#even fang duobing by knowing li lianhua gets the experience of someone who wants him alive

[mejomonster]

On a serious note, I do feel mysterious case lotusbook has a lot of sincere themes about getting older, realities of responsibility and dreams realized, how it's difficult to succeed and not always the direct path one expects, how there's value in little aspects of life. Almost every li lianhua scene seems to be about that to some degree. The murder cases aren't particularly deep as far as super complicated to figure out or Able to be predicted super well (since they don't always give all the details in the initial setup), but the themes about who was killed and why do connect to li lianhuas situation.

[ultimateshixiongfuckertournament]

Noncanonicals Tournament FINAL

This final is between Han Ying from Word of Honor (shizun/mentor: Zhou Zishu) and Fang Duobing from Mysterious Lotus Casebook (shizun/mentor: Li Xiangyi / Li Lianhua)

Propaganda under the cut! (Warning: Propaganda may include spoilers about the characters and their media)

Han Ying:

He idolized and was mentored by Zhou Zishu to the point of recruiting other young martial artists to revive ZZS’s dying sect and willing to die live happily ever after for it.

#han ying wants to fuck zhou zishu SO BAD#han ying#shizunfucker tournament

#my sweet ying'er wants to fuck zzs so bad he's gagging for it

#HAN YING HANDS DOWN#would have licked his boots if he asked

#han ying wanted nothing more than to officially become zzs's student/part of his sect#it was literally his dying wish that his brothers in arms may get to do that#he says several times in the show to zzs's very face that he's 100% down for dying for him#he swears allegiance EXCLUSIVELY to zzs and not the prince they're all serving#he comes up with bangers like 'if there is anything you need I will lay down my life with no regret'#'if you were gone one day how could I live alone'#'a loyal servant wouldn't have two masters in his life'#he sneaks into zzs's abandoned residence and homoerotically-#-strokes the painting of a flower that symbolizes a) zzs himself b) zzs's grief for being the lone survivor of his sect#and he wanted to join siji so so badly#it was his life's dream and he died IN siji but before getting to have that 😭#listen he makes me insane#anyway they should have fucked sloppy style and zzs would have had an out of body experience if hy called him shizun#my final thesis goodbye

#it's HAN YING#you could power entire nations with the power of that yearning

#han ying saw zhou zishu and IMMEDIATELY dropped to his knees are you joking#wen kexing immediately clocked him

#ying'er my sweet prince#he wants the dick so badly

Fang Duobing:

Fang Duobing has most definitely had several fantasies of being dommed by his shifu Li Xiangyi! He is also equally invested in marrying Li Lianhua - travelling the jianghu, going on rooftop moonlit dates, incorporating looking after him forever and ever into his general future plans. This is even before he knows that Li Lianhua and Li Xiangyi are the same person. Oh there are Layers to the shizunfucking. Where's that post about being so devoted to someone that it breaks the pedestal they're put on and comes full circle to loving them for the person they are? (its here: https://www.tumblr.com/difeisheng/733133489565745152/the-core-of-fanghua-is-built-around-fang-duobings) When they finally do get to know each other 10 years later, after Li Xiangyi's identity is found out, Fang Duobing insists on being equals rather than master-and-disciple! Li lianhua is Fang Duobing’s guide in the Jianghu! He leaves his house, dog and the only records of his unique martial arts to Fang Duobing before running away!! Fang Duobing’s most important agenda is to save Li Lianhua from slow death by poison!!! He doesn't care if Li Lianhua keeps leaving him behind and lying to him and is 'at peace' with dying!! They live together. They'll never be equals. They've been equals all along. They're zhiji. They're master and disciple. they're married. They're everything.

#this man wanted to fuck his shizun under two whole ass different identities#this man was given one million choices between his shizun and his entire cushy rich boi life and did not sweat the decision even once#this man was engaged to a princess - who was COOL - and went “no thanks i’d rather follow shizun around in a fantasy china airstream’

#this cannot not be fang duobing let's be serious#polls#he's been drawing hearts around his shizun's name since age 8

#Fang Duobing going through it for what he thinks is two different people but is just one guy#so he gets my vote easy

#pls he is head employee at shizunfucker.co

[potahun]

