#and you are the one who holds Wen kexing

[shaguagua]

This is poem 將進酒(jiāng jìn jiǔ; Offering a drink) by 李白(Li bai) in 唐朝(tang dynasty). He is very well know in Asia, and he is respected as god of poem. He wrote many poems about drinking that 李白 loved to drink.

The poem comes up here and there with different people while drinking or offering drinking🥂

君不見，黃河之水天上來，奔流到海不復廻。

Have you not seen the yellow river flows down from the sky that could not reach the sea.

又不見，高堂明鏡悲白髮，朝如靑絲暮如雪。

Also have you not seen the hair turns black to white in a day.

人生得意須盡歡，莫使金樽空對月，

If there is a joy, you must enjoy, why would you fill the gold cup with moonshine?

天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。

There will be a day when the sky-given talent will be used, even the riches are gone, they will come back anyways.

烹羊宰牛且爲樂，會須一飮三百杯。

Make delicious food and enjoy them, if we are to drink we must drink at least three hundreds.

岑夫子，丹丘生，將進酒，君莫停。

岑夫子(cén fū zǐ)，丹丘生(dān qiū shēng)，Let us drink, do not let the cup rest

與君歌一曲，請君爲我側耳聽。

I will sing a song for you, please listen to it.

鍾鼎玉帛不足貴，但願長醉不願醒，

Treasure and wealth, what of those? I just do not want to be sober but drunk,

古來賢達皆寂莫，惟有飮者留其名。

In old times, all wise men and masters have been silent, only a person who drinks, would be remembered.

陳王昔日宴平樂，斗酒十千恣歡謔。

The king gave feast in his palace with a drink worth as a gold.

主人何爲言少錢，且須沽酒對君酌。

How could I say I lack money, anyway I would buy a drink right now for you.

五花馬，千金裘，

The precious, the treasure and anything worth,

呼兒將出換美酒，與爾同銷萬古愁。

I will change those to drinks for we to melt our sorrows away.

I accidentally deleted it, I don't know why.. anyways I update with the full poem. This poem is amazing that the last syllables of poem in chinese and Korean are the same(well not exactly the same but somehow rhyme? match?) why it's so amazing is that he was writing those on a whim. 🤯

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

hiiii really enjoyed your chenglingposting i was thinking about how sometimes the kids in adult stories function as a sort of barometer for optimism about the future in their views and options in life... obviously the alliance wants to continue the cycle of antagonizing and vengeance and conflict with the veneer of "honor" but. zcl gets to choose not to. its been a while since I either read or watched, do you know if zcl was ever onboard with actually wanting vengeance or if that was just being pushed on him? Obv its not super in line w his personality but grief could be a factor. i just thought it'd make a lot of sense if he changed his mind on that due to the influence of wenzhou and how they prioritize enjoying life w your people and following your own path over expectations. priest really took one more chance to emphasize breaking cycles/"if it sucks hit the bricks"

hi!! omg!!! thank you and im glad you enjoyed it! honestly this is a question i have been thinking about since at least two rereads ago. the show and the novel are handling this issue of zcl picking up his legacy / giving in to external expectations / finding out what he really wants in life a little differently, i think, as befitting of what they both focus on. ive said in my chenglingpost that the show is about legacy and inheritance in my eyes, while the novel is about martial arts and freedom of choice. obvs freedom of choice is a high priority in word of honor as well, but word of honor seems to have an overarching look, kind of focusing on the big picture and what a generation / a community needs rather than a few individuals, while the novel focuses exclusively on wenzhou and their little group and seems to handle the rest of the themes in priest's usual style. the show is about something "grand", the novel is about the mundane, almost boring human experience. martial arts play a bigger role in the latter too because they are a stand-in for many things that are hard to grasp, like autonomy. in chengling's context, martial arts are irrevocably linked with seeking revenge. i think that is specifically in the novel the case, not so much in the show. in the show seeking revenge is pushed onto him by others as well as inheriting his sect's legacy and becoming worthy of being his father's son. in the novel, the idea of seeking revenge is first presented to him by gu xiang, and it is actually this huge contrast to how others treat him because others "generously" offer to take revenge for him, while gu xiang tells him he can do that himself. we see with wen kexing that getting revenge does not make u happy. it gives u closure but it does not make u happy. i think that is something chengling learns during the novel. he gets closure in the end but it does not look the way he had imagined it would. i think he imagined himself to get super strong and then single-handedly slay his foes. yknow, as u often see in wuxia and as wen kexing literally does. then he starts learning martial arts and realizes getting super strong is actually not that easy, and this chasm between what he expects of himself and what he is able to achieve gets wider and wider and he falls into depression spirals, because to chengling, seeking revenge was taking ownership of his life and his trauma, and what use does he have when he cant even do that? that is the path wen kexing walks and it hollowed him out and it would have him kill himself if he hadnt met zhou zishu; wen kexing viewed himself as an instrument for a very long time rather than as someone deserving of having his own life. so obvs, that path is rubbish by itself (wkx gets his revenge and his closure and his life, good for him!) and its far too much for a kid. and i think, that is what chengling learns here: he only needs to do as much as he can, only bite off what he can chew, and the rest should not be his concern. and there really turns out to be a way to get everything he needs without walking the same path as wen kexing, as the novel proves, because wen kexing had nobody when he was in the same situation while trying to survive the valley, while chengling has wenzhou who guide him and shield him and love him. (crying myself into a huddle over wen kexing and chengling and them being foils of each other.) so in that sense youre already putting it into words. chengling seems to have changed his mind over the course of the novel, he doesnt have that same outlook on vengeance as he as in the start. i think thats different for the show. in the show, there is this weighing of the concept of revenge against the concept of getting justice, and what both these things do and require of a person and what they can offer u as an individual, but also u as a collective, in the long run. they are seen as two different things and are explored and qestioned individually. i think that can be seen in the conflict with chengling and all these expectations everyone has of him and how he handles that.

[bengiyo]

An Apology to The Miracle of Teddy Bear

I finally caught up with a show that was inaccessible for a long time, and also bogged down in bad-faith fan reporting, at the insistence of @lurkingshan, @twig-tea, and later @wen-kexing-apologist. A few months ago, Shan and Twig wrote about how The Miracle of Teddy Bear Saved the Gays to push back on the false narrative that the show buried the gays and forced the lead to marry a woman, and also about how it contains incisive social commentary about a Thai gay man. I won't reiterate what they said in their excellent essay, but I do want to pick up from my Apology to Ossan's Love and The Novelist to talk about going back for shows you missed.

When this show first began airing in the spring of 2022, it was completely inaccessible in the West. I remember seeing rumors at the time that the show was withheld from international distribution due to its critical themes about Thai society, and I was curious about how a show about how a guy falls in love with his teddy bear that comes to life could be causing such consternation. After the show ended, I also remember seeing discontented commentary about the end of the show's ending that turned out to be patently false.

Now that I've actually seen the show, I want to briefly gush about the things I loved in this show.

Job Thuchapon Imbues Nut With A Complex Humanity Rarely Afforded Gay Characters in the BL Sphere

As I was finishing the show last night, I commented to my friends that Job might be one of the most beautiful people I've encountered in Thai queer media, and I think it's because his performance as Nut feels recognizably human. I'm convinced it's because this was a drama with humanist goals that was able to avoid prioritizing romance as its key outcome. As such, Nut becomes one of the best expressions of the traumatized artist trying to do something with his pain in his art that I've ever been blessed to see.

Nut is dealing with intense family trauma from his father's homophobia, his mother's silence and impotence on the matter, and the social circumstances around his life. He's a man with deep anger at his mom and father, who is also tasked with being the breadwinner for his household because his mom is mentally ill. Moreover, his hateful aunt lives next door to only make their lives worse. Nut is an extremely lonely but talented writer who wants to make something more than a standard BL prioritizing romance, cuteness, and product placement.

Most importantly for me, Nut is so unabashedly gay in a way that I also found extremely believable. He's the kind of gay that's not exactly hiding who he is, but isn't going to go out of his way to blast it to everyone. He's not afraid to hold a man's hand in public, but he's also just going to ignore the female coworker who can't take a hint. On top of that, the gays have sex in this show! The show uses so many useful tools to show us that Nut and Tofu have sex without needing to do a lot of bed scenes. I deeply appreciated this.

Inn Sarin Makes The Teddy Bear Role Into a Meaningful Exploration of the Nature of Humanity and Kindness

I originally worried that Inn was here just to be beautiful (he is), and that his character would just be a joke (it most certainly wasn't). Instead, what I got was a character whose innocence allowed us as viewers to explore some heavy moral dilemmas that a simple view of human nature could not accommodate. By the end of the show I was screaming into the chat that "He's only a bear!" because none of the problems he faced were simple.

Tofu, through his interactions with the other inanimate objects in the house experiences incredibly growth over the show, and learns that loving a human as a human is far more complicated than loving them as a teddy bear. He's faced with difficult challenges around Nut's mom's health issues, Nut's family troubles, and even his own jealousy of Nut's childhood love. Inn's affect as Tofu matures as Tofu becomes more familiar with human nuance, which is contrasted so well by the flashbacks with his dead human doppelganger.

This Show Completed Every Thread it Established

This may not seem like an important thing to highlight, but it's so rare for shows to actually do this, especially when they're this complex. I have massive respect for screenwriter Prapt and the team around him, because it's so rare that I enjoy a final episode of a Thai drama. I was openly weeping at the resolution of a thread I thought was forgotten in the finale.

