The Sword and the Brocade: Initial Rambles
May. 4th, 2024 05:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrMasterlist, Character Guide, and Content Notes
I started writing a reaction post, then rambled to a friend for ages, then started writing things up more methodically. So here is the first two sections of more freeform non-linear rambling, which covers approximately episodes 1-9.
The spoilery FFA summary that got me to watch the show:
The thing I didn't realise until later is that yes, Lingyi only marries Shiyi after her sister dies, but he also has THREE CONCUBINES. (Two at the start and a third by the time they get married)
I usually avoid this sort of romance because while I'm all for poly, a guy having a bunch of concubines/wives always makes any new relationship feel like a notch in his belt, especially since the WOMEN are expected to be completely faithful to HIM.
Luckily, it works for me in this story, because it turns out he doesn't seem to have chosen ANY of these relationships, they were all arranged by his mother for Political Reasons, and he sees caring for and having sex with these women as a grim duty. He secretly yearns for love and an equal relationship but eventually realised these women mostly just want power. He tries to be a good husband but is naturally curt and distant and uninterested in flirty games for favour, power, and sex, so the women see him as an emotionally unavailable problem to be worked around, which just widens the emotional distance. He's lonely and just needs someone to love him for who he is! I can ship that.
I say "can" because right now I am on episode EIGHT and he and Shiyi JUST got married and have barely spoken. Instead it's pretty much all been LADY DRAMA.
Since I find the gender dynamics of het harem drama off-putting, I think this may be my first time consuming a Chinese example, even though it's a very popular genre. I've read a bunch of m/m cnovels and fic dealing with this sort of thing but they had to go through some contortions to fit men in there, and naturally focussed on male characters.
But this one is ALL about women. Who, except the heroine, are mostly TERRIBLE people, but the situations they're in are so dire I end up feeling sorry for them anyway. I know enough about cnovel conventions to expect everyone who ever did the heroine wrong to be punished with excruciating suffering in the end, and I feel kinda bad about it.
I was going to summarise the plot up until now and I Just Couldn't be Bothered, and instead ended up rambling in a non-linear way to a very patient friend. Here's my somewhat edited rambles.
I have been watching this het cdrama with harem shenanigans and I kind of want all the concubines to unionise. Like they're all kinda evil to the virtuous protagonist but also the show is very clear that being a concubine sucks.
The heroine herself (Shiyi) is the daughter of a concubine who only gets to be the main wife due to her dying sister, the original wife Yuanniang, framing a highborn competitor for the role of Next Wife. Yuanniang tricks Lianfang into showing herself in her underwear to Lingyi, and this ruins her reputation and she is taken on as a concubine.
There's this extended scene where we see Lianfang, who is in love with Lingyi, sadly putting away the wedding dress she sewed herself because she'll never wear one now, and then being forced to walk in the rain through the side entrance, as a servant aligned with the Dying Wife deliberately mocks her and puts her in her place.
And then ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT Lingyi is just... clearly very unhappy he had to marry Lianfang to save her reputation and very firmly says no to sex and then leaves.
And then we see heroine Shiyi marry Lingyi after her sister dies, and Lingyi is like ugh I guess we have to have sex but she clearly doesn't want to and he's relieved and doesn't press. (EDIT: Not how the show wanted me to read it apparently lol)
And so now I just ship concubine/wife.
Like Lingyi isn't a bad dude, he's trying to be a good husband to all these women who don't actually like him very much but he like... flinches away from touching women unless they're Very Sad and he feels obliged. I want Shiyi to take over the household, unionise with the concubines, and have her own harem while Lingyi gets to stay away and focus on what he actually enjoys, his job as a Good Cop trying to change the law so no one is forced into piracy due to poverty.
(EDIT: He's not actually a cop per se, there ARE people with a role similar to cops and he has a complicated relationship with them. He's an army general who sometimes chases fugitives)
In the first scene we see him pursuing some pirates, who kidnap Shiyi as a hostage and threaten to kill her. And I was like ugh ok, he's a cop, sure.
