#is everything he does just to keep cheng xiaoshi alive? does he do anything for himself anymore? does he need cheng xiaoshi to remind him?

[clickedwrong]

i swear the only real urge to write only hits once i have to work

[kurigohan0909]

Rewatching Link Click: Easter eggs in your noodle soup?

So I've just finished watching both seasons of Link Click/Shíguāng Dàilǐ-rén, which means that obviously I'm watching it all over again. What did you expect me to do, sit around waiting for Bridon arc while the Bilibili official account taunts us with replays??

Besides, Link Click is one of those dishes that is best served twice. The early episodes are packed with hints and foreshadowing that only become clear once you've gotten up to date, so I've made it my mission to catch 'em all.

You don't say.

It's well known that certain early mini-arcs (for instance Chen Xiao's basketball match, and Doudou's kidnapping) have implications for the larger plotline or at least contain important exposition/character insights that the story would not feel complete without. There are also several that get written off as filler, or are generally considered to not have any purpose beyond familiarising the audience with the characters and setup, and lulling you into a false sense of comfort before everything goes to shit. Episode 2: Secret Recipe, AKA the Noodle Lesbians episode, beloved as it is, tends to fall into the second category.

Or does it?

On a rewatch, I still don't think it does anything to advance the main plot. We don't even really know where it fits into the timeline, because we're never told what day it is and Lu Guang's watch is never shown on screen (I'll get around to a longer analysis of this another day). However, I'm instead inclined to believe that it's one of the most important episodes in the show - if not THE most important - because it's essentially an allegory for the story of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, and gives you a bird's eye view of how the relationship between them is going to develop - which, as you know, is what the show is all about. And the fact that it's not situated in a specific time, in a show that cares heavily about timeline construction, makes it better.

The episode starts with this quote from German photographer August Sander, who believed that, through photography, he could reveal the characteristic traits of people. "The portrait is your mirror. It's you." It's pretty explicit, when you think about it. This episode is a mirror of the entire series, specifically of its protagonists.

Moving on. The episode's storyline is quite simple: two college "roommates" start a noodle shop together, and as time passes, they drift apart and eventually fall out as their priorities change. Yu Xia, the business-oriented one between them, wants to get hold of the secret ingredient used by Lin Zhen, to whose cooking the shop attributes its success. Does Yu Xia really want to steal the secret recipe? Or is it just one of the many things that the quieter Lin Zhen keeps hidden from her that she desperately wants to know, along with everything that went wrong between them? Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, there are lots of indirect parallels between Xialin of the noodle shop and Shiguang of the photo studio, even if for now they're very distinct individuals with their own personalities and struggles. It does, however, give some indication of what's to come.

This question isn't purely rhetorical, as we find out in the very next arc, where Cheng Xiaoshi has a fight with Lu Guang over letting his client's loved ones perish in the Wenchuan earthquake. Even if they eventually come to a consensus, they have fundamentally different life philosophies and approach their missions in very different ways. Cheng Xiaoshi is a hyperempathetic idealist who keeps trying to use his forays back into the past to fix his clients' personal problems, while Lu Guang remains utterly indifferent and staunchly against interfering, even in life-or-death situations. Which turns out to be a facade, because we later learn that he's just as much of a meddler as Cheng Xiaoshi - except he's focused on a singular, selfish goal, which is to keep Cheng Xiaoshi alive at any cost.

Let's go back to the noodle shop. After ten years of running the business together, it becomes clear that the ladies' aspirations are no longer compatible. Yu Xia has big plans for the shop. She wants to broaden their customer base - for profit, of course, but also so that more people can be made happy by the chance to taste their noodles. Lin Zhen's dreams, however, are on a smaller scale - perhaps only on a personal scale. Throughout the episode, it seems that she only really cares about making noodles for one person.

Sound familiar?

At the risk of digressing, it needs to be said that Yu Xia and Lin Zhen are absolutely very much a WLW couple. This isn't bait, it's elegant and really quite unsubtle queercoding that says 'to hell with censorship' loud and clear. Honeymoon jokes, the taxi driver assuming Lin Zhen had fought with her husband, and Lin Zhen's very bold attempts at flirting... we see you.

More to the point of this post, I think it's important to point out that Lin Zhen does not actually care for too many people other than Yu Xia. She's all worn out from making noodles for customers, but she forgets all about that when it's time to make a bowl for Yu Xia. She also keeps her special ingredient - which is one of the secrets she shares with Yu Xia, as we find out - highly guarded. She's never going to let these pesky reporters in on something so intimate.