This show had much to say about speaking truth to power, and how the powerful wield death as a weapon. It had much to say about how internalized homophobia expresses in gay men in different ways. It took its mental health themes seriously. It also humanized its villains in a way that makes them some of cruelest I've seen on screen in a long time. It also shows how important community support systems are, especially the role elder gays play in your life. Most importantly, I loved that this show didn't insist that everyone has to hang out and be friendly with everyone who ever hurt them, even if it values getting closure from much-needed apologies.

Conclusion: This Show Has Everything

This show really is something special, and I recommend going on YouTube and watching it. It's a long watch, but it's one of the most rewarding viewing experiences I've had from Thailand in the last decade. I'm also convinced that I have to take learning Thai more seriously, because if Prapt's writing is this tight, I have serious doubts about what we got from The Eclipse. Any Thai people following me, please let me know if you get around to reading the book The Eclipse is based on so you can talk to me about what you experienced from Prapt's pen directly.

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

Unknown - Ep 11 - That Scene

The opening scene of episode 11 landed differently for me than it did for others. I was going to just keep it to myself since I have a minority opinion, but when I rewatched it last night I fell even more in love with it!

The structure!! It's so good! Let me explain.

At the bottom of the stairs, Qian hesitates. He still hasn't made up his mind.

Yuan says "Do you still not get it?" He knows what Qian is feeling, even if Qian hasn't figured it out yet. So he says what he wants very clearly.

Yuan asks for permission to do 4 things:

1. Be more than just Qian's brother.

2. Be who Qian relies on when he's down.

3. Be someone Qian can talk to about anything.

4. Be with Qian for the rest of his life.

Before Qian answers, he revisits 4 sets of memories, each set answering one of Yuan's questions with a resounding YES.

After each affirmative answer, it cuts back to the sex scene to communicate that THIS is the culmination of all those yesses.

In other words, there are 4 direct questions and 4 groups of memories that hold the answers to those questions, 4 times those memories scream the answer is YES, and 4 cuts to a bit of sex.

Let's look at the groups of memories.

1. He thinks back to Yuan's words in ep 9. Does he not want Yuan? Or does he not DARE to want Yuan? And he remembers all the times he felt desire for Yuan, but suppressed it. Can he be more than just Yuan's brother? Yes.

2. He thinks back to Yuan consistently being someone Qian can rely on, all through his childhood until now. "If the world falls down, we'll hold it up together." "You won't be alone." "I like being around you." Yuan genuinely likes being around Qian and has never wanted to leave him. He's shown his commitment to Qian time and time again. Can Qian rely on Yuan when he's down? Yes.

3. He remembers how long and hard Yuan suffered while enduring one-sided love, and that Yuan chose to suffer in quiet for years rather than confess to Qian about it. But Qian knew Yuan was suffering that whole time and hated it. It broke Qian's heart to see how hard it was for Yuan. If he did likewise and didn't talk about things, he'd also break the heart of the person who loves him because of his silence. Yuan laid himself bare and told Qian everything. Can Qian reciprocate and tell Yuan about everything in his life, even the hard things? Yes.

4. He thinks about how Yuan has ALREADY built his entire life around Qian. "I can sum up my life in two words: Wei Qian." Memories of Yuan come like a flood, rapidly gaining momentum. Yuan has already been with Qian for most of his life, and will NOT STOP. Qian can't imagine a life without Yuan. So can Yuan be with Qian for the rest of his life? Yes.

Qian nods and says his answer aloud: You can. And then they kiss.

The sex is not the point. It's the culmination. It's all the yesses stacked on top each other until they break the last of Qian's walls. By cutting the sex so it only exists between each resounding YES, they've made it less about the action of it and more about Qian realizing that YES, they're ALREADY in love and unalterably committed to each other. Why not give in to his physical desires when the rest is so clear?

Others watched this and saw a sex scene interrupted by cumbersome flashbacks. I watched this and saw a dramatic feelings realization interrupted by snippets of quite lovely sex that drove those feelings home.

A final note: It's probably because I'm demisexual, but I am frequently unmoved by sex scenes, especially when they do not advance the plot or the character development. This onscreen scene moved me. It hit the right emotional note. It was focused primarily on Qian's pov (his face is the one the camera is focusing on). And it was artfully done, instead of merely being titillating.

I'm tagging a few people who I recall talking about this in their posts, but it's been a couple of weeks so forgive me if I leave someone out or misremember. @absolutebl @lurkingshan @bengiyo @wen-kexing-apologist @wanderlust-in-my-soul @twig-tea

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: ก่อนดอกไม้…บาน / 花开有时颓靡无声 / Meet You at the Blossom

Meet You at the Blossom is a 2024 joint Thai/Chinese adaptation of a Chinese danmei novel. Marketing itself as an "uncensored BL," it tells the love story of the world's dumbest boy and the absolute psychopath he has the (mis)fortune to fall for.

Note that "uncensored" doesn't mean you're going to see somebody's little blossom or anything like that. It just means that the love story is textual and canonical. These boys declare their love for one another. They hold hands. They smooch. They have soft, unfocused scenes where one of them climbs on top of the other and then everything fades to black. They are two boys and they are in love ... and sure, one of them thinks the other is a girl for longer than is probably reasonable, but what relationship doesn't have its share of misunderstandings?

This twelve-episode drama is a bodice-ripping melodrama with a bottom-barrel Harlequin novel plot. It is the most soap opera I've seen something that isn't a soap opera be. If you are the kind of person who enjoys this sort of thing, you are absolutely going to enjoy this sort of thing. If you're not ... well, it might still hook you anyway. Here's five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. Perfect toxic yaoi sludge

Do you only consume media about healthy relationships between consenting equals, where people have conversations and are always honest about their feelings? Great. Turn this off immediately.

Meet You at the Blossom is the show for people who yearn for the days of Kizuna. People who still think longingly about Zetsuai 1989. People who will not be convinced that Tokyo Babylon is anything but peak romance. People who have seen Gravitation more than once and of their own volition. People who have looked the trashiest yaoi out there dead in the eye and shouted BRING ME MORE.

I keep using the word "yaoi" because that's what it is. It's a gay relationship begun under false premises, consummated under sketchy circumstances, longed for despite serious reasons to stay broken up, and then all somehow worked out in the end. I have described the main pairing as, what if Wen Kexing fell in love with a labradoodle? Carried out to its logical conclusion, this relationship would be good for neither Wen Kexing nor the labradoodle. But for the purposes of a catastrophically badly paced twelve-episode series, it's all the dramatic fuel you need.

Nothing about their relationship is ever reliably safe, sane, or consensual -- and that's the fun of it! Look, the first time they fuck (in episode two!) is under the influence of sex pollen, and they come out the other side of it awkward but definitely not traumatized. I've seen people say they wish the show had treated the noncon bits with more gravity, which ... look, there's no noncon here. Actual noncon-wanters would be sorely disappointed by what this show offers. There's some impaired judgment and overblown irrational jealousy and aggressively pinning one's very drunk partner to the bed, but it's that kind of perfectly okay force fantasy that works in fiction, because in fiction everyone's okay with it. You know they're okay with it. The writer wrote it so they're okay with it. Everybody is getting exactly what they want.

This is a drama about people having Big Feelings that would be terrifying in real life, but are fun as hell onscreen. So you are promising me right now that if you watch this, you will not overthink it, because overthinking this show is like being that raccoon that failed at washing a piece of cotton candy. Don't try to clean up this delicate sugary mess. Eat it dirty.

2. Some fascinating faces

This is going to sound like such a backhanded compliment, but I swear it's not: There are some really interesting-looking people in this show! I can't swear this is because of the Thai production elements, but I have to assume that the different cultural beauty standards at work at least somewhat influenced the casting choices.

A thing about c-dramas is, the majority of the under-40 male actors look like their base model came off of one of the dozen or so approved production lines at the Pretty Boy Factory. While I enjoy these production lines, combine it with my natural touch of faceblindness, and I've had some hilarious moments where I have been certain two characters were played the same person, when they were in fact very much not.

This show is full of a bunch of actors you'd be hard-pressed to mistake for anyone else. There's like one guy who's conventionally c-drama handsome, while everyone else brings a lot more variety to the table than you tend to find in productions like this.

Li Le, when he's all done up as Zongzheng Huaien, is strikingly beautiful in a way that reminds me of old film starlets who maybe should've stopped about one nose job ago. I've seen pictures of him when he's dressed like a regular modern boy, and he's lovely, sure. But with the hair and the outfits and the constant haughty ice-cold stares he's leveling at people, the final look is stunning. And then he smiles and it's just the cutest goofy grin! Anyway, there's a whole big deal about Huaien's parentage, when the obvious answer is that the fey folk dropped him off and said, good luck with this one.

Meanwhile, Wang Yunkai, who plays Jin Xiaobao, has perfectly plump, kissable lips and a wide, soft nose that together with his giant eyes give him the perfect air of an innocent bisexual dumbass currently in the process of figuring out the whole "bisexual" part. He's so cute and cuddleable that you feel extra-bad when you see him in pain, which works for the show, because he spends a lot of the back half of the series being in both emotional and physical pain, as per conventions of the genre.

As for the rest of the cast, there's...

store-brand Huang Youming!

pouty Thai princess!

slimy kite dude and his terrible 'stache!

these precious dipshits!

...and a couple guys I just straight-up can't find pictures of, even though they're important named characters, because this may be the first thing they've been in? Look, this is not a show of well-known names, nor is it something that's probably to launch any careers to prominence. I'm not even going to say this is a show where everybody looks like everyday average people, because no! They obviously do not! They are very attractive people! They are just attractive according to a set of criteria you do not often see on Chinese television, and I think that's great.