He captures on pirate and kills another, and goes to talk to the captured one, saying "So I know you're just waiting for your leader to work with whatever government official is backing you to escape, but I just killed your leader" *shows him the dead body*
And I was like "oh this is mean, cop dude" but then the pirate is just really sad his leader is dead and Lingyi says "I know you don't WANT to be pirates. You were fishermen until the law made that impossible, and someone powerful manipulated you into becoming pirates. I only killed his guy because he basically fell on my sword, wanting to die
because he felt he had no escape. But if you tell me who's behind this I will help you find a new life as a fisherman again."
But the pirate just laughs and says Lingyi has no idea how high up this goes, there's no escape etc, and then kills himself. Lingyi is stoicly sad and keeps doing his best to get the law changed, arguing about the suffering of the poor and being so busy doing so he forgets to have sex with his wives. Meanwhile his wives think he should stop caring about the poor and focus on gaining power/having sex with them etc.
I'm guessing Shiyi will be more supportive of his hobbies.
Also I usually find subtitled dramas hard to follow but this assumes the audience is very dumb. Every plot element is explained multiple times. Shiyi has a very stupid servant she keeps re-explaining things to.
Shiyi's evil half-sister Erniang gives her a poem, I'm like ok I ASSUME this is secretly an insult from her smug smirk but...
Stupid servant: What does the poem mean?
Shiyi: *explains insulting symbolism and sister's motives*
I feel bad for the evil sister Erniang though. Shiyi and Erniang are both daughters of concubines. Erniang has successfully ingratiated herself with their father's wife Madame Luo, while Shiyi is the unfavoured one who gets beaten in the rain for breaking a hairpin etc.
Madame Luo has two marriages set up: One with Lingyi for after their sick older sister dies, and one with a cartoonishly evil drunken sexual predator Wang Yu who has useful political connections.
And obviously Shiyi is set up with Wang Yu, while wanting to marry noone and be a Free Independent Woman. She is planning to escape with her mother and loyal maid Dongqing.
But luck and Shiyi's virtue end up tipping the scales and the Madame Luo goes "eh, it's not like I actually care about either of these girls, sure, I'll swap who marries who.", happily sending her 'favourite' off to a tortuous marriage. Shiyi goes "Oh no poor Erniang, well when I run away she won't have to marry Wang Yu, which is good".
But then Shiyi's mother is Mysteriously Murdered and the police close the case suspiciously quickly. Then Erniang tricks the creep Wang Yu into wanting to marry Shiyi and is all smirkingly mean about it. When Shiyi finds out she goes OK THEN THIS IS WAR and exposes the lies.
So Erniang is married off to Wang Yu and is utterly miserable, and I feel bad for her! She sucks, but he sucks more! She should stab him!!
I could settle for Erniang/Lianfang.
They keep explaining all the convoluted schemes in case we lost track of who was who and what their motives were, which more convoluted, scheme-heavy canons should do.
This maid Dongqing is like... Jam Watson.
Shiyi is very clever and relatively good at holding her tongue so it's very useful for her to have a loud stupid person to say the obvious and ask dumb questions. Dongqing also has the most AMAZINGLY unflattering haircut.
This is set in the Ming Dynasty (they actually say "Here in the Ming Dynasty" a couple of times which is very convenient) and the fashions aren't as cute as some other cdramas. Lingyi has a very dumb hat and is really not very cute. He's like 46 which I am not against in principle but he's playing the husband of a 15 yr old. Luckily the actress playing 15 yr old Shiyi is 31, so I can headcanon him as younger and/or her as older.
(EDIT: Had a moment worrying I was being too insulting of Chinese cultural dress, and obviously this stuff is subjective. But based on what I've seen from modern hanfu enthusiasts and designers of Vague Historical Fashion I think a lot of Chinese people would agree that older styles are cuter)
Friend asked to see the hat:
He only wears it at work and here at his wedding but the memory remains.
I prefer when cdramas have all the men have their hair out flowing which is wildly anachronistic but cuter. This one even has OTHER men have their hair half up but not Lingyi? I guess cos he's old and uptight? Which makes sense but boo.
Lingyi at work in the Ministry of Bad Hats:
Servant vs Shiyi hairstyles
I was 20 minutes in before Shiyi is revealed to be 15 and I just went wait what.
Shiyi and Lianfang are meeting for the first time since Shiyi married Lingyi. Lianfang and Lingyi both think Shiyi helped her sister frame Lianfang instead of being an unwilling accomplice.
