ghostlyenola

[ghostlyenola]

✨Work in Progress✨

"All ended well." is a scientists!AU in which the settings are different but the core of Link Click is very much the same: Lu Guang does things behind the curtains to ensure Cheng Xiaoshi lives, well and happy. I'm still listing all the tropes I want to use and I want it to have the same unsettling and lonely vibe as Hello Charlotte (X). (Which is a game with only bad endings). This story will be dark but hopeful. And I want a happy ending because I'm a bad writer lmao.

I don't know if this part will make it to the finale version since it was less about writing an actual scene and more about exploring moods and vibes. I was satisfied with it and decided to share it with you!

The idea for this specific part is based on this quote from the game:

"We are born colorless. It's the people we meet who give us color." - Umbrella Man

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it’s not that cheng xiaoshi doesn’t trust lu guang. he does, probably more than anyone. him and qiao ling are the closest people he has. hell, he willingly trusts lu guang with his life on a daily, blindly allowing the guy to lead him in every dive, never once doubting that with lu guang in charge everything will be fine. 

yet sometimes he can’t help but wish he would tell him more. not that cheng xiaoshi feels like he’s hiding something. he just wants to know more about lu guang. cheng xiaoshi himself has never been a particularly secretive person. he likes to share bits and pieces of himself with others, but only those that hover on the surface, not allowing too deep of a look into his mind. sure, he also doesn’t tell people everything. why would he? but lu guang barely shares anything at all.

those little crumbles of him that cheng xiaoshi managed to gather over the years either came as a result of pure observation or accidents. sometimes, if cheng xiaoshi asked, lu guang would tell him about the books he reads, or show him movies he likes, share songs he listens to. but that’s about it. cheng xiaoshi’s grateful for what he can get, but is it so wrong to want to know more about your partner? 

and yeah, maybe lu guang’s lack of desire to share stuff about himself comes from the fact that cheng xiaoshi can and will tease him about it but come on. that’s what friends are for! something, he has to share something! like, childhood memories, for instance. it doesn’t even have to be something deep or anything, cheng xiaoshi doesn’t expect lu guang to get into the heavy stuff like he’s in a therapy session. something light and funny though, maybe a little silly, that should be fine, right? everyone has these kind of stories! yet whenever cheng xiaoshi and qiao ling dive into this topic lu guang just observes them quietly, all small smiles and stifled laughter. 

qiao ling brought an old photo album one day. she found it during a major cleaning up session at her parents’ house. despite being her family’s photo album, it had lots of pictures of cheng xiaoshi, so she knew she had to bring it to the photo studio.

and there they were, the three of them seated on the sofa, looking through the photos. the pictures were really wholesome. little qiao ling holding little cheng xiaoshi’s hand at an amusement park, both of them smiling widely. she cooed at the image, and then, in the same sweet voice as before, she said: “remember how you threw up after that one ride that we told you not to take?”, leaving cheng xiaoshi frozen and lu guang laughing up his sleeve.

so that’s how it went. whenever cheng xiaoshi appeared in a photo qiao ling would add some details about its backstory, making embarrassing ones even more so. like, here’s a picture of cheng xiaoshi with mustache drawn on his face in black marker. he’s showing off, posing like a character from a movie.

“a few seconds after that he showed us the marker he draw those with and mom told him it’s permanent” qiao ling deadpans.

“and i took it very well” boasts cheng xiaoshi, crossing his arms over his chest.

“you cried like a baby” 

“did not” 

“i think you did”, intervenes lu guang, who had already turned the page, discovering a follow-up photo, that, although smudgy, showed a wailing cheng xiaoshi. so no, he did not, in fact, take it well. cheng xiaoshi’s ears turned red.

“you took a picture? i was standing there crying and you just took a picture?” he exclaims.

“sorry, sorry” says qiao ling, laughing. “it was too funny”.

cheng xiaoshi, of course, saw that as a challenge. he flipped through the pages of the photo album and then stopped, smiling in that manner of his that meant he’s up to no good. 

“look who we have here” he said melodically.

qiao ling scoffed. 

