Nirvana in Fire thoughts

[sophia_sol]

And now I'm saving my live reaction of watching Nirvana in Fire in early 2022! this came from a group chat and I had to do some real digging to unearth it, but it was so fun to reread through the whole thing while copying it over for saving. It's just such a good show!!!!!!!



ok so NIRVANA IN FIRE EPISODE ONE. did you know nirvana in fire is good

I love lin chen unreasonably much already

can't wait to watch all (checks notes) FIFTY FOUR episodes that is so many oh boy

anyway I HAVE immediately gone back to reread the singular lin chen/mei changsu fic that I have bookmarked

which, as I now recall, is not very lin chen/mei changsu lol

---

I return to NiF and am reminded that it is hard to follow subtitles when some part of my brain is too interested in trying to listen to the spoken mandarin to get an ear for it

Nihuang clearly has an impressive degree of charisma and capability, given what the emperor says about her

it really is very funny that people can fly through the air through the power of their martial arts, even if there's no other magic

xianxia makes a lot more sense to me than wuxia I think

love that prince yu has a woman as his nearest advisor, and listens to her with respect

however, if she ever appears in a scene NOT providing advice to prince yu (or without her red eyeliner wings) I will have no idea it's her

do appreciate the chinese habit of referring to oneself in third person by name as it helps confirm people's identity when they do it; I just wish the subtitles would follow suit so I wouldn't have to listen for it!

eternal struggles of watching tv when you're faceblind and everyone has the same hair

(ok their hair is less the same than in untamed, but untamed had very good colour coding of clothing)

hi prince jing!

haven't caught her name yet but I'm intrigued by the not-quite-friendship between mu nihuang and the woman who believes the Lin killed her husband

love how jingyan walks up the stairs two at a time when he's finally allowed to come talk to the emperor, but manages to do it in a way that comes across as firm and definitive rather than like someone in a hurry

that one advisor to the emperor keeps on giving off grima wormtongue vibes to me

god it's just so NICE to have all these women who keep being relevant, in contrast with the untamed which did its best but was hampered by its source in that regard

I know that fashion looking reasonable is often very dependent on what kinds of things you're accustomed to looking at, but the little hats that perch on top of the head with extremely visible gold/red strings holding them in place currently look very silly to me. After enough years of fanart I started thinking 1830's european women's fashion actually looks good so anything can grow on one, but I am not there yet with these tied-on mini-hats. the proportions of string to hat just look so wrong!

love how feiliu always looks entirely unimpressed with what's going on

omg the way that the crown prince and prince yu are just like. competing for mcs's interest, as if he's a love interest they're courting, this is so funny

and meanwhile jingrui is like "what the fuck"

great-grandma sees through mcs's disguise and literally everyone else is like "HOW AWKWARD THAT SHE'S MADE THIS MISTAKE" nobody in this room is happy except great-grandma

do love that both cdramas I've watched so far have opened with a guy falling off a cliff to die only to return but as a ~different person

---

NiF ep 3, and I see we're opening by proving that jingyan is the Good Prince because he cares about servants

lol mcs like "i don't care if it's impossible to help this servant, I can do anything"

"i'm more powerful than a prince"

and I mean, I know he's not wrong

I have no idea who this bearded dude is who clearly knows mcs's past even though I've apparently met him in a previous episode

thank you beardy dude for identifying yourself finally, let's see if I manage to remember your name

mcs clearly has Big Emotions about the chiyan whatever, despite his placid face

I enjoy how we keep checking in on the duels of nihuang's suitors as like, comic relief??

I absolutely did not expect the marriage of nihuang to be as major a plot point in this show as it is so far appearing

I am enjoying nihuang and nihuang's brother's sibling relationship

the very cheerful enthusiastic and optimistic guy who always hangs out with jingrui is very funny contrast to everyone else's seriousness

jingrui's birth story is amazing

omg I just looked at jingrui's entry on the nif wiki page, and there's a reference to "jingrui's birthday party" that is a link to a whole article on its own, I am so excited for this birthday party whenever it appears

I am avoiding the temptation to read about the birthday party ahead of time

though whatever happens apparently severs the friendship between jingrui and mcs so I am also pre-emptively sad about that, I like jingrui

---

NiF episode 4, and this conversation to open it sure sounds a lot like it's going to lead to Feiliu beating the heck out of Baili Qi, and if it doesn't I'm going to be disappointed 😛

oh WAIT is it instead a ploy to somehow free that servant kid?? because I will also accept that!

I do love how mcs is just so very.... his face and body language is so "I am a polite and mild-mannered person and that's all that's going on here, definitely"

oh dear, there's so much respect shown to the elderly high-ranked woman but not....not a lot of actual knowledge of how to appropriately interact with someone living with dementia

ooooooh SECRET NOTES in the silk pouch, go consort jing!

I feel real bad for the dowager empress 😕

oh, well, what I'm now learning about the dowager empress makes me feel a bit less bad for her tbh

she uses an evil bad wine on another woman to make unspecified bad things happen? sometime like 20 years ago or something? anyway it came up again because someone's planning to use it on nihuang

gosh these kids are sure learning lots of martial arts in just a few days

lol jingyan thinks it's a joke that mcs would choose to support him, JUST WAIT AND SEE JINGYAN

chinese teacups are so very delicate and tiny, so different from the way that I approach tea-drinking

I use a 20 oz mug, those teacups look like they hold one mouthful

this conversation between mcs and jingyan, agreeing to alliance to make him emperor, is so fun

women in tv shows are often so much harder for me to tell apart than men; casting directors will generally allow for a lot more variation in appearance in male actors but women all have to fit into the narrow range of whatever look is considered most beautiful, and it makes those of us with face blindness suffer!!

for example I THINK by context that the woman going sneakingi around at night with a lovely hooded teal cloak is the grand princess, but then again it could be literally anybody and I wouldn't know

thank you nihuang for always wearing a certain style of beaded head-decoration

gotta learn the correct distinguishing features of the headgear!

[I get given a link to a character guide]

hang on, the grand empress and dowager empress are two different people, I thiiiiiiink it's actually the grand empress who did Bad Things with the wine to the grand princess in the backstory??? maybe?

so I can still think kindly of the old lady with dementia? I think??

wait mcs is RELATED to the emperor!

his mom was the emperor's sister!

I wonder how much of fandom realizes that lol, given how a lot people are uncomfortable with cousin-shipping, and it's a very popular ship

oho, I think Xia Dong is the woman who was hanging out with Nihuang in earlier episodes and being not-quite-friends with her!

they explicitly say (one of them does, I don't remember which) that they can't be close friends because of that specific point of disagreement

which I take to mean that basically they like each other a lot but have to hold themselves to a degree of reserve despite being friends on some level

---

I've had a busy few days but it is finally time for NIRVANA IN FIRE EPISODE 5

I hope the three servant boys aren't too anxious about this fight that will probably determine their entire lives, that they have had all of 5 days to prepare for

that is a LOT of pressure!

otoh you know that chart about levels of confidence in your knowledge vs how much you know, and there is a REAL big spike in confidence in your abilities early on when you just are beginning to know things, they might well be exactly there

I do love nihuang's head decorations with all the drapey beads and things

"you're talking about secrets, right?" yujin says gleefully to people who are OBVIOUSLY trying to have a private conversatoin

must be so weird to be baili qi, a formidable fighter who's made to fight three nearly-untrained children due to court politics. I really wonder what he thinks going into this

well his eye-rolls watching the kids prepare to fight him are certainly conveying some of baili qi's opinion

mcs calmly munching on a snack throughout the fight!! 😂

hmmm can't help but think that nihuang and mcs both insisting that THEY get to take the freed children home with them is in fact a ploy they cooked up between the two of them in order to make it as easy as possible for the emperor to agree to free them without the emperor feeling like he's been imposed on to do so, because he still gets to disappoint someone

baili qi is PART OF MCS'S JIANGZUO ALLIANCE OMGGGGGG

i am cackling with laughter over here

I'm real worried about nihuang now though

STRESSFUL STRESSFUL STRESSFUL

I DON'T LIKE THIIIIIIIIS

ok the vision of having to interrupt a dastardly plot by travelling in palanquins with a whole crowd of attendants IS very funny

wow consort yue and the crown prince are vicious

well okay consort yue is vicious and the crown prince just appears to be incurably under her thumb

(thank you again btw for the character guide, being able to tell consort yue and empress yan apart from each other and also knowing that they're the two most important women in the inner court to be paying attention to is VERY helpful in this whole adventure)

somehow I didn't expect everyone to go straight to the emperor with this??

empress yan looks so quietly pleased to see consort yue pleading fruitlessly to the emperor

wow the crown prince is REALLY belated in trying to say anything on his own behalf

I love this show so much

---

am I going to go straight into the next episode now? I sure am

crown prince sure getting off lightly here, eh

love prince yu just coming in and taking control of the situation for his own benefit

ALSO love nihuang and jingyan comparing stories about who actually did the saving and then going to confront commander meng

ALSO ALSO love that apparently prince yu was so self-satisfied with his plan to take credit that he didn't even think about the fact that someone else must have actually tipped jingyan off??

oh WAIT MCS SET UP PRINCE YU'S ACTIONS TOO

omg mcs just has fingers in every single pie

prince yu is SO confident mcs is on his side, and meanwhile mcs is engaged in sincere negotiations with jingyan about their partnership

jingyan is NOT happy about this arrangement but has no better options to make sure his unpleasant older brothers don't end up in control

xia dong! and a HORSE!

yujin: "I think brother su is a deep person" well yes a) everyone is compared to you, b) understatement much

I'm glad jingrui and yujin have each other to be able to talk to about the things that are troubling them! friendship is so important

oh no, dong-jie is not ok

ok jingrui is pretty dang good at fighting despite his mild persona I see

---

pi day pie is in the oven, time to watch NiF ep 7!

dong-jie is a fun contrast to jingrui and yujin

wow, mu qing is willing to act in a friendly-bro way with feiliu right after feiliu attacks him, the most wooster indeed

nihuang is wearing a different headdress and I 100% did not recognize her at first and thought we were being introduced to a new character

I'm sure in the many remaining episodes of this show I'll come to understand why mcs/jingyan is THE ship for this show, but currently there's been so much interesting attention paid to mcs & nihuang and I SHIP IT

mcs wears such deliberately unornamented outfits that it really makes him stand out amongst all the other characters!

nihuang is sure saying a lot of emotionally loaded things about the past for someone who supposedly doesn't know who mcs is

and mcs REJECTS her statements about how even when most things are gone you can still value and appreciate what things remain

some part of me absolutely thinks nihuang knows

oh huh didn't realize jingrui is the older brother between him and the dude with the swoopy front-hair bits

watching prince yu and the crown prince squabble in front of the emperor is so funny, like, that's not going to endear you to him?!

ahhhhh dong-jie explicitly calls nihuang her "dear friend" even though the first episode had her saying that they could never be truly close friends!!!

