#Summer Series

[daneesoro]

Some stuff from Elle's summer album

[elliesfavbae]

Summer camps and dead mouses, Part 2 SERIES

Summer camp with enemies to lovers Ellie Williams

part 1, part 3, part 4, final part (5)

synopsis: This summer, you go to a summer camp for the first time. You've met so many new people, but one of them stands out for being a total jerk. Unfortunately for you, you run into each other all the time. Is that just a coincidence?

pairing: mean!Ellie Williams x reader

warnings: use of y/n, Ellie is still a bitch, swearing

wc:4000

Ellie is crouching ahead, probably tying her shoe, just a few feet in front of you. She hasn’t noticed you yet. You sneak up slowly from behind, almost there... And then you step on a dry stick buried in the grass.

A crack echoes in the surroundings. Ellie turns around in less than a second. She stands up and reaches over for your lanyard, but you're quick too. You deftly avoid her grasp, spin around, and start to run. A plan forms in your head. You notice her chasing you—perfect.

You dash towards the main building, bypassing the main door for the entrance to the basement, hoping it’s empty. Luckily, it’s unlocked. You silently thank Olivia for showing you this route earlier.

Of course, Ellie is still in pursuit. She rushes through the door behind you.

The room isn't large, rectangular with a shelf in the middle. You sprint to the end of the basement, hiding behind the big shelf while Ellie positions herself on the opposite side.

“What’s your plan now, hm?” she says with a smirk, raising her eyebrows.

You catch your breath. "Well, we’ll find out who’s more agile."

A while passes before Ellie decides to rush towards you, and you start running away from her. Suddenly, you turn around, hoping to catch her off guard.

But she’s ready. She tries to grab your name tag, but you manage to grab both of her arms. She falls onto you and you both collapse to the floor. She lies on top of you, momentarily still, seemingly processing what just happened. You continue holding onto her arms, feeling the tension in her muscles beneath your fingers. Unfortunately, this distracts you from everything else. It’s as if the world stops for a moment. You feel her heavy breathing on your face, so close to yours. Her hair falls onto your face and—snap. Ellie takes advantage of your distraction and tears the name tag off your lanyard.

You look up at her; she’s wearing that familiar smirk again.

“Bitch,” you murmur under your breath. She’s still lying on you and clearly hears it, raising her eyebrows, still smiling.

She gets up from the ground, and so do you.

“Got any more tags?” She reaches out her hand.

“No,” you roll your eyes.

“Shouldn’t have challenged me if you couldn’t keep up.”

“I would’ve caught you if you—” You don’t finish the sentence out loud. “—if you weren’t so... attractive,” you conclude in your thoughts. You cringe; it sounds cheesy even inside of your head.

“If I what?” She asks, playing with your name tag. “Whatever. You better stay away from me next time; you’re honestly pissing me off,” she sighs as she heads for the exit without looking back at you once.

She closes the squeaking door. You leave the basement soon after. A campfire awaits near the main square for those who lost. You drag your feet towards it, anger filling you. It’s not just about losing the game; it’s about Ellie, her attitude. She’s so proud and haughty, you wish you could wipe that smirk off her face one day. 

And the fall? Her body on top of yours? Did she do that on purpose? What? Of course not, why would she? Or maybe? You saw her being quite successful with the counselor earlier…  A flood of questions occupies your mind. You can’t help but replay the moment one last time, still feeling her hands on yours and yours on her arms. Her heavy breath hitting your forehead and auburn strands of hair falling on your cheeks. Snap out of it, you tell yourself. You still dislike her, especially when you replay all those moments when she acted like a bitch—and there are so many, even though you’ve only known her for two days.

You arrive at the campfire and notice all your roommates are already seated. Actually, a lot of people are here. Maybe watching the sunset took longer than you thought.

You sit next to friends from your cabin and sigh. The warm flames nicely warm your body.

“Y/n, you died too? Well, at least you were the last of us,” Emma, one of your roommates, points out.

“Yeah, I guess. But the way I died was so embarrassing,” you groan.

“Why, what happened?”

“Do you guys know Ellie?” You look around, seeing mostly confused faces. “The girl who took the mouse out of our bathroom yesterday? The one who was late to the assembly?” Heads finally nod in recognition.

“Well, what do you think of her?” you decide to test the waters.

“I mean, she helped us with the dead mouse yesterday... And the way she pissed off the director was kinda funny,” one of the girls remarks.

“Yeah, but doesn’t she seem, like, super bitchy to you?” No one agrees except Olivia.

“Yeah, sometimes she looks at me like she wants to kill me,” Olivia chuckles. “But I guess I don’t pay much attention to her.”

 Are you seriously the only one she irritates? Maybe the problem is you, not her… 

“I shared a kayak with her today, and she was a total ass, seriously.” You try to defend yourself.

“How so?”

“Like... um, I can’t remember her exact behavior right now, but she was just straight up mean,” you admit, feeling a bitter pang in your chest. Not because of someone’s harsh words, but because you feel like you made a fool of yourself. Does no one else find her infuriating besides you?

 “Yeah, I asked about her because she killed me in the game,” you clear your throat, “and who killed you?” Changing the subject successfully.

You enjoy the rest of the evening; it’s peaceful, and eventually, your mood improves. You’re so tired after the first day that you don’t even join your friends when they sneak out of your cabin to hang out with others; you collapse onto your bed and fall asleep immediately.

***

The next morning, an alarm clock wakes up the whole room. Since you got the most sleep last night, you are the first to actually get out of bed and have plenty of time for yourself. Looking at your other roommates, you doubt if some of them got any sleep at all last night.

You walk towards the main square with them as they discuss the events of last night.

“Seriously, y/n, it’s a shame you weren’t there yesterday. You should totally join us tonight,” Mia playfully punches your arm.

“Yeah, we had to sneak around so the counselor wouldn’t catch us. We made it to Lily’s room, and at first, we just talked—”

“Yeah, but then we started playing spin the bottle, you know. We only managed like two rounds before we heard the counselor coming, and we had to bail.”

“Mhm, we’re planning on continuing the game tonight. You’re in, right?” Mia asks.

Thinking about it now, you regret not joining the girls yesterday; you usually never say no to fun.

“Of course I am. I wish I had been there last night too,” you admit with a smile, and the girls get enthusiastic as well.

***

You’ve already chosen the activities for the day. First is swimming, then sailing, and lastly, rock climbing. Olivia is supposed to accompany you on each activity too.

You change into your swimsuit and wrap yourself in a towel. You join your group in the assembly area, recognizing some familiar faces. As you walk towards the lakeside, you pass by the horse stable. Looking closer, you notice Ellie cleaning one of the horse stalls—yesterday's punishment. You try not to burst out laughing with Olivia when you see her.

The first activity is nothing special; as soon as you get into the water, instead of swimming, you start splashing around with the cold water. Since it’s early summer, the water has barely warmed up from the sun. The rest of the activity is spent either tanning on the shore or occasionally dipping into the water, only to quickly run back to dry land as others splash you.

Since the next activity is sailing, you don’t bother changing out of your swimwear, assuming you might get wet again. However, it’s just the start of camp, so the instructor begins with theory lessons on land: boat construction, the wind rose, basic maneuvers. By the end of the lesson, all the new information begins to blur together in your mind. There’s too many. 

It’s alright, you calm yourself down; you have the whole month to learn.

After lunch (it was spaghetti today!), you spend the break reading a book in your room and hanging out with your roommates.

Now it’s time for rock climbing. It’s your first time trying it, but you’ve always wanted to try it. You change into more sporty clothes and follow Olivia to the main square. You join the crowd until you arrive at the climbing wall. You look up; the wall is about 50 feet tall—is that a lot for a climbing wall? You have no idea; it looks average.

The activity starts with the instructor’s introduction and a little theory, but fortunately, it doesn’t take up all the remaining time. First, everyone who wants to climb has to pair up with someone heavier and more experienced to belay them.

You look around; Olivia is about the same size as you, so she wouldn’t be the best match. You turn and spot her: a girl wearing a black tank top with smooth blonde hair in a single braid. She looks much more muscular than you—perfect. You approach her.

"Hey, do you mind belaying me?" You ask Abby, who looks at you with a neutral expression at first.

"Sure, why not," she responds with a warm smile lighting up her face.

The instructor gives you a bit more instruction before helping you with the climbing harness. Abby, clearly more experienced with this type of equipment, manages hers effortlessly.

"Tell me when you’re ready." You stand facing the wall, Abby behind you holding the rope to belay you. As you look up, the height suddenly seems much more daunting than the supposed 50 feet. Okay, you can do this. That’s what Olivia next to you reassures, too.

Around you, some people are already climbing, while others watch from below. You take a deep breath and grab two handholds above your head, placing both feet on lower holds. With your hand reaching for another hold, you feel the rope tighten, lifting you slightly higher. You adjust your foot and continue upwards.

The holds require more strength than you anticipated, but you push through, climbing a little higher. You’ve moved about five holds up already. Your fingers of both hands reach another holds, but they’re too small and you feel them slipping on the polyester resin slowly— you know it's only a matter of time before you lose grip.

Just before you fall, you glance down. You let go of the hold, and Abby’s rope catches you, holding you at the same height for a few seconds before she carefully lowers you to the ground. She helps you remove the harness.

"How was it?" Abby asks kindly.

"I didn’t realize climbing was that hard," you admit, your hands sore and muscles tense.

"Was that your first time?"

"Was it really that obvious?" You whine.

"Well, you got pretty high if it was your first time. Most people are too nervous to even attempt the wall," Abby encourages.

You look at the climbing wall and the point from which you fell. You climbed about, wow shocking, 7 feet. You know Abby is probably being just polite and not honest, but it's still nice of her.

"I was only up there for like 5 minutes, but thanks anyway… Do you climb often? Sorry, that's a dumb question. You look… well, clearly experienced," you say, noticing her muscles.

"Yeah, I swim too, but climbing has always been my favorite," Abby admits.

The counselor announces the session's end, and people begin to head back to their cabins.

"Well, I’ll see you around," Abby waves with a smile, leaving you and joining her friends.

You gather your things, and Olivia finds you.

"Abby, huh?" she grins teasingly.

"What do you mean?" you shake your head.

"I saw the way you were checking her out. Interesting, wouldn't have pegged you for being into the head counselor’s daughter…"

"What? No, it's not like that! Yeah, she's attractive but—" You stop short, processing her words. "Wait, did you say Mr. Anderson's daughter?!" Your eyes widen in surprise.

"Shh, not so loud. Yeah, she’s Abby Anderson. To be honest, they do look alike, kind of," Olivia laughs.

"No they don’t! Gross! She’s cute, I guess. But definitely not my type," you assure her, the rest of the walk filled with idle chatter. You prepare for dinner and head over with your group, sitting together at a table.

"Mrs. Miller told me we're playing Treasure Hunt tonight, but she said not to tell anyone, so be quiet," Leah, your roommate, reveals while eating.

"That children’s game? Oh God," you groan, anticipating it'll be boring.

"No no, it's different here. It's actually quite fun," Olivia chimes in mischievously. "Once it's dark, everyone gets paired up randomly and gets just a flashlight and a treasure map. The treasure's hidden somewhere in the woods…"

"Yeah, and the first pair to find it gets a prize." Emma adds.

"And what's the prize?" you inquire, starting to get curious.

"A fancy dinner or something, but that's not the point. It’s about being out in the dark with just a flashlight and possibly some… hot company," Olivia explains, winking at you.

"Yeah, some people really… well, they take full advantage of the occasion, you know two people left alone in the dark" Emma smirks.

"What? The way you put it sounds pretty horrible," you admit.

"No, it's thrilling!" they try to convince you. "Plus, the counselors try to spook you. Come on, it's so much fun…"

"I guess it could be fun…" You're still unsure, particularly about being alone in the woods with others trying to scare you. But you're up for new experiences, right?

"If you give up on the treasure hunt idea, we’re moving Spin the Bottle to the woods. We’ll meet by the pond."

The after-dinner break is longer than usual, you have to wait till the night comes. Three hours later, everyone gathers in the main square. Leah was right; the counselor confirms it’s Treasure Hunt night.

The rules are reiterated, although you’re already familiar with them. Finally, the pairs are announced.

"Y/n and Amelia Oakley."

You walk to the center and see Amelia approaching. Short brown hair, glasses— right, you met her at Arts and Crafts yesterday. She seemed nice. You both approach another counselor who distributes flashlights and the treasure map.

"Hey, we met at Arts and Crafts yesterday," you initiate the conversation.

"Yeah, I remember you," she says warmly.

She might not be the "super hot company" your friends were telling you about, but the game should still be enjoyable with her as a partner. At least you didn’t end up with a total nightmare like Ellie for example. Phew.

You all gather at the main gate, waiting for the game to commence. It’s a serene night; the sun has already set, and while it's dark, it’s not completely pitch-black yet. The stars are beginning to twinkle above, and you can hear the rustling of leaves and the breeze through the trees.

The director opens the gate, and as everyone prepares to dash off, he speaks up.

"You have to be here in exactly three hours, or sooner. Whistles will blow 10 minutes before the end. Don’t even think about leaving the designated area; the counselors will find you anyway. Remember, we have eyes and ears everywhere." You gulp, recalling the stories your friend shared about counselors lurking in the dark woods. "Let the game begin!"

The rush is palpable as the crowd surges toward the nearest path. Amelia grabs your hand, and you both join the sprint. Initially, everyone follows the same route, but as time passes, the group thins out as people take different directions.

"Let's turn left now!" Amelia shouts above the din, and you follow suit. After a few moments, you stop to catch your breath.

"Okay. What's our plan? How do we find this treasure?" you ask, still panting.

"Well, according to the map," she shines her flashlight on the paper, "we need to head to the west side of the woods. But are we really here just for the treasure?"

You look at her, confused.

"What else would we be here for?"

"I mean, for many, the appeal of this game is the freedom. For one night, you’re left alone in the woods. It would be a shame to use that time only to find some hidden treasure," she suggests, her face softly illuminated by the flashlight.

What are her intentions? Hopefully just friendly…

"Yeah, I guess… But what else could we do?" You were kind of looking forward to the treasure hunt before.

"Some people form groups and hang out, others like to spook the other campers," Amelia explains.

"That sounds more interesting than the original game," you admit.

"Okay, but how do we find them?" you wonder aloud.

"Well, we either stumble upon them, or we could sit quietly and listen for any approaching footsteps. Though that might seem a bit creepy," she laughs.

"I suppose we could try the first option…"

You start walking through the woods, unfortunately without encountering anyone. It’s now completely dark; your flashlight is your only source of light. It’s getting chilly, and you regret not bringing a hoodie.

