should avoid it, because too often it comes across as the writers arbitrarily ridding themselves of a character they don't know what to do with.

Another common choice is to give the villain a negative arc culminating in the heroine/love interest's death. I've seen this done in ways I don't hate. In RICHARD III, Richard kills literally everyone he touches. In SCARLET HEART RYEO, death is a realistic result of the heroine's trauma and closes the door definitively on the villain's hopes for reconciliation; but it also returns her to her far better life in the future, so it becomes a glimmer of hope for her (though not quite enough). Too often, however, this choice carries with it sexist overtones. Death becomes the heroine's punishment for the crime of loving a bad man (or something else equally fatuous), while the villain is "punished" only by having to live without her.

What about a negative arc culminating in the villain's death? Well, I strongly disliked the choice made in SHADOW AND BONE, in which the heroine guts the villain while hissing "there is no redemption"; to me it was lacking in either tragic catharsis OR eucatastrophe. I think you CAN have a satisfying ending in which the heroine or somebody else kills the villain, but it needs to be an expression of catharsis or eucatastrophe, and we definitely need to feel that the villain is beyond saving - which, if you've made him a genuine romantic possibility, is often hard to feel.

I love the ending of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, in which the villain dies frustrated after realising that after all, cruelty and abuse DIDN'T have to turn him into a villain; he then reunites with the ghost of his equally terrible love interest. I also love the ending of OPHELIA, in which Ophelia, realising that Hamlet cannot be redeemed from his quest for vengeance, quietly nopes out and goes to live a happy life on her own. And then, there's the gold standard for bittersweet endings, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, in which the villain doesn't get the girl, but neither of them have to die, and her compassion for him causes him to go off and live a better life on his own. I think the thing all these have in common is that even though none of them end with the couple together, they afford the whole story a sense of hope: cycles of abuse are broken, some people get better than they deserve, and even those that don't are doomed by their own actions, rather than being killed off in a way that feels punitive or vindictive. And I feel that this is an essential ingredient of tragedy: that justice arises naturally out of the villain's own actions rather than being imposed by some righteous warrior.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER Some of these options are easier to sell the audience than others. For instance, a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing on an Unrepentant Villain arc is absolutely not good material for a HEA romance, while a Sheep in Wolf's Clothing on a Positive arc is probably your best bet (it's a classic for a reason). Others, like a Wolf in Wolf's Clothing on a positive arc, may require careful handling to ensure that the audience is happy to come along for the ride. Whatever you choose, however, it pays to be conscious of which tropes you're using, where the audience has seen them before, and what they expect to see happen to the characters that enact them. This doesn't mean that you can't defy audience expectations, of course; just that it might take a little more work to bring the audience along with you on the journey that you've planned, and that it might not be wise to pick all the worst possible options and expect the audience to embrace the character in question. (cough Li Chengyin cough).

[tytangfei]

Watching Goodbye My Princess and can't help but think "aahhh yes, you scheming murderous man, keep scheming your way up to the lonely throne"

[rojaloca]

He’s a lying, scheming, murder bean fboy

[dangermousie]

How about you explain NOW? Because how do you think she will be OK going with a dude she thinks tried to off her?

Priorities!

Have you asked her what she wants omg.

But this is all fairly sane until we get to this:

I am beginning to wonder if a particularly negligent nanny bounced marquis on the steps of the mansion when he was a baby. Thrice. The man has NO idea that ML is not her bio brother (hell, the heroine herself does not know) so the man is in no way a love rival. He knows she loves her brother in a sororal fashion. What does he even think is gonna happen. PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW IT WILL ENDEAR YOU TO THE OBJECT OF YOUR AFFECTION TO THREATEN AND POTENTIALLY MURDER IN FRONT OF HER EYES HER FAVORITE RELATIVE. Like - is his brain just to add weight to his head? Now, there are plenty of unhinged MLs, SMLs and villains out there but even they usually get that unlike with love rivals, you gotta at least pretend that you are not planning to murder your lady's beloved family. Li Chengyin from GMP was a bona fide psycho of a kind Marquis cannot even pretend to be after a lifetime of trying, and even he knew he couldn't go "ahahaha I am killing your beloved fam enjoy watching, and I know you will tenderly love me now."

