#You are more than the Average Hua Cheng Fan. You are THE hua cheng fan

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

i love your hua cheng design so dearly

YES! YES! TRUE TO SIZE!!!

[tanya-shiza]

Tired Gold busts (2/2) // LMK Medicinal Flower AU

Part 1: [LINK]

Yay 🎉 I was finally able to draw Wei Jian and he doesn't look ugly... It's a pity it's not full-length, but I wanted to draw something like a bust 😃☺️

About Wei Jian:

Wei Jian is an office plankton, but he is happy with it. He loves his job, despite the fact that the boss is very strict and changes workers like gloves.

Wei Jian's boss is the richest man in China. (Yes, that's Reng Zhang Ji from my Coin AU. I originally created Reng Zhang Ji for this au, but he fits better in Coin AU. In Coin AU, Reng Zhang Ji also mentions Wei Jian as the kindest person he's ever met 😉 In Coin AU, the Mystic Mayor became Shi Cheng. Shi Cheng and Wei Jian never met.)

Wei Jian was employee of the month 3 times (which is almost impossible) and accordingly his photo was hung on the wall of honor.

Wei Jian is friends with the guard at the entrance to the office building named Yu Cu. He is a bit emotionless and rather grumpy. Employees often encounter his stubbornness. However, Wei Jian has been working for quite a long time and during this time Yu Cu fell for his kindess.

Sometimes the guard even does a little help and marks Wei Jian as «here» if he is suddenly late in order to avoid him being fired for being late often. If managers find out about this, they both are fined, of course. But Yu Cu forgives Wei Jian for this.

Wei Jian is not a fan of sports, much less, beer, but Yu Cu is. Sometimes, for help with delays, the guard asks Wei Jian to go to the bar with him to watch football together. (It was in this bar that Wei Jian first noticed Shi Tiao, who had a bad habit of getting drunk after work.)

Wei Jian is earns above average, which is suprised Shi Tiao because he the one who earns more, but Wei Jian's apartment, car and clothes create the illusion that the opposite is true.

Wei Jian is a great cook and often watches cooking shows, but unlike the Demon Bull King and Pigsy, he is not a fan of Chang'e or her baking. There is a character in Nexo Knights called Gobbleton Rumble, who is a reference to a real person. Wei Jian would be a fan of him.

You might be wondering, since Wei Jian is so perfect, why doesn't he have a wife yet? He's already 36 years old! The thing is that Wei Jian is kinda cursed, but no one knows about it. Wei Jian was born under a star that destroys any chances of finding a female companion. Wei Jian tries hard, but all relationships end before they last even 2 months. His record is 3 months and 4 days.

However, the star did not say anything about male companion 😏😉 But Wei Jian never even thought that he can choose males as a partner.

Due to numerous failures in dates, Wei Jian became very worried about it. He is disappointed in himself and thinks that he is bad at relationships, although in fact it is the opposite.

Shi Tiao and Wei Jian's relationship wasn't official for a long time. They just acted like a couple, but never called each other boyfriend.

Wei Jian is very afraid that his relationship with Shi Tiao will end up like all the others. This is his deep unconscious fear, which only will be find out when Hua Kan mentions that their friendship is more like a romantic relationship.

Wei Jian was born into a "female family". That's means, he has only Grandma and Mom, who love him very much. Especially Grandma. This is important because Wei Jian didn't have a "masculine" figure, so he took his mother's lead, which led to how gentle, kind and caring he became.

Wei Jian is under intense pressure from his grandma and mother towards a wife and children. They are very concerned that their only son has achieved everything except the favor of a woman.

The numerous mentions of women make Wei Jian wary. He worries that his grandma nad mother might not accept Shi Tiao because he is a man.

⚠️Triggers will be mentioned below! Be careful!⚠️

Suicide

Premature babies

Postpartum depression / Regular depression

Wei Jian was born about 2 months earlier than he should have been. He was premature. This affected his body, of course. He was born very skinny, weak, and his eyesight was poor. He has been wearing glasses since he was a baby. None of his family wore glasses before old age.

One nice day, when nothing foreshadowed trouble Wei Jian's mother returned home and find her husband hanged himself in the living room. Such a horrific shock immediately caused labor. The mother gave birth with difficulty.

