#difang

[qilingxiong]

[rinbylin]

莲花楼 mysterious lotus casebook ep. 27

[potahun]

when you've accidentally tamed your a-fei

(difang is so important to me)

[joyouslee]

This is how I imagine Fang Xiaobao a few years after canon.

Pictures are of Zhi Liuhui from Legend of Rosy Clouds* but this is my visual for an older Fang Duobing, who wears his hair the way Li Lianhua does (did).

*who is bisexual in the Japanese canon, which I know will be censored in the cdrama, but I have faith in ZSX that he will be able to make him very bi regardless.

[bbcphile]

Is anyone else sad because Fang Duobing has a "Waiting For Li Lianhua On the Beach" outfit?

(On the left is the outfit in episode 40 after reading Li Lianhua's letter. On the right is the outfit in the special episode when he and Di Feisheng show up on the donghai beach to look for him 3 months later.)

While we're on the subject of costumes, @the-surreptitious-albatross and I just realized how different this outfit of Fang Duobing's is from his earlier outfits.

Here are some examples of a normal FDB outfit:

He prefers pastels, and his belts and wrist guards are often the same color as the pastel or a slightly darker version (and here, they have gold decorations).

Zooming in shows that he prefers his embroidery designs to be swirly and his hair accessories to be braided and color-matched or elaborate and silver (but still on the delicate side).

But check out this outfit: the embroidery is more angular and less swirly, as is the hair piece, and it and the belt and wrist guards are black with silver instead of matching the pastel of his outfit or being a slightly darker shade of it.

You know whose style he's echoing with all these changes? Who else tends to favor black wrist guards and belts with more angular designs?

Di Feisheng.

The images below make it a bit clearer: DFS's belt has gold decorations compared FDB's silver, and the shape is different, but you can see the similarities in the wrist guard design in particular.

It's not obvious how much their costumes are tying them together in this scene because we don't ever see them in the same frame; the camera constantly keeps them apart, as does the blocking of the scene, since DFS is on the rocks and FDB is on the beach.

That changes in the special episode when they both arrive on the beach at the same time, and DFS is wear his sect leader robes.

Here they are, in the same frame at last, and side by side, and you can see even more clearly with this DFS outfit how much the style of FDB's belt, wrist guards, and hair accessory is echoing his. The wrist guard pattern looks almost the same in these pictures! And the cut of the outer sleeveless robe is also very similar, which visually pairs them even more.

All this to say, FDB's clothing style shifts, the gentle swirls sharpened into points by his worry and grief for Li Lianhua, and it breaks my heart.

But the fact that he's visually echoing Di Feisheng now, that they're slowly becoming a matched set, is starting to put the pieces back together again.

[deboracabral]

Do you see my vision

[a--ttano]

Difang beloved

[orchisailsa]

Di Feisheng has never has a pet name for Fang Duobing because pet names are stupid. He calls his blade "blade," because that's what it is. And he calls Fang Duobing "Duobing" because that's what he is: a pain. All the pains. (in DFS's Ass) (Affectionate)

[acequinz]

You know what I think I really really love about difanghua with a focus on Fang Doubing is that while DiHua clearly see each other it's Fang Duobing who tries to understands them.

And no this isn't a- Fang Duobing knows them better than they know each other or know themselves. It's that he sees them do something and he thinks about it and understands their feelings.

Cause there's a knowledge that both Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua have of each other that lets them know how the other thinks and what they will do next but it doesn't always mean there's an understanding there.

Di Feisheng knows that Li Lianhua is running but he doesn't understand why he's running, this isn't to say he's not sympathetic or doesn't care but he doesn't always understand the motivation for his actions. He knows them.

Similarly Li Lianhua knows Di Feisheng well enough to know his drive, to know his habits and knows his nature to recognise him even in disguise. But even he doesn't understand the motivation of Di Feisheng he knows it's there and so we see him stumble a few times when Di Feisheng switches gears.

Fang Duobing doesn't know everything, he is missing big chunks of story almost all the time, he missed a few many cues as well but he understands.

He understands Li Xiangyi and his burdens, he understands the pain Li Lianhua feels, he understands that Di Feisheng isn't just what he portrays himself to be, he understands his drive and motivation comes from a place of care and when he doesn't understand, he sure as fuck tries to. He doesn't just ask for explicit details to solve the mystery, he is just trying to understand them.

He needs to know the people under his protection!

So he understands them.

To conclude:- Fang Duobing is an Empath.

[peridot-tears]

Ficlet:

Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing outlive Li Lianhua by decades. On the twentieth anniversary of the day he finally succumbed to the bicha poison, Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing park the Lianhua Lou by the East Sea to visit his grave.

They are about to leave when the ocean mist clears, and they see smoke in the distance. Perhaps a raided village? Judging by how thin it is, it has been burning for some time. Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing are not as spry as they used to be -- gray streaks in their hair -- but they are prepared to investigate when they hear a cry.

The current washes up a baby in a basket, like an offering to them both. Fang Duobing rushes to pick it up, and when they finally make it to the village, they find that a local family has been massacred, their manor burned to ashes.