I love their friendship

also mcs' explanation to dong-jie about why his intentions to nihuang are purely platonic say LITERALLY NOTHING about his feelings for her not being like that, ahhhhh he clearly likes her SO MUCH

love how the emperor can just go around making the most obvious facial expressions about his feelings about things, because he's the emperor and doesn't need to dissemble

oh lol apparently dong-jie was on board to ship mcs/nihuang herself

I do love dong-jie

oh she's even more magnificent confronting the marquis ning

ahh I love the friendship between jingrui and yujin, they're so charming

OH BOY jingrui just stepped on a skull, perhas I should have expected that given the dramatic music but I still jumped

those skeletons are remarkably well-articulated for bare bone

so mcs definitely knew about the skeletons and wanted them discovered, right

I loved this episode so much

so much fun!

I want to mainline the entirety of this show instantly

there's uh. a bit too much of it for that though

also I think I would die

love that house-hunting was the structure around which all these other things happened!

and important to buy the one that only you and your teenage bodyguard have seen prior to purchase, obviously!

dangit I do not have time for another episode tonight

ah, fondly remembering the time that I was introduced to NiH via a nihuang/mcs fic, and I did not know that mcs was in fact lin shu, the beloved of nihuang's younger days. however nihuang totally did from the beginning

Handfast is still a GREAT fic https://archiveofourown.org/works/13747836

me, squinting at ao3 where I have the tag for mcs/prince yu open for consideration: look there's just so MANY ships that could be interesting in this show

---

nif ep 8!! I continue to really like the jingrui & yujin friendship. they tease each other a lot but they're both good guys and seem to really like and value and support each other

the magic of friendship!!

and it's nice, in comparison with all the much more fraught relationships everyone else in this show has going on

I keep getting distracted by the mole mcs has on one side of his face, right near the pointy front bit of hair -- did he have that mole prior to the severe injury/illness that led his entire face to change? did he grow an entire new mole??

I recognize that this supremely doesn't matter and yet I think about it every time I see that mole

I see the number of reported corpses in the well has been upped to dozens

impressive

you know, it's a small detail but I love to see people in a hurry go up stairs multiple at a time, like I do

ah yes, summoning all the grown men in the family for questioning, as if that's the only category of people who might know anything useful about a case!

not sure I'm correctly following the implications of the girls being more "entertaining" than normal prostitutes. is it that they were there for kinky sex??

oh yikes the next line clarifies for me

very yikes

I'm still amused every time I happen to hear someone saying "suibian" like oh hey I know that word, thanks wwx for teaching it to me!

ooh big drums I want to hit one of the big drums

there were birds flying across that scene and the detail isn't sharp enough for me to see ANY details and I want to know what birds they were

can I ever recognize birds flying across my own skies, with more familiar bird species? only rarely. does that stop me from wanting to look even at chinese birds? it does not

love that they're planning a secret tunnel to jingyan's place without even asking jingyan if he's okay with that

and I love that commander meng was like "sure this house sucks but I know it contains EXACTLY what mcs wants which is opportunity for being sneaky about things"

and he was right

hm do not love that prince yu's advisor banruo is also expected to do things like rub his shoulders for him, presumably just because she's a beautiful young woman

commander meng knows his friend mcs so well

banruo and prince yu are all baffled by how mcs can be making choices that are bad for BOTH the crown prince and prince yu, as if it is completely and totally unimaginable that there's any option outside that binary choice of who to support

prince yu and the crown prince have a very specific idea of what court politics are supposed to be like and are very good within that realm but can't imagine anyone acting differently

feiliu being petty towards commander meng, and mcs just peacefully LETTING feiliu be petty toward commander meng: so funny

at least banruo knows better than to believe that mcs is completely trustworthy even if he supports prince yu

I bet fight choreographers have a lot of fun doing wuxia

I wonder how mcs feels about being totally unable to fight on his own behalf, when in his younger days he was such a strong fighter, must be a really challenging thing to have to accept

oh nooooooo jingrui must become disillusioned about his dad, the men who came to murder mcs are his dad's guard!!

jingrui :((((

and it also throws into stark relief the differences in character between jingrui and mcs, and complicates their friendship :(((((

jingrui deserves to be in a happier story than this one

but mcs can't let that happen

they should all just be in an office sitcom, maybe they'd all be happier that way

mcs can manipulate the corporation they all work for

lower stakes, nobody dies

---

nif ep 9! love how solicitous all mcs's underlings are of his health. he is NOT ALLOWED to stand around outside in the cold, he needs to go inside!!

but the only one he listens to is the physician who lin chen personally sent to look after mcs, lol

very convenient that mcs is willing to be so open about his plans with commander meng, so that the viewer knows what's going on -- but of course what this ends up doing is portraying them as having an EXTREMELY close and trusting relationship

love mcs chatting with prince yu, all, "oh wow it's news to me that jingyan is overseeing this case, oh wow it's news to me that this might be bad for prince yu, tell me more!"

is there anyone in this show you CAN'T ship mcs with??

I wouldn't ship mcs/feiliu, but I truly cannot think of anyone else who would be a problem

though I fully believe that someone out there would be into the mcs/feiliu dynamic in a non-platonic way

[in response to a suggestion about the emperor] I think in that case it depends what you mean by "ship"!

could I see mcs choosing to use sex as a way of manipulating the emperor, and enjoy reading about that? sure!

do I think there's any potential for a long-term relationship there? I do not

hm knowing jingyan he is NOT going to take well to being given the run-around by bureaucrats when there's something he feels duty-bound to do

oh nicely done, mcs, in convincing prince yu it's in his best interest to not interfere with this case being adjudicated

all of this advice mcs is giving prince yu sounds EXTREMELY plausible, it's so impressive

oh my GOSH we get to actually see young and carefree lin shu with his friends, not just him dying miserably to become mcs!!

prince yu and the crown prince squabbling ineffectively directly in front of the emperor again, they hate each other SO much that they can't help themselves even if they know it doesn't make the emperor happy with either of them!

boy what a family that must have been to grow up in tbh

---

I'm so tired but I want more NiF so here we go on ep 10

I want a brazier to hover near for extra warmth

someone should bring ME a brazier like they do for mcs

love that mcs's plan actually involves overhauling the entire system of ministries to be staffed by people who are good at their jobs instead of by people who will do what the people in power want them to do, he's not just overthrowing the emperor he's altering the way the entire political system works to be more functional

love that mcs's orders to jingyan on the subject of scheming are: don't. you're bad at it jingyan. let me do the scheming jingyan.

oh is feiliu just fighting ALL of jingyan's fighty men

a round robin tournament except feiliu is in all the fights

and beats everyone

I hope the kid playing feiliu had lots of fun with this role

oooohhh ouch, mcs insulting jingyan's army's training right in front of jingyan's face

oh mcs knows the family member of one of the girls who was murdered and thrown down the dry well, and that was one of the many (i'm sure) reasons he got that case taken care of, of course he does

I have NO idea what's happening in this pleasure house but it's sure happening very dramatically and I'm 100% sure it's all as mcs planned

ah I see. what happened was to incite a young man to murder, in order to take down that young man's father, a minister on prince yu's team

and also get revenge on someone who hurt some of the young ladies who work at the pleasure house, because achieving multiple goals at once is nbd for mcs

not even sure if the revenge part was aimed at the murderer or the murderee tbh but hey, mission accomplished either way

oh that's a good way to get people to open their door when they don't want to: just loudly announce your very embarrassing business to all passersby, with the strong implication that the only way to shut you up is to let you in

can't believe that I forgot that jingrui's dad tried to murder mcs and that's why jingrui's angsting right now, I had to scroll back up through this chat (a long way!!) to find what I'd said so I could remember!

lollll jingyan did all the work on this case, and the emperor's rewarding prince yu instead, for having been willing to not obstruct jingyan's work

jingyan is SO obviously not interested in playing court games around pretending to be friendlier with people than you really feel. he's polite but that's as far as he's willing to go. prince yu is buddy-buddying him for nothing

I mean. BARELY polite!!

did you know: nirvana in fire is good, actually

the actors are good! the script writers are good! the costumes and sets are good! the way the story is structured and doled out and has bits set in deliberate contrast to each other is good! I'm endlessly riveted!

I just really like this tv show you guys

---

NiF ep 11 time!

nice to see prince yu appreciating the work banruo does for him

oh huh I hadn't thought about how the crown prince's mother's fall from favour would affect the crown prince's access to information on what's happening in the palace but it does make sense!

WOW that is um. quite the reasoning for why consort yue should be reinstated. She "humiliated" nihuang (drugged her and tried to have her raped and forcibly married!!) but because nihuang is of a lower status, it's improper of nihuang to hold a grudge

marquis ning I do not like you

tries to murder mcs: acceptable, that's just politics. tries to argue that nihuang should just let her assault slide: not cool, sir

ohhhhh he's going even further, not just suggesting that nihuang's feelings about her assault don't matter, but that the emperor should use the opportunity to take Nihuang down a few pegs, WOW my dude

really enjoying that this episode seems to be entirely about the correct interpretation of a ritual that's so complex that nobody (including the minister who's supposed to know everything about it) properly understands it

except of course for mcs

who understands everything always

the crown prince isn't nearly as competent at talking glibly as prince yu

prince yu looks so GENUINELY surprised that maybe he's not the only person unhappy about consort yue's reinstatement, that maybe nihuang might be mad about it also??

what a self-centred guy

there's a bird calling in the background of this scene and I don't recognize its call and I bet my Merlin sound ID won't tell me what it is either because I don't have the correct regional bird pack downloaded

aaaahhhhhh nihuang is comparing handwriting between her old lin shu memorabilia and a note from mcs and wondering if she was overthinking things!!!!!!

haha love that we just get a montage of confucian arguing rather than hearing a single word of it, so that the writers don't have to actually figure out what all the reasoning would be

hm yes mcs IS having feelings about how much his physical limitations affect what he can do, I wasn't quite expecting him to admit it out loud

thinking back over it I am a little confused as to what it is about the events of this episode that lead jingyan to being all in on Plan Become Emperor

---

I COULD do more productive things with my time. OR I could watch nif ep 12

ahhh getting teary-eyed over the friendship between the old master and the court tutor Li

oh the old master is DEFINITELY onto mcs and knows who he is

and mcs was apparently not expecting that!! mcs needs a few surprises in his life

are chinese beauty standards more accepting of face moles than north american ones? I can't remember the last time I saw a face mole on a hollywood actress, but jingyan's mom has a very visible one on her chin and she's clearly supposed to be seen as a beautiful woman

ah I see a thematically appropriate thunderstorm has arrived for the emotional conversation about identity between nihuang and mcs

AUGH JUST TELL HER MCS

YOU'RE BEING MEAN TO HER MCS

otoh him saying absolutely nothing while she claws open the neck of his clothes and cries is um. KIND of telling her?

on account of if he wasn't lin shu he would be SAYING that about now

lin shu had BANGS

oh nooooo, I thought nihuang got it, but "I can wait until you turn back into my lin shu-gege" is NOT actually the right message to be taking away from this conversation

he can't be lin shu anymore

hello long suffering doctor yan again

oh mcs is terribly dressed down, his hair doesn't have ANY ornament in it

I LOVE the way that your eye gets used to certain levels of formality in dress and then all of a sudden it's noticeable when it's less, even when it's a look that would not be particularly shocking in your own culture

gong yu has now multiple times tried to get permission to meet with mcs herself and been denied by mr shisan, I wonder where this is going to go

ok everyone in that meeting about gunpowder seemed satisfied to find the illegal fireworks factory accepted 4 shipments of gunpowder, but there were SIX shipments, what happened to the other two? I assume this is also going to become relevant!