Why is this important? Because, as it turns out, the episode's storyline - and Lin Zhen's motives - are all about saving Yu Xia.

We learn that the secret ingredient is a local specialty from Yu Xia's hometown. Lin Zhen has been using it for years, keeping the taste of home alive while Yu Xia's drifted further and further from home to the point where she can no longer remember where the ingredient came from. At the end of it all, when Yu Xia returns home, she finds Lin Zhen there waiting for her. Lin Zhen, mind you, does not hail from the same town. The girls met in college. It's home to her simply because it's Yu Xia's home.

This comes directly after a pilot episode that establishes the contrast between urban isolation and rural/familial warmth, through Emma's eyes, and in a show that continually reinforces the concept of longing for home and loved ones. By forcing Yu Xia to reevaluate her priorities, Lin Zhen manages to bring her back home - which is a place that includes herself.

Perhaps it's too early to say. But to me, it's a pretty neat thematic parallel of Lu Guang's solo quest to save Cheng Xiaoshi from death; which is intertwined with a greater goal of giving Cheng Xiaoshi a home, one that is safe and secure and surrounds him with those that love him and are there to stay.

But in the process of achieving this, one of his biggest obstacles is Cheng Xiaoshi himself - his insistence on interfering with the timeline so that Lu Guang can't predict events with certainty, his objections to the way Lu Guang does things, and the definite resistance Lu Guang will come up against if Cheng Xiaoshi learns about his plan. Pretty much every minor mission they undertake is a rehash of the same argument; Cheng Xiaoshi wants to use their combined powers to make a difference to other people's lives, and Lu Guang just has one goal in mind which means that he's going to ignore absolutely everyone else.

Notice how Yu Xia's looking to the future, while Lin Zhen's dream is to go back to a point in the past? Neat.

And when they finally part ways because it's clear Yu Xia is not going to support Lin Zhen's goal? Yu Xia asks her where she's going to go after they part ways, and Lin Zhen says:

I wonder where we've heard that before.

And if you need any more proof that this episode is in fact intended to be a mirror, do consider:

Their seating positions are mirrored too. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh.

In conclusion: if this allegory is to be believed, then trust that Lu Guang will eventually succeed in his mission and Cheng Xiaoshi will find his way home to him. It'll happen, guys. In the meantime, at least our beloved noodle ladies will be living a peaceful life out in the countryside.

Since I don't know how to shut up and this website seems to be giving me infinite space to yap, let me include some more details about this episode that I found cool. There are so many.

Lin Zhen and Lu Guang are both shown while this line is being said. What with all that the fragrant flowers represent, it makes you think about what these characters' best memories might be and how much they treasure them.

This is such a tiny detail that you'd almost definitely miss it on the first watch, and it seems insignificant - until it isn't. When Cheng Xiaoshi hops into the girls' picture taken during their college days, he screws up and suggests they'd be better off dabbling in tech stuff like apps or intelligent management than running a noodle shop. Lu Guang makes him quickly eat his words, but they seem to have still struck a chord with Yu Xia - because later we see that she works over years to integrate an intelligent supply chain management system into their business. In fact, one of the reasons for Lin Zhen to alienate herself from the business is because she feels like it's gotten too techy and lost its human touch. Not really fair considering it was her own idea, is it?

I mean. This is probably a stretch. Digitization is pretty inevitable for big businesses nowadays, so Yu Xia, being as enterprising as she is, might have gone for it whether Lin Zhen suggested it or not. But it's interesting to think that it might be Cheng Xiaoshi's tiny alteration of the past that unfurled outwards like a hurricane from the beating of a butterfly's wing and catalysed their falling out. Especially because these kinds of bootstrap phenomena very much occur in later episodes and are a core feature of Link Click's time travel model.

Some suspicious behaviour on Lu Guang's part. He's quite certain there are no useful clues in the last picture Yu Xia and Lin Zhen took in front of their shop, despite it being the only one taken by Lin Zhen (seriously! you could go to her house, look through her phone, the possibilities are endless!) and the fact that this is the photo Cheng Xiaoshi did end up solving the mystery in, thanks to the ticket stubs he found in her purse (see?) Secondly, they outright miss a picture in the envelope - the most important picture of all which would have given them the answer right away, since this was when the fragrant flowers were first used. Not your best work, Lu Guang.

...or is it? Lu Guang is pretty meticulous, and it's unlike him to slip up in such obvious ways. He's also skilled at slipping things back into envelopes when he doesn't want them to be seen, as we know. Could it be that he didn't want Cheng Xiaoshi to solve the mystery? But why? Maybe it's metaphorical, like so much else of this episode: he doesn't want Cheng Xiaoshi to uncover his true intentions. The fact that all this is ultimately for his sake.

