#yuanniang

[tartsplace]

CGX Week Day 7: Fluff

I actually drew this a few days ago and then realized it would work for today :D

[guzhuangheaven]

Brocade Heart Like Jade/The Sword and the Brocade

Ying’er as Luo Yuanniang

[torpublishinggroup]

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WHAT IT’S ABOUT

All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters…all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.

But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum.

[tomorrowsdrama]

Lianfang is truly a psycho.  She literally poisoned Yuanniang to cause her to miscarry because she didn’t want to see Lingyi treat his wife well.  And this is before she was even married to him!  Imagine your mother-in-law’s niece randomly poisoning you just because she had a crush on your husband who barely gave her the time of day.  Crazy!

I never felt bad for her before because she willingly chose to become Lingyi’s concubine and I definitely don’t feel bad for her now.  Yuanniang may have set her up but she was clearly given an out.  And Lingyi flat out told her he would never love her so she willingly walked into that loveless marriage.  She also was never mistreated despite being a concubine because old biddy favored her.  Also, not only did Shiyi not mistreat her as the main wife, she told her that she had no desire to compete for Lingyi.  So Lianfang literally had no legitimate reason to to try to kill Zhun or cause Danyang to lose her child.  Everything she did was out of her own pettiness. 

And this girl never shows any remorse outside of how it might affect her.  She only “repented” and prayed to Yuanniang when she thought she was being haunted by her ghost.  Hell, she went right back to trying to harm Shiyi as soon as she realized there was no ghost.  Self-reflection, she don’t know her.  So yeah, I don’t feel sorry for her because she actually had choices in her life, unlike some of the other women. She just chose all of the wrong ones because she was obsessed with becoming Lingyi’s main wife (even when his wife was alive!).  

Her biggest problem is that she always unreasonably covets what is not hers and will do anything to get it, including killing people.  She coveted Yuanniang’s position as the main wife when she was alive and now she wants to take the position from Shiyi.  Even though she “lowered” herself by becoming Lingyi’s concubine, she never intended to stay a concubine.  It’s quite clear that it was always her plan to become his main wife one way or another.  

But the thing is, I also feel like she may not be solely responsible for Yuanniang’s death.  She definitely caused her to miscarry and her health to weaken because of the miscarriage, but I feel like Yuanninang may have been further poisoned after the miscarriage.  God, Lingyi is hot but he’s not “I’ll kill for you” hot.  Ladies of the Xu manor, love yourselves more!

[dilirebas]

So, I recently started watching The Long Ballad. A'Dou and Gongsun Heng both sacrificed themselves in their own ways. I could tell they were prepared to die too-A'Dou with his kowtowing, Gongsun Heng with the way he spoke at the table. Now Li Changge is left without her apprentice (lil bro) and little Yuanniang is left without her parents.

The Shuozhou arc is definitely a heartbreaking one, and it was a huge lesson for Chang Ge on self-sacrifice and seeing the bigger picture. In a way, I sometimes think that A'Dou was prepared to die from the start. The scene where he leaves and Chang Ge says that she didn't teach him much felt like a final goodbye.

But even when we look back at his introduction, he was a penniless kid with no family and he nearly got caught stealing food before Chang Ge saved him. So before meeting Chang Ge, he was already living on the edge. But at the time he was living an "insignificant" life, and if he ended up dead one day, no one would have really noticed. Once he became Chang Ge's apprentice he didn't learn much from her (it's true) but he got to fight for a cause that he really believed in and he died a hero's death. And the fact that he's a kid shouldering all that responsibility and sacrifice makes it really hit home.

And Gongsun Heng's death shows not just heroism, but who gets left behind in an age of heroes. In a better world, there would be no need for heroes, and Gongsun Heng would watch Yuan Niang grow up.

[shangyangjunzhu]

Qiao lianfang: someone in this household is plotting against me and trying to bring me down and is trying to hurt me.

