#ZZ talks being Queer

[accio-victuuri]

Sugar Rush : October CPNs

This was an insane month to say the least, I’m not even exaggerating. Things happened that will go down in fandom history. Our detective skills in looking for places and trying to piece a story was tested and the clowning was at it’s peak. I would have to say that by far, this year, it’s this month that generated lots of noise. Both sides were just throwing sweets at us and we can’t even keep up.

It also proved once more the charm of turtle cpns and why context, history and time is important to fully enjoy a candy:

“The charm of turtle candy is that it is incomplete. It is not a one-time solution. You feel suspicious at the beginning, but you are more sure later, and then at some unknown moment in the future, you suddenly get it. The correct answer, everything forms a closed loop, it's so cool”

• YH poster for WYB is from a BJYX fansite

• On 10/1, there has been some talk about WYB’s hair hiding beneath his beanie when he arrived at the airport to Paris. People’s guess is that he is blonde. Some people are connecting it to the blonde character in the XZS vlog.

People are free to interpret this however they want, as a candy, it appears to ZZ giving us a clue as to WYB dyeing his hair. Personally tho, this person is a member of GG’s staff & his friend who also takes part in putting out the amazing materials we get. People particularly remembered one of them had blonde hair during MFW. Anyway, I understand why people are so happy about this & interpreting it the way they do and go ahead and it this if you want 🍭

It also doesn’t help that the character kinda looks like WYB in Paris which is some next level coincidence. I can’t even with this fandom.

• I’m adding this beautiful analysis of Pie @potteresque-ire about the Mid Autumn festival photos posted by our boys. It’s technically from last month but i already published it before I read this meta. It just gives more weight to the meaning of it aside from how it matches 🌙

• Mengniu exhibit with zz and wyb standees

• Camera/Leica CPN : This has actually become everyone’s favorite candy of the year. It started out so simple and almost like a galaxy brain sort of clowning but both sides ended up “confirming” what we speculated. I have talked about this at length and in different parts below :

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five

10/6, WYB continues to show off his camera. Almost all the photos in the set released by YBO, he is holding it, and there are falling cameras on Weibo in that post!!!! 📸

There is also this CPN on what WYB is taking a photo of and with people using google earth and comparing, they found out it’s the number 23. What a beautiful number. He really loves it! ♥️

• Same place, different times. This is so bittersweet to me. One day, they will get that Romantic Paris getaway together 🖤

• XZ 1005 birthday CPNs : one // two 🎂

• A photography studio shared a shot of GG for his bday and the kadian is 18:23. This same company also released a bday photo for WYB’s. They have worked with the boys a couple of time.

• The same description of something being like a film

• Glasswork art piece from France that could have been a gift and souvenir for GG

• Camping site and it’s connection to WYB selfie - At this point, there’s been so many “evidence” collected by bxgs and the most accurate date is really 8/14-8/15 that this “celebration” was done. There are also posts from people who visited the place and a motorcycle “parade” took place, so we know it’s a popular place to ride your moto. It’s one of the “services” they provide and looks like something that WYB took advantage of.

• Is one of the photographers yibo? 📸

• GG’s rope necklace and it’s meaning

• XZS birthday video taking some inspiration from a queer themed short film “we are animals”

• The camping trip was a team building of XZS and YBO?

• Both of them so sexy 🔥🔥🔥🔥

• 10/12 ZSWW rumor house & fake story content 🤍

• WYB’s 10/13 Selfie : part one / part two

• A galaxy brain cpn of XZS 10/13 post’s caption

• On 10/16, XZ released a tribute song which is government sponsored of course. In the past months, the go-to person we usually see singing for these causes is WYB and now it’s XZ. This is not exactly CPN, but i like the way that they are both people seen as positive influences and may be used to sing for certain events. Maybe one day they can do a duet? LOL.

• This one is so funny, there is an interview in a Taiwan TV show i guess. and the question was, “Talk about the general interests of gay men in Taiwan” ; the person answering is also gay and he said it’s : fitness, mountain climbing, raising cats, and Shiba Inu. 😂😂😂😂

LOL. Why does it remind us of two people? It’s so specific. Who have always wanted to raise both a car and a dog (shiba inu) and is currently loving fitness and mountain climbing. They might as well add camping on there 🤪🤪🤪

I don’t really believe in stereotypes and that there is a certain “checklist” that makes you gay or whatever— your interests are personal and what you enjoy. maybe you will be influenced by your environment but just do what you want. Tho I understand why this was so amusing to c-turtles cause they immediately thought of ZZ & WYB when they saw this.

• Even holding the camera is the same 😂✌🏼like a true photographer. Not acting all cute and using a camera to “pose” but actually using it.

• Updated mole signature by XZS

• XZS video x Bottled Joy Parallel. 🫶🏼 ; and the fact that Bobo’s is by Bottled Joy, a brand who is known to be BJYX bias ( allegedly ) . Tho this was most likely filmed before that XZS video. A happy coincidence. && This is the renewal we have been waiting for.

• Luoyang Tourism video uses a BGM of a song by ZZ

• BJYX and Skydiving 🪂

• 130 fake rumors compilation

• Wuzhen Day 3 Yibo shirt CPN ⛳️

=======

See you all next month for another round up! 💛

Previous Posts: Jan-June 2023 / July / August / September

[verycharismaticdragon]

As the novel guy(tm), I need to set the record straight: Wen Kexing is not compared to a wife just once in the novel, he and Zhou Zishu have an elaborate roleplay about being ~husband and wife~ that gets brought up time after time. Where Wen Kexing, the strongest mf in all jianghu not counting the literal immortal, pretends to be a poor bullied wife whose husband is giving her a cold shoulder 😩

And he's having so much fun with it too like *GASP* "are you abandoning me now that you've toyed with me?" *GASP* "how could you go to a brothel when your old wife is still alive?!" (they were there for information) *starts reciting confucian rules for obedient and virtuous wife*

He also cooks and is all like "something made by human hand has real flavor, and it may even have ~love~, when you taste it you'll be able to tell 😘" this man is malewifing it up SO hard. To the point that I haven't seen a single novelverse fic where he's referred to as 'husband' - I think because he self-ids with 'wife' so gladly in canon it doesn't feel right to use anything else.

So yeah, novel!WKX is not just "compared to" a wife, he's wearing the moniker purposefully and with a lot of joy.

That said, if you saw "husband and wife" and thought "oh, just another BL recreating gender roles but with two men 🙄"... Wen Kexing is the top, actually.

More specifically, he's an example of my favorite danmei trope 少女攻 shàonǚ gōng - a.k.a young maiden top. The concept of shàonǚ gōng seems to have originated as a pushback against "masculine top, feminine bottom" cliche. You all know that one: the top is physically strong, stoic, and wise to the ways of the world, occupying the role of either the protector or the aggressor; while the bottom is kind, emotional, and naive, slotted into the nurturing role if not outright damsel'ed... yeah, it was really prevalent in the '00s. And much criticized since then for 'regurgitating traditional gender roles' or 'gender essentialism with the serial numbers filed off', as some ppl put it. Now, I don't quite agree with those assessments, but that'd be a tangent; the important thing is, a number of BL concepts that saw a rise in the '10s are actually deconstructing this exact cliche.

Shàonǚ gōng trope in particular seeks to decouple the traditional gender role stuff from the characters' preferred positions: shàonǚ gōng is a top, but he is also sensitive, emotive, and nurturing - often much more so than his partner. (Yes, Luo Binghe is another example of this trope!) In other words: the purpose of this trope is to fuck with the portrayal of the top as traditionally masculine, and it's done by giving him traits, values, or interests that would typically be assigned to the female lead (in m/f) or the bottom (in m/m).