The loss of the beloved husband, who never said that anything was worring him, hit the woman hard. She fell into depression and completely forgot about her newborn son, who needed a lot of attention given his premature birth.

In order for Wei Jian's young bones to grow properly, his mother often gave him massages that doctors taught her. At such moments, she felt love and care for her son, unfortunately, this was not enough to forget about the grief.

Then the grandma took care of Wei Jian's needs. Seeing how the boy grows incredibly skinny and often undernourished due to the mother's distance, the grandma moves in to live with them in order to support both: her daughter and grandson.

Grandma didn't mean to, but she accidentally overfed her grandson, and Wei Jian was quite chubby for several years in his teen age (high school). This was especially bad because his bones weren't as strong as he'd like. After entering university and receiving a doctor's note, Wei Jian immediately set about getting himself in shape. Even to this day, Wei Jian takes care of his health. He helps Shi Tiao take care of his health and eat right. It was Wei Jian who helped Shi Tiao break his habit of drinking after a hard day at the bar.

Because the massages brought Wei Jian's mother peace and relief, she continued to do it even when it was no longer needed. One day, she even taught Wei Jian some of the techniques. Wei Jian sometimes uses them because Shi Tiao often complains of joint pain.

[crowning-art]

TGCF SPOILERS

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Even though I read more than usual, I surprisingly don't have much to say cuz it's mainly fight scenes rn lol

I THOUGT PEI MING DIED FOR REALS IN HIS PALACE DHDJFJFJJFJ and I was like kinda sad....for 0.0004739 second only tho lol

YALL I DIDNT NEED THIS, PLZ I SWEAR GUZI DESERVES THE WORLD 😭

However, Guzi hopped down and opened his arms, blocking in front of Qi Rong, yelling at Lang Qianqiu.

"DON'T…DON'T KILL MY DAD!"

I mean the image of Qi Ying walking with Yin Yu's dead body is just wow but also HE IS DEAD!?!?! IS THIS A JOKE???? PLZ I WAS HOPING IT WUD ONLY BE SHI WUDU

Quan Yizhen was carrying Yin Yu's dead body on his back, standing in the middle of the street with his face covered in soot; when he saw Jun Wu, raging fires burnt in his eyes too.

GOUSHI FOR THE WIN!!!! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!! everything he does, the fighting plans, defending Xie Lian, I love him so much

"He's gone stupid again! I just knew it, this guy just loves going stupid!!! It's been hundreds of years, and it's always been like…who kicked me?!"

"Me," Guoshi said. "Say one more word and I'll push you off directly."

MXTX'S NOTE HERE WAS GOLDEN LOL

Black Water does indeed owe Hua Cheng a huge debt; a very poor Supreme. He's severely dragged down the income average of the entire Supreme rank (although there's only three), but it's not all owed from eating too much

WE GOT A TRANSFORMERS BATTLE FOR REAL I CANT RN

Ya me too, Xie Lian lmao

He was already prepared to perform a service for Pei Ming!

Nvm still hate him

Pei Ming wielded a sword in one hand, and the other was smoothing his locks back; his hair perfect, his charm unruffled. "Not quite alright, but mostly alright."

OH MY GOD JUN WU U MONSTER MY BABY IS BURNING ALIVE ARE U INSANE?!?!? OH MY GOD I SWEAR I WAS LOSING MY MIND WHEN GUZI GOT CAUGHT IN THE FIRE

OH MY

GODOHMYGODOHMYGOSOHMYGOD

Just then, "Hua Cheng" flung out his right hand, and tossed something at him. Without thinking, Shi Qingxuan raised his hand to catch, but when he saw what it was he caught, his entire face blanched.

That object was the Wind Master fan

Yoooo these r some solid words from a loser for reals thooo

I'm a steel-hearted man. Rather than love me, why don't you go love yourself."

Ok hold up

Now that they thought back, when Jun Wu had shot out that trail of fire, Qi Rong had protected Guzi, which was why this child didn't burn to death.

Nope. No. Nooooo. Nope. Haha nope. Qi Rong dead?? Nope. No way. I don't know how to read anymore thanks. Nope. Guzi was totally not crying about how good of a father Qi Rong was when his own father wasn't even that good to him. Nope. No. I will not hear any more on this matter. No.