---

MORE nif? sure! why not! ep 13~!

and I'm delighted to discover that when yujin suddenly remembered a couple episodes ago that this is PERFECT hot-springs-visiting-season, he and jingrui took action on that immediately

ooh now we're learning about national shipping practices, love it!

the transit of goods is important!

jingyan: constantly surprised at the degree of amorality evinced by members of the court

HOW could the crown prince be secretly making money off of an illegal fireworks factory?!? shocking!!

(me: this is the least shocking thing the crown prince has done, probably?)

physician yan, telling mcs to not expend so much energy on thinking is a LOSING proposition

awwww, yan made a bet with lin chen over whether he can make mcs listen to his medical advice and take care of his health!

why is everyone saying it's not a big deal if the empress misses the new year ceremony due to illness, didn't we JUST have a big to-do about how it's more right for the crown prince to pay his respects to the empress than his mother in that ceremony?

oh hey is jingyan ALSO starting to suspect mcs of being lin chen

on account of his habit of rubbing his fingers on things when he's thinking

mcs is friendship-matchmaking for jingyan, but also is like "how can we manipulate them to make them owe you favours" honestly very sad that he thinks that kind of manipulation is the only way to gain the support of people 😞

mcs is SO cynical

and like, okay yes with reason

but it's real sad anyway

and I appreciate how willing jingyan is to push back at mcs on these ideas

oh good , the two missing shipments of gunpowder have been raised again

is mcs going to have to sneak out of his own house!!

okay that was. not sneaky lol

was not expecting this kind of depth of backstory to yujin's dad tbh

yujin's dad is clearly Not Doing Great after the traumas of his young adulthood!!

okay so like. I am assuming that at least one person out there has written yujin's dad/emperor fanfiction

poor yujin, growing up with such an absent dad who's completely unable to move on from the tragedies of his past

I love that mcs tries to make the effort to convince yujin's dad to stop his plot instead of just like. taking care of it on his own

lol never mind, mcs's policy is to never trust anyone (except commander meng), meng is ON IT to inspect the site of the ritual himself for any issues

---

nirvana in fire ep 14! continuing to love this convo between mcs and yujin's dad! maybe I should learn yujin's dad's name

I love that the marquis yan has insight into prince yu's character because of his history with the emperor, and he can see the parallels between them

mcs's box of wooden tiles with the names of everyone he needs to take down is a LITTLE silly I must say

heeeheeeheee of course that minister didn't follow instructions and immediately send his son far far away to safety, after prince yu got him out of prison via a prisoner swap!

oh I've been so focused on yujin's dad of late, I forgot to think about what jingrui's dad is up to!!

huh, remarkably cogent analysis of court politics from jingrui, that the current expectation is that if you're not part of all the scheming then you're just naive, and that it's the emperor sets the tone for this kind of thing

oh, lol, it's thoughts he got from mcs

OHO, yujin suspects mcs of not actually supporting prince yu!!

I adore yujin and jingrui, and every single time they appear on screen together

their friendship is very important to me

as is all their family drama

they're SO GOOD

[in response to a comment about favourite characters]

whenever xia dong shows up she's my favourite

as is nihuang obviously

and I love prince yu's....prince yu-ness

and like how can you not love mcs

and etc etc etc

ok it's SO charming to see this happy family version of the new year ceremony with jingrui and his family having a good time joking around and being generous with each other from affection, to contrast with the imperial family

ohhh and yujin and his dad are yet another contrast

oh and we also get to see mcs's household's celebration!

I'm just really enjoying all this

mcs is CHEERFUL and wearing ROBES WITH DECORATIONS I actually legitimately didn't recognize him briefly lol

I think the emperor is the only one having a good time at the celebration at the palace

MAYBE consort yu though who knows how much of that is a face she's putting on

....okay who's suddenly fighting, I was not expecting a fighting scene, sword directly through someone's neck is NOT what I was expecting to see on my screen during all these fun family parties

oh it's....the soldiers delivering the food from the emperor to the noble households who are being attacked??

....was I supposed to recognize the attackers.

I love yujin SO MUCH

it's nice to see mcs thinking through options of what might be going on with the latest events, instead of just instantly understanding everything. mcs, you and me both, not quite sure why that attack happened!!

just emergency googled jingrui and yujin to make sure they both make it to the end of NiF alive and am very relieved that they do

---

I have time for an episode of nirvana in fire tonight! before I get laser eye surgery tomorrow morning and shouldn't look at things for a few days

so here's nif ep 15

every time there's multiple days between me watching episodes, my ability to recognize characters COMPLETELY disappears

but people are conspiring against commander boyfriend meng and they should STOP

groups of people now investigating the case of the murdered eunuch: xia dong & the dude she's with, Prince Yu & his people, Commander Meng, and mcs -- just waiting for a scene of them all tripping over each other getting in the way as they search for clues! too many detectives!

it was very funny to go from a scene of mcs being like "this is OBVIOUSLY about palace politics" to xia dong & co being like "hm I wonder if it was a robbery, or if someone disliked this eunuch in particular"

it is fascinating that commander meng manages to both be loyal to the emperor AND the bff of the guy trying to take down the emperor

oh boy, empress yan married the emperor when she was only 16!!

oh NO, a middle-of-the-night scene where none of the palace women are wearing their elaborate headdresses, how am I supposed to recognize anyone now??

okay gong yu has now made the effort to sneak out to see mcs in person and STILL isn't succeeding, I'm REALLY curious what this is about

uh oh, the subject of jingrui's birthday has come up, and I know just enough to have Concerns

FRIEND SHIP

one of the funny things about talking about NiF with my dad is that he calls jingyan "prince jing" which makes me realize how much fandom has affected which version of their name I call various characters

fanfic about him tends to be shipfic and shipfic likes to be intimate and so it all calls him jingyan and I just. picked that up without realizing it, apparently!

and now I feel weird about it lol

I don't usually like to be overly-intimate in what I call characters!

---

I cannot wait any longer, it's time for NiF ep 16 even if I'm squinting, but already the first few seconds of the episode prove to me that I have forgotten EVERYTHING about what's going on with the plot at the moment lol

this is what comes of not watching for an entire week!!

ahh, bonding between jingrui's two dads

(over destroying mcs)

I do love jingrui's family complexities

xia dong and mu nihuang friendship time!!

I do love that this show involving so much politicking and backstabbing also clearly thinks friendship is important

okay HOW many people will all happen to be on this one mountain today

xia dong: paying respects to her dead husband. mcs: DEFINITELY just out for a walk on happenstance and didn't intend to run into xia dong at all. a bunch of other people: hunting for a mysterious dangerous creature on that same mountain. did mcs arrange for those people to be here also.

oh lol he's more ANNOYED at them for happening to be there than having planned it!

anyway I want to go on walks through beautiful mountains

take me to there

one of the real problems with ontario is the lack of mountains

on the one hand I like the realism of how obviously cold it is when you can see the characters' puffs of breath, but on the other hand, those poor actors

oh no!!! jingrui has stumbled upon Deadly Shenanigans that he is not emotionally prepared for!

but he is willing to RISE to the occasion

jingrui :(((((

ominous birthday planning strikes again

---

nif ep 17!

jingrui's sister, the one married to his brother on the other side, is NOT good at lying or dissembling

jingrui is just so EARNEST and GOODHEARTED 😭

(on another note, I type these episode reactions on my computer so whenever I want to use an emoji I have to like, figure out what words people would describe it by and then google it and copy-paste. this is emojis on hard mode)

okay it is fascinating getting marquis ning's opinions on why getting so involved in faction fights is actually the only moral thing to do

basically: he's in a position with a lot of power, that power belongs in the hand of the future emperor because who else could it belong to, so he's gotta support a faction, and then if his faction loses then his family and the zhuo family will be banished so he HAS to do everything he can to make sure his faction wins

oh I do like that even though prince yu thinks mcs is on his side, he doesn't just unthinkingly do everything mcs says, he also takes advice from banruo and does things mcs finds genuinely surprising

glad to see mcs is in fact upset about the collateral damage of human lives after prince yu's efforts with the illegal fireworks factory

lol the crown prince seems so bewildered by how things can be going so wrong

oh NO is prince jing going to think that mcs did this on purpose 😞

the crown prince's mom is SO much better than him at scheming

he would have lost long ago without her

getting the distinct impression that mcs is making himself deliberately more unlikeable in his interactions with prince jing, as if he can't bear to let him truly like and trust this new version of himself

I just. love this show so much

the crown prince is SO upset. everyone else should be punished and brought low!! not him!!!!! everyone else will PAY!!!!!!!!

oh my god. prince yu praising mcs's advisoring skills so highly to banruo when uh. it was BANRUO's advice this time that got him this one-up over the crown prince

does prince yu send all these kinds of courtesies to banruo??

respect your competently-evil advisor, prince yu!!