It is unsurprising that her reaction is:

But his surprised pikachu face is sending me...

Seriously, Marquis needs basic things explained in small words. Perhaps being nice to her family is a better wooing tactic? Hmmmm.

It would be one thing if he was one of those characters who just wanted her body or was going Li Chengyin style "hatred is better than indifference" but he's not. He wants her love. DUDE JUST STOP AND THINKKKKK

[gizkasparadise]

What is the worst, most technically inept drama that you secretly love? Tell us of the best badgood drama, the clunkiest dialogue, the most inexplicable casting, the hideously costumed yet most fun dramas, please.

🫥Anonymously yours🫥,

💜Purplehanfu😈💜🍇👾

dear complete stranger (<3),

man i love badgood dramas so much!!! i chose ones that are flatout objectively not good, but i was glued for them all. here's a few that are jumping out

triad princess (taiwan). it ends on a cliffhanger that will never be continued, the relationship building is non-existent, jasper liu basically plays himself yet still acts like he's doing a community service project, but omg it's cute and hit all the right notes for me. fave bonus is that one of the gangster henchmen falls in love with the FL's best friend, a shy boy who works at a mart and makes youtube covers

hold on, my lady (chinese). a bandit is offered a choice when she's caught during a heist: be executed or marry this aloof but beautiful but delicate son of the general. she chooses the latter, and hijinks ensue. made on a budget of pocket lint and just wacky, im going to rewatch this today, actually. fave bonus moment: the FL falls dramatically down and the ML breaks both his arms instantly when he tries to catch her

thumping spike & thumping spike 2 (korean). the two are barely related, but both deal with a competitive men's volleyball team! thumping spike 1 is about a washed up competitive female player going to coach a high school team to glory (just dont...think too critically about the age difference, there) and the second is COLLEGE EDITION with a love quadrangle between two identical twins, one of whom is a cheerleader for the team, the ace volleyball player who's too cool for school, and the WILDCARD volleyball player who gets mad when people call him gorilla. the second one is definitely worse than the first one, but neither are bringing home awards. i still watched them both in one sitting.

my heart twinkle twinkle (korean). this show is actually insane and a parade of toxic that i can never, in good conscience, ever rec to anyone. but gd did i watch the whole fucking thing. look at this fucking poster. this fucking poster looks like it was doused by a fake snow machine.

premise: Noble But Poor family has 3 daughters: the eldest, who is the caretaker; the middle who is Aloof and Ambitious; and the youngest who is A Fucking Menace. they are lead by their single father, who owns a fried chicken store

Rich but Dysfunctional family also has 3 children: the eldest, who is the only son and a fucking piece of work, the middle who is school colleagues with the other family's middle daughter and a hot mess who loves Da Club, and the youngest, who is clingy and gets into a ton of fights with the other family's youngest but is otherwise ok. they run AN EVIL FRIED CHICKEN FRANCHISE that is poisoning people through subpar ingredients!!

there's so much that's so wrong with this, im going to bullet point it from another post i made:

the entire premise is that there’s a fried chicken restaurant rivalry between two families but somehow there’s murder and slush funds and this guy who owns a string of fried chicken franchises named after himself (yeah) has direct access to seoul’s police commissioner at any given moment

one of the main actresses was involved in a scandal a little over halfway through production so they just….vanish her character/entire plotline like it never happened

the main male lead is toxic personified. him and li chengyin from goodbye my princess could co-author a dating strategy/forced-marriage-after-you-kill-your-girlfriend’s-head-of-household book because jesus christ. he literally screams that he hates women and he ends the drama (rightfully!!) in fucking prison

the second female lead disappears/creates a new identity and becomes a chicken chef student of the world. shes later in a love triangle between a single dad chicken shop interior designer and another vanilla guy

that's right, one guy’s job is he’s an architect for chicken restaurant interiors i cant

the main male lead leaves the main female lead’s father to die in a chicken-coop-themed arsony and then cha-cha slides into the son-in-law’s role during the father’s funeral and later MARRIES the female lead

the main male lead tells the female lead’s father’s grave that HE WON AND DAD LOST because the male lead is standing and the father’s in the dirt?!