Of course, since the time this trope started appearing (TYK in specific was written in 2010-2011), the discussion on gender has come a long way, and shàonǚ gōngs wearing every gender hat with style now comes off as more gnc / queering the binary than anything. Which is a fun optic! My nonbinary ass is thriving here!

But I'm also not... entirely joking when calling these characters "a guy who is a femme but also a top". Broader femme identity is about approaching traditional femininity in a queer way; and the shàonǚ gōng concept also engages with traditional femininity as mapped onto queerness, if from a fairly different place. So yeah, while I'm saying it light-heartedly (i mean, we are talking about for-the-bit guy yuri poll), Wen Kexing is very femme-aligned, by virtue of his character archetype.

Of course, if we have a guy who is femme-aligned, it would only require the tiniest leap of logic to say his relationship could well be guy yuri-aligned. But what about the other half of that equation, Zhou Zishu? Well, first of all, I gotta say that you can transfer the same dynamic where ZZS is the husband while WKX is the top onto a story where they are both women, and it would still work in a perfectly queer way.

But aside from this, Zhou Zishu is also extremely mom-coded - though that may not come thru to eng audiences because he's specifically "strict chinese mom" coded. Think Evelyn Wang from EEAAO; Zhou Zishu is basically the same with his kids. He may say harsh things, but that's only because he wants the best for them. (Btw he and Evelyn also share a character beat of actually doing their best to not be the parent their parent (figure) were to them.)

And in a different vein, he's also mom-coded because for most of the novel he's doomed to die. You know, I'm actually very curious if anyone wrote any analysis on the intersection of "dead mom" and "dead shifu" tropes because both are supposed to die to facilitate their child's coming of age... interesting stuff.

You could also btw say wenzhou are yuri-coded because of how their interactions after a certain point are laden with delicate heartache of not being able to keep the one you love... (novel is a HE though, dont worry.)

So basically we have one guy who's a virtuous wife and one guy who is a strict mom and the guys are dating. That's very yuri.

Propaganda:

For Vanoe: "vanitas promised his canon love interest, as a romantic gesture, that if she started to become a monster, he would kill her so she wouldn't have to suffer. and then later when discussing how vanitas will eventually turn into a monster himself, he said he wants noe to kill him when that time comes. pretty yuri. also i'm a lesbian and i like them"

"Idk they have such a homoerotic shoujo manga dynamic but they're guys. Or maybe not that much but you gotta admit this would be exquisite yuri if they were girls. Noé the gothic romance heroine etc etc"

For Wenzhou: "Basically in their family unit Wen Kexing is the wife but Zhou Zishu is the mom. Also there are lots of genderbends of them around but the best ones are those where Wen Kexing goes super hard on femme but Zhou Zishu deadass has the same personality and appearance - like shoutout to those artists/writers u r the real ones. Also lesbian Zishu still being called "husband" by Wen Kexing, mwah chef's kiss! He would SO be a butch."

"Wen Kexing is compared to a wife twice in the show and at least once in the book iirc. Canon malewife + wears red eyeshadow and rocks a red robe in his Ghost Valley Master getup + his husband is an emo assassin, they are so incredibly yuri even if they're guys"

For Ineffable Husbands: "Well due to neil mentioning that they was plans for a fem presenting 1960s scene of the two of them that never ended up happening, there's a lot of fanart of that. Plus, they are an angel and a demon, and both technically don't follow the gender rules of humans and many other species on earth, so while they do present very masculine throughout the show, they could be any gender and therefore they seem very fitting for this.(I do apologize as I don't quite understand what guy Yuri is despite your definition so I am guessing and have no clue if they count."

"Looks like m/m on first glance but they don't actually really have gender and Crowley dresses as a woman for a good few years canonically"

"theyre male presenting in the show but they dont really have gender so they could be wlw if they wanted to"

"While both characters spend most of their time presenting as male, they are supernatural beings without any real sex or gender. Crowley appears as a woman multiple times, and one scrapped scene included both Aziriphale and Crowley as women in the 1960s. Additionally, it’s very common to find “Ineffable Wives” fanworks, with both characters appearing as women. As well as having been an immensely popular fandom ship for many years, it has been confirmed that Aziriphale and Crowley are canonically in love with each other."

"Regularly turned into women in fanart. Both Aziraphale and Crowley are incredibly gender. They have been together in some sort of way for 6000 years. Heavy yearning. Cringefail. Divorced and married at the same time. Literally an angel and a demon. What more could you want?"

"theyre literally genderless and can be anything ever!!!"

"Their genders are ineffable and they have hopelessly pined for centuries"

[coolspacequips]

Y'know it honestly, truly blows my mind how much gay content the creators of WoH were able to slip in under the censors.. not even counting the fact that they cut each other's sleeves multiple times in the series LMAO, there are just so many queer little moments between wenzhou that absolutely blew my MIND

The main ones that come to mind are the night when zzs opens up to wkx about his past. I remember thinking 'heh wouldn't it be funny if he held his hand to still his nightmares... If only...' then that shit HAPPENED, and I was deeply moved by the way that scene played out bc I never thought I'd see such a tender conversation, like an actual couple comforting each other in the night, and these two touch hands and hold each other SO MUCH

Infamously they had to reshoot that first emotional hug between them a million times bc they were hugging too intimately, zzs's hands were in inappropriate places, he was just too deep in character lol

Then of course the scene where wkx puts his hair pin in zzs's hair, I saw analysis from Chinese viewers who were like 😳😳😳 the red? The mirror? The hair pin??? They had to rewind to make sure that these two didn't get married????

My sis always manages to absorb deeper cultural knowledge and BTS info, when we watch international shows, so I talk thru these things with her a lot. She told me that apparently this show made it in JUST under the wire, before they cracked down and refined the censorship of gay content in Chinese media and I just 🥲

censorship is absolutely heartbreaking, but I feel so lucky that this show got to be made before they cut off the tap, so to speak. WoH is a surprisingly, tightly executed show all the way down to being chock full of a literally illegal amount of queer subtext and symbolism

[verycharismaticdragon]

anyw decided to make an extras post for wz wedding art bc im kinda stupid proud of it

I said it before when posting a wip, I really don't usually care about characters getting Properly Married but WenZhou? They want to be married, is the thing. This is something set up in the novel; that wistful 'even if tomorrow awaited death, I'd still be willing' when ZZS talks about WKX's parents being a perfect couple, and ZZS getting flustered by WKX's 'want to spend the rest of my life with you' and thinking back to it when Ping'an mentions marriage, and of course how eagerly they both jump into their 'husband Zhou and wife Wen' rp, and WKX's '...you'd want to keep me?', and WKX looking at A-Xiang's dowry with wonder... They want it, ok! Both the commitment and the claim of ownership on each other's hearts, they want it, and you know what? I think they should have it, in whatever shape it takes. Ofc they don't have any relatives left as far as we know... but hell, they have friends! Some of those friends are loaded! (Yes I'm thinking of potential pure hilarity of Jing Beiyuan simultaneously trying to throw his best friend a proper wedding he deserves and desperately wishing 'the flea couple' would just go away and stop haunting his house.)

anyway, to the art! first, no make-up version of wkx who looks even softer and more whipped, godbless

and no kissy marks zzs to match...

tho tbh i'm partial. im partial to zzs covered in kiss marks. remember that post that went like '*walks into the bar covered in kiss marks* this is nothing you should've seen the other guy'? thats zzs.

also it was such a pleasure to draw healthy, nail-free zzs. i do love the pale, gaunt-faced version of him that i use in novel-timeline fanarts but like... the thought of him getting better! holy shit.

moving on! the amount of gender(tm) thoughts i put into this is frankly unreasonable but you know what? im a nonbinary artist and i do. have. thoughts on gender dynamics as projected onto danmei couples so sue me.

so the idea i had was that in costuming, zzs's presentation is p much entirely masculine, while wkx's is a mix of masc and fem. like, looking at hair ornaments, zzs's is a fairly simple guan, while wkx has a whole ensemble, which if you look at pictures of wedding hanfu it's easy to see that first is typical for a groom and second for a bride. At the same time, their robes are both masculine/unisex cut, though i pushed it even more masc for zzs by adding vambraces (which ended up barely visible in the art but like. they were in the design ok). then there's obviously that wkx is wearing a veil, his hair being a mix between the bride's updo and the half-down look that matches zzs's, and ofc his make-up, but!

