#fanghua

[eirenical]

The Spin Maneuver

Mysterious Lotus Casebook | Lian Hua Lou | 莲花楼 | Episode 33 & 34

(I've had this meta percolating in the back of my mind since my second or third rewatch... so it's been a while. XD)

This show doesn't do anything by accident, so I have to believe that putting these two scenes so closely together serves a purpose. In both cases, Li Lianhua comes flying through the air, gets whipped around a person who is acting as a center pole, and then lands, more or less, stably on his feet. That's a very obvious visual parallel. But if you look a bit more closely, these two moments couldn't be more different.

1) Who is controlling the beginning of the spin?

In the first spin, Shan Gudao grabs Li Lianhua's wrist as he's coming out of his Whirling Steps. In the second, it's Li Lianhua who reaches for Fang Duobing, but the moment Fang Duobing sees him, he reaches right back.

vs.

2) In that first spin, Li Lianhua is jerked right off balance; his entire body goes through a whiplash motion as he's pulled into the air, and when he lands, he's at a sharp diagonal, barely able to keep his feet. With Fang Duobing, he goes into that spin at a MUCH sharper angle; he's practically horizontal, but SO IS FANG DUOBING. And yet somehow they both manage to stabilize each other so LLH can deliver that powerhouse kick to the Demon Monk and STILL land lightly on his feet with both of them well balanced enough to attack again if need be.

vs

And you can see in that second shot of Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua that Xiaobao is contorting his body SO HARD to make sure that Li Lianhua is stable enough to deliver that kick (you can see this better in the gif, but oh well XD). He doesn't let go until the kick is over and Li Lianhua has both feet on the ground.

So why put these two scenes with such a distinctive move so close together?

(This is getting long, so behind a cut we go...)

So first, these two so-similar-yet-so-different moves show exactly how different Shan Gudao and Fang Duobing are. This is a show that goes out of its way so many times to show that while blood relation may be important, it doesn't necessarily make you who you are. And that family you make for yourself is at least equally important.

And here we have two people, blood relations, in fact, who have both been so important to Li Lianhua in the course of his life. And one uses this move to attack, to knock off balance, to throw Li Lianhua away from him. The other uses this move like centrifugal force: to pull Li Lianhua closer, to balance them both, to stabilize him when he's flying in faster than he can easily control himself.

And that's so deeply encapsulating of Li Lianhua's relationships with both of them.

Xiaobao grounds Li Lianhua. It takes him a long time to grow into that role, but once he gets there, he's going to hold on with all his might. And I love this as a representation of that. It's Xiaobao saying: "My father didn't have your best interests at heart and he never did. I do, and I always will. Take that leap and I'll catch you every time."

But why on Earth did Li Lianhua choose to do this move with Fang Duobing in the first place? Especially after what just happened with Shan Gudao maybe ten minutes earlier? We've never seen Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing train together. Hell, until maybe 30 minutes before this, Fang Duobing didn't even know Li Lianhua knew any martial arts! So this is not a move they could have trained or developed together. Fang Duobing, on sheer instinct alone, saw what Li Lianhua was trying to do, adjusted his own stance out of FALLING BACKWARDS AT A SHARP ANGLE into being a counterbalance weight that could stabilize them both and maintain the momentum that Li Lianhua needed to deliver that kick. First of all, that was some RIDICULOUSLY FAST mental calculations on Fang Duobing's part. O_O (All that STEM training paying off, I guess? XD) Second of all, even if figured it out that fast, he still had to physically execute the maneuver! So, like... good on you Xiaobao. Hot damn. 😁

So they had no time or reason to train this move, so why on EARTH would Li Lianhua attempt it?

(And this is where I slide off the meta train and into headcanon a bit. Please indulge me. XD)

I wonder if this was a move that Li Lianhua used to perform with Shan Gudao the way he did with Fang Duobing. With Shan Gudao being so much larger than him, especially in the beginning, he'd have been easy to toss around. And with his whirling steps, a move like this would be a natural extension of the rest of his fancy footwork.

So maybe, like telling Li Lianhua about their shifu's death, using this move against him was yet another way to destroy a piece of the life they had together. To rip the rug right out from under Li Lianhua's feet. And MAYBE Li Lianhua using it so shortly thereafter with Shan Gudao's son, knowing Shan Gudao would have known that they'd never trained that move... would have been a way to take that piece back. Like saying: "You see this thing that was ours? You can't take it away from me because I've already given it to someone else. To your SON."

And I just love the thought of that. ^_^

[extraordinarilyextreme]

devotion not as worship. but as recognition. as "i want to stand with you, and beside you." as learning. as understanding. as "i want to know you." as "i am making the choice to get to know you." as persistence. as care. as "you are knowable." as "you are lovable." devotion not as idolatry. but devotion as mortality. as a reflection. "you and i, together. equals. partners." devotion as accompaniment. devotion as humanity.

[xiaobaosnoona]

smack, smack, smack, bonk

[wangquan-fugui]

FDB: "So you do know Zhan Yunfei after all." LLH: "Oh, well, he's an old friend." FDB: "Is he an old friend like Di Feisheng, or like one of Physician Li's patients?"

[itsmespicaa]

xiaobao being protective over huahua will never not make my heart melt...they are just so—??? 😭🫶💖

(watched the series and did this sketch back on october 2023 but i completely forgot to share it here lmao whoops)

[qpjianghu]

Li Lianhua + saying "I love you" without saying "I love you" (2/?)

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

[naixaie]

🌱 the mlc triooooo 🥹🫶✨

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i am unwell about them

[purplexedhuman]

"Do you think my master might be in hiding, under an alias?" — Fang Duobing to Li Lianhua, who is in fact his master who's in hiding under an alias

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼) Episode 21

[lana-k-art]

[goblinkingsart]

"It's better to sleep at home, don't you think Xiaobao?" part 1

[murderedbyhomework]

Li Lianhua not putting his head against fdb's neck is such an interesting detail to me bc cheng yi himself is a stickler for realism and detail (eg in IS when his character passed out he made sure not to use his arm to cushion his fall), so unless llh was in fact not fully unconscious during scene, there's nothing else that can explain why he isn't fully limp against fdb

And I'm more inclined to believe that llh has some semblance of consciousness here, half bc medically I don't think llh would actually be in a full in coma during this scene, and half bc despite everything, llh still has lxy's pride engraved in his bones. He might be too weak to stand or even talk at the moment, but there's some part of him that's too proud to accept having to fully lean on and rely on someone, a mentality that extends even to the very last moments of the show where he'd rather run off and die on his own than have people who care about him watch him fully loose his senses and mind. So hence, llh being unwilling to go fully limp and rest his head against fdb's shoulder, because he wants as much independence and pride in a way as he possibly can in this situation, even if it's just holding his head up by his own will

[xiaobaosnoona]

you're my person

@asiandramanet creator bingo - color

[wangquan-fugui]

fang xiaobao his eyes are definitely not down there

[mienwhile-doodles]

[homiehopper4life]