All of a guy's kids are expected to call the main wife "mother", which really adds something to the "mother" torturing these girls and sending them off to marry creeps.
So now Lingyi and Yuanniang's son Zhun with is meeting Shiyi (his aunt/stepmother) for the first time and being told to call her mother, while Lianfang plays on the fact she's already in shy kid's good graces wearing a "Fuck you new wife" smile
If I am not supposed to like this character why so pretty?
Lingyi also has a son with one of his concubines. Yuanniang and the concubine were constantly trying to make him pick a favourite when he just wanted to be a good (if distant workaholic) dad to both of them.
Both kids are like 8 and I feel like he went, ok, I have a heir and spare, now to if possible never have sex again (Later evidence does not entirely back this up)
GASP. The officials secretly working with the pirates have been revealed and are going to work together to try and take down Lingyi before he changes government policy!!
It's the OU FAMILY!!
I found who they were confusing at first but the show has very kindly reexplained it many many times.
Oh also any time one of the older head wives is pissed off at a servant they SELL THEM INTO SLAVERY.
Ahaha but Shiyi is nice! She thinks they should just be FLOGGED.
Tragically this makes her look SOFT to her mother in law and Lianfang uses this to her advantage to steal control of the household, which is supposed to be the wife's job.
ooh the original two concubines do NOT like how Lianfang acts like she's better than them as well as Shiyi because she's the legitimate daughter of a nobleman, and are deciding if they should align with Shiyi against her.
They are also very pretty!
We have Bitchy Concubine Wen and Quiet Polite Stupid Concubine Qin who asks Concubine Wen to explain everything to her, very convenient.
Concubine Wen: Hmmph, his lordship stayed all night with Shiyi. Out with the old in with the new, I guess :/
Concubine Qin: It was their wedding night.
Concubine Wen: Yeah and at least he ignores Lianfang as much as us.
Concubine Qin: Shh, she's coming.
Concubine Wen, much more cheerful: SO I HEAR HIS LORDSHIP STAYED ALLLL NIIIGHT WITH HIS NEW WIFE. GUESS IT MAKES SENSE HE LOVES A WIFE MORE THAN CONCUBINES :D :D
(On their wedding night Shiyi and Lingyi lay in bed in their underwear awkwardly not touching and then Shiyi hugged Lingyi during the night and he politely and awkwardly extricated himself the next morning)
Shiyi: Wait, so my husband doesn't appear to want to fuck ANY of his concubines? And was forced into marrying ALL of them? What's up with that?
Dongqing: Maybe he's impotent.
Shiyi thinks back to their wedding night and I think we're supposed to read his behaviour as wanting to have sex with her and just backing off cos she was afraid which... is not how it read to me but ok.
aww Concubine Qin was a maid who was rewarded by Madame Xu with marrying Lingyi after helping him through an illness. No wonder she's self conscious about her place.
Concubine Wen's family are rich merchants who basically bought her the position since it's a huge step up socially for her.
No wonder noble-born Lianfang despises them.
Shiyi now refers to Lingyi's mother as "Mother", and I think all the concubines refer to each other as "sister" in Chinese.
Friend: is this whole thing a setup to justify having monogamy but also a harem?
Me: Of course.
[goes into the many contortions I have seen Chinese m/m historical romances tie themselves into to have monogamous and generally virginal nobleman love interests]
Lingyi was a bit too harsh on his wimpy son Zhun but Shiyi hassled him about it in a snarky passive aggressive way and I think he's going to have a dad from sound of music arc. He can be a bit harsh on his subordinates too but is never REALLY mean.
Shiyi had to take Lingyi's clothes off and it was the least sexy wife takes off husband's clothes scene ever. Eventually he got sick of her shoving him around like a piece of stinky meat she wanted to touch as little as possible and finished getting down to his (very unrevealing) underwear himself. She had this look of "yess excellent he won't want to have sex with me now".
Dongqing: Shouldn't you be TRYING to have sex with him to gain his favour and have an heir?
Shiyi: The moment I find out who killed my mother and avenge her death I am running away to become a professional embroiderer.
Her mother was murdered by a woman in Lingyi's house which is why she agreed to the marriage. The concubines all think she's playing along with their games but she is Tracking Down Clues.
Friend: I don't ship it.
