#cql thoughts

[thoroughlycollected]

So I was doing my job- genuinely earnestly working- when I had the sudden thought: how high above sea level is Cloud Recesses? Are the Lan doing intense upper body strength training in low oxygen like Olympians? Is going down the mountain like taking off training weights to be lighter/stronger/faster?

[askew-d]

the wildest thing about lan wangji is the way he’s immediately enraged at his own feelings for wei wuxian. because we’ve seen wei wuxian fall in love slowly and surely, right? he goes from a quick interest to an oblivious attraction to liking lan wangji then being infatuated after his return to life, then to straight-up loving the guy intensely. we watch him develop his sexual and romantic attraction equally.

but lan wangji’s different. from the very first second he’s desperately smitten — all it took was one sly smile and he was going through the four stages of love: the desire to marry, kiss, bed and die with him. and he’s so goddamn outraged, because how dare this troublemaker trespass into his house and steal his heart so easily??

he was so conflicted that he didn’t see any other alternative if not to unsheathe his sword and fight the hell out of that idiot. feelings?? for a rebellious teenager?? right in front of my clan’s three thousand rules??? not today, devil.

[barawrah]

i want us both to eat well

[themorrana]

Why was it called "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation"? That name describes only one plotline.

Should've called it "A Tragedy of Jin Ling's Uncle". Covers pretty much all of the main plotlines.

[duohensheng]

either I just noticed something or I’m very late to the party but: jgy’s name

Guangyao 光瑶 (Light/Glory ; Jade per seven seas translation)

is a homonym of Guangyao 光耀 (which together means brilliance/honour/glory)

IS A HOMONYM OF guang yaozi 逛窑子 WHICH MEANS TO VISIT A BROTHEL????? NOTE THAT THE zi 子 IS THE SAME 子 AS IN SON?????

this is on purpose. right??? we all knew this man named his son a backhanded compliment (by using the suffix guang instead of the Jin generational zi, and by the fact that it’s a homonym for glory). BUT DID HE NAME HIS SON AN OVERT SLAP IN THE FACE ALSO

a sly snide open secret of an insult name????

screenshot of my mandarin dictionary 4 the ages but seriously What is going on. did we already know about this???

(homonyms don’t quite work like that in mandarin but I talked to my teacher about how she named her kids and she said people often do use “homonyms” (same sound different tone different character/meaning) to layer meaning onto names)

[disclaimer I am fluent but not a native speaker if anyone wants to correct me please do!!]

[lgbtlunaverse]

Most annoying NMJ or JC take is when someone that dislikes them is like "oh you're a fan of him? *scoff* Well obviously you've only seen cql, where he was super watered down. In the novel he's a dislikable asshole and that's the objectively superior canon I'm working from instead of your woobified fanfic." Meanwhile your main canon is novel canon and you genuinely find novel Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue complex sympathetic characters.

[3cosmicfrogs]

"There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen"

[poorlittleyaoyao]

I'm grumpy forever that CQL never explained the temple's significance and took away the statue looking like Meng Shi (on account of the statue being too stylized to look like ANYONE, which has to be a deliberate choice because this was not true with the Dancing Fairy statue earlier)

BUT

I do like that it's still there in spirit with the blocking choices, because as JGY tells the "not worth mentioning!" story, he keeps his gaze on the statue the entire time. He starts by addressing Jin Ling, but then he turns away from everyone and

and I just! 😭

[korpikorppi]

Guys, I just now noticed one more interesting little detail in the Untamed!

You know the names of the buildings in the Cloud Recesses: the lecture room/hall Lanshi (兰室, Lánshì, "Orchid Room"); Yashi (雅室, Yǎshì, "Elegant Room") – the reception room/hall; the spirit-summoning room/hall Mingshi (冥室, Míngshì, "Underworld Room" or "Room of Darkness"); Hanshi (寒室, Hánshì, "Frost Room") - Lan Xichen's residence; and Lan Wangji's Jingshi (静室, Jìngshì, "Quiet Room"), right?

The character used to write the "shì", room, in the names is 室, here seen in the Lanshi and the Yashi (the names are read from right to left):

As a side note, the Lan seem to use the traditional rather than the simplified characters, so the "lán" in the Lanshi is written with 蘭 rather than 兰.

