#Su Qingluan

[mtkay13]

A contribution for the awesome Qi Ye Week 2024! Day 3: Food and Alcohol. This "little" piece is inspired from chapter 29's crazy brothel scene which I have been recently translating. It was such an inspiring chaos that I had to try and illustrate it. It's been a bit of a struggle to motivate myself to finish it, but I'm glad I managed to. Many thanks to Seb and Kat for the support. Jing Beiyuan is currently playing drunk alongside Zhou Zishu and He Yunxing, Wuxi is being harassed by a rude courtesan, the young courtesan that Beiyuan picked himself is incredibly embarrassed by him, and Su Qingluan, Ping'an and Axinlai are......... there, exasperated by the whole scene.

[sanch0us]

noble couple

(Part 2/3)

[web-novel-polls]

WN Women Bonus Polls #4: Priest

[Propaganda below] - Spoilers Warning!

Feng Xiaoshu/Princess Jing’an from Lord Seventh

"How could a good-for-nothing hedonist like me be a match for a heroine like her? Don't be silly, Your Majesty." - Jing Beiyuan, Lord Seventh (Tumblr)

Submission: i love the kind of woman that can kick my ass 

Differences between FXS in Lord Seventh & Word of Honor (she’s wildly different lol)

Gu Xiang from Faraway Wanderers / TYK

Submission: She's purple and she's dumb as rocks and i love her 

Lang Qiao from Mo Du / Silent Reading

[No propaganda submitted]

Carrd Link

Lin Jingshu from Can Ci Pin / Imperfections

[No Propaganda Submitted] 

Carrd Link

Liu Qianqiao from Faraway Wanderers

Submission: someone please tell Liu Qianqiao to drоp her ungrateful man and also that im frеe on thursday night and would like to hаng out. on thursday night, when im frеe. 

Wiki Link

Manman from Itinerant Doctor / Youyi

Submission: *waves around adoption papers*

Youyi Carrd Link 

Su Qingluan from Lord Seventh

[No propaganda submitted]

Wei Chengxiang from Tai Sui

Submission: 

Wei Chengxiang is one of the most important characters in Tai Sui. She's the impoverished foil to the rich kid protagonist, and she becomes one of his most important friends. She grows up to travel the world, joining the most downtrodden, powerless people on her continent and helping fight for them to have a better life.  She dresses like a boy as a child in order to work factory jobs, and once she's grown up, she continues to dress in "men's clothes" despite living as a woman. She trades sassy backtalk with one of the most terrifying people in history. She has kickass gambling-themed cultivation powers. She gives her friends handmade embroidered new years gifts. She has a permanent magic wound on her face in the shape of a tear track. She goes on a revenge quest and succeeds! She kills the people that hurt her loved ones and eventually contributes to the downfall of the entire societal system that abused her.  She goes from impoverished orphan to founder of a rebuilt nation, and she never once stops being wise as hell and cool as hell in that time, even when she's facing unfathomable odds. I love her. 

Zhao Qindan from Tai Sui

Submission: 

Zhao Qindan is a smart, generally talented rich girl that grows up extremely sheltered as a result of her family's power. When she's introduced, she's very much the naive rich girl archetype. Then, as a young adult, she's almost forced into a heinous arranged marriage, and the main character has to step in to save her. She's suddenly thrown into the real world in the aftermath as she flees her family, and she's utterly unprepared to deal with this.  But! Over the next nine years, once out from her family's thumb, Zhao Qindan grows up into an intellectual powerhouse. She takes up the cause of the poor and downtrodden, and she learns about the system of sexism that drove her to her own desperate situation (the arranged marriage). She becomes a renowned debater and public intellectual, and she later begins to write for one of the continent's first newspapers. She eventually becomes one of the most respected reporters on the entire continent, shaping public opinion near-single-handedly, and she helps dismantle the social systems that led to both her family's unfair privileges and her near-miss forced marriage.  She lives for two hundred years and never marries, reaching old age as an internationally beloved and respected author. She's unbelievably cool. Dandan ILY.