I do like that he's so accepting of her so obviously not wanting to have sex with him. He would be well within his rights to be gross about it but instead like... pulls a blanket over her when she falls asleep on the couch. And he doesn't even like her that much because he thinks she was the one who framed Lianfang (who he also doesn't like, but still thinks deserves a better fate than being stuck as his concubine)
But yeah so far not SHIPPY. Maybe if he was hotter and didn't have such an irritable looking resting bitch face. Like it works as a guy who tries to be nice to his wives but they all think he doesn't care when he really is doing his best, but hopefully he can do soft when it's more called for.
Also Lianfang is described as "the niece of Lingyi's mother" and the mother for sure favours her but I'm like doesn't that mean she'd be Lingyi's cousin? Is this one of those complicated Chinese family relationships things? Because noone ever calls her his cousin.
Every wife has a loyal Nanny who afaict is called [surname]-mother in Chinese.
Everyone has so many "mother"s.
The Nannies are like a cross between maternal help for taking care of children and scheming loyal grand vizier. Shiyi's Nanny (inherited from her dead sister Erniang) keeps being like STOP BEING SO NICE TO THE CONCUBINES!! CRUSH THEM UNDER YOUR FEET!!
Erniang: hides bruises from her husband out of embarrassment
me: Aww, poor evil sister :(
Erniang: does her best to make Shiyi look bad in front of Lingyi
me: Ah, still feisty I see.
Madame Luo: Shiyi, I taught you to be a good wife, yet look at you. No wonder noone in your new household likes you.
Lingyi: Actually everyone in my family thinks she's great!
Shiyi, silently: That is not remotely true but I appreciate the thought.
Concubine Wen also has a stupid servant to whom she just explained at length why a merchant's daughter wants favour from aristocrats in case anyone in the audience was confused.
And then I felt bad for spamming my friend and stopped!
I started writing a reaction post, then rambled to a friend for ages, then started writing things up more methodically. So here is the first two sections of more freeform non-linear rambling, which covers approximately episodes 1-9.
The spoilery FFA summary that got me to watch the show:
the main female character is Shiyi. She's the daughter of an unfavored concubine (aren't they all) and she gets picked to be the next wife of Lingyi (the Marquis) because his current wife (her sister) is ill and dying. She wants no part of this and decides to run away with her mother and live off their embroidery (again) but her mother gets murdered while they're trying to leave, and circumstances make it seem like her murder has something to do with the Marquis and his family. She goes through with the arranged marriage with the secret goals of a) find her mother's killer and b) don't get pregnant so she can ditch this marriage after part a happens. In the meantime, she just is a good, respectful, understanding person and Lingyi obviously falls in love with her while thinking that they're taking it slow and getting to know each other (because, again, she doesn't seem to be interested in having his favor or sleeping with him.)
The thing I didn't realise until later is that yes, Lingyi only marries Shiyi after her sister dies, but he also has THREE CONCUBINES. (Two at the start and a third by the time they get married)
I usually avoid this sort of romance because while I'm all for poly, a guy having a bunch of concubines/wives always makes any new relationship feel like a notch in his belt, especially since the WOMEN are expected to be completely faithful to HIM.
Luckily, it works for me in this story, because it turns out he doesn't seem to have chosen ANY of these relationships, they were all arranged by his mother for Political Reasons, and he sees caring for and having sex with these women as a grim duty. He secretly yearns for love and an equal relationship but eventually realised these women mostly just want power. He tries to be a good husband but is naturally curt and distant and uninterested in flirty games for favour, power, and sex, so the women see him as an emotionally unavailable problem to be worked around, which just widens the emotional distance. He's lonely and just needs someone to love him for who he is! I can ship that.
I say "can" because right now I am on episode EIGHT and he and Shiyi JUST got married and have barely spoken. Instead it's pretty much all been LADY DRAMA.
Since I find the gender dynamics of het harem drama off-putting, I think this may be my first time consuming a Chinese example, even though it's a very popular genre. I've read a bunch of m/m cnovels and fic dealing with this sort of thing but they had to go through some contortions to fit men in there, and naturally focussed on male characters.
But this one is ALL about women. Who, except the heroine, are mostly TERRIBLE people, but the situations they're in are so dire I end up feeling sorry for them anyway. I know enough about cnovel conventions to expect everyone who ever did the heroine wrong to be punished with excruciating suffering in the end, and I feel kinda bad about it.
