Yessss! Were Going To Get Zhuo Sen And Zhuo Luo In The Brewmaster Donghua! Aaaaah, I Love The Chains

Yessss! We’re going to get Zhuo Sen and Zhuo Luo in the Brewmaster donghua! Aaaaah, I love the chains on Zhuo Sen’s Abyssal Eye! I think I prefer the hilt on Jin Wei’s version, but overall an awesome design 🗡️

Yesss, Zhuo Qing is finally officially introduced in the donghua! I love him and his sassy demeanor already 💜

So nice to see some Zhuo Qing action! With his reputation of fragmenting the heart and dissolving the bones, him full-on blowing up a guy shouldn’t have been surprising, but I’m still working on picking my jaw up from the floor 😹

And Zhuo Qing dressing up as Emperor Tai’an to foil an assassination attempt?!! I’m going absolutely insane over this and am so excited for the rest of the show

Gravitas

“I remember many years ago when I was just an unpopular prince, I didn’t really get to drink good tea. But your grandfather only loved liquor. He threw a lot of tea away, so I got to taste some good tea. I loved drinking tea since then. Tea is great stuff. I don’t want to drink it alone. I want the world to know how wonderful it is. All the strife in this world is caused by the loss of oneself, which is caused by ignorance. I will set the world right by cleaning up evil.”

I love this scene so much. The way it gives meaning to the time Zhuo Qing brought him tea in season 1, the way it lays out his motivations, how it conveys some difficulty and underlying sadness in his past… The contrast between the potential tone-deafness of saying all this to Xiao Ruofeng, who nearly died as a child because his mother was an unpopular consort, and the possibility that Emperor Tai’an sees something of himself in him because Xiao Ruofeng and he were both once unpopular.

The donghua has set itself up to be a chess game between Emperor Tai’an and Xiao Ruofeng, and this scene is very effective in developing it (particularly in the way it contrasts tea with liquor, which holds significance to Baili Dongjun)

The tragedy of Yi Wenjun is that she traded a gilded cage for a wooden one, when all she wanted was to be free.

The keeper of the wooden cage gave her hope, yes, but would never have let her leave. His stories were just stories, and she never got to see the world.

Because of how Yi Wenjun’s oppressive father raised her, she constantly feels like a shadow of herself. The only time her character has ever truly felt alive to me was near the end of the Blood of Youth’s novel, when she was flying through the chaos of her son’s creation, bantering with Jin Xuan as he pleaded for her to return to safety. Her interaction with him near the end of Dashing Youth slightly reminded me of that scene and of why I like her novel counterpart so much.

Freedom is what Yi Wenjun desires above all else, but obligation weighs down her wings. And while her sons never experienced the gilded and wooden cages they were raised in as prisons, she did. Even then, she tried to do what was best for them, rather flawed as that attempt was.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 少年白马醉春风 | Dashing Youth (Live Action TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Xiao Zhongjing/Zhuo Qing, Jin Wei & Zhuo Qing, Implied Baili Luochen/Xiao Zhongjing Characters: Xiao Zhongjing | Emperor Tai'an, Zhuo Qing (Dashing Youth), Jin Wei (The Blood of Youth), Jin Yu (The Blood of Youth), Li Changsheng (mentioned), Qi Tianchen (mentioned), Baili Luochen (mentioned) Additional Tags: Injury, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Praise Kink, Age Difference, Introspection, Bathing/Washing, Canon Compliant, takes place during episode 32, Blood Kink, Intimacy Series: Part 6 of Small Fandom Summer '24 Summary:

With a troubled mind and a heavy heart, Xiao Zhongjing visits his Grand Eunuch.