[yeliuxi]

Thinking about the kept-wife-ness of Su Qingluan, who was only as appealing to Helian Yi as her looks were alike to Jing Beiyuan's, who was trying to be filial to her parents and continuing to assist Daoist Li, the way her parents would have wanted her to.... And how she suffered such a terrible fate for it, getting caught up in palace politics and used as a pawn. To be kept in a private residence at a prince's insistance; not likely to be wed or made a concubine, but forced to stick around and tarnish her reputation. How hated she must be by Helian Yi's wife, the woman with arguably the most power in the palace, the rest of the imperial harem aside

[deepestbluesky]

shl/qy women thought of the day: ONCE AGAIN i would like to say how much i think su qingluan should be allowed to join the department of the unfaithful. as a treat.

[drawulan]

Miss Moon, Su Qingluan, in her last performance on the Fullmoon river

[geneticcatalyst]

apropos of nothing i was thinking about pets in qi ye and i was thinking about what helian yi might keep and then i thought 'he wouldn't keep anything he thought might bite him'

and then i thought 'what does that make su qingluan'

[smiling-shoe]

Helian Yi, drunk: Beiyuan is so hot...

His servant, exhausted:

Helian Yi: Su Qingluan is so hot too... Why everyone is so hot??

Servant: Must be global warming. Oh wait, we're in Ancient China. Than it's because you're chaotic bi, Your Highness, please, stop drinking and go to bed already.

[dreamingsushi]

The Longest Promise - Episode 11

Well hello and welcome back to this drama. We have already been through a quarter of all of this story, so I guess it's about time things start moving right? Hopefully, it won't go too bad from now on, but I expect still a lot of drama. After all, this is a Chinese one, it's bound to happen sometime.

Zhu Yan uses her wish to brush Shi Ying's hair. While doing so, she plucks a strand of his, to fulfill her promise to Qing Gang. Obviously, Shi Ying noticed and tells her to hand back the hair. However, for once, she's rather smart and tricks him into giving back a different comb than the one she used to brush his hair, so it's probably a strand of hers. Then Qing Gang comes to ask for the hair and she gives it to him. And THEN she realizes that a dude unfamiliar with poison, asking for a strand of hair to increase his power is definitely sus. Was kind of about time you doubted him. She sneaks upon him and notices that he's comparing the hair with a paint brush, meant for calligraphy. She confronts him for using her and takes the brush away to tell Shi Ying. Upon learning that she was acting like this only to get his hair for Qing Gang, Shi Ying gets mad. He almost slips and let her know that he cares for her, but smoothly passes it as since it's his first becoming a master, he wants to do well and cares for all of his disciples. He reassures her that this won't harm him. Yeah no. It's too late. The Qing will know he's still alive.

Shi Ying confronts Qing Gang and they fight. He's definitely not a match for him though and is defeated. Then we learn that he bears the bad poison from the Qing clan and if he doesn't fulfill his mission to transfer it to Shi Ying, he'll die. Shi Ying takes it on himself willfully. He pretends that he's fine and can suppress the poison with his cultivation. Qing Gang thanks him for his mercy and promise not to leak away his real identity.

However, Shi Ying isn't faring well. Zhu Yan comes back and sees how bad of a state he's in. Shi Ying lies that Qing Gang didn't have any ill intentions and that he took the poison from him, but he's not aware that he's not doing well. Zhu Yan has an idea to suppress the poison and save Shi Ying. She has him grab onto the lamp like she did a while ago and the butterflies attacking solve the problem. And I see you, Xuelu, lurking around. This is going to be again the tragic story of a too ambitious lady. She reminds me of Zuo Qingluan in Dance of the Phoenix.