3. You don't have to say NO HOMO every time you touch another dude

Really, truly, the greatest thing about an overtly BL property is how touchy men can be -- and not even the romantic pairings! Loyal servants get to hug their masters! Coworkers get to fall asleep in a two-man puppy pile! Childhood besties get to wrap comforting arms around one another! Brothers in arms get to catch their fallen comrades! Friends get to tearfully bid farewell to one another before leaving on journeys! Cousins get to embrace to the point one of the cousins really wishes they would stop!

Mostly it's that once you've removed the fear that gay shit might get your show censored, you can have your male characters engage in a perfectly regular amount of human physical contact.

Like, one of my favorite funny things about c-dramas is the amount of wrist-gripping that happens, as though dragging someone else along by their wrist is a real-life thing that happens often, or even at all. It's the perfect example of how paranoia about depicting physical intimacy leads to substitutes that are just bizarre. We can't possibly have these two people hold hands! So let's make up another gesture and pretend it's a thing people do voluntarily and (more importantly) heterosexually!

But when you've already outright put the YEP, IT'S GAY sign on your production, that paranoia vanishes. What are the censors going to do, get mad at the part where two friends are sleeping tangled up with one another? Three minutes ago there was a scene where one guy kissed another on the mouth! Let those boys snooze!

Alas that the scenes that are supposed to be sexy come across as mostly awkward -- largely because those two leads don't really seem all that keen on sticking their tongues down each other's throats, which, you know, I get; it'd be weird if I had to kiss my coworkers. But what they are good at is snuggling. I almost wish -- and keep in mind this is me saying this -- they'd cut the scenes that were trying to be horny and leaned more into the tender, playful moments they get together. Those are the ones that made me squeal happily and kick my little feet.

I have to mention this one: There is a little cheek kiss that I absolutely love. (I can't find a screencap of it, and my own attempts at screenshotting it were hilariously unproductive, but it gets played as part of gay flashbacks pretty much once an episode, so you can't miss it.) Huaien is being menacing in an attempt to be offputting, and Xiaobao is stubbornly refusing to be anything but charmed by it, and as soon as Huaien turns his head, Xiaobao takes advantage of the moment and plants a quick little mwah! on Huaien's cheek.

And it's SO GOOD. I said out loud, in that moment, do you know how many shows would be improved if one guy could just give another guy a little kissie on his cheek? It should be like how getting a PG-13 rating allows your movie one "fuck," but instead every c-drama gets one moment where a guy gives another guy a little peck. Not even on the lips! Like how Aragorn gets to give Boromir a farewell forehead kiss. Sometimes a scene just calls for a little kissie! Sometimes everything would be better if a guy could just kiss the homies!

You're thinking now of all the places you'd use your single little kissie in various dramas, aren't you? Yeah, so am I.

4. side pairs side pairs side pairs~

Yeah, main couple, true love, happily ever after, whatever. SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS [banging rhythmically on table]

You know the genre, so you know there's always going to be That One Guy that threatens to steal the pure-hearted one away from the psycho by being handsome, rich, well-intentioned, and generally emotionally stable. You also know it's not going to work, because no matter how much healthier that relationship would be, it's not the tasty toxic flavor we're going for here. Anyway, sorry, Su Yin, but you never left the childhoodbestfriendzone.

That bratty prince wants to fuck his cousin so bad. His cousin is not going to fuck him, not because of cousin status, but because the bratty prince needs to be tossed out the nearest window and not let back in until he can legally drink.

I was ready to ship Jin Xiaobao's two little guard buddies -- but no! The littler of the two guard buddies has his own love interest who shows up later in the show, and I'm so upset that there's not more of these two, because that's an unexpectedly hot setup. I'll say no more; you should enjoy this one as it happens.

Now, do not presume that this is a Kinnporsche deal, where fiction has created a magical world in which every man is at least a Kinsey 2. There are still straight men in this show (and a few men who clearly think they're straight but have not yet gotten the memo) who experience varying degrees of befuddlement about the homo drama happening around them. Most characters are at least casually anti-gay, but in sort of the same way you might expect a big cattle-ranching family to react if their son started dating a vegan -- it's not unthinkable or illegal, but, like, why?

There needs to be a word for a gentler state than homophobia. Something like homobefuddlement, a social condition where falling in love with another guy is about on the level of getting a face tattoo or naming your child Optimus Prime. There's nothing stopping you, but you know somebody's roasting your ass on Ancient Chinese Fantasy Reddit.

5. A budget of three dollars and a ham sandwich

I am firmly on record as being charmed by productions that make do with skimpy resources, and Meet You at the Blossom's resources are skimpy as heck. I highly suspect this is one of those situations where if they'd known it was going get the attention that it has, they might've put more money into it from the start -- but they didn't, so they didn't.

I keep coming back to "soap opera" as a description, because that's about the production level you should be picturing here. If you played this on a TV with motion smoothing enabled, the effect would be complete. Everything is done to the cheapest possible degree. Characters legitimately toss smoke bombs and disappear like they're anime ninjas, probably because renting a fog machine has got to be way less expensive than the rigs for wirework. That's the type of shoestring budget we're talking here.

The greenscreen is Not Good, my friends. I mean, not that you expected it to be, but however far you've lowered your expectations already, lower them more.

They got to borrow a brothel set for like half an hour. It's the most people you see in a single room at the same time, and it represents drunkenness by spraying raspberry soda over all the lights.

If I had a nickel for every time Huaien is in some terrible predicament that seems impossible for him to get out of, and then he shows up somewhere else like two scenes later, and we never find out exactly how he got out of that terrible predicament, I would have multiple nickels in my pocket, is all I'm saying.

You know, if my wigs/beards and wig/beard glue were that bad, I would simply refrain from frequent, intense close-ups of the parts where people's fake hair joins to their faces. And if my actors all had that much foundation caked on them, I would probably refrain from close-ups, period. But that's just me.

Actually, no, there's something else about the wigs: They're styled so badly that it actually wraps around (ha ha) to being charming. I'm used to wig situations where the topknots are combed tight and oiled into place within an inch of their lives. But here, everybody who has an updo has kind of a messy one? Especially little Jinbao, where you can see the ends of his ponytail stick out the back in a scruffy fashion, giving him the vibe of a little ragamuffin who's never learned how to do up his hair quite right.

There's a plot, sort of. It's basically the thinnest possible series of excuses for the action in the show to happen, told in occasional five-minute bursts of exposition given by characters you forgot about between now and the last time they appeared. Don't worry if you can't keep track of which prince is which, or who is whose dad. Man, there's even a "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" near the end that's played up as some big shock, and I was like, have we met this dude before? I think pretty much every time the grownups started talking, we stopped paying attention. Look, I know this is based on a novel I haven't read, and I'm sure the plot comes off better when it's all packed together in a couple of pages of dialogue you can skip without consequence on your way to the boy-kissing, but in the show it just comes off as perfunctory and clunky. From what I've seen, people who've read the book tend to be way more into the intricacies of the narrative, but I haven't, so I'm not.

(Wait, in the novel, Jin Xiaobao is supposed to be fat? Well, now I feel I've been robbed! ...Eh, it's fine, I'm not sad to skip a sequence where the side benefit of trauma is that you get skinny.)

All this, to me, is charming. If you demand higher production values from your entertainment, this will not be what you want. If cozying up with some low-budget tomfooloery with a big heart feels like comfort food to you, you are among friends here.

And speaking of friends, let me strongly recommend that you watch this with some, if you can, because there are parts that are just begging to get riffed on. I would not have had a tenth as much fun watching it alone as I did goofing my way through it with my wife. It is a show that is only improved by the jokes you make about it along the way. It has no dignity, nor are you obligated to treat it as though it does. Cuddle up with your buddies, grab your favorite snacks, and sharpen your shadiest claws.

Want to meet this show somewhere?

It's conveniently up in a lot of places! Pick your poison:

GagaOOLala

WeTV

iQIYI

Viki

YouTube

Look, I'm going to say it one more time for the people in the back row: This is not a serious, thoughtful portrayal of healthy relationship dynamics. If you expect it to be, you will be sorely disappointed. It is a tale of a bunch of dudes (and, like, two women) whose emotional volume knobs are stuck at eleven and emotional intelligence doesn't go above a two. Go into it knowing what you're getting into, and you might just have yourself a pretty good time.

Get that little kissie!

[lurkingshan]

Unknown Episode 10

I'm back just in time to dive into this exquisite final arc of my current favorite show, and the tension is delicious. I know after last week's near death experience many of us were hoping Qian was on the brink of accepting Yuan, but the thing about Qian is he is stubborn as a mule and terrified of change. We know this about him, so we can't be surprised that he's not quite done breaking down his mental walls.

I loved how much this episode was about Qian's struggle to accept what his heart is already telling him. He knows he has feelings for Yuan. He knows he feels differently about him than anyone else, especially in comparison to his truly brotherly feelings for Lili. Qian has finally accepted that Yuan loves him romantically and always will, but he still hasn't decided whether he can fully reciprocate. His conversation with Yuan at the end of the episode was the first time we heard him admit he has feelings for Yuan, but he is still caught up in whether they are truly romantic, and how he can know that. Qian has no romantic experience to speak of and his feelings for Yuan are so singular that I can't help but empathize with him here. He is not equipped to sort this out on his own, and he's too scared to give in to Yuan lest he hurt him or their relationship by trying to change something.

Which is why that talk with San Pang was so important. San Pang is the one who interfered in their relationship in the first place, tried to talk Yuan out of his feelings, and encouraged Qian when he decided to send Yuan away. He lived with Qian all those years Yuan was away and he saw the damage the separation caused. Qian's misery without Yuan was palpable, and now that Yuan is back and his feelings are only more intense, San Pang has the wisdom (and the distance Qian doesn't) to see that fighting it any further is pointless and only going to hurt them all. He wants them to be happy more than anything else, and perhaps through coming to terms with his own feelings for Lili and navigating the change in their relationship, he has also accepted that Qian and Yuan are happiest together.