I hope that at some point banruo turns against prince yu and drags him for all he's worth, she'd be very good at that too if she decided to

oh this is an IMPRESSIVELY awkward gathering of ~friends~ to celebrate the end of mcs's renovations

and some of the guests are way more aware of any tension than others

(mu qing is least aware, obvs)

oh no what is mcs intending with the scavenger hunt throughout his house I have concerns

I must admit to being very confused about what his motivations might be to allow all these people to just turn his entire place upside down looking for secrets

---

okay obviously I have to go straight on to ep 18 right now, banruo just found a secret door!!

is this. intentional. is mcs planting fake info for banruo to find

??

oh my GOD it was just to test if his secret passage is as good as he thinks it is

mcs, what a guy

"do you think he's you, so easy to trick?" omg what a BURN on commander meng

commander meng isn't WRONG though that mcs should consider telling prince jing more things

oh my god prince yu is being SO condescending to banruo, I really really hope that she ends up turning on him eventually

mcs your reasons to not tell prince jing your identity are just EXCUSES. you're being a COWARD.

"if we are emotional we will make mistakes" AS IF YOU'RE NOT EMOTIONAL RIGHT NOW, MEI CHANGSU!!!

okay THAT'S rude of the show, to have banruo whisper a secret about jingrui to prince yu that WE DON'T GET TO HEAR

just discovered two MORE jings. too many jing names. how many sons did the emperor have, put some back

at least jingting and jingli are totally irrelevant people lol

once again: people who usually have their hair up in fancy hairpieces look weirdly NAKED with their hair down and no headpiece on

anyway it creates a feeling of like intimacy. in this late night secret visit between mcs and prince jing. which okay already has feelings of intimacy for other reasons too

TELL! PRINCE! JING!!!

mu qing's carefully considered opinion on the happenings of court right now: "it's weird"

I mean you're not WRONG, but...!

okay that was actually a very reasonable summing-up by mu qing, I retract my laughing at him

LOVE the emperor napping sideways on the throne, that is a whole mood

prince yu: why am I not winning more easily, this was supposed to be easy, HOW DARE

prince yu is completely terrible and I love him

okay it's genuinely weird seeing the emperor go strolling in a garden right now, he's so like. intensely sedentary in most of the scenes we see him in? because everything else revolves around him and he stays still

commander meng "discovered" the secret passage from prince jing's side omgggggggggg

hey remember how in the first couple eps of NiF I was all about Lin Chen? I just realized that I haven't even thought about him in ages because there's so much else in this show to also care about. I begin to understand

---

nif ep 19! love how commander meng is just like "mcs thinks prince jing shouldn't know that I know about the secret passages but respectfully I disagree" and then just. goes for it.

ooh prince jing's mom got a promotion!

cannot imagine it is comfortable to travel by wooden-wheeled conveyance over unpaved roads. it's probably very honourable or whatever for that woman to be inside it but I am willing to bet it would be WAY better to just ride a horse. the bumps and bounces and rattling around inside you'd experience!!

you know, somehow I am finding nihuang/mcs interactions less interesting now that she knows who he is. too straightforward!!

boring romancey feelings!

and now we're getting a relationship montage behind a romantic-sad song, we can move on from this any time now

wow this prince of the Chu is impressively good at being obnoxious

confirmation that jingrui's birthday party is the setting for mcs's plans to take down jingrui's dad. I thought it might be something like that. what a birthday present :(((

huh, why is xia dong inviting herself to jingrui's party too now?

---

nif ep 20, and it is evident that the famed birthday party is going to happen IN THIS EPISODE. Am I ready?????

(no)

in fact I may interrupt myself and go make myself a pre-emptive soothing mug of tea

aughhhhhhh

:(((((((

love yujin just casually checking out the table of gifts

a culture of toasts is a culture of getting very drunk very fast or being seen as rude, and I think I would not have the constitution required

[in response to a comment about historical cdrama parties]

I do like the idea of everyone having their own little tables of food to eat from? much less stressful in terms of figuring out how to share appropriate amounts politely

but otherwise: no thanks

oh also parties where you happen to have people dancing beautifully in the background while you chat with friends: also has some appeal

I think we're seeing the worst of these parties in tv shows tbh, because they only show us the ones that are dramatically relevant, instead of parties of chill people enjoying themselves!

oh I was JUST THINKING that they're sure making xia dong drink a lot, but yujin noticed too and is willing to DO SOMETHING about it, love that kid

oh boy I would REALLY struggle with a party that required you to sit quietly and listen to a piece of classical instrumental music, while in full view of everyone else so you have to look like you're paying attention

sorry gong yu I'm sure you're playing beautifully BUT.

must be even more boring to be one of the various attendants at a party like this

okay what on EARTH is prince yu expecting to happen tonight

what the heckkkkkk, is jingrui being accused of having a THIRD dad somewhere out there??

what the heckkkkkkkkkkkk

marquis NING was the one who had HIS BRO ZHUO'S KID KILLED

this is just a whole series of revelations

marquis ning has been living a whole series of lies in his family life this whole time holy shit

you know what, marquis ning, somehow I do not trust your statements about not wanting jingrui dead

lol, feiliu's been having FUN in the marquis's armoury

---

WELL I see this is one of those evenings where I'm going to have to go straight into the next episode

oh good for whichever brother that is, who's willing to speak out against his dad the marquis and try to convince him to not commit himself to the path he's on! brave of him

and it's definitely not going to work

ohhhhhhhhhh :(((((((((

commander meng STILL manages to be in a workplace comedy, where he's using funny props to participate in this fight

those poor soldiers having to attack two highly-skilled martial artists who hold the higher ground, at marquis ning's orders

jingrui's emo bangs are down 😞

good for xia dong for confronting mcs about how cruelly he's treating his friend jingrui

and mcs KNOWS he has no defense against the accusation

marquis yan just casually standing amongst a whole lot of armed dudes threatening him, smiling slightly and walking slowly up the stairs. what NERVE on that man

grand princess liyang is STILL ride or die protect the zhuo family, even when the happy swinger times are over

ughhhhh I do not have time to watch the next episode tonight if I want to be able to get to bed at a reasonable time for me and I am Big Mad about it

these episodes have been SO intense and amazing and terrible

---

finally I return to nif after being cruelly torn away last night! ep 22 time!!!

goddddd jingrui :(((((

this confrontation between grand princess liyang and marquis ning is fascinating

to people who are not faceblind: does the southern chu girl who's jingrui's half-sister look as much like jingrui as the plot says she does? I see no particular similarity, but then I wouldn't!

oh NO qi-er had better survive this

sigh yeah of course she died in childbirth

gotta pile on the tragedies here

hang onnnnnn is xia dong's superior ACTUALLY SECRETLY involved in the sect fighting even though he heads a bureau that's supposed to be apart from such things??

well I suppose that was inevitable, the court sure did end up a place where EVERYONE's gotta take a side, after so many years of infighting between princes

"the reason you lost to me is because you are stupid" mcs says to marquis ning. love it. so straightforward.

(yes I am into the next episode now, I had to continue)

I am curious what mcs's point is though in bragging like this to marquis ning

okay this is a very effective argument mcs is making as to why marquis ning should break trust with xia jiang,NICELY done

marquis ning is a remarkably loyal person, for someone who's done the kinds of things he's done. he clearly thinks of himself as a moral person who's doing his best to do right!

CHECKMATE. marquis ning, mcs was right, he will always win against you because he's smarter than you

OHHHHHHHH are we finally getting some information about the chiyan disaster??

prince jing :(((( generally such a stoic guy, but crying over long-lost lin shu 😞

mcs sure does like punishing himself by making things emotionally harder whenever he talks to prince jing about the past

---

guess what! nif time!! ep 24, and we continue in an emotionally complicated late night conversation between mcs and prince jing, classic, classic

this show has exactly one establishing shot of the city from a far distance as a landscape, and I know this because there is a flock of birds flying across the shot from the left; this version of it might be colour-corrected to look like nighttime but it is STILL the same shot!

I got distracted by the notion of being able to commission a custom artwork of a stack of my favourite ten books https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1168826098/custom-print-your-favourite-books

I have watched no further in nirvana in fire and my list of favourite books is at 30

so I'm doing great at staying on task

okay! let me free mcs from where he`s been paused coughing up blood onto the floor for the past uhhhh hour and a half, oops

mcs`s underlings are so long-suffering, they worry and care so much for his health and he`s SO bad at listening

I did have to take a moment to remember that in this culture, white is the colour of mourning. to my eyes all those white headbands look just kinda silly instead of meaningful

I love every time I get to watch horses in this show. lots more horses than in the untamed and I appreciate it!

I accept that tv shows will not have as many birds as I think they should have, but they need to make it up to me by including lots of horses

okay I am obviously failing to watch this episode tonight as I am all of 16 minutes into it. I am NOT doing well on Ability To Focus! perhaps I'll come back to it tomorrow

---

I'm gonna dive back into ep 24!

ugh STILL apparently not here for actual textual romantic talk between nihuang and mcs, pls go back to awkwardly not talking about it while having lots of feelings

prince jing is learning about warhorse supply chain management from mcs!! love this recognition of the importance of supply chains

also the clear statement that the two of them have spent a LOT of time talking and debating over Things Prince Jing needs to know, and apparently having a good time at it!

marquis ning must have very sharp teeth if he's able to tear open the pad of a finger to bloodiness so easily. I would have to REALLY work at it!

er I suppose marquis ning no longer, he's an exile now, lol, sorry not sorry to him! but I'm unlikely to learn his name so he's ex-marquis ning now

it is fascinating how much liyang seems to still care about ex-marquis ning, after a lifetime of partnership, despite the bit where he tried to kill her newborn baby once upon a time. a complicated relationship there!

ah, the emperor's surprise visit to consort jing on her birthday allows him to happen to see prince jing being a good filial son!

remember how I said dad called prince Jing prince Jing? well today we were talking about nif some more and he called him jingyan!

he just finished his second watch of the show

and apparently I have more to look forward to from liyang near the end which is exciting

---

more nif time! ep 25!

huh, commander meng hasn't seen mcs for 2 months!!!

I appreciate the subtitles for explaining the idiom about the crane and the clam fighting, I definitely would not have gotten the meaning without that

(in a fight between a crane and a clam, who wins? a third party, the fisherman)

yesss, I thought this would happen, the emperor is giving prince jing permission to visit his mom anytime he wants!

also not surprising that he's feeling so generous to prince jing, given that apparently prince yu and the crown prince have been particularly quarrelsome of late over filling the ex-marquis ning's old role

oh my god watching consort yue and empress yan say politely cutting things to each other is amazing

oh no, mu qing is sulking, what shenanigans is he going to get up to

ohhhhhh my gosh we get banruo backstory!!!! she's only interested in helping prince yu to destabilize the empire!!!!!!!!! LOVE THIS

"brother meng you come here too often" mcs says, when JUST earlier this episode we hear he hasn't come for two months, this is SO funny

okay why does everyone in the xuanjing bureau have the same family name, xia. they aren't all related, I didn't think? xia dong, xia jiang, etc

I'm just. so excited about this banruo backstory. and so excited to see more of banruo

more workplace comedy from commander meng! hiding in a secret room when prince yu unexpectedly arrives at mcs's place!

oho, prince yu has finally noticed prince jing's increasing influence!

lol poor commander meng is SO bored trapped in the secret room

omg and now prince jing arrives too!!!!!

