Nirvana in Fire

I finished watching last night. I think I watched like 35 episodes in the last week, after taking it pretty slow for the first third. I don't *do* that. But here's the second thing that I've done that with, so maybe I do.

Let's see if I can say anything non-spoilery

Something very reminiscent of King Lear about the overall plot, with a side of ( Oops, this is a massive Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed spoiler as a reference )

LOTS of wonderful women characters, with agency and goals of their own, who don't get killed or sidelined in favor of some man's story. A princess whose introduction brings her in full armor (and not boob armor, neither), who defeats men in single combat all the time.

Wider variety of characters in general than the Untamed. All ages, both men and women, not a uniformly gorgeous array of twinks. (Not that I minded the uniformly gorgeous twink array, don't get me wrong here.)

This is the first media I've consumed in quite some time that made me ship a het couple. Even if a big part of me wants to make that an MFM OT3.

I cried so hard last night at the end. But people (I can't entirely remember who--probably folks on the podfic discord) who said the ending was bittersweet but also *right*--were correct. And now I am going to go find all the fic that changes it.

Duolingo Chinese is paying off. I understand quite a bit, although it's still more a matter of "oh, the subtitle has the clauses in a different order" or "so that's how you say 'your majesty' in Chinese" and less "I can turn the subtitles off and still follow this".

Oh, and I was tickled pink when I learned there had been Nine Princes.

And now for some more specific spoilery comments. ( Read more... )