San Pang has always been Qian's confidante, sounding board, and reality check, and you could see how shaken Qian was when he finally took away the last of Qian's rationalizations. When San Pang said "be honest, did you feel empty when Yuan was away?" you could practically see Qian fighting against the last of his resolve crumbling. The way his body started to tremble and his voice shook as he tried to make San Pang understand his fear was so moving, I didn't even feel frustrated with him. We can get swept up sometimes in romance narratives and forget how monumental this kind of shift in a relationship can feel, but with Qian we can't forget it, because his fear defines every moment. I love that the show is taking this change so seriously and not rushing us through these final moments of struggle (@wen-kexing-apologist I'm gonna need 1000 words minimum on Qian's mouth twitch, nervous body language, and tears in this scene, Chris killed it). And I felt a lot for Lili in this episode, who is once again witnessing her brothers in a deadlock with each other with no one talking to her about why (though at this point I think she knows).

We end this week standing on what feels like another precipice, as the brothers are once again in tension with each other. This new health wrinkle for Qian is not a set up for a big dramatic health scare (thank goodness) but rather a symbol of that last little bit that Qian is still holding back from Yuan. I loved the way the camera lingered on Yuan's bracelet in the scene where he grabbed Qian's hand and begged to be let in; Qian is the one who gave him that reminder of their connection even as he tries to keep this last small barrier between them. But they are facing each other with everything laid bare between them now. Qian looked like he was in physical pain in that last scene listening to Yuan go on about how all his desires are one-sided and his own problem, but the way Qian reached for him may indicate that he's finally ready to admit they are in this together.

A note about episodes 11 and 12: As expected, the final two episodes have leaked early. I will be sticking to the commitment I made with some others on here to wait for the weekly airdates to post about and interact with content about these episodes. I have filtered [#unknown the series spoilers] and kindly ask that you please tag anything you post early about these episodes. I will be unfollowing and blocking people as needed who can't do this basic courtesy. I have really loved discussing this show in depth with you all and hope we can continue for a couple more weeks!

[mtkay13]

Chapter 24, Mo Huaikong spots Wen Kexing and senses that something's up witht that one.

Zhao Jing was nearly out of his mind with worry when the two of them brought Zhang Chengling back. He pulled at Zhang Chengling to ask this or that. This Zhao Jing was a sly codger, Wen Kexing observed, yet he was not indifferent to his old friend’s son. So Wen Kexing turned to make his silent exit—but just as he did so, he felt someone’s stare lock onto him. Wen Kexing halted. When he turned his head, he met a foreboding gaze—ominous, with the air of a mad dog that wanted to pounce on him. Wen Kexing saw Cao Weining speaking to his observer with every courtesy. This, he guessed, was his shishu—the old pricky good-for-nothing from the Qingfeng Sword sect who had made a name for himself. Mo Huaikong. Mo Huaikong listened to Cao Weining—who was chattering his ear off—and, following Cao Weining’s pointing finger, looked in Wen Kexing’s direction. He first felt that this person looked a bit familiar. Then those fathomless eyes made him apprehensive. Yet try as he might, he could not remember.  He was stunned. Just at that moment, he saw Wen Kexing’s mouth turn up at the corners to smile at him. He heard Cao Weining lament the profound love between this and another man, and he couldn’t hold back a snort. This Wen fellow, he thought, was bad news from head to toe.

(TL by Lianzi)

I wanted to make it a bit absurd; MHK thinking that "he's bad news" and then he looks like THIS - you don't say!! Earlier today, as I was imagining some scenes of TYK, I started focusing on WKX's mannerisms and how he's acting with ZZS and other people, the differences, and how he's perceived. I feel like book!WKX is hinted at being extremely weird and having this disagreeable, menacing aura, and showing that through these striking glimpses into how many would perceive him is quite fun.

I initially made another version, where he's not smiling, but then reread and realised that the corners of his mouth *do* rise up. I think the scene would have absolutely worked with a very lowkey, smooth looking WKX too, but making it over-the-top was just too funny, and I like to think that WKX does look that threatening a lot of the time. The combo between OBVIOUSLY BAD WKX and ZZS' ridiculous hobo persona is very tasty, imo.

The other version:

[whumpfish]

So, I have been in a very long, very hot shower because I hurt like a bitch, and I think I have narrowed down the basis of my major whump pet peeve, and I'm going to be using my pet fav series Word of Honor to do it.

You cannot survive sustained/chronic/severe pain if you don't develop a relationship with it. The first couple episodes of Word of Honor aren't about Zhou Zishu x Wen Kexing, they're about Zhou Zishu x Zhou Zishu's pain/condition. And that latter relationship continues to evolve and stay at the forefront on a parallel path to the development of the former.

He saddles himself with this thing as penance, because when he makes that decision, he believes that being crippled is "a fate worse than death." And then he goes on living, and discovers that life goes on, so he makes an increasingly-less-guarded peace with it. So when he meets Wen Kexing and Gu Xiang, he's doing his own thing, enjoying the good parts of what remains of his life even though his condition remains at the forefront, and will for the rest of the series. He's integrated it into his life to such an extent that Gu Xiang readily dubs him "Sick Man."*

That's what gets my goat every time: whumpees that aren't allowed to develop a relationship with their pain and are instead thrust into relationships with "caretakers" who don't do much more than provide warm blankets and snuggles and therapy-approved conversation on demand, and be "heartbroken" over how broken and pathetic the whumpee is in their eyes. Because the reality is that the relationship with pain has to be established before any other relationships can go anywhere.

Pain/illness kills relationships. People leave. They just do. It becomes too much of a bother to make changes to their own lives, and they jet.** And it's just you and your pain/condition until you can find the few truly good people who will give you love and reasonable help. You have to develop a relationship with it. It's your new roommate for the rest of your life.

You and your pain are going to be in the wars. You're going to get mad and scream and throw things at it. You're going to resent it for being the only one who's there with you every day. You're going to think about all the shit you can't do anymore, and you'll be frustrated to tears.

But eventually - if you're allowed - you make peace. You stop hating your roommate for holding you back from parties, you just find someone who can drive you home, or stay in with you. You'll find other people who have the same kind of roommate, and then you'll all get along.

And if you are very, very, galactically, fictionally lucky, you find a partner who will help you stand your ground against life and what your roommate pain has made of it. This is what happens in Word of Honor.

Wen Kexing is by no stretch Zhou Zishu's perma-caretaker, or "Caretaker" in the sense that plagues new wave whump. But he cares, and offers what help he can, when he can, without hovering and without kid gloves. He looks for a cure earnestly but without coddling or pitying Zhou Zishu for being a Sick Man. It's a more honest and realistic portrayal of someone ill/disabled and someone not who loves them than I've seen anywhere else.

My relationship with my pain is ongoing and continues to evolve. It takes things from me, but it gives me things, too. My love of whump, the Pain Genre, is one of those things. Whenever my pain spikes like this, my tolerance for fluff in the whump zone plummets, so just know that whenever you get ornery meta from me, my pain and I are sitting around having wine (gingerbeer, can't have wine with the new meds, thanks a lot pain) and bitching.

The reason there's no good chronic pain rep outside of WOH is that characters are not being allowed to develop relationships with their pain, and are only allowed to have relationships with other things and people, and those relationships are inevitably trainwrecks, or insultingly unrealistic and saccharine, because an entire segment of the character's life and personality and identity is being masked or exploited instead of embraced. So let your whumpee have a relationship with their pain/conditions/traumas. Chronic pain/illness havers the world over will thank you.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, round one of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Kinn and Porsche:

First of all, Mafia prince meets poor boy whom he makes his bodyguard. They are canonically engaged. Some might say they're not that bad, but not only have both killed people without hesitation, they went into scenarios ON PURPOSE knowing what the end result will be. By the end of it all, power couple to the skies but also 2 unrelenting Mafia heads who can and will kill you if you so much as look at their partner wrong.

look the gun tango scene, when they're in the middle of an attempted coup, and they spin around while holding each other and shooting people, is the most iconic thing ever

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 9 EDITION -- SEX, RELIEF, HYPOCRISY, AND A MEDITATION FOR THE HOES

There's a lot to dig into, so let's git it. This episode was more complicated than it actually seemed on the surface -- THANKS, TOP.

@lurkingshan and @respectthepetty came OUTTA the GATES as soon as yesterday's episode dropped, swinging their chanclas at the hypocrisies that larded this episode. Shan read almost every last one of these motherfuckers for filth in her post, naming Atom (there goes my NeoTitle dreams already) for unfairly shaming Boston; Ray, for clearly cheating on Mew; and Sand, for equivocating Ray to Boston -- all while Boston is actually still clearly communicating his preferences to not date, despite people all around him judging him for the sex he has. RTP Senpai points out that Sand is pissed off at Top for stealing Sand's ex-boyfriend -- but that Sand full well knows that while he's sleeping with Ray, Ray was technically still dating Mew. So -- is Sand stealing Mew's boyfriend from Ray? Why, oh yes he is, and Sand ain't holding himself accountable for it, Big Boba Kanaphan Eyes.

Hypocrisy. It was the name of the game of this episode. Or.... was it? It was actually way more complicated than that.

Atom in particular, just like -- where's my chappal -- but let me get back to him in a sec. As the hypocrisies were starting to click in, I saw something else going on in this episode, an opposite to the hypocrisy. I saw some clear revelations, and a learning and leaning into love through the inexperienced eyes of Mew, as compared to the painfully experienced eyes of Yo.