“it can’t be that bad, let me see— oh god”.

the picture showed little qiao ling, up close, definitely an attempt of hers to take a selfie on her parents’ camera. but the angle wasn’t the worst part. the makeup. what was going on. bright splotches of blue eyeshadow covered her eyes, her eyebrows looked like she got inspired by cheng xiaoshi’s mustache and drew them with a sharpie, her lips were over-lined with pink lipstick, and, as a cherry on top, glitter. it was everywhere. but little qiao ling seemed proud of herself, while the current one looked like she was holding back tears. she’ll definitely ask who and why decided that it would be a good idea to put this picture in the album when she comes home. 

meanwhile, cheng xiaoshi was laughing uncontrollably, less from looking at the photo and more from seeing qiao ling’s reaction. lu guang was covering his mouth, trying to hide a smile. 

“don’t worry, qiao ling-jie, your skills definitely improved” he tried to placate her. 

“i sure hope they did!” screamed distressed qiao ling, looking as flabbergasted as she was before.

she turned the page to try and change the subject. suddenly, a blurred something caught cheng xiaoshi’s attention. 

“what’s that?” he asked, pointing at the photo. 

and now it was qiao ling’s turn to laugh. 

“idiot, that’s your butt!” 

cheng xiaoshi looked at her, bewildered, then back at the photo and then the recognition finally sank in. 

“what the hell is it doing in your family’s photo album?” he tried to snatch the album away but qiao ling grabbed it first, quickly passing it to lu guang. with the way his palm covered his mouth it was hard to tell whether he’s laughing or genuinely concerned. 

“why— who even decided to develop it?” cheng xiaoshi looked over lu guang’s shoulder, not trying to hide the photo anymore now that he’s already seen it. instead, he buried his face into the fabric of lu guang’s shirt, mortified. 

“actually, you did” answers qiao ling, smiling from ear to ear. 

“what?!” 

“yeah! you were the one who brought it to us! you thought that the scar you got was super cool, so you decided to take a picture of it, and then asked aunt shao to develop it. and she did”. 

memories were coming back to cheng xiaoshi, the way his mom laughed and immediately agreed to his request. she sure had an interesting sense of humor. he looked at the photo again, more intently this time. 

“but you gotta admit…it does look cool. like a lightning…”

“wanna put it in a frame?” lu guang suggested, earning a loud snicker from qiao ling and a death glare from cheng xiaoshi.

they bickered over the photos, competing in who can make the other more embarrassed, but despite all the noise they made over this album, it felt good to revisit those memories. to look back on their past and laugh. to share it with lu guang. 

later that day, when cheng xiaoshi and lu guang were already in their beds, slowly dozing off, cheng xiaoshi decided to ask something. 

“lu guang? you asleep?” 

after a short period of time a muffled answer comes out 

“no”

a beat. cheng xiaoshi hesitates. 

“it’s just…you never showed us any pictures from when you were a kid. or any pictures of your parents” or any pictures at all. for some reason he felt unsure. like he’s stepping into a territory not yet open for him. “i wouldn’t be too surprised to find out you were born an adult” a quiet laugh. an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere. 

“i can just see you saying ‘thank you for carrying me all those nine months, mother’ and bowing to the doctors” he blabbers, trying to continue the joke, which earns a low stifled laugh from lu guang. 

“you’re ridiculous” he says, and cheng xiaoshi can hear him smiling. warmth spreads in his chest. after remaining silent for some time, lu guang speaks again.

“it’s nothing special, really. my parents just never liked to take photos. i don’t have anything to show, that’s it” 

it made cheng xiaoshi sad, the fact that he’d never get to see lu guang little. was his hair always white? was his attitude always so quiet and stoic? did he ever do any of the embarrassing things he and qiao ling were up to when they were kids? 

“you’re disappointed?” lu guang asks suddenly. damn, he’s uncannily good at reading his mind.