"You know, thinking about it now, letting teenagers loose in the woods all night seems like a pretty risky idea. What if someone goes missing or something?" you voice your concerns.

"For the past 30 years, it hasn’t happened. And the counselors are everywhere. They might even be right behind you," Amelia says, sending a shiver down your spine. "Don’t worry, if you were to yell for help, three of them would probably appear instantly."

"That's a little unsettling," you chuckle nervously.

Suddenly, you hear the crackling of leaves behind you. You whip around, and Amelia grabs your hand. Both of you freeze, listening intently.

The sound comes again— louder, closer…

"RAAAAAH!" a scream echoes right behind you. Startled, Amelia lets go of your hand and bolts. You run after her, the creature in hot pursuit behind you.

You continue running until you reach a fork in the road. Glancing back, your flashlight reveals two human silhouettes giving chase, they’re so close now. You turn back, noticing Amelia is missing. Fuck, she has already chosen a path, but you’re unsure which one. Deciding quickly, you turn right, hoping to meet her there.

You shine your flashlight ahead but see no sign of Amelia. After a while, you can’t hear footsteps behind you either. Turning around, you realize you’re now alone. Alone in the woods with only your flashlight, you’ve lost the treasure map long ago. That was probably the fastest you’ve run in your life.

"Fuck…" you curse under your breath, standing still to catch your breath. You look around, finding no one in sight. Your first instinct is to backtrack to the fork in the road, but as you start walking, you realize you lost your way in the heat of the chase.

You're on the verge of calling out for counselors, as Amelia suggested, when a distant flashlight catches your eye. At this point, you're indifferent whether it's the chasers, Amelia, or anyone else; you just can't stand being alone in these dark woods anymore. Flashing your own light a few times, you hurry over to the source. As you shine your flashlight in their face, you realize it’s… Ellie.

"For fuck’s sake, can you stop blinding me with that damn thing?!" You would’ve recognized this tone everywhere, even if you didn’t know it’s Ellie.

"Ellie…"

"No way," she groans, hiding her face in her hands. She realizes it’s you who she has bumped into. "I've been wandering alone for twenty minutes, and you are the first person I meet?"

"Why are you alone?"

"I ditched my partner ages ago. At first, I was scaring the other campers," she smirks. "It was hilarious— they were all pissing their pants. But then I got bored and headed towards the pond."

Right, you remember. Your friends mentioned they were meeting there. A thought appears in your head.

“I was walking towards the pond, too”

"They invited you to play too?" she sighs, clearly mad. "I was hoping to leave you here once you’re done talking."

"Not that simple, Williams," you reply, feeling just as displeased about the reunion. "Do you know the way?"

"It’s on the map, genius," she scoffs.

"Well, I lost mine. Looks like we're walking together," you say, hearing Ellie emit another groan.

For a while, silence hangs between you both. It's not exactly awkward—more like a mutual animosity. 

"I lost my partner when we got chased," you eventually mention.

"I don't care," Ellie cuts you off with a sharp tone, prompting a sigh from you.

"Ellie, what is your problem?"

"My problem? What do you mean?" Her tone betrays her disinterest.

"You are such a bitch to me. Since the first time we’ve talked."

"Thanks."

"Answer me, Ellie," you insist, growing tired of the tension.

"You annoy me. Your face, your voice… I don’t know. What do you expect? Maybe I'm just a bitch," Ellie sighs, revealing a glimpse of vulnerability.

In the distance, you hear murmurs of human voices from behind the trees.

"Looks like we're here," you comment as you and Ellie approach the gathering.

You see about ten people gathered in a circle. Spotting your friends, you walk over to them.

"Hey, Y/n! We've been waiting for you!" They greet you eagerly.

"How long have you been here?" you ask, settling down as they make room for you.

"Not long. Just got here about five minutes ago. We're still waiting on a few more," Olivia informs you.

You glance around. Someone has cleared the leaves and sticks for seating so the ground is clear. Some people have placed their flashlights on the ground, while others still hold theirs. A greenish pond shimmers a few feet away, reflecting all of the lights.

After a while, five more people join the circle. Despite the dim lighting, you manage to recognize some faces, including Abby, the girl who belayed you while climbing earlier.

A deep voice cuts through the murmurs. "Quiet, everyone! Let’s start the game."

Taglist: @littlelittlebear

[the-conversation-pod]

The Untamed Episodes: The Second Life

AND WE'RE BACK

In Part 2 of our Untamed discussion, Ben, NiNi, Shan (@lurkingshan) and Bookworm (@neuroticbookworm) talk about our love for Jiang Cheng, our hatred for Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao, and why we will always hold out hope for more Chinese BL.

If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 00:55 - Intro: More Notes From The Future 01:45 - The Second Life 09:23 - The Second Life: The Fallout of Wei Wuxian's Choices 16:52 - The Second Life: Meng Yao's Dastardly Deeds 26:52 - The Second Life: The Tragedy of Wen Ning 32:35 - The Second Life: Two 'Fools' 37:41 - The Second Life: Various Random Musings 48:18 - Page to Screen (and Audio, and Anime, and Stage, and…) 56:59 - Afterlife: The Impact of The Untamed on BL and Fandom

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation, the Queer Media And Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

I'm Ben, the media critic.

NiNi

I’m NiNi, the VIIBs queen.

Ben

And we are your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

We’re here to talk queer film and dramas, with a special focus on Asian QL.

Ben

So if you like to dive deep into queer stories…

NiNi

If you like cracked out takes on art and commerce in queer media…

Ben

If you just enjoy simping for attractive people…

NiNi

We believe in simping!

Ben

Tune in!

00:55 Intro: More Notes From the Future

Ben 

And we're back. We're gonna continue with our huge two part episode on The Untamed. We finally bullied NiNi into watching it. We got her into the booth with Shan and our good friend Bookworm. I really hope you listened to the last episode because we're going right into Wei Wuxian's second life. 

NiNi

The second life is so much fun. There's some stuff we talk about in here that I could have continued talking about forever. 

Ben

No more beehive commentary from you right now. 

NiNi 

No more beehives, but I just want the world to know that I love Jiang Cheng. 

Ben 

Ah, that poor boy. What a hot mess of a man. Angry purple man. 

NiNi 

My angry purple dream boat, how dare you. 

01:55 The Second Life

Ben 

On to the second life.

Shan 

So this is after Wei Wuxian is resurrected, 16 years after his death. The Jin clan is now holding the most power in the cultivation world. They have the chief cultivator position. Jin Guangyao has had a meteoric rise to power in the time Wei Wuxian has been gone. His father has died. He has gotten married. He has an heir. 

We also have a whole new generation of junior cultivators along for the ride with us, notably Jin Ling, the son of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. Lan Sizhui, whose identity is a mystery that's not very well concealed. [laughs] Although, we did not mention our beautiful A-Yuan in the first life, just know that we love him dearly.

Ben 

There's too many things to mention. I didn't even go off on an extended period about Madam Jiang beatin’ the shit out of people.

Shan 

I know, right. 

[all laugh]

NiNi

She was such a bitch, but she came through when it mattered, my God.

Shan 

There's so many characters here, but please know that we love them all dearly even if we haven’t gotten the chance to talk about them all. A-Yuan is very close in our hearts.

Ben

We would just be screaming his name for like five minutes.

Shan

Yes! [laughs] So Lan Sizhui is who we come back to in this new timeline and Lan Jingyi is also around, his best friend—his lifelong bosom companion, you might say. 

Major storylines in the second life. We, of course, have Wuxian getting resurrected in Mo Xuanyu’s body, although in the show it's just the same actor the whole time because they didn't want to do that to us mentally, which I appreciate. He is supposed to settle his grudges as part of that spiritual agreement for his resurrection. So he is pursuing the folks who harmed Mo Xuanyu. The big mystery unfolds with trying to figure out the last grudge that he holds. That aligns with unraveling the big mystery of the hidden foes from the first life.

Jin Guangyao, aka Meng Yao, is the villain behind most of the horrible things that happened in the first timeline. And also getting up to all kinds of other noxious shit like marrying his own sister, killing his own son because he's an incest baby, murdering his father via a gaggle of prostitutes, fucking him to death.

NiNi 

That's a thing that happened, people!

Shan 

Yeah, real normal stuff over there. And recruiting a number of folks to do his dirty work, including villains Su She and Xue Yang. He is a half brother to Mo Xuanyu and responsible for a lot of what he went through, as well. So he's just all up in the business. He also murdered Nie Mingjue and tricked Lan Xichen into being complicit in all of that. 

While that's happening, Wuxian is reunited with Wangji. They are following these clues.

Ben 

I'm sorry, we have to be clear that, like, by following the clues we mean Wei Wuxian wakes up. It's like, “Wow, this place sucks. Whoa, where'd that arm come from? All right, let's put this arm in a bag. Well, the arm’s pointing that way. I guess we're going there now.”

Shan 

That's only in the book, bestie.

Bookworm 

So, in the show it's actually just a sword spirit. 

Shan 

The book is way more gruesome. There’s, like, body parts, it’s a whole thing. The show is a little simpler.

Ben

Okay, yeah, they use a sword but it’s literally like, “oh okay, I guess we’re going east? All right.”

Shan

[laughs] Yeah, the sword points them in the direction they should go to follow some clues.

As Wangji and Wuxian work together to follow the sword spirit, unravel the mystery, the juniors are along for the ride. There is a very devastating arc in Yi City where they meet Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan, who we had briefly encountered in the first timeline, and unravel a whole plot about them being tormented by Xue Yang, who is fucking evil. Very much a fan favorite arc, I think.

Bookworm 

It is the best arc and this is also the most tragic arc.

Shan 

It's quite sad.

Bookworm 

Nobody knew what was going on. Everybody got tricked into it. 

Ben 

The Yi City arc is pretty brutal because we basically see how Meng Yao has orchestrated these complex events to torture and murder people he doesn’t like. Xue Yang does the same thing to two roaming cultivators—not boyfriends—which culminates in him turning one of them into a puppet akin to Wen Ning and then driving the other one to death by making him commit evil acts unknowingly. Which is… diabolical.

Shan

After the Yi City arc, that is when Wuxian and Wangji discover the truth of Nie Mingjue's death, which was very intentionally perpetuated by Meng Yao. By unraveling that, they caught on to his whole evil shit. This all culminates in a confrontation at Guanyin Temple where Meng Yao is fully unmasked, Nie Mingjue's corpse rises and is really out for some revenge—which, fair enough, I would be too. Jiang Cheng confronts Wei Wuxian after learning about the golden core transfer that he never consented to. And we finally learn that Nie Huaisang was actually the one who was behind Wei Wuxian's resurrection and orchestrated this whole mystery plot as a way to get revenge on Meng Yao for murdering his brother. 

While these plot things are happening, there are a couple emotional arcs going on. There is, of course, the continuation of the Jiang family drama and the tension between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, which is now complicated by the involvement of Jin Ling, who is Wei Wuxian's nephew and has grown up an orphan because of Wei Wuxian's behavior. Jiang Cheng needs to learn the truth about Wei Wuxian giving him his core. And they have to kind of work through all of their emotions about that, which don't come to any kind of satisfying resolution, because how the fuck could they?

And then finally, there is of course the reunion second chance romance between Wuxian and Wangi. Honestly, their adult romance is so great. Wuxian is resurrected. He immediately reconnects with Wangji. He's having some fascinating mix of memory loss and obliviousness that is his signature and some just emotional denial about the feelings between them. Wangji is having none of that. He is very clear on the fact that he is in love with this man, sticking to his side like glue and not letting anyone hurt him again. So they are traveling together while they solve this mystery. They're having all kinds of very fun ship moments, lots of cute stuff happening. Wangi's getting drunk a lot. 

Ben 

There's a piggyback scene.

Shan

There's definitely some piggybacking happening.

NiNi

There's a definite wedding. I mean, these guys have gotten married like at least three times in the show.

Shan 

Right, exchanging of chickens, very important stuff. [NiNi and Shan laugh] And, of course, standing together publicly in this second life in a way that Wangji was not able to do for Wuxian in the first life. He declares himself very much unambiguously on Wuxian's side in front of all the other clans. He does not give a shit anymore. 

And then of course we learn over the course of this arc that Sizhui is A-Yuan and that Wangji rescued him after Wuxian's death, brought him into the Lan clan and raised him. Wow, what a fuckin’ man. 

They end on an ambiguous note because this is a censored cdrama. [laughs] So instead of the book ending, which involves them getting married and fucking in a field, we get Lan Zhan—very out of character—deciding to become the chief cultivator [laughs] and Wuxian going to travel alone and them having an ambiguously implied reunion right at the very end of the show. But we all know that they got married and had a lot of sex. That's what happened. 

So, yeah. That is the second life in a nutshell.

09:33 The Second Life: The Fallout of Wei Wuxian's Choices

NiNi 

There are two or three really big things that stand out for me, in this arc. One is just seeing Wei Wuxian's regrets. He's looking back at his life like, wow, maybe I shouldn't have done that like that. Or, wow, I was such an arrogant kid, I should have thought about these things in a different way. You see him having regrets as he sees the outcomes of the choices that he made in his first life. 

Alongside that, the choices that he made in his first life have made him kind of a folk anti-hero. He's now the scary story that parents tell their kids about, “Be good or the Yiling Patriarch will come get you.” He's wearing another face, so people generally don't know it's him. So he gets to hear how people are talking about him 16 years later. And he's realizing, “Fuck, I was evil.”

Shan 

He's like, “I did kinda do a genocide. That was my bad.”

Ben 

We really should not downplay that this man literally killed thousands of cultivators.

Shan 

He sure did.

NiNi 

Thousands of people out of anger and arrogance. I mean, you saw how it built up because he really was just trying to mind his own business and everybody kept poking him, but he still killed thousands of people ‘cause he got mad.

Shan

These other clans that hate him, it's for a reason. It's ‘cause he killed all of their family members. It's not some minor petty grudge.

NiNi 

Well, in this arc, but when they hated him before, it was because he had power that they wanted and he wouldn't tell them how he got it.

Shan 

Yeah. In the second life, his reputation is in tatters and people hate him because he killed everybody they love. Which is fair, in my opinion.

NiNi 

It's absolutely fair, completely fair. Totally understand that. 

So that arc is a really interesting arc for me because it carries through all the various relationships. It carries through his relationship with Jiang Cheng because at the end when Jiang Cheng is like, well, what am I supposed to fucking do with this? Okay, you saved my life, but also, hi, got my entire family killed.

Shan 

Fully.

NiNi 

Am I supposed to thank you? I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.

Shan 

Jiang Cheng was spitting nothin’ but facts in that temple.

