#li wei and yin zheng have my whole heart | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sarah-yyy · 1 year

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a few of y’all have asked me about new life begins, and i’m procrastinating over work so............

BASICALLY this story revolves around the royal family of xinchuan (head of the nine states). xinchuan has a tradition wherein the other eight states send eligible women over to marry the xinchuan princes. the show opens with all these women coming into xinchuan for this selection

this is our main character li wei

bbg does Not want to be selected as a bride for any of the princes. she comes from jichuan (one of the least wealthy states, most of them are farmers) wherein people marry for love and men aren’t allowed to have concubines, she is Not Into this xinchuan polygamy bs, and is doing all she can to be sent back home asap so she can live her chill life

this is the sixth prince yin zheng, unloved (for now!) and mostly unnoticed (also for now!!) son of an unfavoured concubine. he’s introduced as being sickly and of little note in the political field. he mostly gets along with his brothers by virtue of having little interaction with them and keeping a real low profile

this boy is way smarter than he presents to outsiders!! he knows that the least favourable political marriage will be assigned to him, so he figures he might as well get ahead of it and voluntarily ask for the nominee from jichuan to be his wife

li wei ends up yin zheng’s concubine!!! which is the worst!!! not only does she have to conform to this xinchuan polygamy bs, she’s not even his main wife!!! she’s depressed for a few days until she catches wind that yin zheng only has a few weeks left to live (fake news) and it just kickstarts a whole bunch of hilarious shenanigans in which she tries to be nice to him before he dies and she gets to go home to jichuan as a widow

cue yin zheng (who doesn’t know what li wei is thinking) going: she’s??? nice to me???? mayhaps..........she be.........in love with me??????

(uhhhh because she’s adorable???? i like her)

ANYWAY y’all get the drift, it’s the whole arranged marriage, strangers to lovers, pining after my spouse vibe that i absolutely love!!!

but it’s not just that!!! it’s also that the female characters are all well-written and the friendships between all of them are so cute!!

first left is shangguan jing, fifth prince’s wife! she’s from danchuan which is a matriarchal society. she’s good at martial arts and very straightforward. does not really want to be married to xinchuan (much less to the fifth prince who starts off liking someone else), but is Doing Her Duty. i am SO INVESTED in her relationship with the fifth prince ahhhh, he’s a wimp (affectionate) who, this far in the show, has come to love his wife and is fretting constantly over how to make her happy/make her love him

first right is hao jia! she’s the second prince’s concubine and li wei’s bff. she’s sweet and well-natured and essentially Good At Everything. the second prince is kind of a dick with obvious dv tendencies, but he’s the eldest son of the emperor’s wife and next in line for the throne. i am just HOPING we get to see hao jia go off on him one day soon 😭 (side note: i’m actually also curious about the second prince’s wife - i wonder if she and hao jia will team up to get rid of the second price ugh)

this is yuan ying junzhu, my li wei’s yin zheng’s wife. hoooo boy folks, when the emperor ordered yin zheng to marry her against his Very Strong Objection, i thought we were going to start in on the angst and the whole jealous wife arc, but!!! she’s got zero interest in him, and they decide that she’ll basically stay at the manor as his advisor/li wei’s tutor! she 100% likes li wei more than she likes yin zheng lbr

not pictured but also a+++ characters that i love: the third prince’s wife + his harem of concubines (he’s named them all after the 24 traditional solar terms); the seventh prince and his wife (both of whom are adorable and just try to stay low-key and out of trouble); song wu²; all the servants at the sixth prince’s manor

ANYWAY this show is light-hearted and fun and an absolute delight to watch!! it’s been awhile since we’ve had a romcom-ish cdrama that’s had actual budget to produce something to this quality 💖 11/10 would rec!!!

where to watch: iqiyi // viki // youtube status: this updates every sunday to wednesday (local chinese time), with 2 eps being released every day. 22/40 eps have aired so far, i think iqiyi subs are up to date with the current airing schedule but i can’t be sure? someone correct me if i’m wrong!