Also Qiao lianfang: may have poisoned yuanniang, almost killed zhun-ge, tried to have shiyi kidnapped

[dangermousie]

FYI, I just read an explanation of certain not-quite-correct subs re: The Sword and the Brocade that I thought you would appreciate. When Yuanniang on her deathbed asks Lingyi to show Shiyi "timian", it gets mistranslated in the subtitles as "give her a grand wedding" but actually it means "give her dignity / respect" in a way that basically implies "please sleep with her so people know she has your favor". Which makes so much more sense in context! That's why he flashes back to that request on their wedding night!

OMG, this is awesome, and thank you! It also explains his attempt because he really approached it with all the enthusiasm of a man whose boss told him to do a bunch of backroom filing and oh well, I guess it’s a job

Though with his personality he may have tried to do it anyway because he’s proper about duty and it’s part of duty to sleep with one’s wife on their wedding night. Or maybe not. It’s his duty to sleep with Lianfang after all and he has refused. Either way, he was probably perfectly happy she turned him down and notably didn’t even bother trying again until after he started liking her.

(This is the first drama with a harem set-up where I would completely buy if they make ML utterly monogamous at the end due to his basic nature and not mad devotion. He really is someone who desperately dislikes the fuss and effort and drama associated with multiple women and, frankly, if he didn’t both like and fall for Shiyi, would probably be happy to never have ANY women in the house.)

[linggluu]

these two were interesting to watch. If yuanniang was 王世子's wife, he would have beat her on the spot.

[renewedmotionforjudgment]

So judging by the previews, the divorce plot will be happening between eps 26-30 (probably will continue to 35, knowing cdramas). I kind of get why, from a narrative perspective, in the sense that there needs to be something in the plot to reveal Shiyi’s feelings for Lingyi.

It’s interesting because it seems VERY drastic for Lingyi to do. It’s a loss of face for his family and certainly his other marriages are not exactly successful. There’s a certain underlying shoujo-ness to the drama (which I enjoy greatly), so my guess and considering the increased appearance of the second ML, it’s going to be something from how Lingyi doesn’t think Shiyi reciprocate his feelings and it’s somehow a weird love gesture on his part. It would tie in to one of the most interesting lines in the drama — when Yuanniang asked Lingyi to marry Shiyi, one part of Lingyi’s hesitancy was that she was young and he didn’t want her to waste her youth on him.

[alwaysfortracer85]

sorry for the late reply anon, sometimes I get showered with so many asks that the older ones remain neglected for a long time and then I am wating for an occasion to return to them. Since we are talking about LoF I remembered about your ask. Xie Yun is such a rare gem, you just want to wrap him in a blanket and take away from jiejie, her fans, Goose H*ace. And it got me thinking - if I could make decent fan edits, whom would I choose as female lead to be Xie Yun's love interest. And the first one who came to mind was You Jingru and her Han Yuanniang/Han Shiyi. One thing - if you end up watching The Heiress (SPOILER ALERT) the only bad thing about it as an open ending, kinda shitty move. But both lead characters remain alive at least so may end up getting together one day, but I still wish they had a proper happy ending instead of ambiguous one

[renewedmotionforjudgment]

I was thinking about this earlier. I feel like if in episode 2, Yuanniang had told Lingyi outright, “I am dying and as my death wish I wanted to make sure our son is well cared for so I would like you to marry one of my younger sisters and make her your primary wife instead of Lianfang” he would honestly agree? Not super happy about it but they would have avoided the Lianfang situation all together. Instead of this big scheme that essentially ended up with the same result but with the added complication of yet another unwanted marriage/concubine. The irony of all the scheming is that they don’t need to scheme at all! He would treat them with respect and made sure they are well cared for but because he didn’t want to marry any of them in the first place wouldn’t really favor one particular concubine.

Usually with this harem dramas, I have low sympathy for the male characters straddled with multiple wives but Lingyi has all my sympathy 😭

The pain and frustration in his voice during the scene. I’m sure if his wife came to him and talked, they’d find a solution together but there’s already an ocean between them. They’ll never be able to reconcile and if he was more affectionate I’m not sure if the wife would truly accept or trust him not to scheme alone.

He grew up well adjusted, respectful and seems cognisant than most males in these dramas but considering his position, he can’t hide away from having concubines at least when first establishing himself.

