#Zhao Li An

[castial]

god i'm really obsessed with them!! they stole all my attention from minute 1 <3

[nerdypotatoe5]

Weird but funny coincidence

If I had a dollar for every time that I've watched a Taiwanese BL series featuring a gang, where the secondary couple has someone who picks up his partner and throws him over his shoulder and 'kidnaps' him from where he was standing beside his friend and puts him down on/in a mode of transport - I would have 2 dollars.

Which isn't a lot, it's just weird that it happened twice.

[bl-bracket]

#1 Himbo Prelims: Zhao Li An (HIStory 3: Trapped)

Propaganda: none submitted

Remember the essential qualities of a himbo are:

Is STRONG

Is KIND

Is NOT SMART

[coffeebookslovegt]

-¿Realmente necesitas irte?

-¿Por qué me estás preguntando? Si no quieres que me vaya, me quedo.

-Entonces no te vayas.

[tittylover26]

I adopted a new doggy today, and before bringing her home, I spent half of my morning thinking about a name for her.

Unsurprisingly, all of my writer's creativity for names died at that instant and only a scene of HIStory 3: Trapped could be found in my head:

So, y'all say hi to...

💫Miàn💫

[castial]

OMGGGG I really can't stop smiling :D

My translations of the character profiles from the “The Making of HIStory 3: Trapped and MODC book. 

Tang Yi’s unwillingness to fill this in made me laugh. Also, Shaofei’s biggest fear is Tang Yi going missing, which… 😭🥺❤

[divineandmajesticinone]

FANGS OF FORTUNE (2024)

– What's this? It looks pretty. – This is not a hairpin.

[axolone]

Gao YiZhi in Heavenly Tyrant by @xiranjayzhao!

He was my surprise favorite in this book, I loved so many of his scenes, especially the hair cutting one.

[mutantfactor]

Fangs of Fortune 𓆩𓆪 Zhuo Yichen & Zhao Yuanzhou

[his-catness-tchalla]

Fangs of Fortune + text posts

[incorrect-ironwidow]

Taiping: Fuck, marry, kill- Renjie, Shimin and Yizhi.

Zetian: Marry Shimin, fuck Yizhi, and kill Qin Zheng.

Qin Zheng: I wasn’t even one of the options, what the fuck?

[eulaties]

theyre unparalleled

[art-missy]

"I want to be your boyfriend."

You already knew Iso was full of surprises, but nothing could have predicted the pure and raw shock painted all over your face. It took your brain ten seconds to register the information and fully comprehend his sentence, fifteen for your eyes to blink again, twenty to close your dropping jaw and thirty to finally ask:

"You what ?"

His face was as stoic as ever as his beautiful eyes bored into yours. He stood tall and right in front of you in all his casual badassery while you knew you were being ridiculous with your jaw dropping again.

"I want to be your boyfriend," he repeated.

He was so serious right now. More serious than you've ever seen him on mission. And you did not know it was possible until now. He did not move and just waited for your answer. But you could not answer, the whiplash of his words was too violent. It took a complete minutes for your voice to come back and you internally thanked him for his patience —you did not know if it was patience, just his usual and casual stoicism or a silent mix of both.

"Why ?" you finally asked, your voice sounding like a croak to your ears.

"Because I love you," he answered simply. "I love these moments we spend together after training sessions, I love talking to you and talking with you all night in the garden made me realize that I have feelings for you."

"Well shit," you thought.

You internally swore his straightforwardness would kill you one day. His feelings were not one-sided. You had fallen for him a long time ago. Who wouldn't have ? His attractive appearance and his sweetness hidden under layers of solid forbearance made you ridiculously fall for him. You would have never thought that he would love you too.

"I maybe read the signals wrong," Iso said, his shoulders slightly deflating.

"Huh ?"

"I thought you felt something for me too."

Of course he noticed. He was one of the most observant people you knew.

"I do ! I really do !" you affirmed. "But it's...it's just..." you took a deep breath then looked at him in the eyes. "It's so sudden ! I think we're skipping some steps."

You noticed the faint spark appearing in his eyes and his shoulders straightening again (seemed like you were also observant) as he took a step closer.

"Noted," he nodded. "How about a date to take things slow ?"

You blinked and felt your jaw dropping again.

"A date ?"

He nodded again and you saw a hint of a smile on the corners of his lips.

"O-Okay," you stuttered and cleared your throat. "Just tell me when and-and I'll prepare and wait for you."

Iso took another step closer.

"After tonight's training. Sounds good ?"

You only nodded and he smiled almost shyly.

"Cool. I'll pick you up in your dorm room."

And just like that, he walked away. You took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm your racing heart. You were too focused on your own breathing to notice Iso clenching his hoodie as he turned around a corner. His breathing was quick but his heart quicker. He hadn't felt this nervous in a long time.