NiNi 

Nothing but facts. He was a hundred percent  correct. And he's stuck in this place now because he loves Wei Wuxian. But at the same time, basically his family opened their home to this man and he got them all killed.

Ben

Objection!

Bookworm

Thank you, Ben. 

Ben 

Wei Wuxian did not murder the Jiang clan. The Wens did, and they were going to do it anyway. Wen Chao's active abuse of the hostages was a prelude to them eventually getting killed. When he left them in the cave like that, he intended for them all to die. Wei Wuxian is not the reason why the Wens sacked Lotus Pier. Madam Jiang may be mad because she believes that her husband is probably Wei Wuxian's father, unconfirmed.

Bookworm

Uh-huh.

NiNi 

Pretty much, yep.

Ben

But like, that boy is not the reason why the Wen Clan went on a tear to slaughter their way to more power.

Shan 

That's true. But he is culpable for Jiang Yanli’s death and that is the one that hurts the most.

Ben

Yes, that part he is.

Bookworm 

I also want to make it clear, like, she ran into a battlefield. That woman gave a month old child to somebody and then she just ran into a battlefield. [laughs]

Shan 

Listen, no one's saying Yanli was the smartest bulb. We're not with some of her choices, but NiNi's point, from Jiang Cheng's point of view, is correct.

Bookworm 

That's true. The facts and the emotions that he was spitting at that moment was very true. 

The reason why the story is so compelling is that you have all of these people who had taken very personal losses and they have very personal emotions that are connected to, basically, a political war for power. What are the motivations behind the people who ultimately want to be at the top? What will they do and how will they manipulate the narrative to just achieve that? If they get a scapegoat, all really good. I'm not saying that Wei Wuxian didn't do all of those things. He killed a whole bunch of people, and he was a dumbass who refused to talk to anybody. 

Ben

I'm just being clear that my client, who did kill thousands of people, [all laugh] did not specifically kill his own clan. He shot the sheriff, but he did not shoot the deputy. All right, let's be clear here.

[NiNi laughs] 

Shan 

Let's get back on track, folks. We got a lot of content to get through. 

The reason that Jiang Cheng's arc is so compelling is because, if you think about things from his perspective… like, wow, what the fuck happened to this kid? He was a teenager when his home was destroyed and his parents were murdered in front of him. His brother then—from his point of view—abandoned him, left the clan, to go protect a different family. Adopted new siblings that he prioritized over Jiang Cheng. Never explained himself. Started doing evil shit. Would not tell him anything about why he was doing these things. Ultimately started a battle that culminated in the death of their sister. And then jumped off a cliff. That is what Jiang Cheng's brother did to him, from his perspective. 

And so, it is not hard to understand why he both loves and hates him in equal measure, why he struggles so much to understand him and why he wants to forgive him, but he can't. And Wei Wuxian can never make it right. He made these huge mistakes that they can never come back from. They will never be able to trust each other and be close again.

Ben 

My favorite thing about Jiang Cheng is the emotional core of why he's so mad at Wei Wuxian is Wei Wuxian will never let him be useful. Jiang Cheng feels like he got no credit for getting them out of the cave. He loses his core because he was trying to save Wei Wuxian. He thought he was gonna die, and he doesn't get to have a noble death. He gets turned into a mundane person. 

Then Wei Wuxian helps him get his core back so he can continue to be a cultivator. But then something's clearly wrong with his brother, he then disappears. And they find him again. He's trying to rebuild his clan. Wei Wuxian is supposed to be helping him, but it's clearly not the same. And he can't get through to him. Basically every time he thought he was doing something for Wei Wuxian, Wei Wuxian was doing something for him. But he constantly feels undercut by the brother he admires’ own excellence and ego. Like, he feels like he is forever playing second to Wei Wuxian and he can't ever get over that because now he has Wei Wuxian's core. And he knows that now by the end of the story.

Shan 

Oof. That's some, like, real mind fuck stuff.

NiNi 

Now he's stuck wondering if all the things that he's been and done since then are because of him or because he has Wei Wuxian's core and therefore because he's Wei Wuxian. So he doesn't ever know if he's good enough, now.

Ben 

Exactly.

Shan

My God. Jiang Cheng, they will never make me hate you.

NiNi 

Never, never!

Bookworm 

Never.

Ben 

I understand that angry purple man.

18:13 The Second Life: Meng Yao's Dastardly Deeds

Shan 

I feel like Bookworm should talk a little bit about the way the Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue and Xichen stuff plays out in this arc, ‘cause I know you have a lot of strong feelings about it.

[Bookworm and Shan laugh]

Bookworm 

All right, let's get to it.

Ben 

I really love when I can hear her getting all of her notes together. 

Shan 

She's getting organized.

Ben

I have to organize my slide deck.

Bookworm

I got notes! All right, so in the second arc, we only start by knowing that Nie Mingjue died this horrible death and we have this mystery of his sword and the sword spirit and leading them around. They're just solving the mystery of this murder who, at the time, they did not know that it was a murder. It comes to heads when they go to the Jin headquarters and solve this mystery by basically having Wei Wuxian turn into this tiny paper man and go and perform—I think it's called Empathy—on Nie Mingjue's severed head that is in Jin Guangyao’s secret closet. I cannot believe there are people who defend this man. [laughs]

We get flashbacks of Wei Wuxian finding out exactly how Meng Yao manipulated Xichen into bringing Nie Mingjue and all of them into this sworn brothers pact sort of thing, after the war, and how he used that to slowly erode Nie Mingjue's composure using tainted music. And finally it breaks him. He runs away and the official account is that he is lost, but we know that Jin Guangyao cut his head off with his own sword and then just keep it in his closet. Like a very normal person. 

The way this is revealed, you see all of the major players trying to understand what actually happened and why Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian chose to kind of have this confrontation with this man. And you can see how he pulls the thread in that scene so well. He orchestrated the action where Wei Wuxian pulls out the sword that was sealed because he lost his core and reveals his identity to everybody in attendance—who are all, we have already established, super mad at Wei Wuxian for killing all of their loved ones. And then you see him kind of imply that Lan Wangji has been seduced into helping Wei Wuxian. 

Ben 

He didn't use a homophobic slur, but we heard it.

Bookworm 

Right! Everybody kind of zeroes in on what Lan Wangji is going to do at this moment, and even Wei Wuxian expects him to remove himself from Wei Wuxian's side. He was worried about what this could mean to the Lan sect itself. So he was like, okay I’m just gonna fly solo from here. But it culminates, of course, with Lan Wangji standing by Wei Wuxian and declaring openly that he is gonna walk the single plank path in the dark till the end with him. Which is just, ah, so romantic. 

Jin Guangyao, he has basically very successfully isolated somebody who has a stellar reputation in the cultivation world within a matter of minutes. He questioned his motivations and he wanted that person to declare his allegiance. And when that person was forced to do it, that's it. That was almost a surgical precision of political strategy. That was insane.

Shan 

It was a real showcase for his skill set.

Ben 

On his back foot, he really won that entire encounter.

Bookworm

He did. That was a fight that Jing Guangyao a hundred percent won. I think at that point, everybody wanted to fight them. But obviously, we know that nobody's going to fight Lan Wangji.

So they then flee. We still have, like, two more showdowns after this, which is where he ultimately loses. But this one, Jin Guangyao a hundred percent won. Even if the cultivation world doesn't know that he was a villain at this point, we as an audience are very clearly shown that this was a man who can talk his way out of anything. That is exactly what he has done for so long, for almost 20 fucking years. He has talked his way to the top of a cultivation world. Like, he has risen from being an illegitimate child to the top position.

Shan

His methods are never to get his own hands dirty. His methods for framing Wei Wuxian in the first life, his methods for continuing to do his dirty deeds in the second life are through these villainous dudes that he recruits into his cause. Su She, who is a former Lan cultivator who has a lot of bitterness that he plays on. Xue Yang, who is another one of Jin Guangshan's illegitimate sons. The illegitimate sons are just all over this story. 

The way the story unfolds—and this is, I think, one of our probably biggest critiques of the show—they eventually end up pinning a lot of what Wei Wuxian ostensibly did in the first life on Su She as a second demonic cultivator who was controlling people when we thought Wei Wuxian was. That's a change from the book to the show. It's a change I hate a lot.

NiNi 

I think about it this way. If Wei Wuxian wasn't doing what he was doing, he wouldn't have created the cover that Su She had to do what he did. So I still blame it on Wei Wuxian.

Shan 

Yeah, I'm with you. I think the show wants to let him off a little bit, but I will not be doing that.

Ben 

I think one of the things that I find compelling about Meng Yao is because of his starting line, he will never be as powerful as someone like Wangji or Wei Wuxian or any of the other clan leaders and named characters in this story. It doesn't surprise me that he ends up teaming up with people who for whatever reason also cannot achieve those kinds of heights. Like, Su She’s just not as good as Wangji and he's envious of him. And he hates that Wangji won't acknowledge him. He hates that Wei Wuxian won't even remember his fucking name. 

Shan 

Wuxian every time: “Who are you?”

[NiNi laughs]

Bookworm 

It's so good!

NiNi 

So amazing.

Ben 

It's notable that the three of them who form this little evil trio all hold specific grudges about the way they feel disrespected. Everybody Meng Yao has killed, he kills because at one point or another, they called him the son of a prostitute. And he's like, “Well, I'm adding you to my list.”

Shan 

Fuck you, then. [laughs] You gonna die.

Ben

Mingjue originally shielded him and elevated him based upon his actual ability and merit. And Meng Yao took out one of his grievances in the middle of a battle and got caught doing it. That's when Mingjue turned against him.

It's the same thing for Su She. Like Su She wants to have his own clan be acknowledged after Cloud Recesses is destroyed. You can see this man's like, “now's my chance!”

NiNi 

But he just sucks. 

Ben

He does! 

Shan 

Yeah, he doesn't have the skills.

NiNi

He just sucks!

Ben

Even the Lan juniors are like, “You are bad. You do not know how to play your instrument.”

NiNi 

The fact that they use the fact that he sucks to hide him in the story as a villain until the very end. Like he's playing the song to attack wrong. But everybody just accepts that because he sucks, right? So of course he's playing the music wrong. He's playing it wrong on purpose, but everybody else just thinks that he sucks at it. Him sucking is how he hides in plain sight. I love that so much.

Ben 

Meng Yao's whole group is shittier versions of other people. Like, Su She is a shitty version [NiNi laughs] of Lan Zhan and Xue Yang is an insane shittier version of Wei Wuxian.

Shan

[laughs] It's true. They're like the sad little copycats who will never have glory.

Ben

That's what I think is so compelling about it. Like, how much of the story would have been solved by people just not being rude to Meng Yao.

NiNi

He would have found another reason.

Shan 

I gotta say, I don't think murder is a proportional response.

[NiNi laughs]

Bookworm 

Right. Exactly.

Ben 

How much is my finger worth? All of their lives! [all laugh] All of them!

NiNi 

Oh my God.

Bookworm 

[Xue] Yang was a fucking unhinged serial killer. Holy shit.

NiNi 

Psychopath.

Ben 

Let me tell you, that actor is my favorite of the whole series. I love his ridiculousness the whole time.

Shan 

That's a bold statement. My favorite actor in this is definitely Wang Yibo, who did so much with so little.

Ben

I'm being a little bit facetious there. Of the side characters—

Shan 

Fair enough.

Ben

—of the supporting characters, he's my favorite because they were like, what's the direction? “Just serve cunt.” “Got it.”

[all laugh]

Shan

And he's serving cunt, but we cannot overstate that he is by far the most fucked up evil dude in this story. What he does to Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan is disgusting.

Bookworm 

My god, yes, let's talk about that.

Ben 

We're gonna get into how evil this man is. But when he talked to Wei Wuxian, he's like, “I need your help with this sort of stuff.” And Wei Wuxian is like, “What the fuck? Why would I help you with that?” He's like, “Well, you started all this shit. What is your problem, dude?”

[Ben, NiNi and Shan laugh]

Shan 

It actually is really funny. He says, “come on, be my mentor.” And Wuxian’s like, “no, no, this is not what I'm doing. This is not connected to me.”

NiNi 

I would like very much not to be a part of this particular narrative.

Shan

Exactly!

Bookworm 

No!

Ben 

We have to talk about Wei Wuxian reflecting. “Is this the company I've collected? Hold on.”

Bookworm

Exactly! Like, holy shit, if this man thinks that I would help him, what does that say about me and my actions so far? 

Shan 

What have I been doing? Exactly.

Bookworm

Yes! What have I been doing?

30:56 The Second Life: The Tragedy of Wen Ning

Shan 

We haven't actually talked yet about what Wei Wuxian did to Wen Ning, and we should.

NiNi

Oh man. The tragedy of tragedies.

Ben 

So Wei Wuxian learns from Wen Qing that the Wen remnants are basically being tormented and experimented on by the Jin clan, who are trying to understand Wei Wuxian's demonic cultivation. When he arrives at this site, he loses his shit, sees that they've killed Wen Ning, and then revives Wen Ning as a puppet—that's the term that they use for, basically, his zombies—and sends Wen Ning on a tear beating the crap out of people. After which he tries to develop a method to restore Wen Ning's consciousness, but he has forever trapped this originally very kind boy in a perpetual state of undead. And he will forever be at the control of anyone who can produce the proper tunes to force him to go beat the shit out of people.

Shan

This is another thing that Wei Wuxian does without the consent of the person involved. He turns Wen Ning, who is a very gentle, loving soul, into a weapon, basically. He turns him into an indestructible ghost puppet who Wei Wuxian uses to perpetuate violence and who other people, we learn, can use to perpetuate violence. One of my biggest criticisms of the story—not just the show, but also the novel—is that it never unpacks what a violation that is on Wen Ning.

NiNi 

Basically, if he hadn't done what he did to Wen Ning, Jin Zixuan would still be alive.

Shan 

Yes, and Wen Ning would not be holding the guilt of having murdered him.

Bookworm

The Wen Ning situation is extremely tragic, but also there are two things that protected the Wen prisoners of war when they were sequestered in the Burial Mounds. One was the Yin Tally, the power of demonic cultivation or whatever. And the other, even though he was not intended for that purpose, once he was resurrected and once he was given the consciousness back and once people understood that he could be a weapon, I think it also protected them a little bit more. Around a year or so, they were able to survive on that mountain. And I really don't think in such a politically tense period, it would be possible to do that without a very obvious threat that they can just sort of unleash on people. It also backfired so spectacularly because his control can be just transferred to whoever wants to take it. 

The Wen Ning that we saw before he was transformed, this boy who tried to help everybody, was so sweet and very shy. Even when he wanted to learn things he was just sequestered. He was secluded, he didn't really interact with people because he knew that the Wen clan was not the greatest. You take that character and you turn him into basically just a walking nuke. 