He’s had no choice in choosing his wife or his concubines and that makes him want hide in his shell more and he’s aware of that

The evils of polygamy and the way it ruins marriages. I’m sure if he transmigrated to the 21st century with our monogamous marriages, he’d be a happy camper. Only one wife to devote his attention too

It’s really not 😭 (well maybe the fault of the male sex in setting up this system)

[guzhuangheaven]

The Sword and the Brocade ep 1-10 spoilers

For a character whose only job in the drama is dying, Yuanniang is actually a very interesting character. What she did to Lianfang was completely nasty, but considering how determined she was to make sure that things went as she planned after she died, it’s very impressive how she is trying to meticulously cover all her bases. Yuanniang ends up extracting a death bed promise from Lingyi that he would marry Shiyi, and you’d think that would be enough and there would be no need to ruin Lianfang’s reputation to the point that she either has to accept becoming Lingyi’s concubine or hide away in the countryside. However by ruining Lianfang, Yuanniang is making sure there is no way that Lianfang could convolute a way for Lingyi to marry her as his second wife despite the death bed promise, and let’s be real, Lianfang and her mother totally would.

As delusional as Lianfang is about Lingyi and his (lack of) feelings for her, she didn’t deserve to be trapped like that. That said, I ran out of sympathy for her pretty soon, ironically not because anything she does exactly, because right now she just exists to be annoying, but because of Lingyi’s mother blatant favouritism towards her. The favouritism gets much much worse after Shiyi marries in, and it’s a total double standard because she justifies Lianfang stomping all over the boundaries of her station but would totally tear Shiyi apart if she ever did the same kind of things.

The interesting thing is though, despite the fact that it’s obvious Lingyi has no idea what to do with any of his women (there is a sequence where he tries to spend time with them in ep 9 and I died of second hand embarrassment), he is principled in a pathological way that reminds me of Changbai. Even a year after Yuanniang died, he still holds a grudge against Yuanniang for orchestrating trapping him with Lianfang and he also thinks that Shiyi was totally in on it with Yuanniang. So a lot of his reserve with Shiyi at the beginning of their marriage stems from that. But at the same time, despite of this, he doesn’t tolerate Lianfang stomping all over Shiyi either, which is surprising refreshing.

Shiyi allows Lianfang to continue to run the household because she isn’t looking at this marriage in the long term. Like I’m pretty sure she’s literally planning to skip town or orchestrate someone way for Lingyi to divorce her the moment she finds out who killed her mother. So she tells Lingyi that it doesn’t matter who runs the household as long as it’s done right. While I do think Shiyi does actually believe that, she also doesn’t take the initiative herself because she doesn’t care. Lingyi on the other hand thinks Shiyi should take over the household not because he necessarily thinks Shiyi is capable of it or can do it better than Lianfang, but simply because it is her duty, which Lianfang shouldn’t be usurping.

There’s also another incident where Lianfang commandeered the fabric meant to be Shiyi’s and sent Lingyi the fabric meant to be given to a concubine instead, and Lingyi’s mother let her get away with it when things blew up. But the moment Lianfang wears clothes made from the mistress’s fabric to see Lingyi, he shuts her right down. He doesn’t do this because he feels any affection or even obligation to Shiyi (who, again doesn’t care) but because what Lianfang did was morally wrong. It’s interesting because I get the vibe that Lingyi doesn’t always know what’s going on with the women in his house, but because the fabric incident was messy enough that he hears gossip about it, he doesn’t hesistate to get involved and setting things straight. Other men might end up in a nasty confrontation with his mother for indulging Lianfang, but Lingyi is so efficient that he simply has to hint at sinful greed at Lianfang to shut down her arrogance. I wonder though whether he is aware of the extent to which his mother indulges Lianfang at Shiyi’s (and Wen and Qin’s) expense, because while he berates Shyi for not standing up to herself, he doesn’t seem to realise that standing up for herself requires going against his mother. I mean, the danger of that is not the reason why Shiyi is letting Lianfang have her way, but if she ever does decide to step up, it would be significant barrier. 

