#and wkx has absolutely no excuse at all

[joylinda-hawks]

Reasons are just a nicer name for excuses. WOH, Episode 24, Part 3. WKX walks up to the seated ZZS and hands him tea. ZZS sits on a chair and WKX sits on the ground. ZZS drinks tea and says that the disease took the master, but before he died, he entrusted Siji Manor to him. As a young leader of the ZZS, he was unable to defend the sect, which was under attack from many sides. For two years he managed to defend himself, so after that time he ran away. WKX tells him not to blame himself and asks what happened next. ZZS replies that he escaped. To console him, WKX says he must have had reasons. A distraught ZZS replies that reasons are just the name of excuses. ZZS says that his father used to be an assistant to Prince Jin, and the current prince is his cousin. The prince was worried that he had no one he could trust, so he turned to the ZZS for help. Memories come to life in the memory of ZZS. He remembers how he went to see the prince. The prince then told him how the prince's father treated their teacher, who died in prison. The previous prince of Jin did not allow him to be buried, which made the prince's son very worried. ZZS, sympathetic to his cousin, promised to secretly bury the teacher's body. The cousin asks the ZZS to come to Jin and help him. After these memories, ZZS adds that he led all the students of Siji Manor to Jin. ZZS did not suppose that he was deceiving himself. Once they were entangled in the web of great politics, there was no turning back. ZZS saw his brothers die one by one before his eyes. At the end, even Jiu Xiao died. After his death, ZZS had nothing to live for and asks WKX what he did then. With tears in his eyes, ZZS replies that he ran away again. WKX without words, only a gesture tries to comfort him. ZZS says that in the end he had these 7 nails left, the people he wanted to protect, the things he wanted to do, melted into nothingness even though he tried hard. They were like sand slipping through your fingers. ZZS looking at ZCL adds that fate turned out to be kind. He gave him a second chance, ZZS has someone to share his knowledge with. It's not just how much time he has left and whether he'll see ZCL grow into a man. WKX protests that YBY has promised to cure ZZS. ZZS replies that nothing in this world is absolutely certain. However, WKX does not change its mind. ZZS replies that no matter what, he is glad that WKX came back with him to Siji Manor. WKX is touched and tells ZZS to go to sleep, and he wants to get some fresh air. This scene is one big ZZS confession. Finally, the shell around his heart cracked and 2,000 layers of dust fell. A real ZZS stood in front of us. A gentle, sensitive young man with a lot of empathy. ZZS blames himself for his own mistakes, he feels like a coward because when a problem arose, he chose to run away. When his master died, ZZS was only 16 years old, he was still a child who had to become a man overnight. For two years he tried to become one. His innocence and trust were taken advantage of by his cousin. He treated the younger boy as a useful tool to achieve his own goal. Even at this moment, ZZS doesn't know how much Prince Jin manipulated him. Most of the misfortunes he suffered were due to the prince's ambitions. WKX is also unhappy to see the state of ZZS, listening to the words of ZZS remembers his own words that ZZS said when he found out that ZZS is dying. Both men couldn't save the people they loved. It connects them. WKX is afraid of how ZZS will react when its secrets are revealed. He doesn't want ZZS to reject him, he doesn't want ZZS to sink further into despair. This scene hits the viewer hard. You can't watch it without tears in your eyes. The acting of ZZH and GJ is so emotional and so convincing that I cry every time I watch it. It is independent of me. I can't hold back my tears. That says something in my opinion. ZZH and GJ played phenomenal here.