WORKPLACE COMEDY

now prince jing and commander meng get to awkwardly hang out in the weird little sitting area along the secret passageway this is amazing

I love watching mcs advising prince yu, it's so fascinating

ohhhhhhh even MORE banruo backstory, banruo's shifu was involved in the chiyan situation!!

fascinated by the contrasts between banruo and her Fourth Sister, and how despite the obvious ways they have completely different approaches to how to live one's life post-conquest, Fourth Sister is still willing to help banruo out

hmmmm mcs seems real worried about prince jing borrowing the travelogue he was writing commentary on, I wonder what he's worried it will give away

---

nif ep 26 time!!

and oh yay, we get an immediate explanation for mcs's concerns over prince jing absconding with his annotated travelogue!

ooh fourth usage of the establishing shot of the city and mountains with that same group of birds flying across it!

apparently I AM going to be keeping count of that shot

oh my gosh jingrui's half sister is sticking around!

well, sticking around to try to convince jingrui to leave with her, apparently

I do wonder if she has any more depth to her than what we've seen of her so far

ooooooh, banruo is getting her fourth sister to try to infiltrate mcs's place!

okay yes she IS too smart to set fourth sister against mcs directly, wonder who she's going to set her after

ohhhh, jingrui IS going with his half-sister to southern chu to learn about the other side of his family, I hope he finds it a useful experience to emotionally contextualize everything

banruo's analysis of what mcs has done for prince yu is incisive: prince yu has won so many victories this year, all because of mcs's advice, and yet somehow the attention and care he receives from the emperor is greatly lessened

I love banruo so much

I also love fourth sister

jingrui :(((((((

god I love that yujin is like "hey it's cool whatever you're feeling about what happened, I just want to confirm that we're still bros because you're important to me"

FRIENDSHIP!!!

FRIEND! SHIP!

jingrui's reaction to mcs's machinations to reveal the truth is so mature of him

I love jingrui SO MUCH 😭

I think I may want to be jingrui when I grow up tbh

what a guy

li gang is so often so relatable

his eye rolls over the complicated series of thoughts behind the birthday gift from prince jing to the emperor!

even the emperor doesn't have the luxury to sleep in as late as he wants! and tbh the entreaties of a fawning attendant seem less appealing to wake to than an alarm clock imo

also a not-fun aspect of being the emperor: having THAT many people all crowded around your sick bed!

people in positions of power have to live such public lives and I have never understood the appeal

ohoho the travelogue is going to travel further than just prince jing's hands, are the secrets within it going to be sussed out by consort jing!!

---

oh hm instead of staring at youtube daring it to show me some good videos I could watch more nif instead, that would be a much better use of my time

ok ep 27 here we go

ughhh the emperor enjoys it WAY too much to see those lowly attendants in the eastern palace cower before him

lollll the crown prince once again shows himself to not be a person of strong judgement

wow the crown prince is uh. sure something, when he feels himself able to cut loose

can't believe though that the emperor didn't already know all this on some level? like, he knew what his sons were like, he SAW them being terrible and petty and immoral and power-hungry at each other, it can't be surprising what he's hearing here??

is the emperor actually experiencing a very brief moment of self-reflection for the first time in his adult life?

doubt it'll last long

wow it sure took the people partying inside a LONG time to hear the kerfuffle just out the doors!

seeeecret tunnelllllll

meanwhile I think prince jing might be having some identity-related realizations about mcs????? excited to see where this goes!

mcs is realizing the problems with being too honest in front of his unable-and-unwilling-to-dissemble bodyguard

prince jing's realization staved off FOR NOW

[a comment was made about commander meng in response to my bodyguard thought above]

oh lol no I was talking about feiliu BUT I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU THOUGHT I MEANT CMDR MENG

commander meng ALSO unable to dissemble, though I think SLIGHTLY more willing to try than feiliu. he's just completely unlikely to succeed.

it is so funny how many straightforward people mcs surrounds himself with tbh!!!

when someone asks you "I'm getting old, aren't I" there is NO good way to answer, and yet consort jing still manages a reasonable response

right now I am enjoying when mcs needs to carefully explain the thoughts behind hims plots to commander meng, so that us viewers who also don't have mcs's qilin talent can follow along too

also loving to learn about eunuch gao's political acumen in this moment, which like, I had never stopped to consider before, but yeah he WOULD have to have a lot in order to stay so close to the emperor for so long!

oh my GOD just got to have another example of commander meng being COMPLETELY unable to dissemble despite true willingness in the moment

so glad I am not him. so glad my best friend is not a court strategist

because I know I would be equally bad tbh

commander meng is about to try to ask for that travelogue back from prince jing and I can tell already that it is going to be the most awkward thing in the entire world and I am currently trying to steel myself to hit play again

well I am now approximately 1 second further along.

this scene just keeps GOING

seriously though why is this something that mcs wanted commander meng to help with though, he has to know he's not the right tool for the job at hand

THANK YOU commander meng for finally just WALKING OUT of that conversation, without even finding a way to politely end it, you have saved me

has consort jing figured out anything from the annotations on the travelogue? UNCLEAR AS OF YET and I want to know!

and now I am officially halfway through the show!

---

embarking upon nif ep 28, and consort jing and prince jing have a whole conversation about what kind of man mcs is, inspired by the annotated travelogue, and I STILL can't tell if consort jing has figured out who mcs is or not, it could seriously go either way with her careful thoughtful statements!

I am leaning towards YES she knows but that might just be wishful thinking on my part lol

use #5 of the scene-setting shot with the flock of birds flying across it

okay given how weird prince jing clearly thinks his mother's reaction was, I'm calling it that she does know

ooh prince jing gets to wear the FANCY robes now

I mean everyone in this show wears fancy robes but like the REALLY fancy ones

prince yu is so mad

mcs says very convincing things to prince yu about why he should actually be happy about how things are turning out for him right now, and honestly it's to prince yu's credit that he's having trouble believing what mcs says!

this poor attendant having to report to empress yan and prince yu all the complimentary hearsay about prince jing going around!!!

wow that was quite the montage, we haven't bothered with montages for timeskips before!

oh I love that minister shen is genuinely concerned about the well-being of the common people in a famine situation and knows that prince jing is the right person to come to if he wants it properly taken care of instead of taken advantage of

jingyan does NOT look like he's having a good time fighting with prince yu in front of the emperor, while prince yu is fully enjoying himself

but then they have very different intentions in this fight

prince jing: gotta do what I gotta do to be able to actually help people. prince yu: hm how can I make prince jing look bad?

oh my god the minister who just starts FULLY LAUGHING when prince yu tries to say that prince jing has always spoken with barbed words in front of the emperor

real mad at prince yu right now tbh, I very much enjoy watching him be terrible within the imperial court, where the other people he's working against are all as terrible as him, but in this situation where he's actively working to try to have access to embezzle funds away from disaster relief, I just cannot enjoy him doing his thing

and prince yu wins the fight and gets control over all the disaster relief funds, this is a real upsetting way to end an episode actually!!

---

I've been too busy reading books the last few days to watch tv but it is time to get back to nif! time for ep29!

ohhhh right I remember where we left the last episode :((((

also oh no when prince jing is dressed Fancy my brain is much less good at telling his face apart from prince yu

mcs: I'm not sick. I"M NOT SICK. Why would you think I'm sick. my health is never a concern -

ahhhh I've missed this show, it's been FOUR entire days since I last watched any and that's too long

mcs STOP PROTESTING THAT YOUR THROAT IS JUST ITCHY, prince jing is 100% aware you're sick, you don't need to hold onto the pretence!

but of course he cannot admit to weakness

love that even though prince yu protests to the emperor that he's totally bewildered as to why the mayor of the region in famine would be sending him expensive gifts, the emperor proceeds to talk as if it's just...understood between the two of them that of course prince yu had to say that but they both know that prince yu definitely accepts bribes regularly and it's fine as long as he's reasonable about it

what a pair

oh my gosh prince yu's DRUNK, he's usually way too in control of himself to let himself go like this!

prince yu is soooooooo baffled that a person might exist who wouldn't be tempted to steal from the disaster relief money, prince jing just makes NO sense to him

banruo is fiiiiiinally in a position where prince yu will listen to her about mcs's untrustworthiness!

also I love that prince yu recognizes what a formidable opponent consort jing is

I love this little interlude about consort jing's cooking hobby and household management of dried fruit and nuts in the palace and mcs's hazelnut allergy

and like it's all relevant to the plot in that it's about consort jing obviously knowing who mcs is, but there's a lot more details being shown than would NEED to be shown to convey this information, and I'm just very charmed by these little looks into their lives

I like that the vegetable delivery guy makes sure to check into the background of his new neighbour the pretty young widow to make sure there's nothing suspicious, but.....it's not good news that mr shisan's investigations didn't find anything suspicious since WE KNOW BETTER

ahhhhh a brief check in with yujin! confirmation that jingrui's doing okay off in southern chu!

---

...yeah okay I'm gonna watch another episode tonight, it's time for ep30!

love marquis yan's summing up of the situation "the crown prince has fallen, prince yu is lonely. he wants to find a new rival." SO FUNNY

yesssss I adore that whole conversation between mcs and marquis yan, convincing him to help

ah I see, both parties are getting additional allies on their side, mcs with marquis yan, and prince yu with xia jiang

oho, marquis yan IS perceptive as mcs compliments him, asking if he was a member of prince qi's household!

I love marquis yan a lot

oh I can't wait to find out what excuse xia jiang is going to find to bring up the chiyan case

and how mad the emperor is going to be about it

real worried about the developing situation between tong lu and fourth sister

oh no could we NOT have direct close-ups of acupuncture on the screen, needles in people are something I do not like to watch

I understand its presence, and I understand that not everyone has a ~thing about needles, but augh I have had to put my hand up on the screen to cover things TOO MANY TIMES tonight

lolll xia jiang might be working with prince yu to reach a common goal but that doesn't mean he's buds with him, love watching xia jiang deliberately rile prince yu up

the old times are on the emperor's mind even without having the chiyan case deliberately brought up!