#tv rec #new life begins #cdrama #the amount of serotonin i get from watching this every morning on my way to work is unbelievable 😭💕#thank you new life begins for giving me the will to live every monday to thursday #usual disclaimer: i don't watch cdramas with eng subs so idk the quality of the subs VENTURE IN AT YOUR OWN RISK

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drivingsideways · 5 years

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Episode 70

*deep sigh *

It’s clear that FZW by now, has completely lost all trust in NY; or rather she *trusts * him to do all the wrong things.

OH THE FUCKING IRONY OF THIS, LISTEN TO YOURSELF NING YI, YOU REALLY HAVE BECOME YOUR FATHER.

Zhiwei’s single minded focus here is to get her people to safety- a stance that Ning Yi finds infuriating.

I remember the first time I watched this I went DUDE NO DON’T GO THERE DON’T GO THERE DON’T GO THERE

BUT OF COURSE HE WENT THERE

ME: *GASP * DUDE YOU DID NOT YOU DID NOT

Oh Zhiwei. But here’s the thing- in the end, this simplifies things for her? Like, he’s just another man, who thinks he can take what he wants from her, just another man who’s reducing her to her body, and that? that is nothing that she can’t trade for the sake of her people, whom she OWES.

Ning Yi YOU FUCKED UP

SO BADLY I CAN’T EVEN.

me: take it back, take it back, jesus have you lost your fucking mind

Zhiwei starts disrobing: the equivalent of a slap to his face, and you can see he FEELS it.

“Why?” he asks

He’s so angry, he pushes her to the bed- DUDE DUDE WHAT ARE YOU DOING

WHY DO YOU THINK YOU FUCKING IDIOT

MORAL: WE ALL TURN INTO OUR PARENTS

me: * bangs head on desk *

They cut to that scene where Wei Zhi and Ning Yi had a conversation about how society needs to change (disregard status and connections)

what a fucking tragic call back, my heart is in pieces.

Again, I’m fairly sure a scene cut here ruined some of this: it feels Zhiwei would have something to say here? because the next scene is a jump cut to them sitting together on the bed and she’s all soft and sad and tragic

He also reiterates his wish for peace and prosperity for Tiansheng, and the right to life and dignity for all people-

but it’s tragic that she calls him “Your Majesty”, and not Ning Yi, and his response, heartfelt as it is, is also from that perspective. And so no matter that he is tender and emotional (”I want all your lifetimes”), the man next to her is The Emperor, not just the man she is in love with; and she is the Princess of Dacheng, not just Feng Zhiwei.

OOOOPS.

Yep boy, you’re always going to be the Emperor, even in the bedroom, there’s no escaping it.

Ning Yi tells her that he’ll have proof for her in three days time, and asks whether she will be willing to become his Empress if she is satisfied after that.

The contrast to the first proposal he had made, way back in Minhai, could not be more stark. This is an Emperor negotiating, never mind that he is still desperately in love with her; but love and possession and power are too mixed up now, and he doesn’t know how to untangle it. Neither of them does.

Later, she comes to the former residence of the Prince of Chu

ARGGHHHHH THESE TWO ARE SO GREAT IN THIS SCENE,and i love how this is set in this room, with the masks, and how Ning Yi swings between being just himself and being The Emperor (even when he clearly doesn’t want to)

When he takes a step toward her, she steps back!

Me: OH NO, OH NO. THIS IS TOO PAINFUL TO WATCH.

AND SO HE STEPS BACK TOO.

I’m just going to be wailing for the rest of the time.

Yueling is brought out (by Gu Nanyi, which, what?? NO EXPLANATION FORTHCOMING) - but Zhiwei can only remember her brother’s telling her that he loved Yueling and that she must trust her. Turns out that *Yueling * stabbed Helian Zheng to death.

me: *rolling eyes * This show is so transparent in its attempts to make NY a “hero” despite all the awful things he’s done. Like the whole Helian Zheng thing is twisted in a most unfuckingbelievable way to make it that NY *didn’t * kill HZ. Outrageously bad writing there, I can’t even.

Yueling’s anger spills over

(Note the similarities to what happened with Zhu Yin)

Feng Zhiwei tells her that she is willing to lose her life to make sure Yueling is safe, but she must give up her plan to destroy the Ning family.

Ning Yi interrupts to say, she doesn’t want you dead, she wants you and me to turn against each other, she wants Tiansheng to destroy Dacheng so that you and I can never go back, and he vows that he will not let that happen.