The episode started with Mew waking up at the hostel, unaware of Top's behaviors after Mew passed out at the Halloween party. (Top, by the way, was just -- CHEF'S KISS -- drippingly condescending, hypocritical, and sneaky this episode. Force just laid it awl out. What a performance. More on this in a bit.) Mew parties with Yo, who is like, the friend we need the MOST in this series, and asks her about whether or not he SHOULD like Ray. And Yo has to remind Mew to check himself before he wrecks himself over any sense of obligation he may have to Ray.

Yo's starting to help Mew's thoughts tickle away from obligation to a reality of his heart. At least -- one reality.

I thought of this scene when we went on the camping trip with Sand and Nick, and we had, I think, the best scene in all of Only Friends so far (cc @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan who were very, VERY right) -- in Sand and Nick clicking into their moment where they're both single, they both real cute, and why don't we see if something's there? Because that happens among friends, sometimes, and if you don't try, you won't know, right? Especially in a queer friend community that will almost always be smaller than a het community, making love that much harder to find. So you might dibble and dabble with your friends here and there.

And they smooched, and they laughed, and they were like, this doesn't work, and they laughed more, and moved on. And they were just so mad cool about it.

The way that this particular line of engagement ended with two pairs -- with Sand and Nick finding clarity, and Ray and Mew together at the social services office and communicating, to confirm that Ray and Mew just would not work together -- was a kind of relief that I haven't experienced in Only Friends yet. The slight lift I got from seeing these considerations and interactions reminded me of how I felt when the tide of trauma began to turn in Bed Friend, where the second act of that series was just trauma pummel after trauma pummel -- how much more could Uea take, I wondered. As we saw, in this episode of Only Friends, clarity roll through SandNick and RayMew, I felt relieved that there was some closure, somewhere, among some of these individuals who had tried, even ever so briefly, to pair up.

But -- this being Only Friends, heh -- it was not only relief that I felt in this episode, but we also still saw a lot of sticky toxicity and hypocritical judgements.

Atom couldn't just leave Boston ALONE. As ever, Boston has communicated to his hook-up that he's not a dating guy, not a relationship guy. And Atom doesn't take the hint.

I love that at this point in the series, at episode 9, we STILL have people judging one-night stands as "awful." What a stark reminder of the ways in which people use judgements against sex to forever condemn those who choose to engage in casual sex.

After episode 6, I wrote a little about the phenomenon of having "feelings" after sex. Many, many people have a biological urge (or even a socially expectant urge) to care/have feelings for for the person they have slept with, whether they had sex after a one-night stand, a friends-with-benefits arrangement, sex in a relationship, etc. Others, like Boston, don't.

Either of these phenomena are okay and utterly normal -- as long as you're accountable to yourself for your feelings, and not placing on anyone else any obligation to respond to those feelings that are only emanating from you, yourself.

In other words: even if Atom had "feelings" for Boston after sex -- what is Boston's responsibility to respond in kind to those feelings?

Boston had the right answer to Atom here. Boston says to Atom: no one (meaning, me, Boston) asked you to care for me. And I'm not here to hold that caring for you. I don't owe you that, Atom. That's not what's assumed when two people have sex as casually as we did.

Compare this to Nick's farewell monologue to Boston (right before Boston is about to have a hook-up, oh my god, Nick). Nick had a thing to say about his feelings ("I like you, Boston, and I am sorry for everything I did, and I am going to move on from you"), he said his piece, and he moved on.

At first, I was CRINGING at what was happening, because I thought Nick would make an embarrassingly grand and dramaaaaatic farewell, of a kind that I saw many of my drunk girlfriends make to their exes at bars when I was in my 20s, all with an intent of making their exes feel guilty for the break-ups that had previously happened.

But Nick, in that moment, actually owned his feelings, despite the timing of the conversation. And we saw Boston respond, ready to approach Nick -- and Nick had bounced and moved on with Daddy Dan, right then and there.

What a MIRROR of behavior between Atom ("Boston, you owe me") and Nick ("I thought about this, and I'm going to end it, for your happiness and for mine"). While Boston and his reputation still remain as a kind of bottom standard for people who want to feel superior when they compare themselves to him (ex: Top, Ray, Sand), Boston himself is direct about his feelings, or lack thereof, and Nick demonstrated that he himself has moved on from equivocating about a feeling of like/love that at least, he thinks, is not there anymore. (Which, from Boston's eyes -- we know now is not the case, as Boston continues to give hints of regret.)

I gotta tell y'all something. I was a party girl, like this group of friends, in my 20s. And I was heavily judged for being a ho. The terms slut, ho, whore -- were all used to describe my behavior in dripping judgement that I wasn't, instead, seeking safe and Puritanical monogamy. I was having fun with and in sex, and I was very heavily judged for it. Maybe, in part, it was because some of my friends had a harder time finding sex? Perhaps. But because sex is so EASY to judge, based on the majority popular judgements against sex -- isn't it easier to roll with the tide, than to think outside of the box and to not judge someone for having casual sex?

While Boston's ho reputation precedes him -- it is a reputation based on an unfair, almost Puritanical judgement against sex, and against people who have sex. (Once again: hello, Khai.) I give major applause to the hoes in this episode of Only Friends. All while people around them are judging sex, and judging people like Boston for having sex: Boston and Nick are not hiding anything -- they are not trying to equivocate away their actions. Their own timing isn't right. Nick knows he's about to go and hit that with a new dude. But they both have clarity about what's happening inside of them at their given moments, and they've become better about communicating what's happening inside of them over the course of the series. It's yet to be seen if the timing will work out for Boston and Nick -- but they're inching towards a clearer line of openness than we've seen in the past.

So. While awwwwlllll of this is going on: Top continues to try to infuse himself in Mew's life. Man. THIS GUY.

Top? Shut the hell up. Condescending foo. And then showing up to invite yourself to accompany Mew's moms? All while Mew doesn't know that you crossed his boundaries the last episode? And that you recorded Ray smooching Sand? Stooping to the very same tactics that got you, Top, caught? AND YOU CALLED A BOOTY CALL? While trying to win back Mew?

And...... amazingly. For Top, it worked. Or at least, it was working for a second. Mew was reconsidering.

To me -- in my opinion -- Top's behavior seems conniving, sniveling, more about winning than about love. But he also knows that he still has a hook in Mew, and was pulling rapidly on the fishing line.

And Mew... Mew began to follow that fishing line again, showing up to Top's building, and hopping into that elevator, with another person that Top had on his hook. And, good lord, now with Mond (MOND!) in the mix, we're going to have ANOTHER dramatic pile-up next week.

God, for me, while there were these notes of relief in this episode, these moments of clarity among people like Sand, Nick, and Boston, I just, like, wanted to tear MY HAIR OUT when I saw Mew and Boeing both approach Top's door at the same time. What the fuck will happen next.

And while Top will try to convince Mew to stay with him, surely, in episode 10 -- Top will also continue to judge Boston to Mew, I am sure. Top will judge Ray. Top will try to "heal" and "protect" and "take care" of Mew.

Top, leveraging judgement against sex by others to build up his own supposed moral and ethical fabric, "taking care" of Mew and leading Mew to think that Top is still a viable candidate for dating -- Cheum even interprets Top's behavior at the Halloween party as "taking care" of Mew -- will it come crumbling down as Boeing the Ex shows up for a little boing-boing?

Dudes, I have no idea, because Top keeps catching breaks! For people at The Top -- that's so often how it works in society, no?

Like I said: this was a hella complicated episode. We have three more to go. This episode captured in a snapshot a group of gloriously imperfect people making equivocating decisions as they bumble along, minute by minute. SandNick and RayMew got CLARITY. Boston got CLARITY on his feelings for Nick. Cheum is getting CLARITY on her association with the hostel. Atom got CLARITY on where Boston stood. I don't know that we have CLARITY on SandRay yet, but.... I dunno, I'll let the capitalists at GMMTV decide that, ha.

Where we don't have clarity is now with Top and Mew, with Top acting clearly duplicitously, and how Mew is going to manage this latest fall-out. I have no idea if Boeing will serve as competition to Mew, if Boeing will be the lug nut in the polycule we're all dying for -- I have no idea. I just know that Top -- who purports himself to be above all moral judgement, winning the hearts and minds of at least two moms from out of town, wtf -- will face yet another challenge in winning Mew's heart that he likely has a stronger chance of winning, due to his station in life. Top was about to come out on Top in this episode, and I wouldn't be surprised if he hangs on for another playoff win next week. We shall see.

I'm tagging the Ephemerality Squad in permanent fury over the permanence of people judging sex, let's go! @ranchthoughts @chickenstrangers @twig-tea @distant-screaming @thatgirl4815 (THATGIRL WITH THE THEORY THAT BOEING MAY NOT BE THE EX THAT TOP AND SAND SHARE, OH SHIT!) @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @wen-kexing-apologist @clara-maybe-ontheroad @kayatoasted

[bl-bracket]

Best Siblings Round 2: Gu Xiang & Wen Kexing (Word of Honor) vs Minoru & Tane (Our Dining Table)

[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]

Gu Xiang & Wen Kexing: "There is something so tragic and beautiful about circumstances so horrifyingly unforgiving that the only way you could protect your precious little sister was by claiming her as your servant just to stop the underlings constantly trying to kill you from harming her."