I find it interesting how Hua Cheng vaguely respects like one dude and its Goushi, but like they are both fiercely protective and ACC caring for Xie lian unlike some ppl (cough Jun wu cough cough). I think in some weird way, they would get along really well lol

Yoooooo what is the deal with Mu Qing and Feng Xin??? Ok Feng Xin I get cuz he was looking for Jian Lan but Mu Qing?? And now he's acting weird??? I'm so suspicious of him rn

He better not be a clone or like Jun Wu just shape shifting into him or smt 😤

Also Jun Wu is CRAZYYYYY LIKE CRAZY CRAZZYYYYY UNHINGEDDD it's kinda cool ngl I do like my villains to be insanely unhinged and overpowered

[skullsandwineglasses]

Ancient Love Poetry (2021) - Episodes 1-3 First Impressions

This is not bad so far. I’ve seen a lot of mixed reactions about this drama, but it’s actually pretty decent. I heard that it’s being ripped apart by audiences in China, but some people on reddit mentioned that the drama is actually good, but people are just critical of Zhou Dongyu and Xu Kai. AvenueX was skeptical of the drama, but I find that her reviews of xianxia dramas can be kinda harsh. The drama hasn’t finished airing yet so there aren’t many ratings and reviews on MDL, but the drama currently has an 8.3 on there, which I think is a pretty decent rating even though it’s likely to change as more people finish the drama. Most of the dramas that I’ve enjoyed also average at around an 8.3 on MDL. 

Plot

The plot is pretty fast-paced. The leads develop feelings for each other really early on. The opening does a good job of establishing the personalities of the characters and drawing you into the story. A drama will successfully draw me in if it raises enough questions and establishes enough plot points to make me curious to see what will happen next.

The FL has a different background from the FLs in other xianxia dramas. Shang Gu is destined to become the leader of the 4 realms, but she’s been spoiled by her guardians Zhi Yang and Tian Qi, so her powers are underdeveloped. The FLs in other xianxia dramas tend to start off as a nobody/underdog, but Shang Gu starts off as the most highly regarded figure in the realm. She’s basically a princess. Her guardians are played by Li Ze feng and Liu Xue Yu respectively, and they’ve always had such strong performances as supporting characters in other dramas, so it was a pleasant surprise seeing them both here. Their characters have great brotherly chemistry, and they provide comedic relief. 

The ML is your stereotypical stoic, brooding, emotionally suppressed, and powerful immortal. He has no interest in women, that is until he’s tasked by Zhi Yang and Tian Qi to be Shang Gu’s mentor in order to help her unlock her powers. All the women in the immortal realm crush over him, but he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it. Very typical. 

Chemistry

The ML and FL’s relationship reminds me of Bai Zhi Hua and Hua Qian Gu’s teacher-student relationship in Journey of Flower, which was the first xianxia drama that I watched. But, unlike Journey of Flower, Bai Jue and Shang Gu are less like teacher-student, but more like bickering enemies who eventually develop feelings for each other. 

My issue is that they develop feelings for each other too soon. And so I don’t really feel much chemistry between them, even though I want to. Bai Jue teaches her a few moves, helps her unlock her inner powers, they accidentally touch and get too close physically, and bam, feelings start to form. These are immortals who are thousands of years old. How are they able to develop feelings so easily and quickly? Especially Bai Jue who’s know by everyone to be lofty, emotionless, and misogynistic? 

There was only one moment when they were able to emotionally bond, and that was when Bai Jue misunderstood Shang Gu. Shang Gu was trying to fulfill the challenge he gave her, but he mistakenly thought that she was greedy. When he realized he misunderstood her, he began to soften towards her. But this event alone wasn’t convincing enough to make me believe that someone as cold as he is could fall for a spoiled and obnoxious girl like Shang Gu. 

They could have made it so that his character secretly enjoys Shang Gu’s loud antics because it makes his home more lively. That’s usually how they do it in other xianxia dramas where the bubbly FL is the manic pixie dream girl who uproots the ML’s quiet lifestyle and he falls for her against his better judgment. But no, they don’t do that in Ancient Love Poetry, so Bai Jue falling for Shang Gu felt forced. 