“don’t be silly” comes out cheng xiaoshi’s immediate response. then, turning to the side, he ads, “i have you here now. that’s all that matters”.

and that’s true. whatever past lu guang had, whatever things he’s purposefully hiding away from him…he’s here, with cheng xiaoshi. and, as lu guang himself said, he’s not going anywhere.

next day qiao ling comes into the photo studio again. in her hands there’s…a book? she places it on the counter, smiling happily. a book turns out to be a photo album. a brand new one, all pages empty, waiting to be filled. 

“it just hit me suddenly, after i left yesterday. it’s so stupid. we don’t have a photo album of our own! at the photo studio! absurd”.

and just like that, they started piling up a history of their own, capturing time in the pages of the album. a picture of lu guang on the sofa, fallen asleep in the middle of reading a book. sunlight dances on his skin. he scrunches his nose in his sleep. a picture of qiao ling pulling cheng xiaoshi into a hug. he tries to look annoyed but his smile betrays him. cheng xiaoshi with a braid. it looks a little messed up since his hair’s not long enough, but pretty nonetheless. lu guang patting a stray cat near the photo studio. qiao ling and xu shanshan hitting cheng xiaoshi with pillows. qiao ling smiling brightly as cheng xiaoshi scrubs the floor behind her. he lost a bet and was supposed to clean up for a month. lu guang eventually agreed to help him (he always does) and ended up taking the majority of cheng xiaoshi’s cleaning duties upon himself. lu guang with a pissed off expression, huge coffee spot on his shirt. he accidentally spilled it and cheng xiaoshi had to capture the moment as evidence that lu guang does in fact fuck up sometimes. lu guang smiling. lu guang posing with an awkward peace sign. lots of lu guang, actually. because cheng xiaoshi, unlike lu guang’s parents, likes taking photos. especially photos of lu guang. 

it’s not that cheng xiaoshi doesn’t trust lu guang. he does, probably more than anyone. so he knows that lu guang would tell him more when he’s ready. there’s no rush. he likes it even more like that - getting to know him, gradually, bit by bit. 

[ghostlyenola]

"The sun sets on this side of my mind" I just finished watching the Bridon Arc of Link Click and my heart is broken 😭

So here is an obligatory fanart of these tortured souls. Now excuse me while I go cry in a corner...

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Liu Xiao infiltrating already established couples to recruite them to be memebers of his polycule

He truely is that dude that's in every friend group

Even with the Li siblings

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i love vein i love vein i love vein

i forgot how much i loveeeeee link click but after watching s3 im back in my link click era

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something something the intimacy and grief and bravery and constant heartbreak of living the life of multiple strangers and feeling their feelings so deeply. the one-sidedness of that intimacy. and knowing you can’t do anything, not really, you can’t win this, you can only follow the instructions. and still doing everything you can to save them. and then you’re just you again, but you still remember and know their grief and fears and joys and doubts but you can’t do anything about it and have no where to put the lingering feelings that aren't your own to hold but you hold them anyways and the grief that's uniquely yours and theirs and yours. and you just do it again and again and again.

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“lu guang?”

“hm?”

“do you believe in parallel universes?”

they’ve been sitting quietly for a while. it was an overall normal evening, except for the gloomy weather that’s been hanging around for some time. raindrops were hitting against their window in a steady rhythm and everything around looked rather grey, save for a little lamp on the table. lu guang sat on the sofa trying to read a book, but he’s been stuck on the same page for a while now, his focus hazy. cheng xiaoshi, after playing a game for about an hour, was staring into the window. rain oftentimes got him into this sort of mood. pensive. more quiet than usual. 

“why are you asking so suddenly?” - lu guang looked away from his book, grey eyes studying cheng xiaoshi’s hunched frame.

“just. dunno. so, do you?” - he asks again, gaze not leaving the window. 

silence was suddenly back between them, but it didn’t feel pressuring. lu guang had to think. scientifically speaking, the existence of parallel universes wasn’t totally in the realm of fantasy. yet still, it remained too complicated of a concept to grasp and even harder to fully believe into. though the same could be said about their powers, so, well, touché.

“probably don’t. but i wouldn’t reject the idea altogether”.

lu guang’s eyes caught sight of two droplets slowly making their way down the window. as they moved forward, the distance between them grew shorter and soon enough the droplets collided, merging into one. 