"哎呀 !"

[lost-sheep]

I would burn the world to bring some heat to you

[ajaxbell]

Fangs of Fortune (Bai Ze Ling): perfect on pure aesthetics alone, but also it will tear your heart out while being very gay.

I was lured in to this show by Tumblr gifsets and friends on Bluesky talking about how queer and poly this show is. I'm old and I've been in fandom more than half my life. I know how to read queer subtext. I'm also pretty well versed in cdramas, so again, I know how to read subtext. So I went into this ready to, well, read the subtext.

But no this show is just puts the queer it right there in the text. The vague information we have about Chinese censorship repeatedly left me asking, 'wait how are they getting away with this?' Like some of these jokes and implications are just so blatant it seems incredible this show ever made it to being broadcast. It just feels very much like queer media made for queer people even if t's more subtle than something western like Queer as Folk.

Even without the heavy coloring of gay this show is incredible and so much more than I expected from the title and the promo. The premise is essentially the death of the goddess, who governed relations between humans and demons, leads to an influx of demons in the human world. This brings together the goddess's disciple, Wen Xiao--seeking to restore the goddess's power. WX's childhood sweetheart, Zhuo Yichen--seeking to restore the demon-hunting bureau after the powerful demon Zhu Yan killed his father and brother. It opens on Zhu Yan, in human disguise as as Zhao Yuanzhou, volunteering to help the imperial court restore the demon-hunting bureau to quell the chaos. They are joined by Pei Sijing, a retired female general from the rival demon hunting sect, and a very young doctor (and comic relief) named Bai Jiu. It starts off as a sort of monster-of-the-week with a grim Scooby gang doing detective work and fighting monsters. Each major demon has a mini arc that relates to the larger case (restoring the power of the goddess to balance the realms), and they are repeatedly blocked by either the demons or the rival demon hunting sect. Each mini arc also acts as a mirror or parallel story to slowly revealed backstory of all the main characters as well. In true cdrama fashion it's a mix of adventure, intense emotional drama, romance, and comedy. And queer and poly jokes and romance. It also has a kind of manga vibe in the way the comedy is woven into the more serious story, and in the fantastical depiction of the characters and how the story unfolds.

It is also just insanely beautiful. Every single shot is lovely. The costumes, make up, and hair are incredible. The casting director made all the major demons inhumanly beautiful. The sets are spectacular. The effects are nicely done. Every bit of has the vague surreality of a fairytale. The perfection of each shot ads to the manga vibe, as if we're seeing each critical storytelling panel come alive. There's recurring water-based special effects that are just gorgeous. Based on aesthetics alone this show would be worth watching to me. That it is combined with a complex, very emotional story is a spectacular gift to the watcher. A lot of the negative reviews of this complain about the staginess or that it's overly contrived in how each scene is shot. But I think it's gorgeous, works perfectly with the storytelling, and if we criticize art on whether it achieves the goal it intended then this show is doing exactly and perfectly what it means to do and doing it beautifully.

Additionally the acting is also very good, but Neo Hou is the stand out for sure. I enjoyed him in Back from the Brink, especially the later part of the story, but in Fangs of Fortune he's transformed, utterly embodying the role, the way Dylan Wang is Dongfang Qingcang in Love Between Fairy and Devil. Neo Hou has the right look, a slightly uncanny beauty perfect for a gorgeous immortal not of this world. The show does incredible things with his styling between the various looks and personas the role requires. But in acting he somehow manages to utterly transform his face and demeanor to manifest each aspect of the character as story demands changes from him.

There is a lot of crying in this drama. Like early on I joked that there was going to be a character crying a single perfect tear in every ep. Lol nope. Multiple single perfect tears per ep and many outright full on sobbing scenes. This show is just waiting to rip your heart out and you see it right from the beginning. But it was such sweet pain all the way through. Just a truly engaging and utterly wrenching set of intertwined stories.

My only criticism is that the pacing falls apart in the last 3 episodes. But overall the story is solid through the end, though like so many cdramas, it's saved by the epilogue.

You should absolutely watch it if you want the chaotic bi polycule (it's her, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's boyfriend who is also her boyfriend, their two idiot sons, and her boyfriend's ex-who is also eventually sort of his boyfriend again), or if you want your heart torn out and stomped on. Or even if you just like really gorgeous cinematic things. Also if you watch, please don't skip the ending credits, as they change as the arcs change, and the radiant joy Tian Jiarui has as he dances is an excellent antidote to the emotions of each episode.

[la-muerta]

[ENG SUB] Deleted lines from the script, Li Lun and Zhao Yuanzhou/Zhu Yan, EP04 & EP33

I don't know what their source for the audio is but the deleted lines are from the original script. This vid edit was made by 诹拾 on Bilibili.