Xuelu manages to figure out Shi Ying's real identity and she reports to Da Siming that everything's alright with Qing Gang now and that Shi Ying vanquished the poison. She doesn't mention that Zhu Yan was there to help. I don't know if she wants to help her or not... I don't think she's evil, it's more that she's not the official daughter so she might have had a lot of resentment.

In class, they have to make bracelets with some spiritual flowers. The next day, Shi Ying will elect which one's the best, to give them a reward. He decides to go along with Zhu Yan's one, because even though he was so cold and mean towards her, she still kept believing in him. Chongming fears she has too much power over him, even though he says he won't keep her in Jiuyi mountain once the month is over. So he feeds him a fruit that is supposed to prevent him to be attracted to women. There was a warning on the spell, but I couldn't completely read it, it went too fast. I guess we'll know soon enough. The next morning, everybody is extremely shocked to see that Shi Ying's wearing Zhu Yan's bracelet.

And that completes this episode. I guess the main lead is slowly getting a little smarter. She's still dumb, but it's better. I can't believe how naive she is though. Hopefully the trope of the naive female lead is going to die someday soon.

[minnarr]

wip ask game! su qingluan in shl-verse becoming a ghost?

ha, you got to this before i remembered to edit in file names so for others this is "qingluan and lfm thing"

in the eps where zzs is captured in jinzhou, jinwang brings up a few qy characters as former friends/accomplices in some kind of courtyard oath and qingluan was one of those. i got to thinking about what i find fascinating about her, and what i find fascinating about the dept of the unfaithful, and then i got to thinking about how you could adapt qingluan and also have her death be also fake. so far I've mostly written the jinzhou backstory and how she physically got in to tell it to lfm, i just need to work out Everything Else

[yuanzhous]

My turn! Jiuxiao or Wen Kexing!

yeah, like you don't know I'm gonna do both

stealing your color coding bc it's cool, we'll use this for wkx and this for jiuxiao

a song that reminds me of them

When You Break by Bear's Den

none pls suggest me jiuxiao songs

what they smell like

expensive perfume and saltwater

plum flowers, obviously

an otp

wenzhou, hanwenzhou

jiuxiao × jing'an, I guess? also my jiuxiao × jing'an x su qingluan crackship bc its funny and this himbo deserves two bad bitches

a notp

wkx x zj? I don't know if anyone ships that, but I would hate it for sure

yunxu is either a notp or a sure-tp depending on the vibes, I've not seen jiuxiao shipped with many other ppl

favorite platonic/familial relationships

WKX AND GX THEY ARE SIBLINGS SHE'S HIS DAUGHTER THEY ARE EVERYTHING

I'm a sucker for jixuao and hy friendship, as you know, but I'd also love to see him be a gege to gx and cl

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with

I tend to take most hcs about wkx's upbringing in the gv with a dose of skepticism, like sure, maybe, but what does that mean and how would it actually impact his character? but that's not focused on any particular hc

ig I hate the interpretation that his attraction to zzs was insta-love, like no he thought that guy was sus and got attached to him along the way

that he's completely stupid and unaware of what's happening around him? I like my jiuxiao fairly sweet and kind and somewhat oblivious to the darker sides of life, but still with a lot of emotional intelligence and awareness of the shit that's going on that he actively has to supress

the position they sleep in

curled in on his side, facing the wall

sprawled out like a starfish, snores lightly

a crossover au i’d love to see them in

cql bc give me wkx with the other wens

...I can't think of any, actually

(edit: actually he'd be super funny to throw into blood of youth, I feel like, although I've only seen like three episodes. I feel like he would delight in that genre)

my favorite outfit they’ve ever worn

ep 31 gvm wkx is where it's at

how many outfits does he have? the one in the sad jiangs flashback scene

[mtkay13]

Qi Ye ensemble cast poster, second edition

Yet another one of those LOL Qi Ye just has that power over me. You know the drill; more info below!