“and you?” - he asked cheng xiaoshi. 

a low hum followed.

“don’t know. i suck at physics and all that, but…the thought that somewhere out there, far far away through space and time, there’s one more me living a totally different life…it’s kinda interesting”.

he was looking at lu guang now, familiar glint in his eyes. it felt right. his eyes should always glow like that. as much as lu guang complains about cheng xiaoshi talking too much, prolonged periods of silence are way worse. they make lu guang shift in his seat uncomfortably, stealing glances at him, trying to understand if everything’s alright. 

“maybe there’s a universe where i’m an elite basketball player!” - cheng xiaoshi continues, actively gesticulating. - “or where i’m an actor, or— wait, what’s that expression? you think i don’t fit the role?”

lu guang chuckles, putting his book away. he’s not coming back to it any time soon anyway. not like he was immersed into it in the first place.  

“or maybe there’s a universe where you take your studies seriously and end up pursuing your masters degree like shanshan-jie”, - he says jokingly.

“no, no, no” - cheng xiaoshi waves his hands in protest, expression twisting in disgust. - “ew. what a nightmare. it’s like if…” - he looks up, as if searching for the right example on the ceiling. then he snaps his fingers. - “like if there was a universe where you’re an idol. dancing, singing, modeling, constantly in the public eye, no—”

“alright, i get it” - lu guang cuts him off. the description cheng xiaoshi gives actually unsettles him. 

“see!”

cheng xiaoshi looks at him, laughing, and it suddenly doesn’t matter that it’s pouring outside, because their photo studio is warm, filled with cheng xiaoshi’s laughter. 

“the changes could also be very small, you know”, - lu guang prompts, unexpectedly for both of them. - “like if you were shorter and i was taller”.

“you wish”, - cheng xiaoshi scoffs in return, but continues the train of thought. - “what if my hair was white and yours black?”

he shifts closer, picking a strand of lu guang’s hair and trying to put it on his head. lu guang hisses at a slightly painful tug. 

“how do i look?” - cheng xiaoshi inquires.

“idiot, how am i supposed to tell from that?”

he shoves him away, but cheng xiaoshi’s persistent, so he pulls his hair tie down and picks a long enough strand of hair, lifting it to lu guang’s face. 

“yup, that’s a no”, - cheng xiaoshi declares after a minute of careful consideration. 

lu guang fails to hide his surprise, eyebrows flying up as in asking really? that bad? 

“sorry, guang-guang, black’s not your colour. white suits you best”.

cheng xiaoshi ruffles his hair, ignoring lu guang’s annoyed protests completely, and pulls him closer, arm settling over his shoulders. and even though a second ago he was more than annoyed, now lu guang can’t find it in himself to try and wriggle away. so they both just seat there, eyes closed, listening to the drumming of rain drops against the window. suddenly cheng xiaoshi’s voice breaks the silence. lu guang turns to look at him.

“what if there’s a universe where my parents never left?”

the question hangs in the air, half-rhetorical, half-genuine. lu guang wonders how many times cheng xiaoshi thought about that. wonders if this question was the root from which this entire conversation stems. he wants to say something reassuring, but no words come to mind.

“then everything would be different”, - that’s what lu guang settles for instead. 

“yeah…”

cheng xiaoshi stares blankly at the ceiling, little bittersweet smile on his lips. he turns his head then, gaze catching lu guang’s.

“but you know what? even if there is a universe like that, and even if i had a chance to go there and leave this one - i wouldn’t”.

lu guang doesn’t dare to take his eyes off of him. no amount of timelooping could ever be enough for lu guang to study cheng xiaoshi through and through. a moment ago he was joking like a kid, and now he looks mature beyond his years. 