Minoru & Tane: "Minoru and Tane are both wonderful characters and they bring so much complexity and sweetness out in each other. They've been through one of the most difficult losses imaginable together, the death of their mother. Being a parental figure to his younger brother isn't always easy for Minoru, and it doesn't always come naturally. But he always puts Tane first. When their mother died, everything else in Minoru's life was put on hold so that he could help care for Tane, including his social life. But he never resents Tane for this or takes it out on him. This might seem like a one-sided relationship, but it isn't. Tane has a lot to offer Minoru in return. He's an extremely sweet little boy who absolutely adores his big brother. His creativity, his humor, and his absolutely lethal level of cuteness bring joy to Minoru's life in a way nothing else does--until they meet Yutaka. Even then, Tane is the reason they got to know Yutaka in the first place. In lots of different ways, he creates the conditions needed for Minoru's relationship with Yutaka to be established, not least of which is the way their shared affection for Tane gives them something to bond over. But that's only one of the ways that Tane brings happiness, liveliness, and charm into Minoru's life. Bottom line, these brothers love each other immeasurably, are incredibly adorable together, and make each other's lives better every day."

[aiyexayen]

wen kexing and link. smooch

It is just past noon on a brisk autumn day, and Wen Kexing is basking on his favourite sunny rooftop, drowsing in and out to the drone of midday insects, the warmth of the sun in his bones, when he catches, out of the corner of his eye, one of the Siji disciples coming in through the front gate.

At least, he has no reason to expect it's anyone else accompanying the flash of blue fabric amid the orange blossoms. Not up on their mountain.

Ages of peaceful living have not dulled his reflexes, however, and he's barely deemed the person not worth turning to look at when some hesitance in their step sends an alert pinging through his nervous system.

Wen Kexing blinks himself fully awake and peers across the empty courtyard, nostrils flaring, hands twitching. Not a disciple. Not even someone he knows. Hm.

Siji Shanzhuang's mysterious visitor seems to be in no hurry to locate the residents of the manor they've just waltzed into, either, taking in the cultivated garden at a leisurely stroll as though they have all the time in the world and every right to the places in it. They're no messenger, not with a soldier's tension in their limbs and an elaborate sword strapped to their back...

A sword that looks familiar, Wen Kexing thinks, squinting at the sheath as it catches the sunlight in sapphire and gold. He can't quite place it at this distance.

He watches, waiting, but the stranger doesn't notice him at all after a couple minutes and that just won't do. He scoffs under his breath as he stands and with a flourish he descends from the roof to touch down in the courtyard, right in full view. As the birds take off from the blossoming trees around him he strikes a pose of exaggerated grace, a swirling vision of robes in bright Siji colours, fan fluttering, head tilting at a playful angle to let his hair fall appealingly over his shoulder. Or, it would, if it wasn't all pinned up today.

The visitor flinches almost too obviously--their sharp eyes and subtle shift into fighting stance reinforce Wen Kexing's assumptions. A warrior of some kind. Sent here on some mission, perhaps. Delightful! It's been much too long since he got to play this sort of game.

Wen Kexing is the picture of a perfect gentleman, only the barest hint of danger threaded along the edges of his welcome as he approaches. "Welcome, traveller," he says. "What business have you with Sij--Fi?!"

He is cut off by a jolt of memory as the stranger's sword shimmers again, this time with its own internal light. The echo of an old friend dances around the courtyard in teasing glimpses of silvery-blue. If Fi is here, then--

His eyes snap back to the visitor and he looks so different than Wen Kexing remembers. Older, or younger, or longer in the face, or shorter in the ears, or just. Different. But then, who doesn't look different after a few thousand years. Relief and nostalgia bloom together, a flowering fractal in his gut. It has to be. "...Link?"

Link's brow shoots from deeply furrowed to pushing at his hairline. Wen Kexing's fan falls closed as his facade drops and he rushes over to grab him by the shoulders, laughing in delight as he looks him over. "It is!"

Amusingly, he seems even smaller than he used to, but such is the way of memories when their subject is larger than life. His mouth drops open but Wen Kexing doesn't bother to let him get a word in first, gripping his shoulders tighter and hauling him into an enthusiastic kiss, curled down over him almost possessively, taking advantage of his open mouth, unrelenting from the start as if they're already in the bedroom. Link startles, the muscles in his arms tensing under Wen Kexing's fingers, but somewhere between a muffled squawk and a huff of amusement, he melts into it.

He's smaller but not remotely less strong; Wen Kexing can feel that overwhelming spirit rushing up to meet his, now that they're touching. Ah, he has missed the thrill of holding something this powerful between his hands, has missed Link himself.

How long has it been? Even longer than the last time he saw Ye Baiyi, surely.

Sadly, though, he can't just have Link right here in the courtyard. He wants to. He contemplates it. But...no, not when an actual disciple could come in at any time. He's a responsible shishu, in spite of all A-Xu's claims to the contrary. So after a lingering minute he sighs and pulls away.

He expects any manner of things to come out of Link's mouth when he finally lets him have it back--the sound of his own name, an explanation for why he's here or where he's been, even asking after A-Xu, or Chengling.

What he doesn't expect is for Link to step back, a bit dazed, lick his slightly swollen bottom lip, clear his throat, and say, sheepishly, "Well that was nice...but, uh...who are you?"

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Part 2: Emotional Distance

One of @bengiyo's great discussion questions for this section was about effective distance, and I thought this was so interesting because Young's narrative style seems to already be doing that for us. Besides the clearly distancing tactic of not giving Hyung a name, Young's unreliable narration around his own emotions that I talked about in my post for Part 1 seems to be holding true for this second Part--Young is dissociated from a lot what he's feeling and barely describes it to us; often he doesn't even name it, and he mentions that he often doesn't understand what he's feeling. I could not get over the fact that Young says outright that in order to better understand his own emotional reactions he enrolled in a Philosophy of Emotions course.

PHILOSOPHY! OF! EMOTIONS!

The most intellectualizing, distancing course you could take to help you 'understand' without actually experiencing any emotion. And so when he meets Hyung in this course, he recognizes something in Hyung. Like @wen-kexing-apologist mentioned, Young sees himself in Hyung and that seems to be (at least the initial) attraction.

@hyeoni-comb wrote here about how Young and Hyung were using one another in their loneliness, that Young's relationship with Hyung was reminiscent of his relationship with his mother in that none of these characters were comfortable being vulnerable with one other. @my-rose-tinted-glasses also mentioned Young's contempt for these two characters; it struck me reading these posts how both Hyung and Young's mother were a part of something that excluded/judged Young for who he was, and that resulted in real or imagined surveillance of them that caused them to hide truths about themselves in public in order to not lose their statuses in their groups, which Young judged them for. Young is already so much an outsider that he judges anyone for their in-group behaviours, even though he then does the same thing with Hyung and his own mother. The traits in other people that upset us the most tend to be ones we refuse to see in ourselves.

At the same time I sympathize strongly with the hurt that Young experienced at the hands of these characters. One of the shittiest feelings is having sex with someone who is ashamed of wanting to have sex with you, and knowing that whatever your feeling is doomed because the other person can't let themselves feel it back. When Young found those browser windows my heart plummeted for him. It must have felt like such a betrayal, in the way that his mother hospitalizing him must have felt like a similar betrayal. Both of those moments were a realization that these people he loved thought there was something fundamentally 'wrong' with him (and in the case of Hyung, with himself too).

But I think what my biggest takeaway was with regard to the way this section was written was how it highlighted the loneliness of Young, picking up from something @bengiyo pointed out in his Part 1 post. @profiterole-reads pointed out how Jaehee's absence in this part stood out to them. What stood out to me in her absence was how alone Young was with his mother's illness. In the flashbacks to five years ago, his relationship with Hyung was in the dark, in the evenings, stolen time outside of hospital visiting hours, outside daylight. It seemed clear, to me, that this thing they had in common--a mother hospitalized and ashamed of the reason why--was something that connected them but also not something they shared with one another in a meaningful way. But five years later the situation is even worse; Young's mother is back in hospital, but he doesn't even have the break/distraction that Hyung had provided. And both times he clearly doesn't have Jaehee either. She's recently married, so it makes some sense she would not be readily available necessarily, but we don't find out if Young ever even just complained about having to go to the hospital to her. It makes sense that since Jaehee was absent from his life during this period five years ago that he wouldn't be thinking about or remembering her this second time either, since the repetition is clearly causing him to reminisce. And I couldn't help thinking, what would this part of his life had been like if Jaehee were still actively in it? It sounded like the stories he was writing were the kind he used to tell Jaehee about either when he got home or in the morning after--Would he have gotten as into writing if he had still had that outlet in his life?

I had to wonder, too, if Hyung sent him the manuscript because his mother also was still/once again in hospital. Were they both experiencing this repeat experience of five years ago at the same time?

[lurkingshan]

La Pluie: A Masterclass in Conflict Writing in Romance

Here we go, my first attempt to process an absolutely magnificent episode of television. La Pluie episode 10 is a masterclass in building to a multi-faceted conflict that feels like a culmination of every character’s journey and all the little hints at potential problems along the way. It’s big, dramatic angst in which everyone is wrong and no one can communicate effectively, and it’s so spectacularly earned. As @shortpplfedup noted, this show is all about choice and this episode let them make terrible choices. In this post I’m going to break down how we got here with the four core characters, and all the seeds the show planted along the way to make it inevitable. Shouts to @wen-kexing-apologist for helping me grab screenshots and to them, @bengiyo and @neuroticbookworm for talking through a lot of this with me in my initial post episode frenzy. 

Tien

Let’s start with the most straightforward of the character arcs in this episode. Tien, our poor little bro who has just been trying to help everyone, got slapped in the face today. We’ve seen how he and Lomfon have grown steadily closer over the last several episodes. Tien has been nursing a crush, and over the course of the trip to the mountains and since they’ve been back, he clearly started to believe that Lomfon returned his feelings. They have been spending so much time together. Lomfon stuck to him like glue and took care of him through the whole crisis with Tai on the mountain. Lomfon knows how much Tien worries about Tai and wants his relationship to succeed so he can be happy. He knows from Tien what a hard time Tai has had after their parents’ divorce, and how much Tai struggling has hurt Tien as well. Tien spent the night holding his hand when he passed out on the mountain, and they’ve been together since. Lomfon talked to him about how to make decisions about his love life, asked him to stay the night with him, and held pinkies with him (the ultimate act of love in a bl) while he slept.