They raise the child as Li Anle, but call him Xiaohua or Huahua as a nickname. For the child is precocious as he grows, taking to martial arts as if he was born to carry a sword. When Di Feisheng first teaches him to spar, he rams the wooden sword into his chest as if he could see the spot where his scar is. When Fang Duobing brings home a dog, Huahua insists on a list of increasingly outrageous names, beginning with Qilin and ending on Hulijing.

The first time Xiaohua hears Di Feisheng call Fang Duobing by his milk name, he giggles and sings out "Fang Xiaobao!" the rest of the day, careless and unfilial. Fang Duobing does not have the heart to chastise him. And when Xiaohua begins dueling with the neighbors, he always uses his winnings to make Di Feisheng chicken legs for dinner. They try to convince themselves that it's because they miss their friend, that they're old and sentimental, but they're terrible liars, even to themselves. So they watch the child skip rocks along the East Sea, and when he turns around, they catch the sharp and clever glance of someone who did not merely wither into the earth, but like a lotus, transformed.

[rose-tinted-vision]

The Head bane arc gave us so many good DiFang scenes ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ

calling for A-Fei

And A-Fei shared his water with Fang Duobing in the next scene ✧⁠\⁠(⁠>⁠o⁠<⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠✧ (alas, im too broke to afford sharing more than 10 pictures)

[qilingxiong]

[rinbylin]

我还道方兄与李兄乃是至交，没想到和阿飞兄也是如此默契。

DI FEISHENG and FANG DUOBING | 莲花楼 Mysterious Lotus Casebook

[exitvelocities]

ok mlc fandom i'm curious about something

please reblog to help with sample size!

[mx-myth]

Liansanjiao is so wild. One of them is a dom and also a pillow princess. Another one is a brat tamer and a submissive. The other one is a service top and a brat. They're all asexual. They're all horny all the time. They're all aromantic. They're all battle-sexual. They're all dating. They're all fighting. They're all in a qpr. They're all friends. They're all oh whoops you looked away for one moment now they're taking down the jianghu and they're going to remake it. Oh nevermind they're leaving.

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

ok, you know what, fuck it, fic recs post. historically i try not to rec works in progress or things i haven't commented on and i'm throwing that fully out the window for this because honestly, fucking whatever.

if you're on this list and i haven't been fully unhinged at you in the comments, please know that it's because (1) i'm the worst and (2) i'm trying desperately to calibrate so i hit 'enthusiastic' and not 'kind of frightening, actually'. i swear that i have written at least several sentences of a comment for every fic on this list, it's just that i'm genuinely impossibly slow, sometimes. it's me, not you.

my previous rec post is here, in case you missed that. as a bonus, special for this rec list and as a concession to the horrors, i am attempting to guess how much any given fic will fuck up the average person. obviously this is a ymmv kind of situation, but i'm trying, at least?

everything else under a cut because i am longwinded.

and found by @dangerouscommiesubversive, explicit, every possible combination of di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua | li xiangyi; bless, but i am not typing all that out. starting off with a wip where i haven't left a comment in like four fuckin' chapters, breaking those rules real good. this fic is a fucking ride. i will admit that i wasn't entirely convinced by the premise when i saw the blurb, but i am nothing if not willing to admit when i was wrong, and i was—once again—totally wrong. this is the fic where i was like 'ok but…is anyone really, like, desperate for gen z li xiangyi?' and then i read it and i was like 'ohhhhhh fuck yeah, ok, i get it, i was actually fully desperate for gen z li xiangyi.' he is. such a little prick. i love him. there has been something unexpected and delightful in every single chapter of this so far, plus a number of impressively memorable one-liners. this fic is fun and distracting and at least as of chapter seven, i'm gonna say it's not even gonna fuck you up. (please note that this is only through chapter seven!)

and the days are bright red by @junemermaid, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. rip to my beloved tumblr mutual @junemermaid, because they're getting called out twice in this list, but: tough. this fic is so delightful. featuring: memories of slut era li lianhua, the mortifying ordeal of being known, an entire box of historically accurate sex toys, fang duobing and di feisheng communicating (sometimes silently) in a way that unsettles li lianhua (back from his months-long sojourn), some very hot sex that is both very much about sex and also about trust and being perceived, casual intimacy, and fledgling tenderness. there are Emotions in this, and they get moderately intense, but it's a very kind and surprisingly gentle feel-good fic.

a drink under a clear window by @momosandlemonsoda, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing and fang duobing/qiao wanmian. a fic that tackles the dreaded v-shaped polycule and makes it work. it seems like perhaps it shouldn't: fang duobing as the hinge, with di feisheng and qiao wanmian on either side, but actually it works perfectly, and is a lovely little glimpse at who they could become and the relationships they could have. i love the thought of qiao wanmian having come into her own as a leader in her own right, as more than just the representative of the ghost of li xiangyi, and this does a wonderful job of letting her be her own person. also, yes, ok, passing fang duobing back and forth like a party favour. this is a post-canon fic in which li lianhua is dead, but the fic itself a straightforward delight that is not at all fucky uppy.