a friend/almost!love interest of the second female lead dies tragically in a chicken delivery motorcycle chase????

it's the worst drama i've ever seen. i watched all of it.

kakafukaka (japanese)

this one is so gd weird and unappealing it somehow circled back around and became off-puttingly charming to me? so the premise is that there's a 20something year old woman whose life has gone to shit and she ends up in a sharehome with the most sexually dysfunctional bunch of people in the world. one of these is her ex, who tells her that she's the only one he can get a boner with (yeah) and asks her to help him get over his impotence in order to write his novel (yeah). if you read the whole show as kind of an exploration into sex without romance/love, it's as not bad, and there's something weirdly endearing about everyone--i really love the second female lead akari in particular. but it's not a good show, not by a long shot (MDL rating? 6.6), and the ship is dysfunctional at the very best. the ost somehow is great though?

speaking of trash dramas with great OSTs, love in sadness has some of my favorite songs:

okay that's enough for now!!!!

[renewedmotionforjudgment]

So I was telling @aysekira — if I’m being honest, the Love of Nirvana didn’t quite live up to my expectations despite its cast. It’s … not bad? But I can’t help but to feel like the writer (which include the novelist) and the director is going off of a checklist. A good checklist to be sure, but it’s missing that spark or something really makes me go “ooooh.”

And I think — for me — the weakest link is the love triangle storyline. I’m not getting ~at all~ from within the story why either MLs would be good as endgame? For example, the drama that I think as the ultimate tragedy— Goodbye My Princess — still spent some time setting up on why Xiao Feng and Li Chengyin could work in some other universe.

Here? I can’t help but to think that FL should just figure out a way to go back to the mountains. And maybe ML and SML should just hate fuck.

[locria-writes]

Do you have any recs for angsty, toxic, morally dubious trashman-y romances? Can be anything (manhwa, book, games, fics) I just know we have similar taste and don't mind taboo topics 😭 its just too hard finding good unhinged ML's nowadays

off the top of my head, and only counting stuff i'm pretty sure is still accessible

black wolves saga | mejojo you will pay for your crimes one day, but like also nearly everyone is trash to the point the incest bro is probably best boy lol

devil lady | can't think of a single healthy dynamic in this

bastian | incomplete and there's only a few chapters out but look, he's a rancid blond man in a uniform, what am i supposed say???

the pale horse | not really sure if i'd call this a romance, but it is toxic, morally dubious, and there is a putrid blond man

goodbye my princess | watch the director's cut on youtube (55 eps) the tv edit was trash (52 eps), but not as trash as li chengyin was lmao he's my poor little meow meow

nightshade | kuroyuki has literally never been normal and is a feral gremlin

ozmafia | okay hear me out now -- robin hood and especially dorian gret/brothel route are particularly unhinged

[dilebe06]

La vera domanda è:

"Perché dovresti amare Li Chengyin? Ti ha sempre maltrattato."

[humanoidtyphoons]

”but what did i do wrong?” li chengyin asks, completely oblivious to his many many crimes

i sigh

[liquoriceleavess]

So, East Palace

I last watched it a few years ago, and I've watched it a few times. Once even in chinese without subtitles, its so mesmerising.

And xiao feng, the poor thing, no one has suffered like her. That loser crybaby gu xiao wu, is all about how he lost his mother in childhood and so he decides to take all of the princess's family away. He's just like his adopted mother.

