Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #478

Anne: Tuesday morning and this is what I woke up to in South Texas...

And yes, the entire city pretty much decided to close because we can't handle this weather. Remember the whole electric grid failure in 2021? Good thing this won't last more than like 2 days. Any longer and we would be in trouble again.

But it was very cool to see my son with a look of astonishment and excitement when he saw snow outside his bedroom window. And in completely inappropriate clothing...(I mean who here would have any appropriate clothes unless skiing was a sport for the family...and no, don't get me started on on why I tried skiing once and hasn't tried it again)...he made a snow angel.

He quickly changed all this clothes after this activity.

This will be a quick post as I only watched one show this entire time.

Under the Moonlight

This was a surprise for me. I stumbled on this not through any of the apps. The reason that I started was simply because it is a period detective story with a female lead. I'm up to episode 22, and I have to say, I quite like the story line, the characters, and the cases. This reminds me a little of The Imperial Coroner. The major difference, which is also what has caused me the most angst is the romance story line. If you didn't look at this poster (which I didn't) or looked at how the cast names are "ordered" (which I also didn't notice until that romance story line made me scratch my head), it is obvious who is the ML. Now... if you watch the show like I did...

The story started a bit odd, with two women praying for children. This "sect" was well known to bring children to women who are childless. It doesn't take long for the audience to realize that this "sect" were basically drugging the women and raping them. After they are pregnant, then they blackmailed them for money or sex or both. While we know that both women were "planted" by the local magistrate as a way to investigate this sect, it still remains unclear as to HOW Luo Shu (one of the women) came to meet Mu Zhi. As payment for her assistance in dismantling the sect and capturing the leader (and some of the members), Luo Shu wanted him to get her the papers so she is no longer a slave. 

Now... if we went by Chinses drama rules, the ML always shows up first, and I guess he did, but no one would like this ML. And this is the reason why I spent the entire 22 episodes still in a bit of confusion as to WHY the ML is Qi Meng Li. (And yes, even I noticed that Meng Li has significant more screen time than Mu Zhi.)

Ok... that's not completely true, but Meng Li is almost the entire opposite of Mu Zhi. Whereas Mu Zhi was an "adult", who is well-read, polite, and proper. Whereas, Meng Li is a "child" who often speaks without thinking, offends people without even knowing why he's wrong, and has no target in his life... until he met Luo Shu obviously. 

But as the story unfolds, you will notice that Meng Li puts Luo Shu first, always, but Mu Zhi doesn't. Yes, there is also the fact that Meng Li definitely has his father to back him, and his status is much higher than Mu Zhi, so Meng Li rarely thinks outside of what he feels at the moment. Mu Zhi may make great promises, but he fails on the follow through. Meng Li should continue to grow as the story advances. 

My favorite character, by far, is Lian Shu. He's Meng Li's servant. He's super cute and very patient with his idiot, spent-drift master. I love how most of their interactions involve him telling his master not to spend so much money. There are several other secondary characters that are really well drawn out.

The cases are interesting. And our ML, FL, and 2nd ML aren't omnipotent so they do go down the wrong path, but that's ok. 

So far, this is quite interesting. 

Okay, this is it for this week. Let's see if I manage to get out of my driveway tomorrow morning.