#rong tianzhen

[potahun]

If you’d told me before S8 that I’d be very seriously shipping a He x Rong mf pairing one day I would have laughed but HERE I AM

I very genuinely ship He Hehe x Rong Tianzhen

[potahun]

wish list for s9

1 ep about he hehe, rong tianzhen, zhang luo, liu cuimian and chen zhuqi's struggles in timeline B, specifically he hehe trying to convince zhang luo to change the status quo

[potahun]

FMV Bookmarks

Making a personal masterpost of fave MXDZT fmvs organised by category, because the lists in my drafts are getting too scattered and messy.

All links refer to the original

Shuang Bei | 双北 (He Sa)

望

What Can I Do to Keep You Here | 我用什么把你留住

Renai Saiban

Qian Qian Wan Wan | 千千万万

A Little Sweet | 有点甜

Ordinary Happiness | 有你的小确幸

Rang Jiu | 让酒

SMILE

Bai Sa | 白撒

Under Mount Fuji | 富士山下

Small Friend | 小朋友

99times, I love him | 99次我爱他

He doesn't understand | 他不懂 (NZND verse)

S1-S5: Suspecting Xiao Bai

Give you, Give Me | 给你给我

Rong He | 蓉何

Next to you | 在你的身边 (He Hehe x Rong Tianzhen)

Group Spirit or Multiship | 明侦群像

Passing Through The World | 路过人间 (ode to S1-S7)

Da Xiao Jiang Hu | 大笑江湖 (group spirit & fun)

Empty Your Glass | 干杯 (group spirit focused on the original six)

King of Love Songs | 情歌王 (56 CPs from 7 seasons)

Laugh About Nothing | 穷开心 (group spirit & fun)

You'll Always Be Here - S8 Cast Song | 永远都会在 (S8 spirit - ouch)

Fake Love (Heiheihei Agency-centric; S8E5 往日回响)

Target Person (Hao Ran x Zhang Sirui aka Bai Jingting x Wei Chen)

Key Word | 关键词

I Feel Like I've Met You Somewhere Before | 我好像在哪见过你

[potahun]

Ships of MXDZT S8 nominated for Best Ship

--as were nominated by the cast themselves (and my own personal ratings underneath, after watching the whole season):

Little Fairy Fish / Brother Conch / Little Brother Squid OT3 in S8E10: Legends of the Blue Sea (aka Liu Haoran x Wei Chen x Zhang Ruoyun)

---- 10/10 hilarious. queer. lots of fucking with gender. kept super fun and a delightful mess

Assistant Ou / Chen Zhuqi in S8E10: Legends of the Blue Sea (aka Wang Ou x Wei Chen)

--- 6/10 typical mermaid x human angsty love story. nothing that stands out particularly

Simple Man / Zhang Luo in S8E7: Black Gold Heist (aka Wei Daxun x Zhang Ruoyun)

----- 8/10 naive man x the guy who initially swindled him, but eventually developed feelings. storyline was a bit underutilized in the ep, but there's huge potential there

Psychiatric Ward OT3 in S8E4: Leap Over the Insane's Wish (aka Wei Daxun x Zhang Ruoyun x Da Zhangwei)

------ 9/10 criminally underused in the episode itself. wholesome. warmst. found family. i love. Small correction that my own otp for this ep is the found family OT4 with the psychiatric ward trio AND with Waste Collector He. A family can be three psychiatric ward patients and their waste collector dad who teaches them how to make clay figures. thank u

Zhang Xinghai / Xin He in S8E3: Leaving the Planet's Surface (aka Zhang Ruoyun x Wu Xin)

------- 9/10. I ship. super cute and funny. best mxf ship of the season. high IQ duo who dont know how to murder. they flirt in maths and space shenanigans

He Tianxia / Zhang Dujun / Ou Fei OT3 in S8E6: Mang City's Wind Rises Again (aka He Jiong x Zhang Ruoyun x Wang Ou)

---- 7/10. downgraded because of my personal pet peeves with republican era plots and because Ou's role in the OT3 was quite underutilised in comparison? but holy hell, Zhang Dujun delivered. that was gay. I'd rate Zhang Dujun / He Tianxia 9/10

Rong Momo / Da Zuiba in S8E8: Ghost Tales in MangZhou (aka Yang Rong x Da Zhangwei)

----4/10. personally i do not ship. but given all the body-switching and ensuing gender-switching that occurred, idk whether this ship is still that ship at all

He Hehe / Zhang Gongzi in S8E5: Echoes of the Past (aka He Jiong x Zhang Ruoyun)

---- 10/10. I'm still crying about it.