Their poses turn the suggested gender dynamic on its head, w wkx clearly leading & doing some typical gong Looming, while zzs is getting pushed down and not even pretending to be upset about it at this point.

So the idea I had was that for the... 'public' part of the wedding, zzs is clearly presenting as a groom, while wkx is (still noticeably male but) clearly a bride; but that gets thrown out as soon as they are alone.

This is all based on their dynamic in the novel. WKX has no compunctions about being the wife in the streets as long as he gets to be the top in the sheets, you know? At the same time, ZZS still has some leftover ideas about Roles in the Society and what Being a man is and entails. Like ppl joke about him being h/mophobic in the novel but that's not it: he was able to clock the, you know, love triangle in qi ye, and it didn't affect his view of any of the ppl involved. What throws him for a loop is how LOUDLY gay WKX is: zzs is used to homosexuality being something Not Discussed In Polite Society even though it obviously exists but Wen Kexing will just! Let random people know he's queer af! Who does that?! And of course this is because Wen Kexing doesn't give a shit about maintaining appearances past the 'not being recognized as the Ghost Valley Master': what for would he conform to society's standarts? What does he care about what he's 'supposed' to act like; who can make him conform anyway? He doesn't see 'acting like a wife' as encroaching on his masculinity; he'll happily play along with Zishu sending him off to 'warm husband's bed', as long as he gets to touch and kiss him in private afterwards. They are a very fun contrast this way, and I thought that WKX would definitely go above and beyond even his usual level for the wedding. He'll be the best damn bride, as his A-Xu deserves! He'll wear the veil! Full make-up! Elaborate hairdo! Perfect image! (For the bows and the rites, anyway. Afterwards, somebody is getting bitten in that marriage bed. Most likely both. It'll somehow be romantic anyway, you know how these guys are.)

So this is it on gender(tm), im going back to the art to point the silly details I put in WKX's design.

Ok so it's not super obvious bcus. uh. above my art level but - both the gold foil make-up on his cheeks and the hair ornament birds are meant to be pairs of mandarin ducks, a symbol of loyal couple and all.

Also, note the braid over his left shoulder which looks cut? that's based on a tradition of marrying couple both cutting a lock of their hair, tying the locks together, and keeping them.

I draw WKX with huadian and eye make-up often enough, as a shout-out to the previously discussed 'wkx doesn't really care about presenting society-imposed masculinity and does whatever he wants', but as for the lip make-up, I thought about it for a while and decided this is something he does on rare occassions, mostly for the pleasure of marking Zhou Zishu in a way that Zhou Zishu would be less inclined to hide; but he puts it on for the wedding as a part of pulling out all stops to create that perfect image. (But also it looks damn good tbh, I didn't expect it to enhance the art as it did.)

And the last thing, I hope y'all noticing the light in WKX's eyes because he's looking at the light of his life! I adore the visual cue of having a character with 'lightless' eyes suddenly get those highlights when they get emotional and the fact that TYK described exactly that for WKX!!! Made for me!

[chalkrevelations]

So, Word of Honor, Episode 36 (and “Episode” 37) again, because I want to do a little bit more unpacking of this, particularly with some of the extra material and information that people have been able to point me to.

Spoilers, obvs. For right now, I mainly want to pull out this bit of my initial reaction to 36 & 37, because I think it remains a key point for me:

It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, show, some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues …

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot – queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands … So are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening in the story at the end of Ep 36 – what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling, isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told – by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level – is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? 

So, that’s a lot, but the reason I wanted to pull it back out is because I feel like this no-homo, surface-level, smoke-and-mirrors effect that gets layered over a queer bedrock of “reality” is precisely what the show did with its ending, and I want to approach that on a couple of different levels. Particularly since I’ve seen several reactions from other people who didn’t seem to have seen/didn’t have access to the extra of “Ep” 37, or who also found it difficult and vaguely unsatisfying to make the leap from Ep 36 to full belief in, and commitment to, “Ep” 37.

When I first posted this, I was really leaning on the idea of a classic Rashomon effect, given that we see – imho – a final Zhou Zishu/Wen Kexing scene in Ep 36 that’s filmed to lead us to believe that Wen Kexing died, with a subsequent cut to Zhang Chengling wrapping up a telling of the “story” of ZZS and WKX to his disciples. The easiest fanwank on this is that all of what we’ve seen so far has been Chengling telling the story of ZZS and WKX to his disciples, making him an unreliable narrator who in fact doesn’t know the truth of what really happened. I was actually reminded of the contrast in The Untamed (god, I don’t need to warn for spoilers for The Untamed, do I, we’ve all seen Chen Qing Ling at this point, right? Anyway, SPOILERS FOR THE UNTAMED) between the cliff scene in Episode 1 when they make it look like Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei Wuxian, leading to his fall off the cliff, and you go back later and realize this is the version that the storyteller was telling to the people in the teahouse vs. Episode, god, what is it, 33? When we see the cliff scene in “real” time, and discover that’s not what actually happened, that what happened is that Jiang Cheng stabbed a rock and Wei Wuxian shook himself free of Lan Wangji’s grip to fall to his death. You can’t trust what you hear. Also … well, we’ll get back to Chengling in a minute.

The second level of uncertainty to unwind is Gao Xiaolian calling bs on Chengling’s story. So, I felt like the kid who’s practicing his forms in the snow and being coached by ZZS in “Ep” 37 might actually be someone, not just a random kid, and that might be important, but I could not for the life of me figure out who he might be. I wasn’t aware until I watched some of AvenueX’s wrap-up of the show (I think that’s the first place I heard this info pointed out) that this kid is supposed to be the son of Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan, and the dad who comes to take him home is Deng Kuan (formerly Da-shixiong of Yueyang Sect, who – let’s face it – Gao Xiaolian really wanted to marry). Seriously, I spent so much time making fun of ZZS’s stupid facial hair tricks in this show, and then they actually do just put a dumbass mustache on a guy, and I completely don’t recognize him. I have to admit, the mustache threw me enough that I had no idea that was Deng Kuan (well, and maybe only seeing him for three episodes also helped). But if that’s Deng Kuan, and if the kid is his and Gao Xiaolian’s son, then she would have some reasonable standing to know a story detailing WKX’s death was bs.

 Finally, and most crucially – thanks to everyone who directed me to resources (including AvenueX and other fans who were able to do some translation) who were able to talk about the voiceover work in this final ep, because when I talk about how you can’t trust what you hear, but if you speak the language well enough and have a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on? When I talk about de-queered words being put into these character’s mouths? Apparently, this is what happens to Chengling in the final scene. That last scene - and the story he tells his disciples - apparently DOES provide the connective tissue from Ep 36 to Ep 37, but you can’t trust what you hear. Apparently, this is one of the places where you can see something different from what you hear if you’re able to lip-read, with Chengling telling the disciples something much closer to the idea that two people who love each other equally can equally support each other through this cultivation technique and both come out alive.