[deepestbluesky]

hanwenzhou thought of the day: thinking about relationships to food, so this is more of a character study of the trio post than a real hwz post. also, i tagged this but i want to put it here too:

cw // disordered eating, food insecurity

wkx loves to cook but i don't think he's very good about eating. he eats for practicality ususally, or for social reasons (holiday meals, excuse to stare at a-xu, etc.), but i think also he's very used to going without food, and sometimes, if he's not actively hungry, he just. forgets. absolutely the opposite of someone who snacks while cooking.

zzs i think actually does like to eat. it accompanies drinking. also now that he can taste again, it's... not exactly an indulgence but a reminder for him. this is what he lost and regained, along with a family and a life. he's also not great at remembering to eat tho, it's more when the opportunity presents itself. i think he's also kind of... hm. not a snob, bc he'll eat whatever, but has high standards for things being actually good?

hy is i think the one who never forgets to eat. i think wkx would have had times where there just simply wasn't food and generally not enough, but hy would have been more in a situation where if he didn't plan ahead or look out for any opportunity to eat, he wouldn't, despite there being food. but i think this also means he's even less invested in food being good than wkx, who at least has pride in his cooking. hy will eat anything.

all of this i think means that it's a real development when they're all living at siji and there's a regular meal schedule and young people who everyone wants to feed well, so they eat well too. the slow development of food preferences, of habits of snacking, of coming to take for granted that there will be food to eat.

[stolligaseptember]

LOVE that episode 27 starts with two (2) middle aged men who are at their absolute physical prime getting their asses so thoroughly kicked by one (1) senior citizen that they have to stumble their way back home leaning on each other for support

[fanghuas]

i love this ask game! ofc i have to ask - which scene was it for spark to a flame? 👀

Ahhh, thank you 💖💖💖 The process of making this fic was a little bananas, I'm so pleased to get to talk about it!

I knew the very basics of the setting from the start, but not exactly what had zzs otherwise occupied/hanwen going out alone, so I jumped straight ahead and wrote THAT SCENE pretty much before anything else. Too long to include in full but:

Han Ying shuts the doors behind them soundlessly. Up here, it is quiet, the jovial sounds coming from the hall indiscernible unless they stretch their hearing. The privacy robs Wen Kexing of his bravado, only serving to make the novelty of the situation starker.

“How bold of you, Ying’er,” he drawls, circling Han Ying with his hands tucked behind his back. “One might think you were propositioning me.”

[...]

He’s still reeling from the revelation that he wants Han Ying even without Zhou Zishu as an intermediary. It’s vindicating to tease him and make him laugh and blush – and it’s just as vindicating, he discovers now, to push him until he retaliates, to have his attention like this, sharp and focused.

“I can arrange that,” he murmurs. “Another time, perhaps?”

That, of course, implies there will be a repeat of tonight. Han Ying’s face is only inches away. Wen Kexing is met with the full force of his grin as he nods.

“Next time,” Han Ying agrees.

This scene was the cornerstore of the fic for me. I wanted to establish several things with it, that being

1) HY and WKX having been in bed together before, have sufficient knowledge of each other's preferences and boundaries to allow for going as hard as they did, even if it isn't explicitly mentioned.

2) ZZS would be absolutely enthusiastic about them starting something with each other, there's not a question in anyone's mind here about that.

3) But this also isn't about him -- it's an opportunity for hanwen to figure out their own dynamic outside of him, if the attraction remains, if there's something more, how they want it to develop.

4) They're both kind of anxious for this not to be just a one-time thing, as much as they won't say it outright.

I was also pretty enthusiastic to get to write this exchange towards the end, though it underwent some revisions:

Wen Kexing could deflect, nag about Zhou Zishu having been busy, stick to the excuse he’d given himself earlier.

“Your Ying’er is a menace,” he tells Zhou Zishu instead.

“Huh? What nonsense. My Ying’er is a good boy,” Zhou Zishu says indulgently. “I don’t know what your Ying’er is like.”

Originally the whole piece was going to retain a bit more of the playful fight atmosphere from early on, so when they met up with ZZS at the end HY would be like "ha look at that, look how sweet and good I can be, I'm just an ass to you on purpose". But then both HY and I realized that a very strong dose of TLC was needed to get WKX comfortable in subspace, so it all became a bit softer. Pretty happy with how it turned out, though.

Thank you for the ask 💖

[cedion]

I keep thinking about how I started out really being in love with the maturity of Wenzhous relationship, how much openness there was from ZZS once he decided to trust WKX, how WKX was so genuine in his interest and how much loyalty both of them showed to one another. I really loved how consistent their portrayal was, each and every action was so very much in character, not static, not regressing, definitely developing to something better, more uplifting. I'm not sure what happened but the first 30 episodes felt so different compared to the last 6.