***

--- and my other ships that were not nominated but that I ship a lot: He Hehe x Rong Tianzhen; He Hehe x Pu Lie, Liu Cuimian x Zhang Luo (THEY DAD TOGETHER), Ou Ba x Rong Momo

[potahun]

Some scattered thoughts on MXDZT S8

I didn't expect myself to want to watch it at all. Watching bits of S7 left me feeling very bittersweet, with Sa Beining's absence like a gap that can't be filled, so I didn't even imagine wanting to start S8.

I technically only watched half of S8 so far (E1, E2, E5, E10-12), and I watched it slightly out-of-order, but what I have seen already makes me want to watch at least S8E4, S8E7 and S8E8 too.

I didn't expect myself to enjoy it THIS much.

--Spoilers ahead! --

I just finished S8E12 and these are the main points that left a strong impression on me.

1. Continuity

We've had recurrent verses (like NZND) and characters or elements (like the "Zhen Piao Liang" plastic surgery hospital), in previous seasons, but this level of continuity within a season was completely new and riveting to watch.

It was so cool to start with a regular MXDZT case, to be introduced to a young detective (He Hehe) in ep 1, only to realise that he comes back later in the season, that his story is developed, that what he lived in eps 1-2 influences his life and decisions, that the plot of the first eps are pivotal to the finale. Similarly, seeing the looming shadow of the TianDing Group in S8E5 and other eps, before seeing what it became in eps 11-12, was an extremely exciting build-up and pay-off. I wanted the threads to connect and was so satisfied when they did. We've never had this kind of massive plot developed in MXDZT before.

Even S7E11 which made big call-backs to previous seasons and characters, and wrapped up the season with Sa Beining as a connecting thread, did not link the stories of each ep in the same way that S8 does with He Hehe's story.

2. Story-telling

Which brings me to the 2nd point: I feel like S8 placed a greater focus on story-telling than before. On the one hand, it sometimes felt like the evidence was too easy. There were a lot of pictures, for one, or diaries which happen to have all the right notes; the variety was a bit lacking and it felt less like a game played by the cast, and more like a story that they have to bring to life, at times.

On the other hand, it really did bring the stories to life in a very immersive manner. The fact that He Hehe and Zhang Luo did not have a voting choice in S8E12, for example, was definitely more about telling their story than about winning a murder mystery game. But ouch, it sure made me feel for He Hehe. It made me feel for all the characters who had to choose between them two.

3.Themes covered

I had a lot of expectations towards the Timeline A and Timeline B problem that S8E5 had introduced. For He Hehe, Timeline A appears as a rosier world, where Sa Mingdeng is a recurrent character and the members of his agency truly cared for each other. Timeline B is the "factual" world where Sa does not exist and his entire agency got annihilated by the TianDing Group.

But for Rong Tianzhen, it's the opposite: Timeline A is the one where she was abused all her childhood only to commit suicide in M213. Timeline B is the one where she finds her father again. For Liu Cuimian, both timelines have their good and bad. His partner Zhang Luo with whom he co-parented TianTian never died in Timeline B, but at the same time, they've never shared those 10 years of history that they had in Timeline A.

Only in S8E12 are we told that both are real, just that Timeline A was a deviation, and Timeline B is the one that leads to what is basically a dystopia where everything is controlled by Big Data. (ha. the irony) Meanwhile, going back to Timeline A means possibilities to change the past and towards a different future, which could be as good as it is bad.

The show frames the timelines very heavily in favour of Timeline A, using the words "freedom, courage and truth" to describe it. He Hehe, who is tasked to defend Timeline A, also calls it "sentiment and romance". But the show also clearly frames it as individuality and agency, as shouldering personal choices and their possibly very negative consequences. It frames Timeline B as the loss of individual agency, with happiness under B as "captive" happiness. It's a framing that I find very brave of a show in its context and environment.

In the end, Timeline A does not win, due to a wide range of odds. Regardless, the framing of the show was already so heavily in favor of A that I can't help but be emotional about it. And in the end, even Zhang Ruoyun, who has to play devil's advocate for Timeline B, argues that "Timeline B does not mean impossibility to change, there is perhaps a way to change the future from the present towards the future", which plays a role into the final votes. The fact that even the guy tasked to defend B has to argue for changing the outcome of B says a lot about the framing. I enjoyed this theme a lot and did not expect it from MXDZT.