I'll go straight to the point: my main reason to draw this was because I wanted to draw the most somber, dark-looking Helian Qi possible with some dark cross-hatching effect. And because I don't want to draw a Helian Qi solo image because who the HELL does that, I had to turn it into an ensemble cast thing again. I just REALLY like to do that for Qi Ye, for some reasons!!! For a general note, first: shading was a PAIN but making a nice composition and thinking about how to make a hierarchy that both works in terms of storytelling and visual composition was fun. I also liked finding out the "color scheme" to use and I do like lineart. So, now, little notes about each character, and the obligatory name poster just so I'm sure we all know whom I'm talking about:

Jing Beiyuan: I've mentioned it before but drawing Beiyuan is like. The easiest for me, I think, out of ALL Qi Ye/TYK characters combined. He happens to have my general goto "pretty face" (which conveniently has peach blossom eyes). I'm happy with how he turned out here! And got to put the sable around his neck which makes for a nice additional touch. Helian Yi: He's easy to draw as well and I'm glad with how the guan turned out. He initally looked sideways, but I liked it better having him wistfully stare into the distance. Helian Zhao: has the exact same face as in the other, coloured poster, and that cracks me up bc that wasn't even intentional. Helian Pei: GDI I find him so hilarious. He looks so done and out of it. Shout out to all his bird as well, which, I find, really complete the look. Helian Qi: I can't possibly say that I love him as an antagonist because there's nothing to love about this literal trash, but I'm still grateful that we got some of the most rancid stuff going on in Qi Ye just because of him and I'm always here for that. He deserves the villain visual treatment, at least. He was VERY fun to draw and I tried to push that nasty grin and shading as much as possible. He turned out exactly how I wanted him to! (the shading on his face and the balance of light and shadow was a bit of a challenge, actually)

Wuxi: Again, a rather easy one, always pleasant to draw! I loved working on his hair (but complained a lot while doing so)--which I think turned out nicely. Bai Wuchang: Finally! Finally I draw him!! He had to be there, since he's like. The base of the whole Qi Ye plot. Lining him was....... a pain, but at least it looks nice.

Su Qingluan: nothing much to say--I think it's always important to have her there in Qi Ye stuff, and I put her next to Helian Zhao because of how he tried using her--but it did make me feel bad for her when I realised that. Song Ping'an: The real star of the show, lowkey, but always alert and present. Feng Xiaoshu: FINALLY. PRINCESS JING'AN. I'm sorry I took so long to draw her. I want to work on a proper design, I swear. To make up for having completely forgotten to include her in the other spread. I'm so sorry. I like how her face turned out! Liang Jiuxiao: I never, ever, EVER get enough of drawing him. Have I mentioned how much I like him? How much of a great surprise he was reading Qi Ye? How many times I've wanted to high five because finally someone is as confused as I am? I love drawing this very specific smile on him, SO satisfying. Also Bichen said he was "THE Qi Ye antagonist" and I live for that LOL Zhou Zishu: do I really need to say anything atp Jiang Xue: I'm so sorry I put Xiao Xue next to ZZS. The cruelty. But she came out really cute didn't she T_T Anyway that's it. I'm still obsessed with Qi Ye and given my current (totally secret) retranslation project I'm nowhere near done going crazy about this book.

[web-novel-polls]

Web Novel Women Tournament 

[Please be kind and respectful in the notes. Anti-Propaganda is NOT allowed.]

Sha Hualing from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Submission 1: I can't stand her and yet I love her. What does that tell you? 

Submission 2: her cringefail losergirl swag <3 girlie constantly in situations and she put herself into most of them 

Mod Propaganda

A fierce demon who attacked the Cang Qiong Mountain sect in SVSSS and became one of Luo Binghe’s wives in Proud Immortal Demon Way who often fought with Liu Mingyan and Qin Wanyue

My fav description of her is something along the lines of, “trying to be the steal-your-man girl who fails about it so badly” 

She’s ambitious, she’s ruthless, she’s intelligent -  If you support women’s rights, you should also support women’s wrongs (/light-hearted) 

Su Qingluan from Lord Seventh

[No propaganda submitted]

[yeliuxi]

Writing Patterns

rules: share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns!