Mysterious Lotus Casebook and the Analogies to Being Queer

this is not breaking new grounds or anything, there seems to be broad consensus in the (tumblr) fandom that LHL is a lot about being queer. there is also this brilliant meta by @seventh-fantasy about the jianghu being a queer space, which i love, and which dealt with the gender perspective for li lianhua in particular

having that in mind, i want to say how much i love that li lianhua and fang duobing's stories feel like analogies to two different queer experiences

we see li xiangyi in a few flashbacks and in how others viewed him before the east sea battle 10 years ago. we know he became the n°1 swordsman in the world, established a para-judiciary system and order in an otherwise lawless jianghu, that he used to duel just to win the right to pick flowers from someone's garden as gifts for every single lady in the sigu sect, and that he dated qiao wanmian and intended to marry her (judging by that flashback where he's seen drinking with shan gudao and the boys)

a lot of it is very heteronormative, and even a bit performative. and i don't want to say it's not genuine, i actually rly like the idea that many of those actions felt perfectly real to him at the time, and i genuinely think he had that show-off streak in him when he was a teenager

but regardless, everything about li xiangyi follows the heteronormative expectations of society, including his achievements, which command, among other things, admiration for his fighting prowess and his ability to establish rules. which is of course, ironic, as pointed out in the meta referenced above, since the jianghu itself does not follow those rules (and we slowly learn in the story that there was criticism of him for this even in-story).

but then we get to li lianhua, who does not fight, but cooks, learned to sew, to plant flowers, turns down every lady who looks his way, and who does not interfere in jiang hu matters if he can help it. and in particular, we get the conversation he has with qiao wanmian in ep 18, where she confronts him about his identity and asks him:

"if you'd already come back, why did you never reunite with us?"

and his reply is:

"all of this is so far in the past, now. i'm very tired. i just want to be free."

li lianhua is constantly put in contrast with li xiangyi. where li xiangyi performs, li lianhua just exists in the jianghu. where li xiangyi fulfils expectations and surpasses them, li lianhua turns his back to expectations. where li xiangyi establishes a domain and protects, li lianhua wanders freely, all by himself. where li xiangyi conforms to heteronormative standards, li lianhua doesn't.

we know that li lianhua is an unreliable narrator in that his opinion on his own past is biased, his knowledge incomplete. and he lies. almost compulsively. but there are also truth bombs that he drops between the lies. i personally believe that his willingness to detach himself from all the expectations thrown upon him and to finally exist away from norms, is part of those truths.

and this is very close to a type of queer experience, where you come out of some event or another in your twenties, suddenly realise you're queer and oh my god, it's time to live differently. and you start rejecting the norms and maybe your old friends wonder what got into you.

in the same conversation in ep 18, the following exchange happens between li lianhua and qiao wanmian:

LLH: "when we met each other, I was young and ignorant. I didn't understand what the feelings i felt for you were, either." QWM: "what do you mean? are you saying... you never loved me?" LLH: "back then, we were young. nothing of what we said then can still count now."

it can be interpreted in different ways, but it sure fits a queer narrative extremely well. the feelings were real, but he didn't understand whether they were romantic or not, he just followed the norms. but things are different now.

enters fang duobing

fang duobing feels like a different queer narrative. by family background, fang duobing is a person who has equal ties to the imperial court as he does to the jiang hu. the emperor and his family wants to engage him to the princess of the court, a perfectly normal thing in the societal context he lives in, and a luck few can hope to have. what does he do?

flee

i often joke that fang duobing's sexuality is to be a detective on the jianghu, but it really does feel like that kind of narrative. fang duobing never has any doubt that his place is away from the rules of the imperial court. In ep. 1, he tells his servants:

don't worry. once your young master makes a name for himself as a renown detective on the jianghu, they {his parents} will understand that, compared to the imperial court, i am much more suited for the jiang hu.

and yes, this is about escaping the rigidity of the court as such, but it's also analogous for the freedom to be who you are, to be queer, to not conform.

and fang duobing never backtracks. his parents want him to conform, and they want him to have the comfort that comes with this lifestyle. he rejects it thoroughly and consistently.

it's also interesting that in ep 25, once they meet the princess and they have gone through a case together, fang duobing still rejects the idea of the wedding. when li lianhua tells him "the jianghu is a place full of grudges and sinister schemes. why not become a carefree consort prince?"

fang duobing only looks forlorn and retorts "li lianhua, can you never say that again, please?"

in contrast, though, he has no qualms planning his whole life on the jianghu with li lianhua in ep. 15. so this is not about settling down with someone.

it feels very close to being confidently queer and knowing it from a very early age, and then rejecting the heteronormative expectations thrown upon you with assurance.

...

anyway, so what i want to say is: li lianhua is a tired millenial who discovered he was queer in his mid-twenties after a mild depression; fang duobing is a gen-z baby queer who doesn't know his queer history but is so confidently queer and he's never looking back

[bbcphile]

WIP Wednesday

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for another excerpt from my Mysterious Lotus Casebook longfic!