I was going to summarise the plot up until now and I Just Couldn't be Bothered, and instead ended up rambling in a non-linear way to a very patient friend. Here's my somewhat edited rambles.
I have been watching this het cdrama with harem shenanigans and I kind of want all the concubines to unionise. Like they're all kinda evil to the virtuous protagonist but also the show is very clear that being a concubine sucks.
The heroine herself (Shiyi) is the daughter of a concubine who only gets to be the main wife due to her dying sister, the original wife Yuanniang, framing a highborn competitor for the role of Next Wife. Yuanniang tricks Lianfang into showing herself in her underwear to Lingyi, and this ruins her reputation and she is taken on as a concubine.
There's this extended scene where we see Lianfang, who is in love with Lingyi, sadly putting away the wedding dress she sewed herself because she'll never wear one now, and then being forced to walk in the rain through the side entrance, as a servant aligned with the Dying Wife deliberately mocks her and puts her in her place.
And then ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT Lingyi is just... clearly very unhappy he had to marry Lianfang to save her reputation and very firmly says no to sex and then leaves.
And then we see heroine Shiyi marry Lingyi after her sister dies, and Lingyi is like ugh I guess we have to have sex but she clearly doesn't want to and he's relieved and doesn't press. (EDIT: Not how the show wanted me to read it apparently lol)
And so now I just ship concubine/wife.
Like Lingyi isn't a bad dude, he's trying to be a good husband to all these women who don't actually like him very much but he like... flinches away from touching women unless they're Very Sad and he feels obliged. I want Shiyi to take over the household, unionise with the concubines, and have her own harem while Lingyi gets to stay away and focus on what he actually enjoys, his job as a Good Cop trying to change the law so no one is forced into piracy due to poverty.
(EDIT: He's not actually a cop per se, there ARE people with a role similar to cops and he has a complicated relationship with them. He's an army general who sometimes chases fugitives)
In the first scene we see him pursuing some pirates, who kidnap Shiyi as a hostage and threaten to kill her. And I was like ugh ok, he's a cop, sure.
He captures on pirate and kills another, and goes to talk to the captured one, saying "So I know you're just waiting for your leader to work with whatever government official is backing you to escape, but I just killed your leader" *shows him the dead body*
And I was like "oh this is mean, cop dude" but then the pirate is just really sad his leader is dead and Lingyi says "I know you don't WANT to be pirates. You were fishermen until the law made that impossible, and someone powerful manipulated you into becoming pirates. I only killed his guy because he basically fell on my sword, wanting to die
because he felt he had no escape. But if you tell me who's behind this I will help you find a new life as a fisherman again."
But the pirate just laughs and says Lingyi has no idea how high up this goes, there's no escape etc, and then kills himself. Lingyi is stoicly sad and keeps doing his best to get the law changed, arguing about the suffering of the poor and being so busy doing so he forgets to have sex with his wives. Meanwhile his wives think he should stop caring about the poor and focus on gaining power/having sex with them etc.
I'm guessing Shiyi will be more supportive of his hobbies.
Also I usually find subtitled dramas hard to follow but this assumes the audience is very dumb. Every plot element is explained multiple times. Shiyi has a very stupid servant she keeps re-explaining things to.
Shiyi's evil half-sister Erniang gives her a poem, I'm like ok I ASSUME this is secretly an insult from her smug smirk but...
Stupid servant: What does the poem mean?
Shiyi: *explains insulting symbolism and sister's motives*
I feel bad for the evil sister Erniang though. Shiyi and Erniang are both daughters of concubines. Erniang has successfully ingratiated herself with their father's wife Madame Luo, while Shiyi is the unfavoured one who gets beaten in the rain for breaking a hairpin etc.
Madame Luo has two marriages set up: One with Lingyi for after their sick older sister dies, and one with a cartoonishly evil drunken sexual predator Wang Yu who has useful political connections.
And obviously Shiyi is set up with Wang Yu, while wanting to marry noone and be a Free Independent Woman. She is planning to escape with her mother and loyal maid Dongqing.
