worth it
- I loved it all! The ending, well, I wouldn't have minded seeing Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei walk off into the sunset together while both actually being alive, but I knew it was going to end tragically and it was a very good tragic ending and fit the story
- but, it was only on reading other people's meta that I realised that the Zhao Yunlan we see accepting flowers post-war isn't actually the real Zhao Yunlan but possibly the energy spirit who was living in his father's head now getting a body of his own? Which makes a certain amount of sense. I started off seeing it as 'now that he's alive and his Shen Wei is dead he is very sad and serious' but then we get the shots of Lin Jing and Da Qing holding their photos in a very 'these two people are both dead' way and I was baffled.
- I kind of adored the whole thing where we see Lin Jing and Shen Wei and everyone after Ye Zun has inhaled them, but all the red fleshy lumps around them meant that all I could think of was The Magic Schoolbus Inside The Human Body, which spoiled the effect (Cub adores those books and I have read them to him one zillion times; I apologise if mentioning this means I spoil everyone else's appreciation of the drama of the scene and you start picturing Ms Frizzle driving by saying 'and out the window you can see the partially digested souls who have been inhaled by an evil villain, are you listening Arnold?')
- the whole thing where Shen Wei uses his mortal wound of having shared human life-energy in order to kill Ye Zun was telegraphed so hard you could practically see it coming from the scene with the knife in the kitchen, but it was still very satisfying and Shen Wei suffers extremely prettily
- relately, the actor playing Shen Wei is amazing! I swear he had about six different roles in the show and he made them all distinct: Shen Wei, mild-mannered professor, nothing to see here; Black Cloaked Envoy in his majesty and power; Shen Wei in his professor outfit when everyone knows he's the Black Cloaked Envoy; bb!Shen Wei before he's Shen Wei; Ye Zun; Ye Zun pretending to be Shen Wei. And he is supernaturally beautiful too.
- apparently this show has a theme, and it's don't believe everything you see, from Congbo to Ye Zun. I enjoyed its dedication to making sure that all the villains learned that their villainy had been completely pointless and directed towards people who didn't deserve it and how they all ended up with tragic deathbed reconciliations
- if there's a vid that's basically just all the epic h/c moments between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, link me? The early episodes are full of Zhao Yunlan carefully helping Shen Wei up and dusting him off, and the later episodes are full of Shen Wei flinging himself dramatically into disaster to protect Zhao Yunlan, and I love it all and want to rewatch it all at once
- Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng are the most adorable couple ever and their scene in the finale cracked me up so hard. No going on dates with strange girls, Changcheng! They don't appreciate you like I do! I love them to bits. It's also kind of cute how xiao-Guo slowly steals Lao Chu's heart away from the Envoy, who is clearly Chu's first hopeless crush. I loved the whole nightmare sequence too, that was incredible
- IDK if I'm wildly off-base here, but looking at shiny modern Haixing and grim grey Dixing, and the steady stream of fugitives escaping Dixing for Haixing and the scary black-robed guy hunting them down again and sending them back - does anyone else get major Iron Curtain vibes from this setup? Someone who is smarter than me should write this AU
- and by all means send me fic recs! It's trickier than usual finding stuff on AO3 because the language tagging is wonky
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/163239.html. There are