She was sweet and sprightly, trying so very hard to survive to her best in trying times and these gu cousins destroy her existence and her essence.

He's so superficial and stupid, gu xiao wu. He's telling her about the birds in his homeland, like a well built pretty palace is supposed to just erase everything. Is xiao feng some kind of pet, is she supposed to forget her homeland because of him?

It's ironic because he tells shifu that she's not a thing to be passed here and there, as if he's not treating her like a thing himself

So the forgetting waterfall. Alright, she's been spun so far there's no life left of her, but she stayed true to her word to jump in the lake. Its admirable, how hard she tries to be a danshi xiao feng, not a central plains one

She feels guilty for what has happened to her people. How can she not? She feels guilty for loving someone who betrayed her so wickedly.

Gu xiao wu is so strange. He expects her to skip here and there with her feelings, like he murdered everyone and she should immediately forget that, and not only go back to him, but also like him and even, it's preposterous, admire him.

救我 😭

The grasslands are always the most fun of the dramas.

Then there's shifu. I get they were trying to make it a second lead kind of story. From the start, it doesn't work on her part. He loves her, true, whilst she looks at him as a teacher, a person who's been good to her and its written for a few unnecessary moments as a sort of affection because she has to run away, but before that, did she think seriously about shifu?

Whilst with gu xiao wu, she doesn't have any kind of loyalty to him, any kind of story that connects them. There is a now and a future. A future she thinks she chooses. In that day and age, how lucky she must have thought that she could choose someone she loved, instead of some alliance that was forced on her.

Also that awesome grassland wedding? The way gu xiao wu could turn around from that. He has a split personality, seriously.

He always says Li chengyin with all this pride, like it's supposed to impress xiao feng, whilst she had been happier with a tea trader. She doesn't want the facade of the palace, all the power that comes with it. She would probably care more for her little red horse than ceremonies and ornaments.

They wrote him too harsh though. He hardly shows any affection at the palace, I get his doing it because of spies and whatever, its just that it's so long and then it's way too late.

Like shifu said, caring and knowing how to care are different things.

As for shifu, he's a bad guy. That's what he is, like gu xiao wu, only he doesn't have that much to gain from it. If he died, no one would care. He's sworn to his uncle and revenge and whatever, uses xiao feng for that, treating her awfully because of people who aren't even alive.

She doesn't love him, without all the martial arts and betrayal, he's like a second lead in a chaebol drama. Hey palace dramas are actually chaebol dramas, with different costumes 🤔 modern dramas, they wear western costumes and historic dramas, they wear eastern.

Strange, huh. One is taken to be normal, whilst its actually not.

她是我的妻子 😠

There's these touches to this drama that make it special. When she falls in the fountain, and when she falls in the lake at that party, she's wearing those silky dresses that float. When shifu tells gu xiao wu, 离开 in the desert, then again when he's taking her away. When she can't read, and he doesn't tell her and then he leaves her the note, she reads a few letters. He thought she'd know those well enough. 三日见. Also the writing scenes are cute, okay.

And her red dress. The way he sees her first when she saves him and he sees all the red and gold. Epic.

Xiao feng is so sad and its a sad story all of it is sad and also, kind of love at first sight for gu xia wu?

[tytangfei]

The sheer horror when she remembers everything and meets him face to face

[eigwayne]

Finished Goodbye My Princess! The ending suited the show so that was good. Despite my complaints during parts of the viewing, the overall feeling was positive. The quality was consistent, although the plot pacing and interest and repetitiveness was not, and that's what lost me in parts. But the look, the editing, the soundtrack were all strong or at least satisfactory.

Some characters left stronger impressions than others, and I didn't particularly enjoy Li Chengyin- I wanted Xiaofeng to run of with Pei Zhao or A-Du and screw the plot for most of the show. Imagine it, Xiaofeng and A-Du and Mi Luo all make themselves at home at Pei Zhao's. He ends up with four wives who are more each others' wives than his, everyone is happy even if Pei Zhao and Louxi are confused for a while. Gu Xian can visit if he behaves I guess, but he's on thin ice.

