History 3: Trapped

[clevermanka]

Okay, well I binged all 20 episodes of History 3: Trapped in three days (link goes to Viki, since all the fan hosting sites seem to have been purged). As I mentioned earlier, Asian men is apparently where I live these days. cough

Y'all weren't kidding when you said it was like reading a fic. I don't think I've ever seen so much exquisitely portrayed hurt/comfort in a single season of a show. You want your physical injury? We got physical injuries! Psychological trauma? Check! And then all of it reliably followed up with much coddling and gentle love? YEP. As bonus tropes, have a heavy side order of pining paired with "oh god I'm into him?" for both m/m pairings (and a nice slightly-angsty het pairing as well).

I have some questions about the last couple episodes, though...Was Jack always a double-agent? Is he an undercover cop? I felt like I was missing something important in that exchange with the Boss Dude. Why did Tang Yi go to prison? Had he actually been convicted of anything? Is there any indication of how long was his sentence?

And then a few minor gripes: Why didn't we get a sexy bed scene with Jack and Zhao Zi? Hmph. And why spend so much time on the stupid wedding? Time that could've been spent with, idk, sexy Jack/Zhao Zi time. Or heck, even some backstory explanation of what was going on with Jack. Hmph, I say.

This isn't going to take up the emotional real estate that Guardian did (is still), but it was a very nice diversion.

I will take any and all fic recs and I started a YouTube playlist of fanvids.

Comments

[clevermanka]

no_detective posted a great playlist.

[galaxysoup]

...oh dang. This might be the post that pushes me from 'casual interest' to 'actually going to watch it'.

[clevermanka]

Um...yay? =D

I absolutely did not expect to be so dang charmed by it. It's rare that I ignore my usual "all screens off by 8pm" rule but this show? I blew right past it Friday and Sunday nights with no regrets.

[jo_lasalle]

I was about to make a "please tell me" post but now that your post showed up, I might as well pounce on you! I'm not digging too deep into the plot spoilers, but am I reading the general impression right that this has a happy ending?

(I've seen enough squee about this over the last month or so that I thought I might pitch this as a watchy thing here at home, but Frameofmind is not going to forgive me another Guardian experience. Hence the explicit question!)

[clevermanka]

Feel free to pounce, I'm happy to help!

Yes, all three couples have HEAs. The main pairing's ultimate HEA is a little...delayed, perhaps? But it's all good (IMO). I'm happy to provide more explicit spoilers if you (or Frameofmind) want them. I was in the exact same boat and was bugging poor asya_ana for details (didn't realize she hadn't finished the series yet, oops).

I'm an All The Spoilers All The Time girl because my heart is fragile.

[jo_lasalle]

Thanks! That sounds promising then. *g* And I don't mind personally avoiding another Guardian-ending experience, so it's admittedly also useful for me!

(There are THREE COUPLES in this? Is this an everyone-is-gay verse? Or are they not all gay couples? ^_^) I can't read! Sorry!

[clevermanka]

I treasure people who can give me vague spoilers without giving away too many plot details so it's a pleasure to provide the service to someone else for once.

No worries about being confused about the existence of a het couple! I was a little ???? myself when I was watching it (unsurprisingly I hadn't seen a peep about it on the Tumblrs) but they were treated very well, I thought.

[jo_lasalle]

Actually, one follow-up question, given the crime & gang context: how violent / gory is it?

[clevermanka]

It's not terribly gory. Some people get shot and/or beat up. It's certainly not a Tarantino film, though. I'd say the violence rates a safe PG-13. There are a couple scenes where one of the main characters delivers a rather intense beat-down on somebody with nasty knuckle dusters but you don't see the actual impacts (it's in silhouette/shadow).

Oh, and just in case: there's one off-screen suicide of a minor character and one on-screen attempted sexual assault.

[bonibaru]

I can confirm that you will not experience another Guardian ending in this drama.

Will you tilt your head sideways at some of the plot gaps left unexplored? Possibly. But you won't care until it's over and you wish there was more and you're trying to think what you could write about, lol.

[jo_lasalle]

Will you tilt your head sideways at some of the plot gaps left unexplored? Possibly.

Well, that sounds familiar from somewhere! *g*

[bonibaru]

*clears throat* a tie-in novel was released that continues the series post-canon. Fans are mad about it because apparently what they loved about H3T - that it avoided so many of the BL tropes like heteronormative sexuality tropes and badly inconsistent characterization - came screaming back in the novel, so the first few people who bought and read it translated some parts then warned everyone else off. But the answer to your question "do we know how much time Tang Yi got" is:" 3 years. They didn't say if the novel said what he actually went in for.

[clevermanka]

Thank you for that info. Three years is better than 24, I guess, but sheesh. I still wanna know what in the world was his conviction! That was only plot hole that really bugged me, because if Jack didn't go to prison, why would Tang Yi? Makes no sense to me.

Well if everyone hated the tie-in novel (I saw similar complaints on Tumblr), I'm going to pretend that just doesn't exist, and it was a twelve month sentence with early release for good behavior. Which means he got out just in time for his next birthday. *nods* yes, that sounds good to me.

[bonibaru]

I am waiting for ALL THE JACK STORIES. It appears that Jack was really a full blown merc the whole time, saying nothing and letting us write our own headcanons for him as a secret good guy when really he was working both sides of the table all along. He definitely betrayed Tang Yi to CWH and he also definitely betrayed Tang Yi AND offered to betray CWH to the shady af Interpol guy. Jack was 100% out for Jack and working for the high bidder until his love for ZZ made him want to give it all up. But children, I am too old and wise in the ways of the world to believe that any man can change any other man just with the power of his love, so I'm thinking of all kinds of fill in the gap stories inside Jack's head to help me come to terms with what the show didn't tell me about what was going on with Jack all along. And to think of all the ways Jack will face and have to deal with temptations in the future.

[clevermanka]

I WILL ABSOLUTELY READ THOSE STORIES.

I would also read stories where Jack actually is an undercover cop, since that's not, as far as I can tell, actually revealed in the show and *ahem* the apparently-terrible novel doesn't exist for me.

[bonibaru]

The only person we have that explains Jack's behavior is Jack himself at the very end to ZZ and Jack is AT BEST an unreliable narrator so ... I think it's perfectly safe to say Jack remains tabula rasa for the purposes of fanfiction lol

OK we have his character description released at the start of the show that explicitly describes him as a selfish merc working only for himself and the highest bidder but ... I'm ignoring that too.

[clevermanka]

it's perfectly safe to say Jack remains tabula rasa for the purposes of fanfiction

[asya_ana]

adkladjfadfklsj So enjoying your falling in this hole :D

[clevermanka]

I am, too! It's quite unlike anything I've done before--usually I come to fandoms late, and am mostly a lurker but damn Guardian and Trapped hit me hard.

Thank you for your encouragement and support! =D