---

yeah okay tonight can be a three episode night, on to ep31!

DO NOT LIKE that the current plan in the prince yu team is to try to get prince jing to distrust mcs

ALSO do not like that mcs is going to be spending several days seeing nobody and doing nothing but sleeping and taking medicine

oh NO now commander meng is going to be out of the city for five days

we're just setting lots of things up here so that stuff can happen with people not around to do anything about it and I am WORRIED

and now prince yu is plotting to have consort jing out of commission until the emperor returns

aghghghghlisdkfjhskjdflksh flk;hsdjf

hmm prince yu's birth mother is DEFINITELY going to somehow become plot relevant, I can tell

I'm just! so! worried! this episode keeps on building suspense about things to be worried about and not even letting me have the relief of knowing WHAT and WHY

okay I went and found spoilers because I can't handle this, and now I understand the reason behind the current plot with confining consort jing so I think I can continue

this poor handmaiden of consort jing, so worried about her lady, and being manipulated by everyone around her

wait is this tong lu being attacked, I didn't recognize him without the weird ropes-as-fashion-choices, in just his nightshirt

THIS CONTINUES TO BE STRESSFUL

the thing is. the thing is! when mcs is awake and active I can trust that he's on top of things and even if things look worrying he's got it under control

BUT RIGHT NOW HE'S NOT

okay actually I think I need to know, from those of you who have seen this show before: how successful are prince yu's efforts to get prince jing to not trust mcs?

[I am given some spoilers]

ahhh, oh good!! if prince jing finding out and then mcs successfully communicating with him about what actually happened all occurs in one episode then that's not too much dragging out

and that sounds like ep 33 is a problem for future me 😛

and I will go back to watching the last bit of ep 31 now!

ugh I wonder how fourth sister feels about her role in getting tong lu to betray the people he works for, she seems a kind-hearted sort and her role involved getting pretty close to him

wowww prince yu continues to prove himself SO cold-hearted. the imperial physician who helped carry out the plan against consort jing: whatever, don't care, he can take the intense punishment, the important thing is that my mom is protected by her position

and he thinks it's fine because he's going to reward the physician's family well

he fascinates me tbh

he's got a lot of really excellent qualities, and he THINKS he's a reasonable and righteous and moral person, and in another world he COULD have been that person, but here we are

and instead he's The Worst

he's so good at exactly embodying the kind of person the court he grew up in expected him to be!

he learned so well from what he was modeled!

and how could he see why that's bad, when the emperor is SUPPOSED to be the model, the person he looks up to and respects?

anyway in some future day when I finally finish watching this show I am going to read so much prince yu fanfic. I mean. unless I get distracted by reading so much fanfic for literally every other character also because they're all interesting

---

if I want to finish nirvana in fire then I DO need to get through these next couple episodes of Prince Yu's nefarious plan to make Prince Jing mistrust mcs

so I should watch more NiF tonight

let's see if I can convince myself to

too late I'm watching a video on youtube where a trans woman talks about the philosophical underpinnings of transhumanism instead

moved on to an extensive video about the changing social environments in the us that led to massively rising cremation rates between the 1960's and today

so you know, having a good time watching content but it's not nif content lol

I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna try watching the next ep of nif, here we go on ep 32! let's see if I can even remember what's happening, lol

Empress Yan is remarkably good at giving reasonable-sounding explanations for terrible behaviour, and also, I feel just a VERY LITTLE bit sorry for her here because this is something prince yu got her to do without ever explaining to her what he was doing with this

only a very little bit though, because I'm pretty sure she had fun lording it over consort jing for those few days

horses!!

I remember literally nothing about the imprisoned man and a) why he's imprisoned, and b) why people are trying to free him, but hey, it's cool, I'm sure it'll come up again eventually!

ohh riiiiight, this is an escape attempt being planned by everyone BUT mcs because mcs isn't allowed to do anything!!

someone from the bureau just explained it to a lieutenant! it's a dude from the chiyan army, and now I remember that it's part of a plan by prince yu's faction to dig up the chiyan case again to work against prince jing

ohhhhh NO! banruo is now going to use fourth sister's fondness for tong lu against her, after first using fourth sister to get tong lu to betray the folks he works for! NO!!!

I mean this was inevitable

but also :((((

NOPE NOPE NOPE the plot by prince yu to make mcs seem untrustworthy to prince jing & his people is returning

let's see whether mcs is allowed to stay awake and do things THIS time

it does still mildly disconcert me every time I see someone knocking at a door doing so by smacking the flat of their palm instead of using their knuckles. Both are equally valid strategies for accomplishing what needs to be accomplished, but it just looks so WRONG to my western eyes!

I believe this is now #6 on the establishing shot with the birds!

did u know prince yu is the Worst

prince yu and xia jiang are have a GREAT time acting out their concern about the chiyan case in a throne room where literally nobody is happy to hear about it

so far prince jing is holding himself together remarkably well despite the provocation

ohhhhh prince jing has CRACKED, and no wonder

and now prince yu and xia jiang are extracting all sorts of things from him that his father will not be happy to hear!!

"consort jing often says one must not fret before eating" omg I love the eunuch coming by to remind the emperor that he gets cranky when he hasn't eaten recently

---

okay, time to brave ep 33!

I do love that prince jing knows better than to trust his mom to tell him everything if she's decided he's better off not knowing

wow yes prince jing getting the news about his mom's mistreatment RIGHT after getting the chiyan case thrown in his face, no wonder he's a) toweringly mad and b) not immediately able to consider whether this sounds like something mcs would do

he's not in a good headspace right now!!

consort jing knows who mcs is and is trying to protect him from prince jing's anger by hiding information from prince jing and it is Not Working

usually she's a better strategist than this tbh!

augh this is stressful

way to milk the visual drama of the secret passage for ALL IT'S WORTH, cinematographers!

oh goddddddd mcs is ALSO worked up by the chiyan case and not in a good state of mind

this is agonizing

I turned off the sound to lower the emotional intensity so that maybe I can keep watching, but their faces still have. SO MUCH.

I do appreciate that it will be worth getting through in the end!!

but IN THE MEANTIME

got distracted talking to a housemate about, you know, the problems of the world *gestures vaguely* but I am BACK to subject myself to some more nif emotions

prince jing is known for being forthright! he needs to actually TELL mcs why he's mad at him! so they can TALK about it!!!

mcs still doesn't actually know that the situation with consort jing not being helped was blamed on him!!

ahhh the way the emotions about the two separate strands of things to be mad about (the imprisoned guy from the Chiyan army, consort jing's mistreatment) are all tangled up in each other now is just so GOOD and REALISTIC tbh

sucks to be mcs's underlings worried about his health right now. it always does, but now ESPECIALLY

all these people NOT WEARING HATS when it is WINTER, how are their ears not freezing right off

I would have a headache within ten minutes if I were out in that weather without something to keep my ears warm

I know the dilemma of My Hair Looks Good And I Don't Want TO Squash It but sometimes some things must be sacrificed upon the altar of hats!

fur lined cloak PLUS hat though. fur lined cloak with fur lined hood? there are options!

wow consort jing is SO good at diplomatically answering the hard questions the emperor puts to her

I love her

I want her skills

they're STILL not talking about the ACTUAL PROBLEM!!!!

aghhhhhhhhh prince jing FINALLY makes oblique reference to the fact that there's SOMETHING ELSE he's mad at mcs for doing.....and then immediately leaves, without giving mcs any chance to like. DEAL with that

he really super is passive aggressive

just burst out into a surprised cackle of laughter, mcs HAS been riled up, "xiao jingyan, you have loyalty and honour, but why do you not have a brain?!"

it is a funny quote on its own, but oh my god, in context it is like. SO MUCH.

.....I have had a presentiment growing for a while that mcs might not BOTHER to correct prince jing's understanding of the events with his mom and I am Very Worried about this rn

it is exactly the kind of stupid self-sacrificing bullshit he would do because he doesn't think he deserves prince jing's high regard

oooh one of xia jiang's underlings is QUESTIONING why he needs to oppose prince jing, this is promising

anyway the episode is over and I am still in agonies because they might be working together again but they are no longer able to have that easy camaraderie of before :((((

does this ever get cleared up?

gotta learn how to watch tv FASTER

---

right, I'm on a roll, time for moar nif, let's go ep 34

ughhhh mcs's expression as he listens to prince jing's concerns and says "I'm just a schemer who incites troubles"'

the way they just CONTINUE to talk around the thing!!!!

I found a nif meme twitter last night and there were multiple about commander meng being a himbo and can I just say: they are correct

he fulfills ALL the requirements

prince jing and mcs are now just being excruciatingly polite at each other, this is terrible

well THAT was abrupt, goodbye crown prince, who is no longer crown prince!

the long red robes with even longer pink drapey scarves around their arms that the attendants of consort jing wear seem singularly challenging to do anything in, I gotta say. Keeping those long scarves perfectly draped at all times! No sudden movements possible.

Am I cold on behalf of the characters/actors because it's so obviously visibly cold where they are, or am I just cold: the eternal question with this show

oh my god the emperor absently tapping with his chopstick on his cup along with the music but NOT IN RHYTHM with the music, what a perfect Old Man Who Doesn't Care About Other People detail

oh no people are dressed up with extra fancy clothes/headpieces for this social event, how am I supposed to recognize people without their usual signifiers

omggggg even for the shot of FIREWORKS they use the exact same establishing shot with the flock of birds flying across it -- flying towards the fireworks lolllllll I love this

oh HECK xiao-xin is WORKING FOR XIA JIANG!

I did NOT expect her to have that much backbone tbh, lol

glad to see that feiliu gets to be irresponsible with fireworks for new year's

I don't like to see xiao-xin actively working to spy on consort jing 😞

yujin is SO pumped that he might be entrusted with some part of upcoming shenanigans

consort jing's household seems like a really supportive working environment, as I am unsurprised it would be under her, but xiao-xin is taking ADVANTAGE of everyone's concern for her

---

do believe it's time for more nif! ep 35!