Wei Wuxian: do first, think later. One of the things that really gets my goat is that after the massacre at the Qiongqi Path, he had the fucking audacity to go after Wen Ning. He woke up and he was like, “You murdered these people.” I will never forgive that man for that moment. I was like, what the hell are you talking about? OOF!

Shan 

It was brutal. Wen Ning's accidental murder of Jin Zixuan is what caused the entire Wen clan to turn themselves in and be exterminated. It is what led to Wen Ning being basically imprisoned and his mind taken over while Wei Wuxian was dead for 16 years. He was locked up with bolts in his fuckin’ head. They were experimenting on him. When Wei Wuxian was resurrected, he did liberate Wen Ning. But from there, Wen Ning had an extraordinarily lonely existence because he's the only one of his kind. His entire family is dead. 

And so, it was nice to see at the end him get some measure of peace by being reunited with A-Yuan again, finding Sizhui and being able to travel together and bond over their dead family and their connection to each other. But Wen Ning is indestructible and immortal and he is going to live a very lonely life. I wish the story had actually unpacked that in any way or Wei Wuxian had ever reckoned with his choices and how he harmed his friend.

NiNi 

To me the tragedy goes even further because the reason that Wen Ning is so protected at all by Wen Qing and others in the beginning is because he's already been hurt. When he was a child, he's already been attacked spiritually by, like, this fairy statue or whatever. So he's already weak. And in some ways it feels like Wei Wuxian thought that maybe he could make him strong, but he just ruined him even more. He does make him strong in a way that he wasn't strong before, but the tragedy of it is that he's a sweet, sweet kid that he turns into a monster. And Wen Ning never blames him for it. He is loyal to him till the end. 

Ben

Yeah, but again, how much of that is because he's been turned into a puppet or his natural tendency? We'll never know. 

Shan

We’ll never know. I love Wen Ning.

Ben

A lot of Wen Ning mentioned in this section, good job everybody!

38:07 The Second Life: Two “Fools”

NiNi 

If we’re talking about tragedy we gotta talk about the tragedy of Meng Yao and Lan Xichen at the end, because oh my god, he ruined that man. He destroyed him.

Bookworm 

All right, let's go! Round two!

Shan 

This is why I do not buy interpretations of canon that claim Meng Yao truly loved Xichen, because—

NiNi 

He did not.

Bookworm 

Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

Shan

—you do not do that to somebody you love. Absolutely not.

NiNi 

He loved that Lan Xichen loved him, but he did not love Lan Xichen.

Shan 

Exactly.

Bookworm 

He loved the influence that he had on Lan Xichen. He was so over the moon happy that he had this very influential man that he could just control and do whatever the fuck he wants with him.

Shan 

So this all culminated at Guanyin Temple when Nie Huaisang tricked Xichen, basically, into thinking Meng Yao was attacking him from behind. Xichen automatically activated his sword, stabbed Meng Yao. Meng Yao on his way out as he was dying, chose not to comfort Xichen, but instead to guilt trip him for killing him and not saving him. 

NiNi 

Walked down the fucking sword. He pushed the sword in deeper!

Bookworm 

He sure did.

NiNi 

Bitch!

Shan 

Brutal stuff, Xichen destroyed. We know that after this, he went into seclusion for several years to try to recover from the emotional blow of this happening to him. And that is how it was revealed that Nie Huaisang was the one behind all of this to get revenge for his brother.

NiNi

Xichen, man. Oh, my god.

Shan 

He’s tragic, but let’s talk about Huaisang. Oh my God, what a good reveal.

Bookworm 

Yes, let's talk about the only person who's really good at politics and only wanted to use it for own reasons, not for grabbing power or anything. I mean, it was implied at the end that he would rise to the top. That man knew how to play the game. But he would have just minded his own fucking business if nobody murdered his brother.

Ben

He just wanted to draw his porn and play with his fans.

Bookworm 

Yes! Yes!

NiNi

Gaslight gatekeep girlboss. That's what he was doing.

Shan 

He wanted to sit in the background gossiping, listening, collecting tea just for fun. But no, these bitches had to go murder his brother, and then he had to get involved.

Ben 

He understood what he was up against and his plan is really elegant and it works because he understands his friends. He knows that if Wei Wuxian comes back and you give him a little mystery to solve, this problem will sort itself out. [NiNi laughs]

Shan

He’s like, just point Wuxian at it! 

Ben

He's just like, all I need is to bring him back and Wangji has to find him first.

Bookworm

That’s it. 

Shan

And he gave them little nudges along the way to help them find the clues that they needed. He found and set up witnesses to be discovered. He was gathering all of the tea and making sure to strategically place it around where Wangji and Wuxian could find it.

Bookworm 

Do we see Nie Huaisang at the confrontation when all of this was unmasked by Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji at the Jin headquarters?

Shan 

He was not in the room.

NiNi 

He's not there. 

Bookworm 

See, so he saw the goddamn mess Jin Guangyao was able to make of that situation and then he was like, “you know what? I'm not gonna leave this to you bitches anymore.” And then he showed up at both the Burial Mounds and at the temple and he played both of those situations to how he wanted. He was like, “Su She, what are you doing? Why are you being weird?”

Shan 

The great thing about the reveal is when you go back and look at earlier scenes, he is in the background of so many crucial scenes where he is gathering information totally unobtrusively. You don't even notice he's there, but he is.

NiNi 

I notice, because I notice the fan. I always see the fan.

Ben

It's in the past too, like he's one of the people who picks up on the intensity of Wangji and Wei Wuxian's relationship. He doesn't have any aspirations about it, but he's clearly aware of it ‘cause he watches it happen.

NiNi 

Not just watches, I'm pretty sure that he showed Wei Wuxian the porn that he then shows to Lan Wangji. 

Ben 

He did.

Bookworm 

He did!

Shan

And there was that whole segment where he was tagging along on their date, bein’ a third wheel.

Bookworm 

That was so funny.

Ben 

He is relying upon them to help him achieve his ends here. But, like, they were also his friends.

Shan 

That is probably one of my favorite mystery reveals in drama. Very good shit.

Bookworm

Excellent. I remember being just gobsmacked with my jaw on the floor when I read the books and got to the reveal. Yeah, I just blacked out and my ears started ringing. I flashbacked everything that happened for the last five books and tried to figure out. It was so good. 

This is exactly why this show has really good rewatch value. Once you know all the information, you see from episode one how all of them connects. It's so satisfying.

44:14 The Second Life: Various Random Musings

NiNi 

Let's do the best moments in the second life in reverse. So, Ben, you go first.

Ben 

Wen Ning revealing the history of the core to Jiang Cheng. Honestly, the entire set of reveals around the end of the Yi City arc and the reveals at the Lotus Pier, because you get to see how fickle the politics of this era have been. As soon as some folks come forward with some information, everybody's like, “Oh my goodness me, oh no.” 

And I really love the confrontation where Jiang Cheng’s being a bitch again and Wen Ning is like, “I've had enough!” And reveals everything that's going on and you see how devastated Wangji is about this too, with him finally piecing together what was wrong with Wei Wuxian all this time. 

I also really like Wei Wuxian mentoring the juniors in Yi City. Because he's actually good at it. And it makes you sad for what Jiang Cheng was hoping he would get out of Wei Wuxian. Because Wei Wuxian actually is good with young people and good at teaching them stuff.

Shan 

He would have actually been a really good head disciple.

Ben 

Yeah, and it's what he wanted. He genuinely had no designs upon Jiang Cheng's legacy. He really wanted to just support him. He thought that maintaining the dynamic that their fathers had was going to be the best thing of his life. Which is what's so sad about it all.

NiNi 

I think my favorite moments actually are moments within those scenes that you're talking about. When everything goes down at Lotus Pier and Wen Ning spills the tea, there's a moment when Lan Wangji asks, “Was it painful?” And I just fucking broke. He's just found out that this man essentially sacrificed himself for his brother and never told anybody. And he's remembering all the times he got on his ass about it. And all he can think is, “Oh my god, did it hurt him when they did this, when he took out his core?” I was ruined, absolutely fucking ruined. 

And then the time that I giggled, I had a great time, is in the Yi City arc, when Lan Wangji is fighting Xue Yang and Wen Ning is fighting the puppets. And Wei Wuxian is like, well, what am I supposed to do? And then he sees the kids and he's like, “I can do that.” That was a great moment for me as well. 

But then my ultimate moment, and I've been obsessed with this moment since I saw it, is when they're back at Cloud Recesses after they've fled the Jin clan and Lan Xichen is hiding them. And he's talking to Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is starting to think a little bit about what Lan Zhan means to him. And then Lan Zhan walks up, hair down and soft, with two bottles of Wuxian's favorite liquor. They should not be drinking in Cloud Recesses because it's one of their 3000 rules or whatever. He don't care. He loves his man. He missed his man. This man could get anything that he wants. So he comes up with two jugs of the Emperor's Smile and his hair all soft and sexy. And I'm like, “oh, they gone fuck tonight!” They did not, but they should have.

Shan 

[laughs] In our hearts they did.

Ben

Bookworm, favorite moments from the second life?

Bookworm 

One of my favorite movements is the one that I already talked about, the whole confrontation at the steps of the Jin manor when Lan Wangji says that he will walk the single plank path with Wei Wuxian. The reason why it's one of my favorites is, that line is the culmination of 16 years of regret. Lan Wangji was introduced to us as this extremely repressed and extremely by the book, follow the rules guy who grew up in this clan whose politics also seem to be, “We are not gonna do anything unless it becomes a direct and very visible active threat. We're not gonna get into the machinations of the dirty politics stuff. We're just gonna stay above it all.” And then this man sees how not commenting, not acting and letting it become a monster which they can then fight has consequences. And how him not questioning and blindly following all of those rules, how his entire upbringing basically led to the death and complete destruction of the love of his life. And then he had 16 fucking years in solitude regretting all of his actions. Then we finally see Wei Wuxian come back and we see the political world wanting to do the same thing once again to Wei Wuxian. He was like, “Bitch, no, not this time.” And he goes for it. That was such an amazing line and the whole arc of how it came about is why it's one of my favorites. 

Another one, this one's subtler. It's all the looks Jiang Cheng gives Wei Wuxian when they get to the Lotus Pier after their confrontation at the Burial Mounds. Like, he stops and looks at Wei Ying and Wen Ning before they enter, like, “Do you really think you can walk into this place?” And then Wen Ning just walks away. Then they get to the main hall and he turns around once again. And he's like, “Do you think I'm gonna let you into the throne room?”And then Wei Ying just sits on the steps without another word. 

That man is so good. Jiang Cheng’s actor.

Shan 

Let's put some respect on his name. Wang Zhuo Cheng is the actor's name and he is fantastic.

Bookworm 

Fantastic. So good. He is such a nuanced character and there's always at least three different emotions that he's feeling at any given moment. Every time it's just a complicated mess of things that's going on in his head and you can see him playing it out. The first time we see him interact with Wei Wuxian after he's resurrected, you see the doubt and you see that he suspects that this is Wei Wuxian. In that scene somewhere, there's a moment where you can see that he is hopeful but he's also just raging. You see that he's so mad and if he finds out that this is Wei Wuxian, he's gonna tear him apart. That's what that looks means. But he's also so sad that is what it has come to. That was his brother and now he wants to kill him, very rightfully so, but you see him just fighting all of those differing emotions inside him and you see it all on his face. 

Jiang Cheng, on the whole, that character is just extremely complicated, extremely tragic and he was played so beautifully.

Shan 

Y'all talked about some of my favorite moments already, but some additional ones that no one's mentioned yet. First of all, let me just give a shout out to second life Lan Wangji and his sense of humor. That man is fuckin’ funny. He is making fun of Wei Wuxian all the time after he's resurrected. It's so subtle, but it's so well done. I love every scene where he is basically mocking him for not remembering things from the past. [laughs] I love every scene where he's teasing him about, “Bitch, I know who you are because you played our love song as soon as you woke up.” But Wei Wuxian never figures it out. He does not understand that that is the reason Lan Wangji instantly knew who he was. I love all of those scenes.

NiNi 

And then at the end he's like, are we ever gonna give this song a title? And he's like, “Bitch, you really can't remember anything, do you?”

Shan 

Come on! [NiNi and Shan laughs] It already has a title.

Bookworm 

Obviously everybody would have caught it at this point, but in the first arc when they were stuck in the cave fighting the tortoise, when Wei Wuxian asks him what is the name of the song, you see him slowly drifting off, you see the scene blurring, but it is very clear that Lan Wangji mouths “Wangxian” at him, 

Shan 

Yeah, he says it. 

Bookworm

Which is is insane. Like how did they get it in?

Shan

I'm gonna give Wuxian a pass for not perceiving that because he was very feverish and passing out when he said it. When he resurrects in his second life, he doesn't know why he knows the song and he doesn't know where it's from. But it's, like, in his soul and he just plays it without even knowing why. That is why Wangji knows who he is immediately, despite the fact that in the book, he's in a completely different body. In the show, he's wearing that silly mask. All of the scenes connected to that are so funny to me. Obviously, there's a lot of comedy in the drunken shenanigans. 

The other part that I like about the second life arc is the moments where Wei Wuxian kind of gives himself away with his fantasies about Wangji. One of the most stark ones to me is, the only memory he has of his parents is of his mother riding the donkey while his dad leads the donkey down the road. And then we see Wuxian orchestrate recreating this moment with Wangji. He gets on Lil’ Apple and he has Wangji walking beside leading the donkey. And the show never actually comments on it, they just show you. It's so clear, like, in his mind, even when he is still not really fully clicked into his feelings, what his fantasies actually are about the life that he wants with Wangji. I love that. 

And then, this all culminates in the ultimate family moment of him realizing who Sizhui is. I fuckin’ love that scene at the end of the show where Sizhui runs up and tells Wei Wuxian that he knows who he is. And it finally clicks for Wuxian that this is A-Yuan. And without Lan Zhan saying a word, he puts it together that Wangji has rescued this kid who he was helping to raise in the Burial Mounds and raised him as his own son. And that he did that in large part for Wuxian. 

You just see the emotions over Wei Wuxian's face as he just puts this together and looks at Wangji. He starts crying. It's such a perfect, happy, joyful moment, him realizing A-Yuan is okay. He survived. He is this kid that he has already come to love as Sizhui, and then realizing that Wangji did that for him. It was beautiful. And then Sizhui clinging onto his leg and just being so happy to be reunited with his Xian-gege from his previous life. Such good shit! 

The show gives it away early on who Sizhui is. So it's not about a reveal there. It's about the emotional culmination of all of them finally putting together who they are to each other. One of my favorite moments in the whole show.