To be honest I’ve been skipping most of the politic scenes with men so I have no idea what’s going on outside of the women’s world. But I did pause on a conversation that Lingyi has with some duke about how often two people who have the same principles and goals might find different ways to appraoch achieving those goals etc etc. And I’m here screaming at Lingyi like dude take note this is relevant this is literally you and Shiyi right now. They both want their household to just coexist in peace and for Lingyi that means everyone should be doing their duties, including Shiyi taking over the management of the household and asserting her position as the mistress, whereas for Shiyi it just means getting involved as little as possible and everyone leaving her the hell alone. 

The previews for the next couple of episodes seeem to hint that Lianfang will mess something up pretty spectacularly and that might be the catalyst for Shiyi to do more in the Xu family, which will be interesting to see. -H

[guzhuangheaven]

Brocade Heart Like Jade/The Sword and the Brocade

Keep this up and Xu Lingyi might just rival Yan Que for “best father redemption arc”.

If you think about how much baggage Yan Que has even before Chiyan what with one of his best friends the Emperor stealing the girl he loves right out under his nose, you can get some explanation for his distance from Yujin, a distance that just gets entrenched even more after Chiyan. And finding his way back to being a good father to Yujin was definitely necessary for Yan Que to recover from the various tragedies/traumas that made up probably most of his adult life. The tragic life doesn’t justify being a bad father, but at least there’s a reason there.

Xu Lingyi’s reason for not being able to bond with his son is just…like…he’s just socially awkward? With everyone who isn’t involved in his work? Also he wasn’t home for probably half of his son’s very young life. But what is remarkable is that a year passes between Xu Lingyi returns home/Yuanniang dying and Lingyi marrying Shiyi. Yet it seems that in that year, Lingyi hasn’t managed to bond with Zhun-ge at all, whereas we see that Zhun-ge bonded pretty quickly with Shiyi after she marries into the house, despite not even being raised by her. Again, Lingyi is just kind of awkward and before Shiyi came along, his way of showing concern for his son was to berate him and make him do traditionally masculine activities he doesn’t like.

But then Shiyi makes one passive-aggressive comment and has one earnest conversation with Lingyi about the toxic masculinity in the way he is raising his son, and he turns completely around and becomes so much gentler with Zhun-ge. Sure, it takes prodding here and there for him to show his affection, but he listens and gets it, and he tries. And it’s so gratifying to watch.  

[guzhuangheaven]

lol this entire drama is just a crusade against patriarchal polygamy. I mean that was clear from the beginning but eps 37-42 really cements that by having BOTH Lingyi and Lingkuan pissing off their mother by swearing never to take in another concubine. I know it’s supposed to be a moving scene but it also is so funny to me, because this is like the cdrama equivalent of dropping an anvil on the head of polygamy.

Even as it has these two men just flatly refusing in perpetuating this system at least in their own lives, I like the fact that it also doesn’t entirely let Lingyi off the hook for having had concubines. While these episodes are about getting rid of Wen Yiniang and Qin Yiniang, it also brings home many points about how his neglect of his concubines, including the deceased Tong Yiniang, have consequences. Tong Yiniang killed herself because she was forced by Yuanniang into being a concubine and she’s a plot device, but ultimately Qiao Lianfang, Wen Yiniang and Qin Yiniang all did things that could ruin the entire Xu family, all because they resented Lingyi’s neglect and/or their position. Sure, Lingyi managed to circumvent coming to actual harm by the virtue of being a male lead in a drama, but in the final confrontation with both Wen Yiniang and Qin Yiniang, he can’t bring himself to say anything to them in self-defence at their accusations of neglect. Even his “I guess you forced my hand so I’ll take my wife’s maid as a concubine” indifferent attitude with Tong Yiniang has far reaching consequences long after her death.

Though to be fair, half of this could have been prevented if Lingyi’s mother just stopped meddling in his life.

But also if you need proof just how much of a character Luo Dataitai is, she and Yuanniang already forced Biyu to be Lingyi’s concubine to consolidate Yuanniang’s power, and later has the exact same plan for her sister Hupo to consolidate Shiyi’s. It’s like, it didn’t work the first time and you think it’ll work the second time?