This week, enjoy Fang Duobing trying to get Di Feisheng to take care of himself by explaining how it will help Li Lianhua take care of himself. (AKA. FDB's Caretaking 101 for DFS). (You can find earlier excerpts here.)

**

Fang Duobing sniffled, picked up the cloth once more, and got to work. At least the cabinet was almost blood-free. Only one stain left. 

“What did you mean about Xiangyi and help?” a-Fei asked on Fang Duobing’s third pass over the stain.

Fang Duobing’s hands stopped mid-scrub. Did a-Fei even have any caretaking experience? Either giving or receiving? Or had he just always used qi to heal everything, so recuperation was never an issue? Starting from the most basic level and working up to the question was probably the best move.

He started scrubbing the stain again, willing his hands and voice to be steady. “Li Lianhua will need rest, right? And sleep, and food, and medicine.”

“Obviously. He’s healing.”

Well, at least a-Fei knew that much.

“It took me a decade to recover from my duel with Xiangyi, Duobing,” a-Fei said, his tone as dry as the basin was wet. “I’m familiar with the process.”

A decade? So he really had been in seclusion all that time. Wait–Li Lianhua had injured him that badly and he wanted another duel? How did that make any sense? He mentally shook himself and tried to find the thread of the conversation again before he could spiral off in a different direction. “Alright. I’m assuming the Medicine Demon or someone was overseeing your healing. Did you actually follow his orders?”

“Of course,” a-Fei said, as though he were the sort of person to take orders from anyone.

He was kidding, wasn’t he? Fang Duobing craned his head over his shoulder to take a look. No annoyingly attractive smirk or eyebrow raised in challenge in sight. Huh. He’d try to make sense of that later. “Well . . . good for you,” he said, facing forward again. “Li Lianhua won’t. He wouldn’t even before the situation with his shiniang. It’s not only giving away qi he couldn’t spare to heal people. He tries to squirm his way out of receiving help all the time, and always pushes himself too far, long past any reasonable limit.” Sound like anyone else you know, a-Fei? “I don’t think he knows how to do things any other way. So instead of accidentally encouraging him to hurt himself, what if we do the opposite? Practice accepting help, even if we don’t need it to survive, so he feels less guilty about needing it?”

Silence. He forced himself to keep scrubbing and wait. If a-Fei needed time, then that’s what he’d give him.

“What are you suggesting?” a-Fei asked at last.

Fang Duobing blinked at the cloth in his hand. “Um,” he said, frantically casting around for something to follow it, as all his ideas fled. “It doesn’t need to be anything big. Simple things count. For instance, you could ask me to hand you something if it’s nearer to me. Or tell me to go away when you need alone time. And I could ask you to make me medicine if I wasn’t feeling well. Or meditate when we’re low on qi, sleep when we’re worn out. That sort of thing.” He winced internally. No wonder his Niang liked to say he was as transparent as water. 

Well, since he’d come this far, he might as well commit. “All I’m saying is that it might help Li Lianhua as well as yourself if you don’t try to push yourself to your absolute limit. Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to. Or that you should. And you don’t need to, because I’m here. And you shouldn’t if you don’t want Li Lianhua to think he needs to do the same thing. He deserves to rest. And if we can show him what that looks like, then isn’t that the responsible thing to do?”

A-Fei made a faint hum that could have meant anything from ‘excellent point, Xiaobao’ to ‘I think you’re an idiot.’

Who was he kidding? It was probably the latter.

Fang Duobing squeezed the handkerchief over the bowl. The water turned purple as the paint and blood mixed together. He waited.

No new sounds from a-Fei. Just the whisper of his fingers through Huli Jing’s fur.

Fang Duobing swallowed back a sigh. At least he’d tried. “I’m going to go dump this,” he said, standing up. “I’ll be back soon.” He started for the door.

“Wait.”

Fang Duobing stilled. “What?”

A-Fei stared at him for a long moment, something complicated lurking under his almost neutral expression. “Clean the blood off your face first,” he said at last.

“Oh. Good point.” He dug out his own handkerchief from his robe–the other one had splinters in it now–dunked it, and wiped it across his cheek. “Better?”

“Almost,” a-Fei said, pointing to a spot near his temple and another across his forehead.

Fang Duobing wiped wherever a-Fei pointed until he finally nodded his approval. “Thanks.” He was about to leave, but then the candlelight hit a-Fei’s cheekbone in exactly the right way to make the teartrack from earlier glisten. Of course a-Fei hadn’t taken the time to clean up, either. “Did you want to–”

A-Fei shook his head. 

So much for acknowledging limits or asking for help. “Right. Never mind.” He left without waiting for a response.