56:32 Page to Screen (and Audio, and Anime, and Stage, and...)

NiNi 

All right, we're three hours. We gotta wrap this up.

Ben 

The only thing I’ll mention in terms of other adaptations, there is an anime version of this, which better mimics the pacing and structure of the novelization. Also, the giggly version of Wei Wuxian that you get in the anime better reflects what I felt like I was reading. Though I do appreciate the way Xiao Zhan approached the character, who realized that all that giggling would be aggravating as hell. He instead does like a very peculiar smirk, which I think is a much better choice for the drama.

Shan

Yeah, it works better on the screen. In terms of story structure, I do prefer the novel structure. Intercutting between the present and flashbacks, it preserves the mysteries a lot better. The show, if you're paying close attention, you can solve everything far in advance because you're just given a lot more information in chronological order that you didn't have while reading the book. So, I do prefer the structure of the book for the mystery purpose. But the show, I think, made the right choices for a screen adaptation.

Bookworm 

We should probably talk about the ending.

Ben

I will say that I don't hate it. Considering the horrors that Twig and I have lived through in queer cinema and BL, they didn't brutally slaughter them or break them up in an unforgivable way at the end of the narrative. I think ending on an ambiguous note is one of the nicest things that this show did for these characters considering the censored nature of this. Everybody who follows any amount of lore knows this is based upon a novel that's way spicier. By not ending on a dour note, I think it makes the curious audience more likely to go read the novels if they want to see what the explicit romance looks like. And I think that's an overall good choice considering the obstacles they were up against. I don't think it's great, but I'm not mad about it. 

The whole show is censored, we know a romance is occurring, but technically one isn't.

Shan 

Bookworm, how did you feel about it?

Bookworm 

Like I said before, I am very used to watching stories culminate in a very ambiguous ending. I've seen so many movies, just ends in a shot of like, I don't know, two people standing staring into the distance. Like Ben said, you are aware that this is a censored BL. That is one of the things that impacts how you receive this ending a lot. 

I read the books first, I could see all of the things that they had to walk around to make this get through the censors but also make an effort to depict the romance in any way they can. When I got to the ending, I will be honest, I started screaming—

Shan 

You did, I was there. It was actual screaming.

Bookworm 

When he stopped Wei Ying, and Wei Ying turns around and they go into the song, I was heartbroken. I was so mad. At that point, I have all the information. I know that they're not gonna end how they ended in the books. But still, it was so heartbreaking to watch this man walk away from Wei Wuxian. It is such an out of character moment. There is no way the Lan Wangji that I read about and the Lan Wangji that was depicted in the show for so long would walk away from Wei Wuxian. 

When we eventually got to the end of the song and Lan Zhan calls Wei Wuxian’s name and he just turns around and we end on this frame where we assume that Wei Wuxian sees him and just breaks into the smile… there was no other ending where the art could survive and get to its audience.

I'm sad that we did not see the actual story, but it was left open to our imagination that Lan Wangji found him again and they're gonna get back together, and I was happy with that.

Shan

Almost every cdrama ends this way. And this includes het cdramas, not just queer ones. Where, if a character has been morally gray, if a character has used magic, if a character has done anything that precludes them from being a perfect, pure person, they're not going to get a happy ending. They're going to get an ambiguous ending. This is just how cdramas work. So, I read the ending as exactly what needed to happen to get this show to air. 

Absolutely, there's no way in hell that Wangji would ever become the chief cultivator because he fuckin’ hates clan politics and he's bad at it. No way that he would ever do this or that anyone would ever want him to. But I recognized that instantly as Chinese nationalism rearing its head for censorship reasons. He needed to devote himself to the state. He had to separate from Wei Wuxian because they weren't allowed to have a happy ending because they use magic and because they did morally gray things. Wei Wuxian had to go and wander the world alone to atone for his sins, quote unquote. These are all really classic censorship things.

I feel strongly that the creators of this show trusted the fans to know why they needed to do these things and to just brush off the pieces of it that don't make sense and understand the real ending. Outside of the trappings of the plot of what happened there, we saw them exchange these meaningful looks. They did a fucking duet together. And then we end on this beautiful scene of Wei Wuxian standing on a cliff playing their song and turning around after hearing Wangji call his name. And smiling as his eyes fill with tears. That is a gorgeous ending. I am so impressed that they were able to work that in in a way that would not preclude the other things they needed to do for censorship reasons.

NiNi 

I'm annoyed, I'm just gonna say it, but I also know why it happens. But the fact that it ends ambiguously is not what bothers me. I really just do not believe that Lan Wangji would ever take over the clan or that he would let Wei Wuxian leave while he did it. It just doesn't fly for me even with everything going on with Lan Xichen. To me they should have just ended where they see Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui off and then they could have just ridden off into the sunset. 

Shan

Yeah, they definitely could not do that for censorship reasons, but I hear you.

NiNi 

I know, I feel like that's the ending I would have been the most satisfied with. Even if the last shot of them was just of them there, standing together and Lan Wangji giving him that look that says we have to part or Wei Wuxian walking away and Lan Wangji standing there, even that would have been more ambiguous to me because I could have spun it in my head as “oh, he's just watching his man walk away and then he's going to run and catch up with him.” But the whole part where he goes back to the clan and he becomes the clan leader, that just doesn't fly with me.

Bookworm 

NiNi, you know what the fix for this is. You just have to read the books. That's the plug.

Shan 

Read the books and a long list of fanfic that I will be sending you later today.

Bookworm

Yes.

NiNi 

Already, Twig has provided, I have read the smutty parts of the books, thank you, Twig. So I have read the full and proper ending and I am quite satisfied with that. And Shan is gonna send me a list of fics, so I’m fine. I'm not a fic girl usually, but in this story it's absolutely necessary. Just too many gaps that I need to fill.

Shan

That's why there are 50,000 fanfics on AO3 for this show. [laughs]

Bookworm 

There are so many fanfics. At one point you read so many of them that you forget what's canon and what's fanon. That's how it goes.

NiNi 

I'm waiting for Shan to curate me a list.

Bookworm 

I do wanna include an earnest plug for the books, though. I think the creators want you to, they've done their best.

Shan 

Yeah, they want you to go there.

Bookworm 

Exactly, they want you to go to the books. And without spoiling much of it, if you want a little bit motivation to go to the books, Lan Wangji only gets drunk once in the show. It happens so many times in the books. 

NiNi 

More than once, more than once. He passes out a few times.

Shan 

He does, but there are more extended drunken shenanigan scenes in the book. There are several.

Bookworm

The wall slowly comes down. Wei Wuxian gets slowly just unraveled, trying to understand what the fuck is going on with Lan Zhan, why is he acting like this when he's drunk? Those are my favorite sequences and I hope it convinces you to go read the books.

NiNi 

Between now and May it's textbooks and case studies. After that we'll see what happens.

Bookworm 

I'm talking to the people, NiNi. I'm also in the same graduate school hell with you.

Ben 

Begging the listeners to go read the books.

Shan

Go read these damn books.

01:07:04 Afterlife: The Impact of The Untamed on BL and Fandom

Ben

We're living in the post-Untamed world. This show brought a shit ton of people to BL who had not been here before. And a bunch of people who had not engaged with Chinese daytime dramas, probably ever, genuinely started watching them after this. Despite how the censors may feel about a queer/not queer work being so popular, this show has had a huge impact on many people's willingness to engage with Chinese media. After the addicted stuff, we had basically written off China. And The Untamed, even five years later, continues to be the reason why people keep hoping that the Chinese creative teams will be able to get more stories to us.

The downside of all of this, fans are still super feverish about this. And AO3 ends up getting banned in China.

Shan 

There was, as always happens in fandom, people writing real person fiction about the actors instead of fan fiction about the characters. And Xiao Zhan's fans got very upset about people posting smutty real person fiction about him.

Ben 

We've talked about some of the fan issues with getting overly possessive about the idols and the actors. This is part of what the party cracked down on. After Word of Honor maybe pushed the envelope too far and the ensuing drama after that, we haven't really gotten much big Chinese BL since then. We started seeing more of it again last year, but there are still projects from, like, 2020 that have been shelved that we've been hoping get released to us. 

It's complicated because you can tell that the powers that be want the attention and tourism associated with it, but it doesn't conform to some of their civic management goals. It's not like the Chinese people are any different than everyone else in the world. They eat the fuck out of BL. Like, they're the primary consumers of 2gether. So, I don't know.

Shan 

There's been a real dearth of quality Chinese BL since. The few productions that started to come out last year are mostly being produced in other countries like in Singapore or in Hong Kong. We're starting to see danmei productions and adaptations happening in Thailand or in Taiwan, that's how these things are getting made now. 

Despite that, the fandom around this show is immense. It is not slowing down. The books have been out for 10 years. The show has been out for six years. New fans still find it every day. Create new fan works every day. New meta all the time. New fanfic all the time. It endures. This is a story that has really connected with people globally. It's something pretty amazing to see.

NiNi 

I would like to personally thank Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo in particular. Because sirs, you did what you needed to do.

Shan 

Amen, sister.

NiNi 

And what you needed to do was break my heart on a regular basis and be extremely attractive while doing it. Good job.

Ben

I'm really surprised by how much the show succeeded. They did not have a lot of money. They were filming in kind of unsafe ways, two people literally died making this show. But it's kind of wild how much genuine talent they got on this production. Like, nobody's really slacking on this. It's a really impressive project considering this is a web drama.

It's hard to really give final thoughts on the show. I just end up incredibly impressed by what they managed to pull off.

NiNi 

I think to close, I will just say a short summary of everything we've just talked about as follows: The Untamed is a story about an itinerant, freelance, accidental genocidal maniac and the man who pays all his bills and defends his life. And it's amazing. And you should go watch it. That's all we have to say.

Shan

It's a must watch, I think, from The Conversation.

NiNi 

What's the point of even rating it? 

Ben 

Yeah, it's not one that I really wanna give a real rating to. Under the Ben scope, it'd be like a 9. Most people should watch it.

Shan 

Yeah, it kind of transcends that ratings thing that we normally do. If you care about BL, if you care about queer media, if you care about Asian drama, you should watch this show. It's foundational.

Bookworm 

This is a very carefully constructed narrative with so many moving parts. And I think that's the appeal. It just gives you so much to noodle on. Don't be scared that this will not be your cup of tea.

Shan

You'll find something to love.

Bookworm

There is so much going on that something will grab you and you will just be forever obsessed with the story. Go watch it or go read it and then come talk to us about it. Tag us.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up after three hours and 20 minutes of unedited time on—

Ben 

I'm so hungry.

NiNI

—The Untamed.

Shan 

We did pretty good!

NiNi 

I've been chomping on grapes this entire time, thank god.

Bookworm 

I have to go make dinner. 

NiNi

Alright, we out. Say bye to the people, Bookworm.

Bookworm

Bye people!

NiNi 

Say bye to the people, Shan. 

Shan 

Bye, y'all.

NiNi

Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

Stucky-sicle

[youchangedmedestiel]

If you haven't read it already:

Here's the first chapter of my Destiel AU fic! And here's the photo that goes with it (there'll be one for each chapter because I'm that insane and it's a great way for people who don't have the chance to do so to travel):

Also just to let you know, I'll post the next chapter tomorrow.

[pernillecfcw]

Summer series ends on a high 🤩

[mindenerwa]

your new favourite duo 💫

[nier-reincarnation-library]

Dimos

[pardonzo-bean]

These books were terrible and yet I could not stop reading them.

I’m ready to start obsessively watching the Prime series now.

[maximof]

baby's first premier league game feat. my group of not sports inclined friends repping afc richmond and me repping gay icon colin hughes 🏳️‍🌈✨

[squirrelknowsdogs]

I fell down a rabbit hole and came out preaching the Gospel of Iron Man. Mark 42 is the Prodigal Son, and I will die on this repulsor-powered hill. Welcome to my unhinged summer series: The Gospel According to Stark. Sundays just got nerdy. Come to Squirrel Meeting.

[daneesoro]

Miss Poppy's got it bad 😔

[clownowo]

do you ever think about the parents of the rest of the gang during Summer Belongs to You. like. their children were gone for well over 24 hours.

[the-conversation-pod]

Second Rate Second Chance: The Letdowns of Love is Better the Second Time Around and Living With Him

And we're back! We brought our good friend @twig-tea back to talk about how two Japanese BLs should have been 10s but absolutely flopped for us. This week we're talking about second chance romances, long-term pining, and their roles in queer narratives. Join us to break down what it's like to watch a show fall apart in real time.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Intro 00:02:38 - Love Is Better The Second Time Around: What Worked 00:13:31 - Love Is Better The Second Time Around: What Didn’t Work 00:23:32 - Love Is Better The Second Time Around: Final Thoughts and Ratings 00:26:54 - Living With Him: How it Started 00:36:33 - Living With Him: Where it Went Wrong 00:44:40 - Living With Him: Final Thoughts and Ratings 00:52:03 - Why The Queerness Matters

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Intro

Ben 

And we're back. This week, we're gonna be unpacking two Japanese shows that really let us down this season in our Second Rate Second Chance episode. We've brought our friend twig-tea back to the podcast. 

Say hi, Twig. 

Twig 

Hi everyone. 

Ben 

We brought Twig back on because Twig and I have been watching Japanese BL and Japanese cinema for a long time. We have seen a lot of the good and bad of Japanese BL, and unfortunately both Love is Better the Second Time Around and Living with Him fall into the bad column for us. 

We both have a genuine fondness for the way that Japanese teams often execute queerness with a lot of approachable specificity that really lets both of us connect to the queer truth of these characters. 

That's personally important for me because, beyond these shows kind of fumbling the bag, they also undercut the queer narratives they're telling with some of the mistakes they've made. This is something that's becoming a burgeoning issue for me and Twig in our discussions about the state of global BL, and so we're going to also get into that towards the end. 

00:02:38 - Love Is Better The Second Time Around: What Worked

NiNi 

Let's start with Love is Better the Second Time Around. Ben, what is Love is Better the Second Time Around about?

Ben 

Love is Better the Second Time Around is a second chance Japanese BL about two guys in their earlyish 30s who were very close in their teens when they were in school together, broke up, and are now running into each other again as a result of work. 

Our main character's name is Miyata Akihiro. He is an editor for some sort of business and economics magazine and he is assigned to work with this writer and professor, who happens to be his childhood boyfriend. They were supposed to be very serious, and then they had a really painful breakup at a crucial moment. Iwanaga Takashi has clearly still been in love with Miyata this whole time and is flirting relentlessly with this man. They work through some, but not all of their issues and are able to start going out together again before the show absolutely shits the bed. 