Acting

I’ve loved Zhou Dongyu since seeing her in the 2010 film Under the Hawthorn tree. But because I’ve seen people criticize her in Ancient Love Poetry, I was prepared to be disappointed. But honestly, it’s not that bad. Even her costuming isn’t that bad. She’s not impressive, but then again, it’s not an impressive or complex role. A lot of actresses are capable of playing her type of character, and a lot of actresses already have. But Zhou Dongyu delivers, and she does well with what she’s given. 

Xu Kai isn’t terrible, but he could definitely be better. Like what I mentioned above, his character is the stereotypical xianxia ML. And so there have been plenty of actors before him who have shown how to portray a cold, stoic, and resistant character who’s slowly moved by the FL: Cheng Yi in Love and Redemption, Wallace Huo in Journey of Flower (although he also got a lot of flack at the time for being expressionless), and Chang Chen in Love and Destiny. The key to playing this kind of ML is that you’re emotionally suppressed, which means that you try to be emotionless, but there are moments when you can’t hide your emotions and they break to the surface. It’s all about the internal struggle where you pretend to act one way but feel another. As an actor, you need to be able to convey subtle and nuanced microexpressions that reveal how your character truly feels. 

Granted, Bai Jue is a little different from Bai Zhi Hua and Sifeng who forbade themselves from falling in love, but Bai Jue is more like Jiu Chen and Ye Hua who just have never known love before and is now experiencing it for the first time. But for all of these MLs, the common thread is that they undergo a change in character. In these first 3 episodes of Ancient Love Poetry, we keep being told by other characters in the drama how Bai Jue has changed “so much” since agreeing to mentor Shang Gu, but I don’t see this change in Xu Kai’s portrayed of Bai Jue. 

On reddit, I’ve mentioned how I've seen Xu Kai in The Legends and Arsenal Military Academy and IMO, Xu Kai doesn't really do well in roles where he has to be stoic and emotionally reserved. But he did really well in AMA where his character was a flirty, spoiled rich kid who eventually matures during his time at the academy, and it made me realize that he's capable of acting when given the right opportunity. His character was full of life and the complete opposite of his character in The Legends. He can be really expressive when his character warrants it, but when the character is supposed to be brooding, he doesn't bring enough nuance to his expressions and instead defaults to being flat and unmoving.

I also feel that Xu Kai’s performance was a little better in The Legends than in Ancient Love Poetry, but then again, I’ve only seen 3 episodes of ALP. I don’t know if it’s because his costar was Bai Lu and he felt more comfortable with her, or if it’s because Bai Jue is a character who’s supposed to be old, experienced, and wise, and Xu Kai is still too young to pull off that kind of role. He also looks incredibly young. He’s my age, and I’m just in awe of how clear his skin is and how it still looks like he has some baby fat. I’m also not a fan of his costuming. I like how Zhou Dongyu’s hair frames her face to make her look more delicate, but Xu Kai’s wig seems to flatten his head. I also think he looks better in dark robes like in The Legends, or his leather trenchcoat in AMA. He looked more rugged. But his white clothes in Ancient Love Poetry takes away from his character’s demeanor as a powerful immortal, and unlike Wallace Huo who’s older and thus is able to pull off dainty and delicate white robes, Xu Kai’s baby face doesn’t really pair well with it. 

Other notes:

The CGI is probably some of the better CGI that I’ve seen to date, and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty impressed. Objects magically appear and disappear almost seamlessly, and characters teleport smoothly. 

Still waiting for the OST to come into full effect. It probably won’t happen until later in the drama when there’s more angst and emotion, but I also find it weird that they don’t have an opening theme? It’s just Zhou Shen singing some vocal effects, but no actual song. 

Overall, I’m going to keep watching. I’m a sucker for xianxia, and I love comparing the similarities and differences between different dramas, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes and whether it’s as bad as people say it is. 

[internaldynamicofthesexyfish]

BRIEF SOURCES

Time spent on a mobile device is on the rise. In the UK in 2018, it was reported that the average adult spends around two hours and 49 minutes on their smartphone 1, while as of 2019 in the US, people are already spending more time on their phone than watching TV, the average daily time being three hours and 43 minutes 2. That’s more than 10% of a day, and, assuming the eight hours of sleep we are supposed to get, more than 18% of our daily life. The average UK adult checks their phone every 12 minutes 3, so chances are that by the end of this paper, you’d have checked your phone at least once, if you haven’t done so already.