But luck and Shiyi's virtue end up tipping the scales and the Madame Luo goes "eh, it's not like I actually care about either of these girls, sure, I'll swap who marries who.", happily sending her 'favourite' off to a tortuous marriage. Shiyi goes "Oh no poor Erniang, well when I run away she won't have to marry Wang Yu, which is good".
But then Shiyi's mother is Mysteriously Murdered and the police close the case suspiciously quickly. Then Erniang tricks the creep Wang Yu into wanting to marry Shiyi and is all smirkingly mean about it. When Shiyi finds out she goes OK THEN THIS IS WAR and exposes the lies.
So Erniang is married off to Wang Yu and is utterly miserable, and I feel bad for her! She sucks, but he sucks more! She should stab him!!
I could settle for Erniang/Lianfang.
They keep explaining all the convoluted schemes in case we lost track of who was who and what their motives were, which more convoluted, scheme-heavy canons should do.
This maid Dongqing is like... Jam Watson.
Shiyi is very clever and relatively good at holding her tongue so it's very useful for her to have a loud stupid person to say the obvious and ask dumb questions. Dongqing also has the most AMAZINGLY unflattering haircut.
This is set in the Ming Dynasty (they actually say "Here in the Ming Dynasty" a couple of times which is very convenient) and the fashions aren't as cute as some other cdramas. Lingyi has a very dumb hat and is really not very cute. He's like 46 which I am not against in principle but he's playing the husband of a 15 yr old. Luckily the actress playing 15 yr old Shiyi is 31, so I can headcanon him as younger and/or her as older.
(EDIT: Had a moment worrying I was being too insulting of Chinese cultural dress, and obviously this stuff is subjective. But based on what I've seen from modern hanfu enthusiasts and designers of Vague Historical Fashion I think a lot of Chinese people would agree that older styles are cuter)
Friend asked to see the hat:
He only wears it at work and here at his wedding but the memory remains.
I prefer when cdramas have all the men have their hair out flowing which is wildly anachronistic but cuter. This one even has OTHER men have their hair half up but not Lingyi? I guess cos he's old and uptight? Which makes sense but boo.
Lingyi at work in the Ministry of Bad Hats:
Servant vs Shiyi hairstyles
I was 20 minutes in before Shiyi is revealed to be 15 and I just went wait what.
Shiyi and Lianfang are meeting for the first time since Shiyi married Lingyi. Lianfang and Lingyi both think Shiyi helped her sister frame Lianfang instead of being an unwilling accomplice.
All of a guy's kids are expected to call the main wife "mother", which really adds something to the "mother" torturing these girls and sending them off to marry creeps.
So now Lingyi and Yuanniang's son Zhun with is meeting Shiyi (his aunt/stepmother) for the first time and being told to call her mother, while Lianfang plays on the fact she's already in shy kid's good graces wearing a "Fuck you new wife" smile
If I am not supposed to like this character why so pretty?
Lingyi also has a son with one of his concubines. Yuanniang and the concubine were constantly trying to make him pick a favourite when he just wanted to be a good (if distant workaholic) dad to both of them.
Both kids are like 8 and I feel like he went, ok, I have a heir and spare, now to if possible never have sex again (Later evidence does not entirely back this up)
GASP. The officials secretly working with the pirates have been revealed and are going to work together to try and take down Lingyi before he changes government policy!!
It's the OU FAMILY!!
I found who they were confusing at first but the show has very kindly reexplained it many many times.
Oh also any time one of the older head wives is pissed off at a servant they SELL THEM INTO SLAVERY.
Ahaha but Shiyi is nice! She thinks they should just be FLOGGED.
Tragically this makes her look SOFT to her mother in law and Lianfang uses this to her advantage to steal control of the household, which is supposed to be the wife's job.
ooh the original two concubines do NOT like how Lianfang acts like she's better than them as well as Shiyi because she's the legitimate daughter of a nobleman, and are deciding if they should align with Shiyi against her.
They are also very pretty!
We have Bitchy Concubine Wen and Quiet Polite Stupid Concubine Qin who asks Concubine Wen to explain everything to her, very convenient.
Concubine Wen: Hmmph, his lordship stayed all night with Shiyi. Out with the old in with the new, I guess :/
Concubine Qin: It was their wedding night.
Concubine Wen: Yeah and at least he ignores Lianfang as much as us.
