THE GLORY 雁回时 (2025) dir. Yang Long | Ep. 9 XIN YUNLAI as FU YUNXI FU JING as CHAI JING

Mirror Demon · Love Game in Eastern Fantasy · 2024

一剪梅·红藕香残玉簟秋 - plum blossom cutting · red lotuses linger in remnants of fragrance

by 李清照 (Li Qingzhao, 1084 -1155)

红藕香残玉簟秋 hóngǒu xiāng cán yù diàn qiū Red lotuses linger in remnants of fragrance; on bamboo mats, jade-like, there is a touch of Autumn.

轻解罗裳 独上兰舟 qīng jiě luōshang dú shàng lánzhōu Slightly parting the light silk skirt, alone, she boards the magnolia-wood boat.

云中谁寄锦书来 yún zhōng shéi jì jǐnshū lái From within the clouds, whose letter for home approaches?

雁字回时 月满西楼 yàn zì huí shí yuè mǎn xī lóu When geese return in their word formation, the moon fills the west storeyed pavilion.

花自飘零水自流 huā zì piāolíng shuǐ zìliú Alone, flowers fall. Alone, water flows on.

一种相思 两处闲愁 yī zhǒng xiāngsī liǎng chù xián chóu A particular yearning in two places, twice the idle sorrow.

此情无计可消除 cǐ qíng wú jì kě xiāochú This feeling which no scheme can dispel,

才下眉头 却上心头 cái xià méitóu què shàng xīntóu was just shed from the brow, yet rises in the heart.

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《一剪梅》A Single Cutting of Plum Blossoms

李清照 by Li Qingzhao

紅藕香殘玉簟秋。 Pink lotus withered, but its fragrance lingers; I slumber, on a jade-smooth woven mat in autumn. 輕解羅裳，獨上蘭舟。 Lightly I part my skirts, boarding a lily boat alone.

雲中誰寄錦書來？ Who’d send me embroidered words amid the clouds? 雁字回時，月滿西樓。 By the time your letter returns with the geese flying south, moonlight has filled the western chambers.

花自飄零水自流。 Alone, flowers fall and wither; alone, water flows. 一種相思，兩處閒愁。 A single kind of yearning; makes a coupled kind of melancholy.

此情無計可消除， This sentiment no means could erase, 才下眉頭，卻上心頭。 it’d just fallen from my brow, yet it’s risen in my heart.

Legend of Ruyi | who knew that calling Qianlong out on his crap would unite them

When this many women feel the need to tell you how done they are with you, you have a problem. 

Deeeeelicious!!!!

The Glory (2025) - final verdict

For those who don't want to read the whole thing, short version: has its issues but overall would recommend.

Now, you may go "but Mousie, you ranted so much recently, really? What changed?" Two things - (1) I adjusted genre expectations and (2) after the nadir of eps 20-25, I found 26-end quite solid and much more to my liking (they moved on from random side characters and back to core relationships; it also helped enormously that FL again started caring for someone(s) who are alive - concubine, stepkid, husband etc.) The drama never returned to true obsession levels of first half for me but it finished well.

Anyway, moving on...

Visually, this drama remained GORGEOUS throughout. I can forgive a lot to a drama this beautifully shot; the look is even more impressive when you know it didn't have a large budget.

The acting was also solid - Chen Duling slowly but steadily went from "oh her ugh" to "oh her yay" for me with every drama and this is no exception. I don't think I'd want to be friends with Hanyan and I don't necessarily like her as a person, but she was wonderfully acted (in addition to being solidly written about which more below.) It was very much her show and the rest, ML included, were basically supporting characters and she carried it off.

The plot was...not great. This writer wanted to get from point A to point B without caring much about the route (Royal Consort's basically offscreen-plotted downfall that took five minutes total is a particular lowlight but the dad's apparently incredible powers - how is he not the prime minister with those skills - were also not great.) But not every drama can be Joy of Life or The Advisors Alliance and compared to something like e.g., Si Jin or Brocade other recent grrlpower dramas, the plot of this one was quite good.

The villain was a weakness because it's boring to have a true sociopath with no complexity or weakness or anything. I suspect the writer just saw him as a stand-in for the patriarchy all these women needed to defeat (the heavy-handed message of this drama was very) but still - a little complexity would help. I do think the men overall were an afterthought in this - the women were all well thought through and whether you liked them or not, logical results of their relationships and circumstances, the men (even the ML) not so much. They were all the equivalent of busty girls in a shounen anime. I do think this is a failure of writing - you can have one-gender focused stories that still make the other appear real people (Joy of Life female characters and Legend of Zhen Huan male characters all feel like real people) but it's honestly not a cardinal sin here since the focus WERE the women and they were written well so I didn't feel the lack most of the time (if only supportings are written meh, it's forgivable.) But the female characters were all intriguing and the story took many of them places I did not expect (the concubine and her daughter? OMG about both of them.)