I continue to appreciate the character guide, I don't even remember if grand prince ji has shown up before or not, but now I know who he is!

love watching him and yujin bond over their shared love of music

and I assume that this is part of the Shenanigans that yujin is helping with and love it even more

this episode is really striking me as just like, we've temporarily switched genres, this is a heist show now

very little in the way of feelings, lots of Planning The Heist

huh, I think this is the first time in this show or the untamed that I've seen someone heating water to make tea, rather than just having a teapot already made, and it suddenly strikes me that getting water heated to the exact right temperature for different sorts of teas is a LOT harder when one doesn't have a multi-temp electric kettle!

they must have a system though, they're clearly intense about their tea

I am loving marquis yan gently but thoroughly roasting xia jiang for how he treated his wife

mcs and prince jing just sitting around watching the incense burn really makes it clear how HARD it is to be the only people who can't be involved in actually doing something when the time comes to move a plan forward

dang I LOVE the way that marquis yan just inexorably puts forward his own agenda in how he frames the conversation, instead of being drawn into directly responding to xia jiang's accusations

it's so mesmerizing to watch him in action!

OKAY so where IS wei zheng?? and can they break in THERE?

---

well obviously I'm immediately watching the next episode

ep 36!

and xia dong had BETTER not be about to die or I will be very upset

yujin is SO pleased by his part in this endeavour!

he got to steal horses from xia jiang! such fun!

cackling aloud with laughter at xia jiang inadvertently showing the rebels where he's hidden wei zheng!

ah, how nostalgic, to watch someone very obviously only pretending to play a flute to go along with the flute music we hear

I'm very curious to find out how the gong yu & grand prince yi & yujin Music Appreciation Time is going to be plot relevant!

pince jing is doing great so far in this interrogation! I'm so proud of him!

prince yu is sooooooo pleased that his plans all seem to be coming together

---

time to move on to ep 37!!

oh the empress just THROWING xiao-xin under the bus!!

it is so pleasing when the antagonist's plans fail because someone doesn't react the way they expect them to

the empress must be so mad that the emperor didn't react the way she wanted him to about consort jing

ahhhhhh, in the previous portion, mcs and prince jing were waiting together while other people did the actual things that needed doing, and now mcs is just sitting and waiting ALONE

just having to hope and trust that prince jing will manage okay

prince yu is SOOOOOOOOOOO MAD

he is LOSING HIS COOL

he is NOT doing a good job of helping his case right now!!

YESSSSSS consort jing is ON IT to make sure that jingyan knows that his fall-out with mcs was a set-up!!

that whole confrontation between consort jing and xiao-xin was amazing

consort jing is just endlessly GREAT

ah dangit, I was really enjoying the conversation between mcs and xia jiang, how dare the episode end there and me without time to watch another episode before bed!

---

time to pop back into mcs & xia jiang's conversation with nif ep 38!

...getting distracted by googling a) the history of horseshoes and b) when NiF is supposed to approximately be set

the horses in this show have ahistoric shoes on is my conclusion

the way that mcs is weaponizing his willingness to submit and answer all questions in this conversation is fascinating to watch

I REALLY hope that that pill mcs mysteriously took before being captured is like, a presciently preventative cure for the wujin pill

xia dong :(((( having all of her trust and respect in her shifu thrown up in the air like this!

---

this is a whole series of episodes where you really don't want to pause between episodes! moving on to ep 39!!

grand prince ji is so uncomfortable with everything he's set off with his report!

....feiliu just appears in the middle of the bureau's dungeon out of nowhere. of course he does.

good for him

ahahahahaha prince yu is summoned before the emperor and immediately protests that he knows absolutely NOTHING about the wrong thing!!!!!

DELIGHTFUL

---

time for ep 40! why not! just power through SO much tv this weekend!!

wow prince yu is remarkably clear-minded about exactly what position he's in now. and no yelling at all!

lollllll I love that the emperor is busy trying to convince consort jing that prince jing should get mcs on his side!!

THANK YOU xia dong for mentioning the poison to one of mcs's people, because mcs was absolutely not going to say anything himself

love how prince jing finds out that mcs never betrayed his mom after all, right when mcs is suffering terribly with his health because of what prince jing had mcs do to earn back any trust. this is like, classic angst fic right here

augh MULTIPLE rounds of acupuncture in this episode for me to have to look away from the screen for!

LOLLLLLLL his mysterious chronic illness destroyed the wujin pill this is the funniest possible way for this plotline to resolve

I love it

well that's the end of that plot arc, and I really need to stop being a gremlin for the day and like, leave the house and see the sun or something

---

I accidentally fell into reading NiF fanfic last night and it turns out I have a lot of feelings about people insisting that mcs is still Lin Shu. he's been changed by the horrible things he's experienced! he's not the same person he used to be! is mcs dealing with those this in a healthy way? absolutely not, but I don't think trying to turn back time is the answer!

unless it's literally turning back time, with a time travel fic, because then I'm there :P

it's a really complicated relationship he has with his identity

I'm very curious to see what I'll think at the end!

I'm guessing that prince Jing does learn his identity by the end, so that'll be really interesting how that goes

---

ok time to put down the fanfic and pick back up the show, let's go nif ep 41!

wow, consort yue returns!

being a member of the inner palace seems MISERABLE tbh. either you're high ranking and constantly having to fight to keep your position from those who want to take it, or you're in a position where the empress and highest ranking consorts can do whatever they want to you

oh what a sneaky-clever way for consort jing to communicate to the emperor that the empress is mistreating consort hui without seeming to bring it up herself or do any complaining

she has a maidservant happen to come by while she's with the emperor, and ask for confirmation that certain items are correct. THen the emperor is curious, because of course he is, and asks after the items, and she explains that it's soothing cream for consort hui's hands because of all the buddhist scriptures she's having to write out! Very tidily done

hiiiii commander meng! I have now read multiple fics about giving commander meng a boyfriend and none of them were actually.....good. and it's disappointing because I'd love to read good fic about him!

ah I do love the two moral ministers

still SO funny that the emperor is encouraging prince jing to get mcs on his side now!

lollll when prince yu accepts the degree that he's now only a two-pearl prince and bows, he actually smacks his head against the ground. he's soooooo mad

consort yue has also been demoted, and my goodness I think that is the strongest facial expression I have ever seen her wear in public!

mu qing is indeed the woostest, I'd forgotten! yujin and jingrui both showed depths but I have yet to see any depths from mu qing

and prince jing is not a fan of woosting, lol

oh my gosh, mcs TEASING yan-daifu, and seeming genuinely happy for a moment, this is a delight

I love that although feiliu is like, a fighting prodigy and can beat basically anyone without an issue, commander meng still has the upper hand on him in any fight

really shows how good commander meng must be!

aaaaahhhhhhhhh prince jing is future-planning for mcs's role in the future when he's emperor, and mcs is like "nope" MCS COME ON

mcs really thinks he should just fade away forever after he gets prince jing to the throne :((((

I love how clearly cai quan and shen zhui are friends

wow prince yu is COMPLETELY lost his go-get-em attitude for the time being! I know from fic that he doesn't stay having given up for long but it's quite something to see him like this, just totally stripped back and hopeless and not even seeming mad about it

---

onwards! ep 42!

I AM SO INVESTED NOW

I mean I've been falling over myself since basically the beginning at how good this show is

but I think I crossed some sort of threshold and now I am rabid about it

the subjugation of the hua people keeps on becoming more and more relevant, this is fascinating

prince yu ALSO gets fun identity issues!!

wow if the letter from the dead princess is telling the truth then the chiyan army slaughtered the hua people and I'm a LIIIIIITTLE less on their side tbh

the emperor and prince yu have VERY different ideas of their relationship and what the problem was between them!

the emperor: if only he'd shown a modicum of virtue he'd have been my heir. prince yu: it's because of my identity as half-hua that my dad would never be close to me

WELL prince yu has found his motivation again!

oh noooo, poor tong lu, discovering that his lady friend betrayed him 😞

those wooden-wheeled carriages continue to look HECKING uncomfortable to ride in

WHOA. WHAT. mcs is wearing something that ISN'T just loose, plain, light colours

---

is it time for more nif? IT IS! ep 43!

it is so interesting to me, the idea that if you're a good physician you can just tell everything important about someone's health from their pulse

it's like a tricorder, but you don't even need special equipment!

wow consort jing is really losing her ability to hold on to her 🙂 mask after taking mcs's pulse!

prince jing is a very filial son

tents are real bad places for private conversations, I'm just saying. I don't KNOW if anyone's going to overhear this but THEY SURE COULD

admittedly I ABSOLUTELY believe that people would not think about how tents aren't private and would have those conversations, because tents do feel private even if they're not, but then there need to be repercussions? because people WILL hear!!

though I mean it depends on the character lol. mcs should know better

wow empress yan seems to have found the one single line she has concerns about crossing!

also oh my god prince yu is WILD with feelings

another count to add to the establishing shot with the birds!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa tong lu and fourth sister!!!!!!

wowwww that transition between our folks talking about how prince yu could be bribing the generals/officials of the army to get them to accept his orders, and CUT to nope he's not using bribery he's using murder

prince Jing is clearly developing some suspicions of mcs's identity

you'd think that looking like an entirely different person would help

but eventually

---

ep 44!

gosh being on the front line in a clash between armies is a bad gig

tbh I'm a lot less stressed than during the sequence when prince jing didn't trust mcs!

[someone points out that characters might die]

OH OH NO, GOOD POINT

anyway I just got distracted googling whether china has poison ivy, due to the soldiers hiding in the bushes with verdant greenery

they absolutely have poison ivy and relations

the american girl book where molly hides in a patch of poison ivy to win at a game at camp is a formative work of literature for me, and it can happen to anyone!

somehow I feel confident commander meng is going to survive?

we'll see how right I am about that lol

grand prince ji does NOT have the constitution required to handle sieges

zhen ping :((((((((

a) reinforcements are here!!! b) horses are so beautiful when they run

aghhhhhhhhh I don't have time to watch another episode tonight and that is CRIMINAL

---

welcome back once again to Soph Yells About NiF Time! Ep 45!

wowwwwww the emperor massacred the Hua people just to keep the secret of how he ascended to the throne, that is even WORSE than the very bad I already thought it!

prince yu truly is the prince most like his father

.....interested to see where this captured hairy beast-man plot point is going...........

ahahahaha xia dong's dead husband is a vampire yeti INCREDIBLE

no one could see that one coming!

oh! oh! we're sending a letter by pigeon! could this herald the return of lin chen!!

prince jing's suspicions about mcs keep being added to!

I really expected the battle stuff to take more than just two episodes, so we're off into unexpected territory here!

it's just like, sure we'll mobilize tens of thousands of soldiers and have enormous numbers of npc's die, but it's a backdrop for the main characters

I was definitely worried about Gong Yu for a bit there

and yujin

commander meng is Too Good For This World, which means he cannot die in the low and horrible ways of this world!

he is immortal and will live forever

prince jing: "okay. everything seems to be normal. I won't ask anymore" LOL

ugh being emperor IS going to be so lonely for prince jing 😞

MEI CHANGSU. DON'T GIVE YOUR LIFE-PRESERVING MEDICATION TO OTHER PEOPLE WHEN YOU NEED IT YOURSELF!!!