Thank you for tagging me @rose-tinted-vision <3 Only published works 😂 Well. This will be disappointing

Stay [Qi Ye] Rated E, Jing Beiyuan/Wuxi

Jing Qi gives a soft exhale as Wuxi leans over him, pressing against him.

断肠草 [Qi Ye] Rated G, Jing Beiyuan/Wuxi, Wuxi-centric

The plum trees are in full bloom by the time Jing Beiyuan is well enough to accompany Wuxi in the gardens.

In Bloom [Qi Ye] Rated G, complicated Helian Yi/Jing Beiyuan (1st & 7th lives), (as yet) unrequired Bai Wuchang/Jing Beiyuan, the Hanahaki fic

In the first lifetime, Jing Beiyuan stares down at the white silk in his hands, unable to find it within himself to be surprised.

New Normal [Qi Ye] Rated G, Jing Beiyuan/Wuxi, Jing Beiyuan-centric

Autumn approaches Nanjiang like it does, and has, every year since Jing Qi moved there.

Enjoy, For Me [Qi Ye] Rated E, Jing Beiyuan/Wuxi, the ace Jing Beiyuan fic

Jing Qi raises his chin almost automatically, allowing Wuxi access to his neck.

我生命中的你 | A Place in My Life [MDZS] Rated E, modern cisswapped Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao

While they're still looking at apartments around the city, Lan Huan's only request is that they won't consider the towering, upscale apartment units downtown, the residences which are, unfortunately, closest to Meng Yao's work.

就是我的了 | Mine [Qi Ye] Rated E, baby's first omegaverse for a prompt fill, Jing Beiyuan/Wuxi

Jing Qi accepts the heat-inducing tea with both hands, downing the entire cup.

Lan Zhan gives shocking romantic confession on Dirty Laundry season three (not clickbait!!) [MDZS] Rated T, modern AU Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao & Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian

Lan Huan wakes, as usual, to a still-dark room, some weak morning light filtering in through the gaps between the blinds.

Here, in Our Home [Qi Ye] Rated G, Jing Beiyuan/Wuxi, trans Wuxi :3

It's a quiet afternoon in the Great Shaman's home.

Bird Cage [Qi Ye] Rated G, Su Qingluan & Hua Yue

Su Qingluan sits back down, hard, at the vanity.

Guess I start with offputting action or boring ass description. Let's gooooo

Tagging @geneticcatalyst @bbcphile @difeisheng @twilightarc-gm @la-muerta @tavina-writes @minnarr um trying to think who else I know writes... Anyone else reading this who wants to :3 No pressure to do this

[deepestbluesky]

hanwenzhou thought of the day: ice dancing au [chinhands emoji]. (i was inspired by these videos)

han ying and zhou zishu who always trained together because they’ve worked with the same coach before even tho they compete for different countries internationally (and zzs has always helped hy as hy has come into his own as a skater). zzs has retired officially and dramatically whereas hy is publicly still competing but privately considering retiring because what’s the point if zzs isn’t there too (zzs doesn’t love this, he thinks hy is ruining his career over him) but currently hy has the time to think about this bc he’s rehabbing an injury this season.