Digital screens do more than steal our time however. Media theorist Charles Soukup argues that “the temporal and spatial dimensions of everyday life are complexly interconnected with digital screens. Time and space are fragmented and displaced as individuals are decreasingly ‘grounded’ or tethered to a kind of physical shared reality.” 4 Our time, our perception of time and the perception of space that comes with it 5, 6, are disrupted by a proliferation of screens; so many invitations to observe the “dizzying movement of meanings, bodies, and texts across screens” 4, leaving our matter behind to conjoin our time with other users online, on platforms with their own version of a moving Now 7.

But it does not feel good to leave your body behind. We are currently witnessing an epidemic in anxiety and dissociative mental health issues among young people, that many relate to the constant immersion in digital and virtual spaces online 8, 9. The link with cultural phenomena such as social media is now well understood - users becoming aware of the negative impact of platforms such as Instagram for instance 10 - but could there be a connection to the more fundamental, phenomenological experience of spending time in a space with no geometric dimension? 11 We are still tethered to the human body - although some technologists would like to sever that link 12. We are beings in space, and as such a distinctive and legible environment offers us security and potentially heightens the potential depth and intensity of human experience; were the mishap of disorientation to happen, we’d feel a sense of anxiety, maybe even terror, that reveals how much our sense of balance and well-being is related to our process of wayfinding. 13

We are now living in an era of unstable reality, where our perception is altered by the fragmentation in time and space, the screen experience existing as a digital patchwork blending in and out of reality. Our link to a shared physical reality is put under constraint; the digital age not going backwards. In this ambient, inescapable immersion in intangible online platforms, is there still space for the human body? Could we imagine a different view of the platforms, one that would allow the interaction with other bodies, mooring ourselves to something more real than feeble one-way “social” links?

1 “Scotland leads the UK for time spent watching TV”, Ofcom, July 18, 2018, https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2018/scotland-time-watching-tv

2 Amy He, “US Adults Are Spending More Time on Mobile Than They Do Watching TV”, eMarketer, June 4, 2019, https://www.emarketer.com/content/average-us-time-spent-with-mobile-in-2019-has-increased

3 Charles Hymas, “A decade of smartphones: We now spend an entire day every week online”, The Telegraph, August 1, 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/01/decade-smartphones-now-spend-entire-day-every-week-online/

4 Charles Soukup, Exploring screen culture via Apple’s mobile devices: Life through the Looking Glass (London: Lexington Books, 2017), 22, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5QnWDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

5 Gaston Bachelard, La poétique de l’espace (Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, ed. 3, 1961 [1957]), https://gastonbachelard.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BACHELARD-Gaston-La-poetique-de-l-espace.pdf

6 Yi-Fu Tuan, “Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective”, Philosophy in Geography, vol.20 (1979): 387-427, http://geog.uoregon.edu/amarcus/geog620/Readings/Tuan_1979_space-place.pdf

7 Metahaven, Digital Tarkovsky (Strelka Press, ed. 1, 2018).

8 Denis Campbell, “Why do more young people have mental health problems?”, The Guardian, November 22, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/22/why-do-more-young-people-have-mental-health-problems

9 Wei-Hsin Lu, Kun-Hua Lee, Chih-Hung Ko, Ray C. Hsiao, Huei-Fan Hu, and Cheng-Fang Yen, “Relationship between borderline personality symptoms and Internet addiction: The mediating effects of mental health problems”, Journal of Behavioral Addictions, vol. 6, no. 3 (2017): 434-441, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5700727/

10 Amanda MacMillan, “Why Instagram Is the Worst Social Media for Mental Health”, Time, May 25, 2017, https://time.com/4793331/instagram-social-media-mental-health/

11 Mark Wilsher, “Virtual and Other Bodies”, Art Monthly, no. 427 (2019): 11-14.

12 Anthony Cuthbertson, “Elon Musk says Neuralink machine that connects human brain to computers ‘coming soon’”, Independent, April 22, 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-twitter-neuralink-brain-machine-interface-computer-ai-a8880911.html

13 Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (The MIT Press, 1990 [1960]), 8, http://www.miguelangelmartinez.net/IMG/pdf/1960_Kevin_Lynch_The_Image_of_The_City_book.pdf