sarcasm always wins out in the end

Hello friends!

I have done a yuletide. Each calls into themselves the divine and the infernal

The fandom is Nirvana in Fire, a Chinese TV show about political scheming and interpersonal pining in 7th-century China. You can (and you should) watch here: https://www.viki.com/tv/22943c-nirvana-in-fire

The premise is this: 11 years ago, the Crown Prince Qi was falsely accused of treason against the Emperor and executed. A part of this false accusation included the supposed betrayal of the Chiyan army, led by General Lin and his son the Young Marshal Lin Shu (very special close friend of the Crown Prince's younger brother, Jingyan), who were all massacred by the supposedly loyal troops of the Emperor's brother-in-law.

Except Lin Shu survived, and spent the next 11 years in disguise - becoming the leader of the Pugilist World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia), recovering from his injuries at the Chiyan massacre by changing the shape of his body entirely, and developing a bickering friendship with the doctor Lin Chen (who is a troll and a gift to the world). At the start of the show, Lin Shu arrives in the Imperial City Jinling with the aim of becoming a strategist to Prince Jingyan, so that he may become the next Crown Prince and eventually the next Emperor, and bring justice to the world generally but to the victims of the Chiayn case in particular.

But here's the rub - Lin Shu does not tell Jingyan that he is his special best friend whom he thinks dead, but rather he presents himself as a scheming political operator named Mei Chang Su, who by nature and practice is opposed to the virtues of honesty and righteousness which Prince Jingyan values.

And then you get 50 episodes of awkward pining and political drama.

I should also say that there are amazing female characters here - the Princess-General Mu Nihuang, who was Lin Shu's betrothed 11 years ago, and Xia Dong, a super-competent investigative officer for the Emperor, who is both the best friend of the Princess and extremely bitter about the supposed betrayal of the Chiyan army, who killed her husband (or did they? Or did he magically turn into a yeti-vampire?).

Anyway; it is glorious - the character dynamics are very well constructed and the end result is vastly engaging, the scenery is gorgeous and everyone has amazing hair and costumes, and it is very interesting to see, if you are mainly used to anglophone TV, how TV drama works in a new cultural context - how the mixture of historical drama and contemporary resonances is achieved, for example. I also ended up learning random bits of Mandarin (how to say "Your Majesty" and "Your Highness", for example, or the different gradations of "yes" when speaking to a superior, an equal, or a subordinate), so if you're interesting in learning a Chinese language, this is very inspirational.