Before we get to that portion of it,Twig! Walk us through the early developments when we were initially responding positively to the show and what we were really dialed in on. 

Twig 

The first four episodes of this show were some of my favorite television this year. Which is why I’m so upset about the last two, but we'll get there.

When they meet each other as adults, the messiness of their past is established right away, and you can feel the tension between them. The grudge that Miyata holds is really fun to watch. Iwanaga is a real flirt. He leans into the sort of playboy personality that was also really fun to watch. 

It immediately felt adult. Iwanaga admitted to having casual sex with his assistant. Miyata made fun of him for it. They had a kiss in that first episode. It was so good. Miyata decided that he was an adult now, and he wasn't gonna be pushed around by his senpai from high school anymore. The assistant, Shiraishi, was a bitch. A really fun bitch to watch. [laughs]

Ben 

[laughs] He really was. He was a real bitch for like, the first four or five episodes. I loved it. 

NiNi 

I enjoyed that. 

Ben 

He was played by Takamatsu Aloha, who was in Tokyo in April Is… playing Ren there. It was really fun to see him again. 

NiNi 

He really nailed the whole bitchy, “Who is this new person? Why are they around this person that I am perceiving to be my man? I need to get rid of this person quick, fast. What is the fastest way that I can do that?” Mm, loved it. It was so, so bitchy. Perfect. 

Twig 

And it played so well to what felt like the point of the story, which was that the main characters are older now, and to have this younger person around acting younger really helped highlight the fact that these older characters are a little bit more mature and so they're making slightly more mature decisions. [laughs] I won't say very much more mature, but a little bit. He actually worked really well to help emphasize that part of the story. 

And we learned early on that Miyata was trying to get engaged; we also see him [laughs] fail at it so badly. That scene is one of my favorites, where he's opening the ring box and Fukuda-san, she won't let him propose. She keeps closing it in his face. 

Ben 

That was honestly one of the most enjoyable meta moments about BL, where the girl who doesn't deserve this sees a very bad proposal coming and physically restrains [laughs] restrains [NiNi laughs] the main character from opening the ring box so he can't propose. 

NiNi 

It was super funny. So good. She was just like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. 

Twig 

It was perfect. And then, of course Miyata then called Iwanaga to complain about not being allowed to propose, which was perfect and gave more opportunities for extreme flirting. 

I loved so much that these two characters started having sex again while Miyata was still mad and still unwilling to be in a relationship with Iwanaga. Miyata confirming that the sex did not mean anything. 

NiNi 

I loved that he was just like, “I wondered if you were good at this. I'm so mad at you right now.” [NiNi and Twig laugh] That was so funny!

Ben 

That was also kinda hot, let's be real. 

Twig 

Yes! Ben and I had a whole conversation about how finally a scene with tension in yukatas pays off and we see people actually have sex. 

Ben 

Let me tell you. The real sign that you've been in Japanese BL for a while is when you see two fuckin’ boys in yukata sharing a room together and you know no one's gonna fuck. 

Twig 

Right? [laugh]

Ben 

There's a fun one for the listeners. Sound off in the comments. List all of the Japanese BL that put those boys in yukata and then did not deliver. 

Twig 

But we got it in this one, finally. And we also got that iconic line, “If you love me, don't apologize.” Which is also, whoo. 

NiNi 

I did enjoy that. “Do not apologize for this because I'm ‘bout to have a good ass time.” 

Ben 

I wanna do a quick follow up on one of the comments you made about the maturity of these characters relative to Shiraishi in the story. This is a moment where Shiraishi intentionally doesn't deliver a message about an updated deadline to Iwanaga for the column he's writing for Miyata’s magazine. And it causes a real problem because now Miyata has to go rush to Iwanaga, who was away on a work trip, and get him to hurriedly write this article. It leads to an important sex scene, which is great for us and the yukata delivery that we were very happy about. But I really like that Miyata is so done with Shiraishi. When he finally confronts him about it, he's like, “I don't care if you don't like me, but you're fucking up other people’s lives when you do shit like this.” He wasn't angry at him, the just jaded disappointment cut that man to the fucking bone. He was not ready for it. 

Twig 

It both illustrated Miyata being more mature and also wasn't letting Shiraishi get to him, that you're not actually a threat, but you're now a problem, so you need to stop. It really highlighted how young and petty he was. 

Ben 

I really love the way you sum that up. “You're not a threat, you're a problem” is so succinct. And that's really what hurt him in that moment, he realized he had really fucked up. There's no winning at that point. There's only the huge loss of face on his part. 

Twig 

Exactly. 

And then we got Miyata jerking off to Iwanaga’s face in the shower. 

Ben 

It was really accessible sexuality in this show that was actually really surprising for us because we've been dealing with a lot of cutesy BL lately, it feels like, so it was really refreshing to have these guys have access to their own sexuality and be able to express that and act on it. 

Twig 

There are ways in which sex is handled in BL. Sometimes it's held back to add tension to a story, but it's often also done in a way that makes the story feel puritanical. From episode 1, we knew that they wanted to fuck. By episode 3 they were fucking. 

That just felt so refreshing. Yeah, these are grown ass adults who have had a previous relationship before. They know each other, so there's some level of familiarity there. They're attracted to each other. They want to bone down and so they do. That seems perfectly reasonable. It's actually ridiculous it doesn't happen more often. 

NiNi 

From the moment that Iwanaga sees Miyata again, it's game on. He's like, “Okay, this? This is happening. I don't care what it's going to take for this to happen, but this is absolutely happening.” 

Twig 

He bought that man cufflinks. 

NiNi 

He did what needed to be done, absolutely. He was not playing around. He decided that this is what they're doing and he made it happen. 

Ben

So I think what I really wanna highlight here about this particular show with the second chance component is we were actually super dialed in on how seriously the show was taking that part of the premise. Iwanaga comes from a very wealthy family and he was dealing with some shit and he was like, we're gonna run away. Normal, stupid kid shit. The two of them planned to meet at the train station and get out of there and go make it in Tokyo. A stupid character we'll talk about later complicates the situation by convincing Miyata that Iwanaga is just toying with him. Miyata is hurt and embarrassed by this, and does not show up to go on the train. The two of them end up separated by Iwanaga’s family circumstances, and that was their big break. 

So when they meet up again, Miyata has real beef with this man. And the show doesn't downplay the seriousness of Miyata’s hurt. That was such a real relief. If the characters have done real harm to each other, we do need to focus on the reconciliation that's critical for this relationship to work this time, and that was something that this show was handling so seriously. Even though Iwanaga wasn't actually giving Miyata all the things that we, the audience, were like, he needs to do these things if it's gonna work. His charm was enough that Miyata was wanting for them to complete the reconciliation. 

We don't get second chance like this where the breakup was actually the fault of one of the guys, even if it's complicated by familial homophobia stuff. They were serious about each other at the time, but Iwanaga was doing this playboy shit even then. And so Miyata can't feel secure with him because it's the same bullshit again. I like that their 30 year old selves were not fundamentally different from their younger selves. They were just more experienced. 

Twig

The last thing on my list of when I was still really vibing with the show is the “feelings-off,” as I like to call it. Miyata challenged Iwanaga, “You never felt as strongly about me as I felt about you” and Iwanaga said, “Try me.” And so Miyata challenges him, “Did you ever cry about me into your pillow? Did you think about me when I wasn't there? Do you jerk off to me, ‘cause I did.” He gives him four or five things to say, “Were you this embarrassing about me, because I haven't seen you be embarrassing about me.” And Iwanaga says, “Yes. I was.” And that's finally the thing that allows Miyata to give him another chance. 

00:13:31 - Love Is Better The Second Time Around: What Didn’t Work

NiNi 

So we build all that up. We're having a great time. Everybody's vibing with the show. And then it all turns. 

From the time that the family started showing up, that was when the show went, to me, off the rails. I was just like, all of this is interesting, but not the same story that they were telling all the time. 

Ben 

It was confusing. We were in this really solid second chance romance arc where we were focused on the guys rebuilding their relationship with each other. And then it feels like they didn't know what to do with the guys once the “fuck you, don't touch me” barrier falls away. They immediately complicate that by trying to reintroduce Iwanaga's family trauma as this sudden barrier. 

This is the common theme with the two shows that we’re gonna talk about, introducing contrived bullshit barriers to keep the characters apart and fuck up their ability to talk to each other when the entire arc is built upon these guys improving the way they talk to each other. That's the real fundamentally unsatisfying aspect of all of this. I'm usually a defender for the way people interact in Japanese cinema. We talk about trying to bring a level of cultural competency to watching Asian media, having been raised in the west. Respect the way that these cultures handle some of their communication protocols when they're engaging with each other. We talk about respecting the way honorifics work in these languages and how that impacts the way these people talk about each other. Listening to some of the tones they use with each other, about how certain terms immediately signify things, and these things don't always translate well. You just have to be able to hear and understand these things. I don't really wanna give these two shows that we're gonna to continue talking about here a lot of credit for this. 

This show was in the middle of a really satisfying second chance romance arc of rebuilding a relationship and then completely throws that out the fuckin’ window. Iwanaga is now the male scion of a wealthy family that disowned him for being a homo, but now needs him to come back because his sister is like, “Yeah, fuck all this Japanese nonsense. I'm marrying a foreign man and we're gonna r-u-n-n-o-f-t. That's fine as an arc on its own, but I kinda wish we had like an extra episode or two for these guys to move further along their arc before we introduced that, and it was doubly frustrating because Iwanaga immediately regresses in a way that is not satisfying because he isn't our main character. If Miyata was the one who was suddenly regressing, we have been in that man's head. We were in the shower when he was beating his dick to this dude. We get it. We know what this man is going through. So if he were the one to regress, we would be down with it. We would understand the emotional complexities that he was facing. But the difficulty with Iwanaga being the one to suddenly back off in the middle of all this family nonsense is we never understood the family nonsense. So reintroducing that with this shit heel of a cousin who really wants to fuck Iwanaga was just so deeply unsatisfying, and honestly kind of offensive, because they don't even dwell on it. They're relying on the shorthand of us just going, “Well, they're gay, right? Homophobia. Whatchu gonna do?” 

NiNi 

[laughs] What I was gathering the story was leading up to the family coming in at that point in time, is that at this point in the story, maybe their romantic feelings had gotten ahead of their commitment. So they're feeling a lot of things, but they haven't talked about a lot of things. They haven't decided what they're gonna do or who they're going to be to each other. They're just sitting in the moment enjoying being together, enjoying having sex and all that kind of stuff. But they haven't really decided what they're gonna be. And then all this family shift comes in so you're just like, oh, okay, they're out over their skis. They don't know what they're doing. All this stuff is happening at exactly the wrong time because it's throwing them back into a history that they haven't really dealt with. Okay, this is good. 

But then instead of focusing on that, they focus it towards Iwanaga’s family and what actually happened back then and how it affects Iwanaga, and that doesn't really work? I don't care about that at this point in time. I want to know what's happening with Miyata and Iwanaga’s relationship. 

Twig 

I think there's room for where we could have cared about it, but we weren't given time or space. There's a story there of Iwanaga so alienated from his family that he wanted to run away with his boyfriend, and they found out about it, and he took all of the blame and didn't let anyone know who Miyata was so that he wouldn't get in trouble. And so his family disowned him. He was cut out of the family registry and cut out of his family’s life. There's a really tragic story there and we're given almost no time to sit with that or care about it. His hurt isn't given any time. 

Instead, we just find out that Iwanaga made the decision to let Miyata think he was the butt of a joke and stay heartbroken for years, decade, rather than admit that Iwanaga had family problems when they were kids. And then we see him be willing to let Miyata go again for the exact same reason as adults. And so all of the work we'd seen Miyata do to process what had happened in their relationship in the past and decide to trust Iwanaga again. Iwanaga betrayed that trust, frankly, by not allowing himself to be vulnerable with Miyata. We find out in the very last episode that Miyuata actually fell in love with Iwanaga in a vulnerable moment, he saw him crying alone on the pier, and that was where his feelings turned to love. So we know that Miyata cares about Iwanaga as a person who is not perfect, and he wants Iwanaga to be less cool. And Iwanaga has not learned the lesson. 

So, I left this series feeling like I can't trust this relationship to continue in any other way than exactly the way it's happened twice before. It's very frustrating. 

Ben 

There’s this moment in, like, episode 5 or 6 where Miyata goes and confronts Shiraishi, who decides to stop being a bitch at the final moment. Why? 

Twig 

I was disappointed. 

Ben 

He should have been a bitch the whole time. [laughs]

Twig 

I just needed to see this man be mean to Miyata one more time and they didn't give me that. 

Ben 

That's the point, because Iwanaga never has that important vulnerable moment with Miyata. The emotional reveal has to come from the not-rival, which is not satisfying.

You know what? I'm not done bitching. Let's talk about what the show thought it was doing with the cousin. I feel like the cousin is meant here to be the stand in for what trying to be queer and closeted inside of this family does to you. So we get this vile man in Sugimoto who is just so gross and playing these goofy, manipulative games trying to achieve some sort of position for himself or his branch of the family. Is what I think they thought they were doing? It did not land for me at all. 

Twig

Yeah. At some point, it seemed like we were supposed to believe that Sugimoto was secretly on Iwanaga and Miyata’s side the whole time. And he was, like, testing them and that test was supposed to be some sort of thing that they should be grateful for. I was like, no. 

Ben

I'm gonna do that the next time I get called on some bullshit. You passed the test!

[all laugh]

NiNi

I legit don't understand, like I actually don't narratively understand what happened there. Not just in terms of what they thought they were doing thematically, but narratively that whole part of the story is so confusing. 

Ben

NiNi is correct. The first four episodes we were like, “This is a banger. This is gonna be a 10. We gotta tell all the other girlies you need to watch this.” Episode 5 happens, we were like, “Whoa, what the fuck?” And then by the time episode 6 ends, we're like, “Never mind, girls. You don't need to follow us in this one.” 

Twig

Shiraishi and Sugimoto have the same role and arc in that final episode. 

Ben

Like, we already had a bitch. We didn't need another one!

Twig

Two bitches is too many bitches. [laughs]

Ben

And they didn't even team up and have, like, nasty sex or something. 

Twig

Oh my God, I could have forgiven everything if that had happened. 

NiNi

First of all, “Two bitches is too many bitches” is perfect, but the other thing is it feels like they thought they needed to have a bitch in the past and a bitch in the present. 

Twig

Do you want me to tell you my theory? 

Ben

Oh, bestie, I want to hear all of your theories. Go for it. 

NiNi

Tell us. Tell us. Spill the tea. 