anyway they start skating together rather than with their usual/former partners (im gonna say su qingluan with zzs and liu qianqiao with hy bc i can) while they’re both trying to decide what to do with their lives, and they start hearing some of this buzz about same gender pairs being officially allowed to compete, and they start Thinking. posting routines to social media. making noise in the media. neither of them really think they’re up for competing together or possibly competing at all, but the more they talk about it, the more they’re into it. zzs genuinely doesn’t want to and maybe can’t compete anymore, but he doesn’t want to hold hy back. so finally he presents hy with the idea of ‘what if you did some of this more seriously as a campaign to make international skating take this seriously’ and hy is like ‘🥺 but i‘d need a partner’ and zzs is like ‘sigh yeah i have an idea.’ and that’s how wkx gets brought into all this

wkx has always been a singles skater but zzs knows him (read: has hooked up with him at multiple competitions) and knows he would be up for this. wkx hasn’t really been enjoying skating for the last couple years and he is aggressively gay, and zzs thinks this might work to make him have fun again (not that he CARES of course....) and also wkx would be the perfect complement for hy if they;re really gonna make this a Campaign

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Nobody asked for a Qi Ye reaction post but here one is nonetheless (at almost 1500 words.... hello.)

[~spoilers~]

One of the first things I can say is that I love love LOVE Priest’s writing style. It’s hard to say how much of this is a translation thing, because I did get the vibe that this translation was a lot smoother and better than the other cnovel translations I happen to have read. But god!! Her style is very densely allusive, and a challenge to follow at times, but so so beautiful. The story’s narration also shifts perspective a lot in the middle of chapters, which gives it this almost cinematic bird’s eye effect for me (except with internal-emotional states more than visuals). I can see it being the kind of thing that might bother people, but I love it – and I think that it ties in with the themes about the ephemerality and impermanence of life, and the way these little moments are all part of a much bigger sphere of existence.

I also like the way she does humour more than MXTX, honestly? I find the slapstick humour in MXTX’s works to be overdone and distracting from the other story and characterization work going on in her works. Whereas here, the humour landed more and also felt like it tied in more with the actual development of character and themes. Like, for instance, Liang Jiuxiao’s battle with the sable wherein he gets scratched every time and exhausts Beiyuan’s entire supply of antidote – it’s over the top, but also genuinely funny to me, AND I feel the comedic setup of Liang Jiuxiao constantly being an unwanted visitor contrasts very well with the entire heartbreaking scenario involving Beiyuan drugging him for Zhou Zishu, as well as his general progression from a Pure of Heart, Dumb of Ass archetype to being completely shattered by the evil and corruption in the world.

(The Sex and Kissing stuff is also, imo, more sensual and generally hotter to me than MXTX’s stuff – not trying to pick on her specifically, she’s just my only point of comparison for these novels.)

The main romance is ehhh… Mixed Feelings? I loved Wu Xi in all the parts he wasn’t playing the role of “love interest who expresses their love via violent jealousy”, but the parts where he WAS…. woof. Like, I don’t necessarily mind jealousy when it’s internal sensations, or when it’s a very intentionally fucked up dynamic, but I like it less so when it’s couple who’s riding off into the sunset and are the only foil to the general aura of melancholy and sadness in a story? Really hope that’s a one-off specific piece of characterization and not a general Thing for Priest…

I did actually like the gradual development of Beiyuan’s feelings, and the way there’s no Big Moment of Realization – or rather, there is a moment of realization, but it’s not super dramatic, it’s just sort of settling into something that’s been there awhile.

Another problem with their relationship for me though, I think, is how rushed the denouement of the book is, and how many important things are glossed over. Like, okay, they’re riding off into the sunset, but are they actually going to talk about the fact that Beiyuan seduced Wu Xi for Deception Purposes and then drugged him…? Taking advantage of Wu Xi’s very earnest and intense feelings in the process? Like, they stay in the capital for three months of negotiations before they leave, all while Wu Xi hides Beiyuan in his house – there must have been conversations and Relationship Negotiations? And yet we don’t See any of that, we’re just treated to them riding off in a carriage with some cheeky little line about how Beiyuan has the rest of his life to make things up to Wu Xi (presumably by having rough sex)… like ok.