“you know what’s funny, i barely remember them. mom’s more clear in my memories, but dad just feels… blurry and distant. it’s like i don’t know them, not truly. and then i thought, what if in that universe i’d never get to spend my childhood with qiao ling? what if i’d never get to meet you?”

it’s rare to have cheng xiaoshi talk about his feelings so openly, and something tugs and pulls inside lu guang’s chest, aching with the love he has for him. “i’d never trade a life with you for anything too”, he wants to say. but it feels like too much. he hopes his face can tell everything for him. words were never a necessity between them anyway. and for some reason he feels that cheng xiaoshi understands everything. everything lu guang’s eyes scream about, everything his lips don’t allow to let out. they’re partners, after all.  “how sappy”, - he says instead, smiling, eyes locked on his. that surely destroys the intimate atmosphere between them, and that’s for the best, lu guang tells himself. he’s not sure how long he’d be able to bear it without doing or saying something stupid.

“how can you be so cruel, lu guang!?” - cheng xiaoshi exclaims, flailing his arms. - “i’m baring my heart out for you and that’s what you tell me? seriously, you—”

[ghostlyenola]

so it looks like yingdu was originally planned to be released in february or april of 2025. the team was under a lot of pressure to release it earlier, so that might be why there's a lot of animation errors/discrepancies and such

I don't remember where I've talked about it (I think it might just be in a conversation and not an actual post), but I remember saying that I hope the donghua team for S3 has ample time to do what they want to do. I'm willing to wait years of hiatus for a good story to be executed well, especially one that's so detail-oriented as a time traveling show

and although it's confirmed there were animation errors, personallyyy I still like to think of it as perhaps an accidental artistic decision on their part to show different timelines spliced together in a dream logic kinda way because of lu guang's perception (or perhaps even, because qiao ling is reviewing lu guang's tangled memories). whether or not that was their intention, and even if it's not canon, I think the end product is still neat from that perspective. we can still turn the mistakes into something cool if you want to and make these errors a part of the story. I don't think seeing the show from this perspective would ruin S3 either

after all, some subtle changes were intentional (like xia fei's modeling photo at the airport) and some were not; might as well just think they all were and extend grace to the animators

(aside from the golden eyes error; there's no saving that one)

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"Once this is over, how about we grab some hotpot together?" Imagine he keeps his promise lmao- lu guang believing vein's dead only for him to show up three years later and invite him over for hotpot like nothing happened. Except many things did happen, so now they're eating human flesh or something

[ghostlyenola]

Fic idea that popped up in my mind while I was going to class

Shao Yuanyuan isn't managing to save Cheng Weimin, and she doesn't understand what is happening because it is clear someone is interfering with her actions. The only thing that comes to her mind is that it could be her own son, at the Photostudio. Didn't he keep his promise with her? Doesn't matter. She needs to do a bigger jump to go back and change everything and cancel that deviation from her plan.

So she goes to her photostudio. At the counter, she doesn't find her son but another guy, white-haired. She asks him to develop a picture she will use. And also asks about Cheng Xiaoshi.

Lu Guang gets suspicious because she is acting a little bit strange.

In my mind, she went with most of her face, especially eyes, covered because I want to think that Cheng Xiaoshi has the same eyes as her.

It seems she is judging everything around Lu Guang, and she looks almost pissed her son isn't there managing the shop. And Lu Guang lies: no Cheng Xiaoshi is in the photostudio, it's his own shop. (Cheng Xiaoshi was in the darkroom developing pictures probably with music blasted in his ears).

Yeah, petty, but Lu Guang is scared for Cheng Xiaoshi's wellbeing because when someone comes and asks like that, it can't be something good. Also, Shao Yuanyuan is pissed because that photostudio is hers and Cheng Weimin's.

Basically, it is a battle between the two of them because they're interfering with each other. The photostudio who belongs to? Cheng Xiaoshi who will listen to? That's her place and her son.

They're also Lu Guang's house and Lu Guang's partner: the one he cares so much about and built a whole life together. This Cheng Xiaoshi is person he would bend the world for.

Shao Yuanyuan doesn't really care about this Cheng Xiaoshi because her Cheng Xiaoshi is the baby she left behind in the past, and that's the one she is thinking of when she wants to save Cheng Weimin and her family.

She wants to save Cheng Weimin, go back and erase everything from this current line, and deviate it to a timeline where her family can be together.