Twig

So I tried really hard to find the manga for this because I needed to know what had gone wrong in the adaptation and I couldn't find it. If anyone out there has it, please send it to me. What I do know is that there are three volumes and that it's still ongoing. One of the things that Japan likes to do, usually one of its worst mistakes when they do an adaptation, is they try to squeeze together at least two volumes into what should be one volume series adaptation. And so we get one really good arc, and then an entire volume or two squeezed into the very end, feeling rushed because they are rushed. So that's my totally uneducated, but based on experience, guess about why this felt like two different shows and two different arcs. Because it probably was? 

00:23:32 - Love Is Better The Second Time Around: Final Thoughts and Ratings

Ben 

Unfortunately, that is gonna end it for this show. I really want you all, if you've taken the time to listen to us, to really understand that…end of episode 4, we were like 10s, 10s all around. This show is doing some great shit. There's some hot messes here that need to be resolved, but the way that we're being led through this with these characters, the way they're talking to each other, the way we're in it with them was so, so satisfying. Before this show shits the bed. 

I am a queer cinema critic who really loves BL and the role it fulfills in the global queer cinema landscape. My goal is to connect other queer people to meaningful stories that they can enjoy. And sometimes that means that we have to say a show really fucked up, guys. If you do watch it, please understand that we loved the show for four episodes and then it transitions in a way that is not satisfying at all. But the first four episodes were still some of the best shit we've seen in a long time. And with that in mind, let's rate this motherfucker! 

NiNi? 

NiNi 

I get to go first. Oh me, oh my. 

Ben 

We love J-BL, so you get to rate without us giving our ratings. [laugh]

NiNi 

I will give this a 6.5. Disappointing me at the end is always gonna hurt me more than something that was wobbly from the start. 

Ben 

Twig-tea? 

Twig 

I gave it a 7. After I first finished it I gave it an 8, but the longer it sat with me, the madder I got. So I’ve downgraded it. 

Ben 

It is also a 7 for me, because where this show goes wrong is very obvious. I think BL viewers would learn a lot about the genre from watching this and understanding where some of us have come from. With that in mind, I'm giving this show a 6.9 from The Conversation because the sex was good in this show. 

[NiNi and Twig laugh]

NiNi 

Producer privilege rearing its head, I see you, I see you. 

Twig 

We didn't talk about how pretty Iwanaga is. 

Ben 

You know, we have not simped over these men. Let's talk about how fuckin’ beautiful Furuya Robin and Hasegawa Makoto were. Holy shit! We have needed some older guys in J-BL—older being 30, for fucks sake. [NiNi laughs] But these guys are fucking beautiful. 

Twig 

He put on his reading glasses and I [goofy voice] swooned. 

NiNi 

Hasegawa Makoto was a delight to look at. 

Ben 

Holy shit! As we're recording this, it is Furuya Robin’s birthday. Happy birthday, sir. 

Twig 

Happy birthday! 

NiNi 

Happy birthday, indeed. Keep aging like fine wine. 

I'm so mad, though, this show was at 10 right up until, like episode 5, and then it went from a 10 to 6.5. 

Ben 

It really was. NiNi’s rating is not off. If I didn't think the show was useful to talk about for people, I would have given it probably a 6.

NiNi 

Love is Better the Second Time Around gets a 6.9 from The Conversation, recommended with severe caveats. 

00:26:54 - Living With Him: How it Started

NiNi

Let's move on to the next show that disappointed us: Living With Him. Ben, what is Living With Him about?

Ben

[deep sigh] Living With Him is about how we will never get the roommates BL that we deserve. [NiNi laughs] All of the energy that we were supposed to get out of roommates BL was lost to the Philippines during the quarantine period. We blew all of that energy on lockdown stories. Goddammit! 

Living With Him is about two college freshmen who are going to live together because they were once childhood friends, and their moms think it might be financially beneficial and emotionally beneficial for the two of them to reconnect, since they're both going away to start school away from home and they would like for them to have someone to live with that they also know. We're primarily following Natsukawa Ryota, who is so excited to be going to college. He has dyed his hair brown. He is no longer gonna be doing house chores and taking care of his little sisters. He is ready to spread his little wings and figure out who his actual personality is going to be. He is living with his childhood friend, Tanaka Kazuhito, who is obviously gay and obviously has had a huge crush on Natsukawa for a long time. Kazuhito is also dealing with some major changes in his life—he was a national competing level baseball player in high school who can no longer play baseball due to a shoulder injury. It's very clear that Kazuhito has feelings for Natsukawa, and Natsukawa picks up on this fairly quickly, particularly because all of Kazuhito's friends are being real shady about it. 

And I was really excited about what this show was going to be, because this was about two childhood friends reconciling and dealing with this major thing between them. What was really enjoyable about this show—now that we covered the premise of two childhood friends moving together, one of them has a crush, the other one picks up on it—is they talk about this crush in episode 3, and we were primed for the rest of the show to deal with this crush being in the open and reconciling what that change in your relationship is gonna look like. 

Where this show goes wrong. After episode 3, episode 4 is them being awkward around each other—a completely reasonable reaction. They come to some sort of agreement by the end of that, and decide they’re going to go on a trip together in episode 5, but they do nothing with that. Episode 6 is a useless fuckin’ flashback episode about shit we already knew to lead into the seventh episode where Kazuhito decides to preemptively reject himself for Natsukawa's benefit, who suddenly can't open his fuckin’ mouth. Into stupid forced separation nonsense for a whole fuckin’ episode and then Japanese track star run for no reason, don't link up with each other, and then pick up episode 8 not dealing with the failed Japanese track star BL run. And we end on this perfunctory note where they wanna suddenly get us back on track in the finale. 

Gone on an extensive ramble there. I apologize for you having to edit that, NiNi.

NiNi

I was just lettin’ you cook, fam.

Ben

I would like for you to unpack your experience coming behind us and catching up with our disappointment.

NiNi

As usual, when it comes to the shorter BLs, I like to binge, so I started Living With Him loving everything about it, loving the emotional core of what it is. One of the big things that really got to me is that they do, throughout the show, have flashbacks to their childhood, and there's a lot of good The Knowing content in there. I was just like, “Oh yes, this is so good. He's been feeling this way for such a long time. We're gonna delve into that. It's gonna be so good. It's gonna be so emotional.” [sigh]

And then they don't really do anything with that. For five episodes, the show had me. Kazuhito is teasing Ryota, saying-not-saying the thing. Ryota basically figures it out with the help of Kazuhito’s friends. He's now starting to think, “Okay, well, what is this?” To have a conversation about it. And then you're getting into episode 4 and episode 5, where they’re turning these things around in their heads, and then the last thing that happens in episode 5 that I really responded to, they have like a physical movement where he tells Kazuhito “You can hug me,” basically. And that moment was so heavy. It was so good. And I'm looking forward to having the outgrowth of that moment. And instead we get a fuckin’ flashback. [laughs] And then we get weird sort of casual-homophobia-not-homophobia from Kazuhito's mother.

Ben

Worse, we got compulsory heterosexuality.

NiNi

And then it's like that didn't happen in the end like, okay, that's a digression that we went on. We don't know why we did that. We're going back to the main story now. But now I've lost the emotional thread. They're doing all this stuff and it's cute or whatever, they decided they're going to be together, great, but it's not landing anymore. They've lost me. They've broken the tension. They've broken the emotional thread. I don't feel it anymore. 

Okay. So, Ben and I have both talked a lot. Twig you step in here. What are your thoughts about this? How did you feel that the show went wrong? What did you think the show did well?

Ben

Walk us through your process, Twig.

Twig

It’s so, so bad. [laughs]

Ben

Walk us through it, bestie.

Twig

All right. Okay. I was so invested in these two. We start with Natsukawa and the show sets up so well that he's excited to be on his own, and he's unsure about his childhood friend Kazuhito being there. Kazuhito is immediately weird in ways that throw Natsukawa off, and which the audience, or at least the gay audience, immediately clock as, “Oh, this man is gay and catty about it.” NiNi, you called it teasing. Oh, it’s more than that. I was having so much fun with Kazuhito and the way he was like, “Mmm. I wonder what it could be. Why would girls always be unhappy with me as their boyfriend? I wonder.” This man. [laughs]

NiNi

It was so good. He was basically like, “I am trying to tell you in every way possible that I am A) gay and B) into you, and you are just not picking this up, sir.”

Twig

And he was mean about it in a way that wasn't mean mean, but when they go on their adorable not-date, which was some of the best domesticity we've had in a while, Kazuhito says to Natsukawa, “It's all right, you wouldn't get it.” The way he was just calling him out for being obliviously heteronormative without actually calling him out, it was beautiful. And the best part about that was he was wrong. Natsukawa did figure it out, and so Kazuhito being so sure that Natsukawa was too straight to get it, actually blew up in his face in a way that I loved. 

The way that they were so honest with each other and the way that they cared about their relationship, this is one of the things that this show does really right about friends to lovers. Even though they're a little bit unsure with each other cause they haven't talked in a while, they still really care about this relationship between the two of them, and they don't wanna fuck that up. But rather than not fuck it up by holding it all in, they actually talk to each other about it ‘cause both of these men have an understanding that communication is actually important. Both of them say to each other at one point or another, “I think you've misunderstood something that I said. I'm gonna clarify that.” Or, “I said that that was a joke, but I was actually lying about that. I did mean it.” The fact that we got to a place where Kazuhito owned his feelings and said, “Listen, tell me if you're uncomfortable, but I'm happy to just keep things as they are” and Natsukawa immediately empathized with him and said, “Wow, this must have been so hard for you. Is there anything I can do to make this better for you?” That was beautiful. It was such a loving moment, even though it wasn't romantic yet? Their relationship was so good and then the show fucked it up so badly. [laughs]

The other thing I loved about this show, before I move on to why I'm so mad at it, was the way they used the friendship group to establish that Kazuhito had clearly talked about this man before, when he wasn't around, [laugh] to the point where his friends recognize who he was and how important he was to Kazuhito. So they met Natsukawa—they treated him like he was a minor celebrity. Like, “This is Natsukawa?”

NiNi

He reminded me of What Did You Eat Yesterday? When what's-her-name finally meets Kenji.

Twig 

Oh yes! Yes.

Ben

I would like for you to note that NiNi is the one who brought up What Did You Eat Yesterday? this time, not me. [Twig and Ben laugh]

NiNi

Duly noted. It's delightful. He doesn't even have to introduce himself. Yoshida is like, “Oh, you must be Natsukawa.” And he's like, “What?” and she's like, “Shhh shh shh shh shhhh. Don't worry about how I know that.”

Twig 

Kazuhito gets called away and he's like, “Come on, guys. Let's go there.” And they’re like, “No, we're good. We're gonna stay and talk to this man.” [Twig and NiNi laugh]

NiNi

The gossip is here! Why would you go where you are, this is where the good stuff is.

Twig

[sigh] And then.

00:36:33 - Living With Him: Where it Went Wrong

Ben

And then! Take us in, Twig.

Twig

Okay, so, episode 4 happened, and I did appreciate sitting with the awkwardness after the intensity of those emotional conversations and the uncertainty of what things were gonna be like now. That actually felt true. But the problem was it started to feel slow. This is where I think it started to drag. 

Episode 5 was clearly filler. We go camping. Okay, there shoulda been a kiss. I'm still mad about it. What it seemed like they were trying to do with the camping episode was establish some of Natsukawa's insecurities. He wants to seem a little more competent and cool in front of Kazuhito. That already felt a bit weird to me because in their apartment he's the one who cooks, so he already has established himself as someone who does things that Kazuhito can't. He also in the flashbacks, in the earlier episodes to their childhood, was established as the one in Kazuhito's life who didn't see him as perfect. Who liked him as he was and as not perfect. So for him to suddenly be caught up in Kazuhito as a perfect guy didn't feel true to the character we'd gotten to that point?

NiNi

I felt like this episode was really about Natsukawa trying to flirt. I feel like Natsukawa has certain confidences, but the insecurities that Natsukawa is dealing with here are about his romantic potential. It's not that he sees himself as smaller or less, but it's more like when it comes to romance and sex and all those things he doesn't feel as confident in that way.

Twig

I agree with you, which is why it was so weird that so much of the camping thing was about how Natsukawa learned all of these camping things so that he could give Kazuhito a good time and then couldn't get the lighter started and so they had to rely on these girls. It felt like they were focusing on the wrong parts of him that he didn't have confidence in.

NiNi

But if he's trying to flirt with Kazuhito in this way, then maybe it's more like, “I'm trying to flirt and I'm failing at it” kind of thing.

Ben

See and this is where things could have been really interesting. Here is the problem: Natsukawa wanting to take care of Kazuhito as his primary way to respond to their situation made total sense. The only skills he's really developed outside of studying are domestic chores. Being unable to deliver on that front when they went camping was totally reasonable and there was something potentially interesting there, but they don't really deal with that properly. There's this actually kind of satisfying moment at the end where he says plainly, “I want you to rely on me more,” that lands pretty smoothly from where we were in episode 3, where he was like, “You must have been holding this for a long time. How do I help you?” And ending on “rely on me more, dummy,” was absolutely fine. 

The big problem for me was episode 6. If the thematic point and the thrust of episode 5 is “rely on me more, dummy” the byproduct and answer to that in episode 6 should have been that man waking up and saying, “I've always relied on you.” But instead, the show backs off from them entirely by having Kazuhito break up in the next episode because they don't know what the fuck else to do. I guess. The natural response to that fucking long-ass flashback telling us that this man has always thought about this man, that he has defined a huge part of his adolescence, was for him to wake up and say it. And he doesn't. This leads to the finale episode where finally he says what he has to say and Kazuhito's like, “This is the happiest moment of my life. Let's dead fish kiss” and I'm like, absolutely not! This man has been horny for 10 years. I need to see that being released now. 

The thing about me with this is, like—Shan and I joke about this. We are real haters. But like a big part about being a hater is being a lover! You love these shows. You love what they do really well, and where they fuck up is so obvious sometimes. The obvious fuck up of this show is Ryota saying clearly “rely on me more” and then Natsukawa not talking to him for basically two episodes after that, the end of episode 5 is a very clear request from one of our romantic leads to the other that the other romantic lead does not respond to. The guy who has been in love with this man the whole fucking time receives a direct request from him. The guy who was apparently the reason why he was able to get his fucking life back together, and he does not respond to that clear stated request, and because he can't respond to that, it shuts down Natsukawa's arc for the rest of the show about who is he beyond caring for other people. It's so deeply unsatisfying.

NiNi

Twig, in terms of where it breaks down for you, is that similar to where Ben's talking about or do you have a different place where things start to break down?