In the AvenueX discussion of this (Livestream #21, starting around 1:22:30), there’s an additional tidbit about the use of the word “cauldron” – I believe by Ye Baiyi - to describe one person in the pair, a word with a specific and widely-understood meaning within the genre that’s not necessarily known outside of the genre with, yes, sexual connotations. (Come on, slash fans, don’t tell me you don’t giggle every time you pass a perfectly innocent Jiffy Lube auto shop, at something that the mundanes don’t think twice about.) Apparently, “cauldron” is in the script, I believe it’s in the English subs, and it apparently was in the original Chinese subs, until too many people started talking about it and how it had been slipped past censorship, because it’s a perfectly common Jiffy Lube auto shop, right? and then it appears Youku went back and changed the character in the Chinese subs to something that doesn’t even make any sense. So again, we get an example of a case where if you’re a good enough speaker of the language this show is being told in – in this case the vernacular of wuxia – with a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on. Something that then gets no-homo’d. And has some nonsensical de-queered meaning laid over top of it. How many times do we have to do this until we learn the lesson that you can’t trust what you hear?

 ANYWAY, I’m wondering if the visuals are important, too: Something we see in the last scene with ZZS and WKX in Ep 36, when WKX is either unconscious or dead (CLEARLY UNCONSCIOUS), is that ZZS – twice – doesn’t let WKX’s hands fall. He catches him by the wrists and then catches him again by the hands as WKX’s hands start to slip away from ZZS’s hands – aaaannnnd end scene. I have to wonder if that’s not a subtle but important detail, that we see ZZS refusing to let WKX physically slip away, and maybe, by implication, refusing to let WKX slip away from him into death.

Also, again with Ye Baiyi – in the flashback when WKX is yelling at ZZS, Ye Baiyi says “No one dies!” as he comes bursting into WKX’s sickroom. And then even reiterates it – “No one dies before me!” But then the voiceover during the qi transfer, he’s supposedly going on about here’s how WKX is going to have to kill himself to save his husband? I think the script has dropped the ball in a few places, but that would really be a tremendous flub. That also deserves some unpacking, but I’m running out of free time right now.

So, just some additional thoughts. I will probably have more, but next up, I think, will be a re-watch from the beginning.

One last thought, tho’: What’s the likelihood that Nian Xiang is Actual A-Xiang and Goa Xiaolian’s/Deng Kuan’s kid is Cao Weining, reincarnated?

[gloriousmonsters]

cao weining just sitting Gazing in adoration at gu xiang and her going :/ about it at first but then kind of grinning secretly about it... they’re so fucking cute

and i just know the situation with his sect is going to go south but his sect brother being like ‘have you noticed your girlfriend seems, uh, a little bit evil?’ and cwn going D: ‘you haven’t considered all the facts which are i love her and will be hearing no criticism, ever’ was great (and the parallels with zzs saying ‘if you want to tell me something, you’ll tell me, i’m not going to ask’/’her life has had twists and turns, and she doesn’t want to talk about it so i’ll respect her and not ask’)

also also cwn having a whole speech where he’s like ‘i know people might judge your master and zzs for um...’ *side eye at censors* ‘STUFF and THINGS, but I personally think they have a beautiful relationship’ we love an awkward queer ally

[twistedstorm]

This is Super Important...

*bashes through my newly repaired closet door which has been bashed through many times before* WHAT UP BITCHES I’M QUEER AS FUCK!!

It’s National Coming Out Day and although I’m pretty sure you all know how queer I am I’d still like to do a little re-introduction to all of you and today is a good day for it, and because I’m a nerd Imma do it like I do my D&D character pages. Here we go:

Name: Zeta

Nickname(s): ZZ, Z, there’s more but these are the ones I use here

Age: 19

Gender: Genderfluid and lately I’ve mostly just been in a nebulous state of like “yeah I’ve got a gender just give me a sec *rifles through pockets of my jeans* no really I know it’s here somewhere *searches jacket pockets* just a sec *checks my purse, finds some lip balm, a rainbow flag, and a stuffed tarantula* Okay so yeah I dunno what it is today, I think I left it in my other pants, just pick some pronouns ta use for me today, whatever is fine” 

Sexual Orientation: Partially sex repulsed Demisexual Panromantic and I’ll include Polyamorous here too cause that’s a thing that I am  

Race: I’m fifty shades of white but I totally wish I could be either an elf, a halfling, a day walking vampire, or a water spirit of some kind 

Class: Pirate/ Witch/ Annoying feminist nerd/ Artist

Height: Just under 5′7″ on a good day

Weight: Sitting at a solid 200-205lbs 

Eye Color: Hazel-green

Hair Color/Cut: Dyed bright red/ one side shaved, undercut all the way around, rockin the emo fringe on top

Abilities: Is ADHD an ability? Cause I think it should be....at the very least hyperfocus should be considered an ability....

Special Talents: I can work my computer with my feet, like I can type pretty accurately, work my track pad or a mouse, play solitaire, all with my feet. I can also easily read backwards and upside down and write upside down and backwards pretty well too. Oh and I can fall asleep anywhere if I’m sleepy or just really calm (Notable examples: On a roller coaster, while standing up, while on the ground after I fell over cause I fell asleep standing up, upside down, two feet away from a speaker playing aggressively loud death metal, etc)  

Other Stuff: I’m loud by accident cause I have no volume control and I talk really fast and I end up slurring my words together really often which is annoying but most of the people close ta me are good at understanding me by now so I don’t have ta constantly repeat myself because my words came out mushed together, I also stutter and stumble over words a lot because my brain and my mouth run at different speeds and I fucking hate it because it makes me feel stupid when it takes me three minutes ta say two words cause I couldn’t get them ta come out right. Oh and don’t get me started on not understanding what people say ta me until they repeat themselves like five times because sometimes I just don’t process auditory stuff very fast. I’m learning sign language (ASL by the way if you wanna know which type I;m learning) so far I can finger spell super fucking fast and I often ramble with my hands (I also know how ta say “Please go away” “can you not” “please feed me”and “I need an alcoholic drink” because yes there’s a specific sign for alcoholic drinks over non-alcoholic drinks, I can say more stuff but those are my favorites) it’s hard ta learn but I really like it so I keep trying. 

Relationship Status: Currently dating a huge nerd boy whom I like very much and just so you know just because I’m dating a guy right now it doesn’t erase my Pan-ness and if you think it does you can fucking fight me and also yes Ace people can date, we can even have sex if we want to, we can fall in love too just so ya know *finger guns* 

Daily Gear: Ipod and earbuds because music doth sooth the savage beast (aka: music helps regulate my mood, block out other sound when I get overloaded, eases my anxiety, helps me focus, and keeps me from going homicidal), cellphone, battery bank and cord for ipod cause it’s old and dies a lot, six rings (three for each hand: three silver, three stainless steel cause I’m allergic to pretty much all other metals), one metal tablet rune necklace with the Nordic rune for warrior/sword on it from my aunty, one digital watch because I have trouble reading analog and my digital one lights up, one bracelet made from a skinny black shoelace, one bracelet that’s actually a cats cradle string wrapped around my wrist which is good for fidgeting, one bracelet made of lava rock beads with the chakra colors on six of the stones (my mom bought it for me at her last craft show cause she thought it might help me feel more grounded, it does), comfy worn in jeans (almost always), hoodie (currently my boyfriends hoodie), wallet, lip balms of various flavors (my mint eos one is my current fave).