BUT. Not so in the Jingshi! Instead of the 室, a slightly different character is used for the "room":

My trusty dictionary did not know the character in question, so I started to look at what was different:

As such, the character 凶 (xiōng) means act of violence, murder, evil. An evildoer. A murderer. And as Lan Xichen told Wei Wuxian, we know who lived in the Jingshi before it became Lan Wangji's residence: "It is the place where our mother lived in the Cloud Recesses".

So, it seems that when the house became Madam Lan's prison, the character was changed to reflect her crime, denoting the place as the quiet room of a murderer. Accentuated by the reversed colours of the sign:

This has probably been quite self-evident to anyone who actually speaks and reads Chinese, but was quite an oooff! to me as I realised. One more killer detail in CQL 😟.

And while I was at it, I just had to check what it says above the gate (seen here when LWJ returns home with the Emperor's Smile):

As far as I can read it, the characters are 影竹堂 (yǐng zhú táng), which I freely translate as "Bamboo Shadow Court". An apt name for the place.

Hopefully it offered some solace to Madam Lan.

And oh, I just have to add! As Hanshi is the Sect Leader's residence, Lan Xichen is living in their father's house, while Lan Wangji is living in their mother's. And the two houses are more or less identical, down to the furnishings (just check the scene where Lan Xichen confronts Wen Chao and his muddy boots in ep8 vs. The Wangxian Scene in ep43). So did Qingheng-jun have the house built for his wife, identical to the house she was not allowed to live in? That is quite plausible, in universe. Out universe, they probably had only so many buildings to shoot in :).

[evuwus]

Ι love this scene so much because LWJ sees a lantern that looks like the one WWX had drawn for him in the past and he really wants WWX to see it. However, he is too shy and reserved to shout to him to catch his attention so he just stands there for a while, just waiting patiently to be noticed Q^Q. And WWX indulges him and suggests they buy it because he knew LWJ wouldn't just get it for himself :''(( AND then LWJ carries it around before giving it to LSZ to keep (that is so dad of him).

Not to mention that the bunnies lantern is a very significant item to LWJ. It wasn't only the first gift he received from his crush ever (in CQLverse) but it is also symbolic of the promise they had made to protect the weak together and do what is right. On top of everything, LWJ is showing his vulnerable side here by admitting that he indeed likes rabbits (he couldn't beat the allegations hahaha).

Anyway, this is peak screenwriting to me.

[askew-d]

if wei wuxian had ignored lan wangji a little, that would be the utmost fix-up. because, listen to me: if wei wuxian had decided to play hard to get after so many times receiving the cold shoulder from hanguang-jun, the man would be so dejected. imagine he decides ‘oh, well, guess i’ll just stop pestering him and do my stuff instead’. lan wangji would be so confused, he’d start begging inside during public appearances for wei wuxian to pay attention on him once more.

he’d struggle to get first place in every competition to be noticed by the yumeng’s head disciple. he’d stare at him so intensely all the time that at some point every cultivator will already understand or he wants wei wuxian naked or wants him tied somewhere, whimpering. or both, for the matter, but who cares at that point??! the cultivators just want some peace!!

lan wangji would buy him stuff. write him stuff. indulge his mischiefs. ask his laughing brother for advice. paint a ‘wei ying… notice me,” in his white clothes, making lan qiren go mad (alright, he wouldn’t do it, but you get what i mean).

it’s just that, canonically, i believe he absolutely loves wei wuxian’s undivided attention (his teenage self wouldn’t ever admit though). but if wei wuxian had ignored him a bit, lan wangji would have learned long ago how much he doesn’t want wei wuxian away, causing him to protect him harder.

but that’s just another theory that’ll never get proved because wei wuxian is a simp. he’s a hanguang-jun worshipper. the gayest gay to have ever gayed. his sleeves are so cut that the fabric’s now gone and he’ll walk around naked. he couldn’t have not bothered lan wangji — if you ask him, he’ll say he was born for that.

[rnmyn]

Together, onwards

The leaves on the guqin are hopefully Wuji's last two bars without note value.

—

☆ KO-FI ✦ LINKS ☆

[rhaenyraqueenred]

Jiang Cheng & Wen Qing as enemies-to-lovers power couple

"my darling, you will never be unloved by me you are too well tangled in my soul".

[cryiling]

[imma-bunni]

The Untamed ep. 43 screencap redraw

In my head I've been calling this "Lan Wangji wishes he was a bunny"