Concubine Qin: Shh, she's coming.
Concubine Wen, much more cheerful: SO I HEAR HIS LORDSHIP STAYED ALLLL NIIIGHT WITH HIS NEW WIFE. GUESS IT MAKES SENSE HE LOVES A WIFE MORE THAN CONCUBINES :D :D
(On their wedding night Shiyi and Lingyi lay in bed in their underwear awkwardly not touching and then Shiyi hugged Lingyi during the night and he politely and awkwardly extricated himself the next morning)
Shiyi: Wait, so my husband doesn't appear to want to fuck ANY of his concubines? And was forced into marrying ALL of them? What's up with that?
Dongqing: Maybe he's impotent.
Shiyi thinks back to their wedding night and I think we're supposed to read his behaviour as wanting to have sex with her and just backing off cos she was afraid which... is not how it read to me but ok.
aww Concubine Qin was a maid who was rewarded by Madame Xu with marrying Lingyi after helping him through an illness. No wonder she's self conscious about her place.
Concubine Wen's family are rich merchants who basically bought her the position since it's a huge step up socially for her.
No wonder noble-born Lianfang despises them.
Shiyi now refers to Lingyi's mother as "Mother", and I think all the concubines refer to each other as "sister" in Chinese.
Friend: is this whole thing a setup to justify having monogamy but also a harem?
Me: Of course.
[goes into the many contortions I have seen Chinese m/m historical romances tie themselves into to have monogamous and generally virginal nobleman love interests]
Lingyi was a bit too harsh on his wimpy son Zhun but Shiyi hassled him about it in a snarky passive aggressive way and I think he's going to have a dad from sound of music arc. He can be a bit harsh on his subordinates too but is never REALLY mean.
Shiyi had to take Lingyi's clothes off and it was the least sexy wife takes off husband's clothes scene ever. Eventually he got sick of her shoving him around like a piece of stinky meat she wanted to touch as little as possible and finished getting down to his (very unrevealing) underwear himself. She had this look of "yess excellent he won't want to have sex with me now".
Dongqing: Shouldn't you be TRYING to have sex with him to gain his favour and have an heir?
Shiyi: The moment I find out who killed my mother and avenge her death I am running away to become a professional embroiderer.
Her mother was murdered by a woman in Lingyi's house which is why she agreed to the marriage. The concubines all think she's playing along with their games but she is Tracking Down Clues.
Friend: I don't ship it.
I do like that he's so accepting of her so obviously not wanting to have sex with him. He would be well within his rights to be gross about it but instead like... pulls a blanket over her when she falls asleep on the couch. And he doesn't even like her that much because he thinks she was the one who framed Lianfang (who he also doesn't like, but still thinks deserves a better fate than being stuck as his concubine)
But yeah so far not SHIPPY. Maybe if he was hotter and didn't have such an irritable looking resting bitch face. Like it works as a guy who tries to be nice to his wives but they all think he doesn't care when he really is doing his best, but hopefully he can do soft when it's more called for.
Also Lianfang is described as "the niece of Lingyi's mother" and the mother for sure favours her but I'm like doesn't that mean she'd be Lingyi's cousin? Is this one of those complicated Chinese family relationships things? Because noone ever calls her his cousin.
Every wife has a loyal Nanny who afaict is called [surname]-mother in Chinese.
Everyone has so many "mother"s.
The Nannies are like a cross between maternal help for taking care of children and scheming loyal grand vizier. Shiyi's Nanny (inherited from her dead sister Erniang) keeps being like STOP BEING SO NICE TO THE CONCUBINES!! CRUSH THEM UNDER YOUR FEET!!
Erniang: hides bruises from her husband out of embarrassment
me: Aww, poor evil sister :(
Erniang: does her best to make Shiyi look bad in front of Lingyi
me: Ah, still feisty I see.
Madame Luo: Shiyi, I taught you to be a good wife, yet look at you. No wonder noone in your new household likes you.
Lingyi: Actually everyone in my family thinks she's great!
Shiyi, silently: That is not remotely true but I appreciate the thought.
Concubine Wen also has a stupid servant to whom she just explained at length why a merchant's daughter wants favour from aristocrats in case anyone in the audience was confused.
And then I felt bad for spamming my friend and stopped!