(Honestly, that's a feeling I had from the episode: that she is stuck in the past and to that family that's why she doesn't care at all about adult Cheng Xiaoshi and doesn't seem to feel remorse for abandoning him)

By the way, Lu Guang develops the picture. He asks Cheng Xiaoshi to use the darkroom, and Cheng Xiaoshi is so curious because LG never does that). And takes a look at this photo, and it's a childhood picture of Cheng Xiaoshi.

Now Lu Guang probably would tell Cheng Xiaoshi about this photo? That his mom came to the studio? Because he can't hide this information about Cheng Xiaoshi's mom but at the same time... she is acting so strange. Lu Guang is conflicted on what to do.

I feel he would tell, and from there, idk what would happen. I'm throwing this here so it doesn't clog my mind, and I don't forget it. If someone wants to adopt this idea or plot pls do so >///<

While I don't like Shao Yuanyuan at the moment, in her role as a mom, I was trying to get in her shoes. The current Cheng Xiaoshi is nothing for her at this moment, but his child version is.

I think that is the reason why she brings up those memories, because they are the few things that are left about him, and also to connect to him and maybe trying to get Cheng Xiaoshi on her side of course.

I find interesting the opposition between what Lu Guang thinks about the current Cheng Xiaoshi and what Shao Yuanyuan might think of him. Is she really ready to delete what her son has become? How this would impact Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi? Would they even meet again?

Too many thoughts that I'm leaving into this post lmao

[ghostlyenola]

It's the "I wouldn't sacrifice the world to save you because I know that's not what you would want and I'd rather live in a world without you than disrespect you like that" x "I would sacrifice the world to save you even if you didn't want that cause I'd rather have you than the world"

[ghostlyenola]

This song broke my heart from day one and I am so happy to listen to it fully after six weeks.

This title is so relevant to YINGDU

[ghostlyenola]

Lu Guang is the "I Would Die for You my Love" character to Cheng Xiaoshi's "Yes, but would you live for me?"

And the torment of this knowledge burdens my soul.

[ghostlyenola]

i think whether or not lu guang *actually* killed vein himself is ultimately irrelevant since he still orchestrated the events that led to vein's inevitable death regardless (despite the fact that he failed in the end, but lg isn't aware that he didn't technically succeed) and if that smile was anything to go by, he definitely wasn't remorseful. an indirect murder is still murder.

and let's be real, had his "gamble" not paid off, he would have found another way to eliminate his target - even if it meant taking action himself (which we might see in s3 when he realizes vein is alive? :3c)

[ghostlyenola]

Ahhhhh your theory about how Vein died is sooooooooooo fucking real. Like I've seen people talk about how Lu Guang might have a secret power? But I feel like that's not the case cuz then we might have seen it play out in S1 and S2. Lg would surely would have used it in the fight with Qian Jin.

for context, anon is talking about this post where I theorize how vein "died." I go into it in more detail there, but the tl;dr version of it is: no lu guang did not kill him vein directly. he just delayed vein from entering the clinic early, thus creating a butterfly effect (hence his whole speech about it) that led to wang qing being awake when vein tries to leave with the notebook, thus creating an opportunity for her to "kill" vein which she wouldn't have had originally. but liu xiao interrupted this chain of events and that's why vein is alive using the faking death ability.

I am linking the reblog version here because other people have added their own thoughts since the creation of the post. I'm not sure if anon has seen it or just the original post, because in my original post I posit that liu xiao has the faking death ability. but after seeing other people's thoughts, I am now more leaning to the idea that wang qing has the faking death ability or perhaps, that a combination of wang qing and liu xiao is what made the "heart attack but fake death" happen. perhaps (unintentionally) they created a power combo-ing effect similar to how lu guang and cheng xiaoshi can create a mind link across time when combining their powers, or how li tianchen can possess people across space by proxy of li tianxi.

a power combo that works across "death" would be interesting, though this is merely speculative at this point. it would certainly provide another perspective to why they're paired up in the ed.