And then after all that, Lomfon went on a secret date and made a move on his brother. What a fucking blow. A total slap in the face. And to add insult to injury, Lomfon acted like he had no idea why Tien was so upset with him, and Tien was forced to make it crystal clear: he likes Lomfon. He thought Lomfon knew. And now Lomfon has gone behind his back to try to get with his brother. It’s humiliating, its devastating, it’s heart breaking. Poor Tien.

Lomfon

Oh, Lomfon. You just had to do everything in the most chaotic way possible, didn’t you? Let’s start with Lomfon’s claims about his hearing loss - he told Patts, then Tai, then Tien that he has hearing loss and can hear Tai when it rains, and thus Tai must be his soulmate. He told none of them that he can also hear Patts when it rains. There are two ways to read this:

It’s a classic case of confirmation bias and Lomfon is so narrowly focused on his obsession with Tai that he is disregarding any evidence that does not confirm their special connection 

Lomfon is intentionally lying to everyone to give himself an in with Tai

For now I am inclined to go with the first reading. The show didn’t give us any reason to think Lomfon was intentionally lying about hearing Patts - instead he is agitated, confused, and eager for clarity throughout the episode. 

One thing I found quite notable in this episode was the question Lomfon asked Tien. He didn’t ask (as if he was thinking about Tai’s perspective) what would you do if you had two soulmates? Instead, he asked what would you do if you had a soulmate, but already had someone else you liked? To me, that implies that Lomfon does have some awareness of his growing feelings for Tien, and is wondering how he should prioritize these things he is feeling for the brothers. And Tien, who of course doesn’t know why he’s asking, tells him he is a true believer in the soulmate bond and it would be very hard for him to ignore his soulmate in favor of someone else. 

So Lomfon decides to test out what he’s feeling for Tai, and invites him out on a date under false pretenses. He knows Tai is in a relationship. He knows it’s disrespectful to Patts. He knows Tien would be hurt by what he’s doing. But he has to know. Tai confirming that the keychain was his, and he is in fact the one who saved Lomfon from the traffic accident, scrambled Lomfon’s brains even further, and he just started driving toward his need for answers, disregarding how his actions would affect everyone else. And when it starts to rain, he seizes his moment, reveals the hearing loss connection to Tai, and then pushes it even further by going in for an uninvited kiss. I’ll give Lomfon a tiny bit of credit here, because as soon as he pulled back from the kiss he apologized. Tai was shocked and unresponsive. Lomfon should not have kissed him and he seemed to realize it. But before he had the chance to say anything further, Patts and Tien showed up and all hell broke loose.

It’s notable to me that even as Patts is wailing on him, Lomfon does not have the good sense to stop pushing. He keeps belligerently claiming that Tai is his soulmate even as Patts gets angrier and angrier and Tai yells for them to stop. He has fully dug in and he’s not backing down, and the only thing that stops him is Tai screaming to the universe and breaking their three way hearing loss connection (we will be talking more about this below).

And then we get to the heartbreak, as Tai and Patts take off to have their own fight and Tien finally gets to say his piece. And when Tien starts crying and confesses his feelings, Lomfon finally seems to snap the fuck out of it and understand how monumentally he has fucked everything up. He blew it with Tai, he ruined any respect or detente he and Patts had between them, and he has hurt Tien deeply. Throughout this whole episode Lomfon is reckless and impulsive in the extreme, and it didn’t have to be this way. There was a smarter, more respectful way to go about figuring this out, but he chose this, and now he has to deal with the damage he has caused.

Patts

Hoo, boy. As my friends can attest, I have been waiting for weeks for Patts to finally lose his patience and snap, and boy did the show deliver today. Let’s do a quick review of Patts’ arc with Tai up until now:

After they were connected via hearing loss, Patts spent two years waiting for Tai to respond to him, uncertain why his soulmate was rejecting him

In the meantime, his long-term relationship fell apart because of the existence of the connection, with Nara ending things and leaving Patts alone and lonely

When Patts finally found Tai and learned they are soulmates, he also learned that Tai is having a crisis of faith, and the connection was a barrier for them rather than a help

He began dating Tai and focused all his energy on making him feel safe and secure in the relationship, sublimating his own needs along the way

He displayed supreme patience every time Tai progressed the intimacy in their relationship only to immediately retreat (both emotionally and sexually) 

He helped Tai work through his trauma around his parents’ divorce and come to terms with his feelings about their soulmate bond, then carried him down a literal mountain

And then Patts finally got the commitment he’s been yearning for when Tai agreed to be his faen, said he wanted to be together forever, and declared himself ready to solidify their physical relationship

Note also that the show has previously seeded the idea that while Patts is generally a kind and patient person, he’s not a fucking saint. He has expressed some frustration with the barriers Tai keeps putting up between them, and we have heard from his exchanges with Nara that he has a temper that he is mostly able to keep under control, but sometimes gets away from him. We haven’t seen that yet, but everything in the story has been telling us it’s coming.

So with all that established by the show, what happens immediately after he finally got to the end of this long journey and thought he could relax and be happy in his new relationship? Lomfon claims his own special connection to Tai, Tai lies to him repeatedly, and Patts’ anger and insecurity about Tai’s refusal to accept him, which have been present but sublimated all along, come roaring to the surface.

I get Patts in this episode. When he gets that call from his friends, he doesn’t want to believe it. He calls Tai first to check in (Tai lies again). He goes to see Tai in the hopes that Tai will actually be where he said he will (he is not). He tells Tien explicitly - I wanted to believe that Tai wouldn’t lie to me. After everything they’ve been through, he thought there was finally trust and understanding between them, and now he is forced to question his standing with Tai again. As @bengiyo said, Patts deserves to be angry.

And then he arrives and sees Lomfon kissing Tai, and that’s it, that’s his breaking point. He finally snaps, and Lomfon has made himself the perfect target. Now, to be clear, physical violence as a means of confrontation is never okay. Patts should not have hit Lomfon even once, let alone over and over again. But while I don’t condone it, I absolutely understand it. He has been holding in his anger and frustration and hurt the whole time, and he has finally been pushed past his breaking point. And as I noted above, Lomfon doesn’t have the good sense to shut his mouth and back down at this point, and keeps egging him on as Patts gets more and more upset.

The next two conversations that Patts has with Tai are absolutely crucial to understanding his mind set and why he finally broke in this episode. First, he goes to Tai and asks him to explain himself. Why did you lie, why are you here with another man, why did you kiss him? And Tai? Refuses to answer (I will be delving into this extensively in the next section). He retreats from honest communication and just keeps claiming that Patts should implicitly understand him. So Patts gets more agitated. He wants to know, if after everything they’ve been through and the commitment they just made to each other, Tai is retreating again. And it’s a fair question! This has been Tai’s pattern throughout their entire relationship. Patts is asking for reassurance that Tai meant it when he said he was ready to be with him. Do you choose me? And once again, Tai refuses to answer. Patts is begging him for reassurance, and Tai won’t give it.

Patts then goes home and gets drunk, which is very stupid, and decides to go talk to Tai again, which is even stupider. He should have slept it off, gathered himself, and talked to Tai the next day, but he’s too upset, too agitated, too dejected to control his emotions. He insists on fighting it out right there, even though Tai has his walls all the way up and is still refusing to communicate. Patts has tried everything to earn Tai’s trust but he still can’t get through. He is angry and frustrated and he is letting Tai feel it. And here Patts just unleashes what is at the core of his despair: “It’s torturing me not knowing what you’re thinking… Whether you choose me or not, I can accept it, but the only thing I can’t bear is your silence.”

And hasn’t that been the problem between them from the very beginning? Tai left Patts alone in silence for so long. Patts has been giving Tai everything, while Tai continues to hold back. And Patts can’t do it anymore, so he loses his temper again and agrees they should end things. The regret is instant, but the damage is done. 

Tai

More than any of the others, this episode really peeled back the layers on Tai and showed us the dysfunction underneath the way he has been showing up in this relationship. We have been with Tai through this whole journey, so we know exactly what he’s been thinking as he dealt with his family’s split, rejected the soulmate bond, and then met and started dating Patts. More than anyone else, we’ve been in his perspective and encouraged to empathize with his struggles. So it was kind of mind-blowing, in the best possible way, that in this episode the show let him be repeatedly, loudly, egregiously wrong. 

Tai is a bit emotionally inconsistent. He is not a strong communicator. He expects people to put in the work to figure him out without being willing to do his own work to help them. He tries to avoid conflict as much as possible. When he is upset, he often shuts down and refuses to communicate what he is thinking or feeling. And he is also very inexperienced at romantic relationships. He’s never dated before Patts but he’s read a lot of romance novels, and he seems to believe in the romantic notion that his partner will be able to just implicitly understand him without any need to explain himself. All of this showed up today in the way he dealt with this Lomfon situation, and the subsequent conversations with Patts.

Let’s just say this plainly: Tai was wrong to lie to Patts throughout this episode. He was wrong to secretly spend time with Lomfon in order to test Lomfon’s feelings. He was wrong to refuse to explain himself when he was caught in the lies. He was wrong to insist Patts should understand and trust him on faith alone. And he was wrong to refuse to give Patts any assurance about his commitment after everything he pulled in this episode.