Interestingly, Lu Guang was very dejected at the idea of them seemingly being out of luck - they'd tried so many times and failed to fulfill the mission. Was he, perhaps, thinking about another mission he'd hate to fail? Anyway, it falls to Cheng Xiaoshi to cheer him up and give him hope for another try, which he accepts, with a small but genuine smile. My heart.

If you've scrolled this far, I'm glad you enjoyed my ramblings! I must say I don't know much about how Tumblr works so apologies if I mess up on formatting or tags, but I'll probably get the hang of it soon enough. I'll also probably end up enjoying Tumblr more than Twitter since it allows me unfettered yap space and won't feed my writing to the machine (yet). It's late and I should probably stop stop thinking bout it around now... but look forward to more random ramblings and thank you for reading!

[falling-star-cygnus]

sometimes i wish i had freckles or vitiligo over my arms- instead of the odd time appearing mole here and there- so i wouldn't get the urge to tear my plain looking skin off

Dead Link : a link that no longer leads to its desired target webpage; this can occur when the domain been terminated, changed, or renamed

heheh... this was originally going to be the chapter where Vein and Xia Fei enter but uh... it decidedly took its own route

a Link Click Noragami AU pt.1 | pt.2 | pt.3 | pt.3.5 In Which, Cheng Xiaoshi Asks Too Many Questions

Lu Guang had really hoped the man was going to stay dead this time. 

Realistically, he knew it was pretty much impossible to kill a god- at least permanently, but dammit. It had only been a month. Last time it had taken him nearly a full year to rear his stupid, braided head again. Why now.

The god glares at his phone, but it’s only when Shi Ái pokes his jaw that he realizes he’s gritting his teeth too.

“That’s a grumpy face..” his regalia ventures cautiously, astoundedly, as he prods at his fair friend’s cheek, “Everything alright?”

It’s enough to somewhat drag Lu Guang into the present. To loosen his hold on threads that had started to fray. 

Shi Ái’s head was in his lap. 

He had been playing some sort of mobile game on Lu Guang’s phone. 

Vein was calling.

Vein was calling. 

The god hits decline.

“Everything’s fine. Don’t answer calls from that number.” 

“I’m not a child,” Shi Ái grumbles, even as he takes the phone back, “Why do we only have one phone anyway?” 

“Because we’re poor.” 

If Shi Ái was displeased by his god’s plain answer, he doesn’t vocalize it. There wasn’t really a point in disagreeing either, because they were- in fact- poor. Lu Guang was pretty, or so his shinki was insistent about, but looks didn’t matter when the majority of their district couldn’t see beyond the Near Shore.

The two just had to get by on offerings, and the occasional meal shared with other gods. Or Qiao Ling, now that she was a regular visitor in their lives. Again.

“Didn’t I have a phone when I was alive?” 

Lu Guang drops a fist onto his forehead. 

“ACK- OKAY, okay, I know! No knowing anything about my life as a human. Sorry.”

The ambient noises of Shi Ái’s game start back up again, providing a distant anchor for the pale haired god to reel in his heavy breaths. His shinki had been getting far too curious about such a thing lately. It was nerve wracking.

There had only been one timeline where Lu Guang had caved and told Shi Ái the truth. The full truth- everything about who he was, who they were, what he’d done. What he had to keep doing. It hadn’t ended well, of course it hadn’t, but..

Much like the cats his two favorite nuisances liked to compare him to, he shakes himself out. Not too much, though- he doesn’t want to dislodge his regalia. So it’s more of a head flick.

“...but why can’t I know?”

His anger spikes.

“I’ve already told you-”

Game quickly forgotten, Shi Ái takes away the comforting weight he’d settled on Lu Guang’s lap. He sits up.

“You told me that it corrupts the soul,” his regalia retorts. 

“It does.” “But what does that mean!?”

“What do you think it means, idiot,” Lu Guang snaps, shutting his novel with a snap, “If you want to become a phantom so bad, then why don’t you-”

The god bites his tongue, and forces himself to breathe. All it would take to ruin this, to shatter this peaceful existence he had carved out for himself and him, was one wrong step. One word he didn’t think through, or hissed in anger, and Cheng Xiaoshi could-

He forces himself to breathe in through his nose, out through his teeth.

“Obviously I don’t,” Shi Ái snaps back, “But it can’t honestly be that bad-”

He keeps rambling on, keeps pushing, and Lu Guang feels his grip on the threads tighten. Feels a burn start on the back of his neck.