Meanwhile, Lingyi and Shiyi continue to take 夫妻同心 to the next level, in that I no longer believe in any public fight they have. This is literally the third fake divorce they’ve orchestrated. At this point I’m convinced this switch and bait of the audience is the only way the drama can create something that resembles conflict between these two people. Note to Xu Lingyi’s enemies, right now the actual way to cause him harm is not to come up with stupidly elaborate plans to push random women on him, but just find a way to steal one of those fake divorce letters and make a public announcement of it or something.

There’s three? four? more episodes left and we still have a whole execution plot to get through…I’m not sure how they’ll do that in that small space. -h

[tomorrowsdrama]

Said every daughter to their disappointing fathers in every period cdrama ever.

I have a feeling Shiyi’s father is going to give Minglan’s father a run for the title of most useless, self-serving, and unreliable father ever.

I present to you, the most cold hearted bitch of the drama.  That’s saying a lot considering her daughter orchestrated an entire scheme to force a high-ranked woman into either becoming a concubine, something completely below her status, or risk marring her chaste reputation in a society where a woman’s reputation is more important than life.

It really takes a certain level of evil and cruelty to tell a girl who just lost her mother that she was the reason for her death.  I could at least understand Yuanniang’s scheming since she did it all for her son’s future.  But Madame Luo?  She’s just a nasty bitter woman who has it out for Shiyi. I look forward to watching Shiyi foil all of her future plans. 

[tomorrowsdrama]

Ok Old Biddy Xu has overtaken Lianfang as most unlikeable character in the drama. At least Lianfang had the excuse of being young and dumb. This old biddy has all the years but none of the wisdom that comes with age.

Yeah yeah she was emotional because she thought Lingyi was dead but honestly it probably wouldn’t have taken that much for her to turn on Shiyi.

Erniang is a spiteful petty bitch but she’s living in her own hell with an abusive monster of a husband so I can cut her some slack. But what excuse does old biddy have? How long did it take for her to finally admit Lianfang was wrong and kick her out? And how little did it take for her to want to kill Shiyi? I guess killing other people is ok but killing her son is not, which, I GUESS. I can’t believe all Lianfang got was 30 strikes and a “get thee to a nunnery!” after killing Yuanniang and all the other attempted murders.

Also, looks like Concubine Qin is finally starting to show her little rat tail.

[tomorrowsdrama]

Amber is such a frustrating character to watch and I’m not saying that because of that painful “seduction” attempt. I get that she was forced to do that by Madam Luo (who maybe is more aptly called a Madame) so I don’t hold it against her. But it’s everything else she did before getting to that point that frustrates me!

okay I get that she has to report back to Madam Luo re Shiyi and Shiyi even acknowledges it. But she couldn’t have lied to her and said that Lingyi and Shiyi were sleeping together? Who would know if she lied? He spends enough time there and it’s not like he hasn’t tried, so it wouldn’t be such an unbelievable lie

Why oh why did she not explain to Shiyi the situation about her longlost sister? She knows Shiyi is an understanding person and even quite capable. Like, gasp! Perhaps she could actually help? Definitely wouldn’t hurt to at least talk about it. And then she goes and talks about it to Mr. Lin! A complete outsider! So even though she later says she didn’t tell Shiyi about it because she was afraid Madam Luo would harm her sister, uhh she didn’t have any problems telling Mr. Lin? Also, did she think Shiyi would be so stupid as to go running to Madam Luo about it and risk exposing Amber?

Why the hell did she not refute Nanny Tao’s very wrong assumption that Lingyi does not like Shiyi? Perhaps she wouldn’t have been pushed into seducing him if they knew he liked her? Maybe they’d still push her, but she should have at least tried. She’s seen him visiting and lingering around Shiyi. Please tell me she is not so dense that she also assumes he doesn’t like Shiyi because they haven’t slept together.

Perhaps she didn’t think about any of these things because she’s a maid with low status and lives in fear of Madam Luo. Or maybe she was written this way for plot reasons. Who knows. But even if I may understand the possible why’s, it’s still frustrating to watch.

Also I take back my previous statement about Nanny Tao. I’m done with her “well-intentioned” meddling. Now, shoo!

With a mother like Madame Luo, no wonder Yuanniang was the way she was. I’d bet money that she had a hand in Yuanniang’s former maid seducing Lingyi. And maybe that event is what caused the rift between Yuanniang and Lingyi.