Random Trivia: My favorite color is blue (almost any shade of blue but midnight black-blue with silver flecks like stars is the best), I own a bearded dragon named Seto Zuko Kaiba and he’s a total dicklizard but I love him, I love Monster High dolls, I do horror/FX makeup in my free time and plan on going ta school for it soon because I love it so much, I do swear filled dirty embroidery whenever possible as well as pride embroidery (for the queer community and also for feminism stuff) and I plan on selling it at craft shows under the name “Queer as Stitch Embroidery”, I crochet dishcloths when I get stressed, I’m a reformed nail chewer and I’m going on six months of not chewing after nearly 16 years of chewing my nails down ta nothing, I’d kill a man for garlic bread and lasagna as well as for apple crumble, I love Halloween more than any other time of year.

Alright so that’s my little reintroduction to you guys cause a lot has changed in the years since I started this blog and things are still changing and I like ta keep you guys updated on who I am and how I feel as well as keep a sort of log of my progress over the years for me ta look back on ta see how much I’ve grown. Today seemed like a good day ta do this since it’s National Coming Out Day and being queer is a really big part of who I am and it means a lot at me to be true to myself and even though coming out fucked up some stuff in my life I’d never take it back, I am out and loud and proud and if someone doesn’t like it they can shove a cactus up their ass cause I’m gonna be myself and love who I love, however many I want to love, until I die. And even then my ghost will be queer as fuck too. 

Now to all my fellow LGBTQA+ peeps out there, out of the closet or not: I love you all, you are valid, you do matter, and you do belong here and anybody who says different is a piss weasel and doesn’t deserve your awesmazing presence in their life.  

And now for a little change (or big change in a way I guess), as the oldest of my followers know I’ve been signing off every post on my blog with “Back to your insanity” pretty much since I started this blog and now it feels like it’s time for a change, so my dear Twisters:

Back to your own world

Signed your queer and crazy blog owner

~ZZ

(P.s. I might change my sign off around some more before I settle on one and might not, we’ll just wait and see)

[enbyflock2]

The Voices from Religion

CW: body dysphoria, family trauma and abuse, transphobia, homophobia

She came up to me after I finished playing guitar. I had been playing in music ministry almost every Sunday with that same group. She was crying. I hugged her, confused. She thanked me, and said, “Oh my God, it’s you.”

She was my Kindermusic teacher. A year ago, I played the Star Spangled Banner for the Rocking on the River festival. My guitar playing was inappropriate, as Joni Mitchell inspired my soft folk style, and the audience preferred the hard rock of ZZ Top. She was in the audience though.

This woman had cerebral palsy, and was well known as a professional violinist in my hometown. Rarely someone that would come to church because of her condition, she happened to show up that day. 

The tears started for two different reasons. A stranger at church mocked and shunned her for the way she dressed. She was in all-black, sloppy clothes, as her condition made it a struggle to take extra time to dress formally. She sat through that service and started crying, because she was distraught from that hostility, but also found solace through the realization it was me playing so beautifully. Being someone that struggled with vision, she couldn’t see me, but she completely heard and remembered my guitar style from a year ago.

Years later in college, I came home for winter break. My mother, whom I never got along with, said for the first time, “I’m just praying that someday… you will marry a woman.” After my anger ensued, she proclaimed self-righteously, “I. Want. Grandchildren.” I didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, I talked to the priest from my hometown. He said, “You can’t do that as a Catholic. Praying away the gay.” “I would keep talking and bringing up this conversation to your parents, until it makes them sick.” “God made us this way. Don’t ever forget it.”

Later I discovered my trans identity. My parents found out about my advocacy and openness on the Internet. I met with them in a hotel room, and informed them beforehand: This is a highly sensitive subject. We go by these basic rules of treating each other with decency and respect. Otherwise the results will not be pretty.

Immediately my mom broke those rules, and we both turn feral. Threatened me for using her financial help for advocating for others and myself. Called me mentally disordered and close-minded, and my queer support net (which includes queer college professors) the same. Slapped my face, screaming, “I hope you rot.” (A quick and bitter, “See you in hell, hypocrite,” with a wink as my retort.)

My dad took the higher route after mom stormed out of the room. Listened to me, and how this gender identity affected my life. Let me describe my mental struggles, wrote down terms he never heard before, and sometimes asked politely for clarification. All with patience. Ended it with, “We can leave it here for now.”

Both of my parents are devout Catholics. I was a practicing Catholic until shortly after turning 21, when I decided I was done with church. I have no regrets leaving it behind.

I remember the exchanges I had while settling on this decision. The argument I was having with my parents over being gay. How they always talked down to me about how I’d figure myself out eventually. Voices from years of rejection and redirection, surrounding my lack of ability to conform to gender norms. “We know you better than you know yourself, and you’ll figure it out.”

My understanding of my identity as non-binary and genderqueer arose from a similar framework of those many moments in my past experiences with Catholic religion. I only kept up with church for such a long time because of those vulnerable and kind exchanges, such as from my Kindermusic teacher with cerebral palsy.

But eventually I was challenged with grasping this sharp divide in characters from my past church communities. How can someone like my Kindermusic teacher, the priest, and my father possibly be under the same belief system of that mocking stranger and my mother? The former saw potential direct identity conflicts, and worked either around the identity through other points of convergence, or beyond: by both seeing the identity as being interwoven with their other identities and seeing the person holistically as a human being. The latter saw potential direct identity conflicts, and either struggled with, refused, or rejected working around or beyond, ultimately viewing the person as degenerate.

Every time I try to trace my roots and collected moments of disconnect from being assigned male at birth, I sense those toxic voices of the mocking stranger and my mother. When I occasionally experience dysphoria now, I hear the voices surrounding those internalized inabilities to see around and beyond certain identities of mine.

At my worst, I’d fall into moments where my perception of my body pointed anywhere: “male,” “female,” neuter, androgynous. And I traced the disconnect from how I struggled with seeing beyond my gay sexuality and how this was an integral part of my being. I’m brought back to that adolescent in puberty feeling unsure if no one else loved and dreamed like me in my hometown reality of masculinity, and how I then felt panic in the uncertainty if my growth and shape was natural and pleasurable.

I traced the disconnect from how I struggled with seeing beyond my musical identity and the great potential I had. I’m brought back to that learning musician with so much body tension in the practice and performance spaces, struggling to breathe emotion into my technique under the guise of falsely performing masculinity.

I traced the disconnect back to how I couldn’t see beyond what all those early childhood psychological tests really meant. I’m brought back to that person that never saw themself becoming a school teacher, as I had no men or women to compare my strange learning development with.

I had a yearlong period between my end with Catholic faith and the start of exploring my gender. This period was when I was sinking the most in those voices. But after I explored my gender, it assured me how right my decision was to leave. I was so sheltered with Catholic religion that I wrongly assumed church communities were the only places with this sharp divide in characters, and that I just had to face the radically kind and vulnerable with those dehumanizing others. Then I adjusted my lenses to the framework of my gender, and discovered my whole identity grew from those conflicting social forces in my whole world, everywhere.

The dehumanizing side to my background in gender identity was how my sexual, musical, and psychosocial identities couldn’t breathe or earn validation in my past realities of masculinity, and how this ensued such intense distance from my body. Then the act of exploring gender brought into scope those life experiences of the radically kind and vulnerable. First intimacies with a gay man, bringing me assurance my growth and shape was natural. Finally feeling my body and emotions engaging in the practicing and performance space, through the guidance of music teachers that always believed in me. And facing the possibility that I am neurodivergent, but my mind is worthy and capable of education in music, advocacy, and story telling.

Those life experiences are what help me run quickly through that intense distance from my body. I come back satisfied, pleased, joyous, and lucky with how I am already. I also come back knowing I can never label this body as man or woman because of this horrific disconnect. But I can always call this body one of a person, who makes the best of what life, luck, and privileges has given them.

