11. what are some tropes you’re playing with?
Forced proximity; only one bed (my beloved!).
I would love to claim that I’m building on the intertextuality that the series* uses to hint at a particular relationship being (homo)sexual, but I’m not doing anything nearly as subtle as that. 😅
* iirc, this reference is also present in the novel #ZhangGongAn as well, but since the novel is, per word of god, not danmei, while the series #ALeagueOfNobleman is trying its hardest to look like a dangai, I feel like it comes across slightly differently there.
1. give us the elevator pitch
Lan Peizhi, Gu Qingzhang and Zhang Ping, all stuck on the cottagecore island together with no boat and no other way to leave. Someone's full of secrets; someone *had* a plan; someone just wrecked that plan for perfectly logical reasons. #ALeagueOfNobleman
Me sowing: ahaha, I can trick everyone into listening to me ramble on about my #ALeagueOfNobleman fic
Me reaping: ... how to do that without enormous spoilers?
Little a rewatch, as a treat.
Zhang Ping: endlessly relatable. (Right after this, his master tells him, "Forget it, forget it! Tomorrow I'll hire you a donkey cart and you can take all of it." 💙)
Current status: unreasonably cross about all the reviews of #ALeagueOfNobleman I read yesterday, while trying to get back up to speed on everything that happens in the series,* that called Song Weilong's performance as Zhang Ping 'wooden'.
Have you heard of ACTING? No? Apparently not. 😠
* So much.
I just found out that Liu Xueyi was supposed to have a cameo in A League of Nobleman—as Prince Huai, the Emperor's gay uncle!!! It was cut for the obvious reasons. :(
What a disappointment. @liztai our cdrama interests would have overlapped perfectly for once!
Instagram post about this: https://www.instagram.com/p/Con-3_4rZ9K/?hl=en&img_index=1. Liu Xueyi is also listed in the MyDramaList cast as "Royal uncle, guest role": https://mydramalist.com/61971-the-society-of-four-leaves/cast
#LiuXueyi #ALeagueOfNobleman #ZhangGongAn #ImperialUncle #cdrama
767 likes, 69 comments - cdramalover016 on February 13, 2023: "It looks like A League of Nobleman cut out Liu Xueyi’s scene as Prince Huai, aka Royal Uncle. Because this character also belongs to the novel Imperial Uncle, written by the same author Da Feng Gua Guo. The Mystery of Zhang Gong is not a BL novel, but Imperial Uncle is BL, and they share a universe. I was waiting to see Liu Xueyi as Royal Uncle but he never showed up in League of Nobleman. Royal Uncle character is bisexual so they had to cut him off. 🫤 Title: A League of Nobleman Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Episodes: 29 Aired: Jan 30, 2023 Watch on: Tencent app, weTV app and Viki #aleagueofnobleman #君子盟".
My #ALeagueOfNobleman shipping opinion* is that if Wang Yan isn't together with Lan Jue, he should still periodically appear so we can all enjoy how unhappy he is about that.
I mean, he can and should take an active role in the rest of the plot! He's a great character whom I love on his own merits. He can be shipped with whomever and even be married with a passel of kids like he is in the book, if you like. It should just be evident that he has a thorn in his heart because of Lan Jue and would do anything for him, even if Lan Jue won't ever look at him Like That.
* lol as if I have only one
It's all right, someone has got me fully covered! https://www.cpophome.com/a-league-of-nobleman-jing-boran-song-weilong/recap/ (Yes, this is about #ALeagueOfNobleman. 💙)
That page looks like it has lots of ads on if you're not running an adblocker, btw.
Enjoying this episode of the Beyond Huaxia podcast, on the Imperial Exam System: https://beyondhuaxia.podbean.com/e/episode-18-education-and-the-chinese-exam-system/
This excerpt, on the career prospects of men who failed the exams, makes me feel vindicated for making Chen Chou an accountant in my #ALeagueOfNobleman post-canon fic! He doesn’t have to worry about his ‘patron’ dropping him because Zhang Ping would never. <3
I hope one day DFGG finishes the novel and we can find out what they both really end up doing!
villainous friend