“Can’t you tell me just- one thing?”

No. 

“Like- what was my favorite color? Was it different?”

Lime green, yellow, and orange. It wasn’t any different now, not really, but he didn’t like green as much as he liked sunsets and sunrises. 

“Did I have different hobbies?”

No, he still loved photography and shitty phone games. Stop asking. 

“I just don’t see how it’s fair that you get to know everything about me, and I don’t even know if I had parents!”

Stop… 

“Did we know each other?”

…Asking..

“Did I travel?”

..Questions… 

“What was my name-”

“SHI ÁI!”

Cheng Xiaoshi stops talking.

His mouth clicks shut- taken aback by the outburst of his soft-spoken god. It rattles the windows of their little shrine, pulls everything into a state of realism that burns. The dynamics of god and regalia, which so loosely existed between them, are firmly reestablished. 

Lu Guang heaves, and throws himself off the couch- away from his shell shocked shinki. The walls feel too close, too different and too similar to everything he doesn’t want to think about. Timelines overlap before his eyes, splatters of rot and red and death-

“Sorry-” he wheezes, taking a staggered step towards the door, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“Lu Guang…”

Strong arms wrap around his waist as his knees buckle, gently lowering the god to the floor as his chest spasms. Everything is so bright. 

Vaguely, he can feel himself being moved around- adjusted until a large hand cups the back of his head and smushes his face into a familiar shoulder. It makes everything somehow so much worse, and yet- he doesn’t quite want to move. His neck burns.

“Hey- Lu Guang.” Shi Ái jostles him a little, and a thread of his worry unfurls in the god’s chest, “You have to breathe.”

The shinki’s hand drifts to the back of Lu Guang’s neck, before abruptly ripping away with a hiss of pain. 

“Argh… what the hell? Did I-?”

Rough wood rushes up to meet Lu Guang’s palms as his regalia pulls away, and the god is left alone in their shrine. If being cradled in Shi Ái’s shoulder had made everything worse, then the silence that wrapped around his limbs was torture. The wood grains flip between warm brown and rust- solid and transparent. 

Pure and dotted with warm amber eyes.

Did I fail again…? 

Cool water gently trickles down his nape. It’s jarring enough to knock Lu Guang back into a mental space where he can hear-

“Ohh my gosh, oh my god,” Shi Ái whisper shrieks, “It’s not going away..”

What….? 

Lu Guang reaches up a shaky hand to the back of his neck, but it’s quickly caught by Shi Ái’s damp fingers.

“Don’t- Don’t touch it!” 

“Did you-”

“I’m sorry!” he sobs, his voice distraught to match the tight bundle of fire in the god’s chest, “I didn’t know- Well, I did know- but I wasn’t thinking- and now..”

Ah. He sort of understands the situation now. He’s not even mad about it, really, it was bound to happen eventually. No matter how pure a soul was, it was still human.

“Shi Ái-”

Water hits his neck again, in more sparse droplets. 

“Shi Ái-”

“I’m so sorry, I swear I didn’t mean to blight you! I was just- and you- Lu Guang..”

The god can feel the bite of it start to fade away, satisfied under the confession of sins. It still hurt, and probably would for a while yet, but it couldn’t be worse than that one god from Japan. Seriously, what do you have to do to be known from so far away? What does your regalia have to do? 

Lu Guang shakes his head again to get himself back on track.

Shi Ái is still babbling apologies. 

“SHI ÁI!” he’s much quieter this time around, but the result is the same, “It’s gone. Is your hand okay?”

“My.. hand? It’s fine. …went away when I went to get the water..”

 And then suddenly he’s angry again: “Worry about yourself for once!”

Lu Guang scrubs his shinki’s leftover tears away, maybe more aggressively than he needed to as Shi Ái flails back. But he thinks it’s fair, considering.

“I am. It’ll transfer if I use you, you know.” a lie, a blatant lie. He didn’t care if all his skin turned to shades of purple and red, he’d endure the burn for lifetimes if it meant keeping this soul close. 

“Ah-!? Wait, really!?”

The elephant in the room suddenly rears its head, immediately straining the air around the two. The god looks down at his clean hands and tries to ignore the blood staining them.

“I… know you want to know more. But-”

“I get it,” Shi Ái interrupts, sounding tired in all the wrong ways and frustrated as tucks his head into Lu Guang’s hair- as he rubs over his god's nape to be sure that the blight is really gone, “You wouldn’t react like that if it wasn’t... a serious outcome.”

And damn does that makes his ears burn with embarrassment.