Sorting through my problems with gender helped me to notice the sharp social divides in Catholic Church climate as a microcosm of our current political climate. We are living under the Trump presidency and the pinnacle of white supremacy and American Fascism, with anyone empathetic or complacent to the cause only observing direct identity conflicts, and lacking ability to see around or beyond.

I know the sad reality of how there is limited to no amount of time to teach those inciting violence in support of Trump. Observing my conservative hometown, certain crowds of people that fear marginalized identities had years of structural socialization informing and shaping this fear, as deep and complex as patriarchal religious organizations themselves. The pressing question is where that point in time is; where an inability to see above or beyond direct identity finally forms and holds firmly, and if it’s ever too late to undo and dismantle those biases? I don’t have a clear answer to this, either personally or politically.

But what I do know is how fortunate I am to be going into a career where I will be given time and influence to undo and dismantle those biases, in myself and my students. I’m down the path to becoming an educator. My dreams include becoming a high school band teacher, private lesson instructor, music performer, a leader in smaller organizations associated with National Foundation for Music Education (NAfME), and a queer advocate. I notice how I was able to find community and connections with places and people that I was told I should have been disconnected from as a trans person, (including my past religious communities.) I feel my ability of reconnection with people even in my understanding of my own gender identity. Now I have to hold myself accountable with the privileges that made developing this ability possible in the first place. I know it can be done through grounding myself in the voices that supported my growth in identities, and remembering their perspectives as a guide.

[accio-victuuri]

CPN: part of XZS video could have been inspired by scenes from “we are animals”

before we discuss this, i wanna disclaimer that i am not implying xzs plagiarized anything. in case certain people see this and get all worked up about it. it’s just them allegedly being inspired by something and was applied in a section of the birthday video. it is like the europe vlog having that bit of homage to “roman holiday”. okay?

now i saw some people on weibo talking about this but hesitated sharing cause a lot of the comments were telling the OP to be careful — it could get ZZ in trouble when shared by yxh.

the inspiration in question is a short film and the plot is as follows:

In this alternate history fable set in the 1980s AIDS Crisis, a closeted young man is thrust into the midst of an anti-government coup and finds that the animal within is stronger than the monsters that oppress.

from the short “synopsis” it’s easy to tell why turtles are going 👀 over it. not surprising that ZZ may have seen this at some point, knowing how far and wide his interest in film is. tho this was released in 2013, it may not be the exact year he watched it, and i’m seeing comments that it was available on bilibili before but was deleted.

more info about it from a short review here

so what are the scenes that appear to be similar, frame by frame with we are animals?

here is the side by side video but i took screenshots to share. I have to say that the whole bonfire shot and running through the field is similar — but then again, i would imagine this kind of “scene” is not the most unique. so eat this candy in moderation.🤍

This doesn’t come from nowhere. We have seen ZZ be “partial” to queer media in some of the things he shares, an example would be extraordinary attorney woo, the making of an ordinary woman 2 and farewell my concubine etc ( there are more but tumblr won’t let me find my other posts about it lol p1 and p2 below, i won’t explain any more, i think these are pretty easy cpns to recall )

we could be wrong about this, but ZZ is really someone who won’t spoon feed everything to you. He is an artist who hides meaning behind his work. As an audience, you are free to interpret. He is also inspired by the things he has seen and experienced. That’s all. <3

-END.

[chalkrevelations]

Word of Honor Ep 6, and let’s talk a little about what’s canon, and what’s not, and about the particular slip-slidiness of the line between them on this show.

But first, due diligence: If you are NEW or JUST VISITING, this is a re-watch, so you’re going to find SPOILERS not just for this ep, but for the entire show. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch unspoiled. Also, heads-up, this got super long, because I had to talk about that stuff up there and then still talk about the ep. Hashtag long post (remorseful).

So, “canon,” as applied to fannish source material (in Western fandom, at least) traditionally has been considered the official stuff – the episode, the book, the comic, the movie – based on the religious definition of  “canon,” the collection of texts accepted as genuine and official within a religion. The word “fanon” – widely accepted fannish ideas – plays on this, as does the fandom concept of “word of God,” or things the Creators have said about the text but outside of it. Is it in the show as it aired or the book as it was printed? Canon. Is it not in the show as it aired or the book as it was printed? Not canon. (Apocrypha? Maybe. Anyway.) Generally, I think we’d say that things like material in the first draft of a script that doesn’t make it through revisions and onto the screen isn’t canon, even if you can get your hands on a copy of the first draft. The final product that airs is what’s canon. BUT this gets super slippery in something like WoH, in a way that’s exemplified in this episode. This ep is one of the places where people who can lip-read Chinese have spotted some significant dialogue changes between what the actors say on-screen and what lines have been dubbed in. (Everybody’s dubbed in cdramas, it’s just the thing that happens. You have your on-screen actors, and you have your voice actors. The ONLY person in The Untamed who did his own voice dubbing, for instance, was Ji Li, who played Nie Huaisang. All the other characters had voice actors dubbed in. In fact, the voice actor for Jiang Cheng in The Untamed is the voice actor for Wen Kexing in WoH.) One of the descriptions of WoH that I’ve heard is that this show was filmed as a bl and dubbed as a bromance. The thing is, nobody tried very hard to hide the shift. There are plenty of places that you can clearly see the actor’s mouths don’t match the dubbing, and they’re not artfully shot or edited to hide this. They’re fully on-screen, mouthing words that don’t match, right out in the open, almost like they want to you to pick up on it. Almost like it’s canon, because it’s right there on-screen, aired in the episode. In my first-watch reactions to Eps 36 and 37, I talked a lot about how the dubbing puts a layer of de-queered no-homo over what the on-screen actors are saying in these places, but if you can see what they’re actually saying and understand it, does that make it canon? What does it mean, both textually and meta-textually, if you can’t believe what you’re hearing – what you’re being told – because it contradicts what you’re seeing? How does that affect what we’re told about Our Protagonists and its “truth,” particularly in the final scenes? How much is the show deliberately working against censorship in this way? How much is it teaching us to look deeper than what we’re hearing on the surface?

Several people have talked about what’s actually being said by the on-screen actors in places where this happens, and I’m going to direct you to AvenueX on Youtube if you want a complete overview, because she’s reliable and has a good compilation that’s easy to find. She has a couple of videos called “Lip Reading for Sugar,” and the March 9, 2021, installment includes the Ep 6 incidences, the most significant of which are: At 3:05 in the ep, when WKX throws himself on Zhou Zishu’s back during the zombie Drug Men attack, calls him “mom,” asks ZZS to carry him, and tells “mom” that “your shoulder blades are the most beautiful.” Only no, Gong Jun didn’t say this, if you watch his mouth compared to the sound of the words. Instead of “niang” (mom), he says “Zhou Zishu.” Twice. “Zhou Zishu, carry me.” “Zhou Zishu, your shoulder blades are the most beautiful.” This is not only important because it emphasizes he’s gay for Zhou Zishu’s shoulder blades, but also because he’s fucking baked on Drunk Like A Dream incense when it happens, and later, ZZS will reveal that Drunk Like a Dream makes you see what you most desire, and he’ll confront WKX about how he “kept calling” someone’s name while he was under the influence of it. This makes no sense with the dubbing we get, because with “mom” dubbed over ZZS’s name here, WKX only calls Zhou Zishu’s real name once while he’s under the influence, at the end of ep 5. That is not kept calling. ANYWAY, once WKX clears his head and flies them away from the Drug Men, back to the a lakeside, there’s another disjunct at 5:05, when the dubbing has WKX tell ZZS not to play hero, that he doesn’t lose face if WKX helps him, and ZZS responds with something about your grandmother’s bear, which AvenueX tells me is a real Chinese idiom, although not for what. What Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan appear to actually have said, though, is that WKX tells ZZS that this was just like a hero saving a beauty, with the implication that ZZS is the beauty, the damsel in distress, and ZZS respons that no, it’s like the beauty saving the hero, without a lick of concern that he’s the beauty, the damsel, in this scenario, just that he did all the work killing Drug Men and now this asshole is going to act like he’s the one who did the saving. At 31:24, dubbing has WKX telling ZZS that he’ll give ZZS whatever he wants if ZZS can get him some of the Drunk Like a Dream, but AvenueX tells me that he actually offers his body in exchange, in a way that implies marriage. And at 32:22, when ZZS asks WKX what he saw under the influence of the Drunk Like a Dream, the dubbing gives us some random story about baby WKX throwing a rat on his mother’s bed, while Gong Jun’s mouth seems to be saying something something about being in the bridal chamber with his beloved … so circling back to our first instance at 3:05, WKX using Zhou ZIshu’s name is now super-interesting, eh?