She brings up Ya Le, Lady Wang and Helian Zheng’s deaths, blaming the both of them for it. You both have so much blood on your hands, she says.

She confesses to killing Ning Shizheng, but Ning Yi doesn’t let Ning Cheng immediately kill her, he orders that she be taken to the Ministry of Justice to await trial.

Alone together, Ning Yi tells her that the truth is hard to bear, and that sometimes it is best not to know.

Meanwhile, Ning Ji tries to convince Ning Qi to turn himself in. There’s a jump cut, so we’re not clear whether his argument actually works, but the next scene is that Ning Qi goes to the Prince of Chu’s residence to meet Ning Yi. They face off against each other, and then DUN-DUN-DUN-

Ning Shizheng is ALIVE!

Honestly, on the first watch, this PLOT TWIST shocked me, but I still find it kind of ...unnecessary?

Ning Qi and Ning Shizheng have a confrontation, with Ning Qi clinging to the edict , like, at the end of the day, it’s the only concrete sign he has that his father may, possibly, once, have loved him. GAH. FUCKING TERRIBLE. :’(

Again, really weird scene cuts- when Ning Qi comes in, there’s only Ning Cheng and Ning Yi in the room. When the Emperor comes in, he’s accompanied by Official Zhao and Yujin. After the flashback to the night of the coup, we come back to the room- and suddenly we have Xin Ziyan and Ning Ji in the room- WHAT????

Me: *tearing out my hair * WHY DID THIS SHOW GO AND RUIN BASIC STUFF LIKE SCENE CONTINUITY IN THE LAST STRETCH

Ning Qi demands that Ning Yi be punished for killing Lady Wang, and finally, finally, Xin Ziyan admits that he was the one.

Oh Ning Yi. What were you planning to do, if Ziyan hadn’t admitted it? (Luckily we don’t have to find out, because I’m sure it would have been something terrible)

The revelation of the miscarriage shocks Ning Qi- “Child?” he keeps saying, “child?”.

Because this entire fiasco is really about their totally fucked up father, and his inability to be a good parent.

Ning Qi stabs himself with the hand with his hair pin

the answer to that is pretty much, NOPE.

Have you not been paying attention, Ning Qi?

God, Ning Shizheng needs to DIE.

In the end Ning Qi is taken away to Zongzheng Temple, completely unhinged.

It’s a very distressing scene, and everyone there is deeply affected by it, and you can see the mix of pity and revulsion on their faces, except the Emperor, who, having survived a murder attempt is probably still bitter about having to give up the throne...ugh.

After Ning Shizheng leaves, Ziyan and Ning Yi are left together.

Ziyan finally comes clean, and also, it seems, finally recognizes Ning Yi’s right to the throne

but Ning Yi has already lost too much, too many people

Ning Yi is too wearied by the losses already, and chooses to let Ziyan go free (or at least that’s the implication) p.s I had to look up what the “Ten Abominations” mentioned in the oath Ning Yi takes as the Emperor were i.e. which crimes did not come under the general amnesty he announces on his ascension and ha, consequently the “Eight Deliberations” i.e. which crimes may be forgiven and for what reason- and I suppose Ziyan could be forgiven on several of those counts, legally and ethically as per the conventions of that time, but honestly, in this case, it really is that Ning Yi cannot bear to lose his friend (though, in a certain sense, the distance between Ziyan and The Emperor will now always remain, as we see below)

HANDHOLDING! OH NO, KILL ME NOW.

Ziyan takes a step back- leaving Ning Yi’s hand empty (me: :’((

oh no

:’((

Somebody rescue my sad murder bae from his lonely fate :’((

Meanwhile, Feng Zhiwei finally confronts Ning Shizheng

area man is shocked by local news at 10

Sigh. Her fight to exist as her own person, to get to choose whom she wants to be during this story has been even more intense than Ning Yi’s, actually. Being a woman in a patriarchal, misogynist world has meant that she’s had to fight every step for her freedom. It is only Qiu Mingying (another woman) who finally says “let her be whoever she wants to be”.

She confronts him about the deaths of her mother and brother

me, whispering softly: oh no oh no oh no

me: * lies down on the ground *

Literally every man in her life has tried to force her to being the shape that they want or need her to be, and expected her to follow, and like in this case, be grateful for it. Whether that was Master Zong (her first teacher), or Ning Yi (her lover) or Zhangsun Hong (her brother).