The racism… there was a lot of it in the presentation of Nanjiang! I think the thing that stood out to me though was the line about Wu Xi’s having a kind of intuitive understanding of how people are (an intuition attributed to children, even!) despite not being cultured – it slots so perfectly into the kind of colonial propaganda that posits colonized people as having this innate, intuitive understanding of the world or connection with nature or what have you – but of course they’re not mature, they’re not cultured, they don’t have the capacity for rationality, that we do. To be fair, the line I’m thinking of is also applied to Liang Jiuxiao, but it is of a piece with how Nanjiang is characterized throughout the novel – like, oh, they’re so simple! When they like someone they just get married! It’s presented as a romantic ideal, but in a way that portrays Nanjiang as being Simple and Rustic and lacking the cultural complexity of the Great Qing. (Especially since we b a r e l y see the country or its people on the page.)

(Not to mention the way Wu Xi’s bodyguards from Nanjiang are portrayed as being confused and grossed out by him being in love with a man – contrasted with the commentary about how commonplace sex between men is in the Great Qing. Feels very like Nanjiang gets cast as less “enlightened”?)

I think those elements are also part of why the romance doesn’t fully stick its landing for me – because Wu Xi does take in and consider Great Qing cultural stuff, and incorporate it into his worldview alongside the influence of his home culture – and we don’t see Beiyuan doing something similar in return. He wants to leave for Nanjiang in part because he’s exhausted with capital politics and wants freedom, but why Nanjiang specifically? What does the country mean to him? How’s he actually going to fit in there? (This is another thing that also could have been filled in more with more actual writing about what goes down after that final battle.)

I honestly was deeply moved by Helian Yi. I shed literal tears for that man on multiple occasions. I do feel like I would have benefitted from more actual exploration of his past life-relationship with Beiyuan? Because as it was, I felt like that aspect of Beiyuan’s characterization was kind of informed rather than fleshed out – what did he see in Helian Yi in the first place? And I think the unrequited love would have been more poignant if we’d had more flashbacks to when it was requited.

Also, the possible-incest reveal?? What even was the point of that…? (I know people have posited that that’s why Helian Yi originally had Beiyuan killed, but with that final deleted-on-JJWXC extra I feel like it’s meant to be that he thought Beiyuan was responsible for Su Qingluan’s death. Another thing that should have been elaborated on, plot-wise…)

In general, the ending was very rushed. It gave me distinct “project due the next day” vibes.

ZHOU ZISHU!!!! – my main emotional engagement with this, tbh. I loved what was done with him, loved getting to see more of the atrocities he was behind (haha), loved the chilling “ends justify the means” ideological track he was on, loved how enmeshed he was in Hierarchy and political intrigue and how Carefully he handled himself around his social superiors… yeah.  

I am also…. Also losing my mind over the entire Vibe between Zhou Zishu and Liang Jiuxiao. Misplaced devotion… broken pedestals… weird subtextual hard-to-define Feelings... selfishly wanting to hide the worst parts of yourself from someone…. Ahhhhh it’s good. Love those intricate complex homoerotic friendships. If there Exists any fic (whether platonic or less so) that anyone wants to rec… pls do 👀

I have to say, another problem I had with the ending was that I don’t think the tonal dissonance was well-balanced. Like, there’s a very melancholy atmosphere for pretty much everyone except the main couple, and I do understand that their getting away from the capital is the only thing that engenders that happiness (as a big theme of the book is that the politicking in the capital is exhausting and demoralizing – and to my understanding that is similar to the themes at work in Faraway Wanderers.) But I don’t feel as though those two streams were working in communication with each other in the final chapters – I would say that the cutesy scenes with the main couple just felt jarring in contrast to the sadness and regret that permeated the rest of the narrative. I think perhaps they were too saccharine, rather than emphasizing escape and looking forward to different possibilities? I’m not sure. (It also seems questionable to present Nanjiang as an Escape, given that Wu Xi is in charge now?? They’re still right in the thick of politics?) Anyway, this all is why I like the placement of that final extra at the end of the narrative, because it Is a turning back to melancholia that I like to see during nominal happy endings.