Another slip-slidey point of canon here is that there are two versions of this episode. The original version didn’t have the rabbit-washing scene. That was an extra that was inserted later into a Special Version ep when Youku reached 2 million subscribers. But the Special Version is now available on Youku’s channel (it’s the one I watched for this re-watch), AND it’s the regular version that’s on Netflix. So at 25:28, we now get this adorable little scene where ZZS and WKX are cleaning two rabbits in the lake before cooking them, and WKX splashes ZZS who pretends to be irritated before splashing WKX back and running away up the riverbank, chased by WKX. It’s flirty and playful and ALSO a foreshadowing of the flashback we’re going to see in a later ep, when they play together for an afternoon as children. Wasn’t canon before. Now it is.

Anyway, even with the (bad) dubbing that we get, this is a fantastic WenZhou ep. We open with them still being menaced by the zombies Drug Men, with a lot of swordwork by ZZS before he starts flagging because of his Nails Issue, whereupon WKX instantly sobers up, goes Evil Ghost Valley Master on Imposter Hanged Ghost who’s controlling the Drug Men, kills him with his Fan of Death, then scoops up ZZS and flies him off to a lake, where he attempts to tenderly check ZZS’s pulse and take care of his wounds before ZZS slaps away his hand like an offended maiden. WKX has to give him the qi smackdown in order to hold him still to :coff: pull down his robes and suck out the poison from the Drug Men scratches on the back of his shoulder. :hands: I remember the first time around, watching this with my mouth hanging open, demanding to know the heterosexual explanation for this. (Also, if you’re rummaging on Youtube, the Five Straight Guys Watching Word of Honor for this ep is not to be missed. They’re a little questionable in their reaction to the poison sucking, but before that, they’re a bunch of squeamish babies over using the dagger to further slice open the wounds to get to the poison, and it’s HILARIOUS. They can’t even look at the screen once the dagger comes out, hiding behind their hands. I love them, more and more as the eps go on, but they are WEAK compared to even the newbiest hurt/comfort fangirl.) There’s some more back and forth between WKX and ZZS about revealing their true selves to each other, no you, no YOU. WKX makes it clear that he knows there’s something really wrong with ZZS, and then they fight, set to romantic music, and ZZS ends up falling in the lake. I do the victory arms (  \o/  ) to myself where I’m sitting on the couch and startle one of the cats, because FINALLY we’re going to get rid of that execrable fake facial hair. ZZS fucks with WKX by staying underwater long enough that WKX panics and also dives in, we get some really cheap and awful underwater effects, and ZZS reveals his face! They end up back on the edge of the lake, drying their perfectly dry outer robes, while they sit around the fire together in their perfectly dry inner robes, but I am not going to complain because y’all. I CANNOT with how smug and pleased ZZS is for just a moment about WKX mooning over how pretty he is. Then he remembers to be an ill-tempered gremlin and pokes at WKX with a flaming stick, but I had to rewind four times just to catch that little moment of satisfaction about being admired again – it’s subtle and gorgeous and Zhang Zhehan is going to kill me with his face one of these days. ZZS demands dinner on this date, and fake-coughs pitifully to get WKX to go hunt something down, while he stays and does his delightful little thinky face as he pokes at the Soul Winding Box they got from Imposter Hanged Ghost. Then we get a shot of WKX looking at ZZS before he heads off to catch some rabbits that confirms he now knows he’s really Zhou Zishu, rather than Zhou Xu.

So, we’ll get back to the Ghost and the Box in a minute, but I do want to mention that this whole ep is layered through with mini-references and thematic stuff. Imposter Hanged Ghost rings his little bell to control his Drug Men, and remember that, we’ll see that again. WKX asks if ZZS came from the Healer’s Valley when ZZS offers him an antidote to the Drug Man poison; we learn later that WKX, himself, is the one who came from the Healer’s Valley. When ZZS gets the Soul Winding Box open and finds a piece of the Glazed Armor inside (Danyang’s, taken off of Ao Laizi by Ghost Valley before he was hung at the gate of Sanbai Manor), he gives it to WKX, tells him to throw it away if he doesn’t want it. WKX says he couldn’t possibly, and that he’ll wear it because it’s his first gift from A-Xu. Compare this to the way Xie’er will wear Awful Yifu’s Glazed Armor around his neck. We also see some of the thematic and referential stuff come up in conversations that form a repeated pattern in this ep of ZZS stressing what a bad and dangerous person he is: He scoffs at the idea he’s from Healer’s Valley, and asks if he looks like someone who practices medicine; WKX responds that he looked like a professional killer (true) who was cruel in the abandoned temple (presumably while escaping Mirror Lake) and frightening to a kind-hearted man like WKX who can’t even kill a chicken (particularly amusing given the prep for New Year’s dinner in a later ep, when WKX is the only one who CAN). At the lakeside and again after ZZS hightails it away from Sanbai Manor when they spot Han Ying there (HAN YING, my beloved), WKX asks if ZZS is a fugitive, what he’s hiding from, and says that he’ll protect him – by reason, because would he kill anyone unreasonably (omg, where to even begin? How many guys have you choked out at this point)? When they’re arguing about ZZS revealing his “true” face, ZZS warns that most people who’ve seen his real appearance are dead (probably true). WKX says he’s not afraid of death (not his own, at least, we’ll see that the thing he’s afraid of is ZZS’s death). ZZS warns WKX that he’s not only sharp-tongued, he’s ruthless (true). He tells WKX that he’s murdered many people (true) and set them on fire (not unlikely, frankly) and committed many crimes (true, in a way, although they were state-sanctioned, making them legal, if morally reprehensible). This is the ZZS who put the Nails in himself, who talks to himself about what a truly awful shixiong he is, who tells Prince Jin that he’s only good as a weapon. I like how we see this at the same time that we’re starting to see the side of him that’ll preen when someone thinks he’s pretty - this is a process, and it’s subtle, not as high-drama as WKX’s, but it’s there, nonetheless.

We also formally meet Xie Wang in this ep, artfully posed and playing his pipa among the bodies – old and new – of Zhao Coffin Home. He and Changing Ghost have a bit of a slapfight over whose fault it is that Imposter Hanged Ghost, who was actually Long-Tongued Ghost, got killed and got his (Danyang’s) Glazed Armor took by WKX, when Changing Ghost stole it from Ao Laizi, put it in the Soul Winding Box and gave it to Long-Tongued Ghost specifically to deliver it to Xie Wang. Xie Wang is super cool through all of this, and I think we get a sense of how deadly he is by the way Changing Ghost backs down. So, here’s what’s falling together: Some iteration of Ghost Valley is working with Xie Wang and the Scorpion Sect, giving the Scorpions access to the Soul Winding Threads, which we saw used at the Mirror Lake massacre and in the woods outside of Sanbai Manor to kill Yu Tianjie in the last ep. Via Xie Wang, Ghost Vally has access to use of the Drug Men, which we’ve seen at the Zhao Coffin Home (so far), although we haven’t yet been told (I think) how Xie Wang got access to the potions to create Drug Men (we also know ZZS read about Drug Men in a book somewhere, and got enough info to engineer an antidote to them). Xie Wang and the Scorpions have access to Drunk Like a Dream incense, which had to come from Prince Jin’s court, having been engineered by ZZS based on a much stronger formulation. Han Ying, from Tian Chuang in Prince Jin’s court, has been seen at Sanbai Manor, Zhao Jing’s place.

