Are You OK Chapter 42 Discussion

The structure this novel is written was very interesting to me, and I liked it. It makes it feel like a short theater, it was nice and easy to make these scenes seem like sketches and highlight the funny or dramatic or sad parts.

I am very fond of the characters, they are so likeable and interesting enough to have their own arcs. But I still feel this could've been developed even further, deeper, they had enough content to explore and give a us a more detailed view of their principles and motivations.

and there were some characters whose arcs were somehow disappointing, for the lack of a better word.

Spoiler

Zhou Rongqi was a GREAT character, he really had a reason to hold all those grudges towards his brother, the emperor, and Li Ke was his redemption in a way. I wish the author could've gone more into detail about how Li Ke helped Rongqi in many aspects of his life, going from a captive-capturer relationship into something very intimate to the point they were the only person the other truly trusted and were willing to give their lives for. And because Rongqi was a pained character with gray moral I feel he deserved a redemption arc, and not end up dying the way he did. I know that his soul might be trapped inside the dagger but still!!!! QAQ Li Ke and Rongqi deserved to be happy together and enjoy their remaining days in utter bliss [cries]

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Although I wouldn't consider this novel as a danmei, THERE IS a lot of queercoded characters, they never state their status explicitly but come on!! you cannot there's hinted homoeroticism

Lou Zhu x Zuo Yunqi

Spoiler

Lou Zhu and Zuo Yunqi were lowkey confusing because they would call each other "mine" and since the novel just goes briefly around how the characters interact with each other, you could've guessed that they got together a while ago, but then near the end this theory shatters..... UNTIL yunqi says he wants to protect lou zhu for the rest of their lives..... AND IN THE END lou zhu is like yeah I'm weak so I hope you can keep your word. so idk ma'am but that sounds pretty way for me

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Zhou Rongqi x Li Ke

Spoiler

what can I say, this is probably the most canonical ship of the whole novel. zrq starts using lk to reach his goal, until lk dies in his arms and he gets to live the rest of his days alone and when he dies he is reborn into the day he lost lk with the difference that now lk is alive and well, since then they start working together to kill the emperor, but they treat each other no different from how a married couple does QAQ and zrq begs lk to kill him in the end, because he'd rather die in his hands than be controlled as a puppet and hurt him more than he already did in the past. It's very bittersweet the way their story unfolds, but it's clear that lk was the last thread of sanity zrq had, the only reason why he kept living

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Long Daxia x qian zhenduo

Spoiler

Although the latter is a minor side character whom appears for a few chaps and then is only in the background without anything special for the rest of the plot. but!!! it's very very explicit that they're together, like literally long daxia says nobody has ever caught his attention until qzd came into his life, and they retreat together to travel the world in the end. they're each other's significant other and it shows. these mf gays good for them good for them

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for the rest of the characters like lin kai, xie liang and fan aiguo are so very loveable, they're the funniest characters and they are sunshines to sum it up.

Anyways, I expected so much more in terms of plot development and details but it was a great novel, with this concept and all the other funny things like yuber, for example haha. I still think the donghua is a great adaptation and you probably won't miss a lot if you don't read the novel BUT I cannot say that for sure since the donghua is not yet complete, we shall wait and see.