All of the sudden we had illogical actions that lead to unnecessary drama, miscommunication that was never an issue before and which shouldn't be an issue now that both of them came clean to one another (except ZZS hiding losing his senses, which never really got resolved as it should have tbh), very weird pacing issue and at one point I just felt so much dread whenever I saw Wenzhou on the screen together, yes they had some cute moments but it really broke the spell knowing that due to one stupid misstep, their relationship has regressed instead of progressed, there was absolutely nothing gained by the fake death stunt. Nothing gained by ZZS trying to die alone, nothing gained by having WKX "die" for ZZS in ep 36. That both of them would die for one another has been long established, it doesn't add anything new to their relationship. Honestly both of their character arcs are so heavily linked to death that the actual message really should be: wanting to live with your soulmate. Hence why the ending of the novel will always be superior. I really think trying to fit everything into the last 7 episodes really hurt their relationship more than it did any good. The pacing was fantastic up until then, everything felt so mature and natural and by the end it became so convoluted with stupid plot decisions, making characters ooc and trying to rush to the Finale that it left the pairing in a worse state than they were before ep 31 hit.

And I get it. A BL adaptation can't possible have an outright good ending, I can take a bad ending but I'll never excuse lazy writing and demolishing the two main characters to a point that their current actions are totally illogical from their previous behavior (speaking about WKX here)

If it weren't for that, this pairing definitely has one of the more interesting dynamics, none of those two are really what they appear to be at first glance and it's just delicious to see them develop. I'm thankful I was able to watch this drama, it was one of the best I've ever seen and it could have been even better.

[pastelcheckereddreams]

Okay but this moment in WOH ep 26:

It’s Zishu who inadvertently draws Wen Kexing’s attention to Yun Zai. Not only does this show a) how observant zzs is by trade, but b) how comfortable wkx has gotten in their domesticity. 

Moreover, this is actually the first hint (in this episode, not counting earlier ones) that zzs not only suspects (and accepts) that wkx is connected to the Ghost Valley, but that he is in charge. Because why would underlings look for him otherwise?  

So, of course zzs immediately accepts wkx’s excuse for zzs and cheng ling to leave ahead of him: he already has his suspicions but, importantly, he doesn’t care about wkx’s identity and (morality aside) the responsibility that entails. 

He’s basically saying, you do you hun because at this point they're living their best lives in domestic bliss and feelings have absolutely been reciprocated - zzs has made it clear in the past few eps that he accepts wkx with all his “faults” (read: moral questionability) for a long time now.  

Yet despite all this, as wkx takes his leave, zzs says- 

Western gender role assignation aside, and despite the fact that zzs accepts that wkx is connected to (and at this point, *possibly* in charge) of Ghost Valley, I think that Zhou Zishu worries for Wen Kexing in this moment. He, like Kexing, wants to keep up the pretence of this idyllic life as long as possible - especially as yby has just got back to them. 

So I think zzs says this to just gently remind wkx that he has a place in Four Seasons Manor to return to, reaffirming the strength of their relationships (through banter of course) in the face of an identity clash, while maybe himself trying to hold onto that dream they’ve been sharing for the past while.

Y’all I’m emotional. 

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

[slides into your inbox] if i may humbly request: i would love to see something set post-canon where ZZS's body is like a live-wire where instead of it being hard(lol) to get off, he manages it really, really easy bc suddenly everything has come back and it's A LOT. i just wanna see WKX fuck several orgasms out of ZZS(literally or in other ways) and ZZS being a mess about it bc holy shit he can FEEL again. absolutely no pressure though, and i wish you all the best regardless :)

Y’know, I’m so glad you’ve said this because I was thinking about doing something just like that and now I have the perfect excuse to! I’ll add it to the list ☺️

Edit: this request has now been filled! Hold On Tight, Learn To Behave on Ao3.