Overall, this scored a 3.688. A show that sucks you in at times, spits you out at others, but great for some lovely costumes and sets and melodrama. It's dauntingly long but good enough that you'll think about watching it again someday. This is the same numerical score as The Lost Tomb 2: Explore With the Note (the Hou Minghao season), which is one of the DMBJ shows I rewatch the most so you know this is a good score.

[renewedmotionforjudgment]

Speaking as a bilingual Chinese/English speaker, while I don’t really write fic, my general rule of thumb is to keep honorifics untranslated if there isn’t a way to translate them. The most obvious example — using jiejie/gege (older sister/older brother) or shushing/ayi (uncle/aunt) as an honorific for someone older than you bc it’s generally considered culturally impolite to refer to someone older than you by their given names. I find it to be a really hard translation because culturally it’s the opposite in the west — you only call someone you know really well aunt/uncle.

My other thing is to leave honorifics in when a translation will just make it weird, for a lack of better word. For example, Minglan spends a good first 30 something episodes calling Gu Tingye “ershu” 二叔 which literally translates to ���second uncle.” Uncle is the literal translation of “shu” honestly it just doesn’t translate the same way. A part of that is honorifics is denoted by generational alignment as well as age.

But using your majesty for huangshang and huanghou pretty much conveys the same meaning. My only horror tends to be, unless it’s very explicitly canon, to translate the honorific associated with a prince to the prince’s real name. Yes, I’m talking about the BBJX ones, where they literally replaced “8th prince” with “yinti” and YIKES that’s a taboo. Conversely, in goodbye my Princess, Xiao Feng calls Li Chengyin by his full name post reset, where as everyone calls him “dianxia” (probably translates well to your highness) and that’s a specific signifier of how she feels about him.

Trying to write a fic and naturally I can't find the right word that the consorts call Qianlong. Haunjong/Hua zong...uncertain. Looking up emperor titles and such I can can find "Huangdi" but not the other word (I don't want to get it wrong...) Help please. ^_^'

The word you're looking for is Huangshang.

Here's a sort summary of Qing dynasty honorics, and maybe look through our honorifics tag. But in all honesty and sincere advice, if you are unfamiliar/uncomfortable with Chinese honorifics, just stick to vague English equivalents like Your Majesty. It gets enough of the message across and you don't accidentally use something jarringly wrong that completely takes the reader out of the story. I personally would much rather read a fanfic that uses stuff like Your Majesty, Your Highness than transliterated Chinese honorifics wrong. And I say this as a fic writer that do use transliterated Chinese honorifics, but I do because I am confident enough to know I'm (probably) using them correctly.

[k1201a]

people are upset An Le does unpleasant things? yall call it sexy and heart wrenching when Li Chengyin does it. It's literally the same plot. Mei Changsu was unpleasant too

at least An Le is funnier and nice to look at...

[dangermousie]

Ummmmm, he drunk in a brothel, you are planning to take down his entire family! It's not really the same!

Makes me think of Li Chengyin in GMP who was telling a fairytale that was basically his set up to FL and was all "would you forgive him?" and clueless FL was all "sure of course" without knowing exactly the havoc he was gonna wreak and how it was gonna be directed at her fam. And then - shockingly - she was not OK with it at all in reality.

Poor Xiaobao, it's hard being a Disney princess in a costume cdrama!

[gizkasparadise]

in honor of me still not recovered from eps 25-29...

alright yall, who are your favorite unhinged male leads in dramas? (or other media!). leads can be unhinged all the time, or have an Unhinged Arc

off the top of my head:

li chengyin, goodbye my princess

tantai jin, till the end of the moon

ta hwan, empress ki

ling buyi, love like the galaxy

saya, arthdal chronicles