I understand what Tai was trying to do. He wanted to avoid any unnecessary drama, and he is still trying to tell himself Lomfon doesn’t really like him. He thinks he can test this out for himself and clear it up if Lomfon tries anything. Everything can stay friendly and Patts never needs to know. You can see him hesitate and question himself both times he lies to Patts (in the car, and then over the phone), but stubbornly press on anyway. And you can see him watching Lomfon closely throughout their day together and getting increasingly uncomfortable as he starts to realize Bow is right, and Lomfon clearly has feelings for him. 

Unfortunately, as we’ve already established, Tai is conflict avoidant. His estimation of his own ability to draw firm lines is a bit off, and he tries to flee Lomfon without clearing anything up. But they get caught in the rain, Lomfon stuns him with a reveal he was not expecting, and he absolutely freezes and just stands there while Lomfon kisses him. He is then stunned again when Patts shows up and things get violent, and he finally loses it completely and shouts to the universe that he is sick of this destiny shit and doesn’t want it anymore. And the universe responds. The hearing loss connection breaks and they can all hear normally again - but ironically, Tai no longer wants to listen.

When Patts demands answers, Tai really shuts down. As @ginnymoonbeam notes, they have diametrically opposed conflict styles. Patts is asking him entirely reasonable questions, but he is uncomfortable and anxious at being confronted so directly and he chooses to say nothing, and then goes even further by getting angry with Patts for asking him to talk. You already know that I love you, can’t you just believe that and accept whatever I do? And of course, that is a completely immature and unreasonable expectation. In relationships you have to use your words. Tai is the one who lied and broke the trust between them. He owes Patts an explanation, and he should be willing to give him reassurance that he’s not going back on his commitment to him. But he feels attacked so he refuses to give Patts what he needs, and walks away.

And in their final conversation, it’s Tai who first says they should break up. He is so uncomfortable with Patts’ desire for direct and clear communication that he would rather threaten to end their relationship than just say what Patts needs. And it’s clear that he is once again expecting Patts to be the one to do the work, make a compromise, and accept Tai’s limitations. But Patts is no longer willing to do it, and when he calls Tai’s bluff, Tai is stunned and devastated. Patts has finally stopped catering to him, and he has no idea how to walk back his words. So once again, he retreats, pushes Patts out of the room, and breaks down.

This is such excellent conflict writing. All of the interactions between them, the way they’re both behaving in these scenes, the mistakes they’re making - it’s all supported by the text and can be traced back to their established characteristics and patterns. We can see clearly how we got here, and we can also see a path forward.

Next week, we are getting back to Tai’s parents, and Tai will finally get the information he needs to reconcile his feelings about their split and recognize how it has informed his behavior. Tai and Patts will have some time to reflect on where they went wrong. And they no longer have a hearing loss connection. The soulmate myth is done and over. If they decide to be together, it will be because they truly choose it. 

[ziusik]

fic writer meme!

i was tagged by @englishsub, thanks, pal!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

121, which is...a lot, but I've been posting to AO3 since 2009, so I guess that explains it.

2. what's your total ao3 wordcount?

2,201,443 words

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Currently? None. I went through a flash of a brief return to My Chem, which was SO fun, but currently I am fandom-less & am doing my best to be okay with that. I'm refilling the well by reading lots of books and allowing my fields to lie fallow for the time being.

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lead Me On Through (canon-era Wangxian practice kissing)

Accidents Will Happen (Wangxian canon-era mpreg)

A Sure Thing (modern-era Wangxian sugar daddy AU)

You'd Break Your Heart to Make It Bigger (canon-era Wangxian soulbonding)

On The Way Home (modern-era Wangxian mpreg)

5. do you respond to comments?

I do at first, and then I fall off it and feel bad. So, so many fics where I responded to the first, like, 6 pages of comments, and then never went back to respond to the rest. Mea culpa, but it gets overwhelming after a while.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably lullaby (SHL) because it's Wen Kexing grieving.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Honestly, the rest of my fics all have very happy endings. In terms of the most, like, traditional happy endings, I'd say probably On the Way Home and A Sure Thing, but I think the most hopeful one is actually in estuaries, the break-up/make-up modern-era Wangxian.

8. do you get hate on fics?

No, never. I once got a shitty comment, I think. That's it. I've been very lucky.

9. do you write smut?

Consistently.

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you have written?

I don't, actually! When my brain is occupied with one fandom, that's all it can take.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know, but it might have happened and I've never found out, who knows.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, frequently, and it's been amazing. I especially love it when they get translated into Russian, because I can read them in translation, which is VERY cool.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, Becoming Joan with @theopteryx, which still holds a special place in my heart. I'd write with B again in a heartbeat.

14. what's your all time favorite ship?

God, this is hard, because they are all my children, but considering that I just went through an absolutely insane out-of-the-blue My Chem renaissance, I'll say Frank & Gerard, because they are, apparently, a constant. Wangxian is a very, very close second.

15. what is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't have any! In all my time writing, I've not finished one (1) fic, a wangxian office AU where I wrote myself into a corner and realized I'd have to rewrite the whole thing so I scrapped it and am very comfortable with that decision. Otherwise, it's mostly original stuff that's sitting there unfinished and making me feel inadequate.

16. what are your writing strengths?

Writing dialogue, I think, as well as intimacy and closeness, emotional or physical.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Plot. Plot, plot, plot, as well as writing high stakes - that's definitely a weakness of mine. I have a hard time putting my characters through the wringer because I'm a softie, but to get a compelling story (especially an original one) you gotta do it, and so I think that's a real weakness.

18. thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

As long as you know the language or get a native speaker to help you, I'm all for it.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter, back before the fifth book came out - you know, in pre-historic times.

20. favorite fic you have written?

Of all time? Man, that's hard. You know what, I'm gonna come out of left field and say Simmer Down and Pucker Up, which is a Raven Cycle fic from many, many years ago. I'm still very proud of capturing Ronan's voice.

Tagging: @brooklinegirl, @airinshaw, @phneltwrites, and @dulosis!

[indigostarfire]

Our Dining Table ep. 9:

A Transformed Yutaka

Wow what an episode! Never before have we seen such resolve and quiet strength in Yutaka!

When Yutaka was a child, he thought his brother viewed him as someone who’s a “jama”, (meaning in-the-way, a bothersome hindrance or nuisance) because he intruded on the Hozumi family and now the brother had to share his parents with this “stranger.” The brother’s words were wounding and deeply imprinted Yutaka so that all of his subsequent behavior and actions were then based on this belief that “I’m a jama, I’m in-the-way, an unwanted intruder, and I don’t even know how to eat.” Once a belief like this is imprinted, a person operates from this belief. So of course Yutaka will act as though he is not a part of the Hozumi family. His belief locked him into only perceiving a reality where he is an unwanted intruder. Thus no matter what the truth is, child-Yutaka would never be able see it.

And this is what we see in the scene where the brother is holding a ball and asks, “hey Yutaka, together let’s…” but Yutaka walks out of the room before his brother even finishes his sentence.

A reality where his brother would want to play with him does not exist for an unwanted intruder. This is what trauma does to a person. Trauma clouds one’s eyes and deafens one’s ears so the truth of what is actually happening can’t be seen or heard.

Yutaka’s experience with the Ueda’s has slowly changed him though. Why? Because it’s a new reality he’s experiencing—one that’s contrary to what his wounded beliefs dictate it should be. He found a place where he does belong, where he does feel valued, included, and is a joyous addition to their family, and this begins to change his wounded belief about himself being a jama. This is what transforms Yutaka. This is what gives him the strength to face his older brother and admit his true feelings —that he’s always felt apologetic for being an unwanted intruder but “I’ve finally found my place, so I won’t get in your way anymore.”

Because Yutaka found the courage to show up at the Hozumi’s and was able to candidly share his true feelings with his brother Yuki, this allowed an opportunity for Yuki to share his perspective and feelings. Both of their perspectives surprises the other.

The brother didn’t realize Yutaka stayed away from the family because he thought he was a jama. Yuki then calls Yutaka an idiot, and this catches Yutaka by surprise. The brother acknowledges that it was partly true at first but he was young and immature. Yuki tells Yutaka that “weren’t you the one who acted like you’re not a part of the family.” Basically Yuki goes on to say that this is your home too so Yutaka should show up for mom and dad on important days.

Yutaka isn’t completely convinced though. It’s only us viewers who were privy to the scene where Yuki is trying to ask Yutaka to play ball together but Yutaka walks away. So it’s wonderful how the mom reveals that Yuki stayed up all night to take care of the sick Yutaka.

This truth hits Yutaka. His dream wasn’t a just a dream with an unknown person without a face. That person was his brother. Yuki really did care about him, and this is where we see Yutaka taking in the truth and allowing it into his heart.

So Yutaka now smiles. His belief that he was a jama and should stay away was wrong. His past can be reinterpreted. New beliefs can replace the old false ones and this has the power to completely change the reality Yutaka can now experience with the Hozumi’s henceforth.

Now with the resolution of this major issue, Yutaka can now address the relationship issue with Minoru. I have to mention that @wen-kexing-apologist did a fantastic post filling in those silent pauses of Yutaka’s in ep. 8 because I thought what I was sensing might’ve just been my wishful thinking. https://www.tumblr.com/indigostarfire/718586099196362752 So thank you @wen-kexing-apologist for your insightful observations and commentary! It truly was heartbreaking to see how despondent Minoru was but thanks the post above, I wasn’t anxious and everything got cleared up by the end of this episode.

It’s been such a heartwarming experience to watch what a healing influence Yutaka and Minoru have been on each other. Both Yutaka and Minoru did extraordinary feats of bravery. Yutaka speaking his truth with his brother, and Minoru expressing his true feelings for Yutaka and kissing him! Both of them got to experience a different reality from what they were previously used to because of the healing power of a place to belong that’s filled with love and kindness. What a beautiful journey this has been…and we still have one more episode.