Meanwhile Chengling is doing poorly, with no appetite and getting bellowed at some more by Shen Shen, who would be the worst if only I didn’t know everything I know, which makes me cringe when Zhao Jing refers to Chengling as “my son, now.” NO. RUN, Goldbean. For some more thematic and referential stuff in this ep, WKX calls Chengling a “lonely chick with no one to rely on” and tsks over the fact that he’s “surrounded by hounds smarter than foxes” now that he’s under the care of the Five Lakes Alliance. This is clearly to manipulate ZZS into thinking Chengling is better off with ZZS, but it also sounds like an awfully apt description of Zhen Yan in Ghost Valley. I’m just sayin’.

[chalkrevelations]

And finally, here we are, Episode 36 of Word of Honor, and I have some FEELINGS. Let me show you them.

There also will be Episode 37 here, btw, because I’m not gonna do a separate reaction for a three-minute episode, no matter how grateful I am that we got it.

(Spoilers, so if that’s not what you want right now, scroll on by and come back after you’ve watched it. Them.)

Let’s get to the meat of the episode right away: THE HAIRPIN. And Wen Kexing knowing Zhou Zishu would have it, because he’d definitely take it with him if he was going on a suicide mission! Y’all. I really have to yell about this for a minute: That’s how secure WKX has become in his knowledge of what he means to ZZS! After all that time angsting and hiding the truth of his identity and worrying that he’s not worthy of ZZS and that he’d be rejected if ZZS knew the truth about him! But now, WKX has finally reached a point where he understands and knows (zhiji, the one I know) he’s so important to ZZS that ZZS would never ever go off to die without taking his most precious possession, the hairpin that his husband gave him! I can’t. My heart. This is like a declaration, after all that time saying they were zhiji, that WKX finally is able to truly see ZZS as that, to know him in his bones, and all of this is also delivered in the middle of WKX in a strop, irritably chastising his husband as an evil brat for running away from home to get himself killed, with Gong Jun’s little  >:(  face in full effect, and I am so filled with love for this show and this couple at this point that I have to pause Youtube just so I can roll around on the sofa, clutching at my chest and scaring the cats with my inarticulate noises. This is so good, y’all. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Also, now you know how it feels, WKX, you asshole. Which I suppose is why you even confess that it will would be more painful for the one who survives when if the other dies. And you were prepared to do that to him a second time? I cannot believe you, you asshole. You get to sleep on the ice couch for a month.

And then there’s some Six Cultivation Power mind-melding and what looks to be an INCREDIBLY STUPID and HEARTBREAKING ending that would leave us Burying One of Our Gays, so it’s a good thing Episode 37 (all three minutes of it) exists. It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, here, show. Some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues, including the spottiness of human recall, the possibility (based on the fact they’re still on the mountain in Ep 37) that Chengling never actually saw either of them again to get the full story, and the way Gao Xiaolian basically calls bs on the whole thing. But this is still a gossamer-thin thread on which to hang Ep 37. Ep 37 basically functions as reassurance because of the mere fact of its existence, because they’re clearly both alive, right there in front of your face, regardless of the other fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense, based on Ep 36. It ultimately doesn’t matter if there is no Step 2, because Step 3: Profit! is … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen. No matter how vaguely unsatisfying the lack of Step 2 may be.

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot - queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly just enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands. (I mean, barring anything else, they’re a couple in the original source material, so checkmate, censorship.) So, are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening at the end of Ep 36 - what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling - isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told - by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level - is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? Is Ep 37 canon? Does it matter, when “what is canon” is already so slippery on this show, where you can apparently lip-read something that’s different than what you’re hearing, and it functions as canon because of the mere fact of its existence, because it’s clearly … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen.

Anyway, just some thoughts on all that, which I guess is my own fanwankery work to join up the end of Ep 36 with Ep 37, which was, of course, delightful. No matter how much I might bemoan the lack of Step 2, I had a stupid, dopey grin on my face all the way through Ep 37 and might have even teared up a tiny bit at the very end. You can’t prove anything. Lemme tell you, though, it’s a good idea to have 37 on hand when you run into the brick wall of the end of 36, because while WKX’s willingness to sacrifice himself for love is theoretically great, it is not something I actually want to see come to fruition, given the pall it would cast over the entire joyous experience that the ZZS/WKX relationship is throughout the rest of the show. Sure, there’s always fic, but there’s a heaviness that hangs over the Bury Your Gays trope, and it’s retroactively ruined shows for me before. So THANK YOU, to those of you who hooked me up so I could immediately move on to Ep 37.

What else? Other things:

OK, so, first, I have to get this out of the way: Did we actually already see all of those “flashbacks” we get in the first part of the ep, during the conversation between Zhou Zishu and Jing Beiyuan, when all the political stuff is supposed to be finally falling together to give us the big picture? I would have to go back and scrummage through those eps to be sure, and I’m not going to spend time doing that (yet) when I still need to do some keysmashing about Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing OH MY GOD, but I do feel like some of this was new information, not just stuff that I’d glossed over because it didn’t seem important at the time? If so, not on, show. I will be keeping an eye out for that on re-watch. I am, however, perfectly willing to accept – if it turns out to be true – that you utterly distracted me with the failboats-in-love storyline, to the detriment of my focus on, you know, plot or whatever. It’s happened before. (It’s one of the reasons I need to go back and watch The Untamed again, at some point.)

OMG FAKE KEY! And as ZZS points out, this has been foreshadowed for us from early on, with WKX’s fake Glazed Armors plot. :bangs table with fist: YES. This show is going to reward re-watching SO MUCH.

Duan Pengju, oh my god, this asshole. The look on his face when the Armory didn’t open was so gratifying. Also, ha. I wondered when ZZS was finally going to be done with his shit. In fact, so much gratification in this whole scene. Xie Wang’s face when he realizes WKX double-crossed him – what, did you think you were the only tricksy one in that little alliance, Xie’er? And, holy shit – I cannot believe that Xie’er actually words this as WKX failing him, taking us back around to this theme one more time again. I would maybe feel a little worse for you if you hadn’t been a hairsbreadth away from killing him before ZZS stopped you in the last ep, Xie’er. Also if you hadn’t helped get A-Xiang killed. So I think the fail in this relationship is going both ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the time WKX had to start untangling yourself from the ways your abuser has fucked you up and over.

It once again becomes blindingly clear why ZZS has been my ride-or-die during this whole thing: Under the grumpy, irritable, day-drinking yet somehow eminently practical exterior, he’s actually an idealistic do-gooder who just wants to make the world a better place for people and sacrifice himself for great justice. Never let it be said that I don’t have a type. Also, I mean. Zhang Zhehan’s FACE. Let’s don’t discount the power of that.

Final word: Don’t miss Ep 37. All three minutes of it. They are perhaps the most important three minutes of the entire show.

(I mean, not FINAL final word. I expect to be going back for a re-watch and posting more things, particularly on eps from before I started typing up 1000K-word reactions this first time around.)