to now address anon: yeah, exactly. even if the addition of non-photo based powers is a recent change in writing direction (that they may not have had foresight on during the writing of previous seasons), it still would be too much of a drastic change for lu guang to be hiding another ability.

as I said in the post, it is unfortunate that we have to rely on information outside of the show to make sense of it, but yingdu really does make more sense when you've seen the recent interview with director li. in particular, it is heavily implied that liu xiao has more than one ability, and the process of gaining an ability (aside from inheritance from parents) is through death or stealing it from others.

while I am a believer in the idea that lu guang is willing to do morally questionable things for cheng xiaoshi, I don't think he would've had an opportunity to just get a new ability so soon after he just got the diving ability from cheng xiaoshi. on the flip side, if he always had multiple abilities since he was a kid, it would be bad writing lmao because then why has he never used it until now? especially when he's been timelooping for who knows how long to avoid a death node. I know link click is possibly retconning some details (2018 is now 2019, they changed the plans for red eyes, etc etc) but I don't think this would be a retcon they'd do because it would change too much of lu guang's character.

I am going to use this ask as a jumping off point to talk about yingdu's storytelling style, and how we should take this into account when analyzing this season. putting this under the cut now since this gets long and is kinda just a tangent now to the ask itself, though it does circle back to lu guang's role in vein's "death" in the end.

part of the reason vein's death is confusing is definitely because of the animation of lu guang puppeteering wang qing. I can totally see how people would come to the conclusion that lu guang was controlling her somehow. but we have to remember that yingdu is not like S1 and S2, for multiple reasons. one, it's a shorter season meant to introduce plot hooks, not plot; it's a setup for S3. two, it's a change in perspective from cheng xiaoshi's more grounded reality to lu guang who has been timelooping for forever. three, it was animated by a different studio than studio lan. fourth, it aims to provide a different story, and the storytelling style reflects that.

whereas S1 and S2 has a storytelling style that focused more on plot details and building up tension; yingdu focused more on relationships and emotions. it heavily uses visual metaphors in its storytelling compared to previous seasons.

in a way, although I have qualms about yingdu's writing, I do think visual metaphors is a valid solution to the problem of, "we only have six episodes to establish new plots and characters and motivations. how do we convey information efficiently in that amount of time without compromising artistry?"

I will mention one metaphor in detail that will be relevant for the lu guang discussion later. one example is glasses as a perception metaphor. this meta was written in YE5, and YE6 continues the metaphor as well because we see lu guang wear clear glasses for the first time, symbolizing that he is no longer stuck in his rose-tinted glasses era of looking into the past, and has decided to look into the future, solidified by his decision to remove vein from the situation and also because he reveals later that this is the last time he can loop.

there are, of course, more examples. idk if I have links for existing meta on this, but we have hands as a metaphor for relationships (hand holding, handshakes, fist bumps, etc) and the power balance of each relationship (with regards to secrets, deals, etc). we have various color theories floating around. we have theater/cinema and chess as metaphors for everyone's narrative roles. lu guang's imaginary clock as a metaphor for how he thinks the timeline should go, and how it's prevented from running by red strings forming the word BRIDON. we even see the clock fall apart in one of the later episodes (I forget which one atm). hell I could write a whole meta on liu xiao's tetris game as a metaphor for how he sees the "game" he's playing and the role xia fei plays into all of it.

side note: I think it's incredibly valid for people to feel that yingdu did not have enough space to properly establish characters, and I feel the same way too. but at the same time, I think a lot of characterization also gets missed in yingdu because it's a season that loves its metaphors and encodes character motivations through it instead of just showing it to us. I have conflicting feelings about this, but ultimately, they only had 6 episodes to tell a story, and I think that's something we should always keep in mind when managing expectations.

circling back to vein's "death" and lu guang's role in it... visual metaphors are gonna be confusing if people don't know this is what yingdu's storyelling heavily uses. I don't think we should be reading yingdu the same way we did S1/S2.