4. Sa Beining's Absence

I was also pleasantly surprised with how they've dealt with Sa Beining's absence in S8. S7 was already very nice. But if S7 was an ode to his importance for the show and an acknowledgment that his absence is heavily felt, S8 felt like a respectful new start.

In what I've seen of S7, watching He Jiong felt at times like he was trying to cover both his previous role and Sa Beining's role, which was almost jarring at times. In S8, the cast seems to have found a new balance, in which He Jiong can really just go back to his own style of hosting, with perhaps just an increased level of sass, deviousness and pettiness (affectionate). Similarly, if others were still dancing around the fact that Sa Beining is no longer there in S7, the cast in S8 feels much more comfortable in this respect, where the use of Sa Mingdeng as a character doesn't prickle anymore, but is more of a element of warmth and amusement.

I have also read that the crew itself changed since S6 (S7 had a lot of difficulties airing). S8 certainly felt like they found a better balance and style of their own when it comes to the editing.

5. Challenging new game formats

S8E2 left a strong impression on me. The game format changes completely in Part II of the ep, with the cast basically dividing into two groups and enter a sort of game of Werewolf (it's probably another game, but I don't know it).

On the one hand, that totally did cut the story-telling for me. It took me a few minutes to adjust, and I still think it was a bit disruptive, with the character of the Butler (which is more of a game master than a proper character), not being developed enough to fit in. But holy shit, I have to admit the game was spectacular (thank you Xiao Pu) and I definitely want to rewatch it.

S8E12 also had a completely different format from what we're used to. The ending votes, in fact, were not even about finding a murderer.

So all in all, this season definitely tried to challenge new ways of playing the game. I still think there's room for improvement on the transitions between the murder-mystery we know and the new elements they want to try, but overall, it worked on me.

I enjoy MXDZT for the detective work, but also a huge lot for the stories told and the cast dynamics. I think this season didn't lose its detectives' heart overall, and still gave me a lot of positive surprises regarding the stories told and the cast. I am looking forward to S9 again. For one, I think there are still ways to build on the plot of S8, especially considering the ending that won, and that includes ways to explore Sa Mingdeng's provenance and why he is interacting with the world the way he is.

Still hoping that they can release the Sa himself for one of the later seasons... but if they cannot, at least I'll still be curious about what S9 looks like.

[potahun]

Gushing in the reblog so I don't have to put a wall of text on the main thing but AAAAAAAA i still have many feelings about He Hehe, especially now that I've finished S8E12 and know that he DID NOT SUCCEED.....

His entire journey from a carefree 20-yr old detective in S8E1, running around in the hall of Sun-Never-Sets Mansion with Pu Lie because "waaaow a case!", to S8E5 where he loses all his teammates, to S8E11 where he is already 34 and is desperate to find the Mansion again, hanging onto the slim hope that he can bring his teammates back...has ripped my heart into two ;w; His line "I was hoping that Ou Dijia would open the door for me" punched me in the gut.

As it is, he is now stuck with the knowledge that ALL that he has lived is real, which includes both the mass murder/ annihilation of his partners by the TianDing Group, and his rosy version of the agency. And he just has to live on with all of it, unable to change that ;_; UGH.

The only consolation for me, is that Rong Tianzhen who has lived through most of what he has lived, and who would have chosen to go down Timeline A with him, is still there. That, and, I wonder if choosing Timeline B means Sa is still around in the system, somewhere, and that he can still act. Moreover, the Zhang Luo of S8E12 and TianTian have already been influenced by the events of the season, so perhaps, all of them can still continue down Timeline B but still change its outcome.

Also, He Hehe now knows exactly that, yes, Zhang Gongzi being the one who got manipulated by the Sunset Chip, is the one who did what he did..... But he also knows that Zhang Gongzi managed to outdo the chip in his last moments, and that he is the one who tried to pull down the circuit breaker lever to lock He Hehe out and keep him out of harm. ;W; AAAAAAAAAAA

On 23 February, Year M213, a serial murder occurred at the Hei Hei Hei Detective Agency. Five corpses were found on-site, consisting of members from the agency: Zhang Gongzi, Ou Qianmian, Chen Xuyuan, Da Baike and Rong Gete... As the Detective Agency could only be accessed through the members' employee cards, authorities narrowed down the suspects to the detectives present on the crime scene. Detective He Hehe, as the only survivor, who woke up on the crime scene with a knife in his hand, was taken into custody as the primary suspect.

-- "Echoes from the Past | 往日回响" - Who's the Murderer? Season 8, Episode 5