the floating clouds, no resting place, again by @junemermaid (not sorry), technically gen and no ship, but functionally pre-di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. the hair-washing fic. ohhhhhh. i started jotting notes for this post the day that i finished this fic, and i really thought that they were in any way comprehensive, but instead, what i typed and left as a note to myself was this:

and honestly. you're right, hypothetical reader, that doesn't totally make sense, but i stand by it regardless, because i apparently had that thought in [checks date i last saved the file] fucking august, and i'm still nodding along with myself. that is that this is like. this fic is very beautiful and will make you ache and will leave you slightly better at the end of it than you were at the beginning. it may also make you cry; this seems to me a fair enough trade.

the floating lotus by @anndramarama, not rated, di feisheng/li xiangyi. pre-canon stuff doesn't always work super well for me, but i really enjoyed this one, featuring di feisheng and li xiangyi when they're both so young and arrogant and full of themselves—and stupid and naïve and young and almost hopeful in a way that they're often not, in fic, for all that they were barely but children at the point of the donghai fight. they just seem…vulnerable, i guess, in this, in a way that i find touching. seasonal bonus: a ghost story, of a sort. given that this is set pre-canon, i think it's hard to come in any softer than bittersweet, which this very much is.

from here one's hand could pluck the stars by @howlingmoonrise, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing. sex pollen fic! also featuring, a little surprisingly, given the premise, incredibly explicit and enthusiastic consent. look, this does what it says on the tin. di feisheng gets sex pollened. fang duobing is left to stay with him. the obvious ensues. unfortunately, it is also devastatingly charming? fang duobing is earnest and sweet; di feisheng is suffering beautifully terribly and trying so hard not to impose on fang duobing. they're both trying so hard to be respectful of what the other person needs, but they're also still bratty and argumentative and exasperated/exasperating, and it's very entertaining. this will fuck you up none percent, and may even make you laugh.

my war is done by @orchisailsa, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. another wip, with the first of three chapters posted, but please understand that this chapter is nearly 15k and so fucking good and compelling. li lianhua lives! and returns to find that things have changed in his absence, and perhaps that he has also changed in his absence, and now wants things that he had told himself he didn't mind not even having to lose. bonus: road trip and—delight!—only one room at the inn. also some other stuff that i'm not spoiling, but that made me absolutely gleeful. this is definitely a work in progress, and while i don't think there's anything particularly upsetting in the chapter, it does end on something of a cliffhanger. i personally do not feel that this is an upsetting cliffhanger, given the information about the fic that's presented in the tags, but it is technically a cliffhanger.

awkward paragraph break, but it's also important, i think, to mention the absolutely stunning (and not at all safe for work) companion piece to my war is done, you'd be there calling my name, by saki the cup bearer, who i don't think is on tumblr. it's fucking incredible; i am very decidedly not an artist but i cannot begin to imagine how much effort went into this. just. holy shit.

not unlike him in shape and form by @philologicalbat, explicit, fang duobing/li lianhua. ok look. i fucking love when things are deeply emotionally messy, and this is so emotionally messy. li lianhua who's been attracted to fang duobing and not doing anything about it, then discovering that fang duobing is shan gudao's son and is very much going to do something about it. he wants in this, and he's cunty and manipulative and mean about it, and sometimes also almost sweet, almost tender, and i love that, because i feel like li lianhua is very often an object of desire and very rarely gets to desire. i love how human he gets to be in this fic. this is not a sweet or gentle fic, but it does end in a moderately tender place that is tentatively hopeful, i think.

unbecoming heir by @bettercostume, explicit, di feisheng/princess zhaoling. i am taking your hand in mine and begging you to trust me. i know what this fic looks like. it's noncon and a weird pairing and you might look at it and expect it to go in the obvious direction and: it does not. this fic is so good that it makes me angry. it makes me miserable and everyone in this fic is trying so miserably, miserably hard, and it's fucking devastating. i spent literally thirty minutes earlier today yelling at my wife about it. i cannot rec this fic strongly enough. this is not a happy fic, but it is a good fic. it will absolutely fuck you up. this is very complimentary but also you will be fucked up.

until you are its primary evidence by @ilgaksu, mature, di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. the single most effective use of what is effectively a prologue that i've ever seen in fic, are you kidding me. this fic is nothing at all like what i expected it to be, and is something far better than what i could have imagined. it's fang duobing's point of view, which is a rarity already, and it's so well done, and it allows him so much humanity and so much anger and grace alike. there are so many tricky things about this fic—the prologue, the fact that it's set in the amnesia arc, fang duobing's pov, the fact that it actually addresses canonical disabilities and illnesses without being fucking weird about it, the tension between the three of them—and it's all balanced so well. this has some emotionally heavier moments but ends tentatively happily; tentative only because it's set during the amnesia arc, and, well. we know what comes next.

as a final note: if you wrote one of these fics and feel that i've wildly misinterpreted the emotional tenor of the ending, please message me in whatever way you prefer and i will correct it. i would not normally presume to guess how things are likely hit people, as i am in many ways not anyone's ideal reader, but today it seemed like it was kinder to at least try.