I ended up buying the ship because they do fit together (and would one really inflict either of these violent schemers on a "normal" person?) but if you want a romance-centric drama, this is obviously not for you. Interestingly, while I ended up liking them and shipping them, I was not rabid the way I thought I'd be and the lack of focus is not really the reason - I was RABID about Kill My Sins protags as a couple and they never even said I Love You let alone kiss or anything. But that's probably because in addition to just preferring LSS x Shawn as actors (they are both huge faves of mine), that drama was a true dual protagonist story - they both were mains in their own lives and narratives which occasionally intersected and were allowed great and equal complexity and life outside the narrative which made me more invested. FYX was hot and psycho and angsty which I love in a fictional man, but he never felt truly fleshed out outside the narrative and interactions/meaning to Hanyan.

I loved loved loved how uncompromisingly bleak this world was and how the characters all stepped in the muck and stayed there (for once, people with trauma did not miraculously come across as saintly and chirpy) and how there were second chances for characters who'd normally not get them (the concubine and her daughter) and how both FL and ML (and concubine etc) did things that I morally disapproved of or that (more shockingly) censors should disapprove of yet it made sense in character and, totally unexpectedly, they were not punished with death by the narrative because people are complex and outcomes are complex and and and.

I also loved that Fu Yunxi was married before and banged his first wife and seems to have liked her. Thank you!!!! (Seeing some peeps on mdl/twitter trying to bend themselves into pretzels to preserve a period adult man's virginity for FL was...well.) I loved that he was a random war orphan, no secret noble identity. I loved that lesbian pirate got to live and hopefully will come back to FL someday. I loved that the happiness at the end was "for now" but sufficient.

Anyway, this is going on and on and on so I am gonna stop on saying I adored that this was a dark story that has been so sadly absent from recent sunshine cdramas and that it had real danger and stakes. It became a surprise hit and I really do think it shows there is hunger for these types of stories; hopefully producers will take note. And I love that the protags were allowed to do all that and yet get a happy ending. That is so so so rare and so so so appreciated.

This was so so so delicious but I keep seeing water dungeons in dramas and how did any of these people survive until execution?

I loved his line btw!

I love her demolishing all the noble idiocy desires and explaining how much it sucked with her mom and CJ. MMMM yessss

Anyway, then the truth comes out, he was also poisoned when wife n1 died and also he then tells her that's why he needed a scary wife but then is all but I fell in love with you and kept having improper thoughts etc etc etc I WANNA SEE SOMETHING IMPROPER COME ON THAT'S JUST MEAN!

Delicious!!!! But also of course she decides she loves him and will save him when not only is it close to impossible to get him out of jail with the head still attached but he's also dying in general. Look at her mom thing - she seems to be drawn to lost causes and only love with pain. Hell of a preference but it's consistent because I don't think she trusts any relationship that promises genuine permanent fluffy bliss; conditional happiness with thorns she can cautiously trust. It's a sign of her damage imo and pretty realistic.

PS He plain text admitted to her he took some of the Pei fortune and hid it so she and his fam can live comfortably for ages - I am all for it but how did censors ever let this man get his eventual happy ending? I'd think they'd have fits!

The Glory (2025)

THE GLORY 雁回时 (2025) dir. Yang Long | Ep. 10 I have never been a gentleman. Are you truly willing?

queen behaviour!!

loveee someone pointing out 棋子 being a wordplay on 妻子 in this context where the deal fyx literally offered to zhy was for her to be his wife and he be her strategist, for zhy to turn it around on him at her disposal. an elegant and implicit takedown of that "你做我的妻子 我做你的谋士" line that i never would have imagined even be remotely addressed again (after zhy literally rebuking him in that moment for trying to take advantage of a woman), since she ended up entering the arrangement anyway. basically, to be your 妻子 wife is to be your 棋子 object of manipulation... but she can be her own strategist and you're just her chess piece... 😌😌😌

The female protagonist of the glory (2025) and the genuine vitriol I'm seeing in reaction to her motives and actions, painting her slow but inevitable descent into more and more monstrousness as she first tries to avenge her own childhood abuse and then her mothers murder, as anything other than a direct retaliation against the very monstrous misogyny and the countless patriarchal crimes committed against her and other women in her society, is a telling sign of poor literacy and an even bleaker lack of understanding of the wider social context that the story sits in. I've seen ppl being annoyed that she hasn't reciprocated the ML's obvious devotion to her, or the heart rending pleads by her adopted daughter/neice to be a loving mother, her threatening to harm innocents around her to achieve her goal of avenging her mothers death even at the cost of her own life as well as others as some of her many crimes. I think what's actually annoying most ppl is that nothing softens her, in fact every story beat, every tragedy, any scrap of affection she gets actually makes her sharper and more myopic in her goal. This is just ONE woman's reaction to abuse and constant tragedy. There are lots of stories of healing from abuse but this very clearly is not one of them. The catharsis she seeks will not be found in the dignity of forgiveness. Frankly I hope she burns it all to the ground