THAT’S RIGHT GIRL

But Ning Shizheng is more than a match for her, a man who knows exactly how to wield a knife and how deep it will go. He asks her whether Ning Yi has asked her to be the Empress, whether she thinks that will turn out well. Your identity as Dacheng’s heir will be a thorn in his side, he says. and it will turn to bitterness and resentment.

look at her face, oh no oh no

me: *gasp *

OH THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION. IS HE, IS HE?

I’ll be honest: I don’t know, and I think Feng Zhiwei doesn’t know either, and that’s not a good enough answer.

and then the MOST TERRIBLE SCENE OF ALL

GOD HE CAN’T EVEN LOOK HER IN THE EYE FOR LONG AS HE ASKS WHETHER SHE WILL HONOUR THEIR PROMISE

She asks for three days

me: Zhiwei, Zhiwei, wait, wait , wait , think about it, take a year off, take two years off *whimpering *

me: *wailing * GO AFTER HER YOU STUPID MAN GO AFTER HER YOU SHOULD KNOW WHEN SHE’S ACTING HOW MANY TIMES HAS SHE DONE IT IN FRONT OF YOU

Zhiwei goes off to settle things so that the remnants of Dacheng can be safe in Minhai. Honestly, Yan Huaishi is the only valid person in this entire clusterfuck, fight me.

After they leave, she says

Zhiwei, retain some of that hope for yourself, gdi.

Nanyi renews his vow to go where she goes.

This is the part I really don’t get- would she really do that to him? Leave him alone in the world? I can’t believe it :’(

I would have absolutely accepted an ending where she takes him and they leave? Like, if anyone can swing that, it would be her.

But I think this is where the weight of everything that has happened to her, the seeming inevitability of it, seems to have finally broken her.

And so, like Ning Shizheng had predicted, it is a harsh winter.

So look- I said earlier that on the rewatch, I could see that they were telling a different story than what I had first imagined: that the central conflict is not between individuals but between individuals and Fate, and the writers come down on the side of “Fate” winning, all the time.

With that in mind, I suppose, you can see her suicide as a last act of resistance- “you are free” says Ning Yi to her, in his last soliloquy. She escapes her “Fate” through death; but he remains alive and bound to it. Theoretically, I can see how that works?

But on another level, I still can’t accept it specifically because she’s a woman, and how they wrote that story. While Ning Yi and Feng Zhiwei have parallel arcs about identity and finding their place in the world, and fighting Fate for their freedom, only one of those two arcs ends in death.

Her anger- which we are only allowed to see in flashes, and always, is almost just as quickly, undermined- especially, especially at the end, when it is turned at the “hero” of the story. Her anger is transmuted in the writing to despair and sorrow. I was reading a Leslie Jamison quote the other day that hit me so hard, because I was watching this at the same time. A woman’s anger is not seen as “manageable”, we would rather see her sad, than angry. A corollary to that is that the anger and sorrow must be- has to be- turned inward, upon herself than outward. Men, on the other hand- well, we know how that goes. And that’s why, at the end of the day, Ning Yi’s sorrow can be (hypothetically) turned into a vision of a utopian empire; his anger and power seeking (morally justified in the writing, over and over, because of the terrible things that happen to him, upto and including the fact that Zhiwei leaves him behind in the end) can be rewarded, in some way; not that he’s not tragic, like sure, there’s the whole metaphorical sacrificing of himself (Liulang) for the man he is destined to be- it’s that he’s left alive. With life, there is always possibility. Besides, being a man, HE HAS THINGS TO DO LIKE RUNNING THE WORLD. NATURALLY. So Ning Yi is left with possibility, and a final breakng-the-fourth-wall-look-into-the-camera-as he promises to Fulfill his Mission- while Feng Zhiwei- no, she’s not allowed that, she can only throw herself off a cliff (and float through the air, as though someone ending their life because they can’t see their way forward is beautiful.)

Well, anyways, that ends that.

This has been...fun? ahahahahaha, NO IT HAS NOT.

THIS SHOW HAS RUINED MY LIFE.

#the phoenix pit #phoenix drama #a tragedy by any other name

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