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For my birthday I wrote 2,700 words and had the tart from the bakery across from my preschool, the more they change the more things stay the same :) I'm so exhausted but hey it's been productive I suppose!

Also I did finally watch the second episode of Disguiser lol, I'm taking it suuper slow
Keeping it spoiler-light: So, so far, I keep being confused by the bgm on a couple counts -

• Take the part when Ming Tai is putting his uniform on for the first time, and it's got a few electronic/obviously synthesized lines, in a scene that's set in 1939. I can see how Ming Tai would want something modern and carefree as his motif, and it's fun for the ear, as itself, but pulled me right out of the period.
• OTOH, his practice with the telegram fading into the bgm as something with many more percussive elements was a great transition. I get that BGM isn't music to be listened to for its own merits, it's an element of a scene, and this was a much better way to build environment. The academy is all about regimentation, about discipline; the auditory environment should reflect this tension and precision. 
• There was also a really great number in the bg of the part in Ming Lou's office, when Ming Cheng is bringing Wasp's message. Jin Dong does a really rather good job there, and I knew there was another element they'd added to pull at the strings, and I checked and the nostalgia element for me was actually the exact same key and progressions as the Resembool Lullaby. Listen to that and imagine having to resign yourself to the fact that your little brother has been conscripted!
• But the scene transition between Ming Tai meeting whatsherface for the first time, with the entirely obvious 'they're gonna fall in love' music, turning into the supply-truck arriving, with the romance theme still running for a good three seconds into the new shot - that was weird! That was very confusing. I didn't care much at all for the introduction of the romantic-lead-to-be as in a locker room, and if their chemistry depends so heavily on the bgm telling us what to feel, I'm not impressed. But if they are going to use that tool, they need to keep it very precise to the appropriate scenes, and there was nothing romantic about the truck pulling up!
  • speaking of that truck - You know how everyone's favorite line from Mei Changsu is the one about a person's heart becoming harder and harder, I wonder if Ming Tai's line here about not needing to be rescued; he'll walk out on his own two feet, will prove to be similar. We'll see! But that scene, as he turned back, was very striking!

Anyway, Hu Ge's physicality is super funny, after how stiff Mei Changsu had to be. Ming Tai clatters down the stairs and gestures expansively while tied to a chair and grins with a model razor in his mouth. Mei Changsu played Xia Jiang like a fiddle, and Ming Tai pulls Lt Guo's feet under him without even thinking, but Ming Tai is artless in a way that's entirely foreign to seeing Mei Changsu's face again. 
It's only episode two, but if the production remembers not to fling itself into shots of female cadets changing, I'll keep chipping away at this story. The layers of politics are a mess (appropriately enough) and I'm taking excessive notes again, to try and offset the plot running rings around me. It's less convenient, but I do have that much concern about this family. They all have different ways of trying to express that they care about each other, and too many conflicting loyalties keeping anyone from being able to actually look after one another :(( I hope that they can come out intact but I know better than to actually ask for it, here.