---

episode 46!

and prince jing has decided he is NOT letting go of figuring out what's up with mcs's identity!

aughhhhhhh at this point it is just CRUEL to keep mcs's identity from prince jing

oh, xia jian escaped, maybe we're NOT done the fighting parts yet?

prince ji, trying to assuage the emperor's concerns about prince jing: "of course any prince would be interested in the throne!!"
the emperor: aren't you a prince?
prince ji: OH NO I MISCALCULATED

I love prince ji

oh dang, prince yu is having a good time emotionally manipulating his father through his death!

I mean as much of a "good time" as prince yu ever has these days

....huh, I did not expect mcs to go to the effort of saving prince yu's pregnant wife

okay who WOULD yujin have been betrothed to if he was born a girl!!!!!

this is important information actually, prince ji!!

---

ok ep 47 now!

NOW who's being overly self-sacrificing! *glares at gong yu*

lin chen returns!!!!

ohhhhhhhh, "the most important thing was that if prince qi wanted to rebel, he could do so at any time," it wasn't even IMPORTANT to the emperor if prince qi was rebelling, he just didn't want anyone to have enough power that they could stand against him!

lin chen and mcs sure do have a good time antagonizing each other! Friendship!

establishing shot with the birds again! I don't remember what number we're at

love the way that lin chen takes the opportunity of explaining nie feng's options to make sure that people who are close to mcs are aware of exactly what his health situation is!

OKAY I think 3 episodes is as many as I can handle for one evening

except I want to keep watching, except my brain is melting. you know how it goes

---

yesss I end up having time this evening to watch more nif after all! let's go ep 48!

when too many people know a secret, it spreads way too easily! now xia dong knows mcs's identity too, because everyone else was just chatting easily about it in front of her!

wowwwwww mcs, DIRECTLY lying to nihuang about how long you have, when it's the only piece of information she asked of you out of the whole thing

wowwwwwww THIS maidservant spy is uh a lot more....more, than xiao-xin was

consort yue is very bad at pretending to be sick, that is a very fake sounding cough

secrets coming out all over the place!

---

on to ep 49

eunuch gao puts so much effort into being a pleasant and non-confrontational companion for the emperor, that every time he does something that indicates he has a mind of his own it's a little surprising!

being eunuch gao seems like a terrible job tbh

I would not thrive in that role

we sure are building up the tension here a LOT for mcs's invited visit to the palace, real curious how this confrontation is actually going to go down

ahahaha in a room full of people worried about mcs, prince jing is I'm pretty sure the ONLY one who doesn't know who he is, and wonders in all sincerity what possible other secrets the emperor might be wanting to get from mcs!!

nihuang is prepared to suggest and lead a rebellion REAL fast!

well that's the worst possible way for prince jing to find out mcs's identity!

mcs, you really should have listened to your bro commander meng! but can't have that! must have maximum self-flagellation!

....the emperor is willing to just casually murder mcs whether he's lin shu or not, just to be on the safe side, WHAT A GUY

prince jing has had his Important Series Of Revelations now!

flashbacks to all the Hints he saw over time as to mcs's identity!

He Could Have Known All Along If Only He Knew To Look

---

and OBVIOUSLY I can't stop there, who cares about foolish things like bedtimes when I can watch nif ep 50

anyway ahh poor prince jing finding out that he's basically the LAST to know, that's gotta hurt

damnit I KNEW that swapping gong yu for xia dong was going to come back to bite them

I'm glad one of you referred to gong yu as the one who's in love with mcs because I literally would never have picked up on that myself, and now that I know that, some things about her storyline make a lot more sense!

oh holy shit is that woman XIA JIANG'S ESTRANGED WIFE?????

ooh prince jing's betrothed wife has some backbone to her

end of the episode and prince jing and mcs have not been in each other's presence ONCE since prince jing learned of mcs's identity! unfair!

---

I have four episodes of nif left to go! I probably can't get them all done tonight but I'm definitely going to try! episode 51!!!

well mcs and prince jing are in each other's presence, and they're not talking about it. of course

jingrui is back!!!!!!!!!

HI JINGRUI

jingrui is SUCH a good kid I love him to pieces

godddddddddd mcs's firm belief that he's not a good person anymore and cannot have any place by the side of a good and moral emperor like prince jing

and his insistence that prince jing can't want anything else!! he's just SO determined that he Doesn't Matter as anything except a tool to get the job done

mcs you are being CRUEL to your BEST FRIEND who thought you were DEAD FOR THE LAST THIRTEEN YEARS

ahahahaha mcs and prince jing proposing to ruin another birthday party, IN FRONT OF JINGRUI whose birthday party was last ruined!

---

ep 52!!

jingrui continues to be the BEST

so interesting to see lin chen and feiliu being able to have a very different dynamic as well, being relatively serious with each other while lin chen makes medicine and they talk about mcs

AGH now mcs is lying to prince jing too about how much life he expects to have left!

ahhhhh yes, talking about the secret of tingsheng's identity and if the things you say just HAPPEN to be relevant to the fact of other secrets, then who can say

"there are things in this world that when you don't know, you are satisfied"

"but once you know, you have nothing but wild thoughts and worries"

....brb googling how big pearls can actually get

okay yeah they can get REMARKABLY enormous but it absolutely would not be perfectly round like the one prince jing got for lin shu https://largest.org/nature/pearls/

love getting to see people carefully arrange other people's fancy sleeves as they get ready for a fancy party

getting all those long drapey layers to hang right together takes effort!

ok the beaded curtain hat that the emperor only very occasionally wears is.......a look I cannot take quite seriously

godddddd liyang has to have ENORMOUS courage to kneel there and say all this in front of the furious emperor

dang even prince ji is willing to say something political

---

ep 53!! I'm making great time through these episodes and I might even make it!

the emperor is having a TEMPER TANTRUM, someone needs to sit in the time out corner

sometimes your feelings take you to a place where you just gotta lie flat on the floor

the thing is, the emperor comes across as kind of over-paranoid when talking about how this must have been the plan from the start for both prince jing and consort jing, but.....he's 100% correct

he SHOULD be paranoid, they ARE out to get him

WOW consort jing CAN be moved to expressing strong genuine negative emotions!

ahhhh when the emperor agrees with you that lin shu cannot be allowed to be a presence in court, maybe you should realize you're wrong about yourself and your place!

---

I'm doing it! I'm doing it! ep 54! THE LAST ONE HERE WE GO

they did it! the chiyan case has been overturned!

is this going to be the final instance of the establishing shot with the flock of birds? maybe!

just realized that mcs doesn't talk much about the fact that his dad is one of the people that died as a result of the chiyan case -- but of course that death would have a huge impact on him as well

oh boy, mcs's identity issues are always a fun time! he wants to go out in a brief blaze of glory as lin shu, because that's the only version of himself he sees as having value!

he liked being lin shu, he wants that back if only briefly 😞

fascinating to see lin chen actually backing down from an argument with mcs, listening to mcs when he says it's his own right to decide

but lin chen still isn't gonna abandon him no matter what mcs does, ahhhhhhhh my feels

ugh another romantic montage set to sad vocals, just not my thing

okay except the sad romance song continues once we switch to mcs and prince jing talking so uh. that's sure saying something

this entire thing with the sudden incursion of enemies who only mcs can defeat is sure CONVENIENT for mcs to get his wish to not have to stick around and be present at the sides of the people who care about him!

I hope mcs and nihuang do get to live ordinary, boring, happy lives in their next lives as they talk about 😞

oh I was wrong, they used the establishing shot with the flock of birds a second time in this episode, one more for the count!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa I'm done

gosh

what an experience

still gotta figure out how I feel about the ending tbh

but wow, what a show, what an incredible show

---

prince jing just gets left! alone! to be lonely in a position he never wanted!

he achieves his goal and now he has to just KEEP GOING in a miserable job forever with his best friend having abandoned him

---

I do love the contrasts between Lin Chen's friendship with mcs and Prince Jing's friendship with mcs

---

also jingrui and yujin had better not die fighting in this new war

actually nobody is allowed to die

we already established that commander Meng is immortal but so is everyone else now

---

....I just went to start bookmarking a bunch of the NiF fic I've been reading and have reached my first crisis about how to tag mcs. if it's an au fic about a version of him who never became mcs, I can't tag him by that name because that's not him, but if I want to use a consistent naming tag for him then lin shu isn't ideal most of the time even if it is in this case!

rude of mcs honestly

having a complicated identity just to thwart me

---

.....I'm a little like, "what did I even do with totally free evenings in the time before nirvana in fire"

I have nothing scheduled tonight! I have hours to do something in! I have no more nif to watch!

---

just thinking how funny it is that wwx is played by the same actor before and after his death even though he's in a different body, while mcs is played by different actors even though he's in the same body!

wwx may have died but he did NOT get hit with different actor disease

it's a mysterious disease!

even more mysterious than the poison of the bitter flame

Comments

[brownbetty]

I read all the way through this because the most important monment on anyone's NiF watch journey is the vampire yeti reveal

[sophia_sol]

vampire yeti! nobody is prepared!!

[brownbetty]

When you do your rewatch and realize the gun was on the mantle in the first episode but you ignored it because it seemed like it couldn't possibly be plot relevant and there were so many dudes with so many names!

[sophia_sol]

oh dang IS it!!

I really do have to do a rewatch at some point

[genarti]

IT'S SUCH A GOOD SHOW!!!!

[sophia_sol]

SO GOOD. SO GOOD!!!!

[skygiants]

I'm SO glad these were preserved for posterity

[sophia_sol]

thank you, me too! very important archive of events

[lirazel]

I am not reading this because I haven't seen it yet, but I will be back after I do watch it! Sometime! (Also, I'm really impressed you made it through the entire show!)

[sophia_sol]

yessssss WATCH IT is so so so so so goooooooooood!!!!

(I'm impressed I made it through too! the power of having people to yell at while I had emotions was vital to the experience I think. and to spoiler me when things got too much.)

[lannamichaels]

This is delightful to read :D

[sophia_sol]

:DDD thank you!

[lannamichaels]

Also, forgot to mention, solidarity fistbump on the faceblindness. When they had that clip at the beginning of MCS with his hair down and wearing white, I did not at all realize that was MCS. And I'm with you, I just trust the show that Jingrui's sister looks so much like her. ;)

[sophia_sol]

FISTBUMP I am so glad to hear I am not alone. the trials are endless