someone could watch lu guang puppetering wang qing and think, "oh he's using her to kill vein directly" but if we stick to yingdu's storytelling style, it is more likely a metaphor for him learning to manipulate the butterfly effect for his purposes (again also symbolized by the glasses metaphor, since he wears clear glasses in the same episode)

scenes should also not be taken out of context. there is a reason he made a whole speech about the butterfly effect first. a small change (delaying vein) results in a big change (killing vein). if lu guang was controlling wang qing or whatever, that is not a small change. that is not a butterfly effect. we literally had a butterfly land on lu guang's shoulder after he made this speech to vein. the point was to create a butterfly effect that would lead to a situation where vein dies.

and for my final tangent: this sets us up perfectly for S3 because I believe lu guang and liu xiao are supposed to be narrative foils.

they both have expressed wanting control over the timelines. liu xiao wants "to make uncertainties into certainties" (whatever this means) and lu guang wants "to make certainties (cheng xiaoshi's death node) uncertain." but as of S1 and S2, lu guang was not yet in a position to properly rival liu xiao over this theming, because we know he's been timelooping and failing over and over to save cheng xiaoshi, while liu xiao has been successfully manipulating people into doing things for him (getting li tianchen to retrieve liu min's phone for him; baiting cheng xiaoshi to go to bridon so he can use him to bait wang qing to revealing where she hid the location of cheng weimin's notebook so vein can steal it).

now, lu guang has shown some semblance of control. and we have seen the effects of it. cheng xiaoshi is still alive and well in a post-S2 post-yingdu timeline.

I mentioned this way back in YE2, but there's also a distinct change in the way we're moving from "closed loops" to "butterfly effects" as a theme in yingdu. yingdu has many objectives it wanted to do as a season, but the main one was lu guang learning to manipulate the timelines through creating a butterfly effect. in keeping with this theme and objective, it just does not make sense for him to kill vein by somehow directly controlling wang qing.

[ghostlyenola]

RE: vein's "death" again (previous thoughts have been posted here regarding the logistics of what actually happened and how it happened, and here regarding the thematic support for it). this post will be more about additional thoughs on lu guang's characterization.

so here's another interview translation that clarifies what happened. it doesn't really change much about anything I've said in previous posts, thankfully, but there is one additional thing from the interview I want to talk about.

my thoughts on the over-reliance on interviews aside, I wish yingdu actually emphasized more on the fact that lu guang's actions were a gamble. he wasn't sure his plan would work, but he took the risk anyway.

this is an important character moment for several reasons. one is that it's a milestone in lu guang's growth as a character. we were introduced to him in S1 as someone who will always stick to the original order of events and doesn't want to mess with the timeline, as shown in how he's strict with cheng xiaoshi during their dives. in his latest timeloop in yingdu, we see this in action from lu guang himself because he's always stressing about timeline deviations, and how he's timing key events down to the last minute. we also know that lu guang deeply dislikes having his plans messed up. so for him to take on a gamble is a huge change for him. it is a great risk, because he doesn't know if it would work, and moreover, this is his last loop. he believes he won't have any more chances to loop again after this. he is gambling for cheng xiaoshi's life here.

secondly, it would have been a great contrast to liu xiao, who is lu guang's narrative foil in depicting their control of the timelines. I've talked about this more in the ask post, but I wanted to point out how liu xiao was first introduced to us properly in yingdu as someone who cam play gambling games, but would actually cheat to win (using his heartbeat ability). I'm going into speculation territory, but liu xiao strikes me as someone who only starts playing when he knows he can win; hence he's playing the "long game" with this show and we won't see him truly in action until S3.

idk, I just think it's a neat contrast. lu guang has already been playing the "long game" by timelooping over and over, and his solution is actually one that's something we would have expected more from cheng xiaoshi, who is the one who makes clever plans by thinking outside the box: take a gamble. take a risk. and hope it will pay off.

also, side note: looks like cheng xiaoshi having yellow eyes was also an animation error. man.

side note part two: there isn't actually anything in the interview that surprised me other than the animation errors and that there are no parallel timelines, but I am kinda disappointed that some information were revealed this way instead of us finding out in the show itself (either in yingdu or in the future in S3). for example, that bahati is indeed a school related to abilities, or that liu xiao knows and probably has taken away other people's abilities.