Twig

Episode 6 is definitely the waste of an entire episode, just illustrating things that they'd already told us through conversation. Show, not tell, but there's no point in showing us what you already told us. That's a waste of time. Natsukawa, his arc got completely fucked up by all of the wasted space in this show. That's why it feels so confusing and unsatisfying, because the order of what he goes through internally no longer makes any sense. 

What we see him do in this show is he starts confused, uncertain about what's going on with Kazuhito. He has a realization about what's going on with Kazuhito, and they have the conversation about it. He has time to reflect on it and think about what his feelings are. He accepts his feelings. We see him realize that he likes Kazuhito, he wants to be with him. Then we see him hesitate about that, “Because I like you, it's actually really hard to tell you,” which is not how they've been communicating to date, but okay. And then he goes from that to concern about homophobia, which makes no sense to have as a thing to happen after you've already gone through acceptance and hesitation. And then it gets resolved. It was a confusing clusterfuck because it didn't make any sense, and the only reason why his arc happens that way is because they had those two filler episodes of his acceptance and hesitation in the middle that weren't in the manga. I did read it to figure out what the hell went wrong.

Ben

Twig, walk us through the experience you had reading the manga to get some clarity.

Twig

A lot of the things that I thought didn't necessarily work or I was confused by in the show, worked perfectly in the manga because of the order in which they happen and the lack of space between them. Natsukawa’s arc in the manga is, he reunites with Kazuhito, is confused by what's going on with Kazuhito, he has a realization and the conversation with Kazuhito about it. He's left to think about it. He immediately goes from that to his concerns about homophobia and then it's resolved. 

So all of the moments where he realizes he feels good with Kazuhito, he wants him in his life, he misses him when he's not there, those happen after the concern about homophobia. It made a complete difference. Things that I hated in the show worked perfectly well in the manga because they made sense in terms of an order of events and the emotional arcs that people went through. It was a really good illustration of understanding the overarching arc you're telling and not just the moments, because they kept all of the moments of the manga, they're all in the show, but by moving them around a little bit and adding so much in between them, it completely changed how they landed for the audience.

00:44:40 - Living With Him: Final Thoughts and Ratings

NiNi 

The show feels like it wanted to touch on a lot of things, but it also didn't want to touch on a lot of things, so we get some of Natsukawa’s arc regarding the way that he feels about having spent his teenage years looking after his sisters and some of the things that have come out of that. His family is a decently big part of the show. And there's some things there with his mom and how his mom may feel guilty and like she needs to make up for certain things. And then his sisters are still asking him for stuff even after he's moved out. They're still buggin’ him all the time. There's stuff in there that's swirling around, but it never really gets concretized. 

And then there's stuff around Kazuhito's mom that again, swirling around and never really gets concretized. And I just feel like the show wanted to do all of these things, but they weren't serious about any of them. And then they spend all this time in the middle, these two entire episodes, pulling in a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with any of this. 

Twig 

I wanna pick up what you said about the parents. The show spent time with both Kazuhito and Natsukawa’s moms. We Natsukawa’s mom clock immediately that there was something wrong with Natsukawa because he was making something deep fried, which is a sign that her son is going through it. And I thought that was a really beautiful way of showing that his mom understood him. And then we got the conversation with Kazuhito's mom when the comphet happens where Kazuhito's mom asks Natsukawa to let her know if Kazuhito meets anyone so that she can find out about his love life because he never tells her anything. 

And then the final episode, we get a moment with both moms where they clearly clock that something's going on with their sons and seem happy about it? And that was so unearned and made me so angry. Natsukawa’s mom at least seemed like she knew her son, but Kazuhito's mom was fully oblivious, and for her to get that moment of, “Oh good. My son is now happy with his boyfriend” to the point where—I took in these yukatas so that they can have this yukata moment—mmm, to bring that back. 

Ben 

There it is. Sorry, listeners, you won't get to count this show when you list them out. 

[all laugh]

Twig 

So they get these yukatas taken in so they can have them permanently. And nod to, “I know that you guys are gonna be a thing,” a quiet without having to say it aloud, “I'm cool with your relationship” and she makes an offhand comment that Kazuhito is so much happier now, like he was when he was younger, that indicates that she knows that Natsukawa is making a difference in Kazuhito’s life and she's happy about it. 

Where the hell was that energy when she was talking to him before, where did this come from? 

Ben 

You're right, man. After two episodes of angst in episode 6 and 7, they rushed the shit out of the resolution in episode 8. 

Twig 

This show had too little material to work with, was too cowardly to add very much at all. The little bit that they did add was not good, so maybe for the best that they [laughs] didn't try to do too much, but they wanted to keep the main beat in the same place, which meant that they shoved a bunch of filler in the middle that fucked up the entire emotional arc and then rushed the ending. They just shat the bed on it. The part that I was actually really interested in—which is, what is this relationship going to look like once it gets off the ground?—we didn't get any of that. 

Ben 

This show was good for like 30 percent of its run, tolerable for about 62 percent of its run. 

NiNi 

62 percent, that was so specific. 

Ben 

It’s what 5 divided by 8 is. [Twig laughs] It's just math.

NiNi 

Sir. Sir. Sir!

Ben 

Anyway, this is from the same team that brought us Old Fashion Cupcake, so we're trying to understand why the people who have made a five episode banger decided to take what should have been a five episode banger and make it an eight episode fart. 

Twig 

Talk that talk. 

Ben 

This show was so vacant. They clearly ran out of the great source material by the end of episode 3 and did not know what to do for the rest of the show. Spending this much time in one character having intense angst over another character not ending in a satisfying release of that tension is extremely disappointing. If Kazuhito was holding these feelings for 10 years, that perfunctory little dead fish kiss was so unsatisfying. I rebuke it. 

NiNi 

We shall not speak of it. 

Twig 

The one thing that did keep me going through that last episode were the performances specifically of Sato Ryuga and Sakai Sho. The performances in this show were good and I would like to see them in something else. 

Ben 

I would very much like them to try again. 

NiNi 

I absolutely agree, even through all the nonsense I think that the acting was solid and I would like to see these boys do something again. [sigh] I don't wanna talk about this show anymore. 

Ben

Let’s rate it!

NiNi

[laughs] Let's rate this sucker. 

Ben 

It's a 6. It's a 6. It was not exactly offensive, but this show made the egregious sin of being boring. How do you make a Japanese BL boring? That is the reign of Thailand, with its 50 to 100 fuckin’ minute episodes. 

[Twig laughs]

NiNi 

I'ma let you cook. For now. 

Twig 

The worst part about it is it's so close to being so good. You can almost fix it just by watching 1-4 and then 8. 

NiNi

No.

Ben 

No.

NiNi

No.

Ben

No.

NiNi

No.

Ben

No.

Twig

No?

Ben

[laughs] No. Absolutely not. 

Twig 

Ha! [Twig laughs]

NiNi

I would be right there with you normally, but 8 is not good. 

Ben 

I love you, Twig. [laugh] I will be back-to-back with you against anyone in this fandom. But I can't be with you on this, sis. Episode 8 fucking sucked because it doesn't complete either character’s actual character arc! Mm-mm.

NiNi 

It doesn't pick up on the stuff that was going on up to episode 5, and then it also doesn't pick up on the stuff that they were doing in 6 and 7. So it doesn't follow either of the arcs that they were going with. 

Twig 

This is my point. You have to cut out all the shit it didn't pick up on [laughs] and then it's fine. 

Ben 

[laughs] You're gonna make it the five episode BL it should have been.

Twig

That’s what I’m saying! 

NiNi 

No. I'm sorry, even if you wanted to do that, I'm sorry, those lame ass kisses at the end? Forget about it. 

Ben 

NiNi! Rating. 

NiNi 

It was a 7 until this conversation, now it's a 6. 

Ben 

Twig-tea! 

Twig 

Yeah, I'm with you all, it’s a 6. 

Ben 

It's a 6 from The Conversation. 

00:52:03 - Why The Queerness Matters

Ben 

Both of these shows got less than a 7 from The Conversation, and the conversation about them is different. Love is Better the Second Time Around was actually so fucking good for the bulk of its run and then clearly jettisoned to go be something else instead. With Living With Him, it's very clear that they didn't know what to do with the amount of runtime they had. You can see this show falling apart in real time. This show was not it and it should have been. The potential was sky high and the show really let me down. It went from being a 10 to a 6. That is a terrifying fall. I don't think I've ever had such a turn with a show in my experience in BL. 

NiNi 

So, the thing about these two shows, why we ended up placing them together, aside from the fact that they started strong and flopped. The flop happened for both of these shows in trying to go for a flashback. Trying to go to time prior to the show to tell us… what, exactly? And I think that's the thing that really I'm taking away from this. If you're gonna do a flashback in a story, the flashback has to give you something, it has to mean something, it has to illuminate something. And for both of these shows, I do not feel illuminated by the flashback. I didn't feel like the flashback gave me either new information narratively or new information thematically and emotionally. I just feel like the flashbacks were there because they wanted to flash back to a different time for whatever reason, but there's no real reason in either of these stories for the flashback to exist. 

Ben 

It's because they're making the mistake of not recognizing what western M/M romance understands, that if you're going to break the characters up in a meaningful way, do it at the 60% mark. 

Twig 

I want to pick up what NiNi said, too. The flashback has to accomplish something and we should learn something from it, but also the character should have learned something since, and it should set us up for them to move their arcs forward in a way that makes sense from what we had before the flashback. 

NiNi 

Absolutely, yes. 

Twig 

In both of these cases, the flashback did not fill in the information to allow us to follow that character arc in any way that was meaningful or satisfying. 

Ben 

I'm not always keen on flashbacks in romance. I gotta be honest. The problem with romance flashbacks a lot of the time is, unless you're contextualizing something that the audience has picked up on the whole time, you're just retconning your show. 

Twig 

Yeah, I agree. For the most part. I think sometimes shows seem like their goal is to trick the audience and that most of the time should not be your goal except in very specific genre circumstances. Most of the time, your audience should be able to at least anticipate sort of what's coming-ish and be excited about it. The how and the why is the part that's interesting, not the, “Oh, you did something that you didn't tell me you were doing for the last however many hours of my life.” It shouldn't be a surprise. 

NiNi 

For me, that's not entirely it. I have enjoyed before a midstream flashback that tells me something brand new that I have to go back to the beginning and be like, “Oh a twist!” Like, I've enjoyed a twist flashback before. It's not even a question of that. It's a question of, the flashback has to have a purpose. It has to have a reason, it has to give me something, sooomething that I did not already know. Like I said, whether that's narrative, whether that's thematic or emotional, but it has to illuminate something new for me. It has to have a reason for being there. And I just feel in both of these cases the flashback had no reason for being there. 

That said, I have enjoyed this episode. For many reasons. 

Ben 

It's because we dunked on Japan. That's it. [NiNi laughs] That's it. 

NiNi 

You can't even let me have the fun of saying it. 

Ben 

No, no, no. You don't get to have it. ‘Cause I love Japanese BL. This dunking is me trying to grab them by the shoulders, like James T Kirk grabbing people by the shoulders, and being like, “What are you doing? I need you to get it together. [laughs] 

NiNi 

I am enjoying this episode because sometimes I do feel sort of alone in my little “Eh, I'm not entirely feeling it” bubble on some of these Japanese shows, so it's nice to have company for a change, is what I was saying. I was not trying to shade you. 

Ben 

Here's the thing, let's unpack this. Japanese BL works for me the most often because their romance stories often track for something very specifically queer about them. All the Japanese BL that I constantly bring up on this show has romantic angst that also taps into my very specific concern as a queer critic. And that's particularly why I get frustrated when these shows fuck it up. 

As Twig pointed out, Living With Him introduces a compulsory heterosexuality moment after the character has made the big emotional turn and recognized that he does want to remain close to his friend after he learns an important queer detail about him. That is a huge queer fuck up! The big fuck up with Love is Better the Second Time Around is, these guys went through the task of getting back together and trying to be open with each other and being vulnerable and kind of embarrassing with each other. When the homophobia rears its head again and is gonna separate them, the show does not reward us or the characters for the growth that they've been trying to achieve by letting them have that moment together to become a battle couple. 

That's the real problem with it, ‘cause, like, in a normal fucking heterosexual romance, who gives a shit if the straights are gonna stay together? The whole world is going to help them stay together if they want to, or let them divorce if they don't. We're the only ones who're going to give a shit about each other when the boots come marching again. And so when I'm watching BL, I'm watching from the queer part, and when these shows fuck up on the queer part is when I turn against them so aggressively. That's why you’ve seen Japan not even catch strays this time. I'm sniping at them for these shows because this is not correct. [NiNi laughs]

This is the true fuck up. This is the crux of my disappointment here. They fucked up on the queer front, not on the romance part. I can take it or leave it on the romance part. Writing romance is not as easy as people think it is. People fuck that shit up all the time. But if you can do something that feels queer in a way that feels truly correct to me, I'll be very forgiving about some romance missteps. But both of these shows fucked up on the queer part of their romance arcs and I do not forgive that. 

Twig 

After they were doing so well, that's the part that hurts. They started getting the queer part so right and then got it so wrong. 

Ben 

I truly get you, why you don't always vibe with these shows, NiNi, because they're not always satisfying in that way as romance stories. I totally get you on that. But what always works for me in the shows that I want to advocate for when we get together is that these shows have a real kernel of queer truth that is worth connecting to and worth advocating for for people who want to engage with queer stories. It's why you and I were able to bond so strongly over I Told Sunset About You, I Promised You the Moon, and Bad Buddy. Those shows are satisfying romantically and also as queer cinema. The shows that we both love the most on here are very good at both of those things. But the queer part of their storytelling is non-negotiable for me in a genre about boys kissing each other. 

NiNi 

I hear you. I'm with you. This episode is gonna air right at the end of June. I think this is a great way— 

Ben 

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

NiNi

—for us to—

Ben

Oh yeah.

NiNi

—end Pride month. 

Ben 

Happy pride, bitches!

[Ben and NiNi laugh] 

NiNi 

Because it is important to remember that among everything else, amongst all the love and romance in this genre, that this genre is a queer genre and the queerness matters. 

Ben 

Any final thoughts you'd like to share with the audience, Twig-tea? 

Twig 

I don't have anything to add. That was right. Correct! That's what I have to say to that. 

NiNi 

That is going to wrap us up on Second Rate Second Chance! Twig, thank you so much for being with us. 

Twig 

Thank you for having me.��

NiNi 

We will see you guys next time. Until then, we out. Say bye to the people, Twig. 

Twig 

Dispatch! 

Ben 

Dispatch! 

NiNi 

[laughs] Say bye to the people, Ben. 

Ben 

Peace. 

[hurtpeoplex2]

i feel this sums up every fight between magneto and professor x fairly well.

[gerryland]