#I LOVE ERSHU A TOTALLY NORMAL AMOUNT

[eirenical]

The Lost Tomb Reboot | Reunion: Sound of Providence | Dao Mu Bi Ji Chong Qi | 重啟之極海聽雷 | Season 1 Episode 2

TFW you’re gay, your nephew is also gay, and the one person in the direct bloodline who is actually into girls has fucked off to the back end of beyond and left you both playing hot potato with the responsibility of providing an heir for your family.  Someone’s going to have to take one for the team, but you’re older and have way more clout, so it really shouldn’t have to be you.

[Do not repost. Do not remove caption. Thank you!]

Bonus:

You know the drill... GIF IDs and meta behind the cut...

[ID: The first 10 gifs depict a scene, subtitled in English, from Reunion: Sound of the Providence, Season 1, Episode 2.  Wu Erbai and his nephew, Wu Xie, are standing on opposite sides of the counter in Wu Erbai’s kitchen.  Wu Erbai is wearing a white button shirt and a grey suit; Wu Xie is wearing a white fishermen’s sweater over a white collared shirt. Wu Erbai is trying to convince Wu Xie to marry and produce an heir for their family and shows Wu Xie a large pile of pictures of beautiful women, admonishing him to pick one, even offering to buy him a house and a car, if Wu Xie will just do this. Wu Xie fires back by saying that Wu Erbai is also still capable of producing an heir.  Wu Erbai is silent for a moment, then gets a bright smile on his face and says, “If you won’t listen to me, then lets do the math.”  (In the remainder of the scene, not represented here, Wu Erbai begins tallying up how much money Wu Xie owes to the family, implying that he can call in that debt at any time.)  A bonus gif follows the gifset caption which is a replica of the 8th gif where Wu Xie says “You are still healthy. You can have children, too” with the following added subtitles to represent Wu Erbai’s thoughts:

*record scratch* *freeze frame* (Oh no, he DIDN’T.) (Listen here, you little SHIT--)

Because sometimes, I think I’m funny.  ^_^  End ID]

(Disclaimer: I’ve only seen about... 5/6 of TLTR and read the first two translated novels.  I am neither Chinese nor of Chinese descent.)

OK, so I’ve been wanting to write about this scene ever since I first saw it, because it was the scene that made me fall in love with Ershu (...and with Wu Xie’s white waffle sweater, which I subsequently bought for myself, but THAT’S ANOTHER STORY XD).  And last night I finally had the spoons to gif it and I popped onto tumblr to post a teaser of the bonus gif... to find that @jockvillagersonly​, @momosandlemonsoda​, and @xcziel​ wrote an AMAZING meta between them in response to an ask sent by @gaiahenshin��� at... literally exactly the same time.  XD  It was about Wu Erbai and Wu Xie and the intersection of their queerness with Chinese culture and legal policies at the time the show would have been set (e.g., the One Child Policy) that I cannot HOPE to match but very much enjoyed reading just the same and I highly recommend it!  Here it is, for anyone interested.

I had planned a MUCH more tongue-in-cheek meta to accompany this gifset, because this show just brings it out in me, so... here we go?

When I first started watching this show, I knew I was going to be predisposed to like Wu Xie.  I absolutely have a character type and he unquestionably fits it (...and he’s played by Zhu Yilong, which certainly played a part in me loving him, too).  He’s snarky and he’s too smart for his own good, but he is loving and kind and Lord help you if you get on his bad side because he will DESTROY YOU... and probably your entire family line along with you.  What I did NOT expect was to fall just as hopelessly in love with Wu Xie’s uncle, Wu Erbai.  But I really shouldn’t have been surprised... BECAUSE ERSHU IS BASICALLY AN OLDER, MORE EXPERIENCED (...though less physically agile) VERSION OF WU XIE.  XD

So, of course, I hit this scene and there is Ershu, dressed to the nines, making his enemies wait while he finishes up a video game with his nephew before even deigning to talk to them, and then verbal ripping them to shreds before making said enemies run a gauntlet for his amusement.

...YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION.

Once the enemies are gone, and Wu Xie finally has his uncle alone, he tries to push his agenda forward only to have Ershu run right over him and start badgering him about marrying and producing an heir.  And up until then, I hadn’t given much thought to it really: Wu Xie is the only son of the first son of the family.  It makes sense that his uncle would pressure him to have a child... right?  And it did, up until Wu Xie threw it all back in his face with “But Ershu... you’re still healthy. Why don’t YOU do it?”

...oh.

OH.

With that one revelation, this becomes an entirely different ball game, doesn’t it?

Why isn’t Ershu married?  Why doesn’t he have children?  And then a thousand subconscious clues piled up and jumped on my head.  Ershu is GAY.  Ershu is SO GAY.  And everything he did from that point on just cemented it for me.  The fashionable way he dresses, even when exploring tombs.  The stunningly designed house.  The impeccable manners combined with his wonderfully chaotic energy.  The way he treats his nephew like the child he assumes he won’t have.  Being a queer aunt, myself, I suddenly saw a LOT of myself in him and that was it, I was GONE.

And now this scene just becomes that much funnier.  It’s a verbal sparring match or (I was going to say “passing the buck” here, but @kholran​ called it hot potato, and that’s so much better XD) a game of hot potato that these two poor gay disasters throw back and forth between them yelling “NOT IT” every time it lands in their hands.  And in the MOST tongue-in-cheek way possible, that adds an entirely new dimension to why they’re both so desperate to get Wu Sanxing back... HE’S THE ONLY STRAIGHT BOY IN THEIR ENTIRE TWO GENERATION SPREAD.  (...minus Wu Xie’s father, one presumes.)  If they get him back, then NEITHER of them has to produce an heir.  ;D

In short?  I love Ershu a PERFECTLY NORMAL AMOUNT and we really should be talking about this amazingly distinguished Elder Gay far, far more.  ^_^